Questions tagged [cold-war]
For questions set during between 1947 – 1991, when the Soviet Union and the United States were openly hostile without resorting to violent measures.
30 questions
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What is the lowest feasible depth for lightly-armed military submarines designed around the 1950s-60s?
TL;DR: What is the lowest feasible depth, with some wiggle room, that a smaller, lightly-armed military submarine designed around the 1950s-60s would be capable of reaching? Are there examples of such ...
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6
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How does a military fight while trying not to be nuked?
To avoid detail in the name of getting at the underlying question, I've got a modern-adjacent military being invaded by well-equipped nomads supported by angry aliens in space who have far too many ...
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Name for a neutral region created by multiple states
Four warring countries sign a compact to cease aggression.
The compact establishes a city to act as neutral territory for economic and foreign policy meetings. The city has an independent government ...
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Would the successful creation of nuclear powered bombers in the 1950s have had any meaningful impact on the Cold War?
As far as I am aware nuclear powered bombers were the first attempt by the USSR and USA (either unintentional or not) at enhanced nuclear deterrence. Intending to place a nuclear reactor in a plane ...
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What would happen if a huge solid ball (temperature zero kelvin) of helium appeared suddenly in a deep sea?
I'm writing a story about an icy alien culture which applies ultracold helium bombs that they can make appear at any place. The battle between good and evil translates in hot and cold. Though of ...
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3
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Military/Government Breakdown in Post-Apocalyptic USSR
Background:
In an alternative universe the Cold War (circa 1975) turns hot after some satellite communications errors. Nukes start flying — but for the purpose of the question, let's just focus on the ...
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Uses for a 1950s-era nuclear-powered land vehicle?
I have heard of the Chrysler TV-8 design, an amphibious armored vehicle powered by an onboard nuclear reactor...basically a nuclear-powered tank. The TV-8 never made it off the drawing board; the ...
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2
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What key positions in 1969 USA would aliens need to influence to control the US nuclear arsenal?
It is 1969, the conspiracy theorists are all correct and aliens are secretly trying to control everything. But
the Reptoids are refugees
very limited in number
concerned about being exposed
Other ...
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3
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Could the President stop an alien President copy from nuking Washington DC?
My world is parallel to ours, except alien doppelgangers have infiltrated human society for generations to hide from their enemies in space. They have positioned themselves to stop their rivals from ...
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2
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4
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How to make non-tradable sector unattractive for ambitious entrepreneurs?
I'm writing a story about a government of a former colony who wants to industrialize the country and build its manufacturing base. However too many entrepreneurs prefer to invest into non-tradable ...
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How to prevent electronic advancement beyond the early cold war era?
Here are what I wants in my world:
Early generation of computer with a bulky size and very limited capability, like the text-based computer in Fallout universe.
Limited guidance and detection system. ...
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9
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Was it possible to keep the nuclear mechanism of the atom bomb a secret?
After the bombing of Hiroshima, US President Harry Truman issued a speech talking about the use of an "atomic bomb". But was it possible to keep this mechanism a secret? Perhaps by pretending it was a ...
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How big can my tank be? [duplicate]
In an alternate 1950s cold war, the Soviet Union and the United States (and their NATO and Warsaw pact allies) are locked in an arms race not unlike our own. What's the difference you ask? Instead of ...
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Could social score be implemented without internet & social networks?
My hero is western tween born to rich emigres from fictional country, inspired by Romania. His parents escaped in the west, before demonstrators toppled the regime and took quite a wealth with them.
...
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Are satellite chat phones possible in the 80's?
Suppose you have a lots of funding and access to all the technology available in the free world. You also have political connection & persuasion, to get your hands on any of it, whether civilian ...
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Is there a way to force Reagan to stay in Beirut after 1983 bombing? [closed]
Is there any possibility for Reagan to stay entangled in the Lebanese civil war after the suicide attack on the barracks in 1983?
Maybe a missile attack that sinks one of the carriers would force ...
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4
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Recovery from destruction of power plants?
If all the power plants of an industrialized country like (Germany, France, Italy, Korea) are destroyed how long would it take for the country to rebuild its power grid and get back to normal ...
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How can Mutually Assured Destruction be made...not assured?
By the late 1950s, the USA, the UK and the Soviet Union had enough nuclear weapons and the ability to deliver them that any nuclear exchange was virtually guaranteed to result in the destruction of ...
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3
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If the US launched air strikes against Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis, would any Soviet missile sites be able to survive?
So, this is a question I wanted to ask in relation to the blog post I made introducing the Cuban Missile War series of blog posts, which is the result of the Cold War escalating into World War III ...
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2
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Could NATO survive destruction of power stations? [closed]
I'm writing about an alternate history where alien ship lands on a moon in the beginning of the 70's. One of the Apollo missions is send over there to establish contact. The aliens don't take too ...
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If the Cold War went hot in the early 1970s, do NATO and the Warsaw Pact have any plans to rebuild after the last nuclear warhead goes off? [closed]
So, if you are thinking this is just another random scenario, it is not. It is a sequel to my previous question on whether the Soviets and other Warsaw Pact forces, henceforth referred to as PACT ...
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22
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11
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Alternate universe: Possibility of a small country as the world's third super power
Background: A near future world very similar to our own, with two large power blocs (like USA vs USSR back then) in cold war situation, with many proxy wars and small conflicts. The third power is a ...
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If the Cold War went hot in the early 1970s, would the Warsaw Pact be able to reach the Rhine River?
So, let us go back in time to the year 1973, specifically around October of 1973; the time frame of the Yom Kippur War. In our timeline, the conflict almost became WWIII after the Soviets threatened ...
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1
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What should UN resolution demand? [closed]
Two small countries run by tin-pot dictators that nobody likes are fighting each other,sort of like the Iran-Iraq war, and nobody cares very much about them. That is until one of the dictators ...
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Cold War: Behind Enemy Lines
It's earlier in the Cold War and tensions between the two superpowers are extremely high. Both are flying regular sorties of fighter craft and strategic bombers loaded with nuclear weapons near the ...
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A form of MAD that doesn't involve a huge amount of nuclear readiness?
In the Cold War the adversaries had huge amounts of nukes, a readiness to deploy these nukes and a second strike capability that assured that in a nuclear war both sides would be destroyed (mutually ...
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Could instrumentation on Earth detect a large scale nuclear exchange in a nearby star system?
Say a star system in the local neighborhood (~15 light years away max) has a species that did not survive its own version of the cold war. The result is the usage of tens of thousands of nuclear ...
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Secret Nike missile sites?
So I want to set my post-nuclear story in a small town in Minnesota on the US/Canadian border that's secretly home to an active missile site hidden beneath the local Air Force National Guard base. The ...
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Cold War Alien Invasion Cover-Up
At some point during the Cold War Earth experienced one or more failed alien invasions. Both the US and USSR had to face down this alien threat, and acted accordingly.
Established facts about the war:...
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Intelligence Agency Cooporation during high cold war
Now imagine a world where they did land on the moon just a year ago (for real!), and we enter 1970 and heading for the less pleasureful high time of the cold war. But suddenly, a POD (Point of... ...
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