Premptive Strikes solving Nuclear Proliferation.....The Sino-Soviet Conflict of 1969

Mods, bump if this is the wrong forum.

So for purely interest reasons I started looking at the Soviet-Chinese Conflict of 1969. This was a series of border disputes that resulted in conflict in the late 60's and continued in some fashion or another through the early 80's.

en.wikipedia.org...

One portion of the conflict struck me as extremely interesting, especially in spite of current events with the US/Israel/and Iran.

In August of 1969 a Soviet KGB agent point blank asked US officials what our reaction and policy would be if the Soviets attacked the Chinese Nuclear Program. The agent pressed us on how this would help not only the Soviet's but US Security as well. Some very interesting reading. Very similar to the line of argument the US is using about Iran.

www.gwu.edu...



www.gwu.edu...

I wonder why they didn't go through with it. Maybe they decided not to risk relations because today's enemy could be tomorrow's friend? If they indeed attacked their nuclear installations China coming to Russia's aid in the event of an American-Russian conflict wouldn't be thought of. Perhaps.

reply to post by SrWingCommander
S&F Nice link. I read the paper and still trying to assimilate the entire thing. So history does repeat itself or I should say conflict scenarios where diplomacy and old friends/foes are re-evaluated on their stance (Russia in this case).

reply to post by concernedcitizen519


Part of it had to do with Nixon and the better ties between the US and China at that time. The Soviets main concern was driving China closer to America.

While both Communist at the time, the Chinese and Russian's have rarely got along. Part of those links go into how the Soviets supplied the North Vietnamese not so much to be a thorn in the US's side, but to keep a conflict going on China's southern border. By making sure the NVA could put up a fight against America, they prolonged the war so the Chinese had to worry about it.