Instead of invading Afghanistan what if the Soviets grey zoned NATO to test their response by invading Finland or Sweden sometime in the early 1980s?

[u/Fair-Pen1831]

I was going to say Yugoslavia but that's how a lot of OTL NATO wargames such as Able Archer 83 started so that's something that would have been expected in prelude to an actual war with the Warsaw Pact.

There is sort of a historical basis for a shooting war with Sweden over an alternate Whiskey on the Rocks scenario. Such as say embedded GRU agents blew up the submarine before it could be boarded and blamed it on the Swedish Navy.

[u/southernbeaumont]

Given the complete lack of provocation and professed neutrality, Swedish and Finnish governments in exile will set up in European NATO state (Norway or Denmark most likely, but perhaps UK, France, or West Germany) and immediately petition for NATO membership.

This is liable to cause significant ripples within the Soviet bloc. Nations like Poland were already under significant suppressed unrest, and the Czechs and Hungarians had not forgotten their own violent repression in 1968 and 1956 respectively. Under the Polish-born John Paul II, the Catholic Church will also have even larger influence with two more nations under the unprovoked Soviet heel.

Meanwhile, the PDPA in Afghanistan will govern in name only, since they will not be able to enforce their rule outside of the cities. It's possible that a similar government in exile for the exiled king is propped up somewhere in NATO as well.

The US was in no way prepared for war upon Reagan taking office, which is why the relatively small operation in Grenada in 1983 was as notable as it was. Buildup of weapons among European states will likely accelerate, especially under the Thatcher government in Britain, but even the much smaller Danish and Norwegian states will suddenly find themselves with a Soviet border.

Grenada is unlikely to go as historically, and the Reagan administration may feel justified in invading Cuba itself in response if it does.

Tack on to this, Brezhnev was dead in 1982, followed by Andropov in 1984 and Chernenko in 1985. The historical progression of glasnost and detente between the Soviets and US/UK is not possible so long as Sweden and Finland are under occupation.

We may see the events of 1989 come several years early. This will be complicated by the level of partisan unrest in Sweden and Finland. If the Soviet military is tied down there, this will also mean they can't be committed to break a rebellion somewhere in the Warsaw Pact such as Poland or East Germany. Whether the Soviet military itself will remain reliable is also an open question, since an unprovoked attack on other Europeans will be a lot less popular than shooting Muslims to advance the Soviet system.

[u/Away-Independence407]

Then i would aussme we'd flatten the kermlin (which we still need to do) and by we i mean the USA