I could be underestimating how constantly drunk Stalin was, but I like to think he wouldn’t engage in battles that he has absolutely zero chance of winning.

The US public was tired of the Korean War in 1953. How would Stalin estimate, do you think, the American public supporting an unprovoked nuclear assault and invasion against a much larger and more dangerous enemy in Communist China and the Soviet Union simultaneously, with probably the withdrawal of the entirety of our major allies from the war?

A world where China has been taken off the board is a world where USSR has less allies and is surrounded on all sides.

... which is exactly why the USSR would not have let China fall at that juncture. "Just let your enemies isolate you, just stand by and do nothing" is not a very likely course of action for the USSR.

Any alternate reality where the CCP doesn’t exist is enviable to some degree.

Fuck no. There are always worse scenarios on every aspect of reality. That's the same kind of campism tankies use when they say that "any" outcome to mass unrest is better than the status quo. It reflects a distinct and severe lack of imagination, or else an irrational disposition towards the status in question that is entirely divorced from actual moral or strategic concerns.

We should have brought the entirety of China to a knee when we could have.

...

It's funny that today the general idea of the rest of the world is "we should have stopped the US when it was weak, fighting the British".

Perhaps, but I'm trying to defend this timeline lol.

Because I really do not like the "I get stuck in PRC" timeline, even just the thought of it makes me have an existential crisis.

I like my Youtube, and video games, and the open internet (open for now at least, who knows about the future 🤷‍♂️), the idea of living behind that firewall sounds kinda depressing (VPNs are not exactly reliable).

But the again with something as drastic as one country nuking another... China might not even have any internet at all, and become like North Korea...

Like what do people even do for fun in that timeline? Play with rocks? 😭

No thanks, I like to keep the ability to bingewatch my "Non-Approved" "Counterrevolutionary" western media. (I mean like... did you hear, they limit video games to 1 hour for those under 18, like bruh wtf, anything fun is banned)

"The US after the second civil war is a better country. It's a shame there has to be millions of dead people and some nuclear wastelands but now it's a nicer neighbor"

Does this sound right to you?

Doesn’t that whole argument kind of hinge upon the notion that China would not lose against USA even after nuclear bombardment?

It would 'win' the Korean War, but how would that change the Chinese government unless you're also proposing an invasion of China to go along with the border you've just nuked?

Okay, that doesn't change the fact that China itself could very much be worse, as the much worse polity of North Korea shows by how horrific it is.