One more reason to hate Nixon, he should’ve let them do it.
“One more reason to hate Nixon, he should’ve let them do it.”
And that would be the worst mistake American could’ve ever made. Russia and China are the 2 dominant powers of Eurasia. It is in our interest to keep Eurasia divided.
In 1970, Russia could’ve conceivably annihilated all military opposition in China with about 50 strategic nukes and taken over the entire East Asian Mainland largely intact.
Now imagine a fully industrialized USSR that controls 90% of Eurasia, with the combined natural resources of Russia and the human resources of China.
Such an empire would have 5X our population, 5X our natural resources, and be within 5 years of our military tech curve. We might well have lost the cold war if that had happened.