Now on Kickstarter from One Small Step, Stalin’s Final War: 1953 What If?
Stalin’s Final War: 1953 What If? (SFW) is an alternative history wargame intended to investigate the strategic parameters that would’ve been in place during the first 10 weeks of operations had that dictator lived long enough to put in motion his plan to start World War III in 1953. Had he lived, the most likely start date would’ve been one closely coinciding with the signing of the Korean War armistice in July (in order to achieve a surprise effect).
His main goal in starting such a war wouldn’t have been immediate global conquest; rather, in Europe he would’ve been seeking to seize or thoroughly wreck the Ruhr – then, as now, one of the world’s main industrial regions – or otherwise abort the still young Federal Republic of Germany (“West Germany”) as an effective member of the Western alliance. In Asia, the then already long- sought conquest of the entire Korean peninsula would’ve been the objective, thereby putting Japan into what would’ve amounted to a geo-strategic vice given that the USSR already possessed Sakhalin Island to the north.