Your Preferred T2K Timeline

[StainlessSteelCynic]

I could not agree more with you Raellus.

It would be far better and more plausible to have the Soviet Union discover a variety of Rare Earth Elements (REEs) within Soviet territory.
Rare Earth minerals are vital for electronics and are in everything from communications and medical equipment to catalytic converters for pollution reduction.
The modern world could not function without them.

China has traditionally been the world's largest supplier of REEs and dominated the world market through various tactics such as economic bullying.
China makes a staggering amount of foreign currency by being the number one seller of REEs.
If the Soviets discover massive reserves of REEs in their territory, it could be a source of economic tension between the USSR and China. They might even try more overt ways to prevent each other from being the world supplier.
They might even get into military clashes over it.

So, give some remote area of Russia a significant deposit of REEs and they will be rolling in the cash. It might even be a causus belli for war with China.
When the USSR starts to threaten restrictions on the sale of REEs to Western nations, it might even give the West cause for conflict with the Soviet Union.


And I didn't have to make up a whole new timeline with McGuffins to get this to work.

[Raellus]

REE

Great idea, SSC. REEs could keep the Soviet economy afloat from the late 1980s through the mid-'90s, and contribute to the start of the Sino-Soviet War (leading to WWIII).

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[Rainbow Six]

So, give some remote area of Russia a significant deposit of REEs and they will be rolling in the cash. It might even be a causus belli for war with China.

That sounds pretty plausible to me. I could be wrong - it's been a long time since I read it - but IIRC Tom Clancy's Bear and Dragon used something along those lines to posit a conflict between what was by then the Russian Federation and China - I think the premise was that the Russians discovered large deposits of gold and oil in Siberia.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

That sounds pretty plausible to me. I could be wrong - it's been a long time since I read it - but IIRC Tom Clancy's Bear and Dragon used something along those lines to posit a conflict between what was by then the Russian Federation and China - I think the premise was that the Russians discovered large deposits of gold and oil in Siberia.

Gold and oil would certainly give them some hard currency via exports and as for the Rare Earths, Russia does actually have deposits but doesn't do much with them at the moment - but that's all set to change.
From what I've read, Russia supplies about 2% of the world supply but according to some reports, has the fifth or fourth largest reserves of the elements.
So yes, definitely plausible without having to completely rewrite the history of the USSR, you'd only have to fudge the timeline for the discovery and exploitation of the resources.

Russia is apparently looking into plans to exploit the REE reserves they have, a plan that will put them at odds with China. The value of those REEs could give Russia a lot of money in the coming decades. Now, from what I understand of the talk I hear in the mining industry and what I've read in the trade papers and news, Russia initially wants to end it's reliance on China for REEs but after that, they want to be a world supplier.
I believe the West will be happy to help (because they too want to end some of their dependency on China).
According to this South China Morning Post article, Russia wants to be a world supplier in ten years (in second place to China apparently)

https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/3097144/russia-eyes-us15-billion-plan-rival-chinas-dominance-rare-earths

So the REE reserves are there, all we need to do with the T2k world is have the USSR discover & exploit them soon enough to allow them to have a healthy economy into the 1980s-1990s.
No need for complete rewrites of history, no need for McGuffins.

EDIT: To help add some perspective to the importance of REEs to the modern world, this article, while the same as the South China Morning Post article, adds some extra information about the Pentagon funding the establishment of a Rare Earth separation plant in Texas, USA.

https://www.mining-technology.com/news/russia-eyes-rare-earths-plan/

And this is the article linked in the article posted in this edit

https://www.mining-technology.com/features/us-rare-earths-lynas-contract/

[Fallenkezef]

I clicked homebrew as my group uses the V1 timeline but dated to the 80's.

We've tried a few other timelines. One we played around with was based on the German WW3 alternative history film portrayed as a documentary. I'll link it. It's surprisngly well done actualy and really worth a watch.

https://www.youtube.com/watchv=aQCM3Hu1YW4

[cpip]

I clicked homebrew as my group uses the V1 timeline but dated to the 80's.

While I was rereading the V1 timeline, it occurred to me that if it was shifted back to the Sino-Soviet Amur conflict in the late '60s, and had that blow up, it might just work for a "Twilight: 1972" sort of period.