I recently read a claim that 1983 was the most dangerous year of the cold war in terms of escalating to actual conflict. If this is true what factors made cold war escalation in 1983 seem more likely than something like the Cuban missile crisis in 1962?
I did some digging and found out that it was actually because of the Chinese and Russian conflict along their borders. Those dude hated eachother, but here's why/how.
Mao is the one who started it all. You see, the thing is, Mao fucking loved Stalin. Idolized the dude. They used to have a very friendly relationship where China would trade their grain for the USSR'S weaponry. This went on until Gorbachev moved in and denounced Stalin. This caused Mao to stop all trade agreements and begin the cultural revolution. It wasnt the sole reason the revolution began, but it was a major factor. It was a big fuck you to the USSR. To go even further, China changed their definition of Communism just to further piss them off. This caused them to attack eachother often along borders and rivers. One of the conflicts got so bad, the USSR was hours away from nuking China's shit. They decided not to because America had a strong relationship with China and we could just supply China with nukes to retaliate. Sorry if this is a little messy. I haven't slept in a few days(working on thesis). Good night, hope this helps.