Cold War (NATO)

all equipment, vehicles and weapons are to be period accurate as of 1989 along with units deployed to Europe

in an alternate world of 1989. The point of divergence is in April 1987 when hardliners stage a coup against Mikhail Gorbachev due to his perestroika reforms. The Communist Party, KGB, and Soviet Army form a troika to restore glory to the Soviet Union. Unrest in the Baltic and Armenia is crushed and, spurred on by the inaction of the West, the USSR launches a takeover of Finland, installing a pro-Soviet government and bringing that country firmly in their sphere of influence. This spurs the West, led by the United States under Ronald Reagan, to increase military spending. Western sanctions and increased military spending leads to food shortages and an oil crisis in the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, NATO conducts a larger than ever Exercise Reforger in September 1989, which the paranoid troika fears is a cover for conflict. Under the cover of their own Zapad exercise, the Warsaw Pact prepares to strike first.