4. Sino-Soviet Border Conflict 1969
This was a seven month military conflict between the USSR and China which is frequently referred to as the Zhenbao Island Incident by Chinese historians. As you can tell from the title, there was a conflict over the Sino-Soviet border. Tensions between the two great powers escalated in the 1950s and 1960s. A particularly contentious incident happened in 1962 when 60,000 ethnic Uyghurs from China fled the border into the USSR - running from the terrible economic conditions in China. Russia was accused of subverting them. In 1964, Mao Zedong told a delegation of Japanese socialists that the Czardom of Russia had taken grand swathes of land from China. After this there was the build up of troops on both sides along the border. In March 1969, the People's Liberation Army attacked Soviet forces on Zhenbao Island. 59 USSR soldiers were killed. The Soviets responded by ambushing the Chinese on the island and bringing in tanks. One of the tanks was destroyed and when Russia went in to retrieve their dead from Zhenbao, the Chinese held fire. The Chinese were subsequently repelled from the island, when they returned for round 2, the Soviets had been told to withhold fire. There were further border clashes on the Western border in August 1969. The idea of Nuclear War was certainly bandied about during the conflict. Both China and Russia scoped out the USA's attitude to joining them in a nuclear strike against each other. Russia told the USA, so not to alarm her, that she was going to strike at China. Brezhnev was told, if he followed that threat through, the USA would nuke 130 Soviet cities. He opted for a diplomatic solution to the conflict. Phew! That was a close shave. It was also a clear sign from China that she was seeking to distance herself from the USSR and she wished to have a state of detente with the USA. US-Sino relations took a turn for the better after this war but it was a conflict that was definitely considered in nuclear war terms as you can see from above. The Chinese and the Soviet ambassadors actually had a secret meeting in Beijing Airport to discuss how they could prevent a nuclear war and mitigate the fallout from the conflict (thankfully not nuclear fall out..).