The May 1980 counterfactual assigns Leonid Brezhnev a resource-driven motive for war: seizing North Sea and North Atlantic energy supplies after the 1979 oil crisis. It imagines Soviet leaders expecting the small populations of the northern countries to be easy to overpower and Jimmy Carter to avoid fighting. Adding those resources to Soviet and satellite-state supplies is supposed to let Moscow coerce Europe and extend its influence. The conflict must remain conventional for those resources and societies to retain their value. This motive belongs to the counterfactual.
Chapter · 1:08:41-1:12:18
A resource-seizure motive for war in Norway
The imagined Soviet attack seeks control of northern energy resources and assumes that Carter will hesitate to intervene.