WI: Ogaden War spiralling out of control

[Sian]

was idly surfing around the other day when i stumbled over the Ogaden War, and started considering ... could it spiral out of control into a Sino-Soviet conflict, between the two different prominent Communist school of thoughts?

say, by some of the leading Russian military advisors getting shot down by Chinese supplied Anti-Air...

 

[GoulashComrade]

China was only supporting the Somali cause through very token measures outside of the sale of military tech - there was basically no chance that they'd care enough about Siad (who wasn't even Maoist-oriented, Koshel was the Maoist of the Kediye-Barre-Koshel troika that took over after the Las Anod coup and he was geeked by Barre along with the DDR-fan Kediye) or Somalia - where they could project almost no power compared to the well-established Soviet bases in South Yemen - to risk serious war with the USSR. Even the US was unwilling to go all in with aid for the Somalis against the Soviets, even in the early stages of the Soviet counter-offensive when the Somali Army was actually holding off the Cuban and North Korean volunteers thanks to General Abdullahi "The Professor" Irro running the details of the war on the Somali side.