Challenge: American invasion of the USSR

[Tetsu]

Many AH scenarios, such as the infamous Red Dawn, depict a United States, usually seperated from it's allies, that comes under the military occupation of the Soviet Union, and many timelines have been devoted to it.

Is there a plausible way to do the opposite? By that I mean a largely non-nuclear invasion of the USSR by members of NATO- especially the United States. What would this war look like, and how could it be done?

[Aldroud]

Well, there was the 1919 US invasion of Siberia. 27th Infantry Regiment got its nickname 'the wolfhounds' there.

[Mike Stearns]

Could it be done? Yes.

Without nukes? No.

Why? The Russians are a bit like the Americans, piss them off and they fight like mad bastards. Just look at the siege of Stalingrad.

[CalBear]

Originally Posted by Mike Stearns

Could it be done? Yes.

Without nukes? No.

Why? The Russians are a bit like the Americans, piss them off and they fight like mad bastards. Just look at the siege of Stalingrad.

Amen to that!

Why invade? Unless it's at the end of a "Red Storm Rising" style WW III, what does the U.S. gain?

Another trait that Russians & Americans share is being pragmatic. Why fight with little to gain & possibly MUCH to lose?

[Anaxagoras]

If America ever attempted to invade Russia, the ghosts of Charles XII, Napoleon and Hitler (assuming the devils roasting him on a spit allowed him a few minutes away from Hell) would appear in the Pentagon and denouncel our generals as a bunch of morons.

[backstab]

I think that the US could deal with the Soviet Army but when it comes to holding the land, the US would not be able to deal with the insurgency that would follow. History shows that the Americans have no back bone when they have to fight insurgents ( Like Veitnam, Iraq and Afghanistan). They have to win a war fast and not get bogged down.

[CalBear]

Originally Posted by backstab

I think that the US could deal with the Soviet Army but when it comes to holding the land, the US would not be able to deal with the insurgency that would follow. History shows that the Americans have no back bone when they have to fight insurgents ( Like Veitnam, Iraq and Afghanistan). They have to win a war fast and not get bogged down.

This come as a surprise to the American Indian, the residents of the Philippines, the forces of the Democratic Republic of Korea, and the insurgents that got killed TODAY in Iraq & Afganistan.

I am unaware of ANY country that LIKES to get bogged down in a low intensity insurgency.

Is it possible to get a few examples of Militaries that enjoy those conditions?

[Smaug]

Originally Posted by CalBear

Amen to that!

Why invade? Unless it's at the end of a "Red Storm Rising" style WW III, what does the U.S. gain?

Another trait that Russians & Americans share is being pragmatic. Why fight with little to gain & possibly MUCH to lose?

Great book, often overlooked by Jack Ryan fans, I also suggest wwIII. by Ralph Peters, a Brit, I think. Both books really give you a feel for a huge NATO/Warsaw Pact Duel. Not that I was lucky enough to get shot at, but it was really weird being in West Germany in the early 80's. Getting the Lariat Advance Exercises every month, and always knowing that they thought that they could kick our asses.....They prolly coulda too. I heard the argument about quality over quantity......But the Russians always said, "Quantity has a beauty all its own"

[backstab]

Originally Posted by CalBear

This come as a surprise to the American Indian, the residents of the Philippines, the forces of the Democratic Republic of Korea, and the insurgents that got killed TODAY in Iraq & Afganistan.

I am unaware of ANY country that LIKES to get bogged down in a low intensity insurgency.

Is it possible to get a few examples of Militaries that enjoy those conditions?

Let me see ..... The British against the Boers and in Malaya
How long do you see the Yanks being in Afganistan/Iraq ..... 5 years ? 10 years .... $1000 bet that they cut their losses and pull out ( Cant finish what they start )

[BucksCountyCycleGeek]

New at this but I've been browsing the board with interest.

The only option I can think of is the naval option. The U.S Navy's strategy for fighting World War III almost inevitably led to the U.S sending a carrier battle group to the Barents to attack Soviet naval bases directly. Wouldn't be too much of a stretch to suggest that as long as we've got the carriers along, a division or so of Marines might come in handy in some scenarios to secure some coastline and/or capture observation posts to cover the task force's flanks. Not suggesting we'd capture Murmansk, by any means, but there's definitely a role there.

[Michael B]

Originally Posted by backstab

Let me see ..... The British against the Boers and in Malaya
How long do you see the Yanks being in Afganistan/Iraq ..... 5 years ? 10 years .... $1000 bet that they cut their losses and pull out ( Cant finish what they start )

I don't think that the British liked the Boers and the communists in Malaya. Won, most definitely. Liked them, I somehow doubt it.

[Max Sinister]

Originally Posted by Mike Stearns

Could it be done? Yes.

Without nukes? No.

Why? The Russians are a bit like the Americans, piss them off and they fight like mad bastards. Just look at the siege of Stalingrad.

But the people hated Communism. And if the Americans share some of their stuff with them promise them that after they won everyone will become rich, they'll get enough volunteers that they might actually win in a few months.

[Ivan Druzhkov]

Originally Posted by Max Sinister

But the people hated Communism. And if the Americans share some of their stuff with them promise them that after they won everyone will become rich, they'll get enough volunteers that they might actually win in a few months.

That might work. Unfortunately, there'll still be plenty of Soviet citizens who remember what happened the last time an army came promising liberation from communism. Of course, the Americans don't have anything like Einsatzgruppen, but if you've been told the imperialists are plotting to destroy the rodina your entire life, it's kinda hard to believe otherwise.

Of course, the worse part of triyng to invade the USSR in a conventional conflict is the fact that, in order to decisively defeat the country, the Americans would essentially have to repeat Operation Barbarossa. No getting around it. You can't go up into the Caucasus because of the mountains, you can't really move forces into Central Asia, and invading Vladivostok puts you right on the other side of the country with God knows how many armies between you and Moscow. Hitting from the Black Sea or the Baltics might work, but I feel they'd be more flanking maneuvers than anything.

[Wozza]

Originally Posted by Max Sinister

But the people hated Communism. And if the Americans share some of their stuff with them promise them that after they won everyone will become rich, they'll get enough volunteers that they might actually win in a few months.

I think it is fairer to say that the people were ambivalent about communism.
It is highly unlikely that they would like foreign invasion.

If we strip nuclear weapons out the equation (which we have to for the scenario to be meaningful) the main Soviet problem is that they have no food.

The Soviets are also close to full mobilization already, the US can produce a much more powerful army than the USSR if it wishes to.

After a few months the Sovet economy simply implodes due to food shortages and mobilization strains.

[Alchemist29]

How plausible would it be for a two sided conflict? If we envision a late 40s early 50s war, could NATO hold in the west while American forces land on the pacific coast. Or would the American requirements with NATO preclude any unilateral attack. Really, thats the only way to defeat the USSR at that time, to overstretch its resources.

[Martel]

Originally Posted by Alchemist29

How plausible would it be for a two sided conflict? If we envision a late 40s early 50s war, could NATO hold in the west while American forces land on the pacific coast. Or would the American requirements with NATO preclude any unilateral attack. Really, thats the only way to defeat the USSR at that time, to overstretch its resources.

That strategy in the late 40s or early 50s would most likely result in an American occupation of the Soviet Far East, Soviet occupation of most of Western Europe (the Red Army in Europe outnumbered the Allies by some absurdly large margin), and then a bunch of atomic bombs dropped all over the place. NATO couldn't hold the line without major US re-enforcements, especially in the 1940s and early 50s before the re-armament of (West) Germany. Vladivostok and the Pacific are a meaningless sideshow. The US could pour a million or more troops there and still they have to march thousands of miles across some of the most inhospitable terrain on Earth just to get to something important. And is that supply line going to be vunerable.
And don't anyone think that you can win enough hearts and minds to bring down the Soviets. Few people have ever welcomed a foreign invader for long (yes there are exceptions, but they are very rare.).

[Rasputin]

I tend to quickly tire of timelines that revolve around 'America kicking communist ass and saving the world 40 years early', but there's something strangely attractive about this one, since it pre-supposes the possibility that it's the Americans striking first.

There's something halfway plausible in that. A lot of literature in the US around the '40s and '50s revolved around the possibility of a triumphant war with the yanks marching into Moscow and being greeted as the best thing since Wonderbread. A lot of people I suspect were secretly hoping that the Russians would live up to the American's own propoganda and make some kind of gutless, cowardly surprise attack to give their boys a reason to kick ass.

The Soviets by contrast were effin' terrified of the prospect. Stalin's reason for maintaining the 'buffer zone' in Eastern Europe was to safeguard against another invasion from the west. As far as the Russians were concerned, the west was 'where the invaders came from'. Next to nothing suggests they contemplated striking first (except when they feared an imminent attack, obviously) and the more triumphalist literature of the time was hoping for victorious revolutions in the west, not victorious armies.

So, just entertaining the possibility, sometime between 1945 and 1949 we have a President who's even more paranoid about the Communists than Truman was (which is a pretty tall order...heck, just having Truman on one of his bad days would probably be sufficient) building up an invasion force and attacking the Soviet Union.

How about around the Berlin Airlift? The American leadership decides that the only way to save Berlin is to open the supply routes itself, and gives the go-ahead to an invasion plan, kicking off in 1948.

Things will go really badly, I reckon.

[Alratan]

I think the only viable way to get serious American involvement in the USSR on the ground is to have the Whites do a lot better in Russia after WW I, and somehow have the Allies be less exhausted by war.

Perhaps, in an echo of another current thread, a successful Gallipoli, followed by Allied victory a year early, with a more activist LoN set up afterwards. Then a Bolshevik revolution after a few years of American investement, with an American expeditionary force sent to protect American interests.

[Rasputin]

If the war's won and there's American investment, that makes a Bolshevik revolution a little less likely, wouldn't you say?

The Tsar might even still be tottering precariously along in that scenario.

[CalBear]

Originally Posted by backstab

Let me see ..... The British against the Boers and in Malaya
How long do you see the Yanks being in Afganistan/Iraq ..... 5 years ? 10 years .... $1000 bet that they cut their losses and pull out ( Cant finish what they start )

And His/Her Majesties' forces LIKED being there? From my (admittedly limited) reading on the matter, the Brit's HATED dealing with the Boer's (although starting the 1st concentration camps was a nice touch) & the Malay situation was not exactly the favorite of the High Command either. Both of these also are somewhat different as the were PART of the British Empire & belonged to the Crown at the time.

If the United States HAS to be in either Iraq or Afganistan, it will be a failure.