Slow Drift to War Europe 1984

To be frank, I'm rather astounded at apparent talk of using Austria as a theatre given the 1955 Austrian State Treaty, violation of which would be significantly more of a propaganda coup for the defending bloc than any Yugoslav antics.
 
Well from reading about Soviet plans which if nukes were to be used Vienna was one of the targets before start of a ground offensive. As well as comments made by a spy named Istvan Belovai a major Hungarian intelligence. He claimed one of the reasons he became a spy was over the fact that Hungarian boys would be fighting in the Alps of Austria. He wanted to prevent the casualties that would result from that campaign.
 
@Michael Canaris : First off, the Soviet state considered treaties with others, especially capitalists, as nothing more than temporary conveniences. Now "temporary" might be a long time, but still only as long as it suited their purposes. All states do this of course, but the Soviets were particularly bad actors in this regard. If violating Austrian neutrality was going to increase the odds of a victory against NATO, especially if the nukes had a better chance of being kept unused, you can be sure that would happen. First off, in terms of propaganda, you can be sure the Soviets would claim that NATO had already violated Austrian neutrality or was about to so they had no choice - this will be the accepted story in the WP, and there are enough fools elsewhere who would believe it. Secondly, in this situation, who crossed the Austrian border first, as a propaganda tool, is really not going to be very important. If the Soviets win a conventional war, well Austria will have a communist government installed by the Red Army at the request of the grateful Austrian proletariat. If the Soviets lose a conventional war, the Austrians being pissed off will be the least of their problems. If nukes are used, especially if strategic nukes are used, the survivors will have much bigger problems to worry about than who violated Austrian neutrality.

I also suspect that should the Soviets consider violating Swiss airspace to be useful, that will certainly happen and if the Swiss object by shooting SAMs or intercepting Soviet aircraft, I have no doubt that some effort will be made by the Soviets to suppress those defenses. It is already clear that both the Finns and the Swedes expect their neutrality to be violated. For neutrals outside of NATO, ANZUS, and other treaties, would the US/NATO respond with nukes - for example if the Soviets were being forcefully resisted by the Swedes and they dropped one on Stockholm as an example to other neutrals. Neutrality only works if both sides respect it. Neutrality did not work well for Holland, Denmark, and Norway during WWII for instance.
 

ferdi254

Banned
The problem with the attack on Austria still is that it a) immediately adds another capable, well trained and equipped army to the NATO line of battle and b) gives the Italian army and especially the airforce a beeline to the main battlefield which they would normally not have.

Actually getting the Swiss army into the battle (which would hardly be avoidable once Austria gets attacked so attacking Austria would matter) would add the maybe best trained army in the world to the NATO battle line.

Facing a 100% battle ready NATO with the WP forces minus the Volksarmee and the Polish army is in itself a pretty bad idea adding the Finnish, Swedish, Swiss and Austrian armies to the NATO battleline...

I doubt there was so much Vodka in Russia to be drunk by Stavka to do this. Because they knew that after NATO was beaten those countries would be in their sphere anyway.

Sloreck out of hand I am not aware of many international treaties that the USSR did violate. Can you help me out?
 
What about Japan? It seems like a new Korean war is likely and the South Koreans are not interested in Japanese soldiers on the peninsula, I do not even know if the SDF really has tangible offensive capabilities, but it seems to me an opportunity to cause problems on non-decisive fronts of the conflict, how the Kuril Islands can be invaded, thinks that the island of Sakhalin is beyond capabilities as well as Kamchatka, but at least bombing Vladivostok and fighting in the Orkhotsk Sea seems possible.
 

ferdi254

Banned
Sloreck Russia is not the USSR so that makes one! Of course powerful nations tend to ignore treaties if they think it is in their best interests but I really doubt that GB, France and the USA have a that much better historical record. The CIA tries to kill Castro were not exactly lawful were they? And let‘s not go into actual politics shall we?
 
The fact that all nations have done immoral things or have broken treaties does not justify "whataboutism". Does "the Americans were killing off the Native Americans" or "the Turks killed the Armenians (and random others)" mean that the Nazis and the Holocaust is just another day in the world of international relations and ethnic hostility? I suggest you ask the folks of Eastern Europe about the "free elections" they were pledged to get following WWII, as another example...
 
Njoror- I looked over the naval list for the period in question and from what i see there is not much in the way of an amphibious force capability maybe a battalion of troops with some armor. I have set that will allow you to look over the navies of the period while it does not cover them all it gives you a pretty good idea of the strength of most of them. By the way i do thank the person that gave me this info. http://www.navypedia.org/retro_view/yesterday_index.htm
 
The fact that all nations have done immoral things or have broken treaties does not justify "whataboutism". Does "the Americans were killing off the Native Americans" or "the Turks killed the Armenians (and random others)" mean that the Nazis and the Holocaust is just another day in the world of international relations and ethnic hostility? I suggest you ask the folks of Eastern Europe about the "free elections" they were pledged to get following WWII, as another example...
He is right I though and turning it into what about ism is exactly that.
 

ferdi254

Banned
Sloreck as a German I do not need to be lectured about the crimes of the USSR in eastern Europe.

But let’s get this clear. You asserted that the USSR was keeping treaties only as long as it made sense to them. I asked for examples you gave one(!) which imo is not really supporting your argument as not honoring one (!) contract is something the USA did as well.

Instead of setting up more examples to support your assertion you suddenly bring up the Nazis and you know what it means to bring up the Nazis in an internet discussion in which they were not the topic?

And what international treaty was not honored in those elections? I am not aware of any contractual obligations of the USSR to hold free elections in esstern Europe after the war.
 
This a story not real life there is zero need to bring up the past. It’s an extremely good story and should not be moved over to a politically incorrect argument.
 
8pm Belgrade Yugoslavia
The Presidential Council was split on what to do, the Serbs were in favor of supporting the Soviet Union.

Were they? Why? Is there any OTL evidence that anyone in the Yugoslav establishment of the early 1980s wanted to back the Soviet Union in case of ww3? As opposed to doing their best to stay out of the mess?
 
The Serbs are Slavs and the people of the Soviet Union are Slavs and the theory is that Slavs stick together. While the bulk of the leadership of Yugoslavia is opposed to fighting on the side of the Soviet Union. But as in any situation some people we see an advantage on fighting on the side of the Soviet Union no matter who stupid everyone else thinks the idea is. The ones who see an advantage are the fanatics the true believers. The ones who believe Slavik unity is all important and they would view it as an opportunity to put the rest of Yugoslavia firmly under their control. Remember what happened during the Yugoslavian Civil War.
 
The Serbs are Slavs and the people of the Soviet Union are Slavs and the theory is that Slavs stick together. While the bulk of the leadership of Yugoslavia is opposed to fighting on the side of the Soviet Union. But as in any situation some people we see an advantage on fighting on the side of the Soviet Union no matter who stupid everyone else thinks the idea is. The ones who see an advantage are the fanatics the true believers. The ones who believe Slavik unity is all important and they would view it as an opportunity to put the rest of Yugoslavia firmly under their control. Remember what happened during the Yugoslavian Civil War.

And all the people of Yugoslavia are also Slavs, as are Poles, Czechs et all. If anything the Serbs were rather less tied to Moscow than frex the Bulgarians who still in both world wars were on the opposite side of Moscow, with very strong French ties as well.
 
The Serbs are ORTHODOX Slavs (as opposed to Catholic or Muslim Slavs), who use the Cyrillic alphabet for Serbo-Croatian. Croats use the Latin alphabet and are generally Catholic. The Russian connection to the Serbs has been more about the shared Orthodox faith than the mutual Slavic "ethnicity", Russian pan-Slavism always favored the Orthodox element of pan-Slavism.
 
Thankyou sloreck on the information you presented. All i said was that one faction of Serbians who have historically looked to the Russians as protectors want to back the Soviet Union in this fight. I am not saying everyone does and in fact i make it clear that most of the Yugoslavian faction do not want to be in the war. But out of fear are beginning to pick sides.
 
The reality is that the Soviet attitude is if you are not with us you are against us. If violating the airspace of a neutral or using a neutral country as an axis of a ground attack is something STAVKA thinks would contribute tovictory, so be it. Any neutral that does not realize that needs to have another cup of coffee.
 
9/8 Aug Interregnum Moscow The Politburo gathered for the first serious discussion about who should become the General Secretary. Gorbachev’s supporters were pointing out that bringing the crisis to a peaceful end. Then the Politburo could turn its attention to the monetary problems. Romanov's supporters pointed out that short of a series of humiliating concessions, any negotiations would take a time to bring the crisis to an end.

But Soviet Union could not afford a long negotiation process and the Americans could. That meant the Soviet Union would run out of money long before the Americans did. Romanovs plan was short and to the point. We invite the Americans for one last effort to negotiate an end to the crisis and if that does not work. We give the Americans and their allies an ultimatum if that fails we bring the crisis to an end. We will not start with the use of nuclear weapons because the Soviet Union does not need to rely on the use of nuclear weapons nor chemical weapons to win the war. This will give NATO less of an excuse to start using nuclear weapons. We need to face certain realities, we must bring the crisis to an end and soon. We also need the money we have demanded to make sure the Soviet Union survive.

The response of Gorbachev supporters was clear and to the point fighting a war with NATO would mean an all-out nuclear war. The response from Romanovs supporters was that without the money from the West the Soviet Union would have to engage in defense cuts as well as cuts to all sorts of services to the People. This will cause unrest amongst the people and they are not stupid. To do that so soon after the crisis ended would have the people realizing that the cause of the financial crisis was the current crisis. We can only hope that the people do not rise up and overthrow us. Something that will be a lot easier after all the budget cuts we will have to make to both the Ministry of Defense and the KGB.


Romanov stood up and told the Politburo, ** I know my plan has risks but so does Gorbachev’s plan but mine is much more realistic. We follow Gorbachev’s plan we will be facing a steep decline that will speed up as things keep on going downhill. With mine we could end up fighting a war it could go nuclear but we can win a war. Probably, not a nuclear one but we can win a conventional war and I believe that the Americans and their NATO allies don’t want to fight a nuclear war. With a kind of slow death that Gorbachev’s policy will mean to the Soviet Union this is the better option.


Gorbachev’s supporters were quick to point out that no one was certain just how big the spending cuts would have to be. But they were certain that the cuts were not going to be as bad at Romanov and his supporters were talking about. The argument that the Soviet Union could fight and win a war with NATO was believable up to a point. It was that no one had ever fought a nuclear war and it was certain that the West did not believe a nuclear war was winnable. But That comment convinced no one. But at the same time no decision had been made. But Romanov had not pushed for a vote he was certain he could win if he did not push to hard. After all, with the current situation his plan was the best option it was risky but he believed it had the best chance of success. In the end no one was elected as General Secretary. But everyone was sure that Friday or maybe Saturday the decision would be made.
Istanbul The convoy carrying the equipment of the divisional support units for the 6th MAB arrive with the arriving marines marrying up with the equipment.


Belgrade Yugoslavia
The Presidential Council began to debate whether to mobilize or not and the debate went back and forth. The longer it went on the more it sounded like Kosovo was beginning to sound like mobilization was a good idea. What the Serbians did not realize that the Turkish National Intelligence Organization also know by the acronym MIT had been talking to the government of Kosovo. The agency strictly speaking was not supposed to be operating in this area but due to it connection with the Muslim population in Bosnia and Kosovo they had maintained a relationship with Muslims in the area. Nothing major but they had contacts that had increased since the death of Tito. Now the leadership of the MIT was again involved the reasoning was that anything that damaged Slavic unity was a good thing.

What was worse was that the Montenegrin representatives were now definitely shifting their position to. They were on the Adriatic and the idea of doing nothing while the Italians mobilized was not something they liked. With the Kosovars moving to support mobilization, they began a movement of their own. But the Serbs made a valiant effort to block full mobilization of their forces. In the end they when the meeting was over the world found out that Yugoslavia was mobilizing.

Now both alliances were considering what effect this decision would have on military operations in Europe. For NATO they viewed it more as a positive than a negative. The Warsaw Pact had a different view point. The Croats and Slovenians were alreadyrumoer to be talking about breaking away if war broke out and now elements of the Hungarian Army that had been held in reserve need to be move to either support operations in Austria would be needed to watch the Yugoslav border. There was some commentary about Ogarkov’s decision to weaken the south flank of the Warsaw Pact to strengthen the attack in Germany.

Romania had been talked to about moving more of the Romanian Army to defend the Yugoslavian border. But Ceausescu the leader of the Romania had opposed the idea, he was of the opinion that once the Army was moved the Soviet Union would attempt to have him overthrown. As for the Bulgars nothing could be done they already had more missions than they could handle. Right now, the Soviets attention was on the replacement of Chernenko with a new leader.
 
Farmer once again thanks for this great TL.
Fudge Germany must look like a Armed Camp with all those soldiers running Around.
How are the Civilians in Germany taking all the Soldiers and Tanks and Guns flooding into there country?
 
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