48 hours to the Rhine- and the world afterwards

The 1970th were the classic time of the conventional WWIII-scenarios. Well known on this board is John Hackets "the third World War", but there were many others, like from the belgium general Close. Mostly this scenarios show, like the WP-forces attack West-Germany with overwhelming superiority and reach the Rhine in short time. Even in Hackets "optimistic" version, were NATO wins at the end, the WP-forces reach the Rhine after three days. There is no or just a symbolic nuclear reaction of NATO, the war is won or lost through conventional weapons.
There are some good reasons, why such scenarios seemed realistic at this time. The WP-forces reached the peak of their strengh, because of Detente some westeuropean Nations were reducing their forces, NATO seemed to lose their technological superiority, the USA were demoralised because of Vietnam and Watergate, nuclear deterrence seemed more and more questionable. In the hindsight it seems, the USSR had actually a window of opportunity, were they actually could defeat NATO without risking an all-out nuclear war. What if they had take the chance?
Let assume Watergate became a lot messier and/or Breshnev dies earlier and is replaced by someone more ambitous.
So, in a summer of 1976 the USSR start their preparations. The plan is, that the soviet-troops in the GDR and CSSR attack West-Germany. The goal is not an all-out war to conquer West-Europe or to create an socialist united Germany, but simply to force West-Germany to accept dearmend and neutralisation. This, so the men in the Kremlin believe, would be enough the gurantee soviet domminance in europe. So the plan goes through. NATO sees the signs, but reacts to late. There is no complet surprise, so the NATO-forces made some preparations, but is not enough. NORTHAG collapse, after a couple of days the Soviets reach the Rhine. CENTAG is better, but still the US- and german forces must retreat to Frankfurt and Nürnberg. The americans fire a nuclears shell against the soviets. The Soviets are not impressed and nuke a westgerman air-base. USA is unsure how to react, the westgerman goverment is shocked and accept the soviet demands.
So know two questions:
1. Is such a secenario relistic for the timeframe of 1975-79 and
2. How would the world look like today if something like this had happend.
 
I think a lot is going to depend on the character of the President of the US at the time. Some would happily let the ICBMs fly. Others wouldn't risk a nuclear war over Germany. I think most would be somewhere in between, and might try the limited tactical use as a 'warning shot'. Most of the last group would probably fold if the USSR called their bluff. If we look specifically at President Ford, I think he'd put up a strong front, but fold under pressure. That's just my opinion from my limited knowledge of Ford; take it with a grain of salt.

Remember also that in this era France and Britain have their own nuclear weapons and delivery systems. I don't think France would be likely to use theirs unless the Soviets crossed the Rhine, but the UK might well use them if the BAOR's survival was threatened or in defense of the forward NATO powers. Again, who's in power at the time is an important factor.

Also, note that a number of Soviet plans from this era called for the use of chemical weapons, which would increase the likelihood of the US crossing the nuclear threshold.
 
Even if, at the time, NATO seemed weak and the nuclear deterrent seemed not that likely, it is still a great gamble to start the third world war simply to get demilitarized neutral Germany and the mere hope that Europe will fall under Soviet dominance thereafter.
 
West Germany...

The concept is predicated on the premise that NATO or the US will somehow cede West Germany with little or no nuclear intervention.

Were the Kremlin to believe that, it would be a far more disastrous miscalculation than that made by Saddam Hussein when invading Kuwait in August 1990.

Even a Carter-led White House wouldn't, in my view, simply agree to the effective loss of West Germany and the effective collapse of NATO without the threat of nuclear retaliation. I also think that once unleashed on the battlefield, escalation was more or less inevitable.

Sir John Hackett wrote an alternative version of his 1985 classic in which NATO was militarily defeated, West Germany conquered and one outcome was the British Royal Family going into exile. A successful Warsaw Pact invasion of West Germany would mean the collapse of NATO and the EEC but not Red Army troops marching down Whitehall.
 

TheKinkster

Banned
Speaking as someone with knowledge of the subject...(ex-SAC for 39 years)..the only President who MIGHT not have let the ICBM's fly in this situation was Ford. Even Carter would have. The situation you describe would be an untenable one for the US to just sit back and accept.
 
In Hackett's story, the Soviets nuked Birmingham, the British nuked Minsk, and the Warsaw Pact and constituent republics of the USSR basically mutinied to avoid getting nuked in the coming Armageddon.

It wasn't just a token defense of Germany--it was a deliberate attempt to provoke the subject-races of the Soviet empire to revolt and it worked.

"Red Army" is a more accurate depiction of a "NATO wimp-out" and that was because the FRG didn't want nukes used on its soil. I distinctly recall the Soviet soldiers remembering some near-run battles with M1s and being distinctly glad it stopped quickly. :)
 
Speaking as someone with knowledge of the subject...(ex-SAC for 39 years)..the only President who MIGHT not have let the ICBM's fly in this situation was Ford. Even Carter would have. The situation you describe would be an untenable one for the US to just sit back and accept.

Indeed. If one bypasses internal political US debate and the myths one can easily see through doctrine publications etc. that Ford and Reagan were the most likely Cold War US presidents to have NOT decided to use nuclear weapons under any circumstances. Carter, after all, committed to a nuclear doctrine which did not merely rely on nuclear deterrence but actual nuclear warfighting.

( http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Index...ve_59,_Nuclear_Weapons_Employment_Policy.djvu )
 

Perkeo

Banned
ANY war of Aggression is ASB

I don't buy that the Sowjet Union ever considered the strategic importance of Germany so high that they would play this sort of Russian Roulette. As we know today, neither side was crazy enough to seriously consider an actual unprovoked military aggression.

However, BOTH sides were crazy enough to consider a preemptive strike against a supposedly imminent aggression from the other side, so I suppose a non-nuclear Able Archer 83 is plausible: Western saber-rattling and a major exercise cause the Sovjets to erroneously believe the NATO is mobilizing for an attack and to launch a conventional preemptive strike. Having reached the Rhine, they propose a ceasefire, propably still thinking they have successfully repulsed a capitalist aggression.

The absense of nukes in the "preemptive" strike does not really match official doctrine of either side, but the will to at least try keeping WWIII non-nuclear is certainly not ASB. In fact, I'd call the OTL taken-for-grantedness of the frist strike option from both sides as ASB if I didn't know better.
 
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As we know today, neither side was crazy enough to seriously consider an actual unprovoked military aggression.

Yes, the Soviet warplans were very careful to note that offensive operations into Western Europe would only commences AFTER the Capitalist Warmongers had been Driven Back by the Workers and Peasants in their Righteous Wrath.

Oddly, their plans also had the forward-deployed units initiating this offensive from their peacetime barracks and at full strength, against NATO formations similarly starting from their peacetime barracks and at full strength.

I'm sure everyone will agree that this obviously means the Warsaw Pact had no intention of launching an unprovoked attack.
 

Perkeo

Banned
Yes, the Soviet warplans were very careful to note that offensive operations into Western Europe would only commences AFTER the Capitalist Warmongers had been Driven Back by the Workers and Peasants in their Righteous Wrath.

Oddly, their plans also had the forward-deployed units initiating this offensive from their peacetime barracks and at full strength, against NATO formations similarly starting from their peacetime barracks and at full strength.

I'm sure everyone will agree that this obviously means the Warsaw Pact had no intention of launching an unprovoked attack.

I didn't say they had no intention. I didn't say they didn't wait for an opportunity. I said they knew they COULDN'T do it - and that I see no plausible scenario were they might have thought they coud.

Come on, even a madman like Hitler took SOME precautions before starting a conquering expedition.
 
I didn't say they had no intention. I didn't say they didn't wait for an opportunity. I said they knew they COULDN'T do it - and that I see no plausible scenario were they might have thought they coud.

Come on, even a madman like Hitler took SOME precautions before starting a conquering expedition.

I hate to resurrect a thread just for this, but I'm going to do it.

The Soviets took LOTS of precautions and made LOTS of preparations, not just plans, for invasion. Take a look at the engineering assets of the GSFG and where they were located, for example, and compare them to NORTHAG.

Now, did they know they couldn't get to the Rhine in 48 hours? Probably. That's a rather insane rate of advance in the face of unshaken opposition. However, a LOT of information has been coming out lately about plans to reach it in a week, and some quite senior folks (generals and IIRC at least one marshal) have been quoted as saying that they thought they COULD have done it at various times (including the 1970s), and under certain conditions (strategic surprise being key, as NATO could double its forward deployed forces with 10 days warning... at least in theory).

Now if we go into the 1980's (AFTER the OP's question) then yes, probably everyone who really knew what was going on would agree it was impossible. NATOs conventional forces were getting stronger very quickly, while the USSR was barely keeping up. I recall a story of a Canadian observer in East Germany watching a USSR motor-rifle battalion go on an exercise: IIRC he said only a third of the battalion's AFV's made it to the exercise area without breaking down. The US Army was becoming a first-class fighting force again, instead of one where officers needed armed escorts when entering enlisted barracks.
 

Perkeo

Banned
The Soviets took LOTS of precautions and made LOTS of preparations, not just plans, for invasion. Take a look at the engineering assets of the GSFG and where they were located, for example, and compare them to NORTHAG.

Now, did they know they couldn't get to the Rhine in 48 hours? Probably.

The question is not wether they could get to the Rhine in 48 hours. The question is, after 49 hours, what would have been the point in beeing there - or anywhere else between the Rhine and Vladivostok?

At the very best, the Russions could have hoped to occupy the FRG and then negotiate. Is the FRG alone - AFTER the invasion, that is - worth the risk? Or did the USSR expect that the western Nukes - even the French and British alone - were just dummies?

That is why I could be born and grow up in Western Germany in the 70's: Because nuclear deterrence worked. And if you come up with a the-USSR-attack-NATO-TL, then this is the first question you must answer: Why doesn't nuclear deterrence work in your TL? Otherwise it's ASB.
 
That is why I could be born and grow up in Western Germany in the 70's: Because nuclear deterrence worked. And if you come up with a the-USSR-attack-NATO-TL, then this is the first question you must answer: Why doesn't nuclear deterrence work in your TL? Otherwise it's ASB.

Nuclear deterrence did indeed work IOTL. That isn't a guarantee that it would have in every TL. The problem with deterrence is exactly the same problem as with a Mexican standoff; all it takes is ONE person (in this case, a head of state) who doesn't believe they'll die or doesn't care that they'll die. Alternately, it only takes one person who is bluffing to be called on it.

To start WWIII, all it takes is one leader who doesn't believe the other leaders will destroy their nations for someone else's. Not really all that hard to believe, judging by human history.

To go nuclear, it takes a leader who believes the other leaders will accept the destruction of their nations without retaliation, or that a tactical nuclear exchange will stay that way. Pretty hard to believe.
 

Perkeo

Banned
Nuclear deterrence did indeed work IOTL. That isn't a guarantee that it would have in every TL. The problem with deterrence is exactly the same problem as with a Mexican standoff; all it takes is ONE person (in this case, a head of state) who doesn't believe they'll die or doesn't care that they'll die. Alternately, it only takes one person who is bluffing to be called on it.

No, it takes two, one who is bluffing and one who calls. No bluffing, nuclear war, no calling, no war at all.

To start WWIII, all it takes is one leader who doesn't believe the other leaders will destroy their nations for someone else's. Not really all that hard to believe, judging by human history.

It takes one leader who thinks he KNOWS the other leaders won't retaliate. Who bets his own nation on that assumption.

Besides: The very best the attacker could hope for is West Germany, perhaps Belgium and Netherlands. When they reach France, the defenders wouldn't fight for someone else's country any more.

Why should anyone take such a risk for such a price? My home country ain't as big and beautiful as all that. Even less when it's just been a war theatre.

To go nuclear, it takes a leader who believes the other leaders will accept the destruction of their nations without retaliation, or that a tactical nuclear exchange will stay that way. Pretty hard to believe.

If you won't accept that a tactical nuclear exchange will stay that way, why accept that a conventional war will stay that way? The reasons are the same.
 
If you won't accept that a tactical nuclear exchange will stay that way, why accept that a conventional war will stay that way? The reasons are the same.

No, because the nuclear threshold is a purely political problem. If the GSFG had suddenly driven across the Inner German Border, NORTHAG wouldn't have waited for its assorted political leaders to start shooting. They would NOT have used any tac nukes they had at the time, nor would SAC launch ICBMs, until the politicians ordered it. Even if a nuclear-armed force was attacked with nuclear weapons they weren't allowed to retaliate in kind without explicit orders.

Every acknowledged nuclear power at the time had agreed, formally or informally, to a 'no first use' policy. I've never seen (and I have looked for) even the slightest indication that any power had offered or agreed that if a nuclear exchange started at a tactical level it would remain there. There was no second threshold between tactical nukes and strategic weapons.

As for the value of West Germany... look at the size of its economy, and the resources there. That would be a fair-sized prize for even something as big as the Warsaw Pact. If it wasn't important, why did half a dozen nations station division-sized forces there to defend it? I don't have 1970s figures to hand, but at least at the end of the 1980's the FRG had a bigger GDP than France or the UK, a larger population then either, AND a higher per-capita GDP than either.
 

Perkeo

Banned
No, because the nuclear threshold is a purely political problem. If the GSFG had suddenly driven across the Inner German Border, NORTHAG wouldn't have waited for its assorted political leaders to start shooting. They would NOT have used any tac nukes they had at the time, nor would SAC launch ICBMs, until the politicians ordered it. Even if a nuclear-armed force was attacked with nuclear weapons they weren't allowed to retaliate in kind without explicit orders.

Good point, but since when are decisions of politicians under pressure so predictable that you can bet the literal survival of your nation on it? No secretary general would dare to attack just because the West MIGHT not use nukes.

Every acknowledged nuclear power at the time had agreed, formally or informally, to a 'no first use' policy.

No NATO member ever has - even to this day. At the time, NATO explicitly rejected 'no first use' policy.

I've never seen (and I have looked for) even the slightest indication that any power had offered or agreed that if a nuclear exchange started at a tactical level it would remain there. There was no second threshold between tactical nukes and strategic weapons.

Yes there was: NATO's "Flexible response" strategy differentiated between "Deliberate Escalation" and "General Nuclear Response".

As for the value of West Germany... look at the size of its economy, and the resources there. That would be a fair-sized prize for even something as big as the Warsaw Pact. If it wasn't important, why did half a dozen nations station division-sized forces there to defend it?

1) Germany has no natural ressources worth mentioning and its welth STRONGLY depends on import and export, the latter mostly with western Europe

2) Those forces were stationed when West-Germany lied in ruins, and they wouldn't have left until West-Germany lied in ruins again. West Germany was defended as a fortress, a place to deploy tac nukes when required, not due to it's economic power.
 
What a pity. I always thought "having a very different opinion" and "having no common basis for discussion" fundamentally different.

They are. However, you're citing facts which are completely different from facts known to me. At least one of us is wrong, but without some common premise to work from there's no reason to have a debate.

We also appear to have different opinions, and that is indeed different. If that were the only issue, I'd happily discuss the poli-psych of nuclear release until the cows come home.

If you were debating the merits of the .45ACP and the .40S&W cartridge with someone, and they stated that a single-stack M1911 has a four-round magazine, would you bother to continue the discussion?
 
There was no second threshold between tactical nukes and strategic weapons.

I beg to disagree here. There is/was a clear distinction between the use of tactical nuclear warheads and the use of strategic weapons. The former are operational weapons, the latter are political in nature.

In the aforementioned "rush to the Rhine" scenario, France might choose to use tactical nukes during the Russian onslaught in Germany, but would probably not go strategic as French borders haven't been crossed. Should the Russian forces cross French borders, then the situation would call for the use of SLBMs and IRBMs.

Where I do agree with you is that in the scope of a 48-hours campaign, the nuclear threshold, and then the strategic threshold, would be crossed very rapidly, so rapidly in fact that from an outside point of view it would seem that both categories of weapons would be employed simultaneously.
 
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