Moscow, Kremlin 13th to 16th of November
The debates were hotter than ever in the politburo. Some denied the veracity of the information given to them outright, other members denied parts of it (and of course everybody that part that he was responsible for), some even went so far as to accuse the three messengers of working for the CIA. Shouting was normal for the first of those days but… over the course of the 13th and the 14th it became clearer and clearer that the analysis, harsh as it was, was fundamentally correct and more and more and in the end all members of the Politburo changed over from denial to accusation to accepting and then planning what to do.
In the morning of the 16th the discussion had reached a stage in which certain points were no longer disputed.
- The West with Reagan heading the way was intent on destroying the USSR. They were preparing for a first strike in the hope that they might have a winnable nuclear war. SDI and the cruise missiles were a clear sign for that. Able Archer was just the icing on the cake.
- Long term capitalism will go down as inevitable as the sun goes up[1]. But short term they were at an advantage and the USSR could not afford to spend the money that was needed to keep up with the West.
- If one prioritized spending, one could keep up with the West in technology but then one would have to reduce the military which would only invite the USA to strike.[2]
- A solution was needed to set back the NATO, beef up the WP (especially the USSR) and buy some time and money to close the technological gap.
One thing was clear, one had to reduce the readiness of the NATO and obtain maximum surprise. To do this political maskirowka was needed and the timing needed to be carefully planned. Luring the NATO into lower readiness could be achieved by solving the missile debate. And as everybody agreed that waiting would make the situation only worse, a strike in a very near future was needed. The lowest general combat readiness was expected on the 1st of January with many soldiers on leave, some even on longer holidays and a lot of people either drunk or at least fast asleep and everything manned with only the minimum.
The surprise element was to be achieved by starting the war with only minimal forces and only on a small front so that the first strike would come out of the blue. No overtime for people working on it, no wireless or phone communication of plans. Officers to rotate into units in the GDR would get them in paper and in paper only they would stay. For soldiers, other than those only very few officers who needed to know, the 31st of December would start like every normal day and continue as such pretty long.
The attack was to begin in the north with reasoning that the Bundeswehr and the Dutch, Belgian and English army would have a much lower battle readiness than the US army in the south (the US soldiers being much farther away from home, so most of them would be in the barracks) and there were less obstacles.
[3]
[1] It sort of nearly did in 2008 when the US government had to buy nearly all big banks and GM. No shooting please.
[2] Of course both would never happen but how could they know?
[3] In 1985 most likely Gorbachev was in a similar situation with the west even more ahead in technology. He did not go for any military solution. But here the soviet leadership is convinced that if they do not anything the USA will strike and that they now have the last chance to avoid the attack by the capitalistic and therefor imperialistic and therefor aggressive west. Luckily IOTL they did not know about the F117. I can´t stress that too much: Both sides lacked even the most basic understanding of what was really driving the other side, still visible today