The plan I sighted came from the Polish Government, in the post Cold War period. It had them nuking Austria, and destroying cities, to spread terror.
Defensive Soviet military doctrine
- Thread starter Monk78
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In the context of Austria having aligned itself with NATO and with the nuclear weapons being utilized to facilitate a land invasion, rather then simply "spread terror".
Are there any non NATO countries that the USSR likely would have attacked in the event of a full exchange in the last 20 years of the Cold War?
China, easily. If such plans existed, China would most certainly be near the top. The Sino-Soviet split was a thing, after all.
Were the soviets really scared of Chinese nuclear counter strike ? Or not as much as NATOs
The question was about what uninvolved countries the Soviets might nuke in the context of an ongoing nuclear war between itself and NATO, assuming the Soviets planned to do such in the first place. Given that, I sincerely doubt that the Soviets would be much concerned about how much more the Chinese nuclear arsenal would be able to make the rubble bounce. The intent would be to wreck China so they don't have an advantage in the post-war world.
That kind of thinking is called Nihilism. If we destroy ourselves in a nuclear war every major power needs to be destroyed to. If we can't dominate the world it should be destroyed. It's like a nut job who kills his ex, because if he can't have her, no one will.
Perhaps Australia and Japan (or at least bases and facilities in those nations that were perceived as providing benefit to the U.S.)
As mentioned by others China seems possible as well.
Edit to add:
Maybe the Philpines (or at least US bases and installations there) as well.
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If so, then it was a sort of nihilistic thinking shared by the United States, because there's rumors with about as much veracity that the Americans had similar such plans. But so far, such things for both countries have remained in the realm of rumors.
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Soviet policy once they got the ability to deal deterring damage to CONUS was to get a survivable second strike capability as they never had the luxury of first strike (so launch on warning or launch on attack), so they wanted to keep enough warheads after their retaliation.
Deterring damage itself was actually a fairly low number of warheads, dozens to a few hundred. It is doubtful with such a money-saving policy that they would actually commit to nuking everyone at once even when some countries are not involved at all.
The Soviets also completely rejected MAD as a desirable concept.
Deterring damage itself was actually a fairly low number of warheads, dozens to a few hundred. It is doubtful with such a money-saving policy that they would actually commit to nuking everyone at once even when some countries are not involved at all.
The Soviets also completely rejected MAD as a desirable concept.
I think like the US they didn't find it desirable but also saw it inevitable.
Uh... what? In what world are launch on warning and launch on attack considered first strike. And the Soviets did reserve the right to try and launch a pre-emptive strike if they believed a NATO strike attempt was in the offing... just as the US did.
Nobody has actually made MAD an actual policy. Not even the US. That's a very common misconception: MAD is simply a political theory on how two sides leadership might act under the conditions where both sides had the capacity to destroy each other. It is has never been policy or doctrine or anything more in any nation.
I wrote it poorly, I meant that the policy was not first strike but rather LOW and LOA which are second strike policies.
Australia
Japan
Republic of Ireland
Portugal (before they joined)
Spain (before they joined)
Singapore
Are all candidates as allies nations who'd probably provide either manpower or facilities (air bases and docking/ship repair mostly) to NATO.