After the War
1985 -2016
Birmingham
Why Birmingham?
Why a british city? The UK was a nuclear power, it was obvious that it would retaliate. Why not attack Bonn, Rotterdam or Antwerp? Why not a city, where there were at least a small chance, that the western nuclear powers would do nothing. Or just retaliate against military targets in Eastern Europe? In end it turned out, the last possibility was what the soviet leadership feared most.
To the surprise of the West, it turned out, that the standard soviet war plans actually demanded a massive nuclear first-strike with several hundreds “tactical” warheads. A conventional war was just a variant, actually a unwanted variant, because after the opinion of a huge part of the military leadership, only a first-strike would guarantee victory. But other generals and the politicians argued, that it would hardly count as a victory, when Europe would be turned from the Atlantic to Ural to a nuclear wasteland, even if soviet tanks, manned by radiation-poisoned zombies, would still reach the Pyrenees.
The Politburo wanted a “Clausewitz”-war for political means and that what they got. But after the failure of the invasion, the nuclear fraction raised their voice again. They wanted to renew the offensive through a massive first-strike, returning to the original war-plan. The Politburo just wanted a nuclear demonstration, to get a cease-fire. The pro-nuke generals warned, that a nuclear demonstration in Central Europe would give NATO the excuse, to launch from their side a first-strike to destroy the soviet forces in the GDR and the CSSR. Even if as retaliation the NATO forces in West Germany would be destroyed, the lose of their best forces would be a decisive blow for the USSR. It would be impossible to keep control about Easter Europe after that. Good, answered the moderates, then lets make sure, that retaliation don´t hit our forces, but, lets say, just one of our city’s.
It a british city would be destroyed, the British surly would demand the destruction of a soviet city. With a probability of 62 % soviet experts predicted that Minsk would be target. The Politburo saw this as a acceptable sacrifice. No special warning was given to the authorities in Minsk. Why take the chance?
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