The greatest military operations never undertaken

I'm not really wondering which one would be implemented...I'm wondering why they'd be implemented. I mean, sure they had invasion plans for Europe in the 1980s. But the US had invasion plans for Canada in the 1930s. It doesn't mean we were planning on using them.
There would be too much to lose. Those tanks cost a lot of money, and they burn a lot of gas. And when it's all done, the Soviets would be in charge of a radioactive wasteland that they're probably getting nothing out of.
At least in the 80s they were getting some trade concessions and SALT treaties out of the Reagan administration. Jesus, I just talked myself out of believing Red Storm Rising could have ever happened...

It depends on the mentality of the Politburo at the time. Certainly, there were times when NATO conventional forces were in danger of being overmatched. And a substantial segment of russian strategic thought included the idea that a nuclear war was winable. The russians might gamble that they can sweep aside NATO forces in place, and then present the west with a fait acompli when they try to strike back.

As for cause, this is a tricky one. Maybe another hardliner after Chernenko (any candidates?) who winds up looking for some way out of the dire economic straits the USSR is facing. Or the Soviets believe that an invasion is coming, and decide to resist with a preemptive strike (not that implausible; the Soviets did drill for that type of scenario, and had misread NATO intentions IOTL). Or maybe opposition to the Soviets in the warsaw pact (Solidarity in Poland seems a good pick, although the GDR makes a good flashpoint as well) erupts more suddenly and violently. The soviets try to put the rebellions down, and come to the conclusion that they are being backed by NATO... All in all, it is definitly not likely that the Warsaw pact heads west, but it is far from impossible.

On a side note, I believe that when Red Storm Rising came out, the one bit of the book panned as unrealistic was the method of starting the war, to which Clancy replied that there just werent any viable ways to do this.
 
If you're familiar with the Third World War series of board games put out in the '80s by Game Designers' Workshop, their scenario (considered a likely one) was that in Iran, Khomeni died, and his successor was assassinated a year later (the events in the game were set in 1990). Factions emerged in Iran, the two largest being a group led by the Iranian military and the more Centrist elements in-country, and the other one being the IRG (Islamic Republic Government). The Soviets recognized the IRG, while the U.S. (and its allies) recognize the provisional military government. Both superpowers send troops at the request of the respective Iranian governments. Shortly thereafter, both superpowers meet on the battlefields of Iran, and a local shooting match soon becomes WW III as Ivan attacks on the Central Front, the Scandanavian Theater (Norway, with possible Finnish and Swedish participation), and the Balkans (going for the Turkish Straits, and settling old scores with Yugoslavia at the same time). A crisis elsewhere threatening to become the big one was always a possiblity. It could be anywhere: another Arab-Israeli War, for example, or a blatant grab for Iran (like in Harold Coyle's Sword Point)...
 
Matt Wiser said:
If you're familiar with the Third World War series of board games put out in the '80s by Game Designers' Workshop, their scenario (considered a likely one) was that in Iran, Khomeni died, and his successor was assassinated a year later (the events in the game were set in 1990)

That sounds a lot like the scenario from Threads, one of the anti-MAD TV* movies of the eighties.

Atreus said:
Or the Soviets believe that an invasion is coming, and decide to resist with a preemptive strike (not that implausible; the Soviets did drill for that type of scenario, and had misread NATO intentions IOTL)

The problem is that the Soviet leaderships' paranoia was geared towards the fear of a pre-emptive strategic nuclear strike launched by the West. That's the terror they worked themselves into at the time of Able Archer.

I think a conventional WWIII lauched for sane reasons just isn't possible. That is, the Soviets need to be totally out of it for it to occur. The conditions for a rational conventional WWIII never existed, regardless of whatever the Committee for the Present Danger were saying circa 1979; Moscow must have realised that if they were to launch such a war it's because they'd found themselves in an unbelievably desperate situation, beyond all reason, not because the West is weak and there's all this low hanging fruit just ripe for the picking.

I do think the Kremlin were rational actors as long as they chose to never trigger MAD. Yet the chances of triggering MAD by a conventional invasion of the NATO countries was never less than very high, and they knew it--therefore they trigger MAD by attempting to drive their tanks to the channel only after they've totally lost their minds. Which, after all, is entirely possible in a regime full of sick old men who had infinite faith in Russia's and the Party's fine traditions of militaristic tyranny.

Question: To what extent was the 'tactical nukes are conventional weapons' doctrine for psychological/political reasons?



*huh huh, I said 'MAD TV'
 
A full scale conventional war would only make sense for the Soviet Union in the mid 70s in my opinion. In the late 70s and early 80s the US had already restored its lost faith and moral after the Vietnam debacle and the mass introduction of new weapons systems from NATO made a Soviet conventional attack very difficult (i.e. Abraams, Bradley, Leopard 2, Tornado, F15, F16, Milan, TOW, Stinger).

Now if the Soviet Union decided to attack in 1975 or 1976 things could turn ugly for NATO.
 
Now if the Soviet Union decided to attack in 1975 or 1976 things could turn ugly for NATO

By that time the French forces have been out of NATO for a decade.

Giscard d'Estaing would irradiate both banks of the Rhine before he'd let the Red Army get anywhere near France's borders (so much for W. Germany having a veto over the use of tactical nukes by NATO on its soil).

Things escalate, MAD ensures.

I think the Vietnam syndrome idea is overrated, it doesn't take into account what 10 Downing Street or the Elysee Palace would do.
 
Conventional wisdom in the 1980s was that the Soviets wouldn't attack with a Bolt-From-The-Blue, but that a crisis would escalate to war if the superpowers found themselves exchanging fire somewhere. The Mideast or possibly Korea were considered the most likely.
 

Archibald

Banned
By that time the French forces have been out of NATO for a decade.

Giscard d'Estaing would irradiate both banks of the Rhine before he'd let the Red Army get anywhere near France's borders (so much for W. Germany having a veto over the use of tactical nukes by NATO on its soil).

Things escalate, MAD ensures.

I think the Vietnam syndrome idea is overrated, it doesn't take into account what 10 Downing Street or the Elysee Palace would do.

The french reaction to a WWIII - soviet invasion has been discussed to death in this thread

If Germany collapse and the soviets head to the frontier, they are nuked. Even if the war was non nuclear to this point.
 
Operation Ortsac - possible invasion of Cuba planned by the United States military in 1962.
Operation Tannenbaum - was the planned invasion of Switzerland by Nazi Germany during World War II.
Operation Ikarus - as a World War II German plan to invade Iceland.
Operation Bramble Bush - an Israeli plan to kill Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in 1992.
Project Catherine - proposed Baltic Sea offensive by the Royal Navy to be undertaken in the spring of 1940.
Operation Sledgehammer - was an Allied contingency plan for a limited-objective cross-channel invasion of Europe in response to a German or Soviet collapse in 1942.
Operation Isabella - German invasion of Portugal in 1941.
 
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