WI: A NATO Invasion of Eastern Europe '89-91?

Many '80s World War III stories go the same way: soviets think the time has come to invade western Europe and pull a fast one on NATO, NATO gets pushed to [insert german river name], then launches a counter attack that succeeds because quality trumps quantity or something. There's a coup in the USSR, they surrender and NATO soldiers are left to ponder the future.

Say NATO decides that they intervene in a crackdown in the DDR or tensions rachet up to the point where the decision is made to launch a Desert Storm style armoured blitzkreig through the Fulda Gap? Would the whole rotten structure collapse or NATO be trying to perform Barbarossa 2: Perestroika Boogaloo?
There is a drama-documentary from 1998 that follows exactly this scenario. In 1989 a Coup of old hardliners displace Gorbatchov. Warsaw Pact nations purge reformers and activists. Eventually massacres im GDR. NATO Warsaw Pacr confrontations. Schleswig-Holstein D-Day Style landing of GDR and Soviets to distract, a few dass later a main attack trough the Fulda Gap. NATO wins eventually conventionelly and conquers East Berlin. Everywhere rebellions against Soviet rule. Soviet dictator responds with a nuclear Bonn in Baltica Sea. Eventually nuclear war which destroys the world.
 
I would imagine this would play out with some form of East German response to the fall of the Berlin Wall or Leipzig protests turning violent, a gorbachev type soviet union standing aside for everything/staying in the barracks as OLT, NATO excerising a "right to protect" and moving into a collapsing DDR. there would be a potentially coup motivated change of heart in the USSR and it lashing out. This is a real stretch at this point but hey.
 

Khanzeer

Banned
You are exactly correct, they are not the same. But since the post said,”Would the whole rotten structure collapse or NATO be trying to perform Barbarossa 2: Perestroika Boogaloo?” I thought a reference to Barbarossa 1 and another invasion of Russia might be appropriate.
Fair enough

What is the goal of NATO here stop at the Soviet border or liberate Baltic states too ?
 
NATO would be greeted as liberators up until the RSFSR.
Maby not even then, the ussr was hated by large parts of the Russian population, it took the massive economic and political colaps of the 90's for Russians to look back nestagicly on the ussr and even then it's not very likely to ever come back.
 
It's very hard for vaporized piles of radioactive flesh to greet anyone or be greeted.

You don't say - I was responding to a specific comment about guerrilla activity and NATO having to tie it down in the case of an invasion, not the results of nuclear war.
 
I would imagine this would play out with some form of East German response to the fall of the Berlin Wall or Leipzig protests turning violent, a gorbachev type soviet union standing aside for everything/staying in the barracks as OLT, NATO excerising a "right to protect" and moving into a collapsing DDR. there would be a potentially coup motivated change of heart in the USSR and it lashing out. This is a real stretch at this point but hey.
On the face of it, this seems doable in a military sense.
However, East Germany was full of Soviet forces. They couldn't just up and leave if ordered. Should the instruction be to stay in their barracks and let NATO punish those naughty East Germans, the Soviets would have hundreds of thousands of men all surrounded in those many garrisons. East Berlin is a difficult matter too with how the Soviets but also NATO viewed it as part of / not part of East Germany.
 
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