WI lower Soviet defense spending in late Cold War?

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
WI reduced USSR defense spending from 1973 or 1975 –

USSR concludes defensive & retaliatory sufficiency is good enough and most of the 1970s and 80s build-up, especially of covnetional land forces, is avoided. The reasoning is that a western alliance, and above all US, that would tolerate a stalemate in Korea and a defeat in Vietnam simply would not ever be in a frame of mind to launch an attack on the Soviet Union fully capable of retaliating. Furthermore, western divisions over Vietnam, and US toleration of the French defection are seen as further proof that a NATO consensus for attack is most improbable. In terms of its defense build-up, the Soviets intercontinental nuclear forces are somewhat smaller, their conventional combined arms forces are significantly smaller, and their advisory missions and special forces are the same size. Their remaining forces at least appear to the world to be be quite capable of defense, and are well above what's needed for Warsaw Pact "self-invasions" and regime security for as long as leaders have the will to use it.
What benefit can the USSR get out of a reduced defense establishment?
 

BurningWickerman

If they spend the money on the domestic affairs of the Soviet Union, economy, standard living etc instead of on more space missions they could still be here today.

Just doing things like knocking down and renovating crampt apartment buildings would get them a lot further into the future.

If they create a scientific community that isn't military based and is more domestically orientated they could be a world leader with tech like computers going into the new millenium.

If the Soviet Union lasts till the modern day their will still have to be politicals concessions probably in the '90s.
E.g shutting the gulags down, jury based judicial system, local democracy and accountable leaders.

However I find it much more likely that they will piss the money away on prestige projects like unnescary space missions and the worlds tallest building.
If the latter is the case exactly the same thing happened as OTL and the only difference will be is that new Russia will have a few more tourist attractions.
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
Oh yes, I would not count of effective management

"However I find it much more likely that they will piss the money away on prestige projects like unnescary space missions and the worlds tallest building.
If the latter is the case exactly the same thing happened as OTL and the only difference will be is that new Russia will have a few more tourist attractions."

This can still change things and prolong the USSR's life. For one thing, the Reaganite backlash and buildup will be less, and that means that Russia is less in the mood of "reform or die" which in OTL actually hastened death. With a less intense Cold War, the USSR could smugly stagger on into the 1990s.
 

Tielhard

Banned
I was originally going to say, that if the USSR reduced defence spending from 1973 or 1975 it just postpones the inevitable. They need to do something really different to recover from WWII and the Western siege. Then I read
BurningWickerman saying: "If they spend the money on the domestic affairs of the Soviet Union, economy, standard living etc instead of on more space missions they could still be here today." and I thought why not do it the other way round? Suppose they drive their space programme at the expense of defence. What if they manage to put a series of manned battle stations complete with rail guns, nukes and KE bombardment systems into Near GeoSync. It would be doable (just) and it would beggar them but if they execute the mobilisation phase quickly they can deny these orbits, all orbits to the USA. The now have a reasonable expectation of taking minimal losses if they first strike. What then? They are still stuffed economically so they have to go for it or at least try to strong arm the USA. Then??
 

MerryPrankster

I think if the Soviets were cutting ground-based nukes, the conventional army, etc, and spending more money on a militarized space program, I think the West would respond in kind.
 

Tielhard

Banned
I agree that the USA (not the West) would respond but let us consider the situation in 1973 - 1975. Specifically 1974.

The Soviets have not yet junked N1 and would probably have it working within a year. If the USA assumes anything from SATINT of N1 test launches they will in all likelihood assume the Soviets are still going to the moon. It may keep the manned space race alive but it won't militarise it. The concept design for Energia has started and is on going.

On the other hand the USA is almost without a manned launcher. The detailed plans for Saturn V have been scattered or destroyed and much of the infrastructure needed to build one has been converted to other use or been junked. The engineers are waiting for the Shuttle (a low orbit device originally intended for use with an orbital transfer vehicle) to ramp up into production.

If the Soviets can get N1 working and say six battle stations launched within a six month period, ideally much less than that, then there is little the USA can do about it. They hold the high ground and can deny the USA access to any lower orbit. There is not a thing the USA can do about it. Any US attacking missile or rocket has to travel 42,000 km and more to reach the battle stations more than enough time to pick them off and destroy them with a rail gun or even a 20mm canon.

If of course the USA finds out what they are upto it becomes a straight race and the result depends on how far ahead the Soviets are when the USA finds out as the USA can develop a capability faster than they can. Maybe the USA wins, may be the Soviets win. If the Soviets maintain secrecy the USA looses.
 

Wozza

None of this mentions Soviet foreign policy,
a lot of Soviet resources went on other people's wars, and seldom for hard cash.
What would be the consequences of no/much less Soviet support for north Vietnam, for Cuba and various Middle Eastern states during the Arab-Israeli wars? Soviet armament commitments to these states were often massive?
What benefits would this bring to the West? How would they use this?
Would we live in a more pleasant world with a much cooler cold war and a slow, less precipitous unravelling of communism?
 

Tielhard

Banned
"Would we live in a more pleasant world with a much cooler cold war and a slow, less precipitous unravelling of communism?"

Or would we live in a more pleasant world with a much cooler cold war and a slow, less precipitous unravelling of capitalism?
 

Wozza

Why would capitalism unravel? More profoundly what would replace it?
how many countries would go communist without Soviet arms?
what regimes would they have? It depends on how vital varying degrees of US support/tolerance (or USSR support tolerance) have been to the dodgy dictators of the world.
The "natural" order of states is often some form of dubious regime founded on strong men and certain elites, the superpowers used this situation rather than created it. These people would still flirt with socialist development in the 50s-70s. Do you not think this would still fail and more free market philosophies would come to the fore?
 

Tielhard

Banned
All in all I prefer my own AH where a dying Soviet Union rains destruction down on a rich and powerful but impotent USA from high orbit.
 

Wozza

"prefer?"

the problem with the post-Brezhnev soviet union is that it is quite likely that the man running the factory would just lie about producing the orbital weapons...

anyway would the Americans not nuke them back?

Ah, the days when the Unbreakable union of the republics of the free was brought together by great Russia
 

Tielhard

Banned
"anyway would the Americans not nuke them back? "

How? At say 25 km/s a US strike at a battle station takes about 16000s and is visible for nearly all of that time and in a predictable radar window. An unpowered release of a multiple warhead strike from a battle station with warhead boost only in the last few moments of thier flight is practically impossible to see or stop before they hit the atmosphere. Say 5 km/s when it hits the outer atmosphere (way low as they have a huge orbital velocity to convert) and 300km to target. One minute to detect, track, launch counterfire and/or retalliatory strike. It is not impossible just way, way, way beyond what the USA can do today even.
 

Grimm Reaper

How much does it take in cuts to salvage the USSR? Cuts in nuclear arms simply won't make a difference.

Sure, the money saved by having the deal finalized by Gorbachev and Bush I under Nixon and Brezhnev would be nice, but not very significant.

Cancel the Soviet naval buildup? Perhaps more useful, and it would free up a fair number of skilled personnel, but it does put paid to the idea of the USSR as a superpower. To put it bluntly, a country that can't project power past its own area is not a superpower.

Start cutting the allied aid? Probably save a few billion on Cuba alone, although if Castro gets overthrown one day, that will look very bad to the hardliners in Moscow.

Slash the Red Army? To what degree? In the 1980s the actual strength of the Red Army was lower than previously believed at less than 170 divisions, including the B-class. Sacrificing the C-class and the 'mobilization only' divisions won't really save much of anything. Sacrificing the A and B divisions becomes risky. For one thing, what happens to conscription if they simply don't have units for all the young men? For another, what happens if they decide to restructure the Red Army at, say, 100 divisions, and Eastern Europe explodes? Given that half the Red Army can't leave Afghanistan or the Chinese border, you actually have a state of affairs where the remaining 50 divisions might prove inadequate for supressing Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia.
 

MerryPrankster

Tielhard said:
"anyway would the Americans not nuke them back? "

How? At say 25 km/s a US strike at a battle station takes about 16000s and is visible for nearly all of that time and in a predictable radar window. An unpowered release of a multiple warhead strike from a battle station with warhead boost only in the last few moments of thier flight is practically impossible to see or stop before they hit the atmosphere. Say 5 km/s when it hits the outer atmosphere (way low as they have a huge orbital velocity to convert) and 300km to target. One minute to detect, track, launch counterfire and/or retalliatory strike. It is not impossible just way, way, way beyond what the USA can do today even.
Click to expand...

Perhaps the US can't attack the battlestations directly, but unless the orbital stations wax the US nuclear forces on the ground (hard to do, since a big hunk of US nukes were on submarines), the US can bombard the USSR directly.

Heck, just destroy the Soviet space facilities and leave the station folks up there to starve to death...
 

Tielhard

Banned
Wozza & MerryPrankster (have you changed your nom d’wotsit?)

Sorry guys I really have not made the situation clear. With the battle stations in place the Soviet Union can first strike with almost no warning (about a minute total). If the Soviets have the only battle stations in high orbit, they are effectively untouchable. This does not limit the USA’s ability to first strike, although the Soviets will have slightly more warning than without the battle stations. It does mean that the USA’s ability to counter strike is very limited. The degree of limitation being dependent on exactly what is in orbit where. Assume that all or most of the US strategic bomber force are destroyed either on the ground or in the air during a first strike, so too is the C4 infrastructure and the silo based missiles. That leaves, as MerryPrankster suggests the SLBM fleet except for those in port which will have been lost in the first strike. Now the interesting bit, it is my understanding that SLBMs have to be launched one at a time for a number of technical reasons. So if the Soviets have some KE weapons or a rail gun in Low Earth Orbit (where it must be said they are vulnerable) they can hit the submarine (under water) in a few minutes once it reveals its position by firing. If they only have the high orbital battle stations then they have to rely on second echelon nukes and these will take longer to reach the targets.

The whole point about this scenario is that lowers the nuclear threshold to a very low level. The USA know they must first strike to have any chance of, I was going to say victory, but what I really mean is severely damaging the Soviet Union. The Soviets know that if they wait the USA must attack sooner or later and that if they first strike they may well come out of the conflict almost unharmed.

Destroying the Soviet space facilities would force the Soviets into a first strike as it is their best option and the duration of their opportunity to launch one will be limited by the stores on the battle stations.
 
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