WI: Soviet depends on nuclear deterrence instead of conventional forces

RousseauX

Donor
What if in the early-mid 1960s the Soviet leadership basically decides once it gets 5,000 nuclear Missiles or so and can credibly destroy the US/western Europe with them they are going to significantly reduce conventional forces in Europe?

They would still keep around enough divisions/equipment to suppress potential revolts in Warsaw pact countries and to defeat a couple divisions of NATO troops attacking and a defensive war with China. But otherwise rely on having nukes pointed at New York City to prevent any general war and give up conventional parity with NATO in case of a full-scale war.

Can NATO find ways exploit a conventionally weaker USSR, or can the USSR essentially achieve the same thing they did OTL with confronting NATO but at a substantially cheaper cost?
 
Losing conventional parity means that the USSR no longer has the ability to export revolution or conduct major foreign interventions lest it be confronted by the US/NATO. This doesn't seem like a big problem but it does create a political weakness for whichever officials are espousing this viewpoint. The Soviet military-industrial complex is a deep-seated faction and will not give up their influence and privileges without a struggle. IOTL Gorbachev marketed his reform program (at least in the beginning) on the grounds that economic efficiency was needed to maintain military parity with the West.
 

trurle

Banned
The cost difference would not be very large. The Soviets IOTL has many subsidised sales of weapons abroad to support regimes they liked, and actually these shipments were much larger resource drain.
Losing conventional parity means that the USSR no longer has the ability to export revolution or conduct major foreign interventions lest it be confronted by the US/NATO. This doesn't seem like a big problem but it does create a political weakness for whichever officials are espousing this viewpoint. The Soviet military-industrial complex is a deep-seated faction and will not give up their influence and privileges without a struggle. IOTL Gorbachev marketed his reform program (at least in the beginning) on the grounds that economic efficiency was needed to maintain military parity with the West.
Yes, stopping weapons export will definitely help to free more domestic resources. Of course, LeX is correct - the POD to reduce the power of Soviet militaries is complicated, and better to happen before 1955 to be effective.
 
It would also have interesting implications during the times when they assumed NATO was prepared to make a move on them, notably in November of 1983.
 
It would also have interesting implications during the times when they assumed NATO was prepared to make a move on them, notably in November of 1983.

Given that the butterflies from a defensive USSR would be, there would be a whole different dynamic with lower conventional forces in the Warsaw Pact.

Like no real urgent need for neutron bombs to blunt a multiple Guards divisions thrusting past Fulda, or M1 Tanks or A-10s

It will be a TL that is far more calm than OTL
 

RousseauX

Donor
Losing conventional parity means that the USSR no longer has the ability to export revolution or conduct major foreign interventions lest it be confronted by the US/NATO. This doesn't seem like a big problem but it does create a political weakness for whichever officials are espousing this viewpoint. The Soviet military-industrial complex is a deep-seated faction and will not give up their influence and privileges without a struggle. IOTL Gorbachev marketed his reform program (at least in the beginning) on the grounds that economic efficiency was needed to maintain military parity with the West.
Does it really?

You don't need divisions in Europe to send aid to Africa or asia
 
Does it really?

You don't need divisions in Europe to send aid to Africa or asia

You do if said aid is military and you want to be able react to a potential rust-crack in your Iron Curtain like a Hungarian Revolution or Prague Spring without running the risk of the West intervening militarily to support them. The nuclear sledgehammer can't really be deployed, in such cases, meaning you run the risk of having your sphere of influence chipped away with bit by bit until the outlying Soviet republics themselves are vulnerable to influence via "Capitalist creep"
 
Given that the butterflies from a defensive USSR would be, there would be a whole different dynamic with lower conventional forces in the Warsaw Pact.

Like no real urgent need for neutron bombs to blunt a multiple Guards divisions thrusting past Fulda, or M1 Tanks or A-10s

It will be a TL that is far more calm than OTL

I don't necessarily know if that's the case. It's well documented that the Soviets were paranoid that the West would do a nuclear sneak attack, in the same way NATO was paranoid the USSR would try a seven days to the Rhine push. If the Soviets are still retaining enough troops to hold their satellite states, NATO is going to keep troops in western Europe, if not just because the voting public in France and West Germany are not going to be super quick to give the Soviets the benefit of the doubt on that. There's still going to be paranoia in the West if SS-20s are deployed (which they're going to be if the Soviet Union is now relying even more on their nuclear deterrent) and the obvious US response of Pershing-2 missiles in West Germany.

From a nuclear deterrence standpoint, this scenario is much worse, because without a large conventional force to back themselves up, the Soviet Union really would have about 4 minutes for their use it or lose it ICBM force, which at this point, would be their sole credible way to defend themselves. If it's a counter-value first strike policy by the Soviet Union for self-defense, they're going to be very aware that a first strike against these missiles would be catastrophic. So, we're going to have this standoff where each side has MRBMs pointed at each other with extremely short timeframes to figure out what's real and what's an early warning system error, and each know a first strike against their nuclear deterrent would effectively lose a war in a few hours.
 

RousseauX

Donor
You do if said aid is military and you want to be able react to a potential rust-crack in your Iron Curtain like a Hungarian Revolution or Prague Spring without running the risk of the West intervening militarily to support them. The nuclear sledgehammer can't really be deployed, in such cases, meaning you run the risk of having your sphere of influence chipped away with bit by bit until the outlying Soviet republics themselves are vulnerable to influence via "Capitalist creep"
why?

if a NATO divisions crosses the border to support the Czechs you threaten the use of tactical nukes, the US is unlikely to risk the loss of NYC to liberate Prague

if you want to send aid to vietnam or africa you just send weapons: you don't need conventional divisions in Europe to send them

this was, btw, pretty much the US strategy towards metering the red army in the 1950s
 
why?

if a NATO divisions crosses the border to support the Czechs you threaten the use of tactical nukes, the US is unlikely to risk the loss of NYC to liberate Prague

if you want to send aid to vietnam or africa you just send weapons: you don't need conventional divisions in Europe to send them

this was, btw, pretty much the US strategy towards metering the red army in the 1950s

Because the West can do the same to the USSR with higher accuracy and speed. The US actually maintains advantage over the USSR through out the cold war in terms of nuclear armaments, esp. with the introduction of Pershing 2, GLCM based in UK and Trident system in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Soviet think tanks were of the view the Pershing 2 and GLCM reduced Soviet reaction time significantly as they have the range to hit cruical air defence fascilities, paving way for a decapitation strike. The fact that the Trident system is of sufficient accuracy to be used as counter-force weapon gave nightmares to Soviet nuclear planners.
 
Nukes were cheaper than large conventional forces: that why Ike went so heavy on nuclear forces.

If Soviets were so worried about decapitation strikes, they sure went at it strangely.

They were very slow in making beyond the horizon, early warning radars like BMEWs

The Henhouse Radars started in 1971. One North at Murmansk, another south at Sevastopol, another at Siberia, with other buildings

Compare what the 'Woodpecker' was pointed vs BMEWS
The one in Chernobyl faced East, so it was of more use in telemetry for their own launches.

The one in Siberia at Komsomolsk-on-Amur faced NE.

And even these weren't operational til the mid '70s

US started their early warning missile radars in 1958, and looked west from Alaska, North over Canada, NE from Greenland and East from the UK, the last finished at Fylingdales in 1963
 
Nukes were cheaper than large conventional forces: that why Ike went so heavy on nuclear forces.

If Soviets were so worried about decapitation strikes, they sure went at it strangely.

They were very slow in making beyond the horizon, early warning radars like BMEWs

The Henhouse Radars started in 1971. One North at Murmansk, another south at Sevastopol, another at Siberia, with other buildings

Compare what the 'Woodpecker' was pointed vs BMEWS
The one in Chernobyl faced East, so it was of more use in telemetry for their own launches.

The one in Siberia at Komsomolsk-on-Amur faced NE.

And even these weren't operational til the mid '70s

US started their early warning missile radars in 1958, and looked west from Alaska, North over Canada, NE from Greenland and East from the UK, the last finished at Fylingdales in 1963

The Soviet electronics tech is running behind and poor warning system was one of the reasons for their worries of decapitation strikes.
 
If Soviets were so worried about decapitation strikes, they sure went at it strangely.

Soviet concerns over a potential decapitation strike pushed them to develop Perimetr/“The Dead Hand”, a device which by the standards of western nuclear deterrence logic is but a few steps away from insanity. Especially since they didn’t tell the West about it.
 
Soviet concerns over a potential decapitation strike pushed them to develop Perimetr/“The Dead Hand”, a device which by the standards of western nuclear deterrence logic is but a few steps away from insanity. Especially since they didn’t tell the West about it.

Beware that the Perimetr is NOT fully automatic once switched on. That is a myth. It's semi-automatic, not an automatic revenge machine. Human decision is still required to launch the missiles.
 
Beware that the Perimetr is NOT fully automatic once switched on. That is a myth. It's semi-automatic, not an automatic revenge machine. Human decision is still required to launch the missiles.

I’m actually very much aware of that. The Russians did contemplate a fully-automatic system and apparently even got as far as designing it before deciding against it. But even the semi-automatic system is a lot more then most Western theorists were comfortable with, as are some of it’s additional features like the ability to remote launch any ready-to-fire missiles without any input from the men actually manning the launchers. The degree of centralization and automation of the Russian nuclear arsenal terrifies Western analysts and, if it wasn't a physical fact with evidence to back, they'd probably refuse to believe the Russians would construct the systems they have.
 
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Soviet concerns over a potential decapitation strike pushed them to develop Perimetr/“The Dead Hand”, a device which by the standards of western nuclear deterrence logic is but a few steps away from insanity. Especially since they didn’t tell the West about it.

That was online in 1983
 
I’m actually very much aware of that. But even the semi-automatic system is a lot more then most Western theorists were comfortable with, as are some of it’s additional features like the ability to remote launch any ready missiles without any input from the men actually manning the launchers. The degree of centralization and automation of the Russian nuclear arsenal terrifies Western analysts and, if it wasn't a physical fact with evidence to back, they'd probably refuse to believe the Russians would construct the systems they have.

In a sense, that's not too different from SSBN operations.
 
The Soviet electronics tech is running behind and poor warning system was one of the reasons for their worries of decapitation strikes.

Still attempted no projects till the late '60s, almost decade after the US started BMEWS

The lack of defense networks was worrying to the West, makes one wonder about all plans the Soviets were contemplating where defense seemed an afterthought
 
What if in the early-mid 1960s the Soviet leadership basically decides once it gets 5,000 nuclear Missiles or so and can credibly destroy the US/western Europe with them they are going to significantly reduce conventional forces in Europe?

They would still keep around enough divisions/equipment to suppress potential revolts in Warsaw pact countries and to defeat a couple divisions of NATO troops attacking and a defensive war with China. But otherwise rely on having nukes pointed at New York City to prevent any general war and give up conventional parity with NATO in case of a full-scale war.

Can NATO find ways exploit a conventionally weaker USSR, or can the USSR essentially achieve the same thing they did OTL with confronting NATO but at a substantially cheaper cost?

What happens/happened is the military get/got pissed off with Khrushchev cutting their manpower and throw their support behind his ouster. Replacing expensive conventional forces with cheaper nuclear rockets was in fact Khrushchev's policy.
 
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