WI: Soviet depends on nuclear deterrence instead of conventional forces

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?
Okay looking at what the Soviets are going to want to keep here

PVO Strany is not getting cut at all, meant to protect USSR from NATO bombers with nukes. Strategic missile troops might very well be expanded and certainly will not be cut

Regarding the airforce, Long Range Aviation would not be cut. The same regarding air transport (useful for intervention in third world). That leaves Frontal Aviation to be cut, 9 of 13 Frontal Aviation Air Armies were focused on Europe, 3 forward deployed. I suppose you could reduce it to one forward deployed and 3 or 4 in the European USSR, so you can remove 4 or 5 air armies, out of effectively 17

The Soviet Navy, depends. surface forces are not getting cut, they are needed to protect SSBN bastions which of course are staying, likewise amphibious forces are useful for intervening in third world, so those and marines are staying. SSKs are not getting cut, needed to protect the bastions, most of the SSNs were intended for either defense as well or hunting US SSBNs so staying. So at most figure cut half of the SSGNs by shifting to a definsive posture, so 30-40 nuclear subs out of 200 cut, likewise can cut in half the anti shipping air squadrons

The Army would see the big savings. The VVS is not getting cut, as it is used for third world intervention, but it is only 7 divisions out of ~210. Forward deployed were 20 ground divisions in Germany, 2 in Poland, 5 in Czechoslovakia and 4 in Hungary. USSR is going to want to outnumber the 6 East German divisions, so figure 7-8 there, not want to draw down vis a vis the 10 Czechoslovak divisions, so stay there but based differently, nor draw down in Poland/Hungary, so drop 13-14 divisions there. Can likewise cut forces in European USSR from ~70 divisions to ~30. That reduces ~55 divisions or about a quarter of the USSR's ground forces. Add in a reduction to training units for another 10 dropped, plus reduced non divisional forces and mobilization forces

Son on average you are talking a ~30% or less reduction in military budget for the Army and Air Force, maybe 10% with the Navy, none for PVO and Strategic Rocket Forces
 

RousseauX

Donor
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.
Does it matter though?

All you need to do is launch enough nukes to destroy a couple big American cities

I really have trouble believing us first strike can disable the Soviets strategic rocket force to prevent that, and plus eventually both sides have submarine based nukes which makes first strike wipe out impossible
 

RousseauX

Donor
Okay looking at what the Soviets are going to want to keep here

PVO Strany is not getting cut at all, meant to protect USSR from NATO bombers with nukes. Strategic missile troops might very well be expanded and certainly will not be cut

Regarding the airforce, Long Range Aviation would not be cut. The same regarding air transport (useful for intervention in third world). That leaves Frontal Aviation to be cut, 9 of 13 Frontal Aviation Air Armies were focused on Europe, 3 forward deployed. I suppose you could reduce it to one forward deployed and 3 or 4 in the European USSR, so you can remove 4 or 5 air armies, out of effectively 17

The Soviet Navy, depends. surface forces are not getting cut, they are needed to protect SSBN bastions which of course are staying, likewise amphibious forces are useful for intervening in third world, so those and marines are staying. SSKs are not getting cut, needed to protect the bastions, most of the SSNs were intended for either defense as well or hunting US SSBNs so staying. So at most figure cut half of the SSGNs by shifting to a definsive posture, so 30-40 nuclear subs out of 200 cut, likewise can cut in half the anti shipping air squadrons

The Army would see the big savings. The VVS is not getting cut, as it is used for third world intervention, but it is only 7 divisions out of ~210. Forward deployed were 20 ground divisions in Germany, 2 in Poland, 5 in Czechoslovakia and 4 in Hungary. USSR is going to want to outnumber the 6 East German divisions, so figure 7-8 there, not want to draw down vis a vis the 10 Czechoslovak divisions, so stay there but based differently, nor draw down in Poland/Hungary, so drop 13-14 divisions there. Can likewise cut forces in European USSR from ~70 divisions to ~30. That reduces ~55 divisions or about a quarter of the USSR's ground forces. Add in a reduction to training units for another 10 dropped, plus reduced non divisional forces and mobilization forces

Son on average you are talking a ~30% or less reduction in military budget for the Army and Air Force, maybe 10% with the Navy, none for PVO and Strategic Rocket Forces
And you could reduce war pact divisions too, once you decide there isn't going to be a conveniental war there's limited value in having 10 Czech divisions instead of 3
 
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

Generally the Soviets emphasized pre-emption over launch-on-warning even after acquiring BMEWs. That is, if they believed a US nuclear strike was imminent, they’d try to launch first. Launch-on-strategic warning instead of launch-on-tactical warning that BMEWs would provide, so-to-speak. The downside obviously was that this could lead to stuff like the Able Archer incident, where during a period of high-tensions they may misinterpret otherwise routine NATO measures as preparations for attack.
 
Does it matter though?

All you need to do is launch enough nukes to destroy a couple big American cities

I really have trouble believing us first strike can disable the Soviets strategic rocket force to prevent that, and plus eventually both sides have submarine based nukes which makes first strike wipe out impossible
I'm doubtful that the
Soviets would have considered that the ability to destroy a couple of big American cities would have been sufficient to deter a U.S. attack.

In my humble opinion the Soviets would likely have wanted to be able to guarantee that they could inflict un acceptable damage on the U.S. Cities, economic infrastructure etc and seriously disrupt the ability of the U.S. military and government to function in a post war setting.

Destroying a few large cities in the U.S. while leaving a largely intact US military and a functioning US civilian leadership would seem a recipe for disaster to me.
 
In my humble opinion the Soviets would likely have wanted to be able to guarantee that they could inflict un acceptable damage...
[snip]
Destroying a few large cities in the U.S. while leaving a largely intact US military and a functioning US civilian leadership would seem a recipe for disaster to me.

Historically speaking, countries have tended to regard “loss of a few large cities” as being bad enough to count as unacceptable damage. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, the prospect of losing “a few large cities” was the most likely outcome for the damage suffered by the US of a nuclear war between the USSR and USA and that was still enough deterrent enough for Kennedy to reject the proposals made for any outright military strike.
 
Historically speaking, countries have tended to regard “loss of a few large cities” as being bad enough to count as unacceptable damage. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, the prospect of losing “a few large cities” was the most likely outcome for the damage suffered by the US of a nuclear war between the USSR and USA and that was still enough deterrent enough for Kennedy to reject the proposals made for any outright military strike.
That may be, but historically both the U.S. and the Soviets / Russians have gone to considerable efforts to maintain nuclear forces capable of inflicting considerably more damage on one another in any plausible scenario.

Also in the context of this thread where it was postulated that the Soviets might rely on nuclear deterrence as opposed to strong conventional forces I just don't see the Soviets accepting that being able to destroy a couple of US cities would be an adqueate level of deterrence.

Ie.. An accidental border incident spirals out of control. The west rapidly gains the upper hand in the fighting, attempts to mediate an end to the conflict fail, the Soviet leadership says enough is enough and orders the SRF to destroy the two largest U.S. Cities as per a hypothetical deterrent plan. Sorry I just don't see this ending well for the Soviets unless the Soviets have some additional capabilities to deter a massive U.S. response, or have sufficiently robust forces to engage in some form of nuclear war fighting / escalation.

Presumably the U.S. response to their two largest cities being destroyed would be rather massive.
 
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The west rapidly gains the upper hand in the fighting, attempts to mediate an end to the conflict fail, the Soviet leadership says enough is enough and orders the SRF to destroy the two largest U.S. Cities as per their deterrent plans.

That'd be batshit. If the Soviets are launching a strategic counter-value strike on US cities, then the situation has already escalated to the point that their not gonna limit it to just two. That's the sort of thing where you go all-in, because once you start deliberately burning your enemy's cities then reason is going to quickly fall by the way side for pure vengeance. A more realistic doctrine, more in line with Russian nuclear thinking today, would be selective tactical nuclear strikes against the most threatening NATO spearheads. That would still be risky but it still offers way more opportunity for de-escalation following the attack then the en-masse slaughter of American civilian.

Sorry I just don't see this ending well for the Soviets unless the Soviets have some additional capabilities to deter a massive U.S. response, or have sufficiently robust forces to engage in some form of nuclear war fighting / escalation.

Well, according to the OP, the Soviets decide on this after they have already gathered that level of nuclear force. Despite the lack of BMEWs and concerns about decapitation strikes, the Soviet nuclear forces by the late-60s/early-70s were sufficiently robust that they could have conceivably ridden through an American first-strike and still been intact enough to deliver a devastating, if not annihilatory, counter-blow against the US.
 
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Might be harder dealing with the Warsaw Pact if you don't have enough manpower to take down dissidents without weakening your position at home and on the borders. Plus there is the issue of how, from what I have read, the Soviet people were frightened st the thought of nuclear war but knew that if it came, there would be little they could do on the ground. Taking about the civilians and such. More importantly was that they apparently had plans for after the war which suggested they didn't think it would be the end of the world and that they would get to rebuilding and salvaging what they could. In such a case focusing on nuclear weapons would both increase an arms race AND leave them with less structuralized manpower on the ground to retain order. There is also the issue of the job market. Could all those potential extra laborer help out in factories? Or would it just lead to overfilled workloads for factories that had work stoppage for the first week each month while they waited for resources o be delivered.

And of course there is the issue of the Great Patriotic War. What better way to bring everyone together than to keep men carrying rifles, moving about their own country and those they conquered/liberated in a Eastern Europe, all the while talking about Western Betrayals, Nazis in the West German government, attempts by the Entente during the Revolution to strangle it in its cradle... The Red Army was the USSR's pride. Not sure if it allowed as much social mobility as it did in Latin America and other places, but it at least theoretically brought everyone together.
 

RousseauX

Donor
I'm doubtful that the
Soviets would have considered that the ability to destroy a couple of big American cities would have been sufficient to deter a U.S. attack.

In my humble opinion the Soviets would likely have wanted to be able to guarantee that they could inflict un acceptable damage on the U.S. Cities, economic infrastructure etc and seriously disrupt the ability of the U.S. military and government to function in a post war setting.

Destroying a few large cities in the U.S. while leaving a largely intact US military and a functioning US civilian leadership would seem a recipe for disaster to me.
If you have 10,000 nuclear warheads or so you need less than 10% of it to hit to destroy the US

I mean I basically don't buy a US nuclear first strike can destroy 90%+ of Soviet retaliatory capacities
 
If you have 10,000 nuclear warheads or so you need less than 10% of it to hit to destroy the US

I mean I basically don't buy a US nuclear first strike can destroy 90%+ of Soviet retaliatory capacities
Okay.. That makes sense... IMHO even 10 percent of the historical Soviet nuclear arsenal from the 70's onwards could do massive damage to the U.S.
 
That'd be batshit. If the Soviets are launching a strategic counter-value strike on US cities, then the situation has already escalated to the point that their not gonna limit it to just two. That's the sort of thing where you go all-in, because once you start deliberately burning your enemy's cities then hid reason is going to quickly fall by the way side for pure vengeance. A more realistic doctrine, more in line with Russian nuclear thinking today, would be selective tactical nuclear strikes against the most threatening NATO spearheads. That would still be risky but it still offers way more opportunity for de-escalation following the attack then the en-masse slaughter of American civilian.



Well, according to the OP, the Soviets decide on this after they have already gathered that level of nuclear force. Despite the lack of BMEWs and concerns about decapitation strikes, the Soviet nuclear forces by the late-60s/early-70s were sufficiently robust that they could have conceivably ridden through an American first-strike and still been intact enough to deliver a devastating, if not annihilatory, counter-blow against the US.
We seem to be going around in circles here.. My point is that a minimal nuclear deterance force that can only destroy two (or perhaps a few) large cities is unlikely to be adqueate for the Soviet Union during the Cold War, especially if the Soviet Union has also cut back their conventional forces to the point that they are relying on nuclear forces to deter a conventional attack.

If "going all in" means the Soviets can only destroy a handful of US cities then I don't see the conflict ending well for the Soviets.
 
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.

Khrushchev wanted exactly what the OP suggests. It was a pipe dream but not at all for some of the reasons you give here--though I certainly grant the Soviet military-industrial complex was a major factor. And it is conceivable though hardly plainly evident that the Kremlin included some people who dreamed that maybe someday they might be able to "export revolution or conduct major foreign interventions." Perhaps you refer to the latter, interventions, in the context of internal to the Warsaw Pact. They most certainly did that, repeatedly. But outside the boundaries set by the extent of Red Army advances in the course of defeating Hitler and Japan in World War II, as allies of the western powers and not opponents (yet--obviously people in both the Soviet Union and the West looked beyond the war during the war and the alliance was tense and ambiguous for that reason) the USSR was never once, to my knowledge, able to "export revolution or conduct major foreign interventions." Western powers could and did do precisely that--the coups putting more right-wing and amenable to US interests (as defined by factions like the Dulles brothers, if not our broadest and most humane self-image) in places like Guatemala and Iran, the anti-Nicaraguan Contras of the 1980s, the overthrow of Allende in Chile, these are cases of "exporting revolution and conducting major foreign interventions." The Suez Crisis of 1956 was an example of Western powers, Britain and France in collaboration with Israel, believing they would be able to get away with doing that, and other interventions by Britain and France in their former colonial spheres count as such too. Western powers could do it, but the Cold War was not quite as mirror-image symmetrical as people might assume. The Soviets never had an opportunity to do anything similar--to use brute force based outside the target nation to batter and break its legitimate government and invade to compel a regime change to their liking. Even in Afghanistan right on their border, they only acted with military force after a homegrown domestic Communist coup had taken over on its own, and then factions within it in the course of infighting that threatened to collapse the whole thing begged for Soviet help. In that case the Red Army was able to move in en masse, because of Afghanistan being right there on their border. All other instances of Soviet aid overseas involved much smaller numbers of Soviet troops, and were mostly matters of shipping them arms to be wielded by domestic forces, because the Warsaw Pact did not dominate world trade channels--the western powers did.

There was generally no way that the western powers could legitimately block shipments of Soviet weapons, or even personnel, from going to ports where the government already in power there wanted to receive them. That would, short of declared war, be piracy, and the one counterexample I can think of, the Cuban missile crisis, in which Kennedy implemented a "blockade" of Cuba was precisely a matter of verging on total thermonuclear war. Vice versa there was no way the Soviet navy could mount an expedition to invade and intervene in any country--even nations on the Soviet border were protected by international norms and the readiness of Western powers to threaten nuclear war over any sort of overt invasion.

If anyone in the Kremlin even considered that keeping the Red Army around on the scale they did had to do with readiness to export revolution and intervene overseas, they were dreaming rosy-red daydreams and presumably on drugs of some kind, or at best, looking forward with longing to that equally vague and rosy-red far future in which by "inevitable" processes due to the presumed weaknesses of capitalism and the presumed superior economic and technical prospects of communistic centrally planned economies, the Soviet bloc would gradually gain prestige and legitimacy while the Western bloc would decay and implode; this might open up the prospect of Soviet bloc forces acting as Western powers of the early Cold War years commonly did. But note it would only do so at a time when violent overthrow by external power would be less and less necessary.

Whatever perception you might have that advances of Soviet power into places like Cuba, Vietnam or Nicaragua had anything to do with the Red Army's ability to act like US Marines or British Commandos, I think you'll find no historic evidence to back it up. When the Soviets were described as "intervening" in places like these or Ethiopia or anywhere else that claimed a more or less Leninist inspiration, they were always using legitimate global trading channels to provide aid to domestic revolutionaries who had already secured the beachhead Soviet freighters brought them more guns with, and these domestic rebels were in charge of the success or failure of their movements. It was often the case that the scattered leftist-nationalist movements claiming Soviet support were acting against the interests of the Kremlin, and they got backing because the prestige of the USSR as motherland of Communist revolution would be discredited if they did not support these loose cannon rebels.

So--arguably Soviet arms, which were a major part though not the whole of the large military expenses the OP wishes to discuss saving by means of reliance on ICBM deterrence alone, would be an expense related to "projection of power," but definitely not in the manner you suggest. In a future as envisioned by Khrushchev in which the legitimacy of capitalist regimes is imploding and Leninist revolution is on the march domestically and spontaneously, because of the superior example of the Soviet system, they would hardly require intervention forces, though perhaps circumstances might call for one to be developed.

But where the Soviet Union really really did require massive armies heavily armed was in the matter of keeping control within their own "house"--the Warsaw Pact itself was in no serious sense a voluntary defensive alliance, it was the political cloak of straightforward Russian imperialism. Downsize the Red Army and Moscow would lose control of their whole defensive/colonized European fringe in very short order. To an extent, the Red Army even existed to suppress armed rebellion within the USSR itself--quite obviously in places like Lithuania, but there were anti-Stalinist uprisings scattered all through Soviet territory after WWII, and God only knows when the last of them flared up.

Khrushchev, who sincerely believed the USSR and WP in general was on the track to an economically and socially superior future, might look forward to the day in the future, some decades hence from his late 50s-early 60s standpoint, when the process of catching up and overtaking the west had gone so far that the constant rumblings of resentment against Soviet dictatorship in eastern Europe might quiet down of their own accord, and the eastern bloc nations become truly voluntarily aligned to the pact and come to see it as to their advantage. On that day, if it could ever come, he would hope the Red Army divisions might be withdrawn and disbanded at last; surely by then domestic insurrection within the USSR would be a thing of a quaint and gladly surpassed past as well. In thinking the East Germans and Poles and Hungarians and others would ever be mollified enough merely by finding themselves on the cutting edge of history, and forgive the generations of oppression and resentment (some of which to be sure, involved the desire of some Eastern Europeans to support an agenda essentially the same as Hitler's--I don't wish to over-glorify the nature of Eastern European resistance and resentment here!) Khrushchev was being way too optimistic, and as a former proconsul of Stalinist policy in Europe I suppose he was realistic enough to realize that day would be long in coming at any rate.

But aside from the inertia of an established and comfortable MIC, and the objective need of a proper military establishment to maintain a certain level of conventional proficiency, the Red Army simply had to remain massive as long as the legitimacy of Communist rule was in some doubt, which it was every moment it existed OTL.

The Red Army used a system of universal male conscription; every young man in a certain age range would be certain to be called to Red Army training and service for some years. (Other modes of service were deemed legally equivalent had at least the pretext of training up a man for wartime service--these softer modes were often the recourse of the young man from families with suitable Party connections. With these exceptions, understood as at least pretending to be an alternative mode of military service rather than any sort of exemption from it, every man born in the USSR faced the obligation to spend years in the Army). Quite obviously a big part of the expense of the Red Army was this universal service model, but consider the ideological importance of imposing sacrifice on equal terms to a Communist regime. Also of course, Soviet experience in the Great Patriotic War underscored a deep paranoia that deemed that every possible resource of defense should be developed since the enemy powers seek to overwhelm and destroy Russia completely.

Thus--even if the first generation of Soviet ICBMs, or even the second (OP's mid-60s) had been good enough to be a reliable deterrent even factoring in the possibility Western powers could decimate them and perhaps even defend against them to some extent all on their own, the Soviet regime could never seriously contemplate downsizing their military radically. They might judiciously trim it down here or there but overall the Red Army was going to be required and Soviet society was organized around it. This was not because they wished to contemplate playing pirate around the world, which was the province of Western forces, but for entirely other reasons.

And this is a large part of why and how Nikita Khrushchev was couped out (peacefully) and exiled from the Kremlin, and the Brezhnev era began.
 
The trick for the to proceed is as follows.

A bit of a personality transplant for Nikita. No boasting on making Missiles and Bombers.
Accept Ikes 'Open Skies'

Now for Conventional levels, if you cut the size of the local Pact Contribution, you don't need as many Soviet Divisions to ride herd over them.

For Conscription, have a 'Peace Corp' service, followed by a shorter term in the Military, but put in more benefits for those who enlist for a longer term, similar to what the US did late in the Draft program.

The goal, a smaller, but more professional force.

As soon a Sputnik flies, you know that eventually the US will catch up and surpass, but aim for parity of Nuclear forces.

Projections will place that in the mid-late '60s

So play nice.
Don't do stupid stuff like the Missile Crisis. Your ICBMs will soon reach all of CONUS anyway.

A smaller Military in the '50s might improve things enough for the overall 2nd World economy that you won't have the embarrassment of a Berlin Crisis with people escaping.

A smarter response to Eastern Berliner fleeing, is to pull a Castro and empty the prisons, and drop them off by the Brandenburg Gate. West Berlin will be the ones putting of the Wall, not you.
Between that, and no Missile Crisis in Cuba, Nikita will have enough juice to stay in power, as the economy improves from lower military spending, while having a SAGEski early warning network.

With only the stain of Hungary in '56 (PoD is too late to change that) Soviet Communism will start looking pretty good to the useful idiots in the West

By time you reach warhead parity, start looking for Arms Treaties to limit growth, be the Peacemaker. Replace the old missiles with improved models ASAP, but keep similar numbers
 
Whatever perception you might have that advances of Soviet power into places like Cuba, Vietnam or Nicaragua had anything to do with the Red Army's ability to act like US Marines or British Commandos, I think you'll find no historic evidence to back it up.
*snip*
The Soviets never had an opportunity to do anything similar--to use brute force based outside the target nation to batter and break its legitimate government and invade to compel a regime change to their liking.

I'd like to interject a moment and note that this is and isn't true. It's not true in the sense that there is historic evidence for Soviet power projection on such a level: during the latter part of the Cold War the Soviets did develop the necessary large amphibious fleet and logistical assets that they could have, in theory, deployed large expeditionary amphibious forces anywhere in the world as the Western forces throughout the Cold War. We even have an instance where they almost did so: the Yom Kippur War, when the Soviets mobilized considerable forces for deployment to Syria. However, that same example shows why this statement is true. Soviet power projection in this field was ultimately contingent on the Americans letting it happen, as even after the Soviet Navy became the second most powerful in the world during the 70's it still was in no way capable of taking on the USN in open waters and so was essentially entirely reliant upon American permission to engage in that sort of activity. Yet American commitment to containment basically meant the US was never going to let the Soviets freely exercise that capacity. Again, the Yom Kippur War: in reaction to the imminent Soviet intervention, the USN readied itself to interdict. The war ended before things could escalate further, but I have never seen any indication that there was any doubt on either side that the Soviet amphib force would have been SOL had the Sixth Fleet attacked it.
 

Puzzle

Donor
Okay.. That makes sense... IMHO even 10 percent of the historical Soviet nuclear arsenal from the 70's onwards could do massive damage to the U.S.
Massive damage yes, but not necessarily crippling. If a random set of 90% is removed some targets are going to get lucky, meaning that the US and the West is knocked back to the 30s rather than the stone age. Once you start doing the math the absurd numbers of warheads start to look halfway reasonable.
 
Massive damage yes, but not necessarily crippling. If a random set of 90% is removed some targets are going to get lucky, meaning that the US and the West is knocked back to the 30s rather than the stone age. Once you start doing the math the absurd numbers of warheads start to look halfway reasonable.
in 1970, the USSR had 10,538 warheads, the USA 26,492.
1977, 23,044 to 25,342
1985, 39,197 and the US with 23,510

Was the US half as safe in 1985 as 1977?

Now the US had pretty much given up on Civil Defense by 1970, seeing it was pretty much pointless at that point with a full exchange.

Since that wasn't a military secret, The Soviets would have noticed that the USA thought the US would be wrecked in WWIII

But they wanted to waste a lot of money on making the rubble bounce in CONUS, for some reason after 1970
 
The troop draw down could potentially leave the Soviets in an odd spot if they still try to maintain the Warsaw Pact and hegemony in Eastern Europe. Particularly if one or several of the Eastern European countries has a domestic uprising like Hungary in 1956 where the west decides not to intervene. The Soviets would have fewer troops in proximity and be in a worse position to intervene in that situation, especially in the event the national military defects.
 
The trick for the to proceed is as follows.

A bit of a personality transplant for Nikita. No boasting on making Missiles and Bombers.
Accept Ikes 'Open Skies'

Now for Conventional levels, if you cut the size of the local Pact Contribution, you don't need as many Soviet Divisions to ride herd over them.

For Conscription, have a 'Peace Corp' service, followed by a shorter term in the Military, but put in more benefits for those who enlist for a longer term, similar to what the US did late in the Draft program.

The goal, a smaller, but more professional force.

As soon a Sputnik flies, you know that eventually the US will catch up and surpass, but aim for parity of Nuclear forces.

Projections will place that in the mid-late '60s

So play nice.
Don't do stupid stuff like the Missile Crisis. Your ICBMs will soon reach all of CONUS anyway.

A smaller Military in the '50s might improve things enough for the overall 2nd World economy that you won't have the embarrassment of a Berlin Crisis with people escaping.

A smarter response to Eastern Berliner fleeing, is to pull a Castro and empty the prisons, and drop them off by the Brandenburg Gate. West Berlin will be the ones putting of the Wall, not you.
Between that, and no Missile Crisis in Cuba, Nikita will have enough juice to stay in power, as the economy improves from lower military spending, while having a SAGEski early warning network.

With only the stain of Hungary in '56 (PoD is too late to change that) Soviet Communism will start looking pretty good to the useful idiots in the West

By time you reach warhead parity, start looking for Arms Treaties to limit growth, be the Peacemaker. Replace the old missiles with improved models ASAP, but keep similar numbers

This is all well and good, until a group of people in one of your satellite states wants to have fair elections and then that group starts rallying people in the streets and you have to decide whether you're going to allow these citizens to actually have elections that your preferred government will almost certainly lose, or whether it's time to bring the tanks back in.
 
This is all well and good, until a group of people in one of your satellite states wants to have fair elections and then that group starts rallying people in the streets and you have to decide whether you're going to allow these citizens to actually have elections that your preferred government will almost certainly lose, or whether it's time to bring the tanks back in.

Why? Czechoslovakia, even with the Human face of Socialism pasted on, wasn't planning to leave the Pact. It wouldn't matter if they had fair elections or not.
Let the Warsaw Pact be a 'Big Tent'
Maybe Albania stays in the Pact.

Czechoslovakia was going to try economic reforms. Let them try.
 
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