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Reality is probably more unrealistic than people think, and funnier to boot. People who were at least slightly aware of military planning in Poland but not nec

by p_l 5y ago

Reality is probably more unrealistic than people think, and funnier to boot. People who were at least slightly aware of military planning in Poland but not necessarily with the "why" of the plan (this included pretty big portion of citizenry, due to conscription) tend to think Warsaw Pact's claims about defensive warfare were just lies. Meanwhile the defensive warfare concept was to counterattack once the "inevitable NATO strike against communism" happens, to as quickly as possible take logistic routes that America could use to wage war in Europe. Atlantic is pretty big issue for any invasion not just towards America, after all. Then you hit the next layer of hilarious misunderstandings (YMMV) which is western planners somehow not getting the memo that Soviet decision makers in Moscow actually believed in NATO first strike (honestly, I don't blame them) and in turn often wargaming first strike from warsaw pact side. Supposedly at one point, early in 1990s, some high rank officers from both sides got to meet and look at unredacted data about capacity of both sides in Europe, with NATO representative going "oh god, with those numbers you could steamroll us, why you didn't?" and Soviet one being "ugh we could have done with much less forces, we didn't actually want to start a war"

wolverine876 5y ago
The Soviet Union invaded and took control of many of their neighbors, including most of Eastern and Central Europe, Central Asia (including invading Afghanistan in 1979), as well as creating and supporting regimes elsewhere (Cuba, etc.). When the people of some countries (e.g., Hungary, Czechoslovakia) tried to form democracies, the Soviets sent in tanks. They tried to sieze Berlin early on. It's not at all far-fetched that they would try to expand further into Europe. Do you have good sources for the claims above? It looks pretty revisionist, and matches Soviet propaganda, to suggest the Soviets weren't aggressive and expansionist.
- wolf550e 5y ago
  Both things are true. The Soviets were very afraid of NATO because NATO was always richer and had more population and industry. So the Soviets wanted a lot of buffer. To have the front far away from Russia, and be able to fall back a long way before being forced to fight on Russian land. That is what the conquest of Eastern Europe was for. The propping up of communist states worldwide was an attempt to not get surrounded by American client states / satellites / allies. Look at China propping up North Korea. Why? Because they see South Korea as an American client state and they do not want to have a border with it. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_LeMay#Strategic_Air_Command https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_LeMay#Strategic_Air_Com... for what made Soviets think maybe NATO is serious about first strike.
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    Yes, the poor victim Soviets. Not expansionist at all. You can make up whatever rationalizations you want, but they did conquer other countries on a scale rarely seen in history. The rest, your claims about their motivations and poor victimhood, are baseless.
    - the_af 5y ago
      > You can make up whatever rationalizations The parent post is not "making up" rationalizations nor do I see an attempt to justify Soviet repression. The Soviets were victims... earlier, during World War II, when their territory was razed to the ground and their people targeted for total racial extermination, and also faced the brunt of that war -- the most destructive war ever -- and did most of the blood shedding. That has to leave a permanent mark in the national psyche. A lot of what they did afterwards was making sure nobody and no country was ever in the position to do that to them, again. They definitely were creating buffer zones to protect their homeland, and I believe most modern analyses agree on this. This doesn't make them saints. Yes, they were repressive and brutal to satellites they believed felt out of line. But it's not "making up rationalizations", it's what actually happened, and it does explain things. Also, > Not expansionist at all Most powers were expansionist in some way or the other during World War II and its immediate aftermath.
      - konart 5y ago
        >Most powers were expansionist in some way or the other during World War II and its immediate aftermath. Most powers are expansionists in some way at any point of time in history. I think a quote from "Seventeen Moments of Spring" is quite appropriate here. (the dialog is between a soviet spy and a german general while they are on a train. The war is almost over at this point): General: States are like people. Static makes them sick. Borders suffocate them. They need movement, this is an axiom. Movement is war. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T2s7WM4Uqk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T2s7WM4Uqk (no english subs)
      - vba616 5y ago
        >The Soviets were victims... earlier, during World War II, when their territory was razed to the ground and their people targeted for total racial extermination World War II didn't start with the invasion of the Soviet Union, it started with Germany and the Soviet Union agreeing to dismember Poland, IIRC. And then somehow or other there was a bit of unpleasantness with Finland, wasn't there?
- p_l 5y ago
  I'm not saying they didn't take control, I'm saying that the reasons for those actions might differ from the obvious take - they were fond of buffer zones, for example (resulting in Finland being "left free" due to neutrality, though they pushed them to arm up - to prevent NATO access - or lose that neutrality). Controlled neighbours were just as good if not better as third world (aka neutral) countries in that respect. N.B. part of the conflict between Trotsky and Stalin was that Trotsky did want to expand the revolution with military force, whereas Stalin proposed "socialism in one country". The belief about "western capitalism first strike" was one of the major fuels for the paranoia spiral involved in soviet foreign affairs, combined with experiences starting from western support of "Whites" during revolution, through the rather belligerent actions (especially from USA) once Truman was POTUS (and well, all of Truman doctrine and its long-term effects). A non-trivial issue that shows up from reading as stuff becomes declassified is how both sides constantly misunderstood each other, leading to (in hindsight idiotic) situation where initial ideas about disarmament on Soviet side turn into Berlin airlift. Meanwhile Austrian politicians figure out how to get everyone to leave by making the country neutral. It also didn't help that in Poland we probably didn't finish burying our dead in Warsaw when USA drawn up plans to nuke it as part of nuclear first strike on USSR, plans that I have little doubt were heard in Moscow, further fueling the spiral of cold war. So the end result is a paranoid regime (and from paranoid to controlling there isn't even a step, it's a blink) that, even when some forces try to reduce said paranoia, they stumble upon evidence that it's warranted, resulting in nobody willing to back off (on USA side, you can probably shift some proportions and replace paranoiacs with "communism must die!" die hard ideologists). In the end it's not even one side playing checkers while the other plays chess - it's two sides playing long-distance play-by-mail chess where they delegate their moves to be done by a pigeon[1]. As for propaganda - consider that both sides, to a certain extent, bought into their own propaganda, sometimes even those that should know that a specific aspect of it was false (like JFK strong arming USSR to take missiles out of Cuba, instead of admitting that the missiles were taken away in exchange for removal of the reason they were placed there - which was USA placing missiles in Turkey). As much as the books are fiction, John Le Carre summarised it pretty well in The Secret Pilgrim although from the western PoV (but similar take could be probably pretty much taken about soviets on the average): Smiley muses that the most vulgar thing about the Cold War was that the Western societies learned to "gobble up [their] own propaganda." The West became so convinced of the righteousness of its own cause, and the evil of the Soviets', that it never stopped to examine the ethics of its actions. In the name of expediency, the Circus opened its arms – and its purse – to every petty thug and two-bit con man who called himself an anti-Communist. [1] Referencing a polish idiom about playing chess with pigeon - not only does it not know how to play, it will push the pieces away and shit on the board.
dodobirdlord 5y ago
> Supposedly at one point, early in 1990s, some high rank officers from both sides got to meet and look at unredacted data about capacity of both sides in Europe, with NATO representative going "oh god, with those numbers you could steamroll us, why you didn't?" This makes for a good story but seems pretty unlikely. Recognizing the disparity in army sizes available for rapid deployment in Central Europe, the NATO doctrine through the Cold War was to stop any invasion attempt somewhere in Germany with large-scale use of tactical nuclear weapons. There were enough NATO forces in the area that invading Soviet forces would have to be concentrated enough to be vulnerable to theatre deployment of nuclear weapons.
- p_l 5y ago
  The steamroll, of course, assumed that NATO didn't nuke Western Germany out of existence. And while Warsaw Pact returned to idea of Close-in Air Support later on, the idea of making holes in NATO front by dropping a nuke then blitzing through still hot ground held at least to 1989 in limited fashion. But yes, there's a reason why I put "supposedly". It's a nice story and there might be a kernel of truth to it, but the details probably were different. That said, a lot of the front line units (especially american) in western germany were there to make nice coffins to mobilize public into support for war in europe (and at least some soldiers definitely were aware of the concept).
the_af 5y ago
Yes, Warsaw Pact military policy, planning and wargaming was defensive in nature against a presupposed NATO aggression. The Warsaw Pact itself was formed as a reaction against NATO, which was formed first. The famous "Seven Days to the River Rhine" [1], a Soviet designed 7-day scenario of limited nuclear war between the Warsaw Pact and NATO presupposed a NATO nuclear first-strike. It goes against Cold War era propaganda and of course Hollywood paranoid fiction like Red Dawn, but the Warsaw Pact -- as far as NATO was concerned -- was preparing for a defensive war against the West. Satellite countries and "failing" communist allies are a different matter, and of course the Soviets steamrolled them when they thought it was needed. ---- [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Days_to_the_River_Rhine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Days_to_the_River_Rhine

by p_l 5y ago

wolverine876 5y ago

The Soviet Union invaded and took control of many of their neighbors, including most of Eastern and Central Europe, Central Asia (including invading Afghanistan in 1979), as well as creating and supporting regimes elsewhere (Cuba, etc.). When the people of some countries (e.g., Hungary, Czechoslovakia) tried to form democracies, the Soviets sent in tanks. They tried to sieze Berlin early on. It's not at all far-fetched that they would try to expand further into Europe. Do you have good sources for the claims above? It looks pretty revisionist, and matches Soviet propaganda, to suggest the Soviets weren't aggressive and expansionist.

wolf550e 5y ago
Both things are true. The Soviets were very afraid of NATO because NATO was always richer and had more population and industry. So the Soviets wanted a lot of buffer. To have the front far away from Russia, and be able to fall back a long way before being forced to fight on Russian land. That is what the conquest of Eastern Europe was for. The propping up of communist states worldwide was an attempt to not get surrounded by American client states / satellites / allies. Look at China propping up North Korea. Why? Because they see South Korea as an American client state and they do not want to have a border with it. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_LeMay#Strategic_Air_Command https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_LeMay#Strategic_Air_Com... for what made Soviets think maybe NATO is serious about first strike.
- wolverine876 5y ago
  Yes, the poor victim Soviets. Not expansionist at all. You can make up whatever rationalizations you want, but they did conquer other countries on a scale rarely seen in history. The rest, your claims about their motivations and poor victimhood, are baseless.
  - the_af 5y ago
    > You can make up whatever rationalizations The parent post is not "making up" rationalizations nor do I see an attempt to justify Soviet repression. The Soviets were victims... earlier, during World War II, when their territory was razed to the ground and their people targeted for total racial extermination, and also faced the brunt of that war -- the most destructive war ever -- and did most of the blood shedding. That has to leave a permanent mark in the national psyche. A lot of what they did afterwards was making sure nobody and no country was ever in the position to do that to them, again. They definitely were creating buffer zones to protect their homeland, and I believe most modern analyses agree on this. This doesn't make them saints. Yes, they were repressive and brutal to satellites they believed felt out of line. But it's not "making up rationalizations", it's what actually happened, and it does explain things. Also, > Not expansionist at all Most powers were expansionist in some way or the other during World War II and its immediate aftermath.
    - konart 5y ago
      >Most powers were expansionist in some way or the other during World War II and its immediate aftermath. Most powers are expansionists in some way at any point of time in history. I think a quote from "Seventeen Moments of Spring" is quite appropriate here. (the dialog is between a soviet spy and a german general while they are on a train. The war is almost over at this point): General: States are like people. Static makes them sick. Borders suffocate them. They need movement, this is an axiom. Movement is war. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T2s7WM4Uqk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T2s7WM4Uqk (no english subs)
    - vba616 5y ago
      >The Soviets were victims... earlier, during World War II, when their territory was razed to the ground and their people targeted for total racial extermination World War II didn't start with the invasion of the Soviet Union, it started with Germany and the Soviet Union agreeing to dismember Poland, IIRC. And then somehow or other there was a bit of unpleasantness with Finland, wasn't there?
p_l 5y ago
I'm not saying they didn't take control, I'm saying that the reasons for those actions might differ from the obvious take - they were fond of buffer zones, for example (resulting in Finland being "left free" due to neutrality, though they pushed them to arm up - to prevent NATO access - or lose that neutrality). Controlled neighbours were just as good if not better as third world (aka neutral) countries in that respect. N.B. part of the conflict between Trotsky and Stalin was that Trotsky did want to expand the revolution with military force, whereas Stalin proposed "socialism in one country". The belief about "western capitalism first strike" was one of the major fuels for the paranoia spiral involved in soviet foreign affairs, combined with experiences starting from western support of "Whites" during revolution, through the rather belligerent actions (especially from USA) once Truman was POTUS (and well, all of Truman doctrine and its long-term effects). A non-trivial issue that shows up from reading as stuff becomes declassified is how both sides constantly misunderstood each other, leading to (in hindsight idiotic) situation where initial ideas about disarmament on Soviet side turn into Berlin airlift. Meanwhile Austrian politicians figure out how to get everyone to leave by making the country neutral. It also didn't help that in Poland we probably didn't finish burying our dead in Warsaw when USA drawn up plans to nuke it as part of nuclear first strike on USSR, plans that I have little doubt were heard in Moscow, further fueling the spiral of cold war. So the end result is a paranoid regime (and from paranoid to controlling there isn't even a step, it's a blink) that, even when some forces try to reduce said paranoia, they stumble upon evidence that it's warranted, resulting in nobody willing to back off (on USA side, you can probably shift some proportions and replace paranoiacs with "communism must die!" die hard ideologists). In the end it's not even one side playing checkers while the other plays chess - it's two sides playing long-distance play-by-mail chess where they delegate their moves to be done by a pigeon[1]. As for propaganda - consider that both sides, to a certain extent, bought into their own propaganda, sometimes even those that should know that a specific aspect of it was false (like JFK strong arming USSR to take missiles out of Cuba, instead of admitting that the missiles were taken away in exchange for removal of the reason they were placed there - which was USA placing missiles in Turkey). As much as the books are fiction, John Le Carre summarised it pretty well in The Secret Pilgrim although from the western PoV (but similar take could be probably pretty much taken about soviets on the average): Smiley muses that the most vulgar thing about the Cold War was that the Western societies learned to "gobble up [their] own propaganda." The West became so convinced of the righteousness of its own cause, and the evil of the Soviets', that it never stopped to examine the ethics of its actions. In the name of expediency, the Circus opened its arms – and its purse – to every petty thug and two-bit con man who called himself an anti-Communist. [1] Referencing a polish idiom about playing chess with pigeon - not only does it not know how to play, it will push the pieces away and shit on the board.

dodobirdlord 5y ago

> Supposedly at one point, early in 1990s, some high rank officers from both sides got to meet and look at unredacted data about capacity of both sides in Europe, with NATO representative going "oh god, with those numbers you could steamroll us, why you didn't?" This makes for a good story but seems pretty unlikely. Recognizing the disparity in army sizes available for rapid deployment in Central Europe, the NATO doctrine through the Cold War was to stop any invasion attempt somewhere in Germany with large-scale use of tactical nuclear weapons. There were enough NATO forces in the area that invading Soviet forces would have to be concentrated enough to be vulnerable to theatre deployment of nuclear weapons.

p_l 5y ago
The steamroll, of course, assumed that NATO didn't nuke Western Germany out of existence. And while Warsaw Pact returned to idea of Close-in Air Support later on, the idea of making holes in NATO front by dropping a nuke then blitzing through still hot ground held at least to 1989 in limited fashion. But yes, there's a reason why I put "supposedly". It's a nice story and there might be a kernel of truth to it, but the details probably were different. That said, a lot of the front line units (especially american) in western germany were there to make nice coffins to mobilize public into support for war in europe (and at least some soldiers definitely were aware of the concept).

the_af 5y ago

Yes, Warsaw Pact military policy, planning and wargaming was defensive in nature against a presupposed NATO aggression. The Warsaw Pact itself was formed as a reaction against NATO, which was formed first. The famous "Seven Days to the River Rhine" [1], a Soviet designed 7-day scenario of limited nuclear war between the Warsaw Pact and NATO presupposed a NATO nuclear first-strike. It goes against Cold War era propaganda and of course Hollywood paranoid fiction like Red Dawn, but the Warsaw Pact -- as far as NATO was concerned -- was preparing for a defensive war against the West. Satellite countries and "failing" communist allies are a different matter, and of course the Soviets steamrolled them when they thought it was needed. ---- [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Days_to_the_River_Rhine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Days_to_the_River_Rhine