The road to destruction - T2k 1.0

[raketenjagdpanzer]

Speculate with me for a moment, fellow gamers...

In the final analysis, trying to unravel what exactly went "wrong" from 1990-1997 (and a couple years beyond) may well be impossible for future historians in the T2k timeline. But there are some big picture events that are fairly easy to get ahold of, and with that in mind...

Was the US in the wrong? Did the US have what happened to it coming? Was the US - and NATO - the enemy that the Soviets had always decried it as? I think the answer is closer to yes than many in the west might think is comfortable.

Consider: NATO's stated goal was ostensibly always defense. To be ready for a Soviet invasion. The US supplied the Chinese with lend-lease to fight the Soviets (as the 1.0 rules, I think, state: many conservative politicians were only too happy to watch the world's largest communist governments destroy one another). Then, the US and Germany attacked the Warsaw Pact - and scored frightening (to the Soviets) successes on the Western Front. Losing in Manchuria, losing in Germany and soon Poland, the Soviets had to see this as a repeat of 1941. A reunited German army, invading for the third time in less than 80 years? For the fourth (or fifth?) time in their history?

The USSR was in the same position the US and NATO thought they'd be at this point: losing ground, trying to buy time with lives, fearing for their very survival against an implacable foe. Thus, they did probably what NATO was prepared to do under the same circumstances (which we, in our own real-world now know would've happened, too).

If the DDR military had mutinied and appealed to the FRG's commanders to let them flee West, or help them if they were attacked, and then fight a defensive-only war within Germany's borders to stop the Soviets taking them, rather than the US becoming involved and taking the fight to Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Poland and further points east, I think (just my opinion about in-game events!), maybe the world might have squeaked by without the disaster that happened. Maybe.

Ultimately, you have to be willing to win a war to fight it, however. Stopping the Soviets from continuing the pressure on a Germany risen and united by unilateral decision would have absolutely meant strikes into Warsaw Pact countries, and hitting Soviet assets abroad. There's no way around that. Widening the war would inevitably mean going beyond the East German theatre.

Had the DDR forces successfully mutinied against the Warsaw Pact on their own, or with minimal assistance from NATO, the Soviets may well have viewed the entire thing as causus belli anyway and attacked into the West with the same end results. Whose fault the nuclear exchange was doesn't matter to the two-to-three billion dead in 2000 - but ultimately as much as it pains me to say this...

Yeah, what happened to the United States during the Twilight War was in no small part the fault of the United States.

(Note: as with everything I say regarding in-T2k-universe events, this doesn't reflect any real world opinions, feelings, ideas or ideology I may or may not have - I don't care what the Clinton Doctrine or GW Bush foreign policy or even Reagan or Bush I meant/means in the slightest in terms of the game/universe. Cracking the fourth wall and letting discussion leak in from our own political opinions can only end in tears.)

[bobcat]

i gotta agree with you on most points. however as everyone that has run troops knows a strictly defensive war is lost before the first round is fired. ergo going into Poland was the only sane choice they had. could they have tried to sue for peace before they hit Warsaw probably. but staying within Germany and simply trying to beat back the Russian military would have been at best foolish, if not criminally negligent.

[Adm.Lee]

I'm not so sure, Bobcat. IMO, if the USSR and PRC are beating each other up, then the Soviets would have to be really crazy to want to open another front in Europe at the same time. The East & West Germans could be forgiven for thinking they could pull off their coup without much payback from the Soviets.

I see the NATO drive across the Oder in 1997 as a big mistake, both in hindsight and not-- how could the West have been sure that the Soviets would have been any threat, much less an immediate threat, to the new Germany?

[Raellus]

Oh, I definitely agree that the U.S. was the aggressor and instigator. They used the resistance of Soviet garrison units in East Germany during the forced reunification as a casus belli to attempt to liberate all of eastern Europe and hasten the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was incredibly opportunistic. Under the circumstances, the JCS motives for "going for it" and attempting to end the Soviet threat to the West once and for all are justifiable. On the other hand, it was an extremely risky gamble and, untimately, the costs far outweighed the gains.

IIRC, the aggressive nature of assistance rendered to W. Germany was the main reason that NATO fell apart.

And yes, the Soviets would have been able to claim, and rightly so, that it was fighting a war of self defense against naked capitalist aggression.

Could the U.S./NATO claim that they were fighting to liberate Europe from Communist, Soviet domination? Absolutely.

Jeez, sounds kind of like the Soviet and German public platforms leading up to/during the early part of WWII! Before you flame me for comparing the U.S. in the T2KU to Nazi Germany, that's not what I'm saying. The Nazis just wanted to replace one brand of ideology and repression with their own and thereby creating its own pan-European empire with the Russian steppes as its bread-basket. The U.S. did intend to replace the Soviet system with its own prefered liberal capitalist democracy but it was not empire-building. Repression, ethnic cleansing, and colonization were not on the menu. Right or wrong, the U.S. would have been fighting for freedom and democracy.

[Legbreaker]

The war in Europe all boils down to the seven ethic Germans in the Polish military who disobeyed lawful orders.
The Germans then reacted by invading Poland.
The US and Britain soon followed suit.

If Germany had not reacted in this way, or the seven had been quietly dealt with by the Poles, it's unlikely war in that area would have started. There'd have still been some serious tension however it's unlikely to have resulted in much more than an increase in border incidents.

The Greece-Turkey war would not have required Nato intervention as Turkey would not have been fighting on two fronts, and therefore it's unlikely Italy would have become embroiled, let alone leave Nato.

The way I see it, it was the refusal of the seven ethnic Germans in the Polish Military to follow lawful orders which triggered a massive over reaction and aggression by Germany, and the STUPID commitment to war by the US and Britain which set the world on a downward and unstoppable spiral to Armageddon.

[natehale1971]

Leg,you're talking about Version 2.2 timeline... this thread was about the Version 1.0 timeline.

The war in Europe all boils down to the seven ethic Germans in the Polish military who disobeyed lawful orders.
The Germans then reacted by invading Poland.
The US and Britain soon followed suit.

If Germany had not reacted in this way, or the seven had been quietly dealt with by the Poles, it's unlikely war in that area would have started. There'd have still been some serious tension however it's unlikely to have resulted in much more than an increase in border incidents.

The Greece-Turkey war would not have required Nato intervention as Turkey would not have been fighting on two fronts, and therefore it's unlikely Italy would have become embroiled, let alone leave Nato.

The way I see it, it was the refusal of the seven ethnic Germans in the Polish Military to follow lawful orders which triggered a massive over reaction and aggression by Germany, and the STUPID commitment to war by the US and Britain which set the world on a downward and unstoppable spiral to Armageddon.