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Old 02-05-2010, 08:48 PM
fightingflamingo fightingflamingo is offline
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I'd always assumed that until the US, UK, and Canada entered the DDR to support the Bundeswehr, that the remainder of NATO continued to actively patrol and defend FRG airspace, allowing for an orderly execution of REFORGER, and evacuation of dependants in a threatless air environment. The reasoning for this is twofold.
First, since the US hasn't entered the DDR, the WP has a reasonable chance of destroying the Bundeswehr, and NVA defectors, without engaging USAREUR. Attacking airbases in the FRG, even if the intent is to only attack Luftwaffe bases, could lead to escalation and drawing the US into the conflict due to the close proximity of bases in the FRG, and the inability to accurately discern targets until the bombs hit runway (thinking in terms of AWACS indentifying penetrating aircraft while they fly racetracks over the Rhine).

Second, prior to intervention NATO views the FRG intervention in the DDR as an internal German affair. Canon states that withdrawls from NATO don't occur until after intervention on the part of the US/UK/Canada, so until that point even the French were still full members of the alliance and had a treaty obligation to defend FRG airspace. Primarily this would fall on the hands of those nations which would choose to intervene, however until they did so, and the withdrawl of a large portion of the alliance as a result, air strikes into the FRG could have served to bring the full weight of NATO (will all of it's prewar members) to aid the Germans, something I sure the Soviet leadership would have been keen to avoid if possible, considering to the point of intervention the European War was a sideshow when compared to the meatgrinder which existed in China and the Soviet Far East.
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