There are a lot of unknowns about this. The Russians who have been willing to talk about the issue can’t agree. The Russians planned to be on the invading side of things for reasons that are well-documented elsewhere. I think the most germane questions revolve around issues like the effectiveness of ECM and ECCM, the state of the opposing sides when the balloon actually went up, and the ability of the Soviets to withstand deliberate attacks on their chain of command and choke points. For what it’s worth, one of the documents that came to Huachuca in the early 90’s collected feedback from a number of Russians on the question. They claimed that the attack was supposed to include a preparatory nuclear bombardment because the Soviets didn’t believe they could reach their stop line without nuclear fires from the beginning of the operation. Therefore, it was important to keep the operation from being necessary. For what that’s worth…
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