Quote:
Originally Posted by dragoon500ly
From a ready use of tactical nukes, the decision to go strategic would have happened in a very short time. Would it have been the limited strategic that GDW "cannoned"? IMO, this was a short-sighted approach, once the decision was made to nuke the US/UK....it would have an all or nothing attack.
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Policy is one thing. The decisions made by a handful of people at the top once in the decision-making cycle is another. An all-out attack by the Soviet Union on the West would result in the Soviet leadership losing power. Whether they actually died in the exchange isn’t relevant. Kingship of a barren wasteland hardly counts as kingship. The pattern described by GDW makes perfect sense if one places human nature above doctrine. The idea behind using nukes in the first place was to bring the situation under control, not immediately to spiral it downward into the s***house.
As a perfect example, we should turn our eyes to the situation in southeastern Europe. The v1 chronology makes it clear that the Soviets used nukes against the Yugoslavs, the Romanians, and the Turks—all of whom were NATO members at the time. NATO retaliation appears absent. For the non-nuclear members of NATO, the nuclear shield provided by the US would have been one of the most important motives for being in NATO. Clearly, the US leadership balked at using nukes in southeastern Europe, even in retaliation for Soviet use. On a visceral level, I deeply dislike this part of the chronology because it makes the US senior leadership look like gutless turds (feedback on how this relates to real life is neither solicited nor welcome). At the cerebral level, I love this part of the chronology because it adds complexity and mystery to the chronology. What exactly happened such that the US failed to live up to her treaty obligations in this theater?