Think historically. In WW1, Germany faced a 2 front war. The internal problems in Russia caused and early collapse and allowed the Germans to change from a 2 front war to a 1 front war, which resulted in their ability to mount the 1918 Offensive. However, in WW2, Germany faced a 2 front war where both fronts were not going to collapse until completely conquered. Germany was unable to even "dig in" and wait because they did not have the forces to do so. Their only hope of success was to stay on the offensive and knock nations out of the fighting.
In our WW3, its the Soviets that are fighting the 2 front war. We keep talking about Nato, but no one is thinking about the fact that the USSR is also fighting in China, Korea, Iran. Granted, in Korea and Iran there are US/Nato forces there as well, but in China the Soviets are facing a large army that is tying up lots of assets. Even trying to later supress partisians is going to take a lot of forces.
My belief is that the Nato commanders would feel that they were dragged into a war they didn't want. The goal would be, as stated above by some of the better thinkers in this forum, to make a limited attack to liberate eastern european countries, seize some important economic territory like grain producing regions, the limited warm weather seaports, and manufactuering centers. Under attack from two fronts, the USSR would be "starved out" and would settle for terms early.
Going one step further, my thought is that the NATO commanders never believed that they would completely overun all of the USSR. However, the USSR believed that they would overrun Europe, and when NATO actually started to invade their home territories, the USSR assumed that NATOs goal was complete conquest, (as that was there goal) and thus the nukes came out.
|