Another aspect that I believe is often overlooked is evidence, in Boomer, the Vehicle Guides and elsewhere, that the Soviet Union invaded Norway before US, UK and Canada crossed the IGB. I imagine this occurred as Soviet intelligence realized NATO was perhaps preparing to enter the fray and the Soviets decided to preempt this move by interdicting the North Atlantic sea lanes.
While I still think it was a foolish move to enter the Soviet Union, it may have been part of the rational used to justify such an advance. Taking Murmansk along with other portions of Belorus and Ukraine surely would made it very difficult for the USSR to continue the fight.
With hindsight its very easy to see that had NATO forces entered Poland, Czechoslovakia or Hungary the people there would have risen up against their Soviet occupiers. Heck even without hindsight, the events of 1956, 1968 and 1980 should have clued the developers into the fact that the Warsaw Pact was a house of cards held together only by the presence of Soviet troops. A more realistic approach may have been to have the Soviet Union fall into Civil War in mid-1997 which then turns into a nuclear exchange as the hardline faction exacts revenge on the West.
Benjamin
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