Quote:
Originally Posted by Ursus Maior
Starting a shooting war is likely to set off a nuclear war and Germany would be the epicentre. If you have any love for your live, your family and/or your country, you keep the peace at (almost) all costs. Nuclear war will devestate most of Europe, large parts of North America and the USSR. No one wins in this game, unless you don't play. This not debatable, since it - by design - is a key concept of T2K as well as popular knowledge at the time.
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I'm not questioning the validity of your arguments, but this thinking strikes me as somewhat inflexible. We're not talking about reality here, we're talking about realism, and that's not quite the same thing.
If the excerpt quoted above is an incontrovertible fact, then why wouldn't this principle apply equally to every other nation in Europe- or anywhere on the planet, for that matter (barring the occasional unhinged, tin pot dictator)? It wouldn't only be German politicians on both sides of the Iron Curtain that understand that a shooting war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact in Europe stands a good chance of going nuclear at some point. So, if this premise applies universally, then
no one starts a war, and you don't end up with Twilight 2000- you end up with reality. Not very fun. Perhaps reality is the enemy of realism, in this case.
But back to the main topic of discussion here. During the course of its nearly fifty years as a polity, did the West German gov't always behave in wholly rational, totally lawful, and completely risk-averse ways? I don't know enough about its post-war history to answer that question accurately- I defer to your knowledge regarding the subject. However, to believe that constitutional democracies somehow can't or won't start wars of aggression is, IMHO, a bit naive. As a US citizen, I am painfully aware that constitutional democracies can and do start wars, sometimes purely to advance their own interests. The same holds true of constitutional democracies who are signatories to international treaties, and/or members of alliances. If the Germanies are incapable (and I'm obviouslystill having a hard time accepting that proposition) of kicking off a shooting in Europe, then some
other country has to, as you put it, willfully commit the world to self-immolation, and start the war. That seems like passing the buck, or playing favorites. I suppose one could take the easy way out and throw a maniacal dictator- the
deus ex machina of alternate history- into the mix to trigger WW3, but that's a bit of a copout, IMHO.
I think the key to creating a
realistic start to WW3 in Europe is to create a stumble-into-it scenario. The participants don't necessarily intend to start a major shooting war, but things take a turn and spiral out of control. This requires tension, misunderstandings, miscalculations, mistakes, accidents even. Are German governments and military leaders somehow immune to these stumbling blocks? Is this approach realistic only if it's the Polish, American, or Soviet governments and/or military leaders displaying poor judgment and making bad decisions? Again, seems like playing favorites.
If a German trigger point doesn't work for you, it doesn't work, and I don't begrudge you going with something that does. Even though we see things a little differently, I appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts and answer my questions. You've given me a lot of food for thought.
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