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Old 06-13-2021, 01:15 PM
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Raellus Raellus is online now
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Forgive me- I'm not trying to pick a fight or anything- but something that you posted in another thread compels me to circle back to the concept of Germany as a possible flashpoint for WW3 in Europe, or, more to the point, your insistence that such a scenario is too unrealistic to suspend disbelief.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ursus Maior View Post
I always liked the premise of the novel Arc Light by Eric L. Harry. Essentially (quoting Wikipedia), "China and Russia clash in Siberia, and war brews between the United States and North Korea, a series of accidents and misunderstandings lead to a Russian nuclear strike against the United States. The U.S. retaliates against Russia, and World War III begins." This could easily happen in a timeline, where the USSR would still be around. In essence, the USSR/Russia and the USA need to be committed elsewhere, i. e. the Pacific, so that a crisis in Europe can overstretch ressources and overload capacities to acurately assess the situation. Errors and bad decisions have to be made.
You've stridently contended that the Germanies (W. Germany, in particular) would not make "errors and bad decisions" leading to a shooting war in Europe. You've stated that 20th century German history, and post-WW2 politics and society especially, render such an event almost unthinkable, or at least highly implausible. Fair enough.

On the other hand, you seem totally comfortable with the premise that USSR and USA would make such massive errors and bad decisions that nuclear strikes against each other would follow. Apparently, that is somehow much more plausible, in your mind, than a German origination of any fighting in Europe. Fair enough but, with all due respect, this seems to me like a double-standard.

Since Nagasaki, no nation has willingly or accidentally used nuclear weapons against another- this despite numerous misunderstandings. When MacArthur advocated using nuclear weapons against the Chinese after their "surprise" intervention in Korea, Truman fired him (there were other reasons, but that was the final straw). When Soviet early warning systems an American ICBM launch in 1983 (multiple times!), Stanislav Petrov did not launch a counterstrike. Even during the Cuban Missile crisis, when both Kennedy and Khrushchev were being encouraged by their top military advisors to launch a preemptive first strike on their respective national rivals (and Khrushchev was being egged on by his ally, Castro), neither leader did so. There have also been numerous occasions during the Cold War when either the USA or USSR were preoccupied with major military misadventures outside of Europe (Korea/Vietnam and Afghanistan, respectively, all of which, to one degree or another, was a proxy war between the superpowers), yet didn't come to blows. Both the USA and Soviet Union were familiar with the concept of MAD. Launching even a limited first strike with strategic nuclear weapons would open the door for massive retaliation. As you pointed out earlier in this thread, the only way to win a nuclear war is not to play the game. So are Russians and American people, governments, and militaries just that much more bellicose, reckless, and/or prone to human error than their German counterparts?

I don't think I'm being jingoistic here. I don't have a problem with a T2k background where the USA starts or escalates a global war. I don't see that as beyond the realm of possibility at all. But I could raise the same points about precedent, constitutional law, governmental checks and balances, and the USA's own peace and anti-nuke movements, if I chose to argue against an American fulcrum for WW3. Heck, I could make a compelling socio-cultural arguments for the USSR, an oppressive one-party state. The Soviets lost over 20,000,000 people killed during WW2. Twenty million (at least)! Is a country that suffered 20m dead in the last major war going to start another major war with a peer (i.e. the USA), much less a nuclear-armed one? (Although the PLA had nukes in 1995, their capacity to deliver them was much less than it is today, nor did they have near as many as the USA; a well-planned first strike by the USSR could effectively destroy the PLA's ability to retaliate massively; this was not the case with the USA.). The Soviets would know just about better than anyone the cost of fighting a large-scale war, let alone a nuclear one. This made them less likely to start one, rather than more.

Anyway, you're entitled to your opinions, and I'm not arguing that you're wrong. Nor do I hope to change your mind. That being said, for some reason, double-standards bother me a lot, and I felt compelled to point out what I see as a rather significant one (i.e. W. Germany c.1995 was essentially incapable of actions which could start a war, whereas the USSR and USA were not only fully capable of such actions, but also much more likely to take them).

P.S. Did you get a chance to take another look at v2.2's take on Germany yet? I'm still really curious about your thoughts on it.

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Last edited by Raellus; 06-13-2021 at 10:00 PM.
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