I have to agree that, if the Soviets were "up" and willing and ready to fight, they could do NATO a LOT of damage. If they've had time to prune out the deadwood (both people and policies) that accumulates in peacetime, the likelihood of that happening increases. I have to wonder, though, how easy it would be to support a fight against the Chinese, make the Far Eastern Front(s) into wartime-capable forces, and shuffle the Western and Southwestern Fronts' leadership and forces into wartime status, too.
If anything, I think the Western and SW TVDs might fall apart even quicker than in canon, if they are really caught flat-footed by the German unification.
Along those lines, though, I and some other had disagreements with Peters' ending: the West German government threw in the towel, seeing the civilian casualties the Soviet forces were deliberately inflicting. Peters is a really good writer and analyst, however, so I am willing to chalk it up to literary license.
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My Twilight claim to fame: I ran "Allegheny Uprising" at Allegheny College, spring of 1988.
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