1997 hypothetical

[Adm.Lee]

I spent last week at a wargaming convention. Since this convention focuses on long WW2 games, we have a lot of time to debate issue big and small. One dinnertime topic sprang from, "Were the Germans insane to invade the USSR in 1941?"
One held forth that if you looked at history, the Russians were the great losers of Europe: anyone and everyone had defeated them, time and time again. By 1941, even the Finns had beaten them off. The Germans could especially look at their own experience in 1914-1918, when they had ended up overrunning Ukraine and the Baltic coast. Also, we have Hitler's famous quote that the Communist regime was fragile, and a strong push would collapse it, and the peoples would not contest German dominance.
My opinion was that yes, one could defeat the Russians (Soviets), but that's not the same thing as conquering Russia. It's too big, and there is always another Russian army. Whether or not the Germans mistreated the populace, Russia is too big to conquer in a short time. After all, it took the Russians centuries to do it.

That said, this week, I wondered about NATO and 1997 in the T2k timeline. NATO's armies, fully mobilized and well-supported by air, had crossed Poland by late summer, and stood at the Soviet border. Presumably, the flank facing Czechoslovakia was guarded by some forces. Now what? Follow the path of Napoleon? Sit tight? Find someplace defensible and dig in? Ask for terms?

We "know" that NATO advance forces crossed the Polish-Soviet frontier, but was it a full invasion, or patrol actions? Reconnaissance in force? Was NATO surprised by the strength of the Soviet riposte?

It's something to sit around the fire in the cantonment and jaw about. I'm interested in opinions, informed or otherwise. I'm not sure what I believe just yet.