Soviet Renaissance

[Adm.Lee]

I just finished reading "The great gamble: the Soviet war in Afghanistan", and was struck by how crappy the Soviet Army was in the '80s. I think I knew all this back then, but I haven't read much on them since then.

Conscripts were beaten down by their senior privates, not the noncoms. Officers were often absent, noncoms ran a lot of the actions themselves (which fed a tendency towards non-coordination).
Supplies were shoddy, nonexistent, or stolen. Several veterans say they only ate what they could steal from the nearest supply dump or buy from the Afghans (usually trading gas or ammo for food and warm clothing).
Looting was rampant, especially of Western consumer goods (electronics and jeans), despite orders and beliefs that they were there to help the locals.

We have seen what the US & British forces could do in both Iraq and Afghanistan since 1990, their abilities from training and improved equipment are rather impressive. The GDW guys, I'm sure, didn't see all of that coming, much as they didn't see the quiet death of the Soviet Union in 1991, either.

So, in T2k, how do these guys hold off the Chinese /and/ the West for 4+ years? That would have taken an effort in line with what the Soviets did in 1941-45, but now they're the ones facing a two-front war. I think a big reason is going to have to be a renaissance in Soviet military thinking and organization 1989-1995, similar to what the US did after its own Vietnam War near-collapse. Afghan War veterans in and out of the service will have to have banded together to make sure this doesn't happen again!

Opinions, comments?