Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr Quatro
I disagree ... Russia would launch a first strike nuclear all out war if and I say if they thought they could get away with it.
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No, most likely no. What they would do is launch a preemptive nuclear strike if
for some other reason they would have decided to go to an all-out conventional world war against NATO. There is no such thing like a purely conventional all out war between Russia and NATO.
Many people until today seem to think that in case of the cold war having turned hot, there would have been an escalation ladder, from special commandos infiltrating NATO bases, to preparatory air raids, to the huge ground offensive, until finally NATO would have fallen back to nuclear tactical weapons and then the strategic reply would follow by the soviets and then the Americans' big nuclear strike simultaneously being launched.
That is nonsense,
it makes no sense at all to have all your conventional forces being mauled - by air power for example - in a conventional war: and when you cannot push the offensive anymore because your conventional forces are battered and broken down - then you launch nuclear strikes. What really would have been happened is the opening with nuclear strikes to reduce the enemy's air and ground forces, and THEN moving one's own conventional forces in. If one got away with the nuclear first strike, which necessarily must have been a decapitation strike not only taking out NATO air power, but its ability to retaliate nuclear as well.
The false ICBM launch alarm from 1983 also showed that Soviet officers after all also were human beings who were not really eager to start turning Earth into a radiating hellhole for a reason that sounded not reasonable.