"Warpac wins, then what?" Topic

If the 99 red balloons had gone up and Warpac won a groundwar in Europe what next? Would it have been a phyrric victory, that led to the hasty demise of the Soviet Union? I am assuming limited or no use of tactical nukes, serious attrition to the frontline Soviet forces, high casualties amongst her 'allies' and heavy collateral damage.

Free food, employment, and medical care for all comrade.

Hope you can live on $20 USD – $30 USD a month, at least before the future pending layoffs, and paycuts, like in Cuba.

I seem to recall a 40% paycut, to $18 USD/month, and several million people told they were no longer needed, so could pursue capitalism in a communist country. That was a year, or two ago.

I see Western Europe becoming vassal states with installed puppet governments for many, many years. Extreme looting by the installed power brokers. Most raw material, manufactured goods and food heading east so the Motherland can bask in the, "proven success of communism."

A ground war loss in Europe does not mean the US falls, but the drastic change in power relations, it would have altered politics and ability to prop-up or resist worldwide from that point on (Middle East, India, Africa, Asia, Latin America), hard to tell…

Once they started fighting through the industrial cites, the catstrophic pollution would end the war…

If Warsaw Pact won and western Europe fell under the Soviet umbrella, Soviet communism would still be around because it can plunder the rich resources and industry of conquered Europe. The US would be isolated.

People in the conquered territories would suffer greatly and starve in the Soviet sphere, much like North Korea today.

One might argue that given what's happening in Greece and the euro bloc, as well as the housing bubble burst of 2008 capitalism is showing signs of crack today. Not that I'm a commie, mind you.

If they'd won, Western Europe would probably have become a collection of East Germanys; reasonably well-off by Soviet standards but second-hand shoes poor by anyone else's.

It would have taken many more years before the SU collapsed, but it would still fall eventually. Nothing that inefficient could last forever.

Cuba having been blockaded for so many years is a very poor example. How many nations would survive if it's natural trading partner stopped it from selling it's main products?

Likewise, the USSR itself basically collapsed because it spent so much on defence – that, I suspect, would be the main problem.

China eventually evolved and is now getting richer. It is also encouraging the rise of small and large businesses. It would realy depend on how systems evolved. The Middle East would be Soviet, so such a state would actually have the potential to be wealthy.

We simply don't know – the USSR never felt secure enough to get off a war footing. Are things any better there now? most Russians would say no.

If European had fallen to the reds, and America remained , what would have happened to the US , would they have shifted to a right wing, military dominated state ?

Cuba hasn't been under an embargo for quite some time, and yet is still languishing with a poor economy.

I find it most interesting that China has seen the light, presumably from the success of America, and Hong Kong, amongst others, and has embraced capitalism with gusto, greatly improving its financial power.

Perhaps some other nations around the world might want to take notice.

I'm really surprised at some of the opinions here. You see, the people in WARPAC countries were not "starving", actually they lived better than USSR itslef – even poor countries like Bulgaria or Romania – these two had living standard closer to European part of USSR. Chechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and GDR had better living standards. None of these countries can be compared to North Korea really.
The resources of these countries were not "plundered" by evil Russians, even that some of Eastern European right-wings will say so. They were forced into spending a lot on military, and were pressed hard into following of political line but apart of violent uprisings in Hungary and Chechoslovakia even political dissidents were receiving better treatment than on "mainland". GDR was probably the most hard-line on dissidents (shooting those who tried to escape across the wall).
Even more interesting is, that USSR was mostly doing the same for WARPAC as Russia for other republics within the union – being a donor with cheap energy resources, large-scale industrial construction and guaranteed orders for the satellites'states. You see, USSR has built many high-tech (ok, by the standards of that time) enterprizes in the places were labour was poor trained, creating low quality products with enormous % of rejections – Kirgyzia, Tajikistan, Turkmenia, etc. USSR has to ensure 100% employment, and show everybody that it developes all national regions.
However, when you had high living standard and then you'll be forced to live on lower level, it makes a big problem. Same, when you had access to all information possible and then you're fed with censored broadcasts. Also, a significant portion of middle class might be considerd too rich by standards of their new masters. (You've spent 200USD a month on toy soldiers? You capitalist bastard! ;)) Therefore, situation in occupied Western Europe can be worse for the population than it was in countries that were included in Soviet sphere of influence after WWII.

I think the answer depends on wether the UK remained in the fight. If it did, and perhaps through the Nuclear Deterrent managed to prevent air and sea attacks, then it would have been in the US interest to keep the UK going.

Then US and Canadian forces, joined by refugee European armies, might have started to build up in the UK, sufficient to a point where a seaborne invasion to liberate Western Europe could have been launched….

No wait, I'm getting confused….

Good work Sparker … well done that man.

Nothing good.
-Kle.

Devastating to the US economy to lose trade with Europe. GW might thrive with a few slight changes to their propaganda that could become an arm of the state. "Hail the Emper-err- Party!" ;)

If the WarPac won, all of the wargames we'd be playing would look much like Ogre or Fortress America…or WWII, as Sparker demonstrated.

Plans for military invasion of North America,if the Kremlin felt emboldened enough by a Soviet conquest of the rest of Europe. Logistics would be the main challenge.

'Cuba hasn't been under an embargo for quite some time, and yet is still languishing with a poor economy.'

Oh?

link

link

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Perhaps someone should tell the US government…..

Thanks, Barin1, for a Russian viewpoint. It can get to be an echo chamber around here.

I suppose ultimately it depended what the USSRs war aims were.

Their strategic posture was one of war avoidance, so it would have taken something fairly major to force them to adopt their operational posture of all out attack. Something like a percieved threat to the integrity of the Soviet Union.

Having overrun western Europe, they were highly unlikely to allow the wicked imperialist NATO aggressors to try it again, just as they did with the wicked fascist imperialist Germans, Bulgarians, Rumanians, Hungarians (and Poles, the communist party had a long memory) etc after WW2. So, occupation of the defeated countries it is.

Having lost all its best ground units in Germany, the chances of the UK resisting a Soviet airborne assault are zero. Assuming we aren't having the all out nuclear war option, which we don't seem to be.

So, we look forward to a long Soviet occupation in a somewhat DDR like manner. As Barin says, from an economic pov it isn't that awful, but it isn't great either. More insidious is the loss of freedom and the attentions of the secret police. Not a very cheery prospect.

A boot stamping on a human face forever?

I don't think China is really very different to how it was 20 years ago, 200 years ago or 2000 years ago. Absent a huge external military threat and economic drain, why should the USSR not just have gone on and on? Arguably it has, just in a different form. I see General Secretary Putin is still in charge.

Barin must have been to a different Bulgaria to the one I visited. I went to Plovdiv, Bulgaria in 1985 after a terrifying flight in a knackered old Tu-154. It was exactly the sort of grey, miserable, Orwellian, communist -pit 'worker's paradise' that I imagined it might be – I wasn't disappointed.

It was even worse than Merthyr Tydfil.

There were massive queues outside every shop, even though there was sod-all to buy. There was a near-complete absence of cars aside from very occasional Eastern-bloc horrors being pushed by their drivers and passengers. Every truck carried military markings (our guide told us that they all belonged to the army, but were put to civilian use in peacetime).

The food was absolutely the worst I've ever had, which is somewhat surprising when you consider that their objective was to convince us western kids of the superiority of Communist life. And I grew up in 1970s Britain – it was TRULY bad even when compared to our astonishingly low standards. I've even eaten Egyptian food and survived. What's worse is that I'm quite sure that it was a lot better than what the locals were getting.

Most amusingly, we had to sit through a film extolling the virtues of the glorious worker's paradise that had been created in Bulgaria – lots of happy peasants in bright colours, harvesting corn, grapes and roses and making wine in bright sunshine. Even to our impressionable teenaged eyes, this was laughably at odds with what we could see out of the window.

The French would have nuked 'em if they'd tried invading France.

The Brits would have nuked 'em if they'd tried invading Britain.

More likely everyone would have got nuked long before WarPac got that far. Its difficult to see how a conventional victory by WarPac could end any other way. I suppose there's a possibility that a conventional repulse of the attack might end nuke-less, but not one I'd care to gamble on!

The only way to win is not to play!

Barin, the thing is that when East and West Germany re-united, it took more than a decade to get East Germany back up close to parity with West Germany's standard of living, and the industrial development still isn't the same.

It nearly bankrupted West Germany for a decade to bring East Germany up to speed, and they're still not caught up 25 years later.

'Not as bad as North Korea' isn't saying much.

On the down side, everyone will live in concrete apartment blocks.

On the up side, everyone will live in concrete apartment blocks.

Yes, I know the USA has an embargo against Cuba still.

Doesn't everyone?

But, Canadians and Europeans have been vacationing there for some time……

Is there a reasonable outcome where nuclear weapons would have not been used?

If the Warpac rolls into west germany, odds are nukes will fly.
If they fail to roll into west germany, odds are nukes will fly.
If NATO rolls into east germany, odds are nukes will fly.
If NATO fails to roll into east germany, odds are nukes will fly.

Thanks for all the responses, as someone who has lived and travelled behind the Iron Curtain I somewhat agree with Barin's perspective. interestingly though it was in the 70's and early 80's so perhaps by 85 things really were falling apart.

As to the sceanrio, Sparker's Normandy II would be an amazing scenario to game, and fascinating to try to work out what kit the West would have fielded. I think most of the front line Soviet units, including VDV, Marines and Air assault would have been gutted and the Red Banner fleets SAG's and subs rusting on the bottom. So the US and perhaps the UK would have been safe, though with the loss of the BAOR the UK would probably have Finlandised itself. The Soviets could not historically have allowed it to become the 'unsinkable aircraft carrier'. As for nukes, it's amazing how accomodating countries can be, faced with certain destruction. Though I now have images of a novel where this alternative accomodation with the Soviets is threatened by a rogue British SSBN!

R Mark Davies – you saw conditions that were bad from the UK citizen point of view. However it doesn't mean that life in USSR was better (that's what i was saying actually). One of the worst mistakes of socialism was complete inability to provide most of the population with reasonable living package – all cars were considered luxury, TV price was about 3 monthly wages of an engineer, and people from neighbouring regions were coming to Moscow to buy sausage…

Didn't the Russians have a specific word to describe house fires started by faulty TV's?

Re Western Europe under Communist control, anyone remember "Comrade Dad"? link

It was an old TV series from the 80s set in a Communist-run UK and starring George Cole (from 'Minder'). Despite being an interesting idea as I remember it was one of the least funny comedies I've had the misfortune to watch – more a serialisation of Conservative Party political broadcasts on the perils of socialism and rather transparently aimed at Labour. I do wonder where the funding came from!

Barin,

I think we're in agreement and no, I don't suppose it was any better. The Bulgarian government was trying to show us western kids how wonderful the Workers' Paradise (tm) was, so they only showed us the good bits but it was still truly awful.

Yes, even worse than Merthyr. Shudder…

And yet, the countries of the east bloc were in the top third part of the world, in the Human Development Index.

It's easy to sit at the top of the mountain and point at the guys under you, and say "you should be more like us", but there's a lot of people at the bottom looking up at the guy you are pointing at.

1990 Human Development Index
link

East Germany 110 (20 from the top)
Czechoslovakia 106 (24 from the top)
USSR 105 (25 from the top)
Bulgaria 104 (26 from the top)
Hungary 101 (29 from the top)
Yugoslavia 100 (30 from the top)
Poland 98 (32 from the top)

Albania is 84, highest in the "mid development" tier.

For comparison, the united states is 112 (18 from the top). Denmark is 122 and India is 37.
Japan is at the top at 130, with Niger at the bottom at 1.

For 2000, the score works in reverse

The US ranks 3rd, Denmark 15th for comparison.

East Germany no longer exists. Combined Germany is ranked 14th.

Czech republic is 34th, with Slovakia being 40th (both "high" but worse than before)

Russian federation is 62nd. Ukraine 78th, Belarus 57,
Kazakhstan 73rd (all of these are now "middle development")

Bulgaria is now 60th

Hungary drops to 43rd.

No more yugoslavia of course, but as examples Croatia is 49th

Poland is down to 44th.

The highest ranked country in 2000 is Canada at 1, with Sierra Leone lowest at 174.

For what people at the time were actually thinking and planning in this regard, I highly recommend the two Newport Papers on the famous US Navy "Global War Game" through the 1970s and 1980s. The first is here:
PDF link

Sir John Hackett et al looked at this scenario as the alternative ending in The Third World War The Untold Story.

Thought that was the original ending to his first book, until he was asked to change it. Then we had the faintly ludicrous tit for tat city exchange and the tidy resolution.

Wow absolutely fascinating collins355!