What Could Have Provoked The Soviets To Attempt A Military Solution in 1985-91 time frame?

As many of you know I enjoy conventional World War Three late 1980s to early 1990s scenarios a great deal.

My question is:

What kind of incident known or speculated about in that time frame could've caused the Soviets to start considering options that led them to launch a conventional war with NATO?

Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy gives a fairly decent fictional justification for its war and that's the destruction of the U.S.S.R.s largest refinery and oil field by Muslim terrorists though as far as I know nothing like this ever happened.

Steven Zaloga in his book "Red Thrust" suggests an incident in East Germany that enrages the East German population. He mentions an actual incident that caused trouble involving a Soviet tank that gets lodged on a busy railroad track in East Germany during that time.

IIRC, there was a natural gas leak and explosion in 1988 (about a 10 kiloton equivalence) in the Soviet Union that killed hundreds that might have been the result of U.S. industrial espionage.

 

Probably the most realistic scenario not involving a military attack on Russia would be if we had somehow funded a near successful coup or something along those lines.

 

Interesting what ifs. Personally I think they lost the ability to get any consensus among themselves to even consider such actions against outside situations, and were too consumed with internal fights and economic collapse to launch anything even if they wanted to. They were almost completely dependent on western food and refined petroleum products imports after their bankruptcy and foreign policy failures from 1973 on until at least the early 1990's.

 

There likely were several internal coup attempts; we just didn't hear about them and they buried them.

 

"Near successful" was an operative part of my sentence. The only one I am aware of was the coup against Gorbachav. This was before my time, but I do recall reading there was a period in which they went through leaders like underwear, but I have never read anything to suggest that it was anything other than them selecting really old men for the job.

 

The only scenarios I can think of is Reagan's pointless bloviating somehow tipping the political scales in favor of the Party hard-liners and stopping Gorbachev's reforms dead, and the Army taking over, but I don't think the Army would have been dumb enough to launch wars against anybody, so I suck at finding plausible rationalizations in that particular range of years.

 

I think the Yeltsin era was a dangerously unstable period; at one point the Army surrounded several govt. buildings, at least I think it was on Yeltsin's watch, haven't brushed up on it for a long time.

 

I know they did that during the august coup against Gorby but do not recall anything about it happening under Yeltsin. I think that was how Boris rose to power in part--by leading the opposition to the military coup in 91.

 

Severa

Several hundred died in one coup attempt against Yeltsin during his Presidency; he survived but lost power anyway. I just didn't recall which coup it was the western media had the vids of tanks around Parliament, is all. It was also on his watch many of the states went independent, Georgia, etc. and the SU disintegrated.

 

I think many of you mentioning the "tanks in the streets" during Yeltsin's presidency was when tanks were ordered to open fire on the Russian Parliament building during one of those struggles for power.

Let's roll back at least to say when the Berlin Wall was still standing.

 

As far as I know Russian “Assault on Europe” planned to employ roughly 5 times more tanks than NATO had at its disposition at any point of time of the assault. Majority of these tanks are more advanced (T80) or roughly equal (T64) to US and European versions. USSR mechanized infantry was better equipped, educated and motivated than majority of modern western infantry forces even now. In the sea, NATO is absoultelly superrior. In the Air, Russians had plenty of issues comparing the forces, I believe that in the air NATO should have the upper hand. But Russian concept was the “mobile warfare”, without front lines and large logistical centers. In this concept aviation was supposed to be less effective. This means that Russians wear confident in the outcome of a conventional war (this would affect further decisions). The US and NATO had absolute understanding of above. The only way to stop Russia was to go nuclear at the very beginning. Russians had absolute understanding of NATO intentions to go nuclear. This means, that if Russia is preparing for war, it is preparing for a nuclear war (I thinks that all tanks and infantry fighting and supply vehicles on the western direction are fitted with counter nuclear suites).

All above is to demonstrate how serious the decision was, there wear no “Half-measures” in European theatre. Ether, way Europe would surrender at the very beginning, or Europe would go nuclear, it is a question if US would join immediately or within 6 month to “Liberate” the survivors. Now the outcome is easy to calculate and predict. Large scale conventional war in Europe means nuclear WW3.

What would make Russians go and kill themselves?

The concept of USSR invading Ireland, Australia or the Falkland’s, or deploying marines to Vancouver is both ridiculous and stupid.

USSR houses massive, massive strategical reserve of everything. They learned their lesson in 1941. A war time reserve of oil, gas, meat, salt, 122mm shells, war time Kar98 rifles, thousands and thousands of steam trains that can run on coal and wood, mothballed, especially to retain logistic capability in case of a WW3 or alien invasion. You need to understand. They wear afraid of you in the very same extent as how you wear afraid of them. Any possible shortage of anything can be acquired on the market at any time. USSR, shortage of oil, that’s just ridiculous.

But if you want to write a book, it is absolutely safe to go for a “God from machine” scenario. Russian intercontinental missiles are encapsulated, the fuel lines are physically shut and opened in pre-launch cycle like 2-3 minutes before launch. It is said, that in some years, it was up to 4 times, these valves wear blast open. This is how close we wear.

Reasons are any. Lost bomber struck by a lightning releases payload. A sub hiding under a carrier, hits it, and reactor goes critical. Satellite misinterprets ducks lifting of a pool for a missile launch. A shift of ice cuts a cable to a monitoring station in Greenland and the computer goes nuts. Terrorist false flag attack, done in correct time… Idiots of any scale and position.

Literally, we are all very lucky that we are alive, yet .

 

The U.S. was poorly outfitted to resist chemical warfare, while Soviets were well outfitted, so maybe a scenario where they go chemical and NATO and France somehow don't go nuclear can be dreamed up.

 

That seems to be the case;Yeltsin managed to rescue Gorby and surpassed him in power the process.

 

I think I read somewhere that the whole thing took an incredible toll on Gorbachev's wife's health and that motivated him to move aside as soon as they were liberated. I forget the details, but whatever it was made it sound like it literally almost scared her to death and she never fully recovered from it.

 

That's backwards as hell. The US was far better equipped to fight on a chemical battlefield than the Soviet's were by the mid to late 80's.

 

You can't win the war on land if you lose at sea and the air.

And despite not officially having a "no first use policy" regarding nuclear weapons, in actuality that is what NATO had and the Soviets knew it due to that East German spy operating very high up in NATO planning staffs.

 

He said he wanted Berlin Wall era scenarios, not later years, and the chemical threat was a serious one re the U.S. level of readiness, for most the 1950's-1980's.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_Corps


Beginning in the late 1960s, the chemical warfare capabilities of the United States began to decline due to, in part, a decline in public opinion concerning the corps.[24] The corps continued to be plagued with bad press and mishaps. A 1969 incident, in which 23 soldiers and one Japanese civilian were exposed to sarin on the island of Okinawa while cleaning sarin-filled bombs, created international concern while revealing the presence of chemical munitions in Southeast Asia.[26] The same year as this sarin mishap, President Richard Nixon reaffirmed a no first-use policy on chemical weapons as well as renouncing the use of biological agents.[26] When the U.S. BW program ended in 1969, it had developed seven standardized biological weapons in the form of agents that cause anthrax, tularemia, brucellosis, Q-fever, VEE, and botulism.[20] In addition, Staphylococcal Enterotoxin B was produced as an incapacitating agent.[20]

During summer 1972, Nixon nominated General Creighton Abrams for the post of Army Chief of Staff and upon assuming the post the general and others began to address the reformation of the Army in the wake of Vietnam.[24] As soon as Abrams was sworn in he began to investigate the possibility of merging Chemical Corps into other Army branches. An ad hoc committee, designed to study possibilities, recommended that the Chemical Corps' smoke and flame mission be integrated into the Engineer Corps and the chemical operations be integrated into the Ordnance Corps. The groups recommendations were accepted in December 1972 and the United States Army Chemical Corps was officially disbanded, but not formally disestablished, by the Army on 11 January 1973.[24]

To formally disestablish the corps, the U.S. Congress had to approve the move, because it had officially established the Chemical Corps in 1946. Congress chose to table action on the fate of the Chemical Corps, leaving it in limbo for several years.[24] Recruitment and career advancement was halted and the Chemical School at Fort McClellan was shut down and moved to Aberdeen Proving Grounds.[27]

In 1974 Abrams died in office after the 1973 Yom Kippur War between Israel and a coalition of Arab states. The results of the war demonstrated the desire of the Soviet Union to continue its pursuit of offensive chemical and biological capabilities.[24]

Post Vietnam, 1975-80
By the mid–1970s the chemical warfare and defense capability of the United States had degraded and by 1978 the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff characterized U.S. ability to conduct operations in a chemical environment as "not prepared."[28]

Secretary of the Army Martin R. Hoffmann rescinded the 1972 recommendations, and in 1976 Army Chief of Staff General Bernard W. Rogers ordered the resumption of Chemical Corps officer commissioning. However, the U.S. Army Chemical School at Fort McClellan, Anniston, Alabama did not reopen until 1980.[24]

Not the best source, but good enough to follow further research from. We certainly didn't jump to instant readiness in 1980, just because the bureaucracy was put in place.Good enough against Saddam by 1991, yes, probably not against a more advanced chemical and bio weapons arsenal.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Steel_Box

Up until 1990, the United States had at least 100,000 chemical munitions stored in West Germany.

So the U.S. could have retaliated in kind to chemical weapons usage against NATO forces in a major war.

 

Probably the U.S. giving up the war in Vietnam led to a gradual decrease in tensions. Then there was the friction between the Chinese and Soviets that weakened their combined international position.

An incident happening in Eastern Europe could have easily escalated to all out war. Both sides tried hard to make sure there were not any incidents there because they did not want to see that happen. It was "safer" to wage proxy wars in far away Asia.

 

There were plenty of "incident" in Eastern Europe over the years. No surprise given the concentration of forces there.

I've been wondering about the February 12th (I think) 1988 Black Sea "brushing incident" where two Soviet frigates deliberately lightly bumped the U.S.S. Yorktown and U.S.S. Caron while they were in Soviet waters exercising "right of innocent passage".

In reality none of the four ships suffered any damage of note and no injuries whatsoever.

But what if one of the Soviet ships miscalculated their approach to one of the American ships dramatically and hit the USN ship far, far, far, far harder than anticipated (the Yorktown possibly), causing significant damage and even casualties on one or both sides?

Say the Soviet ship commander then tried to hide his mistake by claiming the American ship fired on his vessel?

 

In the 1985 to 91 timeframe, the US was far better equipped to fight on a chemical battlefield than the Soviets were. We had better MOPP suits, better CBRN suites for our vehicles, better decon equipment. In every single category of chemical warfare except for the use of persistent agents, we were better.

 

We likely wouldn't have retaliated "in-kind". Our chemical weapons doctrine was totally different from the Pact. We would have used chemical weapons against their C3I facilities and airbases.

 

Vietnam, Afganistan, Korea, Chechnia, whatever, take a pick. The sea, the air, the armor, the artillery, they are all “support staff” for the Infantry man.

But you are quite right, Russians would have plenty of problems relocating their airfields west, to support the fighter umbrella. What again proves my point, when you know that the war has a high probability to go nuclear (or you know it will), it is tempting to nuke enemy airfields and reduce air threat by like 95%.

Who in a sane state of mind, would believe a NATO high ranking official? Do you believe in Warsaw pact “no first use” and “No Europe attack” policies?

Nothing would happen. Americans would not open fire because they would be sunk the moment they did.
Russian captains would be prosecuted for an unauthorized use of force. They have not received a permission to open fire.
Besides, in case of a fire fight they would kill each other at such distances. Not much sense.
In case of a serious collision it is most likely that the Russians would provide full support, they are people like anyone else.

Have you seen the footage of the incident? Four crews of witnesses? Cameras all around. Its available on youtube
But even in worst case scenario nothing would happen, loss of a ship or all four ships, is insufficient reason for WW3 unless the sides really want to kill themselves.

 

It wasn't a NATO official. It was an East German spy. And given they apparently believed him when he told them NATO was not planning an attack during the Able Archer Crisis I assume they trusted his reports.

 

Able Archer could have very very easily gone the other way. It's by far my favorite Cold War flashpoint to study.