Russia 'simulates' nuclear attack on Poland

[MARAB0D]

Yes but Russia would have a hard time transporting thousands of troops and equipment from Alaska down through Canada to invade the United States.

~Thanato

The only hardship I can see possible is a lack of staff in petrol stations - because after the first strike all local population would migrate to Mexica. You probably never had a chance to obtain information about what an invasion means during nuclear war, I judge by your colourful descriptions of problems which "local resistance" can deliver. I can visualize the farmers vigorously shooting the missiles down... It is not your fault of course, as "invaded Canada" sounds pretty funny way, nevertheless it is technically possible. And if such unusual event happens, US would sure take any chance possible to destroy overnight all your highway system - to render it useless for being used as landing strips for the bombers. USSR was keeping on the shelves not less than 30,000 tactical nukes, plus US had probably a half of this amount, so the place would just glow green irrelevantly to what the result of invasion would be. After the first strike on US Canadian direction would become the easiest and safest way for ground invasion.

[Thanato]

You miss understand me, I am talking logisticly. We have moutines, Rivers, lakes (by the dozen in some small areas) so that if Russia was going to steam roll through Canada to reach the US they would have to deal with heavily foristed areas, or sparsly forested areas, Flat open terrain (easy for retalitory strikes from the CAF, the USAF and USAAF. Then we also have ruged moutininous terran through out the nation. Yes we have well developed highways and roads through these areas but it wouldnt take much to cause a hold up by taking out bridges, blowup cratores into roads causing rockslides... Then you have the vast distance and mechanical issues to worry about.

It would be a logistial nighmare for hte Russians to project power that far other then Air power.

~Thanato

[The Silver Thong]

Leave it up to a Canuck named Silver Thong to start WWIII LOL

[MARAB0D]

You miss understand me, I am talking logisticly. We have moutines, Rivers, lakes (by the dozen in some small areas) so that if Russia was going to steam roll through Canada to reach the US they would have to deal with heavily foristed areas, or sparsly forested areas, Flat open terrain (easy for retalitory strikes from the CAF, the USAF and USAAF. Then we also have ruged moutininous terran through out the nation. Yes we have well developed highways and roads through these areas but it wouldnt take much to cause a hold up by taking out bridges, blowup cratores into roads causing rockslides... Then you have the vast distance and mechanical issues to worry about.

It would be a logistial nighmare for hte Russians to project power that far other then Air power.

~Thanato

This is the logic of WW2! WW3 would not be anyhow resembling it at all. There would be no massive armies operating, no fronts, no pits - as any massive army is visible from the satellites, so as soon as over a 1000 people get together, a 5 kt nuke would terminate them on a spot. Small mobile groups would be most likely operating autonomously, coordinated from remote locations or by the satellites (if these survive the first week). There is no more need in the land battles - nukes clear the root, and the groups move another 100 km ahead. No need in precise munitions too, a nuke may miss half a kilometre and would still do the job. Any "organised resistance" would only last the time needed to call artillery support. 10 troopers would be enough to control a town with 10,000 population, because it would be empty.

There would be no CAF too, if more exact there would be no airfields and no supplies for them to use. During Cold War the time needed to defeat Western Europe was in some plans estimated as 45 minutes plus a couple of days for occupation. It is another century around. The worst part since 1998 (attack on Serbia) is that since that moment Russia is reducing the army from year to year. What only slows them is the need to build apartments and provide employment for the redundant personnel, as otherwise they would have a riot. This only means they are not prepared to enter any conventional war and suffer any losses of it - the smaller army they have, the higher is probability of the nuclear war. Poland is not Poland anymore, it is EU and NATO - and if Poland seeks American missile defences installed, then it is EU and NATO who would be hold responsible (by Russia's 1999 Law if one NATO country attacks it, Russia would consider itself in the state of war with entire NATO, and AMD accounts for a preparation to an attack) and just recently they have officially dropped the threshold, after which the usage of nuclear weapons would be seen as justified and even allowed the president to call a preventative strike. As I said, the exact number of tactical weapons they have is unknown, because there never was any international treaty which controls or limits them. I only know that They have some city in Siberia (forgot the name) in which they have to keep 4 reactors going for many years, as the city has no other sources of heat and power. The population has no employment chances except for working for Mr Burns. All 4 reactors bake a new nuke every 3.5 days (Plutonium cycle!), so they have 8 more every week, just over 400 a year - US was trying to force them stopping the operations since 1990s... Makes it 8000 made just recently and only in one place. This is 8000 cities of Hiroshima size! All charges can be delivered by a cropduster, artillery or a short range missile, as such device contains about 16 kg of active material and ranges only from 5 to 25 kiloton. An aircraft-carrier group needs only one like that... No wonder Germany is so friendly!

Given that Russia would get appropriate response from NATO, we can expect Northern Hemisphere to become depopulated in the event of such war. Russia only relies on its vast territory and low density of population. No one in this world wants a war like that, even Osama bin Laden (as this war would evaporate his money too) - so they are only rising the bar in the international relationships, but this cannot be done indefinitely. I am 99% sure this would never happen (EU would give in), and the only thing which really concerns me is the presence of little ambitious NATO members near Russia's border, particularly of Poland, which is (as it is seen in historical retrospective) a completely loose cannon. As soon as it gets US ABM, it may start to provoke the confrontation BEFORE Russia claims some retribution. I doubt that US has some real malicious intentions here, but the problem with USA is that the policies of this country are naturally based on the national game of favour, poker - while this game is barely known in Russia, so the bluff can be taken there at face value and cause some unexpected response, as they got used to complex political games, based on chess. They may once notice the Queen exposed and take it! They have already taken the game seriously once - after discovering themselves unable to defend Serbia, they immediately removed drunk Yeltsin and appointed a KGB Colonel to run the show. So it is better to see those exercises in the full context. We are talking about absolutely giant scale of the events, in which such country as Canada would not even be considered a country, but just as "land" by all participants.

[Thanato]

no one wants a nuclear war, not even the Russians. They most likely would play a conventional game for as long as posssible (untill we defeat their armies) which we would unless China backs them for some reason. Because Russia knows, if they launch the first nuke they would be radioactive shortly there after, and if we launch the first nuke (Ie The Nuclear states of NATO) then everyone would be radioactive....

~Thanato

[MARAB0D]

no one wants a nuclear war, not even the Russians. They most likely would play a conventional game for as long as posssible (untill we defeat their armies) which we would unless China backs them for some reason. Because Russia knows, if they launch the first nuke they would be radioactive shortly there after, and if we launch the first nuke (Ie The Nuclear states of NATO) then everyone would be radioactive....

~Thanato

No one ever wants any war! Whoever takes first action wants only fast Victory. If Hitler knew there would be a 4-year war with USSR and Allies, he would've never attacked Poland... He did not want Poland at all, only the parts of Germany, taken by Poland after WW1 and populated by Germans (Silesia, Danzig). He came to power with the slogan of national unity and was under pressure to accomplish the job. Pretty much same way Germany now wants Sudettenland back from the Czech, and the same Silesia from Poland...

In fact all what Hitler was doing was reinstating the original German borders - because after WW1 defeated Germany was robbed and mistreated. Despite it was not Germany who started WW1 - it was Serbian terrorists and Austrian monarchy; Germany then supported Austro-Hungary as an ally to prevent interference of France and England, but Russia suddenly claimed war on Germany to defend Serbia... All happened within few days.

Politicians always miscalculate and do not take all factors into account - it was always like that and today it is not an exception. As soon as the first shot is fired, situation goes from under control, and then new and new countries have to enter the hostilities because they cannot afford to just watch them.

Now Russia may well think, that the quick strike on Poland would make EU and NATO terrified and those give into direct energy deal with Russia, but this is as usually 50% chance only - if those respond instead, then it would be big mess in Eastern Europe for start. If the conflict grows and weakens Russia, then China may strike it from the back (as the energy deal with Europe leaves China with no supplies), and if this happens, India may strike China, triggering the domino effect - Pakistan then may strike India, and Iran (Russia's ally), can hit Pakistan, while Turkey and Azerbaijan may hit Iran (all neighbours have old problems). At this second it can be the end of NATO, because Greece and Armenia may hit Turkey... etc etc. Or some similar scenario, as general tensions are pretty high and a little initial conflict may precipitate a large scale one. Such conflicts are going along the rules, described by Thucydides in his Peloponessus War - the countries estimate the future dangers of them staying neutral, and enter the conflict, as each is scared to have a war on two fronts. In the above logical chain, say, India would estimate that if China wins over Russia, then after this it would turn against India with the help of Pakistan. There is no such computer which can simulate this in advance, as the internal political situation in each existing country may rapidly change under the influence of the already going conflict.

[Black Red Devil]

No one ever wants any war! Whoever takes first action wants only fast Victory. If Hitler knew there would be a 4-year war with USSR and Allies, he would've never attacked Poland... He did not want Poland at all, only the parts of Germany, taken by Poland after WW1 and populated by Germans (Silesia, Danzig). He came to power with the slogan of national unity and was under pressure to accomplish the job. Pretty much same way Germany now wants Sudettenland back from the Czech, and the same Silesia from Poland...

In fact all what Hitler was doing was reinstating the original German borders - because after WW1 defeated Germany was robbed and mistreated. Despite it was not Germany who started WW1 - it was Serbian terrorists and Austrian monarchy; Germany then supported Austro-Hungary as an ally to prevent interference of France and England, but Russia suddenly claimed war on Germany to defend Serbia... All happened within few days.

I'm curious. Where did you here about Germany wanting Sudettenland and Silesia back? I can only imagine this coming from a bunch of racist nationalist skinheads but not from the general population and definitely not from the Govt.

no one wants a nuclear war, not even the Russians. They most likely would play a conventional game for as long as posssible (untill we defeat their armies) which we would unless China backs them for some reason. Because Russia knows, if they launch the first nuke they would be radioactive shortly there after, and if we launch the first nuke (Ie The Nuclear states of NATO) then everyone would be radioactive....

~Thanato

The bolded part is definitely true but I'm not sure about the rest of what you wrote. In fact Russia, or rather the Soviet Union was never about conquering. They new their limits then and they new they could not defeat NATO. They're whole military strategy was based on defence of their borders, even their Nukes were only intended for intimidation and retaliation if necessary. They used to play a lot on propaganda. When Gorbachev stepped in he new Russia could not sustain the other Soviet nations and he salvaged Russia by relenting the grip on the Iron Curtain. That was then and the same principle applies today.

Russia would never attack any other nation, specially a NATO nation, it wouldn't be convenient for them and they couldn't financially sustain an attacking army but they don't like to be threatened either and the recent move by the US (a country renown for their aggression) to install a missile base on Polish soil comes as a threat. Hence this simulation which is a clearly directed message towards the US.

Can you blame them? Everyone in Europe is trying hard to get over the cold war atmosphere of bygone years and the US seems to want to revitalise those old nostalgic times.

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