BTW, Happy Easter everyone.
I think some great points have been brought up, especially concerning the reality that at different times the two sides were in very different conditions.
In 1945 I think it really depends on who was invading whom. Both sides had battle-tried soldiers, both of whom had fought several hundred miles to meet in Germany. The U.S. had the clear advantage of having the only atomic bomb, but they only had one or two left, and to have any real effect Moscow would have been the most likely target and that would have required flying bombers with minimal escort hundreds of miles into hostile territory where the enemy controlled the air. Had the USSR attempted an invasion of Western Europe, I am fairly certain it would have failed. The U.S. and British armies were far more mobile, knew the terrain, and had dramatically shorter (and very secure) supply lines. Had they attempted an invasion of the USSR itself, I'm not so sure. The peoples of Eastern Europe would have welcomed a Western invasion - note the euphoria that greeted Patton's 3rd army as it penetrated into Czechoslovakia, almost liberating Prague - but the Russians themselves are known for fighting with a dogged ferocity in even the most inhumane conditions, and might have successfully held off a Western attack, despite Western technological advantages. The reality of this of course is that neither the American nor British publics would have supported such an adventure, especially as the fighting would have been quite bloody.
As MadScot pointed out, the West rapidly demobilized after WW II, giving the USSR a numerical advantage. This would have been the optimal time for the USSR if it had wished to invade the West, though Stalin may have been deterred by the atomic bomb. When Cominform was created in 1947, one of its first acts was to criticize the French and Italian communists for not seizing power in their countries.
Remorseless pretty much laid out the timeline, except to add that in the 1960s the Soviet military doctrine gave up on technological superiority on the ground and committed to overwhelming numbers. This is how the 10-Soviet-tanks-for-every-NATO-tank formula comes from.
Though the Soviet military did prepare for the possibility of a NATO invasion and it screamed often about Western aggression, the Soviet leadershio through its various intelligence channels (KBG, etc.) understood that the West was not poised for the attack. Brezhnev had some paranoid moments but most Soviet leaders felt threatened by the West more through economic and social comparisons than militarily.
How would a Soviet attack on Western Europe have played out in 1982 or 1987? I think it would have failed. The USSR was a master of deception, creating Potyomkin armies with fierce facades. I suspect it would have played out something like the current war in Chechnya is going - sloppily and bloodily, with only slow results - and that's against a weak enemy incapable of a significant response. Recall siimilar results in the 1940 "Winter War" against Finland.
SunTzu wrote:
Personally i think a fully conventional war between the US and Russia was possible, i don't think either side would dare launch nuclear weapons against the other.
Because of the 10/1 Soviet-NATO tank ratio, Reagan installed medium-range nuclear missiles in Europe (with NATO's acquiescence). Conventional and nuclear war were too tactically intertwined by that point to strictly avoid one or the other. All everyone knew was the Poland and Germany were going to be radioactive ruble, whatever the outcome of the war...
Saruman wrote:
Remember that the russians moved all their fabrics behind the Urals and builded up the army there.
While the movement of the factories behind the Urals made great propaganda, it really was only partially effective. The USSR relied heavily on the U.S. for many basic manufactured commodities during the war. You can't just pick up whole sectors of your economy and move them hundreds of miles; what about power? water? transport? workers? training? Also, the Germans only very late in the war (too late) developed a long-range bomber so the Soviet facilities east of the Urals were relatively safe. The Allies however hda several long-range bombers that could strike much farther.
Russia alone beats USA in manpower, and If you include all of Eastern Europe It'll be alot more.
The Russian armies of World War I also vastly outnumbered the Germans, but they lost very badly. Numbers aren't everything if they're not used effectively. Also, you can forget the Eastern European part of the equation. We were dragged into the WTO against our will just for window dressing, and even the Russians didn't delude themselves into believing Poles and Hungarians would fight for them. Ever see Woody Allen's film
Love and Death? There's the scene where the main character, Boris (a Russian in the 1812 Napoleonic invasion of Russia), mentions that his brother Mishka was "bayoneted to death by a Polish conscientious objector". It was sort of like that.
Remember they owned much land.
? Canada has the 2nd largest country by land as well, with some nasty winters to boot, but I wouldn't think of Canada as a fortress. Hitler's failures in Operation Barbarossa stemmed from his own strategic blunders, not from land. Moscow could have been taken, and the Wehrmacht could have survived the first winter in much better condition. The size gave Stalin some breathing room, but not much. Hitler was his own worst enemy, not the land. Similarly Napoleon did not prepare for a winter campaign despite his insistance on waiting months for a Russian surrender in Moscow.
Today USA have some 250m (inhb) and Russia 320m or more wich says alot.
Actually, currently Russia has about 180 million people, while the U.S. has about 281 million. Remember that modern Russia does not include large tracts of terrirory the USSR used to hold, like Ukraine, Belarus, old Soviet Central Asia, etc. Here's a quote from the BBC on the Russian population:
Russia's population fell by more than half a million, or 0.3%, in the first eight months of the year, new statistics show.
Figures from the State Statistics Committee predict a further population decline of 11 million, to about 134 million, in the world's largest country by 2015.
If you Include the -Stan's, Ukraine, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Eastern Germany, probably they've would have got help from China after their revolution, and then we're closing to 2 billions, atleast 1,5 (inhb, not soldiers)
Depends when, again. I've already mentioned that Eastern Europe was a part of the Soviet empire and had little love for it; they would not have fought for it. China might have sent soldiers to aid a Soviet war effort at certain times, but not others - remember that China and the USSR fought a border war in 1969, and Mao sided with Nixon to isolate the USSR in the 1970s.
)
(yes I know
Soviet missiles were always in readiness to launch such an attack, in minutes)
