Soviet War Plans, 1979-1989

Russian (Soviet) Cold War plans and Sir John Hackett

I wrote this as a post on another Blog, because this is a recurring theme, it is worthwhile to post here as a semi-permanent record of my knowledge of the subject.

One of the more interesting aspects of the debate is the way people with little real knowledge of the facts seem to believe they "know" the truth.

It happens that I DO know a lot more about these issues than most people, the first is the refusal of otherwise rational and intelligent people to understand that there was a whole society controlled by a group who believed in a Malevolent Ideology (Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist thought, pick your label, usually refereed to as Communism or the Eastern Bloc for convenience) which was a threat to the entire "Western Way of Life" (Democracy and all that).

Having worked in the (US) V Corps HQ (Frankfurt) in 1978-89 and various other exercise and training environments through the 1980's.....

Among other things, every major exercise (V Corps) we had "Representatives of an (unidentified) Friendly Foreign Power" present as "observers." Or something. Funny enough, they all spoke French and wore strange (to me) uniforms (Kepis Featured, with plenty of Gold Braid) that I have always assumed were French. But I suppose it made their Government happy to pretend they were outside the NATO command structure.

And by "Exercise" I include the "Command Post Exercise" (CPX) cycle, ten (?) or so (Total) a year, much cheaper to deploy the Staff, etc (300-400 personnel?) somewhere for a week than the "Field" exercises when you have all those Tanks etc rolling around the countryside.

At some point in the 1980's, in addition to doing a significant number of (Official) war games/exercises, I matured into a good enough Soviet Specialist to be aware that they had a parallel and much deeper (intellectual) level of "Operations Research" (OR) than we did, or at least a broader distribution of this specialized knowledge.  Really, I met at least one US OR specialist who studied the Soviet (Open Source) literature.

To skip a couple of steps, with the end of the Cold War, they (accidently?) left a copy of their basic War Plan (Schliefen plan for the 80's?) in a Polish Barracks, which was subsequently published in the Journal of Soviet Military Studies.

Nuke Everything in sight, (US/NATO Barracks and Installations) then get (the Warsaw Pact) Troops moving out of the Kasernes.

(Straight across the North German Plain, there is a variety of supporting evidence in their Force Structure and Training that this really was "The Plan")

OK, what I thought was important was:

1. I knew from (US) Games and Exercises, that a Soviet conventional Offensive was a Dubious Proposition;

2.  Presumably their exercises showed the same thing.

3.  In Soviet Experience/Political/Military Theory, there is no substitute for Victory.
(Example, Sidorenko, The Offensive, USAF Translation.  Too turgid for me to actually read, but at least I am "familiar" with the work)

4.  It's Not Much of a Plan, But.....

My question was, why did no one ever suggest I connect the dots? Did anyone ever?
  (Which should come our from behind the Green Door in another twenty or thirty years).