Hacker News Reader

Comment by arethuza | Hacker News Reader

I can remember the Cold War rhetoric quite clearly - we were told that the Soviet tank armies were poised to pour through the Fulda Gap and drag us all of to Gulags.

Meanwhile, the Soviets lived in terror of a nuclear first strike by the West, which they expected at any time and that would utterly destroy their country.

My understanding is that it was Ronald Reagan, of all people, who realised that inflamatory rhetoric ("Evil Empire") is a bad idea when you are facing an opponent who is terrified that you are going to attack them - which the Soviets were (with some justification). Reagan deserves a lot of credit for helping end the Cold War - but it was largely achieved by discussion rather than threats.

I really hope we don't begin that stupendous silliness all over again.

View on HN

  we were told that the Soviet tank armies were
  poised to pour through the Fulda Gap

Yes they were. I remember the official rhetoric from the days of my military service (private in the Soviet Army) and the military studies in college (which I later abandoned during Perestroika). In private, many of the officers had different thoughts, but some (I would say, the more stupid ones) were very happy with the official line.

And the rhetoric was supported by the facts on the ground. The quality of training was poor, but the quality and especially quantity of military equipment was enormous.

Deterrence worked during the Cold War - I'm not arguing that each side didn't present a real threat to the other.

What I do take issue with is the crazy degree to which vast arsenals were constructed on both sides to a level that was much much more than that required to politically deter an attack.

The problem I have isn't that deterrence with nuclear weapons doesn't work - clearly it does. Rather that we have no good mechanism for limiting the size of arsenals.

Here is a question - are there any records of the Soviets having military leaders who advocated actually invading Western Europe (rather than just planning for it)? [NB I'm asking because I don't know, not because I'm trying to score points.]

Records are an interesting matter. I think I have read about some documents, however the semi-closed nature of the Soviet government, as well as the current Russian government, leaves large portions of it unavailable to the general public. And what is available is often difficult to place in the context, because the context is insufficient. I will see if I can find anything, it is indeed interesting.

There was something ironic about playing Missile Command at the height of the Cold War. No matter how well you did in the end you always lost all your cities.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com