Replies

Dead wrong.

Russian military doctrine unchanged since the Crimean War holds that Russia must maintain unbreakable control of the Baltic Ports to be militarily viable. Obama wasn't even born during the Crimean War, so we can dismiss him as a factor in any way shape or form.

Russia has done a lot of nasty things over the decades since the Bolsheviks took over. That doesn't alter the fact that this is a defensive war against European aggressors in their eyes. All bets are off and they will use their nuclear arsenal until it is exhausted if this requires it.

I suggest you read some actual books written during the cold war in lieu of Wikipedia. There were many thorough (if somewhat dry) books on the professional reading list when I was in the Marine Corps that covered Soviet strategic thinking in detail.

I have read on number of books on Soviet military history and it's centralized command structure. And it isn't just the Bolsheviks who did ‘’nasty things’’. The Russian Bear has a very bloody history. My oldest brother was an officer in the 5th. Marine Division in the late ˜70s and imparted some insight to me into how the Soviets did things and again, I've studied quite a lot of Russian military history. The Russians have always relied on numbers. ‘’Quantity’’, said Stalin, ‘’has a quality all it's own’’. However quantity didn't do much for them in Afghanistan though. Not in the long run but in Europe it might. That is if Putin pushes this. Certainly a former Marine such as yourself knows strategy isn't fixed. That's what always doomed the Red Army. Centralized command structures, if relied on, aren't able to deal with the fluid nature of combat. I don't know... no one can read Putin's mind and the thought of seeing Russian tanks storming through the Fulda Gap is to me anyway, inconceivable. Seventy years on and seeing Western Europe a battle field again, with Germans squaring off against Russian armor-- again? That would be something indeed but history is an amazing thing. I suppose if one lives long enough history will repeat itself.