Poland reveals Warsaw Pact war plans

ISN Security Watch ^ | 11/28/2005 | Christopher Findlay

[Windcatcher]

After only four weeks in office, the Polish right-wing government of Lech Kaczynski has provoked Moscow by releasing Warsaw Pact Cold War-era war game plans and agreeing to publish over 1,700 documents that may embarrass former ally Russia.

At a Friday press conference, Polish Defense Minister Radoslaw Sikorski presented a map from 1979 showing the expected nuclear strikes across Central Europe under one Warsaw Pact planning scenario for armed conflict with NATO forces.

He also signed an order allowing researchers access to Poland’s hitherto secret Warsaw Pact archives, in defiance of a confidentiality agreement among the former alliance members.

[Windcatcher]

This is from a month ago, and there is a similar FR thread here, but this article contains some more information.

[Fenris6]

Damn I love the Poles. What spirit.

[U S Army EOD]

Sounds like they were planning to do to us what we were planning to do to them. It is a good thing for the world that we both knew we could do it to each other, therefore we were both scared to do it.

[endthematrix]

One great debatable what-if scenarios is the USSR gaining control over Afghanistan in 1979. Would it have been better today?

[Larry Lucido]

But I thought Reagan was the only warmonger around at that time.

[PA Engineer]

Let us thank President Reagan for the following:

By 1979, the superiority of NATO’s nuclear arsenal - both qualitative and numerical - was mainly based on nuclear artillery delivery systems that were able to fire smaller nuclear warheads at enemy forces on the battlefield with much more precision that the Warsaw Pact’s technology allowed.

The Warsaw Pact was forced to revise its first-strike strategy against the West after NATO had diversified its nuclear delivery systems to include ground-based tactical missile and artillery platforms in addition to its tactical aircraft.

[July 4th]

Nice job, Poland.

[Windcatcher]

I think that the conservatives in Poland are realizing that the Left has managed to create a myth in the past decade that the USSR wasn't really as bad as it was, and that Communism isn't as evil as it's reputed to be. This myth has the potential to place the West in grave danger in the future as people forget the past, which is the Left's intent. Should Communism rise again, either in the East or the West, Poland may find herself the first to be re-enslaved due to either distance or isolation from the United States. It's imperative to dispel this myth in the clearest and harshest manner possible before it can take further hold. People must be made to understand the true evil of Communism, and that is something the Left deeply wants to avoid.

I fear for the new Polish government. I have no doubt that those agents of the Left, not just in Russia but all over the West as well, will stop at nothing to keep these documents from coming to light. There is already rumbling about the EU tring to take Polish voting rights away over another issue (though I have no doubt that it will be really for far more than that).

When the Stasi records were outed fifteen years ago it set their cause back for years. Just imagine what may come out of Poland. I fully expect Russia (with EU collusion) to try to starve Poland for fuel, and this might be a good time to do an end-around via Iraq, Turkey, and Romania, and perhaps lump in Ukraine as well for good measure.

[GSlob]

What nuclear deterrence was there in Pakistan around 1979?

[U S Army EOD]

I would have to say yes and no. One of the reasons they went in was the same reason we went in there and Iraq. The Russians were much more brutal than we are and would have surpressed them but there would have been no terror training camps. Maybe the answer is we might have been better off. I have read one or two very interesting books on that subject.

[hinckley buzzard]

Let us thank President Reagan for the following:

By 1979, the superiority of NATO’s nuclear arsenal - both qualitative and numerical - was mainly based on nuclear artillery delivery systems that were able to fire smaller nuclear warheads at enemy forces on the battlefield with much more precision that the Warsaw Pact’s technology allowed.

I thank President Reagan for a great many things but he had not yet been elected "by 1979."

I assume you are referring to his courageous installation of nuclear cruise missiles in Western Europe, despite literally millions of varmints shrieking and parasites screaming in the streets of Paris and West Berlin.

[CGVet58]

As always (1683, 1919-21 Russo-Polish war, 1939, and now the present...), valiant Poland stands ready as the tip of the spear against totalitarianism.

I hope and pray our own leaders recognize the historical implications of this, and exercise our influence accordingly to strengthen/support our loyal ally.

Nothing too complicated about this, really; just remember what the French did, then do the opposite.