We have only found out few years ago, that the official doctrine of the Soviets was to nuke my country(Poland) to hell to make it impossible for any forces from the West to move using the shortest path to Russia. And theoretically we were their allies....so it's 100% of the population compared to 50% in the UK...
Presumably they would only have done that if NATO ground troops were likely to advance through Poland? I'd expect the US to have similar plans to attack the UK if we'd done anything like immediately surrendering if a war had looked likely?
[Militaries have lots of weird plans for strange events that could probably never happen].
NB The UK had plans to attack US bases here to get our hands on nuclear weapons if there was any sign that the US didn't want to get directly involved in a war - no idea why anyone would find it surprising that such plans were considered!
We have only found out few years ago, that the official doctrine of the Soviets was to nuke my country(Poland) to hell to make it impossible for any forces from the West to move using the shortest path to Russia.
Which is the 'buffer zone' doctrine taken to extremes:
Twenty million Russians died during the Second World War, so Stalin said he wanted a buffer zone of friendly states around Russia to make sure that Russia could never be invaded again.
And, of course, pre-Soviet Russia had been invaded multiple times, often by people who did a lot of damage before they realized they'd forgotten to pack for winter. It's part of having large land borders.
Comments
We have only found out few years ago, that the official doctrine of the Soviets was to nuke my country(Poland) to hell to make it impossible for any forces from the West to move using the shortest path to Russia. And theoretically we were their allies....so it's 100% of the population compared to 50% in the UK...
Presumably they would only have done that if NATO ground troops were likely to advance through Poland? I'd expect the US to have similar plans to attack the UK if we'd done anything like immediately surrendering if a war had looked likely?
[Militaries have lots of weird plans for strange events that could probably never happen].
NB The UK had plans to attack US bases here to get our hands on nuclear weapons if there was any sign that the US didn't want to get directly involved in a war - no idea why anyone would find it surprising that such plans were considered!
when all you have are hammers...
Rush that first Settler!
With allies like that.... :-)
Which is the 'buffer zone' doctrine taken to extremes:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/history/mwh/ir2/so...
And, of course, pre-Soviet Russia had been invaded multiple times, often by people who did a lot of damage before they realized they'd forgotten to pack for winter. It's part of having large land borders.