# Likelihood of a Soviet Invasion. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 6, 2013, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/likelihood-of-a-soviet-invasion/649484 "2013-02-06T14:16:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Mince](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecd19e/32.png) [@Mince](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mince)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2013, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/likelihood-of-a-soviet-invasion/649484/41 "2013-02-07T15:48:45Z")
Not very likely if they target high schools over military installations. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2013, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/likelihood-of-a-soviet-invasion/649484/42 "2013-02-07T16:35:07Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Cite that that was “in exchange” for anything Reagan did? There is a book about it called **Victory : The Reagan Administration’s Secret Strategy That Hastened the Collapse of the Soviet Union**. Here is an [article](http://www.bigissueground.com/history/blair-reaganwonoverussr.shtml)summarizing the strategy. Reagan was routineyl examined by doctors during his presidency and had many ailments but no one thought he was suffering from Alzheimer’s while he was president. He wrote in his diary every day of his presidency and those who have examined the diary say it was as cogent and lucid the last day of his presidency as when he began writing it in the 1960s. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2013, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/likelihood-of-a-soviet-invasion/649484/43 "2013-02-07T16:57:20Z")
> [@](#): > > Just how likely was a Soviet invasion really during the Cold War? (I don’t know exactly when the Cold War began. In hs history class I was taught there actually where many “red scares” long before it. But let’s just say it was 1945-1989, for the sake of argument.) Obviously, in hindsight, it was completely unlikely, since it never happened. Part of the reason that it didn’t is basically the allies made such a venture unlikely to succeed by maintaining sufficient military strength to deter the Soviets from pulling the trigger. Had they not done so then it’s pretty obvious that the Soviets would have done so, since there would be no reason for them to have the mix of units and numbers of things like tanks and planes that they built for purely defensive measures. > [@](#): > > This is a deceptively simply question, because much of the US’s Cold War policy was based on a Soviet invasion. Pres. Reagan’s policy esp. was based on this, and may have ironically led to the end of the Cold War (whether he was right of not, again ironically). Indeed, the NATO alliance was based on this assumption. Looking at the numbers, it wasn’t an assumption…it was reality. Had NATO not existed, and had the NATO nations not maintained sufficient strength to maintain a viable defense of Western Europe than the Soviets would have rolled right through and taken it all. Reagan simply upped the stakes by pushing the Soviets into building even more, pouring more and more of their GDP into their military until they finally just collapsed. > [@](#): > > So on a scale of one to ten, just how likely was it 1945-89? 0, in hindsight, since it didn’t happen. I don’t think that the equation for the Soviets ever got to the point where it was even odds that they could successfully do a forced entry assault into Western Europe. Had the odds ever shifted then they would have tried, but they would have had to have a good chance to succeed. And this is just conventionally…not even talking about the nuclear aspect, which any major conflict where they were threatening Western Europe seriously would have gone nuclear eventually. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2013, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/likelihood-of-a-soviet-invasion/649484/44 "2013-02-07T17:08:30Z")
I see the Reagan Mythology is back again in full force. No, Reagan didn’t do shit to end the Cold War. [Here’s one take on it:](http://www.americanpolitics.com/20020319Hersh.html) > [@](#): > > Visiting Moscow before the August Coup, Reagan said the Soviet Union was no longer the “Evil Empire.” He predicted his friend Gorbachev would lead the Soviet Union for many years to come. > > As usual, Reagan was wrong. A few months later, disgruntled military officers kidnapped Gorbachev, throwing him out of power forever. Reagan remained disengaged: nothing he did caused the coup, and nothing he did made the Soviet military support Boris Yeltsin over their superiors. > > We’re all fortunate things happened as they did – but once again, Reagan did nothing to make this fluke more likely. [Another reasonable debunking here:](http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2993) > [@](#): > > What the impotence of the lone U.S. superpower in the wake of revolutions sweeping the Arab world says about the Soviet collapse is that the biggest factors driving revolutions are usually internal. President Harry S. Truman was blamed for “losing China” in 1949, and weak U.S.-led international economic sanctions were credited with toppling the South African apartheid regime. In both cases, the potential for U.S. and international influence was significantly overstated and factors internal to the subject countries were vastly underrated. The U.S. has trouble getting even militarily-installed puppet governments, such as those in Iraq and Afghanistan, to do its bidding. If the U.S. government has trouble effecting desired outcomes in such lesser powers, why do conservatives assume that its smoke and mirrors could have toppled an opposing superpower? > > Incredibly, conservatives ask us to believe that Ronald Reagan, with only harsh rhetoric and some extra dollars for defense, tore apart the Soviet Empire. More than likely, it was the non-viability of the grossly inefficient Soviet economic system, exacerbated by the plummeting price in the 1980s of the Soviets’ major export (oil), that led to the collapse Reagan was the most overrated person in the history of the world. Current right-wingers may worship at the altar of Saint Ronald, but if you look behind the myth there really isn’t anything there. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2013, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/likelihood-of-a-soviet-invasion/649484/45 "2013-02-07T17:14:35Z")
[QUOTE=BobLibDem] I see the Reagan Mythology is back again in full force. No, Reagan didn’t do shit to end the Cold War. [/QUOTE] So, because your one view is different, that makes it a myth and that he didn’t do shit to end the Cold War, ehe? 😛 Yes, every convincing. It was just a coincidence that the Soviets completely collapsed shortly after he left office. Perhaps it was all Bush’s doing, right? > [@](#): > > Reagan was the most overrated person in the history of the world. Current right-wingers may worship at the altar of Saint Ronald, but if you look behind the myth there really isn’t anything there. And he’s currently one of the most vilified by the left, who spend endless amounts of energy trying to debunk his contributions…well, and hijack threads that actually aren’t about Reagan, who was only peripherally mentioned in this thread so far. But you just felt the need to bring in some cites to show that he really did nothing because, you know, someone mentioned his name and associated the collapse of the Soviet Union with him peripherally. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2013, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/likelihood-of-a-soviet-invasion/649484/46 "2013-02-07T19:32:57Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > I see the Reagan Mythology is back again in full force. No, Reagan didn’t do shit to end the Cold War. > [Here’s one take on it:](http://www.americanpolitics.com/20020319Hersh.html) You might want to use cites that are not written by complete morons. Among the many hilarious parts of this pig-ignorant web site, I enjoyed this part the most: “He predicted his friend Gorbachev would lead the Soviet Union for many years to come. As usual, Reagan was wrong. A few months later, disgruntled military officers kidnapped Gorbachev, throwing him out of power forever. Reagan remained disengaged: nothing he did caused the coup, and nothing he did made the Soviet military support Boris Yeltsin over their superiors.” Well, yes, I would imagine Reagan was somewhat disengaged from the coup, inasmuch as **he wasn’t the President of the United States at the time**. The coup against Gorbachev occurred in mid-1991, a full two and a half years after Reagan had left office. It’s also not true that Gorbachev was thrown out of power “forever” by the coup; he resumed being the President of the Soviet Union after the coup until the USSR dissolved itself in December 1991. I mean, there are perfectly valid reasons to think Reagan was overrated, but you might have chosen the dumbest rebuttal of Reagan ever written in the history of words. ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2013, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/likelihood-of-a-soviet-invasion/649484/47 "2013-02-08T18:46:14Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Looking at the numbers, it wasn’t an assumption…it was reality. Had NATO not existed, and had the NATO nations not maintained sufficient strength to maintain a viable defense of Western Europe than the Soviets would have rolled right through and taken it all. The question is whether the Soviets would have invaded _North America_ in the absence of the kind of military the US had in the field during the Cold War. The land area and trans-oceanic distance involved would have made it a completely different ball game. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2013, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/likelihood-of-a-soviet-invasion/649484/48 "2013-02-08T19:05:19Z")
> [@sqweels](#): > > The question is whether the Soviets would have invaded _North America_ in the absence of the kind of military the US had in the field during the Cold War. Maybe that’s what the OP meant, but he did not say “North America,” but possibly that can be inferred as he mentions NATO separately. I assumed that he meant an invasion into Western Europe, which is quite possibly wrong. However, he hasn’t offered to clarify it either way since posting. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2013, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/likelihood-of-a-soviet-invasion/649484/49 "2013-02-08T20:32:15Z")
> [@sqweels](#): > > The question is whether the Soviets would have invaded _North America_ in the absence of the kind of military the US had in the field during the Cold War. The land area and trans-oceanic distance involved would have made it a completely different ball game. I’m sorry, but I don’t read that in the OP. If the OP is saying that the US would or could have been invaded from the Soviet Union, then that’s pure fantasy, so there is really no kind of interesting discussion that could come out of that. It could not have happened…it was logistically impossible for the Soviet Union at that time (or any other time) to invade North America. Basically, I think that subsequent posters focused on that interpretation after the Wolverine’s!! thingy because they were wanting to be funny and/or attack a strawman position that’s easily dismissed. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2013, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/likelihood-of-a-soviet-invasion/649484/50 "2013-02-09T04:44:55Z")
The Soviets could barely keep control of their own sphere. I think post 1945, except for the rest of Germany, they would have run even if offered W Europe on a platter. NATO was as is succiently put, designed to keep the Russians out, the Germans down and the Americans in, in increasing order of priority. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2013, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/likelihood-of-a-soviet-invasion/649484/51 "2013-02-09T05:15:59Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > NATO was as is succiently put, designed to keep the Russians out, the Germans down and the Americans in, in increasing order of priority. So, why does it still exist? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2013, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/likelihood-of-a-soviet-invasion/649484/52 "2013-02-09T17:32:04Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > Don’t misunderestimate the moral effect of Reagan’s intiatives. Doing so made several facts brutally, abundantly clear to the Soviets: > > (1) The 70’s had been rough but we recovered completely, and became even more grossly wealthy. > (2) Even with the trouble, we could turn out enough guns to match to them while still expanding our national butter production.\* > (3) To garble and old physics joke, they couldn’t win, and they couldn’t break even, so the only option left was to quit. Put the USSR against America in any contest and the Sovs would _lose_. Even a complete nuclear exchange would go our way, and they knew it. > (4) Even if we couldn’t build the Star Wars system - though we’ve made significant progress over the years - we could afford to burn billions to find out. And not even really _notice_. What utter nonsense. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2013, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/likelihood-of-a-soviet-invasion/649484/53 "2013-02-09T17:48:05Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > The Soviets did not “invade” Afghanistan. They were invited in by [a purely homegrown Communist government](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Republic_of_Afghanistan) which needed Soviet help to defend it from rebels (many of them Islamist rebels, proto-Taliban). I didn’t realize that you were one of the few people who insisted that the Israelis didn’t invade Lebanon in 1982 because they were supporting and invited in by the Falangists. Would you mind explaining your reasoning? To most reasonable people, when you send forces into a country to prop up a puppet government, whether it’s the Soviets in Afghanistan or Hungary or the Israelis in Lebanon it’s called an invasion. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2013, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/likelihood-of-a-soviet-invasion/649484/54 "2013-02-09T19:38:07Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > The Soviets did not “invade” Afghanistan. They were invited in by [a purely homegrown Communist government](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Republic_of_Afghanistan) which needed Soviet help to defend it from rebels (many of them Islamist rebels, proto-Taliban). Why sure, when not invading countries at someone’s invitation, the first thing you do is [storm the presidential palace](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Storm-333) with Spetsnaz, KGB and GRU operatives and assassinate the existing government. It’s how you defend the government from rebels. I’m honestly amazed this bit of propaganda still gets mileage. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2013, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/likelihood-of-a-soviet-invasion/649484/55 "2013-02-09T21:35:08Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > Why sure, when not invading countries at someone’s invitation, the first thing you do is [storm the presidential palace](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Storm-333) with Spetsnaz, KGB and GRU operatives and assassinate the existing government. It’s how you defend the government from rebels. > > I’m honestly amazed this bit of propaganda still gets mileage. It gets mileage like all myths because it confirms fantasies. It’s not just some on the right who prefer faith-based thinking versus reality-based thinking. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2013, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/likelihood-of-a-soviet-invasion/649484/56 "2013-02-09T21:47:45Z")
FWIW, I also think the Soviets invaded Hungary in the 1950s, the Israelis invaded Lebanon in the 1980s and that the US invaded Vietnam in the 1960s. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/likelihood-of-a-soviet-invasion/649484.md?page=2)