Sunday, November 16, 2003
1983: THE YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY
I happened across a fascinating site, The Parallel History Project on NATO and the Warsaw Pact, which contains discussion and original documents from a project to coordinate sources from both sides of the old East-West conflict in preserving and understanding the history of the Cold War. One of the most frightening pieces is Did East German Spies Prevent A Nuclear War?, by Vojtech Mastny. It details what Mastney (now at the Woodrow Wilson Institute) claims to be the closest the two superpowers ever came to nuclear war, based on a close reading of Soviet sources indicating that the then-Premier, Yuri Andropov, had become convinced that the U.S. and NATO were preparing for a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the USSR. NATO forces had modernized, and Soviet power had deteriorated, to the point that the balance of military power in Europe had shifted, and the Russians knew it. In this climate, NATO exercises in 1983 could have been mistaken for preparations for a first strike by the West. Fortunately, detailed intelligence about the qualitatively new and more effective command structures put into place within the NATO command were either intentionally or mistakenly not communicated to the Politburo by the GRU and KGB. Had they been, Andropov might have felt that he was pushed into a corner without any option but to initiate a nuclear first strike.
Makes you wonder about what's going on these days that we won't find out about for twenty years...
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 8:58 AM
