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Mgellis -> RE: Battle Ocean '64 -- what next??? (9/14/2014 7:35:39 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: DeltaIV
Well, i can see the Soviets craving for retaliation.
I could see them doing something similar, perhaps even more nasty. Perhaps ultra-secret submarine action against some western convoy in territorial waters of FRG ? Supply/equipment convoy for allied troops stationed there ? The scenario could be designed that the sub has to remain undetected for mission to succeed. Soviets will remain silent and won't comment on this incident after it happens.
That could happen near Denmark (Kategatt/Skagerakk Strait, Eg. - the convoy headed to Kiel.
That sounds interesting. I've always wondered whether a limited NATO-Soviet conflict could have been fought without escalating if...
A) neither side was actually planning on invading the other, and certainly did not want to risk nuclear war
but...
B) at least one side felt they had to make some "statement" or lose prestige...things have gone far enough that at least one side feels it cannot back down without losing face (and perhaps does not want to back down...at least not yet). One way to do this would be to fight a war at sea. As long as neither side actually threatened to bomb the other, invade each other's territory, etc., there would be no real need for a nuclear strike.
In effect, could we have had a proxy war but this time the proxies were not client states like North Vietnam and South Vietnam but the navies of the two superpower alliances, with the tacit understanding that the war would be fought at sea and only at sea? Certainly, something like that could have escalated, but could it have happened without escalation? After four or five naval incidents, maybe even a couple of big ones, one side says, very quietly, through diplomatic channels, "Okay, enough. We've both proved what we had to prove. It's time to go back to normal."
In effect, the Soviets have gotten a bloody nose from the Germans. If they can give Germany and/or NATO a bloody nose, they can stop and their national pride is protected. If they get a black eye on top of the bloody nose, maybe they keep fighting, or maybe they stop. If they get a second black eye, maybe they just decide, "Okay, better cut our losses before this really gets out of hand." Of course, the risk is that the balance of power might let it go on, tit for tat, goose for gander, one ship here and one ship there, for a long time. Each side takes a hit; each side hits back and gets even, but in getting even it, it sets the stage for the next round. And on and on and on.
(This is actually good for scenario design, although of course the loss of life would be horrible. However, the loss of life would be far away and perhaps even less visible than a war like Vietnam...any newscasters on a US ship sunk by a Soviet sub would probably not have time to take many pictures, etc. Assuming they even survived. So you wouldn't have a war like roaring into everyone's living room like Vietnam did. It is a proxy war where people would read about it but probably wouldn't have to feel it the way they did with Vietnam.)
Is this possible? Plausible? In fact, given that there's a good reason for it--a tit-for-tat war like this lets the superpowers posture without a big risk of ending the world--is it perhaps even a likely course of action?
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