If we intuitively describe how strong the Soviet Union was at its peak, it can only be said that the flattening of Europe was a matter of March and February.
In 1981, the Soviet Union held an unusually large military exercise, which proved that if the Soviet army wanted to, eight days would be enough to bulldoze the countries of Europe. This conclusion has made all countries in the world frightened, and all the NATO member states that have made a lot of noise have invariably entered the first-class combat readiness equipment, for fear that the Soviet Union will "do a fake show" on a whim.
Until now, many military fans still believe that the Soviet Union launched a "soldier of the gods" at that time.
But who knows, it turned out to be the last madness of the Soviet Union.
"Who's going to show whom color?"
The Soviet Union at the end of the 70s had expanded to the limit, which made the other super-hegemon - the United States anxious.
At this time, the "wrestling wrist" between the United States and the Soviet Union had entered a decisive period.
Neither could make the other stop the fight until one bowed to the other.
At that time, all countries in the world had just experienced World War I and World War II, and everyone seemed to have stress symptoms, although they were not afraid of war, but they were unwilling to fight. In this respect, the Soviet Union was actually more reluctant to fight, because although it was a country with interests, it was far less than the United States gained as many benefits.
The United States is also somewhat lacking in confidence, so it mainly uses "soft war" as a means to increase its strength. For example, on the basis of the gratitude of Western European countries to Dade (for helping to defeat the original British exploiting class, etc.), it will develop influence.
One is to be half a big brother and allocate various resources for everyone; One is to provide national defense forces, because everyone is fighting so that no one has money left.
The Soviet Union was not idle, and in addition to expanding and enriching its national strength, it was still very wary of the United States.
However, the national conditions are different, and the 15 union republics within the Soviet Union have many problems of national propositions and systems that need to be adjusted and reformed; Coupled with the fact that the Soviet Union died more than 20 million people in World War II, no matter how powerful it is, it has to recuperate.
Let's look at what the United States has done during this time period.
First of all, the United States has realized its initial ambitions, established the Bretton Woods system, and the dollar replaced the British pound as the world's first currency.
We know that to become a world hegemon, the monetary system is one big fulcrum, language is another, and mastery of oil, weapons, etc. is a big fulcrum. With this triangular system, it is basically possible to achieve real expansion and move forward.
The United States has indeed grasped the first lifeblood when countries are most short of money. On this basis, the United States came to serve as an "inspector" for Western Europe, which is what many people caricatured in the 80s.
But being an inspector is not free, and Western Europe saw that the United States was going back and forth, and did not dare to provoke this "great benefactor", so they allowed the United States to do another thing: cancel the peg between the dollar and gold.
Mind you, this is a big deal, no less than the dominance of the dollar. Because as soon as gold is decoupled, it means that Europe's coinage power will be put on the back burner all of a sudden, and it will become dispensable from a necessity in the world.
The Soviet Union must have been alert to this series of actions of the United States, but the Soviet Union, as a polar bear, did not care. To put it bluntly, the Soviet Union thought that it was too good, and if it stomped its feet a little, the world would have to be like an earthquake.
And what about the countries of Western Europe? Will Western Europe follow the United States closely and not be half-hearted?
If we casually look at history, we know that between countries, alliances are for profit, not because of "loyalty".
Under a series of operations by the United States, the whole of Europe was reduced to the second brother, and by the 80s of the last century, the United States was already the absolute first brother. This process seems to be controllable, but it is uncontrollable, because the situation is stronger than people, and if it is not strong, you have to hug your thighs or huddle together.
The countries of Western Europe understand that although the United States helped them defeat the last "slave master," the United States has become their new hegemon, but it looks more civilized. In this way, the countries of Western Europe hugged the thigh of the United States in contradictions, and at the same time established NATO.
We all know that at that time, NATO and Warsaw happened to be a separate unity alliance between the West and the East. In order to resist risks, everyone is actually human. It was at this time that the United States swelled and began not to rely entirely on "soft power".
The United States is a country like this, there is not much civilization by nature, there is more than barbarism, and from time to time it is necessary to make comparisons, and the biggest characteristic is that it does not go into battle in person, but has to provoke others to fight first.
Officially "starting the bar"
The official "bar" of the United States and the Soviet Union is the process as follows:
In 1981, Reagan came to power and presided over the affairs of the United States, and in order to ignite the "three fires" after taking office, Reagan put forward three new concepts.
First, the United States should get out of the shadow of the Vietnam War, and it cannot think that the GIs still have the mud in the quagmire on their legs, victory and defeat are a common thing in soldiers, and the emotions of the Americans are high for me;
Second, the United States is the "firefighting captain", Europe is our rescue target, and we must build a good alliance with Europe; The third is that some countries can no longer expand, unlike words, the world is no longer what you imagined.
The meaning is probably this: the European brothers have surrendered to me, and I, the United States, now have the capital to confront you, the Soviet Union.
The USSR was angry at the time.
In addition, the United States also held a series of military exercises in the far east and northern coasts of the Soviet Union.
Let's put it this way, I hit Big Bear's eyebrows several times.
For example, the "Ocean Explorer-81" and "FLEETEX83-1" exercises, most recently, the warships were less than 400 nautical miles from the Soviet Union.
Will the USSR be able to endure it? Can't bear it.
As mentioned earlier, the Soviet Union has always been wary of the United States, and has disdained (or rather cannot manage) its soft expansion.
Between 1972 and 1984, the Soviet Union held five relatively large deterrent military exercises. Among them, the military exercise in 1981 was specially designed to "give NATO and its big brother the United States a little color."
The Soviet leader at that time, Leonid Brezhnev, probably had this mentality: look who teaches whom! You're going to give me some color? Then I'll let you know that Lord Ma really has three eyes!
The Soviet military exercise in 1981, in the eyes of today's military fans, was also a "great god arrangement", after all, in that era, a country's national strength could be gathered to such a point, which was not something that could be easily done by mouthing artillery.
At that time, all countries were basically in a "blood loss" period, even if they had nuclear weapons, they did not dare to use them, but the most basic mechanized countries had them, so what was the competition? What is fighting is modernization and military automation, which is also the military trend at that time.
It was also a coincidence that at this time, there happened to be a "genius" in the Soviet Union, who dared to boldly make up for modernization and advocate information automation, and the then Soviet Defense Minister Ustinov wanted to make some "real achievements", so the two hit it off.
By September, the Soviet Union raised the middle finger to NATO, and even more so to demonstrate against the United States: let the horse come and see, discipline you and don't dare to think about it anymore!
Nine days can drink the Atlantic Ocean
Ustinov was promoted by Stalin in the line of fire, and after he became the Minister of Defense of the Soviet Union, many people said that he was not suitable, mainly because he felt that he was too young and did not have many real achievements.
So when the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the USSR was preparing to counterattack the United States and NATO, Ustinov felt that his opportunity had come.
At this time, the Soviet Union actually had a lot of military talents, basically had actual combat experience, and also studied the United States and other NATO countries quite deeply, but Ustinov made a dangerous move, and he used Marshal Ogarkov.
Ogarkov is also a veteran, but unlike other military commanders, he has a mind that loves to push the envelope.
Since 1979, Ogarkov has believed that the future military should be dominated by electronic computers and engaged in automation and informationization.
In Ogarkov's vision, with the help of electronic computing equipment, everyone can match the most suitable position in the future war system, whether it is weapons or people.
In this way, in the eyes of the commander, the entire war is a big system, and how to win, advance or retreat is the most optimized, as long as the deployment is good, the loss is small, and the winning chance is large. It has to be said that this marshal has two brushes.
Later, Ustinov cooperated with him and asked Ogarkov to be the chief planner of the "West-81" exercise, and the ambition of the two was to fight NATO in three days, advance the English Channel in a week, and drink the Atlantic Ocean in about nine days.
Before the exercise, in order to respect NATO's right to know, the Soviet Union issued an "invitation" to everyone.
It was to the effect: Come and see how I'm going to beat you.
And NATO countries are busy coming, after all, this kind of thing, can not care about saving face.
Beginning on September 14, 1981, the Soviet Union began an unprecedented, large-scale joint exercise, in which the navy, land and air forces were brought out together, with more than 10 army corps, 500,000 troops, and countless tanks and armored vehicles swept away, forming a "steel torrent".
According to statistics, there are more than 1,500 tanks, 2,000 other armor units combined, and the air and sea are all elite, 2 divisions of airborne troops, 4 divisions of rocket artillery, etc., and the navy is a whole fleet, and at the same time it is equipped with 3 marine regiments.
At that time, these forces were deployed in batches in the western part of the Soviet state, in the Baltic Sea of Belarus ➕ in today's western ➕ Russia. It then extended to the east and north of Poland, and was also arranged in East Germany.
According to the plan, the USSR launched an attack and occupation.
On the first day, the West German army air bases were destroyed, and the depth and various troop concentration areas were brutally bombed.
Note that the USSR used both nuclear assault and tactical nuclear strikes.
By the eighth day, 141 of these devastating simulated nuclear strikes had been used, truly realizing the function of "dropping nuclear bombs casually and killing targets one by one." Later, the military calculated that this equivalent was about 100 to 100,000 tons of TNT.
With the help of the initial nuclear strike, the Soviets quickly tore through the 10×5-kilometer breakthrough, and then the tank swarm went into battle, the airborne troops were airborne in West Germany, and the MiG-27 and others supported it to seize the road hub. The process was tough, but it was smooth.
And one more thing that frightened NATO and others was the debut of the secret Soviet tank - the T-80. This weapon is a veritable king of land warfare, and it is it, leading everyone straight into the English Channel.
The simulated strike of the Soviet army made NATO unable to guard against it, and found that there were many gaps, and what was even more angry was that the navy launched a flanking attack in the Baltic Sea, and the front was a "saturation missile feeding" with bombers and other cooperation.
This kind of formation is denser than the "three-dimensional fire cage in the air" when the Soviet army captured Berlin.
On the eighth day of the exercise, that is, on the 22nd, NATO was horrified to find that the Soviet Union was too strong, and with the current overall strength of Western Europe, it could not stop the Soviet attack at all. This is a slap in the face, on the 8th day the Soviet Union will be killed on the border of France and Belgium.
If it goes well, the 9th day will indeed be a horse Atlantic, and the victory is in hand.
So, where is the United States?
The answer is that the United States is probably still on the way, because the United States is too far away from Western Europe, so far away that across the Atlantic, far water cannot save the near fire.
Seeing the results of this exercise, the United States, which is only capable of arching fire, was also dumbfounded.
What will happen when it really fights
Some people asked, if the Soviet Union had not collapsed, would the United States still be arrogant in the future?
The answer is: no ifs.
You can say that the Soviet Union at that time was a reckless military force, strong from outside and capable from the middle, but in any case, its disintegration was not only because of this, but also because of the chaos of internal affairs, the centrifugation of the nation, and the outbreak of accumulated evils, which made the "West-81" exercise once a swan song in military history.
epilogue
After inheriting the main military legacy of the Soviet Union, Russia also wanted to revive the grand occasion of the exercises, the largest of which was the "West-2018" exercise attended by Putin in person in 2018.
At that time, Ukraine was on the verge of moving, and Russia was already alert, but the history is strikingly similar: Ukraine finally betrayed East Slavia and joined NATO, and we can only lament the irreversible parts.