In 1993, I was in a panel discussion with several retired Soviet (Russian) Generals on the North side of Moscow.
From NATO’s side, the “formal cold war” intel was actually very good.
The debate in our side wasn’t could they roll through Germany and France to the coast in approx 2-4 weeks. The debate on our side was what’s holding them back.
Apart from MAD, a significant number on our side believed it was our nuclear artillery, while the other half theorized it was MAD only.
However, the question really wasn’t about MAD, but rather if the Soviet’s didn’t go nuclear, and chose only to use armor and artillery, could we justify going strategic nuclear, which would have resulted MAD. This gaming and policy discussion was tricky.
On our side, there were at least a few who believed it possible Moscow could at any moment test us with their armor to see what our response would be. In such a test, they would begin by sending 2-3 armor brigades to learn our response. Of we didn’t respond with nuclear artillery, they had two options, ratchet up, or go all in.
We would then use nuclear artillery to halt Soviet armor, and the thinking by some was Moscow would perhaps not escalate to MAD, for their own preservation.
So a nuclear game of chicken -
Either way, they had the armor.ayne not enough tank drivers, but they had the armor.
We never knew why they never tested us, or went all in for sure, until 1993 (probably). The panel of Generals told us they knew we couldn’t stop them with NATO air, but they knew they would lose all.of their armor in a couple of days, because of our nuclear artillery, leaving the CCCP defenseless except for strategic weapons.
However, they had a lot of territory, and believed we could then take large areas of territory, with their only option to essentially nuke themselves to stop us.
This explanation was almost comical, but they were really afraid of our nuclear artillery regardless.
So the nuke artillery was the “conventional” blitzkrieg deterrent.
Craziness -
I spent a year with armed forces of former Warsaw pact nations in Iraq. From what I was told the reason the Soviet Union never attacked the West was because Soviet leadership was not certain the Warsaw pact would fight for the CCCP or against it.
The present example of the Belarus military and some of the Stans seem to reinforce this.
One of the reasons the convoy outside Kiev isn’t moving is because Belarus rail workers have refused to move the Russian supply trains.