it's said that John-Paul the Great also threatened the Soviets that if they invaded Poland, he'd quit being the Pope and go from being the Vicar of Christ to the Vicar of Warsaw...
Posted on 04/04/2005 5:29:57 PM PDT by wagglebee
Not to mention the ussr in 1920, and, throughout Poland's history, Swedes, Turks, Tartars, Kossaks, more Russians, Prussians, Teutonic knights, etc.
They just keep trying to crush Poland.
The critical factor in each of the events that I am personally aware of as an intelligence type between the end of Vietnam for me and 1985 was the Soviet civilian government cooling down the "let's go to war" rants of the East Germans. The Kremlin knew that the Chinese would exploit any disruption of the delicate balance that existed in central Europe and that the Soviet economy and forces would be squeezed from both west and east.
Don't bet the mortgage on it. NATO was configured as a defensive alliance. Any attack on A MEMBER STATE was as an attack on all. But Poland was NOT a member state. Can you imagine France or the Benelux countries joining the US in a war to drive Russians out of Poland?! And West Germany would have had a hard time joining in; her armies would have to march through EAST Germany to reach the Polish border. I don't the ca. 400,000 soviet troops in East Germany and 150,000 or so East German NVA troops would have simply moved out of the way.
it's said that John-Paul the Great also threatened the Soviets that if they invaded Poland, he'd quit being the Pope and go from being the Vicar of Christ to the Vicar of Warsaw...
Following that government's outlawing of the Solidarity movement, which the Pope had publicly and covertly supported, Reagan suspended Poland's Most Favored Nation trading status, costing cash-strapped Poland some $6 billion a year in sales.
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That was my favorite part. Liberals howl anytime you cut foreign aid, Remember code pink at all those groups protesting the 'deaths of iraqi kids from sanctions'. We still ship grain to north korea.
The hardline stance works nearly every time its tried, and REALLY benefits the citizens of the country.
These dictators destitute their country so much that they actually need the outside world more then the outside world needs them. If the collective force of the outside world works against them they cannot stand.
"I don't know how reliable NewsMax is,"
As soon as I saw Newsmix in this article its credibility factor dropped by about 90%. Your comments on the Order of Battle reinforce my suspicion.
"400,000 soviet troops in East Germany and 150,000 or so East German NVA troops would have simply moved out of the way."
In fact they might have been marching/panzering west.
"For one thing, given the difference in levels of force strength ("order of battle") between NATO and the Warsaw Pact--or even just between the US and the USSR in 1981--there is not much the US could have really done to prevent an invasion if the Soviets were hell-bent on it"
There's quite a bit they could have done from the air. Any invasion would require armor and troops. Both were vulnerable from the air. Mass formations are not possible without air superiority and the Soviets didn't have it.
"The hardline stance works nearly every time its tried, and REALLY benefits the citizens of the country. "
The first exception that comes to mind is the banking and economic sanctions on panama in the late 80's. It made a mess of the banking system (which uses the dollar), hurt any and everyone with a bank account (you couldn'g get your money out, poor or rich), and did not dislodge the target.
Of course, when he was arrested during a coup in 10-89, Southcom also declined to send a unit the 2 miles from Quarry Heights to the Comandancia to pick him up either as the coupmongers requested. This obviously would have been much harder to do than the actually invasion 2 months later. (sarcasm)
Pretty much.
I asked a friend of mine who spend 20+ years in intelligence about the Pope and Poland story. The question was...'without details, did xxx happen?' He said yes.
"Soviets didn't have it."
Say what? The Soviet Union BORDERED Poland. Logistically it would have been simple for the Soviets to maintain armored columns advancing out of their own country! And the Sovs had plenty of airbases with plenty of Mig fighters in western Russia and western Ukraine to run interference with any US fighter/bombers intent on attacking Soviet columns--and this is not counting the substantial Soviet frontal aviation in East Germany on Polands western border. Think of the hard time Russia would have had stopping a hypothetical US invastion of Baja California and you get some idea of the headaches involved.
Could be. But Reagan was willing to take that chance. You OB "specialists" out there are forgetting one thing:
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NATO asked the United States to deploy intermediate range missiles to Europe in 1978 to counter the deployment of Soviet intermediate range, mobile SS 20 nuclear missiles, and the first Pershing II missiles arrived in the Brigade area in November 1983. By 1985 all three battalions of the 56th Brigade had achieved operational status.
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Ever wonder why the commies in West Germany were always going nutso over the Pershing?
So the Warsaw Pact had a huge numerical advantage over NATO. So why didn't they ever attack? Guesses?
Maybe Newsmax is overselling the story a little.
Had it come to that pass, I wonder what Reagan would really have done. Invaded East Germany? Landed marines at Gdansk?
I doubt he would have sat by idly, however.
Unfortunately, Walkure is right. They had unbelievable numbers of planes in the area, and the then-new MiG-29s and Su-27s were being introduced as well, which didn't bode well for an easy air fight against the soviets.
Reagan supported Poland anyways. If Britain and France had half the courage and half the honor of Reagan back in WWII, this discussion would not be neccessary, a huge number of people would have lived their lives happily, and died free, rather than die under the pall of communism(either of old age, or by execution), and millions upon millions wouldn't have been killed, since WWII would have ended really quickly.
God bless the righteous, Reagan and the Pope among them.
True, but we'd have to cut our way through the world's densest SAM belt and a few hundred Soviet all-weather fighters in Wast Germany to get there.
Might have been possible, but it would have been costly.
thx...
Unfortunately, I fear that our economic interdependence with the Chicoms makes that nearly impossible. Unlike the Soviets who we were able to spend into extinction, we have made the tragic mistake of bankrolling the Chicoms.
" So the Warsaw Pact had a huge numerical advantage over NATO. So why didn't they ever attack? Guesses?"
The actual issue posed was regarding the US ATTACKING the warsaw pact to intervene in an 'internal' matter of soviet invasion of poland. Therefore the question is regarding getting through the DDR and Soviet forces in east germany to even put troops on the ground in poland. My point was that if the US started world war III it was very possible W Germany itself would be invaded. Did we have the hardware on the ground in germany to invade and pass through East Germany?
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