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I don't think Russia alone has ever defeated a foreign power. They dropped
out of WW I because of a revolution. I think even the Swiss defeated them at one
time.
Bob Dove
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, January 04, 2003 3:45
PM
Subject: Re: Korean War & Vietnam
War
The USSR did not have a true "Blue
Water Navy" until the late 1960s, and as such would have been hard pressed to
stop the US 7th Fleet in 1950. Even their submarines of the period were
ill-suited for deployments outside the Black Sea or Baltic, and most of them
operated there (albeit successfully) during WWII.
They had the Tu-4
B-29 clone in production, but it was highly tempermental in US service and
even moreso with the DA-VVS. Also, they had just managed to get a bomb build
that was similar in design to "Fat Man" and very heavy, which limited the
range of the Tu-4 carrying one. Ergo, no power projection there either.
The only place that the US was vastly inferior to the USSR was in
Western Europe, as we had drawn down our army, none of the continental forces
were fully back up to 1939 levels of strength or training, the British were
drawing down, and there was not a Bundeswehr for five more years. That was the
one place we could not go toe-to-toe with the Soviets and they knew, we knew
they knew it, and ergo a desire for status quo.
It hurt to suffer with
the Blockade of 1948-49 and the crackdowns on Poland, East Germany and Hungary
in the 1950s, but there was little that could be done about it.
The
Far East was the one area that the Soviets were still fairly weak, as they had
stood down a good deal of their forces there from 1945 levels. Still, the
prospects of an all-out land war in Asia were not appealling to anybody,
period.
Cookie Sewell
AMPS
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