Ein mögliches Szenario für den Einsatz nuklearer Kampfmittel auf europäischem Boden, diesmal als Reaktion Russlands auf den Erstschlag durch die NATO.
Hoffe, diese Karte wurde hier noch nicht gepostet.
(Originaltext des britischen "Guardian" vom 27.11.2005)
Polish reveal '79 Soviet N-plan
By Nicholas Watt
Warsaw
November 27 2005
Poland's new right-wing Government has risked friction with Russia by publishing a Warsaw Pact map showing detailed plans for Soviet nuclear strikes against western Europe.
Poland has opened its military archives to show how much of Europe would have been laid to waste in a nuclear conflagration between East and West. Dating from 1979, when presidents Jimmy Carter and Leonid Brezhnev were discussing detente, the map shows how Warsaw Pact forces would have responded to an attack by the NATO alliance.
Red mushroom clouds over western Europe show that Soviet nuclear weapons strikes would have been launched at Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark and Belgium if NATO had struck first.
Red clouds are over the then German capital, Bonn, and other key German cities including Frankfurt, Cologne, Stuttgart, Munich and Hamburg.
Brussels, the political headquarters of NATO, is also a target.
Blue mushroom clouds, representing the expected NATO nuclear strikes, are drawn over cities in the eastern bloc, including Warsaw and the then Czechoslovakian capital, Prague.
France would have escaped attack, probably because it was, and still is, not a member of NATO.
Britain, which has always been at the heart of NATO, would also have been spared, suggesting Moscow wanted its ground forces to stop at the Rhine.
The exercise, entitled Seven Days to the River Rhine, indicated that Warsaw Pact forces aimed to reach the French-German border within a week of a NATO attack.
Standing next to the fading map in Warsaw on Friday, Poland's Defence Minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, said: "The objective of the exercise on this map is to take over most of western Europe — all of Germany, Belgium and Denmark."
Mr Sikorski, who once worked for the right-wing American Enterprise Institute think tank in Washington, made it clear he was prepared for a backlash from Russia, whose President, Vladimir Putin, has lamented the demise of the Soviet Union.
Announcing the release of 1700 Warsaw Pact papers from Poland's military archive, he said: "This is crucial to educating the country on the way Poland was an unwilling ally of the USSR in the Cold War. The map shows a classic Warsaw Pact exercise — it was a counterattack to defend itself by going all the way to the Atlantic."
Mr Sikorski, who was appointed when the Law and Justice party won a surprise victory after pledging to cleanse the country of its communist past, believes the map shows Moscow was prepared to sacrifice Poland to save the Soviet Union.
NATO's policy of retaining the right to a first nuclear strike — because the Soviet Union had far superior conventional forces — meant Polish troops dug in by the River Vistula would have been wiped out.
"This map is a moving and shattering personal experience," Mr Sikorski said of the exercise, which estimated that 2 million Polish civilians would have been killed.
"It shows that the Polish army was being used to participate in an operation that would have resulted in the nuclear annihilation of our country."
With ties between Poland and Russia at one of their lowest ebbs since the break-up of the Warsaw Pact, Mr Sikorski, asked whether he feared a Kremlin backlash, said: "We think the Soviet regime was very detrimental to Russia. The Russian people suffered the most."
Commander Waldemar Wojcik, the head of Poland's Central Military Academy, said: "This was an exercise based on the assumption of a NATO attack. The doctrine of the day was that the Warsaw Pact countries were peace-loving. I visited the Pentagon in 2001 and was shown maps that were the mirror image of this."
Other papers released cover Operation Danube, the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and details of a massacre of Polish strikers in 1970 at Szczecin that led to the downfall of Wladyslaw Gomulka, a relatively moderate leader.
Poland's recently elected Prime Minister, Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, insisted Warsaw was not trying to provoke Russia, even though it released the map without consulting Moscow. "The future should be built on the truth about the past," he said.
"If the truth is damaging to international relations, that is a bad thing … I am sure this will not spoil our relations with Russia."
(c) GUARDIAN
Hoffe, diese Karte wurde hier noch nicht gepostet.
(Originaltext des britischen "Guardian" vom 27.11.2005)
Polish reveal '79 Soviet N-plan
By Nicholas Watt
Warsaw
November 27 2005
Poland's new right-wing Government has risked friction with Russia by publishing a Warsaw Pact map showing detailed plans for Soviet nuclear strikes against western Europe.
Poland has opened its military archives to show how much of Europe would have been laid to waste in a nuclear conflagration between East and West. Dating from 1979, when presidents Jimmy Carter and Leonid Brezhnev were discussing detente, the map shows how Warsaw Pact forces would have responded to an attack by the NATO alliance.
Red mushroom clouds over western Europe show that Soviet nuclear weapons strikes would have been launched at Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark and Belgium if NATO had struck first.
Red clouds are over the then German capital, Bonn, and other key German cities including Frankfurt, Cologne, Stuttgart, Munich and Hamburg.
Brussels, the political headquarters of NATO, is also a target.
Blue mushroom clouds, representing the expected NATO nuclear strikes, are drawn over cities in the eastern bloc, including Warsaw and the then Czechoslovakian capital, Prague.
France would have escaped attack, probably because it was, and still is, not a member of NATO.
Britain, which has always been at the heart of NATO, would also have been spared, suggesting Moscow wanted its ground forces to stop at the Rhine.
The exercise, entitled Seven Days to the River Rhine, indicated that Warsaw Pact forces aimed to reach the French-German border within a week of a NATO attack.
Standing next to the fading map in Warsaw on Friday, Poland's Defence Minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, said: "The objective of the exercise on this map is to take over most of western Europe — all of Germany, Belgium and Denmark."
Mr Sikorski, who once worked for the right-wing American Enterprise Institute think tank in Washington, made it clear he was prepared for a backlash from Russia, whose President, Vladimir Putin, has lamented the demise of the Soviet Union.
Announcing the release of 1700 Warsaw Pact papers from Poland's military archive, he said: "This is crucial to educating the country on the way Poland was an unwilling ally of the USSR in the Cold War. The map shows a classic Warsaw Pact exercise — it was a counterattack to defend itself by going all the way to the Atlantic."
Mr Sikorski, who was appointed when the Law and Justice party won a surprise victory after pledging to cleanse the country of its communist past, believes the map shows Moscow was prepared to sacrifice Poland to save the Soviet Union.
NATO's policy of retaining the right to a first nuclear strike — because the Soviet Union had far superior conventional forces — meant Polish troops dug in by the River Vistula would have been wiped out.
"This map is a moving and shattering personal experience," Mr Sikorski said of the exercise, which estimated that 2 million Polish civilians would have been killed.
"It shows that the Polish army was being used to participate in an operation that would have resulted in the nuclear annihilation of our country."
With ties between Poland and Russia at one of their lowest ebbs since the break-up of the Warsaw Pact, Mr Sikorski, asked whether he feared a Kremlin backlash, said: "We think the Soviet regime was very detrimental to Russia. The Russian people suffered the most."
Commander Waldemar Wojcik, the head of Poland's Central Military Academy, said: "This was an exercise based on the assumption of a NATO attack. The doctrine of the day was that the Warsaw Pact countries were peace-loving. I visited the Pentagon in 2001 and was shown maps that were the mirror image of this."
Other papers released cover Operation Danube, the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and details of a massacre of Polish strikers in 1970 at Szczecin that led to the downfall of Wladyslaw Gomulka, a relatively moderate leader.
Poland's recently elected Prime Minister, Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, insisted Warsaw was not trying to provoke Russia, even though it released the map without consulting Moscow. "The future should be built on the truth about the past," he said.
"If the truth is damaging to international relations, that is a bad thing … I am sure this will not spoil our relations with Russia."
(c) GUARDIAN
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