User:Lbenne/sandbox

Background
The leader of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in the time leading up to the war games was Leonid Brezhnev. He was in power from October 1964 to November 1982. Tensions were beginning to rise after the Détente of the 1970s. Tensions rose due to Moscow harboring a growing concern that their arsenal of nuclear weapons, which rivaled that of the United States, had been the factor urging NATO in its quest for military supremacy. The Russian administration believed this quest was pursued solely to upset the equilibrium that was recently acquired by the Soviet Union with their nuclear weapons and conventional power. The Soviets viewed the building up of U.S. forces as an attempt to ‘blackmail’ the Soviet Union into submission. This led the soviets to “enhance the value of nuclear weapons” as a war fighting weapon. However, in 1982, the Soviet Union renounced the first use of nuclear weapons, but the declaration did not affect the soviets war plan, as they still considered a preemptive strike if authentic information was acquired. In March 1979, the Soviet Minister of Defense, Marshal Dmitrii Ustinov anticipated that NATO would easily be able to enlist the help of China and France, from that he deduced that NATO could be ready for war in as little as 48 hours. In December 1979, the Warsaw Pact viewed NATO’s motives as being driven by their desire to gain military superiority. These views were fueled and supported by the intelligence that was being gathered at the time. In February 1980, the head of the Committee for State Security (KGB), Yurii V. Andropov, raised concern over the “U.S. bid for military superiority”. A meeting in early 1981 between Andropov and Brezhnev resulted in the formation of RYAN (as detailed above), with the intent of gaining enough intelligence to foretell the comings of a nuclear attack. In 1981, Soviets obtained the war plan for the U.S. 5th Army Corps in Germany which hinted they had the ability to stop the Soviet’s forces with the use of tactical nuclear weapons. With this information, the Soviet Union with its conventional method of war was being threatened. The chief of the Soviet General Staff, Nikolai V. Ogarkov, argued that the Soviets could win the war if they were the ones who struck with tactical nuclear weapons first. To counter this view, the Defense Minister, Dmitrii Ustinov disapproved of those who believed in winning a nuclear war and Brezhnev also believed that winning a war would be impossible. Colonel Vitalii N. Tsygichko was tasked with illustrating the results of what the outcome would be if nuclear war broke out and showed that the use of nuclear weapons was not an option. In contrast to the U.S, the Soviet generals and marshals were the ones pushing for war, whereas in the U.S., it was the civilians and politicians. In November 1982, Andropov was appointed to General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) after the death of Brezhnev. Andropov found it hard to distinguish whether or the not the United states were intending to blackmail the Soviet Union or preparing to use nuclear weapons. Andropov placed the blame on the west for the continuing arms race that was sliding down a slope that would ultimately end in war. In February 1983, the threat level under RYAN was increased, just after a Warsaw Pact meeting, and the country was on high alert for any surprise attacks. On September 26, 1983, in the aptly named 'Petrov Incident', Stanislav Petrov was an on-duty officer in a Soviet nuclear warning center where there was a purported launch of American nuclear missiles. Petrov opted not to alert the Soviet high command because the system malfunctioned indicating that the Soviets narrowly avoided war. Ronald Reagan's speech on March 23, 1983, outlaid the plan for ‘Star Wars’ which served to infuriate the Soviet Union, with Andropov proclaiming that the United States was continuing their search for more ways to turn a nuclear war in their favor, instead of relying on Mutually assured destruction (MAD). The Soviet Union was aware of previous NATO training exercises, however not enough intelligence was obtained to prove the harmlessness of the Able Archer 83 exercises, thus leading to rising tensions.