Wars and Conflicts permalink
On this day: 15 February
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Message 1.Â
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Monday, 15th February 2010
•1989: The last Soviet soldier leaves Afghanistan, marking the USSR's first military defeat since World War Two.Â
Was the Soviet Union defeated during the Second World War? -
Message 2
Posted by TimTrack (U1730472) on Tuesday, 16th February 2010
No, but that is not what it says. It says it is the first defeat since WW2, not since they lost in WW2. the two are gramatically different.
To digree : Since is really an odd word. You don't notice it until you type it a lot. -
Message 3
Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Tuesday, 16th February 2010
The Soviet attempt to use military force to blockade West Berlin into submission in 1948-9 was hardly an outstanding success as neither was the attempt to defend Cuba by nuclear weapons in 1962. The invasions of Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968, supposed "allies" of the Soviet Union, may or may not rank as military 'victories' but they were undoubtedly political and PR disasters.
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Message 4
Posted by Charles Babbage (U2239092) on Tuesday, 16th February 2010
<QUOTE/>It says it is the first defeat since WW2, not since they lost in WW2. the two are gramatically different.<BR /></QUOTE><BR /><BR />So the best invention since sliced bread can actually be better than sliced bread.....
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Message 5
Posted by Jak (U1158529) on Tuesday, 16th February 2010
The Soviet attempt to use military force to blockade West Berlin ... was hardly an outstanding success as neither was the attempt to defend Cuba by nuclear weapons in 1962.Â
Didn't the Russkis get the Yanks to withdraw something-or-other from Turkey as part of the Cuba settlement?
A quid pro quo? -
Message 6
Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Tuesday, 16th February 2010
The Jupiter missiles in Turkey, which were obsolete anyway (the US had far more uptodate missiles in West Germany which were far closer to the major centres of population in the Soviet Union and were not withdrawn), were not the reason Soviet missiles were stationed in Cuba covertly in the first place. They became a kind of face-saving quid pro quo as Khrushchev tried to equate what he had done with what the US had done in Turkey (although Turkey was a NATO ally and the US made no secret of the fact that nuclear missiles were stationed in Turkey).
In the back channel diplomacy between Robert Kennedy and Dean Rusk, the US Secretary of State, and Anatol Dobrynin, the Soviet Ambassador to the US, Kennedy and Rusk made it clear to Dobrynin that the US was willing to remove the Jupiter missiles within 6 months of the removal of Soviet missiles from Cuba. However the removal of the Jupiter missiles should not be seen as a condition for the removal of the Soviet missiles from Cuba and if the Soviets publicised or made any reference to the removal of the Jupiter missiles from Turkey the deal would be instantly cancelled. It was only much later that the agreement came to light.
Doesn't sound like much of a victory, propaganda or otherwise, to me. -
Message 7
Posted by TimTrack (U1730472) on Wednesday, 17th February 2010
"...So the best invention since sliced bread can actually be better than sliced bread....."
Well, yes, it can be actually.
The Soviet defeat in Afghanistan was their first military defeat since England won the world cup.
I am going to put that up somewhere as part of a list of random but true statements. -
Message 8
Posted by Jak (U1158529) on Wednesday, 17th February 2010
The Jupiter missiles in Turkey ... were obsolete anywayÂ
So that's all right then; the Americans would be quite glad to be rid of them. But no publicity, please.
the US had ... missiles in West Germany which were far closer to the major centres of population in the Soviet UnionÂ
Far closer? Closer to some major centres, but clearly not closer to Moscow, Kiev, Kharkov nor all that area around the Dnieper, the Don, and anywhere further east. Turkey bordered the USSR after all.
They became a kind of face-saving quid pro quoÂ
As I said, a quid pro quo, and a good thing too.
It brought an end to an extremely worrying period, as I remember vividly.
Though of course we never heard about the American withdrawal of missiles (and whatever else) until long after the event. -
Message 9
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Wednesday, 17th February 2010
The Soviet defeat in Afghanistan was their first military defeat since England won the world cup.Â
So basically it seems that the 'On this day' entry in question is either factually inaccurate or factually irrelevent.
Either way, therefore, it's a poor entry. -
Message 10
Posted by VF (U5759986) on Wednesday, 17th February 2010
The only ways that you could possibly beat this lot is through fear and a Stalinist approach - you kill 50 of our people we kill 5000 of yours.Either that or pay tribes more than what the taliban pay.Or you DDT every green patch of land in the province
None of this is acceptable and never should be,but I think that its very niave of todays press to claim that we can "win"this conflict.We couldnt do it in the past(at our peak)and we will not do it in the future.The Russians couldnt manage it either.
Vf -
Message 11
Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Thursday, 18th February 2010
the Americans would be quite glad to be rid of them.Â
Not only that but they had already scheduled their removal so it was hardly a "concession"on the part of the US. The US had also made no secret about the Jupiter missiles whilst the Soviet missiles had been installed in Cuba covertly and were at first denied by the Soviets after they had been revealed by US areial surveillance. If the purpose of the Soviet missiles was to secure the removal of the Jupiter missiles in Turkey why were they installed covertly?
but clearly not closer to MoscowÂ
Clearly? Frankfurt-Moscow = 989 miles, Ankara-Moscow=1114 miles.
As I said, a quid pro quo, and a good thing too.Â
Except noone else knew about it so it could hardly be described as "face-saving".
It brought an end to an extremely worrying period, as I remember vividly.Â
I, too, remember that period and the "worrying" period was brought about by Khrushchev gambling with a nuclear confrontation. The TV pictures of the Soviet missiles being dismantled and shipped home were universally interpreted at the time, and by sensible commentators since, as a massive Soviet climbdown. Khrushchev was removed by the Politburo almost exactly two years later. -
Message 12
Posted by Jak (U1158529) on Thursday, 18th February 2010
Ankara - Moscow = 1114 milesÂ
Were the American missiles in Ankara, or maybe just a bit nearer the USSR?
Frankfurt - Moscow = 989 milesÂ
That's the distance from Frankfurt-on-Oder in Soviet-controlled East Germany.
The other Frankfurt (on-Main) was the one in the American Zone of West Germany, almost 300 miles further from Moscow.
a massive Soviet climbdownÂ
So it was portrayed at the time.
But apparently, as well as taking away their missiles etc from Turkey, the USA gave a guarantee not to invade or assist in the invasion of Cuba (there had been the Bay of Pigs fiasco not long before, remember?).
And the Washington-Moscow "hotline" was set up, to prevent similar fearsome crises in future. Which can't be a bad thing.
Quid pro quo, and subsequent gloating about Khruschev's "humiliation" seems a bit OTT to me. -
Message 13
Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Thursday, 18th February 2010
The other Frankfurt (on-Main) was the one in the American Zone of West Germany, almost 300 miles further from MoscowÂ
Quite right, but what had made all US land-based missiles obsolete was the development of the Polaris submarine-based system.
But apparently, as well as taking away their missiles etc from Turkey, the USA gave a guarantee not to invade or assist in the invasion of Cuba (there had been the Bay of Pigs fiasco not long before, remember?).Â
Again, a committment that was not publicised so could hardly be described as "face-saving". The Bay of Pigs operation, carried out by Cuban exiles trained by the CIA, in April 1961 and approved by the Eisenhower administration failed because Kennedy had refused to lend air support. The stationing of nuclear missiles had nothing to do with the security of the Castro regime but as a trump card Khrushchev could pull out in a future confrontation over Berlin.
And the Washington-Moscow "hotline" was set up, to prevent similar fearsome crises in future. Which can't be a bad thing.Â
No it wasn't as neither was the signing of the Atmospheric Test Ban Treaty, on which the Soviets had been stalling for almost a decade, the following year and the general thaw that occurred in the Cold War that followed the crisis but was it worth the risk of a nuclear holocaust? Diplomacy from the start could have resolved all these issues without resort to nuclear brinkmanship that so conspicuously failed.
A less cautious President than Kennedy might have acted very differently as his military advisers, such as Curtis LeMay who had overseen the strategic bombing offensives against both Germany and Japan in WWII, were urging an overwhelming response. Indeed Kennedy was only 30 minutes away from ordering the bombers to go in and take out the missile sites when he received Khrushchev's response (sent by Western Union rather than the slower encrypted diplomatic channels) to his final set of proposals to resolve the crisis.
You have still to explain why, if the missiles were intended simply as a 'bargaining counter' to secure the removal of US missiles in Turkey and prop up the Castro regime, they were installed secretly. -
Message 14
Posted by Jak (U1158529) on Thursday, 18th February 2010
You have yet to explain why, if the missiles were intended simply as a 'bargaining counter' to secure the removal of US missiles in Turkey, ... they were installed secretly.Â
No I don't. It's not something I claimed. Who can say what the Soviets were up to?
If the USA regarded missiles in Cuba as provocative, I expect the USSR felt much the same about missiles in Turkey.
And I didn't use the expression "face-saving", you did. But the real outcome, whether publicised or not, was a tit-for-tat quid pro quo.
And a good thing too. -
Message 15
Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Thursday, 18th February 2010
If the USA regarded missiles in Cuba as provocative, I expect the USSR felt much the same about missiles in Turkey.Â
Except that they only complained about them after the US discovered the missiles in Cuba.
But the real outcome, whether publicised or not, was a tit-for-tat quid pro quo.
And a good thing too.Â
Did the Soviets get as good a deal as the US from the crisis? You yourself have admitted that any advantages the Soviets got - the removal of Jupiter missiles which were to due to be removed in any event and a 'no-invasion' pledge on Cuba (although the US continued to fund dissident exile groups and maintained the trade embargo) - were secret and unpublicised. To the rest of the world at the time it looked like a massive Soviet climbdown and humiliation for Soviet power, equal to, if not greater than, the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan in 1989, which was my reason for including it in this thread.
Every crisis in the Cold War was followed by a period of thaw and improved relations. The ending of the Korean War in 1953 (which followed on from the death of Stalin 3 months previously) was followed by the Geneva Agreements (with the UK and the Soviet Union as co-sponsors) of 1954 and the Austrian State Treaty of 1955.
The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis was followed by the Test Ban Treaty of 1963. The Yom Kippur War of 1973 (in which Brezhnev had threatened to send Soviet forces to the Middle East and Nixon had responded with a nuclear alert) was followed by the Helsinki Accords on European security in 1975.
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 was followed (once Gorbachev had emerged) by the strategic arms agreements between Reagan and Gorbachev. Many believe that the quagmire in Afghanistan was one of the principal factors behind the emergence of Gorbachev and that Afghanistan delivered the final blow to the Soviet system in the same way that the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5 and WWI had undermined the Czarist system.
The question remains as to whether recurrent crises, all of them provoked by aggressive and reckless Soviet actions, which could have led to nuclear obliteration had they been mishandled by either side, was a sensible way to conduct international diplomacy. I think not but you obviously you do not share my view. -
Message 16
Posted by Jak (U1158529) on Thursday, 18th February 2010
Did the Soviets get as good a deal as the US...?Â
As a propaganda exercise in the West, with half of the deal hushed-up, it certainly didn't look that way to us, then.
I can't help wondering exactly when the old news of the Turkish missiles' removal was first revealed to the British public. Was it, for instance, broadcast on Radio Moscow, or reported in the 'Daily Worker', at the time it happened? -
Message 17
Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Thursday, 18th February 2010
No, the missiles in Turkey were removed in April 1963, six months after the crisis, in accordance with the agreement between the Soviets and the US. However, the first evidence of the "back-channel" diplomacy that took place during the crisis between Robert Kennedy and Dean Rusk, for the US, and Anatoly Dobrynin, for the Soviets, and the offers made by Robert Kennedy, on behalf of his brother, to resolve the crisis, did not emerge until 1969 with the publication of Robert Kennedy's posthumous memoir "Thirteen Days" (this still remains the best account of the crisis by an insider as JFK left no memoir and Khrushchev's account is largely self-serving). See here:
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