Differences between West and East, Post your opinions here, please

I have started this topic in order to see more clearly the differences between the "schools of thinking", the East and the West. So, let's partake into this hypothetical scenario:

1. For those of you who are Romanians or from Eastern countries, you are the leader of the Warsaw Pact forces, and you have to conquer Western Europe. What will be your chosen strategy, and please care to ellaborate (units used, attack routes, measures and counter measures).

2. For those of you who are Westerners, you are of course the leader of the NATO forces, and you are being attacked by the Warsaw Pact forces. What will be your chosen strategy of defense and counter-attack, and please care to ellaborate (units used, attack routes, measures and counter measures).

Please consider this topic as a sandbox war, and I would like to hear everyone's opinion on this matter, as I would like to ellaborate more on the differences between the war strategies of the West and of the East.

Best Regards to all,

Alex

As a NATO commander, I would portray strength forward, while secretly allowing WP forces to overpenetrate my territory (politically tough, but necessary). Then, when lines of communication are nice and plump with second echelon forces and resupply, I bomb them incessantly with the air forces in preparation for a flank attack from the south.

Of course, I've spent 40 years talking about how vulnerable I am at the "Fulda Gap", to the extent that I've overemphasized my weakness exactly where the Brits and US forces join together.

It's as if I've seen the NATO warplans, once upon a time....

Alex, do you have any specific time period in mind for your war? Or should we just assume whatever period we know best? (That's mid-80s for me, after the Reagan-era US rearmament).

Also, any constraints? War simultaneously in the Middle East? Korea? Japan? China? Fidel Castro deciding to invade Florida?

I do think also that the best period to a possible conflict between NATO and WP is the mid 80s. Yes, that is the best option available and thanks for the addendum. Also, I was reffering strictly to the European theatre of operations, outside-european events are not significant in this scenario.

Oh, almost forgot. Please reffer only to conventional warfare in most cases. Special Ops operations can be put into practice, but I do think that SF scenarios are irrelevant (eg - you may use Spetznaz forces for some strategic ops, but you may not say for example that you just sent a Spetznaz commando to assasinate the British Prime Minister).

My best regards to all,

Alex

Understood. But even if we don't discuss other theaters, what is happening there still constrains us. For example, if the US has to commit ground troops to Saudi Arabia/ Kuwait to contain Soviet troops pushing south, there is that much less available for Europe. Or if North Korea has invaded South Korea, the same idea applies... it pulls away US troops from Europe.

Do you mean conventional as in "non-special operations"? Or Conventional meaning that you don't want to consider the use of nuclear or chemical weapons?

If I'm the Soviet commander, I'm going to use chemical weapons from the very first shot, and use my long range delivery systems to keep Rhein-Main airbase and the Rotterdam port facilities as contaminated as I can.

My tactical artillery preps are going to use a mix of non-persistent chemical and HE too, if only to keep the NATO troops living in their chemical gear, to make it harder for them to see and hear me, and hard to talk on the radio, go in and out of vehicles, etc.