So, the other day, someone linked me to something about Operation

>>1494600
>Also, how the hell did anyone think this was a good idea? I wouldn't even call myself at the level of an armchair general and I can see that the notion is all kind of stupid. And yet apparently, the British government seriously considered this.

It was a result of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. The British and French feared that Stalin would stay out of the war and continue to supply Hitler with oil and so on, as Hitler and Stalin were already drawing up the new borders for Eastern Europe and had conducted a joint invasion of Poland.

And up until Operation Barbarossa was launched, the various communist groups in western countries were actively campaigning against war with Germany. Even in occupied France the French Communists were helping the German/Vichy governments against the Resistance. So there was a very real fear that Nazi Germany and the USSR would maintain neutrality or would actually come to some sort of partnership of totalitarian assholes.

(Of course from what I know of Operation Pike it seemed more a contingency plan like the US rainbow plan to attack Canada with chemical weapons.)

>>1494754
>Thread

The USSR and Nazi Germany joining up for a full-scale war would have been so fucking surreal.

>>1494754

Yes, but how is the notion.

>Let's bomb them with a few pinprick strikes!

going to make the situation better? How would anyone come to the conclusion this is likely to end the cooperation between the USSR and Germany, and not drive the Soviets deeper into the German camp?

>>1494600
So what you are saying is, Stalin's ok with the Germans attacked with 200 divisions, killed millions of your guys, and have been bombing your shit daily, but he's going to lose his shit and join up with the guys who's killed 20 million of your guys if the Brits sent a few bombers to hit the region that's only barely a part of your country?

>>1494996

Operation Pike was planned to go in 1940, before Barbarossa.

>>1495004
So Stalin is already supplying Germany, so you would be worried about... what exactly? That Soviets might sell oil to Germany out of anger, which is what they are already doing?

>>1495012

No, that the Soviets would actively join the Germans because holy shit the British attacked them for basically no reason. Then, instead of oil, grain, and a few other primary resources, you have finished products, actual troops, softer pressures since the Soviets control communist cadres all over the place, etc.

>>1495019
You may think nations make decisions based on feelings like it's a kindergarten playground fight but honestly I think rational cost-benefit analysis plays a far greater role than you seem to think it does.

>>1495040


And what exactly is the extra added cost of joining up with Germany from the Soviet perspective? I mean hell, they're already being attacked, so the major cost of neutrality has already been paid. Governments are usually pretty firm about that whole 'monopoly of violence in their territory' thing, and while some smaller countries might grit their teeth and take it if a much stronger neighbor bombs them by accident (Switzerland, Ireland during WW2, for instance), it's another thing when a country deliberately attacks you, and one that isn't significantly, or even stronger than you at all.

So tell me, how does 'Rational cost-benefit analysis' lead to the Soviets taking no reaction after being, from their point of view, the victims of an unprovoked attack?

>>1495073
Big difference between having some of your industry attacked and being at war

>>1495083
And there's a big difference between being accidentally targeted and being deliberately targeted. States like to keep that monopoly on violence.

I mean hell, you could make the same argument about Pearl Harbor. It was just some obsolescent battleships, and most of the losses were recoverable; no rational actor would go to war over that. Not what happened by a long shot.

>>1495285
That kinda was the Japanese goal as I recall. To punch the Americans hard enough that they could sue for peace and keep the Philippines.