Ascendancy in the Politburo had switched back and forth between factions several times already. The Accomodationist program of secretly restarting the Iran-Iraq war had failed when those plans were discovered, and the Iranian Army had rebelled. The Preservationist plan of direct intervention in the Middle East had been implemented, only to fail when the Syrians were defeated, and the Soviet intervention force was routed by American airpower. Now the Preservationists insisted on a general attack on the West to salvage the situation. However, the political power of the Accomodationists was increasing, and while they weren't able to prevent the attack into Europe, they were able to force the operation to be non-nuclear in nature. The Accomodationists, lead by Gorbachev, still hoped that once NATO had been dissolved, a relationship with the United States could be preserved in some form.
Accordingly, the Soviet assault into Western Europe began, not with massive tactical nuclear barrage as expected, but with a rapid massed tank charge. Soviet armoured formations moved quickly to surround and bypass forward NATO elements. The attacking forces rarely paused to prepare their advance with artillery - instead they relied on speed to get behind the out-of-position NATO forces. By the evening of May 13, several Soviet units had advanced more than fifty kilometers, and most NATO units had not completed their tactical redeployments.
In the air, the Soviets had begun with a massed wave of fighters, followed by hundreds of strike aircraft carrying runway-cratering and chemical weapons. Frontal Aviation suffered huge setbacks almost immediately. Unlike their ground forces, NATO air units were well-prepared to fight defensively from the very beginning, and were well-controlled by their AWACS assets. In contrast, the Soviet Mainstay control aircraft proved to be nearly useless in practice, and the Soviet Ground Control Intercept infrastructure collapsed under the burden of coordinating thousands of aircraft. Although Soviet aircraft generally performed well, exacting an even kill ratio during the first week (even while outnumbered), the Soviet strike was much less effective than expected. NATO tactical aircraft, on the other hand, proved devastating, particularily in the Interdiction role - F111s and F15s ranged with impunity, striking targets at will up to forty kilometers behind Soviet lines. NATO electronic warfare capabilities also proved superior, and a large portion of the NATO air bombardment fell on Soviet command and control facilities behind the front.
Soviet airborne units began a massive operation on the fist day of the war. Hundreds of cargo aircraft followed the initial fighter sweep deep into German airspace, and aimed for the massive POMCUS storage facilities along the Franco-German border. Hoping to destroy the vast warehouses where the vehicles and supplies of several American divisions were prepositioned, the Soviets dedicated nearly two complete airborne divisions to the assault. They didn't expect the near total failure of their air force, however, and the Soviet operation ran headlong into the teeth of a massive French fighter sweep. With no fighter escort at all, Soviet cargo aircraft began to fall from the sky a hundred kilometers from their target. When NATO fighters ran out of ammunition, the German and French anti-aircraft batteries began to fire. The few Soviet companies that reached the ground intact were ineffectual, having been spread over hundreds of square kilometers by panicked dropmasters. The supporting waves of airborne troops never took off at all, and the operation was cancelled.
By the fourth day, the cohesion of the Soviet attack was beginning to fail. As the Soviets had decided to mount a from-the-barracks assault without their Warsaw Pact allies, the second offensive echelon was unable to support the first. While the Soviets forced NATO units to retreat in a few places, generally Soviet forces stalled in front of withering defensive fire. When tactical airpower ravaged halted Soviet units, Russian morale failed, and several Red Army divisions either retreated to their starting positions, or evaporated completely. North of Hanover, four Soviet divisions found themselves trapped by neighbouring forces, and faced with an inpenetrable defense of the city itself. Over the course of four days, they were pounded mercilessly by hundreds of American tactical aircraft, and finally disintigrated on May 18th.
In the North, the Soviets made a cautious advance into Norway. Unsupported by the Northern Fleet (which had been kept in port to preserve tactical suprise), the Red Army made slow progress, although they quickly established air superiority over the outnumbered Norwegians. Several tactical airdrops were attempted, but most failed in the face of anti-aircraft fire. A ballistic missile submarine bastion was established in the White Sea, and the Soviet submarine and surface fleet began to prepare to contest the Norwegian Sea.
As the Soviets had attacked without alerting their Warsaw Pact allies, there were few gains in peripheral European theatres. Although heavy air attacks were made against the Turks north of the Bosphorus, little ground was gained.
In the Persian Gulf, the Americans and their Arab allies enjoyed several victories. The entry of Turkey into the war sealed the fate of the Syrians, who sued for peace in the face of advancing Jordanian forces. Iraq renewed its offensive against the Iranian government, and Saddam Hussein stated his intention to cooperate with the Americans against the Soviet threat. The American forces in Southern Iran continued to batter the Red Army, which was at the end of a supply line stretching hundreds of kilometers north. American airpower completed the destruction of several Soviet divisions, as the survivors began to fall back north.
On the domestic front, much of Western society fell apart for several days, as dozens of western cities were abandoned by panicked civilians. False alarms and rumours of nuclear and chemical attack propelled refugees into the countryside, and looting and vandalism were common. States of emergency were declared in most Western nations, and army formations which should have been moving to the front were instead employed in civil order operations. The American transportation system was militarized to a level not seen since the Second World War, as REFORGER - the reinforcement of Europe - became the primary national priority.
In the West and East, strategic nuclear forces went to round-the-clock maximum alert status. As the Soviet second echelon approached the front, the world watched, and prayed.
