Issue ? 42. February 2014

'Operation Unthinkable' or Why Not the Plan of War Against the Soviet Union in 1945 was not implemented

PhD in history, Associate Professor, Department of State and Municipal Management, Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Eastern Institute.
E-mail: samohin.a.v@mail.ru

The article is devoted to the study of the first post-WWII plan for war against the Soviet Union, developed in the UK on the personal instructions of Winston Churchill. The aim of this work is to identify the reasons for the refusal of the senior officials of the UK to wage war on the Soviet Union. The relevance of article substantiates the need to study this issue in the context of the study of the military-political problems of the Cold War. In modern historical literature detailed analysis of the plan “Unthinkable” is made for the first time. The author, analyses the plan from both military and political points of view, and comes to the conclusion that it could not be implemented, by virtue of purely military and political reasons. Based on the analysis of the plan and the basic data used in its development, the article concludes that the English headquarters had a very superficial idea of the strength of the Red Army and the general capabilities of the USSR. Later, British military came to the conclusion about the impossibility of the plan’s practical realization, and persuaded their political leadership to abandon it.

Keywords

Operation “Unthinkable”, military capabilities, UK military, Red Army.