Originally posted by weaselsan
I think if we invaded it would definately have started a war, any war plan to invade would only have been for pre-emptive purposes. All miltiarized countries have plans to invade other militarized countries. I believe I read one plan for the invasion of England. Nikolay Yakovlev is a Chess Grand Master, any book he wrote on the matter of an invasion would have been speculative, not based on actual plans.
Well, Yakovlev was a brilliant propaganda writer, "CIA target: USSR" has to be taken with a grain of salt (just as any propaganda book), but I doubt that he manipulated facts in a book that was widely distributed in English.
He quotes US government and Congress documents that were de-classified, as well as US studies of the de-classified "defence" plans.
He is also an author of a brilliant book about Pearl-Harbour (probably best ever published in Russian) and an outrageously anti-Soviet "August, 1st, 1914", where he literally praises the Empire and makes a conclusion that February Revolution was a crime.