[CaptainCrunch]

I can still remember looking at the Fulda Gap back in the 80's which was theorized to be the main axis of a Soviet Tank attack when (notice I said when) World War 3 kicked off.

Basically the Soviets had stationed 4 armies and massive amounts of tanks and artillery and attack helicopters on the East German side of the twin paths. Nato had 3 or 4 armored divisions plus infantry and arty on the other side.

It was theorized that this would be the main path of attack for the Soviets as a few thousand tanks would thunder through the gap behind a wall of artillary or at worst several tactical battlefield nukes. If the Soviet attack succeeded and it ripped a hole in the NATO lines, the Russians had another army group as their OMG that would pour through the lines and rip up the American logistics areas and reserves.

This was still at a time where all NATO powers were nuclear armed including Canada.

But at the time, without NATO, the Russians' probably would have pushed forward for serious land concessions and annexation like they're trying to attempt now.