[simonh]

the cist of tye war to Russia was also ruinous and maintaining that level of conventional forces would have been a real priblem. Bear in mind they got a lot of material support from the Allies during the war and continuing without that would have been very painful.

One of the first things Kruschev did was cut ground forces by a third, to rely on missiles for a deterrence based defence because they realisec they couldnt match the west in conventional capability.