Seven Days to the River Rhine Seven Days to the River Rhine was a top secret limited military simulation exercise developed in 1979 by the Warsaw Pact . It depicted the Soviet bloc ' s vision of a seven - day atomic war between NATO and Warsaw Pact forces . Declassification . This possible World War III scenario was released by the conservative Polish government following their election in 2005 , in order to " draw a line under the country ' s Communist past " , and " educate the Polish public about the old regime . " Radosław Sikorski , the Polish defense minister as of 2005 , stated that documents associated with the former regime would be declassified and published through the Institute of National Remembrance , in the coming year . The files being released would include documents about " Operation Danube " , the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia . They also included files on an army massacre of Polish workers in Szczecin in the 1970s , and from the martial law era of the 1980s . . The Czechs and Hungarians declassified related documents in the 1990 ' s adding to this Cold War revelation . Battle outline . The plans predicted that NATO would launch a nuclear attack on the Vistula river valley in a first strike scenario , which would prevent Soviet bloc commanders from sending reinforcements to East Germany to prevent a NATO invasion of that country . The plan expected as many as two million Polish civilians would die in such a war and Poland would be completely destroyed . With options limited , a Soviet counter - strike against West Germany , Belgium , the Netherlands and Denmark would take place in an effort to slow an invasion . Nuclear response . Maps associated with the released plan show nuclear strikes in many NATO states , but France and the United Kingdom are entirely untouched by nuclear attack . There are several possibilities for the lack of strikes , one of the most significant being that both France and the United Kingdom are Nuclear Weapons States ( NWS ) , and as such retain nuclear arsenals that could be employed in retaliation for nuclear strikes against their nations . The French forces employed a nuclear strategy known as " dissuasion du faible au fort ( Weak - to - strong deterrence ) " , which is considered a " counter - value " strategy , which implies that a nuclear attack on France would be responded to by a strike on Russian cities . See Force de Frappe for more information on the French conceptualization of nuclear warfare . " The Guardian " , however , speculates that " France would have escaped attack , possibly because it is not a member of NATO ' s integrated structure . Britain , which has always been at the heart of NATO , would also have been spared , suggesting Moscow wanted to stop at the Rhine to avoid overstretching its forces . " . There are many high - value targets in Britain ( like RAF Fylingdales , RAF Mildenhall or RAF Lakenheath ) that would then have to be struck in a conventional manner in this plan , though a nuclear strike would be far more effective ( and as the plans show , a preferable option to the Soviet leadership as shown by their strikes in Western Europe ) . The plan also indicates that USAF fighter - bombers , primarily the long - ranged F - 111 would be employed in nuclear strikes , and that they would launch from those British bases . The Soviets planned to use about 7 . 5Mt of atomic weaponry in all during such a conflict . Known targets . Vienna was to be hit by 2 500kt bombs , while Vincenza , Verona and several bases in Italy were to be hit by a single 500kt bomb . Hungary was to capture Vienna and part of northern Italy after this had happened . Stuttgart , Munich and Nuremberg were to be destroyed by nuclear weapons and then captured by the Czechoslovaks and Hungarians . Possible planned expatiation . The Soviets planned to have reached Lyon by day 9 and then pressed on to a final position at the Pyrenees . The Czechoslovaks thought this was a bit over - optimistic at the time and today ' s Western planners thought such a goal was completely unattainable . There were also plans relating to a planned naval operation in the North Atlantic against NATO shipping .