Opět operace Dunaj
Operation Danube revisited

Summary/Abstract: Povolný, Daniel: Operace Dunaj: Krvavá odpověď Varšavské smlouvy na pražské jaro 1968. Prague: Academia, 2018, 456 pp., ISBN 978-80-200-2836-5. In the reviewer’s opinion, the author in his book titled "Operation Danube: The bloody response of the Warsaw Pact to the Prague Spring in 1968" has succeeded in converting results of his archival research into a thorough and reliable description of the planning, preparations and implementation of the August 1968 military invasion of Czechoslovakia by five Warsaw Pact countries, code named Operation Danube. However, the reviewer claims the author has not fully covered the reasons why Soviet political and military leaders decided to intervene, finding them only in Czechoslovakia’s domestic political developments threatening the stability of Eastern Bloc regimes and ignoring international and geopolitical circumstances. The reviewer advocates a proposition claiming that the principal objective of the invasion was to deploy Soviet units armed with nuclear weapons in Czechoslovakia’s territory. In addition, he brings into attention some terminological and editorial problems of the publication.

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