I restate that it wasn't intended to be defensible from the West. It was amidst post-WWII satellite states. If it's not defensible today, it wasn't defensible then and wasn't presumed to be. It's a little enclave and you'd have to have a land corridor to pump enough force in it to be defensible against a land invasion. That is/was my point. The Soviet Union had that ability, modern Russia does not.
Stalin did not have to take the northern part of East Prussia. It was a Potsdam demand that all the eastern German territories beyond the Oder be transferred to administration by other countries. Stalin could have let the modern Kaliningrad area go to Poland. He (or shall we say the Soviet government) decided against it. I think it was a wise choice against revanchism in Germany, and if that wasn't on his mind at the time, it should have been. I'm sure it's a great port from a Russian perspective but it really needs a land corridor. I know there are rail agreements that permit contact/supply but in time of war i'd expect that to miscarry.
I'm aware modern Kaliningrad (I hate umlauts) was under Russian administration at some points in the past. That does not change that it was an enclave of the Teutonic Knights and ultimately the spear that foreshadowed the creation of the Baltics themselves. Well, except Lithuania. The rest are what they are due to German invasion. Seizing it as a result of the war against Frederick is fine and i'm not questioning the possession of the city by Russia, but it's a historically German city and we all know it.
Beliefs in first strike attacks by the US against Russia are fanciful. I'm going to pull out a quote from LeMay here, from a 1988 interview:
"there was a time in the 1950s when we could have won a war against Russia. It would have cost us essentially the accident rate of the flying time, because their defenses were pretty weak. One time in the 1950s we flew all of the reconnaissance aircraft that SAC possessed over Vladivostok at high noon ... We could have launched bombing attacks, planned and executed just as well, at that time. So I don't think I am exaggerating when I say we could have delivered the stockpile had we wanted to do it, with practically no losses."
Now, LeMay wasn't much of a bullshitter. I believe him, and I believe he believed what he said. With that said, he didn't do it. Why didn't he do it? Why wasn't the Berlin Blockade in 1948-49 broken open by nuclear attack? Why wasn't there a decapitation strike on the Soviet Union in the time frame that Kaku and Axelrod are talking about, when the US had a nuclear monopoly?
Mainly because:
1) the US was not interested in war.
2) Kennan's theories about containing Soviet power were ascendant.
3) The 300 bombs they cite *did not exist*. The US arsenal at the time of the first Soviet nuclear test was about more or less 50 weapons. The 300 number wasn't available till the mid-1950s.
4) As a result of above, neither Truman nor Eisenhower would have allowed it under any circumstance short of a nuclear attack upon CONUS.
5) By the time Kennedy comes to the fore, MAD was in effect.
Then there were the analyses which were more-or-less correct, based on the Strategic Bombing Survey (SBS) conducted after WWII. They suggested a maximum of a 30% to 40% degradation in Soviet industry from a much larger attack than the 300 weapon one cited above, and relatively fast restoration of this unless there were sustained attacks. The US may/may not have been able to do this. The Soviet Union would have quickly developed defenses against bomber attack. The presumption of the studies (multiple) was that a preemptive strike would have resulted in the Soviet Union dominating the Eurasian landmass despite a nuclear attack. I believe their estimates of Soviet power were somewhat inflated, but their conclusion is pretty much in line with my thoughts.
I could also point you to why the French request for atomic weapons was declined at Dien Bien Phu (1954) and why MacArthur was denied the ability to use the weapons against the Chinese and NKs in 1950-51.
I think Kaku's head is in the clouds from other readings of him, but it sounds like an interesting book. I'll snag it if I can. With that said, i'd point you back at Kennan to understand saner heads in the US at the time.
I'd *much* prefer to spend my time responding to you point by point but my grad school papers aren't going to write themselves. :-) I apologize for my brevity and failure to quote more sources. I have lots to buttress my points or add some weight to conclusions about US thought.
Edited to add: I didn't mention St. Petersburg because no one is attacking it. I'm serious, that's a fear that need not exist. The Finns weren't dumb enough in WWII when they had force on their side in 1941, they aren't going to be dumb enough now. And as for nuclear attacks on Russia...no one is foolish enough. Not even the dumbest person in the West. I nominate Lindsey Graham.
Edit again: this dude gets it:
Freely extrapolate to the St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad threat axes.