On our changing nuclear weapon and defense policy
Here’s a fascinating article about the history of our nuclear weapons policy. It’s way outside of my field of expertise, but I think it offers much food for thought.
An excerpt:
[I]n the 1960s and ’70s, U.S. planners understood that NATO lacked the conventional forces necessary to defeat a Soviet conventional attack. But, they reasoned, the Soviets would realize that we could respond by threatening to escalate the conflict by employing tactical, theater, or even strategic nuclear weapons. Deterrence would work because we possessed an advantage at that level, which the Soviets would surely recognize.
But such optimistic assumptions began to go awry in the late 1970s. A watershed 1977 Commentary article by Richard Pipes, “Why the Soviet Union Thinks It Could Fight and Win a Nuclear War,” laid out the unpleasant truth. The Soviets had begun to deploy theater nuclear weapons and, most critically, to develop powerful counterforce strategic nuclear capabilities, such as the SS-18, that erased U.S. escalation dominance. A U.S. threat to escalate to a nuclear exchange as it was losing a conventional war in Europe now rang hollow.
Beginning in the late 1970s and into the Reagan Administration, the United States responded at the strategic, theater, and conventional nuclear level. At the strategic nuclear level, the United States deployed a whole array of new accurate delivery systems such as the land-based Minuteman III and MX intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and the Trident submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), the B2 stealth bomber, and the first components of a strategic missile defense. At the theater nuclear level, we deployed the Pershing II intermediate ballistic missile in Europe. But perhaps most importantly, at the conventional level, we responded by developing true warfighting and war-winning operational doctrines. For the U.S. Army and Air Force it was the “AirLand Battle/Operations,” and, for the naval services, the “Maritime Strategy,” designed to bring naval aviation to bear against NATO’s northern flank and in the Pacific. Some of the capabilities these concepts employed were technological, but the most important changes were doctrinal.
These developments represented a true integration of conventional and nuclear strategy and force structure. This was reflected in U.S. professional military education…
Much more at the link.
very informative piece, a note, reagan, recognized pipes insight, and put him on the national security council, bien pennsants like strobe talbott, then dismissed his arguments because he along with general ed rowny were of polish background, of course we seem to dropped that knowledge down a memory whole, see the nuclear point character, brinton,
The US also developed and deployed nuclear armed air, sea,band land based cruise missiles. The USSR responded with the Nuclear Freeze/Nuclear Winter movement and all the western progressives jumped on board enthusiastically.
The current 13 minutes argument is more of the same IMO. How high can the Roosians make someone jump?
But of course the Roosians were in 1983 just as cold blooded as Vlad is today. Korean Air Lines Flight 007 shot down killing 269 civilians after it strayed into Soviet airspace en route from Anchorage to Seoul.
Apparently, since the year 2000 it’s essentially been official Russian military doctrine to use a “limted nuclear strike” as a potential “descalation ” tactic. And this is supposedly a direct response to the United State’s military’s extremely effective non nuclear capability that was demonstrated during the first Gulf War and Kosovo.
In the early ‘80s, I had a desk next door to a logistics area. They would occasionally send out memos looking for lost items. One I remember was for a lost shipping container (empty). Description: 20 feet long, gray, marked “United States Air Force” and “Contents One Air Launched Cruise Missile”. They needed it to return the product to the customer.
The author downplays a bit the technological improvements, but the ability of a single platform to target, deliver, and destroy a single strategic/infrastructure asset shouldn’t be overlooked. The US/NATO need for tactical nukes is near non-existent. I think this realization allowed our doctrinal changes.
Sorry for being off topic, but here:
https://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2022/04/tony-abbott-writes-for-indias-the-hindu-newspaper-on-russias-war-with-ukraine.html#comments
you can read the entire article the includes the following:
“Please don’t think that Russia’s latest war has been provoked by anything Ukraine has done. It’s Ukraine’s existence as a free and independent country that Russia’s ruler objects to.
It’s a war of national extermination to which no free country can be indifferent.
I know because Vladimir Putin told me as much himself, when I verbally shirt-fronted him after a Russian missile battery shot down MH17 in 2014; killing 38 Australians among 298 victims: insisting, as he did even then, in the first phase of this invasion, that the Ukrainian government was fascist, that Ukrainians were really Russians, and that Ukraine had no right to exist as an independent country, let alone to look west rather than east.
With great passion, he told me that himself eight years ago.
He wants to correct what he sees as the greatest geo-political disaster of the last century by restoring Greater Russia. That’s his dream, and it means the Baltic states and Poland are next in the firing line, once Ukraine is pulverised into submission, war crime by war crime, atrocity by atrocity, in a war his pride cannot let him lose, and his ministers are too indoctrinated or intimidated to stop.”
There’s little doubt in my mind that had we not developed the weapon systems we did that the Soviets would have moved upon Western Europe. But what brought about the collapse of the Soviet Union was the election of Ronald Reagan. Who responded to the question of what his plan to defeat the Soviets consisted, with “We win, they lose”. That’s what’s needed today with the American Left.
“The USSR responded with the Nuclear Freeze/Nuclear Winter movement and all the western progressives jumped on board enthusiastically.
The current 13 minutes argument is more of the same IMO.”
All the Western progressives and almost all those on the right support fighting Russia. There is no Russia promulgated movement in the West.
There are a very few in the West who look at the issue and recognize that the US has consistently provoked the Russians. That’s not a justification for Putin’s actions but a fuller explanation of them than those who see it as a black and white issue can accept.
“Dr. Rand Paul Grills Secretary of State Antony Blinken – April 26, 2022”
https://rumble.com/v12ic2f-dr.-rand-paul-grills-secretary-of-state-anthony-blinken-april-26-2022.html
“U.S.-Ukraine Charter on Strategic Partnership signed by U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba in Washington, D.C. on November 10, 2021.”
https://www.state.gov/u-s-ukraine-charter-on-strategic-partnership/
JohnTyler,
“He wants to correct what he sees as the greatest geo-political disaster of the last century by restoring Greater Russia. That’s his dream, and it means the Baltic states and Poland are next in the firing line…” Tony Abbot
Russia’s invasion of the Baltic States and of Poland would be an attack upon NATO, in all probability the chance of it escalating into a nuclear war cannot be dismissed, so Abbot is essentially arguing that Putin is irrational and suicidal.
Putin channels “Dirty Harry” and the famous 44 Magnum “How lucky are you Punk?” except it is “How lucky are you (Poland, Finland, Latvia,….).”
Geoffrey continues to protest the continual oppression and provocation that Vlad and Roosia have endured; the strawman that broke the camel’s back.
and when we’ve shipped all our midrange weapons to ukraine, then china will strike, because we’ll be like germany with the wooden rifle,
Mark Levin, that noted progressive (not), had quite a few negative assessments of Dr. Rand Paul’s foreign policy position regarding Russia and Ukraine on yesterday’s show, Geoffrey.
More water off a duck. Poor Vlad.
Could be Miguel or maybe not. Last time I checked, the main issue with the CCP is likely to involve the Navy and Air Force.
the first rule of fight club
https://asiatimes.com/2022/04/us-on-brink-of-recklessness-in-ukraine/?fbclid=IwAR2uBYvVICnyrc48vADdnozZLC_0q5nctJCpGtPSE3hver2dQ5vs2JaNOSQ
A very good article on the whole, though in some ways it understates the problem.
The truth is far darker. The Communists and affiliated groups (like Javanese/Indonesian Nationalists) began pinprick conventional wars or uprisings earlier, in the 1940s, hence why the second part of the decade was dominated by things like the Greek Civil War, the stirrings of the Indochinese Wars and a(n ultimately failed) attempt by North Korea to invade the South by infiltration rather than overt force, the Chinese Civil War, and so on. This is one reason why I do think Ike-as-President is sorely overrated at least from a Military standpoint. The “Pentomic” US Military and the gutted conventional forces seriously invited aggression.
What a lot of people do not realize- or rather would prefer not to realize- is that until MAYBE very late in the game- like Gorbachev- the Soviet leadership had zero interest in permanent peaceful co-existence. Up until at least the Cuban Missile Crisis, Soviet doctrine was always about preparing the field to be favorable enough to launch a conventional war of aggression in order to spread the worldwide revolution, and a world without nuclear weapons would almost certainly have already seen a WW3 with the Soviets trying to imitate Lenin in 1918 with a conventional attack all across the width of Europe.
We were very fortunate and skilled to prevent them from ever being comfortable enough.to do it. Now we need to reassess how we deal with the PRC, Russia, and above all Islamist crazies and NGOs who might not conventionally care about the “Will not survive” an exchange.
Even the great Levin can be wrong and when he agrees with virtually every democrat and RINO… it’s a good bet that this is one of those times.
Turtler,
“I do think Ike-as-President is sorely overrated at least from a Military standpoint. The “Pentomic” US Military and the gutted conventional forces seriously invited aggression.”
I’d bet that after WWII and Korea, when Ike was Pres. there was little public support for fighting the Soviets with conventional forces. Nor would the American public have supported freely using our nukes, when only we had them. Plus, didn’t the Soviet’s wait until they had the bomb before they ramped up the brush wars?
In war, the enemy gets a vote. And the Soviet’s ‘vote’ was to fight proxy wars with America, a kind of guerilla campaign.
We beat the overt Soviet threat but ignored the March Through the Institutions. Naively assuming that in a free society, liberty would prevail over Marxism. Failing to grasp that “The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of the government in the next.”
@Geoffrey Britain
You’re absolutely right there; the quagmire in Korea was one of America’s costliest wars and also brought down Truman’s Presidency. Ike was elected in large part by promising to go to Korea to hammer out the peace and he did that. And of course the Western public has always had at best moderate appetite for directly fighting Soviet forces, as shown by the backlash to the interventions in the Russian Civil War and why Operation Unthinkable never got beyond a staff plan. Especially if it was a case of Western forces attacking the Soviets without provocation.
The issue of course is that it’s one thing to rule out going into conventional war willy-nilly, but one needs to be prepared for it to some degree. The fatal overfocus on the new Air Force and nuclear weapons predated Ike in Truman’s time and helped cause Korea to be so bloody, and it would be a major reason for the West’s growing weakness in the 1950s and especially 1960s.
The problem is that US doctrine- particularly under Ike- essentially required “Massive Retaliation” or none at all for pretty much any issue, the sort of freely using the bombs you point out the US Public would not support. Stalin and his successors detected the gap as well as anyone and happily started a Conga Line right through it.
That they did.
Exactly. The problem is that this is something America’s immediate post-WWII Leadership was slow to grasp or at least slow to respond appreciably to, moreso in terms of military doctrine than diplomacy. It also shouldn’t have come as even the moderate surprise it seems to have, since this is exactly the sort of stuff the Comintern had been made for and Soviet leadership did throughout the Interwar period.
Very true indeed. As it stands out it helped that we underestimated this in part because the Bolsheviks placed a premium on ideological conformity, and so were baffled and frustrated by the sort of mutation they had. They probably would’ve shot the likes of Marcuse and Foucault in the back of the head if they had to deal with them on their territory (and frankly the world would have been a better place for it), but so long as these nutjobs were mostly running amok in the West they were tolerable assets to be supported.
We got rid of the outright Communist system built by the Soviets but underestimated the risk of the Red Chinese, and the informal/heterodox Marxists among us.
All very interesting Geoffrey, unfortunately actual military capability to deliver said bombs in the late 1940s to
mid 1950s wasn’t a sure thing (see Curtis LeMay and the SAC, or Russian jet interceptors vs US bombers in the Korean War). And then there was the whole Sputnik thing that Ike sort of missed. If they can put a Sputnik up there why not a nuke? Oh Shit!
But we have been provoking the Roosians lately, just like when the U-2s were reading their newspapers.
Poor Vladimir nearly no one to defend him,
om…”And then there was the whole Sputnik thing that Ike sort of missed. If they can put a Sputnik up there why not a nuke?”
According to the Russian rocket designer Boris Chertok, the genesis of the Sputnik project was that the Soviets were having great difficulty with doing ballistic missile reentry in a way that didn’t burn up the warhead on the way down. So, someone suggested: ‘Hey, if we put up a satellite, we don’t *need* to worry about reentry for that mission.”
Chertok’s memoir is very interesting:
https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/60780.html
US ballistic missile programs were already well underway when the Sputnik launch happened. Atlas got started in 1953 and flight testing began in 1956.
Thor..a non-intercontinental missile but still capable of reaching Moscow from the UK…started development in 1955 and was successfully flight tested in September 1957, ie just before the Sputnik launch.
I imagine that a lot of the public panic about Sputnik was based on people not understanding how much the US was already doing in the missile field…also, on the shock of finding out that the Russians weren’t as primitive as many had thought.
“…finding out that the Russians weren’t as primitive as many had thought.”
Well, we “got” Werner von Braun.
Who’d the Soviets “get”?
the Russians had korolev, had they chosen von braun’s (army) instead of navy (vanguard) the us might have launched first
https://www.history.nasa.gov/sputnik/harford.html
david foster:
Thanks for the additional information on the US missile programs of the early 1950s. My father’s Army job in the late 1950s was making liquid oxygen for the missiles in West Germany (Bad Kreushnach (sic) and Mannheim). It was a useful skill, and his next posting was Ft. Belvoir, VA, making oxygen for the DeWitt US Army hospital. Childhood memories.
There are many films (videos) of US missile launch failures from the 1950s; risky business.
I’m not sure that von Braun and his crew were as essential to US missile programs as generally considered. vB was assigned to the Army; Atlas and Thor were USAF programs.
There is an excellent autobiography of General Bernard Schriever, who ran USAF missile programs…gives an excellent sense of what it took to do this work in a rapid time frame, rather than the swimming-in-glue mode typical to large bureaucracies: “A Fiery Peace in a Cold War,” Neal Sheehan. I reviewed it several years ago:
https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/24503.html