Tag: Nuclear Weapons

Strategy for an Atomic Monopoly – Lawrence Freedman and Jeffrey Michaels

Synopsis:

Fusion of early application and tactical surprise – vis-à-vis nuclear weapons – tended to define American strategic thinking throughout its brief era of atomic monopoly. The concept of a so-called ‘atomic blitz’ synthesized rapid deployment with operational ends via the rear industrial areas of an enemy. Further, the blitz sought to counterbalance conventional superiority by swiftly degrading war making capacity in order to weaken adversary morale.

Excerpts:

“American and British negotiators were finding the US demobilization in conventional forces a chronic weakness in diplomatic confrontations with the Soviet Union, given the latter’s imposing military presence in Central and Eastern Europe, for which possession of the atom bomb provided scant compensation.

“The deteriorating international situation and sentiment discovered by Forrestal for an explicit emphasis on atom bombs in US strategy was reinforced by a growing belief among the military that these bombs could be used to decisive effect in the early stages of a war.

“Marxism-Leninism created confidence in the ultimate victory, while admitting the possibility of severe setbacks which could be extremely unpleasant for those unfortunate to be representing the cause at the wrong moment of history.

“Major-General Isayev criticized pre-war military thinking in capitalist countries which ‘displayed an erratic and extravagant predilection for one-sided development, now of the air force (Douhet), now of the tank force (Fuller), and to underestimate the importance of the artillery, infantry and other services’.

“Stalin propounded the doctrine of the ‘Permanently Operating Factors’. This was not challenged until his death. War was seen as a massive clash between two societies, in which all the strengths and weaknesses of the belligerents influenced the final result.

*All excerpts have been taken from The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, Palgrave Macmillan.

The Problem of Peace – JFC Fuller

Synopsis:

JFC Fuller’s The Conduct of War, surveys the evolution of warfare from the Napoleonic era into the post World War Two order. In the final chapter, Fuller analyzes the idea of peace within a bi-causal context of nuclear weapons and a clash of civilizations. According to Fuller, such a context tends to generate prime conditions for proxy warfare between the competing superpowers.

Excerpts:

“Clausewitz’s insistence that war is a political instrument is the first principle of all military statecraft, but his equal insistence on the complete overthrow of the enemy vitiates the end of grand strategy, which is that a profitable peace demands not the annihilation of one’s opponent, but the elimination or modification of the causes of the war.

“There is always a relationship between force and aim. The first must be sufficient to attain the second, but not so excessive that it cancels it out. This is the crux in nuclear warfare.

“A limited war is a war fought for a clearly defined limited political object, in which expenditure of force is proportioned to the aim; therefore strategy must be subordinated to policy.

“When both sides are equipped with nuclear weapons, that they will become deterrents on the tactical level, which reduces the idea of fighting a limited nuclear war to an absurdity. Thus it comes about that the stalemate is doubly assured, and except for wars other than those which directly involve the two great nuclear camps, such as wars by proxy or police operations.

“While Clausewitz failed to see that peace was the ultimate aim in war, Marx failed to see that in the steam age the ultimate economic and social aims were to create an industrial society through an evolutionary and not a revolutionary process.

*All excerpts have been taken from The Conduct of War: 1789-1961, Da Capo Press.