About when did a US/CCCP war become suicidal?

(Peter Stickney) wrote in message ...
In article ,
"George Z. Bush" writes:
Peter Stickney wrote:

BMEWS was the response to the threat of ICBMs coming over the Pole.
But, in some ways, we were still further along than the Soviets wer in
building and deploying useful ICBMs and SLBMs. Kruschev was great at
showing off spactacular feats of missilery, and veiled, and not so
veiled threats to use his missiles, but that wasn't backed up by what
was in the field. Consider, if you will, that if the Soviets had had
a viable ICBM or SLBM force in 1962, they wouldn't have tried putting
the short-range missiles in Cuba. That whole business grew out of the
Soviet's knowledge that they couldn't effectively strike. (Either First
Strike or Second Strike)

That was all very interesting, and certainly did much to refresh flagging
memories. However, it still didn't resolve the starting date for
MAD, because
it ignored the ongoing SAC airborne alerts and the nuclear armed subs roaming
the oceans. I personally have the feeling that the MAD doctrine evolved from
recognition of those SAC policies by the Soviets, which would place
the date at
or before construction of the DEW line.
All guesswork on my part. What do you think?

Well, just my opinion, of course, but I think that the MAD thinking
didn't occur until the mid '60s. It really didn't get set in stone
until it was decided to limit the deployment of the Spartan/Safeguard
ABM system, which occurred before the negotiation of the ABM Treaty
which occurred in 1972. The Soviets, of course, had been trying with
all possible strength to get systems in place to deliver their nukes
all through the 1950s. As I pointed out before, air-breathers -
Bombers and Cruise Missiles, weren't going to cut it, at least in our
mutual perceptions. (Since it never got tried for real) The Soviets
put more efforts into their ICBM projects than we did, but their
progress wasn't as fast as they wished, so they propagandized the hell
out of it, making themselves look much more powerful than they were,
and hoped that we either wouldn't find out, or wouldn't call the
bluff. (All that Missile Gap stuff in the 1960 election, for
example.)
So the Soviets had been trying to present a credible force for quite a
while, but weren't really there.

All through the 1950s, the Soviets didn't have any confidence in their
ability to put bombs on target, The idea of MAD, which is more a
Western conceit, rather than a bilateral policy, didn't come about
until the Soviets had a significant and reliable ICBM force. This
didn't happen until the mid '60s, at best, with their development of
storable-fuel ICBMs, and the Yankee Class Ballistic Missile Subs.
That feeling of inferiority, after all, was what drove Kruschev to try
to put the short and medium range missiles in Cuba in 1962. They knew
that they were going to come off second best against what we had, and
counted on holding the initialtive and being agressive to make the
differnece. It didn't work that way, and that's the main reason why
Khruschev was chucked out - he scared the Supreme Soviet more than he
scared us. (And mind you, he was plenty scarey)

There's no definite indication tha the Soviet Heirarchy ever really
bought into the idea of MAD. The Soviets, don't forget, were perfectly
willing to trade vast numbers of their population for their system's
survival. The communization of the Ukraine, and the scorched-earch
strategies used in WW 2 are ample examples of that.

But then, this is one of those things that is really a matter of
trying to nail Jello to the wall - since it was never a stated,
formal, policy, but more an attitude and set of perceptions.

I will have to dig them out but Herman Kahn did a whole series of
books in the 1950s On Thermonuclear Warfare, Thinking About the
Unthinkable, Will the Survivors Envy the Dead? The whole wonderful
gamut of 'what do we do with this terrible thing we have made?'. The
kernel of MAD was there in the 1950s, part of the massive retaliation
concept that begat the doomsday bomb idea which put a lot of SAC
colonels in analysis or homes.
http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/a...97/parrin.html

"MAD, of course, is an evolutionary defense strategy based on the
concept that neither the United States nor its enemies will ever start
a nuclear war because the other side will retaliate massively and
unacceptably. MAD is a product of the 1950s' US doctrine of massive
retaliation, and despite attempts to redefine it in contemporary terms
like flexible response and nuclear deterrence, it has remained the
central theme of American defense planning for well over three
decades.2 But MAD was developed during a time of unreliable missile
technology and was based on a mortal fear of Communism, aggravated by
ignorance of an unknown enemy that lurked behind an iron curtain.
Times have changed. Missile guidance improvements have eliminated the
need for multiple targeting by redundant weapon systems. More
importantly, our enemies have changed as have our fears about
Communist domination. It is time to rethink our baseline defense
strategy and the doctrine behind it. "

"james_anatidae" wrote in message ...
I was wondering at about what point that the United States going to war with
the Soviet Union become an almost certain act of mutual destruction. I'm
assuming it sometime in 1960's or 70's, since what I've seen of the Soviet
nuclear capability before that point doesn't seem to be all that
threatening. It looks like they would have been really bad for us
Americans, but not unsurvivable.

Depends on where you are. Much of the WWII doctrine carried over into
the Cold War, the Soviets seeing nuclear weapons as a way of clearing
the enemy out of a retricted front area without all that probing
necessary under the conventional weapons useage. It was only after
about 20 years that they realized that sword was not singled edged,
those who survived would want to strike back. The Soviets stationed a
large number of SS-11s at Tatishchevo in an attempt to create a
theater force until the road mobile SS-20s and follow-ons were
available. We countered with Pershing IIs.

The Soviets believe that a conventional war in Europe might escalate
to the nuclear level despite their oft-repeated commitment to no
first-use of nuclear weapons, the Soviets have developed extensive
plans either to preempt a NATO nuclear strike by launching a massive
attack, or to launch a massive first strike against prime NATO targets
should their conventional operations falter.

"Nick P. Norwood" wrote in message news:HzA_b.143$44.130@newsfe1-win...
"ZZBunker" wrote in message .

The war with the CCCP became suicidal, about
40 years before nuclear weapons were even invented,
in about 1900.

So...almost a decade before the Soviet Union existed....An interesting
viewpont.

The Soviet Union was nothing but a moronic
European Spy Ring and Political legality
created by retatded Russian Lawyers and Josef Stalin.

The CCCP was created by Lenin et al.




Nick P. Norwood

"james_anatidae" wrote in message ...
I was wondering at about what point that the United States going to war with
the Soviet Union become an almost certain act of mutual destruction. I'm
assuming it sometime in 1960's or 70's, since what I've seen of the Soviet
nuclear capability before that point doesn't seem to be all that
threatening. It looks like they would have been really bad for us
Americans, but not unsurvivable.

I think October 23, 1961 is a watershed date. That is the day that
the Soviet Union exploded the Tsar Bomba, the largest bomb ever
exploded.

Note that the yield of this bomb did not represent the technical limit
on the yield of a hydrogen bomb. It is my understanding that there is
no known limit. Instead, the Tsar Bomba represents a kind of
political limit in a historical context. After the Tsar Bomba, the
politicians on both side put on the brakes.

"Tom Adams" wrote in message
om...
"james_anatidae" wrote in message
...
I was wondering at about what point that the United States going to war
with
the Soviet Union become an almost certain act of mutual destruction.
I'm
assuming it sometime in 1960's or 70's, since what I've seen of the
Soviet
nuclear capability before that point doesn't seem to be all that
threatening. It looks like they would have been really bad for us
Americans, but not unsurvivable.

I think October 23, 1961 is a watershed date. That is the day that
the Soviet Union exploded the Tsar Bomba, the largest bomb ever
exploded.

Note that the yield of this bomb did not represent the technical limit
on the yield of a hydrogen bomb. It is my understanding that there is
no known limit. Instead, the Tsar Bomba represents a kind of
political limit in a historical context. After the Tsar Bomba, the
politicians on both side put on the brakes.

The Tsar bomb is blamed for an ozone hole. Maximizing a hydrogen bomb and
detonating it might be game over for us all.

"Jack Linthicum" wrote in message
om...
(Peter Stickney) wrote in message
...
In article ,
"George Z. Bush" writes:
Peter Stickney wrote:

BMEWS was the response to the threat of ICBMs coming over the Pole.
But, in some ways, we were still further along than the Soviets wer
in
building and deploying useful ICBMs and SLBMs. Kruschev was great at
showing off spactacular feats of missilery, and veiled, and not so
veiled threats to use his missiles, but that wasn't backed up by what
was in the field. Consider, if you will, that if the Soviets had had
a viable ICBM or SLBM force in 1962, they wouldn't have tried putting
the short-range missiles in Cuba. That whole business grew out of
the
Soviet's knowledge that they couldn't effectively strike. (Either
First
Strike or Second Strike)

That was all very interesting, and certainly did much to refresh
flagging
memories. However, it still didn't resolve the starting date for
MAD, because
it ignored the ongoing SAC airborne alerts and the nuclear armed subs
roaming
the oceans. I personally have the feeling that the MAD doctrine
evolved from
recognition of those SAC policies by the Soviets, which would place
the date at
or before construction of the DEW line.
All guesswork on my part. What do you think?

Well, just my opinion, of course, but I think that the MAD thinking
didn't occur until the mid '60s. It really didn't get set in stone
until it was decided to limit the deployment of the Spartan/Safeguard
ABM system, which occurred before the negotiation of the ABM Treaty
which occurred in 1972. The Soviets, of course, had been trying with
all possible strength to get systems in place to deliver their nukes
all through the 1950s. As I pointed out before, air-breathers -
Bombers and Cruise Missiles, weren't going to cut it, at least in our
mutual perceptions. (Since it never got tried for real) The Soviets
put more efforts into their ICBM projects than we did, but their
progress wasn't as fast as they wished, so they propagandized the hell
out of it, making themselves look much more powerful than they were,
and hoped that we either wouldn't find out, or wouldn't call the
bluff. (All that Missile Gap stuff in the 1960 election, for
example.)
So the Soviets had been trying to present a credible force for quite a
while, but weren't really there.

All through the 1950s, the Soviets didn't have any confidence in their
ability to put bombs on target, The idea of MAD, which is more a
Western conceit, rather than a bilateral policy, didn't come about
until the Soviets had a significant and reliable ICBM force. This
didn't happen until the mid '60s, at best, with their development of
storable-fuel ICBMs, and the Yankee Class Ballistic Missile Subs.
That feeling of inferiority, after all, was what drove Kruschev to try
to put the short and medium range missiles in Cuba in 1962. They knew
that they were going to come off second best against what we had, and
counted on holding the initialtive and being agressive to make the
differnece. It didn't work that way, and that's the main reason why
Khruschev was chucked out - he scared the Supreme Soviet more than he
scared us. (And mind you, he was plenty scarey)

There's no definite indication tha the Soviet Heirarchy ever really
bought into the idea of MAD. The Soviets, don't forget, were perfectly
willing to trade vast numbers of their population for their system's
survival. The communization of the Ukraine, and the scorched-earch
strategies used in WW 2 are ample examples of that.

"Soviet Hierarchy" is a bit difficult to evaluate.

Khruschev however definitely did buy into the idea.

The
kernel of MAD was there in the 1950s, part of the massive retaliation
concept that begat the doomsday bomb idea which put a lot of SAC
colonels in analysis or homes.

http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/a...97/parrin.html

"MAD, of course, is an evolutionary defense strategy based on the
concept that neither the United States nor its enemies will ever start
a nuclear war because the other side will retaliate massively and
unacceptably. MAD is a product of the 1950s' US doctrine of massive
retaliation, and despite attempts to redefine it in contemporary terms
like flexible response and nuclear deterrence, it has remained the
central theme of American defense planning for well over three
decades.

I think this is getting "assured destruction" a bit backward. It is related
to "massive retaliation", and like MR it promises devastating consequences.
But devastating firepower was inherited from the 50s, with 20,000 Mt in the
US arsenal.

Assured destruction was McNamara's strategy to *restrain* U.S. nuclear
firepower to something with some arguably sane and affordable basis. MR
never defined what level of destruction was *required* to deter the CCCP, it
was a "give'em all we've got" type of thing.

McNamara defined a level of destruction against which U.S. weapons programs
could be measured: 20-33% of the Soviet population (and, unlike WWII, this
would be mostly made up of the *entire* population of the major cities, even
including Party members), and 50-75% of industry. And it turned out that
this required only 300 equivalent megatons. Remember when McNamara
propounded this the USAF wanted to build 10,000 Minuteman missiles. What
they got was "only" 1000, or about 1100 equivalent from this weapon system
alone.

It was never the idea of the U.S. that AD should be MAD, if the U.S. could
have prevented the CCCP from acquiring AD capability (short of preemptive
nuclear war) it would have. Problem was, the US couldn't, any more than the
CCCP could deny this capability to the US. An interest in ABM weapons in the
late 60s gave way, once MIRVing began and the realization set in that this
would be a very costly arms race in which both sides would lose. That is,
both sides would remain vulnerable despite staggering expenditures in ABM
weapons, since the significantly less costly (but still expensive)
counter-deployment of MIRVs would defeat it. Bankrupt, vulnerable, and
instead of sitting on a pile of 20,000 warheads, they would be sitting on
maybe 200,000. Hence the ABM treaty.

Carey Sublette

Comments:
1) It is true that there is no theoretical limit to the size of a TNW.
The practical limit is when the bomb vents to space rather than
expanding across the surface of the earth. Big bombs are impractical
since they blow the hell out of the hypocenter (spot directly under
the bomb) but the radius of destruction increases as the cube root of
the bomb's yield. One could take the same amount of critical material
and make numerous smaller bombs and achieve a much greater area of
destruction by carefully distributing them over the target zone.

2) I should think doctrine on the possible use of nuclear weapons took
a serious hit when a real sober look was taken of the two nuclear
accidents the USSR experienced - Chelyabinsk and Chernobyl. The USSR
never ever achieved the capability to feed all its people from its own
resources and what fallout from numerous nuclear weapons would do to
the arable lands of the Ukraine really doesn't bear thinking about.

3) FWIW I spent those Cold War years in Air Defense Command as an 86D,
102 and 104 pilot on active air defense alert, usually every third
day, from 1954 through 1967, when I went to TAC and the F4. One got a
real serious attitude about the Air Defense mission back then.

Walt BJ

(WaltBJ) wrote:

Comments:
1) It is true that there is no theoretical limit to the size of a TNW.
The practical limit is when the bomb vents to space rather than
expanding across the surface of the earth. Big bombs are impractical
since they blow the hell out of the hypocenter (spot directly under
the bomb) but the radius of destruction increases as the cube root of
the bomb's yield. One could take the same amount of critical material
and make numerous smaller bombs and achieve a much greater area of
destruction by carefully distributing them over the target zone.

Yes, but when the Soviet Union was first developing their ICBM's, they
had all that launch potential but little accuracy. They had to use
large warheads in order to make sure they hit their targets. As they
developed better technology, though, the accuracy improved and they
began MRV-ing and then MIRV-ing those huge missiles.

IMO a nuclear war became suicidal between the US and USSR when the
Soviets began fielding a decent sized ICBM fleet. They would have had
to use a "launch on warning" command or our more accurate missiles
would have destroyed theirs in their silos, but from that point on
both sides had the capability to destroy the other. Once the Soviets
sent enough missiles to sea in subs, though, MAD became a certainty.

John Lansford
--
The unofficial I-26 Construction Webpage:
http://users.vnet.net/lansford/a10/

"WaltBJ" wrote in message
om...
Comments:
1) It is true that there is no theoretical limit to the size of a TNW.
The practical limit is when the bomb vents to space rather than
expanding across the surface of the earth. Big bombs are impractical
since they blow the hell out of the hypocenter (spot directly under
the bomb) but the radius of destruction increases as the cube root of
the bomb's yield. One could take the same amount of critical material
and make numerous smaller bombs and achieve a much greater area of
destruction by carefully distributing them over the target zone.

The fundamental reason why 'Ivan', the Tsar Bomba, had no relevance to the
strategic balance was that it was undeliverable against the U.S. The weight
of this bomb - 27 tonnes - was nearly equal to the Tu-95's maximum payload,
and two and a half times its normal weapon load. Range of the Tu-95 was
already marginal for attacking the U.S. even with a normal bomb load. Even
worse, since the bomb's dimensions - 2 meters wide and 8 meters long - were
larger than the bomb bay could accommodate part of the fuselage had to be
cut away, and the bomb bay doors removed. The bomb was partially recessed in
the plane, but not enclosed, with over half of it protruding in flight. A
deployed version of a Tsar Bomba carrier would of course had a bulging bomb
bay enclosure added, but this would have further reduced range from the
drag.

2) I should think doctrine on the possible use of nuclear weapons took
a serious hit when a real sober look was taken of the two nuclear
accidents the USSR experienced - Chelyabinsk and Chernobyl. The USSR
never ever achieved the capability to feed all its people from its own
resources and what fallout from numerous nuclear weapons would do to
the arable lands of the Ukraine really doesn't bear thinking about.

The U.S. similarly vulnerable to this effect from the eastward fallout
plumes of strikes on the Montana and Wyoming missile fields.

In Stalin's day of course he would have grown radioactive wheat and fed it
to the population. It would have saved them from starvation and immediate
death, but given them a lifespan much reduced from normal.

3) FWIW I spent those Cold War years in Air Defense Command as an 86D,
102 and 104 pilot on active air defense alert, usually every third
day, from 1954 through 1967, when I went to TAC and the F4. One got a
real serious attitude about the Air Defense mission back then.

And this would not have helped those Tu-95s at all.

Carey Sublette

(Tom Adams) wrote in message . com...
"james_anatidae" wrote in message ...
I was wondering at about what point that the United States going to war with
the Soviet Union become an almost certain act of mutual destruction. I'm
assuming it sometime in 1960's or 70's, since what I've seen of the Soviet
nuclear capability before that point doesn't seem to be all that
threatening. It looks like they would have been really bad for us
Americans, but not unsurvivable.

I think October 23, 1961 is a watershed date. That is the day that
the Soviet Union exploded the Tsar Bomba, the largest bomb ever
exploded.

Note that the yield of this bomb did not represent the technical limit
on the yield of a hydrogen bomb. It is my understanding that there is
no known limit. Instead, the Tsar Bomba represents a kind of
political limit in a historical context. After the Tsar Bomba, the
politicians on both side put on the brakes.

It was possible to create a threat to kill everyone in the US or the
USSR almost instantly (on a clear day, anyway) between 1962 and 1965,
by deploying space-based high-yield orbiting hydrogen bombs.

But no such threat was ever developed. I am not sure what
considerations prevented the development of such a threat.

Much later, the "Nuclear Winter" concept was developed and there was
concern about survivability related to that.