About when did a US/CCCP war become suicidal?

"Peter Skelton" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 23 Feb 2004 11:14:56 -0500, "George Z. Bush"
wrote:

Peter Stickney wrote:
In article ,
"George Z. Bush" writes:

AIR, the "dew line" was established to give us 20 minutes notice of
inbound
Soviet missiles, wasn't it? If so, I think the actual time when MAD
became
our joint policies would have been in the middle fifties, or perhaps even
a
little bit earlier, to coincide with our government having learned that
the
Soviets had stolen our nuclear secrets and were acting on them.

The DEW Line was the line of conventional radar stations roughly along
the Arctic Circle. Not much good against ICBMs, but you'd get at
least an hour's "heads up" for a Bison/Bear/B-52 type transonic
bomber (and at least 2 hours vs. something like a Tu-4) reaching the
boundaries of the Contigous Radar Cover that began with the Mid-Canada
Line and ran all the way down to the U.S. Southern borders. They'd
have to grind their way down for an equivalant length of time to have
any worthwhile targets to hit - most of Candada's ppopulation, and
thus anything worth hitting, is within 200 miles of the U.S. border.

Once they hit the contiguous radar cover, theyre'd be enough tracking
information to allow them to be intercepted by whatever NORAD had at
the time. And there was an awful lot of NORAD, back then. When SAGE
came along in the late '50s, it became almost impossible to saturate
the defences, since the weak link - Human controllers sending voice
commands to the Interceptors - wasn't as important. I wouldn't
have wanted to in the Soviet Long Range Aviation, that's for sure.

That's one of the things that pushed the Soviets toward ICBMs rather
than somewhat bigger/faster winged aircraft (M-50 anyone?) that didn't
have a much better chance against the defences than teh slower
airplanes.

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?

MAD started when the West recognized the Soviet's ability to
destroy it. That's after the DEW line was installed (1957), after
all the DEW line was part of a system designed and expected to
prevent bomber penetration.

MacNamarra stated in his book that the US was deterred from a
strike by the Soviets 550 warheads in 1962 (Cuban crisis), so MAD
was operating at that time, although not named yet. If he is not
correct, the 1963 test ban treaty is further evidence that the
situation was recognized.

Most of what I have here says "mid-sixties."

It's an interesting question.

Not only interesting, but refreshingly free of current political content.
Thanks for your input.
(*-*)))

George Z.

George Z. Bush wrtoe in response to Peter Skelton's commentary:

Not only interesting, but refreshingly free of current political content.
Thanks for your input.
(*-*)))

I agree that it was a good effort, but don't let anyone tell Art that Air
National Guard interceptors were part of the NORAD forces.

Rick Clark

"OXMORON1" wrote in message
...
George Z. Bush wrtoe in response to Peter Skelton's commentary:

Not only interesting, but refreshingly free of current political content.
Thanks for your input.
(*-*)))

I agree that it was a good effort, but don't let anyone tell Art that Air
National Guard interceptors were part of the NORAD forces.

Or that we were a first strike target.

"George Z. Bush" wrote in message
...
Dave Holford wrote:
"George Z. Bush" wrote:

AIR, the "dew line" was established to give us 20 minutes notice of
inbound
Soviet missiles, wasn't it? If so, I think the actual time when MAD
became
our joint policies would have been in the middle fifties, or perhaps even
a
little bit earlier, to coincide with our government having learned that
the
Soviets had stolen our nuclear secrets and were acting on them.

George Z.


The DEW line was for air-breathers (bombers in those days) now replaced
by North Warning.

BMEWS (Ballistic Missile Warning System) was the missile warning system
based in Alaska, Greenland and the U.K.

Picky! Picky! So when did BMEWS become operational? We're trying to figure
out
when MAD became the joint policies of the US and the USSR. You got any
input?

George Z.

MAD was never a "joint policy" at any time. The idea of MAD goes back a long
way in war planning. It was derived from the game theory guys at the war
colleges. The pentagon generals gave it attention in the years after Sputnik.
I think LeMay was an early advocate. Exactly when it was adopted by the
politicians is unknown but it was in effect before it was publicly
ackowledged by McNamara. If the Martians attacked, it would be put into
effect.

"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.

The war with the CCCP became suicidal, about
40 years before nuclear weapons were even invented,
in about 1900.
Since we been telling both the idiot Russian
Soviet leaders, and the equally moronic
US Congress since that time, that the
US war in Europe has nothing to do with either
nuclear weapons, tanks, AK-47s or survival.

It simply concerns the conditions of survival.

"George Z. Bush" wrote in message ...
AIR, the "dew line" was established to give us 20 minutes notice of inbound
Soviet missiles, wasn't it? If so, I think the actual time when MAD became our
joint policies would have been in the middle fifties, or perhaps even a little
bit earlier, to coincide with our government having learned that the Soviets had
stolen our nuclear secrets and were acting on them.

George Z.

If you can point to an official statement from either the whitehouse
or the kremlin that MAD was a "policy", I'd be very interested. My
understanding, from it being beaten into my skull by someone in the US
thinktank industry, is that MAD was NOT a policy, it was a highly
abbraviated expression of the consequences of a large scale nuclear
exchange.

In article ,
(Gareth B) wrote:

If you can point to an official statement from either the whitehouse
or the kremlin that MAD was a "policy", I'd be very interested. My
understanding, from it being beaten into my skull by someone in the US
thinktank industry, is that MAD was NOT a policy, it was a highly
abbraviated expression of the consequences of a large scale nuclear
exchange.

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war.../mcnamara.dete
rrence/

Pretty much an official summation of "assured destruction," later called
"Mutual Assured Destruction." Not just an acknowledgement of
consequences, but a statement of policy.

--
cirby at cfl.rr.com

Remember: Objects in rearview mirror may be hallucinations.
Slam on brakes accordingly.

"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.

Nick P. Norwood

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.

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster

"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.

Even now it is survivable. According to different esimates
some 10-20% of population of each country have some chances
to survive even in full scale nuclear war. But the damage
is simply unacceptable for both sides. As far as I understand
even one bomb explosion in center of a big city in US or Russia
is totaly unacceptable for any side.

Michael