4 ms·
First off, this is a great piece of work. There's a number of questions that were raised in this work that the author mentions, and I'll list them here: - Wha
by ckozlowski 10y ago
First off, this is a great piece of work.
There's a number of questions that were raised in this work that the author mentions, and I'll list them here:
- What was the rationale for picking targets?
- Why does it appear that U.S. planners went for such amazing overkill?
The year provides a clue, and an important context: In the 50s, the strategy was "Massive Retaliation". WWII ended 11 years prior. The Soviets had a massive army in Eastern Europe, and the Korean War had ended only 3 years earlier, confirming many people's fears that the Soviets were willing to implement Communism by force. Given that the Western Powers had no hope of conventionally halting a Soviet attack on Europe, the plan called for an immediate escalation to nuclear weapons; which were the only credible threat to Soviet ground forces at that time.
The other important context is that while this is a full target list, it isn't a /plan/. And that was because there wasn't a plan yet. Air Force targets overlapped Navy ones, and early doctrine called for simply attacking everything should hostilities begin. This was changed in 1961 with the Single Integrated Operations Plan, which for the first time was a single plan with no only a target list, but different escalation options, assignments to various services for who struck what and when, and a much clearer rationale. It was a vast improvement over the "simply hit everything vital" days of Massive Retalitation.
On the subject of overkill, it's also useful to point out that it was not expected that all warheads would reach their targets. the ICBM was in it's infancy, and SLBMs (submarine launched) did not yet exist. The B-52 had only just entered service; the mainstay of SAC rode on the B-47. Nuclear Weapons were large, sometimes unreliable, unwieldy things. In many ways, the target list was wishful thinking.
Some good reading:
If you read only one, read this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Integrated_Operational_Plan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Integrated_Operational_...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_retaliation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_retaliation
- utexaspunk 10y agoReminded me of this Chris Burden installation I once saw: http://www.feldmangallery.com/pages/exhsolo/exhbur79.html http://www.feldmangallery.com/pages/exhsolo/exhbur79.html
- the_af 10y ago> the Korean War had ended only 3 years earlier, confirming many people's fears that the Soviets were willing to implement Communism by force Can you elaborate? Wouldn't the Korean War confirm the West was willing to stop Communism by force, even against the will of the majority of the people in the target country? (Of course, both things can be simultaneously true).
- ckozlowski 10y agoI'm not sure how to reply to that. Without deconstructing this too far, I would say that the Korean War began with North Korea invading South Korea. A U.N. resolution followed which authorized the use of force to respond. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War My best understanding is how I described it.
- the_af 10y agoI'm surprised anything I said was controversial. The Korean War was the outcome of previous events -- it cannot be seen in isolation. How do you suppose the Koreans, as a people, saw the division of Korea imposed by both the US and the Soviet Union on them? What was the charismatic leader in the South that would have unified all of Korea in general elections? Say free elections were held -- true, non fraudulent elections -- and a communist government won... what do you suppose the US would have done? What about this, from the same Wikipedia article you linked to? > Appointed as military governor, General Hodge directly controlled South Korea as head of the United States Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK 1945–48) [...] The USAMGIK refused to recognize the provisional government of the short-lived People's Republic of Korea (PRK) because it suspected it was communist. The US and Western powers were totally unwilling to let Korea fall to communist hands, whether it was by force or otherwise, and were willing to use force to prevent it. What I'm saying is hardly controversial and was the US foreign policy for much of the Cold War.