John Wohlstetter - Sleepwalking with the Bomb

266 pages, 6 x 9 x 0.6 inches & 0.87 lb, 229 x 152 x 15 mm. & 0.396 kg

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012940396

ISBN-13 978-1-936599066 (paperback)

BISAC: HIS027030 History/Military/Nuclear Warfare

BISAC: POL001000 Political Science/International Relations/Arms Control

BISAC: HIS032000 History/Europe/Russia & the Former Soviet Union

Publisher Information

Discovery Institute Press, 208 Columbia Street, Seattle, WA 98104

Internet: http://www.discoveryinstitutepress.com/

Published in the United States of America on acid-free paper.

First Edition, First Printing. June 2012.

The text of the exchange appears in chapter 4.

In an 80-day period in 1944, 2,300 V-1s hit London. In their best day, the British defenders—using ground-based anti-aircraft guns and pursuit planes like the Spitfire—shot down all but four 4 of 101 incoming V-1s. As the strategist Bernard Brodie later observed of that day’s tally, “But if those four had been atomic bombs, London survivors would not have considered the record good.” Of 4,300 V-2s launched at London, 1,200 landed within the 30-mile target area.

Appendix 1 discusses how novels distorted public perceptions of nuclear risks.

Appendix 2 discusses the evolution of command and control over nuclear weapons.

Appendix 3 discusses intelligence failures as to arms deployments.

The Nazi ships posed a fearsome maritime threat, but they were defeated by British air power: Bismarck , named for Germany’s unifier and “Iron Chancellor” Otto von Bismarck, sank Britain’s battle cruiser HMS Hood , on May 24, 1941. After an epic chase the British sank it three days later. Tirpitz , named after the World War I admiral who built up Germany’s navy, shelled the island of Spitsbergen in January 1943; she was sunk in her pen November 12, 1944, by British bombers.

As for the Japanese titans, both saw action in the landmark Battle of Leyte Gulf, from October 23 to October 26, 1944; the Japanese threw all their naval assets into the battle in a desperate attempt to prevent General MacArthur from fulfilling his wartime pledge to return to the Philippines. Musashi was sunk by American planes and submarines in the opening engagement. Yamato retreated ignominiously after surviving a torpedo charge by American destroyers on Leyte’s final day, before she could shell troops landing on the beach; the reason for her retreat remains unclear to the present day. She was sunk by American carrier planes in April 1945 off Okinawa, where she had been sent as a last-ditch decoy.

Factors include how much of the attacking force reaches the target, how well sheltered targets are, whether there is sufficient warning, whether bombs burst in the air or on the ground, how hard and which way the winds blow, how well protected targets are. Calculations of the destructive effects of large-scale nuclear attacks are dizzyingly complex and, under the best of circumstances, highly subjective, with huge margins of error. Serious strategists understood these limitations and used calculations to help frame problems in broad brush strokes so as to better address them.

Military surveillance satellites, in contrast to the communications satellites we use every day, usually make a highly elliptical orbit of Earth—for example, 700 miles perigee (lowest point) and 12,000 miles apogee (highest point). At low altitude over their photo reconnaissance target, they can photograph objects as small as a tennis ball and clearly display license plate numbers. But weather over the target area can complicate observation, and—as its orbital path is a matter of the laws of physics—the people whose assets are under surveillance can enhance concealment every 90 minutes when the satellite passes overhead.

Counting rules were complex. Rules had to be devised not only for missiles based on land, but also for those carried deep underwater by missile submarines. Rules for the latter were devised by counting launching tubes, with estimates of possible extra missiles based upon the size of the submarine and the types of missiles it carried. Counting warheads on bombers also proved very hard: rules had to be devised for bomb bay sizes and the size of bombs carried externally—under wings or under the fuselage.

Appendix 4 discusses SALT trade-offs and judgments balancing MIRV and ABM.

President Reagan put the B-1 back in production in 1981. It remains part of America’s bomber force.

In order to boost support for the SALT II treaty, Carter committed to developing the Trident submarine-launched missile, and deployed it in 1979. Its intercontinental range and MIRV warhead payload greatly enhanced the sea leg of the U.S. triad.

Presidential Directive 58 (PD-58), issued June 30, 1980, established a program to protect the president and top U.S. leaders in event of nuclear attack. PD-59, issued July 25, 1980, called for targeting Soviet leadership cadres in event of nuclear war between the superpowers. The latter directive ran flatly counter to the precepts of MAD, which called for targeting deliberately unprotected civilians, while leaving alone offensive military assets (missile defense was banned). By inescapable implication, the Soviet leadership would not be targeted under MAD, so it could survive to order retaliation after an American attack.

The Outer Space Treaty of 1967, between the U.S., UK, and USSR, barred offensive weapons and weapons of mass destruction in space.

The INF Treaty has not worked perfectly. Reportedly Russia shipped two rocket motor models—the RD-214 and RD-216 motors, stripped from scrapped INF Treaty–covered missiles (SS-4 and SS-5) and sent them to Iran for testing.

OBAMA: “On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this can be solved but it’s important for [incoming president Vladimir Putin] to give me space.”

MEDVEDEV: “Yeah, I understand. I understand your message about space. Space for you.”

OBAMA: “This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility.”

MEDVEDEV: “I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir.”

In 1900, his first year in Parliament, Churchill warned that a European war would be far more costly than colonial wars. It would involve a long, all-out effort engaging the entire population and suspending operation of peaceful industries. Said Churchill: “Democracy is more vindictive than Cabinets. The wars of people will be more terrible than the wars of kings.”

Late in the Cold War similar fears arose inside the Kremlin, though they were without foundation in fact. In 1983, Brezhnev’s successor, Yuri Andropov, reportedly feared a first nuclear strike from the planned NATO deployment of 108 Pershing II missiles, which could span the 1,000 miles from their Western European bases to Moscow within eight minutes and with great accuracy. One possible set of targets was command centers in Moscow. Andropov considered but ultimately declined to launch a preemptive nuclear attack on America. At that time, Fidel Castro reportedly asked—as he had during the 1962 Cuban Missile crisis—that the Soviets launch an all-out strike at the United States. Adrian Danilevitch, a former top Soviet war planner, described how Moscow “had to actively disabuse him of this view by spelling out the ecological consequences for Cuba (in a nutshell, it would disappear) of a Soviet strike against the U.S.” Castro’s request went nowhere.