CULTURE

nuclear policy unsheathed

by Walter C. Uhler

Notwithstanding histories by Stephen Ambrose and movies such as "Saving Private Ryan," the popularized Western notion that America's military played the predominant role in defeating Nazi Germany is incorrect. The Soviet Union's Red Army accomplished that awesome feat.

Yet the spoils of that victory - increased political legitimacy at home and the opportunity to enhance Soviet security through political control over the newly "liberated" states of Eastern Europe - were jeopardized as soon as the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Consequently, in August 1945 Joseph Stalin pleaded with Igor Kurchatov (director of the Soviet atomic bomb project) and others: "Comrades - a single demand of you. Get us atomic weapons in the shortest time possible. As you know, Hiroshima has shaken the whole world. The balance has been broken. Build the bomb - it will remove a great danger to us."

Now, thanks to The Kremlin's Nuclear Sword, Steven J. Zaloga's balanced and comprehensive examination of Russia's Strategic Nuclear Forces, readers are able to understand both the considerable costs and remarkable achievements associated with that undertaking.

Successful espionage in the United States significantly aided Stalin's crash program. Nevertheless, uranium deposits had to be located, mined and separated; reactors and reactor facilities built; plutonium produced; bomber and missile manufacturing plants constructed; long-range bombers designed, tested and manufactured; and ballistic missiles platformed, fueled, guided and armed. Atomic bombs and nuclear warheads needed to be designed, tested and deployed. Anti-aircraft guns, surface-to-air missiles, and jet fighters were required for defense.

The cost was staggering, as was the waste. Nevertheless, on Aug. 29, 1949 - some six years earlier than American intelligence had predicted - the Soviet Union detonated its first atomic bomb. Zaloga claims that possession of the bomb emboldened Stalin to support North Korea's invasion of South Korea in June 1950. Even before the invasion, however, the detonation provoked the administration of U.S. President Harry Truman's aggressive report, NSC 68, which, as John Lewis Gaddis has observed, "established a negotiating posture that required Soviet capitulation."

By relying on nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles to deter America, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was able to cut back on warships, tanks, troops and some types of planes. Nevertheless, America's massive deployment of nuclear weapons soon confounded Khrushchev's belief that deterrence could be maintained with bluster and a few barely operational intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). His bold attempt to redress this dangerous imbalance by placing intermediate-range missiles in Cuba nearly caused the nuclear war he sought to deter.

Khrushchev's humiliating retreat from the Cuban missile crisis led to his removal from office. But it also convinced his successors of the necessity of achieving "parity or superiority in strategic nuclear arms." Simultaneously, however, the Brezhnev years saw the defense industry acquire decision-making power over burgeoning missile programs that rivaled the power of Communist Party leaders and the military. Its parochial concerns about winning state awards influenced missile design decisions nearly as much as the need to respond to America's profit-driven innovation in missile technology.

For example, both the bureaus and the military resisted the development of solid-fuel missile propulsion and consequently, the production of lighter, more survivable mobile missiles. American analysts misconstrued this absence of survivable mobile missiles to mean that the Soviet Union was more concerned with launching a first strike, rather than deterring America's first strike with a survivable retaliatory force.

Some American alarmists, such as Richard Pipes, would write about "Why the Soviet Union Thinks It Could Fight and Win a Nuclear War." These alarmists fostered the hysteria about the "window of vulnerability" that helped elect President Ronald Reagan and sanction his administration's massive arms buildup. But Zaloga is very clear on this point: "Through most of the Cold War, it was exceedingly unlikely that either side would seriously contemplate initiating a nuclear war."

Zaloga also provides evidence to rebut those Americans who assert that Reagan's arms buildup, especially his Strategic Defense Initiative ("Star Wars"), caused the collapse of the Soviet Union by: (1) bankrupting it or (2) provoking Mikhail Gorbachev's destructive reforms. First, "the Soviet strategic nuclear forces were not a significant cause of the Soviet collapse." Second, Gorbachev "soon began to question whether competing in the arms race was really necessary."

Gorbachev deserves tremendous credit for attempting to end an insane arms race. By the mid-1980s, the danger of accidental nuclear war exceed the possibility of intentional nuclear conflict. Nevertheless, Zaloga is largely correct when he concludes, "it is easy enough to imagine the likelihood of a major war between the United States and the Soviet Union had the nuclear-deterrent forces never existed." It is a paradox that Russia's current leaders might reconsider in the wake of the current U.S. administration's Nuclear Posture Review.

"The Kremlin's Nuclear Sword: The Rise and Fall of Russia's Strategic Nuclear Forces, 1945-2000," by Steven J. Zaloga. Smithsonian Institution Press. 296 pages. $45.00

Walter C. Uhler has written about Russian and military history for numerous periodicals.

More stories by this section:

keeping traditions alive | chernov's choice | go czech out the musketeer's | masterful adaptation | dressing for future success | what the revolution said | a chance for youth to shine

Or take part in the discussion below.