The Cold War as Total (Virtual) War: Prospect of Nuclear War

The Post-World War Two Condition for Almost Fifty Years

The Cold War as Total (Virtual) War: Prospect of Nuclear War

• Main Nuclear Weapon (NW) effects – Blast (supersonic shock wave)

Overpressure and extremely high-speed winds– Thermal (extremely high temperatures)

Non-ionizing radiation (Infrared and Visible)– Prompt ionizing radiation (from the bomb’s nuclear

reactions) – Delayed radiation (fallout from the radioactive fission

fragments)

• Other special effects – EMP, ionospheric changes, …

Nuclear Strategies of the United States and the Soviet Union

• Mutual Assured Destruction:– Deter an attack by threatening to destroy the

state, regime, civil society, and population of the adversary

– Small but invulnerable nuclear armed forces are required capable of surviving an adversary’s first-strike nuclear attack and retaliating against civilian targets.

US/USSR: Each Pursues a Counterforce Strategy

• Objective: Eliminate the nuclear forces of the adversaries

• Why? 1) Attempt to limit damage of an adversary’s nuclear forces by destroying them; Clausewitz goes nuclear– 2) Reinforce deterrence– 3) Protect allies by demonstrating a will to

use or threaten nuclear weapons and war

Balance of Nuclear US/SU Nuclear Forces: 1990

• United States– 1903 launchers (air,

sea, ground)

– 12,477 strategic warheads

• Soviet Union– 2,500 launchers (air

and ground)

– 10,271 strategic warheads

Failure of Arms Control to Limit Nuclear Forces

• SALT I: Failure to limit the number of launchers

• START: Failure to limit warheads and Multiple Independently Targeting Vehicles (MIRVs)

European Theatre Nuclearized

• US and NATO Forces deploy thousands of so-called tactical nuclear weapons which are in the kiloton range (Hiroshima bomb)

• The Soviet Union and satellites states in Europe equally position short and long-range nuclear missiles and nuclear weapons in Europe

The Cold War Extends to the Globe

• The United States signs over 40 collective security treaties to balance Soviet alliances around the world

• The United States and the Soviet Union become the world’s largest suppliers of arms to states around the globe– The US sustains the nuclear forces of Britain– France and Israel, allies of the US, develop their own

nuclear forces with some unofficial assistance from the United States

Then Why Did the Cold War End without a World Nuclear War?

• Political crisis within the Soviet alliance system and within the domestic order of the Soviet Union– External crisis: Nationalism of Soviet satellites no

longer can be contained

– Internal crisis;• Russian nationalism rejects Soviet imperial system as too

costly

• Soviet federal system collapses into independent national states

Crisis of National Conflicts Deepened by Economic Crisis

• The economic and technological growth of the Western liberal states vastly exceeds the increasingly slow economic and technological development of the Soviet Union and Communist centralized economies

• Western capitalist markets foster growth and technological progress more effectively and efficiently, with less corruption, than centralized economic systems

The Limits of Total War and Military Force

• The formidable Soviet army disintegrated• Nationalism triumphs over military force which is unable to

contain this political force• The economic burden of the vast Soviet military system and

the inefficiencies of a centralized economic system contribute to the defeat of the Soviet Union in the Cold War

• In December, 1991, the Soviet Union is dissolved as a state and implodes into 15 independent nation-states

• The former satellites of the Soviet Union in the Warsaw pact also regain their national independence

• The West and East Germany are integrated into the Federal Republic of Germany

Theoretical and Policy Implications of the Cold War

• Empires -- that is -- rule of populations by foreign military forces have all failed

• The tendency toward total or pure war continues– Nuclear proliferation increases: North Korea, Iran

joining India, Pakistan, and Israel

– Terrorism has also emerged as a global challenge

Part I: Classes 7-11 Will Outline Alternative Theories to Explain Security

• Realism and Neo-Realism

• Classical (market) Liberalism

• Institutional Liberalism

• Marxism and class conflicts arising from the unequal distribution of wealth and power as a consequence of global markets.