The Dilemmas of US Maritime Supremacy in the Early Cold War

After World War II, the US Navy confronted the challenge of adapting to dramatically altered geopolitical circumstances. Moscow did not have an ocean-going fleet, and early Cold War strategy was dominated by the salient position of nuclear strategic bombing – a mission thought to be outside the purview of the navy. Traditional roles, such as protecting sea lines of communication and supporting ground forces ashore, quickly proved indispensable. However, the navy eventually also succeeded in fielding dramatic technological and institutional innovations, for example, the strategic missile submarine, which enabled the US to successfully leverage maritime power against the continental power of the USSR.     

Russian Reactions to Reagan's ‘Maritime Strategy’

The US Navy's audacious Maritime Strategy of the 1980s is often credited with acting as a key catalyst to the demise of the USSR. In assessing the role of strategic missile submarine “bastions” in the country's overall military strategy, the authors are skeptical of the above thesis, explaining that Moscow actually viewed deployments of Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles on to US submarines (versus direct threats against the Soviet Navy itself) as the most alarming threat. The authors concede that the arms race played a role in the collapse of the USSR, but deny a direct connection with Soviet naval development citing the relatively minor naval proportion of overall defense spending. For the difficulties facing the fleet at the end of the Cold War, they instead blame deep systemic problems internal to the Soviet Navy.     

Tacit support for terrorism: The rapprochement between the USSR and Palestinian guerrilla organizations following the 1967 war

This article demonstrates the inconsistent and wavering Soviet attitude towards national liberation movements in general and the Palestinian organizations in particular. Until the late 1960s, the Soviets viewed these organizations with suspicion, hesitating to engage in political dialogue with them. However, in the 1970s, political and military events in the region, as well as modifications in the Kremlin's Cold War strategies, led to a general shift towards the Middle East in Soviet foreign policy. Soviet leaders showed increased willingness to provide certain Palestinian organizations with arms with which to conduct terrorist activities against Israeli, pro-Israeli, Jewish and Western targets. The article explores the complex relations between Palestinian organizations and the USSR in the field of international terror. The study also exposes and analyzes the nature and content of Soviet–Palestinian arms dialogues and transactions. It provides clear evidence that Soviet policymakers and other luminaries were fully informed of, and sometimes directly involved in, these transactions and dialogues at the highest levels.     

Super-Weapons and Subversion: British Deterrence by Deception Operations in the Early Cold War

This article examines British deception operations in the early Cold War. It illustrates how, in the years before Britain could threaten atomic retaliation, Britain’s deception organisation, the London Controlling Section (LCS) was tasked with conducting operations to deter the USSR and China from starting a war or threatening British interests. It introduces a number of their ploys – some physical and military, others subversive and political. It argues that the LCS faced significant challenges in implementing its deceptions. Repeating the great strategic successes of the Second World War was extremely difficult; what remained for the Cold War were more limited deceptions.     

Organizing for the ‘gray zone’ fight: early Cold War realities and the CIA’s Directorate of Operations

ABSTRACT

Despite its portrayal as something new, the concept of the ‘gray zone’ is not novel. It was the Cold War battleground in which the USA and the Soviet Union waged rival unconventional campaigns, and it was there that the newly formed Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was given responsibility for operating. This was not the organization’s original purpose, but Cold War exigencies forced Washington to improvise and build an organization with unique capabilities. These early years shaped the CIA’s operations directorate, creating two distinct cultures within the larger agency, one focused on intelligence collection and the other focused on covert action.     

Did Star Wars Help End the Cold War? Soviet Response to the SDI Program

The Strategic Defense Initiative was a U.S. missile defense program that played a very prominent role in the U.S.–Soviet relationships in the 1980s and is often credited with helping end the Cold War, as it presented the Soviet Union with a technological challenge that it could not meet. This article introduces several official Soviet documents to examine Soviet response to SDI. The evidence suggests that although the Soviet Union expressed serious concerns about U.S. missile defense program, SDI was not a decisive factor in advancing arms control negotiations. Instead, the program seriously complicated U.S.–Soviet arms control process. SDI also failed to dissuade the Soviet Union from investing in development of ballistic missiles. The Soviet Union quickly identified ways to avoid a technological arms race with the United States and focused on development of advanced missiles and anti-satellite systems to counter missile defenses. Some of these programs have been preserved to the current day.     

Holding the Bridge in Troubled Times: The Cold War and the Navies of Europe

European navies made a fundamental contribution to the Cold War at sea, ensuring the effectiveness of deterrence even as Soviet naval forces grew to ominous proportions. European fleets were tasked with containing a Soviet attack until US forces could arrive on the scene. Many European navies pursued essential niche capabilities tailored for their own unique maritime environments. Others made important contributions to broader NATO efforts in the high-stakes arenas of sea control, power projection and even nuclear deterrence. Contentious issues did arise, for example concerning burden-sharing, but true to its name, the alliance succeeded collectively in wielding formidable sea power. This paper is based on the premise that the maritime players in the Cold War at sea were by no means restricted to the US and Soviet navies. The navies of Western Europe and Canada had major roles to play as well within the NATO area. They contributed a great deal to the political cohesion crucial to an essentially maritime alliance, and in many cases had a real operational contribution to make as well. What follows, then, is the Cold War at sea from a European point of view.     

Shifted Roles: Explaining Danish and Norwegian Alliance Strategy 1949–2009

During their 60 years within the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), Denmark and Norway have experienced both high and low standings within the alliance, which can be attributed to both external and internal factors influencing their alliance strategies. During the ‘first’ Cold War and Détente, 1949–79, Danish and Norwegian alliance strategy aimed to simultaneously deter and reassure the Soviet Union. During the ‘second’ Cold War, 1979–89, Danish alliance policy became driven by domestic politics, and the Danish government was forced to formally dissociate the country from NATO's policies. Norway was not uncritical, but held a much lower profile. After the Cold War this situation shifted. Denmark successfully rehabilitated itself as a loyal and dependable ally by responding to the call for focusing on out-of-area operations. Meanwhile, Norway's continued focus on the lingering Russian Threat made the country seem out-of-touch with priorities in the post-Cold War alliance, and domestic politics prevented a more active out-of-area engagement.     

Shielding the ‘Hot Gates’: Submarine Warfare and Japanese Naval Strategy in the Cold War and Beyond (1976–2006)

The build-up of Japan's military apparatus in the 1990s and 2000s has been often regarded by security analysts as indicative of a departure from the country's Cold War strategic posture. Japan appears to be engaged in a process of militarisation that is eroding the foundations of its ‘exclusively defence-oriented’ policy. In the case of the archipelago's naval strategy, such assessments overlook the longstanding significance of a core feature of its defence policy, namely the surveillance of maritime crossroads delivering the wealth of the country. The paper reassesses the evolution of the Japanese strategy since the Cold War by examining the development of the Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Force's submarine force, one of the key components of the defensive shield for these crossroads. The paper argues that with the changes in the security environment of the 1990s, Japan already fielded a mature force with state-of-the-art submarines, and that the rise of a new naval competitor aiming at controlling key strategic points along Japan's sea lanes reconfirmed the critical importance of submarine operations to Japanese national security.     

Optimal defence structure for a small country

Small countries may not be able to afford all force elements (army, navy, air-force) operated by larger countries and certainly cannot afford all sub-elements (aircraft carriers, submarines, etc). This paper provides a framework for a small country to analyse its force structure, examining the influence of objectives, international co-operation, funding and technological constraints, and uncertainty. We analyse when a small country may choose to retain a balanced structure (with each force element) and when it may choose to drop one or more elements. The issues are illustrated with the decision by the New Zealand government over whether to retain a strike aircraft capacity.     

From Civil War Victor to Cold War Guard: Positional Warfare in Korea and the Transformation of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, 1951–1953

This article analyses the impact of the Korean War on the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), particularly the period of positional warfare from 1951 to 1953. In the war of movement between October 1950 and June 1951, the PLA relied on its civil war era weapons and experience, including the doctrine of ‘battle of annihilation’. Operations in early 1951 suggested that the civil war legacies of the PLA no longer applied to the realities of combat in Korea. Based on both Soviet aid and domestic mobilisation, the PLA managed to build the material foundation for positional warfare and rapidly improved its logistics. Operationally, on the defensive, the PLA developed combined operations integrating infantry, artillery, and armoured forces. The PLA learned the lessons of the Korean War and strengthened its ties with the Soviet armed forces in order to modernise itself. The Korean War thus transformed the PLA from Civil War victor to Cold War guard.     

Atomic intelligence in Norway during the Cold War

Thanks to its geographical location and close military ties to the US and Britain, Norway took substantial part in the Western intelligence effort against the Soviet nuclear weapons programme during the Cold War. Norway's relative proximity to the nuclear weapons test sites on Novaya Zemlya and the nuclear submarine bases on the Kola Peninsula was of particular importance in this regard. Whereas the tasks of surveying the development, deployment and possible employment of Soviet nuclear forces always had first priority, Western atomic intelligence conducted from Norwegian soil and waters was occasionally aimed even at gathering information about the geophysical and possible long-term medical and environmental implications of high-yield nuclear explosions in the atmosphere.     

Stalin's Conception of Maritime Power: Revelations from the Russian Archives

Through unprecedented access to archival documents, the author places Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin's decisions regarding the navy in the context of a national economy in ruins, bureaucratic infighting, and Stalin's own unique understanding of geopolitics and naval strategy. These documents illustrate the decidedly defensive character of Stalin's maritime conception, as it reveals the Kremlin leader's strong disposition against attempts to ‘mimic the Americans’ and pursue an ocean-going fleet. The author also discusses Stalin's lessons from the Korean War and the impact of these lessons on the subsequent development of the Soviet fleet. Finally, this study offers insights for students of asymmetric warfare, as it explores the challenges and dilemmas that confront relatively limited powers within intense rivalries.     

Virtual War in the Ice Jungle: ‘We don't know how to do this’

The Cold War at sea expanded in many realms, including the frigid and treacherous waters of the Arctic Ocean. The US Navy pioneered these efforts with the visit of USS Nautilus to the North Pole in 1958. During the latter stages of the Cold War, however, Soviet naval strategists began to conceptualize the polar ice cap as a strategic asset for cloaking the operations of its nuclear missile submarines. As under-ice operations afforded the Soviet submarine fleet advantages of stealth, proximity to target and tighter lines of communications, both navies were forced to try to develop tactics for combat under these extremely complex and arduous conditions.     

US technological collaboration for nonproliferation: key evidence from the Cold War

ABSTRACT

Although the existing international-relations scholarship argues that technological assistance in the nuclear domain increases the probability of nuclear proliferation, the historical account indicates otherwise. Congressional legislation for nonproliferation, economic sanctions, and poor state capacity—specifically, inept managerial capabilities of the recipient state—explain merely part of the puzzle, but overlook the role of positive inducements offered to impede nuclear proliferation. Historical evidence shows that the United States often provided technological assistance with the deliberate intent to inhibit proliferation. In other words, Washington employed its technological leverage to attain nonproliferation goals. American technological preponderance since the end of World War II made such an approach feasible. This study examines key Cold War cases—Israel/Egypt, India, and West Germany—where the United States offered technological assistance with the deliberate intent to stall nuclear proliferation, thereby underscoring the role of assistance for inhibitive ends.     

Avoiding self-inflicted wounds to the credibility of the US nuclear deterrent

Nuclear deterrence requires not only the reliability of a state’s strategic weapons and the willingness of its leaders to employ them but also an adversary’s appreciation of these conditions. Weapons perceived as failing to hold their targets at risk may lack deterrent value, just as retaliatory threats that are not believable may fail to deter, even if a state’s operational capabilities are robust. Both the technical and political credibility of the US nuclear deterrent may have suffered self-inflicted harm since the end of the Cold War, often as casualties of intemperate policy debates. In particular, doubts have been sowed about the reliability of aging US warheads under a science-based stockpile-stewardship regime meant to substitute for nuclear-explosive testing. Likewise, the credibility of US deterrent threats may have waned as American leaders have spoken ever more stridently about the horrors of nuclear war and nuclear terrorism, underscoring their extreme aversion to the risk of nuclear attack. Diminished credibility in both spheres threatens to compromise US national-security objectives ranging from nuclear nonproliferation to the outcomes of nuclear crises.     

CONTRIBUTORS

Conventional wisdom states that the stability-instability paradox does not explain the effect of nuclear proliferation on the conflict propensity of South Asia, and that nuclear weapons have had a different and more dangerous impact in South Asia than Cold War Europe. I argue that the paradox explains nuclear South Asia; that the similarities between nuclear South Asia and Cold War Europe are strong; and that conventional instability does not cause revisionist challenges in the long run. I develop and probe a psychological causal mechanism that explains the impact of nuclear weapons on Cold War Europe and South Asia. Following the ten-month mobilized crisis in 2002, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf may have adopted a more moderate foreign policy toward India after experiencing fear of imminent nuclear war, as Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev did forty years earlier. I argue that the stability-instability paradox explains Cold War Europe and nuclear South Asia and will, conditional on Iranian and North Korean revisionism, predict the impact of nuclear weapon development on these states' conflict propensities.     

Germany’s Answer to Standard Oil: The Continental Oil Company and Nazi Grand Strategy, 1940–1942

German grand strategy during World War II included making Europe independent of oil imported from sources controlled by the United Kingdom, the United States, and the USSR. The first step was to wrest control of oilfields. Producing and distributing the oil, however, required the creation of a company capable of replacing the evicted British, American, and Soviet suppliers. Therefore, in 1941, the Third Reich established the Continental Oil Company. Analysis of the company’s foundation and operations sheds light on the objectives of the Third Reich, including the postwar economic development of Axis Europe and the extension of German hegemony beyond the USSR into the Middle East.     

U.S.–RUSSIAN NUCLEAR COOPERATION AND THE CTBT

Post-Cold War “lab-to-lab” collaborations on unclassified scientific issues between U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons laboratories set the stage for bilateral cooperation in materials control and other nuclear areas. They also became the major element in a cooperative process initiated by a Presidential Decision Directive to ensure Russia's compliance with the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. These collaborations have always been highly favored by leaders of the Russian nuclear weapons complex—the same leaders who oversee Russia's participation in various government-to-government programs. This article reviews these collaborations and examines the possibility that U.S. rebuffs of Russian proposals and the U.S. failure to keep promises of expanded collaboration could contribute to Russia's reluctance in major programs and even lead to a return to nuclear testing by Russia. The author argues that a renewed U.S. commitment to the process should be an immediate goal of the Obama administration and is an essential step in re-engaging Russia to solve the nuclear problems remaining from the Cold War. Steps for doing so are recommended.     

‘A fly in outer space’: Soviet ballistic missile defence during the Khrushchev period

Although the Soviet missile defence effort was begun to protect the USSR from attack by nuclear missiles, Khrushchev was quick to see its political value, and used the prospect of an anti‐ballistic missile system to emphasize Soviet technological superiority. Within the Soviet armed forces there was widespread consensus about the importance of ABM's damage‐limiting role. The debates about strategy for future war in Soviet military publications demonstrate that support in the armed forces for an ABM capability transcended service loyalties and remained remarkably strong even after 1962, when technical problems and an effort to improve relations with the US following the Cuban Missile Crisis meant that the missile defence project no longer enjoyed the public backing of senior Party and military figures.