Polaris,East of Suez: British Plans for a Nuclear Force in the Indo-Pacific, 1964–1968

This article investigates the little-known plans formulated by Harold Wilson's Labour government to deploy Polaris submarines in the Indo-Pacific region. The scheme was first proposed in 1965 as a response to several problems faced by British policy-makers, including China's acquisition of a nuclear capability, Britain's wish to maintain a meaningful position ‘East of Suez’ at reduced cost, and German pressure for equal treatment within NATO on nuclear matters. Despite extensive high-level discussion, the plans were finally abandoned in mid-1968, as Labour moved more decisively to forsake the world role.     

Cyber War Will Not Take Place

A large collection of captured documents from the very highest levels of the Iraqi government offers a chance to gain insight into why Saddam Hussein was unwilling and unable to alter his strategy on the eve of the 2003 war that toppled his regime. This paper explores some of the perceptions and misperceptions that Saddam Hussein took away from the 1991 Gulf War and shows how they affected his decisionmaking on the eve of the war in 2003. It concludes with some thoughts on the policy implications of these findings.     

Aiming to Break Will: America's World War II Bombing of German Morale and its Ramifications

This article examines the implications of the proliferation of cyberwarfare capabilities for the character and frequency of war. Consideration of strategic logic, perceptions, and bargaining dynamics finds that the size of the effect of the proliferation of cyberwarfare capabilities on the frequency of war will probably be relatively small. This effect will not be constant across all situations; in some cases the advent of cyberwarfare capabilities may decrease the likelihood of war. On the other hand, the use of computer network attack as a brute force weapon will probably become increasingly frequent.     

British Policy on Total Maritime Warfare and the Anti-Shipping Campaign in the Mediterranean, 1940–1944

During World War II, the British ran a sustained anti-shipping campaign against Axis merchant and supply traffic in the Mediterranean. Although the effects of this on the land war in North Africa have been the subject of much debate, little attention has been paid to the nature and prosecution of the campaign itself. This article analyses the changes in British attitudes and policy towards attacking merchant shipping prior to and throughout the campaign. It then goes on to examine the conduct of the campaign itself and compare it with other British efforts elsewhere during the war. It concludes that the anti-shipping campaign in the Mediterranean was a unique combined arms offensive for the British, and a major evolution in their attitudes and policy towards maritime total war.     

India's Military Instrument: A Doctrine Stillborn

For six years, India has sought to implement an army doctrine for limited war, ‘Cold Start’, intended to enable a Cold War era force optimised for massive offensives to operate under the nuclear threshold. This article asks whether that is presently feasible, and answers in the negative. Doctrinal change has floundered on five sets of obstacles, many of which are politically rooted and deep-seated, thereby leaving the Army unprepared to respond to challenges in the manner envisioned by the doctrine's architects.     

Lessons learned: The Dutch ‘Stay-Behind’ organization 1945–1992

Right after World War II, two separate initiatives were taken in the Netherlands to establish a stay-behind organization – or, rather, two stay-behind organizations. Both initiatives were purely Dutch, and both groups, remnants from wartime Dutch intelligence and sabotage organizations, wanted to liaise exclusively with the British. Only later did the Americans become members of what then came to be known as the Tripartite Committee. After a period of about 15 years, during which the Chief of the General Staff loosely coordinated both organizations, known as O (for Operations) and I (for Intelligence), a crisis broke out. The question was whether the two organizations should be amalgamated or not. After much discussion it was decided to keep them separate, but more closely coordinated. The first coordinator of this new type, a non-military man, was appointed in 1967. From that moment on the Dutch stay-behind organization, under supervision of highly respected civilian authorities, was able to perfect its organizational structure. The introduction, during the 1980s, of new specially designed radio equipment made special wireless operators superfluous. This development made for a leaner and more efficient organization.

After the Berlin Wall had come down, and in the wake of the ‘Gladio’ affair in Italy, the Dutch stay-behind organization was dissolved.     

Disregarding the Bear: How US Intelligence Failed to Estimate the Soviet Intervention in the Egyptian–Israeli War of Attrition 1

This article analyzes the main factors that contributed to the failure of the US intelligence community to alert against Soviet intentions and the intervention in the Egyptian–Israeli War of Attrition in 1969–70. Based on fresh archival sources, this research describes the US intelligence conception concerning the USSR; explains the crystallization of the intelligence estimate on the probability of Soviet intervention in 1970; deals with the intelligence data that were acquired but eventually ignored; and concludes with several plausible explanations for the intelligence blunder.     

French war plans, 1914: The ‘Balance of Power Paradox’

Historians have noted that both German and French war preparation in 1914 fell victim to the inadequacies of traditional threat-based planning: vulnerability to ‘threat deception’ which caused each to underestimate or mischaracterize the threat; a tendency to ‘mirror-image’ by fitting intelligence into preconceived notions of how the enemy was expected to behave; and ‘group think’ that discouraged a serious consideration of alternative scenarios. This article applies the ‘Balance of Power Paradox’ to explain why, at the dawn of the twentieth century, war planning in both Germany and France was driven by an acute sense of weakness which encouraged each side to fashion highly ‘risk acceptant’ strategies. In particular, he examines why and how French commander-in-chief General Joseph Joffre evolved and rationalized his audacious, and disastrous, Plan XVII to leverage French weaknesses and prevent the stronger German Army from bringing the full weight of its military strength to bear against France. The potential implication of this historical vignette is that leaders, and by extension military planners, of both strong and weak states focus on the constraints faced by their opponents, and assume that they can avoid the limitations of their position, while their opponent cannot.     

Nuclear Weapons and the Vietnam War

This article analyzes why US leaders did not use nuclear weapons during the Vietnam War. To date, there has been no systematic study of US decision-making on nuclear weapons during this war. This article offers an initial analysis, focusing on the Johnson and Nixon administrations. Although US leaders did not come close to using nuclear weapons in the conflict, nuclear options received more attention than has previously been appreciated. Johnson's advisers raised the issue of nuclear weapons and threats on several occasions, and Henry Kissinger, Nixon's national security adviser, looked into nuclear options to bring the war to an end. Ultimately, however, both administrations privately rejected such options. The conventional explanation for the non-use of nuclear weapons during the Cold War – deterrence – is insufficient to explain the Vietnam case. This article analyzes the role of military, political and normative considerations in restraining US use of nuclear weapons in the Vietnam War. It argues that while military and political considerations, including escalation concerns, are part of the explanation, a taboo against the use of nuclear weapons played a critical role.     

The road not taken: Conflict termination and guerrillaism in the American Civil War

Irrespective our views on the rationality of our opponent's continuing to conduct operations against us, unless utterly extirpated, he retains a vote on when and how conflict will end. This is because war is about power — compelling another actor to do something he would not otherwise do, or to cease doing something he would otherwise prefer to do. In planning for conflict termination we should account for the peculiarities of opponents who may decide not to quit when we have beat them fair and square. We do not desire that they cease conventional fighting, but that they cease fighting altogether.