CHAPTER V

The Esoteric Strategy -- Principles of Strategic Air Warfare

Stalemates have occurred frequently in the history of warfare. Usually they have been brought about, however, by a balance between offensive and defensive on the battlefield. The distinguishing feature of the current use of the term is that it refers not to a balance on the battlefield, but to a calculus of risks: with each side possessing the capability to inflict catastrophic blows on the other, war is said to be no longer a rational course of action. To be sure, even if a nuclear stalemate does exist, it would not make for stability in the present volatile state of technology, much less for a sense of harmony. The spectre of a technological breakthrough by the other side would always loom large; it would give an apocalyptic quality to all international relations.

It is important to be precise, however, about the effect of the nuclear stalemate. A great deal will depend on the correctness of our assessment of what the stalemate deters and whether this exhausts the strategic options of either side.

The whole notion of a stalemate is repugnant, of course, to our military

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thought, based as it is on the literal application of Clausewitz's dictum that the purpose of war is to break the enemy's will to resist. It has been overlooked that Clausewitz had considered his postulate merely as an expression of pure theory which, in actuality, would never be realized. He had asserted, to be sure, that war tends towards maximum violence but also that, in fact, it never reached maximum violence because of the state of *morality*, or the complexity of alliances or most importantly because of a limitation on war aims. 1) And the history of warfare prior to World War I seemed to confirm this. For over a century prior to World War I war was considered an extension of policy.

Because they were fought for specific objectives, there existed a rough commensurability between the force employed and the goal sought. But with the outbreak of World War I war suddenly seemed to become an end in itself. After the first few months of the war, none of the protagonists would have been able to name an objective other than the total defeat of the enemy or at least *exactly* they would have named objectives, such as the German demand for the annexation of Belgium, which amounted to unconditional surrender. This was all the more remarkable because none of the political leaders had prepared

1. Clausewitz

the margin of superiority required to reach this point. The war ended when
a sovereign government agreed to the victor's terms and thereby assumed
responsibility for their execution. The victor's task in these circumstances
was to supervise the actions of a government which in turn retained control
over its own population.

With the coming of total war, however, war ceased to be an effort to
affect the actions of a government; its goal has become, almost invariably,
to overthrow the enemy leadership. This has not only transformed every war
into a variety of civil war, it has also increased the margin of superiority
required to impose the victor's will. For success in overthrowing the
the victor to assume
enemy government has in effect forced/the responsibility for the civil adminis-
tration of the defeated. (We might could afford to do so at the end of
World War II because neither our social nor our material structure was
seriously impaired by the war; if anything, they were strengthened by it.)
But at the scale of catastrophe produced by an all-out thermo-nuclear war
it is doubtful whether any society will retain either the physical or the
psychological resources to project itself abroad. When energies will be
absorbed in problems of bare survival, it is difficult to conceive a sustained
effort to assume responsibility for the government of an enemy country.

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Where, moreover, the social disintegration and physical destruction is
likely far to exceed that of Germany and Japan after World War II. And in
the absence of physical occupation, victory may prove illusory. It may create
a vacuum exploited by powers whose position relative to the contenders has
been improved by the thermo-nuclear exchange. (The decline of Europe started
with the exhaustion produced by the first World war in which even the victors
were weakened in relation to the non-European powers.)

Thus the destructiveness of modern weapons deprives victory of its
historical meaning because even the side which inflicts a greater devastation
than its opponent may not have a sufficient margin left to impose its will.
And the same exorbitant destructiveness has altered the significance of the
industrial potential on which we have traditionally relied for victory. Our
strategic doctrine had always been built around the proposition that our
forces-in-being at the beginning of a war need only be large enough to avoid
disaster and that we could then crush the enemy by mobilizing our industrial
potential. The strategic significance of our industrial potential presupposed
a fortuitous combination of circumstances, however: our invulnerability, the
existence of allies to hold a line while we mobilized, and above all a certain
stage of technological development.

industrial potential is the determining factor when attrition in material
is decisive. When weapons are very simple and easy to manufacture and when
their destructive power is low, trained manpower is scarcer than military
equipment. Under such circumstances the significant attrition is in men and
conversely military superiority depends on human rather than material resources.
Thus Russia became a major power in the 19th century despite an almost complete
lack of industry; therefore too the decisions in war until the middle of the
19th century reflected superior manpower or superior strategy, rarely a superior
industrial capacity.
In order to put a premium on industrial potential a weapons system
must be sufficiently complex to require a substantial production effort, but
not so destructive as to drain the national substance before industrial mobilization
can make itself felt. As a result, our industrial potential proved strategically most
significant when there existed a certain balance between the destructiveness
of weapons and the complexity of means of delivery. Then any increment either
in the power of weapons or in their number could be translated into a strategic
advantage. But when weapons become extremely powerful there is an upper limit

beyond which increased destructiveness pays diminishing returns. When both sides are capable of inflicting catastrophic losses on each other with their forces-in-being, any increment of destructive power may be strategically insignificant. Moreover, the greater the power of individual weapons the greater the relative advantage of the side with the weaker delivery system. When one plane can carry a weapon capable of destroying a city, the side with the larger number of planes will derive little benefit from them if its opponent has a quantity sufficient to inflict a devastating blow.

Thus an all-out war fought with thermo-nuclear weapons will be decided by the forces-in-being -- this was perhaps the only point on which all the witnesses before the Symington Committee agreed. But this importance of forces-in-being makes it impossible to identify victory with a superior offensive effort.

Inapplicable to air strategy: "In air war we must resign ourselves to offensives the enemy inflicts on us while bending every effort to inflict heavier ones on him." This was in effect the air strategy of World War II. It made sense only if a superior load of explosives represented an absolute margin of effective power; it could be effective only to the degree that attrition of industrial potential was significant. In a

thermo-nuclear war, however, the significant attrition is that which reduces
NOT THE INDUSTRIAL POTENTIAL BOMB
the forces-in-being, for the social structure is likely to reach a breaking
point long before the stockpiles of weapons are exhausted.

The importance of forces-in-being compared to industrial potential has
NOT ONLY TO BE MADE CLEAR
ANOTHER CONSEQUENCE
OF ALL-OUT WARS
A paradoxical consequence: it means that war can continue long after victory
has become meaningless. It is possible for example that a surprise attack would
destroy the 50 most important metropolitan centers in the United States with
the consequences described in the previous chapter. While this could produce
social disintegration, it would probably not affect the ability of our Strategic
Air Command to retaliate and the result of such an exchange of blows might well
be the social collapse of both contenders. The fact that an all-out strategy
can be implemented after the social basis for it has disappeared gives it
esoteric quality to the strategy of all-out war.
OF ALL-OUT WARS
AND TENDS TO TRANSFORM IT INTO AN END IN ITSELF.
It has been compared to a situation where two hostile tribes armed with poison
darts face each other across a canyon. The poison takes several hours to be
effective but is fatal afterwards. In these circumstances, landing the first
blow will be strategically insignificant: it will ruin the "economy" but the
weapons are still useful and they can launch a corresponding counterblow. 2)

2. C. R. Sherwin. "Securing Peace Through Military Technology," *Bulletin of Atomic Scientists*, May 1956.

141

Thus victory can be achieved only if one side succeeds in destroying the other's poison darts--its forces-in-being--*before* they are launched.

This, however, merely defines another dilemma of all-out thermo-nuclear war.

In the past, the strategy for avoiding defeat was the same as that which aimed for victory. In an all-out thermo-nuclear war, however, the strategies for achieving victory and for avoiding defeat differ. Victory, in the sense of being able to impose one's will on the defeated can be achieved only by destroying the opponent's force-in-being or by reducing it to a size which can be contained by the defense system. The destruction of the retaliatory force in turn almost requires a surprise attack. For if the opponent has adequate warning he can disperse or launch his force-in-being and alert his defenses. He will then be able to start his retaliatory strike even before the first bombs of the aggressor have hit their targets. By contrast, the strategy for *resisting* a surprise attack is different from that which aims for victory. The side which has suffered a surprise attack has already received a heavy and perhaps a devastating blow. Its task is not so much to wipe out the enemy retaliatory force as to deprive the aggressor of the fruits of his assault. It may seek to counteract the *threat* of thermo-nuclear extinction by inflicting its *actuality* on the enemy. To be sure, such a strategy cannot achieve victory; but it can avoid defeat by inflicting the greatest possible damage. It may deprive the enemy of the resources to impose its will.

strategy for the side which has suffered a surprise attack to deprive the aggressor of the fruits of his assault. It may seek to counteract the threat of a thermo-nuclear extinction by inflicting its actuality on the enemy, such a strategy cannot achieve victory; but it can avoid defeat if it may prevent the enemy from imposing a strategy of annihilation upon us.

It is necessary to consider the strategic problem of all-out thermo-nuclear war against this background. The above analysis makes clear that, if we can prevent surprise attack as an instrument of our policy. This is confirmed, not only by every statement of policy, but by our whole past behavior. If we did not utilize our atomic monopoly at a time when the Soviet capability to retaliate was almost non-existent, it is against all probability that we should do so now. But the side which concedes the first blow also concedes the margin for imposing its will; unless our air defense is capable of a rate of attrition which reduces the enemy blow below the level of catastrophe, the strategic problem of all-out war presents itself for us not in terms of a strategy to achieve victory but

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of a strategy to avoid defeat. The purpose of our all-out war capability
will be to deter war by developing a retaliatory force of a size which can
inflict an unacceptable amount of damage on the enemy, no matter what destruction
he accomplishes by surprise attack. "A deterrent force" said General LeMay
is one that is large enough and efficient enough that no matter what the
enemy force does either offensively or defensively he still will receive a
quantity of bombs he is not willing to accept. Therefore, he never starts
a war." 3)

II

In determining the nature of a deterrent force, it is not sufficient
to compare the opposing retaliatory forces for deterrence reflects a
complex interrelationship of offensive and defensive capabilities. Theore-
tically at least, the destruction of the enemy's forces-in-being can be achieved
by an effective defense as well as by a sudden offense. In certain circumstances
indeed defense may be the most efficient strategy. In 1940, for example, Britain

3. Symington Hearings, p. 202.

M

was saved by its Fighter and not its Bomber Command. It can be argued, of course, that this was due to the British weakness in bombers. But given the relative geographic positions and the state of technology it is doubtful that even a much larger British bombing effort could have staved off disaster: The German forces-in-being were so large and so relatively well-dispersed, the attrition to be achieved by conventional bombs so slow that Britain might well have collapsed before its offensive effort could have become effective. To be sure, in World War II the defensive problem was simpler for a rate of attrition of 10 per cent was considered unacceptable. With conventional weapons the cost of producing the plane and training of the crew were so high in relation to the damage which could be inflicted by them/a single raid, that unless a plane could perform several missions on a statistical average before being shot down, strategic bombing became a masterful operation. When one plane can carry a weapon capable of destroying a city much heavier demands are placed on an air-defense system, however. To produce significant attrition, it must be able to reduce the damage an enemy can inflict to a level society can accept. Against a strategic air force armed with thermo-nuclear weapons even an attrition rate of 80 per cent may not prevent devastating blows.

Does this mean then that the balance of all-out war depends entirely on the relative strengths of the opposing retaliatory striking forces? The difficulty of complete attrition should not be confused with the strategic importance of an effective air defense system, however. A country which staked everything on its offensive airpower would be simplifying the strategic problem of its opponent. Against such a country, it would be possible to calculate precisely the number of planes required for maximum destructiveness. They could operate at optimum levels of performance using the most efficient tactics. They could feint at one target and hit another. Except for mechanical failure they would suffer no losses and their bombing accuracy would be high. Nor would the country which placed all its bets on offensive air power gain a significant advantage by being able to utilize the resources it could have devoted to defense for its strategic striking force. For with thermo-nuclear weapons the point of diminishing returns in increased offensive power is reached fairly quickly. Thus the best strategic posture for an all-out thermo-nuclear war depends on the proper "mix" of offensive and defensive capabilities. If so many resources are devoted to defense that the offensive striking force can no longer inflict an unacceptable degree of damage, the enemy may be tempted to attack. For freed of the danger of retaliation the worst that can happen

146

to him would be his inability to get through to the target. If the defense
is slighted, too great a demand is put on the powers of resistance of the social
fabric. The ideal offense-defense relationship is one in which the defense
can reduce the enemy thrust to acceptable levels while the offense cannot be
so contained by the enemy's defense.

This ideal mix is unattainable in practice of course. Nevertheless the
mere existence of an air defense system forces the enemy to divert more
resources to his offensive striking force in order to do equivalent damage to the unopposed case.
A defense capable of exacting 50 per cent attrition will require an enemy to
more than double his offensive striking force in order to inflict the damage
he calculates as necessary to achieve his objectives against the opposition.
The effort will have to be twice as large as the unopposed case, because the
very existence of an air defense throws off an attacker's calculations. It
introduces a factor outside his direct control; he cannot be certain about
the effectiveness of the defense until he has tested it and he must, therefore,
allow a larger margin for error then in the unopposed case. Against a determined
defense, moreover, an enemy cannot pursue his most efficient tactics; his des-
tructiveness will, therefore, be reduced. Thus let us assume the enemy calculates

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that in order to destroy the United States he requires 300 high-yield weapons.

In the unopposed case, the enemy might then build his long-range air force
and stockpile to a level of about 300 to 450 long-range bombers. In the
absence of attrition he might be able to count on each plane performing two
missions and such a force would leave him a margin for mechanical failure,
bombing inaccuracy and navigational error. An air defense capable of exacting
a 30 per cent attrition would probably force him to double this figure; an
air defense capable of exacting 50 per cent attrition would require a striking
force of probably 1000 to 1200 planes; and an air defense capable of exacting
80 per cent losses (considered to be a feasible level) would push the
enemy investment in offensive air power to over 2000. And this increase in
offensive strength would enable the enemy only to stay even with the rate
of damage he could have inflicted in the unopposed case. Moreover,

4. He would have to include in his attack pattern both the bases of the Strategic Air Command and the major industrial centers. A successful attack on SAC bases would not prove decisive if it were not known at the same time that the enemy has a remaining stockpile and delivery system to devastate the United States.

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the larger the enemy striking force the more obvious the preparation he has
to make prior to attack, the easier to detect it and the greater the chances
of obtaining warning. Finally, as the defense gains in effectiveness the
attacker has to divert resources to combat it and this will further decrease
the strategic effectiveness of the offensive. To be sure, as Paul Nitze has
shown in a brilliant paper, the attrition rate of defense will not remain fixed
at the same percentage regardless of the nature of the attack. ⁵) Beyond a
certain scale of attack, it is possible to overwhelm the opposing defense:
it may exact 80 per cent attrition of the first 2000 planes but only 20 per cent
of the next 1000. But the basic relation still holds: at a maximum, to reduce
the enemy attack to acceptable levels; at a minimum, it is the task of defense
in the task of defense

to force the enemy to devote the maximum amount of resources to his offensive
mission without improving his strategic position.

These objectives can be achieved by two kinds of defense: active and
passive defense. Active defense involves the direct attrition of enemy planes;
in the intermediary period until Ballistic Missiles are developed it requires
a system of early warning, fighter planes with performances superior to the
bombers, and anti-aircraft missiles, either fixed from the ground or from planes.
Because of a high speed of modern planes the interception by manned fighters

5, Paul Nitze, Margaret felt citation lie: Nobel Peace Institute lecture (Gerry and Martin 1967)

149

is becoming increasingly difficult: both the Bison, the Soviet heavy jet bomber and the B-52, our intercontinental jet bomber, approach the speed of sound; an opposing fighter plane must therefore be able to maneuver very quickly to get into position and even in the best of cases will be able to make only one psss. On the other hand, the rapid development of missiles operating at speeds well above the speed of sound will soon make the life of a manned bomber exceedingly difficult. Equipped with automatic "homing" devices which electronically direct the missile to the target, these missiles will be able to exact a substantial attrition which many experts estimate may reach 80 per cent. While such a rate of losses might not discourage pilots in the first wave of attack since they are presumably unacquainted with the risks confronting them, there is at least some doubt about their morale once the attrition rate becomes known. Thus the limiting condition of strategic air attack with manned planes may well be not the shortage of planes and weapons but pilot morale.

In addition to the attrition of enemy personnel and equipment, defense can use up hostile resources through passive measures. The destructiveness of the new weapons tends to give an advantage to the offense because even a single successful attack can inflict catastrophic damage. It is the task of passive defense to disperse the targets as much as possible so that the enemy

150

is forced to devote the maximum number of weapons to the destruction of the target system. A country the steel industry of which can be wiped out in one attack is more vulnerable than a country the steel industry of which is dispersed over twenty different locations. A country whose strategic airpower is concentrated on a few bases, is more vulnerable than an opponent whose striking force is better dispersed. Thus an offensive striking force of 1000 planes dispersed over 100 bases may prove strategically more significant than 2000 planes which have available only 30 bases, for the smaller force has much fewer targets to attack.

In addition to forcing the enemy to expand more resources on the same target system, passive defense can mitigate the consequences of a successful attack. Against an unprepared population a thermo-nuclear explosion could be devastating. An attempt to evacuate a city like New York would clog all traffic arteries and prevent effective assistance. In the absence of shelters the casualties from heat and blast would be enormous. Without knowledge of fall-out effects people might behave in precisely the manner calculated to bring about the highest level of casualties. For example, an attempt to flee the fall-out area during the first two days of maximum radioactivity would expose an individual to the largest dosage of radiation. An insufficient awareness

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of the nature of radioactive contamination would multiply casualties.

The absence of a tested communications system, would put the population at the mercy of rumor (1) and prevent any concerted effort to allievate suffering. Conversely, shelters could reduce casualties both from the blast and from fall-out; an educational program would make possible the most rational behavior; a communications system built with an eye to the greatest immunity from nuclear attack would permit the organized activity at the earliest moment. In short, passive defense will reduce the effectiveness of an attack and therefore contributes indirectly to the attrition of enemy resources.

But the psychological effects of passive defense may prove even more important. One of the great dangers of an all-out thermo-nuclear war is social disintegration and panic. In a previous chapter panic has been defined as an attempt of an organism faced with catastrophe to escape into a familiar environment. If it cannot find a familiar environment it may disintegrate or at least act irrationally. Since the physical effect of an all-out war with modern weapons will inevitably be devastating, the individual will therefore necessarily be confronted with the collapse of all the material objects which he

152

had associated with the ordered flow of life. His reaction will
depend to a considerable extent on how well he has been prepared
psychologically. For the break in what has come to seem natural
reflects a state of mind as a state of fact; it will appear vast in
proportion that the catastrophe is great but also to the extent that
it is unexpected. A disaster which is foreseen may make confidence
in the physical processes of society; it may bring home to the
individual the resilience and the value of the intangible relationships
of society as well. World War II produced a much smaller social
dislocation than World War I although its destruction was at least
as great, because the peoples entered it with fewer illusions:
the psychological crisis after World War I was caused as much by the
incongruity between performance and aspiration as the casualty lists,
as much by the fatuousness of the ideals of a rational harmonious
world as by the realities of trench warfare with which they were
inevitably unprepared. A thermo-nuclear war which broke over a
psychologically unprepared population might lead to a loss of faith
in society and in government. It is important, therefore, to prepare

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a "familiar environment" in advance of such a catastrophe; to prevent panic by intellectual discipline even when many of the physical objects which confer a feeling of security have disappeared. Even then the effect on society of a catastrophe on the scale of a thermo-nuclear attack should not be underrated. History seems to prove that suffering beyond a certain point inevitably leads to political or social trans- formation. For society can exact a measure of sacrifice because of a concession (on the importance of maintaining it and a shared historical experience. However, suffering which is caused not by natural disasters but by the existence of society itself, such as war, tends to undermine the social fabric: However just a war may appear at the beginning, it may be ascribed in retrospect to inadequate leadership if the losses it causes are thought excessive. Within limits, defense can contribute to the cohesiveness of society in the face of shock; while it will not be able to eliminate the traumatic effect of the physical destruction, it may make the difference between survival of society and its collapse.

Thus the strategic equation of all-out war cannot be determined merely by the comparative size of bombing fleets. It results from a complex

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relationship of offense to defense and the relative vulnerability of the contenders. The crucial problem of for a policy of deterrence then becomes whether it can be achieved without making it too costly. To make an all-out war seem a worthwhile risk? One sure, such a question assumes a certain amount of rationality in an enemy. But planning can only calculate with a somewhat rational enemy; nothing can deter an enemy bent on self-destruction.

### III

What is a sufficient degree of certainty and how can it be achieved? Obviously the ability to inflict greater damage than one suffers no longer supplies the basis of victory; a margin in damage inflicted will be meaningless if the victor does not retain sufficient resources at the end of the war. To impose his will. An enemy trying to decide whether to launch an all-out war must therefore be able to count on a combination of the following factors: he must be certain that he will reduce our forces-in-being to a level where his defense can contain them or they are no longer able to inflict unacceptable damage; he must make sure that attrition will not reduce his attacking force to a level where it will no longer be able to inflict the amount of damage he calculates

155

as necessary to impose his will. The margin, moreover, must be
almost foolproof: a slight probability will not be sufficient, for
the attacker is staking not his chances of / but his national
victory
An aggressor will have first to calculate on his own survival. P the strong probability of success is difficult to achieve,
however, if we behave reasonably effectively. A moderately good
defense system will make enemy calculating more uncertain; a dispersal
of bases and industrial facilities will complicate his offensive task;
and even our present retaliatory force will not be easy to eliminate.
Moreover, the psychological equation will be on the side of the
defensive. The attacker will be animated by a will to victory--
a desire to <u>improve</u> his relative position. The defender's impetus
is to avoid defeat--to <u>maintain</u> his national identity. The attacker
will have two choices: to attack or not to attack; the defender can
resist or surrender. Thus the alternatives will present themselves
much more unambiguously to the side which is attacked and the decision
to launch the first blow will always be inhibited because the margin
of success may not seem sufficient. In fact, the task of the side
which concedes the first blow is so to balance the opponent's risks
that he will always have strong inducements to postpone a show-down

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meaningless beyond a certain point. Almost the most meaningless comparison, in fact, is the size of the opposing strategic air forces, for the bombers of one side are pitted not against the bombers of the other, but against its vulnerability and its air defense. Still the strategic airforces determine part of the price that must be paid for an attempted all-out wax victory and any discussion of the military equation in an all-out war must start with them.

The Soviet Long-Range Airforce is a comparatively recent development, dating in effect from 1954. To be sure, ever since 1948 the U.S.S.R. possessed a moderate quantity of TU '4's' (for which the NATO code name was Bull). This was a copy of our B-29, one of which had fallen into Soviet hands during the war when it had to make an emergency landing in Siberia. The range of these planes was 2,200 miles and their performance made them highly vulnerable to jet inter-ceptions. The TU-4 could therefore not reach the U.S. from Soviet territory except on one-way missions and even then only a very small portion of the U.S. There was a great deal of speculation at the time that the destructiveness of nuclear weapons made one-way missions a profitable strategy and this argument was repeated during the

158

Symington Hearings with respect to the present Soviet heavy bomber. But one-way missions are uneconomical given the cost and complexity of modern bombers. They can be ~~xmfxf successful only if the aggressor possesses a really staggering number of planes. Even then unless the attack is crushing, every raid would shift the strategic balance against the aggressor: the side which used up its striking force on one-way missions would have done all the damage it is capable of doing; it could not pose any additional ~~challenge~~ threat and if the opponent has any offensive resources left he would have a decisive advantage. Even should only part of the striking force be utilized on one-way missions, the opponent will know that the enemy offensive power would decline with every attack. One way-missions are suitable for a strategy of desperation. They represent the most wasteful and difficult means of imposing a power's will.

The development of long-range planes capable of undertaking two-way missions therefore represented the basic strategic transformation of the post-war period. Henceforth, in every case which involved a decision of peace or war we had to weigh our risks in terms of the

1/ Symington Hearings, p.

[y]

159

destruction of ~~New York or Chicago.~~ These major cities. The growth of the Soviet Long-Range Airforce, while limited at this stage, reduced the credibility of our deterrent policy based on all-out war and they increased our reluctance to engage in any sort of conflict which might lead to all-out war. The Soviet Long-Range Airforce is composed of two basic types of present planes: a turbo-propeller-driven plane of very long range, for which the NATO code word is Bear and a heavy jet bomber, which the NATO code name is Bison. The U.S. Airforce has no equivalent for the Bear, whose major asset is its long range. Because of its relatively slow speed compared to that of modern jet planes, its losses against high performance fighters and missiles would be considerable. The Bison was first seen in quantity during the May Day parade of 1955 when 13 flew over Moscow. The Bison is estimated to have a range of around 3,500 miles and a top speed of 560 miles per hour. Thus the Bison cannot reach the U.S. even from Soviet advance bases without aerial refueling except on one-way missions. The Bear can cover a third to one-half of U.S. territory from advanced Soviet bases without aerial refueling. With one aerial refueling the Bison

Stockwell, Soviet Airpower (Appendix).

160

can cover seven-eighths of the U.S. from the Chukotski (2) peninsula, and all of the U.S. with two refuelings. From the Kola peninsula (3) the Bison can cover one-third of the U.S. with one refueling and all except the southern tip of Texas (4) in a twice-refueled mission. (See map.)

The U.S. strategic Airforce possesses three basic types of planes: the B-47 which has a top speed of __ miles and a range of __; the obsolescent B-36 which has a top speed of __ miles and a range of __ miles and the new B-52 which has a range of __ miles and a top speed of __. The B-47, of course, is not an intercontinental bomber. It requires aerial refueling to reach Soviet targets from U.S. territory although it can cover most of Soviet territory from our overseas bases. The B-52 is an intercontinental bomber whose effectiveness will be multiplied by our overseas base structure. We now have 33 wings of B-47 with 45 planes in a wing; 5 of these are reconnaissance wings so that the effective bombing force of B-47's is 1,410 planes. Our B-36's are organized in 11 wings of 30 planes. As they are replaced by B-52's, the number of planes in a wing will go up to 45. By 1959 when our heavy bomber

1/ Symington Hearings, p. 175.

2/ Ibid., p. 1810.

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wings will be all jet, we will have about 500 B-52's. 1V The consensus of Airforce testimony at the Symington Hearing, however, was that by 1959 the Soviet Long-Range Airforce would outnumber ours and that for this reason we would be in dire peril. 12/

Strategic superiority cannot be determined numerically, however.
It depends on Soviet ability to destroy enough of our retaliatory
power so that our resulting counterblow can be contained or reduced
to acceptable levels. This could be achieved only by a crushing
surprise attack coupled with a highly effective air defense. Neither
condition seems in prospect for the U.S.S.R. The numerical superiority
of the U.S.S.R. is confined, to begin with, to the category of heavy
bombers: the B-52 as compared to the combined numbers of Bisonx and
Bears. To be sure, the Soviet Airforce also has a substantial number
of medium-range jet bombers, code-named Badger, but since none of them
Live the range 5
from present Soviet planes,
could reach the U.S. even on one-way missions, they do not enter the
strategic equation of all-out war. Our medium bombers, on the other
hand, are capable of striking Soviet targets either from our overseas

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
1/ Symington, op.cit., p. 117.
12/ Ibid., p. 212, xxxii (General May), p. 818 (General Twining).

162

 bases or refueled from the U.S. As a result even on a quantitative
 basis the strategic equation is not as foreboding as a comparison
 of heavy bomber forces would make it appear.

Moreover, a Soviet attack on the U.S. is technically more complex
than performance figures of planes indicates, in order to achieve
and to get warning time to a minimum at airfields
maximum surprise, an all-out attack should be launched from the bases
at which planes are based for training, because this cuts warning time
to a minimum. But neither the Bison nor the Bear can reach any
part of the U.S. except the tip of Maine from the interior of the
U.S.S.R. without aerial refueling. To launch a massive blow they
would have to be staged to advance bases on the Kola or Chukotski
peninsulas: This in turn would give us strategic warning; at a
minimum it would cause a larger proportion of the U.S.
Strategic Airforce to be placed on the alert than usual; under certain
conditions it might induce us to launch a preventive attack.
Even from
advance bases the Soviet heavy bombers cannot reach major U.S. targets without at least one aerial refueling. There is little

¹³ Symington Hearings, p. 175.

163

evidence, however, that the Soviet airforce has mastered the intricate
technique of aerial refueling; indeed it is not certain even that
they possess any substantial number of tankers. Moreover, even if the
Soviets have a capability for aerial refueling, they may be prevented
by geography from deriving full benefits from it. A plane which is
refueling is extremely vulnerable; it should therefore do so in an
area relatively immune from hostile interference. This is all the
more important because the meeting between tanker and bomber must be
precisely calculated and has to take place on schedule. Diversionary
tactics forced on either plane can wreak havoc with refueling plans.
A look at the map demonstrates that in an attack on the U.S., the
Soviet Long-Range Airforce would leave its safe areas with its advance
bases. It would have to refuel over hostile territory exposed to
constant attack. This would reduce the effectiveness of the attack,
increase the rate of attrition and minimize the possibility of surprise.
Aerial refueling, in short, is not an efficient Soviet tactic and one-
way missions are strategically unproductive.

These considerations apply, of course, only to the present family
of airplanes. New bombers with longer range might eliminate the

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refueling problem and perhaps enable the Soviets to launch their
attack from the interior of metropolitan Russia. Even then complete
surprise will be difficult to achieve. For one thing, there is only
one direction from which a Soviet attack on the U.S. can take place--
across the Polar Icecap. Since we are able to gear our air defense to
only one threat equivalent resources put into defense will yield
greater strategic returns for us than for the U.S.S.R. which has
a periphery to defend.

Work in the U.S. air defense system did not start seriously
until 1952, when we first became concerned about the Soviet long range offense.
Its primary functions are detection, identification,
interception and destruction of hostile aircraft. The magnitude of
the problem is shown by the fact that on the average day
there are 30 thousand domestic and 600 foreign in the U.S. which have
to be monitored at least as they approach sensitive areas.
Detection is crucial not only for effective interception but also to
give sufficient warning time to prevent our retaliatory force from
being caught on the ground and to reduce civilian casualties by
passive defense measures. By 1958, the U.S. will possess a detection

For a very good description of our Air Defense System, see
Symington Hearings, p. 303 and testimony of General Partridge.

more complete radar installations for detecting, tracking <u>aircraft</u> and the facilities <u>supplemented</u> by picket ships and planes and "Texas
vectoring aircraft" and the air defense system <u>supplemented</u> by the air defense system will be <u>coordinated</u> by 1959 by a semi-automatic control system--the so-called
"Texas Air Defense System" which will track planes and direct interception.<u>XXXIX</u>
From its first contact with this line, enemy planes will be exposed to
sustained interceptor attacks. As they approach sensitive areas, they
will be subject to anti-aircraft fire which by 1959 will be almost
entirely composed of guided missiles: either the <u>Mazd</u> Army Nike or
the Airforce TALOS and other missiles still under development. With a
range of 60-100 miles, soon to be extended, and atomic war-heads
which can destroy anything within a cubic mile of air, the missile
defenses are becoming increasingly formidable.

Two conclusions emerge from this <u>brief sketch</u> of the U.S. air
defenses: (1) The strategically significant <u>aircraft</u> and <u>air defense</u> facilities not in its total numbers but in that part of it which
can escape attrition. Estimates of the attrition rate <u>when the</u> <u>Air Defense System</u> are as high as 80% by 1959--the time when according
to testimony the <u>Soviet heavy bomber fleet</u> is supposed to exceed ours.

(2) Whatever the attrition rate, the U.S.S.R. will find it almost impossible to achieve complete surprise. Against the present family of Soviet bombers targets in the northern part of the United States should have at least two hours warning and targets in the southern part where most of our SAC bases are located¹⁵) would have 3 to 4 hours warning. If we are reasonably effective, such a warning time in turn should enable us to launch a substantial proportion of our retaliatory force and this together with the portion of SAC airborne at any moment on training missions should enable us to inflict a devastating counterblow.

There exists, moreover, another reason why the U.S.S.R. will have great difficulty either in achieving surprise or wiping out our force-in-being: our system of overseas airbases. Since the aggressor cannot know the precise pattern of dispersal of our retaliatory force, he must, in order to have a calculable margin of success strike all our bases in the continental United States and abroad, preferably simultaneously. But their geographic location to all practical purposes prevents a simultaneous attack on all U.S. bases. Most SAC bases in the continental U.S. are located at a distance of three to four hours from the DEW line while many of our overseas bases are much closer to Soviet territory. Thus the Soviet Long-

15. Symington Hearings, p.

168

Range Airforce would have two options: It could launch its attacks simultaneously with the result that our overseas bases would be hit before our domestic ones, thus adding to our alert time. Or they could attempt to arrange their flight plans in such a way that all planes would reach their targets simultaneously, in which case our overseas bases would have the same warning time as/within territorial U.S.; the time it takes a jet bomber to cover the distance between the DEW line and the target. In the former contingency is the more rational course of action, because an attempt to strike all targets simultaneously would force the Soviets to calculate with a U.S. anticipatory blow launched from our overseas bases while the Soviet planes are still crossing Canada. But surprise against our overseas airbases will not be very easy to achieve. Because they are located at the periphery of Eurasia, any attack against them must cross intervening friendly territory and this in turn should give them between 1-2 hours warning. And even a successful attack against our overseas bases would still leave the retaliatory force in the U.S. to be reckoned with.

social disintegration in the face of such a catastrophic blow.

Nevertheless, despite these vulnerabilities, it is difficult to
see how an aggressor could calculate on victory from a surprise attack
alone. He would know that complete surprise is unattainable at least
until the advent of ballistic missiles, that our force-in-being could
not be destroyed (1) if it acts effectively. Hope for victory in such a
situation would therefore have to derive from the aggressor's confidence that his
air-defense could reduce our counter-blow to acceptable levels and
that this coupled with the losses we are in the surprise attack would
induce us to surrender.

But the Soviet defensive problem is much more complicated than
ours. While we have to defend only one approach, the Soviet Union
must be prepared to repel raids from all directions because our
overseas bases ring the Soviet periphery. The existence of our
carrier task forces soon to be equipped with planes with a combat
radius in access of 1,500 adds to the Soviet problem. And our control
of the seas makes air refueling a much more useful tactic for us than for
the U.S.S.R; even should we be forced to launch our retaliatory blow
from the U.S. our max planes could refuel over friendly areas out of

C]

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range of Soviet detection. Finally while the Soviet Airforce can
reach its targets in the U.S. only across some 1,500 miles of hostile
Canadian territory, many of the targets of our Strategic Airforce in
the U.S.S.R. are much closer to the Soviet early warning line. While
we can expect a warning time of about 2 hours, the minimum considered
necessary for passive defense measures, but the Soviets will have no
such assurance. To be sure, if the Soviets launch a surprise attack,
their defensive system can be expected to be alerted for our counterblow.
Nevertheless, the need to disperse their defenses due to our superior
base system and the geographic advantages makes it highly unlikely that
the U.S.S.R. will be able to reduce our retaliatory blow to acceptable
levels
limits.

In fact, in assessing the relative capabilities of both sides
for winning an all-out war, it seems that for a limited period of time
until Soviet Long-Range Airforce grows stronger and the development of
Long-range Ballistic Missiles, we could probably impose our will on the
U.S.S.R. through a surprise attack. If we launched a surprise attack,
the Soviet Long-Range Airforce might be seriously crippled and the
short warning time would cause an attack on industrial installations

172

to have maximum effectiveness. Even then the U.S.S.R. could probably
inflict serious but perhaps not crippling losses on us. This is not an
argument for preventive war; it is inconceivable that an American President
would order a surprise attack on the U.S.S.R. It is simply to indicate the
real nature of strategic relationships. In the short term then the stalemate
is a balance between our unwillingness to use all-out war to achieve our
goals and the Soviet inability to do so. With the growth of the Soviet
Long-Range Air Force and thermo-nuclear stockpile, the stalemate will be
between the ability of each side to inflict catastrophic blows on the other,
but only at the risk of its national substance.

IV

Will new technological developments be able to this relationship?

There has been a great deal of discussion of the danger of a technological breakthrough by either side, and given the rate of technological change, it is a real problem. It is important to be clear, however, between a technological advance and a technological breakthrough. A technological advance adds to an existing capability or it enables one to carry out more efficiently a mission one is already capable of performing. It is therefore helpful but not decisive. A technological breakthrough is either the development of a

173

new capability which can prove strategically significant or the improvement of an existing one to a point where it can overwhelm its enemy counterpart.

In these terms the development of a superior bomber is a reassuring testimony to the state of our aircraft design; it will not amount to a technological breakthrough if the opponent's inferior planes retain the ability to launch a devastating counterblow. An intercontinental ballistic missile will greatly augment the strategic striking power; it will not confer a decisive edge if manned bombers are already capable of destroying its likely targets. Thus the significant technological breakthroughs are likely to occur in the relation of offense to defense: either through the discovery of a defense which can contain the opposing offense or through the development of an offense which can overwhelm the opposing air defense and eliminate the retaliatory force before it has been launched.

In assessing the significance of new technological developments, moreover, it is necessary to examine the advantage they would give to the side which discovers them first as well as the implications for strategy if both sides possess them concurrently. For paradoxically a technological breakthrough is possible even if both sides develop a new weapon concurrently. Thus the

174

almost simultaneous discovery of the thermo-nuclear bomb added more to the
Soviet strategic balance then to ours because henceforth the threat of all-
out war <u>ke</u> against Soviet peripheral aggression lost a great deal of its
credibility. 16) So, too, the development of an air defense capable of in-
flicting an attrition rate of 100 per cent would help the Soviets more

than us, because they are <u>much more</u> developed a submarine will pose a greater threat to an ocean-going nation

locked like ours than to a land-holding power like the U.S.S.R. Moreover,
the fact that our strategic doctrine concedes the <u>first</u> first blow to our
enemy places a particular burden on us in the technological race: it means
that we cannot fall behind even for an instant or in any strategically
significant category and that we cannot use any technological breakthroughs
we may achieve to obtain a strategic transformation.

16. See below Chapter VI.

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radius of destruction. The attrition rate of the air-defense against manned planes however powered is likely to continue to rise. It is already sufficiently high that strategic attack with conventional explosives would be uneconomical, without being unvaccinated.

Were the Soviet defense restricted to manned planes one might even foresee a theoretical point at which the attrition rate might make even thermo-nuclear attacks marginally effective. But long before this point is reached, a new family of offensive weapons will be developed which will pose extraordinary difficult problems for the defense: the ballistic missiles of various ranges.

A ballistic missile is a weapon which after it receives its initial impetus pursues a fixed trajectory; it is therefore analogous to an artillery shell. The ballistic missiles which will be used for strategic bombing are propelled by rockets: the first such weapon was the German V-2 which could fire ______ ton explosive charge for a distance of 200 miles. The distinguishing feature of ballistic missiles is their speed and the altitude at which they fly. The highest point of the trajectory of German V-2 was ______ feet and its speed approached ______ times the speed of sound. An Intercontinental Ballistic Missile would fly at a speed 20 times that of sound, the highest point of its trajectory would be ______ and it would have a range in excess of 5000 miles. It would be in transit only about 30 minutes between Soviet and U.S.

3

territories. Against such a weapon our present detection apparatus is not
powerful enough and our air-defense system has neither the weapons nor a suffi-
ciently rapid reaction time. So the ballistic missiles constitute a technological
breakthrough then? It is necessary to distinguish first the kind of missile
whether it is intercontinental or of intermediary range (around 1500 miles) and
the consequences of which side develops it first.

If the Soviets develop a 1500 missile first, it will not fundamentally
upset the strategic balance. A 1500 mile missile would be useful primarily
to blackmail our allies or to threaten our overseas air-bases. Both tasks are
now be accomplished by Soviet light and medium jet bombers (the Beagle and the
Badger). To be sure, a 1500 mile missile would carry out these missions more
rapidly; it could reduce the warning time (practically to zero) and, if it were
sufficiently accurate, it might make some of our advanced overseas bases un-
tenable. On the other hand, it could do so only by provoking an all-out war;
it could not forestall a retaliatory blow in Soviet territory from U.S. bases;
it could therefore not decide an all-out war. To be sure submarines could launch
such a missile against the U.S. But apart from the fact that any substantial
movement of Soviet submarines could hardly escape detection, it is doubtful whether
ship-launched missiles could achieve sufficient accuracy to wipe out our retaliatory

force.

By contrast k possession by us and our allies of a 1500 mile missile would add substantially to our strategic capability. From present U.S. bases or from ships, a 1500 mile missile would reach all of the Soviet territory except a small portion of Asiatic Russia. Even if both sides possess a 1500-mile missile concurrently it will add more to our effective strength than to that of the Soviet bloc. Nevertheless, it will not be a decisive advantage. Unless we strike the first blow, and perhaps not even then, the U.S.S.R. would still retain the capability to inflict devastating blows on us. Moreover the intermediate range missile will not arrive in sufficient quantity or with adequate accuracy before the development of another weapon which will make it almost impossible for either side to achieve total victory by all-out war: the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile.

It is expected that both sides will possess Intermediary Range Ballistic Missiles by 1961 and Intercontinental Missiles by 1965. Even if one side develops one of these missiles a year or two before the other, the first prototype will not have sufficient accuracy and they will not exist in sufficient quantity to confer a decisive advantage. It is reasonable to assume then that sometimes after 1965 both side will possess Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles with range-

182

at best destroy the opponent's national substance but not reduce his ability
to inflict a similar retaliatory blow. All-out war could still be devastating
but it will have lost its object.

V

Whatever the calculation then, whether it is the feasibility of a
surprise attack with present weapons and delivery systems or whether it is
the impact of imminent technological trends, it is difficult to see how either
side could count on achieving its objectives throughout all-out thermo-nuclear
war. It is possible to calculate relative advantages in base structure or
delivery capabilities but they do not add up to a margin which would leave
either side sufficient resources to impose its will on the other. ¹⁹) The
essence of the nuclear stalemate then is that it enables the two super-powers
to keep themselves from losing an all-out war by forcing the opponent to pay
an exorbitant price for victory. ( But the same power which is capable of
avoiding defeat is incapable of imposing victory.) All-out war has thus turned
into a paradoxical relationship: a contest, the only outcome of which can be
that both contenders lose. Thus the nuclear stalemate should not be confused
with nuclear parity; it is brought about precisely by the fact that after
a certain point increments in destructiveness no longer pay strategic returns.
Under almost any conceivable circumstances an upper limit of destructiveness
is reached before attrition can become effective and the forces-in-being on
both sides will be able to inflict losses out of 6,000.

17.

the major powers; that the employment of nuclear weapons in these disputes
would bring about a feeling of moral revulsion in the rest of the world, and
the fear of the nuclear powers that the employment of nuclear weapons anywhere
might set off a chain of events ending in all-out-war. Thus the minor powers are
in a sense protected by the incommensurability between the power of nuclear
weapons and the objectives for which to employ them and by the inhibitions
produced by all-out weapons systems coupled with an all-out strategy.

All-out war has thus ceased to be an instrument of policy. It cannot be
used against the minor powers for fear of the moral implications and also
because its intricate strategy is not appropriate for dealing with peripheral
situations. And it cannot be used against a major power for anything except
negative ends: to prevent the opponent's victory. Thus an all-out war which starts
as an all-out war is the least likely contingency although it is the only one
for which we have an adequate doctrine. To be sure, an all-out war could come
about as the result of an irrational decision or of miscalculation or because
a small war gradually spreads. There is no protection against irrational
or decision except to deprive the other side of the power to hurt us with it --
a possibility which ended with our atomic monopoly. Miscalculation and the
gradual spreading of little wars will be considered in a later chapter, although

will the responsible political leaders be to empty force if their strategic
doctrine presents them no alternatives. They may invoke our all-out capability
as a deterrent, but they will shrink from it as a strategy for conducting a
war should deterrence fail. The more the military emphasize the most absolute
Soviet capabilities, the more the responsible officials who will have to make
the decision of peace or war will be tempted to escape their dilemmas by
asserting the Soviet peaceful intentions. This is well illustrated by the
Symington Hearings: the military leaders, particularly from the Air Force,
described Soviet power as if all options were equally open to them and as if
every increment in air strength were immediately translatable into strategic
advantages. But Secretary Wilson insisted that the growing Soviet nuclear stock-
pile and long-range air force were less significant than the transformation of
Soviet society which made all-out war increasingly UNLIKELY. Thus the
concern with a war fought on the basis of "purely" military considerations has
as its counterpart the emphasis on "pure" diplomacy or reliance on historical
trends. As a result, the crucial problem of modern strategy was never explicitly
considered: what kind of military superiority is strategically significant and
what strategy can give an impetus to policy rather than paralyze it.

[^1]: Symington Hearings, p. 1666, testimony of Secretary Wilson.