The secret battle of the superpowers.

The Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union (military experts disagree on when it began and when it ended) still contains many secrets and mysteries. This is why the latest work (1) by Col. A.S. Orlov (Ret.), D.Sc. (Hist.), a well-known military historian, member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, devoted to the study of problems related to the Cold War, could be of considerable interest for military experts and diplomats, politicians, and historians both in Russia and abroad. In this book, just as in a number of other works, (2) the author addresses the most intriguing aspects of confrontation between the two great superpowers during and after the Cold War: the nuclear arms race, espionage, involvement in local wars and armed conflicts, the Caribbean crisis, and so on.

In the book under review, A.S. Orlov has summed up the results of his research and publications in the mass media during the many years that he has devoted to the study of military history. To see this, it is enough just to read the titles of the book's chapters: Alamogordo-Moldary: Landmarks of the Nuclear Era; USA-USSR: The Air Blitzkrieg and the Tank Offensive; USSR: An Asymmetric Response; The USA Breaches the Iron Curtain; and Racing Toward the Armageddon. The author uses well and little known documents, statements and comments by political figures of the era under consideration, and numerous archival materials, lifting the veil of secrecy over some puzzles of military history in an exciting and intriguing way.

Chapter 1 (Alamogordo-Moldary: Landmarks of the Nuclear Era) acquaints the reader with the history of the two "buttresses" of the nuclear era and the related international and military problems. Alamogordo and Moldary are little towns in the United States and the Soviet Union (now Kazakhstan), respectively. They are 15,000 km apart. Hardly anyone would have even heard about them had the history of the 20th century not highlighted their names with the fiery letters of the nuclear explosions conducted by the two opposing superpowers--the United States and the Soviet Union. The first nuclear bomb tests in the United States and the Soviet Union were just four years apart--in 1945 and 1949, respectively, but the intriguing and dramatic history of the creation of the most destructive weapons in the world, shrouded in secrecy, and the desperate struggle between the two superpowers for the acquisition and modernization of that "ultimate" weapon continued for decades. So these two towns, lost in the deserts of America and Asia, have forever gone down in the history of mankind at the dawn of its nuclear era.

The reader will be interested to learn some little known facts about the history of the creation of the nuclear and hydrogen bombs in the United States and the Soviet Union, the names of scientists, designers and politicians who ensured their development and use in Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II and at test sites, when the Rubicon of the thermonuclear arms race had been crossed with the United States followed by the Soviet Union and then by the UK and other countries.

Chapter 2 (USA-USSR: The Air Blitzkrieg and the Tank Offensive) addresses U.S. strategic concepts for the conduct of a nuclear war and measures taken by the USSR to defend the country against a possible "nuclear blitzkrieg" by a probable adversary. A.S. Orlov provides excerpts from little known documents that lift the veil of mystery on U.S. strategic concepts. Here is one that belongs to Gen. M. Tailor, who said in particular that the nuclear explosions over Hiroshima and Nagasaki had shown the decisive importance of strategic bombings and that the nuclear bomb enabled the United States to impose a kind of Pax Americana on the world (p. 87). This view is echoed by President H. Truman in his address to the U.S. Congress on December 19, 1945, saying that the American people were destined to lead the world (p. 88). There are many more such revealing excerpts in the book.

The second problem examined in this chapter--"the Soviet tank offensive"--could have been analyzed in more detail from a military-strategic point of view, but even so it enables the reader (taking into consideration the list of literature provided in the book) to understand the importance of the "tank offensive" on the continental theater of military operations, as compared to the "air blitzkrieg."

Chapter 3 (USSR: An Asymmetric Response) raises the shroud of mystery over the substance of the "asymmetric response," many of whose elements did not become known to the broad public until recently. Starting with an analysis of "massive retaliation" strategy, A.S. Orlov shows the importance of different types of missile systems that took center stage during those years. The author maintains that beginning in the early 1950s, even though it had lost its monopoly over nuclear weapons, the United States still had a superiority in the number of those weapons and their means of delivery, remaining up to a certain point invulnerable to a retaliatory strike and developing a new strategy. That strategy, which went down in history as "massive retaliation" strategy, was adopted in the United States soon after D. Eisenhower became president. It envisioned the conduct of an all-out nuclear war against the Soviet Union and other socialist countries. The U.S. ruling circles saw powerful strategic aviation, capable of delivering nuclear strikes deep into the Russian hinterland, as the principal means of warfare. The basic assumption was that the warring powers or their coalitions, which possessed nuclear weapons, would use all available means without exception, including nuclear weapons. In this context, the author quotes H. Kissinger, a prominent U.S. political figure, as saying that the U.S. strategic doctrine regarded total, all-out war as the only possible option (p. 154).

Chapter 4 (The USA Breaches the Iron Curtain) includes such subtitles as "The Pentagon: The Secrets of Electronic Warfare" and "The CIA: What Lies Behind the Ural Region?" The author shows that before the second half of the 1950s, U.S. and NATO aviation had conducted electronic reconnaissance mainly of Soviet border regions, trying to obtain information about the country's air defense systems and adjacent airfields. But over time considerable information was accumulated on Soviet nuclear and missile programs. The main elements of those programs (test sites, positions for the deployment of new types of weapons, etc.), however, were located in the Russian hinterland, while it was becoming increasingly difficult for Western air reconnaissance to penetrate those areas.

The military parade in Moscow in 1955 showed that the Soviet Union had achieved impressive results in building strategic aviation. U.S. public opinion was increasingly convinced that the United States was lagging behind the Soviet Union in the major spheres of scientific and technological progress. The Pentagon and the CIA came to the conclusion about the need to start gathering information about Soviet strategic air attack programs as soon as possible.

One such reconnaissance tool was an airplane especially designed for photo and electronic reconnaissance from a high altitude, including beyond the Ural ridge, and out of range for contemporary fighters and antiaircraft artillery. It was developed by Clarence Johnson, a talented engineer and Lockheed executive vice president; and his associates, Edwin Land and Edward Parsell. They called their creation Angel, while it was officially known as U-2 (from the English word "utility"). The book provides some interesting information about U-2 reconnaissance flights over the Soviet Union, and specifically the plane piloted by F. Powers which was shot down on May 1, 1960 by a Soviet surface to air missile at an altitude of 20 km. This information was until recently known to a very narrowly circumscribed circle of people, including the present reviewer who in those years served in the Baku Air Defense District.

Chapter 5 (Racing Toward the Armageddon) leads the reader on to current events, looking into some of the most complex mysteries of military history that have yet to be revealed. According to the author, the recognition of the real dangers during the nuclear era forced the leaders of the world's superpowers, in the early 1970s, to review their policies, turning away from the Cold War to detente and cooperation between states with different social systems. The successes of peace loving policy were attained in a pitched battle that had been waged by all progressive forces in the world since the end of World War II. The military-strategic parity between the United States and the Soviet Union had become a sufficiently reliable guarantee of peace.

The author draws special attention to the fact that amid the high level of the sides' nuclear capabilities, that strategic balance enabled each of them to preserve enough assets and means to deliver a retaliatory strike that could assuredly destroy any aggressor. What that meant was that should an aggressor start a nuclear war, there could not be a winner in that war so nuclear aggression was synonymous to suicide. At the same time, strategic equilibrium created certain objective incentives for the termination of the arms race and the reduction and elimination of nuclear weapons. It opened an opportunity for a gradual reduction in the level of nuclear confrontation with the sides' strategic parity and undiminished security, contingent on their good will. Finally, strategic parity was a key condition to international stability and the weakening of political confrontation.

Washington saw the military-strategic parity that had been established as an approximate balance of quantitative parameters. Yet the question arises: How did the approximate parity in the number of nuclear delivery means and ground forces evolve in Europe? Whereas the Warsaw Pact countries had superiority in tanks, the NATO member states had an advantage in AT means and aviation. In the event of a nuclear war, both sides could have caused each other "unacceptable damage." The parity was in effect built on a "balance of fear"--the fear of mutual assured destruction [MAD]. But even that parity did not as yet mean equal opportunities, which, according to the author, will come through in the future. At that time, in the early 1970s, however, it was an impressive achievement by the Soviet Union. It had become a real superpower, while nuclear missiles had emerged from a "weapon of victory" in a war of nuclear powers into a political weapon of deterring a global nuclear catastrophe.

In conclusion, it should be noted that it was a worldwide, historic victory of Soviet weapons, Soviet military-technical thought and Soviet policy in the 20th century. If the Soviet Union played a decisive role in routing Nazism in World War II, by achieving a military-strategic parity with the United States, it made a decisive contribution to creating a situation of undiminished security in a bipolar world. Dialogue began between the superpowers and their allies on arms control, reduction and subsequently arms limitation.

A.S. Orlov's book, rich in facts, figures and forecasts, will, without a doubt, be useful for military experts, specialists, political analysts, diplomats, and all those who are interested in problems of preventing a nuclear war.

NOTES:

1. A.S. Orlov, Taynaya bitva sverkhderzhav (Voennye zagadki istorii), 2nd revised edition, Veche Publishers, Moscow, 2005, 320 pp.

2. A.S. Orlov, Sekretnoye oruzhie Tretyego reykha, Nauka Publishers, Moscow, 1974; idem, V poiskakh absolyutnogo oruzhiya, Molodaya gvardiya, Moscow, 1984; idem, Raketnoye oruzhiye v politike i strategii Zapada (1943-1991), Moscow, 1993; idem, "Eskalatsiya vooruzhenniy--put v tupik," in: Sovetskaya vneshnyaya politika v gody kholodnoy voyny (1945-1985): Novoye prochteniye, Moscow, 1995; idem, "Chudo oruzhiye": obmanutye nadezhdy fyurera, Smolensk, 1999; idem, Za kulisami Vtorogo fronta, Veche Publishers, Moscow, 2001; idem, Stalin: preddveriye voyny, Moscow, 2005.

Col. V.A. KULIKOV (Ret.)

Doctor of Historical Sciences, professor