Early Soviet Public Views
The first public Soviet discussion of tactical atomic weapons came a month after the December 1954 NATO decision to base the defense of Europe on atomic weapons. Major General Talensky, chief editor of the authoritative theoretical journal MILITARY THOUGHT, wrote in the January 1955 INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS that the West was trying to draw a false distinction between tactical and strategic use of atomic weapons and to class tactical atomic weapons among conventional arms. This, he said, was a stratagem to deceive the masses and justify the atomic arms drive by "legal casuistry." Talensky warned that U.S. territory would inevitably be included in the zone of hostilities in a new world war. He argued that atomic weapons of all kinds are by their very nature weapons of mass destruction and hence cannot be equated with conventional arms.
Talensky wrote that "for the peoples of Europe in particular," there is is no difference in the tactical and straategic use of atomic weapons. Modern war, he said, is not the war of the 18th or 19th century when the theater of operations covered relatively small areas. He went on to charge that aggressive imperialist elements were stressing a non-existent -- "or in any case non-essential " -- difference between the two types of weapons in order to mislead the masses fighting against atomic war preparations, "in order to make it easier to prepare and unleash such a war by creating the impression that at least tactical atomic weapons do not differ from conventional arms."
"The American atom-maniacs," he said, "have no grounds for considering that if they precipitate atomic war, the territory of the United States will remain invulnerable, In a war against a strong adversary, it is impossible in our days to count on striking blows al the enemy without being subjected to counter-blows which might be of even greater impact." His warnings presaged the subsequent even more confident statements that there is "no place on earth where an aggressor can hide," that the Soviet Union can deliver a retaliatory low "to any point on the globe."
Marshal Zhukov's XX CFSU Congress speech contained the only Soviet public discussion of tactical atomic weapons during 1956. Zhukov said American strategy based on "tactical" use of atomic weapons was erroneously calculated to deflect atomic blows from U.S. industrial centers. In almost exactly the same language Talensky had used a year earlier, he warned that it is "now impossible to wage war and not suffer retaliatory blows."
Mass propaganda on tactical atomic weapons was introduced in April 1957. Moscow gave wide publicity to the 12 April West German scientists' statement labeling today's "tactical" weapons as powerful as the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. Zhukov, still the only top Soviet leader to have broached the question, told West German newsmen and the Swedish paper NY DAG that there was no effective difference between tactical and strategic atomic weapons. The 27 April Soviet note to West Germany, echoing Major General. Isayev's 1955 NEW TIMES article, warned that use of "so-called tactical" atomic weapons would "inevitably lead to the use of all types of nuclear weapons."
The question of limited atomic war was first broached in March 1957 in INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, also the vehicle for the first discussion of tactical atomic weapons. Establishing a line that was sustained later, the journal called the concept of small nuclear wars "a big lie" concocted to block agreement on banning all nuclear weapons. In the 21 August IZVESTIA, Kudryavtsev said the concept was invented when it became clear to American generals that the massive-retaliation doctrine posed "the gravest dangers to the United States." The false reasoning of these generals, he said, is that the United States can wage aggression without endangering its own territory.
Although the Soviet military elite had publicly discussed such aspects of nuclear wa as the importance of surprise attack and the role of atomic weapons in a modern war, Zhukov was the first to explicitly discuss tactical versus strategic atomic weapons. The only other reference by a Soviet marshal to the issue appeared in Marshal Vershinin's 8 September PRAVDA interview, which mentioned in passing the West German scientists' assertion that one tactical atomic bomb could. nrow destroy a whole town.
Zhukov ws also the first Soviet Presidium member to have publicly contrasted strategic and tactical. atomic weapons. Only one official Soviet statement, the 27 April 1957 note to West Germany, had made any reference to tactical atomic weapons. In language reminiscent of Zhukov's, the note denied that they are "nothing but improved artillery." It contained the first official Soviet statement to the effect that the use of "so-called" tactical atomic weapons" would inevitably lead to the use of all types of nuclear weapons with their tremendous destructive force" - the argument advanced two years earlier by Major General Isayev.
While Moscow refused to acknowledge a distinct category of tactical atomic weapons, Soviet military spokesmen on numerous occasions had referred to the use of atomic weapons "on a tactical level," One military spokesman - like some of the routine propaganda - used the term "tactical atomic weapons" in discussing the use of atomic weapons for tactical purposes. Marshal of Tank Forces Rotmistrov wrote in KOMSOMOLSKAYA PRAVDA on Tank Day in 1957 that "the appearance of atomic weapons and particularly their utilization on a tactical level does not fail to influence the features of the contemporary military operations of armed forces. Under conditions of the application of tactical atomic weapons, the importance of tank forces has increased. The tank forces more than any other branch of the land forces are able to utilize the effect of atomic blows against the enemy and also to counteract such blows from the enemy."
In August 1957, the Soviet Union announced that it had successfully launched its first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). This was followed up in October 1957 with the launch of Sputnik, the world’s first artificial satellite.
In 1967 NATO made it clear that it not only wished to see détente in Europe, but was also changing its strategy. In the event of a conventional Soviet attack, it would not immediately unleash a “massive retaliation” with tactical nuclear weapons, but instead pursue a policy of “flexible response.” Moscow quickly signalled that it was taking NATO’s new strategy seriously. Its Dnieper military exercise in February 1968 began with Soviet forces fighting for a week before resorting to the use of nuclear weapons—this was a first.
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