Transcript Document
The Cold War as Total (Virtual) War: Prospect of Nuclear War • Main Nuclear Weapon (NW) effects – Blast (supersonic shock wave) Overpressure and extremely high-speed winds – Thermal (extremely high temperatures) Non-ionizing radiation (Infrared and Visible) – Prompt ionizing radiation (from the bomb’s nuclear reactions) – Delayed radiation (fallout from the radioactive fission fragments) • Other special effects – EMP, ionospheric changes, … Nuclear Strategies of the United States and the Soviet Union • Mutual Assured Destruction: – Deter an attack by threatening to destroy the state, regime, civil society, and population of the adversary – Small but invulnerable nuclear armed forces are required capable of surviving an adversary’s first-strike nuclear attack and retaliating against civilian targets. US/USSR: Each Pursues a Counterforce Strategy • Objective: Eliminate the nuclear forces of the adversaries • Why? 1) Attempt to limit damage of an adversary’s nuclear forces by destroying them; Clausewitz goes nuclear – – 2) Reinforce deterrence 3) Protect allies by demonstrating a will to use or threaten nuclear weapons and war Balance of Nuclear US/SU Nuclear Forces: 1990 • United States • Soviet Union – 1903 launchers (air, sea, ground) – 2,500 launchers (air and ground) – 12,477 strategic warheads – 10,271 strategic warheads Failure of Arms Control to Limit Nuclear Forces • SALT I: Failure to limit the number of launchers • START: Failure to limit warheads and Multiple Independently Targeting Vehicles (MIRVs) European Theatre Nuclearized • US and NATO Forces deploy thousands of so-called tactical nuclear weapons which are in the kiloton range (Hiroshima bomb) • The Soviet Union and satellites states in Europe equally position short and longrange nuclear missiles and nuclear weapons in Europe The Cold War Extends to the Globe • The United States signs over 40 collective security treaties to balance Soviet alliances around the world • The United States and the Soviet Union become the world’s largest suppliers of arms to states around the globe – The US sustains the nuclear forces of Britain – France and Israel, allies of the US, develop their own nuclear forces with some unofficial assistance from the United States Then Why Did the Cold War End without a World Nuclear War? • Political crisis within the Soviet alliance system and within the domestic order of the Soviet Union – External crisis: Nationalism of Soviet satellites no longer can be contained – Internal crisis; • Russian nationalism rejects Soviet imperial system as too costly • Soviet federal system collapses into independent national states Crisis of National Conflicts Deepened by Economic Crisis • The economic and technological growth of the Western liberal states vastly exceeds the increasingly slow economic and technological development of the Soviet Union and Communist centralized economies • Western capitalist markets foster growth and technological progress more effectively and efficiently, with less corruption, than centralized economic systems The Limits of Total War and Military Force • The formidable Soviet army disintegrated • Nationalism triumphs over military force which is unable to contain this political force • The economic burden of the vast Soviet military system and the inefficiencies of a centralized economic system contribute to the defeat of the Soviet Union in the Cold War • In December, 1991, the Soviet Union is dissolved as a state and implodes into 15 independent nation-states • The former satellites of the Soviet Union in the Warsaw pact also regain their national independence • The West and East Germany are integrated into the Federal Republic of Germany Theoretical and Policy Implications of the Cold War • Empires -- that is -- rule of populations by foreign military forces have all failed • The tendency toward total or pure war continues – Nuclear proliferation increases: North Korea, Iran joining India, Pakistan, and Israel – Terrorism has also emerged as a global challenge Part I: Classes 7-11 Will Outline Alternative Theories to Explain Security • • • • Realism and Neo-Realism Classical (market) Liberalism Institutional Liberalism Marxism and class conflicts arising from the unequal distribution of wealth and power as a consequence of global markets.