A Strategy For Terminating A Nuclear War

Clark C Abt

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9780429711589
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Avoiding a nuclear war, or ending one if avoidance fails, is an important but relatively unexplored aspect of nuclear doctrine. Dr. Abt examines the feasibility of antagonists' agreeing to exclude their open cities from nuclear targeting and to replace strategic bombardment with retaliatory invasion to create less of a hair[1]trigger deterrent. Critical net assessments by U.S. strategists and the effects of such a strategy on the Soviet Union and on U.S. allies are considered, along with problems implementation might pose. The author contends that both deterrence and the potential for limiting damage are strengthened by pre-war plans for a nuclear ceasefire and stalemate short of holocaust.

1
A Nuclear War Scenario Without Controlled Termination

These are the initiating and following events that could lead to nuclear holocaust under the strategies and practices currently in place. This scenario, as any scenario, is fiction and the result of the author's choices. These choices are, in the author's opinion, realistic and entirely possible. War with the Soviet Union can appear from and expand in any number of directions. Our current strategies and practices could all too probably lead to nuclear holocaust once the first bomb from the Soviet Union explodes — whatever be the events leading up to that bomb.

THE EVENTS

March 1991. Border skirmishes between Libya and Egypt bring a United States carrier battle group near the Libyan coast for possible support of Egyptian counter-attacks. The United States supercarrier is annihilated by a mid-range nuclear weapon. No one knows the origin or means of delivery of that warhead. The Libyan chief of state claims "credit" for the attack, asserts he is being supplied and supported by the Soviet Union, and further asserts that two other nuclear weapons under his control by a dead-man switch have been hidden in two major Western cities — one in the United States and one in Western Europe -- to make these cities hostages for United States non-retaliation for the carrier loss.

United States, NATO, Soviet, Arab, and Israeli forces go on alert status. The United States demands Soviet withdrawal of military support from Libya, and the Soviet Union demands the removal of United States "mobile bases for weapons of mass destruction" (i.e., large carriers and missile submarines) from the Mediterranean, asserting "they constitute a threat to world peace."

Early April 1991. A joint United States-Egyptian invasion of Libya is prepared to back up a United States ultimatum to Libya to surrender immediately all of its nuclear weapons and associated forces. At the same time, Red Army airborne infantry units are fully mobilized. Taking advantage of Russia's attention in Libya, a general strike is called against the Communist regime in Poland. To meet this threat, the Russians send into Poland twenty fully mobilized Soviet armored divisions, and move Red Army forces throughout Eastern Europe westward in "earlier-than-usual annual practice maneuvers."

Late April 1991. United States conventional air raids on Libyan government centers destroy Libyan communications. Immediately afterward, a large nuclear weapon of unknown origin is detonated in a truck driving past NATO headquarters in the outskirts of Brussels. NATO headquarters and its staff are destroyed, and there are thousands of deaths in Brussels, part of which is set afiame. The Soviet Union demands the immediate nuclear disarmament of Western Europe, offering the same for Eastern Europe. In Poland, armed rebellion growing out of the general strike interferes with the westward movement of Soviet armored divisions. A Belgian NATO fighter-bomber pilot on nuclear-armed combat air patrol, maddened by the loss of his entire family from what he believes is the Soviet-supplied or directed nuclear destruction of NATO headquarters, leaves his approved flight plan and heads for Eastern Europe. Without authorization, he penetrates Polish airspace (flying in at low altitude from the Baltic) and launches a nuclear-armed missile at a Soviet armored division bunched up to cross the Vistula at one of its smaller bridge crossings. The Soviet Union issues an ultimatum to the United States demanding full restitution for the losses. To back this up, it prepares to invade Western Europe. The United States warns the Soviet Union not to take any further hostile actions, and demands the withdrawal from Poiand and East Germany of the additional twenty Soviet armored divisions "on maneuvers" back to Russia. In case the added Soviet divisions are not withdrawn, the United States commences a massive military air and sealift of ten divisions to West European bases and ports. The Soviets announce that, under the circumstances, they cannot permit this massive reinforcement of NATO, and will consider it an act of war if the reinforcements are not voluntarily halted. The United States persists in the airlift and sealift, and prepares to defend it.

May 1991. In the North Atlantic sea lanes of communication, Soviet submarines attack several United States Navy transports. Several Soviet submarines are also sunk. As the sealift ships mobilized in late April begin to arrive at European ports, Soviet bombers attempt conventional high explosive and chemical attacks on the ports of Rotterdam, Bremen, Hamburg, Amsterdam, and Antwerp. They fail to halt the flow of ships, and many Soviet Backfire bombers are shot down. The Soviet leadership makes one more demand for a ceasefire and halt to the United States reinforcement; this is rebuffed. Soviet SS20 IRBMs with medium-yield warheads then destroy in one salvo all the major West German, Dutch, and Belgian ports. United States forces respond with nuclear strikes by Pershing II and tactical aircraft against nuclear targets (primarily airfields and missile sites) in relatively less populated areas of Eastern Europe.

The Red Army now invades West Germany, Denmark, and Austria, but the Soviets still avoid direct military attacks on France, England, Italy, and Greece. In the middle of the conflict, Soviet negotiators are frantically trying to get these nations to withdraw from NATO and the United States Alliance.

Hundreds of battlefield nuclear weapons are now used on the central front in West and East Germany; no one knows who first violated "no first use." The United States has declared war on the Soviet Union, but privately communicates that it intends to strike only Soviet military targets in Europe and at sea if the Soviets reciprocate. The Soviets reply on the Hotline that they have no intention of striking anything but military targets affecting the war in Europe.

Then, a large nuclear weapon of ocean origin destroys Charleston, South Carolina, and its nuclear submarine base and weapons depot. The Soviets claim it was a previously planted Libyan bomb, but this is not believed. The United States destroys the Soviet naval base and city of Murmansk by nuclear weapon. The strategic nuclear forces of both sides are now at the very point of mutually preemptive launch. Desperate Hotiine and other last ditch attempts to stop the war fail, as both sides' fully deployed nuclear forces are forced to refuel and resupply, and threaten to become too vulnerable if not used.

Later in May 1991. United States and Soviet nuclear bombardments now strike most major military installations (command centers, naval and air and army bases, supply depots, assembly points, ports) in the United States, the Soviet Union and Europe. Because most of the military targets are within lethal radius of cities, almost all of the major port cities and inland transport centers are destroyed. As the governments lose control of their surviving nuclear forces as the result of "decapitating" attacks, command of nuclear weapons devolves to tactical commanders executing preplanned strikes against the known fixed military and industrial targets, mostly cities or installations near cities. Chinese and Japanese potential military targets are also destroyed by Soviet nuclear fire, to prevent their supporting the United States.

There are occasional pauses in these horrible nuclear exchanges, and attempts are made by most surviving high government officials to negotiate ceasefires. Even when these are arranged, they cannot be enforced on field commanders. The now decapitated nuclear forces operating on fragmented reflex response and "canned" orders have lost contact with their higher levels of command, which they (mostly correctly) assume were destroyed in the mutual "decapitating" attacks.

June-August 1991. Most of the nuclear arsenals have been expended on all sides, and most of the urban industrial areas of the Northern Hemisphere lie in ruins. Scattered Red Army units survive in Western Europe and scattered NATO units survive in Eastern Europe, but national central governments have ceased to exist. Hundreds of nuclear weapons survive at sea in the scattered missile submarines and surface ships of the United States, NATO, and Soviet navies. The surviving forces on both sides sporadically engage each other, while some resort to terrorizing Southern Hemisphere ports and regions into transient support for their lost causes and peoples. The surviving nations, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, now find themselves much at the mercy of scattered flotillas with devastating nuclear firepower but no political or diplomatic direction, and a long period of international anarchy commences.

WORLD CONDITION

	IMMEDIATE PREWAR POPULATION	POSTWAR POPULATION	POPULATION 5 YEARS LATER
United States	240 million	30 million	5 million
Soviet Union	280 million	30 million	5 million
Western Europe	300 million	30 million	10 million
Eastern Europe	200 million	40 million	10 million
China (Mainland)	900 million	500 million	200 million
Japan	100 million	20 million	10 million
	2020 million	650 million	240 million

Within five years (after the war-created famines, plagues, and exhaustion of food, fuels, medicines, and transport stocks), the most educated, productive, and destructive half of the world's population is dead. European and North Asian civilizations are extinct. The principal belligerents, the United States and the Soviet Union, end their histories as major powers of government and society. In the next millenium, what remains of the industrial world will redevelop under the Latin Americans, the Africans, and the Chinese.

THE ALTERNATIVE

The Retaliatory Invasion and Cities Targeting Exclusion (RIACTE) Termination strategy presen...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Tables and Diagrams
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• 1 A NUCLEAR WAR SCENARIO WITHOUT CONTROLLED TERMINATION
• 2 A TERMINATION STRATEGY: RETALIATORY INVASION AND CITIES TARGETING EXCLUSION (RIACTE)
• 3 CONCEPTS OF NUCLEAR WAR STRATEGY
• 4 PRINCIPLES FOR EFFECTIVE NUCLEAR WAR TERMINATION
• 5 MILITARY ELEMENTS IN TERMINATION STRATEGY
• 6 POLITICAL ELEMENTS AFFECTING TERMINATION STRATEGY
• 7 RESPONSES OF ALLIED AND ADVERSARY NATIONS TO THE TERMINATION STRATEGY
• 8 CURRENT PLANS AND CAPABILITIES FOR NUCLEAR WAR TERMINATION
• 9 SCRIPTS AND SCENARIOS FOR THE STRATEGY
• 10 CRITICAL REACTIONS TO THE STRATEGY
• 11 A NUCLEAR WAR SCENARIO WITH CONTROLLED TERMINATION
• Glossary
• Appendix A: Bibliographies
• Appendix B: National Surveys on Defense and Economic Issues
• Index