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Soviet Union [USSR] Nuclear Strategy in the 1950s
After the explosions of the first Soviet atomic device in l949
and the Soviet hydrogen bomb in l953, the Soviet armed forces
acquired nuclear weapons. Also introduced in the 1950s were
ballistic- and cruise-missile technologies, jet engines, and
artificial earth satellites, as well as computers and automated
control systems. These important events were known in the Soviet
Union as the "revolution in military affairs." Of all the new
developments, nuclear weapons most affected Soviet strategy.
Nuclear weapons altered the nature and methods of armed struggle on
the strategic level because they could accomplish the military's
strategic tasks without operational art and tactics. Not until
Stalin's death in l953, however, could the Soviet military begin
exploring the full strategic potential of the new weapons. Although
he had pushed for the development of the "bomb," Stalin played down
its importance and did not encourage the military to formulate a
new strategy incorporating nuclear weapons.
Transition to a nuclear strategy began in the mid-1950s, when
Soviet military thinkers began recognizing the importance of
surprise, of the initial period of war, and of using nuclear
strikes to determine the course and outcome of a war. In February
l955, Marshal Pavel A. Rotmistrov published in the Soviet journal
Voennaia mysl' (Military Thought) a ground-breaking article
on "surprise." He stressed the importance of landing the first,
"preemptive" nuclear blow to destroy the enemy's weapons when the
latter was preparing a surprise attack. Since the mid-l950s, the
concept of preempting an enemy's nuclear weapons has become firmly
entrenched in Soviet military thought.
As the Soviet military came to view nuclear weapons as
particularly suitable for general war, it needed a strategy for
their use. In l957 a series of military seminars at the highest
level helped leaders develop the elements of a new nuclear
strategy. A group of Soviet military strategists under the
direction of Marshal Sokolovskii continued the work of the
seminars. In l962 they published Military Strategy, the
first Soviet treatise on strategy since l927.
Data as of May 1989
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