It is said that when US President Harry Truman was informed about the successful test of the first atomic bomb on July 16, 1945, he exclaimed: "Finally, I have a club against these Russian guys!" A new cold war that began shortly after the end of World War II threatened to turn into a hot one more than once. Plans for the final victory over the USSR using atomic weapons began to be developed in the United States at the end of 1945.
The first of these plans was "Totality", adopted by the Joint Chiefs of Staff on December 14, 1945 (in other sources, a plan with identical goals is called "Pinscher", it was adopted in June 1946). It provided for the use against 20 cities of the USSR from 20 to 30 atomic bombs - analogous to those that were dropped on Hiroshima. The list of targets included the largest cities of the Russian Federation, as well as Tashkent, Baku and Tbilisi. It is noteworthy that the United States did not have so many nuclear weapons at that time, that is, the plan was drawn up for the future.
New programs were developed as the US nuclear arsenal grew and the international situation changed. According to the Troyan plan of 1948, it was planned to strike with 133 atomic bombs on 70 Soviet cities. The most detailed plan was the Dropshot, approved on December 19, 1949. 104 cities of the Soviet Union were listed as targets of the nuclear bombardment. It was assumed that in order to carry out this plan, the United States should have at least 292 atomic bombs by January 1, 1957.
In "Dropshot", in addition to listing the goals of a nuclear strike, the initial prerequisites for implementing the plan were described in detail and an approximate scenario was given. It was believed that the invasion of Soviet troops into Western Europe would be stopped at the Rhine-Alps-Northern Italy line, after which the mobilized forces of the United States and their allies would launch a counteroffensive to defeat the Soviet ground forces. Ultimately, the Soviet Union, deprived of allies, had to be forced to unconditional surrender without any possibility of ever recovering as a great power, its territories would be completely occupied.
The plans varied, taking into account in which region of the planet the confrontation between the USSR and the Western countries could develop into an armed conflict. Already in late 1945 - early 1946, tensions arose due to Stalin's desire to extend the military occupation of Northern Iran, carried out by the USSR together with Great Britain during the war. In the summer of 1946, Stalin made territorial claims against Turkey. In 1948, Soviet troops organized a blockade of West Berlin that lasted a year. In 1950, the Korean War began, during which the American commander-in-chief, General D. MacArthur, proposed to launch atomic strikes on the cities of China, which was sending its troops to North Korea. President Harry Truman, however, categorically rejected the proposal and dismissed the overly belligerent general.
The only carriers of nuclear weapons at that time on both sides were only aircraft and medium-range missiles. American missiles and aircraft could easily reach almost anywhere in the Soviet Union from bases in Western Europe, Turkey and the Middle East. In turn, the Soviet Armed Forces did not have such a transport ability to quickly reach the United States. Consequently, America could not fear a "retaliation strike" that would lead to the destruction of American cities and the death of hundreds of thousands of people. In addition, the USSR first had an atomic bomb only in 1949.
However, when simulating the Dropshot plan during a headquarters exercise in the United States, the American military came to a disappointing conclusion: only 70% of the targets would be hit, and the losses of the American Air Force in the air war against the USSR would amount to 55%. Thus, the "Dropshot" was recognized as incapable of undermining the military-economic might of the USSR enough to break its resistance.
Despite this, the projects continued to improve. In the 1950s, intercontinental ballistic missiles became the main component of the nuclear forces of both sides, and in the 1960s, the arsenal of the USSR and the United States was replenished with a mobile and practically invulnerable means of delivering nuclear charges - missile submarines. It became increasingly clear to American strategists that in the event of war, the territory and civilian population of the United States would inevitably be subjected to devastating blows. Nevertheless, in 1960, President Dwight D. Eisenhower approved the first unified operational plan for an all-out nuclear war against the Warsaw Pact countries - SIOP. Since then, this plan has been updated annually in accordance with the changes in the world situation and the composition of the US adversaries.
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In 1961, with the coming to power of President John F. Kennedy, the concept of war against the USSR using only non-nuclear weapons and the concept of a limited nuclear war first appeared in American strategy. Strikes against Soviet intercontinental missile launchers, nuclear submarine bases and Soviet long-range aviation bases began to be considered a priority in order to prevent a nuclear strike on US cities. The next groups of targets are enemy air defense (ABM) objects, then command posts and communication centers of the military-political leadership of the USSR, and if the war continues, a total "paralyzing" strike aimed at destroying industrial potential.
It should be noted that the United States never considered itself ready for an all-out war with the USSR until complete victory. All plans included more nuclear charges and delivery vehicles than the United States had at the time of their drafting. Military leaders persistently knocked out appropriations from Congress under the pretext of an insufficiently high level of US military power. So, the Minister of Defense R. S. McNamara in 1964 declared that America's nuclear potential should be so great that the first attack with atomic weapons would destroy two-thirds of the industrial production of the USSR. The argument for the creation of the SDI system in the early 1980s was the calculations of the Pentagon, according to which a retaliatory strike by Soviet strategic forces, which would have already been hit by the first American strike, could immediately take the lives of 35 million Americans.
The most favorable time for waging a nuclear war for the United States was the end of the 1940s, when the USSR did not yet possess atomic weapons. But all of these plans did not provide for a preemptive attack, but a response to the actions of the Soviet Union in a particular region of the world.
Yaroslav Butakov