Massive retaliation

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Troop strength of NATO member states with contingents from the United States and Canada and the Warsaw Pact states in Europe in 1959

With massive retaliation ( English massive retaliation ) a nuclear strategy of NATO was designated. Their concept was to answer every hostile attack on NATO countries in Europe, whether with nuclear weapons or just with conventional armed forces , with a devastating nuclear counter-attack.

The content of the "massive retaliation" was first mentioned by US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles in his speech to the Council of Foreign Relations on January 12, 1954. There he announced that the USA had made the decision to counter any aggression with a “great capacity to retaliate instantly by means and places of our own choosing”. The goal is to force the peacefulness of the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, given the numerical superiority of the Soviet Union in terms of conventional armed forces in continental Europe on the one hand and the simultaneous American superiority in strategic nuclear weapons on the other , this strategy was not to be adopted by the NATO Military Committee until May 23, 1957 . It was laid down in the Overall Strategic Concept for the Defense of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (MC 14/2) . Force planning and its reduction and modernization in Europe was also adopted on May 23, 1957 in the Measures to Implement the Strategic Concept (MC 48/2) ). The new strategy of massive retaliation sparked the then accepted forward defense (Engl. Forward strategy ) from (Strategic guidelines MC 14/1), which had been regarded since December 3, 1952. “Forward defense” was the concept of countering an attack by the Soviet Union on the alliance's territory in Europe with conventional armed forces as far east as possible. A newly established Bundeswehr with a troop strength of 500,000 men played an important role in this concept.

In France , this strategy and the associated withdrawal of American troops from Europe aroused fears that the US was only interested in reducing its conventional troops there, and that they hoped to be able to do this the sooner the EDC Treaty would be ratified. The USA would then only have provided a “nuclear shield” as a substitute.

The concept of “massive retaliation” was based on two assumptions: 1.) A war between the USA and the USSR could arise either as a result of a misunderstanding or the expansion of a local conflict. 2.) The US administration was convinced that the enemy would attack surprisingly and probably with nuclear support. Even in the event of a lack of nuclear support, the government in Washington was convinced that it could only win a conventionally waged war by using all available nuclear weapons. This form of reaction should avoid limited wars as well as conventional attrition battles, such as in Korea, in the first place. It was also assumed that the American potential for strategic nuclear weapons was superior and invulnerable, and that a nuclear counter-attack by the USA would therefore always be possible. After the Soviet Union reached near parity in strategic nuclear weapons, NATO changed its strategy. The nuclear risk for the US should now be reduced. In 1967/68 the strategy of massive retaliation was replaced by the flexible response .

The strategy of “massive retaliation” is seen in historical studies as a reaction to the high losses of American troops in the conventionally waged fighting of the Korean War .

The concept of the threat of retaliation is now called “conflict-preventive deterrence ”.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Klaus A. Maier: The political control over the American nuclear weapons. An alliance problem of NATO under the doctrine of massive retaliation. In: Christian Greiner, Klaus A. Maier, Heinz Rebhan: NATO as a military alliance. Strategy, organization and nuclear control in the alliance 1949 to 1959. Commissioned by the Military History Research Office. Munich 2003, p. 313.
  2. ↑ Reiner Pommerin: From the “massive retaliaton” to the “flexible response”. The change in strategy in the sixties. In: Bruno Thoss (Ed.): From the Cold War to German Unity. Analyzes and eyewitness reports on German military history 1945 to 1955. On behalf of the Military History Research Office. Munich 1995, p. 529.
  3. ↑ Johannes Varwick : The NATO. From a defense alliance to a world police force? Beck, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-406-56809-1 , pp. 84ff.
  4. ↑ Dieter Krüger: At the Abyss? The Age of Alliances: North Atlantic Alliance and Warsaw Pact 1947 to 1991. Fulda 2013, p. 59.
  5. ^ Dieter Krüger: North Atlantic Alliance and Warsaw Pact: A Comparative Consideration. In: Heiner Möllers, Rudolf J. Schlaffer (Eds.): Special case Bundeswehr? Armed forces from a national perspective and in an international comparison. On behalf of the Center for Military History and Social Sciences of the Bundeswehr. Munich 2014, p. 72.
  6. ↑ MC 14/3 (final) (PDF; 186 kB).
  7. ^ NATO - No longer being a world policeman. Interview with Hans-Friedrich von Ploetz. In: Der Spiegel . No. 46, November 15, 2010, p. 108, p. 110.