90
II - Convergence: Discrete variables
(6) The balance of power between the two camps was considered
highly precarious for a long time. In clear logic, it would have been
enough for both sides to have had about a hundred submarine-borne
nuclear arms to be able to immobilise each other; the fact that this
strategy was not adopted indicates that no one was confident in nuclear arms as a guarantee of deterrence, despite the fact that nobody
has yet found a way to protect oneself from them. To mention just
one significant detail, it was to limit the damage from a possible
Soviet attack that Paul Baran, at the Rand Corporation, invented
packet switching in 1964-5, and out of this came the Arpanet and
Internet. The Rand Corporation, the foremost "think tank" working
for the Pentagon, was at the time developing strategies for nuclear
war (Herman Kahn, Albert Wohlstetter, etc.).
Maintaining the balance of power has, in fact, justified a race for
technological innovations, almost all born in America and always
replicated more or less faithfully in the USSR, a race destined to
assure that neither of the two protagonists had a sufficient superiority to attempt to rub out the other without taking risks said to
be "unacceptable" (at least 20% of the population and 60% of industry ... ). This suggests that despite the nuclear arms intended
to guarantee the peace, each of the two protagonists attributed to
the other, right or wrong, the temptation to attack unannounced.
Concerning possible ground-based operations in Europe, the USSR
has consistently given itself the very expensive means to set off a
massive offensive, while NATO has provided itself very early with
the means, principally nuclear because more economical, to stop her
(for the 1950s see the memoirs of General Gallois, who at the time
was the French member of NATO's Nuclear Planning Group), after
which the Soviets in their turn adopted "tactical" nuclear arms. The
invention by the Americans of missiles with multiple heads (MIRV)
and the race to precision, officially justified by the need to destroy
the enemy missiles before launch, would have, in case of an acute
criS!!':, obliged each camp to shoot first in order not to destroy ~mpty
silos. This was pointed out at the time by American physicists very
competent in the matter, and opposed to this strategy of which the
existence of almost invulnerable submarines on both sides reinforced
the absurdity.
(7) An explanation which does not exclude the preceding one consists
of thinking that in reality we are dealing with a race to bankruptcy
in which the winner will be the loser. The Western economy, or even
only the American, has always represented, at the very least, three
times the Soviet (ten times in 1945 according to Kennan). In terms
of GNP the arms race has necessarily weighed more heavily on the
Soviet economy rather than on the American throughout this period
II - Convergence: Discrete variables
(6) The balance of power between the two camps was considered
highly precarious for a long time. In clear logic, it would have been
enough for both sides to have had about a hundred submarine-borne
nuclear arms to be able to immobilise each other; the fact that this
strategy was not adopted indicates that no one was confident in nuclear arms as a guarantee of deterrence, despite the fact that nobody
has yet found a way to protect oneself from them. To mention just
one significant detail, it was to limit the damage from a possible
Soviet attack that Paul Baran, at the Rand Corporation, invented
packet switching in 1964-5, and out of this came the Arpanet and
Internet. The Rand Corporation, the foremost "think tank" working
for the Pentagon, was at the time developing strategies for nuclear
war (Herman Kahn, Albert Wohlstetter, etc.).
Maintaining the balance of power has, in fact, justified a race for
technological innovations, almost all born in America and always
replicated more or less faithfully in the USSR, a race destined to
assure that neither of the two protagonists had a sufficient superiority to attempt to rub out the other without taking risks said to
be "unacceptable" (at least 20% of the population and 60% of industry ... ). This suggests that despite the nuclear arms intended
to guarantee the peace, each of the two protagonists attributed to
the other, right or wrong, the temptation to attack unannounced.
Concerning possible ground-based operations in Europe, the USSR
has consistently given itself the very expensive means to set off a
massive offensive, while NATO has provided itself very early with
the means, principally nuclear because more economical, to stop her
(for the 1950s see the memoirs of General Gallois, who at the time
was the French member of NATO's Nuclear Planning Group), after
which the Soviets in their turn adopted "tactical" nuclear arms. The
invention by the Americans of missiles with multiple heads (MIRV)
and the race to precision, officially justified by the need to destroy
the enemy missiles before launch, would have, in case of an acute
criS!!':, obliged each camp to shoot first in order not to destroy ~mpty
silos. This was pointed out at the time by American physicists very
competent in the matter, and opposed to this strategy of which the
existence of almost invulnerable submarines on both sides reinforced
the absurdity.
(7) An explanation which does not exclude the preceding one consists
of thinking that in reality we are dealing with a race to bankruptcy
in which the winner will be the loser. The Western economy, or even
only the American, has always represented, at the very least, three
times the Soviet (ten times in 1945 according to Kennan). In terms
of GNP the arms race has necessarily weighed more heavily on the
Soviet economy rather than on the American throughout this period