Mastny - War plans and alliances in the Cold War : threat perceptions in the East and West

This important new volume reviews the threat perceptions, military doctrines, and war plans of both the NATO alliance and the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War, as well as the position of the neutrals, from the post-Cold War perspective.

Based on previously unknown archival evidence from both East and West, the 12 essays in this collection focus on the potential European battlefield rather than the strategic competition between the superpowers. They present conclusions about the nature of the Soviet threat that previously could only be speculated about and analyze the interaction between military matters and politics in the alliance management on both sides, with implications for the present crisis of the Western alliance. By focusing on the potential European battlefield rather than the strategic competition between the superpowers, the book explores the Cold War roots of the different American and European approaches to security.

The conclusions about the strengths and weaknesses of the two alliances highlight the importance of political, rather than merely military, determinants of the cohesion of NATO in the post-Cold War security environment.

This new book will be of much interest to students of the Cold War, strategic studies, and international relations history.

Vojtech Mastny directs the Parallel History Project on NATO and the Warsaw Pact, based at the Center for Security Studies in Zurich and the National Security Archive in Washington. His latest book, The Cold War and Soviet Insecurity: The Stalin Years, won the American Historical Association's 1997 George L. Beer Prize.

Sven G. Holtsmark is a senior fellow at the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies, part of the National Defence Educational Centre. He is the author of Soviet-Norwegian Relations 19171995 and other works on diplomatic history and relations between the Nordic countries and the Soviet bloc.

Andreas Wenger is Director of the Center for Security Studies at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. His latest publications include International Relations: From Cold War to the Globalized World (2003).

CSS Studies in Security and International Relations
Edited by Andreas Wenger and Victor Mauer
Center for Security Studies,
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zrich

War Plans and Alliances in the Cold War
Threat perceptions in the East and West
Edited by Vojtech Mastny, Sven G. Holtsmark, and Andreas Wenger

Threat perceptions in the East and West

First published 2006
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Transferred to Digital Printing 2006

2006 Vojtech Mastny, Sven G. Holtsmark, and Andreas Wenger

Typeset in Times New Roman by
Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd, Chennai, India

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

War plans and alliances in the Cold War: threat perceptions in the East and West / edited by Vojtech Mastny, Sven Holtsmark, and Andreas Wenger.
p. cm. (CSS studies in security and international relations) Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. North Atlantic Treaty Organization Military policy. 2. Warsaw Treaty Organization Military policy. 3. Military planning Europe. 4. Military planning North America. 5. Cold War. I. Mastny, Vojtech, 1936 II. Holtsmark, Sven. III. Wenger, Andreas. IV. Title. V. Series.

UA646.3.W38 2006
355.0335409045-dc22 2005025833

ISBN10: 0-415-39061-3 (hbk)
ISBN10: 0-415-39564-X (pbk)

ISBN13: 978-0-415-39061-3 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-415-39464-9 (pbk)

VOJTECH MASTNY

PART I
Threat perceptions and war planning

VOJTECH MASTNY

MATTHIAS UHL

PETR LUK

FREDE P. JENSEN

WILLIAM BURR

WILHELM AGRELL

PART II
The politics of alliance management

ANDREAS WENGER

BEATRICE HEUSER

KJELL INGE BJERGA AND KJETIL SKOGRAND

JONATHAN SBORG AGGER AND TRINE ENGHOLM MICHELSEN

JAN HOFFENAAR

LAWRENCE S. KAPLAN

Jonathan Sborg Agger is head of section at the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS) in Copenhagen. He has published several articles on Danish nuclear policy during the Cold War. Since 2001, he has been a member of a team working on the White Book on Denmark's security policy during the Cold War commissioned by the Danish government.

Wilhelm Agrell is associate professor in history at Lund University, Sweden. He has written a number of books on Swedish security and defense policy in the twentieth century, covering such aspects as the Swedish nuclear weapons program and the Swedish intelligence liaison with the Western powers during the Cold War, including the participation in the Venona project. He is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of War Sciences.

Kjell Inge Bjerga has been a research fellow at the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies since 1999. He is candidatus philologiae from the University of Oslo, 1999. He has published the book Enhet som vpen: verstkommanderende i Nord-Norge 19482002 [Unity as a Weapon: The Joint Commander Armed Forces North Norway 19482002] as well as several articles on Norwegian security and defense policies, military organizations, and civilmilitary relations.

William Burr is a senior analyst at the National Security Archive, George Washington University, where he has directed document declassification projects on the Berlin Crisis (195862), US nuclear weapons policy, USChina relations, and NixonFord administration national security policy. He has written for a variety of scholarly and popular journals on topics in Cold War history. In 1999, he edited The Kissinger Transcripts: Top Secret Talks with Beijing and Moscow (New York: New Press). His current research centers on nuclear weapons policy during the Nixon administration.

Beatrice Heuser is the director of research at the Military History Research Institute of the Bundeswehr in Potsdam. She also holds a professorship at the University of Potsdam, and previously held the chair for International and Strategic Studies at the Department of War Studies, King's College, University of London. In 199798, she worked in NATO's International Staff as a consultant/intern with a Balkans portfolio. She has published widely on NATO and nuclear history, and is currently working on a monograph on The Evolution of Strategy since Machiavelli.

Jan Hoffenaar is head of the Research and Publications Office of the Institute of Military History in The Hague. He has published books and articles on the military history of the Netherlands, and is the co-author of the history of the Dutch army during the Cold War,