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Document No. 28: Warsaw Pact Intelligence on NATO’s Strategy and Combat Readiness, 1965 ——————————————————————————————————————————— This paper by the Intelligence Department of the Czechoslovak General Staff examines the United States’ flexible response strategy under consideration by NATO. President John F. Kennedy had introduced the new strategy soon after entering the White House in 1961, intending to replace the doctrine of massive retaliation. Although it would take NATO until 1967 to make the switch, the Warsaw Pact assumed that this would eventually happen and began to prepare for what was to come. This paper, obviously based on Soviet materials and marked for restricted circulation, concludes that the appearance of the new strategy is an indication that massive retaliation has failed. The authors see the new approach as clearly more aggressive, since massive retaliation implied a defensive reaction whereas the new strategy, they point out, aims at exploiting the weaknesses of the East European communist countries. They warn that the Warsaw Pact should be prepared for a general war unleashed by the West. The unstated conclusion is that the more aggressive new policy justifies the Pact’s own offensive strategy. In other words, no change is required from current posture. ____________________ […] The NATO Command holds that regarding the current correlation of forces between the socialist states and the capitalist ones, not only an all-out nuclear war but also a limited one is possible. In accordance with that, a theory of limited warfare has been elaborated, which has been reflected in the operational preparedness of the Allied armed forces in the Central European theater, particularly during the last few years. […] Limited warfare represents a twofold issue. On the one hand, adequate forces must be assigned in order to reach their given assignment with sufficient speed. On the other hand, armed forces must be employed in such a way that the risk of extension of a limited war into a general one is to be avoided as much as possible. Since the West has not deployed enough conventional forces in Europe, the necessity of a limited nuclear strike during the forthcoming war has been [seriously] considered. […] The limited war concept, as advanced by the United States in particular, should ensure the gradual attainment of military and political goals with minimal risk of launching a general nuclear war, as the U.S. Command has been increasingly aware of its destructiveness. In NATO’s opinion, a general nuclear war may be launched following a shorter or longer period of increasing international tension; or else quite suddenly, should an advantageous military and political situation arise. One of these advantageous conditions for launching such a war could be an aggravation of political conflicts and economic problems in the states of one or the other coalition leading, for example, to an enforced restriction of the armed forces. Another eventuality, considered as the most probable lately, would be the transformation of a limited war into a gen170 eral nuclear one due to the gradual abandoning of particular restraints. Such transformation might also be caused by a disproportional reaction to the measures applied by one of the countries waging war, by a misunderstanding of signals, or by human or equipment failure. The launch of a surprise general nuclear war [now] takes priority in the plans of NATO’s command. […] The clash is supposed to be a response to the direct or indirect threat to national security, when no other option would offer hopes of reaching the requisite political goals. This—rather vague—definition implies that the NATO Command, and the United States in particular, still reckon with the eventuality of a general nuclear war, which would be launched by themselves. The present strategic concept of so-called “flexible response”, which includes waging limited wars and—under advantageous or, on the contrary, hopeless conditions— a general war is obviously aggressive, hazardous and, in its consequences, dangerous from the military and political points of view. The theory of limited war itself seems rather inconsistent, full of theoretically unclear issues, in particular with regard to the political and military aims of the war, the assignment of forces and means, and the choice of targets. The NATO Command is obviously uncertain on issues relating to the proper mechanisms of such warfare in a theater where even in peace time strong formations from both camps face each other. Here, even a partial failure would probably be evaluated as a good reason to abandon any limitations that were intended at the beginning...

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