War Plans and Alliances in the Cold War: Threat Perceptions in the East and West

by Mastny; Vojtech

• ISBN13: 9780415395649
• ISBN10: 041539564X
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2006-04-18
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

This essential 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 twelve essays in the book 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 could previously 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. This new book will be of much interest for students of the Cold War, strategic history and international relations history, as well as all military colleges.

Table of Contents

List of contributors	vii
Introduction: new perspectives on the Cold War alliances	1	(12)
Vojtech Mastny
PART I Threat perceptions and war planning	13	(150)
Imagining war in Europe: Soviet strategic planning	15	(31)
Vojtech Mastny
Storming on to Paris: the 1961 Buria exercise and the planned solution of the Berlin crisis	46	(26)
Matthias Uhl
War plans from Stalin to Brezhnev: the Czechoslovak pivot	72	(23)
Petr Lunak
The Warsaw Pact's special target: planning the seizure of Denmark	95	(23)
Frede P. Jensen
``Is this the best they can do?'': Henry Kissinger and the US quest for limited nuclear options, 1969--75	118	(23)
William Burr
Silent allies and hostile neutrals: nonaligned states in the Cold War	141	(22)
Wilhelm Agrell
PART II The politics of alliance management	163	(138)
The politics of military planning: evolution of NATO's strategy	165	(28)
Andreas Wenger
Alliance of democracies and nuclear deterrence	193	(25)
Beatrice Heuser
Securing small-state interests: Norway in NATO	218	(22)
Kjell Inge Bjerga
Kjetil Skogrand
How strong was the ``weakest link''? Danish security policy reconsidered	240	(26)
Jonathan Soborg Agger
Trine Engholm Michelsen
``To defend or not to defend'': drawing the line in the Netherlands	266	(20)
Jan Hoffenaar
McNamara, Vietnam, and the defense of Europe	286	(15)
Lawrence S. Kaplan
Index	301