RUSSIA: Don’t Shoot

In between rocket-rattling sessions, Nikita Khrushchev sometimes shows a genuine fear of nuclear war and no longer argues that only the other side would get hurt. This more considered position seems to be the cold calculation of the Soviet military itself, to judge by an article published in Moscow’s monthly International Life by Major General Nikolai Talensky of the Soviet General Staff. Writes Gen eral Talensky:

¶ “There is no practical way to repulse a nuclear rocket attack.”

¶ “A nuclear war will destroy whole countries and populations . . . The loss would be no less than 500 to 600 million people.”

¶ “Surprise attack undoubtedly has its advantages . . . However, the opportunity of an answering blow remains. [Thus] nuclear war is not only extraordinarily dangerous for the victim, but it is also suicide for the aggressor himself.” ¶ “Local wars were possible [in past centuries] . . . War, in reality, has become either a prelude to world war, or, in its own way, the end of world war.”

All of which led General Talensky to a reversal of Clausewitz’s dictum (“War is a mere continuation of policy by other means”). Wrote Talensky: “The process of development of the technique of destroying peoples makes it impossible now to use weapons for the solution of political tasks . . . War as an instrument of policy is becoming outdated . . .”