....how well did American leaders assess and respond to the Soviet Union's threat? Not well at all, according to a study declassified by the National Security Archives on September 11, 2009. The newly issued assessment highlights just how bad American intelligence functioned over that time period despite the immense resources dedicated to its efforts:
The support for this thesis now appears in a two-volume study, undertaken between 1965 and 1985, on Soviet intentions. In the study, prepared by the BDM Corporation, readers learn from interviews with former Soviet military officers, strategy analysts, and industrial specialists, that American officials "[erred] on the side of overestimating Soviet aggressiveness" and underestimated "the extent to which the Soviet leadership was deterred from using nuclear weapons." Furthermore, the study claims that the American authorities' ineptitude in judging Soviet military intentions "had the potential [to] mislead ... U.S. decision makers in the event of an extreme crisis." Unsurprisingly, the study confirms the role of the military industrial complex in perpetuating the decades-long state of panic. The text shows how "the defense industrial complex, not the Soviet high command, played a key role in driving the quantitative arms buildup" and thereby "led U.S. analysts to ... exaggerate the aggressive intentions of the Soviets."
Students of the Cold War are familiar with the iconic pictures of American schoolchildren ducking under their desks while their parents pored over blueprints for backyard bomb shelters. The American public knew, because their government constantly told them, that the Soviets had their finger on the button. Nuclear annihilation was just a matter of time. But now we learn that this "false consciousness" (thanks Herr Marx) runs counter to the reality. According to the BDM study, "The Soviet military high command understood the devastating consequences of nuclear war and believed that nuclear weapons use had to be avoided at all costs." Baby boomers, feel free to come out from under your desks. And with a little water and a handful of chlorine, your backyard bomb shelter might now work as a pool.
Readers of this new evidence have a choice. They can slander the BDM study as revisionist propaganda or they can interpret it like dispassionate historians. The new release of archival documents constantly changes our understanding of the past. That is how historical knowledge grows over time. The BDM report unhinges one of the basic principles underlying the historiography of the Cold War the idea that only "mutually assured destruction" prevented nuclear war between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.Contrary to what our government and all its vendors wanted us to believe during the Cold War, evidence has now surfaced that the Soviet leaders feared dying in a nuclear conflagration, just as much as Americans did. While the most ardent Cold Warriors ran around screaming "Better Dead than Red," somewhere in the Soviet Union a communist subject might have been whispering "Nuclear annihilation Nyet!"
utsonflakjacket:
