Thread by @18airbornecorps

1 of 54: Chapter 2: Russia Does it Herself

This story is part of a weeklong #MilTwitter conversation regarding the @USArmy during the Atomic Age (1954 - 1961).

@ColdWarPod @peterwsinger

3 of 54: Every day at 9AM and 2PM we will post new stories on this theme, with discussion, dialogue, and input from some of the coolest accounts on Twitter.

4 of 54: Be advised, friends: in order to set the table for this story we cover a lot of the American history we’ve all long forgotten. We’re about to go from 1949 through 1953 in a single tweet thread.

5 of 54: August 29, 1949: The explosion released 22 kilotons of TNT, released nuclear radiation, left an enormous crater in a remote Kazakh grassland in the south valley of the Irtysh River, and changed the global power structure for good.

6 of 54: The bomb, called RDS-1, short for Rossiya Delayet Sama (“Russia Does it Herself”), released a mushroom cloud that would linger darkly over the world for decades.

[He says 1946 in the video but he meant 1949]

7 of 54: No longer would the United States, which believed the Soviets were YEARS away from nuclear capability, sit astride a unipolar world.

Soviets were like:

8 of 54: The Soviet Union, having successfully tested an atomic bomb for the 1st time, was now a rival to America’s grip on global power.

9 of 54: You see, before RDS-1, the U.S. was an atomic monopoly, the strongest military in the world, and a colossus, capable of making all other powers bend to our will. Those days faded into the radioactive mist at the Russian test site.

10 of 54: Before RDS-1, the two oceans at our flanks kept us safe from the outside world.

11 of 54: No more. The United States now found itself amidst a global struggle for the soul of humanity between two conflicting notions: self-determinism (the US) and common ownership of the means of state production (USSR).

12 of 54: Everyone in the world would have to pick a side: you were with us or you were with them. This was good (the US) vs evil (the USSR) for the soul of the world. At stake was the survival of civilization itself.

13 of 54: No longer could war ravage cities and kill hundreds of thousands; a war between nuclear powers could destroy entire civilizations.


(1951 Classroom video)

14 of 54: RDS-1 also rendered the Army’s concept of winning wars through dominant landpower irrelevant.

15 of 54: You see, Harry Truman (he was vice president at the time FDR died in the seat) was POTUS back then.

16 of 54: The most significant document in shaping Truman’s thinking on national security was the top-secret National Security Council (NSC) Memorandum 68, presented to President Truman in early 1950.

history.com/this-day-in-hi…

17 of 54: Written in an ominous, almost literary tone, NSC-68, authored by the visionary State Department official Paul Nitze, summarized the threats to America’s security into one area: the Soviet Union would do everything in its power to achieve world domination.

18 of 54: According to this document, the United States was the only force capable of stopping Soviet expansion.

@notabattlechick

19 of 54: Thus was born the Truman Doctrine: America would assist any nation fighting communism while developing a nuclear arsenal capable of wiping out the Soviet Union.

history.com/topics/cold-wa…

20 of 54: The Truman Doctrine would rely on an American strategy of containing communism around the world while building a nuclear capability so destructive it would render Soviet nuclear strike suicidal.

21 of 54: To support the Truman Doctrine, the United States military needed to present a credible threat to the Soviet leadership and its armed forces. The Army wasn’t going to be able to do it.

22 of 54: The atomic bomb delivered by the long-range strategic bomber was not only the most tangible manifestation of this threat; it was the only threat we had!!!

23 of 54: You see, by 1949, the Soviet armies in Europe greatly outnumbered the American constabulary forces stationed there. Demobilization in 1945 and 1946 after WWII eliminated Army ground forces as a significant deterrent.

24 of 54: In less than a year after the end of the war, the size of the Army and Navy dropped from over 12 million men to less than 3 million. The armed services were demobilized, precipitously.

25 of 54: The one service that gained at the closing of WWII was the @USAirForce, which enjoyed a monopoly over the means to deliver America's new atomic deterrent. airforcemag.com/article/0857sa…

26 of 54: More specifically, only the @USAirForce’s bombers could drop an atom bomb into the industrial, political, and military heart of the Soviet Union.

27 of 54: So, with the Truman Doctrine, America’s security now came from its scientific & industrial ability to produce atomic bombs and with bombers capable of dropping those bombs.

28 of 54: To be sure, the Army grew under the Truman Doctrine, but it was not nearly as important to the philosophy as the Air Force.

29 of 54: That is, until the Soviet-backed Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to the north attacked the American-supported Republic of Korea to the south on June 25, 1950.

30 of 54: A communist force invaded a western-supported state. Here we go: a test of the Truman Doctrine and the first military action of this new Cold War.

31 of 54: The Korean War required a massive Army build-up. The Army expanded to provide forces not only for Korea, but also to hold Europe, to ensure parts of that continent did not fall to communist invasion.

32 of 54: Eight National Guard divisions were activated to operate in both theaters, with two divisions deployed to Europe and two divisions to Korea.

33 of 54: In 1952, amidst war in Korea, Truman ran for reelection. His opponent: Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower, the general who won the war in Europe (and then the Chief of Staff of the Army).

34 of 54: During the campaign, Eisenhower criticized the expanding military budget, expressing concern about the projected deficit.

35 of 54: Ike wanted the federal government to focus its attention on the national economy, reduce federal spending, and encourage the private sector's increased role.

36 of 54: Eisenhower believed that the moral, political, and economic (not the military dimensions) of the struggle against communism were preeminent.

37 of 54: Eisenhower won a landslide victory in the 1952 election.

38 of 54: Once in office, in January of 1953, Ike moved to end the Korean War. Long story short: an armistice signed in July 1953 separated the communist and UN forces along a demilitarized zone roughly at the 38th parallel.

history.com/this-day-in-hi…

39 of 54: So, with this matter sort of resolved, Ike could focus America’s attention back where he felt it needed to be: on the global threat of Communism.

40 of 54: The Truman Doctrine was out. Eisenhower’s “New Look” policy was in.

41 of 54: New Look pivoted on the twin goals of maintaining a robust domestic economy capable of outlasting the Soviet empire and building an atomic capability so destructive it would prevent the Soviet Union from using its own.

millercenter.org/president/eise…

42 of 54: An American defense industry facilitated both aims, pumping out jobs and money while shrinking the federal defense budget, and developing the latest in nuclear technology.

43 of 54: Eisenhower wanted to reduce federal spending on the military, increase domestic productivity, and increase alliances in Europe.

44 of 54: Ike had served as @NATO’s first Supreme Allied Commander and he understood the threat to Europe posed by the expanding Soviet influence.

45 of 54: Ike believed Army forces in Europe could be reduced to a minimal level; Allied armies had to expand to protect themselves and U.S. support could be reduced to air and limited ground forces to bolster them. The US to Europe:

46 of 54: Besides, the key to beating the Soviets was outlasting the Soviet empire, and New Look needed a strong economy (and therefore a smaller defense budget) to do that.

47 of 54: The Air Force’s Strategic Air Command (SAC) was New Look’s showpiece service.

48 of 54: SAC, a major command of the Air Force, could deliver a nuclear strike and, therefore, offered the deterrence capability needed to keep the Soviets at bay.

49 of 54: The Air Force now represented the future of warfare, while the Army, bogged down in the mud of Korea, represented a dying way of warfare. The Airman was advanced technology and strategic power.

50 of 55: The Army soldier was a fading throwback to a type of war long gone, represented comically by the cartoon strip Beetle Bailey featuring a lazy group of soldiers led by hapless officers and non-commissioned officers.

51 of 54: We suffered hits in prestige: Air Force budgets grew. Army budgets shrank.

@Strategy_Bridge

thestrategybridge.org/the-bridge/202…

52 of 54: By 1955, the Army was in a wilderness -- without a clear mission, fighting for relevance. Morale and discipline plummeted. 😡

53 of 54: Most Army conscripts departed the service after a single 2-year term. Enterprising American teens sought an Air Force commission over an Army commission

54 of 54: To survive, the Army turned to an airborne leader who was a global celebrity in his own right. And that’s where we’ll pick it up tomorrow at 9AM with “Gods of War: Ike vs. Ridgway”