Stalin and the Bomb

by David Holloway

But the Soviet conception of a future war was very close to that elaborated in the war plans of the United States. For example, the “Offtackle” Emergency War Plan, which was approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in December 1949 and remained operative for two years, also envisaged a war in several phases. In the first three months the Soviet Union “was expected to launch offensives in Western Europe and the Middle East, an aerial bombardment of the British Isles, campaigns with limited objectives in the Far East, air-sea offensives against allied lines of communications, and selective air attacks upon North America.”108 Strategic bombing was not expected to stop these offensives. The Western allies would be too weak to hold Western Europe, and would have to try to secure the United Kingdom and hold on to North Africa and the Cairo–Suez area. The resulting situation would be like that of 1942–3. The Allies would carry out strategic bombing attacks, build up the United Kingdom as a major base, and begin to move outwards from the western Mediterranean and North Africa, with the aim of reentering the European continent. World War III would be decided by campaigns reminiscent of those of 1944–5.109