The Technology of War
Ballistic missile defense.
Although ballistic missiles followed a predictable flight path, defense
against them was long thought to be technically impossible because their
RVs were small and traveled at great speeds. Nevertheless, in the late
1960s the United States and Soviet Union pursued layered antiballistic
missile (ABM) systems that combined a high-altitude interceptor missile
(the U.S. Spartan and Soviet Galosh) with a terminal-phase interceptor
(the U.S. Sprint and Soviet Gazelle). All systems were nuclear-armed.
Such systems were subsequently limited by the Treaty on Anti-Ballistic
Missile Systems of 1972, under a protocol in which each side was
allowed one ABM location with 100 interceptor missiles each. The
Soviet system, around Moscow, remained active and was upgraded in
the 1980s, whereas the U.S. system was deactivated in 1976. Still, given
the potential for renewed or surreptitious ballistic missile defenses, all
countries incorporated penetration aids along with warheads in their
missiles' payloads. MIRVs also were used to overcome missile defenses.
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Finland
Foreign policy.
Under the leadership of Paasikivi and Kekkonen, relations with the
Soviet Union were stabilized by a consistently friendly policy on the part
of Finland. A concrete expression of the new foreign policy--designated
the Paasikivi-Kekkonen line--was the Agreement of Friendship,
Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance concluded between Finland and the
Soviet Union in 1948 and extended in 1955, 1970, and 1983. The
agreement included a mutual defense provision and prohibited Finland
from joining any organization considered hostile to the U.S.S.R. After
war reparations had been paid in full, trade with the Soviet Union
continued, rising to more than 25 percent of Finland's total during the
1980s. Further signs of the d�tente showed when the Soviet Union
returned its base at Porkkala in 1955.
Relations with the Soviet Union, however, were not entirely without
complications. After the elections of 1958, a coalition government under
the leadership of the Social Democrat Karl August Fagerholm was
formed, in which certain members considered anti-Soviet were included.
The Soviet Union responded by recalling its ambassador and canceling
credits and orders in Finland. When the Finnish government was
reconstructed, relations were again stabilized. During the autumn of
1961, when international relations were severely strained because of the
Berlin crisis, the Soviet Union requested consultations in accordance
with the 1948 agreement. President Kekkonen succeeded in inducing the
Soviet Union to abandon its request. In 1985 the Soviets warned that a
split in the Finnish Communist Party between the nationalist-reformist
majority and the pro-Moscow minority would jeopardize Soviet-Finnish
relations, but the split occurred in 1986 without straining relations.
Following the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991, Finland moved to
end the old mutual defense agreement. A new agreement was reached
with Russia in 1992, in which the two countries simply pledged to settle
disputes between them peacefully. Finland, now freed from any
restrictions, applied for membership to the European Community (from
1993 the European Union [EU]), which it joined in 1995.
Axis and Allied
movements in Europe
and North Africa,
1940-42, and (inset)
German invasion of
the. . .
For the campaign against the Soviet Union, the Germans allotted almost
150 divisions containing a total of about 3,000,000 men. Among these
were 19 panzer divisions, and in total the "Barbarossa" force had about
3,000 tanks, 7,000 artillery pieces, and 2,500 aircraft. It was in effect the
largest and most powerful invasion force in human history. The Germans'
strength was further increased by more than 30 divisions of Finnish and
Romanian troops. (see also Index: Eastern Front)
The Soviet Union had twice or perhaps three times the number of both
tanks and aircraft as the Germans had, but their aircraft were mostly
obsolete. The Soviet tanks were about equal to those of the Germans,
however. A greater hindrance to Hitler's chances of victory was that the
German intelligence service underestimated the troop reserves that Stalin
could bring up from the depths of the U.S.S.R. The Germans correctly
estimated that there were about 150 divisions in the western parts of the
U.S.S.R. and reckoned that 50 more might be produced. But the Soviets
actually brought up more than 200 fresh divisions by the middle of
August, making a total of 360. The consequence was that, though the
Germans succeeded in shattering the original Soviet armies by superior
technique, they then found their path blocked by fresh ones. The effects
of the miscalculations were increased because much of August was
wasted while Hitler and his advisers were having long arguments as to
what course they should follow after their initial victories. Another factor
in the Germans' calculations was purely political, though no less mistaken;
they believed that within three to six months of their invasion, the Soviet
regime would collapse from lack of domestic support.
The German attack on the Soviet Union was to have an immediate and
highly salutary effect on Great Britain's situation. Until then Britain's
prospects had appeared hopeless in the eyes of most people except the
British themselves; and the government's decision to continue the struggle
after the fall of France and to reject Hitler's peace offers could spell only
slow suicide unless relief came from either the United States or the
U.S.S.R. Hitler brought Great Britain relief by turning eastward and
invading the Soviet Union just as the strain on Britain was becoming
severe.
On June 22, 1941, the German offensive was launched by three army
groups under the same commanders as in the invasion of France in 1940:
on the left (north), an army group under Leeb struck from East Prussia
into the Baltic states toward Leningrad; on the right (south), another army
group, under Rundstedt, with an armoured group under Kleist, advanced
from southern Poland into the Ukraine against Kiev, whence it was to
wheel southeastward to the coasts of the Black Sea and the Sea of
Azov; and in the centre, north of the Pripet Marshes, the main blow was
delivered by Bock's army group, with one armoured group under
Guderian and another under Hoth, thrusting northeastward at Smolensk
and Moscow.
The invasion along a 1,800-mile front took the Soviet leadership
completely by surprise and caught the Red Army in an unprepared and
partially demobilized state. Piercing the northern border, Guderian's tanks
raced 50 miles beyond the frontier on the first day of the invasion and
were at Minsk, 200 miles beyond it, on June 27. At Minsk they
converged with Hoth's tanks, which had pierced the opposite flank, but
Bock's infantry could not follow up quickly enough to complete the
encirclement of the Soviet troops in the area; though 300,000 prisoners
were taken in the salient, a large part of the Soviet forces was able to
escape to the east. The Soviet armies were clumsily handled and
frittered their tank strength away in piecemeal action like that of the
French in 1940. But the isolated Soviet troops fought with a
stubbornness that the French had not shown, and their resistance
imposed a brake by continuing to block road centres long after the
German tide had swept past them. The result was similar when
Guderian's tanks, having crossed the Dnepr River on July 10, entered
Smolensk six days later and converged with Hoth's thrust through
Vitebsk: 200,000 Soviet prisoners were taken; but some Soviet forces
were withdrawn from the trap to the line of the Desna, and a large
pocket of resistance lay behind the German armour. By mid-July,
moreover, a series of rainstorms were turning the sandy Russian roads
into clogging mud, over which the wheeled vehicles of the German
transport behind the tanks could make only very slow progress. The
Germans also began to be hampered by the scorched earth policy
adopted by the retreating Soviets. The Soviet troops burned crops,
destroyed bridges, and evacuated factories in the face of the German
advance. Entire steel and munitions plants in the westernmost portions of
the U.S.S.R. were dismantled and shipped by rail to the east, where they
were put back into production. The Soviets also destroyed or evacuated
most of their rolling stock (railroad cars), thus depriving the Germans of
the use of the Soviet rail system, since Soviet railroad track was of a
different gauge than German track and German rolling stock was
consequently useless on it.
Nevertheless, by mid-July the Germans had advanced more than 400
miles and were only 200 miles from Moscow. They still had ample time
to make decisive gains before the onset of winter, but they lost the
opportunity, primarily because of arguments throughout August between
Hitler and the OKH about the destination of the next thrusts thence:
whereas the OKH proposed Moscow as the main objective, Hitler
wanted the major effort to be directed southeastward, through the
Ukraine and the Donets Basin into the Caucasus, with a minor swing
northwestward against Leningrad (to converge with Leeb's army group).
In the Ukraine, meanwhile, Rundstedt and Kleist had made short work of
the foremost Soviet defenses, stronger though the latter had been. A
new Soviet front south of Kiev was broken by the end of July; and in the
next fortnight the Germans swept down to the Black Sea mouths of the
Bug and Dnepr rivers--to converge with Romania's simultaneous
offensive. Kleist was then ordered to wheel northward from the Ukraine,
Guderian southward from Smolensk, for a pincer movement around the
Soviet forces behind Kiev; and by the end of September the claws of
the encircling movement had caught 520,000 men. These gigantic
encirclements were partly the fault of inept Soviet high commanders and
partly the fault of Stalin, who as commander in chief stubbornly overrode
the advice of his generals and ordered his armies to stand and fight
instead of allowing them to retreat eastward and regroup in preparation
for a counteroffensive.
Winter was approaching, and Hitler stopped Leeb's northward drive on
the outskirts of Leningrad. He ordered Rundstedt and Kleist, however,
to press on from the Dnepr toward the Don and the Caucasus; and Bock
was to resume the advance on Moscow.
Bock's renewed advance on Moscow began on Oct. 2, 1941. Its
prospects looked bright when Bock's armies brought off a great
encirclement around Vyazma, where 600,000 more Soviet troops were
captured. That left the Germans momentarily with an almost clear path to
Moscow. But the Vyazma battle had not been completed until late
October; the German troops were tired, the country became a morass as
the weather got worse, and fresh Soviet forces appeared in the path as
they plodded slowly forward. Some of the German generals wanted to
break off the offensive and to take up a suitable winter line. But Bock
wanted to press on, believing that the Soviets were on the verge of
collapse, while Brauchitsch and Halder tended to agree with his view. As
that also accorded with Hitler's desire, he made no objection. The
temptation of Moscow, now so close in front of their eyes, was too great
for any of the topmost leaders to resist. On December 2 a further effort
was launched, and some German detachments penetrated into the
suburbs of Moscow; but the advance as a whole was held up in the
forests covering the capital. The stemming of this last phase of the great
German offensive was partly due to the effects of the Russian winter,
whose subzero temperatures were the most severe in several decades. In
October and November a wave of frostbite cases had decimated the
ill-clad German troops, for whom provisions of winter clothing had not
been made, while the icy cold paralyzed the Germans' mechanized
transport, tanks, artillery, and aircraft. The Soviets, by contrast, were
well clad and tended to fight more effectively in winter than did the
Germans. By this time German casualties had mounted to levels that were
unheard of in the campaigns against France and the Balkans; by
November the Germans had suffered about 730,000 casualties.
In the south, Kleist had already reached Rostov-on-Don, gateway to the
Caucasus, on November 22, but had exhausted his tanks' fuel in doing
so. Rundstedt, seeing the place to be untenable, wanted to evacuate it
but was overruled by Hitler. A Soviet counteroffensive recaptured
Rostov on November 28, and Rundstedt was relieved of his command
four days later. The Germans, however, managed to establish a front on
the Mius River--as Rundstedt had recommended.
As the German drive against Moscow slackened, the Soviet commander
on the Moscow front, General Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov, on
December 6 inaugurated the first great counteroffensive with strokes
against Bock's right in the Elets (Yelets) and Tula sectors south of
Moscow and against his centre in the Klin and Kalinin sectors to the
northwest. Levies of Siberian troops, who were extremely effective
fighters in cold weather, were used for these offensives. There followed a
blow at the German left, in the Velikie Luki sector; and the
counteroffensive, which was sustained throughout the winter of 1941-42,
soon took the form of a triple convergence toward Smolensk.
These Soviet counteroffensives tumbled back the exhausted Germans,
lapped around their flanks, and produced a critical situation. From
generals downward, the invaders were filled with ghastly thoughts of
Napoleon's retreat from Moscow. In that emergency Hitler forbade any
retreat beyond the shortest possible local withdrawals. His decision
exposed his troops to awful sufferings in their advanced positions facing
Moscow, for they had neither the clothing nor the equipment for a
Russian winter campaign; but if they had once started a general retreat it
might easily have degenerated into a panic-stricken rout.
The Red Army's winter counteroffensive continued for more than three
months after its December launching, though with diminishing progress.
By March 1942 it had advanced more than 150 miles in some sectors.
But the Germans maintained their hold on the main bastions of their
winter front--such towns as Schl�sselburg, Novgorod, Rzhev, Vyazma,
Bryansk, Or�l (Oryol), Kursk, Kharkov, and Taganrog--despite the fact
that the Soviets had often advanced many miles beyond these bastions,
which were in effect cut off. In retrospect, it became clear that Hitler's
veto on any extensive withdrawal worked out in such a way as to restore
the confidence of the German troops and probably saved them from a
widespread collapse. Nevertheless, they paid a heavy price indirectly for
that rigid defense. One immediate handicap was that the strength of the
Luftwaffe was drained in the prolonged effort to maintain supplies by air,
under winter conditions, to the garrisons of these more or less isolated
bastion towns. The tremendous strain of that winter campaign, on armies
which had not been prepared for it, had other serious effects. Before the
winter ended, many German divisions were reduced to barely a third of
their original strength, and they were never fully built up again.
The German plan of campaign had begun to miscarry in August 1941,
and its failure was patent when the Soviet counteroffensive started.
Nevertheless, having dismissed Brauchitsch and appointed himself army
commander in chief in December, Hitler persisted in overruling the
tentative opposition of the general staff to his strategy.
The first three months of the German-Soviet conflict produced cautious
rapprochements between the U.S.S.R. and Great Britain and between
the U.S.S.R. and the United States. The Anglo-Soviet agreement of July
12, 1941, pledged the signatory powers to assist one another and to
abstain from making any separate peace with Germany. On Aug. 25,
1941, British and Soviet forces jointly invaded Iran, to forestall the
establishment of a German base there and to divide the country into
spheres of occupation for the duration of the war; and late in
September--at a conference in Moscow--Soviet, British, and U.S.
representatives formulated the monthly quantities of supplies, including
aircraft, tanks, and raw materials, that Great Britain and the United States
should try to furnish to the Soviet Union.
The critical situation on the Eastern Front did not deter Hitler from
declaring Germany to be at war with the United States on Dec. 11,
1941, after the Japanese attack on the U.S., British, and Dutch positions
in the Pacific and in the Far East (see below Japanese policy, 1939-41),
since this extension of hostilities did not immediately commit the German
land forces to any new theatre but at the same time had the merit of
entitling the German Navy to intensify the war at sea.
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