https://declassified.library.utoronto.ca/files/original/847ed40cce1815fc0ae90e40ef349b60.pdf 99ca5c9f56cecd7c9c3d602076debaa0 PDF Text Text ;;~;~;ulg;~nc~o; Document disclosed under the Access to Information Act - ~iur /'acces a /'information IN REPLY PLEASE QUOTE DEFENCE RESEARCH DEPARTMENT OF NATIONAL CANADA DEFENCE ~-~:;, I _is :u~. BOARDb! / J(D'Yottawa, June DRBS l70-BO/J35 Ontario, 5, 1958. 0 1201 PH,,/- C Fil~ Secretary, Joint Planning Paper on The Nature r:Hr.·r:1'1 . :~-~;zz_S't -/ ..Jk,/ca-d Committee. of Future·War 1. I enclose nine copies of a paper on The Nature of Future War given recently as a lecture by Dr. Arnell, Director of Plans, DRB. 2. I suggest that this material may be of interest members of the JPC and would ask that you distribute the material to the members. to (W. Petrie), DRB Representative, Joint Planning Committee. Encl. 9 ttt-f 000257 l00M--4-56 (56-2088) , I �Document disclosed under the Access to Information Act Document divulgue en vertu de la Loi sur /'acces ii /'information ·• I I ,.,,...:' l i S ...,J .:·.'' ,, SECR.El' • D Plans MemoNo.3/58 8 April 1958 THE NATUREOF FUTUREWAR by Dr. J.C. Arnell, Director of Plans, Defence Research Board, Canada. The following is a paper prepared from the text of a lecture presented to the Eleventh Course of the National Defence College, Kingston, Ontario on Monday, 17th March, 1958. This paper is an attempt to examine the impact of weapons systems now under development on a general war in the future. While it is difficult to decide just how far ahead one should go for such a study, the end of the next decade should see the next generation of weapons in general use. This view is supported in the Threat to North America paper, recently approved by the Canadian Chiefs of Staff, which places the arrival of the missile age at about 12§5. From this date on it is anticipated that the guided missile will be the major offensive weapon with manned aircraft playing an auxiliary role as reconnaisance vehicles. During the months that the Joint Intelligence Committee and the Joint Planning Committee met separately and jointly to develop this 11threat 11 paper, there was the gradual acceptance of the fact that the advent of the guided missile is near. However it was possible to detect in the minds of many of the officers taking part in the discussions a feeling that the missile would replace the manned aircraft mainly because it was the next offensive weapon on the list. At times it was extremely difficult to make the point that a weapon system does not become obsolescent of itself. History has shown that weapon systems are retained by fighting forces until they are either defeated by enemy countermeasures in the field of battle or because the possessor of such weapons feeJ:§._that the enemy will defeat his weapons if they are put to the test. This poirrtis important because it has a major bearing on an assessment of the shape of a future war. Consider the situation as it pertains to manned bombers in the future. There is a strong possibility that the Western Countries during the past thirteen years have placed all too great an emphasis on the manned bomber in relation to the long range guided missile. There is an equally strong possibility that the Soviet Union has placed the emphasis in the other direction. As Kissinger in his recent book "Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy" has aptly pointed out "nothing stultifies military thought so nruch as a victorious war, for innovation then must run the gamut of inertia legitimized by success •••• (World War II) had not only been won, but its course had run true to the (American) notion of what a war should be 11• Allied air power had been triumphant and during the latter stages of the - 1 - i)Y 000260 �•I. • Document disclosed under the Access to InformationAct - l Document divulgue en vertu de la Loisur /'acces ii /'information SECRt,---r war had been able to range almost at will over all sections of enemy territory. Even without atomic weapons the massive bombing attacks against her cities was sufficient to bring Germany to her knees. On the other hand the German Luftwaffe, which had entered the war with superior strength, met its first serious defeat early in the conflict during the Battle of Britain and manned bombers were never again to be an effective component of German offense. With their main long range strike capability gone, the Germans turned to missiles as a replacement and although their success in developing this form of attack by air was impressive, they had lost the war before they could bring the full impact of guided missiles to bear on the Allies. In a like manner the Russians were equally unsuccessful in the air battle, although their failure was due more to a lack of adequate aircraft, at least until the latter phases of the war when Lend-Lease equipment was reaching them from Great Britain and North America. Thus at the end of World War II we find the situation where the Allies, having triumphed through the use of strategic bombing, felt that the manned bomber would continue to form the major, if not the sole, component of air offence. In support of this view the development of increasingly higher performance aircraft has continued unabated, particularly in the United States, in the ensuing years. In contrast to this it appears that the Soviet Union recognized the guided missile as the next generation of pir offence. There is evidence that the Russians set up parallel programmes to develop high performance aircraft and ballistic missiles after the War, but within the last couple of years have reduced the priority on aircraft and are now concentrating on missiles. At no stage do they appear to have been as enthusiastic about long range bombers as the West. In 1945 when the Western Allies and the Russians overran Germany, the German missile development facilities were shared between the two groups. On the Allied side the largest part of the German scientists and facilities went to the United States where they were integrated into service programmes, while the Russians segregated them and having picked their brains, returned them to their homeland and continued with a native missile programme. Available evidence suggests that both the United States and the Soviet Union exploited these captured missile experts in very much the same way. This was to be ex~ected as in both cases there was virtually no native knowledge of missiles and the German scientists were put to work on the lines of development which were underway prior to the defeat of Germany. This has resulted in a very similar pattern of missile development in the two countries and a corresponding time scale of development. If at the present time the Soviet Union is slightly ahead in its development of long range ballistic missiles, this is because of a lower priority assigned to missile development in the West due to a vacillating policy and the vested interest in maintaining the manned bomber as the major strike weapon. Looking forward from the present it appears that the increasing capability of air defence is making the use of manned bombers an unreliable method of delivering nuclear weapons on an enemy's heartland. It would appear that there are techniques of air defence in the form of manned interceptors, surface-to-air missiles and the supporting radars and ground environment to cope with any of the high performance aircraft available in quantity in the strategic air forces of the present. It is this defence capability coupled with the· complete lack of any defences against the ballistic missile which is hastening the retirement of the manned bomber. It - 2 - 000261 I �Document disclosed under the Access to InformationAct Document divulgue en vertu de la Loisur /'acces ii /'information • • SECRET may be argued that present air defences are inadequate to cope with the existing manned bomber threat with the result that offensive aircraft will be retained. If true, this could affect the time scale of the changeover slightly but has little effect on the argument to follow. Thus in considering a future war it is assumed that the main attack will be in the form of long range ballistic missiles, for which there will be little warning. lacking defence, targets are virtually certain of destruction, and as missile launching sites in themselves will be difficult to attack, the prospect in a future war at first sight appears to be mutual annihilation. At this point it is desirable to consider present western strategy. This is so dominated by Washington that an examination of the United States' policy will be adequate for this discussion. Immediately following World War II the United States was the only country with atomic weapons and it was considered that these weapons coupled with a strategic air force could be used as the deterrent -- the "big stick 11 -- against any country with aggressive intentions. The possibility of fighting a limited war against Russian or Chinese aggression was largely discounted and instead reliance was placed on the threat of massive retaliation at places of American choice to prevent such aggression taking place. The Communists were expected to calculate that any aggression might entail an all-out nuclear attack on their own territory and that this risk was not worth taking. Until five or six years ago this was a valid philosophy and probably served a very useful purpose, However when the Soviet Union in her turn developed atomic weapons, the first cracks appeared in the doctrine and if it is projected forward into the missile age, it becomes rather frightening in its implications. Nevertheless the United States' strategic thinking has concentrated on all-out war and the major part of American military resources have been devoted to the strategic air force and other methods of launching giant nuclear devices. The result is that the United States is militarily and psychologically prepared for this type of war, but for no other. As indicated by the British White Paper of last Spring, the doctrine of massive retaliation has also taken a complete hold of United Kingdom strategic thinking. Because of the obvious shortcomings of this philosophy a strategy of limited hostilities has been proposed by several people, of whom Kissinger is probably the best known, This has received considerablP official support, particularly in the United States, The basic arguments for this strategy are: (a) The weapon is too big for its purpose, since the more destructive weapons become, the less their possessor is willing to use them. The development of atomic weapons has produced a growing feeling that the use of force is unthinkable unless national survival is directly threatened. (b) For historical and geographical reasons the United States has never felt her security seriously threatened until she has been directly and vitally attacked. Under these circumstances the American reaction always took an all-out form, This attitude persists and it is still envisaged that a future war will begin with a massive surprise attack against North America, or at least against one of the NATOpartners and will only end with the unconditional surrender of the enemy. Such a situation is most - 3 000262 I �Document disclosed under the Access to InformationAct Document divulgue en vertu de la Loisur /'acces ii /'information • SECRET • unlikely in the future as the Soviet Union is not pursuing a policy likely to lead to the United States recognizing a threat to her very existence. Rather, she will be faced with a threat from internal subversion and limited war, against which she will be very vulnerable. (c) Finally since the Russians have developed the means to launch or drop megaton weapons on the United States, the unrestricted use of such weapons by the United States would be as suicidal in a hot war as it is unthinkable in the cold one. An all-out attack on the United States would ·have to be answered in kind, but it would not be in her interest to initiate a thermonuclear exchange in any circumstances. For there can be no victory in such a war. The fact that the United States might inflict appreciably greater damage on the Russians than she herself would suffer has no significance, because her own damage would be enough to cripple her. Thus the United States has arrived at the point where the threat of massive retaliation is her only deterrent, but she herself is deterred from any resistance to communist aggression because of the exi3tence of the same threat in-R~ssian hands. Kissinger stresses that the present doctrine of massive retaliation as put forward by the US is undermining the various alliances which that country has in different parts of the world. This doctrine implies that the United States reaction to local aggression will not be in the form of either the defence of the local area or of limited off0nsive operations within the area. As a result of this the potential allies can develop little enthusiasm for an active role in resistance, for while all-out war may conceivably bring ultimate victory to the allied cause, the threatened country ¼Qll not be spared the horrors of occupation. Even if this feeling of ineptitude does not induce a tendency to neutralism, it does remove/all incentives towards making any military contributions and effort in the commoncause. This doctrine of massive retaliation converts the alliance system from an active defensive chain to a restriction to the United States' freedom to act. If aggression in one small area of the world automatically means an all-out war threatening the remainder of the allies with nuclear destruction, every ally not directly affected by the aggression will press the United States to seek some other, and probably ineffective, solution. The proponents of this concept assume that war "\\Qll be as essential in the future as it was in the past for settling international disputes after all other methods have failed. In the place of the major war, limited hostilities away from the heartlands of the great powers are envisaged. These will provide the foci of international disputes and the grounds for settlement without the ma.jor powers having to commit themselves to massive attacks on each other. It is anticipated that such hostilities will be limited in several ways limited geographically, limited in participants, limited in the size of atomic weapons used and limited in .- 4 - 000263 �Document disclosed under the Access to InformationAct Document divulgue en vertu de la Loisur /'acces·a /'information • • SECRET the scale of attack. Any such concept appears doomed on the basis that if a major power saw its future security threatened as the result of the loss of a local conflict it would aJmost certainly increase the scale and scope of the conflict until a major war had developed. It would appear that of a future war it can be said that irrespective of the manner in which it may start it ·will aJmost certainly end with the major antagonists attacld.ng each others heartlands, providing that each had a significant interest in the outcome. This situation, coupled with the increasing dependence on long range missiles with nuclear warheads as the main offensive strength, is again fostering the idea of disengagement in Europe .• Th~ has been given consicierab)-e prominence recently by George Keenan in his six Reith lectures which were delivered over the BBC system last fall and retransmitted by CBC early this year, and is also a component part of the Rapacki plan for an atomic free zone in Central Europe. - -=- j 1 f There is much to be said for this disengagement in Europe as it is difficult to see how any hostilities involving the United States and the Soviet Union in this region could be concluded satisfactori]y without the area of conflict being expanded to include North America and the Soviet homeland. That there would be almost total annihilation of the towns and cities of Europe in the event of a nuclear war there can be little doubt. Such devastation will not contribute to any decision and may be considered as wanton destruction of life and property for no good end. With ·the· appearance of intermediate range ballistic missiles it is possible to envisage an atom-free zone across the central part of Europe over which the iron birds would fly. On both sides logistics would require that the missile bases be established as far from the Iron Curtain as range would permit. Thus it is logical to argue that Germany, Austria, and possibly Italy in the west, and Germany, West Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary in the east, could form the necessary atom-free area. This could be extended to include Greece, Rumania and Bulgaria without affecting the basic argument. The above tends to point up one of the main considerations of a potential conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States. Anybody who has followed the diplomatic moves of the two countries over the years cannot help but be impressed by Russia' obvious concern over the threat to European Russia posed by the NATOforces in Europe. Many pious words have been spoken by Western statesmen asking the Russians the rhetorical question of why they are so concerned over the allied military strength in Europe. It seems probable that at the present time tactical bombers operating out of the several hundred military airfields in Europe are seen from Moscow as a more significant threat to Byelorussia and the Ukraine than is the U.S. Strategic Air Commandoperating - 5- 000264 �r I Document disclosed under the Access to InformationAct Document divulgue en vertu de la Loisur /'acces ii /'information ·• • SECRET out of continental North America. Llke~Qse in the missile age a short to intermediate range missile based in the European area must be viewed as a more significant threat than the so-called intercontinental ballistic missile. The shorter range offence is always to be preferred because it offers a more reliable attack, which is more difficult to detect in advance because of the considerably reduced time of flight. This leads to another theory of the shape of future war which is based on the premise that a future war ¼Qll be a conflict involving the United States and the Soviet Union and that a decision vdll only be reached by one country defeating the other. At the present time Western strategists tend to look at the whole of the Soviet Union as the target system which must be brought under attack in an all-out war and at the same time consider that in return the Soviet Union must attack the entire North .America complex. This philosophy stems from a predisposition to assume that the top priority target on both sides must be the other's retaliatory capability, which is only a realistic strategy for the nation which begins a war with a surprise attack. No defensive strategy can be based on this concept. While this is probably quite valid as long as the offensive forces consist of manned bombers, it is doubtful that it ~Qll still hold in the days of long range missiles. This ~Qll be due to the fact that the attack vdll come in the form of either short to intermediate range missiles launched from submarines or long range ballistic missiles fired 11 from so-called hard sites 11, which will be very difficult to destroy, or from mobile sites, which vdll be very difficult to locate. In any case it seems likely that such targets will be very difficult, if not impcssible, to attack and will only be targets for the side which fires its missiles first. There is a second reason to doubt the validity of this assumption. There is a reasonable argument that offence is the best means of defence and as long as there is a reasonable chance of wiping out the enemy's retaliatory capability this might be the plan of attack. Howev~r success in such an attack appears dubious for either side even at the present time and it is quite obvious that partial success in this direction would not win a war. The form of attack which would be most likely to defeat an enemy in a missile war appears to be a massive assault on the real heartland of the country. By this is meant that area 'Which contains the seat of government and a large part of the population and industry. If this concept is accepted it is interesting to examine the North ilmerican continent and the Soviet Union with this in mind. The most striking fact in both cases is the relatively small area of the whole which comprises the heartland of the two continents. European Russia and the north eastern triangle of the United States including that part of Canada which borders Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River includes the part of each country which must be attacked in order to disrupt the life of each effectively. In order to appreciate this point consider the following facts. - 6- 000265 �Document disclosed under the Access to Information Act Document divulgue en vertu de la Loi sur /'acces ii /'information / ••• • SECRET Over fifty percent of the population of the United States live in the northeastern part of the country, b©unded by the St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes on the northwest, the state of Illinois on the west, and a line joining St. Louis Ho., and l'Jorfolk, Va., on the routhwest. This area, which consists of less than 450,000 square miles is only fifteen percent of the total area of the United States or less than eight percent of the mainland area of Canada and the United States combined, but contains well over half the vital industries of the country. By extending this area about fifty miles to the northwestJ·a large percentage of the Canadian population is included. Similarly the western part of European Russia and the Ukraine contains about forty-five percent of the Soviet population and probably sixty to seventy percent of defence industry and research and development facilities. This area, consisting of the territory lying to the west of a line drawn from Leningrad around Moscow to Rostov-on-Don at the eastern tip of the Sea of Azov, is approximately 625,000 square miles in extent or about seven percent of the ~rea of the Soviet Union. From the above figures it is easy to aee that both the United States and the Soviet Union would be crippled if, thes!3 areas were effectively attacked and it is most unlikely that either could continue to fight a war successfully under these circumstances. One might conclude therefore that tne future defensive posture will be one of t'wo very heavily defended areas representing the heartlands of the two major powers, as other areas of the world cannot be considered vital to either. Both will recognize that attacking any other part of the enemy's territory will be indecisive and be little more than wanton killing and unnecessary destruction. In fact ;:is long as the attack is mado with atomic weapons having radioactive by-products, attacks on these other areas will tend to harm the attacker's population to at least the same extent as the defenders. 'i:his can be readily seen from the fact that an attack on the Soviet maritime provinces in Eastern Siberia will produce clouds of radioaotive debris which will be carried by t:1e prevailing winds either through Alaska and the Yukon into Alberta and Saskatchewan or northwest through the states of Washington and Oregon into riontana, and in either case will continue eastward across rbrth A,~erica depositing the radioactivity along the w&y. Similarly, clouds of radioactive debris resulting from a large scale nuclear attack on any part of the United States to the west of the Great Lakes will tend to miss the American heartland anJ be carried aero ss the North Atlantic to deposit on European Russia and its satellites. It must also be borne in mind that as long as atomic weapons produce clouds of radioactive debris, there is a limiting amount of explosive energy which can be released before these resulting radioactive fission products will pose a threat to future generations. This lim..i.. t cannot be set accurately but it is the considered oninion of the Defence Research Board that it is of the order of ten millio~ kilotons. This means that the explosion of 500,000 - 600,000 nominal atomic weapons would produce enough radioactivity to pose a long-term threat to life, if it were uniformly distributed around tho world. Huch has been said about "clean" nuclear weapons where the explosive energy will be derived from the fusion of hydrogen without radioactive products, rather than from fission. At the present time large yield weapons in the megaton range derive their energy from a combination of the two processes. Although the percentages of the two processes which occur in such weapons is not known, it is sufficient for this argument to assume equal contributions from each. This w:iuld permit doubling the amount of nuclear explosive energy which could be released and this would represent a total of about 1500-2000 10 MI' woapons. When it is considered that this figure must include all nuclear testing which has been carried out to date or may be carried out in the future, as well as all weapons used by all the combatants, it can be seen that care will have to be taken to ensure that large yield weapons are only used against truly vital targets. - 7000266 �r I ' i. • Document disclosed under the Access to InformationAct -i_: Document divulgue en vertu de la Loisur /'acces ii /'information SECRET Studies have shov-m that warheads with 1 l'-ITyields will probably be necessary in missiles used to defend targets against long range ballistic missiles. In order to ensure a kill it may be necessary to commit several such missiles against the offensive warhead and its attendant decoys. All this points to the necessity of a limitation of targets by both sides in a major war, if life is to be preserved on this planet after the war is over. The present emphasis in nuclear weapon development is to produce fusion ' weapons and thus eliminate this raclioactive hazard. The day will undoubtedly come when such weapons are available and the combatants will no longer have to keep track of not only the number of weapons they use themselves, but also the number used against them. Until that time target limitation will be essential. The possibility of a major war being initiated by a series of miscalculations under circumstances where the major powers recognize the danger of mutual annihilation cannot be entirely discounted. However tLe most likely situation appears to be one where the major powers will prevent the international climate reaching the point where a major conflict was likely unless one of the powers saw a possibility of winning such a war. As already indicated, once the long range missile has become the main offensive weapon, any strategy based on the reduction of an enemy's retaliatory capability by surprise, or in other words 1rd.nning the war before the opponent gets off the ground, is doomed to failure. 'Ihere does, however, appear to be some hope in a strategy based on a missile offence backed up by an adequate defence against missiles surrounding the heartland. It has already been suggested that nuclear attacks on the northeastern United States could be decisive, while similar attacks elsewhere on the continent would be unlikely to produce a decision. Studies of the problem have indicated that it would not be feasible to attempt to defenc an area as 12.rge as continental United s·0ates against a long range missile attack. Although it will be extremely difficult politically to provide an adequate defence for a small part of North America at the expense of the rest, this nevertheless ·will probably be the pattern for the future as ~he defence of a relatively small area appears to be possible. vJhile the vital triangle of North America is probably too large to treat as a large point to be defended, it should be practical to develop a unified pattern of defences which will be adequate for this area. Although the heartland of the Soviet Unio~ is almost half again as large as its North American counterpart, it nevertheless lends itself to the same ty-pe of defence. In faot there is some evidence ~o suggest that the Russian defence tactics against the manned bomber are patterned on this concept of local area defences instead of depending on a long range _offensive directed against the Allied bomber bases before these could be used to mount an attack. Some idea of the seriousness of the Russians in this direction can be seen from the magnitude of the present air defences of the greater Moscow area. Close to the city are hundreds of antiaircraft guns. Surrounding these a.re two rings of surface-air guided missile sites and extending outwards from these are many early warning and ground controlled intercept radars supporting dozens of squadrons of day and all-weather fighters. Moscow has been unique in having this level of defence. However it appears that the Soviet Union is currently extending it to include such centers as Leningrad. Although at first sight these two areas appear to require separate defences, it is conceivable that they can be fused into a single system w~th the further inclusion of such areas as the Ukraine. Having discussed the target systems in a fu+,ure war, sideration should be given to the long range missile which will sible for the changes in the nature of a future conflict. The liquid fuelled intercontinental ballistic missile has received some conbe responvery large, so much - 8 - 000267 �Document disclosed under the Access to InformationAct Document divulgue en vertu de la Loisur /'acces ii /'information ·• SECRET .1 ;...,, • publicity that little needs to be added here. This monster requires liquid oxygen or .fluorine as one of its fuel components and this in turn requires an elaborate base complex of liquefaction equipment and apparatus for the detailed checking of the myriad components prior to launch. As a result it must be operated from a large fixed base, which will provide an easy target once it has been located, unless expensive hardening techniques are followed in the base construction. Two current developments are leading to a modification of this ~Jicture - lightweight nuclear warheads, from which result marked reductions in the size of the missiles and solid fuel propulsion systems, which coupled with the smaller size permit operations from mobile launching sites and eliminate the timeconsuming countdovms. These missiles will be capable of operating over ranges of 4000 - 6000 n.m. and at the top of their trajectories will be about 600 n.m. above the earth's surface. This latter fact suggests a theoretical detection range of tho order of 1000 n.m., which offers a period of warning of about fifteen to twenty minutes providing that the early warning detection facilities are placed as far as possible away from potential targets. It is hoped that this period of warning will be adequate to permit the calculations necessary for the interception of the incoming offensive warhead by a defensive missile, A second and possibly more dangerous offensive weapon is the ballistic missile launched from·a submarine. This missile will have a much shorter range (1000 - 1500 n.m.), and will be much more difficult to counter as the reduced time of flight and lower trajectory will almost eliminate the period of warning. Added to this is the mobility of the submarine which permits the direction of the attack to be varied within the limits allowed by the oceans, It may be argued that much of North America cannot be brought under attaclc with this system anc:1in answer to this it should be noted that the nIDst remte point of the America heartland, as defined above is only about 650 n.m. from the nearest ralt water. It is only within the last couple of years that the submarine has been considered in this offensive role. Prior to this time rrost military thinkers viewed the submarine in its classical role of attacking convoys and generally disrupting maritime Enes of communication. This role has a long term strategic effect resulting from the disruption of food supplies, etc., but having no immediate effect has been considered as being ·of decreasing importance in a future war, when taken in the context of an all-out nuclear attack whi.ch should produce e. decision in a matter of days or weeks. It was ·not until the development of solid fuel motors for ballistic missiles thnt the way was opened up for the use of such weapons from submarines, as the problems associated with the use of liquid fuels made such use im:_oractical. With solid fuel engines the fitting of ballistic missiles to submarines has become largely a matter of ship design and standard engineering. If anybody has any doubt about this use for conventional submarines, this should be dispelled by the advent of nuclear propulsion. As American experience with atomic powered submarines has shown, these ships are capable of high underwater speeds, indefinite submersion and unlimited range. Thus they may approach any ocean area at speeds comparable to surface ships without any need for surfacing during their journey. Then as it is possible to launch ballistic missiles from underwater there is still no requirement• for a submarine to show itself unless this becomes necessary to establish its location. --------------One of the more significant aspects of nuclear powered submarines is their ability to operate under an ice cover. This was largely theoreti~ cal until the USS Nautilus made a trip of nearly 1000 miles under the ice of the Arctic Ocean last Fall. In making this trip the Nautilus steamed north through the Greenland Sea between Greenland and Iceland and travelled - 9 - 000268 �Document disclosed under the Access to InformationAct Document divulgue en vertu de la Loisur /'acces ii /'information SECRET I • ,.•, north under the ice to a latitude of 87°N. This trip had no particular objective but was ra-;:,her a probing expedition to get the feel of underice operations. The early part of tho trip went so smoothly that it was decided to continue north until the commander decided to return to open water following a minor mechanical failure. Such operations pose a serious threat to North America against which no defence is at present conceived. An axamination of a north polar map will show that :Jt would be possible for Soviet submarines to cross the Arctic Ocean and make their way into the Davis Strait oithor through the Robeson Channel between Greenland and Northern Ellesmere Island, or through the Viscount Melville and Ltmcaster Sounds, -which separate the northern and southern parts of the · Canadian Archipelago. From Davis Strait it would be possible for a submarine to penetrate Hudson Bay and possibly James Bay through the Hudson Strait, or in winter to get into the Gulf of St. Lawrence without leaving ice cover. Such under-ice operations :·muld be almost impossible to detect as present detection methods are based on some form of acoustics. The movement which is almost continuous in ice fields produce considerable noise which would tend to mask any submarine noise, even assuming that adequate detection equipment was available. Unfortunately the missile carrying submarine is a more useful weapon system to the Russians than to the Western Allies because of geography. While the North American heartland has some five hundred miles of sea coast, the corresponding Soviet territory is at least five or six hundred miles from open ocean. Notwithstanding, an intermediate range ballistic missile launched from a submarine could pose quite a problem to · the Russians, as an attack could come from the Mediterranean Sea, the North Sea or the Barents Sea in the north. The picture of the nature of a future war, between the United States and the Soviet Union, which has boon presented above, can be summarized briefly. (1) Radioactive debris from nuclear weapons will produce a long term health hazard unless their use is restricted to a limited number of vital targets. The development of pure fusion wea~ons will eliminate this hazard. (2) Limited hostilities are unlikely to produce a sottlement of any conflict of vital interest to the major powers. (3) In order to win a clear cut victory a successful attack must be made on the enemy's heartland, while maintaining an adequate defence against a counterattack. (4) The heartlands of tho two countries consist seven percent of the t·otal area and contain half of the population. (5) The offensive weapons will be the intercontinental ballistic missile 2.nd the missile-carrying submarine. vlliile a defence can be foreseen against the former, a system of countering the latter is still being rought. of about about - 10 - 000269 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Nuclear Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Concept of Operations / APRIL 1958 (“NATURE OF FUTURE WAR”) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1958-04 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Language A language of the resource en Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CDTT00116 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived J.C. Arnell, "The Nature of Future War," 8 Apr. 1958, LAC, RG 25, vol. 4903, file no. 50115-P-40, part 3.