Editing First strike (nuclear strategy) (section)

==Historical background==
{{Original research|date=March 2011}}
''First-strike attack'', the use of a nuclear first strike capability, was greatly feared during the [[Cold War]] between [[NATO]] and the [[Eastern Bloc|Soviet Bloc]]. At various points, fear of a first strike attack existed on both sides. Misunderstood changes in posture and well understood changes in technology used by either side often led to speculation regarding the enemy's intentions.

=== 1948–1961 ===
In the aftermath of [[World War II]], the leadership of the Soviet Union feared the United States would use its nuclear superiority to initiate a [[Preventive war#Case for preventive nuclear war|full-scale attack]], as from 1945 to 1948 the U.S. was the only state possessing nuclear weapons and until the late 1960s preserved an overwhelming superiority. The USSR countered by rapidly developing their own nuclear weapons, surprising the US with their [[RDS-1|first test]] in 1949. In turn, the U.S. countered by developing the vastly more powerful [[thermonuclear weapon]], testing their first hydrogen bomb in 1952 at [[Ivy Mike]], but the USSR quickly countered by testing their own thermonuclear weapons, with a test in 1953 of a semi-thermonuclear weapon of the [[Sloika]] design, and in 1956, with the testing of [[Thermonuclear weapons#Soviet Union|Sakharov's Third Idea]] – equivalent to the [[Castle Bravo]] device. Meanwhile, tensions between the two nations rose as 1956 saw [[Hungarian Revolution of 1956|Soviet invasion of Hungary]]; the U.S. and European nations drew certain conclusions from that event, while in the U.S., a powerful social backlash was afoot, prompted by Senator [[Joseph McCarthy]], the [[House Un-American Activities Committee]], and [[Julius and Ethel Rosenberg]], U.S. citizens executed in 1953 after conviction of espionage. This atmosphere was further inflamed by the 1957 launch of [[Sputnik]], which led to fears of Communists attacking from [[outer space]], as well as concerns that if the Soviets could launch a device into orbit, they could equally cause a device to re-enter the atmosphere and impact any part of the planet. John F. Kennedy capitalized on this situation by emphasizing the [[bomber gap]] and the [[missile gap]], areas in which the Soviets were (inaccurately) perceived as leading the United States, while heated Soviet rhetoric added to political pressure. The [[1960 U-2 incident]], involving [[Francis Gary Powers]], as well as the [[Berlin Crisis of 1961|Berlin Crisis]], along with the test of the [[Tsar Bomba]], escalated tensions still further.

=== Cuban Missile Crisis ===
This escalating situation came to a head with the [[Cuban Missile Crisis]] of 1962. The arrival of Soviet missiles in [[Cuba]] was conducted by the Soviets on the rationale that the US already had nuclear missiles stationed in [[Turkey]], as well as the desire by [[Fidel Castro]] to increase his power, his freedom of action, and to protect his government from US invasion, such as had been attempted during the [[Bay of Pigs Invasion]] in April 1961. During the crisis, [[Fidel Castro]] wrote Khrushchev a letter about the prospect that the "imperialists" would be "extremely dangerous" if they responded militarily to the Soviet stationing of nuclear missiles aimed at US territory, less than 90 miles away in Cuba. The following quotation from the letter suggests that Castro was calling for a Soviet first strike against the US if it responded militarily to the placement of nuclear missiles aimed at the US in Cuba:

<blockquote>If the second variant takes place and the imperialists invade Cuba with the aim of occupying it, the dangers of their aggressive policy are so great that after such an invasion the Soviet Union must never allow circumstances in which the imperialists could carry out a nuclear first strike against it. I tell you this because I believe that the imperialists' aggressiveness makes them extremely dangerous, and that if they manage to carry out an invasion of Cuba&mdash;a brutal act in violation of universal and moral law&mdash;then that would be the moment to eliminate this danger forever, in an act of the most legitimate self-defense. However harsh and terrible the solution, there would be no other.<ref>
{{cite web
|url=http://www.jfklibrary.org/jfkl/cmc/cmc_castro_khrushchev.html
|title=Letter to Nikita Khrushchev from Fidel Castro regarding defending Cuban air space
|access-date=2008-07-10
|author=Castro, Fidel
|author-link=Fidel Castro
|date=1962-10-26
|format=Orig. paper, converted to HTML
|work=The World On the Brink: John F. Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis
|publisher=John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum
}}
</ref></blockquote>

The [[Cuban Missile Crisis]] resulted in [[Nikita Khrushchev]] publicly agreeing to remove the missiles from Cuba, while [[John F. Kennedy]] secretly agreed to remove his country's missiles from Turkey. Both sides in the Cold War realized how close they came to nuclear war over Cuba, and decided to seek a reduction of tensions, resulting in US-Soviet [[détente]] for most of the 1960s and 1970s.

Nonetheless, this reduction of tensions only applied to the US and the USSR. Recently{{when|date=December 2024}} declassified interviews with high level former Soviet nuclear and military–industrial planners reveal that Fidel Castro continued to favour nuclear options, even during the later Cold War – according to former Soviet General Andrian Danilevich, "(...in the early 1980s...) Cuban leader Fidel Castro pressed the USSR to take a tougher line against the United States, including possible nuclear strikes. The Soviet Union, in response, sent experts to spell out for Castro the ecological consequences for Cuba of nuclear strikes on the United States. Castro, according to the general, quickly became convinced of the undesirability of such outcomes."<ref name="Castro-FirstStrike">{{cite web|url=http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/ebb285/doc02_I_ch3.pdf|title=An Analytical Comparison of U.S.-Soviet Assessments During the Cold War|author1=Hines, John |author2=Mishulovich, Ellis M. |author3=Shulle, John F. |date=1995-09-22|work=Soviet Intentions 1965–1985, Volume I|publisher=BDM Federal, Inc., contractor to Federal Government, United States of America|page=24|access-date=2009-09-23|location=The National Security Archive, George Washington University}}</ref>

=== 1970s/1980s ===
However, tensions were inflamed again in the late 1970s and early 1980s with the [[Soviet–Afghan War|Soviet invasion of Afghanistan]], the Soviet deployment of the [[RSD-10 Pioneer|SS-20 Saber]] and the [[SS-18 Satan]], and the decision of NATO to deploy the new [[Pershing II]] [[IRBM]] as well as the [[Tomahawk (missile family)|Tomahawk]] [[BGM-109G Ground Launched Cruise Missile|Ground Launched Cruise Missile]], along with U.S. President [[Ronald Reagan]]'s talk of 'limited' nuclear war. This increased Soviet fears that NATO was planning an attack. NATO's deployment of these missiles was a response to the Soviet deployment of the [[RSD-10 Pioneer|SS-20 Saber]], which could hit most European NATO bases within minutes of launch. These mutual deployments led to a destabilizing strategic situation, which was exacerbated by malfunctioning U.S. and Soviet missile launch early warning systems, a Soviet intelligence gap that prevented the Soviets from getting a "read" on the strategic intentions of U.S. leaders, as well as inflammatory U.S. rhetoric combined with classical Soviet mistrust of the NATO powers. This culminated in a war scare that occurred during 1983 due to the inopportune timing of a NATO exercise called [[Able Archer]], which was a simulation of a NATO nuclear attack on the Soviet Union; this exercise happened to occur during a massive Soviet intelligence mobilization called [[VRYAN]], that was designed to discover intentions of NATO to initiate a nuclear first-strike. This poor timing drove the world very close to nuclear war, possibly even closer than the Cuban Missile Crisis over 20 years before.{{citation needed|date=October 2017}}