The “D” Word III: Fears without Foundation
A response from a reader (Thanks, Alexander) has made me realize that the account of the foundations of fear I gave in the previous entry neglected an important datum. The Soviet Union may never have embraced a policy of “world domination” as Eisenhower’s National Security Council declared that it did. In the 1920’s and 30’s, however, after the success of the Russian Revolution, it did actively participate in promoting a program of “world revolution” through a group called the Communist International. Comintern, established in 1919, had evolved out of socialist ferment in many European countries in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. “Revolution” is something quite different from “domination,” of course. “Revolution” requires local initiative. Joseph Stalin, who had sponsored Comintern after he took power in 1924, abolished it in 1943. During World War II, the Soviet Union had begun to focus on defense of the homeland.
Thanks to my other readers too, by the way, on this day.
Phobias, as we noted in the previous entry, are fears not justified by actual threats—fears that persist even when the threat can be shown not to be actual.
Fears may be absent, however, where actual threats exist. Complacency may also be something, well, to be feared.
We may wish to instill in our children fears about crossing the street. Or instill in the drinker a fear of getting behind the wheel that will survive his having had a few. Or instill in fellow citizens a fear of authoritarian tendencies in politicians that will survive the cunning blandishments they and their followers employ.
“Fear” may not be required in all such situations. “Caution” might be better, preferable since it allows more thought, more consideration of the options. If just “caution,” deterrence may not enter the picture.
In the 1950’s, some of our elected leaders thought or claimed to think that too many Americans were complacent about Communism. We didn’t fear it the way we needed to, they thought.
One of these leaders was Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy, who even claimed that our Army was guilty of this. Others were the members of President Eisenhower’s National Security Council and possibly President Eisenhower himself. Senator McCarthy in his speeches and Congressional hearings and President Eisenhower through his National Security Council, with the help of our Ad Council, undertook programs to deepen our fear. “Stiffen our spines,” was one expression used by the NSC for what was needed.
The program seems to have worked well. For some of us, “Communism” was made to be the mother of all fears. In the late 50’s, when I was in high school, I saw on the highway between Tucson and Phoenix a billboard that read “Better Dead than Red.” No doubt there about what was what.
We drove on. I didn’t know if I agreed or not.
After another couple of decades, the Soviet Union unraveled. From what had been the Soviet Union, fifteen countries emerged. None was governed by Communists. None is today. None of the countries in what had been Warsaw Pact, the Soviet Union’s response to the formation of NATO, is governed by Communists. Yet, on January 6, 2021, thirty years after 1991, one of the mob charging up the steps of the U.S. Capitol carried a sign that read “Communism is the Invisible Enemy.”
In the nuclear arms race during the Cold War, fears without foundation created very real threats.
Both sides experienced false alarms of incoming missiles, more than once. In the case of these false alarms, disaster was averted, not by people taking the alarms at face value and doing what they were supposed to do to implement “deterrence,” but by the people at the radar screens or in the submarines choosing not to act on the apparent threats. For which they were often punished by their superiors for not doing what they were supposed to do.
After President Reagan was elected in 1980, he made belligerent statements about the Soviet Union, calling it an “evil empire,” among other things. The Soviets responded by starting a greatly intensified intelligence effort called RYaN—an acronym from the Russian words—to detect U.S. preparations for a nuclear first strike on them. If they detected what seemed to be such preparations, they might want to strike first.
In 1983, the United States began to install in Europe some new highly accurate, medium range ballistic missiles called Pershing IIs that were capable of carrying nuclear warheads. Also some new ground-launched cruise missiles, also nuclear capable, slower than the Pershing IIs but also very accurate and with a longer range. Moscow was certainly in reach now from Europe.
President Reagan had decided to okay this because a few years earlier the Soviets had started to deploy near Western Europe some new medium-range ballistic missiles they had developed, the SS-20s. The SS-20 could carry three independently targeted warheads and reach everywhere in Western Europe in under fifteen minutes. Talk about a threat. To Western Europe, anyway.
In November 1983, still in President Reagan’s first term and while our new missiles were being deployed in Europe, NATO, with the participation of the United States of course, kicked off a huge military exercise in the North Atlantic called Able Archer. The exercise simulated, among other things, raising NATO’s nuclear readiness to Defense Condition 1. DEFCON 1 signifies that nuclear war is “imminent.”
The Soviets suspected that Able Archer was cover for what would be an actual first strike on them. They kicked up their nuclear readiness. NATO intelligence sources noticed the increased activity in Warsaw Pact countries and suspected the Soviet Union might be preparing a surprise attack.
Able Archer played itself out on November 11. When the Soviets saw that it had ended, they returned to their former level of readiness. Project RYaN continued in operation.
Today, some people—the Soviet expert Fiona Hill is one—think this was as dangerous a moment as had been the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, which is often said to be the closest we ever came during the Cold War to a nuclear exchange. Different, of course, in that we initiated this one and none of us knew anything about it. President Reagan may have known about the exercise but only later did he learn how the Soviets had reacted to it—with fear and an increase in nuclear readiness. He expressed suprise.
Next: More Fears without Foundation