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Spread of Nuclear Weapons from 1945 to 2000

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A Palestinian woman pleads with a Phalange gunman in the Karantina neighborhood of East Beirut, Lebanon, 1976 - by Françoise Demulder (1947 - 2008), French

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A Soviet soldier holds up a teddy bear that he and his comrade found inside a captured German Panzer III tank, likely the crew's mascot.

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British Commandos of 1st Special Service Brigade shortly after making it off Sword Beach - Normandy, 6th June 1944. Credit : IWM. Colour by Royston

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A US soldier on the streets of Cologne, Germany - March 1945

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Europe after World War II.

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East German and Soviet soldiers put on protective clothing while demonstrating anti-aircraft rockets during the Warsaw Pact's Soyuz 1981 exercises in East Germany.

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Rendezvous

British cartoon reacting to the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed on 23 August 1939. (Made by David Low).

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The hot summer of 1961: The demoralization, disinformation and sabotage campaign of Khrushchev and the KGB.

After the escalation of hostilities between the United States and the USSR following the Vienna summit in which U.S. president John F. Kennedy refused to make an agrement on Germany, chairman of the PCUS Nikita Khrushchev looked for alternatives to pressure the West to sign an agreement.

On July 29, KGB Chief Alexander Shelepin sent a memorandum to the Chairman containing a vast array of proposals to create “a situation in various areas of the world that would favor dispersion of attention and forces by the United States and their satellites, and would tie them down during the settlement of the question of a German peace treaty and West Berlin.”

A multifaceted campaign against the West among the Third World countries amicable to the USSR would “show the ruling circles of Western powers that unleashing a military conflict over West Berlin could lead to the loss of their position not only in Europe but also in a number of Latin American, Asian, and African countries.”

In Latin America, the United States´ backyard, the subversive activities would began in Nicaragua, where the KGB plotted an armed mutiny through an “internal revolutionary front of resistance,” in coordination with Castro’s Cubans and with the “Revolutionary Front Sandino.” The plan also envisaged the instigation of an armed uprising in El Salvador, and a rebellion in Guatemala, where guerilla forces would be given $15,000 to buy weapons.

The campaign extended to Africa, to the colonial and semicolonial possessions of the British and the Portuguese. The KGB promised to help organize anticolonial mass uprisings of the African population in British Kenya and Rhodesia and Portuguese Guinea, by arming rebels and training military cadres.

In the Far East, Shelepin suggested “bringing to the attention of the United States, through KGB channels, information about existing agreements among the USSR, the PRC, the DPRK [North Korea], and the DRV [North Vietnam] about joint military actions to liberate South Korea, South Vietnam, and Taiwan should armed conflict erupt in Germany". Shelepin also planned “to cause uncertainty in the government circles of the United States, England, Turkey, and Iran about the stability of their positions in the Middle and Near East.”

Shelepin’s grand plan was also directed against NATO installations in Western Europe and aimed “to create doubts in the ruling circles of Western powers regarding the effectiveness of military bases located on the territory of the FRG and other NATO countries, as well as in the reliability of their personnel.” Shelepin contemplated working with the secret service of the GDR and Czechoslovakia to carry out “active measures … to demoralize” military servicemen in the FRG (by agents, leaflets, and brochures), and even terrorist attacks on depot and logistics stations in West Germany and France.

Shelepin suggested intensifying a campaign of deception aimed at exaggerating the Soviet strategic arsenal. Khrushchev approved the report and sent it to his deputy Frol Kozlov. On August 1 it was, with minor revisions, passed as a Central Committee directive.

Khrushchev’s rhetoric and the KGB disinformation activities were designed to deter the West, but instead they sowed the seeds of mistrust and uncertainty in a dangerously polarized world. They exacerbated the danger of armed conflict in Central Europe, not to mention the wars by proxies in the Third World.

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A young Vyacheslav Molotov (first on the left) during his time as a political commissar of the Agitation and Propaganda steamboat Red Start (1919).

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Fidel Castro with Viet Cong fighters, September 1973.

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Nuclear War System

Ever wonder why the United Stated and the Soviet Union never entered into direct military conflict with each other?

The answer might seem obvious, a nuclear war would lead to total anhiliation of both countries, but besides that, the truth is that none of the two countries could grasp exactly how a nuclear war was meant to be managed, as traditional war etiquette was obsolete with the advantage the posession of atomic weaposn brought to both countries.

If side A’s aim was to force side B into negotiating, then it made little sense to destroy B’s political and military leadership, which was precisely the group required to conduct such negotiations. Also, while A might gain some short-term military advantages by destroying B's communications systems, such destruction would only prevent B’s leadership from communicating with the attackers to negotiate a cessation of hostilities. A further factor was that the loss of communications would prevent B's leadership from exercising control over its subordinates, giving rise to the possibility that the junior echelons might then act in a totally unpredictable and irrational manner. This could possibly escalate the war well beyond what A’s leadership had planned and force B into escalatory retaliation, to which A then felt it necessary to respond, and so on.

Miller, D. (1999) The Cold War: A Military History.

The war fighting system was completely modified since the deployment of the atomic bomb, both the Soviet Union and the United States were wary and careful as to not misinterpret the other´s intentions as to not to start an undesirable nuclear world war.

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Operation Overlord Normandy, France D-Day: June 6, 1944

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The evening before D-Day.

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You get your ass on the beach. I’ll be there waiting for you and I’ll tell you what to do. There ain’t anything in this plan that is going to go right.

- Colonel Paul R. Goode, in a pre-attack briefing to the 175th Infantry Regiment, 29th Infantry Division, Omaha Beach, Normandy D-Day June 1944

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6th of June, 1944 Operation Overlord/D-Day

On this day in World War History, 81 years ago the biggest amphibious operation ever in history happened.

This was the famous Allied landing in Normandy - Operation Overlord. Opening up a second-front in Europe

Over 156000 Allied soldiers were involved, landing on 5 different beaches in Normandy supported by over 5000 ships. Together with 23400 Paratroopers and roughly 6000 glider troops as well.

All gave some, some gave all

Lest we forget