Word: sovietism
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...outbreak of nuclear war has long been regarded as a virtually suicidal exchange in which the U.S. and the Soviet Union fire thousands of atomic warheads at each other, obliterate both societies and kill scores of millions. But what if one side attacked with conventional weapons and the other retaliated with just three or four nuclear missiles? How would the first nation react to that...
What has prompted renewed thought about "limited" nuclear war is America's gradual loss of its vast superiority over the U.S.S.R. in strategic weapons. The essential equivalence in nuclear arms today means that Washington probably could not check a limited Soviet provocation by threatening a massive attack on the U.S.S.R. But a U.S. threat of limited nuclear retaliation might-just might -deter a Soviet blockade of the Persian ulf s oil-shipping lanes, for example, or an invasion of a NATO ally...
...conclusion of a study entitled The Effects of Nuclear War, released last month by the Office of Technology Assessment. An arm of Congress, the OTA analyzed several levels of nuclear exchange. Among them was a classic case of controlled nuclear war: an attack on U.S. oil refineries by ten Soviet SS-18 missiles, each carrying eight warheads of one megaton force. Such an attack would destroy an estimated 64% of U.S. petroleum-refining capacity, along with railways, petrochemical plants, and storage facilities near the refineries...
...take an enormous human toll because U.S. oil production facilities are near Los Angeles, Chicago, New York and other large cities. In the first hour after the strike, more than 5 million Americans would be killed by searing heat, explosive force, high winds, fire and crumbling buildings, if the Soviet warheads exploded aboveground. (Airbursts suck up relatively little debris to settle back to earth later as radioactive fallout.) If the Soviet missiles were detonated at ground level, immediate fatalities would drop to about 2.9 million, but an additional 312,000 would die soon afterward from fallout...
Though Schmidt is reported to favor SALT II, consistent with former chancellor Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik, or "opening towards the East," he is also concerned over the Soviet arms build-up and favors a strong NATO...