The USSR increased its military abilities throughout the Cold War threatening U.S. supremacy in the Asia-Pacific region and on the international scene. American strategy towards the Soviets stressed deterrence, but growing U.S. capabilities in the area of nuclear weapons allowed strategists to explore new options for targeting the USSR in case of an attack. The goal of targeting was to apply the maximum amount of damage at the lowest cost with the intention of preventing further escalation of a conflict.
This report examines options for targeting the USSR focusing on the destruction of targets previously seen as invulnerable and the sparing of important facilities in the country.
“For contests over territories as important as Europe or Japan, we might want to be able to bring the power of our strategic forces to bear, but at the same time we would not want to have only the option of all-out escalation in the application of such force.” (p 11)
This report was released to the Nautilus Institute under the US Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).