Along with the deep ramifications of the post-war geopolitical shifts in Europe and Asia, the early post-war decade was distinctly marked by the world’s coming to terms with the new era of opportunity and horror under the invention and spread of nuclear weapons. Even with a limited preliminary understanding of such weapons, change and evolution came at a ferocious clip in this field. In the first decade, the United States attacked Japan with the world’s first nuclear bombs (1945), the Soviet Union and United Kingdom successfully completed their own independent bomb programs (1945/1952), the early fission bomb was outdone by new and powerful thermonuclear devices (1952), and the total number of nuclear warheads in the stockpiles of world had grown by more than a factor of 50 after the first year. In the subsequent five years, France would join the nuclear club (1960), intercontinental ballistic missiles would make their debut, and China would be deep into its own development program.
Yet in these early years, much mystery surrounded “the bomb,” and both policymakers and the public would struggle to identify its true nature and utility. WWII planners and tacticians tended to view the nuclear bomb as simply a more powerful explosive for military use, but suspected that, with aggressive policy, more value could be extracted somehow. In Washington and other world capitals, information was an extremely guarded commodity, sometimes stunting the development of clear policy in these years. Meanwhile, the few press reports and nuclear tests opened to the public yielded decidedly mixed accounts of its characteristics. Newspaper reports of American nuclear testing vacillated between dismissive accounts of the bomb’s destructive effectiveness, incomplete descriptions of new developments using dutifully cloaked language, and fearsome (if not also triumphant) declarations of improved explosive power. And so while policymakers grappled with the implications of nuclear weapons on war and peace broadly, the broader public (at home and abroad) was still learning what to call the technology, and how to describe its effects.
At the time, state programs and foreign intelligence-gatherers would undoubtedly have a clearer understanding of such developments, but it would be difficult to assume Beijing had a better source at the time than the somewhat confused Western media outlets. The Ministry of Public Security, Beijing’s principle intelligence agency, underwent a protracted reorganization between the establishment of PRC in 1949 and 1955, drastically undercutting its effectiveness abroad. Premier Zhao Enlai candidly discussed the difficulty understanding nuclear weapons at a plenary meeting of the state council as late as 1955: “What after all is the power of atomic weapons? Many people are not clear. As a consequence, this has given rise to two types of attitudes in the world: one is ignorance and the other is terror.”
With few other examples to follow, he and other PRC planners would examine closely the actions of the nuclear powers and the dynamics that formed between them.
It was in these foggier years, then, that Mao observed the rapid pace of development around the world, and in conflict, was ultimately made to respond to a salvo of nuclear-backed threats from the United States. With few other examples to follow, he and other PRC planners would examine closely the actions of the nuclear powers and the dynamics that formed between them. As the intensity of threats against China increased during the Korean War and first Taiwan Strait Crisis, Mao was forced to consider those lessons, and consider new policies to relieve this pressure.
Over these years and through those experiences, his disdainful opinions on nuclear weapons would be forced to adapt. The intense crises of the 1950s, combined with news of continued nuclear proliferation around the world, would ultimately lead to his ordering of China’s own nuclear program. Key themes leading up to this decision included the rapid pace of development in the U.S. (both in technology and in production of weapons), the different approaches used by the U.S. and USSR in leveraging the bomb to achieve their geopolitical goals, and the stubborn shroud of mystery that surrounded the bomb in these early years. These factors all contributed to the pressurized environment in which such national security decisions were made.
Understanding the few examples of national nuclear programs and the history of their ensuing behaviors is key to seeing the world as Mao did in the late 1950s, and will reveal more about his rationale for reversing his beliefs about a Chinese bomb. This section will provide a brief overview of the nuclear weapons programs, statements, deployments of each of the four nuclear states through 1960: the U.S., USSR, U.K., and France.
The United States
During its “monopoly years” 1945-1949, the United States actively leveraged its atomic bomb as an effective pressure point to conduct coercive diplomacy.
The American nuclear program famously developed the world’s first fission-based explosive device in July 1945, and infamously attacked two Japanese cities with atomic bombs in a bid to end the war the following month. The Manhattan Project, as the development program was codenamed, had its roots in European academies and universities in the 1930s, and was fully underway by 1940, even before the U.S. was brought into the war. The program was a success, and the Americans entered the post-war world as the only nuclear-armed state. As such, the world’s first decade under nuclear arms would be largely defined by the United States’s quest to find utility in this new technology: first, by asymmetrically leveraging it as an “ace in the hole” during attempts to coerce, and later, by reacting strongly to the USSR’s growing capabilities, setting a precedent of rapid nuclear stockpiling and development.
Discovery and Development
By the time a deployable nuclear weapon was ready, war-weary American planners were grasping for what, exactly, could be done with the fearsome new device. One of the most obvious attributes of a nuclear weapon is its massive explosive power. As the first American nuclear detonation captivated and terrified observers in July 1945, questions on the utility and strategy of such a weapon immediately took hold. An obvious first concept was to use the bomb to, in a single stroke, annihilate the enemy’s cities. But at the time the first atomic bombs were ready for use in August, fifty-two Japanese cities had already been razed to substantial degrees by the U.S. Army Air Force. That summer’s bombing raids (relying on formations of bombers carrying conventional explosives, fragmentation bombs, and incendiary munitions) proved enough to inflict damages upwards of 50 percent of any given urban area. Fifteen major cities suffered destruction exceeding 70 percent, owing principally to night-time firebombings. Further, such air raids were increasingly uncontested over the Japanese home islands, owing to a thorough destruction of air defense forces in previous years. In this scenario, American commanders had little military need for the atom bomb: what had already been accomplished conventionally across much of Japan could have been continued at will with the same methods and strategy.
Nonetheless, the USAAF proceeded to use atomic bombs on Japan, decimating the minor cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Modern perspectives on this decision reveal that President Truman was most concerned with ending the war quickly, without much mind to consider the special new weapons now available. In fact, records show that very little military or political debate was held over the first uses of the bomb. It was only after the news and reality of its use spread did the U.S. begin to formulate effective new military and political strategies to maximize its use.
For several years after the war, the United States held a firm and rather confident monopoly on nuclear weapons, but could not yet provide itself with a clear description of the atomic bomb’s utility. As evidenced in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the bomb was indeed a fearsome military option, and provided unparalleled destruction per unit, but as the previous bombing campaign against Japan also demonstrated, a similar result could also be achieved conventionally, given enough time and resources. American military planners struggled with this question for years, but in the early post-war months, consensus began to form in Washington that there was at the least some coercive political strength to come from brandishing the bomb liberally. The buy-in for this strategy was swift: by the end of 1946, the United States had built 11 additional atomic bombs, but more than doubled its stockpile each year through the end of the decade.
Another key research and development wing in the American nuclear complex was its bombers and missile development programs. While strategic bombers became a mainstay of World War II warfighting, and were indeed the delivery vehicle for the nuclear bombs against Japan, the development and improvement of jet engines made longer-range bombing missions a reality as soon as 1948. For the 1950s, this capability gave Washington a sense that it could strike into the Soviet Union with nuclear bombs without a great deal of build-up. Strategic Air Command was formed in 1946, and would take special charge of the nation’s nuclear-armed bombers. And while Americans were made to worry about a “bomber gap” vis-a-vis the Soviets in the late 1950s, this fear was much overblown: from the 1950s on, Washington would always have an air-deliverable nuclear option via its robust bomber force.
However, the development of long-range ballistic missiles, a brand-new technology for the era, would soon disrupt both strategy and tactics on a global scale. At the end of the war, both the Americans and Soviets scrambled to capture, interview, and “flip” key German rocket scientists. With the help of those researchers, the United States developed and deployed missile systems capable of carrying nuclear warheads, which, in the early 1950s, allowed bases in Europe to threaten Moscow, and by 1960, gave the same capacity to bases within the American heartland. The deployment of this new technology came rapidly, especially after the USSR’s stunning success in launching the world’s first satellite in 1956. By the late 1950s, the U.S. had built 45 “Jupiter” nuclear-armed medium-range ballistic missiles for bases in Turkey and Italy and was fielding (and already improving) the first “Atlas” intercontinental-range missiles at home.
Policy and Rhetoric
As for formulating policy to deploy and “use” these new devices, the U.S. pioneered an aggressive and active focus on nuclear weapons, including a heavy focus on hostile rhetoric and high-end development programs to maintain dominance.
During its “monopoly years” 1945-1949, the United States actively leveraged its atomic bomb as an effective pressure point to conduct coercive diplomacy. In March 1946, President Truman made an overt threat to Soviet Ambassador Gromyko in a successful bid to bring the Iran Crisis to a close. In mid-July 1948, the U.S. deployed presumably nuclear-capable bombers to England in a more subtle attempt to pressure Moscow to reopen Berlin to ground traffic. By identifying a power-projection quality to possessing the nuclear bomb, Washington set a menacing tone against its adversaries which would ultimately lead to those countries taking action to change this dynamic.
In 1949, the Soviet Union shocked Washington by demonstrating its own atomic device—years ahead of schedule, according to most western experts. While it would take the USSR some years more to build up a deliverable weapons capability, the era of American nuclear monopoly was ending much sooner than expected. For American policy, this development sparked a retaliatory arms race, and would soon be codified in the aggressive national security prescriptions of NSC-68 the following year. In line with the findings of that report, the U.S. ended its brief post-war easement, and re-mobilized militarily, raising taxes to reinforce military research and procurement. And while its nuclear advantage was now challenged, American “atomic diplomacy” would continue against other rivals (perhaps the most notable cases of this occurred against Mao’s China during and after the Korean War, where threats of nuclear attack, both coded and overt, were repeatedly made against Beijing for its participation in that war).
Washington’s vigorous reaction was soon demonstrated by the rapid shift of development resources toward pursuing a new R&D advancement in nuclear weapons technology: the “Super,” a thermonuclear (fusion-based) device which until that point had been considered a less-urgent research path. In November 1952, that project resulted in the first successful thermonuclear detonation, demonstrating a massive increase in explosive potential. For Washington, this advancement was initially seen as less of a military necessity and more of a status marker vis-a-vis the Soviet capability: for the USSR to ultimately possess this technology, and the U.S. not to, “would be intolerable” in political terms. Externally, and publicly, the news of the “H-bomb” added a new data point indicating a rapidly increasing reliance on fearsome new technologies.
But beyond the impressive effect of its R&D gains, American planners had also committed to rapid manufacturing and integration of nuclear weapons into its military doctrines. By this time, the U.S. had already stockpiled 841 nuclear weapons in total and had begun fielding smaller, tactical versions for field deployment, showing an increased integration of nuclear weapons across various military roles. Such dispersal of nuclear weapons also served as symbols of commitment to U.S. allies, as bombs and shells were sent to U.S. forces stationed in Japan, Korea, and Europe. In 1954, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles elaborated a bold new strategy designed to counter conventional provocations with overwhelming, sudden nuclear attack. His idea, dubbed by his use of the phrase “massive retaliation,” relied on a willingness to liberally issue credible threats of nuclear attack, but would depend on the American monopoly status to be truly effective.
While Dulles’s doctrine was put into place, the U.S. moved to further solidify its commitments to its allies amid their increased fears of the Soviet bomb. By the end of the decade, the United States articulated an aggressive public rhetoric on nuclear weapons, and expanded its warhead stockpile by more than a factor of twenty, ultimately leading the Soviets by more than 10,000 in 1960, and spread its weapons to those contentious Cold War frontiers. Washington’s decision to build its nuclear program so robustly and clearly in these early years would prove to have a strong influence on other nations’ decisions regarding nuclear weapons. By relying so heavily on the bomb as a means of power projection, the U.S. communicated a clear preference for force over diplomacy—a preference which would have far-reaching sway on contemporary and future national nuclear programs: first and especially that of the Soviet Union.
The Soviet Union
Moscow extended to Mao guarantees that China would fall within its rather tentative “nuclear umbrella,” both as a hopeful bulwark against American meddling and an incentive for China to not pursue its own nuclear weapons.
For the Soviet Union, victory in World War II came at a very dear price: with its working-age population ravaged by wartime deaths and its industrial base largely in rubble, Moscow had an extremely different set of national security challenges than did Washington. Still, in these lean times, Stalin viewed the development and deployment of the atomic bomb as a necessity to stave off the looming strategic advantage of the United States. For its first decade, the Soviet development process would be markedly slower than that of the U.S., and for many years the Soviet bomb would pose little real threat, but Moscow’s early success in proliferation would communicate loudly to the Americans, and influence the evolving Cold War dynamic almost immediately.
Early Aspirations and Development
The Soviet nuclear program, like its American counterpart, had its roots in laboratories and academies across pre-war Europe, and became an official project of the state during the war. Efforts intensified greatly at home through the worst years of the war, and attitudes on the effort became increasingly urgent. While Stalin and his entourage reacted calmly to Truman’s personal message of the atomic bomb’s completion at Potsdam, declassified records and memoirs demonstrate that the Soviets were keenly aware of the threat that nuclear weapons could pose to any favorable post-war order. Although it is now clear that Truman did not intend to communicate a deliberate threat at that time, Marshall Georgy Zhukov, a key wartime commander and close adviser to Stalin in the post-war years, interpreted Truman’s message as an aggressive boast against the USSR and a preview for a rather aggressive world order to come:
It was clear already then [at Potsdam] that the [United States] intended to use the atomic weapon for the purpose of achieving its imperialist goals from a position of strength in ‘the cold war.’ This was amply corroborated on August 6 and 8. Without any military need whatsoever, the Americans dropped two atomic bombs on the peaceful and densely-populated Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
At the end of the war, Vyacheslav Molotov reportedly articulated the USSR’s deep aspiration for not just nuclear weapons, but to master the domestic benefits of atomic energy, as well. The debut of America’s atomic bombs in mid-1945 only reinforced Soviet resolve to achieve the same. At Stalin’s decree that work to obtain the bomb must be conducted “broadly, on a Russian scale,” resources were diverted toward the nuclear project, even though they were sorely needed elsewhere. In mid-1949, Soviet scientists successfully detonated their own version of the American “Fat Man” fission device used on Japan.
The Soviet bomb, rapidly developed to directly counter the precipitously frequent American nuclear threats, was rushed into production even though supply lines for fissionable materials were rudimentary and the USSR had no reliable delivery method at the time. Compounding those problems was Stalin’s rather stubborn outlook on military affairs, which was strongly influenced by his experience defeating Germany in World War II, and was less suited to understanding the rapid developments of the nuclear age. Thus, in the first few years, production of deployable bombs lagged markedly behind that of the U.S., but after Stalin’s death in 1953, Khrushchev’s “revolution in military affairs” would finally shift Moscow’s priorities toward countering the threat of American surprise nuclear attack. By 1955, this shift resulted in a Soviet stockpile of approximately 200 warheads. By 1960, industrial advancements would raise that figure to over 1,600, and the development of fearsome new missile technologies raised the pace of development even further vis-a-vis the United States.
The Soviets exercised one great advantage over the United States in its prowess developing such missile systems. In 1959, Khrushchev established the Strategic Rocket Forces as a separate service and reorganized many supporting industries and research facilities to support missile development. The new forces deployed with a fearsome fleet of rocket, including the R-7A, the world’s first true intercontinental-range ballistic missile. The 1960s would see a rapid expansion of the Soviet ICBM force, eventually reaching a peak of about 1,500 launchers in 1970. And while the Americans deployed their first ICBM in the same year (and even led the USSR in missile count for a time), the Soviets success in a number of rocketry-based fields (including notably in these years, its space program) would fuel much consternation in Washington for the duration of the Cold War.
Policy and Rhetoric
But if the frantic pace of Soviet development was similar to that of the U.S. (even if lagging behind), the attitudes supporting the development and use of nuclear weapons was quite different. Owing to the great losses suffered during World War II and its vast geographic expanse, the Soviet Union held a distinctly resilient outlook on the potential horrors of nuclear war. Khrushchev’s shift toward a nuclear focus also saw a new philosophy of warfighting and survival emerge in Moscow. As a Red Army general put it in 1955:
The duty of the Soviet armed forces is not to permit an enemy surprise on our country and, in the event of an attempt to accomplish one, not only to repel the attack successfully but also to deal enemy counter blows, or even pre-emptive surprise blows, of terrible destructive force. For this the Soviet army and navy possess everything necessary.
This emerging attitude of resilience drew upon themes in Marxism-Leninism that resonated with Soviet leadership, the vast majority of whom were war veterans who were active in the Party since the October Revolution. In March 1956, following his infamous “Secret Speech” realigning many of the USSR’s Stalinist mechanisms and beliefs, Nikita Khrushchev nonetheless affirmed the almost righteous strength nuclear weapons gave the Soviets: “[The Americans] know that we have all these things [missiles and thermonuclear weapons], and therefore, they have to talk to us, fight with us; but not be afraid… this is a game, in which nobody will be a winner.”
Nonetheless, in some ways, the Soviets pursued a similar approach to that of the Americans when it came to leveraging the bomb for political gain. Notably, Moscow extended to Mao guarantees that China would fall within its rather tentative “nuclear umbrella,” both as a hopeful bulwark against American meddling and an incentive for China to not pursue its own nuclear weapons. As a matter of power-projection, the threat of Soviet nuclear attack would back every Cold War activity and conflict—in terms of strategic communication, nuclear weapons were not a passive factor or necessarily even a “last resort” option for Moscow at times.
By 1960, just a decade from its first atomic bomb test, the Soviet Union stood as a gaining competitor to the United States in the field of nuclear weapons. Despite having an economy less than one-third as robust as their American rivals (as a measure, the USSR’s GDP per-capita in 1949 was $2,623, compared to the U.S at. $8,944), the Soviet Union had not just developed the atomic bomb, but followed closely the United States in developing their own thermonuclear weapon in 1953, and pioneered intercontinental ballistic missile technology before the end of the decade. In these years, Moscow became comfortable with playing a “spoiler” role to the American post-war triumphalism, and communicated to the world that nuclear weapons would not just be the domain of high tech, prosperous nations.
The United Kingdom and France
As industrial and consumer technology improved by leaps and bounds through post-war reconstruction, it fostered an environment in which it seemed inevitable that the great and terrible secrets of the bomb would, eventually, become demystified and commonplace.
The United Kingdom and France, by comparison to the U.S, and USSR, remained minor nuclear players in the years covered by this section. Still, several key aspects of their respective programs would be especially noteworthy with regards to aspiring world powers. The U.K. put a very high value on being able to keep up with the latest technological breakthroughs, and France, while proliferating a decade later, would make a keen point of its independence in this area.
Like their erstwhile ally USSR, the United Kingdom claimed victory in World War II at a very high price. With a great deal of industry destroyed and a great proportion of urban areas in ruins thanks to German bombing during the Battle of Britain, reconstruction and economic vitality was paramount through the 1950s. But beyond what construction crews and foreign aid could provide, the British felt a strong need to remain an established power in international affairs. Like the Soviets, the British leadership concluded that possession of nuclear weapons would provide the necessary clout and credibility to retain “great power” status.
At the end of the war U.K. had a key advantage that the USSR did not: an enduring ally and benefactor in the United States. While the British nuclear program was independent of the American one (and in fact provided key scientists and knowledge to the Americans during the war), a key post-war understanding of British leaders was that the U.S. would consider the bomb a joint development, or at least share findings and data from the Manhattan Project. Frustratingly for London, the Americans were hesitant to come forward with information and technology related to their atom bomb.
Nonetheless, the British committed to developing their independent nuclear force, fearful of the strength of their alliance with the U.S. In October 1952, they succeeded in their efforts, exploding their first fission device in western Australia. In doing so, they had expanded the nuclear club to three, and made a bold statement that the U.K. was as capable and advanced as their American friends and Soviet rivals.
Despite the early success, production of bombs and delivery systems would come slowly for the British. By 1955, they had fielded just 10 bombs, and by the end of the decade, would have built 105. By virtue of its membership in NATO, the British would feel less pressure to build a vast, global nuclear arsenal, and its disposition largely focused on fielding a suitable deterrent to prevent Moscow from bombing London. But, like the French, the British were wary of American nuclear promises to defend Europe, and maintained for the length of the Cold War that its independent nuclear capability would be a crucial part of its overall national security.
The French nuclear program also had pre-war roots, but would not result in the development of a bomb until 1960. In the years covered by this section, France was a very preliminary player, with only a few statements and pieces of public information leading up to its proliferation. Still, its decision to proliferate would leave an impression on global attitudes and beliefs about nuclear weapons: the “club” was expanding, and it was becoming the norm for advanced nations to possess their own bomb.
This belief was building even after the British proliferation in the early part of the 50s, and would come to enter both the public discourse and the planning rooms of world capitals. As industrial and consumer technology improved by leaps and bounds through post-war reconstruction, it fostered an environment in which it seemed inevitable that the great and terrible secrets of the bomb would, eventually, become demystified and commonplace.
Paris’s success served to solidify these fears, and the issue of continued nuclear proliferation became a key focus of that year’s U.S. elections. As then-Presidential candidate John F. Kennedy would predict just seven months later, “there are indications because of new inventions, that 10, 15, or 20 nations will have a nuclear capacity, including Red China, by the end of the Presidential office in 1964. This is extremely serious. . . I think the fate not only of our own civilization, but I think the fate of world and the future of the human race, is involved in preventing a nuclear war.”
Lessons for China
The years 1945-1960 marked the world’s entry into the nuclear age. Beginning with America’s attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the advent of nuclear weapons became a central focus of international affairs, as the bomb increased both in number and capability each year. While this landscape developed, several distinct behaviors and trends emerged as the members of the growing nuclear club attempted to extract the most benefit from their weapons. For the young PRC, these developments would closely inform their high-level strategies as Beijing worked to navigate the early days of the Cold War.
In terms of raw numbers and rates of proliferation, nuclear weapons would almost immediately become a field of rapid development and expansion. According to data compiled by Kristensen and Norris, the first decade of a country’s nuclear-armed era saw rapid growth in one of two tracks: ten years on from the date of its first test, the U.S. would build 2,422 warheads and the USSR 863, while the U.K. would build 271 and France 145. The “fast track” taken by the Americans and Soviets represented what is traditionally referred to as the “Cold War arms race,” while the somewhat slower pace of the U.K. and France would represent a more restrained, yet still very active alternative approach. On average, the total number of nuclear weapons in the world would increase by 53% each year in the 1950s.
Amid this rapid build-up, qualitative policies depending on nuclear strength would communicate forceful new dispositions and norms to the international arena. The United States emerged as the main protagonist in this area, as it brandished its nuclear monopoly repeatedly until the Soviets managed to field an effective nuclear capability in the late 1950s. Washington simultaneously aimed to rely more on the bomb in its military strategies and deployments, allowing the drawdown from a wide and intensive deployment of soldiers around the world that was seen as unsustainable. Both the U.S. and USSR valued the bomb’s symbolic strength, too—both viewed it as an effective means of bolstering its alliance commitments and shoring up its own international standing without deploying forces. Washington and Moscow both cast “nuclear umbrellas” over their interests, with the implication that both powers were willing to initiate nuclear warfare in response to attacks on its frontiers. Moscow’s guarantees notably covered China for a time. Meanwhile, statements extolling the achievements of national bomb programs, however secretive they remained to the public, would set an aggressive tone that established nuclear weapons capability as a requirement for great power status. The eventual nuclearization of each of the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (except the Republic of China exile government, which held a seat until 1971) would underscore that norm.
For Mao, it was this second category of developments that impacted his country more directly. Thanks to his ideological disposition, it was easier for him to dismiss the debut and quickly growing presence of nuclear weapons internationally as bourgeois tools—as a crutch by which advanced nations could over-extend their influence. But when it came to the realities of China facing off against the nuclear-based threats of the United States, his ideology would begin to bend and crack. His dismissals of nuclear arms continued, but an evolution in domestic policy would also take form. The next sections will explore in depth the instances in which China received one-sided nuclear threats from the United States, illustrating how Mao’s beliefs (and dictates) on the bomb responded and changed over time.