World War III: Operation Dropshot

World War III
World War III (WWIII or WW3) and the Third World War are names given to a hypothetical
third worldwide large-scale military conflict subsequent to World War I and World War II.
The term has been in use since at least as early as 1941. Some have applied it loosely to refer
to limited or smaller conflicts such as the Cold War or the War on Terror, while others assumed
that such a conflict would surpass prior world wars both in its scope and in its destructive
impact.[1]
Due to the development and use of nuclear weapons near the end of World War II and their
subsequent acquisition and deployment by many countries, the potential risk of a nuclear
devastation of Earth's civilization and life is a common theme in speculations about a Third
World War. Another major concern is that biological warfare could cause a very large number
of casualties, either intentionally or inadvertently by an accidental release of a biological agent,
the unexpected mutation of an agent, or its adaptation to other species after use. High-
scale apocalyptic events like these, caused by advanced technology used for destruction, could
potentially make the Earth's surface uninhabitable.
Prior to the beginning of the Second World War, the First World War (1914–1918) was
believed to have been "the war to end all wars," as it was popularly believed that never again
could there possibly be a global conflict of such magnitude. During the interwar period, WWI
was typically referred to simply as "The Great War." The outbreak of World War II in 1939
disproved the hope that mankind might have already "outgrown" the need for such widespread
global wars.
With the advent of the Cold War in 1945 and with the spread of nuclear weapons technology
to the Soviet Union, the possibility of a third global conflict became more plausible. During
the Cold War years, the possibility of a Third World War was anticipated and planned for by
military and civil authorities in many countries. Scenarios ranged from conventional warfare to
limited or total nuclear warfare. At the height of the Cold War, a scenario referred to
as Mutually Assured Destruction ("MAD") had been calculated which determined that an all-
out nuclear confrontation would most certainly destroy all or nearly all human life on the planet.
The potential absolute destruction of the human race may have contributed to the ability of
both American and Soviet leaders to avoid such a scenario
Operation Dropshot
"Operation Dropshot" was the 1950s United States contingency plan for a possible nuclear and
conventional war with the Soviet Union in the Western European and Asian theaters.
At the time the US nuclear arsenal was limited in size, based mostly in the United States, and
depended on bombers for delivery. "Dropshot" included mission profiles that would have used
300 nuclear bombs and 29,000 high-explosive bombs on 200 targets in 100 cities and towns to
wipe out 85% of the Soviet Union's industrial potential at a single stroke. Between 75 and 100
of the 300 nuclear weapons were targeted to destroy Soviet combat aircraft on the ground.
The scenario was devised prior to the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles. It was
also devised before U.S. President John F. Kennedy and his Secretary of Defense Robert
McNamara changed the US Nuclear War plan from the 'city killing' countervalue strike plan to
a "counterforce" plan (targeted more at military forces). Nuclear weapons at this time were not
accurate enough to hit a naval base without destroying the city adjacent to it, so the aim in
using them was to destroy the enemy industrial capacity in an effort to cripple their war
economy.
Seven Days to the River Rhine

Seven Days to the River Rhine was a top-secret military simulation exercise developed in 1979
by the Warsaw Pact. It started with the assumption that NATO would launch a nuclear attack
on the Vistula river valley in a first-strike scenario, which would result in as many as two
million Polish civilian casualties.[21] In response, a Soviet counter-strike would be carried out
against West Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Denmark, with Warsaw Pact forces
invading West Germany and aiming to stop at the River Rhine by the seventh day. Other USSR
plans stopped only upon reaching the French border on day nine. Individual Warsaw Pact states
were only assigned their own subpart of the strategic picture; in this case, the Polish forces
were only expected to go as far as Germany. The Seven Days to the Rhine plan envisioned that
Poland and Germany would be largely destroyed by nuclear exchanges, and that large numbers
of troops would die of radiation sickness. It was estimated that NATO would fire nuclear
weapons behind the advancing Soviet lines to cut off their supply lines and thus blunt their
advance. While this plan assumed that NATO would use nuclear weapons to push back any
Warsaw Pact invasion, it did not include nuclear strikes on France or the United Kingdom.
Newspapers speculated when this plan was declassified, that France and the UK were not to be
hit in an effort to get them to withhold use of their own nuclear weapons.

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World War III

Seven Days to the River Rhine

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