6 Bases during the Cold War

that is, the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963, which bans atmospheric testing,and the Threshold Test Ban Treaty of 1974, never ratified by the U.S. Senate(but tacitly adhered to in the manner of SALT II), which barred undergroundtesting of nuclear devices of over 150 kilotons. Second, there was the monitoringof the horizontal nuclear proliferation activities of hitherto non-nuclearstates, as well as of the non-signatory but nuclear states, China and France.Third there was the contingency of protracted nuclear war during which the U.S.would have wanted to determine the locations and frequencies of nuclear detonationson both sides and to assess resultant damage, among other reasons, toaid subsequent targeting decisions.Several interrelated systems were used to pursue the above ends, involvingsatellites, aircraft and ground stations. Use of satellites, in connection withbases, raised the question of external facilities for data down-links and commandand control; that of aircraft involved, obviously, bases as well.According to Richelson, the U.S. space-based nuclear-detection systeminvolved, variously, the various components of the VELA satellite program begunin the early 1960s, the previously mentioned DSP satellites primarily intended forearly warning of missile launches, and the NAVSTAR global positioning system.59Numerous aircraft types were used to detect airborne atomic debris left in thewake of explosions (if only the venting of imperfectly conducted undergroundblasts). One source said that these included the U-2, P-3C, C-135, B-52 and alsoan HC-130 configured as a sea-water sampler to monitor underwater nuclear tests(monitoring of plutonion-239 separation via kryption-85 analysis was presumablyalso similarly conducted). For instance, SAC’s U-2s apparently operated out ofAustralian facilities at Sale and Laverton, gathering radionuclides as part of a HighAltitude Sampling Program. These aircraft were operated by the Air Force TechnicalApplication Center (AFTAC) and could presumably have availed themselvesof virtually all the airfields normally open to U.S. use throughout the world. Someof these operations no doubt involved ad hoc staging through facilities after an“event,” and the diplomacy of access involved was obscure. But, as there was ageneral convergence of overall interest by most nations with regard to monitoringothers’ nuclear tests, access in these cases was likely to have been permissive.The Soviet Cold War naval basing structure60Before World War II, the USSR had had only very limited access to externalfacilities, perhaps solely with the forward deployment of some combat aircraft inCzechoslovakia in the 1930s. In parallel, Moscow was then only a small factorin the international arms trade, so it was not able to bank either on security assistanceor ideological ties and alliances to establish forward bases. That situationchanged dramatically after World War II, with an additional quantum jump inthe late 1950s and on up to 1970s.Directly after the war, of course, Moscow established control over EasternEurope (earlier also in Mongolia), and these dominated areas became the sitesfor a massive network of Soviet air, naval and ground facilities, with a heavyBases during the Cold War 129İ 2007 Robert E. Harkavyconcentration in East Germany, Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia as anobvious correlate to Soviet political control over these countries and as a defensiveglacis or possible springboard for offensive operations vis-à-vis NATOWestern Europe. Again, the basis for basing access was simply brute conquestand imperial control.For some ten years after the end of the Cold War, the USSR had no basingaccess outside of its huge contiguous Eurasian empire. Indeed, it also had virtuallyno arms transfer or security assistance relationships outside this area duringa period in which the U.S. established its elaborate structure of alliances andarms transfer relationships all around the Eurasian rimland.That all changed around 1955 with the beginning of the Soviet weaponstransfers to Egypt and Syria. But then too in the late 1950s and early 1960s,numerous nations in the wake of decolonization and the creation of nominallyMarxist regimes, became Soviet arms client states. Along with that, sometimeswith a time lag, came the provision of basing access at a time, also, whenMoscow was beginning to build a “blue-water navy.” And, some of the newarms recipients and basing hosts involved a “leapfrogging” of the containmentPage 36Page 37