U.S. foreign policy toward the Soviet Union was characterized by a strategic duality: on one hand, preparation for an armed conflict of apocalyptic scale; on the other, the development of instruments of political and psychological warfare aimed at undermining the adversary from within.
Although the term "national security" appeared sporadically in U.S. documents as early as 1928, it was the National Security Act of 1947 that enshrined it as a guiding principle of the country's foreign and defense policy.
Signed by President Harry S. Truman on July 26th, 1947, this legislation created the National Security Council (NSC), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the Department of Defense, thereby institutionalizing a permanent state apparatus dedicated to security during peacetime.
This institutional turn responded to the perception, widespread in the Truman administration, that the confrontation with the USSR was not an episodic conflict but a long-term existential struggle.
National security thus ceased to be a merely defensive concept and became an umbrella under which both the arms race and aggressions against dozens of nations were legitimized.
THE WAR PLANS AGAINST THE USSR: THE DROPSHOT CASE
Since before the end of World War II, American military planners developed dozens of conflict scenarios with the Soviet Union. The first of them, the 1947 plan, provided for the dropping of 133 atomic bombs on seventy Soviet cities in thirty days.
In May 1949, the Trojan plan raised the figure to 150 atomic bombs, but the one that reached the highest level of detail and that "was closest to being realized" was Operation Dropshot, also prepared in 1949 by a commission of chiefs of staff with authorization from President Truman.
The scenario envisioned a war beginning in January 1957, centered on a massive three-phase bombing campaign: 300 atomic bombs dropped on 118 Soviet cities, along with 250,000 tons of conventional explosives and 29,000 high-yield bombs targeting 200 locations.
With the stated goal of destroying 85% of Soviet industrial capacity in a single blow, the plan also called for the deployment of 250 divisions—totaling 6,250,000 troops—to invade the territory of the USSR and its allies.
This diabolical plan was declassified in 1977 and subsequently published as Dropshot: The American Plan for World War III Against Russia in 1957.
What deterred Washington from carrying out the plan was not an ethical or political reconsideration, but rather the development of Soviet retaliatory capabilities—specifically the detonation of the first Soviet atomic bomb in 1949 and the subsequent deployment of intercontinental ballistic missiles—which made a war of aggression unfeasible without risking devastating reprisals.
Did Washington abandon the goal of defeating socialism by force of arms?
The answer is no; the abandonment of Dropshot did not mean abandoning that strategic objective—what changed was the method. As Gregory Mitrovich documents in Undermining the Kremlin, the Truman administration launched an aggressive campaign in 1947 aimed not merely at containment, but at "undoing Soviet power in Eastern Europe and within the Soviet Union itself."
Thus, the strategy shifted toward a protracted conflict waged on ideological, economic, and psychological fronts. NSC-68 itself, while not ruling out war, left open the possibility of negotiating with the USSR, provided such negotiations served U.S. objectives.
The creation of the CIA in 1947 gave Washington an institutional instrument for conducting political and psychological warfare operations; following the techniques of the World War II-era Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the Agency set out to "undermine the Soviet social and state system."
Notable among the key initiatives were Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty—covertly funded by the CIA via Congress—which broadcast programs in the languages of the USSR and Eastern Bloc countries with the aim of eroding the "regime's" credibility and fostering discontent.
A top-secret research initiative known as Project Troy (1950–1951) brought together scientists and academics from MIT to devise technical and propaganda methods aimed at "getting the truth behind the Iron Curtain."
The Carter administration employed human rights rhetoric as a psychological warfare weapon—a tool crafted from accumulated experience.
Until then, groups opposed to socialism had waged a constant attack on the entire Soviet political system but failed to propose a concrete program that was both appealing to the West and impactful within socialist countries; thus, CIA-backed human rights activism was born.
U.S. strategy against the Soviet Union during the Cold War was neither uniform nor static; the United States employed every available means to achieve what the Dropshot bombing plan could not guarantee: the defeat of socialism as an alternative to the Washington-led world order.
References
- Mitrovich, G. (2000). Undermining the Kremlin: America's Strategy to Subvert the Soviet Bloc, 1947-1956. Cornell University Press.
- National Security Council. (1950). NSC-68: United States Objectives and Programs for National Security. U.S. Department of State.
- Yakovlev, N. (1982). CIA Target - the USSR. Progress Publishers.
- Landau, S. (2019). "The National Security State". The Dangerous Doctrine. Taylor & Francis.
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