The twentieth century saw the development of some of the most gruesome war doctrines. Yet, ironically, a few even contributed to save the world... like the MAD doctrine, or Mutually Assured Destruction!
But the US had/has dwarfed perhaps both of them with their ‘Shock and Awe’ strategy with the annihilation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan eventually conceded defeat. With time, names changed but the resonance of the doctrines of Blitzkrieg, Kamikaze and ‘shock and awe’ still make their presence felt every now and then. With the dropping of the two atom bombs on August 6 and August 9, 1945, by the B-29 Superfortress bombers, the superiority of the Air force in warfare was established. It brought in the new concept as to how a war can be won and an invincible enemy can be brought down on its knees from a height of 40,000 feet without even putting a foot on the ground just as the Germans had baptised the indispensability of the submarine, which had almost won the war for the Germans. Wish Napoleon had the same luck.
The end of the Second World War was also the beginning of the biggest polarisation that the world had ever seen. The Berlin Wall put the final stamp on the clear demarcation between the Western Capitalist Bloc and the Eastern Soviet Bloc and it was the green signal of the beginning of a 40 year long Cold War. This era saw a flurry of activities in literally carrying forward the legacy of Second World War [without actually fighting the real war] and perhaps bettering it. At times, with the world remaining with the constant fear of an impending war, many felt that it would perhaps do a whole lot of good to fight it out once and for all. But that did not happen. What happened, instead, was the constant upgradation of weapon systems and their delivery mechanism. So while B-29 bombers gave way to the colossal B-52 [powered by eight engines] and TU-142 type long range bombers and later TU-160, [which could travel half the earth, bomb a place and then comfortably come back] in response came the era of interceptor aircraft, the foremost and the pioneer among them being the ubiquitous and the ever versatile Soviet made Mig- 21. In fact, since the end of the Second World War, two of the biggest revolutions in warfare have been pioneered by the Russians. If one of them is the Mig-21, which forced the Americans to think of stealth, dogfights and supersonic bombers, the invention of the AK-47 by Mikhail Kalashnikov changed the very paradigm of the foot soldier. Probably no other fighter aircraft or assault rifle has been made in so many variants by so many countries as has been in the case of Mig-21 & AK-47. The whole era of Cold War is imbibed with several instances of Soviet Tu-142 being intercepted and escorted out of the Western territory by US or British interceptors like the F-102 Delta, F-106, F-14, or Tornado.
But the US had/has dwarfed perhaps both of them with their ‘Shock and Awe’ strategy with the annihilation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan eventually conceded defeat. With time, names changed but the resonance of the doctrines of Blitzkrieg, Kamikaze and ‘shock and awe’ still make their presence felt every now and then. With the dropping of the two atom bombs on August 6 and August 9, 1945, by the B-29 Superfortress bombers, the superiority of the Air force in warfare was established. It brought in the new concept as to how a war can be won and an invincible enemy can be brought down on its knees from a height of 40,000 feet without even putting a foot on the ground just as the Germans had baptised the indispensability of the submarine, which had almost won the war for the Germans. Wish Napoleon had the same luck.
The end of the Second World War was also the beginning of the biggest polarisation that the world had ever seen. The Berlin Wall put the final stamp on the clear demarcation between the Western Capitalist Bloc and the Eastern Soviet Bloc and it was the green signal of the beginning of a 40 year long Cold War. This era saw a flurry of activities in literally carrying forward the legacy of Second World War [without actually fighting the real war] and perhaps bettering it. At times, with the world remaining with the constant fear of an impending war, many felt that it would perhaps do a whole lot of good to fight it out once and for all. But that did not happen. What happened, instead, was the constant upgradation of weapon systems and their delivery mechanism. So while B-29 bombers gave way to the colossal B-52 [powered by eight engines] and TU-142 type long range bombers and later TU-160, [which could travel half the earth, bomb a place and then comfortably come back] in response came the era of interceptor aircraft, the foremost and the pioneer among them being the ubiquitous and the ever versatile Soviet made Mig- 21. In fact, since the end of the Second World War, two of the biggest revolutions in warfare have been pioneered by the Russians. If one of them is the Mig-21, which forced the Americans to think of stealth, dogfights and supersonic bombers, the invention of the AK-47 by Mikhail Kalashnikov changed the very paradigm of the foot soldier. Probably no other fighter aircraft or assault rifle has been made in so many variants by so many countries as has been in the case of Mig-21 & AK-47. The whole era of Cold War is imbibed with several instances of Soviet Tu-142 being intercepted and escorted out of the Western territory by US or British interceptors like the F-102 Delta, F-106, F-14, or Tornado.
Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).
and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).
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