Nuclear Policies of the USA and the USSR in 1945-1954

The period from 1945 till 1954 is a key stage in the U.S. and Soviet nuclear policy formation process during the Cold War. Scientific aspects of the two superpowers' atomic projects are relatively well studied. However, it is also necessary to link the issue of scientific breakthrough with those of foreign policy and military strategy in order to fill the gaps in the existing research. Similar nuclear-policy issues were at the heart of U.S. and Soviet decision-making process in 1945-1954, namely: the use of atomic weapons as a diplomatic instrument; the role of atomic weapons in new military strategies; presentation of one's own and adversary's nuclear achievements to the public; establishment of an atomic industry management system. It is often assumed that the influence of scientists upon policy-making was more significant in the USA than in the USSR. However, it remains an open question. Another question is when new military strategies were formed taking into account nuclear weapons existence. It seems that such strategic review did not take place in the Soviet Union until 1960s. Minimizing the significance of the new technology in official rhetoric, the Soviet leadership did its best to catch up with the USA in the race for atomic weapons, while the USA struggled to benefit from its atomic monopoly, which it considered a wasting asset. If the Rational Actor model is applied to the USA-USSR interaction, then differences in political regimes do not matter much. What matters is the set of actions and reactions within the limits provided by the international environment. If political regimes and internal state dynamics are also taken into account, then personal characteristics of major decision-makers ought to be given special attention to. The best way to link domestic and foreign policy processes is to rely upon Robert Putnam's two-level game model, which underlines the need of decision-makers to take into account the domestic feedback when making a foreign-policy move. Though many American and Soviet researchers have already studied U.S.-Soviet interaction in 1945-1954, including its atomic component, there are still gaps to be filled. Those gaps are, for instance, due to the lack of open sources on Soviet foreign policy. It is necessary to study the problem from a different angle, trying to link together the issues of scientific development, foreign policy, and military strategy. This research would benefit from new opportunities, such as declassified documents of the Soviet atomic project and U.S. foreign policy archives published online. The need to study the period of 1945-1954 is justified by the fact that all major stereotypes and perceptions of adversary's intentions were formed then, as well as decision-making mechanisms in the nuclear area. Besides, current U.S.-Russian strategic dialogue should be studied in the context, which includes the evolution of both states' nuclear strategies since the earliest years of bipolar confrontation.

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