The Warsaw Pact War Plan of 1964, by Petr Luňák

The 1964 operational plan for the Czechoslovak  People´s Army (Československá lidova armáda or ČSLA) was the result of the reevaluation of Eastern Bloc military strategy after Stalin´s death. While the Polish plan of 1951 reflects plain defensive thinking whereby the Polish army was not supposed to leave Polish territory and no reference was made to nuclear weapons, a decade and a half later, according  to the ambitious imaginings of the then Czechoslovak and Soviet military planners, the ČSLA was expected to operate on the territory of southeastern France within a few days, turning Western Europe into a nuclear inferno.

The principles on which the Polish and Czechoslovak armies based their strategies in the 1950´s and 1960´s mirrored Soviet thinking of the time. Most important question raised by comparing the two plans is this: when did the change in military thinking in the Eastern bloc occur and why? Further, it is necessary to ask when exactly did it take on the characteristics contained in the plan of 1964? Naturally, precise and definitive answers cannot be given until military archives of the former Soviet union are made accessible. In the meantime, material from East European sources can at least hint at some answers.

 

The Advent of Nuclear Weapons

During the first years after the formation of the Eastern bloc, the Czechoslovak  People´s Army – probably like all other communist armies after World War II – concentrated on planning  the defence of Czechoslovak territory. The designs for military exercises held in the first half of the 1950´s illustrate this. While exercises on maps as well as involving troops in the field did also occasionally include offensive operations, they almost never took place outside Czechoslovak soil.  In a small number of cases, advancing into foreign  territory was considered, but only in the larger framework of a successful pushback of an enemy offensive and the subsequent breakthrough of their defence.[1]

The vagueness of Czechoslovak thinking vis-à-vis operations abroad is also apparent in the military cartographic work of this period. The first mapping of territory on the basic scale of 1 : 50 000, begun in 1951, covered Czechoslovak territory only. When , under the newly adopted Soviet system, the plan for drawing up military maps of foreign territories was presented a year later, the Czechoslovak cartographers were expected, by the end of the 1950s, to have mapped only parts of southern Germany and the whole of Austria. During the following years, the mapping was indeed based on this schdule.[2]

The change from defensive to outright offensive thinking, which came after Stalin's death, is connected with a reevaluation of the role of nuclear arms. While Stalin himself did  not overlook nuclear weapons and made a giant effort to obtain them in the second half of the 1940´s,  he did not consider them to be an important strategic element due to their small number. As a consquence, his so called „permanently operating factors“ (stability of the rear, morale of the army, quantity and quality of divisions, armament of the army and the organizational ability of army commanders), which were, in his view, to decide the next, if not any, war, remained the official dogma until his death. This rather simplistic concept completely ignored any other factors. First and foremost, it did not take into account the moment of surprise and the importance of taking the initiative.

Only after dictator died was there room for discussion among Soviet strategists on the implications of nuclear weapons which, in the meantime, became the cornerstone of U.S. massive retaliation doctrine.[3] Consequently, nuclear arms were gradually included in the plans of both the Soviet army and those of the satellite countries. For instance, in the  1952 combat directives of the Soviet Army, nuclear weapons were almost entirely left out. When these directives were adopted by ČSLA in 1954 translated word for word, a special supplement on the effects of nuclear weapons had to be quickly created and added.[4]

The extent to which the Czechoslovak leadership was informed of Soviet operational plans remains an open question. In any case, its members were in no way deterred by the prospect of massive retaliation by the West. Alexej Čepička, the Czechoslovak Minister of National Defense and later one of the few „victims“ of the Czechoslovak destalinization, saw nuclear weapons like any other, but with greater destructive powers. In 1954 , he declared that „nuclear weapons alone will not be the deciding factor in achieving victory. Although the use of atomic weapons will strongly affect the way in which battles and operations are conducted as well as life in the depths of combat, the significance of all types  of armies […] remains valid. On the contrary, their importance is gaining significance.“[5]

Given the nuclear inferiority of the East, such a s casual handling of nuclear weapons was tantamount to making a virtue out of necessity.  In all fairness, however, it should be noted that although Western leaders verbally stressed the radical difference between nuclear and conventional weapons, military planners in both the East and West did their job in preparing for the same scenario – a massive conflict with the use of all means at their disposal.

There were, however, fundamental differences in the understanding of this nuclear conflict and its potential consequences.  In the thinking of the Czechoslovak and probably of the Soviet military headquarters of the time, nuclear weapons would determine the speed of war but not its entire character. Since nuclear arms considerably  shortened the stages of war, according to the Eastern logic, it became necessary to try to gain the decisive initiative with a powerful strike against enemy forces, making use of the moment of surprise. Contrary to the U.S. doctrine of massive retaliation, the Soviet bloc's response would have made use not only of nuclear weapons, but, in view of Soviet conventional superiority, also of conventional weapons. This massive retaliation, in the Soviet view, did not make planning beyond it irrelevant. Contrary to Western planners of the time, Soviet strategists assumed that their massive strike would only create the conditions for winning the war by the classic method of seizing enemy territory. Once persuaded by the preposterous idea of winning a nuclear war, Eastern bloc operational plans looked upon such a war a realistic scenario thereby downgrading any Western deterrent and making a war perilously more realitic as a prospect. 

The idea that offense is the best defense quickly found its way into Czechoslovak plans for building and training its armed forces. From the exercise season of 1954/1955 the „use of offensive operations … with the use of nuclear and chemical weapons“ became one of the main training topics and the ČSLA prepared itself almost exclusively for offensive operations.[6]  Defence was now supposed to be organized in such a way that the change to counter-offensive operations, making use of moment of surprise, could be swiftly undertaken in all circumstances.[7]

Taking the use of nuclear arms into consideration, a military mapping of southeastern Germany stretching to the German-French border was undertaken, from 1955 onwards, on a scale 1:100 000, which was considered adequate for this kind of operation.

It should be noted that the planning of operations using nuclear weapons from the first day of conflict posed difficulties for the Czechoslovak military staff who proved reluctant  to engage in such a risky business. In reality, complaints along these lines to the highest representatives of the Ministry of National Defense had no real basis, since the Czechoslovak military staff had neither access to nuclear weapons, nor were any nuclear weapons placed on Czechoslovak territory.[8]  

 

Deep into Enemy Territory

The introduction of nuclear weapons into the military plans of the Eastern bloc and the emphasis on achieving the moment of surprise greatly influenced the role and understanding of ground operations. The main task of ground forces now was to quickly penetrate enemy territory and to destroy the enemy´s nuclear and conventional forces on his own soil, thus protecting a great part of their own territory and population.

The ambition to reach take Lyons on the 9th day of the conflict, as outlined in the 1964 plan, did not appear overnight. Until the late 1950s, offensive operations of the ČSLA during exercises ended around the 10th day of fighting no further west than the Nuremberg-Ingolstadt line.[9]  These exercise designs show that the so-called Prague-Saarland direction (Prague-Nuremberg-Saarbrücken) was clearly favoured over the Alpine direction Brno-Vienna-Munich-Basel.[10]

With the aim of enhancing the mobility of the army and coming closer to the ambitions reflected in the 1964 plan, the Czechoslovak military staff, upon order of the Soviet military headquarters, began a relocation of military forces in 1958 which concentrated the maximum number of highly mobile tank divisions in the western part of the country.[11]  Also as one of the  lessons of the ongoing Berlin crisis, the military institutionalization of the Warsaw Pact led to the creation of individual fronts. In this new framework, the CSLA was responsible for one entire front with its own command and tasks set forth by the Soviet military headquarters.[12]

Before these organizational changes were implemented, they were already applied in military exercises where the newly created fronts were to be synchronized.  While the designs of the exercises and the tasks of the participants cannot be considered an exact reflection of operational planning, they show that the time to reach certain lines on the western battlefield had been gradually shortened and that the depth reached by Czechoslovak troops had been enhanced. In one of the first  front exercises in 1960, the ČSLA was already supposed to operate on the Stuttgart -Dachau line the 4th day.  The operational front exercise of March 1961 went even further in assuming that the Dijon-Lyon line would be reached on the 6th-7th day of operations. At the operational front exercise in September 1961, the Czechoslovak front practised supporting an offensive by the the front made up of Soviet and East German forces. In this framework the line Bonn-Metz -Strasbourg was to be reached on the 7th and 8th day. An exercise conducted in December 1961 gave the Czechoslovak front the task of reaching the Besancon-Belfort line on the 7th day of operations.[13]  

From the early 1960s onward, massive war games with similar designs were undertaken in Legnica, Poland, in the presence of commands of individual fronts. The assumed time span and territory covered in these exercises already reflected the thinking of the 1964 plan.

The Czechoslovak was not given the main strategic task on the Central European battlefield which was represented in the Warsaw Pact plans by the Warsaw-Berlin axis. For instance, during the joint front exercise VÍTR (Wind) besides taking Nancy, France, the Czechoslovak front was „to be prepared to secure the left wing  of the Eastern forces [the Warsaw Pact – P.L.] against the neutral state [Austria – P.L.] in case its neutrality was broken.“[14]  

Due to the greater number of nuclear weapons in the Soviet hands, the Soviets became more cautious in the way they planned to use them. If the military planners initially considered the use of nuclear arms right from the beginning of conflict, which was supposed to be set off by a massive strike from the West, gradually the term ‘preemptive nuclear strike’ entered into the operational considerations of the ČSLA. A massive nuclear strike  was supposed to be used only if three sources confirmed that the enemy was about to use nuclear weapons.

Although still far from nuclear parity with the U.S., due to the greater number of nuclear weapons they possessed, the Soviets began to regard them  not merely as weapons like any other. For N.S.Khrushchev, who in 1957-1958 succeeded in his power struggle, nuclear weapons were both a tool to exert political pressure and a military deterrent which would discourage the other side from using them. Thus a further demilitarization of ther Cold war could be achieved through cuts in ground forces. Consequently, nuclear weapons acquired an even  more prominent role in planning for massive retaliation.  The Czechoslovak military headquarters of this period hinted at this as follows: 

For the states of the Warsaw Treaty and specifically for the ČSSR, it is important not to allow the enemy to make a joint attack and not to allow him to gain advantageous conditions for the development of ground force operations and thus gain strategic dominance. Basically, this means that our means for an atomic strike must be in such a state of military readiness that they would be able to deal with task of carrying out a nuclear counter strike with a time lag of only seconds or tenths of seconds.[15]

 

Flexible Response à la Warsaw Pact

The US move  from massive retaliation to flexible response during the early 1960s brought changes to the strategy of the Warsaw Pact. Somewhat later, the new thinking  also entered the exercise plans of the ČSLA. According to the training directives of 1964, the ČSLA was supposed to carry out training for the early stages of war not only with the use of nuclear weapons but, for the first time since mid-1950s, also without them. At a major joint exercise of the Warsaw Pact in the summer of 1964, the early phase of the of war was envisaged without nuclear weapons.[16]

However, flexible response as conceived by the Warsaw Pact was not a mere mirror-image of the Western version. The U.S. attempt to limit conflict to a supposedly acceptable level by introducing „thresholds“ and „pauses“ resulted from an agreement between political leaders and the military who pretended to know how to prevent it from developping into s nuclear nightmare. In the East, on the other hand,  the concept was based only on a military – and probably more realistic – assessment according to which a conflict was, sooner or later, going to escalate into a global nuclear war. In the words of the the Minister of National Defense Bohumír Lomský: 

All of these speculative theories of Western strategists about limiting nuclear arms use and about the spiral effect of the increase of their power have one goal: In order to start a global nuclear war, they want to stay in the advantageous position for the best timing of a joint nuclear attack in the given balance of power circumstances. We reject these false speculative theories. Each use of nuclear arms by an aggressor will be answered with a joint nuclear offensive using all the means of the Warsaw Pact countries, on the whole depth and aiming at all targets of the enemy coalition.

We have no intentions to be the first to resort to the use of nuclear weapons. Although we do not believe in the truthfulness and the reality of these Western theories, we cannot discount that the imperialists could try to start a war without the immediate use of nuclear arms on our battle fields. That is why we must also be prepared for this possibility.[17]

In line with this crude thinking, the Czechoslovak, and most probably the Soviet generals assumed that there was only one threshold, i.e. that between conventional and nuclear war. Warsaw Pact thus stood  somewhere between massive retaliation and flexible response.  

According to some contemporary accounts, it was in this period that the term of preemptive nuclear strike appeared in Warsaw Pact plans. A massive nuclear strike was supposed to be used only if three sources had confirmed that the enemy was about to employ nuclear weapons. 

All exercises carried out in the following years make it clear that the use of nuclear weapons was expected no later than the third day of operations. However, exercises that counted on the use of nuclear arms from the very beginning were also no exception.[18] In any case, the Czechoslovak war plan of 1964 shows how little the Eastern planners believed in relevance of Western flexible response. Not only does it not consider the possibility of a non-nuclear war, but it assumes that the war will start with a massive nuclear strike by the West.

 

The Czechoslovak Plan of 1964

Considering the great degree of secrecy surrounding these documents, only a few people in the 1960s had direct experience or contact with the 1964 Czechoslovak plan. However, several sporadic accounts make at least some sort of conclusions possible. The plan was the first of its kind  to have been drawn up in the ČSLA, in the aftermath of the Berlin crisis. According to the late Václav Vitanovský, then Chief of Operations, the plan came about as a result of directives from Moscow.[19]  These directives were then worked into operational plans by the individual armies. Vitanovsky explained: "When we had finished, we took  it back to Moscow, where they looked it over, endorsed it and said yes, we agree. Or they changed it. Changes were made right there on the spot."[20] 

The orders for the Czechoslovak front stated that the valleys in the Vosges mountains were to be reached. Undoubtedly, this was meant to prepare the way for troops of the second echelon made up of Soviet troops. 

The 1964 plan remained valid until at least 1968 and probably much later.[21] However, already in the mid-1960s, a number of revisions were undertaken. According to contemporary accounts, the Soviet leadership was afraid that the Czechoslovak front was not capable of fullfilling its tasks and, accordingly, the territory which was assigned to ČSLA shrank. To support the ambitions of the 1964 plans, since 1965 Moscow were trying to impose the stationing of a number of Soviet divisions on Czechoslovak territory. Furthermore, in December 1965, the Soviets forced the Czechoslovak government to sign an agreement on the storage of nuclear warheads on Czech soil. Both these measures only became feasible after the Soviet invasion in 1968.

PETR LUÑÁK specializes in European security issues. A Czech foreign service officer, he is currently on the staff of the NATO Office of Information and Press in Brussels. He is a graduate of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington and has taught security studies at Charles University in Prague.

 

Notes

[1] According to these rather theoretical considerations, the ČSLA was to reach the Alps 17 days after pushback of the enemy attack. Cf. exercises of the ČSLA air force command of July 1952 on the topic Air support for striking operations of the army, Vojenský historický archiv Vojenský ústředního archivu (VHA VUA - Military Historical Archive of the Central Military Archives, Prague, Czech Republic), fond Ministerstvo národní obrany (MNO - Ministry of National Defense), 1952, box 280, sig 83/1-4, c.j. 46577.

[2] During the existence of the Eastern bloc, the ČSLA used the largest scale of 1: 25 000 exclusively to map the territory of Czechoslovakia and some operationally difficult areas in Western Europe, i.e. the Rhine and Main river valleys and other major rivers in West Germany. Cf. Summary of maps of the 1: 50 000 scale in the 1946 system. Planned outlook of cartographic works at 1: 50 000 – foreign territory, VHA VUA, MNO/Operations, 1952, box 369, sig. 97/2, c.j. 2131.

[3] The change in strategic thinking and ensuing discussions among Soviet strategists, taking place in the journal Vojennaja mysl, are described by Herbert S. Dinerstein in his book War and the Soviet Union: Nuclear Weapons and the Revolution in Soviet Military and Political Thinking, New York, 1959 and by R. Garthoff, Soviet Strategy in the Nuclear Age,  New York, 1958.

[4] VUA, MNO, 1954, box 22, sig. 80 5/1-57, c.j. 0037.

[5] Statement of the Minister of National Defence, Alexej Cepicka in an analysis of the joint troop exercises on September 29, 1954, VHA VUA, MNO, 1954, box 446, sig. 832/1 – 130, c.j. 3600 – GS/OS.

[6] Guidelines for the operational preparation of generals, officers and the staff of all types of services for the training period of 1955/56, VUA, MNO, box 596, sig. 83, c.j. 5800.

[7] Analysis of the command-staff exercises of June 1958, VHA VUA, MNO, box 310, sig. 17/2 – 28, c.j. 4813 – OS. Theses on the organization of the defense operations command at the level of army divisions. VHA VUA, MNO, 1957, box 327, sig. 17/7 – 32, c.j. 2395 – 08/1957. VHA VUA, MNO, 1957, box 326, sig. 17/1 – 13, c.j. 1803 - OU.

[8] Guidelines for operational-tactical preparations of the generals, officers and staff of all types of forces. VHA VUA, MNO, 1958, box 310, sig. 17/3-8, c.j. 5000-08/1958.

[9] The design of the mutual and two-tiered exercise of the commanders and staff in March 1958, VHA VUA, MNO, 1958, box 311, sig. 17/3 – 28, c.j. 1730. Analysis of the military staff exercises from June 1958, VHA VUA, MNO, 1958, box 311, sig. 17/2-28. Analysis of the operational exercises of the commanders of April 1959, VHA VUA, MNO, 1959, box 300, sig. 17/3-8, c.j. 9083.

[10] This is also reflected in the recommendations of the Czechoslovak military cartographers and strategists in 1959. See Zapadnyi teatr vojennych dejstvij, VHA VUA, MNO, 1959, box 300, sig. 17/7-9, c.j. 8576 – OS/59.

[11] See Principles for the new relocation of the Czechoslovak People’s Army, VUA, MNO, box 312, sig. 18/3-14, c.j. 3764 – OS/1958. See also sig. 18/3/67, c.j. 4395/OS.

[12] The formation of the front included almost all Czechoslovak ground troops: 15 mobilized divisions arranged into 3 armies, the air force, an airborne brigade and the accompanying technical and rear equipment. The command was given to the general staff of the ČSLA; the chief-of-staff became the commander of this front.

[13] Analysis of joint exercises at the Ministry of National Defense in 1960, VUA, MNO, 1960, box 394, sig. 6/5, c.j. 17989-OS/1960, VUA, MNO, 1961, box 347, sig. 17/1-4, c.j. 1659/OS-1961. VUA, MNO, 1961, box, 347, sig. 17/2-24, c.j. 4135. VUA, MNO, 1961, box 348, sig. 17/2-31, c.j. 4922/21.

[14] Exercise Wind (Vítr), VHA VUA, MNO, 1962, box 304, sig. 17 2/13, c.j. 12650/1962. VHA VUA,  MNO, 1962, box 305, sig. 2-15, c.j. 12130.

[15] Lecture On the Character of Present-day War, VUA, MNO, 1961, sig. 4 1-6, c.j. 16196 - NGS.

[16] Based on experiences with the Sputnik exercises, one of the main tasks for the exercise season of 1965/66 was set to be the training of operations without the use of weapons of mass destruction. See Guidelines for the preparation of generals, officers and warrant-officers of the Ministry of National Defence in 1965,  VUA, MNO, 1964, box 269, sig. 17/1-5, c.j. 1400/19.

[17] Exercise Sputnik, VUA, MNO, 1964, box 270, sig. 17/2-3, c.j. 11500/108-54/1964.

[18] Conclusions from the exercise October Storm on October 16-22, 1965, VUA, MNO, 1965, box 242, sig. 4/4, c.j. 17841.

[19] In the 1960s, Václav Vitanovský  was considered a guru of Czechoslovak military thinking. In 1964 he published a textbook on the theory of strategy and doctrine. He was deposed already in 1967 for coming into conflict with the Soviet generals, who pressed the Czechoslovak military headquarters to raise military expenditures and number of troops.

[20] Minutes of the analysis of General Major Václav Vitanovský of November 20, 1990. Institute of Modern History, collection of the CSFR’s Government Commission for the analysis of the years 1967-70, R-105. Unfortunately, half of the interview have been lost. Colonel Karel Štěpánek, Chief of the Operations Room at the General Staff at the time and another participant in the preparation of the 1964 plan, also confirmed this procedure in an interview with the author.

[21] The mapping of Western Europe during the 1970s and 80s also seems to confirm that the 1964 plan was valid until the second half of the 1980s. It is apparent from the plan of map renewal in the 70s and 80s for individual Warsaw Pact countries, that the CSLA was still responsible for the same area as during the 1960s. The same goes for the scale of 1: 100 000. See Plan utocnenija sovmestnych rabot geograficeskich  sluzb armij  gosudarstv-uscastnikov Varsavskogo dogovora po obnovlenii topograficeskich kart na 1972-1975 gody, VHA VUA, fond Varsavska smlouva (VS), Topo, c.j. 004/75-12. Also see, Plan utocnenija ucastnikov Varsavskogo dogovora po obnovlenii topograficeskich kart na 1976-1980 gody, VUA,  VS,  Topo, c.j. 5643/4.