The missile gap was a lie by the US Air Force to justify building more nukes, by falsely claiming that the Soviet Union had more nukes than the US
This statement is not supported by the link used as a reference. Was it a lie? The reference speaks to failed intelligence and political manipulation using the perceived gap. The phrasing above suggests conspiracy.
National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) 11-10-57, issued in December 1957, predicted that the Soviets would “probably have a first operational capability with up to 10 prototype ICBMs” at “some time during the period from mid-1958 to mid-1959.” The numbers started to inflate. A similar report gathered only a few months later, NIE 11-5-58, released in August 1958, concluded that the USSR had “the technical and industrial capability… to have an operational capability with 100 ICBMs” some time in 1960 and perhaps 500 ICBMs “some time in 1961, or at the latest in 1962.”[1] However, senior U.S. leadership knew these estimates of existing Soviet missile capabilities were completely inaccurate...They kept the American public in the dark even though they knew from the start that the Soviets were monitoring the U-2 overflights. On the very day of the first U-2 overflight the Soviet ambassador to Washington protested the high-altitude violation of Soviet airspace, a fact denied by Washington and reported on by the press.
This implies an intentional, coordinated falsehood (“kept the American public in the dark”, plus denying relevant true information).
So by presenting a “potential” number of missiles as “the soviets had this many” what were the consequences?
This led to more funding for the USA to build weapons, which in turn caused the soviets to build more? Or did it deter a “sneak attack” where the soviets could build in secret far more missiles and win a nuclear war?
Basically until the USA had enough arms for “assured destruction” this was a risk. A more realistic view of how many missiles the Soviets probably had extends the number of years there isn’t enough funding to pay for “assured destruction”.
Then again maybe the scenario where by the 1980s, civilization ending numbers of missiles were possessed by each side could have been avoided.
My point here is that a policy of honesty may not really work in a situation where the other side is a bad actor.
Read The Doomsday Machine. The US Air Force is way less of a defensive or utilitarian actor than you are implying, e.g. for a significant period of time the only US nuclear war plan (which was hidden from Kennedy) involved bombing as many Chinese cities as possible even if it was Russia who had attacked the US. (In general I avoid giving the benefit of the doubt to dishonest violent criminals even if they call themselves “the government”, but here we have extra empirical data)
I am not arguing that. I know the government does bad things and I read other books on that era. I was really just noting the consequences of an alternate policy might not have been any better.
This statement is not supported by the link used as a reference. Was it a lie? The reference speaks to failed intelligence and political manipulation using the perceived gap. The phrasing above suggests conspiracy.
This implies an intentional, coordinated falsehood (“kept the American public in the dark”, plus denying relevant true information).
So by presenting a “potential” number of missiles as “the soviets had this many” what were the consequences?
This led to more funding for the USA to build weapons, which in turn caused the soviets to build more? Or did it deter a “sneak attack” where the soviets could build in secret far more missiles and win a nuclear war?
Basically until the USA had enough arms for “assured destruction” this was a risk. A more realistic view of how many missiles the Soviets probably had extends the number of years there isn’t enough funding to pay for “assured destruction”.
Then again maybe the scenario where by the 1980s, civilization ending numbers of missiles were possessed by each side could have been avoided.
My point here is that a policy of honesty may not really work in a situation where the other side is a bad actor.
Read The Doomsday Machine. The US Air Force is way less of a defensive or utilitarian actor than you are implying, e.g. for a significant period of time the only US nuclear war plan (which was hidden from Kennedy) involved bombing as many Chinese cities as possible even if it was Russia who had attacked the US. (In general I avoid giving the benefit of the doubt to dishonest violent criminals even if they call themselves “the government”, but here we have extra empirical data)
I am not arguing that. I know the government does bad things and I read other books on that era. I was really just noting the consequences of an alternate policy might not have been any better.