Cold War economies encouraged fleets to limit their starting strength even though nuclear attack might remove the shipyards needed for replacements. A strategy that expected quick general nuclear war also left little room for a prolonged conventional conflict. The comparison is Japan's pre-1941 expectation that the United States would cooperate with an attritional advance toward a decisive battle. In both cases, a force optimized around one enemy response becomes strategically brittle when the opponent refuses to follow the scenario.
Notable Point · 1:03:53-1:06:43
Nuclear assumptions distort Cold War force planning
Planning only for rapid nuclear escalation risked leaving fleets too small or specialized for a conventional war that did not follow the expected script.