Conventional Warfare in the Nuclear Age

This book, first published in 1965, examines the doctrine for fighting a conventional war against a nuclear power. Troops must be deployed as if they were fighting a nuclear war: dispersed over a greatly extended battlefield, conducting mobile operations, with no fixed front line, or static defence system, or defence zone. A new strategy of forward defence is needed, whereby significant numbers of troops are dispatched into the enemy's rear, and this book lays out such a strategy, and thereby sets a proposal for the future safety of Western Europe.

Otto Heilbrunn

Part 1. The Influence of Nuclear Doctrine on Conventional Warfare 1. The Setting for Conventional Warfare 2. The New Pattern of Conventional Warfare 3. Deployment in Nuclear War Part 2. A Concept for Conventional Warfare 4. Deployment for Conventional War 5. The Distribution of Troops Over the Front and Rear 6. Technical Problems of Conventional Warfare 7. The Switch From Conventional to Nuclear War Part 3. Conclusions 8. An Assessment of the Debate