Edward Luttwak
On May 1, 1954, for its May Day air show, the Soviet Air Force flew a pair of four-engined Myasishchev-4 jet bombers over Red Square. With their ultra-modern lines, and dimensions large enough to suggest a sufficient range to reach Washington DC, they made a powerful impression. In those days, of course, there was no high-altitude photography — let alone the later satellite imagery that could reveal new Soviet aircraft in their prototype stage, long before they could be perfected or put into production at scale.
All the Pentagon had to rely on were CIA defector reports, rarely helpful and quickly outdated. But it was a second display, in 1955, that sowed panic in Washington. That July, 10 Mya-4s flew past the Tsushino airfield reviewing stand, before diving out of sight and returning with eight more, creating the false impression that the Soviets had 28 such aircraft overall. Wrongly assuming that Moscow had increased production from two to almost 30 in a single year and would continue to ramp up output, the CIA and Air Force Intelligence predicted that, by 1960, the Soviets would have 800 Mya-4s, enough to attack even smaller American cities.
In the meantime, the Mya-4’s Mikulin engines primarily designed by captured German engineers proved unsuitable for intercontinental flight: they were too fuel-hungry to reach Washington DC. But terrified into action, the US military establishment started down a path that would revolutionise technology for the rest of the century, while also turning the US into a computer superpower. So long as it pays for truly new technology with a broad scope, and not for more of the same, even unnecessary military spending can still prove very useful, turning the wealth it absorbs into innovation and economically important technological advances. It’s a valuable lesson for governments considering how to rearm in our own time.