that the Soviet Union wanted to start a war, but the plans were prepared for the possibility that one might break out as a result of a miscalculation. The Soviet Union had fifty divisions in Germany and Austria to the US Army's one, enough to quickly overrun Europe east of the Rhine. This was a major barrier, but it was not considered that it could be held for long, forcing a retreat to the Pyrenees. In view of the Soviet Union's overwhelming superiority in conventional forces, the planners felt that the United States had no alternative means of striking back other than a strategic air offensive employing both conventional and nuclear weapons. Admiral Louis E. Denfeld, who had succeeded Nimitz as CNO on 15 December 1947, was critical of the war plan, which he regarded as deeply flawed. He noted that abandoning Western Europe without a struggle ran counter to the US Government policy of building up the democracies there, and it meant accepting the loss of the Mediterranean Sea as well. The plan called for using the Karachi area as a base for the strategic air campaign, but this would involve an enormous logistical effort to sustain, and it would not support other elements of the war plan. Moreover, there was no fallback in case the strategic bombing campaign failed. He was willing to sign off on the plan only as a temporary one for short-range planning and advocated a more aggressive strategy in which the Rhine and Middle East were held. None of the three services had the resources to implement the short-term war plan, much less the more ambitious one. Strategic bombing In the years leading up to World War II, the United States Army Air Corps had developed a doctrine of strategic bombing, which was promulgated by the Air Corps Tactical School. The experience of strategic bombing during World War II revealed major flaws in the Air Corps' precision bombing doctrine. Unescorted bombers were found to be highly vulnerable to fighters and took high losses. Improvements in anti-aircraft guns drove the bombers to higher altitudes, from which accurate bombing was difficult. None of the principal targets of the bombing offensive in Europe was destroyed or even suffered severe disruption and only the oil campaign was ultimately regarded as successful. Air raids on Japan encountered weather and flying conditions that made daylight precision bombing from high altitude