Word: nuclear
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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These three themes run through the entire work. The first, deterrence, is the main subject. The McNamara doctrine of deterrence replaced the Eisenhower strategy of unleashing nuclear holocaust if the enemy crossed a line drawn by John Foster Dulles with a strategy of graduated response. If, for example, the Soviet Union misreads American intentions as it did in Korea, the U.S. is now prepared to meet Russia with conventional weapons first instead of immediately blowing both civilizations off the map. If the Russians were still unconvinced, tactical nu- thermonuclear responses ranging from "counterforce" (against Soviet missiles) to "countercity" (self-evident...
...merit of the McNamara doctrine, according to Aron, is that it reduces the immediate danger of "nuclear spasm," as American theorists refer to all-out war. But it does so at the cost of increasing the likelihood of conventional or guerrilla wars in which (since massive retaliation is not as imminent) firmness of intent may be tested. Thus Aron speaks of both Russia and the U.S. wielding conventional "swords" behind a nuclear "shield," as the U.S. did when it used the Navy to stop Russian ships during the Cuban missile crisis. The act was possible because of local American superiority...
...grow older, Aron points out, one element in nuclear strategy is changing fast. Both sides are burying their missiles in hardened silos, greatly increasing their ability to destroy the other side entirely even if the enemy struck first. This means that the value of a preemptive nuclear strike is going down and, consequently, that it is becoming less and less logical to actually employ thermonuclear weapons...
...greater the stability at the level of ultimate weapons, the more uncertain it becomes at the level of conventional ones. The more the gap between limited wars and conventional weapons on the one hand and nuclear arms on the other is stressed in both word and deed, the less reason there is to fear escalation. The less reason to fear escalation, the greater the probability of limited conflicts. Hence the tension among allies, some of whom are mainly worried about all-out war (the U.S.) while other worry just as much about limited ones (Europe). Hence, also, vacillations among pacifists...
...give only a taste of Aron's lucidity in a short review. Hopefully it is enough to make you read the entire book, particularly the central chapters on why McNamara's nuclear policy makes more sense than de Gaulle's. McNamara emerges from this book not a frightening war-monger but a man dedicated to precluding thermonuclear war as much as possible while carrying out Johnson's policy assignments. There is little more profitable reading in current political science