Debating Counterforce

Since the U.S. presidential elections of 1980, debate has intensified between those who believe that nuclear weapons can only deter a war not intended to be fought and those who see nuclear weapons as an advancement in weaponry that allows for the waging and winning of a nuclear war. At the focal point of this debate is the rise of the “counterforc

Examining the future of nuclear deterrence in the 1990s and beyond, this book outlines aspects of the evolving strategic environment. It also projects the likely future of deterrence strategies and strategic force postures. Other topics, such as the Soviet nuclear doctrine are also covered.

Through an analysis of the language and persuasive strategies used by the Reagan and Bush administrations in selling the SDI program to the Congress and the American public, Bjork takes a fresh approach to the study of U.S. foreign policy. She focuses on the shared meanings and understandings of policy as they are created through sociocultural interaction. Using Kenneth Burke's philosophy and critical method of dramatism as a theoretical framework, she shows how Reagan's SDI program appealed symbolically to a nostalgic sense of American history, replete with powerful images of American innocence and technological ingenuity in the face of difficult obstacles. Bjork concludes that the program has been shielded from criticism, has achieved symbolic and bureaucratic momentum, and serves to reinforce the isolation felt by ordinary American citizens from access to decisions over life and death issues.

In 2002 the Bush administration completed a Nuclear Posture Review that introduced a ‘new triad’ based on offensive-strike systems, defences and a revitalized defence infrastructure. The new triad is designed for a new strategic threat environment, characterized not by a long-standing nuclear rivalry with another superpower, but by unstable relationships with rogue-state proliferators, alongside more ambiguous relations with nuclear-weapon powers. Providing a historical context to these modifications to US nuclear strategy, Nuclear Superiority details how the new triad, which strongly emphasizes the need to bolster the credibility of the nuclear deterrent and to prepare for nuclear use when deterrence fails, is founded on previous efforts to secure nuclear superiority against the Soviet Union and counter-proliferation capabilities against WMD-proliferant adversaries. It illustrates how the evolution of American nuclear strategy towards more effective counter-force capabilities, regardless of the current threat environment, has led to a host of counter-force developments. David S. McDonough explores how this strategy is based on the long-standing American desire to control conflict escalation and how it may invite crisis instability with regional adversaries and disquiet among established nuclear powers.

In what Stanley Hoffmann, writing in The New York Review of Books, has called a "fine analysis and critique of American targeting policies," Sagan looks more at the operational side of nuclear strategy than previous analysts have done, seeking to bridge the gap between theory and practice.