Limited War In The Nuclear Age

Using a number of recent conflicts such as Cuba, Korea, and Indochina, Halperin develops a theory of how and why nations use limited means to settle disputes when they possess infinitely greater means of destruction.

"Cold War competition and tensions caused numerous armed conflicts after World War II, but the threat of atomic and nuclear weapons shaped the conduct of those wars and ensured they remained limited. Because the existence of nuclear weapons created the possibility of a small crisis escalating into a vast nuclear exchange, the superpowers sought to deter their use."--Preface

The strategy of limited war has transformed the American approach to the use of force and played a key role in U.S. foreign policy since World War II. As the mainstay of containment it was designed to deter and fight wars effectively at a tolerable cost and risk in the nuclear age by providing the United States with a flexible and controlled response to a variety of military threats. The strategy met a severe challenge in the Vietnam war; it has nevertheless continued to prevail as a doctrine, if not necessarily with its former utility, by adapting to the changing domestic and international environment after Vietnam. Robert E. Osgood critically examines the success, ambiguities, and flaws of the strategy in its expanding application to postwar military policy. He interprets its impact on the Vietnam war and vice versa, extends his analysis to the new challenges posed by changes in technology and the military balance that affect U.S. security, and concludes with a searching inquiry into the problems of limited war where its utility as an instrument of foreign policy is now most in doubt: the Third World.

"This book covers a lot of ground -- from the stirrings of the 'new physics' early in the century to events of June 1988, notably the last meeting between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, and Mr. Gorbachev's special conference of the Soviet Communist party some days later. In between came crises, confrontations, negotiations and even a few arguments, I have tried to relate much of that and to describe the historic effect of nuclear weapons on relations between adversaries, as well as the singular effects of these weapons on relations between allies"--Page xi.

These essays by nuclear policy experts provide “a speculative but serious and well-informed journey through a variety of scenarios and contingencies” (Foreign Affairs). Recent decades have seen a slow but steady increase in nuclear armed states, and in the seemingly less constrained policy goals of some of the newer “rogue” states in the international system. The authors of On Limited Nuclear War in the 21st Century argue that a time may come when one of these states makes the conscious decision that using a nuclear weapon against the United States, its allies, or forward deployed forces in the context of a crisis or a regional conventional conflict may be in its interests. They assert that we are unprepared for these types of limited nuclear wars and that it is urgent we rethink the theory, policy, and implementation of force related to our approaches to this type of engagement. Together they critique Cold War doctrine on limited nuclear war and consider a number of the key concepts that should govern our approach to limited nuclear conflict in the future. These include identifying the factors likely to lead to limited nuclear war; examining the geopolitics of future conflict scenarios that might lead to small-scale nuclear use; and assessing strategies for crisis management and escalation control. Finally, they consider a range of strategies and operational concepts for countering, controlling, or containing limited nuclear war. “A series of trenchant essays that deconstruct a critical national security challenge that most of us wish did not exist. Assembling a star-studded cast of scholars, analysts, and policy practitioners, Larsen and Kartchner have produced some of the most important new thinking on an old topic.” —H-Diplo