The Best Defense: Policy Alternatives for U.S. Nuclear Security from the 1950s to the 1990s

David Goldfischer

Published by Cornell University Press 1993

The Best Defense

Policy Alternatives for U.S. Nuclear Security from the 1950s to the 1990s

David Goldfischer

In the series Cornell Studies in Security Affairs

https://doi.org/10.7591/9781501736681

Overview
Contents

About this book

A fundamental question posed by the demise of the cold war is whether the superpowers' monumentally dangerous and costly arms buildup was necessary.

Was it inevitable that the United States and the Soviet Union acquire capabilities to destroy each other in a nuclear war? Or could they have agreed instead to address the nuclear danger through mutual emphasis on defenses? Might such an approach be a feasible option for nuclear powers in today's world?

Examining crucial episodes in U.S. security history from the Truman years through the Reagan administration, David Goldfischer considers how figures including J. Robert Oppenheimer, Donald G. Brennan, Freeman Dyson, and Jonathan Schell advanced compelling arguments for seeking an arms control agreement favoring defenses against nuclear attack. Goldfischer offers provocative explanations for why this approach, known as "mutual defense emphasis" (MDE), was rejected in favor of the offense-dominated strategies of nuclear warfighting or "mutual assured destruction" (MAD). The failure seriously to explore MDE, he shows, left supporters of arms control with a false choice between the extremes of MAD and a utopian search for complete nuclear disarmament. Goldfischer concludes with a discussion of how the "Strategic Defense Initiative" (Star Wars)—which used the rhetoric of MDE to mask a renewed search for a nuclear warfighting strategy—has since the 1980s undermined the prospect for serious debate over defense emphasis.

Policymakers, activists, political scientists, and scholars and students of security studies and postwar U.S. defense history will welcome this book.

Author / Editor information

David Goldfischer is Associate Professor at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Acronyms Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. The Meaning of Offense and Defense Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	13
2. The Nuclear Policy Stalemate and the Search for Alternatives (1972-1991) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	38
3. The Argument for Mutual Defense Emphasis Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	51
4. Mutual Defense Emphasis in the Bomber Age Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	79
5. The Origins and Influence of Offense-Only Arms Control Theory (1960-1972) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	147
6. Mutual Defense Emphasis in the 1960s Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	175
7. Strategic Defense without Star Wars: Defense Emphasis in the 1980s and Beyond Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	223
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	273

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Audience: General/trade;
Pages
- Main content: 288
Keywords: cold war; arms buildup; nuclear war; mutual defense emphasis; arms control; strategic defense initiative; defense strategy

eBook

Published: May 15, 2019
ISBN: 9781501736681