The Second Nuclear Age

The Second Nuclear Age

Author: Colin S. Gray

Publisher: Lynne Rienner Publishers

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13: 9781555873318

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The author takes issue with the complacent belief that a happy mixture of deterrence, arms control and luck will enable humanity to cope adequately with weapons of mass destruction, arguing that the risks are ever more serious.


Making Strategy

Making Strategy

Author: Dennis M. Drew

Publisher:

Published: 2002-04

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780898758870

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National secuirty strategy is a vast subject involving a daunting array of interrelated subelements woven in intricate, sometimes vague, and ever-changing patterns. Its processes are often irregular and confusing and are always based on difficult decisions laden with serious risks. In short, it is a subject understood by few and confusing to most. It is, at the same time, a subject of overwhelming importance to the fate of the United States and civilization itself. Col. Dennis M. Drew and Dr. Donald M. Snow have done a considerable service by drawing together many of the diverse threads of national security strategy into a coherent whole. They consider political and military strategy elements as part of a larger decisionmaking process influenced by economic, technological, cultural, and historical factors. I know of no other recent volume that addresses the entire national security milieu in such a logical manner and yet also manages to address current concerns so thoroughly. It is equally remarkable that they have addressed so many contentious problems in such an evenhanded manner. Although the title suggests that this is an introductory volume - and it is - I am convinced that experienced practitioners in the field of national security strategy would benefit greatly from a close examination of this excellent book. Sidney J. Wise Colonel, United States Air Force Commander, Center for Aerospace Doctrine, Research and Education


Battlefield of the Future - 21st Century Warfare Issues

Battlefield of the Future - 21st Century Warfare Issues

Author: Lawrence Grinter

Publisher: CreateSpace

Published: 2012-08-01

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 9781478361886

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This is a book about strategy and war fighting. It contains 11 essays which examine topics such as military operations against a well-armed rogue state, the potential of parallel warfare strategy for different kinds of states, the revolutionary potential of information warfare, the lethal possibilities of biological warfare and the elements of an ongoing revolution in military affairs. The purpose of the book is to focus attention on the operational problems, enemy strategies and threat that will confront U.S. national security decision makers in the twenty-first century.


Getting MAD: Nuclear Mutual Assured Destruction, Its Origins and Practice

Getting MAD: Nuclear Mutual Assured Destruction, Its Origins and Practice

Author:

Publisher: DIANE Publishing

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 369

ISBN-13: 1428910336

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Nearly 40 years after the concept of finite deterrence was popularized by the Johnson administration, nuclear Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) thinking appears to be in decline. The United States has rejected the notion that threatening population centers with nuclear attacks is a legitimate way to assure deterrence. Most recently, it withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, an agreement based on MAD. American opposition to MAD also is reflected in the Bush administration's desire to develop smaller, more accurate nuclear weapons that would reduce the number of innocent civilians killed in a nuclear strike. Still, MAD is influential in a number of ways. First, other countries, like China, have not abandoned the idea that holding their adversaries' cities at risk is necessary to assure their own strategic security. Nor have U.S. and allied security officials and experts fully abandoned the idea. At a minimum, acquiring nuclear weapons is still viewed as being sensible to face off a hostile neighbor that might strike one's own cities. Thus, our diplomats have been warning China that Japan would be under tremendous pressure to go nuclear if North Korea persisted in acquiring a few crude weapons of its own. Similarly, Israeli officials have long argued, without criticism, that they would not be second in acquiring nuclear weapons in the Middle East. Indeed, given that Israelis surrounded by enemies that would not hesitate to destroy its population if they could, Washington finds Israel's retention of a significant nuclear capability totally "understandable."


Inadvertent Escalation

Inadvertent Escalation

Author: Barry R. Posen

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2014-01-13

Total Pages: 295

ISBN-13: 080146837X

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In this sobering book, Barry R. Posen demonstrates how the interplay between conventional military operations and nuclear forces could, in conflicts among states armed with both conventional and nuclear weaponry, inadvertently produce pressures for nuclear escalation. Knowledge of these hidden pressures, he believes, may help some future decision maker avoid catastrophe.Building a formidable argument that moves with cumulative force, he details the way in which escalation could occur not by mindless accident, or by deliberate preference for nuclear escalation, but rather as a natural accompaniment of land, naval, or air warfare at the conventional level. Posen bases his analysis on an empirical study of the east-west military competition in Europe during the 1980s, using a conceptual framework drawn from international relations theory, organization theory, and strategic theory.The lessons of his book, however, go well beyond the east-west competition. Since his observations are relevant to all military competitions between states armed with both conventional and nuclear weaponry, his book speaks to some of the problems that attend the proliferation of nuclear weapons in longstanding regional conflicts. Optimism that small and medium nuclear powers can easily achieve "stable" nuclear balances is, he believes, unwarranted.


The Future of the U.S. Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Force

The Future of the U.S. Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Force

Author: Lauren Caston

Publisher: Rand Corporation

Published: 2014-02-04

Total Pages: 185

ISBN-13: 0833076264

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The authors assess alternatives for a next-generation intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) across a broad set of potential characteristics and situations. They use the current Minuteman III as a baseline to develop a framework to characterize alternative classes of ICBMs, assess the survivability and effectiveness of possible alternatives, and weigh those alternatives against their cost.


The Power to Coerce

The Power to Coerce

Author: David C. Gompert

Publisher: Rand Corporation

Published: 2016-02-25

Total Pages: 53

ISBN-13: 0833090615

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Mounting costs, risks, and public misgivings of waging war are raising the importance of U.S. power to coerce (P2C). The best P2C options are financial sanctions, support for nonviolent political opposition to hostile regimes, and offensive cyber operations. The state against which coercion is most difficult and risky is China, which also happens to pose the strongest challenge to U.S. military options in a vital region.


Strategic Stability in the Second Nuclear Age

Strategic Stability in the Second Nuclear Age

Author: Gregory D. Koblentz

Publisher: Council on Foreign Relations

Published: 2014-11-01

Total Pages: 68

ISBN-13: 0876096119

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The world has entered a second nuclear age shaped by rising nuclear states and military technologies. Gregory Koblentz argues that the United States should work with the other nuclear-armed states to manage threats to nuclear stability in the near term and establish processes for multilateral arms control efforts over the longer term.