Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Cameron
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Arms Control ◽  
The United States ◽  
Johnson Administration ◽  
Nuclear Strategy ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Central Argument

The introductory chapter outlines an established consensus that the United States’ shift from a policy of nuclear superiority over the Soviet Union to a policy that emphasized arms control, mutual assured destruction, and nuclear parity was the result of nuclear-strategic calculus. It then shows how declassified records of Nixon’s conversations with his advisors on the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) disprove that thesis. It goes on to outline how Kennedy and Johnson administration officials also acted in ways that contradicted their private comments. Through brief summaries of the subsequent chapters, it then explicates the central argument of the book: that all three presidents were engaged in a double game to reconcile their personal doubts regarding the utility of nuclear weapons with the prevailing public and congressional mood during their administrations. It concludes by suggesting this dynamic is of enduring relevance to the formulation of American nuclear strategy.

Rational Superiority, Crises, and Arms Control, 1961–1963

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Cameron
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
National Security ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Rhetoric ◽  
Nuclear Strategy ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Test Ban

Chapter 1 describes how John F. Kennedy rose to power by articulating his own new nuclear strategy, which would use the latest advances in social and organizational sciences, combined with US superiority in nuclear weapons, to defend the United States’ national security interests. The foremost exponent of this strategy of “rational superiority” was Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara. The chapter then explains how this scheme was dealt a series of blows by Kennedy’s experiences during the Berlin and Cuban missile crises, which disabused him of the idea that nuclear superiority could be used to coerce the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, the Kennedy administration used the rhetoric of rational superiority to advance the Limited Test Ban Treaty and was planning to employ it as part of the president’s reelection campaign in 1964. Kennedy had not reconciled this gap between his public rhetoric and personal doubts at the time of his death.

Trust, but Verify

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Arms Control ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
East West

This book uses trust—with its emotional and predictive aspects—to explore international relations in the second half of the Cold War, beginning with the late 1960s. The détente of the 1970s led to the development of some limited trust between the United States and the Soviet Union, which lessened international tensions and enabled advances in areas such as arms control. However, it also created uncertainty in other areas, especially on the part of smaller states that depended on their alliance leaders for protection. The chapters in this volume look at how the “emotional” side of the conflict affected the dynamics of various Cold War relations: between the superpowers, within the two ideological blocs, and inside individual countries on the margins of the East–West confrontation.

scholarly journals Why Arms Control?

Daedalus ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 149 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-115
Author(s):  
Jon Brook Wolfsthal
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Arms Control ◽  
Good Deal ◽  
The United States ◽  
Nuclear War ◽  
Nuclear Age ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Cold War

America survived the nuclear age through a complex combination of diplomatic and military decisions, and a good deal of luck. One of the tools that proved its value in both reducing the risks of nuclear use and setting rules for the ongoing nuclear competition were negotiated, legally binding, and verified arms control agreements. Such pacts between the United States and the Soviet Union arguably prevented the nuclear arms racing from getting worse and helped both sides climb off the Cold War nuclear precipice. Several important agreements remain in place between the United States and Russia, to the benefit of both states. Arms control is under threat, however, from domestic forces in the United States and from Russian actions that range from treaty violations to the broader weaponization of risk. But arms control can and should play a useful role in reducing the risk of nuclear war and forging a new agreement between Moscow and Washington on the new rules of the nuclear road.

Trial Balloons

2020 ◽  
pp. 84-105
Author(s):  
Simon Miles
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
State Legislatures ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Force ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
East And West ◽  
General Secretary

This chapter is devoted to Konstantin Chernenko' efforts to shift superpower relations back to a détente-like footing during his time as a General Secretary of the Soviet Union. It examines attempts on the part of various Western leaders to carve out a role for themselves as the superpowers' chosen intermediary. It also investigates the balance of power between East and West, including how and why leaders in Washington and Moscow perceived and responded to each other as they did. The chapter analyzes the nuclear freeze movement, which has remained a political force to be reckoned with as the movement called for both superpowers to halt the construction and deployment of nuclear weapons. It talks about the freeze activists in the United States who shepherded the passage of nonbinding resolutions that support their cause in four state legislatures, the House, and the Senate.

The continuing threat of nuclear war

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Cirincione
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
The United States ◽  
Nuclear War ◽  
The North ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The World ◽  
Nuclear Winter

The American poet Robert Frost famously mused on whether the world will end in fire or in ice. Nuclear weapons can deliver both. The fire is obvious: modern hydrogen bombs duplicate on the surface of the earth the enormous thermonuclear energies of the Sun, with catastrophic consequences. But it might be a nuclear cold that kills the planet. A nuclear war with as few as 100 hundred weapons exploded in urban cores could blanket the Earth in smoke, ushering in a years-long nuclear winter, with global droughts and massive crop failures. The nuclear age is now entering its seventh decade. For most of these years, citizens and officials lived with the constant fear that long-range bombers and ballistic missiles would bring instant, total destruction to the United States, the Soviet Union, many other nations, and, perhaps, the entire planet. Fifty years ago, Nevil Shute’s best-selling novel, On the Beach, portrayed the terror of survivors as they awaited the radioactive clouds drifting to Australia from a northern hemisphere nuclear war. There were then some 7000 nuclear weapons in the world, with the United States outnumbering the Soviet Union 10 to 1. By the 1980s, the nuclear danger had grown to grotesque proportions. When Jonathan Schell’s chilling book, The Fate of the Earth, was published in 1982, there were then almost 60,000 nuclear weapons stockpiled with a destructive force equal to roughly 20,000 megatons (20 billion tons) of TNT, or over 1 million times the power of the Hiroshima bomb. President Ronald Reagan’s ‘Star Wars’ anti-missile system was supposed to defeat a first-wave attack of some 5000 Soviet SS-18 and SS-19 missile warheads streaking over the North Pole. ‘These bombs’, Schell wrote, ‘were built as “weapons” for “war”, but their significance greatly transcends war and all its causes and outcomes. They grew out of history, yet they threaten to end history. They were made by men, yet they threaten to annihilate man’.

15. The Return to Confrontation, 1979–80

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
John W. Young ◽  
John Kent
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Short Range ◽  
The United States ◽  
Arms Race ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Slow Progress ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
East West

This chapter examines why the United States and the Soviet Union returned to confrontation during the period 1979–1980. Despite the slow progress of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II), there were at least some efforts to control strategic weapons. Short-range and intermediate-range nuclear weapons, in contrast, continued to grow in number and sophistication, particularly in Europe, where NATO and Warsaw Pact forces still prepared for war against each other, despite détente. The failure to control theatre nuclear weapons led to a new twist in the European arms race at the end of the 1970s which helped to undermine recent improvements in East–West relations. The chapter first considers NATO’s ‘dual track’ decision regarding theatre nuclear weapons before discussing the Iranian Revolution and the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. It concludes with an assessment of the revival of the Cold War, focusing on the so-called Carter Doctrine.

5. Soviet–American Relations: Avoiding Hot War and the Search for Stability

2020 ◽  
pp. 145-158
Author(s):  
John W. Young ◽  
John Kent
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Arms Control ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
German Question ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter examines US–Soviet relations during the Cold War as well as the question of the genuineness of efforts by the United States and the Soviet Union to achieve disarmament and resolve troublesome disputes. It begins with a discussion of the German question, noting that Germany’s future position was vital to the future of Europe and a particular concern of the Soviets. It then considers the progress of arms control and peace efforts by the United States and the Soviet Union, before concluding with an analysis of the relationship of arms control to the use of armaments in hot war and to some aspects of fighting the Cold War.

The future unlike the past: nuclear proliferation and American security policy

1981 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 193-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Nacht
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Nuclear Proliferation ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Future ◽  
Nuclear Arms Control

An examination of the past relationships between nuclear proliferation and American security policy substantiates several propositions. First, the political relationship between the United States and each new nuclear weapon state was not fundamentally transformed as a result of nuclear proliferation. Second, with the exception of the Soviet Union, no new nuclear state significantly affected U.S. defense programs or policies. Third, American interest in bilateral nuclear arms control negotiations has been confined to the Soviet Union. Fourth, a conventional conflict involving a nonnuclear ally prompted the United States to intervene in ways it otherwise might not have in order to forestall the use of nuclear weapons.In all respects, however, the relationship between nuclear proliferation and American security policy is changing. The intensification of the superpower rivalry and specific developments in their nuclear weapons and doctrines, the decline of American power more generally, and the characteristics of nuclear threshold states all serve to stimulate nuclear proliferation. It will be increasingly difficult in the future for American security policy to be as insulated from this process as it has been in the past.

scholarly journals The End of Arms Control?

Daedalus ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 149 (2) ◽  
pp. 84-100
Author(s):  
Linton F. Brooks
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Risk Reduction ◽  
Russian Federation ◽  
Arms Control ◽  
The United States ◽  
Mitigation Measures ◽  
The Soviet Union

For almost half a century, the United States and the Soviet Union/Russian Federation have used arms control treaties to help regulate their nuclear relationship. The current such agreement, the 2011 New START treaty, expires in 2021, although the signatories can extend it until 2026. Because of mutual mistrust and incompatible positions on what to include in a follow-on agreement, New START will probably expire without a replacement. This essay examines the reasons for the demise of treaty-based arms control, reviews what will actually be lost by such a demise, and suggests some mitigation measures. It argues for a broader conception of arms control to include all forms of cooperative risk reduction and proposes new measures to prevent inadvertent escalation in crises.

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