The theory and practice of deterrence between the United States and the Soviet Union were predicated on the unitary, rational-actor model. Life-or-death decisions in deep crises would be made by leaders driven by rational calculations of national interest and executed…
Democrats were obliged to expand their base after the 1972 McGovern campaign. The Republican Party now finds itself in the same boat. Who knew? It turns out that Fox Television and hard-right radio, long the bêtes noires of liberals, are…
U.S. presidential elections periodically offer a dramatic choice rather than an echo. This was Barry Goldwater’s campaign slogan in 1964 against Lyndon Baines Johnson. Voters chose LBJ in a landslide. Lop-sided victories are the usual outcome when two starkly different choices…
There was no love lost between Munir Ahmad Khan and A.Q. Khan. Munir was chosen by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to ramp up the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission’s work on nuclear weapons. AQ offered his services to Bhutto from Europe, and…
There has been no shortage of remembrances and lessons learned from the 50th anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis. It’s easy to forget – unless your country codes are 86 and 91 – that this is also the 50th anniversary…
A hyphenated word has hung like a shroud over Pakistan ever since its founding father, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, vocalized what Great Britain produced in its hasty retreat from empire: a moth-eaten state. In 1947, a British barrister, new to the…
Twenty years of visiting Pakistan still doesn’t amount to much. My footprint is limited, especially lately, and I can only converse in English. Nonetheless, if you don’t learn something from repeated visits, you’re not paying attention. There’s no shortage of…
Aspiring wonks: your homework assignment this week is to read Robert Jervis. In my view, his best writing is about the impact of nuclear weapons on world politics and the psychology of nuclear deterrence. As the salience of nuclear weapons…
All options are on the table. How many times have we heard this? The administrations of Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush directed such declarations to Saddam Hussein. North Korea is no stranger to this formulation. Then there’s…
This space has periodically sung the praises of Bernard Brodie, but even All Stars occasionally go into slumps. Brodie was off his game in Escalation and the Nuclear Option (1966), in which he argued the case for tactical nuclear weapons.…
