Quote of the week: “All mankind is divided into three classes: those that are immovable, those that are movable, and those that move.” — Benjamin Franklin Note to readers: This piece was written for an Indian audience and was published…
The Stimson Center will publish a collection of five essays in May titled, The Lure and Pitfalls of MIRVs: From the First to the Second Nuclear Age. Our authors look back at US and Soviet compulsions, and forward to how…
Henry Kissinger wrote two early, influential books on the Bomb: Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy (1957) and The Necessity for Choice (1960). I bought these used books at bargain-basement prices at the Princeton University bookstore. The name on the inside…
The Nixon administration needed to make many adjustments in order to prepare for strategic arms limitation talks with the Kremlin. One change was in the terminology used to describe how US nuclear forces were supposed to stack up against the…
The cheapest debating trick in the nuclear weapons/arms control business is the well-crafted rhetorical question. Rhetorical questions are asked not to seek answers, but to advance preferred outcomes. Hardy perennials include, “Can’t we do better than…?” The best rhetorical questions…
There’s a Mad Man Theory of Deterrence. Does it apply to arms control, too? Here’s the keeper Mad Man quote, found in Richard M. Nixon’s The Real War (1980): International relations are a lot like poker – stud poker with…
There is a long history of deceptive practices and bogus military displays designed to project greater firepower than is actually available. In my military dictionary, this is known as creative deterrence, or deterrence on the cheap. A classic case in…
Reading 1,000 pages of memoranda, meeting notes, and transcripts of conversations about SALT I in Volume XXXII of Foreign Relations of the United States prompts many unsettling questions, beginning with the competence of President Richard Nixon and National Security Adviser…
“Gerry” Smith had the look of a bulldog wearing a well-tailored, pin-striped suit. No diplomat’s jaw seemed more able to take a solid punch. Ambassador Smith took more than his share during the first strategic arms limitation talks. The SALT…
