Donald Trump’s narrow victory could bring a reprise of President Richard Nixon’s “madman theory” of deterrence – except on steroids. Nixon and Henry Kissinger believed that projecting an image of readiness to use nuclear weapons could provide negotiating leverage. They tested this assumption in the 1973 Middle East crisis and during the Vietnam War — …
Presidential Command and Control in the Age of Trump
by | 2016-11-26 | 2 Comments
The outcome of the U.S. presidential election has filled many Americans, and people around the world, with bewilderment and dread. How did we get here? Where are we going? How seriously should we take President-elect Trump’s promises? Let’s remember! At various points during the campaign, candidate Trump’s promises included a campaign of millions of deportations, barring all Muslims from the …
Trump and the Bomb
by | 2016-11-25 | 3 Comments
Note to readers: A somewhat different version of this essay appeared at foreignaffairs.com on November 20th. Donald Trump becomes President when the global nuclear order is wobbly and arms-control agreements are unraveling. Nuclear dangers are growing along three axes – North Korea, U.S.-Russian relations, and the triangular competition among India, Pakistan and China. The potential for …
Fred Iklé on the Second Nuclear Age
by | 2016-11-18 | No Comments
Fred Charles Iklé has not gotten the credit he deserves as a strategic thinker, perhaps because of the density of his prose. Here he is twenty years ago, in “The Second Coming of the Nuclear Age” in Foreign Affairs: “Now that the bipolar order of the Cold War has crumbled, nonuse and deterrence will no …
