Read Guardians of the Arsenal: The Politics of Nuclear Strategy

Guardians of the Arsenal: The Politics of Nuclear Strategy

Janne E. Nolan

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Description:New York Times Books Review: Whose Weapons Are They, Anyway?By Michael S. SherryDec. 24, 1989NOW that the cold war has thawed so much - or, as many believe, ended - it may be tempting to regard a book like Janne E. Nolan's ''Guardians of the Arsenal'' almost as an anachronism. But, of course, nuclear weapons remain in place, and stockpiles are continually enhanced. And if cold war passions no longer seem likely to trigger a nuclear crisis, we cannot be certain they won't return - and, in any event, those passions may not be the only things to set the world's arsenals off.A visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, Ms. Nolan, for one, is still worried. Above all, she worries about what she sees as an ''enduring schism'' in the United States between the declared nuclear strategies of Presidents and other political leaders and the operating war plans for nuclear weapons formulated and jealously protected by the military - particularly the Strategic Air Command, the real ''guardians of the arsenal.'' Presidents (with Jimmy Carter and perhaps Dwight D. Eisenhower as exceptions) rarely understand war plans or even care to see them. They, and other politicians, believe that their countless alterations of declared policy - their attempts to work in options for flexible response or limited attacks or phased escalation - make a difference. They rarely do. As Ms. Nolan quotes one observer, ''The air force really believes that the only way to survive is to launch weapons quickly.'' After four decades worth of rococo variations in nuclear strategy, operational policy remains wedded to a so-called spasm, or sudden and total, attack - perhaps understandably, given the immense obstacles involved in waging a sustained war effort while trying to survive an enemy attack.Ms. Nolan is also concerned that the schism between America's nuclear policy and its actual war planning could prove disastrous in a crisis, producing ''a complete devolution of authority,'' with the President ''abdicating the decision [ to launch nuclear missiles ] to others intentionally or by default'' or succumbing to ''outright paralysis.'' And lest proponents of disarmament think that the schism she addresses is only a symptom of the nuclear problem and not a cause, she asks them to consider whether progress on arms control is possible if politicians can't even control the targeting of nuclear weapons.In addition to those broad themes, the author offers considerable insight into such controversies as those surrounding the Strategic Defense Initiative. She traces in revealing detail the byzantine course of S.D.I., the Reagan Administration's fumbling leadership and Congress's bewildered response, and the contradictory pressures on the program both to explore futuristic technologies (which requires patience) and to provide tangible proof of feasibility (which requires stunts). Not without reason did one scientist warn, ''If we don't come up with something specific, people are not going to let us play in the sandbox for ten years.''But good analysis of policy and politics does not take the reader very far. For one thing, Ms. Nolan's big themes tend to slip from her grasp in long patches of her book. For another, like many writers on the subject, she runs into problems of tone and perspective. A bit of a Washington insider herself - she relies heavily on interviews with key players - she often adopts the numbing language and limited perspective of Washington policy makers. ''This book is written with the public in mind,'' she writes, but the public may not feel it has been invited in the way it was, for example, in John Newhouse's recent grand survey of nuclear history, ''War and Peace in the Nuclear Age.'' And she has not penetrated the inside workings of nuclear planning in a deep or focused enough way to provide the sort of sharp, up-close picture that Daniel Ford offered several years ago in ''The Button: The Pentagon's Strategic Command and Control System.'' Although Ms. Nolan is sympathetic to the pressures endured by the Strategic Air Command's operational commanders, who are pivotal to her story, she never fully captures their politics or mentality.THOSE are limitations of craft and perspective. Some readers will also find a political limitation. The schism she traces between nuclear policy and operational planning is real and frightening. But it is also unsurprising - in fact, it's rather typical of what happens in large bureaucratic systems - and, by and large, it is a symptom of the nuclear problem, not the problem itself. Ms. Nolan does not fully confront the essential lunacy of this world of nuclear armaments and strategies. She almost seems to believe that if somehow the system could act more rationally, if its parts could align more smoothly, if the great schism she describes could be healed, then nuclear weapons might be rational and morally defensible tools of national defense. This reader is ...We have made it easy for you to find a PDF Ebooks without any digging. And by having access to our ebooks online or by storing it on your computer, you have convenient answers with Guardians of the Arsenal: The Politics of Nuclear Strategy. To get started finding Guardians of the Arsenal: The Politics of Nuclear Strategy, you are right to find our website which has a comprehensive collection of manuals listed.
Our library is the biggest of these that have literally hundreds of thousands of different products represented.

Pages: 336

Format: PDF, EPUB & Kindle Edition

Publisher: Basic Books

Release: 1991

ISBN

Description: New York Times Books Review: Whose Weapons Are They, Anyway?By Michael S. SherryDec. 24, 1989NOW that the cold war has thawed so much - or, as many believe, ended - it may be tempting to regard a book like Janne E. Nolan's ''Guardians of the Arsenal'' almost as an anachronism. But, of course, nuclear weapons remain in place, and stockpiles are continually enhanced. And if cold war passions no longer seem likely to trigger a nuclear crisis, we cannot be certain they won't return - and, in any event, those passions may not be the only things to set the world's arsenals off.A visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, Ms. Nolan, for one, is still worried. Above all, she worries about what she sees as an ''enduring schism'' in the United States between the declared nuclear strategies of Presidents and other political leaders and the operating war plans for nuclear weapons formulated and jealously protected by the military - particularly the Strategic Air Command, the real ''guardians of the arsenal.'' Presidents (with Jimmy Carter and perhaps Dwight D. Eisenhower as exceptions) rarely understand war plans or even care to see them. They, and other politicians, believe that their countless alterations of declared policy - their attempts to work in options for flexible response or limited attacks or phased escalation - make a difference. They rarely do. As Ms. Nolan quotes one observer, ''The air force really believes that the only way to survive is to launch weapons quickly.'' After four decades worth of rococo variations in nuclear strategy, operational policy remains wedded to a so-called spasm, or sudden and total, attack - perhaps understandably, given the immense obstacles involved in waging a sustained war effort while trying to survive an enemy attack.Ms. Nolan is also concerned that the schism between America's nuclear policy and its actual war planning could prove disastrous in a crisis, producing ''a complete devolution of authority,'' with the President ''abdicating the decision [ to launch nuclear missiles ] to others intentionally or by default'' or succumbing to ''outright paralysis.'' And lest proponents of disarmament think that the schism she addresses is only a symptom of the nuclear problem and not a cause, she asks them to consider whether progress on arms control is possible if politicians can't even control the targeting of nuclear weapons.In addition to those broad themes, the author offers considerable insight into such controversies as those surrounding the Strategic Defense Initiative. She traces in revealing detail the byzantine course of S.D.I., the Reagan Administration's fumbling leadership and Congress's bewildered response, and the contradictory pressures on the program both to explore futuristic technologies (which requires patience) and to provide tangible proof of feasibility (which requires stunts). Not without reason did one scientist warn, ''If we don't come up with something specific, people are not going to let us play in the sandbox for ten years.''But good analysis of policy and politics does not take the reader very far. For one thing, Ms. Nolan's big themes tend to slip from her grasp in long patches of her book. For another, like many writers on the subject, she runs into problems of tone and perspective. A bit of a Washington insider herself - she relies heavily on interviews with key players - she often adopts the numbing language and limited perspective of Washington policy makers. ''This book is written with the public in mind,'' she writes, but the public may not feel it has been invited in the way it was, for example, in John Newhouse's recent grand survey of nuclear history, ''War and Peace in the Nuclear Age.'' And she has not penetrated the inside workings of nuclear planning in a deep or focused enough way to provide the sort of sharp, up-close picture that Daniel Ford offered several years ago in ''The Button: The Pentagon's Strategic Command and Control System.'' Although Ms. Nolan is sympathetic to the pressures endured by the Strategic Air Command's operational commanders, who are pivotal to her story, she never fully captures their politics or mentality.THOSE are limitations of craft and perspective. Some readers will also find a political limitation. The schism she traces between nuclear policy and operational planning is real and frightening. But it is also unsurprising - in fact, it's rather typical of what happens in large bureaucratic systems - and, by and large, it is a symptom of the nuclear problem, not the problem itself. Ms. Nolan does not fully confront the essential lunacy of this world of nuclear armaments and strategies. She almost seems to believe that if somehow the system could act more rationally, if its parts could align more smoothly, if the great schism she describes could be healed, then nuclear weapons might be rational and morally defensible tools of national defense. This reader is ...We have made it easy for you to find a PDF Ebooks without any digging. And by having access to our ebooks online or by storing it on your computer, you have convenient answers with Guardians of the Arsenal: The Politics of Nuclear Strategy. To get started finding Guardians of the Arsenal: The Politics of Nuclear Strategy, you are right to find our website which has a comprehensive collection of manuals listed.
Our library is the biggest of these that have literally hundreds of thousands of different products represented.

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Guardians of the Arsenal: The Politics of Nuclear Strategy

Guardians of the Arsenal: The Politics of Nuclear Strategy

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