Navigating Nuclear Strategy: Cold War to Present Dynamics

1. Learning to Love the Bomb

2. Preparing for Cold War • Truman Doctrine • George F. Kennan, Mr. X • Marshall Plan • National Security Act of 1947 • NSC • CIA • SECDEF and OSD • JCS & Joint Staff • USAF • McCarthyism • “Losing” China • NSC 68 • Korea • Ike’s “New Look”

3. U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy • How nuclear weapons work: • Blast • Prompt thermal radiation • Prompt nuclear radiation • Fallout • Electro Magnetic Pulse

4. Nuclear Triad • ICBMs: Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles • SLBMs: Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles • Bombers • Now: Cruise Missiles (GLCMs, ALCMs, and SLCMs)

5. Weapons and Policy (Ideal) • Nuclear Strategy • Nuclear Policy • Weapons Systems

6. Nuclear Strategy • To what political ends to we put the construction, maintenance, and possible use of nuclear weapons? • Ideally, then, the answer to this question determines--

7. Nuclear Policy • Declaratory Policy: Pronouncements about the circumstances under which we will use nuclear weapons • Targeting Policy: what we will shoot at: • Countervalue targets = cities, industry, people • Counterforce targets = military assets • This, then, should tell you--

8. Weapons Systems • Weapons systems must then be developed to credibly implement the nuclear policy: what type of force structure and weapons are needed to fulfill the political requirements spelled out in doctrine and the policy requirements made clear in nuclear policy?

9. Massive Retaliation • Eisenhower Administration (New Look) • Strategy: Extended Deterrence • Declaratory Policy: Unlimited Response to Soviet incursions (in Europe) • Targeting Policy: Countervalue • Weapons: Bombers (SAC), ICBMs (under development)

10. Assured Destruction • McNamara Pentagon • Strategy: Basic Deterrence • Declaratory Policy: Devastating Second Strike • Targeting Policy: Countervalue • Weapons: Survivable Retaliatory Forces (Nuclear Triad)

11. Flexible Response • McNamara Pentagon • Strategy: Extended Deterrence • Declaratory Policy: Meet Soviet Aggression • Targeting Policy: Counterforce • Weapons: NATO conventional forces and Tactical Nuclear Weapons

12. Nuclear Warfighting • 1970s to the present • PD 59 (1979) • Extension of Flexible Response? • Deter nuclear war, but if war should start, aim to fight and win a limited nuclear war • Tac Nucs and C3I

13. ‘70’s Non-Nuclear Items • Tet Offensive • Vietnamization • Détente • October War (1973) • Camp David

14. Reagan-Bush Years • End of Détente • Central America • Arms Reduction (eventually) • SDI • Iran-Contra • Berlin Wall falls; Soviet Union dissolves • Panama and Gulf War

15. After the Cold War • START and after… • Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty • vertical and horizontal proliferation • National Missile Defense • for what, where, and how soon? Bye-bye ABM Treaty • Deterrence and Compellence • nonstate actors? • Paying the Bill

16. Now What? • War on Terrorism • WMD: Pre-Emptive strikes? • India-Pakistan, North Korea • Free Trade • From Containment to Enlargement? • Drug Wars • How Many Wars at Once? • China Rising and Russia Falling? • Katrina & Homeland Security