1. Bernard Brodie, ed., The Absolute Weapon: Atomic Power and World Order, San Diego, CA: Harcourt, 1946.
2. William L. Borden, There will be no Time: The Revolution in Strategy, New York: Macmillan Co., 1946.
3. “The Evaluation of the Atomic Bomb as a Military Weap-on,” Report by the Joint Chiefs of Staff Evaluation Board on Operation CROSSROADS, Washington, DC: Joint Chiefs of Staff, June 30, 1947, p. 10, available from www.trumanlibrary.org/
whistlestop/study_collections/bomb/large/documents/pdfs/81.pdf.
4. These figures are from Robert S. Norris and Hans M. Kris-tensen, “Global Nuclear Inventories, 1945-2000,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, July/August 2010, p. 81. Moreover, in the early 1950s, the United States also enjoyed a significant numerical ad-vantage in delivery vehicles.
5. For an excellent analysis of this line of thinking in the U.S.
Government during this period utilizing a significant amount of primary sources, see Marc Trachtenberg, “A ‘Wasting Asset:’
American Strategy and the Shifting Nuclear Balance, 1949-1954,”
in Marc Trachtenberg, History and Strategy, Princeton, NJ: Princ-eton University Press, 1991, pp. 112-113.
6. “A Report to the National Security Council by the Execu-tive Secretary on United States ObjecExecu-tives and Programs for Na-tional Security,” April 12, 1950, pp. 37-38, available from www.
trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/coldwar/documents/
pdf/10-1.pdf.
7. Quoted in Scott Sagan, Moving Targets: Nuclear Strategy and National Security, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989, p. 19.
8. “Soviet Capabilities and Intentions,” National Intelli-gence Estimate, NIE—3, April 15, 1950, Washington, DC: Cen-tral Intelligence Agency, available from www.foia.cia.gov/docs/
9. “A Report to the National Security Council by the Execu-tive Secretary on Basic National Security Policy,” October 30, 1953, available from www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsc-hst/nsc-162-2.pdf.
10. On the basing study, see Fred Kaplan, The Wizards of Ar-mageddon, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991, pp. 98-101; and Gregg Herken, Counsels of War, Oxford, UK: Oxford Uni-versity Press, 1987, pp. 89-94.
11. Kaplan, The Wizards of Armageddon, p. 99.
12. The Brodie quotes are from his lecture at the Air War College on April 12, 1952, and are found in Marc Trachtenberg,
“Strategic Thought in America,” in Trachtenberg, ed., History and Strategy, p. 19.
13. Albert Wohlstetter, “The Delicate Balance of Terror,” For-eign Affairs, Vol. 37, No. 2, January 1959, pp. 211-212.
14. In addition, there was significant pushback from the Stra-tegic Air Command (SAC), especially from SAC Commander General Curtis Lemay. Lemay believed the answer to bomber vul-nerability was not to spend vast sums of money to protect them, but rather to simply buy more bombers. There were bureaucratic reasons for the SAC’s resistance, too. The Air Staff in the Penta-gon funded the basing study, and Lemay was loathe to accept the recommendations of a Pentagon-funded study because it might open the door for further intrusions of SAC by the Air Staff. On these points, see Kaplan, The Wizards of Armageddon, p. 104.
15. Herken, Counsels of War, p. 92.
16. NSC-68, pp. 52-53. The idea of preventive war resurfaced many more times in the 1950s. In 1954, for example, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) President Eisenhower on a study that recom-mended the United States consider “deliberately precipitating a war with the U.S.S.R in the near future.” Eisenhower ultimately rejected this view, approving language in an updated Basic Na-tional Security Policy document that stated, “[T]he United States and its allies must reject the concept of preventive war or acts intended to provoke war.” See David A. Rosenberg, “The Ori-gins of Overkill: Nuclear Weapons and American Strategy, 1945-1960,” International Security, Vol. 7, No. 4, Spring 1983, p. 34. For
a comprehensive analysis of preventive war thinking during the Cold War, see Marc Trachtenberg, “Preventive War and U.S. For-eign Policy,” Security Studies, Vol. 16, No.1, January-March 2007, pp. 1-31.
17. “The Evaluation of the Atomic Bomb as a Military Weap-on,” pp. 10-11.
18. For a thorough, and somewhat controversial, assessment of Eisenhower’s views on nuclear weapons, see Campbell Craig, Destroying the Village: Eisenhower and Thermonuclear War, New York: Columbia University Press, 1998.
19. Colonel A. J. Goodpaster, “Memorandum of Conference with the President,” May 24, 1956, p. 2, Declassified Documents Ref-erence System [hereafter cited as DDRS].
20. By 1950, the JCS had identified three objectives for U.S.
nuclear war plans: the blunting of Soviet capability to deliver an atomic offensive against the United States and its allies; the dis-ruption of vital elements of the Soviet warmaking capacity; the retardation of Soviet advances in Western Eurasia. The missions were codenamed Bravo, Delta, and Romeo, respectively. See David Rosenberg, “Smoking Radiating Ruin at the End of Two Hours: Documents of American Plans for Nuclear War with the Soviet Union, 1954-1955,” International Security, Vol. 6, No. 3, Win-ter 1981-82, p. 9.
21. See, for example, Rosenberg, “The Origins of Overkill,” p.
34; Trachtenberg, “A ‘Wasting Asset,’” p. 162; and Sagan, Moving Targets, p. 22.
22. “Memorandum of Discussion at the 257th Meeting of the National Security Council,” August 4, 1955, Foreign Relations of the United States [hereafter cited as FRUS], 1955-57, Vol. 19, p. 98.
23. “Memorandum of Discussion at the 227th Meeting of the National Security Council,” December 3, 1954, FRUS, 1952-54, Vol. 2, part 1, p. 805.
24. Quoted in Sagan, Moving Targets, p. 23. It is important to
to launch a large-scale, countervalue attack against the Soviet Union for virtually any kind of aggression, large or small; in real-ity this was not the case. Not long after Dulles gave his speech at the Council on Foreign Relations announcing the tion’s nuclear policy, he and other members of the administra-tion wanted to clarify what the policy actually meant and clear up some misconceptions. Rather than threatening a massive nu-clear strike for any kind of Soviet aggression, Dulles and others argued that the objective was to have a range of nuclear options, from an all-out nuclear response to more limited strikes. “Mas-sive retaliation” was thus just one possibility along a continuum of nuclear options. While the primary mechanism of deterrence would be principally based nuclear weapons, the scope and scale of the nuclear response if deterrence failed would depend on the situation. See John Foster Dulles, “Policy for Security and Peace,”
Foreign Affairs, Vol. 32, No. 3, April 1954, pp. 358-359. For insight-ful analysis on the strategy of massive retaliation, see David N.
Schwartz, NATO’s Nuclear Dilemmas, Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1983, pp. 24-25; and Lawrence Freedman, The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1981, pp. 76-88.
25. This paragraph draws heavily from Rosenberg, “The Ori-gins of Overkill,” p. 34-35; and Sagan, Moving Targets, pp. 22-24.
26.“Memorandum of Discussion at the 292nd Meeting of the National Security Council,” p. 340.
27. Goodpaster, “Memorandum of Conference with the Presi-dent,” p. 2.
28. Ibid., p. 3.
29. Quoted in Rosenberg, “The Origins of Overkill,” p. 42.
30. “Report by the Technological Capabilities Panel of the Science Advisory Committee: Meeting the Threat of Surprise At-tack,” FRUS, 1955-57, Vol. 19, p. 42.
31. Ibid., p. 43.
32. Ibid.
33. Ibid.
34. Ibid., p. 44.
35. The Report’s list of recommendations are at Ibid., pp. 46-53.
36. “Memorandum of Discussion at the 257th Meeting of the National Security Council,” p. 101.
37. “Memorandum of Discussion at the 270th Meeting of the National Security Council,” pp. 170-171.
38. “Statement by President Eisenhower at the Geneva Con-ference of Heads of Government,” July 21, 1955, reprinted in Doc-uments on Disarmament, 1945-1959, Washington, DC: U.S. Govern-ment Printing Office, 1960.
39. Ibid.
40. Ibid., pp. 487-488.
41. “A Progress Report on a Proposed Policy of the United States on the Question of Disarmament,” Special Staff Study for the President, NSC Action No. 1328, May 26, 1955, FRUS, 1955-57, Vol. 20, p. 103.
42. See “Statement by the Soviet Foreign Minister, Molotov, at the Geneva Meeting of Foreign Ministers,” November 10, 1955, Documents on Disarmament, pp. 538-545; and “Letter from the So-viet Premier, Bulganin, to President Eisenhower,” February 1, 1956, Documents on Disarmament, p. 590.
43. “Soviet Statement on the Disarmament Talks,” August 27, 1957, in Ibid., p. 863.
44. “Memorandum of Discussion at the 318th Meeting of the National Security Council,” April 4, 1957, FRUS, 1955-57, Vol. 19, p. 463.
45. “Report to the President by the Security Resources Panel of the ODM Science Advisory Committee on Deterrence and Sur-vival in the Nuclear Age,” November 7, 1957, FRUS, 1955-57, Vol.
19, pp. 638-643.
46. Ibid., pp. 651-653.
47. For excellent histories of the Surprise Attack Conference, see Jeremi Suri, “America’s Search for a Technological Solution to the Arms Race: The Surprise Attack Conference of 1958 and a Challenge for ‘Eisenhower Revisionists,’” Diplomatic History, Vol.
21, No. 3, Summer 1997, pp. 417-451; and Johan J. Holst, “Strategic Arms Control and Stability: A Retrospective Look,” in Johan J.
Holst and William Schneider, Jr., ed., Why ABM? Policy Issues in the Missile Defense Controversy, New York: Pergamon Press, 1969, pp. 245-284.
48. “Statement by the Soviet Foreign Minister, Gromyko, Regarding Arctic Flights by the United States Military Aircraft,”
April 18, 1958, Documents on Disarmament, p. 986.
49. President Eisenhower initially proposed a joint meeting in a letter to Soviet Premier Bulganin on January 12, 1958. In a letter to Eisenhower dated July 2, 1958, Khrushchev proposed that the governments meet for a joint study of the surprise attack problem, and on July 31, the United States accepted the offer.
50. For analysis on the different positions, and how these positions impeded a successful outcome, see Suri, “America’s Search for a Technological Solution to the Arms Race,” and Holst,
“Strategic Arms Control and Stability.”
51. See “Note from the American Embassy to the Soviet For-eign Ministry Regarding Surprise Attack Negotiations,” October 10, 1958; and “Note from the Soviet Foreign Ministry to the Amer-ican Embassy Regarding Surprise Attack Negotiations,” Novem-ber 1, 1958, both in Documents on Disarmament, pp. 1145, 1214.
52. See “Proposed Plan of Work Submitted by the Western Experts at the Geneva Surprise Attack Conference,” November 11, 1958, Documents on Disarmament, p. 1223.
53. “Declaration Submitted by the Soviet Government at the Geneva Surprise Attack Conference: Measures for Preventing Surprise Attack,” November 28, 1958, Documents on Disarmament, pp. 1269-1271.
54. Quoted in Holst, “Strategic Arms Control and Stability,” p. 269.
55. “Adaptation of the National Military Posture to the Era of Nuclear Parity; A Suggested Navy Position,” December 3, 1957, p.
3, available from www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/ebb275/02.pdf.
56. Ibid.
57. Admiral Arleigh Burke, “Memorandum for All Flag Offi-cers,” March 4, 1959, p. 11, available from www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/
nukevault/ebb275/07.pdf.
58. Admiral Arleigh Burke to Flag and General Officers, CNO Personal No. 35, March 5, 1958, p. 15, available from www.gwu.
edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/ebb275/03.PDF.
59. Admiral Arleigh Burke, “Summary of Major Strategic Considerations for the 1960-1970 Era,” July 30, 1958, p. 2, avail-able from www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/ebb275/05.pdf.
60. Bernard Brodie quoted in Freedman, The Evolution of Nu-clear Strategy, pp. 131-132.
61. A. Wohlstetter and F. Hoffman, Defending a Strategic Force After 1960, Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1954, pp. 3-4.
62. The RAND document was stamped, “For RAND Use Only: Do Not Quote or Cite in External RAND Publications or Correspondence.”
63. “Report of the Interagency Working Group on Surprise Attack,” August 15, 1958, p. 1, DDRS.
64. Ibid., p. 5.
65. Albert Wohlstetter, The Delicate Balance of Terror, Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1958. The paper is dated November 6, 1958, and marked “Revised December 1958.” On his circulation of the draft during preparations for the Surprise Attack Conference, see Trachtenberg, History and Strategy, p. 23.
66. Albert Wohlstetter, “The Delicate Balance of Terror,” For-eign Affairs, Vol. 37, No. 2, January 1959, p. 230. In the draft RAND paper of the article, this quote—save for a few minor differences in word choice—is found at pp. 37-38.
67. Personal correspondence with Thomas Schelling, April 29, 2012.
68. T. C. Schelling, Surprise Attack and Disarmament, Santa Monica, CA: RAND, December 10, 1958.
69. Ibid., p. 2.
70. Ibid.
71. Ibid., p. 4.
72. Ibid.
73. Ibid., p. 6.
74. Personal correspondence with Thomas Schelling, April 29, 2012.
75. See Thomas Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960, chaps. 9-10.
76. Thomas Schelling, Arms and Influence, New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press, 1966, p. 227.
77. The classic text is Thomas C. Schelling and Morton H. Hal-perin, Strategy and Arms Control, New York: The Twentieth Centu-ry Fund, 1961. See also Schelling, “Reciprocal Measures for Arms Stabilization,” Daedalus, Vol. 89, No. 4, Fall 1960, pp. 892-914.
78. See, for example, Henry A. Kissinger, “Arms Control, In-spection and Surprise Attack,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 38, No. 4, July 1960, pp. 557-575; Glenn H. Snyder, Deterrence and Defense: Toward a Theory of National Security, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1961, pp. 107-108; and Herman Kahn, On Escalation: Meta-phors and Scenarios, New York: Praeger Publishers, 1965.
79. “Draft Presidential Memorandum on Strategic Offensive and Defensive Forces,” January 9, 1969, p. 2, available from www.
dod.mil/pubs/foi/homeland_defense/strategic_offensive_defensive_forc-es/324.pdf.
80. “U.S. Approach to START Negotiations,” National Security Directive No. 33, May 14, 1982, p. 1, DDRS.
81. Report of the President’s Commission on Strategic Forces, April 1983, p. 3.
82. Quoted in Beyond New START: Advancing U.S. National Se-curity Through Arms Control with Russia, Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2011, pp. 3-4.
CHAPTER 2