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15-05-2015, 17:04

Nuclear competition in an era of stalemate, 1963-1975

For overviews of the nuclear era, see McGeorge Bundy, Danger and Survival: Choices about the Bomb in the First Fifty Years (New York: Random House, 1988), David G. Coleman and Joseph M. Siracusa, Real-World Nuclear Deterrence: The Making of International Strategy (Westport, CT: Praeger Security International, 2006), and Joseph Cirincione, Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007). Lawrence S. Wittner's, Resisting the Bomb: A History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement, 1954-1970 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997) and Toward Nuclear Abolition: A History of the World Disarmament Movement, 1971 to the Present (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003) provide a thorough account of antinuclear movements during the period.

For a detailed topical breakdown of US nuclear spending, see Stephen Schwartz (ed.), Atomic Audit: The Cost and Consequences ofU. S. Nuclear Weapons since 1940 (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1998). For decisions on strategic force levels, see Lawrence S. Kaplan, Ronald D. Landa, and Edward J. Drea, History of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, vol. V, The McNamara Ascendancy 1961-1965 (Washington, DC: Historical Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense, 2006), and Desmond Ball, Politics and Force Levels: The Strategic Missile Programs of the Kennedy Administration (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1980). For important studies of major ballistic missile systems, see Graham Spinardi, From Polaris to Trident: The Development of Fleet Ballistic Missile Technology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), David Stumpf, Titan II: A History of a Cold War Missile Program (Fayetteville, AR: University of Arkansas Press, 2000), and Ted Greenwood, Making the MIRV: A Study ofDefense Decision Making (Cambridge, MA: Ballinger, 1975). Donald MacKenzie, Inventing Accuracy: A Historical Sociology of Nuclear Missile Guidance (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990), is a wonderful history of inertial guidance.

For US nuclear war planning and target strategy, see essays by David A. Rosenberg, including "Nuclear Planning,” in Michael Howard, George J. Andreopoulos, and Mark R. Shulman (eds.), The Laws of War: Constraints on Warfare in the Western World (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994). Fred M. Kaplan's The Wizards of Armageddon (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991) is a path-breaking work on the RAND Corporation and nuclear war planning. For strategy during the early 1970s, see Terry Terriff, The Nixon Administration and the Making ofU. S. Nuclear Strategy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995), and William Burr, "The Nixon Administration, the 'Horror Strategy,' and the Search for Limited Nuclear Options, 1969-1972: Prelude to the Schlesinger Doctrine,” Journal of Cold War Studies, 7 (2005), 34-78.

For the relationship between control of nuclear weapons and nuclear war planning, see Peter D. Feaver, Guarding the Guardians: Civilian Control of Nuclear Weapons in the United States (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992). Nina Tannenwald's The Nuclear Taboo:

The United States and the Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons since 1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007) explores the problem of nuclear use. Lynn Eden, Whole World on Fire: Organizations, Knowledge, & Nuclear Weapons Devastation (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003), and Scott Sagan, The Limits of Safety: Organizations, Accidents, and Nuclear Weapons (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993), are illuminating studies of nuclear weapons effects and safety issues. Bruce Blair, The Logic of Accidental Nuclear War (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1993), reviews US and Soviet launch-on-warning policies since the 1970s.

For strategic intelligence and warning systems, see Jeffrey Richelson, The Wizards of Langley: Inside the CIA’s Directorate of Science and Technology (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2001), and America’s Space Sentinels: DSP Satellites and National Security (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1999). For the Internet's origins in the efforts to improve nuclear command-and-control systems, see Roy Rosenzweig, "Wizards, Bureaucrats, Warriors & Hackers: Writing the History of the Internet," American Historical Review, 103 (December 1998), 1530-52.

Raymond Garthoff s Detente and Confrontation: American-Soviet Relations from Nixon to Reagan (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1994) remains the fullest account of detente and the SALT negotiations, but see also Jussi Hanhimaki, The Flawed Architect: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004).

English-language work on Kremlin decisionmaking and Soviet nuclear history is scarce, but of high quality. Steven Zaloga, The Kremlin’s Nuclear Sword: The Rise and Fall of Russia’s Strategic Nuclear Forces (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2002), is one of the most valuable studies. Also essential is Pavel Podvig (ed.), Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001). For Soviet nuclear policy in a broad historical context, see Vladislav M. Zubok, A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev, new ed. (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2007), as well as R. Craig Nation, Black Earth, Red Star: A History of Soviet Security Policy, 1917-1991 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992). Also important are Christoph Bluth, Soviet Strategic Arms Policy before SALT (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), and Raymond Garthoff, Deterrence and the Revolution in Soviet Military Doctrine (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1990).

For retrospective thinking by former top Soviet commanders, see John Battilega, "Soviet Views of Nuclear Warfare: The Post-Cold War Interviews," in Henry D. Sokolski (ed.), Getting MAD: Nuclear Assured Destruction, Its Origins and Practice (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 2004).

For nuclear issues in US-European alliance relations, including nuclear sharing, NATO nuclear strategy, and the origins and development of flexible response, see Marc Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace: The Making of the European Settlement, 1945-1963 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999), Ivo Daalder, The Nature and Practice of Flexible Response: NATO Strategy and Theater Nuclear Forces since 1967 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), and Holga Haftendorn, NATO and the Nuclear Revolution: A Crisis of Credibility, 1966-1967 (New York: Oxford University, 1996). Also valuable on US-European nuclear relations is Christoph Bluth, Britain, Germany, and Western Nuclear Strategy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995). For the important Anglo-American nuclear relationship, see Stephen Twigge and Len Scott, Planning Armageddon: Britain, the United States, and the Command of Western Nuclear Forces, 1945-1964 (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 2000).

On nuclear weapons and the Warsaw Pact, see Vojtech Mastny, Sven S. Holtsmark, and Andreas Wenger (eds.), War Plans and Alliances in the Cold War (London: Routledge, 2006). Also helpful is Christoph Bluth, "The Warsaw Pact and Military Security in Central Europe during the Cold War," Journal of Slavic Military Studies, 17 (2004), 299-311.