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A review by gregbrown
The Wizards of Armageddon by Fred Kaplan
5.0
Excellent book on the development of nuclear strategy through the years, chronicling the ebb and flow of second-strike, counterforce, minimum deterrent, and other schemes.
The biggest takeaway for me was how the advocated strategies were almost always downwind of what the services needed to justify more spending on their branch. There were a few instances where technological breakthroughs and temporary advantages changed the perceived success or failure of a given strategy, but the actual shifts in doctrine were almost always out of convenience. And since the whole thing is (thankfully) a theoretical project, nothing ever really has to be tested out and shown to fail.
I also appreciated how Kaplan tracked some of the nuclear strategy ideas—counterforce, and holding cities hostage to send a message—as they were used in Vietnam, disillusioning McNamara and others. Biggest drawback is probably that the book ends in 1983, but Kaplan's later book The Bomb carries the story forward to the last decade.
The biggest takeaway for me was how the advocated strategies were almost always downwind of what the services needed to justify more spending on their branch. There were a few instances where technological breakthroughs and temporary advantages changed the perceived success or failure of a given strategy, but the actual shifts in doctrine were almost always out of convenience. And since the whole thing is (thankfully) a theoretical project, nothing ever really has to be tested out and shown to fail.
I also appreciated how Kaplan tracked some of the nuclear strategy ideas—counterforce, and holding cities hostage to send a message—as they were used in Vietnam, disillusioning McNamara and others. Biggest drawback is probably that the book ends in 1983, but Kaplan's later book The Bomb carries the story forward to the last decade.