The Scientific Strategists Follow the Economists to an Intellectual Dead End

2019 ◽  
pp. 145-175
Author(s):  
Michael C. Desch
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
National Security ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Security Studies ◽  
Nuclear Strategy ◽  
Dead End ◽  
Road Maps ◽  
Policy Problems ◽  
Thomas Schelling ◽  
Academic Social Science

This chapter assesses whether academic social science had any influence on nuclear strategy. Social science did have important effects on strategy. At times this was direct. More often it was indirect, working not through the formulation of doctrine or the drafting of operational plans, but rather by providing the intellectual frameworks and mental road maps that shaped senior policymakers' and presidents' thinking about the utility of nuclear weapons during confrontations with other nuclear states. Academic strategists such as Thomas Schelling reputedly exercised such influence that the period between 1945 and 1961 is regarded as the “golden age” of academic national security studies. However, scientific strategists reached a dead end by privileging internal disciplinary concerns like logical rigor and the use of sophisticated methods over addressing concrete policy problems.

The Logic of American Nuclear Strategy

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Kroenig
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
National Security ◽  
International Security ◽  
The United States ◽  
Theoretical Explanation ◽  
Security Studies ◽  
Nuclear Deterrence ◽  
Nuclear War ◽  
Nuclear Strategy ◽  
Empirical Record

What kind of nuclear strategy and posture does the United States need to defend itself and its allies? According to conventional wisdom, the answer to this question is straightforward: the United States needs the ability to absorb an enemy nuclear attack and respond with a devastating nuclear counterattack. These arguments are logical and persuasive, but, when compared to the empirical record, they raise an important puzzle. Empirically, we see that the United States has consistently maintained a nuclear posture that is much more robust than a mere second-strike capability. How do we make sense of this contradiction? Scholarly deterrence theory, including Robert Jervis’s seminal book, The Illogic of American Nuclear Strategy, argues that the explanation is simple—policymakers are wrong. This book takes a different approach. Rather than dismiss it as illogical, it explains the logic of American nuclear strategy. It argues that military nuclear advantages above and beyond a secure, second-strike capability can contribute to a state’s national security goals. This is primarily because nuclear advantages reduce a state’s expected cost of nuclear war, increasing its resolve, providing it with coercive bargaining leverage, and enhancing nuclear deterrence. This book provides the first theoretical explanation for why military nuclear advantages translate into geopolitical advantages. In so doing, it resolves one of the most intractable puzzles in international security studies. The book also explains why, in a world of growing dangers, the United States must possess, as President Donald J. Trump declared, a nuclear arsenal “at the top of the pack.”

Rational Superiority, Crises, and Arms Control, 1961–1963

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Cameron
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
National Security ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Rhetoric ◽  
Nuclear Strategy ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Test Ban

Chapter 1 describes how John F. Kennedy rose to power by articulating his own new nuclear strategy, which would use the latest advances in social and organizational sciences, combined with US superiority in nuclear weapons, to defend the United States’ national security interests. The foremost exponent of this strategy of “rational superiority” was Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara. The chapter then explains how this scheme was dealt a series of blows by Kennedy’s experiences during the Berlin and Cuban missile crises, which disabused him of the idea that nuclear superiority could be used to coerce the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, the Kennedy administration used the rhetoric of rational superiority to advance the Limited Test Ban Treaty and was planning to employ it as part of the president’s reelection campaign in 1964. Kennedy had not reconciled this gap between his public rhetoric and personal doubts at the time of his death.

Conclusion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Cameron
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
National Security ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
The United States ◽  
Personal Beliefs ◽  
Central Importance ◽  
Nuclear Strategy ◽  
Public Expectations ◽  
The Cold War

The conclusion summarizes the argument of the book as a whole, pointing to the central importance of domestic public and congressional opinion since the presidencies of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Baines Johnson, and through the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks of Richard Nixon’s administration, in the formulation of US nuclear strategy, even when such opinion diverges fundamentally from the views of the president. This forces presidents into playing a double game in their attempt to reconcile their personal beliefs on nuclear weapons with public expectations. The chapter argues that this dilemma is common across U.S. national security policymaking, but is especially acute in the case of nuclear strategy because of its extremely abstract nature. The chapter concludes by showing how the double game between presidents and their publics played out for the rest of the Cold War. It then offers a tentative prediction regarding its resurgence as the United States’ global commitments come under new pressure from Russia and China.

Summer Studies, Centers, and a Governmentwide Clearinghouse

2019 ◽  
pp. 91-144
Author(s):  
Michael C. Desch
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Social Science ◽  
National Security ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Key Policy ◽  
High Standards ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Policy Problems

This chapter examines how the Cold War witnessed continuing government interest in drawing on social science as a resource for national security policymaking. Despite this continuing interest, there was just below the surface an undercurrent of dissatisfaction with academic social science as it became more oriented to producing basic, as opposed to applied, research. Government funders increasingly complained that basic social science research was couched in excessive jargon and deplored the unwillingness of scholars to provide policy-relevant findings unless they could meet very high standards of scientific proof. This led to an ongoing search by national security policymakers for alternative arrangements through which to tap social science expertise. What early Cold War national security policymakers wanted was social science that was accessible to the layman, struck a balance of theory and practice, and engaged the key policy problems they were grappling with.

Grappling with Dr. Strangelove’s “Wargasm” Fantasy

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 464-481
Author(s):  
Rodger A Payne
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
National Security ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Nuclear Deterrence ◽  
Sexual Fantasies ◽  
Stanley Kubrick ◽  
Security Dilemma ◽  
Nuclear Strategy ◽  
Private Correspondence

Abstract Dr. Strangelove continues to be viewed as one of the most acclaimed films of all-time. Likewise, international relations (IR) experts commonly list the film among the most essential IR-themed movies. The IR scholars who discuss Dr. Strangelove as a text or recommend it for courses generally claim that it can be used to explain nuclear deterrence, the security dilemma, mutually assured destruction, Cold War competition, and various other traditional serious concerns of the field. They also recognize that the satirical film is critical of nuclear strategy. This article considers Dr. Strangelove’s sexual subtext, involving important metaphors and symbols that IR scholars characteristically ignore. Yet, for decades, film critics and scholars from other disciplines have identified and emphasized the importance of the film's comedic “sexual framework” and concluding “wargasm.” Director Stanley Kubrick even acknowledged these key elements in private correspondence. The film suggests that the national security establishment's masculine view of the utility of nuclear weapons and deterrence are comparable to absurd male sexual fantasies. Feminist IR scholars frequently note that mainstream scholars largely ignore their critique of masculine views of the discipline and nuclear strategy. The article concludes that scholars in the field should both prioritize Dr. Strangelove’s sexual subtext and rely upon feminist contributions to help understand those elements.

U.S. Nuclear Strategy

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas M. Nichols
Keyword(s):  
National Security ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Nuclear Proliferation ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Nuclear Strategy ◽  
Flexible Response ◽  
Massive Retaliation

Because of their awesome destructive capability, nuclear weapons require national security policymakers to carefully evaluate how they fit within a country’s national security posture. No consensus exists as to whether the use of such weapons is in fact an option for decision makers to consider or whether the goal is to ensure that they can never be used. The different strategies that have been developed since 1945 for U.S. nuclear strategy—massive retaliation, flexible response, a fatalistic acceptance of the logic of mutually assured destruction, and the search for the most effective ways of stemming nuclear proliferation in unstable or unpredictable actors—all reflect attempts to provide guidance for policymakers as to the strategic purpose of these weapons.

The “Renaissance of Security” Languished until the Owl of Minerva Flew after 9/11

2019 ◽  
pp. 205-239
Author(s):  
Michael C. Desch
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
National Security ◽  
Political Science ◽  
General Public ◽  
International Security ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Security Studies ◽  
Practical Relevance ◽  
Security Environment ◽  
Primary Focus

This chapter traces the development of political science after Vietnam, chronicling how the discipline continued to professionalize on the model of the natural sciences. The result was to privilege the refinement of method over practical relevance. It was disciplinary professionalism, as much as ideology, which widened the gap between the academic and policy worlds after Vietnam. Thus, a complete explanation for the decline of policy-relevant national security studies must also include the dynamics of academic normal social science combined with the changing international security environment. The chapter then suggests that political science is most useful to policymakers when it takes a problem-driven, rather than method-driven, approach to setting the scholarly agenda for academic security specialists. Important problems—defined in terms not just of internal disciplinary agendas but also the priorities of policymakers and the general public—ought to be the primary focus.

National Security and Nuclear Weapons in the 21st Century

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
PACIFIC AIR FORCES HICKAM AFB HI CHECO DIV
Keyword(s):  
National Security ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Nuclear Weapons

The Four Paradoxes of Nuclear Strategy

1964 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans J. Morgenthau
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Nuclear War ◽  
Nuclear Strategy ◽  
Nuclear Age ◽  
Modern Age ◽  
Modes Of Thought ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Middle Ages

The nuclear age has ushered in a novel period of history, as distinct from the age that preceded it as the modern age has been from the Middle Ages or the Middle Ages have been from antiquity. Yet while our conditions of life have drastically changed under the impact of the nuclear age, we still live in our thoughts and act through our institutions in an age that has passed. There exists, then, a gap between what we think about our social, political, and philosophic problems and the objective conditions which the nuclear age has created.This contradiction between our modes of thought and action, belonging to an age that has passed, and the objective conditions of our existence has engendered four paradoxes in our nuclear strategy: the commitment to the use of force, nuclear or otherwise, paralyzed by the fear of having to use it; the search for a nuclear strategy which would avoid the predictable consequences of nuclear war; the pursuit of a nuclear armaments race joined with attempts to stop it; the pursuit of an alliance policy which the availability of nuclear weapons has rendered obsolete. All these paradoxes result from the contrast between traditional attitudes and the possibility of nuclear war and from the fruitless attempts to reconcile the two.

The Madness beyond MAD—Current American Nuclear Strategy

1984 ◽  
Vol 17 (01) ◽  
pp. 33-40
Author(s):  
Robert Jervis
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Reagan Administration ◽  
Military Power ◽  
Nuclear Strategy ◽  
The Past ◽  
Means And Ends ◽  
Soviet Force ◽  
Nuclear Policy ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The U.S

A rational strategy for the employment of nuclear weapons is a contradiction in terms. The enormity of the destruction, either executed or threatened, severs the nexus of proportionality between means and ends which used to characterize the threat and use of force. This does not mean, however, that all nuclear strategies are equally irrational. The nuclear policy of the Reagan administration—which is essentially the same as that of the Carter administration and which has its roots in developments initiated by even earlier administrations—is particularly ill-formed. As I will demonstrate, the basic reason for this is that the strategy rests on a profound underestimation of the impact of nuclear weapons on military strategy and attempts to understand the current situation with intellectual tools appropriate only in the pre-nuclear era.American strategy for the past several years—the “countervailing strategy”—has been based on the assumption that what is crucial is the ability of American and allied military forces to deny the Soviets military advantage from any aggression they might contemplate. The U.S. must be prepared to meet and block any level of Soviet force. The strategy is then one of counterforce—blocking and seeking to destroy Soviet military power. The goal is deterrence. Although it is concerned with how the U.S. would fight many different kinds of wars, both nuclear and non-nuclear, it is not correct to claim that the strategy seeks to engage in wars rather than deter them.

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