Nuclear Statecraft: History and Strategy in America's Atomic Age

摘要

Old nuclear ideas are back in vogue. In the United States, scholars Keir A Lieber and Daryl G Press have argued that unprecedented levels of accuracy and smaller enemy arsenals mean that the prospect of mutually assured destruction (MAD) is fading, and that 'nuclear primary' - the possibility of disarming first strikes - is returning. Pakistan's generals are focusing their efforts on a small but growing array of short-range tactical nuclear weapons, intended to blunt conventional Indian military offensives on the plains of the Punjab. In traditionally cautious India, which took a quarter of a century to progress from its first nuclear test to overt weaponisation, a debate is bubbling as to whether the doctrine of 'massive retaliation' - a phrase popularised by Eisenhower-era American officials - is still credible in the context of a limited nuclear war. Elsewhere, the 'global zero' movement debates whether nuclear weapons insulate us from world-threatening war or bring us closer to it. All in all, nuclear thinkers are partying like it's 1959.