The logic of American nuclear strategy: why strategic superiority matters

Book Cover
Average Rating
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Publication Date
©2018.
Language
English

Description

"What kind of nuclear strategy and posture does the United States need to defend itself and its allies? According to a longstanding, academic 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. 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 coherent theoretical explanation for why military nuclear advantages translate into geopolitical advantages. In so doing, it resolves one of the longest-standing and most-intractable puzzles in international security studies. The book also explains why, in a world of growing nuclear dangers, the United States must possess, as President Donald J. Trump recently declared, a nuclear arsenal "at the top of the pack.""--Provided by publisher.

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ISBN
9780190849184

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Choice Review

This is a sobering and sophisticated book by a well-published expert on nuclear weapons in international politics. Kroenig (Georgetown) argues that the US should continue to rely upon its long-standing robust nuclear posture not only to ensure a second-strike capability in the event of nuclear war but also to maintain overall strategic superiority to serve broader security interests, especially in crises. His nuanced analysis is original and draws on a wide range of literature on nuclear strategy, crisis bargaining, weapons proliferation, arms races, deterrence and compellence. He offers a novel "superiority-brinkmanship synthesis theory" to explain the logic of America's nuclear strategy, informed by academic research, practical concerns, and behaviors of policy makers. The methodology includes several statistical tests of historical cases involving states involved in proliferation and crisis behavior. Kroenig considers both the advantages and costs of this strategy, deeming the latter reasonable and more than offset by the advantages. He concludes with reflections and recommendations for US nuclear policy going forward. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through professionals. --Joseph P. Smaldone, Georgetown University

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