Book contents
- The Revolution that Failed
- The Revolution that Failed
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Figures and Tables
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 The Nuclear Revolution Revisited
- 2 The Delicacy of the Nuclear Balance
- 3 Comparative Constitutional Fitness
- 4 Testing the Argument against Its Competitors
- 5 Nixon and the Origins of Renewed Nuclear Competition, 1969–1971
- 6 Nixon, Ford, and Accelerating Nuclear Competition, 1971–1976
- 7 The Rise of Nuclear Warfighting, 1972–1976
- 8 Carter and the Climax of the Arms Race, 1977–1979
- 9 The Revolution that Failed
- Index
1 - The Nuclear Revolution Revisited
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 February 2020
- The Revolution that Failed
- The Revolution that Failed
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Figures and Tables
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 The Nuclear Revolution Revisited
- 2 The Delicacy of the Nuclear Balance
- 3 Comparative Constitutional Fitness
- 4 Testing the Argument against Its Competitors
- 5 Nixon and the Origins of Renewed Nuclear Competition, 1969–1971
- 6 Nixon, Ford, and Accelerating Nuclear Competition, 1971–1976
- 7 The Rise of Nuclear Warfighting, 1972–1976
- 8 Carter and the Climax of the Arms Race, 1977–1979
- 9 The Revolution that Failed
- Index
Summary
“The most important points are often the simplest ones,” Robert Jervis avers. “No one can win an all-out nuclear war. While this statement is open to dispute, I maintain that it is correct and that its implications have not been fully appreciated.”1 In this statement lie both the glory and the shame of the theory of the nuclear revolution. On the one hand, it encapsulates the bold simplicity of MAD’s stark and compelling logic. On the other hand, it admits that for all its simplicity, the theory has yet to shape the actions of states wholly as it expects.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Revolution that FailedNuclear Competition, Arms Control, and the Cold War, pp. 9 - 27Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020