The Best Defense: Policy Alternatives for U.s. Nuclear Security from the 1950s to the 1990s - Couverture souple

Goldfischer, David

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 1501779052 ISBN 13 : 9781501779053

Editeur : Cornell University Press, 2025

Synopsis

The Best Defense considers fundamental questions regarding the United States and the Soviet Union acquiring capabilities to destroy each other in a nuclear war. Was it inevitable? Or could they have agreed instead to address the nuclear danger through mutual emphasis on defenses? Might such an approach be a feasible option for nuclear powers in today's world?

David Goldfischer looks at how figures including J. Robert Oppenheimer, Donald G. Brennan, Freeman Dyson, and Jonathan Schell advanced compelling arguments for seeking an arms control agreement favoring defenses against nuclear attack. First developed by Oppenheimer as an alternative to a dangerous reliance on strategic bombing and again proposed in the 1960s as preferable to basing arms control on "mutual assured destruction," mutual defense emphasis was briefly adopted as a US arms control proposal when the cold war waned in the mid-1980s.

The Best Defense offers provocative explanations for why this approach was rejected and argues that the compelling need to protect populations makes mutual defense emphasis the most promising basis for an enduring nuclear arms control and disarmament regime.

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

David Goldfischer is Associate Professor at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Cornell University Press
• Date d'édition: 2025
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1501779052
• ISBN 13: 9781501779053
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 304
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: Mare Nostrum Group B.V.; gpsr@mare-nostrum.co.uk; ; Doelen 72; Breda; 4831 GR; Pays-Bas