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To Win a Nuclear War
The authors, both university physicists, maintain that the nuclear policy of the U.S.A. for the past 40 years has not been one of deterrence as publicly stated, but rather has been one of threatening the use of nuclear weapons. This policy has been documented in such book as the New England Regional Office of the American Friends Service Committee's The Deadly Connection (Library Journal 4/15/86) and Barry M. Blechman and Stephen S. Kaplan's Force Without U.S. Armed Forces as a Political Instrument (Library Journal 3/1/79). Nonetheless, the authors' thorough analysis of recently released Pentagon documents provides the basis for a description of the nuclear war fighting strategy of the Reagan administration. The authors also outline the attitudes and biases of U.S. nuclear strategists and policymakers. Recommended for public and university libraries.--Dennis Felbel, University of Manitoba Library, WinnipegCopyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.
350 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1986
About the author
Michio Kaku
54 books6,973 followers(Arabic: ميشيو كاكو
Russian: Митио Каку
Chinese: 加來道雄)
Dr. Michio Kaku is an American theoretical physicist at the City College of New York , best-selling author, a futurist, and a communicator and popularizer of science. He has written several books about physics and related topics of science.
He has written two New York Times Best Sellers, Physics of the Impossible (2008) and Physics of the Future (2011).
Dr. Michio is the co-founder of string field theory (a branch of string theory), and continues Einstein’s search to unite the four fundamental forces of nature into one unified theory.
Kaku was a Visitor and Member (1973 and 1990) at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and New York University. He currently holds the Henry Semat Chair and Professorship in theoretical physics at the City College of New York.
Russian: Митио Каку
Chinese: 加來道雄)
Dr. Michio Kaku is an American theoretical physicist at the City College of New York , best-selling author, a futurist, and a communicator and popularizer of science. He has written several books about physics and related topics of science.
He has written two New York Times Best Sellers, Physics of the Impossible (2008) and Physics of the Future (2011).
Dr. Michio is the co-founder of string field theory (a branch of string theory), and continues Einstein’s search to unite the four fundamental forces of nature into one unified theory.
Kaku was a Visitor and Member (1973 and 1990) at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and New York University. He currently holds the Henry Semat Chair and Professorship in theoretical physics at the City College of New York.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
August 10, 2011
I first learned of Dr. Kaku by listening to him on podcasts of the old Art Bell show on Coast to Coast radio. At that time I had no idea of the man's politics. Given the character of the apparent listenership of Coast to Coast, however, I supposed he was either apolitical or all tied up somewhere on the right of the military-industrial complex.
What a surprise then to find this book at the Evanston Public Library! It's an extremely well-documented study of the nuclear war policies of the USA from 1945 until the middle of the Reagan administration, a study which demonstrates the well-nigh universal desire of policy makers to design a first-strike capacity against the USSR (and, on occasion, China, Vietnam, Eastern Europe etc.) If that's not bad enough, there were plenty of American strategists seriously advocating implementing a first strike, even under the less-than-ideal circumstances of domestic losses in the tens of millions.
No American president from Truman through Reagan is exempt from being criticized for pursuing the capacity to provoke a thermonuclear holocaust, though Carter, for a brief while, did attempt to adopt a real deterence policy until being shot down by his advisors. Indeed, not only did the presidents endorse the idea of wars of aggression against communist states (a crime under the principles of Nuremburg), so did virtually all of their advisors on the National Security Council and on the Joint Chiefs of Staff (the sole exception being the head of the army during the early years of the Cold War).
So, with all these warmongers running the USA, why didn't we wipe out the commies? Well, they certainly planned, but each plan faced an obstacle, beginning with Truman discovering his plan to wipe out Moscow and Leningrad with 40 nukes being impossible because there were only six in the arsenal. The biggest reason, however, is that the USSR developed its own, albeit always far inferior, capacities to retaliate in kind far earlier than our strategists estimated, to retaliate so as to cause politically and economically unacceptable losses.
In addition to detailing the horrific record of the American government in preparing for nuclear aggression, the authors devote some space to a more sociological consideration of where such moral monsters as would contemplate such things come from. Their discussion of the conflicts within the Establishment expressed in the publications of The Committee of the Present Danger, The Council of Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission--all of whom appear to enjoy thinking in terms of megadeaths--represents the depravity of the acceptable range of what passes for "realistic" thinking about foreign policy in the American Empire.
What a surprise then to find this book at the Evanston Public Library! It's an extremely well-documented study of the nuclear war policies of the USA from 1945 until the middle of the Reagan administration, a study which demonstrates the well-nigh universal desire of policy makers to design a first-strike capacity against the USSR (and, on occasion, China, Vietnam, Eastern Europe etc.) If that's not bad enough, there were plenty of American strategists seriously advocating implementing a first strike, even under the less-than-ideal circumstances of domestic losses in the tens of millions.
No American president from Truman through Reagan is exempt from being criticized for pursuing the capacity to provoke a thermonuclear holocaust, though Carter, for a brief while, did attempt to adopt a real deterence policy until being shot down by his advisors. Indeed, not only did the presidents endorse the idea of wars of aggression against communist states (a crime under the principles of Nuremburg), so did virtually all of their advisors on the National Security Council and on the Joint Chiefs of Staff (the sole exception being the head of the army during the early years of the Cold War).
So, with all these warmongers running the USA, why didn't we wipe out the commies? Well, they certainly planned, but each plan faced an obstacle, beginning with Truman discovering his plan to wipe out Moscow and Leningrad with 40 nukes being impossible because there were only six in the arsenal. The biggest reason, however, is that the USSR developed its own, albeit always far inferior, capacities to retaliate in kind far earlier than our strategists estimated, to retaliate so as to cause politically and economically unacceptable losses.
In addition to detailing the horrific record of the American government in preparing for nuclear aggression, the authors devote some space to a more sociological consideration of where such moral monsters as would contemplate such things come from. Their discussion of the conflicts within the Establishment expressed in the publications of The Committee of the Present Danger, The Council of Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission--all of whom appear to enjoy thinking in terms of megadeaths--represents the depravity of the acceptable range of what passes for "realistic" thinking about foreign policy in the American Empire.
June 17, 2020
Very dated (this came out in 1986) but also extremely thorough. Particularly chilling is how Pentagon big shots, throughout the history outlined in this book, kept pushing and pushing for a first strike on the Soviet Union!
September 16, 2017
Published in 1987, this is a remarkable analysis of the US war plans. Based on declassified documents, it is eye-opening, especially for its time.
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February 12, 2026review text for 1678
July 4, 2013
Horribly partisan with no effort at allay subjective analysis. Holes you could drive a truck through. But nevertheless interesting for its perspective as it counters all the other books that clearly have a different bias. When will someone produce a genuinely objective book on nuclear strategic balance? Managing Nuclear Operations being the best I know of.
May 30, 2017
Ok I liked this book for obvious author relationship reasons... but other than that, this is still a good book about the nuclear arms race.
April 15, 2016
Incredible documentation of the unfortunate role of the U.S. in reducing our security. I had Dr. Axelrod come speak on the topic at Stanford shortly after he published this book.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews