The Bomb: Presidents, Generals, and the Secret History of Nuclear War

by Fred Kaplan

Then Colin Kahl, Vice President Biden’s national security adviser, raised his hand. Kahl wasn’t a specialist on nuclear matters; in Obama’s first term, he’d worked in the Pentagon as the chief civilian official on Middle East affairs, and before then, he’d taught at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. But Kahl thought the generals were missing the big picture. The minute the Russians drop a nuclear bomb, he said, we would face a world-defining moment—the first time an atom bomb had been used since 1945. It would be an opportunity to rally the entire world against Russia. If we restricted our response to conventional combat and diplomatic ventures, we could isolate and weaken the Russian leaders, policies, and military forces. However, if we responded by shooting off some nukes of our own, we would forfeit that advantage and, more than that, normalize the use of nuclear weapons. Breedlove seemed confused. He understood the debate over whether the United States should be the first to use nuclear weapons in response to a conventional attack; but it seemed perverse to consider using conventional weapons in response to a nuclear attack.