NAVWAG’s main thesis was that, once the Soviets had their own nuclear arsenal, the notion of winning a nuclear war was absurd and any plan to launch an American first strike was suicidal. Therefore, the only sensible purpose of nuclear weapons was to deter an enemy attack. The only way to deter an enemy attack was to develop a nuclear arsenal that could answer an enemy attack with a devastating counterblow to the enemy’s cities. The best way to do that was to maintain an invulnerable second-strike force. And the most invulnerable force imaginable was a fleet of missile-carrying submarines
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