Post-Cold War Conflict Deterrence
- ISBN-10
- 1230444807
- ISBN-13
- 9781230444802
- Pages
- 108
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2013-09
- Publisher
- Theclassics.Us
- Author
- Naval Studies Board
Description
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1997-03 edition. Excerpt: ...The historical evidence is clear that conventional weapons, including the potential availability of chemical or biological weapons, have not deterred all-out world wars; conversely, nuclear weapons also have not deterred the hundred or so localized nonnuclear conflicts which have taken a larger toll during the nuclear age than that inflicted by the nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Whether the ascendance of nuclear weapons has deterred, and thereby prevented, all-out large-scale war between the end of World War II and today will remain a subject of debate with happily no physical evidence to support either side. There is, however, no question that what has been called "existential deterrence" by nuclear weapons has been a major military factor since World War II. Although the Cold War consumed enormous resources and threatened a major holocaust, the superpowers actually conducted foreign policy and military operations with a great deal of caution. Direct contact between U.S. and Soviet forces was largely avoided, with essentially all actual military hostilities restricted to client states of the two powers. There were indeed tense moments, such as the Cuban missile crisis and the bombardment of Russian ships at Haiphong during the Vietnam War, but these crises were in effect settled by the preponderance of conventional power, with nuclear threat only as backdrop. The nuclear deterrent concepts during the Cold War evolved from "massive retaliation," which threatened the Soviet Union with nuclear reprisals in case of unacceptable conduct, be it nuclear or nonnuclear, to the doctrine designated as "flexible response" and then "extended deterrence." In essence flexible response provided that the United States would use nuclear...
