Download or read book First strike Stability written by Glenn A. Kent and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report presents a logical and transparent methodology for evaluating strategic offensive forces on the basis of first-strike stability, which the authors define as a condition that exists when neither superpower perceives the other as motivated by the strategic force posture to launch the first nuclear strike in a crisis. The methodology underlines that (1) first-strike stability under current conditions is relatively robust, (2) postures of U.S. and Soviet strategic nuclear forces become increasingly important under an arms reduction regime if the current level of first-strike stability is desired, (3) enlarging U.S. and Soviet strategic nuclear weapons inventories does not necessarily erode first-strike stability, (4) the superpowers should realize the importance of both sides generating forces early in a crisis to render these forces nontargetable, and (5) whatever the index of first-strike stability, the index applies equally to both the United States and the Soviet Union, and thus suggests a dimension of U.S.-Soviet cooperation.

Download or read book A Calculus of First strike Stability written by Glenn A. Kent and published by . This book was released on 1988 with total page 70 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book FIRST STRIKE STABILITY AND STRATEGIC DEFENCES PT 2 OF A METHODOLOGY FOR EVALUATING STRATEGIC FORCES written by Rand Corporation and published by . This book was released on with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book A Calculus of First Strike Stability A Criterion for Evaluating Strategic Forces written by and published by . This book was released on 1988 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book First Strike Stability written by Stephen J. Cimbala and published by Praeger. This book was released on 1990-08-24 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The lifting of the Iron Curtain in response to pressures for democratic reform in the Eastern Bloc nations and the refusal of General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev to use the Red Army to police countries of the Warsaw Pact have led to a radically changed international environment. Preceded by over 40 years of peace and stability, unprecedented in the history of modern Europe, the Cold War ended in a climate of upheaval and uncertainty. This volume addresses issues associated with the political and military vacuum created by recent events and explores in depth a problem of military uncertainty: first strike stability. Stephen J. Cimbala argues that war in a system undergoing rapid change, including reductions in forces and political realignment, remains disturbingly possible due to the unforeseeable, inadvertent, and uncontrollable uncertainties that plague decision making and military planning in Washington, Moscow, and other international power centers, hence, first strike instability. This timely volume clarifies the kind of bargain superpowers and their allies have made in regard to nuclear weapons and command systems. Cimbala provides enhanced understandings of the concept and practice of nuclear deterrence and of first strike stability in a post-Cold War world that can help direct arms control efforts toward those areas that are most important to actual security. Broad aspects of the problem of first strike stability are set forth in the first chapter which also anticipates some of the connections between political and military levels of analysis discussed in the conclusion. Chapter two introduces the concepts of the state of nature and the state of war, explains how they apply to the problem of first strike stability, and why the possibility of war, including nuclear war, cannot be excluded. Chapter three focuses on the New Soviet Thinking and why the probability of accidental and inadvertent war and escalation is not affected by reducing the levels of armaments alone. Chapter four emphasizes the problems facing the United States and NATO, and the approaches to escalation control which NATO assumes will be implemented, should deterrence fail. The results of the theoretical and administrative confusion over approaches to escalation control, outlined in chapter four, reappear in chapter five in the form of problems for war termination. The controversial issue of eliminating nuclear deterrence, with emphasis on the proposal for elimination by preclusive antinuclear strategic defenses is the focus of chapter six. The final chapter reviews the implications of the preceding chapters and arrives at some startling conclusions. Scholars and students of military affairs, political scientists, government officials, and members of the military establishment will find the up-to-the-minute information and judgements contained in First Strike Stability invaluable aids to their own decision making on this profoundly important world issue.

Download or read book First Strike Stability and Strategic Defenses Part 2 of a Methodology for Evaluating Strategic Forces written by and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 69 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First-strike stability between two adversaries is robust when both leaders perceive no great difference between the expected 'cost' to each side of striking first and the expected 'cost' of incurring a first strike if one withholds his attack. Conclusions include: (1) First-strike stability is currently quite robust. (2) Deployment of strategic nationwide ballistic missile defenses by either superpower in competition with the other's strategic offenses generally erodes first-strike stability. (3) Neither country would be likely to continue to adhere to agreements that constrain and reduce offensive arms under the specter of intent by the other to deploy robust strategic defenses in contravention to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. (4) There may be a 'window' in which United States and Soviet strategic nationwide BMD could be robust in defending against 'limited' attacks (third-country ballistic missile attacks, unauthorized attacks, and accidental launches), yet not so robust that first-strike stability is seriously undermined. (5) The level of U.S. defenses attributed to the so-called 'Phase I' deployment seems to go beyond the upper bounds of this 'window' even with current offensive forces, and certainly with offensive forces constrained by START I. (6) Any attempt to transition to a situation in which each side's strategic defenses dominate the opponent's ballistic missiles must include a careful negotiation on the critical role of bomber forces in maintaining firs-strike stability.

Download or read book Strategic Defenses and First strike Stability written by Dean Wilkening and published by Rand Corporation. This book was released on 1986 with total page 65 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The impact of strategic defenses on stability is a central theme in the Strategic Defense Initiative debate. This report examines the effects of defenses on first-strike stability. It is principally concerned with assessing first-strike stability during the transition from an offense-dominated strategic balance to a defense-dominated balance. It also examines the implications of various offensive and defensive force structures. The findings suggest that (1) first-strike instability during the defense transition can be minimized by careful force planning; (2) the most stable defense transition occurs when the ballistic missile defense transition is completed before significant levels of air defense are deployed; (3) arms control efforts will not necessarily reduce potential first-strike instabilities unless each side's counterforce capability is reduced; (4) asymmetries in each side's ability to suppress the opponent's defenses can lead to instabilities during, and after, the defense transition; and (5) biased perceptions make the defense transition either more or less stable, depending on the nature of the bias.

Download or read book First strike Stability and Strategic Defenses written by Glenn A. Kent and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 55 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A pressing issue facing the United States in the early 1990s centers on whether, and for what strategic purposes, the United States should deploy nationwide ballistic missile defenses (BMD). One argument is that such defenses could enhance stability. This report extends the methodology developed in R-3765 to assess the effect of BMD deployments on first-strike stability. The authors conclude that (1) first-strike stability is currently robust; (2) deployment of strategic nationwide BMD by either superpower in competition with the other's strategic offenses generally erodes first-strike stability; (3) there might be a level at which U.S. and Soviet BMD could effectively defend against third-country ballistic missile attacks, unauthorized attacks, and accidental launches, without being so robust that it would undermine first-strike stability; (4) the buildup of U.S. defenses during Phase I deployment seems to exceed this level; and (5) maintaining effective bomber forces on both sides would be critical to any attempt to move from offense dominance to defense dominance.

Download or read book Deterrence and First strike Stability in Space written by Forrest E. Morgan and published by RAND Corporation. This book was released on 2010 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Space stability appears to be eroding as a growing number of states acquire the ability to degrade or destroy U.S. space assets. The United States needs a coordinated national space deterrence strategy designed to operate on both sides of a potential adversary's cost-benefit decision calculus. Future research will determine the most effective and affordable mix of strategies, policies, and systems for strengthening space deterrence.

Download or read book The End of Strategic Stability written by Lawrence Rubin and published by Georgetown University Press. This book was released on 2018-09-03 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the Cold War, many believed that the superpowers shared a conception of strategic stability, a coexistence where both sides would compete for global influence but would be deterred from using nuclear weapons. In actuality, both sides understood strategic stability and deterrence quite differently. Today’s international system is further complicated by more nuclear powers, regional rivalries, and nonstate actors who punch above their weight, but the United States and other nuclear powers still cling to old conceptions of strategic stability. The purpose of this book is to unpack and examine how different states in different regions view strategic stability, the use or non-use of nuclear weapons, and whether or not strategic stability is still a prevailing concept. The contributors to this volume explore policies of current and potential nuclear powers including the United States, Russia, China, India, Iran, Israel, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia. This volume makes an important contribution toward understanding how nuclear weapons will impact the international system in the twenty-first century and will be useful to students, scholars, and practitioners of nuclear weapons policy.

Download or read book First Strike Stability at Low Weapon Levels written by and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 9 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Proportional force reductions could reduce stability by giving the side with fewer vulnerable significant benefit in preemption by allowing the use of his full force in damage limitation at intermediate force levels. That benefit would be reduced if both sides shifted towards larger fractions of survivable forces.

Download or read book Arms and Influence written by Thomas C. Schelling and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-17 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “This is a brilliant and hardheaded book. It will frighten those who prefer not to dwell on the unthinkable and infuriate those who have taken refuge in stereotypes and moral attitudinizing.”—Gordon A. Craig, New York Times Book Review Originally published more than fifty years ago, this landmark book explores the ways in which military capabilities—real or imagined—are used, skillfully or clumsily, as bargaining power. Anne-Marie Slaughter’s new introduction to the work shows how Schelling’s framework—conceived of in a time of superpowers and mutually assured destruction—still applies to our multipolar world, where wars are fought as much online as on the ground.

Download or read book Studying First Strike Stability with Knowledge Based Models of Human Decisionmaking written by and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page 117 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The RAND Corporation and the RAND/UCLA Center for the Study of Soviet International Behavior (CSSIB) have a joint project for the Carnegie Corporation entitled Avoiding Nuclear War: Managing Conflict in the Nuclear Age. This project has two broad objectives: to understand better the process of escalation from peace through general nuclear war; and to identify and assess, while protecting vital national interests, unilateral and cooperative measures that might inhibit unintended escalation or improve prospects for reversing or controlling escalation once it has begun. This report contributes to the larger project by describing efforts of the author and colleagues in the RAND Strategy Assessment center to develop and use knowledge based analytic models of national-command-level decisionmaking for better understanding and communicating issues of deterrence, escalation, and war termination. The intended audience includes researchers and government figures interested in crisis decision making, related command and control problems, and a framework for thinking about first strike stability that integrates both force-posture factors and behavioral factors.

Download or read book The Case for First strike Counterforce Capabilities written by Carl H. Builder and published by . This book was released on 1978 with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this briefing prepared for the 41st meeting of the Military Operations Research Society, the author challenges much of the current thinking behind U.S. arms control and strategic policies. He argues that counterforce capabilities should be sought, not eschewed or proscribed. He sees counterforce capabilities more as deterrents to conflict than as inducements to nuclear warfighting. Where some would embrace counterforce capabilities only as a retaliatory option, the author goes much further and advocates them as a credible, advantageous, first-strike initiative. He questions the generally accepted belief that counterforce capabilities are inherently destabilizing. Because of enduring asymmetries in vital interests and conventional force capabilities, the author argues that the United States, more than the Soviet Union, has a need for a credible and advantageous nuclear initiative.

Download or read book Studying First strike Stability with Knowledge based Models of Human Decision making written by Paul K. Davis and published by Rand Corporation. This book was released on 1989-01-01 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First-strike stability depends on the improbability of crises and the improbability that crises would result in first strikes. This study focuses on the latter criterion, which in turn depends on crisis decisionmaking by human beings. The report argues that efforts to understand and improve first-strike stability should be guided by a formal theory of human decisionmaking that accounts for behavioral factors such as mindset, desperation, fatalism, perceptions, and fears. The author identifies three principal mechanisms for improving first-strike stability: (1) improve force-posture stability; (2) review and adjust nuclear policies and doctrine, and the way they are discussed; and (3) improve the likely quality of crisis decisionmaking through efforts involving education, exercises, and staffing.

Download or read book Arms Control and Strategic Stability written by University of Virginia. Center for Law and National Security. Seminar and published by . This book was released on 1986 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Stability and Strategic Defenses written by Jack N. Barkenbus and published by Paragon House Publishers. This book was released on 1989 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: