Download or read book Nixon s Nuclear Specter written by William Burr and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2015-06-15 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In their initial effort to end the Vietnam War, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger attempted to lever concessions from Hanoi at the negotiating table with military force and coercive diplomacy. They were not seeking military victory, which they did not believe was feasible. Instead, they backed up their diplomacy toward North Vietnam and the Soviet Union with the Madman Theory of threatening excessive force, which included the specter of nuclear force. They began with verbal threats then bombed North Vietnamese and Viet Cong base areas in Cambodia, signaling that there was more to come. As the bombing expanded, they launched a previously unknown mining ruse against Haiphong, stepped-up their warnings to Hanoi and Moscow, and initiated planning for a massive shock-and-awe military operation referred to within the White House inner circle as DUCK HOOK. Beyond the mining of North Vietnamese ports and selective bombing in and around Hanoi, the initial DUCK HOOK concept included proposals for “tactical” nuclear strikes against logistics targets and U.S. and South Vietnamese ground incursions into the North. In early October 1969, however, Nixon aborted planning for the long-contemplated operation. He had been influenced by Hanoi's defiance in the face of his dire threats and concerned about U.S. public reaction, antiwar protests, and internal administration dissent. In place of DUCK HOOK, Nixon and Kissinger launched a secret global nuclear alert in hopes that it would lend credibility to their prior warnings and perhaps even persuade Moscow to put pressure on Hanoi. It was to be a “special reminder” of how far President Nixon might go. The risky gambit failed to move the Soviets, but it marked a turning point in the administration's strategy for exiting Vietnam. Nixon and Kissinger became increasingly resigned to a “long-route” policy of providing Saigon with a “decent chance” of survival for a “decent interval” after a negotiated settlement and U.S. forces left Indochina. Burr and Kimball draw upon extensive research in participant interviews and declassified documents to unravel this intricate story of the October 1969 nuclear alert. They place it in the context of nuclear threat making and coercive diplomacy since 1945, the culture of the Bomb, intra-governmental dissent, domestic political pressures, the international “nuclear taboo,” and Vietnamese and Soviet actions and policies. It is a history that holds important lessons for the present and future about the risks and uncertainties of nuclear threat making.
Download or read book Nixon s Vietnam War written by Jeffrey P. Kimball and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 536 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The signing of the Paris Agreement in 1973 ended not only America's Vietnam War but also Richard Nixon's best laid plans. After years of secret negotiations, threats of massive bombing and secret diplomacy designed to shatter strained Communist alliances, the president had to settle for a peace that fell far short of his original aims.
Download or read book The Vietnam War Files written by Jeffrey P. Kimball and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The new evidence uncovers a number of behind-the-scenes plays - such as Nixon's secret nuclear alert of October 1969 - and sheds more light on Nixon's goals in Vietnam and his and Kissinger's strategies of Vietnamization, the "China card," and "triangular diplomacy." The excerpted documents also reveal significant new information about the purposes of the linebacker bombings, Nixon's manipulation of the pow issue, and the conduct of the secret negotiations in Paris - as well as other key topics, events, and issues. All of these are effectively framed by Kimball, whose introductions to each document provide historical context."
Download or read book Nuclear Weapons and Coercive Diplomacy written by Todd S. Sechser and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-02-02 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Are nuclear weapons useful for coercive diplomacy? This book argues that they are useful for deterrence but not for offensive purposes.
Download or read book 1999 Victory Without War written by Richard Nixon and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-01-08 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Nixon raises all the timely questions about the present state of the world, and then answers them both systematically and thoroughly.” —The New York Times In this acclaimed national bestseller, Richard Nixon offers a comprehensive strategy for the West—a vital plan of action that will help ensure peace, prosperity, and freedom in the next century. From glasnost and summitry to arms control and “Star Wars,” from Nicaragua and China to Europe and Japan, he gives seasoned, no-nonsense advice on all tough foreign policy issues. The former President draws on a lifetime of experience in international affairs to examine the crucial challenges facing the United States and the West and how best to go forward in the 21st century.
Download or read book Raven Rock written by Garrett M. Graff and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-05-02 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now a 6-part mini-series called Why the Rest of Us Die airing on VICE TV! The shocking truth about the government’s secret plans to survive a catastrophic attack on US soil—even if the rest of us die—is “a frightening eye-opener” (Kirkus Reviews) that spans the dawn of the nuclear age to today, and "contains everything one could possibly want to know" (The Wall Street Journal). Every day in Washington, DC, the blue-and-gold first Helicopter Squadron, codenamed “MUSSEL,” flies over the Potomac River. As obvious as the Presidential motorcade, most people assume the squadron is a travel perk for VIPs. They’re only half right: while the helicopters do provide transport, the unit exists to evacuate high-ranking officials in the event of a terrorist or nuclear attack on the capital. In the event of an attack, select officials would be whisked by helicopters to a ring of secret bunkers around Washington, even as ordinary citizens were left to fend for themselves. “In exploring the incredible lengths (and depths) that successive administrations have gone to in planning for the aftermath of a nuclear assault, Graff deftly weaves a tale of secrecy and paranoia” (The New York Times Book Review) with details "that read like they've been ripped from the pages of a pulp spy novel" (Vice). For more than sixty years, the US government has been developing secret Doomsday strategies to protect itself, and the multibillion-dollar Continuity of Government (COG) program takes numerous forms—from its potential to evacuate the Liberty Bell from Philadelphia to the plans to launch nuclear missiles from a Boeing-747 jet flying high over Nebraska. Garrett M. Graff sheds light on the inner workings of the 650-acre compound, called Raven Rock, just miles from Camp David, as well as dozens of other bunkers the government built for its top leaders during the Cold War, from the White House lawn to Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado to Palm Beach, Florida, and the secret plans that would have kicked in after a Cold War nuclear attack to round up foreigners and dissidents and nationalize industries. Equal parts a presidential, military, and cultural history, Raven Rock tracks the evolution of the government plan and the threats of global war from the dawn of the nuclear era through the War on Terror.
Download or read book Haunting Legacy written by Marvin Kalb and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2011-06-01 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The United States had never lost a war—that is, until 1975, when it was forced to flee Saigon in humiliation after losing to what Lyndon Johnson called a "raggedy-ass little fourth-rate country." The legacy of this first defeat has haunted every president since, especially on the decision of whether to put "boots on the ground" and commit troops to war. In Haunting Legacy, the father-daughter journalist team of Marvin Kalb and Deborah Kalb presents a compelling, accessible, and hugely important history of presidential decisionmaking on one crucial issue: in light of the Vietnam debacle, under what circumstances should the United States go to war? The sobering lesson of Vietnam is that the United States is not invincible—it can lose a war—and thus it must be more discriminating about the use of American power. Every president has faced the ghosts of Vietnam in his own way, though each has been wary of being sucked into another unpopular war. Ford (during the Mayaguez crisis) and both Bushes (Persian Gulf, Iraq, Afghanistan) deployed massive force, as if to say, "Vietnam, be damned." On the other hand, Carter, Clinton, and Reagan (to the surprise of many) acted with extreme caution, mindful of the Vietnam experience. Obama has also wrestled with the Vietnam legacy, using doses of American firepower in Libya while still engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan. The authors spent five years interviewing hundreds of officials from every post war administration and conducting extensive research in presidential libraries and archives, and they've produced insight and information never before published. Equal parts taut history, revealing biography, and cautionary tale, Haunting Legacy is must reading for anyone trying to understand the power of the past to influence war-and-peace decisions of the present, and of the future.
Download or read book The Control Agenda written by Matthew J. Ambrose and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-04-15 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Control Agenda is a sweeping account of the history of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT), their rise in the Nixon and Ford administrations, their downfall under President Carter, and their powerful legacies in the Reagan years and beyond. Matthew Ambrose pays close attention to the interplay of diplomacy, domestic politics, and technology, and finds that the SALT process was a key point of reference for arguments regarding all forms of Cold War decision making. Ambrose argues elite U.S. decision makers used SALT to better manage their restive domestic populations and to exert greater control over the shape, structure, and direction of their nuclear arsenals. Ambrose also asserts that prolonged engagement with arms control issues introduced dynamic effects into nuclear policy. Arms control considerations came to influence most areas of defense decision making, while the measure of stability SALT provided allowed the examination of new and potentially dangerous nuclear doctrines. The Control Agenda makes clear that verification and compliance concerns by the United States prompted continuous reassessments of Soviet capabilities and intentions; assessments that later undergirded key U.S. policy changes toward the Soviet Union. Through SALT’s many twists and turns, accusations and countercharges, secret backchannels and propaganda campaigns the specter of nuclear conflict loomed large.
Download or read book US Presidents and Cold War Nuclear Diplomacy written by Aiden Warren and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-02-15 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book will illustrate that despite the variations of nuclear tensions during the Cold War period—from nuclear inception, to mass proliferation, to arms control treaties and détente, through to an intensification and “reasonable” conclusion (the INF Treaty and START being case points)—the “lessons” over the last decade are quickly being unlearned. Given debates surrounding the emerging “new Cold War,” the deterioration of relations between Russia and the United States, and the concurrent challenges being made by key nuclear states in obfuscating arms control mechanisms, this book attempts to provide a much needed revisit into US presidential foreign policy during the Cold War. Across nine chapters, the monograph traces the United States’ nuclear diplomacy and Presidential strategic thought, transitioning across the early period of Cold War arms racing through to the era’s defining conclusion. It will reveal that notwithstanding the heightened periods when great power conflict seemed imminent, arms control fora and seminal agreements were able to be devised, implemented, and provided a needed base in bringing down the specter of a cataclysmic nuclear war, as well as improving bilateral relations. This volume will be of great interest to scholars and students of American foreign policy, diplomatic history, security studies and international relations.
Download or read book Nixon s Trident Naval Power in Southeast Asia 1968 1972 written by John Darrell Sherwood and published by Government Printing Office. This book was released on 2015-05-01 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This commemoration booklet focuses on naval air power during the final years of the Vietnam War. For much of this period, Navy aircraft sought to hamper the flow of supplies down the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos—a huge investment in air power resources that ultimately proved fruitless. After North Vietnam’s invasion of the South in 1972, however, Navy tactical aviation, as well as naval gunfire support, proved critical, not only in blunting the offensive but also in persuading North Vietnam to arrive at a peace agreement in Paris in1973. The Navy’s forward presence saved the day in 1972 and allowed President Nixon to finally achieve “peace with honor.”
Download or read book The Revolution that Failed written by Brendan Rittenhouse Green and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-05 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A theoretical analysis and historical investigation of the Cold War nuclear arms race that challenges the nuclear revolution.
Download or read book The Nixon Tapes 1971 1972 written by Douglas Brinkley and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2014 with total page 797 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The infamous Nixon White House taping system captured 3,700 hours of Oval Office, Cabinet Room, and Camp David conversations between 1971 and 1973, automatically taping every single word spoken. These audio recordings have finally been released over the past decade by the National Archives, yet only fewer than 5% of them have been transcribed and published--until now.
Download or read book Getting MAD Nuclear Mutual Assured Destruction Its Origins and Practice written by and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 2004 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nearly 40 years after the concept of finite deterrence was popularized by the Johnson administration, nuclear Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) thinking appears to be in decline. The United States has rejected the notion that threatening population centers with nuclear attacks is a legitimate way to assure deterrence. Most recently, it withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, an agreement based on MAD. American opposition to MAD also is reflected in the Bush administration's desire to develop smaller, more accurate nuclear weapons that would reduce the number of innocent civilians killed in a nuclear strike. Still, MAD is influential in a number of ways. First, other countries, like China, have not abandoned the idea that holding their adversaries' cities at risk is necessary to assure their own strategic security. Nor have U.S. and allied security officials and experts fully abandoned the idea. At a minimum, acquiring nuclear weapons is still viewed as being sensible to face off a hostile neighbor that might strike one's own cities. Thus, our diplomats have been warning China that Japan would be under tremendous pressure to go nuclear if North Korea persisted in acquiring a few crude weapons of its own. Similarly, Israeli officials have long argued, without criticism, that they would not be second in acquiring nuclear weapons in the Middle East. Indeed, given that Israelis surrounded by enemies that would not hesitate to destroy its population if they could, Washington finds Israel's retention of a significant nuclear capability totally "understandable."
Download or read book A Rift in the Earth written by James Reston and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-09-05 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Distinguished and Bestselling Historian and Army Veteran Revisits the Culture War that Raged around the Selection of Maya Lin's Design for the Vietnam Memorial A Rift in the Earth tells the remarkable story of the ferocious “art war” that raged between 1979 and 1984 over what kind of memorial should be built to honor the men and women who died in the Vietnam War. The story intertwines art, politics, historical memory, patriotism, racism, and a fascinating set of characters, from those who fought in the conflict and those who resisted it to politicians at the highest level. At its center are two enduring figures: Maya Lin, a young, Asian-American architecture student at Yale whose abstract design won the international competition but triggered a fierce backlash among powerful figures; and Frederick Hart, an innovative sculptor of humble origins on the cusp of stardom. James Reston, Jr., a veteran who lost a close friend in the war and has written incisively about the conflict's bitter aftermath, explores how the debate reignited passions around Vietnam long after the war’s end and raised questions about how best to honor those who fought and sacrificed in an ill-advised war. Richly illustrated with photographs from the era and design entries from the memorial competition, A Rift in the Earth is timed to appear alongside Ken Burns's eagerly anticipated PBS documentary, The Vietnam War. “The memorial appears as a rift in the earth, a long polished black stone wall, emerging from and receding into the earth."—Maya Lin "I see the wall as a kind of ocean, a sea of sacrifice. . . . I place these figures upon the shore of that sea." —Frederick Hart
Download or read book Daydream Believers written by Fred Kaplan and published by Turner Publishing Company. This book was released on 2009-05-18 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: America's power is in decline, its allies alienated, its soldiers trapped in a war that even generals regard as unwinnable. What has happened these past few years is well known. Why it happened continues to puzzle. Celebrated Slate columnist Fred Kaplan explains the grave misconceptions that enabled George W. Bush and his aides to get so far off track, and traces the genesis and evolution of these ideas from the era of Nixon through Reagan to the present day.
Download or read book The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution written by Robert Jervis and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 1989 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Robert Jervis argues here that the possibility of nuclear war has created a revolution in military strategy and international relations. He examines how the potential for nuclear Armageddon has changed the meaning of war, the psychology of statesmanship, and the formulation of military policy by the superpowers.
Download or read book A Companion to U S Foreign Relations written by Christopher R. W. Dietrich and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2020-03-04 with total page 1542 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Covers the entire range of the history of U.S. foreign relations from the colonial period to the beginning of the 21st century. A Companion to U.S. Foreign Relations is an authoritative guide to past and present scholarship on the history of American diplomacy and foreign relations from its seventeenth century origins to the modern day. This two-volume reference work presents a collection of historiographical essays by prominent scholars. The essays explore three centuries of America’s global interactions and the ways U.S. foreign policies have been analyzed and interpreted over time. Scholars offer fresh perspectives on the history of U.S. foreign relations; analyze the causes, influences, and consequences of major foreign policy decisions; and address contemporary debates surrounding the practice of American power. The Companion covers a wide variety of methodologies, integrating political, military, economic, social and cultural history to explore the ideas and events that shaped U.S. diplomacy and foreign relations and continue to influence national identity. The essays discuss topics such as the links between U.S. foreign relations and the study of ideology, race, gender, and religion; Native American history, expansion, and imperialism; industrialization and modernization; domestic and international politics; and the United States’ role in decolonization, globalization, and the Cold War. A comprehensive approach to understanding the history, influences, and drivers of U.S. foreign relation, this indispensable resource: Examines significant foreign policy events and their subsequent interpretations Places key figures and policies in their historical, national, and international contexts Provides background on recent and current debates in U.S. foreign policy Explores the historiography and primary sources for each topic Covers the development of diverse themes and methodologies in histories of U.S. foreign policy Offering scholars, teachers, and students unmatched chronological breadth and analytical depth, A Companion to U.S. Foreign Relations: Colonial Era to the Present is an important contribution to scholarship on the history of America’s interactions with the world.
