Nuclear Strategy and War Essay

Total Length: 914 words ( 3 double-spaced pages)

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seventh and eighth chapters of Lawrence Freedman's book The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy. Indeed, the use or threatening of use of nuclear weapons has been a prominent and controversial topic for the last half century and change since the weapons were dreamt up and brought to reality. What follows this introduction is meant to be an abstract of what Friedman had to say. While the use of weapons of mass destruction was and remains a very charged subject, there is no doubt that it has altered the course of human history both when it is used and not used (Freedman).

It is indeed interesting how the different motives and obligations can make the opinions about things like destructive bombs ebb and flow. While some may focus on the death, destruction and later fallout of Japan post-World War II, others still focus on the threat of these weapons being used against the United States and/or its allies. Other people still focus on the amount of money that is spent on these weapons as compared to boots on the ground and other more conventional forms of warfare. All of those factors came up at one or more points during the Cold War with the Soviet Union as much was made about spending, the Soviet nuclear threat, the proxies that both the United States and the U.S.S.R. used and so on. Politicians toiled and worked but had to admit at the end of the day that using nuclear weapons against the Soviet Union or another threat could actually lead to the destruction of the United States, completely or in part, in retaliation and transform much of the civilized world into cinder.
Indeed, winning at all costs could mean that many people lose including the supposed "winners" of the fight. A further complication of warfare, even war that is intended to be limited in scope and action, is that "limited objectives would be a necessary condition for limited war" but "they would not guarantee a limited war." The key to at least helping keep a war limited is to "restrictthe purposes for which they fight to concrete, well-defined objectives that do not demand the utmost military effort of which the belligerents are capable and that can be accommodated in a negotiated settlement (Freedman).

Nuclear weapons seem to have had a calming effect, and for two reasons. First, airstrikes are now a more common way to attack one's foes so ground wars and the mass chaos and disorder that come with them is mitigated a bit as surviving the blast is usually the only major thing to survive. This is further true when dealing only with conventional bombs and not nuclear weapons. The unabashed violence and conquering notions of yesteryear….....

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