Tailored Deterrence; Influence States and Groups of Concern

viii, 507, [1] pages. Illustrations. Notes. Contributors. Index. Format is approximately 6.75 inches by 10 inches. Cover has some wear and soiling. Deterrence thinking has evolved from the Cold War to the present. During the period from 1945-1991 when the United States sought to deter attacks by the U.S.S.R. and Warsaw Pact, U.S. nuclear forces were fielded primarily to prevent nuclear war or escalation of war During the Cold War, deterrence strategy evolved over time as officials and defense strategists thought through the changes brought by nuclear weapons. Clearly after 1945, warfare had a new component. Long-range airpower gave states an intercontinental reach. The first A-bombs had an explosive power a thousand times more powerful than an equivalent weight of high explosive bombs like TNT. When thermonuclear weapons were created half a decade later, they, in turn, were a thousand times more powerful per unit weight than the A-bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. So in a period of four or five years, bomb explosive yields per unit weight increased a thousand times a thousand. This combination of long-range delivery vehicles coupled with warheads or bombs a million times more powerful than their World War II conventional counterparts led to a revolution in the way wars might be fought in the future if such weapons were employed.…