DOCSLIB.ORG

The Madman Nuclear Alert Themadmannuclear Scott D

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Madman Nuclear Alert Themadmannuclear Scott D The Madman Nuclear Alert TheMadmanNuclear Scott D. Sagan and Alert Jeremi Suri Secrecy,Signaling,and Safetyin October 1969 Onthe evening of October10, 1969, Gen. EarleWheeler ,the chairmanof the JointChiefs ofStaff (JCS), senta topsecret message to majorU.S. militarycommanders around the worldinforming themthat the JCS hadbeen directed“ by higher authority”to increaseU.S. militaryreadiness “ torespond to possible confrontationby the Soviet Union.”The StrategicAir Command(SAC) wasordered to stand down allaircraft combat training missions and to increase the number of nuclear- armedB-52 bombers on ground alert.These readinessmeasures were imple- mented onOctober 13. Even moredramatic, on October 27 SAC launched a seriesof B-52bombers, armed with thermonuclear weapons, on a “showof force”airborne alert, code-named Giant Lance. During thisalert operation, eighteen B-52stook off frombases in Californiaand W ashingtonState. The bomberscrossed Alaska, were refueled in midairby KC-135tanker aircraft, andthen ew in ovalpatterns toward the Soviet Union andback, on eighteen- hour“ vigils”over the northernpolar ice cap. 1 Why did the U.S. militarygo on a nuclear alertin October1969? The alert wasa loudbut secretmilitary signal ordered by President RichardNixon. Nixonsought to convinceSoviet andNorth Vietnamese leadersthat he might doanything toend the warin Vietnam,in accordancewith his “ madmanthe- ory”of coercive diplomacy .The nuclearalert measures were therefore spe- cically chosen to be loudenough tobe picked up quickly by the Soviet Union´sintelligence agencies.The militaryoperation was also, however ,delib- eratelydesigned toremain secret from the Americanpublic andU.S. allies.In- ScottD. Saganis Professor of PoliticalScience and Co-director of theCenter for International Securityand Cooperation at StanfordUniversity. Jeremi Suriis Assistant Professor of History at theUniversity of Wis- consin,Madison. Drafts of this article were presented atseminarshosted byStanford ´sCenter forInternational Se- curity andCooperation, International Security Studies atY ale University,andthe 2002annual meeting of the Society for Historiansof American ForeignRelations. Theauthors thank the follow- ingindividuals for their helpful comments: Alison Alter, Bruce Blair,William Burr,Lynn Eden, M. TaylorFravel, John Lewis Gaddis,Jeffrey Kimball, StanleyKutler ,JohnWilson Lewis, Xue Litai, Vojtech Mastny,ToddSechser, and Kathryn Weathersby . 1.LynnPeake, “ Notes onIncreased Readiness Posture of October 1969,”SAC History Study 136, January1970, Headquarters of U.S.Strategic Command,Freedom of InformationAct Release (henceforth FOIA),p. 1; andHistory of the Strategic Air Command,FY 1970,Headquarters of U.S. Strategic Command,FOIA, p. 155. International Security, Vol.27, No. 4 (Spring2003), pp. 150– 183 ©2003by the President and Fellows of HarvardCollege and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 150 TheMadman Nuclear Alert 151 deed, the nuclearalert operation was so secretive that even the seniorU.S. militaryof cers implementing the orders—including the SAC commander himself—were notinformed of itspurpose. nuclearsignals in theoryand history Cloaksof secrecy stillshroud this mysterious event, but asufcient number of governmentdocuments have now been declassied topermit aseriousexami- nationof the October1969 nuclear alert.This article both explains why Presi- dent Nixonordered this secret nuclear operationand uses the historyof the event tohelp illuminate the dynamicsof nuclear weaponsdecisionmaking and diplomacy.The emerging informationprovides new insightsboth about the nuclear historyof the ColdW arand about broader political science theories concerning the roleof nuclear weaponsin internationalpolitics. Fourcommon assumptions exist in the historicaland political science litera- ture aboutnuclear weaponsdiplomacy .First,scholars generally agree that rough Soviet-U.S. strategicparity in the 1960s,and a sharedsense of nuclear danger afterthe Cuban missilecrisis, led toahigh degree ofrestraintin the use of nuclear threats.Under conditionsof mutuallyassured destruction, leaders in Moscowand W ashingtonavoided explicit threats,exerted tightcentral con- trolover their nuclear forces,and used directcommunications to defuse ten- sionsthat could escalate into a militaryconfrontation neither side desired. McGeorge Bundy,forexample, argued thatafter 1962 there was“ greatcaution onthe partof allstates possessing nuclear weapons, caution not only withre- spectto their use, but alsowith respect to anystep thatmight lead to a conict in which someoneelse mightbe tempted touse them.”2 Thisconventional wis- domis challenged by evidence that,well intothe period of strategicparity , U.S. leaderscontinued tomakenuclear threatsmore often andfor less purely “defensive”motives (i.e., todeter enemy attacks)than previously acknowl- edged. The well-known historyof the U.S. nuclear alertduring the October 1973Arab-Israeli W ar,for example, shouldnow be seen asconsistent with a 2.McGeorge Bundy , Danger andSurvival: Choices about theBomb inthe First Fifty Y ears (New York: RandomHouse, 1988), p. 542. See alsoBarry M. Blechman and Stephen S.Kaplan, Forcewithout War: U.S. Armed Forces as aPoliticalInstrument (Washington,D.C.: Brookings, 1978), pp. 47–49; MarcT rachtenberg, AConstructedPeace: The Making of theEuropean Settlement, 1945– 1963 (Prince- ton,N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999),p. 398;Robert Jervis, TheMeaning of theNuclear Revolu- tion:Statecraft andthe Prospect of Armageddon (Ithaca,N.Y .:Cornell University Press, 1989),p. 36; andJohn Lewis Gaddis, TheLongPeace: Inquiries into the History of theCold War (New York:Oxford University Press, 1987),p. 231. International Security 27:4152 pattern,rather than an aberration,in the diplomacyof Nixonand his national securityadviser, Henry Kissinger. 3 The secondcommon assumption is that the United Statesbehaves asauni- taryactor in the arenaof nuclear weaponssignaling. Many scholarshave ex- plained whatpresidents already know: A chief executive ´sfreedom toact is seriouslyconstrained by bureaucraticpolitics and competing domesticactors, even onforeign policy issues. 4 Nuclearweapons operations, however ,haveof- ten been treatedas an exception. “Bureaucraticpolitics ourished,”Jonathan Bendorand Thomas Hammond argue, “ largely when the president andaides paidlittle attention to an issue or lacked clear policy preferences aboutit.” 5 Given apresident ´sstrongpreferences andattention to nuclear weapons, if there isone areawhere the U.S. commanderin chief really shouldcommand, nuclear alertoperations would be it. The historyof the 1969alert supports this assumption in one importantway . Nixonordered an increasein the alertlevel ofU.S. strategicforces— to support hismadman theory— and he wasable toget hisbasic order implemented, de- spite the ambiguity of purpose tomany within the bureaucracyand the unacceptabilityof the purpose forothers in the know.The historicalrecord alsodemonstrates, however ,thatdomestic politics and bureaucratic con- straintssigni cantly in uenced bothNixon ´sdecisionand the outcomeof his orders.Indeed, they helped tocause the nuclear alert.Domestic and bureau- craticopposition to further escalationof the VietnamW arled Nixonto con- clude thathe couldnot implement his rststrategic preference, which wasto launcha massivebombing campaignagainst North Vietnam. He therefore re- sortedto a secretnuclear signalin anattempt to convince the Sovietsthat he woulddo what he had,in fact,decided notto do— launch a majorbombing at- tack,perhaps even anuclear attack,against North Vietnam— in the fall of1969. 3.On the October 1973U.S. nuclear alert, see HenryKissinger , Years of Upheaval (Boston:Little, Brown,1982), pp. 575–599; Anatoly Dobrynin, InCon dence: Moscow ´sAmbassador to America ´s Six ColdWar Presidents (New York:Random House, 1995), p. 297; Scott D. Sagan, TheLimits of Safety: Organizations, Accidents,and Nuclear Weapons (Princeton, N.J.:Princeton University Press, 1993), pp. 215–224; and Richard Ned Lebow andJanice GrossStein, We AllLost theCold War (Princeton, N.J.:Princeton University Press, 1994),pp. 226–288. 4.Graham T. Allison andPhilip Zelikow, Essenceof Decision:Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis, 2d ed.(New York:Longman, 1999 ); MortonH. Halperin, BureaucraticPolitics and Foreign Policy (Wash- ington,D.C.: Brookings, 1974); and Richard E. Neustadt, PresidentialPower andthe Modern Presi- dents:The Politics of Leadershipfrom Roosevelt to Reagan, 5thed. (New York:Free Press, 1990). 5.Jonathan Bendor and Thomas H. Hammond,“ RethinkingAllison ´s Models,” American Political ScienceReview, Vol. 86,No. 2 (June 1992),p. 316. See alsoStephen D.Krasner,“ Are Bureaucracies Important? (orAllison Wonderland),” ForeignPolicy, No.7 (Summer1972), pp. 168–179. TheMadman Nuclear Alert 153 Nixonhoped thathis nuclear bluff wouldcompensate for his domestic and bureaucraticconstraints, convincing Moscow to put pressure onthe Hanoi governmentto sue forpeace onterms acceptable to the United States. In addition,the historyof the October1969 alert demonstrates that even in thishigh-politics arenaof nuclear diplomacy,presidential orderswere actively fought against,sometimes manipulated or ignored,and often honoredonly in part.Other orders were interpreted andimplemented in amorevigorous man- ner thatbest suited the organizationalinterests of the militarycommanders doing the interpretation.The resultwas that many important details of the mil- itaryactivities undertaken in October1969 re ected the operationalinterests of
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Rhetoric of Richard Nixon
    Madman 1 Running Head: Madman The "Madman" Rhetoric of Richard Nixon: An Alternative Means to Establish Geopolitical Ethos. David K. Scott Department of Communication Arts Northeastern State University Tahlequah OK 74464 A Paper Presented at the Annual Meeting of the 2005 Central States Communication Association (Kansas City, MO April 6-10). Madman 2 Abstract In a geopolitical context, the means of establishing deterrence is premised on the military capability of a country and the perceived willingness of a leader to use force as a means to achieve policy goals. A key function of rhetoric is to establish the personal ethos of a leader regarding their willingness to use force. During the Cold War the rhetorical context of geopolitical discourse was premised on a rational choice model of decision-making based on a strategic calculation of the relative strength of each country. This paper argues that rhetorical strategies need to change relative to the strategic situation facing each leader. Further, the rhetorical burden of building and maintaining strategic credibility inversely increases relative to a country's military power. This paper explores Richard Nixon's innovative rhetorical strategy of cultivating irrationality and uncertainty as a means to maintain and enhance "deterrent credibility" during a period of national decline. Madman 3 Introduction Aristotle identified "ethos" or speaker credibility as a key component of successful rhetoric. One particular context of ethos can be referred to as "geopolitical credibility." Geopolitical credibility concerns the reputation of countries and leaders in relation to one another. In this context, credibility can be defined as a form of power and deterrence.
    [Show full text]
  • The Madman Nuclear Alert the Madman Nuclear Scott D
    The Madman Nuclear Alert The Madman Nuclear Scott D. Sagan and Alert Jeremi Suri Secrecy, Signaling, and Safety in October 1969 On the evening of October 10, 1969, Gen. Earle Wheeler, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), sent a top secret message to major U.S. military commanders around the world informing them that the JCS had been directed “by higher authority” to increase U.S. military readiness “to respond to possible confrontation by the Soviet Union.” The Strategic Air Command (SAC) was ordered to stand down all aircraft combat training missions and to increase the number of nuclear- armed B-52 bombers on ground alert. These readiness measures were imple- mented on October 13. Even more dramatic, on October 27 SAC launched a series of B-52 bombers, armed with thermonuclear weapons, on a “show of force” airborne alert, code-named Giant Lance. During this alert operation, eighteen B-52s took off from bases in California and Washington State. The bombers crossed Alaska, were refueled in midair by KC-135 tanker aircraft, and then ºew in oval patterns toward the Soviet Union and back, on eighteen- 1 hour “vigils” over the northern polar ice cap. Why did the U.S. military go on a nuclear alert in October 1969? The alert was a loud but secret military signal ordered by President Richard Nixon. Nixon sought to convince Soviet and North Vietnamese leaders that he might do anything to end the war in Vietnam, in accordance with his “madman the- ory” of coercive diplomacy. The nuclear alert measures were therefore spe- ciªcally chosen to be loud enough to be picked up quickly by the Soviet Union’s intelligence agencies.
    [Show full text]
  • Casting a Larger Shadow: Premeditated
    Carsten Stahn (editors) Morten Bergsmo and Publication Series No. 33 (2018): Editors of this volume: Quality Control in Preliminary Examination: Volume 2 Morten Bergsmo is Director of the Cen- tre for International Law Research and Policy Morten Bergsmo and Carsten Stahn (editors) (CILRAP). This is the second of two volumes entitled Quality Control in Preliminary Examination. Carsten Stahn is Professor of International They form part of a wider research project led by the Centre for International Law Criminal Law and Global Justice at Leiden Research and Policy (CILRAP) on how we ensure the highest quality and cost-effi - Law School, and Programme Director of the ciency during the more fact-intensive phases of work on core international crimes. Grotius Centre for International Legal Stud- The 2013 volume Quality Control in Fact-Finding considers fact-fi nding outside the ies in The Hague. criminal justice system. An upcoming volume concerns quality control in criminal The Torkel Opsahl Academic EPublisher investigations. The present volume deals with ‘preliminary examination’, the phase 2 Volume in Preliminary Examination: Quality Control (TOAEP) furthers the objective of excellence when criminal justice seeks to determine whether there is a reasonable basis to in research, scholarship and education by pub- proceed to full criminal investigation. The book promotes an awareness and culture lishing worldwide in print and through the of quality control, including freedom and motivation to challenge the quality of work. Internet. As a non-profi
    [Show full text]
  • The Madman Myth: Trump and the Bomb∗
    The Madman Myth: Trump and the Bomb∗ Todd S. Sechser University of Virginia Matthew Fuhrmann Texas A&M University March 2017 President Donald Trump has now assumed control over the nation’s arsenal of more than 4,000 nuclear weapons. What will he do with them? We do not yet know the Trump administration’s approach to nuclear strategy, but Mr. Trump has offered some clues to his mindset. He has denounced nuclear arms control, declaring that he would welcome a renewed nuclear arms race with Russia (Shear and Sanger 2016). He has indicated that he might be willing to allow Japan and other U.S. allies to acquire nuclear weapons (Trump 2016b). And he has suggested that he might be willing to use nuclear weapons against the Islamic State (Trump 2016a). These statements are consistent with a broader theme in Mr. Trump’s approach toward nuclear weapons and foreign policy: unpredictability. “We must as a nation be more unpredictable,” he declared in a foreign policy speech during the 2016 presidential campaign. “We have to be unpredictable, and we have to be unpredictable starting now” (Trump 2016c). In his past business dealings, Mr. Trump argues, it was advantageous to be seen as unpredictable. It kept adversaries off-balance and nervous about what he might do next. By this reasoning, the United States could also benefit from engaging in unexpected behavior, particularly with respect to nuclear weapons. This is not to say that Trump’s foreign policy behavior is actually irrational or erratic. Indeed, it is probably impossible to know for certain whether any leader is truly rational or not.1 For example, South Korea’s president has fretted that North Korea’s escalatory ∗This commentary was part of the H-Diplo/ISSF Policy Series, available at http://issforum.
    [Show full text]
  • David F. Schmitz. Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War: the End of the American Century
    David F. Schmitz. Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War: The End of the American Century. Vietnam: America in the War Years Series. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014. 186 pp. $38.00, cloth, ISBN 978-1-4422-2709-5. Reviewed by Jeffrey Kimball Published on H-Diplo (September, 2014) Commissioned by Seth Offenbach (Bronx Community College, The City University of New York) David F. Schmitz, Skotheim Chair of History at This shift from a strategy of seeking “military Whitman College and author of several books on victory” to one of de-Americanization and Viet‐ U.S. foreign relations, begins his history of namization, Schmitz maintains, had become Richard Nixon’s views about and management of American strategy “by default” (p. 102); that is, it the U.S. war in Vietnam with Nixon’s vice presi‐ had been made necessary by the failure of Nixon’s dency in the 1950s. He continues through Nixon’s madman strategy and the absence of a viable al‐ office-seeking years during the 1960s, and con‐ ternative. The author suggests that his discovery cludes with his conduct of the war as president of this strategy shift warrants “a new periodiza‐ from January 1969 to his resignation in August tion of the war” (p. xv). Apparently because of the 1974. The author’s main thesis is that the exit of importance he places on this supposedly distinct U.S. forces from Cambodia in June 30, 1970, initi‐ shift, the author’s focus is on the years 1953 to ated a “distinct” transition from Nixon’s initial 1971—from Nixon’s vice presidency to the U.S.- madman strategy to a quite different strategy by supported South Vietnamese invasion of Laos mid-1971.
    [Show full text]
  • Kissinger and Ellsberg in Vietnam Thomas A
    MEKONG REVIEW February 2021 Kissinger and Ellsberg in Vietnam Thomas A. Bass Before Henry Kissinger was secretary of state in the Nixon administration and Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times in 1971, they met in Saigon in July 1966 to swap views on Vietnam and discuss how the war was going. Then a Harvard professor looking to make his move into politics, Kissinger was visiting Vietnam as a consultant to Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., a fellow Harvardian and former senator who was serving as US ambassador. Ellsberg, a military analyst who had been in Vietnam for ten months as an assistant to the CIA agent Edward Lansdale, gave Kissinger two important pieces of advice: never talk to someone in the presence of their boss, and do not go to official briefings. Rarely for an American in Vietnam, he also suggested that Kissinger interview some Vietnamese. Ellsberg was studying pacification for Lansdale, which meant he was looking for ways to subdue the rural population. This was Lansdale’s second tour of duty in Vietnam. He had become famous in the 1950s when he helped to establish the former French colony of Cochinchina as an independent state, eventually called the Republic of Vietnam. After France’s defeat at the battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954, the United States had plucked Ngo Dinh Diem, the country’s first leader (1954-63), out of a Belgian monastery and equipped him with an army. Aided by lots of money from the CIA, Lansdale managed to create South Vietnam as a client state led by a corrupt but reliable group of Catholic refugees from North Vietnam.
    [Show full text]
  • Leader Narcissism, Inflated Self-Image Maintenance, and War
    Leader Narcissism, Inflated Self-Image Maintenance, and War Duration John P. Harden Abstract How do leaders matter? What do leaders want? Grandiose narcissism provides a pathway to understanding how personality can impact a leader’s preference formation and foreign policy behavior. More narcissistic leaders will focus their efforts on maintaining their inflated self-image during war by searching desperately for ‘wins’ and outcomes that look like ‘wins’. While most leaders will sacrifice their historical image for the good of their country, more narcissistic leaders will only exit wars if they win, see a greater opportunity for their image elsewhere, or can reassure their re-election prospects. This paper introduces a new measure of United States’ presidential narcissism, and finds support for the argument that more narcissistic United States presidents extend war duration using data from the 1897-2008 period. Finally, I compare Eisenhower’s handling of the Korean War and Nixon’s handling of the Vietnam War to illustrate and probe the theory’s causal mechanisms. Word Count: 11815 The past two decades has seen renewed interest in the role leaders play in International Relations (IR) (Saunders, 2009; Gallagher and Allen, 2014; Croco, 2011; Colgan, 2013; Horowitz et al., 2015; Fuhrmann and Horowitz, 2015; Dafoe and Caughey, 2016; Kertzer, 2016; Rathbun et al., 2017; Yarhi-Milo, 2018; McManus, 2019). Proving leaders matter is difficult (Jervis, 2013). Yet scholars have demonstrated many ways leaders impact IR. This paper adds to growing interest in how leaders impact international security by connecting a leader attribute to a personal preference and that preference to wartime decision-making across space and time.
    [Show full text]
  • UNIVERSITY of CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Nuclear
    UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Nuclear Learning: Nuclear Coercion and the Proliferation Dilemma A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science by Myung Chul Kim 2016 © Copyright by Myung Chul Kim 2016 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Nuclear Learning: Nuclear Coercion and the Proliferation Dilemma by Myung Chul Kim Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science University of California, Los Angeles, 2016 Professor Arthur A. Stein, Chair Since 1945 the United States has not used nuclear weapons to attack other states, yet it has used nuclear coercion more actively than any state. Why did the U.S. use nuclear coercion at all against weak states or for non-vital national interests when the U.S. had superior conventional forces? What would have induced U.S. leaders to employ nuclear coercion? Nuclear deterrence theory and nuclear taboo theory cannot adequately explain why, under similar security and domestic environments, Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon were more willing to use nuclear coercion whereas other leaders like Lyndon Johnson overall abstained from using nuclear threats. I argue that while U.S. leaders’ learning of the overly destructive damages of military nuclear use raised the threshold of using nuclear weapons to attack, the lack of learning ii or biased learning of the repercussions of coercive nuclear use, especially nuclear proliferation induced by U.S. nuclear threats, allowed many leaders to retain their belief in the coercive power of nuclear weapons. Therefore, they considered and even used nuclear coercion for non-vital matters. Based on the theoretical concepts of nuclear learning and using a historical analysis, my dissertation finds a causal mechanism of nuclear learning that could explain what promoted or hindered learning of the technical and political reality of nuclear weapons and led them to the counterproductive use of nuclear coercion.
    [Show full text]
  • Vietnam: Echoes from the Wall. History, Learning and Leadership Through the Lens of the Vietnam War Era
    DOCUMENT RESUME ED 451 090 SO 032 392 AUTHOR Pearson, Patricia; Percoco, James; Sossaman, Stephen; Wilson, Rob TITLE Vietnam: Echoes from the Wall. History, Learning and Leadership through the Lens of the Vietnam War Era. Teachers' Guide. INSTITUTION Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, Washington, DC. PUB DATE 1999-00-00 NOTE 162p.; Compiled by Rima Shaffer. Project Underwriters include WinStar Communications, Inc., CNN, Turner Learning, The Kimsey Foundation, E*Trade Group, Inc., and Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States. National Sponsors include Association of the U.S. Army, McCormick Tribune Foundation, Merrill Lynch and Co. Foundation, Inc., Pepsi Cola Company, The Quaker Oats Company, the New York Times Learning Network, and State Street Corporation. Contributors include Exxon Corporation, Phillips Petroleum Company, Pfizer Inc., Showtime Networks Inc., Sunstrand Corporation, Tenneco Inc., United Technologies, Citigroup Foundation, and USAA. AVAILABLE FROM Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, 1023 15th Street, NW, Second Floor, Washington, DC 20005; Tel: 202-393-0090; Fax: 202-393-0029; e-mail: [email protected]; Web site: http://www.vvmf.org; Web site: http://www.teachvietnam.org/. PUB TYPE Guides Classroom Teacher (052) EDRS PRICE MF01/PC07 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS *Cultural Context; Foreign Countries; High Schools; *History Instruction; Learning Modules; *Political Issues; Primary Sources; Student Research; Teaching Guides; *Thinking Skills; *United States History; Vietnam Veterans; *Vietnam War IDENTIFIERS Historical Research; Team Learning; Vietnam; *Vietnam Veterans Memorial; Vietnam War Literature ABSTRACT Today, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial (The Wall) has moved beyond its role as an international symbol of healing and stands as a living history lesson, but many of today's young people have a limited knowledge of the Vietnam War.
    [Show full text]
  • Vietnam2.Notebook 1 November 12, 2008
    vietnam2.notebook November 12, 2008 By 1967 US troop levels reached 600 000 men and in january ­68 (pres.election The Vietnam war made Johnson into a one term president. He never understood in US) the North Vietnamese TET­offensive began. Americans at home were now that this was a revolutionary war ­ revolution and anti­revolution (colonialism) able to see that despite all the efforts the enemy was still able to mount were the real issues, not communism and anti­communism. Because he believed offensives. In march ­68 Johnson was forced to announce a bombing halt and he couldn't loose, Johnson continued dropping bombs and sending in more men. withdraw from the presidential race. Gradually, the means became so horrible that it became increasingly difficult to justify the ends. okt 21­15:01 okt 21­15:05 KENT UNIVERSITY MASSACRE My Lai okt 21­15:07 okt 21­15:08 Ho Chi Minh was very different from Johnson. He enjoyed the veneration (vördnad) throughout the 3:rd World ­ Ho Chi Minh had defeated a powerful western nation (France). He was incorrupt and close to the peasants ­ never Johnson's failure separated from the people. By remaining Vietnamese, a peasant, he became the • blurred objectives ­ 1967 ½ of the only leader with the title to the revolution ­ no Stalinistic purges (in a way like americans didn't know what the war Gandhi). While Ho had less and less to lose by continuing to fight, the war was about. costed more and more for USA. • methods; US troops from advisers The Johnson administration calculated from the American experience and knew to participants ­ didn't bring victory.
    [Show full text]
  • Nuclear Weapons, Coercive Diplomacy, and the Vietnam War Perspectives on Nixon’S Nuclear Spector
    FORUM Nuclear Weapons, Coercive Diplomacy, and the Vietnam War Perspectives on Nixon’s Nuclear Spector ✣ Commentaries by Robert Jervis and Mark Atwood Lawrence Reply by William Burr and Jeffrey P. Kimball William Burr and Jeffrey P. Kimball, Nixon’s Nuclear Specter: The Secret Alert of 1969, Madman Diplomacy, and the Vietnam War. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2015. 448 pp. Editor’s Note: The publication of Nixon’s Nuclear Spector, by William Burr and Jeffrey P. Kimball, in 2015 generated a good deal of discussion about the nuclear dimension of coercive diplomacy. Drawing extensively on U.S. archival evidence, Burr and Kimball explore the Nixon administration’s at- tempts to force a settlement of the Vietnam War by relying on nuclear threats. We asked two distinguished scholars—Robert Jervis and Mark At- wood Lawrence—to offer their assessments of the book. Their commentaries are presented here along with a reply by Burr and Kimball. Commentary by Robert Jervis When I was asked to contribute to this symposium, my initial instinct was to decline because I had read the book already. But then I thought I might get even more out of it a second time, and indeed I was right. The book is so rich in detail and so thought-provoking that it cannot be fully absorbed in one reading. William Burr and Jeffrey Kimball have written well-regarded articles on Richard Nixon in Vietnam, but this book goes much further. Two initial chapters examine nuclear weapons and what Alexander George calls “coer- cive diplomacy” in the first two decades of the Cold War, and a final chapter covers U.S.
    [Show full text]
  • Center for Unconventional Weapons Studies (CUWS) Outreach Journal
    Issue No. 1303 23 February 2018 // USAFCUWS Outreach Journal Issue 1303 // Feature Item “Nonstrategic Nuclear Weapons”. Written by Amy F. Woolf, published by the Congressional Research Service; February 13, 2018 https://fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/RL32572.pdf Recent debates about U.S. nuclear weapons have questioned what role weapons with shorter ranges and lower yields can play in addressing emerging threats in Europe and Asia. These weapons, often referred to as nonstrategic nuclear weapons, have not been limited by past U.S.- Russian arms control agreements, although some analysts argue such limits would be of value, particularly in addressing Russia’s greater numbers of these types of weapons. Others have argued that the United States should expand its deployments of these weapons, in both Europe and Asia, to address new risks of war conducted under a nuclear shadow. The Trump Administration addressed these questions in the Nuclear Posture Review released in February 2018, and determined that the United States should acquire two new types of nonstrategic nuclear weapons: a new low-yield warhead for submarine-launched ballistic missiles and a new sea-launched cruise missile. During the Cold War, the United States and Soviet Union both deployed nonstrategic nuclear weapons for use in the field during a conflict. While there are several ways to distinguish between strategic and nonstrategic nuclear weapons, most analysts consider nonstrategic weapons to be shorter-range delivery systems with lower-yield warheads that might be used to attack troops or facilities on the battlefield. They have included nuclear mines; artillery; short-, medium-, and long- range ballistic missiles; cruise missiles; and gravity bombs.
    [Show full text]