Bureaucracy and the bomb: the hidden factor behind nuclear madness
Describing the original of what he considers the most important of the interservice rivalries, that between the Air Force and the Navy, the author blames bureaucratic jealousies for the irrational proliferation of nuclear weapons. Beginning with the 1949 disagreement between the Air Force and the Army and Navy regarding official emphasis on the Strategic Air Command with its B-36 bombers at the expense of the more-traditional combat weapons of the Army and Navy, and continuing through the 1960s' Single Integrated Operational Plan and the Joint Strategic Target Planning Staff, the author summarizes what he calls bitter rivalry that has seen the official attitudes change toward nuclear war, that helps sustain the arms race, and that caused the multiplicity of nuclear weapons. He sees today's debate over the (Air Force) MX versus the (Navy) Trident II as evidence of the earlier RAND strategy, refined for the 1980s, of counterforce/no-cities targeting (that is, meeting Soviet aggression initially with a nuclear attack on military targets only).
- OSTI ID:
- 6270071
- Journal Information:
- Wash. Mon.; (United States), Vol. 15:3
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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