Through the Nuclear Strategic Looking Glass, or Reflections off the Window of Vulnerability

George H. Quester
Additional contact information
George H. Quester: Department of Government and Politics, University of Maryland

Journal of Conflict Resolution, 1987, vol. 31, issue 4, 725-737

Abstract: Admiral James Watkins, then Chief of Naval Operations, published an article in 1986 indicating that the U.S. Navy would seek to destroy Soviet ballistic-missile submarines in the event of a conventional war in Europe, thus very much contradicting the assumptions of mutual assured destruction. This statement sheds light on current trends in American strategic thinking, in a mirror-image of the suposed Soviet “window of vulnerability†threat to U.S. land-based missile silos. The U.S. threat may be more than a reflection, for it perhaps offers some much more plausible counterforce options. It is important to consider the origions of this kind of war planning in the United States, and the possible costs of such planning.

Date: 1987
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022002787031004009 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:jocore:v:31:y:1987:i:4:p:725-737

DOI: 10.1177/0022002787031004009

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Conflict Resolution from Peace Science Society (International)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().