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The Wizards of Armageddon
This is the untold story of the small group of men who have devised the plans and shaped the policies on how to use the Bomb. The book (first published in 1983) explores the secret world of these strategists of the nuclear age and brings to light a chapter in American political and military history never before revealed.
460 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1983
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May 17, 2016
“An all-out nuclear war between Russia and the United States would be the worst catastrophe in history, a tragedy so huge it is difficult to comprehend. Even so, it would be far from the end of human life on earth. The dangers from nuclear weapons have been distorted and exaggerated, for varied reasons. These exaggerations have become a demoralizing myth, believed by millions of Americans.”
- The first lines of Nuclear War Survival Skills, by Cresson H. Kearny.
This introduction to Cresson Kearny’s nuclear war survival manual, which helpfully attempts to impart “lifesaving nuclear facts and self-help instructions,” pretty much encapsulates the absolutely, 100% f—cked up nature of nuclear war planning.
Just unpack the paragraph a bit. It begins by stating, rightly, that an all-out war would be so huge as to be beyond human comprehension (“the worst catastrophe in history”). Okay, so far. But then, within the next dozen words or so, Kearny states that the danger has been “distorted and exaggerated.”
Wait, what?
You don’t have to be a pedantic textualist to recognize that Sentence #1 and Sentence #3 directly contradict each other. How, after all, can “the worst catastrophe in history” possibly be “distorted and exaggerated”? Then, just in case you weren’t confused as to whether you should fear or welcome the bright suns of a nuclear apocalypse (I got a nice tan! No more taxes!), Kearny chides you for believing a demoralizing myth.
The unspoken message here: Rather than question your Government’s policies towards Communism and Russia, just get in your homemade fallout shelter, drink some powdered milk, and shut the hell up. Don't worry, everything should clear up in two weeks.
Fred Kaplan’s The Wizards of Armageddon does not mention Cresson Kearny, but it tells the story of a bunch of (mostly) men who were just like him. Men – some of them scientists, others just thinkers – who thought they could massage the idea of nuclear war into something palatable. Men who devised policies and plans on how to use the Bomb (and also, the ICBMs, nuclear-tipped cruise missiles, nuclear torpedoes, and nuclear artillery shells). Men who, despite Ivy League pedigrees, top-secret clearances, and chart-busting IQs never quite recognized that you can’t sow the wind without reaping the whirlwind. That the nuclear option is, by definition, the final option, after which there will be no more decisions.
The Wizards of Armageddon is a book I liked, but which never quite lived up to the expectations I set for it.
Kaplan is trying to tell the story of the “nuclear priesthood,” guys like Albert Wohlstetter, who authored the paper The Delicate Balance of Terror that proposed the precariousness of “mutually assured destruction”; the mathematician and physicist John von Neumann, who brought game theory to nuclear war; Bernard Brodie, a military strategist among the first to recognize the potential of deterrence; and William Kaufmann, an adviser who tried to shift the U.S. strategy from one of full retaliation to proportional response. The problem is not with this material, which is fascinating (at one point or another, I’m sure every one of these guys was credited with being the inspiration for Dr. Strangelove), it’s in Kaplan’s uncertain approach.
Maybe it's best to frame my critique in the negative. That is to say, to describe what The Wizards of Armageddon is not. This is not a traditional biography, in which we get to understand what made each of these men tick. It is not a history of the Cold War, since it is narrowly focused on nuclear strategy, most of it centered around the men working for the RAND Corporation, a private think tank funded by the Air Force. It is also not a detailed look at what America’s nuclear posture actually was. Instead, Kaplan focuses on the theory behind the theory. He takes the hypothetical of nuclear war planning and adds another later of abstraction. The result is something that is needlessly esoteric, lacking in concrete details and discussion of real-world consequences.
Things I wanted to know: the details, for instance, of the Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP). Developed first in 1963, the SIOP was America’s general plan for nuclear war. I wanted to know what it entailed; what cities it targeted and why; and the various contingencies that were contemplated. I wanted some of the scientific and technical details regarding America’s shifting nuclear arsenal, as we moved from bombs to silo-based ICBMs to submarine launched missiles. I wanted to know the human cost, the numbers our government reckoned “expendable” in the event of an atomic exchange. Kaplan has an irritating tendency to get close to the heart of a subject, but then leave it, having only scratched the service. For instance, he starts to talk about the development of a Civil Defense System, but eschews any details of that plan. He only brings it up to discuss the effect of Civil Defense on all that theorizin’ going on at RAND.
Kaplan is neck-deep in the conceptual. He traces the differing strategies, from first strike to massive retaliation to counterforce (the targeting of enemy military targets, rather than cities; of course, with nukes, it often doesn’t make a difference). The general arc among the strategists is a drift from full-blown nuclear globe-razing to measured escalation. This change in thinking seems to occur as the individual strategist gets older, perhaps recognizing that his meticulous paper calculations might actually translate into a presidential decision to launch.
The Wizards of Armageddon is hampered by its 1983 publication date. Like every Cold War book published before the fall of the Soviet Union, it lacks access to Soviet-Warsaw Pact archives. Kaplan similarly did not have the clarifying benefit of post-Soviet hindsight.
This did not deliver what I wanted. What it covers, though, is interesting, especially for students of the Cold War period. You get some insight into the minds of these apocalyptic plotters. Take Herman Kahn. This delightful fellow wrote the 652-page treatise (including appendices) On Thermonuclear War. This cinderblock contains cheerful chapters like “Will the Survivors Envy the Dead?” and Kahn’s “Escalation Ladder”, a 44-stage process that ends in obliteration. (Step 4 is a “hardening of positions” and Step 44 is “spasm” war. As others have noted, the Escalation Ladder is a psychosexual therapist’s goldmine). Kahn talks about the stuff that Kaplan avoids, so of course I had to find a used copy immediately. When my wife saw this sitting on my bedside table, smelling like it sat in a leaking library basement for 50 years, she undoubtedly added another line to the prefilled divorce decree she has in her desk.
Overall, though I enjoyed the read, I was faintly disappointed with The Wizards of Armageddon. It has been helpful, however, as I’ve started to branch out in my Cold War/Nuclear Strategy reading. It provides a good overview of the intellectual framework within which our Cold Warriors were operating. Kaplan is also, it should be noted, an engaging writer. I only wish he'd dug a little deeper.
I’ve been reading Kearny’s Nuclear War Survival Skills (which I quote at the outset) off and on for the past couple weeks. It is way too dense and turgid for me to ever complete, or even to spend more than a few minutes on at a time. Nevertheless, it makes a fine companion to the thinkers profiled in The Wizards of Armageddon. The purpose of the manual is to convince the American public that nuclear war is survivable, and therefore, a viable military/political option.
(If it doesn’t exactly welcome the prospect of airbursts, mushroom clouds, and vaporization, the manual is incessantly, almost violently insouciant about the prospect. Some words of wisdom from Kearny: “Fear often is a life-saving emotion. When we believe death is close at hand, fear can increase our ability to work harder and longer. Driven by fear, we can accomplish feats that would be impossible otherwise.” Well, hell, why didn't I think of that? Nuclear war as an increase in my productivity! All you need to do to realize the workability of your dreams is to start imagining ICBMs with multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles popping over your city).
The strategists at RAND were doing the same thing as Kearny. Trying to turn nuclear war into an alternative, rather than an abomination. At times, it’s hard to know whether these guys were just schilling for higher military budgets, or whether they actually believed that you could contain a war once the first atoms started splitting. In either case, Kaplan provides a good – if perhaps unintended scare – and reminds us of all the dubious things that are done without our knowledge and allegedly on our behalf.
- The first lines of Nuclear War Survival Skills, by Cresson H. Kearny.
This introduction to Cresson Kearny’s nuclear war survival manual, which helpfully attempts to impart “lifesaving nuclear facts and self-help instructions,” pretty much encapsulates the absolutely, 100% f—cked up nature of nuclear war planning.
Just unpack the paragraph a bit. It begins by stating, rightly, that an all-out war would be so huge as to be beyond human comprehension (“the worst catastrophe in history”). Okay, so far. But then, within the next dozen words or so, Kearny states that the danger has been “distorted and exaggerated.”
Wait, what?
You don’t have to be a pedantic textualist to recognize that Sentence #1 and Sentence #3 directly contradict each other. How, after all, can “the worst catastrophe in history” possibly be “distorted and exaggerated”? Then, just in case you weren’t confused as to whether you should fear or welcome the bright suns of a nuclear apocalypse (I got a nice tan! No more taxes!), Kearny chides you for believing a demoralizing myth.
The unspoken message here: Rather than question your Government’s policies towards Communism and Russia, just get in your homemade fallout shelter, drink some powdered milk, and shut the hell up. Don't worry, everything should clear up in two weeks.
Fred Kaplan’s The Wizards of Armageddon does not mention Cresson Kearny, but it tells the story of a bunch of (mostly) men who were just like him. Men – some of them scientists, others just thinkers – who thought they could massage the idea of nuclear war into something palatable. Men who devised policies and plans on how to use the Bomb (and also, the ICBMs, nuclear-tipped cruise missiles, nuclear torpedoes, and nuclear artillery shells). Men who, despite Ivy League pedigrees, top-secret clearances, and chart-busting IQs never quite recognized that you can’t sow the wind without reaping the whirlwind. That the nuclear option is, by definition, the final option, after which there will be no more decisions.
The Wizards of Armageddon is a book I liked, but which never quite lived up to the expectations I set for it.
Kaplan is trying to tell the story of the “nuclear priesthood,” guys like Albert Wohlstetter, who authored the paper The Delicate Balance of Terror that proposed the precariousness of “mutually assured destruction”; the mathematician and physicist John von Neumann, who brought game theory to nuclear war; Bernard Brodie, a military strategist among the first to recognize the potential of deterrence; and William Kaufmann, an adviser who tried to shift the U.S. strategy from one of full retaliation to proportional response. The problem is not with this material, which is fascinating (at one point or another, I’m sure every one of these guys was credited with being the inspiration for Dr. Strangelove), it’s in Kaplan’s uncertain approach.
Maybe it's best to frame my critique in the negative. That is to say, to describe what The Wizards of Armageddon is not. This is not a traditional biography, in which we get to understand what made each of these men tick. It is not a history of the Cold War, since it is narrowly focused on nuclear strategy, most of it centered around the men working for the RAND Corporation, a private think tank funded by the Air Force. It is also not a detailed look at what America’s nuclear posture actually was. Instead, Kaplan focuses on the theory behind the theory. He takes the hypothetical of nuclear war planning and adds another later of abstraction. The result is something that is needlessly esoteric, lacking in concrete details and discussion of real-world consequences.
Things I wanted to know: the details, for instance, of the Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP). Developed first in 1963, the SIOP was America’s general plan for nuclear war. I wanted to know what it entailed; what cities it targeted and why; and the various contingencies that were contemplated. I wanted some of the scientific and technical details regarding America’s shifting nuclear arsenal, as we moved from bombs to silo-based ICBMs to submarine launched missiles. I wanted to know the human cost, the numbers our government reckoned “expendable” in the event of an atomic exchange. Kaplan has an irritating tendency to get close to the heart of a subject, but then leave it, having only scratched the service. For instance, he starts to talk about the development of a Civil Defense System, but eschews any details of that plan. He only brings it up to discuss the effect of Civil Defense on all that theorizin’ going on at RAND.
Kaplan is neck-deep in the conceptual. He traces the differing strategies, from first strike to massive retaliation to counterforce (the targeting of enemy military targets, rather than cities; of course, with nukes, it often doesn’t make a difference). The general arc among the strategists is a drift from full-blown nuclear globe-razing to measured escalation. This change in thinking seems to occur as the individual strategist gets older, perhaps recognizing that his meticulous paper calculations might actually translate into a presidential decision to launch.
The Wizards of Armageddon is hampered by its 1983 publication date. Like every Cold War book published before the fall of the Soviet Union, it lacks access to Soviet-Warsaw Pact archives. Kaplan similarly did not have the clarifying benefit of post-Soviet hindsight.
This did not deliver what I wanted. What it covers, though, is interesting, especially for students of the Cold War period. You get some insight into the minds of these apocalyptic plotters. Take Herman Kahn. This delightful fellow wrote the 652-page treatise (including appendices) On Thermonuclear War. This cinderblock contains cheerful chapters like “Will the Survivors Envy the Dead?” and Kahn’s “Escalation Ladder”, a 44-stage process that ends in obliteration. (Step 4 is a “hardening of positions” and Step 44 is “spasm” war. As others have noted, the Escalation Ladder is a psychosexual therapist’s goldmine). Kahn talks about the stuff that Kaplan avoids, so of course I had to find a used copy immediately. When my wife saw this sitting on my bedside table, smelling like it sat in a leaking library basement for 50 years, she undoubtedly added another line to the prefilled divorce decree she has in her desk.
Overall, though I enjoyed the read, I was faintly disappointed with The Wizards of Armageddon. It has been helpful, however, as I’ve started to branch out in my Cold War/Nuclear Strategy reading. It provides a good overview of the intellectual framework within which our Cold Warriors were operating. Kaplan is also, it should be noted, an engaging writer. I only wish he'd dug a little deeper.
I’ve been reading Kearny’s Nuclear War Survival Skills (which I quote at the outset) off and on for the past couple weeks. It is way too dense and turgid for me to ever complete, or even to spend more than a few minutes on at a time. Nevertheless, it makes a fine companion to the thinkers profiled in The Wizards of Armageddon. The purpose of the manual is to convince the American public that nuclear war is survivable, and therefore, a viable military/political option.
(If it doesn’t exactly welcome the prospect of airbursts, mushroom clouds, and vaporization, the manual is incessantly, almost violently insouciant about the prospect. Some words of wisdom from Kearny: “Fear often is a life-saving emotion. When we believe death is close at hand, fear can increase our ability to work harder and longer. Driven by fear, we can accomplish feats that would be impossible otherwise.” Well, hell, why didn't I think of that? Nuclear war as an increase in my productivity! All you need to do to realize the workability of your dreams is to start imagining ICBMs with multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles popping over your city).
The strategists at RAND were doing the same thing as Kearny. Trying to turn nuclear war into an alternative, rather than an abomination. At times, it’s hard to know whether these guys were just schilling for higher military budgets, or whether they actually believed that you could contain a war once the first atoms started splitting. In either case, Kaplan provides a good – if perhaps unintended scare – and reminds us of all the dubious things that are done without our knowledge and allegedly on our behalf.
October 26, 2016
"Nobody had ever killed 35 million people on a sheet of paper before." Yet that is precisely what a few analysts at the RAND corporation, the hybrid step-child of Air Force General "Hap" Arnold and Douglas Aircraft, did in late 1951, when they created a task force to imagine the military possibilities of the new hydrogen bomb. At first the scale of potential destruction terrified them, and some became physically nauseated, some sulked enough after work that their wives worried, some quit the job entirely. But gradually the rest came around. In the end, Ernst Plesset, an atomic scientist, Charlie Hitch, an economist, and Bernard Brodie, a civilian military strategist, all worked furiously to create a military briefing that they hoped to finish by the time news of the hydrogen bomb was released to the general public, with the intention of jumping to the front of the bureaucratic and military planning pack. They drew blast circles on European cities, calculated survival ratios of bombers flying into Soviet air-space, and even imagined the average error distance of dropped gravity bombs, all in order to estimate total nuclear war casualties. As Fred Kaplan writes, "The Plesset-Hitch-Brodie briefing on 'The Implications of Large Yield Nuclear Weapons' was a hit on the Washington national-security circuit."
Kaplan fills his amazing book with similar great lines. His steady, measured tone, though occasionally lightened by gallows humor, mirrors the strange coolness with which so many military planners conceived plans that effectively meant the end of human civilization. This book is a mind-blowing glimpse, acquired mainly through dozens of interviews with the principle players, into the strange world of nuclear strategists and planners during their 1950s and 60s heyday.
What I found most interesting perhaps was the abstract intellectual nature of all this strategizing. Whether done in the civilian RAND branch or under actual military authority, the real planners here were mathematicians, economists, and physicists who relished the chance for applied problem-solving more than anything else. Albert Wohlsetter, a pure mathematical logician, at one point was bored with his RAND assignment of selecting useful overseas air-bases, so he expanded his research into game-theory modeled strategies for the entire defense of America's nuclear forces as well as the most cost-effective use of resources for bombs and bombers from both the Soviet and American perspective. His secret report showed that American weakness to Soviet nuclear attack made nuclear war much more likely and "rational" from the Soviet point-of-view, because they could potentially "win" a nuclear war. His report influenced US strategy for years (though not as much as Wohlsetter would have liked), but it all came from a mathematician who mainly enjoyed tinkering with logical models. For many of these men, RAND was a vast playground to examine and research whatever they liked, but the implications were enormous.
The actual military services come off as the most cynical and mercenary players in this book. The Army, Navy, and Air Forces' battles for more funding seem to define the Alpha and the Omega of their interest
in nuclear strategy. In other words, they would basically support anything that added to their budget. During the "Admiral's Revolt" of 1949, the Navy brass testified before Congress that the Air Force's nuclear bombs were "barbaric...random mass slaughter." Then, when they acquired some small bombs for carrier aircraft themselves, they argued for the "tactical" use of nuclear weapons. Then, with the coming of the Polaris submarine-launched missile in the late 1950s, which was too inaccurate to fire tactically, they advocated focusing on "deterrence alone (i.e. for an ability to destroy major urban areas)." All pretty shameful stuff.
Kaplan surprisingly shows that it was the 1960-61 crisis over Berlin, and not the Cuban Missile Crisis or the Vietnam War, that ended the dominance of strategic nuclear planners. At that point, when Khrushchev was personally threatening Kennedy about overrunning Berlin and when the United States had an overwhelming nuclear dominance, it became obvious that few military men, even in the planning stage, were ready to prepare for launching a tactical nuclear war against a Soviet attack in Europe. Even though many of the game theorists claimed that it was the right thing to do, and that a nuclear war was "winnable" if fought correctly, it seemed like nobody was ready to take the risk in million of lives that it was not. They looked at the abyss, and stepped back.
Overall, this book gives one some frightening insights into how the nuclear priesthood thought and acted when their influence was at its peak. It also shows, in the vein of Woodward's "The Best and the Brightest" (but done better and more soberly), how abstract bureaucratic reports and struggles determine national policy. I can't recommend it enough.
Kaplan fills his amazing book with similar great lines. His steady, measured tone, though occasionally lightened by gallows humor, mirrors the strange coolness with which so many military planners conceived plans that effectively meant the end of human civilization. This book is a mind-blowing glimpse, acquired mainly through dozens of interviews with the principle players, into the strange world of nuclear strategists and planners during their 1950s and 60s heyday.
What I found most interesting perhaps was the abstract intellectual nature of all this strategizing. Whether done in the civilian RAND branch or under actual military authority, the real planners here were mathematicians, economists, and physicists who relished the chance for applied problem-solving more than anything else. Albert Wohlsetter, a pure mathematical logician, at one point was bored with his RAND assignment of selecting useful overseas air-bases, so he expanded his research into game-theory modeled strategies for the entire defense of America's nuclear forces as well as the most cost-effective use of resources for bombs and bombers from both the Soviet and American perspective. His secret report showed that American weakness to Soviet nuclear attack made nuclear war much more likely and "rational" from the Soviet point-of-view, because they could potentially "win" a nuclear war. His report influenced US strategy for years (though not as much as Wohlsetter would have liked), but it all came from a mathematician who mainly enjoyed tinkering with logical models. For many of these men, RAND was a vast playground to examine and research whatever they liked, but the implications were enormous.
The actual military services come off as the most cynical and mercenary players in this book. The Army, Navy, and Air Forces' battles for more funding seem to define the Alpha and the Omega of their interest
in nuclear strategy. In other words, they would basically support anything that added to their budget. During the "Admiral's Revolt" of 1949, the Navy brass testified before Congress that the Air Force's nuclear bombs were "barbaric...random mass slaughter." Then, when they acquired some small bombs for carrier aircraft themselves, they argued for the "tactical" use of nuclear weapons. Then, with the coming of the Polaris submarine-launched missile in the late 1950s, which was too inaccurate to fire tactically, they advocated focusing on "deterrence alone (i.e. for an ability to destroy major urban areas)." All pretty shameful stuff.
Kaplan surprisingly shows that it was the 1960-61 crisis over Berlin, and not the Cuban Missile Crisis or the Vietnam War, that ended the dominance of strategic nuclear planners. At that point, when Khrushchev was personally threatening Kennedy about overrunning Berlin and when the United States had an overwhelming nuclear dominance, it became obvious that few military men, even in the planning stage, were ready to prepare for launching a tactical nuclear war against a Soviet attack in Europe. Even though many of the game theorists claimed that it was the right thing to do, and that a nuclear war was "winnable" if fought correctly, it seemed like nobody was ready to take the risk in million of lives that it was not. They looked at the abyss, and stepped back.
Overall, this book gives one some frightening insights into how the nuclear priesthood thought and acted when their influence was at its peak. It also shows, in the vein of Woodward's "The Best and the Brightest" (but done better and more soberly), how abstract bureaucratic reports and struggles determine national policy. I can't recommend it enough.
June 9, 2020
There is something comforting about conspiracy theories. The idea that the world is controlled by a nefarious cabal of illuminati/jews/lizard people is a lot more attractive than the terrifying notion that world may not, in fact, be controlled by anyone. In The Wizards of Armageddon, Fred Kaplan puts the lie to this illusion, at least as far as the nuclear strategy of the United States is concerned.
The narrative follows a sequence of personages linked to the RAND corporation and the defence establishment from the late 40s to the 80s, as they struggle to come to terms with what they're supposed to do with this terrifying new weapon they inherrited from the Manhattan Project. The RAND corporation is founded by the airforce to apply the disciplines of operations research and systems analysis to figure out rational strategies to fight a nuclear war, which the establishment is then free to ignore to pursue its own ends. Of course, the "establishment" is not a monolithic entity with a gameplan and objectives. No, it consists of three military branches and the civilian government pushing whatever policy is beneficial to them at the time, either in garnering votes or taxpayer dollars. When the airforce has the bomb it pushes for a policy of massive attack on enemy cities, as that allows them to demand new bombers, while the navy argues for reason and restraint, which can be achieved by funding conventional forces. When the navy gets its boomers, which are too inaccurate to hit anything but cities, then it suddenly decides that it is the cities that they must hit, while the airforce suddenly remembers that planes are great because they can hit targest other than cities. When the president wants to balance the budget, there are more than enough nukes to do the job. When there are votes to be gained, suddenly the Russians have superiority, and new programmes must be funded. The RAND corporation is little better, with the boffins inside seemingly more concerned with pursuing egos and pet projects than anything concrete.
Somehow after fifty years of this we did not blow ourselves up.
The narrative follows a sequence of personages linked to the RAND corporation and the defence establishment from the late 40s to the 80s, as they struggle to come to terms with what they're supposed to do with this terrifying new weapon they inherrited from the Manhattan Project. The RAND corporation is founded by the airforce to apply the disciplines of operations research and systems analysis to figure out rational strategies to fight a nuclear war, which the establishment is then free to ignore to pursue its own ends. Of course, the "establishment" is not a monolithic entity with a gameplan and objectives. No, it consists of three military branches and the civilian government pushing whatever policy is beneficial to them at the time, either in garnering votes or taxpayer dollars. When the airforce has the bomb it pushes for a policy of massive attack on enemy cities, as that allows them to demand new bombers, while the navy argues for reason and restraint, which can be achieved by funding conventional forces. When the navy gets its boomers, which are too inaccurate to hit anything but cities, then it suddenly decides that it is the cities that they must hit, while the airforce suddenly remembers that planes are great because they can hit targest other than cities. When the president wants to balance the budget, there are more than enough nukes to do the job. When there are votes to be gained, suddenly the Russians have superiority, and new programmes must be funded. The RAND corporation is little better, with the boffins inside seemingly more concerned with pursuing egos and pet projects than anything concrete.
Somehow after fifty years of this we did not blow ourselves up.
July 30, 2023
Excellent book on the development of nuclear strategy through the years, chronicling the ebb and flow of second-strike, counterforce, minimum deterrent, and other schemes.
The biggest takeaway for me was how the advocated strategies were almost always downwind of what the services needed to justify more spending on their branch. There were a few instances where technological breakthroughs and temporary advantages changed the perceived success or failure of a given strategy, but the actual shifts in doctrine were almost always out of convenience. And since the whole thing is (thankfully) a theoretical project, nothing ever really has to be tested out and shown to fail.
I also appreciated how Kaplan tracked some of the nuclear strategy ideas—counterforce, and holding cities hostage to send a message—as they were used in Vietnam, disillusioning McNamara and others. Biggest drawback is probably that the book ends in 1983, but Kaplan's later book The Bomb carries the story forward to the last decade.
The biggest takeaway for me was how the advocated strategies were almost always downwind of what the services needed to justify more spending on their branch. There were a few instances where technological breakthroughs and temporary advantages changed the perceived success or failure of a given strategy, but the actual shifts in doctrine were almost always out of convenience. And since the whole thing is (thankfully) a theoretical project, nothing ever really has to be tested out and shown to fail.
I also appreciated how Kaplan tracked some of the nuclear strategy ideas—counterforce, and holding cities hostage to send a message—as they were used in Vietnam, disillusioning McNamara and others. Biggest drawback is probably that the book ends in 1983, but Kaplan's later book The Bomb carries the story forward to the last decade.
January 10, 2022
From the blurb, I expected a story about nuclear command & control. Instead, this book is about RAND, "defense intellectuals", and civilian side of nuclear warfare in the USA. Some parts were obvious or described every primary school teacher of chapter's hero (style of the 80s I guess), but as a whole it tells a fascinating story of surprisingly influential folks, who spent years on thinking about nuking Soviet cities.
January 7, 2020
Coherent narrative of the most ghastly and unmanageable details.
August 5, 2022
Good historical discussion of how the US Air Force, the President(s), and RAND Corporation struggled from WWII to the Reagan administration on how to develop a coherent nuclear weapons policy and warfighting strategy. Very detailed. Very comprehensive.
The book focuses on the genesis and journey of the RAND Corporation in the early years, along with the rise of Systems Analysis in the Dept of Defense.
Would have liked to have seen more pictures and charts...more illustrations of the mentioned studies.
The book focuses on the genesis and journey of the RAND Corporation in the early years, along with the rise of Systems Analysis in the Dept of Defense.
Would have liked to have seen more pictures and charts...more illustrations of the mentioned studies.
November 24, 2020
Tons of fun. The title and overall vibe make it feel like some awesome fantasy novel, but it's all true. Kaplan knows when to be broad and when to be microscopically specific—the result is a masterful portrait of the culmination of history.
September 18, 2023
In short, despite the need for a critical eye, Fred Kaplan's book is engaging, informative, and has held up well with age. Some of Dr. Kaplan's assertions raise my hackles. The author fails at a few points to convincingly prove his arguments. One example; Dr. Kaplan charges on pg 372 that Andrew Marshall took over the office of net assessment and "turned [it] into an intermediate contracting house that wrangled money from other divisions of the Pentagon and handed it out to consultants for studies of strategic ideas that interested Andy Marshall." The author gives no evidence for why this might be an accurate portrayal; see "The Last Cold Warrior" for reasons it might not be.
These issues do not undermine Dr. Kaplan's main point that despite years of thought, Nuclear War remains ultimately uncontrollable. Belief in the ability to control escalation or send coercive signals with the bomb have ebbed and flowed, and increasingly lost their connection with the realities of war -- confusion, danger, misperception. This is an important point, and one worth examining as new theories and technology continue to drive re-examination of nuclear weapons as tools of policy. Dr. Kaplan's explanation of the early arguments of nuclear strategy is very informative and engaging, even if I would caution the reader to remain critical of assertions where Dr. Kaplan strays far from documentation.
These issues do not undermine Dr. Kaplan's main point that despite years of thought, Nuclear War remains ultimately uncontrollable. Belief in the ability to control escalation or send coercive signals with the bomb have ebbed and flowed, and increasingly lost their connection with the realities of war -- confusion, danger, misperception. This is an important point, and one worth examining as new theories and technology continue to drive re-examination of nuclear weapons as tools of policy. Dr. Kaplan's explanation of the early arguments of nuclear strategy is very informative and engaging, even if I would caution the reader to remain critical of assertions where Dr. Kaplan strays far from documentation.
May 15, 2018
This was a somewhat dry, but deeply fascinating (and somewhat terrifying) book. I think my parents were either a) not fully aware of just how close the world was to nuclear annihilation or b) super good at shielding their offspring from the terrifying knowledge of just how close we were to the brink. Being born in 1973, I was brought up in the shadow of atomic fear, questioning if we would make it to 2000. After reading this book, I'm kind of surprised we did.
February 17, 2019
I can't say it's the best book, it got pretty grueling to get through by midway through. I love nuclear weapons and the nuclear weapons complex, as well as the decisions that went around them, but when trying to find a book about ideas, I found a book about people who had some ideas. While there were still shining moments, I only made it 2/3 the way through before it just wasn't enjoyable to read.
April 22, 2024
Fascinating account of how the US developed strategies for the use of nuclear bombs during the cold war. Mostly through the machinations of strategists and scientists at the RAND corporation, the US managed to avoid both the danger of being so weak so as to invite attack, and the danger of being so strong so as to be tempted to strike first. Kaplan is dedicated and detailed, but also able to give executive summaries.
April 23, 2024
A chilling, yet sober history of so called atomic strategy. Densely packed with facts and prose, this book is infinitely more frightening than the most tense horror novels. The crude and cold logic of total annihilation is what many of America's best and brightest were tasked with untangling. Their reactions to their work were surely telling.
April 28, 2019
A very interesting and full overview of the development of American nuclear policy (excepting the last years of the Cold war and after). It's interesting how people try to quantify the impossible and plan something plainly insane.
March 19, 2023
This is an incredibly approachable work related to the intellectual thought spurred by the use of the Atomic Bombs in WWII. If you are interested in the history of nuclear weapons and the theory of nuclear deterrence, I highly recommend you pick it up.
March 9, 2017
“It was a compelling illusion. Even many of those who recognized its pretense and inadequacy willingly fell under its spell. They continued to play the game because there was no other. They performed their calculations and spoke in their strange esoteric tongues because to do otherwise would be to recognize, all too clearly and constantly, the ghastliness of their contemplations. They contrived their options because without them the bomb would appear too starkly as the thing that they had tried to prevent it from being but that it ultimately would become if it ever were used–a device of sheer mayhem, a weapon whose cataclysmic powers no one really had the faintest idea of how to control. The nuclear strategists had come to impose order—but in the end, chaos still prevailed.”
–THE WIZARDS OF ARMAGEDDON, by Fred Kaplan
–THE WIZARDS OF ARMAGEDDON, by Fred Kaplan
October 8, 2012
The central lesson I took away from this is that the bureaucrats who ran bomb theory were a far less interesting, inventive, romantic lot than the scientists who put it together. I'm so glad I do what I do.
April 21, 2014
Quit about halfway through because I realized that this is material is far more biographical than I expected, that is more about the people than the issues than expected. Nonetheless "the issues" also get plenty of coverage and the material is altogether well-written.
July 12, 2016
This book is good, but DENSE. This is the closest I've come across to a definitive history of American Nuclear Strategy. Excellent reference for anyone writing on the subject, however reading cover-to-cover can be a bit of a slog at times.
October 24, 2023
A difficult read, but once you look past the multitude of names and dates, it carries some great lessons about how some of the smartest people in the world can be carried away by fancy acronyms and statistics. A warning to academics in social sciences.
July 7, 2010
A bit of a slog to get through but very informative.
Read
June 5, 2011Does reading 3/4 of a book count (especially if its a text book, not a work of fiction?)
February 2, 2011
The true story of Doctor Strangelove - Just downright bizarre - but true.
May 9, 2016
Excellent strategy book
September 11, 2016
Kaplan's frank assessment of the RAND-based club that formed American views on nuclear strategy is refreshing.
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