Restraining Nuclear War

Abstract

Nuclear war may not be likely but remains a possibility. If the US becomes involved in a nuclear war, it may find itself fighting an adversary that conceives of nuclear war as likely to be limited primarily by the combatants willingness to suffer damage rather than their abilities to impose damage on each other. The paper explains how conceiving of nuclear war in this way may prove to be of great advantage to both sides. It explores some of the problems the US needs to think through to prepare itself for the possibility of such a nuclear war.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jun 01, 2011
Accession Number
ADA575230

Entities

People

  • Andrew J. Coe
  • Victor A. Utgoff

Organizations

  • Institute for Defense Analyses

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Counter WMD

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Cold War
  • Collateral Damage
  • Department Of Defense
  • Deterrence
  • Electromagnetic Pulses
  • Guerrilla Warfare
  • International Organizations
  • International Security
  • Leadership
  • National Security
  • Nuclear Weapons
  • Security
  • Terrorism
  • Thinking
  • Uncertainty
  • United States
  • Weapons

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Strategic Security Studies