51. Zero: The Surprising and Unambiguous Policy Relevance of the Cuban Missile Crisis
- Author:
- Janet M. Lang and James G. Blight
- Publication Date:
- 10-2012
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Centre for International Governance Innovation
- Abstract:
- Herman Kahn was one of the most eminent nuclear strategists of the early Cold War period. He advised Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy while working at the RAND Corporation, and also wrote one of the most controversial bestsellers of the era, Thinking about the Unthinkable. Reading it is shocking even today, as one encounters the concepts Kahn made famous, such as megadeath (a nuclear war killing tens or hundreds of millions of people); escalation dominance (threatening to blow up the world if an adversary does not relent); the doomsday machine (US-Soviet nuclear arsenals that, if used, would blow up the world, no matter what leaders might desire); and use 'em or lose 'em (striking first in a nuclear war to destroy the enemy's forces). No wonder the title role in Stanley Kubrick's black satiric film Dr. Strangelove (1964) is reportedly based on the real Herman Kahn. But Kahn himself always said he was merely being realistic, facing directly the terrifying new reality created by the existence of the ultimate weapon.
- Topic:
- Conflict Prevention, Arms Control and Proliferation, Nuclear Weapons, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
- Political Geography:
- United States and Cuba