Kaplan, Fred. The Wizards of Armageddon. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983. 452 pages.

When the first atomic bombs were dropped in 1945, an elite group of "defense intellectuals" realized that the implications of nuclear strategy were enormous, but also bizarre. It became obvious that given the power of only a few well-placed bombs, even a first strike by one nation would leave sufficient retaliatory power with the other, and would therefore prove suicidal. Thus began the intellectual discipline that produced our cold-war lexicon: missile gaps, megadeaths, deterrence, mutually assured destruction, game theory, and limited conventional warfare as an alternative to nuclear stalemate or destruction.

On the beach in Santa Monica, California, the Air Force contracts began flowing at Rand Corporation in 1948, from which a cult of self-appointed wizards issued forth over the years. All of them were "thinking the unthinkable," trying to second-guess the Soviets. More often than not, they melded esoteric mind games with their egos, as they jockeyed for the attention of Pentagon generals. In the end, the author believes, nothing was accomplished except that both sides now have tens of thousands of warheads instead of dozens or hundreds, and missile technology has vastly improved delivery. In retrospect, it seems that Rand should have spent more effort on disarmament studies -- even if only as a sop to public relations.
ISBN 0-671-42444-0

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