Strategic Impasse : Offense, Defense, and Deterrence Theory and Practice

There is probably no area of more crucial concern nor one more subject to possible misunderstanding and riddled with paradox than nuclear weapons and their use, not only in war, but as deterrents to war. In Strategic Impasse, Cimbala examines the critical issues, problems, and paradoxes inherent in the current nuclear situation. It is from a fundamental contradiction--the usefulness of nuclear weapons versus the undesirability of nuclear war--that nuclear deadlock arises. Their usefulness as deterrents is based on their destructive potential and the balance of power in Europe cannot be adjusted until the inflexible, bipolar balance of terror is addressed. Ironically, superpower sovereignty in nuclear first strike/retaliation capability, shared across the divided East-West political buffer zone, created the impetus for improvements in conventional warfare. To the extent war can be contained below the nuclear threshold, conventional weaponry contributes to deterrence by denial. One difficulty lies in the improbability of completely isolating the nuclear from the conventional battlefield in a European scenario. Also, a level of superpower force perceived to be adequate in peacetime might prove to be an inadequate intrawar deterrent. Because of the underdevelopment of conceptual frameworks, credible deterrence--the creation of nuclear campaigns designed to prevent war--remains conjectural. Highly usable weapons require a command system that can provide for simultaneous fighting and escalation, but escalation beyond a certain level conflicts with control and therefore usability. In turn, low expectations of weapon usability may weaken deterrence. In Gorbachev's defensive sufficiency, forces for aggression and surprise attack would be diminished, while forces for defense would be strengthened. The problem lies not only in differentiating between offensive and defensive weaponry but in achieving a consensus on such a definition by NATO's member countries. The book is divid