Minds at war

This book shows that nuclear weapons specialists (that small group of military officers, civilian government officials, and private analysts who conceive, justify, and implement US weapons policy) exhibit a frightening degree of irrationality and inner confusion about nuclear weapons. The author sought to determine the degree to which the policy makers recognize the fundamental new military realities that nuclear weapons have brought: the vulnerability of both superpowers to complete destruction and the inability of either side to reduce the vulnerability. The results reported in the book show that simple well-informed common sense would be a far more rational guide to nuclear policy than the convoluted, self-contradictory views of those now in authority. Similar patterns of thinking are reported from a small group of Soviet analysts interviewed