ABSTRACT
In France, a public debate on defense and national security has been going on for a couple of years. There had been a vigorous American debate between 1957 and 1963, the period during which official strategy switched from the doctrine of massive retaliation to that of flexible response and most of the important works on nuclear strategy were published. The French, along with many other Europeans, fear that the arms race for defensive systems will drive one more nail in the coffin of a Western strategy that entails, in case of need, a first resort to nuclear weapons. A major part of the American public seems to believe that the United States' official strategic doctrine is no first use—that is, the deployment of nuclear weapons only in case of an enemy nuclear attack. Americans recognize that the French and British nuclear forces, whose might increase, contribute to the deterrence of Soviet aggression.
