ABSTRACT
The Cold War had two chief features: continued confrontation on the border between the two Germanies that might, possibly without notice, have broken out into war; and an ideologically driven rivalry throughout the developing world. The enormous build-up of nuclear weapons since 1945 was primarily, but not entirely, the product of the Cold War. In mid-1992, the world stockpile of nuclear weapons comprises some fifty thousand nuclear warheads. The United States near monopoly in deliverable nuclear weapons in no way deterred the Chinese Communists from their conquest of the Chinese mainland. Although no responsible political or military figure ever came up with a truly convincing explanation of how nuclear weapons might be used in Europe without unacceptable risks of catastrophic escalation, the possibility could not be totally discounted. In shifting our attention from tactical to strategic nuclear weapons, people must recognize the particular interpretation of deterrence embodied in the structure and targeting doctrine of US strategic forces from the beginning.
