ABSTRACT
The development of an anti-nuclear mood from 1980 to 1984 in the United States showed that the debate over the meaning of the bomb, and in relation to defense policy, has yet to be solved. One fundamental explanation for this tum of events, is the rise of a conventional nuclear strategy or, the attempt by the US government to apply through the counterforce doctrine a conventional weapons strategy in an age of nuclear weapons. A growing number of leaders, journalists, scholars and experts are worried that the United States is going the wrong way with regard to its nuclear strategy and feel that this strategy has been developed, thought out and planned beyond what is reasonable to expect from the use of nuclear weapons. In particular, the declared policy of ‘counterforce,’ meaning a nuclear attack limited against the enemy’s military forces, which has been advocated by the Reagan Administration, has fueled a debate once again on nuclear war.
