ABSTRACT
The American domestic political climate may turn against strategic defenses. Ballistic missiles would be relegated gradually to a status of strategic secure reserve. Since the onset of the cold war nato has deterred Soviet military strength in tanks and men with nuclear weapons. A general Western disaffection with a doctrine of nuclear deterrence that promised the destruction of Europe to save it has led to elegant, if fragile, doctrines of "conventional deterrence." Yet, European antinuclear movements rebel against the very underpinnings of nato security, the almost existential postulates of defense through nuclear deterrence. A European conjunction of sdi and so-called "emerging technologies" have the potential to unseat the old calculations of theater wars, with their attendant "firebreaks" and "escalation ladders." Even "limited damage" as an objective is unacceptable, for it implies that the most that US strategists can achieve is a slight moderation of wholesale death.
