ABSTRACT
The nuclear dilemma is so fundamental to postwar military strategy and so pervasive a factor in US strategic thought that one can categorize this body of thought in terms of divergent approaches to coping with it. Three principal approaches stand out: rejection, abolition, and mitigation. The rejectionists, as both operators and thinkers, have also exerted a major influence on strategic thought. They have helped provoke the mitigators to formulate their views and to apply them to operational strategy. The abolitionists have provided a continuing challenge to the theory and practice of mitigation. The proponents of mitigating the dilemma—the mitigators—are the principal source of elaboration and refinement of US strategic concepts. They have exerted the principal influence on operational strategy. The rejectionists reject the nuclear dilemma—whether deliberately or by indifference—in their approach to the management of force in the nuclear age.
