ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the presence or absence of the preconditions on the part of the United States, leaving discussion of the Soviet dynamic and strategy. The strategy of the United States during the last forty-four years, since America reentered world politics directly after withdrawing in a post-World War One isolationism, has undergone four distinct stages of development. The antinuclear movement bases itself on the criticism, and ultimately the rejection, of the deterrent. The rejection can be immediate and unilateral, or its abolition can be assumed as a result of a long process. The notion of controlled nuclear war-fighting, is essentially astrategic in that it tends to ignore a number of the realities that would necessarily attend any nuclear exchange. The more significant of these include the particular origins of the given conflict and the nature of its progress to the point where the strategic nuclear exchange is initiated; and the disparate objectives for which a limited nuclear exchange would be fought.
