ABSTRACT
Nuclear weapons have been viewed as instruments to deter an attack by threatening an adversary with unacceptable punishment or as a vehicle to neutralize an adversary's threat to use them for purposes of diplomatic coercion or blackmail or, to employ them as bargaining levers. As early as the Kennedy administration, American planners have seriously considered adopting a counterforce strategy aimed primarily, if deterrence should break down, at destroying the Soviet Union's nuclear forces and at bringing a nuclear war to a swift conclusion on terms favorable to the West. Before negotiations about arms control could be undertaken, a broad based modernization program had first to be set in motion to re-establish what was perceived as American inferiority and to re-assert American nuclear ascendancy. The Carter administration's management of nuclear strategic and arms control policy deepened the confusion surrounding the appropriate uses of nuclear weapons: as a deterrent, as warfighting, or as compellence.
