ABSTRACT
As we enter the fifth decade after Hiroshima, the concept of deterrence is under a somewhat unfair attack from both left and right. Critics from the left assail it as justifying too many weapons systems, or as assuming too much in the way of human rationality for heading off an ultimate thermonuclear cataclysm.1 Critics from the right claim that the Soviet Union does not share Western concepts or views here and perhaps is not as frightened of nuclear war as we are in the West; deterrence reasoning is thus allegedly bound to lead to disappointments on detente and arms control and is bound to leave such valuable places as Western Europe exposed, now that the Soviet nuclear arsenal has grown to match or surpass that of the United States.2
