ABSTRACT
It is both satisfying and perplexing to look at the process of how nuclear forces do what they do. It is satisfying because our intuitive, gut reaction Is that the operation of anything so’large and complicated must be dangerously unstable. Deterrence, second strike, and limited nuclear war are concepts that are logical but incomplete. The job of management and command is to turn these concepts into actuality — that is, into processes. Extending the analysis of nuclear forces to include process is also satisfying, because we are examining truly fundamental problems, not problems that are stripped of so much vital detail that our resulting conclusions are meaningless.
