ABSTRACT
The subsidiary question which remained, and was dwarfed by comparison, was how Nuclear weapon could be effectively used. In a sense, the whole history of post-Hiroshima strategy has been an extended attempt to reconcile the irresistible attractions of the weapon with the intransigent perplexities of that question. The strategists have sought to convert the base explosive power of nuclear weapons into the gold of politico military instrumentality. The constant striving to perfect US and NATO strategy by ever more precise and ever more sophisticated doctrines for employing nuclear weapons was indubitably inspired by the dramatic success of the bomb's first missions. Speculation about the nature of war in the nuclear age has become increasingly atavistic in recent years. The cumulative impact of altered nuances suggests the emergence of a revised official orthodoxy that does represent an important transformation in attitudes to nuclear war and to the relationship between nuclear strategy and policy.
