Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has resurrected a fear that many thought had all but vanished with the end of the Cold War: the possibility of a nuclear attack. With Moscow pointedly reminding adversaries of its nuclear capabilities, Western policymakers have struggled to find ways to counter Russian aggression without triggering an escalatory spiral that ends in calamity.
The United States found itself in a similar predicament in the years after the Soviet Union first got the bomb. In an influential 1956 essay, a young scholar named Henry Kissinger explained the conundrum facing policymakers: full-scale war had become too dangerous to contemplate, but backing away from any risky situation “would amount to giving the Soviets a blank check.” He considered how Washington could find a middle path and overcome strategic “paralysis.” The United States, Kissinger wrote, would need to prove that it is “capable of courses other than all-out war or inaction.”
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— Daniel Kurtz-Phelan, Editor |
