by Arthur I. Waskow ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A
With the first rattling of the nuclear dance macabre in 1945, the concept of victory has become militarily obsolete. Deterrence is the new, indeed the only thinkable, goal. And it is the various theories of the means by which to deter that Waskow examines. He submits each to his own criteria of effectiveness, adjudges them all inadequate, and proposes a ""disarmament-plus"" program which he contends will preclude the possibility of continued spiraling. The two most popular theories, that which would concentrate on the development of missile-base hitting weapons and that which would willfully evolve further thermonuclear horrors so as to make war out of the question among civilized men, are both disparaged. Nothing, claims Waskow, could prevent the frenzied terpsichorea from getting out of control with provocative threat, real or unreal. It is time to stop playing the game of deterrence, to cease and desist assuming that two Goliaths fight for existence with one hand in the pocket. His plan supervised cessation of testing and development by all the major powers, accompanied by a long range international program to whittle the spoils of war into vertual non-existence. It is not, however, Waskow's own alternative that is most significant. Who knows what it is that the leaders of the world will find acceptable. Rather, it is the author's careful analyses of the various deterrence strategies, ""his philosophic to the idea that ""reality is not something given"", his objections to the gamemanship of modern war games when the stakes are survival itself. An eminently readable book that grapples with the most important of man's problems this able of .
Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: N/A
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1962
Categories: NONFICTION
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