Strategic Bombing and Nuclear War

Jones (1968) on two aspects of deterrence

Argues that deterrence can be interpreted to mean two things; a policy and a situation. 

Jones’ (1968) three assumptions regarding deterrence

1) The belief that the opponents goals are not so important that they won’t be scared by threats made by the perpetrator. A threat only works if the other side sees danger.

2) There must be communication between the two or more parties involved. 

3) Thinking strategically about how you can harm an opponent, even if they don’t intend to cause harm, the opponent needs to believe that you could.

Jones (1968) on why you have deterrence situations

Argues that deterrence situations may come into being due to a clash of interests or intentions, and these actions are often carried between and toward different nation states.

Jones (1968) on foreign policy

Argues that the deterrence may have three goals in foreign policy; aim to have power, achieve security or protect national interests.

Jones (1968) on limited warfare

Argues that a policy of deterence, to an extent, is a policy of peace as it attempts to contain conflict within the bounds of threat rather than violence

Jones (1968) on tactics of nuclear deterrence

Argues that the different ways in which nuclear deterrence may be used between nations is through accomodation, Alliance, Limited Warfare and Arms Control

Douhet (1921) on air power

‘Nothing man can do on the surface of the Earth can intervene with a plane in flight, moving freely in the third dimension’

Freedman’s (1983) three aspects of strategic thinking and air power

1) Nuclear war is so much more destructive that it make total war appear absurd. (M.A.D)

2) The ‘search for a way to deny an enemy the benefits of its destructive power by devising either an effective defence or a form of first strike that could eliminate the enemy's capacity to retaliate’. (1st and 2nd strike)

3) Creating new, less destructive nuclear weapons that may be used in a smaller capacity. (Limited Warfare)

Freedman (1983) on the problem of nuclear warfare

Argues that ‘the essence of the problem [nuclear warfare] is the difficulty of attaching any relationality whatsoever to the initiation of a chain of events that could well end in the utter devastation of one’s own society’.

Freedman (1983) on reactions to nuclear warfare

Argues that no one knows how politicians are going to react to nuclear weapons being blown up in their territory

Freedman (1983) on the balance of power

Argues that since 1945, Europe has been at peace and he attributes this to nuclear deterrence policies due to their role in maintaining the status quo and the balance of power

Edwards (1986) on bipolarity

Explains that given the US and Russia have massive nuclear arsenals in comparison to other coutnries, that we are living in a bipolar world.

Edwards (1986) on spheres of influence

Explains that the importance of nuclear weapons is to maintain the status quo and spheres of influence. Argues that the other power interfering with the others sphere of influence would be taken as deeply provocative and an attempt to mitigate the status quo.

Edwards (1986) on first and second strike capability

Explains that in order to maintain the stability of the balance of terror, it is key for a country to have high second strike capacity after being weakened by the other countries first strike.

Edwards (1986) arguments on the stopping or limiting of nuclear warfare

Argues that ‘on the one hand, there is no evident reasons why the introduction of nuclear weapons into a conflict must of necessity result in escalation to a major nuclear war’, there are solid grounds for believing that this would not happen. However, on the other hand, ‘there can equally be no certainty that a nuclear conflict once begun could be contained within tolerable limits’.

Freedman and Michaels (2019) on strategy and tactics

Argue that ‘strategy was about getting into the best position for a battle; tactics was about how it should be fought.’

Cohn’s (1987) feminist lens

Believes that whilst it might be slightly reductionist to think of the arms race purely through a feminist geographical lends, finds it interesting to understand the sexual subtext of the arms race

Cohn (1978) on masculinity and nuclear warfare

Emphasises the relationship between male sexuality and the arms race through a range of examples, notably the idea of ‘patting the missiles’ and the idea of the ‘pissing contest’. Idea of nuclear virginity and New Zealand

Cohn (1978) on language used in nuclear strategies

When interviewing men who worked in nuclear strategy, she discovered the importance of being able to communicate effectively with them by using the jargon they created.

Cohn (1978) on the dichotomy between strategy and practice

Argues that it ‘is that the process of learning the language is itself a part of what removes you from the reality of nuclear war’

Schlosser (2022) three things needed to avoid nuclear warfare

‘Rational leaders, accurate information and no major blunders’.

Chomsky (2003) on hegemony and capitalism

Thinks critically about the proliferation of nuclear weapons and analyses the extent to which this may just be a ploy by the West to spread capitalism across the world and reinforce it’s hegemonic power.

Chomsky (2003) marxist perspective

Explains that a Marxist might be inclined to believe that nuclear strategy has broader aims which are to maintain the global power structures as opposed to a way that would prevent conflict between states. 

Chomsky (2003) on the global distribution of power

Argues that nuclear weapons are around to reinforce the status quo and prevent any drastic changing in the global distribution of power, not to maintain peace between nations. 

Masco (2009) on the impact of nuclear warfare in the US

Explains that it ‘transformed the United States into a special kind of bunker society’. Provides the examples from the FCDA and the Rand Corporations.

Masco (2009) on enacting nationhood

Argues that the making of the nuclear bunker was a new site for nation and state building

Masco (2009) on enacting security

Argues that ‘the Bush administration promoted the ideology of the bunker into a full national security culture, one that trained citizens to define "security" as a state project and to ignore the vast manipulation of public life conducted in the name of "defense”’

Graham (2016) on the vertical dimension

Argues that ‘attention to the vertical structuring of cities and urban life remains patchy and limited’ (p. 6)

Weizman (2002) in Graham (2016) on flat discourses

Argues that, ‘Geopolitics is a flat discourse’ which ‘largely ignores the vertical dimension and tends to look across rather than to cut through the landscape. This was the cartographic imagination inherited from the military and political spatialities of the modern state.’

Massey (1994) in Graham (2016) on place

Argues ‘that places are not areas defined by boundaries on a map. Rather, they are ‘articulated moments in networks of social relations and understandings’.

Waltz (2002) argument for more nuclear weapons

Argue that nuclear weapons (along with bipolarity) were the major difference that kept the world free of major wars during the Cold War, and that the spread of these weapons is likely to contribute to further stability.

Waltz (2002) and realism

Rational Deterrence Theory rests on the assumption that states act in their own self-interest and prioritize their survival and so, given that the costs of nuclear war are so high, nations will be deterred from attacking if there is even a slight possibility of retaliation

Waltz (2002) criticism of argument

Argument that whilst nuclear weapons are good for deterence to an extent, they still run the risk of smaller conflicts occuring as countries without nuclear arsenals know that countries with nuclear arsenals will not tend to use these weapons. 

Sagan (2002) argument for less nuclear weapons

Argues that nuclear proliferation may lead to nuclear accidents as novice nuclear states lack adequate organizational controls over their new weapons, resulting in a higher risk of either deliberate of accidental nuclear war.

Sagan (2002) on decisions regarding the use of nuclear weapons

Argues that whilst governement leaders have the intentions of behaving rationally, their final decisions may be influenced by the resources they have in their country.

Sagan (2002) on military organisations

Argues that military organizations and their biases are likely to lead to preventive wars, unstable deterrence and even accidents and/or unauthorized use of nuclear weapons.