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"Lieutenant General Glenn A. Kent was a uniquely acute analyst and developer of American defense policy in the second half of the twentieth century. His 33-year career in the Air Force was followed by more than 20 years as one of the leading analysts at RAND. This volume is not a memoir in the normal sense but rather a summary of the dozens of national security issues in which Glenn was personally engaged over the course of his career. These issues included creating the single integrated operational plan (SIOP), leading DoD's official assessment of strategic defenses in the 1960s, developing and analyzing strategic nuclear arms control agreements, helping to bring new weapon systems to life, and many others. Each vignette describes the analytical frameworks and, where appropriate, the mathematical formulas and charts that Glenn developed and applied to gain insights into the issue at hand. The author also relates his roles in much of the bureaucratic pulling and hauling that occurred as issues were addressed within the government." -- publisher's website.
Strategy and History comprises a selection of Professor Gray's key contributions to strategic debate over the past thirty years. These essays have been selected both because they had significant messages for contemporary controversies, and because they have some continuing relevance for today and the future. Each essay in this book is really about strategy in the modern world, and reflects the many dimensions of this complex subject. This book covers a wide range of subjects and historical events, but there are key issues covered throughout: being strategic the consequences of actions a respect for Clausewitz’s theory of war historical dependency the importance of geography being critical of enthusiasm for technology over human factors the primacy of politics. This important publication provides an invaluable insight into the development of strategic studies over the past 30 years from one of the world's leading theorists and practitioners of the subject. The book will be of great interest to all students and analysts of strategy and international studies.
The ability of U.S. military forces to field new weapons systems quickly and to contain their cost growth has declined significantly over the past few decades. There are many causes including increased complexity, funding instability, bureaucracy, and more diverse user demands, but a view that is gaining more acceptance is that better systems engineering (SE) could help shorten development time. To investigate this assertion in more detail, the US Air Force asked the NRC to examine the role that SE can play during the acquisition life cycle to address root causes of program failure especially during pre-milestone A and early program phases. This book presents an assessment of the relationship between SE and program outcome; an examination of the SE workforce; and an analysis of SE functions and guidelines. The latter includes a definition of the minimum set of SE processes that need to be accounted for during project development.
A guide to defense systems analysis by experts who have worked on systems that range from air defense to space defense. The Department of Defense and the military continually grapple with complex scientific, engineering, and technological problems. Defense systems analysis offers a way to reach a clearer understanding of how to approach and think about complex problems. It guides analysts in defining the question, capturing previous work in the area, assessing the principal issues, and understanding how they are linked. The goal of defense systems analysis is not necessarily to find a particular solution but to provide a roadmap to a solution, or an understanding of the relative value of alt...
The Nuclear Scholars Initiative is a signature program run by the Project on Nuclear Issues (PONI) at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)—to engage emerging nuclear experts in thoughtful and informed debate over how to best address the nuclear community’s most pressing problems. The papers included in this volume comprise research from participants in the 2020 Nuclear Scholars Initiative. These papers explore a variety of topics such as the future of arms-control treaties, the role of artificial intelligence and cyber resilience in nuclear security, and the role of regional dynamics in nuclear security.
From the author of the classic The Wizards of Armageddon and Pulitzer Prize finalist comes the definitive history of American policy on nuclear war—and Presidents’ actions in nuclear crises—from Truman to Trump. Fred Kaplan, hailed by The New York Times as “a rare combination of defense intellectual and pugnacious reporter,” takes us into the White House Situation Room, the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s “Tank” in the Pentagon, and the vast chambers of Strategic Command to bring us the untold stories—based on exclusive interviews and previously classified documents—of how America’s presidents and generals have thought about, threatened, broached, and just barely avoided nuclear war from the dawn of the atomic age until today. Kaplan’s historical research and deep reporting will stand as the permanent record of politics. Discussing theories that have dominated nightmare scenarios from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Kaplan presents the unthinkable in terms of mass destruction and demonstrates how the nuclear war reality will not go away, regardless of the dire consequences.
This Report contains a Consensus Report and the papers submitted to the April 6 -10, 1995 NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Strategic Stability In The Post-Cold War World And The Future Of Nuclear Disarmament, held in Washington D. C. , United States Of America of at The Airlie Conference Center. The workshop was sponsored by the NATO Division Scientific and Environmental Affairs as part of its ongoing outreach programme to widen and deepen scientific contacts between NATO member countries and the Cooperation Partner countries of the former Warsaw Treaty Organization. The participants recognize that the collapse of the former Soviet Union has left a conceptual vacuum in the definition of a ...
Keith Payne begins by asking, "Did we really learn how to deter predictably and reliably during the Cold War?" He answers cautiously in the negative, pointing out that we know only that our policies toward the Soviet Union did not fail. What we can be more certain of, in Payne's view, is that such policies will almost assuredly fail in the Second Nuclear Age—a period in which direct nuclear threat between superpowers has been replaced by threats posed by regional "rogue" powers newly armed with chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons. The fundamental problem with deterrence theory is that is posits a rational—hence predictable—opponent. History frequently demonstrates the opposite. Payne argues that as the one remaining superpower, the United States needs to be more flexible in its approach to regional powers.
America's power is in decline, its allies alienated, its soldiers trapped in a war that even generals regard as unwinnable. What has happened these past few years is well known. Why it happened continues to puzzle. Celebrated Slate columnist Fred Kaplan explains the grave misconceptions that enabled George W. Bush and his aides to get so far off track, and traces the genesis and evolution of these ideas from the era of Nixon through Reagan to the present day.