American Foreign Policy PS123 / PACS 130

American Foreign Policy

American Foreign Policy PS 123/PACS 130
Spring 2003
Monday and Wednesday 4-5:30
4 LeConte

Professor Crawford
202 Moses Hall
Office Hours: M 10-11:30

Lecture 13 Mad, Coffin, and the NutsI.

The Cuban Missile Crisis and the Film “Thirteen Days”
Why the Cuban Missile Crisis?
Bay of Pigs and repeated invasions of Cuba—dominance of the “roll-back strategy”
Kennedy’s strategic buildup of forces
The Cuban Missile Crisis was not resolved by America's nuclear superiority
conventional superiority
diplomacy
Did US foreign policy makers learn anything?
Nuclear Superiority is useless against an enemy who can retaliate
The “eyeball” myth
The “calibrated brinkmanship” myth

II. MAD, COFFIN, and the NUTS

What are Nuclear Weapons?
How many does the US have?
Implications for Foreign Policy
Cannot be used to win wars against those who can retaliate
Numbers do not count
States cannot provide security for their citizens with nukes
Purpose of war changes
The MAD policy position: Containment by necessity
Weapons can only be used for retaliation therefore
They must be invulnerable to a first strike
They must be aimed at “soft” targets
They do not have to be precise
They cannot defend, or be used for offense: they can only deter
This is New
New Fears
MAD Definition and Significance
MAD Flaws
Not credible—a bluff?
Cannot assure national security
Inflexible
Vulnerability problems
Building more weapons destabilizes
Codifying MAD: The ABM Treaty
COFFIN: The escape from MAD
A Hawk strategy advocated by NUTs
Make Nukes like conventional weapons
Preemptive nuclear war is necessary
NAC 68
Kill hard targets
Accuracy, speed, readiness, reliability: MARV, MIRV, MK 12, SIG, NAVSTAR, Cruise Missiles, Stealth Bombers, ASW, ABM, Civil Defense, MX
COFFIN Flaws
Destabilizing –First Strike instability. First Strike incentive
Requires Missile Defense: Likely to be imperfect
The Dove Strategy
Focuses on flaws of both MAD and COFFIN
Arms control
No missile defense
NPT