The Bomb: Presidents, Generals, and the Secret History of Nuclear War
by Fred Kaplan, 2020, Simon & Schuster
This book is about the development of the strategy of national defense and how we would utilize nuclear weapons in the event of a threat to our country. Actually, that statement isn’t exactly true as it is apparent from reading this book that we still haven’t figured it out. To use them would entail our mutual destruction and the possibility of rendering our planet uninhabitable. What is scary, however, is that there have been, and still are, individuals who actually subscribe to the notion of using nuclear weapons, either tactical or strategic, in various situations.
As I Kaplan went down the list of presidents who have held office since WWII (Truman to Trump), I was familiar with all of them (with the possible exception of Truman) and many of the individuals involved in these discussions as I am old enough to remember them. It appears that I am have witnessed a lot of history in my life. I realized that I have been living almost 75 years with a proliferation of nuclear weapons that have the potential of easily destroying our world if certain individuals make the decision to actually use them. It’s something that’s always hanging over us but not something that we think about each day. There were a couple of time during this timeframe, however, that it almost came to pass: first during the Cuban Missle Crisis during Kennedy’s term, and then under Reagan’s first term when the Russians thought that he was actually going to launch a first strike against them. Otherwise, nuclear policy isn’t something that we think about every day.
The books is fascinating and discouraging at the same time. Discouraging because it appears that we still haven’t figured it out and the fact that the Start II Treaty is about to expire and there have been no new negotiations to extend it.
This is madness. Bill Gates correctly predicted a few years ago that our next crisis would be a viral pandemic rather than nuclear war. Once the pandemic is under control, however, should we start worrying about nuclear war again?
The book is well written but is not very enjoyable to read. The number of Op orders that are referenced and their content seems to make a lot of what is covered redundant and not very easy to distinguish one from another.
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