I read Kaplan's Dark Territory: The Secret History of Cyber War and discovered it to be a very lucid explanation of the technological challenges faced by the security departments around the world. So naturally, I was anxious to check out his most recent book, courtesy Net Galley, for which I am grateful.

It's an immensely enjoyable, if a bit scary, book about the political infighting and territoriality of the armed services and policy development of nuclear weapons. There was a lot of jockeying between the Navy, Army, and Air Force as to who would control "the bomb". and unfortunately much of that in-fighting controlled policy. Curtis LeMay, a brilliant leader in the organization and implementation of the bombing campaigns (read fire-bombing) in Europe and then Japan, as head of the Strategic Air Command was all in favor of a virtual first strike with everything as the SAC bombers were quite vulnerable. (His philosophy was simply to bomb everything.)

The Navy, meanwhile, was eager to get funds for the development of large numbers of ballistic missile equipped Polaris submarines, arguing that if the Russians never knew where you were the deterrent effect was far greater and more valuable. The Army, on the other hand, promoted the use of smaller tactical nukes on the battlefield suggesting that a nuclear counterattack to defend Europe against Russian aggression would lead to a Russian withdrawal and peace discussions. The casual manner in which civilian casualties (not to mention military) were discussed was a bit disheartening.

The man who replaced LeMay at SAC was Thomas Power. Even LeMay thought he was excessive: "There was a cruelty to Power’s zest for bombing cities. Even LeMay privately referred to his protégé as a “sadist.” When Bill Kaufmann briefed him on the Counterforce strategy at SAC headquarters, Power reacted with fury. “Why do you want us to restrain ourselves?” he screamed. “Why are you so concerned with saving their lives? The whole idea is to kill the bastards!” After a bit more of this tirade, Power said, “Look. At the end of the war, if there are two Americans and one Russian, we win!” Kaufmann snapped back, “You’d better make sure that they’re a man and a woman.” Power stormed out of the room. "

One surprising and note-worthy section was on how Cheney, of all people, was instrumental in reducing the huge number of weapons by half. All of the president's since have failed to reject the no-first-strike policy. Trump, himself, in his on-again, off-again relationship with North Korea didn't hesitate to wave the arsenal and threaten its use.

Kaplan describes the abyss that policy makers then and since have become trapped in. The mere idea of how many times cities (people) need to be nuked in order to assure our victory, even as we ourselves are annihilated, inevitably leads to comparisons with Alice in Wonderland.

That about sums up the insanity faced by all the presidents since Hiroshima. The importance of policy discussions and analysis worries me when I read that our current president disdains not just the briefing books, but the idea of analysis, preferring to rely on his "gut feeling" no doubt the most attuned gut in the history of the world. But then he's such a self-described "stable genius."

A good companion book to McNamara's memoir, "In Retrospect" and Ellsberg's "Secrets." Each is ostensibly more about Vietnam but each reveals much a bout how decisions are made in government. Other titles I will have to read are Kaplan's "Wizards of Armaggedon", Ellsberg's "The Doomsday Machine," and Bruce Kuklick's "Kennan to Kissinger" and I'm sure many others, but we only live so long.

A deep dive into America’s nuclear policy it is a well researched and thoughtful narrative of how policy makers deal with the most destructive force mankind has ever created. I found myself both surprised and saddened in how easily war plans are created based solely on megatons delivered and percentages of destruction while leaders seek to limit but not outright ban nuclear weapons

Fred Kaplan has crafted an engrossing page turner of a read in The Bomb. Well worth the time of the read!