The False Promise of Superiority

In this book, James H. Lebovic argues that the policy approach to maintain nuclear superiority did not make sense during the Cold War and makes even less sense now. As he shows, the idea that nuclear superiority is an imperative still serves as the foundation for too much strategic policy in an era where utility of such weapons is highly questionable. Moreover, continuing to rely on them as coercive tools rests on deficient logic and is dangerous. Not only explaining why we remain stuck with a nuclear stance that is largely irrelevant to the era, this book also offers a way out of the type of thinking that keeps such policies in place. This political analysis exposes the fanciful logic that the United States can use nuclear weapons to vanquish nuclear adversaries or influence them when employing various coercive tactics. During the Cold War, American policymakers sought nuclear advantages to offset an alleged Soviet edge. Policymakers hoped that US nuclear capabilities would safeguard deterrence, when backed perhaps by a set of coercive tactics. But policymakers also hedged their bets with plans to fight a nuclear war to their advantage should deterrence fail. In The False Promise of Superiority, James H. Lebovic argues that the US approach was fraught with peril and remains so today. He contends that the United States can neither simply impose its will on nuclear adversaries nor safeguard deterrence using these same coercive tactics without risking severe, counterproductive effects. As Lebovic shows, the current faith in US nuclear superiority could produce the disastrous consequences that US weapons and tactics are meant to avoid. This book concludes that US interests are best served when policymakers resist the temptation to use, or prepare to use, nuclear weapons first or to brandish nuclear weapons for coercive effect.