The Amateur Strategist: Intuitive Deterrence Theories and the Politics of the Nuclear Arms Race

ISBN-13: 9780521481212 / Angielski / Twarda / 1995 / 330 str.

Los Angeles) James DeNardo (University of California

Opis

This book explores how the everyday person reasons about nuclear strategy. James DeNardo's data reveal surprising patterns of thinking on basic issues from SDI, arms control, and proliferation to the end of the Cold War. His discovery that the amateur's strategic reasoning defies all conventional theories lays the groundwork for a new understanding of national security politics. His demonstration that professional strategists reason like novices--that we are all Amateur Strategists--challenges the intellectual foundations of modern deterrence theory, public opinion studies, and game theory.

Recenzje

'This unusual book combines security studies, game theory, psychology, political sciences and statistical analysis in an investigation of preferences regarding American polity for Nuclear weapons. … The wide scope of the material in this book is supported by extensive references to current literature.' Defence Analysis

Spis treści

1. Introduction; 2. A primer on the Cold War nuclear debate; 3. An introduction to intuitive deterrence theories; 4. Competing hypotheses about nuclear thinking; 5. The novice strategists; 6. The intuitive calculus of nuclear deterrence; 7. Statistical tests of the intuitive nuclear calculus; 8. Expert nuclear reasoning; 9. The factional politics of strategy and the end of the Cold War arms race; 10. Nuclear thinking after the cold war.