Since the U.S. presidential elections of 1980, debate has intensified between those who believe that nuclear weapons can only deter a war not intended to be fought and those who see nuclear weapons as an advancement in weaponry that allows for the waging and winning of a nuclear war. At the focal point of this debate is the rise of the “counterforce” doctrine-the concept of a nuclear attack exclusively against the enemy’s military forces. The author, in outlining the unresolved tension between the two approaches, examines the reasons counterforce has become widely accepted in U.S....