Deterrence strategies: An annotated bibliography

Abstract

In the fifteen years since 1945, two parallel historical developments-the growth of military technology and an increased bipolarization of the international system-have given rise to grave questions about the possibility of maintaining peace and about the modes by which future wars, should they occur, will be conducted. The seriousness of these questions has led decision-makers and scholars, on both sides of the Iron Curtain, into an examination and re-evaluation of the traditional, i.e., prenuclear age, concepts of strategy, defense, war, and victory. This process of criticism has yielded a series of strategic doctrines-Collective Security, Containment, and Massive Retaliation-each designed to cope with the situation as it was then unfolding and each, in turn, being critically examined and modified as the developing situation raised