To Kill Nations: American Strategy in the Air-Atomic Age and the Rise of Mutually Assured Destruction Kaplan EdwardPaperback

"Edward Kaplan's To Kill Nations is a fascinating work that packs a thermonuclear punch of ideas and arguments... The work is suitable for anyone from advanced undergraduates to experts in the field."
― Strategy Bridge

In To Kill Nations, Edward Kaplan traces the evolution of American strategic airpower and preparation for nuclear war from this early air-atomic era to a later period (1950-1965) in which the Soviet Union's atomic capability, accelerated by thermonuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, made American strategic assets vulnerable and gradually undermined air-atomic strategy.

Kaplan throws into question both the inevitability and preferability of the strategic doctrine of MAD. He looks at the process by which cultural, institutional, and strategic ideas about MAD took shape and makes insightful use of the comparison