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Rating: 
Summary: The human side of the "nuclear strategists"
Review: Fred Kaplan has done something very hard to achieve: portray a bunch of, well, nerds with sympathy and humor, explaining their trains of logic and their conclusions in readable prose. It is hard because most of them were micro-economists who lived in a world of utility functions, game theory, and loops of mathematical logic - just the kind of stuff that puts many off (like me) of "public policy" as an academic field that is dominated by economists who are little more than self-important if intelligent twits - with no practical wisdom whatsoever. However, this group was important because they were trying to encapsulate nuclear weapons into their rationalist methodologies. Kaplan's book is the ideal companion to Freeman's Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, which is so dry by comparison and yet covers the strategy better. It is a fun read, though a bit overwhelming to get through as there were SO MANY of them. (There was an added interest for me, as I knew some of these characters as a student and was unimpressed with them as thinkers while respecting their impact on public policy.) Whoever thought that microeconomists following their threads of logic could have had such an enormous influence on military strategy. I never would have! If I understood it, what they did was link military considerations into a mathematical methodology that could be studied and discussed and that offered conclusions - or predictions - if (tortuously) followed to their end. This helped military planers get a handle on these issues and (perhaps) to think more clearly. Much of quality of this book is due to the fact that Kaplan is a really good reporter and not an academic who is just shuffling papers. He got out and talked to a lot of these guys, though none of them appear as particularly sympathetic characters to me. Amazingly, he used this book as his PhD disseration at MIT in poli-sci. You gotta respect him as a writer. Recommended as a colorful view of some weird thinkers who had enormous influence on our lives.
Rating:
Summary: The human side of the "nuclear strategists"
Review: Fred Kaplan has done something very hard to achieve: portray a bunch of, well, nerds with sympathy and humor, explaining their trains of logic and their conclusions in readable prose. It is hard because most of them were micro-economists who lived in a world of utility functions, game theory, and loops of mathematical logic - just the kind of stuff that puts many off (like me) of "public policy" as an academic field that is dominated by economists who are little more than self-important if intelligent twits - with no practical wisdom whatsoever. However, this group was important because they were trying to encapsulate nuclear weapons into their rationalist methodologies. Kaplan's book is the ideal companion to Freeman's Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, which is so dry by comparison and yet covers the strategy better. It is a fun read, though a bit overwhelming to get through as there were SO MANY of them. (There was an added interest for me, as I knew some of these characters as a student and was unimpressed with them as thinkers while respecting their impact on public policy.) Whoever thought that microeconomists following their threads of logic could have had such an enormous influence on military strategy. I never would have! If I understood it, what they did was link military considerations into a mathematical methodology that could be studied and discussed and that offered conclusions - or predictions - if (tortuously) followed to their end. This helped military planers get a handle on these issues and (perhaps) to think more clearly. Much of quality of this book is due to the fact that Kaplan is a really good reporter and not an academic who is just shuffling papers. He got out and talked to a lot of these guys, though none of them appear as particularly sympathetic characters to me. Amazingly, he used this book as his PhD disseration at MIT in poli-sci. You gotta respect him as a writer. Recommended as a colorful view of some weird thinkers who had enormous influence on our lives.
Rating: 
Summary: The Bomb I Grew Up Studying
Review: This book was one of the greatest I have had the pleasure to read. I was so fascinated reading this that I stayed up reading the book for three days straight. I then had to read it again, this time going four days without sleep, mainly because I'm an idiot. I gave up work and school studying the tactics used in the groups mentioned. I was very intigued, and have started reading it again. ...
Rating:
Summary: The Bomb I Grew Up Studying
Review: This fascinating review of nuclear strategy covers the period from 1945 to 1990. It is extraordinarily clear in presenting the options faced by Presidents and decision makers, and how they resulted in strategy that varied between "Nuke them back to the Stone Age" in 1948 to "MX Racetracks in the Nevada Desert" in the Caarter and Reagan Administration. I found it a most compelling read, causing me to sacrifice sleep to continue, because it names names, dates, and places. Insight into all the news figures I grew up seeing on TV News. I grew up as an Army Brat in the 1960's and 1970's, and this book explains why many of the weapons systems came and went. In-fact, it explains why our family "Came and Went" on a few stations! I highly recommend this if you have even a passing interest in Nuclear War strategy and National Policy, or even in what part you and/or your parents/grandparents played in the "Big Picture".
Rating:
Summary: The Bomb I Grew Up With
Review: This fascinating review of nuclear strategy covers the period from 1945 to 1990. It is extraordinarily clear in presenting the options faced by Presidents and decision makers, and how they resulted in strategy that varied between "Nuke them back to the Stone Age" in 1948 to "MX Racetracks in the Nevada Desert" in the Caarter and Reagan Administration. I found it a most compelling read, causing me to sacrifice sleep to continue, because it names names, dates, and places. Insight into all the news figures I grew up seeing on TV News. I grew up as an Army Brat in the 1960's and 1970's, and this book explains why many of the weapons systems came and went. In-fact, it explains why our family "Came and Went" on a few stations! I highly recommend this if you have even a passing interest in Nuclear War strategy and National Policy, or even in what part you and/or your parents/grandparents played in the "Big Picture".
Rating:
Summary: The Human and the Rational Sides of Armageddon
Review: This is Fred Kaplan's version of the evolution of U.S. nuclear strategy during the Cold War. More specifically, it is the story of the role played by the RAND Institute, a think-tank in Santa Monica, California. The RAND Institute pioneered civilian consulting on military matters, and by the time Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, nearly all of the Institute's principal recommendations had become official administration policy.
Based largely on archival research of declassified documents and personal interviews, Kaplan does a good job in capturing the personalities, egos, and relationships at work. He dispenses with in-depth discussion of data and interpretation, instead trying to create a humane narrative. He rarely engages in either personal attack or praise, instead focusing on how his protagonists arrived at certain conclusions. Still, the book is not without a didactic element. The RAND Institute imposed (and still imposes) the methods of rational choice analysis-taken from logic, microeconomics, and game theory-on the possibility of nuclear war. But for Kaplan, this project of rationalizing Armageddon is in the end nothing more than "a compelling illusion." The terror and uncertainty surrounding nuclear war comprised a chaos which couldn't be tamed. Another criticism is much more deeply buried in the book. The use of rational choice theory assumed a great deal about what the Soviets wanted and how they would achieve it. Yet these assumptions made by the mathematical minds of the RAND institute did not engage with the realities of Soviet leadership or policy.
Overall, Kaplan has written a well-researched book over a terribly important topic. For those like me born into the post-Cold War generation, it recreated the tension and anxiety-along with the absurdities-of a bygone era. Not much more could be asked of a history.
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