Games of Chicken: Four Decades of U.S. Nuclear Policy

Games of Chicken proposes basing nuclear weapons policies on both historical and analytical arguments. Schwartzman analyzes the trade-off between the aggression risk, which U.S. policy has sought to minimize, and the pre-emption risk, which has been ignored. This analysis is then applied to policy developments under each of the post-war U.S. presidents. The historical analysis also demonstrates the importance of the role of myths in the development of policy, most notably: the myth of the nuclear strategy expert; the "evil empire" myth; and the economic necessity myth. Finally, the author proposes a viable solution to the increasing build-up of nuclear weapons, one which would minimize the preemption risk.David Schwartzman is the author of 'Games of Chicken: Four Decades of U.S. Nuclear Policy', published 1988 under ISBN 9780275928841 and ISBN 0275928845.