Destroying the Village

Columbia Studies in Contemporary American History

by Campbell Craig

Thanks to recently declassified government documents from the early Cold War era, Craig is able to investigate what America's strategists really thought about the viability of nuclear warfare. He demonstrates that even as they were publicly attempting to make nuclear war technically feasible, many Pentagon officials were privately pessimistic regarding any nuclear strategy. Craig probes the heated arguments Eisenhower had with his national security advisors, and shows how the president conspired to make the option of war with the Soviet Union impossible.

Genres: History

240 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 1998

About the author

Campbell Craig is Professor of International Politics at Aberystwyth University, where he teaches and writes about cold war and nuclear history, US foreign relations, and contemporary international politics.

He is currently working on Marxism and modern war in the twentieth century, classical realism, and a larger project on the nuclear revolution as theory.

Reviews

[Trav · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting book that makes sense of Eisenhower's approach to nuclear strategy. Craig argues in this book that nuclear war was avoided by the by Eisenhower's "all-or-nothing" strategy towards war with the Soviet Union.

Dividing the book into distinct time-periods, Craig focuses on the internal wrangling within the Eisenhower administration over what the most appropriate strategy was for the employment of US nukes. This internal dynamics are cast against the events that were unfolding at the time that tested the validity of that strategy.

In all, a good book. Well written, and interesting.

[Lillian]

As president Eisenhower declared that the U.S. would either wage no war, or wage total war--nukes and all. While this seemed utterly rash and foolhardy, Craig thinks that attempting to wage "limited" wars was the one thing most likely to start a nuclear war. In this way Craig argues that Eisenhower's foreign policy actually prevented nuclear holocaust and shows that subsequent politicians fell back on his strategy repeatedly.