Description
Book SynopsisIn this widely discussed and influential book, Herman Kahn probes the dynamics of escalation and demonstrates how the intensification of conflict can be depicted by means of a definite escalation ladder, ascent of which brings opponents closer to all-out war. At each rung of the ladder, before the climb proceeds, decisions must be made based on numerous choices. Some are clear and obvious, others obscure, but the options are always there.
Thermonuclear annihilation, says Kahn, is unlikely to come through accident; but nations may elect to climb the ladder to extinction. The basic material for the book was developed in briefings delivered by Kahn to military and civilian experts and revised in the light of his findings of a trip to Vietnam in the 1960s. In On Escalation he states the facts squarely. He asks the reader to face unemotionally the terrors of a world fully capable of suicide and to consider carefully the alternatives to such a path.
In the never-never
Table of Contents
1: Introduction; 2: The Rungs of The Escalation Ladder; 3: Disagreements and Subcrisis Maneuvering; 4: Traditional Crises; 5: Intense Crises; 6: The Nuclear Threshold 1; 7: Bizarre Crises and Exemplary Central Attacks; 8: The Importance of Crises Concepts; 9: Military and Civilian Central Wars; 10: Some Comments On “War-Fighting”; 11: Defects of The Escalation-Ladder Metaphor; 12: De-escalation And Its Aftermath; 13: Other Aspects of Escalation And Crises
