Abstract

This is a study of American and Soviet nuclear weapons systems and operations, a study of ways to think about and to describe nuclear weapons use, and an exploration of the challenges which confront those who try to think at all in the face of the imminent danger that characterizes war in general, and the imminent danger that characterizes the contemporary nuclear threat in particular. ;Description of nuclear weapons systems and day-to-day operations reveals that they manifest the forms that characterize war. These consist of nuclear fortifications and encirclements and of operating practices in search of means to breach the fortifications characteristic of siege war. The onset of nuclear siege dates to 1961-62: to the deployment of modern missile and satellite systems and to military confrontations over Berlin and Cuba. ;Recognizing the recent present as war has entailed reframing concepts commonly used to justify building and deployment of nuclear weapons. Deterrence, crisis management, missile defense and civil defense, traditionally labeled means to reduce the danger of nuclear war, are equally suitable as strategies for the conduct of an ongoing siege war. ;Siege, the original form of total war, allows no escape and threatens total physical and social destruction. Nuclear siege has already produced casualties and threatens global catastrophe if it culminate in nuclear assault. Lowering existing nuclear threat is a problem not of numbers of weapons but of changing military operating practices, and of acting on opportunities for broader Soviet/American nuclear ceasefire. Events since late 1989 in Europe can be interpreted as a regional ceasefire. Nuclear siege could end in a wider ceasefire, by extending provisions of the Helsinki Final Act with its agreements on military operations , on human rights and on economic co-operation, to the nuclear arena. ;The last chapter is an exploration of the words and lives of Cassandra, Irina Ratushinskaya and Riccardo Fontana who exemplify overcoming that fear which paralyzes in the face of imminent force, who show how to think even when subjected to nuclear siege