Comments on 'First strike prevention' by C.M. Campbell, Jr

The commenter suggests that the author of the above article (ibid., vol.6, no.4, pp.17-22, Dec. 1987) failed to come to grips with the political realities that would make the implementation of a mechanism for preventing the first use of nuclear weapons unlikely in the future. He points out that the policy of flexible response, i.e., that in the event of an overwhelming Eastern-bloc invasion, the West would use nuclear weapons to halt the attack, originates out of a perceived imbalance in the size of conventional forces between the East and West blocs. Moreover, the replacement of old intermediate nuclear weapons with new cruise nuclear weapons, which began in earnest during the intermediate Nuclear Force treaty negotiations will make the achievement of future agreements a more arduous task than before the INF treaty. >