Newest Weapons / Oldest Psychology: The Dialectics of American Nuclear Strategy

The author contends that the men who possess the newest weapons are possessed by the oldest psychology - group psychology. This ancient, irresistible force shapes and colors American strategy. However the strategic decision-makers’ collective mentality cannot be reduced to a seamless whole because it is the product of opposing forces: rational, bureaucratic imperatives designed to assure the continuity of the Nuclear Elite; and irrational, technological messianism informed by visions of an American millennium.