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(1987) Social change and personality, Dordrecht, Springer.
Hazards of Goliath in the nuclear age
the need for rational priorities in American peace and defense policies
Christian Bay
pp. 40-79
The growing peace movement in the United States must reach out and communicate more effectively with those among their compatriots who want a strong military defense. This is the first of the main themes in this paper; for good and for ill, the fate of the whole world depends on what is happening politically within the world's leading superpower. On the one hand, we must assume that the pro-peace people and most pro-defense people equally want to avoid nuclear war; that, to this extent, both sides share the same highest-priority aim. But, on the other hand, I have some real difficulties with seeing Dr. Strangelove as sane. And Dr. Strangelove remains alive and well, and apparently is still influential in parts of the pro-defense community in the United States. In fact, I encountered his reincarnation in Washington not long ago: an academic who claimed expertise in questions of military strategy and said he is kept very busy by consultation assignments for the Department of Defense. I heard him speak, to an academic gathering, about his doomsday scenarios and his misgivings about the dangers of democracy in general and of broad peace movements in particular, at least within the United States.
Publication details
DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4615-7864-2_3
Full citation:
Bay, C. (1987)., Hazards of Goliath in the nuclear age: the need for rational priorities in American peace and defense policies, in M. B. Freedman (ed.), Social change and personality, Dordrecht, Springer, pp. 40-79.
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