First, no one in their right mind wants a war between two nuclear armed states: period.

The difficulty is that in a world that is characterized by the de-centralized control of physical violence, states try to maximize their power, which even in a nuclear world means that they can tempt fate.

The point of these writings is to present the results of extenstive research into this area so that what I think are some problematic features of current military thinking can be pointed out.

For starters, consider the U.S. Joint Nuclear Operations Doctrine of 2004.

Although rescinded technically, it remains the military's thought on this matter, left to its own devices in terms of the understandable Clausewitzian orientation to war in terms of the use of force as an instrument to seek state goals; Russian doctrine announced last month by Patrushev has converged to U.S. doctrine.

First, in the Joint Nuclear Operations document, there are occasional statements to the effect of " the political consequences of initiating the use of nuclear weapons might be quite substantial."

No, the initiation of nuclear weapons usage will scare the you know what out of everyone, and can only be considered as a last resort.

Furthermore, in terms of warfighting, the U.S. and Russians have succeeded in reducing "yields" on nuclear weapons so that there is a gray area between say a bunker busting bomb and a tactical nuclear weapon.

The problem is from a crisis stability point of view, that placing these weapons on the same platforms might be misinterpreted as pre-emption.

Secondly, consider integrating information warfare operations with nuclear strategy, please.

If I initiate attacks on C4I, then the defending power may interpret that as pre-emption, and respong with an MAO, which no one wants.

You do not want to have doctrine result in two nuclear chickens with their head cut off, because then there will be no war termination, but rather what Herman Kahn called a "Wargasm."

Third, consider a Cournot oligopoly game, in which the nuclear club is in fact an oligoploy.

In this game, the Players welfare is reduced unless they are able to structure their response functions correctly, which leads to my concluding thought here.

Currently, much of the functionality of U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons is to provide extended deterrence, partly to inhibit a "perfectly competitive market," i.e. lots of states having nuclear weapons.

Now, Ken Waltz has made an argument that this would be a good thing, but that does not seem to be the typical Great Power reaction, so to speak.

Thus, under the current oligopoly, especially with ambiguity supposed to maximize deterrent effect but at least as likely to generate the Acheson problem in Korea in 1950, we need good stability properties in U.S. and Russian nuclear doctrine, which I am moderately concerned about in terms of the convergence of said doctrine.

In particular, in response to the Kosovo and Serb affair, Russia moved towards more intensive reliance on nuclear weapons to deter NATO in places like say, Georgia.

Current Russian doctrine and maneuvers emphasize using tactical nuclear weapons to generate favorable outcomes in regional war termintation, just like NATO does with respect to Russia.

It would seem to me at this stage in Great Power evolution, a better strategy would be for the United States to hand over tactical nuclear weapons to Germany and Japan and neutralize Korea and Poland and the Baltic States than the current path would suggest; sorry Italy, but no.

I will provide a concluding essay shortly, and certainly have no reason to worry on a time urgent basis, so to speak, just food for thought for peace and American security, but with Russia's Great Power status, and Britain, and France, and Germany, and China, and Japan, and yes, the plucky Israelis too assured.