Misconceptions in American Strategic Assessment
Recent changes in American strategic doctrine not only have prompted shifts in the measures of strategic sufficiency but have also led to a heightened perception of these measures. Conceptions of the strategic balance currently in vogue are all based on estimates of relative residual military capability following a nuclear exchange. Informed views differ about how such estimates should be made. However, those of the two key institutions most concerned in generating such assessments -the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Department of Defense (DOD) employ approaches that divorce military conflict from the political context in which such conflict would occur. These approaches are, as a result, inaccurate, misleading, and even detrimental to the maintenance of peace. Strategic forces mean nothing in the abstract. They must be assessed in terms of the mission they are expected to perform. For the United States this mission has always been deterrence, although deterrence of what has never been altogether clear. From time to time, officials from various administrations have spoken of extended deterrence, supposing that American strategic forces could