Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of acronyms
- Introduction
- 1 In the shadow of Hiroshima: the United States and Asia in the aftermath of Japanese defeat
- 2 The Korean War, the atomic bomb and Asian–American estrangement
- 3 Securing the East Asian frontier: stalemate in Korea and the Japanese peace treaty
- 4 A greater sanction: the defence of South East Asia, the advent of the Eisenhower administration and the end of the Korean War
- 5 ‘Atomic Madness’: massive retaliation and the Bravo test
- 6 The aftermath of Bravo, the Indochina crisis and the emergence of SEATO
- 7 ‘Asia for the Asians’: the first offshore islands crisis and the Bandung Conference
- 8 A nuclear strategy for SEATO and the problem of limited war in the Far East
- 9 Massive retaliation at bay: US–Japanese relations, nuclear deployment and the limited war debate
- 10 The second offshore islands crisis and the advent of flexible response
- 11 The Chinese bomb, American nuclear strategy in Asia and the escalation of the Vietnam War
- Conclusion: from massive retaliation to flexible response in Asia
- Bibliography
- Index
10 - The second offshore islands crisis and the advent of flexible response
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 May 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of acronyms
- Introduction
- 1 In the shadow of Hiroshima: the United States and Asia in the aftermath of Japanese defeat
- 2 The Korean War, the atomic bomb and Asian–American estrangement
- 3 Securing the East Asian frontier: stalemate in Korea and the Japanese peace treaty
- 4 A greater sanction: the defence of South East Asia, the advent of the Eisenhower administration and the end of the Korean War
- 5 ‘Atomic Madness’: massive retaliation and the Bravo test
- 6 The aftermath of Bravo, the Indochina crisis and the emergence of SEATO
- 7 ‘Asia for the Asians’: the first offshore islands crisis and the Bandung Conference
- 8 A nuclear strategy for SEATO and the problem of limited war in the Far East
- 9 Massive retaliation at bay: US–Japanese relations, nuclear deployment and the limited war debate
- 10 The second offshore islands crisis and the advent of flexible response
- 11 The Chinese bomb, American nuclear strategy in Asia and the escalation of the Vietnam War
- Conclusion: from massive retaliation to flexible response in Asia
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
During the late 1950s, as Cold War tensions in Europe gathered fresh impetus in the form of confrontation over the status of Berlin, searching enquiries into the Eisenhower administration's national security policy were conducted in the public sphere of the academic writings of civilian defence intellectuals, as well as among informed commentators in the press and Congress. Some of this fresh impetus was attributable to the reception given to the Gaither Report and the concomitant Sputnik launch. The vision of burgeoning Soviet ICBM capabilities, and anxiety over the vulnerability of the continental United States and the SAC bomber force to a devastating attack, made many question the American stance over limited war. It no longer seemed credible, so the argument went, to threaten immediate escalation to large-scale use of nuclear weapons when faced with minor or local Soviet aggression, perhaps along the flanks of NATO, when the United States' own cities would be destroyed in the counter-blows that might then result. In this context, it was queried how much faith the NATO allies in Europe would continue to have in the US deterrent, leading to a loosening of the ties of the alliance and perhaps to a greater readiness to show accommodation to the Soviet Union.
One remedy proposed was to augment conventional capabilities in NATO, but the costs involved appeared prohibitive, and the Europeans themselves seemed very reluctant to devote a greater share of their resources to defence.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- After HiroshimaThe United States, Race and Nuclear Weapons in Asia, 1945–1965, pp. 362 - 400Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010