America's Cold Warrior
State Department historian James Graham Wilson has produced a definitive, meticulously researched study of one of the leading figures of the Cold War. Paul H. Nitze practically invented the field of national security studies. His work on nuclear arms strategy from the Truman administration to Reagan’s helped to stabilize America’s adversarial relationship with the Soviet Union. Nitze viewed “tension between opposites” as manageable so long as the balance of nuclear capability remained relatively even. To him, the clash of ideologies boiled down to freedom versus slavery. (74) US weakness invited foreign aggression; America’s best defense was a strong military and robust nuclear arsenal (127)