The years that followed this unparalleled ascension are the most fascinating times in the history of U.S. international relations. Hopefully, an investigation into this atomic diplomacy, along with a balanced analysis of the problems of conceptualizing and implementing containment, will provide insight for our current efforts to devise a workable post-war national security policy. There is no way to tell the story of post-war national security without also telling the story of George Kennen. Kennen, the foremost expert of Soviet Affairs in early post-war America, is almost wholly responsible for the policy of containment. Nuclear weapons were part of

Even at this early point, Kennen began to also recognize the potential of the bomb to completely wreck balance of power arrangements. Simply achieving higher potentials of destruction would not necessarily lead to a better negotiating position with the Soviets. Truman had never considered not creating the hydrogen bomb, despite Kennen's objections. Truman's justified his adamant support of the super bomb for bargaining purposes with the Russians.

Kennen's point, of course, had been that the very decision to build the hydrogen bomb would inhibit bargaining with the Russians on international control. Most of the American national security structure viewed this as fallacious. Truman's perception was that the United States, as a technology rich, but man power short nation, was operating from a position of weakness, since necessity is relied more heavily than did the Soviet Union on weapons of mass destruction to maintain the balance of power. The Soviet atomic test in 1949 had upset that balance. Only by building the super bomb, it was thought, could equilibrium be regained. It would not be until the Kennedy administration that Kennen would be vindicated and an awareness would develop "of the basic unsoundness of a defense posture based primarily on weapons indiscriminately destructive and suicidal in their implications".

"Nuclear weapons, given the constraints on their use in an approaching era of parity, were of decreasing practical utility." Around this time, we can conclude that the world has entered an age in which there is a strong and binding nuclear taboo. A nation that employs nuclear weapons to attack its enemies is considered evil. Therefore, all the hegemonic power gained from atomic weapons was absolutely worthless in Vietnam. While limited success was achieved in some international arenas during the Kennedy and Johnson years, Vietnam seals the coffin on the flexible response. Gaddis agrees, saying, "Vietnam was the unexpected legacy of the flexible response: not fine tuning, but clumsy overreaction, not coordination but disproportion, not strategic precision, but in the end, a strategic vacuum." The 1968 campaign was unusual in that, unlike 1952 and 1960, it provided little indication of the direction in which the new administration would move into office. In addition, the world facing the new administration of 1968 was one ripe with possibilities of new approaches. To usher in these new strategies, Nixon chooses Dr. Henry Kissenger as his national security advisor. Kissenger's conceptual approach to the making of national security policy eliminated the crisis based flexible response system. "C

Some common words found in the essay are:
Nixon Kissenger, Atomic Diplomacy, Planning Council, Henry Kissenger, Eisenhower Instead, Soviet Affairs, Johnson Vietnam, Vietnam Whatever, Soviet Union, Pentagon Vietnam, nuclear weapons, national security, flexible response, weapons mass destruction, atomic bomb, weapons mass, mass destruction, nuclear diplomacy, american security, security policy, foreign policy, national security policy, post-war national security,
Approximate Word count = 1772
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)