The gravest danger facing mankind is that the superpowers have built a complex technological apparatus of nuclear weaponry without thinking through its purpose or control. In this chilling study of nuclear force management, Paul Bracken shows that in a time of crisis, nuclear command systems in both the United States and the USSR are likely to pass rapidly from political to highly fragmented military control, making political direction of a nuclear war virtually impossible.

Bracken analyzes the organization and management of nuclear command systems in both peace and war and describes potential wartime interactions of the Soviet and American control structures. Beginning with a discussion of warning and intelligence, he reveals how information about the possibility of impending attack is processed and analyzed within a command organization. He then considers various war plans and the assessment process through which nuclear command organizations could determine what was being done to them during a war and how to retaliate. Bracken identifies this wartime information gathering as the key problem of command and control, for he feels that the havoc created in communications and data processing by a nuclear war would result in strong, decentralizing tendencies with pathological strategy implications.

By focusing on how military organizations actually carry out nuclear strategy, Bracken forcefully portrays the uncertainty and chaos of nuclear war. He makes it clear that, while there are no absolute guarantees of security in this perilous age, a full understanding of the opportunities and problems of managing nuclear forces may be the best way to prevent disaster.