As we face the unravelling of contemporary arms-control agreements, James Cameron supplies an important and timely study on the rise and demise of the United States’ first anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system. This focus allows Cameron to trace US policymakers’ often tortuous path from prioritizing nuclear superiority to the acceptance of parity with the Soviet Union. Cameron utilizes declassified records to reveal US policymakers’ “double game” as they attempted to portray strategic coherence, whilst privately struggling with the complexities of the nuclear age and competing political priorities.

A central theme of Cameron's work is the tension between the public mood and policymakers’ private thinking on nuclear strategy. For example, the book details President Kennedy's efforts to reassert US nuclear superiority and close the mythical “missile gap.” Yet Cameron reveals Kennedy's private angst over US nuclear strategy. The second Berlin crisis and the Cuban missile crisis raised questions for the President on the strategic utility of nuclear superiority, but the public mood meant that continued nuclear buildup, including moves towards an ABM system, served the Kennedy White House's reelection hopes, and a means to foster public support towards fledgling attempts at nuclear arms control.

Core to Cameron's argument is a demonstration of how domestic considerations influenced US nuclear strategy. This theme is evident in his discussion of President Johnson, whose priority, on entering office, was his ambitious Great Society legislative programme. To be given the political leeway necessary to achieve such reforms, Johnson needed to maintain public confidence in the US's ability to contain the Soviet Union, but also reduce spending on expensive nuclear systems, including the deployment of an ABM system. The notion of mutually assured destruction (MAD) provided Secretary of Defence Robert McNamara with the strategic justification for such limits. McNamara argued that as the USSR now had second-strike capability, MAD would lead to the Soviets’ acceptance of nuclear inferiority due to their smaller economic base. But the Soviets continued their nuclear buildup. In 1966 the Soviet Union's willingness to engage in arms negotiations offered the Johnson White House a practical way to resolve their competing political priorities, by persuading the Soviets of the logic of MAD and thereby preserving the current status quo of a US nuclear edge. Such logic, though, did not dissuade the USSR of their desire for parity, something that the US public and Congress could not yet abide.

With Cameron's final discussion on Nixon, the author vividly details the incoherent nuclear strategy that emerged as the White House struggled to adapt to fluctuations in public mood and the influence of domestic politics in this supposed rational sphere. Nixon wished to use the threat of a renewed arms race, including the deployment of a US ABM system, to extract concessions from the USSR on their nuclear buildup and push them to help find a solution in Vietnam. The collapse of domestic consensus on nuclear superiority, as seen in the ABM debate of 1969, foiled such a strategy. By late 1970 the President viewed that progress on “the peace issue” was now central to his reelection hopes. Bogged down in Vietnam, arms control agreements supplied the opportunity for such progress. The later announcement of the 20 May framework agreement, which would govern the final phase of the SALT I negotiations, provided Nixon with his first major foreign-policy success. A year later the two sides reached agreement on the ABM Treaty and the Interim Agreement on Offensive Forces. Yet, as Cameron details, Nixon's desire for progress, alongside domestic opposition to ABM, and the administration's negotiating errors, led to US acceptance of a Soviet quantitative advantage in intercontinental delivery vehicles, and a probable permanent inequality in ABM sites due to sustained opposition to a site around Washington, DC.

This is a well-written and lucid book. Cameron shows skill in bringing to life the politics of the time and untangling nuclear policymaking behind the scenes. The resultant narrative is important for understanding the complexities of nuclear decision making. Cameron shows how US nuclear policy was repeatedly swayed by domestic politics, going against the judgements of policymakers, or the doctrine of rational-deterrence theory. I would have liked to see more detail on Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter's approach to the issues discussed, but that would have really gone beyond the scope of the book, and perhaps would make a good subject for Cameron's next project, which I look forward to reading. The work contributes to the reinvigoration of nuclear history as a generation of new scholars have supplied fresh insights, particularly on the interrelationship of politics, strategy, and culture. The book is essential reading for scholars of the Cold War and nuclear studies.