The first offset: nuclear weapons against Soviet mass

The first offset strategy threatens destruction on a scale intended to make conventional numerical superiority unusable. Instead of matching Soviet divisions, the United States relies on nuclear retaliation against armies, cities, and populations. This logic underpins mutually assured destruction: each side warns that aggression will bring catastrophic retaliation. The clinical language also conceals two assumptions, that bombers or missiles will get through and that political leaders will authorize killing on an immense scale.