The Cold World They Made: The Strategic Legacy of Roberta and Albert Wohlstetter

by Ron Robin

Overview

In the heady days of the Cold War, when the Bomb loomed large in the ruminations of Washington’s wise men, policy intellectuals flocked to the home of Albert and Roberta Wohlstetter to discuss deterrence and doomsday. The Cold World They Made takes a fresh look at the original power couple of strategic studies. Seeking to unravel the complex tapestry of the Wohlstetters’ world and worldview, Ron Robin reveals fascinating insights into an unlikely husband-and-wife pair who, at the height of the most dangerous military standoff in history, gained access to the deepest corridors of American power.

The author of such classic Cold War treatises as “The Delicate Balance of Terror,” Albert Wohlstetter is remembered for advocating an aggressive brinksmanship that stood in stark contrast with what he saw as weak and indecisive policies of Soviet containment. Yet Albert’s ideas built crucially on insights gleaned from his wife. Robin makes a strong case for the Wohlstetters as a team of intellectual equals, showing how Roberta’s scholarship was foundational to what became known as the Wohlstetter Doctrine. Together at RAND Corporation, Albert and Roberta crafted a mesmerizing vision of the Soviet threat, theorizing ways for the United States to emerge victorious in a thermonuclear exchange.

Far from dwindling into irrelevance after the Cold War, the torch of the Wohlstetters’ intellectual legacy was kept alive by well-placed disciples in George W. Bush’s administration. Through their ideological heirs, the Wohlstetters’ signature combination of brilliance and hubris continues to shape American policies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674046573
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	09/19/2016
Pages:	376
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.40(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Ron Robin is Senior Vice Provost for Global Faculty Development at New York University. He is the president-elect of the University of Haifa, Israel.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Part 1 The Wohlstetters' Cold World

1 The Wohlstetter Partnership: The Early Years 27

2 Roberta Wohlstetter: The Uncertainties of Surprise 49

3 "In Dubious Battle": The RAND Years 74

4 "He Is but MAD North-North-West": Albert and His Critics 97

5 Castrophobia and the Free Market: The Wohlstetters' Moral Economy 118

6 Discriminate Interventionism: The Wohlstetters in a Multipolar World 139

7 Slow Pearl Harbors: Fear and Loathing of Glasnost 163

8 "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night": Albert Wohlstetter after the Cold War 181

Part 2 The Wohlstetter Legacy in the Post-Cold War Era

9 Paul Wolfowitz: Fin de Siede All Over Again 203

10 Zalmay Khalilzad: The Orientalist 230

11 Richard Perle: Prejudice as a Cultural Weapon 256

Epilogue: The Hamlet of Nations? 281

Notes 305

Acknowledgments 353

Index 355

Editorial Reviews

The Wohlstetters were among the most influential strategic thinkers in Cold War America. In this dual intellectual biography, Ron Robin shows how their grim vision of a dangerous, unpredictable world took shape, and how through their followers their vision continued to shape U.S. global strategy in the post–9/11 era.

Erez Manela

Robin’s book is about a rabid form of foreign-policy thinking that speaks with placid assurance about ‘reality,’ that presents itself as ‘pre-emptive’ but takes the form of outright aggression, that claims to be ‘strategic,’ but is often more enamored of tactics than actual strategy.

Chronicle of Higher Education - Thomas Meaney

Although critical of the Wohlstetters’ policy agenda, Robin reveals that they possessed more intellectual depth than their many detractors recognize and traces the ways in which their legacy has been sustained by disciples such as Zalmay Khalilzad, Richard Perle, and Paul Wolfowitz.

Foreign Affairs - Lawrence D. Freeman

Provocative…The Cold World They Made is a withering indictment of the Wohlstetters and their influence on defense policy.

Philip Taubman

Thanks to Ron Robin, we now know that [the Wohlstetters’] actual contribution was not to strategy and certainly not to the avoidance of war, but to the art of propaganda. Rather than freeing mankind from fear, they promoted it while simultaneously feathering their own comfortable nest.

First Things - Andrew Bacevich

An impressive book about one of the most fascinating and influential couples in recent American history, Albert and Roberta Wohlstetter. The book is full of very interesting material and sheds new light on an extraordinary chapter in the history of American strategic thought.

Marc Trachtenberg

Ron Robin is outstanding in reconstructing the mental world and cultural milieu that engaged the Wohlstetters. He also shows that Roberta Wohlstetter was a crucial intellectual partner in the marriage of these two scholarly Cold Warriors.

Bruce Kuklick

An impressive book about one of the most fascinating and influential couples in recent American history, Albert and Roberta Wohlstetter. The book is full of very interesting material and sheds new light on an extraordinary chapter in the history of American strategic thought.
— Marc Trachtenberg, author of The Cold War and After

Ron Robin is outstanding in reconstructing the mental world and cultural milieu that engaged the Wohlstetters. He also shows that Roberta Wohlstetter was a crucial intellectual partner in the marriage of these two scholarly Cold Warriors.
— Bruce Kuklick, author of Death in the Congo

The Wohlstetters were among the most influential strategic thinkers in Cold War America. In this dual intellectual biography, Ron Robin shows how their grim vision of a dangerous, unpredictable world took shape, and how through their followers their vision continued to shape U.S. global strategy in the post–9/11 era.
— Erez Manela, coeditor of Empires at War, 1911–1923

Provocative…The Cold World They Made is a withering indictment of the Wohlstetters and their influence on defense policy.
— Philip Taubman New York Times Book Review

Robin’s book is about a rabid form of foreign-policy thinking that speaks with placid assurance about ‘reality,’ that presents itself as ‘pre-emptive’ but takes the form of outright aggression, that claims to be ‘strategic,’ but is often more enamored of tactics than actual strategy.
— Thomas Meaney Chronicle of Higher Education

Although critical of the Wohlstetters’ policy agenda, Robin reveals that they possessed more intellectual depth than their many detractors recognize and traces the ways in which their legacy has been sustained by disciples such as Zalmay Khalilzad, Richard Perle, and Paul Wolfowitz.
— Lawrence D. Freeman Foreign Affairs

Thanks to Ron Robin, we now know that [the Wohlstetters’] actual contribution was not to strategy and certainly not to the avoidance of war, but to the art of propaganda. Rather than freeing mankind from fear, they promoted it while simultaneously feathering their own comfortable nest.
— Andrew Bacevich First Things

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