General Paul Stehlin

STRATEGIC problems are no longer the exclusive province of the military; on the contrary, now that strategy has invaded politics and diplomacy, it is primarily the statesman who must analyze it down to its components. If this gives pause to a soldier who essays to write in a primarily political journal, a second consideration is that whatever a European or even a Frenchman (on the assumption that the French are the "hard core" of Europe) may have to say on the problems posed by the advent of thermonuclear weapons has already been said by Americans, who did not wait until 1963 to discuss frankly and objectively the problems of deterrence, the control of nuclear weapons and the maintenance of the world balance of power-in other words, peace. Indeed, the European point of view on all these subjects could be presented by putting together excerpts from Henry A. Kissinger, Bernard Brodie, Herman Kahn and less specialized authors such as Walter Lippmann and Nelson A. Rockefeller.