Bernard Brodie ( military strategist ) Bernard Brodie ( 20 May 1910 – November 24 , 1978 ) was an American military strategist well known for establishing the basics of nuclear strategy . Known as " the American Clausewitz , " he was an initial architect of nuclear deterrence strategy and tried to ascertain the role and value of nuclear weapons after their creation . Life and career . Born in Chicago , Bernard Brodie was the third of four sons of Max and Esther ( Bloch ) Brodie , Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire . His father was a fruit pedlar and Yiddish was the language of the household . Brodie graduated from the University of Chicago with a Ph . B in 1932 , and received a Ph . D in 1940 . Brodie was an instructor at Darmouth College from 1941 to 43 . During World War II , he served in the U . S . Naval Reserve Bureau of Ordnance and at the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations . He then taught at Yale University from 1945 to 1951 , and worked at the RAND Corporation as a senior staff member between 1951 and 1966 . Brodie was a full professor and taught Political Science and International Relations at UCLA from 1966 until his death in 1978 . He married Fawn McKay Brodie – who became a well - known biographer of Richard Nixon , Joseph Smith , Thomas Jefferson and others – on August 28 , 1936 . They were the parents of three children . Theories . Initially a theorist about naval power , Brodie shifted his focus to nuclear strategy after the creation of the nuclear bomb . His most important work , written in 1946 , was entitled " The Absolute Weapon : Atomic Power and World Order " , which laid down the fundamentals of nuclear deterrence strategy . He saw the usefulness of the atomic bomb was not in its deployment but in the threat of its deployment . In a now famous passage he said " Thus far the chief purpose of our military establishment has been to win wars . From now on its chief purpose must be to avert them . It can have almost no other useful purpose . " In the early fifties , he shifted out of academia and began work at the RAND Corporation where a stable of important strategists , Herman Kahn and others , developed the rudiments of nuclear strategy and warfighting theory . While working at the RAND Corporation , Brodie wrote " Strategy in the Missile Age " ( 1959 ) which outlined the framework of deterrence . By arguing that preventative nuclear strikes would lead to escalation from limited to total war , Brodie concluded that deterrence through second strike capability would lead to a more secure outcome for both sides . Due to the virtual abandonment of first strike as a strategy , Brodie suggested investment in civil defense , which included the " hardening " of land based missile locations to ensure the strength of the second strike capability . The building of protected missile silos around the United States is a testament to this belief in second strike capability . It was also important for the second strike force to have first strike capabilities to provide the stasis necessary for deterrence . Brodie believed that the second strike force should not be targeted towards cities but towards military installations . This was meant to give the Soviets an opportunity to limit escalation and allow the United States to win the war . Brodie also advocated the funding of conventional military personnel as a means of ensuring communist containment through limited wars or to fight total war if deterrence fails . Brodie , who had a fascination with Freud and psychoanalysis , sometimes used it to refer to his work in nuclear strategy . In an internally circulated memorandum at the RAND Corporation , Brodie compared his no cities / withhold plan to coitus interruptus , while the SAC plan was like " going all the way " . Following those comments , fellow RAND scholar Herman Kahn told an assembled group of SAC officers " Gentlemen , you do not have a war plan . You have a Wargasm ! " . It is interesting to note that similar sexual imagery was liberally used in Stanley Kubrick ' s film " Dr . Strangelove " , a satire of Cold War nuclear strategy . Brodie was also responsible , along with Michael Howard and Peter Paret , for making the writings of Carl von Clausewitz more accessible to the English - speaking world . Brodie ' s incisive " A guide to the reading of On War " in the Princeton translation of 1976 corrected most of the misinterpretations of the Prussian ' s theory and provided students with an accurate synopsis of this vital work .