Risks, Threats, and Rationales -- Theory and Practice -- Analytical Issues -- Lower-Risk Cases -- The Berlin Blockade, 1948 -- The Korean War, 1950-53 -- Asian Crises, 1954-55 -- Suez, 1956 -- Lebanon and the Taiwan Straits, 1958 -- Soviet-Chinese Border Clashes, 1969 -- Higher-Risk Cases -- The Berlin Deadline Crisis, 1958-59 -- The Berlin Aide-Memoire Crisis, 1961 -- The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962 -- The Middle East War, 1973 -- The Carter Doctrine, 1980 -- Brinks and Balances: Interests, Vulnerability, Resolve -- Right Makes Might? The Balance of Interests and Resolve -- The Nuclear Balance before Parity: Myth of a Golden Age -- Did the Bomb Work "Both Ways"? -- Parity: Change, Continuity, Confusion -- Equivocal Views of Equivalence -- Parity and Nuclear First Use -- Is There a Future for Nuclear Coercion? -- The Past -- Future Cases?.