In the late 1950s, America debated its first missile gap when civilian and military leaders asserted a quantitative difference in the Soviet and American nuclear arsenals. More than 50 years later, America is experiencing its second missile gap, this time between the land-based nuclear missile operators, or missileers, and the profession of arms to which they belong....
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Paula Thornhill is a retired U.S. Air Force brigadier general and a senior political scientist at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation.