Первоначально он был военными стратегом и системным теоретиком, работая в корпорации RAND (США). Он был известен своими анализами вероятных последствий ядерной войны и рекомендациями путей повышения выживаемости.
Его теории стали существенным вкладом в развитие ядерной стратегии Соединённых Штатов.
Библиография
Работы, написанные Каном, включают:
- The Next 200 Years, (Morrow), ISBN 0-688-08029-4
- The nature and feasibility of war, deterrence, and arms control (Central nuclear war monograph series), (Hudson Institute)
- On Escalation (Princeton University Press)
- (With Jerome Agel) Herman Kahnsciousness;: The megaton ideas of the one-man think tank, (New American Library)
- The Japanese challenge: The success and failure of economic success, (Morrow), ISBN 0-688-08710-8
- A new kind of class struggle in the United States? (Corporate Environment Program. Research memorandum)
- Emerging Japanese Superstate : Challenge and Response, (Prentice Hall), ISBN 0-13-274670-0
- Social limits to growth: "creeping stagnation" vs. "natural and inevitable" (HPS paper)
- Things to Come: Thinking About the Seventies and Eighties, (MacMillan), ISBN 0-02-560470-8
- On Thermonuclear War (Princeton University Press), ISBN 0-313-20060-2
- Will she be right?: The future of Australia, (University of Queensland Press), ISBN 0-7022-1569-4
- World Economic Development: 1979 and Beyond, (William Morrow), ISBN 0-688-03479-9
- Report From Iron Mountain on the Possibility and Desirability of Peace (Dial Press div of Simon & Schuster)
- The Year 2000: A Framework for Speculation on the Next Thirty-Three Years, (MacMillan), ISBN 0-02-560440-6
- A slightly optimistic world context for 1975-2000 (Hudson Institute. HI)
- The Coming Boom: Economic, Political, and Social, (Simon & Schuster), ISBN 0-671-49265-9
