Arguments Against Nuclear Deterrence

Why are nuclear weapons tolerated given their overwhelming destructive power? This has been justified by the theory of nuclear deterrence. This theory hypothesizes that if a nation armed with nuclear weapons threatens nuclear retaliation, other countries will refrain from initiating a military attack. It began its life after Hiroshima as the threat to destroy cities. During the Cold War, nuclear deterrence preserved the peace between the two great powers by making the resort to a nuclear war irrational. There were economic warfare and proxy battles, for example in Afghanistan, but no direct war was recorded. However, during the 1962 Missile Crisis, the United States and the Soviet Union came close to nuclear war over the Soviet Union’s placement of nuclear weapons in Cuba, and a potential nuclear conflict was therefore narrowly avoided. Diverging views have emerged concerning the theory – some scholars welcome the proliferation of nuclear weapons while others see it as a threat and try to prevent it. Since 1945, however, there has never been a nuclear war. Not even a single use of a weapon in anger. But will nuclear deterrence ever come close failing?
Nations want nuclear weapons for many reasons. Great …show more content…
He argues that it is not possible credibly deter another country from engaging in a conventional attack. As Thomas Schelling put it, a country could threaten to stumble into a war even if it cannot credibly threaten to invite one. So here, the logic was that the Soviet Union might attack NATO thinking that the United States would not respond. And so NATO in response put tactical nuclear weapons along the border, in part because they might be used even if the president did not want to use them. As Schelling also wrote, “If brinkmanship means anything, it means manipulating the shared risk of war. It means exploring the danger that somebody might inadvertently go over the brink, dragging the other with