Nuclear Deterrence Theory Essay

Nuclear deterrence was the lynchpin of United States national security policy during the Cold War. The strategy was successfully employed to contain the Soviet Union and offset its conventional military advantages in Europe by threatening the use of nuclear weapons. For many analysts, nuclear deterrence was directly responsible for keeping the Cold War “cold” by preventing World War III. Deterrence theory itself rests on several basic assumptions. First, deterrence can be used to prevent an international actor from pursuing a particular course of action by threatening significant harm if/when said actor follows through with an undesirable military course of action. Another critical assumption is that the actor(s) attempting to deter another could survive long enough in a war to inflict intolerable damage on the aggressor. Perhaps the most critical assumption to nuclear deterrence theory rests on the notion that both actors involved in this exchange are rational and thus capable of engaging cost-benefit analysis (Morgan 79-80). Even

With respect to credibility, the sheer destructiveness of nuclear weapons renders them almost unusable except in a last resort scenario. As a result, a state threatening to employ nuclear weapons will rarely be taken seriously, which ultimately undermines their utility as a means of deterrence. In short, the decision to use nuclear arms is “hard and, as a result, making believable threats to do so is difficult, too.” (Morgan 81). To further exacerbate the credibility problem, the actor targeted with nuclear deterrence may simply threaten the same level of harm back if they or their allies possess nuclear weapons. This situation will likely lead to a stalemate and incentivize actors in a dispute to seek other means of achieving their respective policy goals in a conflict such as engaging in proxy