Nuclear Proliferation and Deterrence: A Policy Conundrum

Abstract

Abstract : Discussions about nuclear proliferation have tended to center on controlling the spread of weapons using measures reminiscent of our war on drugs: cutting off supplies rather than treating the root causes of addiction.' Like the persistent drug problem, however, the spread of nuclear weapons appears inevitable given the failure of contemporary approaches to nonproliferation. Although we in the United States would like to believe that a belligerent would never use nuclear weapons, our judgment is perhaps tainted by our experience as a superpower. Our policymakers decided that the use of nuclear weapons became unthinkable because of the ramifications of a nuclear exchange between the United States and USSR. This form of denial led to an all-or-nothing nuclear strategy that tended to subordinate thinking about the conduct of nuclear war to the less constraining challenge of fighting a conventional war.