Will there be a Nuclear War?

Abstract

Strategic nuclear weapons are deployed on intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and strategic bombers. The deployment of new weapons is changing policies from nuclear deterrence based on mutual assured destruction, to nuclear-war fighting. Modernisation is inevitable if nuclear weapons are continually deployed. Although less accurate than the American missiles, the Soviet SS-20, an intermediate range ballistic missile, is accurate enough, or soon will be made so, to be a nuclear war-fighting weapon, given the relatively large explosive power of its warhead. Many believe that the progression from nuclear deterrence by mutual assured destruction to nuclear-war fighting to nuclear-war winning, is considerably increasing the danger of a nuclear world war. Even if political leaders wanted to maintain their old policy of nuclear deterrence by mutual assured destruction they would be prevented from doing so by the characteristics of the new nuclear weapons developed by military scientists.