Discuss the theory of Nuclear Deterrence. Did Nuclear Deterrence prevent a superpower war?. (UPSC CSE Mains 2015- Political Science and International Relations, Paper 2)
The principle of nuclear deterrence was born out of the symbiosis of the principle of military deterrence and the emergence of nuclear weapons. It is a military doctrine according to which the possibility that a country will use the nuclear weapons it possesses in retaliation will deter an enemy from attacking.
For deterrence to work, two conditions should be present: severity and credibility.
- Severity entails threatening a prospective opponent with a retaliation that would outweigh any potential benefits they could hope to gain from attacking. A severe response can take many forms, including harsh economic sanctions, diplomatic isolation, or military action. During the Cold War, nuclear weapons served as the ultimate deterrent as both the United States and the Soviet Union built enough bombs to annihilate the other.
- Credibility means making an opponent believe that further aggression on their part will provoke retaliation. Countries can signal their seriousness by testing weapons, increasing their military presence in a contested region, conducting exercises to simulate real attacks, and publicly announcing new weapons technologies. An important part of credibility is the willingness to use force. During the Cold War, both the United States and the Soviet Union established credibility by taking military action to support their foreign partners, demonstrating that they would be able and willing to follow through on their pledges to use force if an ally were attacked. The two superpowers also built special silos, planes, and submarines to ensure that if attacked with a nuclear weapon, they could still retaliate in kind. As a result, leaders on both sides knew a strike by either country would devastate both—an idea known as mutually assured destruction.
The Cold War logic of nuclear deterrence maintains that nuclear-armed states will not attack one another because of fear of massive retaliation, or mutually assured destruction (MAD). By this logic, nuclear weapons promote stability and can prevent war. In the words of realist scholar Kenneth Waltz, ‘Those who like peace should love nuclear weapons.’ The Cold War stayed largely cold because of the deterring effects of nuclear weapons, with the Soviet Union amassing forty-five thousand nuclear warheads and the United States thirty-one thousand.
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