Nuclear Deterrence: A Look at the Past and Future Through the Eyes of a Beholder.

摘要

The purpose of this paper is to analyze United States strategic nuclear deterrence policy and discuss its relevance and applicability following the end of the Cold War. This paper will look at the definition, theory and strategy of nuclear deterrence as it served the United States throughout the Cold War, and will discuss its viability for the future. Although chemical and biological weapons are now generally linked together with nuclear weapons into the category of Weapons of Mass Destruction, this paper addresses only the nuclear weapons issue. It is certainly conceivable that chemical and biological weapons and their delivery systems will soon provide their potential users with the destructive capability equivalent to nuclear weapons. It is also true that their acquisition and use provide many advantages over nuclear weapons Nuclear weapons, however, are distinct from these other weapons because of their demonstrated capability to produce instantaneous destruction on a massive scale and the mystique which has grown around them as a result of the central and unique role they played in the last 45 years of superpower competition known as the Cold War. Because we have been living with nuclear weapons as legitimate instruments of war we have developed definitive attitudes, policies and prejudices concerning them.