By Rod Lyon
The world is revisiting an old problem.
With nuclear modernisation programs under way across a range of countries, Russia asserting its right to deploy nuclear weapons in the Crimea, NATO reviewing the role of nuclear weapons in the alliance, and a recent report in the US arguing for a more versatile arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons [PDF], it’s clear the world’s revisiting an old problem: how to build effective nuclear deterrence arrangements.
Since the end of the Cold War, thinking about deterrence issues has been mainly confined to the academic and think-tank world. But policymakers are now having to re-engage with those issues. And the problem has a new twist: we no longer enjoy the luxury of a bipolar world. Indeed, as Therese Delpech observed in her RAND monograph Nuclear deterrence in the 21st century [PDF], nowadays ‘the actors are more diverse, more opaque, and sometimes more reckless’.
Done properly, deterrence is a contest in threats and nerve, or—to use Thomas Schelling’s phraseology—‘the manipulation of risk’. (The chapter so titled in Schelling’sArms and influence is a great starting point for anyone wanting to think through the broader deterrence problem.) That helps explain why some thought the concept ‘ugly [PDF]’. It’s hard to make a policy threatening massive damage to societies and civilians sound noble and aspirational. Still, the bad news is that the alternatives are worse. And if deterrence is going to remain the dominant approach in nuclear weapon strategy, we need to fit the strategy to the contemporary geopolitical environment.
Read the full story at The Diplomat