THE NUCLEAR DETERRENCE

THE NUCLEAR DETERRENCE WORKS.

The Concept Of Nuclear Deterrence Gained Increased  prominence during the Cold War period when a generation of national security scholar and practioners, including. However most academic research on the subject is directed towards explaining the theoretical modalities of nuclear deterrence rather than a systematic analysis of the empirical evidence on the efficacy of nuclear weapons as a deterrent. In the 21^st century the growing efforts to stigmatizes and ultimately ban nuclear weapons reflect on shift in the nuclear weapons debate a shift that aims at challenging the long held myth of nuclear deterrence. The nuclear optimism are so assertive in the view that the influence in both academia and policy making circles can easily be seen. More  importantly though powerful lobbies in almost all nuclear weapon states have developed stakes in vast nuclear establishments, spending budgets of billions of dollars. These vested interests always resist efforts to cut down nuclear weapon. The trump argument in favour of retaining  nuclear weapons capability is that the use of nuclear weapons brought an early end to World War II. The nuclear deterrence is an unsound basis for the national security policy because it is neither as effective at political persuasion nor as capable of influencing military conflicts as many proponents of nuclear weapons would have us believe. For total reliance on the nuclear deterrence strategy it has to be prefect but historical records show that deterrence could work only in a few cases. Even a single case of failure has the potential to lead to a nuclear war. More alarmingly deterrence threats due to their inherently uncertain nature sometimes lead enemy nations to behave in ways that are quite inimical to achieving the goal of deterring aggression. During the early years of cold war, nuclear proponents would claim that the presence of nuclear weapons had enormous potential to ensure success in political negotiations while preventing all sorts of conventional or nuclear attacks. It is part of the historical record that the possession of nuclear capability by the US could not intimidate the Russians during talks after World War II. It is also proved the second part of the argument wrong that nuclear weapons could prevent any sort of attack. Israeli nuclear capability could not prevent a number of Muslim states from stating an all out war for regaining occupied territory and for Palestinian independence. The efficacy of the nuclear umbrella was also questioned when the United Kingdome  and France developed their own nuclear capability despite concrete assurances of security from the US.

The idea of the nuclear deterrence is too fragile to be relied upon and the fear of massive nuclear retaliation is not always able to prevent countries from taking the course of action they want. The emerging threat of nuclear terrorism is also a question mark on the efficacy of nuclear deterrence because terrorist groups hardly take well thought out rational decisions, as state are believed to take. The continued existence of nuclear weapons is also the reason for their gradual spread. So long as even one country has nuclear capability others will also want to acquire that status gradually.