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 21st
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.
