Deterrence and Disarmament: Pulling Back the Curtain

Dr. Keith B. Payne is a co-founder of the National Institute for Public Policy, professor emeritus of the Graduate School of Defense and Strategic Studies at Missouri State University and a former deputy assistant secretary of defense.

The 2010 Nuclear Posture Review, “for the first time,” placed “atop the U.S. nuclear agenda” nonproliferation as part of “our effort to move toward a world free of nuclear weapons.”[2]  More recently, however, U.S. policy identifies deterrence as “the highest U.S. nuclear policy and strategy priority.”[3]

The famous 20^th century historian E.H. Carr identified the fundamental differences between Realists and Idealists (“Utopians” in Carr’s terms):  “The two methods of approach—the [Idealist] inclination to ignore what was and what is in contemplation of what should be, and the [Realist] inclination to deduce what should be from what was and what is—determine opposite attitudes towards every political problem.”[4]

For the Realist, interstate conflicts of interest and the potential for aggression are constants inherent in an anarchic, “self-help” international system.[5]  Cooperation cannot be assumed, and no international authority exists with the power and will to reliably prevent aggression.  Consequently, the pursuit of national position and power for self-preservation, potentially including nuclear weapons, is a reasonable and prudent national priority.

In contrast, Idealists emphasize the inherent dangers of an anarchic international system and focus on its transformation to a more cooperative order that facilitates and enforces the peaceful resolution of interstate conflicts.  This new order would replace the anarchy of the existing international system and the need to prioritize power and position with a more peaceful and cooperative system, now potentially including nuclear disarmament. Past efforts to so change the international system include the League of Nations following World War I, and the United Nations following World War II.

In short, Realists see states as compelled to prioritize national power and position given the unavoidable potential for conflict and aggression in the anarchic international system. Idealists seek an international order that allows states to pursue cooperative goals—such as global nuclear disarmament—rather than the jealous pursuit of national power.

Idealism often underlies the nuclear disarmament narrative. It essentially contends that the existing international system of independent and often conflicting states can be transformed via concerted, cooperative international efforts to such a degree that individual states ultimately will no longer feel compelled to, or need to, maintain independent nuclear arsenals.  The felt need to maintain nuclear weapons can be relieved by cooperative global security mechanisms and anti-nuclear norms and laws to eliminate nuclear weapons.  This transformation is feasible because it is in each state’s enlightened self-interest given the global threat posed by the existence of nuclear weapons.

The nuclear disarmament narrative contends that disarmament is a matter of existential importance because individual state deployment of nuclear arsenals poses an extreme and immediate risk to all humanity.[6]  Consequently, the pursuit of complete nuclear disarmament should be the U.S. policy priority and, indeed, the priority goal of all states in the international system.[7]

Proposals for nuclear disarmament implicitly or explicitly posit the transformation of the international system to achieve the goal of nuclear disarmament.[8]  This disarmament narrative, in common with Idealist thought in general, emphasizes the transformative power of reason, enlightened self-interest, and the instruments of collective security or “cooperative security,” international institutions, laws and norms. These have the potential to transform the international system and enable nuclear disarmament. The rudiments of these mechanisms and corresponding transition purportedly already are visible in the rise of international institutions, the decline in interstate wars and combat deaths over decades, the workings of the United Nations, multilateral arms control agreements, and the spread of democratic governments.[9]

The risk now posed by the existence of nuclear arsenals is unprecedented and establishes the dynamic necessary for the equally unprecedented level of interstate cooperation necessary for nuclear disarmament. Because of the unprecedented severity of the nuclear threat to all countries, the transformation of the international system needed for nuclear disarmament should be feasible via informed leaders with “strategic foresight and political courage… No law of nature stands in the way.”[10]  This transformation can reduce or eliminate the felt security requirement of individual states to retain nuclear weapons and enable the common good of eliminating the risks to all peoples posed by the existence of nuclear weapons.

The catalyst for this needed transformation is wider recognition of the potential for a global nuclear catastrophe.  When leaders understand the severity of the common threat posed by the existence of nuclear weapons, they should be willing to engage in nuclear disarmament in their own enlightened self-interest.  The common threat posed by the existence of nuclear weapons can overcome their felt need to sustain them and inspire the unprecedented interstate cooperation needed to transform the system and realize nuclear disarmament. [11]

Correspondingly, frequently expressed goals of the nuclear disarmament narrative include: 1) the global promotion of recognition of the inherent risks to all posed by the existence of nuclear weapons, and the consequent need for transforming international relations to enable their elimination; and, 2) organizing political pressure on national leaders to move in this direction.  There are many examples of this argument in action—most recently, including organized public pressure on behalf of the UN-based Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.[12]

The contemporary argument for nuclear disarmament is in no way new.  It has been repeated for over 50 years.  A summary of the argument in favor of nuclear disarmament appearing in a 1967 publication for students observes that disarmament advocates, “warn that the arms race could lead to a war of total destruction.  Considering the continuing advance of atomic weapons, the future may be even more dangerous than the present….Backers of disarmament plans also point to the tremendous cost of the arms race….This money could be earmarked for more worthwhile projects.”[13]

The nuclear disarmament narrative often refers to nuclear deterrence as an impediment to disarmament because it suggests a positive, important value for nuclear weapons rather than stigmatizing them and establishing a global norm against them.  Consequently, the argument for nuclear disarmament often includes criticism of nuclear deterrence as a dangerous, unreliable and accident-prone security strategy.  For example:

Nuclear deterrence comes with tremendous risks and costs.  The arguments in favor of deterrence, if sometimes true, are not likely to be true in every case.  What happens when it fails?  The growing risk of a catastrophic nuclear war outweighs the uncertain benefits of deterrence for the United States.[14]

Nuclear deterrence is the heart of the nuclear believers’ case; it’s their indispensable idea, and without it, they have nothing.  Nuclear deterrence is indefensible because 1) we don’t understand it, 2) it has failed in the past, and 3) it will inevitably fail in the future.[15]

They made us false promises.  That by making the consequences of using these weapons so unthinkable it would make any conflict unpalatable.  That it would keep us free from war.  But far from preventing war, these weapons brought us to the brink multiple times throughout the Cold War.  And in this century, these weapons continue to escalate us towards war and conflict.[16]

Nuclear deterrence does not provide physical protection against nuclear weapons—it provides only a false sense of security and the possibility of retaliation and vengeance.  Reliance on nuclear deterrence opens the door to omnicide.[17]

The collective nuclear weapons policies and actions of all nuclear-armed states and their allies create an aggregated and interconnected set of global nuclear risks for all humanity. From this perspective, nuclear risks lie in the fact that the practice of nuclear deterrence is too precarious, and the consequences of these weapons are too catastrophic and existential.[18]

Nuclear deterrence policies and weapons are a severe problem.  The transformation of the international system and disarmament are the answer.

As noted, Realist thought is based on the proposition that the international system is an anarchic, “self-help” system because cooperation cannot be assumed and there is no overarching authority with sufficient power to regulate interstate behavior reliably and predictably.  In this anarchic international system, aggression and conflict are an ever-present reality.

Because individual states ultimately also are “on their own” with regard to their national security, each state has an overarching interest in its power position relative to any other state that is, or might become, a security threat. As noted Realist scholar Kenneth Waltz has observed: “States coexist in a condition of anarchy.  Self-help is the principle of action in an anarchic order, and the most important way in which states must help themselves is by providing for their own security.”[19]

In response to the inherent insecurity of the international system state leaders generally will, to the extent feasible, seek power to meet the threats they perceive or anticipate.  Political leaders will seek the tools of power essential for national survival as their priority goal, subordinating, if necessary, other possible goals, including adherence to international norms or legal codes.[20]

Realism provides this logical explanation for why states often place national power and security ahead of other goals, including nuclear disarmament.  Realists refer to much of history to illustrate this point:  When necessary, national leaders typically have subordinated international norms and laws to meet the national security demands of the hour.

The Realist challenge confronting the nuclear disarmament agenda are its conclusions that:  1) states facing security threats, particularly including nuclear threats, cannot reasonably be expected to disarm without the prior cooperative transformation of the anarchic interstate system to one that is reliably cooperative and secure; and, 2) the cooperative transformation of the anarchic international system that could enable nuclear disarmament is implausible, if not impossible, in any anticipated time frame. In an anarchic, self-help system states will not willingly part with those capabilities they consider essential to their security, potentially including nuclear weapons, because, “Nuclear weapons are considered the ultimate deterrent for good reason:  Adversaries are unlikely to threaten the existence of a nuclear-armed state.”[21]

Nuclear disarmament could ultimately be a consequence of the cooperative transformation of the international system, but disarmament cannot precede that transformation.  Initiatives that place policy priority on the U.S. pursuit of nuclear disarmament over sustaining nuclear deterrence capabilities may be misguided and possibly dangerous because the underlying timely international transformation necessary for general nuclear disarmament simply is not plausible.

For the Realist, nuclear weapons are a symptom of the enduring realities of the international system:  conflicting interests, a continuing security dilemma and the enduring possibility of interstate war.  If these cannot be eliminated, the prudent expectation must be that a state’s survival could, ultimately, be dependent on its own power, and disarmament will remain a distant aspiration.  Noted academic Realist, Hans Morgenthau, observed in his classic Realist text, Politics Among Nations:  The Struggle for Power and Peace, that, “Armaments and the armaments race are a manifestation—and one of the most important manifestations—of the struggle for power ion the international stage.”[22]  Thus, disarmament success is dependent on the prior resolution of the underlying struggle for power.  The premier US diplomat of the 20^th century, George Kennan, essentially echoed this conclusion; he emphasized that disarmament efforts reflect “utopian enthusiasms” because armaments are “a symptom” of international conflict, and disarmament cannot occur absent the resolution of international “political differences and suspicions.”[23]  The expectation of continuing conflict reasonably precludes a general willingness to forfeit necessary power in advance of the establishment of a new more cooperative and reliably peaceful international political order.[24]  In the absence of such a new order, at least some states will continue to seek nuclear weapons for their security, and as a consequence, others will see a need to do so as well.

Realists doubt the Idealist’s claim that the common fear of nuclear weapons will provide the dynamic needed for unprecedented global change any more than past developments in military technology. Different national leaderships predictably will perceive and respond differently to the lethality of nuclear weapons.  It may inspire the “peace wish” of some, but not others:  “One can equate fear with world peace only if the peace wish exists in all states and is uniformly expressed in their policies.”[25]  And, as John Mearsheimer concludes, “It is unlikely that all the great powers will simultaneously undergo an epiphany…;”[26] and, “there is little reason to think that change is in the offing.”[27]

In the absence of an existing high level of international trust and cooperation, national leaders should not be expected to accept the risk of ceding their critical tools of power to a weak central authority such as today’s United Nations.  And as John Mearsheimer notes, “states can never be certain about other states’ intentions.…There is little room for trust among states.”[28]  If they were to disarm prior to that central authority reliably providing collective security, what then would provide for their protection if opponents did not simultaneously relinquish their tools of power?  The Realist asks: “Where would such a guarantee come from, and why would it be credible?”[29]  States cannot prudently disarm simply trusting that others will cooperatively do likewise or that a trusted central authority will one day emerge capable of protecting them and enforcing norms.

For Realists, the anarchic character of the international system precludes disarmament, and given the system’s inherent lack of international trust and cooperation, the creation of such an international authority appears nowhere in sight.[30]  As Nadia Schadlow, former White House Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategy, observes, “As the Soviet Union withered and the Cold War ended, U.S. President George H. W. Bush called for a “new world order,” a “Pax Universalis” founded on liberal values, democratic governance, and free markets.”  But the expectation of a transition of the global order was, once again, optimistic: “Contrary to the optimistic predictions made in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse, widespread political liberalization and the growth of transnational organizations have not tempered rivalries among countries…. Competition is and will remain a core feature of the international environment, and interdependence does not obviate that….Geopolitics is eternal. That is why competition persists no matter how much idealists might wish otherwise.”[31] In the absence of a global transformation, nuclear disarmament is not a plausible alternative to nuclear deterrence—whatever may be the weaknesses of nuclear deterrence.

The basic contemporary Realist argument against nuclear disarmament also has been repeated for over 50 years.  A summary of the argument against nuclear disarmament, from the same 1967 publication for students quoted above, observes that disarmament critics are concerned that no central authority exists to enforce treaties and prevent cheating, and that all past disarmament efforts have failed.[32]

Given the absence of the reliable international trust and cooperation needed to transform the war-prone international system, Realists ask the question, “how can we perpetuate peace without [first] solving the problem of war?”  Nuclear deterrence is an important part of their answer.[33]

The Realist’s rationale for this answer is clear: “[Nuclear weapons] make the cost of war seem frighteningly high and thus discourage states from starting any wars that might lead to the use of such weapons.  Nuclear weapons have helped maintain peace between the great powers and have not led their few other possessors to military adventures….Wars become less likely as the costs of war rise in relation to possible gain.”[34]  Nuclear deterrence can preclude a would-be aggressor’s expectation of gain and prevent war. And, if conflict occurs, the presence of nuclear weapons can limit its likely escalation.[35]

Indeed, Waltz contends that the disarmament narrative’s emphasis on the destructive consequences of nuclear war, “has obscured the important benefits [nuclear weapons] promise to states trying to coexist in a self-help world,”[36] and that nuclear disarmament, in addition to being “fanciful,” would, “deny the peaceful benefits of nuclear weapons to those [states] who need them.”[37]

Realists see this value in nuclear deterrence from historical evidence.[38]  For example, the late, distinguished deterrence theorist and academic, Bernard Brodie, observes that, “The strategic nuclear forces of each of the superpowers do inhibit the other from any kind of warlike action against it.  This was proved abundantly during the Cuban missile crisis…”[39]  Brodie concludes:  “…nuclear weapons do act critically to deter war between major powers, and not nuclear wars alone but any wars.  That is really a very great gain.  We should no doubt be hesitant about relinquishing it even if we could.”[40]

Thomas Schelling, one of the 20^th century’s most renowned deterrence theorists and a Nobel Laureate, expressed his preference—in contrast to what he called “the ‘ban the bomb’ orientation”—that nuclear deterrence be viewed, “as something to be enhanced, not dismantled.”[41]    Schelling judged a “nuclear world” in which deterrence operates to be safer than a nuclear-disarmed world in which, past history demonstrates, the possibility of war is a constant.[42]

The contending arguments for and against disarmament and deterrence reflect the differences separating Idealism and Realism.  Idealists see the continuing national accumulation of power, particularly including nuclear power, as the greatest security threat confronting all humankind. Reason and the global threat of nuclear weapons can compel leaders and peoples toward the unprecedented transformation of the international system and nuclear disarmament for the great benefit of all humanity.

In contrast, Realists contend that the transformation of the international system needed to enable nuclear disarmament is not now plausible—as is illustrated by millennia of historical experience.  And, in the context of continuing international anarchy, nuclear deterrence serves the critical purpose of preventing war. As Secretary of Defense for the Obama Administration, Ashton Carter, emphasized publicly in 2016: “America’s nuclear deterrence is the bedrock of our security and the Defense Department’s highest priority mission.”  He added that, “We all, of course, would wish to live in a world without nuclear weapons…unfortunately, given what we see in today’s security environment, it’s also likely that our children and their children will probably have to live in a world where nuclear weapons exist.”[43]  A well-known scholar sympathetic to the goal of “nuclear zero” seems to have captured this Realist conclusion:  “There are two dramatic ways in which the nuclear age could end: annihilation or disarmament. If one ending is undesirable and the other unachievable, leaders should prolong life with nuclear weapons by making their use much less likely and reducing their destructiveness in case they are used…. The undesirability of nuclear war and the uncertainty about how to accomplish nuclear disarmament suggest that we are still in the middle of the nuclear age. This middle age is predicated on maintaining nuclear deterrence as a livable way to avoid annihilating wars while searching for a disarmament solution.”[44]

The fundamentally conflicting Realist and Idealist perspectives drive contrary conclusions about the feasibility of a transition from the “middle” nuclear age to nuclear disarmament, and thus also about the relative value of nuclear deterrence.

It must be noted that for a relatively brief period amid widespread, optimistic post-Cold War expectations of a “New World Order,” some prominent Realists adopted the nuclear disarmament agenda.[45]  This Realist support for nuclear zero was based not on the expectation of a new cooperative world order, but on the popular view that in the post-Cold War era, nuclear weapons were increasingly irrelevant to U.S. national security:  1) the collapse of the Soviet Union and relatively benign relations with Russia and China immediately following the Cold War had largely eliminated any serious interstate nuclear threats for the West; 2) nuclear terrorism was now the serious potential nuclear threat, and counterproliferation measures—not nuclear deterrence—were key to addressing that threat; and, 3) U.S. conventional force superiority around the globe allowed the United States to meet its priority security needs without the need for nuclear weapons.[46]

This apparent Realist evolution in favor of nuclear disarmament, however, arose and subsided relatively quickly as great power relations in the post-Cold War era moved in hostile directions and both Russia and China emphasized new nuclear capabilities rather than follow the U.S. lead toward “nuclear zero.”  Neither Russia nor China embraced the Western post-Cold War nuclear disarmament campaign.  Indeed, President Putin reportedly viewed the U.S. proposal for nuclear zero, “as just another U.S. trick to weaken his country.”[47]  The United States was then in midst of what has been labeled a “unipolar moment” wherein its conventional power and political influence was virtually unchallenged. Thus, eliminating nuclear weapons globally could be regarded as a security advantage for the United States.  The American conventional force advantages that gave some U.S. Realists the freedom to endorse nuclear disarmament had precisely the opposite effect on other powers.  Yale professor Paul Bracken observed, “Nuclear abolition—as seen from Moscow, Beijing, Pyongyang—looked like a way to make the world safe for U.S. conventional strong-arm tactics.”[48]  This does not necessarily reflect malevolence on their part.  Such concerns are the natural consequence of the mistrust inherent in the anarchic international system—mistrust that precludes cooperative disarmament.  As one prominent commentator puts it:  “After all, what sane leader of a country on Uncle Sam’s Naughty List would voluntarily surrender the weapon which most deters foreign attack?”[49]  With the general security dilemma inherent in an anarchic international system, such hesitancy is not limited to those states “on Uncle Sam’s naughty list.”

Realists and Idealists envisage mutually exclusive routes to preventing nuclear war—nuclear deterrence vs. nuclear disarmament, respectively.  The Idealist desire for a more cooperative global order is understandable, as is the Realist desire for prudence with regard to national security.   There is, of course, a seemingly reasonable and convenient approach to reconciling these competing narratives:  work for disarmament while retaining deterrence as necessary until the conditions for disarmament emerge.  This position is appealing.  It suggests the prudence of Realism and, as Bracken notes, by embracing nuclear disarmament it also “shows that one’s heart is in the right place.”[50]  This easy reconciliation of Realism and Idealism may be appealing rhetorically, but it a problematic.  How so?

The disarmament agenda and the maintenance of nuclear deterrence cannot simultaneously be equal priorities.   Nuclear deterrence and disarmament present contradictory and incompatible goals. One will come at the expense of the other.  The fundamental question, as usual, is not technical. It is:  how much risk is prudent to accept in terms of stigmatizing and walking away from nuclear capabilities when the route to the transition necessary for disarmament is wholly obscure, and may not exist.   Deterrence policies posit the continuing great value of maintaining nuclear weapons to prevent war while the Idealist disarmament agenda seeks to “stigmatize” nuclear weapons and establish global norms/laws prohibiting them.[51]  It is possible to espouse both goals, but useful guidance cannot provide contradictory directions.  One goal will be subordinate to the other when trade-offs must be made:  the US pursuit of disarmament as the priority must affect the commitment to and preparation for nuclear deterrence; in contrast, the pursuit of credible nuclear deterrence must affect shape the commitment to and moves in support of nuclear disarmament.

Proponents of nuclear disarmament often contend that the elimination of nuclear weapons is an immediate imperative for human survival and thus they seek via consensus the transition to a cooperative international system that enforces peace and enables disarmament—as Idealists envisage.  They also tend to dismiss nuclear deterrence policies as an ill-fated and foolish justification for nuclear weapons that undermines their efforts to “stigmatize” nuclear weapons and establish a powerful global norm against them.  Consequently, proponents of nuclear disarmament elevate global transformation and disarmament as policy priorities over deterrence.

However, Realist skepticism with regard to the Idealist disarmament goal centers on the potential for its realization:  high-minded advocacy for a non-nuclear world is popular and relatively easy; the difficulty is in identifying a credible route to that new world.  George Perkovich, for example, acknowledges that the recent effort behind an international treaty to ban nuclear weapons, “does not detail how nuclear disarmament would be defined, achieved over time, verified or enforced.”[52] This important point captures Realist concerns: Realists generally are skeptical of the prospects for the timely transformation of the “self-help” international system needed for nuclear disarmament. Thus, they tend to prioritize sustaining nuclear deterrence capabilities because, in the continuing context of an anarchic and nuclear-armed threat environment, they may be needed to deter wars.  For these Realists, nuclear deterrence compels leaders to “draw back from the brink” and enforces a cautious if grudging peace.[53]

The nuclear disarmament agenda typically rests on the Idealist’s expectation of a fundamentally transformed international order.  The continuing need to prioritize deterrence generally follows from the Realist’s expectation that such a profound transformation is implausible in any predictable time frame. Realists and Idealists doubt each other’s solution, and often appear to doubt each other’s intentions. For those who seek to comprehend the competing deterrence and disarmament arguments, these differing philosophic roots must be understood—the curtain must be pulled back.

This article is adapted from, Keith B. Payne, Shadows on the Wall:  Deterrence and Disarmament (Fairfax, VA:  National Institute Press, 2020).

[1] Paul Bracken, “Whatever Happened to Nuclear Abolition?,” The Hill, March 19, 2019, available at https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/434723-whatever-happened-to-nuclear-abolition.

[2] Department of Defense, Nuclear Posture Review Report (April 2010), p. vi, (emphasis added).

[3] Department of Defense, Nuclear Deterrence:  America’s Foundation and Backstop for National Defense, 2020, p. 1, available at https://media.defense.gov/2020/Apr/07/2002276858/-1/-1/1/NUCLEAR-DETERRENCE-AMERICAS-FOUNDATION-AND-BACKSTOP-FOR-NATIONAL-DEFENSE.PDF, p. 3.

[4 Edward Hallett Carr, The Twenty Years’ Crisis, 1919-1939 (New York:  Harper and Row, 1964), p. 11.  (Emphasis added).

[5] Kenneth Waltz, Man, the State and War (New York:  Columbia University Press, 1954), p. 159.

[6] Beatrice Fihn, “Confronting Russia’s Nuclear Aggression,” U.S. News and World Report, March 5, 2019, at https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2019-03-05/commentary-nations-should-use-international-law-to-stop-russian-nuclear-aggression.

[7] See for example, Richard Falk and David Krieger, The Path to Zero (Boulder, CO:  Paradigm Publishers, 2012).

[8] See for example, Lawrence Wittner, The Struggle Against the Bomb, Volume Three:  Toward Nuclear Abolition (Stanford, CA:  Stanford University Press, 2003), pp. 490-491.

[9] See for example, Rose Gottemoeller, Arms Control Priorities for Russia and the United States in 2015 and Beyond, February 18, 2015, available at http://www.state.govt/us/2015/237581.htm.

[10] James E. Goodby, Approaching the Nuclear Tipping Point:  Cooperative Security in an Era of Global Change (New York:  Rowman & Littlefield, 2017), p. 130, 148.

[11] This point is elaborated well in, Falk and Krieger, The Path to Zero, p. 201; and Richard Falk and David Krieger, “Introduction,” in Richard Falk and David Krieger, eds., At the Nuclear Precipice:  Catastrophe or Transformation? (New York:  Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).

[12] Beatrice Fihn, “International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) – Nobel Lecture (English),” NobelPrize.org, December 10, 2017, available at https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2017/ican/26041-international-campaign-to-abolish-nuclear-weapons-ican-nobel-lecture-2017/.  See also, Heather Williams, “What the Nuclear Ban Treaty Means For America’s Allies,” WarOnTheRocks.com, Nov. 5, 2020, at https://warontherocks.com/2020/11/what-the-nuclear-ban-treaty-means-for-americas-allies/#:~:text=The%20nuclear%20ban%20treaty%20prohibits,possession%2C%20stockpiling%2C%20and%20testing.&text=This%20has%20clear%20implications%20for,to%20rely%20on%20nuclear%20deterrence.

[13] Elizabeth Einsiedler, “New Space Treaty,” Junior Review (Washington, D.C.), Vol. 39, No. 15 (January 9, 1967), p. 6.

[14] Nina Tannenwald, “The Vanishing Nuclear Taboo?,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 97, No. 6 (November-December 2018), pp. 22, 23-24.

[15] Ward Wilson, “Making the Realist Case Against Nuclear Weapons,” November 13, 2015, at http://www.globalzero.org/blog/making-realistic-case-against-nuclear-weapons.

[16] Fihn, “International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN)—Nobel Lecture,” op. cit.

[17] David Krieger, “10 Lessons You Should Learn About Nuclear Weapons,” The Hill, February 15, 2019, available at https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/430296-10-lessons-you-should-learn-about-nuclear-weapons.

[18] Alexander Kmentt, Nuclear Deterrence Perpetuates Nuclear Risks: the Risk Reduction Perspective of TPNW Supporters,” European Leadership Network (UK), Dec. 6, 2020, available at https://www.europeanleadershipnetwork.org/commentary/nuclear-deterrence-perpetuates-nuclear-risks-the-risk-reduction-perspective-of-tpnw-supporters/.

[19] Kenneth Waltz, “The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: More May be Better,” Adelphi Papers, Number 171 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1981), available at https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/waltz1.htm.

[20] John J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York:  W. W. Norton & Company, 2001), p. 33.

[21] John J. Mearsheimer, “Iran is Rushing to Build a Nuclear Weapon—and Trump Can’t Stop It,” New York Times Online, July 1, 2019, available at https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/01/opinion/iran-is-rushing-to-build-a-nuclear-weapon-and-trump-cant-stop-it.html.

[22] Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations:  The Struggle for Power and Peace, fifth edition (New York:  Alfred Knopf: 1973), p. 386.

[23] Indeed, commenting on the disarmament efforts of the intra-war years, Kennan concluded that the “evil of these utopian enthusiasms” was that they “distracted our gaze from the real things that were happening.”  George Kennan, Realities of American Foreign Policy ( London: Oxford University Press, 1954), pp. 20-23.

[24] Colin S. Gray, House of Cards (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992), p. 225.

[25] Kenneth Waltz, Man, the State and War (New York:  Columbia University Press, 1954), pp. 235-236.

[26] John Mearsheimer, “Realists as Idealists,” Security Studies, Vol. 20, No. 3 (2011), p. 428.

[27] Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, p. 362.

[28] Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, op. cit., pp. 31-32.

[29] Andrew Krepinevich, US Nuclear Forces:  Meeting the Challenge of a Proliferated World (Washington, D.C.:  Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, 2009), p. 43.

[30] Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, op. cit., p. 362; Mearsheimer, “Realists as Idealists,’ Security Studies, Vol. 20, No. 3 (2011), p. 428; and David Welch, “Internationalism:  Contacts, Trade, and Institutions,” in Fateful Visions:  Avoiding Nuclear Catastrophe, Joseph Nye, Graham Allison, and Albert Carnesale, eds. (Cambridge, MA:  Ballinger Publishing Company, 1988), p. 195.

[31] Nadia Schadlow, “The End of American illusion,” Foreign Affairs (September/October 2020), at www.hudson.org/research/16296-the-end-of-american-illusion.

[32] Einsiedler, “New Space Treaty,” op. cit., p. 6.

[33] Kenneth W. Waltz, “Nuclear Myths and Political Realists,” The American Political Science Review, Vol. 84, No. 3 (September 1990), pp. 743-744.

[34] Waltz, “The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: More May be Better,” op. cit.

[35] Ibid.

[36] Ibid.

[37] In Scott Sagan and Kenneth N. Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons:  A Debate Renewed (New York:  Norton and Co., 2003), p. 152.

[38] See the discussion in Keith B. Payne and James Schlesinger, et al., Minimum Deterrence:  Examining the Evidence (Fairfax, VA:  National Institute Press, 2013), pp. 13-14.

[39] Bernard Brodie, “The Development of Nuclear Strategy,” International Security, Vol. 2, No. 4 (Spring 1978), p. 76.

[40] Bernard Brodie,  War and Politics (New York:  Macmillan, 1973), p. 430.  See also, John Lewis Gaddis, The United States and the End of the Cold War (Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 110, 118.

[41] See Thomas Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University Press, 1960), p. 241.

[42] Thomas Schelling, “A World Without Nuclear Weapons?,” Daedalus (Fall 2009), pp. 125-126, 129.

[43] See Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, “Remarks by Secretary Carter to Troops at Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota,” September 26, 2016, available at https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/956079/remarks-by-secretary-carter-to-troops-at-minot-air-force-base-north-dakota/.

[44] George Perkovich, “75 Years On, How will the Nuclear Age End?” WarOnTheRocks.com, August 6, 2020, at https://warontherocks.com/2020/08/75-years-on-how-will-the-nuclear-age-end/#:~:text=There%20are%20two%20dramatic%20ways,in%20case%20they%20are%20used.

[45] See for example, George P. Shultz, William J. Perry, Henry A. Kissinger, and Sam Nunn, “A World Free of Nuclear Weapons,” The Wall Street Journal, January 4, 2007, at https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB116787515251566636.

[46] Each of these points is well-reflected in, James Cartwright, Bruce Blair, et al., Modernizing U.S. Nuclear Strategy, Force Structure and Posture, Global Zero US Nuclear Policy Commission Report (Washington, D.C.: Global Zero, May 2012), at http://www.globalzero.org/files/ gz_us_nuclear_policy_commission_ report.pdf.  See also, David Cortright and Raimo Väyrynen, Towards Nuclear Zero (New York: Routledge, 2010), p. 19.

[47] Quoted in, “Reviving Nuclear Arms Talks,” December 15, 2008, available at http://gm5-lkweb.newscyclecloud.com/news/20081215/reviving-nuclear-arms-talks.

[48] Bracken, “Whatever Happened to Nuclear Abolition?,” op. cit.

[49] Doug Bandow, “America Must Come to Terms with North Korea’s Nuclear Weapons,” National Interest Online, Oct. 2, 2020, at https://nationalinterest.org/blog/korea-watch/america-must-come-terms-north-korea%E2%80%99s-nuclear-weapons-170109.

[50] Bracken, “Whatever Happened to Nuclear Abolition?,” op. cit.

[51] See for example, Kjolv Egeland, “Change the Incentives:  Stigmatize Nuclear Weapons,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March 16, 2016, at http://thebullein.org/cahnge-incnetives-stigmatize-nuclear-weapons9261.

[52] Perkovich, “75 Years On, How will the Nuclear Age End?” op. cit.

[53] Waltz in, Sagan and Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons:  A Debate Renewed, op. cit., p. 109.

The National Institute for Public Policy’s Information Series is a periodic publication focusing on contemporary strategic issues affecting U.S. foreign and defense policy. It is a forum for promoting critical thinking on the evolving international security environment and how the dynamic geostrategic landscape affects U.S. national security. Contributors are recognized experts in the field of national security.

The views in this Information Series are those of the author and should not be construed as official U.S. Government policy, the official policy of the National Institute for Public Policy or any of its sponsors. For additional information about this publication or other publications by the National Institute Press, contact: Editor, National Institute Press, 9302 Lee Highway, Suite 750 |Fairfax, VA 22031 | (703) 293- 9181 |www.nipp.org. For access to previous issues of the National Institute Press Information Series, please visit http://www.nipp.org/nationalinstitutepress/information-series/.

© National Institute Press, 2021