The Social Dimension of Nuclear Strategy

Abstract

In the preceding chapter I introduced a theorem, viz, that any present effort to cure decoupling through the deployment of weapons must either fail (in that, despite deployment, the threshold of US nuclear commitment is not reduced) or ‘succeed’ and thereby uncouple the central and extended theatres. The Countervailing Strategy, I argued, would provoke political division between the United States and her allies, threatening the long-term viability of the strategy, and casting doubt on the vitality of the strategy itself. One requirement of a deterrent strategy must be to render that strategy convincingly executable in crises or when deterrence fails.

‘O frati,’ dissi ‘che per cento milia perigli siete giunti a l’occidente…. Considerate la vostra semenza: fatti non foste a viver come bruit, ma per seguir virtute e canoscenza.’

(‘O brothers,’ I said, ‘who through a thousand perils have reached the West…. Take thought of the seed from which you spring. You were not born to live as brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge.’)

Canto XXVI, Inferno