nuclear weapons and world peace essay

Have nuclear weapons helped to maintain global peace?

Though national and regional conflicts and international terrorism remain rife, since 1945 the world has not been subjected to truly pan-regional or trans-continental war. Here, four experts in international security debate the role nuclear arsenals may have played in curbing large-scale conflict

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When have nuclear weapons come closest to destabilising world peace – and how close to the brink of nuclear war did the world come?

Benoît Pelopidas: “How close was it?” is a misleading question if asked alone. One also needs to ask: how controllable was it? Indeed, some proponents of nuclear deterrence claim that you need to get close enough to the ‘nuclear abyss’ for the deterrent effect to kick in. But is that true? And can we control how close we get? A critical moment commonly cited in this regard was the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. And that was not fully controllable: the caution of Soviet premier Khrushchev and US president Kennedy alone cannot explain its peaceful outcome, given the limits of their control over their nuclear arsenals, the limits of safety of the weapons, and other factors. The evidence shows we have been lucky. Though the scholarly and policy worlds pay lip service to this finding, they still do not act and plan as if they take it seriously.

Secrecy means that we know very little about cases of near use of nuclear weapons. It’s very likely we overestimate how safe we have been.

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Malcolm Craig: There are a number of other examples of times when this has happened. For example, during the first year of the Korean War (1950–53), President Harry Truman’s bluster and outbursts from General Douglas MacArthur provoked international fears about perceived American willingness to use atomic weapons.

Perhaps the most interesting example was the November 1983 Able Archer incident , in which a Nato communications exercise was perceived by some in Moscow as preparation for an actual offensive. In this case, nuclear weapons, paranoia and faulty intelligence-gathering could have (a big ‘could have’) led to nuclear war.

Simon J Moody: In my judgement, the closest nuclear weapons have come to destabilising world peace was during the first decade of the Cold War, from the late 1940s, when the United States had nuclear superiority. If decision-makers had heeded the arguments for nuclear release – to support outnumbered UN forces during the Korean War, or to help relieve the beleaguered French garrison at Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam in 1954 – then today’s situation, in which the non-use of nuclear weapons is seen as normal, might never have been established. It is the taboo nature of nuclear weapons use that helps to stabilise weapons of such appalling power within an anarchic international system.

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Conversely, how important a factor have nuclear weapons been in preserving world peace, and how have they done so.

BP: If you mean how important a factor have nuclear weapons been in preventing a great power conflict or nuclear war, deterrence theory claims that the destructive capability of nuclear weapons triggers fear, which in turn makes leaders cautious. However, recent scholarship shows that this relationship is far from automatic; classic works have also shown that threats intended to deter may have adverse effects, as can any other public policy. If one needs to constantly establish the credibility of a deterrent threat based on nuclear weapons, this will obviously lead to more risk-taking. The question then is: what are the other effects of nuclear weapons in the world beyond security issues? How do nuclear weapons programmes affect the governments and states that build them?

MC: Returning to the Cuban Missile Crisis, though nuclear weapons were a fundamental part of why it occurred, they also played a major role in bringing it to a peaceful conclusion. The thought of global nuclear war caused both leaders to pull back from the brink and achieve a negotiated solution.

Michael Goodman: A certain view of proliferation holds that peace is best achieved through a parity in weapons – in other words, the best means of ensuring peace has been for both sides of a conflict to have a nuclear capability. There is certainly some credence to this: just consider two big nuclear-tipped conflicts or confrontations – the Cold War and India-Pakistan tensions. Arguably, the fear of either a nuclear pre-emptive strike, or the guarantee of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), has been enough to ensure that in those scenarios (relative) peace has been preserved.

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What other factors have been more important in maintaining peace?

BP: Given that nuclear war or nuclear weapons use would be unacceptable by most constituencies, factors that have been necessary to prevent nuclear weapons use even once are crucial. We now know that in 1961, two 4-megaton thermonuclear weapons fell from a US B-52 plane over Goldsboro, North Carolina; the only thing that prevented one of these weapons from exploding was a safety switch that remained in the safe position. However, that switch malfunctioned several times in other instances. So the only thing that prevented a 4-megaton nuclear detonation on that day was the random non-simultaneity of the failure of the plane and that of the switch. There is no other name for this than luck. Beyond that, the notion of deterrence, which describes the intended effect of a policy, gives the impression that this intended effect is an actual effect. And nuclear weapons discourse has created the impression that deterrence in terms of war prevention can be achieved only with nuclear weapons. Once those discursive effects are undone, the other factors in maintaining peace reappear, including the absence of desire to attack, and sensitivity to the security dilemma of the other.

MC: Two factors (there are many others) are the destructiveness of major 20th-century wars, and luck. Even before the atomic age, there was considerable international concern that major interstate wars were becoming so destructive as to be untenable. The First and, most significantly, Second World Wars proved this point.

Returning to Cuba, luck – in the sense of the right person making the right decision at the right time – played a significant role in global nuclear war being averted. Soviet submarine officer Vasili Arkhipov could have agreed to the firing of a nuclear torpedo at US warships. US fighter pilots could have launched nuclear-tipped rockets at their Soviet counterparts. Sometimes, luck really is a factor.

MG: One of the great Cold War lessons was that it was not enough to have a nuclear capability – it was just as important to have knowledge and understanding of your adversary’s arsenal. The key lay with intelligence: gauging your opponent’s political intentions and military capabilities was tremendously important. With the exception of the Cuban Missile and Able Archer crises, at no point did the intelligence service of one side predict the other was about to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike – and even in these two cases it was a political concern rather than an intelligence one that led to the worry. In other words, maintaining a nuclear arsenal to react, and an offensive intelligence agency to monitor, were part and parcel of maintaining peace.

SJM: International organisations such as the UN have played an important role in the maintenance of world peace. Although critics have questioned the effectiveness of bodies such as the Security Council to enforce its resolutions, in lieu of a world policeman the UN continues to legitimise the actions of its members and is probably the best structure we have for maintaining basic human rights. In addition, most forms of political, economic and cultural integration help to maintain the international order. The EU, for example, emerged out of various postwar experiments to regulate the industrial economies of western Europe, and has thus rendered the prospect of war between European nations economically illogical and politically absurd.

How important is the balance of nuclear weapons between different powers?

BP: The two major military powers of the Cold War (the US and Soviet Union) were the first two to develop nuclear weapons, building 70,000 of them. That suggests that, at least for a time, possession of nuclear weapons in large numbers was a crucial feature of world power. However, those two countries possessed many other features of power. Also, Japan, Germany, South Korea and South Africa have explicitly built their strategy of emergence on the international stage on renunciation of nuclear weapons.

Members of groups such as the G7 to G20 [representatives from the banks and governments of the world’s leading economic nations] have increasingly included non-nuclear-armed states, and emerging states have rarely sought to acquire those weapons. It’s notable that India failed to acquire the status of permanent member of the UN Security Council after its nuclear weapons tests. Nuclear-weapon states have been attacked and lost wars against non-nuclear-weapon states (the US in Vietnam, for example, and the Soviet Union in Afghanistan). So nuclear superiority has not been sufficient to guarantee either victory or war prevention. The record of coercion based on nuclear superiority is very limited. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, nuclear weapons use was avoided through luck. In that crucial case, nuclear balance was simply irrelevant.

MC: As with any historical issue, contingency and context are all. Up to the launch of Sputnik in 1957, the Soviet Union could not – in any meaningful sense – wage nuclear warfare against the US. In that case, the number of weapons mattered less than the ability to deliver them.

By the 1970s, both sides had massive arsenals based on missile technologies that could target anywhere in the world. At that point, the number and sophistication of weapons mattered, in a very general sense.

But in some cases, nuclear capability matters not a jot. British governments have been heavily invested in the idea of a nuclear weapon state, but do those weapons deter potential enemies? Britain’s nuclear status did little to deter Argentina in 1982. Likewise, Al-Qaeda wasn’t deterred by the vast US nuclear arsenal. This leads to another question: what purpose do nuclear weapons serve in the 21st century?

MG: The science and technology of nuclear weapons is such that a vast array of constructions is possible. These range from early atomic devices tested in the 1940s and 1950s (and replicated to an extent by the early devices of most nuclear states), to the advanced and fantastically destructive thermonuclear weapons of the 1950s and onwards. Yet as the explosive yield has varied, so too has the means of delivery: the early devices were dropped from planes, with delivery then progressing to missiles and the miniaturisation of the so-called suitcase bomb . Accompanying this technological change is the sheer scale of nuclear arsenals – yet there comes a point, defined as ‘nuclear sufficiency’ by the British Ministry of Defence in the 1950s, when your opponent has enough weapons to produce any variable of these. At that point, size no longer matters because your destruction is guaranteed.

SJM: The relative balance of nuclear power is essential to the logic of strategic nuclear deterrence. The security paradigm of the Cold War remained so stable because of the paradox of Mutually Assured Destruction – the state whereby opposing nuclear powers each possess the means to launch a decisive nuclear attack against the other, even after absorbing a first nuclear strike itself. By threatening to unleash on a decisive scale the very process it seeks to avoid – war – MAD ensures that the consequences of a strategic nuclear exchange are sufficiently terrifying to convince a would-be aggressor that the costs of war outweigh the benefits.

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Has the aspiration of non-nuclear powers to gain nuclear weapons been a destabilising factor around the world?

BP: The spread of nuclear weapons is dangerous. It increases the risk of nuclear detonations, either deliberate or accidental, by state and possibly non-state actors. But, once again, to fully answer your question one would need to know what the development of nuclear weapons programmes does to the governance of a polity. A research programme addressing this very issue is starting.

The assumption of the inevitability of a desire to acquire nuclear weapons has also been very destabilising. It has justified non-proliferation policies, including violent ones, neglecting the fact that most states never had any interest in developing such weapons, and that, among the few who did, most gave up before crossing the nuclear threshold.

In other words, giving up nuclear weapons ambitions is not only the result of an absence of capabilities (think Sweden), the presence of the weapons of a protector (think South Africa) or the success of the use of force (think Iraq in the 1980s or Libya after 1986). Ignoring or denying the clear reasoning for such non-nuclear security strategies may embolden those who argue nuclear weapons are necessary or helpful for maintaining security.

MC: One of the remarkable things about nuclear proliferation is that, despite consistently alarmist assessments of ‘tipping points’ and ‘cascades’, few countries have chosen to attain full nuclear capability. Nations such as Argentina, Sweden and South Korea all had at least partial nuclear programmes at some point since the 1950s, but chose to abandon their ambitions. There were many reasons: internal politics, outside influence, leaders’ psychology, and so on. In some ways this tells us that the reasons not to go for full nuclearisation are more popular than the reasons to do so.

However, nuclear weapons are an issue in the tension between India and Pakistan. Pakistan has ‘the bomb’ as a fundamental part of its strategy in the event of major war with India. Any potential battlefield use of tactical nuclear weapons could escalate a conflict to the strategic nuclear scale, with horrific regional and global consequences.

SJM: Nuclear proliferation is not inherently destabilising, and there is a logical argument, rooted in deterrence theory, that the emergence of more nuclear states might in fact bring greater stability to certain regions. India and Pakistan are both new nuclear states and, though some form of limited military conflict between the two rivals is a distinct possibility, the risks of a costly and unrestricted conventional conflict has largely been nullified by the presence of nuclear armouries.

Likewise, Israel is another example: though its status as a nuclear power has not been officially declared, the possibility of such states acquiring nuclear weapons might have reduced the existential threat of invasion by one or more of its openly hostile neighbours.

MG: Nuclear weapons are essentially an asymmetric tactic of choice: a single bomb offers a means of offsetting the balance of power. For large powers this is arguably less of an issue; for smaller powers it allows them to punch above their weight and compete with larger powers whose conventional armies dwarf their own. For this reason, a nuclear capability, regardless of its inherent difficulties and associated costs, is an attractive option for medium and small-sized powers. In these sorts of scenarios, just one power in a region or conflict is likely to have a nuclear device, so the possibility of destabilisation is far greater. For this reason the proliferation activities of the Pakistani nuclear scientist AQ Khan took on a great significance, because he sold blueprints and technical equipment to aspiring states including Iran, North Korea and Libya – with very real and frightening consequences.

Do you think that nuclear weapons will ensure world peace in the future?

MG: In a word: no. The deterrent effect of possession of a nuclear weapon is obvious and with historical precedent, but that does not mean that irrational leaders won’t consider using them either pre-emptively or for a specific purpose.

While warfare increasingly moves towards the cyber domain and non-kinetic electronic or other remote technological] means, nuclear weapons remain the diametric opposite. They are the red line that no state has crossed since August 1945, but this lack of use is not enough of an argument to say that they have ensured world peace. They are a tactic of last resort, but peace will be pursued separate to nuclear weapons. That said, they are an important and valuable commodity to any defensive arsenal, so will remain a significant factor in world politics for the foreseeable future.

SJM: As a historian, I would naturally be reluctant to peer too deep into the future.

What the historical record tells us, however, is that the security framework within which nuclear weapons have become so ingrained is remarkably stable, and that total war (as our grandfathers’ and great-grandfathers’ generations twice knew it), really does seem to be a relic of the industrial age. Yet nuclear weapons are not a panacea for ensuring world peace, as demonstrated by the proliferation of conventional conflicts since 1945. Real world peace rests on the ability of humans to solve their political differences through understanding, compassion and co-operation.

BP: Since the beginning of the nuclear age, nuclear weapons were not designed to preventall forms of violence, and have not done so. The extent to which they have been central to the prevention of war between major powers since 1945 is also contested. They primarily generated a vulnerability, from the moment when undetectable submarine-launched ballistic missiles made it impossible to defend against a nuclear attack. Nuclear-weapon states have been attacked and lost wars against non-nuclear-weapon states, and actors willing to give their life for a cause may not fear nuclear retaliation. This is as true as it ever was.

As scholars and citizens, we have a responsibility in building the future. Perpetuating overconfidence in the controllability and safety of nuclear weapons allows for complacency. It neglects the role of luck and failures in avoiding nuclear weapons use in the past. Beyond the security dimension, the question of the future of nuclear weapons raises ethical and political issues about what kind of political communities we want to be in the eyes of future generations – and what we want to leave them.

The Cuban Missile Crisis

Following the failed CIA-backed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961, Fidel Castro made a secret agreement with Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev to install strategic nuclear weapons on the island. Much of the US would then be within effective range of Soviet nuclear missiles.

On 14 October 1962, an American U-2 spyplane captured photos indicating the presence of ballistic missiles in western Cuba – in contravention of promises made by Khrushchev to US president John F Kennedy. The US responded by establishing a naval ‘quarantine’, blocking the delivery of further offensive weapons. Khrushchev called this action “outright piracy”, warning that it could lead to war.

Tensions rose over the following two weeks. Both US and Soviet nuclear forces were readied, and Castro’s communications with Khrushchev seemed to urge a Soviet nuclear strike on the US in the event of another invasion of Cuba. A number of incidents could have sparked the launch of nuclear weapons – most notably when the US Navy dropped depth charges on Soviet submarine B-59 near Cuba; a retaliatory strike with nuclear torpedoes was vetoed by only one submarine officer, Vasili Arkhipov. Secret exchanges between Kennedy and Khrushchev finally resulted in an agreement on 28 October: the US would remove its Jupiter missiles from Italy and Turkey (from where the Soviet Union was in range), and in return the Soviets would remove their offensive weapons from Cuba. Nuclear war – which seemed possible or even likely – had been averted.

Able Archer 83 incident

A Nato exercise simulating a conflict escalation, codenamed Able Archer, was conducted in western Europe in November 1983. Fearing that the exercise might be a ruse to mask an actual nuclear strike, the Soviet Union readied its forces in preparation for retaliatory nuclear action – a very real threat that, thankfully, receded at the end of the exercise.

Dien Bien Phu

Site of the decisive battle in the First Indochina War. Defeat of French forces by nationalist-communist Viet Minh troops on 7 May 1954 augured the end of nearly a century of colonial rule in Vietnam. The US had supplied materiel to the French, but plans to deploy US nuclear weapons against the Viet Minh were not enacted.

The launch of the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957 signalled the start of the ‘space race’ between the US and USSR. The R-7 rocket that took Sputnik into orbit was originally developed to carry a nuclear warhead.

Suitcase bomb

Prototype nuclear weapons of portable size and weight were designed by both the United States and Soviet Union during the 1950s and 1960s. However, it is still uncertain whether actual production of effective suitcase bombs (light enough to carry but with sufficient destructive yield) was successful.

Abdul Qadeer Khan is a Pakistani nuclear physicist who in the 1970s headed a uranium enrichment programme for his country’s atomic bomb project. In 2004 it was revealed that Khan had sold nuclear technology to states including Iran, North Korea and Libya.

This article first appeared in issue 6 of BBC World Histories

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Ielts essay sample 36 - the threat of nuclear weapons maintains world peace, ielts writing task 2/ ielts essay:, the threat of nuclear weapons maintains world peace. nuclear power provides cheap and clean energy. the benefits of nuclear technology far outweigh the disadvantages..

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Newsletter Article - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

• Francesca Giovannini

Belfer Center Launches Network on Rethinking Nuclear Deterrence

Featured in the Spring 2022 Newsletter »

The aggressive war that the Russian Federation is waging in Ukraine has rehashed fears about nuclear weapons 75 years since the first atomic bomb was used. 

The Ukraine war is the first conventional war fought since WWII in Europe under the shadow of nuclear threats. The Russian Federation has the largest nuclear arsenal globally, and its nuclear doctrine envisages the possibility of using nuclear weapons first against enemies preparing to invade the country with conventional capabilities. 

The global nuclear order had been in trouble for quite some time before the Ukraine war began. Since 2006, the North Korean regime has steadily advanced its nuclear capabilities to strike within the United States territory. China has been working on expanding its arsenal and dominating in critical technology fields, including space and artificial intelligence. And doubts linger on the military dimension of the Iran nuclear program. But the Russian threat over nuclear weapons in Ukraine underscores a much more severe and entrenched problem: how fragile the global nuclear balance is. 

For decades, the best way to manage potential nuclear escalations has been by seeking to design nuclear deterrence postures that were credible to discourage the adversary from undertaking a surprise attack but equally intentional and cautious so as not to trigger inadvertent escalations. 

The urgency of nuclear threats today raise an inevitable question: Is nuclear deterrence still appropriate in the 21st century?

Launching the Research Network on Rethinking Nuclear Deterrence

On May 10, the Belfer Center Project on Managing the Atom launched the Research Network on Rethinking Nuclear Deterrence (RNDn) to address two fundamental and interrelated questions: 

• Given the deteriorating geopolitical and security landscape, how do we make sure nuclear deterrence does not fail? And, 
• What alternatives can replace nuclear deterrence, and what conditions should exist to materialize them?

RNDn stands as the largest inter-institutional and inter-university consortium in the nuclear field. It consists of more than 10 universities and research centers and dozens of scholars and practitioners. 

The work is divided into four main working groups: 

• Preventing Nuclear Wars, co-chaired by Harvard University and India Centre for Air Power Studies. 
• Ethics, Law, and Nuclear Deterrence, co-chaired by Stanford University and the University of Oxford. 
• Arms Control and Emerging Technologies , co-chaired by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the University of Hamburg. 
• Beyond Nuclear Deterrence , co-chaired by Hassan Elbahtimy (King's College London, Centre for Science and Security Studies), Rebecca Davis Gibbons (University of Southern Maine, Department of Political Science), and Stephen Herzog (ETH Zurich, Center for Security Studies).

Two additional initiatives will support the academic work. A policy initiative will distribute and disseminate the main research findings across multiple policy audiences. A Brain Trust will ensure diversity of perspectives, connection with other disciplines, and rigorousness of scholarship.

The funding for the RNDn comes from the MacArthur Foundation. The decision of the Foundation before exiting the field has been to entrust MTA with its last and largest legacy gift to build a new nuclear research agenda without walls.

The research network will shape the future of nuclear studies for decades to come. It will also encourage international, inter-generational, and inter-disciplinary collaboration at an unprecedented scale. 

There is much at stake if nuclear deterrence fails. We are determined not to let it happen. 

Rethinking Nuclear Deterrence: What that means 

Amb. Bonnie Jenkins, Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security, former pre-doctoral fellow with the Center ’s Managing the Atom/International Security Program, speaks at an event recognizing Managing the Atom's 25th anniversary.

The nuclear deterrence theories that continue to dominate and inform strategic thinking today were wholly designed to manage the risks of a bipolar nuclear order consisting of two blocs of internally homogeneous and ideologically distinct states. These theories were also conceived in isolation from considerations of a broader nature, including the quest for human security, social justice, inclusion, and equality. 

Three-quarters of a century after the first nuclear detonations, nuclear weapons and the threat of nuclear conflict continue to cast a long shadow on global affairs. But the current nuclear age is radically different than the era in which nuclear deterrence theories were originally developed. It consists of many more players bound together by complex economic and technological interdependencies. And it interplays with other global challenges—climate change, social justice issues, violent nationalism, global pandemics in particular—of unprecedented scale. 

Since the end of the Cold War, legitimate questions have been raised about how universally appropriate deterrence is as the answer to existential security risks in a world of multiple state and potentially non-state nuclear actors, extensive nuclear entanglement with non-nuclear technologies and military arrangements, terrorist groups with nuclear ambitions, and hybrid/gray zone attack that seeks to defeat or disable the adversary without necessarily going to war.

Already by 2010, senior Europeans were calling nuclear deterrence into question. In an open letter published by The Guardian in April 2010, a group of senior European statesmen and women said, “Nuclear deterrence is a far less persuasive strategic response to a world of potential regional nuclear arms races and nuclear terrorism than it was to the cold war. The circumstances of today require a shift in thinking.”

In addition, and since 2011, a coalition of non-nuclear weapons states launched a powerful initiative to explore the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons, claiming that any use of nuclear weapons anywhere in the globe will have catastrophic consequences on the food chain and water supply, agricultural and health infrastructures of all. The initiative later culminated in the adoption of the Treaty on the Prohibition of nuclear weapons that entered into force last February 2021. It is essential to point out that none of the nuclear weapons states or their allies participated in any negotiating sessions. 

The divide has been growing between countries relying for their security on nuclear weapons and those who believe that security can only be guaranteed through a world free of nuclear weapons. 

Nuclear Deterrence: Not a matter of policy but of reality

Nuclear deterrence is not a condition that you meet or a status you reach. Instead, it is a relationship between two or more nuclear states and a tool employed by states to achieve specific goals. Accordingly, it is subject to changing strategic considerations and global circumstances. It is dynamic and ever-evolving. 

The concept of deterrence has deep historical roots and, thanks to the nuclear age, has been deeply developed and entrenched, especially in the existing nuclear-weapon states. Deterrence, in broad terms, is about influencing decision-making through the threat of force to discourage an opponent from taking an undesired action. This can be achieved through the threat of retaliation (deterrence by punishment) or by denying the opponent’s aims (deterrence by denial), or both.  

The concept of nuclear deterrence—equally theoretically parsimonious and morally perplexing—has been historically contested and highly disputed. States rely on nuclear deterrence when, to intimidate an enemy, they threaten the use of weapons of mass and indiscriminate destructive power—nuclear weapons—and potentially on a scale that could produce catastrophic global carnage.

Frank Gavin observed: "During the period of intense Soviet-U.S. rivalry, some questioned whether the benefits of nuclear deterrence were worth the terrifying risk that nuclear weapons could be launched, either intentionally or by accident. On balance, however, the recent memory of a catastrophic great power war, within an international system marked by a bitter ideological clash, deep mistrust, and intense security competition made the possibility that nuclear deterrence could provide stability and decrease if not eliminate the prospect of total war appealing [1] . 

Contestation to the concept of nuclear deterrence also led to the creation of powerful schools of thought regarding nuclear weapons. The first urged the United States to seek to maintain a qualitative technological edge and to prepare for nuclear warfighting. The second advocated for a more restrained nuclear posture and bilateral and multilateral agreements to constrain dangerous forms of nuclear competition. The third argued for complete nuclear disarmament given human fallibility, the catastrophic impacts of nuclear weapons, and the precarity of nuclear deterrence. 

Even though unsatisfactory and at least debatable, nuclear deterrence offered a way to navigate through dangerous nuclear war inclinations and uncompromising disarmament aspirations. And however frightening and risky, in fact, nuclear deterrence had, according to many policymakers and scholars, some positive effects in reducing the risk of war during the Cold War. In one of his seminal works, Scott Sagan remarks, “Relying on nuclear deterrence to maintain peace is like skating on thin ice. The fact that you have done it before does not mean you should expect to be able to do it safely forever.” [2] .

[1]  Frank Gavin, Beyond Deterrence: U.S. Nuclear Statecraft Since 1945, American Academy of Arts and Sciences Occasional Paper, February 2018, p. 1

[2]  Scott Sagan, The Limits of Safety, Princeton University Press; 1st edition (January 9, 1995), p. xx

The Role of Nuclear Weapons in the 21 st  Century: Belfer Center Launches Network on Rethinking Nuclear Deterrence.” Belfer Center Newsletter, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School. (Spring 2022)

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Nuclear weapons - an intolerable threat to humanity

The most terrifying weapon ever invented.

Nuclear weapons are the most terrifying weapon ever invented: no weapon is more destructive; no weapon causes such unspeakable human suffering; and there is no way to control how far the radioactive fallout will spread or how long the effects will last.

A nuclear bomb detonated in a city would immediately kill tens of thousands of people, and tens of thousands more would suffer horrific injuries and later die from radiation exposure.

In addition to the immense short-term loss of life, a nuclear war could cause long-term damage to our planet. It could severely disrupt the earth's ecosystem and reduce global temperatures, resulting in food shortages around the world.

Learn more:

What effects do nuclear weapons have on health, the environment and our ability to provide humanitarian assistance? And what does international humanitarian law say? Our factsheets address these important issues.

Think nuclear weapons will never be used again? Think again.

The very existence of nuclear weapons is a threat to future generations, and indeed to the survival of humanity.

What's more, given the current regional and international tensions, the risk of nuclear weapons being used is the highest it's been since the Cold War. Nuclear-armed States are modernizing their arsenals, and their command and control systems are becoming more vulnerable to cyber attacks. There is plenty of cause for alarm about the danger we all face.

The ICRC's director-general, Yves Daccord, spoke in April last year about the heightened risk that nuclear weapons will be used and the need to abolish them, at the Nuclear Weapon Risks Symposium organized by the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR).

No adequate humanitarian response

What would humanitarian organizations do in the event of a nuclear attack? The hard truth is that no State or organization could deal with the catastrophic consequences of a nuclear bomb.

The Red Cross' first-hand experience

In August 1945, in the aftermath of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese Red Cross, supported by the ICRC, attempted to bring relief to the many thousands of dying and injured. The magnitude of the needs made us feel helpless and the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement has been a strong advocate for a world free of nuclear weapons ever since.

Thousands of human beings in the streets and gardens in the town centre, struck by a wave of intense heat, died like flies. Others lay writhing like worms, atrociously burned. All private houses, warehouses, etc., disappeared as if swept away by a supernatural power. Trains were flung off the rails (...). Every living thing was petrified in an attitude of acute pain.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       - Dr Marcel Junod, an ICRC delegate and the first foreign doctor in Hiroshima in 1945 to assess the effects of the atomic bombing and to assist its victims.

Legal response to the nuclear threat

Since these atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, the ICRC has been calling for a ban on nuclear weapons to ensure that these dark events are never repeated. For decades, States have committed to preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and achieving nuclear disarmament through a number of international agreements, including the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty . Yet it was only in July 2017 that a treaty banning nuclear weapons was adopted. It was a historic and long-awaited step towards their elimination.

The world today needs the promise of this Treaty: the hope for a future without nuclear weapons. Humanity simply cannot live under the dark shadow of nuclear warfare, and the immense suffering which we all know would result.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      - ICRC President Peter Maurer, September 2017  

What can we do?

We are all responsible for making sure that decision makers understand that nuclear weapons have no place in the world we want for ourselves or for future generations. People like you are the only ones who can make a difference.

You can raise awareness of what is at stake by:

• Putting the issue of nuclear weapons on the agendas of civic, religious, social and other organizations you're part of,
• Spreading the word by sharing this page and other reliable postings on your social media platforms, and
• Writing letters to local media to share these concerns.

Depending on where you live, you can urge political leaders and those who can influence them to:

• Fulfill long-standing commitments to nuclear weapon reductions and elimination,
• Join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, and
• Work urgently to reduce the growing risks that nuclear weapons will be used.

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The Strike Zone: Why nuclear weapons are good for peace

Since the election of President Biden, U.S.-Russia relations have quickly worsened ; the U.S. government fell victim to a cyber hack by Russian hackers in December and Western-backed politician Alexei Navalny has inspired pro-democracy protests across Russia in recent weeks. However, in a rare display of Russian-American cooperation, the United States and Russia recently agreed to extend the New START treaty , an agreement that limits both nations’ nuclear stockpiles. Despite extreme tension, the United States and Russia have historically found common ground on the issue of nuclear weaponry. Since the implementation of nuclear technology, nuclear limitation treaties have served as the backbone of cooperation between the two nations. For example, after the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis — the closest any two nuclear nations have ever come to war — Soviet-American relations were restored through the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks of the late 1960s and 70s, in which both countries agreed to reduce their production of nuclear weapons. It may sound counterintuitive, but nuclear weaponry has been crucial in preventing major warfare since World War II. The threat of mutually assured nuclear destruction deters countries from engaging in total interstate wars and gives countries incentive to strengthen international institutions through arms control treaties and collective security measures.

Since the end of World War II, zero interstate wars have been fought between democratic countries , an unprecedented phenomenon in recent history that has been debated by scholars for decades. Cynical “realist” scholars, who believe that humans are inherently selfish, argue peace exists because the strategic and economic benefits of winning a war are now outweighed by the casualties of modern war. In contrast, “liberal” scholars believe that democratic values and political-economic interdependence between countries provide the modern world with stability and order. Nuclear peace theory combines thinking from both schools of thought, meshing the realist fear of mutually assured destruction with liberal support for international cooperation. Critics of nuclear peace believe that it is fragile, as one irresponsible action by a rogue leader could set off a chain of events that lead to nuclear Armageddon. However, we have seen the effects of nuclear weaponry in the wrong hands; Kim Jong Un, arguably the most erratic, autocratic leader in the world today, has access to intercontinental ballistic nuclear missiles, but even he has never come close to deploying them . Instead, rogue leaders tend to use nuclear weapons as a bargaining chip , as credible possession of a nuclear bomb represents a powerful trump card for negotiations. 

The arguments against nuclear proliferation are valid and logical; nuclear weapons are more destructive than anything humans have ever created and have become exponentially more powerful since World War II. However, the invention of nuclear weaponry brought forth a period of unprecedented peace in modern history, so it is safe to say that nuclear weapons — despite being horrific weapons of mass destruction — have prevented millions of more deaths than they have caused.

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Can nuclear deterrence preserve the Long Peace between major powers?

• May 5, 2022

Lawrence Freedman

For the past sixty years, the use of nuclear weapons has become unthinkable. But with every conflict there comes a point where the unthinkable becomes possible.

This essay was originally published in  War: Perspectives from the Engelsberg Seminar , Axess, in collaboration with the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation in 2015.

The question of why there has been a Long Peace, a period now of 70 years since the last major war between major powers, has generated as much debate as the question of the origins of the  Great War of 1914 . On the one hand,  John Gaddis,  who first used the term, is clear that it had something to do with nuclear weapons. On the other hand,  Steven Pinker  asserts that this welcome development has little or nothing to do with the prospect of mass destruction but is the result instead of the triumph of the good of our ‘better angels’ in a Manichean struggle with the evil of our ‘inner demons’. The ‘better angels’ connote empathy, self-control and morality and have encouraged a progressive  civilising process.  The ‘inner demons’ lead to instrumental violence, domination, revenge, sadism and ideology. These two approaches can be distinguished as one offering a theory of coercive peace, which assumes that tendencies towards conflict have been suppressed through fear of the consequences of escalation and, the other, a theory of normative peace, which assumes that the major powers have adopted a more civilised approach to conflict and have come to reject violent means to the resolution of disputes.

These two positions are not necessarily exclusive. Few who stress the importance of nuclear deterrence would deny the importance of many other factors, including the nature of the issues in dispute, as well as normative factors. But those who believe in the normative peace do tend to have a problem with the idea that nuclear deterrence might have played a role. They are wary of arguments for maintaining alert nuclear arsenals, instead of proceeding to complete disarmament, and nervous that this is a dangerous basis for peace — for once it ceases to work, the effects could be disastrous. Thus Steven Pinker, in  The Better Angels of our Nature , seeking to defend his thesis of the decline of war, attempts to write them out of post-1945 history, as if they had no discernible effect on behaviour. ‘Thankfully’, he writes, responding to Gaddis’s view, ‘a closer look suggests that the threat of nuclear annihilation deserves little credit for the Long Peace.’ If it were shown that ‘the Long Peace was a nuclear peace’, Pinker remarks, this ‘would be a fool’s paradise’, because of the ease with which a miscommunication or accident could ‘setoff an apocalypse’. His look was not close enough, as the case against the coercive peace is inadequate. Moreover, when we consider the normative basis for the Long Peace, as applied to nuclear weapons (the ‘nuclear taboo’), it exposes the problems of relying on normative restraints. The problem with a coercive peace is not that it is a myth but that it cannot be expected to endure indefinitely.

The  Second World War’s  finale involved the first deployment of nuclear weapons in anger, with the destruction of the Japanese cities of  Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Since then, there have been crises in which there were fears that they might be used again and defence policies that have given a central role to nuclear threats. Although further nuclear use has been avoided, the same combination of technical safeguards and political common sense may not get us through the next seventy years without a disaster of some sort. Nonetheless, the record to date undermines the claim that the only alternative to complete disarmament is complete disaster. If that had been the case, we have no right still to be around. Instead, considerable caution has been introduced into statecraft as a result of the unambiguous awfulness of the weapons. Over time, countries have come to adapt to their existence and, as a result, a sort of nuclear order has been created, with a degree of underlying stability. This means, however, that avoidance of a terrible conflagration depends on a daily act of restraint. Even when governments feel a need to remind others of their  nuclear capabilities , we must rely on them keeping their arsenals under tight control and not getting close to ordering any strikes. The fact that a range of governments, totalitarian as well as democratic, vulnerable as well as confident, anxious as well as relatively secure, have managed this restraint over a number of decades is at least evidence that they understand the risks. They have been reluctant to allow a minor event to trigger a rush to war, or to accept that all inhibition can end, and prudence be forgotten as soon as fighting begins. If the  First World War  had dashed confidence in the old balance of power, which relied on individual states acting to keep the system in a form of stable equilibrium, the nuclear age helped revive it. In one of his last speeches as prime minister, Winston Churchill commented on the ‘sublime irony’ that a stage had been reached ‘where safety will be the sturdy child of terror and survival the twin brother of annihilation’. It was hardly comfortable to rely on a balance of terror to keep the peace but, overtime, as the condition of mutual assured destruction was recognised, it appeared to work.

A number of abolitionists have sought to deny that there has been a valuable deterrent effect.  Ward Wilson , for example, argues that with proof that nuclear deterrence does not work, the case for disarmament is sealed. Without a ‘stronger rationale for keeping these dangerous weapons’, he wrote in a 2008 essay, ‘The Myth of Nuclear Deterrence’, then ‘perhaps they should be banned’. He went so far as to insist that the atomic bombing of August 1945, played no role in Japan’s surrender, suggesting that the  real cause was the Soviet Union’s entry into the war against Japan . This is a dubious claim but can be addressed by reference to the historical evidence. With regard to later deterrent effects, the analysis is even harder because that requires working out conclusively why nothing happened. Ward’s method is to cite cases in which something happened to a nuclear power and to mark that as a failure of deterrence. Thus, he points to America’s two wars with Iraq (1991 and 2003) and NATO’s with  Serbia  over Kosovo in 1999; Britain and the Falklands; and Israel and the 1973 Yom Kippur War. This is poor methodology. In none of these cases was any attempt made to deter, to control events using nuclear threats. There was no reason to suppose that the weapons were in play. The parties to the conflict did not act as if they were. The only possible exception is the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Israel had made no attempt to use nuclear threats to deter Arab invasion because it was confident in its conventional forces, but as Arab attacks began to make progress, the nuclear issue did begin to come into view. In the event, the Egyptian and Syrian armies were pushed back without resort to explicit nuclear threats. At the end of the crisis, there were reminders of high nuclear stakes as the Israelis surrounded the Egyptian Third Army.

Pinker uses a similar method to Wilson. Thus, he finds it telling that Britain’s nuclear capability did not prevent Argentina invading the Falklands in 1982. The Argentinian junta ‘ordered this’, he says, ‘in full confidence that Britain would not retaliate by reducing Buenos Aires to a radioactive crater’. In fact, they launched the invasion confident that Britain would not do anything militarily at all. They had ruled out a British military response in their planning. For its part the British government had not made any attempt to deter the junta because the British government did not realise that the junta needed to be deterred. As news came in that an invasion was taking place, the British government discovered, somewhat to its surprise as well as Argentina’s, that it could send a credible task force to the South Atlantic. This approach, therefore, gets the issue the wrong way round. It is not whether wars take place despite the existence of nuclear weapons, but whether some wars did not happen, or were limited, because of their existence. It is not whether Syria and Egypt discounted the risk of a nuclear riposte to a limited war in October 1973, but whether they understood that this risk could grow if Israel began to face a truly existential threat and whether this affected their readiness to come to  amodus vivendi,  just as in  2002, India and Pakistan stepped back from a full-scale confrontation  as they became aware of where this might lead.

The risk of retaliation was the source of prudence and the basis of deterrence. Anything that might challenge the possibility of retaliation put deterrence at risk because it might render threats incredible. Hence the search for a ‘first strike capability’ that might be able to disarm the enemy in a surprise attack and force the defenceless enemy state to capitulate. Such a capability would link nuclear weapons with classical military theory and the search for a knockout blow. A battle would have been won and the defeated state would be at the mercy of the victor. Once, however, the attacked nation possessed sufficient forces to survive an attempted first strike with retaliatory weapons intact, it would have what was known as ‘second-strike capability’ and prudence would be in order. A first-strike capability offering one side a decisive advantage risked a dangerous edginess developing at times of crisis and even leading to a catastrophic war through miscalculation. If there was no premium in a first strike then both sides should be more cautious and concentrate on diplomacy in a crisis. The calculations of risk might shift very quickly, especially if both sides had sought a first-strike capability. On the other hand, if both sides were confident of their second-strike capabilities, there would be no premium attached to unleashing nuclear hostilities. In the event, technological developments supported the second strike. By the mid-1960s, it was apparent that, for the foreseeable future, each side could eliminate the other as a modern industrial state. The term chosen to describe this condition,  mutual assured destruction , conveyed exactly what it was supposed to convey — destruction would be assured and mutual. Contrary to what had been assumed, therefore, the system tended towards stability. This was not a deliberate policy choice but a condition which confirmed the risks involved in any attempt to achieve a decisive victory through a knockout blow.

There was a paradox. Deterrence required that military preparations be taken seriously, accepting that the prospect of war, even if tiny, was still finite. All this made the task of designing, constructing and sustaining armed forces extremely difficult. It was hard to think through the circumstances that would trigger a war in the first place. So potent were the nightmarish images of a third world war that there really was no good reason why any moderately sane leader would start one deliberately. That helps explain the coercive peace. But others have also argued for the normative nuclear peace, that political leaders have become inhibited from contemplating nuclear use because this would be an appalling thing to do as can be seen in references to a ‘nuclear taboo’ or, in  Nina Tannenwald’s  phrase, a ‘norm of non-use’. Nuclear weapons are seen to be so exceptional and pernicious that no moral person could contemplate their use.

In  The Nuclear Taboo , Nina Tannenwald argues that the taboo takes restraint beyond deterrence. There may be no fear of retaliation, but nuclear use still seems to be unthinkable. She places considerable weight on anti-nuclear movements as a source of the taboo. Yet to the extent that these movements prospered during the Cold War (they have been largely absent since), it was because they were playing on general unease about the implications of such huge power. The idea of a ‘taboo’ was first raised during the 1950s in connection with ‘tactical’ weapons and not the new thermonuclear city-busters and, then, as a worry rather than a relief. The American government was concerned that this would prevent it from taking advantage of its most effective weapons because of a fear of Soviet retaliation. As it became evident that it was meaningless to speak of a victory in any nuclear battle, the ‘nuclear taboo’ came to refer to a sort of institutionalised common sense, reflected in a desire to avoid any situation in which their use might be contemplated.

There are other reasons. Over time, the military purposes that might justify any resort to nuclear weapons have narrowed. During the early stages of the Cold War, they were the only means of destroying some targets. This is no longer the case, because of the accuracy and lethality of conventional munitions. Claims that alternative forms of mass destruction, such as biological or chemical weapons, could only be deterred by nuclear weapons do not withstand scrutiny, although the formal NATO position is that this is a possibility. If such weapons were used, there would be a variety of possible responses in a government’s repertoire short of inflicting some great punishment against civilians. So the routine expectation of the first decades of the nuclear age, that one way or another any future hostilities between nuclear-armed states would escalate to nuclear use, and that escalation would take over as one mega-explosion led to another, may no longer be valid.

At the end of the Second World War, after the  Holocaust , carpet-bombing and V-missiles, the atom bombs seemed to be a logical culmination of what had gone before and also brutally successful in bringing a total war to an end. The simplest, if depressing, assumption was that war had become progressively more murderous, with ever more sophisticated means being found to slaughter people on a large scale. There was no reason to suppose that future wars would not follow the trend. The trend in conventional war since 1945, however, at least in the West, has been to seek more ethical strategies that deliberately avoid civilians and refrain from the sort of raids against centres of population that both sides employed during the Second World War and in later campaigns, such as Korea.

In part, this is because of revulsion at the consequences of city-bombing; in part, it is because of a view that, even at its height, the strategic effects were limited as societies absorbed punishment in preference to surrendering; in part, because targeting has reached levels of precision unimaginable in the past. We have reached the point where the expectation is that only the intended target should be hit and any collateral damage is unacceptable. This could change. Perhaps under the strain of war, attitudes could switch, as they have switched before, into a position where the old arguments about getting at governments through their miserable populations will appear credible again. There may simply be a visceral desire for retribution.  We can see that Russia has made regular reference to its nuclear capability since the start of its intervention in Ukraine , presumably to persuade NATO to stay clear. At the same time, the fact that it has picked on Georgia and Ukraine, neither members of NATO, but only made menacing noises to countries such as  Estonia , a member of NATO, demonstrates that deterrence is far from irrelevant

A social or moral constraint is not the same as a physical constraint. The experience of war will test any taboo. Soldiers can be recruited into an army, have the rules of war explained to them, find the idea of harming innocents repugnant, yet as circumstances change and the conflict becomes more intense, they find themselves engaged in those very acts that would have horrified and shamed them not long before. This can also happen at the governmental level. The international system is one in which individual states are not subject to any higher authority and norms are not universally shared. At desperate moments of existential threat, in a country battling against overwhelming military odds, concerns about breaking taboos may suddenly become less pressing. A number of restraints were in place at the start of the Second World War, including proscriptions on the use of chemical weapons, attacks on merchant shipping and bombardments of civilian populations. Only the one on chemical use held. They all came under pressure as the war became more total. Thus the war did not open with air raids against cities, as many had feared, but soon cities in the way of invading German forces were attacked. It took almost a year before air raids against large centres of population began to become common. They initially reflected notions about how popular morale could be a legitimate target to undermine war production. They then came to reflect a lack of alternative options and a yearning for revenge. By the end of the war, with the allies having freedom of the skies, bombing was progressively unrestrained, concluding with the systematic fire-bombing of Japanese cities and then the use of the two  atom bombs.  Political leaders were authorising actions by the end of the war that would have appalled them at the start. The taboos did not last.

Thus, a point can come during the course of a conflict when the unthinkable becomes possible. In a war of growing brutalisation and intensity, the pressures would build so that the most devastating weapons available would be used, even nuclear weapons, regardless of the consequences. We do not need to doubt that the nuclear taboo has been internalised to worry that the effect might ease during the course of a war of increasing intensity and violence. This prospect might well influence crisis behaviour. Imagine a crisis in which the leaders of one nuclear state observed that the risks of a major war with another nuclear state leading to mutual destruction were negligible because the taboo was in place. This would seem alarmingly complacent. The danger, these leaders would quickly be warned, lies not in what has been said before, but what might happen should the crisis get out of control. Even if nuclear threats are becoming less credible, the possibility of a catastrophic miscalculation remains, especially in a social and political setting already transformed by brutalising violence. Because nuclear weapons are dangerous, prudence dictates considerable caution when moving towards any situation which could create pressures for their use. This is why nuclear weapons can have a deterrent effect well beyond their logical limits. There is therefore no reason to view the normative restraints surrounding nuclear weapons as an alternative to prudential deterrent effects. It is good to have a normative peace, but it needs the backstop of a coercive peace.

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The Role of Nuclear Weapons in International Politics: A Strategic Perspective

• Andrew L. Ross
• March 30, 2009
• National Security Program
• Program on Teaching Military History

The Dawn of the Nuclear Age

The Nuclear Age began with the World War II Manhattan Project (1942–46), which culminated in the Trinity test on July 16, 1945, of the “Gadget” and the August 1945 bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Project was led by Gen. Leslie Groves; physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer directed the scientific research. The Trinity test took place on a test range north of Alamogordo, New Mexico. Gadget was a somewhat less than 20-kiloton implosion-type fission device. Its yield was the equivalent of the bomb load of 2000 fully loaded WWII B-29s. Reacting to the test, Oppenheimer quoted the Bhagavad-Gita: “I am become Death, the Shatterer of Worlds.”

Less than a month later, “Little Boy” was dropped on Hiroshima, on August 6, 1945. A gun-type bomb, it had an explosive force of roughly 15 kilotons. It was relatively simple: one piece of uranium-235 was fired at another. When Little Boy was exploded in an airburst about 1900 feet over Hiroshima, some 80,000-140,000 people were killed instantly; another 100,000 were seriously injured. The burst’s temperature was estimated to reach more than 1 million degrees Celsius. The surrounding air was ignited, resulting in an 840-foot fireball; in less than a second, it expanded to over 900 feet. The blast wave from the explosion shattered windows ten miles away and was felt 37 miles away. Over two-thirds of the buildings in Hiroshima were demolished. Virtually everything within about 4.4 miles of ground zero of the explosion was incinerated by the hundreds of fires ignited by the thermal pulse. About thirty minutes later, a heavy “black rain” infused with dirt, dust, soot, and radioactive particles began falling in areas of the city. All this was the result of a relatively small device by today’s standards.

A few days later, on August 9, “Fat Man,” a roughly 21 kiloton bomb, was exploded over Nagasaki. According to Japanese estimates, almost 24,000 people were killed and another 23,000 wounded; the lower casualty rates despite the bomb’s being larger had to do with the terrain—Nagasaki was much hillier than Hiroshima. More than 40 percent of the city was destroyed. Fat Man was an implosion-type fission weapon, a more complex plutonium bomb. Unlike Little Boy, this type of bomb had been tested—the Little Boy type had not been. This was not just continuing wartime activities using a new device, it was also a test.

On August 15, after these two uses of the bomb (and the Soviet entry into the war against Japan), Emperor Hirohito announced Japan’s surrender.

The Nuclear Revolution in Military Affairs

The Nuclear Revolution is both a revolution in military affairs (RMA) and more than an “ordinary” RMA. From the start, nuclear weapons were regarded as so qualitatively different that everything that came before was rendered “conventional.” The most powerful bombs used in WWII until August 1945 contained 10 tons of TNT; the average yield of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs was the equivalent of 18,000 tons of TNT. The first U.S. thermonuclear test, in November 1952, had a yield of over 10 megatons, almost 580 times the power of the nuclear devices exploded in August 1945. Today, one intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) warhead possesses the equivalent of the explosive power used in all of WWII.

A RMA has three components: technology, doctrine, and organization. The nuclear revolution was a technology-driven RMA. It was not the result of existing strategy. Certainly, the United States wanted to develop nuclear weapons before Germany did. But U.S. leaders didn’t have a specific use in mind—that came later. The Manhattan Project was viewed as a technological race with the Germans. That prefigured what was to come with the subsequent U.S.-Soviet technological competition. New doctrine and strategy was developed. The United States had to determine what role nuclear weapons were to play. Initially, the U.S. Army-Air Force (then the USAF after 1947) took the lead; relatively soon, the U.S. Army and the U.S. Navy went nuclear. New military organizations emerged—the Strategic Air Command, for instance. New service elites—strategic bomber pilots and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) operators in the USAF and nuclear submariners in the USN—appeared. New civilian structures were stood up, including the Atomic Energy Commission, which over time became the Department of Energy; subsequently, we saw the establishment of National Nuclear Security Administration.

There were further technological developments. Not only did we go from fission to fusion by 1952, but we also devised new delivery systems, truly intercontinental jet bombers developed relatively quickly during the 1950s, with the B-52 (which is still with us) making its appearance in the mid-1950s. In between going from bombers to ICBMs, the USAF worked on cruise missiles. The latter weren’t particularly successful in the 1950s but reappeared in the 1970s and 1980s. The Navy developed submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) that were put on new platforms, nuclear-powered submarines.

The nuclear revolution is an RMA with a difference that made a difference. There were other RMAs in the 20th century, such as the German blitzkrieg that emerged during the interwar period. Like earlier RMAs, the blitzkrieg was developed during peacetime and was tested and employed during wartime. The nuclear revolution emerged during a conflict, and nuclear weapons have not been used in war since August 1945. Their impact has greater off than on the battlefield. They have not been used against a nuclear foe. Fortunately, the world has not experienced “nuclear combat” on a “nuclear battlefield,” much less a nuclear war. There have been many tests—and we think we know a lot about the effects of nuclear explosions as a result of all those tests—but there has never been anything that resembles nuclear combat, a nuclear battlefield, or a nuclear war.

The nuclear revolution had greater strategic than operational or tactical war-fighting implications. It has been about deterrence and how we think about deterrence rather than war-fighting. Deterrence became nuclear weapons’ central role. Some, such as Bernard Brodie in 1946, recognized that very early on. Over time, a very high level of strategic interdependence developed among the states that possessed nuclear weapons, at least among those that possessed large quantities of them—the U.S. and USSR were very sensitive to each other’s nuclear moves. Some argue that nuclear weapons are responsible for what historian John Lewis Gaddis called the “long peace” of the Cold War. We have not seen a major power war since August 1945. Gaddis and other analysts argue that this is a direct result of the nuclear revolution. So we have seen a revolution in  strategic , not merely military, affairs.

Another difference is that this RMA was led by civilians rather than the military. From the Manhattan Project on, civilians—Americans, Canadians, British, former Germans—led this RMA. More important, those who were responsible for the systematic exploration and development of U.S. nuclear policy and strategy over the years have been primarily civilians, people like Bernard Brodie, a historian/political scientist at RAND and then UCLA; the mathematician Albert Wohlstetter, also at RAND; the Nobel Prize-winning economist Thomas Schelling, who was at Harvard and then the University of Maryland; and RAND’s Herman Kahn, who wrote  Thinking About the Unthinkable  (1962). These and other civilians were the pioneers— Fred Kaplan called them the “Wizards of Armageddon”—in developing nuclear thought. In the past, new strategy and doctrine were developed by the military.

The Central Role of Deterrence

In 1946, Bernard Brodie, one of the Wizards of Armageddon, observed “Thus far the chief purpose of our military establishment has been to win wars. From now on its chief purpose must be to avert them. It can have almost no other purpose.” Brodie here put deterrence front and center. Also in 1946, General H. A. P. Arnold provided a hint of how to think about deterrence: “[O]ur first line of defense is the ability to retaliate even after receiving the hardest blow the military can deliver.” This is about striking second, about being able to absorb a nuclear blow, having forces that would survive, and being able to retaliate and punish the enemy.

The objective of deterrence is to prevent aggression and war, not necessarily to be able to fight a war. In the past, we’ve often thought that the ability to deter depended on the ability to fight: to be able to defend yourself and to be able to go on the offense. Whether that logic applies to nuclear deterrence has been a matter of no little contention.

The United States has attempted to deter threats against itself and against its allies and friends. Deterrence of threats against the U.S. homeland has been referred to as core, central, or fundamental deterrence. The deterrence of threats against allies and friends is known as extended deterrence. When we’ve talked about countries like South Korea or Japan being under the U.S. nuclear umbrella or about preventing Soviet aggression against our NATO allies, we were talking about extended deterrence.

Deterrence entails persuading potential aggressors that the costs and risks of aggression are sure to exceed its benefits. This requires the requisite capabilities and the willingness to use them. Extended deterrence is regarded as more difficult than core or central deterrence: would the United States really risk the destruction of New York or San Francisco to save Bonn or Paris? It is generally thought that the target of deterrence has to be a rational actor. A very limited definition of rationality is at play here. It doesn’t mean than an adversary has to think like us; it simply has to recognize that the costs and risks of aggression will exceed the benefits. If you do A, we’ll do B, which could well be the destruction of your society as you know it.

It’s usually clear when deterrence has failed. If the Soviets had invaded Western Europe during the Cold War, deterrence would have failed. Some argue that the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 was a deterrence failure. It’s very difficult, however, to know for certain when deterrence is working. Does the fact that the USSR never invaded Western Europe mean that U.S. extended deterrence worked? That something we wanted to prevent, or deter, didn’t happen doesn’t necessarily mean that what we did worked. Conclusively demonstrating why something did not occur is always problematical.

During the Cold War, two ways were developed of persuading a potential adversary that the costs and risks of aggression would be greater than the benefits. The first approach emphasized the threat of punishment; aggression would be met with the infliction of unacceptable costs; an aggressor would pay an unacceptably high price. The second approach emphasized the denial of objectives: aggression would fail; an aggressor would be stopped and defeated. Although these two approaches were developed in the context of the dyadic, U.S.-Soviet Cold War relationship, they continue to frame the post-Cold War nuclear policy and strategy debate.

What kind of nuclear capabilities are required to punish an aggressor, to impose unacceptable costs on an aggressor? Punishment is thought to require not only offensive strike capabilities, but also retaliatory, second- (rather than first-) strike capabilities. The emphasis on second-strike capabilities requires survivable forces. Survivability is enhanced by dispersing forces, rather than concentrating them, by deploying them underground in concrete, steel-reinforced silos; or by putting them out at sea in submarines that cannot be easily tracked and targeted. Redundancy, in the form of the triad of bombers, ICBMs, and SLBMs, also enhances force survivability. Punishment embraces the defense of military systems, whether passive (dispersal, hardening) or active (point defense). It requires as well the ability to destroy urban/industrial or “countervalue” targets, a targeting capability that does not require an especially high degree of accuracy.

The threat of punishment does not require civil defense capabilities or national ballistic missile defense capabilities that would serve to erode an opponent’s ability to punish you (population centers were to remain vulnerable—Reagan’s SDI was seen as providing an offensive rather than a defensive capability). Punishment requires relatively low cost, finite, or absolute, capabilities. It provides an answer to “how much is enough?” Punishment came to be known as “Assured Destruction” or, when both sides subscribe to it, “Mutual Assured Destruction”—MAD. Advocates of this approach viewed the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972 as the enshrinement of punishment, assured destruction, and MAD. In their view, by embracing the ABM Treaty, both the U.S. and the USSR agreed not to take their population centers out of hostage.

What kind of nuclear capabilities are required to deny an aggressor the accomplishment of objectives? Denial requires all the capabilities needed for punishment and more. It emphasizes the need for a full range of offensive and defensive capabilities. Denial requires offensive strike capabilities, not just to retaliate but to strike first. Some argue that extended deterrence necessitates a first-strike capability. Like punishment, denial requires survivability and redundancy. Needed too are robust, survivable C4ISR (command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) capabilities. Unlike punishment, denial places a premium on the ability to destroy not just countervalue but military, “counterforce,” targets, especially the other side’s nuclear capabilities, such as its ICBMs and command and control centers. Counterforce targeting is much more demanding than countervalue targeting; hardened, underground target and mobile targets must be put at risk. A much higher degree of accuracy, therefore, is required. Denial demands passive and active defensive capabilities to protect not only military capabilities but population centers. It requires civil defense (air raid shelters) and national anti-ballistic missile defense capabilities as well as point defense, hardening, concealment, dispersal, and mobility.

Denial, clearly, requires a full suite of nuclear war-fighting capabilities. It emphasizes relative rather than absolute capabilities—superiority matters. Since one can never have too much superiority, denial is essentially open ended. Thus a denial posture is a great deal more expensive than a punishment posture. Kennedy and McNamara came into office convinced that the Eisenhower approach, which emphasized massive retaliation, provided too few options—it appeared to be all or nothing. They initially embraced a move to a denial, or “Flexible Response,” posture. Once McNamara realized how open ended this was, he moved to an assured destruction posture. With their emphasis on the need for not just a deterrent but a nuclear war-fighting capability, the proponents of Flexible Response became known as NUTs—nuclear utility theorists.

The positions of the two schools can be compared as follows:

We see differences in objectives here. For Assured Destruction, it’s all about the ability to deter and retaliate, to punish, to harm. Flexible Response is about the ability to deter, fight, and win a nuclear war. This is much more demanding. Flexible Response has a fallback; Assured Destruction does not. Does having a fallback make it more likely that deterrence will fail? Assured destruction answers “Yes”—and that this is an experiment we should not want to run. Does a nuclear war-fighting capability enhance or erode deterrence? According to Assured Destruction, it erodes deterrence; according to Flexible Response, it enhances deterrence.

Have we been MAD or NUTS? Both, actually. We’ve gone back and forth. At times we’ve been a combination of the two, even though the two are in tension with one another. In the 1950s, the declaratory policy of massive retaliation amounted, essentially, to an early version of Assured Destruction. Many argue that it was credible in the 1950s because the U.S. had nuclear superiority, and Assured Destruction wasn’t mutual. As noted, Kennedy and McNamara initially shifted away from Assured Destruction to Flexible Response, saw how demanding and expensive it was, and moved back to Assured Destruction. It became MAD in the late 1960s-early 1970s. Nixon and Kissinger placed a declaratory emphasis on “essential equivalence,” i.e., MAD. That’s when the ABM Treaty was negotiated and signed. After James Schlesinger came in as secretary of defense, we moved away from Assured Destruction to Flexible Response and emphasized the development of limited nuclear options, especially counterforce options. Under Carter and Reagan we moved further away from Assured Destruction to Flexible Response.

Over the years, we’ve been MAD and NUTs. What should we be now? What specifically are we trying to deter with nuclear weapons?

• State use of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction?
• State use of conventional weapons? Do we still need to use nuclear weapons to deter other states’ use of conventional weapons?
• Non-state actor use of nuclear or other WMD? (Can terrorists be deterred the way states are deterred?)
• State support for non-state actor use of nuclear or other WMD?
• Non-state actor use of “conventional” weapons?
• State support for non-state actor use of “conventional” weapons?

Today most advocates of Assured Destruction, or a minimalist approach, argue that the only role for nuclear weapons is the deterrence of the use of nuclear weapons. The proponents of a Flexible Response, or a maximalist approach, continue to see a broader role for nuclear weapons.

Non-deterrent Roles

Nuclear weapons have had a truncated war-fighting role. They were only used in August 1945; most of us think that’s a good thing. A tradition of nonuse, which some think is sufficiently strong as to constitute a nuclear taboo, has developed over the years.

For some, nuclear weapons clearly are a status symbol, an indicator or attribute of major power status. The U.S. development of nuclear weapons was replicated by the USSR (1949), Britain (1952), France (1960), China (1964), Israel (1966/67), India (1974, 1998) and Pakistan (1998), and the DPRK (2006). Now we’re concerned about Iran going nuclear. Is it a coincidence that the first five nuclear powers were the five permanent members of the UN Security Council? Of course they’re also the only nuclear weapons states recognized by the Nonproliferation Treaty of 1968.

In addition to their role as status symbols, nuclear weapons have served as an equalizer. During the Cold War, nuclear weapons were relied upon by the United States and its NATO allies to counter, or offset, the conventional advantage of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. This was what, for instance, the Eisenhower administration’s New Look was all about.

Today, the tables have been turned. It’s the U.S. that possesses an enormous conventional advantage; Russia, which in conventional military terms is a mere rump state of the former Soviet Union, relies on its nuclear capabilities to the extent that it’s concerned about the need to counter U.S. and NATO conventional capabilities. Others, state and non-state alike, seek a nuclear counter to U.S. conventional superiority. There are a number of reasons states seek to go nuclear. But to the extent that is U.S. military capabilities that spur them to do so, it is not U.S. nuclear capabilities but U.S. conventional capabilities, particularly the manner in which they have been used since 9/11, that is most prominently at play.

Nuclear weapons have thus served as a substitute for conventional forces. In the past, the U.S. and NATO quite explicitly substituted nuclear for conventional weapons. Today, Russia is doing that; like the United States and NATO in the past, Russia more recently hasn’t been able to afford, or hasn’t wanted to pay for, the conventional capabilities required to match those of an erstwhile adversary. Again as in the past, nuclear weapons continue to play a role in dampening defense spending.

Finally, nuclear weapons arguably have played a role in discouraging both horizontal and vertical proliferation. Extended deterrence has provided an excuse for European states such as Germany and Asian states such as Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan for not going nuclear. It has been suggested as well that the sheer size of the U.S. (and Soviet or Russian) nuclear arsenals have dissuaded others from attempting to increase their nuclear capabilities or even joining the nuclear club since competing seriously with the likes of the United States is hopeless. For some (although not this author), this dissuasion effect is cause for not reducing the U.S. nuclear arsenal below the Moscow Treaty range of 1,700-2,200 warheads.

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Ending Nuclear Testing to Advance Global Peace and Security

About the author, robert floyd.

Robert Floyd is Executive Secretary of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO). 

26 August 2022

The spread of nuclear weapons and the threat of their use is creating well-founded anxiety in all parts of the world. In the face of current circumstances, it can be difficult to discern the hard-fought mechanisms and tools in place to address concerns about the truly global threat posed by these terrible weapons.

In 2009, the United Nations General Assembly brought attention to the investments made in global peace and security with its unanimous adoption of resolution 64/35 , by which it declared 29 August the International Day against Nuclear Tests . The resolution recognized that “every effort should be made to end nuclear tests in order to avert devastating and harmful effects on the lives and health of people and the environment,” and that “the end of nuclear tests is one of the key means of achieving the goal of a nuclear-weapon-free world.”

More than 60 years after the devastating use of nuclear weapons on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the General Assembly had acknowledged the need for increased public awareness and education about the dangers of nuclear testing and the need to end such tests. 

Between 1945 and 1996, more than 2,000 nuclear tests were conducted at dozens of sites around the world. During that period, the average explosive yield of nuclear tests each year was equivalent to nearly 1,000 Hiroshima-sized bombs. The tests helped create weapons that are orders of magnitude more powerful than those used during the Second World War and have long-lasting health and environmental consequences. 

In 1996, while recognizing that a nuclear arms race was one that could not be won, States adopted the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) to ban nuclear tests by anyone, anywhere, for all time. In the 25 years since the Treaty was opened for signature, 186 States have signed it and 174 have ratified it; fewer than a dozen nuclear tests have been conducted, with only one country carrying out tests this millennium. This underscores the meaningful and measurable CTBT contribution to preventing the further spread and use of nuclear weapons.

Due to the success of the Treaty, it is often taken for granted that we live in an age where nuclear testing is recognized as a clear threat to international peace and security. This is understandable because for more than two decades, every nuclear test has been met with near universal condemnation, and nuclear test sites have been shut down or converted for other national security purposes.

The adoption of a total ban on nuclear testing was never a foregone conclusion. More than 40 years passed between the first call for a stand-still agreement on nuclear testing in 1954 and the adoption of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty in 1996. Putting in place a comprehensive, universal, verifiable and non-discriminatory prohibition on nuclear testing was a momentous achievement for humanity, and a victory for science and diplomacy in support of peace and security. We can all be inspired by the history of the Treaty and the efforts it took to make it a reality, from the extensive scientific research to the long hours of negotiations.

This Treaty has already accomplished a lot. The signatures and ratifications from countries committing themselves to a global ban on nuclear tests are an essential contribution to our collective efforts to strengthen the powerful international norm against nuclear testing and to achieve a world free of such tests.

The CTBT prohibition on nuclear testing is backed by a proven global verification regime. The lynchpin of this regime—the International Monitoring System (IMS), with over 300 monitoring facilities around the world—is nearly complete. A union of ingenuity, engineering and international cooperation, IMS has demonstrated its ability to meet the verification requirements of the Treaty on multiple occasions, including detection of all six nuclear tests conducted this century. The global cooperation required to design, implement and operate the verification regime offers a blueprint for how to develop effective multilateral verification measures.

The verification regime also provides value beyond the core mission of nuclear test monitoring. The range of applications of data collected by the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) are broad and offer myriad benefits for the global community, from the contribution of real-time data to tsunami early warning systems to earthquake detection and climate change research.

The use of CTBTO data for civil and scientific applications also furthers our nuclear test monitoring mission. When scientists and researchers use the data to study whale migration patterns or asteroids entering the Earth’s atmosphere, their enhanced understanding of these processes helps CTBTO analysts distinguish naturally occurring events from nuclear explosions.

While the Treaty has already helped advance the nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament agenda, we must remain vigilant. The proliferation of nuclear weapons and the threat of their use continue to pose unacceptable risks to humanity. There are nearly 13,000 nuclear weapons in the world today, and as United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres noted in his address to the Tenth Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (New York, 1–26 August 2022) , humanity is “just one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation.”  

Effective arms control and disarmament measures are the best tools we have to address this risk, and the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty and its verification regime are integral to the non-proliferation and disarmament architecture. As we continue to build on the Treaty’s success, my hope is that every 29 August we pass, we are that much closer to achieving a complete end to nuclear testing. We owe this to ourselves and especially to future generations.  

Click here to see Executive Secretary Floyd's video message on the occasion of the International Day Against Nuclear Tests - 29 August 2022.

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Did Nuclear Weapons Bring the World to the Edge of War or Did They Help Ensure Peace? Essay

Nuclear weapons are among the weapons of mass destruction, which were first detonated in1945 during the Second World War. Primarily, the United States of America is the only nation that has used nuclear weapons in wars, having detonated two atomic bombs in two Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, on 6 th and 9 th August 1945 respectively.

The destruction of these two acts was immense and the effects of the same can still be felt to date. In the recent past, the possession and production of nuclear weapons has brought much tension in the world. From the time of these two bombings, nuclear weapons are closely monitored and supervised. This paper will discuss whether nuclear weapons brought the world to edge of war, as well as their role in ensuring peace.

The nations that have acknowledged that they possess nuclear weapons are United States of America, China, North Korea, France, Russia, United Kingdom, Pakistan, and India. Israel is suspected to possess this ammunition but has not acknowledged or denied the claim. However, the numbers of nations yearning to have nuclear power for either military or economic are many.

Due to this, nations that already possess these weapons use this as a bargaining point, however, there are restrictions on who can produce or buy these weapons. Moreover, governments believe that nuclear weapons advance their national security, provide insurance against future risks and uncertainties (Paone, 2009).

Other reasons why a country may want to acquire nuclear powers are if one of its aggressors owns these weapons, to advance its international standings, running of economy through nuclear energy.

International relations are soaring since the invention of nuclear weapons. It is clear that with increase of nuclear, there is high risk of a nuclear war (Karp and Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, 1992); indeed, nuclear weapons have brought the world to the verge of war.

The ability of a nation to destroy another population and environment with these weapons launched from far has increased the risk of military conflict. In addition, the risk of nuclear terrorism is real, in the wake of increased terror attacks in the world. Although up until now terrorists have not used nuclear weapons in their attacks, there is a fear that, terrorist could access and use these weapons.

In the event that terror groups cannot access nuclear weapons, they can choose to attack nuclear power plants, leading to catastrophic situations. Nuclear weapons are beyond reach by small terror groups; however, in the era where some states are exporting terror, these states can facilitate terror organization to obtain nuclear weapons.

Even with restrictions and regulation on states intending to acquire nuclear weapon, some states have been able to obtain weapons of mass destruction illegally. With technological advancement, terrorists would not face any hitches in manufacture of nuclear weapons. In addition, some irresponsible states could possibly sell nuclear weapons to terror groups in the black market. The other risk is unstable and poorly governed nations acquiring nuclear weapons and using them irresponsibly against its people or other nations.

Nuclear weapons have not ensured peace since there is fear and uncertainty of what could happen next. It is likely that one nation will use their weapons offensively. In addition, there is also the risk of accidents in the nuclear plants; nations in the nuclear club are able to interfere with lesser nations affairs because of their military strength, a case in example being the invasion of Iraq by United States.

Lesser countries are made to feel like subjects to the larger nations because of their military powers. This has led superpower nations to meddle with smaller nations’ affairs, as they are defenseless.

One of the major reasons why Iraq was invaded and occupied by the foreign forces was suspicion that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction; thus, the more superior nations joined and set to destroy and disarm him. It was largely believed that Saddam had large amounts of chemical and biological weapons; however, it is still not clear whether Saddam possessed or intended to reopen nuclear plants.

This conflict has caused other wars and terrorism acts, given that some nations cannot trust others handling nuclear warheads. A report indicates that Mr. Hussein had ambitions of building a science hub and weapons of mass destruction but his capacity had gone down since 1991 (Holdstock and Barnaby, 2003).

Due to this invasion, some people became radicalized and continued to wage wars against other people and nations. One case study is the bombing of the twin tower in the United States of America. These acts of terror can directly be traced and linked to nuclear weapons; indeed, “the acts of terror have come in to being neither by accidents nor by deliberate international arrangement; it has resulted from a combination of both political tension and technological advancement of weaponry” (Edwards, 1986, p. 14)

India and Pakistan conflicts could escalate to nuclear war. These two neighboring states have had conflicts since decolonization, as they both claim a disputed territory among other issues. India acquired nuclear warheads and hence Pakistan with the aid China. The acquisition of nuclear weapons by both countries continues to raise fear that their conflict could escalate to nuclear conflict. Indeed, since India and Pakistan acquired nuclear weapons, the level of conflict has considerately risen.

There is animosity among nations in the nuclear club and the rest, whereby the nations in the nuclear club use their authority to cartel the hopes of other nations of acquiring nuclear energy. The hostility has grown to a level that these nations can wedge or sponsor terror attacks to nuclear states. In addition, religious states as Islamic could use force in their crusades in attempt to convert people into their religion.

The errant nations who defile orders and continue to produce their own weapons are dealt with militarily as was the case with Iraq and its leader Saddam Hussein. Other nations like North Korea and Iran receive a lot of condemnation and the United States of America has been requesting these nations to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons in their territories (Holdstock and Barnaby, 2003).

The nuclear club wants to reserve all the rights to them; however, members of the club can go an extra mile to protect their ‘privileges’ even if it means warfare. Moreover, the reasons that they give why some nations should not have weapons of mass destruction are instability and poor governance.

There have been treaties signed by nations with nuclear arsenals to either reduce, or stop the production. However, there are nations who are not complying, hence leading to tensions among members of the nuclear club. The result of this is the likelihood of eruption of war due to some disgruntled nations (Holdstock and Barnaby, 2003, p. 54).

Another conflict being fueled by nuclear weapons is Israel and Middle East conflict. Israel does not confirm or denies its possession of nuclear weapons; it has been difficult to settle its conflict with nations in the Middle East. Since Israel owns weapons of mass destruction and hence more superior to its enemies, it has always been provoking and defying fire agreements. In the past, Israel has used un-proportional fire in short war encounters.

Moreover, Israel may in the future use its chemical or biological weapons of mass destruction. Protesting against this, Iran has been condemning and requesting the UN to warn Israel against its proliferation of nuclear weapons. Indeed, Israel’s nuclear arsenals have just led to an increase of conflicts with its enemies, who are also likely to seek for nuclear weapons for offensive purposes (Karsh, 2000).

In the quest for knowing what nations in the nuclear club are developing, nations have resulted in spying, leaving the world on the edge of a war. For instance, the US is suspected to have spies in Iran, Iraq and china, while the Russians are also engaged in this vice. In an effort of deterring nations from obtaining nuclear weapons, nations are arresting scientists believed or linked to aiding in the proliferation of nuclear arsenals; for instance, in a recent case, the US abducted a nuclear scientist from Iran causing tension between the two nations.

According to Anon (1982), “the existence of nuclear weapons, nuclear deterrence has been the most important mechanism in keeping the world in peace for the last 40 years.” Peace is described as absence of war; and in this case, since the fall of the Soviet Union, the world has not gone into a large war except local conflicts after 1945 especially in Africa and Asia though none of these has escalated to the use of nuclear weapons.

Nuclear weapons have led to sustainable peace in the world since 1945. There is control and monitoring of nations with these weapons hence avoiding a state of war. Nuclear weapons have also deterred aggressor nation from provoking others in fear of attack.

There is a notion that nuclear weapons prevent armed conflicts due to undesired risks that pose to both parties. On the other hand, the existence of nuclear deterrence has promoted peace in the world. Nuclear deterrence is the refraining of an enemy from using nuclear weapons since he could be destroyed as a consequence.

For instance, if two nations choose to engage in nuclear conflict the consequences could be mutual destruction. Governments and leaders are less likely to engage or provoke nations with nuclear weapons, while nations who have strong friends in the nuclear club are respected. Thus, peace has prevailed in the world due to fear. Nevertheless, the bottom line of peace is that nations in the nuclear club could support and defend their weaker allies if need be.

Before the invention of nuclear arsenals, warfare was used by governments as a means of achieving political mileage but not any longer. The nation in the nuclear club relationship is based on mistrust; there are always speculations that other nations are advancing technologically more than the other is, reducing the tendency of aggravation of each other.

Having witnessed the massive destruction that nuclear weapons caused during the 1945 bombing, fewer nations are willing to engage in wars that could lead to nuclear war. After the use of these weapons, a body was formed that controls the affairs of the world, with the United Nations being a peace organization. It was formed during the Second World War, came into being officially in October 1945, with the main duties being to maintain international peace, security, and to develop friendly relations among nations

Since many sovereign nations are signatories to the UN, they are limited or governed and deterred from engaging in wars. The UN has promoted the peace to some level as it creates a platform for dialogue for countries with disputes.

In extreme cases, the UN also intervenes in areas where there is conflict through it peacekeeping programmes to stop the conflict from escalating. Since the UN is a neutral party, it has helped in solving and stopping many wars as well as advocating for non-proliferation of nuclear warheads. Moreover, the UN has its special forces that work alongside other military to maintain peace.

In conclusion, nuclear weapons have helped to ensure peace in the world given that the world has not suffered a major war since the first use of nuclear weapons. Nuclear deterrence is one of the ways nuclear weapons have aided to guarantee peace.

Many leaders and governments are not quick to engage in warfare; indeed, the possession of these weapons by government provides national security of their nations and those of their allies. The understanding of the destruction caused by nuclear weapons has promoted peace. These weapons usually cause immense destruction and can affect the mutual parties. However, it is still not clear whether the balance of terror can continue to sustain the peace prevailing presently.

Due to the events leading to first use of nuclear weapon, a peace organization was formed, the UN, a body that has been instrumental in ensuring peace in the world. In addition, the body has played a major role in deterring the use of nuclear weapons. Nevertheless, this body has some limitation, since it is funded by the super powers, who are also permanent members of the Security Council, hence the UN sometimes cannot have a great influence over them. A case in mind is the invasion of Iraq.

On the other hand, weapons of mass destruction have brought the world to the edge of war. The nations with these weapons boast of superior military strength, and due to this, they can meddle and provoke other smaller nations. In the attempt of controlling of perforation of weapons of mass destruction, smaller nations have been invaded.

There is always spying of other nations to check what they are doing. Acts of terror in the world are largely linked to nuclear weapons and the way members of the nuclear weapon club treat their nations. Even in the nuclear club, there is mistrust among members, as they are trying to outdo one another with development of new weapons.

However, due to the catastrophic consequence of chemical and biological weapons, the world should consider unilateral nuclear weapons disarments programmes. Moreover, the reduction of amount of weapons in the world could certainly reduce risks and tensions in the world.

Reference List

Anon.1982. The Economist , Volume 284, Issues 7244-7256. London: Charles Reynell Publisher.

Edwards, J. C., 1986. Nuclear weapons, the balance of terror, the quest for peace. Surrey: Sunny press.

Holdstock, D and Barnaby, F., 2003. The British nuclear weapons programme, 1952-2002 . London: Routledge.

Karp, R. C. and Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. 1992. Security without nuclear weapons? Different perspectives on non-nuclear security . Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Karsh, E., 2000. Israel: From war to peace? London: Routledge.

Paone, R. M., 2001. Evolving New World order/disorder: China-Russia-United States-NATO . Oxford: University Press of America.

Segell, G., 2005. Axis of evil and rogue states: the Bush administration . London: Glenn Segell publishers.

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Bibliography

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Essay 414 – The threat of nuclear weapons maintains world peace

Gt writing task 2 / essay sample # 414.

You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.

Write about the following topic:

The threat of nuclear weapons maintains world peace. Nuclear power also provides cheap and clean energy. Thus, the benefits of nuclear technology far outweigh the disadvantages.

Do you agree or disagree?

Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.

Write at least 250 words.

Model Answer:

The issue of nuclear technology, including nuclear weapons and nuclear power, has long been a subject of intense debate. Some opine that the threat of nuclear weapons is necessary to maintain global peace, and also emphasise the cheap and clean energy provided by nuclear power. In this essay, I will disagree with this opinion, and present the perspective asserting that the disadvantages of nuclear technology outweigh the benefits.

One of the primary concerns regarding nuclear technology is the potential for catastrophic accidents and the long-lasting environmental consequences they can entail. The 1986 Chernobyl disaster in the Soviet Union and the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan serve as grim reminders of the devastating effects of nuclear incidents. These accidents not only caused immediate loss of life and widespread health issues but also resulted in the contamination of vast areas, rendering them uninhabitable for generations. The inherent risks associated with nuclear power pose a significant threat to human safety and the environment, making it imperative to reconsider the widespread adoption of this technology.

Moreover, the disposal of nuclear waste presents a significant challenge that must be addressed. Radioactive waste generated by nuclear power plants remains hazardous for thousands of years, requiring safe and secure storage facilities. However, no foolproof long-term solution for the disposal of nuclear waste has been developed yet. The potential environmental and health hazards associated with nuclear waste demand careful consideration and call into question the sustainability of relying on nuclear power as a long-term energy solution.

Finally, the proliferation of nuclear weapons is a grave concern. The possession and stockpiling of nuclear weapons by various nations have led to heightened global tensions and increased the risk of nuclear conflict. The destructive power of these weapons poses an existential threat to humanity and undermines the very notion of global peace.

Therefore, while nuclear technology may offer certain benefits, such as cheap energy and deterrence, the potential risks and drawbacks associated with it far outweigh these advantages. The environmental hazards, challenges in waste disposal, and the risk of nuclear proliferation pose significant concerns that cannot be ignored.

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News Analysis

Why Russia Is Protecting North Korea From Nuclear Monitors

The monitors have provided vivid evidence of how Russia is keeping Pyongyang brimming with fuel and other goods, presumably in return for weapons that Russia can use in Ukraine.

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By David E. Sanger

Reporting from Washington

Through the most tense encounters with President Vladimir V. Putin’s Russia over the past decade, there has been one project in which Washington and Moscow have claimed common cause: keeping North Korea from expanding its arsenal of nuclear weapons.

Now, even that has fallen apart.

On Thursday, Russia used its veto power in the United Nations Security Council to kill off a U.N. panel of experts that has been monitoring North Korea’s efforts to evade sanctions over its nuclear program for the past 15 years.

Russia’s discomfort with the group is a new development. Moscow once welcomed the panel’s detailed reports about sanctions violations and considered Pyongyang’s nuclear program to be a threat to global security.

But more recently, the panel has provided vivid evidence of how Russia is keeping the North brimming with fuel and other goods, presumably in return for the artillery shells and missiles that the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, is shipping to Russia for use against Ukraine. The group has produced satellite images of ship-to-ship transfers of oil, showing how the war in Ukraine has proved to be a bonanza for the North.

The apparent dismantlement of the panel, which had no enforcement power, is one more piece of evidence of how what was once a global effort to constrain nuclear proliferation has eroded rapidly over the past two years.

“It’s a remarkable shift,” said Robert Einhorn, a State Department official during the Obama administration who is now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

“For much of the post-Cold War period, the United States, Russia and China were partners in dealing with proliferation challenges, especially with North Korea and Iran. They were fully on the American and European side during the Iran negotiations, and helped with North Korea during the ‘fire and fury’ period in 2016 to 2017,” he said, referring to the Obama administration’s final negotiations with the North and former President Donald J. Trump’s threats when he came to office.

In that era, Russia regularly voted for sanctions against North Korea, as did China, even while they all did a fair bit of business, and more than a little smuggling at sea and over their narrow border crossing , especially a rail bridge where the three all meet.

But as Mr. Einhorn noted, that unity has fractured with the re-emergence of great power competition. The partnership on containing nuclear threats, even from North Korea, whose nuclear facilities pose a safety challenge to both China and Russia, has vanished.

Russia is now helping North Korea evade sanctions, and neither Russia nor China is actively working to pressure Iran to slow its accumulation of enriched uranium, the critical step needed if it ever decides to build nuclear weapons.

When resolutions have come up to condemn North Korea for its constant barrage of missile tests, Russia and China have rejected them. But eliminating the “experts committee,” which began its work in 2009, cuts new territory in relieving pressure on the country.

The Russian government made no apologies for killing off the panel.

“It is obvious to us that the U.N. Security Council can no longer use old templates in relation to the problems of the Korean Peninsula,” a spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, was quoted by Reuters as saying. “The United States and its allies have clearly demonstrated that their interest does not extend beyond the task of ‘strangling’ the D.P.R.K. by all available means,” she added, using the abbreviation for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The committee had no great investigative powers, but it was thorough — and its findings often created headlines. It followed oil shipments, and explained what happened when ships turned off their transponders so they would not be tracked at sea. The group looked at banking relationships and luxury goods that made it to North Korea, despite sanctions passed 18 years ago. It also inspired private groups to dig deeper, explaining mysteries like how Mr. Kim got his luxury cars.

The experts were outsiders, and their findings were often not adopted. “Everything that goes into the report has to be approved by Security Council members,” Jenny Town, a North Korea expert and senior fellow at the Stimson Center, a nonproliferation think tank, noted on Friday. “So while it is an investigative body, its findings exist in a political process.”

Still, the existence of the committee gave an international, neutral imprimatur to the charges of sanctions evasion. “They have been very useful in producing some gravitas on sanctions implementation,” said Ms. Town, who is also the director of 38 North, which publishes analysis of North Korea’s capabilities and pronouncements.

The State Department denounced Russia’s decision, saying that the country had “cynically undermined international peace and security,” and declaring that “Russia alone will own the outcome of this veto: a D.P.R.K. more emboldened to reckless behavior and destabilizing provocations.”

No one is quite sure how many nuclear weapons the North Koreans have produced since the first nuclear crisis with the country, in 1994, or since it first tested a nuclear weapon in October 2006 during the George W. Bush administration.

Experts outside the government believe the arsenal is around 50 or 60 weapons now, though the estimates range from as low as 40 to as high as 100 — a reflection of how little is understood in the absence of inspections by another arm of the United Nations, the International Atomic Energy Agency.

But the biggest concern about the North is not the size of the arsenal but its intentions. Two leading North Korea experts, Robert L. Carlin, a former top intelligence official who was often involved in North Korea negotiations, and Siegfried S. Hecker, the former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, argued late last year that “the situation on the Korean Peninsula is more dangerous than it has been at any time since early June 1950,” when the Korean War broke out.

New declarations by North Korea, they said, make it clear the country has given up on the idea of reunification and may be preparing for a military solution to the division of the peninsula.

“Like his grandfather in 1950, Kim Jong-un has made a strategic decision to go to war,” they argued, a position many of their former colleagues in the intelligence world said was overly wrought. “We do not know when or how Kim plans to pull the trigger, but the danger is already far beyond the routine warnings in Washington, Seoul and Tokyo about Pyongyang’s provocations.”

In fact, the North’s language has changed, and it now talks more openly — as Russian officials do — about using nuclear weapons if provoked on matters large or small.

David E. Sanger covers the Biden administration and national security. He has been a Times journalist for more than four decades and has written several books on challenges to American national security. More about David E. Sanger

Our Coverage of the War in Ukraine

News and Analysis

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has signed into law three measures aimed at replenishing the ranks of his country’s depleted army, including lowering the draft age to 25 .

With continued American aid to Ukraine stalled and against the looming prospect of a second Trump presidency, NATO officials are looking to take more control of directing military support from Ukraine’s allies  — a role that the United States has played for the past two years.

Exploding drones hit an oil refinery and munitions factory far to the east of Moscow, in what Ukrainian media and military experts said was among the longest-range strikes with Ukrainian drones so far in the war .

Conditional Support: Ukraine wants a formal invitation to join NATO, but NATO has no appetite for taking on a new member  that, because of the alliance’s covenant of collective security, would draw it into the biggest land war in Europe since 1945.

“Shell Hunger”: A desperate shortage of munitions in Ukraine  is warping tactics and the types of weapons employed. What few munitions remain are often mismatched with battlefield needs as the country’s forces prepare for an expected Russian offensive this summer.

Turning to Marketing: Ukraine’s troop-starved brigades have started their own recruitment campaigns  to fill ranks depleted in the war with Russia.

How We Verify Our Reporting

Our team of visual journalists analyzes satellite images, photographs , videos and radio transmissions  to independently confirm troop movements and other details.

We monitor and authenticate reports on social media, corroborating these with eyewitness accounts and interviews. Read more about our reporting efforts .

The threat of nuclear weapons maintains world peace. Nuclear power provides cheap and clean energy. The benefits of nuclear technology far outweigh the disadvantages. To what extent do you agree or disagree? Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your knowledge or experience.

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Include an introduction and conclusion

A conclusion is essential for IELTS writing task 2. It is more important than most people realise. You will be penalised for missing a conclusion in your IELTS essay.

The easiest paragraph to write in an essay is the conclusion paragraph. This is because the paragraph mostly contains information that has already been presented in the essay – it is just the repetition of some information written in the introduction paragraph and supporting paragraphs.

The conclusion paragraph only has 3 sentences:

• Restatement of thesis
• Prediction or recommendation

To summarize, a robotic teacher does not have the necessary disciple to properly give instructions to students and actually works to retard the ability of a student to comprehend new lessons. Therefore, it is clear that the idea of running a classroom completely by a machine cannot be supported. After thorough analysis on this subject, it is predicted that the adverse effects of the debate over technology-driven teaching will always be greater than the positive effects, and because of this, classroom teachers will never be substituted for technology.

Start your conclusion with a linking phrase. Here are some examples:

• In conclusion
• To conclude
• To summarize
• In a nutshell

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