Question

Discuss the evolution of US nuclear deterrence strategies from Massive Retaliation through Mutual Assured Destruction. What led to the adoption of each strategy?

Answer 1

Mutual assured destruction was the military concept for nuclear strategy which says that, it is essential to retaliate in a much greater force in an event of an attack. In the other words, if an enemy tries to attack the country or its allies, then it is important that we counter-attack them in full force, with the help of nuclear weapons. The fundamental role of U.S. nuclear forces is to deter nuclear attack on the United States as well as its allies and partners.

Evolution of US nuclear deterrence strategies - After the United States’ nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, war changed. Until then, the overriding purpose of military forces had ostensibly been to win wars.

According to Bernard Brodie, who is considered to be an US strategist, the chief purpose of using nuclear weapons should be to avert them, since It can have almost no other useful purpose. That is the point where nuclear deterrence took its birth, which was seemingly a rational arrangement by which peace and stability arised by the threat of mutually assured destruction. Advocates of nuclear deterrence insist that we should thank mutual assured destruction for the fact that a third world war has been avoided, even when tensions between the two superpowers the US and the USSR ran high.

MAD’s credibility plummeted even further during the last stages of the Cold War, as the Soviet military buildup convinced U.S. policymakers that the U.S.S.R. did not believe in MAD and was seeking nuclear advantage. The Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan and on Africa revealed that MAD could not protect all U.S. interests. Therefore, U.S. leaders talked about the significance of nuclear superiority and about the possibility of surviving a nuclear war.

Then president Ronald Reagan called for missile defense. In the year 1983, he declared that "to look down to an endless future with both of us sitting here with these horrible missiles aimed at each other and the only thing preventing a war is just that, as no one pulls this trigger, and this is unthinkable." When the United States emerged as the dominant military power, defense became a much more attractive option than deterrence.

The United States continues to reduce the use of nuclear weapons in deterring non-nuclear attack. However, nuclear forces continues to play a limited but critical role in the Nation’s strategy to address threats posed by states that possess nuclear weapons and states not in compliance with their nuclear nonproliferation obligations.