Mapping Global Strategic Stability in the Twenty-First Century

... States and the Soviet Union to the brink of an all-out nuclear exchange. Back then, strategic stability essentially meant an absence of stimuli for either of the two rival... ... defenses by concluding the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 1972. In this way, both Cold War adversaries were sufficiently deterred from seriously considering attacking... ... understanding on both sides was that a “central war” between the Warsaw Pact and NATO would not stay conventional for more than a few hours, and that a nuclear war,...