Debates on Dynamite

..., the proxy war waged by the United States and its allies against Russia is not a “bug” but a “feature” of nuclear deterrence. This paradox is confirmed not only in theory but also in historical practice. At a minimum, the Vietnam and Afghan conflicts of the bipolar era constituted proxy wars in which one nuclear superpower confronted the other indirectly; yet they were never interpreted as a failure of nuclear deterrence. Consequently, nuclear weapons cannot be used to eliminate instability ...