... are several reasons for ‘mythologising’ nuclear deterrence. Since the end of the Cold War, there has been a widespread belief that every conceivable reason for nuclear... ... in history, the hegemony of a single power, the US, has been established globally. Nuclear weapons remain in the arsenals of the great powers - though fewer than at the... ... environment that the idea of inflicting a strategic defeat on the nuclear power the is Russia – in a proxy conventional war in Ukraine –has been born. Russia’s atomic...
... proven to be a much more limited tool than they expected.
In fact, the US has now set itself the task – unthinkable during the Cold War – of trying to defeat another nuclear superpower in a strategically important region, without resorting to atomic weapons,... ... pondering transferring F-16 fighter jets and long-range missiles.
It is likely that this US strategy is based on the belief that the Russian leadership would not dare use nuclear weapons in the current conflict, and that its references to the nuclear arsenal at its disposal are nothing more than ...
... of preventing war. This scenario may be possible between India and Pakistan, in North Korea or, to a lesser degree, Israel.
Nuclear weapons have yet another function which I would call deterrence IV. Both military strategists and societies at large firmly believe that any major armed conflict would be unacceptable if it can involve nuclear powers, especially the Soviet Union/Russia and the United States, and consequently develop into a global catastrophe. This type of deterrence largely helped to preserve peace during the “mature” Cold War. The Soviet Union and China did not send their troops to Vietnam directly, fearing escalation. The United States and ...