POLSCI 1AA3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Nuclear Arms Race, Decapitation Strike, Nuclear Proliferation
1 Mar 2017
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Political science 1ab3 2017 lecture 8a: it"s a mad world. What was cold about the cold war: 1947-1991. The cold war was more than just a military standoff between two powerful states. Both sides also represented fundamentally different economic, political, and ideological systems. It was assumed by most, including strategic planners, that the cold. War would continue until it reached a tipping point when armed conflict would ultimately resolve the issue. Nuclear deterrence is a security strategy based upon a simple premise: Any invasion directed at the nuclear state or its allies will automatically be responded to with a devastating nuclear retaliation. In essence deterrence makes the cost of military conflict too high for it to be rational. If this logic is extended to a bi-polar system where both parties have access to nuclear weapons, the net result is that all-out war of any kind becomes less rather than more likely.
