Nuclear deterrence

Nuclear deterrence is based on both sides’ fear of the other’s use of nuclear weapons, and on the doctrine of mutual vulnerability. Deterrence consists in preventing an act by persuading the actor concerned that the costs of such an action exceed its benefits. The fact that two adversaries dissuade each other in this way depends above all on the ability of the attacked party to retain the means of nuclear strike against the aggressor after having suffered a first atomic strike.

Since the end of the Cold War, the question of the legitimacy and effectiveness of nuclear deterrence has been debated more than ever. There have been few direct conflicts for 70 years between countries practicing nuclear deterrence, a fact highlighted by its supporters but this does not constitute absolute proof in the eyes of its detractors, who attribute this relative peace more to other factors such as the immense trauma left by the Second World War, the spectacular increase in economic and cultural exchanges which erased traditional geopolitical divisions, the awareness of the danger of the “nuclear winter” which could be provoked by a nuclear war regional, not only by such a war between two nuclear superpowers, or the creation of various organizations such as NATO, the European Union and the United Nations.

During the Cold War

The development and implementation of the principles of nuclear deterrence date back to the beginning of the Cold War (It is however interesting to note that a similar theory, although not nuclear, had already been set out by Émile Zola in 1898, in his soap opera “Paris”: “And thus I give to all peoples the terrible gift of destruction, of omnipotence…so that all peoples, equally armed with lightning, disarm, in terror and the uselessness of self-annihilation”). These principles evolve according to political and technological changes, but the basic principle consists in preserving in all circumstances a “second strike capability”, a driving force in the arms race which opposed the two superpowers during the Cold War. In the 1950s and 1960s, deterrence essentially targeted major urban and economic centers, taking civilian populations hostage. Ever more powerful thermonuclear bombs are being tested, one of which would be enough to destroy a city like Paris and its suburbs. In the 1970s, technological progress made it possible to diversify the targets, without ever one of the two Great beings being in a position to be able to destroy all the military potential of the other and therefore to break the balance on which the reciprocal nuclear deterrent was based between them.

Since the Cold War

Nuclear weapons and delivery systems in 2022

Nuclear power	Nuclear weapons	Intercontinental ballistic missile	Intermediate-range ballistic missile	Plane	Ballistic missile submarine
Russia	5 977	Y	N	Y	Y
United States	5 428	Y	N	Y	Y
China	350	Y	Y	Y	Y
France	290	Y	N	Y	Y
UK	225	N	N	N	Y
Pakistan	165	N	Y	Y	N
India	160	N	Y	Y	Y
Israel	90	N	Y	Y	N
North Korea	20	Y?	Y?	N	N

The fall of the Soviet Union does not mean that countries with nuclear weapons give up using their power of deterrence. Since 1991, other countries have informally or officially acquired nuclear capability.

Even if its nuclear means are today considerably reduced compared to 1990, the United States preserves a significant nuclear force, takes care to limit nuclear proliferation by negotiations with Iran, North Korea and a military intervention on this pattern in Iraq. In general, the strategic posture of the nuclear powers is strictly defensive, that is to say that they affirm that they will not make first use of nuclear weapons, and is part of the concept of minimum deterrence countervalues, that is to say, possession of the number of weapons just necessary to be able to inflict on a potential aggressor damage high enough to dissuade him. In 2010, the United States revised its official strategic posture.

The concerns of the nuclear powers are nowadays essentially directed towards the limitation of nuclear proliferation and against the dangers of nuclear terrorism.

As part of the war between Russia and Ukraine in 2022, Vladimir Putin ordered the commanders of his armies on February 27, 2022 to “put the deterrent forces of the Russian army on special combat alert”. In June 2020, however, the Russian president had approved the “basic principles” for the use of nuclear weapons. However, none of these principles corresponds to the situation in which Russia finds itself when V. Putin brandishes this nuclear threat.

Efficiency and legitimacy

All countries that develop nuclear weapons do so in the name of their security.

Efficiency

The first difficulty resides in the fact that it is a theory which therefore cannot be demonstrated and that the consequences if it were to fail would be terrible for the populations of the countries concerned and even for human civilization as a whole. Proponents of nuclear deterrence point out that Europe has never known such a long period without a major war and that the potentially violent confrontation for multiple ideological, political and economic reasons between the two big countries ended without direct war between them. His opponents point out that the cause and effect relationship has not been demonstrated.

The capitulation of Japan a few days after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki does not demonstrate the dissuasive nature of the possession of nuclear weapons by the United States: historians agree today in asserting that other causes, deeper than these bombardments, have decided Japan to capitulate.

The second difficulty lies in the unstable nature of nuclear deterrence and in the risk that it will fail: each side is afraid of being overtaken by the other in terms of its offensive military potential and the ability to destroy that of the other which leads to an endless spiral of an extremely expensive arms race with two major consequences: the economy and therefore the standard of living of the inhabitants of the countries concerned are negatively affected by these huge budgets, and on the other hand the accumulation of weapons increases the risks of accidental triggering of a nuclear conflagration and above all the consequences for humanity of the effective use of these weapons.

Legitimacy

Following the resolution 49/75 K of the General Assembly of the United Nations seizing it on “the lawful character or not, under international law, of resorting to the threat or the use of nuclear weapons in any circumstances whatever,” the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion on July 8, 1996, which stated that “the threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict.”

Nevertheless, in this same opinion, the Court states in conclusion that “in view of the current state of international law, as well as of the factual elements available to it, the Court cannot however conclude definitively that the threat or The use of nuclear weapons would be lawful or unlawful in an extreme circumstance of self-defence in which the very survival of a State would be at stake”. The Court concluded that neither customary law nor treaty law contains a specific and comprehensive prohibition of nuclear weapons and that any use of a weapon of this nature would be subject to the ordinary principles of the law relating to the use of force and the international humanitarian law.

(Includes texts from Wikipedia translated and adapted by Nicolae Sfetcu)