"Do Nuclear Weapons Really Deter Aggression?" Topic

Interesting article here.
"It's often said that nuclear weapons have protected nations from military attack.

But is there any solid evidence to bolster this contention? Without such evidence, the argument that nuclear weapons prevented something that never occurred is simply a counter-factual abstraction that cannot be proved.

Ronald Reagan -- the hardest of military hard-liners -- was not at all impressed by airy claims that U.S. nuclear weapons prevented Soviet aggression. Kenneth Adelman, a hawkish official in the Reagan administration, recalled that when he "hammered home the risks of a nuclear-free world" to the president, Reagan retorted that "we couldn't know that nuclear weapons had kept the peace in Europe for forty years, maybe other things had." Adelman described another interchange with Reagan that went the same way. When Adelman argued that "eliminating all nuclear weapons was impossible," as they had kept the peace in Europe, Reagan responded sharply that "it wasn't clear that nuclear weapons had kept the peace. Maybe other things, like the Marshall Plan and NATO, had kept the peace." (Kenneth Adelman, The Great Universal Embrace, pp. 69, 318.)

In short, without any solid evidence, we don't know that nuclear weapons have prevented or will prevent military aggression.

We do know, of course, that since 1945, many nations not in possession of nuclear weapons and not part of the alliance systems of the nuclear powers have not experienced a military attack. Clearly, they survived just fine without nuclear deterrence.

And we also know that nuclear weapons in U.S. hands did not prevent non-nuclear North Korea from invading South Korea or non-nuclear China from sending its armies to attack U.S. military forces in the ensuing Korean War. Nor did massive U.S. nuclear might prevent the Soviet invasion of Hungary, the Warsaw Pact's invasion of Czechoslovakia, Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan, and the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Also, the thousands of nuclear weapons in the U.S. arsenal did nothing to deter the terrorist attacks of 9/11 on U.S. territory.

Similarly, nuclear weapons in Soviet (and later Russian) hands did not prevent U.S. military intervention in Korea, Vietnam, Lebanon, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Panama, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Nor did Soviet nuclear weapons prevent CIA-fomented military action to overthrow the governments of Iran, Guatemala, Cuba, Chile, Nicaragua, and other nations.

Other nuclear powers have also discovered the irrelevance of their nuclear arsenals. British nuclear weapons did not stop non-nuclear Argentina's invasion of Britain's Falkland Islands. Moreover, Israel's nuclear weapons did not prevent non-nuclear Egypt and non-nuclear Syria from attacking Israel's armed forces in 1973 or non-nuclear Iraq from launching missile attacks on Israeli cities in 1991. Perhaps most chillingly, in 1999, when both India and Pakistan possessed nuclear weapons, the two nations -- long at odds -- sent their troops into battle against one another in what became known as the Kargil War.

Of course, the argument is often made that nuclear weapons have deterred a nuclear attack. But, again, as this attack never took place, how can we be sure about the cause of this non-occurrence?

From
link

At the end, the nuclear weapons ended to be a military/political solution or a great danger if they finished in the hands of those so bad and crazy people that are running around our world?

Amicalement
Armand

And we also know that nuclear weapons in U.S. hands did not prevent non-nuclear North Korea from invading South Korea

Absolutely false. Nukes in US hands DID keep the Norks from invading, until the Sovs got them too.

Forty odd years of the Cold War I think proves it pretty conclusively. When you've actually lived under the threat of nuclear attack (that is, your nation's government actually thought such aggression by an enemy was a possibility) then you know the efficacy of a nuclear deterrent.

What WAS deterred was the US and USSR going to war with each other. and that was the point.
Luckily, both sides kept their lunatics in check, but just barely.

It seems they do.

Have to agree with the OFM on his particular point. The US and USSR, i.e. NATO and WARPAC did not go head to head. Instead the West fought a number of proxy wars with the USSR and Communist China. While MADD (Mutual Assured Destruction) may have not have been the only factor, you can bet that both sides of the Iron Curtain were taking the nuclear factor into strong consideration. In fact the main concern before the fall of the Berlin Wall and the realization that the Soviets were a tin tiger was that once the USSR broke past our defenses in West Germany that NATO would be the first to use nukes to stop the supposed Soviet Juggernaut.

Of course by 1987 the Soviets clearly had switch from an aggressive strategy to one of defense as US and NATO equipment and training clearly surpassed anything the Soviets might be able to counter. The nukes; however, had to always be in consideration. After the Yom Kippur War in 1973 the Soviets were already beginning to re-assess their lack of capabilities. Western tactics, equipment, training, and leadership won out over an overwhelming quantitative advantage held by Soviet tactics, equipment, training, and leadership that the Arab nations were using. In fact Nixon considered US intervention and the nuclear option if it looked as if Israel might fall.

Therefore, the nukes were perhaps not the be all and end all but a considerable factor in how things turned out.

IMHO they ensured Cold War brinkmanship stayed only a game.

Also of note: the ONLY time nukes have ever been used in warfare was against a non-nuclear opponent…

Yes, otherwise there probably would have been several more wars in Europe since WWII, and/or larger wars in other regions as well.

I suspect Cuba didn't get invaded because of nukes also, back in the early 1960's.

"Ronald Reagan -- the hardest of military hard-liners"

What were this writer's other opinions, again?

Nuclear deterrence had no effect on proxy or brush fire wars, which were the majority of the conflicts post-WWII, because they're not worth going nuclear for, and both superpowers knew that. What nuclear deterrence accomplished was to prevent a large scale World War III.

The Soviets and Warsaw Pact had massive numerical advantage in conventional forces over NATO, but what kept them from pouring armored corps through the Fulda Gap was the threat of tactical nukes (missiles and artillery shells) NATO threatened to employ if its forces are overwhelmed.

Likewise, Krushchev might not have called our bluff if we had no nukes to bluff with in 1962.

No way to prove either way, but you can draw your own conclusions.

There certainly were a great many "proxy" wars fought between Communist and capitalist powers during the cold war. That can't be disputed. Still, we didn't have an all out head to head nuclear war, thank goodness. But it came very close too many times.
Also,I do agree that Reagan was a "hard line hawk" with some provisos. He ran on that hawkish "anti-commie hardline" platform in 1980 and 1984, and won. His administration spent more on armaments and defense than any "peace-time" President before or after. His cabinet was also filled to the brim with "hawks"( in my opinion). This argument is difficult to prove either way without a time machine and a deletion of all nuclear weapons from history, but it is an interesting and rarely heard arguement.

I read just recently that to try to end the Vietnam War, back in Oct. 1969, Nixon played up the madman in office theme, by sending 18 x B-52's to orbit just outside of the Soviet Union, and by escalating readiness of other units at that time.

Prior to that, back in 1968, or so, constant readiness of the B-52 bomber force had been relaxed. The 18 bombers were kept on station for three days, using aerial tankers, to make the point that this wasn't just a run of the mill readiness exercise.

All of the SSBN's that were able to sortie to sea, were sent out as well.

In his dealings with the Soviet ambassador, Nixon was very blunt, and brusque, in order to convey that he was unstable, and might do anything, including pressing that big red button.

Kissinger was in on the whole ploy, and they were using "game theory" to try to press the Russians for concessions in North Vietnam.

Apparently, the Russian ambassador was convinced he was a bit unstable, but it didn't really have the desired effect on ending Vietnam.

Still, it is an interesting anecdote from the Cold War.

If you want to read a little more about it, look up October 1969, Nixon, and B-52's in Google.

In Korea McCarthur threatened to use Nukes on China when they became involved in this war.

During the 6 day war Israel had their nukes on alert to use if their conventional forces lost.

In 1991 Iraq had chemical weapons and Bush made it clear if they were used against US troops then our Nukes could be used.

There are several more incidents where nukes did not stop war but it sure kept the wars from getting to the point of being similar to ww-I or ww-II.

What WAS deterred was the US and USSR going to war with each other. and that was the point.
Luckily, both sides kept their lunatics in check, but just barely.

Exactly. Nuclear weapons prevent major wars between nations with nuclear weapons. The Korean war was the first proxy conflict of the Cold War. It is nuclear weapons that keep India and Pakistan from all out war, or India and China very likely. It is probably the potential of nuclear war that has kept China from invading Taiwan.

It's hard to know for certain, but I think that mutually assured destruction can be credited with the lack of all out war between the nuclear superpowers.

When a nuclear armed country is invaded then the theory that they deter the enemy will be shown to be invalid. Until then, the wide held belief that no country with them will ever be invaded has been a big reason why so many want them.

Also, the thousands of nuclear weapons in the U.S. arsenal did nothing to deter the terrorist attacks of 9/11 on U.S. territory.

No kidding. But it's not like Al Queda had a home country to retaliate against.

If that had been a bunch of Iranians, not mixed-bag-of-middle-eastern-males, I'd be willing to bet that there would not be an Iran right now. You have no idea how utterly, glacially angry the US Strategic Forces were in 2001. Talk of putting the 'training shapes' used for practice launches onto a missile and dropping THOSE on presidential palaces, etc.

Many good points here, but one of the arguments in the article haven't been addressed, that is: that countries without nuclear weapons, nor part of the alliances with nuclear weapons, were able to be at peace with each other. In the surface, this look like a strong argument against the whole idea of nuclear deterrence. Actually, it's not.

First, even countries outside the official alliances of the Cold War had a could be regarded as strategic keystones by one of the superpowers, and their neutrality enforced by it. Finland was a case in point. The USSR would have never allowed other than a neutral or pro-Soviet Finland.

Second, being outside the official system of alliances didn't mean that the country was irrelevant for the foreign policy of the superpowers. Spain was theoretically neutral, and didn't enter in the NATO until 1981. However, US signed bi-lateral defensive agreements with Franco's government. US would have never allowed a Communist take over in Spain, and the USSR knew it. She was too important for the Southern flank of the European deployment to be left in the hands of the opposition. Therefore, even if outside the alliance system, Spain was protected, and her safety and peace too, by the nuclear umbrella of the US.

I find it very worrying that people are concerned about states like Iran getting nukes in case they use them, yet virtually all of the cases above where using nukes was a very real option came from our side.

Aren't we supposed to be the good guys and others the loony bad guys?

There haven't been any more world wars.
There haven't even been any more serious conflicts between real countries.

Nukes have helped an awful lot.
-Kle.

it certainly deterred direct aggression, but the two sides used an awful lot of proxies in smaller wars. it would be more accurate to say it deterred open and direct aggression, and focused it on other associated countries and conflicts.

One of the questions that came to my mind is:

- Without the existence of nuke weapons, the world would continue with wars like Korea?

- Probably the answer is yes.

- If the answer is yes, that could be a good thing because of the lack of casualties thanks to the nuke theat?
Of course, yes… BUT, that situation didn't directly point to a "guerrilla" warfare that we are paying the cost now?

- If there would be only "traditional" wars as in the past, why they couldn't ended as WW2, Korea or Vietnam?

- One side won (as in WW2 or Vietnam) or tie (like Korea).

- In those cases even with tension (in the case of Korea) there were no more conflict or casualties.

Amicalement
Armand

Without the existence of nuke weapons, the world would continue with wars like Korea?

Yes, but low-intensity conventional conflict, not large scale conventional wars.

that could be a good thing because of the lack of casualties thanks to the nuke theat?

Yes and no. The threat of tactical nukes (and possibly strategic ones) functioned as a deterrent to another major conventional war. WWII has shown us how destructive modern non-nuclear weaponry can be, and that battles are no longer 'set piece' because civilians are now fair game as well. Of course, a major conventional war would still be much less destructive than an all out nuclear conflict, but the point of nuclear deterrence is to deter another major conflict, nuclear AND conventional.

Of course, yes… BUT, that situation didn't directly point to a "guerrilla" warfare that we are paying the cost now?

No. When the Soviet Union and US became the two superpowers after WWII, they checked-and-balanced each other with nuclear deterrence in so-called policies like Eisenhower's 'Massive Retaliation' and later 'Mutually Assured Destruction.' When it became more unlikely that the superpowers would resort to an overkill endgame with the slightest of provocation, Kennedy (or more accurately McNamara) developed a policy of 'Flexible Response' whereby the punishment would fit the transgression so-to-speak.

Guerilla (or insurgency) warfare has been around for a long time, since Alexander's experience in Afghanistan. It happens when the two sides are unequal and one side has to resort to raids, hit-and-runs, and other 'underhanded' or 'sneaky' tactics. As long as one side is far superior than the other, that other side has no reason to fight by the rules on an equal footing. Why would they? Unless they have a death wish.

If there would be only "traditional" wars as in the past, why they couldn't ended as WW2, Korea or Vietnam?

If by this you meant our recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, it's because the nature of (conventional) warfare has changed. The enemy is elusive, has no national borders, and has backers/sympathizers around the world. We're counting on so-called 'allies' like Pakistan in our fight against the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and Pakistan has influential people in the government and military who actually support them. Quick and clean wars may be a thing of the past, and we have to be in a long-term mindset where wars from now on will be slow, costly and with little immediate tangible results. The enemy is counting that western democracies won't be able to stomach this type of war.

Of course they have. Since the advent of nukes, there have been no wars on the scale of WWI and WWII. For instance, the war in Iraq resulted in roughly 10,000 American deaths over the course of nearly 10 years. Compare that with 20,000 British dead in the first day of the Somme offensive, or the unrestricted Allied bombing of German cities in WWII. Those types of mass slaughter have not been seen since the advent of nuclear weapons.

Seems to me a classic case of post-event rationalisation by someone who has a very strong belief that has been challenged by reality.

1.Nuclear weapons are a waste of money and resources (code for I don't like them as they are unethical weapons) as they do not stop wars.
2.Problem. Peace was maintained in Europe for half a century, whereas before their deployment two world wars had been spawned there in less than three decades.
3.Solution a) Claim the lack of another world conflict was because the Russians never posed a threat really ( a line trotted out by the left for decades). Not because the Russians were deterred, which would fatally undermine the authors original belief, causing him to write the article in the first place.
4. Solution b. Redefine the scenario to include all the proxy wars fought, forgetting they were fought in the first place because the two major power blocks could not settle old scores in the traditional manner.
5. Take quotes, out of context, to suggest that traditional supporters of the opposing view really supported yours.
6. Suggest any supporters of the nuclear deterrent doctrine are unable to use conventional forces to deal with aggression now they have nukes. This also reveals an interesting insight into the authors mindset. The UK's conventional response to Argentinian aggression was not because it would have been completely inhumane to threaten nuclear war and would have made the US go ballistic but because they don't work.
7. If the facts don't fit just change them them. India and Pakistan were gently reminded by the US that both had nukes so a little dispute could rapidly escalate. The two countries that have fought major wars before (both when they were non-nuclear states) decided not to, but of course nukes had nothing to do with it.

Text book redefinition and obfuscation to avoid a simple fact, the author does not want to relinquish a cherished belief.

Ask North Korea?

"Aren't we supposed to be the good guys and others the loony bad guys"?

Depends upon your definition of good and bad. Most people tend to think they are on the good side, and their enemies are on the bad. That has been a consistent theme throughout history.

Nuclear weapons do work for deterrence, since using them would be too horrific for most countries to consider. Atomic weapons have only been used where they were deemed to actually cut wars short, and to save lives, in the long run, in the past.

Virtually every weapon ever designed for war, throughout history, has been used in combat. The sole exception to that are nuclear warheads (at least thus far).

I submit that while they don't stop smaller, conventional actions, they do tend to hinder and/or keep larger wars from happening.

No one wants to risk losing tens of thousands, or more troops, or citizens in a single battle.

That has tended to make assymetric warfare more likely, and effective.

In Vietnam, the US Army, Air Force, and Navy couldn't be beat, but North Vietnam won by playing the political game.

Britain could have used nukes on Argentina, but chose not to, I suspect due to humanitarian reasons, and to avoid world opinion turning against her over the issue.

Believe me, they would have worked, but the fallout (pun intended), both figurative, and literal, from that, would have been detrimental to their cause. Her superb conventional forces performance against the ill-prepared Argentinians made the nuclear option unnecessary.

Thanks for your guidance 28mm Fanatik.

Amicalement
Armand