Nuclear strategy involves the development of

doctrine Doctrine (from , meaning 'teaching, instruction') is a codification (law), codification of beliefs or a body of teacher, teachings or instructions, taught principles or positions, as the essence of teachings in a given branch of knowledge or in a ...

s and strategies for the production and use of

nuclear weapon A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission or atomic bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear weapon), producing a nuclear exp ...

s. As a sub-branch of

military strategy Military strategy is a set of ideas implemented by military organizations to pursue desired Strategic goal (military), strategic goals. Derived from the Greek language, Greek word ''strategos'', the term strategy, when first used during the 18th ...

, nuclear strategy attempts to match nuclear weapons as means to political ends. In addition to the actual use of nuclear weapons whether in the battlefield or strategically, a large part of nuclear strategy involves their use as a bargaining tool. Some of the issues considered within nuclear strategy include: *Conditions which serve a nation's interest to develop nuclear weapons *Types of nuclear weapons to be developed *How and when weapons are to be used Many strategists argue that nuclear strategy differs from other forms of

. The immense and terrifying power of the weapons makes their use, in seeking victory in a traditional military sense, impossible. Perhaps counterintuitively, an important focus of nuclear strategy has been determining how to prevent and deter their use, a crucial part of

mutually assured destruction Mutual assured destruction (MAD) is a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy which posits that a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by an attacker on a nuclear-armed defender with second-strike capabilities would result in ...

. In the context of

nuclear proliferation Nuclear proliferation is the spread of nuclear weapons to additional countries, particularly those not recognized as List of states with nuclear weapons, nuclear-weapon states by the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, commonl ...

and maintaining the balance of power, states also seek to prevent other states from acquiring nuclear weapons as part of nuclear strategy.

Nuclear deterrent composition

The doctrine of

mutual assured destruction Mutual assured destruction (MAD) is a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy which posits that a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by an attacker on a nuclear-armed defender with second-strike capabilities would result in ...

(MAD) assumes that a

nuclear deterrent Nuclear strategy involves the development of doctrines and strategies for the production and use of nuclear weapons. As a sub-branch of military strategy, nuclear strategy attempts to match nuclear weapons as means to political ends. In addit ...

force must be credible and survivable. That is, each deterrent force must survive a first strike with sufficient capability to effectively destroy the other country in a

second strike In nuclear strategy, a retaliatory strike or second-strike capability is a country's assured ability to respond to a nuclear attack with powerful nuclear retaliation against the attacker. To have such an ability (and to convince an opponent of its ...

. Therefore, a first strike would be suicidal for the launching country. In the late 1940s and 1950s as the

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

developed, the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

and

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

pursued multiple delivery methods and platforms to deliver nuclear weapons. Three types of platforms proved most successful and are collectively called a "

nuclear triad A nuclear triad is a three-pronged military force structure of land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and strategic bombers with Nuclear weapon, nuclear bombs and missiles. Countrie ...

". These are air-delivered weapons (bombs or missiles),

ballistic missile submarines A ballistic missile submarine is a submarine capable of deploying submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) with nuclear warheads. These submarines became a major weapon system in the Cold War because of their deterrence theory, nuclear ...

(usually nuclear-powered and called SSBNs), and

intercontinental ballistic missiles An intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is a ballistic missile with a range (aeronautics), range greater than , primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery (delivering one or more Thermonuclear weapon, thermonuclear warheads). Conven ...

(ICBMs), usually deployed in land-based hardened

missile silo A missile launch facility, also known as an underground missile silo, launch facility (LF), or nuclear silo, is a vertical cylindrical structure constructed underground, for the storage and launching of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM ...

s or on vehicles. Although not considered part of the deterrent forces, all of the nuclear powers deployed large numbers of

tactical nuclear weapon A tactical nuclear weapon (TNW) or non-strategic nuclear weapon (NSNW) is a nuclear weapon that is designed to be used on a battlefield in military situations, mostly with friendly forces in proximity and perhaps even on contested friendly territ ...

s in the Cold War. These could be delivered by virtually all platforms capable of delivering large conventional weapons. During the 1970s there was growing concern that the combined conventional forces of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact could overwhelm the forces of

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...

. It seemed unthinkable to respond to a Soviet/Warsaw Pact incursion into Western Europe with strategic nuclear weapons, inviting a catastrophic exchange. Thus, technologies were developed to greatly reduce collateral damage while being effective against advancing conventional military forces. Some of these were low-yield neutron bombs, which were lethal to tank crews, especially with tanks massed in tight formation, while producing relatively little blast, thermal radiation, or radioactive fallout. Other technologies were so-called "suppressed radiation devices," which produced mostly blast with little radioactivity, making them much like conventional explosives, but with much more energy.

Bibliography

Early texts

* Brodie, Bernard. ''The Absolute Weapon''. Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press, 1946. * Brodie, Bernard
''Strategy in the Missile Age''
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1959. * Dunn, Lewis A
''Deterrence Today – Roles, Challenges, and Responses''
Paris: IFRI Proliferation Papers n° 19, 2007. * Kahn, Herman. ''On Thermonuclear War''. 2nd ed. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1961. * Kissinger, Henry A. ''Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy''. New York: Harper, 1957. * Schelling, Thomas C. ''Arms and Influence''. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966. * Wohlstetter, Albert
"The Delicate Balance of Terror."
''Foreign Affairs'' 37, 211 (1958): 211–233.

Secondary literature

* Baylis, John, and John Garnett. ''Makers of Nuclear Strategy''. London: Pinter, 1991. . * Buzan, Barry, and Herring, Eric. "The Arms Dynamic in World Politics". London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998. . * Freedman, Lawrence. ''The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy''. 2nd ed. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989. . * Heuser, Beatrice. ''NATO, Britain, France and the FRG: Nuclear Strategies and Forces for Europe, 1949–2000'' (London: Macmillan, hardback 1997, paperback 1999), 256p., * Heuser, Beatrice. ''Nuclear Mentalities? Strategies and Belief Systems in Britain, France and the FRG'' (London: Macmillan, July 1998), 277p., Index, Tables. * Heuser, Beatrice.
Victory in a Nuclear War? A Comparison of NATO and WTO War Aims and Strategies
, ''Contemporary European History'' Vol. 7 Part 3 (November 1998), pp. 311–328. * Heuser, Beatrice. "Warsaw Pact Military Doctrines in the 70s and 80s: Findings in the East German Archives", ''Comparative Strategy'' Vol. 12 No. 4 (Oct.–Dec. 1993), pp. 437–457. * Kaplan, Fred M. ''The Wizards of Armageddon''. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983. . * Rai Chowdhuri, Satyabrata. '' Nuclear Politics: Towards A Safer World'', Ilford: New Dawn Press, 2004. * Rosenberg, David. "The Origins of Overkill: Nuclear Weapons and American Strategy, 1945–1960." ''International Security'' 7, 4 (Spring, 1983): 3–71. * Schelling, Thomas C. ''The Strategy of Conflict''. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960. * Smoke, Richard. National Security and the Nuclear Dilemma. 3rd ed. New York: McGraw–Hill, 1993. {{ISBN, 0-07-059352-3.

References

Nuclear warfare

Nuclear deterrent composition

See also

Bibliography

Early texts

Secondary literature

References