the nuclear strategist herman kahn, writing in his book <u+201c>thinking about the unthinkable in the 1980s<u+201d>: the notion of armageddon has created a self-defeating prophecy: the more frightened decision makers are, the more careful they become and the less likely they are to initiate any action that might bring about the dreaded escalation to nuclear use. armageddon is averted to the degree it is feared. as a result, nuclear deterrence has not only worked remarkably well in peacetime and served to limit the scope and intensity of conventional warfare, but it is likely to work surprisingly well in a large u.s.-soviet conventional, and even a limited nuclear, war. one significant indication of the effectiveness of deterrence is that the soviet union and the united states share the belief that a nuclear war would begin only out of desperation or inadvertence. a weakening of deterrence could increase the possibility of a calculated <u+201c>voluntary<u+201d> war or worse. deterrence is part objective and part subjective. the objective part is that adequate military preparedness could be critical in some important circumstances. the subjective is, in part, the perception by the potential enemy of the other side<u+2019>s power, determination, and courage, as well as its estimate of the wartime effectiveness of the other side<u+2019>s relative nuclear capability. if the aggressor believes that his opponent has the weapons and will use them, deterrence is likely to be effective. therefore, a nation<u+2019>s defense lies, in part, in the credibility of its threat to use nuclear force as a last resort , which means that the need remains for coherent and plausible policies for the use of nuclear weapons.
notable & quotable: herman kahn<u+2019>s deterrence - wsj
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