DETERRENCE/DETERRENCE WORKS

DETERRENCE CREATES CRISIS STABILITY AND EVEN COUNTRIES LIKE NORTH KOREA WOULD ACT RATIONALLY

THE EXISTENCE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS EQUALS CRISIS STABILITY AND DETERRENCE

Sir Michael Quinlan, Director of the Ditchley Foundation (UK), 97 (The Washington Quarterly, Summer, "The Future of Nuclear Weapons in World Affairs," p-139) // TD

The existence of nuclear weapons can bring with it valuable crisis stability. If, after nuclear abolition, advanced powers came again to war or even war-threatening crisis, they would face hard decisions about whether to trust their adversary not to recreate nuclear capability. We might then face a dangerous and destabilizing competitive rush to rearm.

Alternatively, a state with a risk-taking leadership (or one feeling under special threat) might be tempted to a secret dash for one-sided nuclear possession. The power of nuclear weapons can also contribute helpfully, even if tacitly, to deterring the intolerable use of force in other ways.

WHEN NEW NATIONS, LIKE NORTH KOREA, GET NUCLEAR WEAPONS THEY WILL REACT LOGICALLY UNDER THE DOCTRINE OF DETERRENCE

Leon V. Sigal, consultant at the Social Science Research Council; and Adjunct Professor in the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University, 1998. DISARMING STRANGERS STRANGERS Nuclear Diplomacy with North Korea // LDU

Nuclear arsenals like those amassed by the United States and the Soviet Union arc absurdly excessive for deterrence, in Waltz's view. A few survivable warheads will suffice, a lesson that the United States and the Soviet Union never did absorb. Their possessors will also take the necssary precautions to insure that they are safe from attack or accidental use, something the United States and Soviet Union did not always do. Small arsenals will be easier to disperse and protect while assuring tight control over their potential use. "Nuclear forces are seldom delicate," lie concludes optimistically, "because no state wants delicate forces, and nuclear forces can easily be made sturdy."'

The logic of deterrence, asserts Waltz, applies with equal force to the North Koreas of the world. He rightly rejects the ethnocentric view of Third World countries as inherently less prudent. Yet he does so on the questionable grounds that states will behave like states, regardless of, their cultures, political systems, political instability, and leadership. "With nuclear weapons any state will be deterred by another state's second-strike forces," lie writes. "One need not be preoccupied with the characteristics of the state that is to be deterred or scrutinize its leaders." Domestic structures do not matter; the balance of power governs behavior.

Other realists are not as sanguine about proliferation as Waltz. They believe that nuclear arms in the hands of others, especially potential foes, would not be beneficial to American security. Yet they agree with Waltz that states will not willingly relinquish nuclear arms or forgo nuclear arming.