The Fragility of the Nuclear Peace

• In Event: Nuclear Proliferation

Abstract

The central claim of the nuclear peace hypothesis is that nuclear weapons reduce the likelihood of war. During the Cold War, scholarship identified fear of unintentional and/or accidental escalation alongside deliberate escalation as critical to this pacific outcome. Today, the role that this type of inadvertent escalation plays is underexplored for two reasons. First, strategists in the Cold War focused solely on the implications for the superpowers. Second, after the Cold War nuclear optimists and pessimists identified inadvertent escalation as an obstacle to peace. This article outlines the pathways of inadvertent nuclear use. It argues that the pacifying effects of inadvertent escalation are most apparent between states that both have nuclear weapons. Thus, the nuclear peace rests in part on the precarious foundation of events spiraling out of control. By contrast, inadvertent escalation is less of a danger when only one side has nuclear weapons. As a result, there are fewer obstacles to war in nuclear monopoly. The article assesses these claims with quantitative and qualitative evidence.

Author

• Paul C. Avey, Virginia Tech