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Cold War

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From Allies to Enemies: The Origins of the
The strategy of nuclear deterrence prevented nuclear war and kept major conflicts such as the Cold War
Korean War from escalating, argues John Garnett in the following selection. According to Coexistence and Conflict
Garnett, the mutual vulnerability created by nuclear weapons convinced the leaders of the From Détente to the Cold War’s End
United States and the Soviet Union that the enemy could only be deterred from nuclear assaults Reflections: The Impact of the Cold War
by the threat of retaliation. In consequence, he argues, both superpowers increased their Chapter 4 Preface
nuclear arsenals to levels matching what they believed the other had, an arms buildup that Nuclear Deterrence Was an Effective Cold War
Strategy
established a delicate, but effective, balance between the two nations. Although not an ideal
solution, Garnett claims, in the end mutual deterrence helped prevent the superpowers from Nuclear Deterrence Was a Counterproductive
Cold War Strategy
going to war. Garnett, coauthor with L.W. Martin of British Foreign Policy: Challenges and
The Cold War Advanced Democratic Ideals in the
Choices for the 21st Century, is a professor of international politics at the University of Wales, United States
Aberystwyth. The Cold War Was Unnecessary and Costly for
the United States
Two developments, one technical, the other political, have shaped East-West relations for most
For Further Discussion
of the second half of the twentieth century. The first was the development of nuclear and
Copyright
thermonuclear weapons together with delivery systems with intercontinental ranges. The second
was the onset and evolution of the Cold War, which, though fluctuating in intensity, provided the
political context in which the new weapons of mass destruction had to be evaluated. These twin
developments led to the strategy of nuclear deterrence which came to dominate the military
policies of both superpowers from the mid-1960s, and reflected and exacerbated the Cold War.

The Evolution of Deterrence

Gradually, deterrence evolved into a highly sophisticated body of related ideas about the role of
nuclear weapons. But in the late 1940s, when the Cold War was just beginning, the complicated
‘theology’ of deterrence did not exist, and strategists and policymakers were still struggling with
the implications of the newly invented atomic bomb. Everyone felt that a new era in destructive
warfare had arrived, but even those who thought about it were not sure what this meant.
Among some fairly wild speculation about ‘push button warfare’, ‘suitcase bombs’ and the
imminence of Armageddon, some basic military realities were emerging. It became clear that
there was no defence against these new weapons, that population centres were particularly
vulnerable and that a surprise attack could give an aggressor a decisive advantage. It was this
gloomy analysis which focused minds on nuclear deterrence and the belief that since states
could no longer protect themselves by traditional measures, then enemies could, henceforth,
only be deterred from aggression by the threat of devastating retaliation. This view provided the
basic rationale for the most expensive military strategy the world has ever seen. . . .

Both superpowers accepted that their mutual vulnerability might not be such a bad thing. When
that happened ‘mutual deterrence’ became a policy objective as well as a de facto situation, and
from the mid-1960s onwards an enormous amount of effort was directed towards perpetuating
it. In particular, East-West arms control negotiations enshrined mutual deterrence by eschewing
any arms reductions which might threaten it and discouraging any military policies or
technological developments likely to undermine it. Despite the rhetoric of disarmament, the
management of mutual vulnerability rather than arms reduction became the keystone of the
arms control policies of both sides. The bargaining was tough, but SALT [Strategic Arms
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