Alex WellersteinVerified account

We do have evidence that several world leaders, esp. in tense times, did take into account the fear of widespread nuclear war. Both Kennedy and Khrushchev feared it during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and that did dictate some of their actions. This is pretty easy to document.

I mean, even Barash acknowledges that the US and USSR didn't go to war because "neither side wanted to go to war" — a bit tautological, but given that both sides were well aware of the consequences of nuclear exchange, how is that mutually exclusive with deterrence?

And the claim that nuclear weapons deterred ALL wars is a straw man if ever there was one. The Cold War is called that not because all wars were averted but because *direct* conflict between superpowers was averted.

In short: I find the "deterrence doesn't exist/doesn't work" arguments to mostly be poorly argued. I would certainly argue that theories of deterrence are not *adequate* by themselves for preventing war. And certainly nukes don't give states as much leeway as they might seem.

I do not know what Barash's "end game" is but the two big critics of deterrence are the disarmament people (who believe if deterrence doesn't exist, nukes lose their purpose), and the preemptive strike people (if deterrence doesn't work, then we might as well use them).