I'm interested to know what people think about unilateral possession of nuclear arms versus the concept of mutual deterrence. In your opinion, would it have been better that only one country (and its closest allies) had nukes after the development of the bomb, or was it better that other global powers managed to develop nuclear weapons as well?
My ideal preference is for nuclear disarmament, but this thread is about the scenario that has been the status quo since World War II, where nuclear weapons have already been developed and are not going to be dismantled for the foreseeable future.
I agree with your ideal preference of having total nuclear disarmament, but I seriously doubt that will ever happen.
A lot of Americans might believe that it's okay for America to be the sole possessor of nuclear weapons and technology, since (it is believed) we are such a bastion of freedom and an overflowing cup filled with the very cream of human goodness. Some have pointed out how the U.S. had a few years as sole possessor of atomic weapons - and as Reagan pointed out, we could have conquered the whole world if we wanted to. But we didn't. It's for this reason that many may believe that America can act responsibly without the threat of mutually-assured destruction.
Along the same lines, the same mentality perceived America's adversaries (namely the USSR and PRC) as being unable to act responsibly unless they faced a threat of total destruction. It's rooted in the idea that our enemies will only respect strength and that the only way to deal with them is by force or the threat of force. Such a perception carries the implication that our adversaries are seen as aggressive and animalistic.
This basic notion was similar to a few Cold War stumbling blocks which came about when the U.S. wanted to develop anti-ballistic missile technology, the idea being that our ICBM silos would be protected by anti-ballistic missiles which would destroy any incoming ICBMs before detonation. Conceivably, this could allow the U.S. to launch a first strike on the USSR, while the ABMs would take out the Soviets' ICBM counter-attack, minimizing the potential damage in the U.S. This was obviously not received well by the Soviets, who pressed the U.S. into signing the ABM Treaty to prohibit it. Then with Reagan's SDI being talked about in the 80s, that set off the same reaction.
The Soviet view was that, as long as neither side used nuclear weapons against the other, there would be no need for ABMs or SDI. We could rely on each other's good will to ensure mutual survival. The whole idea was that the missiles should never be used, and the Soviets made a "no first strike" pledge which the U.S. refused to make. The U.S. position was that, in the event the Soviets poured into Western Europe in a massive invasion, NATO conventional forces would be so numerically overwhelmed that they would have no other choice but to use nuclear weapons against the advancing troops. The U.S. Cold Warriors would contend that that's what kept the USSR at bay and what eventually brought about the US "victory" in the Cold War.
At this point, I don't think we'll be able to put the nuclear genie back in the bottle, so we may have to look for alternatives, such as building up anti-aircraft and missile defenses, such as ABMs. I had doubts about SDI as to whether it would really work, although if we can't stop people from building nuclear weapons, then the next best thing is to do whatever possible to neutralize their delivery systems.
Other than that, I don't think any nuclear-armed power is going to be the first one to launch, unless they're truly off their rocker. But if their home territory is threatened, then the possibility increases. The bigger worry is if some underground organization sends a terrorist with a bomb in a suitcase somewhere. That's harder to defend against, since you may not really see it coming.
