Ciara: blog post #5
The fear of an action might be powerful enough to scare off another party, or cause them to fear the lengths others are willing to go. As Kenneth Waltz argues in “Why Iran Should Get the Bomb: Nuclear Balancing Would Mean Stability” allowing more countries to obtain nuclear defense would put international relations at a general deterrence from the nuclear wars that could start. Deterrence is a strategy that can be used in order to prevent another party from undertaking an action through coercion. Many times this works as a method to keep two parties from destroying each other, or to allow a smaller army to scare off a larger one to show the lengths they would go. Nuclear deterrence can be the ultimate way of scaring off other parties as it is the strongest weapon that could potentially cause complete destruction. Even if a nuclear power is relatively small and compared to other nuclear powers would seem less threatening, once they cross the threshold they are using deterrence (Waltz). Deterrence allows smaller countries, with not as powerful military, to be stable through the process of nuclear balancing. Allowing this balance instills fear to all no matter how many nuclear weapons they have. Deterrence does not always have to be nuclear as well, and can just be shown through countries using large threats in which another country might not be willing to fight back or keep up.
The use of deterrence is not uncommon and can be seen, for example, during the Vietnam war. The United States definitely had a stronger military than Vietnam and would have the obvious potential to win, but due to deterrence they had to pull away. The North Vietnamese as well as the Vietcong were not scared to go to extreme lengths to achieve their goal, unlike the US who was not willing to go so far to support South Vietnam. This goes to show that deterrence can be successful for smaller countries, who military to military, would not defeat larger powers they are up against. This supports the idea that giving countries, without nuclear defense, these weapons to allow for a more general deterrence to occur amongst military forces. Such as the Vietnam example, smaller countries being able to use large forces makes them more of a threat due to coercion.
Likewise, this strategy can be used by two large powers scaring each other off as a more mutual deterrence. Another instance where we see this happen was during the Cold War. The US and the Soviet Union had so many nuclear weapons built up in order to attack and scare the other. The US would retaliate if the Soviet Union were to attack and therefore weapons were put to rest. Today there has been very limited use of nuclear weapons and it does not seem as though they are going to be used in the future. If a country were to use a nuclear weapon, they would not get any support and it is likely that they would be the only one using it as if others were to retaliate then it would end in potential world destruction. Installing fear into people will keep the potential for nuclear war at bay and show countries that they would only be hated if they were to take those actions.
https://www.nato.int/docu/review/articles/2015/04/20/deterrence-what-it-can-and-cannot-do/
Why Iran Should Get the Bomb: Nuclear Balancing Would Mean Stability Author(s): Kenneth N. Waltz
Great post Ciara, however, I'd say I disagree with some points. While Nuclear weapons have been shown to cause stability and even restraint in political negotiations. Iran having a bomb would upset the power dynamics of the middle east, encouraging rival nations such as Israel and Saudi Arabia to acquire nuclear bombs of their own. I believe that nuclear proliferation is something to be opposed, not encouraged, despite the more "secure" it tends to make conflicts.
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