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Nuclear Deterrence, Counterforce Strategies, and the Incentive to Strike First

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

R. Harrison Wagner
R. Harrison Wagner
Affiliation:
University of Texas Austin
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Abstract

I use the theory of games to investigate issues about how to understand the use of nuclear counterforce strategies by the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The function of the counterforce strategies I model is not to enable a state confidently to launch a nuclear attack but to convince its adversary that the probability that it might do so as a last resort is greater than zero. The models allow one to investigate rational behavior when information is incomplete and there is an incentive to strike first, and therefore provide a way to explore controversies about the effect of counterforce strategies on both the credibility of extended deterrence and the possibility of inadvertent nuclear war. The models suggest, contrary to the claims of a number of writers, that the use of nuclear counterforce strategies is not necessarily inconsistent with rational behavior and provide some insight into the relation between counterforce strategies and brinkmanship models of deterrence.

Type
Articles
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 85 , Issue 3 , September 1991 , pp. 727 - 749
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1991

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