The future of warfare
Nuclear Deterrence and The Future of Warfare Throughout my life and in all of my history classes, I have heard about the Cold War. I would hear people talk of it on the news or would watch movies that took place in that specific era. I never had a course that was aimed to specifically teach national security or give organized lectures about the Cold War. Generally speaking, all I knew up to this course, was that the Cold War was a time when the United States and USSR were threatening each other by the action of using nuclear weapons. I was aware that there was much tension and citizens in this country were preparing for the worst. Not until I took this course did I learn about how much nuclear capability there was between the two countries and how close we actually came to a nuclear holocaust. The concept of deterrence is the most impacting and significantly interesting concept I have learned in this course. To say it was an effective defense policy is an understatement. The fact is, deterrence was the most effective and successful way to deter the use of nuclear weapons to this date. This paper will go in depth to explain the concept of nuclear deterrence; it's effect in the Cold War and in the
The fear of them surviving to strike back and cause horrific damage to you is what makes deterrence so valuable. "Nuclear Deterrence" was a concept that meant "the development and maintenance of weaponry to convince the opponent not to use his weapons against you". "The idea was that a potential aggressor would realize that the victim of the attack would retain such a large retaliatory strike, making the initial attack, in effect, suicidal". Today we are dealing with Asymmetrical warfare as opposed to symmetrical. The USSR and US was in heavy competition to produce more nuclear weapons than the enemy. Our intelligence community must restructure itself, adapt, and grow to deal with the needs of today. This means it is a "situation in which both (or all) sides do not accept or practice the same methods of warfare". "The clear difference however, is that wars are now conducted under the shadow of the mushroom-shaped cloud, especially when nuclear-capable states are involved. The people of America too must adapt. We as people must rely on our government to protect us the best ways possible. In everyone's minds was the thought that if your country had less nuclear strike capability then you would lose a nuclear war. Efforts were made to target and shoot down ICBM's but this was never reliable enough to use because we couldn't rely on it. We can reduce our nuclear supply significantly, but we must keep enough to ward off future aggressors. The new kind of war is asymmetrical and nuclear deterrence is not needed as heavily as the past.
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