Nuclear deterrence

A strategy that seeks to prevent an adversary from attacking by threatening nuclear retaliation. Its effect depends on the adversary believing that retaliation is possible and would follow an attack.

Second-strike capability: The ability to deliver a nuclear attack after absorbing an enemy’s first strike. A credible retaliatory threat requires forces able to survive an initial attack.
Cuban Missile Crisis: A 1962 confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union over Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba. It brought nuclear threats and crisis decision-making close to direct superpower conflict.
Nuclear disarmament: The reduction or elimination of nuclear weapons through unilateral measures or negotiated agreements. It seeks security through reducing arsenals rather than relying on nuclear threats.
Security dilemma: A situation in which one state’s efforts to increase its security make other states feel less secure. Nuclear buildups intended to deter can prompt rivals to expand or modernize their arsenals.
Mutual assured destruction: A condition in which nuclear powers can each inflict unacceptable damage on the other, even after being attacked. It describes the reciprocal vulnerability at the heart of many deterrence relationships.
Able Archer 83: A 1983 NATO command-post exercise that Soviet leaders interpreted as potentially masking preparations for attack. It illustrates how exercises and signals intended for deterrence can be misread.
Nuclear compellence: The use of nuclear threats to make an adversary take an action it would otherwise resist. Unlike deterrence, it aims to change behavior rather than prevent an action.
Nuclear proliferation: The spread of nuclear weapons, fissile materials, or weapons-related capabilities to additional states or actors. Reliance on nuclear deterrence can influence other states’ decisions to seek their own arsenals.
Nuclear triad: A force structure combining land-based missiles, submarine-launched missiles, and strategic bombers. Its separate delivery systems can make a retaliatory force harder to eliminate.
Stanislav Petrov: A Soviet air-defense officer who judged a 1983 warning of incoming U.S. missiles to be a false alarm. His decision shows how human judgment can interrupt escalation based on faulty warning.

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