The Tools of Thinking
The Tools of Thinking
This chapter notes that, beyond 1945, we have no direct evidence at all about the operational use of nuclear weapons and how conflict involving them might develop. This means that we have to rely on concepts not fully validated by experience; and that in turn calls for a degree of intellectual humility in pronouncements about such issues, even though the worldwide effort over sixty years to explore and clarify them, especially in the West, has been impressive. This chapter warns that special care is needed about the handling of metaphors like ‘nuclear threshold’ and ‘escalation’; about terms of art like ‘first use’ and ‘first strike’; about descriptions like ‘strategic’ and ‘tactical’; and about the scope of the concepts of deterrence and dissuasion.
Keywords: deterrence, dissuasion, escalation, first use, first strike, nuclear threshold
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