The end of strategic stability? : Nuclear weapons and the challenge of regional rivalries

During the Cold War, many believed that the superpowers shared a conception of strategic stability, a coexistence where both sides would compete for global influence but would be deterred from using nuclear weapons. In actuality, both sides understood strategic stability and deterrence quite differently. Today’s international system is further complicated by more nuclear powers, regional rivalries, and nonstate actors who punch above their weight, but the United States and other nuclear powers still cling to old conceptions of strategic stability. The purpose of this book is to unpack and examine how different states in different regions view strategic stability, the use or non-use of nuclear weapons, and whether or not strategic stability is still a prevailing concept. The contributors to this volume explore policies of current and potential nuclear powers including the United States, Russia, China, India, Iran, Israel, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia. This volume makes an important contribution toward understanding how nuclear weapons will impact the international system in the twenty-first century and will be useful to students, scholars, and practitioners of nuclear weapons policy. Cover......Page 1 Title......Page 4 Copyright......Page 5 CONTENTS......Page 6 Acknowledgments......Page 8 Introduction......Page 10 PART I. GENERAL APPROACHES TO REGIONAL STABILITY......Page 30 1 Sources of Instability in the Second Nuclear Age: An American Perspective......Page 32 2 The Russian Approach to Strategic Stability: Preserving a Classical Formula in a Turbulent World......Page 50 3 Pakistan’s View of Strategic Stability: A Struggle between Theory and Practice......Page 75 4 Strategic Stability in the Middle East: Through the Transparency Lens......Page 98 5 Beyond Strategic Stability: Deterrence, Regional Balance, and Iranian National Security......Page 122 Conclusion to Part I: Regional Approaches to Strategic Stability......Page 150 PART II. CROSS-DOMAIN DETERRENCE AND STRATEGIC STABILITY......Page 156 6 Strategic Stability and Cross-Domain Coercion: The Russian Approach to Information (Cyber) Warfare......Page 158 7 Conventional Challenges to Strategic Stability: Chinese Perceptions of Hypersonic Technology and the Security Dilemma......Page 183 8 The India-Pakistan Nuclear Dyad: Strategic Stability and Cross-Domain Deterrence......Page 212 9 The Road Not Taken: Defining Israel’s Approach to Strategic Stability......Page 239 10 Maintaining Sovereignty and Preserving the Regime: How Saudi Arabia Views Strategic Stability......Page 259 Conclusion to Part II: Regional Variations on Deterrence and Stability......Page 287 PART III. FINDINGS AND IMPLICATIONS......Page 292 11 Foreign Views of Strategic Stability and US Nuclear Posture: The Need for Tailored Strategies......Page 294 12 Implications for US Policy: Defending a Stable International System......Page 300 Conclusion to the Book......Page 307 List of Contributors......Page 314 D......Page 320 N......Page 321 S......Page 322 W......Page 323 "During the Cold War, many believed that the superpowers shared a conception of strategic stability, a coexistence where both sides would compete for global influence but would be deterred from using nuclear weapons. In actuality, both sides understood strategic stability and deterrence quite differently. Today's international system is further complicated by more nuclear powers, regional rivalries, and nonstate actors who punch above their weight, but the United States and other nuclear powers still cling to old conceptions of strategic stability.The purpose of this book is to unpack and examine how different states in different regions view strategic stability, the use or non-use of nuclear weapons, and whether or not strategic stability is still a prevailing concept. The contributors to this volume explore policies of current and potential nuclear powers including the United States, Russia, China, India, Iran, Israel, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia. This volume makes an important contribution toward understanding how nuclear weapons will impact the international system in the twenty-first century and will be useful to students, scholars, and practitioners of nuclear weapons policy."-- JSTOR "During the Cold War, the superpowers shared a conception of strategic stability. It was for coexistence and a status quo frozen in place by the calculus of mutually assured destruction from nuclear weapons. In short, nuclear weapons promoted great-power peace. The United States made and continues to make its decisions about changes to force posture, risk of escalation, and prospects for arms control with strategic stability in mind. But today's international system is complicated by regional rivalries, rising states, more nuclear powers, asymmetric warfare, and non-state actors. The purpose of this book is to unpack and examine how different states view strategic stability, the use or non-use of nuclear weapons, and whether or not strategic stability is still a useful concept. The contributors to this book examine current and potential nuclear powers including the United States, Russia, China, India, Iran, Israel, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia. This book makes an important contribution toward understanding how nuclear weapons will impact the international system in the twenty-first century" (ed.)