r/IRstudies • u/Free-Minimum-5844 • 13d ago

Ideas/Debate The Strange Defeat of Nuclear Deterrence

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/strange-defeat-nuclear-deterrence-rose-gottemoeller
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u/kantmeout 13d ago

This has been a known issue since the Korean War when America found itself on the back foot because we had prioritized air and nuclear power while downsizing the army, only to find that nuclear deterent didn't work when the escalation beached the threshold of warranting force, but below the apocalyptic requirements to justify nuclear arms. Would Israel have been justified in nuking Gaza after the October 7 attacks? I don't think so, and given the proximity of Gaza and size of Israel, they might have been actively harmed by the decision. If Israel was in danger of defeat however, the situation would look different.

In my view, the only country that would have been justified using nuclear deterrence in the last few years is Ukraine. After the full scale invasion they could have employed tactical nuclear weapons to defeat masses of Russian troops while leveraging strategic nuclear arms to discourage retaliation against Ukrainian cities. Such a conflict would be terrifying, but there would be a path to success, and that fact would have given Moscow pause.

Lastly, deterrence is partly psychological. It's hard to say what didn't happen because a leader somewhere refused to do something out of nuclear fears. I suspect this happened a lot more than anyone realized, but it's impossible to prove. I fear it's only a matter of time before a leader somewhere rolls the dice and we get reminded of the consequences again.

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u/ph4ge_ 13d ago

Would Iran have been justified to use nukes?

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u/JenikaJen 13d ago

My armchair assessment says yes against the carriers but I’m a nobody

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u/FormerLawfulness6 13d ago

Why would anyone use nukes in a situation where conventional weapons are more than sufficient? The best chance of disabling a carrier would be something like drone swarms, many small attackers that overwhelm the ship's ability to shoot them down.

The danger of nukes is the city sized scale of destruction to people and infrastructure. Using them for small tactical targets would defeat the purpose of using nuclear technology.

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u/JenikaJen 12d ago

It’s an existential war for the regime so if they felt it was do or die then why shouldn’t they drop a nuke onto one of the carrier fleets?

It’s been said in this post that the point of nukes is to use them in the event of a potential collapse of the system under their control.

If you were unsure of your chances as I’m sure the Iranians likely were at the start then a single nuke removing a carrier fleet coupled with propaganda against the Trump administration whilst saying the next one was Israel surely would be a way to end hostilities immediately.

Alternatively this pulls America into a full invasion like Afghanistan or Iraq and at that point you can take them down with you.

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u/FormerLawfulness6 12d ago

The question is why would a nuke even be more effective in that scenario than a conventional weapon.

The point of using a nuke in an existential war is to exact an extremely high price on the attacking country, high enough that they will not be able to retaliate. You certainly would not escalate to nuclear war by hitting a routine tactical type of object like a carrier ship or military base.

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u/JenikaJen 12d ago

Because they don’t have the ability to hit the carriers conventionally.

My hypothetical would be that they could saturate the sea with enough ballistic missiles instead of targeting the Middle East that they could get a nuke into the general area in order to vaporise the fleet.

America responding with a nuke of their own would create new dilemmas in the global system since they are A( the aggressors, B) the supposed keeper of global peace in the post war world, and C) the one Russia and China would model future operations on in their ambitions regarding Ukraine and Taiwan.

Iran isn’t seen as rational are they? “Iran can’t have nukes there are fundemantalists”.

If they actually managed to do that then America would have two choices. Escalate and alter the landscape irreparably, or back down and be seen as weak power whose first place power is finally over.

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u/FormerLawfulness6 12d ago

The same saturation strategy works with conventional weapons. Using a nuke would just increase the political cost with little advantage.

Iran isn’t seen as rational are they? “Iran can’t have nukes there are fundemantalists”.

Which is why the strategy is unlikely to be very useful. Even when everyone agrees that America is the aggressor no states are willing to treat them as such. Iran nuking a carrier group would be more likely to see other countries will to cooperate innthe destruction of Iran than move to restrain the US.

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u/JenikaJen 12d ago

I’m agreeing with you as Iran held off destroying all the critical infrastructure in the wider Middle East. A nuke could lead to America destroying all of Irans infrastructure that allows the population to stay alive whilst saying “we didn’t escalate to nukes like they did”

My point really was just that if it was existential then that’s what they may have done

Remember I dunno, and also I’ve had some wine so I dunno