Proliferation and Peace: An Agnostic View

Abstract

Some experts contend that nuclear proliferation is fully compatible with international political stability, and others insist that the spread of nuclear weapons will undermine stability. Realists are optimistic about the implications of nuclear weapons spread because, in a rational world, nuclear weapons favor the defender over the attacker, making war less probable. Other schools of thought suggest that nuclear weapons are either irrelevant, because not actually useful in combat, or dangerous, in that they can be the instruments of inadvertent escalation to wars of unprecedented destruction. The perspective of nuclear agnosticism, admittedly characterized by diversity, offers a more plausible prospectus for the role of nuclear weapons in the new world order than does the realist view based on misreading of Cold War experience.