Implications of Nuclear Weapons on Strategic Competition

Abstract

Nuclear weapons change the nature of strategic competition in two key ways. First, by making direct conflict between two nuclear-armed powers much less likely, and second by making low-level activities below the threshold of conflict more likely. Of these two factors, the first is the more significant; it represents a fundamental change in the nature of strategic competition compared to the millennia preceding it. The consequence of this thesis is that conflicts within strategic competitions are more likely to play out in economic and diplomatic realms or in peripheral theaters using proxy states or forces than before the nuclear age

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 12, 2023
Accession Number
AD1207798

Entities

People

  • Charles Gough

Organizations

  • Naval War College

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Counter WMD
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Competition
  • Nuclear Weapons

Readers

  • Asian Economic Studies
  • Nuclear Non-Proliferation and International Security
  • Theoretical Analysis.