ABSTRACT
Nuclear weapons pose special problems for NPD because a defender can do little to protect its population against atomic or hydrogen bombs. The dangers of building nuclear arms are so serious that arms control must remain a central element of US security policy. The most significant step toward abandoning a first-strike posture would be for the United States to declare its refusal to use nuclear bombs first in any circumstance and to back up this declaration with weapons and deployment patterns that could only facilitate a second strike. In the late 1980s several arms controllers argued that the United States could remove tactical nuclear bombs from Europe and still maintain a posture of extended deterrence, because US strategic missiles stationed in submarines or in silos in South Dakota could do the job. Arms control, wisely practiced, can prevent destructive arms races, but it still has a fundamental problem—it is based on perfecting nuclear deterrence.
