ABSTRACT
David Gauthier's argument implies that in certain conditions, conditions that many responsible parties believe presently to exist, nuclear deterrence is a game of Chicken and the nuclear arms race is a Prisoner's Dilemma. The analysis of nuclear deterrence as Chicken goes back to Bertrand Russell's Common Sense and Nuclear Warfare, in which Russell described Chicken as a game played by "elder statesmen and youthful degenerates". A person who maintains that Chicken correctly models the present superpower confrontation must maintain that, regardless of leadership beliefs, presently planned nuclear responses in fact are not rational, when assessed after a first strike and independently of prior considerations concerning deterrence. The bulk of Gauthier's arguments intends to show that nuclear retaliation can be rational and that unilateral disarmament is irrational. To dispute Gauthier's conclusions, it seems, is to begin the descent into irrationalism and barbarism.
