Nuclear power and deterrence

When we arrive at nuclear power, we contemplate a qualitatively different dimension of warfare. Unlike seapower, landpower, airpower and even cyberwar (see Chapter 8), where we can speak of the actual conduct of war, in the realm of nuclear power we are operating entirely in the abstract, theoretical sphere. As Lawrence Freedman so aptly put it in his 1986 assessment of Cold War nuclear strategists, the study of nuclear power and strategy is the study of the ‘non-use’ of these weapons.1