Introduction

This chapter seeks to provide how the concept of deterrence has changed and explores the applicability of Cold War deterrence models. It describes charting the evolution of nuclear deterrence through the Cold War and post-Cold War environments before examining deterrence in more detail in the context of the key issues of proliferation and disarmament. Pessimists would seem to have a stronger argument than ever that nuclear weapons make the international security situation unstable, due to the interconnectedness between growing numbers of nuclear states. Following China's nuclear test in 1964 it was predicted that widespread horizontal proliferation would occur within the industrialized world, with tens of states developing nuclear weapons. In a world with fewer or zero nuclear weapons, the basic tactic of deterrence – 'just a variant of using people elbows' – remains essentially unchanged. The chapter examines these two relationships in turn: deterrence and proliferation and deterrence and disarmament.