Here Today, Gone Tomorrow—Nuclear Deterrence in the 1990s?

The United States faces a curious yet profound dilemma: we want to reduce the world's nuclear weapons but do not know how to do so without increasing rather than decreasing the threat that these weapons will be used. More and better of everything is clearly no answer; but it is not axiomatic that less is always more secure. Indeed the danger with small nuclear forces is that even marginal alternation in agreed-upon numbers can create a possibly decisive difference in the real balance of power. Nor does a defensive strategy—specifically the use of antiballistic missile systems—offer the technological panacea to render nuclear weapons obsolete. All systems leak; the question is, How badly? Anything much less than a perfect defense would more likely fuel an arms race—resulting in escalation on both the offense and the defense—than end it. In the end, what we need are analytically derived combinations of offense and defense by which we can realistically achieve dramatic weapons reductions without commensurate reductions in national security.