Does Deterrence work

... eful weighing of all possible alternative courses of action," in short, states act rationally. The first principle of realism is for the state to defend itself and its citizens from other states. The superpowers tried to defend themselves and their citizens by deterrence, a preventative method of ensuring peace. To ensure that each side knew that the other sides threat was real, the US-Soviet arms race escalated to enhance their second strike capability - enabling a country to withstand an initial strike by an adversary and retain the ability to retaliate and inflict devastating loses. Therefore the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) was coined by policy makers to characterise the strategic balance- nuclear deterrence was "like holding a gun with two barrels, of which one points ahead and the other points back at the guns' holder," to use it would assure serious injury to yourself. At this point, deterrence appears at odds with realism. What deterrence proposes is a system of defence which is ever carried out ensures the destruction of a states own people. This is directly at odds with the first principle that the state must protect its citizens and even further appears irrational. By protecting the state by deterrence methods, what actually can occur is suicide, or more correctly, mutual homicide. To use Hedley Bulls' words again, Country B must perform an irrational act for deterrence theory to be credible to Country A, if Country B always acts rationally, it will never use its nuclear capabilities, Country A will know that and so can ignore any threat which Country B makes. Deterrence becomes a game of bluff. The question which now needs examining relates to Hedley Bulls' third assumption - that Country B has the will and the capacity to carry out the threat. Realistically, would a state actually consider going through the process of MAD to counteract an attack? What form of attack would this relate to, would it have to be a pre-emptive nuclear strike by the enemy or does deterrence allow a nuclear response to a conventional attack? Thirdly, how does a state convince others that if attacked, it is irrational enough to cross the nuc ...