Why Nuclear Weapons may not help to keep the Peace

Download or read book Why Nuclear Weapons may not help to keep the Peace written by Joe Majerus and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2014-11-24 with total page 39 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essay from the year 2013 in the subject Politics - General and Theories of International Politics, grade: 73/100, University of Leicester, language: English, abstract: Nuclear weapons undeniably constituted a powerful deterrent against the renewed outbreak of major international conflict in the past seven decades, yet it would be wrong to infer from that reality that they might consequently always serve as an unfailing source of peace, stability and mutual security. Supposing them capable of doing so by mere virtue of their destructive potential and/or presumed stabilizing powers is essentially to discount that whatever agency they may have for underwriting peace and stability ultimately does not issue from their physical presence alone, but rather from the distinct set of international arrangements and conditions under which they actually exist. Any major change in the basic fabric of that order likely stands to not only sharply decrease their capacity at deterrence, but may likewise turn them into a dangerous mechanism for undermining the very 'nuclear peace' which some neo-realists erroneously credit these armaments capable of maintaining irrespective of the historical circumstances surrounding them.