Resilience of Nuclear Weapon Proliferation

Henry Kissinger in his monumental work; Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy confronts the nuclear dilemma head on. For him the challenges of the nuclear age are very different form the past. First nuclear weapons provided belligerents with an excess of firepower. Unlike the wars of the past that were restricted by the dearth of resources and ability to project power nuclear weapons have obliterated all constraints on war limitation. To think of a total war- a war in which total capitulation of the enemy is desired- is quite unthinkable since total war would mean complete annihilation. Why would any country whose national survival is threatened resort to nuclear weapons? If they are used would nuclear war achieve anything? Nuclear weapons dovetailed with the concept of total war according to Kissinger leads to situations where the will to fight is paralyzed. Second if excess power which nuclear weapons symbolize leads to paralysis of will in projecting force then the Clausewitzian dictum of war as a continuation of politics by other means is invalidated.