This shows how nuclear weapons transformed fear into confrontation, reinforcing insecurities rather than reflecting strategies of aggression.
Executive summary
Nuclear weapons remade international politics by converting existential fear into a perpetual posture of confrontation: they deterred large-scale wars between major powers while simultaneously institutionalizing mutual suspicion, competitive modernization, and crisis instability that amplify insecurities [1] [2] [3]. Scholarly and policy literature shows a dual logic—deterrence that restrains outright aggression coexists with doctrines, targeting practices, and geopolitical rivalries that make escalation likelier, meaning the presence of nuclear arms often reflects and reinforces fear rather than pure offensive grand strategy [4] [5] [6].
1. How deterrence disciplined war but institutionalized fear
From the Cold War onward, nuclear deterrence imposed a cautious logic that helped prevent direct superpower wars by making the costs of large-scale aggression unthinkable, creating a stabilizing “mutual assured destruction” relationship even as it required continuous signaling and credibility-building to work [1] [2]. At the same time, that same dynamic made fear a strategic resource: states invested in arsenals, early-warning systems and command-and-control postures precisely to manage existential anxiety, embedding fear into doctrine and alliance politics rather than dissolving it [7] [8].
2. Weapons as amplifiers of insecurity and crisis escalation
Multiple contemporary studies and policy reports document how nuclear doctrines—especially counterforce targeting or perceived decapitation threats—can convert conventional crises into high-risk standoffs by incentivizing preemption or limited nuclear use out of fear for survivability, making escalation less hypothetical and more probable [5] [6] [9]. International bodies and humanitarian analysts warn that heightened geopolitical tensions, modernization and entanglement with cyber and space domains increase the risk of inadvertent or escalatory use, underscoring that nuclear arsenals amplify systemic insecurity [10] [8].
3. Alliance politics, proliferation pressures, and the politics of reassurance
Nuclear weapons reshaped alliance networks: they buttressed U.S. alliances by extending deterrence but also generated fears among allies about abandonment and prompted proliferation pressures when reassurance faltered, showing that nuclear postures create political feedback loops of insecurity across regions [2] [5]. SIPRI and academic analyses show that recent wars and rivalries have revived nuclear salience and fuelled new arms-building—evidence that nuclear arsenals do not merely deter but also feed regional confrontation dynamics [3] [11].
4. Competing interpretations: restraint through fear versus reduced aggression
Scholars diverge: some argue nuclear arms make states less inclined to use force because strategic paralysis and catastrophic risk stabilize behavior, a view rooted in Waltzian deterrence theory and supported by work suggesting lower aggression against non-nuclear states [4] [7]. Critics counter that the same paradoxical logic produces preventive-war incentives, accidents, and misperception-driven escalation—empirical studies find crises involving nuclear states can be more dangerous precisely because fear provokes risky countermeasures [12] [9].
5. Hidden agendas, policy choices and the need for diplomacy
Policy debates are shaped by institutional incentives—militaries, defense industries, and think tanks emphasize modernization and credible force postures while disarmament advocates stress humanitarian catastrophe and legal risks—so reporting and prescriptions can reflect hidden agendas about budgets, influence, and strategic privilege [8] [13]. Across the literature the common prescription is not certainty but caution: strategic stability requires dialogue, arms control, and crisis communication to convert fear-driven confrontation back into manageable deterrence relationships [8] [13].