I saw the arms race from the inside, watched as intercontinental ballistic missiles ushered in, arm in arm, mutual assured destruction and multiple warhead missiles introduced genuine fear of a nuclear first strike. I was responsible for war plans with over 12,000 targets, many struck with repeated nuclear blows, some to the point of complete absurdity. As nuclear weapons and actors multiplied, deterrence took on too many names, too many roles, overreaching an already extreme strategic task. Invoking deterrence became a cheap rhetorical parlor trick, a verbal sleight of hand. Proponents persist in dressing it up to court changing times and temperaments, hemming and re-hemming to fit shrinking or distorted threats.
Deterrence is far from certain.
It is not stable, nor is it static. Its wiles cannot be contained. From the very beginnings of the nuclear era, the objective scrutiny and searching debate essential to adequate comprehension and responsible oversight of its vast enterprises were foreshortened or foregone. The cold light of dispassionate scrutiny was shuttered in the name of security, doubts dismissed in the name of an acute and unrelenting threat, objections overruled by the incantations of the nuclear priesthood. Over time, planning was increasingly distanced and ultimately disconnected from any sense of scientific or military reality.