Difficult deterrence decisions

The problem with Sidney Drell’s rekindling the vision of Reykjavík in “The Challenge of Nuclear Weapons” (Physics Today, June 2007, page 54 ) is that the steps advocated by George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger, and Sam Nunn cannot be carried out unilaterally or bilaterally. Even if the US and Russia were willing to abide by the program developed at the Hoover Institution, there is little indication that more volatile nuclear states, such as India and Pakistan, would agree to do so; in fact, those two nations are rapidly expanding their nuclear arsenals as of this writing. Nor is it clear that following the Hoover prescription will in any way deter rogue states such as Iran from going nuclear.

Like it or not, the best option for the US is to continue to maintain a large number of nuclear weapons, with the clear policy message that the perpetrator of any nuclear attack will suffer instant and massive retaliation. The same fate should befall any state that has supplied a nuclear weapon to a terrorist group. Identifying the supplier is a nontrivial task, but rapid progress is being made on nuclear forensics and, at least at present, there are only a small number of potential culprits.