The Elements Of Interdependence In The Strategic Stabilities

At present, one of the major problems facing international nuclear disarmament iswhether or not the two nuclear powers the United States and Russia will be able tocontinue to reduce their number of nuclear weapons based on the foundation of the newStrategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START). Among the primary obstacles is thatthe United States and Russia have been unable to break the bonds of “Mutually AssuredDestruction”(MAD) under the concept of strategic stability.The theory of strategic stability that developed during the Cold War arose fromdefensive realism and structural realism, along with the hypothesis of “nationalrationalism” and the concept of “unacceptable losses,” to build an analytical method forcalculating loss as the core of MAD-based strategic stability. Its conclusion was thatonly when two countries’ numbers of nuclear weapons reach a level of “MutuallyAssured Destruction”(the ability to inflict “unacceptable losses” with a “second strike”)would the two sides be able to achieve strategic stability (known as “Mutually AssuredDestruction” strategic stability). When the United States and Soviet Union confrontedeach other’s large number of nuclear weapons during the Cold War, this strategicstability construct led to each side undertaking controls on their nuclear arsenals andarms reduction negotiations. However, when facing the realities of reducing thesenuclear arsenals under the demands of the21st century, there remain questions as towhether or not strategic stability can be maintained when the level of these nuclearweapons numbers is lowered.This paper based on the primary logic of traditional strategic stability theory tocompare and contrast first strike and second strike losses to evaluate the strategicstability, and absorbing the ideas of the new interdependent liberalism theory, tocalculate the damages incurred from the interdependence element when calculatingnuclear war losses (traditional strategic stability analysis does not factor in this part oflosses). First, from the damage effect of nuclear weapons, the paper analyzed thecomposing of environmental, economic and political interdependent factors, discussedthe method for calculating interdependent losses such as environmental (“nuclear winter,”“atmospheric ozone depletion,” and “radioactive fallout”) and economic (directinvestment, mutual trade, and financial assets of goods and services); Then, usingsimulated quantitative calculation in cases of high and low number nuclear weapons ofthe nuclear war respectively, assessed the degree of influence ofinterdependence-inflicted losses on traditional strategic stability calculations. Theconclusion is: under the condition of a large number of nuclear weapons, theenvironmental interdependent impact of a “nuclear winter” will have an evidentinfluence on loss calculations associated with “Mutually Assured Destruction” strategicstability. Under the condition of a low numbers of nuclear weapons, the economicinterdependence factor will have an important impact on strategic stability calculationsand the environmental interdependent factor will play certain role. This proves thenecessity of taking into account losses from interdependence when analyzing strategicstability, and considering interdependent factors could help to improve the stability ofthe strategy.From the conclusion of this paper, it can be observed that if the United States andRussia factor in interdependence losses into their calculations of strategic stability, thetwo parties could significantly reduce the numbers of nuclear weapons needed toachieve “Mutually Assured Destruction” strategic stability, and would allow the UnitedStates and Russia to significantly reduce their numeric level of nuclear weapons tobreak through the construct of “Mutually Assured Destruction”. This is helpful torealize the deep reduction of United States and Russia nuclear weapons. Later, if theUnited States and Russia, including other nuclear-weapon states, are able tocontinuously promote the development of economic and trade relations, this wouldincrease the proportion of economic interdependence losses factored into the calculationof strategic stability analysis, international nuclear disarmament process could befurther promoted.