The Inherent Paradox Of Nuclear Deterrence

Deterrence is not only a military term, but also a concept of psychological politics. Nuclear deterrence is a defense theory of post-war western world, and also a strategic choice. Nuclear deterrence is considered to have brought "long peace" during the cold war period. But we should admit that it cannot prevent other forms of conflicts, such as local war or domestic conflicts, especially for the emerging threats like terrorism and "outside the system state". With the diversification of the deterrence objects, the lowering of nuclear threshold and the great cost, its necessity and credibility is under doubt and being weaken. So far, the domestic and overseas scholars mainly focus on nuclear proliferation, such as the theory and case study, the relation between proliferation and international security etc; however, the discussion about deterrence is far more less. This paper tries to analyze deterrence from theoretic and practice dimensions to analyze its inherent paradoxes. Based on the analysis of the macroscopic level of country's internal structure and micro level of leaders'personal features, their ways of thinking and decision-making preferences, this paper tries to add some irrational factors and to modify the original pattern on the basis of the analysis, which makes the pattern more convincible.