American Deterrence Policies During Cold War Crises

The use of nuclear weapons as a tool for international politics has been studied and debated on since their invention. With such a powerful threat of world annihilation at hand, it is possible that states will act in certain ways to avoid this outcome. Contrarily, scholars of international relations have also noted that some states have attempted to manipulate the risk of a nuclear attack in order to win against an adversary in a conflict. The Cold War between the superpowers of the United States and the Soviet Union shows clear examples of the intentional use of nuclear bombs to sway an opponent’s decision-making in a crisis. The believability of the threat is often determined by arsenal size, past actions, and the increasing manipulation of risk. This paper is divided into four main sections providing an introduction to deterrence theory and the following case studies of the Berlin Blockade, the Korean War, and the Cuban Missile Crisis. These were chosen due to their importance in shaping how relations between the US and USSR carried on for the remainder of the Cold War. Additionally, these crises show the varied responses by different US Presidents along with changing Soviet leaders. The goal of this paper is to explore the impact of nuclear weapons in the successful ending of these crises for the United States when combined with the different political, economic, and social factors at the time. While nuclear weapons do affect the outcome for each of the crises, the other factors cannot be ignored in explaining the actions of each state to achieve their desired conclusion.