The Nuclear Revolution and Nuclear Postures

For many observers, from military analysts and academic researchers to members of the public, the detonation of the atomic bombs over Japan in 1945, the subsequent development of thermonuclear weapons, and the arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union represented an epic shift in military capability. The destructive power of these new weapons crossed a threshold demonstrating that humankind now had the power to destroy itself within hours, days and months of their use. This new capability, the enormous sum of resources needed to realise that destructive power, and the theories developed to integrate nuclear warheads into military strategies can be referred to as the “nuclear revolution”. The American political scientist Robert Jervis, who published The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution: Statecraft and the Prospect of Armageddon (1989), analysed how the development of nuclear arms is revolutionary.