Nuclear Deterrence and Just War Theory

Abstract

The just war tradition stands as the moral and prudential alternative to both pacifism and realism. It forms the only reasonable ethical basis for the understanding of state initiated force. As applied to questions of nuclear deterrence, just war theory is incompatible with Mutual Assured Destruction and with the threat of MAD. Just war theory entails a move toward counterforce with discriminate targeting of military capabilities and away from city targeting . This is now becoming possible technically and is morally indicated. The counterforce option is realistic in that nuclear disarmament is an extremely remote possibility and alternate strategies such as bluff ore not workable. A counterforce strategy would be both discriminate and proportional as well as being in accord with political realism.