Regarding W.F. Buckley’s musing on whether or not, in the end, Ronald Reagan would actually have given the order to launch our nuclear response, I must point out that such ambiguity was always at the heart of the policy of Mutual Assured Destruction — that it is, in fact and by its nature, at the heart of any strategy of deterrence.
For deterrence to be successful requires two elements that must both be present:
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- That your opponent believes you have the capability to retaliate
- That your opponent believes you have the will to retaliate (including the will to depend on retaliation, rather than backing down)
Note that neither element requires that your threat be ‘real’ — that is, that you actually have the capability in the first instance and that you actually have the will in the second. What matters is that you can make your opponent believe both are real.
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