Richard Ned Lebow and Janice Gross Stein

According to Richard Ned Lebow and Janice Gross Stein in the following viewpoint, nuclear deterrence fueled the arms race and increased tension between the United States and the Soviet Union. Indeed, nuclear deterrence provoked rather than restrained the two superpowers. For example, in the early years of the Cold War, the authors maintain, President John F. Kennedy’s boasts of nuclear superiority prompted Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev to install missiles in Cuba to protect Soviet interests there. Nuclear deterrence was not necessary to prevent major hostilities between the superpowers; in fact, confrontation between them had declined once both established spheres of influence in Europe. In retrospect, the Cold War policy of nuclear deterrence was not only unnecessary to prevent war but contributed to the tensions between...