Peacekeeping bombs

Madalyn Grant, Australian National University
History in the Making, Vol 6 (December 2018)

In 1986 John Lewis Gaddis commented that nuclear weapons and their destructive capabilities kept the peace during the Cold War. Though the political and theoretical frameworks of deterrence, Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) and détente, as well as the political and public sentiment of the Cold War having advocated for a non-combative coexistence, we can see that his comment is, surprisingly, supported by these many facets of Cold War life. Case studies highlight that deterrence theory, somewhat paradoxically, was more successful the more nuclear weapons there were; however, this theory holds only with regard to the major nuclear states.[1] The nuclear arms race, which deterrence strategies contributed to, saw numerous treaties and meetings between politicians that bore great symbolic purpose, but also served to reinforce the dependence political leaders and their citizens had on nuclear power. Despite the contradictions involved in evaluating the success of nuclear weapons as peacekeeping tools, Gaddis’s comment on peace appears to hold true, though in a much more nuanced way then he concedes. Firstly, for parsimony’s sake, it is important to briefly establish parameters for analysis and define the key theoretical terms of the era.

Deterrence theory, a military and political strategy that existed for centuries prior to the Cold War, developed new connotations during this era as it maintained that the destructive capabilities of nuclear weapons were enough to deter militant aggression from an enemy.[2] Though the phrase initially referred to conventional warfare and the deterring factors of a superior army, the introduction of nuclear weapons altered the phrase’s meaning and contributed to the doctrine of MAD. MAD argued that deterrence theory extended to the proposition that if a nuclear state was to use its nuclear arsenal against an enemy state, that enemy state would in turn retaliate by deploying its own nuclear arsenal, resulting in both states, and their civilian populations, being completely annihilated.[3] MAD also maintained that there was, and still is, no incentive to utilize nuclear weapons once armed as possessing these weapons was threat enough.[4] In contrast to deterrence and MAD, détente involved the easing and resolving of political tensions, particularly through collaborative policies, aid work and nuclear disarmament.[5] Though the exact dates of the start and end the Cold War are still debated within the academy, it is widely accepted that détente was not readily adopted as a political strategy until late in the Cold War.[6]

Gaddis states that nuclear weapons kept the peace for ‘50 years.’ However this essay will look more broadly at the Cold War as a whole. In particular, the focus within this timeframe, which is in of itself a grey area, will be on the main nuclear states of the period: the United States (US), the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), and to a lesser extent, China.[7] As a result, the definition of peace within these parameters is taken to mean nuclear stability and these three powers never engaging in direct, nuclear combat. As such, the periphery wars and proxy wars that erupted across Southeast Asia, the African continent and South America will not be assessed, though these wars do provide a strong argument against Gaddis’s comment.[8]

Though one cannot directly test the success of nuclear deterrence, especially with regards to major conflicts, ‘the logic of nuclear deterrence can be indirectly explored by evaluating the outcomes of extreme crises in the nuclear era.’[9] Literature surrounding Cold War deterrence is still rife with debate on the exact number of deterrence cases during the era, as well as what truly constitutes successful deterrence.[10] Gaddis claims there are at least fifteen instances from 1946 to 1983 of successful nuclear deterrence, whereas Jacek Kluger maintains that of the ‘forty odd’ crises since 1945 only one quarter escalated to a point where nuclear weapons were an important factor.[11] Drawing on the 1976 case study evaluations of Robert Butterworth and the succeeding evaluations from the California Analysis Centre, Inc (CACI), Kluger does conclude, however, that ‘nuclear nations have not consistently prevented opponents from attaining contested policy objectives,’ though nuclearization did have a stabilising impact.[12] Further the investigation, Kluger, considering seven of the more hostile cases of Butterworth and the CACI’s list of sixteen assessable cases, which he does not distinguish and name, the success rate of nuclear deterrence becomes four out of seven (57%).[13] This is substantially less than the success of deterrence using conventional arsenals, which Bueno de Mesquita assessed to be 85% and has created further debate in revisionist histories about the nature of conventional deterrence in the nuclear age.[14]

Analysing fifty-four instances of deterrence between 1900-1980, nuclear and otherwise, Paul Hurth and Bruce Russett provide one of the most comprehensive evaluations in the current literature. Though they maintain that nuclear weapons did not keep the peace, their research highlights that nuclear weapons did contribute to the success of deterrence, which arguably resulted in stability.[15] As this essay argues that Gaddis’s definition of peace largely means nuclear stability, the conclusions drawn by the duo provide strong support for Gaddis’s claim. Of all instances of deterrence analysed between 1900 and 1955, which Hurth and Russett conclude was thirty-four, twenty attempts of deterrence were successful; this places the success rate at ~58%.[16] Following 1955, which is the commonly accepted start date for the first nuclear arms race, eleven of twenty cases of deterrence were successful, which decreases the success rate to ~50%.[17] Though this appears to discredit the claims of Gaddis and supports de Mesquita’s argument of conventional forces as stronger deterrents, the above statistics include the non-nuclear allies of superpowers in the equation. As Robert Jervis establishes, however, allies must be considered exempt from the nuclear deterrence rule, and empirical datasets, as a result of their conventional military forces still being their primary physical extension of policy making; whereas the major nuclear states had begun to rely on their growing nuclear forces as their main physical extension of diplomacy.[18] Thus, the above decrease in the success of nuclear weapons, when considered within the above mentioned parameters of this essay for analysis, does not provide strong enough evidence to directly discredit Gaddis’s claim of peace.

When analysis of instances of deterrence involving at least one major nuclear power are examined, Gaddis remains correct. The success rate prior to 1955 increases to 60% (based on fifteen cases) and from 1956-1980 the rate increases further to 77% (based on nine cases).[19] The arms race that lasted from roughly 1955 to 1960 between the USSR and the US, which, naturally, saw the increase of nuclear weapons globally, provides further support to Gaddis’s claim.[20] As Hedley Bull states, when two superpowers possess nuclear weapons the destruction becomes mutual and the relationship, to some degree, stabilises.[21] Drawing on the evaluations of Hurth and Russett once more, when two nuclear powers engaged in deterrence the success rate from 1900-1955 increases to 80% and cases up to 1980 produce a success rate of 100% based on five cases each.[22] Nuclear stability, then, occurred during the Cold War as the nuclear arsenals of major superpowers grew, which in turn promoted deterrence and supports Gaddis’s statement of peace between the powers being maintained.

Hurth and Russet’s results, and Gaddis’s comment, have still attracted criticism however. Attempting a quantitative approach to the stability-instability paradox – that is, the chance of major nuclear war decreasing but the chance of minor, proxy wars increasing – that nuclear weapons create, Robert Rauchhaus notes that at ‘lower levels of escalation, nuclear symmetry does not appear to have a pacifying effect.’[23] This aligns with the arguments of proliferation pessimists, the school of thought which maintains that the proliferation of nuclear weapons will have deleterious consequences. For example, Peter Stein and Peter Feaver argue that nuclear weapons have little to no impact on minor wars.[24] Martin van Crevel offers a largely theoretical counter-argument which tends to discount non-nuclear states, outlining:

the leaders of medium and small powers alike tend to be extremely cautious with regard to the nuclear weapons they possess… in every region where these weapons have been introduced, large-scale interstate warfare has disappeared.[25]

Hurth and Russett, taking a less absolutist approach, acknowledge pessimist concerns – the ‘absence of attack does not necessarily attest to the success of deterrence’ – and note that economic and political-military factors also played a key role in deterrence. Yet, the pair maintains, as does Gaddis, that nuclear weapons appear to have been the largest contributor to stability on account of the instantaneous mutual destruction they could cause when compared to conventional arsenals.[26] Marianne Hanson also concludes, somewhat cautiously, that the war-preventing ability of nuclear weapons has ‘merit as an essential component of stability between the superpowers,’ which the empirical evidence tends to support.[27] Therefore, statistically speaking, there is a large degree of evidence that supports Gaddis’s statement: proponents of the proliferation pessimist and optimist schools of thought have conceded that statistics suggest that nuclear weapons were key to maintaining the peace that Gaddis drew attention to in 1986.

Beyond case studies of deterrence, the rhetoric and policy coming from Moscow, Washington and Beijing also supports the notion of nuclear weapons as a means of maintaining peace – or at least preventing war. Even prior to the increase of nuclear arsenals during the arms race, which saw the US possess greater nuclear capabilities than their opponents and thus arguably increased the likelihood of the US utilising their superior force, Gaddis’s statement still stands.[28] As David Rosenberg argues, the maintenance of peace and deterrence activities by the US were perceived as greatly outweighing the potential benefits of committing to an attack.[29] This attitude aligns with the message coming from the White House at the time, as President Dwight Eisenhower’s New Look policy advocated for the creation, rather than use, of nuclear weapons.[30] Eisenhower had also warned senior military officials against utilising nuclear weapons like traditional weapons as ‘there is no victory in any war except through our imaginations.’[31] This stance followed the precedent set by his presidential predecessor, Harry S. Truman, who is reported to have told his own advisor David Lilienthal after the bombing of Japan that ‘You have got to understand this isn’t a military weapon. It is used to wipe out women, children and unarmed people, and not for military use.’[32] Thus, in the realist Truman and Eisenhower administrations, and as was predicted by leading military strategist Bernard Brodie in 1946, nuclear weapons were not characterised as conventional military weapons, but as tools to stabilise hostile relations and bring nations to the negotiating table rather than the battlefield.[33] This characterisation, when assessed under the parameters set on this essay, conforms to Gaddis’s statement.

Nuclear weapons also appear to have brought nations to the negotiating table for peace talks and treaties. Revisionist thinking has conversely presented a strong case that the combination of liberal leaders in the West, ‘nuclear freeze’ movements in the US and the breakdown of Sino-Soviet relations were key motivators for nuclear control talks between the superpowers.[34] Despite these factors likely contributing, nuclear weapons still remained at the fore of discussion, which not only indicates that the weapons were key motivators for holding the talks, but also reveals that nations were aware ‘that a relationship of mutually assured destruction existed.’[35] The Strategic Arms Limitations Talks, which resulted in the SALT Treaties of 1972 and 1979, the 1986 Stockholm Conference on Confidence and Security Building, the 1989 Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, and the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, to name a few, all highlighted the need for nuclear control. However, as few treaties resulted in extensive denuclearisation, this process also highlighted the dependence of participating nations on nuclear weapons.[36] To some extent, the dependence that these countries had on their nuclear arsenals, both as a means of being heard at the negotiating table and as a security blanket against war, supports the ideas of Gaddis: nuclear weapons provided a political and social understanding amongst politicians and civilians that they were safe because of the force their country possessed.

However, these talks do appear counter to Gaddis’s claim as they indicate that superpowers were attempting to mitigate the risks associated with the perceived stability-instability of nuclear weapons. As Steven Hook and John Spanier note though, majority of these conferences occurred following the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, where deterrence was almost disastrously unsuccessful, which saw a policy shift towards détente from both the US and USSR.[37] Steve Weber argues that the achievements of détente were ‘patchy and short-lived’, which resulted in its deterioration in the latter part of the 1970s.[38] Weber draws on the works of Raymond Garthoff, Harry Gelman, and Adam Ulam, who all argued in the early 1980s that ‘détente [was] developed on a foundation of objectives which were often poorly defined and not necessarily shared’ between the US and USSR.[39] With these frameworks in mind, we can return to neo-realist thinking, which states:

Structural realism starts with the axioms that the international system is anarchic and that states are compelled by the harsh imperative of self-help to provide for their own security and well-being.[40]

This framework is consistent with Gaddis’s comment and the argument that nuclear weapons were a stabilising tool, as it highlights that even during periods of attempted coexistence and détente, nuclear states were still acting with their own security and peace in mind.

Détente, which was prompted by the knowledge of MAD, was a political strategy largely used in the Cold War, though the ‘doves’ of Washington – those who wished to end the Cold War diplomatically and peacefully – were proponents of détente from the Cold War’s inception, as Hook and Spainer note. Even in the early stages of US-USSR hostilities nuclear weapons were used as the stabilising force, however. As early as 1946, the US had made attempts at controlling nuclear weapon development in the form of the Report on the International Control of Atomic Energy and the Baruch Plan, which both argued for international nuclear control policies.[41] Despite these attempts at arms control, which China and the USSR also participated in by way of the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, nuclear weapons were still depended upon for security and stabilisation of relations.[42] Evidence for this open reliance on nuclear weapons is ample in all three nuclear states: Mao Zedong, who had satirised the atomic bomb as a ‘paper tiger,’ began developing a nuclear arsenal and completed China’s first nuclear test in October 1964; Nikita Khrushchev stated that the USSR must maintain its defence forces ‘at the appropriate level,’ in accordance with the US’s nuclear projects; and President John F. Kennedy resumed nuclear tests in 1962 after winning the Presidential race on a campaign that was largely focused on nuclear weapons being ‘abolished before they abolish us.’[43] As neo-realist Kenneth Waltz notes, ‘the presence of nuclear weapons makes states exceedingly cautious,’ regardless of the treaties ratified.[44] The fluctuating success of détente further reinforces Gaddis’s claim as it highlights not only the superpowers’ inabilities to commit to large scale denuclearisation, but also reveals that during periods when détente waned and hostilities spiked, MAD insured that relationships remained stable and major conflict did not erupt.

Gaddis’s belief that nuclear weapons were the cornerstone in stable relations during the Cold War is also reflected, to varying degrees, in attitudes of the superpowers’ citizens. Though civilian sources do not necessarily attest to the success of strategies such as nuclear deterrence, they do indicate a public reliance on nuclear weapons as a perceived source of security and peace.[45] American magazine Pathfinder wrote in 1949 that the average man had ‘comforting thoughts of the U.S. lead in atomic weapons and its presumably sizable atomic stockpile,’ which indicates that the conservative-orientated magazine’s readership likely aligned with this realist idea, and consequently Gaddis’s thinking.[46] Pathfinder again in 1950 commented that ‘the most terrible weapons ever devised by science was not too high a price to pay “for the peace and security of the U.S.”.’[47] Further to this, a propaganda report received by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 1953 on Radio Moscow’s broadcasting patterns notes that ‘the regular practice of atomic scaremongering’ was limited in the USSR, which the author concluded was confusing, though some historians like Ernest W. Lefever and E. Stephen Hunt have inferred Soviet self-assuredness in their nuclear capability.[48] Though access to the Kremlin’s archives are limited and an understanding of public feeling towards the USSR’s nuclear arsenal even more so, propaganda posters tend to indicate a dependence on nuclear weapons similar to their US counterparts.[49] A poster from 1968 depicts a Soviet man with a large red rocket confronting an atom-bomb-carrying American, with the caption ‘Just You Try!’ scrawled in red. The flippant and casual remark, as well as the larger weapon of the Soviet soldier, could indicate the USSR’s confidence in their nuclear arsenal.[50] For the civilians of these two major powers, it can be tentatively concluded that nuclear proliferation made them feel safe from nuclear attack to the same extent that the above statistical analysis suggests that nuclear weapons did in fact maintain peace. Propaganda, however, cannot be taken as an accurate reflection of public sentiment. Much of the USSR’s media was censored and though Soviet-endorsed media appears to have inspired confidence in nuclear capabilities, its focus was often anti-American.[51] A communique to the Defence Technical Information Centre in 1981 details a broadcast from Radio Moscow which stated that ‘The Soviet Union does not want confrontation or military supremacy but prefers peace and disarmament…[but] the U.S. is aimed at obtaining supremacy over the USSR.’[52]

In the US, evidence against Gaddis’s idea is also apparent in sectors of the community. In late 1949, liberal magazine Quick published an opinion piece that asked eight people to answer ‘Is the Atomic Bomb Really Immoral?’[53] The four people arguing for its immorality primarily cite civilian death.[54] However, all four also outline a need for atomic weapons: ‘we must be prepared to bomb enemy industrial operations,’ ‘I had rather have…their civilians [die] than our civilians’ and ‘From a military standpoint, any damage you can inflict on the war-making potential of a nation…contributes to victory.’[55] Though public sentiment towards the need for nuclear weapons is highly nuanced, in the US a pattern emerges of civilians at least understanding why their government was creating a nuclear arsenal.[56] Nevertheless, this does not constitute full support of Gaddis’s comment, though sources available suggest that nuclear weapons provided some level of reassurance to the public. For Matthew Fuhrmann this could be the result of the casual connection between peaceful nuclear cooperation and the increased use of civilian nuclear technologies.[57] Though this appears an implausible conclusion to draw, Fuhrmann, who does concede the link is only slight, states that the introduction of civilian nuclear technologies (e.g. smoke detectors and gunsights) created a further degree of comfort with the technology, despite the known destructive capabilities, which may in turn help explain why US citizens viewed nuclear weapons as essential stabilisers.[58]

Despite the simplicity of Gaddis’s statement, there appears to be support, particularly in the realist and neo-realist camps, for his claim of nuclear weapons having kept the peace. Through a more holistic analysis encompassing more of the views of proliferation optimist, as well as case studies conducted in retrospect, this essay endeavoured to highlight that, with regards to the stability associated with peace, Gaddis does appear correct. The analysis of treaties and published examples of public sentiment also reveals, at least on the side of the US, that people during the Cold War era relied on nuclear arsenals as a means to providing stability. Though debate over Gaddis’s comment is still common in modern academia, particularly with regards to the allies of the superpowers and proxy wars, the above analysis highlights that, at least for the superpowers, nuclear weapons had the stabilising effect that Gaddis implied.

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[1] Robert Jervis, ‘The Political Effects of Nuclear Weapons: A Comment,’ International Security 13 (1988) 82.

[2] Bernard Brodie, The Absolute Weapon: Atomic Power and World Order (California: Harcourt, 1946), 264.

[3] Dyson Freeman, Weapons and Hope (New York: Harpers Collins, 1985), 129.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Michael H Hunt, The World Transformed: 1945 to the Present (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 313.

[6] Jarausch, Konrad H, Ostermann, Christian & Etges, Andreas, The Cold War: Historiography, Memory, Representation (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG, 2017), 124.

[7] John Lewis Gaddis, ‘The Long Peace: Elements of Stability in the Postwar International System,’ in Essential Readings in World Politics, ed. by Karen A. Mingst & Jack L. Snyder (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2004).

[8] Bevan Sewell & Maria Ryan, Foreign Policy at the Periphery: The Shifting Margins of US International Relations since World War II (Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 2016), 86.

[9] Jacek Kugler, ‘Terror without Deterrence: Reassessing the Role of Nuclear Weapons,’ The Journal of Conflict Resolution 28, no. 3 (1984), 473.

[10] Robert Rauchhaus, ‘Evaluating the Nuclear Peace Hypothesis: A Quantitative Approach,’ The Journal of Conflict Resolution 53, no. 2 (2009), 258.

[11] Gaddis, ‘The Long Peace: Elements of Stability in the Postwar International System,’ 37; Kugler, ‘Terror without Deterrence: Reassessing the Role of Nuclear Weapons,’ 475.

[12] Robert Butterworth, Managing Interstate Conflict 1945-1974: Data with Synopsis (Pittsburgh: University Centre for International Affairs, 1976), 48; Richard Mahoney & Richard Clayberg, Analysis of the Soviet Crisis Management Experience: A Technical Report (Arlington: CACI, 1978), 193; Kugler, ‘Terror without Deterrence: Reassessing the Role of Nuclear Weapons,’ 479 (emphasis in original).

[13] Ibid.

[14] Bueno de Mesquita, ‘An Expected Utility Theory of International Conflict,’ American Political Science Review 74, no. 4 (1980), 929.

[15] Paul Hurth & Bruce Russett, ‘What Makes Deterrence Work? Cases from 1900 to 1980,’ World Politics 36, no. 4 (1984), 523.

[16] Ibid., 498-501.

[17] Ibid.

[18] Jervis, ‘The Political Effects of Nuclear Weapons: A Comment,’ 82.

[19] Hurth & Russett, ‘What Makes Deterrence Work? Cases from 1900 to 1980,’ 498-501.

[20] Kluger, ‘Terror without Deterrence: Reassessing the Role of Nuclear Weapons,’ 480.

[21] Hedley Bull, The Control of the Arms Race: Disarmament and Arms Control in the Missile Age (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1961), 8.

[22] Hurth & Russett, ‘What Makes Deterrence Work? Cases from 1900 to 1980,’ 498-501.

[23] Rauchhaus, ‘Evaluating the Nuclear Peace Hypothesis: A Quantitative Approach,’ 271; Michael Krepon, The Stability-Instability Paradox, Misperception, and Escalation Control in South Asia (Washington: The Henry Stimson Center, 2005), 12.

[24] Peter Feaver & Peter Stein, Assuring Control of Nuclear Weapons: The Evolution of Permissive Action Links (Csia Occasional Paper No 2) (Lanham: University Press of America, 1989).

[25] Martin van Creveld, Nuclear Proliferation and The Future of Conflict (New York: Free Press, 1993), 124 (emphasis in original).

[26] Hurth & Russett, ‘What Makes Deterrence Work? Cases from 1900 to 1980,’ 496-497.

[27] Marianne Hanson, ‘A Pivotal Moment for Global Nuclear Arms Control and Disarmament,’ in War, Strategy and History, ed. Daniel Marston & Tamara Leahy (Canberra: Australian National University Press, 2016), 200.

[28] A.F.K. Organski, World Politics, 2nd ed. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1968), 77.

[29] David Rosenberg, ‘The Origins of Overkill: Nuclear Weapons and American Strategy, 1945-1960,’ International Security 7, no. 4 (1983), 63.

[30] Herman S. Wolk, ‘The ‘New Look’,’ Air Force Magazine 65, no. 8 (2003), 7.

[31] John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment (New York: Oxford University Press), 135.

[32] Lawrence Freedman, The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, 2nd ed. (New York: St Martin’s Press), 52.

[33] Brodie, The Absolute Weapon, 142.

[34] Bryan C. Taylor, ‘”The Means to Match Their Hatred”: Nuclear Weapons, Rhetorical Democracy, and Presidential Discourse,’ Presidential Studies Quarterly 37, no. 4 (2007) 683.

[35] David Holloway, The Soviet Union and the Arms Race (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983), 38.

[36] Hanson, ‘A Pivotal Moment for Global Nuclear Arms Control and Disarmament,’ 201-202.

[37] Steven W. Hook & John Spanier, American Foreign Policy Since World War II (Washington: CQ Press, 2007), 108.

[38] Steve Weber, ‘Realism, Detente, and Nuclear Weapons,’ International Organization 44, no. 1 (1990), 56.

[39] Ibid., 57-58.; Raymond L. Garthoff, Detente and Confrontation: American-Soviet Relations from Nixon to Reagan (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1985); Harry Gelman, The Brezhnev Politburo and the Decline of Detente (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984); Adam B. Ulam, Dangerous Relations: The Soviet Union in World Politics, 1970-82 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983).

[40] Weber, ‘Realism, Detente, and Nuclear Weapons,’ 58.

[41] Howard Jones, Crucible of Power: A History of American Foreign Relations from 1897 (Wilmington: SR Books, 2001), 233- 234.

[42] Dong-Joon Jo & Erik Gartzke, ‘Determinants of Nuclear Weapons Proliferation,’ The Journal of Conflict Resolution 51, no. 1 (2007), 187.

[43] Shu Guang Zhang, ‘Between ‘Paper’ and ‘Real Tigers’: Mao’s View of Nuclear Weapons,’ in Cold War Statesmen Confront the Bomb: Nuclear Diplomacy Since 1945, ed. John Gaddis, Philip Gordon, Ernest May & Jonathan Rosenberg (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 201.; Khrushchev, Nikita, ‘Khrushchev’s Speech on January 6th 1961,’ Open Society Archives, last modified 2006, http://osaarchivum.org/files/holdings/300/8/3/text/58-4-307.shtml; Kennedy, John. F., ‘JFK Address at U.N. General Assembly, 25 September 1961,’ John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, https://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/DOPIN64xJUGRKgdHJ9NfgQ.aspx/.

[44] Ernest W. Lefever & E. Stephen Hunt, ‘Education, Propaganda, and Nuclear Arms,’ The Phi Delta Kappan 64, no. 10 (1983), 728.

[45] Ibid., 727.

[46] Unknown, ‘The Russian Bomb,’ Pathfinder, October 5, 1949, American Periodicals, 56.

[47] Unknown, ‘The Hell Bomb,’ Pathfinder, February 8, 1950, American Periodicals, 12.

[48] U.S. Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Nuclear Weapons in Soviet Propaganda (Washington: Central Intelligence Agency, 23 December 1953).

[49] Hurth & Russett, ‘What Makes Deterrence Work? Cases from 1900 to 1980,’ 497.

[50] Vsevolod Vyacheslavovich Ivanov, ‘Just You Try!’ poster (1968), from Antikbar, USSR Soviet Propaganda Poster Anti USA, JPEG files, https://www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/auction-catalogues/antikbar/catalogue-id-antikb10005/lot-7939f547-0ea0-4b0b-8573-a72b00f1e3e9.

[51] Lefever & Hunt, ‘Education, Propaganda, and Nuclear Arms,’ 727.

[52] Joint Chiefs of Staff, Washington, DC, Soviet News and Propaganda Analysis (Washington: Defence Technical Information Centre, 1-31 October 1981).

[53] Unknown, ‘Is the Atomic Bomb Really Immoral?’ Quick, 31 October 1949, American Periodicals.

[54] Ibid.

[55] Ibid.

[56] Lefever & Hunt, ‘Education, Propaganda, and Nuclear Arms,’ 728.

[57] Matthew Fuhrmann, ‘Spreading Temptation: Proliferation and Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation Agreements,’ International Security 34, no. 1 (2009), 35.

[58] Ibid., 39.