In this paper, I address three of the most frequently used arguments for maintaining a significant measure of dependence for international security on nuclear deterrence both globally and regionally:

1. Nuclear weapons have deterred great powers from waging war against each other, so a world without nuclear weapons will lead to, or at least might encourage, great-power war.
2. The US nuclear umbrella has deterred nuclear proliferation, so the reduction of the US nuclear arsenal will undermine the credibility of US extended deterrence and create additional incentives for nuclear proliferation.
3. Nuclear weapons have deterred other powers from invading the territory of those states that possess nuclear weapons and thus leaders of countries with relatively weak conventional capabilities will keep their weapons as an equalizer. A version of this argument focuses on dictatorial regimes or “rogue states” whose very existence depends on their having nuclear weapons.

After showing that these arguments are not as convincing as their frequency suggests, I delineate opportunities that advocates for a nuclear-free world or a world with few nuclear weapons should exploit on their way to advancing their goal, based on the decoupling of nuclear weapons and deterrence.

Fear of nuclear weapons is rational, but its extension to terrorism has been a vehicle for fear-mongering that is unjustified by available data. The debate on nuclear terrorism tends to distract from events that raise the risk of nuclear war, the consequences of which would far exceed the results of terrorist attacks. And the historical record shows that the war risk is real. The Cuban Missile Crisis and other confrontations have demonstrated that miscalculation, misinterpretation, and misinformation could lead to a "close call" regarding nuclear war. Although there has been much commentary on the interest that Osama bin Laden, when he was alive, reportedly expressed in obtaining nuclear weapons, evidence of any terrorist group working seriously toward the theft of nuclear weapons or the acquisition of such weapons by other means is virtually nonexistent. The acquisition of nuclear weapons by terrorists requires significant time, planning, resources, and expertise, with no guarantees that an acquired device would work. It requires putting aside at least some aspects of a group’s more immediate activities and goals for an attempted operation that no terrorist group has accomplished. While absence of evidence does not mean evidence of absence, it is reasonable to conclude that the fear of nuclear terrorism has swamped realistic consideration of the threat.

It is striking that, prior to this paper, no risk analyses existed of nuclear deterrence – a strategy whose failure would destroy much of our nation. This paper explains how risk analysis can be applied both to estimate the risk of deterrence failing and to reduce that risk. A preliminary analysis indicates that the current level of risk is unacceptable.

This article argues that Congress should authorize and fund a National Academies risk analysis of nuclear deterrence. It also explains how risk analysis is able to tease much more information out of the available data – which clearly does not yet involve a failure of nuclear deterrence – than might first appear possible.

Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles are believed to carry a total of approximately 1,000 strategic nuclear warheads that can hit the US less than 30 minutes after being launched. Of this total, about 700 warheads are rated at 800 kilotons; that is, each has the explosive power of 800,000 tons of TNT. CISAC senior research scholar Lynn Eden co-authors this analysis in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists that looks at consequences of the detonation of a single such warhead over midtown Manhattan.

CISAC's Siegfried Hecker and Abbas Milani note in this article for the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists that for merely working in their field of expertise, Iranian nuclear scientists face perils and pressures that are nothing less than Shakespearean. The question for them is, in a very real sense, "To be or not to be." In the course of the last four decades, these scientists have faced intimidation and severe punishment, including prison terms, at the hands of their own government. In recent years, at least five Iranian nuclear scientists have been the target of assassination attempts often attributed to Israeli intelligence. Regardless of their source, all such threats against scientists are morally indefensible. They offend the scientific spirit, working against the free exchange of ideas that is necessary for humanity to advance. The authors assert, these threats against scientists in Iran undermine global peace, targeting experts whose international collaboration is required to deal effectively with the nuclear risks facing the world today. Simply put, killing nuclear scientists makes reducing the threat of nuclear war harder, not easier.