Description
- Abstract:
- Abstract of “On the Prospects of Escalating to De-Escalate and Limiting Nuclear War: With a Focus on the U.S. Perspective” by Daniel R. Post, Ph.D., Brown University, May 2023 Nuclear war is horrific to contemplate, and yet nuclear-armed states routinely plan, train, and equip themselves to do just that in the name of deterrence. Additionally, within debates among scholars and strategists over the prospects of limited nuclear war an important but potentially dangerous concept has emerged. This concept is identified as “Escalate to De-Escalate” (E2DE). But how likely is it that a nuclear war could be kept meaningfully limited if deterrence fails? Is it possible that escalating to the nuclear level could have a de-escalatory impact on a conflict? Why might we believe this is so? This dissertation explores these questions in three journal-style articles. The first relies on elite interviews and asks what experts in the U.S. Strategic Community believe about limiting nuclear war and the E2DE strategy. I find that nuclear strategic thinking may be subject to exceptional-type thinking, in which strategies deemed foolish or dangerous for others are deemed potentially successful for the United States, but without adequate understanding about why this should or would be the case. The second utilizes past war games and crisis simulations to explore the coercive effects of these types of escalations as well as the coercive effects of the limited use of nuclear force. The analysis shows that it is extremely rare that a strategy of escalate to de-escalate is effective. There is also little reason to believe that nuclear weapons provide any unique coercive advantages. The third section discusses the results of a pair of survey experiments which were designed to explore the effectiveness of E2DE strategies as well as to investigate the coercive effects of nuclear weapons in such scenarios. Here I also find that E2DE fails much more often than it succeeds; nuclear weapons do not increase chances of success; and emotional reactions of anger and fear have important relationships to outcomes. In all, E2DE is assessed to be an inherently risky strategy.
- Notes:
- Thesis (Ph. D.)--Brown University, 2023
Citation
Post, Daniel,
"On the Prospects of Escalating to De-Escalate and Limiting Nuclear War: With a Focus on the U.S. Perspective"
(2023).
Political Science Theses and Dissertations.
Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library.
https://doi.org/10.26300/x4jy-1j42
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Collection:
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Political Science Theses and Dissertations
Theses and Dissertations for the Political Science department....