Lessons of the early Cold War for understanding WMD proliferation today

Consideration of employing military options against rogue proliferators is, in many respects, a throwback to the period of the early Cold War. Preventive and preemptive war options have once again become a regular part of strategic discourse. This article explores similarities between the early Cold War and the present era, focusing on how the process of proliferation creates acute fears about shifting balances of power and the risks of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) conflict. Drawing on recently published US and Russian sources, which have enabled a vastly improved empirical understanding of this period over the last decade, the article illustrates how the instability of the ‘age of crises’ derived in large part from three rational pathways to global war. It is argued that these three pathways are also present in the contemporary strategic environment. Also, various stabilizing elements that existed during the early Cold War are not likely to function in present circumstances. The article concludes that instability may be an inherent feature of radically asymmetric WMD rivalry.