Kay Pole – författare

Europe has everything to lose from nuclear war, and nothing to gain from it. Yet it is nuclear deterrence that we are relying on to shield us from war. More and more people are coming to believe that security under a nuclear shield is an illusion, and that nuclear deterrence embodies a dangerous paradox. It is too close to provocation, it cannot prevent nuclear blackmail, and its short-term success can only lead to proliferation and ultimate instability. In this book, originally published in 1983, philosophers go behind the rhetoric of the nuclear debate and analyse the dangers of deterrence.

The contributors all share a concern about the radical confusions that have arisen concerning nuclear deterrence. Showing how unilateral arguments can be developed from hard-headed political and military considerations, they stress their belief that carefully managed unilateralism is the best method for securing the political independence of Western Europe. The doctrine is not founded on sheer moral idealism. This book will be essential reading for anyone engaged in the public discussion of defence policy.

Europe has everything to lose from nuclear war, and nothing to gain from it. Yet it is nuclear deterrence that we are relying on to shield us from war. More and more people are coming to believe that security under a nuclear shield is an illusion, and that nuclear deterrence embodies a dangerous paradox. It is too close to provocation, it cannot prevent nuclear blackmail, and its short-term success can only lead to proliferation and ultimate instability. In this book, originally published in 1983, philosophers go behind the rhetoric of the nuclear debate and analyse the dangers of deterrence.

The contributors all share a concern about the radical confusions that have arisen concerning nuclear deterrence. Showing how unilateral arguments can be developed from hard-headed political and military considerations, they stress their belief that carefully managed unilateralism is the best method for securing the political independence of Western Europe. The doctrine is not founded on sheer moral idealism. This book will be essential reading for anyone engaged in the public discussion of defence policy.

Moral and political questions are vitally relevant to the issue of survival in the nuclear age. Ethics has much to teach us about the meaning of national defence and civic responsibility in the nuclear state. For instance, those in NATO who argue for increased spending on such weapons do so with the intention of defending the values of the West. They must therefore be absolutely sure that they are not – as the contributors to this volume, originally published in 1984, powerfully suggest – undermining or destroying those values by the very means they adopt to preserve them.

With the continued success of nuclear deterrence itself in question, responsible citizens feel an urgent need to assess the clash between personal doubts, cherished principles and their governments’ loudly voiced moral certainties. In Objections to Nuclear Defence, professional philosophers of widely varying persuasions provide new analyses of these problems. They spell out clearly and vividly the moral and political objections – objections to the concrete nuclear policies of the Western governments today. Often impassioned but always rational, the book will be of special interest to students of international affairs, peace studies and applied philosophy as well as to the general reader who is trying to choose between political parties in Europe or North America.