North Korea, Iran and the demise of nuclear deterrence

Tad Daley and Kevin Martin of Ploughshares-funded Peace Action outline in the Huffington Post the logic behind “deterrence theory” as a justification for nuclear weapons.  They write that the U.S.’s insistence that countries like Iran and North Korea have no need for such weapons would hold more weight if it did not insist that, even with its vastly superior conventional strength, “it cannot protect American national security without also maintaining a vast nuclear arsenal.” Daley and Martin conclude that nuclear deterrence does not “work” and “the time to launch formal multilateral negotiations directed toward nuclear weapons abolition is now.”