again during the Able Archer crisis of 1983,^28 it is becoming increasingly evident
that ‘the bomb’ cannot rescue leaders from the mistrust, misperceptions, mis-
calculations, and accidents that have propelled states into war in the past, and which
in the nuclear age could lead to unparalleled catastrophe. Waltz does not accept, but
is well aware of such criticisms, as is evident from his debate with Scott Sagan, whose
position is that ‘more will be worse’. Sagan claims that in not opening up the black
box of decision-making inside the state, Waltz has ignored the role of strong military
organisations inside the state in propagating the following proliferation risks: biases
towards preventive war thinking during the dangerous period when a rival state is
developing nuclear weapons; organisational routines that militate against the
building of survivable nuclear forces, increasing the dangers of pre-emptive nuclear
strikes in times of crisis; and the risks of accidental or unauthorised use of nuclear
weapons. Sagan substantiated his claims with empirical evidence from the Cold War
and the India–Pakistan nuclear rivalry, predicting, contra Waltz, that we should
expect to see these dangers increase if more states become nuclear powers.^29
Waltz has not retreated from his pro-proliferation stance in the face of such
criticisms. He responded to Sagan, for example, by challenging his reading of both
the Cold War and the international politics of South Asia. Waltz has dismissed the
evidence that nuclear historians have accumulated showing how close the super-
powers came to nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis; and he has been equally
unperturbed about deterrence failing between India and Pakistan.^30 In reply to Sagan’s
claim that there was a significant risk of inadvertent nuclear war during the crises over
Kargil in 1999 and in 2001–02, when India was fully mobilised for war against
Pakistan, Waltz repeated his belief that ‘Nuclear Weapons make crises stable, which
is an important reason for believing that India and Pakistan are better off with than
without them.’^31 Waltz, then, remains optimistic that the rationality instilled by
nuclear fear will ensure that deterrence continues to pass whatever future tests it faces.
The impossibility for governments to accept that ‘more may be better’ is that it
rests on a gamble of cosmic proportions, namely, as Martin Amis once pithily put
it, that deterrence can ‘last out the necessary timespan, which is roughly between
nowand the death of the sun’.^32 One might assume 99 per cent confidence that
nuclear deterrence will indefinitely prevent war between states possessing nuclear
weapons, including conventional wars that might otherwise have occurred. But is
the price of a 1 per cent likelihood that deterrent rationality might one day fail
(bearing in mind that such a percentage increases significantly over say a 100 year
period)^33 worth paying, given the terrible consequences of any nuclear wars that do
occur?
Many in the existing NWS are willing to take such a risk, while also strongly
opposing the spread of nuclear weapons to other states. But should we accept ‘life
in a nuclear-armed crowd’,^34 and – despite Waltzian assurances to the contrary –
the foreboding prospect, as Colin Gray despairingly argued, that there will be ‘the
occasional nuclear war’?^35 Is there an alternative to Waltz’s nuclear world? Accepting
the inevitability that nuclear weapons will be used again, Campbell Craig asks
whether life in a nuclear-armed anarchy is ‘likely to be better or worse than [that]
254 Beyond Waltz’s nuclear world