Is nuclear strategy a contradiction in terms? [closed]

Question

Nuclear strategy is clearly distinct from other types of military strategy due to the awesome power of nuclear weapons. Most notably, mutually assured destruction (MAD) makes a traditional military victory impossible for policymakers.

Thus, if one defines strategy as the connection between military means and political ends, it is difficult to devise or envision operational uses of nuclear weapons that could meet any worthwhile political objectives. Therefore, it appears that the pursuit of a nuclear strategy may be somewhat contradictory.

Especially when one considers the limitations of strategy in a conventional sense, it appears as if nuclear strategy is a pipe dream.

Can it be argued that there is any method to the nuclear MADness?

Answer 1

Like with the previous question, albeit this being from a different source, Betts defines "strategy" narrowly to mean

a plan for using military means to achieve political ends.

Thus mere MAD deterrence is not a strategy in this sense because you never intend to fire those nukes offensively (as first strike) to achieve some political goal.

You get bewildered comments though because this (Betts') is hardly the common sense of the word "strategy". To quote a relevant bit from the other author you mentioned in the other Q, L. Freedman:

The origins of the word ‘strategy’ lie in the Greek strategos, meaning the art of the general. The word returned to the European vernacular in the late eighteenth century, just in time for the Napoleonic Wars, but it was defined largely in military terms, as military thought was fixated on battle. Strategy was about getting into the best position for a battle; tactics was about how it should be fought. By the twentieth century it was becoming harder to avoid questions of policy, covering peacetime preparations for future wars, including alliance formation, the purposes for which they might be fought, and the mobilisation of all national resources, economic and political as well as military, to win them. The relationship between military means and political ends was captured during the interwar years by Basil Liddell Hart—‘the art of distributing and applying military means to fulfil the ends of policy’. It was non-committal about how military means were to be distributed while stressing the role of the political sphere as the source of strategic objectives. It also maintained the connection with military means. This is why Liddell Hart’s definition still works, even in the nuclear age. The difference that nuclear weapons made to the concept of strategy was to turn the focus away from war-fighting to war prevention, and to forms of coercion and intimidation, including deterrence, as well as crisis management and arms control. [...]

Eventually, nuclear weapons became more powerful, more numerous and, crucially, possessed by more than one nation. New concepts and approaches developed in an attempt to come to terms with the possibility of a war in which the use of the most formidable weapons available would mean, in all probability, that it would be catastrophic for all concerned. Could any useful purpose be served by employment of devices which invited discussion using words such as ‘holocaust’, ‘doomsday’ and ‘Armageddon’? And could any employment of nuclear weapons be sufficiently deliberate and controlled to ensure that political objectives were met. At issue has been whether a ‘nuclear strategy’ is a contradiction in terms. To the extent that there has been an effective nuclear strategy thus far it has depended on non-use, by deterring major war and helping to hold together alliances. The most intense debates over nuclear strategy took place during the Cold War but though that ended many years ago the weapons remain, ready for use. Behind the question of whether strategies based on non-use still have a role to play is the even larger question of whether it is possible for the habit of non-use to be sustained. There has been no use of nuclear weapons since August 1945. It is an impressive record, but is it one that can be sustained indefinitely?

As you can see, he is mainly talking about the situation where both sides in a conflict have nukes, but he also mentions one when that was not the case, and ponders whether that might be repeatable.

Outside of a peer adversary situation, this assumption that nukes are not a strategy (even in this narrow sense of Betts') is clearly false as the US did fire nukes on Japan, and forced them to surrender, ending WW2, thus achieving a political goal.

Answer 2

A worthwhile political strategy would be reduce the stockpiles of such weapons and this means engaging in dipolomacy to reduce the possibility of such weapons being ever used.

Whilst nuclear weapons are immensely destructive, the most destructive two wars were mostly fought with conventional weapons - world war I & II. It was the destructiveness of these two wars that led to the setting up the UN and more regionally, the EU. The hope was that these political institutions would prove bulwarks against the kimd of destructive nationalisms and imperialisms we saw in these two wars.

The major opportunity that was missed for nuclear disarmament in the last few decades was a rapprochement between Russia and the US. A security framework that included both would have reduced the possibility of nuclear warfare between these two heavily armed nuclear states to a minimum. This would have meant abandoning NATO, given its history of containing the Soviet Union which was headed by Russia, and building a new security architecture. Important work on this was done as reported by the last but one ambassador to the Soviet Union, Jack Matlock but this option was not taken up by the US who instead pressed its advantage by bringing nations of the former eastern bloc into its fold. This has led to the current crisis we see in the Ukraine and which was forecast by Matlock way back in the early nineties when he testified in Congress. The insanity of the US who wishes to remain as global hegemon is deluded, arrogant and dangerous. If democracy is good enough within a nation then it is good enough between nations.