The advent of nuclear weapons changed the approach to foreign policy and diplomatic relations for many countries. During the period known as the Cold War, the threat of mutually assured destruction helped prevent the outbreak of full-scale nuclear war. However, while nuclear weapons have prevented wars in which the mutual destruction of the combatants is assured, nuclear weapons have not prevented wars where nuclear weapons are not used. In fact, recent wars like the Iraq War were primarily undertaken because of the threat of nuclear weapons falling into enemy hands. As such, while nuclear weapons have influenced military and foreign policy and diplomatic relations among nations, they have seldom prevented wars from occurring that do not rely on them. In fact, over the past 34 years the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), enacted in 1970, has not been successful in putting and end to state development of nuclear weapons.
During the Cold War era, tensions between east and west, conflict short of full-scale war, and a major superpower arms race characterized conditions among major nations with nuclear weapons. Until the end of the Cold War in the late 1980s, tensions continued between the superpowers with respect to nuclear weapons, but the official stance among nations like the U.S. and former Soviet Union was one of peaceful coexistence. However, the Cold War tensions and events like the Cuban Missile Crisis prompted governments to build up nuclear arsenals. This buildup was conducted under a policy known as Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD). As Thackeray and Findling maintain, ôàin a macabre way, MAD served to restrain the competing superpowers. In fact, from the early 1960s onward, a growing realization of the dangerous nature of the arms race led to a series of nuclear arms agreements,ö (p. 105). The closest either side in the Cold War ever came to all-out war involving nuclear weapons was the Bay of Pigs Affai...