The Stability-Instability Paradox

CORE DEFINITION

The stability–instability paradox is an international relations theory concerning nuclear weapons and mutually assured destruction. It states that when two countries both possess nuclear weapons, the threat of direct war between them is greatly reduced, but the probability of small-scale and indirect conflicts increases. This occurs because rational actors wish to avoid nuclear war, so they will not engage in large-scale conflicts nor escalate small conflicts into large ones. For example, during the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union never went to war directly, but instead fought proxy wars in Korea, Vietnam, Angola, the Middle East, Nicaragua, and Afghanistan, spending vast amounts of money and manpower to gain relative influence in the Third World. In 2009, a study published in the Journal of Conflict Resolution quantitatively assessed the nuclear peace hypothesis and was considered to support the existence of the stability–instability paradox. The study claimed that nuclear weapons can promote strategic stability and prevent large-scale war, while leading to more low-intensity conflicts. When one country monopolizes nuclear weapons and the other does not, the probability of war increases significantly.