By: Stephen Cimbala & Adam Lowther
Although the war in Ukraine firmly established the utility of drones in warfare, the relationship between drones and nuclear deterrence is still a largely unsettled topic. Suggesting that they are relevant is unlikely to draw much disagreement, but the exact form that relevance takes is where there may be disagreement. This leads to the following discussion. Nuclear deterrence is a psychological effect where the perceived costs of taking an action that is undesirable to an adversary outweigh the perceived benefits. During the Cold War, the threat of catastrophic retaliation prevented the Soviet Union and the United States from initiating a nuclear attack against the other.
