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Nuclear Escalation is the process of countries building up or intensifying their amount of nuclear weapons in response to one another. This process began around the late 1930s early 1940s during World War Two, around this time the first nuclear weapon was in the process of being successfully created, and escalation of nuclear weapons has continued up to the present date.

Nuclear Escalation and Deterrence relevance and relationship with One Another    

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) breaks down the relationship between Nuclear Escalation and Nuclear deterrence in two ways. First way the relationship is summarized is that extended deterrence is possible due to the ability of another country to be superior in nuclear escalation. This basically meaning that in order to not in a sense feel at another countries mercy the given country must match the power of nuclear weapons of the superior country, in terms of nuclear power. The second method of the relationship basically means that in order to prevent war between countries, countries must escalate their number of weapons in order to assure mutual destruction is understood between both countries to prevent war from taking place at all.

The idea behind extended deterrence and Nuclear escalation is that in order to have extended deterrence you have to intensify the number of weapons your country has on standby to not become inferior to other countries growing number of weapons in this case nuclear escalation.

Logics of Deterrence

There are two types of thoughts, or logics, behind Deterrence: The First logic is known as force dependent, “it is the idea that potential actions can be understood through their estimates of relative nuclear force balances." This basically meaning that one country does not want to appear inferior through nuclear forces to another country, or potential enemy, in obvious or visible ways. “The side that is more superior with nuclear arms will always prevail in war. Knowing this concept the weaker country will always surrender to the more superior country." The Second logic is known as risk provoking, which is the idea of imposing a risk of massive or unwanted damage to a society of an enemy country. The idea behind the risk provoking logic is to manipulate the uncertainty factor for another country to think about.

Military Terms Used with Nuclear Escalation

First strike policy refers to the capability of a country being able to initiate the first attack on another country. This is typically a method used in military to disable a potential retaliation from the country being attacked and slightly minimizes risks, or consequences, of attacking another country.

Mutually Assured Destruction, a military term also abbreviated as MAD, refers to the concept of a country potentially initiating a first strike to another country, and the country under attack will then issue a quick response, or retaliation attack, on the attacking country to assure equal amount of destruction done to the attacking country rendering the planned attack pointless to initiate at all due to guaranteed, or assured, destruction will be shared and experienced by both countries involved.

The Use it or Lose it principle, is a military term referring to the idea of using a military weapon before they are lost to a possible disabling strike to the weapon, hence where the term use the weapon or lose the weapon to an attack comes from.  To better understand this concept, an example of this would be if a country fired a Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) to disable another countries ICBM but the country under attack decides to use the weapon instead of losing it and the weapon having no use or benefit to the country at all.

Reagan Administration and Nuclear EscalationDuring the Reagan Administration they were preparing for a potential long war such as another world war, this was proven with the administration’s “concern with the mobilization potential of the American Defense Industry.” The Reagan Administration had failed to realize that “threatening or destroying strategic nuclear forces” would have potential to cause the very thing they were trying to prevent which was nuclear escalation between Russia and the United States. 

Causes of Inadvertent Escalation

Nuclear Escalation occurring out of the normal purpose of conventional conflict can be separated into two distinct categories: The first category being that nuclear escalation is not an intentional act. The second category being that nuclear escalation is not an accident. Nuclear escalation is in most cases referred to as an “unintended consequence” of a country deciding to enter into a “conventional war.”

Inadvertent Escalation meaning that the increase in numbers of nuclear weapons is not out of conventional purposes but for unintended reasons apart from war.

There are three causes of inadvertent escalation:

The number one cause of inadvertent escalation being an “Offensive Inclination.”

The number two cause of inadvertent escalation being a “Fine Line between Offensive and Defensive Acts."

The number three cause of inadvertent escalation being “The Fog of War.” 

Global Conflict Escalating Along with Nuclear Escalation

Countries gaining access to "nuclear warheads, missiles and other delivery vehicles" became the determining way to measure a countries strength power and dominance with comparison to the rest of the world.

Before the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Berlin Wall the two superpowers at the time, The United States and the Soviet Union, had come to a fruition that nuclear escalation between the two countries was not going to provide them with more individual freedoms as separate countries, but instead realized that if they continued at the rate they were going they would achieve a "nuclear overkill."The leaders from both countries had began to fear that they would cause irreversible damage.

Having nuclear weapons became a way for countries to be able to "draw the main lines of conflict and stability" during the duration of the cold war. An official Cold War settlement never came to a realization in part because the Soviet Union had disbanded and could not continue the Cold War. A partial reason for a official settlement not being reached was due to nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons were considered to encourage "the avoidance of war, but they also encouraged the continuation of conflict." The idea behind this was that by a country having nuclear weapons they would not feel weak compared to another country with nuclear weapons, due to this countries would constantly be trying to match the power of nuclear weapons other countries possessed creating more tension and therefore conflict. While the countries are continually escalating the number of nuclear power they possess this causes a factor for every country to avoid confrontations or war due to the idea of mutually assured destruction being achieved.

Historical Examples of Attempts at Nuclear Deterrence

After World War Two The North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Warsaw Pact became solely focused on "the deployment of nuclear forces."

An instance where nuclear deterrence worked during the Cold War was when Nikita Krushevski, the Soviet Union leader during this time, worked with President John F. Kennedy after the Cuban missile crisis to try to “untie the “knot” of war.” This was a famous term coined by Nikita Krushevski at the time, in which President Krushevski wrote the letter to President Kennedy pushing for deterrence, or as President Krushevski called it in his letter “Creating a situation of relaxation from tension”, so that the two countries could focus on more pressing issues.