Nuclear Fetishism and the Minimum Means of Reprisal.

What are the military requirements of strategic nuclear deterrence? Rational deterrence theory produced one of two answers to this question--a flexible force structure designed to fight a limited nuclear war, or a force structure designed to discourage the use of nuclear weapons by increasing the likelihood of mutually assured destruction. In this paper I argue that the parameters of the debate over nuclear deterrence were limited by the methodology employed. Rational deterrence theory brackets preference formation, thereby obscuring the normative structures on which the threat-value of nuclear weapons is predicated. Nuclear weapons are treated as if they are powerful in virtue of their material characteristics alone. Weapons are fetishized by rational deterrence theory in the same way that commodities are fetishized by classical economics. Nuclear weapons are analogous to the mature expression of commodity fetishism--money. By denaturalizing what rational deterrence theory takes for granted about nuclear weapons, it becomes possible to imagine alternatives that were previously proscribed. One such alternative is maintaining a ‘minimum means of reprisal.’ ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]