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The phrase "balance of terror" is usually, but not invariably,Rich Miller, Simon Kennedy
'G-20 Plans to End 'Financial Balance of Terror' After Summit,'
Bloomberg 27 February 2009.
used in reference to the nuclear arms race between the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
and the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
during the
Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because t ...
. It describes the tenuous peace that existed between the two countries as a result of both governments being terrified at the prospect of a world-destroying nuclear war. The term is usually used for rhetorical purposes, and was probably coined by Lester Pearson in June 1955 at the 10th anniversary of the signing of the UN Charter: "the balance of terror has succeeded the balance of power". Some political scientists use this phrase as a means of differentiating the world situation that followed
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
from that which preceded it. Previously,
empire An empire is a "political unit" made up of several territories and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the empire (sometimes referred to as the metropole) ex ...
s had prevented war between each other by maintaining a relative balance of their ability (economic, military, and political) to wage war against each other—the phrase " balance of power" was often used to describe this kind of tentative peace. The
atomic bomb A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions ( thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb ...
created a new political reality, in which two
superpower A superpower is a state with a dominant position characterized by its extensive ability to exert influence or project power on a global scale. This is done through the combined means of economic, military, technological, political and cultural ...
s had the ability to destroy each other and at least gravely damage all of human civilization. The obstacle to war between the communists and
capitalists Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, private pr ...
was no longer the fear that the other side was more powerful, but rather the realization that nuclear arsenals were now large enough and deadly enough that winning would still likely result in the destruction of one's own country and perhaps the rest of the world as well. In this counterintuitive way, the existence of the most powerful weapons ever created actually supported a kind of peace: while many wars were fought around the world during the Cold War, the superpowers never fought each other directly, nor have atomic bombs been dropped in war since the
atomic bombing of Nagasaki The United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945, respectively. The two bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the on ...
in 1945. Lawrence Summers, after the financial meltdown of 2008, adopted the term as appropriate for the situation of a 'financial balance of terror' in global markets.


Uses

* John F. Kennedy used the phrase in his 1961 inaugural address in which he described the United States and the Soviet Union were "both racing to alter that uncertain balance of terror that stays the hand of mankind's final war." *
Albert Wohlstetter Albert James Wohlstetter (December 19, 1913 – January 10, 1997) was an American political scientist noted for his influence on U.S. nuclear strategy during the Cold War. He and his wife Roberta Wohlstetter, an accomplished historian and intell ...
of the
RAND Corporation The RAND Corporation (from the phrase "research and development") is an American nonprofit global policy think tank created in 1948 by Douglas Aircraft Company to offer research and analysis to the United States Armed Forces. It is finance ...
wrote the paper "The Delicate Balance of Terror" in 1958.


See also

* Balance of power * Balance of power in international relations *
Balance of threat The balance of threat theory was proposed by Stephen M. Walt in his article ''Alliance Formation and the Balance of World Power'', published in the journal '' International Security'' in 1985. It was later further elaborated in his book ''The Ori ...
*
Deterrence theory Deterrence theory refers to the scholarship and practice of how threats or limited force by one party can convince another party to refrain from initiating some other course of action. The topic gained increased prominence as a military strategy ...
* Long Peace *
Mutual assured destruction Mutual assured destruction (MAD) is a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy which posits that a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by an attacker on a nuclear-armed defender with second-strike capabilities would cause the ...
*
Nuclear peace Nuclear peace is a theory of international relations which argues that the presence of nuclear weapons may in some circumstances decrease the risk of crisis escalation, since parties will seek to avoid situations that could lead to the use of nucle ...
* Peace through strength * Reagan Doctrine


References

Cold War terminology Deterrence theory during the Cold War 1950s neologisms {{ColdWar-stub