nited States? It is argued, that because of the harrowing reality of nuclear war, the United States and the Soviet Union have been notably more restrained than they might otherwise have been, and therefore crises that might have escalated to dangerous levels have been resolved safely at low levels. Robert McNamara states that the "sole purpose" of strategic nuclear force "is to deter the other side's first use of its strategic forces." Robert Jervis brings up the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction, and how it discourages the use of nuclear weapons by showing the inevitability of total destruction on both sides. So what would be the advantage of using nuclear weapons? Most of these arguments have been made prior to the dissolve of the Soviet Union and were all formed under a bipolar international system. With the new Soviet Republics, the United States must now deal with the threat of nuclear weapons in unstable countries. Different threats arise when unstable states attain nuclear weapons. First are the threats that can be approached through a modern realist examination. One state might misinterpret another state's attainment of nuclear weapons as an attack on their own state's security and therefore attain weapons of equal or greater destruction. This would then bring about a security dilemma, which is expected in the current anarchic international system. Anarchy, as it is used here, does not only mean a lack of overall government, but also the presence of disorder and chaos. The security dilemma would set off an arms race and the more nuclear weapons there are, the greater the chance of an accidental or intentional use. With the new Soviet Republics there would be new boundaries and more disputes. "Whether in the family, the community, or the world at large, contact without occasional conflict is inconceivable. Among men as among states, anarchy, or the absence of government, is associated with the occurrence...
