Nuclear Utilization Theory (NUT)

United States military doctrine in the late 1950s and early 1960s, underpinned by the belief that nuclear war was winnable. First associated with the nuclear policy of U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, nuclear utilization theory (NUT) was intended to intimidate the Soviet Union and lead it to believe the United States considered the use of nuclear weapons a viable military option.

After the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, U.S. policy shifted to mutually assured destruction (MAD), which held that nuclear war was unwinnable and could result only in the destruction of both sides. Belief in MAD maintained the balance of power in the latter half of the Cold War and motivated arms limitation talks in the 1970s to prevent one side from acquiring the ability to strike securely. In the 1980s, this policy was transformed as U.S. president Ronald Reagan once again adopted the stance that nuclear war was winnable.

It has been argued that one of the motivations for dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was to intimidate the Soviet Union with a massive display of U.S. military power. However, just four years later, the Soviets successfully tested their own nuclear weapon and quickly worked to achieve parity with the United States. Both sides also worked to develop viable means of actually delivering the weapons to make their threats more credible. The advent of long-range bombers in the late 1940s and early 1950s made this possible. Recognizing the numerical superiority of Soviet troops in Europe, Eisenhower articulated an official nuclear policy of massive retaliation.

The policy of nuclear utilization received further impetus from events in the Middle East, coupled with the desire to prevent the spread of communism. The Soviets hoped to use the 1956 Suez Crisis as a pretext to increase their influence in the Middle East. The crisis began when Egyptian President Gamal Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal and closed it to Israeli shipping. This alarmed Great Britain and France, who were not only allied with Israel but also did not want the pro-Soviet Nasser to have control over the canal. French, British, and Israeli troops subsequently invaded Egypt to prevent Egypt from seizing the canal. However, the United States opposed the invasion and pressured the invading nations to withdraw their troops from Egypt.

The Soviet Union kept its distance in this dispute, glad to let the United States humiliate its allies and reduce the European presence in the Middle East. In the longer term, the Soviets attempted to use the Suez war as a pretext to forge closer political and military ties with Egypt. For his part, Nasser adopted a stance of “positive neutrality,” which allowed him to manipulate both the United States and the Soviet Union for Egypt's benefit. Announcing its intention to use nuclear weapons in case of war was a way for the United States to compensate for having effectively undermined western influence in the region.

The notion that nuclear weapons represented any kind of viable military option soon became outmoded by advances in military technology. The development of ballistic missile submarines at the end of the 1950s created the possibility of a nuclear force that could survive a first strike to retaliate successfully. Even if the United States struck first, there was no guarantee that using nuclear weapons would ensure victory. This realization led U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara to adopt the doctrine of MAD in the early 1960s.

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