To help allies, send security guarantees, not nuclear bombs

Despite the end of the Cold War more than two decades ago, the U.S. still deploys nuclear weapons in several countries. But does deploying these weapons act as a deterrent to conflict, making these countries safer? In new research which analyses the effects of such nuclear deployments, Matthew Fuhrmann and Todd S. Sechser find that their presence does little, when compared with alliance guarantees. They write that having an alliance with a nuclear armed ally is actually more effective in preventing armed conflicts than the local deployment of the weapons themselves.