392 Journal of the Spanish Institute for Strategic Studies N. 6 / 2015 to assure their own strategic security. Nor have the US and allied security officials’ and experts fully abandoned the idea. At a minimum, acquiring nuclear weapons is still viewed as being sensible to face off a hostile neighbor that might strike one’s own cities.32 Both are examples which account a MAD scenario as their basis, but the list could be further extended to the both Koreas and India-Pakistan relations or a much more large list. III. MIDDLE EAST BELIEF IN NUCLEAR DETERRENCE AND WMD Before introducing alternatives to WMD and deterrence for the Middle East, it should be previously introduced the general regional belief in nuclear deterrence. As it happens with this entire paper, the focus will be the Middle East case, however, the balance of alternatives to WMD depends not just from the regional but the international reality where the Middle East does not stand alone. As seen during the theoretical introduction, nuclear weapons appeared in the International Relations scenario during the Cold War dynamics when deterrence theory was well received. In the regional context, despite decades of relatively calm, the importance of reassessing current deterrence confrontations has reappeared since the latest Iranian nuclear negotiations. Historically, nuclear weapons in the Middle East gained both military and political significance instead of having diminished its initial momentum. The reliability of WMD as a stability mean for the region remains as deterrence theory itself, unclear. In this context, a parallel trend since decades is promoting the so called alternatives to WMD and the proposal to create a Nuclear Weapons Free Zone (NWFZ) in the Middle East. Probably the most solid proposal and alternative to end with the regional nuclear deterrence logics, at least on a theoretical level. For decades, WMD have had a central point in the defense strategy of most countries of the region, according to the extended belief that nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence can achieve stability and avoid conflicts. This comes along with the unique deterrence concept that the Middle East seems to embrace and takes it to its maximal form. Per norm, in classical deterrence theories, states have sought nuclear capabilities as a mean of avoiding a threat from other states. The possession of nuclear weapons has been believed to offer the capability to respond to first strike attacks with nuclear weapons or in case of existential threats by 32 SOKOLSKI, Henry D. Getting MAD: Nuclear Mutual Assured Destruction, its origins and practice, SSI, 2004, V. http://revista.ieee.es/index.php/ieee
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