M7 Strategic stability process over time

Topic

Unlike the escalation cycle described by the previous model—which plays out over hours or days—this process operates on a timescale of years to decades: each party observes the other’s capabilities and behavior and adjusts its own posture (developing, deploying, or scaling back capabilities) based on those observations; this new posture is, in turn, observed by the other actor, thereby restarting the cycle of observation and adjustment.

This cycle can resolve in two opposing ways. In a stabilizing cycle, both parties converge toward a predictable equilibrium that reduces the incentive to strike first, reinforcing the very concept of mutually assured destruction established by the deterrence model. Conversely, in a destabilizing cycle, uncertainty regarding the other actor’s capabilities or intentions drives a buildup of capacity or a shift toward higher alert postures; this buildup, in turn, fuels the other actor’s uncertainty, driving the cycle in the opposite direction.

The deciding factor in which way the cycle tips is, once again, the uncertainty described by the institutional frameworks model: arms control treaties and verification mechanisms aim to break a destabilizing cycle by reducing mutual uncertainty, just as such measures do within the non-proliferation regime.

Thus, this model—which begins with mutual observation between actors—concludes by demonstrating that global nuclear stability is not a static state but the cumulative result of this cycle of observation and adjustment repeated over decades; it is a framework that complements, rather than replaces, the much faster crisis-escalation process described by the previous model.

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