THE PRINCIPLE OF PROPORTIONALITY IS SHORT-CIRCUITED BY ALACK OF NEGOTIATION TIME Thomas Donaldson. Nuclear Deterrence and Self-Defense.” Ethics, Vol. 95, No. 3, Special Issue Symposium on Ethics and Nuclear Deterrence (Apr, 1985), pp. 537-548 Next, a nuclear weapons system tends to foreclose options to negotiate and thus to frustrate the principle of proportionality. A delivery time of seven or twenty minutes forecloses the possibility of allowing the other side to respond to the initiation of hostilities and consider peace negotiations. This drawback is critical since, whether in the resolution of strikes or war, compromise is more likely the closer one moves to the brink of disaster. With conventional warfare, the steady advance of pain and death tends to weaken the idealism of its participants and bring home the costs of the struggle. With nuclear warfare, there are no costs until the final terrible moment-and then everything becomes due at once. Again, traditional weapons were more accommodating. When Louis XIV began a march against the enemy, the enemy had days or weeks to reconsider the issue in contention and so did Louis
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