The US should sideline deterrence and let prevention lead the way

In the days of radio, when a batter crushed a basebal that was headed for a home run, the famous sports announcer Mel Allen described the ball's trajectory as "going, going, gone." The same descriptor applies to the post-World War II concept of deterrence. Why? With the use of fission weapons in 1945, deterrence acquired a first name: nuclear. Nuclear deterrence and the double-edged acronym of MAD for "mutual assured destruction" were based on what an old friend of mine cynically noted: "Nuclear war is bad for business." As the USSR and then China developed their own nuclear and thermonuclear…