How did nuclear weapons change the goal of military strategy from victory toward deterrence?

The advent of nuclear weapons fundamentally transformed military strategy by shifting its primary objective from winning wars to averting them. In the classical paradigm, military might was matched with political objectives to achieve victory; however, the immense destructive potential of nuclear arsenals made the prospect of traditional victory through combat effectively obsolete.12

As military historian Bernard Brodie noted in 1946, the chief purpose of a military establishment shifted from winning wars to preventing them. This led to the development of deterrence, a strategy where a power uses the credible threat of overwhelming retaliation to preclude an adversary from attacking.13

This evolution culminated in the doctrine of mutual assured destruction, which posited that because both sides could inflict unacceptable damage even after a surprise attack, the only rational goal was to maintain a stable stalemate. Consequently, nuclear strategy became less about how to wage or win a war and more about how to create a deterrent effect that would prevent hostilities from occurring in the first place.3412