Where should a nation aim the nuclear weapons with which it makes its deterrent threats? What kind of nuclear threats should it make? Some argue for a strategy based on aiming the weapons exclusively at the opponent's military forces and military assets, its counterforce targets, whereas others argue that at least some of the weapons should be aimed at the opponent's population and social and economic infrastructure, its countervalue targets. What a nation values most fundamentally is its social order, and it deploys its military forces primarily to protect that order. Thus the key elements of that order, the population and the social and economic infrastructure, being that on which the nation places the highest value, have traditionally been referred to as countervalue targets. But countervalue and counterforce targets are not always neatly separable. For example, destruction of counterforce targets can do countervalue damage, because the destruction of military forces will often do significant indirect or “collateral” damage to human and economic elements of the social order. In any case, counterforce deterrence, based on a counterforce strategy, is here understood as a form of deterrence in which the nuclear warheads are aimed exclusively at counterforce targets, whereas countervalue deterrence, based on a countervalue strategy, is understood as a form of deterrence in which the warheads are aimed primarily though not necessarily exclusively at countervalue targets. A form of nuclear deterrence in which a major portion of the weapons are aimed at counterforce targets and a major portion at counterforce targets will be referred to as a mixed strategy