Nuclear War
Nuclear War
Some continuities with the past
Differences in technology and doctrine
Deterrence versus denial (or defense)
Attitudes toward thermonuclear war
Nuclear war has but a brief history. In 1945 two low-yield weapons were used against Japanese cities, resulting in the surrender of Japan to the Allies. Nuclear deterrence has had a richer history, but much of this history has little relevance to matters of current importance. This article will therefore focus on the present and prospective consequences of the existence of nuclear weapons.
Some continuities with the past
As context for this discussion, it is important to point out the many factors in the international situation that remain unchanged since 1945. First —and perhaps most important—in spite of international legal institutions that are effective and valuable in a wide range of ordinary situations, crises continue to arise in which each nation becomes the judge of its own cause and of the methods and intensity with which it will seek to advance its interests. Thus, international conflicts have always been prone to “escalation” (a “qualitative” increase in the intensity or level of conflict or violence, perhaps occurring inadvertently, perhaps resulting from a conscious competition in risk taking or even from a deliberate increase in the use of force). I emphasize the pervasiveness of the escalation concept, which implies that in most conflicts there will be force that remains unused. Nuclear weapons have increased the amount of force that tends to remain unused but are not themselves responsible for the possibility that low levels of violence will escalate to medium levels or even very large-scale destruction; that possibility has almost always been present.
Moreover, it is still most unlikely that a thermonuclear war would mean the “end of history,” not because it is technologically impossible to end human history by the use of nuclear explosives but simply because, at this writing (i.e., in 1967), even the superpowers have not procured the kinds of weapons systems that could—in a realistic situation—bring about such a result; nor are they likely to procure such systems. Even if a thermonuclear war were actually fought today by the existing powers, and even if it were fought with the utmost ferocity and lack of control, such a war would be likely to end with the Southern Hemisphere and large portions of Asia largely undamaged. Nor would the survivors in the Northern Hemisphere be likely “to envy the dead.” Recuperation is extremely likely, and, although it is true that according to the best scientific estimates, the postwar environment might be more hostile to human life for many years, objective studies also indicate that this environment would not be so hostile as to preclude, at least in the long run, decent and useful lives for the survivors and their descendants. Indeed, what evidence there is suggests that relatively normal and happy lives would not be impossible even under the harsh conditions that might prevail after a nuclear war, in spite of the personal and social traumas that would have been experienced.
Of course, to say that a nation can survive a thermonuclear war is not to say that all the problems—military, social, political, economic, and medical—that would arise from a thermonuclear war can be handled. Would the social organism fall apart completely—that is, die in some sense— as a result of the tremendous shock it would receive from a large thermonuclear war? Obviously there is no way of being certain. However, insofar as there are historical examples to study (and some of them are close to thermonuclear wars in intensity, e.g., the devastation of Germany and the Soviet Union in World War n), they provide evidence that people can and do rise to the occasion (Kahn 1962).
The age-old role of bargaining in war (e.g., working on the enemy’s mind rather than on his body or resources) may be increased rather than decreased both before and after a nuclear attack. Deterrence is, in effect, a form of bargaining and could occur not only before but also during and after a war (including a war caused by a failure of deterrence)—i.e., even if deterrence fails and war occurs, each side is likely to want to withhold some weapons in order to be able to threaten the enemy and may be anxious to settle the war while the other side still has not used its withheld weapons. The possibility of technological, tactical, or strategic surprise also still exists. Despite current beliefs in stability, “Pearl Harbors” and “Munichs” remain possible (i.e., deterrence may not necessarily favor the defensive or status quo side); thus, those who take risks may find that their gamble has not failed. Finally, even though countries will be less likely to risk war, in some ways surprises and “unexpected” victories are more likely in a nuclear war era (i.e., war could occur as a result of correct calculations as well as by miscalculation).
While mutual destruction and Pyrrhic victories can occur, such possibilities have been with us at least as long as recorded history, and the fact that they could occur days or even hours after the start of hostilities, rather than after weeks, months, or years, does not necessarily change the basic issues and situations that have arisen in the past. Thus, history may repeat itself in the thermonuclear era, which could experience successful wars and aggressions as well as mutually destructive ones.
Differences in technology and doctrine
The most important way in which the thermonuclear era differs from previous eras is that the changes in the available technology have, by themselves, been large enough to change the strategic situation and the character of international relations. This has resulted both in posing very different strategic issues and in changing the answers to old issues. Thus, in this period U.S. strategic weaponry has changed (or is changing) from B-50 bombers to B-36 bombers, to B-47s, and finally to B-52s; and from Atlas and Titan intercontinental ballistic missiles to early-model Minuteman and Polaris, and now to Minuteman-2s and Polaris A-3s. These changes have produced enormous differences in the effectiveness of the forces. Even the change from Minuteman-1 to Minuteman-2 can by itself increase the effectiveness of a force by a large factor (doubling—or perhaps redoubling several times—the size of a nation’s missile forces), to the extent of altering the outcome of a war.
However, since all these changes have occurred without being tested in battle, one can question whether their full significance has even been absorbed intellectually, much less in plans and programs.
Indeed, it is clear that in many respects the two superpowers, and certainly the other nations, have failed to understand these rapidly changing interactions between technology and doctrine. We can (with some violence to the subtleties, and viewing the subject from the viewpoint of the U.S. government) consider the two postwar decades as four five-year eras characterized as follows:
1946-1950: Early fission and bomber era; entry of Soviet Union into nuclear club.
1951-1955: Early thermonuclear weapons; maximum “apparent” U.S. superiority; simple massiveretaliation theories; entry of United Kingdom into nuclear club.
1956-1960: Early missile-middle thermonuclear weapons era; intense debates about deterrence and tactical nuclear war; continuation of (and probably increased but less apparent) U.S. superiority.
1961-1965: Middle missile era; two-day deterrence; controlled-war doctrine; entry of France and China into nuclear club.
In the early nuclear bomber era, the strategic balance was one-sided, for the Soviets did not test their first weapon until February 1949. However, the United States had not produced very many nuclear bombs, and it is doubtful that the U.S. strategic forces could have had anything like the decisive impact on a war that was popularly supposed—indeed, these forces might have done less damage to a Soviet war effort than the Germans did in World War n by invading and occupying Soviet territory.
By the early 1950s the United States had substantially increased its forces, but the Russians had scarcely begun to procure intercontinental bombers. They had a rather large force of medium bombers of the TU-4 (similar to the B-29) and Badger (like the B-47) types, but it now seems clear that both of these aircraft were designed and procured for European rather than intercontinental missions—although at the time no one in the United States or Europe seemed to realize this. Although thermonuclear weapons had been tested, the military stockpiles consisted almost wholly of kiloton bombs.
Despite slow means of delivery (bombers) and relatively low-yield warheads, both U.S. and Soviet forces were almost incredibly vulnerable to surprise attack. At the beginning of the period all U.S. strategic forces were located at a dozen bases. Hours, perhaps days, would have been required to evacuate them and days, perhaps weeks, of warning would have been necessary for them to be able to mount effective combat operations. Nuclear weapons were stored in a relatively vulnerable configuration (at first in one building and then in two). In the early part of this period, almost no one seems to have understood the subtleties of the problem of vulnerability. Active air defense was deployed to protect cities and nuclear research centers like Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Hanford, Washington. Strategic Air Command bases were left unguarded, on the theory that no one would waste nuclear weapons on military bases. By the middle and end of the period, senior officers in the U.S. Air Force understood vulnerability somewhat but did not believe (it now seems correctly) that the Soviets had much actual operational strategic capability for a surprise attack.
By the late 1950s, third- and fourth-generation nuclear weapons had been procured by the United States and a large spectrum of such weapons was available to the U.S. forces, from small (“suitcase”) to multimegaton bombs. U.S. military planners and decision makers began to think of thermonuclear weapons as relatively inexpensive, but the Soviets still did not. However, the problems of vulnerability were still inadequately appreciated; in fact, by the end of the period there was much discussion of the existence of a “missile gap.” While the U.S. government conceded the existence of such a gap—and in fact was responsible for disseminating the estimates which gave it plausibility—it simultaneously argued there was no “deterrence gap,” since the five hundred missiles which U.S. intelligence attributed to the Soviet Union would have been unable to do as much damage as the two thousand bombers that the United States possessed. Congressional testimony and other documents disclose that almost none of the top civilian officials and relatively few scholars and journalists understood that these five hundred Soviet missiles, if they existed, could probably have destroyed the two thousand American bombers on the ground in a surprise attack (but see Wohlstetter 1959; Kahn 1960).
By the early 1960s the United States, at least, was well into the missile era, and almost everybody interested in such problems understood the distinction between “first-strike” and “second-strike” tactics, forces, and postures. However, according to the 1963 testimony of Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, the Soviets had not yet hardened and dispersed their missile forces, although it was expected that they would do so by the late 1960s. In the early 1960s some of the doctrinal lags of the late 1950s were revealed. For example, it was disclosed that the more important half of the U.S. Semi-automatic Ground Environment Air Defense System, the part designed to control the air battle in defense of strategic centers on the American east coast, west coast, and Canadian border, was located on Strategic Air Command (SAC) bases and thus was almost certain to be destroyed or disabled in any war in which Soviet missiles were successfully launched at these SAC bases. Similar mistakes in both installations and weapons systems occurred elsewhere. As a result, there was tremendous concern about vulnerability and emphasis on such problems as “reciprocal fear of surprise attack” (expressed in terms of “gun duel” models of a strategic confrontation in which the side which gets off a “shot” first may escape all retaliation).
By the end of this period the United States had begun to digest not only the preattack implications of two-way deterrence but also the possibility of intrawar or postattack deterrence, and therefore the need for restraint in the threat and use of force even after hostilities have begun. This resulted in the so-called controlled-response doctrine (Kahn 1960, pp. 171-175) and such policy statements as the one by Secretary McNamara that “principal military objectives in the event of a nuclear war stemming from a major attack on the Alliance, should be the destruction of the enemy’s military forces, not of his civilian population”(New York Times, June 17, 1962, pp. 26-27) and the statement of President Johnson in his defense message to the 89th Congress that “our military forces must be so organized and directed that they can be used in a measured, controlled, and deliberate way as a versatile instrument to support our foreign policy” (1965, p. 825).
Despite these statements, however, it becomes quite clear from other statements that both Secretary McNamara and President Johnson remained doubtful about the feasibility, likelihood, or even possibility of a controlled response in a major war. Moreover, there is little indication that the United States has thoroughly organized its forces (not to speak of the NATO forces) around these concepts.
The change from kiloton to megaton weapons in the early 1950s was, in some ways, as significant as the change from high-explosive to kiloton weapons in the mid-1940s. Until megaton weapons became available, it was unlikely that the U.S. Strategic Air Command could have done as much physical damage to the Soviet Union’s war effort as was actually accomplished by the German army in World War n. In the mid-1960s, in the multimegaton era, potential destruction from a thermonuclear war is almost incredibly large. The duration of an “all-out” war against city targets is now likely to be closer to a minimum of 30 minutes than to a maximum of 30 days. Analysts no longer ask “What is destroyed?” but “What is left?” What has also become apparent, loose rhetoric to the contrary, is that thermonuclear wars may come in many sizes and shapes. The analysts must, consequently, examine and estimate a large number of effects in a wide range of situations.
First, prewar tactics and strategy, which may make an enormous difference to the outcome, must be studied. Then the immediate effects of blast and “prompt” gamma and thermal radiation must be examined, as well as the subsequent effects of primary and secondary fires and of fallout radiation during the first week or two. If the war has involved widespread targeting of civilian areas, there are problems of human survival, of radioactivity, and of damage to the physical environment, and problems of economic and social disorganization. These require consideration of immediate repair and “patch-up,” and economic and social reorganization and recuperation (problems which so far have hardly been dealt with, despite many millions of dollars spent on research in these areas). Even in a controlled thermonuclear war the likely rate of economic and social recuperation (assuming the recuperation efforts themselves have been successfully launched) may be very different from those which would follow even a very destructive conventional war. There are also long-term environmental problems, including the medical aftereffects of radiation on exposed survivors. Finally, account must be taken of the genetic effects of radiation and long-range changes in the physical environment resulting from widespread radiation damage to plants and animals, large-scale fires, floods, possibly genetic changes in flora and fauna, and even weather changes.
Many of these questions are unprecedented; all are complex; and almost all tend to arouse “openended” fears. But in some ways the appearance of total uncertainty on these issues is misleading, since the results of thermonuclear war, particularly the destruction of enemy weapons and, to some degree, cities, as well as many physical aftereffects, are easier to calculate than are the results of the clash of two land armies fighting a conventional war. However, the lack of experience in such wars, and the absolute necessity for making and relying on decisions and analyses made in advance, means that, from a decision-making point of view, the situation is much more complex and uncertain. Also, while one can often make relatively precise estimates about the probability that something will be destroyed by some specific mechanism, it is often impossible to make precise statements that something has survived all the ways in which it could be destroyed.
Deterrence versus denial (or defense)
One result of the potential increase in destructiveness combined with confusing complexities and uncertainties has been a major change in attitudes toward war. Such phrases as “absolute weapon” (doomsday machine), “balance of terror,” “live together or die together,” and “war is unthinkable” (or impossible or obsolete) illustrate widely held and widely expressed attitudes and beliefs. Not only is such total destruction hard to visualize, but it leads to the feeling that the deterrence of war, or even of the threat of war, is a simple and logical consequence of the existence of nuclear weapons.
The total destruction or “mutual homicide” interpretation of thermonuclear war has other comforting aspects. If it be granted that each side can utterly and reliably destroy the other, then expensive preparations to reduce casualties, lessen damage, and facilitate postwar recuperation are useless. Can we not spare ourselves the financial burden of such preparations? This logic has sometimes been carried further, to argue that if modern weapons are so enormously destructive, then only a few are needed to deter the enemy. War can be deterred with much smaller forces than in the past; and we certainly don’t need larger ones. Most influential of all of these arguments is that if destruction is always total and automatic, we need not spend time and energy worrying about details, comparison of risk, etc.
All of the above has led to a well-articulated and explicit dependence on deterrence—on dissuasion through terror—and the belief that the major role of a nuclear force is that of a deterrent and bargaining tool. As President John F. Kennedy said on March 28, 1961, in his special message to the Congress on the defense budget:
The primary purpose of our arms is peace, not war—to make certain that they will never have to be used—to deter all wars, general or limited, nuclear or conventional, large or small—to convince all potential aggressors that any attack would be futile—to provide backing for diplomatic settlement of disputes—to insure the adequacy of our bargaining power for an end to the arms race. (New York Times, March 29, 1961 pp. 16, 17)
Whether based on objective capabilities or “resolve,” the concept and use of deterrence are not new. However, today there is almost total emphasis on mutual terror and destruction—that is, the countervailing power does not emphasize its ability to negate the acts of the aggressive or active power, or to destroy or block his forces militarily, as in the past, but emphasizes instead its ability to harm the population, resources, or property of the opposing power. An explicit distinction is made today between deterrence and what is sometimes called denial (or defense), which is the physical prevention or alleviation of an action (as opposed to a “psychological” prevention, based mainly upon the threat of pain or destruction of other values). The relationship between deterrence and denial—the various ways in which they can reinforce or conflict with each other—has become the subject of much discussion (e.g., Kaufmann 1956; Kahn I960; 1962; Schelling I960; 1966).
Deterrence is, of course, a complicated relationship, and in trying to analyze deterrence situations, one may elaborate on Raymond Aron’s well-known questions by asking:... Who deters, influences, coerces or blocks whom from what actions (alternatives), by what threats and counteractions in what situations and contexts, in the face of what counterthreats and counter-counteractions?... and why does he do it? .. .
One can group the italicized variables into three groups: (1) political (who, whom, and why); (2) scenario (alternatives, situations, and context); and (3) military (actions, threats [or counteractions], and counterthreats [or counter-counteractions]). While most discussions of thermonuclear war generally emphasize only one or another of the above sets of variables, all three sets must be considered in an integrated way. (Only two works seem to have attempted this: Kissinger 1957; Strausz-Hupe et al. 1959.) Failure to do so constitutes a major source of misunderstandings about deterrence.
It is important to distinguish between what is sometimes called “passive” and “active” deterrence. “Passive” deterrence refers to a situation in which a nation has been so provoked (perhaps by a direct attack on its population) that the response is almost automatic. “Active” deterrence applies to a situation in which the “proper” response to provocation is clearly further escalation (perhaps one’s ally has been struck). In this situation it takes an act of will to respond. Rather than being an automatic act of revenge, the response may start a sequence leading to one’s own destruction.
It is also a mistake to treat deterrence as an either/or situation, instead of considering degrees of deterrence. In most situations one could usefully distinguish at least six levels of deterrence between the United States and the Soviet Union (Kahn 1965, pp. 277-280):
(1) Minimum (or low-level): (a) deterrence by uncertainty (including the use of dire but unbelievable threats as a declaratory policy but preemptive or preventive accommodation tactics as an action policy); (b) deterrence by threshold; (c) deterrence by taboo.
(2) Workable: reliable ability to threaten, say, 1-10 million casualties or unreliable ability to threaten, say, 10–50 million casualties.
(3) Adequate: reliable ability to threaten, say, 10-50 million casualties or unreliable ability to threaten, say, 50-100 million casualties.
(4) Reliable: reliable ability to threaten, say, 50-100 million casualties.
(5) Approaching absolute: reliable ability to threaten, say, 100-200 million casualties.
(6) Near absolute (or stark): reliable ability to threaten overkill by a factor greater than 2, so that no miscalculation or wishful thinking could confuse the potential attacker.
Although the above scale leaves out most of the subtleties associated with, for example, credibility issues, it correctly implies that there is a broad range of circumstances in which even a minimum deterrent might work and that there are circumstances in which the most stark deterrent might fail. The scale also suggests that the question “How much deterrence does a nation need?” cannot be answered simply by “As much as possible.” Rather, a range of scenarios, asking the whowhom-why kind of question not discussed here, must be examined, and, most important of all, the degree of assurance necessary for various situations must be weighed against the various costs of going higher on the scale of deterrence.
Deterrence clearly involves dissuasion by use of threat of varying degrees and kinds of terror, which in turn assumes that the deterree (and even the deterrer) possesses some degree of rationality— but usually very little: about as much as is demonstrated by a child who has learned not to burn himself or climb out of windows. Nevertheless, the emphasis on terror and rationality raises much apprehension, particularly among members of the peace groups but also among decision makers and analysts generally. This is not only because subtle and misleading situations can arise but also because many people feel, often reasoning from the psychology of the neurotic and psychologically disturbed, that threats and terror may attract rather than repel and that rationality is thus a weak reed on which to rest our hopes for preventing thermonuclear war. One can, however, fully share these apprehensions and still feel that deterrence is, for the time being, the safest and most moral alternative available. But while apprehensions are often exaggerated, even the most optimistic may still wish some protection against the failure of deterrence and may work to improve and eventually to reform the deterrent system. [SeeDeterrence.]
Changes in prospect
By the late 1960s at least five or six countries should have reached India’s position in 1965, i.e., that of having completed almost all research necessary to assemble and test a nuclear device but having stopped short of developing a “working” model (a matter of perhaps less than a year and less than a $1 million cost) because of governmental reluctance to authorize this final step. This situation may become typical, and it would not surprise most scholars if there were no new entries into the “nuclear club” during the next decade. As of 1966, there have been no public entries into the nuclear race for more than ten years: China and France made and announced their initial decisions to become nuclear powers before this period.
In terms of delivery systems, the late 1960s will be the early missile era, in that most nations will not have achieved the kind of capabilities that the United States will possess. The United States, in turn, will probably have entered the mature missile era, since at least some U.S. missiles will be cheap, reliable, and relatively small in size; will possess great range, good accuracy, and reasonable payload capability; and will be capable of complicated or sophisticated tactical performance.
The cost of a simple Minuteman missile system is likely to be something between $1 and $2 million a year per missile to buy and maintain, as long as there is reasonable access to production and operating techniques comparable to those of the United States. These costs are likely to apply to missile systems with at least hundreds but not necessarily thousands of missiles. Thus, on the basis of U.S. costs, any nation will be able to have, say, a 500missile Minuteman-type strategic force for a budget of between $500 million and $1 billion a year.
There are many who now believe that the kind of revolutionary technological changes that have occurred since 1945 will, for practical purposes, have come to a stop. This belief is usually based on various versions of overkill theories and the conviction that nuclear “stalemates” are not susceptible to breakthroughs in technology. The argument runs as follows:
From 1965 on, or soon afterward, both the United States and the Soviet Union will be able to inflict unacceptable damage on each other under all circumstances, using more or less existing, or moderately improved, systems. Thus, if one nation or the other provides a new way to damage or destroy its potential opponent’s civilian society, the deterrent equation is not affected. For this reason the many possible technological improvements in offensive power (against civilians) will not affect international relations. The same will probably be true in the unlikely event that there are major improvements in defense (or counterforce) capability. The current stalemate is at a high enough level so that each nation will still be able to inflict unacceptable damage in retaliation, even if its capability is cut by a large factor. This will be true practically, even if it is not true theoretically, because if one side does invent and procure some breakthrough, it cannot rely on the system’s working properly (perfectly?) the first time it is put to the test and will therefore be “deterred by uncertainty,” and deterred almost as effectively as if the deterrence rested on objective capabilities and calculations. Therefore, at least in the area of central war (i.e., nuclear war involving the homelands of the major powers), there is little or no interest in examining technology with the same intensity that was necessary in the last two decades.
Even though it ignores many important issues, this argument is persuasive and may prove to be practically correct as far as the politics of U.S. Soviet confrontations are concerned—although both countries will still work at improving their forces, and such improvements might make a dramatic difference in the outcome if deterrence ever failed. In any case, as Figure 1 shows, budgets for central war forces have been declining over the years (in the late 1950s the total budget was probably close to $15 billion). The data suggest either that thermonuclear war is getting much less expensive or that the United States is becoming satisfied with much less capability (actually, both effects are occurring).
The argument leaves open the question of a confrontation between one of these central superpowers and an nth country or a confrontation between nth countries. In these situations many of the points made above lose much of their force. Although such lesser confrontations do not seem to raise the question of the future of the entire world as immediately and intensely as U.S.-Soviet ones, the most significant technological arms race will probably go on “outside” the direct confrontation of the two superpowers (unless, of course, the superpowers go in for elaborate arms control or active and passive defense, in which case technology will again make a great difference). There will in any case be a widespread distribution of longrange missile technology using both solid and liquid fuels. Missile technology will proliferate more rapidly than weapons technology because of lesser secrecy, due, in part, to the much greater application of missile technology to normal peacetime research and engineering.
The strategic situation will probably be very much affected by whether or not the United States and/or the Soviet Union allocate sufficient resources to active and passive defenses to keep ahead of the later entries into the nuclear club. If either spends, say, $5-$ 10 billion a year in this area, they will probably preserve an important, perhaps overwhelming, strategic asymmetry. If they do not do this, and the likelihood is that they
* Includes procurement, maintenance, and operation of strategic offense and active and passive defense of the United States, but no R & D programs.
will not, the situation will be closer to that illustrated by an example drawn from the American West, where the six-shooter was the great equalizer, and there will be a lesser tendency to differentiate between superpowers and great powers.
If there is widespread proliferation, the situation will doubtless be quite dangerous; but despite the obvious dangers, it is not likely that a war between two small or medium powers, or even large powers, would trigger an orgy of destruction in which every power joins. In a world of nuclear proliferation the concept of controlled response will be firmly fixed in everybody’s mind, and it is inconceivable that many, if indeed any, nations will want to enlarge a nuclear war in which they are not directly and vitally involved—and perhaps not even then. It may even be that a nuclear war may occur between two smaller powers in which both sides are wiped out, or even in which one side “wins” but at a cost which results in a sobering, not to say chilling, effect on all. Most dangerous of all, one power may win clearly and easily, and succeed in keeping its winnings. This might be a great spur both to further proliferation and to risk taking by some of the more aggressive nuclear powers.
By the late 1970s, in short, the technological and economic possibilities for proliferation will be such that unless there are extreme implicit or explicit constraints against it, a widespread or even explosive proliferation can be expected. By the 1980s we will be either in the postnuclear era or in what may be thought of as the mature nuclear era. That is, we will be living either in a world in which large numbers of powers have nuclear weapons or in a world in which nuclear weapons have been effectively controlled.
Attitudes toward thermonuclear war
Parallel to the acceleration of the advances in modern technology in the twentieth century, there has been a growing feeling that technological leaps forward (rather than morality) have made war unacceptable. However, another reason why war is “unacceptable” should also be noted: the existence of a “peace of satisfaction” (Aron 1962). To illustrate this phrase, consider Latin America today, where for the last two decades there has been almost no major threat of war. The explanation obviously has nothing to do with nuclear weapons. Yet if these nations possessed such weapons, almost everyone would ascribe the relative peace of the period to the existence and effectiveness of nuclear deterrence. Similarly, most of the large nations in the world today are deterred—but even more, they are defensive, prudent, and in large part supporters of the status quo. Nevertheless, nuclear weapons do pose the possibility of mutual destruction and thus raise the question of war’s practicality or usefulness as a social institution in an entirely different way than does “conventional” war. The answers to this question reflect at least three common attitudes toward nuclear weapons:
(1) An unqualified rejection, which also includes a rejection of deterrence —i.e., it is argued that since deterrence can fail, we must move to a situation in which the weapons themselves no longer exist. This condition would doubtless be desirable, but it is difficult to see how it is likely to be achieved without much more peaceful evolution—or crises or wars—than seems likely in the immediate future. It seems unlikely that the threat of nuclear war will be “settled” through peaceful evolution and international cooperation in the next decade or so, although these may help facilitate the “eventual settlement.”
(2) A more common attitude of qualified rejection of nuclear weapons as useful for any purpose except to deter their use by others. All the various kinds of finite deterrence strategies and basic deterrence strategies express this attitude, and little or no preparation is advocated for alleviating the consequences if deterrence fails.
(3) A qualified acceptance of nuclear weapons or resignation to their continued existence and possible use. Acknowledging all of the points made earlier on ways in which the world situation has not changed, some of these “acceptors” believe in a self-defeating prophecy—i.e., that deterrence will be much more likely to fail if too many people believe that “war is unthinkable.” Some of this group also argue that even during a war there might be deterrence of many actions and thus some degree of control. Few of this group would argue that such intrawar deterrence can be relied on. All believe, however, that the likelihood of maintaining control, even after nuclear weapons have been used, is so high that attempts should be made to exploit it. Finally, there are those who wish also to support a bargaining position, or to hedge, against a loss of control, by having some active and passive defense and some offensive counterforce ability.
Whatever the attitude about the feasibility of various solutions, hardly anyone considers the arms race or large-scale war useful in international relations. President Kennedy expressed, in two aphorisms, what seems to be the consensus of mankind. The first was in his UN address of September 25, 1961: “The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us”; the second, in his budget message of January 18, 1962, was that we must “retain for ourselves a choice other than a nuclear holocaust or retreat.” The first statement counsels us to change the current international system; the second, to maneuver successfully within it. The dilemma of the nuclear age is usually posed by arguing that these two imperatives are both valid and mutually exclusive. And indeed, although it may prove impossible to change the current system until after it has failed conspicuously and perhaps disastrously, the second imperative could also help to deal with the first one.
In any case, we seem, for the time being, to be succeeding in avoiding both disastrous appeasement and withdrawal or escalation to catastrophic levels. To hope that this success can be perpetuated is to hope for more than just the accurate and detailed awareness of the need to maintain military and political strength while limiting the new potential for unprecedentedly rapid, long-range, and widespread destructiveness. These efforts, of course, are more likely to avert eruption of a cataclysmic war or appeasement only if there is understanding of all the dangers and options. In addition, increased awareness of all the issues may motivate sufficient international reform and simultaneously constrain all national decision makers to exhibit a consistently high degree of caution, reasonableness, and restraint in their dealings with one another, whether in peace or in limited war. The issue is, of course, still open.
Herman Kahn
[See alsoDeterrence; Disarmament; Limited War; Technology, article onTechnology and International Relations. Guides to other relevant material may be found underInternational Relations; War.]
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