International Security vol.1: The Cold War and Nuclear Deterrence

SAGE L ~ B ~ A ROF--Y [ N T E R N A T I ~ N ARELATIONS L INTERNATIONAL SECURITY SAGE LIBRARY OF INTERNATIONAL RELATI...

Author: Professor Barry Buzan | Professor Lene Hansen

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SAGE L ~ B ~ A ROF--Y [ N T E R N A T I ~ N ARELATIONS L

INTERNATIONAL SECURITY

SAGE LIBRARY OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

INTERNATIONAL SECURITY VOLUME I The Cold War and Nuclear Deterrence

Barry Buzan and Lene Hansen

@SAGEPublications Los Angeles

London New Delhi Singapore

Introduction and editorial arrangement 0 Barry Buzan and Lene Hansen 2007 First published 2007 Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, thrs publication may be reproduced, stored or transn~ittedin any form, or by any means, only with the prior permrssion in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction, In accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers. Every effort has been made to trace and acknowledge all the copyright owners of the material reprinted herem. However, if any copyright owners have not been located and contacted at the time of publication, the publishers will be pleased t o make the necessary arrangements at the first opportunity. SAGE Publications Ltd 1 Oliver's Yard 5 5 City Road London E C l Y ISP SAGE Publications Inc. 2455 Teller Road Thousand Oaks. California 91320 SAGE Publications India Pvt I,td B 111 1, Mohan Cooperative Industrial Area Mathura Road New Delhi 110 044 SAGE Publications Asia-Pacific Pte Ltd 33 Pekin Street #02-01 Far East Square Singapore 048763 British Library Cataloguing in Publication data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-4129-2139-8 (set of four volumes) Library of Congress Control Number: 2006938798 Typeset by Televijay Technologies (P) Limited, Chennai Printed on paper from sustainable resources Printed and bound in Zrinski d.d Croatia

Appendix of Sources

ix

Editors' Introduction

xvii

VOLUME I The Cold War and Nuclear Deterrence I . The Sources of Soviet Conduct

X

1

2. "National Security" as an Ambiguous Symbol Arnold Wolfers

15

3. Another "Great Debate": The National Interest of the United States Hans J . Morgenthau

30

4. The Delicate Balance of Terror

5. The Stability of a Bipolar World

Albert Wohlstetter Kenneth N. Waltz

6. The Sharing of Nuclear Respons~b~lities: A Problem In Need of Solution Andre' Beaufre

55

74

97

7. S t r ~ t e g ~Studies c and Its Cr~tics Hedley Bull

106

8. Arms Control and World Order

117

Hedley Bull

9. Cooperation Under the Security D~lemma Robert Jervls

130

10. Rational~tyat the Brmk: The Role of C o g n ~ t ~ vProcesses e In Failures of Deterrence lack I,. Snyder

171

11. Contrasts in American and Soviet Strategic Thought Fritz W. Ermarth

19 1

12. Why Nuclear Superiority Doesn't Matter

Robert Jervis

207

Colin S. Gray 14. Managing Nuclear Multipolarity John J. Weltman

246

15. Common Security: A Programme for Disarmament The Report of the Independent Commission on Disarmament and Security Issues

258

13. Strategic Stability Reconsidered

16. Redefining Security

Richard H. Ullman

223

296

17. Security in the Third World: The Worm About to Turn? Mohammed Ayoob

317

18. Nuclear War and Climatic Catastrophe: Some Policy Implications Carl Sagan

330

vi

Contents

19. The OffensiveIDefensive Balance of Military Technology: A Theoretical and Historical Analysis Jack S. Levy 20. Why Even Good Defenses may be Bad

Charles L. Glaser

21. Transarmament: From Offensive to Defensive Defense Johan Galtung

VOLUME I1 The Transition to the Post-Cold War Security Agenda 22. Economic Structure and International Security: The Limits of the Liberal Case Barry Buzan 23. Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defense Intellectuals Carol Cohn 24. Geopolitical Discourse: The Soviet Union As Other Simon Dalby

25. International Security Studies: A Report of a Conference on the State of the Field Joseph S. Nye, Jr. and Sean M . Lynn-Jones 26. Base Women Cynthia Enloe 27. The Case Against Linking Environmental Degradation and National Security Daniel Deudney 28. Security, Sovereignty, and the Challenge of World Politics R.B.J. Walker 29. How the West was One: Representational Politics of NATO Bradley S. Klein 30. Soft Power Joseph S. Nye, Jr.

31. Security and Emancipation

Ken Booth

32. The Renaissance of Security Studies Stephen M. Walt 33. The Quagmire of Gender and International Security Rebecca Grant 34. Renaissance in Security Studies? Caveat Lector! Edward A. Kolodziej

35. A Tale of Two Worlds: Core and Periphery in the Post-Cold War Era James M. Goldgeier and Michael McFaul 36. Japan's National Security: Structure, Norms, and Policies Peter J. Katzenstein and Nobuo Okawara 37. The Security Dilemma and Ethnic Conflict Barry R. Posen 38. The Clash of Civilizations? Samuel P. Huntington

362 386 413

Contents

vii

39. The Emerging Structure o f International Politics Kenneth N . Waltz

40. Common, Comprehensive, and Cooperative Security David Dewitt

4 1 . New Dimensions of Human Security Human Dezwlopment Report 1994 42. 'Message in a Bottle'? Theory and Praxis in Critical Security Studies Richard W y n Jones

VOLUME I11 Widening Security 43. What is Security?

Emma Rothschild

44. A Genealogy of the Chemical Weapons Taboo

45. Securitization and Desecuritization

Richard Price

Ole W m e r

46. Security Studies and the End of the Cold War David A. Baldwin

47. Identity and Security: Buzan and the Copenhagen School Bill McStueeney 48. Broadening the Agenda of Security Studies: Politics and Methods Keith Krause and Michael C. Williams 49. Collective Identity in a Democratic Community: The Case of NATO Thomas Risse-Kappe~

SO. Insecurity and State Formation in the Global Military Order: The Middle Eastern Case Keith Krause 5 1. Constructing National Interests Jutta Weldes 52. Multiple Identities, Interfacing Games: The Social Construction of Western Action in Bosnia K.M. Fierke

53. Competing Visions for U.S. Grand Strategy Barry R. Posen and Andrew L. Ross 54. Imagined (Security) Communities: Cognitive Regions in International Relations Emanuel Adler

VOLUME IV Debating Security and Strategy and the Impact of 9-11 55. Should Strategic Studies Survive? Richard K. Betts 56. Identity and the Politics of Security

Michael C. Williams

1 25

viii

Contents

57. Revisiting Copenhagen: Or, on the Creative Development of a Security Studies Agenda in Europe Jef Huysmans 58. After Pax Americana: Benign Power, Regional Integration, and the Sources of a Stable Multipolarity Charles A. Kupchan 59. States of Insecurity: Plutonium and Post-Cold War Anxiety in New Mexico, 1992-96 Joseph Masco 60. Human Security and the Interests of States Astri Suhrke 61. The Lonely Superpower Samuel P. Huntington 62. The Little Mermaid's Silent Security Dilemma and the Absence of Gender in the Copenhagen School Lene Hansen 63. Nuclear Order and Disorder

William Walker

64. Global Governance, Development and Human Security: Exploring the Links Caroline Thomas 65. Human Security: Paradigm Shift or Hot Air? Roland Paris 66. Security and Immigration: Toward a Critique of the Governmentality of Unease Didier Bigo 67. Power and Weakness Robert Kagan 68. Feminist Responses to International Security Studies J. Ann Tickner 69. On the Pedagogy of 'Small Wars'

Tarak Barkawi

70. Knowledge as Power: Science, Military Dominance, and US. Security Robert L. Paarlberg 71. The 'War on Terror': Good Cause, Wrong Concept Gilles Andreani 72. Imaging Terror: Logos, Pathos and Ethos James Der Derian

73. Should HIVIAIDS Be Securitized? The Ethical Dilemmas of Linking HIVIAIDS and Security Stefan Elbe 74. From Social to National Security: On the Fabrication of Economic Order Mark Neocleous

Appendix of Sources Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources for permis sion to reproduce material in this book.

1.

'The Sources of Sov~etConduct', X Eorezgn Affairs, 25(4) (1947): 566-82. "Reprinted with permmion of Foreign Affam. Copyright (1947) by the Council on Foreign Relat~ons,Inc."

2.

' "National Security" as an Ambiguous Symbol', Arnold Wolfers Political Science Quarterly, LXVII(4) (1952):481-502. 0 The Academy of Political Science. Reprinted by permission from Political Science Quarterly.

3.

'Another "Great Debate": The National Interest of the United States', Hans I. Mougenthau The American Political Science Review, XLVl(4) (1952): 96 1-88. 0 American Political Science Association, published by Cambridge University Press, reprinted with permission.

4.

'The Delicate Balance of Terror', Albert Wohlstetter Foreign Affairs, 37(2) ( 1 9 5 9 ) :211-34. "Reprinted with permission of Foreign Affairs. Copyright (1959) by the Council on Foreign Relations, Inc."

5.

'The Stability of a Bipolar World', Kenneth N. Waltz Dadalus, 93(3) (1964): 881-909.

0 1964 by the American Academy of Arts 81 Sciences. Reprinted with permission o f MIT. 6.

'The Sharing of Nuclear Responsibilities: A Problem in Need of Solution', Andre' Beaufre International Affairs, 41(3) (1965): 41 1-1 9. 0 Blackwell Publishing. Reprinted with permission.

7.

'Strategic Studies and Its Critics', Hedley Bull World Polit~cs,20(4) ( 1 9 6 8 ) :593-605. 0 The Johns Hopkins University Press. Reprinted with permission of The Johns Hopkins University Press.

8.

'Arms Control and World Order', Hedley Bull Internatzonal Security, l ( 1 ) ( 1 976): 3-16. 0 1976 by the Pres~dentand Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Inst~tuteof Technology. Reprinted w ~ t hpermlsslon.

x

Appendix of Sources

9.

'Cooperation Under the Security Dilemma', Robert Jeruis World Politics, 30(2) (1978): 167-214. O The Johns Hopkins University Press. Reprinted with permission of The Johns Hopkins University Press.

10. 'Rationality at the Brink: The Role of Cognitive Processes in Failures of Deterrence', Jack L. Snyder World Politics, 30(3) (1978): 345-65. O The Johns Hopkins University Press. Reprinted with permission of The Johns Hopkins University Press. 21. 'Contrasts in American and Soviet Strategic Thought', Fritz %! Ermarth International Security, 3(2) (1978): 138-55. O 1978 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Reprinted with permission. 12. 'Why Nuclear Superiority Doesn't Matter', Robert Jeruis Political Science Quarterly, 94(4) (1979-80): 617-33. O The Academy of Political Science. Reprinted by permission from Political Science Quarterly. 13. 'Strategic Stability Reconsidered', Colin S. Gray D ~ d a l u s Journal : of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 109(4) (1980): 135-54. O 1980 by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Reprinted with permission of MIT.

14. 'Managing Nuclear Multipolarity', John J. Weltman International Security, 6(3) (198 1-82): 182-94. O 1982 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Reprinted with permission. 15. 'Common Security: A Programme for Disarmament - The Report of the Independent Commission on Disarmament and Security Issues', Common Security: A Programme for Disarmament - The Report of the Independent Commission on Disarmament and Security Issues (London: Pan Books, 1982), Chapter 1, 'Common Survival' pp. 1-13, Chapter 6, 'Recommendations and Proposals' pp. 138-76. O The Independent Commission on Disarmament and Security Issues 1982. Reprinted with permission. 16. 'Redefining Security', Richard H. Ullman International Security, 8(1) (1983): 129-53. O 1983 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Reprinted with permission. 17. 'Security in the Third World: The Worm About to Turn?', Mohammed Ayoob International Affairs, 60(1) (1984): 41-51. O Blackwell publishing. Reprinted with permission.

Appendix of Sources

xi

18. 'Nuclear War and Climatic Catastrophe: Some Policy Implications', Carl Sagan Foreign Affairs, 62(2) (1983-84): 257-92. Published by Foreign Affairs. Copyright O 1983 by Carl Sagan. Reprinted with permission from Democritus Properties, LLC. 19. 'The OffensiveIDefensive Balance of Military Technology: A Theoretical and Historical Analysis', Jack S. Levy lnternational Studies Quartevly, 28(2) (1984): 219-38. 0 Rlackwell Publishing. Reprinted with permission. 20. 'Why Even Good Defenses may be Bad', Charles L. Glaser International Security, 9(2) (1984): 92-123. 0 1984 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Reprinted with permission. 21. 'Transarmament: From Offensive to Defensive Defense', ]ohan Galtung /ournal of Peace Research, 21(2) (1984): 127-39. 0 PRIO. Reprinted with permission. 22. 'Economic Structure and International Security: The Limits of the Liberal Case', Barry Buzan International Organization, 38(4) (1984): 597-624. 0 1984 by the World Peace Foundation and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Reprinted with permission. 23. 'Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defense Intellectuals', Carol Cohn Signs: Journal of Woman in Culture and Society, 12(4) (1987): 687-718. 0 1987 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission. 24. 'Geopolitical Discourse: The Soviet Union As Other', Simon Dalby Alternative, XIII(4) (1988): 4 15-42. Copyright 0 1988 by Alternatives. Used with permission of the World Order Models Project and Lynne Rienner Publisher, Inc. 25. 'International Security Studies: A Report of a Conference on the State of the Field', Joseph S. Nye, ]r. and Sean M . Lynn-]ones International Security, 12(4) ( 198 8): 5-27. O 1988 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Reprinted with permission. 26. 'Base Women', Cynthia Enloe Cynthia Enloe, Bananas, Beaches & Bases: Making Feminist Sense o f lnternational Politics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), pp. 6-5-92, 216-20. 0 University of California Press. Reprinted by permission via the Copyright Clearance Center.

xii

Appendix of Sources

27. 'The Case Against Linking Environmental Degradation and National Security', Daniel Deudney Millennium: Journal of lnternational Studies, 19(3)( 1990): 46 1-76. 0 Millennium: Journal of lnternational Studies. This article first appeared in Millennium, and is reproduced with the permission of the publisher. 28. 'Security, Sovereignty, and the Challenge of World Politics', R.B.J. Walker Alternatives, XV(1) (1990): 3-27. Copyright O 1990 by Alternatives. Used with permission of the World Order Models Project and Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 29. How the West was One: Representational Politics of NATO', Bradley S. Klein International Studies Quarterly, 34(3) (1990): 31 1-25. O Blackwell Publishing. Reprinted with permission. 30. 'Soft Power', Joseph S. Nye, Jr. Foreign Policy, 80: 153-71. Reprinted by permission of PUBLIC AFFAIRS, a member of Perseus Books Group. 31. 'Security and Emancipation', Ken Booth Review of International Studies, 17(4) (1991): 313-26. O British International Studies Association, reproduced with permission. 32. 'The Renaissance of Security Studies', Stephen M. Walt International Studies Quarterly, 35(2) (1991): 21 1-39. O Blackwell Publishing. Reprinted with permission. 33. 'The Quagmire of Gender and International Security', Rebecca Grant V. Spike Peterson (ed.), Gendered States: Feminists (Re) Vision of k London: Lynne Rienner International Relations Theory (Boulder i Publishers, 1992), pp. 83-97. Copyright O 1992 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. Used with permission. 34. 'Renaissance in Security Studies? Caveat Lector!', Edward A. Kolodziej International Studies Quarterly, 36(4) ( 1992): 421-38. O Blackwell Publishing. Reprinted with permission. 35. 'A Tale of Two Worlds: Core and Periphery in the Post-Cold War Era', James M. Goldgeier and Michael McFaul International Organization, 46(2) (1992): 467-9 1. O 1992 by the World Peace Foundation and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Reprinted with permission. 36. 'Japan's National Security: Structure, Norms, and Policies', Peter J. Katzenstein and Nobuo Okawara International Security, 17(4) (1993): 84-118.

Appendix of Sources

xiii

O 1993 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Reprinted with permission. 37. 'The Security Dilemma and Ethnic Conflict', Burry R. Posen

Survival, 35(1) ( 1 993): 27-47. O 1993 Taylor & Francis Ltd. Reprinted by permission of Taylor 81 Francis Ltd. http://www.informaworld.com. Reprinted by permission. 38. 'The Clash of Civilizations?', Samuel P. Huntington Foreign Affairs, 72(3) (1993): 22-49. "Reprinted with permission of Foreign Affairs. Copyright (1993) by the Council on Foreign Relations, Inc." 39. 'The Fmerg~ngStructure of Internatwnal Polit~cs',Kenneth N. Waltz lnternatlonal Securtty, 18(2) (1993):44-79. 0 1993 by the Pres~dentand Fellows of Harvdrd College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Reprmted with permission. 40. 'Common, Comprehensive, and Cooperative Security', David Dewitt The Pacific Review, 7 ( 1 ) (1994): 1-15. 0 1994 Taylor & Francis Ltd. Reprinted by permission of Taylor 8i Francis Ltd. http://www.informaworld.com. Reprinted by permission. 4 1 . 'New Dimensions o f Human Security', Human Development Report Human Development Report 1994 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), pp. 22-40. Published by Oxford University Press. Reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press, Inc. 42. ' "Message in a Bottle"? Theory and Praxis in Critical Security Studies', Richard Wyn Jones Contemporary Security Policy, 16(3) (1995):299-319. O 1955 Taylor & Francis Ltd. Reprinted by permission of Taylor & Francis Ltd. http://www.informaworld.com. Reprinted by permission. 4.3. 'What is Security?', Emma Rothschild Dgdalus, 124(3) (1995): 53-98. 01995 by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Reprinted with permission of MIT. 44. 'A Genealogy o f the Chemical Weapons Taboo', Richard Price Intcrnational Organization, 49(1) ( 1995): 73-103. 0 1995 by the I 0 Foundation and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Reprinted with permission. 45. 'Securitization and Desecuritization', Ole W ~ v e r Ronny Lipschutz (ed.), O n Security (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), pp. 46-86. O Columbia University Press. Reprinted with permission.

xiv

Appendix of Sources

46. 'Security Studies and the End of the Cold War', David A. Baldwin World Politics, 48(1) (1995): 117-41. O The Johns Hopkins University Press. Reprinted with permission of The Johns Hopkins University Press. 47. 'Identity and Security: Buzan and the Copenhagen School', Bill McSweeney Review of International Studies, 22(1) (1996): 8 1-93. O British International Studies Association, reproduced with permission. 48. 'Broadening the Agenda of Security Studies: Politics and Methods', Keith Krause and Michael C. Williams Mershon International Studies Review, 40(2) (1996): 229-54. O Blackwell Publishing. Reprinted with permission. 49. 'Collective Identity in a Democratic Community: The Case of NATO', Thomas Risse-Kappen Peter J. Katzenstein (ed.), The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), pp. 357-99. O Columbia University Press. Reprinted with permission. 50. 'Insecurity and State Formation in the Global Military Order: The Middle Eastern Case', Keith Krause European Journal of International Relations, 2(3) (1996): 3 19-54. O Sage Publications Ltd. Reprinted with permission. 51. 'Constructing National Interests', Jutta Weldes European Journal of lnternational Relations, 2(3) (1996): 275-318. O Sage Publications Ltd. Reprinted with permission. 52. 'Multiple Identities, Interfacing Games: The Social Construction of Western Action in Bosnia', K.M. Fierke European Journal of International Relations, 2 ( 4 ) (1996): 467-97. 0 Sage Publications Ltd. Reprinted with permission. 53. 'Competing Visions for U.S. Grand Strategy', Barry R. Posen and Andrew L. Ross lnternational Security, 21(3) (1996-97): 5-53. O 1997 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Reprinted with permission. 54. 'Imagined (Security) Communities: Cognitive Regions in International Relations', Emanuel Adler Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 26(2) (1997):249-77. O Millennium: Journal of International Studies. This article first appeared in Millennium, and is reproduced with the permission of the publisher. 55. 'Should Strategic Studies Survive?', Richard K. Betts World Politics, 50(1) (1997): 7-33.

Appendix of Sources

xv

0 The Johns Hopkins University Press. Reprinted with permission of The Johns Hopkins University Press. 56. 'Identity and the Politics of Security', Michael C. Williams European Journal of International Relations, 4 ( 2 ) (1998 ): 204-25. O Sage Publications Ltd. Reprinted with permission.

57. 'Revisiting Copenhagen: Or, on the Creative Development of a Security Studies Agenda in Europe', Jef H u ~ s m a n s European Journal of International Relations, 4 ( 4 ) (1998):479-505. O Sage Publications Ltd. Reprinted with permission. 58. 'After Pax Americana: Benign Power, Regional Integration, and the Sources of a Stable M ~ l t i p o l a r i t ~Charles ', A. Kupchan International Security, 23(2) (1998): 40-79. O 1998 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Reprinted with permission. 59. 'States of Insecurity: Plutonium and Post-Cold War Anxiety in New Mexico, 1992-96', Joseph Masco Jutta Weldes, Mark Laffey, Hugh Gusterson and Raymond Duvall (eds), Cultures of Insecurity: States, Communities, and the Production of Danger (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999), pp. 203-3 1. O University of Minnesota Press. Reprinted with permission. 60. 'Human Security and the Interests of States', Astri Suhrke Security Dialogue, 30(3) (1999): 265-76. 0 Sage Publications. Reprinted with permission. 6 1 . 'The Lonely Superpower', Samuel P. Huntington Foreign Affairs, 78(2) (1999): 35-49. "Reprinted with permission of Foreign Affairs. Copyright ( 1 999) by the Council on Foreign Relations, Inc." 62. 'The Little Mermaid's Silent Security Dilemma and the Absence of Gender in the Copenhagen School', Lene Hansen Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 29(2) (2000): 28.5-306. O Millennium: Journal of International Studies. This article first appeared in Millennium, and is reproduced with the permission of the publisher. 63. 'Nuclear Order and Disorder', William Walker International Affairs, 76(4) (2000): 703-24. 0 Blackwell Publishing. Reprinted with permission. 64. 'Global Governance, Development and Human Security: Exploring the Links', Caroline Thomas Third World Quarterly, 22(2) (2001): 159-75. O 2001 Taylor & Francis Ltd. Reprinted by permission of Taylor & Francis Ltd. http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals.

xvi

Appendix of Sources

65. 'Human Security: Paradigm Shift or Hot Air?', Roland Paris International Security, 26(2) (2001): 87-102. O 2001 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts lnstitute of Technology. Reprinted with permission. 66. 'Security and Immigration: Toward a Critique of the Governmentality of Unease', Didier Bigo Alternatives, 27(Special Issue) (2002): 63-92. Copyright O 2002 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. Used with permission. 67. 'Power and Weakness', Robert Kagan Policy Review, 113 (2002): 3-28. O 2002 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. Reprinted with permission. 68. 'Feminist Responses to International Security Studies', J. Ann Tickner Peace Review, 16(1) (2004): 43-48. O 2004 Taylor & Francis Ltd. Reproduced by permission of Taylor & Francis Group, LLC., http://www.taylorandfrancis.com 69. 'On the Pedagogy of "Small Wars" ', Tarak Barkawi International Affairs, 80(1) (2004): 19-37. O Blackwell Publishing. Reprinted with permission. 70. 'Knowledge as Power: Science, Military Dominance, and U.S. Security', Robert L. Paarlberg International Security, 29(1) (2004): 122-51. O 2004 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Reprinted with permission. 71. 'The "War on Terror": Good Cause, Wrong Concept', Gilles AndrPani Survival, 46(4) (2004-05): 31-50. Reprinted by permission of Taylor & Francis Ltd. http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals. 72. 'Imaging Terror: Logos, Pathos and Ethos', James Der Derian Third World Quarterly, 26(1) (2005): 23-37. O Taylor & Francis Ltd. http:Nwww.tandf.co.uk/journals. 73. 'Should HIVIAIDS Be Securitized? The Ethical Dilemmas of Linking HIVIAIDS and Security', Stefan Elbe International Studies Quarterly, 50(1) (2006): 119-44. O Blackwell Publishing. Reprinted with permission. 74. 'From Social to National Security: On the Fabrication of Economic Order', Mark Neocleous Security Dialogue, 37(3) (2006): 363-84. O Sage Publications. Reprinted with permission.

Editors' Introduction Barry Buzan and Lene Hansen

0

ne of the concepts in International Relations (IR) is security. Since the primary unit of IR is the state, the field of International Security Studies (ISS) was formed around the security of states, somewhat misleadingly labeled 'national security'. That states strive to be secure, and that security involves not only territorial integrity, but the protection of a particular set of political and cultural values, is thus one of the axioms of international politics. Yet, if there is agreement that states seek security, there is no consensus on what this implies for war and conflict. The Realist school argues that states are by nature driven by their self-interest and a prudent suspicion towards others: that they seek their own security first and foremost, and that they put it above all other goals, including economic prosperity. To be a strong state requires a healthy economy, technological know-how, and a united citizenry, but what ultimately counts is a state's ability t o project military force. To Realists the so-called security dilemma implies that states strive to enhance their security, particularly by maintaining military capability adequate t o meet potential challenges. Yet although conceived as a defensive means, to other states this can easily look like an offensive move. States become trapped in a spiral where each attempts t o protect its security only to find others raising the stakes in the attempt t o improve theirs. Alliances might be forged t o balance the capabilities of threatening states, but they are, argue Realists, fragile and temporary arrangements that dissolve with the external threats that brought them together. The discipline of ISS has Realism and its understanding of the state and military force at its center. Realism is however far from uncontested, indeed as many of the articles in this Reader show it is challenged on descriptive, analytical as well as normative grounds. From the birth of ISS a t the end of World War 11, Idealist or Liberal approaches held a fundamentally different view of the state and its security. Idealists agreed with Realism that states feared for their security, but they disagreed that an inbuilt fear of others drove states to see security only through the lens of narrow self-interest. Hence, it is possible t o break the escalating logic of the security dilemma: states do have the capacity to understand the consequences of their own military strategies and acquisitions, and international institutions can help solve disputes and build trust. The state, in short, is not a fixed entity; some might act in a Realist manner, but others might not. If the state is not necessarily Realist, neither is the international system: states can form institutional arrangements

xviii


whose positive purpose stretches beyond defensive alliances and which make states realize that their own security is deeply interdependent with that of others. The debate between Idealists and Realists centered on the status of the state and the ensuing dynamics of the international system. This debate was and is central in that it goes to the core of basic analytical and normative assumptions about human nature, political community, sovereignty, authority, legitimacy and order. Can security only be provided by the state, as Realists argue, should international or global security be guaranteed by states cooperating, or is a radical dismantling of the state a precondition for 'real security'? To trace the evolution of ISS is to uncover a series of conceptual debates on whether security should be defined in narrow or in broader terms: whether the security of the state or the security of other 'referent objects' (crucially, the individual, humanity, ethnic, religious, racial and gendered groups) should be privileged, whether the concept should be confined to include only military threats and organized violence or whether it should include for example environmental dangers, hunger, poverty and epidemics. These are also debates over what constitutes good social science and whether normative questions can and should be raised. The rest of this Introduction is organized into two main sections. The first considers the birth of ISS and the main forces that have driven its development. The second traces the evolution of ISS, looking first at the mainstream debates during the Cold War, and at the challenges to them; then at the widening and deepening of the ISS literature that began later in the Cold War but blossomed during the 1990s; and finally at the impact, still unfolding, of 9/11 and the 'global War on Terror'. References in bold are to articles included in the Reader.

I. The Origins a n d Dynamics of International Security Studies The Birth of International Security Studies ISS emerged as a sub-field of IR after World War 11. It was new in the sense that while 'security' had long been used by political theorists and military strategists, 'international security' had never before been the organizing concept for a field of study. In addition, post-World War I1 writers on international security began to see themselves as forming a discipline devoted to a defined set of questions. ISS was nevertheless related to earlier writings in two important ways. First, because it drew upon the older discipline of political theory where writers from classical Greece through to Hobbes, Machiavelli, John Stuart Mill and Montesquieu had been concerned with the questions of sovereignty and political authority. It also drew on diplomatic history which traced the development of relationships between the European states system and the rest of the world, and military strategists writing on defense, war and power (on the latter see Baldwin, 1995: 119-120j. The articles included in this


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reader begin with the birth of the discipline of ISS after World War 11, which means that these forerunners are not included. But as R.B.J. Walker (1990) and Michael C. Williams (1998) show, these writings were and are significant to ISS precisely because this classical heritage is constantly referred to and debated. Second, 'security' was a key political concept prior to 'national security' gaining center stage after World War 11. Emma Rothschild (1995: 61-4) traces the many and quite different meanings the word 'security' had before the French Revolution. She notes that what unites modern uses of 'security' is a concern with the relationship between the individual on the one side and the larger collective on the other. Moving from the French Revolution to the American Depression of the 1930's, Mark Neocleous (2006) and Arnold Wolfers (1952:481-2) point out that this period linked 'security' to questions of welfare and economics, not to the national and military security of the state. What happened after World War I1 was thus that 'security' went from being a term used within the field of social policy as well as more loosely within the study of war, defense and diplomacy, to being a term that structured an entire field. Writing in 1952, Wolfers (1952: 483) observed that, 'The term national security, like national interest, is well enough established in the political discourse of international relations to designate an objective of policy distinguishable from others.' The articles included in this fourvolume reader are all part of the development of this field, although they differ in that some explicitly question the concept of security, while others take some given version of it for granted. The main example of the latter practice is most of the works on nuclear deterrence during the Cold War, which simply analyzed the importance of particular themes within a given understanding of USIWestern military security (e.g. the distinction between offensive and defensive weapons, Levy, 1984; or the applicability of a policy of flexible response or a policy of mutually assured destruction, Jervis, 1979-80; or key events such as the Cuban Missiles Crisis, Snyder, 1978). Explicit discussions of the concept of security calling for its expansion beyond nationallstate security and military threats emerged during the 1980's (Common Security, 1982; Buzan, 1984; Ullman, 1983) and gained ground as the Cold War and the bipolar international structure dissolved. When ISS emerged it addressed a classic question - how could states protect themselves and how did they know what and who were threatening them? -yet the shift of guiding concepts from 'war' and 'defense' to 'security' also implied crucial changes in that it opened up the study of a broader set of political issues, including the importance of societal cohesion and the relationship between military and non-military threats and vulnerabilities. Indeed the first three articles in Volume I by George F. Kennan (1947), Arnold Wolfers (1952) and Hans J. Morgenthau (1952) are clear indications of this development and together they delineate five themes central to ISS. First, that the key political question that drove the evolution of LSS was the concern with the threat posed by the Soviet Union and the ch~llenges of bipolarity.

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Second, while military capabilities were crucial to assessing national security, they were by no means the only important factors, as economic performance and domestic cohesion were deemed crucial to the containment of the Soviet Union (Kennan, 1947: 578-81; Morgenthau, 1952: 973). Third, the interpretation of enemies - or 'knowing the Other' (Dalby, 1988) - and their intentions was also an important theme (Kennan, 1947). Did states have basically similar identities and national interests or were they products of such distinct histories and traditions that they needed to be understood in their own right? If states were the product of historical processes, their identities and definitions of security would also be open to change. Fourth, Wolfers argued (1952: 485) that security has both an objective ('the absence of threats t o acquired values') as well as a subjective ('the absence of fear' that values be attacked) dimension. Assessing security objectively would be very difficult and if possible then only with hindsight (Wolfers, 1952: 485).Yet while objective security would be hard to define, it should, argued Morgenthau (1952: 965-6) be the goal of ISS to construct a scientific theory that let the analyst determine a rational course of action and then assess whether facts complied thereto. The fifth and final theme introduced was the question of morality. Wolfers' stance was that 'no policy, or human act in general, can escape becoming a subject for moral judgment - whether by the conscience of the actor himself or by others - which calls for the sacrifice of other values, as any security policy is bound to do' (Wolfers, 1952: 498). Yet, both Wolfers and Morgenthau (1952: 987) stressed the impossibility of judging security policy in the abstract and that a choice always had to be made between different moral principles. Ending on a more Realist note than Wolfers, Morgenthau (1952: 987) claimed that, 'The realist will choose the national interest on both moral and pragmatic grounds; for if he does not take care of the national interest nobody else will.'

T h e Driving Forces of International Security S t u d i e s Although they were to make a comeback as the explicit conceptual debates picked up by the mid-1980s, by the mid-1950's these five themes were to a large extent overridden by more concrete concerns related to nuclear weapons and deterrence. 'National security' - the security of the state - defined in politico-military terms held a virtually complete analytical monopoly. As David Baldwin (1995: 122) noted four decades later, 'It is as if the field came to be so narrowly defined in later years that the questions addressed during these early years were no longer considered to belong to the field of security studies.' But before surveying this historical development and the return of wider debates on international security, we must answer the question: what drove this process? Obviously there is not one single factor that can explain the evolution of ISS and we suggest that five are particularly important, although


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not necessarily equally important at all times: great power politics, technology, key events, the internal dynamic of academic debates, and institutionalization.

Great Power Politics

Great power politics subdivides into three elements: the distribution of power among the leading states (the polarity of the international system); the patterns of amity and enmity among the great powers; and the degree of involvement or interventionism by the great powers. As is immediately clear from the articles in Volume 1, security analysis during the Cold War was almost synonymous with studying US-Soviet relations, a bipolar system with enmity between two great powers whose direct and covert influence stretched around the globe. Other phenomena appeared on the research agenda, for instance the question of Third World security (Bull, 1976), b ~ ~ t these were seen as structured (if not determined) by bipolar relations. The importance of great power politics is also evident from the debate over which polarity replaced bipolarity after the end o f the Cold War, with suggestions ranging from uni- to multipolarity (Waltz, 1993; Kupchan, 1998; Huntington, 1999). Until the end of the 1980s superpower relations had heen frozen at only slightly fluctuating levels of enmity and engagement, but with the dissolution of the Soviet Union came not only a reconsideration of the polarity of the international system, but also of the relations between the great powers. Was the US going to face enemies or would its deployment of 'soft power' or 'co-optive power' stabilize the system (Nye, 1990)? And what level of resources was the US prepared to devote to security problems outside of its own immediate sphere of interest (Posen and Ross, 1996-7)? The attacks on September 11 led US policy makers and many security analysts to define a new era. Whether the War on Terror will ultimately boost or weaken the relative power of the US as well as exacerbate or ameliorate patterns of amity and enmity remains to be seen, but great power politics is still a key question on the agenda. To point to great power politics as a driving force is also to note that ISS began as an American discipline, focused on American security and written by Americans (although some had emigrated from Europe to the US before or during World War 11) (Kolodziej, 1992: 434). European approaches might have gained more ground after the end of the Cold War, but as Ayoob (1983-84) and Krause (1996) point out, it is still the Western model of the state which forms the core of ISS.

Technology Technology drives ISS through its impact on the threats, vulnerabilities and (in)stability of strategic relationships. The arrival during the mid-1940s of the atom bomb was pretty much the foundational event for Strategic Studies and the impact of nuclear - and nuclear- related - technology during the Cold War can hardly be exaggerated. Nuclear weapons provided a

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huge surplus capacity of destructive power for the first time in military history. Long-range ballistic missiles speeded up delivery times and were capable of carrying nuclear warheads, a technological development that liberated nuclear weapons from vulnerable bomber delivery systems, and greatly increased the capacity to make a first strike against opponents. Whereas nuclear warheads and intercontinental missiles were real developments feeding huge quantities of ISS literature, the enormous and ongoing literature on Anti Ballistic Missiles (ABM)/Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) reveals that even potential technology developments could have major impacts on both strategic relations and ISS. Technology need not be exclusively military in kind to make an impact on ISS. The history of military and civilian technologies is often one of interplay and 'dual-use'. The Internet for instance was originally developed as a military technology, as a distributed network transmitting information under a nuclear attack. Nuclear technology to take another example has a military as well as a civil side (energy and medicine) that can be difficult to distinguish, a fact which also complicates the assessment of nuclear proliferation. The same dilemma is also applicable to biological and chemical weapons or to the communications technologies applied in both civilian consumer electronics and battlefield management. If the concept of security is expanded beyond the military sector the list of technological factors that can drive security debates grows as well. If AIDSIHIV is seen as a threat to regional security in parts of Africa and Asia, the retroviral technology for treating those infected is key to the spread and consequences of the decease (Elbe, 2006). Or, if the environment is threatened by the effects of industrialization, then the technologies implicated in these threats and their solution become central. The attacks on September 11 and the War on Terror show that technology and the identification of threats and enemies are intimately linked and that the list of technologies central t o ISS changes over time. First, the technology of digital networks (the electronic movement of money, cellphones and Internet communication) is significant for how physically dispersed terrorist networks communicate while simultaneously erasing (most of) their traces. Second, the spectacular character of the attack could be seen as deeply connected to the images created and the instantaneity with which they were globally broadcast allowing the world to watch in real time as the World Trade Center collapsed (Der Derian, 2005). Arguably the power of terrorist networks like Al-Qaeda lies not in their quantitative capabilities (no one considers an invasion likely), but in their qualitative ability to unsettle Western societies' feeling of security. Hence the production and distribution of iconic images through new media technologies that propel this feeling becomes a key security concern. The question how technology impacts economic, political, military and cultural developments has been a topic of great debate in the social sciences and to speak about technology as a driving factor thus raises the specter of technological determinism (Levy, 1984; Paarlberg, 2004). Yet while technology is undoubtedly a main driving force in the development of ISS, it is by no means a determining one, first, because technology is itself influenced by


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the other driving forces; and second, because there are human agents (civilian and military; commercial and public) who make decisions about which technology to develop. Decisions on nuclear technology during the Cold War were hugely impacted by the bipolar confrontation between the US and the Soviet Union. Once in the world, technology creates pressures of its own, which again impacts the political process, but this is a complex process of feedbacks between technology and the other driving forces and hurnan decisions, not one of determinism.

Key Events Events come in various forms, and they can change not only relationships among the powers, but also the academic paradigms used to understand those relationships. The most dramatic are specific, focused crises that not only become objects of study in their own right, but which change existing understandings, relationships and practices in the wider strategic domain. Two key examples of this type are the Cuba missile crisis in 1962 (Snyder, 1978; Weldes, 1996) and the terrorist attacks on the US on September I I , 2001 (Barkawi, 2004; Der Derian, 2005). And, the ending of the Cold War was of course the single most important event in the history of ISS. Other events take the form of steady processes unfolding over time that change the knowledge, understanding and consciousness that support existing practices. A good example of this is the rise of environmental concerns and the move o f the environment from a background variable to a foreground one (Ullman, 1983; Deudney, 1990). There was no specific crisis that put environmental issues into the foreground, but rather a steady drip of new information, new understandings, and a rising public consciousness that grew sufficiently wide and deep to open a place for environmental security in policy debates and the ISS literature. The identification of key events might often seem commonsensical: it is not hard to see the impact of the Soviet Union gaining nuclear weapons, its dissolution in 1991, or the attacks on September 11. Yet, in analytical terms one should note that events are in fact politically and intersubjectively constituted. It is the acknowledgen~entby politicians, institutions, the media and the public that something is of such importance that it should be responded to, possibly even with military means, that makes it an 'event'.

T h e internal Dynamic of Academic Debates An idealized model of how academic knowledge is created would p e d i c t that ISS has evolved progressively in response to key events, new tech~mlogies and great power politics. Hypotheses would be derived, falsified or verified, and theories revised, expanded or abandoned in response. The actual development of IIS is however much more complicated due to the absence of consensus on what scientific model should be adopted, that is whether positivist epistemologies and methodologies from the natural sciences and

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economics or interpretative epistemologies from the humanities (sociology, philosophy, history and anthropology among others) should be used. This driving force situates ISS within the larger debates on epistemology, methodology and choice of research focus that are conducted within the social sciences in general. As shown above, the call for objective measures and rational science was part of ISS since the early 1950s, and discussions of epistemology and methodology have been central ever since. To call ISS an 'applied' discipline would not be completely fair, but it is true that academic debates in ISS have relied upon significant imports from other disciplines, and not just mathematics and economics which delivered most of the first generation of nuclear strategists: game theory Uervis, 1978);cognitive psychology (Snyder, 1978); linguistics (Cohn, 1987; Fierke, 1996; Wxver, 1995); social theory (Dalby, 1988; Price, 1995; Jones, 1995; Krause, 1996; Hansen, 2000; Bigo, 2002; Der Derian, 2005); political theory (Walker, 1990; Williams, 1998); development and postcolonial studies (Ayoob, 1983-4; Krause, 1996; Thomas, 2001; Barkawi, 2004); and feminist theory (Cohn, 1987; Grant, 1992; Hansen, 2000; Tickner, 2004). The impact of these disciplines and their debates have been felt in ISS both in terms of how security should be conceptualized/what should fall under the rubric of ISS, and in terms of how it should be analyzed, that is the epistemology and methodology to be applied. During the Cold War, ISS had close links to (neo)realism, a link fortified by the division of labor between ISS and International Political Economy (IPE)which emerged as the other great sub-field of IR in the 1970s. IPE partly defined itself against ISS, the two sub-fields carving up the terrain of IR so that IPE claimed the cooperative, joint-gains side of the subject, with ISS claiming the conflictual, relative-gains one. As the Cold War drew to a close, a wave of critical articles emerged which contested both Realist ISS's focus on national security as well as the rationalist methodologies usually adopted to its study. Poststructuralists, Constructivists, Critical Theorists and Feminists introduced interpretative, linguistic, sociological and deconstructive epistemologies, and a split between rationalists and 'reflectivists' was coined by Robert Keohane (1988) to indicate the key dividing line in IR.

Institutionalization

To identify institutionalization as a driving force is to further highlight that academic debates do not unfold in an economic and structural vacuum. Research is influenced by the availability of funding, for ISS in general as well as for particular forms of research; by access to top journals and publishers; by the processes of hiring and institution building that take place in universities and by think tanks. For example hiring policies at universities are extremely central (Betts, 1997). Tenured professors make decisions on what future students learn, they decide which graduate students are accepted and on what topics, they have at least part of their time allocated to research, and the security of tenure provides them with a significant degree of freedom

Editors' htroduction

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for research. Successful graduate programs are characterized by the ability of graduating Ph.D.s to find jobs at respectable universities and policy institutes. The very fact that courses on Strategic Studies were taught from the late 1960s onwards further institutionalized ISS within academe as well as in the policy world. The level and kind o f funding provided by governments and foundations is equally important. In countries characterized by high levels of public spending on education and research it might make a significant difference that resources are invested not only in university education and research, but in research centers such as the Copenhagen Peace Research Institute (COPRI), home of the Copenhagen School (Huysmans, 1998), Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI),International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO) and Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI). Foundations have significant discretion to target their financial support towards particular programs, and to foster or inhibit new directions. The growth in widening approaches in the 1990s was for instance aided by a series of American foundations (Kolodziej, 1992: 437; for a critical assessment of this development see Nye and Lynn-Jones, 1988: 21). The influence of think tanks operating in the gray zone of policy advice, lobbying and consulting is another aspect of institutionalization, with the recent influence of neo-conservative think tanks on the policy of the George W. Bush administration as a case in point. In addition to influencing government policy and public debate, think tanks might also function as a reservoir for politically motivated appointments (Dalby, 1988). This account of institutionalization shows that this 'driving' force might speed up as well as slow down the effect of other forces. The institutionalization of ISS through generations of hiring practices might easily breed a certain conservatism as far as broadening the concept of security is concerned, balancing the impact of progressive foundations. Institutionalized conceptions might also 'slow down' the impact of key events, as when neo-realism managed to reinvent itself after its failure to predict the end of the Cold War.

11. T h e Evolution of International Security S t u d i e s

The themes set out by the very first writers on security worked together with the driving forces to found a field of Strategic Studies that was simultaneously productive, influential and fashionable as well as committed to a narrow, state-centric, military-political view of ISS. Broader questions, including those of economic security and domestic cohesion, put on the research agenda by Wolfers and Morgenthau were marginalized. Normative questions were not explicitly pursued either as mainstream ISS (Strategic Studies) saw itself as being on the right side of a conflict whose existence and legitimacy was beyond questioning. Cold War ISS was driven largely by the policy problems facing the US, and to a lesser extent those of its allies (e.g. Beaufre, 1965).

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Developments in Soviet capabilities and doctrine was the overwhelming concern (Ermarth, 1978). Epistemological questions were not at the forefront either as an objective, rationalist and positivist approach was shared by theoretical as well as empirical scholarship. It was thus the driving forces of superpower politics and new military technologies that were most conspicuous in forming mainstream ISS. While bipolarity was thought to be relatively stable (Waltz, 1964) the technology surrounding nuclear weapons was anything but. Nuclear weapons technology underwent very rapid and dramatic development throughout the Cold War, generating an ongoing military dynamic that defined the heart of ISS. Additional uncertainties were introduced by misinformation about who had deployed what: the bomber and missile 'gaps' of the mid- and late 1950s, in which Soviet secrecy and American domestic politics combined to produce huge US overreactions to non-existent Soviet 'leads'. Sputnik in 1957 helped launched the 'Golden Age' of Strategic Studies, when the basic rules and dynamics of mutual nuclear deterrence were worked out in detail (Wohlstetter, 1959), though many had been anticipated by earlier writers responding to the first arrival of nuclear weapons. Technological developments locked the superpowers into a fierce arms race with both quantitative (how many and how powerful missileslwarheads?) but also qualitative (how accurate, how quickly delivered, how well protected against pre-emptive attacks?) dimensions. Arms racing not surprisingly became a staple topic in the literature, giving yet more weight to what seemed to be the material driving forces defining the strategic agenda. The superpower arms race was driven not only by improvements in technology (and the lobbying power of arms industries), but also by fears that failure to keep up would make one's nuclear forces vulnerable to first strike by the enemy. From this foundational insecurity arose a huge and elaborate body of theory and argument about incentives to attack (or not) under various conditions of nuclear balance (Wohlstetter, 1959; Jervis, 1979-80; Gray, 1980; Weltman, 1981-2). Formal theoretic ways of thinking were called in to help in understanding the 'game' of deterrence and bipolar superpower rivalry (Jervis, 1978). Much of this literature was heavily dependent on assumptions of rationality (Snyder, 1978) to work out the great chains of if - then propositions that characterized deterrence theory: if A attacks B in a given way, what is B's best response, and what would A then do in reply, and then ... . The fear of first strike was real in the early phases of the Cold War when nuclear arsenals were small and vulnerable. It diminished from the later 1960s as nuclear arsenals got larger and much harder to attack (particularly when missiles were put into submarines), giving an effective so-called 'secure second strike'. But it was replaced by another, more subtle, fear known at the ex-ante ex-post dilemma. This envisaged a counterforce attack by one side against the other in which the attacked states loses more of its nuclear weapons than the attacker uses in his first strike. Did rationality suggest that the attacked state should not retaliate because to do so would be suicidal, thereby having to


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accept the attack without making any retaliation? Understanding these great chains of reasoning was seen as crucial to developing the best military options that would deter the enemy from attacking in the first place. Much ink was spilled among other technological choices over the costs and benefits of putting multiple warheads on missiles; of pursuing high levels of accuracy with so-called precision-guided munitions; of developing supersonic bombers; of deploying cruise missiles; and of building elaborate protected hiding places for land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles. One o f the fiercest, and still ongoing, arguments of this sort was about ABM, aka BMD, systems, under argument since the 1970s (Common Security, 1982; Glaser, 1984; Walker, 2000). Part of the argument was about whether or not it could be done with existing or likely technology. But the more interesting theoretical part was about what impact deployment of an effective, or even partly effective, BMD would have on nuclear strategic stability. With its promise of escape from the whole logic of deterrence, and especially from having one's population held hostage under the grim, but supposedly stabilizing, logic of the Cold War's most notorious acronym, MAD (mutually assured destruction), RMD proved particularly attractive in US domestic politics, helped there by its appeal to enthusiasm for technological fixes, and its amenability to being staged as defensive (the protests of strategists about its costs, technical difficulty and destabilizing consequences notwithstanding). In addition to the pressures from rapidly evolving technologies, there was an ongoing fundamental disagreement about the basic nature of nuclear deterrence itself, and whether that made it easy or difficult to achieve (Jervis, 1979-80; Gray, 1980). Some thought that nuclear weapons made deterrence easy, because any even half-rational actor would be given serious pause by the prospect of obliteration. In other words, possession of a nuclear arsenal sufficient for 'assured destruction' would basically suffice, leading to a so-called 'minimum deterrence' strategy. Others calculated that a ruthless rational actor (as Kennan, 1947 had postulated the Soviet Union to be) would require not only a threat of high damage, but also a near-certain probability that such a retaliation would be delivered, before deterrence could be effective. Minimum deterrence offered a kind of stability in easy parity, and also economy, but at some risk of vulnerability to utterly ruthless opponents. Its logic also provided incentives for nuclear proliferation, making it seem fairly straightforward for lesser powers to acquire a great equalizer. Proliferation threatened to complicate not only the core elements of the nuclear debatedeterrence, arms control, and escalation - all of which were much more difficult with three or more parties than with just two (Weltman, 1981-2; Walker, 2000), but also bipolarity itself. Consequently, the US and the Soviet Union led the way in promoting a nuclear nonproliferation regime, and nuclear proliferation became a large and elaborate subject in its own right within the ISS literature. In contrast to minimum deterrence, maximum deterrence thinking offered higher entrance costs to would-be nuclear weapons states, and an expensive, open-ended arms race to existing nuclear weapon states. The supposed gain

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was to close loopholes against extreme aggressors who might take risks along the lines of the ex- ante ex- post dilemma. Dealing with this contingency generated demands for huge and elaborate forces capable of responding to aggression at any level, and of maintaining 'escalation dominance' throughout the spectrum of conventional and nuclear warfighting. Maximum deterrence thinking rested on the assumption of a highly aggressive, risktaking and opportunistic opponent, but it was also driven by the problem of Extended Deterrence (ED) that arose from the US guarantees to protect Europe embodied in the NATO alliance. ED links the technological driver to the great power politics theme. Extending the US nuclear umbrella was uncomplicated when the US nuclear monopoly made deterrence easy even in the face of much superior Soviet conventional military strength in Europe. But it became fiendishly difficult when the Soviets also acquired the capability to threaten the US with nuclear weapons. H o w could the European allies believe that the US would retaliate against the Soviet Union for, say, an attack on West Germany, when the consequence could be Soviet retaliation against American cities? This question and its many variants haunted Western strategic thinking from Sputnik onwards (Beaufre, 1965; Jervis, 1979-80; Gray, 1980). It was central to the literature on NATO and its recurrent discontents over especially nuclear strategy, which was another major theme in the ISS literature. Extended deterrence and flexible response fed another concern intrinsic to the whole logic of maximum deterrence, and also linked to rival superpower interventions in crises and conflicts in the Third World (Cuba, Southeast Asia, the Middle East): escalation and how to control it. The practice of ED inevitably led to scenarios about low- level warfighting in response to local aggression, and how to respond if the opponent raised the ante by moving t o higher levels of force, especially to the use of so-called 'tactical' nuclear weapons. Maximum deterrence logic required that rationality prevail, and that limited nuclear war be containable, but there were real doubts about whether such cool-headedness and fine-tuning would be possible once command and control systems came under the intense and unpredictable pressures of actual nuclear warfighting. Maximum deterrence logic and ED thus pushed deterrence theory into fantastic complications. The great chains of if-then propositions became so long, and rested on so many questionable assumptions about both technological performance and human behavior, that the credibility of the theory itself came into question. Even if the Cold War had not ended, deterrence theory was in trouble, and even at its peak it was never without challengers. Cold War Challengers to Mainstream Strategic Studies Strategic Studies definitely provided the foundation for ISS, but it was not unchallenged, nor was it an entirely uniform block as shown by for instance Snyder's and Bull's critical discussions of rational actor assumptions (Snyder, 1978; Bull, 1968). Peace Research (PR) had to a large extent constituted itself in opposition to Strategic Studies with Peace Researchers arguing that


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SS's assumptions of (elite) actor rationality and bipolar stability were not only wrong but dangerous. The devastation brought about by a nuclear exchange would be so enormous that one should not rely upon small elites to make such decisions (Sagan, 1 9 8 3 4 ) . Peace Researchers sometimes challenged the framework of bipolarity, mainly arguing that arms control, disarmament, a change from offensive t o defensive forces, and the acknowledgement of each other's legitimate existence could lower the levels of tension (Galtung, 1984; Common Security, 1982). Much of PR thus shared SS's conceptualization of security in political-military and state-based terms, but argued for a different analysis of the threats and dangers arising from nuclear deterrence. Perhaps the most conspicuous area of overlap was in the literature on arms control, which aimed at trying to stabilize the superpower-nuclear relationship by managing the types and numbers of weapons deployed (Bull, 1976). Arms control and much PR, can be seen as trying to give concerns about international security equal status alongside the mainly national security concerns of the early Strategic Studies literature. Underlying both was a normative critique of mainstream Strategic Studies for its failure to question sufficiently (or in some cases at all) the ethical implications of its state-centric focus on national security under nuclear conditions. Epistemologically, many Peace Researchers also adopted a rationalist and objectivist position: the Journal of Conflict Resolution and the journal of Peace Research featured studies built on clear assumptions of causality and quantitative analysis of large data sets. Carl Sagan's (1983-4) 'hardscience' yet evocative account of the climatic consequences of a nuclear war shows the objective and positivist nature of ISS challengers as well as the scope of critics. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was also devoted t o 'hard scientists' engaged in trying t o control and contain the consequences of the nuclear arms race. Other Peace Researchers worked more critically with the concept of security arguing that to privilege state security was t o leave out the security problems faced by many of the world's individuals. Individual security problems were numerous, but the most important (particularly in the Third World) were linked t o economic deprivation (poverty, malnutrition and hunger) and underdevelopment, t o 'structural violence' in Galtung's (1969) terminology. The report on Common Security: A Programme for Disarmament chaired by Olof Palme was key in this respect as its concept of Common Security successfully laid out a wider non-SS security agenda (Common Security, 1982; Dewitt, 1994). The majority of the report dealt with disarmament and was thus in line with the traditional PR approach to international security, but the report's first chapter also established a link between domestic and international security and North-South relations arguing that the Third World was highly negatively affected by global militarization which exacerbated the risk of 'economic failure and social disruption' (Common Security, 1982: 5 ) . Not a11 challengers to ISS self-identified as Peace Researchers and during the 1980s a series of approaches emerged which t o varying degrees argued

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Editors' introduction

for a revision of military-state-centric security. Barry Buzan's People, States and Fear: The National Security Problem in International Relations (1983) provided the first in-depth monograph on the concept of security with chapters on individual security and the international economic system, and Richard Ullman (1983; see also Buzan, 1984; Deudney, 1990) called for an expansion of security to include environmental and economic threats. These works helped define the basic structure of the widening debate which was to gain full force by the early 1990s: first, should the traditional focus of ISS on military-political threats (and means) be expanded to include environmental and economic threats as these were indeed more threatening to state survival than the nuclear weapons stabilized through successful deterrence? Second, should the privilege accorded to the state by the concept of national security be supplemented or replaced by a concept of internationallglobal security, individual security or non-state collectivities such as national, ethnic, racial and gendered groups? Many different answers have been given since the early 1980's: some wanted to expand the type of threats while being conservative in terms of keeping the state as the referent object, while others argued in favor of expanding to include non-state actors as well. The specific answers notwithstanding, the most significant change in ISS was the emergence of a distinct and explicit conceptual debate. One group of challengers argued that SS was an ethnocentric discipline in that it left out the Third World (unless it seriously impacted on superpower relations as during the Korean and Vietnamese Wars and the Cuban Missiles Crisis), built exclusively on American (or at least Western) authors, and perhaps most importantly relied upon a particular Western model of the state (Bull, 1976; Ayoob, 1983-84; Kolodziej, 1992; Krause, 1996; Barkawi, 2004). This presumably universal, but in fact particularly Western state, was uncritically applied to the non-Western world. But the legacy of colonialism, including the often arbitrary drawing of borders, implied that Third World states experienced distinct forms of security problems. One crucial difference was that internal security problems played a much larger role as states suffered from weak domestic political structures and poorly developed national communities (Ayoob, 1983-84; Krause, 1996). Most of what was written on Third World security during the 1980s was however concerned with national security, that is the domestic security problems the state was facing and the external consequences thereof. Only after the end of the Cold War did a distinct ISS literature develop that shifted the referent object from the state t o the individual and sub-state groups. Criticisms that more explicitly challenged the status of the state were argued by Poststructuralists and Feminists joining ISS in the latter half of the 1980s. Poststructuralists such as R.B.J. Walker, Richard Ashley, Michael Shapiro, Simon Dalby, James Der Derian and David Campbell held that the privilege accorded to the state in ISS rested upon the dominance that state sovereignty had gained from the Peace of Westphalia onwards. State sovereignty was not an inevitable condition, but constantly reproduced through political practices (with 'practices' covering both foreign and security policies and the academic disciplines of IR and ISS). State sovereignty offered a


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particular resolution to the questions of authority and security, but it was simultaneously a solution which made 'security' the prerogative of the state. Individuals gave up their right to define security - and pursue it - and invested it in the sovereign state, but this 'solution' meant that it became very difficult, if not impossible, to formulate a meaningful conception of 'individual security' or a collective conception of security below, above or across 'national security' (Walker, 1990; Williams, 1998). To challenge the 'national security' of ISS would require not simply calls for 'individual' or 'global' security as had been the case in parts of PR, but that the complexities at the heart of state sovereignty and the liberal theory on which it was based were reworked and reconstructed (Walker, 1990; Wazver, 1995). Poststructuralism in the 1980s was - as ISS in general - written in the light of the Cold War and the antagonistic relationship between the superpowers was the political context in which the Poststructuralist theory on identity and security developed. Poststructuralists argued that foreign and security policies were fundamentally about identity, that security policies had to formulate a narrative depicting a national Self against one or more threatening Others which might be concrete, as in the case of the Soviet Union, or abstract, as in the case of 'instability' (Dalby, 1988). Poststructuralism's concept of identity was relational, social (not a property of the individual, but argued in a public language and arena), and discursive (articulated through written and spoken statements). The Cold War and the construction of the Soviet Union provided Poststructuralists with many examples of the threatening Other (Dalby, 1988) and it was stressed how the construction of threatening Others on the outside was simultaneously part of producing domestic consensus and legitimacy around particular visions of 'America', 'the West' and 'NATO' (Klein, 1990). Poststructuralism's turn to discourse implied an important epistemological shift ( W w e r , 1995). Wolfers' distinction between security's objective and subjective dimensions had so far underpinned ISS in that discussions of rationality under deterrence had included subjective factors, but as 'filters' or 'misperceptions' distorting objective assessments of capabilities and intentions. The discursive conception of security introduced by Poststructuralism broke with this distinction, pointing neither to material capabilities nor beliefs as the explanatory variable, but to the way in which both were constituted and given meaning by ~oliticalactors (Cohn, 1987). Methodologically, this implied that the words and interpretations derided by scholars as diverse as Morgenthau (1952) and Galtung (1984) gained centerstage: it was the constitution of 'security', threats and enemies by politicians and institutions and the legitimation of policies and behavior which were to be examined. As Poststructuralism emerged as a distinct, critical perspective so did Feminism, in part as a consequence of how the two approaches were making a general impact on the Humanities and the Social Sciences (the driving force of academic debates), in part as a product of the political opposition to antagonistic policies on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Feminist critiques were made of the gendered and disembodied language of deterrence (Cohn, 1987). Jean B. Elshtain (1987) showed how stereotypical constructions of men as warriors and women as supportive mothers and wives had

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underpinned Western thought and politics from classical Greece onwards, and it was argued that women faced concrete security problems overlooked by mainstream ISS, for instance as a consequence of the militarization of everyday life created by foreign bases (Enloe, 1989). Feminist work often took a multidimensional and multi-level approach tracing the links between military security, domestic and global economic structures, and gendered norms from particular groups of women in specific locales all the way up to the regional, national and international level (Enloe, 1989; Tickner, 2004). Conceptually as well as normatively this challenged Strategic Studies' approach to security: Strategic Studies had focused predominantly on the interactions between states, and to some extent on the state's ability to generate domestic order. Feminists stressed that 'national security' excluded a consideration of 'women's security', but that it also depended upon particular constructions of masculinity. Hence the goal was not to pitch 'women's security' against that of men's, but to show how men as well as women were cast into different identities that sustained a war-prone, Realist system. Epistemologically and methodologically the shift was equally striking: SS had focused on material capabilities, state behavior, and in some cases military and strategic rationality (Snyder, 1978) using quantitative methods or logical hypothetical reasoning when spinning out the scenarios of nuclear deterrence. Feminists argued in favor of making the definition of security dependent upon individuals' experiences (Tickner, 2004). On the one hand, 'experiences' were based on the individual's subjective definition, on the other it had to presuppose a collective subject ('women') for individual experiences to provide a meaningful concept of 'women's security'. As Rebecca Grant (1992) pointed out, this inherent tension always risked overwriting differences between women. These tensions aside, Feminist analysis broke important g o u n d for other approaches to emerge after the Cold War, in particular for Critical Security Studies (Booth, 1991; Wyn Jones, 1995) and anthropological studies linking micro- and macro-levels of analysis (Masco, 1999).

After the Cold War: Traditional versus Wider Security Agendas and Understandings

The ending of the Cold War was a benchmark event in the evolution of ISS. Much of the mainstream military-political agenda simply disappeared. Bipolarity - and the nuclear deterrence which surrounded it - had been the cornerstone of mainstream ISS for almost 40 years when the Cold War came to a halt. As a result mainstream ISS faced something of an institutional crisis, and approaches calling for a widening of security to include other sectors than the military and referent objects besides the state gained ground. The period from the early 1990s until September 11,2001 did not have one dominant event or political problem as had the Cold War to tie the discipline together. The war against Iraq in 1991, the rise of Japan or China, nuclear proliferation, the wars following the dissolution of Yugoslavia,


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humanitarian intervention in Somalia, and the war against Serbia in 1999 constituted some of the key events, but none of them structured an overarching internat~onalsecurlty agenda. The impact of this on ISS was not simply to end one line of approach and open the way to another. As the problematique of international security lost its dominant core and fragmented into multiple concerns, so also ISS evolved to match. The traditionalist core did not disappear, but it did lose ground to other approaches. There is thus quite a lot of continuity, but also a substantial change in the distribution of interest in various approaches. We characterized Cold War ISS as having one dominant (traditionalist) main stream with a number of challengers (Peace Research, Arms Control, Poststructuralism, Feminism, Postcolonialism) arrayed around it. During the 1990s this pattern changes to something more like a river delta where the main stream branches off into several streams, with none having a clear claim to be the main one. Arms Control, like the traditional approach generally, loses relevance because the strategic military threat has dropped away. Feminism, Postcolonialism and Poststructuralism continue to evolve as branches of ISS, and new branches based o n non-military agendas and Constructivist approaches join in. In this section we will look first at the continuities from the previous two sections, and then at the newer branches. The traditionalists remained robust, continuing to claim primacy, and pursuing a diverse post-Cold War military-political agenda. Their first concern, closely linked to neo-realism, was the debate over which polarity (multi- or uni-?) had replaced bipolarity, and the consequences thereof for US grand strategy (Goldgeier and McFaul, 1992; Huntington, 1993; Waltz, 1993; Posen and Ross, 1996-7; Kupchan, 1998; Huntington, 1999; Kagan, 2002). At the beginning of the Cold War this type of question had been settled relatively early, and the nature of the rival to the US became quickly and deeply sedirnented. The ending of the Cold War produced a much murkier international situation in which the nature and identity of the chall e n g e r ( ~to ) the US, if any, remained unclear: Japan and China were given particular concern (Waltz, 1993; Katzenstein and Okawara, 1993) as was the potential rise of an Islamic civilization (Huntington, 1993). The question of appropriate US strategy remained open for a longer time. Traditionalists also remained concerned with the strategic impact of technology, though now largely delinked from Cold War worries about nuclear deterrence. Discussions about defenses against BMD, and US policy debates ahout this, continued. So also did the debate about nuclear proliferation (Walker, 2000), though increasingly both of these themes were linked to so-called 'rogue states' (especially Iran, Iraq, North Korea) unwilling to abide by Western rules of the game. The technology theme was also featured in debate about the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA, see Paarlberg, 2004), which was mainly concerned with the impact of computing, surveillance and communications technologies on battlefield management. Conceptually an important shift within traditionalist ISS was to explicitly integrate the importance of sub-state conflicts and actors. Cold War Strategic Studies had only to a limited extent examined the impact of (or on)

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non-state actors, an analytical decision supported by the fact that while both the US and the Soviet Union worked to create allies, they did not generally intervene in defense of populations caught in the throes of civil war or murderous dictators. The end of the Cold War changed this as intra-state and ethnic conflicts became more prominent than inter-state wars and cases like the former Yugoslavia and Somalia extensively covered by the global media. Humanitarian interventions were undertaken in response with the goal of protecting civilian populations, although not necessarily to end the war itself (Posen and Ross, 1996-7; Fierke, 1996). (neo)realists responded by arguing that their theory was as adequate for analyzing conflicts at the intra-state level as at the international one (Posen, 1993). It was not tied to state security, but defined by the question of organized violence (Walt, 1991; Krause, 1996). Traditionalists did not just pursue their own agenda, but mounted a counterattack against the drive towards widening the security agenda that had begun during the 1980s (see previous section) and gathered strength during the 1990s (Nye and Lynn-Jones, 1988; Walt, 1991; Kolodziej, 1992; Baldwin, 1995; Betts, 1997). A significant change from the 1980s was that a more explicit debate on security emerged. The concepts of 'wideners' and 'deepeners' were coined (Krause and Williams, 1996), writers discussed where they fitted into the disciplinary landscape and more schools and labels were introduced in addition to Poststructuralism and Feminism which continued to grow. The least controversial wideners were those who followed the earlier lead of taking a conception of national (state) security and linking militarypolitical security to questions of the environment, ethnicity, economy or health while taking a largely objective and materialist (and often rather empirical) approach. Another group of challengers was made up of mostly American Constructivist scholars who worked with the concepts of culture, norms, ideas and identity to show how these constrained and enabled state behavior in ways that material explanations could not account for (Katzenstein and Okawara, 1993; Risse-Kappen, 1996; Krause, 1996; Price, 1995; Adler, 1997). This form of Constructivism grew out of the larger epistemological debate in IR between Rationalists and Reflectivists already under way by the late 1980s and did not directly challenge state-centrism: it allowed for ideational factors and non-state actors, particular international institutions, but this was with the aim of explaining the pursuit of state security (usually through the critique of Rationalist [Realist] Realist approaches), not to challenge its definition. Gradually the Constructivist camp divided into a 'mainstream' and a 'critical' position and the latter shifted the focus from the ideational and state-centric approach of 'mainstream Constructivism' to the study of linguistic and narrative structures in foreign policy texts and to the way they legitimized and produced security and identity for example in the American responses to the Cuban Missiles Crisis or the Western policies towards the Bosnian War (Weldes, 1996; Fierke, 1996). Critical Constructivists also showed how competing representations were possible, but marginalized by


xxxv

state discourse. This move from Conventional to Critical Constructivism implied a stronger concern with the politics of representation and hence a substantial and epistemological affinity t o Poststructuralism. Both forms of Constructivism were significant for bringing the study of ideational, linguistic and discursive issues to the ISS mainstream, yet, Constructivists have not to a similar extent as the Copenhagen School, Critical Security Studies, or the Human Security approach explicitly addressed the concept of security. Most of the explicit widening debate was thus carried out in Europe, in part perhaps due to a stronger PR influence and an ensuing concern with 'security' rather than social science epistemologies. One interpretation of this development is that ISS becomes less dominated by American scholars, another that the discipline bifurcates into two (increasingly separate) sets of debates, concepts and epistemologies. Probably the most successful attempt to capture the attention of the ISS mainstream while simultaneously reworking and widening the concept of security has been made by the Copenhagen School. Its first major conceptual innovation was the concept of 'societal security' (Wasver et al., 1993) which had 'society' as its referent object rather than the state (McSweeney, 1996; Krause and Williams, 1996; Huysmans, 1998). Societal security referred to questions of collective identity (national, ethnic, racial, religious) and was intended to provide a solution to the long-standing and unresolved debate between the traditional concept of 'national' (state) security on the one hand and the PR concepts of individual and global security on the other. 'National security' only identified threats to the state, while 'individual security' had no theory of how individual insecurities were to be collectively decided and prioritized (Wzver, 1995). 'Societal security' pointed to threats posed to societal groups by the state and to the importance of societal cohesion and identity: individuals were part of society, not separate from it, but their security was not identical to that of the state either. The second major conceptual innovation was Ole Waxer's 'securitization' theory which argued that 'security' was a speech act with a 'particular rhetorical and semiotic structure' that constituted something as 'an existential threat' with a particular 'priority and urgency' that allowed 'the securitizing actor' 'to break free of procedures or rules he or she would otherwise be bound by' (Buzan et al., 1998: 25). As 'security' is a particular and exceptional - form o f politics, the Copenhagen School argued, it is not necessarily preferable to constitute something as a security problem as this might easily mobilize an us-them logic and take the issue out of 'normal politics' and into the closed corridors of the Foreign Office. The politics and ethics involved in securitization need therefore to be carefully considered in the light o f exactly how security discourses constitute threats and subjects and with what policy result (Elbe, 2006). The ambition of 'securitization' paralleled 'societal security' in that it too sought to solve the individual-national security dilemma. Security could in principle be anything as long as it was discursively articulated as so by securitizing actors. Securitizing actors articulate threats in reference to a

xxxvi


referent object usually located at the 'middle scale of limited collectivities', larger than the individual and smaller than humanity (Buzan et al., 1998: 36). However, since 'societal security is about large, self-sustaining identity groups' (Buzan et al., 1998: 119), it becomes difficult to analyze the potential insecurity of groups or individuals whose identity is produced through links to other identities (Hansen, 2000). Securitizing actors are usually top politicians, representatives of the armed forces or international institutions (NATO, the EU, the UN); the media and more marginal political actors might in some cases succeed to push governments into action. The Copenhagen School could thus be said to take a rather conventional view on who defines security and hence also on how societal interests and identities are constructed and represented (McSweeney, 1996; Huysmans, 1998). The School has also been criticized for overlooking how an institutionalized field of security comprised by the everyday practices of the police and governmental bureaucracies is implicated in national security policies (Bigo, 2002). Securitization theory has spawned a growing empirical research agenda, yet it has also generated criticism, particularly from approaches that advocate a more radical expansion of the concept of security. One of the most significant challengers has been CSS, specifically its so-called 'Welsh contingent', whose most prominent scholars are Ken Booth and Richard Wyn Jones. To Ken Booth, the Copenhagen School is 'state-centric, discourse-dominated, and conservative' (Booth, 2005: 271). CSS can in some ways be seen as an extension of the normative agenda of PR, but with Critical Theory instead of positivist methodologies (Jones, 1995). In Booth's (1991: 319-20) view, 'individual humans are the ultimate referent' for security as states are unreliable providers of security and too diverse to provide for 'a comprehensive theory of security'. For Wyn Jones (1995: 309), it is 'the experience of those men and women and communities for whom the present world order is a cause of insecurity rather than security' and 'common humanity' which should be at the heart of ISS. Central to CSS is the concept of emancipation, by Booth (1991: 3 19) defined as 'the freeing of people (as individuals and groups) from those physical and human constraints which stop them carrying out what they would freely choose to do'. 'Individual security' creates a link from the older PR traditions through CSS to Human Security, a perspective that started out as a concept formulated by UNDP (1994), but which has subsequently gained academic attention and a certain prominence in the policy world. The UNDP report clearly opted for a widening of security arguing that, 'The concept of security has for too long been interpreted narrowly: as security of territory from external aggression, or as protection of national interests in foreign policy or as global security from the threat of a nuclear holocaust. It has been related more to nation-states than to people' (UNDP, 1994: 22). In response, Human Security is 'a universal concern', it emphasizes interdependence between different forms of threats, it encourages early prevention, and it is 'people-centred' (UNDP, 1994: 22-23). Human Security in its original formulation was an attempt to link development to security and its adoption by ISS has been


xxxvii

predominantly as part of a CSS agenda or in an attack on neo-liberal economics and globalization which are seen as deepening already stark global inequalities (Thomas, 2001). The concept of Human Security has been the subject of widespread academic critique most of which evolves around the vagueness of making 'the human' the referent object (Paris, 2001). As 'individual security' before it, it confronts the of how a globe of individual insecurities are to he added up: if security is about assigning priorities t o particular issues, who is going to define which individual insecurities are more important? And who should be enforcing these decisions? Since 'humans' never appear as atomistic entities, stripped of their (collective) identities, to define 'human security' must imply a vision of how collective security is formulated and by whom. These conceptual weaknesses have not however prevented Human Security from becoming a prominent concept on the policy agenda of the UN, the EU, and of active internationalist states like Canada and Norway (Suhrke, 1999),and it has been supported by a series of foundations. What we have is thus an interesting case of a security concept (much like Common Security before it) making its way into ISS, not primarily through the scholarly community, but as a result of the pressure from (parts of) the driving force of Institutionalization.

The terrorist attacks on the US on September 11, 2001 was definitely a key event but whether or not the subsequent 'global War on Terror' (CWoT) defines a new era of international security remains an open question. Whether it does or not hinges on the American ability to securitize 'terrorism' as a ,global threat and have this securitization accepted by at least its major allies and the great powers. If so (and the possibility is plausible if not certain), then the GWoT would provide a new core framing for ISS of a kind that has been absent since the end o f the Cold War. Certainly there is a noticeable new preoccupation with security actors other than the state, mainly terrorists (Barkawi, 2004; Der Derian, 2005), but also private military companies. Concern with terrorism is of course not new, with the literature stretching back into the Cold War. But the earlier literature dealt with terrorism as a peripheral problem to the main core of ISS concerns, not the central one. The situation however is nothing like that at the early stages of the Cold War when the identity of 'the enemy' crystallized quickly and attracted a broad consensus in the West. The GWoT itself, and particularly the characterization of 'terrorism' and the identity of 'terrorists' remain heavily contested, and the Bush administration's portrait of itfthem has done as much to divide the West as to unite it (Andreani, 2004-5). At the time of writing it remains to be seen whether the unfolding disaster of the US-led intervention in Iraq will do more to discredit or reinforce the GWoT. Against the idea of a new era in ISS is the fact that the traditional preoccupations of great power politics remain strong and that this might make other states reluctant to comply with the American articulation of the

xxxviii


terrorist threat and in particular in granting the US a privileged position in combating it. The US in turn might question the sincerity and ability of other states to engage in the war, and thus embark on a classical balance of power politics against rising states. The debate about US grand strategy cited above is much less concerned with terrorism than with the thoroughly traditional fixation on the balance of power, and the possible rise of great power challengers to the US, principally China and the EU. Great power politics could easily return to dominate the security agenda, though given the arguments for democratic peace, that is not inevitable either. Terrorists certainly do pose a potentially severe threat to public peace and order. But they do not represent a plausible alternative political order in the way that the Soviet Union did, and future great power challengers might do. Unless the direst predictions about terrorists and weapons of mass destruction come to pass, it may well be that the concern with terrorism that dominated the agenda post September 11, might prove to be a transitory obsession rather than something that defines a strategic era. If the GWoT does prove durable, what does this signify for the directions of ISS? Was the agenda widening of the 1990s just a response to the temporary eclipse of military concerns, or do the ideas of democratic peace, societal and human security and the use of constructivist and other postpositivist approaches suggest a deeper and more durable transformation? It may well be too early to tell a mere six years from 2001, but so far the signs are that ISS will retain its multi-stream mode. There is of course an adjustment to take on board the GWoT as a topic, but far from returning ISS to a single dominant mainstream, this has just given a new subject that all of the approaches to ISS can and do address. All have to deal with the fact that the securitization legitimating the GWoT evolves around an elusive subject 'the networked Islamic terrorist' - which the Western states have difficulties comprehending. Yet it is a subject that allows the state to suspend public and private rights, to restrict immigration and to securitize a wide range of 'foreign' peoples and places. Looking at the ISS literature since 2001 does not give the impression that the form it took on during the 1990s is going to change in any major way. Traditionalists are still concerned about US Grand Strategy (Kagan, 2002), nuclear proliferation, the RMA, and BMD. The Copenhagen School continues to develop its ideas about securitization and regional security (Buzan and Wzver, 2003). Poststructuralists pit their analytical techniques against the GWoT (Der Derian, 2005) and the boundaries between domestic and international security (Bigo, 2002). Feminists have analyzed the gendering of the GWoT (Tickner, 2002; Agathangelou and Ling, 2004), and advocates of Human Security and CSS continue their criticism of statecentrism. Wideners point out the salience of threats from the environment and elsewhere (Elbe, 2006), and those concerned with the conceptual histories of security probe its origins and their significance for how its political usage has evolved (Neocleous, 2006).


xxxix

ISS will continue to adapt, as it has done since its birth, to changes in the public policy environment that define what constitutes international security for any given time and place. It will thus continue to be sensitive to changes in great power politics and the distribution of power, and to changes in technology that affect the use of force. It will be shoved and shaped by militarypolitical events such as 911 1 and the interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as by events in other sectors, be it rises in sea level, the spread of a new plague, or changes in the way identities play into the realm of security. It seems likely that for some time yet the US will remain central to ISS (as both subject and main generator of ISS literature), meaning that its domestic politics will continue to influence the field in a big way. And so long as academic life goes on, one can be sure that new fashions and new ways of thinking will make their impact on how ISS evolves. What seems unlikely to us is that ISS will ever return to its Cold War form of a single dominant sector and a single dominant mode of analysis. The widening and deepenings that started during the Cold War and flowered during the 1990s are here to stay, even though the balance of influence among them will vary from place to place and time to time. All the new approaches have put down roots, made recognized contributions to understanding, established audiences for their work, and begun to reproduce themselves through the training o f next generations. ISS has become, and will remain, the multichanneled field that was hinted at when the concept of security first rose to prominence, but which got temporarily lost during the obsession with nuclear deterrence that marked the 'golden age' of the Cold War.

References A g ~ t h a n g e l o Anna ~ ~ , M. and Ling, L.H.M. (2004) 'Power, Borders, Security, Wealth: Lessons of Violence ~ l n d Des~re from September I l ' , lntrrnational Studies Qirarterly, 4813): 517-38. Hooth, Ken ( r d . ) (2005) Critrcal Security Studies and World Polltrcs. B o ~ ~ l d eCo.: r 1.ynne K~enner. Huzan, Rarry (1983) Peof~le,States 8 Fear: T h c Nat/onizl .Set-rrrrt)' Problcwz in Internatroni71 RcL7tions. Brighton: Wheatsheaf. K u ~ a n ,Barry and W ~ v e r ,Ole (200.3) Regior~sand P(jtoers: The Structure of l ~ t ~ r n a t ~ o t z ~ z l e: IJniversity Press. Security. C ~ ~ n b r i d g Cambridge Buyan, Karl-y, W m e r , Ole and de Wilde, J m p (1998) .Security: A Nezc~Frurnezlwrk for Co.: Lvnne Rienner. A ~ z u l ~ s iBoulder s. Elshta~n,Jean B. (1987) W o m e n and War. Ch~cago:The Univers~cyof Chicdgo Press. Galrung, Johan ( I 969) 'Violence, Peace, and Peace Research', Journal of Peace Research, 6(3): 167-91. Keoh.ine, Robert 0. ( 1 988) 'Internat~onalInstitutions: Two Approaches', Intertzati~~nnl Studies Qutrrterly, 32(4): 379-96. Tickner, J. A n n (2002) 'Feminist Perspectives on 911 l', lnternatzond Studies P c r ~ p ~ r t i v e3(4): s, 333-50. Wsver, Ole, Buzan, Barry, Kelstrup, Morten and Lemaitre, Pierre (1993) Identity, Migmtion m i l the Nrtij S ~ c ~ i r iAgenda ty in Europe. London: Pinter.

XI

Editors' Introduction Recommended Books on ISS

Allison, Graham (1971) Essence of Decis~on:Explaining the Cuba Missile Crisis. Boston: Little Brown. Bigo, Didier (2007) Polrcing Insecurity Today: Defense and Internal Security. Bas~ngstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Brodie, Bernard (1946) The Absolute Weapon: Atomic Pouter and World Order. New York: Harcourt Brace. Bull, Hedley (1961) The Control of the Arms Race. London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson. Buzan, Barry (1987) An lntroductron t o Strategic Studies: Military Technology m d International Relations. London: Macmillan. Campbell, David (1998) Writing Security: United States Foreign Policy arid the Politrcs of Identity. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2nd edition. Evangelists, Matthew (1988)Innovation and the Arms Race: How the United States and the Soviet Union Develop N e w Military Technologies. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Freedman, Lawrence (1981)The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy. London: ~Macmillan. Gray, Colin (1982) Strategic Studies: A Critical Assessment. London: Aldwych Press. Hansen, Lene (2006) Security as Practice: Discourse Analysis and the Bosnian War. Imndon: Routledge. Jervis, Robert (1976) Perception and Misperception in lnternatronal Politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. n~ the Unthinkable. New York: Horizon Press. Kahn, Herman (1962) ~ h i n k r About Kaplan, Fred M. (1983) The Wizards of Armageddon. New York: Simon and Schuster. Kapstein, Ethan B. and Mastanduno, Michael (eds.) (1999) Unipolar Politics: Reolisnr and State Strategies after the Cold War. New York: Columbia University Press. Katzenstein, Peter (ed.) (1996) The Culture of Natiotzal Security. New York: Columbia University Press. Knorr, Klaus (1966) O n the Uses of Military Power In the Nuclear Age. Princeton, N J : Princeton University Press. Kolodziej, Edward A. (2005) Security and International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mearsheimer, John (2001) The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. New York: Norton. Morgan, Patrick (1977, 1983) Deterrence: A Conceptrral Analysrs. London: Sage. Rapoport, Anatol (1964) Strategy and Conscience. New York: Harper and Row. Russett, Bruce (1983) The Prisoners of Insecurrty. San Francisco: Freeman. Schelling, Thomas (1966)Arms and Influence. New Ha5en: Yale University Press. Sheehan, Michael (2005) International Security: A n Analytical Survey. Boulder Co.: Lynne Rienner. Singer, J. David (1962) Deterrence, Arms Control and Disarmament. Columbus Ohio: Ohio State University Press. Tickner, J. Ann (2001) Gendering World Politrcs: Issues and Approaches rn the Post-Cold War Era. New York: Columbia University Press.

The Sources o f Soviet Conduct X

T

he political personality of Soviet power as we know it today is the product of ideology and circumstances: ideology inherited by the present Soviet leaders from the movement in which they had their political origin, and circumstances of the power which they now have exercised for nearly three decades in Russia. There can be few tasks of psychological analysis more difficult than to try to trace the interaction of these two forces and the relative r6le of each in the determination of official Soviet conduct. Yet the attempt must be made if that conduct is to he understood and effectively countered. It is difficult to summarize the set of ideological concepts with which the Soviet leaders came into power. Marxian ideology, in its Russian-Communist projection, has always been in process of subtle evolution. The materials on which it bases itself are extensive and complex. But the outstanding features of Communist thought as it existed in 1916 may perhaps be summarized as follows: ( a ) that the central factor in the life of man, the factor which determines the character of public life and the "physiognomy of society," is the system by which material goods are produced and exchanged; ( b ) that the capitalist system of production is a nefarious one which inevitably leads to the exploitation of the working class by the capital-owning class and is incapable of developing adequately the econonlic resources of society or of distributing fairly the material goods produced by human labor; (c)that capitalism contains the seeds of its own destruction and must, in view of the inability of the capital-owning class to adjust itself to economic change, result eventually and inescapably in a revolutionary transfer of power to the working class; and ( d )that imperialism, the final phase of capitalism, leads directly to war and revolution. The rest may be outlined in Lenin's own words: "Unevenness of economic and political development is the inflexible law of capitalism. It follows from this that the victory of Socialism may come originally in a few capitalist countries or even in a single capitalist country. The victorious proletariat of that country, having expropriated the capitalists and having Source: korezgn Affnrrs, 25(4) (1947):566-82.

2

T h e Cold War a n d Nuclear D e t e r r e n c e

organized Socialist production at home, would rise against the remaining capitalist world, drawing to itself in the process the oppressed classes of other countries."' It must be noted that there was no assumption that capitalism would perish without proletarian revolution. A final push was needed from a revolutionary proletariat movement in order to tip over the tottering structure. But it was regarded as inevitable that sooner or later that push be given. For 50 years prior to the outbreak of the Revolution, this pattern of thought had exercised great fascination for the members of the Russian revolutionary movement. Frustrated, discontented, hopeless of finding selfexpression - or too impatient to seek it - in the confining limits of the Tsarist political system, yet lacking wide popular support for their choice of bloody revolution as a means of social betterment, these revolutionists found in Marxist theory a highly convenient rationalization for their own instinctive desires. It afforded pseudo-scientific justification for their impatience, for their categoric denial of all value in the Tsarist system, for their yearning for power and revenge and for their inclination to cut corners in the pursuit of it. It is therefore n o wonder that they had come to believe implicitly in the truth and soundness of the Marxian-Leninist teachings, so congenial t o their own impulses and emotions. Their sincerity need not be impugned. This is a phenomenon as old as human nature itself. It has never been more aptly described than by Edward Gibbon, who wrote in "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire": "From enthusiasm to imposture the step is perilous and slippery; the demon of Socrates affords a memorable instance how a wise man may deceive himself, how a good man may deceive others, how the conscience may slumber in a mixed and middle state between self-illusion and voluntary fraud." And it was with this set of conceptions that the members of the Bolshevik Party entered into power. Now it must be noted that through all the years of preparation for revolution, the attention of these men, as indeed of Marx himself, had been centered less on the future form which Socialism2 would take than on the necessary overthrow of rival power which, in their view, had to precede the introduction of Socialism. Their views, therefore, on the positive program to be put into effect, once power was attained, were for the most part nebulous, visionary and impractical. Beyond the nationalization of industry and the expropriation of large private capital holdings there was no agreed program. The treatment of the peasantry, which according to the Marxist formulation was not of the proletariat, had always been a vague spot in the pattern of Communist thought; and it remained an object of controversy and vacillation for the first ten years of Communist power. The circumstances of the immediate post-revolution period - the existence in Russia of civil war and foreign intervention, together with the obvious fact that the Communists represented only a tiny minority of the Russian people - made the establishment of dictatorial power a necessity. The experiment with "war Communism" and the abrupt attempt to eliminate private production and trade had unfortunate economic consequences and caused

Y The Sources of Soviet Conduct

3

further bitterness against the new revolutionary regime. While the temporary relaxation of the effort to communize Russia, represented by the New Economic Policy, alleviated some of this economic distress and thereby served its purpose, it also made it evident that the "capitalistic sector of society" was still prepared to profit at once from any relaxation of governmental pressure, and would, if permitted to continue to exist, always constitute a powerful opposing element to the Soviet rCgime and a serious rival for influence in the country. Somewhat the same situation prevailed with respect to the individual peasant who, in his own small way, was also a private producer. Lenin, had he lived, might have proved a great enough man to reconcile these conflicting forces to the ultimate benefit of Russian society, though this is questionable. But be that as it may, Stalin, and those whom he led in the struggle for succession to Lenin's position of leadership, were not the men to tolerate rival political forces in the sphere of power which they coveted. Their sense of insecurity was too great. Their particular brand of fanaticism, unmodified by any of the Anglo-Saxon traditions of compromise, was too fierce and too jealous to envisage any permanent sharing of power. From the Russian-Asiatic world out of which they had emerged they carried with them a skepticism as to the possibilities of permanent and peaceful coexistence of rival forces. Easily persuaded of their own doctrinaire "rightness," they insisted on the submission or destruction of all competing power. Outside of the Communist Party, Russian society was to have no rigidity. There were to be no forms of collective human activity or association which would not be dominated by the Party. N o other force in Russian society was to be permitted to achieve vitality or integrity. Only the Party was to have structure. All else was to be an amorphous mass. And within the Party the same principle was to apply. The mass of Party members might go through the motions of election, deliberation, decision and action; but in these motions they were to be animated not by their own individual wills but by the awesome breath of the Party leadership and the overbrooding presence of "the word." Let it be stressed again that subjectively these men probably did not seek absolutism for its own sake. They doubtless believed - and found it easy to believe - that they alone knew what was good for society and that they would accomplish that good once their power was secure and unchallengeable. But in seeking that security of their own rule they were prepared to recognize no restrictions, either of God or man, on the character of their methods. And until such time as that security might be achieved, they placed far down on their scale of operational priorities the comforts and happiness of the peoples entrusted to their care. Now the outstanding circumstance concerning the Soviet rkgime is that down to the present day this process of political consolidation has never been completed and the men in the Kremlin have continued to be predominantly absorbed with the struggle to secure and make absolute the power which they seized in November 1917. They have endeavored to secure it

4

T h e Cold War a n d Nuclear Deterrence

primarily against forces at home, within Soviet society itself. But they have also endeavored to secure it against the outside world. For ideology, as we have seen, taught them that the outside world was hostile and that it was their duty eventually to overthrow the political forces beyond their borders. The powerful hands of Russian history and tradition reached up to sustain them in this feeling. Finally, their own aggressive intransigence with respect to the outside world began to find its own reaction; and they were soon forced, to use another Gibbonesque phrase, "to chastise the contumacy" which they themselves had provoked. It is an undeniable privilege of every man to prove himself right in the thesis that the world is his enemy; for if he reiterates it frequently enough and makes it the background of his conduct he is bound eventually t o be right. Now it lies in the nature of the mental world of the Soviet leaders, as well as in the character of their ideology, that no opposition to them can be officially recognized as having any merit or justification whatsoever. Such opposition can flow, in theory, only from the hostile and incorrigible forces of dying capitalism. As long as remnants of capitalism were officially recognized as existing in Russia, it was possible to place on them, as an internal element, part of the blame for the maintenance of a dictatorial form of society. But as these remnants were liquidated, little by little, this justification fell away; and when it was indicated officially that they had been finally destroyed, it disappeared altogether. And this fact created one of the most basic of the compulsions which came to act upon the Soviet regime: since capitalism no longer existed in Russia and since it could not be admitted that there could be serious or widespread opposition to the Kremlin springing spontaneously from the liberated masses under its authority, it became necessary to justify the retention of the dictatorship by stressing the menace of capitalism abroad. This began at an early date. In 1924 Stalin specifically defended the retention of the "organs of suppression," meaning, among others, the army and the secret ~ o l i c e ,on the ground that "as long as there is a capitalist encirclement there will be danger of intervention with all the consequences that flow from that danger." In accordance with that theory, and from that time on, all internal opposition forces in Russia have consistently been portrayed as the agents of foreign forces of reaction antagonistic to Soviet power. By the same token, tremendous emphasis has been placed on the original Communist thesis of a basic antagonism between the capitalist and Socialist worlds. It is clear, from many indications, that this emphasis is not founded in reality. The real facts concerning it have been confused by the existence abroad of genuine resentment provoked by Soviet philosophy and tactics and occasionally by the existence of great centers of military power, notably the Nazi rCgime in Germany and the Japanese Government of the late 1930's, which did indeed have aggressive designs against the Soviet Union. But there is ample evidence that the stress laid in Moscow on the menace confronting Soviet society from the world outside its borders is founded not in the realities of foreign antagonism but in the necessity of explaining away the maintenance of dictatorial authority at home.

\

T h e S o u r c e s of Soviet Conduct

5

Now the maintenance of this pattern of Soviet power, namely, the pursuit of unlimited authority domestically, accompanied by the cultivation of the semi-myth of implacable foreign hostility, has gone far to shape the actual machinery of Soviet power as we know it today. Internal organs of administration which did not serve this purpose withered on the vine. Organs which did serve this purpose became vastly swollen. The security of Soviet power came to rest on the iron discipline of the Party, on the severity and ubiquity of the secret police, and on the uncompromising economic monopolism of the state. The "organs of suppression," in which the Soviet leaders had sought security from rival forces, became in large measure the masters of those whom they were designed to serve. Today the major part of the structure of Soviet power is committed to the perfection of the dictatorship and to the maintenance of the concept of Russia as in a state of siege, with the enemy lowering beyond the walls. And the millions of human beings who form that part of the structure of power must defend at all costs this concept of Russia's position, for without it they are themselves superfluous. As things stand today, the rulers can no longer dream of parting with these organs of suppression. The quest for absolute power, pursued now for nearly three decades with a ruthlessness unparalleled (in scope at least) in modern times, has again produced internally, as it did externally, its own reaction. The excesses of the police apparatus have fanned the potential opposition to the regime into something far greater and more dangerous than it could have been before those excesses began. But least of all can the rulers dispense with the fiction by which the maintenance of dictatorial power has been defended. For this fiction has hcen canonized in Soviet philosophy by the excesses already committed in its name; and it is now anchored in the Soviet structure of thought by bonds far greater than those of mere ideology.

So much for the historical background. What does it spell in t e r m of the political personality of Soviet power as we know it today? Of the original ideology, nothing has been officially junked. Relief is maintained in the basic badness of capitalism, in the inevitability of its destruction, in the obligation of the to assist in that destruction and to take power into its own hands. But stress has come to be laid primarily on those concepts which relate most specifically to the Soviet regime itself: to its position as the sole truly Socialist rkgime in a dark and misguided world, and to the relationships of power within it. The first of these concepts is that of the innate antagonism between capitalism and Socialism. We have seen how deeply that concept has become imbedded in foundations of Soviet power. It has profound implications for Russia's conduct as a member of international society. It means that there can never be on Moscow's side any sincere assumption of a community of

6

The Cold War and Nuclear Deterrence

aims between the Soviet Union and powers which are regarded as capitalist. It must invariably be assumed in Moscow that the aims of the capitalist world are antagonistic to the Soviet regime, and therefore to the interests of the peoples it controls. If the Soviet Government occasionally sets its signature t o documents which would indicate the contrary, this is to be regarded as a tactical maneuvre permissible in dealing with the enemy (who is without honor) and should be taken in the spirit of caveat emptor. Basically, the antagonism remains. It is postulated. And from it flow many of the phenomena which we find disturbing in the Kremlin's conduct of foreign policy: the secretiveness, the lack of frankness, the duplicity, the wary suspiciousness, and the basic unfriendliness of purpose. These phenomena are there to stay, for the foreseeable future. There can be variations of degree and of emphasis. When there is something the Russians want from us, one or the other of these features of their policy may be thrust temporarily into the background; and when that happens there will always be Americans who will leap forward with gleeful announcements that "the Russians have changed," and some who will even try to take credit for having brought about such "changes." But we should not be misled by tactical maneuvres. These characteristics of Soviet policy, like the postulate from which they flow, are basic to the internal nature of Soviet power, and will be with us, whether in the foreground or the background, until the internal nature of Soviet power is changed. This means that we are going to continue for a long time to find the Russians difficult to deal with. It does not mean that they should be considered as embarked upon a do-or-die program to overthrow our society by a given date. The theory of the inevitability of the eventual fall of capitalism has the fortunate connotation that there is no hurry about it. The forces of progress can take their time in preparing the final coup de grice. Meanwhile, what is vital is that the "Socialist fatherland" - that oasis of power which has been already won for Socialism in the person of the Soviet Union - should be cherished and defended by all good Communists at home and abroad, its fortunes promoted, its enemies badgered and confounded. The promotion of premature, "adventuristic" revolutionary projects abroad which might embarrass Soviet power in any way would be an inexcusable, even a counter-revolutionary act. The cause of Socialism is the support and promotion of Soviet power, as defined in Moscow. This brings us to the second of the concepts important to contemporary Soviet outlook. That is the infallibility of the Kremlin. The Soviet concept of power, which permits no focal points of organization outside the Party itself, requires that the Party leadership remain in theory the sole repository of truth. For if truth were t o be found elsewhere, there would be justification for its expression in organized activity. But it is precisely that which the Kremlin cannot and will not permit. The leadership of the Communist Party is therefore always right, and has been always right ever since in 1929 Stalin formalized his personal

X

The Sources of Soviet Conduct

7

power by announcing that decisions of the Politburo were being taken unanin~ously. O n the principle of infallibility there rests the iron discipline of the Communist Party. In fact, the two concepts are mutually self-supporting. Perfect discipline requires recognition of infallibility. Infallibility requires the observance of discipline. And the two together go far to determine the behaviorism of the entire Soviet apparatus of power. But their effect cannot be understood unless a third factor be taken into account: namely, the fact that the leadership is at liberty to put forward for tactical purposes any particular thesis which it finds useful to the cause a t any particular moment and to require the faithful and unquestioning acceptance of that thesis by the menihers of the movement as a whole. This means that truth is not a constant but is actually created, for all intents and purposes, by the Soviet leaders themselves. It may vary from week to week, from month to month. It is nothing absolute and immutable - nothing which flows from objective reality. It is only the most recent manifestation of the wisdom of those in whom the ultimate wisdom is supposed to reside, because they represent the logic of history. The accumulative effect of these factors is to give to the whole subordinate apparatus of Soviet power an unshakeable stubbornness and steadfastness in its orientation. This orientation can he changed at will by the Kremlin but hy n o other power. Once a given party line has been laid down on a given issue of current policy, the whole Soviet governmental machine, including the mechanism of diplomacy, moves inexorably along the prescribed path, like a persistent toy automobile wound up and headed in a given direction, stopping only when it meets with some unanswerable force. The individuals who are the components of this machine are unamenable t o argument or reason which comes to them from outside sources. Their whole training has taught them to mistrust and discount the glib persuasiveness of the outside world. Like the white dog before the phonograph, they hear only the "master's voice." And if they are to be called off from the purposes last dictated to them, it is the master who must call them off. Thus the foreign representative cannot hope that his words will make any impression on them. The most that he can hope is that they will be transmitted to those a t the top, who are capable of changing the party line. But even those are not likely to be swayed by any normal logic in the words of the bourgeois representative. Since there can be n o appeal t o common purposes, there can be n o appeal to common mental approaches. For this reason, facts speak louder than words to the ears of the Krenllin; and words carry the greatest weight when they have the ring of reflecting, or being backed up by, facts of unchallengeable validity. But we have seen that the Kremlin is under no ideological compulsion to accon~plishits purposes in a hurry. Like the Church, it is dealing in ideological concepts which are of long-term validity, and it can afford t o be patient. It has no right to risk the existing achievements of the revolution for the sake o f vain baubles of the future. The very teachings of Lenin himself require great caution and flexibility in the pursuit of Communist purposes.

8

The C o l d War a n d N u c l e a r D e t e r r e n c e

Again, these precepts are fortified by the lessons of Russian history: of centuries of obscure battles between nomadic forces over the stretches of a vast unfortified plain. Here caution, circumspection, flexibility and deception are the valuable qualities; and their value finds natural appreciation in the Russian or the oriental mind. Thus the Kremlin has no compunction about retreating in the face of superior force. And being under the compulsion of no timetable, it does not get panicky under the necessity for such retreat. Its political action is a fluid stream which moves constantly, wherever it is permitted to move, toward a given goal. Its main concern is to make sure that it has filled every nook and cranny available to it in the basin of world power. But if it finds unassailable barriers in its path, it accepts these philosophically and accommodates itself to them. The main thing is that there should always be pressure, unceasing constant pressure, toward the desired goal. There is no trace of any feeling in Soviet psychology that that goal must be reached at any given time. These considerations make Soviet diplomacy at once easier and more difficult to deal with than the diplomacy of individual aggressive leaders like Napoleon and Hitler. O n the one hand it is more sensitive to contrary force, more ready to yield on individual sectors of the diplomatic front when that force is felt to be too strong, and thus more rational in the logic and rhetoric of power. O n the other hand it cannot be easily defeated or discouraged by a single victory on the part of its opponents. And the patient persistence by which it is animated means that it can be effectively countered not by sporadic acts which represent the momentary whims of democratic opinion but only by intelligent long-range policies on the part of Russia's adversaries - policies no less steady in their purpose, and no less variegated and resourceful in their application, than those of the Soviet Union itself. In these circumstances it is clear that the main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies. It is important to note, however, that such a policy has nothing to d o with outward histrionics: with threats or blustering or superfluous gestures of outward "toughness." While the Kremlin is basically flexible in its reaction to political realities, it is by no means unamenable to considerations of prestige. Like almost any other government, it can be placed by tactless and threatening gestures in a position where it cannot afford to yield even though this might be dictated by its sense of realism. The Russian leaders are keen judges of human psychology, and as such they are highly conscious that loss of temper and of self-control is never a source of strength in political affairs. They are quick to exploit such evidences of weakness. For these reasons, it is a sine qua non of successful dealing with Russia that the foreign government in question should remain at all times cool and collected and that its demands on Russian policy should be put forward in such a manner as to leave the way open for a compliance not too detrimental to Russian prestige.


9

In the light of the above, it will be clearly seen that the Soviet pressure against the free institutions of the western world is something that can be contained by the adroit and vigilant application of counter-force a t a series of constantly shifting geographical and political points, corresponding to the shifts and manceuvres of Soviet policy, but which cannot be charmed o r talked out of existence. The Russians look forward t o a duel of infinite duration, and they see that already they have scored great successes. It must be borne in mind that there was a time when the Communist Party represented far more of a minority in the sphere of Russian national life than Soviet power today represents in the world community. But if ideology convinces the rulers of Russia that truth is on their side and that they can therefore afford to wait, those of us o n w h o m that ideology has n o claim are free to examine objectively the validity o f that premise. The Soviet thesis not only implies complete lack of control by the west over its own economic destiny, it likewise assumes Russian unity, discipline and patience over an infinite period. Let us bring this apocalyptic vision down to earth, and suppose that the western world finds the strength and resourcef~~lness to contain Soviet power over a period of ten to fifteen years. What does that spell for Russia itself? The Soviet leaders, taking advantage of the contributions of modern technique to the arts of despotism, have solved the question of obedience within the confines o f their power. Few challenge their authority; and even those w h o d o are unable t o make that challenge valid as against the organs of suppression of the state. The Kremlin has also proved able t o accomplish its purpose of building up in Russia, regardless of the interests of the inhabitants, an industrial foundation of heavy metallurgy, which is, t o be sure, not yet complete but which is nevertheless continuing t o grow and is approaching those of the other major industrial countries. All of this, however, both the maintenance of internal political security and the building of heavy industry, has been carried out a t a terrible cost in human life and in human hopes and energies. It has necessitated the use of forced labor o n a scale unprecedented in modern times under conditions of peace. It has involved the neglect o r abuse of other phases of Soviet economic life, particularly agriculture, consumers' goods production, housing and transportation. To all that, the war has added its tren~endoustoll of destruction, death and human exhaustion. In consequence of this, we have in R L I S Stoday ~~ a population which is physically a n d spiritually tired. The mass of the people are disillusioned, skeptical and n o longer as accessible as they once were t o the magical attraction which Soviet power still radiates to its followers ahroad. The avidity with which people seized upon the slight respite accorded t o the Church for tactical reasons during the war was eloquent testimony to the fact that their capacity for faith and devotion found little expression in the purposes of the rigime.

10


In these circumstances, there are limits to the physical and nervous strength of people themselves. These limits are absolute ones, and are binding even for the cruelest dictatorship, because beyond them people cannot be driven. The forced labor camps and the other agencies of constraint provide temporary means of compelling people to work longer hours than their own volition or mere economic pressure would dictate; but if people survive them at all they become old before their time and must be considered as human casualties to the demands of dictatorship. In either case their best powers are no longer available to society and can no longer be enlisted in the service of the state. Here only the younger generation can help. The younger generation, despite all vicissitudes and sufferings, is numerous and vigorous; and the Russians are a talented people. But it still remains to be seen what will be the effects on mature performance of the abnormal emotional strains of childhood which Soviet dictatorship created and which were enormously increased by the war. Such things as normal security and placidity of home environment have practically ceased to exist in the Soviet Union outside of the most remote farms and villages. And observers are not yet sure whether that is not going to leave its mark on the over-all capacity of the generation now coming into maturity. In addition to this, we have the fact that Soviet economic development, while it can list certain formidable achievements, has been precariously spotty and uneven. Russian Communists who speak of the "uneven development of capitalism" should blush at the contemplation of their own national economy. Here certain branches of economic life, such as the metallurgical and machine industries, have been pushed out of all proportion to other sectors of economy. Here is a nation striving to become in a short period one of the great industrial nations of the world while it still has no highway network worthy of the name and only a relatively primitive network of railways. Much has been done to increase efficiency of labor and to teach primitive peasants something about the operation of machines. But maintenance is still a crying deficiency of all Soviet economy. Construction is hasty and poor in quality. Depreciation must be enormous. And in vast sectors of economic life it has not yet been possible to instill into labor anything like that general culture of production and technical self-respect which characterizes the skilled worker of the west. It is difficult to see how these deficiencies can be corrected at an early date by a tired and dispirited population working largely under the shadow of fear and compulsion. And as long as they are not overcome, Russia will remain economically a vulnerable, and in a certain sense an impotent, nation, capable of exporting its enthusiasms and of radiating the strange charm of its primitive political vitality but unable to back up those articles of export by the real evidences of material power and prosperity. Meanwhile, a great uncertainty hangs over the political life of the Soviet Union. That is the uncertainty involved in the transfer of power from one individual or group of individuals to others.

':


II

This is, of course, outstandingly the problem of the personal position of Stalin. We must remember that his succession to Lenin's pinnacle of preeminence in the Communist movement was the only such transfer of individual authority which the Soviet Union has experienced. That transfer took 12 years to consolidate. It cost the lives of n~illionsof people and shook the state to its foundations. The attendant tremors were felt all through the international revolutionary movement, to the disadvantage of the Kremlin itself. It is always possible that another transfer of preeminent power may take place quietly and inconspicuously, with no repercussions anywhere. But again, it is possible that the questions involved may unleash, to use some of Lenin's words, one of those "incredibly swift transitions" from "delicate deceit" to "wild violence" which characterize Kussian history, and may shake Soviet power to its foundations. But this is not only a question of Stalin himself. There has been, since 1938, a dangerous congealment of political life in the higher circles of Soviet power. The All-Union Congress of Soviets, in theory the supreme body of the Party, is supposed to meet not less often than once in three years. It will soon be eight full years since its last meeting. During this period membership in the Party has nun~ericallydoubled. Party mortality during the war was enormous; and today well over half of the Party members are persons who have entered since the last Party congress was held. Meanwhile, the same small group of men has carried on at the top through an amazing series of national vicissitudes. Surely there is some reason why the experiences o f the war brought hasic political changes to every one of the great governments of the west. Surely the causes of that phenomenon are basic enough to be present somewhere in the obscurity of Soviet political life, as well. And yet no recognition has been given to these causes in Russia. It must be surmised from this that even within so highly disciplined an organization as the Communist Party there must be a growing divergence in age, outlook and interest between the great mass of Party members, only so recently recruited into the movement, and the little self-perpetuating clique of men at the top, whom most of these Party members have never met, with whom they have never conversed, and with whom they can have no political intimacy. Who can say whether, in these circumstances, the eventual rejuvenation of the higher spheres of authority (which can only be a matter of time) can take place smoothly and peacefully, or whether rivals in the quest for higher power will not eventually reach down into these politically immature and inexperienced masses in order to find support for their respective claims? If this were ever to happen, strange consequences could flow for the Communist Party: for the membership at large has been exercised only in the practices of iron discipline and obedience and not in the arts of compromise and accommodation. And if disunity were ever to seize and paralyze the Party, the chaos and weakness of Russian society would be revealed in forms beyond description. For we have seen that Soviet power is only a crust concealing an amorphous

12


mass of human beings among whom no independent organizational structure is tolerated. In Russia there is not even such a thing as local government. The present generation of Russians have never known spontaneity of collective action. If, consequently, anything were ever to occur to disrupt the unity and efficacy of the Party as a political instrument, Soviet Russia might be changed overnight from one of the strongest to one of the weakest and most pitiable of national societies. Thus the future of Soviet power may not be by any means as secure as Russian capacity for self-delusion would make it appear to the men in the Kremlin. That they can keep power themselves, they have demonstrated. That they can quietly and easily turn it over to others remains to be proved. Meanwhile, the hardships of their rule and the vicissitudes of international life have taken a heavy toll of the strength and hopes of the great people on whom their power rests. It is curious to note that the ideological power of Soviet authority is strongest today in areas beyond the frontiers of Russia, beyond the reach of its police power. This phenomenon brings to mind a comparison used by Thomas Mann in his great novel "Buddenbrooks." Observing that human institutions often show the greatest outward brilliance at a moment when inner decay is in reality farthest advanced, he compared the Buddenbrook family, in the days of its greatest glamour, to one of those stars whose light shines most brightly on this world when in reality it has long since ceased to exist. And who can say with assurance that the strong light still cast by the Kremlin on the dissatisfied peoples of the western world is not the powerful afterglow of a constellation which is in actuality on the wane? This cannot be proved. And it cannot be disproved. But the possibility remains (and in the opinion of this writer it is a strong one) that Soviet power, like the capitalist world of its conception, bears within it the seeds of its own decay, and that the sprouting of these seeds is well advanced.

It is clear that the United States cannot expect in the foreseeable future to enjoy political intimacy with the Soviet regime, It must continue to regard the Soviet Union as a rival, not a partner, in the political arena. It must continue to expect that Soviet policies will reflect no abstract love of peace and stability, no real faith in the possibility of a permanent happy coexistence of the Socialist and capitalist worlds, but rather a cautious, persistent pressure toward the disruption and weakening of all rival influence and rival power. Balanced against this are the facts that Russia, as opposed to the western world in general, is still by far the weaker party, that Soviet policy is highly flexible, and that Soviet society may well contain deficiencies which will eventually weaken its own total potential. This would of itself warrant the United States entering with reasonable confidence upon a policy of firm containment, designed to confront the Russians with unalterable counter-force


I3

a t every point where they show signs of encroaching upon the interests of a peaceful and stable world. But in actuality the possibilities for American policy are by n o means limited t o holding the line and hoping for the best. It is entirely possible for the United States t o influence by its actions the internal developments, both within Russia and throughout the international Communist movement, by which Russian policy is largely determined. This is not only a question of the modest measure of informational activity which this government can conduct in the Soviet Union and elsewhere, although that, too, is important. It is rather a question of the degree t o which the United States can create among the peoples of the world generally the impression of a country which knows w h a t it wants, which is coping successfully with the problems of its internal life and with the responsibilities of a World Power, and which has a spiritual vitality capable of holding its o w n among the major ideological currents of the time. To the extent that such an impression can be created and maintained, the aims of Kussian Communism must appear sterile and quixotic, the hopes and enthusiasm of Moscow's supporters 111ust wane, and added strain must be imposed on the Kremlin's foreign policies. For the palsied decrepitude of the capitalist world is the keystone of Communist philosophy. Even the failure of the United States t o experience the early economic depression which the ravens of the Red Square have been predicting with such complacent confidence since hostilities ceased would have deep and important repercussions throughout the Communist world. Ky the same token, exhibitions of indecision, disunity and internal disintegration within this country have a n exhilarating effect o n the whole Communist movement. At each evidence of these tendencies, a thrill of hope and excitement goes through the Communist world; a new jauntiness can be noted in the Moscow tread; new groups of Foreign supporters climb on t o what they can only view as the band wagon of international politics; and Russian pressure increases all along the line in international affairs. It would be an exaggeration t o say that American behavior unassisted atid alone could exercise a power of life and death over the Communist movement and bring about the early fall of Soviet power in Russia. But the United States has it in its power t o increase enormously the strains under which Soviet policy must operate, t o force upon the Kremlin a far greater degree o f moderation and circumspection than it has had t o observe in recent years, and in this way t o promote tendencies which must eventually find their outlet in either the break-up o r the gradual mellowing of Soviet power. For n o mystical, Messianic movement - and particularly not that of the Kremlin - can face frustration indefinitely without eventually adjusting itself in one way o r another t o the logic of that state of affairs. Thus the decision will really fall in large measure in this country itself. T h e issue of Soviet-American relations is in essence a test of the over-all worth o f the United States a s a nation among nations. To avoid destruction the United States need only measure up t o its own best traditions and prove itself worthy of preservation as a great nation.

14


Surely, there was never a fairer test of national quality than this. In the light of these circumstances, the thoughtful observer of Russian-American relations will find no cause for complaint in the Kremlin's challenge to American society. He will rather experience a certain gratitude to a Providence which, by providing the American people with this implacable challenge, has made their entire security as a nation dependent on their pulling themselves together and accepting the responsibilities of moral and political leadership that history plainly intended them to bear.

Notes 1. "Concerning the Slogans of the United States o f Europe," August 1915. Official Sowet edition of Lenin's works. 2. Here and elsewhere in this paper "Socialism" refers to Marxist or Leninist Communism, not t o liberal Socialism of the Second International variety.

"National Security" as an Ambiguous Symbol Arnold Wolfers

S

tatesman, publicists and scholars who wish to be considered realists, as many d o today, are inclined to insist that the foreign policy they advocate is dictated by the national interest, more specifically by the national security interest. It is not surprising that this should be so. Today any reference to the pursuit of security is likely to ring a sympathetic chord. However, when political formulas such as "national interest" or "national security" gain popularity they need to be scrutinized with particular care. They may not mean the same thing to different people. They may not have any precise meaning at all. Thus, while appearing to offer g ~ ~ i d a n cand e a basis for broad consensus they may be permitting everyone to label whatever policy he favors with an attractive and possibly deceptive name. In a very vague and general way "national interest" does suggest a direction of policy which can he distinguished from several others which may present theniselves as alternatives. It indicates that the policy is designed to promote demands which are ascribed to the nation rather than to individuals, sub-national groups or mankind as a whole. It emphasizes that the policy subordinates other interests to those of the nation. But beyond this, it has very little meaning. When Charles Beard's study of The Idea of National Interest was puhlished in the early. years of the New Deal and under the impact of the Great . Depression, the lines were drawn differently than they are today. The question at that time was whether American foreign policy, then largely economic in scope and motivation, was aimed not at promoting the welfare interests of the nation as a whole but instead at satisfying the material interests of powerful sub-national interest or pressure groups. While it was found hard to define what was in the interest of national welfare or to discover standards by which to measure it, there could be no doubt as to what people had in mind: they desired to see national policy makers rise above the narrow and special economic interests of parts of the nation to focus their attention on the more inclusive interests of the whole. Source: I'olrtlc-'11 Scicnce Q~rczrterly,I.XVII(4) (1952):48 1-502.

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Today, the alternative t o a policy of the national interest to which people refer is of a different character. They fear policy makers may be unduly concerned with the "interests of all of mankind". They see them sacrificing the less inclusive national community to the wider but in their opinion chimeric world community. The issue, then, is not one of transcending narrow group selfishness, as it was a t the time of Beard's discussion, but rather one of according more exclusive devotion to the narrower cause of the national self. There is another difference between the current and the earlier debate. While it would be wrong to say that the economic interest has ceased to attract attention, it is overshadowed today by the national security interest. Even in the recent debates on the St. Lawrence Seaway, clearly in the first instance an economic enterprise, the defenders of the project, when seeking to impress their listeners with the "national interest" involved, spoke mainly of the value of the Seaway for military defense in wartime while some opponents stressed its vulnerability to attack. The change from a welfare to a security interpretation of the symbol "national interest" is understandable. Today we are living under the impact of cold war and threats of external aggression rather than of depression and social reform. As a result, the formula of the national interest has come to be practically synonymous with the formula of national security. Unless explicitly denied, spokesmen for a policy which would take the national interest as its guide can be assumed to mean that priority shall be given to measures of security, a term to be analyzed.' The question is raised, therefore, whether this seemingly more precise formula of national security offers statesmen a meaningful guide for action. Can they be expected to know what it means? Can policies be distinguished and judged on the ground that they do or d o not serve this interest? The term national security, like national interest, is well enough established in the political discourse of international relations to designate an objective of policy distinguishable from others. We know roughly what people have in mind if they complain that their government is neglecting national security or demanding excessive sacrifices for the sake of enhancing it. Usually those who raise the cry for a policy oriented exclusively toward this interest are afraid their country underestimates the external dangers facing it or is being diverted into idealistic channels unmindful of these dangers. Moreover, the symbol suggests protection through power and therefore figures more frequently in the speech of those who believe in reliance on national power than of those who place their confidence in model behavior, international cooperation, or the United Nations to carry their country safely through the tempests of international conflict. For these reasons it would be an exaggeration to claim that the symbol of national security is nothing but a stimulus to semantic confusion, though closer analysis will show that if used without specifications it leaves room for more confusion than sound political counsel or scientific usage can afford. The demand for a policy of national security is primarily normative in character. It is supposed to indicate what the policy of a nation should be in

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order t o be either expedient - a rational means toward a n accepted end - o r moral, the best o r least evil course of action. The value judgments implicit in these normative exhortations will be discussed. Before doing so, attention should be drawn t o a n assertion of fact which is implicit if not explicit in most appeals for a policy guided hy national security. Such appeals usually assume that nations in fact have made security their goal except when idealism o r utopianism of their leaders has led them t o stray from the traditional path. If such conformity of behavior actually existed, it would he proper t o infer that a country deviating from the established pattern of conduct would risk being penalized. This would greatly strengthen the norn~ativearguments. The trouble with the contention of fact, however, is that the term "security" covers a range of goals so wide that highly divergent policies can be interpreted as policies of security. Security points t o some degree of protection of values previously acquired. In Walter Lippmann's words, a nation is secure t o the extent t o which it is not in danger of having t o sacrifice core values, if it wishes t o avoid war, and is able, if challenged, t o maintain them by victory in such a war.' What this definition implies is that security rises and falls with the ability of a nation t o deter a n attack, o r t o defeat it. This is in accord with common usage of the term. Security is a value, then, of which a nation can have more o r less and which it can aspire t o have in greater o r lesser measure.' It has much in common, in this respect, with power o r wealth, t w o other values of great importance in international affairs. But while wealth measures the a m o u n t of a nation's material possessions, and power its ability t o control the actions of others, security, in a n objective sense, measures the absence of threats t o acquired values, in a subjective sense, the absence of tear that such values will be attacked. In both respects a nation's security can run a wide gamut from almost complete insecurity o r sense of insecurity a t one pole, t o almost complete security o r absence of fear a t the other.-' T h e possible discrepancy between the objective and subjective connotation of the term is significant in international relations despite the fact that the chance of future attack never can be measured "objectively"; it must always remain a matter of subjective evaluation and speculation. However, when the French after World War I insisted that they were entitled t o additional guarantees of security because of the exceptionally dangerous situation which France was said t o be facing, other Powers in the I.eague expressed the view that rather than t o submit t o what might be French hysterical apprehension the relative security of France should be objectively evaluated. It is a well-known fact that nations, and groups within nations, differ widely in their reaction t o one and the same external situation. Some tend t o exaggerate the danger while others underestimate it. With hindsight it is sometimes possible t o tell exactly h o w far they deviated from a rational reaction t o the actual o r objective state of danger existing a t the time. Even if for n o other reasons, this difference in the reaction t o similar threats suffices t o make it probable that nations will differ in their efforts t o obtain

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more security. Some may find the danger to which they are exposed entirely normal and in line with their modest security expectations while others consider it unbearable to live with these same dangers. Although this is not the place t o set up hypotheses on the factors which account for one or the other attitude, investigation might confirm the hunch that those nations tend to be most sensitive to threats which have either experienced attacks in the recent past or, having passed through a prolonged period of an exceptionally high degree of security, suddenly find themselves thrust into a situation of danger." Probably national efforts to achieve greater security would also prove, in part at least, to be a function of the power and opportunity which nations possess of reducing danger by their own effort^.^ Another and even stronger reason why nations must be expected not to act uniformly is that they are not all or constantly faced with the same degree of danger. For purposes of a working hypothesis, theorists may find it useful at times to postulate conditions wherein all states are enemies provided they are not allied against others - and wherein all, therefore, are equally in danger of attack.' But, while it may be true in the living world, too, that no sovereign nation can be absolutely safe from future attack, nobody can reasonably contend that Canada, for example, is threatened today to the same extent as countries like Iran or Yugoslavia, or that the British had as much reason to be concerned about the French air force in the twenties as about Hitler's Luftwaffe in the thirties. This point, however, should not be overstressed. There can be no quarrel with the generalization that most nations, most of the time - the great Powers particularly - have shown, and had reason t o show, an active concern about some lack of security and have been prepared to make sacrifices for its enhancement. Danger and the awareness of it have been, and continue t o be, sufficiently widespread to guarantee some uniformity in this respect. But a generalization which leaves room both for the frantic kind of struggle for more security which characterized French policy a t times and for the neglect of security apparent in American foreign policy after the close of both World Wars throws little light on the behavior of nations. The demand for conformity would have meaning only if it could be said - as it could under the conditions postulated in the working hypothesis of pure power politics - that nations normally subordinate all other values to the maximization of their security, which, however, is obviously not the case. There have been many instances of struggles for more security taking the form of an unrestrained race for armaments, alliances, strategic boundaries and the like; but one need only recall the many heated parliamentary debates on arms appropriations to realize how uncertain has been the extent to which people will consent to sacrifice for additional increments of security. Even when there has been no question that armaments would mean more security, the cost in taxes, the reduction in social benefits or the sheer discomfort involved has militated effectively against further effort. It may be worth noting in this connection that there seems to be no case in history in which a country started a preventive war on the grounds of security - unless

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Hitler's wanton attack on his neighbors be allowed to qualify as such although there must have been circumstances where additional security could have been obtained by war and although so many wars have been launched for the enhancement of other values. Of course, where security serves only as a cloak for other more enticing demands, nations or anlbitious leaders may consider no price for it too high. This is one of the reasons why very high security aspirations tend to make a nation suspect of hiding more aggressive aims. Instead of expecting a uniform drive for enhanced or maximum security, a different hypothesis may offer a more promising lead. Efforts for security are bound to be experienced as a burden; security after all is nothing but the absence of the evil of insecurity, a negative value so to speak. As a consequence, nations will be inclined to minimize these efforts, keeping them at the lowest level which will provide them with what they consider adequate protection. This level will often be lower than what statesmen, military leaders or other particularly security-minded participants in the decision-making process believe it should be. In any case, together with the extent of the external threats, numerous domestic factors such as national character, tradition, preferences and prejudices will influence the level of security which a nation chooses to make its target. It might be objected that in the long run nations are not so free to choose the amount of effort they will put into security. Are they not under a kind o f compulsion to spare no effort provided they wish to survive? This objection again would make sense only if the hypothesis of pure power politics were a realistic image of actual world affairs. In fact, however, a glance at history will suffice to show that survival has only exceptionally been at stake, particularly for the major Powers. If nations were not concerned with the protection of values other than their survival as independent states, most of them, most of the time, would not have had to be seriously worried about their security, despite what n~anipulatorsof public opinion engaged in mustering greater security efforts may have said to the contrary. What "compulsion" there is, then, is a function not merely of the will of others, real or imagined, to destroy the nation's independence but of national desires and ambitions to retain a wealth of other values such as rank, respect, material possessions and special privileges. It would seem to be a fair guess that the efforts for security by a particular nation will tend to vary, other things being equal, with the range of values for which protection is being sought. In respect to this range there may seem to exist a considerable degree of uniformity. All over the world today peoples are making sacrifices to protect and preserve what to them appear as the minimum national core values, national independence and territorial integrity. But there is deviation in two directions. Some nations seek protection for more marginal values as well. There was a time when United States policy could afford to be concerned mainly with the protection of the foreign investments or markets of its nationals, its "core values" being out of danger, or when Britain was extending its national self to include large and only vaguely circumscribed

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"regions of special interest". It is a well-known and portentous phenomenon that bases, security zones and the like may be demanded and acquired for the purpose of protecting values acquired earlier; and they then become new national values requiring protection themselves. Pushed to its logical conclusion, such spatial extension of the range of values does not stop short of world domination. A deviation in the opposite direction of a compression of the range of core values is hardly exceptional in our days either. There is little indication that Britain is bolstering the security of Hong Kong although colonies were once considered part of the national territory. The Czechs lifted no finger to protect their independence against the Soviet Union and many West Europeans are arguing today that rearmament has become too destructive of values they cherish to be justified even when national independence is obviously at stake. The lack of uniformity does not end here. A policy is not characterized by its goal, in this case security, alone. In order to become imitable, the means by which the goal is pursued must be taken into account as well. Thus, if two nations were both endeavoring to maximize their security but one were placing all its reliance on armaments and alliances, the other on meticulous neutrality, a policy maker seeking to emulate their behavior would be at a loss where to turn. Those who call for a policy guided by national security are not likely to be unaware of this fact, but they take for granted that they will be understood to mean a security policy based on power, and on military power at that. Were it not so, they would be hard put to prove that their government was not already doing its best for security, though it was seeking to enhance it by such means as international cooperation or by the negotiation of compromise agreements - means which in one instance may be totally ineffective or utopian but which in others may have considerable protective value. It is understandable why it should so readily be assumed that a quest for security must necessarily translate itself into a quest for coercive power. In view of the fact that security is being sought against external violence coupled perhaps with internal subversive violence - it seems plausible at first sight that the response should consist in an accumulation of the same kind of force for the purpose of resisting an attack or of deterring a wouldbe attacker. The most casual reading of history and of contemporary experience, moreover, suffices to confirm the view that such resort to "power of resistance" has been the rule with nations grappling with serious threats to their security, however much the specific form of this power and its extent may differ. Why otherwise would so many nations which have no acquisitive designs maintain costly armaments? Why did Denmark with her state of complete disarmament remain an exception even among the small Powers? But again, the generalization that nations seeking security usually place great reliance on coercive power does not carry one far. The issue is not whether there is regularly some such reliance but whether there are no

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c ~ g n ~ f r c a nd~fferences t between natrons concerning t h e ~ rover-c~llc h o ~ c eof the means upon which they place their trust. The controversies concerning the best road t o future security that are so typical o f coalition partners a t the close of victorious wars throw light on this question. France in 19 19 and all the Allies in 1945 believed that protection against another German attack co~rldhe gained only by means of continued military superiority based o n German military impotence. President Wilson in 1919 and many observers in 194.5 were equally convinced, however, that more hope for security lay in a conciliatory and fair treatment of the defeated enemy, which would rob him of future incentives t o renew his attack. While this is not the place t o decide which side was right, one cannot help drawing the conclusion that, in the matter of means, the roads which are open may lead in diametrically opposed directions.The choice in every instance will depend o n a multitude of variables, including ideological and moral convictions, expectations concerning the psychological and political developnients in the camp of the opponent, and inclinations of individual policy makers." After all that has been said little is left of the sweeping generalization that in actual practice nations, guided by their national security interest, tend to pursue a mif form and therefore imitable policy of security. Instead, there a r e numerous reasons why they should differ widely in this respect, with some standing close t o the pole of complete indifference t o security or coniplete reliance on nonmilitary means, others close t o the pole of insistence on absolute security or of complete reliance on coercive power. It should be added that there exists still another category of nations which cannot be placed within the continuum connecting these poles because they regard security of any degree as a n insufficient goal; instead they seek t o acquire new values even a t the price of greater insecurity. In this category must be placed not only the "mad Caesars", w h o are o u t for conquest and glory a t any price, hut also idealistic statesmen w h o would plunge their country into war for the sake of spreading the benefits of their ideology, for example, of liberating enslaved peoples. The actual behavior o f nations, past and present, does not affect the norniativc proposition, t o which we shall n o w turn o u r attention. According t o this proposition nations are called upon t o give priority t o national security and thus t o consent t o any sacrifice of value which will provide an additional increment of security. It m a y be expedient, moral o r both for nations t o d o so even if they should have failed t o heed such advice in the past and for the most part are not living up t o it today. The first question, then, is whether some definable security policy can be said t o he generally expedient. Because the choice of goals is not a matter of expediency, it would seem t o make n o sense t o ask whether it is expedient for nations t o be concerned with the goal of sec~rrityitself; only the means used t o this end, so it would seem, can he judged as t o their fitness - their instrumental rationality - t o promote security. Yet, this is not so. Security, like other aims, may he an intermediate rather than a n ~lltimategoal, in which case it can be judged as a means t o these more ultimate ends.

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Traditionally, the protection and preservation of national core values have been considered ends in themselves, a t least by those who followed in the footsteps of Machiavelli or, for other reasons of political philosophy, placed the prince, state or nation at the pinnacle of their hierarchy of values. Those who d o so today will be shocked at the mere suggestion that national security should have to be justified in terms of higher values which it is expected to serve. But there is a large and perhaps growing current of opinion - as a matter of fact influential in this country for a long time - which adheres to this idea. We condemn Nazis and Communists for defending their own totalitarian countries instead of helping to free their people from tyranny; we enlist support for armaments, here and in Allied countries, not so much on the grounds that they will protect national security but that by enhancing such security they will serve to protect ultimate human values like individual liberty. Again, opposition in Europe and Asia t o military security measures is based in part on the contention that it would help little to make national core values secure, if in the process the liberties and the social welfare of the people had to be sacrificed; the prevention of Russian conquest, some insist, is useless, if in the course of a war of defense a large part of the people were to be exterminated and most cities destroyed.I0 While excellent arguments can be made to support the thesis that the preservation of the national independence of this country is worth almost any price as long as no alternative community is available which could assure the same degree of order, justice, peace or individual liberty, it becomes necessary to provide such arguments whenever national security as a value in itself is being questioned. The answer cannot be taken for granted. But turning away now from the expediency of security as an intermediate goal we must ask whether, aside from any moral considerations which will be discussed later, a specific level of security and specific means of attaining it can claim to be generally expedient. When one sets out to define in terms of expediency the level of security to which a nation should aspire, one might be tempted to assume that the sky is the limit. Is not insecurity of any kind an evil from which any rational policy maker would want to rescue his country? Yet, there are obvious reasons why this is not so. In the first place, every increment of security must be paid by additional sacrifices of other values usually of a kind more exacting than the mere expenditure of precious time on the part of policy makers. At a certain point, then, by something like the economic law of diminishing returns, the gain in security n o longer compensates for the added costs of attaining it. As in the case of economic value comparisons and preferences, there is frequently disagreement among different layers of policy makers as to where the line should be drawn. This is true particularly because absolute security is out of the question unless a country is capable of world domination, in which case, however, the insecurities and fears would be "internalized" and probably magnified. Because nations must "live dangerously", then, t o some extent, whatever they consent to d o about it, a modicum of additional

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but only relative security may easily become unattractive to those who have to bear the chief burden. Nothing renders the task of statesmen in a democracy more difficult than the reluctance of the people to follow them very far along the road to high and costly security levels. In the second place, national security policies when based on the accumulation of power have a way of defeating themselves if the target level is set too high. This is due to the fact that "power of resistance" cannot be unmistakably distinguished from "power of aggression". What a country does to bolster its own security through power can be interpreted hy others, therefore, as a threat to their security. If this occurs, the vicious circle of what John Herz has described as the "security dilemma" sets in: the efforts of one side provoke countermeasures by the other which in turn tend to wipe out the gains of the first. Theoretically there seems to be no escape from this frustrating consequence; in practice, however, there are ways to convince those who might feel threatened that the accumulation of power is not intended and will never be used for attack." The chief way is that of keeping the target level within moderate bounds and of avoiding placing oneself in a position where it has to be raised suddenly and drastically. The desire to escape from this vicious circle presupposes a security policy of much self-restraint and moderation, especially in the choice of the target levef." It can never be expedient to pursue a security policy which by the fact of provocation or incentive to others fails to increase the nation's relative power position and capability of resistance. The question of what means are expedient for the purpose of enhancing security raises even more thorny problems. Policy makers must decide how to distribute their reliance on whatever means are available to them and, particularly, how far to push the accumulation of coercive power. N o attempt can he made here to decide what the choice should be in order to be expedient. Obviously, there can be no general answer which would meet the requirements of every case. The answer depends on the circumstances. A weak country may have no better means at its disposal than to prove to stronger neighbors that its strict neutrality can be trusted. Potentially strong countries may have a chance to deter an aggressor by creating "positions of strengthv. In some instances they may have no other way of saving themselves; while in others even they may find it more expedient to supplement such a policy, if not to replace it, by a policy intended to negotiate their opponent out of his aggressive designs. The reason why "power of resistance" is not the general panacea which some believe it to be lies in the nature of security itself. If security, in the objective sense of the term at least, rises and falls with the presence or absence of aggressive intentions on the part of others, the attitude and behavior of those from whom the threat emanates are of prime importance. Such attitude and behavior need not be beyond the realm of influence by the country seeking to bolster its security. Whenever they do not lie beyond this realm the most effective and least costly security policy consists in inducing the opponent to give up his aggressive intentions.

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While there is no easy way to determine when means can and should be used which are directed not at resistance but at the prevention of the desire of others to attack, it will clarify the issue to sketch the type of hypotheses which would link specific security policies, as expedient, to some of the most typical political constellations. One can think of nations lined up between the two poles of maximum and minimum "attack propensity", with those unalterably committed to attack, provided it promises success, at one pole and those whom no amount of opportunity for successful attack could induce to undertake it at the other. While security in respect to the first group can come exclusively as a result of "positions of strength" sufficient to deter or defeat attack, nothing could d o more to undermine security in respect to the second group than to start accumulating power of a kind which would provoke fear and countermoves. Unfortunately it can never be known with certainty, in practice, what position within the continuum one's opponent actually occupies. Statesmen cannot be blamed, moreover, if caution and suspicion lead them to assume a closer proximity to the first pole than hindsight proves to have been justified. We believe we have ample p o o f that the Soviet Union today is at or very close to the first pole, while Canadian policy makers probably place the United States in its intentions toward Canada a t the second pole. It is fair to assume that, wherever the issue of security becomes a matter of serious concern, statesmen will usually be dealing with potential opponents who occupy a position somewhere between but much closer to the first of the two poles. This means, then, that an attack must be feared as a possibility, even though the intention to launch it cannot be considered to have crystallized to the point where nothing could change it. If this be true, a security policy in order to be expedient cannot avoid accumulating power of resistance and yet cannot let it go at that. Efforts have to be made simultaneously toward the goal of removing the incentives to attack. This is only another way of saying that security policy must seek to bring opponents to occupy a position as close to the second pole as conditions and capabilities permit. Such a twofold policy presents the greatest dilemmas because efforts to change the intentions of an opponent may run counter to the efforts to build up strength against him. The dangers of any policy of concessions, symbolized by "Munich", cannot be underestimated. The paradox of this situation must be faced, however, if security policy is to be expedient. It implies that national security policy, except when directed against a country unalterably committed to attack, is the more rational the more it succeeds in taking the interests, including the security interests, of the other side into consideration. Only in doing so can it hope to minimize the willingness of the other to resort to violence. Rather than to insist, then, that under all conditions security be sought by reliance on nothing but defensive power and be pushed in a spirit of national selfishness toward the highest targets,

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it should be stressed that in most instances efforts to satisfy legitimate demands of others are likely to promise better results in terms of security." That is probably what George Kennan had in mind when he advised policy makers to use self-restraint in the pursuit of the national interest. While in the face of a would-be world conqueror who is beyond the pale of external influence it is dangerous to be diverted from the accumulation of sheer defensive power, any mistake about his true state of mind or any neglect of opportunities to influence his designs, where it has a chance of being successful, violates the rules of expediency. It should always be kept in mind that the ideal security policy is one which would lead to a distribution of values so satisfactory to all nations that the intention to attack and with it the problem of security would be minimized. While this is a utopian goal, policy makers and particularly peacemakers would d o well to remember that there are occasions when greater approximation to such a goal can be effected. We can now focus our attention on the moral issue, if such there be.I4 Those who advocate a policy devoted to national security are not always aware of the fact - if they d o not explicitly deny it - that they are passing moral judgment when they advise a nation to pursue the goal of national security or when they insist that such means as the accumulation of coercive power - or its use - should be employed for this purpose.'' Nations like individuals or other groups may value things not because they consider them good or less evil than their alternative; they may value them because they satisfy their pride, heighten their sense of self-esteem or reduce their fears. However, no policy, or human act in general, can escape becoming a subject for moral judgment - whether by the conscience of the actor himself or by others -which calls for the sacrifice of other values, as any security policy is bound to do. Here it becomes a matter of comparing and weighing values in order to decide which of them are deemed sufficiently good to justify the evil of sacrificing others. If someone insists that his country should d o more to build up its strength, he is implying, knowingly or not, that more security is sufficiently desirable to warrant such evils as the cut in much-needed social welfare benefits or as the extension of the period of military service. I h Many vivid examples of the moral dilemma are being supplied by current controversies concerning American security policy. Is a "deal with fascist Spain" morally justified, provided it added an increment to our security, though principles valued highly by some were being sacrificed? Should we engage in subversive activities and risk the lives of our agents if additional security can be attained thereby? Should we perhaps go so far as to start a preventive war, when ready, with the enormous evils it would carry with it, if we should become convinced that no adequate security can be obtained except by the defeat of the Soviet Union? In this last case, would not the exponents of amoralism have some moral qualms, at least to the point of rationalizing a decision favoring such a war by claiming that it would serve

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to satisfy not primarily an egotistical national demand for security but an altruistic desire to liberate enslaved peoples? It is easier to argue for the amorality of politics if one does not have t o bear the responsibility of choice and decision! Far be it from a political scientist to claim any particular competence in deciding what efforts for national security are or are not morally justified. What he can contribute here is to point t o the ambiguities of any general normative demand that security be bought at whatever price it may cost. He may also be able to make it more difficult for advisers or executors of policy to hide from themselves or others the moral value judgments and preferences which underlie whatever security policy they choose to recommend or conduct. The moral issue will be resolved in one of several ways depending on the ethical code upon which the decision is based. From one extreme point of view it is argued that every sacrifice, especially if imposed on other nations, is justified provided it contributes in any way to national security. Clearly this implies a position that places national security at the apex of the value pyramid and assumes it t o constitute an absolute good to which all other values must be subordinated. Few will be found t o take this position because if they subscribed to a nationalistic ethics of this extreme type they would probably go beyond security - the mere preservation of values - and insist that the nation is justified in conquering whatever it can use as Lebensraum or otherwise. At the opposite extreme are the absolute pacifists who consider the use of coercive power a n absolute evil and condemn any security policy, therefore, which places reliance on such power. For anyone who does not share these extreme views the moral issue raised by the quest for national security is anything but clear-cut and simple. He should have n o doubts about the right of a nation to protect and preserve values to which it has a legitimate title or even about its moral duty to pursue a policy meant to serve such preservation. But he cannot consider security the supreme law as Machiavelli would have the statesman regard the ragione di stato. Somewhere a line is drawn, which in every instance he must seek to discover, that divides the realm of neglect, the "too-little", from the realm of excess, the "too much". Even Hans Morgenthau who extols the moral duty of self-preservation seems to take it for granted that naked force shall be used for security in reaction only to violent attack, not for preventive war. Decision makers are faced with the moral problem, then, of choosing first the values which deserve protection, with national independence ranking high not merely for its own sake but for the guarantee it may offer to values like liberty, justice and peace. He must further decide which level of security to make his target. This will frequently be his most difficult moral task though terms such as adequacy or fair share indicate the kind of standards that may guide him. Finally, he must choose the means and thus by scrupulous computation of values compare the sacrifices, which his choice of means implies, with the security they promise to provide.

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It follows that policies of national security, far from being all good or all evil, may be morally praiseworthy or condemnable depending on their specific character and the particular circumstances of the case. They may be praised for their self-restraint and the consideration which this implies for values other than security; they may instead be condemned for being inadequate to protect national values. Again, they may be praised in one instance for the consideration given to the interests of others, particularly of weaker nations, or condemned in another because of the recklessness with which national values are risked on the altar of some chimera. The target level falls under moral judgment for being too ambitious, egotistical and provocative or for being inadequate; the means employed for being unnecessarily costly in other values or for being ineffective. This wide range of variety which arises out of the multitude of variables affecting the value computation would make it impossible, and in fact meaningless, to pass moral judgment, positive or negative, on "national security policy in general". It is this lack of moral homogeneity which in matters of security policy justifies attacks on so-called moralism, though not on moral evaluation. The "moralistic approach" is taken to mean a wholesale condemnation either of any concern with national security - as being an expression of national egotism - or of a security policy relying on coercive and therefore evil power. The exponent of such "moralism" is assumed to believe that security for all peoples can be had today by the exclusive use of such "good" and altruistic means as model behavior and persuasion, a spirit of conciliation, international organization or world government. If there are any utopians who cling to this notion, and have influence on policy, it makes sense to continue to disabuse them of what can surely be proved to be dangerous illusions. It is worth emphasizing, however, that the opposite line of argument, which without regard for the special circumstances would praise everything done for national security or more particularly everything done for the enhancement of national power of resistance, is no less guilty of applying simple and abstract moral principles and of failing to judge each case realistically on its merits. In conclusion, it can be said, then, that normative admonitions to conduct a foreign policy guided by the national security interest are no less ambiguous and misleading than the statement of fact concerning past behavior which was discussed earlier. In order to be meaningful such admonitions would have to specify the degree of security which a nation shall aspire to attain and the means by which it is to be attained in a given situation. It may be good advice in one instance to appeal for greater effort and more armaments; it may be no less expedient and morally advisable in another instance to call for moderation and for greater reliance on means other than coercive power. Because the pendulum of public opinion swings so easily from extreme complacency to extreme apprehension, from utopian reliance on "good will" to disillusioned faith in naked force only, it is particularly important to be wary of any simple panacea, even of one that parades in the realist garb of a policy guided solely by the national security interest.

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Notes 1. Hans Morgenthau's In Defense of the National Interest (New York, 1951) IS the most explicit and impassioned recent plea for an American foreign policy which shall follow "but one guiding star - the National Interest". While Morgenthau is not equally explicit in regard t o the meaning he attaches t o the symbol "national interest", it becomes clear in the few pages devoted to an exposition of this "perennial" interest that the author is thinking in terms of the national security interest, and specifically of security based on power. The United Stares, he says, is interested in three things: a unique position as a predominant Power without rival in the Western Hemisphere and the maintenance of the balance of power in Europe as well as in Asia, demands which make sense only in the context of a quest for security through power. 2. Walter Lippmann, U. S. Foreign Policy (Boston, 1943), p. 51. 3. This explains why some nations which would seem to fall into the category of status quo Powers par excellence may nevertheless be dissatisfied and act very much like "imperialist" Powers, as Morgenthau calls nations with acquisitive goals. They are dissatisfied with the degree of security which they enjoy under the status quo and are out to enhance it. France's occupation of the Ruhr in 1923 illustrates this type of behav~or.Because the demand for more security may induce a status quo Power even to resort to the use of violence as a means of attaining more security, there is reason to beware of the easy and often self-righteous assumption that nations which desire to preserve the status quo are necessarily "peace-loving". 4. Security and power would be synonymous terms if security could be attained only through the accumulation of power, which will be shown nor to be the case. The fear of attack -security in the subjective sense - is also not proportionate to the relative power position of a nation. Why, otherwise, would some weak and exposed nations conslder themselves more secure today than does the United States? Harold D. Lasswell and Abraham Kaplan, Power and Society (New Haven, 1950), d e f ~ n ing security as "high value expectancy" stress the subjective and speculative character of security by using the term "expectancy"; the use of the term "h~gh",while mdicating no definite level, would seem to imply that the security-seeker aims at a position in which the events he expects - here the continued unmolested enjoyment of his possessions - have considerably more than an even chance of materializing. 5. The United States offers a good illustration and may be typical in this respect. For a long time this country was beyond the reach of any enemy attack that could be considered probable. During that period, then, it could afford to dismiss any serious preoccupation w t h security. Events proved that it was n o worse off for having done so. However, after this happy condition had ceased to exist, government and people alike showed a lag in their awareness of the change. When Nicholas J. Spykman raised his voice in the years before World War I1 to advocate a broader security outlook than was indicated by the symbol "Western Hemisphere Defense" and a greater appreciation of the r6le of defenswe mtlitary power, he was dealing with this lag and with the dangers implied in it. If Hans Morgenthau and others raise t h e ~ r warning voices today, seemmgly treading in Spykman's footsteps, they are addressing a narlon which after a new relapse into wishful thinking in 1945 has been rad~callydisillusioned and may now be swinging toward excessive security apprehensions. 6. Terms such as "degree" or "level" of security are not intended to indicate merely quantitative differences. Nations may also differ in respect to the breadth of their security perspective as when American leaders at Yalta were so preoccupied with security agalnst the then enemy countries of the United States that they failed or refused to consider future American security vis-a-vis the Soviet Union. The differences may apply, instead, to the time range for which security is sought as when the British at Versailles were ready to offer France short-run security guarantees while the French with more foresight ins~sredthat the "German danger" would not become acute for some ten years. 7. For a discussion of this working hypothesis - as part of the "pure power" hypothesis see my article on "The Pole of Power and the Pole of Indifference" in World Pol~tics,vol. IV, No. 1. October 1951.

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8. Pvlyres S. Mcllougal ("Law a n d Peace" in the A m e r m m /o~irtznlof lntcrn~7tron~zI 1.~7~: vol. 46. No. 1, January 19.52, pp. 102 et seq.) rightly criticize\ H a n s Morgenthau ( a n d George t i e n t u n tor what tiennan himself wrongly believes t o he h ~ os w n point o t view in the matter; see fn, 15 rr~frtr)for his failure t o appreciate the rhle which non-power methods, such as legal procedures and moral a p p e d s , may a t times successfully play in the pursuit of security. But ~t i \ s u r p r ~ s l n gh o w llrrle aware McDougal appears t o be of the d~sappoinringmodesry of the c o n t r ~ h u t i o n swhich these "other means" have actually made t o the enhancement of security a n d the quite insignificant c o n t r ~ b u t ~ o nthey s have made t o the promotion of ch.inges of the status quo. T h ~ slatter failure signif~esthat ther have heen unable t o remove the m ~ i nc~luses of t h e attacks which security-minded peoples rlghtly fear. 9. On the problem of security policy (Sicl~erheitspolrt~k) with special reference t o "collective secur~ty"see the comprehensive and illuminating study of Heinrich Rogge, "Kollektivsicherheit Buendnispolitik Voelkerhund", Theorre der natzonulerz ttnd rnternntionizlctr S~cherhcrt(Berlin, 19371, which deserves attention despite the fact that ~t was written a n d puhl~shedin N u t Germany and bean J distinctly L'revisioni~t"slant. 10. Raymond Dennett goes further in making the generalization that, "if economlc pressures become great enough, almost any government, when put t o the flnal test, will rnoder,~teo r ahandon a ool~ticalassociation" (such as the alliance svstern of the United States with its usefulness t o nation,d security) "if only a n alteration of policy seems t o offer the possibility of maintaining o r .~chievitigliving standards ,idequate enough t o permit the reglme t o survive". "Danger Spots In the Pattern of American Security", In World Politzcs, vol. IV, No. 4, July 19.52, p. 449. I I. N o t everyone agrees that this can be done. Jeremy Benrham wrote that "measures of mere self defense are naturally taken for projects of aggression" with the result t h , ~ t "each ninkes h a t e t o hegin for fe,~rof heing forestalled." Prmczples of Internatronal 1 . a ~ Essay ~. IV. 12. T h e Quakers, in ,I book on T b r Unrted Stntrs m d t h r Sol& Urzion: Some Quczkrr Propos'11s for Prncr ( N e w Haven, l 9 4 9 ) , p. 14, state that "it is highly q u e s t ~ o n a b l ewhether securlty c,ln be achieved in the tnodern world through a n attempt t o estahllsh ,111 overwhelming preponderance of military power." This c a n be read t o mean that 3 less a m b ~ r ~ o milit'lry us target than overwhelming preponderance r n ~ g h tbe a means o f achieving security. 13. As A.D. Lindsay puts it, "The search for perfect security ... defeats its o w n ends. Playing for safety 1s the most dangerous way t o live." Introduction t o T h o m a \ Hobbes, /.~1'1~7t/~dl2, p. XYII. 14. O n the moral problem in international r e l a t ~ o n ssee 11iy article o n "St:~tesmansh~p J I ~ M o r a l Choice" in World Politics, vol. I, N o . 2, January 1949, pp. 176 et seq.. especially p. 18.5. In o n e of h ~ most s recent statements o n the subject, Reinhold Nlehuhr, T ~ J Iro~zy L, of Att~cv~cm Hlstory ( N e w York, 19451, points specifically t o the moral problem ~nvolvedin security policy - " n o imperiled nation", he writes, "is morally able t o dispense with weapons which might insure its sul-vivd" ( p . 39). 15. It IS not w ~ t h o u irony t that of the t w o authors w h o have rrcently c o m e o u t tor a policy of the national interest, the one, George F. Kennan, w h o calls for a policy of n a t ~ o n a lselfrestraint a n d humility, ~ ~ s u a l ~dentlfied ly with morality, should deny "that state behavior is 1' fit subject for moral judgment" (Amerrcan DlpIomi7cy. 1900-1950, Chicago, 1952, p. IOO), while the other, H a n s Morgenthau (op. cit.), calling for a policy of ~ ~ n a d u l t e r ~ l tnational ed egotlsm, claims t o speak In the n a m e of morality. 16. It would he unrealistic t o assume that ~ o l i ,c vmakers divide their attention strictlv between ends a n d means a n d only after having chosen a speclf~ctarget level as heing morally iustified decide whether the means by which ~t can be attamed are morally acceptable. Moral judgment is more llkely t o be passed o n the t o t a l ~ t yof a course of action which embraces both the desired end , ~ n dthe means which lead t o it.

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Another "Great Debate": The National Interest o f the United States Hans J. Morgenthau

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he controversy which has arisen on the occasion of Ambassador Kennan's and my recent publications differs from the great historical debates on American foreign policy in two significant respects. It raises a n issue more fundamental to the understanding of American foreign policy and of all politics than those with which the previous "great debates" were concerned, and it deals with the issue largely in terms which are not conducive to understanding. The great debates of the past, such as the one over intervention vs. neutrality in 1793, expansion vs. the status quo before the Mexican and after the Spanish-American War, international cooperation vs. isolation in the 'twenties, intervention vs. abstention in the late 'thirties - all evolved around clear-cut issues of foreign policy. In 1793 you were in favor of going to war on the side of France or of remaining neutral. In the 1840's you approved of the annexation of Texas or you did not. At the turn of the century you supported overseas expansion or you were against it. In the 'twenties you advocated joining the League of Nations or staying out of it. In the late 'thirties you wanted to oppose the Axis Powers by all means short of war or you wanted t o abstain from intervening. What separates the "utopian" from the "realist" position cannot be so sharply expressed in terms of alternative foreign policies. The very same policies can be and are being supported by both schools of thought. What sets them apart is not necessarily a matter of practical judgment, but of philosophies and standards of thought. The issue which the present debate raises concerns the nature of all politics and, more particularly, of the American tradition in foreign policy. The history of modern political thought is the story of a contest between two schools which differ fundamentally in their conception of the nature of man, society, and politics. One believes that a rational and moral political order, derived from universally valid abstract principles, can be achieved here and now. Source: The American Political Science Review, XLVI(4) ( 1 9 5 2 ) :961-88.

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The National Interest of The U.S.

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It assumes the essential goodness and m f ~ n ~ malleabhty te of human nature standards to lack of knowledge and understanding, obsolescent social institutions, or the depravity of certain isolated individuals or groups. It trusts in education, reform, and the sporadic use of force to remedy these deficiencies.' The other school believes that the world, imperfect as it is from the rational point of view, is the result of forces which are inherent in human nature. To improve the world one must work with those forces, not against them. This being inherently a world of opposing interests and of conflict among them, moral principles can never be fully realized, but at best approximated through the ever temporary balancing of interests and the ever precarious settlement of conflicts. This school, then, sees in a system of checks and balances a universal principle for all pluralist ~ o c i e t i e s It . ~ appeals to historic precedent rather than to abstract principles, and aims at achievement o f the lcsser evil rather than of the absolute good. This conflict between two basic conceptions of man and politics is at the bottom of the present controversy. It is the same conflict which found its classic expression in the polemic of Burke against the philosophy of the French Revolution. Given the sad state of political thought in our time, it would be vain to expect the spokesmen of political realism to speak with the voice of Burke and the defenders of political utopianism to measure up to the standards of Condorcet and Rousseau. Yet one has a right to expect that scholars discuss the issue without resort to invective and with proper regard for established facts.'

In order to refute a theory which pretends to be scientific, it is first necessary to understand what a scientific theory is. A scientific theory is an attempt to bring order and meaning to a mass of phenomena which without it would remain disconnected and unintelligible. Any one who disputes the scientific character of such a theory either must produce a theory superior in these scientific functions to the one attacked or must, at the very least, demonstrate that the facts as they actually are do not lend themselves to the interpretation which the theory has put upon them. When a historian tells us that the balance of power is not a universal principle of politics, domestic and international, that it was practiced in Europe only for a limited period and never by the United States, that it ruined the states that practiced it,4 it is incumbent upon him to tell us how we can dispose by means of theory of the historic data by which, for instance, David Hume demonstrated the universality of the balance of power and Paul Scott M o w r e r h n d Alfred Vagts%ts practice by the United States; what Kautilya was writing about in the fourth century B.C. when he summarized the theoretical and practical tradition of Indian statecraft in terms of the balance of power; what the Greek city states, the Roman republic, and the medieval emperors and

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T h e Cold War and Nuclear Deterrence

popes were doing if they did not apply the principles of the balance of power; and how the nations which either neglected these principles or applied them wrongly suffered political and military defeat and even extinction, while the nation which applied these principles most consistently and consciously, that is, Great Britain, enjoyed unrivalled power for an unparalleled length of time. The historian who wishes to replace the balance of power as the guiding principle of American foreign policy with the "humanitarian and pacific traditions" of the "coordinate state"' must first of all explain how it has come about that the thirteen original states expanded into the full breadth and a good deal of the length of a continent, until today the strategic frontiers of the United States run parallel to the coastline of Asia and along the River Elbe. If such are the results of policies based upon "humanitarian and pacific traditions," never in the history of the world has virtue been more bountifully rewarded! Yet our historian must explain not only the great sweep of American expansion, but also the specific foreign policies which in their historic succession make up that sweep. Is it easier to explain the successive shifts of American support from Great Britain to France and back again from the beginning of King George's War in 1744 to the War of 1812 in terms of the "coordinate state" than in terms of the balance of power? The same question might be asked about the postponement of the recognition of the independence of the Spanish colonies until 1822, when the Floridas had been acquired from Spain and Spain had thereby been deprived of the ability to challenge the United States from within the hemisphere. The same question might be asked about the Monroe Doctrine itself, about Lincoln's policies toward Great Britain and France, and about our successive policies with regard to Mexico and the Caribbean. One could go on and pick out a t random any foreign policy pursued by the United States from the beginning to 1919 and one would hardly find a policy, with the exception perhaps of the War of 1812, which could not be made intelligible by reference to the national interest defined in terms of power - political, military, and economic - rather than by reference to the principle of the "coordinate state." This inevitable outcome of such an inquiry is well summarized in these words: Ease and prosperity have made us wish the whole world to be as happy and well to do as ourselves; and we have supposed that institutions and principles like our own were the simple prescription for making them so. And yet, when issues of our own interest arose, we have not been unselfish. We have shown ourselves kin to all the world, when it came to pushing an advantage. Our action against Spain in the Floridas, and against Mexico on the coasts of the Pacific; our attitude toward first the Spaniards, and then the French, with regard to the control of the Mississippi; the unpitying force with which we thrust the Indians to the wall wherever they stood in our way, have suited our professions of peacefulness and justice and liberality no better than the aggressions of

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other nations that were strong and not to be gainsaid. Even Mr. Jefferson, philanthropist and champion of peaceable and modest government though he was, exemplified this double temper of the people he ruled. "Peace is our passion," he had declared; but the passion abated when he saw the mouth of the Mississippi about to pass into the hands of France. Though he had loved France and hated England, he did not hesitate then what language to hold. "There is on the globe," he wrote to Mr. Livingston at Paris, "one single spot the possessor of which is our natural and habitual enemy. The day that France takes possession of New Orleans seals the union of two nations, who, in conjunction, can maintain exclusive possession of the sea. From that moment we must marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation." Our interests must march forward, altruists though we are; other nations must see to it that they stand off, and d o not seek to stay us. This realist appraisal of the American tradition in foreign policy was published in 1901 in the Atlantic Monthly. Its author was a professor of jurisprudence and political economy at Princeton by the name of Woodrow Wilson." Nothing more needs to be said to demonstrate that facts d o not support a revision of American diplomatic history which tries to substitute "humanitarian and pacifist traditions" and the "coiirdinate state" for power politics and the balance of power as the guiding principle of American foreign policy. What, then, does support it? Three things: the way American statesmen have spoken about American foreign policy; the legal fiction of the "coiirdinate state"; finally, and foremost, an emotional urge to justify American foreign policy in humanitarian, pacifist terms. It is elementary that the character of a foreign policy can be ascertained only through the examination of the political acts performed and of the foreseeable consequences of these acts. Thus we can find out what statesmen have actually done, and from the foreseeable consequences of their acts we can surmise what their objectives might have been. Yet examination of the facts is not enough. To give meaning to the factual raw material of history, we must approach historical reality with a kind of rational outline, a map which suggests to us the possible meanings of history. In other words, we put ourselves in the position of a statesman who must meet a certain problem of foreign policy under certain circumstances and ask ourselves, what are the rational alternatives from which a statesman may choose who must meet this problem under these circumstances, presuming always that he acts in a rational manner, and which of these rational alternatives was this particular statesman, acting under these circumstances, likely to choose? It is the testing of this rational hypothesis against the actual facts and their consequences which gives meaning to the facts of history and makes the scientific writing of political history possible. In the process of writing the history of foreign policy the interpretations by statesmen of their own acts, especially if they are made for public

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consumption, must needs have a strictly subsidiary place. The public selfinterpretation by actors on the political scene is itself, of course, a political act which seeks to present a certain policy to its presumed supporters in terms of their moral and political folklore and to those against which it is directed in terms which intend to embarrass and deceive. Such declarations may indeed shed light upon the character and objectives of the policy pursued if they are considered in conjunction with, and in subordination to, rational hypotheses, actions, and likely consequences. Yet it is quite a different matter to interpret the American tradition of foreign policy in the light of a collection of official statements which, like most such statements, present humanitarian and pacifist justifications for the policies pursued. If anybody should be bold enough to write a history of world politics with so uncritical a method he would easily and well-nigh inevitably be driven to the conclusion that from Timur to Hitler and Stalin the foreign policies of all nations were inspired by the ideals of humanitarianism and pacifism. The absurdity of the result is commensurate with the defects of the method. It is only from a method which accepts the declarations of statesmen as evidence of the character of the policies pursued, that the principle of the "coordinate state" receives a semblance of plausibility. Statesmen and international lawyers have been wont to speak of the "equal dignity" of all states, regardless of "wealth, power, size, population or c u l t ~ r e , "which ~ I take the principle of the "coordinate state" to mean. It is also referred to as the principle of "federalism in international r e l a t i ~ n s . " ' As ~ its prime examples are cited the relations amongst the states of the Union, the states of the American system, the members of the Commonwealth of Nations, and the members of the Swiss Confederation. If the whole world were organized in accordance with this principle, as are already these four political entities, it is assumed that the freedom, dignity, and peace of all nations would then be assured. There is no need to examine the theoretical and practical merits of the principle of the "coordinate state," because for none of the four political entities mentioned does the idea of the "coordinate state" provide the principle of political organization. The equality of the states as the political foundation of the United States became obsolescent when Chief Justice Marshall's Supreme Court resolved the ambiguity of the Constitution in favor of the federal government, and it became obsolete when the Civil War proved Chief Justice Marshall's point. The equality of the states survives today only in the shadow and by virtue of the federal government's political supremacy, and without the cohesive force of that supremacy there would be no union of equal states to begin with. That these powers of the federal government are limited and qualified by the principle of federalism, that is, by the constitutionally granted powers of the states, is quite a different matter; it concerns the distribution of powers between federal government and states within a general system of checks and balances, but has nothing to do with the equality of the states as the alleged political foundation of the American system of government. With the exception of the

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equality of senatorial representation, the principle of the equality of the states is today, as it has been for almost a century, devoid of political content. It serves only as a principle of regional organization, of administrative decentralization, and, above all, of constitutional rhetoric. What it really signifies was pointed out more than fifty years ago by W.A. Dunning when he summarized his answer to the question "Are the states equal under the Constitution?" by saying that "the theory of equal states falls to the ground." I ' Similarly, the federalism of Switzerland is the result of a long series of civil wars, the last one fought a little more than a century ago, which established the predominance of the German-speaking cantons within the confederation. Here too, it is the existence of predominant power, located in one segment of the federal system, which makes federalism possible in the first place. By the same token, the unchallengeable supremacy of the United States within the Western Hemisphere has throughout been the backbone of the system of American states. As long as this supremacy is secure, there is, on the one hand, no need for the United States to assert it in the political and military sphere, and, taking it for granted, the United States can well afford to pursue a policy of the Good Neighbor; and there is, on the other hand, no opportunity for the other members of the system to challenge that supremacy effectively. This is what the principle of the "coiirdinate state" amounts to in the Western Hemisphere. Consequently, whenever there was even a remote possibility that the supremacy of the United States might be challenged, generally through instigation from outside the hemisphere, the United States asserted its superior power within the hemisphere and acted as all states must act under similar conditions. Whatever possibility for common political action there remains among the members of the Commonwealth of Nations is the result of the interests which these members may have in common. In other words, the member states may work together or each of them may work with other nations, as their interests dictate. Their membership in the Commonwealth, as the examples of India, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand clearly show, has no influence upon this decision; that membership is but a faint remembrance of the times when Great Britain could secure cooperation among the member states on its terms by virtue of its superior power. What, then, have these four examples of the "coiirdinate state" in common which would establish them as a distinct type of interstate relationship, and what conclusions can be drawn from them for the organization of the world? The only thing that these four examples seem to have really in common is the legal stipulation of the equality of the members of the respective systems and this characteristic is not peculiar to them, but a general principle of international law applicable to all sovereign states. In the political sphere they seem to have nothing in common at all. What they tend to show, however, is the decisive importance of the distribution of political power for the operation of federal and egalitarian relations among states. The political cohesion of a federal system is the result of superior power

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located in some part of it. It is by virtue of its superior power that the predominant part can afford to grant the other members of the federal system a measure of equality in the non-political sphere. These observations bring us back to power politics and the balance of power to which the principle of the "coordinate state" was supposed t o be the alternative. In truth, it is not the disinterested consideration of facts which has given birth to the theory of the "coordinate state." That theory is rather the response to an emotional urge, and since this emotion is not peculiar to a particular author but typical of a popular reaction to the new role which the United States must play in world affairs, it deserves a brief analysis. One of the great experiences of our time which have impressed themselves upon the American mind is the emergence of the United States as a nation among other nations, exposed to the same opportunities, temptations, risks, and liabilities to which other nations have been traditionally exposed. This experience becomes the more shocking if it is compared with the expectation with which we fought the Second World War. We expected from that war a reaffirmation of the secure, detached, and independent position in world affairs which we had inherited from the Founding Fathers and which we had been successful in preserving at least to the First World War. By avoiding what we thought had been Wilson's mistakes, we expected t o emerge from that war if not more independent, certainly more secure l ~ even in the early than we were when we entered it. In fact, ~ r o b a b not days of the Republic were we more exposed to danger from abroad than we are today, and never had we less freedom of action in taking care of our interests than we have today. It is naturally shocking to recognize that a happy chapter in the history of the nation and in one's own way of life has come to an end. There are those who reconcile themselves to the inevitable, albeit with sorrow rather than with glee, and try to apply the lessons of the past to the tasks at hand. There are others who try to escape from a disappointing and threatening reality into the realm of fantasy. Three such escapist fantasies have arisen in our midst in response to the challenge of American world leadership and power: the fantasy of needless American participation in war, the fantasy of American treason, and the fantasy of American innocence. The first of these fantasies presumes that the present predicament is a result not of necessity but of folly, the folly of American statesmen who needlessly intervened in two world wars. The second of these fantasies attributes the present predicament to treason in high places whereby the fruits of victory were handed to the enemy. The third of these fantasies denies that the predicament is real and prefers to think of it as an intellectual fraud perpetrated upon the American people. To support this fictional denial of the actualities of the present, it draws upon a fictional account of the past. The United States does not need to bear at present the intellectual, moral, and political burdens which go with involvement in power politics and the maintenance of the balance of power; for it has never borne them in the past, never having been thus involved. The golden age of past political

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innocence sheds its glow upon a but seemingly less innocent present and promises a future in which all the world will follow the example of America, forswear power politics and the balance of power, and accept the principle of the "coiirdinate state." Our rearmament program, as exemplified in the Atlantic Security Pact, we are told, has nothing to do with the balance of power but aims at the "organization of as much of the world as we can upon the basis of the coiirdinate state. . . . It may prove impossible under present conditions to build such a system without having to fight a war with Russia, but then at least we will be fighting, as we did before, for the thing we consider worth defending with our lives and treasure."" Thus a fictional account of the American past, begun as an act of uncalled-for patriotic piety, issues in an ideology for a third world war. Escape we must from the unfamiliar, unpleasant, and dangerous present, first into the political innocence of the past and from there into the immediate future of a third world war, beyond which the revived and universalized innocence of the more distant future will surely lie. We have said that to present the American tradition in foreign policy as having been free from concern with power politics and the balance of power is not warranted by the facts of American history. Yet it might still be argued, and it is actually being argued, that, regardless of the evidence of history, the American people will not be reconciled to power politics and the balance of power and will support only policies based upon abstract moral principles. While in the past the United States might have pursued balance of power policies and while it might be a good thing if it did do so again, the American people will not stand for it. Here the emotional appeal to patriotic piety is joined by calculations of political expediency. Yet the case for misrepresenting American history has nothing to gain from either. There is a strong tendency in all historiography to glorify the national past, and in popular presentations that tendency takes on the aspects of the jingoist whitewash. Even so penetrating a mind as John Stuart Mill's could deliver himself of an essay in which he proved, no doubt to the satisfaction of many of his English readers but certainly of few others, that Great Britain had never interfered in the affairs of European nations and had interfered in those of the Indian states only for their own good.'' Yet it is the measure of a nation's maturity to be able to recognize its past for what it actually is. Why should we not admit that American foreign policy has been generally hardheaded and practical and at times ruthless? Why should we deny Jefferson's cunning, say, in the Puget Sound affair, the cruelty with which the Indians were treated, and the faithlessness with which the treaties with the Indians were cast aside? We know that this is the way all nations are when their interests are at stake - so cruel, so faithless, so cunning. We know that the United States has refrained from seeking dominions beyond the seas not because it is more virtuous than other nations, but because it had the better part of a continent to colonize. As has been pointed out elsewhere at greater length, the man in the street, unsophisticated as he is and uninformed as he may be, has a surer

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grasp of the essentials of foreign policy and a more mature judgment of its basic issues than many of the intellectuals and politicians who pretend to speak for him and cater to what they imagine his prejudices to be. During the recent war the ideologues of the Atlantic Charter, the Four Freedoms, and the United Nations were constantly complaining that the American soldier did not know what he was fighting for. Indeed, if he was fighting for some Utopian ideal, divorced from the concrete experiences and interests of the country, then the complaint was well grounded. However, if he was fighting for the territorial integrity of the nation and for its survival as a free country where he could live, think, and act as he pleased, then he had never any doubt about what he was fighting for. Ideological rationalizations and justifications are indeed the indispensable concomitants of all political action. Yet there is something unhealthy in a craving for ideological intoxication and in the inability to act and t o see merit in action except under the stimulant of grandiose ideas and far-fetched schemes. Have our intellectuals become, like Hamlet, too much beset by doubt to act and, unlike Hamlet, compelled to still their doubts by renouncing their sense of what is real? The man in the street has n o such doubts. It is true that ideologues and demagogues can sway him by appealing to his emotions. But it is also true, as American history shows in abundance and as the popular success of Ambassador Kennan's book demonstrates, that responsible statesmen can guide him by awakening his latent understanding of the national interest.

Yet what is the national interest? How can we define it and give it the content which will make it a guide for action? This is one of the relevant questions to which the current debate has given rise. It has been frequently argued against the realist conception of foreign policy that its key concept, the national interest, does not provide an acceptable standard for political action. This argument is in the main based upon two grounds: the elusiveness of the concept and its susceptibility to interpretations, such as limitless imperialism and narrow nationalism, which are not in keeping with the American tradition in foreign policy. The argument has substance as far as it goes, but it does not invalidate the usefulness of the concept. The concept of the national interest is similar in two respects to the "great generalities" of the Constitution, such as the general welfare and due process. It contains a residual meaning which is inherent in the concept itself, but beyond these minimum requirements its content can run the whole gamut of meanings which are logically compatible with it. That content is determined by the political traditions and the total cultural context within which a nation formulates its foreign policy. The concept of the national interest, then, contains two elements, one that is logically required and in that sense necessary, and one that is variable and determined by circumstances.

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Any foreign policy which operates under the standard of the national interest must obviously have some reference to the physical, political, and cultural entity which we call a nation. In a world where a number of sovereign nations compete with and oppose each other for power, the foreign policies of all nations must necessarily refer to their survival as their minimum requirements. Thus all nations d o what they cannot help but do: protect their physical, political, a n d cultural identity against encroachments by other nations. It has been suggested that this reasoning erects the national state into the last word in politics and the national interest into an absolute standard for political action. This, however, is not quite the case. The idea of interest is indeed of the essence of politics and, as such, unaffected by the circumstances of time and place. Thucydides' statement, born of the experiences of ancient Greece, that "identity of interest is the surest of bonds whether between states or individuals" was taken up in the nineteenth century by Lord Salisbury's remark that "the only bond of union that endures" among nations is "the absence of all clashing interests." The perennial issue between the realist and utopian schools of thought over the nature of politics, to which we have referred before, might well be formulated in terms of concrete interests vs. abstract principles. Yet while the concern of politics with interest is perennial, the connection between interest and the national state is a product of history. The national state itself is obviously a product of history and as such destined t o yield in time to different modes of political organization. As long as the world is politically organized into nations, the national interest is indeed the last word in world politics. When the national state will have been replaced by another mode of organization, foreign policy must then protect the interest in survival of that new organization. For the benefit of those who insist upon discarding the national state and constructing supranational organizations by constitutional fiat, it must be pointed out that these new organizational forms will either come into being through conquest or else through consent based upon the mutual recognition of the national interests of the nations concerned; for no nation will forego its freedom of action if it has n o reason to expect proportionate benefits in compensation for that loss. This is true of treaties concerning commerce or fisheries as it is true of the great compacts, such as the European Coal and Steel Community, through which nations try to create supranational forms of organization. Thus, by a n apparent paradox, what is historically relative in the idea of the national interest can be overcome only through the promotion in concert of the national interest of a number of nations. The survival of a political unit, such as a nation, in its identity is the irreducible minimum, the necessary element of its interests vis-a-vis other units. Taken in isolation, the determination of its content in a concrete situation is relatively simple; for it encompasses the integrity of the nation's territory, of its political institutions, and of its culture. Thus bipartisanship in foreign policy, especially in times of war, has been most easily achieved in the promotion

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of these minimum requirements of the national interest. The situation is different with respect to the variable elements of the national interest. All the cross currents of personalities, public opinion, sectional interests, partisan politics, and political and moral folkways are brought to bear upon their determination. In consequence, the contribution which science can make to this field, as to all fields of policy formation, is limited. It can identify the different agencies of the government which contribute to the determination of the variable elements of the national interest and assess their relative weight. It can separate the long-range objectives of foreign policy from the short-term ones which are the means for the achievement of the former and can tentatively establish their rational relations. Finally, it can analyze the variable elements of the national interest in terms of their legitimacy and their compatibility with other national values and with the national interest of other nations. We shall address ourselves briefly to the typical problems with which this analysis must deal. The legitimacy of the national interest must be determined in the face of possible usurpation by subnational, other-national, and supranational interests. O n the subnational level we find group interests, represented particularly by ethnic and economic groups, who tend to identify themselves with the national interest. Charles A. Beard has emphasized, however onesidedly, the extent to which the economic interests of certain groups have been presented as those of the United States.14 Group interests exert, of course, constant pressure upon the conduct of our foreign policy, claiming their identity with the national interest. It is, however, doubtful that, with the exception of a few spectacular cases, they have been successful in determining the course of American foreign policy. It is much more likely, given the nature of American domestic politics, that American foreign policy, insofar as it is the object of pressures by sectional interests, will normally be a compromise between divergent sectional interests. The concept of the national interest, as it emerges from this contest as the actual guide for foreign policy, may well fall short of what would be rationally required by the overall interests of the United States. Yet the concept of the national interest which emerges from this contest of conflicting sectional interests is also more than any particular sectional interest or their sum total. It is, as it were, the lowest common denominator where sectional interests and the national interest meet in an uneasy compromise which may leave much t o be desired in view of all the interests concerned. The national interest can be usurped by other-national interests in two typical ways. The case of treason by individuals, either out of conviction or for pay, needs only to be mentioned here; for insofar as treason is committed on behalf of a foreign government rather than a supranational principle, it is significant for psychology, sociology, and criminology, but not for the theory of politics. The other case, however, is important not only for the theory of politics but also for its practice, especially in the United States. National minorities in European countries, ethnic groups in the United States, ideological minorities anywhere may identify themselves, either

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spontaneously or under the direction of the agents of a foreign government, with the interests of that foreign government and may promote these interests under the guise of the national interest of the country whose citizens they happen to be. The activities of the German-American Bund in the United States in the 'thirties and of Communists everywhere are cases in point. Yet the issue of the national interest vs. other-national interests masquerading as the national interest has arisen constantly in the United States in a less clear-cut fashion. A country which had been settled by consecutive waves of "foreigners" was bound to find it particularly difficult to identify its own national interest against alleged, seeming, or actual other-national interests represented by certain groups among its own citizens. Since virtually all citizens of the United States are, as it were, "more or less" foreign-born, those who were "less" so have frequently not resisted the temptation to use this distinction as a polemic weapon against late comers who happened to differ from them in their conception of the national interest of the United States. Frequently, this rationalization has been dispensed with and a conception of foreign policy with which a writer happened to disagree has been attributed outright to foreign sympathy or influence or worse. British influence and interests have served as standard arguments in debates on American foreign policy. Madison, in his polemic against Hamilton on the occasion of Washington's Neutrality Proclamation of 1793, identified the Federalist position with that of "the foreigners and degenerate citizens among us, who hate our republican government, and the French revolution,"" and the accusation met with a favorable response in a majority of Congress and of public opinion. However, these traditional attempts to discredit dissenting opinion as being influenced by foreign interests should not obscure the real issue, which is the peculiar vulnerability of the national interest of the United States to usurpation by the interests of other nations. The usurpation of the national interest by supranational interests can derive in our time from two sources: religious bodies and international organizations. The competition between church and state for determination of certain interests and policies, domestic and international, has been an intermittent issue throughout the history of the national state. Here, too, the legitimate defense of the national interest against usurpation has frequently, especially in the United States, degenerated into the demagogic stigmatization of dissenting views as being inspired by Rome and, hence, being incompatible with the national interest. Yet here, too, the misuse of the issue for demagogic purposes must be considered apart from the legitimacy of the issue itself. The more acute problem arises at the present time from the importance which the public and government officials, at least in their public utterances, attribute to the values represented and the policies pursued by international organizations either as alternatives or supplements to the values and policies for which the national government stands. It is frequently asserted that the foreign policy of the United States pursues no objectives apart from those of -

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the United Nations, that, in other words, the foreign policy of the United States is actually identical with the policy of the United Nations. This assertion cannot refer to anything real in actual politics to support it. For the constitutional structure of international organizations, such as the United Nations, and their procedural practices make it impossible for them to pursue interests apart from those of the member-states which dominate their policyforming bodies. The identity between the interests of the United Nations and the United States can only refer to the successful policies of the United States within the United Nations through which the support of the United Nations is being secured for the policies of the United States.16The assertion, then, is mere polemic, different from the one discussed previously in that the identification of a certain policy with a supranational interest does not seek to reflect discredit upon the former, but to bestow upon it a dignity which the national interest pure and simple is supposed to lack. The real issue in view of the problem that concerns us here is not whether the so-called interests of the United Nations, which d o not exist apart from the interests of its most influential members, have superseded the national interest of the United States, but for what kind of interests the United States has secured United Nations support. While these interests cannot be United Nations interests, they do not need to be national interests either. Here we are in the presence of that modern phenomenon which has been variously described as "utopianism," "sentimentalism," "moralism," the "legalistic-moralistic approach." The common denominator of all these tendencies in modern political thought is the substitution for the national interest of a supranational standard of action which is generally identified with an international organization, such as the United Nations. The national interest is here not being usurped by sub- or supranational interests which, however inferior in worth to the national interest, are nevertheless real and worthy of consideration within their proper sphere. What challenges the national interest here is a mere figment of the imagination, a product of wishful thinking, which is postulated as a valid norm for international conduct, without being valid either there or anywhere else. At this point we touch the core of the present controversy between utopianism and realism in international affairs; we shall return to it later in this paper. The national interest as such must be defended against usurpation by non-national interests. Yet once that task is accomplished, a rational order must be established among the values which make up the national interest and among the resources to be committed to them. While the interests which a nation may pursue in its relation with other nations are of infinite variety and magnitude, the resources which are available for the pursuit of such interests are necessarily limited in quantity and kind. N o nation has the resources to promote all desirable objectives with equal vigor; all nations must therefore allocate their scarce resources as rationally as possible. The indispensable precondition of such rational allocation is a clear understanding of the distinction between the necessary and variable elements of the national interest. Given the contentious manner in which in democracies

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the variable elements of the national interest are generally determined, the advocates of an extensive conception of the national interest will inevitably present certain variable elements of the national interest as though their attainment were necessary for the nation's survival. In other words, the necessary elements of the national interest have a tendency to swallow up the variable elements so that in the end all kinds of objectives, actual or potential, are justified in terms of national survival. Such arguments have been advanced, for instance, in support of the rearmament of Western Germany and of the defense of Formosa. They must be subjected to rational scrutiny which will determine, however tentatively, their approximate place in the scale of national values. The same problem presents itself in its extreme form when a nation pursues, or is asked to pursue, objectives which are not only unnecessary for its survival but tend to jeopardize it. Second-rate nations which dream of playing the role of great powers, such as Italy and Poland in the interwar period, illustrate this point. So d o great powers which dream of remaking the world in their own image and embark upon world-wide crusades, thus straining their resources to exhaustion. Here scientific analysis has the urgent task of pruning down national objectives to the measure of available resources in order to make their pursuit compatible with national survival. Finally, the national interest of a nation which is conscious not only of its own interests but also of that of other nations must be defined in terms compatible with the latter. In a multinational world this is a requirement of political morality; in an age of total war it is also one of the conditions for survival. In connection with this problem two mutually exclusive arguments have been advanced. O n the one hand, it has been argued against the theory of international politics here presented that the concept of the national interest revives the eighteenth-century concept of enlightened self-interest, presuming that the uniformly enlightened pursuit of their self-interest by all individuals, as by all nations, will of itself be conducive to a peaceful and harmonious society. O n the other hand, the point has been made that the pursuit of their national interest by all nations makes war the permanent arbiter of conflicts among them. Neither argument is well taken. The concept of the national interest presupposes neither a naturally harmonious, peaceful world nor the inevitability of war as a consequence of the pursuit by all nations of their national interest. Quite to the contrary, it assumes continuous conflict and threat of war, to be minimized through the continuous adjustment of conflicting interests by diplomatic action. N o such assumption would be warranted if all nations at all times conceived of their national interest only in terms of their survival and, in turn, defined their interest in survival in restrictive and rational terms. As it is, their conception of the national interest is subject to all the hazards of misinterpretation, usurpation, and misjudgment to which reference has been made above. To minimize these hazards is the first task of a foreign policy which seeks the defense of the national interest by peaceful means. Its second task

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is the defense of the national interest, restrictively and rationally defined, against the national interests of other nations which may or may not be thus defined. If they are not, it becomes the task of armed diplomacy to convince the nations concerned that their legitimate interests have nothing to fear from a restrictive and rational foreign policy and that their illegitimate interests have nothing to gain in the face of armed might rationally employed.

We have said before that the utopian and realist positions in international affairs d o not necessarily differ in the policies they advocate, but that they part company over their general philosophies of politics and their way of thinking about matters political. It does not follow that the present debate is only of academic interest and without practical significance. Both camps, it is true, may support the same policy for different reasons. Yet if the reasons are unsound, the soundness of the policies supported by them is a mere coincidence, and these very same reasons may be, and inevitably are, invoked on other occasions in support of unsound policies. The nefarious consequences of false philosophies and wrong ways of thinking may for the time being be concealed by the apparent success of policies derived from them. You may go to war, justified by your nation's interests, for a moral purpose and in disregard of considerations of power; and military victory seems t o satisfy both your moral aspirations and your nation's interests. Yet the manner in which you waged the war, achieved victory, and settled the peace cannot help reflecting your philosophy of politics and your way of thinking about political problems. If these are in error, you may win victory on the field of battle and still assist in the defeat of both your moral principles and the national interest of your country. Any number of examples could illustrate the real yet subtle practical consequences which follow from the different positions taken. We have chosen two: collective security in Korea and the liberation of the nations that are captives of Communism. A case for both policies can be made from both the utopian and realist positions, but with significant differences in the emphasis and substance of the policies pursued. Collective security as an abstract principle of utopian politics requires that all nations come to the aid of a victim of aggression by resisting the aggressor with all means necessary to frustrate his aims. Once the case of aggression is established, the duty to act is unequivocal. Its extent may be affected by concern for the nation's survival; obviously no nation will commit outright suicide in the service of collective security. But beyond that elemental limitation no consideration of interest or power, either with regard to the aggressor or his victim or the nation acting in the latter's defense, can qualify the obligation to act under the principle of collective security. Thus high officials of our government have declared that we intervened in Korea

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not for any narrow interest of ours but in support of the moral principle of collective security. Collective security as a concrete principle of realist policy is the age-old maxim, "Hang together or hang separately," in modern dress. It recognizes the need for nation A under certain circumstances to defend nation B against attack by nation C. That need is determined, first, by the interest which A has in the territorial integrity of B and by the relation of that interest to all the other interests of A as well as to the resources available for the support of a11 those interests. Furthermore, A must take into account the power which is at the disposal of aggressor C for fighting A and B as over against the power available to A and B for fighting C. The same calculation must he carried on concerning the power of the likely allies of C as over against those of A and B. Before going to war for the defense of South Korea in the name of collective security, an American adherent of political realism would have demanded an answer to the following four questions: First, what is our interest in the preservation of the independence of South Korea; second, what is our power to defend that independence against North Korea; third, what is our power to defend that independence against China and the Soviet Union; and fourth, what are the chances for preventing China and the Soviet Union from entering the Korean War? In view of the principle of collective security, interpreted in utopian terms, our intervention in Korea was a foregone conclusion. The interpretation of this principle in realist terms might or might not, depending upon the concrete circumstances of interest and power, have led us to the same conclusion. In the execution of the policy of collective security the utopian had to be indifferent to the possibility of Chinese and Russian intervention, except for his resolution to apply the principle of collective security to anybody who would intervene on the side of the aggressor. The realist could not help weighing the possibility of the intervention of a great power on the side of the aggressor in terms of the interests engaged and the power available on the other side." The Truman administration could not bring itself to taking resolutely the utopian or the realist position. It resolved to intervene in good measure on utopian grounds and in spite of military advice to the contrary; it allowed the military commander to advance to the Yalu River in disregard of the risk of the intervention of a great power against which collective security could be carried out only by means of a general war, and then refused to pursue the war with full effectiveness on the realist grounds of the risk of a third world war. Thus Mr. Truman in 1952 is caught in the same dilemma from which Mr. Baldwin could extricate himself in 1936 on the occasion of the League of Nations sanctions against Italy's attack upon Ethiopia only at an enormous loss to British prestige. Collective security as a defense of the status quo short of a general war can be effective only against second-rate powers. Applied against a major power, it is a contradiction in terms, for it means necessarily a major war. Of this self-defeating contradiction Mr. Baldwin was as unaware in the 'thirties as Mr. Truman seems to be in 1952. Mr. Churchill

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put Mr. Baldwin's dilemma in these cogent terms: "First, the Prime Minister had declared that sanctions meant war; secondly, he was resolved that there must be no war; and thirdly, he decided upon sanctions. It was evidently impossible to comply with these three conditions." Similarly Mr. Truman had declared that the effective prosecution of the Korean War meant the possibility of a third world war; he resolved that there must be no third world war; and he decided upon intervention in the Korean War. Here, too, it is impossible to comply with these three conditions. Similar contradictions are inherent in the proposals which would substitute for the current policy of containment one of the liberation of the nations presently the captives of Russian Communism. This objective can be compatible with the utopian or realist position, but the policies designed to secure it will be fundamentally different according to whether they are based upon one or the other position. The clearest case to date for the utopian justification of such policies has been made by Representative Charles J. Kersten of Wisconsin who pointed to these four "basic defects" of the "negative policy of containment and negotiated coexistence": It would be immoral and unchristian to negotiate a permanent agreement with forces which by every religious creed and moral precept are evil. It abandons nearly one-half of humanity and the once free nations of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria, Albania, Lithuania, Latvia, Esthonia and China to enslavement of the Communist police state. It is un-American because it violates the principle of the American Declaration of Independence, which proclaims the rights of all people to freedom and their right and duty to throw off tyranny. It will lead to all-out World War 111 because it aligns all the forces of the non-Communist world in military opposition to and against all the forces of the Communist world, including the 800,000,000 peoples behind the Iron Curtain. The policy of mere containment is uneconomic and will lead to national bankruptcy.I8 This statement is interesting for its straightforwardness and because it combines in a rather typical fashion considerations of abstract morality and of expediency. The captive nations must be liberated not only because their captivity is immoral, unchristian, and un-American, but also because its continuation will lead to a third world war and to national bankruptcy. To what extent, however, these considerations of expediency are invalidated by their utopian setting will become obvious from a comparison between the utopian and the realist positions. From the utopian point of view there can be no difference between the liberation of Esthonia or Czechoslovakia, of Poland or China; the captivity of any nation, large or small, close or far away, is a moral outrage which cannot be tolerated. The realist, too, seeks the liberation of all captive nations because he realizes that the presence of the Russian armies in the

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heart of Europe and their cooperation with the Chinese armies constitute the t w o main sources of the imbalance of power which threatens our security. Yet before he formulates a program of liberation, he will seek answers to a number of questions such as these: While the United States has a general interest in the liberation of all captive nations, what is the hierarchy of interests it has in the liberation, say, of China, Esthonia, and Hungary? And while the Soviet Union has a general interest in keeping all captive nations in that state, what is the hierarchy of its interests in keeping, say, Poland, Eastern Germany, and Bulgaria captive? If we assume, as we must on the historic evidence of two centuries, that Russia would never give up control over Poland without being compelled by force of arms, would the objective of the liberation of Poland justify the ruin of western civilization, that of Poland included, which would be the certain result of a third world war? What resources does the United States have at its disposal for the liberation of all captive nations or some of them? What resources does the Soviet Union have at its disposal to keep in captivity all captive nations or some of them? Are we more likely to avoid national bankruptcy by embarking upon a policy of indiscriminate liberation with the concomitant certainty of war or by continuing the present policy of containment? It might be that in a particular instance the policies suggested by the answers to these questions will coincide with Representative Kersten's proposals, but there can be no doubt that in its overall character, substance, emphasis, and likely consequences a utopian policy of liberation differs fundamentally from a realist one. The issue between liberation as a utopian principle of abstract morality vs. the realist evaluation of the consequences which a policy of liberation would have for the survival of the nation has arisen before in American history. Abraham Lincoln was faced with a dilemma similar to that which confronts us today. Should he make the liberation of the slaves the ultimate standard of his policy even at the risk of destroying the Union, as many urged him to do, or should he subordinate the moral principle of universal freedom to considerations of the national interest? The answer Lincoln gave to Horace Greeley, a spokesman for the utopian moralists, is timeless in its eloquent wisdom. "If there be those," he wrote on August 22, 1862, who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I d o not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If 1 could save the Union without freeing any slave I would d o it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because 1 believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts

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the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear t o be true views. I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free.

The foregoing discussion ought to shed additional light, if this is still needed, upon the moral merits of the utopian and realist positions. This question, more than any other, seems to have agitated the critics of realism in international affairs. Disregarding the voluminous evidence, some of them have picked a few words out of their context t o prove that realism in international affairs is unprincipled and contemptuous of morality. To mention but one example, one eminent critic summarizes my position, which he supposes t o deny the possibility of judging the conduct of states by moral criteria, in these words: "And one spokesman finds 'a profound and neglected truth,' to use his words, in the dictum of Hobbes that 'there is neither morality nor law outside the state.'"I9 These are indeed my words, but not all of them. What I actually said was this: There is a profound and neglected truth hidden in Hobbes's extreme dictum that the state creates morality as well as law and that there is neither morality nor law outside the state. Universal moral principles, such as justice or equality, are capable of guiding political action only to the extent that they have been given concrete content and have been related to political situations by society.20 It must be obvious from this passage and from all my other writings on the subject2' that my position is the exact opposite from what this critic makes it out t o be. I have always maintained that the actions of states are subject to universal moral principles and I have been careful to differentiate my position in this respect from that of Hobbes. Five points basic to my position may need to be emphasized again. The first point is what one might call the requirement of cosmic humility with regard to the moral evaluation of the actions of states. To know that states are subject to the moral law is one thing; to pretend to know what is morally required of states in a particular situation is quite another. The human mind tends naturally to identify the particular interests of states, as of individuals, with the moral purposes of the universe. The statesman in the defense of the nation's interests may, and at times even must, yield to that tendency; the scholar must resist it at every turn. For the light-hearted assumption that what one's own nation aims at and does is morally good and that those who oppose that nation's policies are evil is morally indefensible

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and intellectually untenable and leads in practice to that distortion of judgment, horn of the blindness of crusading frenzy, which has been the curse of nations from the beginning of time. The second point which obviously needs to be made again concerns the effectiveness of the restraints which morality imposes upon the actions of states.

A discussion of international morality must guard against the two extremes either of overrating the influence of ethics upon international politics or else of denying that statesmen and diplomats are moved by anything else but considerations of material power. O n the one hand, there is the dual error of confounding the moral rules which people actually observe with those they pretend to observe as well as with those which writers declare they ought to observe. ... O n the other hand, there is the misconception, usually associated with the general depreciation and moral condemnation of power politics, discussed above, that international politics is so thoroughly evil that it is no use looking for ethical limitations of the aspirations for power 011 the international scene. Yet, if we ask ourselves what statesmen and diplomats are capable of doing to further the power objectives of their respective nations and what they actually do, we realize that they do less than they probably could and less than they actually did in other periods of history. They refuse to consider certain ends and to use certain means, either altogether or under certain conditions, not because in the light of expediency they appear impractical or unwise, but because certain moral rules interpose an absolute barrier. Moral rules d o not permit certain policies to be considered at all from the point of view of expediency. Such ethical inhibitions operate in our time on different levels with different effectiveness. Their restraining function is most obvious and most effective in affirming the sacrednese of human life in times of peace." In connection with this passage we have given a number o f historic examples showing the influence of moral principles upon the conduct of foreign policy. An example taken from contemporary history will illustrate the same point. There can be little doubt that the Soviet Union could have achieved the objectives of its foreign policy at the end of the Second World War without antagonizing the nations of the West into that encircling coalition which has been the nightmare of Bolshevist foreign policy since 1917. It could have mitigated cunning for its own sake and the use of force with persuasion, conciliation, and a trust derived from the awareness of a partial community of interests and would thereby have minimized the dangers to itself and the rest of the world which are inherent in the objectives o f its policies. Yet the Soviet Union was precluded from relying upon these traditional methods of diplomacy by its general conception of human nature, politics, and morality. In the general philosophy of Bolshevism there is no room for honest dissent, the recognition of the intrinsic worth of divergent

50


interests, and genuine conciliation between such interests. O n all levels of social interaction opposition must be destroyed by cunning and violence, since it has no right t o exist, rather than be met half way in view of its intrinsic legitimacy. This being the general conception of the political morality of Bolshevism, the foreign policy of the Soviet Union is limited to a much more narrow choice of means than the foreign policies of other nations. The United States, for instance, has been able, in its relations with the nations of Latin America, to replace military intervention and dollar diplomacy with the policy of the Good Neighbor. That drastic change was made possible by the general conception of political morality which has been prevalent in the United States from its very inception. The United States is a pluralist society which presupposes the continuing existence and legitimacy of divergent interests. These interests are locked in a continuing struggle for supremacy to be decided by force only as a last resort, but normally through a multitude of institutional agencies which are so devised as to allow one or the other interest a temporary advantage but none a permanent supremacy a t the price of the destruction of the others. This morality of pluralism allows the United States, once it is secure in that minimum of vital interests t o which we have referred above, t o transfer those principles of political morality to the international scene and to deal with divergent interests there with the same methods of genuine compromise and conciliation which are a permanent element of its domestic political life. The third point concerns the relations between universal moral principles and political action. I have always maintained that these universal moral principles cannot be applied t o the actions of states in their abstract universal formulation, but that they must be, as it were, filtered through the concrete circumstances of time and place. The individual may say for himself: "Fiat justitia, pereat mundus"; the state has no right to say so in the name of those who are in its care. Both individual and state must judge political action by universal moral principles, such as that of liberty. Yet while the individual has a moral right to sacrifice himself in defense of such a moral principle, the state has no moral right to let its moral disapprobation of the infringement of liberty get in the way of successful political action, itself inspired by the moral principle of national survival. There can be n o political morality without prudence, that is, without consideration of the political consequences of seemingly moral action. Classical and medieval philosophy knew this and so did Lincoln when he said: "I d o the very best I know how, the very best I can, and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won't amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make n o difference." The issue between utopianism and realism, as it bears on this point, has been put most succinctly by Edmund Burke, and what he has to say in the following passage about revolution, that is, civil war, may well be applied mutatis mutandis to all war.

XZorg,vnili,i~~ The National Interest of

The U.S.

51

Nothing universal can be rationally affirmed on any moral or any political subject. Pure metaphysical abstraction does not belong to these matters. The lines of morality are not like the ideal lines of mathematics. They are hroad and deep as well as long. They admit of exceptions; they demand modifications. These exceptions and modifications are not made by the process of logic, but by the rules of prudence. Prudence is not only the first in rank of the virtues political and moral, but she is the director, the regulator, the standard of them all. Metaphysics cannot live without definition; but Prudence is cautious how she defines. O u r courts cannot be more fearful in suffering fictitious cases to be brought before them for eliciting their determination on a point of law than prudent moralists are in putting extreme and hazardous cases of conscience upon emergencies not existing. Without attempting, therefore, to define, what never can be defined, the case of a revolution in government, this, 1 think, may be safely affirmed - that a sore and pressing evil is to be removed, and that a good, great in its amount and unequivocal in its nature, must be probable almost to a certainty, before the inestimable price of our own morals and the well-being of a number of our fellowcitizens is paid for a revolution. If ever we ought to be economists even to parsimony, it is in the voluntary production of evil. Every revolution contains in it something of evil." Fourth, the realist recognizes that a moral decision, especially in the political sphere, does not imply a simple choice between a moral principle and a standard of action which is morally irrelevant or even outright immoral. A moral decision implies always a choice among different moral principles, one of which is given precedence over others. To say that a political action has no moral purpose is absurd; for political action can be defined as an attempt to realize moral values through the medium of politics, that is, power. The relevant moral question concerns the choice among different moral values, and it is at this point that the realist and the utopian part company again. If an American statesman must choose between the promotion of universal liberty, which is a moral good, at the risk of American security and, hence, of liberty in the United States, and the promotion of American security and of liberty in the United States, which is another moral good, to the detriment of the promotion of universal liberty, which choice ought he to make? The utopian will not face the issue squarely and will deceive himself into believing that he can achieve both goods at the same time. The realist will choose the national interest on both moral and pragmatic grounds; for if he does not take care of the national interest nobody else will, and if he puts American security and liberty in jeopardy the cause of liberty everywhere will be impaired. Finally, the political realist distinguishes between his moral sympathies and the political interests which he must defend. He will distinguish with Lincoln between his "official duty" which is to protect the national interest

52

T h e Cold War a n d N u c l e a r D e t e r r e n c e

and his "personal wish" which is t o see universal moral values realized throughout the world. The issue has been admirably put by Father Wilfred Parsons of Catholic University in defending Ambassador Kennan's position: Mr. Kennan did not say state behavior is not a fit subject for moral judgment, but only that it should not sway our realization of the realities with which we have to deal. Msgr. Koenig continues: "Should we accept power realities and aspirations without feeling the obligation of moral judgment?" And he appeals to the present writer and other political scientists to say whether this doctrine agrees with Pope Pius XII's messages on peace. I am sure that most political scientists, and also Mr. Kennan, would agree with the Monsignor that we should not accept those realities "without feeling the obligation of moral judgment." But there is a difference between feeling this obligation (and even expressing it) and allowing this feeling to sway our actions in concrete negotiations that deal with the national or world common good. We can still feel and yet deal. To make my meaning clearer, I understood Mr. Kennan to hold that we went off the beam with Woodrow Wilson, when we began to make our moral disapprobation an essential part of our foreign relations, even sometimes at the expense of our own and the world's common good. Logically, such an attitude would inhibit our dealing with Britain, France and a host of countries. Pius XI, speaking of Mussolini after the Lateran Treaty, said he would deal with the devil himself if he must. Here was moral disapprobation, but it was not "carried over into the affairs of states." This relative position, and not the absolute one of Msgr. Koenig (with which in itself I agree), is, I think, the issue raised by Mr. Kennan, and it is worth debating on that basis.14 The contest between utopianism and realism is not tantamount to a contest between principle and expediency, morality and immorality, although some spokesmen for the former would like to have it that way. The contest is rather between one type of political morality and another type of political morality, one taking as its standard universal moral principles abstractly formulated, the other weighing these principles against the moral requirements of concrete political action, their relative merits to be decided by a prudent evaluation of the political consequences to which they are likely to lead.2" These points are re-emphasized by the foregoing discussion. Which attitude with regard to collective security and to the liberation of the captive nations, the utopian or the realist, is more likely to safeguard the survival of the United States in its territorial, political, and cultural identity and at the same time to contribute the most to the security and liberty of other nations? This is the ultimate test - political and moral - by which utopianism and realism must be judged.

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53

Notes 1. 7'his IS tlie ideal type ot the u t o p ~ mp o s i t ~ o nrather than the e m p i r ~ c a descr~prion l of any p n r t i c u l ~ rh ~ s t o r ~type. c In actualit!: a n d this is true particularly of the present, tlie utopian position in internat~onalaffairs is not always consistent with its philosophic premises. 2. It o ~ ~ g not h t t o need special emphasis that a p r i n c ~ p l eof socidl conduct, In contrast t o a law of ncirure, a l l o w of, 'ind even presupposes, conduct in violarion of the pr~nciple.Robert W. Tuckel; In "Professor Morgenthau's Theory of Political 'Kealism"' in this Rtvn w, Vol. 46, pp. 214-224 ( M a r c h , 1952), has missed this a n d many other polnts in his zeal t o find contr'v dictions where there 'ire none. 3. ‘‘This Itlie realist] doctrine," write\ o n e historian - Frank TLinnenhaurn,"The Balance of Power versus the Coordinate State,"Pol~trralScience Qrtartrrly, Vol. 67, p. 173 (June, 1952) "is contessedl!; nay gleefully, amoral. It prides itself upon heitig real~stica n d takes Machiavell~ as its gre.ir teacher. It I S contemptuous of the s ~ r n p l eheltefs of honest men, jeer\ ,it the wntlmcntal~srnof those w h o believe that men may strive for peace a m o n g nations, a n d looks upon democracy 3s a li~ndrancet o skilled d~plornacy.It looks wlth 1' certaln d e r i s ~ ~s ue p e r i o r ~ t ) upon the great leciders o t this narlon from Jetterson a n d J o h n Quincy Adams t o Woodrow Wilson a n d Franklin Delano Roosevelt a n d describes them as moralistic and sentimental, and suggests that o u r models ought t o he Richelieu, Clernenceau and Bismarck. Its adherents bellebe that international wars instead of being made hy men a n d supported by institutions humanly c o n r r ~ v e dhave their orlgln ~n the nature of m a n h ~ m s e l f,lnd are i n e \ i t ~ h l e . " Another historian, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., in "Policy a n d National Interest." Partisan Rrlww: Vol. 18, p. 7 0 9 (Nov.-Dec.. 1951), however, gives Ambassaclor Kennan a clean hill ot moral health. "But w h ~ rd~fferentiates,"he writes, "the Kennan approach from that of, for example, the followers of Professor H a n s J. Morgenthau is that he takes the revelat~onsof international amorality in his srr~de;more than that, he comprehends them in his understanding o f the tragedy of history. Mr. Kennan, in other words, is deeply moral, rather than moralistic, like ludge Hull, o r i~nrnoral,like the boys w h o have just discovered that politics involve power." "This dreadful doctrine," we Lire told ( b y Tannenhaum, pp. 173-174), "has n o w won wide acceptance hy teachers and scholars in tlie field o f internat~onalrelations and li.is, in f , ~ become , the leuding theme in such circles in many of our largest un~vers~ties. It has become the sc-lenre of international relations - and w h o w o ~ ~ quarrel ld with science, especially when it comes packaged in good cle~lrEnglish and from high sources? Rut ~t is not science. It is, in fact, only poor l o g ~ c hased upon false premises, a n d its claim t o be a science is only a bit of unlioly conce~t." It niay be remarked in p'lssing that t o dispose of a scientific theory as "fashionable" o r 1' " f ~ d , " as some do with regard t o political realism, may reveal something a b o u t the starc of mind of the writer, hut reveals n o r l i ~ n ga t all about the 5cientific v a l ~ ~ofe the theory. 4. l'annenbaum. in the article cited above, a n d in "The American Tradition in Foreign Relat~ons." Foreign Affzirs, Vol. 30, pp. 31-50 (Oct., 1951). 5. O n r Foreign Affairs ( N e w York, 1924), pp. 2 4 6 ff. , 3, 6 . "The United States a n d the Balance of I'ower," The / o u r n a l of P o l ~ t ~ c sVol. pp. 401-449 (Nov., 1941). 7. T'innenhaum, "The Balance of Power verws the Coijrdinate State," (cited above, note 3 ) , p. 173. 8. "Democracy a n d Efficiency," Atlrzntic Monthly, Vol. 87, pp. 293-294 (March, 190 1). 9. 1Bnnenbaum. p. 177.

10. Ihrd. 1 1. W~lliarnArchibald Dunning, Essays o n the C i ~ dWar a n d Rcconstrrtction rznd Rrlated Topics ( N e w York, 1 9 3 1), p. 3 5 I. 12. Tannenbaum, pp. 195-1 96. 13. "A Few Words on Non-interventioti," D m e r t a t i o n s a n d Discnssior~s: l'olitrc~rl, /'/~f/oso[)/~rc-i~/, a n d H ~ s t o r i r d I(Imndon, 18751, pp. 15.3-1 78. 14. 'me ldea of Nrrt~orzal Interest: An Atzalytictrl Study 111 Anzericon F o r e ~ ~ qI'oIic-y n ( N e w York, 19.34).

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15. "Helvidius, in Answer to Pacificus, on President Washington's Proclamation of Neutrality," in Letters and other Writings of James Madison (Philadelphia, 1867), Vol. 1, p. 61 1. 16. See, o n this point, Hans J. Morgenthau, "International Organizations and Foreign Policy," in Foundations of World Organization: A Political a n d Cultural Appraisal, Eleventh Symposium of the Conference o n Science, Philosophy and Religion, edited by Lyman Bryson, Louis Finkelstein, Harold D. Lasswell, R.M. MacIver (New York, 1952), pp. 377-383. 17. The difference in these two attitudes is well illustrated by the following passage from a recent Moon Mullins cartoon. An elderly representative of the utopian school asks little Kayo: "Remember the golden rule. Now, supposing that boy slapped you on the right cheek, what would you do?" Whereupon Kayo replies realistically: "Jest how big a boy are you supposin'?" 18. New York Times, August 14, 1952, p. 1. 19. A.H. Feller, "In Defense of International Law and Morality," The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Scrence, Vol. 282, p. 80 (July, 1952). 20. In Defense of the National Interest: A Critical Exarnrnation of American Foreign Policy (New York, 1951), p. 34. 21. See, for instance, "The Machiavellian Utopia," Ethics, Vol. 55, pp. 145-147 (Jan., 1945); "Ethics and Politics," in Approaches to Group Understanding, Sixth Symposium of the Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion, edlted by Bryson, Finkelstein, and MacIver (New York, 1947), pp. 319-341; "The Escape from Power in the Western World," in Conflicts of Power in Modern Culture, Seventh Symposium of the Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion, edited by Bryson, Finkelstein, and MacIver, pp. 1-12; Scientific Man vs. Power Politics (Chicago, 1946), Chaps. 7, 8; "Views of Nuremberg: Further Analysis of the Trial and Its Importance," America, Vol. 76, pp. 266-267 (Dec. 7, 1946); "The Twilight of International Morality," Ethics, Vol. 58, pp. 79-99 (Jan., 1948); "The Political Science of E.H. Carr," World Politics, Vol. 1, pp. 127-134 (Oct., 1948); Politics Among Natlons (New York, 1948), Ch. 14; "National Interest and Moral Principles in Foreign Policy: The Primacy of the National Interest," The American Scholar, Vol. 18, pp. 207-212 (Spring, 1949); "The Pathology of Power," American Perspective, Vol. 4, pp. 6-10 (Winter, 1950); "The Moral Dilemma in Foreign Policy," in The Year Book of World Affairs, 1951 (London, 1951), pp. 12-36. 22. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, pp. 174-175. 23. The Works of The Right Honorable Edmund Burke, 4th ed. (Boston, 1871), Vol. 4, pp. 80-81. Cf. also Burke, "Speech on A Bill for Shortening the Duration of Parliaments," May 8, 1780, in Works; Vol. 7, p. 73: "I must see, to satisfy me, the remedies; I must see, from their operation in the cure of the old evil, and in the cure of those new evils which are inseparable from all remedies, how they balance each other, and what is the total result. The excellence of mathematics and metaphysics is, to have but one thing before you; but he forms the best judgement in all moral disquisitions who has the greatest number and variety of considerations in one view before him, and can take them in with the best possible consideration of the middle results of all." 24. America, Vol. 86, p. 700 (March 29, 1952). See also Algernon Cecil, "The Foreign Office," in The Cambrrdge History of Brrtish Forergn Policy, 1783-1 91 9 (New York, 1923), Vol. 3, p. 605, concerning Lord Salisbury: "Always, however, the motive of his policy was to be found in the political interests as opposed to the political sympathies of Great Brltaln; and in this way his treatment of Foreign Affairs is at the opposite policy from that of Palmerston or Gladstone." Cf. also the general remarks in Alexander H. Leighton, Human Relations rn a Changing World (New York, 1949), pp. 155 ff. 25. See, on this point, Shlrley R. Letwin, "Rationalism, Prmciples, and Politics," The Review of Politics, Vol. 14, pp. 367-393 (July, 1952); L. Susan Stebbing, Ideals and lllusions (London, 1941); Vernon H. Holloway, Religious Ethics and the Politics of Power (New York, 1951); and Dorothy Fosdick, "Ethical Standards and Political Strategies," Political Scrence Quarterly, Vol. 57, pp. 214 ff. (1942).

The Delicate Balance of Terror Albert Wohlstetter

T

he first shock administered by the Soviet launching of sputnik has almost dissipated. The flurry of statements and investigations and improvised responses has died down, leaving a small residue: a slight increase in the schedule of bomber and ballistic missile production, with a resulting small increment in our defense expenditures for the current fiscal year; a considerable enthusiasm for space travel; and some stirrings of interest in the teaching of mathematics and physics in the secondary schools. Western defense policy has almost returned to the level of activity and the emphasis suited to the basic assumptions which were controlling before sputnik. One of the most important of these assumptions - t h a t a general thermonuclear war is extremely unlikely - is held in common bv most of the critics of our defense policy as well as by its proponents. Because of its crucial r d e in the Western strategy of defense, I should like to examine the stability of the thermonuclear balance which, it is generally supposed, would make aggression irrational or even insane. The balance, I believe, is in fact precarious, and this fact has critical implications for policy. Deterrence in the 1960s is neither assured nor impossible but will be the product of sustained intelligent effort and hard choices, responsibly made. As a major illustration important both for defense and foreign policy, I shall treat the particularly stringent conditions for deterrence which affect forces based close to the enemy, whether they are U.S. forces or those of our allies, under single or joint control. I shall comment also on the inadequacy as well as the necessity of deterrence, on the problem of accidental outbreak of war, and on disarmament.'

11. The Presumed Automatic Balance

I emphasize that requirements for deterrence are stringent. We have heard so much about the atomic stalemate and the receding prohability of war which it has produced that this may strike the reader as something of an Source: Eore~gnAffizirs, 3 7 ( 2 ) ( 1 9 5 9 ) :21 1-34

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exaggeration. Is deterrence a necessary consequence of both sides having a nuclear delivery capability, and is all-out war nearly obsolete? Is mutual extinction the only outcome of a general war? This belief, frequently expressed by references to Mr. Oppenheimer's simile of the two scorpions in a bottle, is perhaps the prevalent one. It is held by a very eminent and diverse group of people - in England by Sir Winston Churchill, P. M. S. Blackett, Sir John Slessor, Admiral Buzzard and many others; in France by such figures as Raymond Aron, General Gallois and General Gazin; in this country by the titular heads of both parties as well as almost all writers on military and foreign affairs, by both Henry Kissinger and his critic, James E. King, Jr., and by George Kennan as well as Dean Acheson. Mr. Kennan refers to American concern about surprise attack as simply o b s e ~ s i v e and ; ~ many people have drawn the consequence of the stalemate as has Blackett, who states: "If it is in fact true, as most current opinion holds, that strategic air power has abolished global war, then an urgent problem for the West is to assess how little effort must be put into it to keep global war abolished."' If peace were founded firmly on mutual terror, and mutual terror on symmetrical nuclear capabilities, this would be, as Churchill has said, "a melancholy paradox;" none the less a most comforting one. Deterrence, however, is not automatic. While feasible, it will be much harder to achieve in the 1960s than is generally believed. One of the most disturbing features of current opinion is the underestimation of this difficulty. This is due partly to a misconstruction of the technological race as a problem in matching striking forces, partly to a wishful analysis of the Soviet ability to strike first. Since sputnik, the United States has made several moves to assure the world (that is, the enemy, but more especially our allies and ourselves) that we will match or overmatch Soviet technology and, specifically, Soviet offense technology. We have, for example, accelerated the bomber and ballistic missile programs, in particular the intermediate-range ballistic missiles. The problem has been conceived as more or better bombers - or rockets; or sputniks; or engineers. This has meant confusing deterrence with matching or exceeding the enemy's ability to strike first. Matching weapons, however, misconstrues the nature of the technological race. Not, as is frequently said, because only a few bombs owned by the defender can make aggression fruitless, but because even many might not. One outmoded A-bomb dropped from an obsolete bomber might destroy a great many supersonic jets and ballistic missiles. To deter an attack means being able to strike back in spite of it. It means, in other words, a capability to strike second. In the last year or two there has been a growing awareness of the importance of the distinction between a "strikefirst" and a "strike-second" capability, but little, if any, recognition of the implications of this distinction for the balance of terror theory. Where the published writings have not simply underestimated Soviet capabilities and the advantages of a first strike, they have in general placed artificial constraints on the Soviet use of the capabilities attributed to them. They assume, for example, that the enemy will attack in mass over the

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The Delicate Balance of Terror

57

Arctic through our D ~ s t a n tEarly Warning line, with bombers refueled over Canada - all resulting in plenty of warning. Most hopefully, it is sometimes assumed that such attacks will be preceded by days of visible preparations for moving ground troops. Such assumptions suggest that the Soviet leaders will be rather bumbling or, better, cooperative. However attractive it may be for us to narrow Soviet alternatives to these, they would be low in the order of reference of any reasonable Russians ~ l a n n i n gwar.

I l l . The Quantitative Nature of the Problem and the Uncertainties

In treating Soviet strategies it is important to consider Soviet rather than Western advantage and to consider the strategy of both sides quantitatively. The effectiveness o f our own choices will depend on a most complex numerical interaction of Soviet and Western plans. Unfortunately, both the privileged and unprivileged information on these matters is precarious. As a result, competent people have been led into critical error in evaluating the prospects for deterrence. Western journalists have greatly overestimated the difficulties of a Soviet surprise attack with thermonuclear weapons and vastly underestimated the complexity of the Western problem of retaliation. One intelligent commentator, Richard Rovere, recently expressed the common view: "If the Russians had ten thousand warheads and a missile for each, and we had ten hydrogen bombs and ten obsolete bombers, ... aggression would still be a folly that would appeal only to an insane adventurer." Mr. Rovere's example is plausible because it assumes implicitly that the defender's hydrogen bombs will with certainty be visited on the aggressor; then the damage done by the ten bombs seems terrible enough for deterrence, and any more would be simply redundant. This is the basis for the common view. The example raises questions, even assuming the delivery of the ten weapons. For instance, the targets aimed at in retaliation might be sheltered and a quite modest civil defense could hold within tolerable limits the damage done to such city targets by ten delivered bombs. But the essential point is that the weapons would not be very likely to reach their targets. Even if the bombers were dispersed at ten different points, and protected by shelters so blast resistant as to stand up anywhere outside the lip of the bomb crater - even inside the fire ball itself - the chances of one of these bombers surviving the huge attack directed at it would be on the order of one in a million. (This calculation takes account of the unreliability and inaccuracy of the missile.) And the damage done by the small minority of these ten planes that might be in the air at the time of the attack, armed and ready to run the gauntlet of an alert air defense system, if not zero, would be very small indeed compared to damage that Russia has suffered in the past. For Mr. Rovere, like many other writers on this subject, numerical superiority is not important at all. For Joseph Alsop, on the other hand, it is important, but the superiority is on our side. Mr. Alsop recently enunciated as one of the four rules of

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available when he was writing in 1956 on weapons for all-out war. But much of his analysis was based on the assumption that H-bombs could not be made small enough to be carried in an intercontinental missile. It is now widely known that intercontinental ballistic missiles will have hydrogen warheads, and this fact, a secret at the time, invalidates Mr. Blackett's calculations and, I might say, much of his optimism on the stability of the balance of terror. In sum, one of the serious obstacles to any widespread rational judgment on these matters of high policy is that critical elements of the problem have to be protected by secrecy. However, some of the principal conclusions about deterrence in the early 1960s can be fairly firmly based, and based on public information.

IV. The Delicacy of the Balance of Terror

The most important conclusion is that we must expect a vast increase in the weight of attack which the Soviets can deliver with little warning, and the growth of a significant Russian capability for an essentially warningless attack. As a result, strategic deterrence, while feasible, will be extremely difficult to achieve, and at critical junctures in the 1960s, we may not have the power to deter attack. Whether we have it or not will depend on some difficult strategic choices as to the future composition of the deterrent forces as well as hard choices on its basing, operations and defense. Manned bombers will continue to make up the predominant part of our striking force in the early 1960s. None of the popular remedies for their defense will suffice - not, for example, mere increase of alertness (which will be offset by the Soviet's increasing capability for attack without significant warning), nor simple dispersal or sheltering alone or mobility taken by itself, nor a mere piling up of interceptors and defense missiles around SAC bases. Especially extravagant expectations have been placed on the airborne alert - an extreme form of defense by mobility. The impression is rather widespread that one-third of the SAC bombers are in the air and ready for combat at all times.8 This belief is belied by the public record. According t o the Symington Committee Hearings in 1956, our bombers averaged 31 hours of flying per month, which is about 4 percent of the average 732-hour month. An Air Force representative expressed the hope that within a couple of years, with an increase in the ratio of crews to aircraft, the bombers would reach 45 hours of flight per month - which is 6 percent. This 4 to 6 percent of the force includes bombers partially fueled and without bombs. It is, moreover, only an average, admitting variance down as well as up. Some increase in the number of armed bombers aloft is to be expected. However, for the current generation of bombers, which have been designed for speed and range rather than endurance, a continuous air patrol for one-third of the force would be extremely expensive. O n the other hand, it would be unwise t o look for miracles in the new weapons systems, which by the mid-1960s may constitute a considerable

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portion of the United States force. After the Thor, Atlas and Titan there are a number of promising developments. The solid-fueled rockets, Minuteman and Polaris, promise in particular to be extremely significant components of the deterrent force. Today they are being touted as making the problem of deterrence easy to solve and, in fact, guaranteeing its solution. But none of the new developments in vehicles is likely to d o that. For the complex job of deterrence, they all have limitations. The unvaryingly immoderate claims for each new weapons system should make us wary of the latest "technological breakthroughs." Only a very short time ago the ballistic missile itself was supposed to be intrinsically invulnerable on the ground. It is now more generally understood that its survival is likely to depend on a variety of choices in its defense. It is hard to talk with confidence about the mid and late-1960s. A systematic study of an optimal or a good deterrent force which considered all the major factors affecting choice and dealt adequately with the uncertainties would be a formidable task. In lieu of this, I shall mention briefly why none of the many systems available or projected dominates the others in any obvious way. My comments will take the form of a swift run-through of the characteristic advantages and disadvantages of various strategic systems at each of the six successive hurdles mentioned earlier. The first hurdle to be surmounted is the attainment of a stable, steadystate peacetime operation. Systems which depend for their survival on extreme decentralization of controls, as may be the case with large-scale dispersal and some of the mobile weapons, raise problems of accidents and over a long period of peacetime operation this leads in turn to serious political problems. Systems relying on extensive movement by land, perhaps by truck caravan, are an obvious example; the introduction of these on European roads, as is sometimes suggested, would raise grave questions for the governments of some of our allies. Any extensive increase in the armed air alert will increase the hazard of accident and intensify the concern already expressed among our allies. Some of the proposals for bombardment satellites may involve such hazards of unintended bomb release as to make them out of the question. The cost to buy and operate various weapons systems must be seriously considered. Some systems buy their ability to negotiate a given hurdle - say, surviving the enemy attack - only at prohibitive cost. Then the number that can be bought out of a given budget will be small and this will affect the relative performance of competing systems at various other hurdles, for example penetrating enemy defenses. Some of the relevant cost comparisons, then, are between competing systems; others concern the extra costs to the enemy of canceling an additional expenditure of our own. For example, some dispersal is essential, though usually it is expensive; if the dispersed bases are within a warning net, dispersal can help to provide warning against some sorts of attack, since it forces the attacker to increase the size of his raid and so makes it more liable to detection as well as somewhat harder to coijrdinate. But as the sole or principal defense of our offensive force, dispersal has

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First, since thermonuclear weapons give an aggressor, it takes great ingenuity and realism technology to devise a stable equilibrium. And is changing with fantastic speed. Deterrence continuing effort.

enormous advantage to the at any given level of nuclear second, this technology itself will require an urgent and

V. The U s e s and Risks of B a s e s Close t o t h e Soviets

It may now be useful to focus attention on the special problems of deterrent forces close to the Soviet Union. First, overseas areas have played an important r d e in the past and have a continuing though less certain r61e today. Second, the recent acceleration of production of intermediate-range ballistic missiles and the negotiation of agreements with various NATO powers for their basing and operation have given our overseas bases a renewed importance in deterring attack on the United States - or so it would appear at first blush. Third, an analysis can throw some light on the problems faced by our allies in developing an independent ability to deter all-out attack on themselves, and in this way it can clarify the much agitated question of nuclear sharing. Finally, overseas bases affect in many critical ways, political and economic as well as military, the status of the alliance. At the end of the last decade, overseas bases appeared to be an advantageous means of achieving the radius extension needed by our short-legged bombers, of permitting them to use several axes of attack, and of increasing the number of sorties possible in the course of an extended campaign. With the growth of our own thermonuclear stockpile, it became apparent that a long campaign involving many re-uses of a large proportion of our bombers was not likely to be necessary. With the growth of a Russian nuclear-delivery capability, it became clear that this was most unlikely to be feasible. Our overseas bases now have the disadvantage of high vulnerability. Because they are closer than the United States to the Soviet Union, they are subject to a vastly greater attack by a larger variety as well as number of vehicles. With given resources, the Soviets might deliver on nearby bases a freight of bombs with something like 50 t o 100 times the yield that they could muster at intercontinental range. Missile accuracy would more than double. Because there is not much space for obtaining warning - in any case, there are no deep-warning radar nets - and, since most of our overseas bases are close to deep water from which submarines might launch missiles, the warning problem is very much more severe than for bases in the interior of the United States. As a result, early in the 1950s the U.S. Air Force decided to recall many of our bombers to the continental United States and to use the overseas bases chiefly for refueling, particularly post-strike ground refueling. This reduced drastically the vulnerability of U.S. bombers and at the same time retained many of the advantages of overseas operation. For some years now SAC has been reducing the number of aircraft usually deployed overseas.

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The purpose is to reduce vulnerability and has little to do with any increasing radius of SAC aircraft. The early B-52 radius is roughly that of the B-36; the B-47, roughly that of the B-50 or B-29. In fact the radius limitation and therefore the basing requirements we have discussed will not change substantially for some time to come. We can talk with comparative confidence here, because the U.S. strategic force is itself largely determined for this period. Such a force changes more slowly than is generally realized. The vast majority of the force will consist of manned bombers, and most of these will be of medium range. Some U.S. bombers will be able to reach some targets from some U.S. bases within the 48 states without landing on the way back. O n the other hand, some bomber-target combinations are not feasible without pre-target landing (and are therefore doubtful). The Atlas, Titan and Polaris rockets, when available, can of course do without overseas bases (though the proportion of Polaris submarines kept at sea can be made larger by the use of submarine tenders based overseas). But even with the projected force of aerial tankers, the greater part of our force, which will be manned bombers, cannot be used at all in attacks on the Soviet Union without at least some use of overseas areas. What of the bases for Thor and Jupiter, our first intermediate-range ballistic missiles? These have to be close to the enemy, and they must of course be operating bases, not merely refueling stations. The Thors and Jupiters will be continuously in range of an enormous Soviet potential for surprise attack. These installations therefore re-open, in a most acute form, some of the serious questions of ground vulnerability that were raised about six years ago in connection with our overseas bomber bases. The decision to station the Thor and Jupiter missiles overseas has been our principal public response to the Russian advances in rocketry, and perhaps our most plausible response. Because it involves our ballistic missiles it appears directly to answer the Russian rockets. Because it involves using European bases, it appears to make up for the range superiority of the Russian intercontinental missile. And most important, it directly involves the NATO powers and gives them an element of control. There is no question that it was genuinely urgent not only to meet the Russian threat but to d o so visibly, in order to save the loosening NATO alliance. Our allies were fearful that the Soviet ballistic missiles might mean that we were no longer able or willing to retaliate against the Soviet Union in case of an attack on them. We hastened to make public a reaction which would restore their confidence. This move surely appears to increase our own power to strike back, and also to give our allies a deterrent of their own, independent of our decision. It has also been argued that in this respect it merely advances the inevitable date at which our allies will acquire "modern" weapons of their own, and that it widens the range of Soviet challenges which Europe can meet. But we must face seriously the question whether this move will in fact assure either the ability to retaliate or the decision to attempt it, on the part of our allies or ourselves. And we should ask at the very least whether further expansion of this policy will buy as much retaliatory power

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precisely who their legal owner is will not affect the retaliatory power of the Thors and Jupiters one way or the other. They would not be able to deter an attack which they could not survive. It is curious that many who question the utility of American overseas bases (for example, our bomber bases in the United Kingdom) simply assume that, for our allies, possession of strategic nuclear weapons is one with deterrence. There remains the view that the provision of these weapons will broaden the range of response open to our allies. In so far as this view rests on the belief that the intermediate-range ballistic missile is adapted to limited war, it is wide of the mark. The inaccuracy of an I.R.B.M. requires high-yield warheads, and such a combination of inaccuracy and high yield, while quite appropriate and adequate against unprotected targets in a general war, would scarcely come within even the most lax, in fact reckless, definition of limited war. Such a weapon is inappropriate for even the nuclear variety of limited war, and it is totally useless for meeting the wide variety of provocation that is well below the threshold of nuclear response. In so far as these missiles will be costly for our allies to install, operate and support, they are likely t o displace a conventional capability that might be genuinely useful in limited engagements. More important, they are likely to be used as an excuse for budget cutting. In this way they will accelerate the general trend toward dependence on all-out response and so will have the opposite effect to the one claimed. Nevertheless, if the Thor and Jupiter have these defects, might not some future weapon be free of them? Some of these defects, of course, will be overcome in time. Solid fuels or storable liquids will eventually replace liquid oxygen, reliabilities will increase, various forms of mobility or portability will become feasible, accuracies may even be so improved that such weapons can be used in limited wars. But these developments are all years away. In consequence, the discussion will be advanced if a little more precision is given such terms as "missiles" or "modern" or "advanced weapons." We are not distributing a generic "modern" weapon with all the virtues of flexibility in varying circumstances and of invulnerability in all-out war. But even with advances in the state of the art on our side, it will remain difficult to maintain a deterrent, especially close in under the enemy's guns. It follows that, though a wider distribution of nuclear weapons may be inevitable, or a t any rate likely, and though some countries in addition to the Soviet Union and the United States may even develop an independent deterrent, it is by n o means inevitable or even very likely that the power to deter all-out thermonuclear attack will be widespread. This is true even though a minor power would not need t o guarantee as large a retaliation as we in order to deter attack on itself. Unfortunately, the minor powers have smaller resources as well as poorer strategic location^.^ Mere membership in the nuclear club might carry with it prestige, as the applicants and nominees expect, but it will be rather expensive, and in time it will be clear that it does not necessarily confer any of the expected privileges enjoyed by the two charter members. The burden of deterring a general war as distinct

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from limited wars is still likely to be on the United States and therefore, so far as our allies are concerned, on the military alliance. There is one final consideration. Missiles placed near the enemy, even if they could not retaliate, would have a potent capability for striking first by surprise. And it might not be easy for the enemy to discern their purpose. The existence of such a force might be a considerable provocation and in fact a dangerous one in the sense that it would place a great burden on our deterrent force which more than ever would have to guarantee extreme risks to the attacker - worse than the risks of waiting in the face of this danger. When not coupled with the ability to strike in retaliation, such a capability might suggest - erroneously, to be sure, in the case of the democracies - an intention to strike first. If so, it would tend to provoke rather than to deter general war. I have dealt here with only one of the functions of overseas bases: their use as a support for the strategic deterrent force. They have a variety of important military, political and economic rhles which are beyond the scope of this paper. Expenditures in connection with the construction or operation of our bases, for example, are a form of economic aid and, moreover, a form that is rather palatable to the Congress. There are other functions in a central war where their importance may be very considerable and their usefulness in a limited war might be substantial. Indeed nothing said here should suggest that deterrence is in itself an adequate strategy. The complementary requirements of a sufficient military policy cannot be discussed in detail here. Certainly they include a more serious development of power to meet limited aggression, especially with more advanced conventional weapons than those now available. They also include more energetic provision for active and passive defenses to limit the dimensions of the catastrophe in case deterrence should fail. For example, an economically feasible shelter program might make the difference between 50,000,000 survivors and 120,000,000 survivors. But it would be a fatal mistake to suppose that because strategic deterrence is inadequate by itself it can be dispensed with. Deterrence is not dispensable. If the picture of the world I have drawn is rather bleak, it could none the less be cataclysmically worse. Suppose both the United States and the Soviet Union had the power to destroy each others' retaliatory forces and society, given the opportunity to administer the opening blow. The situation would then be something like the old-fashioned Western gun duel. It would be extraordinarily risky for one side not to attempt to destroy the other, or to delay doing so, since it not only can emerge unscathed by striking first but this is the sole way it can reasonably hope to emerge at all. Evidently such a situation is extremely unstable. O n the other hand, if it is clear that the aggressor too will suffer catastrophic damage in the event of his aggression, he then has strong reason not to attack, even though he can administer great damage. A protected retaliatory capability has a stabilizing influence not only in deterring rational attack, but also in offering every inducement to both powers to reduce the chance of accidental war.

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they are serious problems and some sorts of limitation and inspection agreement might diminish them. But if there is to be any prospect of realistic and useful agreement, we must reject the theory of automatic deterrence. And we must bear in mind that the more extensive a disarmament agreement is, the smaller the force that a violator would have to hide in order to achieve complete domination. Most obviously, "the abolition of the weapons necessary in a general or 'unlimited' war" would offer the most insuperable obstacles to an inspection plan, since the violator could gain an overwhelming advantage from the concealment of even a few weapons. The need for a deterrent, in this connection too, is ineradicable.

VII. Summary

Almost everyone seems concerned with the need to relax tension. However, relaxation of tension, which everyone thinks is good, is not easily distinguished from relaxing one's guard, which almost everyone thinks is bad. Relaxation, like Miltown, is not an end in itself. Not all danger comes from tension. To be tense where there is danger is only rational. What can we say then, in sum, on the balance of terror theory of automatic deterrence? It is a contribution to the rhetoric rather than the logic of war in the thermonuclear age. The notion that a carefully planned surprise attack can be checkmated almost effortlessly, that, in short, we may resume our deep pre-sputnik sleep, is wrong and its nearly universal acceptance is terribly dangerous. Though deterrence is not enough in itself, it is vital. There are two principal points. First, deterring general war in both the early and late 1960s will be hard at best, and hardest both for ourselves and our allies wherever we use forces based near the enemy. Second, even if we can deter general war by a strenuous and continuing effort, this will by no means be the whole of a military, much less a foreign policy. Such a policy would not of itself remove the danger of accidental outbreak or limit the damage in case deterrence failed; nor would it be at all adequate for crises on the . periphery. A g~nerallyuseful way of concluding a grim argument of this kind would be to affirm that we have the resources, intelligence and courage to make the correct decisions. That is, of course, the case. And there is a good chance that we will d o so. But perhaps, as a small aid toward making such decisions more likely, we should contemplate the possibility that they may not be made. They are hard, do involve sacrifice, are affected by great uncertainties and concern matters in which much is altogether unknown and much else must be hedged by secrecy; and, above all, they entail a new image of ourselves in a world of persistent danger. It is by no means certain that we shall meet the test.

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Notes 1. 1 w'tnt t o thank C.J. Hitch, M.W. Hoag, W.W. Kautnian. A.W. Marshall, H.S. Rowen and W.W. Taylor for suggestions in preparatton of t h ~ sarticle. 2. (icorge t Kennan, "A Chance t o Withdraw O u r Troops in Europe," H i l r p r ' s Mirg~rzrnc,,February 1958, p. 4 1. 3. P.M.S. Blackett, "Atomic Weapons a n d East-West RelLttions" ( N e w York: C:,lrnhridgc l i n ~ v e r y ~ tPress, y 19561, p. 32. 4. Joseph Alsop, "The New Balance of Power," Encotinter, M'iy 1958, p. 4. It s h o ~ ~ he ld added that, since these lines were written, Mr. Alsop's vlews have altered. 5. The Nrtv York Timcs, Septernher 6, 1958, p. 2. 6 . (;enera1 Pierre M . Gallois, "A French General Analyzes Nuclear-Age Strategy," Rinlrtk, Nov. 1 9 58. p. 19; "Nuclear Aggresston a n d National Suicide," Tlw Reportrr., Sept. 18, 19.58, p. 2 3 . 7. See footnote 9. 8 . See, for example, "NATO, A Critical Appraisal," hy Gardner Patterson ~ n Edg,~r d S. F u r n ~ s s ,Jr., Princeton University Conference on NATO, Princeton, June 1957, p. 32: "Although n o one pretended t o know, the hypothesis that one-third of the striking force of the United States S t r a t e g ~ cAir C o m m m d w a s in the air a t all times was regarded hy most ,IS re:]son.lhle." 9 . Gcneral Gallois argues that, while alllances will offer no guarantee, "a small number of honlbs and a small number of carrlers suffice tor a threatened power t o protect ~tselfagainst atomic destruction." (Rhrlitis, op. cit., p. 7 1.) H I Snurner~calillustr~tionsgive the defender some 4 0 0 underground launching sites (ihid., p. 22, and The Reporter, o p crt., p. 2 5 ) and suggest t h ~ t their elimmatton would require between 5,000 a n d 25,000 missiles - w h ~ c his "more o r less irnpos\ihle" - and that in any case the aggressor would not survive the fallout from his o w n w c a p o n s WWhier these ,ire 1,irge numhers of targets from the standpoint of the .lggressor will depend o n the accurac): yield and reliability of offense weapons as well '1s the r e ~ i s t ~ i n cofe the defender's shelter.; and a number of other matters not spec~fiedin the argument. Gener,il G,lllois 15 ,iw,ire that the expectatton of surviv.il depends o n distance even in the hallist~cmts\ile age and that o u r .illies are not so fortunate in this respect. Close-in missiles h ~ v ehetrer bomb y~eldsand accuracies. Moreover, manned a ~ r c r a f t with still better y~eldsa n d ,~ccuracies- c,in be ~ ~ s by cd a n aggressor here since warning of their approach is very short. Suffice it t o sciy that the numeric.11 adv'lntage General C;,lllois cites is greatly exaggerated. Furthermore, lie exaggerates the destructiveness of the retaliatory blow against the aggressor's c ~ t i e sby the renin,ltirs ot tlie defender's missile forcr -even assuming the aggressor would rake n o special m e a s ~ ~ r teos protcct hi, cities. Rut pxticulrlrly tor the aggressor - w h o does not lack warntng - ,I civil defense program c,in moderate the darnage d o n r by a poorly organized attack. Finally, the sugge\tion that the a g g r e w u would not surbive the tall-out from his own weapons 1s simply In rrror. The r a p ~ d decay fission products w h ~ c hare the ni,ljor lethal problem in the local~tyof ,I surface burst ,Ire not a serious difficulty for the aggressor. The a m o u n t of the slowdecay products, s t r o n t i ~ ~ m - 9 0 a n d cesium-1.37, In tlie atmosphere would rise considerably. If nothing were done t o counter it, thts ~ntglir,for ertaniple, increase by many tlmes the incidence of such rel,lti\ely r'ire diseases '1s hone cancer and leukemia. However, such a cahmity, implying ,111increase of. s ~ y20,000 , deaths per ).ear for a nation of 200,000,000, 1s of a n entirely d~fferenrorder from the c.lt,istrophe ~ n b o l w n gtens of ~ n ~ l l ~ oofn deaths, s w h ~ c hGeneral Gallois c o n t e n ~ p l ~ ~elsewhere. tes And there 'ire measures t h ~ might t reduce even this effect drast~cally.(See the R A N D C o r p o r a t m i Report R-322-KC:, Report o n iz Stlrri)~of N o ? ~ - M ~ l ~ tDL,~L'MSC, l ~ r y J L I I 1. ~ 1958.) 10. Aerial reconnaissance, of course, could have a n rndirrrt util~tyhere for surveying large drect\ t o determine the n ~ ~ m h and e r location of observation posts needed t o p r o v ~ d emore timely warning. 1 I. J-lmes F. K ~ n g Jr., , "Arms and M a n rn the Nuclear-Rocket Era," The Nclc' Keplihl~r, Seprernhe~-1, 19.58.

5 The Stability of a Bipolar World Kenneth N.Waltz

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here is a conventional wisdom, accumulated over the centuries, upon which statesmen and students often draw as they face problems in international politics. One part of the conventional wisdom is now often forgotten. Many in Europe, and some in America, have come to regard an alliance as unsatisfactory if the members of it are grossly unequal in power. "Real partnership," one hears said in a variety of ways, "is possible only between equals."' If this is true, an addendum should read: Only unreal partnerships among states have lasted beyond the moment of pressing danger. Where states in association have been near equals, some have voluntarily abdicated the leadership to others, or the alliance has become paralyzed by stalemate and indecision, or it has simply dissolved. One may observe that those who are less than equal are often dissatisfied without thereby concluding that equality in all things is good. As Machiavelli and Bismarck well knew, an alliance requires an alliance leader; and leadership can be most easily maintained where the leader is superior in power. Some may think of these two exemplars as unworthy; even so, where the unworthy were wise, their wisdom should be revived. A second theorem of the conventional wisdom is still widely accepted. It reads: A world of many powers is more stable than a bipolar world, with stability measured by the peacefulness of adjustment within the international system and by the durability of the system itself. While the first element of the conventional wisdom might well be revived, the second should be radically revised. Pessimism about the possibility of achieving stability in a two-power world was reinforced after the war by contemplation of the character of the two major contenders. The Soviet Union, led by a possibly psychotic Stalin, and the United States, flaccid, isolationist by tradition, and untutored in the ways of international relations, might well have been thought unsuited to the task of finding a route to survival. H o w could either reconcile itself to coexistence when ideological differences were great and antithetical interests provided constant occasion for conflict? Yet the bipolar world of the Source: D ~ d a l u s 93(3) , (1964): 881-909

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postwar period has shown a remarkable stability. Measuring time from the termination of war, 1964 corresponds to 1937. Despite all of the changes in the nineteen years since 1945 that might have shaken the world into another great war, 1964 somehow looks and feels safer than 1937. Is this true only because we now know that 1937 preceded the holocaust by just two years? O r is it the terror of nuclear weapons that has kept the world from major war? O r is the stability of the postwar world intimately related to its bipolar pattern?

Stability within a Bipolar System

Within a bipolar world, four factors conjoined encourage the limitation of violence in the relations of states. First, with only two world powers there are n o peripheries. The United States is the obsessing danger for the Soviet Union, and the Soviet Union for us, since each can damage the other to an extent that no other state can match. Any event in the world that involves the fortunes of the Soviet Union or the united States automatically elicits the interest of the other. Truman, at the time of the Korean invasion, could not very well echo Chamberlain's words in the Czechoslovakian crisis and claim that the Koreans were a people far away in the east of Asia of whom Americans knew nothing. We had to know about them or quickly find out. In the 1930's, France lay between England and Germany. England could believe, and we could too, that their frontier and ours lay on the Rhine. After World War 11, no third power could lie between the United States and the Soviet Union, for none existed. The statement that peace is indivisible was controversial, indeed untrue, when it was made by Litvinov in the 1930's. It became a truism in the 1950's. Any possibility of maintaining a general peace required a willingness to fight small wars. With the competition both serious and intense, a loss to one could easily appear as a gain to the other, a conclusion that follows from the very condition of a two-power competition. Political action has corresponded to this assumption. Communist guerrillas operating in Greece prompted the Truman doctrine. The tightening o f Soviet control over the states of Eastern Europe led to the Marshall Plan and the Atlantic Defense Treaty, and these in turn gave rise to the Cominform and the Warsaw Pact. The plan to form a West ('~ e r m a n government produced the Berlin blockade. Our response in a two-power world was geared to Soviet action, and theirs to ours, which produced a n increasingly solid bipolar balance. Not only are there no peripheries in a bipolar world but also, as a second consideration, the range of factors included in the competition is extended as the intensity of the competition increases. Increased intensity is expressed in a reluctance to accept small territorial losses, as in Korea, the Formosa Strait, and Indo-China. Extension of range is apparent wherever one looks. Vice President Nixon hailed the Supreme Court's desegregation decision as our greatest victory in the cold war. When it became increasingly

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T h e Cold War and Nuclear Deterrence

clear that the Soviet economy was growing at a rate that far exceeded our own, many began to worry that falling behind in the economic race would lead t o our losing the cold war without a shot being fired. Disarmament negotiations have most often been taken as an opportunity for propaganda. As contrasted with the 1930's, there is now constant and effective concern lest military preparation fall below the level necessitated by the military efforts of the major antagonist. Changes between the wars affected different states differently, with adjustment to the varying ambitions and abilities of states dependent on cumbrous mechanisms of compensation and realignment. In a multipower balance, who is a danger to whom is often a most obscure matter: the incentive t o regard all disequilibrating changes with concern and respond to them with whatever effort may be required is consequently weakened. In our present world changes may affect each of the two powers differently, and this means all the more that few changes in the national realm or in the world at large are likely to be thought irrelevant. Policy proceeds by imitation, with occasional attempts to outflank. The third distinguishing factor in the bipolar balance, as we have thus far known it, is the nearly constant presence of pressure and the recurrence of crises. It would be folly to assert that repeated threats and recurring crises necessarily decrease danger and promote stability. It may be equally wrong to assert the opposite, as Khrushchev seems to appreciate. "They frighten us with war," he told the Bulgarians in May of 1962, "and we frighten them back bit by bit. They threaten us with nuclear arms and we tell them: 'Listen, now only fools can d o this, because we have them too, and they are not smaller than yours but, we think, even better than yours. So why do you d o foolish things and frighten us?' This is the situation, and this is why we consider the situation to be good."2 Crises, born of a condition in which interests and ambitions conflict, are produced by the determination of one state t o effect a change that another state chooses to resist. With the Berlin blockade, for example, as with Russia's emplacement of missiles in Cuba, the United States decided that to resist the change the Soviet Union sought to bring about was worth the cost of turning its action into a crisis. If the condition of conflict remains, the absence of crises becomes more disturbing than their recurrence. Rather a large crisis now than a small war later is an axiom that should precede the statement, often made, that to fight small wars in the present may be the means of avoiding large wars later. Admittedly, crises also occur in a multipower world, but the dangers are diffused, responsibilities unclear, and definition of vital interests easily obscured. The skillful foreign policy, where many states are in balance, is designed to gain an advantage over one state without antagonizing others and frightening them into united action. Often in modern Europe, possible gains have seemed greater than likely losses. Statesmen could thus hope in crises to push an issue to the limit without causing all the potential opponents to unite. When possible enemies are several in number, unity of action among states is difficult to secure. One could therefore think - or hope desperately,


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as did Bethmann Hollweg and Adolph Hitler - that no united opposition would form. In a bipolar world, on the other hand, attention is focused on crises by both of the major competitors, and especially by the defensive state. To move piecemeal and reap gains serially is difficult, for within a world in confusion there is one great certainty, namely, the knowledge of who will oppose whom. One's motto may still be, "push to the limit," but limit must he emphasized as heavily as push. Caution, moderation, and the management of crisis come to be of great and obvious importance. Many argue, nonetheless, that caution in crises, and resulting bipolar stability, is accounted for by the existence of nuclear weapons, with the number of states involved comparatively inconsequent. That this is a doubtful deduction can be indicated by a consideration of how nuclear weapons may affect reactions to crises. In the postwar world, bipolarity preceded the construction of two opposing atomic weapons systems. The United States, with some success, substituted technological superiority for expenditure on a conventional military. system as a deterrent to the Soviet Union during the . years when we had first an atomic monopoly and then a decisive edge in quantity and quality of weapons. American military policy was not a matter of necessity but of preference based on a calculation of advantage. Some increase in expenditure and a different allocation of monies would have enabled the United States to deter the Soviet Union by posing credibly the threat that any Soviet attempt, say, to overwhelm West Germany would bring the United States into a large-scale conventional war [I].For the Soviet Union, war against separate European states would have promised large gains; given the bipolar balance, n o such war could be undertaken without the clear prospect of American entry. The Russians' appreciation of the situation is perhaps best illustrated by the structure of their military forces. The Soviet Union has concentrated heavily on medium-range bombers and missiles and, to our surprise, has built relatively few intercontinental weapons. The country of possibly aggressive intent has assumed a posture of passive deterrence vis-&vis her major adversary, whom she quite sensibly does not want to fight. Against European and other lesser states, the Soviet Union has a considerable offensive capability [2]. Hence nuclear capabilities merely reinforce a condition that would exist in their absence: without nuclear technology both the United States and the Soviet Union have the ability to develop weapons of considerable destructive power. Even had the atom never been split, each would lose heavily if it were to engage in a major war against the other. If number of states is less important than the existence of nuclear power, then one must ask whether the world balance would continue to be stable were three or more states able to raise themselves to comparable levels of nuclear potency. For many reasons one doubts that the equilibrium would be so secure. Worries about accidents and triggering are widespread, but a still greater danger might well arise. The existence of a number of nuclear states would increase the temptation for the more virile of them to maneuver, with

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defensive states paralyzed by the possession of military forces the use of which would mean their own destruction. One would be back in the 1930's, with the addition of a new dimension of strength which would increase the pressures upon status quo powers to make piecemeal concessions. Because bipolarity preceded a two-power nuclear competition, because in the absence of nuclear weapons destructive power would still be great, because the existence of a number of nuclear states would increase the range of difficult political choices, and finally, as will be discussed below, because nuclear weapons must first be seen as a product of great national capabilities- rather than as their cause, one is led to the conclusion that nuclear weapons cannot by themselves be used to explain the stability - or the instability - of international systems. Taken together, these three factors - the absence of peripheries, the range and intensity of competition, and the persistence of pressure and crisis -are among the most important characteristics of the period since World War 11. The first three points combine to produce an intense competition in a wide arena with a great variety of means employed. The constancy of effort of the two major contenders, combined with a fourth factor, their preponderant power, have made for a remarkable ability to comprehend and absorb within the bipolar balance the revolutionary political, military, and economic changes that have occurred. The Soviet Union moved forward and was checked. Empires dissolved, and numerous new states appeared in the world. Strategic nuclear weapons systems came into the possession of four separate countries. Tactical nuclear weapons were developed and to some extent dispersed. The manned bomber gave way to the missile. Vulnerable missiles were hardened, made mobile, and hidden. A revolution in military technology occurred on an average of once every five years and at an accelerating pace."wo "losses" of China, each a qualified loss but both traumatic, were accommodated without disastrously distorting - or even greatly affecting - the balance between America and Russia. The effects of American-Soviet preponderance are complex. Its likely continuation and even its present existence are subjects of controversy. The stability of a system has to be defined in terms of its durability, as well as of the peacefulness of adjustment within it. In the pages that follow, some of the effects of preponderance will be indicated while the durability of the system is examined.

T h e End of t h e B i p o l a r Era?

In a bipolar world, by definition each of two states or two blocs overshadows all others. It may seem that to write in 1964 of bipolarity is merely to express nostalgia for an era already ending. Richard Rosecrance, referring t o the period since the war, describes the world as " t r i p ~ l a r . " Walter ~ Lippmann, in a number of columns written in late 1963 and early 1964, assesses the recent initiatives of France and Communist China, their ability


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to move contrary to the desires of the United States and the Soviet Union, as marking the end of the postwar world in which the two superpowers closely controlled the actions of even their major associates [3].Hedley Bull, in a paper prepared for the Council on Foreign Relations in the fall of 1963, tentatively reaches the conclusion that between now and 197.5 "the system of polarization of power will cease to be recognizable: that other states will count for so much in world politics that the two present great powers will find it difficult, even when cooperating, to dominate them."' If power is identical with the ability to control, then those who are free are also strong; and the freedom of the weak would have to be taken as an indication of the weakness of those who have great material strength. But the weak and disorganized are often less amenable to control than those who are wealthy and well disciplined 141. The powerful, out of their strength, influence and limit each other; the wealthy are hobbled by what they have to lose. The weak, on the other hand, bedevil the strong; the poor can more easily ignore their own interests. Such patterns endure and pervade the relations of men and of groups. Lnited States Steel enjoys less freedom to vary the price of its products than d o smaller producers. The United States government finds it easier to persuade large corporations and the great labor unions to cooperate in an anti-inflationary policy than to secure the compliance of small firms and independent unions. The political party in opposition is freer to speak irresponsibly than is the government. Power corrupts and renders its possessors responsible; the possession of wealth liberates and enslaves. That similar patterns are displayed in international relations is hardly surprising. It is not unusual to find that minor states have a considerable nuisance value in relation to states greatly their superiors in power. A Chiang Kai-shek, a Syngman Rhee, or a Mossadegh is often more difficult to deal with than rulers of states more nearly one's equal in power. The influence and control of the two great powers has stopped short of domination in most places throughout the postwar period. The power of the United States and of the Soviet Union has been predominant but not absolute. To describe the world as bipolar does not mean that either power can exert a positive control everywhere in the world, but that each has global interests which it can care for unaided, though help may often be desirable. To say that bipolarity has, until recently, meant more than this is to misinterpret the history of the postwar world. Secretary Dulles, in the middle 1950's, inveighed against neutralism and described it as immoral. His judgment corresponded to a conviction frequently expressed in Communist statements. P. E. Vyshinsky, in a 1948 issue of Problems of Philosophy, declared that "the only determining criterion of revolutionary proletarian internationalism is: are you for or against the U.S.S.R., the motherland of the world proletariat? . . . The defense of the U.S.S.R., as of the socialist motherland of the world proletariat, is the holy duty of every honest man everywhere and not only of the citizens of the U.S.S.R."' The rejection of neutralism as an honorable position for other countries to take is another example of intensity of competition leading to an extension of its range.

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By coming to terms with neutralism, as both the United States and the Soviet Union have done, the superpowers have shown even their inability to extend their wills without limit. Bearing in mind the above considerations, can we say whether the recent independent action of France and Communist China does in fact indicate the waning of bipolarity, or does it mean merely the loosening of bipolar blocs, with a bipolar relation between the United States and the Soviet Union continuing to dominate? By the assessment of those who themselves value increased independence, the latter would seem to be the case. The Earl of Home, when he was Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, thought he saw developing from the increased power of the Soviet Union and the United States a nuclear stalemate that would provide for the middle states a greater opportunity to maneuver.' De Gaulle, in a press conference famous for other reasons, included the statement that uncertainty about their use "does not in the least prevent the American nuclear weapons, which are the most powerful of all, from remaining the essential guarantee ~ China's calculation of international political of world p e a ~ e . "Communist and military forces may be highly similar. "Whatever happens," Chou En-lai has said recently, "the fraternal Chinese and Soviet peoples will stand together in any storm that breaks out in the world arena."' Ideological disputes between China and Russia are bitter; their policies conflict. But interests are more durable than the alliances in which they sometimes find expression. Even though the bonds of alliance are broken, the interest of the Soviet Union could not easily accommodate the destruction of China if that were to mean that Western power would be poised on the Siberian border. That strategic stability produces or at least permits tactical instability is now a cliche of military analysis. The axiom, transferred to the political realm, remains true. Lesser states have often found their opportunity to exist in the interstices of the balance of power. The French and Chinese, in acting contrary to the wishes of their principal partners, have certainly caused them some pain. Diplomatic flurries have resulted and some changes have been produced, yet in a more important respect, France and China have demonstrated not their power but their impotence: their inability to affect the dominant relation in the world. The solidity of the bipolar balance permits middle states to act with impunity precisely because they know that their divergent actions will not measurably affect the strength of the Soviet Union or the United States, upon which their own security continues to rest. The decisions of Britain, France, and China to build nuclear establishments are further advertisements of weakness. Because American or Soviet military might provides adequate protection, the middle powers need not participate in a military division of labor in a way that would contribute maximally to the military strength of their major associates. The United States is inclined to exaggerate the amount of strength it can gain from maintaining a system of united alliances as opposed to bilateral arrangements. The exaggeration arises apparently from vague notions about the transferability of strength. Actually, as one should expect, the contribution

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o f each ally is notable only where it believes that its interests require it to make an effort. In resisting the invasion of North Korean and, later, Chinese troops, roughly 90 percent of the non-Korean forces were provided by the United States."' In South Vietnam at the present time the United States is the only foreign country engaged. British and French military units in West Germany, under strength and ill equipped, are of little use. Western Europe remains, to use the terminology of the 19303, a direct consumer of security. The only really significant interest of the United States, as is nicely conveyed by Arnold Wolfers' dubbing us "the hub power,"" is that each country that may be threatened by Soviet encroachment be politically stable and thus able to resist subversion, be self-dependent and thus less of an expense to us, and be able at the outset of a possible military action to put up some kind of a defense. On these points, the American interest in Western Europe is precisely the same as its interest in the economically underdeveloped countries. In the case of the European countries, however, losses are harder to sustain and there are advantages clearly to be gained by the United States where our interests and theirs overlap. It would be difficult to argue that the foreign-aid programs undertaken by Britain, France, and West Germany transcend a national purpose or have been enlarged in response to our insisting upon their duty to share the military and economic responsibilities that the United States has assumed. The protection of persons, property, and the pound sterling required Britain to resist Communist guerrillas in Malaya, which was after all still her dependency. In such a case, the bearing of a heavy burden by another country serves its interests and ours simultaneously. If anything, the possibility of a transfer of strength has decreased in the past fifteen years, along with a decline in usable military power in Britain. Britain had in her army 633,242 men in 1948; by 1962 she had 209,500, with further reductions anticipated. The comparable figures for France are 465,000 and 706,000." France, with a system of conscription for a comparatively long term and at relatively low pay, has maintained military forces impressively large when measured as a percentage of her POPLIlation 151. As France takes the first steps along the route followed by England, her military planning runs parallel to the earlier English calculations; she will seek to cope with the pressures of large money requirements by making similar adjustments. According to present French plans, the total of men under arms is to be reduced by 4 0 per cent [6]. To compensate for the loss of influence that once came from making a military contribution outside their own borders, the one country has tried and the other is now attempting to build nuclear establishments that supposedly promise them some measure of independence. The British effort remains dependent on American assistance, and the French effort to build an effective nuclear weapons system is in its infancy. The independence of recent French policy cannot have been grounded on a nuclear force that barely exists. It is, rather, a product of intelligence and political will exercised by President de Gaulle in a world in which bipolar stalemate provides

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the weak some opportunity to act. Independence of action by France and by the People's Republic of China is at once a product of loosening alliances the lesser dependence of principals upon their associates - and a protest against it. In the wake of the war, the countries of Western Europe derived a considerable influence from their weakness and our inability to let them succumb to internal difficulties or external pressures without thereby disadvantaging ourselves in relation to Russia. We were less free then because they were so dependent upon our support. The Soviet challenge made it important to recreate strength in Western Europe, a purpose that could best be achieved cooperatively. From about 1960 onward, the dependence of each of the nuclear giants upon its associates lessened. The earlier postwar pattern was one of interdependence with consequent influence for junior partners. More recently a lesser interdependence has permitted and produced assertions of independence, which must be understood in part as efforts to recapture influence once enjoyed.

The Durability of the Bipolar World Bipolarity as a descriptive term remains appropriate as long as there is a great gap between the power of the two leading countries and the power of the next most considerable states. When one looks in this light at Communist China, he is likely to be mesmerized by the magic of numbers. Surely 750 million Chinese must enable their Communist government to d o some things very damaging to the United States or the Soviet Union, or to both of them. When one considers the West European states, he may be struck by their rapid movement from economic and military dependence upon the United States to positions of some independence. It is natural to ask whether this is part of a trend that will continue, or simply a movement from nearly zero on the scale of independence to a threshold that can hardly be passed. It is easy t o think that the trend will continue until, again in the words of Hedley Bull, "over the next decade the Soviet Union and the United States will find themselves still the principal powers in opposed systems of alliances, but, like Britain and Germany 1907-1914, aware that their allies are not irrevocably committed t o their cause and able to cooperate themselves against their lesser allies on particular issues."'Qut this is an analogy that can mislead. The allies of Britain and of Germany were of an order of power, as measured by a combination of territory, population, and economic capability, similar t o that of their principals. That many important changes have occurred in the past fifteen years is obvious. That the changes that have occurred and others that are likely will lift any present state t o the level of Soviet or American capabilities is all but impossible. In 1962, the gross national product of the Soviet Union was $260 billion, of the United States $555 billion, of West Germany $84 billion, and of Communist China roughly $50 billion. If one projects from these figures,

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T h e Stability of a Bipolar World

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the following picture emerges: the Soviet Union, at an assumed growth rate o f 5 per cent, will have in the year 2004 a gross national product of $2,080 billion; the United States, at a growth rate of 3 per cent, will have by 2000 a gross national product of $2,220 billion; West Germany, if it grows at a sustained rate of 6 per cent yearly, will have by 1998 a gross national product of $672 billion, and Communist China, projected at 7 per cent, will have a gross national product in 2002 of $800 billion 171. The growth rates assume2 are unlikely to be those that actually prevail. The rat& chosen are those that will narrow the gap between the greatest and the middle powers to the largest extent presently imaginable. Even on these bases, it becomes clear that the Soviet Union and the United States to the end of the millennium will remain the preponderant powers in the world unless two or more of the middle powers combine in a way that gives them the ability to concert their political and military actions on a sustained and reliable basis. The gap that exists can be described in other ways which are more fragmentary but perhaps give a still sharper picture. The United States has been spending on its military establishment yearly an amount that is two-thirds or more of the entire West German or British or French gross national product. In 1962, the Europe of the Six plus Great Britain spent on defense less than a quarter of the military expenditure of the United S t a t e s . ' T h e United States spends more on military research and development than any of the three largest of the West European countries spends on its entire military establishment. The country that would develop its own resources, military and other, in order to play an independent role in the world, faces a dreadful problem. It is understandably tempting for such countries to believe that by developing nuclear weapons systems, they can noticeably close the gap between themselves and the superpowers. The assumption that nuclear weapons will serve as the great equalizers appeared early and shows an impressive persistence. "The small country," Jacob Viner wrote in 1946, "will again be more than a cipher or a mere pawn in power-politics, provided it is big enough to produce atomic bombs."" Stanley Hoffmann, writing in the present year, reflects a similar thought in the following words: "True, the French nuclear program is expensive; but it is also true that conventional rearmament is not cheaper, and that a division of labor that would leave all nuclear weapons in United States hands and specialize Europe in conventional forces would earmark Europe for permanent dependence (both military and political) in the cold war and permanent decline in the international competition."'" It is difficult to know just what is meant by saying that "conventional rearmament is not cheaper" than a nuclear program, but it is clear that nuclear programs are very expensive indeed [8 1. France and Britain now spend about 7 per cent of their gross national products on defense. If this were increased to the American level of approximately 1 0 per cent, or even if it were doubled, the defense spending of each country would remain comparatively small. The inability to spend large sums, taken together with the

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costs of research, development, production, and maintenance, leads one to the conclusion that the French government is betting that Kahn's revolution in military technology every five years will no longer take place. The French might then hope that Polaris submarines, with their missiles, would remain invulnerable. It is doubtful that they are truly invulnerable even now. The point is a complicated one. By confusing the tracking mechanism of a hunter-killer submarine, an easy accomplishment, one submarine can escape from another. A Soviet submarine, however, may be able to meet and quietly destroy a French submarine as it comes out of port. It is unlikely that the French would in such an event say anything at all; surely they would not wish to draw attention t o the loss of what might be one-third of their strategic nuclear system [9]. To prevent this, France could choose to operate her submarine fleet entirely from the Mediterranean, a sea from which the Soviet Union is militarily excluded. But limiting the direction from which missiles may come will make it easier for the Soviet Union to defend against them. Khrushchev's claim that the Soviet Union's rockets can hit a fly in the sky, which strikes Americans as an irrelevant boast, has an important implication for the country that would build a small nuclear force." Missile defenses, almost useless against large numbers, may be highly successful against the approach of only a few missiles. Furthermore, a single command and control system can easily be obliterated. Middle powers will have to concentrate on a single system or a very small number of systems, and thus deny to themselves the invulnerability gained by the United States from dispersion of the weapons of any one system and the existence of multiple systems. Were military innovation to cease, a force such as that projected by France could gradually be built up to a level of military significance. If, however, a future French Polaris force should begin to look dangerous to the Soviet Union, the increased French capability would itself become an incentive for Russia to move faster. And if Russia does, so must we too. Far short of America or Russia using nuclear weapons for the surgical excision of any country's embryonic nuclear capability, the opportunity t o develop a nuclear force to a level of usefulness exists, if it is present at all, only on sufferance of the two nuclear giants. To look upon nuclear weapons systems as the great equalizers is to see them as causes of the increased power of states. It is more accurate and more useful to look upon them as the products of great scientific and economic capability. The railway age brought a great increase in military mobility, which the elder von Moltke brilliantly exploited in the wars for German unification. So long, however, as war power took the form of great masses of men and material, railways were not able to deliver the whole force of a nation to a front or concentrate it upon a point. Even in transporting a portion of a country's military power, railways were not able to cross the front. Thus in 1914, German armies marched through Belgium.'8 In World War 11, the wedding of high explosives and air transport still did not make it possible to aggregate a nation's whole power and deliver it suddenly and decisively to designated military targets. World War I1 was won

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slowly and largely on the ground. Nuclear technology produced a change decisive in one respect. The power of a nation can now be distilled. Like the French chef who boils down a -pig- for three days until he has a pint of liquid that represents the very essence of pig, the country that produces nuclear warheads and the requisite delivery systems is distilling the power of a whole nation. But the power has to be there before it can be distilled. The stills of such countries as Britain, France, and Communist China are simply not large enough. Nuclear weapons systems are not the great equalizers, but they are, rather, in all of their complexity and with all of their tremendous cost, outward signs of the Soviet and American ability to outstrip all others. If other countries should nevertheless be able to build nuclear systems capable of doing great damage on second strike to any attacker, they would then, as the Soviet Union and United States now do, participate in a nuclear stand-off. Con~petitionwould shift to other means, which t o some extent has already happened, and traditional criteria of power, including economic and military capability, would once again take on their old significance. This is not to say that nuclear diffusion makes no difference. It is useful to consider briefly some of the possibilities. (1)A threat by Britain, France, or Communist China to use nuclear force in order to deter a conventional attack launched by a great nuclear power is a threat to do limited damage to the invading state at the risk of one's own annihilation. It is a radically different way of assuming the deterrent-defensive posture of Switzerland and should be interpreted as a move to bow out of the great-power picture. In part the desire for an independent nuclear deterrent derives, as the late Hugh Gaitskell put it, "from doubts about the readiness of the United States Government and the American citizens to risk the destruction of their cities on behalf of Europe."" The nuclear superiority enjoyed by America in the early 1950's created in Europe a fear that the United States would too easily s u c c ~ ~ m toba temptation to retaliate massively. The arrival of strategic stability has produced the opposite worry In the words of a senior British general: "McNamara is practically telling the Soviets that the worst they need expect from an attack on West Germany is a conventional counterattack."1° Behind the difference on strategy lies a divergence of interest. A policy of strategic nuclear threat makes the United States the primary target. A policy of controlled response would shift some of the danger as well as additional burdens to Europe. The countries of Europe, separate or united, have an incentive to adopt destabilizing military programs. Where Britain has led, France now follows. While it is understandable that lesser powers should, by threatening or using nuclear weapons, want to he able to decide when the United States or the Soviet Union should risk their own destruction, it is also easy to see that both the United States and the Soviet Union would resist such an outcome. The more badly a country may want to be able to trigger someone else's force, the more difficult it becomes to do so, which is another way of saying that the Soviet Union and the United States have something close to invulnerable second-strike systems.

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(2) If a middle power were engaged in a conventional military action against a state of comparable or lesser size, the Soviet Union or the United States might threaten a nuclear strike in order to bring about a withdrawal. It is sometimes thought that the possession of a small nuclear force by the middle power would make such a threat ineffective. In the Suez adventure, for example, military action by Britain and France called forth Soviet rocket threats against them. Against states having no strategic nuclear forces, such threats would be more readily credited, and thus more likely t o exert pressure successfully against the conventional action itself. A small military action, however, is not worth and does not require nuclear interference by a great power, for it can be stopped in other ways. The onus of threatening t o use nuclear weapons first, in order t o interdict conventional interference, is then placed upon the smaller power. Such a threat would not be credible. Both the first and second uses presuppose the adequacy of the small country's nuclear threat when directed against the United States or the Soviet Union. A capability that is small compared t o America's or Russia's may be adequate to its task; a certain minimum, doubtfully achievable in the foreseeable future, is nevertheless required. When Hedley Bull says that the French ambition is "to become strong enough t o choose deliberately to act alone,"21 he may have in mind the second use mentioned above, or the one following, which is seldom discussed. ( 3 ) As the United States and the Soviet Union have opened up a gap in military power between themselves and all others, so Britain, France, the People's Republic of China, and states who may follow them can differentiate themselves from non-nuclear nations. Great Britain has placed nuclear weapons in the Middle and Far East. Let us suppose Indonesia were to move militarily against Malaysia. A British threat t o use nuclear weapons could conceivably follow, which might cause Indonesia to stop short or might persuade the United States to offer the support of the Seventh Fleet and American Marines in order to avoid the use of nuclear weapons. The effects of nuclear diffusion are necessarily uncertain, but one point can sensibly be made: Building a small nuclear force is an unpromising way of seeking to maintain the integrity of one's state, even though it may enable that state to act positively against equal or lesser powers. There can be approximate equality among states even where there is considerable disparity in the material bases of their power. Whether or not effective power is fashioned from the material available depends upon adequacy of national organization, wisdom of policy, and intensity of effort. In the 1920's, France sought t o maintain a greater military strength than Germany in order to compensate for a lesser French productivity and smaller population. Where the material differences are relatively small or where countries of immensely larger capacity are quiescent, it may be possible to "mobilize" a nation in peacetime in order to build on a lesser material base a superior military strength. Germany and Japan in the 1930's began to play the game from which France was withdrawing. The Soviet Union, since the war, has been able to challenge the United States in many parts of

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the world by spending a disproportionately large share of her smaller income on military means. There is in the West a quiet nightmare that the People's Republic of China may follow such a path, that it may mobilize the nation in order to increase production rapidly while simultaneously acquiring a large and modern military capability. It is doubtful that she can do either, and surely not both, and surely not the second without the first, as the data previously given clearly indicate. As for France and Great Britain, it strains the imagination to the breaking point to believe that in a world in which scientific and technological progress has been rapid, either of them will be able to maintain the pace [ l o ] . Unable to spend on anywhere near the American or Russian level for work in research, development, and production, middle powers will, once they have gained an initial advantage, constantly find themselves falling behind. France and Britain are in the second-ranking powers' customary position of imitating, with a time lag, the more advanced weapons systems of their wealthier competitors [ 1I]. From the above analysis, it is clear that the time when other states can compete at the highest levels of power by a superiority of effort in mobilizing their resources lies far in the future. Unless some states combine or others dissolve in chaos, the world will remain bipolar until the end o f the present century.

S o m e Dissenting Opinions The fact remains that many students of international relations have continued to judge bipolarity unstable as compared to the probable stability o f a multipower world. Why have they been so confident that the existence of a number of powers, moving in response to constantly recurring variations in national power and purpose, would promote the desired stability? According to Professors Morgenthau and Kaplan, the uncertainty that results from flexibility of alignment generates a healthy caution in the foreign policy of every country." Concomitantly, Professor Morgenthau believes that in the present bipolar world, "the flexibility of the balance of power and, with it, its restraining influence upon the power aspirations of the main protagonists on the international scene have disappeared."13 One may agree with his conclusion and yet draw from his analysis another one unstated by him: The inflexibility of a bipolar world, with the appetite for power of each major competitor at once whetted and checked by the other, may promote a greater stability than flexible balances of power among a larger number of states. What are the grounds for coming to a diametrically different conclusion? The presumed double instability of a bipolar world, that it easily erodes or explodes, is to a great extent based upon its assumed bloc character. A bloc improperly managed may indeed fall apart. The leader of each bloc must be concerned at once with alliance management, for the defection of an allied state might be fatal to its partners, and with the aims and capabilities of the

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opposing bloc. The system is more complex than is a multipower balance, which in part accounts for its fragility 1121. The situation preceding World War I provides a striking example. The dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire would have left Germany alone in the center of Europe. The approximate equality of alliance partners, or their relation of true interdependence, plus the closeness of competition between the two camps, meant that while any country could commit its associates, no one country on either side could exercise control. By contrast, in 1956 the United States could dissociate itself from the Suez adventure of its two principal allies and even subject them to pressure. Great Britain, like Austria in 1914, tried to commit, or at least immobilize, its alliance partner by presenting him with a fait accompli. Enjoying a position of predominance, the United States could, as Germany could not, focus its attention on the major adversary while disciplining its ally, The situations are in other respects different, but the ability of the United States, in contrast to Germany, to pay a price measured in intra-alliance terms is striking. It is important, then, to distinguish sharply a bipolarity of blocs from a bipolarity of countries. FCnelon thought that of all conditions of balance the opposition of two states was the happiest. Morgenthau dismisses this judgment with the comment that the benefits Fenelon had hoped for had not accrued in our world since the war, which depends, one might think, on what benefits had otherwise been expected 1131. The conclusion that a multipower balance is relatively stable is reached by overestimating the system's flexibility, and then dwelling too fondly upon its effects 1141. A constant shuffling of alliances would be as dangerous as an unwillingness to make new combinations. Neither too slow nor too fast: the point is a fine one, made finer still by observing that the rules should be followed not merely out of an immediate interest of the state but also for the sake of preserving the international system. The old balance-of-power system here looks suspiciously like the new collective-security system of the League of Nations and the United Nations. Either system depends for its maintenance and functioning upon a "neutrality of alignment" at the moment of serious threat. To preserve the system, the powerful states must overcome the constraints of previous ties and the pressures o f both ideological preferences and conflicting present interests in order t o confront the state that threatens the system.24 In the history of the modern state system, flexibility of alignment has been conspicuously absent just when, in the interest of stability, it was most highly d e ~ i r a b l e . ~A' comparison of flexibility within a multipower world with the ability of the two present superpowers to compensate for changes by their internal efforts is requisite, for comparison changes the balance of optimism and pessimism as customarily applied t o the two different systems. In the world of the 19303, with a European grouping of three, the Western democracies, out of lassitude, political inhibition, and ideological distaste, refrained from acting or from combining with others at the advantageous moment. War provided the pressure that forced the world's states

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into two opposing coalitions. In peacetime the bipolar world displays a clarity of relations that is ordinarily found only in war. Raymond Aron has pointed out that the international "systeme depend de ce que sont, concretement, les deux p6les, non pas seulement du fait qu'ils sont deux."'" Modifying Aron's judgment and reversing that of many others, we would say that in a bipolar world, as compared to one of many powers, the international system is more likely to dominate. External pressures, if clear and great enough, force the external combination or the internal effort that interest requires. The political character of the alliance partner is then most easily overlooked and the extent to which foreign policy is determined by ideology is decreased. The number of great states in the world has always been so limited that two acting in concert or, more common historically, one state driving for hegemony could reasonably conclude that the balance would be altered by their actions. In the relations of states since the Treaty of Westphalia, there have never been more than eight great powers, the number that existed, if one is generous in admitting doubtful members to the club, on the eve of the First World War. Given paucity of members, states cannot rely on an equilibrating tendency of the system. Each state must instead look to its own means, gauge the likelihood of encountering opposition, and estimate the chances of successful cooperation. The advantages of an international system with more than two members can at best be small. A careful evaluation of the factors elaborated above indicates that the disadvantages far outweigh them.

Conclusions That Bear upon Policy

If the preceding explanations are correct, they are also of practical importance. Fixation upon the advantages of flexibility in a multipower balance has often gone hand in hand with an intense anxiety associated with bipolarity: the fear that a downward slide or a sudden technological breakthrough by one great state or the other would decisively alter the balance between them. Either occurrence could bring catastrophic war, which for the disadvantaged would be a war of desperation, or world domination from one center with or without preceding war. The fear is pervasive, and in American writings most frequently rests on the assumption that, internally dissolute and tired o f the struggle, we will award the palm to the Soviet Union. Sometimes this anxiety finds a more sophisticated expression, which turns less upon internal derangements. In this view, the United States, as the defensive power in the world, is inherently disadvantaged, for the aggressive power will necessarily gain if the competition continues long enough. But a conclusion derived from an incomplete proposition is misleading. One must add that the aggressive state may lose even though the state seeking to uphold the status quo never take the offensive. The Soviet Union controls no nation now, except possibly Cuba, that was not part of its immediate postwar gains. It has lost control in

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Yugoslavia and the control it once seemed to have in China. The United States, since the time it began to behave as a defensive power, has seen some states slip from commitment to neutralism, but only North Vietnam and Cuba have come under Communist control. One would prefer no losses at all, but losses of this magnitude can easily be absorbed. On balance, one might argue that the United States has gained, though such a judgment depends on the base line from which measurement is made as well as upon how gains and losses are defined. That the United States and the Soviet Union weigh losses and gains according to their effect upon the bipolar balance is crucial, but there are many changes in Africa, or Asia, or Latin America that are not likely to be to the advantage of either the Soviet Union or the United States. This judgment can be spelled out in a number of ways. The doctrine of containment, for example, should be amended to read: defend, or insulate so that one loss need not lead to another. The habits of the cold war are so ingrained and the dangers of a bipolar world so invigorating that the defensive country is easily led to overreact. In Southeast Asia, since no gain for Communist China is likely to benefit the Soviet Union, American concern should be confined to maintaining its reputation and avoiding distant repercussions. If one goes further and asks how great a gain will accrue to the People's Republic of China if it extends its territorial control marginally, the answer, in any of the areas open to it, must be "very little." Neutralization moves by President de Gaulle, if they can obscure the responsibility for unwanted events, may in fact be helpful. It is important to realize that the bipolar world is continuing lest we worry unnecessarily and define the irrelevant gesture or even the helpful suggestion of lesser powers as troublesome. A 5 per cent growth rate sustained for three years would add to the American gross national product an amount greater than the entire gross national product of Britain or France or West Germany. Even so, the accretion of power the Soviet Union would enjoy by adding, say, West Germany's capabilities to her own would be immensely important; and one such gain might easily lead to others. Most gains from outside, however, can add relatively little to the strengths of the Soviet Union or the United States. There are, then, few single losses that would be crucial, which is a statement that points to a tension within our argument. Bipolarity encourages each giant to focus upon crises, while rendering most of them of relative inconsequence. We might instead put it this way: Crisis is of concern only where giving way would lead to an accumulation of losses for one and gains for the other. In an age characterized by rapidity of change, in many respects time is slowed down - as is illustrated by the process of "losing" Indo-China that has gone on for nineteen years without a conclusive result. Since only a succession of gains could be decisive, there is time for the losing state to contrive a countering action should it be necessary to do so.

Intensity and breadth of competition and recurrence of crises limn a picture of constant conflict verging on violence. At the same time, the relative

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simplicity of relations within a bipolar world, the great pressures that are generated, and the constant possibility of catastrophe produce a conservatism on the part of the two greatest powers. The Soviet Union and the United States may feel more comfortable dealing a deux than in contemplating a future world in which they vie for existence and possible advantage with other superpowers. While there is naturally worry about an increase of tensions to intolerable levels, there is also a fear that the tensions themselves will lead America and Russia to seek agreements designed to bring a relaxation that will be achieved at the expense of lesser powers. The French general, Paul Stehlin, commenting on American opposition to Nth-country nuclear forces, which he interprets as part of an American-Russian effort to maintain a bipolar world, asks wistfully: "Does Europe have less political maturity than the Big Two credit each other with?" With some bitterness he criticizes America for placing "more faith in the ability of the Russians to control their tremendous stockpiles of offensive weapons than they do in my country's capacity to use with wisdom and moderation the modest armaments it is working so hard to develop for purely deterrent purposes."" Worries and fears on any such grounds are exaggerated. The Soviet Union and the United States influence each other more than any of the states living in their penumbra can possibly hope to do. In the world of the present, as of the recent past, a condition of mutual opposition may require rather than preclude the adjustment of differences. Yet first steps toward agreement have not led to second and third steps. Instead they have been mingled with other acts and events that have kept the level of tension quite high. The test ban was described in the United States as possibly a first great step toward wider agreement that would increase the chances of maintaining peace. In almost the same breath it was said that we cannot lower our guard, for Soviet aims have not changed.18 Larger acts than agreement to halt testing under the sea and above the ground are required to alter a situation that congealed long ago. The Soviet Union and the United States remain for the foreseeable future the two countries that can irreparably damage each other. So long as both possess the capability, each must worry that the other might use it. The worry describes the boundaries that have so far limited both the building up of tensions and the abatement of competition. Where weapons of horrible destructive power exist, stability necessarily appears as an important end. It will not, however, be everyone's highest value. One who accepts the analysis of bipolarity and the conclusions we have drawn may nevertheless prefer a world of many powers. The unity and self-dependence of Europe may, for example, rank higher as goals than international stability. Or, one may think of European unity as a means of melding American power with the strength of a united Europe in order to achieve Western hegemony. Unipolarity may be preferable, for those peoples who then become dominant, to a competition between two polar states. It may even promise a greater stability. The question is too complicated to take up at the moment, but some words of caution are in order. The United States has consistently favored the unification of Europe, for adding the strength of a united Europe to the existing power of America

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would be sufficient to establish a world hegemony. But there is a confusion in American rhetoric that accurately reflects a confusion in thought. We have wanted a Europe united and strong and thus able to share our burdens with us, but a Europe a t the same time docile and pliant so that it would agree on which burdens are to be assumed and how duties should be shared. The enchanting dream of Western hegemony has many implications, some of them possibly unpleasant. A Europe of the Seven, or even the Six, could, given time to put its combined resources to work, become a third power in the world on the largest scale. President de Gaulle has entertained the fear that such a Europe, if it were to be born under Anglo-Saxon auspices, would serve as an instrument of American foreign policy. One may have doubts of what would necessarily fol10w.~' De Gaulle is a useful instructor. If we find the weak troublesome, will the strong be more easily controlled? A united Europe would represent a great change in the world; because the change would be great, its effects are difficult to foresee. If Europe were t o be stable, strong, and cooperative, one might be delighted; but surely it would be dangerous t o predict that a new Europe would rapidly find internal stability and develop political maturity. It would be more dangerous still to assume that the old American and the new European state would find their policies always in harmony. It is seemingly a safe assumption that a clear and pressing interest of a new state of Europe would be to stand firm against any Soviet attempts to move forward. But interests must be taken in relation to situations. In a world of three great powers, identical interests may logically lead and in the past have led to dangerously disparate policies. European history of the twentieth century makes optimism difficult. Nor could one be serene about America's reaction. Typically, Americans have insufficiently valued the prize of power. The yearning for a Europe united and thus strong enough to oppose the Soviet Union unaided is but one example. The pressures of bipolarity have helped to produce responsibility of action. A relaxation of those pressures will change the situation t o one in which it will no longer be clear who will oppose whom. Two considerations then should give one pause: the necessarily unpredictable quality of the third power and the greater instability of a multipower world.

A system of small numbers can always be disrupted by the actions of a Hitler and the reactions of a Chamberlain. Since this is true, it may seem that we are in the uncomfortable position of relying on the moderation, courage, and rationality of men holding crucial positions of power. Given the vagaries of men and the unpredictability of die individual's reaction to events, one may at this point feel that one's only recourse is to lapse into prayer. We can, nonetheless, take comfort from the thought that, like other men, those who are elevated t o power and direct the activities of great states are not wholly free agents. Beyond the residuum of necessary hope that men will respond sensibly lies the possibility of estimating the pressures that

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encourage and constrain them to do so. In a world in which two states united in their mutual antagonism far overshadow any other, the incentives to a calculated response stand out most clearly, and the sanctions against irresponsible behavior achieve their greatest force. Not only how the leaders will think but also who they may be will be affected by the presence of pressures and the clarity of challenges. One may lament Churchill's failure to gain control of the British government in the 1930's, for he knew what to maintain a balance-of-pwer system. Churchill did actions were req~~ireci come to power, it is interesting to note, as the world began to assume the bipolar form familiar in wartime. If a people representing one pole of the world now indulges itself by selecting inept rulers, it runs clearly discernible risks. Leaders of the United States and the Soviet Union are presumably chosen with an eye to the tasks they will have to perform. Other countries can enjoy, if they wish, the luxury of selecting leaders who will most please their peoples by the way in which internal affairs are managed. The United States and the Soviet Union cannot. It is not that one entertains the utopian hope that all future Premiers of the Soviet Union and Presidents of the United States will combine in their persons a complicated set of nearly perfect virtues, but rather that the pressures of a bipolar world will strongly encourage them to act in ways better than their characters might otherwise lead one to expect. It is not that one possesses a serene confidence in the peacefulness, or even the survival of the world, but rather that cautious optimism may be justified as long as the pressures to which each must respond are so clearly present. Either country may go beserk or succumb to in a nation and debility. That necessities are clear increases the chances that they will be met, but there can be no guarantees. Dangers from abroad may unify a state and spur its people to heroic action. Or, as with France facing Hitler's Germany, external pressures may divide the leaders, confuse the public, and increase their willingness to give way. It may also happen that the difficulties of adjustment and the necessity for calculated action simply become too great. The clarity with which the necessities of action can now be seen may be blotted out by the blinding flash of nuclear explosions. The fear that this may happen has reinforced the factors and processes described in the preceding pages. By making the two strongest states still more powerful and the emergence of third powers more difficult, nuclear weapons have helped to consolidate a condition of bipolarity. It is to a great extent due to its bipolar structure that the world since the war has enjoyed a stability seldom known where three or more powers have sought to cooperate with each other or have competed for existence.

Notes 1. T h e point has been m ~ d by e Raymond Aron, a m o n g others. "Even ~f it had not had the bomb, would the U n ~ t e dStates have tolerated the expansion of the Soviet empire a5 tar as the

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Atlantic? And would Stalin have been ready to face the risk of general war?" Raymond Aron, The Century of Total War (Boston: Beacon Press, 1955), p. 151. 2. Hanson W. Baldwin, from information supplied by Strategic Air Command headquarters, estimates that Russian intercontinental missiles are one-fourth to one-fifth as numerous as ours, though Russian warheads are larger. The Russians have one-sixth to one-twelfth the number of our long-range heavy bombs, with ours having a greater capability (New York Times, November 21, 1963). In medium range ballistic missiles Russia has been superior. A report of the Institute of Strategic Studies estimated that as of October, 1962, Russia had 700 such missiles, the West a total of 250 (New York Times, November 9, 1962). British sources tend to place Russian capabilities in the medium range higher than do American estimates. Cf. P.M.S. Blackett, "The Real Road to Disarmament: The Military Background to the Geneva Talks," New Statesman (March 2, 19621, pp. 295-300, with Hanson W. Baldwin, New York Times, November 26, 1961. 3. See, for example, Walter Lippmann, "NATO Crisis - and Solution: Don't Blame De Gaulle," Boston Globe, December 5, 1963, p. 26: "The paramount theme of this decade, as we know it thus far, is that we are emerging from a two-power world and entering one where there are many powers." 4. Cf. Georg Simmel, "The Sociology of Conflict, 11," The American Journal of Sociology, IX (March, 1904), 675: "when one opposes a diffused crowd of enemies, one may oftener gain isolated victories, but it is very hard to arrive at decisive results which definitely fix the relationships of the contestants." 5. In 1960, 1.5% of total population for France; 1.01% for the United Kingdom; 1.39% for the United States. M.R.D. Foot, Men in Uniform (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, for the Institute for Strategic Studies, 19611, pp. 162, 163. 6. The reduction is figured from the level of military manpower in 1960. Ministre des Armkes, Pierre Messmer, "Notre Politique Militaire," Revue de Difense Natronale (May, 1963), p. 754. 7. To complete the picture, Britain in 1962 had a gross national product of $79 billion and France of $72 billion. Gross national product figures for all of the countries mentioned, except China, are from the New York Times, January 26, 1964, E8. The figure of $50 billion for China in 1962, though it is a figure that is widely given, is necessarily a crude estimate. As a close and convenient approximation, I have taken 3, 5, 6, and 7% as doubling in 24, 14, 12, and 1 0 years, respectively. 8. Albert Wohlstetter has estimated that the first one hundred Polaris missiles manufactured and operated for five peacetime years will cost three to five times as much as the cost of the first one hundred B-47s ("Nuclear Sharing: NATO and the N + l Country," Foreign Affairs, XXXIX [ A ~ r i l 19611. . 364). , 9. France plans to have three nuclear submarines of sixteen missiles each, the first to be operating in 1969, the others following at two-year intervals (Messmer, "Notre Politique Militaire," p. 747). 10. It is not wholly absurd for British and French governments to proclaim, as they frequently do, that an embryonic capability brings an immediate increase of strength; for further expenditures are not likely to bring much of an additional payoff. Cf. President de Gaulle's message to his minister-delegate at Reggane upon the explosion of France's first atomic device: "'Hurrah for France! From this morning she is stronger and prouder!"' Leonard Beaton and John Maddox, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons (London: Chatto & Windus, 1962), p. 91. 11. The experiences of Chinese Communists prior to 1949 and of the People's Republic of China since that date suggest that attempts to outflank may bring a greater success than efforts to imitate! Or, applying an economist's term to military matters, would-be Nth-countries would d o well t o ask, where d o we have a comparative advantage? 12. Morton A. Kaplan, System and Process rn International Politics (New York: Wiley, 1957), p. 37; and "Bipolarity in a Revolutionary Age," in Kaplan, ed., The Revolution rn World Politics (New York: Wiley, 1962), p. 254. The difficulties and dangers found in a bipolar world by Kaplan are those detected by Hans J. Morgenthau in a system of opposing alliances. It is of direct importance in assessing the stability of international systems t o note &

&

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that Morgenthau finds "the opposition of two alliances ... the most frequent configuration within the system of the balance of power" (Politrcs Among Nations [3d ed.; New York: Knopf, 1961, part 41, p. 189). Kaplan, in turn, writes that "the most likely transformation o f the 'balance of power' system is to a h~polarsystem" (System and Process, p. 36). 13. Kaplan, though hc treats the case almost as being trivial, adds a statement that IS at least suggestive: "The tight b~polarsystem 1s stahle only when both bloc actors are h~erarchically organized" (System and Process, p. 43). 14. Kaplan, e.g., by the fourth and sixth of his rules of a balance-of-power system, requires a state to oppose any threatening state and to be wllling to ally with any other (System and Prowss, p 23).

References I. Henry Kissinger, "Strains on the Alliance," Forergn Affairs, XLI (January, 1963), 284. Cf. Max Kohnstamm, "The European Tide," D~edalus,XCIII (Winter, 19641, 100-1 02; McCeorge Bundy's speech to the Economic Club of Chicago, New York Trmes, December 7, 1961; John F. Kennedy, "Address at Independence Hall," Philadelphia, July 4, 1962, Puhlzc Papers of the I'rcsrdents of the United States (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 19631, pp. 537-539. 2. Quoted in V.D. Sokolovskii, ed., Sovzet Military Strategy, Herbert S. Dinerstein, I.eon ( h u r t , and Thomas W. Wolfe, translators and English editors (Englewood Cliffs: PrenticeHall, 19631, p. 43. 3. Herman Kahn, On Thermonucleur War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 19601, p. 315. 4. Richard N. Rosecrance, Action iwrd Reaction m World Politics (Boston: L~ttle,Brown, 1963), pp. 210-211. 5. Hedley Bull, "Arlant~cMilitary Problems: A Preliminary Essay." Prepared for the Council on Foreign Relations meeting of November 20, 1963, p. 21. Quoted with permission of the author. 6. P. E. Vyshinsky, "Con~munismand the Motherland," 3s quoted in The Kremlin Speirks (Department of State Publ~cation,4264, October, 1951), pp. 6, 7. 7. Nat~onalUnion of Conservative and Unionist Associations, Officral Report, 8 1st Annual Conference, 1.landudno (October 10-13, 1962). p. 93. 8. Arnhassadc de FI-ance, Speeches and Press Conferences, No. 185 (January 14, 1963), p. 9. 9. In a statement taped in i'eklng before his African trip In January of 1964, Neu, York fines, February 4, 1964, p. 2. Cf. the message sent by Communist China's leaders to Premier Khru~hchevupon the occasmn of his seventieth birthday. After referring to differences between them, it is stated that: "In the event of a maior world cris~s,the two parties, our two peoples will undoubtedly stand together agamst our common enemy," New York Times, April 17, 1964, p. 3. 10. L.eland M. Goodr~ch,"Korea: Collective Measures Against Aggression," Internationd Conciliat~m,No. 494 (October, 1953), 164. I I . "Stresses and Strains in 'Going It With Others,"' in Arnold Wolfers, ed., Allrance l'olicy itr the Chld War (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1959), p. 7. 12. The Statesmank Year-Bouk, S.H. Steinberg, ed. ( I a n d o n : Macm~llan,1948), p. 50. Ibid. (IYSl), p. 99 1. [lid. (196.31, pp. 103, 104, 1003. The figures for Great Britain exclude the women'^ services, Territorial Army, and colonial troops. Those for France exclude the gendarmes. 13. Bull, "Atlantic Military Problems," p. 24. 14. Alastair Buchan and Philip Windsor, Arms and Stizbilrty in Europe (New York: Praeger, lY6?1), p. 205. 15. Jacob Viner, "The implications of the Atomic Bomb for International Relations." t'roc-eedi?l#s of the American P / ? ~ ~ J s ( J ~Society, ~ ~ c u XC: / ( 1946), .55.

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16. Stanley Hoffmann, "Cursing de Gaulle Is Not a Policy," The Reporter, XXX (January 30, 1964), 40. 17. Cf. Malcolm W. Hoag, "On Stability in Deterrent Races," In Morton A. Kaplan, ed., T i ~ e Revolution in World Politics (New York: Wiley, 19621, pp. 408, 409. 18. Cf. a forthcoming book by Victor Basiuk, Institute of War and Peace Studies. Columb~a University. 19. House of Commons, Parliamentary Debates (March I , 1960),cols. 1 136-1 138. Compare Hugh Gaitskell, The Challenge of Co-Existence (London: Methuen, 19571, pp. 45-46. 20. Quoted by Eldon Griffiths, "The Revolt of Europe," The Saturday Etlening Post, CCLXIII (March 9, 1963), 19. 21. Bull, "Atlantic Military Problems," p. 29. 22. Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Natrons (3d ed.; New York: Knopf, 1961 ), part 4. Morton A. Kaplan, System and Process rn International Politrcs (New York: Wiley, 1957), pp. 22-36. I shall refer only to Morgenthau and Kaplan, for their writings are widely known and represent the majority o p i n ~ o nof students in the field. 23. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, p. 350. Cf. Kaplan, System and Process, pp. 3 6 4 3 ; and Kaplan, "Bipolarity in a Revolutionary Age," In Kaplan, ed., The Revolution in World Polrtics (New York: Wiley, 1962), pp. 2 5 1-266. 24. The point is nicely made in an unpublished paper by Wolfram E Hanrieder, "Actor Objectives and International Systems" (Center of International Studies, Princeton University, February, 1964), pp. 4 3 4 4 . 25. For a sharp questioning of "the myth of flexibility," see George Liska's revlew article "Continuity and Change in International Systems," World Politics, XVI (October, 19631, 122-123. 26. Raymond Aron, Paix et Guerre entre les Natrons (Paris: Calmann-Lev); 1962), p. 156. 27. Gen. Paul Stehlin, "The Evolution of Western Defense," Foreign Affairs, XLII (October, 1963), 81, 77. 28. See, for example, Secretary Rusk's statement before the Senate Foreign Relat~ons Committee, New York Times, August 13, 1963. 29. Ambassade de France, Speeches and Press Conferences, No. 175 (May 15, 1962), p. 6.

The Sharing of Nuclear Responsibilities: A Problem in Need of Solution Andre Beaufre

T

he problem of the sharing of nuclear responsibilities has been NATO's main stumbling block in recent years. It has become obscured by opinions that are too narrow and too conservative - to the extent that it appears almost insoluble. However, in this article, I shall try to analyse the present state of this complex problem and to show that, if it is examined objectively, real and effective solutions to it can be envisaged.

In recent years, this problen~has been dominated by the differences of attitude towards it which have reflected both the aims and anxieties of the various allied nations. For the Americans, the leading partners in the alliance and controllers of 98 per cent of its nuclear capability, the desire in Europe to share in decisions relating to the planning and use of nuclear weapons has posed a specific problem: they have recognised that desire as politically and psychologically legitimate but, at the technical level, they have been unwilling to accept any solution to the problem other than the retention of nuclear co~itroli11 the hands of the President of the United States. The Americans have been committed to this attitude by the McMahon Act - which is categorical on this point - and for obvious reasons of national security. Moreover, they have regarded as hardly fair any idea that they should abandon the principle of their freedom of nuclear action when they have provided virtually the entire nuclear arsenal. Politically, they have not been able to refuse discussion of the problem, but they have been convinced that they need accept only a small share by their allies in nuclear planning, and that those allies could be satisfied by concessions more apparent than real. The attitude to the problem of Britain, the second nuclear power in the alliance, has rested on two basic aims. One of these has reflected her great Source: Internatronol Affirm, 4 l ( 3 ) ( 1965): 41 1-19

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vulnerability to nuclear attack, the strong current of domestic opinion against nuclear weapons and her fear of finding herself dragged into a nuclear conflict. That aim has been to search for the best possible means of controlling nuclear weapons to guard as far as possible against a 'war by accident'. Her second aim, an outcome of her experience in nuclear matters, has been to find less costly ways of maintaining and developing the British nuclear deterrent by including it in an inter-allied system in which Britain, by virtue of her contribution to it, could have a special place. The Germans, conscious both of providing the core of the alliance's ground defence and that their territory was likely to be the possible battlefield, have felt that they were being excluded from any share in the major decisions upon which their fate might depend. They have wanted, therefore, not only to have a guarantee of support from the American arsenal to cover every eventuality, but also to be promoted from what they have regarded as a discriminating status in the alliance. For the French, the nuclear debate began a long time ago, when it was planned to install 1.R.B.M.s and to establish stockpiles of tactical nuclear weapons in France. The French Government had never considered the 'double-key' principle as adequate because it would have given it no more than a local veto over the use of weapons based on French territory. What they insistently demanded was that France should share in the formulation of plans and in the decisions for use of those weapons, and when they failed to obtain any satisfaction they refused to allow the installation of 1.R.B.M.s and nuclear stockpiles on French soil. When General de Gaulle came to power, he reasserted the French position in a memorandum in which he proposed that the three nuclear powers in the alliance should devise a joint nuclear strategy. When this memorandum was virtually ignored, the French Government reflected its displeasure by a partial withdrawal from NATO in a series of measures which were more spectacular than substantial.

The various solutions to the basic problem of the sharing of nuclear responsibilities which have been proposed naturally reflect these different national aims and attitudes. The Americans thought they had found a solution to the problem in the plan for a multilateral force. This concept, however, was originally no more than a secondary product of the Nassau Conference, of which the principal outcome was the project for a multi-national force embracing the United States, Britain and France. As a result of France's refusal to take part that idea was stillborn, and the whole force of American diplomacy was then concentrated behind the proposal for a multilateral force originally devised primarily to meet German anxieties. This proposal had the advantage of completely safeguarding the Americans' freedom of nuclear decision while at the same time including the European forces in a system which gave them a semblance of consultation. In addition, it implied the creation of a tightly

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allows himself to argue that only by running some risk of war over the immediate issue of contention can he demonstrate resolve to his adversaries and, thus, avoid an inevitable war in the future. This formulation makes the n from the d~ssonancetwo values consonant and extricates the d e c ~ s ~ omaker produc~ngtrade-off. However, ~t 1s l~kelyto produce war ~f the adversary also ddopts it. 5trateg1sts have recogn~zedthat the "better war now than war later" concept presents real problems for the theory of deterrence, even aslde from the lessons of cognitive theory. To quote Warner Schillmg: The level of destruction that would attend a nuclear war becomes less relevant if the critical choices should be made through reference to relative, rather than absolute, costs (better World War I11 now than later). ... there will be many opportunities for statesmen to conclude accurately or inaccurately - that ... the intentions of their opponent make the costs of war unavoidable." If those with conventional views of nuclear strategy and crisis rnanagement, based largely on the rational-analytic paradigm, interpret such remarks as a challenge to the logic of deterrence, the lessons of cognitive theory must w t s see underscore and redouble this concern. Whereas conventional strateg' the "better war now than war later" formulation as a possible result of objective calculations of interest, the cognitive model suggests that statesmen are even more likely to fall back on such a formulation than objective calculations would warrant, since that formula solves one of the prevalent, subconscious problems of decision makers under uncertainty. Not only will the cognitive decision maker tend to seek out this formula, but he will tend to lock himself into this conception of his environment and the adversaries' intentions. Cognitive theory argues that the mind craves certainty and will work to establish it even when it is unwarranted by objective conditions. Selective processing and recall of information, in accordance with the principles of reinforcement and cognitive consistency, can create such certainty. As a result, the decision maker is likely to become locked into a strategy based on compellence. As the case study has shown, it is a short step from the formulation "better risk war now than face the certainty of incurring it later" to a strategy based on closed options and no choice. Ole Holsti has pointed out that "when [cognitive?]stress increases, problem solving tends to become more rigid," because the ability to "resist the pull of closure" is r e d ~ c e d . 'In ~ addition, the case study suggests that the cognitive decision maker is highly unlikely to adopt a policy based on negotiation. Negotiation entails compromise and represents the quintessence of explicit recognition of value trade-offs. The cognitive costs involved will be avoided by the decision maker under uncertainty if at all possible.

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Compellence is a most dangerous game if both players are locked into that strategy by their trade-off-avoiding conceptualizations. Steinbruner remarks: Consider, for example, the game of Chicken, long a favorite of theorists of bargaining as a simple model of political conflict. In one of its more dramatic forms, the game consists of two players each of whom drives directly a t the other a t 60 mph down the center of a deserted high-way with an audience of peers looking on. The first player to swerve to avoid collision loses, is labeled a chicken, and suffers the contempt of his peers. The game poses a classic value trade-off problem - survival on the one hand, preservation of honor on the other. Thomas Schelling has provided an analysis of the game under the assumption that both players are analytic decisionmakers. The first player to establish clearly an irreversible commitment to the center of the road (such as by tying the wheel and climbing in the back seat) will win the game. The other player, still retaining control, faces a certainty of death as against a finite loss of honor, and everyone knows how an analytic actor will resolve that choice. The scenario, which Schelling labels "compellence," is played out daily, usually for lesser stakes, on street intersections throughout the nation. One's sense of this game changes drastically if a cognitive decisionmaker is inserted into the scenario. There are at least two good reasons why such a decisionmaker might not yield to a cleverly established commitment by the opposing player: first, while focusing on other things, he may not notice the commitment; second, he may simply fail to engage in a value trade-off while carrying out his prior intention. Rather than compellence, with such a player involved, one readily imagines disaster. Viewed from the assumptions of the cognitive paradigm, moreover, it is not a disaster which emerges from an error in calculation, but rather it is the consequence of the normally functioning decision p r o c e ~ s . ~ ' In sum, the analysis of the Cuban case study in light of cognitive theory has re-emphasized the dangers of a compellence strategy. It should also make us more circumspect about the tendency to regard deterrence as a deus ex machina for avoiding nuclear war. The present analysis suggests that, in situations structured along the lines of a probable nuclear confrontation, there are "regularities of human thought" that tend to lead decision makers away from seeing the trade-offs which must be seen if deterrence is to work. At the same time, it is clear that confrontations for high stakes between superpowers d o not inevitably result in nuclear destruction. O n the contrary, there appear to be several mitigating factors:

(1) A world of mutual assured destruction may impose reality constraints on one or both players, which may lead to a stronger tendency to recognize

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trade-offs than in a first-strike world. Whereas the Cuban crisis occurred in a world where "mutual assured destruction" tended to limit the advantages of "mobilizing" first, Kaiser Wilhelm and Tsar Nicholas confronted each other in a situation that encouraged a pre-emptive first strike. According to the doctrine of the day, the realities of warfare in the railroad era put a premium on rapid mobilization and gave strong incentives against being slow to respond to an opponent's preparation for war. This situation, in which both players employed compellence strategies in a first-strike world, proved to be a deadly combination. (2) In a sense, the argument that the risks in Cuba were controlled may be right: Perhaps a moderate, well-thought-out compellence strategy (like the blockade) does involve fewer risks than a hysterical approach (like the Wilhelm-Nicholas "I can't stop" correspondence). Because the reality factor does seem to matter, a decision maker faced with a calm (and even semi-accommodating) ultimatum may be less able to rationalize a "war now versus war later" formulation, and more likely to evaluate his trade-offs analytically than if confronted with hysterical threats. (3) Khrushchev's capitulation gives rise to the suspicion that, even at the brink, not all decision makers are subject to the pressures of dissonance which prohibit value integration. What explains this fact? It might be speculated that Kennedy's dissonance was high because both values war avoidance and prestige maintenance - were extremely precious and were subjected to an extreme challenge by the Cuban confrontation. For Khrushchev, the dissonance may not have been as great if he did not view Soviet (and his personal) prestige as vitally challenged by the Cuban issue. The prospects of sacrificing a lesser value for a greater one may not cause sufficient dissonance to force the subconscious to avoid the recognition of that trade-off. From the standpoint of policy, it would be idle to warn decision makers about dangerous cognitive tendencies toward "value disaggregation" in a crisis. However, insights from cognitive theory may be instructive for peacetime discussions of weapons procurement policy. In a world of perfectly invulnerable strategic forces, even a cybernetic-cognitive decision maker might find it difficult to rationalize a "war now versus war later" formulation of his dilemma. As the case of World War I shows, in a situation of perceived vulnerability to a first strike, decision makers may be strongly inclined toward this dangerous formulation. Thus, while strategic stability has been recognized as important by strategists working in the rationalanalytic framework, it becomes doubly important when viewed in the light of cognitive theory. Strategic stability based on the mutual survivability of retaliatory forces has been a proclaimed goal of American policies of strategic procurement and arms limitation. However, it has had to compete with other goals which often conflict with the requirements of stability. The deployment of large numbers

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of high-accuracy MIRV's demonstrates that considerations of stability are not always at the top of the list when these competing goals are considered. Cognitive theory would seem to support the case that strategic stability should be given a higher priority in such deliberations.

Author's N o t e An earlier draft of this paper was prepared for Professor Warner Schilling's Colloquium on Military Technology and International Relations at Columb~aUniversity, and appeared in the Rand Corporation paper series (P-5740, October 1976). The earlier vers~on~ncludesa more extensive discussion of the 1914 case.

Notes I . This trade-off relationship 1s discussed in Alexander L. George, David K. Hall, and William R. Simons, The Limits of Coercive Diplomacy: Laos, Cuba, Vietnam (Boston: L~ttle, Brown 1971), 232-38. 2. From Schelling's article in Kathleen Archibald, ed., Strategrc Interaction and Conflict (Berkeley: University of California Press 1966), 150, as quoted in Graham Alllson, Essence of Decision (Boston: Little, Brown 1971), 19. 3. Thomas Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1960; citation from New York: Oxford University Press 1963), 4. 4. Thomas Schelling, Arms and Influence (1971 ed., New Haven: Yale University Press 1966), 69ff. 5. Schelling (fn. 3), 37; emphasis added. 6. Brodie, Strategy in the Missile Age (Princeton: Princeton Univers~tyPress 1965), 280. 7. Allison (fn. 2). 8. George and George, Woodrow W ~ I s o nand Colonel House (New York: Dover Publications 1956). 9. John D. Steinbruner, The Cybernetic Theory of Decision: N e w Dimensions of Political Analysis (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1974), 101. 10. See Irving L. Janis, Victims of Groupthink: A Psychological Study of Forergn-Policy Decisions and Fiascoes (Boston: Houghton Mifflin 1972), esp. 236-37. This shift-to-risk hypothesis has come under criticism in recent years, however. See W.L. Tullar and D.F. Johnson, Group decision-making and the risky shift: a transnational perspectiue (Technical Report 48, Rochester, N.Y.: Management Research Center, University of Rochester 1972). 11. Steinbruner (fn. 9). 12. Leon Festinger, A Theory o f Cognitive Dissonance (Evanston, Ill.: Row, Peterson 1957), 43-44. 13. Steinbruner has discussed the implications of his theory for deterrence strategies in "Beyond Rational Deterrence: The Struggle for New Conceptions," World Politics, XXVIII (January 1976). The discussion presented here takes a different direction and should not be construed as reflecting Professor Steinbruner's views on the implications of his model for deterrence theory. 14. These principles and some of their experimental underpmnings are presented in Steinbruner (fn. 9); Festinger (fn. 12); Janis (fn. 10); Jack W. Brehm and Arthur R. Cohen, Explorations in Cognitive Dissonance (New York: Wiley 1962); and Joseph H. deRivera with James N. Rosenau, The Psychological Dimension of Foreign Policy (Columbus, Ohio: Merrill 1968). 15. Brehm and Cohen (fn. 14), 71. 16. For fuller explanation and illustration of the rational-analytic paradigm, see Steinbruner (fn. 9), and Paul Samuelson, Economics (New York: McGraw-Hill 1973).

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17. Ste~nbruner(fn. 9), 5 1 . 18. lbzd., 5.5. 19. Ihid., 62. 20. lbrd., 73. 21. Ihid., 88. 22. IOid., esp. 103-09. 2.3. Experimental evidence suggests that when the objective probabil~tyof a des~rahle occurrence I S relatively high, people rend to view that probab~lityas approachmg certatnty; conversely, imposs~hility is otten irnputed to events w h ~ c hare only moderately unl~kely. DeRiver,l (fn. 14), 109. 24. Steinbruner (fn. Y), 110. The principal \tudy which Steinbruner uses to ~ l l u s t r ~ ht e~ s theory is the debate on the M.I..F. (multilateral force). His discussions of the Cuhan crisis are limited to this examination of Kennedy's cerralnty regardmg his impeachment ~ n tdo one of Kennedy's certainty in his inferences about Soviet intent~onsand the consequences of a noreyponse pol~c):89. 25. A l l ~ s o ~(in. i L ) , 8-9. 26. Ihzd., 9. 27. Theodore Sorensen, Krtzncdy (New York: Harper & Row 196.5). 705. 28. E l ~ eAbel, The Missile Crrsrs (New York: Lippincort 1966), 43. 29. Sorensen (fn. 271, 682-83. 30. See 1.E Stone, "The Continuing Debate," in Robert A. D~vine,The Cuban M m d e Crrsrs (Chicago: Quadrangle 1971), 163; and Arnold L. Horelick, "The Cuban Missile Cris~s: An Analysis of Soviet Calculation\ and Behavior," World Politics, XVI (April 1964). 3 1. Abel (fn. 28), 52. 2 . Sorensen (fn. 27), esp. 678. 3 1. Ahcl ( f n . 28), 49. 34. Hilsman, To M o l v A N a t ~ o n(Garden City, N.Y.: Lhuhleday 1967), 197. 35. Robert F. Kennedy, Thrrtcetr Days (New York: Norton 19691, 166-67. 36. Robert Kennedy, quoted in Stewart Alsop and Charles Bartlert, "In Time of Crisis," S ~ l t ~ ~ tr. ~d ~~eqn ~Post n f i (December 8, 1962), 16. 37. Ahcl (fn. 28). 70. 38. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., A Thousand Days (Boston: Houghton Mifflin 1965). 796. 39. Sorensen (fn. 271, 694. 40. I'resident Kenned!; quoted in Kennedy (fn. 35), 67. 41. Ahel (fn. ZX), 199. 42. Kennedy (fn. 35), 127. 43. Wohlstetter m d Wohlstetter, "Controlling the Risks In Cuba," In Robert J. Art 'lnd Kenneth N. Waltz, eds., T l ~ cUse of Force (Lloston: I.ittle, Brown 1971), 2.34. The quotation i \ from Stone (fn. 3 0 ) , 164. 44. In addition, each s ~ d ew ~ to s agree not to violate the sovereignty of the other's cl~ent. It should he noted that the f ~ n a lagreement did entail one elenient of "compromise." 'Thrr Ilnited Statrs agreed to torswear a n invasion of Cuba as a condition for the r e n i o v ~ ~o lf the missiles. That was not much of a concession, and Kennedy cert'l~nly lost n o prcsrigc by agreeing to it. In fact, he had to warn his subordinates not to be excessively gleeful in public print d h o i ~ tthe settlement. 45. Stone (fn. 301, 22 I. 46. Schlesinger ( f t . 377, 741; emphasis added. 47. Stone (fn. 301, 222. 48. Ahel (fn. 28), 17.5-77. 49. Stone (fn. 3 0 ) , 222. 50. Kennedy, speech at American University, June 10, 1963, quoted in Abel (tn. 28), Y 1. 5 1. Schlesinger (fn. 37), 742. 52. This docs not necessarily indicate that Khrushchev's decision was analytical In the sense of weighing tr~de-offs,making ~ndifferencecalculations, etc. It 1s possible that the cognitive pressures on Khr~ishchevand h ~ colleagues s were structured differently from those o n

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Kennedy. Only detailed information on the Soviets' decision process, which is currently unavailable, could resolve this question. 53. Schilling, "Technology and International Relations," The International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (New York: Macmillan and Free Press 1968), 593. 54. Holsti, "Crisis, Stress, and Decision-making," International Social Science Journal, XXIII, No. I (1971), 61-62, citing Sheldon J. Korchin and Seymour Levine, "Anxiety and Verbal Learning," ]ournal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, Vol. 5 4 (March 1957), 238. 55. Steinbruner (fn. 9), 147.

Contrasts in American and Soviet Strategic Thought Fritz W. Ermarth

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e are having trouble with Soviet strategic doctrine. Soviet thinking about strategy and nuclear war differs in significant ways from our own. To the extent one should care about this - and that extent is a matter of debate - we d o not like the way the Soviets seem to think. Before 1972, appreciation of differences between Soviet and American strategic thinking was limited to a small number of specialists. Those who held it a matter of high concern for policy were fewer still. Since that time, concern about the nature, origins, and consequences of these differences is considerably more widespread, in large measure as a result of worry about the Soviet strategic arms buildup and the continued frustrations of achieving a real breakthrough in SALT. Heightened attention to the way the other side thinks about strategic nuclear power is timely and proper. The nature of the Soviet buildup and some of our own previous choices have locked us out of pure "hardware solutions" to our emerging strategic security problems that are independent of the other side's values and perceptions. Whatever one thinks about the wisdom or folly of the manner in which we have pursued SALT so far, it is desirable that management of the U.S.-Soviet strategic relationship have a place for an explicit dialogue. That dialogue should include more attention to strategic concepts than we have seen in past SALT negotiations. Moreover, whatever the role of SALT in the future, the existence of "rough parity" or worse almost by definition means that we cannot limit strategic policy to contending merely with the opponent's forces. In the cause of deterrence, crisis management, and, if need be, war, we must thwart his strategy. That requires understanding that opponent better.

The Need to Understand Strategic Doctrine Let us define "strategic doctrine" as a set of operative beliefs, values, and assertions that in a significant way guide official behavior with respect to Source: Intrrnationul Srr~irity,3 ( 2 )( 1978): 1.38-55.

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strategic research and development (R&D), weapons choice, forces, operational plans, arms control, etc. The essence of U.S. "doctrine" is to deter central nuclear war at relatively low levels of arms effort ("arms race stability") and strategic anxiety ("crisis stability") through the credible threat of catastrophic damage to the enemy should deterrence fail. In that event, this doctrine says it should be the aim and ability of U.S. power to inflict maximum misery on the enemy in his homeland. Making the world following the outbreak of nuclear war more tolerable for the United States is, at best, a lesser concern. Soviet strategic doctrine stipulates that Soviet strategic forces and plans should strive in all available ways to enhance the prospect that the Soviet Union could survive as a nation and, in some politically and militarily meaningful way, defeat the main enemy should deterrence fail - and by this striving help deter or prevent nuclear war, along with the attainment of other strategic and foreign policy goals. These characterizations of U.S. and Soviet strategic doctrine and the differences between them are valid and important. Had U.S. strategic policy been more sensitive over the last ten years to the asymmetry they express, we might not find ourselves in so awkward a present situation. We would have been less sanguuine than we were about prospects that the Soviets would settle for an easily defined, non-threatening form of strategic parity. We would not have believed as uncritically as we did that the SALT process was progressing toward a common explication of already tacitly accepted norms of strategic stability. It is, if anything, even more important that these asymmetries be fully appreciated today. They are a crucial starting point for strategic diagnosis and therapy. But they are only a starting point. The constellations of thought, value, and action that we call, respectively, U.S. and Soviet strategic doctrine or policy are much more complicated, qualified, and contradictory than the above characterizations admit by themselves. To be aware of these other ramifications without fully understanding them could lead to dangerous discounting, on one hand, or distorting, on the other, the real differences between U.S. and Soviet strategic thinking.

Comparative Strategic Doctrine

The following discussion is intended only t o suggest some of the contrasts that exist between U.S. and Soviet strategic thinking. The issues raised are not treated exhaustively, and the list itself is not exhaustive. Our appreciation of these matters is not adequate to the critical times in the U.S.-Soviet strategic relationship we are facing. It would be highly desirable to develop the intellectual discipline of comparative military doctrine, especially in the strategic sphere. Systematic comparative studies of strategic doctrine could serve t o clarify what we think and how we ourselves differ on these matters, as well as to organize what we know about Soviet strategic thinking.

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Although many have and express views on how both the United States and the Soviet Union deal with strategic problems, there is in fact little systematic comparison of the conceptual and behavioral foundations of our respective strategic activity. In this area, more than other comparative inquiries into communist and non-communist politics, there are the obstacles of secrecy in the path of research. Perhaps as vital, neither government nor academic institutions appear to have cultivated many people with the necessary interdisciplinary skills and experience. The most influential factor that has inhibited lucid comparisons of U.S. and Soviet strategic thinking has been the uncritically held assumption that they had to be very similar, or a t least converging with time. Many of 11s have been quite insensitive to the possibility that two very different political systems could deal very differently with what is, in some respects, a common problem. We understood the problem of keeping the strategic peace on equitable and economical terms - or so we thought. As reasonable men the Soviets, too, would come to understand it our way. Explaining this particular expression of our cultural self-centeredness is itself a fascinating field for speculation. I think it goes beyond the American habit of value projection. It may result from the fact that post-war developments in U S . strategy were an institutional and intellectual offspring of the natural sciences that spawned modern weapons. Scientific truth is transnational, not culturally determined. But, unfortunately, strategy is more like politics than like science. The next five to ten years of the U.S.-Soviet strategic relationship could well be characterized by mounting U.S. anxieties about the adequacy of our deterrent forces and our strategic doctrine. There seems to be little real prospect that the SALT process, as we have been conducting it, will substantially alleviate these anxieties. Even if a more promising state of affairs emerges, however, it is hard t o see us managing it with calm and confidence unless we develop a more thorough appreciation of the differences between U.S. and Soviet strategic thinking. Things have progressed beyond the point where it is useful t o have the three familiar schools of thought on Soviet doctrine arguing past each other: one saying "Whatever they say, they think as we do;" the second insisting, "Whatever they say, it does not matter;" and the third contending, "They think what they say, and are therefore out for superiority over us." Comparative strategic doctrine studies should address systematically a series of questions: What are the central decisions about strategy, force posture, and force employment or operations that doctrine is supposed t o resolve for the sides examined? What are the prevailing categories, concepts, beliefs, and assertions that appear to constitute the body of strategic thought and doctrine in question? What are the hedges and qualifications introduced t o modify the main theses of official thinking?

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What are the "non-strategic," e.g., propagandistic, purposes that might motivate doctrinal pronouncements? Does the doctrinal system recognize a distinction between what ideally ought to be, and what practically is (a serious problem in the Soviet case)? In what actions, e.g., force posture, does apparent doctrine have practical effect? Where does it lie dormant? To what extent are doctrinal pronouncements the subject of or the guise for policy dispute? What perceptions does one side entertain as to the doctrinal system of the other side? With what effect? Answering these questions for both the United States and the Soviet Union is admittedly n o easy matter, especially in a highly politicized environment in which many participants have already made up their minds how they want the answers to come out with respect to assumed impact on U.S. strategic policy. But we have the data to d o a good deal better than we have to date.

U.S.a n d Soviet Doctrine Contrasted What is U.S. strategic doctrine and policy? What is Soviet strategic doctrine and policy? The Soviets provide definitions of doctrine (doktrina) and policy (politika)that state they are official principles, guidance, and instructions from the highest governing authorities to provide for the building of the armed forces and for their employment in war. The most useful thing about these definitions is that they remind us - or should -that we d o not have direct and literal access to Soviet strategic doctrine and policy through the most commonly available sources, i.e., Soviet military literature and various pronouncements of authoritative political and military figures. Our insight into Soviet strategic policy is derived by inference from such sources along with inferences from observed R&D and force procurement behavior, what we manage to learn about peacetime force operations and exercises, and occasional direct statements in more privileged settings, such as SALT, by varyingly persuasive spokesmen. The value of all these sources is constrained by the limitations of our perceptive apparatus, technical and intellectual, and the fact that Soviet communications on strategic subjects serve many purposes other than conveying official policy, such as foreign and domestic propaganda. For all that, we have gained over the years a substantial degree of understanding of the content of Soviet strategic thinking, of the values, standards, objectives, and calculations that underlie Soviet decisions. It is this total body of thinking and its bearing on action that are of concern here. Where lack of access complicates understanding of Soviet strategic doctrine, a n overabundance of data confuses understanding of the American side, a point that Soviets make with some justice when berated with the evils

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of Soviet secrecy. If, in the case of the United States, one is concerned about the body of thinking that underlies strategic action it is clearly insufficient to rely on official statements or documents a t any level of classification or authority. Such sources may, for one reason o r another, not tell the whole story or paper over serious differences of purpose behind some action. One of the difficulties in determining the concepts or beliefs that underlie U.S. strategic action is that strategic policy is a composite of behavior taking place in at least three distinguishable, but overlapping arenas. The smallest, most secretive, and least significant over the long-term, assuming deterrence does not fail, is the arena of operational or war planning. The second arena is that of system and force acquisition; it is much larger and more complex than the first. The most disorganized and largest, but most important for the longer-term course of U.S. strategic behavior is the arena of largely public debate over basic strategic principles and objectives. Its participants range from the most highly placed executive authorities to influential private elites, and occasionally the public a t large. Strategy-making is a relatively democratic process in the United States. To be sure, may areas of public policymaking can be assessed in terms of these overlapping circles of players and constituents. But the realm of U.S. strategic policy may be unusual in the degree to which different rules, data, concerns, and participants dominate the different arenas. These differences make it difficult t o state with authority what U.S. strategic policy is on an issue that cuts across the arenas. For example, public U.S. policy may state a clear desire t o avoid counter-silo capabilities on stability grounds. The weapons acquisition community may, for a variety of reasons, simultaneously be seeking a weapons characteristic vital t o counter-silo capability, improved ballistic missile accuracy. As best they can with weapons available, meanwhile, force operators may be required by the logic of their task t o target enemy missile silos as a high priority. Despite these complexities, however, it is ~ o s s i b l eto generalize a body of policy concepts and values that govern U.S. strategic behavior. There are strong tendencies that dominate U.S. strategic behavior in the areas of declaratory policy, force acquisition, and arms control policy. Again, the case of US. counter-silo capabilities may be cited. Today, the United States lacks high confidence capabilities against Soviet missile silos; it may continue to lack them for some time or indefinitely. This is in part the result of technological choice, the early selection of small ICBMs and the deployment of low-yield MIRV weapons. It is also the result of Soviet efforts to improve silo hardness. But the main reason for this lack is that we have abided by a conscious judgment that a serious counter-silo capability, because it threatens strategic stability, is a bad thing for the United States to possess. The situation seems more straightforward, if secretive, on the Soviet side. Soviet strategic policymaking takes place in a far more vertical and closed system. Expertise is monopolized by the military and a subset of the top political leadership. Although elites external t o this group can bid for its scarce resources to some extent, they cannot seriously challenge its values

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and judgments. Matters of doctrine, force acquisition, and war planning are much more intimately connected within this decision group than in the United States. Policy arguments are indeed possible. Public evidence suggests a series of major Soviet debates on nuclear strategy from the mid-1950s to the late 1960s, although identification of issues, alternatives, and parameters in these debates must be somewhat speculative. These considerations make difficult, but not impossible, the comparative treatment of U.S. and Soviet strategic belief systems and concepts. One may describe with some confidence how the two very different decision systems deal with certain concerns central t o the strategic nuclear predicament of both sides. Much about U.S. and Soviet strategic belief systems can be captured by exploring how they treat five central issues: (1) the consequences of an all-out strategic nuclear war, (2) the phenomenon of deterrence, (3) stability, (4) distinctions and relationships between intercontinental and regional strategic security concerns, and ( 5 )strategic conflict limitation. C o n s e q u e n c e s of N u c l e a r W a r

For a generation, the relevant elites of both the United States and the Soviet Union have agreed that an unlimited strategic nuclear war would be a sociopolitical disaster of immense proportions. Knowing the experiences of the peoples of the Soviet Union with warfare in this century and with nuclear inferiority since 1945, one sometimes suspects that the human dimensions of such a catastrophe are more real to Russians, high and low, than to Americans, for whom the prospect is vague and unreal, if certainly forbidding. For many years the prevailing U.S. concept of nuclear war's consequences has been such as to preclude belief in any military or politically meaningful form of victory. Serious effort on the part of the state to enhance the prospect for national survival seemed quixotic, even dangerous. Hence stems our relative disinterest in air defenses and civil defenses over the last fifteen years, and our genuine fear that ballistic missile defenses would be severely destabilizing. Growth of Soviet nuclear power has certainly clinched this view of nuclear conflict among critical elements of the U.S. elite. But even when the United States enjoyed massive superiority, when the Soviet Union could inflict much less societal damage on the United States, and then only in a first strike (through the early 1960s), the awesome destructiveness of nuclear weapons had deprived actual war with these weapons of much of its strategic meaning for the United States. The Soviet system has, however, in the worst of times, clung tenaciously to the belief that nuclear war cannot - indeed, must not - be deprived of strategic meaning, i.e., some rational relationship to the interests of the state. It has insisted that, however awful, nuclear war must be survivable and some kind of meaningful victory attainable. As most are aware, this issue was debated in various ways at the beginning and end of the Khrushchev era, with Khrushchev on both sides of the issue. But the system decided it had to -

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believe in survival and victory of some form. Not so to believe would mean that the most basic processes of history, on which Soviet ideology and political legitimacy are founded, could be derailed by the technological works of man and the caprice of an historically doomed opponent. Moreover, as the defenders of doctrinal rectitude continued to point out, failure to believe in the "manageability" of nuclear disaster would lead to pacificism, defeatism, and lassitude in the Soviet military effort. This should not be read as the triumph of ideological will over objective science and practical reason. From the Soviet point of view, nuclear war with a powerful and hostile America was a real danger. Could the state merely give up on its traditional responsibilities to defend itself and survive in that event? Their negative answer hardly strikes one as unreasonable. Their puzzlement, alternating between contemptuous and suspicious, over U.S. insistence on a positive answer is not surprising. In recent years the changing strategic balance has had the effect of strengthening rather than weakening the asymmetry of the two sides' convictions on this matter. Dubious when the United States enjoyed relative advantage, strategic victory and survival in nuclear conflict have become the more incredible to the United States as the strategic power o f the Russians has grown. For the Soviets, however, the progress of arms and war-survival programs has transformed what was in large measure an ideological imperative into a more plausible strategic potential. For reasons to be examined below, Soviet leaders possibly believe that, under favorable operational conditions, the Soviet Union could win a central strategic war today. Notwithstanding strategic parity or essential equivalence of force, they may also believe they could lose such a conflict under some conditions. Deterrence The concept of deterrence early became a central element of both U.S. and Soviet strategic belief systems. For both sides the concept had extended or regional dimensions, and a good deal of political content. There has, in short, been some functional symmetry between the deterrence thinking of the two sides: restraint of hostile action across a spectrum of violence by the threat of punishing consequences in war. Over time and with shifts in the overall military balance, latent asymmetries of thinking have become more pronounced. For the United States, strategic deterrence has tended to become the only meaningful objective of strategic policy, and it has become progressively decoupled from regional security. For the Soviets, deterrence or war prevention - was the first, but not the only and not the last objective of strategy. Deterrence also meant the protection of a foreign policy that had both offensive and defensive goals. And it was never counterposed against the ultimate objective of being able to manage a nuclear war successfully should deterrence fail. The Soviet concept of deterrence has evolved as the strategic balance has improved for the Soviet Union from primary emphasis on defensive themes of war prevention and protection of

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prior political gains to more emphasis on themes that include the protection of dynamic processes favoring Soviet international interests. Repetition of the refrain that detente is a product of Soviet strategic power, among other things, displays this evolution. Stability

Strategic stability is a concept that is very difficult to treat in a comparative manner because it is so vital to U.S. strategic thinking, but hardly identifiable in Soviet strategic writings. In U.S. thinking, strategic stability has meant a condition in which incentives inherent in the arms balance to initiate the use of strategic nuclear forces and, closely related, to acquire new or additional forces are weak or absent. In an environment dominated by powerful offensive capabilities and comparatively vulnerable ultimate values, i.e., societies, stability was thought to be achievable on the basis of a contract of mutually vulnerable societies and survivable offensive forces. Emphasis on force survivability followed, as did relative uninterest in counterforce, active, and passive defenses. Soviet failure to embrace these notions is sufficiently evident not to require much elaboration. One may argue about Soviet ability to overturn stability in U.S. terms, but not about Soviet disinclination to accept the idea as a governing principle of strategic behavior. Soviet acceptance of the ABM agreement in 1972 is still frequently cited as testimony to some acceptance of this principle. It is much more probable, however, that the agreement was attractive to Moscow because superior U.S. ABM technology plus superior U.S. ABM penetrating technology would have given the United States a major advantage during the mid- to late 1970s. In a unilateral sense, the Soviets saw the ABM agreement as stabilizing a process of strategic catchup against a serious risk of reversal. But it did not mean acceptance of the U.S. stability principle. The United States has always been relatively sensitive to the potential of technology to jeopardize specific formulae for achieving stability, although it has been relatively slow t o perceive the pace and extent to which comparative advantage has shifted from passive survivability to counterforce technologies. The Soviets have also been sensitive to destabilizing technologies. But they have tended to accept the destabilizing dynamism of technology as an intrinsic aspect of the strategic dialectic, the underlying engine of which is a political competition not susceptible to stabilization. For the Soviets, arms control negotiations are part of this competitive process. Such negotiation can help keep risks within bounds and also, by working on the U.S. political process, restrain U.S. competitiveness. Soviet failure to embrace U.S. strategic stability notions as strategic norms does not mean, as a practical matter, that the Soviets fail to see certain constellations of weapons technology and forces as having an intrinsic stability, in that they make the acquisition of major advantages very difficult. What they reject is the notion that, in the political and technical world as they see it, those

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constellations can be frozen and the strategic competition dimension thereby factored out of the East-West struggle permanently or for long periods. Intercontinental a n d Regional Defining the boundary line between strategic and non-strategic forces has been a troubling feature of SALT from the beginning. It is one of diplomacy's minor ironies that forward capabilities the United States has long regarded as part of the general purpose forces we have been hard pressed t o keep out of the negotiations. But peripheral strike forces the Soviets have systematically defined and managed as strategic seem very difficult t o bring into the picture. Geography imparted an intercontinental meaning t o the term strategic for the United States. The same geography dictated that, for the Soviet Union, strategic concern began a t the doorstep. Soviet concern about the military capabilities in the hands of and on the territory of its neighbors is genuine, although Soviet arguments for getting the United States t o legitirnatize and pay for those concerns a t SALT in terms of its own central force allowances have been a bit contrived. They are tantamount t o penalizing the United States for having friends, while rewarding the Soviet Union for conducting itself in a manner that has left it mostly vassals and opponents on its borders. Underlying these definitional problems are more fundamental differences between U.S. and Soviet doctrines on what is generally called "coupling." It has long been U.S. policy t o assure that U.S. strategic nuclear forces are seen by the Soviets and our NATO allies as tightly coupled to European security. Along with conventional and theater nuclear forces, U.S. strategic nuclear forces constitute an element of the NATO "triad." The good health of the alliance politically and the viability of deterrence in Europe have been seen t o require a very credible threat to engage U.S. strategic nuclear forces once nuclear weapons come into play above the level of quite limited use. For more than twenty years NATO's official policy has had t o struggle against doubts that this coupling could be credible in the absence of clear U.S. strategic superiority. Yet the vocabularly we commonly employ itself tends t o strain this linkage in that theater nuclear forces are distinguished from strategic. Ironically, the struggle to keep so-called Forward Based Systems out of SALT, because we could not find a good way to bring in comparable Soviet systems, tended t o underline the distinction. In o u r thinking about the actual prosecution of a strategic conflict, once conflict a t that level begins we tend t o forget about what might be the local outcome of the regional conflict that probably precipitated the strategic exchange. The Soviets, on the other hand, appear to take a more comprehensive view of strategy and the strategic balance. Both in peacetime political competition and in the ultimate test of a central conflict, they tend to see all force elements as contributing to a unified strategic purpose, national survival and

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the elimination or containment of enemies on their periphery. The U.S.S.R. tends t o see intercontinental forces, and strategic forces more generally, as a means to help it win an all-out conflict in its most crucial theater, Europe. Both institutionally and operationally, Soviet intercontinental strike forces are an outgrowth and extension of forces initially developed to cover peripheral targets. Land combat forces, including conventional forces, are carefully trained and equipped to fight in nuclear conditions. In the last decade, the emergence of a hostile and potentially powerful China has more firmly riveted the "rimland" of Eurasia into the Soviet strategic perspective. Whatever the consequence of a central U S S o v i e t nuclear conflict for their respective homelaids, it could well have the effect of eliminating U.S. power and influence on the Eurasian landmass for a long time. If, by virtue of its active and passive damage-limitation measures, the Soviet Union suffered measurably less damage than did the United States, and it managed to intimidate China or destroy Chinese military power, the resultant Soviet domination of Eurasia could represent a crucial element of "strategic victory" in Soviet eyes. In any case, regional conflict outcomes seem not to lose their significance in Soviet strategy once strategic nuclear conflict begins. Conflict Limitation

Nuclear conflict limitation is a theme on which influential American opinion is divided. After much thought and argument, the previous administration adopted a more explicit endorsement of limited strategic nuclear options as a hedge against the failings of a strategy solely reliant on all-out war plans for deterrence or response in the event of deterrent failure. The present administration has appeared more doubtful about the value of limited nuclear options because it appears generally to doubt the viability of nuclear conflict limitations. It may also share the fear of some critics that limited options could seem to make nuclear use more tolerable and therefore detract from deterrence. Theories of nuclear conflict limitation entertained in the United States tend t o rest on concepts of risk management and bargaining with the opponent. We are interested in limited options because they are more credible than unlimited ones in response to limited provocation. Whether or not they can be controlled is uncertain; hence their credible presence enhances the risk faced by the initiator of conflict. Should conflict come about, then limited options might be used to change the risk, cost, and benefit calculus of the opponent in the direction of some more or less tolerable war termination. This would not be a sure thing, but better have the limited options than not. How the Soviets view the matter of nuclear conflict limitations is obscure. The least one can say is that they d o not see it in the manner described above. From the early 1960s, after McNamara's famed Ann Arbor speech, Soviet propagandists have denounced limited nuclear war concepts as U.S. contrivances to make nuclear weapons use more "acceptable" and to rationalize

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the quest for counterforce advantages. They have replayed the criticism that such concepts weaken deterrence and cannot prevent nuclear war from becoming unlimited. To some degree, Soviet propaganda on this theme is suspect for being aimed at undermining U.S. strategy innovations that detract from the political benefits of Soviet strategic force improvement. Given differences of view in the United States o n this subject, moreover, the Soviets could hardly resist the temptation to fuel the U.S. argument. There are several reasons why Soviet public pronouncements should not be taken as entirely reflecting the content of operative Soviet strategic thinking and planning regarding limited nuclear use. For one thing, qualified acceptance in doctrine and posture of a nonnuclear scenario, or at least a non-nuclear phase, in theater conflict displays some Soviet willingness to embrace conflict limitation notions previously rejected. Soviet strategic nuclear force growth and modernization, in addition, have given Soviet operational planners a broader array of employment options than they had in the 1960s and may have imparted some confidence in Soviet ability to enforce conflict limitations. It would not be surprising, therefore, to find some Soviet contingency planning for various kinds of limited nuclear options at the theater and, perhaps, at the strategic level. One may seriously doubt, however, whether Soviet planners would approach the problem of contingency planning for limited nuclear options with the conceptual baggage the U.S. system carries. It would seem contrary t o the style of Soviet doctrinal thinking to emphasize bargaining and risk management. Rather the presence of limited options planning in the Soviet system would seem likely t o rest on more traditional military concepts of economizing on force use, controlling actions and their consequences, reserving options, and leaving time t o learn what is possible in the course of a campaign. The Soviet limited options planner would seem likely t o approach his task with a more strictly unilateral set of concerns than his American counterpart.

Methods of Assessing the Strategic Balance Comparative study of U.S. and Soviet strategic doctrine should give attention t o a closely related matter: how we perceive and measure force balances. Allusion has already been made to asymmetries between U.S. and Soviet definitions of strategic forces, what should be counted in SALT, etc. This is by no means the heart of the matter. U.S. and Soviet methodologies for measuring military strength appear to differ significantly. Many rather amateurish and misleading beliefs about the way the Soviets measure and value military strength prevail; for example, that the Soviets have some atavistic devotion t o mass and size. Mass they d o believe in because both experience and analysis show that mass counts. They can be quite choosey about size, however, as a look a t their tank and fighter designs reveals. Within the limits of their technological potential, they have

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been quite sensitive and in no way primitive in their thinking about quality/ quantity tradeoffs. Another widespread notion is that the Soviets have an unusual propensity for worst-case planning or military overinsurance. This is hard to demonstrate convincingly in Soviet behavior. The Soviet theory of war in central Europe, for example, is daring, not conservative. Despite much rhetoric on the danger of surprise and the need for high combat readiness, Soviet strategic planning has not accorded nearly the importance to "bolt-from-the-blue" surprise attack that the United States has. This does not look like overinsurance. The problem of measuring strength goes more deeply to differing appreciations of the processes of conflict and how they bear on force measurement. U.S. measures of the overall strategic balance tend to be of two general types. First come the so-called static measures of delivery vehicles, weapons, megatonage and equivalent megatonage, throwweight, and, perhaps, some measure of hard-target kill (such as weapon numbers times a scaled yield factor divided by the square of Circular Error Probability). Comparisons of this type can display some interesting things about differing forces. But they say very little about how those forces, much less the nations that employ them, will fare in war. By themselves, static measures can be dangerously misleading. We then move on to the second, or quasi-dynamic, class of measures. Here the analyst is out to capture the essential features of a "real war" in terms general enough to allow parametric application, frequent reiteration of the analysis with varying assumptions, and easy swamping of operational and technical details which he may not be able to quantify or of which he may be ignorant. Typically, certain gross attributes of the war "scenario" will be determined, e.g., levels of alert, who goes first, and very general targeting priorities. Then specified "planning factor" performance characteristics are attributed to weapons. Because it is relatively easy (and fun), a more or less elaborate version of the ICBM duel is frequently conducted. The much more subtle and complicated, but crucial, engagement of air and sea-based forces is usually handled by gross assumption, e.g., n percent of bomber weapons get to target, all SSBNs at sea survive. Regional conflicts and forces are typically ignored. Of course, all command/control/communications systems are assumed to work as planned - otherwise the forces, and even worse, the analyst would be out of business. Finally, "residuals" of surviving forces, fatality levels, and industrial damage are totaled up. A popular variant is to run a countermilitary war in these terms and then see whether residual forces are sufficient to inflict "unacceptable damage" on cities. If so, then deterrence is intact according to some. Others point to grossly asymmetric levels of surviving forces to document an emerging strategic imbalance. Most specialists agree and explicitly admit that this kind of analysis does not capture the known, much less the unknown complexities, uncertainties, and fortuities of a real strategic nuclear conflict of any dimension. Such liturgical admissions are usually offered to gain absolution from their obvious consequences, namely that the analysis in question could be, not illuminating, but

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quite wrong. However, more heroic analytic attempts at capturing the real conlplexity and operational detail of a major nuclear exchange are usually not made because they are: a ) usually beyond the expertise of single analysts or small groups, b) not readily susceptible t o varied and parametric application, and c) still laden by manifold uncertainties and unknowns that are very hard to quantify. Hence they are very hard t o apply to the tasks of assessing strategic force balances or the value of this or that force improvement. The more simplistic analysis is more convenient. The analyst can conduct it many times, and talk over his results with other analysts who d o the same thing. The whole methodology thereby acquires a reality and persuasiveness of its own. The influence of this kind of analysis in our strategic decision system has many explanations. It has sociological origins in the dominance of economists and engineers over soldiers in the conduct of our strategic affairs. It conforms with the needs of a flat and argumentative policy process in which there are many and varied participants, from generals to graduate students. They need a common idiom that does not soak up too much computer time and can be unclassified. And finally, in part because of the first explanation cited, when it comes to nuclear strategy, we d o not believe much in "real" nuclear war anyway. We are after a standard of sufficiency that is adequate and persuasive in a peacetime setting. Two things about this style of strategic analysis merit staring in the context of this paper. First, on the face of it, the value of simplistic, operationallyinsensitive methodologies is assuredly less in the present strategic environment than it was when the United States enjoyed massive superiority. Not only are weapons, force mixes, and scenarios more complicated than these methodologies can properly illuminate, but the relative equality of the two sides going into the conflict makes the subleties, complexities, and uncertainties all the more important for how they come out. Second, the Soviets d o not appear to do their balance measuring in this manner. One can gain a fair insight into the manner of Soviet force balance analysis from public sources, particularly Soviet military literature. Additional inferences can be drawn from the organization and professional composition of the Soviet defense decision system, and from some of the results of Soviet decisions. O n the whole it appears that Soviet planners and force balance assessors are much more sensitive than we are to the subtleties and uncertainties - what we sometimes call "scenario dependencies" - of strategic conflict seen from a very operational perspective. The timing and scale of attack initiation, tactical deception and surprise, uncertainties about weapons effects, the actual character of operational plans and targeting, timely adjustment of plans to new information, and, most important, the continued viability of command and control - these factors appear to loom large in Soviet calculations of conflict outcomes. The important point, however, is a conceptual one: Unlike the typical U.S. planner, the Soviet planner does not appear t o see the force balance prior t o conflict as a kind of physical reification of the war outcome and therefore as a measure of strategic strength by itself. Rather he seems to see

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the force balance, the "correlation of military forces," as one input to a complex combat process in which other factors of great significance will play, and the chief aim of which is a new, more favorable balance of forces. The sum of these factors is strategy, and strategy is a significant variable to the Soviet planner. As a generalization, then, the Soviet planner is very sensitive to operational details and uncertainties. Because these factors can swing widely, even wildly, in different directions, a second generalization about Soviet force analysis emerges: a given force balance in peacetime can yield widely varying outcomes to war depending on the details and uncertainties of combat. Some of those outcomes could be relatively good for the Soviet Union, others relatively bad. The planner's task is to improve the going-in force balance, t o be sure. But it is also to develop and pursue ways of waging war that tend to push the outcome in favorable directions. This kind of thinking occasions two very unpleasant features in Soviet military doctrine: a strong tendency to preempt and a determination to suppress the enemy's command and control system at all costs. The Soviets tend to see any decision t o go to nuclear war as being imposed on them by a course of events that tells them "war is coming," a situation they bungled memorably in June 1941. It makes no difference whose misbehavior started events on that course. Should they find themselves on it, their operational perspective on the factors that drive war outcomes places a high premium on seizing the initiative and imposing the maximum disruptive effects on the enemy's forces and war plans. By going first, and especially disrupting command and control, the highest likelihood of limiting damage and coming out of the war with intact forces and a surviving nation is achieved, virtually independent of the force balance. This leads to a final generalization. We tend rather casually to assume that, when we talk about parity and "essential equivalence" and the Soviets about "equal security," we are talking about the same thing: functional strategic stability. We are not. The Soviets are talking about a going-in force balance in which they have an equal or better chance of winning a central war, if they can orchestrate the right scenario and take advantage of lucky breaks. It is the job of the high command to see that they can. If it fails to do so, the Soviet Union could possibly lose the war. This is not stability in our terms. Again, this is not to argue that the Soviets d o not foresee appalling destruction as the result of any strategic exchange under the best of conditions. In a crisis, Soviet leaders would probably take any tolerable and even some not-very-tolerable exits from the risk of such a war. But their image of strategic crisis is one in which these exits are closing up, and the "war is coming". They see the ultimate task of strategy to be the provision of forces and options for preempting that situation. This then leads them to choose strategies that, from a U.S. point of view, seem not particularly helpful in keeping the exits open, and even likely to close them off. It is frequently argued - more frequently as we become more anxious about the emerging force balance -that the Soviets could not have confidence

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in launching a strategic attack and achieving the specific objectives that theoretical analysis might suggest to be possible, such as destruction of Minuteman. Particularly because they are highly sensitive to operational uncertainties they would not, in one of the more noteworthy phrases of the latest Defense Department posture statement, gamble national survival on a "single cosmic throw of the dice." This construction of the problem obscures the high likelihood that decisions to go to strategic war will be made under great pressure and in the face of severe perceived penalty if the decision is not made and the war comes anyway. They are not likely to come about in a situation in which the choice is an uncertain war or a comfortable peace. It also obscures the fact that the heavy weight o f uncertainty will also rest o n the shoulders of U.S. decisionmakers in a crisis.

Dangers of Misunderstanding

In sum, there are fundamental differences between U.S. and Soviet strategic thinking, both at the level of value and at the level of method. The existence of these differences and, even more, our failure to recognize them have had dangerous consequences for the U.S.-Soviet strategic relationship. One such might be called the "hawk's lament." Failing to appreciate the character of Soviet strategic thinking in relation to our own views, we have underestimated the competitiveness of Soviet strategic policy and the need for con~petitiveresponsiveness on our part. This is evident in both our SAI,T and our strategic force modernization behavior. A second negative effect might be termed the "dove's lament." By projecting our views onto the Soviets, and failing to appreciate their real motives and perceptions, we have underestimated the difficulties of achieving genuine strategic stability through SALT and over-sold the value of what we have achieved. This has, in turn, set us up for profound, perhaps even hysterical, disillusionment in the years ahead, in which the very idea of negotiated arms control could be politically discredited. If present strategic trends continue, it is not hard to imagine a future political environment in which it would be difficult to argue for arms control negotations even of a very hard-nosed sort. The third and most dangerous consequence of our misunderstanding of Soviet strategy involves excessive confidence in strategic stability. U.S. strategic behavior, in its broadest sense, has helped to ease the Soviet Union onto a course of more assertive international action. This has, in turn, increased the probability of a major East-West confrontation, arising not necessarily by Soviet design, in which the United States must forcefully resist a Soviet advance or face collapse of its global position, while the Soviet Union cannot easily retreat or compromise because it has newly acquired global power status to defend and the matter at issue could be vital. In such conditions, it is all too easy to imagine a "war is coming" situation in which the abstract technical factors on which we rest our confidence in stability, such as expected

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force survival levels and "unacceptable damage," could crumble away. The strategic case for "waiting to see what happens," for conceding the operational initiative to the other side - which is what crisis stability is all about could look very weak. Each side could see the great operational virtues of preemption, be convinced that the other side sees them too, and be hourly more determined that the other side not have them. This, in any case, could be the Soviet way of perceiving things. Given the relative translucence of U.S. versus Soviet strategic decision processes, however, our actual ability to preempt is likely to be less than the Soviets', quite apart from the character of the force balance. Add to that the problem of a vulnerable Minuteman ICBM force and you have a potentially very nasty situation. What we know about the nature of our own strategic thinking and that of the Soviet Union is not at all comforting at this juncture. The Soviets approach the problem of managing strategic nuclear power with highly competitive and combative instincts. Some have argued that these instincts are largely fearful and defensive, others that they are avaricious and confident. My own reading of Russian and Soviet history is that they are both, and, for that, the more difficult to handle. The United States and the Soviet Union share two awesome problems in common, the creation of viable industrial societies and the management of nuclear weapons. Despite much that is superficially common t o our heritages, however, these two societies have fundamentally different political cultures that determine how they handle these problems. The stamp of a legal, commercial, and democratic society is clearly seen in the way the United States has approached the task of managing nuclear security. Soviet styles of managing this problem bear the stamp of an imperial, bureaucratic, and autocratic political tradition. While the United States is willing t o see safety in a compact of "live and let live" under admittedly unpleasant conditions, the Soviet Union operates from a political tradition that suspects the viability of such deals, and expects them, at best, to mark the progress of historically ordained forces to ascendancy. It is not going t o be easy to stabilize the strategic competition on this foundation of political traditions. But if we understand the situation clearly, there should be no grounds for fatalism. Along with a very uncomfortable degree of competitiveness, Soviet strategic policy contains a strong element of professionalism and military rationalism with which we can do business in the interest of a common safety if we enhance those qualities in ourselves. The Soviets respect military power and they take warfare very seriously. When the propaganda and polemics are pared away, they sometimes wonder if we do. We can make a healthy contribution t o our own future, and theirs, by rectifying this uncertainty.

Why Nuclear Superiority Doesn't Matter Robert Jervis

Assured Destruction and Flexible Response

P

roponents of AD argue that the vulnerability of population centers in both the United States and the Soviet Union that conies with mutual second-strike capability has transformed strategy. Because a military advantage n o longer assures a decisive victory, old ways of thinking are no longer appropriate. The healthy fear of devastation, which cannot be exorcised short of the attainment of a first-strike capability, makes deterrence relatively easy. Furthermore, because cities cannot he taken out o f hostage, the perceived danger of total destruction is crucial at all points in the threat, display, or use of force. Four implications follow. First, because gaining the upper hand in purely military terms cannot protect one's country, various moves in a limited war such as using large armies, employing tactical nuclear weapons, or even engaging in limited strategic strikes - are less important for influencing the course of the battle than for showing the other side that a continuation of the conflict raises an ~lnacceptabledanger that things will get o ~ i of t hand. New weapons are introduced not to gain a few miles of territory, but to engage in what Schelling has called competition in risk taking.' Escalation dominance - the ability to prevail at every level of military conflict below that of all-out war - is thus neither necessary nor sufficient to reach one's goals, be they to preserve the status quo or to change it. Being able to win on the battlefield does not guarantee winning one's objectives, since the risk of escalation may be too great to justify the expected benefits. Second, it does not matter which side has more nuclear weapons. In the past, having a larger army than one's neighbor allowed one to conquer it and protect one's own population. Having a larger nuclear stockpile yields no such gains. Deterrence comes from having enough weapons to destroy the other's cities; this capability is an absolute, not a relative, one.' Source: /'olitic~z/S&WCC Q ~ ~ a r t t ' r94(4) ~ y , ( 1979-80): 6 17-33,

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Third, if national security is provided by one's capability to destroy the opponent, not by the possession of a more effective military machine than the other side, then the force that drives the security dilemma is sapped. The security dilemma is created by the fact that in the prenuclear era weapons and policies that made one country secure made others insecure. An army large enough t o protect the state was usually large enough to threaten a neighbor with invasion, even if the state did not intend such a threat. But when security comes from the absolute capability to annihilate one's enemy, then each side can gain it simultaneously. Neither side need acquire more than a second-strike capability and, if either does, the other need not respond since its security is not threatened.3 A fourth aspect of the AD position is that nuclear war is very unlikely because to initiate it a statesman would have to be willing to run the risk that his country's population centers would be destroyed. Not only is "the ~ because statesmen know balance of terror ... decidedly not d e l i ~ a t e , "but, that imprudent action could lead to all-out war, the resulting deterrence covers a lot more than attacks on one's homeland. To take any major offensive action is to run an intolerably high risk of escalation. The United States and the Soviet Union may engage in fierce rhetorical battles and even use force in such peripheral areas as Africa and Asia, but there are sharp limits to how far they can push each other. The chance that such attempts would lead t o total destruction is simply too great. (And it can be too great even though it is very low. That is, even a very small probability of escalation is sufficient to deter serious encroachments.) The Flexible Response position is different on all counts. Its logic is best seen in terms of what Glenn Snyder has called the stability-instability paradox."ecause the balance is so stable at the level of all-out nuclear war, each side is relatively free to engage in provocations and military actions at lower levels of violence. The most obvious application of this argument is that if NATO lacks the ability to defend Europe with conventional weapons, it faces the danger of having to fight such a war: thus the Soviet second-strike capability would "deter our deterrent" (to paraphrase the title from a n article by Paul Nitze)."he same argument can be applied to more bizarre situations. To secure some highly valued goal the Russians might destroy most of the American Minuteman force. Since its cities were still in hostage, the United States would be deterred from striking back at Soviet cities. For the advocates of FR, the United States must be prepared to fight a war - or rather a variety of wars - in order to gain a better chance of deterring the Soviets from making any military moves, to deter them from escalating if they d o move, and to secure as favorable an outcome as possible at any level of violence. In contrast to the AD view, FR argues that in the nuclear era, as in earlier times, the absolute amount of armaments on each side is less important than the relative amounts because each nation's military forces as well as its population centers are potential targets. As decision makers stop thinking that any war must be total and realize that the stabilityinstability paradox allows a wider range of contingencies of controlled and

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less self-defeating strikes, the importance of the details of the strategic balance becomes clear.' Proponents of FR thus disagree with the AD position that the inherent riskiness of any major provocation in the nuclear era means that a secondstrike capability protects against much more than an unrestrained assault o n the country's homeland. Secretary of Defense Brown a r g ~ ~ ethat s "we now recognize that the strategic nuclear forces can deter only a relatively narrow range of contingencies, much smaller in range than was foreseen Brown, like Schlesinger before him, only 20 or 30 years ago.""imilarly, claims that "only if we have the capability to respond realistically and effectively to an attack at a variety of levels can we ... have the confidence necessary to a credible deterrent."' But, the proponents of AD would reply, this argument advocating something approximating escalation dominance misses the point. No state can respond "effectively" in the sense of being able to take its population centers out of hostage; thus, it is the willingness to run risks and the perceptions of this willingness that will determine whether a response is "realistic" and a threat is credible.

Much of the difference between the two schools of thought turns on differing ideas about stability. Both groups agree on the overwhelming importance of preserving one's cities. But for the proponents of FR, the common interest in avoiding a mutually disastrous outcome can be used as a lever to extract competitive concessions. Either side can take provocative actions because the other cannot credibly threaten to respond by all-out war. Proponents of AD, on the other hand, see stability as broader, and deterrence as covering a wider set of interests, since it follows from the reasonable fear that any challenge to an opponent's vital interest could escalate. Paradoxically, stability is in part the product of the belief that the world is not entirely stable, that things could somehow get out of control. There are two elements that influence beliefs about the extent to which the risks of escalation could be kept limited and controlled, and it is not surprising that advocates of AD and FR disagree about both. The first elenient is the American reaction and the Soviet anticipation of it. Advocates of FR fear that the Russians might be certain enough that the United States would not use nuclear weapons in response to a major provocation to make such a provocation worth taking. Those who support a policy of AD deny this, noting that the United States has behaved too unpredictably for any state to be sure what it will do. Part of the reason for the disagreement on this point is that proponents of both AD and FR project their views onto the governments of the United States and the Soviet Union. The latter believe, and the former deny, that a large Russian arms build-up would intimidate the United States. The other element in the belief about whether the risks would seem controllable is a judgment about the inherent limits of manipulation and

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prediction in human affairs. While these factors are rarely discussed explicitly, the tone of much of the FR writings implies that men can make fine, complex, and accurate calculations. Friction, uncertainty, failures of implementation, and the fog of battle d o not play a major role. Men see clearly, their subordinates are able to carry out intricate instructions, and the other side gets the desired message. Thus, Secretary Brown recently argued that "if we try bluffing [the Russians with a threat of massive retaliation], ways can be found by others to test our bluffs without undue risk to them."I0 Such attempts would involve reasonable risks only if the situation were under complete control and seen by the Soviets as relatively safe, and then only if they believed this to be the case. (But many proponents of FR also believe that the United States cannot rely on tactical nuclear weapons to defend Europe because their use could too easily lead to all-out war. This fits oddly with the belief that the superpowers could fight a limited strategic war.) For the advocates of AD, this is a dream world. War plans can be drawn up on this basis, but reality will not conform. Furthermore, decision makers, having experienced the multiple ways in which predictions prove incorrect and situations get out of control, d o not commit the fallacy of believing that escalation could be carefully manipulated and thus would not place any faith in the precise options of limited nuclear warfare. FR advocates see the need for a policy they consider to be prudential in the sense of being able to cope with unlikely but dangerous contingencies because they d o not think decision makers can be counted on to avoid terrible risks; proponents of AD d o not think American policy has to cover such remote possibilities because they are confident that statesmen are at least minimally prudent. This difference in beliefs - or perhaps I should say in intuitions - goes far to explain why some of the proponents of FR see a much greater danger of a Russian first strike than d o advocates of AD. One would not expect any difference of opinion here since the question seems entirely technical. But it is not. To launch a first strike in the belief that one could destroy most of an opponent's strategic forces is to accept a set of complex and uncertain calculations: the weapons have never been tested under fully operational conditions; accuracies are estimated from performances over test ranges, which may be different when the missiles are fired over different parts of the earth; the vulnerability of the other side's silos (and one's own) can never be known with certainty before the war; and the effects on the environment of huge nuclear explosions can only be guessed at. The same orientation that leads one to believe that statesmen could be sufficiently confident of their ability to prevent escalation to allow them to engage in major provocations also fits with the conclusion that statesmen might place sufficient confidence in their estimates to launch a disarming strike. If differences in beliefs about the risks inherent in major provocations are one source of the dispute between AD and FR, another is a difference in perceptions of the risks that the Russians are willing to run. Most proponents of AD argue that while the desire to expand is not completely absent, the Russians are not so strongly motivated in this regard as to be

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willing to endanger what they have already gained. Proponents of FR argue not that the Russians want war, but that they care enough about increasing their influence to run significant risks to reach that goal. And by acquiring massive military might, the Russians could hope to be better able to expand without courting dangerous confrontations. The proponents of A D would reply that almost no decision maker in the world's history would embark on a course of expansion while his cities were held hostage. The sort of leaders the proponents of FR posit are very rare - even Hitler probably was not an example, since he knew that if he could militarily defeat the Allies he could protect his own country. Because the advocates of AD believe the Russians to be less strongly motivated than d o those who call for FR, they believe that much less deterrence, both in terms of the damage that the United States needs to inflict and the probability that it will be inflicted, will be sufficient. Thus there is a disagreement over "how much credibility is enough": two policy analysts therefore might agree on how likely the Russians thought it was that a limited war would escalate and disagree over whether they would be deterred.

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Situations Calling for Flexible Response

The basic concern of the proponents of FR is that the threat to attack Soviet population centers is not credible when the Russians can respond in kind. In a crisis the United States must "have a wider choice than humiliation or all-out nuclear action," to use President Kennedy's terms." The danger that the proponents of FR see was expressed well by Secretary of Defense Schlesinger in 1975: "If one side should remove the other's capability for flexible and controlled responses, he might find ways of exercising coercion and extracting concessions without triggering the final holocaust .... No opponent should think that he could fire at some of our Minuteman or SAC [Strategic Air Command] bases without being subjected to, at the very least, a response in kind. N o opponent should believe that he could attack other .. U.S. targets of military or economic value without finding similar or other appropriate targets in his own homeland under attack .... Above all, no opponent should entertain the thought that we will permit him to remove our capability for flexible strategic responses."" We can examine the problem more clearly by seeing that Schlesinger and other proponents of FR blur the distinction between two kinds of wars. The first involves demonstration attacks. Since they d o not require large numbers of missiles, neither the size of each side's force nor its vulnerability is important. The second is a counterforce war of attrition in which the Russians would launch the first nuclear strike, trying to destroy as much of the American strategic force as possible, either in one blow or by moving more slowly and taking out the opposing forces in a series of strikes. Although the United States would still be able to attack the Soviet Union's cities, the only

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result of such a strike would be to have U.S. cities blown up thirty minutes later. If the U.S. strategic force is vulnerable, the Russians can destroy much of it without using a similar proportion of their force; if the U.S. force cannot hit protected targets, it will not be able to reduce the Russian force. But, and this is crucial, it is only in counterforce wars of attrition that the comparison of each side's counterforce capabilities matters. Examining a number of contexts in which defense problems arise, one can see that the distinction between attacks that have an effect by demonstrating resolve and those that aim at reducing an opponent's capability recurs and is closely tied to the basic difference between the AD and FR positions. If the AD position is correct and counterforce wars of attrition are not a real possibility in the nuclear era, then the United States does not have to worry that its Minuteman force is vulnerable or that the Russians have a greater ability to destroy hard targets than the United States does. To evaluate the arguments, it is useful to examine the potentially critical situations. Protecting Europe

One major fear is that the Soviets could launch a large-scale conventional attack that would conquer Europe unless the United States escalated. If the United States tried to stave off defeat by employing tactical nuclear weapons, the Soviets could reply in kind, nullifying any advantage the West may have gained. One FR remedy would be to develop the means to defend against an attack at any level of violence. Thus the West would deploy conventional forces to contain a conventional attack and tactical nuclear weapons to cope with a like attack. This alluring argument is not correct. An aggressor could attack in the face of escalation dominance if he believed that the defender would not pay the price of resisting, a price that includes a probability that the fighting will spread to each side's population centers. The other side of this coin is that a state that could be confident of winning a military victory in Europe could be deterred from attacking or deterred from defending against an attack by the fear that the war might spread to its homeland. Only if the risk of such escalation could be reduced to zero would this element disappear and purely military considerations be determinative. The advocates of FR thus overstate the efficacy of their policy. Of course if the United States lacks escalation dominance it would have to take the initiative of increasing the level of violence and risk in the event of a Soviet attack on Europe. But the onus of undertaking the original move would still remain with the aggressor. And since the level of risk is shared equally by both sides, what is likely to be more important than the inhibition against having to take the initiative is the willingness or unwillingness to approach the brink rather than concede defeat, a factor not linked to escalation dominance. Furthermore, some practical considerations reinforce this conclusion. As Bernard Brodie argued, it is hard to imagine that the Soviets would launch a conventional attack in the face of NATO's tactical nuclear

,

Nuclear Superiority

2 13

weapons. Such an attack would require massed troops that would be an inviting target for NATO's tactical nuclear weapons. The Soviets could not be sufficiently confident that their strategic or tactical nuclear forces would deter such a NATO response to leave their armies so vulnerable.14 And for the Russians to initiate a tactical nuclear war would raise two difficulties. First, the uncertainties about how such a war would be fought are so great that it would be hard for any country to be confident that it would win. Second, a war of this level of violence would be especially likely to trigger the American strategic force. An alternative FR policy is for the United States to develop large enough strategic forces to threaten, and carry out if need be, a counterforce strike with some of its forces, even though doing so would not leave the Soviet Union totally disarmed. While the Soviet Union could retaliate against American population centers, it would not d o so because its own cities were still in hostage. Thus the United States could launch its strike "secure in the knowledge that the United States had a residual ICBM force that could deter attack upon itself."" This notion of security is an odd one, resting as it does on the confident prediction that the Russians would calnily absorb a counterforce first strike. This is especially odd because while the proponents of FR tell us that we should pay close attention to Soviet military doctrine, o n this point they blithely disregard these texts which stress preemption and deny that limited nuclear wars are possible. A similar error is embodied in Secretary of Defense Schlesinger's defense of limited nuclear options on the grounds that because the United States has commitments to allies, "we require a nuclear capability that has an implementable threat and which is perceived to have an implementable threat. Unless, in the event o f certain hostile acts, we have a threat that we can implement, the existence of the American force structure does not contribute logically to deterrence." If, on the other hand, the United States has the ability to launch limited nuclear strikes, he continues, it "will not be self-deterred from responding to ... an act of aggression."lh But the concept of "selfdeterrence" is not useful and the argument cannot be sustained. The United States is being deterred by the fear of Soviet retaliation. This danger is present as long as the Soviets have second-strike capability; thus, it is a consequence not of Soviet "superiority" but of parity. Even if the United States reached Schlesinger's goal of preserving "an essential strategic equilibrium with the USSR both in capabilities and in targeting options,"" the costs and risks of employing the options would remain. The argument that the side that had better counterforce capability could safely launch such an attack even though the other side would not be disarmed pertains only in wars of attrition in which each side tries to reduce the other's strategic capability and spares the other's cities. The claim that the United States can employ this option to protect Europe is the opposite side of the coin of the claim that if the Soviet Union had a large margin of counterforce superiority, it could use it to coerce the West. The validity of this claim turns o n whether a war of attrition is a serious possibility or

2 14


whether the danger that such a conflict would escalate to attacks on population centers would dominate decision makers' calculations. Preemption

Some proponents of FR think it most unlikely that the Russians would launch an attack on Europe, but fear that if the Soviet strategic force was much more effective than the American one and if a significant proportion of the American strategic force were vulnerable, the Russians might make a preemptive strike in a grave crisis, perhaps one they had not sought, if they thought that war was very likely. The ability to hit missile silos and command and control facilities that the proponents of FR call for, however, increases this danger, since it enables the United States to destroy a large proportion of USSR's land-based missiles (and most of the Soviet strategic force is land based) if the United States were to strike first. It is a bit disingenuous t o argue that the United States needs a new type of missile to decrease the chance that the Soviet Union would attack without also acknowledging that some of the incentive the Russians would have to attack those missiles comes from the very accuracy that is supposedly needed in order to fight a counterforce war.18 More importantly, preemption makes sense only if being struck first is much worse than getting the first blow in. A state whose leaders believe that war will lead to total devastation will have no incentive to preempt even if many of their missiles are vulnerable. Here, as at other points, the proponents of FR make the crucial mistake of concentrating on purely military factors - the numbers and characteristics of weapons on both sides - and ignoring the role of military moves as generators of risk. The FR argument is that deterrence requires a sufficient number and kind of forces so that if the other side struck first, it would be militarily worse off than if it had not. Thus it would be dangerous if the Russians were able to use, for example, 200 missiles with 2,000 warheads and knock out most of the American ICBMs. As Secretary of Defense Brown has put it: "we must ensure that no adversary could see himself better off after a limited exchange than before it. We cannot permit an enemy to believe that he could create any kind of military or psychological asymmetry that he could then exploit to his advantage."19 But the fact that the Russians would have gained a more favorable ratio of missiles does not mean that they would be closer to any meaningful goal or even that they would be closer t o it than they would have been if the United States struck first and the ratio of missiles available was less favorable to them. The only meaningful goals would be to preserve their cities and, if possible, prevail in the dispute. But gains in purely military terms do not accomplish these objectives in wartime any more than they d o in peacetime. As long as each side retains the ability to destroy the other's society, having more warheads than an opponent is an advantage only if it makes the opponent back down, and the proponents of FR have not shown how it will make such a contribution. The military advantages

I( rc 15 Nuclear Superiority

2 15

of striking first can only be translated into political gains if the war remains counterforce and the state with the most missiles left after a series of exchanges prevails without losing its population centers."' The FR fallacy here is parallel to that involved in the claim that escalation dominance is necessary or sufficient for deterring or prevailing in a conflict in Europe. Competition in risk taking, rather than con~petitionin military capability, dominates. ars of Attrition and t h e

in a counterforce war of attrition the numbers and characteristics of the weapons would matter a great deal. As in the prenudear era, what would be crucial would not be absolute capability, but the relative strengths of the opponents. The basic argument of t h e AD school is undercut bkcause the primary targets of the warheads are not population centers but other weapons. Is the likelihood of counterforce wars of attrition sufficient to warrant the necessary preparations? Could there be a nuclear war in which population centers were spared and the outcome determined by which state is able to do the better job of reducing the other's military forces? Even if the Russians had the ability to win such a war, they would have to be desperate or willing to run terribly high risks to place sufficient faith in American selfrestraint to order an attack. Even if the United States could win such a war, its threat to initiate it would not be credible (for example, in response to a Soviet attack on Europe) unless the Russians believed that the United States thought that control would be maintained throughout its course. This control would have to be maintained, furthermore, although unprecedented numbers of civilians would be killed; a large Russian counterforce strike could not be limited to destroying only military targets. Although it would be obvious to the president that most American population centers were still held hostage, sufficient damage would have been done to raise ' LtlOll sharply the danger of an all-out response. The chance of such a re?which would be present even if the United States said it would not react in this way - would have to weigh very heavily on the Soviet decision makers. But the existence of tight control would not ensure the s ~ ~ c c eof s s a strategy of attrition. If the Russians launched a counterforce strike and the United States did not retaliate against Soviet cities, it might nullify a Russian war-fighting strategy by not responding at all. This may seem as bizarre as a counterattack on population centers, but on closer examination it makes some sense. Why should the United States retaliate? What would the Russians have gained by destroying a significant portion of the U.S. strategic force? Why would they be in a better position to work their will after a strike than before it? If the United States acts as though it is weakened, it will be in a worse bargaining position, but this is within American control. To withhold a response, while maintaining the ability to destroy Russian cities later, could as easily be taken as a sign of high resolve as of low. The United States would forego hitting many Russian military targets, but this '

2 16


would not sacrifice much of value since attacking them would not limit the Soviet ability to destroy the United States. Only if a war in Europe were being fought at the same time, and thus a failure to respond created or magnified an imbalance of land forces, would withholding a return counterforce strike give up something of value. But for the Soviets to attack American strategic forces (and NATO tactical nuclear forces) in conjunction with fighting a war in Europe would be to run a very high risk of an American counterattack on Soviet population centers. The possibility of not responding to a Soviet counterforce strike points to the odd nature of a nuclear war of attrition. The benefit of the efforts to reduce an opponent's strategic forces comes only near the end, when the state is able to take its society out of hostage. Unless and until that point is reached, the side that is "losing" the counterforce war of attrition can d o nearly as much damage to the side that is "winning" as it could before the war started. Military efforts can succeed only if the "loser" allows them to by sparing the "winner's" cities. Of course it will be costly for the "loser" to initiate counterstrikes against population centers, since the "winner" will presumably retaliate. But this is true regardless of the details of the strategic balance. If the ultimate threat, even during a war of attrition, is that of destroying cities, it is clear that such wars are more competition in risk taking than they are attempts to gain an advantage on the battlefield. To concentrate on the military advantages that accrue to one side or the other by counterforce attacks is to ignore the fact that in any nuclear war the element of threat of escalation will loom very large.21This general point is missed by Secretary of Defense Brown when he says that the ability to hit a wide range of military targets "permits us t o respond credibly to threats or actions by a nuclear opponent."22 But what is crucial is less the capability than the willingness to use it. Even if the United States had the ability to match the Soviets round for round, target for target, it might not d o so - and the Russians might move in the belief that the United States would not respond - because the costs and risks were felt to be too great. And even if the United States lacked such a capability, the Soviet fear of an all-out response could lead it to expect that any provocation would be prohibitively costly. Since what matters in limited strategic wars, even if they involve targets that are predominantly military, is each side's willingness to run high risks, it is the "balance of resolve" rather than the "balance of military power" that will tra cannot commost strongly influence their o u t ~ o m e s . ~ ~ xammunition pensate for weakness in will or a refusal - perhaps a sensible refusal - to run the risk of destruction. The importance of competition in risk taking implies that demonstration attacks would be more useful than attempts t o reduce an opponent's military capabilities. Such attacks could be aimed at a military installation, an isolated element of an opponent's strategic forces, a command and control facility, or a city. The purpose of such an action would be to inflict pain, show resolve, and raise the risks of all-out war to a level that an opponent

i~ I \

Nuclear Superiority

2 17

would find intolerable. Such risks, of course, weigh on both sides, but only by willingly accepting high risks can a state prevail. In addition to high resolve, in order to engage in nuclear demonstrations a state needs to be able to carry out a certain number of limited options. But the ammunition requirements are nowhere near as high as they are for a counterforce war of attrition (and both sides can simultaneously have the capability for demonstrations). Demonstration strikes would exert pressure in three ways. First, they would exact some degree of punishment on the other side. But the immediate pain inflicted would probably be less important than the underlying motivation of these strikes - the implied threat to d o more harm unless the opponent complies with the attacking state's demands. This threat gains its credibility because the attacking state has shown that it is willing to engage in very risky actions that have increased the chance that targets in its own country would be struck. When both sides have second-strike capability, one side prevails in a crisis, not by showing that it can inflict pain on the other (for this is obvious and true for the both sides), but by demonstrating that it feels so strongly about the issue at stake that it is willing to be hurt in return rather than suffer a defeat. Third, any nuclear attack increases the chance that uncontrolled escalation will occur. It is this specter that exerts so much pressure on statesmen not to use nuclear weapons in the first place or to make concessions in any conflict in which they are used. Even if one side launched a counterforce strike, the war would almost surely end before either had run out of ammunition. Resolve, not capability, would be the limiting factor. When Secretary Brown claims that "fully effective deterrence requires forces of sufficient size and flexibility to attack selectively a range of military and other targets"14 and argues that to do this the United States needs an invulnerable ICBM, he is either thinking in terms of a war of attrition or overstating the number of warheads the United States needs.

Possible Objections

Before drawing the conclusions that are implicit in the previous analysis, I should note three obvious objections. First, it can be argued that if I am right, and the strategic balance is quite stable, an increase in American arms will not have dire consequen~es.~' Since all the United States can lose hy additional deployment is money, argue the critics, it is better to play it safe and buy the extra systems. Moreover, how can anyone be sure that a war of attrition will not occur? But surely there must be some judgments about plausibility, some concern for costs, and some consideration of the chance that the United States might teach others lessons that are both incorrect and dangerous. The new weapons cost a lot of money and avoiding waste is not a goal to be scorned lightly.lh Furthermore, although there are no strong and direct links between the adversaries' defense budgets or between the budgets and the degree of superpower conflict, it is hard to keep the military

2 18


and political tracks entirely separate. A final line of rebuttal is the most important: t o develop a posture based on the assumption that limited nuclear wars are possible is to increase the chance that they will occur. If the Russians already believe in the possibility that such wars could be kept limited, U.S. acceptance of this position would increase the likelihood of their occurrence. O n the other hand, if the Russians now find these kinds of war incomprehensible, they might learn t o accept them if the United States talked about them long and persuasively enough. This could decrease the chance that a nuclear war would immediately involve the mass destruction of population centers, but at the cost of increasing the chance of more limited nuclear wars - which then could escalate. Such a trade-off is highly likely, and even Schlesinger acknowledged that adoption of his doctrine might increase the chance of limited nuclear strike^.^' The second objection is that my analysis ignores the fact that the Russians d o not accept the notion that mutual assured destruction creates stability. Soviet military doctrine is an arcane field that cannot be treated in detail here, although the bulk of the evidence indicates that the Soviet view of strategy is very different from the A m e r i ~ a n .They ~ ~ appear to take war more seriously. Indeed, much of Soviet military doctrine is pure military doctrine - that is, the ideas are not particularly Russian or particularly Marxist but simply those one would expect from people charged with protecting society and winning wars. Many statements by Soviet generals are similar t o statements by American generals when the latter are not influenced by the ideas or constrained by the power of the civilian leadership; many American military officials seek the same program that the Russians are following. Thus one cannot draw from the fact that Russians probably buy more than is needed for deterrence the inference that they are willing to run high risks to try to expand. The American generals who call for higher spending are not necessarily more bellicose than those who disagree with them.29 Both the Russian and the U.S. generals may want to prepare for the worst and get ready to fight if a war is forced on them. The Russians may be buying what they think is insurance, and we do not ordinarily think that someone who buys a lot of insurance for his car is planning to drive recklessly. While there is considerable evidence that the Russians want military forces that would provide as good an outcome as possible should war be forced on them, there is very little evidence that they think that such forces could be used to coerce the West. It has yet to be shown that they think that a superior ability to destroy military targets provides a shield behind which they can make political advances or that Soviet military doctrine measures American deterrence in terms of the United States' ability to match their posture. The Russians may not accept the idea that mutual vulnerability is a desirable state of affairs, but they seem to understand very well the potency of the American threat to destroy their society. Indeed their outlook is uncongenial to a counterforce war of attrition. While the Russians probably would attack U.S. strategic forces in the event of war, they have not talked about sparing the opponent's cities. Instead, they seem to be planning to hit as many targets as they can if war breaks out.

l e ~ v i s Nuclear Superiority

2 19

Even if the Russians were to say that they believed a war of attrition was possible, the United States would not have to adopt such a view. While it takes the agreement of both sides to fight a counterforce war, this is not true for AD. If one side denies that counterforce wars could be kept limited and convinces the other side that it believes this, the other cannot safely act on its doctrine. The Russians understood this in the periods when McNamara and Schlesinger were enunciating their doctrines, and American statesmen took their professions of disbelief seriously. Even if the Russians were to reverse their position, they would have to take American denials seriously also. A third objection is that although the Soviet superior ability to destroy strategic forces and the related existence of Minuteman vulnerability is not a strategic problem, it is a political problem. Accordingly, because other nations are influenced by indicators of nuclear superiority, the United States must engage in this competition. (This argument loses some credibility since most people who make it also claim that superiority is meaningful apart from these perceptions.) There are several lines of rebuttal. First, there is little evidence that European or Third World leaders pay much attention to the details of the strategic balance. Second, the United States provides most of the information and conceptual framework that underpins third-party discussions of the balance. The United States might be able to persuade others that it would behave differently because the Russians could wipe out much of the American capability to destroy Soviet missiles. But it would probably be easier to convince them that this was not true. Few world leaders expect the United States and the Soviet Union to fight a war of attrition. Moreover, if the Russians believe that superiority matters and thus may be somewhat emboldened, the bargaining advantages they will gain will be slight if the United States holds to the position that this is nonsense. If the United States convinces the Soviet Union that it does not see a meaningful difference in strength, the USSR cannot safely stand firm in crisis bargaining because it will not have any reason to think that the United States is more likely to retreat.

Conclusions We can draw several conclusions. The question of which side has greater ability to destroy the other's strategic forces matters only in a war of attrition. Such a war seems unlikely enough so that it is not worth spending large sums and running considerable dangers to prepare for it. Because either side can use its nuclear weapons to destroy its opponent's population centers, the danger of escalation would play a very large role in any war and could not be controlled by having more missiles, more accurate missiles, and more invulnerable missiles than the other side. The nuclear revolution cannot he undone. As we have seen, many of the arguments about the supposed dangers following from Soviet superiority in fact are consequences of parity. The American deterrent is deterred by the fact that its cities are vulnerable, not

220


by the fact that the Russians have some supposed military advantage. Since neither the United States nor the Soviet Union can take its cities out of hostage, the state that is willing to run the greatest risks will prevail. Many of those who call for the United States to match or surpass the Soviet's nuclear arsenal are trying t o have the United States compensate for what they feel is a weakness of resolve by an excess in weaponry. But such a deficiency, if it exists, cannot be compensated. A wider range of options will merely give the Russians more ways, and safer ways, of coercing the West. If the balance of resolve is so important, is the United States at a disadvantage compared to the Soviet Union? Some would argue that the United States has shown in Vietnam that it will not fight to defend its interests and those of its allies. But few dominoes fell after April 1975; other states may have been less impressed by the final American withdrawal than they were by its willingness to spend so much blood and treasure on an unimportant country. Furthermore, resolve is not so much an overall characteristic of an actor as it is a factor that varies with the situation because it reflects the strength of the state's motivation to prevail on a given issue. The state defending the status quo has the advantage in most conflicts in which the balance of resolve is crucial because it usually values the issue or territory at stake more than its opponent does." It is easier for a state to convince the other side that it will fight to hold what it has than it is to make a credible threat to fight rather than forego expansion. A world in which resolve matters so much may not be so bad for the United States. Even if both sides recognize the greater determination of the side defending the status quo, accidents and miscalculations are still possible, especially in situations growing out of a crisis in a third area. To rely solely on AD may be too dangerous. Some degree of insurance can be purchased by a continuation of the present American posture, which includes the availability of limited nuclear options. But these should be demonstrations, keyed to competition in risk taking, not attempts to wage a war of attrition; thus, the United States would not have t o match the Soviets on any of the standard measures of nuclear power. It does not take a superior or even an equal military force to show by limited use that one is willing to take extreme measures rather than suffer a defeat. Such costs and risks are the trading chips of bargaining in the nuclear era; even if the United States had the weapons and doctrine for an FR policy, it could not avoid relying on them. Although the United States should be able to conduct limited nuclear demonstrations, it should not stress this part of its policy. At this point there is n o reason t o think that such fantastic measures will ever be necessary, and they should be looked on as something to be done only in the most dire emergency, not as a tool of statecraft. Too much discussion of the possibility of such strikes might lead either or both sides to believe that the risks of a limited exchange were manageable, that escalation would remain under tight control. At best, the United States would therefore create a world in which limited nuclear wars were more likely to occur. At worst, these beliefs would be tested and proven to be incorrect.

]imI

-

Nuclear Superiority

22 1

Of course a policy of AD supplemented by the ability to conduct demonstration attacks may not succeed, The specter of all-out war is probably compelling enough to make both sides so cautious as to render forcible changes of the status quo on important issues too dangerous to be attempted. But miscalculations are possible, even in situations that seem very clear in retrospect, and states are sometimes willing to take what others think are exorbitant risks to try to reach highly valued ,goals. Both a cautionary tale and reminder that superior military capability does not guarantee deterrence is provided by the Japanese decision to go to war in 1941. Japan struck because her leaders saw the alternative not as the foregoing of gains, but as losing "her very existence."" They were thus very highly motivated - much more so than American decision makers thought. Furthermore, they knew perfectly well that they could not win an all-out war. But they were not expecting to have to fight such a war; they thought that the war would be limited as the United States would prefer to concede dominance in East Asia rather than engage in a long and costly struggle. It is always possible that the Russians might similarly believe that a nuclear war could be kept limited because the United States would rather concede than move closer to the abyss. The penalty for miscalculation would be much greater for Russia than it was for Japan, and so their caution should be much greater. The danger remains, however, and it cannot be met by building more weapons. Acknowledgement I would like t o thank 1)esniond Ball, Richard Berts, Thomas Brown, James Dighy, James King, George Quester, Michael Mandelbaum, Stanley Sierkiewicz, Dennls Ross, and Glenn Snyder for comments, and the Solomon Guggenheim Fund for financial support.

Notes 1. The phrase is attributed to Thomas Schell~ng in Herman Kahn, O n t x a l a t ~ ) n (Baltimore, Md.: Penguin, 1968), p. 3. The topic is discussed in Schelling, Arms and Influence ( N e w Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1966), pp. 92-125. 2. Thus there is a second meaning in the title of the book of brilliant essays written In 1946 by Bernard Brodie, Arnold Wolfers et al., The Absolzrte Weapon ( N e w York: Harcourt, Brace, 1946). 3. Many proponents ot AD also argue that the Soviet U n ~ o nwould feel threatened by increases in American strategic forces, however, and this fear is In some tension with the belief described here. 4. bernard Brodie, War and Polrtics ( N e w York: Macmillan, 19733, p. 380. 5 . Glenn Snyder, "The Balance of Power and the Balance of Terror," in The Kalnnre of I'osuer, ed. Paul Seahury (San Francisco, Calif.: Chandler, 196.5). This paradox w ~ seen s by Snyder as explaining why mutual second-strike capabil~tycould lead t o conventional wars; the proponents of FR take this one step further by arguing that the overall strategic stability also allows for l~mitednuclear wars. 6. Paul Nitze, "Deterrmg O u r Deterrent," Forergn Policy 25 (Winter 1976-77): 19.5-2 10.

222


7. U.S., Congress, Senate, Committee on Armed Services, Hearings on Fiscal Year 1975 Authorization, 93rd Cong., 2d sess., 1974, p. 51. 8. Department of Defense, Annual Report, E Y 1980 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1979), p. 76. Brown's posture statement is a combination of FR and AD and so is more honest, but less coherent, than many of the previous statements. 9. Department of Defense, Annual Report, El! 1979 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1978), p. 54. 10. Department of Defense, Annual Report, El! 1980, p. 75. 11. This also partially explains why many of the proponents of FR think that the threat to destroy Russian cities would be an insufficient deterrent and that the United States should develop a targeting policy aimed at convincing the Soviet leaders that their regime would not be able to maintain control of the country after a war. 12. "Radio and Television Report to the American People o n the Berlin Crisis, July 25, 1961," in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: ]ohn E Kennedy, 1961 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1962), p. 535. 13. Department of Defense, Annual Report, El! 1976 a n d El! 1 9 7 T (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1975), pp. 11-4-11-5. 14. Bernard Brodie, Escalation a n d the Nuclear Option (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1966). 15. Colin Gray, "The Scope and Limits of SALT," Foreign Affarrs 56 (July 1978): 788. 16. U.S., Congress, House, Committee on Armed Services, Hearings on Military Posture and H.R. 12564, Department of Defense Authorization for Appropriations for Fiscal Year 1975, 93rd Cong., 2d sess., 1974, part 1, pp. 47,49. 17. Ibid., p. 29. 18. The United States might get around this dilemma by building missiles that were invulnerable, but that lacked accurate MIRVs. It is interesting to note that the U.S. Air Force has done a much better job of developing a and accurate missile than it has in making that missile able to survive a Russian attack. 19. Department of Defense, Annual Report, E l! 1979, p. 56. 20. This point is overlooked by Paul Nitze in "Assuring Strategic Stability in an Era of Detente," Foreign Affairs 5 4 (January 1976): 226-30, and in "Deterring our Deterrent," p. 210. 21. Indeed the incentives for the state that is behind in a counterforce war to escalate increase as its military situation worsens. If it fears it may soon lose its second-strike capability, the losing state may will feel greater pressure t o up the ante while it still can. 22. Department of Defense, Annual Report, E Y 1980, p. 78. 23. For further discussion of this point see Robert Jerv~s,"Deterrence Theory Revisited," World Politics 3 1 (January 1979): 314-22, The Soviet stress on the importance of the "correlation of forces" is not inconsistent with this notion. 24. Speech before the Council on Foreign Relations and the Foreign Pol~cyAssociation, New York, 5 April 1979, p. 3. Also see Department of Defense, Annual Report, E Y 1980, pp. 77-78. 25. There is a similar contradiction in McCeorge Bundy's claim that although nuclear superiority is meaningless, we need arms control agreements "To Cap the Volcano" (Foreign Affairs 4 8 [October 19691: 1-20). 26. Bernard Brodie argues that the strategic balance is so stable that saving money should be the main goal of arms control ("On the Objectives of Nuclear Arms Control," International Security 1 [Summer 19761: 17-36). His position is further developed in "The Development of Nuclear Strategy," ibid. 2 (Spring 1978): 65-83. I am greatly indebted to these articles. 27. House Armed Serv~cesCommittee, Hearings on Military Posture, p. 50. 28. For a dissenting view, see Raymond Garthoff, "Mutual Deterrence and Strategic Arms Limitation in Soviet Policy," International Security 3 (Summer 1978): 112-47. 29. A study of postwar situations reveals that the U.S. milltary often advised against foreign military adventures. See Richard Betts, Soldiers, Statesmen, and Cold War Crises (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1977). 30. Jervis, "Deterrence Theory Revisited," p. 318. 31. Robert Butow, Tojo a n d the Coming of the War (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1961), p. 203.

Strategic Stability Reconsidered Colin S. Gray

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n an important article published in 1978, John Steinbruner claimed: "As the United States force posture has evolved over the past 1 5 years, the idea of stability has emerged as the central strategic objective, and the asserted conceptual consensus seems to be organized around that objective."' This essay will focus on whether the theories of stability most widely held in the West may not be gravely deficient and whether the integrity of the concept of strategic stability may not itself be questionable. Discussion of stability and its possible requirements is in fact a discussion of deterrence theory, which in reality is a debate about the operational merits of different postures and doctrines. No useful, objective, doctrineneutral exploration of the idea of stability is possible. The discussion that follows makes no pretense of neutrality; instead, it endeavors, first, to explain the roots, meaning, and deficiencies of the still dominant theories of stability and, second, to suggest a theory that has much greater internal and external integrity. It is important to recognize that, for all its popularity, there is no useful consensus about the meaning of stability. Most commentators, and certainly the government of the United States (and NATO), acknowledge the value in the twin concepts of arms race stability and crisis stability. As arms race stability is commonly understood, it is the condition wherein neither party to an arms competition will press military developments or deployments in quest of major advantage, because such advantage is judged to be unattainable, however desirable. Crisis stability is a quality of strategic relations: during periods of acute crisis, instruments of war (mechanical, electronic, organizational) should not be the immediate cause of war. At this level of generality, these concepts have been widely understood and approved (in the West) since at least 19h0.2 Consensus breaks down, however, over the particular policy Source: Dadalz~s:Iouynal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 109(4) (1980): 135-54.

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implications. From an operational perspective, how is arms race stability to be achieved and maintained, and how is crisis stability enforced, vis-a-vis a Soviet adversary? This quest seeks a theory of stability that will work "well enough," given the full dimensions of Western strategic security problems in the context of the military consequences of the unique "cultural thoughtways"bf a particular major adversary. As a working hypothesis, I believe that the ideas of arms race and crisis stability, and the theory of deterrence to which they usually make (often implicit) reference, have (mis)led Western policymakers into neglecting the operational dimensions of strategy. Indeed, many politicians, officials, and analysts seem to believe that nuclear strategy cannot really have any operational dimensions. As its first priority, an adequate theory of deterrence must determine the military (and relevant civilian) requirements of war itself. Deterrence theory, the leitmotiv of Western strategic preparation, is fully consistent with a strategic force posture that has n o credibility as a threat, because it would not be intelligently usable in practice. It is essential to recognize that both Western ideas of stability and the Soviet approach to the determination of principles that will guide their defense preparation and war planning have deep cultural roots - they are not accidents of history. For much of this essay, "stable deterrence theory" will refer to the proposition that stability in arms competition and in time of crisis is maximized when each side is unambiguously vulnerable at home, and also confident that a large number of its strategic offensive weapons are invulnerable prior to launch and during mission e x e c ~ t i o nThis . ~ condition of mutual assured vulnerability has been identified for many years as a mutual assured destruction (MAD) posture. Orthodox stability theory in the West even today is based in good part on the assumption that mutual societal vulnerability is desirable. It must be observed, however, that a MAD posture, in principle, is compatible with a wide variety of strategic targeting plans. By way of providing an initial point of doctrinal reference for this essay, it is my belief that the strategic balance would be stable if Western governments were allowed to enjoy not-implausible prospects of both defeating their enemy (on his own terms) and ensuring Western political-social survival and recovery. This admittedly close parallel to the known Soviet approach to defense planning is already U.S. policy with respect to the requirement for the defeat of the enemy? and is not incompatible with the more familiar connotation of (arms race and crisis) stability. It rests on the proposition that forces that do not lend themselves to politically intelligent employment in war are probably insufficient to deter - at least at those rare times when an adversary may seek a military solution to his problems.6 The costs of major war today are anticipated to be so high, and so many of the weapon systems on both sides lack realistic field tests,' that the call for a war-survival capability would hardly be likely to encourage Western governments down the path of military adventure. In this essay I will argue that the West requires a concept of stability appropriate for giving a theoretical underpinning to the determination of

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the military requirements that will enable it to defend its vital interests. The stability theory dominant in the 1960s and 1970s was addressed at root to a relationship between two supposedly like-minded and ultimately (after detente had done its work) like-intending adversary-partners. Although a sea-change is evident in this new decade in official U.S. (and NATO) appreciation of Soviet habits and motives, the burden of obsolescent strategic theories o f stability remains.

Concepts and Culture

There is much to recommend the working hypothesis that Soviet and American strategic concepts reflect the character and content of their divergent and distinctive "strategic cultures." Jack Snyder has defined strategic culture "as the sum total of ideas, conditioned emotional responses, and patterns of habitual behavior that members of a national strategic community have acquired through instruction or imitation and share with each other with regard to nuclear strategy."# The insertion of "nuclear" precludes too much. John Erickson wrote recently on Soviet "style," stressing the pervasiveness of all arms thinking in Soviet military preparation.' Recognition, if not uncritical acceptance, of this working hypothesis is important for the following reasons. First, it might help to explain how and why the concept of strategic stability took such firm root in the U.S. defense and arms control community. Second, it should facilitate more accurate comprehension of Soviet deeds and words. Third, it should help U.S. policymakers to identify programs and doctrines that, while broadly compatible with American values, are adequately responsive to Soviet developments. T h e United Stares

The concept of strategic stability took firm hold as an American strategic desideratum long before it was substantially field tested in the SovietAmerican military competition or before there was a directly relevant formal arms control process. American theoreticians reasoned that the multitier arms competition between East and West could be stabilized through cooperative management effected through tacit agreement or formal bargaining. Moreover, the literature of the early and mid-1960s shows clearly that the U.S. defense community knew what strategic stability was and how it could best be forwarded. A gifted Israeli commentator o n the U.S. arms debate wrote in 1964 that stability has become a fundamental concept in nuclear strategy, and a magic formula. Strategic situations are measured by the degree of their stability. . . . Once a situation of stability has been achieved, the initiation of war by surprise no longer assures any gain or advantage. A situation is stable, therefore, when there is no temptation to force the issue; it is a

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situation of mutual neutralization in which both the householder and the burglar know that even if one slays the other, the latter will manage to retaliate posthumously.10 The U.S. defense community, with very few exceptions, decided that a stable military balance would mean a safer world with fewer resources expended on defense than would be the case with an unstable military balance; should be compatible with the support of U.S. foreign policy interests (though it is unclear whether very careful analysis was performed on this subject); and should eventually find favor with the Soviet Union, because of its technological inevitability and near-evident desirability. In a book that perhaps merits description as the fullest and most mature statement of 1960s-style stability (through mutual vulnerability) theory, Jerome Kahan wrote: "A mutual stability approach, in the broadest sense, rests on the premise that the United States is benefited if the Soviet Union maintains a strategic deterrent capability comparable in overall strength to our own; it is an acceptance of both the mutual assured destruction relationship and numerical parity." A little earlier he had written, "If, then, the USSR's strategic doctrine is largely understandable and somewhat comparable to ours, it is possible to establish a relatively effective U.S. policy of mutual stability."" The United States seemed to know what it wanted and to believe that what was good for the United States would come to be seen by the Soviet Union as good for it also. A stable military balance, in American perspective, was one in which each side's military forces looked roughly comparable and neither side believed it could gain a significant military advantage by striking first, because neither side would be able to protect its domestic assets against retaliation. These elements of stability derived initially, in good part, from discouraging analyses of the future promise of damagelimiting strategies. Military-technological prediction - that future societal vulnerability will be a fact, not a matter for choice - was transformed into normative terms. Far from being a problem, mutual vulnerability was seen as an opportunity to establish more stable Soviet-American strategic relations. The Soviet Union might prefer to compete for "useful advantage" so long as that was believed to be attainable, but technology surely has a logic that the Soviets must, and will, respect. In 1970 Roman Kolkowicz expressed the then popular, and perhaps even plausible, view that Soviet strategic doctrine and capabilities appear to have lagged behind those of the United States by about five years ... , modern defense technology determines to a large extent the kind of strategic doctrines and policies that will be adopted by the superpowers. Thus, technology seems to have a levelling effect which subsumes political, ideological and social differences in various political systems.12 The convergence of strategic ideas hoped for in the late 1960s and early 1970s - that is, a Soviet convergence with the American concept of a stable

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military balance - did not occur. By 1979-80 most American commentators o n Soviet-American strategic policy issues accepted as a very probable fact the existence of a "conceptual gap" between Soviet and American thinking on strategic issues that appeared t o be enduring, because each side's thought was rooted in what has come to be termed "strategic culture."" The important difference between 1980 and 1970 (or 1960) is that what was then plainly recognized as a possibility - that the Soviet Union would not wish to engage in genuinely "reciprocal measures for arms stabilization" - has now become plausible fact. Indeed, a major question that should be posed is whether, or perhaps how, the United States can conduct serious arms control business with the Soviet Union, which shows no evidence of endorsing a recognizable or attractive concept of strategic stability. Through the 1960s and at least part of the 1970s such a troublesome question could be, though should not have been, ignored or deferred. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, when American arms control theory was being forged, uncooperative Soviet ideas and practices could plausibly be interpreted as reflections of a relatively backward technology or of a policy1 intellectual "lag." By the early 1970s the SALT process appeared to carry promise for the cooperative management of strategic relations. It was recognized that the Soviet Union still had to catch up in some important military respects and that program momentum reflecting pre-SALT I thinking and practices would take some time to be amended to be compatible with the new relationship. Today, the U.S. defense community has to grapple with the implications of the hypothesis that Soviet military ideas and activities are deeply rooted in local soil and hence are very likely to endure; that the Soviet General Staff is extremely well acquainted with Western ideas on stability - Soviet military thinking is not crude and "uneducated"; and that there are no important apparent strains between the policy preferences of the Soviet military and the Soviet political leadership.I4 It would be difficult to exaggerate the importance of this very widespread, if somewhat belated, Western recognition of the strategic cultural distinctiveness of the Soviet Union. The distinctiveness blurs markedly, of course, as Robert Jervis has observed, if Soviet military thinking is compared with American professional military thinking." The American military establishment prepares to fight and, if possible, to win wars, and probably would prefer to support a military doctrine as traditional in its concerns as that espoused by the Soviet Union.lh Yet it is only in the Soviet Union that those preferences are fully expressed in postural terms. Soviet thought on the military dimensions of statecraft, what loosely can be called "strategic theory," is distinguished by its rarity." Soviet writings tend to focus on efficient force preparation and implementation - generically operational matters - or on grand-strategic, highly politicized topics. There are no functional Soviet equivalents to the Western theories of deterrence, limited war, and arms control, just as the key Western concepts spawned by those theories - stability, escalation control, bargaining, sufficiencyladequacy,

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and the rest - appear to play no identifiable role in guiding Soviet military planning.ls In the half-light of the growing appreciation of the alien character of Soviet strategic culture, U.S. policymakers have to reassess the relevance, and prudence, of the strategic ideas that have held intellectual and declaratory (policy, if not always war-planning) sway for the past fifteen years. Despite the evidence accumulating on RussianISoviet strategic culture and the military-program momentum implications of that culture, Western commentators continue to deny, implicitly, that stability is a condition describing a military-political relationship. "Stability," as it pervades much of American theorizing about deterrence questions, is essentially static and absolute. It tends to lack a sense of competition. Using this logic, the United States has a deterrence problem of finite physical dimensions. The complex military balance is stable if the Soviet urban-industrial target set is adequately covered and if the United States looks, and preferably is, resolute in its willingness to retaliate. What kind of damage would most likely be judged acceptable by a Soviet leadership? This question has been posed, and even answered of lateI9 - with conclusions that cast grave doubts on the merits of the society destruction bedrock of the theory that identifies stability with mutual vulnerability - but the covering of the urban-industrial target set still is accorded pride of place in official U.S. stable deterrence prose.20 It may be that this society punishment oriented theory can provide a robust basis for a stable military balance, even in an adversary relationship with an alien Soviet strategic culture. It is possible that the Soviet military (and political) establishment is seeking the unattainable in its evident pursuit of a war-waginglwar-winning capability, and that the United States would be ill-advised to compete very vigorously with military programs designed to improve war-waging performance. However, now that it is generally recognized that the Soviet military effort marches to the beat of a distinctly non-American d r ~ m m e r , ~and ' as the Soviet military competitive position continues to improve across the board, there should be no serious resistance to consideration of the possibility that the consequences of mainstream Western stability theory may lead to under-recognized dangers. The ideas that comprise the concept of a stable military balance reflect fairly faithfully the world view, values, and pertinent education of those commentators, policymakers, and theorists who have articulated American strategic culture.22 The United States is a satisfied world power with a fundamentally defensive strategic mission as its international responsibility. From 1946, when The Absolute Weapon was p ~ b l i s h e d , ~ " the ~ present day, American strategic theorists have tended to argue, explicitly or implicitly, that the development of nuclear weapons has imposed a "technological peace." The mainstream concept of stability speaks eloquently to the long-recognized U.S. tendency to define conditions as problems to be solved. The existence of very large and diverse strategic nuclear arsenals solves the problem of possible premeditated war between nuclear-armed states, because the war initiator will know that he cannot deny the enemy the

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capability of destroying his society in retaliation. Moreover, this ability to destroy a society in a second strike can deter not only attacks on the U.S. homeland, but also - with only a modest loss of credibility - attacks on at least some of the overseas vital interests of the United States. The balance of terror is thus massively indelicate. As Soviet strategic capabilities improved relative to those of the United States over the decade 1965-7.5, the United States sought to retain o r restore the credibility of strategic deterrence through the advertisement of more flexible targeting designs (the socalled Schlesinger doctrine).24However, it is important to note that 1970s-style strategic flexibility was, at bottom, an endeavor to retain the credibility of the ultimate sanction of the very large countersociety strike. What beliefs, attitudes, and perspectives are reflected in this simple theory? First, it reflects a belief that nuclear war would mean the end of history. The assumed certainty of unrestrained escalation and mutual destruction leads easily to the conclusion that there can be n o intelligent way of preparing for or waging nuclear war.'" Even if some stable balance theorists are prepared to admit that nuclear war could have quite a wide range of outcomes, they tend to reject the possible policy implication - that the United States should design a policy and posture to minimize the prospective damage in war. U.S. political culture, unlike Soviet political culture, does not take an instrumental view of the value of the lives, and quality of life, of its citizens. But U.S. foreign policy, in its potential need for military support, rests heavily on nuclear threat. However, no operational nuclear strategy is compatible with U.S. societal values. An important reason US. strategic commentators have focused so heavily on deterrence, as opposed to military operational questions, is that they realized American society is profoundly unwilling to contemplate, or debate coolly, the prospect of losing tens of millions of people. For the better part of two decades, the United States has been highly dependent on latent nuclear threat, but American society and even the defense community have shown little inclination to think beyond prewar deterrence, let alone to invest large resources in a capability to prevail in, survive, and recover from a nuclear war. Michael Howard was close to the mark when he wrote recently: But such credibility [of nuclear response] depends not simply on a perceived balance, or imbalance, of weapons systems, but on perceptions of the nature of the society whose leaders are threatening such retaliation. Peoples who are not prepared to make the effort necessary for operational defense are even less likely to support a decision to initiate a nuclear exchange from which they will themselves suffer almost inconceivable destruction, even if that decision is taken at the lowest possible level of nuclear escalation."

Second, stable balance theory reflects a conviction that an enduring EastWest political modus vivendi is possible, if only because nuclear arsenals mean

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that neither superpower would dare intrude into regions well understood to be of vital interest to the other. The relationship between intense arms competition, its associated first-strike alarms, and political tension remains ill understood, but a plateau of stable deterrence resting on total societal vulnerability and sufficient weapon invulnerability, should - so the argument goes - calm many of the anxieties that the arms competition can foster. The more reasonable supporters of SALT I tended t o avoid asserting that the Soviet political leadership and General Staff had been educated to accept American-style stable deterrence thinking. They assumed instead that American strategic vigilance would deny the Soviet Union any militarily meaningful future advantage and that Soviet leaders would rein in their programs appropriately. In addition, it was widely assumed that the fiveyear "Interim Agreement" on strategic offensive arms would be superceded by a permanent treaty regime that would greatly assist stability, owing to the survivability for offensive forces and the predictability for defense planning it would provide.27 Stability could be enforced through expensive competitive effort, but the case for attempting t o encourage stability through negotiated joint management of the strategic balance had to be attractive. In short, stable balance theory was believed t o reflect inescapable technological those truths were t o be codified, at least in part, via the SALT process; and the SALT process was t o be both the centerpiece and the beneficiary of a multichannel and increasingly entangling dttente venture. Third, stable deterrence theory indicated "how much is enough."29 U.S. strategic culture is oriented toward problem-solving. The U.S. defense and arms control community has extreme difficulty accommodating the idea that it is condemned to an endless competition with the Soviet Union. Stable deterrence plus the parity principle appeared to reduce the stress and strain of unwelcome and unfamiliar strategic thought to a fairly simple problem of efficient management. Fourth, stable deterrence, with its logical implication of a finite need for weapons, appeals to the Western belief that peacetime defense preparation has an almost wholly negative social impact. An insular strategic culture, such as that of the United States, tends generally to view as inherently wasteful the allocation of scarce resources for defense functions. It supports substantial armed forces in peacetime only because such forces are, at best, regrettable necessities. Major defense program initiatives often are taken belatedly and reluctantly, and have to be justified very specifically in terms of identifiable or very plausible threats. Even on its own terms it is legitimate t o question the validity of mainstream U.S. stable deterrence theory. For example: as Henry Kissinger has argued forcefully, in policy practice it constitutes "a revolution in NATO doctrine"" (which was not noticed, or was simply disregarded, by its proponents); it has nothing to say on the problem of self-deterrence (which is not a trivial deficiency, because it is likely that the United States would be under the most pressure to lead an escalation process); and it is not responsive to the fact that deterrent calculations are not always relevant in the sequence

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of events that lead to war. Leaving such reservations aside,31the most troublesome aspect of main-stream stable mutual deterrence theory is that it does not speak to Soviet reality. T h e Soviet Union

Soviet thinking on the preferred character of the complex East-West military balance is easily identified as a product of the lessons perceived in Russian and Soviet history, the nature and rationale of the Soviet state, and what may best be termed "strategic logic." The Soviet Union cannot endorse a Westernstyle concept of military stability. The legitimacy of Communist party rule in the Soviet imperium resides in its claim to be the sole authoritative interpreter of the scientifically correct theory of historical change - and the peoples and the physical resources of that imperium, allied to "progressive forces" everywhere, are the instruments for effecting that process of historical change. Save as a tactical ploy, the Soviet Union cannot endorse a concept of stability in the relations between socialist and nonsocialist states. Richard Pipes almost certainly is correct when he argues that Marxism-Leninism became the state ideology in Russia because the grosser features of that ideology, and the practices that they legitimized, fit so well a Russian national political character marked by cunning, brutality, and submissiveness." Soviet military thinking today, by this argument, is influenced by, and expresses, a strategic culture that is, at root, Russian rather than Marxist-Leninist."' The important point is that obligatory Soviet ideology and Russian historical impulses both drive Soviet military thinking in the same direction. The commitment to permanent struggle, the need for eternal vigilance, the militarized character of society, the fundamental distrust of independent power centers (domestic and foreign) - all are enduring features of Russian1 Soviet strategic culture. "The revolution in military affairs," as evidenced in Soviet military programs and discussed in detail in the Penkovskiy "Special Collection," was dramatically different from the revolution in strategic thinking caused by nuclear weapons in the West. The Western nonoperational focus on deterrence as opposed to defense is totally alien to Soviet strategic culture and, indeed, is viewed as dangerous, irresponsible, and scientifically incorrect. Since 1956 the Soviet Union has rejected Lenin's "inevitability of war" thesis, but it has continued to believe that war is possible, that the outcomes could range between victory and defeat, and that more military power cannot fail to pay political divid e n d ~ . "The ~ notion of having enough military power is alien to Soviet thought and appears to be contrary to the Soviet reading of their history and the histories of other states." The Soviet Union recognizes that equivalence and parity are the necessary basis for East-West security relations, but that the necessary basis is not, and cannot be, accepted as being sufficient. Quite aside from any ideological imperative, Soviet geopolitics - like Russian geopolitics in times past - is the story of near-continuous struggle against actual or potential enemies who posed, or might pose, a threat to the -

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(mu1ti)national existence.36 Russian and Soviet history teach the lesson that "those who fall behind, get beaten."37 The Soviet Union is improving its security condition by increasing its control over its external environment. Even discarding cultural and geopolitical explanations, the detail of Soviet military activity drives one to recognition of the deeper imperatives ~ is an enormous inertia that have molded Soviet strategic c u l t ~ r e . 'There behind the Soviet military establishment, some of which can be explained in Western military-rational ways. But much of it reflects a mindless movement that flows from habitual "safe-siding" through minimal decisionmaking, eschewing of potentially dangerous initiatives, and generally focusing on doing what one knows one can d o - in a society that is nearobsessed with the fear of disruptive change and that seeks to avoid risks. Of course, innovation is possible in the Soviet Union, though it generally is ordered and even organized from above. The Soviet military buildup and modernization programs of the past fifteen years (in particular) speak to forces very deep within the character of the Soviet system. Alarmed Western observers see clear evidence that the Soviet Union is building more military power than it needs for defense (a totally alien formulation in Soviet perspective) and rejecting the Western concept of a stable military balance. What we see, rather, is the cumulative product of a bureaucraticindustrial system that rarely changes a course once set (there is no evidence to suggest any official Soviet desire to change military direction) and that is steadily providing the military means needed for preponderance - the Soviet vision of a desirable military relationship with potential enemies. The strategic cultural attitudes that flow from its history make it unlikely that the Soviet Union will join the United States in managing a stable military balance. The Soviet commitment to compete for relative advantage (real or illusory) is so fundamental, and so rational in Soviet terms, that stability can only be enforced. The implications of this strategic cultural theme could be very grim for Western security. By dint of fairly steady effort, and moved by a prudence that has expansive military requirement implications, the Soviet Union could come to believe that in East-West crises it will be the United States that will back down. The ideas and military program details associated with the dominant Western concept of stability amount to a posture, military and civilian, that is not serious about the actual conduct of war. To itemize: the United States has a very limited hard-target counterforce and countercontrol capability; it lacks survivable command, control, communications, and intelligence (C31)assets; it has no homeland defense; it has no real plans for timely industrial mobilization or for postwar recovery; it has no vision of how all parts of the military posture should cooperate in a global war; it has made only the most feeble preparation for strategic-force reconstitution; and it has no convincing story to tell vis-a-vis war aims and the political character of a postwar international order.j9 These criticisms are leveled in the context of attempts to provide adequately in those areas by a Soviet adversary.40That some weapons and

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operating practices promote stability and that others promote instability is an idea that is alien to Soviet strategic ~ u l t u r e . For ~ ' many years the Soviet Union has attended, in great detail, to what in Western perspective might be called the unilateral crisis stability of her military posture: missile silos have been superhardened; some missiles are truly mobile (SS-20s and stockpiled SS-16s); political and military command and control facilities have been proliferated and superhardened, and so on. Whether for reasons of political-cultural insensitivity or cold military calculation, the Soviet Union seems either unwilling or unable to take a systemic approach to what Western analysts identify as stability problems. Judging by the evidence of Soviet deeds, and to employ Western terminology, it is stabilizing, in Soviet perspective, for their strategic and combined armed forces to threaten successful surprise attacks against U.S. strategic systems and NATO's posture in Europe." Similarly, Soviet military thinkers see nothing unstable about a strategic context wherein Soviet society is afforded some useful measure of protection via civil defense and air defense and American society has none. There is a distinct possibility that a future U.S. administration could believe the Soviet Union to be deterred by the assumed short fuse from provocative (Soviet) military action to nuclear holocaust - a belief that projects stable deterrence reasoning onto Soviet decision-making processes while a Soviet leadership could believe it had a very good prospect o f winning a war and that the United States should appreciate its own weak political position and back down. In short, both sides might falsely project the perspective of their strategic culture onto the other, with very dangerous consequences.

Stability Dissected

The concept of stability is used in a wide variety of senses, among which two merit individual analytic attention: arms race stability and crisis stability.

The idea of arms race stability holds that the basic engine of competition is the first-strike fear encouraged by defense programs designed to threaten at least part of the opponent's ability to wreak massive societal damage in a second strike." Thus a stable arms competition is one wherein neither side invests in programs that the other would view as a challenge to its assured destruction capability, and hence would be motivated to offset. This kind of logic was elaborated in some detail in the late 1960s. It was argued that the arms race was driven not so much by the reality of first-strike danger as by the fears that flowed from anticipation of such danger.44 "Sympathetic parallelism" in armament programs was the logical corollary of the arms race "spiral" theory. Just as the superpowers could stimulate each other to build increasingly capable weapons, so should they be able, through

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deliberate restraint and perhaps explicit cooperative management, to remove much of the anxiety that drives reactive armament programs. The concept of arms race stability carries with it the stable deterrence ideas that incorporate the desideratum of mutual assured destruction capabilities, but such linkage is not inevitable. Arms race stability could obtain where one side maintains a permanent, variably substantial lead and is in a political, financial, and industrial position to deter most arms race challenges. With some qualifications, this kind of arms race stability characterized Great Britain's naval relations with her actual and potential rivals from the 1840s until 1914. Stability can also obtain when there is a rapid change in technological generations and considerable unpredictability concerning the building programs of rivals, yet where a tolerable balance of military power is maintained albeit almost exclusively through competition. Indeed, as Bernard Brodie observed in assessing the complex naval competition of the later decades of the nineteenth century, there were periods in strategic history when stability, by any reasonable definition, was best maintained through unrestrained omp petition.^^ Arms control processes are as likely to constrain the wrong (i.e., ultimately "stabilizing") as the right (i.e., ultimately "destabilizing") defense technologies - given human frailty in strategic prediction. In its loosest, though most easily defensible, sense, arms race stability could pertain simply to the pace and degree of rival postural change, regardless of the character of that change. An unusually rapid succession of deployed weapon generations on both sides would appear to many people to constitute an unstable situation. However, such rapid change may reflect a particularly fecund period of parallel defense research activity rather than unusual hostility, and may be fully compatible with some important definitions of a stable situation. Nonetheless, rapid postural change might very likely breed fears abroad that militarily significant, if transitory, breakthroughs were a distinct possibility, breakthroughs that might facilitate or enable disarming first strikes to be planned with some confidence. Perhaps the major problem with the concept of arms race stability is that it rests on a theory of arms race dynamics that is easily ~hallenged.~"he stability theory of the 1960s posited an abstract and very simple model of arms competition. The banner-carriers for arms race stability in the late 1960s leapt from abstract propositions to defense policy claims and arms control proposals (e.g., d o not deploy BMD or MIRV because they will be destabilizing). The arms race (and crisis) instability claims used t o challenge BMD and MIRV (and, later, the M k 12A RV and MX, and so on) were, by and large, interesting and internally consistent. But were they true, and how might they be validated or invalidated? This argument applies, of course, to all sides in the ongoing U.S. defense debate. It is possible that Soviet offensive force deployments in the 1970s would have been greater than actually was the case had the United States, in the absence of the ABM treaty, deployed Safeguard or Site Defense BMD.

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However, in the presence of U.S. BMD deployment, opponents would very likely have attributed the pace and much of the character of the Soviet ICBM and SLBM programs to alleged Soviet BMD-offset motivations. The kind of Soviet offensive-force deployments that lack a strong strategic rationale in the absence of U.S. BMD, assuming there is a mutual assured destruction framework to Soviet thinking, have occurred anyway. On the basis of the often ambiguous and incomplete evidence available, the U.S. defense and arms control community should now consider the proposition that Soviet arms programs are driven not by a determination to (over)compensate for American programs that could threaten Soviet maintenance of an adequate capability to destroy American society, but, rather, by some combination of a doctrinal imperative to improve Soviet war-waging/ war-winning ability and bureaucratic defense-industrial momentum. This proposition suggests that for many years our arms control physicians may have diagnosed falsely (and hence sought to cure inappropriately) the causes of the arms race disease. Many people who debate arms race stability/instability charges are really concerned that continuous competitive military-technological innovation might open temporary windows of opportunity for possible exploitation. "Gaps" might occur between some elements of superpower postures, but they should not be such as to call into serious question the overall quality of deterrent effect purchased by the United States through its military investment. Deterrence stability is compatible with a formidable rate of change in conipeting postures. For example, the charge that the MX will be destabilizing can be sustained only if arms race instability is equated with a significant change in posture that may provide a substantial incentive for postural change on the Soviet side. A crisis instability charge is fragile in that the very survivability of a system such as the MX should remove the Soviet incentive to go first in a "use them or lose them" spirit.

The concept of crisis stability refers to a strategic condition wherein the very character, readiness, and mobilization procedures of armed forces in co11frontation should not themselves comprise the proximate cause of war. Very often crisis stability/instability is deemed to inhere in particular kinds of weapons. However, as Thomas Schelling has argued persuasively, to focus on weapon technology is to miss a good part of the potential problem.

To impute this influence to "weaponry" is t o focus too narrowly on technology. It is weapons, organizations, plans, geography, communications, warning systems, intelligence, and even beliefs and doctrines about the conduct of war that together have this influence. The point is that this complex of military factors is not neutral in the process by which war may come about.4'

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Schelling draws a particularly valuable distinction between the static and dynamic dimensions of (crisis) stability: The static dimension reflects the expected outcome, at any given moment, if either side launches war. The dynamic dimension reflects what happens to that calculation if either side or both sides should move in the direction of war, by alert, mobilization, demonstration, and other actions that unfold over time.48 It is easy to slip into self-congratulation concerning the apparent stability of the military standoff in Europe and the central nuclear relationship. However, the stability of those balances is not tested day-by-day, nor even by the kinds of crises such as those over Berlin, Hungary, Cuba, and Czechoslovakia. In none of those cases is it very plausible to argue that either the Soviet Union or NATO was strongly motivated to launch a theater or general war. The real test for crisis stability would be the one occasion in forty or fifty years when nearly everything appeared to be at stake and one or both leadership groups could not see any nonmilitary solutions to its, or their, problems. A force posture and strategic doctrine that is good enough for one crisis may not be for another. Anyone inclined to believe that U.S. and NATO forces are broadly resilient to crisis stress should ask himself what it might take t o dissuade a very desperate Soviet leadership. Robert Jervis has argued, quite rightly, that rival schools of thought over the requirements of deterrence differ over how much deterring it is prudent to assume the Soviet Union might need: "Thus there is a disagreement over 'how much credibility is enough': two policy analysts therefore might agree on how likely the Russians thought it was that a limited war would escalate and disagree over whether they could be deterred."49 Taken to its logical extreme, the more pessimistic argument might lead to the conclusion that at some point in the future the Soviet Union might be so desperate as to be "beyond deterrence" - meaning, again logically, that considerations of crisis stability, however rigorous, would be irrelevant. The only question remaining would be: How well would the West fare in the war? Analysts may agree on the general characteristics of a crisis-stable military balance and even on the character of Soviet strategic culture, yet disagree on whether particular U.S. military postures are sufficiently crisis-stable. The reason for the disagreement lies in the range of political crises that each is willing to consider as relevant to the sizing and nature of the U.S. defense effort. Some interpretations of the military implications of crisis stability have a potentially dangerous managerial, as opposed to a strategic, perspective on security issues. Crisis stability is fully compatible with a U.S. strategic force posture that could take the initiative, compete for escalation dominance, and, if need be, fight the war through to a military decision. However, crisis stability very often is considered narrowly in the context either of a rigid application of mutual assured destruction reasoning or, beyond that in sophistication, in the minor addendum of flexible targeting. Typically, any capability

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that threatens Soviet strategic forces, prelaunch or during mission execution, is held to be an affront to crisis stability. Crisis stability properly understood does not lend its conceptual authority to such judgments. For reason of extended deterrence duties, the United States cannot afford a crisis stability that precludes first use of strategic nuclear weapons. Nicholas Spykman writes: "There is no possibility of action if one's strength is fully checked; there is a chance for a positive foreign policy only if there is a margin of force which can be freely used.""' Jerome Kahan has written that "in order to establish a mutual stability policy, it is necessary to classify strategic systems as either stabilizing or destabilizing and to avoid the latter."" Following classical mutual vulnerability theory, Kahan claims that weapons threatening to the (countervalue) mission performance of strategic offensive forces are destabilizing, "since they can directly negate an opponent's deterrent capability."" Examples of "stabilizing" weapons include SLBMs; MRVs, or inaccurate MIRVs; longrange cruise missiles; manned bombers; and missile site (or bomber base) BMD. "Destabilizing" weapons include accurate MIRVs, strategic ASW systems, area BMD, and area air defense. This simple classification is only as useful as are its doctrinal premises. If, for example, the Soviet Union does not equate the quality of its deterrent with its ability to devastate urban-industrial America, defense of the urbanindustrial U.S. homeland would not threaten the Soviet deterrent. Moreover, it can be argued, as noted above, that overall stability in the East-West militarypolitical relationship requires that the United States be able to initiate strategic nuclear use in defense of forward-located allies, and that such central war initiation, no matter how selective, cannot be credible in the event, unless a president of the United States was confident that damage to the U.S. homeland could be limited severely. Given the Soviet traditional military approach to nuclear war planning, strategies and tactics that in the West tend to be judged as destabilizing almost certainly have no such implications in Soviet thinking. Soviet political and military thinkers would he most unlikely, for example, to view programs intended to provide active and passive defense of the American homeland as anything other than common sense.'' To the extent that those programs threatened the success of Soviet plans for the military conduct of the war, they would be candidates for some Soviet response. However, the mechanistic ying-yang envisaged in some simpleminded defense-offenselaction-reaction theories of the arms race is the stuff of the (American) seminar room, not of the real world of Soviet defense decision-making.

The small strategic theory community has p a ~ dvery l~ttleattentlon to the place, let alone the details, of C z l . L ~ k epeace and security, everyone, from every school of thought, 1s f o v good C31.Understandably, it would be d ~ f f ~ c u l t C'I. to generate a debate over whether the Un~tedStates requlres h~gh-qual~ty Noncontrovers~alsubjects tend to escape attentlon, John Ste~nbrunerhas

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written that "the most severe problems with the concept of stability result from the fact that its technical definition has not included a critical dimension of strategic capability: namely, the physical and organizational arrangements for exercising deliberate command of strategic forces."s4 Steinbruner argues that when the concept of stability is expanded to accommodate C31 desiderata, the preferred force structure (given classic stability themes) might alter markedly. For example: "The submarine-based strategic force which is clearly the most stable under the conventional definition is just as clearly the worst in terms of command stability.""" Those theorists who believe that deterrence is a function of mutual societal vulnerability should be concerned lest command instability results in unintended armed conflict or in essentially uncontrolled escalation in the course of a war. Those theorists who believe that deterrence flows from the promise of proficient military conduct should be concerned lest command instability denies the U.S. armed forces the ability to wage war in a militarily intelligent fashion. A good fraction of the strategic debate of recent years rested on quite unrealistic assumptions concerning the quality and survivability of U.S. (and NATO) C31 assets. There was much weaving of interesting strategic targeting tapestries in the 1970s, but I suspect that most of the targeting schemes that envisaged the protracted and progressive unfolding of a deliberate design of destruction (for carefully calculated military and political effect) failed to take adequate note of likely or ~ossiblecommand instability phenomena (U.S. and Soviet). There is ample evidence suggesting that classic stability theory, which encourages the belief that nuclear war would be the end of history, promoted a relaxed climate concerning the many details of actually managing a central war campaign. A dominant belief that nuclear forces have failed if they are ever used is hardly likely to stimulate officials to think very realistically about command stability problems in a nuclear war environment. Steinbruner's persuasive advocacy of the need to place command stability at the center of nuclear (and other) planning concerns fails to recognize that the relative neglect of command stability issues flows in good part from the widespread acceptance of a classic stability theory (based on the assumption of the desirability of mutual societal vulnerability) that he approves.

Stability and U.S. Strategy John Newhouse, the privileged chronicler of the NSC perspective on the SALT I negotiations, asserted that stability was "a truly divine goal."'6 Today it is apparent that the theories of arms race and crisis stability that permeated the U.S. approach to SALT I were either wrong or misleading. At a general conceptual level, arms race and crisis stability are, of course, unexceptionable. N o one favors frenetic arms race activity per se or military postures that could precipitate war: so much is well-nigh axiomatic. Where the mainstream

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of U.S. strategic theorizing erred was in tying the multifold concept of stability to a particular theory of deterrence that did not match the burgeoning evidence. That theory held that each superpower had an assured destruction (countervalue) requirement vis-a-vis the other and that an enduring stable deterrence relationship could be constructed only on such a basis. This theory of arms race stability was wrong - it could not explain the course of the strategic arms competition in the 1970s (under the aegis of SALT I or in the shadow of SALT 11). Whatever mix of motives and institutional forces drove Soviet weapon procurement, the principle of sufficiency supported by the idea of assured destruction (let alone mutual assured destruction) clearly was not prominent among them. It is a matter of historical record that the Soviet Union since 1972 has worked hard to undermine whatever degree of strategic stability (based on mutual societal vulnerability) there may have been at that time. In their ICBM, air defense, BMD (in research and development), ASW, and civil defense programs the Soviets have provided persuasive evidence that their systemic view of the arms competition is dramatically different from the view adhered to by succeeding U.S. administrations. They have sought, and are continuing to seek, "useful advantage" through whatever degree of preponderance the United States permits.'? The "classical" theory of crisis stability may o r may not be correct; fortunately, the 1970s have not provided a field test. However, the Soviet perspective on strategic matters suggests that the explanatory power of the theory may be poor. Richard Burt expressed this skepticism when he wrote: "Central strategic war, according to Soviet literature, is not likely to stem from mechanistic instabilities within the superpower military relationship, but rather from real and enduring differences between competing political systems and national interests." j8 In principle, certainly, it is sensible to argue that it would be undesirable for the superpowers to deploy forces that lend themselves to first-strike destruction. However, it is no less sensible to argue that "the reciprocal fear of surprise attack"" as the principal proximate cause of war merits probable identification as a U.S. "mechanistic" fantasy. This is not to endorse a total indifference to Burt's "mechanistic instabilities," but to suggest that the traditional theory of crisis stability - on the basis of which particular weapons and doctrines are praised or vilified - needs considerable amendment. It overemphasizes the roba able role of mechanistic instabilities in an acute East-West crisis while taking a wholly apolitical approach to an inherently political phenomenon; and it is inimical to the extended deterrence requirement that the United States be capable and willing to take the strategic initiative. Many of the elements of a new theory of strategic stability already have been expressed in official prose and action over the past five years. However, the theoretical revolution remains incomplete. What is missing, above ail else, is a recognition of the pervasiveness and longevity of competition and a positive approach to the functions of strategic nuclear forces. On this last point, for example, Harold Brown treats both arms race and crisis stability

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in negative terms. For arms race stability, the United States must ensure "that the balance is not capable of being overturned by a sudden Soviet technological break-through"; for crisis stability, it must ensure that neither the United States nor the Soviet Union would feel itself under pressure to initiate an exchange in a crisis.60 Brown's concerns are appropriate, but they do not approach the heart of what stable deterrent ideas should indicate vis-a-vis U.S. force planning. An adequate concept of stability has to be anchored in a prospectively effective theory of deterrence a t the highest levels of violence. Crisis stability should be approached in terms of the calculations of probable war-waging prowess made by the parties involved. Concern about mechanistic, or technical, crisis (in)stability would be policy-appropriate only in a condition of such intense antipathy that overall central war campaign analyses would dominate decision processes. The Soviet Union would not "go to war" because a large fraction of its ICBM force was theoretically vulnerable to a U.S. first trike,^' any more than would the United States should the situation be reversed. Crisis stability, if possible, would flow from a Soviet belief that any escalation of the military conflict would produce negative military and ultimately political returns. The U.S. Department of Defense acknowledges this but it does not recognize that the United States is most unlikely to be able to enforce stability if damage to the U.S. homeland cannot be limited severely.63 Strategic stability should not be equated with strategic stalemate. The United States cannot afford a master strategic concept that implies thoroughgoing mutual U.S.-Soviet strategic d e t e r r e n ~ eIf. ~strategic ~ stability is to retain its preeminence as a U.S. policy goal, it should be redefined for compatibility with the extended deterrent duties that the geopolitics of the Western Alliance place on the U.S. strategic force posture. A stable strategic balance, in U.S./NATO perspective, is one that would permit the United States to: Initiate central strategic nuclear employment in expectation of gain (a requirement of NATO strategy) Seize and hold a position of "escalation dominance" Deter Soviet escalation, or counterescalation, by a potent threat posed to the most vital assets of the Soviet state and by the ability of the United States to limit damage to itself6' A Soviet Union confronting a United States with military and civilian programs appropriately supportive of the above objectives would have very little incentive either to effect a military "breakout" from a regional crisis or to engage very persistently in a competition in risk-taking at very high levels of violence. Crisis stability would be enforced through the Soviet perception of the United States as a very tough wartime adversary indeed. It might be objected that a U.S. president should not be entrusted with the capabilities suggested above.66 However, even if such a concern is valid (which is extremely dubious), it must be weighed against the greater danger

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of a president not having recourse to such capabilities. The concept of strategic stability envisaged here is the only one that speaks persuasively to Soviet strategic culture, and it is intended, of necessity, only to minimize that self-deterrence element that is the most crippling deficiency in existing U.S. official strategic thought. Self-deterrence cannot be removed altogether because the United States would know that even under the aegis of a stable military balance, as defined here, tens of millions of American casualties would most likely result from central war. Nonetheless, the United States would have a guiding concept from which military requirements could be derived in support of militarily and politically intelligent strategic targeting plans. This concept relates robustness in crisis regimes to anticipation of success or defeat in war and to a judiciously competitive program of peacet ~ m earmament. As stated earlier, the identifiable Soviet approach to arms competition is the steady acquisition of a more and more formidable war-fightinglwarsurvival capability. It is highly improbable that the Soviet Union can be dissuaded trom pursuing this a p p r ~ a c h . ~The ' evidence of the 1970s suggests that although in principle stability might be encouraged through negotiated SALT restraints - whereby both sides agree to forgo those capabilities that the mutual vulnerability theory of stability holds to be undesirable - it is far more likely that stability has to be enforced through competition. It is virtually self-evident that Soviet strategic culture precludes the negotiation route to enhanced stability, except in the context of very vigorous U.S. strategic effort. Moreover, there is growing agreement within the Western defense community that stability cannot rest intelligently on the threat of massive societal destruction (save, possibly, as an ultimate threat). Such damage is unacceptable to the United States, while it may be insufficiently unacceptable to Soviet politicians. If the U.S. concept of a stable military balance in extremis makes more or less formal reference to the assured destruction threat, the United States has a deterrence theory that probably is fundamentally unsound. The "ultimate threat" posed by the United States would not be credible because it would never be in the U.S. interest actually to implement it. Execution of such a threat would be the negation of strategy: in and of itself it would solve no military or political problems, while it would near-guarantee a Soviet retaliation that would preclude a U.S. recovery. The strategic nuclear targeting review of the late 1970s has prepared the way for serious discussion of the concept of stability suggested in this essay." The U.S. government recognizes that Soviet military and political assets should be the primary focus for U.S. strategic offensive attention;" that "limited nuclear options" have little promise unless the United States has a good theory of escalation dominance (and the forces to match); and that Soviet economic "recovery" targets are both difficult to identify and are probably of relatively little interest. However, Washington does not yet recognize that crisis and intrawar stability cannot rest on intelligent strategic offensive ~ l a n n i n galone. The U.S. Single Integrated Operational Plan

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(SIOP) can have integrity only in the context of active and passive defense. Fortunately, there is good reason to believe that the technology of air and missile defense for the late 1980s and b e y ~ n d , ' ~with substantial civil defense assistance, could restore a much more even relationship between offense and defense, and a useful meaning to the concept of stability.

Author's Note This paper represents my views alone. It has had only limited circulation among the Hudson Institute staff and n o formal review procedure. N o opinions, statements of fact, o r conclusions can properly be attributed to the Institute, its staff, its Members, o r its contracting agencies. I am very grateful to Keith Payne of the Hudson Institute professional staff for his valuable assistance with this article.

References 1. John Steinbruner, "National Security and the Concept of Strategic Stability," The]ournal o f Conflict Resolution, 22(3) (September 1978): 413. 2. For example, see Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960). "It is not the 'balance' - t h e sheer equality or symmetry in the situation - that constitutes mutual deterrence; it is the stability of the balance. The balance is stable only when neither, in striking first, can destroy the other's ability to strike back" p. 232. 3. Ken Booth, Strategy and Ethnocentrism (London: Croom, Helm, 1979), p. 14. 4. "Hostages must remain unambiguously vulnerable and retaliatory forces must remain unambiguously invulnerable." Ian Smart, Advanced Strategic Missiles: A Short Guide, Adelpbi Papers no. 63 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, December 1969), p. 28. 5. See Harold Brown, Department of Defense Annual Report, Fiscal Year 1981 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, January 29, 19801, pp. 65, 67. 6. See Colin S. Gray and Keith B. Payne, "Victory Is Possible," Foreign Policy, no. 39 (Summer 1980): 14-27. 7. See Stanley Sienkiewicz, "Observations on the Impact of Uncertainty in Strategic Analysis," World Politics, 30, II(1) (October 1979): 90-1 10. 8. Jack Snyder, The Soviet Strategic Culture: Implications for Limited Nuclear Operatrons, R-2154-AF (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, September 1977), p. 8. 9. John Erickson, "The Soviet Military System: Doctrine, Technology and 'Style,'" in S o ~ i e t Military Power and Performance, Erickson and E. J. Feuchtwanger (eds.) (Hamden, Conn.: Archon, 19791, pp. 1 8 4 3 . 10. Y. Harkabi, Nuclear War and Nuclear Peace (Jerusalem: Israeli Program for Scientific Translations, 19661, p. 48. 11. Jerome Kahan, Security in the Nuclear Age: Developing U S . Strategic Arms Policy (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1975), p. 272. 12. Roman Kolkowicz et al., The Soviet Union and Arms Control - A Superpower Dilemma (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1970), pp. 35-57. 13. See Fritz Ermarth, "Contrasts in American and Soviet Strategic Thought," International Security, 3 ( 2 ) (Fall 1978): 138-55. 14. See William E. Odom, "Who Controls Whom In Moscow," Foreign Policy, no. 19 (Summer 1975): 109-23. 15. Robert Jervis, "Why Nuclear Superiority Doesn't Matter," Political Science Quarterly, 94(4) (Winter 1979-80): 630.

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See Kenjamin S. Lambeth, "The Political Potential of Soviet Equ~valence,"Intrrwationnl Srr-rrvrty, 4 ( 2 ) (Fall 1979): 22-39.

An evcellent pre5entation of this important pomt is given by Robert 1.egvold In "Strategic 'Doctrine' m d SALT: Soviet and American Views," S u r v i ~ u l ,21 ( 1 ) (Jan~~arylFehruar!:~:~ry 1979): 8-1 3. See 1-ambeth, "The Political Potential of Soviet Equivalence," passim. . y The ~~clclass~fied literature o n U.S. nuclear targeting policy is almost pathetically t h ~ n M recent contributions include "Nuclear Strategy: The Case for a Theory of Victory," Internationid Srmrity, 4 ( l ) (Summer 1979): 54-87; and "Targeting Problems for Centrill War," Nau'11 War (:allege Reiww, 33(1) (J'inuary-iebruary 1980): .3-21. I b r a very d ~ f terent, hut usetul, perspective, see William H. Kincade, "A Strategy for All Seasons: Targeting Doctrme and Strategic Arms Control," Biilletin of the Atomic Scientists, 3 4 ( 5 ) (May 1978): 14-20. See Brown, Lkpnrtrnent of Defense Annual Report, FY 1981, p. 65. Ihid., pp. 82-3. See Booth: Strategy and Ethnocentrrsm; and "American Strategy: The Myths Revisited," in Aniericarr Thinking ahout Peace and Wilr, Booth and Moorhead Wright (eds.) (New York: Harper and Row, 1978), pp. 1-35. Also ~ ~ s e f is u l M'itthew P. Gallagher and Karl F. Spielmann, Sollret L)ecrsron-Makrng for Defense: A Criticlire of U.S. Perspcrtilm o n t h t Arms Race (New York: Praeger, 1972). Bernard Krodie, The Al~soluteWeapon ( N e w York: Harcourt, Brace, 1946). See Henry S. Rowen, "Formulating Strategic Doctrine," in C;orntnission o n the O ~ g ~ ~ t i i z ~ t i o ~ i fir t / ~ Conduct e of Forergn Policy, vol. 4, Appendix K (Washington, I>.

Nuclear War and Climatic Catastrophe

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Figure 2: Past a n d Future Nuclear Stockpiles

Climatic Catdstrophe Expected

1940

1950

1960

1970

1980

YEAR

1990

2000

2010

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United States and the Soviet Union would have almost identical numbers of inventories by the late 1980s. The uppermost (dash-dot) curve in Figure 2 shows the total U.S. and Soviet arsenals (essentially the world arsenals) climbing upward since about 1970 with a very steep slope, the slope steepening still more if the projection is valid. Such exponential or near-exponential runaways are expected in arms races where each side's rate of growth is proportional to its perception of the adversary's weapons inventory; but it is likewise clear that such rapid growth cannot continue indefinitely. In all natural and human systems, such steep growth rates are eventually stopped, often catastrophically. It is widely agreed - although different people have different justifications for this conclusion - that world arsenals must be reduced significantly. There is also general agreement, with a few demurrers, that at least the early and middle stages of a significant decline can be verified by national technical means and other procedures. The first stage of major arms reduction will have to overcome a new source of reluctance, when almost all silos could be reliably destroyed in a sub-threshold first strike. To overcome this reluctance, both sides will have prudently maintained an invulnerable retaliatory force, which itself would later move to sub-threshold levels. (It would even be advantageous to each nation to provide certain assistance in the development of such a force by the other.) As arsenals are reduced still further, the fine tuning of the continuing decline may have t o be worked out very carefully and with additional safeguards to guarantee continuing rough strategic parity. As threshold inventories are approached, some verifiable upper limits on yields as well as numbers would have to be worked out, to minimize the burning of cities if a nuclear conflict erupted. O n the other hand, the deceleration of the arms race would have an inertia of its own, as the acceleration does; and successful first steps would create a climate conducive to subsequent steps. There are three proposals now prominently discussed in the United States: Nuclear Freeze, Build-Down, and Deep Cuts. Their possible effects are diagrammed in Figure 2. They are by no means mutually exclusive, nor d o they exhaust the possible approaches. A negotiated Freeze would at least prevent the continuing upward escalation in stockpiles, would forestall the deployment of more destabilizing systems, and would ~ r o b a b be l ~accompanied by agreement on immediate annual phased reductions (the curved lines in the middle to late 1980s in Figure 2). To reduce the perceived temptation for a first strike, de-MIRVing of missiles during arms reduction may be essential. The most commonly cited method of following the Freeze with reductions is incorporated in the Kennedy-Hatfield Freeze Resolution: percentage reductions. Under this approach, the two sides would agree on a percentage - often quoted as being between five percent and ten percent - and would agree to decrease deployed warheads by that percentage annually. The percentage reduction method was proposed to the Soviet Union by the United States at the Vienna Summit in June 1979 and was to be applied to the limits and sub-limits of the SALT I1 accords until these reached a reduction of 50 percent.


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The Build-Down proposal is one in which modernization is permitted, but each side must pay a price in additional reductions of warheads for each warhead mounted on a modernized missile. In many current versions of the proposal, it would also require both sides to decrease their total warhead inventories by about five percent a year (again, the percentage annual reduction approach), to ensure that at least some reductions would take place even if modernization did not. The rate of decline for Build-Down illustrated in Figure 2 is essentially that of Representative Albert Gore (D.-Tenn.), in which rough parity at 8,500 warheads each is adopted as a goal for 199 1-92, and the levels are reduced to 6,500 warheads each by 1997." There is concern that the "modernization" of strategic systems that BuildDown encourages might open the door to still more destabilizing weapons. It is also by no means clear that all proponents of Build-Down envision further reductions below the interim goal of about 5,000 warheads each for the United States and Soviet Union. If this rate of Build-Down continued indefinitely, the two nations would not cross back below threshold until about the year 2020. As dramatic a change from the present circumstances as this represents, in light of the present global crisis, it is, I think, too leisurely a pace. Deep Cuts, originally advocated by George Kennan and Noel Gayler"' as an initial halving of the global arsenals in some relatively short period of time, proposes the turning in of the fission triggers of thermonuclear weapons, deployed or undeployed, to a binational or multinational authority, with the triggers subsequently gainfully consumed in nuclear power plants (the ultimate in beating swords into plowshares). A highly schematic curve for something like Deep Cuts is also shown in Figure 2, starting from Gore's assumption of parity by 1991-92. Halving of the present global arsenals would then occur around 1995, and the global arsenals would return to below the Doomsday Threshold by the year 2000. The actual shape of these declining curves would very likely have kinks and wiggles in them to accommodate the details of a bilaterally - and eventually multilaterally - agreed-upon plan to reduce the arsenals without compromising the security of any of the nuclear powers. The Deep Cuts curve shown has a rate of decline only about as steep as the rate of rise beginning in 1970. Much steeper declines may be feasible and should be considered. No one contends it will be easy to reverse the nuclear arms race. It is required at least for the same reasons that were used to justify the arms race in the first place - the national security of the United States and the Soviet Union. It is necessarily an enterprise of great magnitude. John Stuart Mill said: "Against a great evil, a small remedy does not produce a small result. It produces no result at all." But if the same technical ingenuity, dedication and resources were devoted to the downward slopes in Figure 2 as to the upward slopes, there is no reason to doubt that it could be negotiated safely. In the deployment o f more stabilizing weapons systems, in the possible development - especially in later stages of arms reductions - of novel means

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of treaty verification, and (perhaps) in the augmentation of conventional armaments, it will, of course, be expensive. But, given the stakes, a prudent nuclear power should be willing to spend more every year to defuse the arms race and prevent nuclear war than it does on all military preparedness. For comparison, in the United States the annual budget of the Department of Defense is about 10,000 times that of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, quite apart from any questions about the dedication and effectiveness of the ACDA. The equivalent disparity is even greater in many other nations. I believe that the technical side of guaranteeing a major multilateral and strategically secure global arms reduction can be devised and deployed for considerably less - perhaps even a factor of 100 less -than the planet's direct military expenditures of $540 billion per year.3' Such figures give some feeling for the chasm that separates a prudent policy in face of our present knowledge of nuclear war from the actual present policies of the nuclear powers. Likewise, nations far removed from the conflict, even nations with little or no investment in the quarrels among the nuclear powers, stand to be destroyed in a nuclear war, rather than benefiting from the mutual annihilation of the superpowers. They too, one might think, would be wise to devote considerable resources to help ensure that nuclear war does not break out.

In summary, cold, dark, radioactivity, pyrotoxins and ultraviolet light following a nuclear war - including some scenarios involving only a small fraction of the world strategic arsenals - would imperil every survivor on the planet. There is a real danger of the extinction of humanity. A threshold exists at which the climatic catastrophe could be triggered, very roughly around 500-2,000 strategic warheads. A major first strike may be an act of national suicide, even if no retaliation occurs. Given the magnitude of the potential loss, no policy declarations and no mechanical safeguards can adequately guarantee the safety of the human species. No national rivalry or ideological confrontation justifies putting the species at risk. Accordingly, there is a critical need for safe and verifiable reductions of the world strategic inventories to below threshold. At such levels, still adequate for deterrence, at least the worst could not happen should a nuclear war break out. National security policies that seem prudent or even successful during a term of office or a tour of duty may work to endanger national - and global - security over longer periods of time. In many respects it is just such short-term thinking that is responsible for the present world crisis. The looming prospect of the climatic catastrophe makes short-term thinking even more dangerous. The past has been the enemy of the present, and the present the enemy of the future. The problem cries out for an ecumenical perspective that rises above cant, doctrine and mutual recrimination, however apparently justified, and

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that at least partly transcends parochial fealties in time and space. What is urgently required is a coherent, mutually agreed upon, long-term policy for dramatic reductions in nuclear armaments, and a deep commitment, embracing decades, to carry it out. O u r talent, while imperfect, to foresee the future consequences of our present actions and to change our course appropriately is a hallmark of the human species, and one of the chief reasons for our success over the past million years. Our future depends entirely on how quickly and how broadly we can refine this talent. We should plan for and cherish our fragile world as we do our children and our grandchildren: there will be no other place for them to live. It is nowhere ordained that we must remain in bondage to nuclear weapons.

Acknowledgements For stimulating discussions, and/or careful reviews of an earlier version of this a r t d e , I am grateful t o Hans Rethe, McGeorge Bundy, Joan Chittester, Freeman Dyson, I'a~tl Ehrllch, Alton trye, Richard Garwin, Noel Gayler, Jerome Grossman, Averell H'lrrimm, Mark Harwell, John P. Holdren, Eric Jones, George F. Kenn.111, Robert S. McNamara, Carson Mark, P h i l ~ pMorrison, l a y Orear, William Perry, David Plrncnrel, Theodore Postel, George Kathjens, Joseph Rotblat, Herbert Scoville, Brent Scowcroft, J o h n Steinbruner, Jeremy Stone, Edward Teller, Br~,lnToon, R ~ c h a r d'T'urco, I'JLII Warnke, Victor Weisskopt, Robert R. Wilson, and Albert Wohlstettcr. 'They are howeber In n o wa! t o he held responsible tor the opinions stated o r the conclu\ions dr,~\vn. I deeply appreciate the encouragement, suggestions a n d critical assessments provided by Lester Grinspoon, Steven Soter and, especiall!: Ann Druyan, a n d the dedicated tran\criptions, through ni,lny draft\, hy Mary Roth. This 'irticle c\,ould not have been possible wlthout the h ~ g hscientif~ccompetence . ~ n d J e d t c a t ~ o nof my co-authors 011 the TTAPS study, Rich'lrd I? Turco, Owen B. 'Ti)o11, Thomas I? Ackerm.ln, and J a m e s B. Pollack, and my 19 coauthors of the accompan?rng s c ~ c n t ~ paper t~c on the long-term biological consequences of nuclear war. Finally, I \vish t o thank my Soviet colleagues, V.V. Alexandrov, E.1. Chazov, G.S. Gol~tsyn,and E.P. Velikhov among others, for organt n n g independent confirmattons of the prolmble existence of 1' post-nuclear-war clirn,ltrc catastrophe, , ~ n dtor helping t o generate a ditferent kind of cllrnate - o n e of mutual concern m c i cooperation that is essential ~fw e are t o emerge sdfely from the tr'lp that our t w o n'itlons have jo~nrlyset tor ourselves, our civil~zation,a n d o u r species.

Notes 1. R.I? Turco, O.B. Toon, T.P. Ackerrnan, J.B. Pollack and L t r l Sagan, ITTAPS] " G l o h ~ l Attnospher~cConsequences of Nuclear War," Science, in press; P.R. Ehrlich, M.;\. Harwell, Peter H. Raven, Carl Sagan, G.M. Woodwell, et al., "The Long-Term Biological Consequences of Nucle.~rWar," Scirnce, in press. 2. Saniuel Glasstone and I'hil~pJ . Dolan, The Effects o f N L I C ~ PWar, I I I . 3rd cd., \V,l\hington: I)epartrnent of Defense, 1977. 3. T h e "tactical" Pershing I, for example, is listed as carrying warheads with yields a s high as 400 kilotons, whlle the "strategic" Poseidon C-3 is listed with ,I yield of only 40 kilotons. \Vorltf Arrnarnents and Drsi~nncment,SIPRl Yearbook 1982, Stockholm I n r e r n a t ~ o n ~Pc,~ce ll Research Institute, L.ondon: Taylor a n d Francis, 1982; J . Record, U.S. N~rclenrWcrzpons in Enropc. W ~ s h i n g t o n :Rrookings Institution, 1974.

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4. See, e.g., D. Ball, Adelphi Paper 169, London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1981; P. Bracken and M. Shubik, in Technology in Society, Vol. 4, 1982, p. 155. 5. National Academy of SciencesINational Research Council, Long-term Worldturde Effects of Multiple Nuclear Weapons Detonations, Washington: National Academy o f Sciences, 1975; Office of Technology Assessment, The Effects of Nuclear War, Washington, 1979; J. Peterson (Ed.), Nuclear War: The Aftermath, special issue Ambio, Vol. 11, Nos. 2-3, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, 1982; R.P. Turco, et a/., loc. cit. footnote 1; S. Bergstrom, et ul., Effects of Nuclear War on Health and Health Services, Rome: World Health Organization, Publication No. A36.12, 1983; National Academy of Sciences, new 1983 study in press. 6. See, e.g., J. Peterson, op. cit. footnote 5. 7. S. Bergstrom, up. cit. footnote 5. 8. [hid. 9. R. P. Turco, et al., loc. cit. footnote 1. 10. National Academy of Sciences, 1983, loc. cit. footnote 5. 11. J. Peterson, op. crt. footnote 6 . 12. National Academy of Sciences, 1975, op. cit. footnote 5. 13. The climatic threshold for smoke in the troposphere is about 100 million metric tons, injected essentially all at once; for sub-micron fine dust in the stratosphere, about the same. 14. The slow warming of the Earth due to a CO, greenhouse effect attendant to the burning of fossil fuels should not be thought of as tempering the nuclear winter: the greenhouse temperature increments are too small and too slow. 15. These results are dependent on important work by a large number of sc~entisrswho have previously examined aspects of this subject; many of these workers are acknowledged in the articles cited in footnote 1. 16. David Pimentel and Mark Sorrells, private communication, 1983. 17. C. H. Kruger, R. B. Setlow, et a/., Causes a n d Effects of Stratospheric Ozone Reduction: An Update, Washington: National Academy of Sciences, 1982. 18. P. Ehrlich, et a[., loc. cit. footnote 1. 19. The term "Doomsday Machine" is due to Herman Kahn, Thinking About the Unthinkable, New York: Horizon Press, 1962. 20. Aviation Week a n d Space Technology, May 15, 1978, p. 225. 21. Ihid. 22. S. Glasstone and P.J. D o h , op. cit. footnote 2. 23. The distribution of the coldest regions will vary with time and geography. In one recent but still very crude three-dimensional simulation of the nuclear winter, the temperature has, by 4 0 days after the war, dropped by 15 to more than 4 0 centigrade degrees over much of the globe, including a vast region extending from Chad to Novosibirsk, from the Caspian Sea to Sri Lanka, embracing India, Pakistan and western China, and having its most severe effects in Afghanistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia. V. V. Alexandrov and G. 1. Stenchikov, preprint, Computing Center, U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 1983. 24. Richard Garwin, testimony before the Subcommittee on International Security and Scientific Affairs of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, U.S. Congress, November 10, 1983; Hans Bethe, manuscript in preparation. 25. George F. Kennan, "The Only Way Out of the Nuclear Nightmare," Manchester Guardian Weekly, May 31, 1981. This is Kennan's acceptance speech for the Albert Einstein Peace Prize on May 19, 1981, in Washington, D.C. 26. Article 1, paragraph 1, states: "Each State Party to this Convention undertakes not to engage in military or any other hostile use of environmental mod~ficationtechniques having widespread, long-lasting or severe effects as the means of destruction, damage, or injury to another State Party." Paragraph 2 goes on: "Each State Parry to this Convention undertakes not to assist, encourage or induce any State, group of States or international organization to engage in actwities contrary to the provisions of paragraph 1 ..." 27. Since higher-yield tactical warheads can also be used t o burn cities, and might do so inadvertently, especially in Europe, provision for their elimination should also eventually be made. But initial attention should be directed to strategic warheads and their delivery systems.


36 1

28. T h e t o t ~ lwarheads calculated in Figure 2 include str'ltegtc a n d theater we'lpons, but not t,lcrical weapons. N o t all p u h l ~ s h c dsources are in perfect agreement o n t h e w number\. T h e p r ~ n c ~ psources d u\ed here ,Ire the Report of the Sccrctmy of Defcnsc [Harold Bror~vz/t o the ( h g r c ~ s ort s the FY 1982 Brcilxet, FY 198 Arrtl~orrzntrorr Rcqrrc~stand t Y 1986 1l~~fi.rzsc I'iograrns. W a s h ~ n g t o n : Dep,irrmenr o f Defense, 198 1; and Nutiom1 Dcfcnse Artdgc~ t~strr~zirt~s. FY 198 3 . Otficc of the Assi5tant Secretary of Defense, Comptroller, March 1982. Ikyond 1983, projected increases in arsenals are shown tor U.S. lid Soviet ,trsen,~l$J \ ne:lrly vertical dashed lines. with the s u m of these arsenals a\ the line a t the top ot the Figure t e r n ~ i n ~ l t ~Inn ga n arrowhead. T h e datll are from F r m k R x n a h ! In the speci,~li\cue of At~tbro cited in footnote 5 , pp. 76-83. See also Cortrltrrforcc lssrtcs tor ~ I U.S. J ~ StrC7tcgic h'rrrlrL7r tflrcrs, Congression,ll I3udget Office, January 1978. Figure 2 shows three regions: a n upper region In which the n ~ ~ c l e winter ~ir could altno5t n certainly he triggered; a lower region a t which it could nor he tr~ggered:and a t r ' ~ n \ ~ t i o ;.one, shown shaded. 'The I ) o ~ ~ n d , ~ ot r i et ~h i ~transition zone are more uncert.lin than \ho\vn, and depend among other t h ~ n g so n targeting strategy. Bur the threshold prob'ihly l ~ e shrr\veen se\.er.~l hundred and a tew thousand conrempory strategic weapons. 2 9 . (:orzgrcssion~71Rrcord, August 4 , 1983, Vol. 129, No. 114. 3 0 . (;eorge t Kennan, / ( I ( - . cit. footnote 24; Noel Gayler, "How t o Break the Momentum J Trntcs Mugrrrmc~.April 2.5, 1982. of the Nuclear Arms Race," T i ~ eN ~ York 3 I. Ruth I.eger Sivard, World Militury und Sociul Expcndrturi~s. 1.eesburg (VJ.): World Prtorit~es, 198.3.

The OffensiveIDefensive Balance o f Military Technology: A Theoretical and Historical Analysis Jack S. Levy

T

he literature on international relations and military history contains numerous references to the offensive or defensive balance of military technology and its impact on war. Historians often characterize a particular era as favoring the offense or the defense, and theorists often hypothesize that technology favoring the offense increases the likelihood of war or contributes to empire-building. More generally, it has been suggested that the history of warfare and weaponry can be viewed in terms of the interplay between the offense and the defense (Snow, 1983: 83). These analyses are not generally meaningful, however, because they are rarely guided by any explicit definition of the key concept of the offensiveldefensive balance. The concept itself has been defined in a variety of ways which are often contradictory and which confuse the meaning of the hypotheses in question. Attempts to classify the balance historically are also inconsistent. These inconsistencies are obscured by the failure of both the theoretical and historical literature to acknowledge and build upon earlier scholarship and also by the absence of any general review of the literature. As a result, little is known about the offensive1 defensive balance and its impact on war. Much more work needs to be done if the concept of the offensiveldefensive balance is to have any utility for explaining international conflict. This work must begin with a critical assessment of the existing literature in order to synthesize and evaluate the numerous but disparate and generally superficial treatments of the concept. Three aspects of the problem which are integrally related but which are often treated separately in the literature must be incorporated: hypothesis construction, concept definition, and historical measurement. The Hypotheses

One of the first attempts to generalize about the consequences of either an offensive or defensive balance was that of Clausewitz (1976: 293), who Source: lnternatzonal Studies Quarterly, 28(2) (1984):219-38.

Qc.t i

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suggested that the superiority of the defense may leave both sides with no incentive to attack and thus 'tame the elementary impetuosity of War.' More explicit propositions were made by the proponents of the 'qualitative principle' in the 1920s and 1930s. Their argument that offensive and defensive weapons can be distinguished and that the former (and only the former) should be abolished was based on the explicit assumption that offensive but not defensive weapons are conductive to war, an assumption shared by most of the participants at the 1932 League of Nations Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments (Wheeler-Bennett, 1935; Boggs, 1941). Hart, for example, wrote that 'any strengthening of the defensive at the expense of the offensive is a discouragement to aggression' ( 1932: 72). A more systematic attempt to delineate the consequences of the offensiveldefensive balance of military technology was suggested by Wright in his classic A Study of War. He argues that the superiority of the offense generally results in the following: an increase in the probability of war; political expansion, unification, and empire building; a decrease in the number of states in the system; and shorter duration and lower costs of wars. Superiority of the defense, on the other hand, results in a strengthening of loci1 areas jnd thus facilitates revolts, the disintegration of empires, and the decentralization of states; an increase in the number of states; decrease in the decisiveness of wars and their importance for world politics; strategies of protracted stalemates and mutual attrition, which result in wars of longer duration and greater destructiveness (Wright, 1965: 129, 292-93, 673, 797, 1520). Similarly, Andreski (1968: 75-76) argues that other things being equal, the predominance of the attack over defence tends to diminish the number of independent governments within a given area and to widen the areas under their control, and/or facilitates the tightening of control over the areas already under their domination; while the superiority of defence tends to produce opposite results. One can fmd s l n ~ ~ l generallzatlons ar In Quester's Offense and Defense ~n the International System (1977). He wrltes that: 'Offenses produce war and/or emplre; defenses support Independence and peace' (p. 208). When the offense holds the advantage 'both srdes are p r ~ m e dto reap advantages by push~ngInto each other's territory, (and) war may be extremely Ilkel) whenever polit~calcrlsis erupts' (1977: 7). Offensive superiority is conducive to emplre and a 'flnal pollt~cald e c ~ s ~ owhde n' defens~vesuperlorlty leads to p o l ~ t ~ c mdependence al and prolonged wars ( 1977: 8, 3 1, 208). Quester recognizes the comphcatlons mtroduced by nuclear technology, and xgue4 that the c a p a b ~ l ~ tfor y a counterforce offens~veencourages war whlle ,I countervalue offensive capability promotes peace ( 1 977: 69). between the offense and Glpln also devotes attention to the relat~onsh~p the defense. He arguec that: ' M ~ l ~ t a rmnovatlons v that tend to favor the otfense over the defense st~mulateterrltorlal expanslon and the polltlcal con\olldatlon of lnternatlonal systems by emplres or great powers' ( 198 1 : 61 ).

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Gilpin also argues that the offensiveldefensive balance affects the costs of changing the status quo, and that the higher the costs the fewer incentives for war (1981: 60-62). This is similar to Bean's (1973: 207) argument that defensive superiority increases the costs of conquest and consequently reduces the number of conquests, though those that d o occur take longer. The strong implication is that defensive superiority reduces the likelihood of war. Jervis provides the most systematic effort to trace the theoretical impact of the offensiveldefensive balance on the likelihood of war. Using the conceptual device of the security dilemma, Jervis (1978: 188-190) identifies a number of related linkages between offensive superiority and war. Most importantly, offensive superiority increases the benefits from striking first and increases the costs of allowing the adversary to strike first. This increases in turn the incentives to strike first and therefore the likelihood of war. Defensive superiority reduces both the benefits to the attacker who initiates a war and the costs to the defender who waits and absorbs the first blow, leaves neither side with an incentive to strike first, and thus reduces the likelihood of war (Quester, 1977: 211). The likelihood of war is also increased by the erroneous perception of offensive advantage. Second, offensive superiority contributes to arms races, which are themselves assumed to lead to war. The expectation that war will be frequent and short places a premium on high levels of existing armaments and on a quick response to an adversary's increases in armaments. When the defense is superior, however, inferior forces are sufficient for deterrence. Defensively superior weapons may further provide a dampening effect on the arms race because in such a situation security does not require the matching of the adversary arm for arm. Third, Jervis argues that offensive superiority increases the incentive to seek alliances in advance (Osgood, 1967: 81), which contributes to polarization, tensions, and an increased probability of war.' It can also be argued that all of the destabilizing dimensions of the spiral model, including the psychological dynamics that reinforce them (Jervis, 1978: 67-66), work to the fullest extent when the offense is superior. There are numerous historical examples which are said to illustrate the destabilizing consequences of offensive superiority.' Perhaps the most widely cited is World War I. The perceived advantages of the offense (Hart, 1932: 72; Farrar, 1973; Quester, 1977: 103; Jervis, 1978: 190-1 91) created enormous pressures for early mobilizations, which were widely believed to make war inevitable (Fay, 1928: 11, ch. X; Levy, 1983b). Israel's preemptive strike against Egypt in 1967 may have been encouraged by the perceived advantages of the offense. The stability of the nuclear balance is widely believed to derive from the absence of incentives to strike first, incentives which are reduced by the existence of invulnerable retaliatory capabilities and countervalue potential. While many of the hypotheses regarding the consequences of the offensiveldefensive balance are inherently plausible, there are critical analytical problems which must be resolved before they can be accepted as meaningful or valid. These problems have to do with the theoretical logic of the hypotheses,

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the definition of the offensiveldefensive balance, and the empirical validity of the hypotheses. The hypothesis that the likelihood of war is increased when the military technology favors the offense is theoretically plausible only on the basis of the rather strong assunlption that decisionmakers correctly perceive the offensiveldefensive balance. However, it is perceptions of one's psychological environment that determine decisions, not the 'objective' operational environment (Sprout and Sprout, 1965). The assumption of accurate perceptions is therefore open to question. The inherent difficulty of determining the offensive1 defensive balance and the alleged tendency of the military to prepare for the last war rather than the next one may result in some profound misperceptions. I t is widely agreed, for example, that in 1914 military technology favored thc defense (Hart, 1932: 75; Fuller, 1961: ch. 8-9; Montgomery, 1983: 472) but that most decisionmakers perceived that it favored the offense. It was not the offensiveldefensive balance that intensified worst-case analysis and increased the incentives for preemption, b ~ i tdecisionmakers' perceptions of that balance. If the offensiveldefensive balance is not defined in terms of the perceptions of decisionmakers (and in most conceptualizations it is not so defined), thcn the hypothesis is technically misspecified. Hypothesis regarding the consequences of war, on the other hand, are properly defined in terms of the 'objective' balance. The second problem relates to the definition of the offensiveldefensive balance. What does it mean to say that the offense is superior to the defense, or vice r w s a ? This will be treated at length in the following section, but one point should be made here. An hypothesis regarding the offensiveldefensive balance has no explanatory power unless that concept can be nominally and operationally defined independently of its hypothesized effects. For example, Wright ( 1 965: 796-97) states that

... it is difficult to judge the relative power of the offensive and defensive except by a historical audit to determine whether on the whole, in a given state of military technology, military violence had or had not proved a useful instrument of political change. ... During periods when dissatisfied powers have, on the whole, gained their aims by a resort to arms, it may he assumed, on the level of grand strategy, that the power of the offensive has been greater. During the periods when they have not been able to d o so, it may be assumed that the power of the grand strategic defensive has been greater. It would be tautological to use this conception of the offensiveldefensive balance to predict to the military success of the aggressor, though it would he legitinlate to predict to the frequency of war. Similarly, it is meaningless to hypothesize that offensive superiority increases the incentive to strike first if the offensiveldefensive balance is defined by the incentive to strike first. The separation of hypothesis construction from concept definition and the absence of rigorous definition has increased the dangers of tautological propositions.

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The failure to subject these hypotheses to systematic empirical testing is another major problem. Most attempts to identify the offensiveldefensive advantage in various historical eras are not guided by an explicit definition of the concept,bnd rarely is there a demonstration that a given balance had an effect on the frequency of wars occurring or on the decisions for a particular war. The apparent a priori plausibility of a particular hypothesis may derive more from its tautological construction than from its correspondence with reality. In the absence of a more thorough analytic treatment and a more systematic empirical analysis the validity of any of these hypotheses cannot be accepted.

Definitions of the Offensive/Defensive Balance Use of the concept of offensiveldefensive balance to refer to a variety of different things has led to a great deal of confusion. Theoretical propositions which are meaningful or interesting for one use of the term may not be very meaningful for another, and for this reason the various usages of the concept must be identified and examined. Concern here is with the offensiveldefensive distinction with respect to military technology and perhaps tactics4 but not with respect to policy. The question of whether national policy is offensive (aggressive) or defensive is not unimportant, but is analytically distinct and not directly relevant to the hypotheses surveyed earlier. These propositions all suggest that there is something about military technology itself that affects the likelihood or nature of war, and that what is important is whether technology gives an advantage to the offense or defense. This relative advantage may be one of several variables affecting the likelihood of war by affecting policy, but itself is analytically distinct from policy. The offensiveldefensive balance of military technology has been defined primarily in terms of the ease of territorial conquest, the characteristics of armaments, the resources needed by the offense in order to overcome the defense, and the incentive to strike first. Territorial C o n q u e s t

The most common use of the concept of the offensiveldefensive balance is based on territorial conquest and the defeat of enemy forces. Quester (1977: 15) states that 'the territorial fixation then logically establishes our distinction between offense and defense.' Jervis (1978: 187) argues that an offensive advantage means that 'it is easier to destroy the other's army and take its territory than it is to defend one's own.' 'The essence of defense,' on the other hand, 'is keeping the other side out of your territory. A purely defensive weapon is one that can d o this without being able to penetrate the enemy's land' (1978: 203). A defensive advantage means that 'it is easier to protect and hold than it is to move forward, destroy, and take' (Jervis, 1978: 187).

I

I

\

,

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Wright (1965: 793) lncludes these notions of defeat of enemy forces and territor~alselzure In h ~ rather s complex definition: O n a tactical level the offensive or defensive quality of a unit may be estimated by considering its utility in an attack upon a n enemy unit like itself or in an attack upon some other concrete enemy objective, such as territory, commerce, or morale.'

A primary purpose of protecting territory, of course, is the protection of people and property. What is perhaps implicit in the above definitions is made explicit by Tarr (1983): 'Defense refers to techniques and actions, both active and passive, to repel attack, to protect people and property, to hold territory, and to minimize damage by the attacker.' This linkage of territorial conquest to p o p ~ ~ l a t i odefense n creates a problem, however. While territorial defense was sufficient for the protection of people and property in the pre-nuclear era (or at least in the era before strategic bombardment), that is no longer true. As Schelling (1966: ch. 1 ) and others have noted, the uniqueness of the nuclear age lies in the fact that the defeat of the adversary's military forces and territorial penetration are no longer necessary for the destruction of his population centers. The destruction of population and the coercive power that it makes possible are no longer contingent upon military victory. For this reason the protection of territory (from invasion) is analytically distinct from the protection of population. The inclusion of both in a definition of the offensiveldefensive distinction only creates confusion (unless the use of that concept is explicitly restricted to the pre-nuclear era), for the hypothesized effects of a n 'offensive' advantage are precisely the opposite for the two concepts. The likelihood of war presumably increases as territorial conquest becomes easier, because the probability of victory increases while its expected costs decrease. But the ability t o destroy enemy population and industrial centers contributes to deterrence in the nuclear age, and therefore it decreases the likelihood of war (or at least nuclear war). It is because of the distinction between deterrence and defense (Snyder, 1961: 14-16) that the meaning of the offensiveldefensive balance may differ in the nuclear and pre-nuclear eras. Whereas in the pre-nuclear era both deterrence and defense were based on the capacity to defeat the armed forces of the enemy, that is only true for defense in the nuclear age, for deterrence is ultimately based on countervalue punishment. The use of military force for the purpose of defeating enemy armed forces is analytically distinct from the use of force for coercion (Schelling, 1966: ch, 2). Consequently, traditional hypotheses (Wright and others) regarding the effects of the offensiveldefensive balance of military technology are not necessarily applicable for nuclear powers a t the strategic level. Neither the concepts nor the hypotheses are interchangeable.' Now let us return t o the territorial conception of the offensiveldefensive balance. O u r earlier discussion leads t o the question of what, besides the numbers of troops or weapons, contributes t o the defeat of enemy forces

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and conquest of territory. One answer is provided at the tactical level, based on movement towards the armed forces, possessions, or territory of the enemy. A condition of relative passivity and immobility in waiting for the enemy to attack defines the strategic and tactical defensive (Wright, 1965: 807). Clausewitz (as quoted in Boggs, 1941: 68) states: What is defense in conception? The warding off a blow. What is then its characteristic sign? The state of expectancy (or of waiting for this blow) ... by this sign alone can the defensive be distinguished from the offensive in war. ... Clausewitz also writes: 'In tactics every combat, great or small, is defensive if we leave the initiative to the enemy, and wait for his appearance on our front' (as quoted in Boggs, 1941: 68). Both offensive and defensive modes of war on the tactical level are necessary, of course, for the achievement of either offensive or defensive objectives. The pursuit of any offensive goal requires a supporting defense, and the defense alone can never bring victory but only stalemate. Mahan refers to 'the fundamental principle of naval war, that defense is insured only by offence' (Boggs, 1941: 70). Clausewitz writes that an absolute defense is an 'absurdity' which 'completely contradicts the idea of war' (Boggs, 194 1: 71 ). At some point it is necessary to seize the tactical offensive in order to avoid defeat.'Thus the familiar maxim: the best defense is a good offense. It is necessary, however, to distinguish between the strategic and tactical levels. A general fighting offensively in strategic terms needs only to invade and then hold territory to enable him to adopt the tactical defensive (Strachan, 1983). It may be strategically advantageous to maneuver the enemy into a position in which he is forced to take the tactical offensive under unfavorable conditions. As the elder Moltke stated in 1865, 'our strategy must be offensive, our tactics defensive' (Dupuy, 1980: 200). In addition, military tactics may be offensive in one theater and defensive in another. The Schlieffen Plan, for example, required a holding action against Russia in the east in order to move against France in the west. Nevertheless, with certain types of weapons systems more movement and tactical mobility is possible than with others. It is difficult to measure movement historically while controlling for nontechnological f a ~ t o r s however. ,~ This leads us to the question of whether the offensive/defensive balance can be defined by the characteristics of weapons systems themselves. T h e Characteristics of Armaments

While nearly all weapons can be used for either the strategic or tactical offensive or the strategic or tactical defensive, the question is whether there are some weapons systems which contribute disproportionately more to one than to the other. As stated by the Naval Commission of the League of Nations

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Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments (1932-1936) (Koggs, 1941: 82). Supposing one state either a ) adopts a policy of armed aggression or b) undertakes offensive operations against another state, what are the weapons which, by reason of their specific character, and without prejudice to their defensive purposes, are most likely to enable that policy or those operations to be brought rapidly to a successful conclusion? Hart (1932: 73) argues that certain weapons 'alone make it possible under modern conditions to make a decisive offensive against a neighboring country.' What are the characteristics of such weapons? Both Fuller and Hart identify mobility, striking power, and protection as the essential characteristics of an offensive weapon (Wright, 196.5: 808). Striking power (the impact of the blow) is not alone sufficient. A mobile gun contributes more to the tactical offensive than an immobile one, and its penetrating power is further enhanced if it is protected. But protection is even more important for the defense. Mobility and protection are inversely related, for it is easier to protect immobile weapons and wait passively for the enemy to attack. The offensive value of the medieval knight ultimately was negated by the heavy armor which protected him but restricted his mobility. Thus Dupuy and Eliot (1937: 103) give particular emphasis to the offensive advantages of mobility and striking power, noting that they too may be in conflict. Roggs (1941: 84-85) argues that 'the defense disposes especially of striking power and protection, to a lesser degree of mobility, while the offense possesses mobility and striking power, and protection to a lesser degree.' He concludes that mobility is the central characteristic of an offensive weapon and arg~lesthat 'armament which greatly facilitates the forward movement of the attacker might be said tentatively to possess relatively greater offensive power than weapons which contribute primarily to the stability o f the defender' (Boggs, 1941: 85). Our later survey of attempts by military historians to identify the offensiveldefensive balance in various historical eras will show that tactical mobility is the primary criterion used to identify an advantage to the offense. In terms of the characteristics of armaments, then, tactical mobility and movement toward enemy forces and territory are the primary determinants of the offense, at least in land warfare; protection and holding power contribute more to the defense. Other weapon characteristics such as striking power, rapidity of fire, and the range of a weapons system do not contribute disproportionately to either the offense or the defense.' Much more work needs to be done here, however, because of the lack of precision of some of these concepts. The classification of weapons systems by their contribution to mobility and tactical movement toward enemy forces and territory is much less useful for naval warfare. This was evident from the proceedings of the League of

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Nations Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments, where the problems and disagreements confronting the Naval Commission were even more serious than those confronting the Land Commission and where technical arguments were even more likely to follow the flag (Boggs, 1941: 50-60). The United States, among others, declared that the qualitative distinction could not be applied to navies. Hart, a proponent of the qualitative principle in general, restricted it to the materials of land warfare (Boggs, 1941: 50, 81). The main problem with attempts to apply these principles of mobility and tactical movement to naval warfare is the absence of anything comparable to the territorial standard occurring in land warfare. The command of the seas, the ultimate objective of naval warfare (Mahan, 1957), can be served by passive as well as aggressive action, for the neutralization of the enemy fleet by a blockade may serve the same function as its defeat. Moreover, aggressive action toward the enemy fleet does not always result in battle, for an inferior navy can often avoid battle without sacrificing major territorial objectives, unlike land warfare. Application of the territorially-based criterion of tactical mobility to aerial weapons systems raises the question of whether the offensive or defensive character of these weapons is determined independently of land warfare or by their contribution to the defeat of enemy ground forces and territorial conquest. Many aerial weapons systems do contribute to the tactical offensive on the ground because of their striking power, mobility, and surprise (for example, in the Nazi blitzkrieg). Yet air power also has an independent capability to destroy the enemy's war making industrial capabilities, and hence contributes to deterrence in the nuclear age. This deterrent effect of air power takes place independently of its effect on the tactical offensive on the ground but cannot easily be incorporated into a conception of the offensiveldefensive balance based on tactical mobility. Some armaments that traditionally have been considered as defensive and therefore assumed to be 'stabilizing' (in the sense that they discourage aggression and reduce the likelihood of war) are often considered to be destabilizing in the nuclear age. Air defenses, anti-ballistic missile defenses, and even civil defenses are considered under the prevailing strategic doctrine to be destabilizing because by protecting populations they threaten to undermine deterrence. This reinforces our earlier point that the hypothesized consequences of a military technology favoring the offense (or the defense) may not be interchangeable between the nuclear and pre-nuclear eras. The definition of the offensiveldefensive balance, in terms of the characteristics of armaments, raises other questions as well. One is whether it is possible to define the offensiveldefensive character of a weapon by its intrinsic performance characteristics alone, apart from the prevailing doctrine that determines its use. For example, essentially the same tank that was used in much of World War I as protected fire support was used in World War I1 as the organizing element of mobile offensive warfare (Fuller, 1945: ch. VI). The offensive character of Napoleonic warfare was due far more to the innovative tactics of Napoleon than to weapons systems themselves

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(Howard, 1976: 75-76; Preston and Wise, 1979: 189-191)."' It must be concluded that the offensive or defensive character of a weapons system must be defined by both its intrinsic characteristics and the tactical doctrine which determines its use. What is important, of course, is not the characteristics of an individual weapon, but rather the aggregate impact of all weapons systems in a given arsenal. How is a given mixture of armaments, designed for different purposes and deployed for use in different theaters on land, sea, and air, to be aggregated so that their net effect on the offense and defense can be classified? This overall impact cannot be determined apart from the composition of an enemy's weapons systems and the terrain where the combat takes place. The offensive value of the tank, for example, was reduced by the development of new anti-tank technologies in the early 1970s. To complicate matters further, most hypotheses relating to the offensiveldefensive balance treat that concept as a systemic-level attribute (the hypotheses that offensive superiority contributes to an increased frequency of war and to empire-building, for example). They suggest that at a given time the offensiveldefensive balance can be characterized by a single value throughout the system. The balance must be aggregated not only over all weapons, functional roles, and theaters for a given state, but also over all states in the system. This is difficult given differential levels of industrialization and military power, uneven rates of technological diffusion, and doctrinal differences among various states in the system." Some of these problems are minimized, however, if the focus is restricted to the leading powers in the system, because they are often comparable in terms of power and technology.

Gilpin distinguishes between the offense and the defense in terms of an economic cost-benefit framework. 'To speak of a shift in favor of the offense means that fewer resources than before must be expended on the offense in order to overcome the defense' (Gilpin, 1981: 62-63). Gilpin goes on to say that 'the defense is said to be superior if the resources required to capture territory are greater than the value of the territory itself; the offense is superior if the cost of conquest is less than the value of the territory' (p. 63). Clearly the second definition does not follow from the first. Whereas the first uses the relative costs of overcoming the defense at two different times and independently of the resulting benefits, the second definition introduces an entirely new concept - the actual value of the territorial conquest itself. The value of territorial conquest is undoubtedly an important variable leading to war but it is analytically distinct from military technology and ought to be treated separately. Under Gilpin's second definition the hypothesis becomes equivalent to the statement that a positive (expected) utility of territorial conquest increases the likelihood of war. This may be true (Bueno de Mesquita, 1981), but it is not the hypothesis under consideration here. Moreover, the definition of the offensiveldefensive balance by the utdity of

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territorial conquest reduces to a tautology the hypothesis that offensive superiority increases the utility of territorial conquest. One of the two conceptualizations of the offensiveldefensive balance suggested by Jervis is more consistent with Gilpin's first formulation. Jervis (1978: 188) poses the question as follows: 'Does the state have to spend more or less than one dollar on defensive forces to offset each dollar spent by the other side on forces that could be used to attack?' That is, what is the relative marginal utility of devoting military spending to the offense rather than to the defense? This approach is potentially valuable, but it is incomplete. It defines what it means to say that the offense (or the defense) has an advantage, but fails to provide any criteria for specifying what constitutes the offense or the defense in the first place. The marginal utilities cannot be compared until the offense and defense are first defined, and until this is done the concept is not particularly useful. The definition of the offensiveldefensive balance by the relative resources that must be expended on the offense in order to overcome the defense can be conceptualized in another way and related to the conception based on territorial conquest. This refers to attackldefense ratios rather than military spending. What ratio of troops does an attacker need in order to overcome an enemy defending fixed positions? This notion is mentioned but not developed by Quester (1977: 212): 'The significant impact of defensive or offensive technology shows up in the minimum ratios of numerical superiority required for such an offensive.' It follows the same logic as Foch's comment regarding the power of the offensive prior to World War I: 'Formerly many guns were necessary to produce an effect. Today a few suffice' (Montross, 1960: 686). The conventional wisdom is that the offense needs at least a threeto-one advantage, but the point here is that this ratio varies as a function of existing military technology and the tactical doctrine guiding its use. The offensive1 defensive balance is then defined as being inversely proportional to the minimum ratio of forces needed by the attacker in order to overcome an adversary defending fixed positions.12 The greater the minimum ratio, the greater the advantage of the defense. It is important to note here that the minimum ratio of forces needed by the attacker in a particular era is analytically distinct from the relative numbers of forces actually possessed by two adversaries in a particular situation. The probability of victory is a function of both. To say that the balance of military technology (as a function of attackldefense ratios) favors the offense does not mean the attacker is likely to win. That would be true only if the attacker actually possessed the requisite number of troops in a particular situation. The problem arises as to what ratio should be used as a baseline, the zero-point indicating the transition from a defensive advantage to an offensive advantage. The most obvious ratio is one to one, but that is widely regarded as favoring the defense.'" While it would not be technically incorrect to say that the balance always favors the defense because the attacker always requires numerical superiority, this is neither interesting nor useful. If the offensiveldefensive balance is defined as attackldefense ratios, it is

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preferable to conceive of this in relative rather than absolute terms. It is useful to speak of shifts in the balance and to compare the balance at different times, but not to speak about the absolute state of the balance. Thus the hypothesis should technically state that 'the higher the minimum ratio of forces needed by the attacker in order to overcome an adversary defending fixed positions, the lower the likelihood of war.' This conception of the offensive/defensive balance is more useful than the others surveyed above, at least tor land warfare. The attacktdefense ratio could he measured in one of two ways. It could be determined empirically from an analysis o f a variety of battles in a given era, with the force ratios and results determined for each and some kind of average computed. The problem, of course, would be the need to control for asymmetries in geography, troop quality, and doctrine. Alternatively, the ratio could be conceived in perceptual terms and measured by the perceptions of military and political elites of what ratio of forces is necessary for either attack or defense. While this information is not readily available it might be inferred from an examination of the war plans of the leading states. The methodological problems involved in either of these approaches are quite serious, however.

One of the questions asked by Jervis (1978: 188) of the offensiveldefensive balance is the following: 'With a given inventory of forces, it is better to attack or to defend? Is there an incentive to strike first or to absorb the other's blow?' This conceptualization is more flexible than earlier criteria based on tactical mobility and characteristics of armaments because it can incorporate considerations of deterrence and be applied to the nuclear age. It creates some problems, however, which Jervis may recognize hut does not fully develop. For one thing, the hypothesis that a military technology favoring the offense increases the incentive to strike first is reduced to a tautology and hence carries no explanatory power. In focusing attention on the linkage between the incentive to strike first and war,'"t ignores the more basic question of what conditions create an incentive to strike first. These antecedent conditions possess the greatest explanatory power and operate through the intervening variable of the incentive t o strike first. This leads to a related problem: there are numerous factors besides technology and doctrine affecting the incentive to strike first, including geographic constraints and diplomatic and domestic political considerations, factors which also have an independent effect on war. If the offensiveldefensive balance is defined as the incentive to strike first, then it becomes confounded with these other variables and it becomes impossible to distinguish their independent effects. The incentive to strike first is best conceptualized as an intervening variable leading to war and as the product of several distinct variables, one of which is military technology and doctrine. One key issue is to elaborate the aspects of military technology or doctrine which affect the incentives to strike first, but this cannot be fully analyzed here.

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It is important to distinguish the incentive to strike first from other concepts that have also been used to define the offensiveldefensive balance. The incentive to strike first should not be confused with aggressive policy, which is influenced by a wide range of variables. A state may have revisionist ambitions but be constrained by a military technology favoring the tactical defense, as well as by other variables. Or, a state with purely defensive ambitions may rationally initiate war if it perceives that through a preemptive strike it can minimize its losses against an assumed aggressor. The distinction between the incentive to strike first and seizing territory is particularly likely to be confused.'Vhese are clearly distinct for naval and air warfare (particularly in the nuclear age) but the difference is more profound. One may simultaneously have a policy of not striking first and a strategy of active defense and territorial penetration in the event that war does break out. This was Bismarck's policy in the 1870s and 1880s (Langer, 1964) and perhaps Israel's in 1973. Germany's Schlieffen Plan called for passive defense (holding ground) in the East and rapid territorial penetration in northern France regardless of who initiated the war. The failure to recognize these distinctions only creates confusion and may result in the incorrect use of hypotheses designed for other purposes. Hypotheses appropriate for a territorially-based definition of the offensive1 defensive balance of military technology may not be valid for a definition based on the incentive to strike first. While the ease of territorial seizure may shorten wars and lower their costs (Wright, 1965: 673), this may not necessarily be true for the incentive t o strike first. Nor is an incentive to strike first in the nuclear age likely t o have the same consequences as an attackldefense ratio which favors the offense. Further, it is not clear that the incentive to strike first itself has the same causes or consequences in the prenuclear period as it does in the nuclear age, though this might be an interesting area for future research. The same types of problems arise with respect to the various other conceptualizations of the offensiveldefensive balance examined above. The concept has been defined in terms of the defeat of enemy armed forces, territorial conquest, protection of population, tactical mobility, the characteristics of armaments, attackldefense ratios, the relative resources expended on the offense and the defense, and the incentive to strike first. These separate definitions are often not interchangeable, and hypotheses based on one definition are often either implausible or tautological for another definition. This is particularly true for applications of the offensiveldefensive balance to the nuclear age. Because the most advanced weapons of this era are used primarily for coercive purposes and the weapons of earlier eras were used primarily to engage enemy armed forces, the concept of the offensiveldefensive balance of military technology may mean entirely different things in the two different situations. Certainly one reason for the confusion and ambiguity among these hypotheses is the fact that they are based on common concepts such as 'offense', 'aggressor', and 'initiator' which have ordinary language meanings apart from more precise technical meanings. This is all the more

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reason why any attempt to use such a concept must first define it explicitly and be very clear regarding precisely which hypotheses are relevant.

Classification of the OffensiveIDefensive Balance in History The third section of this article surveys a variety of efforts to classify the offensiveldefensive balance of military technology in the Western international system over the last eight centuries." This survey will be useful because of the absence of any previous review of this body of literature and because of the general failure of earlier studies to acknowledge or build upon each other. More importantly, it may reveal whether or not the concept has acquired an informal definition in its empirical application, in spite of the conceptual ambiguity demonstrated above. While the concept of the offensiveldefensive balance of military technology has taken on a variety of meanings, the question arises as to how that concept has been used in attempts to classify the offensiveldefensive balance in past historical eras. If different authorities have generally used the offensiveldefensive balance to mean the same thing (even in the absence of any formal nominal or operational definition), and if they have generally agreed on the state of the balance in various historical eras, then it can be concluded that the ambiguity of the concept has not precluded its effective use in empirical analysis. Consistent usage and agreement by various authorities on the state of the balance in different historical eras would permit 'intercoder agreement'to be used as the basis for accurate historical measurement (provided these measurements are independent)." Lack of agreement on classification, however, would suggest that the collective judgment of authorities cannot he used as the basis for measurement. It would also support the earlier conclusion that the offensiveldefensive concept needs to be defined much more explicitly and rigorously before it can be used in historical analysis. There is little dissent from the view that the late Middle Ages was characterized by the ascendancy of the defense over the offense in war. The Crusades had stimulated a revival in military architecture, and advances in the art of fortification outpaced increases in destructive power and improvements in siege tactics (Fuller, 1945: 68; Montross, 1960: 161-163; Ropp, 1962: 20; Nef, 1963: 185; Wright, 1965: 795, 1525; Osgood, 1967: 43; Brodie and Brodie, 1973: 31; Bean, 1973: 207; Preston and Wise, 1979: 68-69, 78, 8 1; Gilpin, 1981: 62; Montgomery, 1983: 166-171). As a result, only a small percentage of sieges were successful (Montgomery, 1983: 169). The defensive power of the new concentric stone castles was reinforced by logistical considerations. Armies could not be maintained in the field for long periods and invading armies could not easily bypass the feudal castles (Bean, 1973: 218). In addition, the replacement of chain mail by plate armor to protect the knight greatly reduced his mobility (Montross, 1960: 163; Preston and Wise, 1979: 85) and the pike-phalanx system was becoming increasingly invulnerable to cavalry charge (Bean, 1973: 206). It has also be argued that the success of the English

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with the longbow increased the tactical superiority of the defense (Dupuy, 1980: 88), presumably because its range made it more difficult for the offense to close. For these reasons, all of the above authorities accept Oman's (1953: 356) argument that 'by 1300 the defensive obtained an almost complete mastery over the offensive. l 8 By the mid-15th century fire power had moved from an auxiliary role to one where it was central and decisive (Howard, 2976: 33). Developments in heavy artillery led to a sharp resurgence of offensive superiority. This was symbolized by the seige of Constantinople in 1453, where the greatest of all medieval fortifications was reduced by the Turks in less than two months. Dupuy (1980: 107) argues that by the end of the 15th century artillery had made medieval fortifications obsolete. In addition, greater mobility, and hence greater offensive capability, of this artillery is evidenced by the use of horsedrawn artillery and chains of 'wagon forts' as mobile fortifications employing bombards (Montross, 1960: 189; Brodie, 1973: 51; Quester, 1977: 4 7 4 8 ; Dupuy, 1980: 100). Small firearms also began to have a significant effect on battle at the end of the 15th century, dominating over the pike and leaving the armored knight vulnerable and lessening his local defensive effectiveness (Nef, 1963: 29; Quester, 1977: 48-49). Thus a drastic change in the offensive1 defensive balance is said to occur close to 1450 (Fuller, 1945: 81-87; Montross, 1960: 193-95; Nef, 1963: 185-186; Wright, 1965: 294; Bean, 1973: 207; Quester, 1977: 47-49; Preston and Wise, 1979: 91-92; Dupuy, 1980: 99, 106-107; McNeill, 1982: 83; Montgomery, 1983: 224). There is much debate regarding how long this period of offensive superiority lasted. Wright (1965: 294-295, 795) argues that it lasted for two centuries until 1648, a view supported by Nef (1963: 185) and Quester (1977: 49). Wright (1965: 294-95) points to the increase in mobility of infantry generated by the gradual abandonment of medieval armor; the disappearance of pikemen, halberdiers, and heavy cavalry; and the adoption throughout Europe of Turkish Janissary tactics, with armies equipped with cutlass and longbow and supported by light cavalry and artillery. Mobility was further increased in the first half of the 17th century after Gustavus Adolphus reduced the weight of weapons, introduced the light field gun and the concept of mobile massed artillery fire, and adopted a more flexible tactical organization (Dupuy, 1980: 137-38; McNeill, 1982: 123). These arguments are rejected by other authorities who instead argue that the science of fortification soon overcame the new developments in artillery, leading to a shift back to the defense by 1525 or so (Hale, 1957: 274; Montross, 1960: 211, 250-54; Bean, 1973: 208; Howard, 1976: 35; Preston and Wise, 1979: 106; McNeill, 1982: 90; Montgomery, 1983: 224). Dupuy and Dupuy (1977: 455) argues: 'A 16th-century fortress, if provided with adequate stocks of food and ammunition, was as impregnable as the 13th-century castle had been in its day.' Thus there is no consensus as to whether the balance of military technology throughout most of the 16th century and the first half of the 17th century favored the offense or the defense.

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Authorities generally agree that for nearly a century after 16.50 the balance of military technology lay with the defense." This was largely due to the development of a new science of fortifications by Vauban and other military engineers in the late 17th century (Guerlac, 1969). These elaborate fortifications became increasingly invulnerable to artillery, and frontal assault became nearly impossible. This was the age of geometric warfare, of position and maneuver rather than pitched battle. Military operations were centered around fixed fortifications and were restricted by poor logistical systems and short supply lines, and guns were deficient in range, accuracy, and penetrating power (Preston and Wise, 1979: 1 4 2 4 4 ; Dupuy, 1980: 144). Vauban also developed the science of siegecraft with his system of approaches by parallels, but such systems generally remained one step behind systems of fortifications. The balance did not turn against the defense until 1789 (Nef, 1963: 185; Wright, 1965: 295; Osgood, 1967: 46; Howard, 1976: 55; Quester, 1977: 57; Preston and Wise, 1979: 142-143). This view is inconsistent, however, with the general characterization of the warfare of Frederick the Great as offensive in nature, based on Frederick's emphasis on the decisiveness of the battle rather than static maneuver, his willingness to take risks, his use of the oblique order as a tactical device, and his emphasis on mobility (Dupuy, 1980: 148-1.54). Preston and Wise (1979: 147-149) recognize this and say simply that Frederick differed from the norm of 18th-century warfare. The hesitancy to characterize the military balance during this period as offensive probably derives from the fact that Frederick's innovations were primarily tactical and strategic rather than technological, and because niost historians describing the military balance focus on the latter rather than the former. Still, it cannot be denied that Frederick demonstrated what was possible given the technology of the time. The recognition by many that Frederick constitutes an exception to the static character of 18th-century warfare suggests that the characterization of the entire 18th-century military balance as defensive is open to question. The Napoleonic period presented a similar set of problems; Napoleonic warfare was characterized by mobility and the tactical offensive hut this had little to do with military technology itself (Howard, 1976: 76). Preston and Wise (1979: 189) argue that in some respects Napoleon was an 'arch-reactionary toward new weapons and technological progress in the material of war' and that his successes came through a 'more efficient use of well-known weapons.' The offensive character of Napoleonic warfare derived from the generalship of Napoleon and his changes in military organization, strategy, and tactics, including the democratization of war and mass mobilization. The divisional formation, the employment of light infantry, the use of the column of attack instead of the line, a more flexible use of artillery on the battlefield to gain a superiority of fire at a given point, and the logistical advantages of living off the country were particularly important in contributing to mobility (Fuller, 1961; ch. 3; Hart, 1964: ch. 8; Ropp, 1962: 98-102; Howard, 1976; Quester, 1977: ch. 7; Preston and Wise, 1979: ch. 12; Strachan, 1983: ch. 4).

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These authorities often refer to the offensive character of Napoleonic warfare but do not trace it to the balance of military technology itself. Few judgments are made regarding the offensiveldefensive balance for the first half of the 19th century, perhaps because of the relative absence of European war during that period. By mid-century, or by 1870 at the latest, the balance had shifted in favor of the defense, which continued through World War I. Reference is made to the holding power of entrenchments, barbed wire, the machine gun, the breech-loading rifle, the difficulty of frontal assualt and closing with the enemy, and to the generally static nature of warfare as demonstrated in the American Civil War, the Russo-Turkish and Russo-Japanese Wars, and others. As summarized by Boggs (1941: 76-77), beginning with the American Civil War and extending through World War I there was a trend 'toward enormous increase in the masses of men under arms, and in the range, casualty-producing capacity, and rapidity of fire of infantry weapons, without any counteracting growth in the means of advancing of this fire.' This conclusion, including the view that the 'objective' balance favored the defense in 1914, is supported by Hart (1932: 72, 75), Millis (1956: 167), Montross (1960: 633, 649), Fuller (1961: chs. 8-9), Ropp (1962: 162), Wright (1965: 1525), Brodie and Brodie (1973: 131-56), Howard (1976: 103, 105), Preston and Wise (1979: 266), Dupuy (1980: 195, 199), Gilpin (1981: 62), and Montgomery (1983: 441,458, 472). Some of these authorities concede, however, that the railroad and the development of motorized transport and then the tank all contributed to mobility and helped the offense, as demonstrated by the wars of Bismarck (Wright, 1949: 186, Brodie and Brodie, 1973: 148-50). Quester (1977: ch. 8) suggests that for this reason there was for a time a net advantage to the offense. Montross (1960: 649) rejects this view and argues that the offensive prevailed in 1870 because 'intelligent defensive tactics were seldom employed.' A more serious problem is raised by the gap between the 'objective' balance of military technology (as judged retrospectively by historians) and the balance as perceived by the military and political leaders of the time. This gap widened shortly after the American Civil War, the defensive lessons of which were resisted by professional soldiers (Montross, 1960: 633; Fuller, 1961: ch. VI; McNeill, 1982: 242). By the turn of the century Foch and the French school (Possony and Mantoux, 1969) epitomized the viewpoint prevailing at the time that military technology favored the offense, and this belief structured the war plans and influenced the behavior of the great powers (Montross, 1960: 685-88; Hart, 1973: 72; Quester, 1977: 80; Jervis, 1978: 190-91; Dupuy, 1980: 216; Montgomery, 1983: 441; Strachan, 1983: 105-6). The French Army Field Regulations of 1913 stated that 'the French Army ... admits no law but the offensive' (Tuchman, 1962: 151). Most authorities currently argue that the 'objective' balance favored the defense. Vyvyan (1968: 165) argues: 'Never has the dogma of the offensive been more prevalent; never, because of the lead of firepower over tactical mobility, has that dogma been less applicable.' Because of this gap between perceptions and reality and because of the ambiguity regarding the role of perceptions in

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definitions of the offensiveldefensive balance, the period prior to World War I becomes difficult to classify in terms of the offensive1 defensive balance. The interwar period presents a similar gap between the analysis of military historians and the perceptions of statesmen. Most military historians argue that by 1930 or so the military technology favored the offense (Hart, 1932: 76; Millis, 1956: 252-53; Montross, 1960: 774; Fuller, 196 1: ch. 12; Wright, 1965: 300-301; Gilpin, 1981: 62).20The speed, mobility, and striking power of the armored division with tactical air support had a great advantage over field defenses and minor fortifications. The new warfare was characterized by fluidity and speed, deep penetrations, and broad encirclements. The stalemate of World War I had been transformed into the blitzkrieg of World War II. Most observers at the time, however, perceived that the military technology favored the defense (Montross, 1960: 766-67; Wright, 1965: 795; Gibson, 1969; Alexandroff and Rosecrance, 1977; Quester, 1977: ch. 11; Jervis, 1978: 192-93). This view was disputed by the leading proponents of armored warfare (Fuller, de Gaulle, Guderian, and Tukhachevski) but their view was of the minority.21Thus the balance of military technology in the interwar period becomes difficult to classify. It is seen that military historians and others have evaluated the offensive1 defensive balance of the last eight centuries of the Western international system in terms of the contribution of weapons systems to tactical mobility and territorial penetration. This is in spite of their lack of formal definition of the concept and the variety of theoretical perspectives surveyed earlier. This implicit agreement on the appropriate criterion no longer exists, given the decline in the dominance of land warfare and the rise of deterrence based on nuclear punishment. Because of the lack of consensus on the meaning of the offensiveldefensive balance in the nuclear age, it would not be useful to survey attempts to classify the balance during this period. Let us now summarize the extent of 'intercoder agreement' regarding the offensiveldefensive balance of military technology for the previous eight centuries. There is unanimous agreement among the references cited that the period from 1200 to 1450 was characterized by defensive superiority and that the period from 1450 to 1525 was characterized by offensive superiority. The authorities are split on the 1525 to 1650 period. There is complete agreement that the defense was superior from 1650 to 1740. Some argue that this defensive superiority continues until 1789, though Frederick's emphasis on the tactical offensive leads some to assert the opposite and others to make no specific evaluation. The 1789 to 1815 period is generally regarded to favor the offense but because of innovations in tactics rather than armaments. Little attention is given to the 1815-1850 period. The next hundred years pose a problem because of the gap between the objective and perceived balance and the uncertain conceptual status of the latter. These authorities generally agree that from 1850 to 1925 or so the balance favored the defense but that nearly all statesmen perceived that it favored the offense from 1870 to 1914. Similarly, from 1930 to 194.5 the balance favored the offense but that the actors themselves perceived that it favored the defense.

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A rough calculation shows the following degree of consensus among our authorities. Of the 450 years from 1495-1945," only two periods totaling 5 5 years claim a definite consensus of offensive superiority. Two periods totaling at most 130 years claim a consensus of defensive superiority. Four periods constituting a minimum of 265 years are uncertain, either because of diverging views, or because of the diametric opposition of the evaluations of actors and analysts and the ambiguous conceptual status of perceptions in definitions of the balance.23The inescapable conclusion is that there exists considerable divergence of opinion among leading authorities regarding the offensive1 defensive balance during the last five centuries of the modern era, and that a method of 'intercoder agreement' cannot be used to provide a basis for classification during this period. This analysis suggests that the concept of the offensiveldefensive balance of military technology needs more theoretical attention and operational definition before it can be applied to systematic empirical analysis.

Conclusions The concept of the offensiveldefensive balance of military technology has been defined in the literature in terms of the defeat of enemy armed forces, the ease of territorial conquest, protection of population, tactical mobility, the characteristics of armaments, the relative resources expended on the offense and the defense, and the incentive to strike first. I have suggested an alternative definition based on attackldefense ratios: the offensiveldefensive balance is inversely proportional to the ratio of troops needed by an attacker to overcome an enemy defending fixed positions. While many of these individual concepts may be useful, they mean fundamentally different things and are not interchangeable. This is particularly true for the nuclear era, where the end of the predominance of land warfare and the emergence of deterrence based on nuclear punishment has clouded the offensiveldefensive distinction. Since the dominant weapons in the prenuclear era were used primarily for the defeat of adversary armed forces, whereas the most advanced weapons in the nuclear era are used by the leading powers primarily for coercion and bargaining, definitions of the offensive1 defensive balance that might be useful in the nuclear age may not be useful in the pre-nuclear era, and vice-versa. The concept of the incentive to strike first, which is often used to define an offensive advantage today, is not the same as tactical mobility, which is widely used to define an offensive advantage in earlier times. The inclusion of fundamentally different concepts under the umbrella of the offensiveldefensive balance has created considerable confusion in the literature. Because these different concepts are not interchangeable, theoretical propositions regarding the causes or consequences of an offensive or defensive advantage may be useful for one definition but implausible for another. Weapons characteristics that are stabilizing (i.e., reduce the likelihood of war) in one era may be destabilizing in another. Hypotheses designed

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to explain the consequences of a military technology favoring tactical mobility are not necessarily applicable to a military technology which creates an incentive to strike first. The ambiguity of the concept of the offensiveldefensive balance is not just a function of the nuclearlpre-nuclear distinction. Even concepts restricted to land warfare in the pre-nuclear era have different meanings and may have different theoretical consequences. O u r survey of attempts by military historians and others to identify the offensiveldefensive balance in various historical eras is relevant here. In spite of the common focus on land warfare, there is remarkably little consensus among these authorities regarding the state of the offensiveldefensive balance in most periods. This suggests that far more conceptual clarification and rigorous operational definition are necessary before the offensiveldefensive distinction can be useful in historical analysis. To conclude, the concept of the offensiveldefensive balance is too vague and encompassing to be useful in theoretical analysis.24Many of the individual variables that have been incorporated into the more general idea may themselves be useful, however. Few would doubt the utility for deterrence theory of the concept of the incentive to strike first, for example, and the concept of attackldefense ratios suggested here deserves further exploration. Much more conceptualization is necessary before these individual variables can he effectively used in empirical analysis, however. There is already a body of theory regarding the consequences of an incentive to strike first. What is needed are comparable theories regarding the consequences of military technologies which contribute to tactical mobility or to the ease of territorial conquest, or which reduce the ratio of forces needed by the attacker to overcome an adversary defending fixed positions. Interaction effects between these separate variables also need to be explored. Further theoretical development of this kind is necessary, because in its absence there is little reason to believe that these individual concepts have an important impact on war, and therefore little reason to use these concepts in empirical analysis. Author's Note This rcse,lrch w ~ supported s by a Fellowship for Independent Study and Rese,lrch from the N x i o n a l Endowment for the Humanities. I wish t o thank Harrison Wagner, Cl~ffMorgan, Roger Beaumont, and the editorr of ISQ for their helpful comments on earlier verslons of this article.

Notes 1. T h e theoret~calliterature is divided o n the question o f whether all~ancescontribute t o w.ir o r t o peace. T h e e n i p ~ r ~ c evidence al IS also mixed (Bueno d e Mesquitn a n d Singer, 1973; Levy, 198 I ) . N o r have the linkages herween arms races a n d wars been thoroughly established (Wallace, 1979). 2. Here 'destabili~ing' is used t o mean an increase in the likelihood o r f r e q u e l ~ qof w,lr. 3. T h e most notable exceptlon here is Quester ( 1 9 7 7 ) , though the connection bctwccn his nominal definitions and historical classifications is n o t , ~ l w , ~ ycle'~r. s

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4. For this reason I am not concerned here with Boggs' (1941: 63-72) distinction between the offensive and defensive on the 'grand strategic level', which he sees as based on a 'political' or Clausewitzian theory of war. Boggs suggests that on this level the offensiveldefensive distinction is based on the political objectives toward which military operations are conducted, and that the concept is generally defined this way by military theorists: 'The difference between offensive and defensive is a difference in objectives, not a difference in the means employed to reach the objective.' (Boggs, 1941: 72). This conceptualization not only involves the analytical problem of distinguishing in principle between 'offensive' and 'defensive' policies (which vary from theater to theater and during the course of a war) and the enormously difficult methodological problems involved in determining a state's objectives o r intentions. It also confounds the two important concepts of the motivations o f statesmen and the offensiveldefensive balance, and deprives the latter of any independent meaning. 5. Several aspects of Wright's definition are open to question. The offensive character of a weapon system cannot be judged only by its effectiveness against an enemy unit like itself, as examples of submarines o r antitank weapons clearly indicate. Wright's focus on commerce as the object of naval warfare (p. 793) can be questioned on the grounds that the primary aim of seapower is the defeat o f the adversary's naval forces (Mahan, 1957). Nor is the notion of an attack on enemy morale very useful. 6. Similarly, it is not at all clear that territorial conquest and defeat of enemy forces should both be included in a single definition, for they do not necessarily go hand in hand. One obvious problem concerns naval and air warfare, where the defeat of enemy forces may be directed toward control of sea lanes o r control of the air, but certainly not territorial conquest per se. Even in land warfare, however, one can conceive of a strategy of deep territorial penetration that aims to bypass enemy military forces rather than defeat them (see, for example, Vlgor, 1983), o r a strategy aimed to defeat enemy forces without seizing territory. The latter is also relevant to the nuclear age, for a counterforce strategy may be aimed at destroymg enemy forces for its own sake and independently of both territorial control or even coercion. 7. When Clausewitz (1976: 114) argues repeatedly that the defense is the stronger form of warfare, he conceives of defense not in static terms as the warding off of blows, but rather as a dynamic conception of a holding action until conditions are ripe for a counter-offensive (Boggs, 1941: 71; Howard, 1983: 54). 8. One objective indicator of such movement is the relative rates of advance of armies in different periods. Record (1973), for example, has surveyed historical rates of armored advance in thls century. These rates are affected as much by the numbers of troops on each side, geographical terrain, and political considerations as they are by the balance of military technology, so that its use as an indicator of the offensiveldefensive balance is open to question. 9. Wright (1965: 808) notes that Fuller also includes holding power (the ability to hold captured territory) as an important element of an offensive weapon. If newly acquired territory cannot be held there is little net gain for the offense, yet by definition it is even more important for the defense to hold territory. Wright (1965: 808) also argues that rap~dityof fire is another weapons characteristic that provides an advantage to the defense, but it is not clear whether this generalization applies beyond the case of the machine gun and the static warfare of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In addition, Wright (1965: 808) argues that the range of a weapon contributes a net advantage to the defense because it keeps the offense at a distance and restricts its mobility. But long-range weapons may contribute equally to the penetrating power of the offense by weakening defensive fortifications from a distance. Boggs (1941: 86), for example, argues that while heavy mobile artillery contributes t o both the tactical offensive and defensive, its striking power against enemy fortifications dominates, thereby favoring the offense. More generally, Fuller (1945: 9 ) argues that range IS the dominant characteristic of an offensive weapon. 10. A more esoteric example of tactical doctrine precluding the optimal use of available military technology can be found in McNeill (1982: 9-11). The Asians' use of war chariots as fighting platforms as well as for transport increased their mobility and firepower beginning in the 18th century BC, but the Europeans lost these offensive advantages because of a doctrine which led them to dismount from the chariots and fight o n foot as infantry.

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1 1. Note that the greater the extent t o which the offensiveldefensive halance is affected by doctrtnnl considerat~ons,the less its utility as a systemic-level concept. 12. O n e obvious prohleni here is what is meant by 'overcoming an adversary'. Here 1 mean the minimum ratio of forces necessary t o give the attacker a higher probability o f winning than los~ng,recognlzlng that stalemate I S also a possible outcome. Other definitions are possible, o f course ( a .iO% chance of victory, or of avoiding defeat, for example), but the specif~ccriterion is less important than its consistent application. It is recogn~zed,of course, that we must make the ceterrs parihrts assumption in order t o control for asymmetries in terrain, logistics, morale, tra~ning,and leadership, whlch are also important. 13. The fact that a one-to-one ratio is widely regarded to he insufficient tor attack provides a basis for an interpretation of the cornmon argument that the advantage in war always lies with the defense (Clausewitz, 1976: 114, 128; Machiavell~,Discourses, bk i, ch. XLV; Dupuy, 1980: 326). To say this does not mean, however, that the extent of the advanmgc to the defense 1s constant. 14. The theoret~calconsequences of an incentive t o strike first have heen thoroughly explored by deterrence theorists (Ellsherg, 1960; Schelling, 1960; Wagner, 1983). 15. This point was emphasized to me by Harrison Wagner. 16. This survey begins in the late M ~ d d l eAges because references t o the offensive1 defensive balance in earlier times are few and scattered, as are references t o non-Western systems. 17. This assmes that the authorities consulted reflect a representative sample of viewpoints and they make independent evaluations of the offensiveldefensive balance over time. hdm~ttedly, there may he some bias in the authorities consulted 111 the following survey, for a11 are Anglophones who deal prl~narilywith land warfare and basically ignore naval and air considerattons. The land focus is n o t a problem, for most theoret~caltreatments of the offensiveldefenslve h;il,ince define it in these terms. Nor is there good reason .to believe that continental military h~storianswould reach fundamentally different conclusions, particularly since they also would tend to Ignore naval and alr considerations. More serious, however, is the questlon of ~ndependcnt measurement. I'resumahl!: there is some reciprocal and cumulative relation\hip between these authorities, so that their classifications of the offenslveldefensive balance are not truly independent. This is particularly likely glven the absence of rigorous nominal or operational definitions guiding their analyses. It is in this sense that a greater variety of sources rn~ghthe valuable. The relative absence of expltcit references to others' work, however, and the incoris~stencyof their conclusions, suggests that this problem is not too serious. 18. Gilpin ( 198 1 : 6 2 ) argues that the 14th century marked a resurgence o f otfensive capa b i l ~ t ~ because cs of the invention of gunpowder and artillery, hut most would r e g d his view as premature by a century. 19. One exception here may be Montross (1960: 327), who implies that by 1670 there may have heen 'advantages t o be gained by striking first'. 20. O n e exception is Quester (1977: ch. 11-12), who seems to suggest that the balmce may have favored the defense. 21. There is considerable evidence contradicting the assertion that the entire German General Staff recognized the superiority of the offens~ve(Howard, 1976: 13 1-33; Questcr, 1977: ch. 12). 22. The year 1495 marks the origins of the modern great power system (Lxvy. 198.33: ch. 2 ) . The period before 1495 is excluded because the basic criter~onof a European sovereign state system is not satisfied, so that earlier warfare cannot easily he compared with modern war behavior. 2.1. For this analysis the period 1850-1890 is liberally credited to the detense and 1790-1815 is cred~tedto the offense, rather than being labelled uncertain. The 1495-1525 period is classified as offensive, and the 1650-1740 period is classified as defensive. The periods 1525-16.50, 1740-1850, and 1890-1945 have been classified 21s uncertain. 24. More technically, the offensiveldefensive balance is a multidimensional concept, but theories should be based o n unidimensional concepts if at all possible (Shively, 1974: ch. 3 ) .

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References Alexandroff, A. and R. Rosecrance (1977) 'Deterrence in 1939.' World Politics 29: 404-424. Andreski, S. (1968) Military Organization and Society. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Bean, R. (1973) 'War and the Birth of the Nation State.' lorrrnal of Economic History 33: 203-221. Boggs, M.W. (1941) 'Attempts to Define and Limit "Aggressive" Armament in Diplomacy and Strategy.' University of Missouri Studies, XVI, No. 1. Columbia, Missouri. Brodie, B. and F. Brodie (1973) From Crossbow to H-Bomb. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Bueno de Mesquita, B. (1981) The War Trap. New Haven: Yale University Press. Bueno de Mesquita, B. and J.D. Singer (1973) 'Alliances, Capabilities and War: A Review and Synthesis in C. Cotter (ed.) Political Science Annual, vol. 4. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill. Clausewitz, C. (1976) O n War. J.J. Graham (Trans.), A. Rapoport (ed.). Baltimore: Penguin. Dupuy, R.E. and G.F. Eliot (1937) I f War Comes. New York: Macmillan. Dupuy, R.E. and T.N. Dupuy (1977) The Encyclopedia of Mzlitary History, rev. ed. NY: Harper and Row. Dupuy, T.N. (1980) The Evolution of Weapons and Warfare. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Ellsberg, D. (1960) The Crude Analysis of Strategic Choices. Rand P-2183. Santa Monica, Rand Corp. Farrar, L.L., Jr. (1973) The Short- War illusion. Santa Barbara, ABC-Clio. Fay, S.B. (1928) The Origins of the World War. 2 vols. New York: Free Press. Fuller, J.F.C. (1945) Armament and History. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Fuller, J.F.C. (1961) The Conduct of War, 1789-1961. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. Gibson, I.M. (1969) 'Maginot and Liddell Hart: The Doctrine of Defense,' in E. M. Earle (ed.), Makers of Modern Strategy, ch. 15. New York: Atheneum. Gilpin, R. (1981) War and Change in World Politics. Cambridge: Cambr~dgeUniversity Press. Guerlac, H. (1969) 'Vauban: The Impact of Science on War,' in E.M. Earle (ed.), Makers of Modem Strategy. New York: Antheneum. Hale, J.R. (1957) 'International Relations in the West: Diplomacy and War,' in The New Cambridge Modem History, vol. I, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hart, B.H.L. (1932) 'Aggression and the Problem of Weapons.' Englzsh Reliew 55: 71-78. Hart, B.H.L. (1964) Strategy. New York: Praeger. Howard, M. (1976) War in European History. New York: Oxford University Press. Howard, M. (1983) Clausewitz. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jervis, R. (1978) 'Cooperation Under the Security Dilemma.' World Politics 30: 167-214. Langer, W.L. (1964) European Alliances and Alignments, 1871-1890, 2nd ed., New York: Vintage Books. Levy, J.S. (1981) 'Alliance Formation and War Behavior.' Journal of Conflrct Resoltrtron 25: 581-614. Levy, J.S. (1983a) War in the Modem Great Power System, 149T-197.T. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. Levy, J.S. (1983b) 'Organizational Routines and the Causes of War,' Austin: The University of Texas, mimeo. Machiavelli, N. (1979) The Discourses, in P. Bonda and M. Musa (eds and translators). The Portable Machiavelli. New York: Penguin. Mahan, A.T. (1957) The Influences of Sea Power Upon Hlstory, 1660-1 783. New York: Hill and Wang. McNeill, W.H. (1982) The Pursuit o f Power. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Millis, W. (1956) Arms and Men. New York: New American LibraryIMentor. Montgomery of Alamein, V. (1983) A History of Warfare. New York: William Morrow. Montross, L. (1960) War Through the Ages, 3rd ed., rev. New York: Harper and Row. Nef, J. (1963) War and Human Progress. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

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T h e OffensiveIDefensive B a l a n c e o f Military Technology

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Oman. C.W.C. (195.3) T!J~Art of War in the Middle Ages, J.H. Beeler (Rev. ed.) Ithaia, NY: COI-nellUniversity I'ress. Osgood, K.E. (1967) 'The Expansion of Force,' In R.E. Osgood and R.W. Tucker (eds.) korcc,, O r d e ~ ;c~nd/usticr.Balt~more:Johns Hopkins liniversity Press. Possony, S.T. and E. Mantoux (1969) 'Du Picq and Foch: The French School,' In t.h'l. Earlc (ed.) Makers of Modent Strategy, ch. 9. New York: Atheneum. Preston, R.A. and S.E Wise ( 1 9 7 9 ) Men in Arnts. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Wtn5ton. Quester, ~lity would he suffic~entlv t o a n m h ~ l a t eone's adversarv in retallation and because analvsrs rend t o . ltlrrre ~ s s u ~ thdt n e costs t o one's adversary could not be increased if the advers,lry could '~lreadyhe annih~lated. T h e arguments in this a r t ~ c l ed o not depend upon ,I specific assessment of the Iwel of rer,ll~atory datiiage required tor ;~ssureddestruction. Instead, the arguments \ i e w the level of damage required for assured destructioll as a n i~llpreciseboundary, above which ,~dditlon.lld,lmajie does nor signif~caritlyincre,~sethe costs of a n attack, c ~ n helow d which reductions In damage would signdicanrly reduce the costs. People disagree o n the loc'lriion of rhis houndar); but thr argument\ apply in :]I1 c,lses. 7. For an authoritative an,llysis of the technical feas~hilityot RML), see Ashron K. Llrter, Ilirei-teti t n e r g y Missile Dcfertse 112 Space (Washington, D.C.: 11.5. Government P r i n t ~ n gOffice, 1984). (:arrer judges 'is "extremely remote the prospect that directed-energy KhlD (in concert with other layers it necessary) will succeed In reducing the vulnerahliry of 0.5. popu1,lrion c~rnd wciety t o the neighborhood of 100 megatons o r less" (p. 68). See also: SPLITC-ht~s~d MISSIIC Drfiwse; Spurgeon M. Keeny and Wolfgang K.H. Panofsky, " M A D Versus NUTS," I ~ ) r c r j i r ~ Affairs, VoI. 60, N o . 2 (Winter 1981-82). pp. 297-303; and Carter and S ~ h w ~ ~Bnllist~c rt~, Mrssilc l k f i w s e , in which Carter concludes: "the prospect thar RML) will thw'lrr the rnutu.11 h o s r ~ g erelationsli~p- I I thrs is taken literall? t o mean the ab~liryof e'lch superpowel- t o d o socinll! ~ n o r t a ldamage t o the other with nuclear weapons - is s o remote '1s t o he of n o prxtical 111terest" ( p . 1 I ) .

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8. It should not go unmentioned that many of the advocates of BMD favor asymmetric deployment - that is, situations in which the United States can gain a strategic advantage by deploying BMD which is superior to Soviet BMD. See, for example, Colin S. Gray, "Nuclear Strategy: The Case for a Theory of Victory," International Security, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Summer 1979), pp. 54-87; and Colin S. Gray and Keith Payne, "Victory Is Possible," Foreign Policy, No. 39 (Summer 1980), pp. 14-27. In contrast to these earlier articles, in the recent "Nuclear Policy and the Defensive Transition," Gray and Payne argue as though the defensive sltuatlon they advocate would be symmetric. They do not explain the origins of this apparent inconsistency. 9. The following discussion assumes that both countries would know the effectiveness of both their own defense and the adversary's defense. This is admittedly unrealistic, since there would always be uncertainties about the effectiveness of the defenses, and because the implications of these uncertainties could be significant. The reason for assuming that the effectiveness of the defenses would be known, however, is to focus the examination of perfect defenses on other issues. This assumption of certain information strengthens the arguments for perfect defense and therefore reinforces the best case assumptions used in this analysis. Some of the comphcations thar would likely result from uncertainties about effectiveness are discussed later in this articlc. 10. Many advocates of pursuing h~ghlyeffective defense argue that even ~f the prospects for effective defense do not look extremely promising today, history suggests that major technological changes should be expected. For example, Payne and Gray observe In "Nuclear Policy and the Defensive Transition" that: "All of recorded history has shown swings in the pendulum of technical advantage between offense and defense. For the strategic defense t o achieve a very marked superiority . . . would he an extraordinary trend in the light of the last 30 years, but not of the last hundred o r thousand years. Military history is replete with examples of defensive technology and tactics dominating the offense" (p. 826). This argument would, however, apply at least as well t o the maintenance of the defensive world they advocate and points to the major problems that would exist in defensive sltuations. 11. For an insightful discussion of why large nuclear arsenals reduce the probability of superpower conventional wars, even when neither superpower has an advantage in purely military terms, see Robert Jervis, "Why Nuclear Superiority Doesn't Matter," Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 94, No. 4 (Winter 1979-80), pp. 617-633. At the other end of the spectrum, Gray and Payne in "Victory Is Possible" find the U.S. strategic force inadequate to meet its extended deterrence commitments, but admit that U.S. strategic nuclear forces d o contribute to deterrence of Soviet conventional attack in Europe (p. 16). 12. This assertion depends on the assumption made above that both countries know thar the defenses are perfect. If defenses were not known to be perfect, although in fact they were, then nuclear attack might be carried out (but would not result in damage) and nuclear threats might be used coercively. 13. The probability of preemptive nuclear war depends on the probability of crises, as well as the crisis stability of the nuclear situation. For example, a change in the nuclear s~tuation which increases crisis stability but also increases the probability and severity of crises could increase the probability of preemptive nuclear war. The following comparison of the probability of nuclear war in defensive and assured destruction s~tuationsdoes not take into consideration the relative probability of crises. Because defensive situations are likely t o increase tensions between the superpowers and because superpower cooperation will he more difficult than in assured destruction situations, the effect of not including the probability of crises in this analysis probably favors defensive situations. Therefore, this simplification tends to reinforce the best case which t h ~ analysis s makes for defensive situations. 14. That deterrence requires assured destruction capabilities was rarely made as a separate argument. It was, however, an integral part o f the argument that BMD would necessarily result in an arm race. The inevitability of this arms race was based in part on the assertion that each superpower, to maintain an effective deterrent, would have to possess an enormous retaliator! capability. See, for example, Chayes and Wiesner, eds., ABM, pp. 49-54. IS. A similar argument is made by Donald Brennan in "The Case for Population Defense," In Hoist and Schneider, Why ABM?, pp. 100-106. An earlier version of this argument appeared in Donald Brennan and Johan Hoist, Ballistic Missile Defeme: Two Vietc,s, Adelphi Paper KO.43 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1967), pp. 9-1 1.

\,l,i-i

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Why Even Good D e f e n s e s may b e Bad

41 1

Including 111 this analysis uncertainty a n d ~mperfecrinformation a b o u t the level of vulnera b i l ~ t pt o countervalue attack would weaken t h ~ sargument. Reclundar~tassured destruction capabilities are extremely large by a n y reasonable evaluation. There is little opportunity t o ~ n i s l ~ ~ dt hg ~e sd r s t r u c t ~ v epotenti.~l, a n d assessments o f damage are theretore not 5ensitlve t o relat~velysmall d~fferencesin force sire. In contrast, 111 a defensive s ~ t u a t i o nin which each country's ability t o inflict damage has been greatly reduced, relative force capahil~tiecwould he harder t o evaluate, a n d uncertainties, m ~ s e v a l u a t i o ~ lasn, d ~ n ~ s p e r c c p t i o nwould s he more likely t o result in a perceived advantage t h a t could result in a fadure of deterrence. 16. 7111s does n o t mean, however, that the Soviet Union \vould necessar~lyhe ~ ~ n a b tl oe coerce t h r United States. As In a s i t u a t ~ o nof m u t ~ l a lassured destruction capahilitic5, if the Soviet I J n ~ o nwere able t o convmce the United States that it would carry o u t a threat t o attack L1.S. cities, then the Soviet Union might be able t o coerce the United States. T h e U.S. possession of 311 equal c o ~ m t e r v a l u rcapability, by making possible a highly credible retaliatory threcir comparable t o the Soviet threat, would make it difficult for the Soviet Union t o make 11s coercive threat convinc~ng.If the Soviet Union were able t o coerce the United States, the key t o its success would be greater recolve a n d willing~iesst o rake risks than the United St.~tes,a n d nor a n a d v a ~ i t a g ein nuclear forces. 17. There is a third reason, n o t discussed in the text, w h v the Soviet Union might a t t x k the United States: t o eliminate the U.S. abillry t o deter the Soviet Union from pursuing ~ t fors elgri policy object~ves.For example, c o n s ~ d e ra hypothetical case in which the United Stares deters Soviet attack o n Western Europe entirely with threats of strategic nuclear retaliation. If a Soviet counterforce attack c o ~ ~ suffic~ently ld reduce the potentla1 cost of U S . retdi:ltion, then the Soviet Union could judge thar attacking the United States, incurring U.S. ret,ll~ation,a n d ~ n v a d ~ nagn d a c q u i r ~ n gWestern Europe could result in a net benefit. This rype of Soblet nuclear attack o n the U.S. homeland, unlike the t w o d~scussedin the text, does not depend upon the Soviet Union's ability t o i n f l ~ c tcountervalue damage o n the Unitrd States. 111 contrast, it i \ a purely milttary attack, motivated entirely by the desire t o reduce the damage the United States could inflict o n the Soviet U n ~ o n T . h e United States could eliminate the Soviet incentive for launching this rype of attack hy making its forces i n v u l n e r ~ b l e .However, even with invulnerable forces, a n d with the equal countervalue requirement \atisfied, there might he nuclear s i t u ~ t i o n sIn w h ~ c hthe U.S. countervalue threat would be ~ n s u f t i c ~ e n t llarge y to deter S o v ~ e tattack o n Europe. This would he true for the same reason thar perfect defenses could increase the probability of conventional war: U.S. escalation t o the nuclear level would n o longer he suff~clentlycostly t o deter Soviet attack. 18. See, for example, Spnce-Based Mtssile Defense, pp. 79-80; Willian~C. Foster, "Str'lteg~c Weapons: Prospects for Arms C:ontrol," Foreign Affairs, Vol. 47, No. 3 (April 1 %9), pp. 4 1 4 4 1 5 ; and Robert 1.. Rothstein, "The ABM, Proliferation and International Stalillr);" borcqrz A f i l r s , Vol. 46, N o . 3 (April 1968), pp. 4 9 8 4 9 9 . 19. Extens~vediscussions of c r i s ~ sstabil~tyinclude: T h o m a s C. Schelling, The Str~ztegyof Conflirt (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960), pp. 207-254, ,und Arms 1117d Itrflz~crtrc( N e w Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), pp. 221-248; and Glenn H. Snyder, Ilc~crrcnccand Defense ( P r ~ n c e t o nPrinceton : Univers~tyPress, 1961 ), pp. 97-1 14. LO. T h e assumption rhat decision-makers would anticipate a c o u n t e r v d u e s t r ~ k eis implicit in many discussions of c r ~ s i sstability. It underlies the logic that says if 1' counterforce attack then there will he a n incentive t o strike could reduce the adversary's countervalue tirst. A crisis, however, should provoke fears of a counterforce attack. If we assume the advers'lry's first strike would he counterforce, then the nuclear s ~ t u a t i o nIS far more cris~s-stablethan i f w e nssunie the attack would be countervalue. For a good discuss~onof this argument see Snyder, Deterrcnre and Defense, pp. 104-109. If we assume that both countries a n t i c i p ~ t e counterforce first strikes, then the effect of defenses o n crisis stability is likely t o he m ~ n i m a l . (;iven this assumption, the lncentlves t o preempt would be small, o r nonexlsrent, with o r witho u t defenseq. 21. Arms r'ice stahilitv is the standard measure o f t h i s characteristic of the nuclear s ~ t u ~ ~ t i o n . I have chosen t o use the term "robustness" t o avoid the confusion rhat surrounds the term "arms r'lce stability." Arms race stability brlngs t o m m d a t least t w o issurs which are related t o rohustne\s, but whlch are conceptually distinct. First, arms race stability I S often considered a n

4 12


indicator of the likelihood andlor intensity of arms races that will occur in a specific nuclear situation. Arms races, however, can occur for a variety of reasons which are only peripherall!related to the effect of building nuclear forces on the adversary's security. Consequently, arms races can occur In highly robust nuclear situations, as has occurred in our current highlv redundant and diversified assured destruction situation. Second, use of the term "arms race stability" can connote a belief that arms races cause wars. Whether arms races actually cause wars is a theoretical issue on which there is substantial disagreement. But one can assert that the probability of war depends upon the robusmess of the nuclear situation without believing that, in general. arms races cause wars. Robustness is a measure of how sensit~vea country's security would be to the adversary'c buildup of forces. It does not imply that the process of competitive armament itself leads to w ~ r Rather, . assuming a force buildup takes place either competitively o r un~laterally,a war IS more likely when the initial nuclear situation is less robust. 22. On the existence of countermeasures, see Carter, Directed Energy M~ssilrDefense 172 Space, pp. 69-70. 23. For a discussion of how arms control might help to Increase the robustness of detensive situations see Charles L. Glaser, "The Implication of Reduced Vulnerabil~tyfor Security in the Nuclear Age," Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1983, pp. 217-228. 24. For a discussion of the factors which affect the probab~litythat countries will be able to cooperate, see Robert Jervis, "Cooperation Under the Security Dilemma," World Politrcs, Vol. 30, No. 2 (January 1978), pp. 167-214. 25. This formulation of objectives assumes that the United States IS a strictly status quo power. This may not he entirely accurate, but is a reasonable assumption for this discuss~onof nuclear weapons policy. A further concern about this formulation is that it does not mclude the objective of minimizing losses that could result from nuclear coercion. W h ~ l et h ~ is s clearly an objective of U.S. policy, the nuclear capabilities required to achieve ~tclosely resemble those required t o minimize the probability of nuclear war. Consequently, not explicitly ~ n c l u d ~ nthic g objective does not bias the analysis. 26. For a more complete analysis see Glaser, "The Irnpl~cationsof Reduced Vulnerahil~ty for Security In the Nuclear Age." 27. The transition to a defensive situation deserves extensive analysis that is beyond the scope of this paper. The preceding analysis can, however, be used to analyze U.S. securlty durmg a symmetric transition. A symmetric transition would likely be the safest possible transit~on.Therefore, because a transition would probably not be symmetric, the significance o t the symmetric tr'insition should not be overestimated. However, because the transition to a defense situation is generally believed to be very dangerous, it is interesting to briefly consider this best case. Secur~tyin transition states would be determined by the same factors as In the defensive situations already studied. Applying the conclusions o f the analysis of defensive s~tuationsto the transition, we find: 1 ) Premeditated attacks could be deterred equally well throughout the transition; 2 ) Crisis stability m ~ g h tnot decrease during the transition; and 3 ) Robustness would decrease during the transition. It follows that the probab~lityof nuclear war In the final state of the transition is likely to be greater rhan in any of the transit~onstates. The analysis of defensive situations presented in this art~cleturns the convenr~onalwisdom about strategic defenses on its head. It finds that the desirability of effective defenses, which is usually taken for granted, is at best highly questionable; and that the probability of war during a symmetric transition, which is usually believed to be high, could he lower rhan in the final defensive state. 28. For a discussion of the likely alliance reaction to extensive U.S. homeland defense, see David S. Yost, "Ballistic Missile Defense and the Atlantic Alliance," International Security, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Fall 1982), pp. 154-158. 29. The New York Times, March 30, 1983, p. 14.

Transarmament: From Offensive to Defensive Defense Johan Galtung

1 . Reactions to a n Attack

T

he word-pair 'offensiveldefensive' is problematic, hut also crucial. In an effort to have a fresh look at the whole problem of security, a figure giving a spectrum of reactions to an attack on a country may be useful (Figure I). The spectrum is one-dimensional which means that it is simplistic, possibly too simplistic - hut it may nevertheless be useful. At the bottom end there is no resistance at all in case of an attack; at the top end total destruction - of oneself as well as of the attacker. In between are all other forms of reactions - the spectrum includes all 'wavelengths', so to speak. The basic thesis of this article is simply that almost all the current debate concerning which reactions to make use of is focussed on two major cuts along this dimension, between nuclear and conventional arms on the one hand, and between violent and non-violent reactions on the other. The latter is the distinction around which not only pacifism but also large sections of the peace movement are organized: the rejection not only of nuclear arms and other weapons of mass destruction, but also of violence in general, meaning all kinds of conventional military systems. Although most people might agree that there is such a distinction, only relatively few would share the optimism o f pacifists - when they point to such examples as Gandhian actions in India against the British Empire - with regard to the efficacy of non-military reactions everywhere, alone.' Hence, as is very well known, it is the distinction between nuclear and conventional weapons that dominates the political debate and action completely, and not only in the military and political establishments (including the war establishments), but also in the peace movement. The thesis, then, is that this is most ctnforttrnate, that it means cutting the dimension at points that certainly are important but have the distinct disadvantage that one of them is located too high on the scale of destruction, and the other one too low. The cuts to the left in Figure I are simply insufficient. Source: / o ~ i r m z lof P r , i z ~ .K~ C S ~ L I T 2C l~(,2 ) ( 1984): 127-39.

41 4


Figure I: A Spectrum of Reactions to Attack

total destruction

offensive violent 1 1 1 ------------ ---conventional military defense ( C M D ) defensive para-military defense (PMD) non-military defense (NMD)

now violent I\

....................

no resistance

Hence, the argumentation here is in favor of a third cut, that between . ~ trying to define this cut, offensive and defensive reactions to a t t a ~ k In which like the other two by no means is a sharp one, one should first of all emphasize that it refers to the objective capability of the reaction 'systems' (the weapons being a part of that concept), not to the subjective motivations that may be attached to them. In other words, it is not a question of whether a reaction system is intended to be used for an attack; the whole issue is whether it is capable of being used for an attack. Hence, the best judge as to whether a weapon system is defensive or offensive is a possible target of the system, the adversary, not the subjective mind behind it. Thoughts and words come and go, actions depend on what is objectively possible, given by the constraints of natural laws only. The adversary is the best judge; just as we, in our self-defense, are the best judge of the adversary. Hence, I would locate the definition of the offensiveldefensive distinction in geographical space: can the weapon system be effectively used abroad, or can it only be used at home? If it can be used abroad then it is offensive, particularly if that 'abroad' includes countries with which one is in conflict. If it can only be used at home then the system is defensive, being operational only when an attack has taken place. 2. The Range and Impact Area of Weapons

Locating the definition in space makes it possible to formulate the problem in terms of two variables: the range (of the weapons carriers) and the impact

i,,iltiing

Transarmament

4 15

area (of the weapon itself, whether it is a classical impact weapon, an incendiary weapon, a high explosive or weapons of mass destruction - chemical1 toxic, biological, radiological, nuclear or geophysical). If we now divide 'range' into immobile/short/long and 'impact area' into local/limited/ extended, then we arrive at the nine combinations in Figure 11, four of them defensive according to the approach taken above, five of them offensive. Naturally, it all depends on where the borderline between 'short' and 'long' on the one hand, and between 'limited' and 'extensive' on the other, is located. An indication is already given above: the effects of the reaction to an attack should be within one's own country.' Of course, there may be countries so small that almost any weapon system wo~lldreach outside and/or have an impact area that would also include adversary territory. In general this would call for research into other types of weapon systems, for the use of highly immobile systems with only local impact along the borders (border fortifications are a classical answer in this connection), leaving the 'short'/ 'limited' combination to core areas of the country. But even if some of this should reach into some minor parts of the adversary's territory, this does not in any major way affect the type of reasoning we are trying to develop here. In order to discuss this more fully let us contrast the extremes in Figure 11. On the one hand, in the upper right hand corner, are very long range weapons systems with extensive impact areas: intercontinental ballistic missiles, long range bombers and submarines, all of them with dual capability, i.e. useahle for weapons of mass destruction. They would certainly be classified as offensive by anybody. O n the other hand, in the bottom left hand corner would be such weapons systems as land, sea, or air mines with local impact only, or a pipeline buried underground that can easily be filled with an explosive, ignited and make hundreds of kilometres unpassable for tanks. As mentioned, fortifications also belong in this category, but some of them would have guns with an impact area that would no longer be 'local', but 'limited'. Real long range guns would be alien to the logic of purely defensive defense, however. Figure 11: Offensive vs. Defensive Systems

iwzpact C(YCU A

extensive

of

fe

limited

de

fen

si

ve

cc

short

long

local

immobile

n

2.

YLZiZRL'

41 6


Then there are all the in-between categories, and they are numerous. However, they are not that difficult to handle from the point of view of the present analysis. Long range weapons systems with local impact would clearly be offensive: a Pershing I1 is still an offensive weapon when equipped with a conventional warhead with a highly local impact: a very long range gun with a nuclear warhead would be an offensive weapon even if stationed 'at home'. More important is the 'short'/'limited' combination since that would bring us to the borderline between offensive and defensive. The 'immobile'/'extensive' combination, the nuclear mine or short range nuclear arms seem useless both for defense and offense. They are 'thought-errors', leading mainly to selfdeterrence. 'Short range' means mobile, but mobility should not be useful for offensive purposes. One would be thinking in terms of jeeps and similar vehicles on land, motor torpedo boats on water, small submarines, and small aircraft using roads as airstrips, possibly with vertical take-off and landing, possibly helicopters. There would be nothing against these means of transportation being very quick: the problem is not speed, but range. In speed there is protection, and the possibility of coming quickly to the rescue where defense against aggression is needed. Speed is certainly also important in aggression, but only useful when combined with sufficient range t o reach outside one's country. Hence, one would be thinking in terms of highly mobile and small units with limited range, on land, in the water, in the air. In order to compensate for the limited range, they would have to be well dispersed all over the national territory, but, because of the limited range, essentially with local or district (sub-national) functions alone. If the length from one end of a country to another is so long that the range can also reach possible adversary territory sideways - Chile, Norway and Sweden being obvious examples then one should renounce on weapons systems with ranges of that type, letting the non-offensive character of the system take priority over the wish to use all systems all over the national territory - and deploy systems with shorter range, dispersed. However, if they are to operate in a dispersed and essentially local manner, they also have to be relatively autonomous. This does not mean that they are not under national command, only that they are capable of operating even if that command should be seriously impaired through adversary attack. And this, in fact, means that the whole C31system - command, communication, control, and intelligence - also has to be dispersed, less centralized, and that the country should not depend on outside suppliers for armament^.^ Having now established that they should have short range but possibly be very quickly mobile, well dispersed, small, local and autonomous, we can turn to the impact area of the weapons. This should be 'limited' for the very simple reason that it is limited how much one wants to destroy of one's own territory even if a more extensive impact area were to be more destructive to adversary forces. This, then, would point in the direction of very efficient, precision guided weapons with considerable destructive power but limited impact area, an example being 'smart rockets'. They certainly exist today

I

Transarmament

4 17

and are generally seen as very effective against tanks in the form of antitank weapons, and against ships, but perhaps less so against aircraft, particularly when they make use of the old trick of interposing themselves between defensive forces and the sun. However, there would be ways of dealing also with this problem. Let it only be added that such forces in addition would have weapons with a highly local impact such as ordinary guns, thereby completing the four cells in the defensive area of Figure 11.

3. The Gray Zone Of course there is a gray zone in between. There is the famous case of the anti-aircraft guns that are defensive when pointing upwards, yet can be used as highly offensive weapons when mounted with a different angle for targets on the ground on a carrier (a ship, for instance) with a long range. This, however, is no argument at all against the distinction made. What has happened in that and similar cases is that a new weapon system has been created, from something immobile with limited or even local impact area to something long range with limited impact area. That one major physical component in two weapons systems could be the same, or the same with a minor modification, is trivial. A country that wants to base its security on defensive forms of defense would simply not undertake that type of transformation of the weapons systems, and try to make them so that they cannot be suspected of making such a move either. At the same time, however, this serves as a warning not to be naive in believing that any component of a weapon system is inhevently defensive or offensive; it depends on the total system. It should not, however, depend on motivation. As motivations change so may the objective character of the weapons system - hence it is an engineering problem to make systems that are highly resistant, 'robust', to such changes, retaining the defensive character over a vast range of transformation of the components. Going back to Figure 11, there are still a number of clarifications to be made. More particularly, if we make use of all three cuts that have been made on this single dimension, cutting the dimension in four regions, some comments about each of the four regions might be appropriate to bring out the issues. Fivst, there are the weapons of mass destruction, with most of the public debate and action concentrated on nuclear arms. They are classified here as offensive, and that is not entirely unproblematic. The reasoning was indicated above: weapons of mass destruction are so destructive that nobody in his right mind would use them at home, at most against an adversary, and even then only against a very much hated adversary. One reason for this is that the weapons are not only destructive of the homosphere (human beings and their settlements) but also of the biosphere, lithosphere, and the hydrosphere - in other words of the whole environment (the atmosphere too for that matter, but that effect will be dispersed unless there is a 'nuclear winter'. In other words, nuclear weapons (and other weapons of mass destruction for that

4 I8


matter) are simply not credible as defensive weapons - which, of course, is a major reason why they are usually conceived of and discussed in connection with long range weapons carriers like those found in the USINAT0 triad. A country may have short range carriers (such as 1SSmm howitzers, selfpropelling, mounted on trucks or trains) with dual capability (e.g. for ERW, 'neutron grenades'); the question still remains whether they are credible for use on own territory. Admittedly the answer is not a very clear-cut one, indicating that the dimension in Figure I is not entirely one-dimensional - but the basic thesis still remains: that weapons of mass destruction are essentially offensive weapons in the sense made use of here. In fact, they are so aggressive that they are for destruction rather than for conquest of enemy territory. It is not surprising that short-range nuclear weapons are being withdrawn on a unilateral basis by USINATO; they are thought-errors. Then there is the second category which is a very important one: conventional, offensive weapon systems. When the basic distinction is made only in terms of nuclear vs. conventional, then it is easily forgotten how extremely offensive conventional weapons can be. The second World War was an example, so were the Korean and Indochina Wars and all or most of the other local war after 1945 for that matter, such as recent wars in Lebanon and Afghanistan. Of course, a major war today would not be fought with exactly the same arms, but for instance with the missiles, bombers and submarines now at the disposal of the super-power, but 'only' with conventional war-heads. They are destructive, and also so offensive that although reduction or elimination of nuclear arms would be advantageous, much of what can be said about the danger of war still remains valid, with conventional offensive weapon systems doing the job. And it is precisely because the third cut along the dimension in Figure I has not been made that it becomes possible for certain political and military establishments to smuggle in conventional offensive armament as a 'compensation' for a possible nuclear disarmament - riding on the fear of nuclear arms, particularly in the likely war 'theater' countries in Europe. Then there is the third category: conventional military defense. It has been described in some detail above, so let us here only look at one more point. If the units carrying the burden of conventional military defense (CMD) are short range mobile, small, local, quick, dispersed, and autonomous, then they are very much like guerrilla forces. The only difference between CMD and paramilitary defense (PMD) would be that the latter would tend to be even more local, more embedded in the local human and natural environment, and operate less in the open, although they would probably wear some kind of uniform in conformity with the regulations of the laws of war. The often-used term 'militia' also enters the ~ i c t u r ehere. including some of its policing functions. In this connection it should be pointed out that PMD probably has proven, after 1945, to be the most effective form of reaction to an attack, whether that attack takes the form of direct violence of military forces or the structural violence of excessive exploitation within and/or between countries.

Gallung

Transarmament

41 9

4. Non-Military Defense

Then there is the fourth category, non-military defense (NMD). Most models of that type of defense would also operate on the assumption of small units, local and autonomous, dispersed - in other words the same structure that has already been argued for CMD and PMD. One might say that there are two reasons underlying this: never to offer the adversary any targets with such a high concentration of defense potential that it would be worthy of a nuclear attack, and at the same time being able to resist an attack in all corners of the country. (Of course, he may destroy the whole country, but he may d o that anyhow.) For the case of non-military defense this obviously means not only territorial defense in the sense of resistance in geographically well defined units, but also social defense in the sense of all organizations and associations in a country finding their own ways of resisting attack by not producing goods or services for the adversary etc. Clearly this IS defensive as it is only meaningful in one's own society. This becomes even more clear when one looks at the following short list of 12 fundamental strategies for NMD, organized in three groups with four strategies in each.'

Antagonist-oriented defense strategies A. 'Attack should not pay' I . Self-inflicted sabotage on objects of value to adversary 2. Noncooperation and civil disobedience, 'emptying' social structure B. 'Incapacitation of the antagonist' 3. Creating empathy ( a ) Positive interaction before attack; helpfullness, assistance ( b ) Cooperation with the person; noncooperation with the status - friendliness at the personal level 4. Creating sympathy through suffering inflicted by adversary 11. Defense strategies aimed at protecting oneself 5. Efficient communication inside one's own group 6 . Effectively hiding selected people and objects 7. Decreased vulnerability of the population through alternative structure 8. Communication and enaction of one's own values 111. Defense strategies aimed at deterring the antagonist 9. Organization of N M D prepared in peace time 10. Communication of preparedness through maneuvers 11. Communication of commitment to NMD 12. High level of satisfaction in one's own group

I.

Of course, it may be argued that N M D specialists can penetrate international frontiers and organize the population elsewhere in attempts to overturn their regimes, as can PMD volunteers. This is true, but in that case it is a question of transfer of know-how; the real fighting will have to be done

420


by the local population against its own leaders. It is more like sending a book across the border, or a teacher, less like sending a nuclear-tipped missile. Looking at the total dimension, again, the case has now been made that on the one hand there are offensive reactions to an attack, with weapons of mass destruction (including nuclear weapons) and with conventional offensive weapons. O n the other there are defensive reactions, and they are of three types: conventional military defense, paramilitary defense, and nonmilitary defense. Just like an offensive reaction today is conceived of as including both nuclear and conventional weapons (in Soviet/ WTO strategy nuclear weapons are not for first use, whereas in USINATO strategy nuclear weapons are possibly for first use), a defensive reaction could include all three types, combining CMD, PMD and NMD. The problem of whether they are combinable is an important one, just as it is for offensive strategies. That problem, however, will be taken up below. The basic point to be discussed here is not so much the structure of offensive vs. defensive systems, as their function. The key difference is that offensive systems can be used for attack. They are potentially aggressive, and hence provocative. Whether they will be used for attack is another matter; the important point is that any possible adversary may have reasons to suspect that they can be used for attack simply because what is possible may also become reality. What is impossible may not; this is the whole point underlying an objectively defensive posture. At this point some comments about the ambiguities of the two important words 'defense' and 'deterrence' may be in order. The word defense obviously has two meanings: any reaction to an attack, in other words the use of any weapon system from any point on the dimension of Figure I (including the bottom point which may also be some kind of defense, perhaps in the longer run); and then the other meaning a limited part of the spectrum only, what is here somewhat clumsily referred to as 'defensive defense'. And this spills over into the double meaning given to the word 'deterrence': deterring an attack through the threat of effective retaliation (German: Vergeltung), or deterring attack through the promise of effective resistance (German: Verteidigung, not including 'Vergeltung'). One may say that there is a broad use of the terms defenseldeterrence covering all points on the spectrum, and the narrow use limiting it to the (purely) defensive systems only. It is probably not possible to change the semantics since word usages are so deeply ingrained at this juncture. But it is absolutely impermissible when people participating in the debate d o not clarify what they mean. At any point where the words 'defense' and 'deterrence' are used it should be made clear whether the terms are limited to (purely) defensive systems, or also to systems operating on the territory of the adversary. Offensive defense is offensive, in both senses of that term: it can be used to start an offensive in the sense of aggression, and it is offensive in the sense of provoking the other side. It is not the manpower, capital, research, and organizational work that go into a military system in general that provokes;

~ , , I Ii Ir t l

_

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it is the offensive component of all of this. Thus, it is misleading to analyse arms races only in terms of the magnitude and rate of growth of all the factors that have been put into the organization, or - better - the destructive capability of the organization (the 'bads' and 'disservices' that can be rendered). Only the offensive components should he counted. On the other hand, it is quite clear from what has been said above that the border-line is not a very sharp one (although sharper, it is argued here, than most people believe) - hence the easy solution, is to count all military assets, disregarding the offensiveldefensive distinction. The distinction that is made use of army, navy, and the air force - has approximately the same level of intellectual depth as the corresponding division for the animal kingdom: animals on land, in the water, and in the air. Zoology made a great step forward when the distinction between vertebrates and avertebrates was made systematic use of; it is high time that similar distinctions - actually very old in the field of military science - become much more prominent in the debate. Recently they have been surfacing. Let me compare the points made to some major statements, starting with the Swiss official doctrine: An official Swiss publication (Zentralstelle fiir Gesamtverteidigung, 1973), makes a number of important statements (the only point missing is nonmilitary defense): This entails the prohibition of any recourse to indiscriminate conduct of war against the population of the opponent, even though in the atomic age, only the threat of the destruction of the opponent's population seems to be an effective deterrent (p. 23). Should the large units of the army cease to exist as effective fighting formations, then there will be recourse to guerrilla warfare in order to prevent the opponent from gaining complete control over the occupied territory and to prepare for the liberation (p. 30). Military cooperation with other states is inadmissible for Switzerland in peace-time because of its status as a permanently neutral state. Should Switzerland become involved in a war, then such a cooperation can be considered with the opponent of the aggressor (p. 29). In order to appreciate better the Swiss doctrine, the reader is also referred to the quotes given in footnotes 3 and 4 and Fischer 1982. The latter, however, also points out how all is not well with the Swiss case: conscientious objection is not admitted; a heavy military hierarchy paralleling and partly doubling the civilian one; arms exports; gross cost overruns by the military; no preparation for non-military defense; little or no peace and conflict research. The Swedish doctrine is somewhat weaker, based on the idea that 'Defense should not be perceived as a threat by anybody, and it should be elaborated in such a way that the exclusively defensive purpose - to defend one's own country - becomes absolutely clear' (Totalfiirsvarets upplysningsnamd, p. 8 ) . What is missing here is a discussion of doctrine and of objective capability, not of the subjective perception, with Swedish

422


recommendations as to what perception is legitimate and which ones are not. The Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society, on the other hand, advocates non-military defense only, in a very well argued case against military defense as 'building on an improbable war scenario, based on a dubious balance of power theory, preventing us from taking concrete initiatives for disarmament, eroding our non-alignment, forcing us to contribute to world militarization' (Svenska Fredsoch SkiljedomsForeningen, 1982). However, I am afraid their view will remain that of a small minority for a long time to come, at least in democratic countries - which does not mean the case should not be made. Per Hansen, a Norwegian colonel, in Galtung & Hansen 1981, has the following eight points in his plan for the defense of Norway: make full use of our terrain; dynamiting of roads to impede enemy progress; fortifications and coastal artillery to stop the enemy; mobile forces to stop the enemy if he passes fortifications; anti-aircraft guns to protect important areas and mobile forces; supply security in the form of well stocked and decentralized depots; preparation for guerrilla warfare in occupied territory in order to tie down the enemy and maintain Norwegian jurisdiction; civilian resistance to prevent the enemy from making use of Norwegian social resources (pp. 19-20). As can be seen, again a case of convergence; all three elements are present. Spannocchi (1975) gives 'the Austrian answer' as Raumverteidigung, defense in depth, in the Austrian space itself, as opposed to Vorneverteidigung, defense at the border itself. One might note the psychological problem in the Raumverteidigung: the population close to the border is so to speak given up in the first round, possibly to occupying forces, while defense goes on elsewhere. The question is, of course, what is worse: to be occupied or to be the main battlefield because it is close to the border, under the age-old doctrine of preserving every inch of one's own territory? Loser (1981) is in the same tradition. In Britain, the report of the Alternative Defense Commission (1983) is the proposal that comes closest to what is proposed here. One very positive point about the book is the concreteness of the policy proposals for Britain, obviously destined for a Labour government. When are all countries in Europe going to have such books/explorations published, and when are they going to become major elements in the public debate? When, to put it differently, is the peace movement going to take its task so seriously that concrete alternatives are discussed, not only concrete criticism? Particularly important in the German debate about defensive defense is the book by Afheldt (1983) - with a number of technical explorations by his cousin, Brigadegeneral Eckart Afheldt. In another important book in the German debate (Komite fiir Grundrechte and Demokratie, 1981) five options for alternatives to the present NATO policy are discussed: disengagement, neutralism, strictly defensive defense, civilian defense, unilateral and complete disarmament. What I miss in the book is a clearer way of looking at these options as building blocks that can be combined in many

Ciait u r q

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ways, e.g. by combining nos. 3 and 4 (and also including guerrilla) in a more total defense concept that does not provoke. The Social Democratic Information Service also presents a number of alternatives, under alternative defense policies, arguing that such defensive defense and small, mobile units could and should concepts as Raumverteidigung be combined, but does not argue the combination of this with social defense (i.e. nonmilitary defense, although the concept also includes guerrilla defense) (Sozialdemokratischer Informationsdienst 1982). However, some years ago such concepts were totally unmentionable in such party documents - this type of debate is now moving, and very rapidly. Riiling (1978) makes the point that 'such a strategy of "inoffensive deterrence" is the only strategy open to small states surrounded by mightier neighbors. Yugoslavia, with special respect to the Soviet Union, after the events in 1968, adopted a policy of people's resistance against any invasion. Next to its ordinary army, "the people" were organized to participate in the resistance as a partisan-force which is forbidden to recognize any capitulation, and which has to continue fighting after the defeat of the regular Yugoslav forces. The prospect of continued fighting is supposed to have a great deterrence effect' (p. 344). Roling also mentions that 'the Rumanian law of 1972 is based on the same principle: territorial defense by the whole population' (p. 347). Hollins (1982) points out that 'a world in which the capacity for aggressive warfare had been eliminated - and this could be accomplished by 1990 would by no means resolve all the world's critical problems. But it would be a very different world from the one we have now' (p. 65). I would share that view,. both parts of it. Roberts (1982)makes the point that the whole debate about security has been too much dominated by armamentldisarmament issues: 'The creation of a national non-nuclear defense, and the various attempts to set limits to international conflicts, deserve more place in the discussion than they get. "Uni" versus "multi" is by no means the only issue worth debating' (p. 177). A statement with which it is hard to disagree. -

5. Defense and Common Security

Let us now have a closer look at this type of defense, a triad consisting of conventional, paramilitary and non-military defense. The major arguments in favor are obvious: a defense of this kind is not provocative since it cannot be used for an attack, hence should not lead to any arms race. Within this type of defense doctrine it would be entirely possible for both parties to have not only a high level of security but also a relatively equal level of security. In addition it is possible for them to cooperate: it would be in the interest of either party to make the other party feel secure, which would mean that there could even be an exchange between adversaries of techniques of defensive defense (but not necessarily giving information about

424

T h e C o l d War a n d N u c l e a r D e t e r r e n c e

their exact location). This means that a setting is given for common security (Galtung 1984, Section 3.4) and that is already something With this approach there would still be arms and even armament as a process, but with the distinct possibility that a stable plateau can be achieved, in other words not only common security but a stable and common security. Of course, in world history this mutually defensive posture has probably been a normal state of affairs for most pairs of neighboring countries, the accumulation of offensive arms and offensive arms races being an exception. But in addition to this, a strong defensive defense should have a high deterrent value, 'deterrence' then taken not in the sense of retaliation, but in the sense of being able to stave off an attack. Nevertheless, should the attack come, and that would be the third line of argument, then the level of destruction would be lower since there would be no incentive (except for pure terrorism) to use nuclear arms and other weapons of mass destruction. Not only the defense system but also the social system itself (Galtung 1984, Section 5.4) would be organized in such a way that no immediate target would present itself as being worthy of a nuclear attack.

6. S o m e Critical Issues of Defensive Defense This, however, does not mean that the type of defense advocated here is unproblematic. The following is a short list of some basic and critical considerations, for a debate that should now take place not only within the peace movement but in our societies in general. First, defensive defense presupposes a high level of national self-reliance in defense matters. If weapon systems are not supposed to be quick, long range, and mobile, then they cannot be transported from one country to another in order to help that other country (rather than attacking it) either. Under a doctrine of defensive defense military alliances based on high levels of mobility are severely curtailed. This, of course, does not mean that there cannot be all kinds of diplomatic, otherwise political, and economic support in case of an attack. World public opinion would still function, and even more so than before because a country with purely defensive defense cannot possibly be accused of having provoked an attacker. This may look like a severe reduction of defensive capability, but could also be seen in exactly the opposite manner. Clearly, a country which is used to relying on allies, and particularly on a superpower ally, will not mobilize all its defense resources. This is true in times of peace and even more so in times of war. Military forces in a client country in an alliance, given the idea that 'I have to fight for 24 hours till help comes from the superpower, possibly even with superweapons', will certainly not exercise their defense potential to the maximum. Rather, the strategy would be to put up a decent show but trying to do so in such a way that national and personal honors are preserved, yet one manages to survive till the major burden of the battle is taken over by the superpower. A policy of national self-reliance would rule this out.

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If one really means what one says, that freedom is worth a fight, then that fight has to be done by nobody else than oneself. The triad advocated above (CMD, PMD, and MND) is so diverse, and on the other hand so dispersed throughout the country, that it should serve exactly as a network capable of mobilizing all kinds of defense potentials. Not only is it capable of mobilizing women, but also all or most of those who are dismissed from military service for health reasons. Military 'defense' in today's offensive form is simply incapable of mobilizing the population. Second, a policy of defensive defense presupposes a high level of local defense self-reliance. If the units are to be small, dispersed, and locally supported, very often also locally based, there has to be a high local capacity to keep a fight going even if the national center has been rendered incapable of doing so. Again the same reasoning applies: in a highly hierarchical national defense system, itself possibly a replication of highly hierarchical international defense systems, the local units might tend to wait for support from the center and thus yield much less resistance than they otherwise could do. If no such support is forthcoming they might give up, capitulate. But if everything has been prepared in advance they might not only continue the struggle, but also, knowing that they have only themselves to rely upon, d o more than otherwise could have been expected of them. Hence, it is obvious that a policy of defensive defense presupposes not only a higher level of national self-reliance, but also of local self-reliance. This type of military doctrine, hence, is structurally compatible with a social structure much more based on national and local self-reliance in general, just like the vertical alliance pattern with hierarchical organization inside a country is compatible with the social structure one finds, for instance, in transnational organizations. Obviously the economic structure does not completely determine the military structure, but there is a relation between the two. A complete change in defense structure would presuppose at least some change in economic, political and social structure in general. It may be argued that this is to ask for too much. It may also be argued that this type of change probably will have to take place anyhow as a reaction to the general world crisis, and that the change is not that fundamental.

Third, a defensive defense is vulnerable t o a n enemy w h o attacks the syst e m with offensive arms from his o w n country. As a matter of fact, all the adversary would have to do would be to set up a long range gun on his own territory, capable of hitting targets in a systematic manner, and destroy them from one end of the country to another. Aircraft would have to operate over the territory; a long range gun (or battery of missiles) would not. Hence, it stands to reason that a defensive defense would have to be supplemented by some element of interdiction capability. These are counterforce weapons, for instance aircraft capable of hitting the gun just mentioned. And then we are, of course, back to the problem; any interdiction capability would also be an offensive capability, and hence could be provocative. Consequently it is a question of having as little as possible, making weapons very counterforce and not countervalue, building them into the military doctrine down to

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the letter and verse of the instruction manuals, at all levels of the military organizations, as interdiction weapons only. How much is necessary and how much is sufficient is difficult to say; military experts close to the peace movements would be the ideal persons to advise on this. Clearly, very soon an offensive capability becomes too much, and becomes too provocative. Fourth, a policy of defensive defense is not offensive against an outside adversary, but could be highly offensive against an inside adversary. The types of weapons that are described above as being defensive are defensive because they cannot reach outside national borders in any significant manner. But they can certainly hit inside those borders, otherwise they would not have any capability at all. And they would not necessarily distinguish between external and internal foes of the regime. As a matter of fact, they are exactly the type of weapons that a repressive government might use against insurgent forces, whether their claims are justifiable or not. They are more adequate than offensive weapons: the case of the Iranian revolution showed rather convincingly how helpless the Shah was with his 'modern' weaponry designed for long range operations against a levee en masse of the population. Clearly this is an important problem, and a typical example of how a policy designed go solve one problem may not only not solve another one but also aggravate it. The only solution I can imagine would be to make the country less vulnerable, simply by reducing or even eliminating major contradictions within the country (Galtung 1984, Section 5.4). That would permit distributing the control over these means of destruction, the weapons, in a more equitable manner in the population, not regarding it as a total monopoly of the government. This does not necessarily mean going so far as one does in Switzerland in the sense of people having arms at home. That would be too similar to the US situation where a countrywide dispersion of firearms has proved to increase the level of insecurity considerably. What may not work in the US seems t o work in Switzerland and Norway where militia arms are not used for private violence either. Fifth, a defensive defense policy presupposes a higher level of readiness for defense in the population. It clearly supposes a higher level of mobilization: self-reliance at the national and local levels, and consensus. But this does not necessarily mean militarization. I do not think that it can be said a highly mobilized Norwegian population against nazi and quisling rule was militarized because it wanted t o defend itself. Militarization would have much more to do with excessive Military - Bureaucratic - Corporate Intelligentsia complexes, over-armament, offensive armament and such things. Nor is it necessarily the case that this type of defense presupposes a constant Feindbild. In times of peace a policy of non-alignment and even neutrality would serve to build down such Feindbild. In times of war it would come about anyhow, only that the non-military component of defense would try to see to it that it would be directed against the enemy as a soldier and not the enemy as a person. But what is absolutely clear is that a defensive policy, because it relies much more on popular participation, would presuppose a high level of consensus. That, of course, has the major advantage

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that mobilization of the military potential cannot happen against the popular will, as when forces are used offensively in total disregard and contempt of what a population might feel, relying o n professional soldiery and a general decoupling of military society from civilian society. International adventurism would be impossible.

Sixth, a defensive defense with three different components presupposes that the three components do not work at cross purposes. This is the famous problem of the Mix between military and non-military types of defense. Suffice it here only to say that the problem may be more important in theory than in practice. In practice there are several possibilities. There is the Mix in space: conventional defense along the borders and in thinly populated areas, with PMD and N M D elsewhere. There is the Mix in time: conventional defense first, then PMD and N M D as fall-back possibilities. There is the Mix in what one might call functional space: conventional defense for geographic and precise targets, PMD and N M D for more diffused and dispersed targets such as the population as a whole, society as a whole, nature: then C M D and PMD for more offensive purposes inside one's own territory, NMD for more defensive purposes. There is the Mix of all these mixes - the question of course being whether it becomes mixed-up. War time experience seems to indicate that it does not, that the population is able to entertain different types of defense at the same time, and that the adversary also makes a distinction between the three, perhaps behaving in the most aggressive way against PMD, less so against C M D and much less so against NMD. It could also be the other way round under certain circumstances. In any case, the task remains that of making the country indigestible, like a hedgehog, not appetizing to a wolf, and highly inoffensive to each other. That, however, is a discussion that would lead far beyond the scope of this article. Suffice it here only to say that the strength of this type of defense is precisely its versatility, and that the enemy of it would be those whose thinking has become so one-dimensional that they can only think in terms of one foot of the tripod, not in terms of all three. In fact, the argument against it is probably not so much that it is ineffective as a deterrent and as a defense. The argument might rather be the opposite; it is so effective that it could also be successfully turned against the countries' own governments. In other words, the opposite of the argument above where the emphasis was on conventional military defense as an instrument which in the hands of the government could be used to crush a rebellion. Paramilitary defense and non-military defense, meaningless unless they are in the hands of the population itself, could also be used to topple a government. One might say that this already constitutes a balance of power, that one type of defensive defense may be the answer to the other in internal power struggles. But the much better answer, of course, would be to say that a condition for a purely defensive form of defense is that the country has come so far in ridding itself of basic internal contradictions that neither a government, nor the population, would use force in order to provoke some basic discontinuity in the history of the country.

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The Cold War and Nuclear Deterrence 7. Conclusion: Towards a N e w Consensus?

In conclusion let us put this aspect of alternative security policies in perspective. Obviously, it is filled with contradictions, reflecting the fact that we live in a perilous world, partly of our own making. Some of these contradictions can only be softened, possibly overcome, if other aspects of alternative security policies are also enacted, very often referred to as 'political' in the present article in terms of 'non-alignment', 'inner strength' and 'outer usefulness', dealt with elsewhere (Galtung 1984, Sections 3-5). What should be emphasized here is only one point: the focus here is on transarmament, not on disarmament. I have argued elsewhere that disarmament of offensive forces is absolutely indispensable, to avoid major wars, and that, the route via disarmament negotiations as practised so far is a blind alley. The policy advocated here is a combination of disarmament and transarmament, not the obviously fallacious policy of trying to obtain disarmament in offensive weapons through armament in offensive weapons, but an effort to obtain disarmament in offensive weapons through transarmament to defensive weapons. Some of the latter are undoubtedly still highly violent. But within the defensive defense concept argued here there are three different types of defense: conventional, para-military and non-military. Over time this might develop, if one can try to be optimistic in these troubled years, towards nonmilitary defense, which is more or less the way in which we handle conflicts in civilized societies, with strikes, some civil disobedience, non-violent conflict resolution mechanisms, and so on. Many would feel impatient, and ask why not go straight to non-military defense, why not general and complete disarmament and not this approach via conventional military defense! And my answer would be along two lines: first, because the overwhelming majority of the population does not believe in non-military defense, only some of those who are conscientious objectors, or pacifists in some other way, do. Second, because a glance at world history in general and European history in particular should convince anybody that we live in a dangerous world. Security does not come automatically, there is a need for some kind of defense. There is also a need for a new consensus in defense matters. Offensive deterrence is only credible if the population in democratic countries believe in it; they d o not. Non-defense is not believed in either. Defensive defense, with the human right for everybody to choose the branch (conventional military, para-military or non-military) which (s)he believes in, might be an answer.'

Author's N o t e The ideas developed in this article should be seen in a broader context of alternative security policies. My book on that topic, There Are Alternatives!, (Spokesman, Nottingham, 1984) from which the present article is taken and references to current literature are added, is an effort to develop a more comprehensive approach. This is important lest one IS led to believe that the road out of the present highly dangerous situation is a question of new types of military hardware only. I am indebted to Nils Perter Gleditsch and Jan Oberg for helpful editorial comments.

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Notes I. The experience in Norway during the 1940-45 occupatloll can be summarized as follows: c ~ v i l ~ a nnonviolent , resistance was very effective agalnst n,izification of civilian soclety hy the Quisling regrme, hut ineffect~veagainst the German occupation - a s was also the military reslstmce. Militxy liberation from the outside was both necessary and sufficient. 2. O f course, the idea o f defensive defense is not a t all new, and played a consider.ihle role 111 the debates and cornn~iss~ons o f the L e a g ~ ~ofe N a t ~ o n sin the 1930s. See, for instance, Gr~ffin( 1936). .3. 'The O f f ~ c ~Swiss al p u h l ~ c . ~ t ~(Ze~itralstelle on fur Gesanirverteid~gung19731, is very clear o n this point 'The army as ,I whole has a defensive rnissron and its preparations are made with a view towards fighting o n l ) ~within its o w n territory' (p. 28). The document also rnentlons the possibility of non-military defense as a last resort, hut does not take up the sticky issue of whether this could be one way of making use of the defensive potenti'il of conscientious oblectors. 4. Again, the SWISSmake thc point: '... we have t o guarantee a minrntol de,qiw o f selfsttfficicnq w ~ t hregard t o armaments. Sufficient supplies must be kept in order t o malnt;iln the combat-effectiveness of our army in case of war' (ihid. p. 29). 5.For a general review of the effects of nuclear war, see Galtung (19841, particularly sections 2.4, 3.4. and 4.4 For the effects of nuclear war on the climate, see Sagan (198,3184);~ l s o N PS C ~ I P I I ~3I Novemher S~, 1983. 6. See lohan Galtung (1978), chapters 12, 13, 15 for an analysis of nonm~litarydefense, also Galtung ( 1980), sectlon 4.4. 7. @berg (1983) p. 167 points out how 'nonviolence as well ,is the philosophy of defensive defense ha\ its origin In the Orient, not in our culture'. I agree, hut one should not underestimate the importmce of defensive defense as the defense of the weaker parties, and the parties with les\ aggressive inclinations even if there is n o trace of Oriental thmking - like in the case of the Swiss.

References Afheldt, Horst 1983. Uefewsicw Verteidigung. Keinhek be1 H a m h ~ t r g Rowohlt. : Alternative Defense Commission 1983. Defense without the Llornl~.I.ondo11 a n d New York: 1Bylor & Franc~s. Fischer, Dietrich 1982. 'Inv~~lnerahilityw ~ t h o u t Threat: The SWISS( h n c e p t of C;encr,ll Iktense'. ]oitrnizl of Prare Research, vol. 19, no. 3, pp. 205-225. vol. 11. Copenhagen: Ejlers. G ~ l t u n gJohan , 1978. tssays in Peace R~~search, Galrung. Joh'ln 1980. The True Worlds. New York: The Free Press/Macmillan. Giltung, Johan 1982. t.rtt~irovintrnt,Dc~wlopmnrtand Mrlitnry Ar-tiz~rtyOslo: Univers~trtsforhget. Galrung, Johan 1983. 'Alternative Defense Strateg~es', W R I (War Resisters' Internat~onal) Neir~sletter,April, pp. 5-7. Galtung, J o h a n 1984. Es giht Alternative! Wieshaden: Westdeutscher Verlag. Ed~tions111 Engl~sh,Dutch, Spanish Spring 1984. (;,lltung, Johan & Per Hansen 198 1. Totirlfors~w.Oslo: Univers~tetsforlaget. Griffin 1. 1936. Altrrnnti~~c, to Keurtnament. London: Macmillan. ~ of Atontic S c ~ ~ n t ~ vo1. s t s , 38, Hollins, Harry B. 1982. 'A Defensive Weapon System', 17 T / JBztlletin no. 6, pp. 63-65. Komitee t i ~ rGrundrechte und Deniokratie 1981. Friedrn mrt ~znticrctr W~lffen.Re~nhckbei Hamhurg: Rowohlr. L.ticer, Jochen 198 1. 1 V d v rot norh tot. Miinchen: Olzog. Roberts, Adam 1982. 'The Alternative, Non-nuclear Way t o Defend Ourselves', Nui, Society, 4 February, \wl. 59, no. 1003, pp. 17.5-177. Roling, Bert 1978. 'Fexihility of Inoffensive Deterrence', Bulletin of Peizcc l'roposals. vol. 9, n o . 4, pp. 339-347.

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Sagan, Carl 1983184. 'Nuclear War and Climatic Catastrophe: Some Policy Implications, Foreign Affairs, vol. 62, no. 2, pp. 257-292. Sozialdemokratischer Informationsdienst 1982. 'Argumente fiir eine alternative Verteidigungspolitik', Frau und Geseelschaft, September. Spannocchi, Emil 1976. Verteidigung ohne Selbstzer storung. MiinchedWien: Hanser. Svenska Fredsoch Skiljedomsforeningen 1982. Ett forsvarspolitiskt program for fred. Stockholm. Totalforsvarets Upplysningsnemnd (no date). Sveriges Sakerhet. Stockholm. Zentralstelle fiir Gesamtverteidigung 1973. General Defense. Bern. Oberg, Jan 1983. At udvikle sikkerhed og sikre udvikling. Copenhagen: Vindrose.

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