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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 November 2022
A rational strategy for the employment of nuclear weapons is a contradiction in terms. The enormity of the destruction, either executed or threatened, severs the nexus of proportionality between means and ends which used to characterize the threat and use of force. This does not mean, however, that all nuclear strategies are equally irrational. The nuclear policy of the Reagan administration—which is essentially the same as that of the Carter administration and which has its roots in developments initiated by even earlier administrations—is particularly ill-formed. As I will demonstrate, the basic reason for this is that the strategy rests on a profound underestimation of the impact of nuclear weapons on military strategy and attempts to understand the current situation with intellectual tools appropriate only in the pre-nuclear era.
American strategy for the past several years—the “countervailing strategy”—has been based on the assumption that what is crucial is the ability of American and allied military forces to deny the Soviets military advantage from any aggression they might contemplate. The U.S. must be prepared to meet and block any level of Soviet force. The strategy is then one of counterforce—blocking and seeking to destroy Soviet military power. The goal is deterrence. Although it is concerned with how the U.S. would fight many different kinds of wars, both nuclear and non-nuclear, it is not correct to claim that the strategy seeks to engage in wars rather than deter them.
This article is drawn from The Illogic of Nuclear Strategy, which will be published by Cornell University Press this spring.
1 See Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), pp. 58–113; “Why Nuclear Superiority Doesn't Matter,” Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 94, Winter 1979–80, pp. 620–622; “Beliefs About Soviet Behavior,” in Osgood, Robert et al. , Containment, Soviet Behavior, and Grand Strategy (Berkeley Institute of International Studies, 1981)Google Scholar, Policy Papers in International Affairs No. 16, pp. 55–59. Also see the pathbreaking study by Levine, Robert, The Arms Debate (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2 “Is SALT II a Fair Deal for the United States?” (Washington, D.C.: Committee on the Present Danger, 1979), p. 6.
3 The discussion in this section is greatly influenced by James King, “The New Strategy” (unpublished MS).
4 Kahn, Herman, On Escalation (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1968), p. 290.Google Scholar
5 “NATO: Saving the Alliance,” Washington Quarterly, Vol. 5, Summer 1982, p. 21.
6 “U.S. Strategic Nuclear Concepts in the 1970s: The Search for Sufficient Equivalent Countervailing Parity,” International Security, Vol. 6, Fall 1981, p. 72.
7 Lebow, Richard Ned, “Misconceptions in American Strategic Assessment,” Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 97, Summer 1982, p. 196 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; also see Jervis, , “Why Nuclear Superiority Doesn't Matter,” pp. 617–634 Google Scholar; Brodie, Bernard, War and Politics (New York: McMillan, 1973), pp. 363–364 Google Scholar; and Morgan, Patrick, Deterrence (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1977), pp. 136–143.Google Scholar
8 “What Price Conventional Capabilities in Europe,” The Reporter, Vol. 28, May 23, 1 963, p. 32.
9 Arms and Influence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), pp. 98–99. Schelling provides no supporting arguments for the claim that military superiority provides any assistance in this process and, in an era of nuclear plenty, I do not think the claim is correct. Indeed, a little later Schelling notes that “If the clash of a squad with a division can lead to unintended war,… their potencies are equal in respect of the threats that count” (ibid., p. 103). Stephen Peter Rosen argues that military advantage was vital to determining each side's resolve In Vietnam, but this was a long and costly struggle for what was to the U.S. a relatively minor objective. Furthermore, after U.S. involvement reached a high level, the fear of escalation could exert pressure only on the U.S., and even here it was not the major consideration. (See Rosen, , “Vietnam and the American Theory of Limited War,” International Security, Vol. 7, Fall 1982, pp. 83–113.CrossRefGoogle Scholar)
10 The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960), pp. 187–204.
11 Huntington, Samuel, “The Renewal of Strategy,” in Huntington, , ed., The Strategic Imperative: New Policies for American Security (Cambridge: Ballinger, 1982), p. 13 Google Scholar; also see p. 33. Kissinger's view is similar, if more dramatically put: “I have sat around the NATO Council table … and have uttered the magic words [reassuring NATO of the American nuclear commitment] … and yet if my analysis is correct these words cannot be true, and … we must face the fact that it is absurd to base the strategy of the West on the credibility of the threat of mutual suicide” (“NATO: The Next Thirty Years,” Survival, Vol. 21, November/December 1979, p. 266). Although disputing most of Kissinger's ideas on strategy, McNamara agrees on this point. See his “The Military Role of Nuclear Weapons,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 62, Fall 1983, p. 73.
12 Smith, Bromley, “Summary Record of NSC Executive Committee Meeting No. 5, October 25, 1962, 5:00 PM,” p. 3.Google Scholar In retrospect, this judgment seems bizarre. But in many areas the relative riskiness of various actions is still hard to determine. For example, Brodie argues: “I see no basis in experience or logic for assuming that the increase in level of violence from one division to thirty [in a conventional war in Europe] is a less shocking and less dangerous form of escalation than the introduction of [tactical] nuclear weapons” (“What Price Conventional Capabilities in Europe?” p. 32). Most analysts would disagree (and so would I), but in reaching our conclusions we must all rely heavily on intuition.
13 Arms and Influence, pp. 166–168.
14 “AFAG Talk: Political Impact of U.S. Force Postures,” May 28, 1963, p. 7, in Fourteen Informal Writings from the Unpublished Works of Bernard Brodie, 1952–65 (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation). Also see Schelling, , Arms and Influence, p. 96.Google Scholar
15 Kissinger, Henry made this point in Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy (New York: Harper, 1957), pp. 144, 188–189Google Scholar, although his later views have been very different.
