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 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

Editors' Introduction

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

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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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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

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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

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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

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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

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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).

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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.

The Sources of Soviet Conduct

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

T h e Cold War a n d Nuclear Deterrence

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.

':

The Sources of Soviet Conduct

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

T h e Cold War a n d Nuclear Deterrence

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

The Sources of Soviet Conduct

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

T h e Cold War a n d Nuclear Deterrence

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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The Cold War and Nuclear Deterrence

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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T h e Cold War a n d Nuclear Deterrence

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

20

The Cold War and Nuclear Deterrence

"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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T h e Cold War a n d Nuclear Deterrence

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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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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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

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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.

11 1

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The National Interest of The U.S.

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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The Cold War a n d Nuclear Deterrence

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

56

T h e Cold War a n d Nuclear Deterrence

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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il11~ii.t1 i . t

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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The Cold War and Nuclear Deterrence

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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The Delicate Balance of Terror

61

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

64

The Cold War and Nuclear Deterrence

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

T

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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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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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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Waltz

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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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integrated inter-allied force very closely linked both to the NATO command and to American technology. At the same time, a few minor alterations were made in NATO's nuclear organisation in Europe to provide for a wider share by European officers in local nuclear planning. The disadvantages of this scheme were that it would be costly and that it would, in practice, merely result in reinforcing what was already a superabundant American nuclear capability without providing the European partners with anything more than a nominal right of control. In general, it had only a lukewarm reception, except by the Germans; they saw it as a step towards the removal of the discrimination from which they felt themselves to be suffering, and as an opportunity to express their support of the United States whose nuclear protection seemed essential to them. But in order to guard against what they considered to be the dangerous hypothesis that the land defence of Europe should depend on purely conventional weapons, they also insisted on the absolute need for that defence to be based on tactical nuclear weapons. France clearly expressed her opposition in principle to the MLF, both because it offered only illusory possibilities of any real sharing of nuclear responsibilities and because it irrevocably integrated Europe in the American nuclear system, thereby excluding any hope that a real European nuclear force might eventually be established. Instead, France continued to build up her small nuclear force and to reiterate her wish that the allies should co-ordinate their strategies in an effective way. In this situation, the new British Labour Government thought it a clever move, in the hope of gaining support from the European opponents of the MLF, to propose an alternative to it. The essential characteristics of this new ANF proposal were the creation of a multi-national force, composed of an equal number of British and American Polaris submarines, and of a mixed-manned Polaris surface fleet on the MLF pattern, but now without British participation. It was proposed that this force should be placed at the disposal of NATO to carry out 'interdiction' missions of a more or less long-range nature in support of the defence of Europe. In addition, certain arrangements would allow the European Powers to exercise a minimum of control over the planning and use of this force. The most obvious result of the British proposal was to deprive the MLF of what little impetus remained to it. The collision of so many opposing views on the problem of the sharing of nuclear responsibilities resulted in a general hesitation to deal with it, and by the beginning of this year it had reached a dead-end.

During this period, however, it has become clear that the strategic situation has so far been transformed that the need for an important revision of the concepts on which the strategy of NATO had been based has become clearly indicated. For instance, it has become obvious that the hypothesis of

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the threat of a Soviet invasion of Western Europe has now, to all intents and purposes, lost any validity. This development has, of course, been brought about in large part by the value of NATO as a deterrent, but it has also been due t o the political and psychological evolution within the U.S.S.R. In any case, the fact is that not only does such an invasion now seem improbable, but that the hypothesis of a nuclear war has become unthinkable - because a nuclear war would certainly entail reciprocal destruction of such proportions that no political objective could justify it. In modern strategic jargon, the 'bilateral deterrence' of both sides is 'bistable absolue'. This new situation, which I have analysed in detail in my book, Dissuasion et Stratkgie,' must have some highly important consequences in that it must lead t o a complete change in the ideas to which we have become accustomed. These ideas were based on the proposition that, in order to deter an attack, it was necessary to develop a defensive and retaliatory capacity which could win the war, or, at least, deprive the enemy of any hope of winning it. This conception implied the need to foresee the course of a nuclear war and the means by which victory could be gained in it; hence the detailed study devoted to the problem of launching nuclear weapons and to the use of tactical and strategic weapons. But such exercises in foresight lost any purpose from the moment that the enemy possessed sufficient means of nuclear retaliation. In present circumstances, both at the tactical and strategic levels, a nuclear exchange would rapidly lead to irrational situations in which none of the belligerents would be able to maintain its control over operations. The extent of the destruction that would be caused on both sides would make this kind of war what might be termed suicide 'by return'. Given that probability, it cannot but be concluded that the unleashing of a nuclear war would be the signal for a major catastrophe which should be avoided at all costs. The course of events immediately after such a war had begun would render the war itself futile. Thus, contrary to what has been assumed hitherto, the kernel of the problem does not lie in devising a defensive strategy t o be used in time of war, but in the strategy employed in time of peace, before any use of nuclear weapons, to deter any open conflict. The main concern has thus shifted from defence to deterrence and from wartime to peacetime. But the application of this new strategy of deterrence is a particularly delicate matter. When nuclear war seemed plausible, in the Foster Dulles era, the mere threat of it was an easy and effective gesture. Today, when each of the two major opponents is convinced that anything is preferable to a resort t o nuclear weapons, any threat to use them tends to lose all credibility. O n the other hand, if one of those opponents were to think that such weapons would not be used in any circumstances, the resulting situation would be even more dangerous, for there would then be a risk of the loss of the advantage of the stability which the mere fear of a nuclear conflict has imposed upon Europe. The political instability resulting from the violent division of Europe and Germany, and from the subjection of the satellite

The Sharing of Nuclear Responsibilities

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states, cannot avoid leading to conflicts over which, even though they might he of secondary importance, any governmental control might be lost, so bringing about a new great war. Even if this serious possibility could he avoided we would still have to face dangerous complications. That is why special efforts need to be made to preserve for nuclear weapons that capacity for engendering fear from which we have hitherto so greatly benefited. Several methods have been proposrd to attain this end. The first - that of Mr. McNamara, Phase One - was to declare that, if she launched the first strike, the United States possessed the means to reduce the enemy's capacity for retaliation very considerably. This thesis is perfectly logical and would be completely convincing if this 'counter-force capability', which in any case entails considerable resources, did not appear increasingly less easy to maintain in face of the development of missile-firing submarines and rockets protected in concrete silos. O n the other hand, the Soviet approach to the problem has hitherto been to declare that war could not be limited, and that any important conflict would escalate to the nuclear threshold. This is an irrational position and one which tends to give the nuclear threat a minimum of credibility. In the same spirit, France has refused to accept the principle of flexible response as a demonstration of her willingness to face the prospect of escalation to the strategic nuclear threshold in the event of aggression. A variation of these attitudes has been provided by the Germans: they have proposed that tactical nuclear weapons should be placed along the whole length of the Iron Curtain, so that the aggressor would be thus assured that any invasion would result in escalation to the nuclear threshold. The French and German attitudes appear dangerous to American experts, who retnain haunted by the fear of a nuclear conflict and who, because of the risks to American territory that such a conflict would now imply, wish to guard against any 'catalytic' escalation. They have therefore been prompted to put forward an original and adroit proposal by which the risk of nuclear conflict would be preserved but maintained at a limited level. This is Mr. McNamara's Phase Two solution, in which he asserts the possibility that the United States might respond to an act of aggression by nuclear warning shots, intended to show her willingness to resort to nuclear weapons, hut only demonstratively and without actually beginning an all-out nuclear conflict. The enemy would thus be deterred from resorting to nuclear war by the threat of massive retaliation against his population, a threat substantiated by an important fleet of missile-firing submarines and a large number of concreteencased Minutemen. As Mr. ~ c ~ a m a himself r a has put it, damage is to be limited by the threat of 'insured destruction'. Incontestably, each of these attitudes reflects the logic of the different capabilities of the nuclear powers - a clear indication that deterrence cannot be applied in the same way by all the nuclear powers and that American policies cannot be followed by lesser nuclear partners. But given the fact that all these attitudes reflect attempts to grapple with the difficult problem o f restoring the credibility of a threat which everyone knows to have hecome

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unreal, it is very important that everything possible should be done to ensure that that threat should retain that minimum of spontaneous risk which leads to that prudence indispensable to the maintenance of peace. To achieve this end, different methods must simultaneously be used to keep the enemy's mind in that state of uncertainty which alone can render deterrence effective; thus, to enable several methods of deterrence to be used simultaneously, there must be several centres of decision. This basic conclusion is contrary to American policies; in fact these have for too long been focused upon the stabilisation of the nuclear threshold although it is today so stable that it needs to be, so to speak, 'destabilized' to restore its deterrent effect. But what emerges above all else from this analysis is the fact that deterrence can no longer rest exclusively upon the existence of military forces and retaliatory capacity whose use is foreseen only in time of war. Such strength remains necessary, but it must be exploited, and its peace time value enhanced, by a suitable manipulation of the threat it represents, so that in time of crisis the hand of deterrence can be played to the full, so keeping the enemy uncertain as to the reactions he could unleash. Such manipulation, of which we saw an example in the Cuban crisis, forms the essence of the present deterrent posture. It is a peacetime operation. Yet present NATO arrangements relate only to time of war. Its integrated command would be only effective from the moment of any enemy aggression. Contrary to widespread belief, there is no forward planning within NATO to deal with any crisis that might develop in peacetime. Only in relation to Berlin has there been forward planning, and on a hypothetical basis other than that on which NATO was created - the possibility of a defensive war. It is this latter fact, indeed, which makes the idea of an interallied nuclear force placed permanently under NATO command completely unrealistic. Hitherto, no one has succeeded in placing the smallest conventional unit under NATO command in peacetime. How, then, is it possible to conceive that such a development would be possible in terms of a nuclear force - given the much more delicate problems involved? It is therefore necessary to re-examine the organisation of the alliance so that it may be adapted to new circumstances.

In these new circumstances, the guiding principles of deterrence appear to be these: (a) Since it is desirable to increase the uncertainty felt by the enemy by more than one method and by basing a strategy of deterrence on more than one centre, it is quite useless to create a new force, such as the MLF or the ANF, if this is to be dependent directly and openly upon American nuclear strategy, which already possesses a super-abundant capacity. To be effective as a deterrent, any new force must, in peacetime, be subject to an autonomous centre of decision. On the other hand, a nuclear centre of

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decision cannot be international in character. If it is to be credible, it can only be national. (b) The control of deterrent strategy cannot be collective in peacetime. In such circumstances, only the principle of national independence can be applicable, an independence which naturally applies to nuclear no less than to conventional forces. This principle has not the dangerous implications often associated with it, because the nuclear threshold has become far too stable. As we have already seen, a minimum instability must be restored to it if the deterrent is to retain any value. (c) In these circumstances, the peacetime problem of the sharing of nuclear responsibilities no longer lies in the search for an integration of nuclear capabilities - which is, in any case, impossible to achieve - but in the organisation of a n effective co-ordination of national deterrent strategies. Such co-ordination must not aim merely at persuading each of the allies t o adopt a single method of deterrence. O n the contrary, it must aim at promoting a mutual understanding of the needs and fears of each, and at making the best use, by common agreement and in the common interest, of the specific strategies of each of the partners in relation to the interests o f the alliance as a whole. ( d ) Forward planning for a war, however unlikely, remains necessary. This must deal essentially with the organisation of a possible system of nuclear command, and with the allocation of responsibilities among the various national forces. Apart from its deterrent value, this forward planning would provide an opportunity to begin the organisation of inter-allied consultations in the sphere of nuclear ~ l a n n i nand ~ , the preparation of the framework for their European nuclear force which must be established when Europe has eventually taken shape as a political entity.

The ideas which I have put forward above, and which I believe to be soundly based, are none the less too novel to gain immediate and universal acceptance. Some time will no doubt elapse before the need will be recognised for such an adaptation of our concepts to accord with that evolution of the strategic situation at present unevenly understood within the alliance. It may be thought, therefore, that this is too early a stage for positive proposals for the reorganisation of the alliance to be put forward. Nevertheless, even if the overall thesis which I have outlined is received with reservations, two facts are unquestionable:

I . There are no arrangements within the alliance (except for Berlin) to provide for possible peacetime crises - which can arise at any time in Central Europe as a consequence of its political evolution; nor does there exist any means to co-ordinate action by the allied powers in the event of such a crisis. It is absolutely essential that this gap in forward planning should be filled.

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2. Whether or not one approves of the nuclear situation within the alliance, there are at present three national nuclear forces whose organisation must be co-ordinated to provide for the event of war. These two axioms imply the need to set up two kinds of organisation. The first would have the task of carrying out, in Europe, what the Americans call 'crisis management' - no doubt in the form of a 'contingency planning committee' intended to examine possible crises and their solutions. Such a committee would certainly need to work for some considerable time before it was able t o produce practical results. This is a further reason for not postponing the formation of such a group, for it would have the advantage of bringing about close co-operation among the major allies - including Germany - on problems of immediate concern. The second body would be charged with developing, within the Atlantic framework, the necessary basis for the co-ordination of national nuclear forces in time of war. Such studies would allow for the discussion of the principles of nuclear strategy - something which has hitherto, to all intents and purposes, been confined to a purely American framework. It seems that the proposals lately put forward by Mr. McNamara in Paris amount to a first step in this direction. The main purpose of these two committees would be to produce a better mutual understanding of the viewpoints of the different allies and thereby to pave the way for the development of positive policies acceptable to all. At a later stage, it would be possible to envisage the creation of a body designed to improve the co-ordination of peacetime deterrent strategies and wartime nuclear strategies. I do not propose to mention now any of the schemes which could be put forward in present circumstances, because the strategic position is constantly changing and no one can precisely foresee its shape by the time such studies might have been completed.

It is on this note that I would like to conclude. The nuclear history of the last 15 years has shown that the situation has constantly changed and that, on each occasion, the changes have been far-reaching. As I have tried to point out in this article, it is some time since we entered upon a new phase, marked by an excess of stability at the nuclear threshold. We have not yet taken sufficient account of the consequences of this changed situation in our strategic nuclear ideas, for these are still based on the concept of deterrence although the use of nuclear weapons has become unthinkable. It is therefore urgent that we should adapt ourselves to this new situation. But, equally, this situation can itself change rapidly. Already, the Vietnam crisis is leading to an important change of perspective towards Europe on the part of the United States. Failing a relatively rapid compromise, these developments can lead to an end of the essentially bipolar system which has controlled world strategy since 1945. The consequences in Europe of such

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an event c o d d be considerable and could profoundly alter the strategic assumptions to which we have become accustomed. In other words, the bases of any strategic diagnosis are changing more and more rapidly and, in order to be effective, any such diagnosis must be characterised by constant observation and adaptation, and approached without preconceived notions and in a frame of mind receptive to every kind o f change.

Note I . I'.ir~s: Armand Colin. 1964. An English edition will he published in the ~ u t u m nby F,lher & Faller.

Strategic Studies and Its Critics Hedley Bull

T

he civilian strategic analysts who now constitute a distinct profession in the Western world have from the first been subject to criticism that has called in question the validity of their methods, their utility to society, and even their integrity of purpose.' Some of it is directed at particular strategists or at particular techniques they employ, but much of it purports to expose deficiencies that are characteristic of the genre. Some of this is of so scurrilous a nature as not to deserve a reply, but some raises issues of real importance. What are in fact the distinguishing features of the new style of strategic analysis? What has given rise to the criticisms that have been made of it? And what substance d o the criticisms have? Strategy in its most general sense is the art or science of shaping means so as to promote ends in any field of conflict. In the special sense in which I am using it here, the sense in which "strategy" is interchangeable with "military strategy," it is the art or science of exploiting military force so as to attain given objects of policy. If we contrast the strategic thinking of contemporary military analysts with the classical tradition of strategic thought from Clausewitz to Douhet, certain of its peculiarities are at once apparent. First, strategic thinking at the present time is no longer exclusively concerned with the efficient conduct of war. From the time of Napoleon to that of Hitler, strategy was conceived of as an aspect of war. Contrasting it with tactics, which was the art of winning battles, Clausewitz defined strategy as "the art of employment of battles as a means to gain the object in war."] How to gain the object in war remains a central preoccupation of contemporary strategic thinking, but it is no longer the only one or necessarily the most important. Attention has shifted away from war as an instrument of policy toward the threat of war, and studies of actual violence have given place to analyses of "deterrence," "crisis management," "the manipulation of risk" or, as we call it when it is pacticed by our opponents rather than ourselves, "blackmail." Moreover, gaining the object in war, even when it remains the concern of strategists, is no longer always seen in Clausewitz' sense of attaining victory by imposing our will on the adversary. In discussions of the Source: World Politics,20(4) (1968):593-605.

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conduct of strategic nuclear war the object of victory over the opponent has in fact taken second place to that of our own survival. It has sometimes been argued that the chief mission of United States strategic nuclear forces in the event of general war is that of the limitation of damage suffered by the United States and its allies - an object that is not relative to the amount of damage suffered by the enemy, but absolute. Second, strategic thinking is no longer the preserve of the military. The great strategic writers of the past, like Liddell Hart, Fuller, and Mao Tse-tunb' in our own time, were soldiers (or sailors or airmen) or ex-soldiers. They were often quite bad soldiers; and they had qualities of mind that soldiers, good and bad, do not often have. But underlying all their theorizing was the assunlption that strategy was in some sense a practical business, that experience of the management of forces and weapons in war, even if it was not a sufficient condition of strategic understanding, was at least a necessary one. The military profession today is very far from having vacated the field of strategy; in wide areas of strategic policy the chiefs of staff responsible to governments remain the preponderant influence. But in the United States and to a lesser extent elsewhere in the Western world, the civilian experts have made great inroads. They have overwhelmed the military in the quality and quantity of their contributions to the literature of the subiect; no one would now think of turning to the writings of retired officers rather than to the standard academic treatments of deterrence, limited war, or arms control for illumination of the problems of the nuclear age. They increasingly dominate the field of education and instruction in the subject - the academic and quasi-academic centers of strategic studies have displaced the staff colleges and war colleges, except in narrow fields of professional knowledge. And, most prominently in the United States, the civilian strategists have entered the citadels of power and have prevailed over military advisers o n major issues of policy. A third peculiarity of strategic thinking at the present time is its abstract and speculative character. There has not yet been a nuclear war, and the possibility that there will be one has not yet existed long enough for it to have become clear how the structure of international life will be affected. Anyone who has embarked upon a discussion of what the conditions are under which one country can deter another from doing something, of whether or not limitations are possible in nuclear war, of whether the nuclear stalemate makes conflict at lower levels more likely or less, or of whether one country can credibly threaten to use nuclear weapons on behalf of another must have experienced the sense of being at sea in an argument i11 which, it seems, almost any position can be plausibly defended and almost none is safe from attack. Strategic thinking, of course, has always been speculative. It has always had to deal with the future, and it has always involved the making of plans, the fulfilment of which depends on decisions taken by the opponent as well as o n those we take ourselves. And the conditions of war and crisis under which these decisions have to be made make them peculiarly difficult to '

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anticipate and peculiarly unlikely to follow the lines of assumed standards of rationality. The advent of nuclear and missile technology, however, has rendered strategic thinking speculative to a degree that it had not previously attained. It is not the physical effects of nuclear explosives and missiles that are speculative; indeed, in this respect war has become more predictable and measurable than before. What cannot be confidently foreseen is how statesmen, governments, and societies will behave under the stress of the use of these weapons or the threat to use them. In a period of vast changes in warfare and its place in human affairs, the relevance of history and experience, and the competence of those whose expertise is founded in them, have rightly been called in question. A fourth characteristic of strategic thinking at the present time is its sophistication and high technical quality. Many students of strategy today take the view that until our own time military affairs escaped sustained scientific study and received only the haphazard attention of second-rate minds. Accordingly they see themselves as presiding over the birth of a new science, eliminating antiquated methods and replacing them with up-to-date ones. Some take the view that there is a close analogy between strategic studies and economics, and they hold out the hope that the former subject, when it emerges from its birth pangs, will enable us to rationalize our choices and increase our control of our environment to the same extent that the latter has done. This view does less than justice to the classical tradition of strategic thinking, while it also fails t o recognize the very slight extent t o which the new scientific rigor in strategic studies has so far circumscribed the domain of speculation. Nevertheless, it is clear that the intellectual resources now being devoted to strategic studies are without precedent and that this has resulted in a literature of higher technical quality and a discussion of a higher standard of sophistication than have existed before. One incidental consequence of this is the emergence of strategic studies as an appropriate subject for inclusion in university curricula. Although I do not myself believe that it is desirable to separate strategic studies from the wider study of international relations, it can be argued that it compares very favorably with some other branches of political science both in its moral and social relevance and as an intellectual discipline. A number of factors account for the barrage of criticism that the civilian strategists have had to face. For those who feel guilt about modern war or have fear of it - and in some degree this includes all persons who are sensitive and aware - the strategists have undoubtedly provided a scapegoat. The political influence that the civilian strategists have come to command, especially though not exclusively in the United States, has caused resentment - on the one hand among the older generation of soldiers and civil servants whose influence they have displaced, and on the other hand among their fellow intellectuals who have remained outsiders. Their willingness to treat strategy as a specialist's subject, even as an esoteric one, has irritated those who are unable to understand or to emulate them. Their insistence on the complexity of the problems of strategy and arms control has been unwelcome to purveyors of

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simple solutions of one kind or another. Most basically, perhaps, the position of the professional strategist is and will remain controversial because the legitimacy of the question he sets himself - What shall the state do with its military force? - is itself controversial. While there continues to be disagreement in modern society as to whether or not the state should ever use military force or possess it at all, there will not be general agreement ahout the worth and utility of students of strategy, in the way in which there is now (although there has not always been) about that of students of medicine, architecture, or economics. To show that the motives that underlie criticism of the strategist are sometimes discreditable is not, of course, to say that it is only from these sources that criticism arises, still less to provide a rebuttal of the criticisms themselves. Many of the criticisms are worth sympathetic consideration. In my view they do not constitute, either singly or collectively, a valid indictment of the work of the civilian strategists. But we should be grateful that they have been made, for they do draw attention to some false paths along which strategists might stray and sometimes have strayed. Here 1 shall consider five of the charges. The first and most common complaint is that the strategists leave morality out of account. Strategists are often said to be technicians and calculators who are indifferent as to the moral standing of the causes for which war is undertaken or of the means by which it is carried on. There is a sense in which strategic thinking does and should leave moraiit): out of account. Strategy is about the relationship between means and ends, and an exercise in "pure" strategy will exclude consideration of the moral nature of the means and the ends, just as it will exclude anything else that is extraneous. If what is being said is that strategic judgments should be colored by moral considerations or that strategic inquiry should be restricted by moral taboos, this is something that the strategist is bound to reject. If what the critics of Herman Kahn have in mind is that he should not have thought about the unthinkable or that he should have thought about it with his heart instead of his head, then they are obstructing him in his essential task. What can be said, however, is that while strategy is one thing and morals are another, the decisions that governments take in the field of military policy should not be based on considerations of strategy alone. If the charge against the strategists is that their advice to governments is drawn up in purely strategic terms, as if strategic imperatives were categorical imperatives, or that they themselves have no other dimension in their thinking than the calculation of means and ends, then this is a serious and legitimate complaint. But so far as one can judge, such a charge is not true of any of the strategists. It is easy to see that their works, dealing as they d o with strategy and not with other subjects, might give the impression that decisions should be determined by the logic of this subject alone, but there is no reason to believe that this impression is correct. Strategists as a class, it seems to me, are neither any less nor any more sensitive to moral considerations than are other intelligent and educated persons in the West.

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Why, then, is the charge so frequently made? Can all the critics be wrong? Surely as between Herman Kahn and his critic James Newman, as between Irving Horowitz and those he calls "the new civilian militarists," or as between Anatol Rapoport and the various unnamed strategists who are his targets there is some sort of moral disagreement. I believe that there is, but that what is at issue is not whether or not moral questions should be asked before decisions are taken but what the answers to the moral questions are. In almost any disagreement as to whether or not to resort to war or to threaten it, or as to how a war should be conducted or what risks in it should be run, there are moral arguments to be advanced on both sides. What the critics take t o be the strategists' insensitivity to moral considerations is in most cases the strategists' greater sense of the moral stature of American and Western political objectives for which war and the risk of war must be undertaken. The notion that virtue in international conduct lies simply in avoiding risk of war and never in assuming it, always in self-abnegation and never in self-assertion, only in obeying the rules a world community might legislate if it existed and never in pursuing the different moral guides that are appropriate in a situation in which it does not - such a notion is of course untenable. But it forms part of the perspective of many of the critics. What chiefly characterizes the so-called idealist school to which they belong is not (as is often said) that it exaggerates the force of moral considerations, still less that it alone is endowed with moral vision, but that it fails to appreciate the full range of the moral argument, that it embraces what Treitschke called "the monkish type of virtue" without being able to see that there is any other. There is, I think, a related moral disagreement between the strategists and their critics, which concerns the role of the strategist as an adviser to governments. It is said that there is something unbecoming to an intellectual - or at all events to a university man, with his allegiance to the universal republic of science - in bestowing the fruits of his strategic advice upon any particular government. Since governments use this advice to further their conflicts with one another, the strategic adviser is in a different position from the scholar or scientist who gives advice about the economy or health or education, since in these fields the interests of one nation may be advanced without injuring those of others. The scholar may legitimately ~ r o f f e radvice, if he has any, about the conditions of peace, so the argument goes, but he is disloyal to his calling if he provides advice about war.3 Some of this criticism may be met readily enough. One may point out that the strategic interests of nations are not wholly exclusive of one another and that contemporary strategists have been inclined to draw attention to the common interests that nations have in avoiding nuclear war and in limiting it if it occurs. One may say that one of their contributions has been the systematic study of arms control, which may be defined as cooperation among antagonistic states in advancing their perceived common interests in military policy. Arms-control policy is, I should say, subsumed

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under strategy as a special case. It may also be pointed out that it is facile to regard war and peace as alternative objects of policy, as if peace did not need to be enforced or war were not an outgrowth of diplomacy. Yet it remains true that the strategic adviser does assist the government he serves to advance its objectives at the expense of those of other governments. But whether or not there is anything in the position of such an adviser unbecoming to a scholar or a scientist will depend on what we take the moral nature of that government and its objectives to be. Few of the critics would, 1 think, argue that the scientists who assisted the British and American governments during the Second World War, and whose position the contemporary strategists have inherited, were acting in an improper way. Not everyone will agree that the position is the same now; but at least it is not possible to maintain that there is any general incompatibility between assisting a state to augment its relative military position and remaining faithful to scholarly or scientific values. The second criticism that I wish to discuss is that strategists take for granted the existence of military force and confine themselves to considering how to exploit it, thereby excluding a whole range of policies such as disarmament or nonviolent resistance that are intended to abolish military force or to provide substitutes for it. It is true that strategists take the fact of military force as their starting point. The question is whether any other starting point is possible at all, whether the doctrine of disarmament that is implicit in this complaint is not inherently untenable. The capacity for organized violence between states is inherent in the nature of man and his environment. The most that can be expected from a total disarmament agreement is that it might make armaments and armed forces fewer and more primitive. If what is meant by "total disarmament" is a state of affairs in which war is physically impossible, in which states cannot wage war even when they want to (this is what Litvinov meant when he first put forward the proposal in 1927), then we must say that such a state of affairs cannot be. If, on the other hand, what is meant is a situation in which military force has been reduced to very low qualitative and quantitative levels, then this is something that can in principle occur and may well seem worth trying to bring about. But the view that security against war is best provided by a low level of armaments rather than a high one is a particular strategic theory; the arguments for it and against it belong to the same mode of discourse as that we apply in evaluating any other proposition about the relationship between military force and possible ends of policy. Either, then, the second criticism is a nonsense or it represents an attempt to contribute to strategic reasoning, not a statement about it from outside. In fact, it would seem to me, proposals for radical disarmament and for nonviolent resistance have received a fair hearing within the Western community of strategists. No doubt strategists are inclined to think too readily in terms of military solutions to the problems of foreign policy and to lose sight of the other instruments that are available. But this is the

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occupational disease of any specialist, and the remedy for it lies in entering into debate with the strategist and correcting his perspective. The third criticism is that strategists are inclined to make unreal assumptions about international politics and that in comparing alternative strategies and computing their costs and benefits they make assumptions that simplify and distort political reality, that d o not allow for change, and that in the course of the subsequent analysis become lost to sight. This is a complaint that has a great deal of force. The technical rigor and precision of much strategic analysis has been achieved at the cost of losing touch with political variety and change. If the political terms in the strategists' equations were more complex and were changed more frequently, the beauty of much of the ratiocination would be destroyed. Some of the now-classic analyses of America's problem in choosing her weapons and military posture were founded upon the assumption that there was only one significant relationship in nuclear international politics, that between the United States and the Soviet Union, and that this consisted only of hostility. Not only, as it were, was the game two-person and zero-sum, but the two persons were assumed to be identical twins, Country A and Country B. Even when these analyses were first made they were a simplification of reality, but with their survival into the age of the Soviet-American dktente and of the disintegration of the Atlantic Alliance and the Communist bloc, they became dangerously unreal. The greatest absurdities of this sort in recent times formed part of the debate that took place in the United States during the Kennedy administration about the control of nuclear weapons in NATO. The various solutions were set out in programmatic form - a United States nuclear monopoly, national nuclear forces, a NATO nuclear force, a European nuclear force - and their advantages and disadvantages were spelled out on the basis that NATO was a single person and that the sole requirement of that person was to deter attack by the Soviet Union. Not all those who contributed to the debate, of course, formulated the problem in this way, but many a weighty treatise appeared that did so. General de Gaulle has now demonstrated what was perhaps all along clear, that Paris and London are not Washington and that nuclear forces have diplomatic functions as well as military ones; but it is extraordinary for how long, under its own momentum, this strange logic persisted. All that one can say in defense of the strategists against this charge is that follies of this sort are not inherent in what they do, that technical precision must often be sacrificed so as to allow for political variety and change, and that enough of the strategists are aware of this to ensure that the corrections can come from inside the strategic community. The fourth criticism is that the civilian strategists are pseudoscientific in their methods, that specialist techniques they employ - such as game theory, systems analysis, simulation, and the writing of scenarios - are bogus when used to arrive a t strategic decisions and serve to give an air of expertise to positions arbitrarily and subjectively arrived at. This is the theme of the book Deadly Logic, by Philip Green, and it is also part of the meaning of

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the wrong-headed but subtle and powerful book Strategy and Conscience, by Anatol Rapoport. The crux of the matter is the attack on game theory, which more clearly than any of the other techniques mentioned does represent an impressive expertise. Rapoport presents some strong arguments against the application of game theory to strategic decision-making. Exercises in game theory, he says, deal in numerical probabilities, but these cannot be assigned to unique events. Such exercises assume the unlimited ability of each party to think and compute with no limit of time - which actual decision-makers cannot do. The exercises assume that the goals of each party are single, simple, and unchanging, whereas historical individuals and groups have objectives that are plural, complex, and subject to constant revision. And so on. This attack on the use of game theory is bewildering. As Donald Brennan has pointed out in a review of Rapoport, the great majority of civilian strategists do not use game theory and indeed would be at a loss to give any account of i t . T h e r e are, certainly, a number of strategists, like Thomas Schelling, who have mastered this technique, but in their work exercises in game theory serve only to illustrate points that are independently arrived at; they have not employed game theory in order to determine solutions to strategic problems. As far as I know, the only person who has claimed that game theory presents a method of solving strategic problems is Oskar Morgenstern of Princeton University. Morgenstern collaborated with J o h n von Neumann in producing Theory of Games and Economic Behavior and has also written a book on strategy, The Question o f National Defense.' But even in Morgenstern's book, which contains much rhetoric about the value of game theory, it is not possible to find an instance in which he makes use of it. I do not despair of finding an example of what Green and Rapoport are talking about, but I must say 1 have not so far come across one. It may be that although game theory is not an essential or even a significantly used technique of the civilian strategists, some of the logic of game theory is implicit in the way some strategists do their thinking, and a critique of the former is a way of providing a critique of the latter.h The basic point of Philip Green's book, that the technique and rigor that the civilian strategists have brought to the subject do not provide a means of circumventing political choices and that they can be and sometimes are employed as a political weapon in support of one arbitrarily chosen policy or another, is undoubtedly correct. This, however, is an argument for recognizing the limits of rigor and precision and for being on guard against their misuse, not for abandoning rigor and precision in favor of something else. Both in the domestic defense debates in Western countries today and in international rivalries over arms control or the sharing of military burdens within alliances, the strategist is constantly finding that his works are pressed into the service of political objectives that are pursued on different grounds. The army, the navy, the air force, each has its strategic ideology; the United States, France, and Great Britain, in contending with one another as to how nuclear weapons shall be controlled in NATO, as to where and in

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what way a war in Europe would be fought, as to what contributions shall be made to the shield forces in central Europe - each develops a strategic doctrine that points to the end it has in view, and each is anxious to exploit the authority of studies independently undertaken and scientifically followed through. The strategist himself, however, cannot be held responsible for the use that others make of his ideas. Moreover, the fact that strategic expertise has come to have a political function as an ideology is inevitable and, I believe, by no means wholly regrettable. Scientific expertise has become the idiom of debate, within governments and between them, not only in the strategic field but in many others. If it is pressed into service by one party, the other parties must acquire it themselves or go under. The British Foreign Office now finds it necessary to employ its own economic experts to d o battle with the Treasury and the Department of Economic Affairs, its own scientific experts to deal with the Ministry of Technology and the Atomic Energy Authority, and its own strategic experts t o contend with the Ministry of Defence. The governments of Western Europe in the last decade have found themselves constantly at a most serious political disadvantage in relation to the United States in defense matters because they have not had a body of strategic expertise of their own with which to frustrate American attempts to overawe them. That they will acquire such expertise there can be no doubt. These developments are not wholly to be regretted because they d o raise the standard and tone of strategic debate at the highest levels of decision; the necessity under which governments, and departments of governments, labor of developing strategic ideologies does show that somewhere in the process of decision, independent and expert studies are being carried out and that these cannot be ignored. Is it the case that the civilian strategists in America have been consistent endorsers of the main lines of United States foreign policy and that they have hidden this policy outlook beneath a pretense of objectivity? The work of the most prominent of these persons originated in criticism and questioning of the established policies of the Eisenhower Administration. N o doubt it still has proceeded on the basis of assumptions held in common with official thinking, which looked at from the outside appear as orthodox. In the writings of some of the strategists, more particularly those Rapoport calls the "neo-traditionalists," the assumptions (e.g., about the existence of a "threat," the need for military strength, the morality of providing it, and so on) are spelled out and defended. In the writings of others they are not, and in these cases it is important that critics should identify the assumptions and question them. But the shaping of United States military policy is not an exercise in philosophy or theology; at some point firm assumptions have t o be made, and on the basis of them the costs and benefits of alternatives worked out. It is inevitable that in this process the assumptions will be taken as read and also that books and papers will be written in which the authors address themselves to others who make the same assumptions, rather than to the public at large.

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The fifth criticism, although it also comes from Anatol Rapoport, is in some ways at loggerheads with the fourth. It is that the sin of the strategist, far from being his covert commitment to political purposes, is his objectivity. This is really the distinctive contribution of Rapoport's book. The strategist is detached and aloof, but he has no right to be. The effect of his cold appraisal of the world as he sees it is to perpetuate the nightmare around him or t o create it where it does not exist. Given the dangers of the world as it is now, the appropriate attitude is not to describe it but to go to work on it. The strategists, who have the ear of the powerful, might accomplish great things if they abandoned the strategic mode of reasoning for the conscientious; but instead they are collaborators in the system and are speeding up its movement toward catastrophe. If there is a kernel of truth in what Rapoport says it is that the strategist, like all students of social affairs, is related to what he studies not only as subject to object but also as cause to effect. It is always important to recognize in foreign policy, as in the conduct of Western policy toward Russia and China now, that the intentions and goals of a country, whether they are peaceful or aggressive, are not fixed and given, but are always in part the product of our own action toward them. But this basis of truth does not sustain the strange construction that Rapoport erects upon it. There are certain things that Kussia will do whatever policies the United States follows toward her, certain conflicts in the world that simply have to be taken as given. Arthur Burns has pointed out in a review that one of Rapoport's errors is to make the common American assumption of a fundamentally two-person situation.' From the perspective of a small country on the sidelines of the international arena, the Soviet-American conflict simply appears as a datum, something that has arisen quite independently of anything that small country did or might have done. It is, to say the least, greatly to exaggerate the influence of the strategists to hold them responsible for the rise of Russian power and for the overflowing beyond Russian borders of the revolution of 19 17. But even if Rapoport is right and America, if not her strategists, has it in her power to mold the behavior of Russia or China, this does not necessarily support the conclusions that Rapoport would like to draw from this. If United States policy in recent years has contributed to the changes that have made the Soviet Union 3 more satisfied power and a more conservative influence in world affairs, this may have as much to d o with America's strength and firmness as will her overtures of conciliation or readiness to make concessions. The doctrines that the civilian strategic analysts in the West have evolved in the last decade are scarcely the last word on strategy in the nuclear age, but should he seen as first, faltering steps in defining a problem that will be with us for as far into the future as we can see. The three notions that have been most central in these doctrines - "deterrence," "limited war," and "arms control" - have all been elaborated chiefly in the context of the Soviet-American confrontation, and their implications for the more polycentric diplomatic field

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that now exists have not been thought out. They have all been put forward in relation to classical international conflict between states that are internally stable and armed with the most advanced weapons, and they have not been adapted to the different but now more prominent circumstances of civil conflicts within unstable states with primitive military equipment. Moreover, even in the narrow field in which, quite rightly, the civilian strategists have concentrated their efforts, their most fundamental assumptions are open to challenge, as the debate about ballistic missile defense is now showing. Yet the work of the civilian strategists has at least charted some reasoned course where otherwise there might well have been only drift. It has provided some solid intellectual fare that subsequent generations, even though they reject it, are at least likely to recognize as a serious attempt to come to grips with the problem. When one asks oneself what the history of strategic policy in the West might have been in the last ten years had this influence not been brought to bear, or when one contemplates the moral and intellectual poverty of the debate about nuclear affairs (or of that part of it we are able to see) in the Soviet Union where in fact no such influence exists, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that even though the civilian strategists have sometimes committed the errors I have been exploring, they have served us well.

Notes 1. See, e.g., James R. Newman, review of Herman Kahn's O n Thernionrrrlear Kjar, Scientific American, cciv (March, 1961), 197-98; P.M.S. Blackett, Studies of War, Nuclear and Conventional (New York 1962), chap. 10; Sir Solly Zuckerman, Scientists and War: The Impact of Science on Military and Civil Affairs (New York, 1967), chap. 5; Irving 1.. Horo\virz. The War Game: Studies of the Neiv Civilian Militarists (New York, 1963); Anatol Rapoport, Strategy and Conscience (New York, 1964); Philip Green, Deadly I.ogic: The Theory of Nuclear Deterrence (Columbus 1966). 2. O n War, Book 111, chap. 1. 3 . See, e.g., Max Teichmann, "Strategic Studies or Peace Research?" A r e n ~(Melbourne), No. 1 2 (Autumn, 1967), 9-16. 4. Bulletin o f the Atomic Scientists, XXI (December, 1965), 25-30. 5. Theory of Games and Economic Behavior (Princeton, 1944); The Question of National Defense (Princeton, 1959), esp. 61, 164, 269. 6. In his reply to Brennan's review, Rapoport says, "My complaint against the strategists was not that they use or misuse game theory (although one of my earlier articles was so entitled). On the contrary, my complaint was that they have not learned some important lessons o f game theory" (Bulletrn of the Atomic Sc~entzsts,XXI [December, 19651, 31-36). This is a slippery reformulation that does not answer Brennan's charge, viz., that Rapoport implies that strategists use game theory, whereas they do not. 7. Arthur Lee Burns, "Must Strategy and Conscience Be Disjoined?" World Politics, XVII (July, 19651, 687-702.

Arms Control and World Order Hedley Bull

L I ~present theory and practice of arms control rests on a set of assumptions - sometimes explicit, more often implicit - as to what kind of world order is desirable and feasible. It is inevitable that this should be so, for to raise questions about the quality and quantity of arms that should exist in international society, about who sho~lldpossess them, where they should be deployed, for what objectives and in what ways they should be used, is to raise questions about the political structure of the world and the distribution of power within it. But the set of assumptions ahout world order which at present underlies the enterprise of arms control c o m n ~ a n d slittle support outside the circle of the United States and the Soviet Union and their closest allies. This is in itself sufficient reason for raising the questions with which this essay is concerned, uir.

I . What assun~ptionsconcerning a desirable and feasible world order are implicit in our present theory and practice of arms control?

2. What assumptions about world order should inform our approach to arms control?

3. Given answers to the above questions, what consequences follow for arms control policy?

Present Theory and Practice

By "our present theory and practice" I mean the body of theoretical writings about arms control that arose in the West in the late 1950s and early 1960s and the body of unilateral policies, tacit understandings and formal agreements, chiefly involving the United States and the Soviet Union, that have grown LIPabout arms control since that time. What we should notice about this theory and practice is the extent to which it assumes or implies that world order can and should be founded upon the present political structure of the world and the existing distribution of power within it. Source: Iwternntionnl S ~ c ~ m t 1y( ,1 ) ( 1976): 3- 16.

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First, there is the definition of arms control itself: "Arms control in its broadest sense comprises all those acts of military policy in which antagonistic states cooperate in the pursuit of common purposes even while they are struggling in the pursuit of conflicting ones."' When two antagonistic states pursue common purposes in their military policy - as the United States and the Soviet Union have sometimes done - these purposes may be universal ones, accepted as valid by international society as a whole, but they may also be purely bilateral ones, the special purposes of the cooperating powers themselves. "If two states," I wrote in 1964, "were to achieve their common goals in this field by bringing about the ruin of other nations there would seem no reason to deny that what they were engaged in was arms control, except for the common but quite unnecessary assumption that arms control has about it an aura of spiritual rectitude, instead of being a temporal process like any otheran2 Our present definition of arms control does not in itself entail any bias either for or against the present political structure of the world. But there is a tendency in present-day thinking to regard cooperation between the United States and the Soviet Union as the chief embodiment of arms control, to see in the field of relations between these two powers both the principal dangers with which arms control has to contend and the principal means of coping with them. While (as I shall argue) Soviet-American cooperation in arms control serves universal purposes it inevitably serves special or bilateral purposes also. These special or bilateral purposes reflect the preference of the two great powers for a world order in which they continue to enjoy a privileged position. Secondly, there are the objectives proclaimed for arms control. These are taken to be ~ r i m a r i concerned l~ with security: to make war, and especially nuclear war, less likely, and to make it less catastrophic in terms of death and destruction, if it should occur. A secondary objective is taken to be to reduce the economic costs of military programs. A tertiary objective has sometimes been added: the moral and social one of combating "the militarization of society."" N o doubt these objectives command a wide degree of support in international society, but the concrete meaning they have acquired serves to rationalize the existing distribution of power. The list of objectives does not include goals such as the promotion of just international and internal change, which in the view of a large section of international society requires an assault on the prevailing distribution of power, and should be pursued even at the price of reduced security, an increased economic burden of armaments and a greater "militarization of society." There is a tendency to confuse the national security of the United States and the Soviet Union with international security, the security of international society as a whole; it is the latter objective, not the former, that should be the cardinal one in assessing arms control p o l i ~ i e s . ~ In some respects Soviet-American cooperation in arms control promotes the national security of the United States and the Soviet Union at the expense of the security of other states: it results, for example, in understandings about

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spheres of influence within which local states are left vulnerable to coercion by one or the other of the great powers, in the redirection of conflict between the great powers to "gray areas" in which wars are fought "by proxy," and in attempts to deny third parties arms which they regard as necessary for their security. Where Soviet-American cooperation evidently promotes international security and not merely the national security of the great powers for example, contributing to the avoidance of global nuclear war - it does so in ways that leave the existing political structure of the world intact. Thirdly, there is the notion that the chief proximate goal of arms control is to stabilize the relationship of mutual nuclear deterrence between the United States and the Soviet Union. This is a notion that is basic to most contemporary thinking about arms control, whether we envisage the stabilization of mutual nuclear deterrence as achieved through "high" Soviet and United States arms levels or "low," as implying acceptance of "mutual assured destruction" or not implying it, as accompanied by "parity" or by some form of "superiority" for one side, as bound up with some political program for the promotion of "detente" or as independent of it, as a "first step" towards nuclear disarmament or as a goal sufficient in itself. Whatever the merits or demerits of this goal might be, we should recognize that the attempt to stabilize the relationship of mutual nuclear deterrence between the United States and the Soviet Union, while it is logically consistent with a variety of patterns of power international politics, confines our attention to measures which allow the two superpowers to retain arms levels sufficient for mutual nuclear deterrence, and excludes measures (such as nuclear disarmament, or general and complete disarmament) which carry the risk of radical change in the distribution of power as between the superpowers and the rest. Moreover, in practice Soviet-American cooperation in this field has been accompanied by the attempt to legitimize very high ceilings of strategic arms, by political cooperation directed against third parties and by enunciation of a principle of parity whose effect is to formalize the claims of these two states to a special position in the hierarchy of military power. Fourthly, there is the idea that it should he a proximate goal of arms control to stop or to contain the ,geographical or horizontal diffusion of military power. This is an idea whose most notable expression is the attempt to combat nuclear proliferation, but it may be seen also in the concern that has been expressed about the proliferation of chemical and biological weapons and of conventional arms, especially through the arms trade. Whatever validity there may be in the argument that international security is endangered by the spread of nuclear weapons, chemical and biological weapons and conventional arms among a wider circle of states, it is an argument which serves to rationalize the existing distribution of power. When we decide that it is the horizontal spread of nuclear weapons rather than their vertical spread that calls for urgent preventative action, that biological weapons should he foregone by the rich powers because they are "the poor man's atom bomb," or that there should be measures to stop poor countries from buying conventional arms from rich countries, but not measures to stop rich countries from

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producing these arms for themselves, we are choosing arms control arrangements which leave those countries which now possess preponderant military power secure in the enjoyment of their position. Fifthly, there is the idea that the United States and the Soviet Union, so as to minimize the risk of general nuclear war, should observe a series of tacit rules for the avoidance and control of crises arising out of their conflicting objectives in many parts of the world. This is the idea that lies behind the attempts of the two great powers to restrain allies and clients that might embroil them on opposite sides in local conflicts, to disengage from such allies and clients in cases where they cannot be adequately restrained, to demarcate spheres of influence in which each can intervene without fear of counter-intervention by the other. Whatever merits we may find in this idea, we should recognize that what it implies in practice is the maintenance of a political structure in which the two great powers cooperate to frustrate the objectives of others: of allied states which seek to divest themselves of great power restraints, of client states which seek to engage great power support for their private goals, of fettered states which seek t o break free of the spheres of influence to which they have been assigned, and of aspirant great powers which seek to stake out new spheres of influence of their own. In the Western countries at present there is some disposition to question established theories and policies about arms control. Thus there has been much discussion of the relationship between SALT and political detente, of the feasibility of establishing Soviet-American strategic parity by agreement, of the implications of studies of "bureaucratic politics" for the theory of arms races, of the bearing on arms control of the cruise missile, and of the relative merits of negotiation and unilateral action as means of advancing the objectives of arms control."ut there has been little discussion of the question whether the assumptions about world order that are so central to our present approach to arms control, and are so decisively rejected by China and the aspirant powers of the third world, are valid."

An Approach to World Order If our present theory and practice of arms control proceed on the assumption that world order can and should be founded on the present political structure of the world and distribution of power within it we should not leap to the conclusion that it is an undefendable assumption. Our present theory and practice have arisen in response to the perception of overwhelming dangers of nuclear war between the two great powers, and of a need to curb these dangers as a matter of urgent priority. Those who tell us that some different order of priorities should have been followed must ask themselves whether an approach to world order which did not begin with the attempt to find common ground between the two powers with the capacity to destroy the world as we know it was ever a possible or an honorable one.

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If the search for common ground between the United States and the Soviet Union has resulted in arrangements which confirm their privileged position in the hierarchy of power we may also point out that the dangers of nuclear war between them threaten not only the two great powers but international society as a whole; that these arrangements have in fact served to reduce the dangers, however inadequately and imperfectly; and that it is not immediately obvious how the United States and the Soviet Union could have drawn together in arms control arrangements without also involving themselves in political cooperation against third parties. If the international order confirmed by our present arms control arrangements is one in which certain powers claim special privileges and responsibilities the question may be asked whether any international order has ever existed in which this was not so; and whether, if the United States and the Soviet Union were to forego their claims to a special position so as to make room for others, there is any reason to suppose that these others would be more willing or able to take on the responsibilities of such a privileged position than they have been in the past. But the vision of world order that is projected by our present arms control arrangements is one against which the majority of states are in revolt. It is true that among countries such as China, India, Iran, Indonesia, Egypt, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Argentina, Nigeria, one finds different degrees of opposition to these arrangements, deep mutual divisions without any agreement about an alternative conception of world order. However, they all see the emphasis on Soviet-American bilateral goals - in arms control, in the treatment of security as the commanding value, in the preoccupation with stabilization of the great power balance, in the efforts to control proliferation, and in the network of tacit understandings between the great powers - as part of a system of hegemony which they wish to break down in spite of the fact they have nothing in mind with which to replace it. It is sometimes argued that the dissent of China and the third world states from the existing international order need not be fatal to it; that these states are too weak and divided among themselves to provide any serious challenge; that particular recalcitrant powers among them c a n be bought off with favors conferred by one or another of the great powers or their allies - as even India's opposition to the existing order has been moderated by its dependence on the Soviet Union, and China's by its sense of strategic interests shared with the United States. But the shift in the distribution of power toward the countries of the third world has already begun, and its impact has already been dramatic. China is a nuclear power, India has conducted a nuclear explosion and half a dozen more third world states have the potential to develop a nuclear capability. The oil-producing countries have not only brought about a shift of wealth in their favor and a global realignment on the Arab-Israeli dispute; more importantly, perhaps, they have demonstrated by their example what dividends are to be reaped by overcoming internecine disputes in the interests of a united front, and by abandoning a position of conciliation for one of confrontation. At the present time the levers of power available even to the strongest of third world countries

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are only such as are conferred by rudimentary military power, the prestige of numbers, the possession of raw materials which others need, and the appeal of ideology. In the long run we must expect that some of them will also have a t their disposal the levers conferred by advanced technology and high industrial capacity, which will not remain permanently the monopoly of the so-called northern countries. The idea of the disunity of the third world, that "there is no such thing as the third world," overlooks the fact that on certain basic issues this ramshackle coalition of states has held together to a remarkable degree, and that in the last 30 years (as relating to the legitimacy of colonialist and white supremacist governments, the legality of "wars of national liberation," the duty to transfer wealth from rich countries to poor, the right to expropriate foreign assets, the law of the sea) it has drastically changed the prevailing norms in international society. In much of this endeavor the third world countries have been powerfully supported by the Soviet Union. This should remind us that the Soviet Union's own commitment to the existinginternational order is a half-hearted and perhaps merely tactical one; that the Soviet Union, while on some issues (nuclear proliferation, the law of the sea) it stands arrayed with the "North" against the "South", on others ("wars of national liberation" against colonialist and white supremacist governments) it is the ally of the third world against the Western powers. The conception of world order implicit in our present approach to arms control is based too narrowly upon the elements of consensus between the United States and the Soviet Union and their allies. At the same time this conception of world order embodies too narrow a range of goals: it treats the security of the two great powers as prior to that of international society as a whole, and it fails to recognize goals of just international and internal change. What conception of world order, then, should we put in its place? Not, I think, one which proclaims that a viable world order can be constructed only if we move "beyond the states system." There is no convincing evidence that the system of states is in decline and about to give place to some different form of universal political organization; nor, I believe, should we be impressed by the argument that the states system has become "obsolete" in the sense of being dysfunctional in relation to basic goals such as peace and security, eocnomic and social justice and the control of the human environment. It is only in the Western world that the cry is heard that we should transcend the states system; the socialist and third world countries clearly seek to work within its framework. The problem of world order is not that of how to move beyond the states system, but that of how to make it work.' Making the states system work must involve the attempt to preserve and ultimately t o extend the element of consensus among states about common interests, common rules and common institutions - the consensus whose existence in the past has entitled us to say that states form not only an international system but also an international society. It is sometimes argued that as a consequence of the technological unification of the world, or the growth of economic "interdependence" or the multiplication of transnational social

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ties consensus in our times has been growing. Thus international lawyers tell us with satisfaction that it is now widely agreed that rights and duties in international law are enjoyed not only by states but by individual human beings, that the scope of international law has widened beyond a rudimentary "international law of coexistence" to become an "international law of cooperation," and that the source of international law is no longer the consent of states but the consensus or general will of the international community as a whole. But there are strong grounds for thinking that at the global or universal level consensus about the basic framework of orderly international coexistence has not been growing but shrinking - as the consequence of ideological divisions, the revolt of subject peoples and the geographical expansion of the states system beyond its originally European confines. Making the states system work is a matter of preserving and nurturing what remains of a rudimentary consensus about "minimum order," not of advancing towards some "optimum order" about which, at the global level, no consensus exists o r is in prospect. The consensus which has to be nurtured is not one simply between the United States and the Soviet Union, or these two plus China, or a wider consort that would include Japan and Western Europe if and when they demonstrate that they are great powers. N o consensus is likely to be adequate for a viable states system that does not embrace the countries which now form the third world. These countries represent a majority of states and of the world's population and are too large and potentially powerful a segment of international society to be assigned the status merely of an object or series of objects of its governing rules. It follows from this that our conception of world order should not be shaped by prescriptions for a more centralized system, expressed in an expanding United Nations or upon "non-territorial centralized direction."" The third world countries are opposed to centralizing tendencies in world politics, perceiving correctly that if more powerful centralized institutions were to be established now, they would rob ably be controlled by the present great powers and would reflect their special interests. It is more likely that world order will continue to rest upon a decentralized system, and that if a greater role is to be played by international institutions these will be regional rather than global ones. The question of the establishment of more powerful institutions at the global level remains, as it were, on the agenda of world politics: but it is not likely to be discussed seriously by the third world or indeed by the socialist states until there has first been a shift of power in their favor. Whatever notions we entertain about a desirable and feasible world order, they have to take account the third world's alienation from the arrangements for world order that exist now. This alienation is rooted not merely in grievances about colonialism or racism or the distribution of wealth, consumer goods or technology: it is rooted also in the third world's lack of power, including military power - its sense of impotence and vulnerability in relation to the Western countries and the Soviet Union. It may be one of the

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conditions of a more viable world order that the shift of power towards the third world, whose beginnings we noted above, should first be expanded. It is true that the third world countries at present are preoccupied not with order but with change; that as they become more powerful they are likely to create disorder in the course of bringing this change about; and the present frame work of world order, reflecting as it does the preferred values of the West and of the Soviet Union, will not be strengthened but is bound to be weakened by a shift in the distribution of military power towards the third world countries. But the objection of the third world countries is not to the quality of order in the present international arrangements; it is rather to the way in which these arrangements discriminate against them. Once the changes they are seeking have been effected, and new arrangements have replaced the old ones, it is possible that they will come to sense a stake in them. The task of carrying out this redistribution of power must fall to the third world countries themselves: it is too much to expect that the great powers and their allies will be willing to carry out this task for them, or even that they could if they wished to d o so. It is for the third world countries t o mobilize their resources, to combine with one another and to challenge the elements of discrimination in the present system. But the Western powers and the Soviet Union should recognize that such a challenge is natural and inevitable. They should also recognize that while some of the present perceived interests will be injured in the process, they themselves have a stake in the emergence of a world order of which the majority of states and of the world's population feel themselves to be a part. There are difficulties and risks in this approach. It is true that as the major countries of the third world acquire more military power they are likely to seek to exploit it in relation to one another and not merely in relation to the present great powers. It is true that there is no agreement among the third world states as to which of them are to be the beneficiaries of the process of redistribution. It is true that world order requires that we attempt to limit and contain military power; the creation of new centers of military power is bound to make that attempt more difficult.

C o n s e q u e n c e s f o r A r m s Control

I should not argue that our approach to arms control should be determined in detail by some precise vision of a desirable or feasible world order. To do this would be to treat visions of world order more seriously than they deserve; we cannot be sure enough about the desirability or feasibility of any one of them to regard it as the legislator of policy here and now. It does appear to me, however, that we should try to sever the close connection which now exists between the theory and practice of arms control and attempts to preserve the existing distribution of power. Not only does this connection make arms control an obstacle to changes' which may be necessary if a more viable world order is to be evolved, but it also serves to discredit arms control, and

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to obscure the role which it has to play in promoting the purposes of those seeking to challenge the present distribution of power. First, we should maintain that the cooperation involved in arms control should promote universal purposes and not merely bilateral ones. Cooperzation that promotes special or bilateral purposes may count as arms control, but we should be clear that the proper purpose of arms control is to advance objectives endorsed by international society as a whole. In the case of United States-Soviet cooperation we should distinguish between the purpose of avoiding nuclear war, which is generally endorsed, and the purpose of preserving United States and Soviet ascendancy, which is not. The measures that lead to the one are not always easily distinguishable from those that lead to the other, and it would be naive to suppose that the two great powers could pursue the former while wholly abstaining from the latter. But at least we can distinguish these purposes in our minds, and consider how far in practice the political structure of American and Soviet ascendancy is essential to the political structure of peace. Secondly, while recognizing that security against war, and especially nuclear war, is the prime goal of arms control, we should distinguish between the national security of the United States and the Soviet Union, and the security of international society as a whole; and we should insist that it is the latter that is the overriding test. It is clear that the national security of the two great powers is served by arrangements, like the tacit understanding about spheres of influence, that has left Eastern Europe and Central America vulnerable to great power intervention; by the export of conflicts to Southeast Asia or the Persian Gulf or Africa; or by their opposition to nuclear proliferation in China and India and elsewhere. But it is also clear that these arrangements do not promote the national security of the other countries concerned. Whether the security of international society as a whole is more helped than hindered by these arrangements is a moot point. But even if we were to conclude that it is more helped than hindered by them we should still need to distinguish between the security of international society as a whole and that of its two most powerful members, and we should still need to insist that there may be other avenues to the former besides those that have been ordained by the United States and the Soviet Union. At the same time we should take account of the fact that the goal of security comes into conflict with that of the promotion of international and internal change very widely regarded as just. I d o not mean that arms control arrangements should be designed so as to promote black liberation in southern Africa, or revolution in Chile or the establishment of a state of Palestine. It is better to recognize that arms control is concerned chiefly with only one dimension of world order, viz. peace and security, and more particularly with its military aspects, than to saddle it with responsibility for every dimension. But we need to be aware, in pursuing arms control, of the existence of other dimensions of world order, and particularly of the role of military force in effecting changes that express emerging principles of international legitimacy.

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Thirdly, we should note the extent to which the process of negotiation about the great power strategic balance promotes objectives that are bilateral rather than universal. In the short run the attempt to stabilize the Soviet-American relationship of mutual nuclear deterrence is necessary for the security of international society as a whole. That this relationship is more or less stable, and that the two great powers are formally committed to a process of negotiation aimed at making it more stable at lower levels of strategic arms, is the chief concrete achievement of arms control and the chief basis for whatever claim the United States and the Soviet Union can make to being trustees for mankind. But even if there were signs that the strategic arms limitation talks were leading in the direction of a more stable relationship of mutual nuclear deterrence and of lower levels of strategic arms this goal would be an insufficient one in relation to the wider considerations of world order sketched out above: it does not take account of the demand for a wider distribution of military nuclear power. In fact of course, with the possible exception of the 1972 ABM Treaty the strategic arms limitation talks have not increased the stability of the strategic relationship, nor can it very well be argued that they have reduced the level of strategic arms. What they have done is to ratify a principle of parity or equality which, however necessary it may be as a benchmark in discussion, does not express any known goal of arms control; to contribute to a wider process of political cooperation between the great powers, now under threat; and to provide a means of rationalizing the retention of the present high levels of armaments by pointing to ongoing negotiations aimed at their reduction. Whatever may be said for these achievements they do not offer much to those who threaten horizontal proliferation in return for vertical. Fourthly, in our attitude towards the control of the horizontal diffusion of military power we should seek to distinguish between the universal and the special interests which it serves, and to take account of its bearing on the wider issue of world order. What is at stake in the attempt to control horizontal nuclear proliferation is a universal interest in the security of international society as a whole, which is likely to be jeopardized as the number of nuclear weapon states increases, and even more than jeopardized if proliferation proceeds beyond the sovereign state and nuclear weapons . ~ proposition, indeed, is become the instrument of non-state g r o ~ p sThis not denied even by those states which, like China, France and India, are opposed to the Non-Proliferation Treaty: even if, as in the case of China, their statements sometimes imply that the nuclear club should be expanded to include not only themselves but others as well, they do not seek to make out a case in favor of general or universal proliferation. The argument between the supporters and the opponents of the Non-Proliferation Treaty is not about whether or not nuclear proliferation endangers international security, but about where to draw the line. Nor is our proposition in any way undermined by the fact that there has been some proliferation or the likelihood that there will be some more.

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But we must recognize that the control of horizontal proliferation cannot he separated from the control of vertical. If among the potential nuclear-weapon states the idea is to be combated that nuclear weapons are effective instruments of policy and sources of prestige this can only be the consequence of a demonstration by the actual nuclear-weapon states that they themselves are ceasing to regard nuclear weapons in this way. So long as they retain their nuclear weapons and go on developing them then no matter what statements they put out they will not be able to make such a demonstration. The nuclear-weapon states have, however, had some success in the sense that if they had not practiced the measure of restraint they have in fact observed (if, for example, they had actually used nuclear weapons, or explicitly threatened their use habitually instead of occasionally) horizontal proliferation is likely to have proceeded at a faster rate. We should also recognize that the attempt to draw the line between nuclear weapon and non-nuclear-weapon states at the point at which it lies now, in the absence of any convincing demonstration that nuclear weapons are of diminishing political and strategic utility, must confirm the privileged position of the present nuclear-weapon states, and that this flies in the face of the need on wider grounds for a more even distribution of power. It is true that once we admit the legitimacy of the demand for a more "just" or "even" distribution of military nuclear power we are on dangerous ground. We do not escape from the charge that we are upholding the special privileges of a particular group of states merely by substituting another line of division for the present one; a nuclear club of 10 or 20 or 50 states will be no less vulnerable to the charge that it is discriminatory than is the present nuclear club of five or six. Perfect justice in this sense can be achieved only by general nuclear disarmament or by universal nuclear proliferation; and to spell this out is to provide a reductio ad ahsurdurn of the idea that justice in relation to the possession of nuclear weapons is identical with equality in the distribution of them to all states, neglecting qualitative differences among states. But whatever the requirements of "justice," the requirements of a world order should lead us to doubt whether the present line of division is a viable one. World order would best be served by efforts to promote - immediately through steps such as a reduction in great power strategic arms, the adoption of no first use positions by the nuclear powers and their acceptance of a comprehensive nuclear test ban - the idea of the diminishing political and strategic utility of nuclear weapons. But while such efforts are not made, the present line of division not only will but should be challenged in the interests of reducing the present dominance of the advanced industrial states. In the case of conventional arms the process of diffusion, at least of the more sophisticated kinds of arms (tanks, destroyers, fighter aircraft, electronic equipment) is the consequence of supply by the advanced countries not, as in the case of nuclear weapons, of the development of indigenous capacities. The policy of the advanced countries is, of course, to supply sophisticated conventional arms to non-producing countries either so as to

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create relationships of dependence that can be manipulated for political purposes, or for the sake of economic gain. It is, however, often argued, at least in the Western countries, that it would be desirable to restrict the supply of these arms to non-producing countries if these counter-vailing considerations could be overcome, and if general agreement among the supplying countries could be reached. Here, broadly similar considerations apply as those we noted in the case of the diffusion of nuclear weapons. The horizontal diffusion of conventional arms is, no doubt, injurious to international security. But the interest of the recipient countries in acquiring these arms for national defense, as symbols of national identity, t o appease the demands of their armed forces or for other reasons, will scarcely abate while the donor countries remain free to develop their own arms without restriction. For so long as there exist gross disparities between the advanced industrial countries and the rest of international society in terms of their capacity t o produce sophisticated conventional arms it does not seem likely that attempts to restrict the international trade in arms, while not restricting the right of countries to produce arms, will prove feasible. Nor, in terms of the present arguments would such attempts advance the prospects of world order, even if they were feasible. Fifthly, we need to distinguish the universal from the merely special interests that are served by the tacit rules evolved by the United States and the Soviet Union for the avoidance and control of crises. There is no doubt that the universal interest in averting a Soviet-American nuclear war has been served by the evolution of this system of tacit rules, whatever the cost in terms of the suppression of other states and peoples. The maintenance of order in international society has always required that the security of the whole of international society be treated prior to the security of its parts, the maintenance of the general balance of power prior to the maintenance of local balances, the avoidance of war between the great powers prior to the avoidance of other kinds of wars. For so long as international society continues to contain a hierarchy of military power, the present one or some other, it does not seem likely that order can be preserved without rules that reflect these priorities. But we should beware of assuming that whenever an ally of one of the great powers seeks to break free of restraints, whenever a client government seeks t o dissuade its great power patron from deserting it, or whenever a country within the sphere of influence of a great power seeks to change its internal political character or to alter the direction of its foreign policy, it is the peace of the world that is at stake rather than merely the political convenience of the United States, or the Soviet Union. Notes 1. Hedley Bull, "Introduction t o the Second Edition," The Control of the Arms Race ( N e w York: Praeger, 1965), p. xiv. 2. Bull, The Control of the Arms Race, p. xxxv.

ic

I

Arms Control and World Order

1 29

3. Bull, The Control of the Arms Kore, p. 3-4.

4. Bull, The Control of t l ~ eAnns Roc-c, p. 28-29. 5. Sec, for example, "Arms, I k f e n s e Policy and Arms Control", I)izedirlrts. 104, 3 , Sumnier 1975. 6. An exception is Professor Richard A. Falk who, while in other respects he has fallen into error, correctly perceives that "Arms control measures have served mainly t o rarity the bipolr dominance of international polit~csa n d t o maximize the stahiliry o f t h ~ sdomin,lnce from 1' managerial standpoint." See h ~ s"Arms Control, Global Policy a n d Global Reform", D~zehnlzls,104, 3 S ~ ~ m m 1975, er p. 40. 7. 1 h.lve spelt o u t this argument in "Models of Future World Order", Indiiz Qztizrterly, January-March 1975; a n d more full! in Thr Anizrchrcrzl Society. A Study of Orrier in World l'olitrcs. (Macmillan, f o r r h c o m ~ n g ) . 8. A mystifying phrase of I'rofessor Falk's. 9 . T h ~ sp r o p o s i t ~ o nis n o t self-ev~dent,hut I have argued it in T / J Control ~ of the Arms Krrce, o p cit.; a n d In "Rethinking Non-l'roliferation", Intcrnotionirl Affirm, Vol. 5 1, No. 2, April 1975, pp. 175-1 89.

Cooperation Under the Security Dilemma Robert Jervis

I. Anarchy and the Security Dilemma

T

he lack of an international sovereign not only permits wars to occur, but also makes it difficult for states that are satisfied with the status quo to arrive at goals that they recognize as being in their common interest. Because there are no institutions or authorities that can make and enforce international laws, the policies of cooperation that will bring mutual rewards if others cooperate may bring disaster if they do not. Because states are aware of this, anarchy encourages behavior that leaves all concerned worse off than they could be, even in the extreme case in which all states would like to freeze the status quo. This is true of the men in Rousseau's "Stag Hunt." If they cooperate to trap the stag, they will all eat well. But if one person defects to chase a rabbit - which he likes less than stag - none of the others will get anything. Thus, all actors have the same preference order, and there is a solution that gives each his first choice: (1) cooperate and trap the stag (the international analogue being cooperation and disarmament); (2) chase a rabbit while others remain at their posts (maintain a high level of arms while others are disarmed); ( 3 ) all chase rabbits (arms competition and high risk of war); and (4) stay at the original position while another chases a rabbit (being disarmed while others are armed).l Unless each person thinks that the others will cooperate, he himself will not. And why might he fear that any other person would do something that would sacrifice his own first choice? The other might not understand the situation, or might not be able to control his impulses if he saw a rabbit, or might fear that some other member of the group is unreliable. If the person voices any of these suspicions, others are more likely to fear that he will defect, thus making them more likely to defect, thus making it more rational for him to defect. Of course in this simple case - and in many that are more realistic - there are a number of arrangements that Source: World Politics, 30(2) (1978):167-214.

lerv15 Security Dilemma

13 1

could permit cooperation. But the main point remains: although actors may know that they seek a common goal, they may not be able to reach it. Even when there is a solution that is everyone's first choice, the international case is characterized by three difficulties not present in the Stag Hunt. First, to the incentives to defect given above must be added the potent fear that even if the other state now supports the staus quo, it may become dissatisfied later. N o matter how much decision makers are committed to the status quo, they cannot bind themselves and their successors to the same path. Minds can be changed, new leaders can come to power, values can shift, new opportunities and dangers can arise. The second problem arises from a possible solution. In order to protect their possessions, states often seek to control resources or land outside their own territory. Countries that are not self-sufficient must try to assure that the necessary supplies will continue to flow in wartime. This was part of the explanation for Japan's drive into China and Southeast Asia before World War 11. If there were an international authority that could guarantee access, this motive for control would disappear. But since there is not, even a state that would prefer the status quo to increasing its area of control may pursue the latter policy. When there are believed to be tight linkages between domestic and foreign policy or between the domestic politics of two states, the quest for security may drive states to interfere pre-emptively in the domestic politics of others in order to provide an ideological buffer zone. Thus, Metternich's justification for supervising the politics of the Italian states has been summarized as follows: Every state is absolutely sovereign in its internal affairs. But this implies that every state must d o nothing to interfere in the internal affairs of any other. However, any false or pernicious step taken by any state in its internal affairs may disturb the repose of another state, and this consequent disturbance of another state's repose constitutes an interference in that state's internal affairs. Therefore, every state - or rather, every sovereign of 3 great power - has the duty, in the name of the sacred right of independence of every state, to supervise the governments of smaller states and to prevent them from taking false and pernicious steps in their internal affairs." More frequently, the concern is with direct attack. In order to protect then~selves,states seek to control, or at least to neutralize, areas on their borders. But attempts to establish buffer zones can alarm others who have stakes there, who fear that ind desirable precedents will be set, or who believe that their own vulnerability will be increased. When buffers are sought in areas empty of great powers, expansion tends to feed on itself in order to protect what is acquired, as was often noted by those who opposed colonial expansion. Balfour's complaint was typical: "Every time I come to a discussion - at intervals of, say, five years - I find there is a new sphere which we

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have got to guard, which is supposed to protect the gateways of India. Those gateways are getting further and further away from India, and I do not know how far west they are going to be brought by the General Staff."" Though this process is most clearly visible when it involves territorial expansion, it often operates with the increase of less tangible power and influence. The expansion of power usually brings with it an expansion of responsibilities and commitments; to meet them, still greater power is required. The state will take many positions that are subject to challenge. It will be involved with a wide range of controversial issues unrelated to its core values. And retreats that would be seen as normal if made by a small power would be taken as an index of weakness inviting predation if made by a large one. The third problem present in international politics but not in the Stag Hunt is the security dilemma: many of the means by which a state tries to increase its security decrease the security of others. In domestic society, there are several ways to increase the safety of one's person and property without endangering others. One can move to a safer neighborhood, put bars on the windows, avoid dark streets, and keep a distance from suspicious-looking characters. Of course these measures are not convenient, cheap, or certain of success. But no one save criminals need be alarmed if a person takes them. In international politics, however, one state's gain in security often inadvertently threatens others. In explaining British policy on naval disarmament in the interwar period to the Japanese, Ramsey MacDonald said that "Nobody wanted Japan to be i n ~ e c u r e . "But ~ the problem was not with British desires, but with the consequences of her policy. In earlier periods, too, Britain had needed a navy large enough to keep the shipping lanes open. But such a navy could not avoid being a menace to any other state with a coast that could be raided, trade that could be interdicted, or colonies that could be isolated. When Germany started building a powerful navy before World War I, Britain objected that it could only be an offensive weapon aimed at her. As Sir Edward Grey, the Foreign Secretary, put it to King Edward VII: "If the German Fleet ever becomes superior to ours, the German Army can conquer this country. There is no corresponding risk of this kind to Germany; for however superior our Fleet was, no naval victory could bring us any nearer to Berlin." The English position was half correct: Germany's navy was an anti-British instrument. But the British often overlooked what the Germans knew full well: "in every quarrel with England, German colonies and trade were ... hostages for England to take." Thus, whether she intended it or not, the British Navy constituted an important instrument of coer~ion.~

11. What M a k e s Cooperation M o r e Likely?

Given this gloomy picture, the obvious question is, why are we not all dead? Or, to put it less starkly, what kinds of variables ameliorate the impact of anarchy and the security dilemma? The workings of several can

Security Dilemma

It 1 c

133

be seen in terms of the Stag Hunt or repeated plays of the Prisoner's Dilemma. The Prisoner's Dilemma differs from the Stag Hunt in that there is no solution that is in the best interests of all the participants; there are offensive as well as defensive incentives to defect from the coalition with the others; and, if the game is to be played only once, the only rational response is to defect. But if the game is repeated indefinitely, the latter characteristic no longer holds and we can analyze the game in terms similar to those applied to the Stag Hunt. It would be in the interest of each actor to have others deprived f; the power to defect; each would be willing to sacrifice this ability if others were similarly restrained. But if the others are not, then it is in the actor's interest to retain the power to d e f e ~ tThe . ~ game theory matrices for these two situations are given below, with the numbers in the boxes being the order of the actors' preferences.

STAG HUNT

PRISONER'S DILEMMA

COOPERATE DEFECT

COOPERATE DEFECT

1

3 4

COOPERATE R DEFECT

We can see the logical possibilities by rephrasing our question: "Given either of the above situations, what makes it more or less likely that the players will cooperate and arrive at CC?" The chances of achieving this outcome will be increased by: ( I ) anything that increases incentives to cooperate by increasing the gains of mutual cooperation (CC) and/or decreasing the costs the actor will pay if he cooperates and the other does not (CD); (2) anything that decreases the incentives for defecting by decreasing the gains of taking advantage of the other (DC) and/or increasing the costs of mutual noncooperation (DD); ( 3 ) anything that increases each side's expectation that the other will cooperate.'

The fear of being exploited (that is, the cost of CD) most strongly drives the security dilemma; one of the main reasons why international life is not more nasty, brutish, and short is that states are not as vulnerable as men are in a state of nature. People are easy to kill, but as Adam Smith replied to a friend who feared that the Napoleonic Wars would ruin England, "Sir, there is a great deal of ruin in a nation.""he easier it is to destroy a state, the greater the reason for it either to join a larger and more secure unit, or else to be especially suspicious of others, to require a large army, and, if conditions arc favorable, to attack at the slightest provocation rather than wait to be

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attacked. If the failure t o eat that day - be it venison or rabbit - means that he will starve, a person is likely to defect in the Stag Hunt even if he really likes venison and has a high level of trust in his colleagues. (Defection is especially likely if the others are also starving or if they know that he is.) By contrast, if the costs of CD are lower, if people are well-fed or states are resilient, they can afford to take a more relaxed view of threats. A relatively low cost of CD has the effect of transforming the game from one in which both players make their choices simultaneously to one in which an actor can make his choice after the other has moved. He will not have to defect out of fear that the other will, but can wait to see what the other will do. States that can afford to be cheated in a bargain or that cannot be destroyed by a surprise attack can more easily trust others and need not act at the first, and ambiguous, sign of menace. Because they have a margin of time and error, they need not match, or more than match, any others' arms in peacetime. They can mobilize in the prewar period or even at the start of the war itself, and still survive. For example, those who opposed a crash program to develop the H-bomb felt that the U.S. margin of safety was large enough so that even if Russia managed to gain a lead in the race, America would not be endangered. The program's advocates disagreed: "If we let the Russians get the super first, catastrophe becomes all but certain."' When the costs of CD are tolerable, not only is security easier to attain but, what is even more imporant here, the relatively low level of arms and relatively passive foreign policy that a status-quo power will be able to adopt are less likely to threaten others. Thus it is easier for status-quo states to act on their common interests if they are hard to conquer. All other things being equal, a world of small states will feel the effects of anarchy much more than a world of large ones. Defensible borders, large size, and protection against sudden attack not only aid the state, but facilitate cooperation that can benefit all states. Of course, if one state gains invulnerability by being more powerful than most others, the ~ r o b l e mwill remain because its security provides a base from which it can exploit others. When the price a state will pay for DD is low, it leaves others with few hostages for its good behavior. Others who are more vulnerable will grow apprehensive, which will lead them to acquire more arms and will reduce the chances of cooperation. The best situation is one in which a state will not suffer greatly if others exploit it, for example, by cheating on an arms control agreement (that is, the costs of CD are low); but it will pay a high long-run price if cooperation with the others breaks down - for example, if agreements cease functioning or if there is a long war (that is, the costs of DD are high). The state's invulnerability is then mostly passive; it provides some protection, but it cannot be used to menace others. As we will discuss below, this situation is approximated when it is easier for states to defend themselves than to attack others, or when mutual deterrence obtains because neither side can protect itself. The differences between highly vulnerable and less vulnerable states are illustrated by the contrasting policies of Britain and Austria after the

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135

Napoleonic Wars. Britain's geographic isolation and political stability allowed her to take a fairly relaxed view of disturbances on the Continent. Minor wars and small changes in territory or in the distribution of power did not affect her vital interests. An adversary who was out to overthrow the system could be stopped after he had made his intentions clear. And revolutions within other states were no menace, since they would not set off unrest within England. Austria, surrounded by strong powers, was not so fortunate; her policy had to be more closely attuned to all conflicts. By the time an aggressor-state had clearly shown its colors, Austria would be gravely threatened. And foreign revolutions, be they democratic or nationalistic, would encourage groups in Austria to upset the existing order. So it is not surprising that Metternich propounded the doctrine summarized earlier, which defended Austria's right to interfere in the internal affairs of others, and that British leaders rejected this view. Similarly, Austria wanted the Congress system to be a relatively tight one, regulating most disputes. The British favored a less centralized system. In other words, in order to protect herself, Austria had either to threaten or to harm others, whereas Britain did not. For Austria and her neighbors the security dilemma was acute; for Britain it was not. cost of CD is of course loss of sovereignty. This cost can The ~~ltirnate vary from situation to situation. The lower it is (for instance, because the two states have compatible ideologies, are similar ethnically, have a common culture, or because the citizens of the losing state expect economic benefits), the less the impact of the security dilemma; the greater the costs, the greater the impact of the dilemma. Here is another reason why extreme differences in values and ideologies exacerbate international conflict. It is through the lowering of the costs of CD that the proposed Rhodesian "safety net" - guaranteeing that whites who leave the country will receive fair payment for their property -would have the paradoxical effect of making it more likely that the whites will stay. This is less puzzling when we see that the whites are in a multi-person Prisoner's Dilemma with each other. Assume that all whites are willing to stay if most of the others stay; but, in the absence of guarantees, if there is going to be a mass exodus, all want to be among the first to leave (because late-leavers will get less for their property and will have more trouble finding a country to take them in). Then the problem is to avoid a self-fulfilling prophecy in which each person rushes to defect because he fears others are going to. In narrowing the gap between the payoff for leaving first (DC) and leaving last (CD) by reducing the cost of the latter, the guarantees make it easier for the whites to cooperate among themselves and stay. Subjective Security Demands. Decision makers act in terms of the vulnerability they feel, which can differ from the actual situation; we must therefore examine the decision makers' subjective security requirements."' Two dimensions are involved. First, even if they agree about the objective situation, people can differ about how much security they desire - or, to put it more precisely, about the price they are willing to pay to gain increments of security. The more states value their security above all else (that is, see a

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prohibitively high cost in CD), the more they are likely to be sensitive to even minimal threats, and to demand high levels of arms. And if arms are positively valued because of pressures from a military-industrial complex, it will be especially hard for status-quo powers to cooperate. By contrast, the security dilemma will not operate as strongly when pressing domestic concerns increase the opportunity costs of armaments. In this case, the net advantage of exploiting the other (DC) will be less, and the costs of arms races (that is, one aspect of DD) will be greater; therefore the state will behave as though it were relatively invulnerable. The second aspect of subjective security is the perception of threat (that is, the estimate of whether the other will cooperate)." A state that is predisposed to see either a specific other state as an adversary, or others in general as a menace, will react more strongly and more quickly than a state that sees its environment as benign. Indeed, when a state believes that another not only is not likely to be an adversary, but has sufficient interests in common with it to be an ally, then it will actually welcome an increase in the other's power. British and French foreign policies in the interwar years illustrate these points. After the rise of Hitler, Britain and France felt that increases in each other's arms increased rather than decreased their own security. The differing policies that these states followed toward Germany can be explained by their differences on both dimensions of the variable of subjective security." Throughout the period, France perceived Germany as more of a threat than England did. The British were more optimistic and argued that conciliation could turn Germany into a supporter of the status quo. Furthermore, in the years immediately following World War I, France had been more willing to forego other values in order to increase her security and had therefore followed a more belligerent policy than England, maintaining a larger army and moving quickly to counter German assertiveness. As this example shows, one cannot easily say how much subjective security a state should seek. High security requirements make it very difficult to capitalize on a common interest and run the danger of setting off spirals of arms races and hostility. The French may have paid this price in the 1920's. Low security requirements avoid this trap, but run the risk of having too few arms and of trying to conciliate an aggressor. One aspect of subjective security related to the predisposition to perceive threat is the state's view of how many enemies it must be prepared to fight. A state can be relaxed about increases in another's arms if it believes that there is a functioning collective security system. The chances of peace are increased in a world in which the prevailing international system is valued in its own right, not only because most states restrain their ambitions and those who d o not are deterred (these are the usual claims for a Concert system), but also because of the decreased chances that the status-quo states will engage in unnecessary conflict out of the quest for security. Indeed, if there were complete faith in collective security, n o state would want an army. By contrast, the security dilemma is insoluble when each state fears

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that many others, far from coming to its aid, are likely to join in any attack. Winston Churchill, as First Lord of the Admiralty, was setting a high security requirement when he noted: Besides the Great Powers, there are many small states who are buying or building great ships of war and whose vessels may by purchase, by some diplomatic combination, or by duress, be brought into the line against us. None of these powers need, like us, navies to defend their actual safety of independence. They build them so as to play a part in world affairs. It is sport to them. It is death to us." It takes great effort for any one state to be able to protect itself alone against an attack by several neighbors. More importantly, it is next to impossible for all states in the system to have this capability. Thus, a state's expectation that allies will be available and that only a few others will be able to join against it is almost a necessary condition for security requirements to be compatible.

The main costs of a policy of reacting quickly and severely to increases in the other's arms are not the price of one's own arms, but rather the sacrifice of the potential gains from cooperation (CC)and the increase in the dangers of needless arms races and wars (DD). The greater these costs, the greater the incentives to try cooperation and wait for fairly unambiguous evidence before assuming that the other must be checked by force. Wars would be much more frequent - even if the first choice of all states was the status quo - if they were less risky and costly, and if peaceful intercourse did not provide rich benefits. Ethiopia recently asked for guarantees that the Territory of Afars and Issas would not join a hostile alliance against it when it gained independence. A spokesman for the Territory replied that this was not necessary: Ethiopia "already had the best possible guarantee in the railroad" that links the two countries and provides indispensable revenue for the Territory." l 4 The basic points are well known and so we can move to elaboration. First, most statesmen know that to enter a war is to set off a chain of unpredictable and uncontrollable events. Even if everything they see points to a quick victory, they are likely to hesitate before all the uncertainties. And i f the battlefield often produces startling results, so do the council chambers. The state may be deserted by allies or attacked by neutrals. O r the postwar alignment may rob it of the fruits of victory, as happened to Japan in 1895. Second, the domestic costs of wars must be weighed. Even strong states can be undermined by dissatisfaction with the way the war is run and by the necessary mobilization of men and ideas. Memories of such disruptions were one of the main reasons for the era of relative peace that followed the Napoleonic Wars. Liberal statesmen feared that large armies would lead to despotism; conservative leaders feared that wars would lead to revolution.

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(The other side of this coin is that when there are domestic consequences of foreign conflict that are positively valued, the net cost of conflict is lowered and cooperation becomes more difficult.)Third - turning to the advantages of cooperation - for states with large and diverse economies the gains from economic exchange are rarely if ever sufficient to prevent war. Norman Angel1 was wrong about World War I being impossible because of economic ties among the powers; and before World War 11, the U.S. was Japan's most important trading partner. Fourth, the gains from cooperation can be increased, not only if each side gets more of the traditional values such as wealth, but also if each comes to value the other's well-being positively. Mutual cooperation will then have a double payoff: in addition to the direct gains, there will be the satisfaction of seeing the other prosper.'" While high costs of war and gains from cooperation will ameliorate the impact of the security dilemma, they can create a different problem. If the costs are high enough so that DD is the last choice for both sides, the game will shift to "Chicken." This game differs from the Stag Hunt in that each actor seeks to exploit the other; it differs from Prisoner's Dilemma in that both actors share an interest in avoiding mutual non-cooperation. In Chicken, if you think the other side is going to defect, you have to cooperate because, although being exploited (CD) is bad, it is not as bad as a total breakdown (DD). As the familiar logic of deterrence shows, the actor must then try to convince his adversary that he is going to stand firm (defect)and that the only way the other can avoid disaster is to back down (cooperate). Commitment, the rationality of irrationality, manipulating the communications system, and pretending not to understand the situation, are among the tactics used to reach this goal. The same logic applies when both sides are enjoying great benefits from cooperation. The side that can credibly threaten to disrupt the relationship unless its demands are met can exploit the other. This situation may not be stable, since the frequent use of threats may be incompatible with the maintenance of a cooperative relationship. Still, de Gaulle's successful threats to break up the Common Market unless his partners acceded to his wishes remind us that the shared benefits of cooperation as well as the shared costs of defection can provide the basis for exploitation. Similarly, one reason for the collapse of the Franco-British entente more than a hundred years earlier was that decision makers on both sides felt confident that their own country could safely pursue a policy that was against the other's interest because the other could not afford to destroy the highly valued relationship.I6 Because statesmen realize that the growth of positive interdependence can provide others with new levers of influence over them, they may resist such developments more than would be expected from the theories that stress the advantages of cooperation. Gains from Exploitation fDCI

Defecting not only avoids the danger that a state will be exploited (CD),but brings positive advantages by exploiting the other (DC). The lower these

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possible gains, the greater the chances of cooperation. Even a relatively satisfied state can be tempted to expand by the hope of gaining major values. The temptation will be less when the state sees other ways of reaching its goals, and/or places a low value on what exploitation could bring. The gains may be low either because the immediate advantage provided by DC (for example, having more arms than the other side) cannot be translated into a political advantage (for example, gains in territory), or because the political advantage itself is not highly valued. For instance, a state may not seek to annex additional territory because the latter lacks raw materials, is inhabited by people of a different ethnic group, would be costly to garrison, or would be hard to assimilate without disturbing domestic politics and values. A state can reduce the incentives that another state has to attack it, by not being a threat to the latter and by providing goods and services that would be lost were the other to attempt exploitation. Even where the direct advantages of D C are great, other considerations can reduce the net gain. Victory as well as defeat can set off undesired domestic changes - within the state. Exploitation has at times been frowned upon by the international community, thus reducing the prestige of a state that engages in it. O r others might in the future be quicker to see the state as a menace to them, making them more likely to arm, and to oppose it later. Thus, Bismarck's attempts to get other powers to cooperate with him in maintaining the status quo after 1871 were made more difficult by the widely-held mistrust of him that grew out of his earlier aggressions.'-

The variables discussed so far influence the payoffs for each of the four possible outcomes. To decide what to do, the state has to go further and calculate the expected value of cooperating or defecting. Because such calculations involve estimating the probability that the other will cooperate, the state will have to judge how the variables discussed so far act on the other. To encourage the other to cooperate, a state may try to manipulate these variables. It can lower the other's incentives to defect by decreasing what it could gain by exploiting the state (DC) - the details would be similar to those discussed in the previous paragraph - and it can raise the costs of deadlock (DD). But if the state cannot make DD the worst outcome for the other, coercion is likely to be ineffective in the short run because the other can respond by refusing to cooperate, and dangerous in the long run because the other is likely to become convinced that the state is aggressive. So the state will have to concentrate on making cooperation more attractive. One way to do this is to decrease the costs the other will pay if it cooperates Thus, the state could try to make the other less and the state defects (0). vulnerable. It was for this reason that in the late 1950's and early 1960's some American defense analysts argued that it would be good for both sides if the Russians developed hardened missiles. Of course, decreasing the other's vulnerability also decreases the state's ability to coerce it, and opens

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the possibility that the other will use this protection as a shield behind which to engage in actions inimical to the state. But by sacrificing some ability to harm the other, the state can increase the chances of mutually beneficial cooperation. The state can also try to increase the gains that will accrue to the other from mutual cooperation (CC). Although the state will of course gain if it receives a share of any new benefits, even an increment that accrues entirely t o the other will aid the state by increasing the likelihood that the other will cooperate. l 8 This line of argument can be continued through the infinite regressions that game theory has made familiar. If the other is ready to cooperate when it thinks the state will, the state can increase the chances of CC by showing that it is planning t o cooperate. Thus the state should understate the gains it would make if it exploited the other (DC) and the costs it would pay if the other exploited it (CD), and stress or exaggerate the gains it would make under mutual cooperation (CC) and the costs it would pay if there is deadlock (DD). The state will also want to convince the other that it thinks that the other is likely t o cooperate. If the other believes these things, it will see that the state has strong incentives to cooperate, and so it will cooperate in turn. One point should be emphasized. Because the other, like the state, may be driven t o defect by the fear that it will be exploited if it does not, the state should try to reassure it that this will not happen. Thus, when Khrushchev indicated his willingness to withdraw his missiles from Cuba, he simultaneously stressed to Kennedy that "we are of sound mind and understand perfectly well" that Russia could not launch a successful attack against the U.S., and therefore that there was no reason for the U.S. to contemplate a defensive, pre-emptive strike of its own.'' There is, however, a danger. If the other thinks that the state has little choice but to cooperate, it can credibly threaten to defect unless the state provides it with additional benefits. Great advantages of mutual cooperation, like high costs of war, provide a lever for competitive bargaining. Furthermore, for a state t o stress how much it gains from cooperation may be to imply that it is gaining much more than the other and t o suggest that the benefits should be distributed more equitably. When each side is ready to cooperate if it expects the other to, inspection devices can ameliorate the security dilemma. Of course, even a perfect inspection system cannot guarantee that the other will not later develop aggressive intentions and the military means to act on them. But by relieving immediate worries and providing warning of coming dangers, inspection can meet a significant part of the felt need to protect oneself against future threats, and so make current cooperation more feasible. Similar functions are served by breaking up one large transaction into a series of smaller ones.20 At each transaction each can see whether the other has cooperated; and its losses, if the other defects, will be small. And since what either side would gain by one defection is slight compared to the benefits of continued cooperation, the prospects of cooperation are high. Conflicts and wars

I

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among status-quo powers would be much more common were it not for the fact that international politics is usually a series of small transactions. How a statesman interprets the other's past behavior and how he projects it into the future is influenced by his understanding of the security dilemma and his ability to place himself in the other's shoes. The dilemma will operate much more strongly if statesmen do not understand it, and do not see that their arms - sought only to secure the status quo - may alarm others and that others may arm, not because they are contemplating aggression, but because they fear attack from the first state. These two failures of empathy are linked. A state which thinks that the other knows that it wants only to preserve the status q ~ and ~ othat its arms are meant only for self-preservation will conclude that the other side will react to its arms by increasing its own capability only if it is aggressive itself. Since the other side is not menaced, there is no legitimate reason for it to object to the first state's arms; therefore, objection proves that the other is aggressive. Thus, the following exchange between Senator Tom Connally and Secretary of State Acheson concerning the ratification of the NATO treaty: Secretary Acheson: [The treaty] is aimed solely at armed aggression. Senator Connally: In other words, unless a nation ... contemplates, meditates, or makes plans looking toward aggression or armed attack on another nation, it has no cause to fear this treaty. Secretary Acheson: That is correct, Senator Connally, and it seems to me that any nation which claims that this treaty is directed against it should be reminded of the Biblical admonition that 'The guilty flee when no man pursueth.' Senator Connally: That is a very apt illustration. What I had in mind was, when a State or Nation passes a criminal act, for instance, against burglary, nobody but those who are burglars or getting ready to be burglars need have any fear of the Burglary Act. Is that not true? Secretary Acheson: The only effect [the law] would have [on an innocent person] would be for his protection, perhaps, by deterring someone else. He wouldn't worry about the imposition of the penalties on himself." The other side of this coin is that part of the explanation for detente is that most American decision makers now realize that it is at least possible that Russia may fear American aggression; many think that this fear accounts for a range of Soviet actions previously seen as indicating Russian aggressiveness. Indeed, even 36 percent of military officers consider the Soviet Union's motivations to be primarily defensive. Less than twenty years earlier, officers had been divided over whether Russia sought world conquest or only expansion." Statesmen who do not understand the security dilemma will think that the money spent is the only cost of building up their arms. This belief removes one important restraint on arms spending. Furthermore, it is also likely to lead states to set their security requirements too high. Since they do not

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understand that trying to increase one's security can actually decrease it, they will overestimate the amount of security that is attainable; they will think that when in doubt they can "play it safe" by increasing their arms. Thus it is very likely that two states which support the status quo but do not understand the security dilemma will end up, if not in a war, then at least in a relationship of higher conflict than is required by the objective situation. The belief that an increase in military strength always leads to an increase in security is often linked to the belief that the only route to security is through military strength. As a consequence, a whole range of meliorative policies will be downgraded. Decision makers who do not believe that adopting a more conciliatory posture, meeting the other's legitimate grievances, or developing mutual gains from cooperation can increase their state's security, will not devote much attention or effort to these possibilities. On the other hand, a heightened sensitivity to the security dilemma makes it more likely that the state will treat an aggressor as though it were an insecure defender of the status quo. Partly because of their views about the causes of World War I, the British were predisposed to believe that Hitler sought only the rectification of legitimate and limited grievances and that security could best be gained by constructing an equitable international system. As a result they pursued a policy which, although well designed to avoid the danger of creating unnecessary conflict with a status-quo Germany, helped destroy Europe. Geography, Commitments, Beliefs, and Security Through Expansion A final consideration does not easily fit in the matrix we have been using, although it can be seen as an aspect of vulnerability and of the costs of CD. Situations vary in the ease or difficulty with which all states can simultaneously achieve a high degree of security, The influence of military technology on this variable is the subject of the next section. Here we want to treat the impact of beliefs, geography, and commitments (many of which can be considered to be modifications of geography, since they bind states to defend areas outside their homelands). In the crowded continent of Europe, security requirements were hard to mesh. Being surrounded by powerful states, Germany's problem - or the problem created by Germany - was always great and was even worse when her relations with both France and Russia were bad, such as before World War I. In that case, even a status-quo Germany, if she could not change the political situation, would almost have been forced to adopt something like the Schlieffen Plan. Because she could not hold off both of her enemies, she had to be prepared to defeat one quickly and then deal with the other in a more leisurely fashion. If France or Russia stayed out of a war between the other state and Germany, they would allow Germany to dominate the Continent (even if that was not Germany's aim). They therefore had to deny Germany this ability, thus making Germany less secure. Although Germany's arrogant and erratic behavior, coupled with the desire for an unreasonably high level of security

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(which amounted t o the desire to escape from her geographic plight), compounded the problem, even wise German statesmen would have been hard put t o gain a high degree of security without alarming their neighbors. A similar situation arose for France after World War I. She was committed to protecting her allies in Eastern Europe, a commitment she could meet only by taking the offensive against Germany. But since there was no way to guarantee that France might not later seek expansion, a France that could successfully launch an attack in response to a German move into Eastern Europe would constitute a potential danger to German core values. Similarly, a United States credibly able to threaten retaliation with strategic nuclear weapons if the Soviet Union attacks Western Europe also constitutes a menace, albeit a reduced one, to the Soviet ability to maintain the status quo. The incompatibility of these security requirements is not complete. Herman Kahn is correct in arguing that the United States could have Type I1 deterrence (the ability to deter a major Soviet provocation) without gaining first-strike capability because the expected Soviet retaliation following an American strike could be great enough to deter the U.S. from attacking unless the U.S. believed it would suffer enormous deprivation (for instance, the loss of Europe) if it did not strike." Similarly, the Franco-German military balance could have been such that France could successfully attack Germany if the latter's armies were embroiled in Eastern Europe, but could not defeat a Germany that was free to devote all her resources to defending herself. But this delicate balance is very hard to achieve, especially because states usually calculate conservatively. Therefore, such a solution is not likely to be available. For the United States, the problem posed by the need to protect Europe is an exception. Throughout most of its history, this country has been in a much more favorable position: relatively self-sufficient and secure from invasion, it has not only been able to get security relatively cheaply, but by doing so, did not menace others.14 But ambitions and commitments have changed this situation. After the American conquest of the Philippines, "neither the United States nor Japan could assure protection for their territories by military and naval means without compromising the defenses of the other. This problem would plague American and Japanese statesmen down to 1941 ."" Furthermore, to the extent that Japan could protect herself, she could resist American threats to go t o war if Japan did not respect China's independence. These complications were minor compared t o those that followed World War 11. A world power cannot help but have the ability t o harm many others that is out of proportion to the others' ability to harm it. Britain had been able t o gain security without menacing others to a greater degree than the Continental powers, though t o a lesser one than the United States. But the acquisition of colonies and a dependence on foreign trade sacrificed her relative invulnerability of being an island. Once she took India, she had to consider Russia as a neighbor; the latter was expanding in Central Asia, thus making it much more difficult for both countries t o feel secure. The need t o maintain reliable sea lanes t o India meant that no state could be allowed t o menace South Africa and, later, Egypt. But the

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need t o protect these two areas brought new fears, new obligations, and new security requirements that conflicted with those of other European nations. Furthermore, once Britain needed a flow of imports during both peace and wartime, she required a navy that could prevent a blockade. A navy sufficient for that task could not help but be a threat to any other state that had valuable trade. A related problem is raised by the fact that defending the status quo often means protecting more than territory. Nonterritorial interests, norms, and the structure of the international system must be maintained. If all status-quo powers agree on these values and interpret them in compatible ways, problems will be minimized. But the potential for conflict is great, and the policies followed are likely to exacerbate the security dilemma. The greater the range of interests that have to be protected, the more likely it is that national efforts to maintain the status quo will clash. As a French spokesman put it in 1930: "Security! The term signifies more indeed than the maintenance of a people's homeland, or even of their territories beyond the seas. It also means the maintenance of the world's respect for them, the maintenance of their economic interests, everything in a word, which goes to make up the grandeur, the life itself, of the nation."26 When security is thought of in this sense, it almost automatically has a competitive connotation. It involves asserting one state's will over others, showing a high degree of leadership if not dominance, and displaying a prickly demeanor. The resulting behavior will almost surely clash with that of others who define their security in the same way. The problem will be almost insoluble if statesmen believe that their security requires the threatening or attacking of others. "That which stops growing begins to rot," declared a minister to Catherine the Great."" More common is the belief that if the other is secure, it will be emboldened to act against one's own state's interests, and the belief that in a war it will not be enough for the state to protect itself: it must be able to take the war to the other's homeland. These convictions make it very difficult for status-quo states to develop compatible security policies, for they lead the state to conclude that its security requires that others be rendered insecure. In other cases, "A country engaged in a war of defense might be obliged for strategic reasons to assume the offensive," as a French delegate to an interwar disarmament conference put it.28 That was the case for France in 1799: The Directory's political objectives were essentially defensive, for the French wanted only to protect the Republic from invasion and preserve the security and territory of the satellite regimes in Holland, Switzerland, and Italy. French leaders sought no new conquests; they wanted only to preserve the earlier gains of the Revolution. The Directory believed, however, that only a military offensive could enable the nation to achieve its defensive political objective. By inflicting rapid and decisive defeats upon one or more members of the coalition, the directors hoped to rupture allied unity and force individual powers to seek a separate, peace.29

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It did not matter to the surrounding states that France was not attacking because she was greedy, but hecause she wanted to be left In peace. Unless there was some way her neighbors could provide France with an alternate route to her goal, France had to go to war.

Ill. Offense, Defense, a n d the Security Dilemma

Another approach starts with the central point of the security dilemma - that an increase in one state's security decreases the security of others - and examines the conditions under which this proposition holds. Two crucial variables are involved: whether defensive weapons and policies can be distinguished from offensive ones, and whether the defense or the offense has the advantage. The definitions are not always clear, and many cases are difficult to judge, but these two variables shed a great deal of light on the question of whether status-quo powers will adopt compatible security policies. All the variables discussed so far leave the heart of the problem untouched. Rut when defensive weapons differ from offensive ones, it is possible for a state to make itself more secure without making others less secure. And when the defense has the advantage over the offense, a large increase in one state's security only slightly decreases the security of the others, and status-quo powers can all enjoy a high level of security and largely escape from the state of nature.

When we say that the offense has the advantage, we simply mean that it is easier to destroy the other's army and take its territory than it is to defend one's own. When the defense has the advantage, it is easier to protect and to hold than it is to move forward, destroy, and take. If effective defenses can be erected quickly, an attacker may be able to keep territory he has taken in an initial victory. Thus, the dominance of the defense made it very hard for Britain and France to push Germany out of France in World War I. But when superior defenses are difficult for an aggressor to improvise on the battlefield and must be constructed during peacetime, they provide no direct assistance to him. The security dilemma is at its most vicious when commitments, strategy, or technology dictate that the only route to security lies through expansion. Status-quo powers must then act like aggressors; the fact that they would gladly agree to forego the opportunity for expansion in return for guarantees for their security has no implications for their behavior. Even if expansion is not sought as a goal in itself, there will be quick and drastic changes in the distribution of territory and influence. Conversely, when the defense has the advantage, status-quo states can make themselves more secure without gravely endangering others."' Indeed, if the defense has enough of an advantage and if the states are of roughly equal size, not only will the security dilemma cease to inhibit status-quo states from cooperating, but aggression will be next to

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impossible, thus rendering international anarchy relatively unimportant. If states cannot conquer each other, then the lack of sovereignty, although it presents problems of collective goods in a number of areas, no longer forces states to devote their primary attention to self-preservation. Although, if force were not usable, there would be fewer restraints on the use of nonmilitary instruments, these are rarely powerful enough to threaten the vital interests of a major state. Two questions of the offense-defense balance can be separated. First, 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? If the state has one dollar to spend on increasing its security, should it put it into offensive or defensive forces? Second, with a given inventory of forces, is it better to attack or to defend? Is there an incentive to strike first or to absorb the other's blow? These two aspects are often linked: if each dollar spent on offense can overcome each dollar spent on defense, and if both sides have the same defense budgets, then both are likely to build offensive forces and find it attractive to attack rather than to wait for the adversary to strike. These aspects affect the security dilemma in different ways. The first has its greatest impact on arms races. If the defense has the advantage, and if the status-quo powers have reasonable subjective security requirements, they can probably avoid an arms race. Although an increase in one side's arms and security will still decrease the other's security, the former's increase will be larger than the latter's decrease. So if one side increases its arms, the other can bring its security back up to its previous level by adding a smaller amount to its forces. And if the first side reacts to this change, its increase will also be smaller than the stimulus that produced it. Thus a stable equilibrium will be reached. Shifting from dynamics to statics, each side can be quite secure with forces roughly equal to those of the other. Indeed, if the defense is much more potent than the offense, each side can be willing to have forces much smaller than the other's, and can be indifferent to a wide range of the other's defense policies. The second aspect - whether it is better to attack or t o defend - influences short-run stability. When the offense has the advantage, a state's reaction to international tension will increase the chances of war. The incentives for preemption and the "reciprocal fear of surprise attack" in this situation have been made clear by analyses of the dangers that exist when two countries . ~ ~ is no way for the state to increase its have first-strike c a p a b i l i t i e ~ There security without menacing, or even attacking, the other. Even Bismarck, who once called preventive war "committing suicide from fear of death," said that "no government, if it regards war as inevitable even if it does not want it, would be so foolish as to leave to the enemy the choice of time and occasion and to wait for the moment which is most convenient for the enemy."32 In another arena, the same dilemma applies to the policeman in a dark alley confronting a suspected criminal who appears to be holding a weapon. Though racism may indeed be present, the security dilemma can account for many of the tragic shootings of innocent people in the ghettos.

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Beliefs about the course of a war in which the offense has the advantage further deepen the security dilemma. When there are incentives to strike first, a successful attack will usually so weaken the other side that victory will be relatively quick, bloodless, and decisive. It is in these periods when conquest is possible and attractive that states consolidate power internally for instance, by destroying the feudal barons - and expand externally. There are several consequences that decrease the chance of cooperation among status-quo states. First, war will be profitable for the winner. The costs will be low and the benefits high. Of course, losers will suffer; the fear of losing could induce states to try to form stable cooperative arrangements, but the temptation of victory will make this particularly difficult. Second, because wars are expected to be both frequent and short, there will be incentives for high levels of arms, and quick and strong reaction to the other's increases in arms. The state cannot afford to wait until there is unambiguous evidence that the other is building new weapons. Even large states that have faith in their economic strength cannot wait, because the war will be over before their products can reach the army. Third, when wars are quick, ,, states will have to recruit allies in advance." Without the opportunity for bargaining and re-alignments during the opening stages of hostilities, peacetime diplomacy loses a degree of the fluidity that facilitates halance-ofpower policies. Because alliances must be secured during peacetime, the international system is more likely to become bipolar. It is hard to say whether war therefore becomes more or less likely, but this hipolarity increases tension between the two camps and makes it harder for status-quo states to gain the benefits of cooperation. Fourth, if wars are frequent, statesmen's perceptual thresholds will be adj~istedaccordingly and they will be quick to perceive ambiguous evidence as indicating that others are aggressive. Thus, there will be more cases of status-quo powers arming against each other in the incorrect belief that the other is hostile. When the defense has the advantage, all the foregoing is reversed. The state that fears attack does not p r e e m p t - since that would be a wasteful use of its military resources - but rather prepares to receive an attack. Doing so does not decrease the security of others, and several states can do it simultaneously; the situation will therefore be stable, and status-quo powers will be able to cooperate. When Herman Kahn argues that ultimatums "are vastly too dangerous to give because ... they are quite likely to touch off a pre-emptive strike,"'%e incorrectly assumes that it is always advantageous to strike first. More is involved than short-run dynamics. When the defense is dominant, wars are likely to become stalemates and can be won only at enormous cost. Relatively small and weak states can hold off larger and stronger ones, or can deter attack by raising the costs of conquest to an unacceptable level. States then approach equality in what they can do to each other. Like the .45-caliber pistol in the American West, fortifications were the "great equalizer" in some periods. Changes in the status quo are less frequent and cooperation is more common wherever the security dilemma is thereby reduced.

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Many of these arguments can be illustrated by the major powers' policies in the periods preceding the two world wars. Bismarck's wars surprised statesmen by showing that the offense had the advantage, and by being quick, relatively cheap, and quite decisive. Falling into a common error, observers projected this pattern into the f ~ t u r e . The ~ ' resulting expectations had several effects. First, states sought semi-permanent allies. In the early stages of the Franco-Prussian War, Napoleon 111 had thought that there would be plenty of time to recruit Austria to his side. Now, others were not going t o repeat this mistake. Second, defense budgets were high and reacted quite sharply to increases on the other side. It is not surprising that Richardson's theory of arms races fits this period well. Third, most decision makers thought that the next European war would not cost much blood and treasure.36That is one reason why war was generally seen as inevitable and why mass opinion was so bellicose. Fourth, once war seemed likely, there were strong pressures to pre-empt. Both sides believed that whoever moved first could penetrate the other deep enough to disrupt mobilization and thus gain an insurmountable advantage. (There was no such belief about the use of naval forces. Although Churchill made an ill-advised speech saying that if German ships "do not come out and fight in time of war they will be dug out like rats in a hole,"37 everyone knew that submarines, mines, and coastal fortifications made this impossible. So at the start of the war each navy prepared to defend itself rather than attack, and the short-run destabilizing forces that launched the armies toward each other did not operate.)38Furthermore, each side knew that the other saw the situation the same way, thus increasing the perceived danger that the other would attack, and giving each added reasons to precipitate a war if conditions seemed favorable. In the long and the short run, there were thus both offensive and defensive incentives to strike. This situation casts light on the common question about German motives in 1914: "Did Germany unleash the war deliberately to become a world power or did she support Austria merely to defend a weakening ally," thereby protecting her own position?39To some extent, this question is misleading. Because of the perceived advantage of the offense, war was seen as the best route both to gaining expansion and to avoiding drastic loss of influence. There seemed to be no way for Germany merely to retain and safeguard her existing position. Of course the war showed these beliefs to have been wrong on all points. Trenches and machine guns gave the defense an overwhelming advantage. The fighting became deadlocked and produced horrendous casualties. It made no sense for the combatants to bleed themselves to death. If they had known the power of the defense beforehand, they would have rushed for their own trenches rather than for the enemy's territory. Each side could have done this without increasing the other's incentives to strike. War might have broken out anyway, just as DD is a possible outcome of Chicken, but at least the pressures of time and the fear of allowing the other to get the first blow would-not have contributed to this end. And, had both sides known the costs of the war, they would have negotiated much more seriously. The obvious question is why the

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states did not seek a negotiated settlement as soon as the shape of the war became clear. Schlieffen had said that if his plan failed, peace should be sought."' The answer is complex, uncertain, and largely outside of the scope of our concerns. But part of the reason was the hope and sometimes the expectation that breakthroughs could be made and the dominance of the offensive restored. Without that hope, the political and psychological pressures to fight to a decisive victory might have been overcome. The politics of the interwar period were shaped by the memories of the previous conflict and the belief that any future war would resemble it. Political and military lessons reinforced each other in ameliorating the security dilemma. Because it was believed that the First World War had been a mistake that could have been avoided by skillful conciliation, both Britain and, to a lesser extent, France were highly sensitive to the possibility that interwar Germany was not a real threat to peace, and alert to the danger that reacting quickly and strongly to her arms could create unnecessary conflict. And because Britain and France expected the defense to continue to dominate, they concluded that it was safe to adopt a more relaxed and nonthreatening military posture."" Britain also felt less need to maintain tight alliance bonds. The Allies' military posture then constituted only a slight danger to Germany; had the latter been content with the status quo, it would have been easy for both sides to have felt secure behind their lines of fortifications. Of course the Germans were not content, so it is not surprising that they devoted their money and attention to finding ways out of a defense-dominated stalemate. Blitzkrieg tactics were necessary if they were to use force to change the status quo. The initial stages of the war on the Western Front also contrasted with the First World War. Only with the new air arm were there any incentives to strike first, and these forces were too weak to carry out the grandiose plans that had been both dreamed and feared. The armies, still the main instrument, rushed to defensive positions. Perhaps the allies could have successfully attacked while the Germans were occupied in Poland.4L But belief in the defense was so great that this was never seriously contemplated. Three months after the start of the war, the French Prime Minister summed up the view held by almost everyone but Hitler: on the Western Front there is "deadlock. Two Forces of equal strength and the one that attacks seeing such enormous casualties that it cannot move without endangering the continuation of the war or of the aftermath."43 The Allies were caught in a dilemma they never fully recognized, let alone solved. O n the one hand, they had very high war aims; although unconditional surrender had not yet been adopted, the British had decided from the start that the removal of Hitler was a necessary condition for p e a ~ e . ~ Wthe n other hand, there were no realistic plans or instruments for allowing the Allies to impose their will on the other side. The British Chief of the Imperial General Staff noted, "The French have no intention of carrying out an offensive for years, if at all"; the British were only slightly b ~ l d e r . ~So ' the Allies looked to a long war that would wear the Germans down, cause civilian suffering through

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shortages, and eventually undermine Hitler. There was little analysis to support this view - and indeed it probably was not supportable - but as long as the defense was dominant and the numbers on each side relatively equal, what else could the Allies do? To summarize, the security dilemma was much less powerful after World War I than it had been before. In the later period, the expected power of the defense allowed status-quo states to pursue compatible security policies and avoid arms races. Furthermore, high tension and fear of war did not set off short-run dynamics by which each state, trying to increase its security, inadvertently acted to make war more likely. The expected high costs of war, however, led the Allies t o believe that no sane German leader would run the risks entailed in an attempt to dominate the Continent, and discouraged them from risking war themselves. Technology and Geography. Technology and geography are the two main factors that determine whether the offense or the defense has the advantage. As Brodie notes, "On the tactical level, as a rule, few physical factors favor the attacker but many favor the defender. The defender usually has the advantage of cover. He characteristically fires from behind some form of shelter while his opponent crosses open ground."46 Anything that increases the amount of ground the attacker has to cross, or impedes his progress across it, or makes him more vulnerable while crossing, increases the advantage accruing to the defense. When states are separated by barriers that produce these effects, the security dilemma is eased, since both can have forces adequate for defense without being able to attack. Impenetrable barriers would actually prevent war; in reality, decision makers have to settle for a good deal less. Buffer zones slow the attacker's progress; they thereby give the defender time to prepare, increase problems of logistics, and reduce the number of soldiers available for the final assault. At the end of the 19th century, Arthur Balfour noted Afghanistan's "non-conducting" qualities. "So long as it possesses few roads, and no railroads, it will be impossible for Russia to make effective use of her great numerical superiority at any point immediately vital to the Empire." The Russians valued buffers for the same reasons; it is not surprising that when Persia was being divided into Russian and British spheres of influence some years later, the Russians sought assurances that the British would refrain from building potentially menacing railroads in their sphere. Indeed, since railroad construction radically altered the abilities of countries to defend themselves and to attack others, many diplomatic notes and much intelligence activity in the late 19th century centered on this ~ubject.~' Oceans, large rivers, and mountain ranges serve the same function as buffer zones. Being hard to cross, they allow defense against superior numbers. The defender has merely to stay on his side of the barrier and so can utilize all the men he can bring up to it. The attacker's men, however, can cross only a few at a time, and they are very vulnerable when doing so. If all states were self-sufficient islands, anarchy would be much less of a problem. A small investment in shore defenses and a small army would be sufficient to repel invasion. Only very weak states would be vulnerable, and only very

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large ones could menace others. As noted above, the United States, and to a lesser extent Great Britain, have partly been able to escape from the state of nature because their geographical positions approximated this ideal. Although geography cannot be changed to conform to borders, borders can and d o change to conform to geography. Borders across which an attack is easy tend to be unstable. States living within them are likely to expand or be absorbed. Frequent wars are almost inevitable since attacking will often seem the best way to protect what one has. This process will stop, or a t least slow down, when the state's borders reach - by expansion or contraction - a line of natural obstacles. Security without attack will then be possible. Furthermore, these lines constitute salient solutions to bargaining problems and, to the extent that they are barriers to migration, are likely to divide ethnic groups, thereby raising the costs and lowering the incentives for conquest. Attachment to one's state and its land reinforce one quasi-geographical aid to the defense. Conquest usually becomes more difficult the deeper the attacker pushes into the other's territory. Nationalism spurs the defenders to fight harder; advancing not only lengthens the attacker's supply lines, but takes him through unfamiliar and often devastated lands that require troops for garrison duty. These stabilizing dynamics will not operate, however, if the defender's war materiel is situated near its borders, or if the people d o not care about their state, but only about being on the winning side. In such cases, positive feedback will be at work and initial defeats will be i n ~ u r m o u n t a b l e . ~ " Imitating geography, men have tried to create barriers. Treaties may provide for demilitarized zones on both sides of the border, although such zones will rarely be deep enough to provide more than warning. Even this was not possible in Europe, but the Russians adopted a gauge for their railroads that was broader than that of the neighboring states, thereby complicating the logistics problems of any attacker - including Russia. Perhaps the most ambitious and at least temporarily successful attempts to construct a system that would aid the defenses of both sides were the interwar naval treaties, as they affected Japanese-American relations. As mentioned earlier, the problem was that the United States could not defend the Philippines without denying Japan the ability to protect her home island^.^' (In 1941 this dilemma became insoluble when Japan sought to extend her control to Malaya and the Dutch East Indies. If the Philippines had been invulnerable, they could have provided a secure base from which the U.S. could interdict Japanese shipping between the homeland and the areas she was trying to conquer.) In the 1920's and early 1930's each side would have been willing to grant the other security for its possessions in return for a reciprocal grant, and the Washington Naval Conference agreements were designed to approach this goal. As a Japanese diplomat later put it, their country's "fundamental principle" was to have "a strength insufficient for attack and adequate for defense.""' Thus, Japan agreed in 1922 to accept a navy only three-fifths as large as that of the United States,

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and the U.S. agreed not to fortify its Pacific islands." (Japan had earlier been forced to agree not to fortify the islands she had taken from Germany in World War I.) Japan's navy would not be large enough to defeat America's anywhere other than close to the home islands. Although the Japanese could still take the Philippines, not only would they be unable to move farther, but they might be weakened enough by their efforts to be vulnerable to counterattack. Japan, however, gained security. An American attack was rendered more difficult because the American bases were unprotected and because, until 1930, Japan was allowed unlimited numbers of cruisers, destroyers, and submarines that could weaken the American fleet as it made its way across the ocean."" The other major determinant of the offense-defense balance is technology. When weapons are highly vulnerable, they must be employed before they are attacked. Others can remain quite invulnerable in their bases. The former characteristics are embodied in unprotected missiles and many kinds of bombers. (It should be noted that it is not vulnerability per se that is crucial, but the location of the vulnerability. Bombers and missiles that are easy to destroy only after having been launched toward their targets d o not create destabilizing dynamics.) Incentives to strike first are usually absent for naval forces that are threatened by a naval attack. Like missiles in hardened silos, they are usually well protected when in their bases. Both sides can then simultaneously be prepared to defend themselves successfully. In ground warfare under some conditions, forts, trenches, and small groups of men in prepared positions can hold off large numbers of attackers. Less frequently, a few attackers can storm the defenses. By and large, it is a contest between fortifications and supporting light weapons on the one hand, and mobility and heavier weapons that clear the way for the attack on the other. As the erroneous views held before the two world wars show, there is no simple way to determine which is dominant. "[Tlhese oscillations are not smooth and predictable like those of a swinging pendulum. They are uneven in both extent and time. Some occur in the course of a single battle or campaign, others in the course of a war, still others during a series of wars." Longer-term oscillations can also be detected: The early Gothic age, from the twelfth to the late thirteenth century, with its wonderful cathedrals and fortified places, was a period during which the attackers in Europe generally met serious and increasing difficulties, because the improvement in the strength of fortresses outran the advance in the power of destruction. Later, with the spread of firearms at the end of the fifteenth century, old fortresses lost their power to resist. An age ensued during which the offense possessed, apart from short-term setbacks, new advantages. Then, during the seventeenth century, especially after about 1660, and until at least the outbreak of the War of the Austrian Succession in 1740, the defense regained much of the ground it had lost since the great medieval fortresses had proved unable to meet the bombardment of the new and more numerous artillery.53

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Security Dilemma

1 53

Another scholar has continued the argument: "The offensive gained an advantage with new forms of heavy mobile artillery in the nineteenth century, but the stalemate of World War I created the impression that the defense again had an advantage; the German invasion in World War 11, however, indicated the offensive superiority of highly mechanized armies in the field."'J The situation today with respect to conventional weapons is unclear. Until recently it was believed that tanks and tactical air power gave the attacker an advantage. The initial analyses of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war indicated that new anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons have restored the primacy of the defense. These weapons are cheap, easy to use, and can destroy a high proportion of the attacking vehicles and planes that are sighted. It then would make sense for a status-quo power to buy lots of $20,000 missiles rather than buy a few half-million dollar tanks and multi-million dollar fighter-bombers. Defense would be possible even against a large and well-equipped force; states that care primarily about self-protection would not need to engage in arms races. But further examinations of the new technologies and the history of the October War cast doubt on these optimistic conclusions and leave us unable to render any firm judgment."' Concerning nuclear weapons, it is generally agreed that defense is impossible - a triumph not of the offense, but of deterrence. Attack makes no sense, not because it can be beaten off, but because the attacker will be destroyed in turn. In terms of the questions under consideration here, the result is the equivalent of the primacy of the defense. First, security is relatively cheap. Less than one percent of the G.N.P. is devoted to deterring a direct attack on the United States; most of it is spent on acquiring redundant systems to provide a lot of insurance against the worst conceivable contingencies. Second, both sides can simultaneously gain security in the form of second-strike capability. Third, and related to the foregoing, second-strike capability can be maintained in the face of wide variations in the other side's military posture. There is no purely military reason why each side has to react quickly and strongly to the other's increases in arms. Any spending that the other devotes to trying to achieve first-strike capability can be neutralized by the state's spending much smaller sums on protecting its second-strike capability. Fourth, there are no incentives to strike first in a crisis. Important problems remain, of course. Both sides have interests that go well beyond defense of the homeland. The protection of these interests creates conflicts even if neither side desires expansion. Furthermore, the shift from defense to deterrence has greatly increased the importance and perceptions of resolve. Security now rests on each side's belief that the other would prefer to run high risks of total destruction rather than sacrifice its vital interests. Aspects of the security dilemma thus appear in a new form. Are weapons procurements used as an index of resolve? Must they be so used ? If one side fails to respond to the other's buildup, will it appear weak and thereby invite predation? Can both sides simultaneously have images of high resolve or is there a zero-sum element involved? Although these problems are real, they are not as severe as those in the prenuclear era: there are

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many indices of resolve, and states d o not so much judge images of resolve in the abstract as ask how likely it is that the other will stand firm in a particular dispute. Since states are most likely to stand firm on matters which concern them most, it is quite possible for both to demonstrate their resolve to protect their own security simultaneously. Offense-Defense Differentiation

The other major variable that affects how strongly the security dilemma operates is whether weapons and policies that protect the state also provide the capability for attack. If they d o not, the basic postulate of the security dilemma no longer applies. A state can increase its own security without decreasing that of others. The advantage of the defense can only ameliorate the security dilemma. A differentiation between offensive and defensive stances comes close to abolishing it. Such differentiation does not mean, however, that all security problems will be abolished. If the offense has the advantage, conquest and aggression will still be possible. And if the offense's advantage is great enough, status-quo powers may find it too expensive to protect themselves by defensive forces and decide to procure offensive weapons even though this will menace others. Furthermore, states will still have to worry that even if the other's military posture shows that it is peaceful now, it may develop aggressive intentions in the future. Assuming that the defense is at least as potent as the offense, the differentiation between them allows status-quo states to behave in ways that are clearly different from those of aggressors. Three beneficial consequences follow. First, status-quo powers can identify each other, thus laying the foundations for cooperation. Conflicts growing out of the mistaken belief that the other side is expansionist will be less frequent. Second, status-quo states will obtain advance warning when others plan aggression. Before a state can attack, it has to develop and deploy offensive weapons. If procurement of these weapons cannot be disguised and takes a fair amount of time, as it almost always does, a status-quo state will have the time to take countermeasures. It need not maintain a high level of defensive arms as long as its potential adversaries are adopting a peaceful posture. (Although being so armed should not, with the one important exception noted below, alarm other status-quo powers.) States do, in fact, pay special attention to actions that they believe would not be taken by a status-quo state because they feel that states exhibiting such behavior are aggressive. Thus the seizure or development of transportation facilities will alarm others more if these facilities have no commercial value, and therefore can only be wanted for military reasons. In 1906, the British rejected a Russian protest about their activities in a district of Persia by claiming that this area was "only of [strategic] importance [to the Russians] if they wished to attack the Indian frontier, or to put pressure upon us by making us think that they intend to attack it."j6 The same inferences are drawn when a state acquires more weapons than observers feel are needed for defense. Thus, the Japanese spokesman

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at the 1930 London naval conference said that his country was alarmed by the American refusal to give Japan a 70 percent ratio (in place of a 60 percent ratio) in heavy cruisers: "As long as America held that ten percent advantage, it was possible for her to attack. So when America insisted on sixty percent instead of seventy percent, the idea would exist that they were trying to keep that possibility, and the Japanese people could not accept that."" Similarly, when Mussolini told Chamberlain in January 1939 that Hitler's arms program was motivated by defensive considerations, the Prime Minister replied that "German military forces were now so strong as to make it impossible for any Power or combination of Powers to attack her successfully. She could not want any further armaments for defensive purposes; what then did she want them for?"'8 Of course these inferences can be wrong - as they are especially likely to be because states underestimate the degree to which they menace others." And when they are wrong, the security dilemma is deepened. Because the state thinks it has received notice that the other is aggressive, its own arms building will be less restrained and the chances of cooperation will he decreased. But the dangers of incorrect inferences should not obscure the main point: when offensive and defensive postures are different, much of the ~~ncertainty about the other's intentions that contributes to the security dilemma is removed. The third beneficial consequence of a difference between offensive and defensive weapons is that if all states support the status quo, an obvious arms control agreement is a ban on weapons that are useful for attacking. As President Roosevelt put it in his message to the Geneva Disarmament Conference in 1933: "If all nations will agree wholly to eliminate from possession and use the weapons which make possihle a successful attack, defenses auton~atically will become impregnable, and the frontiers and independence of every nation will become s e ~ u r e . " ~The " fact that such treaties have been rare - the Washington naval agreements discussed above and the anti-ABM treaty can be cited as examples - shows either that states are not always willing to guarantee the security of others, or that it is hard to distinguish offensive from defensive weapons. Is such a distinction possible? Salvador de Madariaga, the Spanish statesman active in the disarmament negotiations of the interwar years, thought not: "A weapon is either offensive or defensive according to which end of it YOLI art. looking at." The French Foreign Minister agreed (although French ~ o l i c ydid not always follow this view): "Every arm can be employed offensively or defensively in turn. . . . The only way to discover whether arms are intended for purely defensive purposes or are held in a spirit of aggression is in all cases to enquire into the intentions of the country concerned." Some evidence for the validity of this argument is provided by the fact that much time in these unsuccessful negotiations was devoted to separating offensive from defensive weapons. Indeed, no simple and unambiguous definition is possible and in many cases no judgment can be reached. Before the American entry into World War I, Woodrow Wilson wanted to arm merchantmen only

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with guns in the back of the ship so they could not initiate a fight, but this expedient cannot be applied to more common forms of armament^.^' There are several problems. Even when a differentiation is possible, a status-quo power will want offensive arms under any of three conditions, (1)If the offense has a great advantage over the defense, protection through defensive forces will be too expensive. (2) Status-quo states may need offensive weapons to regain territory lost in the opening stages of a war. It might be possible, however, for a state to wait to procure these weapons until war seems likely, and they might be needed only in relatively small numbers, unless the aggressor was able to construct strong defenses quickly in the occupied areas. (3) The state may feel that it must be prepared to take the offensive either because the other side will make peace only if it loses territory or because the state has commitments to attack if the other makes war on a third party. As noted above, status-quo states with extensive commitments are often forced to behave like aggressors. Even when they lack such commitments, status-quo states must worry about the possibility that if they are able to hold off an attack, they will still not be able to end the war unless they move into the other's territory to damage its military forces and inflict pain. Many American naval officers after the Civil War, for example, believed that "only by destroying the commerce of the opponent could the United States bring him to terms."62 A further complication is introduced by the fact that aggressors as well as status-quo powers require defensive forces as a prelude to acquiring offensive ones, to protect one frontier while attacking another, or for insurance in case the war goes badly. Criminals as well as policemen can use bulletproof vests. Hitler as well as Maginot built a line of forts. Indeed, Churchill reports that in 1936 the German Foreign Minister said: "As soon as our fortifications are constructed [on our western borders] and the countries in Central Europe realize that France cannot enter German territory, all these countries will begin to feel very differently about their foreign policies, and a new constellation will develop."63 So a state may not necessarily be reassured if its neighbor constructs strong defenses. More central difficulties are created by the fact that whether a weapon is offensive or defensive often depends on the particular situation - for instance, the geographical setting and the way in which the weapon is used. "Tanks ... spearheaded the fateful German thrust through the Ardennes in 1940, but if the French had disposed of a properly concentrated armored reserve, it would have provided the best means for their cutting off the penetration and turning into a disaster for the Germans what became instead an overwhelming victory."64 Anti-aircraft weapons seem obviously defensive - to be used, they must wait for the other side t o come t o them. But the Egyptian attack on Israel in 1973 would have been impossible without effective air defenses that covered the battlefield. Nevertheless, some distinctions are possible. Sir John Simon, then the British Foreign Secretary, in response to the views cited earlier, stated that just because a fine line could not be drawn, "that was no reason for saying that there were not stretches

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of territory on either side which all practical men and women knew to be well o n this or that side of the line." Although there are almost n o weapons and strategies that are useful only for attacking, there are some that are almost exclusively defensive. Aggressors could want them for protection, hut a state that relied mostly on them could not menace others. More frequently, we cannot "determine the absolute character of a weapon, but [we can] make a comparison ... [and] discover whether or not the offensive potentialities predominate, whether a weapon is more useful in attack or in defense."" The essence of defense is keeping the other side out of your territory. A purely defensive weapon is one that can do this without being able to penetrate the enemy's land. Thus a committee of military experts in an interwar disarmament conference declared that armaments "incapable of mobility by means of self-contained power," or movable only after long delay, were "only capable of being used for the defense of a State's territory.""" The most obvious examples are fortifications. They can shelter attacking forces, especially when they are built right along the f r ~ n t i e r , ~but ; they cannot occupy enemy territory. A state with only a strong line of forts, fixed guns, and a small army to man them would not be much of a menace. Anything else that can serve only as a barrier against attacking troops is similarly defensive. In this category are systems that provide warning of an attack, the Russian's adoption of a different railroad gauge, and nuclear land mines that can seal off invasion routes. If total immobility clearly defines a system that is defensive only, limited mobility is unfortunately ambiguous. As noted above, shortrange fighter aircraft and anti-aircraft missiles can be used to cover an attack. And, unlike forts, they can advance with the troops. Still, their inability to reach deep into enemy territory does make them more useful for the defense than for the offense. Thus, the United States and Israel would have been more alarmed in the early 1970's had the Russians provided the Egyptians with long-range instead of short-range aircraft. Naval forces are particularly difficult to classify in these terms, but those that are very short-legged can be used only for coastal defense. Any forces that for various reasons fight well only when on their own soil in effect lack mobility and therefore are defensive. The most extreme example would be passive resistance. Noncooperation can thwart an aggressor, but it is very hard for large numbers of people to cross the border and stage a sit-in o n another's territory. Morocco's recent march on the Spanish Sahara approached this tactic, but its success depended on special circumstances. Similarly, guerrilla warfare is defensive to the extent to which it requires civilian support that is likely to be forthcoming only in opposition to a foreign invasion. Indeed, if guerrilla warfare were easily exportable and if it took ten defenders to destroy each guerrilla, then this weapon would not only be one which could be used as easily to attack the other's territory as to defend one's own, but one in which the offense had the advantage: s o the security dilemma would operate especially strongly.

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If guerrillas are unable to fight on foreign soil, other kinds of armies may be unwilling to do so. An army imbued with the idea that only defensive wars were just would fight less effectively, if at all, if the goal were conquest. Citizen militias may lack both the ability and the will for aggression. The weapons employed, the short term of service, the time required for mobilization, and the spirit of repelling attacks on the homeland, all lend themselves much more to defense than to attacks on foreign territory.hx Less idealistic motives can produce the same result. A leading student of medieval warfare has described the armies of that period as follows: "Assembled with difficulty, insubordinate, unable to maneuver, ready to melt away from its standard the moment that its short period of service was over, a feudal force presented an assemblage of unsoldierlike qualities such as have seldom been known to coexist. Primarily intended to defend its own borders from the Magyar, the Northman, or the Saracen ..., the institution was utterly unadapted to take the o f f e n ~ i v e . "Some ~ ~ political groupings can be similarly described. International coalitions are more readily held together by fear than by hope of gain. Thus Castlereagh was not being entirely self-serving when in 1816 he argued that the Quadruple Alliance "could only have owed its origin to a sense of common danger; in its very nature it must be conservative; it cannot threaten either the security or the liberties of other States."'O It is no accident that most of the major campaigns of expansion have been waged by one dominant nation (for example, Napoleon's France and Hitler's Germany), and that coalitions among relative equals are usually found defending the status quo. Most gains from conquest are too uncertain and raise too many questions of future squabbles among the victors to hold an alliance together for long. Although defensive coalitions are by no means easy to maintain conflicting national objectives and the free-rider problem partly explain why three of them dissolved before Napoleon was defeated - the common interest of seeing that no state dominates provides a strong incentive for solidarity. Weapons that are particularly effective in reducing fortifications and barriers are of great value to the offense. This is not to deny that a defensive power will want some of those weapons if the other side has them: Brodie is certainly correct to argue that while their tanks allowed the Germans to conquer France, properly used French tanks could have halted the attack. But France would not have needed these weapons if Germany had not acquired them, whereas even if France had no tanks, Germany could not have foregone them since they provided the only chance of breaking through the French lines. Mobile heavy artillery is, similarly, especially useful in destroying fortifications. The defender, while needing artillery to fight off attacking troops or t o counterattack, can usually use lighter guns since they d o not need to penetrate such massive obstacles. So it is not surprising that one of the few things that most nations at the interwar disarmament conferences were able to agree on was that heavy tanks and mobile heavy guns were particularly valuable t o a state planning an attack." Weapons and strategies that depend for their effectiveness on surprise are almost always offensive. That fact was recognized by some of the delegates to

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the interwar disarmament conferences and is the principle behind the common national ban on concealed weapons. An earlier representative of this widespread view was the mid-19th-century Philadelphia newspaper that argued: "As a measure of defense, knives, dirks, and sword canes are entirely useless. They are fit only for attack, and all such attacks are of murderous character. Whoever carries such a weapon has prepared himself for homicide."" I t is, of course, not always possible to distinguish between forces that are most effective for holding territory and forces optimally designed for taking it. Such a distinction could not have been made for the strategies and weapons in Europe during most of the period between the Franco-Prussian War and World War I. Neither naval forces nor tactical air forces can be readily classified in these terms. But the point here is that when such a distinction is possible, the central characteristic of the security dilemma no longer holds, and one of the most troublesome consequences of anarchy is removed. Offinse-Defense Differentiation and Strategic Nuclear Weapons. In the interwar period, most statesmen held the reasonable position that weapons that threatened civilians were o f f e n s i ~ e . 'But ~ when neither side can protect its civilians, a counter-city posture is defensive because the state can credibly threaten to retaliate only in response to an attack on itself or its closest allies. The costs of this strike are so high that the state could not threaten to use it for the less-than-vital interest of compelling the other to abandon an established position. In the context of deterrence, offensive weapons are those that provide defense. In the now familiar reversal of common sense, the state that could take its population out of hostage, either by active or passive defense or by destroying the other's strategic weapons on the ground, would be able to alter the status quo. The desire to prevent such a situation was one of the rationales for the anti-ABM agreements; it explains why some arms controllers opposed building ABM's to protect cities, but favored sites that covered ICBM fields. Similarly, many analysts want to limit warhead accuracy and favor n~ultiplere-entry vehicles (MRV's), but oppose multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRV's). The former are more useful than single warheads for penetrating city defenses, and ensure that the state has a secondstrike capability. MIRV's enhance counterforce capabilities. Some arms controllers argue that this is also true of cruise missiles, and therefore do not want them to be deployed either. There is some evidence that the Russians are not satisfied with deterrence and are seeking to regain the capability for defense. Such an effort, even if not inspired by aggressive designs, would create a severe security dilemma. What is most important for the argument here is that land-based ICBM's are both offensive and defensive, but when both sides rely on Polaris-type systems (SLBM's), offense and defense use different weapons. ICBM's can be used either to destroy the other's cities in retaliation or to initiate hostilities by attacking the other's strategic missiles. Some measures - for instance, hardening of missile sites and warning systems - are purely defensive, since they do not make a first strike easier. Others are predominantly offensive - for

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instance, passive or active city defenses, and highly accurate warheads. But ICBM's themselves are useful for both purposes. And because states seek a high level of insurance, the desire for protection as well as the contemplation of a counterforce strike can explain the acquisition of extremely large numbers of missiles. So it is very difficult to infer the other's intentions from its military posture. Each side's efforts to increase its own security by procuring more missiles decreases, to an extent determined by the relative efficacy of the offense and the defense, the other side's security. That is not the case when both sides use SLBM's. The point is not that sea-based systems are less vulnerable than land-based ones (this bears on the offense-defense ratio) but that SLBM's are defensive, retaliatory weapons. First, they are probably not accurate enough to destroy many military target^.'^ Second, and more important, SLBM's are not the main instrument of attack against other SLBM's. The hardest problem confronting a state that wants to take its cities out of hostage is to locate the other's SLBM's, a job that requires not SLBM's but anti-submarine weapons. A state might use SLBM's to attack the other's submarines (although other weapons would probably be more efficient), but without anti-submarine warfare (ASW) capability the task cannot be performed. A status-quo state that wanted to forego offensive capability could simply forego ASW research and procurement. There are two difficulties with this argument, however. First, since the state's SLBM's are potentially threatened by the other's ASW capabilities, the state may want to pursue ASW research in order to know what the other might be able to do and to design defenses. Unless it does this, it cannot be confident that its submarines are safe. Second, because some submarines are designed to attack surface ships, not launch missiles, ASW forces have missions other than taking cities out of hostage. Some U.S. officials plan for a long war in Europe which would require keeping the sea lanes open against Russian submarines. Designing an ASW force and strategy that would meet this threat without endangering Soviet SLBM's would be difficult but not impossible, since the two missions are somewhat different.'"urthermore, the Russians do not need ASW forces to combat submarines carrying out conventional missions; it might be in America's interest to sacrifice the ability to meet a threat that is not likely to materialize in order to reassure the Russians that we are not menacing their retaliatory capability. When both sides rely on ICBM's, one side's missiles can attack the other's, and so the state cannot be indifferent to the other's building program. But because one side's SLBM's do not menace the other's, each side can build as many as it wants and the other need not respond. Each side's decision on the size of its force depends on technical questions, its judgment about how much destruction is enough to deter, and the amount of insurance it is willing to pay for - and these considerations are independent of the size of the other's strategic force. Thus the crucial nexus in the arms race is severed. Here two objections not only can be raised but have been, by those who feel that even if American second-strike capability is in no danger, the United States must respond to a Soviet buildup. First, the relative numbers of missiles and warheads may be used as an index of each side's power and will.

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Even i f there is no military need to increase American arms as the Russians increase theirs, a failure to respond may lead third parties to think that the U.S. has abandoned the competition with the U.S.S.R. and is no longer willing to pay the price of world leadership. Furthermore, if either side believes that nuclear "superiority" matters, then, through the bargaining logic, it will matter. The side with "superiority" will be more likely to stand firm in a confrontation if it thinks its "stronger" military position helps it, or if it thinks that the other thinks its own "weaker" military position is a handicap. To allow the other side to have more SLBM's - even if one's own secondstrike capability is unimpaired - will give the other an advantage that can be translated into political gains. The second objection is that superiority does matter, and not only because of mistaken beliefs. If nuclear weapons are used in an all-ornone fashion, then all that is needed is second-strike capability. But limited, gradual, and controlled strikes are possible. If the other side has superiority, it can reduce the state's forces by a slow-motion war of attrition. For the state to strike at the other's cities would invite retaliation; for it to reply with a limited counterforce attack would further deplete its supply of missiles. Alternatively, the other could employ demonstration attacks - such as taking out an isolated military base or exploding a warhead high over a city - in order to demonstrate its resolve. In either of these scenarios, the state will suffer unless it matches the other's arms p o ~ t u r e . ' ~ These two objections, if valid, mean that even with SLBM's one cannot distinguish offensive from defensive strategic nuclear weapons. Compellence may be more difficult than deterrence," but if decision makers believe that numbers of missiles or of warheads influence outcomes, or if these weapons can be used in limited manner, then the posture and policy that would be needed for self-protection is similar to that useful for aggression. If the second objection has merit, security would require the ability to hit selected targets on the other side, enough ammunition to wage a controlled counterforce war, and the willingness to absorb limited countervalue strikes. Secretary Schlesinger was correct in arguing that this capability would not constitute a first-strike capability. But because the "Schlesinger Doctrine" could be used not only to cope with a parallel Russian policy, but also to support an American attempt to change the status quo, the new American stance would decrease Russian security. Even if the U.S.S.R. were reassured that the present U.S. Government lacked the desire or courage to do this, there could be no guarantee that future governments would not use the new instruments for expansion. Once we move away from the simple idea that nuclear weapons can only be used for all-out strikes, half the advantage of having both sides rely on a sea-based force would disappear because of the lack of an offensivedefensive differentiation. To the extent that military policy affects political relations, it would be harder for the United States and the Soviet Union to cooperate even if both supported the status quo. Although a full exploration of these questions is beyond the scope of this paper, it should be noted that the objections rest on decision makers' beliefs - beliefs, furthermore, that can be strongly influenced by American

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policy and American statements. The perceptions of third nations of whether the details of the nuclear balance affect political conflicts - and, to a lesser extent, Russian beliefs about whether superiority is meaningful - are largely derived from the American strategic debate. If most American spokesmen were t o take the position that a secure second-strike capability was sufficient and that increments over that (short of a first-strike capability) would only be a waste of money, it is doubtful whether America's allies or the neutrals would judge the superpowers' useful military might or political will by the size of their stockpiles. Although the Russians stress war-fighting ability, they have not contended that marginal increases in strategic forces bring political gains; any attempt to do so could be rendered less effective by an American assertion that this is nonsense. The bargaining advantages of possessing nuclear "superiority" work best when both sides acknowledge them. If the "weaker" side convinces the other that it does not believe there is any meaningful difference in strength, then the "stronger" side cannot safely stand firm because there is no increased chance that the other will back down. This kind of argument applies at least as strongly to the second objection. Neither side can employ limited nuclear options unless it is quite confident that the other accepts the rules of the game. For if the other believes that nuclear war cannot be controlled, it will either refrain from responding - which would be fine - or launch all-out retaliation. Although a state might be ready to engage in limited nuclear war without acknowledging this possibility - and indeed, that would be a reasonable policy for the United States - it is not likely that the other would have sufficient faith in that prospect to initiate limited strikes unless the state had openly avowed its willingness to fight this kind of war. So the United States, by patiently and consistently explaining that it considers such ideas to be mad and that any nuclear wars will inevitably get out of control, could gain a large measure of protection against the danger that the Soviet Union might seek to employ a "Schlesinger Doctrine" against an America that lacked the military ability or political will to respond in kind. Such a position is made more convincing by the inherent implausibility of the arguments for the possibility of a limited nuclear war. In summary, as long as states believe that all that is needed is secondstrike capability, then the differentiation between offensive and defensive forces that is provided by reliance on SLBM's allows each side to increase its security without menacing the other, permits some inferences about intentions to be drawn from military posture, and removes the main incentive for status-quo powers to engage in arms races.

IV. Four W o r l d s

The two variables we have been discussing - whether the offense or the defense has the advantage, and whether offensive postures can be distinguished from defensive ones - can be combined to yield four possible worlds.

Ierwi OFFENSE HAS T H E ADVANTAGE

OFFENSIVE POSI'IJKE N O T IIISTINGIJ1SHABI.E F R O M DEFENSIVE ONE

OFFENSIVE POSTURE DISTINGUISHABLE FROM LIEFENSIVF. O N E

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L)EFENSE H A S T H E ADVANTAGE

Security d~lcmrna,h u t security requirements n i a y hr cornpat~hle. 3 N o securlty d~lernrna,hut aggression poss~hle. Status-quo states can follow different policy than aggressors. W'lrning given.

4

Doubly st<~ble

The first world is the worst for status-quo states. There is no way to get security without menacing others, and security through defense is terribly difficult to obtain. Because offensive and defensive postures are the same, status-quo states acquire the same kind of arms that are sought by aggressors. And because the offense has the advantage over the defense, attacking is the best route to protecting what you have; status-quo states will therefore hehave like aggressors. The situation will be unstable. Arms races are likely. Incentives to strike first will turn crises into wars. Decisive victories and conquests will be common. States will grow and shrink rapidly, and it will be hard for any state to maintain its size and influence without trying to increase them. Cooperation among status-quo powers will be extremely hard to achieve. There are no cases that totally fit this picture, but it bears more than a passing resemblance to Europe before World War I. Britain and Germany, although in many respects natural allies, ended up as enemies. Of course much of the explanation lies in Germany's ill-chosen policy. And from the perspective of our theory, the powers' ability to avoid war in a series of earlier crises cannot be easily explained. Nevertheless, much of the behavior in this period was the product of technology and beliefs that magnified the security dilemma. Decision makers thought that the offense had a big advantage and saw little difference between offensive and defensive military postures. The era was characterized by arms races. And once war seemed likely, mobilization races created powerful incentives to strike first. In the nuclear era, the first world would be one in which each side relied on vulnerable weapons that were aimed at similar forces and each side understood the situation. In this case, the incentives to strike first would be very high - so high that status-quo powers as well as aggressors would be sorely tempted to pre-empt. And since the forces could be used to change the status quo as well as to preserve it, there would be no way for both sides to increase their security simultaneously. Now the familiar logic of deterrence leads both sides to see the dangers in this world. Indeed, the new understanding of this situation was one reason why vulnerable bombers

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and missiles were replaced. Ironically, the 1950's would have been more hazardous if the decision makers had been aware of the dangers of their posture and had therefore felt greater pressure to strike first. This situation could be recreated if both sides were to rely on MIRVed ICBM's.

In the second world, the security dilemma operates because offensive and defensive postures cannot be distinguished; but it does not operate as strongly as in the first world because the defense has the advantage, and so an increment in one side's strength increases its security more than it decreases the other's. So, if both sides have reasonable subjective security requirements, are of roughly equal power, and the variables discussed earlier are favorable, it is quite likely that status-quo states can adopt compatible security policies. Although a state will not be able to judge the other's intentions from the kinds of weapons it procures, the level of arms spending will give important evidence. Of course a state that seeks a high level of arms might be not an aggressor but merely an insecure state, which if conciliated will reduce its arms, and if confronted will reply in kind. To assume that the apparently excessive level of arms indicates aggressiveness could therefore lead to a response that would deepen the dilemma and create needless conflict. But empathy and skillful statesmanship can reduce this danger. Furthermore, the advantageous position of the defense means that a statusquo state can often maintain a high degree of security with a level of arms lower than that of its expected adversary. Such a state demonstrates that it lacks the ability or desire to alter the status quo, at least at the present time. The strength of the defense also allows states to react slowly and with restraint when they fear that others are menacing them. So, although statusquo powers will to some extent be threatening to others, that extent will be limited. This world is the one that comes closest to matching most periods in history. Attacking is usually harder than defending because of the strength of fortifications and obstacles. But purely defensive postures are rarely possible because fortifications are usually supplemented by armies and mobile guns which can support an attack. In the nuclear era, this world would be one in which both sides relied on relatively invulnerable ICBM's and believed that limited nuclear war was impossible. Assuming no MIRV's, it would take more than one attacking missile to destroy one of the adversary's. Pre-emption is therefore unattractive. If both sides have large inventories, they can ignore all but drastic increases on the other side. A world of either ICBM's or SLBM's in which both sides adopted the "Schlesinger Doctrine" would probably fit in this category too. The means of preserving the status quo would also be the means of changing it, as we discussed earlier. And the defense usually would have the advantage, because compellence is more difficult than deterrence. Although a state might succeed in changing the status quo on issues that matter much more to it than to others, status-quo powers could deter major provocations under most circumstances.

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In the third world there may be no security dilemma, but there are security problems. Because states can procure defensive systems that do not threaten others, the dilemma need not operate. But because the offense has the advantage, aggression is possible, and perhaps easy. If the offense has enough of an advantage, even a status-quo state may take the initiative rather than risk being attacked and defeated. If the offense has less of an advantage, stability and cooperation are likely because the status-quo states will procure defensive forces. They need not react to others who are similarly armed, but can wait for the warning they would receive if others started to deploy offensive weapons. But each state will have to watch the others carefully, and there is room for false suspicions. The costliness of the defense and the allure of the offense can lead to unnecessary mistrust, hostility, and war, unless some of the variables discussed earlier are operating to restrain defection. A hypothetical nuclear world that would fit this description would be one in which both sides relied on SLBM's, but in which ASW techniques were very effective. Offense and defense would be different, but the former would have the advantage. This situation is not likely to occur; but if it did, a status-quo state could show its lack of desire to exploit the other by refraining from threatening its submarines. The desire to have more protecting you than merely the other side's fear of retaliation is a strong one, however, and a state that knows that it would not expand even if its cities were safe is likely to believe that the other would not feel threatened by its ASW program. It is easy to see how such a world could become unstable, and how spirals of tensions and conflict could develop.

The fourth world is doubly safe. The differentiation between offensive and defensive systems permits a way out of the security dilemma; the advantage of the defense disposes of the problems discussed in the previous paragraphs. There is no reason for a status-quo power to be tempted to procure offensive forces, and aggressors give notice of their intentions by the posture they adopt. Indeed, if the advantage of the defense is great enough, there are n o security problems. The loss of the ultimate form of the power to alter the status quo would allow greater scope for the exercise of nonmilitary means and probably would tend to freeze the distribution of values. This world would have existed in the first decade of the 20th century if the decision makers had understood the available technology. In that case, the European powers would have followed different policies both in the long run and in the summer of 1914. Even Germany, facing powerful enemies on both sides, could have made herself secure by developing strong defenses. France could also have made her frontier almost impregnable. Furthermore, when crises arose, no one would have had incentives to strike first. There would have been no competitive mobilization races reducing the time available for negotiations. In the nuclear era, this world would be one in which the superpowers relied on SL.BM's, ASW technology was not up to its task, and limited

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nuclear options were not taken seriously. We have discussed this situation earlier; here we need only add that, even if our analysis is correct and even if the policies and postures of both sides were to move in this direction, the problem of violence below the nuclear threshold would remain. On issues other than defense of the homeland, there would still be security dilemmas and security problems. But the world would nevertheless be safer than it has usually been.

Author's N o t e I am grateful to Robert Art, Bernard Brodie, and Glenn Snyder for comments, and to the Committee on Research of the UCLA Academic Senate for financial support. An earlier version of this essay appeared as Working Paper No. 5, UCLA Program in Arms Control and International Security.

Notes 1. This kind of rank-ordering is not entirely an analyst's invention, as is shown by the following section of a British army memo of 1903 deal~ngwith British and Russian railroad construction near the Persia-Afghanistan border: The conditions of the problem may ... be briefly summarized as follows: a ) IF we make a railway t o Seistan while Russia remains inactive, we gain a considerable defensive advantage at considerable financial cost; b) If Russia makes a railway to Seistan, while we remain inact~ve,she gains a considerable offensive advantage at considerable financial cost; c) If both we and Russia make railways to Seistan, the defens~veand offensive advantages may be held t o neutralize each other; in other words, we shall have spent a good deal of money and be n o better off than we are at present. O n the other hand, we shall be no worse off, whereas under alternative ( b ) we shall be much worse off. Consequently, the theoretical balance of advantage lies with the proposed radway extension from Quetta to Selstan. W.G. Nicholson, "Memorandum on Seistan and Other Points Raised in the Discussion on the Defence of India," (Committee of Imperial Defence, March 20, 1903). It should be noted that the possibility of neither side building railways was nor mentioned, thus strongly biasing the analysis. 2. Paul Schroeder, Metternlch's D~plomacya t Its Zenith, 1820-182.3 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press 1969), 126. 3. Quoted in Michael Howard, The Continental Commrtment (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin 19741, 67. 4. Quoted in Gerald Wheeler, Prelude to Pearl Harbor (Columbia: University of M m o u r i Press 1963), 167. 5. Quoted in Leonard Wainstein, "The Dreadnought Gap," in Robert Art and Kenneth Waltz, eds., The Use of Force (Boston: Little, Brown 1971), 155; Raymond Sontag, European Diplomatic History, 1871-1932 (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts 1933), 147. The French had made a similar argument 50 years earlier; see James Phinney Baxter 111, The Introduction of the Ironclad Warship (Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1933), 149. For a more detailed discussion of the security ddemma, see Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press 19761, 62-76. 6. Experimental evidence for this proposition is summarized in James Tedeschi, Barry Schlenker, and Thomas Bonoma, Conflict, Power, and Games (Chicago: Aldine 1973), 135-41.

l c i v ~ s Security Dilemma

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7. T h e results of Prisoner's Dilemma games played in the laboratory support this argument. See Anarol Kapoport a n d Albert C h a m m a h , Prisoner's Dilemma (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan I'ress I 9 6 5 ) , 33-50. Also see Kohert Axelrod, Conflict of lnterest (Chicago: M a r k h a m l 9 7 0 ) , 60-70. 8. Q u o t e d in Bernard Brodie, Strategy in the Missile Age (Princeton: Princeton University I'ress 195Y), 6 . 9. Herbert York, The Aduisors: Oppenhernrer, Teller, and the Superbonrb (San Franc~sco: Freeman 19 7 6 ) , 56-60. 10. For the development of the concept of suhject~vesecurity, see Arnold Wolfers, Drscorti illid Collirboration (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press 1962), chap. 10. In the present section we assume that the state believes that ~ t security s can he hest served by increasing its arms; later we will d ~ s c u s ssome o f the conditions under which this s s u m p t l o n does not hold. 11. T h e question of when a n actor will see another as a threat is important m d understudied. For a valuahle treatment (although o n e marred by serious methodologic,~l fl,~ws), see Raymond Cohen, "Threat Perception in International Kelations," Ph.1). d ~ s s .( H e l m \ \ University 1974). Among the important factors, touched o n below, are the lessons from the previous war. 12. Still the hest treatment is Arnold Wolfers, Hrztairr and France Bettiwn TILVJ Wlrs (New York: Harcourt, Br,~ce1 9 4 0 ) . 13. Quoted in I'eter Gretton, Former N a l d Person (London: Cassell 1968), 15 1. 14. Michael Kaufman, "Tension Increases in French Colon!;" New York Tntrrs. July I I, 1976. 15. Experimental support f o r thls argument is summarized in M o r t o n L)eut\cii, T h , Kcsr~lrrtroriof Conf1ic.t ( N e w Haven: Yale University Press 1973). 18 1-95, 16. R o g u Bullen, Pn/nierstotr Guizot, and tlw Collapsr of the E r r t ~ n t(:ordral~ ~ (1.01idon: Athlonc 1'1-e\s 19741, 81, 88, 9.3, 2 12. For 3 different vlew of this case, w e Stanley Mellon, "Fnrenre, Il~plomacy,and tanrasy," Rez~irwsin European Hzstory, 1 1 (September 19761, 7 6 - 8 0 . 17. S~tnll.lrly, a Ft-ench diplomat h,ts argued that "the worst result o f Loui\ XIV's ,lh,~ndonrnenr of o u r t r a d ~ t i o n a lpolicy w a s rhe distrust it aroused towards us ahro,ld." Jules L l m b o n , "The Perni,~nenr B ~ s c sof French Foreign Pol~cp," F i ~ r e i pAffinrs. Vlll ( J a n u a r y I Y 30), 1-9. 18. Thi\ a\\umec, however, that these benefits t o the other w ~ l nor l s o Improve the othet-'\ power posltlon that ~t will be more able t o menace the state in the future. 19. W',ilter I.aFeher, ed., T l ~ c1)ynanrics of World Power; A llocarnrrrrtn~Hrstory o/ Clrirtcd StLrtesFor~lgllPolrry 194 5-1 97.3, 11: Eastern Ertrope and t l ~ cSorwt IJn~on( N C U York: Chelsea House in association w ~ t hhlcGraw-Hill 197.3), 700. 2 0 . T h o m a s Schelling, T h e Strategy of C:onflrct ( N e w York: O x t o r d U r i ~ v c r \ ~ t Press y IL)h3), 134-35. 2 I. (1.5. (:ongres\, Senate, Committee o n Foreign Relations, Hearin,qs, k'r)rt/~Atl~7trtli lkwt): 8 l st Cong., I at sess. ( 19491, 17. 22. B r ~ ~ cKussett e a n d Elizabeth Hanson, Interest m d Idrolog)! (San Fra~iclsco:F r e e m m I 9 7 i ) , 260; Morris l a n o w i t r , The Professional Soldrrr ( N e w York: Free Press 1 9 6 0 ) , chap. 13. 2.1. tiahti, O n T/~erwronrt~lear Wilr (Princeton: P r ~ n c e t o nUniversity Press I9hO), 138-60. It should he noted t h ~ the t French example is largely hypothetical because Fr'lnce had n o intelltlon of tulhlling her obligations once Germany became strong. 24. Wolfers (fn. 9 ) , chap. 1.5; C. Vann Woodward, "The Age o f Keinterpret,ir~ot~," A111~rict771 Historical Rer&ri? Vol. 6 7 (October 1960), 1-1 9. 2.5. W ~ l l i a ~ Braisted, n The United States N a l y rtr the P'~cific. 1897-1909 (Austin: Ilnivers~tyof Teuas Press 19581, 240. 26. Carnhon (fn. 171, 18.5. 27. Quoted in Adam IJlatn, Exparrsrorr and Co-/-krstence ( N e w h r k : I'r,ieger I %8), 5. In 1920 the US. Navy's General Board similarly declared "A nation must advance o r retrocede I I I world position." Quoted in W ~ l l i m iBraisted, T ~ J Unrtrd C States N ' Z ~InI ~thr I'~7crfic-. 1909-1922 (Austin: University o f Texas I'ress 1971), 488. 28. Quoted in M a r ~ o nBoggs, Attempts to Define and Lnnlt "Aggressi~v"Arnrnnrrrit 171 Diplowrilcy mzd Strntcgy (Columbia: [Jniversity of Missouri Studies, XVI, No. 1, 194 1 ) 4 1 .

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The Cold War a n d Nuclear Deterrence

29. Steven Ross, European Diplomatic History, 1789-181.5 (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday 1969), 194. 30. Thus, when Wolfers (fn. l o ) , 126, argues that a status-quo state that settles for rough equality of power with its adversary, rather than seeking preponderance, may be able to convince the other t o reciprocate by showing rhat it wants only to protect itself, not menace the other, he assumes that the defense has an advantage. 31. Schelling (fn. 20), chap. 9. 32. Quoted in First Fischer, War of illusions (New York: Norton 19751, 377, 461. 33. George Quester, Offense and Defense in the International System (New York: John Wiley 1977), 105-06; Sontag (fn. 5), 4-5. 34. Kahn (fn. 23), 21 1 (also see 144). 35. For a general discussion of such mistaken learning from the past, see Jervis (fn. 5 ) , chap. 6. The important and still not completely understood question of why this belief formed and was maintained throughout the war is examined in Bernard Brodie, War and Polrtrcs (New York: Macmillan 1973), 262-70; Brodie, "Technological Change, Strategic Doctrme, and Political Outcomes," in Klaus Knorr, ed., Historical Dimensions of National Security Problems (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas 1976), 290-92; and Douglas Porch, "The French Army and the Spirit of the Offensive, 1900-14," in Brian Bond and Ian Roy, eds., War and Society (New York: Holmes & Meier 197.5), 117-43. 36. Some were not so optimistic. Gray's remark is well-known: "The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our life-time." The German Prime Minister, Bethmann Hollweg, also feared the consequences of the war. But the controlling view was rhat it would certainly pay for the winner. 37. Quoted in Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, 111, The Challenge of War, 1916-1 9 16 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin 1971), 84. 38. Quester (fn. 33), 98-99. Robert Art, The Influence of Foreign Policy on Seapouw, I1 (Beverly Hills: Sage Professional Papers in International Studies Series, 1973), 14-1 8, 26-28. 39. Konard Jarausch, "The ILlusion of Limited War: Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg's Calculated Risk, July 1914," Central European History, 11 (March 1969), 50. 40. Brodie (fn. 8), 58. 41. President Roosevelt and the American delegates to the League of Nat~onsDisarmament Conference maintained that the tank and mobile heavy artillery had re-established the dominance of the offensive, thus making disarmament more urgent (Boggs, fn. 28, pp. 3 1, 108), but this was a minority position and may not even have been believed by the Americans. The reduced prestige and influence of the military, and the high pressures to cut government spending throughout this period also contributed to the lowering of defense budgets. 42. Jon Kimche, The Unfought Battle (New York: Stein 1968); Nicholas William Bethell, The War Hitler Won: The Fall of Poland, September 1939 (New York: Holt 1972); Alan Alexandroff and Richard Rosecrance, "Deterrence in 1939," World Politics, XXIX (April 1977), 4 0 4 2 4 . 43. Roderick Macleod and Denis Kelly, eds., Time Unguarded: The Ironside Diaries, 1937-1940 (New York: McKay 1962), 173. 44. For a short time, as France was falling, the British Cabinet d ~ discuss d reaching a negotiated peace with Hitler. The officlal history ignores this, but it 1s covered in P.M.H. Bell, A Certain Eventuality (Farnborough, England: Saxon House 1974), 4 0 4 8 . 45. Macleod and Kelly (fn. 43), 174. In flat contrad~ctionto common sense and almost everything they believed about modern warfare, the Allies planned an expedition to Scandinavia to cut the supply of iron ore to Germany and to aid F~nlandagainst the Russians. But the dominant mood was the one described above. 46. Brodie (fn. 8), 179. 47. Arthur Balfour, "Memorandum," Committee on Imperial Defence, April 30, 1903, pp. 2-3; see the telegrams by Sir Arthur Nicolson, in G.P. Gooch and Harold Temperley, eds., British Documents on the Origins of the War, Vol. 4 (London: H.M.S.O. 1929), 429, 524. These barriers d o not prevent the passage of long-range aircraft; but even in the air, distance usually aids the defender.

Icn I . Security Dilemma

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48. See for example, the discussion of warfare among Ch~nesewarlords in Hsi-Sheng Chi, "The Chinese Warlord System as a n International System," in Morton Kaplan, ed., N e w Apprr~dchest o Internatrond Relat~ons(New York: St. Martin's 1968), 405-25. 49. Some American decision makers, including military officers, thought that the best way out of the dilemma was t o abandon the Philippines. SO. Quoted in Eking Morrison, Turmod and Tradition: A Study of the Lrfe awd Tinzes of Henry 1.. Stirnson (Boston: Houghton Mifflin 1960), 326. 5 1. The U S . "refused to consider limitations on Hawaiian defenses, rmce these works posed n o threat to Japan." Braisted (fn. 27), 612. 52. That is part of the reason why the Japanese admirals strongly objected when the civ~lIan leaders decided to accept J seven-to-ten ratio in lighter craft in 1930. Stephen I'elz, Rnc-e ro Pearl Harbor (Cambridge: Harvard Univers~tyPress 1974), 3. 53. John Nef, War a i ~ dHuman Progress (New York: Norton 1963), 185. Also see ihid., 2.17, 242-43, and 323; C. W. Oman, T / JArt ~ of War in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell LJnivers~tyPress 19.531, 70-72; J o h n Beeler, Warfare in Feudal Europe, 730-1200 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell IJniversity Press 1971), 212-14; Michael Howard, War in ~k~cropcwn History (1.ondon: Oxford University Press 1976), 33-37. 54. Q ~ ~ i cWright, y A Study of War (abridged ed.; Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1964), 142. Also see 63-70, 74-75. There are important exceptions to these general~zationsthe American Civil War, for instance, falls in the middle of the period Wright says is dominated by the offense. 55. Geoffrey Kemp, Robert Pfaltzgraff, and Uri Ka'anan, eds., T h e Othcr Arms Race (i.exington, Mass.: D. C. Heath 1975); James Foster, "The Future of Conventional Arnis Control," Policy Scrcnces, No. 8 (Spring 1977), 1-19. 56. Richard Challener, Admirals, Generals, and American Foreign Polrcy, 1898-2 914 (Princeton: Pr~ncetonUniversity Press 1973), 273; Grey to Nicolson, in Gooch and Ternperley ( t n . 47), 4 14. 57. Quoted in James Crowley, Japan's Quest for Autononzy (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1966), 49. American naval officers agreed with the Japanese that a ten-to-six r,ltlo would endmger Japan's supremxy in her home waters. 58. E.1.. Woodward and R. Butler, eds., Doc~tmentson Brrtish Foreign Polrry, I9IC)-l9?9, T h ~ r dseries, 111 (London: H.M.S.O. 1950), 526. 59. Jervis (fn. 5 ) , 69-72, 3.52-55. 60. Quoted in Merze Tatc, T h e United States m d A r n ~ a n ~ e n t(Cambridge: s Harvard Univcrs~tyPress 1948), 108. 6 1 . Koggs (fn. 28), 1.5, 40. 62. Kenneth Hagan, American Gunhoat lliplonzacy rrnd the Old Navy 1877-1889 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press 1973), 20. 6.3. Winston Churchill, T h e G a t l ~ e r ~ nStorm g (Boston: Houghron 19481, 206. 64. Brodie, War and Politics (fn. 35), 325. 65. Boggs (fn. 28), 42, 83. For a good argument about the possible different~~lt~on hetween offens~veand defensive weapons in the 1930's. see Basil Liddell Hart, "Aggression and the Prohle~nof Weapons," English Review, Vol. 5.5 (July 1932). 71-78. 66. Quoted in Boggs (fn. 28), 39. 67. On these grounds, the Germans claimed in 1932 that the French forts were offensive (ibid.. 49). Si~nilarly,fortified forward naval bases can he necess'lry for 1,lunching a n attack; see Rrai\ted (fn. 27), 643. 68. The French made this argument 111 the interwar period; see Rlchard Challener, Thc k r m c h Theory of the Nation rn Arms (New York: C;olumbia IJniversity Press 1955), 181-82. The Germ.lns disagreed; see Boggs (fn. 281, 44-45. 69. Oman (fn. 531, 57-58. Foreign Policy of Castlerc~zgh.1 I, 18 1.F-1822 [L.ondon: 70. Quoted in Charles Wehster, G. Bell and Sons 196.31, .5 50. 71. Koggs (in. 28), 14-15, 4 7 4 8 , 60.

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72. Quoted In Philip Jordan, Frontter Law and Order (Lmcoln: Un~versityof Nebraska Press 1970), 7; also see 16-17. 73. Boggs (fn. 28), 20, 28. 74. See, however, Desmond Ball, "The Counterforce Potential of American SLBM Systems," Journal of Peace Research, XIV (No. 1, 1977), 23-40. 75. Richard Garwin, "Anti-Submarine Warfare and National Security," Scientific American, Vol. 2 2 7 (July 1972), 14-25. 76. The latter scenario, however, does not require that the state closely match the number of missiles the other deploys. 77. Thomas Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven: Yale University Press 1966), 69-78. Schelling's arguments are not entirely convincing, however. For further d~scussion,see Jervis, "Deterrence Theory Re-Visited," Working Paper No. 14, UCLA Program in Arms Control and International Security.

Rationality at the Brink: The Role of Cognitive Processes in Failures o f Deterrence Jack L. Snyder

I . Introduction: Rationality in a Two-Value Came

A

ccording to the scenarios imagined by most strategists, nuclear confrontation is a game involving a trade-off between two values. First, there is the value associated with the immediate issue of contention: for instance, in the Cuban missile crisis, maintaining U.S. prestige in the world arena; in the Berlin crisis, maintaining the credibility of U.S. commitments. Second, there is the value of minimizing the possibility that an unwanted general war could result from this superpower confrontation. Assuming a strong commitment on the part of both adversaries, any policy that tries to attain the value associated with the immediate point of contention will tend to increase the likelihood of general war. Conversely, any policy that seeks to maximize the avoidance of war will jeopardize the protection of the first value.' Trying to understand the dynamics of this two-value game has been a chief preoccupation of strategists since the advent of nuclear weaponry. I t is important, first of all, to understand how this game should be played, so that the decision maker will be able to recognize the strategies that give him the best chance of optimizing his interests and preparing an appropriate force posture, military doctrine, and diplomatic strategy. At the same time, it is also important to understand how the game will be played by flesh-andblood decision makers. This understanding is crucial for two reasons: (1)Since each player's optimal strategy depends on the strategy adopted by his opponent, such an understanding may help the player to estimate his opponent's probable responses and to adjust his own strategy accordingly; (2) If the non-optimizing strategies adopted by human decision makers tend to occur in regular patterns, then a knowledge of these patterns may help each player to monitor his own strategies. Source: World l'ol~trcs,3 0 ( 3 )(1 978): 34\5-65.

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Most discussions of the dynamics of nuclear confrontations have tended to telescope these two questions - "which strategy should logically be adopted?" and "which strategy will in fact be adopted?" - into a single issue. Either implicitly or explicitly, it is assumed that players will tend to employ strategies which, in a rough way, optimize their values. Take, for example, Thomas Schelling's method for overcoming the shortage of empirical evidence regarding the behavior of decision makers in a nuclear confrontation: "You can sit in your armchair and try to predict how people will behave by asking how you would behave if you had your wits about you. You get, free of charge, a lot of vicarious, empirical beha~ior."~ According to Schelling, the very foundation of strategic theory is "the assumption of rational behavior - not just of intelligent behavior, but of behavior motivated by a conscious calculation of a d ~ a n t a ~ e s The . " ~ theory of deterrence, which receives its most difficult test in the type of superpower confrontation that is under discussion here, rests on such premises. One of its key assumptions is that the deterree will make an estimate of probable costs and probable gains and, on that basis, will be deterred from pursuing a policy that is likely to lead to nuclear war, since no possible gains could outweigh the costs of a nuclear exchange. The theory of deterrence explicitly assumes that the decision maker will recognize the trade-off between the two values and that he will employ a strategy which effects the optimal trade-off between those values, as determined by the decision maker's indifference curve. Similarly, the strategy of "compellence," as outlined by Schelling in Arms and I n f l ~ e n c eassumes ,~ that the compellee will recognize tradeoffs and make the appropriate cost-benefit calculations. That is, once the compeller has "rigged the incentives so that the other party must choose in [the compeller's] favor," it is assumed that the compellee will weigh those incentives correctly and recognize his obligation to c a p i t ~ l a t e . ~ Strategic research has concerned itself primarily with the internal logic of deterrence theory. To be sure, many strategists include caveats regarding the fragility of rationality in crisis situations. For example, Bernard Brodie cautions his readers not to let the seemingly ~ o w e r f u llogic of deterrence make them sanguine about the improbability of nuclear attack. Brodie points out that it may not be realistic to assume a dispassionate calculation of costs and benefits under conditions of great uncertainty, especially when an attack is ~erceivedas imminent.6 Still, the implications of such insights have remained largely unpursued. There does exist, however, a considerable body of research into nonrational influences on the decision process which might profitably be applied to the problem of deterrence in time of crisis. Most of this research approaches the problem in terms of constraints on an essentially rational decision process constraints which, nevertheless, may be so great as to completely undermine the rationality of that process. Such constraints may include:

(1) Organizational dynamics, e.g., the organizational processes and bureaucratic politics outlined in Graham Allison's Essence of Decision.;

\ n \ tier

Rationality at the Brink

1 73

Idiosyncratic psychopathologies that may prevent value optimization, as illustrated in Alexander and Juliette George's Woodrow Wilson and Colonel H o ~ s e . ~ Non-idiosyncratic cognitive processes that evaluate information and options according to nonrational principles. Phenomena included in this area would be, for example, ( a ) the tendency to establish, on the basis of inadequate information, a stereotyped image of the adversary and then to maintain that image tenaciously by means of unconscious, selective processing of information,' and ( b ) the alleged tendency of decision makers to advocate riskier policies when responsibility for the decision is shared with a group than when the individual is solely responsible. l o

4 more ambitious approach to nonrationality in decision making can be found in John Steinbruner's The Cybernetic Theory of Decision.' Steinbruner does not so much describe mere constraints on rational decision making as an entirely independent, nonrational process by which decisions are made. The operation of this process is based on the model of a computer's feedback loops, supplemented by the general principles that govern the operation of non-idiosyncratic cognitive processes - principles which have been established by experimental psychology. Steinbruner's model posits rules of decision that reject the rationalanalytic method. In his model, values that are in a trade-off relationship are not integrated, hut pursued separately. Indifference curves are not constructed, even implicitly; p o b a b l e outcomes are not estimated; no attempt is made to optimize values. Under conditions of uncertainty, decisions are structured not by rational-analytic procedures, but by non-rational rules of cognitive operations. For example, the decision maker will tend to conceptualize his decision environment so as to avoid recognizing trade-off relationships between his values. Trade-offs violate the principle of cognitive consistency. Hence, when the environment is sufficiently unstructured to permit some interpretive latitude, the decision maker will suppress the trade-offs by conceptualizing his world in such a way that the values d o not appear to conflict. Furthermore, Leon Festinger points out that decision makers can solve their cognitive dilemma by conceiving their decision as being wholly determined by the course of external events. "It is possible ... to reduce or even eliminate the dissonance by revoking the decision psychologically. This would consist of ... insisting that really no choice had been made for which the person had any re~ponsibility."'~ In sum, Steinbruner's model holds that there are strong cognitive forces in operation under conditions of uncertainty which predispose decision makers to deny the existence of trade-offs, to deny choice, and to impute unwarranted certainty to this view of their situation. If Steinbruner's model is an accurate description of decision making under uncertainty, it places the stability of deterrence in a new and disconcerting light.

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The Cold War and Nuclear Deterrence

Whereas deterrence theory requires at least an implicit recognition of tradeoffs, Steinbruner's model suggests that human decision makers are under cognitive pressure to conceptualize their decision environment in such a way as t o deny the existence of trade-offs.I3 Compellence strategies - generally viewed as rather reckless even by conventional analysts - appear even more troublesome in this light. Adopting a compellence strategy permits the compeller to forswear choice and avoid his trade-off, so decision makers under uncertainty - as in a nuclear confrontation - should be predisposed to adopt this type of tactic. Furthermore, a "cybernetic decision maker" who is in the position of the compellee may not accurately perceive his incentive to capitulate - especially if he too is locked into a no-choice compellence strategy. Despite this gloomy picture, there exists a possible mitigating factor even within Steinbruner's scheme: the so-called "reality principle." Only when uncertainty is great - in unstructured situations - d o non-rational cognitive principles have full rein. When a decision environment is highly structured - that is, when uncertainty is low and the trade-off is unavoidably self-evident - the reality principle may not permit the decision maker to avoid the realistic calculations and tough choices required by the rational-analytic process of decision. Hence, the relevant question becomes: is the specter of nuclear destruction a sufficiently palpable constraint so that (1)it imposes an undeniable structure on the decision environment, and (2) it forces the decision maker to recognize the trade-offs inherent in his situation, despite the cognitive costs this entails? In order to answer this question and, more generally, in order to test the plausibility of Steinbruner's cybernetic model of decision, it will be helpful to examine a historical case, the stakes and structure of which resemble those of the hypothetical nuclear confrontations imagined by strategic analysts. American decision making during the Cuban missile crisis has these characteristics. The "objective" structure of this case (as opposed to its perceived structure) involved a trade-off between two values - the avoidance of an unwanted war of monumental proportions and the securing of a web of interests related to the maintenance of political prestige and military power. With regard to the Cuban case, one may ask three questions: How did U.S. decision makers deal with their value trade-off problem? How did they perceive their options? And, what are the implications of their behavior for our ideas about deterrence? Before proceeding with a fuller explanation of the relevant aspects of Steinbruner's theory and with the analysis of the case study, some of the assumptions and limitations of this analysis should be made explicit.

(1) The psychological principles on which Steinbruner's theory rests will be accepted as representing a rough consensus based on the discipline's experimental work. In any event, the test for these principles will be in the plausibility of the explanation they suggest for the case study.14

Sii) d c ~ r Rationality at the Brink

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(2) This analysis offers no rigorous technique for conclusively demonstrating that 3 particular set of policy options was structured by nonrational cognitive pressures rather than by an analytic approach. If a player decides that circumstances leave him only one option, how can the objectivity of that view be disproved? Certainly, there may be situations in which even a rational decision maker is left with the single option o f initiating an unwanted war - or at least risking its immediate provocation. Psychologist Jack Brehm points out that, even in experimental conditions, it may be impossible to determine whether an effect is caused by cognitive dissonance or whether it is simply a case in which rational rules of decision produce the same results as nonrational cognitive rules." This analysis does not mean to refute the view that a model based on constrained rationality can explain the Kennedys' conceptualization of their problem. However, circumstantial evidence will cast doubt on such an explanation. In any case, it is not the goal of this analysis to de