January 25, 1961

# ON COMMON UNDERSTANDING IN ARMS CONTROL AND COMMUNICATION TO DEVELOP IT

D. G. Brennan

## I. Introduction

This paper is an outgrowth of the Moscow Conference on Disarmament and World Security of 27 November-5 December 1960, the so-called "private" US-Soviet discussions of December 6 and 7, some genuinely private discussions with various Soviet participants and members of the SU staff at the Conference from December 3 through December 9, and many discussions with various interested persons in the US since mid-December. It concerns what is undoubtedly one of the major problems--I believe it is THE major problem--of arms control, namely, the need for mutual understanding of what the subject is all about and how it should be approached, and possible ways of attempting to satisfy this need. I shall discuss the substance of the central problem, indicate the nature of various possible solutions, and present a tentative specific plan that was "negotiated" at Moscow. The principal objective of this memorandum is to provide a basis for further discussion of the subject; secondarily, I shall argue (in a tentative way) that an institutionalized, permanent communication channel along the lines of the tentative plan evolved at Moscow is not only feasible but the best type of arrangement we are likely to achieve in the immediate future.

The following section, which sketches the basic character of the problem, is lifted bodily from a paper I presented at Moscow on December 3. Soviet reaction to this paper will be discussed later, in Section IV.

## II. The Problem of Understanding

Although the fact is not sufficiently widely recognized, this problem is of the greatest importance. It is convenient to separate it into two closely related aspects, which we may call unilateral understanding and mutual understanding.

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By unilateral understanding is meant the collective view, or collection of individual views, to be found in each individual state--such as the United States-- of the technical, political, and military characteristics of the world in general and their own forces and doctrines in particular. (I should further add that I am thinking of the views held by serious students of these matters, who would generally have at least unofficial connections with official channels, not the views of the general public.) The word "understanding" in this context is perhaps somewhat misleading, since it suggests that there is some objective, fixed "thing" that is there to be "understood", while this is not quite (or perhaps not even faintly) the case*. But there is some sense in which it is meaningful to discuss various degrees of understanding, even if we cannot define the notion precisely.

The fact that unilateral understanding of the present military environment has been in a state of flux has been vividly demonstrated by Kahn,¹ and requires little elaboration here. One example, mentioned by Kahn, is that the vulnerability problem, and the corresponding distinction between "first-strike" and "second-strike" forces, was generally perceived only with the advent of the ICBM, although the basic vulnerability of bomber forces in the early 1950's was quite real. Another example is the rapidly growing disenchantment with a limited nuclear war strategy among Western students of military policy. The basic facts of the present environment were clearly predictable several years ago, but many strategists either did not perceive these facts or did not draw the consequences that are more often being drawn today.

Unilateral understanding of arms control measures has also been in a state of flux, as emphasized by Wiesner.² To some extent, this can be traced in the continual juggling of content and phasing of various proposed arms control "packages".

* The word "perception" is closer to the mark in some cases, but worse in others.

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It is especially clear in the evolution of thinking on a weapon test ban. The views of many people on both what a ban would and would not accomplish and on the character and role of inspection in connection with a test ban have undergone considerable evolution. The more advanced information and opinions to be found on a test ban were not developed overnight. At the time of writing, there is no common "understanding" of a test ban in the sense of even a modestly general consensus on the principal issues, and if there were, it might well be "wrong" in several ways.

A similar evolution of views concerning other possible arms control arrangements, whether tacit or explicit, unilateral or multilateral, is clearly predictable. I shall illustrate with a single example. At the time of writing, many Western students of arms control are interested in stabilized-deterrence arrangements that provide a specified level of strategic deterrent forces (primarily missiles) to each of the major participants. The inspection associated with such systems is usually seen as either deterrence-oriented or security-oriented, and it is usually held--rightly, I believe--that there is a possible trade-off between "large" forces and "small" inspection on the one hand, and "small" forces and "large" inspection on the other. No individual student of these matters known to me professes to have a detailed understanding of the character and requirements of this trade-off; still less is there a consensus on the major characteristics of the problem.* The problems associated with systems of this type are vastly more complicated than those of a weapon test ban, especially with respect to the fact that blunders in the design of such a system might possibly be very hazardous to national security.

* This may be largely because of the fact that appropriate inspection systems have not been studied adequately, or it may not. We shall not know until substantial studies have been conducted. See the discussion of this point by Wiesner.²