35

of power whose intricate adjustments reflect a policy of precaution tend

to appear as overly subtle, petty and a contributing cause of war. This, in fact,

to a less exposed nation.

it was the psychological basis for the disintegration between as +旺

has been the traditional U. S. reaction to European diplomacy. To be sure,

the difference between our approach and that of the European states was

a matter of degree: the increment of power required to upset the European

balance was relatively small; the margin of safety of the individual nations

was, therefore, correspondingly narrow; they tended to resist transformations

which could only be marginal to our security. By contrast, under conditions

of pre-World War II technology, the increment of power required to upset the

world balance of power was considerable; it could be achieved only by overthrowing

so many intermediary states that no doubt was left about the threat to our

security. And because many other states had to be attacked long before the

threat to our security became apparent we could always be certain that some

other nations would bear the brunt of the first battles. Thus we came to

develop a doctrine of aggression so purist and abstract that it absolved our

statesmen from having to make ambiguous decisions.

The difficulty with our concept of power, then, has been that it was

formed during a century and a half of security but that it has had to be applied

in a period in which our margin of safety is constantly shrinking. This has been

Soviet retaliation. But it was a stalemate nonetheless in the sense that we never succeeded in translating our military superiority into a political advantage. This was due to many factors: a theory of war based on the necessity of total victory, the memory of the wartime alliance with the Soviets, humanitarian impulses, lack of clarity about the process in which we found ourselves involved. But whatever the reason, our atomic monopoly had at best a deterrent effect. While it may have prevented a further expansion of the Soviet sphere, it did not enable us to achieve a strategic transformation in our favor. Indeed, even its importance as a deterrent is questionable.

Assuming that there had never been an atomic bomb, would we really have acquiesced in the Soviet Union's taking over Europe? Would the U.S.S.R. have risked a general war so soon after having its territory devastated by the Germans and having lost, by the most conservative estimates, 10,000,000 dead? Not even a dictatorship can do everything simultaneously.

But apart from the questionable assumption that all-out war was prevented by our atomic monopoly, the decade witnessed the consolidation of a satellite orbit in Eastern Europe, the triumph of Communism in China, and most fundamental of all, the growth of the Soviet atomic stockpile. In fact

12

How did this come about? Primarily because we added the A-bomb to our arsenal without integrating its implications into our thinking; because we saw it merely as another tool in a theory of warfare which had KNEW NO GOAL SAVE TOTAL VICTORY AND NO MOOD OF SHOW HOW A POVERTY -- INDEED AN ABSSENCE OF CONCEPTION DURING THE TWO-WAR EXCEPT ALL-OUT WAR. WORLD WARS AND WHICH BECAME COMPLETELY INAPPLICABLE AFTER THE EXPLOSIONS OVER HIRISHIMA AND NAGASAKI.

The notion that war and peace, military and political goals were separate had become so commonplace in our thinking that the most powerful nation in the world found itself paralyzed by the enormity of its own weapons. AT THE END OF WORLD WAR II, STRATEGIC DOCTRINE, separate had become so commonplace in our thinking that the most powerful nation in the world found itself paralyzed by the enormity of its own weapons technology and by its inability to adjust its political aims to the needs of the nuclear period. In every concrete instance, even in the matter of the regulation of the atom which affected our very survival, we found ourselves stalemated by our own preconceptions. The consequences of military actions which we might take always seemed to outbalance the gains to be achieved. Thus our policy became entirely defensive. We possessed a doctrine to repel overt aggression, but we could not translate it into a positive goal. And even in the one instance where we resisted aggression we did not use the weapons around which our whole military planning had been built. The

13

hiatus between military and national policy was complete. Our power
was not commensurate with the objectives of our national policy and our
military doctrine could not be found any intermediary application for the
new weapons. The growth of the Soviet atomic stockpile has merely brought
the physical equation into line with the psychological one; it has increased
the reluctance to engage in a general war even more. But it has not
changed the fundamental question of how the political and military doctrines
can be harmonized, how our power can give impetus to our policy rather
than paralyzing it.

### III

Of course, the new technology is awesome. In the space of less than
a decade we have undergone two technological revolutions: the development of
nuclear weapons and the discovery of the fission-fusion-fission process
which is properly called the H-weapon. The weapons dropped over Hiroshima
and Nagasaki had an explosive power equivalent to 20 kilotons of TNT. Their
lethal radius -- the area within which destruction was total and the ratio
of people killed was in excess of 75 per cent -- was 1½ miles. These killed
hundreds of thousands and left hundreds of thousands uninhabitable. Their blast and heat effects set fire
or destroyed buildings within a radius of another ________ miles. They

# Chapter I

## Introduction

In his whimsical essay "Perpetual Peace" written in 1795, the German philosopher Kant predicted that world peace would be attained in one of two ways: by a moral consensus which he identified with a republican form of government, or by a cycle of wars of ever-increasing violence which would reduce the major Powers to impotence.

There is no evidence that Kant's essay was taken seriously in his lifetime, or indeed for a century and a half afterwards. But much of American thought about the impact of the new weapons of today carries a premonition of Kant's second proposition. Ever since the end of the war brought us not the peace we sought so earnestly, but an uneasy armistice, we have responded to our dilemma by what can best be described as a flight into technology; by devising ever more fearful weapons. The more powerful the weapons, however, the greater becomes the reluctance to use them. At a period of unparalleled military strength, President Eisenhower summed up the dilemma posed by the new weapons technology in the phrase "there is no alternative to peace."

2

It is only natural, of course, that an age which has known two world
wars and an uneasy armistice since should have as its central problem the
attainment of peace. It is [illegible] paradoxical, however, that so much hope
should concentrate on men's most destructive capabilities. We are told
that the growth of thermo-nuclear stockpiles has created a nuclear stalemate
which makes war if not too risky, at least unprofitable. The Geneva
"summit conference" has been interpreted as a non-aggression treaty: a
recognition that war is no longer a conceivable instrument of policy and
that for this reason international disputes can be settled only by means
of diplomacy. And it has been maintained that the peaceful uses of nuclear
energy have made irrelevant many of the traditional reasons for wars of
aggression because each major power can bring about a tremendous increase in
its productive capacity without annexing either foreign territory or foreign
labor.

These assertions fit in well with a national psychology which con-
siders peace as the "normal" pattern of relations among states and which
has few doubts that reasonable men can settle disputes by honest compromise.
We identify peace with a consciousness of harmony and assume that it can be

aimed at directly as a goal of policy. These are truisms rarely
challenged in our political debate. Both major political parties maintain
that they work for a lasting peace, even while they differ about the
best means of attaining it. Both make statements which imply that on a
RETAIN certain day, perhaps after a four-power conference, "peace will
break out." Both, in short, reflect the American mentality which seeks
to escape the facts of power by denying their reality. It is the attitude
of a status quo nation, satisfied with its position in the world and asking
no more of the other Powers than to be left alone.

But nothing is more difficult to attain than an international
order composed of sovereign states for the essence of sovereignty is a
will subject only to itself. Because they cannot control this will, other
states must treat each other as potentially hostile and base their actions
to a considerable extent on its capabilities. The crucial problem of
statesmanship is, therefore, how to relate the intentions of another power
to its potential. If the international order possessed the sanctions that
prevail in domestic arrangements -- court and enforcement machinery, for
example -- international relations could be conducted largely on the basis
of each state's assertion of its intentions to be carried out, in exceptional cases,

4

between nations favored by history or by geographic position, this has
been the case, such as in our relations with Great Britain or with Canada.

But the usual sanction in an international order composed of sovereign
states is the possession of superior force; any adverse change in power
relationships involves the possibility that the gain in strength will be used
with hostile intent. Throughout its history Great Britain fought innumerable
wars to keep Antwerp out of the hands of a major power. These wars were
not directed against a hostile intention, but against a hostile potential.

They reflected the conviction of British statesmen that the survival of
their country depended on the control of the Narrows and that this was
inconsistent with the possession of the mouth of the Scheldte by a major
power.

No sovereign state can negotiate then about its own survival. Nor
can a state make the survival of his country dependent entirely on the
continued good will of another sovereign state, if only because his best
guarantee that the will will in fact remain good is not to risk an attempt to
by too great a disproportion of power. "Vital interests," almost by definition,
are those which can be challenged only at the risk of war or byPOSING

17

For the first time, all-out war promises social disintegration even for the victor. During the period of our atomic monopoly, it was comfortable to believe in the deterrent maximum value of our nuclear stockpile because we could inflict punishment without fear of retaliation, although even then we were restrained from using it for any issue actually in dispute.

But in the face of the new-found Soviet capability to inflict devastating damage on the United States, our reluctance to engage in an all-out war is certain to increase. To be sure, we shall continue to insist that we do not want peace at any price. The price of peace cannot be determined in the abstract, however. The growth of the Soviet nuclear stockpile is certain to widen the line between what is considered "vital" and what is "peripheral" if we must weigh all objectives against the destruction of New York, or Los Angeles, or Chicago.

It remains to be seen whether this reluctance is mutual or whether the side willing to risk annihilation gains a psychological advantage. Clearly a challenge presented in less than all-out form poses risks unconceivable even a decade ago; these are nothing less than whether a nation is willing to commit suicide in order to prevent a gain by its opponent which does not seem to threaten its existence directly. And the extent that the major

22

intermediary objectives, whether it has only risks or whether it also
affords opportunities. It is a strangely complex task, different from any
before in our history. For there is little experience to guide us; the theory
we develop will determine our response to the challenges which will inevi-
tably confront us: The Soviet capability to inflict a catastrophic blow on
the United States is increasing yearly, And just behind the horizon lies the
prospect of a world in which not only two super-powers will possess nuclear
weapons but also many weaker and perhaps more irresponsible nations with less
to lose.

are
In this task, moreover, absolute solutions/no longer possible. The
*relative invulnerability has fastened*
security conferred by two great oceans has fostered the illusion that there
*are "purely" military answers to our security and that policy ends where*
strategy begins. But the luxury of such an approach ended with our atomic
monopoly. Henceforth our problem will be one long familiar to less favored
nations; how to relate the desirable to the possible and above all how to
live with possible catastrophe.

In 1936, the French General Staff possessed no doctrine for anything but an all-out war and it believed in no strategy save the defensive. As a result when Hitler invaded the Rhineland, French diplomacy was paralyzed. It recoiled before the consequences of full mobilization. It did not know how to deal with a strategic transformation which did not violate the boundaries of its country. Having been deprived of the only pressure that might have proved effective--the threat of force--by its military doctrine, France's efforts to negotiate proved futile. Finally, the Frenchinox torn between their premonition of disaster and their own inhibitions sought refuge in another "guarantee" of their frontier which substituted a legal for a physical protection. And they justified their vacillations by ascribing to the Germans a potentiality they did not yet possess which would be overcome only by an all-out war which the country dreaded and which was impossible without allies that proved reluctant.⁷)

> No more urgent task confronts the U.S. than to strive for a military policy which will give our diplomacy the greatest freedom of action.

It must deal with the question whether the nuclear age permits a policy of

French

7. For a splendid discussion of the interplay between the General Staff and the Foreign Office in 1936, see *World Politics*, April 1956.

14

killed ______ in Hiroshima and ______ in Nagasaki;

they levelled an area of ______ square miles in Hiroshima and of

Nagasaki. The collateral effects of radiation may not show up

for several decades.

Nevertheless for all their horror the nuclear devices dropped on Japan
were elementary compared to present weapons. The damage they caused was
restricted to a relatively *smell* finite area; even the effects of radiation were
generally confined to the area covered by heat and blast damage. The
thermo-nuclear weapons, on the other hand, do not possess even this relative
discrimination. Their explosive power is theoretically unlimited; they can
*be made of any desired size (or "bang" in the technical jargon).*

A 20 megaton weapon, which is easily within the range of our *scapability* and will soon be within that of the Soviets, represents as large an *increase* of explosive power over the Hiroshima bomb as the Hiroshima bomb did over the largest blockbusters used in World War II, an order of magnitude of 1000.

Its lethal radius is 8 miles; its area of total destruction 48square miles. 3)

Within that area at least 75 per cent of the population would be killed and

2. By 1950 increased efficiency had stepped up even nuclear devices to an order of 25 times the power of the Hiroshima bomb (500 kiloton) and present day fission devices approach the megaton (1 million ton) of TNT range.

3. Symington Hearings, p. 900/

15

all the remainder severely m injured. Depending on the nature of the terrain, the radius of heavy damage would extend from 10 to 16 miles.

Heavy damage is defined by the Federal Civil Defense Authority as major structural damage that could result in the collapse of a building. Within this area, mortality due to blast, heat and the immediate effects of radiation would be at least 30 per cent and most of the remainder would have severe injuries. A third zone of relatively light damage, ranging from broken windows to houses (particularly those of wooden construction) set afire by the heat, would extend from 16 to 32 miles from point zero. A 20 megaton weapon dropped on Manhattan with a day-time population of 4 million would at a minimum cause 300,000 deaths and 600,000 surviving casualties.

Nor is the damage or the casualties by exhausted by the direct effects. Even within the area of relatively light damage, the survivors, unless they take extreme precautions, may receive severe doses of radiation, which may prove fatal or increase susceptibility to disease or shorten life expectancy. Moreover, the fire-ball of a megaton weapon, if it touches the ground, sucks up particles of earth and buildings and deposits them downwind. This in turn causes the radioactive fall-out which, depending on meteorological conditions, may

16

cover an area of 10,000 square miles. As a conservative estimate, then, a multi-megaton weapon exploded over a typical urban area can be expected to cause about 50 per cent direct casualties and another 20 per cent of latent injuries together with a total destruction of the center of the city within a diameter of between 6 to 8 miles. There are 230 cities in the United States of a population of 50,000 or more. Some of these, such as Minneapolis and St. Paul, combine to make a single target suitable for attack, by one large weapon. In these terms, the United States possesses 170 standard metropolitan areas. An attack on them would involve 50 to 58 per cent of the population and 75 per cent of the industry of the United States. A successful attack on 50 of the most important metropolitan areas would bring under fire 40 per cent of the population, 50 per cent of our key facilities and 60 per cent of our industry. This is the magnitude of the risk facing our policy-makers; the degree of destruction indicated here is well within the capability of our potential enemy.

These statistics speak for themselves. They pose a prospect which has been defined as the choice between Armageddon and defeat without war.

4. Symington Hearings, p. 239, p. 307 (Testimony of General Partridge). For a fuller discussion of the effects of weapons and their implications see below. *chapter IV*

5. Soviet vulnerability will be discussed below. Soviet urban damage is somewhat lower, but it is compensated by a superior delivery capability and base structure on our side. See below.

25

battlefield or through the superior utilization of existing weapons systems.

But our effort is to assess the meaning of the new technology has been inhibited not only by our past, with its seeming lesson that security could be absolute, but by the lessons of military history in general. Throughout history, the military has sought for means to destroy their target completely although heretofore technology permitted only approximations to this goal. Modern weapons, however, seem to assure not only total destruction of the target, but also total duration of the "kill." Unfortunately the capability of total destruction brings with it collateral consequences which paralyze its use.

This paradox that the greater our power, the greater our inhibitions has given a frustrating quality to our quest for a military doctrine. Our past makes us more comfortable with technology than with doctrine and their training impels the military toward an all-purpose weapons system of maximum destructiveness. Yet this quest for absolute answers is inhibited, not only by the enormity of modern weapons, but also by their complexity. Traditionally weapons which