CHAPTER X

Diplomacy and the Limitation of Armaments

It may seem like a paradox to ask diplomacy that it rescue mankind from the horrors of a thermo-nuclear holocaust by devising a framework of war limitation. Is not the situation revolutionary precisely because the Soviet bloc considers the gulf between different social systems as irreconcilable? How can there be an agreement on the limitation of war when all negotiations with the Soviets have proved that the two sides have rarely been able to agree even on what constituted a reasonable demand?

Diplomacy has never faced a more fearful challenge. For almost everything conspires against the subtle negotiation, the artful compromise, the ability to formulate without opening unnecessary wounds of classical diplomacy. Diplomacy, the art of settling dispute by negotiation rather than through force, presupposes that all the major powers accept a framework which establishes a balance between the requirement of change and the imperative of continued harmony. Negotiations are made necessary by the dissatisfaction of some Power with the status quo, for were all Powers perfectly satisfied there would be nothing to negotiate about. But negotiations can lead to a conclusion only if the parties to the dispute accept some common standard transcending the dispute: They must either agree that the continued maintenance of the international system is more important than any dispute within it; or else there must be a general understanding that the

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consequences of not making concessions will be more serious than those of doing so. Historically settlements have come about through a combination of the advantage of continued harmony combined with a fear of the consequences of proving obdurate. The spontaneity of international relations has depended on which of the two factors, harmony or fear, has been emphasized. The smaller the interest in harmony, the greater has been the requirement of fear produced by force or the threat of force. The greater the interest of the major Powers in good relations, the less necessary has been the recourse to force.

The result has been that diplomacy has proved most efficacious in periods when the conception of the various Powers of their vital interests were most in accord. Diplomacy has been least able to settle disputes when there was a conflict in the notions of "vital" interests. For there is a limiting condition to all diplomatic negotiations: that no nation can negotiate about its own survival and that no nation will give up what it considers its "vital" interests for the sake of continued harmony.
An international order that does not protect a Power's conception of its vital interests will not seem worth preserving, to this Power: its relations with the remainder of the international community will therefore be revolutionary. "however there appears a revolutionary Power or group of Powers the emphasis of the conduct of international relations changes. Because a revolutionary Power is distinguished precisely by its attack on the existing order, the requirement of continued harmony will no longer supply

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an impetus for the settlement of disputes. Because vital interests
in such a situation seem constantly in conflict, negotiations be-
come increasingly futile. Henceforth, disagreements tend to be
pushed to their logical extreme and relations are based on force or
the threat of force.

The contemporary revolution is taking place in an unprecedented manner, however. Rarely has there been less common ground among the major powers, but never has recourse to force been more inhibited. This brings about a dual frustration with respect to power and with respect to diplomacy. Were weapons technology stable, an equilibrium might be established between the antagonism of a revolutionary period and the fear of a nuclear war. But weapons systems are changing at an ever-accelerating rate so that every major Power is living with the consciousness that its survival is at the mercy of a technological breakthrough by its opponent. The inhibitions with respect to the use of force therefore do not abolish the revolutionary contest; they transform it into an armament race and into a struggle for the allegiance of those areas of the world as yet uncommitted. And because of the reluctance of the non-Soviet world to resort to force, the Soviet bloc is able to exacerbate all tensions among the secondary powers.
Encouraged to give vent to all their resentments many of the newly independent states are tempted to play an international role out of proportion to their strength and to their willingness to assume responsibilities. The sense of impotence of formerly powerful states and the aspirations to greatness of still weak and often

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immature Powers have contributed to the demoralization of the
international system.

On the other hand, the more absolute the sanctions of
modern war, the more absolute have been the demands made on dip-
lomacy. The fear of total war has had as its counterpart the
call for total diplomacy. Diplomacy is asked to solve by nego-
tiations two major concurrent revolutions, that of the Soviet
bloc and that of the newly independent states, and at a moment
when many of the pressures traditionally available to it, even
in "legitimate" international orders, have lost their potency.
As a result, in a situation which has never been more tense,
diplomacy has never had fewer tools at its disposal. It is said
that force having abdicated, diplomacy must take over. But dip-
lomacy may be handicapped in taking over precisely because force
has abdicated. To the extent that the Soviet bloc becomes convin-
ced that it can initiate negotiations with impunity and break
them off without penalty, conferences become a tool of Soviet
propaganda. The incommensurability between the tensions produced
by the revolutionary international situation and the pressures
available to diplomacy may be inherent in the present state of
weapons technology. If so, it will not make for stability; rather
it will depreciate the seriousness of diplomatic intercourse.

It is therefore asking too much of diplomacy that it should
resolve present-day conflicts. It can provide a forum for the
settlement of disputes which have become unprofitable for both
side. It can keep open channels for information. Most important

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it can enable each side to convey its intentions to the other.

The task of leaving no doubt about a Power's intentions
is perhaps the most important function of diplomacy in the nuc-
lear age. For the primary bridge between the two sides at pre-
sent is a common fear. They may not agree on any positive goals,
but both the Soviet bloc and the Free World have at least one
interest in common: that neither side can be interested in an
all-out war. In the past, the greater the revolutionary schism,
the more protracted and violent the resulting war as is demon-
strated both by the Thirty Year's War and the wars of the French
Revolution. Wars have almost inevitably accompanied revolution-
ary periods because either the revolutionary Power hoped that it
might reshape reality to accord with its notion of justice or
else the Powers which represented legitimacy and the status quo
thought that they might put an end to the prevailing insecurity
once and for all. Wars occured in a sense because of faulty
intelligence, because with conventional technology it was never
possible to calculate the relation of forces precisely, and be-
cause both sides could expect that the victor would retain suf-
ficient resources to impose his will.

But in the face of the horrors of nuclear warfare, it does
not require special precision of calculation to determine the
consequences of all-out war. Despite the strenuous Soviet ef-
forts to define their risks as smaller than those of their opon-
nents, it would take an extraordinary degree of fanaticism to be-
lieve that all-out war could be used to achieve any positive

I believe there is more repetition in this chapter than is necessary or desirable.

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goals. For an aggressor can hope to break the resistance of
his opponent by a sudden onslaught only in very special circum-
stances. Unless a surprise attack eliminates the retaliatory
force itself, it will not be able to prevent a devastating counter-
blow even if it should inflict catastrophic losses on the
enemy society. For a well-organized retaliatory force should be
able to launch its counter-attack mechanically and before the
demoralizing effect of a surprise attack can make itself felt.

All-out war therefore ceases to be a rational instrument
of policy. It would be likely only if one side felt strong
enough to eliminate the other's retaliatory force, ~~2 To prevent~~
this contingency can be avoided only by a wise military policy
and not by diplomacy. Another possibility is that result from
~~of~~ a miscalculation or a misunderstanding. A miscalculation
could be produced by the belief of the Soviets that they were
free to conduct operations of limited objectives with impunity.
And if an misunderstanding could arise, then a mistake may
be made. If the Soviets act as a prelude to all-out
war, and react accordingly, these are the only kinds of all-out
war it is in the power of our diplomacy to avoid, by conveying
our intentions to the Soviets as unambiguously as possible, and
by making clear what we understand by limited war.

To state the task is easier than to accomplish it. To be
sure, as long as our retaliatory force is adequate, both sides
have every interest in avoiding all-out war. But the same factors
which make it difficult to settle disputes will also inhibit

[y]

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the acceptance of a framework of war limitation. The same suspicions which cause our arguments to lack persuasion in diplomatic conferences may lead the Soviets to mistrust a declaration of our intentions with respect to military strategy. Nevertheless, the interest to avoid an all-out war is so overwhelming that it should provide a strong incentive at least to explore the possibility of limiting war. And the catastrophe of thermonuclear bombardment of cities is so frightful that the other side may be sorely tempted to test the sincerity of American professions. If diplomacy cannot give effect to the one interest both sides have unquestionably in common, it is futile to ask of it to settle the more fundamental issues of ideological conflict and revolutionary upheaval.

## II

It is unfortunate that the major emphasis in the negotiations regarding nuclear weapons has been on problems of disarmament. It is unfortunate not because the effort to eliminate war by reducing the level of armaments lacks merit but because it may address itself to the most insoluble problems. Instead of bridging the gap between strategy and diplomacy it reinforces it. Strategy remains the province of the military; disarmament becomes the task of diplomacy with neither able to reinforce the other. Until complete disarmament is in fact achieved, military planning cannot take it into account because the rate of change of technology is more rapid than that pace of diplomatic negotiations. Stockpiles of weapons have usually accumulated before the

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negotiators can even agree on the precise nature of their problem. In the process, the predominant concern with disarmament may prevent the achievement of goals which are possible: a general understanding regarding some principles of war limitation which may not avoid war, but which may be a factor in mitigating its horrors.

Disarmament negotiations have taken two forms: attempts to reduce the level of armaments or to eliminate the most destructive weapons from the arsenals of the Powers, and schemes of control and inspection to supervise whatever agreements might be reached on the first point. In the later stages of disarmament negotiations, control and inspection schemes have played a prominent role even in the absence of any agreement regarding the reduction of forces. It has been assumed that any system of control that reduced the possibility of surprise attack would also ease international tensions.

The notion that armaments are the cause and not the reflection of conflict is not new. It has been the basis of schemes of disarmament plans throughout history; it was the rationale for all the disarmament conferences in the Twenties and Thirties. Nevertheless it is open to serious doubt. The level of armaments has been lowest in periods which have been least vocal about the problem of disarmament; it has been highest during periods when disarmament has been most implicitly the focus of diplomatic negotiations. This is no accident. The level of armament of a Power reflects the extent to which it believes its vital interests

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or its survival to be in danger. If the contested issues seem peripheral, if in other words, the question of survival is not involved in every dispute, the Powers will not feel the need for maximum vigilance. But in an international order, the components of which feel on the brink of catastrophe, a constantly rising level of armaments is inevitable. In the absence of an agreement on the legitimacy of the international order, safety can be found only in the maximum development of strength. Between the Congress of Vienna and the unification of Germany, the standing armies of the major Powers were very small, because none of the outstanding disputes involved -- or was thought to involve -- a matter of life and death. After 1871 there started an armaments race (i) which has not been ended to this day. Between the unification of Germany and World War 1, Europe was torn by two schisms which to the Powers concerned seemed to involve "vital" interests; that between France and Germany over Alsace-Lorraine and that between the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Russia over the fate of the Balkans. After the first World War, the rebellion of Germany and the U.S.S.R. against the Treaty of Versailles and the rise of the dictatorships created a climate of insecurity which doomed all disarmament efforts to futility. And after the second World War the intransigence of the Soviet bloc forced the Free World to restore a measure of its strength even after it had disarmed unilaterally almost to the point of impotence.

There is little indication therefore that the level of

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armaments itself produces tension. Great Britain has a strategic airforce and a nuclear stockpile capable of inflicting serious, although perhaps not fatal, damage on the United States. But this fact has caused no uneasiness in the United States and no increase in our defense effort. Conversely Great Britain did not seek to prevent the development by the United States of a navy of a size which it had fought innumerable wars to keep out of the hands of a continental Power. This was because the "vital interests" of both Powers are in sufficient harmony so that they can have a large measure of confidence in each other's intentions; they can afford to stand by in the face of the development of a weapons system capable of imperiling their security and perhaps even their survival because they know that this capability will not be used. To be sure, the degree of confidence between the United States and Great Britain is exceptional.

More usually, Powers are conscious of some clashing "vital interests" and as a result an increase in the level of armaments of any one major Power may set in motion the vicious circle. It operates as a warning that henceforth the willingness to run risks will be greater. The other Powers can escape the pressure only by making concessions, (a dangerous course, for it may whet appetites and establish a method for settling future disputes) or else they are obliged to enter the armaments race themselves.

But while it is easy to see the vicious circle of an armament race, it is not clear that general disarmament is a peaceful remedy. In a sense, the call for universal disarmament is the

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most obvious example of the kind of total diplomacy described earlier. For it demands that diplomacy remove ~~by negotiations~~ the consequences of disputes it has not been able to solve ~~directly~~.

If the disagreements between the two blocs had been tractable, the armaments race would never have started. Since negotiations on specific issues have proved unavailing, it is improbable that a general disarmament scheme acceptable to all parties can be negotiated. A general disarmament scheme to be successful must deprive each party of the ability to inflict a catastrophic blow on the other ~~or at least it must not give either side an additional advantage.~~ But such a relationship is almost impossible to negotiate on an over-all basis. For the same mistrust which produced the armaments race will inhibit confidence in any agreement that may be negotiated and it will color the proposals which may be advanced. ~~Each side will seek to deprive the other of the capability it fears most (as a prelude to negotiations) while keeping its most effective weapon under its control until the last moment.~~ Thus, the phasing of disarmament has proved almost as difficult a matter to negotiate as the manner of it. ~~Thus~~ during our atomic monopoly the Soviets insisted that the outlawing of nuclear weapons ~~precede~~ any negotiations on disarmament, while we in turn refused to discuss surrendering our atomic stockpile until ~~an air-tight control machinery had first been put into operation.~~ With the growth of the Soviet nuclear stockpile both sides have continued to strive to neutralize the other's strongest weapon. The Soviet Union has attempted to expel our troops and particularly

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our airbases from Eurasia; we have striven for means to neutralize
the Soviet ground strength. Each side wishes to protect itself
against the consequences of the other's bad faith; each side, in
short, brings to the negotiations the precise attitude which caused
the armaments race in the first place.

There are, moreover, reasons inherent in the structure of
international relations and in the state of technology why a
reduction of forces cannot go beyond a certain point. None of the
major powers -- certainly or at least not the U.S.S.R. -- would accept a
reduction of their relative position vis-a-vis the secondary Powers.
Nothing will induce the U.S.S.R. to accept a force level which
would reduce its ability to control the satellites or to play a
major role in contiguous areas such as the Middle East. But forces
sufficient to accomplish this task are also sufficient to imperil all the peripheral Powers of Eurasia. A reduction of forces
which did not affect the relative Soviet position vis-a-vis the
secondary Powers would not diminish the basic security problem of
the non-Soviet world.

On the technical plane, a reduction of forces seeks to compare incommensurables: what is the relation between the Soviet ability to Eurasia and American missile ships with 1500 mile range which, within a decade at most, will be able to bring most of the U.S.S.R. under attack? If the United States weakened its Strategic Air Command, it would take years to reconstitute it; it the Soviets cut their ground-forces, the strategic impact would

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be much smaller and, given the military structure of Soviet society, they could be reasshold in a matter of weeks. A substantial reduction of Soviet forces would not eliminate the *Allies' awareness* of the other Powers of the availability of large reserves of trained and rapidly mobilizable manpower. That such thoughts were not far from Soviet minds is shown by Zhukov's speech to the 20th Party Congress in 1956 explaining the Soviet arms reduction:

> "As a result of the reduction of the armed forces, a certain proportion of the draft group will not enter the forces. We must take steps to see that the young people who are released from the draft will receive, even outside the Army, the military training necessary to fulfill their duty to defend their homeland." In such an atmosphere, a reduction in forces would not contribute a great deal to the lessening of tensions. Even should a scale of comparison of different weapons systems be negotiable among Powers which have been unable to agree on much less complicated issues, it would still not remove the real security problem: the uncertainty of each side about the other's intentions and the fact that the potential strength of a Power exerts pressure on its neighbors even at relatively low levels of armaments. Moreover, disarmaments negotiations based on categories of thought of the Twenties and Thirties miss the essential transformation that given the power of modern weapons, the reduction of forces in the category of retaliatory striking power would have to be almost total

(1) Current Digest Volume VIII, No. 10 (Speech by Zhukov)

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before the capability of inflicting a devastating blow would be impaired. Finally, disarmament plans of the past were based on the assumption of a stable weapons technology. The reduction of forces sought to be achieved at least had the merit that once it was implemented strategic relationships would remain constant. But under present conditions the real armaments race is in the laboratories. No reduction of forces, however scrupulously carried out, could protect the powers against a technological breakthrough. Even were strategic striking forces kept at fixed levels and rigidly controlled, an advance in air-defense sufficient to contain the opposing retaliatory force would upset the strategic balance completely. The knowledge by each power that the others were working on even more fearful means of destruction or on means of attacking with impunity would cause current international relations to be carried on in an atmosphere of tenseness and imminent catastrophe whatever agreements might be concluded about reduction of forces.

Section II is good & gets better as it goes along.
Some jargon has crept in, though!

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### III

It is precisely because reduction of forces has proved so illusory and its rewards so questionable even if achieved, that the major emphasis of disarmament efforts has turned to the problems of inspection and control and to the prevention of surprise attack. However, since the Soviet domestic apparatus is difficult to maintain in the face of the only control system which would reassure the West every inspection scheme that has proved acceptable to the Free World has proved objectionable to the U.S.S.R. Conversely, the difficulty of access to the Soviet bloc and its fetish for secrecy has caused the Free World to insist on what has come to be called a "foolproof" inspection system which in turn tended to confirm Soviet suspicions. As a result the negotiations about control and inspection have exhibited the same vicious circle revealed by the efforts to bring about a reduction in armaments; were it possible to agree on an inspection and control mechanism, it would also be possible to settle some of the disputes which gave rise to existing tensions. As long as specific issues prove obdurate, there is little hope in an over-all control plan.

In addition to the psychological and political problems, the technological race makes it difficult to negotiate a control plan. For the rate of change of technology has outstripped the pace of diplomatic negotiations so that control plans change their meaning even while they are being debated. The idea behind the control and inspection scheme of the first U.S. disarmament proposal (the Baruch Plan) was that inspection would serve as a corollary to a reduction of armaments. It was assumed that an international authority with adequate powers of inspection and in control of mining, processing and producing fissionable materials would be able to eliminate nuclear weapons from the arsenals of the Powers. In fact,

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the United States' contribution to the Baruch plan was to be the destruction
of our nuclear stockpile as the last stage of the process of disarmament.
To be sure, even this scheme would not have been "foolproof." Within
the United States Atomic Energy program, with every incentive to achieve
an accurate accounting and no motive for evasion, the normal "slippage"
in the handling of fissionable materials due to error and mechanical problems
of handling is about 2). A nation determined on evasion could easily
multiply this percentage without being in obvious violation of international
agreements or it could improve its own accounting methods and utilize the
"saved" slippage slowly to build up a nuclear stockpile of its own. And
their knowledge of this possibility would in turn give other Powers an
incentive for evasion.

Nevertheless, at the early stages of the atomic energy program, the
stockpiles were still so small and the possibility of building them up to
substantial proportions through evasion relatively so negligible that an
inspection program would have contributed materially to reducing the danger
of nuclear war. Any Power determined to conduct nuclear war would have had
to break existing agreements flagrantly and thereby bring down on itself
either the international enforcement machinery or the unilateral action
of the United States. But in the age of nuclear plenty the control machinery
envisaged by the Baruch plan -- whatever its utility for other purposes --
would be futile as a means to reduce the danger of nuclear war. So many
nuclear weapons have been produced of so many different sizes and they are
so easy to conceal that not even the most elaborate inspection machinery
could account for all of them. Thus every Power would seek to keep back
2/ Gordon Dean, Report on the Atom (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1953), p.

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part of its stockpile to protect itself against the possibility that its opponent might do so. As a result, a control machinery is futil to prevent the use of nuclear weapons at this stage of their development, even assuming the desirability of doing so.

And so it is with each new technological discovery. In the very early stages of its development, a scrupulous control system might forestall its addition to the strategic arsenal. But by the time disarmament negotiations have run their tortuous course, the weapon will have become so sophisticated and the production of it will have reached such proportions that any control machinery may magnify rather than reduce the existing insecurity; it would compound the present fear of surprise attack by concern about the violation of the agreement by the other side.

Moreover, the inconclusiveness of negotiations about control machinery reflects not only the prevailing distrust but the inherent complexity of the problem. It is one thing to prevent a stockpile from developing, it is quite another to control it once it has come into existence, and it is even more difficult to eliminate it. Since scientific growth is exponential, it is next to impossible to define a meaningful point to "cut off" weapons developments. At the beginning of the atomic age, a strict inspection system might have succeeded in stopping the elaboration of nuclear weapons. By 1952, it might still have been possible to "control" the development of thermo-nuclear weapons, albeit with great difficulty. For the hydrogen bomb developed so naturally out of research and production of nuclear weapons that a foolproof inspection system would have been infinitely complicated. In any case, by 1957, the production of thermo-nuclear devices had so far outstripped any possible control machinery that the emphasis of disarmament negotiations

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at the Geneva summit conference to exchange military blueprints with the
Soviet Union and to permit aerial reconnaissance of each other's territories.
The principle that inspection may prevent surprise attack has been accepted
in the Soviet counterproposal for stationing ground observers at strategic
points in the territory of the other nation.

It cannot be denied that the danger of surprise attack contributes
to the tensions of the nuclear age even if it does not cause them. It
is less clear, however, that the uncertainty about the opponent's intentions,
implicit in all inspection schemes, would be significantly reduced by
inspection; or that the inspection schemes, even if implemented, would add
a great deal to existing warning methods and intelligence information.
It is doubtful whether inspection systems either of ground observers or
of aerial reconnaissance or both would significantly reduce the element
of surprise either for all-out or for local war. Because it cannot afford
to be caught on the ground, a strategic striking force must be prepared
to attack from its training bases at a moment's notice. If properly prepared,
it should require no noticeable mobilization to launch its strike. Or to
put it another way, its "normal" peacetime patterns of action should be
as close as possible to its role in case of emergency. Any enemy should
not be able to tell whether a given flight is a training mission or a
surprise attack until its early warning line is crossed. To be sure,
the Soviet Long Range Air Force has not yet reached this point. Because
it probably does not possess a capability for aerial refueling, it would
have to stage its planes to advance bases on the Kola or Chukotski peninsulas. 3) A system of inspection would inform us of this move and it might
therefore increase our warning time. Nevertheless, the gain would only be

3/ See map, p.

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a relative one, because any substantial movement of the Soviet Long Range Air Force to advance bases could hardly escape high altitude detection or general intelligence surveillance even in the absence of inspection. And the next family of Soviet planes will be able to launch an attack on the United States (?) from their training bases.

Because of the greater range of our planes and the nature of our base system, the Soviets would gain very little either from ground inspection or from aerial surveillance. They know the location of most of our air-bases and since they will presumably strike the first blow in an all-out war, they are assured of maximum warning in any case. It can be argued, of course, that the U.S.S.R. may not evaluate the danger of a United States surprise attack so low and that it would therefore gain added security from an inspection system. But it is not clear what added assurance would be so achieved. Unless all planes are grounded all the time and both sides are certain that no substantial air-installations are hidden, there is no guarantee that planes on so-called training missions will not be used for a surprise attack. Even filing flight plans in advance will not eliminate this danger. Given the speed of modern planes, by the time inspectors realize a violation of a flight plan has occurred and can communicate this information to their home government, the planes will probably have reached the opposing early warning lines in any case. Moreover, if flight plans are cleverly arranged -- and every incentive would seem to exist for doing this -- it will be very difficult to discover whether a given flight is a move to advance bases or a prelude to an all-out attack. Nor is it clear

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what consequences would follow from a seeming violation of the
inspection procedure. Would any violation, however slight, call
for unleashing of the retaliatory force? It would seem unlikely
that any Power would be prepared to invoke so drastic a remedy.
But if it does not, the net result of even an effective delay
in the retaliatory blow until the
aggressor crosses the early warning line, which is precisely the
situation today.

Thus the maximum warning, achievable by inspection systems
is the interval between the time when planes leave their bases
and when they would have been detected by existing warning sys-
tems. With the present family of airplanes, an inspection sys-
tem at best would add perhaps three hours warning to the side
which is being attacked. The aggressor would gain no additional
warning time from an inspection system because he would, in any
case, alert his defenses before mounting his attack. To be sure,
three hours additional warning is not negligible; it may indeed
spell the difference between survival and catastrophe. But since
the victim of aggression is almost certain to be a status quo
Power having everything to gain from assuming its opponent's good
faith, it may have difficulty psychologically in utilizing this ad-
ditional warning effectively, because it will tend to ascribe the
violation to a technical breakdown to be removed by protests or
negotiation. Moreover, as the range of planes is extended, they
will be able to strike from training bases and it will become in-
creasingly difficult to interpret their movements correctly.

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As the speed of planes is increased, the warning time afforded by even a perfect inspection system, correctly interpreted, is progressively reduced. In the age of the Intercontinental Ballistic missile -- in less than ten years -- the maximum warning time possible, assuming perfect communication between the inspector and the home government would be thirty minutes, because the missile would be in transit for only this period of time. In the age of the missile and theersonic bomber, even a foolproof inspection system will only tell the Powers what they already know: that the opponent possesses the capability of launching a devastating attack at a moment's notice and with a minimum of warning.

The proposals for inspection as a bar to surprise attack in fact reflect (the categories of thought) of a period when forces-in-being could not be decisive and above all when their power and speed were of a much lower order. As long as the forces-in-being were relatively cumbersome and needed to be concentrated before an attack could be launched, the warning afforded by an inspection system might have been strategically significant. As late as 1946, had the Baruch Plan been accepted, a nation determined on nuclear war would have had to wait several months or even years after a violation until its stockpiles had been built up to respectable levels. The existence of a control system in such conditions afforded all Powers a breathing spell. With the power and speed of current weapons, however, even an airtight inspection system would not supply such guarantees. When wars can be fought by

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the forces-in-being and when striking forces are designed to be
able to attack with no additional overt preparation, warning can
be attained under optimum conditions, only for the time the deli-
very vehicles, whether planes or missiles, are in transit. At
present this is a maximum of ten hours; a substantial proportion
of this is already under surveillance by existing warning methods.

The extreme readiness of the forces-in-being also reduces
the use of aerial reconnaissance. With the present family of
airplanes each enemy airbase would have to be photographed at
intervals more frequent than 10 hours in order to obtain any be-
nefit from overflights. If the reconnaissance occurs at longer
intervals, the early warning line will supply a better indication
of a surprise attack because an attack launched immediately after
an overflight would reach the Early Warning Line before the next
reconnaissance sortie discovered that the opposing retaliatory
force had left its base. As the speed of planes increases the
frequency of reconnaissance missions will also have to be increased
so that in practice reconnaissance planes to be effective would
probably have to hover over enemy airfileds almost constantly. And
in the missile age aerial reconnaissance would be fortunate if it
could discover launching sites. It would not be able to furnish
an indication of impending attack. It would therefore be diffi-
cult to think of a vigilance that could be reduced or an insecuri-
ty that would be removed by the inspection systems that have here-
tofore been proposed by either side or indeed by any inspection
system now in prospect. The machinery for inspection of the ali-

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-out war capacity would be so formidable and the benefits relatively so trivial that an inspection system may actually have pernicious consequences. It may give a misleading impression of security and therefore tempt us into relaxing our preparedness. More likely, given the prevailing distrust it would induce both sides to place their striking forces into an even greater state of readiness in order to compensate by the demonstration of its power for the loss of secrecy. Nor would inspection materially reduce the chances of local aggression. The Soviets would find it difficult even under present conditions to stage a significant build-up in any threatened area without it becoming known. To overemphasize the role of inspection as a bar to local war is to underrate the intelligence information already available. There is no major area in which the Soviets could launch a major blow without our learning of the build-up. Furthermore, it is not knowledge of an impending attack which deters or defeats it but the known capability and the willingness to resist. In the face of the strategy of ambiguity employed by the Kremlin, knowledge of troop concentrations has in the past not always given a clear indication of Soviet intentions, a difficulty compounded by the reluctance of the non-Soviet world to coming to grips with the dangers facing it. Thus during the week while Soviet troops were pouring into Hungary there was a great deal of speculation in the West that these movements were in fact a prelude to a Soviet withdrawal in order to save face or to guard the Soviet lines of communication. Moreover, as the armies of the major powers are being reorganized

for nuclear war they will develop many of the charac
of the strategic forces. They will be highly mobile and capable
of striking across considerable distances from their base areas.
with the proper doctrine and equipment, they should require a
minimum build-up to go into action. Thus in a limited war it
is doubtful whether an inspection system would supply substantial
additional warning.

This is not to say that inspections systems are not
without
value, for an indication
any utility. The very agreement to them may serve as a symbol
of peaceful intentions. But peaceful intentions could be con-
veyed as well in other ways, particularly through the settlement
of some of the disputes which have divided the Soviet bloc from
the Free World. Conversely, in the present climate of distrust,
an inspection system might do little more than add another ele-
ment of contention. Indeed, unless designed with extraordinary
care, a system of inspection may well make a tense situation even
more explosive. In view of the complexity of the strategy for
all-out war, the value of an inspection system depends not only
on the collection, but also on the interpretation of facts. Cor-
rect interpretation is all the more important because the only
meaningful reaction to the violation of an agreement is to launch
an immediate retaliatory strike. Negotiations and protests could
not begin to be effective before the enemy force has reached its
targets. It is therefore vital that an inspection system re-
duce rather than add to the danger of an all-out war produced
by a misunderstanding of the opponents' intentions. But the

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inspection systems so far advanced do not seem to meet this test. The information they produce is of necessity fragmentary; since no chance can be taken on an optimistic interpretation, any seeming violation must be dealt with as if it were a prelude to the worst contingency. Moreover, inspection is likely to run into most difficulties and evasions when it is most needed, when international tensions are at their height. Unless the protagonists are prepared to draw the full consequences from seeming violations, an inspection system may aid an aggressor by lulling its opponent. But to draw the full consequences on the basis of inevitably fragmentary and contradictory information, is both psychologically difficult for *status quo* Powers and it may well add to the tensioness of relationships. Inspection systems may yield collateral results to either side such as loosening up the Soviet control apparatus or giving a fuller picture of military installations; but they will do little to eliminate the underlying tension.

It is the technical complexity of inspection and its futility in the present climate of distrust which caused some thoughtful individuals, appalled at the prospect of nuclear war, to advocate world-government as the only solution. It is argued that as long as both sides possess thermo-nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them a vicious spiral of constantly growing insecurity and redoubled efforts of protection against surprise is inevitable. The only solution is the surrender of all strategic weapons to a world authority which would be the sole agency to possess heavy armaments and the means for delivering them. The Disarmament Executive should be composed of minor Powers which are not part of the East-West struggle.

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With such a preponderance of force it could then play the role of a world policeman and enforce a peace if necessary. The United Nations police force for Egypt was greeted in some quarters as the forerunner of such an international agency.

The idea of escaping the tensions of international relations by an analogy to domestic police powers has come up repeatedly in the past, and usually at periods when international tensions made it least realizable. It is true, as the advocates of the plan of world government contend, that the system of sovereign states is itself a cause of international tensions because a sovereign will can, in some sense (only be controlled ultimately) by superior force. As a result, any increase in strength of one Power forces all others to follow suit and a two-power world armed with thermo-nuclear weapons this must lead to an increasingly explosive situation. But it is hardly realistic to expect sovereign nations, whose failure to agree on issues of much less importance has brought about the armaments race, to be able to agree on giving up their sovereignty. History offers no example of sovereign states surrendering their sovereignty except to outside compulsion. To be sure the lessons of history are no less compelling than the unparalleled destructiveness of modern weapons. Still it is difficult to see any motive which could induce the Soviets to give up their thermo-nuclear stockpile to

4/ Thomas Knight Finletter, *Power and Policy*, (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1954) p.3924
Charles Bolte - *The Price of Peace* (Boston: The Beacon Press, 1956) pp. 68 ff.

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an international body. And the reaction of the United States
Congress will hardly be more hospitable.

The proposals for world government in its various forms
would therefore hardly warrant extensive consideration as offer-
ing even a negotiating basis in the foreseeable future were they
not such an excellent illustration of the prevailing notion that
the United Nations somehow has a reality beyond that of the
Powers comprising it. It is a symptom of our legalistic bias
that so many consider a legal entity, the United Nations as an
real entity which somehow transcends the collective will of its
members. For as long as the United Nations is composed of sove-
reign states, it will reflect the precise rivalries that animate
those Powers outside it. To be sure, the United Nations offers
a convenient forum for the settlement of disputes, and it can
give symbolic expression to the consensus of world opinion on
the issues, where it can be marshalled. But the gap between the
symbolic acts of the United Nations and its willingness to run
substantive risks is inherent in its structure. For the dele-
gates represent not a popular constituency but sovereign govern-
ments and they vote not their convictions but the instructions
they receive. Thus the United Nations is dependent on the wil-
lingness to run risks of its component governments which differ
as we have seen, with different conceptions of the national
interest.⁵/ The United Nations police force came into being

5/ See above p.

[x]

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in Egypt because it involved no assumption of substantive risk. It would never have entered Egypt had not both parties to the dispute accepted it and had not both parties sought a device to liquidate military operations. The United Nations force did not cause the cessation of the attack; rather it ratified a decision already made. [It does not for this reason offer a particularly hopeful model for what will be the real security problem of our period: the growing Soviet power coupled with a refusal to yield to anything except superior force.]

The argument that a supra-national authority can resolve tensions which have proved intractable in direct negotiations, and that it could be entrusted with the exclusive custody of weapons capable of encompassing the destruction of humanity, reflects two related notions: that aggression is by its nature unambiguous and that weakness somehow guarantees responsibility and perhaps even superior morality. But in the nuclear age recognizing aggression has proved as complicated as resisting it. "ere a supra-national Disarmament Executive charged with enforcing the peace, to come it is predictable that its major problem would be to define a meaningful concept of aggression. Moreover, it would be difficult to find Powers clearly recognized as neutral to act as custodians of the thermo-nuclear stockpile or with sufficient technical competence to administer it, were they so recognized. Nor is it clear why a monopoly of power in the hands of states dependent for their equipment, their training and their facilities on the two super-Powers

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should offer a guarantee of stability. It is not at all obvious
that weakness guarantees responsibility or that Powers which
have difficulty playing a role in their own regions will be able
to judge global problems with subtlety and discrimination. And
this still overlooks the dilemmas of where to store the inter-
national stockpile of bombs, where to locate the bases of the
international air force -- all of which will become matters of
life-and-death to the nations of the world.

In short, there is no escaping from the responsibilities
of the thermo-nuclear age into a supra-national authority, for
if all its complicated problems could be negotiated, the sub-
stantive issues now dividing the world would be soluble too.
The quest for an international Disarmament Authority is in fact
the most absolute manifestation of total diplomacy; it is the
counterpart in diplomacy to a military policy of all-out war.
And it has the same pernicious consequences.

By leaving no room between total war and total peace
it may ensure that war, if it does come, will take the most
absolute

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IV

The almost exclusive concern with means to avoid war begins
with the most intractable element of the problems posed by nuclear
weapons. It requires the major atomic Powers to stake their survival
on the observance of an international agreement in an international
order where the breach of agreements has become commonplace and
containing a group of Powers, the Soviet bloc, the doctrine of which
explicitly rejects the observance of agreements if they do not
reflect a relation of forces. To ask the Soviets to accept the idea
of an indefinitely prolonged equilibrium is tantamount to asking
them to cease being Leninists in which case, in turn, international
relationships would automatically lose a great deal of their tenseness.

Disarmament negotiations may therefore create an illusion of
progress through the give-and-take of diplomatic interchange, ~~in which~~ positions have tended to approach each other only after they had been outstripped by technological developments, ~~that~~ *made those positions* after, in short, ~~they had become irrelevant, to the primary security concerns.~~ The *attempt to eliminate war through disarmament is the reverse side of the effort: to deter aggression through maximum retaliatory power and to defeat the enemy through the widest system of collective security.* Each of these measures is highly useful and desirable as long as ~~they succeed~~; the objection concerns not the goal, but the consequences of failure. For in each case the attempt to avoid

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war carries with it a fearful sanction: the more total the peace
sought, the more total the consequences of violating an agreement.
The policy of deterrence through maximum retaliatory power involves
the sanction of all-out thermo-nuclear war; a doctrine of world-wide
collective security involves the sanction of global war; and a system
of general disarmament has as its sanction a combination of these.
In this manner disarmament negotiations may assist the erosion of
the psychological framework to Soviet aggression: based as they are
on the correct assumption of the fearful horror of nuclear war, they
may become tools for paralyzing the will to resist aggression by
evoking the most fearful consequences of such a course. By means
of disarmament negotiations the Soviets can conduct atomic black-
mail in the guise of peace offensives and transform conferences
into fertile grounds for "ban the bomb" propaganda. Thus dis-
armament negotiations, as heretofore conceived, may cause war, if it
does come to take the most absolute form; in their quest for total
solutions they may prevent the achievement of intermediary goals
which are attainable.

And the possibility of war does not even have to assume bad
faith on the part of the major protagonists. The revolution taking
place in so many parts of the globe will provide its own impetus;
it will create its own tensions not necessarily sought by any of the
major Powers. The conflict over the Suez Canal was hardly foreseen

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by the Western Powers and perhaps not even by the Soviet Union.
And the Hungarian revolution came as a rude shock to the Kremlin.
Both instances resulted in military action which with the pre-
vailing strategic doctrines might easily have spread to become
all-out. And similar Soviet moves in East Germany or Poland would
be fraught with even more serious danger. In turn, the absence of
any generally understood limits to war undermines the psychological
framework of resistance. A gap is thus opened between the quest for
total peace and the military doctrine of total war within which the
Soviets can operate with relative impunity.

A diplomatic program looking towards eventual disarmament
should therefore have as one of its cardinal points a program to
mitigate the horrors of war. There has been a shrinking away
from advancing such plans, as if the admission that war may occur
could itself be a factor in bringing it on, or perhaps because of
lack of clarity about the possibilities of war limitation in the nuclear
age. But a disarmament plan based entirely on an attempt to avoid
war is hopelessly one-sided: it will put a premium on the conserva-
tism of military staffs because in the absence of an alternative
framework, they will have to base their plan on the worst contin-
gency which is all-out war. Because they give no indication of
intentions in case war does break out they increase the likelihood
that any war will spread to become all-out either because of mis-
calculation or because of a misinterpretation of the other side's
intentions.

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One of the most important tasks of disarmament negotiations should therefore be to establish a framework of war limitation. Because it would permit the translation of the agreement into military doctrine instead of considering disarmament a prelude to the end of military problems, a program to mitigate the horrors of war would have the advantage of focusing thinking on things to accomplish rather than those which should not be done. It would relate disarmament to strategy and thus bridge the gap between force and diplomacy. Above all, it could be used to clarify insofar as diplomacy is able, the intentions of the opposing sides and it may therefore prevent the catastrophe of an all-out war caused by miscalculation. Even a unilateral declaration of what we understand by limited war would accomplish a great deal because it may provide a sufficient incentive to the other side to test its feasibility. Finally, given the likelihood that any war which involves the two major blocs will be nuclear even if it should not be all-out, it will be imperative to establish in advance the psychological and political framework of such a conflict. Under present conditions, the sudden introduction of nuclear weapons might in a war/have devastating effects on world opinion or it might be each an all-out war.

It has been argued that the deliberate ambiguity of our present position, which refuses to define what we understand by

X-35

limited war, or under what circumstances we might fight it, is in
itself a deterrent because the enemy can never be certain that
military action on his part may not unleash all-out war. But
if we wish to pose the maximum deterrent, an explicit declaration
of massive retaliation would seem by far more advantageous. The
purpose of our ambiguity is to combine the advantage of two in-
compatible courses: to pose the threat of all-out war for purposes
of deterrence, but to keep open the possibility of a less cata-
strophic strategy should deterrence fail. If the ambiguity is to
serve any purpose, however, it may have precisely the contrary
effect; it may give rise to the notion that we do not intend to
resist at all and thus encourage aggression. Or it may cause an
aggressor to interpret resistance which we intend to localize as
a prelude to an all-out war. Instead of strengthening the deter-
rent and giving scope for a non-catastrophic strategy, the delibe-
rate ambiguity of our position may weaken the deterrent and bring
on the most catastrophic kind of war.

Moreover, a diplomatic program designed to convey our un-
derstanding of the nature of limited war to the other side may be
important because it is not certain that the Soviets have fully
analyzed all the options of the nuclear period. Insofar as the
repeated Soviet denials of the possibility of limited nuclear war
represent their real conviction and not simply a form of psycho-

x-36

logical warfare, an energetic diplomacy addressed to the problem of war limitation might be a substitute for lack of imagination on the part of the Soviet general staff.

Before we can convey our notion of war-limitation to the other side, however, we have to admit its possibility to ourselves and we have to be clear in our own mind about its nature. And at present no such clarity exists either among military or political leaders, among the leaders of our country. Our services, as we have seen, are operating on the basis of partially overlapping, partly inconsistent doctrines, some of which deny the possibility of limited war while others define it so variously that even from a strictly military point of view ... we can hardly be said to possess either the doctrine or the capability for limited war. The separation of our strategic doctrine from diplomacy, its notion that victory is an end in itself defined by rendering the enemy defenseless, approach to what Clausewitz considered the most abstract notion of war: a war in which there takes place an uninterrupted series of blows of ever increasing intensity, until the will of the enemy is broken.

Such a doctrine is inconsistent with a policy of war limitation. It is not only that limited war must find means to prevent the most extreme of violence; it must also find means to slow down

6. See above chapters through

X-37

the tempo of modern war lest the rapidity with which operations
succeed each other prevent the establishment of a relation between
political and military objectives, ~~without~~ which any war is likely
to grow by imperceptible stages into an all-out effort. The goal
of war can no longer be military victory strictly speaking, but a
~~The attainment of certain specific~~ precise series of political conditions which are fully understood
by the opponent. The purpose of a limited war is to inflict losses
or to pose risks for the enemy out of proportion to the objectives
under dispute. The more moderate the objective, the less violent
the cause of the war is likely to be. This does not mean that military
operations cannot go beyond the territory or objective in
dispute; indeed one way of increasing the enemy's willingness to
settle is to deprive him of something (a piece of territory or
an objective) he can regain only by making peace. But the (result)
of a limited war cannot depend on military considerations alone;
it reflects an ability to harmonize political and military objectives. A "purely" military decision in a limited war is
therefore a contradiction in terms.

A limited war between major Powers can remain limited only
if at some point one of the protagonists prefers a limited defeat
to an additional investment of resources or if both sides are
willing to settle for a stalemate in preference to an assumption of
continued risk. In either case, however, the protagonists retain

X-38

the **physical** ability to increase their investment. To the extent that both parties do so the war will gradually expand until one or both Powers reach the limit of their physical resources -- until the war has become total. To the extent that only one party is willing to run greater risks it gains an advantage. The ability to conduct a limited war therefore presupposes an understanding of the psychology by which the opponent's calculus of risks is determined and to present him at every point with an opportunity for settlement that appears more favorable than continuation of the war. Skill is therefore required not only in presenting physical, but also in presenting psychological challenges.

For this reason limited war cannot be conceived as a small all-out war with a series of uninterrupted blows prepared in secrecy until the opponent's will is broken. On the contrary, it is important to develop a concept of military operations conducted in phases which permit an assessment of the risks and possibilities for settlement at each stage before recourse is had to the next phase of operations. Paradoxical as it may seem in the jet age, strategic doctrine should address itself to the problem of slowing down if not the pace of military operations, at least the rapidity with which they succeed each other. Strategic doctrine must never lose sight of the fact that its purpose is to affect the will of the enemy, not to destroy him, that it can be limited only by presenting the enemy with an unfavorable calculus of risks and

X-39

this requires pauses for calculation. A concept of operations
should not lose sight of the fact that the speed of modern
weapons may have outstripped the capacity of the human mind to
recognize and evaluate the significance of events. It is this
pace in the sequence of operations, however rapid the maneuvers
in each stage. Each campaign should be conceived in a series of
self-contained phases, each of which implies a political objective
and with a sufficient interval between them to permit the application of political and psychological pressures.

Therefore, too, it will be necessary to give up the notion
that direct diplomatic contact ceases when military operations
begin. Rather direct contact is never more necessary to ensure
that both sides possess as much information as possible about
the consequences of expanding a war and to be able to present political formulae for a settlement. To the degree that diplomacy
presents alternatives to expanding a conflict it will inhibit
the decision to run greater risks. To the extent that military
operations can be conducted in stages so that a sequence of events
is approximately concluded before the next commitment is made, it
will give an opportunity for an evaluation of the circumstances
which make a settlement advisable and for the proper balancing
of political, psychological and military risks. Not the least
paradox of the nuclear age may be that contrary to traditional
notions, lack of secrecy may be a military weapon and that in a

X-40

period of the most advanced technology, battles will approach
the stylized contests of the feudal period which served as much
as a test of a will as a trial in strength.

If our military staffs could become clear about a doctrine
of limited war, we could then use the disarmament negotiations to
seek acceptance of it by the other side.
It would not be necessary that such a concept be embodied in an
international treaty or even that the Soviets formally adhere to
it. There should be no illusions, in fact, about the ease with
which the Soviets might be induced to forego the advantages of
atomic blackmail. The primary purpose of such a program would
be to convey our intentions to the Soviet bloc and to encourage
it to consider a limitation of war with its own military planning.
The incentive for Soviet co-operation in substance, if not in form,
must be self-interest; it can work only to the extent that our
military policy leaves no doubt that all-out war would mean disaster for the Soviet bloc. A program of arms limitation would
presuppose an adequate retaliatory capability: it would not
prevent every kind of all-out war; only those which develop from
miscalculations or a misunderstanding of the opponent's intentions.

It is difficult for anyone who does not possess all the
technical information to sketch a program of war limitation in
detail. It would seem however that many of the long cherished

7. For an excellent brief statement, see Sir Anthony Buzzard, P. M.S. Blackett, Denis Healey, and Richard Gould-Adams, *On Limiting Atomic War*, (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1956).

X-41

notion of traditional warfare will have to be modified or abandoned. One of the cardinal principles of air strategy is that the air is indivisible -- that wars can be won only by dominating the airspace completely. But any attempt to deprive an enemy of his retaliatory force would inevitably bring on all-out war, because a major Power without a retaliatory force is at the mercy of its opponent. Thus the minimum condition of war limitation will be the immunity of the opposing retaliatory forces. The advent of missiles will impose this limitation in any case because it will be technically impossible to destroy all enemy launching sites. Another concept which will have to be modified is the elimination of enemy communication and industrial centers which was meaningful only so long as the major movement of armies was by road or rail. As the importance of air transport including helicopters and vertical take-off aircraft increases to the point where it will become the chief source of movement of troops and supplies, the interdiction of communication centers loses much of its significance. Furthermore, in a war which will be largely fought by the forces-in-being, the destruction of industrial potential

8. Sir John Slessor, *Strategy for the West* (New York: Morrow, 1954), p. 105.

9. See above Chapter VI, p.

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10

will play a much smaller role. In turn as the targets grow smaller in size there will be less incentive to use the most powerful weapons whose primary utility is the destruction of large areas.

Thus it is possible to visualize limitations at least as to targets and to the size of weapons used. We might propose that neither bases of the opposing strategic airforces nor towns above a certain size would be attacked, provided these bases would not be used to support tactical operations and that the towns not contain military installations useful against (armed) forces. Such a proposal could be combined with the inspection schemes of the general disarmament schemes. Thus each side could be required to list its strategic airbases which would then be immune from attack. It would be helpful although not essential that inspectors be admitted to all these bases. No airbase within a stated distance of the battle zone, say five hundred miles, could purchase immunity by being declared strategic save by admitting inspectors who verified that it was not being used for tactical purposes. Again, all cities within the same distance of the battle zone would be immune from nuclear attack if they were declared "open" and admitted inspectors. An open city would be one which did not contain itself or within a radius of thirty miles from the center, any installations which could be used against military forces,

10. See above Chapter V, p.

X-43

such as airbases or missile launching sites. The term military installation should be liberally defined and not extended to industrial plants. Cities at a greater distance from the battle zone would be immune altogether. The inspectors could be a commission of neutrals; it would be preferable if they were experts of the other side because this would give their reports a much higher credibility. The inspectors would have their own communication system and would operate even during hostilities.

Such a program would have several advantages over inspection schemes designed only to prevent surprise attack. It would accomplish most of the goals sought by the general inspection scheme: it would afford warning, insofar as an inspection system is able, but in addition it would also serve as an instrument of war limitation. Such a program moreover would be self-policing. Each of the protagonists would have a powerful incentive to observe it, because the penalty would be the catastrophe of an all-out war. For this reason both sides would probably be eager and not reluctant to overlook occasional violations. The inspectors could serve as points of political contact and thus the mechanics of arms limitation might also bring about the possibility of a rapid settlement should the contenders desire it. And by relating disarmament negotiations to military strategy it would force the opposing staffs to consider options other than the stark alternative of total peace or total war.

X-44

The elimination of area targets will place an upper limit on the size of weapons it will be profitable to use. Since fall-out becomes a serious problem only in range of 500 kilotons and above, it could be proposed that no weapon larger than 500 kilotons will be employed unless the enemy uses it first. Concurrently the United States could take advantage of a new development which eliminates fall-out. The so-called "clean" bomb eliminates the last stage of the fission-fusion-fission process. Since fusion produces very little radioactivity, the fall-out is confined to the radioactivity of the trigger mechanism and this is not a serious problem. We could therefore propose that all weapons above 500 kilotons should be "clean" bombs, and this too would be self-policing, since any significant fall-out would indicate a violation.

11

It may be objected that such a procedure would in effect neutralize cities and seriously interfere with military operations. But the neutralization of cities is inherent in modern technology quite apart from any arms limitation schemes. It would seem to make little difference whether a city is neutralized by the presence of inspection teams or through the explosion of megaton weapons. As for impairing military operations, the handicap would be the same for both sides and the military will have to accept the fact that short of a thermo-nuclear holocaust, purely

11. See above Chapter IV, p.

X-45

military decisions are no longer possible. Other criticisms assert that a program of war limitation assumes a degree of human rationality for which history offers no warranty. But history offers no example for the extraordinary destructiveness of modern weapons either. A program that sought to establish some principles of war limitation in advance of hostilities would seem to make fewer demands on rationality than one which attempted to improvise the rules of war in the confusion of battle.

The United States should therefore shift the emphasis of disarmament negotiations from the technically almost impossible problem of preventing surprise attack to an effort to mitigate the horror of war. It should do so, moreover, in order to make a distinction between Soviet "ban the bomb" propaganda and disarmament. We should leave no doubt that any aggression by the Communist bloc may be resisted with nuclear weapons and we should create the framework for this, well in advance of any emergency. But while we should treat the use of nuclear weapons as not negotiable, we should make every effort to limit their effect and to spare the civilian population as much as possible. We could therefore announce that Soviet aggression would be resisted with nuclear weapons if necessary; that in resisting we would not use fission-fusion-fission weapons of more than 500 kilotons explosive power unless the enemy used them first; that we would

X-46

use "clean" bombs with minimal fall-out effects for any larger
explosive equivalent, unless the enemy violated the understanding;
that we would not attack the enemy retaliatory force or enemy
cities located more than a certain distance behind the battle
zone (say 500 miles); that within this zone we would not use
nuclear weapons against cities declared open and so verified by
inspection, the inspectors to remain in the battle zone even
during the course of military operations.

We would lose nothing even if we made such an announcement
unilaterally since our strategy for an all-out war is based in
any case on permitting the other side to strike the first blow.
In case of a local Soviet attack a program of war limitation
would have the advantage of having made clear our understanding
of limited war well in advance of hostilities. To be sure, it
is not likely that the Soviets will formally accept such a pro-
posal because the belief in the inevitable horror of nuclear war
is the condition of atomic blackmail. In order to undermine
the willingness of the non-Soviet world to resist, the Soviets have
every interest to paint the consequences of war in the most
drastic terms. But whatever the utility of the pronouncements
of impending doom, for paralyzing resistance, the Soviets would
face a considerable dilemma if we maintained our position even
in the face of a Soviet rejection. Whatever their distrust, they

X-47

would possess a powerful incentive to test our sincerity. If
the Soviets begin the war as an all-out surprise attack, the
same relation obtains heretofore and we could react by using
every weapon in our arsenal. If they begin it as a limited war,
it could be fought according to rules established well in ad-
vance. And the inspection system sketched here would serve a
dual purpose as a warning against surprise attack, as an instru-
ment of war limitation, and as a device to establish contact
with the opponent for a political settlement during the conduct
of operations.

The limitation of war proposal described here is impossible
however without the strategic doctrine described earlier or some
adaptation of it. It presupposes an ability to use force with
discrimination and to establish political goals in which the
question of national survival is not involved in every issue.
It also requires a public opinion which has been educated in
the realities of the nuclear age. A program of war limitation,
in short, cannot be used as a cheaper means of imposing uncon-
ditional surrender. Deep aerial penetrations of enemy terri-
tory will have to be foregone by both sides lest they unleash

12. See above, Chapter VI, p.

13. See above, Chapter VI, p.

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a retaliatory strike. The relationship of force to diplomacy is not to be established as a variation of all-out war. The possibility of total security has ended with our atomic mono-poly. Limited war and the diplomacy appropriate to it is a means to escape from the sterility of the quest for absolute peace, which in the face of a dedicated revolutionary Power paralyzes by the vagueness of its hopes, and for absolute victory, which in the face of the enormity of modern weapons paralyzes by the vastness of its consequences.

This is very persuasive. Potentially a splendid chapter, but needs a lot of polishing.

Maybe you don't want to get into it, but I should think you might mention that your proposals would have tremendous appeal to the uncommitted and would represent a propaganda victory of enormous dimensions unless U.S.D.R. agreed to limitations you suggest.