Can There be Peace Without Power?
Buckley, Senator James L.
14 The Alternative November, 1971 tion in our philosophy, we need not despair. America's departure from the singleminded pursuit of self-interest - - which our philosophy sanctions but which...
...And we must keep in mind that in the real world, no country can conduct an effective foreign policy without a military capability which is appropriate to its responsibilities...
...We simply cannot any longer afford the blind attacks on just about every program for military research or military procurement which continue to be made in the name of an overriding need to reorder our priorities...
...In the past we have succeeded" time and again - - witness, for example the Berlin and Cuban crises - - in causing the Soviets to back away from confrontations which might have ignited a Third World War precisely because we had the military power to back the positions we had to take...
...In short, Americans have never believed that history is composed of enveloping tides which nullify and mock man's efforts at voluntary action...
...I have never had a consuming interest in military affairs, but because of the responsibilities of my office and because of the growing evidence of America's rapidly 'deteriorating defenses, I have found it necessary to seek out the facts...
...One thing which ought to be clear is that we cannot hope for success if we hide from the cold realities of life, if we let ourselves be carried away by euphoria at every small concession...
...Under the circumstances, I cannot see how we can afford to delay any longer those measures within our capabilities which will assure some measure of protection to our major population centers...
...For an insight into what may be the Russian view, let us consider what might plausibly be the result of a hypothetical "first strike" attack by the Soviets on our strategic forces...
...What this means, quite simply, i s that we are rapidly approaching a point where no American President will be able to emerge from a~political confrontation with the Soviet Union with our foreign policy objectives intact, whether that confrontation takes place in the Middle East or Western Europe or even in the Caribbean...
...This is a duty we should rejoice in, and which we should hasten to dispatch, using the power with which we have been blessed...
...Now admittedly, there is no inherent virtue in maintaining extensive and costly military forces or in developing ~ncroasingly .mrJhi.~ticated weanons...
...Because in the words of Hanson W. Baldwin, "'For the United States...
...We wanted to permit no doubt as to the certainty and severity of our response in the event that an attack against us should be contemplated - - or made...
...The relentless Soviet strategic and naval build-up poses a serious threat not to just one, but to all three of the elements of our strategic deterrent - - ICBMs, bombers and Polaris-Poseidon...
...The justifiable preference for a nation involves a rational-endorsement of its justice...
...Therefore, the whole fabric of our defense policy has depended on our having sufficient strategic weapons survive any attack launched by an enemy to assure'ns the ability to deliver a retaliatory strike which would inflict unacceptable losses...
...If we assume arther that the Russians employ guidance systems equivalent to those zailable to us for our Minutemen II1 ,rod Poseidon missiles, then a "first strike" attack by their SS-9's could destroy on the ground or in port about ninety percent of our land based ICB's fifty percent of our aging B-52 bombers, and one-third of our Polaris submarines before we could even consider a retaliatory slrike...
...This doctrine, in brief, holds that our security is best maintained if we make certain that sufficient Russian and American missiles will survive any first attack to guarantee mutual suicide...
...This is what makes American citizenship an honor, a privilege and a joy, and enables one to be hopeful that America's power will continue to be a blessing...
...forces has been continually decreased, while the Soviets' destructive power has greatly increased until the total megatonnage that the Soviets could deliver against U.S...
...The hard fact is that if we are not to be pushed into a whole new buiM-up of strategic offensive weapons, then we must give our most urgent attention to two priorities: (1) The protection of our deterrent forces, (2) The achievement of an arms control agreement on offensive and defensive nuclear systems that will stabilize the strategic balance and not upset it further in Moscow's favor...
...We have deliberately sought a defensive, deterrent, secondstrike posture - - relying on a protected nuclear capacity to launch an overwhelming retaliatory strike against a nuclear aggressor...
...But as a result of the persistent cuts in research and procurement which have been imposed on our military in recent years, it is no longer at all certain that the United States will continue to have the capability of meeting these objectives in the future...
...This adverse shift in the strategic equation can hardly help having farreaching effects upon world politics...
...Happily, Americans can give - - and, indeed, owe - - thehown nation such an endorsement...
...The conventional wisdom states that any development of nuclear warheads beyond a certain point, whether by the United States or the Soviet Union, is simply superfluous - - the disparity in warhe...
...These are responsibilities which we did not seek, but which we cannot escape as the only free world power capable of facing up to the Russian challenge...
...It is the option of men open to fresh evidence, and still capable of new departures...
...Let me illustrate the significance of these developments by focusing on one area in which it is generally conceded that the West has strategic interests of critical importance...
...We have built a mix of strategic forces - - land-based and scabased - - so that the exposure of any one element to neutralization or destruction wouM not negate the entire deterrent...
...strategic philosophy which dominated our planning during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, and which still limits the options available to the Nixon administration...
...This fundamental principle ought to be as self-evident today as it ever has been in the past...
...American policy, therefore, has sought to assure Israel of the weapons required for her defense against her Arab neighbors, while at the same time we have sought to dissuade the Russians from the kind of adventurism which might escalate Arab-Israeli hostilities into an American-Soviet confrontation...
...If present trends continue the Soviets will achieve a preponderance of strategic power that will leave our security impaired by doubt and uncertainty and our friends and allies exposed and vulnerable...
...Our deterrent force is only as persuasive as its ability to survive a first strike in sufficient numbers, and to respond effectively...
...But this would tie our defensive hand while permitting Moscow to continue deploying mammoth offensive missiles - - the very weapons that could be aimed at destroying our capacity to strike back...
...the eleventh hour is here...
...The A l t e r n a t i v e November, 1971 15 Since 1965, the Soviet Union has launched and sustained a truly extraordinary drive to increase and modernize every sector of her strategic and conventional forces...
...The only strategic area in which we are staying ahead is in the number of individual warheads, and we are doing that only by going to small-yieM multiples...
...In 1966 we had more than 700 long-range bombers, about 600 submarine launched ballistic-missiles, and more than 900 Minuteman intercontinental ballisticmissiles...
...In a sensible, rational, truly peaceseeking world, we could have high hopes for the success of these discussions, and the optimist in me believes that such success may in fact be possible, but only if the Soviets are satisfied that we will not deal away our strength in exchange for unenforceable promises...
...Two Years of SALT There are many, of course, who are pinning their hopes on the strategic . . . . . . ,mitation Ireaty negotiations which are now taking place between the United States and the Soviet Union...
...This side of paradise, national distinctions are important, and there are sound reasons for preferring some nations over others...
...Since 1964, they have been deploying ballistic missile defenses around their major ~opulation center, Moscow...
...This would give their SS-9's the present capacity to deliver betwen 900 and 1800 warheads, each capable of attacking and destroying one of our Minutemen ICBM's...
...Today the United States bomber force is less than 600, our sub-lannched missiles have numbered 656 for four years, and our land-based missiles have totaled 1054 for four years...
...If our compulsive antimilitarism is not soon brouth to heel, we will find that American foreign policy objectives will have become irrelevant because we will be without the means of implementing them...
...Thus, as a result of this involuted reasoning, it became the official policy of McNamara's defense department to make certain that our citizens were exposed to maximum danger...
...Most Americans believe that the military balance leans heavily in our favor, and that in strategic nuclear weapons we have unchallenged supremacy...
...Both i t and Senator Jackson's subsequent speech are significant manifestations of an increasing apprehension over AmeriCa's Capability to insure world peace...
...This is what has been called the balance of terror...
...The growing obsolescence of its combat vessels, the abandonment of NATO bases along North Africa, the rapid expansion of modern Soviet naval forces in the Mediterranean, and the deployment of Soviet fighter, bomber and reconnaissance squadrons at air bases in Egypt, L~ya and Algeria are reducing to the vanishing point the effectiveness of the Sixth Fleet as an instrument of American policy...
...She has been able to avert, in other words, a crisis of the kind which might have triggered a third world war...
...For such nations, there can be no peace unless they have the power and the will to defend.it...
...It has therefore been with deep concern that I have found my investigation confirming those recently published stories which ~onclude that we will soon find ourselves in a position where our deterent capacity will no longer be sufficiently plausible to cause the Soviet Union to back away from future confrontations involving interests vital to the West...
...If present trends continue there will be an increasing risk of miscalculation of the sort that could result in w a r . Facing this prospect, the prime question is: What should the United States do about it...
...But the capacity of our strategic force to survive is now coming into question...
...This requires that each side maintain the vulnerability o f its respective populations to nuclear annihilation...
...Thus while the Soviets are gaining and will soon exceed us in missile weaponry at sea, we have already fallen distinctly behind them on land...
...The Balance of Terror While the effectiveness of our foreign policy has ultimately rested on our power to unleash nuclear devastation on any enemy, it has long been an accepted fact at home and abroad that it is unthinkable that the United States should ever initiate an atomic strike...
...and unless we are able to develop and deliver to Israel weapons which can challenge those which the Soviets can provide to the Arab states, we will find our Mideast options foreclosed...
...Caught in all the current cross-fire about "hawks" and "doves," too many politicians are acquiring the protective habits of the ostrich...
...16 The A l t e r n a t i v e November, 1971 The Soviet Union, for example, has recently introduced the MIG-23 Foxhat into Egypt's already formidable arsenal...
...If we assume that Russia's production line technology is equal to our own - - and we must - - then the existing three hundred Soviet SS-9's could each be equipped with between three and six independently targeted warheads, having a yield of from two to five megatons each...
...and to the extent that nuclear warfare becomes unthhflmble, to that extent must we make certain that we maintain the conventional strength essential to our needs...
...Because the simple, quite inescapable fact is that unless action is taken to modernize and reinforce the Sixth Fleet...
...For us to continue to fall behind in this critical area is to invite a technological Pearl Harbor...
...For more than two decades a central objective of American defense policy has been to prevent a noclear warby deterring any potential adversary from launching a first strike against us...
...We simply cannot afford any longer to ignore the fact that the Soviet Union is currently spending three billion dollars per year more than we are on military ~ space R & D, and that she is expanding these expenditures at the rate of thirteen percent per annum while ours have been declining...
...And further, we must devote a significant portion of this research to developing ways of reducing United States vulnerability to strategic attack...
...And the facts that I have been able to determine and their implications are so very serious that I feel I must do what I can to contribute to a better public understanding of what is at stake...
...During this time the Soviet bomber force has remained about constant, but their submarine missile force has grown to almost 400 launchers and is expected to overtake ours in two to three years...
...representing merely an "overknl" capacity...
...Assuming such an attack, the Soviets would have left over sufficient forcesin-being to pose a continuing threat to our remaining strategic forces and to our cities...
...The Strategic Balance And The Future of Freedom Senator Henry M. Jackson The following is a speech by Senator Henry M. Jackson, a member oi the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, explaining~ his concern over America's weakening defense capability...
...Theirs is a nation which, when properly responsive to all aspects of its animating philosophies, can bring sober Madisonian sophistication to the promotion of noble Jeffersonian ideals...
...To counter the dangerous shift in the strategic balance we require first a forthright and unvarnished assessment of some unpalatable military and political facts...
...And as I mentioned earlier, the Russians have expanded their offensive capabilities far beyond the limits required by a philosophy of "assured destruction...
...Our failure to,deploy defensive ballistic missiles around our major centers of population has resulted in the grotesque implication that U.S...
...Because of the attrition caused by inflation, these cutbacks have been far more severe than would appear on the basis of dollar figures alone...
...However much one cherishes the notion of a common humanity, the fact is that humanity is divided into nations which behave very differently from one another...
...We would, as of the present, still have the suicidal capacity to inflict devastation on those Russian cities not protected by ABM ystems, but this remaining deterence could soon be taken from us by an expansion of Russia's ABM defenses...
...Another Pearl Harbor...
...policy prefers dead Russians to live Americans...
...And these nations embody conflicting interpretations of justice...
...Yet it is typical of the blinders worn by so many in and out of the Congress today that there are active attempts to scuttle the F-14 Tomcat which is the only aircraft competitive with the Foxbat which we are in a position to deliver to the Navy at a reasonably early date...
...America's departure from the singleminded pursuit of self-interest - - which our philosophy sanctions but which is unsatisfying - - is the option of free men with free minds...
...Specifically, we must capitalize on the promisin~ advances which have been made in the once maligned Safeguard program, advances which indicate that major gains in effectiveness can be achieved within the next several years...
...The Soviets simply could not risk a test of strength...
...Can There Be Peace Without Power...
...It is a lesson which we will forget at our mortal peril, Military forces are not a luxury but a necessity...
...But this is a prescription for heating up the costly, offensive arms competition, not cooling it down...
...The following speech by Senator James L. Buckley was delivered at the National Press Club...
...Thus new elements of risk and turbulence will be introduced into international relations, enhancing the dangers in crisis situations...
...Poverty in Preparedness Our strategic posture, of course, is only part of the story...
...As a result we are not only falling critically behind in the necessary business of military research and development, but we have allowed our existing forces to deteriorate to a point where the ability of the President of the United States to assure the defense of vital national interests may be in jeopardy...
...Yet the adequacy or inadequacy of a nation's defenses is not determined by considerations of domestic priorities, but by the power relationships within which it must operate...
...and this system, which is constantly being improved, now offers some measure of protection for fifteen percent of the Soviet population...
...To the latter end, we have relied on the United States Sixth Fleet to provide the credible threat required to deter the Soviets from any temptation to intervene on the side of the Arabs in an all-out attempt at a military conquest of Israel...
...Now the trouble with this doctrine is that the Russians have evidently refused to play the game in accordance with the McNamara rules...
...In simpler times, when it was somehow easier to maintain touch with reality than it is today, it was understood that the first priority of any society was to provide for its own survival...
...What is at stake is not our manifest destiny but out mamte~t uuty to use our great power on behalf of those principles we believe in...
...These same figures have forced us, over the same eight-year period, to reduce the number of our Navy carrier wings from twenty:four to fifteen, the number of our tactical Air Force squadrons from 119 to 105, and to reduce by almost thirty percent the number-.of our active naval vessels, from 932 vessels to 658...
...By way of illustration, because of inflation and because payroll costs have risen from forty percent of the defense budget for fiscal 1964 to sixty percent of the defense budget submitted for fiscal 1972, in the coming year we will be purchasing forty percent less in military research and hardware than we did eight years ago before we became actively involved in the Vietnam war...
...And this of course applies to the primary aircraft utilized by the Sixth Fleet for its own defense and for suppo~,t of ground operations...
...This buildup so far exceeds any plausible requirement for a policy of deterrence that we can only conclude that the Soviet Union has developed this extraordinary capacity for use in support of her own diplomacy, a diplomacy whose historic goals have always been aggressive...
...I suggest, however, that there is no evidence whatever that the Russians buy this analysis...
...And the Soviet land-based-intercontinental force has risen to over 1440 operational launchers - - with more on the way...
...But here again, while we have allowed our position to deteriorate, the Soviets have been overtaking us with astonishing determination and speed, with consequences which are far from academic...
...Yet for some time now we have been on an anti-military binge which has forced drastic cutbacks in large categories of defense spending which are essential to our security...
...A more confident Soviet Union can be expected to throw its weight around more vigorously on behalf of its great power interests, and to raise its bargaining price at the negotiating table...
...No nation with peaceful intentions requires or can justify a defense establishment which is larger than that which is necessary to meet the nef of her own security...
...Men have logic, and the capacity to control the power...
...Even some opponents of our protective defense systems - - like the ABM - - suggest a better alternative is more offensive systems - - like Minuteman or ULMS...
...The Eleventh Hour I take no pleasure in reciting these figures...
...Hence, one cannot rationally desire the dissolution of national distinctions and the arrival of homogeneous mankind until one is certain whmh interpretation of justice will prevail in the end...
...This, of course, suggests the need for a major shift in the U.S...
...this same period the actual destructive power of the U.S...
...In the past, the United States has been able to achieve these twin objectives, and as a result she has helped to keep the Middle East from blowing apart...
...In accord with this policy we have foresworn development of a capacity to wage preemptive war...
...I speak of the theory known as "assured destruction...
...So long as we live in a world in which some nations feel a compulsion to dominate others, we have no choice but to maintain those levels of defense which are essential to our survival...
...Happily, Americans no longer worry about their manifest destiny...
...I would like to talk about the urgent need to re-reorder our priorities...
...It will be irrelevant that the United States is committed to the survival of the State of Israel, or that the United States opposes a Russian hegemony in the Middle East, because in a showdown the United States will have no choice but to back down...
...I speak of the Middle East...
...Unfortunately what was once true is no longer so...
...This was the lesson of the first and second world wars...
...But while the maintenance of such a balance might avert the horror of an atomic holocaust, it does nothing to eliminate recourse to more conventional forms of warfare...
...Because of the extreme danger to the interests and security of the West which posed by Soviet expansionism in the Middle East, and because Israel sits athwart Soviet ambitions, we have had a special interest in Israel's continuing independence...
...I believe the American people today are confident that the United States is overwhelmingly superior in military power...
...I speak of the F-4 Phantom which until recently the Israelis had also counted upon to maintain their air superiority...
...American's know very well - - from experience - - that they make their own history...
...This remaining capacity would include over 900 SS-11's, over 400 submarine launched ballistic missiles and nearly 200 bombers...
...Nor need they now believe the derivative doctrines of so-called "'realists" that purports to show, in the fashionable formulation that "power has its own logic...
...Our military might, in other words, has been the critical factor in our ability t o maintain the tenuous peace which by ,~ad la~g~ 1~,,~ exit, ted since the end of the Second World War...
...the alternative is available for classroom use by faculty members and teaching associates, bulk rates are available on request, address all inquiries to the alternative, circulation department, r.r...
...and I cannot view with equanimity any agreements which might be arrived at in the SALT discussions which would have the effect of preventing us from developing such defenses while preserving for the Soviet Union her current offensive advantage...
...In our case, our responsibilities since World War II have necessarily been international in scope as they have concerned themselves primarily with the need to contain the aggressive outward thrust of the Communist powers...
...targets is several times our own...
...Over...
...Even here, however, the Soviets could in time overtake us since their missile forces have considerably greater payload capacity than ours...
...We have not simply cut the fat out of military budgets, we have been hacking away at the sinews and muscles as well...
...Under any philosophy of strategic defense, the objective has been to assure a balance of forces which will preclude a resort to nuclear warfare...
...Other people are saying that we should accept the Soviet proposal at the SALT talks for an "ABMs only" agreement...
...Americans have never been tempted by historicist doctrines, and hence they have been immune from the blind confidences and black fatalisms that historicisms generate...
...The Changing Strategic Equation In the space of five years --from 1966 to 1971 - - the overall strategic balance has moved markedly in favor of the Soviet Union...
...This is an aircraft which can outshoot and outmaneuver anything the Israells have, and we can do nothing about it because we simply have nothing in our existing military inventory which can challenge the Foxbat...
...And once we begin backing down under pressure here and there around the globe, we will court the disaster of a third world war, because aggressive nations seem inevitably to overestimate the readiness of free men to retreat...
...Great nations are not allowed the luxury of retiring from the world...
...It all comes down, i n - t h e end, to what John Erskine called, "The Moral Obligation to be Intelligent...
...Let us keep in mind that the SALT talks are now in their second year, and that we lmve experienced the scope of our research and development of new and more exotic weapons...
...The United States is slipping...
...That is the wrong question, destiny has nothing to do with it...
...The Disappearance of the Sixth Fleet But this isn't the only problem now facing the Sixth Fleet...
...Some may urge that we move to an immediate offensive build-up of our own...
...11, box 360, bloomington, ind iano 47401...
...Erosion of Military Strength...
...And this destruction of our deterrent force could be significantly increased in guidance technology which our own research has already shown to be feasible...
...This is what our policy of nuclear deterrence has been all about...
...At that time the Soviets had about 150 long-range bombers, less than 100 SLBMs, and about 250 ICBMs...
...The overall strategic balance is tilting in favor of Moscow...
...As a result, the Soviet Union now has a payload capacity in her intercontinental and submarine-iaunched ballistic missiles which is capable of delivering eight times as many nuclear warheads as the United States...
Vol. 5 • November 1971 • No. 2
