Below the SALT... some ethical dilemmas

...They are no more equivalent than fear and trust, than bellicosity and appeasement...

...Local political conflicts or a collapse of confidence in the protective capacities of the present nt~clear order may make it attractive for some nations to exercise that option...

...It may be morally more creditable to err by making charitable and optimistic misjudgments about one's adversaries than by always believing the worst about their intentions...

...The second is the nature of the weapons systems themselves, which are deployed out of sight and largely out of mind...

...The fast is the route to World War I, the route of a military buildup and a naval arms race with complex relationships between dominant powers and allied client states...

...I I I I I I II II IIIIII calling on nations to halt the arms race, and prophesying that if mankind does not undergo conversion nuclear destruction could be the result...

...they can encourage the other side to contemplate new weapons systems...

...The possibility and the likely effect of such innovations are speculative matters that are disputed among strategic and technical experts...

...But it is clear that the allocation of greater resources to weapons research and the uninhibited development of new technologies would increase both the likelihood of destabilizing breakthroughs and the level of anxiety felt on both sides about such possibilities...

...The safest ways out of the morally perplexing situation of deterrence are those that the superpowers can travel together...

...This would be so for two reasons...

...It is a noteworthy fact that warnings of nuclear catastrophe, though not easy to refute, have been largely ineffective in persuading the major powers of the world to give up their i i|=1 i FATHER JOHN LANGAN, S.J., is a research associate of the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University...

...One could argue this way if the church had absolutely condemned the very possession of nuclear arms...

...The increasing availability of nuclear materials and expertise makes the option of at least a token nuclear force available to a fair number of nations...

...Like a Hobbesian social contract and certain theories of the free market, deterrence enlists self-interest in the cause of restraint and virtue...

...A point that radical critics of nuclear arms and of the SALT H agreement see more clearly than most is that a situation in which the dominant nations of the world stand poised to destroy each other totally is not, in the long run, a morally acceptable situation...

...The third factor in our reluctance to respond to the dangers involved in basing our national security onthe nuclear deterrent is the historical fact that nuclear weapons, however many difficult moral questions they may raise, are contemporary instruments of natio0al self-defense...

...This last possibility is not one that most of us want to think about, and most theorists of deterrence have not thought it feasible to do more than to devise systems for accident prevention and crisis communication and to insist on the irrationality of actions that would lead to mutual destruction...

...The development of new weapons systems at great expense, the continued deployment of vast arrays of weapons of mass destruction on land, under the seas and in the air, the likelihood of nuclear proliferation in areas of the world adready riven by n{urderous strife--all these things present a terrifying prospect for the future of humanity...

...These paradoxes are hypothetical claims about adversary reactions in a future that is schematically indicated but not described in detail...

...But they serve to remind us that initially attractive moves may have unsuspected consequences and that even in moving away from mutual deterrence, we may be exposing ourselves to new dangers...

...What they are probably not right on is their often-stated assumption that we can arrive at such a basis in a direct fashion that is simply the practical implementation of a basic moral conversion...

...Second, developing 7 December 1979:683and relying on nuclear weapons of limited destructiveness may increase both the likelihood that such weapons will be used and the likelihood that a general nuclear exchange would result from such use...

...The final text of Vatican H's Pastoral Constitution The Church in the Modern Worm contains no explicit teaching on the morality of the possession of nuclear weapons...

...Measures short of that would be equivocal and could well increase the likelihood of nuclear war without significantly lessening its destructiveness...

...Nuclear deterrence permits most of us to go about our business without turning the country into an armed camp or imposing a crushing financial burden...

...Optimists may hope 9 that proliferation will issue in regional balances of terror...

...It should not be our lasting abode...

...Second, a buildup of nuclear arms after a breakdown of negotiations would encourage other nations to look to their own security in a similar way...

...But any system which aims to allow us both to reveal our land-based missile systems for inspection and to conceal them against a possible Soviet attack is bound to remain paradox-ridden and is likely to be too clever by half...

...The patterns of their development and deployment have been even marked by traditional se~ice rivalries...

...Even so expensive a weapons system as the MX, which is estimated to cost thirty billion dollars, will probably never take as much as I percent of the gross national product...

...Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitCommonweal: 684...

...The other major factor making for an unstable nuclear order is the possibility of proliferation...

...Historical analogies rarely settle arguments, since they are usually drawn to support a point already made and since contrary analogies can always be offered...

...Nuclear deterrence is not anonerous method of national defense for the civilian population...

...The second is the route to World War II, the route of concessions to dictatorial regimes and abortive efforts at disarmament...

...Whether, from the standpoint of American security interests, this new system would be the MX or something else is a matter for professional assessment...

...Third, unilateral deep cuts in weapons systems or perceived inferiority in one's destructive potential may encourage the other side to aggressive actions which increase the likelihood of a general nuclear exchange...

...In this century there have been two different mutes to general war...

...Nor is it particularly expensive, at least when we look at it in comparison with the total national budget or in comparison with the cost and effort required to achieve victory in the earlier wars of this century...

...For some radical critics, of course, this close connection between the state and nuclear weapons points to another conclusion, namely, the denial of moral legitimacy to 7 December 1979:681nuclear regime...

...Critics of current strategic assumptions and attitudes are right in urging that there must be a humane alternative basis for a peaceful and stable world order...

...reliance on nuclear weapons.There are, I would suggest, four main explanations for this...

...It is one of the meri~ of SALT II that by restricting to one the number of new weapons systems that can be introduced during the life of the treaty, it begins the task of imposing qualitative restraints on the arms race...

...If ~ve are fortunate, we may be jolted into an awareness of our danger by a warning like the Harrisburg nuclear accident which may serve to remind us of the vulnerability of our situation without inflicting devastating harm...

...Without the resolution of the political and ideological issues that divide the two giants, even well-intentioned unilateral efforts to achieve deep cuts in arms levels are destabilizing and are more likely to provoke truculence than imitation...

...They may also provoke us to substitute moral revulsion and outrage for a careful assessment of the situation and of the variety of ways in which humanity has dealt with it so far and may deal with it in the future...

...It makes an all-out attack by one superpower against a vital interest of the other not merely unloving but also imprudent...

...They do not yield certain predictions about what will in fact happen if we develop defensive systems or if we make deep cuts in existing weapons systems...

...morally most significant cut, namely renouncing an assured capacity to destroy the other society, could be profoundly destabilizing...

...The developing debate on ratification of the SALT I! agreement will bring to our attention the risks involved in relying on nuclear sources for security...

...and it can in a particular moment of crisis fail to hold...

...Thomas in Minnesota...

...But we should remember that the policy of deterrence is both expensive and dangerous...

...The situation of deterrence, while dangerous and morally inadequate, is a kind of temporary shelter from those forces that would otherwise lead the superpowers into war with each other...

...assistant professor of political science at the College of St...

...Focusing on the present danger presented by the Soviet Union can cause us to lose sight of the dangers that are inherent in our present situation of nuclear deterrence...

...But the danger of catastrophe remains as long as nuclear deterrent forces remain, and the danger increases as these forces are expanded and replaced by newer w~pons...

...But it is surely plausible to think that both routes, the route of increased armaments andthe route of unilateral arms reductions, involve real dangers, given the nature and scope of the hostility and I I I suspicion between the Soviet Union and the United States...

...The first is psychological--the general human tendency to ignore those dangers that we seem to be unable or unwilling to do much about...

...And so it is most appropriate that we find leaders of all faiths i I i JAMES F. REID is an...

...by the name "arms control'" would be to make a fundamental error...

...In both cases, it is also likely that a vocal and dedicated minority of'critics will conclude that existing patterns of reliance on the atom are morally unsatisfactory and will lead to catastrophe...

...Putting off the task of arms control commits us to living with increased dangers and tensions for the foreseeable future...

...It can be granted that a situation of stable deterrence has the advantage of making hostile and aggressive activity prohibitively dangerous and even fatai for the aggressor...

...Nuclear weapons derive a certain initial legitimacy from their employment by the state...

...But the development of new technologies that Would increase defensive 9 capacities or that would make missile-carrying submarines more vulnerable are among the more likely possibilities...

...but if humanity is not to be subjected to great risks for questionable benefits, the superpowers must move from this shelter together.It is my Own belief that in the SALT II agreement, despite its many shortcomings, they are be'ginning to do so, I I II I I II C;p IT WILL TRANSMIT A SIGN OF WEAKNESS SALT: the case against JAMES F. REID B/~III~IAR IS HEI.L...

...For this reason, approaches to disarmament that stress the terrors of nuclear war may be counterproductive, for they produce a strong desire not to think at all about such disagreeable possibilities...

...They serve what has almost universally been taken to be one of the essential and legitimate functions of the state...

...It does unequivocally condemn total war...

...This transformation is part of the intellectual appeal of theories of deterrence...

...So far, at any rate, they have not fallen into the hands of terrorist groups or private organizations...

...The following reflections are offered not so much as an argument for one side in the current debate as a set of considerations that are prior to making moral judgments about the proposed treaty or about America's nuclear posture in general...

...First, the superpowers, as part of their efforts to promote widespread acceptance of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, committed themselves to enter negotiations leading to general and complete disarmament...

...This clich6 has always been underW stood as a poetic way to describe the many differ9 9 ent forms of horror that accompany war, But as applied to thermonuclear war it would be far closer to a description of the literal truth--for a country that was the target of a full-scale nuclear attack wouldknow the kind of hitherto unexperienced fire, destruction and chaos that are the essence of the biblical imagery of hell...

...W , HILE SALT II cannot by itself prevent proliferation, the breakdown of the arms control process between the superpowers would almost certainly be a contributory cause of future proliferation...

...T HE COMPLEXITY of the situation of deterrence gives rise to numerous paradoxes, three of which may be mentioned as especially relevant to disarmament efforts...

...Such schemes can end up by depriving us of the benefits of arms control such as lowered defense expenditures and an increased sense of mutual reliability, even while doing little to strengthen the security of the United States in the world today...

...But the nature of the Soviet state and the character of its behavior even after the death of Stalin show that there is no moral merit in one-sided concessions that enhance its power or that reward its tendency to probe areas of Western weakness and indecisiveness...

...First, efforts to provide defense for one's own civilian population are seen as efforts to escape from the constraints of mutual deterrence...

...Nonetheless, to conclude that the exhortations to peace of John Paul II and others necessitate support for any particular political agreement that goes...

...The situation of mutual deterrence that the superpowers are currently in is a complex one: and extricating ourselves from it requires patience, ingenuity, and cooperation in addition to a basic conviction about the urgency of moving to a new situation...

...The stability of this situation will be lessened by the likely course of events after the rejection of SALT II...

...If it did not, it would be much more unpopular than it is...

...No mass mobilizations and no extensive expeditionary forces are needed in an age when lethal missiles can be launched from the depths of the Pacific or from under the fields of North Dakota...

...Both routes led to international catastrophe, and both provide warnings that participants in the current debate are fond of appealing to...

...some ethical dilemmas Illl JOHN LANGAN A T THREE MILE ISLAND the American public received a dramatic reminder of some of the risks involved in irelying on nuclear sources for energy...

...In both eases, we are likely to conclude that we have no real alternative but that our situation remains perilous and unsatisfactory...

...Nationalists may affirm that it is a manifestation of imperialist arrogance to believe that new members of the nuclear club will behave less responsibly than its current ntembers and may claim that restrictions on the nuclear capacities of developing countries are an affront to their equal sovereignty...

...They provoke us to say that what is simply ought not to be...

...In offering these reflections on the SALT debate, I should make it clear that I agree with the critics of SALT II on the left that the current situation of the world and of the United States with regard to nuclei, weapons is dangerous and may result in irreparable disaster to our civilization...

...The first of these is the feasibility of new technological breakthroughs...

...Whether anything currently contemplated would really overturn the basic situation of mutual deterrence is more doubtful...

...If it should prove unsuccessful, its collapse would plunge us into both suffering and doing enormous evils...

...But it is obvious that extensive proliferation, particularly in such areas as the Middle East, will make a more dangerous world for all of us...

...This is not to claim that they are morally or politically equivalent...

...This point underlies both present claims about the destabilizing effects of Soviet civil defense systems and the decision made by both sides in SALT I not to develop comprehensive anti-ballistic missile systems...

...But it has not done so...