Deadly Logic: The Theory of Nuclear Deterrence, by Philip Green
Boulding, Kenneth
DEADLY LOGIC: THE THEORY OF NUCLEAR DETERRENCE, by Philip Green. Ohio State University Press; a publication of the Social Science Program in National Security, Mershon Center. 361 pp....
...He has, however, summarized and clarified the issues in a way that should make every future student of this subject grateful...
...Certainly, after a nuclear war, if anybody survives at all, we are not likely to set up the system that produced it...
...I must confess that I emerged from this work with greatly increased respect for the value of what is often regarded as "old-fashioned" scholarship...
...Within the limits of his method, Philip Green has done a job which could hardly be bettered...
...It would be too optimistic to say that Professor Green has written the last word on the great debate on nuclear policy which has been going for the last 20 years in an atmosphere of such intense intellectual radiation that the main product has been nausea...
...All this, however, is a task for the future...
...The real question is, therefore, how do we use the short-run stability which a system of deterrence provides to change the system sufficiently so that deterrence will not be necessary...
...Professor Green has obviously read virtually the whole literature of this field, at least in English, and his bibliography alone is worth the price of admission...
...This is not to say, however, that there is nothing else to be done...
...A good deal of the argument of this book is also contained in Anatol Rapoport's Strategy and Conscience, and perhaps Green's greatest contribution is the exhaustive literary scholarship with which he documents his argument...
...The next two chapters deal with deterrence rationality, one with decisionmaking, and the other with ethical choice...
...In the following chapter, this theme is expanded to take care of Thomas Schelling, who is taken apart with kid gloves but admirable finesse...
...6.00...
...In that case, nuclear weapons would clearly fail to deter anybody from anything and they might as well be dismantled...
...This is a work of humane scholarship, in a field of overwhelming importance, which it would be hard to overpraise...
...The task of expanding the analysis to include the total social system is yet to come, and one should certainly not blame Green for not performing it...
...a publication of the Social Science Program in National Security, Mershon Center...
...His study is documented with almost 50 pages of notes, and it represents a quality of scholarship which in these days is rare...
...Consequently, one thing we can say for certain about a system of deterrence is that it cannot survive, for after it has broken down, it is never set up in the form in which it existed before...
...The next chapter, which is on game theory and national policy, deals with the uses of game theory as rhetoric rather than a science and exposes many of the underlying moral assumptions behind it...
...The structure of the book is straightforward...
...A concluding chapter makes an eloquent plea for what might be called a total political and ethical approach to these problems, in which agendas can be widened to include human decency and survival...
...There is an impressive quality about exhaustive documentation which no amount of undocumented brilliance can match...
...The untimely death of Edgar S. Furniss, who directed the Mershon Social Science Program in National Security, is a grievous loss, and this book in a way is his finest memorial...
...Nevertheless, the text is readable, it is as objective as the nature of the subject allows, and it will unquestionably become a standard work of reference for any future author in the field...
...If the probability of nuclear war were only 1 per cent per annum, which seems about the right order of magnitude, if we accumulate this for 100 years, the probability becomes frighteningly large...
...Green has put his finger unerringly on the fatal weakness of strategic thinking, which is that it operates in only a subset of the total social system and operates, furthermore, with an extremely narrow moral agenda...
...In order to know how to do this, we must know a great deal more about what I have elsewhere called the "integrative system" which deals with such matters as the dynamics of the rise of community...
...The idea that there can be scientific decision-making in the absence of both political and ethical choice is attacked mercilessly, while due acknowledgement is given to the value of operations research and like rituals at lower levels...
...The fundamental fallacy of deterrence can be stated almost in a sentence...
...However, as none of the deterrence theorists have an adequate theory either, Green is hardly to be blamed for this, and his critical acumen and insight is certainly adequate for the demolition job which he set himself to do...
...For the only real answer to deterrence is community, yet on the whole we tend to take community for granted rather than as a problem to be solved...
...If, however, there is a positive probability of nuclear weapons going off, if we wait long enough, they will go off...
...He minces no words, translates the technical gobbledygook into English and at the end of the book this reviewer, at any rate, felt that a great intellectual swamp had been drained...
...after an introduction on the idea of nuclear deterrence, there is a chapter which is essentially an analysis of the work of Herman Kahn, disposing once and for all of the pseudoscientific rhetoric of the high priest of the Air Force, yet also recognizing the very great service Mr...
...He does not, however, develop a really adequate theory of the role of the threat system in the total dynamic of society, and as a result he does not have an adequate theory even of the concept of deterrence as a general phenomenon in society...
...Kahn has done for us, and the frequently profound insights which lie behind the rhetoric of the propaganda...
...In the meantime, Philip Green is to be much congratulated, and one should extend these congratulations also to the Mershon Center, for which, I am sure, the publication of this book required a certain act of courage...
...While it may be stable in the short run it cannot possibly be stable in the long run, simply because there must be a positive probability of its failing or it would fail to deter...
...DEADLY LOGIC: THE THEORY OF NUCLEAR DETERRENCE, by Philip Green...
...We can see this very clearly if we ask ourselves what would happen if the probability of a nuclear weapon going off were zero...
Vol. 14 • July 1967 • No. 4
