Alternatives to the H-Bomb

...The explanation may be found in an illuminating remark made by Stalin in an interview with H. G. Wells...

...Heptisax's expectations may be justified to the extent that the destruction of Peking could be successfully accomplished...

...Professor Hart's critical analysis of expected damage from atomic raids on American cities is based on reliable data, validated by numerous internal crosschecks, on Russia's stockpiles of A-bombs and H-bombs and on her devices for delivering them to distant targets...

...This is the twelfth article in the series launched by Lewis Muniford in our June 28 issue...

...some philosophers of science have called it the earliest and ablest non-technical exposition of the theory of relativity...

...Years elapsed before suitable long-range bombers and the necessary stock of heavy ammunition were ready to start the kind of strategic raids which, in the long run, crippled Hitler's war machine...

...which was not at all favorable to the invaders, would have been clearly foreseeable...

...In June 1050, Professor Thirring was one of those who participated in the founding meeting of the Congress for Cultural Freedom in Berlin...

...Most people do not realize clearly enough the basic difference between retaliatory capacity in 1941 and today...

...This is the decisive difference between atomie combat and that between individuals: The duelist who shoots first can...

...In 1940 and 1941, Hitler and his consorts had some reason to believe that they would emerge as victors in a Blitzkrieg...

...at the time of Pearl Harbor was adequately equipped with means for strategic bombardment...

...Is the technical possibility of paralyzing an enemy state by a series of quick atomic raids a sufficiently strong incentive to strike first...

...In the case of two big powers, however, there is a lag between the time one receives the deadly blow and the time one becomes defenseless—a time lag sufficient to wipe out the cities of the aggressor nation by dropping one's entire stock of atomic ammunition on them...

...How does this fit into the picture drawn above...

...Certainly many Poles, Czechs and others behind the Iron Curtain would welcome such an ultimatum, but the percentage of desperate individuals there is greatly overestimated, because it is mainly the cries for help which reach Western ears...

...Although a good many member states, including France, the Soviet bloc and several Asian and South American nations, are in favor of a definition, their proposals have been defeated by the opposition of the Anglo-Saxon nations, which declare that a definition of aggression is not only useless but even dangerous because it "would encourage the aggressor to circumvent it and would hamper the legitimate self-defense of his victim...

...it is the natural consequence of the presence of a Soviet occupation army...

...Summing up, it can be stated that there is danger neither of a sudden armed attack from the East nor of expansion of the Communist disease into countries with sound economic and social conditions...

...Neither the Soviet Union at the time of Hitler's attack in June 1941 nor the U.S...

...and the USSR are equipped with retaliatory machinery which is jar less vulnerable than the nation as a whole...

...The reason is simple and cogent: Both the U.S...

...The incorporation of these areas into the Soviet bloc was accomplished either by slight internal adjustments or, to use Stalin's expression, by a well-timed kick...

...More than half of this would be delivered to the 25 biggest U.S...

...I'd give the people of China the most intensive education in our purposes, by leaflet and radio, and by word of mouth, that the Far East has ever known...

...When Wells defended the idea of the evolutionary development of socialism, Stalin retorted grimly: "Do you believe that any of those capitalists will give up his position voluntarily...

...Hence, even after being mortally wounded, each of them would be able to strike back so terribly that the aggressor nation would not survive either...

...The real danger lies in the possibility that the mutual hatred of the ruling circles, kept hot on either side of the Iron Curtain, may one day release a chain reaction which will lead to total war and total destruction...

...If the Western democracies are up to the moral standards they seem so proud of, then top priority should be given the principle that, in the atomic age, war is no longer a suitable means for settling international disputes...

...The question therefore boils down to: "How likely is an all-out war to occur...

...We have no reason, therefore, to fear that the fatal choice lies between suicide by appeasement and suicide by war...

...would feel justified in striking retaliatory blows at its own discretion...

...by killing his opponent, render him defenseless at once...

...The assumption of the enemy's everlasting urge to commit aggression and the blameless virtue of one's own intentions helps to justify the use of every means for self-defense...

...In the most densely populated cores of these districts, the blast concussions, lethal radiation and heat blasts would kill millions...

...Duly considering these reductions of the menace, Hart arrives at a net blast-damage area of 1,775 square miles for 1954 and 4,850 for 1957...

...Think of all the people who, by paying heavy taxes, contribute to financing the multi-billion-dollar defense measures against these supposed attacks...

...Given tolerably adequate social conditions, even small and militarily weak countries lying close to the Iron Curtain may feel quite safe from any Communist menace...

...Viewed from this standpoint, the plan advanced by Heptisax is criminal...

...As far as European experience goes, the cold war is an enterprise of particularly poor efficiency...

...It is too soon to designate the points I have in mind, but my feeling is that the chances are at least 50-50 that there would be no heavy fighting...

...The trouble is...

...It is quite different today, with modern long-range bombers and guided missiles carrying atomic ammunition at hand—and, above all, with launching sites in hundreds of places, some well hidden, throughout the globe...

...What he overlooks is the further consequences of "massive retaliation" from the other side, with the results quoted from Hart at the beginning of this article...

...Since 1952...

...Hence, although it would be relatively easy for the Soviets to destroy the main cities of the U.S., it would be quite impossible for them to paralyze, at the same time, the formidable retaliatory mechanism which would be triggered instantly as an answer to military aggression...

...Among the millions suffering under the totalitarian yoke, very few would be ready to barter their miserable existence for non-existence after the showdown...

...To smother any fire at its very beginning and remove all combustible material is surely the best method to avoid a fatal outcome...

...It is: No...

...So long as some madman does not set off World War III, both Finland and Austria will go on strengthening their democratie institutions...

...The latter lived in the belief that the nation of superior race was chosen to conquer its Lebensraum by military prowess...

...With a strong Parliamentary coalition between the conservative People's party and the strictly anti-Communist Socialist party, there is more freedom of speech and [bought and much less concern about Communist infiltration in Austria than in the U.S...

...however, that an agreement on this principle is stymied by wide disagreement as to the meaning of the word "aggression...

...This outlook is dire enough to rouse gloomy apprehensions in anyone who feels that the showdown is inevitable...

...In this vague form, Dulles's announcement made a valuable contribution to Communist propaganda denouncing the warmongering of the "capitalist aggressors...

...Recognizing that an attempt to invade countries averse to Communism and defended by national or allied atom-equipped forces would be suicidal, the Soviets and the Chinese would not dream of armed aggression on any of them...

...he has also written extensively on the psychology of man from a scientific and humanistic point of view...

...How many of them are aware that any such attack, as the first blow in a new war, is about as probable as the destruction of New York City by a giant meteor...

...In the present chaotic situation, with no definition generally accepted, an\ dictator can camouflage his sinister plans by calling his intended victims "aggressors...

...As a matter of fact, the points of attack of all Communist aggressions since 1939 have been either countries with unstable economic and social conditions, weakened by a corrupt regime or by war (by both in China), or else countries abandoned by the free world and delivered up to the Communists (e.g., East Germany...

...The general belief is that, unless the activities of the Kremlin leaders are stopped by drastic: measures, they will continue to add other countries to their sphere of power one by one until they feel strong enough to swallow the rest of the world through a single final attack...

...According to the Marxist religion, however, the capitalist system is "doomed to fall of its own contradictions...

...Stating this fact does not imply that the Soviet leaders are any better than their reputation...

...today, however, any aggression against powers equipped with atomic weapons would no longer be an erroneous calculation but a suicidal blunder...

...Criticizing the failure of the Indo-China war, Heptisax says: "I wouldn't put a single American GI on the mainland of China...

...Good examples are Finland and Austria, the latter partly occupied by Soviet troops...

...There is no doubt that the policy of the Communist leaders tends to encourage revolutionary movements wherever a chance of success exists...

...From the gross result of 10,640 square miles of blast area in 1954 and 68,500 in 1957 considerable subtractions have to be made—for bombs kept in reserve, for bombs wasted and accidentally lost, and for intercepted carriers (estimating that 30 per cent of the enemy bombers would be shot down in 1954 and 50 per cent in 1957...

...A master of popular exposition, Professor Thirring is noted for his Ideas of Einstein's Theory...

...Anyone who has some insight into technical and military developments since 1945 can give an unequivocal answer to the second question...

...The proper timing for upsetting an unstable nation, according to orthodox Leninism-Stalinism, is not dictated by the level of Communist military power but by the amount of discontent in the target area and the relation between risk and success...

...Hans Thirring is one of Western Europe's foremost theoretical physicists and occupies the chair in physics at the University of Vienna...

...The percentage of Communists converted by the persuasive power of the Voice of America is just as small as that of real democrats lured by Communist propaganda...

...In its first stages, including the annexation of Austria, the Sudetenland and the rest of Czechoslovakia, the expansion of the Third Reich also occurred without bloodshed, but this finally spurred Hitler to conquer the better part of the Continent by all-out war...

...When the North Koreans drove across the Thirty-eighth Parallel, they were deluded by the expectation that their aggression would meet no resistance from foreign powers...

...These are Hart's words: "The 25-city blast areas indicated in the hypothetical 1957 raid would total 2,550 square miles...

...According to orthodox Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist views, it would be criminal folly to run the deady risk of an atomic holocaust in order to acquire something today that may be had for practically nothing tomorrow...

...In many of the cities, fire storms, kindled by the heat blast and fed by convection typhoons, would rage unrestrained, trapping millions in their gigantic furnaces.'' Hart concludes that a raid like that which could be expected from a showdown in 1957 would be more than sufficient to cause complete national paralysis...

...For in that case the net result of the war...

...The preparation for, and waging of, aggressive wars is an international crime...

...In view of these facts, it might seem reasonable to ask whether there is much practical difference between Hitler's aggressions and Stalin's kicks...

...The idea of a militarily superior power marching triumphantly over the globe is neither Marxist, Leninist nor Stalinist—perhaps not even Trotskyist...

...cities...

...It is very unfortunate, therefore, that all efforts to conclude an international convention defining aggression have failed so far...

...Heptisax expects his war to be greatly aided by "intensive education by leaflet and radio, and by word of mouth...

...His recent writings on atomic theory have won him wide acclaim...

...ALTERNATIVES TO THE H-BOMB Social Progress, Cool Heads By Hans Thirring The need to find alternatives to atomic war will emerge more clearly when the full scope of the danger threatening our civilization is adequately realized...

...warning network...

...Defining the word "blast" as sufficient explosive pressure to destroy a brick building, Professor Hart gives the result of his analysis in terms of the blast-damage area to be expected from nuclear and thermonuclear bombs delivered by airplanes and guided missiles launched from Soviet territory or ships and submarines outside the U.S...

...Far from waiting until the people there became converts to Communism, the Bolshevik leaders used the armies of their satellites to expand their sphere of influence...

...The security of the world could be strengthened by drawing a clear line letting the potential aggressor know what kind of acts would necessarily entail drastic countermeasures...

...In spite of all controversy in the field of world politics, there is one basic principle on which statesmen of all civilized nations are ready to agree...

...It will be argued by way of rebuttal that recent Communist expansionist efforts have taken the form of welldevised, full-fledged wars in China, Indo-China and Korea...

...An illuminating example of the voices advocating a more active American war policy is given in an article in the June 21 New Leader by Heptisax, former editorial writer of the New York Herald Tribune, who is introduced by the editors of The New Leader as "representative of a school of thought with considerable influence in the present administration...

...It was just this precedent which contributed to shaping the attitude of most Americans toward Communism...

...What we can rely on is that they are not lunatics and that their Marxist gospel is quite different from the creed of Hitler and his gang...

...A full and competent answer to this question was given in an article by Professor Hornell Hart of Duke University in the June issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists...

...What we believe necessary is to give them a well-timed kick as soon as the situation is ripe for it...

...When Secretary of States Dulles announced the "new look" in American policy featuring "massive retaliation," he did not bother to explain what acts of the enemy would be answered by H-bomb attacks but left the impression that the U.S...

...The men in the Kremlin know this much better than the average Western citizen, and therefore a Soviet military attack on Western Europe is about the least likely possibility...

...The list of possible attacks included an invasion of the Jutland Peninsula and Denmark, a sweep along the northern coast of the Continent to overrun the big North European ports, encirclement of the Ruhr industrial complex from the south, an attack through the center of Germany aimed at Frankfurt and then across the Rhine and into central France, and so on...

...Only the first half of this assumption is correct...

...Neither war nor subjugation to Communism will be the fate of the free world so long as the latter's own leaders do not start the chain reaction of military operations leading finally to all-out atomic war, and so long as the social conditions of the working class are kept sufficiently high above the misery which drives the exploited masses into the rank-and-file of the Communist parties...

...The sooner it is stopped, the sooner the tension will begin to relax...

...About 99 per cent of the listeners on both sides are those who, for one reason or other, have already decided on their political creed...

...I'd spend a few months building up the ROK army and equipping the Nationalist force on Formosa with every weapon needed for offensive action...

...Therefore, the orthodox Marxist does not feel it worthwhile to attempt to conquer by war a world which will succumb sooner or later of its own weakness and adopt the "superior" system of Communism...

...The fact that only 5 per cent vote Communist in Austria is not due to the Voice of America...

...On the fifth anniversary of NATO, the New York Herald Tribune indicated on a front-page map "the main potential ground-attack areas in Europe which Supreme Allied Headquarters has taken into account in planning the ground defense of the NATO perimeter...

...The opposition to defining aggression is closely connected with the oversimplified idea of a black-and-white world in which, according to the scheme of a Wild West picture with its virtuous heroes and sinister villains, the defenders of the free democracies are permanently threatened by the destructive forces of evil...

...Is the H-bomb really as devastating as newspaper reports would have us believe, or can the danger of annihilating whole cities be diminished, or even eliminated, by proper measures of military and civil defense...

...His speech, together with carefully selected quotations from American newspapers, could be used to prove to the people behind the Iron Curtain that an ultimatum would one day be sent to Moscow demanding Communist withdrawal from the satellite countries or else the full power of nuclear and thermonuclear weapons would be let loose against the East...

...The conclusion, however, that with the majority of mankind behind them they might be tempted to conquer the world by total war is wrong...

...If, however, the crossing of the Korean demarcation line had been included in a widely publicized list of aggressive acts explicitly stated as calling for collective United Nations counter-action, the North Korean invaders would have hesitated to start their operation...

...On the basis of the indicated apportionments, using the same methods of calculation as before, this raid would cause approximately 9 million immediate deaths, plus approximately 11 million additional injured persons, or a total of 20 million casualties out of a population of 30 million in the central cities of these 25 metropolitan areas...

...Then, at three widely separated points, I'd give that gang in Peking three simultaneous jolts...

...negotiations have been going on in the UN on proposals for an international legal definition...

...Thus, the cold war, instead of educating those who need it, only aggravates tension and causes deterioration in the atmosphere of world politics...

...which was translated into English in the early 1920s...

...The vast majority hate any war or threat of war...