Living with Fear
NIEBUHR, REINHOLD
PERSPECTIVES Living with Fear By Reinhold Niebuhr In the past, disarmament agreements during periods of international tension have proved impossible. Some relaxation of tension and...
...Industrial potential is an important element in arms negotiations...
...French anxiety was justified, since the German industrial— and thus military—potential was in fact greater...
...It will require more grace than is now available to survive the hazards of this era...
...The national power of the United States has grown by leaps and bounds...
...President Kennedy's recent address to the United Nations, in which he proposed a fresh start in negotiating an arms agreement, has been widely hailed as a cause for new hope...
...Now—at a time of seeming omnipotence—it faces difficulties and frustrations which seem so much greater than those it surmounted in the days of its infant impotence...
...Although Soviet and Western scientists reached tentative agreement on a policy which would permit partial disarmament and partial inspection to increase gradually until the demands of both sides were met, this accord had little influence on the political negotiations...
...Hysterical moods could easily rob us of a clearheaded approach to the complex and perplexing issues which will be our daily bread for decades to come...
...Such a posture is difficult for a nation which has suffered no major frustrations in its brief history and has won every war it has fought...
...What could be more vivid and ironic proof of this than the vast potential for good and evil inherent in nuclear power...
...The price of our security will be a continued posture of both firmness and flexibility, and an absence of hysteria...
...Despite all efforts, then, the possibilities of controlling atomic weapons by explicit accords do not seem too bright...
...But the old difficulty remains...
...The French fear that even a disarmed Germany was potentially stronger than France was the decisive reason for the failure of the post-World War I disarmament conference...
...Our fate may be to live for a century under the threat of nuclear holocaust...
...This would lessen the peril, though not eliminate it...
...There is some chance, however, that if we do not stumble into a catastrophe by miscalculation or misadventure, tacit agreements may be reached...
...Some relaxation of tension and some degree of mutual trust are always prerequisites for agreement on either disarmament or control of weapons...
...After World War I, for example, the Allies disarmed Germany under the pretext that such action was necessary to enable all other European nations to disarm...
...The relatively stronger competitor seeks to preserve the advantage and the relatively weaker party seeks to improve its position...
...And if we lose our heads, we may lose our lives...
...It is worth keeping in mind, however, that without the nuclear dilemma Berlin might well have ignited World War III...
...One of the difficulties in attaining an agreement at the present time is that even if nuclear stockpiles are destroyed, one cannot destroy the scientific knowledge which lies at the foundation of nuclear capabilities...
...The triumph of man over natural forces does not, as our fathers believed, inevitably result in the triumph of good over evil...
...Most disarmament conferences are unsuccessful because, even if the agenda limits discussion to specific categories of weapons, the conference must take into account not only all types of arms but the total power position of the contending parties...
...But the disarmament conference which attempted to enforce this aim proved fruitless...
...The Russians insist they will not allow inspection before complete disarmament has been achieved...
...it increases the potentialities of both good and evil...
...But the complex pattern of history in which the national will must express itself has grown at an even faster pace...
...All the ideas of historical progress generated in the 18th and 19th centuries have been refuted by current history...
...The West regards an inspection system as a sine qua non of disarmament...
...We may be tempted to believe that the destructive possibilities are more real than the creative ones —and also more imminent...
Vol. 44 • November 1961 • No. 37
