Arms and the Man-Four Articles
KNAUTH, LAWRENCE S. FINKELSTEIN \ J. HIRSHLEIFER \ ROBERT A. LEVINE \ OLIVER DIXWELL
ARMS AND THE MAN - FOUR ARTICLES Testing in the Atmosphere By Lawrence S. Finkelstein The Soviet Union's renewal of atmospheric nuclear testing late last summer set off a chain reaction that...
...But Russia's fleet of close to 500 conventionally powered subs, when equipped with missiles, is an equally good weapon of attack...
...would share with the Russians the opprobrium their tests have earned them...
...The American people are capable of great effort and sacrifice...
...At the same time, it would prevent the USSR from building underground launching sites without our knowledge...
...A Model Situation Relatively Favorable to Civil Defense...
...This time they can be fatal...
...But there is a consensus about what is wrong with the current American position, and what sort of general measures the U.S...
...Not only is the atom likely to become more difficult to control, but Russia and the United States will probably find it harder to restrain their allies...
...Another important set of arguments for aboveground testing has to do with the effect of Soviet gains from their blasts last fall on the strategic balance in the world and, in particular, on the stability of mutual deterrence...
...Kennedy's speech in July 1961, which indicated for the first time that the Federal government was going to concern itself seriously with the problem of providing a measure of population protection in the event of attack...
...will risk a nuclear holocaust by coming to their defense...
...The question over which there is no agreement is whether the concept of a staged approach to GCD interferes with or encourages the stability which may be realistically possible in the near future...
...The dedicated "civil defenders" who have been trying to awaken the nation to the urgency of the atomic threat, therefore, have been astonished by the present paper blizzard of controversy over fallout shelters...
...While Soviet intransigence is in itself a sufficient condition for the existing impasse, it does not tell the entire story...
...But how desirable a ban is must be determined—as in the case of world opinion—against the reasons for testing, as well as against an assessment of the vitality of the idea...
...Undoubtedly, the general development of the nuclear art was held back by the moratorium on tests...
...Moreover, viewed in the context of possible cold and hot wars, civil defense measures—like all other possible strategic measures, ranging from unilateral disarmament to preventive war—pose certain difficulties and paradoxes...
...This argument is propounded by people who have such extreme confidence in deterrence that they are willing to insure increased, perhaps even total, death and destruction in the event of a deterrence failure...
...Aside from the question of cost —which would have to be considered in any overall economic calculation of how much civil defense it is worthwhile to purchase—a safety device is useful so long as it offers a degree of protection in some important circumstances...
...Thus they could negotiate seriously over real steps toward disarmament...
...In return for (1) a reasonable right to send UN inspection teams behind the Iron Curtain and (2) the scrapping of all conventionally powered submarines, we could offer to convert our nuclear-powered seaborne delivery system into an internationally controlled retaliatory force, capable of punishing any nation guilty of launching a surprise nuclear attack...
...About certain matters there can be no doubt...
...For in order to retaliate, you have to know who attacked you...
...A number of contingencies relatively favorable to civil defense can also be cited—contingencies in which shelters would make a truly enormous difference in casualties suffered...
...If more missiles, for instance, are an alternative to atmospheric testing aimed at making up a deficiency in our capability, the important question is whether the fallout and other costs of atmospheric testing are more or less onerous than the cost of building more missiles—both financially and in terms of stimulus to the arms race...
...We believe this effort should be directed toward a positive program of peace with freedom...
...Nor is it clear at this time that we would not accept nuclear proposals alone...
...Herman Kahn, a leading civil defense advocate, believes that the civil defense costs should rise gradually to an expenditure level of $5 billion annually—that is, 10 per cent of the military budget...
...As for the arms race between the Soviet Union and the United States, here, too, the picture is not very bright...
...An example would be communication systems that are invulnerable to atmospheric disturbance...
...Obviously, it is and must remain the second string to our defensive bow...
...Moreover, our missile-firing submarines are not really an advantage...
...We have already achieved considerable miniaturization of warheads...
...Finally, we come to the most sophisticated of the anti-shelter views, the "hostages" argument...
...Add to this the fact of our relatively high vulnerability to attack by sea—three-fourths of our industry and two-thirds of our population is located along coasts—and it is clear that the national control of missile-carrying submarines is to our distinct disadvantage...
...This is important, for if by any chance the agency attempted to misuse its power, it could be easily disciplined by blockade...
...It begins with the absolutely correct statement that the United States is sincere in its espousal of the goal of GCD...
...In another version, civil defense itself becomes the threat: "A nation with civil defense doesn't need enemies," according to a San Francisco columnist...
...A Neutral Deterrent By Oliver Dixwell Knauth For the first time in history the North American Continent is vulnerable to sudden devastation...
...And failures of deterrence of course cannot be ruled out...
...With a deterrent threat in neutral hands, the U.S...
...ONE such possibility is an international deterrent force...
...There are also those people who believe that it may ultimately take such radical solutions as complete disarmament and/or world government to remove the dangers to world civilization...
...How many missiles is Russia known to have, and what are their yields, reliability (percentage that can be counted on to fire), accuracy (circular error probability—CEP) and deployment...
...It is his instinctive peasant reaction to the complexities of control which he can't understand...
...They reason that reconsideration of inspection may have led the Russians to the view that even the moderate opening up of their homeland called for was too high a. price to pay for the limited gains possible from a test ban...
...Only small changes were made between that time and September 1961...
...This would reassure the Soviets without depriving us of the power to retaliate...
...or Russia will be ready to surrender "absolute power to destroy other nations" to an international authority for some time to come...
...It may be that the Soviets will be softer on March 14 than anyone expects, and that some progress will be made on the basis of the present U.S...
...For one thing, the Soviet leaders may place a lower value upon population survival than we do, or they may be able to protect what they might regard as the only significant sector of their population—the Communist elite...
...To assess Soviet capabilities is one thing...
...These experts feel that, in quest of an elusive propaganda advantage, we have substituted acquiescence in high-flown goals such as "general and complete disarmament" for real thought about what can be done to keep the peace before this millenium arrives...
...It is fair to assume that what the President was suggesting was a supranational agency...
...Finally, there are a few who think that the U.S...
...The Soviet tests not only ended the moratorium, they presented us with grave questions as to the long-range safety of avoiding all atmospheric tests while the USSR remains able to prepare in secret and then test at will...
...If the evidence is that the Russians are on the road to such a capability, then this seems a fairly persuasive reason for U.S...
...Or, once the immediate pressure on Berlin—which makes disengagement in Central Europe an issue we cannot now afford to negotiate—has let up, a move away from staged GCD might lead to some progress there...
...Still other asymmetries are quite possible—for example, the Russians might come up with an anti-missile defense before we do...
...But if the objective is, say, to improve warhead design, the conclusion is not so clear...
...and that (2) while strategic speculation is by no means entirely profitless, it may become so unless strategic speculators have either access to the kinds of knowledge authoritative judgment requires or the humility to admit the limits of their present knowledge...
...And once it is decided that a particular weapon development is important, or that a particular scientific advance is ripe for weapon exploitation, there remains the question of how important atmospheric testing is in achieving the desired result...
...The real issue is: Would we not derive greater security from placing deterrence under impartial international control than by leaving it in the hands of the Russians...
...The West Germans have told us, for example, that they will agree to Central European security measures only in the context of complete and general disarmament...
...Just what the content of that better program might be, aside from not having any civil defenses, is left unsaid—though the recognition that "the nation is not now ready to consider such a program" is surely significant...
...There is little disposition to challenge the acceptance of GCD as an explicit American goal, and none to challenge the sincerity of either the Eisenhower or Kennedy administrations in accepting it as an objective for American disarmament policy...
...Or, a war might be started by false radar signals, communication errors or unauthorized behavior...
...Moving the United States away from massive retaliation and toward greater dependence upon nonnuclear weapons is but one example of a vital step we have taken that cannot be exploited in the GCD atmosphere...
...The United States-Soviet dialogue, of course, is being conducted on two levels—one serious, the other devoted to propaganda...
...And at his February 7 press conference the President announced that he would decide whether this country should resume above-ground tests before the month was out...
...We call upon you, Mr...
...Oddly enough, this is the exact reverse of what has been the traditional, though unpublicized, military argument against civil defense: By making the American people all too aware of the possibility of destruction, a "tough" position at the bargaining table becomes impossible...
...Its deterrent power is not geared to immediate retaliation...
...was committed to GCD by the position it took in June 1960, when Khrushchev was banging his shoe on the UN table...
...They may become a part of future programs...
...Consequently, the effectiveness of shelters is increased in those situations where only limited fractions of the population are subjected to the overwhelming close-in effects...
...There may be some way through direct exploration to calm these fears and find a price for decreased secrecy acceptable to both the Soviets and ourselves...
...Since Moscow has made it clear that a satisfactory test-ban agreement is far from imminent, too, the view that the U.S...
...Shelters would still save many in the peripheries, but direct bombing of the cities would kill many millions by the terrible close-in blast and fire effects...
...position, or in spite of it...
...In general, the case for any form of defense does not depend upon the impossibility of overcoming it, but on the existence of reasonable contingencies in which it may be useful...
...Moreover, while gains in yield to weight ratio are clearly desirable, there are fairly narrow limits on the amount of improvement that remains theoretically possible...
...3. A shelter incentive program, not yet approved by Congress, under which the Federal government would contribute a sum on the order of $25 per shelter space provided in new or modified public buildings (mainly schools and hospitals...
...Designs for such weapons, however, appear very far from the stage where they would benefit from tests...
...To test merely because the Russians have tested would, in effect, be to abdicate our sovereignty...
...Of course, no one can say for sure whether the Soviets would enter into meaningful negotiations on an international deterrent...
...The third stage, admittedly, does little more than draw a picture of Utopia...
...But not testing also involves moral considerations—peace, freedom, welfare...
...There has also been much speculation that the Russian tests represented a considerable advance toward such a system, particularly in the light of Marshal Malinowsky's assertion during the recent 22nd Party Congress "that the problem of destroying rockets in flight has been successfully solved...
...This would not require the "absolute control" of nuclear arsenals by an international agency...
...Consumers Union tells us that fallout shelters are not a good buy...
...A war might conceivably terminate after a limited nuclear exchange if one side has demonstrated clear-cut military superiority (e.g., by an impregnable air defense...
...He is currently on leave at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, California...
...If the Soviet Union accepted the proposal, the 15-year-old arms control deadlock would be over...
...An article in Life magazine, for instance, claimed that civil defense would save 97 per cent of the population— which would be true only under unreasonably optimistic assumptions...
...In addition, the hostages argument has a certain mathematical or abstract symmetry about it that is misleading...
...If Soviet "yield to weight" ratios have improved as a result of their test series, must we improve "yield to weight ratios" in response, or can we achieve equivalent results by, for example, increasing our investment in mobile as against hardened and dispersed missile systems...
...But if there were evidence of advanced Soviet interest in such possibilities, it would be most difficult for a responsible government to deny itself the chance to develop weapons along parallel lines...
...it would have no potential enemies or rivals to attack...
...On the one hand, it is urged that any gain in Soviet strength threatens to upset the balance of deterrence...
...At a time when brains are sorely needed, this constitutes no small problem...
...The effectiveness of any particular shelter program, such as the one currently envisaged by the Administration, may vary enormously—depending upon the enemy's plan of attack, our active defenses, our degree of expectation of attack, and even the weather...
...We deserve a good deal of credit which we have not tried to collect for some of the unilateral stabilization steps the Kennedy Administration has taken over the last year...
...But his statement is qualified...
...There are some fools in the disarmament and arms control business in the United States, as there are some fools everywhere...
...On September 5, President Kennedy declared that the United States was resuming its freedom of action...
...This may call for a regular annual expenditure of approximately $100 million...
...Improved yield may also be important in antiICBM design...
...But some American officials believe the Soviet test-ban attitude may not necessarily bode badly for general disarmament negotiations...
...It is further thought that if we frankly set out our major immediate goals—stability and lessening the fears and dangers of immediate thermonuclear war— we would improve our propaganda position...
...An international deterrent force offers several important advantages: • It would virtually eliminate the temptation to pre-empt...
...In particular, there is strong pressure for American tests because the Russians have had an opportunity to make unanticipated breakthroughs, and it is felt that our side should have the same opportunity...
...It is widely believed that Russia's latest tests demonstrated that its nuclear technology now equals ours, particularly in what is known as yield to weight rations...
...Both those who strongly favor tests and those who strenuously oppose them believe that no issue exists at all—that theirs is the only logical course...
...The best that can be claimed is that civil defense saves lives and gives us more time before war becomes literally Doomsday...
...Another conceivable (though unlikely) possibility would be an American surprise attack upon Russia that fails to destroy the Soviet retaliatory forces...
...and the shelters would provide excellent protection against the long-range fallout effects that might blanket the entire nation...
...it depends upon other nations' diplomatic and military strategies as well as our own...
...Weapons effects...
...The Kremlin will be increasingly anxious to remove the former from national control and keep the latter under close surveillance...
...But the Kremlin's renunciation of the moratorium—especially in the context of tension over Berlin and an apparent breakdown of test-ban talks—reflected an ominous lack of concern on its part for the quality of the relationship...
...they will not give it up without real concessions on our part...
...Special Disarmament Advisor John J. McCloy and Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Valerian A. Zorin submitted, and the General Assembly unanimously endorsed, a set of agreed disarmament principles best interpreted as meaning all things to all nations, with particular emphasis on neutral nations...
...Arthur Krock of the New York Times considers shelters "undignified" and recommends a "sea pressure" strategy instead...
...And while some Americans are cynical enough to favor the GCD program only because it appears to be good public relations, theirs is by no means the predominant attitude...
...we may want to preserve our ability for nuclear reply to massive non-nuclear aggression...
...But the President's statements, the official literature and the arguments of CD proponents like Kahn, Edward Teller or Willard Libby all make more moderate claims...
...The Soviets consider this "legalized espionage...
...The "psychological" argument has it that the American people will become more bellicose to the degree that they are, or think they are, protected from the consequences of atomic attack...
...introduce a shelter program which could reasonably be expected to halve the proportion of casualties expected from the original attack...
...Most of us support a huge armaments effort without its affecting our personal lives...
...Whatever the case, Soviet rigidity has produced a mood of frustration among U.S...
...No one can rule out such a Soviet reaction to civil defense, nor is there any easy way to assess its likelihood...
...Thus this argument for unilateral restraint by the United States has been considerably weakened...
...restraint, that certainly does not mean we are obliged to engage in a game of follow the leader...
...Meanwhile, is there not some less drastic means of regaining a measure of national security...
...Some Sovietologists think the Russian attitude toward disarmament is still almost entirely based on their belief that, as Raymond Garthoff wrote in 1953, "false lulling 'peace' campaigns, and the mobilizing of all discontents to the Red banner have often proved successful where force of arms alone would have been folly...
...Something of this nature would seem to be what President Kennedy had in mind in his Inaugural Address when he spoke of the necessity for bringing "the absolute power to destroy other nations under the absolute control of all nations...
...2. The grandiose program interferes with achieving the vital immediate measures both for keeping the peace now and for starting on the road to more comprehensive measures...
...They do feel, however, that it is both dangerous and wasteful to concentrate our efforts on the search for better ingredients for baking pie in the sky...
...Evaluation of Soviet intentions obviously rests heavily on subjective beliefs about how the Russians will behave...
...What, according to its advocates, are the technical problems that make atmospheric testing necessary...
...The judgment about whether we should again make above-ground tests may indeed depend on how important the tests are to our strategic requirements...
...In a few years the Eurasian land mass will be studded with concealed missile sites...
...With adequate global monitoring, they would have far less difficulty determining which nation launched an attack than under the present system...
...A third insight suggested by the conflicting conclusions drawn from common evidence is that, essentially, these are not objectively soluble issues...
...Furthermore, some of the "new" features may disappear if, as is possible, the United States demands Soviet acceptance of certain of our first-stage disarmament steps as a prerequisite for our agreement to certain other of our own proposals for the same stage...
...The population centers would be somewhat remote from points of military attack, and so would escape the direct effects of bombing...
...Primary among such factors is exactly what capability the Russians have relative to ours...
...National control also increases the danger of preemptive attack, perhaps the greatest peril of our time...
...Yet there is the lingering hope, if one believes that as a great power the United States does have some influence on the destiny of mankind, that we will still seek to exert some restraints on the overall competition...
...Now, while the intensity of the controversy is certainly disproportionate to the budgetary magnitude of the civil defense enterprise (the President's simultaneous request for an addition of some billions to the military budget proper did not raise even a ripple of opposition), a certain healthy skepticism about new or expanded government programs seems to me a good thing...
...Actually, it would not be as uneven as appears at first glance...
...The secrecy of a "closed" society has always given the Soviets a military advantage...
...Atmospheric testing by the United States would almost surely tilt the bottle...
...Some people (however few) would suffer, and there would be some genetic effects (however incalculable...
...reciprocal notification of test-missile launchings...
...Can Continental security be restored before accident or miscalculation triggers World War III...
...Another area of doubt is the effect of nuclear explosions in the upper atmosphere on radar and electronic communication...
...While most of the critics agree that we ought to continue to state our genuine commitment to the goal of GCD, they believe that the United States would do better by handling its propaganda ingenuously—stating the goal, stating that we don't see how to achieve it now, and listing the items we find urgent at this point of the arms race...
...GCD, it is thought, is Khrushchev's baby...
...Building shelters "prepares the people for the acceptance of thermonuclear war as an instrument of policy...
...In this regard it is significant that, according to Jane's Fighting Ships, the Soviets have "about 18 conventionally powered missile-firing submarines" while this country has only six nuclearpowered Polaris subs...
...considerable progress in this sphere may be possible without atmospheric testing...
...Transferral of deterrent power from national to international hands raises three key questions: 1. Would it not be an uneven swap for us to turn over our Polaris submarines to international control while the Soviets merely open their "closed" society to inspection and scrap their submarines...
...Those with responsibility for the national safety probably, for better or worse, have to be deliberately conservative in their calculations...
...In view of all these contingencies, it seems to me to be wildly dangerous to stake absolutely everything upon the success of deterrence...
...This amount is calculated to cover the additional cost of dual purpose facilities— for example, a school planning a new cafeteria or auditorium should find that the proposed contribution roughly equals the extra cost of added fallout-protection features such as thick walls or underground construction...
...would be forced to surrender...
...While that is not an inconsiderable improvement, it should be measured against the fact that warheads we currently possess represent an improvement of something like a thousandfold over the atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945...
...In addition, the international deterrent would reassure our allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization who, as matters stand now, are not at all certain that the U.S...
...In an attack designed to achieve such ends, any substantial degree of population bombing would be a fearfully expensive luxury for the attacker...
...if the same is true of the Russian population, they are deterred...
...In this situation, regardless of whether the initial Soviet attack is militarily successful or not, fallout shelters would save many, many millions...
...Basic to the case for the new program is the contention that it has propaganda as well as other value, and at least does not interfere with the immediate measures that both its proponents and opponents agree are of prime value...
...A basis was needed for some very rapid work to be done after the new Administration took office, and it was naturally found in an exegesis of the old program...
...In short, national control of nuclear weapons violates a nation's first responsibility: the protection of its population...
...Since its function would be deterrence, it would not be empowered to act, only to retaliate...
...Thus, throughout the Government statements and real plans are considered for their compatibility with the GCD program, rather than their compatibility with short-run stability...
...As Assistant Secretary of State Harlan Cleveland wrote in Foreign Affairs: "Pragmatic U.S...
...The danger envisaged could hardly be that the war-mindedness of the American people will goad the President into ordering an attack on Russia...
...has nothing to lose and everything to gain...
...miscalculation and accident always remain possible...
...But opponents of the program insist that it does interfere with obtaining these immediate measures, and they make a strong case...
...they will probably not agree to a degree of inspection which can be considered reasonably reliable...
...Positions range from those who feel we have something pretty good under the circumstances to those who feel the plan may be an obstacle in the path to peace and stability...
...policy can force, lead, or allow them to soften...
...4. Some critics are disturbed by what they believe to be the lack of dignity of the U.S...
...For them, civil defense is both an insult to the capabilities of our armed forces and a plot designed to divert attention from America's real enemy: domestic radicals and liberals...
...While the team of Government officials and consultants working on these matters is broad enough to include a number of individuals who have been critical of past disarmament positions for not going far enough, these men are willing to work within the system and to recognize the difficulties involved in moving toward their goals...
...During World War II, he managed the international relations program for the Office of War Information...
...position may provide a means of gently liberalizing Soviet Communism...
...Although the significance of a neutron bomb—a weapon that can kill people without destroying property—for strategic balances is far from clear, it is not difficult to imagine a wide range of important military consequences accompanying the ability to produce flows or pulses of nuclear radiation without attendant blast or thermal effects...
...If the Russians rejected the plan, their professions of peace would be dealt a serious blow...
...J. Hirshleifer, associate professor of economics at UCLA, is a long-time student of civil defense who was responsible for the first studies of the subject undertaken by the RAND Corporation...
...Because they have tested, the Russians may have a more precise knowledge of these effects than is available to us...
...testing on grounds which would otherwise seem no more than an urge toward perfectionism...
...Thus, in trying to convince neutral nations of our sincerity, we take actions against our better judgment...
...The alternative to internationalization is to decommission all nuclear subs and mobile launching pads...
...The U.S...
...Certainly the suggestions above sound in toto much less spectacular than the staged scheme for GCD...
...Their position in the late lamented test-ban negotiations, for example, indicated that their main interest was sustaining as little propaganda loss as possible...
...With this kind of war plan, too, the attacker may actually wish to preserve American cities, since they will become hostages to induce the Americans to end the war on terms advantageous to the Soviets...
...Then there are the possible compensatory responses, or "tradeoffs...
...In peacetime it can be kept out of range of the prospective enemy without diminishing its ability to retaliate should the enemy attack...
...It would diminish the importance of inspection, the main stumbling block in postwar disarmament discussions...
...retaliatory capacity, and hence endangers the balance of deterrence, depends on a number of fairly technical factors which often cannot be assessed without secret information...
...Yet the very intensity of their debate, which is likely to increase rather than decrease once the White House decision is officially known, indicates that each side possesses arguments worthy of consideration...
...In assessing tradeoffs, the contribution the alternatives make, or the harm they do, to various values needs to be carefully estimated...
...Much is written these days about the possibilities of developing pure fusion weapons, such as the much-discussed neutron bomb...
...Weight saved in this way contributes to mobility and versatility of weapons, facilitates hardening procedures, reduces warhead costs and, for equivalent yields, vehicle costs...
...What then might be substituted for the grandiose staged approach to GCD...
...Any plan involving human beings can be misused...
...But the British survived their experience with shelters in World War II (thinking all the while that the German bombs were the main hazard), and democratic Sweden and Denmark both have completed extensive shelter programs for their populations with no visibly catastrophic effects...
...Russia would win the war and the world...
...The claim that we must test has to be examined on its merits, taking account, in President Kennedy's words, "of our evaluation of the Soviet tests...
...Whether that time will be properly used or not, no one can say...
...They must show that measures whose first-order effects are the saving and sustaining of life are somehow wrong, that to shelter is to expose, to rescue is to abandon, and to cure is to kill...
...but how important world opinion is to our interests can only be assessed against the reasons why testing is necessary...
...The more detailed arguments in the Letter contain sweeping assertions that are generally unwarranted by the evidence, often more or less improbable on their face and sometimes simply wrong...
...How much ground shock are our hardened missile sites built to withstand...
...And while not many in this country have felt free to challenge its evaluation openly, the reason for the lack of public controversy was given long ago by Hans Christian Andersen: "Everybody in the streets exclaimed, 'How beautiful the Emperor's new clothes are!' Nobody would let it appear that he could see nothing, for then he would not be fit for his post, or else he was a fool...
...The Soviets have been intransigent...
...Either way spells using the GCD program as a tool for beginning negotiations on the more immediately important measures, while moving the larger issue out of the forefront of the Soviet position...
...Foreign Policy in a Changing World, a study for the National Planning Association in Washington...
...Proof tests of existing warheads...
...Unlike national deterrents, the neutral force would not be tempted to deliver a preemptive blow...
...But on this question there is little agreement...
...There is little self-deception, however, that the program will begin such negotiations, and here the argument gets a bit more complex...
...Made by Donald Brennan and others, it urges the formation of an experimental international control organization which at the outset would not be given any specific tasks...
...Let us now suppose, in contrast, that the Soviets have an attack plan whose main object is to win Soviet world domination without unacceptable Russian losses...
...And the Soviet Ambassador, Mikhail Menshikov, has himself taken the trouble to assure Americans that shelters will be of no value against the size of bomb his country can deliver...
...If the Soviets have nuclearpowered subs (as Izvestia claimed on July 21), these could be brought under international control as well...
...One recent proposal contains a number of concrete suggestions for both arms control and disarmament, in the sense of actual reduction or limitation of weapons...
...What can we reasonably conclude about civil defense...
...indeed, for citydwellers they are "an anti-protective device...
...And even before the Russian tests, the "Nth country" argument had diminishing force...
...should plump for now: 1. We are not fooling anybody into thinking that our present program is a blueprint...
...provide a degree of protection, but at the same time they require us to evaluate rationally the threat of personal extinction...
...More than an international police is necessary...
...It would constitute a suitable agent for forcing compliance with arms control agreements (no nationally controlled deterrent could do this...
...In general, testing seems necessary if there is to be much further understanding of nuclear weapons phenomena, especially in the upper yield ranges for which underground tests are useless...
...The entire program, it is estimated, will necessitate a continuing Federal expenditure of around $400 million—out of an overall defense budget of more than $50 billion each year...
...If this is the case, they may be willing to accept inspection for disarmament proposals of greater intrinsic utility for keeping the peace...
...Indeed, with the advent of Polaris submarines and mobile launching pads, it is questionable whether effective inspection is possible at all...
...It would be difficult, though, to demonstrate this...
...The immorality of radioactive fallout is frequently cited as an answer...
...Some extreme rightists, for example, are inclined to deny that Russia even has the atomic bomb...
...We go about our business daily under the comforting delusion of personal invulnerability...
...a single inspector could easily be overcome...
...Seven former Seminar members are now in the Administration...
...He advises us not to build shelters...
...Actually, the margin of doubt about warhead reliability is not very great, and there is a significant school of informed and responsible thought which believes that the weapons are reliable enough...
...In many respects, then, arms control efforts are a cruel hoax...
...and steps whose meaning is not yet known, such as "the production of agreed types of armaments shall be limited...
...While there are some excellent reasons for opposing such Central European measures now, waiting for GCD is not one of them...
...One side's having an effective anti-missile system could significantly affect the balance of strategic power...
...The most that probably can be hoped for is something like a threefold improvement in the ratio...
...It seems highly unlikely that either side can afford to contemplate the other's achieving an anti-missile capability alone...
...How can one "inspect" the location of a Polaris sub...
...they would act only after compiling evidence...
...and until they become more flexible, there will be no progress on arms agreements...
...Here is one crucial example: "For any given person [it] is almost certain to prove false" that a shelter will make him "significantly safer...
...At the present time the nation is not ready to consider such a program, largely because of widespread lack of understanding of just how catastrophic war today would be...
...It would also help deter any nation from pre-emptively attacking another, since the aggressor would face immediate retaliation from both the international force and the nation which suffered the attack...
...As the Belgian diplomat Edouard le Ghait has written: "In the domain of nuclear strategy the only technically attainable goal in matters of national defense is defense of the deterrent itself...
...and neither has anything to gain by allowing the spread of nuclear weapons...
...These bases afford the Soviets some security against U.S...
...Accordingly, we put lifeboats on ships and fire escapes on buildings, although these fall far short of guaranteeing survival in shipwreck or fire...
...But there is one category of launching platform, and soon there will be a second, whose whereabouts evades detection: the Polaris submarine and the mobile-based Minuteman missile...
...In sum, my proposal is for a sort of ocean-going, internationally controlled nuclear force with its own global inspection corps...
...New weapons...
...Whether these considerations argue convincingly for U.S...
...In any case, Russia's explosions have eliminated the argument that the United States would suffer in the eyes of the world if it were first to end the moratorium...
...The Civil Defense Debate By J. Hirshleifer For many years civil defense was lost in an outer wilderness of popular apathy and budgetary neglect...
...In the past the consequences of an inadequate policy have been regrettable...
...the U.S...
...Besides, they would not have to come to their decision in a hurry...
...It would prevent our having to risk self-destruction in coming to the aid of our allies, if, say, Russia were to attack Europe...
...How many missiles do we have and what are their yields, reliability, accuracy and deployment...
...The same cannot be said for the bulk of the anti-CD arguments...
...The Early Warning System and Midas satellite are supposed to give counter-attacking planes time to get off the ground...
...And indeed, this is the central view of peace groups whose hostility extends to the nation's entire military enterprise...
...Consequently, almost all experts feel that by far the most important steps now are those much smaller ones which in the meantime will help us to keep the peace...
...3. If the advocates Of the program believe that we must educate the Russians in the way that Senator Kennedy educated the Houston ministers, its opponents feel that we pan best do so by pointing out the mutual interest both sides have in stability...
...For another, the military situation might not be symmetrical...
...Disagreement of this kind suggests that (1) strategic analysis has become an exciting new parlor game in which people allow their strong preferences to dominate the evidence...
...Yet a remarkably sophisticated argument can be put up for this hodgepodge...
...A prominent minister is concerned about the well-known "moral problem" of family fallout shelters—how to choose between saving self and family or neighbors and strangers in the event of attack...
...The same argument applies for fallible civil defenses...
...But certain factors such as the proliferation of nuclear powers (the "Nth country problem") may force some disarmament action...
...The Letter's confident assertions about the inefficacy of shelters serve primarily as background for the argument that civil defense implies the "acceptance of thermonuclear war...
...Arms control hinges on effective inspection...
...ARMS AND THE MAN - FOUR ARTICLES Testing in the Atmosphere By Lawrence S. Finkelstein The Soviet Union's renewal of atmospheric nuclear testing late last summer set off a chain reaction that shows little sign of abating...
...Because of our very large and diversified existing arsenal, the Russians would have to go a long way in exploiting their new technical advances before threatening our second-strike capability...
...The result of future arms control discussion is more likely to be some form of limited inspection, which the U.S...
...Here the same evidence gives rise to conflicting interpretations...
...Yet civil defenses might still be unwise if they increased the probability of war...
...Shortly afterward we began a series of underground tests that to date have totaled 13...
...But there is also general agreement that we are nowhere near the goal, and that the means of achieving it may not even be in sight...
...Civil defenses (like seat belts, selfexamination for cancer, home fire-extinguishers, etc...
...What is clear is that this is an area in which the layman must tread warily...
...They feel it is undignified for the United States government to conceal the peaceful steps with which it is really deeply concerned under a massive program designed to allay fears that this country has different goals...
...What of the underground launching pads already built...
...By testing above ground, many feel...
...Any attempt to responsibly judge the morality of atmospheric testing, therefore, must include a careful weighing of instrumental factors: What actions better serve which moral ends...
...In any case, this country would still have the protection of a neutral deterrent against Soviet attack...
...Many of the latter have been seduced by the endorsement of the GCD goal and disdain the critics of the current program who would like to maintain the world on an even keel until then...
...While I have suggested ways in which the Russian tests have weakened some of the arguments for U.S...
...Let us suppose that the Soviet military planners, without having necessarily thought out the situation rationally, regard their function as one of killing X per cent of the American population (where X could conceivably be in the range of 50-60 per cent, or even higher...
...Improved yield to weight rations...
...As for the individual stages, the first stage is a somewhat heterogeneous compendium of steps moving toward GCD...
...Yet they may not have proven that the gains depended on the atmospheric tests...
...To be sure, the opinions of the critics-on-the-Charles vary widely on the question of what should be done ultimately about disarmament...
...Whether they do or not depends in good measure on their intentions, which may change, and on our strategic wisdom...
...If so, then our hypothetical Soviet planners could respond by raising the weight of attack to make sure that X per cent are still killed...
...In a broad sense, it is a good thing that we are expected to pursue higher standards than the Russians...
...Should that be the case, there still remain the important questions of how much testing is to be done, over how long a period, for what ends, and with how much fallout...
...program could provide a basis for the start of reasonable negotiations...
...some things we want to push and some disagreements concealed under verbiage...
...during an attack it is necessary to remain at sea only long enough to fulfill one's mission...
...by adopting a counterforce first-strike tactic, the attacker may be able to insure that only a relatively small retaliatory strike can be launched against his cities...
...Even Good Housekeeping says, "let's stop the fallout shelter folly...
...The answers TO the questions that should be asked concerning the efficacy of shelters in the event of nuclear attack are not particularly mysterious...
...Those more skeptical of the Russians' sincerity want to deny them the propaganda advantage they have had in recent years to get them to begin considering serious negotiations...
...Edward Teller says that a long systematic series of underground tests "could yield practically all the information needed for the successful development of nuclear weapons...
...Our entire defensive posture, in turn, is merely instrumental to our main hope of inducing other nations to agree to a settlement that will alleviate the threat of war...
...The possibility that an attack may be designed to overcome civil defenses, however, does not make them militarily senseless...
...It would not constitute a "superstate,' as isolationists used to call the League of Nations...
...In this connection, seaborne delivery systems possess a unique and essential attribute...
...The bomber base that is spared because of an attack made upon an American city instead could launch a counter-blow that might well destroy many population centers in the USSR...
...could better afford to rely upon a loose inspection system acceptable to the Russians...
...Why should the United States hesitate to test in the atmosphere...
...In his opening statement to the reporters, he denned the issue confronting the free world as follows: "We are making necessary preparations for testing because of the wholly new situation created by the secretly prepared and massive series of forty to fifty tests conducted by the Soviet Union last fall, while active efforts for a test-ban agreement were still going forward...
...Thus the international community could recapture a large measure of the security it now lacks, at a minimum of risk to its member states...
...There would be no point in the force misusing its power because it would have only a onestrike capacity...
...Whether their feelings are well-founded or not, a lack of interest in helping to produce positions they consider meaningless is pushing some of the men most capable of contributing to arms control and disarmament into other lines of endeavor...
...In that case, over and above the millions of unavoidable casualties, there are likely to be millions and millions more whose lives hang in the balance—depending upon whether or not we have provided in advance for shelters, medical supplies, food reserves and the like...
...How could such operations be policed...
...Unlike the UN, an international security agency would be non-political...
...Thus, our policymakers must operate and negotiate in an atmosphere of unreality...
...The New York Times called it the "boldest and most comprehensive disarmament plan ever put forward...
...To counter the nuclear threat, the United States poses the threat of retaliation in kind, i.e., deterrence...
...Most critics do not challenge our agreement on the goal of general and complete disarmament (GCD...
...The Soviets will no longer, in such a debate, get away with such sophistry...
...Thus, in the Disarmament Agency and the Pentagon, men are working out the details of steps toward GCD with all the fervor of a medieval monk making the case for the currently approved number of angels on the head of a pin...
...By shifting some deterrent power from national control, and delegating it to a group of international technicians whose sole concern would be to determine which nation is guilty of attack, some measure of security could be restored...
...atmospheric testing when, in President Kennedy's words, "the orderly and scientific development" of an anti-missile system requires it...
...It is impossible to "ban the bomb" because there is no sure way of detecting hidden nuclear stockpiles...
...The underlying premise here is that there is a national policy available, different from our present one, which offers greater hope for securing "peace with freedom...
...This would be unfavorable from the shelter point of view because it would be too late for the Russians to hope to catch our bombers and missiles on the ground and they would have to retaliate by bombing cities...
...It can increase the strikingpower of existing delivery vehicles or, alternatively, permit delivering the same power with smaller vehicles...
...We are, if anything, more sincere than they in our desire for the goal, and we might as well try to get credit in the eyes of "world public opinion...
...If these means are dismantled or removed from national control, the "balance of terror" would be replaced by a reasonable assurance of security...
...on the other, that a more secure, "second strike" capability for the Russians is stabilizing because it reduces their incentive to strike first to avoid strategic defeat...
...In part, this depends on objectives...
...The lethal radius of nuclear explosions in the atmosphere is highly relevant to work on anti-ICBM systems...
...notification of maneuvers and troop movements...
...This involves a one-time cost of perhaps $150 million and a small maintenance expenditure thereafter...
...Other voices are also raised for our guidance...
...Finally, there is a problem of how a nation caught violating agreements is to be punished...
...But such a settlement may not come about, and deterrence might fail as well...
...Education of the neutrals, it is felt, must take a similar tack...
...The measure of the current feeling in Washington, however, is that this line of argument is optimistic...
...Instead of emphasizing the staged GCD approach, too, it might be more useful to attempt a frank exploration with the Soviets of how highly they value the secrecy which so far has been the stumbling block over which every disarmament hope has fallen...
...It would be staffed by a multi-national directorate of non-political scientists and technicians, preferably from non-nuclear, neutral countries such as Switzerland or Sweden...
...Why the Russians are intractable is obviously a crucial question in analyzing whether U.S...
...One might perhaps reason that the Russians were forced to test by our qualitative as well as quantitative superiority in nuclear weapons, and that they will not be content with what they have achieved from their test series...
...The ability to deter depended on speedy reaction...
...The critical viewpoint under discussion here stems from a diverse group of natural and social scientists, many of whom maintain at least a consulting relationship with various governmental agencies in defense or international affairs fields...
...Thus a basis for negotiation exists: The Soviet Union can better conceal land-based launching sights: the U.S...
...Of course it will not...
...3. Where would such an international security agency be stationed...
...and an interim uninspected renunciation of orbiting weapons in outer space...
...When the chain of extrapolation gets too long, scientific and military personnel tend to be uneasy about the possible performance of the weapons...
...By the very nature of the case, anti-CD arguments must start off on an awkward footing...
...Indeed those who think Khrushchev considers GCD is "his baby" want to approach him with it to sell him stability, just as Senator Kennedy approached the Protestant electorate with his obviously sincere advocacy of the separation between church and state to sell them his political program...
...This control organization would be ready to take over as substantive programs were agreed on...
...specialists on disarmament...
...a ban on the transfer of nuclear weapons to powers not owning them...
...If our population is sure to be exterminated in the event of our attacking Russia, this argument goes, we are thereby deterred...
...It is much more likely, however, that the Russians will remain tough and that not even limited advances will be possible...
...Inertia was particularly strong because of the suspicion that "world opinion" might be against us if we retreated from our staged approach to GCD...
...This would lessen tensions in one of the perpetual danger areas of the world...
...The upshot is that the proposed civil defenses, regarded as an element in an overall military posture for the nation, may turn out to be of truly incalculable value in preserving the lives of many millions of people —but may also turnout to be of relatively low effectiveness if the enemy is unshakably determined to kill population...
...Its function would be to back up a conventionally armed police force in case a nuclear power rejected the latter's authority...
...Increasing the yield of a given weight of nuclear material has important potential effects...
...in all three instances there would be some chance of putting the matter right before the full destructive forces have been unleashed...
...How can we assure the Russians that our seaborne delivery systems are really beyond range of Russian territory...
...One possibility, obviously adverse to civil defense, would be explosion of a "Doomsday machine"—a device that destroys the whole world (this may exist in the not-too-distant future, though its military function is somewhat unclear...
...Disarmament & Arms Control By Robert A. Levine Last September, President Kennedy proposed to the UN General Assembly that disarmament negotiations "continue without interruption until an entire program for general and complete disarmament has not only been agreed but has been actually achieved...
...Both the U.S...
...Perhaps the best-known of the attacks upon civil defense was a paid newspaper advertisement, in the form of an "Open Letter to President Kennedy," put forward originally by 183 Boston-area professors and scholars, and since reissued with many hundreds of added academic signatures from New York, California and elsewhere...
...In the words of some of the more extreme advocates of unilateral disarmament, "We can but try...
...Whether a Soviet missile achievement threatens U.S...
...Under national control, the power to deter can always become the power to attack...
...it could not follow up whatever initial advantage might be gained by an aggressive act...
...Those who are against shelters point out that civil defense "will not halt the march toward Doomsday...
...attack, and are probably the main reason for their aversion to inspection...
...There is also the question of whether a test ban will be facilitated by abstinence or, conversely, whether only the threat of a nuclear competition will persuade the Russians that they have an interest in agreeing to end tests...
...In each case, the general principle is the same: Shelters protect people against long-range fallout much better than against close-in blast and fire effects...
...At present it appears that the U.S...
...Their reliability is based on extrapolation of evidence derived from earlier test series...
...An enforceable agreement to cut off the arms race would be a good thing, and the Russians have the option of seriously negotiating toward that end— which is very different from unilateral restraint on the part of the U.S...
...True, U.S...
...Finally, by presenting a plan for an international deterrent force, the U.S...
...The main message of the advertisement appears in its peroration: "To sum up, we believe that although the present civil defense program, and in particular the construction of fallout shelters, might save a small fraction of the population in a nuclear war, this potential gain is more than offset by the fact that such activity prepares the people for the acceptance of thermonuclear war as an instrument of- national policy...
...The Russian tests imply a Soviet willingness to risk a competition that offers little chance of a stabilized arms relationship...
...To begin with, it is pointed out that the Soviets have for years been "occupying the propaganda high ground" of GCD, and there is no reason we should allow them to...
...Yet it is clear that as long as there is no international control, this country must be prepared to live under the constant threat of surprise nuclear attack...
...Ambassador to the Congo, named them the Charles River Boys (not to be confused with the Charles River Valley Boys, a folk-song group that sings out for SANE in the Boston area...
...Besides, it is not clear whether, on this point as on others, Teller represents a school of thought with which other scientists disagree...
...If the Soviets prove willing this time, it is even possible that our concentration on GCD will leave us unprepared for real negotiations...
...Although the effects would be limited, there would still be a certain amount of fallout...
...Meanwhile, it would be the height of irresponsibility for us not to take those measures which help postpone Doomsday...
...Finally, there is the contention that U.S...
...Nor would it be the ideal answer to the threat of nuclear oblivion...
...In particular, it is not clear that we would accept the equality of strategic forces which may be implied by our own paragraphs on nuclear weapons and delivery vehicles without simultaneous Soviet agreement on parity of "conventional" forces...
...The effectiveness of shelters may be "high" or "low" (in the latter case, they may save only a "few" million people) depending upon a whole set of complex contingencies that defy certainty or even "almost certainty...
...Unfortunately, the arguments now being offered to the public both for and against civil defense are, to put it mildly, often somewhat misleading...
...The first of the arguments in favor of atmospheric testing is that since the Russians have tested, so too must we...
...Policemen and judges sometimes are dishonest, but for this reason we do not prefer anarchy to the rule of law...
...This is followed by an appreciation of the dangers of ultimate thermonuclear Armageddon, and the view that general disarmament to the point where a UN Peace Force could enforce the peace on all powers, could provide a solution...
...But this would greatly reduce the ability to counterattack, and put a premium on the pre-emptive blow...
...The pre-emptive advantage makes a suspicion of war a cause of war...
...This is not true...
...President, to make this plain and then to lead the nation forward on a race toward peace...
...Raising the ante in this way would not be cheap or easy, but it is feasible if the Soviets are willing to make sacrifices elsewhere: equip fewer land divisions, or cut back on hydroelectric developments, for example...
...It is further claimed that the U.S...
...Robert A. Levine is research associate at the Center for International Affairs at Harvard University...
...For example, did their test series demonstrate an impressive improvement in the fusion to fission ratio of their warheads and, if so, does that necessarily signify progress toward a pure fusion weapon...
...Decisions on these questions will affect the values and interests of the United States only in a slightly lesser degree than the decision on the central question of whether to begin atmospheric tests...
...But it would constitute a step in the right direction...
...An international agency with "absolute control" over any nation's "absolute power to destroy other nations" is a Utopian goal in a world dominated by nuclear Realpolitik...
...The same argument also appears in inverted form: Shelters are a Pentagon plot to prepare the American people for aggressive war against an inoffensive Soviet Union...
...The key point of the three-stage plan is the phasing in of international peace-keeping machinery, specifically including a United Nations Peace Force, as national armaments phase out...
...Perhaps the present ferment in the Kremlin means that they have seen the light on disarmament...
...Since the United States did not conduct any tests between 1958 and late 1961, the warheads of various weapons in our arsenals have never been tested...
...2. The marking and stocking of shelter spaces in existing structures, now under way...
...Defense of the nation, of its citizens, of its cities and its countryside is an impossibility...
...The Russian tests seem to have demonstrated substantial advances in weapons design...
...A keynote of some of the opposition to civil defense is the theme of the internal enemy...
...Two model situations illustrate the complexities involved: A Model Situation Relatively Unfavorable to Civil Defense...
...In effect it says, if you hit me, I'll hit you back—on the unfounded assumption that the first blow will not be a knockout...
...or, alternatively, merely a device to make more money for "survival merchants...
...But if pressed, most observers who are familiar with the disarmament plan will admit to being less enthusiastic than the Times...
...The prospects for endless negotiation opened up by this suggestion led a Washington cynic to remark that we then ought to take disarmament out of domestic politics by making the post of United States Disarmament Negotiator hereditary...
...If this plan is rationally designed, the prime target of attack must be America's atomic retaliatory forces...
...The alternatives to deterrence are arms control and limitation—or, preferably, a combination of the two...
...the Christian solution, it would appear, is to commit the greater crime of making sure that no one survives...
...Lawrence S. Finkelstein, Vice President of the Carnegie Endowment, is currently a research associate at the Center for International Affairs at Harvard...
...Thus the elimination of the second-strike capacity would vastly increase the danger of surprise attack and, ironically, have the opposite effect from that intended...
...But it is possible to "ground the bomb" since the means of delivery—stationary and mobile launching pads, airfields, missile-equipped submarines, surface craft and now space craft—are difficult to hide...
...As a first move we could offer to withdraw our seaborne delivery systems beyond range of Russian territory in return for the right to keep the Eurasian land mass under aerial surveillance...
...For all of their noise, and for all of their weight in some academic and allied circles, the marchers carry very little importance in the real debate determining where the United States will go on disarmament...
...But if a good proportion of the crew is to consist of inspectors, why not go the whole hog and internationalize the sub...
...It is possible to provide a high degree of protection against close-in effects, but such shelters are much more expensive and are not contemplated in the present program for the civilian population...
...No one who has devoted serious thought to the problem can honestly say that shelters are "almost certain" to be ineffective, or the opposite for that matter...
...the U.S...
...It is particularly important that every effort be made to interpret faithfully and apply vigorously the standard established by President Kennedy last November when he promised to "restrict the fall-out from such tests to an absolute minimum...
...Until recently, nuclear strategy was chiefly concerned with the question of timing...
...the first is deterrence of attack by threat of atomic retaliation...
...From the point of view of mutual self-interest, the problem is controlling or eliminating weapons of intercontinental range...
...Albert Wohlstetter, the strategic analyst, once observed that "not even the most advanced reconnaissance equipment can disclose an intention from 40,000 feet...
...having civil defense will make us much more willing to "go to the brink" and far less likely to "take any of the constructive steps which may ease tension and secure the peace...
...It sets the entire massive machinery of the United States government going in the wrong direction...
...Already the missilecarrying submarine makes the whole strategy doubtful...
...itself is not doing enough either to move the Russians a little way off their hard position now or to prepare for the hoped-for day when they are ready to move even further...
...Several of the contributions testing might make to the development of anti-missile systems have been mentioned above...
...The force itself would not be tempted to pre-empt, since it would have no means of following up the initial blow...
...While a secure Soviet second-strike capability could permit the Russians to eschew first strike aspirations, it does not force them to do so...
...Also, proponents have argued without qualification that civil defense, like active defense, contributes to deterrence of war—for some possible Soviet strategies it may, for others it definitely does not...
...is ahead in water-borne deterrence systems...
...Now let the U.S...
...Nevertheless some observers, pointing out that a test-ban agreement remains desirable, insist that we should abstain from atmospheric testing to avoid killing the chances of reaching one some day...
...There is a growing feeling among responsible American analysts—who, while critical, are far from the camp of the strident nuclear-doom howlers—that the U.S...
...To assess the ways in which the Russians are likely to use their capabilities is something else again...
...Unfortunately, it is highly unlikely that either the U.S...
...The cork has been pulled...
...plans for practical next steps have been answered with Soviet exhortations to sign first a treaty favoring a totally disarmed world...
...The opposite analysis has it that the Soviet campaign for GCD first, with controls later—which appears patently insincere to Americans —comes directly from Premier Khrushchev and is based on ingenuousness rather than disingenuousness...
...In fact, the pro-CD discussions have concentrated not upon polemics but upon the practical details of what can be done to increase the chances of survival...
...Two major arguments are generally used...
...If, for example, the objective is to observe the effects of the atmosphere on the nuclear radiation enrtted by a nuclear explosion (a question which may be of considerable importance to developing anti-missile weapons), then the desired result can only be achieved in the atmosphere...
...Such arguments can logically be put forward, but only by calling upon relatively subtle, unfavorable effects to overcome the clear and direct firstorder favorable effects...
...We must get the Russians to join us in a number of obviously beneficial short-run programs, such as those which can be taken in outer space, without necessitating the inspection of Soviet soil they seem so much to fear...
...One of the more important arguments for atmospheric tests is that certain highly significant effects of nuclear weapons are little understood...
...When more than two nations acquire missile-equipped subs, it will be impossible to tell who your enemy is...
...should not now jeopardize the chances of achieving such an agreement has also been dealt a sharp blow...
...It might be possible to find some form of disengagement with a quid pro quo making it acceptable to the West Germans...
...The two model situations are clearly important possibilities, but there are still others that should be at least mentioned...
...On the other hand, there would be little point in a would-be aggressor pre-emptively attacking these islands, since the deterrent power would be mainly dispersed at sea...
...reciprocal inspection of Arctic areas...
...There are three main components to the enlarged civil defense program: 1. The continuing effort in public education, research and support of local civil defense offices, combined with the procurement of radiological detection instruments, emergency packaged hospitals, reserves of drugs and plasma, etc...
...The nuclear-powered Polaris sub, which can remain at sea for months, is an excellent retaliatory weapon...
...While the Russians might object to this plan as being "control without disarmament," it involves no inspection without disarmament, and thus might be acceptable...
...Not only do such islands constitute appropriate headquarters for seaborne operations but they would be vulnerable to blockage...
...It should be made clear that the opponents in question are not the radical marchers who chant, "We will have peace if we but have a deep and abiding faith in peace...
...The bold new program, then, can be characterized as something old, something new...
...They therefore feel a need to believe in the feasibility of the program, even though they are too sophisticated to believe that it will work now...
...And delays in developing a definite program, marked by a lack of continuing Presidential leadership, apparently encouraged forces of aggressive opposition whose latent existence had been unsuspected...
...Out of this frustration came the American program of September 1961 for "General and Complete Disarmament in a Peaceful World," in three easy-toput-together stages...
...modest transfers of fissionable material for peaceful use by the International Atomic Energy Agency...
...Perhaps the best location would be neutralized islands in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans...
...As a new round of talks is about to begin on March 14, there appears no reason to change this cynical prognostication...
...Of course, there is no gainsaying the widespread belief that atmospheric testing would be immoral and harmful...
...As for encouraging the spread of nuclear capability, however, the Russians have already uncorked the bottle that contained the genie...
...2. How could nations make sure that a neutral deterrent might not be misused and itself constitute an international dictatorship...
...As more nations join the nuclear club, the elimination of the necessity for immediate retaliation will become increasingly important...
...The fact that the Russians have tested, permitting them to eliminate doubts about the reliability of their weapons and perhaps to find out things about ours, somewhat strengthens the case for U.S...
...For example, much of our deterrent strategy depends on the hardening of our missile installations, now based on untested calculations of the lethal radius of nuclear explosions aimed at underground sites...
...atmospheric testing would give added momentum to the arms race...
...Evaluation of the likelihood of different contingencies is required in order to come to a balanced opinion, and this evaluative process must of course incorporate a substantial element of personal judgment...
...But deterrence—even "stabilized deterrence,' which is supposed to insure against gaining a decisive advantage from surprise attack—assumes rational political behavior, and history indicates that nations do not always act rationally...
...To cite one example, our amphibious Marine forces may be totally useless in a future war, but since this is by no means certain, we wisely spend billions to maintain this instrument of warfare...
...It would not and could not enforce...
...The world would no doubt be a happier place without the vastly cheapened nuclear weapons that such a development would make possible...
...Such an attack may either be costly or inconsistent with other strategic objectives of the aggressor...
...and the USSR are interested in restoring their national security...
...Moreover, national control of long-range delivery systems jeopardizes not only a nation's existence but the lives of most its inhabitants as well...
...But by far the best guess is that next month's negotiations will differ little from those of the past, and that they will not culminate in the summit meeting proposed by Premier Khrushchev...
...This is a serious matter...
...Oliver Dixwell Knauth is the author of U.S...
...The proposal also lists such measures as an interim five-year cutoff of fissionable material production...
...At no time before in modern history," write Thomas Schelling and Morton Halperin in their study Strategy and Arms Control, "did military technology make it so likely that the first moments of general war might determine its outcome Hardly anything would be as tragically ironic as a war that both sides started, each in the belief that the other was about to Essentially the urge to pre-empt is an aggravating factor: it converts a possibility of war into an anticipation of war, precipitating war...
...it could only deter...
...Although air surveys cannot easily detect underground sites after their completion, they can be spotted during construction...
...But this does not apply to the Polaris submarine...
...The only way would be to not station one but several inspectors on each sub...
...The latter evaluation seems to me much more logical...
...Anti-missile systems...
...position...
...But if only one of them can be achieved as a first step toward the ultimate hope of continuing peace, this will be very much more impressive than any paper list of hypothetical steps toward GCD...
...The second stage "further reduces" the armaments limited in the first stage...
...Rather, the fear is that we will be so "tough" at the bargaining table that the Soviets, out of irritation, will strike at us first...
...The efforts of the American people, we are told, "should be directed toward a positive program of peace with freedom...
...Moreover, it leaves the initiative to the other side, and a scientific breakthrough such as the perfection of an anti-missile can unstabilize it at any time...
...If these are surprised and destroyed on the ground, not only would Russia's cities be saved, but the world balance of military power would be permanently shifted...
...knows less about the location of Soviet missile sites than the USSR knows about ours...
...The idea here seems to be that having shelters will of itself destroy the democratic way of life...
...If properly based, it would offer no substantial target to attack...
...Chances are that a country bent on nuclear rearmament would not agree to chastisement at the hands of a conventionally armed international force...
...Nor can one discount the role of inertia in producing the new program...
...So many of them are associated with the Harvard-MIT Faculty Arms Control Seminar, that Edmund Gullion, before he left the acting Directorship of the Disarmament Agency for greener fields as U.S...
...The September 1961 program that, together with our proposal for a nuclear test-ban treaty, is likely to constitute the American position at the start of negotiations on March 14, is quite explicitly a program for GCD...
...can hardly rely on alone to assure its security...
...Another frequently expressed fear is that renewed testing by us would further deteriorate U.S.-Soviet relations...
...Considered in isolation, testing may well be immoral...
...Since civil defense at least partially removes the hostages, it weakens the mutual deterrence...
...Progress still depends on an easing of Soviet intransigence...
...The program has occasionally been advertised, although not by the Government, as committing the United States to GCD for the first time...
...In fact, given the curious double standard that seems to apply in such matters, we probably would be held in greater disdain, despite the fact that the Russians broke the moratorium...
...As long as a nation knows that surprise attack is sure to meet with retribution, it does not greatly matter whether retribution comes in a matter of minutes or days, or even weeks...
...steps to keep the peace now...
...atmospheric tests depends on both how unreliable existing theoretical calculations are thought to be and whether there are acceptable alternatives to perfect knowledge...
...The furor was initiated by President...
...When many nations possess nuclear capacities, it is difficult to determine immediately which has launched an attack and therefore which should be punished...
...True, the Russians could completely reverse the mood of recent years and come in with a version of peaceful coexistence which looks good even to the skeptics (they are just unpredictable enough to make a kernel of hope always appear to exist at the start of every new round...
...As this is being written, it appears that the pressure to test will prove irresistible...
...Fallout shelters might even save huge numbers of people in the event of a peacetime crash of one of our own aircraft triggering an atomic weapon aboard (this is a most unlikely, but by no means impossible occurrence...
...For many, though, it is psychologically easier to deny the threat by striking out at the proposed safety measure than to reduce the threat by adopting the safety measure...
...Or would we be wiser to concentrate on improved CEP for our missiles...
...But Russian gains in yield to weight ratios do not necessarily mean similar gains are vital, or even possible, for us...
Vol. 45 • February 1962 • No. 4
