REVERSING THE ARMS RACE

...The areas in which unilateral action might be taken, and reciprocation invited, cover a broad range...

...Unilateral acts must be accompanied by explicit invitations to recip...

...In some cases the invitation to reciprocation may be entirely open-ended, leaving the selection of appropriate response up to the opponent...

...The democratic system, too, is adaptable...

...They include the sharing of scientific information and cooperation in scientific projects...

...We stand with terrible power but shorn of initiative...

...We must learn to live with it," our newspapers tell us...

...Unilateral acts of tension-reducing nature must be accompanied by explicit firmness in all areas...

...A democratic system cannot so easily channel the energies of its people into military preparations at the expense of civilian comforts...

...Explicit invitation to reciprocate serves several purposes: it encourages the opponent actively to consider tension-reducing alternatives...

...Unilateral acts of an aggressive, tension-increasing nature have become prohibitively dangerous, and therefore the whole notion of power politics has now become anachronistic...

...Unilateral acts must be graduated in risk potential should they not be reciprocated or should they be exploited by an opponent...

...It may be the same or different in kind, depending on the nature of the initiating act...

...Nations today, under severe emotional stress, are lumbering down the one habitual path to "security"—bigger and better weapons —gathering as they go ever-mounting tensions which make it less and less possible to see other alternatives...

...It is easy to blame this on the intractability of the Communists, but the same mechanisms operate on both sides...

...Second, there is the unpredictability of human behavior under stress...

...second, one of the major pressures toward reciprocation by the opponent would come from favorable reactions in the neutral or uncommitted nations...

...the stalemate with Communist China and Taiwan, along with Quemoy and Matsu...

...No one wants war in a nuclear age, yet no one seems able to avoid spiral-ing toward it...

...Many recent travelers to Russia, including statesmen and scholars, have been impressed by the "mirror image" of our own attitudes they find among the people and the leaders there...

...I have come to the somber conclusion that to compete successfully we would have to give up our way of life as rapidly as possible...

...I think we are in exactly the same spot...

...As a form of international behavior, the arms race is a case of graduated, but reciprocal, unilateral action...

...But I have convinced myself that it can be done...

...our informal ambassadors are asked...

...However, the great danger in the present unstable period is that the leadership of either side is liable to take the gamble, justifying its decision on the ground that the other side was obviously planning the same thing...

...So, for all our terrible power, we stand chained by ft rather than set free...

...With his giant foresight, Albert Einstein many years ago put it in words that could have been written today: "Our world is threatened by a crisis whose extent seems to escape those within whose power it is to make major decisions for good or evil...

...Paradoxically, we are driving ourselves in a direction we do not wish to go...

...Anthropologists are familiar with cultures that, through blind adherence to practices that 28 THE PROGRESSIVE once were realistic, have gradually committed suicide...

...Unilateral acts must be perceived by the opponent as reducing his external threat...

...It will require courage and dedication not only on the part of governments, but also on the part of the mass media and thereby the public which supports them...

...Unilateral acts must be planned in sequences and continued over considerable periods regardless of reciprocation by an opponent...

...In a recent debate in The New Leader, Bertrand Russell maintained that a Communist victory would not be so great a disaster as the extinction of human life, whereas Sidney Hook maintained just the reverse...

...these policies should be reexamined rather than simply taken for granted...

...In the last analysis, it is certainly true that today we are plagued with problems of human nature and human relationships...

...One essential difference between Communism and our way of life is the relative value placed upon the rights of the individual as compared with the rights of the state...

...third, we would be interested in offering a new model of international behavior to all nations...

...it cannot order its young people into engineering and the physical sciences...

...Since such a war must begin with a surprise attack, this decision must be reached by other than democratic procedures...

...Thus we are drifting toward a catastrophe beyond comparison...

...It is the fact that reciprocation is expected which must be explicit...

...the Americans insist on inspection first and disarmament later (which is consistent with an open society's fear of secrecy...

...As those of us who deal with individual humans under stress realize so well, there are seldom if ever absolute blacks and whites...

...nuclear testing...

...Unfortunately, there are no institutions for nations...

...This policy represents something quite different from the traditional "Neanderthal" conception of international relations...

...If the correct national behavior is to be acquired, the probabilities of reward must be considerably higher than the probabilities of punishment...

...Russian perceptions of the present situation, and their reactions to it, may be much like our own...

...Both Russia and the United States—as well as most nations on our globe—have been steadily manufacturing their own versions of reality...

...A decision to wage preventive—or pre-emptive—war implies a sufficient lead in the armament race to minimize the possibility of punishing reprisal—or a sufficient frenzy to take the gamble...

...The locus of application and timing of our unilateral acts must be unpredictable by the opponent to prevent his usurpation prior to our announcement of intention...

...We are continuing to practice rites and rituals of international relations that were developed in and are appropriate to the past, firmly believing them to be realistic in a present age that renders them suicidal...

...it cannot make quick decisions and changes in strategy without regard to popular opinion...

...rpHE world is faced today with the -¦- potentially lethal combination of nuclear weapons against which there is no defense and international tensions from which there seems to be no respite...

...The hopeful side of the picture is the remarkable adaptability of the human species...

...The arms race is necessarily graduated, first by the irregular and somewhat unpredictable pace at which scientific technology develops and second by the oscillating nature of the threat stimulus itself...

...The deepest objection to any non-aggressive solution is the bogeyman conception of the enemy...

...One of the great obstacles to a meeting of minds is self-delusion...

...The goal is reversal of the tension/arms-race spiral and creation of an atmosphere in which steps toward a more permanent solution of the problem of survival in the nuclear age can be taken...

...But as technology reduces retaliation time, decision-making must be dispersed over more and more individuals whose fingers are nearer the critical buttons, and we know that there are potentially unstable, suicidal people, who have no compunctions about taking the lives of others when they themselves are thwarted...

...Our understanding and control of the physical world has far outstripped our understanding of and ability to control ourselves...

...Both sides need intense and thoughtful self-criticism from within, but the dynamics of mass self-justification make this difficult to apply— and support, once it has been applied...

...When our travelers ask them why they maintain a great army and are building up nuclear weapons for long-range attack, they reply that we leave them no choice...

...otherwise, both the announcement and the execution would lose much of their force...

...Furthermore, he adds, Russian Man obviously would take advantage of our helplessness by overrunning the world and making it a tight Communist despotism...

...The present generation is faced with the consequences of this imbalance...

...Yet they feel impelled along it with a certain inevitability...

...As to the idea that the very horror of nuclear war will prevent its occurrence, one must wonder why this horror in times of relative peace has not led us promptly into agreements on nuclear disarmament...

...And when they answer that we most certainly do not want war, the Russians ask, "Then why do your leaders prepare for it...

...We can expect other nations to beg, borrow, and steal the capacity to produce nuclear weapons...

...Unilateral acts must be executed regardless of prior commitment by the opponent to reciprocate...

...But, fortunately, the policy of graduated reciprocation in tension-reduction includes mechanisms for developing such understanding, flexibility, and self-restraint...

...Rather, time intervals between announcement and execution should be planned, allowing just sufficient time for rational consideration by an opponent, for his preparation of reciprocative action, and for world opinion to mobilize...

...One is the Nth Country problem...

...Another mechanism bedeviling successful negotiations is the self-fulfill, ing prophecy: each side predicts that the other will prove obdurate and unreasonable and will use the negotiations for propaganda purposes...

...However, there are other forms of unilateral, tension-reducing action, and these we must now explore in the hope of discovering some way out of the Great Freeze...

...Nations differ in their concepts of human values...

...On both counts this strategy is more available to Russia than to ourselves, particularly during the next critical decade...

...The main source of divergent opinions about strategy in the war with Communism lies here...

...The only problem with mutual disarmament—an ideal solution in all other respects—is the feasibility of carrying out successful negotiations when international tensions are running high...

...All this frightens me, as I am sure it does many thoughtful Americans, but frightening people is not enough...

...They blame their aggressive behavior on us just as we blame ours on them...

...In general, earlier unilateral acts would be smaller in magnitude of risk than later acts...

...The prospects are not good...

...Tension-reducing acts are likely to lose some of their impact if announcement and execution are coincident...

...Most Americans, and I believe most Russians as well, are fully aware of the dangers of the present course...

...The policy of mutual deterrence is predicated on the assumption of rationality on all sides...

...trade and travel restrictions...

...We have behind us a long and dismal history of unsuccessful negotiations with the Russians...

...Is it possible that the arms race provides a model for its own reversal...

...Suppose, says Socrates, that Russian Man were to suddenly junk all of his atomic weapons— would you, American Man, leap to destroy him in a nuclear holocaust...

...Would the Free World be able to maintain a favorable position in such a race...

...No one as impressed as I am with the complexity of our problem and the magnitude of the contrary forces could be very sanguine about our chances of escaping from our dilemma unscathed...

...Is there any solution...

...If a whole group of people, including their leaders, refuse to accept reality, if their communications media consistently paint a self-righteous picture in the face of contrary facts, then there is no court to dispel the dangerous process of self-delusion...

...Of course, the great philosopher would have arrived at the same conclusion had he directed his questions at a hypothetical Russian man-on-the-street...

...Complete and abject unilateral disarmament is completely infeasible, given existing nationalistic beliefs and attitudes...

...Given the belief by each side that we are good, kind, fair, and so on—a necessary and generally valid belief as far as everyday human relations are concerned—and given also the logical opposition between us and them, between friend and enemy, psycho-logic dictates that they, the enemy, must be bad, cruel, unfair, and so on through the opposites of all traits we attribute to ourselves...

...Being a highly unconventional international policy, because of both its unilateral and its non-aggressive nature, graduated and reciprocated tension-reduction is liable to suspicion abroad and resistance at home...

...rocation...

...it assures him that we will correctly interpret his action, and it indicates that we believe his motives parallel, if not identical, to ours...

...Can't we somehow reach mutual agreements with the Russians on disarmament...

...Sober appraisal of what is really going on in the world about us shows that mutual deterrence has slowly but surely produced a freeze on initiative in foreign policy...

...The Soviets, for example, insist on disarmament first and inspection later (which is consistent with a closed society's fear of espionage...

...If an individual refuses to accept reality, we place him in an institution...

...Finally, American Man answers that he doubts if the Russians would do this, but he certainly isn't sure enough about it to take the cha nee...

...Given the same dedication and effort we have been pouring into the arms race, its reversal is certainly feasible...

...Shaking his head in puzzlement, Socrates says: All I can conclude is that Russian Man must be somehow intrinsically different from American Man...

...Why do you Americans want war...

...Unilateral acts must be diverse in nature and unpredictable (by the opponent) as to locus of application and timing in series...

...With each side capable of destroying the other with massive retaliation, neither side will make the initial move, and a prolonged if uneasy "peace" can be maintained...

...International tension and instability will increase geometrically with the number of nations capable of mounting a nuclear attack...

...sure enough, nothing is accomplished, both sides say "I told you so," and the stage is set for the next self-fulfilling prophecy...

...Let us first consider briefly the major policy alternatives currently being discussed...

...Psycho-logic runs rampant when we try to come to grips with the problems of international conflict...

...The reason for preserving our retaliatory capacity while continuing a program of tension-reduction is that it is this capacity for near-annihilation on both sides that both encourages reciprocation and prevents over-stepping...

...Whatever scoffing there might be at the insignificance of our initial acts would be resolved in the continuation of the program...

...Perhaps the most general characterization of my proposal would be that it asks lor a deliberate "peace offensive" designed to induce reciprocation by an enemy...

...To be maximally effective in inducing an opponent to reciprocate, the actions taken by the initiator must be designed to reduce the opponent's level of tension so that he, in turn, acquires increased freedom for action...

...it asks American Man to act in a uniquely civilized way and to assume that Russian Man would respond in kind—but human culture is not ready for such a big step...

...they probably would welcome a way out as much as we would...

...Unilateral acts must not be such as to endanger our "heartland" or reduce our fundamental capacity for retaliatory second-strike...

...What follows is what common sense calls "the consistency of little minds," and what I have termed "psycho-logic," as opposed to logic...

...it includes mechanisms for the discovery of fresh ways of solving novel problems—if they are allowed to operate...

...The same forces that have created the arms race militate against success in mutual negotiations—and it is not only the Russians with whom we must negotiate...

...It is obviously unilateral, in that the nation developing a new weapon, increasing its stockpile, or setting up a new military base does not make its action contingent upon any agreement with the other side...

...The failure of the Russians to see eye-to-eye with the United States on many issues, their purges, their atheism, and other alien attributes, support and strengthen this bogey-image, while it in turn provides us with a ready explanation of their un-American and anti-American behavior...

...The announcement of each act should include the proposed time of execution...

...The complete unwieldiness of massive deterrence as an instrument of everyday foreign policy has been leading us toward the compromise policy of limited war...

...What may be seen as balanced, just, and fair by the representatives of one nation, given its life history and present world view, is likely to be seen as unbalanced, unjust, and unfair by the representatives of the other, given its quite different life history and world view...

...We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive...

...Absolutely not, says American Man —we are only concerned with protecting ourselves, not with destroying others...

...But then, asks Socrates, am I to conclude that American Man in the same circumstances would overrun a helpless world and make a capitalistic despotism of it...

...Psychology has demonstrated that people operating under intense emotion display a reduced awareness of alternatives...

...There may be fresh ways of viewing problems which hopefully might lead to the discovery of solutions not previously believed to exist...

...Instead, there are questions which should be raised about the assumptions underlying our international policies...

...To mount such a "peace offensive" as I have described will require truly extraordinary understanding, flexibility, and self-restraint on all sides...

...What about unilateral acts of a tension-reducing nature...

...Here again we would have a kind of learning experience for any opponent as well as ourselves—learning that unilateral action does not mean "softness" or "surrender...

...Any alternative...

...All right, then, says Socrates, do you think that Russian Man would leap to destroy you with atomic bombs if you were to lay down your weapons...

...Unilateral acts must be announced in advance of execution and widely publicized to ally, neutral, and enemy countries as part of a consistent policy...

...Quite to the contrary, this threat serves to generate a nuclear arms race, since the habitual response to external threat is to demand more and better weapons...

...editorials complain about the cost of military preparations, but conclude that "we must grin and pay it...

...The difficulty is not that men have values and defend them, but that values are often held so insecurely that we feel threatened when others disagree with us— often to the extent that we would deny them the right to express their views...

...Human groups in conflict have always created their bogeymen...

...Rational behavior requires understanding one's ultimate goals, weighing the consequences of alternative means to these goals, and then selecting among the alternatives in terms of their possible success...

...General public announcement should be made for several reasons: First, many of our acts would invite reciprocation from multiple or even all other countries...

...The pursuit of such a policy would be successful only if a number of essential requirements are fulfilled...

...The backbone of our present policy is mutual deterrence through fear of retaliation...

...This means that announcements of unilateral actions would be accompanied by explicit warning that encroachment in this or any other areas would be resisted firmly...

...Under such conditions logic, which requires both sides to accept a course in which neither gains nor loses, tends to be replaced by "psycho-logic," which operates under the guidance of "one-ups-man-ship" and pays more attention to the folks back home than to the folks across the table...

...Why do they ring us about with missile bases...

...It is reciprocal because each increment in military power by one side provides the stimulus for intensified efforts by the other to catch up and get ahead...

...This does not reduce nuclear threat—indeed, it is the threat which is supposed to guarantee the peace...

...each behaves so as to counteract what is expected from the other...

...reduction of arms in East and West Germany...

...What forces operate in times of controversy between human groups to push ordinary disagreement toward mutual destruction...

...No one dares move too suddenly or freely for fear of upsetting the atom-cart—for then, truly, would all hell break loose...

...The proponents of limited war ask us to flirt with the danger of all-out nuclear war with no more protection than fear itself...

...rather, they are waged by whole populations, whose will to fight, will to produce, and involvement with even remote objectives must be whipped up and maintained by the mass media...

...it neither explains our difficulties nor offers any real solutions...

...Modern conflicts are not viewed with the impassion of peasants watching a tourney of champions...

...This is the characteristic that distinguishes this policy most clearly from mutual negotiation and allows a reasonable degree of initiative...

...Maintaining a series of unilateral, tension-reducing acts produces a cumulative pressure toward reciprocation...

...It is an offensive in deeds rather than words, but the deeds are carefully graduated in magnitude of risk so as to maintain tolerable levels of dignity and security...

...more than that, given existing capacities for nuclear retaliation, some policy of this sort may well be the only avenue left for positive foreign policy...

...Therefore its initial phases must be viewed as a learning experience on both sides of the fence...

...The range of acts envisaged is much broader than "disarmament" and even broader than "disengagement," as usually conceived, since much more than arms control is involved and even "engagement" in certain cooperative activities would be included...

...The essential irrationality and danger in our present course are apparent, yet we feel impelled along it...

...Why should this be so...

...Osgood is director of the Institute of Communications Research at the University of Illinois and president of the American Psychological Association.—The Editors...

...The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything except our ways of thinking...

...Yet, most of the discussion of policy in a nuclear age has been framed in technological terms and carried on more by physicists and engineers than by social scientists...

...Thus, an act in one area (for example, inviting diplomatic exchange with Communist China) would be followed by a number of acts in quite different areas (on controls and inspection vis-a-vis Russia, or on joint provision of technicians for the Congo) before we would return to another step in the China area again...

...Where the announcement of an initial act may be greeted with cries of "propaganda" by an opponent, particularly since it would be small in magnitude of risk, the announcement and then execution of the next—and the next, and the next—make it harder and harder to maintain this interpretation...

...However appealing the idea of "gentlemanly war" may be to military men, it is inconceivable under present world conditions...

...As a psychologist, I am well aware that threatening people with hell-fire without offering them any solution is probably worse than doing nothing at all—it simply drives them more quickly along traditional paths to "security" that are believed to be realistic simply because they are habitual...

...Nuclear technology merely exaggerates the problem...

...maintaining the initiative would require both firmness of purpose and exercise of self-restraint, but the stakes are high and the policy is appropriate to the nuclear age...

...Just as the Colt .45 brought big men and little men to common stature in the days of the Old West, so will the atomic bomb be "the great equalizer" in the nuclear age...

...Russians are told that they are absolutely white and Americans absolutely black, while Americans are told that they are white and the Russians black—each country puts full blame on the other, whatever the incident...

...The assumption here is that the threat of full-scale nuclear war will prevent nations from unleashing it, thereby allowing "war as usual" to be used as an instrument of foreign policy...

...This is in order that reduction of tension and pressure toward reciprocation of the opponent can be maintained cumulatively without progressively weakening ourselves in any one area...

...The unilateral actions undertaken woidd be highly diversified as to nature and unpredictable (by the opponent) as to time and place, but they would have the common intent of reducing tensions...

...The reason for not initiating actions which might endanger our "heartland" is again that, if taken advantage of, we would be likely to release full-scale retaliation and thereby write "finis" to this chapter of the human book...

...I believe that we must accept these protestations of good faith as genuine...

...This can be illustrated by applying the So-cratic method of questioning to a hypothetical American citizen picked at random...

...But in the behavior of nations, we are continually asked to think like worms...

...There are also two imponderables in the situation...

...For goodness' sake, American Man replies with a grin, we have no imperialist ambitions—and in any case, a world unified under a capitalist system couldn't be despotic...

...strengthening of the United Nations—in short, any area in which tensions now pose a threat...

...Here there is a long pause...

...Graduated and reciprocal unilateral action of a tension-reducing nature is certainly conceivable—but is it feasible under present conditions...

...Being habitual, this course is assumed to be "realistic...