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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 July 2011
1 Levine, pp. 29–30, uses as an example the distinction between proposals for the unilateral abandonment of weapons-testing and proposals for the unilateral abandonment of weapons manufacture and deployment. The latter would require the scrapping of one's whole system of military arrangements; the former would not.
2 The concept of “dominance” is somewhat more complicated than I have indicated, as Levine points out on p. 42. In general he seems to think that, within his decisionmaking schema, successful optimization is the theoretical goal least likely of real-world attainment; he suggests that one would be most likely in practice to eliminate inferior policies rather than looking for the one best policy, using this choice-making method. As we shall see, however, the concept remains very significant for arms-policy discussion. A formal mathematical explanation of “dominance” may be found in any standard work on the theory of games—e.g., Luce, R. Duncan and Raiffa, Howard, Games and Decisions (New York 1957).Google Scholar
3 Levine adds, “This fear of war is not a personal one-the advocates of nonviolence, for example, are anything but personally fearful-but it is a combination of values and analyses which dominates their beliefs.” As we shall see, it is important to note that not all anti-war systemists are advocates of complete nonviolence; whether Levine has correcdy understood the values of those who are not is a crucial point which is discussed below.
4 Not all systemists are necessarily unilateralists in the common sense of the word; Neal, for instance, merely proposes unilateral abandonment of all American overseas bases except those in Central Europe. And a recommendation that the United States accept the most recent Soviet disarmament proposal without qualification would probably meet Levine's definition of “systemic,” although at this point his concepts begin to seem fuzzy at the edges.
5 Thus writers such as Osgood, Etzioni, and Singer would “police” their disarmament schemes with a “minimum deterrence” force that would remain in existence on a national basis, until some kind of supranational authority had been created with effective power to enforce “peace.”
6 Cf. Osgood, Charles E., An Alternative to War or Surrender (Urbana 1962)Google Scholar; Etzioni, Amitai, The Hard Way to Peace (New York 1962)Google Scholar; Waskow, Arthur I., The Limits of Defense (New York 1962)Google Scholar; Singer, J. David, Deterrence, Arms Control, and Disarmament (Columbus 1962).Google Scholar
7 Actually, as Levine points out, the ultimate goal of most of the writers he discusses is the same in the long run: some form of world government. What, if anything, this goal is conditional on, in the mind of the advocate, separates the various schools of thought from each other.
8 Cf. Kahn, Herman, On Thermonuclear War (Princeton 1960), 5Google Scholar; Schelling, Thomas C., “The Role of Deterrence in Total Disarmament,” Foreign Affairs, XL (April 1962), 392–406CrossRefGoogle Scholar
9 Levine asserts that the middle marginalists, unlike the anti-war schools, do not have a burning interest in the long run; that they see it as merely a series of short-runs. This seems to me to be equivalent to saying that deterrence is a feasible long–run strategy, and I have therefore used such phraseology in describing deterrence theory. If one is interested only in indefinitely “buying time”— a view which Levine attributes to middle marginalists—one has really made a long-run decision as well as a short-run one.
10 This view is adumbrated in U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S.S.R. and Eastern Europe, A Study by a Columbia-Harvard Research Group (Washington, GPO, 1960)Google Scholar; Levine credits Marshall D. Shulman and Zbigniew Brzezinski with being the major sources of the ideas contained in this study. Compare Kennan, George, Russia, the Atom, and the West (New York 1958)Google Scholar, and Lippmann, Walter, The Coming Tests with Russia (Boston 1961).Google Scholar
11 Cf. Kahn, On Thermonuclear War; Schelling, , “The Role of Deterrence in Total Disarmament,” and The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge 1960)Google Scholar, especially Part rv; Snyder, Glenn, Deterrence and Defense (Princeton 1961)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wohlstetter, Albert, “The Delicate Balance of Terror,” Foreign Affairs, XXXVII (January 1959), 211–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kissinger, Henry A., The Necessity for Choice (New York 1960)Google Scholar. The list of publications explicating the strategy of deterrence is of course almost endless; I have noted merely the most important contributions of those authors whom Levine emphasizes in his discussion.
12 Strausz-Hupé, Robert, Kintner, William R., Dougherty, James E., and Cottrell, Alvin J., Protracted Conflict (New York 1959)Google Scholar; Strausz-Hupé, Robert, Kintner, William R., and Possony, Stefan T., A Forward Strategy for America (New York 1961).Google Scholar
13 Levine also identifies as “fundamental” certain questions that seem to me to be secondary to those noted above. Among these are the following: Is “militarism” a threat to democracy in the United States, in the context of the “cold war” and the nuclear arms race? Is the crucial battleground between the West and the Communists still Europe, or is it now the “underdeveloped” world? “Can the Soviets be induced to relax their grip on the East European satellites & [or not] ?” Should Germany be neutralized or should West Germany be indissolubly tied to the West? Is virtue or force a more important ingredient of national power? On all these questions, the positions of the two marginalist camps are what one would expect them to be, given their different recommendations concerning disarmament and disengagement.
14 I do not consider here, though it would certainly be worth doing so in another context, the suggestion made by some critics that there is a strong ideological component in classical economic utilitarianism. See, e.g., Arendt, Hannah, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York 1958), 123–57.Google Scholar
15 Of course, in a showdown they might not be able to make themselves adhere tc that choice. This is why Kahn, Schelling, and Leo Szilard among others have suggested that the only absolutely convincing deterrent would be a publicly and unquestionably automated one.
16 Some spokesmen of the “peace movement” have themselves noted the unfairness of this assumption. Compare the reviews of On Thermonuclear War by Hughes, H. Stuart, in “The Strategy of Deterrence,” Commentary, XXXVI (March 1961), 185–92Google Scholar; and by Newman, James, Scientific American, ccv (March 1961), 197.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
17 Levine's attempt to be “fair” to anti-war systemists is so obviously sincere that this nstance of insensitivity seems clearly to be a result of his method rather than of his motions.
18 Fromm, Erich, May Man Prevail? (New York 1961)Google Scholar, 17ff.
19 Cf. Ramsey, Paul, War and the Christian Conscience: How Shall Modern War Be Justly Conducted? (Durham, N.C., 1961)Google Scholar; the essays by Ramsey, and Bennett, in Bennett, John C., ed., Nuclear Weapons and the Conflict of Conscience (New York 1962)Google Scholar; Murray, Thomas E., Nuclear Policy for War and Peace (New York 1960).Google Scholar See also Clancy, William, ed., The Moral Dilemma of Nuclear Weapons, essays from Worldview, A Journal of Religion and International Affairs (New York 1961)Google Scholar; Murray, J. C., “Theology and Modern War,” in Nagle, William J., ed., Morality and Modern Warfare (Baltimore 1960)Google Scholar; Falk, Richard A., Law, Morality, and War in the Contemporary World (New York 1963)Google Scholar. Historical and analytical discussions of “just war” theory may be found in Tucker, Robert M., The Just War: A Study in Contemporary American Doctrine (Baltimore 1960)Google Scholar. Perhaps the best contribution to this discussion is contained in Stein, Walter, ed., Nuclear Weapons: A Catholic Response (New York 1961)Google Scholar, a series of essays by English Catholics, several of whom are also well-known professional philosophers.
20 Levine himself admits that political decision-making is very unlike decision-making in his “model” he makes similar apologies for most of the analytical devices I have discussed here. However, he does not thereby feel prevented from making essentially political recommendations about what questions ought to be discussed by public men. This self-contradictory position is found so often in recent “scientific” social science that one wishes there were a satisfactory explanation for the frequency of its appearance. Perhaps the explanation lies in the desire of social scientists to be both rigorous scientists and influential publicists at the same time; for an elaboration of this point, see my article, “Social Scientists and Nuclear Deterrence,” Dissent, XI (Winter 1964), 89–90.Google Scholar
21 Lindblom, Charles E., “The Science of Muddling Through,” Public Administration Review, XIX (Winter 1959), 79–88;CrossRefGoogle Scholar“Policy Analysis,” American Economic Review, XLVIII (June 1958), 298–313.Google Scholar
22 For a mordant, pessimistic view of these attitudes and their effect on American policy-making in the postwar years, see Almond, Gabriel A., The American People and Foreign Policy (New York 1960)Google Scholar, XII ff.
23 Fulbright, Senator J. W., in a speech reported in the New York Times, March 27, 1964Google Scholar, made an analysis of American opinion and policy-making similar to this one; the generally hostile response to his speech by Republican spokesmen (see New York Times for March 28, 1964) is an interesting commentary on his thesis. One should also note in this context the efforts made by the Kennedy Administration, in the summer of 1963, to justify the nuclear test-ban treaty in terms which would appeal to strong “anti-Communists.”
24 In the past few years many articles articulating this criticism have appeared in the Journal of Conflict Resolution. See, e.g., Charles E. Osgood, “Suggestions for Winning the Real War with Communism,” Ibid., in (December 1959), 295–325; Kenneth E. Boulding, “National Images and International Systems,” Ibid, HI (June 1959), 120–31; William Paul Livant, “On Deterrence,” Ibid., v (September 1961), 340–342; J. David: Singer, “Threat-Perception and the Armament-Tension Dilemma,” Ibid., 11 (March 1958), 90–105.
25 The term “empirical end” is taken from Levy's, Marion J. definitive discussion of the notion of instrumental rationality, in The Structure of Society (Princeton 1952), 242–48.Google Scholar
26 Cf. Huntington, Samuel P., “Strategy and the Political Process,” Foreign Affairs, an XXXVIII (January 1960), 285–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and his The Common Defense (New York 1961)Google Scholar; Hilsman, Roger, “The Foreign-Policy Consensus: An Interim Research Report,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, in (December 1959), 361–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For an earlier, firsthand account, see Hull's, CordellThe Memoirs of Cordell Hull (2 vols., New York 1948)Google Scholar. And for a general consideration of the practical utility of the concept of “rationality” for discussions of decision-making, see Verba, Sidney, “Assumptions of Rationality and Non-Rationality in Models of the International System,” in Knorr, Klaus and Verba, Sidney, eds., The International System (Princeton 1962), 93–117.Google Scholar
27 Levine's comment is on p. 331 of The Arms Debate; for the statement by Snyder, see Snyder, Glenn, “The Politics of National Defense: A Review of Samuel P. Huntington, The Common Defense: Strategic Programs in National Politics,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, VI (December 1962), 372.Google Scholar
28 On the problem of technology and stabilization, see Polanyi, John C., “Armaments Policies for the Sixties,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, XVII (December 1961), 403.CrossRefGoogle Scholar On nationalism in the nuclear era, see Falk, 54–55; as though addressing himself to those who talk about “rational” national decision-makers, Falk comments that the _ global impact of nuclear warfare “calls into profound question the traditional position Jof the state as ‘sovereign’ in matters touching its vital interests.” On hostility and ' cooperation, see the articles cited in note 24 above.
29 Bull, Hedley, The Control of the Arms Race (New York 1961), 48–49.Google Scholar
30 For two similar, more detailed theoretical criticisms of the notion of “rationality,” see the essays by Gouldner, Alvin W. and Seeley, John R. in Stein, Maurice and Vidich, Arthur, eds., Sociology on Trial (Englewood Cliffs 1963).Google Scholar
31 Kahn, On Thermonuclear War; Wohlstetter, Albert, “Scientists, Seers, and Strategy,” Foreign Affairs, XLI (April 1963), 478Google Scholar; Kaplan, Morton A., “The Calculus of Nuclear Deterrence,” World Politics, XI (October 1958), 20–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Snyder, Deterrence and Defense; Snyder, “The Politics of National Defense,” 370–72; Knorr, Klaus and Read, Thornton, eds., Limited Strategic War (New York 1962)Google Scholar, especially the contributions by Knorr, Kaplan, and Kahn; Schelling, “The Role of Deterrence in Total Disarmament”; Schelling, and Halperin, , Strategy and Arms Control (New York 1961), 47–48Google Scholar. A more detailed exposition of the nature of the claims made by these and other deterrence theorists, and the reasons why these claims cannot be justified if one applies to them the usual canons of sound scholarship, is to be found in my article, “Social Scientists and Nuclear Deterrence.” Two incisive articles which make similar criticisms of rationalistic deterrence theory are Blackett, P. M. S., “Critique of Some Contemporary Defence Thinking,” Encounter, XVI (April 1961), 9–17Google Scholar; and Cohen, Bernard C., “Military Policy Analysis and the Art of the Possible: A Review of Glenn H. Snyder, Deterrence and Defense: Toward a Theory of National Security” Journal of Conflict Resolution, VI (June 1962), 154–59.Google Scholar
32 One need only note the instructive fact, whose significance Levine apparently does not perceive, that somehow the values and the analyses of the writers he discusses always seem to wind up leading in the same direction. With the possible exception of H. Stuart Hughes, who might thereby qualify if medals were given for intellectual detachment, none of them has values which lead him to ignore his analyses, or analytical views which cast doubt on the relevance of his values. I do not mean to be cynical; the point is that these writers have not developed their “values” and “analyses” separately, and then looked at the result to see in what direction it logically leads them. Rather they have made complex political judgments; perhaps then they, like Levine, have tried to break their judgments down into evaluative and analytical elements, but they evidently have had no more success at this than Levine has had.
33 Ernest Nagel, in The Structure of Science (New York 1961), presents a detailed and powerful case for the argument that in principle there can be a “science of society” such that Levine's categories—or some deductive model employing similar categories—would then be relevant to the discussion of social events and human behavior. But as one reviewer noted, Nagel “modifies this claim for social science with so many qualifications that it emerges as little more than a hope—and, finally, he limits himself to affirming that the evidence so far fails to prove the logical impossibility of theoretical knowledge of man that approaches our knowledge of the physical world.” (Abelson, Raziel, in Commentary, XXXII [October 1961], 366.)Google Scholar
34 In an earlier article, “Facts and Morals in the Arms Debate” (World Politics, XIV [January 1962], 239–58)Google Scholar, Levine set forth a viewpoint really opposed to the one expressed in The Arms Debate: he suggested that there was much agreement about facts but little about values, or the policy implications of facts, in arms-policy discussion. Levine's original viewpoint is thus, oddly, more useful than is the matured fruit of his thought. However, the earlier viewpoint still incorporated the notion that we can distinguish between the factual and the evaluative parts of a political judgment, and thus contained within itself the seeds of his later error. To see just how useless is this notion in dealing with non-trivial statements, one needs only try to separate “analysis” and “values” in the following important sentence from On Thermonuclear War: “Despite a widespread belief to the contrary, objective studies indicate that even though the amount of human tragedy would be greatly increased in the postwar world, the increase would not preclude normal and happy lives for the majority of survivors and their descendants” (p. 21).
35 Rapoport, Anatol, Fights, Games, and Debates (Ann Arbor 1960)Google Scholar, Part III, “The Ethics of Debate.”
36 Of course, one must make distinctions. Authors such as Kissinger and Oskar Morgenstern, for example, are more or less straightforwardly political analysts, though the latter has an unfortunate predilection for making meaningless references to “game theory” in the midst of arguments that would otherwise stand by themselves; cf. The Question of National Defense (New York 1961), 62Google Scholar. However, by far the most useful discussion of deterrence strategy has been Bernard Brodie's Strategy in the Missile Age (Princeton 1959). In this book Brodie succeeds in raising almost every important political, moral, and technical issue relevant to the discussion of deterrence, without reference to the abstract categories of economic logic, and without that disingenuousness about his own values which characterizes the kind of deterrence theory I have been discussing here.