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Nuclear Technology, Multipolarity, and International Stability

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Ciro Elliott Zoppo
Ciro Elliott Zoppo
Affiliation:
Harvard Center for International Affairs
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Extract

Traditional theory of international politics maintains that, other things being equal, a multipolar balance-of-power system. Arms-control theory, on the other hand, generally contends that an increase in independent nuclear powers is a direct threat to the stability of the international system. is more stable than a bipolar system. A bipolar nuclear deterrent relationship is believed to be inherently more stable than one in which equilibrium is maintained among several nuclear powers in independent or alliance relationships. Though the relatively greater stability of a bipolar system may be preferred, its stability is, nevertheless, contingent. Maintaining the stability of mutual nuclear deterrence while restraining aggression is the primary goal of arms control.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 18 , Issue 4 , July 1966 , pp. 579 - 606
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1966

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References

1 Morgenthau, Hans J., Politics Among Nations, 3rd ed. (New York 1960), 346ff.Google Scholar; Kaplan, Morton A., System and Process in International Politics (New York 1957), 33–36Google Scholar, and “Bipolarity in a Revolutionary Age” in Kaplan, , ed., The Revolution in World Politics (New York 1962).Google Scholar For a dissent, see Waltz, Kenneth N., “The Stability of a Bipolar World,” Daedalus, XCIII (Summer 1964), 881–909.Google Scholar Kaplan states that the number of “essential” actors in a balance-of-power system must be at least five, preferably more (System and Process, 22). Morgenthau, while not specifying a minimum below which it is unsafe to go, makes clear his belief that the reduction in the number of great powers from eight at the outbreak of World War I to two superpowers after World War II has had a deteriorating effect on the operation of the balance of power, and implies that five to eight would suffice to maintain flexibility and equilibrium (PP. 347–50).

2 Bull, Hedley, The Control of the Arms Race (New York 1961), 147–57Google Scholar; Rosecrance, R. N., “International Stability and Nuclear Diffusion,” in Rosecrance, , ed., The Dispersion of Nuclear Weapons (New York 1964), 293–314Google Scholar; Schelling, Thomas C. and Halperin, Morton H., Strategy and Arms Control (New York 1961), 38–39Google Scholar; Wohlstetter, Albert, “Nuclear Sharing: NATO and the N + 1 Country,” Foreign Affairs, XXXIX (April 1961), 355–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For a contrary view, see Iklé, Fred Charles, “Nth Countries and Disarmament,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, XVI (December 1960), 391–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gallois, Pierre, Stratégic de l'âge nucléaire (Paris 1960)Google Scholar or, in English, The Balance of Terror: Strategy for the Nuclear Age, trans. Howard, Richard (Boston 1961).Google Scholar

3 Wohlstetter, Albert, “The Delicate Balance of Terror,” Foreign Affairs, XXXVII (January 1959), 211–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Snyder, Glenn H., Deterrence and Defense (Princeton 1961), 97–119CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brodie, Bernard, Strategy in the Missile Age (Princeton 1959), 397–409Google Scholar; Schelling, Thomas C., The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge, Mass., 1960), 230–54Google Scholar; Kahn, Herman, On Thermonuclear War (Princeton 1961), 226–55.Google Scholar

4 Schelling, Thomas C., “The Role of Deterrence in Total Disarmament,” Foreign Affairs, XL (April 1962), 392–406.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 A notable exception is Herz, John H., International Politics in the Nuclear Age (New York 1959).Google Scholar

6 Hoffmann, Stanley, “International Systems and International Law,” in Knorr, Klaus and Verba, Sidney, eds., The International System: Theoretical Essays (Princeton 1961), 206–15Google Scholar; Kaplan, System and Process, 22–35. Kaplan has, however, suggested that the retaliatory power of ICBM's in large numbers is a stabilizing factor (p. 45), while postulating that increases in the destructive power of weapons may make it eventually possible for one of the major actors in the system to eliminate all other actors and establish a hierarchical system. He notes that such a system would be so nonintegrated and nonsolidary that dysfunctional tension would paramountly characterize it (p. 57).

7 For comprehensive discussions of proliferation, see Beaton, Leonard and Maddox, John, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons (London 1962)Google Scholar; and Rosecrance, Dispersion.

8 The ICBM has had a lasting political and military impact, but the strategic invulnerability of the United States had already been questioned before Sputnik. By 1955 the Soviet Union had created a small force of intercontinental bombers operational against the United States (Garthoff, Raymond L., Soviet Strategy in the Nuclear Age, rev. ed. [New York 1962], 173–79Google Scholar). The operational invulnerability of SAC had been questioned even earlier, though in different fashion. A study made for the Air Force found in 1954 that the overseas elements of American strategic air forces were vulnerable to surprise atomic attack (Wohlstetter, Albert and others, Selection and Use of Strategic Air Bases, The RAND Corporation, R-266 [April 1954]Google Scholar, released June 1962).

9 Except when the context in which the term is used clearly indicates the contrary, a revisionist power may not be Communist.

10 Hsieh, Alice Langley, “The Sino-Soviet Nuclear Dialogue: 1963,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, VIII (June 1964), 99–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 For an extended discussion, see Halperin, Morton H., Limited War in the Nuclear Age (New York 1963).Google Scholar

12 The example of Carthage notwithstanding, bidders for hegemony have generally sought to conquer or control, not destroy, other nations. The destruction of Carthage itself does not appreciably weaken this generalization. The Second Punic War, described by the historian Cary as “the World War of ancient times,” ended, for all practical purposes, the rivalry between Rome and Carthage, establishing Roman hegemony in the Western Mediterranean and indirect but effective Roman control over Carthage. The third and final Punic War was unjustified on political and military grounds. Only the gallantry of the Carthaginians kept it from becoming a mere military execution. Anyway, the treatment meted out to them was not the usual Roman approach to conquest. See Cary, Max, A History of Rome (London 1954), 156–94.Google Scholar

13 Knorr, Klaus and Read, Thornton, Limited Strategic War (New York 1962)Google Scholar, provides a rich discussion of hypothetical strategic but limited strikes.

14 For example, it has been estimated that a Soviet counterforce strike limited to three hundred megatons could kill up to eleven percent of the American population. See Hanumian, Norman A., The Relations of U.S. Fallout Casualties to U.S. and Soviet Options, The RAND Corporation, P-2412 (August 18, 1961), 9–14Google Scholar; or see Hanumian's statement to the Military Operations Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations, U.S. House of Representatives, 87th Cong., 1st Sess. (August 8, 1961), 207–33. Shelter programs would help considerably but would not eliminate casualties.

15 Schelling, Thomas C., The Nature of Deterrence, Center for International Affairs, Harvard University (October 13, 1964).Google Scholar

16 A penetrating analysis of how “the threat that leaves something to chance” operates in the shared risk of general war is found in Schelling, Strategy of Conflict, Part 3.

17 Horelick, Arnold L., “The Cuban Missile Crisis: An Analysis of Soviet Calculations and Behavior,” World Politics, XVI (April 1964), 363–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 Dinerstein, Herbert S., War and the Soviet Union (New York 1959), 71ff.Google Scholar

19 Gruliow, Leo, ed., The Documentary Record of the 20th Party Congress and Its Aftermath, Current Soviet Policies II (New York 1957), 37.Google Scholar

20 Speech at the Budapest Opera House, April 3, 1958, quoted in Kolkowicz, Roman, “The Role of Disarmament in Soviet Policy: A Means or an End?” in Dougherty, James E. and Lehman, J. F. Jr., eds., The Prospects for Arms Control (New York 1965). 99.Google Scholar

21 Wolfe, Thomas W., Soviet Strategy at the Crossroads (Cambridge, Mass., 1964), 70–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

22 Ibid., 119–24.

23 Halperin, Morton H., Limited War: An Essay on the Development of the Theory and an Annotated Bibliography, Occasional Paper No. 3, Center for International Affairs, Harvard University (May 1962).Google Scholar

24 Sokolovskii, V. D., ed., Soviet Military Strategy, trans. H. S. Dinerstein and others (Englewood Cliffs 1963), 44–45, 299; Wolfe, 119, 121.Google Scholar

25 Good examples of careful wording are the statements made during the Tonkin Gulf incident of August 1964 by Johnson, President (New York Times, August 5, 1964Google Scholar; joint Department of State and Department of Defense statement, New York Times, August 13, 1964) and by Kosygin, Premier upon his return from his visit to Hanoi (“Kosygin's Television Report on Trip to Far East,” Current Digest of the Soviet Press, March 24, 1965).Google Scholar

26 For an extended discussion see Horelick, Arnold and Rush, Myron, Strategic Power and Soviet Foreign Policy (Chicago 1966).Google Scholar

27 Alice Langley Hsieh, “Communist China and Nuclear Force,” in Rosecrance, Dispersion, 163–69; and Halperin, Morton H., China and the Bomb (New York 1965), 27–40, 53, 54.Google Scholar

28 The distinguished soldier and military historian Fuller, J. F. C. in discussing the impact of nuclear weapons on war has cautioned against accepting them as simply another discovery like gunpowder by relating them to the political ends of warfare in the following words: “… Directly the political factor is introduced, in all wars, except those of the most primitive kind, the destructive means employed to achieve a profitable end must be limited. For example, when in feudal times the aim of a king was to bring his truculent barons to heel, the artillery of that period was found invaluable to deprive them of their power of resistance—their castles. But had its destructive effect been such that, not only their castles, but their retainers, serfs, orchards and cattle within a radius of several miles would be obliterated, nothing would have been left to bring to heel—the means would have swallowed the end (The Conduct of War: 1789–1961 [New Brunswick 1961], 313).Google Scholar

Clausewitz has also made the point: “As war is no act of blind passion, but is dominated by the political object, the value of that object determines the measure of the sacrifices by which it is to be purchased. … As soon, therefore, as the expenditure of force becomes so great that the political object is no longer equal in value, this object must be given up …” (On War, trans. Jolles, D. J. M. [New York 1943], 21Google Scholar).

29 Wolfe, Thomas W., Some Factors Bearing on Soviet Attitudes Toward Disarmament, The RAND Corporation, P-2766 (July 1963), 14.Google Scholar

30 Kaplan, System and Process, 22–23.

31 Brodie, Bernard, “The Scientific Strategist,” in Gilpin, Robert and Wright, Christopher, eds., Scientists and National Policy-Making (New York 1964), 242, 243, 250, 251.Google Scholar

32 “Steady state” is used to describe a dynamic equilibrium that maintains stability by reacting adaptively to preserve the essential variables in the system. This has been called “the principle of ultrastability” and is stated formally as follows: “An ultrastable system acts selectively toward the fields of the main variables, rejecting those that lead the representative point to a critical state but retaining those that do not” (Ashby, W. Ross, Design for a Brain [New York 1952], 91).Google Scholar In nuclear deterrence, “steady state” refers to the process of research and development, procurement, deployment, war-fighting capability, and declaratory policy which over time and taken together with environmental circumstances, including the capabilities and the intentions of potential enemies, would dynamically operate to maintain the deterrent balance.

33 Wohlstetter, “Delicate Balance.” For a theoretical discussion of what is involved, see also Wohlstetter's essay on conflict systems design, “Strategy and the Natural Scientists,” in Gilpin and Wright, 174–239.

34 Remarks of Secretary of Defense McNamara at the Commencement Exercises, University of Michigan, June 16, 1962, in Department of Defense news release No. 980–62.

35 A study on long-range forecasting in which eighty-two respondents participated—most of them professionally conversant with the characteristics and the problems of modern weapons—could suggest initially fifty-eight distinct weapon-systems developments. Even after dropping those which a consensus considered either unfeasible or of such limited feasibility as to make development in the foreseeable future very unlikely, there remained thirty-two possible systems of the future. While no implication is intended that these are forecasts of military instrumentalities in the offing, it might be interesting to list those weapon systems that the panel of experts predicted would become operational before 1980: tactical kiloton nuclear weapons used by ground troops; extensive use of devices that persuade without killing, such as water cannon and tear gas; miniature improved sensors and transmitters for reconnaissance and arms control; rapid mobility of men and light weapons to any point on earth for police action; incapacitating chemical agents; use of lasers for radar-type rangesensors, illuminators, and communications; incapacitating biological agents; cheap, lightweight rocket-type personnel armament (silent, plastic, match-lit projectiles, capable of single or gang firing); lethal biological agents; orbiting space reconnaissance stations; advanced techniques of propaganda, thought control, and opinion manipulation; effective antisubmarine capability; longer-endurance aircraft, perhaps nuclear-powered, for logistic supply or bombardment; biological agents destroying the will to resist; penetrating nuclear weapons for deep cratering; automated tactical capability (battlefield computers, robot sentries, television surveillance); ICBM's with other than nuclear warheads; and deep-diving submersibles made of materials diat decrease detection probability (Gordon, T. J. and Helmer, O., Report on a Long-Range Forecasting Study, The RAND Corporation, P-2982 [September 1964], 32–39Google Scholar and Fig. II, i).

36 For an analysis of what this means when seen from the American perspective, see Neustadt's, Richard E. remarks on the President as risktaker, in which the Cuban crisis is used as an illustration, in U.S. Senate, Committee on Government Operations, Subcommittee on National Security Staffing and Operations, Hearings, 88th Cong., 1st Sess. (1963)Google Scholar, Part 1, 67–68.

37 Thomas C. Schelling, “Comment,” in Knorr and Read, 257.

38 An example will be suggestive. If the effectiveness of a missile in destroying a military or demographic target is measured as the two-thirds power of the yield of its warhead, then an improvement by a factor of three in the yield-to-weight ratio would halve the number of missiles needed to kill a target. That is, two missiles with the improved characteristics would be the equivalent of four of the more primitive variety. Moreover, a given total yield does more damage in several small packages than in one large one. Finally, increases in the yield-to-weight ratio of warheads does more than merely increase their efficiency; it increases the flexibility of their uses (Kahn, 244, n. 13; and Pokrovsky, G. I., Science and Technology in Contemporary War, trans. Garthoff, R. L. [New York 1959], 74–76Google Scholar). Other illustrations of the kind of essential considerations that must be included in evaluating the military effectiveness of weapon systems and opposing strategic forces may be found in Kent, Glenn A., On the Interaction of Opposing Forces Under Possible Arms Agreements, Occasional Paper No. 5, Center for International Affairs, Harvard University (March 1963)Google Scholar; and Stone, Jeremy J., “Bomber Disarmament,” World Politics, XVII (October 1964). 13–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

39 Secretary McNamara has testified that for any given level of enemy offensive capability successive additions to each of various weapon systems have diminishing marginal value. That is, each increment added to existing strategic forces has progressively less and less effectiveness. See, “Statement of Secretary of Defense, March 2, 1965,” Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, U.S. House of Representatives, 89th Cong., 1st Sess. (1965), Part 111, 35; and Statement of Secretary of Defense McNamara before the House Armed Services Committee on the Fiscal Year 1967–1971 Defense Program and 1967 Defense Budget (March 8, 1966), 47.

40 “Statement of Secretary of Defense, March 2, 1965,” 36.

41 U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Armed Services, Hearings on Military Posture, 88th Cong., 1st Sess. (1963), 332–571.Google Scholar

42 Statement of Secretary of Defense McNamara before the House Armed Services Committee (March 8, 1966), 45–52.Google Scholar

43 Apart from considerations of doctrine, it may be that technical difficulties besetting Soviet missile deployment might, nevertheless, curtail the ability of the Soviets to salvo their weapons (Trainor, James, “USSR Can't Salvo ICBM's,” Missiles and Rockets [August 10, 1964], 14Google Scholar). See also the remarks of Secretary McNamara on the weaknesses of Soviet strategic forces in an interview in US. News and World Report (April 12, 1965), 52–56.

44 “Reliable Shield of Peace,” Pravda, November 19, 1962, in Current Digest of the Soviet Press (December 16, 1964), 33.

45 Cited in Kaufmann, William W., The McNamara Strategy (New York 1964), 5.Google Scholar

46 U.S. Senate, Committee on Armed Services, Military Procurement Authorizations, Fiscal Year 1965, Hearings, 88th Cong., 2nd Sess. (1964), 30–32.Google Scholar

47 Secretary McNamara, , Address before the Platform Committee of the Democratic Party, New York Times, August 18, 1964.Google Scholar

48 More than a few attack patterns and basic assumptions are tenable in projected general war exchanges and no definitive predictions can be made. Nevertheless, according to Secretary McNamara, “a full-scale nuclear exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union, lasting less than an hour, would kill almost 100 million Americans—the equivalent of 300 World War IPs … and over 100 million Russians” (ibid.; quoted also, in U.S. News and World Report, 55–56).

49 Brennan, D. G., ed., Arms Control and Civil Defense, Hudson Institute, HI 216-RR (December 2, 1963)Google Scholar, Appendix A; and U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Armed Services, Hearings before Subcommittee No. 3, “Civil Defense—Fallout Shelter Program,” HR 3516, 88th Cong., 1st Sess. (1963) Part 11, Vol. 2, 5120, 5147. See also McNamara, Statement before the Armed Services Committee, U.S. House of Representatives, 89th Cong., 1st Sess. (February 18, 1965), 39, 47–48.

50 U.S. House of Representatives, Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, Department of Defense Appropriations 1966, Hearings, 89th Cong., 1st Sess. (1965)Google Scholar, Part III, 35.

51 Stone, Jeremy J., Anti-Ballistic Missiles and Arms Control, Hudson Institute, HI-314P (December 12, 1963), 45Google Scholar; and Statement of Secretary of Defense McNamara, before the House Armed Services Committee (March 8, 1966), 45–56.Google Scholar

52 An idea of an illustrative range of postattack environments with levels of casualties, probable economic consequences, and the tentative identification of postattack situations under which the achievement of economic viability would be technologically feasible may be found in Winter, Sidney G. Jr., Economic Viability After Thermonuclear War: The Limits of Feasible Production, The RAND Corporation, RM-3436-PR (September 1963).Google Scholar For example, in an attack upon the United States in which out of 1000 to 4000 megatons, 750 to 2000 were delivered on nonmilitary targets, “the loss of industrial capacity would be a serious to insuperable obstacle [to economic] viability, unless extensive pre-attack preparations were made. Much would depend on whether the attacker [attempted] to maximize the economic difficulties created by the nonmilitary portion of the attack; … good to excellent fallout shelters would be required to keep casualties below 60 per cent of the population.” In order to deliver the megatonnage indicated on urban targets, from 375 to 1000 missiles with 2 MT warheads would have to impact, or a mixed force would have to deliver an equal amount of megatonnage in various-size packages, not counting the counterforce requirement. The Soviet missile force was estimated in late 1964 to be about 200 ICBM's, not all in hardened silos, and 142 submarine-launched ballistic missiles, a small percentage of which may be carried by nuclear submarines. An additional 250 bombers, 100 on two-way missions to the United States, 150 capable of reaching targets in Canada, Alaska, and the northwest United States, could be put by the Soviet Union over North America (McNamara, , Address before the Platform Committee; and Missiles and Rockets [January 4, 1965], 10Google Scholar). The United States had in 1965 850 land-based ICBM's, an additional 300 nuclear missiles in Polaris submarines, and 900 strategic bombers, half of them on a fifteen-minute alert (Johnson, President in his Defense Message to the 89th Congress, New York Times, January 19, 1965Google Scholar). By mid-1969, the United States is expected to have 1054 Minuteman and Titan intercontinental missiles, 656 Polaris submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and 678 intercontinental bombers (McNamara, in U.S. News and World Report, 53). An earlier version of Winter's study may be found in his testimony on civil defense before a subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations, U.S. House of Representatives, 87th Cong., 1st Sess. (August 9, 1961), 303–30.

58 Averch, Harvey and Wildhorn, Sorrel, Signals, Ambiguity, and Strategic Force Structure, The RAND Corporation, P-2771 (August 1963).Google Scholar

54 Schelling, Strategy of Conflict, 5–9.

55 A detailed description of the physical and administrative restraints exercised by the American government was given by Assistant Secretary of Defense McNaughton, John T. to the International Arms Control Symposium, Ann Arbor, Michigan, December 1962. See his “Arms Restraint in Military Decisions,” Journal of Arms Control, 1 (October 1963), 322–28.Google Scholar

56 For an elaboration of this theme, see Schelling, Thomas C., “Signals and Feedback in the Arms Dialogue,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, XXI (January 1965), 5–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

57 Albert, and Wohlstetter, Roberta, Controlling the Risks in Cuba, Adelphi Papers 17, Institute for Strategic Studies (April 1965), 19Google Scholar, a stimulating analysis of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis in which the various reciprocal restraints and opportunities are discussed in the context of escalation.

58 Liska, George, Nations in Alliance (Baltimore 1962), 8, 9.Google Scholar

59 Deutsch, Karl W. and Singer, J. David, “Multipolar Power Systems and International Stability,” World Politics, XVI (April 1964), 390.CrossRefGoogle Scholar