Abstract
The realization that the Soviet Union did not endorse strategic concepts based on the deterrence assumption has intensified the disenchantment with those concepts.1 This realization was slow in coming, given the inferior Soviet position relative to US armaments that tended to mask Soviet intentions, a patronizing Western attitude toward Soviet military doctrine,2 and the American optimism in foreign affairs that arises from what sometimes appears to be an invincible ethnocentricity. We are often unable both to take Russian security concerns seriously, from their point of view, and to recognize that this point of view poses a danger to the West. In the light of the tremendous US buildup in the early 1960s, it was plausible to assume that the Soviet deployments and acquisitions of the late 1960s were simply a responsive effort to defend against US pre-emption. McNamara among many others3 predicted that a levelling off would occur once a secure, assured destruction capability was gained. They were perhaps persuaded that there were no significant implications for deterrence in the margin between this capability and full parity anyway.
Ohmè dolente! come mi riscossi quando mi prese dicendomi: “Forse tu non pensavi ch’ io loico fossi!”
(O wretched me! How I started when he took me, saying to me: “perhaps thou didst not think I was a logician!”)
Canto XXVII, Inferno
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Notes and References
John Erickson, ‘The Soviet View of Deterrence: A General Survey,’ Survival 24 (November/December 1982), pp. 242–9 argues for the view that the Soviet Union, while adopting the deterrence assumption as an unavoidable fact in the central relationship, has not confined its strategy to reliance on this assumption, and has not perceived the US as doing so either. Benjamin S. Lambeth, The Elements of Soviet Strategic Policy, RAND Paper No. p-6389
Dimitri Simes, ‘Deterrence and Coercion in Soviet Policy, International Security 5 (Winter, 1980), pp. 80–103
L. Goure, F. D. Kohler and M. L. Harvey (eds), The Role of Nuclear Forces in Current Soviet Strategy (Miami: Center for Advanced International Studies, 1974).
See, e.g., Carl Kaysen, ‘Keeping the Strategic Balance’, Foreign Affairs 46 (July 1968).
Benjamin S. Lambeth, Soviet Strategic Conduct and the Prospects for Stability, RAND Paper R-2579-AF (Santa Monica: The RAND Corporation, 1980) reprinted as ‘What Deters: An Assessment of the Soviet View’, in J. F. Reichart and S. R. Strum (eds) American Defense Policy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981) p. 188
Benjamin S. Lambeth, ‘Selective Nuclear Options and Soviet Strategy’, in J. Holst and Uwe Nerlich (eds) Beyond Nuclear Deterrence: New Aims, New Arms (New York: Crane-Russak, 1977); Benjamin Lambeth, ‘The Elements of Soviet Strategic Policy’
see also Fritz Ermath, ‘Contrasts in American and Soviet Strategic Thought’, International Security 3 (Fall 1978), p. 138.
Colin S. Gray, and Keith B. Payne, ‘Victory Is Possible,’ Foreign Policy 39 (Summer 1980), p. 14
Colin S. Gray, ‘Nuclear Strategy: A Case for a Theory of Victory’, International Security 4 (Summer 1979), p. 84.
See also, K. B. Payne, Nuclear Deterrence in US—Soviet Relations (Boulder: Westview, 1982).
This point is clearly recognized by Payne, who refers to the preferred war-fighting doctrine as a ‘classical strategy’ and is careful to distinguish it from the countervailing strategy which, he notes, presumes ‘mutual vulnerability’. Payne, Nuclear Deterrence Chapter 8. Somewhat less careful is Thomas Powers, Choosing a Strategy for World War III (New York: Knopf, 1983), who fails to note the distinction and, for that reason, undercuts the thesis of his work that weapons capabilities have driven doctrinal change.
T. Powers, World War Three (New York: Random House, 1983) overlooks this distinction and thus confuses war-fighting and countervailing strategies.
Deployment of a ballistic missile defense would abrogate the ABM Treaty. For an evaluation of this step, see Michael Nacht, ‘ABM ABCs’, Foreign Policy 46 (Spring 1982), pp. 155–174.
Perhaps this aspect of war-fighting doctrine, rather than patronizing assumptions about the recklessness of our military personnel, gives plausibility to the claims that such doctrines predispose decisionmakers to approach nuclear war with less terror and revulsion. Cf. Spurgeon Keeny, Jr. and Wolfgang K. H. Panofsky, ‘MAD versus NUTS: Can Doctrine of Weaponry Remedy the Mutual Hostage Relationship of the Superpowers?’, Foreign Affairs 60 (Winter 1981–2), p. 290.
B. Brodie, (ed.) The Absolute Weapon (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1946), p. 76.
B. Brodie, Strategy in the Missile Age (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1959), p. 391.
McGeorge Bundy, ‘Strategic Deterrence Thirty Years Later: What has Changed’, The Future of Strategic Deterrence, Papers from the 21st Annual Conference of the IISS, Adelphi Papers no. 160 (London: The International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1980), p. 8.
See also McGeorge Bundy, ‘America in the 80s: Reframing Our Relations with Our Friends and Among Our Allies’, Remarks at the New York University Sesquicentennial Conference (16 October 1981).
A no-first-use policy appears to follow from this position since a first use would, on this reasoning, ultimately engage the full Soviet retaliatory force. See Chapter 9. See also Bundy, ‘America in the 80s’. In fact, each of the three alternative strategic doctrines discussed has its theatre corollary. For the theatre doctrine accompanying a war-fighting strategy, see J. P. Rose, Evolution of US Army Nuclear Doctrine 1945–1980 (Boulder: Westview, 1980). Richard Garwin has proposed dedicating US central systems to European states, in his version of the deterrence assumption simpliciter
see Richard L. Garwin, ‘Reducing Dependence on Nuclear Weapons: A Second Nuclear Regime’, in D. C. Gompert, M. Mardlebaum, R. L. Garwin and J. H. Barton, Nuclear Weapons and World Politics (New York: McGraw Hill, 1977), pp. 106–7
but see Bernard Brodie, ‘The Development of Nuclear Strategy,’ International Security 2 (Spring 1978), p. 65 who asserted that battlefield tactical nuclear weapons need not violate the ‘firebreak’ and necessarily escalate, p. 76.
For a comparison of theatre options corresponding to two of the principal strategic alternatives, see W. Heisenberg, The Alliance and Europe: Part I: Crisis Stability in Europe and Theatre Nuclear Weapons Adelphi, Paper no. 96 (London, The International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1973), pp. 15–28.
Michael Howard, ‘The Relevance of Traditional Strategy’, Foreign Affairs 51 (January 1973), p. 262.
See William G. Hyland, ‘The Atlantic Crisis,’ Foreign Affairs 40 (World Issue, 1981) for a lucid account of this issue.
Pierre Hassner, ‘Who is Decoupling from Whom? or This Time the Wolf is Here’, in L. Hager (ed.). The Crisis in Western Security (London, Croom Helm, 1982), pp. 174–5.
See Hedley Bull, ‘The Future Condition of Deterrence’, The Future of Strategic Deterrence, Papers from the 21st Annual Conference of the IISS, Adelphi Paper no. 160 (London: The International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1980).
On US strategic C31, see D. Ball, Can Nuclear War be Controlled? Adelphi Paper no. 45 (London: The International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1981)
John D. Steinbruner, ‘Nuclear Decapitation’, Foreign Policy 45 (Winter 1981–82), pp. 16–29
and Congressional Budget Office, Strategic Command, Control and Communications: Alternative Approaches for Modernization (Washington: CBO, 1981).
See also, Comptroller General, Report to the Congress: Countervailing Strategy Demands Revision of Strategic Force Acquisition Plans (Washington: GAO, August 1981), pp. 16–26.
Department of Defense Directive 5100.30, 2 December 1971 prescribes the succession of authority from the Secretary of Defense. At the level of Assistant Secretary of Defense and below, rank is ordered by length of service. Admiral Miller, former Deputy Director of the Joint Strategic Target Planning Staff conceded in testimony that the US might have considerable difficulty in reconstituting legitimate authority in the event of the death of the President. House Committee on International Relations, First Use of Nuclear Weapons: Preserving Responsible Control, (March 1976), pp. 47, 71.
Comptroller General, Countervailing Strategy Strategic Force Acquisition Plans (1981).
Ball Can Nuclear War Be Controlled? pp. 34–5; see also Jack L. Snyder, The Soviet Strategic Culture: Implications for Limited Nuclear Operations RAND paper no. R-2154-AF (Santa Monica: The RAND Corporation, Sept. 1977).
Henry Kissinger, ‘The Future of NATO’, in K. A. Myers, (ed.) NATO: The Next Thirty Years (Boulder: Westview, 1980).
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© 1988 Philip Bobbitt
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Bobbitt, P. (1988). Alternative Nuclear Strategies. In: Democracy and Deterrence. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-18991-5_10
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