Some Reflections on Nuclear Weapons by William R. Polk
Discussion of nuclear weapons is and will
remain the most important part of our national security agenda since even small
mistakes would probably be catastrophic. So I want particularly to
emphasize four points and then raise a few other general considerations:
1) Mistakes are always possible. More have happened than is generally known. In the Eisenhower
administration, NORAD at least once spotted on radar a flight of geese over
Iceland and went to Red Alert. It took a critical period of minutes to recognize
the cause and stand down the alert. During that time, the danger of a
missile launch or an aircraft attack was clear and present. Some
years later, a nuclear bomb was actually dropped on America (by a US Air Force
bomber flying where it should not have been while carrying a weapon it should
not have been carrying). Fortunately, the firing mechanism was faulty and
the bomb did not go off. Had it detonated, in the confusion SAC and other
formations would have been hard to stop from reacting to the supposed
attacker. These are just two of many incidences of dangerous times. I fear that we are again heading into
dangerous times.
2)
Mutually Assured Destruction
(MAD) is often said to be “stable” under certain conditions. It follows
that it becomes unstable under others. Thus, we can predict that
since our world is in rapid transformation, we cannot rely upon
temporary stability.
For years, as former Secretary of Defense
Robert McNamara has observed, we have had at least 500 missiles armed with
nuclear weapons on “hair trigger” alert in Europe. If you multiply the number
of missiles by the number of months, the scattering of sites over a large area
and continuous changes of personnel, it is obvious that even the best designed
systems of command and control are always fragile.
Much more fragile is the situation in
countries that do not spend the enormous amount of money (and talent) required
to maintain missiles and nuclear weapons. Without “upkeep,” both missiles
and bombs are inherently dangerous. And dangerous both to the country in
which they are located and to their assumed targets. I find this
particularly worrisome in the confrontation between India and Pakistan.
3)
Decisions on war and peace are often
discussed in the abstract. That is, the assumption is that decision
on their use is determined by “national” interests. As has been said,
“The risk and consequences of nuclear war are so great as to outweigh any
possible advantage in trying to use them.” That gives some analysts and
practitioners a sense of security. They should not have it.
That is because decisions are not made by
“nations” but by men. And, as I have pointed out elsewhere, in the
aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the deadly serious war game (designed by
Thomas Schelling) played in the Pentagon (by teams of the most senior US
officials) demonstrated that there were circumstances in which even sober,
well-informed and intelligent men would find that their less ruinous choice
would be opting for general war.
Ironically, I think we owed much of the
“success” we had in the Cuban Missile Crisis not to the agreement to withdraw
the Jupiter missiles from Turkey, although this was clearly necessary and I had
long been advocating it, but to the bravery or even foolhardiness of
Nikita Khrushchev. He risked a coup d’état and certain death by
accepting the humiliation we necessarily imposed on him. And Kennedy, of
course, deserves great credit for partially masking the Russian defeat.
That was the real significance of the withdrawal of the Jupiters. Had
other men been in the White House or the Kremlin, the outcome might have been
very different. I might not have been writing or you reading.
We both would probably have long since been dead.
4)
Since men make the decisions, we must be aware of decision makers’
vulnerability. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, I was one of about 25
civilians fully engaged in the events. I was not at the center but in the 2nd
or 3rd “echelon.” So I did not feel the full strain, but by
the Thursday of the Crisis I was thoroughly exhausted. My judgment must
have been impaired even though I was not aware of it. I do remember,
however, a terrible episode – fortunately lasting only a few minutes – at which
I thought to myself, “let’s just get it over with.” When later, I met
with my Soviet counterparts, I got the impression, although they denied it,
that my feelings were not unique. How the strain impacted on the inner
group I can only guess. But reading McNamara’s later remarks, I suspect
they were far stronger than on me.
Now,
please consider a few other random issues:
First,
contrast North Korea and Iraq: the logical deduction from the contrast
of our approach to North Korea (which does have weapons) and Iraq (which did
not) is that having a nuclear arsenal is the ultimate, sometimes the only,
defense. If defense is decided upon as a national objective, as
presumable all governments will decide, nuclear weapons must
be acquired covertly to avoid attack in the acquisiton phase. This is presumably and logically still a
danger in the Iran case if the Congress turns down the current agreement.
Second, Iran (along with Japan and
other countries) illustrates that the division between nuclear bomb possession
and nuclear bomb potential is fungible: If the Bush administration
had pushed even harder toward a war with Iran or had Israeli threats
been even more dire, Iran might have added to its extant and growing nuclear
establishment, which then did not produce weapons, weapons from North Korea or
Pakistan. And/or gone all out to build its own. That would not have
been an irrational act by “mad mullahs” but, under the circumstances, a wise
move. Under parallel circumstances, the United States certainly would
have done it. Russia, China, India and Pakistan did it. Israel is a
different but comparable case. all know what it did.
Third, the India-Pakistan confrontation raises
another related question. Even though Pakistan took much punishment in three
wars without using its nuclear weapons, we should not be deluded into
thinking that it never will.
There must be be a “red line” beyond which a nuclear war is
inevitable.
Fourth, some commentators have argued that the
risks of escalating to nuclear exchanges are so obvious and so well known that
they will have a conservative effect on everyone. Generally, that is true, but we have seen
situations where decision making is variable, unpredictable, even
irrational. And, events which appear
“singular” are actually steps in a process. Thus, when an act is taken and
fails to produce the desired result or calls for a reaction, it may and usually
does become step “A.” Step “B” becomes the logical extension. And
somewhere down the alphabet successive steps became inevitable.
In the Cuban Crisis, JFK was acutely aware
of this. He was determined not to be trapped by sequence, but it was difficult
to avoid. Our military, as I had reason personally to see, was not so
aware or so guided by concern with “process.” Would the Pakistani
general staff be smarter than ours? Does Pakistan have a civilian
commander to take the place of JKF? And, finally, does Pakistan have a
group that could perform like the Crisis Management Committee and other advisers
in and around the presidency? If so, I have not seen them.
Fifth, Americans, and presumably all
other peoples, have very short
memories. This may be less true of officials than of the general public,
but my reading of history and my experience in government make me doubt it. I
would wager that if one tested even supposedly well-informed college students
on the report Carl Sagan orchestrated with some our leading scientists on the
effects of nuclear weapons he would find little knowledge, understanding – or
fear. And beyond students, I shudder to think what the result would be.
(It would be a very useful contribution to world peace to republish
Sagan’s report. I summarized it in a
previous message.) To call it horrifying
is to mince words.
Since we cannot predict how our own
successors will act – and certainly cannot predict how other governments in the
future will act – I argue that in anyone’s
hands, nuclear weapons are deadly threats to us all. It follows that we
must try, as we intermittently and feebly have tried in the past, to get rid of
them before they get rid of us.
The argument is often made that reduction to
a “sufficient” deterrent number could work, but what that number would
be, who could determine it for the several nation-states and how it could be
enforced is, I think at best, problematical. Beyond zero, everything is
slippery.
Sixth, Henry Kissinger to the contrary, there
is no such thing as limited nuclear war. Kissinger, Schelling, Kahn,
Wolhstetter et al were perhaps deluding themselves, but they certainly
were deluding us. This was the major result of the Pentagon war game
I cited above. The war game showed conclusively that the basis of our
Cold War strategy was perhaps just lucky but certainly was not decisive.
However,
no one wanted to consider the result. We had invested in a whole
industry
of cold war rhetoric and were determined not to give it up.
Last,
while the minute hand on the clock on the cover of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is probably now a bit further from midnight than at various times in the past, there are warning signs that
— we are moving back toward a confrontation with Russia. And,
while Russia is not so formidable as it appeared a generation ago, it still has a
nuclear arsenal as large and as deployable as ours. Led by us, NATO is moving into areas of great sensitivity;
--
while North and South Korea seem to have reached a sort of deal over
at least propaganda and artillery exchanges, all the elements are in
place for further trouble;
—
while the fate of Kashmir and the division of water between India and
Pakistan catch at least our attention less often for the present time n
their confrontation;
— while Israeli threats to Iran appear to have worn somewhat thin; and
—
while we have backed off from our blockade and sanctions program
—unless the Congress refuses to recognize the Kerry-Zarif agreement
We had better use the “minutes” before midnight, rather
than just
sitting back and relaxing, to get our act in better shape if we want our
children and grandchildren to live. We have much to do and now is the
best time to get started.
William R. Polk
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