Air University Review , July-August 1980

Getting a Jump on Our Nuclear Future

PREPARING for a challenging and dangerous future concerns policymaker, public servant, and informed citizen alike. The Council on Foreign Relations is facilitating this preparation by publishing the 1980s Project Studies which define and analyze a broad cross section of major policy issues for the 1980s and beyond, Among the first of some 25 volumes planned for this series are two that focus specifically on the nuclear dimension of the world that we will face through this decade. Nuclear Weapons and World Politics: Alternatives for the Future by David C. Gompert, Michael Mandelbaum, Richard L. Garwin, and John H. Barton addresses the impact of nuclear weapons on international relations in terms of a series of alternative nuclear systems. Nuclear Proliferation: Motivations, Capabilities and Strategies for Control by Ted Greenwood, Harold A. Feiveson, and Theodore B. Taylor treats more specifically the problem of nuclear proliferation in both its political and technological contexts.

The Council on Foreign Relations, Inc., of New York City, is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the promotion of awareness and understanding of foreign affairs. With 2000 members who possess special interest and experience in international relations, it is nonpartisan and receives no government funding, The council publishes the highly regarded quarterly Foreign Affairs and organizes other research efforts as the need is perceived.

The 1980s Project is the largest research program ever undertaken by the Council on Foreign Relations in its 58-year history. Responding to the perception that the, institutions and methods upon which international relations have come to be based over the last three decades will not be adequate to respond to the challenges of the next, the council organized a massive research effort, seeking articles from more than eighty authors; the accepted articles are then integrated by the council staff into books that analyze the most crucial problem areas for the future international system, Both books evaluated in this review were discussed and integrated by the Council's Working Group on Nuclear Weapons and Other Weapons of Mass Destruction chaired by Cyrus R Vance, former Secretary of State. A major effort to seek diverse opinions with particular emphasis on Third World viewpoints is an element of this program. Funding for the project was obtained in grants from several major philanthropic organizations.¹

NUCLEAR Weapons and World Politics* follows by almost exactly two decades Henry Kissinger's prestigious Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy (1957), which was also sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations. Nuclear Weapons and World Politics is a penetrating attempt to analyze the impact of nuclear weapons on future public policy, which was also the intent of Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy. The framework of the analysis consists of four nuclear "regimes" or systems of ". . . international obligations, national force structure, and doctrines that together govern the role of nuclear weapons in war, peace and diplomacy." (p. 6) These regimes then lead the reader through the evolution of the world along four highly plausible diverging paths. These paths are so selected that there is excellent probability that they will at least bracket the reality that the future reveals.

*David C. Gompert, Michael Mandelbaum, Richard L. Garwin, and John H. Barton, Nuclear Weapons and World Politics: Alternatives for the Future (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1977, $6.95 paper, $10.95 cloth), 370 pages.

Michael Mandelbaum of Harvard University presents the first nuclear regime. He argues that the most stable and desirable nuclear situation that we could realistically strive for in the decade ahead is exactly the one that we have now. It is proved, accepted, and does not involve the risk inherent in any significant change. The stability of the present nuclear balance rests on three pillars: nuclear anarchy--the absence of formal higher authority; equilibrium--the most important feature, itself composed of the three layers of mutually assured destruction, high force levels, and perceived equality; and, finally, nuclear hierarchy--stability between the superpowers imposes stability on the lesser nuclear powers. While nuclear proliferation poses a threat, it is less of a threat under this regime than it might be under any other.

Richard L. Garwin of the IBM Corporation proposes as his preferred nuclear regime one based on a unilateral reduction of U. S. nuclear weapon inventories to a significantly lower level where the United States would maintain only enough nuclear capacity to deter a nuclear attack. Since the goal is security at acceptable human and opportunity costs and since deterrence has nothing to do with the relative position of the two superpowers after a nuclear exchange but only before it, the great damage potential of nuclear weapons would enable the United States to follow such a policy of unilateral arms reduction. We would retain Minuteman, sea-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and air-launched cruise missile (ALCM) armed bombers. Trident I could be added to the force, but all further SLBM, intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), or aircraft development would be stopped. Eventually a small, super-hard, single warhead ICBM could replace Minuteman when it ages to the point that it is no longer usable. Since we would renounce escalation of conventional hostilities to a nuclear level, NATO would have to be ready to defend itself and would probably find that conventionally armed ground-launched cruise missiles (GLCMs) could replace the U.S. tactical nuclear weapons presently deployed in Europe.

The third nuclear regime is presented by John H. Barton, Professor of Law at Stanford University. He visualizes a world where nuclear arms are proscribed as a manifestation of nation-state power. He intentionally minimizes the obstacles to denuclearization in order to elaborate on the types of world political organization under which it could be accomplished. There are four cogent reasons for the elimination of all nuclear weapons: their destructiveness is disproportionate to any conceivable political goal; proliferation of nuclear power may lead to a collapse of deterrence; the concept of use of nuclear weapons against civilian populations is in fundamental contradiction with the relationship between governments and the populations that constitute them; and, finally, nuclear weapons create a governmental power distinct from the government's political and economic base. The denuclearization of the world could take two possible directions: The more conceivable form would be incremental progress, where nation-states continue to exist but gradually relinquish increasing control over nuclear weapons to an international authority. Conflicts would be restrained to conventional wars for foreign policy goals. A more extreme model would be an internationalized world, where the former legitimacy of the nation-states would devolve on a world government possessing a monopoly on the use of force. The idealistic and improbable nature of this evolution is freely admitted by the author, but his regime does permit the exploration of a very real eventuality if nuclear weapons use ever crystallizes mankind's opposition to them.

The fourth regime, portrayed by David C. Gompert of the State Department, completes the array of nuclear futures by considering the deterioration of the first regime, our present situation, into an unstable and increasingly dangerous spiral toward nuclear holocaust. This deterioration could result from one of three driving factors. First, an increase in first-strike capability, coupled with effective active and passive defense measures, could create an irresistible incentive to initiate a nuclear conflict. Grotesquely, this destabilization would be aggravated by the reduction of launch vehicle numbers under Strategic Arms Limitation Talk ( SALT) accords. Second, a significant strategic imbalance could develop in either the U.S. or the Soviet direction--either direction would be dangerous. Nuclear proliferation could so complicate the deterrence equation that it exceeds the capabilities of governmental leaders to maintain control. Third, use of a nuclear weapon by a new nuclear power in a regional context could ignite a major exchange.

NUCLEAR Proliferation* examines this challenge of the spread of nuclear weapons in far greater detail. In a perceptive introduction, David Gompert exposes the dilemma between the motivation of nonnuclear states, denied equal status with their nuclear brothers, to seek equality by building their own nuclear arsenals, and the resulting undeniable increase in the risk of nuclear war. He also sketches the interrelationship of such diverse underlying issues as the Third World need for energy, most efficiently obtained from fission reactors; the waning credibility of the American nuclear umbrella; the compensating availability of sophisticated conventional weaponry; the political leverage provided the Third World by the threat of proliferation; and the perception that the nuclear technology market is dominated by a very few nuclear powers.

*Ted Greenwood, Harold A. Feiveson, and Theodore B. Taylor with an introduction by David C. Gompert, Nuclear Proliferation: Motivations, Capabilities and Strategies for Control (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1977, $4.95 paper, $8.95 cloth), 210 pages.

Addressing the question of motivation among nonnuclear powers to acquire capabilities, Ted Greenwood of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard sees such weapons as ". . . components of military force, as instruments and symbols of power that can be manipulated to promote their interests." (p. 25) The key decision is whether nuclear weapons will promote or detract from the primary interests of the country considering the nuclear option. Militating against the decision to build nuclear weapons is an international climate characterized by a strong aversion to the use of nuclear weapons and a perception that the greater the dispersion of nuclear weaponry, the greater the hazard of eventual nuclear war. Nuclear weapons could come into the hands of governments less affected by this aversion to their use; they could be developed by nations involved in chronic confrontation relationships with their neighbors; or the rate of proliferation could simply be too rapid to permit satisfactory accommodation by the international community.

Influencing proliferation is essentially a question of incentives and disincentives. Means must be found to ease the political and security problems that make the nuclear option attractive. Incentives to "go nuclear" can be reduced by firming up the protection implicit in alliances: international guarantees can be strengthened, along with the implementation of both diplomatic and economic steps to increase the prestige and voice of nonnuclear, particularly Third World, nations. Disincentives can also be increased. The guarantees of assistance to any nonnuclear state attacked by nuclear weapons implicit in the United Nations Security Council Resolution 255 is a Source of protection that is lifted with the acquisition of any nuclear capability. Reduction or elimination of technical or financial aid can serve as either a multilateral or a bilateral sanction or disincentive. The management of international nuclear energy is a major factor in the proliferation issue which can be so conceived that it can greatly modify the incentives and disincentives perceived by the nonnuclear powers in their development of weapons-related nuclear technology. Possession of nuclear weapons by nonstate entities--revolutionary or terrorist groups, whether political or criminal in motivation--is a low level but very real threat that must be answered with energetic security and protection measures and careful attention to the political situations within states requesting nuclear technology with weapons potential. There are no definite, ready-made answers to these problems. Only the sustained application of a general strategy aimed at limiting the spread of nuclear weapons offers the probability of restraining nuclear proliferation to a manageable level.

Harold A. Feiveson and Theodore B. Taylor, both of Princeton, focus on the nuclear fission processes being developed for energy production in terms of their impact on the nuclear weapon proliferation problem. They note that the pressure for nuclear fuel cycles, instead of once-through fuel use, is encouraging a drift toward the plutonium cycle, in spite of U. S. policy resistance to the related breeder reactor technology. The plutonium cycle is dangerous because it increases the amount of plutonium--capable of fueling a nuclear explosion--and it results in the transportation of weapon grade materials between fuel reprocessing centers and power reactors, as well as fuel storage in weapon-usable form. These materials are unnecessarily vulnerable to theft or misuse. The amount of plutonium in circulation would eventually be so great that it would challenge governmental ability to ensure adequate controls.

The authors maintain that, while expeditious action is required to keep the plutonium cycle from becoming the de facto base of the world's nuclear power industry, the pressure to end once-through fuel use is not yet that great, and adequate time is available for the study of other alternative fuel cycles less hazardous in terms of nuclear weapon proliferation. The thorium cycle is cited as a particularly likely approach to recycling fission fuels. The thorium cycle is based on the production of the ²³³U isotope of uranium in a reactor fueled with thorium. While the ²³³U isotope itself can be used to make weapons, it can be used for power generation in a form where it is diluted with other isotopes of uranium which ensure that the resulting isotopic mixture is unusable in weapons. Consequently, it is never transported or stored in a form with any weapon potential. The authors make a strong statement in favor of action to accelerate the development of the thorium cycle as quickly as possible in order to halt the present drift toward the plutonium cycle with its manifest danger.

BOTH of these volumes present clear and readable analyses of inescapable issues in the shaping of the nuclear future of this planet. Though the reader may not agree with all the specific points or arguments the authors make, he has the option of picking and choosing among the vividly portrayed alternatives they present. The reader will clearly profit from the lucid treatment of enormously complex relationships by scholars of the highest quality. These works provide a logical structure upon which one may array his own perceptions to form a solid and functional image of the future. These books also generate an enthusiasm which motivates the energetic study and concentrated thought needed to understand the world that we are now in the process of building. These two books, and their companion volumes in the 1980s Project, will provide readers with an excellent preparation for making a positive contribution to the decades ahead.

Lieutenant Colonel John H. Kohout III (USAFA; Diplôme de l’Institut, Institut d’Études Politiques, Paris) is a regional issues analyst in the Strategy Division, DCS Operations, Plans and Readiness, Hq USAF. He served as a USAF Research Associate at the Institute of War and Peace Studies, Columbia University; as chairman of French courses and executive officer of the Department of Foreign Languages at the USAF Academy; and was USAF Liaison Officer at the French Air Force Armed Forces Staff College and a previous contributor to the Review.

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.

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