Nuclear War and Nuclear Peace

186 Pages·1988·17.748 MB·English

by  Gerald Segal, Edwina Moreton, Lawrence Freedman, John Baylis (auth.)

NUCLEAR WAR AND NUCLEAR PEACE
By the same authors
ALTERNATIVE APPROACHES TO BRITISH DEFENCE
POLICY
John Baylis (editor)
ANGLO-AMERICAN DEFENCE RELATIONS, 1939-84
John Baylis
ARMS CONTROL IN ASIA
Gerald Segal
BRITAIN AND NUCLEAR WEAPONS
Lawrence Freedman
BRITISH DEFENCE POLICY IN A CHANGING WORLD
John Baylis (editor)
CHINESE DEFENCE POLICY
Gerald Segal and William T. Tow (editors)
CONTEMPORARY STRATEGY
John Baylis, Ken Booth, John Garnett and Phil Williams
EAST GERMANY AND THE WARSAW ALLIANCE
Edwina Moreton
THE PRICE OF PEACE
Lawrence Freedman
THE EVOLUTION OF NUCLEAR STRATEGY
Lawrence Freedman
THE GREAT POWER TRIANGLE
Gerald Segal
SOVIET STRATEGY
John Baylis and Gerald Segal (editors)
SOVIET STRATEGY TOWARDS WESTERN EUROPE
Edwina Moreton and Gerald Segal (editors)
THE SOVIET UNION AND EAST ASIA
Gerald Segal (editor)
US INTELLIGENCE AND THE SOVIET STRATEGIC
THREAT
Lawrence Freedman
US NUCLEAR STRATEGY: A READER
Philip Bobbitt, Gregory Treverton and Lawrence Freedman
(editors)
NUCLEAR WAR AND
NUCLEAR PEACE
Gerald Segal
Edwina Moreton
Lawrence Freedman
John Baylis
SECOND EDITION
Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN 978-0-333-47612-3 ISBN 978-1-349-19474-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-19474-2
©Gerald Segal; Edwina Moreton; Lawrence Freedman;
and John Baylis, 1983, 1988
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 2nd edition 1988 978-0-333-47611-6
All rights reserved. For information, write:
Scholarly and Reference Division,
St. Martin's Press, Inc., 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010
First published in the United States of America in 1988
ISBN 978-0-312-02114-6
Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
Nuclear war and nuclear peace/Gerald Segal ... [et al.].-2nd ed.
p. em.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-312-02114-6 $35.00 (est.)
1. Nuclear warfare. 2. Nuclear disarmament. 3 Europe-Defenses.
4. Great Britain-Military policy. I. Segal, Gerald, 1953-
U263.N778 1988
355'.0217-dc19 88-7049
CIP
Contents
Note on the Second Edition IX
Introduction xi
Glossary xiii
1. STRATEGY AND SURVIVAL 1
Gerald Segal
The Moral High Ground 2
Is There a Soviet Threat? 5
Soviet Capabilities 6
Soviet Intentions 8
Deterring the Adversary 13
Soviet Strategic Thinking 18
Does Deterrence Work? 20
The Arms Race 22
'What in the Name of God is Superiority?' 28
Civil Defence 30
Proliferation 32
Strategy and Survival 34
2. UNTYING THE NUCLEAR KNOT 36
Edwina Moreton
Why 'Banning the Bomb' Won't Help 40
Arms Control So Far: the Potholes 42
The Partial Test-ban Treaty, 1963 44
Strategy Arms Limitation Talks: SALT 1 45
The ABM Treaty 46
The Second Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty, SAl T 2 47
Arms Control is not Easy 56
How to be Radical and Wrong 57
v
VI Contents
Why not just Freeze? 57
The Wrong Cuts Can Hurt 60
Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) 62
Nuclear-free Nonsense 65
Critical Choices for Arms Control 66
First Strike; Second Strike 67
Technology Needs Controlling Too 72
Building Confidence in Arms Control 76
Where to From Here? 77
3. EUROPE BETWEEN THE SUPERPOWERS 81
Lawrence Freedman
The American Commitment 83
The Conventional Alternative 85
The Lessons of Vietnam 87
Flexible Response 90
Tactical Nuclear Weapons 91
War-fighting and Signalling 95
The Neutron Bomb 97
Cruise Missiles 99
First Strikes 101
The Disillusion with Nuclear Strategy 105
Implications for NATO 110
Arms Control 112
Aftermath 116
Alliances 119
4. BRITAIN AND THE BOMB 125
John Baylis
Should Britain Possess a Strategic Nuclear Deterrent? 125
Is There a Threat to Britain? 126
How Convincing are the Arguments Supporting a
British Nuclear Force? 129
Is the Moral Argument Decisive? 140
Can Britain Afford Nuclear Weapons? 142
Why Has There Been a Resurgence of CND? 145
What Does CND Stand For? 146
How Popular is CND? 147
Does Britain Have any Alternative Non-nuclear
Defence Options? 148
Non-nuclear Conventional Defence within NATO 149
Contents v11
Non-nuclear Defence outside NATO 151
How Might British and NATO Strategy be Modified? 153
Summary of the Arguments 155
Is Trident the Only or the Best Option? 156
CONCLUSION 163
Gerald Segal, Edwina Moreton, Lawrence Freedman,
John Baylis
Select Bibliography 167
Index 170
Note on the Second Edition
The superpowers have signed their first major arms control
agreement in nearly a decade, there is a dynamic new Soviet
leadership, and the United States is about to elect a new President. It
seems that a great deal has changed in superpower politics. But in
reality, the essentials remain barely affected.
This new edition, five years after the first, will bring the debates
about nuclear weapons and arms control up to date by assessing the
reasons for the new agreement, the decline of the peace movements,
the new threats to international stabHity, and the prospects for
further detente. We are relieved to note that our optimism in the first
edition about the eventual return to arms control has been vindicated
by events. Our pessimism about the more deeply-rooted nature of
superpower confrontation remains and we retain our assessment that
the nuclear knot remains firmly tied and the superpowers still move
warily in each other's presence. It is also important to assess the new
atmosphere and the prospects for real change in East-West relations.
IX
Introduction
Books about nuclear weapons have proliferated almost as fast as the
weapons themselves, so why yet another book? We believe that the
public debate is badly out of balance for, despite its quantity, much of
the literature is dominated by a slanging match between extremist
positions. This neither clarifies the problem for those properly
concerned about the nuclear issue, nor offers realistic solutions.
We are not attempting to mark out a centre ground distinguished
only by the fact that it is not extreme, nor do we wish to provide
wishy-washy generalities. Our arguments and prescriptions are in
some instances quite radical. Our distaste for the wishful thinking
behind so many simplistic solutions runs deep, as does our desire to
identify a coherent and positive set of policies that can offer some
hope for the future. The analysis of nuclear war and nuclear peace is
too complex an affair to fit into neat categories of right and left, of
armers and disarmers. There are too many grey areas in the debate.
But where the balance of judgement has to come down on one side or
the other, we are not afraid of strange bedfellows.
We have all worked as British academics in related subjects and
have written books and articles on various aspects of the issues. What
we hope to do in this book is address the fundamental issues for a
wider audience.
Our backgrounds are diverse: three are British and one is North
American. In our youth, we were all members of one protest group
or another, from CND to anti-Vietnam war movements. We have
also had opportunities to become fully acquainted with official
thinking. Our work on these issues has not diminished our concern,
but it has warned us off simplicities. Therefore the cover of this book
has neither missiles, mushroom clouds nor doves of peace. That we
feel strongly about the issues will be apparent when at times the style
of this book becomes polemical.
The four core chapters of the book are intended first to provide an
introduction to the key problems in the nuclear weapons debate.
xi