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Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLC ["The Arms Race Is About Politics"] Author(s): Jerome H. Kahan and Colin S. Gray Source: Foreign Policy, No. 11 (Summer, 1973), pp. 134-139 Published by: Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLC Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1148045 . Accessed: 14/06/2014 17:49 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLC is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Foreign Policy. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 91.229.229.44 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 17:49:00 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

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["The Arms Race Is About Politics"]Author(s): Jerome H. Kahan and Colin S. GraySource: Foreign Policy, No. 11 (Summer, 1973), pp. 134-139Published by: Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLCStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1148045 .

Accessed: 14/06/2014 17:49

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

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Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLC is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extendaccess to Foreign Policy.

http://www.jstor.org

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American neighbors. One of our diplomats re- cently noted that most Latin-American ministers and presidents say to themselves: "If the United States can switch on China, they can switch on Cuba." This Foreign Service official implied that Latin-American diplomats no longer take seriously our anti-Cuban exhortations.

There are indications that the number of Latin- American governments reestablishing relations with Cuba will continue to grow. In fact, State Department officials fear that in future OAS votes a majority may support efforts to terminate Cuban sanctions (a two-thirds vote is required to repeal the 1964 resolution). If the United States suddenly finds itself saddled with a minority view- point, our national interest most certainly will suffer. Our influence within the hemisphere will deteriorate. Valuable credits will be lost in per- suading our OAs allies to continue to side with us on the Cuban question. Anti-American rhetoric will accelerate.

The failure to remove the Cuban "cancer" not only will prove embarrassing to the United States, but, as Mr. Dominguez suggests, it will perpetuate "the erosion of the authority of the OAS." Remov- ing this vestige of the cold waron the other hand, would significantly reduce tensions and redirect hemispheric policy, focusing attention on more urgent priorities such as trade, economic develop- ment, and regional integration. By changing its Cuba policy, the United States, I believe, will make a significant contribution towards the attain- ment of these objectives. Charles W. Whalen, Jr. Foreign Affairs Committee House of Representatives

To the Editors: Questioning the conventional wisdom of virtually all aspects of American foreign and defense policy shows signs of becoming a fashionable intellectual pursuit. At the risk of being accused of criticizing the critics, I should like to respond to a few issues raised by Colin S. Gray in "The Arms Race Is About Politics" (FOREIGN POLICY 9).

First, Professor Gray rightly rejects a mechanis-

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Letters (Kahan)

tic military model of the strategic arms race, but incorrectly suggests that there is no "rational" interaction between U.S. and Soviet nuclear arms decisions, or, if there is, that years of analysis are required to understand its dynamics. The connec- tion between U.S. and Soviet strategic policies is admittedly complex, and each nation often makes arms decisions for internal reasons independent of the other side's programs or fears of a real se- curity threat. However, I would argue that a bilateral arms race does exist, and when broad- ened to include political as well as military com- ponents, can be understood in terms of an action- reaction phenomenon between two governments.

Consider the main trends of the past 15 years. The U.S.S.R.'s policy of Sputnik diplomacy in the late 1950's was partially a reaction to America's massive retaliation policy formulated by Eisen- hower and Dulles, and the ensuing "missile gap" fear caused the United States to react and expand its strategic programs. Our resultant nuclear su- periority, in turn, then motivated Moscow to re- dress the strategic balance, first by attempting to install rockets in Cuba and later through a major nuclear arms buildup. In the mid-1960's, the pos- sibility of extensive Soviet ABM deployments trig- gered a U.S. decision to develop MIRV. When combined with our Sentinel ABM decision, this further stimulated the Soviet offensive program and subsequently placed pressure on the United States to respond. During the course of the 1969-1970 SALT negotiations, both nations continued to ex- pand their strategic arsenals, for military as well as diplomatic reasons. Perhaps future interactions cannot be precisely predicted, but the historical pat- terns seem clear enough for policy-makers to do a better job in considering the arms race implica- tions of strategic force and policy decisions.

Second, contrary to the expectations of most Kremlinologists (and notwithstanding Professor Gray's diagnosis), U.S. and Soviet strategic poli- cies have tended to converge. The Nixon Adminis- tration moved the United States away from sole reliance on "assured destruction" to a strategy of "sufficiency." This doctrine cannot be dismissed as mere rhetoric; the criteria for sufficiency are broader than those for assured destruction and in-

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clude such doctrinal elements as crisis stability, limited-strike options, damage limitation, and comparable fatality ratios. Perhaps most signifi- cantly, President Nixon has repeatedly claimed that sufficiency is a political concept, and U.S. strategic force decisions during the past few years have been increasingly driven by such non- military motivations as matching Soviet forces, maintaining numerical parity in warheads and de- livery vehicles, and securing "bargaining chips" for negotiations. In the face of these facts, one wonders how Professor Gray can accuse the United States of maintaining a military-oriented assured destruction doctrine.

For its part, Moscow appears to have adopted a doctrine which emphasizes deterrence through the threat of retaliation but also includes war- fighting options and a concern over numerical comparisons-similar to the Nixon Administra- tion's criteria for sufficiency. The Soviet Union's slow movement toward a survivable strategic re- taliatory posture may have reflected a doctrinal lag on the part of Kremlin policy-makers, but was also due to the U.S.S.R.'s lag in acquiring the necessary technology of small missiles and nuclear sub- marines.

More importantly, in a remarkable doctrinal shift, it now seems that the Soviets have reversed their long standing belief in the desirability of ABM'S. Not only did Soviet negotiators propose that both sides agree to accept low limits on ABM'S, but, in accepting the final accord, the Soviet Union committed itself to refrain from deploying nation- wide ABM'S or even constructing the base for such systems. By signing the SALT accords, the U.S.S.R. joined the United States in official acceptance of the principle of mutual deterrence. If the ABM Treaty reflected only a reluctant concession or short-term tactic on the part of Kremlin leaders rather than a fundamental doctrinal decision, as many U.S. analysts suggest, why then did the U.S.S.R. favor such stringent defensive restrictions?

Finally, the Moscow SALT agreements have sub- stantive value, despite the critical analysis put forth by Professor Gray. With severe limits placed on ABM's, the threat of large missile defense deploy- ments will no longer dominate each side's strategic

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Letters (Kahan)

planning, variations in offensive force levels and uncertainties over qualitative improvements should have less significance, and the over-all potential for seriously destabilizing actions by either side will be reduced. Obviously, the SALT agreements are not perfect from the standpoint optimizing the U.S. strategic position, controlling the arms race, or eliminating nuclear problems. But the accords should not be evaluated by an absolute standard; instead, they should be compared with the future situation likely to arise in the absence of mutual limitations-that is, on a "relative risk" basis. From this perspective, the SALT accords can permit the United States and the U.S.S.R. to preserve de- terrent postures with greater reliability and less cost than would otherwise be the case. Although the bargaining chip strategy may have increased strategic forces on both sides, without any agreed constraints, offensive and defensive arms programs would presently be moving forward at a more rapid rate, and, projecting 10 years ahead, would probably reach even greater levels.

Furthermore, to claim as does Professor Gray that SALT was negotiated with little if any concern over political issues flies in the face of reality. The SALT talks were motivated on both sides by broad foreign policy considerations. The Declaration of Principles issued at the Moscow summit and the general climate of ditente, which preceded and was reinforced by that summit, are political phe- nomena of the highest order. Even the shape of the interim agreement displays political sensitivity by providing for over-all numerical equality between the two nations-with U.S. advantages in num- bers of warheads and bombers offsetting the Soviet lead in numbers of missile launchers.

Paradoxically, the so-called "codification" of a mutual assured destruction situation between the United States and the Soviet Union-which U.S. and Soviet leaders and most observers view as its overriding benefit-is seen by Professor Gray and a small group of strategic experts as its major dis- advantage. This group argues that there must be an alternative to the horror of mutual assured destruction (which they cleverly refer to as MAD) but have thus far failed to provide a viable alter- native. Short of the unrealistic hopes of inventing

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perfect defenses or stuffing the growing population of nuclear genies back into their bottles, there may simply be no way to live with nuclear weapons other than by attempting to deter their use.

The conventional wisdom of our foreign and de- fense policies should be closely scrutinized by the public and subjected to constructive criticism by experts. In terms of strategic nuclear policies, how- ever, the problem may not be one of finding grandiose alternative strategies or writing exciting articles, but simply attempting to work out the practical details of a series of specific strategic and arms control decisions needed to make stable nuclear deterrence work effectively. Jerome H. Kahan The Brookings Institution Washington, D.C.

The Author Replies: I have long been a mildly dissenting admirer of Jerome Kahan's cogent analyses of strategic prob- lems. It is possible that I owe Mr. Kahan an apology, in that I believe that we are more in agreement than does he. If this is so, clearly my article should have conveyed its message in less ambiguous fashion.

In many ways, Mr. Kahan's letter epitomizes the set of assumptions that it was my purpose to challenge. First, I find his action-reaction analysis to be painted in such broad brushstrokes as to be unhelpful.

Secondly, unlike the first point (where I think Mr. Kahan is in error), I accept that the White House is far in advance of many U.S. arms control analysts in perceiving arms control (and U.S. de- fense posture) as one segment of U.S. policy to be orchestrated, politically, for the good of U.S.- Soviet relations as a whole. My points were that (a) I do not think that this has been done very effectively (despite the repetition of "sufficiency" criteria); (b) that the "arms race as a region of political competition" has not been adequately ap- preciated-even officially, far less by academics who place a very high value upon arms control; (c) that the Soviet rejection of extensive ABM deploy- ment may or may not reflect doctrinal convergence.

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Letters (Gray/Gideonse)

(This returns us to "what do we know about the adversary?")

Thirdly, I agree that the SALT accords have value-though I do not know what Mr. Kahan means by "substantive." My argument was that against the "insubstantive" value of an enhance- ment of the superpower d6tente must be placed the fact that the Soviet Union has been offered open range privileges in areas where it is currently behind.

And, far more importantly, an eschewal of the defensive path means that Mr. Kahan et al are prepared to put all their money on the rationality, secure command and control, and tolerably "close to American" values possessed by every extant and prospective group of decision-makers enjoying a nuclear capability, for the indefinite future.

In common with Mr. Kahan, the details of a SALT-less future are not clear to me. However, the Nixon Administration seems to be relatively unin- terested in the political options that serious counter- force and population defense capabilities might yield them.

On one point only does Mr. Kahan slip from his high standard of fair (if controversial) comment. I decline to be chided on the ground that I am in only "a small group of strategic experts." Wisdom is surely not yet identified by a counting of strate- gists' noses. Colin S. Gray University of British Columbia

To the Editors: Lincoln P. Bloomfield, writing your Winter 1972- 73 editorial, devotes nearly one-sixth of his article to challenging the assumption that "The United States must provide leadership because it (reluc- tantly) has the responsibility." He adds paren- thetically, "This one has fallen from grace, but is still believed by many." Among the believers he mentions are the late President Johnson, Dean Rusk, Walt Rostow and Freedom House.

The author acknowledges that much of the pre- vailing foreign policy from 1945 to 1960 was "right for the period." Consequently, he adds, "It's still worth the dogged (and almost hopeless)

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