A Military Commander Surveys the Nuclear Arms Race

A Military ILouis Mountbatten CommanderSurveys the Nuclear Arms Race I T h e r e is one question that I have kept in mind for many years. Have the frightening facts of the nuclear arms race, showing with appalling clarity that we are rushing headlong towards a precipice, been able to make any of those responsible for this disastrous course to pull themselves together and reach for the brakes? The answer has long been ”no,” and I only wish that now I could be the bearer of the glad tidings that there has been a change of attitude and we are beginning to see a steady rate of disarmament. Alas, that is not the case. I am deeply saddened when I reflect on how little has been achieved in spite of all the talk there has been particularly about nuclear disarmament. There have been numerous international conferences and negotiations on €he subject and we have all nursed dreams of a world at peace, but to no avail. Since the end of the second world war 30 years ago, we have had war after war. There is still armed conflict going on in several parts of the world. We live in an age of extremeperil because everywar today carriesthe danger that it could spread and involve the superpowers. And here lies the greatest danger of all. A military confrontation between the superpowerscould entail the horrifymg risk of nuclear warfare. The Western powers and the Soviet Union started by producing and stockpiling nuclear weapons as a deterrent to general war. The idea seemed simple enough. Because of the enormous amount of destruction that could be wreaked by a single nuclear explosion, the idea was that both sides in what we still see as an East-West conflict would be deterred from taking any aggressive action which might endanger the vital interests of the other. It was not long, however, before smaller nuclear weapons of various designs were produced and deployed for use in what was assumed to be a tactical or theatre war. The belief was that were hostilities ever to break out in Western Europe, such weapons could be used in field warfare without triggering an all-out nuclear exchange leading to the final holocaust. I find this idea more and more incredible. I cannot accept the reasons for the belief that any class of nuclear weapons can be categorizedin terms of their tactical The many accomplishments of Lord Mountbatten are presented on the opposite page by a long-time friend and colleague, Lord Zuckerman. Their association began in 1942 when the latter was a member of the planning staff for combined operations. And they continued to work together while Lord Zuckemzan was chief scientific advisor for defense during Mountbatten’s years as Chief of the Defense Staff and Chairman of the NATO Military Committee. International Security I 4 or strategicpurposes. In all sincerity, as a military man I can see no use for any nuclear weapons which would not end in escalation, with consequences that no one can conceive. In warfare the unexpected is the rule and no one can anticipatewhat an opponent's reaction will be to the unexpected. I have to keep reminding myself that nuclear devastation is not science fiction-it is a matter of fact. Thirty-four years ago there was the temfylng experience of the two atomic bombs that effaced the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In describing the nightmare a Japanesejournalistwrote as follows: Suddenlya glaringwhitish, pinkish light appeared in the sky accompanied by an unnatural tremor which was followed almost immediately by a wave of suffocating heat and a wind which swept away everything in its path. Within a few seconds the thousands of people in the streets in the centre of the town were scorched by a wave of searing heat. Many were killed instantly ; others lay writhing on the ground, screaming in agony from the intolerable pain of their burns. Everything standing upright in the way of the blast-walls, houses, factories and other buildings, was annihilated . . . Hiroshima had ceased to exist. But that is not the end of the story. We remember the tens and tens of thousands who were killed...