Diplomacy's First Priority: Keeping the Nuclear Peace

DIPLOMACY'S FIRST PRIORITY:, KEEPING THE NUCLEAR PEACE Edmund S. Muskie J—jast December we remembered Pearl Harbor. It was a transforming event. Five years after Pearl Harbor, Senator Vandenberg said the attack "drove most of us to the irresistible conclusion that world peace is indivisible. We learned that the oceans are no longer moats around our ramparts. We learned that mass destruction is a progressive science which defies both time and space. . . ." Pearl Harbor destroyed our belief that somehow we were exceptional and could stay above and apart from it all. Geography did not guarantee us easy security. Twenty years later we enjoyed a position of strategic superiority in nuclear weapons. But even then, in 1962, President Kennedy warned us: "Every man, woman, and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident or miscalculation, or by madness. The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us." Yet we continued to build, while the main adversary built more and eventually caught us. Today, forty years after Pearl Harbor, we coexist under the umbrella of a balance of terror. Strategic parity in nuclear weapons— with thousands of warheads on both sides and all of them much more destructive than the Hiroshima bomb—has brought home to us our vulnerability and the threat of nuclear suicide. We measure military time in terms ofminutes and hours, and maybe days, but not in weeks, months, and years— as during the days of mobilization. At this point in our history, I believe that the public senses we are about to enter into a period of greater instability in the superpower relationship, one in which the arms race, for the first time in a dozen years, is not accompanied by the restraining influence of serious arms-control talks; in which confidence in terms like "deterrence" and "parity" is being shaken; and in which nuclear war appears more likely to happen. The text of this article originated in the form of remarks made by former Secretary ofState Edmund S. Muskie before the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C., on March 18, 1982. 149 150 SAIS REVIEW My chief concern is that the arms-control process as we knew it is practically dead, and that a world propaganda battle has taken its place operating almost entirely on a policy of "total linkage." If something is not done soon to break this degenerative trend, we and the Soviets may have a serious confrontation not unlike the Cuban missile crisis—but one in which the Soviets will vow "not another humiliation" and our leaders will vow "no confirmation of a changed balance of power"—with no ongoing high-level negotiations, no communication process to fall back on, and no political basis for any compromise. Ofcourse, a variety ofinfluences are important in maintaining the peace. There are many players and several instruments. So "keeping the nuclear peace," in a real sense, must be the ultimate mission of our foreign policy in all its aspects. My comments here, however, will focus on what measures can be taken to strengthen deterrence and to limit the arms race. It is crucial to remember that the way we conduct ourselves throughout the world bears directly upon maintaining peace. To a considerable degree, the way we manage our one-to-one relationship with the Soviets in order to prevent a thermonuclear catastrophe—or the appearance of how we manage it—is a heavy influence upon the peace and security ofall other regions ofthe world. The search for arms control is the necessary companion of military deterrence. The fear of an unchecked arms race is present in all societies and will not be dismissed merely by pointing out that the other side is further ahead in the race. A credible search for responses must be undertaken. Otherwise, "deterrence" and "balance" will come to be seen as an impediment to, rather than a condition for, peace. In this instance, the most persuasive military arguments will become mute. My purpose here is not to give you a checklist of criteria for controlling the arms race—such as not deploying vulnerable...