Philosophical concern over nuclear armaments raises questions about the logical and conceptual basis for deterrence theory as well as the effects of threats of nuclear annihilation on our common humanity. However, most philosophical concern centers around the morality of nuclear deterrence. It is sometimes thought that the doctrine of just war can provide a moral justification for nuclear deterrence based on threats of massive retaliation. Yet attempts to apply the doctrine of just war lead to a moral dilemma: although nuclear deterrence seems justified as self-defense, there are compelling reasons for concluding that threats of retaliation are immoral. Alternative deterrence policies might be thought to overcome the moral dilemma. However, counterforce strategy and antimissile defense, as recently proposed by President Reagan, must still depend upon immoral threats of retaliation. Proposals for a nonviolent national defense offer a possible solution, and serious attention should be given to claims that nonviolent defense would deter aggression.
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References
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and Robert P. Wolff, “Maximization of Expected Utility as a Criterion of Rationality in Military Strategy and Foreign Policy,”Social Theory and Practice, 1:99-111 (Spring 1970).
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2. Quoted by Robert Jay Lifton and Richard Falk, Indefensible Weapons (New York: Basic Books, 1983), p. 66.
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3. See Jonathan Schell, The Fate of the Earth (New York: Avon Books, 1982), pp. 99-178.
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4. Lifton and Falk, Indefensible Weapons, pp. 3-127.
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5. Henry T. Nash, “The Bureaucratization of Homicide,” in Protest and Survive, ed. E. P. Thompson and Dan Smith (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1981), pp. 149-160.
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6. “Moral Urgencies in the Nuclear Context,” in Nuclear Weapons and the Conflict of Conscience, ed. John C. Bennett (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1962), p. 109.
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7. This discussion also presupposes that moral principles are relevant to issues of war and national defense. Anyone who doubts this should see Richard A. Wasserstrom, “On the Morality of War: A Preliminary Inquiry,” in War and Morality, ed. R. A. Wasserstrom (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Pub., 1970), pp. 78-101; and Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars (New York: Basic Books, 1977), pp. 3-20.
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9. See Just and Unjust Wars, p. 269.
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Modern versions of the doctrine have a variety of theoretical bases. Barrie Paskins and Michael Dockrill, The Ethics of War (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1979), pp. 191-245, derive the doctrine from Kantian ethical principles, although they deny its justification of nuclear deterrence. In Just and Unjust Wars, Walzer develops a version of the doctrine that is independent of any particular theological or ethical position.
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11. See David Wells, “How Much Can the `Just War' Justify?”Journal of Philosophy, 66:819-829 (Dec. 1969).
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16. Ibid. But perhaps nuclear weapons can be condemned for their psychological effects on hostages. For a discussion of the psychological evidence, see Lifton and Falk, Indefensible Weapons, pp. 48-52, 54, 68, 77.
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19. Ibid.
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21. Kavka, “Paradoxes of Deterrence,” p. 290.
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22. But see Kavka's objection to this argument, ibid., p. 289.
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25. James Fallows, National Defense (New York: Vintage Books, 1981), pp. 141-145.
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26. See the testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee of Retired General Daniel O. Graham, former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, as quoted in Fallows, National Defense, pp. 145-46.
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27. The Just War, p. 303.
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28. Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, p. 280.
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29. I certainly agree that threatening to kill 10-20 million civilians by counterforce retaliation is not as immoral as threatening to kill 60-100 million by countervalue retaliation, other things being equal. But this reduction in the immorality of the threat can be achieved in a more straightforward way simply by cutting back on our overkill capacity, so that retaliation would be less massive.
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30. Washington Post, 24 Mar. 1983, p. A12.
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31. For a discussion of the arms race and the futuristic weapons defenses envisioned by some analysts, see Ground Zero, Nuclear War: What's In It for You? (New York: Pocket Books, 1982), pp. 72-82, 199-211.
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32. Lifton and Falk, Indefensible Weapons, p. 25.
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33. Mary Kaldor, “Disarmament: The Armament Process in Reverse,” in Protest and Survive, ed. Thompson and Smith, pp. 134-182.
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34. Washington Post, 24 Mar. 1983, p. A1.
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Adam Roberts , ed., Civilian Resistance as a National Defence (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1969); and Gene Sharp, The Politics of Non-Violent Action (Boston: Porter-Sargent, 1973).
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39. Just and Unjust Wars, p. 334.
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40. Boserup and Mack, War without Weapons, p. 176; Green, Deadly Logic, p. 201.
41.
41. Unlike many proposals for unilateral disarmament, nonviolent defense responds to the need for deterrence; and unlike traditional versions of pacifism or passive resistance, it advocates nonviolent force and coercion. On the concept of nonviolent coercion, see Judith Stiehm, Nonviolent Power (Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath, 1972).
