Deterrence: With Weapons or Without? *

Abstract

The current theories of deterrence, patterned on animal behaviour, are based on holding out the threat of physical punishment to the adversary in order to prevent him from taking any action detrimental to oneself. In today's world, the ultimate deterrence being the nuclear weapon, the superpowers have accumulated enormous stockpiles of thermonuclear weapons which, if used, will extinguish human life. Having built up the stockpiles, the nuclear-weapon powers are obliged to create and sustain mythologies which justify their possession of such weapons. At the same time, the internal logic of such mythologies has created an ever-spiralling arms race. Disarmament, redefined as arms limitation, has meant rearmament in the interests of ‘deterrence stability’. Since the the nuclear-weapon powers have shown themselves to be unwilling to disarm, the non-weapon powers have two courses open before them. One is to make the game of deterrence extremely dangerous by developing their own weapons of man-destruction. This, however, besides being a desparate measure, is entering into the game rather than ending it. The other more ‘human’ course is to resort to such ‘non-weapon deterrents’ as massive education programmes to expose the fragility of the current doctrines, mobilization of public opinion for disarmament, and survival planning for the human race.