Global Security without Nuclear Deterrence

The Five-Continent Peace Initiative, the seminal Delhi Declaration of January 28, 1985, and comment by Raul Alfonsin, Rajiv Gandhi, Miguel de la Madrid, Julius Nyerere, Olof Palme, and Andreas Papandreou are reported in Ending the Deadlock: The Political Challenge of the Nuclear Age (New York: Parliamentarians Global Action, 1985). Reports of earlier coalition building are contained in Global Action for Survival (New York: Parliamentarians for World Order, 1983) and Politicians for Peace (New York: Parliamentarians for World Order, 1982).

Nuclearism is defined here as unwarranted faith in the efficacy of nuclear weapons for maintaining security. Robert Jay Lifton carries the definition a bit further in describing the conditions of nuclearism: “the embrace of the bomb as a new ‘fundamental,’ as a source of ‘salvation,’ and a way of restoring our lost sense of immortality.” Lifton Robert Jay Falk Richard , Indefensible Weapons (New York: Basic Books, 1982), p. 87.

Even in the absence of an anti-ballistic missile (ABM) treaty, US ABM deployments might not have occurred in the 1970s because the missiles were ineffective against a major attack. The United States did not even deploy and maintain the ABMs that the treaty allowed. For the impact of arms control efforts on security, see Johansen Robert C. , The National Interest and the Human Interest: An Analysis of U.S. Foreign Policy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980), pp. 38–125; Johansen, “How to START Ending the Arms Race,” World Policy Journal, Vol. 1, Fall 1983, pp. 71–89; Johansen, “The Future of Arms Control,” World Policy Journal, Vol. 2, Spring 1985, pp. 194–213.

Jervis Robert , Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976); Ralph K. White, Fearful Warriors: A Psychological Profile of U.S.-Soviet Relations (New York: Free Press, 1984); D. Goleman, “Political Forces Come Under Scrutiny of Psychology,” The New York Times, April 2, 1985.

I refer to the many statements by officials and their advisers affirming that it is possible to fight and prevail in a limited nuclear war. See, for example, Gray Colin S. Payne Keith , “Victory is Possible,” Foreign Policy, No. 39, Summer 1980, pp. 14–27. The classified Defense Guidance Statement requires commanders to prevail over the Soviet Union, even after fighting a protracted nuclear war. See Richard Halloran, “Pentagon Draws Up First Strategy for Fighting a Long Nuclear War,” The New York Times, May 30, 1982; and Richard Halloran, “Weinberger Confirms New Strategy on Atom Wars,” The New York Times, June 4, 1982.

See Wilkinson David , Deadly Quarrels: Lewis F. Richardson and the Statistical Study of War (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980); Francis A. Beer, Peace Against War (San Francisco: Freeman, 1981); George Modelski, “The Long Cycle of Global Politics and the Nation-State,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 20, April 1978, pp. 214–235; George Modelski and William R. Thompson, “Testing Cobweb Models of the Long Cycle of World Leadership,” paper presented at the Peace Science Society (International), Philadelphia, November 1–11, 1981. Mimeographed. George Modelski and P.M. Morgan, Understanding Global War, paper presented to the American Political Science Association, Washington, D.C., August 31, 1984; Quincy Wright, A Study of War (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1942); J. David Singer (ed.), Explaining War: Selected Papers from the Correlates of War Project (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1979); J. David Singer (ed.), Correlates of War—II (New York: Free Press, 1980); and J. David Singer and Melvin Small, The Wages of War, 1816–1965: A Statistical Handbook (New York: Wiley, 1972).

See Modelski and Morgan (note 6), and Modelski (1978, note 6). The relevance of these studies to today's balance of power system is briefly discussed in Johansen Robert C. , Toward An Alternative Security System (New York: World Policy Institute, 1983). For additional studies of the long cycle see George Modelski, “Long Cycles of World Leadership: An Annotated Bibliography,” International Studies Notes, Vol. 10, 1983, pp. 1–5.

Statement in his plenary address before the International Studies Association, Los Angeles, March 19, 1980.

Claude Inis , Power and International Relations (New York: Random House, 1962).

This may have occurred in the Korean airliner disaster.

See Johansen Robert C. , “Arms Control: Numerical Insecurity,” The Atlantic, Vol. 252, August 1983, pp. 24–29.

This formulation came from the US Representative to the United Nations, Stevenson Adlai E. , “Working Toward a World Without War,” Statement made in Committee I, United Nations, November 15, 1961, re-printed in United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Disarmament: The New U.S. Initiative (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1962), pp. 13–28.

Examples include US war plans for combat and worldwide military activity after a global nuclear war, and the Air Force study of ways to secure nuclear weapons far underground for the purpose of dominating international politics after protracted nuclear war has been fought. The New York Times, October 3, 1984.

Johansen (note 7), pp. 32–43.

Demilitarization means gradually reducing the role of military power in international relations and of military influence in the domestic political economy. Depolarization refers to a process of lowering rigid bloc and alliance boundaries (e.g., North-South and East-West conflicts) through greater equity and cooperation on political, economic, and ecological questions. Denationalization extends the lines of personal and group identity beyond the nation, producing a heightened respect for human dignity and solidarity, and a deeper sense of responsibility to the common weal at the local and global levels. Transnationalization describes the process by which individuals, private organizations, and governments crisscross national boundaries and institutionalize the means for peaceful resolution of conflict and protection of security and other humanitarian values for all. For an elaboration of this conceptual framework, see Johansen (note 7).

Keller B. , “Pentagon Report Says Soviet Spurs Its Arms Program,” The New York Times, April 3, 1985.

Frank Barnaby, former director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, and Egbert Boeker, Professor of Theoretical Physics, Free University of Amsterdam, conclude: “A conventional defensive deterrent is now possible. European security is possible without nuclear weapons. It is impossible with them.” See Barnaby Boeker , “Defence Without Offence: Non-nuclear Defence for Europe,” Peace Studies Paper No. 8 (London: School of Peace Studies, University of Bradford, November 1982).

Ibid..

The United States would be fully prepared, should all other means of defense somehow fail, to practice civilian resistance as the Norwegians and Danes did against Nazi occupation. Gene Sharp suggests that even with mass arrests and executions, there would probably be less loss of life and better prospects for recovery than would occur as the result of a major war. Sharp Gene , The Politics of Nonviolent Action (Boston: Porter Sargent Publishers, 1973).

For the text of key sections of the final document of the Stockholm Conference on Confidence- and Security-Building Measures and Disarmament in Europe, see the New York Times, September 22, 1986, p. A12.

Leonid Brezhnev, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Speech to the 26th Party Congress, February 1981 (Moscow: Progress Publications, 1981), pp. 26–40.

Stockholm International Peace Research Institute World Armaments and Disarmament: SIPRI Yearbook 1982. London: Taylor and Francis, 1982, pp. 75–92.

The Soviet Union has expressed interest in submarine sanctuaries in its START proposals, published in Pravda, January 2, 1983. See also Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, World Armaments and Disarmament: SIPRI Yearbook 1983 (London: Taylor and Francis, 1983), p. 64.

Longstreth Thomas Pike John Rhinelander John , The Impact of U.S. and Soviet Ballistic Missile Defense Programs on the ABM Treaty (Washington, D.C.: National Campaign to Save the ABM Treaty, 1985).

Smith Gerard , “U.S. Close to Violating ABM Treaty,” The Washington Post, June 20, 1984, A12.

See the excerpts from the Defense Guidance statement, Halloran Richard , “Pentagon Draws Up …” (note 5).

For further discussion of this idea, see Department of Disarmament Affairs, Report of the Secretary-General, The Implications of Establishing an International Satellite Monitoring Agency. Study Series 9 (New York: United Nations, 1983).

For a discussion of the positive arms control consequences that could flow from US-Soviet collaboration on space projects, including an international satellite monitoring agency, see Deudney Daniel , “Forging Missiles into Spaceships,” World Policy Journal, Vol. 2, Spring 1985, pp. 271–304.

For an elaboration of some possibilities, see Johansen Robert C. , “The Reagan Administration and the U.N.: The Costs of Unilateralism,” World Policy Journal, Vol. 3, Fall 1986, pp. 601–42.