|
duplicated by the Soviet Union and possibly soon by other nations as well. If developed, they will make the United States less, not more, secure. The new offensive weapons will reduce the warning time available to both sides, and the new small weapons will be harder to verify by national means. In addition, some of the new weapons, such as the cruise missile, will be easily duplicated by countries other than the superpowers. If the Soviet Union responds to the American B-1 production and "Star Wars" missile defense with its own version of the B-1 and cruise missiles, the United States, like the Soviet Union, will be wide open to attack. Our probable response then will be deployment of an air-defense system costing hundreds of billions of dollars. Worst of all, this new development program creates an atmosphere of fear and suspicion that will, if not arrested soon, ensure the continuation of the arms race for the rest of this century and beyond. Figure 2 shows clearly that there was no missile gap in the 1957-1982 period; for many years after 1957, the American missile force was dominant. From 1955 until the Cuban missile crisis, the United States had 150 medium-range missiles in Europe, as shown in Figure 2. The ultimate level of the Soviet land-based force has exceeded that of the United States from 1969 on, but as is shown in Figure 3, the total strategic nuclear-weapons stockpile of the United States has always been greater. Remember that the numbers on both sides are so large that the relative strength of the two sides actually does not matter. And yet, unfortunately, present plans will make those numbers even greater. The leaders of the military-industrial complex are not evil. They are for the most part decent people. Because we live and they function in a war culture in which it is believed that ever-increasing defenses are required for the nation's survival, not only are the building and selling of armaments accepted things to do, but they can even be regarded as patriotic actions. So much a part of our unquestioned view of the world is this accelerating trend toward a military culture that to address it we must reexamine the fundamental assumptions that motivate us, challenge the dogmas that account for our fatalistic acceptance of the arms race, and in so doing recognize the significant role that the United States has played in its existence and devote comparable energy and effort to halting it. It is not a popular thing to challenge these dogmas. In his acceptance speech in Dallas in August, the |
President indicated that he has become convinced a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. Yet he continues to question the motives of all those Americans who work for a less dangerous world. More than 30 years of confrontational behavior have created a situation in which it is difficult to talk rationally, even among ourselves, about how we got here . A combination of newspeak words, false information, half-baked ideas about successful preemptive attacks and winning nuclear wars, and a phony but authoritative clairvoyance in projections of Soviet forces and objectives have constantly masked the opportunities that exist for exploring alternatives. Dependence upon such ideas as worst-case analysis, for example, supported by controlled leaks of secret information, has made possible the manipulation of public opinion. It has also made it easy for Americans to deny any responsibility for the arms race, to believe that the Russians are relentless and reckless aggressors, and to conclude that there is nothing we can do to stop the catastrophe we see coming.
In spite of all this history, we should try to deal with the problem in terms of today's realities. The realities, faced squarely, should give us reason for hope. We need to disenthrall ourselves of a sense of aggrieved innocence and appreciate the extent to which our combination of fears and overwhelming technical and economic strength have caused our country to be a leading force in the arms race. In the future, we must find ways of using these same strengths and energies to take the lead in ending the arms race. We need to abandon the idea that innovative technology can ever make it possible to win a nuclear war or to protect a nation involved in one from annihilation. Each new generation of military technologists seems to need to learn that lesson by experience, through building new weapons that clearly and frustratingly provide less security than their predecessors. Accepting this fact alone will open many options. We must also abandon the belief that there are no reasonable alternatives to the arms race. |