Abstract
To prevent an “overkill” scenario of a nuclear exchange between the two Cold War superpowers, this chapter analyses the concept of minimum deterrence, with its doctrinal and practical implications. According to this doctrine, there are levels of nuclear stockpiles far lower than those at present that would nevertheless deter the use of nuclear weapons by other states and not expose the state making reductions to a risk of being disarmed by an opponent’s first strike. Under the current circumstances, a strategy of minimum deterrence should be a central objective of both superpowers’ state policies.
Originally published in David Carlton and Carlo Schaerf, eds., The Arms Race in an Era of Negotiations (London: Macmillan and New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991): 73–99.
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Notes
- 1.
For a discussion of the effects of 50 per cent reductions on the superpowers’ ability to cover their likely target lists, see Michael M. May, George F. Bing, and John D. Steinbruner, “Strategic Arsenals after START: The Implications of Deep Cuts,” International Security 13, no. 1 (1988–9): 90–133. For likely damage by various types of Soviet counterforce attacks on the United States, see William Daugherty, Barbara Levi, and Frank von Hippel, “The Consequences of ‘Limited’ Nuclear Attacks on the United States,” International Security 10, no. 4 (1985–6): 3–45.
- 2.
Robert S. McNamara , Blundering into Disaster: Surviving the First Century of the Nuclear Age (New York: Pantheon Books, 1986): 122–124.
- 3.
Harold A. Feiveson, Richard H. Ullman, and Frank von Hippel, “Reducing U.S. and Soviet Nuclear Arsenals,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 47 (August 1985): 144–151.
- 4.
“Statement by M.S. Gorbachev , General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee,” Pravda, 16 January 1986, 1–2; translated in Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), Daily Report, Soviet Union, 16 January 1986, AA-1 to AA-9. A Soviet translation (dated, however, 15 January) was published as a full-page advertisement in The New York Times, 5 February 1986, A13.
- 5.
For a clearly stated summary of the physical issues, see Barbara G. Levi and Tony Rothman, “Nuclear Winter: A Matter of Degrees,” Physics Today 38 (September 1985): 58–65.
- 6.
For a lengthy elaboration of the arguments in this paragraph, see Morton H. Halperin, Nuclear Fallacy: Dispelling the Myth of Nuclear Strategy (Cambridge, MA: Ballinger, 1987).
- 7.
On the history of US nuclear planning see David A. Rosenberg, “U.S. Nuclear War Planning, 1945–1960,” in Strategic Nuclear Targeting, eds. Desmond Ball and Jeffrey Richelson (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986): 35–56; and Desmond Ball, “The Development of the SIOP, 1960–1983,” in ibid., 57–83.
- 8.
See Lawrence Freedman, “British Nuclear Targeting,” in ibid., 109–26 and David S. Yost, “French Nuclear Targeting,” in ibid., 127–156.
- 9.
McGeorge Bundy, “To Cap the Volcano,” Foreign Affairs 48, no. 1 (1969–70): 10.
- 10.
See Bennet Ramberg, “Targeting Nuclear Energy,” in Strategic Nuclear Targeting, 250–266. Ramberg predicts very high levels of casualties, but he posits a much larger attack than one limited to, say, 20 nuclear power-generating plants.
- 11.
Stobe Talbott, Endgame: The Inside Story of SALT II (New York: Harper and Row, 1979): 24.
- 12.
See Ball’s discussion of nuclear options in “Development of the SIOP.” For Soviet targeting, see William T. Lee, “Soviet Nuclear Targeting Strategy,” in Strategic Nuclear Targeting, 84–108.
- 13.
See Stephen M. Meyer, “Soviet Nuclear Operations,” in Managing Nuclear Operations, eds. Aston B. Carter, John D. Steinbruner, and Charles A. Zraket (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1987): esp. 495–512.
- 14.
For McNamara’s suggestion, see his Blundering into Disaster. For the Soviet group’s, see below, n. 16.
- 15.
For a thorough discussion of these issues, see John H. Barton, “The Proscription of Nuclear Weapons: A Third Nuclear Regime,” in Nuclear Weapons and World Politics, eds. Michael Mandelbaum et al. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1977): 151–211.
- 16.
Committee of Soviet Scientists for Peace, Against the Nuclear Threat, Strategic Stability Under the Conditions of Radical Nuclear Arms Reductions: Report on a Study (Abridged) (Moscow, April 1987). The co-chairmen of the working group were Academician Roald Sagdayev, Director of the Institute of Space Research, and Andrei Kokoshin, Deputy Director of the Institute of the USA and Canada Studies. A summary of the report appeared as Andrei Kokoshin, “A Soviet View on Radical Weapons Cuts,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 44 (March 1988): 14–17.
- 17.
For a discussion of India’s nuclear weapons programme, see Leonard S. Spector, Going Nuclear (Cambridge, MA: Ballinger, 1987): 73–100.
- 18.
For the Israeli programme, see ibid., 130–145.
- 19.
For an example of such an argument (in this instance, by four distinguished German commentators), see Karl Kaiser et al., “Nuclear Weapons and the Preservation of Peace,” Foreign Affairs 60, no. 5 (1981–2): 1157–1170.
- 20.
For an argument to this effect, see Richard H. Ullman, “Ending the Cold War,” Foreign Policy 72 (Fall 1988): 135–139.
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Ullman, R.H. (2018). Minimum Deterrence and International Security. In: Foradori, P., Giacomello, G., Pascolini, A. (eds) Arms Control and Disarmament. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62259-0_14
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