Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, Volume 1, Number 1, Winter/Spring 2000

CIAO DATE: 05/02

Georgetown Journal of International Affairs

Volume 1, Number 1, Winter/Spring 2000

Interview: Is Kenneth Waltz Still M.A.D. about Nukes?^*
by Jeremy Goldberg & Parag Khanna

The end of the Cold War did not diminish the nuclear threat, but shifted its locale. India and Pakistan’s decisions in May 1998 to conduct nuclear tests raised new questions about the prospects for nuclear stability in South Asia. Israel’s nuclear program remains shrouded in secrecy, while nuclear aspirants Iraq and Iran press forward in their quest to join the nuclear club. North Korea’s intentions and nuclear capabilities are unknown, as is the extent of the nuclear assistance it receives from abroad. Russia struggles to maintain control of its nuclear arsenal, while the Chinese seem unsatisfied by the size and reach of their own. Finally, terrorists may be in the market for nuclear weaponry, as they shift their focus away from demonstration toward devastation. What do these developments tell us about nuclear security in today’s world? The Journal asked Kenneth Waltz, one of the world’s foremost experts on nuclear deterrence and author of The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate (with Scott Sagan).

Journal In your writing, you argue that the rapid spread of nuclear weapons may be destabilizing. How quickly will new nuclear powers emerge?

Waltz It is now estimated that about twenty–five countries are in a position to make nuclear weapons rather quickly. Most countries that could have acquired nuclear military capability have refrained from doing so. Most countries do not need them. Consider Argentina, Brazil, and South Africa. Argentina and Brazil were in the process of moving toward nuclear military capability, and both decided against it–wisely I believe–because neither country needs nuclear weapons. South Africa had about half a dozen warheads and decided to destroy them.

You have to have an adversary against whom you think you might have to threaten retaliation, but most countries are not in this position. Germany does not face any security threats–certainly not any in which a nuclear force would be relevant. I would expect the pattern of the past to be the same as the pattern in the future, in which one or two states per decade gradually develop nuclear weapons.

Journal Will new proliferants be destabilizing?

Waltz The new proliferants are mainly, but not entirely, weak states. Pakistan and India are good examples of new nuclear powers that are going to have only a small number of nuclear warheads. The United States has at least seven thousand strategic nuclear warheads. If you have thousands of nuclear warheads* then you need elaborate bureaucracies to control the arsenal. But if you have ten nuclear warheads or fifty, you are going to cherish those nuclear warheads. You obviously feel that you need them, and therefore you have every reason to be very careful. The accidents and near–accidents that have taken place with nuclear warheads have been, as far as I know, accidents on the part of the major nuclear powers and not the small ones.

Journal So, you do believe that these new proliferants of the future can be deterred?

Waltz Well, that is a different question. The United States and the Soviet Union developed peculiar ideas of nuclear deterrence: namely that thousands of warheads are required for deterrence. That notion was always crazy. At the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis our estimates were that the Soviet Union had only about seventy true strategic systems. We had thousands. Were we deterred? Yes we were. We did not strike at the nuclear warheads that the Soviet Union had in Cuba. The Air Force was asked if they could hit and destroy all the targets. And remember that they were close by, and there were not that many of them. The Air Force answered: “We promise we can get 90 percent.” Not enough. We were deterred. Now, nuclear weapons do not deter everybody from doing everything. They do not deter forays. They do not deter, for example, Arab countries from starting wars over the disputed terroritories. But they did dissuade the Egyptians and Syrians from trying to divide Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. They pulled back for fear that the threat of the destruction of the Israeli State would prompt the use of nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons deter threats to the vital interests of the state, and they have done so in every case that comes to mind.

Journal What about those states whose leaders might not use rational calculations in considering the threat of nuclear weapons, such as Saddam Hussein of Iraq, if he were to acquire nuclear weapons?

Waltz We have this peculiar notion about the irrationality of rogue states. When he was Secretary of Defense, Les Aspin said these rogue leaders might be undeterrable. Others contend that some states may undertake courses of action even if they know that catastrophe may result. But who would do that? Not Saddam Hussein. Not Kim Il Sung when he was ruler of North Korea. What is a key characteristic of all those rulers? They are survivors, as they struggle to live in a harsh environment–both internally, with the constant danger of assassination, and externally, as they’re surrounded by enemies. And they survive for decades until they are carried out in a box. Are they irrational? Their behavior is ugly and nasty to be sure, but irrational? How could they survive? If they were not deterrable, how would they ever have survived? They don’t run the kind of risks that would put their regime into question. Kim Il Sung wanted to pass his reign onto his son, Kim Jong Il. They obviously love to rule, but they’ve got to have a country. They’re not going to risk the existence of their country.

For example, Saddam Hussein was deterred during the Persian Gulf War. He did not arm the SCUD missiles with lethal warheads and shoot them at Israel. They were nuisance attacks. Why? Because he didn’t want us to pound him more heavily than he was being pounded. The allies, led by the United States, could have substantially destroyed that country without ever using nuclear weapons, and he knew it. Sure he was deterred. So how can we say irrational or undeterrable? But we do say it.

Journal You contend that Saddam Hussein did not launch lethal missiles at Israel during the Gulf War because he was deterred by the nuclear threat. This raises the question of how Israel’s undeclared nuclear status affects nuclear stability. Does opacity diminish the effectiveness of deterrence?

Waltz I take Israel as being a nuclear state, and I do not think anybody doubts that Israel has nuclear weapons. But as a tacit nuclear state, it doesn’t admit that it has nuclear weapons.

By keeping its nuclear status opaque or tacit, it relieves some of the pressure on potential adversaries. It prevents Israel from goading Arab states by always talking about its nuclear weapons, which would make it more embarrassing for surrounding Arab states not to have them, and encourage them to try a little harder to acquire the capability. So it tends to dampen it, but it doesn’t fool anybody.

Journal Let’s turn our attention to the nuclear situation in South Asia. While nuclear weapons may have arguably helped stabilize the contentious relationship between India and Pakistan–no war has been fought since the introduction of nuclear weapons in the early 1970s–many observers worry that nuclear stability may not hold. What do you see as the prospects for stability?

Waltz Stability in the subcontinent now exists; it had not existed since World War II and the partition of India and Pakistan. Now with nuclear weapons on both sides, India and Pakistan can no longer fight even a conventional war over Kashmir, as former General Beg and former General Sardarji both admitted. But we still fear instability such as the intractable dispute over the Kashmir. Yet the bitterness between the United States and the Soviet Union was deep enough during the Cold War, and deterrence worked. Why would India and Pakistan be different? Does India and Pakistan’s common border increase the risk? Probably not in a modern world where there are airplanes and missiles that can reach anywhere. What difference does it make that you’ve got a common border as long as it’s perfectly easy for the two countries in an adversarial relationship to reach each other? Geographic proximity may shrink warning time, but nuclear deterrence does not depend on being able to react with split–second timing. What’s the hurry? If you have received a damaging blow from another country and you’re going to retaliate, what difference does it make if you retaliate now, ten minutes from now, or tomorrow? A country still has that same fear of the retaliation, and it’s that fear of retaliation that deters.

Proximity also does not mean vulnerability. Every country has enough space to move its weapons around; in order for me to believe that your force is vulnerable and consider a preemptive attack, I have to convince myself that I know exactly how many deliverable nuclear weapons you have. So if I think you have twelve weapons, I’ve got to know you don’t have a couple more. I’ve got to be sure that’s the number. And if I persuade myself that you have twelve and no more, I have to know where they are, and I have to be sure that you do not move them by the time I decide to attack. It’s estimated by Herbert York, former director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, that a country making a relatively crude nuclear warhead would be able to make one weighing less than a ton–small enough to place in a van and move around.

Journal Some military analysts would contend that India’s conventional superiority makes Pakistan’s nuclear capability vulnerable, largely because Pakistan relies on its air capability to deliver weapons, and in a conventional war, its air capability could be destroyed very quickly. Could that development, with the implications on Pakistan’s inability to withstand a preemptive attack, possibly disrupt nuclear stability?

Waltz You’ve got to be sure that in an attack, whether with nuclear weapons or conventional weapons, you’re attacking weapons. Now, it’s hard–nuclear weapons are small–to be sure that you’re going to destroy those weapons quickly and completely. With conventional weapons you at least have the illusion of control; that is, you can defend, you can delay, and you can exact a toll from the enemy. The ultimate question is whether you are going to win or lose. If you are fighting with nuclear weapons the issue is survival, not necessarily physically, but as a political entity. Military commanders are well aware of how many things can go wrong: failed intelligence, undetected warheads in an unexpected location. If Pakistan has two dozen nuclear weapons spread around and at least four or five India does not know about, is India going to attack and risk four or five warheads blowing up Indian cities? While the attack might not destroy India, what could be at stake that would be worth that price? It’s a risk to their regime, it’s a risk to rulers, and it’s a risk to the military. You don’t get much enthusiasm out of the military for fighting wars it’s going to lose.

Journal At the present time, neither India nor Pakistan is satisfied with the size of their nuclear arsenals and neither of them can afford to build up their second strike retaliatory capability. How is that going to affect the strategic balance on the subcontinent?

Waltz I hope that these new nuclear countries will have learned from the mistakes of the United States and the Soviet Union. We spent trillions of dollars on nuclear weapons. Why? All you need is a second strike force. Once you get a second strike force adding more weapons does not give you any more military capability. You have a deterrent force, and if you add more to it, you still have a deterrent force. You can’t fight nuclear wars, as nobody has ever figured out how you would conceivably do that. A reason for optimism is that they are poor. They don’t have enough money to do it. They can’t build large nuclear forces, and that’s fortunate because they don’t need them.

Journal But does the lack of funding for security measures increase the possibility of a miscalculation or an unauthorized launch?

Waltz I think large numbers of weapons would raise that concern. But I think we can rely on their self–interest and their ingenuity to prevent accidents. Every country goes through a period where it has relatively crude weapons, although relatively crude weapons are not as crude as they used to be, and where they have small numbers and where there are some questions of vulnerability. But we have managed to get through those periods. The only strikes we’ve had have been at nuclear facilities before any warheads were produced, with no attacks where there were existing warheads and for good reason: Deterrence works.

Journal What about non–state actors? Can nuclear weapons deter terrorists? Waltz Well, first you need an address; you have to know whom you are retaliating against. Oddly enough, as the number of terrorist incidents–worldwide and in the United States–has decreased, our concern with terrorism has increased. Former CIA Director John Deutch said that in 1996 alone, the United States experienced the lowest number of terrorist incidents in the last twenty–five years. That is rather striking. Journal Will terrorists themselves seek to acquire nuclear weapons?

Waltz Would they want them? I think that the answer is no. Terrorists have always been in the position where they could have done more damage than they have chosen to inflict. As Brian Jenkins, one of the great experts on terrorism, said a long time ago: “Terrorists want more people watching, not more people dead.” They are trying to make a point. They are fighting what looks to be a weak and hopeless cause, and they adopt these drastic measures because they do not have the strength to make their cases in an acceptable fashion.

Journal Terrorists may not want nuclear weapons, but they have a variety of other weapons at their disposal.

Waltz People who now worry about biological, chemical, or nuclear terrorism have invented a whole new kind of terrorist. They are terrorists without secular objectives; they want to kill for the sake of killing. They believe that the end of the world is coming, and they want to hasten or dramatize it. In other words, they are seen as truly irrational. What can you say, and furthermore, what can you do? All you can do is acknowledge that instruments capable of inflicting great damage do exist and concede that they can fall into the hands of terrorists. And then you can say, let us improve our intelligence, let us stockpile vaccines, and let us make sure we have response measures in place.

Journal We have discussed terrorism. We have discussed the risks of accidents and miscalculation. Is there anything that worries you in the future in terms of the development or acquisition of nuclear weapons?

Waltz Nuclear weapons are a serious business. Countries, some more than others, do like to have the respect and attention of other countries. But no country is going to get nuclear weapons for prestige alone; countries acquire nuclear weapons only if there is a perceived serious security threat. Japan perceives that kind of threat from China. Japan is one of the candidates to get nuclear weapons, and I would expect Japan one day to have nuclear weapons.

It is conventional weapons that have proliferated. And conventional weapons are of ever–greater lethality, and, unlike nuclear weapons, are frequently used. We have had nuclear weapons since 1945, and never has a nuclear weapon been fired in anger in a world in which two or more countries had nuclear capabilities. Now that is a good and unparalleled record. Can you think of any other weapon in the history of the world with such a record? In other words, nuclear deterrence has worked. It has worked both for big nuclear powers, like the United States and the Soviet Union, and for small nuclear countries.

Endnotes

Note *: Dr. Waltz was interviewed by Jeremy Goldberg and Parag Khanna. Both received their bachelor degrees in 1999 from the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University. Back.