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The National Interest
Waltzing to Armageddon?
by Marc Trachtenberg
. . . How would a world in which a large number of countries have invulnerable nuclear forces actually work? The real issue here has to do with how political conflicts would run their course in such a world. Is there any reason to assume that that process would be more peaceful in a nuclear environment than in a non-nuclear one?
Waltz does not approach the problem this way. For him, wars are started by one side or another. There is an attacker and a defender; with nuclear weapons, the attacker is deterred and war is avoided. "Where nuclear weapons threaten to make the cost of wars immense", he asks, "who will dare to start them?" The Soviet Union would have been deterred by any state that might have been able to deliver one or two simple fission bombs on Moscow. Indeed, he argues, "with nuclear weapons, any state will be deterred by another state's second-strike forces." "A nation", he says, "will be deterred from attacking even if it believes there is only a possibility that its adversary will retaliate." There is no doubt in Waltz's mind about this; for him, the deterrent effect is absolute: no one will start a war, and wars—at least major wars, wars in which nuclear weapons will be used—will simply not happen.
In the real world, however, wars are often not simply "started" by one side, and the distinction between defender and attacker can be very problematic. In 1914, for example, who "started" the First World War? Germany, by invading Belgium and attacking France? Or Russia, by ordering general mobilization a few days earlier, knowing full well that such action made war virtually inevitable? Who was the "defender"? Austria, supported by Germany, for trying to prevent Serbia from serving as a base for terrorist activities directed against the Habsburg Monarchy? Or Russia, supported by the Western powers, for trying to defend Serbian sovereignty and maintain its own political position in the Balkans? And if all the major powers had been armed with nuclear weapons at the time, is it clear who exactly would have been deterred? Or take the case of the coming of World War II in 1939. If both Britain and Germany had been nuclear powers at the time, again, is it clear who would have been deterred? Waltz thinks that Germany would have backed off: Hitler would not have "started" a war that would destroy the Third Reich. But Hitler did not intend to "start" a war with Britain at that point; his aim was to get Britain to back down in the confrontation over Poland. Nor did Britain intend to start a war with Germany. War broke out not because either side wanted war in late 1939, but rather because neither was willing to give way—and because each was hoping that the other would.
Once we get away from the idea that wars are simply "started" by one side and that the "attacker" can be readily identified, the whole problem appears in an entirely different light. If war is seen as the outcome of a process in which two sides interact, it makes no sense to focus simply on the calculations of just one side. Instead, the calculations of both sides, and especially their calculations about each other, have to be taken into account. Each side may be trying to deter the other—to get its way without war if it can. Each side might be afraid of escalation, but those fears are balanced by the knowledge that one's adversary is also afraid, and his fears can be exploited. In the case of a conflict between two nuclear powers, if either side believed that Waltz's analysis was correct—if either side believed that its adversary would give way rather than run any risk of nuclear attack, as long as his vital interests were not threatened—there would be no reason for that country not to take advantage of that situation. That side could threaten its adversary with nuclear attack if its demands were not met in the firm belief that its opponent was bound to give way, and that it would therefore not be running any risk itself. That belief might turn out to be correct, but if it were not—if its rival was unwilling to allow it to score such an easy victory—there could be very serious trouble indeed. And if both sides were convinced by Waltz's arguments, and both adopted strong deterrent strategies, the situation would be particularly dangerous. Each side would dig in its heels, convinced that when confronted with the risk of nuclear war, the other side would ultimately back down. Such a situation could quickly get out of hand. As Dean Rusk pointed out in 1961, "one of the quickest ways to have a nuclear war is to have the two sides persuaded that neither will fight." . . .