Strategic Defense

Author(s): Keith Schlesinger, Keith B. Payne, Colin S. Gray, Stanley Kober and William
Burrows
Source: Foreign Affairs, Vol. 62, No. 5 (Summer, 1984), pp. 1238-1242
Published by: Council on Foreign Relations
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20042008
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 COMMENT
AND
CORRESPONDENCE
STRATEGIC DEFENSE

To the Editor:
In their article, "Nuclear Policy and the Defensive Transition," in your Spring
1984 issue, Keith B. Payne and Colin S. Gray provide a closely argued analysis
in favor of a "defensive transition" in strategic nuclear policy utilizing new
ballistic missile defense (BMD) technologies. Indeed, the great fault of their
article is that it is too closely argued. Payne and Gray lose sight of broader
diplomatic and security considerations in their understandable enthusiasm to
escape the worst aspects of a purely offensive strategic posture. Regrettably, their
approach would create political tensions and military uncertainties even more
severe than those we face under prevailing arrangements.
The goals of a BMD program as envisioned by Payne and Gray are both
worthy and attractive, but they can become functional realities only if 1) both
superpowers develop comparable BMD systems at the same rate and deploy them
on the same schedule; and 2) technological innovation does not once again alter
the balance between nuclear offenses and defenses in favor of the former. Only
under these two conditions could a BMD proceed without reflexive developments
by both superpowers of offensive weaponry capable of overwhelming the new
defensive technology.
Promotion of a BMD along a "natural course of development," insulated for
long periods of time from the diplomatic process, bodes ill for a successful
"defensive transition." Payne and Gray believe that the United States should
"revise" the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty (i.e., delete provisions limiting BMD
deployment) and probably withdraw from it altogether "relatively late in the
1980s." They offer no suggestions for positive bilateral management of BMD
technologies, nor do they even discuss the question. Yet without such deliberate
oversight, real or imagined unilateral advantages garnered by an adversary would
provoke fears dwarfing the authors' own present-day concern about Soviet ABM
radar installations.
If a presumed Soviet "creeping breakout" from the ABM treaty justifies
development of a U.S. BMD because such action "degrades" the U.S. deterrent,
then the search for countermeasures in a deregulated strategic defense environ
ment would know no bounds. The outer space treaty of 1967, which effectively
prohibits orbital nuclear devices, would logically come under attack from con
cerned Americans as well as Soviets seeking to provide insurance against the
uncertainties of future BMD development through the use of "high frontier"
deployments. The authors' rationale for withdrawal from the ABM Treaty could
easily be adapted to justify the demise of the outer space agreement. Unfettered
research and engineering would be viewed as the only reliable means at hand to
avoid "vulnerability" and develop "comprehensive" strategic systems. Patriotic
concern and hot-house calculation, once unleashed from the confines of the
ABM treaty, would surely lead to the inauguration of space-borne strategic
deployment previously foreclosed for the good of all by political agreement.
Payne and Gray do not sufficiently perceive the dangers involved in discarding
established treaties without providing for effective political substitutes. Our
undoubted technical right to withdraw from the ABM Treaty due to the failure

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 COMMENT AND CORRESPONDENCE 1239
of SALT II, a fact upon which the authors place much emphasis, would if
invoked severely reduce the utility of superpower diplomacy. Under conditions
of technological fluidity and annulled agreements, the Soviets would likely avoid
serious negotiation for the foreseeable future. They would view American
diplomatic initiatives as attempts to undermine their own BMD, anti-BMD, and
offensive programs. On the other hand, American willingness to scrap the ABM
treaty would probably lead the Soviets to place less reliance on BMD agreements
as an effective means of limiting U.S. behavior. This would tend to upset the
authors' calculation that Soviet technical inferiority might bring the U.S.S.R. to
the bargaining table. Unequal capabilities certainly did not enhance the prospects
for arms control during the 1950s, when primary diplomatic contacts were only
marginally more tenuous than they are today. Only the return of relative
technological stability would offer both superpowers a sufficient incentive to
negotiate new arms control treaties. If Payne and Gray are correct about the
timetable for a "defensive transition," this could take upwards of two decades.
In the meantime, the world will very likely pass through one of the tensest
periods in human history, replete with mass starvation, resource shortages or
embargoes, severe ecological dislocations, financial crises, frequent coups and
revolutions, and the like. Considering that the Second World War had its
immediate origins in the Great Depression and the denial of vital raw materials
to Japan, irrational and violent responses under severe stress are a danger that
even nuclear arsenals and embryonic BMD programs do not rule out. The worst
nuclear crisis of the cold war, involving Soviet missiles in Cuba, occurred in a
period of relative global prosperity and stability. The most severe tests of
offensive deterrence may still await us.
If Payne and Gray have their way with long-range BMD planning today, we
will face these daunting future prospects without the benefit of an ongoing
diplomatic relationship rooted in serious arms control agreements. In place of
negotiation would come unrestrained technological competition and the lurking
possibility that renewed offensive supremacy would abort the "defensive transi
tion" which alone could deliver us from arms deregulation. Wisdom and common
sense demand that our nation refuse to embrace a unilateral initiative which
sacrifices a limited but essential diplomatic process without providing in its place
a demonstrably equivalent or superior degree of security. On the other hand, a
BMD might very well live up to its promise if its development and deployment
became a joint venture negotiated by the superpowers. Only through such
deliberate means could the attractive aspects of a BMD be obtained at an
acceptable level of risk.
Keith Schlesinger
Northwestern University
Evanston, III.

Messrs. Payne and Gray reply:

There is much in Keith Schlesinger's letter with which we agree, probably
more than its author would suspect. It is indeed likely that "positive bilateral
management" through diplomatic negotiations would ease and help stabilize a
defensive transition. For example, offensive force limitations and an agreed pace
for defensive deployment milestones could enhance stability and contribute
significantly to an effective defensive capability.
However, simply noting that cooperative management of the defensive tran
sition would be preferred does not render it attainable. It is a truism that weapons

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 1240 FOREIGN AFFAIRS
should not be developed simply as "bargaining chips" for negotiation. Unfortu
nately, it also is a fact that the Soviet Union does not engage in cooperative
"bilateral management" of the arms competition in deference to American
notions of parity and stability, but rather in order to limit or halt U.S. force
modernization programs. This principle has been illustrated consistently in the
historical record of the strategic arms talks: the Soviet Union will negotiate an
agreement only when the United States has bargaining capital with which to
negotiate. Manifest strategic modernization programs are thus the key to achiev
ing bilateral management of the arms competition.
Unfortunately, the tortured and torpid process of U.S. strategic modernization
will provide little bargaining capital to encourage Soviet cooperation. The Soviet
leadership is well aware that U.S. and NATO domestic politics alone are likely
to slow or eliminate modernization programs even in the absence of negotiated
restraints. The extraordinarily difficult course of U.S. offensive programs and
the hard road that any defensive program will confront will not provide a
particularly effective basis for achieving negotiated "bilateral management" of a
defensive transition. Nevertheless, the notion of attempting to ease the transition
through diplomatic initiatives deserves support
Mr. Schlesinger suggests further that revision or withdrawal from the 1972
Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty would "severely reduce the utility of superpower
diplomacy" and lead the Soviets to avoid negotiations. Yet, he offers a curious
juxtaposition of cause and effect. The Soviet Union already has abandoned the
negotiation process; and altering the ABM treaty would not reduce the utility of
superpower diplomacy, but would reflect the limited utility that process has
provided over the past decade. The need to revise the treaty would be much
reduced had the diplomatic process achieved any significant benign effect on the
strategic balance or ameliorated the political conflict that is the basis of U.S.
Soviet arms competition. The inadequacy to date of diplomacy to achieve any
manifest reductions in the danger of nuclear conflict suggests that President
Reagan's strategic defense initiative be given every serious consideration?while
simultaneously attempts are made to renew and enhance the prospect for
diplomatic success.

To the Editor:
In his article, "Ballistic Missile Defense: The Illusion of Security," in your
Spring 1984 issue, William Burrows expresses regret that no one is considering
Moscow's political response to the President's strategic defense initiative (com
monly known as "star wars"). His desire for better research in this area is
commendable, but I doubt it will produce the answers he is hoping for.
In the first place, we must recognize that the Soviet Union, unlike the United
States, has never neglected strategic defenses. Whereas the United States has
abandoned the concept of air defense, the U.S.S.R. has an extensive air defense
capability. Similarly, whereas the United States has no significant civil defense,
the U.S.S.R. has a massive civil defense program.
It is important to note that Soviet defense specialists, in contrast to their
Western counterparts, have never accepted the concept of an absolute weapon.
On the contrary, they believe that the postwar dominance of strategic offensive
weapons over defensive technology is an anomaly that is bound to disappear as
a result of scientific developments. This position was stated very clearly and
authoritatively by the Chief of the General Staff, Marshal N.V. Ogarkov, in his
1982 booklet, Always Ready to Defend the Fatherland. In Ogarkov's words:

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 COMMENT AND CORRESPONDENCE 1241
The experience of past wars convincingly demonstrates that the appearance of new means
of attack has always inevitably led to the creation of corresponding means of defense, and in
the final analysis to new means of conducting battles, engagements, operations, and
wars as a whole. . . .
This applies fully even to the nuclear-missile weapon, the creation and rapid growth of
which forced military-scientific thought and practice to actively work out means and
measures of countering it. In its turn, the appearance of means of defense against
weapons of mass destruction predetermined the perfecting of nuclear-missile means of
attack. All of this confirms the conclusion that the unbroken struggle between means
of attack and defense, i.e., between weaponry and military technology, is one of the
leading sources of the development of military affairs as a whole. (Emphasis added.)

Soviet statements about strategic defense, to the extent they address the
question of stability at all, simply label any Soviet defensive program as stabilizing
and any American program as destabilizing. Their criteria are political rather
than technical. And since these statements preceded President Reagan's "star
wars" speech, it is apparent that the United States is not the initiator of a
transition toward strategic defense.
Finally, Soviet military writings as a rule do not express any interest in the
desirability of limiting strategic defense through arms control. On the contrary,
as Ogarkov points out, the development of defensive weapons to counter offen
sive weapons is an "unbroken" law of history that has "always inevitably" applied
in the past, and which consequently can be expected to apply in the future
regardless of any subjective desires to change it. So long as the Soviet leadership
holds to these views, it is clear that Moscow will pursue its own strategic defense
initiative no matter what the United States does.
Stanley Kober
Arlington, Va.

Mr. Burrows replies:

Mr. Kober's brief disquisition on Soviet defensive doctrine is interesting, but
stops short of grappling with the real issue, and in so doing follows the pattern
that has set the agenda for the arms race in general.
It has been well established that the Soviet Union has invested heavily in
shelters for its civilian population and top political and military leadership, in
ground-to-air missiles, fighter-interceptors to fend off U.S. Strategic Air Com
mand (SAC) bombers, long-range phased-array radar (possibly as part of an
enhanced ballistic missile defense system), and even keeps 64 ABMs positioned
for the defense of Moscow. That this suggests the Kremlin is making a serious
commitment to defense is unarguable. What ought to be asked, however, is
whether it will all work (whatever "work" really means). The answer, of course,
is that nobody knows for certain because the system has never been tested.
The overwhelming evidence suggests that by almost any definition, defense
against massive nuclear attack is virtually meaningless given the enormous
destruction that can be caused by relatively few warheads.
To assert that the Soviet Union is building large complexes of shelters to
protect its population is not to say that they will make any real difference in the
event of war. What matter that most Russians living in cities will physically
survive a nuclear attack if they emerge from their shelters to find nothing but
irradiated rubble and a nuclear winter?
To assert that Soviet borders are protected by hundreds or thousands of

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 1242 FOREIGN AFFAIRS
fighter-interceptors, while we have all but abandoned our own air defense system,
is not to say that Soviet borders are really protected. It might be recalled that it
took the better part of two hours for those Russian SU-15 pilots and their ground
controllers to find and shoot down the Korean Air Lines 747. If it took them
that long to locate, track, and destroy a lumbering and very conspicuous airliner
flying at upper mid-altitude?"Main Street," as our fighter pilots call it because
it invites attack from above and below?how might the Russians fare against an
onslaught by hundreds of bombers and 1,000 or more fighter-bombers coming
at them at near-supersonic speed, at terrain-hugging altitudes of 100 feet or
lower, and with radar-jamming and other electronic countermeasure equipment?
Marshal Ogarkov may indeed believe that the dominance of strategic offensive
weapons will disappear because of scientific developments in the defensive area.
But it is impossible to support such a contention while at the same time taking
into account ongoing scientific development of new offensive weapons, including
those specifically designed to knock out the defense.

TROPICAL RAIN FORESTS

To the Editor:
I applaud Foreign Affairs for presenting Nicholas Guppy's excellent article,
"Tropical Deforestation: A Global View," in your Spring 1984 issue. Guppy's
views will doubtless prompt abundant comment. For my part, let me point out a
few additional facts.
First, the tremendous supply of low-cost tropical plywood and veneer coming
into the United States drove down real prices for a long period after the Korean
War. As a result, thousands of Americans lost their jobs as U.S. mills closed,
unable to compete. At the same time, the timber-exporting nations enjoyed very
little of the employment generated, and little of the value added, skill-building
and other economic benefits. Most of these were enjoyed by the more prosperous
nations of Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, where logs were converted into
plywood and veneer. So, the liquidation of tropical hardwoods has cost America
jobs, and gained few for the exporters themselves. Guppy's proposal for a timber
exporting cartel could partially rectify this situation by helping timber exporting
nations to capture a substantial share of the employment and value-added benefits
now siphoned off by others who currently import tropical hardwood logs.
(Individual nations have attempted this and failed.)
The current lumber pricing structure has created further ironies in the U.S.
market. The hardwood forests of the United States have been gaining in volume
and in acreage since the 1930s. In New York State alone, hardwood timber
volume increased by 41 percent from 1968 to 1980. While many of these trees
are of low quality and relatively small size, many can and do make plywood and
lumber. To make plywood a bit cheaper, we have been liquidating extremely
valuable forests in the tropics, while our own ecologically resilient hardwood
forests have gained in volume. Have these products served a unique purpose,
met a powerful social need? No. The bulk of the tropical plywood and veneer
imported into the United States has one virtue: low price. Most of it has been
used to panel basements, laundromats, and summer cottages. We are razing
irreplaceable ecological cathedrals in the tropics to panel our bathrooms at a
slightly lower cost.
Guppy's emphasis on the effects of low timber values is certainly sound. Once

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