Real Peace

by Richard Nixon

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  This new relationship must address the two dangers confronting us. We must avoid war, and we must avoid defeat. Defeat can come in war, but the greater danger is that it will come without war, through Soviet adventurism, intimidation, and blackmail. If we lull ourselves into a sense of security while the Soviets take over one country after another, we will wake up one day to find the global balance of power weighted fatally against us.

  War can come from five principal sources. It could result if the military superiority of an aggressive power were to go unchallenged. It could result if a leader were to miscalculate what actions by him would provoke a military response from his opposite number. It could result if the major powers were drawn in on opposite sides of a war between minor powers. It could result if a nuclear missile were to be launched accidentally. It could result if a madman were to capture power and embark on an aggressive war.

  There is little that we can actively do to prevent the last danger from coming about. But a renewed policy of hard-headed detente can reduce the other dangers greatly. Today, hard-headed detente requires us to restore fully the military balance of power and at the same time to negotiate meaningful arms control agreements. It requires us to use the West’s economic power, through strictly regulated East-West trade, to give the Soviets an incentive for peace. And it requires us to establish a process of negotiation and summitry that will weave these strands together into the fabric of real peace.

  Restoring the military balance. Our first goal must be to take the profit out of war. Aggressors wage war if they think they can gain something by it. To deter war we must remain powerful enough so that potential aggressors will conclude that they stand to lose far more than they could possibly gain from war. Thus it is essential that we restore the military balance of power.

  There are those who say that in the nuclear age it does not matter if one side has a margin of superiority over the other. This reasoning overlooks the diametrically opposed purposes of the United States and the Soviet Union. The United States is a defensive power. When we have used force or threatened to use it, we have done so for defensive, not offensive purposes. If we had so chosen we could have ruled the world immediately after World War II. Instead, we helped rebuild it. Since then, we have gone to war twice, in Korea and in Vietnam. Both times it was for the purpose of defending other nations from aggression by the Soviet Union and its allies.

  The Soviet Union is an admittedly and avowedly offensive power. Its leaders’ stated goal is world domination, and they have been pursuing that end by every means at their disposal. The Soviet Union does not arm itself for defensive reasons. The leaders in the Kremlin stand behind the aggressors in virtually every one of the world’s hotspots and have instigated every postwar confrontation between the superpowers.

  This divergence in our aims puts the question of whether military superiority matters in a new light. Winston Churchill understood that difference. In 1946, when only the United States knew how to make the atomic bomb, he commented, “No one in any country has slept less well in their beds because of this knowledge, and the method and the raw materials to apply it are at present largely in American hands. I do not believe we should all have slept so soundly had the positions been reversed and if some communist or neo-fascist state monopolized for the time being these dread agencies.”

  History has borne out the truth of Churchill’s insight. For 30 years, from the end of World War II to the mid-1970s, the United States had nuclear superiority. This was the principal factor that deterred the Soviets from launching a war in Europe. When our superiority was great, it also served as a powerful deterrent to Soviet aggression and adventurism in other regions. Superiority in the hands of a defensive power is a guarantee of peace; superiority in the hands of an offensive power is a threat to peace. The danger of defeat without war also increases because the means for nuclear blackmail are given to those who would use it.

  Today the United States no longer has the credible nuclear superiority to deter Soviet aggression. While we are still ahead in sea- and air-based missiles, the Soviet Union has in the last ten years acquired decisive superiority in the most powerful and accurate nuclear weapons—land-based missiles. They have a first-strike capability—the ability to destroy virtually all of our land-based missiles in a first strike while having enough left over to destroy our cities. The United States does not have a first-strike capability and has no plans to obtain one.

  There are those who say that any such advantage in the nuclear age is meaningless. After all, they argue, even if the Soviet Union destroyed all of our land-based missiles in a first strike, the United States could retaliate by launching its submarine- and bomber-based missiles. Therefore the Soviets would never launch the first strike to begin with.

  This overlooks the perilous situation in which an American President could find himself. After a Soviet first strike, the United States would not have the capability of taking out the Soviet Union’s remaining land-based missiles. Very few of our strategic bombers can get through Soviet air defenses. Our sea-based missiles can only be used against cities because they do not have the power or accuracy to take out Soviet land-based missiles.

  The President’s only possible response to a first strike would be to take out Soviet cities. But the Soviets, knowing that they could retaliate in kind, would hardly find such a threat believable. A threat to commit mutual suicide is not a credible policy, let alone a moral one.

  However frightening that scenario might be, the real danger is more profound. There are two reasons why any Soviet leader would be reluctant to initiate a nuclear war. The Soviets have never tested their nuclear weapons under wartime conditions. They have a first-strike capability in theory. But the theory relies on the execution of their military plans with split-second timing and precision accuracy during the chaos of war. Military men, who are by nature cautious, would be hesitant to go to war if a minute technical error could lead to devastating defeat. And while the Soviets want to dominate the world, they want to do so without war. They do not want to rule a world of destroyed cities and dead bodies.

  The greater danger is that, knowing we have no credible response to their clear superiority in land-based missiles, they will be emboldened at other levels. They will tend to be more adventurous in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America and more intimidating in their approach toward Western Europe. They can use the threat of their potential power to dominate the world through nuclear blackmail.

  We cannot expect to regain the nuclear superiority we had for 30 years, but the least we must do is deny superiority to the Soviets. The MX missile will help to achieve that goal. It is powerful and accurate enough to take out Soviet land-based missiles. The program President Reagan has asked Congress to approve will not provide us with a first-strike capability because we do not plan to build enough MX missiles to take out all of the Soviet Union’s land-based missiles. But it at least begins to rectify the military balance of power. Equally important, if war comes, the MX missile will give an American President some option other than an attack on Soviet cities.

  The burden of building up our armed forces will not be light but it will be long. As the richest nation in the world, the United States can afford to spend whatever is necessary for our national defense. But restoring the military balance does not mean that what the Pentagon wants the Pentagon gets. We cannot and should not tolerate waste, duplication, and inefficiency in the military bureaucracy any more than we would in the social service agencies. Mismanagement not only erodes public support for necessary defense spending, but also reduces our ability to defend our national interests.

  Some of America’s ablest executives have served as secretary of defense in recent years—Melvin Laird, James Schlesinger, Donald Rumsfeld, Harold Brown, and Caspar Weinberger. They can testify to the fact that keeping Pentagon costs under control is an almost impossible task. The secretary of defense often finds himself in the unenviable position of
being the ringmaster of a three-ring circus in which the services turn somersaults competing for the attention and dollars of the Administration and Congress. Each service chief understandably believes that what is best for his service is best for the nation. We need a strong Navy, a strong Army, and a strong Air Force. But the Congress and the taxpayers should not and will not support unnecessary duplication of missions and weapon systems.

  As President Eisenhower, no dewy-eyed dove, once said, “This country could choke itself to death piling up military expenditures just as surely as it can defeat itself by not spending enough for protection.”

  Arms Control. The issue of arms control cannot be separated from the question of national security. They are intimately intertwined. Realistically conducted, arms control negotiations can contribute to real peace. Naively pursued, they can increase the risk of war.

  Arms control can serve four major purposes.

  A properly negotiated agreement can help create the strategic stability that could reduce the chances of war. Strategic instability results when either side or both sides deploy weapons with first-strike capability. This creates a temptation to use these weapons to gain a decisive advantage. The danger is greatest if these weapons themselves are vulnerable to a first strike because in a crisis a leader would be tempted to use his arsenal before he loses it. Any arms control agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union must be based on true equality and must assure strategic stability. Neither can be secure unless both feel secure.

  An arms control agreement could reduce the costs of defense for both the United States and the Soviet Union. President Reagan’s proposal in the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks calls for each side to dismantle part of its nuclear arsenal and to curb the deployment of even more accurate land-based missiles. If the Soviets accept this approach, it would stop not only the spiral of the arms race but also that of the defense budget.

  Achieving arms control is a political imperative. Western leaders will be unable to mobilize public support behind the defense spending necessary to keep up our deterrent unless they have a credible policy of negotiating arms control. The current debate over the production of the MX missile demonstrates this vividly.

  Arms control between the superpowers is the first step in controlling nuclear proliferation. Preventing the spread of nuclear weapons technology to other countries is in the interest of both the United States and the Soviet Union. If scores of minor powers acquire nuclear weapons, the chances are great that one will someday use them in a crisis in one of the world’s hotspots. Nuclear proliferation could turn out to be the spark that explodes the global nuclear tinderbox. To stop it the superpowers must work together. Only if they succeed in capping their own nuclear buildup can they have any influence over smaller powers that are thinking of developing nuclear weapons.

  But while weighing the potential benefits of arms control, we must recognize the hard reality that it will improve the chances for peace only under certain conditions.

  An arms control agreement will not contribute to peace unless we reduce the political differences that can lead to war. Avid arms control proponents reject the concept of linking arms control negotiations to political issues. But linkage is a fact of international life. It was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan that destroyed the chances for Senate approval of SALT II. This was linkage in action, not just in theory.

  We should not pursue arms control as an end in itself. It is dangerous to assume that any arms control agreement is better than none. If an agreement is to reduce the risk of war, it must advance six goals.

  First, it must create a true balance between the superpowers. All arms control treaties are not created equal, and any we sign must be based on equality. Equality in numbers is important, but numbers should not be the sole measure of equality. For the United States to have an equal number of weapons as the Soviet Union is not enough if the Soviets alone are allowed to retain their present first-strike capability. We should set the number and size of missiles and the number of warheads so that each side has the same military capability in both strategic and medium-range weapons.

  Second, it must not allow either superpower to have a credible first-strike capability. If both were to have this capability, each would be strongly tempted in a crisis to preemptively attack the strategic forces of the other. What would be worse, if an agreement gave superiority in first-strike weapons to an offensive power like the Soviet Union, it would actually increase the danger of war and of defeat without war.

  We should formally offer to share any technology we develop for a space-based missile defense system with the Soviet Union or any other nation that joins us in seeking meaningful arms control. If all nations could deploy the system at once, none would suspect another of wanting to use it as a shield for an attack.

  Third, it must provide the means for each side to verify the compliance of the other. We have relied in the past on satellite photography and other national means of verification. But advances in military technology now require that we settle for nothing less than on-site inspection. The Soviets have always rejected such provisions. We must make them understand that the Administration will only be able to muster the two-thirds Senate majority needed for ratification of a treaty if we have absolute confidence that both sides will carry out its provisions.

  Fourth, it must restrict the testing of new missile technology that would destabilize the strategic balance. Technology is advancing faster than the superpowers can negotiate controls on the weapons it produces. The danger is that missile accuracy will advance to the point that neither side will have a nuclear deterrent that can survive a first strike. If we limit the testing of new missiles, we can prevent their deployment, because no country would stake its survival on missiles that had not been flight-tested.

  Fifth, it must reduce, not just limit, the nuclear arsenals of the superpowers. The United States has proposed such reductions several times, but the Soviet Union has always rejected the idea. The only conceivable reason for each superpower to maintain its nuclear stockpile at today’s levels is that the other superpower is doing so. Through arms control agreements, we can retire the aging and obsolete missiles on both sides and reduce the numbers of new missiles as well.

  Sixth, it should allow for the implementation of the Scow-croft Commission’s recommendation to replace fixed, land-based, multi-warhead missiles with mobile, single-warhead ones. It takes at least two warheads detonated simultaneously to destroy a land-based missile in its silo. If both sides had equal numbers of single-warhead missiles, neither would have enough warheads to launch a successful first strike against the other. If these missiles were mobile, it would make the success of such an attack so doubtful that one side would never risk attacking the other.

  The proposal to freeze the nuclear arsenals of the United States and the Soviet Union at current levels is fatally flawed because it fails to meet these six criteria. Its proponents say that their goals are to achieve meaningful arms control and to reduce the danger of war. Their intentions are good, but their judgment is not. If we were to negotiate a nuclear freeze, its effect would be just the opposite of what they expect.

  A nuclear freeze would increase the danger of war because it would leave the Soviet Union, an offensive power, with an unquestionable first-strike capability. It would destroy any chance for meaningful arms reductions because it would eliminate the incentives for the Kremlin leaders to negotiate.

  The history of the negotiations that led to the 1972 SALT I treaty limiting defensive nuclear weapons illustrates this point. The Soviets already had begun to deploy an anti-ballistic missile system. When completed, it would protect their command centers and missile bases from a nuclear attack. We countered this by asking the Congress to approve funding for an ABM system for the United States. Our critics charged that we were escalating the arms race and destroying the chances for an arms control agreement. Only after intensive lobbying were we able to get the Senate, by a margin of just o
ne vote, to go along with the proposal.

  The approval of the ABM program made SALT I possible. It was in the Soviets’ interest to stop us from going forward with our system because our technology was better than theirs. They were therefore willing to pay a price to stop us. But if we had lost the Senate vote, I would have had to ask Brezhnev to give up his ABM system without getting anything in return. He would have just laughed in my face.

  The Soviets are not philanthropists. Nor are they fools. They are tough, ruthless negotiators who will give nothing for nothing. In negotiating with them, we cannot get something from them unless we have something to give to them.

  The greatest threat to peace today is the Soviet arsenal of strategic land-based missiles. It gives them a first strike capability. We have nothing in our arsenal to counter this. They will have no incentive to reduce that threat through arms control negotiations unless we have a weapons system in place or in production that would at least in part match their capability. That is why it is essential for us to go forward with the MX missile. Without it, we will never be able to reach an agreement based on any semblance of equality.

  The nuclear freeze is a fraud. It is a simple answer to a complex problem. We cannot expect to achieve all our goals in one negotiation, but no agreement we sign should freeze them beyond our reach.

  Negotiating an arms control agreement that will contribute to real peace will take years. It is fatuous to suggest that such an agreement could be struck through a quick telephone call between an American President and Andropov. We will not be able to reach all of our goals for restoring strategic equality, increasing stability, and reducing the size of the nuclear arsenals in time for a summit meeting in 1984. But we could negotiate a substantial first step toward one or more of these goals and an agreement in principle on the others.