Rebuttal

Elbridge Colby has written a piece in The National Interest titled "Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the New Logic of Deterrence" that says I've gotten this nuclear deterrence stuff all wrong. (He also says that the "Hiroshima didn't win World War II" is becoming the conventional wisdom. I assume he means in certain circles inside the Beltway.) He says some interesting things and raises reasonable counter-arguments. I think his view is worth considering. I'm going to mull it and perhaps post some thoughts in a few days. (My book, Five Myths About Nuclear Weapons, is due to the publisher on November 1, though, so it may be a few days before I get to it.)

Possession is use

People in nuclear weapons circles often say that possessing nuclear weapons is using them - possession is use. This has its roots in the idea of existential deterrence - the notion that merely by possessing nuclear weapons one gets the deterrence benefit from them. McGeorge Bundy, a man I was slightly acquainted with and liked, was one of the principle proponents of this view. I have sometimes argued that this idea was true myself.

On reflection, however, it's a strange position to take. Imagine that I walked around all the time, in our small village, with a rock the size of a golf ball in my pocket. Last week, I took it out and threw it at you (because I was angry or we were having a dispute, let's say.) Today, before all the village, you accuse me of using the rock against you. "You used that rock against me," you say, and every head in the village circle nods solemnly. Most of the them saw it happen, the rest heard about it soon after. They know you are telling the truth.

Now imagine that I didn't throw the rock at you last week. I kept it in my pocket the whole time. Now you stand before the village and accuse me: "You used that rock against me last week!" No heads in the circle will nod. In fact, people's faces will darken and they will begin to wonder if you are mentally sound. A few who are sympathetic to you will wonder if maybe I threw the rock at you when no one was around to see it.

Now imagine that I keep a rock in my pocket all the time and everyone knows it but it is also widely believed that the rock is magic. It emanates strange forces that allow me to persuade people or cause their health to fail if I don't like them. Now you stand in front of the village and angrily accuse, "You used that rock against me last week!" And some villagers will nod and some will wonder if it's true, but none of them will think you're crazy.

The point is that possession is use only where magic is involved. Only when you believe that nuclear weapons emanate some strange waves or force field that can affect people's thinking from afar does possession equal use. It makes no sense to say of any ordinary object (like a rock) that possession is use. Only when the object is alleged to have special powers - magic, in other words - does it make sense to say in any ordinary discourse that merely having an object is the same as using it.

Update on Tuesday, October 11, 2011 at 06:35AM by Ward Wilson

A friend emailed me:

Thank you for this and for making one think, as usual.  I like the central message that nukes are not some magical thing, but not sure I agree that the threat to use (presented by possession) is not also a form of use.

In that sense, I prefer to look at them as an existential "threat", not deterrent.  I'd rather stay in a neighborhood where guns are not allowed, than in one where everybody is carrying them around.  What doesn't exist, clearly cannot be used.  And then, of course, there is the bloke that, some say, has a gun, but nobody knows for sure, cause nobody has ever seen it, neither has it ever been used...

The point is that, I think, there is deterrence value in all weapons (stones, spears, guns, nukes, etc).  Not because of some magic associated with them, but based on their existence and thus the possibility that they can be used.  But they usually don't deter.  What they rather do is encourage others to get the same or better for themselves - so, existence encourages proliferation, which then increases the chances for use.  When it comes to nukes, very few people actually believe that any state would ever again dare to use them - at least not intentionally.  This reality, together with their non-use for 65 years affect their deterrent value.  It is only when we plead to be given assurances that they will not be used against us, that we give them some deterrent value.  On reflection, maybe we should just ignore them - wouldn't that devalue them?

Doctrinal

The analogy between nuclear weapons and religion is particularly appropriate because nuclear weapons are so doctrinal.

The Olympics, for example, are not doctrinal. They are performance oriented. When there is a dispute about who is the fastest, they run a race, somebody wins, and then everyone says, "Ok. This guy was fastest." Losers say, "On this day, with this set of conditions, this guy was fastest. But wait til next time." And it's over, at least for now.

With nuclear weapons there are no performances. Nuclear weapons never get used so their real world capabilities are never measured. So disputes are discussed almost entirely in terms of doctrine. It's like religion. There's no way to actually prove whether God is trinitarian or unitarian. So you have doctrinal debates to decide (or split into differing churches.)

It makes sense when thinking strategically about nuclear weapons persuasion to remember that persuasion goes on in the context of doctrine, so persusion on nuclear weapons is very like religious debates.

Q bomb

So Jonah Friedman wrote a blog post on CSIS's Program on Nuclear Issues blog mostly rebutting my arguments. He was very fair and represented my views as well (or better) than I would have. He didn't agree with me, but not everyone does.

 Friedman admits some of the objections I have to nuclear deterrence (concerns that we don't really know how or why it operates - if it does). But he counters that we know nuclear weapons are dangerous and isn't that enough? Isn't that what creates nuclear deterrence? It got me thinking.

Imagine that you were worried about keeping your house safe and I gave you a special bomb that I said would do the job. "I call it the Q bomb," I said. "Put it in your basement, put this sign in your front yard and tell all your neighbors that you've got this bomb. Pretty soon the word will get around and no one will mess with you. Your family will be perfectly safe." The Q bomb doesn't take up much space - about the size of a small refrigerator - and so you put it in the basement next to the furnace. One day your wife is down doing the laundry and she hears the Q bomb making a strange rattling, clanking sound. You call me. "Is this Q bomb really safe? It's not going to go off accidentally or anything is it?" you ask. "Of course not," I say. "It's perfectly safe . . . probably." Now, put the phone down and go upstairs and tell your wife that the Q bomb is perfectly safe . . . probably.

Nuclear weapons are so dangerous and the level of destruction that could result from a nuclear war is so great that the standard of evidence for nuclear deterrence is higher. When the survival of a nation is on the line - and those are the stakes, aren't they? - doesn't it make sense to absolutely sure that the theory you're relying on is 100 percent reliable?

I don't believe we have that kind of proof for nuclear deterrence.

Religion

The events around Hiroshima in 1945 matter because they are the only real evidence about the political impact of nuclear weapons. -The only battlefield experience with the "unique ability to coerce and deter." If you want to decide the matter based on facts, you must take Hiroshima into account. If you just want to believe in nuclear weapons, then I congratulate you on your faith and have nothing more to say. I understand the appeal of religion. But if you are interested in evidence, I think the new scholarship on Hiroshima requires a rethinking of nuclear weapons.