The Pacifist's Case For Nuclear Weapons

            Nuclear weapons have always been a bittersweet innovation. The atomic bombings of Japan at the conclusion of World War II were a glorious triumph for American military superiority, elevating the United State to the position of undisputed world superpower. The destructive potential of the atom bomb earned the technology almost divine reverence amongst much of the world, who had only begun to understand the destructive power of the atom. But nuclear weapons technology inevitably spread to other militarily ambitious nations. The proliferation of such technology suddenly introduced the terrifying prospect of large scale nuclear conflict between nations, a mode of warfare that almost assured mutual annihilation for both parties. As nuclear arsenals quickly expanded, and small devices like those dropped on Japan were replaced with hydrogen bombs, atomic war and global catastrophe became synonymous. Yet in many ways, the promise of mutual assured destruction from nuclear conflict has rendered conventional war, and all the horrors associated with it, obsolete. Have nuclear weapons made the world a safer place?

            The answer is an undeniably complex one, and to understand the problem, one must look back six decades, to the end of the Second World War. World War II is often marked by historians as the birthplace of modern warfare. Unprecedented advances in military tactics and technology made it the largest and most destructive conflict in human history. World War II saw a number of major military advances, including widespread use of armored vehicles and automatic weapons as well as large scale aerial combat. Greatly improved abilities to inflict damage on civilian populations, coupled with total war tactics employed widely throughout the war made World War II the most destructive conflict in human history, in both civilian and military tolls. Yet all of these advances in destructive potential were dwarfed in comparison to the introduction of nuclear weapons; weapons with the potential to easily dwarf the annihilation unleashed by World War II.

For four short years following the end of the war, the United States was the sole nuclear capable nation. Potential nuclear strikes were restricted to targets of strategic significance. With no possibility of retaliation, the weapons were largely a blessing for the United States. With Europe and Russia utterly devastated in the war’s aftermath, the united States were elevated to the position of undisputed world superpower, able to use their nuclear arsenal to strong-arm nations into submission.

All this changed in 1949, when the Soviet Union conducted their first nuclear weapons test, and the threat of nuclear conflict suddenly became a very real one, beginning the first chapter of the nuclear era of the Cold War. Cold War nuclear tactics revolved around the concept of Mutual Assured Destruction’s function as a deterrent; that neither nation would initiate a nuclear war if they felt that the retaliation would be unacceptable. The Soviet Union and the United States both relied heavily on the belief that the promise of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) was an adequate deterrence against nuclear attack. Discussing MAD in an interview, Defense Secretary under John F. Kennedy, Robert McNamara said:

“Mutual Assured Destruction is the foundation of deterrence. Today it's a derogative term, but those that denigrate it don't understand deterrence. If you want a stable nuclear world … it requires that each side be confident that it can deter the other.” He continued “And that requires that there be a balance and the balance is the understanding that if either side initiates the use of nuclear weapons, the other side will respond with sufficient power to inflict unacceptable damage. Mutual Assured Destruction. So Mutual Assured Destruction is the foundation of stable deterrence in a nuclear world. It's not mad, it's logical.”

McNamara’s tenure as secretary of defense in the Kennedy and later Johnson administrations saw a period of vast nuclear expansion for the United States. For much of the Cold War’s duration, the United States and Soviet policies of deterrence revolved around both “first strike” and “second strike” capabilities. A first strike would target civilian centers, conventional military targets, as well as nuclear silos and airstrips from which bombers could launch. The first strike was intended to utterly devastate the civilian population and military capabilities of the target nation, as well as reducing their nuclear capability as much as possible.

But the most important part of Cold War nuclear deterrence was the second strike. “Second strike” capability was the capability to respond to an aggressor nation in the event of a devastating first strike. The deterrent power of the second strike lay in its potential to retaliate to a crippling nuclear attack with equivalent or greater force. This was accomplished through nuclear submarines, widely dispersed and hidden bomber and missile sites, and keeping a certain number of nuclear armed bombers in flight at all times. The mutual annihilation guaranteed by any initiation of nuclear: Mutual Assured Destruction was the guiding principal behind Cold War militarism. The development of adequate Second Strike created the inevitable stalemate that was the Cold War; based on the promise that any nuclear aggression would be met with as McNamara said, “unacceptable damage.”

            So how could the promise of MAD, which fueled a 50 year stalemate of nuclear tension, have made the world a safer place? Since the revelation of the Atomic Bomb in Japan in 1945, there has never been a major ground war that has been fought between industrialized nations. Conventional armies, armies that would have been formidable before the bomb, were rendered utterly ineffective in the face of such superior weaponry. The Soviet Tank regiment, numbering tens of thousands of vehicles was perhaps the most substantial ground force in the world during the 1960s, causing the United States much concern. But this enormous achievement of conventional military might was rendered utterly unusable with the United States development of the Neutron Bomb, a nuclear bomb-variant that allowed the U.S. to prevent any potential invasion of Western Europe.

Nuclear weapons permanently locked conventional armies out of combat, setting off a cascade that prevented any major hostile action from occurring between the feuding nations, under pain of utter annihilation. This created an unbreakable stalemate of unending tensions without the option of war. Tactical warheads rendered any ground army obsolete, and strategic warheads rendered any nuclear conflict suicidal. In these two essential advances, the bomb became the ultimate peacemaker. Nuclear rivalry has forced feuding nations away from destructive wars. Tensions between nations like India and Pakistan, or the United States and Russia would almost inevitably have culminated in conflict were it not for the overshadowing threat of nuclear destruction that such a conflict threatens. The nuclear bomb has served to raise the consequences of war, and in doing so, it has achieved the extraordinary feat of forcing leaders to seek alternatives. The relative peace enjoyed during the 2^nd half of the 20^th century, particularly in the so-recently divided Europe is owed directly to the military advancements that created this anti-military instrument.