Notes
- Neorealism's classic formulation is the systemic balance-of-power theory set forth by Kenneth N. Waltz , Theory of International Politics ( Menlo Park , Calif. : Addison-Wesley , 1979 ). Steve Walt presents a refinement of the theory properly emphasizing that it is threats, rather than power per se, against which states balance. Though power in the hands of others may be inherently threatening in an anarchic realm, mediating influences at both the unit- and system-level (ideological beliefs, reputations, geopolitics) preclude a simple direct link between relative power and balancing behavior. Stephen M. Walt, The Origins of Alliances (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988).
- Glenn H. Snyder , “The Security Dilemma in Alliance Politics,” World Politics 36 , no. 4 ( July 1984 ): 461 – 95 ; See also, Thomas J. Christensen and Jack Snyder, “Chain Gangs and Passed Bucks: Predicting Alliance Patterns in Multipolarity,” International Organization 44, no. 2 (Spring 1990): 137–68. These authors note variations in the likely solidarity of alliances in multipolar realms, but see an even more fundamental distinction between all multipolar realms and their bipolar cousins.
- Such concerns on the part of NATO European allies during the cold war led them to seek visible signs of U.S. commitment (weapons and troops) because these were seen as methods of more firmly linking American interests with their own.
- On the difficulties of compellence compared to deterrence, see Thomas C. Schelling , Arms and Influence ( New Haven : Yale University Press , 1966 ), 69 – 91 .
- Offensive strikes with nuclear weapons simply to destroy the adversary, that is, preventive war, may be viable against a nonnuclear foe. Under such circumstances a ruthless leadership unmoved by the fate of the human and natural resources of an adversary could act. Two minimal conditions would have to be met, however. The environmental consequences of attack would have to be acceptable to the attacker (in terms of radioactive fallout, effects on the water supply, refugee flows) and the attacker must be certain that the victim will not be able to call on a nuclear ally to carry out retaliatory strikes on its behalf. Although the allies of nuclear states, for reasons stated above, naturally worry most about abandonment, aggressors worry most about the possibility, however small, that a nuclear patron will in fact respond. One could add other obvious considerations, such as the political fallout, both domestic and international that would also affect a leadership's plan to execute a preemptive offensive war plan against a nonnuclear adversary.
- For British and French statements to this effect, see Lawrence Freedman , The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy ( London : Macmillan , 1981 ), 311 , 313, 321.
- One could of course deal in counterfactuals and assert that Britain and France would more quickly have declined had they foregone nuclear weapons. Though debatable, one might simply note that their most obvious badge of international prestige, permanent seats on the UN Security Council, was not a consequence of nuclear status.
- This may be the most important consequence of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and associated documents. It is the nonproliferation regime, only partly defined by the letter of international law, that influences behavior. The NPT itself cannot prevent a determined state, even a signatory, from developing and deploying nuclear weapons. Even a “law-abiding” signatory can withdraw from the treaty on short notice. For the text of the treaty , see Leonard S. Spector with Jacqueline R. Smith , Nuclear Ambitions ( Boulder , Colo. : Westview , 1990 ), 424 – 29 .
- Going beyond the old guns vs. butter tradeoff, the importance of such opportunity costs is highlighted in the general arguments offered by Kennedy on the rise and fall of great powers and addressed in the subsequent debate about the alleged decline of the United States in the late twentieth century Paul Kennedy , The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers ( New York : Vintage , 1987 ); cf. Samuel P. Huntington, “The U.S.- Decline or Renewal?” Foreign Affairs 67, no. 2 (Winter 1988/1989); Joseph S. Nye, Bound to Lead (New York: Basic Books, 1990).
- The risks of free-riding limit the usefulness of the pubic goods theory of alliances. See Avery Goldstein , “Discounting the Free Ride: Alliance-based Security in the Postwar World,” unpublished MS. Of course states without the resources to do much for themselves will have little alternative to depending on others or accommodating prospective adversaries.
- This assumes military budgets exceeding the minimum needed to develop and deploy a modest nuclear arsenal. Through the late 1980s, this probably limited the candidate states to those with annual military spending in excess of two or three billion dollars. Of the known nuclear powers in 1988, Israel's budget of $5.71 billion was the smallest, threshold state Pakistan was spending $2.58 billion. See Avery Goldstein , “Robust and Affordable Security: Some Lessons from the Second-Ranking Powers During the Cold War,” Journal of Strategic Studies 15 , no. 4 ( December 1992 ), Appendix A (p. 519 ). On the costs of developing a viable retaliatory force, see Gene I. Rochlin, “The Economic Burden of a Nuclear Force: No Data in Search of a Theory,” in Dagobert L. Brito, Michael D. Intriligator, and Adele E. Wick, eds., Strategies for Managing Nuclear Proliferation (Lexington, Mass: Lexington Books, 1983).
- The difficulty of the calculation was reflected in the heated debate about the actual balance of NATO and Warsaw Pact forces in Central Europe during the cold war. See John J. Mearsheimer , “Numbers, Strategy, and the European Balance,” International Security 12 , no. 4 ( Spring 1988 ): 174 – 85 ; Barry Posen, “Is NATO Decisively Outnumbered?” International Security 12, no. 4 (Spring 1988): 186–202; Joshua M. Epstein, “Dynamic Analysis and the Conventional Balance in Europe,” International Security 12, no. 4 (Spring 1988): 154–65; Eliot A. Cohen, “Toward Better Net Assessment: Rethinking the European Conventional Balance,” International Security 13, no. 1 (Summer 1988): 128–79; Joshua M. Epstein, “The 3:1 Rule, the Adaptive Dynamic Model, and the Future of Security Studies,” International Security 13, no. 4 (Spring 1989): 90–127; and John J. Mearsheimer, “Assessing the Conventional Balance: The 3:1 Rule and Its Critics,” International Security 13, no. 4 (Spring 1989): 54–89.
- This argument is made obsolete if a leak proof defense against nuclear weapons is devised. Such a strategically revolutionary system would have to provide confidence in its ability to cope both with the variety of traditional delivery methods (missiles and planes) as well as creative delivery methods (smuggling, hidden assembly and deployment). Current technologies offer little hope for addressing either. For a recent calculation of the destructiveness of even a limited number of very small nuclear detonations that might result despite imperfect defenses , see Steve Fetter , “Ballistic Missiles and Weapons of Mass Destruction: What Is the Threat? What Should Be Done?” International Security 16 , no. 1 ( Summer 1991 ): 5 – 42 . For a useful summary of the controversies in the debate over ballistic missile defenses, see Steven E. Miller and Stephen Van Evera, eds., The Star Wars Controversy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986).
- Military historians have long discussed the shifting advantage between offense and defense as weaponry has evolved through the ages. Such analysis entails considering both the objective characteristics of the hardware as well as the subjective beliefs of those who formulate strategies that would employ it. The two may sharply conflict as is frequently noted in discussions of mistaken beliefs about the advantage of the offense many asserted on the eve of the First World War. The assertion that the nuclear revolution resulted in deterrence supplanting offense and defense is most relevant after the brief U.S. nuclear monopoly ended and the age of mutual vulnerability dawned. But even before a balance of terror was established, plans for an offensive strike as part of a preventive war against the Soviet Union had to consider the implications for deterrence in the future if the initial salvo failed to produce a surrender. The worry was not simply technical, given the limited number and power of the nuclear warheads available at the time, but also psychological as the indecisive use of nuclear weapons might undermine the terror associated with them since Hiroshima. On the cautiousness of U.S. crisis behavior despite great nuclear superiority during the mid-1950s through mid-1960s see, for example, Richard K. Betts , “A Nuclear Golden Age? The Balance Before Parity,” International Security 11 , no. 3 ( Winter 1986/87 ): 3 – 32 ; Betts, Nuclear Blackmail and Nuclear Balance (Washington: Brookings, 1987).
- Thus, Brodie's now classic 1945 statement that the chief purpose of military establishments in the nuclear age was to avert rather than win wars. See Bernard Brodie , War and Politics ( New York : Macmillan , 1973 ), 377 . For a recent summary of the debate and historical experience that followed in the decades after Brodie's initial comments, see Robert Jervis, The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989).
- This inhibiting effect does not depend on close comparison of the qualitative and quantitative balance of forces, important considerations when offensive and defensive strategies are weighed. Nevertheless, during the cold war, debate among some scholars and policymakers continued to emphasize the importance of offensive and defensive considerations. But despite contrary appearances, even in the most prominent of these arguments the new core consideration of deterrence remained in a position of logical priority. Colin Gray, for example, argued that the Soviet leaders would only refrain from initiating a war that advanced their interests if they calculated that the United States was able to defeat their communist regime, not just devastate the country's population and industry. Colin Gray , “Nuclear Strategy: A Case for a Theory of Victory,” International Security 4 , no. 1 ( Summer 1979 ): 54 – 87 . His entire argument, however, depended on first establishing that the Soviet leaders were indifferent to the horrifying damage that the United States could at any time inflict on the “socialist homeland” by relying on a small fraction of its nuclear arsenal. Only after asserting this premise of indifference (a heroic assumption even about brutal authoritarian rulers who presumably wished a society over which to wield power) could one logically debate the need to move beyond a strategy of deterrence to more traditional considerations of offense and defense. The plausibility of this premise is open to debate, but its central importance for Gray's argument is clear. Paul Nitze, too, offered a nightmare scenario that seemed to suggest the continuing importance of a focus on offense and defense, rather than deterrence, in the nuclear age. Paul Nitze, “Deterring our Deterrent,” Foreign Policy, no. 25 (Winter 1976/77). Nitze's concern was the possibility that the Soviets might initiate war by undertaking a well conceived, limited, counterforce first strike leaving the United States with the choice of triggering a suicidal countervalue exchange or submitting to a Soviet aggressor whose action had assured itself of military superiority. This scenario, however, required accepting first that the Soviets would be so confident of a moderate, rational American reaction that they would opt to carry out the plan. This assumption was particularly heroic given the fragility of c3 I in a nuclearized environment. See Desmond Ball, Can Nuclear War Be Controlled?, Adelphi Papers no. 169 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1981); Paul Bracken, The Command and Control of Nuclear Forces (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983); Bruce Blair, Strategic Command and Control: Redefining the Nuclear Threat (Washington: Brookings, 1985). See also Robert Jervis, The Illogic of American Nuclear Strategy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986); Fred Kaplan, The Wizards of Armageddon (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983), 377–79.
- It is not surprising that the more elaborate nuclear scenarios emphasizing offensive and defensive strategies and the force structures for carrying them out were the special privilege of the cold war superpowers. Having easily satisfied the basic requirements of deterrence, they could (or believed they could) afford the luxury of supplementing this with forces to cover a wide variety of expensive contingencies: low-intensity conflict, limited and full-scale conventional war, as well as limited nuclear war. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the weakening of the United States economy relative to its competitors may well suggest that this was not an affordable luxury.
- See Robert J. Art , “To What Ends Military Power?” International Security 4 , no. 4 (Spring 1980 ): 3 – 35 .
- See Kenneth N. Waltz , “Toward Nuclear Peace,” in Robert J. Art and Kenneth N. Waltz , eds., The Use of Force, , 3rd ed. , ( Lanham , Md. : University Press of America , 1988 ), 688 . See also, Avery Goldstein, “Robust and Affordable Security: Some Lessons from the Second-Ranking Powers During the Cold War. ”
- The way in which this affects the decision making of prospective aggressors is given a formal treatment in Goldstein , “Robust and Affordable Security,” Appendix D ( 524 – 27 ). The inhibiting fear of escalation that makes nuclear deterrence robust as well as relatively affordable, is a result of the strategic consequences of the nuclear revolution, not the particular policies of states. States who have decided to deploy nuclear weapons can, however, act to reinforce its effects. This can be done in part by exploiting the complementarity of nuclear and conventional forces. By denying an adversary the certainty of unresisted aggression, conventional weapons compel an adversary who would challenge vital interests to confront grave risks. Not because they are a tripwire triggering an automatic response, but as Schelling noted because they increase the likelihood of some response that might eventually result in unforseen escalation, conventional deployments by nuclear states serve to dissuade serious, even if initially limited, threats to vital interests. Another step by which states can cause a prospective aggressor to recognize the potentially catastrophic consequences of initiating hostile military action, is to respond to crises by placing nuclear forces on a heightened alert status. While of course reducing the vulnerability of weapons, more importantly, this step also raises the inhibiting specter of catastrophe by weakening without eliminating, the tighter peacetime negative controls over nuclear weapons. Regardless of whether control is seriously compromised, the move fosters the sorts of doubts in the adversary's mind that enhance deterrence.
- This analysis omits treatment of China's strategic interests that may go beyond dissuasion. During the period under discussion, China's principal, though not sole, foreign policy goal was to ensure the political and territorial integrity of the mainland's newly founded revolutionary regime. A viable national security policy had to deal with this problem before addressing others. To the extent Beijing had an interest in expanding its de facto borders, especially by resolving territorial disputes with its regional neighbors and an interest in assisting communist revolutionaries in the developing world, investment in nuclear forces actually diverted funds that might have been employed to enhance China's conventional power-projection capabilities. Not surprisingly, by the 1980s, after China was confident it had satisfied the requirements of its dissuasive strategy, the regime more aggressively began to pursue conventional forces that would support Chinese claims in various maritime disputes with its neighbors.
- The centrality of this security logic, as opposed to one emphasizing ideological affinity, was underscored by China's decision to seek the strategic leverage of improved relations with the politically repugnant United States in the early 1970s as a means for addressing the threat from the Soviet superpower. Because China lacked the resources to defend against the variety of military threats the Soviets posed, and did not yet have confidence in the reliability of its nuclear retaliatory forces, Beijing once again felt constrained to cultivate one superpower to counter the other. With regard to the nonstrategic determinants of China's foreign policy, it should be remembered that despite their common marxist heritage, ideology had been a divisive element in relations between the Soviet and Chinese Communist Parties since the early 1930s. It might be added that personal relations between Mao and the Soviet communist leaders were far from close. On the more personal tensions , see especially Harrison E. Salisbury , The New Emperors ( Boston : Little, Brown , 1992 ).
- American rhetoric about rolling back the postwar gains of communism, its signing a security treaty with and arming a regime on Taiwan dedicated to reversing the verdict of the Chinese Civil War, and its proclaimed willingness to resort to nuclear weapons if it seemed militarily advisable all fed China's threat perceptions. Nuclear threats were reflected in both declaratory policy during the late Truman and Eisenhower administrations and the deployment of nuclear capable forces to the East Asian theater: John W. Lewis and Litai Xue , China Builds the Bomb ( Stanford : Stanford University Press , 1988 ), 229 ; Chong-pin Lin, China's Nuclear Weapons Strategy (Lexington, Mass: Lexington Books, 1988), 77; Betts, Nuclear Blackmail and Nuclear Balance, chaps. 1, 2; Marc Trachtenberg, “A ‘Wasting Asset’: American Strategy and the Shifting Nuclear Balance, 1949–1954,” International Security 13, no. 3 (Winter 1988/89), 5–49; Roger Dingman, “Atomic Diplomacy During the Korean War,” International Security 13, no. 3 (Winter 1988/89), 50–91; Rosemary J. Foot, “Nuclear Coercion and the Ending of the Korean Conflict,” International Security 13, no. 3 (Winter 1988/89), 92–112. See also Yuanchao Li, “The Politics of Artillery Shelling: A Study of the Taiwan Strait Crises,” Beijing Review 35, 7–13 September 1992, pp. 32–38. Beijing's brief attempts to deal with the U.S. threat through conciliation, represented by the spirit of Bandung, bore no fruit. See Harvey W. Nelsen, Power and Insecurity: Beijing, Moscow, and Washington, 1949–1988 (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1989), 38–40.
- China's overwhelming interest in ensuring that the Soviets would continue to provide security for socialist bloc members induced the CCP to agree to distasteful compromises of Chinese independence. During the early 1950s Beijing agreed to military and economic concessions for the Soviets in China (Nelsen, Power and Insecurity, 7, 11). And despite the fact that the CCP had long insisted on independence for itself in the international communist movement and apparently supported it for others, throughout most of the 1950s Beijing maintained its public endorsement of the Soviet party's absolute leadership of the socialist bloc. See Donald Zagoria , The Sino-Soviet Conflict, 1956–1961 ( Princeton : Princeton University Press , 1962 ), chaps. 1, 2, 4; also Nelsen, Power and Insecurity, 11. As long as the PRC believed it required Moscow's backing in recurrent crises with a hostile and powerful United States, disagreements with the Soviets were muted and principled independence, however reluctantly, was compromised.
- On the distinction between intrinsic military value and reputation value, see Glenn H. Snyder , “Deterrence and Defense,” in Art and Waltz , The Use of Force , 36 – 43 . On the interdependence of commitments, see Thomas C. Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 55–59, 116–25. On the complexity of manipulating perceptions of a state's reputation, see Nalebuffs discussion of Jervis's reputational paradox, Barry Nalebuff, “Rational Deterrence in an Imperfect World,” World Politics 43, no. 3 (April 1991), 313–35. The reputational stakes are raised not only by the strategic effects of the nuclear revolution, but also by bipolarity that enhances the apparent zero-sumness of international political competition between the duopolists (Waltz, Theory of International Politics, 170–72).
- See Waltz , Theory of International Politics , 169 – 70 .
- On Khrushchev's troubling shift to peaceful coexistence, see Gordon H. Chang , Friends and Enemies ( Stanford : Stanford University Press , 1990 ), chaps. 4, 5. Comments by analysts I interviewed in Beijing in 1991 suggest there is room for debate over exactly what the Chinese expected the Soviets to do during the crisis and the extent to which they felt abandoned. Clearly, however, the crisis raised doubts in Beijing about Moscow's willingness to stick with an ally determined to retain its foreign policy independence. See Ibid., 190–94; Nelsen, Power and Insecurity, 41–45.
- Lewis and Xue , China Builds the Bomb , 64 , 160–63.
- During a January 1960 meeting addressing the problems encountered, Nie Rongzhen impugned Soviet motives by stating that their “technical aid has become untrustworthy” and that they want “to maintain a considerable gap between China and the Soviet Union in scientific research on the development of new types of weapons and military equipment” (Ibid., 72). Moscow's demands included telecommunication facilities within China to enhance Soviet C3I and perhaps (the Chinese claimed, the Soviets denied) a jointly manned Sino-Soviet Pacific Fleet. In a review of China's foreign policy independence, Li Dai chronicles Beijing's resistance to Soviet attempts to interfere in China's domestic affairs and the rejection of Khrushchev's proposal for a “‘joint flotilla’ along the Chinese coast and a ‘long-wave radio’ communications network to command the Soviet flotilla in an effort to exercise military control over China.” Li Dai, “Independence and China's External Relations” Shijie Zhishi no. 19 (10/1/81) in FBIS, 19 November 1981, p. A2; see also /bookLewisbook and /bookXuebook , China Builds the Bomb , 63 – 64 .
- Following China's refusal to accede to Moscow's demands for closer military integration under the Kremlin's leadership, “[t]he Soviet Union then perfidiously tore up agreements and contracts, recalled its experts and carried out large-scale subversive activities in our Xinjiang region.” (Li, “Independence and China's External Relations,” A2). China's nuclear scientists would name their first atomic bomb “596” in reference to the date of the letter that announced there would be no Soviet prototype weapon delivered to China (Lewis and Xue, China Builds the Bomb, 72, 150).
- For further consideration of the linkages between domestic and international security, see Barry Buzan , People, States, and Fear, , 2nd ed. ( Boulder , Colo. : Lynne Rienner , 1991 ).
- Chinese analysts have asserted that nuclear weapons offer a more economical alternative to huge conventional forces, freeing up resources for the essential task of domestic development. See Sun Mingming and Cai Xiaohong , Dongdangzhong de Guojia Anquan ( Beijing : Jiefangjun Chubanshe , 1988 ), 189 ; Peng Guangqian, Wang Guangxu, et al., eds., Junshi Zhanlüe Jianlun (Beijing: Jiefangjun Chubanshe, 1989), 168; and Chen Chongbei, Shou Xiaosong, and Liang Xiaoqiu, Weishe Zhanliie (Beijing: Junshi Kexue Chubanshe, 1989), 29.
- Indeed, Soviet aid was limited not only in quantity but also in quality. Lewis and Hua noted that it was Soviet policy not to “transfer state-of-the-art weapons to allies before it had deployed at least two types of more advanced systems.” John Wilson Lewis and Hua Di , “China's Ballistic Missile Programs: Technologies, Strategies, Goals,” International Security 17 , no. 2 ( Fall 1992 ): 13 .
- Similar problems confronted China in the late 1960s when it faced a serious threat from the Soviet Union. Beijing could have little confidence that Moscow would view a defensive capability based on modified Korean-war vintage arms as much of a match for arms with which they had been replaced in the Soviet Red Army. One estimate put the cost of U.S. aid that would be needed to prepare China to withstand a Soviet conventional attack at $41-$63 billion. This sum almost certainly exceeded the entire annual defense budget of the PRC and may represent two to three times actual defense spending. Moreover, the figure would likely have been even higher if the Chinese instead sought to undertake the bulk of the conventional modernization independently. See Banning N. Garrett and Bonnie S. Glaser , War and Peace: The Views from Moscow and Beijing ( Berkeley : Institute of International Studies , 1984 ) 23 . See also Leo Yueh-yun Liu, “The Modernization of the Chinese Military” Current History 79 (September 1980): 11.
- This was the upshot of the collapse of the short-lived cultivation of intellectuals during the Hundred Flowers movement in 1956–57. Thereafter, despite brief pauses in the ideological assault on educational standards, the regime failed to sustain support for scholarship until the 1980s. Indeed, even in the era of Deng's reforms, many have criticized the lack of a financial, as opposed to a rhetorical, commitment to education.
- The geopolitical difficulties that diminished the appeal of relying on conventional defense were compounded when the Soviets became China's principal security concern. At that point, Beijing not only had to worry about the vulnerability of Manchuria and the eastern cities, but two new problems. First, vast resource-rich territories in the Chinese west and northwest bordering the Soviet Union were sparsely populated by minorities of dubious loyalty. Second, Beijing itself was relatively close to heavily armored Soviet divisions that could strike from the north and northwest. In an era when even a fully restored great wall would have little obstructive value, topography provided the capital city with few defensive advantages along the likely axes of Soviet advance.
- This was the now notorious Third Front. Ironically, even without committing themselves to costly conventional defense, this dispersal that aimed at enhancing the viability of China's conventional deterrent, though perhaps not as costly as full-scale modernization of the PLA, contributed to the stagnation of the Chinese economy that ultimately undermined the legitimacy of the Maoist development program. /bookNelsenbook , Power and Insecurity , 89 – 90 . see also Salisbury, The New Emperors, esp. ch. 14.
- The classic essays explaining how to rely on the “masses” as part of a strategy to prevail over a militarily superior adversary were written by Mao Zedong in the 1930s. Mao Zedong , Selected Worths of Mao Tse-tung , vol. 2 ( Peking : Foreign Languages Press , 1965 ), 79 – 194 . For a discussion in China's recent strategic studies literature, see Yang Xuhua and Cai Renzhao, Weishe Lun (Beijing: Guofang Daxue Chubanshe, 1990), 384–86, 388, 389, 390; Chen, Shou, and Liangu, Weishe Zhanlüe, 69.
- This also suggests the disadvantage of conventional deterrent strategies based on threats other than protracted popular resistance. Where punishment can be inflicted with only conventional forces, the special dissuasive effects associated with uncertainty about the outcome of a confrontation with a nuclear-armed state would not obtain.
- Here one again confronts the notorious problem with assessing the effectiveness of deterrence. Its success is reflected in nonevents. How many great power interventions never occurred, or were never even contemplated because of the fear of dealing with protracted popular resistance? Answering such a question is difficult and requires close consideration of the foreign policy preferences of particular states. This important matter falls outside the scope of this essay. It can be noted, however, that there are at least examples of conventional deterrence failures, something fortunately lacking with respect to nuclear deterrence. For discussion of the /bookvexingbook problem of demonstrating the effectiveness of deterrence by citing counterfactuals, see “The Rational Deterrence Debate: A Symposium,” World Politics 41 , no. 2 ( January 1989 ); Patrick M. Morgan, Deterrence: A Conceptual Analysis (Beverly Hills: Sage Publishers, 1977).
- On compellent strategies see /bookSchellingbook , Arms and Influence , 69 – 91 . On the feasibility of small powers successfully compelling the withdrawal of militarily superior adversaries see Andrew Mack, “Why Big Nations Lose Small Wars: The Politics of Asymmetric Conflict,” World Politics 27, no. 2 (January 1975): 175–200.
- Threats to take actions unpleasant for oneself as well as the adversary, of course, also characterize nuclear deterrence. The problem with the nonnuclear alternative is the greater likelihood deterrence will fail and that the unpalatable threat will have to be executed.
- In the late 1980s, China would view a national war of resistance as a last resort in the event their nuclear deterrent and improving defensive capabilities proved insufficiently dissuasive. Once Mao died in 1976, Chinese military leaders more openly articulated their objections to a conventional deterrent strategy based on luring the enemy in deep and waging a protracted armed struggle. At a time of heightened Sino-Soviet tensions in 1979, one of China's Marshals, Nie Rongzhen, “… directed the urgent deployment of all available strategic weapon systems, saying that ‘though a bit backward … [they] would still be better than millet plus rifles in fighting a war’.” Lewis and Hua, “China's Ballistic Missile Programs,” 19. In an attempt to preserve as much of the PLa's glorious revolutionary legacy as possible, the emerging alternative doctrine after 1978 was referred to as People's War Under Modern Conditions. Symbols notwithstanding, China's program of military modernization was “designed specifically to avoid a protracted war.” Paul H. B. Godwin , “The Chinese Defense Establishment in Transition: The Passing of a Revolutionary Army?” in A. Doak Barnett and Ralph N. Clough , eds., Modernizing China ( Boulder , Colo. : West-view , 1986 ), 73 . See also Gerald Segal, “China's Strategic Posture and the Great-Power Triangle,” Pacific Affairs 53, no. 4 (Winter 1980/81): 685–87, 690, 691; Harlan Jencks, “People's War Under Modern Conditions: Wishful Thinking, National Suicide, or Effective Deterrent?” China Quarterly 98 (June 1984): 313. Such planned changes have been widely analyzed in the literature on military modernization and reform in post-Mao China. See Paul H. B. Godwin, The Chinese Defense Establishment: Continuity and Change in the 1980s (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1983); Charles D. Lovejoy and Bruce W. Watson, eds., China's Military Reforms (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1986); Ellis Joffe, The Chinese Army after Mao (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987); Larry M. Wortzell, ed., China's Military Modernization (New York: Greenwood, 1988).
- Edward N. Luttwak , Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace ( Cambridge : Harvard University Press , 1987 ), 18 – 21 .
- On Mao's cautiousness during the crisis, see Li “The Politics of Artillery Shelling: A Study of the Taiwan Strait Crises,” 32 – 38 .
- Lewis and Xue , China Builds the Bomb , 40 . In 1955, Mao disparaged U.S. nuclear threats by asserting, “the Chinese people are not to be cowed by U.S. atomic blackmail … .The United States cannot annihilate the Chinese nation with its small stack of atom bombs.” Cited by John W. Lewis, “China's Military Doctrines and Force Posture,” in Thomas Fingar, ed., China's Quest for Independence: Policy Evolution in the 1970s (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1980), 163. In 1969, when China still had not deployed an effective nuclear retaliatory capability, Beijing again felt compelled by superpower saber-rattling to back down, taking the initiative in defusing the Sino-Soviet border conflict before it got out of hand. See Richard Wich, Sino-Soviet Crisis Politics (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980), chaps. 9, 10.
- See John J. Mearsheimer , Conventional Deterrence ( Ithaca : Cornell University Press , 1983 ), 53 – 56 . The advantages of fighting on the defensive were promi nently stressed by Mearsheimer, “Numbers, Strategy, and the European Balance”; Posen, “Is NATO Decisively Outnumbered?” Epstein, “Dynamic Analysis and the Conventional Balance in Europe,” and other “optimists” in the debate over nato prospects against a conventional Soviet attack during the 1970s and 1980s. For the “pessimists'” response, see Cohen, “Toward Better Net Assessment.” For debate over the theoretical and empirical warrant for offense-defense ratios that determine outcomes of battles see also Epstein, “The 3:1 Rule,” and Mearsheimer, “Assessing the Conventional Balance. ”
- As Paul Godwin put it in analyzing China's readiness in the 1970s to deal with the Soviet threat, “[W]hat happens if the Chinese hold a people's war and nobody comes?” (“The Chinese Defense Establishment in Transition,” 73).
- Chinese analysts describe the country's “self-defensive finite deterrent” as being comprised of two components- finite nuclear deterrence, and People's War. The nuclear component is listed first, and the People's War component is described as a deterrent against a full-scale invasion of the homeland ( Chen , Shou , and Liang , Weishe Zhanlüe , 214 – 15 ).
- See Peng and Wang , Junshi Zhanlüe Jianlun , 166 – 167 .
- Beginning in the mid-1950s Mao asserted that China would need atomic bombs in order to avoid being bullied by others. See Ibid. , 166 ; Chen, Shou, and Liang, Weishe Zhanlüe, 209. This justification was clearly set forth in Chinese statements following its first nuclear test in October 1964, Peng and Wang, Junshi Zhanlüe Jianlun, 167. In the 1980s, Deng Xiaoping would reassert the self-defensive justification (Yang and Cai, Weishe Lun, 409; Chen, Shou, and Liang, Weishe Zhanlüe, 209). And in response to growing international anti-nuclear opinion in the 1980s, Chinese analysts sympathized with the sentiments of Greenpeace and others but noted “… as long as the danger of war still exists, in circumstances where there is no essential guarantee of world peace, our country's nuclear weapons are still an important force for deterrence during peacetime.” Yang and Cai, Weishe Lun, 408; see also 407, 410.
- Peng and Wang , Junshi Zhanlüe Jianlun , 167 .
- China has always proclaimed its willingness to go along with abolition of all nuclear weapons, but until this could be achieved asserted that “China will steadfastly … strengthen its national defenses, safeguard the motherland, and safeguard world peace.” ( Ibid. , 168 ).
- For Chinese analysis reflecting on the significance of the nuclear revolution, see Ibid. , 160 ; Chen, Shou, and Liang, Weishe Zhanlüe, 47, 71.
- See Yang and Cai , Weishe Lun , 410 .
- Several characteristics of the Chinese nuclear triad stand out. First, during the cold war, other than an ageing bomber force of dubious penetrability, China had relatively few long range ballistic missile systems (six to thirteen ICBMs). China's first generation SSBNs each carried 12 missiles with limited range (1700km). See Lewis and Hua, “China's Ballistic Missile Programs,” 26–27. Second, the yields of the warheads on the longer range systems (carrying 1, 3, and 5 megaton warheads) were relatively large. While such enormous yields are not suitable for limited nuclear options, they pose a terrifying threat of massive retaliation. Third, the obsolescence of its bomber force, the limited effectiveness of its costly SSBN fleet, and geographic considerations constrained the PRC to rely heavily on land-based ballistic missiles.
- See Chen , Shou , and Liang , Weishe Zhanlüe , 3 ; Peng and Wang, Junshi Zhanlüe Jianlun, 169. Yang and Cai, Weishe Lun, 411. Chinese analysts assert that the aggressor would have to worry about some surviving nuclear retaliatory capability even if he launched a “large scale surprise nuclear attack.” Ibid., 410. They also insist that the fear of devastating retaliation can deter an aggressor despite his deployment of very effective, even 90 per cent effective, ballistic missile defenses. See Sun and Cai, Dongdangzhong de Guojia Anquan, 193.
- To ensure the survivability of its land-based missiles, the Chinese emphasized the importance of “dispersal, concealment, and mobility.” Lin , China's Nuclear Weapons Strategy , 52 . John Lewis and Hua Di cite a Central Military Commission and State Council directive (20 May 1977) that followed up on a request from Mao Zedong (25 May 1975) to adopt a policy of “in-cave storage/preparation and out-cave erection/filling/firing” for the DF-4. This cave-basing system for the DF-4 (dubbed “shooting a firecracker outside the front door” by Zhang Aiping) became operational 2 August 1980. “China's Ballistic Missile Programs,” 24.
- Hiding weapons and exposing decoys frustrated satellite reconnaissance by the superpowers who could not be sure they had succeeded in locating and targeting all of the PRC deterrent arsenal. Lewis and Hua recently confirmed that in deploying their only genuine long range ICBM, the DF-5, the Chinese sought to enhance survivability by building “a large number of bogus silos,” “shallow holes disguised to look like the real thing.” This was the alternative selected after consideration had been given to ship- or rail-mobile basing and camouflage of fixed silos. Lewis and Hua assert that shortcomings in China's early warning system made the option of launch on warning an impractical solution to the vulnerability problem. “China's Ballistic Missile Programs,” 24–25. See also Lin , China's Nuclear Weapons Strategy , 52 , 69; On the role of deception and uncertainty in targeting, see also Wakz, “Toward Nuclear Peace,” 695–99.
- Given their unsophisticated force posture, some doubted the usefulness of China's small nuclear deterrent. As one analyst put it, the PRC had only a “tentative second-strike capability,” and an “assured second-strike capability” would not be attained until it deployed more than 100 ICBMS, preferably MIRved, as well as a fleet of at least six SSBNs. See Robert S. Wang , China's Evolving Strategic Doctrine,” Asian Survey 24 , no. 10 ( October 1984 ): 1050 .
- On the logic of “self-deterrence” by rational actors see Paul H. Nitze , “Deterring our Deterrent,” Foreign Policy , no. 25 ( Winter 1976/77 ).
- Lin , China's Nuclear Weapons Strategy , 69 .
- The role of a potentially “unsafe actor” in deterrence of the strong by the weak is explored at length in Goldstein, “Robust and Affordable Security.”
- On problems with assuming durable rationality in a nuclear crisis, see Kurt Gottfried and Bruce G. Blair , Crisis Stability and Nuclear War ( New York : Oxford University Press , 1988 ), 265 – 68 ; also Edward Rhodes, Power and MADness: The Logic of Nuclear Coercion (New York: Columbia University Press, 1989), 135–40.
- This is especially true since it is not sufficient that the challenger worry about the victim's rationality in general or even harbor some vague belief about unpredictability associated with “the fog of war.” He must believe there is an unacceptable risk that the victim will engage in this specific irrational act. See Robert Powell , “The Theoretical Foundations of Strategic Nuclear Deterrence,” Political Science Quarterly 100 , no. 1 ( Spring 1985 ): 85 ; Rhodes, Power and MADness, 72–77, 164–66, 191–92. Thus a reputation for irrationality may not be helpful, and in any case is difficult for government leaders to cultivate. See Schelling, Arms and Influence, 41.
- See Ball , Can Nuclear War Be Controlled? ; Bracken, The Command and Control of Nuclear Forces; Blair, Strategic Command and Control; and Rhodes, Power and MADness, 139–40.
- Robert Powell , Nuclear Deterrence Theory ( New York : Cambridge University Press , 1990 ), ch. 2; Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (New York: Oxford University Press, 1960), 188–90, 201–3; Rhodes, Power and MADness, 78–81.
- Ball , Can Nuclear War Be Controlled? ; Bracken, The Command and Control of Nuclear Forces; Blair, Strategic Command and Control.
- Not surprisingly, little is known about China's nuclear command and control. But one of the PRC strategists may have intentionally provided a clue as to what Beijing wanted others to believe about the difficulties of successful preemption: “[The adversary] who cannot preempt all of China's nuclear missiles … would have to continue to worry about Chinese retaliation ‘perhaps hours, days, weeks, months, or even years later.’ Even if China's leadership is destroyed in a decapitating nuclear attack, ‘the Chinese people … will be able to wait… until a new leadership is formed … capable of ordering the retaliation China does not need an invulnerable C3 system’ to ensure the viability of its nuclear deterrent.” see Garret and Glaser , War and Peace , 129 .
- China's no-first-use pledge is: “We will not attack unless we are attacked: If we are attacked, we will certainly counterattack. China will counterattack only when the enemy uses nuclear weapons first.” See Zhang Jianzhi , “View on Medium-Sized Nuclear Powers' Nuclear Strategy,” from Jiefangjun Bao ( 3/20/87) in FBIs ( April 1987 ): k33 . See also Peng and Wang, Junshi Zhanlüe Jianlun, 167.
- The reasoning during the cold war that rejected a no-first-use pledge by nato and instead encouraged the United States to retain its prerogative of launch on warning or under attack, would seem even more persuasive for a comparatively small nuclear state like China. In an analysis of the nuclear deterrents of the medium powers, Chinese analysts note that “In order to strengthen the credibility of the deterrent, some countries reserve the right to use nuclear weapons first.” ( Chen , Shou , and Liang , Weishe Zhanlüe , 97 ). Their specific examples are Britain and France, even though the broader discussion lumps China with them as a medium power.
- Indeed, China's leading military newspaper during the 1980s provided clues about the range of actual conditions that might precipitate China's use of nuclear weapons. After restating China's no-first-use pledge the author asserted that China's nuclear forces enabled her to “check an enemy from rashly launching any war of aggression and from using nuclear weapons against our country … .” (Zhang, “View on Medium-sized Nuclear Powers,” 33, emphasis added). He also listed four functions of nuclear weapons, including their usefulness for countering superior conventional forces and discouraging superpower attempts at nuclear blackmail. See also Lewis, “China's Military Doctrines and Force Posture,” 163. Chinese strategic analysts I interviewed in spring 1991 all insisted that China's no-first-use pledge was sincere. In elaborating on their no-first-use views, however, they also acknowledged that a prospective aggressor would have to worry about Chinese sincerity and that such worries were strategically valuable. See also comments by Peng and Wang that China's nuclear weapons provide a peacetime deterrent of possible superpower invasion without reference to the aggressor's military means (Junshi Zhanlüe Jianlun, 167).
- Israel's air strike against Iraq in 1981, and more massive U.S. military and international diplomatic efforts in the early 1990s, not to mention Iraq's accession to the NPT, have slowed, but may yet not prevent Baghdad from realizing its nuclear ambitions.
- The relative optimism of two of the more prominent visions of the consequences of the continued spread of nuclear weapons derives in part from such a belief. See Kenneth N. Waltz , “Toward Nuclear Peace,” in Art and Waltz , The Use of Force ; John J. Mearsheimer, “Back to the Future: Instability in Europe After the Cold War,” International Security 15, no. 1 (Summer 1990): 5–56.
- Indeed, during the bipolar cold war, allies' threat perceptions, though not identical, were at least largely similar. Nevertheless, China, as well as Britain and France, were concerned enough about possibly conflicting interests to want a hedge against the potential unreliability of alliance guarantees. Such worries will likely be even stronger for states that might depend on diffuse collective security guarantees against unspecified adversaries in the post-cold war era. Those who believe that international commitments to Ukrainian security, for example, can substitute for their possession of a nuclear capability must explain why Ukrainians will comfortably conclude that their international patrons would run grave risks, perhaps facing off against the Russians, to ensure Ukrainian interests. Second thoughts about foregoing nuclear weapons have already emerged in Kazakhstan as well as Ukraine. See Edith M. Lederer and Sergei Shargorodsky, “New Reluctance on Giving Up Their Nuclear Arms,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 14 June 1992, p. A3; John F. Cushman , Jr. , “Senate Endorse Pact to Reduce Strategic Arms,” New York Times , 2 October 1992 , pp. A1 , A6.
- See Robert Jervis , “Cooperation under the Security Dilemma,” World Politics 30 , no. 2 ( January 1978 ): 167 – 214 .
- See Karl W. Deutsch and J. David Singer , “Multipolar Power Systems and International Stability,” in James N. Rosenau , ed., International Politics and Foreign Policy, , 2d ed. ( New York : Free Press , 1969 ), 315 – 24 ; Richard N. Rosecrance, “Bipolarity, Multipolarity, and the Future,” in Rosenau, ed., International Politics and Foreign Policy, 325–35; Kenneth N. Waltz, “International Structure, National Force, and the Balance of World Power,” in Rosenau, International Politics and Foreign Policy, 304–14.
- In the developing world, the sorry experiences of the great powers trying militarily to impose their control after the spread of nationalism has clarified the costs of this approach. In the developed world, the nature of post-industrial economics has reduced the possibilities for and efficiency of tapping the productivity a conquered people. See Steve Van Evera , “Why Europe Matters, Why the Third World Doesn't: American Grand Strategy after the Cold War,” Journal of Strategic Studies 13 , no. 2 ( June 1990 ): 1 – 51 . John Mueller argued that the growing recognition “war doesn't pay” rendered war itself obsolete by the mid-twentieth century. Although one may take issue with Mueller's bold conclusion, and instead point to the influence of the nuclear revolution or bipolarity as contributing factors to the “long peace,” his assertion that historical experience has led modern states to focus on the costs, rather than benefits, of war-fighting is rarely disputed by his critics. See John Mueller, “The Essential Irrelevance of Nuclear Weapons: Stability in the Postwar World,” in Sean M. Lynn-Jones, ed., The Cold War and After (Cambridge: mit Press, 1991), 45–69; Robert Jervis, “The Political Effects of Nuclear Weapons: A Comment,” in Lynn-Jones, The Cold War and After, 70–80; Carl Kaysen, “Is War Obsolete? A Review Essay,” in Lynn-Jones, The Cold War and After, 81–103; and John Lewis Gaddis, “The Long Peace: Elements of Stability in the Postwar International System,” in Lynn-Jones, The Cold War and After, 1–44.
- These economic considerations also reduce the chance that current nuclear states will move beyond prudent reductions and give up their weapons, disarmament rhetoric notwithstanding. Recent Russian views explicitly argue the economic advantages of a nuclear, rather than conventional emphasis. Fred Hiatt , “Russians Are Leaning Toward Nuclear Reliance for Security,” Philadelphia Inquirer , 26 November 1992 , p. a22 . This mirrors the economic logic of the strategic approach pushed by Khrushchev in the late 1950s.