Preventive Attack and Weapons of Mass Destruction: A Comparative Historical Analysis 9781503624900

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Preventive Attack and Weapons of Mass Destruction

Preventive Attack and Weapons of Mass Destruction A Comparative Historical Analysis

Lyle J. Goldstein

stanford university press stanford, california 2006

Stanford University Press Stanford, California © 2006 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of Stanford University Press. Author’s note: After completing the first draft of this book, I entered into a period of government service. The views expressed in this book are those of the author, not the U.S. government. Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Goldstein, Lyle. Preventive attack and weapons of mass destruction : a comparative historical analysis / Lyle J. Goldstein. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 0-8047-5026-2 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Weapons of mass destruction—History—20th century. 2. Preemptive attack (Military science)—History—20th century. 3. World politics—1945–1989. 4. Arms race—History—20th century. 5. Detente—History—20th century. 6. Conflict management—History—20th century. I. Title. u793.g65 2006 358’.3—dc22 2005013561 Original Printing 2006 Last figure below indicates year of this printing: 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06

For my parents, with love and gratitude

Contents

Preface

ix

1

Introduction

2

Theories of Proliferation

13

3

Case 1: The Early Cold War

27

4

Case 2: The United States and China

56

5

Case 3: The Soviet Union and China

76

6

Case 4: China and India

96

7

Case 5: Israel and Iraq

112

8

Contemporary Cases: The 1990s

128

9

Conclusion

143

Epilogue: The Bush Doctrine

164

10

Notes Bibliography Index

1

185 243 263

Preface

This project was born during my very brief tenure serving in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, back in 1996. I had been posted to the new Office of Counterproliferation. I accepted this position with serious misgivings, because I regarded the issue of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) proliferation as rather esoteric and highly theoretical. Serving in this office, I became acquainted with two stark trends. First, I came to the firm conclusion that in an age of U.S. conventional supremacy, WMD were bound to become the first choice for adversaries of the United States. At the same time, I was struck by the determination of my colleagues as they planned strategies for using force to eliminate nascent WMD forces around the globe. At times, I was reassured by their confidence in U.S. power. At other times, I felt despondent witnessing a new generation of Curtis LeMays and Herman Kahns, who were “thinking the unthinkable.” Today, our world seems vastly altered. We have witnessed mass destruction at home. But not for chance, the terrorists of 9/11 would have robbed me of my wife and unborn child. Many were not so lucky on that terrible day. With the unveiling of the Bush doctrine and its “test case” in the second Gulf War, the debates that germinated in the corridors of the Pentagon basement are now in the papers every day and on the news each evening. But these quandaries are not entirely new. As the cases in this book illustrate, the dilemmas of preventive attack were confronted at many points during the Cold War, and not just by Americans. Some view the Bush doctrine as a courageous stand against the trend of WMD proliferation: to sacrifice now so that our children and their children are not confronted by wars of catastrophic proportion. Others contend that the new doctrine creates an image of the United States as a “rogue state,” gravely distracts and detracts from the War on Terror, and may even precipitate the very catastrophes it seeks to avoid. This is a debate of enormous significance for the future. It is my hope that this book will, first and foremost, help prepare current and future

x

Preface

policymakers for the challenges ahead by developing a historical context for this debate. The central goal is to better acquaint the reader with the genesis of the concept of preventive attack as it relates to WMD as well as provide case studies that offer a scientific perspective for evaluating the grave problems before us. I readily concede that the evidence is open to contrasting interpretations. Indeed, it should be, because debate is the surest path to knowledge and wisdom. This research is the result of countless discussions with and much wise counsel from a group of outstanding educators. Eliot Cohen and Stephen Rosen are pivotal role models who inspired me to embark on a career in the field of strategic studies. Andrew Bacevich, Tom McNaugher, Andrew Krepinevich, and Abe Shulsky also had a hand in this enterprise. At Princeton, I have been guided by the able advising of Aaron Friedberg, whose contemplative approach and scholarly demeanor I will always seek to emulate. The Research Program in International Security (RPIS), which he leads at Princeton, supported the many months of overseas research that made this book possible. Gil Rozman and Lynn White strongly encouraged and supported my interest in China, and for that I will always be thankful. Frank von Hippel welcomed me into his collegial group of nuclear specialists at Princeton, from whom I learned a great deal. A number of colleagues have been enormously helpful to this endeavor. Members of the Princeton Graduate Seminar on international relations have consistently offered helpful critiques. My classmates Jakub Grygiel, Daniel Markey, and Colin Dueck were especially helpful in that regard, and were also interesting companions “on the long journey.” Two other friends who have played an essential role in molding my worldview are Scott Douglas and Yuri Gerstein. Since coming to the Naval War College in the fall of 2001, numerous colleagues have encouraged and supported my effort to turn this research into a book. I am especially thankful for the counsel of Alberto Coll in this regard. Andrew Ross, Jonathan Pollack, Tom Mahnken, and Andrew Winner made helpful comments on parts of the manuscript, as did research assistants Yuri Zhukov and Andrew Erickson. Elizabeth Davis rendered important assistance with graphic design elements. Above all, I am thankful to my family. As nonspecialists, their commonsense approach to my intellectual travails always set me on the right course. They have each spent late nights pouring over drafts on my behalf. I am always indebted to my parents for their patience and their limitless love. My mother taught me about principles, and above all, to listen. My father taught me to write and to seek knowledge. In their own

Preface

xi

way, they are a deep inspiration to me. My wife has been close by my side through all the trials and tribulations. Her patience and love in the face of many painful separations, in addition to her steadfast confidence in the face of my doubts, made this project possible. My children, Eytan and Yael, are my greatest joy. May their world be safer than ours. This strong foundation of family, friends, and mentors gives me much to be thankful for. However, I take full responsibility for any and all errors in fact or judgment that follow. Newport, Rhode Island April 2005

chapter one

Introduction

Are weapons of mass destruction (WMD) a great equalizer that, even in small quantities, can deter the projection of U.S. power? The ongoing crises with both North Korea and Iran, not to mention the WMD issues surrounding the 2003 Iraq War, underline the importance of this quandary. This book investigates the question of whether small WMD arsenals are stabilizing or destabilizing for world order. This question has been debated extensively in the field of political science, at least since publication of Kenneth Waltz’s provocative Adelphi Paper in 1981, and with increasing vigor following the end of the Cold War.1 Waltz’s contention that small WMD arsenals are stabilizing has won wide adherence in the field.2 This book represents the only systematic, comparative historical examination of preventive attack and weapons of mass destruction.3 Relying on the new post–Cold War historiography, supplemented by field research in Russia, China, and Israel, my ambition is to present a comprehensive empirical survey of asymmetric WMD rivalry.4 In addition to challenging Waltz and the so-called proliferation optimists, the results offer significant insights into the dynamics of conflict between the United States and small states that are armed or arming with WMD.

wmd and the war on terror Since the end of the Cold War, the proliferation of WMD has ranked at the top of the national security agenda. After the September 11 attacks, despite calls to reorient America’s defense strategy toward threats posed by nonstate actors, the focus on state-sponsored WMD proliferation has been rigidly maintained. Given the tenuous connections linking the “axis

2

Introduction

of evil” states to the September 11 attacks, this rigidity has struck many Americans as bizarre. But, as one commentator put it, the essential doctrine to emerge from President Bush’s January 2002 State of the Union speech was that “the war on terrorism has now also become a war on [the spread of] weapons of mass destruction.”5 Even before the recent intensification of crises with Iraq and North Korea, a new level of WMD-related posturing was evident in the wake of the September 11 attacks. Early in Operation Enduring Freedom, there was considerable concern that Al Qaeda forces in Afghanistan might have a nuclear weapon ready to deploy against American forces.6 U.S. troops operating on the ground in Afghanistan subsequently discovered materials suggesting Al Qaeda’s WMD ambitions. Meanwhile, as operations were proceeding in Afghanistan, instability in Pakistan precipitated calls for American forces to be prepared “should . . . Islamabad . . . lose control over its nuclear arsenal.”7 In his State of the Union address to the nation on 29 January 2002, Bush made it clear that the next phase of the War on Terror would focus on rogue state proliferators of WMD. Describing the new “axis of evil” doctrine, Bush left little doubt about the primary criterion for membership: “By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. . . . They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States.”8 The new strategy was further elaborated at a speech to West Point cadets in June. Warning against a world where “even weak states . . . could attain a catastrophic power to strike great nations,” Bush argued that preemption was imperative: “If we wait for threats to fully materialize, we will have waited too long. . . . Americans [must] . . . be ready for preemptive action when necessary.”9 These ideas were subsequently codified in major strategy documents produced by the Pentagon in September and December 2002.10 The first test case of the Bush administration’s signature doctrine has plainly been Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Iraq’s efforts to acquire WMD figured prominently in building the case for war. Despite the evidence for a plethora of banned WMD-related activities, detailed in the October 2003 Kay Report,11 the Bush administration has suffered embarassment from the fact that the Iraq Survey Group was unable to find any actual WMD. Many critics have taken issue with the administration’s doctrine of preemption, both in the abstract and in the particular case of Iraq. The very title of this book reflects a widespread critique that the Bush doctrine is one of preventive war rather than “preemption.”12 It has been argued that the doctrine is contrary to American ideals, that it violates both the Constitution and international law, that it will cause the wars it intends to prevent, that it will

Introduction

3

encourage other states to undertake aggressive acts, and that it will undermine international goodwill toward the United States, weakening alliances and threatening U.S. interests worldwide.13 Numerous analysts objected to war against Iraq, arguing that the risks of a devastating Iraqi counterattack using biological weapons were too great.14 Administration hawks, for example deputy secretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz, said they were cognizant of this possibility and ready to face it. In December 2002, Wolfowitz wrote, “Saddam Hussein might actually use his most terrible weapons. . . . War is risky, brutal and unpredictable; anyone who does not understand that should not be involved in military planning.”15 As the Bush administration went about amassing domestic and international support for its Iraq policy, and amid new and grave tensions in the Middle East generally, WMD threats became commonplace. In February 2002, a senior Iraqi official seemed to allude to Iraqi WMD capabilities when he suggested that the United States “would face ‘dreadful consequences’—worse than those of September 11—if it continued to ‘trample whole nations.’”16 Perhaps in response to the Iraqi assertion, the British defense secretary announced in mid-March that Britain “would be ready to make a nuclear strike against states such as Iraq if they used weapons of mass destruction against British forces.”17 Before beginning the war to remove Saddam, Washington announced that it would respond “with all our options” if WMD were used against its troops.18 However, recent WMD threats have not been restricted to the current Iraq crisis. “Iran warned Israel . . . not to consider attacking its nuclear power plant, saying it would retaliate in ways ‘unimaginable.’”19 Tehran is reported to be reinforcing the air defenses around its nuclear facilities.20 As the Iraq crisis neared a climax, and perhaps buoyed by favorable developments in South Korean politics, North Korea created a new crisis with a series of provocative gestures. Tensions increased after North Korean officials appear to have admitted to a clandestine nuclear weapons program when confronted with evidence by assistant secretary of state for Asia-Pacific affairs James Kelly in early October 2002. Despite the Bush administration’s eagerness to play down this new complication of its overall strategy, the North Korean leadership has continuously ratcheted up the pressure. In December 2002, Pyongyang sent IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) monitors home, dismantled monitoring cameras at key installations, and declared its intention to restart fuel reprocessing operations at its facility in Yongbyon. Like the Iraq crisis, the dilemma could once again be reduced to the question of whether a small proliferator can deter the United States with a nascent WMD arsenal. In this case, however, because Pyongyang is

4

Introduction

assessed to already have one or two nuclear weapons in its arsenal and perhaps the ability to manufacture many more within a short time, the question is that much more acute. Many analysts have concluded that the existing North Korean nuclear arsenal is sufficiently threatening to justify extreme caution on Washington’s part. Indeed, they interpret the very different policies pursued by the administration versus Iraq, on the one hand, and North Korea, on the other, as evidence of the leveling impact of even a couple of nuclear weapons. A senior official recently said to a reporter, for example, “You can strike before [they] get nukes . . . but not after.”21 Others have pointed out that the nuclear factor is less important than the fact that Seoul and the American “tripwire” force are well within range of North Korea’s voluminous artillery. Nevertheless, there is also a large community of expert commentators calling for the Bush administration to take a strong stand against Pyongyang, up to and including using force. Going against the grain of the administration’s conciliatory message, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld suggested that North Korea should not “feel emboldened. . . . We are perfectly capable of doing what is necessary.”22 Interestingly, some of the most hawkish voices to emerge during this latest Korean crisis come from the Democratic Party’s foreign policy elite. Senior Clinton administration officials Samuel Berger and Robert Galluci, for example, have written that tough terms going far beyond the former Agreed Framework in terms of inspections of nuclear facilities should be handed to Pyongyang, especially as a first step toward sanctions and possibly “more robust options.”23 Likewise, Leon Fuerth, a longtime foreign policy advisor to Al Gore, asserts that if a negotiated solution to stop the North Korean nuclear program fails, the administration must “prepare for a second major military enterprise in Korea—one that would take place simultaneously, or nearly so, with action against Iraq.”24 Indeed, a leading interpretation of present administration policy is that Washington simply “put action against Iraq first,” but left “North Korea in a queue.”25 The 2003 Iraq War and the ongoing crises with both Iran and North Korea are not exceptional. They do not, as some have complained, simply represent the triumph of neoconservative ideology in U.S. foreign policy. Rather, they are the hallmark of the present age. At the core of each conflict is whether reliance on the “absolute weapon” will allow the weak to successfully confront the strong. It is no exaggeration to assert that we might have been safer during the Cold War, when huge arsenals and hair-trigger alerts made war truly unthinkable. Today, there is no agreement among conflicting parties as to what constitutes the “unthinkable.” Grave instability results when radical power asymmetries are combined

Introduction

5

with WMD. As one expert on nuclear matters put it recently, “This is the most dangerous time since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.”26 Similarly, the Central Intelligence Agency has concluded that “the chance that a missile with a nuclear, chemical, or biological warhead will be used against U.S. forces or interests is greater today than during most of the Cold War.”27

asymmetric wmd rivalry in the post–cold war international system It is all too tempting to ascribe the current commotion about WMD proliferation to post–September 11 sensitivities. In fact, the disturbing outlines of the unstable effects of asymmetric WMD rivalry manifested themselves throughout U.S. defense and foreign policy during the 1990s. Given U.S. ascendance to the status of “hyperpower,” along with the increasing availability of technologies and the knowledge to exploit them, asymmetric WMD rivalry stands as the dominant conflict paradigm of our era. It is an unaltered structural circumstance of the post–Cold War world, simply exaggerated by September 11. In other words, WMD proliferation and the accompanying instability of this process are likely natural byproducts of unipolarity. Since the demise of the USSR, America is the only state with the capability to project overwhelming force into all corners of the globe. As if its military superiority weren’t already impressive enough, a technological revolution in military affairs appears to be further increasing this dominance. These capabilities are backed by unrivaled economic power and a cultural milieu that is uniquely dynamic and innovative. Moreover, America’s liberal ideology, tested and ultimately strengthened by the successful struggles against fascism and then communism, determines that its interests know practically no bounds. Thus, enhanced capabilities together with altered intentions have resulted in a steady increase in America’s propensity for military intervention: from the Persian Gulf to East Africa, from the Balkans to the Taiwan Straits, from Central Asia to the Korean Peninsula. But WMD proliferation is the fly in the ointment. Partly in the natural course of technological “progress,” partly as the result of former Soviet scientific expertise on sale for cheap, and partly as a reflection of frustration with American dominance, the genie has come out of the bottle. Indeed, many of the post–Cold War brushfires that America has confronted revolved around WMD proliferation.

6

Introduction

The Persian Gulf War (1990–91) was the first counterproliferation war. In this conflict, the United States faced off with an Iraq on the verge of nuclear capability and already in possession of chemical and biological weapons. Iraq’s developing nuclear capabilities appear to have been an essential motivating factor for U.S. leaders to confront Saddam Hussein sooner rather than later.28 Recent studies assert that Saddam’s biological weapons arsenal also may have influenced the Bush administration’s decision on war termination.29 Whether or not this was the case, there is ample evidence of risky behavior on both sides of this asymmetric conflict.30 The world came to the brink of a second counterproliferation war when the United States confronted North Korea’s nuclear aspirations during the spring and summer of 1994. The stakes were no less than in the present conflict with Pyongyang. There was widespread support for halting the North Korean program in its tracks. The relatively moderate Economist, for example, editorialized: “Faced with a chilling choice of risks—between a preemptive strike to cripple North Korea’s nuclear program and waiting until its tough talk is backed up by nuclear threats— America would . . . be right to strike first.”31 In secretary of defense Richard Perry’s recent narrative of the crisis, he reveals: “We knew that we were poised on the brink of a war that might involve weapons of mass destruction.”32 He further testifies that the carefully planned U.S. preemptive attack “without question would have achieved its objective.” Two further crises illustrate this trend. During the winter of 1995–96, Beijing appears to have made a nuclear threat related to the developing Taiwan crisis.33 While China certainly cannot be described as a rogue proliferator, its arsenal is still limited enough that certain unstable dynamics inherent to asymmetry could apply. Note that U.S. experts are unsure what role nuclear weapons might play in a United States–China conflict over Taiwan.34 Also in the spring of 1996, the United States entered into a showdown with Muammar Qaddafi over Libya’s chemical weapons complex at Tarhunah. After journeying to Egypt, a potential staging area for any attack on Libya, Perry bluntly warned Qaddafi in late April, “If necessary, the United States is fully prepared to take other, more drastic preventive measures.”35 Here again, war was narrowly averted by diplomacy. Recent revelations regarding Libya’s WMD activities suggest that chemical weapons, in addition to a nuclear weapons research effort, were only recently eliminated, as part of the “best nonproliferation deal ever made,” which was agreed to in 2003.36 Given this parade of WMD crises, it is not at all surprising that a Pentagon counterforce program, called the Counterproliferation Initiative

Introduction

7

(CPI), became a department priority during the Clinton administration. The CPI was founded in 1993 by Secretary of Defense Les Aspin, who observed: “[WMD] may still be the great equalizer; the problem is that the U.S. may now be the equalizee.”37 In addition to promoting active and passive defense measures, this initiative has supported research, for example, into improved sensors, and also specialized munitions—such as those that contain atmospheric dispersion.38 The CPI is only the natural response to asymmetric WMD rivalry. Indeed, well before either the September 11 attacks or the Bush doctrine of preemption, former Pentagon official Michelle Flournoy observed, “Nuclear proliferation will require U.S. decisionmakers to consider, for the first time in decades, a much broader range of military options [including] . . . preventive war, preemption, and defense.”39 Similarly, Barry Schneider wrote, “The enemy may only possess a half dozen or so of such weapons at the time of the conflict—few enough to neutralize.”40 These crises and the responses to these crises during the 1990s illustrate that asymmetric WMD rivalry is not a new condition. As relative U.S. power increased after the Cold War in conjunction with increasing WMD proliferation, this conflict paradigm emerged as the most important of the present era. Conflict between the great powers seems to be an increasingly remote possibility.41 After the September 11 attacks, terrorism is an important competing threat. However, it remains far from clear that WMD terrorism is truly feasible, especially if prudent precautionary steps are taken.42 By contrast, the post–Cold War world has witnessed repeated WMD proliferation crises, any one of which might have included the use of WMD, or at least attacks upon those weapons. Indeed, the second war against Saddam and the continuing crises with North Korea and Iran confirm this characteristic of the current international system. To use Les Aspin’s word, this book seeks to grapple with the question of to what extent the United States will now be the “equalizee.”

the existing literature A major result of the extensive academic debate on proliferation is the consensus that a much greater effort must be made to develop the empirical basis for discussion and subsequent theorizing. This is an effort to move the academic discussion away from the surreal discussions of deterrence that were the hallmark of strategic debate in the late Cold War, and toward the systematic study of rivalries in other strategic contexts, spe-

8

Introduction

cifically those characterized by asymmetry. Thus, Peter Feaver concludes, “A high priority for future research should be empirical inquiries into how established nuclear states have in fact interacted with . . . emerging proliferants.”43 Brad Roberts likewise suggests, “The last half century, like the present decade, offers a rich set of relationships among nuclear and quasi-nuclear states that deserve thoughtful reflection.”44 Some vital first steps in developing this empirical basis have been country- or rivalry-specific studies, such as those written by David Holloway on the Soviet atomic project, Avner Cohen on the Israeli program, or Devin Hagerty on nuclear rivalry in South Asia.45 A much-needed theoretical leap into comparative study was taken by Jorn Gjelstad and Olav Njolstad with their edited volume, Nuclear Rivalry and International Order.46 However, even this effort was quite limited, since it only used one axis of comparison: the contemporary South Asian rivalry with that of the Cold War superpowers. Thus, the work suffers from a commonly noted problem in proliferation studies: it is “too closely tied to a single empirical example [i.e., the United States–Soviet experience].”47 Editors Peter Lavoy, Scott Sagan, and James Wirtz have brought research on WMD proliferation to a qualitatively new level with their recent volume, Planning the Unthinkable: How New Powers Will Use Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Weapons.48 As may be expected, this extremely wide-ranging comparison yields important insights. For example, it highlights the diversity among different kinds of WMD, on the one hand, and among the likely employment doctrines of various states, on the other. An obvious shortcoming, however, which the editors themselves note, is the “severe lack of empirical information on proliferators’ plans and policies.”49 While the exercise proves extremely worthwhile, a study of contemporary WMD proliferators of this sort is necessarily limited primarily to speculation. This book is a useful companion to Planning the Unthinkable in at least two respects. First, in concentrating on rivalries that ended more than a decade ago, the project reaches for a higher empirical standard. For example, China was considered a rogue proliferator in the past, but it has since opened up to a considerable extent for researchers. It also has an impressive group of scholars working in the disciplines of history and international security. Insights from these scholars put this research about WMD rivalry on a firmer empirical footing. Moreover, it is only natural that we have better perspective on events once they are in the distant past and passions have cooled. These five deep historical case studies rely on field research conducted in four different countries. A second methodological problem with Planning the Unthinkable concerns the scheme of carving up the subject into chapter studies on each

Introduction

9

state. The problem with that approach is that state policies are portrayed in a vacuum. A superior method, especially for understanding WMD, is to focus on rivalries. This choice allows the richest possible understanding of the interactive processes, which are the very essence of strategy. To rectify these two problems, the bulk of this book is devoted to consideration of five asymmetric nuclear rivalries from history. To ensure its relevance to current policy questions, however, the penultimate chapter surveys seven contemporary rivalries. The Bush doctrine is thoroughly analyzed in Chapter 10.

findings The theoretical findings of this book are primarily relevant to an ongoing debate within the field of security studies. This debate pits “proliferation optimism,” which emphasizes the stabilizing benefits of WMD proliferation, against “proliferation pessimism,” which highlights the dangers of this ongoing process. While conceding to the optimists that “nuclear peace” can arise within roughly symmetric rivalries, this study finds that radically asymmetric nuclear rivalries show a strong tendency toward instability. In particular, superior states tend to see a “ticking clock” with respect to the inferior state’s WMD program, creating deep and pervasive fears about possible shifting balances of power, and a desire to fight sooner rather than later. Moreover, very small arsenals do not seem to have the stabilizing deterrent effects attributed to them by the optimists. Illustrating a strong intellectual current among academic strategists, one scholar recently noted, “[WMD] deterrence [by rogue states] is of increasing potency against the United States.”50 The findings of this study challenge the deterrent value of nascent WMD arsenals. These conclusions are drawn from the analysis of five deep case studies, which comprise the bulk of this book, and a further seven mini-cases. In almost every case, a familiar pattern manifests itself: a smaller power reaches for WMD, and crises develop as the larger power schemes to prevent the perceived shift in the balance of power. The basis for the instability is simply the incentive to strike first and to strike early. If the adversary’s WMD program can be stopped in its early phases, then the threat may not materialize at all. As Lawrence Freedman explains, “Preventive war advocacy was based on a historical shift in the military balance. Any moment before that shift had been completed would be favorable for a strike; any movement after completion would be unfavorable.”51 At

10

Introduction

some point, however, the WMD program does seem to cross a threshold, and stable deterrence may result. The argument between the optimists and pessimists is, in large measure, about where that threshold lies. Some cases included in this book, for example the Sino-Indian case (Chapter 6) and the late Cold War mini-case, demonstrate the opposite condition: roughly symmetric WMD rivalries that evince more stable relations. A passing glance at the data gathered here could plausibly yield the conclusion that WMD rivalries are actually stabilizing. Indeed, there is just one instance of an actual preventive strike (Chapter 7) resulting from the instability described. However, a much closer examination of these cases reveals a very dangerous pattern of instability. It might be routine for military establishments to prepare for the worst, creating war plans for all contingencies, but it is clear that a genuine crisis is taking place when heads of state themselves become involved in the war planning process—a rare and ominous development. There is ample evidence of instability—so defined—in the cases under consideration. If asymmetric WMD rivalries are plagued by instability, why has military action rarely resulted? Study of the cases suggests four countervailing factors—factors that work against first-strike incentives and may prevail in various circumstances. First, geography can inhibit aggressive action by the stronger power. This factor is evident in both the 1994 crisis and the present crisis between the United States and North Korea. Seoul is within range of artillery and other weapons, irrespective of Pyongyang’s nuclear capabilities, making a military solution much more difficult. A second factor concerns international norms—informal rules that govern state conduct in world politics. These norms are evident, for example, in the early Cold War, when President Harry Truman would brook no consideration of preventive war against the USSR, because he considered such policies to be contrary to the practices of democratic, peace-loving states. Another factor is the influence of third parties. When Kennedy contemplated striking China’s nascent nuclear forces in the 1960s, American diplomats were dispatched to get Khrushchev’s assent. The Soviet leader could not be convinced, however, dampening American enthusiasm for taking the initiative. Finally, the conventional balance is decisive in the calculations of the superior power. Just as Washington felt inhibited about striking Chinese nuclear facilities because it feared large-scale Chinese conventional intervention in the developing Vietnam War, so Moscow feared that its defenses in the east were inadequate against a determined Chinese conventional attack in 1969. More recently, North Korea’s large and well dug-in army appears to have been a significant restraint on the United States in the 1994 crisis, and perhaps today as well.

11

Introduction figure 1.1 The Basic Model

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Some reasonable objections can be made to the foregoing analysis. What is meant by instability? How will we recognize a war-threatening crisis? As explained in detail in Chapter 2, our interest is in why certain hostile relationships are particularly volatile. True, most of the cases examined in this study did not flare into war, but there is still value in differentiating highly volatile relationships from simple hostile relationships. For example, the United States currently has hostile relationships with the states of Belarus and Burma. However, such hostile relations are a far cry from the volatility that has plagued American relations with Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. The basic model (see Figure 1.1) that emerges from this research will not predict outbreaks of warfare so much as identify structural-material conditions of grave instability, within which the factors identified above, as well as other, exogenous factors (e.g., leadership personality, etc.) unique to each context, will determine the outcome. What constitutes evidence of crisis-ridden relations? After all, military establishments are always planning for the worst. Perhaps somewhere in the bowels of the Pentagon, one could also find contingency military plans for operations against Belarus, Burma, and others. However, the primary criterion for crises that is used in this research is high-level leaders reviewing war plans. Needless to say, senior leaders are exceptionally busy and therefore likely to consider the details of war plans only during times of crisis. Proliferation optimists have focused too narrowly on outcomes: preventive wars have been rare and nuclear weapons have not been used since World War II. But these theorists ignore history’s close calls at our peril. Indeed, it has been observed that theorists of international relations have great trouble predicting events, precisely because of a fail-

12

Introduction

ure to imagine alternative outcomes in analyzing historical events.52 The cases presented in this book illustrate a pattern of disturbingly dangerous interstate behavior. It is nevertheless important at this stage to point out that this book does not provide for definitive resolution of the debate about the role of nascent WMD arsenals in world politics. This study actualy does yield some limited evidence for proliferation optimists. Moreover, restricted access to archives and former leaders (especially abroad) renders the conclusions presented here as tentative. Nonetheless, the most fundamental finding of this broad comparative study is that policymakers and scholars must consider the inherently destabilizing short-term consequences of WMD proliferation. The conclusion is based on fieldwork in four countries, the extensive use of newly declassified U.S. documents, access to unique foreign secondary sources, and a survey of the “new” Cold War history. Beyond demonstrating the strength of the above thesis, this study aims to broaden and diversify the conversation about the consequences of proliferation for world order, and so contribute to the crafting of careful policies that might allow scholars to continue to ruminate on “nonevents.”

chapter two

Theories of Proliferation

Much proliferation research in the field of security studies examines the causes of nuclear proliferation.1 The focus of this study is rather on the strategic consequences of proliferation. In the Introduction, it was noted that scholars studying the consequences of proliferation have tended to cluster into two basic schools of thought: “optimists” and “pessimists.” This chapter develops the arguments of these contending perspectives and elaborates the methodology for this research.

nuclear weapons and stability The question of whether or not nuclear weapons helped to stabilize the Cold War continues to be debated in academia. John L. Gaddis cites nuclear weapons as the most important cause of the “long peace,” explaining, “Nuclear weapons, from the very beginning, gave rational people pause.”2 By contrast, John Mueller argues that nuclear weapons were much less important than economic modernization, which he asserts gave both sides incentives to avoid a costly war, whether nuclear or conventional.3 Gaddis, however, argues persuasively: “What else could have compelled such powerful states to learn so well the art of accommodation, even resignation to a situation each of them thought they could never accept?”4 Indeed, other explanations do not appear to be as widely accepted as that proposed by Gaddis.5 The most basic theory governing nuclear strategy to emerge from the Cold War is the concept of “mutually assured destruction” (MAD). The certainty that both belligerents will experience massive destruction if war erupts is said to endow leaders with extreme caution. Uncertainty about

14

Theories of Proliferation

the results of conflict, including wishful thinking about one’s own military prowess, is eliminated by the simplicity and ghastly nature of atomic weaponry. From Bernard Brodie’s “absolute weapon,” which was to be used not for fighting but for deterrence, to Thomas Schelling’s “threat that left something to chance,” to Robert Jervis’s elaboration of the implications of the “nuclear revolution,” theorists have asserted that MAD made war between nuclear states impossible.6 An important corollary to MAD theorizing held that each side should develop “second-strike” or invulnerable retaliatory forces, thus removing any temptation to strike first.7 Increasing numbers, in addition to such advanced basing modes as submarines and mobile truck- or rail-mounted launchers, were seen as buttressing MAD.8 In perhaps the most classic statement of MAD logic, former special assistant for national security McGeorge Bundy explains: Think tank analysts can set levels of “acceptable” damage well up into the tens of millions of lives. . . . In the real world of real political leaders—whether here or in the Soviet Union—a decision that would bring even one hydrogen bomb on one city of one’s own country would be recognized in advance as a catastrophic blunder.9

Theorists who felt MAD could create stability between the superpowers tended to support arms control measures and to oppose counterforce strategies and missile defenses that were viewed as destabilizing. Critics of MAD were disturbed, first because they reasoned that deterrence could fail, and second by the possibility that parity might confer on the Soviets certain bargaining advantages. This group of theorists was often described as “warfighters” or, somewhat facetiously, as Nuclear Utilization Theorists (NUTs). They were originally led by influential strategists such as Albert Wohlstetter and Herman Kahn of RAND. After contributing to an alternate basing strategy for the U.S. strategic bomber force,10 Wohlstetter helped pioneer “damage limitation” or counterforce strategies intended to secure American victory in a nuclear war if deterrence failed.11 Kahn developed a ladder of escalation, essentially “a rulebook for limiting and exploiting conflict,” and counseled that the United States should retain “escalation dominance” on all rungs of the ladder.12 Whereas MAD theorists tended to interpret pivotal events, such as the Cuban missile crisis, as confirmation of the theory’s prediction that both superpowers would behave cautiously in a crisis, the NUTs had a different interpretation. They tended to agree, for example, with Richard Betts’s rendering of the crisis: “The remarkable Soviet non-alert [in response to the American nuclear alert] was equivalent to a threatened dog rolling over belly-up.”13 Critics of MAD were also concerned by a

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condition dubbed the “stability/instability paradox,” which argued that the superpower arsenals effectively canceled one another out, making the world safe for conventional warfare.14 Such thinking heavily informed the Reagan defense buildup of nuclear and conventional arms, in addition to the return during the late Cold War to counterforce strategies and strategic defenses. It is not surprising that the same terminology and even a number of the same theorists from this older debate have resurfaced in the relatively recent debate between optimists and pessimists concerning the consequences of WMD proliferation. For example, Keith Payne, a participant in nuclear debates of the Reagan era, wrote recently: “Regional deterrence in the second nuclear age will be too unpredictable for us to assume its effectiveness. . . . U.S. leaders . . . will need to take seriously the potential for deterrence failure.”15

the consequences of proliferation: the optimists It is a credit to Kenneth Waltz’s foresight that he succeeded in launching a debate about the consequences of nuclear proliferation well before the end of the Cold War.16 Only during the 1990s, however, did this debate take center stage in security studies. This school of theorizing has been well represented in the most current debates concerning the Bush doctrine, and the 2003 Iraq War in particular; these articulations are documented in Chapter 10. Proliferation optimism draws from all the major traditions in international relations but most clearly emerges from neorealism. Neorealism’s assumption of states rationally seeking security amid anarchy allows the creation of a coherent theory regarding nuclear proliferation that is, in essence, an extension of MAD theorizing.17 Reflecting on the Cold War, Waltz notes, “We have enjoyed a half century of nuclear peace.”18 He argues that the stabilizing effects of nuclear weapons can be enjoyed by other states, including those in the developing world. Castigating the “ethnocentrism” of those who fear such a development, he writes: “Many Westerners write fearfully about a future in which Third World countries have nuclear weapons. They seem to view their people in the old imperial manner as ‘lesser breeds without the law.’”19 He does acknowledge possible dangers arising from the temptation for superior powers to strike small arsenals, but posits that “protecting small

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forces by hiding and moving them is quite easy, [so] the dangers evaporate,” because attackers will never be assured of 100 percent success.20 Waltz also contends that similar uncertainties will constrain new nuclear powers from engaging in conventional warfare, except where the stakes are very low.21 New nuclear states are unlikely to engage in aggression, so the argument goes, because nuclear weapons will infuse any leadership with a new sense of caution.22 Moreover, he argues that small nuclear states may enjoy greater credibility, since they will not be attempting “extended deterrence,” and also because “their vulnerability to conventional attack lends credence to their nuclear threats.”23 Waltz is confident that the logic of deterrence is so strong that even if it temporarily broke down, “a few detonations” would quickly bring leaders back to their senses.24 Accidents should not be of great concern for new proliferators, because these smaller arsenals will be much easier to safeguard than the huge arsenals of the superpowers.25 Finally, Waltz contends that history supports these conclusions. In a statement with special relevance to this comparative historical project, he observes: “Relations between the United States and the Soviet Union, and later among the United States, the Soviet Union, and China, were at their bitterest just when their nuclear forces were in early stages of development.”26 Waltz’s proliferation optimism has gained a large following in post– Cold War scholarship, at least among political scientists. Martin van Creveld, for example, agrees with Waltz that traditional Western views of the proliferation problem have an undercurrent of racism: “There seems to be no factual basis for the claims that regional leaders do not understand the nature and implications of nuclear weapons; or that their attitudes to those weapons are governed by some peculiar cultural biases which make them incapable of rational thought.”27 For Van Creveld, as for Waltz, history proves the point: “The proof . . . [is] that, to date, in every region where these weapons have been introduced, large-scale interstate warfare has disappeared.”28 Another scholar endorsing Waltz’s precepts is Thomas Preston. He wrote recently that the process of nuclear proliferation represents “a fundamental redistribution of power in the international system away from Great Power dominance—forever altering the traditional ‘power politics’ relationship between states first described by Thucydides.”29 Preston cites evidence from the Persian Gulf War in support of proliferation optimism: 1) the coalition air campaign had trouble finding and destroying Iraqi nuclear weapons infrastructure; 2) Iraq’s delivery systems, Scud missiles in particular, also proved relatively immune from attack; 3) U.S. missile defenses do not appear to have been very effective; and 4) U.S. leaders seem to have been very concerned about the possible Iraqi use of nonconventional weapons.30

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Seeking to give proliferation optimism a wider empirical basis, recent studies examine certain specific technical issues, or narrowly focus on a particular region or group of states. Jordan Seng, for example, explores the command-and-control advantages of new nuclear states. He contends that the organizational simplicity of nuclear forces in new nuclear states mitigates the problems of rigid standard operating procedures and accidental use.31 In addition, he maintains that, although hardening and highly sophisticated delivery systems may be out of reach, concealment is a wholly feasible strategy for new proliferators. South Asia has been a region of special interest to students of proliferation of late. Devin Hagerty’s study of nuclear interaction between India and Pakistan during the 1990s concludes that their behavior largely conforms to the expectations of the proliferation optimists. He explains, “Nuclear weapons states do not fight wars with one another.”32 Avery Goldstein’s historical survey of Chinese, French, and British nuclear weapons programs yields similar conclusions. Goldstein argues that small nuclear arsenals have been effective. He writes: “Nuclear-armed states do not need to convince a potential aggressor that retaliation is certain, or even likely, only that it is possible and, most importantly, that neither party can safely predict what the actual response will be.”33 He suggests that most analysts “exaggerate the dangers, and overlook the potential advantages, of a world with a slowly growing number of nuclear-armed states.”34 Realists, emphasizing balances of power and deterrence, dominate this literature on the whole, but liberals and constructivists have also argued that proliferation need not lead to catastrophe. Liberal theory holds that peace can be maintained through cooperation and the use of legal mechanisms. In the nuclear context, arms control, at least during the Cold War, became the focal point of attempts to regularize and codify superpower strategic interaction.35 Suggesting that this basic approach retains at least some viability, a survey of the possibilities for undertaking arms control with and between new nuclear states concludes: “No arms control measures will be useful unless the new nuclear state finds them to be in its own self-interest. Meeting this condition . . . may take years of diplomatic persuasion, overt pressure, or political evolution.”36 Some scholars even suggest that new proliferators should receive assistance to improve the safety, security, and survivability of their nascent arsenals.”37 Finally, constructivist theorizing suggests that the impact of proliferation might be mitigated by the existence of norms, especially those that have developed around the nonuse of WMD. According to this school of thought, strong nonuse norms that developed around WMD during the Cold War should carry over into the post–Cold War environment.38 Richard Price and Nina Tannenwald write, “[Norms] work because of

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conceptions of ‘who we are’—certain kinds of people just do or do not do certain things. . . . They can be such a taken-for-granted part of the ‘context’ that they are not consciously considered at all.”39 Such arguments, moreover, appear to have some resonance in contemporary policy debates, even among insiders. Thus, Fred Ikle, a former undersecretary of defense, writes, “The success of nuclear deterrence is an interpretation of recent history; non-use since 1945 is an indisputable historical fact. Deterrence is theoretical. Non-use is concrete and unambiguous.”40 Liberals and constructivists thus believe that arms control and norms may mitigate the impact of proliferation, whereas neorealists, by no means a marginal element among international relations theorists, argue that the spread of nuclear weapons may yield absolute benefits.

the consequences of proliferation: the pessimists American strategists and scholars have, on the whole, been inclined to take for granted that proliferation is destabilizing. Peter Feaver, a leading pessimist, explains an essential component of the theory’s logic: “The enemies of the proliferators . . . will face tremendous pressure to precipitate a war early in the development cycle so as to rid the region of the nuclear competitor before the arsenal is too far along.”41 This is the issue at hand in a recent Pentagon study that warns of “technical strategic instability” arising in U.S. confrontations with proliferators.42 Illustrative of this “commonsense” approach to proliferation, Gaddis asserts that the chance of nuclear weapons use is higher after the Cold War, simply because of “fools.”43 Pessimism about the strategic consequences of proliferation has been a staple of U.S. foreign policy since at least the Kennedy administration. When Waltz first published his controversial thesis in the early 1980s, therefore, his assertions did not go unchallenged. Bruce Russet, for example, wrote at that time, “Nonoccurrence [of nuclear war] is not proof of the . . . truth [of proliferation optimism].” He also observed that the Israeli strike against Osirak posed a clear challenge to the optimists’ argument. With the end of the Cold War, however, interest in proliferation has vastly increased, prompting each school of international relations theory to articulate a form of proliferation pessimism. Scott Sagan leads one branch of pessimist theorizing. His use of organization theory, in particular his focus on civil-military relations, suggests

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that pessimist theorizing springs from the liberal tradition, looking to the internal composition of states to explain their foreign policy behavior. Sagan’s research concludes that the “common biases, inflexible routines, and parochial interests” of professional military organizations are such that military officers are likely to favor preventive war, pay insufficient attention to survivability, and suffer from the myopic effects of large and extremely hierarchical organizations where safety is concerned. He presents impressive details from the American case. Thus, he shows that U.S. military officers consistently put forward proposals for preventive war against the USSR during the 1950s but were overruled by civilian superiors.44 In addition, he demonstrates that each leg of the U.S. strategic triad required substantial civilian intervention in order to establish fully survivable weapons platforms and doctrines.45 The analysis also contains a frightening list of near accidents and command-and-control irregularities.46 Sagan concludes that if the United States, which is thought to have comparatively stable and effective civil-military relations, exhibited so much dangerous behavior regarding nuclear weapons during the early Cold War, states in the developing world possessing less stable civil-military relations may experience more unfortunate outcomes. A second and more common strand of pessimism questions the rationality assumption at the heart of neorealist theorizing. As such, this critique could be described as deriving from the nexus of constructivism and “classical realism.” The constructivist perspective holds that various cultures and ideologies may encourage choices that are simply incomprehensible within our own frames of rationality.47 Thus, it has been observed that “deterrence is like a cold shower on passion . . . [but] some passions are unquenchable.”48 The older realists have always recognized the significant role of irrationality in state behavior.49 Writing in this tradition, Mark Clark observes: It is . . . [not] useful to compare the aggregated behavior of millions of consumers with the behavior of tens of countries. . . . Not enough of a pattern can emerge from so few participants. Moreover, even if a market like pattern did emerge, a few bad decisions would still be made, as they are made in the market. The difference is that in the context of nuclear proliferation even a few bad choices have devastating consequences.50

These pessimists make little effort to hide their subjective disposition toward new proliferators. Michael Mandelbaum, for instance, describes such states as Israel and Pakistan as “orphans,” whose nuclear arsenals ultimately can be tolerated. A “rogue” state, by contrast, is one for which the United States cannot tolerate acquisition of nuclear weapons.51 Working in this tradition, William Martel concludes, “The conse-

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quence of understanding deterrence as a particularistic construct [versus a universal one] is to call into doubt the ability of nuclear-armed societies to control events before crises spiral out of control.”52 According to Keith Payne, the problem is not that leaders of proliferator states may not be “rational,” defined narrowly as possessing the ability to maximize their values by using information to evaluate options and prioritize. It is rather that they may not be “sensible”: they do not behave in ways understandable to the observer.53 New evidence from the study of the Cuban missile crisis illustrates how leaders could “rationally” opt for nuclear war. Viewing war with the United States as inevitable, Fidel Castro apparently “believed that he faced a stark choice between annihilation with dignity, and annihilation with ignominy.”54 He and his subordinates not only talked but took concrete steps—such as ordering that U.S. reconnaissance planes be fired upon—toward choosing nuclear war over compromise. Pessimists are concerned that in the post–Cold War world, leaders may behave more like Castro than like Kennedy or Khrushchev. But in probing the Cuban missile crisis for lessons relevant to contemporary proliferation crises, we are merely scratching the surface of our nuclear history.

a research agenda Out of the spirited exchange between proliferation optimists and pessimists, a serious research agenda has developed. A number of scholars have noted, in particular, the need to enlarge the empirical base upon which the debate is organized. According to Peter Feaver, “A high priority for future research should be empirical inquiries into how established nuclear states have in fact interacted with . . . emerging proliferants.”55 Brad Roberts likewise suggests, “The last half century, like the present decade, offers a rich set of relationships among nuclear and quasi-nuclear states that deserve thoughtful reflection.”56 There is a need for broad comparative analyses. Jorn Gjelstad and Olav Njolstad have taken the first step in this direction with their recent edited volume, Nuclear Rivalry and International Order.57 But even in this volume, the study is restricted to a single axis of comparison: the superpowers during the Cold War and the contemporary rivalry in South Asia. Comparisons of greater scope are not only plausible but vital to a sophisticated treatment of the issue.

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The study of nuclear weapons policy and strategy in political science is rightly described as “methodologically challenged.” This is so for two obvious reasons. First, credible information is extremely sparse. The United States, which is, among overt nuclear states, perhaps most open about its nuclear policies, is only now declassifying materials from the late 1960s. Researchers, therefore, must either restrict projects to examining the very distant past or rely largely on unverifiable whisperings. Moreover, bluffing and deliberate obfuscation play an inordinately large role in the realm of politics.58 A second problem concerns the available data. Of course, the discussion revolves thankfully almost entirely around nonevents. Moreover, these nonevents or crises are relatively scarce, as are the number of states that possess nuclear capabilities. Large-N statistical analyses, therefore, are implausible. Some of these methodological barriers regarding research on nuclear policies appear to be insurmountable, necessarily rendering conclusions tenuous. Even so, few if any have suggested that scholars should cease meditation on these issues. This study employs the method of comparative historical case study. Two sets of case analyses are developed. The first is composed of historical cases. This set of cases is expected to yield relatively detailed and credible results because the events occurred long ago (no less than a decade) and hostilities, or at least international alignments, have substantially changed, allowing for relatively frank discussion and open research. The historical cases are: 1) United States and Soviet Union in the early Cold War 2) United States and China in the 1960s 3) Soviet Union and China in the 1960s 4) China and India in the 1970s and 1980s 5) Israel and Iraq in the 1970s and 1980s

These in-depth chapter-length analyses are the primary data on which the conclusions are based. However, a group of shorter mini-cases is used to increase variation and to introduce additional hypotheses. They are: 1) United States and Soviet Union in the late Cold War 2) Soviet Union and China in the 1970s and 1980s 3) United States and Iraq in the 1990s 4) United States and North Korea in the 1990s 5) United States and Libya in the 1990s 6) United States and China in the 1990s 7) India and Pakistan in the 1990s

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Certain current events, including the recent war to topple Saddam Hussein and the ongoing crises with North Korea and Iran, are clearly relevant to this study. These cases are treated in Chapter 10, which is a broader evaluation of the emerging Bush doctrine. Independent and Dependent Variables The independent variable of interest in this study can be termed nuclear asymmetry. Here, I refer to imbalances in the quantity and quality of nuclear arsenals between two given countries. However, such a crude ratio lacks sufficient nuance for the concept I wish to convey. Rather, the preferred interpretation refers to a gap between the respective nuclear weapons “complexes.” A nuclear weapons complex is made up of a variety of components, in addition to the weapons themselves, that must also be accounted for, such as research infrastructure, early warning radar, satellites, and delivery platforms. Moreover, I include in this term capabilities (possibly non-nuclear) for targeting elements of the adversary’s nuclear complex. Nor should these capabilities be viewed as a simple function of technology. Superbly trained and motivated pilots, after all, may be key to a successful counterproliferation strike. In some cases, asymmetries will be described as radical or nonradical. This is meant to carefully distinguish wide gaps from the ordinary disparities in capabilities that exist to some degree among all states at all times. Because I am referring to a complex of capabilities and disparities are obvious in the given cases, there is no need to incorporate quantification into the definition. In adopting this broad notion of nuclear asymmetry, the study follows Preston’s recent work. He warns of “the common trap of Cold War security studies of engaging in irrelevant ‘bean counting’ of missile numbers to define the power or likely strategies of nations. . . . [T]he more useful concept involves a more complex mixture of capabilities which comprise a nation’s nuclear force structure.”59 Stability has served as the dependent variable for some of the most classic works in the field.60 A common definition of stability has used the eruption of major war—a conflict that involves the major powers and threatens the survival of various belligerents—as a primary indicator. However, I submit that such a strict war/no-war coding for instability, clear as it might be, has the unsatisfying effect of requiring us to accept that “a man who walked an icy tightrope between two skyscrapers was in a stable situation simply because he made it across.”61 For the purposes of this study, dyadic relationships are classified as unstable if they exhibit any of the following behaviors: a) specific WMD-related articulated

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threats; b) leaders reviewing strategic-level war plans; c) the mobilization of strike (high-tech, highly mobile) forces; and, of course, d) execution of strategic-level attacks. I contrast this type of relationship with those that are hostile but nonetheless do not stand on the brink of war. Such hostile but not fundamentally unstable relationships are demonstrated by any of the following: a) the existence of a territorial dispute; b) hostile statements; c) border skirmishing; and even d) mobilization of defensive (lowtech with limited mobility) forces. Near Misses and Counterfactuals Weapons of mass destruction as a subfield of study represent such an obvious problem for research that King, Keohane, and Verba make a point of noting the importance of methodological creativity in this particular subfield. Regarding the study of nuclear weapons, they point out that no nuclear war has ever occurred, creating a problematic uniformity in the probable dependent variable of interest. In this case, it is recommended in Designing Social Inquiry that researchers examine as a dependent variable not incidents of nuclear war, but rather “severe threats of all-out war.”62 In this study, the dependent variable is also tweaked in the hope of yielding theoretically significant findings. Thus, instead of examining a war/no-war dichotomy for the dependent variable, I will employ a stable/ unstable dichotomy. The underlying methodological assumption here is that once systematic (nonrandom) factors bring a dyad to a point of fundamental instability, then nonsystematic (random) factors, such as personalities and accidents, may be sufficient to cause wars. Therefore, the study draws attention to numerous “close calls,”—situations that teetered on the brink of war but did not cross over the threshold. An important and relatively recent study that similarly examines a limited number of near misses is Christopher Layne’s “Kant or Cant: The Myth of the Democratic Peace,” which appeared in International Security in 1994. In this piece, Layne argues that democratic peace theorists, who emphasize the paucity of wars between democracies, have set the threshold for evidence “too low.”63 If democratic peace theory is robust, then its causal mechanisms should be evident in crises that occur between democracies. In the four “near misses” presented, Layne argues that these causal mechanisms do not function according to the precepts of democratic peace theory, and moreover, that realist precepts, such as the balance of power, better explain each outcome. Layne’s conclusions are persuasive precisely because he demonstrates a strong empirical grasp of the cases, such that even a nomothetically inclined critic concedes, “Pro-

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cess-tracing and decision-making can be enlightening, and not enough of it has been done on this topic.”64 At the heart of Layne’s methodology is counterfactual reasoning. In emphasizing factors unrelated to democratic peace theorizing, he is implicitly arguing that if history could be run over again without a given causal factor, democratic peace mechanisms would be insufficient to keep the peace. Philip Tetlock and Aaron Belkin have recently suggested, “Conterfactual reasoning is a prerequisite for any form of learning from history.”65 Belkin and Tetlock note that ideal experimental methods “in which we can manipulate hypothesized causes and then either hold everything else constant or randomize extraneous influences across treatment conditions . . . [are] obviously out of the question for most questions in world politics.”66 This study will make extensive use of counterfactual reasoning, considering why a number of near misses did not result in military conflicts, specifying in each case what different combinations of factors might have increased the likelihood of war. Case Selection My aim has been to examine the universe of hostile asymmetric nuclear dyads. It is hoped that the five in-depth cases, which span five continents and forty years, provide sufficient diversity of time and space to mitigate omitted variable bias, which could result from a distinct strategic culture, for example. The eight mini-cases lend additional support by allowing still more extensive variation among the variables, and also by demonstrating the model’s policy relevance to the contemporary international system. I adopt the comparative method with an awareness of previous methodological missteps in this particular subfield. John Gaddis recently appraised the voluminous literature on the Cuban missile crisis as follows: “No episode in the history of international relations has received such microscopic scrutiny. . . . Theorists have generalized exuberantly from this single specific event.”67 The decision to study some cases in depth and others in a more cursory manner reflects the researcher’s inevitably finite resources. Cases in the more distant past were selected for in-depth study not only because they are more likely to be relatively “data rich,” but also because it is hoped that the passage of time has imbued observers with greater objectivity.68 Questions about sensitive security issues, for example in the longdormant Sino-Soviet conflict, are more likely to be answered objectively than those concerning the more contemporary Indo-Pakistani conflict,

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where observers might be swayed by the “heat of the moment.” Similar reservations about treating contemporary cases are behind the decision to restrict discussion of the Bush doctrine, for the most part, to the final chapter of this book. Cases were also chosen to introduce variation on both the independent variable (nuclear asymmetry) and the dependent variable (stability). The Sino-Indian dyad (an in-depth case), the Indo-Pakistani dyad, and the contemporary U.S.-China dyad (both mini-cases) all differ from the other studied cases. While they do exhibit certain clear asymmetries, these asymmetries are less pronounced than in the other cases. The asymmetries are not “radical,” and therefore there is some variation on the independent variable. Two additional mini-cases ensure variation on the dependent variable. Following the injunction of Designing Social Inquiry to increase observations by “looking across time,” two in-depth cases are extended to look beyond the obvious periods of instability.69 Indeed, both the U.S.-Soviet dyad and the Sino-Soviet dyad did evolve toward more stable relationships. Attempts will be made to reconcile these periods of later stability with the given theory, thus ensuring variation on the dependent variable. While my goal has been to examine a universe of hostile, asymmetric nuclear dyads, this study nevertheless excludes dyads that would seem to add little leverage to the investigation. Beginning with the most obvious exclusions, little would be gained from studying friendly dyads, such as the United States versus the United Kingdom or the Soviet Union versus India. Other dyads simply evince such a low level of hostility to begin with—for example, China versus Israel, or the United States versus India, Brazil, or Argentina—that they do not appear to be worthwhile tests of the posited hypothesis.70 More contentious may be the decision to exclude, as a group, Soviet interaction with Britain, France, Israel, and South Africa. While these interactions appear superficially similar in that they were all hostile and involved nuclear asymmetries, I contend that the U.S. security guarantee, formal in the case of Britain and implicit in the case of France and Israel, was sufficiently strong to forestall any destabilizing consequences of nuclear proliferation for the relations of these countries with the USSR. This is not to imply that the “alliance factor” has been deliberately excised from this study. On the contrary, this factor does figure prominently in several of the chosen case studies. However, in the above cases, it appears to be so obvious and overwhelming as to undermine the justification for further study of these dyads. As these dyads appear to be primarily governed by alliance dynamics, their exclusion is additionally justified by my effort “to select cases that resemble current situations of policy concern.”71 Indeed, a striking feature of the post–

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Cold War world is that proliferators are not protected by alliances. Geography is also obviously an important factor in determining the stability of hostile asymmetric nuclear dyads. It is true that relations between the Soviet Union and South Africa were hostile, but a simple glance at a map reveals why Moscow would not regard proliferation in South Africa as a first-order threat to its security. Geography is accorded its due importance in both the cases and in the basic model. Descriptive Value A further goal of this research project concerns the presentation of newly available data. In conducting extensive field research and, where possible, engaging new archival sources, I have tried to research “with the energy and imagination to go beyond the use of canned data banks.”72 This research has yielded significant new data, especially regarding long understudied cases, such as the Sino-Soviet and Sino-Indian cases. With the exceptions of the superpower rivalry and perhaps the IndoPakistani rivalry, nuclear relationships are rarely studied as dyads. A more traditional approach in security studies has been the thick description of individual weapons programs.73 These studies are valuable, but they are also incomplete, because they lack the close attention to strategic interaction that is one of the most important and unique characteristics of international relations. The dyadic approach, presented here as a systematic comparison of the vital cases through time and space, fills an important gap in the literature, and aims to become a reference for future scholars. Turning to the first deep case on the early Cold War, the fruits of newly available source material, especially as unearthed in path-breaking post–Cold War narratives by scholars such as David Holloway, afford us a much better understanding of these events. There is no better place to start understanding the fears and temptations associated with the process of nuclear proliferation than those dark days in Washington during the late 1940s.

chapter three

Case 1: The Early Cold War

This chapter is built on the premise that study of the early Cold War relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union is relevant to considering the dynamics of WMD proliferation today. The value of this analogy has been recognized more and more of late.1 In both situations, the proliferation process created acute fears about shifting balances of power. Indeed, such fears dominated the strategic debate in the United States for more than two decades during the early Cold War. Certainly, substantial differences between the early Cold War period and contemporary strategic dilemmas of WMD proliferation are evident, most obviously the scope of the Soviet threat and the USSR’s substantial non-nuclear strengths, but these differences do not undermine the worth of searching out lessons from this troubled era. In fact, the wealth of vital historical data that has emerged over the past two decades suggests that such a discussion may be particularly worthwhile. Numerous studies, largely undertaken in the 1980s, give us a nearly complete record of U.S. nuclear policy. While substantial gaps remain in our understanding of Soviet nuclear policy, our empirical footing improved substantially in the 1990s. However, few attempts have been made to systematically apply lessons from this period to contemporary strategic dilemmas. This chapter is organized into five sections. First, I summarize newly available data on shifts, real and imagined, in the nuclear balance over the period 1945–62. Second, I demonstrate that preventive and preemptive war strategies were a characteristic feature of this period. Third, I attempt to explain why these strategies ultimately did not lead to war between the superpowers. After a concluding summary of the case, I examine, for comparative purposes, a mini-case that sheds light on the relative stability of the late cold war.

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the dynamic strategic balance The Truman Administration Although the United States and the Soviet Union maintained relatively benign postures in the years immediately following World War II, the occurrence of two serious crises at roughly the same time that the Soviets crossed the atomic threshold created fear and distrust that would sustain forty years of cold war. The debut of nuclear weapons in global politics played no small role in this process.2 As early as President Truman’s very first briefing on the atomic bomb, just nine days after assuming the presidency, he was informed by Secretary of Defense Henry L. Stimson and the leader of the Manhattan Project, General Leslie Groves, that “while the U.S. would retain a monopoly of this new weapon for some years, [this] position could not be maintained indefinitely.” In the same briefing, he was warned that in the distant future an adversary might employ atomic weapons against the United States in a surprise attack of “devastating power.”3 After opting to use atomic bombs against Japan, Truman evinced a clear ambivalence toward nuclear weapons. This ambivalence was reflected in two policies of the immediate postwar period. First, Truman did not immediately see any need for accelerated atomic bomb production. Thus, at the end of 1945, the United States possessed an arsenal of only two weapons and, in mid-1947, just thirteen.4 Second, he went to extraordinary lengths to limit military control over the new technology, stating: “You have got to understand that this isn’t a military weapon.”5 The president denied the Pentagon access to information on the strength of the U.S. atomic arsenal, severely limiting contingency war planning.6 John L. Gaddis even concludes that Soviet intelligence was better informed about the U.S. nuclear arsenal at this time than were America’s top military officers.7 When the first major crisis of the Cold War erupted, over access to Berlin, the United States lacked sufficient atomic bombs, bombers configured to carry atomic weapons, and plans for executing such a war. These shortfalls did not inhibit Truman from rattling the nuclear saber, which he did in July 1948 by sending sixty B-29s that were rumored to be nuclear-capable to Britain. It remains unclear to what extent this saber-rattling caused Stalin to halt the blockade, but some new histories actually identify the American nuclear monopoly as an important cause of the crisis. David Holloway writes of Stalin’s diplomacy at this time: “It was crucial . . . to show that the Soviet Union was tough, that it could not be frightened. This sometimes involved putting pressure on the West.”8

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Naturally, the crisis raised grave new concerns about Soviet intentions and capabilities. The newly created Central Intelligence Agency made the first of many reports concerning potential Soviet nuclear capabilities. This report, submitted to Truman in July 1948, said that a Soviet test was possible as early as mid-1950, but more likely in mid-1953.9 This estimate was an important reversal of a 1944 estimate by General Groves that stated that, owing to backward science and technology, it would take twenty years for the Soviets to develop nuclear weapons.10 The later CIA estimate, however, did not succeed in cushioning the shock to the American military establishment of the first Soviet nuclear test, on 29 August 1949.11 Indeed, some important quarters of that establishment stubbornly refused to recognize that the USSR had crossed the nuclear threshold, even years after the actual first test, doubting that “any other nation, especially the Soviet Union, had the collective brains and know-how.”12 Despite open and secret assertions by Soviet leaders playing down the military significance of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Stalin swiftly made the Soviet atomic program, under the scientific direction of Igor Kurchatov, the nation’s highest priority.13 Stalin commented to Kurchatov shortly after Hiroshima, “Hiroshima has shaken the whole world. The balance has been destroyed. . . . Ask for whatever you like. You won’t be refused.”14 After succeeding in creating a nuclear chain reaction in December 1946, Kurchatov’s team made swift progress, in no small part thanks to intelligence supplied by a senior German émigré scientist on the Manhattan Project, Klaus Fuchs. The importance of this contribution is affirmed in recent Russian accounts.15 Though the foundations were already being laid in 1947 for an extensive rocket program and even nuclear warheads, the Soviets focused during this period on developing a force of strategic bombers for delivering its atomic weapons. Benefiting from the diverted landings of three American B-29 Superfortresses to the Soviet Far East during 1944, Stalin ordered his aircraft designers to copy the American planes down to the internal paint scheme.16 Although the 1,700-mile range of the Soviet B29, christened the Tu-4, limited its round-trip attack radius to overseas U.S. bases, the bomber could theoretically attack most U.S. targets if it made a one-way trip, and it could be refueled in flight.17 As fanciful as this scenario might sound, recent Russian historical narratives document that part of the Tu-4 fleet was modified for aerial refueling operations.18 Planning the Tu-4 as delivery vehicle, the Soviet bomb designers were instructed to build a bomb that was no more than 1.5 meters in diameter and 3.3 meters in length.19 Reactivni Dvigatel Stalina (Stalin’s Jet Engine) or RDS-1, as the Soviets referred to the prototype weapon, was detonated at Semipatalinsk in Kazakhstan on 29 August 1949.20 A recent

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Russian narrative of the bomb’s development observes, “We needed [the bomb] like we needed air and water.”21 Stalin immediately authorized serial production of five copies of the RDS-1. However, these were apparently stored at Arzamaz-16 and not distributed to military units.22 A recent Russian source claims that one of these copies fizzled during a 1950 test.23 Not wanting to clarify the state of the nuclear balance in 1949, the Soviets declined to formally announce their August test, admitting only in response to Truman’s announcement of the detection of a Soviet test that Moscow had cracked the atomic secret in 1947 and that large explosions were carried out periodically for the purposes of economic development. As the new Russian official history concedes, the Soviet statement was intended for the purpose of obfuscation.24 Detection of the first Soviet nuclear test, followed less than a year later by the eruption of the war in Korea, prompted the United States to begin preparing in earnest for global war. Less than a month after the Soviet test, Truman increased the pace of U.S. nuclear weapons production.25 In January 1950, the president announced that the United States would build a hydrogen bomb, and also authorized a sweeping review of U.S. foreign and defense policy in light of the Soviet nuclear capability. This study, now known as NSC-68, was completed in April. NSC-68 projected Soviet nuclear capabilities as follows: 10–20 by mid-1950, 25–45 by mid-1951, 45–90 by mid-1952, 70–135 by mid-1953, and perhaps 200 by mid-1954.26 Accepting that 50 percent of Soviet bombs might be delivered on target, NSC-68 concluded that 1954 was a critical date, because “the delivery of 100 atomic bombs on targets in the U.S. would seriously damage this country.”27 The influential report called for a massive U.S. buildup to meet the Soviet threat. The significance of NSC-68 was no doubt exaggerated by the beginning of hostilities in Korea just two months later. For many in the U.S. government, the war confirmed the grave fears raised in NSC-68 regarding Soviet intentions. At the beginning of the conflict, the United States possessed 298 atomic weapons, while the Soviets appear to have had only a handful, and moreover, they had not yet succeeded in dropping an atomic bomb from a bomber. Truman seems to have considered employing nuclear weapons at three different points during the Korean War. At the very first meeting about the war, on the evening of 25 June, Truman authorized the military to plan nuclear operations against Soviet targets if they intervened in Korea.28 He also opted to repeat the “Berlin tactic” at the beginning of the war, publicly dispatching nuclear-capable bombers to Guam as American troops were pressed into the Pusan perimeter.29 When the Chinese intervened in November 1950, the president’s public

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assertion that nuclear weapons were under consideration caused an anxious British prime minister Clement Atlee to visit Washington seeking assurances that no rash actions would be taken. Finally, nuclear-capable bombers and, for the first time, complete atomic weapons, were shipped to Guam in the spring of 1951 on the eve of a large Chinese offensive.30 At the close of the Truman administration, U.S. strategists could point to a number of disturbing developments and trends. First, the United States was bogged down in a costly war against China, which left Moscow free to prepare for the possibly larger conflict to come. Second, and even more ominously, the Soviets had tested an air-dropped 50-kiloton nuclear weapon in October 1951, were producing and fielding hundreds of Tu-4s, and had tested a new Soviet strategic bomber—the Tu-85, which effectively doubled the range of the Tu-4.31 While today’s estimates place the Soviet arsenal at less than fifty weapons during this period, the CIA reported in November 1952 that the USSR likely possessed fifty to two hundred nuclear weapons.32 The only light on the strategic horizon, from the American perspective, was the ongoing U.S. thermonuclear program, which yielded a 10-megaton American test in November 1952, and the fact that the United States was now entering an “era of nuclear plenty,” thanks to successive decisions by Truman to ramp up production of nuclear materials. In late 1952, the United States possessed 832 nuclear weapons.33 The Eisenhower Administration When Eisenhower entered office in January 1953, the new president had to grapple not only with a growing Soviet strategic threat, but also with spiraling U.S. defense expenditures that he viewed as a threat to the American way of life.34 Foremost in his mind, however, was the immediate problem of fulfilling his pledge to end the Korean War. Declassified documents reveal that Eisenhower was contemplating nuclear escalation of the Korean War in early 1953 in order to secure an armistice. Thus, at an 11 February meeting of the NSC, he expressed the view that “we should consider the use of tactical atomic weapons on the Kaesong area, which provided a good target for this type of weapon,” adding that “we could not go on the way we were indefinitely.”35 Similarly, at the 6 May meeting, he explained that he “had reached the point of being convinced that we have to consider the atomic bomb as simply another weapon in our arsenal.”36 Despite some misgivings (which will be addressed subsequently), Eisenhower recognized that General Mark Clark’s Operations Plan 8-52, which called for extensive strategic

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and tactical use of nuclear weapons and tentatively scheduled it for May 1954, was “most likely to achieve the objective we sought,” if an armistice was not forthcoming.37 It is far from clear that this planning effort is what finally secured the armistice in July, but subsequent follow-up discussions also indicate Eisenhower’s openness to nuclear use. Richard Betts concludes, “Eisenhower’s . . . role as reflected in official records belies the notion that he was a nuclear dove.”38 The next great crises of the Cold War also developed in East Asia. As Dien Bien Phu was falling to the Vietminh, the NSC considered using nuclear weapons to break the siege, perhaps even by offering the French two nuclear weapons.39 These options were eventually rejected, but declassified documents reveal a willingness on the administration’s part to contemplate the employment of such weapons to defend the offshore islands still held by the Chinese Nationalists. According to historian Gordon Chang, Eisenhower “actually brought the country to the ‘nuclear brink,’ far closer to war than a distraught public feared in 1955, closer than Eisenhower acknowledged in his own memoirs, and closer than most historians have heretofore even suspected.”40 While the administration clearly hoped to intimidate the Chinese Communists, declassified transcripts of the relevant meetings show few inhibitions on the part of U.S. leaders about employing nuclear weapons. For example, at an NSC meeting on 11 March 1955, secretary of state John Foster Dulles, making it clear that he had the support of the president on this issue, explained that “much more public relations work had yet to be done if the U.S. was to use atomic weapons within the next month or two.”41 Betts concludes, “[U.S] nuclear strikes were discussed as a disagreeable last resort, but not as a phony diplomatic ploy.”42 These crises of the early Eisenhower administration took place against continuing shifts in the nuclear balance. While the U.S. Strategic Air Command was refining its capabilities under General Curtis LeMay, especially after the deployment of the first B-52s in mid-1955, U.S. leaders were most disturbed by the USSR’s crossing of the thermonuclear threshold and what appeared to be impressive gains in Soviet strategic aviation. American officials were not terribly intimidated when Soviet claims to have built a thermonuclear weapon were followed by a 400-kiloton test in August 1953, although the Soviet design was much more deliverable than the 10-megaton “Mike” bomb that the United States had exploded in late 1952. Employing lithium, the Soviet hydrogen bomb did not have to be refrigerated and could therefore be delivered by variants of existing systems.43 A 1.6-megaton test at Semipatalinsk in November 1955 showed, however, that the Soviets had irrefutably crossed the thermonuclear boundary.

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These developments were paralleled by the appearance in 1953 of the Soviets’ first long-range jet bomber, the M-4 Molot (Hammer), or—in NATO terminology—Bison. Western intelligence agencies did not expect full production of the M-4 to begin until 1956, so when two dozen Bisons flew over Western military attachés attending a Soviet air show in mid-1955, this helped fuel a reappraisal of Soviet strategic aviation. In fact, this was a Soviet ruse performed by the only ten aircraft that had, in fact, been built.44 As Fred Kaplan observes, “The intelligence estimates for what the Soviets would have a few years hence began to explode.”45 A 1954 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) projected that the USSR would possess far in excess of five hundred heavy bombers (in addition to the large fleet of Tu-4s). This estimate was subsequently revised downward, but the 1957 NIE still projected four hundred to six hundred heavy bombers in the Soviet inventory by 1960.46 The actual number of Soviet heavy bombers in 1960 was less than one hundred.47 The perception of a “bomber gap” largely resulted from the tendency to “mirror-image,” or project American strategic goals and means onto Soviet behavior. In fact, Soviet strategists appear to have questioned the wisdom of large investments in strategic aviation as early as 1951. According to Zaloga, the decisive use in Korea of jet fighters (the Mig-15) against the propeller-driven B-29s during April and May of 1951 convinced Soviet leaders that unescorted Soviet propeller-driven bombers would never reach North American targets.48 When the M-4 Molot (Bison) jet bomber proved disappointing in terms of range and performance, the Soviets turned with great determination to rocketry. The Soviets progressed more quickly in this realm than the Americans, because of the strategic imperatives and also because they lacked an influential bureaucracy to consistently divert resources toward manned aviation. By March 1953, the Soviets were beginning to integrate units firing the R-1, an exact replica of the German V-2, into Red Army artillery units.49 A much more revolutionary weapon, however, was the 1,200-kilometer-range R-5, which underwent testing in 1953 and was first deployed in 1955. A variant of this missile, the R-5M, was the first to carry a nuclear warhead. A live test of this system, Operation Baikal, was carried out in February 1956, and serial production of the nuclear variant began shortly afterward.50 Tensions during 1958–59 caused the Soviet high command to move some R-5s into East Germany, and to put others on a dispersed alert. This first exercise fielding mobile nuclear missile units does not appear to have gone particularly smoothly.51 These missiles threatened targets primarily in Western Europe. More disturbing from the American standpoint were developments in Soviet submarine-mounted nuclear delivery systems. By 1957, the Soviets had deployed three Whiskey-class submarines that

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could fire P-5 cruise missiles, and the U.S. Navy had spotted a new Soviet submarine with an enlarged sail, which they correctly deduced was for the purpose of launching ballistic missiles.52 The Soviet ICBM (Intercontinental Ballistic Missile) was not far behind. Sensing the importance of the thermonuclear revolution, at the end of 1955, Soviet leaders increased the requirements for the R-7, or Semyorka (Old Seven), from a 3-ton fission warhead to a 5-ton fusion warhead.53 To achieve the necessary thrust to lift this considerable weight was no small problem, especially given the backward state of Soviet metallurgy. The problem was solved with an innovative clustered engine configuration, but produced a rather awkward design of enormous proportions.54 The huge missiles were difficult to transport, required vast bases (only one of which was built) and time-consuming preparations, and could only remain fueled for launch for very short periods.55 On a psychological level, however, the missile yielded results. Khrushchev witnessed the second test and was duly impressed. The crisis of American confidence in the wake of the Sputnik launch on 4 October is well documented.56 Thanks in part to intelligence provided by the extraordinary U2 flights beginning in early 1956, the president had a keener appreciation of the true strategic balance and suffered no such crisis.57 That is not to say that Eisenhower was ignorant of the implications of Russian advances in strategic weapons. Recognizing the importance of the thermonuclear revolution, Eisenhower admitted in a 1955 press conference, “There comes a time, possibly, when a lead is not significant. . . . If you get enough of a particular type of weapon, I doubt that it is particularly important to have a lot more of it.”58 In January 1956, Eisenhower listened to a briefing on scenarios for all-out war in 1958. “The results stunned the President. Eisenhower confessed that he ‘doubted that the human mind was capable of meeting and dealing with the kind of problems that would be created by such an exchange of blows.’”59 According to the study, even a month’s strategic warning of a Soviet attack would not significantly alter the results: total collapse of the U.S. economy and 65 percent of the population as casualties. With the advent of thermonuclear weapons, casualty estimates rose from millions to tens of millions. Eisenhower concluded “that in the future both sides would avoid taking actions which threatened escalation to war and, therefore, that the ‘prospect of strategic thermonuclear war would serve as the primary deterrent.’”60 The authors of the Gaither Committee report stated bluntly that if the Soviets deployed their own hydrogen bomb, “it would tend to impose greater caution in our cold war policies.”61 A new caution is evident in Eisenhower’s approach to the crises that arose in his second term, especially in contrast to the severe approach taken during the early crises in Korea and the Taiwan Straits in 1954–55.

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The United States refrained from making any intimidating gestures when the Soviets invaded Hungary in the fall of 1956.62 During the Lebanon intervention, SAC was put on alert, but Soviet military opposition was never considered a real possibility.63 On the surface, the second Taiwan Straits scenario recalls the first, in that U.S. naval forces were dispatched, SAC forces at Guam were alerted, and discussions of tactical nuclear use followed. But, as Thomas Christensen observes, “Given Chinese restraint and very good American analysis of Chinese deployments and military plans, the risk . . . was limited.”64 In this case, a special national intelligence estimate had predicted that U.S. nuclear strikes against China “would draw Soviet nuclear retaliation against Taiwan, the Seventh Fleet, and possibly other U.S. assets in Asia.”65 During the Berlin crisis of 1958–59, Eisenhower took a firm but cautious stand. Ultimately, it appears that he was willing to risk general war, letting U.S. legislators know that “he was willing to ‘push [the United States’] whole stack of chips into the pot’ if the time came.”66 But Eisenhower realized that “a rigid position in a crisis could be politically disastrous,” and he did not want to fight a war over the “shape of a helmet” at checkpoints or stamping procedures.67 When, in January 1959, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) recommended sending a combat-ready division down the Autobahn, Eisenhower rejected this inflammatory approach and instead ordered that an armed scout car should escort a convoy of trucks. This convoy was to desist if physically obstructed and was not to shoot unless fired upon. The crisis ended when Khrushchev’s ultimatum passed without decisive Soviet action. In some ways, the strategic balance now favored the United States by a greater margin than at the start of the Eisenhower administration. North American air defense, strategic attack, and especially target intelligence were vastly improved. For the Soviets, the transition from strategic aviation to ballistic missiles was proving to be slow and expensive. An American “bolt from the blue” would ensure that U.S. casualties were far less than Soviet casualties, although mistakes committed in the fog of war would be costly indeed. American allies could expect an even lower degree of certainty. Still far from achieving what Betts calls a “tight” parity of capabilities, the Soviets had achieved what he terms a “loose” parity with respect to population vulnerability.68 The Kennedy Administration Coming into office with the intention of redressing the “missile gap” and deemphasizing nuclear weapons, Kennedy and his advisors were surprised to learn, upon close examination of the appropriate intelligence,

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that the missile gap in fact radically favored the United States in 1961. The launchers at the one Soviet ICBM base—at Plesetsk, a site discovered fairly quickly by the CIA’s U-2s—did entail some substantial burrowing into the ground. But this costly burrowing was never intended to protect the missiles from a preemptive U.S. nuclear attack; rather, the huge dugouts were designed for the comparatively simpler task of protecting the fragile rockets from the wind.69 Moreover, beginning with the Kennedy administration, U.S. spy satellites began to take over the U-2 missions, promising greater coverage with none of the risk entailed by high-altitude flights. Soviet strategic forces were both targeted and vulnerable during this period.70 To the extent that Kennedy’s first Cold War crisis—in Laos in 1961— involved nuclear weapons, it appears to have confirmed the president’s conviction that the United States had to pursue a “flexible response.” Thus, he exclaimed with evident frustration in May 1961, “Nuclear weapons cannot prevent subversion.”71 Kennedy’s actions during the Berlin crisis in the summer of 1961 also illustrate his distaste for relying on nuclear weapons. In his major 25 July address answering Khrushchev’s new ultimatum, the president tripled draft calls and activated the reserves.72 These moves appeared to emphasize his willingness to fight a conventional war if necessary. When forced to take up the nuclear cudgel, Kennedy found a deputy secretary of defense to debunk the “missile gap,” unambiguously declaring U.S. nuclear superiority. But the president’s emphasis on finding a negotiated solution and preparing conventional forces “is not what one might expect from a leader enjoying clear nuclear superiority.”73 Following in Eisenhower’s footsteps, Kennedy also rejected military suggestions to send probes down the Autobahn, noting: “We go immediately from a rather small military action to one where nuclear weapons are exchanged, which of course means . . . we are also destroying this country.”74 The Cuban missile crisis is correctly viewed as the end of the early Cold War—the end of the “age of crises.” U.S. nuclear superiority played a definite role in the crisis. There is no arguing with the fact that the Soviets were intimidated into making broad and public concessions. But, as Trachtenberg observes, “The balance was not so completely lopsided that the crisis was ended by a total Soviet capitulation. Nor . . . was the final arrangement a bargain . . . between equals. The balance was unequal, but not so unequal that it makes sense to view the crisis as a simple ‘contest’ with a clear victor.”75 Indeed, there is ample evidence of caution on Kennedy’s part: the porous naval blockade, little evidence of actual nuclear planning, the secret but explicit Jupiter missile trade, the noninvasion pledge, and Robert Kennedy’s approach to Ambassador Anatoly

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Dobrynin.76 The approximately 220 Soviet warheads capable of reaching the United States, perhaps none of which were individually likely to survive a U.S. preemptive strike, nevertheless proved sufficient to make the president very cautious, prompting him to comment during the crisis: “What difference does it make? They’ve got enough to blow us up already.”77 It is conceivable that to a less risk-averse leader, Kennedy’s conclusion might have seemed premature by a few years. However, a realization of approximate strategic parity constituted the fundamental characteristic of U.S.-Soviet competition for the next three decades.

whether to strike first The 1950s are justly referred to as the “age of crises,” when even small flare-ups in relatively obscure corners of the world had the potential to bring about a catastrophic global war. Naturally, this period of instability is partly explained by the deep ideological enmity of the two sides. The power vacuum created by almost a decade of warfare in Europe and Asia certainly also played a role. However, the advent of nuclear weapons, combined with the asymmetric distribution of these new capabilities, is a vital part of the explanation. In creating new incentives to deliver the first blow, the asymmetric balance of atomic striking power during the early Cold War created three distinct “rational” paths toward global war. Preventive War So prevalent was the notion of the “ticking clock,”—the idea that every passing hour threatened to turn the balance of power decisively in favor of the USSR—that Trachtenberg confesses: “It was hard for me to believe that preventive war thinking had ever carried important political weight. . . . But there was no arguing with the evidence: It turned out I had been wrong. . . . These concerns about trends in the military balance played a central role in shaping policy at the time.”78 Among the first to advocate preventive war against the USSR was General George Patton. During a 1945 phone conversation, he apparently argued: “Why not do it now while our army is intact? . . . In ten days I can have enough incidents happen to have the U.S. at war with those sons of bitches and make it look like their fault.”79 Patton’s concerns about the Soviet Union do not appear to have been related specifically to nuclear weapons. However, the general who at that time knew more than

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any other about nuclear weapons—General Leslie Groves, who had supervised the Manhattan Project—apparently entertained thoughts quite similar to those of Patton. His position was that if the Soviets rejected international controls on nuclear weapons, then the United States should strike Soviet research facilities to “guarantee American supremacy.”80 Other senior military figures, particularly within the air force, such as Generals Carl Spaatz, Henry Arnold, Ira Eaker, Ely Culberton and Frank Everest, were all making similar arguments in the late 1940s.81 Academics and pundits were not far behind. Thus, in his Struggle for the World, published in 1947, Harvard political scientist James Burnham argued, “If there is . . . reason to believe that a sudden massive armed blow would, . . . as compared with waiting for such a blow from the enemy, save lives and goods, . . . then to strike such a blow, far from being morally wrong is morally obligatory.”82 These arguments, moreover, resonated powerfully on Capitol Hill. Thus, in January 1950, three senators visited the State Department to make the case for preventive war. On this occasion, one insisted: “The time has come . . . [to] make a demarche upon Russia indicating that we must consider the failure of Russia to agree to . . . inspection of instruments of mass destruction to be in itself an act of aggression which would provoke a declaration of war on our part.”83 This group of legislators agreed that their constituents would support “to the hilt . . . [a declaration of] war without any overt action on the part of Russia.”84 Given the popularity of this type of thinking, then, it is not surprising that the most important planning paper of this era, NSC-68, faces the issue of preventive war head on. This influential document notes that “some Americans favor a deliberate decision to go to war against the Soviet Union in the near future.”85 While ultimately rejecting the strategy of preventive war, the authors of NSC-68 conceded that there was a “powerful argument [for preventive war] in the light of history.”86 With the advent of the Korean War in June 1950, this discussion took on an even more urgent tone. General Orvil Anderson, commandant of the Air War College, was forced into early retirement after telling a journalist in September 1950, “We’re at war, damn it. . . . [C]ivilization demands that we act. Give me the order to do it and I can break up Russia’s 5 A-bomb nests in a week!”87 However, such thoughts were not restricted to military eccentrics but rather appear to have been relatively widespread among senior civilian leaders at this time. Even moderates like George Kennan, the director of policy planning at the State Department at that time, wondered whether “a war that the Soviet Union stumbled into at that point, before she had really built up an impressive nuclear force, might in the long run, be the best solution for the U.S.”88 On 25 August,

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secretary of the navy Francis Matthews gave a speech proposing that the United States should initiate a “war of aggression,” and so become “aggressors for peace.” An influential New York Times reporter noted at the time that “Matthews was launching a trial balloon,” and that his speech “reflected the thinking of Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson, who has been selling the same doctrine of preventive war in private conversations around Washington.”89 When the Chinese entered the war in November 1950, CIA director Walter Bedell Smith asked, “At what point will the U.S. be driven to attack the problem at its heart, namely Moscow[?]”90 Chairman of the National Resources Planning Board and former secretary of the air force Stuart Symington similarly argued in January 1951 that “a clear and positive policy had to replace the policy of drift, because, with the development of Soviet nuclear capabilities, time was running out far more rapidly than most Americans realized.”91 President Truman expressed little enthusiasm for preventive war. Thus, he ordered General Anderson’s removal and dismissed Symington’s memo from early 1951 as “top secret malarky” and a waste of time.92 He “was quite clear in his own mind that preventive war was contrary to American values and could not be considered a policy option,” explaining to the nation in his farewell address that “starting an atomic war is totally unthinkable for rational men.”93 However, hints of preventive war thinking do crop up in Truman’s diary when he was faced with Communist intransigence in armistice talks during early 1952. For example, in May he wrote himself a series of rhetorical questions to pose to Communist leaders: “Now do you want to end hostilities in Korea or do you want China and Siberia destroyed? . . . You either accept our fair and just proposal or you will be completely destroyed.”94 Overall, Trachtenberg’s conclusion about this period appears persuasive. He argues that, however numerous the calls for preventive war before and during the early Korean War, these statements were generally made by outsiders who were relatively ignorant of the actual military balance.95 Indeed, the most informed estimates claimed that the United States would only be ready for global war in 1954, with a period of maximum vulnerability to Soviet strength occurring in 1952.96 This author cites convincingly the case of John M. Allison, director of the State Department’s Office of Northeast Asian Affairs. In July 1950, Allison had argued for measures that might bring about global war, asserting confidently, “When all legal and moral right is on our side why should we hesitate? The free world cannot any longer live under constant fear.” Just a month later, however, he was pushing a much more cautious policy, which recognized that the United States “is not now capable of conduct-

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ing . . . a general military offensive against the USSR.”97 With the growth of Soviet stocks of nuclear weapons during the early 1950s, one might logically expect that preventive war thinking would wind down rather quickly, given the inherent risks. On the contrary, it was in the period 1953–54 that these strategies were contemplated by true “insiders”: President Eisenhower and his closest advisors. By 1952–53, the United States was beginning to see some of the fruits of NSC-68: vastly increased military production, particularly in the arena of nuclear striking power. These favorable trends in the balance of power enabled Eisenhower to take brave positions regarding escalation of the Korean War in the spring of 1953. But the hardening of the American position in Korea predated Eisenhower, tracking closely with perceived favorable changes in the balance of power from as early as 1951.98 Despite these favorable trends, it is quite clear that the Eisenhower administration was still acting with one eye on the clock, dreading the moment when the Soviets would develop significant nuclear forces. At an NSC meeting in May 1953, Vice President Nixon suggested that any decision on escalation in Korea “should be taken only in the context of the longer-term problem which would confront US when the Soviet Union has amassed a sufficient stockpile of atomic weapons to deal US a critical blow and to rob the U.S. of the initiative.” The president “agreed with the views of the Vice-President, and explained that Project Solarium was being initiated with this precise problem in mind.” Noting the gravity of this project, Eisenhower continued that the NSC “would sit in judgment on [Solarium’s] alternatives much as would judges in a case in a law court.”99 Solarium became an exercise for evaluating U.S. grand strategy at a crucial moment. Three alternatives, differing in the aggressiveness of the stance to be taken against the Soviet Union, were presented and discussed in July 1953. Task Force C, the most radical alternative, came close to being a preventive war option. The team advocated a “dynamic program of action” that would be a “departure from our traditional concepts of war and peace.”100 Working from the assumption that the “U.S. cannot live with the Soviet threat” so “[the USSR] must and can be shaken apart,”101 Task Force C envisioned that “the basic problem was to correlate the timing of the actions by the U.S. against the time when the Soviet Union will be capable of dealing a destructive blow to the U.S. (five years).”102 While the alternative was created with the limitation that recommended action could not include the initiation of general war, it significantly excised the stipulation that actions should not signify an “undue risk” of precipitating general war.103 In other words, the risk of general war would be accepted and even embraced, but U.S. actions should not “appear as a

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policy of aggression.”104 That discussants may have viewed Task Force C as representing a preventive war option is illustrated by the criticism of a member of Team A, who observed, “One fears the aggressive thesis of Task Force C, and must ask: if we won a war, what would we put in the place of the Soviet government?”105 While not exactly a blueprint for preventive war, Task Force C of Project Solarium had much in common with this mode of thinking, including its emphasis on unfavorable trends, and most particularly its acceptance of the notion that general war, sooner rather than later, might be in America’s interest. It is probably no coincidence that this report was made just a month before the USSR exploded its first hydrogen bomb, a deliverable weapon of 400-kiloton yield. This event fueled the most searching contemplation by a U.S. president about the possibility of preventive war of the entire Cold War. Dulles wrote a memorandum to Eisenhower in early September detailing the troubling implications of Soviet thermonuclear capability for the U.S. alliance framework in Europe, concluding that the only response was a “spectacular effort to relax tensions on a global basis.”106 Dismayed by any discussion of appeasement and fearing the domestic implications of maintaining the U.S. military on indefinite hair-trigger alert, Eisenhower responded, “We [may] be forced to consider whether or not our duty to future generations did not require [the] U.S. to initiate war at the most propitious moment that we could designate.”107 Moreover, this issue arose again during a meeting between Eisenhower and Prime Minister Churchill in early December.108 Actual blueprints for preventive war appeared in a report by the Joint Chiefs’ Advanced Study Group. This report, briefed to the president in May 1954, proposed that the United States consider “deliberately precipitating war with the U.S.S.R. in the near future, before Soviet thermonuclear capability became a real menace.”109 The president did not commit himself to a position in this briefing. In late June, he asked the members of the NSC: “Should the U.S. now get ready to fight the Soviet Union [before the U.S. nuclear advantage disappears]?” In this instance, he noted that he had “brought up this question more than once [and] . . . had never done so facetiously.”110 By the fall of 1954, however, Eisenhower had come to the definitive conclusion that preventive war was contrary to American interests. A statement to that effect was inserted into the Basic National Security Policy paper. This position was reaffirmed in March 1956.111 The fact that the president had such statements inserted into the most fundamental national security planning documents is suggestive of the strength of preventive war thinking among top officials.

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Preemptive Strategies Preemptive war is differentiated from preventive war only by the temporal proximity of the expected enemy attack. In a preventive war, conflict is expected, but only in the distant future—hostilities are not imminent. By contrast, preemptive attack is undertaken when an enemy strike is imminent, under the basic logic that the side which strikes the first blow will suffer less damage. Preemptive strategies played a fundamental role in U.S. strategic nuclear planning during the early Cold War. As was the case with preventive war, Air Force leaders (i.e., those who would conduct such an attack) were among the earliest and most forthright proponents of preemptive strategies. General Hap Arnold asserted as early as 1945, “The only certain protection against aggression is to meet it and overcome it before it can be launched or take full effect.”112 Likewise, General Spaatz observed that the way to deal with possible Soviet air attack was to “get them at the place they start from before they are launched.”113 In 1947, the Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended to Congress that “acts of aggression” be redefined to include “the readying of atomic weapons against us,” so that the president could act swiftly.114 In 1950, the new Strategic Air Command (SAC) acquired its highest-priority mission: the so-called blunting mission. This mission was prioritized over attacks on Soviet ground forces or industry “because it had to be carried out quickly, before Soviet bombers got off the ground.”115 Truman stood firmly against preventive war, but it appears that he did not have the same inhibitions about preemptive war. Thus, he apparently intended to implement a full atomic offensive against the USSR if they obstructed the Berlin Airlift in mid-1948.116 After his statement that “starting an atomic war is totally unthinkable for rational men,” the president was queried by a top advisor as to whether he had intended to rule out a preemptive strike against Soviet forces in the case of imminent Soviet attack. Truman answered, “I rather think you have put a wrong construction on my approach to the use of the atomic bomb.”117 NSC68 unequivocally endorsed preemptive strategy: “The military advantages of landing the first blow . . . require U.S. to be on the alert in order to strike the [deleted] with our full weight as soon as we are attacked, and if possible, before the Soviet blow is actually delivered.”118 Implying that circumstances had come dangerously close to America’s threshold of tolerance immediately after the Chinese intervention in Korea in late 1950, Truman recalled, “The question now was whether we had actually reached the point where [Communist] slavery had so threatened us that we had to move to the destruction of cities and the killing of women

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and children.”119 Meanwhile, SAC was so anxious to gain intelligence on Soviet nuclear weapons and doctrine during the Korean War that CIA agents were dropped into Siberia to scout out the suitability of various Soviet airfields for supporting nuclear operations.120 Eisenhower proved to be an enthusiastic supporter of preemptive war plans. He explained to a group of Congressmen in January 1954, “[The U.S. strike] will be a very quick thing—as fast as Congress can meet. . . . If you were away and I waited on you . . . you’d start impeachment proceedings against me.”121 At the end of 1954, he told the NSC, “Our only chance in a third world war against the Soviet Union would be to paralyze the enemy at the outset of the war.”122 Illustrating the priority of the so-called blunting mission, the president emphasized the imperative of “knock[ing] out their SAC first,” during an NSC meeting in August 1955.123 Military planning documents declassified in the 1980s, which were subsequently published in International Security, offer additional insight into America’s preemptive nuclear strategy during this period. The first document consists of official notes taken by a participant in a briefing given by SAC in March 1954 concerning its war plans. The observer notes, “The final impression [of the briefing] was that virtually all of Russia would be nothing but a smoking, radiating ruin at the end of two hours.”124 In the question and answer session that followed, SAC commander General Curtis LeMay was asked, “How do SAC’s plans fit in with the stated national policy that the U.S. will never strike the first blow?” He answered, “[This idea] sounds fine. However, it is not in keeping with U.S. history. . . . I want to make it clear that I am not advocating a preventive war; however, I believe that if the U.S. is pushed in the corner far enough, we would not hesitate to strike first.”125 This exchange suggests the validity of another exchange, in which General LeMay told a leader of the Gaither Committee, “I’m going to knock the [expletive] out of [the Soviets] before they take off the ground.” When reminded that this was not national policy, he allegedly answered, “It’s my policy. That’s what I’m going to do.”126 By 1956, Eisenhower was beginning to have some doubts about the strategy of preemption. Pondering the possibility of a surprise attack on the Soviet Union during the assumed month of strategic warning preceding a Soviet attack, the president wrote in his diary, “Since this would not only violate national tradition, but would require rapid, totally secret Congressional action and immediate implementation, it would appear impossible that any such thing would occur.”127 Doubts also surfaced regarding the precision of strategic warning.128 However, when he told legislators during the 1959 Berlin Crisis that he was willing to “push [the] whole stack of chips into the pot if the time

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came,” he seems to have been referring to his willingness to strike massively and preemptively if necessary.129 As Rosenberg concludes, “By the time Eisenhower left office, the Strategic Air Command had been preparing and training for nearly a decade not only for massive retaliation, but for massive preemption.”130 Use ‘Em or Lose ‘Em We have seen that preventive and preemptive war planning was an important element in U.S. strategy during the early Cold War. A third destabilizing strategy concerns the early Soviet propensity to “use ‘em or lose ‘em.” This notion refers to the logical incentive for leaders (and field commanders) to launch their weapons in order to save the weapon from destruction when that particular weapon has been targeted. The concept, which entered Western strategic parlance in discussions about how war in Europe might escalate to the nuclear level, and then from the tactical nuclear to the strategic nuclear level, is relevant to the Soviet arsenal during the early Cold War. Naturally, the Soviet reference point for considering its own strategic vulnerability was World War II. Indeed, the opening attack by the Nazis in mid-1941 created a hypersensitivity to the threat of surprise attack. For the air force, the service dedicated to executing nuclear missions before the advent of missiles, memory of the German attack was perhaps most acute. In Zaloga’s words, “The Red Air Force, which had outnumbered the Luftwaffe by a substantial margin at the outbreak of the war, was blasted into oblivion.”131 Stalin was particularly paranoid regarding the fate of the nascent Soviet nuclear program. Such documents as have emerged from the Russian archives suggest that Kremlin leaders “saw themselves as surrounded by American bases and expected the worst from their Cold War enemy.”132 According to Vladislav Zubok, Stalin was particularly anxious “that if the Americans learned about the Soviet ‘crash’ program to build the bomb they might overreact and deliver a strike against its installations.133 The Soviet leader was so concerned that the Americans might preempt the first Soviet nuclear test in 1949 that he asked the scientists if it would not be more prudent to prepare two prototypes simultaneously, a suggestion that was rejected as infeasible.134 Unfortunately, present knowledge about early Soviet nuclear forces precludes definitive judgment on their levels of alert, readiness, and so on. Nevertheless, it is quite clear that the concerns about force vulnerability continued through the early Cold War. Soviet military thinkers only began to grapple seriously with nuclear issues after Stalin’s death,

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when they gained some control over them. They quickly came to recognize the advantages for the USSR of striking first. Indeed, Marshal Pavel Rotmistrov’s article in the February 1955 issue of Voenaya Mysl illustrates this trend in Soviet military thought. Since “the U.S. and Britain were planning surprise strikes on the Soviet Union . . . it was the duty of the armed forces to . . . inflict counterstrikes . . . or even preemptive surprise strikes of terrible destructive force.”135 As David Holloway explains, “The Soviet high command was afraid of going late.”136 Likewise, Lawrence Freedman concludes, “Soviet theorists moved, as did many in the United States, towards a theory of preventive attack.”137 This was codified into Soviet military doctrine when Khrushchev went before the Supreme Soviet in 1960 and announced that the next war would begin with a surprise, massive nuclear strike.138 Recognizing this danger, U.S. leaders sometimes went out of their way to reassure the Soviets that they were not contemplating military action, despite the real costs of doing so, for example during the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956.139 Indeed, the vulnerability of Soviet nuclear forces was so destabilizing by the time of the Cuban missile crisis that many experts believe the single most frightening revelation about this crisis to emerge in the last few years is that Moscow had delegated launch authority to the senior Soviet commander in Cuba. Had the missile bases come under attack, as almost occurred in reality, this commander would surely have been caught in this difficult dilemma: whether to watch the destruction of his own forces or begin World War III.140 Soviet nuclear force vulnerability was an additionally destabilizing element of the early Cold War.

stabilizing factors The preceding discussion has sought to demonstrate how preventive and preemptive war strategies, an inherent feature of the asymmetric structure of the nuclear balance, kept the early Cold War on the brink of global war for almost two decades. I now turn to factors that mitigated the grave danger of war. Soviet Conventional Strength The Soviet Union’s vast armies in Eastern Europe served as a powerful deterrent to Americans pondering how the Soviet nuclear program might be curtailed. Thus, if a preventive or preemptive war had been under-

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taken to ensure that the Soviets would not match America in the nuclear realm, the United States might well have lost that war to the USSR’s impressive conventional forces. Stalin believed that Soviet conventional strength was capable of balancing the U.S. nuclear threat. He authorized the Main Planning Directorate of the Soviet General Staff to devise a “doctrine of retaliation.”141 Under this doctrine, superior Soviet tank forces were deployed to Eastern Europe, and if necessary, they were to be prepared to drive for the English Channel. According to General Staff veterans, Stalin’s notion was that “American pilots must reckon with the possibility that by the time they return from their missions [against the USSR], their airfields will have been taken over by Soviet tanks.142 While certainly such thinking had propaganda value, now declassified Soviet documents indicate that Soviet leaders tended to deprecate the initial value of atomic weapons, maintaining that such weapons would not be decisive. Ivan Malik, Moscow’s ambassador to Japan, sent a report to Stalin based on a survey trip to Hiroshima undertaken in September 1945 by a group from the Soviet embassy. The report noted that “ferroconcrete buildings withstood the blast” and that objects buried underground were undamaged. Moreover, the authors claimed that descriptions in the Japanese press of the bomb’s effects were exaggerations carried “to the point of absurdity” in order to justify Japan’s surrender.143 Similarly, a report made by Soviet observers of the July 1946 U.S. test on Bikini atoll noted, “The [target] ships survived extremely well. . . . [There was] general disappointment with the results of the test.”144 Thus, Stalin’s famous statement to a Western reporter in September 1946 that “atomic weapons were meant to frighten those with weak nerves . . . [and] they cannot decide the outcome of a war” reflects not simply bluster but also the actual analyses circulating among Soviet leaders at this time. In fact, American military analyses were not much more confident about the role of the new weapon in a war with the USSR.145 Indeed, a report by Lieutenant General H. R. Harmon to the Joint Chiefs of Staff in May 1949 concluded that even if the entire U.S. atomic arsenal “detonated precisely on their aimpoints, this would not in itself bring about capitulation . . . or critically weaken the power of the Soviet leadership. . . . Soviet military capability to take selected areas of Western Europe, the Middle East, and the Far East would not be seriously impaired.”146 One of a succession of American war plans drawn up at this time anticipated that if the Soviets invaded Western Europe, the Western allies could briefly hold Soviet forces on the Rhine, but that this line would eventually crumble, resulting in Soviet conquest to the line of the Pyrenees within 2.5 to 3 months after the start of hostilities.147 These conclusions are consistent with estimates in NSC-68.148

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At the start of the conflict in Korea, therefore, American leaders were not at all comfortable about the overall military balance. As Marc Trachtenberg explains, “What kept [notions of preventive war] in check was not an abstract commitment to the philosophy of limited war, but rather a sense for America’s current military weakness.”149 Thus, General Omar Bradley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, admitted to an NSC meeting just after the Chinese intervention: “If a global war broke out, we might be in danger of losing.”150 Although the United States had entered into an era of atomic plenty by the conclusion of Truman’s term, assessments still showed that the Soviets could conquer all of Europe and much of the Middle East and Southeast Asia with comparative ease.151 Intimately familiar with the military balance in Europe, Eisenhower was deeply convinced of the superiority of Soviet ground forces. Thus, he explained to the cabinet early in his administration, “It is cold comfort for any citizen of Western Europe to be assured that—after his country has been overrun and he is pushing up daisies—someone still alive will drop a bomb on the Kremlin.”152 Eisenhower’s appraisal of Soviet conventional forces changed little during his time in office. Therefore, while advisors began to push doctrines of a possible limited war in Europe along the lines of Kennedy’s planned “flexible response,” Eisenhower stubbornly maintained that competition with the Soviets in conventional forces was completely unrealistic. Notes from an NSC meeting in May 1958 are indicative of these views: “The President again expressed bewilderment. What possibility was there, he asked, that facing 175 Soviet divisions, . . . our six divisions together with the NATO divisions could oppose such a vast force in a limited war in Europe with the Soviets?”153 For the USSR, strong conventional forces enabled a lengthy transition to becoming a strong nuclear power by deterring adversaries while its nascent nuclear forces were still vulnerable. Feasibility At the time when the Soviet arsenal was most vulnerable, the United States lacked sufficient nuclear weapons, bombers with enough range, and most importantly, reliable target intelligence. Rapid demobilization, undertaken in keeping with American tradition, led to glaring deficiencies during the late 1940s and early 1950s that were only rectified by the buildup called for in NSC-68. The atomic bomb program was not exempt from this process. Therefore, the stockpile grew very slowly at first. The United States possessed only two weapons in reserve at the end of 1945, thirteen by mid-1947, and perhaps fifty in mid1948.154 Truman only authorized accelerated nuclear bomb production

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after the earlier than expected Soviet test in October 1949. Therefore, it was not until relatively late in the Korean War that the United States entered into the “era of nuclear plenty,” by which time the Russians were estimated to have between fifty and one hundred atomic bombs.155 Nor were U.S. bombers ideal for the mission at this time. While the B-29 Superfortress was by far the most advanced long-range bomber to emerge from World War II, its 1,500- to 1,700-mile range made the United States dependent on bases in Europe and the Middle East, or alternatively on one-way missions, especially to hit the most distant Soviet targets, like those behind the Urals. Only the B-47, which entered the force in numbers during the second half of the Korean War, would change this calculus, since it could hit almost all Soviet targets from bases in the United States.156 These problems, however difficult, were not insurmountable; far more intractable was the intelligence problem.157 While the KGB was performing miracles for the Kremlin in the late 1940s, including provision of information about the American atomic bomb that greatly accelerated the work of Soviet bomb designers, American spies had comparatively little success against the USSR in this period. According to Zaloga, U.S. attempts to create spy networks in the Soviet Union proved “amateurish” and were easily foiled by the KGB.158 Therefore, as Rosenberg observes, “Blunting [or counterforce] targets were not quickly incorporated into operational plans and target lists.”159 Plan Dropshot, developed in 1949, included this caveat concerning counterforce targeting: “Present intelligence is inadequate to prove a firm determination as to the requirements for attack on facilities for the assembly and delivery of weapons of mass destruction.”160 By late 1950, as the Korean War heated up after Chinese intervention, counterforce targets had still “either not yet been determined or [were] targets of opportunity.”161 During this period, U.S. target planners did not even possess reliable maps of the Soviet Union and were forced to rely on Tsarist-era maps, or at best German aerial photos from World War II.162 Desperate measures were taken in order to rectify these crucial shortfalls in intelligence, ranging from the dangerous extreme of parachuting agents directly into the USSR to scout out possible targets to the somewhat ludicrous attempt to float unmanned spy balloons over Soviet territory.163 Only the twenty to thirty U-2 missions flown between 1956 and 1958 rescued U.S. strategic target intelligence from creative guesswork.164 Eventually replaced by more and more sophisticated spy satellites, this new era in technical intelligence allowed U.S. planners to understand Soviet strategic weapon deployments with such accuracy that in 1960 one influential analyst at RAND appraised Soviet strategic forces as “sitting ducks.”165

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Norms There is compelling evidence that U.S. leaders were ultimately constrained from acting on the temptation to carry out a preventive war by their own ethical standards. They also seem to have perceived limits beyond which American and world opinion would not tolerate U.S. actions to curb Soviet power. Truman spoke out unequivocally against preventive war. In one address, for example, he explained, “We do not believe in aggression or preventive war. Such a war is the weapon of dictators, not of free democratic countries like the United States.”166 We know, moreover, that Truman’s position was not simply rhetoric, since we recall that he dismissed, for example, Symington’s suggestion that he consider preventive war as “top secret malarky.”167 Mirroring the president’s distaste for preventive war, NSC-68 intoned: A surprise attack upon the Soviet Union . . . would be repugnant to many Americans. Although the American people would probably rally in support of the war effort, the shock of responsibility for a surprise attack would be morally corrosive. Many would doubt that this was a “just war” and that all reasonable possibilities for a peaceful settlement had been explored in good faith. Many more, proportionately, would hold such views in other countries, particularly in Western Europe. . . . It would, therefore, be difficult after such a war to create a satisfactory international order among nations.168

Unlike Truman, Eisenhower was not averse to carefully considering preventive war. As we have seen, he traded serious memos and heard numerous briefings on the matter, especially around the time that the Soviets crossed the thermonuclear threshold. Nevertheless, he ultimately came around to a firm rejection of the concept. It seems likely that he was partly influenced by the views of men like General Matthew Ridgeway, then serving as army chief of staff, who commented in a memo after one such briefing in May 1954, “[This course would be] contrary to every principle upon which our Nation had been founded [and] abhorrent to the great mass of American people.”169 Eisenhower felt strongly enough about the issue and his rejection of it to circulate his decision through the senior defense bureaucracy in official memoranda on at least two occasions.

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Nuclear Deterrence Some scholarly treatments of this period posit that the Soviet bomb itself served to deter American preventive action.170 This conclusion is premised on the notion that small arsenals can be effective deterrents. While there is significant evidence that American leaders were concerned about the possible use of Soviet atomic weapons against allies in Western Europe or Japan, there is strikingly little evidence of American caution arising from the fact of Soviet nuclear capability. Rather, this caution seems to have materialized only in the mid-1950s, as the Soviets crossed the thermonuclear threshold and began to deploy delivery systems capable of hitting the United States. There is some evidence that nuclear stalemate emerged quickly, creating a robust mutual deterrent at an early point in the Cold War. Concerning Soviet actions, it might be argued that Stalin’s proposal (which was ultimately rejected by Soviet scientists) that one bomb be kept in reserve during the initial test in August 1949 suggests that he thought this additional bomb might have useful deterrent effects. Moreover, the Soviet leader cited these deterrent effects directly when he told Soviet scientists after the test, “If we had been late with the atomic bomb by a year or year and a half, then we perhaps would have gotten it ‘tested’ against ourselves.”171 U.S. archives illustrate that American leaders were at least somewhat concerned about how the Soviets might employ nuclear weapons in response to U.S. escalatory moves in Korea. General Lawton Collins observed at a meeting with State Department officials in late March 1953, “Right now we present ideal targets for atomic weapons in Pusan and Inchon.”172 An NSC study presented just a few days later cites among the disadvantages of employing U.S. nuclear weapons, “The use of atomic weapons would lead to enemy retaliation in kind against vulnerable U.S.-U.N. targets.”173 On reflection, however, this evidence is not terribly strong. Stalin’s desire to have a reserve weapon probably illustrates, above all, his concern that the Soviet test weapon (along with all the scientists) might be destroyed in a preventive attack; a hidden reserve would mean survival of the program rather than a viable deterrent. Given the extensive evidence that Stalin believed nuclear weapons had not decisively changed warfare, his compliment to the scientists is easily explained as mere flattery. The American analyses from March 1953 cited above unquestionably demonstrate real concern, but such analyses do not seem to have been especially influential. Thus Eisenhower appears to have been quite ready to employ nuclear weapons to end the Korean War and again during

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the 1954 Taiwan Straits crisis. As Andrew Erdmann concludes, during Eisenhower’s first administration, he “accepted a considerable measure of risk during these crises.” This author also notes, “American power enabled him to consider his options unconstrained by concerns of a potential Soviet reaction.”174 Richard Betts agrees: “There was an impressive tendency of U.S. leaders to back their hands in crisis-maneuvering with threats of nuclear first-use.”175 It was only during the second Eisenhower administration, after the president was confronted with the staggering losses that could result from a Soviet thermonuclear attack, that he seems to have adopted a more flexible approach, as demonstrated, for example, in the 1959 Berlin crisis. Even in the earlier period, however, U.S. leaders had to be concerned that Western Europe and Japan were already within easy reach of the nascent Soviet nuclear arsenal. For example, as early as 1949, U.S. war planners recognized the likelihood that the Soviets would use their limited arsenal of atomic weapons against America’s key airbases in the United Kingdom.176 British leaders proved correspondingly skittish about global war, even during the early days.177 There are perhaps some indirect references to the president’s concern about this issue during the spring 1953 discussions about escalation in Korea. Eisenhower told the NSC in early May, “To many [Europeans] there was simply nothing worse than global war for the reason that it would amount to the obliteration of European civilization. We desperately need . . . to maintain these outposts of our national defense, and we do not wish our allies to desert us.”178 A week later, he observed, “[My] one great anxiety . . . with respect to this proposal [is] the possibility of attack by the Soviet Air Force on the almost defenseless population centers of Japan.”179 However, shortly thereafter he suggests a target date for the start of the U.S. offensive, and further notes that “the quicker the operation was mounted the less the danger of Soviet intervention,” suggesting that the Soviet threat to Japan would not stay his hand.180 Similarly, regarding Europe, Eisenhower noted, “We could not blind ourselves to the effect [of employing atomic weapons in Korea] on our allies, . . . [especially] since they feel that they will be the battleground in an atomic war . . . [with] the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, [I] and Secretary Dulles [are] in complete agreement that somewhere or other the taboo which surrounds the use of atomic weapons [has] to be destroyed.”181 U.S. leaders were certainly concerned that American allies might be hit in Soviet retaliatory nuclear strikes, but this concern did not stop them from taking measures that might have precipitated global war. There is no direct evidence to show that U.S. leaders dismissed preventive or pre-

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emptive war planning because of fears of nuclear retaliation, especially prior to 1954–55, when such fears became relatively commonplace.182 Together with ideological hostility and the gaping power vacuum after World War II, nuclear weapons provide a potent explanation for the coming of the Cold War. The asymmetric nature of the nuclear competition—the fact that the United States possessed a huge nuclear advantage during this entire period—was a strongly destabilizing element in the structure of the postwar international system. In these circumstances, preemptive war plans, which might have ignited global war over seemingly trivial conflicts of interest or even by accident, became the norm on both sides. Even more gravely, preventive war was widely advocated in U.S. national security circles and even carefully contemplated by the American president. Fearing the worst, Americans might well have rashly initiated a “war for peace,” had they not been restrained by the countervailing “stabilizing” factors outlined above. Here, American values that discouraged aggression appear to have played a definite role. But the Soviets’ ominous conventional capabilities, in addition to a paucity of solid intelligence on Soviet nuclear facilities and weapons, were perhaps most crucial in reining in the temptation for Americans to take desperate action to preserve their nuclear hegemony. Of course, a lack of familiarity added to the instability of the early Cold War, but the asymmetric nuclear balance appears to have created the necessary structural conditions to ensure the “age of crises.” Today, the United States faces no threat comparable to the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, the tense days of the early Cold War may resemble the present era more than we would like to believe.

mini-case: the late cold war If the early Cold War was plagued by instability, due in part to rational strategies that are an inherent feature of asymmetric WMD rivalry, what can be said about the late Cold War? It is widely believed that the exact opposite conditions prevailed. During the late Cold War, highly developed capabilities on both sides ensured mutual destruction in the event of nuclear conflict. This prospect appears to have been an important contributor to the nearly three decades of impressive stability in U.S.-Soviet relations following the Cuban missile crisis. This strategic stability was

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so robust that even the escalating rhetoric and defense spending of the early Reagan years, the so-called second Cold War, failed to produce any significant war-threatening crises. Undergirding the stability of the late Cold War was the Soviet achievement of rough nuclear parity with the United States. Working to produce missiles like “sausages” following the humiliating Cuban missile crisis, the Soviets deployed 224 ICBMs and 107 SLBMs by 1965, cementing U.S. population vulnerability despite the U.S. gains in target intelligence noted above.183 By 1970, the USSR surpassed the United States in ICBMs; in 1975, they surpassed the United States in deployed SLBMs.184 Vitriolic exchanges on arms control aside, a rough balance in strategic nuclear forces was maintained until the end of the Cold War, with the Americans possessing an advantage in numbers of warheads and the Soviets maintaining a lead in throw-weight. Recognizing the potentially stabilizing effects of parity, U.S. and Soviet policymakers moved to codify the strategic balance within the framework of arms control and also established proper “codes of conduct” that were appropriate to these conditions. Kissinger explained his understanding of this balance in 1975: “Whoever may be ahead in the damage they can inflict on the other, the damage to the other in a general nuclear war will be of a catastrophic nature.”185 Even those who read the worst into Soviet intentions and supported the Reagan buildup nevertheless had to concede that “the Soviets [had] ample cause for . . . caution” and showed little enthusiasm for such concepts as “limited nuclear operations” or “slow-motion counterforce duels.”186 What kind of stability resulted? For one, nuclear crises all but ceased. As Betts notes, “Four times as many [nuclear] threats marked the first two decades after Hiroshima as the next two.”187 Even more significantly, “the severity of crises declined.”188 This is not to say that rough parity in nuclear arsenals was solely responsible for stability in the late Cold War. Certainly, a kind of familiarity between the two sides developed over time, mitigating radical interpretations and strategies. A certain exhaustion—the result of the Vietnam War for the United States and the enormous burden of the military-industrial complex for the USSR—also contributed to the coming of detente. Neither familiarity nor exhaustion could prevent the “second Cold War,” and yet the 1980s did not witness the lurching from crisis to crisis that characterized the early Cold War. Moreover, if we examine the few crises that did arise in the second half of the Cold War, it seems clear that they were all several magnitudes less dangerous than their forebearers. Considering the Vietnam War, which spanned the early part of the late

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Cold War, it is noteworthy that the most familiar events in this war—the Gulf of Tonkin, Pleiku, and Tet—did not involve an important Soviet component. Indeed, the United States became heavily involved during a time when “the Soviet Union appeared to be in a conciliatory phase.”189 At that time, containing China’s influence was America’s first priority in Southeast Asia. Of course, the Soviets supplied the air defense missiles that helped make the war so costly for the United States, but they also prevailed on the Vietnamese to negotiate at various points with the Americans—for example, when they intervened to break the deadlock over the shape of the table at the 1968 Paris Talks.190 The Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia barely caused a ripple in U.S.-Soviet relations. The mining of Haiphong harbor in 1972, an event with real potential for causing a crisis, since Soviet ships might be damaged by the mines, was brushed aside by Moscow. Thus, at the summit that followed, “Brezhnev and his colleagues went through the motions of protesting . . . but the negotiations then proceeded in a cordial and businesslike manner, and major agreements were concluded.”191 In what may constitute the only genuine nuclear crisis of the second half of the Cold War, U.S. leaders ordered the military into a condition of DEFCON 3 (a high form of alert) when the Soviets threatened to intervene to halt advancing Israeli forces at the close of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. However, this crisis does not rank in seriousness with those that occurred in the 1950s, because the chances of it spiraling into global war were extremely slim. Essentially, Moscow was asking Washington to join in a peacekeeping mission. While the Americans perhaps overreacted in showing their displeasure with the alert, they nevertheless satisfied Moscow’s real objective by restraining the Israelis. Moreover, interviews with decision-makers have revealed that “few took the alert as a genuine sign of intent to fight.”192 Indeed, the members of the crisis group report that they did not even consider what military measures might follow if the Soviets deployed forces to Egypt in defiance of the American alert.193 Unlike the 1950s, when American leaders appear to have been sincere in making nuclear threats, here the American warning seems to have been at best an ominous reference to the remote possibility of mutual destruction and at worst a show of machismo designed to distract public attention from the pressure being applied to Israel, not to mention from the brewing Watergate scandal. A second “crisis” arose in the late Cold War in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, but here it takes an even greater leap of the imagination to believe that this situation could have erupted into a superpower war. Richard Betts comes to the bizarre conclusion that this crisis created a “possibility of conflict, miscalculation, or unintended en-

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gagement greater than it ever had been in Europe.”194 Available evidence, however, does not support such a conclusion. For example, he cites an “unofficial backgrounder from administration sources [that] led to press reports about the possibility of nuclear war if the U.S.S.R. invaded Iran.” Not only would this be an extremely indirect route by which to offer up nuclear threats, but Iran and the United States were, of course, embroiled in a hostage crisis at this time, suggesting the possibility of ulterior motives, not to mention that a Soviet invasion of Iran was an outlandish scenario. Dropping nuclear hints was quite consistent with a long-standing NATO policy—in spite of flexible response—of trying to convince the Soviets that, faced with aggression, the United States might escalate irrationally. This situation was not comparable to the grave crises of the early Cold War, in which American presidents spent a good deal of time reviewing actual war plans, including the worst scenarios.195 As early as the mid-1950s, American official analyses were already suggesting the possibility that parity “could well result in mutual deterrence, in which each side would be strongly inhibited from deliberately initiating general war or taking action which it regarded as materially increasing the chances of general war.”196 An opposing school of thought held that rough nuclear parity would prompt the Soviet Union to wield its vast conventional forces without fear. A definitive judgment must await the opening of archives from this period on both sides, but the paucity of crises in the late Cold War does suggest that parity helped to rectify the precarious asymmetric nuclear interaction between the United States and the Soviet Union that characterized the early Cold War. As we will see in the next case study, U.S. relations with China traversed much of the same dangerous territory.

chapter four

Case 2: The United States and China

New evidence suggests that U.S.-China relations, already hostile, passed through a period of fundamental instability during the early and mid1960s, when U.S. leaders carefully considered preventive and preemptive war options because of China’s development of nuclear weapons.1 In the words of two PRC scholars who have recently published evidence on the subject in China, the 1960s witnessed an “extreme hidden threat to international security.”2 The evidence confirms, moreover, that the potential for escalation of the Vietnam War was not exaggerated. This chapter begins with detailed examinations of decision-making in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. I then attempt to explain why U.S. leaders ultimately opted not to attack China’s developing nuclear arsenal.

the kennedy administration American nuclear threats against China at the end of the Korean War and during the first Taiwan Straits crisis convinced PRC leaders that Chinese security required an indigenous nuclear weapons program. Mao authorized a full-scale effort to build an atomic bomb in 1955. Construction on major segments of China’s nuclear infrastructure, such as the gas diffusion plant in Gansu province and the nuclear fuel component plant in Inner Mongolia, began in 1958. The choice to locate these major sites in China’s distant northwest was not at all accidental. Rather, the Chinese hoped that these remote areas would be more difficult for the Americans to monitor and strike.3 Despite the priority of photographing the USSR, U.S. aerial reconnaissance had detected and identified the Lanzhou gas diffusion plant by

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August 1959.4 These pictures confirmed a July U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) which projected that China “had probably initiated” a nuclear weapons program.5 The availability, for the first time, of intelligence from spy satellites at the beginning of the Kennedy administration allowed for more concrete estimates by the end of 1960. These subsequent NIEs projected that the Chinese would test a weapon in 1963–64. While doubting that China could produce medium-range missiles before 1965, the authors noted that China was likely producing a jet bomber. They did not minimize the threat, observing, “[China’s] arrogant selfconfidence, revolutionary fervor, and distorted view of the world may lead [Beijing] to miscalculate risks. This danger would be heightened if Communist China achieved a nuclear weapons capability.”6 Kennedy probably first faced the “ticking clock” with regard to Chinese nuclear capability during April 1961 discussions about the deteriorating situation in Laos. Ambassador Chester Bowles was said to have commented during one meeting, “We are going to have to fight the Chinese anyway in two, three, five, or ten years and it [is] just a question of where, when and how.” To this, the acting chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Curtis LeMay, added, “In anticipation of eventual Chinese nuclear capability, the natural answer [is] sooner rather than later.”7 Carefully watching the widening Sino-Soviet split, Kennedy approached Khrushchev in June 1961, at their first summit in Vienna, about superpower cooperation to contain the Chinese nuclear program but was rebuffed. Kennedy believed that Chinese nuclear weapons would alter the balance of power in Asia. He told a journalist in October 1961 that China was bound to develop nuclear weapons and that when it did all of Southeast Asia would fall to the Chinese Communists.8 In January 1962, he directed his NSC to grapple with the “special unresolved problem” of Chinese nuclear weapons, and particularly to focus on their effect on the U.S. position in Southeast Asia.9 Meanwhile, the Chinese nuclear weapons program could report significant progress to Chairman Mao Zedong. Working initially with yellowcake prospected by peasants from Hunan because large-scale uranium mines were not yet operational, the Chinese succeeded by mid-1962 in initiating the sustained manufacture of uranium hexafluoride, which, following enrichment, would become the fissionable material for China’s first atomic bomb.10 Cognizant that China was entering the risk-laden arena of nuclear competition, an official pronouncement brazenly asserted that the new arsenal might cause the United States to target China with more nuclear weapons, but “a few more” would not add significantly to the danger, because the United States already targeted China.11 Ac-

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cording to leading PRC nuclear weapons designer Hu Side, Chinese leaders understood that building a nuclear program entailed new risks: “All [nuclear] installations had significant anti-aircraft preparation and we took steps to ensure the dispersal of key personnel, so it’s clear . . . that Chinese leaders were acutely aware of the danger [of a U.S. strike].”12 In the wake of the Cuban missile crisis, Kennedy began to focus his attention narrowly on the problem of Chinese nuclear weapons. Director of Central Intelligence John McCone was instructed in January 1963 that the CIA needed to attach the highest possible priority to filling intelligence gaps with respect to the Chinese nuclear effort.13 The president apparently remarked at a dinner for French diplomats that month that a nuclear China represented “the great menace in the future to humanity, the free world, and freedom on earth.” According to witness William R. Tyler, assistant secretary of state for European affairs, Kennedy believed that the Chinese would be “prepared to sacrifice hundreds of millions . . . [because they attached] a lower value to human life.”14 Declassified notes from an NSC meeting on 22 January 1963 reveal Kennedy’s contention that the Limited Test Ban Treaty initiative was, in his view, important for one reason: “Chicom,” as Chinese Communists were called. With reference to PRC nuclear capability, he reportedly mused: “[I] can’t foresee what the world would be like with this. [The] Chinese Communists are a grave danger. . . . [We] can’t afford to let them do this.”15 Other notes from this meeting show Kennedy arguing, “We will have a difficult time protecting the free areas of Asia if the Chinese get nuclear weapons. . . . [China] looms as our major antagonist of the late 60s and beyond.”16 At the request of the administration, the Joint Chiefs presented a report in April 1963 outlining various military options for coping with China’s nuclear weapons program. This memo proposes the following direct options, listed in order of severity: infiltration, sabotage, invasion by Chinese Nationalists, maritime blockades, South Korean invasion of North Korea, conventional air attacks on nuclear facilities, and the use of tactical nuclear weapons on selected targets.17 The report, signed by acting chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Curtis LeMay, sounded a cautionary note: the Joint Chiefs could not guarantee that any of the above measures would bring about long-term Chinese acceptance of its non-nuclear status. The memo stressed the importance of cooperating with the USSR, if possible, claiming that if the United States carried out air strikes against Chinese nuclear facilities, Soviet cooperation “might well be the difference between escalation and quick acquiescence by the Chicoms.”18 As the Sino-Soviet rift widened in the late 1950s and early 1960s, U.S. leaders looked on with great interest, hoping to exploit the opportuni-

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ty. The Test Ban Treaty initiative would, at a minimum, drive a further wedge between the Soviets and the Chinese, but it was also hoped that it might become a legitimizing cover for an active counterproliferation strategy against China. Emphasizing that China was the “target” of the treaty initiative, Kennedy explained to his advisors that he was willing to accept some Soviet cheating within the treaty system, if it meant that China’s bomb program could be stopped.19 Much to Washington’s surprise, the Soviets responded positively to a June 1963 proposal for test ban negotiations. Later that month, the president, in answer to a query about China’s position outside such a test ban treaty system, issued the following threat: “Quite obviously . . . [some countries seeking the bomb] may not accept . . . persuasion, and then . . . they will get the false security which goes with nuclear diffusion.”20 The undersecretary of state for political affairs, Ambassador Averill Harriman, arrived in Moscow on 14 July to negotiate a test ban treaty. Unusual steps were taken to assure the complete secrecy of communications between the White House and Harriman, and Kennedy is reported to have followed the negotiations with “a devouring interest.”21 The president instructed Harriman, “I remain convinced that Chinese problem is more serious than Khrushchev comments in first meeting suggest. . . . [I] consider that relatively small forces in hands of people like ChiComs could be very dangerous to us all. . . . You should try to elicit Khrushchev’s view of means of limiting or preventing Chinese nuclear development and his willingness either to take Soviet action or to accept U.S. action aimed in this direction.”22 After several days of discussions, Harriman reported back to Washington that the Soviets wanted a treaty to isolate China but were not willing to take more radical steps. On 23 July, the frustrated president once again cabled Harriman: “[I hope] very much you will find an opportunity for private discussion with Khrushchev on China.”23 The American emissary did succeed in cornering Khrushchev, but the Soviet premier would not budge, arguing that China was likely to become more moderate after it possessed the bomb.24 Khrushchev’s reluctance did not halt consideration of the matter in Washington. On 31 July, the Joint Chiefs were asked to develop a “contingency plan for an attack with conventional weapons on Chinese Communist nuclear weapons production facilities designed to cause severest impact on and delay in the Chinese program.”25 The next day Kennedy spoke at a press conference, explaining that China’s nuclear weapons development was a “menacing situation.” Admitting that it would be some years before China could “become a full-fledged nuclear power,” he asserted, “We would like to take some steps now which would lessen [that] prospect.”26 During a meeting with Chiang Kai-shek’s son, Gen-

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eral Chiang Ching-kuo, who visited Washington in September, Kennedy discussed details of possible commando raids, spearheaded by Nationalist elite forces, against PRC nuclear installations.27 Although at least one office within the national security bureaucracy, the Policy Planning Office at the State Department, had begun in July to push for a policy of restraint, Kennedy was assassinated before he could consider some of the subsequently influential papers produced by this group of “doves.” It is impossible to know if Kennedy would have altered his position dramatically if he had had access to these later reports. Up to his death, however, he was very much a hawk about China’s development of nuclear weapons. He made repeated public threats regarding China’s acquisition of nuclear capabilities. He pursued the test ban treaty initiative in order to justify action against PRC nuclear capabilities, attempting with great persistence to persuade the Soviets of the merits of joint action. Finally, his surrogates ordered detailed planning for strike options, the details of which were considered by the president. In his path-breaking study of these policies, historian Gordon Chang concluded in 1990, “Kennedy . . . and his closest advisors not only discussed, but actively pursued the possibility of joint military action with the Soviets.”28 A much more recent study comes to the same conclusion.29

the johnson administration Kennedy’s militancy on the issue of Chinese nuclear weapons appears to have spurred a revolt in the bureaucracy by those opposing a showdown with China. This movement for accommodating China’s new capability was led by Herbert Johnson, a China specialist within the State Department’s Office of Policy Planning. A first paper directed by Johnson—an interagency effort—appeared in October 1963 but was probably never reviewed by Kennedy. This paper downplayed the military threat resulting from a Chinese nuclear capability and suggested that the negative consequences were likely to be political and psychological. The study concluded that America’s vast striking power would force Beijing to “take account of the danger of a U.S. nuclear or non-nuclear counterforce attack as a possible response to major . . . aggression.”30 A much more serious problem, according to this study, was how to maintain the morale of allied states in Asia given the likely PRC nuclear tests. A second report by Herbert Johnson, finished in April 1964, concluded, “The significance of [a Chinese nuclear] capability is not such as to justify the

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undertaking of actions which would involve great political costs or high military risks.”31 Perhaps influenced by these reports, President Johnson, who had already expressed a desire to take a more flexible approach toward the PRC, appears to have taken less interest than his predecessor in striking China’s nascent arsenal.32 Thus, he made no overt threats against the Chinese program, which Kennedy had done repeatedly.33 But as late as February 1964, the special assistant to the president for national security affairs, McGeorge Bundy, was still pushing for preventive action.34 Moreover, the April paper by the Policy Planning Council and a subsequent study by the same office that spring made clear that the most opportune way to attack China’s nuclear facilities, from a political standpoint, would be if it was “incidental to other military actions taken against Communist China in response to Chinese aggression.”35 With the likelihood of such an “opportunity” coming along because of the deteriorating situation in South Vietnam and predictions of an imminent Chinese nuclear test, preventive action against China once again rose to the top of the agenda. August 1964 witnessed both the Gulf of Tonkin incident, which led to the first U.S. air raids against North Vietnam, and, later that month, an NIE confirming that Lop Nor in western China was in fact a nuclear test site. On 15 September, the president held a meeting with secretary of state Dean Rusk, secretary of defense Robert McNamara, CIA director John McCone, and NSC advisor Bundy to consider the Chinese nuclear challenge. This group ruled against an “unprovoked unilateral U.S. military action against Chinese nuclear installations at this time.” However, the decision contained two significant caveats, which prevented final resolution of the issue. First, it noted, “If for other reasons we should find ourselves in military hostilities at any level with the Chinese Communists, we would expect to give very close attention to the possibility of an appropriate military action against Chinese nuclear facilities.” Second, it was established that “there are many possibilities for joint action with the Soviet Government . . . [which might even include] a possible agreement to cooperate in preventive military action.” Rusk was asked to explore this matter “very privately” with Russian ambassador Dobrynin.36 That the issue had not been settled definitively is further illustrated by the dissemination shortly thereafter of a paper prepared by the Office of International Security Affairs (ISA) at the Pentagon. This paper appears to have been an attempt to rebut the arguments put forward the previous spring by Herbert Johnson and the Policy Planning staff. In presenting the paper, Henry Rowen of ISA “saw too many people taking an excessively cheery view [of the Chinese atomic weapons program], primarily

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because they were thinking too much in short-run terms. True, [China] wouldn’t have much of a program for a long time. . . . But the longer term implications, say over a 15 year period, were horrendous.” Rowen pointed out how quickly Soviet power had grown in the years since they tested their first atomic weapon. He believed it feasible to destroy the two key Chinese nuclear installations with a limited non-nuclear air attack, noting, “We could (a) handle this as a completely open matter and justify it at the time; or (b) seize on any opportunity created . . . by a major blowup in Southeast Asia; or (c) make a secret attack.”37 Perhaps sensing that China was entering a period of great danger, Mao had, in May 1964, set in motion the so-called Third Front initiative to prepare the country for a devastating, prolonged, and potentially nuclear war by diverting a huge proportion of national investment to China’s remote interior provinces.38 That Mao’s preparations for all-out war with the United States predated the Gulf of Tonkin incident by several months implies that the crisis in Southeast Asia alone does not explain tensions in U.S.-China relations during this period—rather, China’s steady progress in the nuclear realm must be part of the explanation. Moreover, the original target of the Third Front preparations was certainly the United States and not the USSR. This is illustrated, for example, by the fact that in 1965 the PRC invested heavily in completing the steel manufacturing complex in Jiuquan of Gansu province—remote from U.S. bases but very close to the USSR. When the Soviet threat emerged a few years later, this plant’s operations were scaled back dramatically in favor of a new plant at Panzhihua in Sichuan province, farther from the Soviet threat.39 By September 1964, the Chinese were preparing the Lop Nor test site for the first Chinese bomb, dubbed 596 to commemorate the date, June 1959, when the Soviet technical advisors had abandoned the project. A recent PRC narrative of the bomb-making enterprise yields the following description of Beijing’s calculations regarding the first nuclear test: “At the time of the first atomic test . . . there was information suggesting that the U.S. was preparing to execute a nuclear surprise attack. . . . Therefore, to make an atomic test at this time required a special session of the Central Committee.”40 At this meeting, Mao is said to have remarked of his decision to go forward, “We must be alert to the possibility of war. . . . There are indications that the enemy could strike us at any time with nuclear weapons, but basically they still [appear] to be employing nuclear weapons for deterrence, using them only to threaten.”41 This account continues, “In order to guard against the possibility that the enemy would try to destroy the test, the General Staff and Air Force paid close attention to air defense.”42 Relying on false assumptions that the bomb would be a plutonium

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device, U.S. intelligence did not anticipate such an early test until the very last moment.43 When announcing the test, Beijing asserted that its aims were defensive, that it would never be the first to use nuclear weapons, and that all nuclear weapons should be outlawed. President Johnson urged calm, stressing America’s nuclear superiority and the inviolability of its defense commitments in Asia. Four days after the Chinese test, Rusk was rebuked by Soviet ambassador Dobrynin for the second time in less then a month. Despite the continued downward spiral in Sino-Soviet relations, the Soviets were still unwilling to join the Americans in an effort to curtail China’s nuclear capability.44 In the wake of the Chinese blast, new questions arose about the accommodationist policies established by the Policy Planning papers from late 1963 and early 1964. George Rathjens, an official of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, for example, circulated a paper in December 1964 criticizing Herbert Johnson’s prior analysis. Rathjens maintained that Johnson had underestimated the utility of Chinese nuclear weapons, because “the U.S. would be far more devastated than China by the destruction of two or three of its top cities.” He also argued that the possible benefits of an attack on the Chinese facilities for antiproliferation norms had been underestimated.45 An analysis by the Joint Chiefs from January 1965 noted that “the present ChiCom nuclear capability has not materially affected the existing balance of military power between the U.S. and Communist China.” But it also observed, “The expansion of this capability will pose difficult problems in the future.”46 Meanwhile, the United States began to prepare in earnest for nuclear contingencies versus China. On 25 December 1964, the USS Daniel Boone left Guam, marking the first deterrent patrol by an American ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) in the Pacific. According to recently declassified Pacific Fleet documents, this submarine was to cover “new threat targets.”47 During the spring of 1965, four additional SSBNs joined the Pacific Fleet, illustrating the high priority of the mission. Although the nuclear weapons on these submarines had relatively low yields, they were preferred by U.S. commanders for their short flight times—a clue that they were probably to be used preemptively.48 Boldly ignoring Chinese warnings that an attack on North Vietnam was an attack on China, President Johnson elected to dramatically escalate America’s involvement in the Vietnam War during the first half of 1965.49 In mid-February, Washington retaliated for a mortar attack on the American airbase at Pleiku by launching Operation Flaming Dart, a limited reprisal raid. This was followed in March by Operation Rolling Thunder, a sustained, but “graduated,” bombing campaign against North Vietnam. By the end of the month, nearly 30,000 U.S. combat

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troops had been deployed to South Vietnam; this number would grow to approximately 200,000 by the end of 1965. A number of U.S. officials feared that this escalation could easily get out of hand. Thus, NSC China specialist James C. Thompson Jr. warned: “Are we willing—and is the President willing—to face a ground war in Southeast Asia against the combined armies of North Vietnam and China?. . . . [It would be] sheer folly for the momentum of events . . . to lead us into a land war with China in which our air and naval power would be relatively ineffective.”50 Undersecretary of state George Ball feared that a U.S. strike against Chinese airbases would ignite an “all-out conflict with China.”51 The U.S. Consulate General in Hong Kong warned that the Chinese Communists were preparing for contingencies in which China’s southern provinces were temporarily lost in a total war with the United States. To halt the drift toward war, he sternly recommended against basing B-52 bombers in Taiwan and also advised that pressures for “hot pursuit [into] ChiCom airspace” be resolutely resisted.52 In response to U.S. escalation in Vietnam, Beijing reinforced its airpower in the area adjacent to North Vietnam, built three new airbases in the region, sent some Chinese aircraft to North Vietnam, and began to challenge more aggressively U.S. intrusions into Chinese airspace. Air combat erupted between Chinese and U.S. aircraft over Hainan island in April 1965. In May, China tested its second nuclear weapon. This bomb was dropped from a plane, indicating progress on the problem of delivery. On a visit to Karachi a month earlier, PRC foreign minister Zhou Enlai spelled out China’s clearest warning in the hopes that the Pakistani prime minister would convey the threat to Washington. Zhou said that the United States might attack from the air, but China could respond “using [another] strategy, everywhere on the ground. If the U.S. is to carry out extensive bombing of China, that is war, and a war has no boundaries.” Jim Hershberg and Chen Jian speculate, “Left to the imagination of American officials were the possible scenarios for a massive conventional Chinese retaliatory strike—not only in Vietnam itself, but perhaps in other sensitive Cold War Asian flashpoints bordering China.” To some extent making good on this pledge, seven divisions of Chinese engineering troops marched into North Vietnam in June 1965.53 Two divisions of antiaircraft batteries followed in early August. On 9 August, these units claimed to have downed their first American aircraft.54 Despite these actions, China appeared to be acting with considerable restraint, signaling to the United States that it was anxious to avoid a larger war. Mao had emphasized to a visiting North Vietnamese premier shortly after the Gulf of Tonkin incident that North Vietnam should “avoid provocation of Washington.”55 In April 1965, both Liu Shaoqi

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and Deng Xiaoping affirmed that a U.S.-China war would be contrary to the interests of both the Chinese and the Vietnamese peoples.56 The PRC leadership made multiple attempts to communicate their limited intentions to Washington. Indeed, the first principle of a message transmitted via the leader of Pakistan noted that “China would not take the initiative to provoke a war against the U.S.”57 PRC Cold War historian Li Danhui explains, “At the beginning, China even said that bombing of North Vietnam was unacceptable, then later under the tacit agreement, bombing was allowed.”58 Meetings between top Chinese and North Vietnamese military leaders in June 1965 further clarified the conditions of Chinese military cooperation. If the United States supported a South Vietnamese invasion of the North with air and naval forces, then China would employ air and naval forces; if the United States invaded the North with ground forces, then China would employ ground forces. However, a number of restrictions were stipulated. For example, Chinese “volunteer” pilots, as a first choice, were to fly Vietnamese planes. Second, if Chinese ground forces were eventually employed, they were to be used as a reserve force.59 Moreover, it appears that the Chinese did not follow through on a promise to send volunteer pilots. The Vietnamese now charge that they were informed by the Chinese General Staff in midJuly 1965 that the time was not appropriate to send Chinese pilots to Vietnam.”60 Finally, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) units that were sent to Vietnam, engineering and antiaircraft units, operated only in the northernmost sector of North Vietnam (north of Hanoi).61 It is fortunate that the Chinese did restrict their involvement, because Washington appears to have been girding itself for taking the war to China. We have already noted that U.S. plans, including a directive with the president’s authorization from 15 September 1964, had suggested that “any level of hostilities” involving the PRC might well precipitate a U.S. strike against China’s nuclear facilities. This decision was consistent with a JCS study from 1964 that noted the existence of a “Plan 94,” which “provides for overt operations employing U.S. forces in air strikes against a ChiCom nuclear production facility.”62 A detailed examination of scenarios for conflict with China from the summer of 1965 hints at one of Washington’s possible red lines: “The U.S. would be at a serious disadvantage if it failed to neutralize bases from which the Chinese fighters were employed. . . . If the Chinese actually commit their aircraft to defend the DRV [North Vietnam] from Chinese bases, they must be assumed to be prepared to fight a major conflict with the U.S.”63 The same document notes “destruction of ChiCom nuclear facilities” as one of four possible objectives for an enlarged conflict with China.64 Closely following the development of delivery vehicles for Chinese nuclear weapons,

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the U.S. Navy proposed in May 1965 that a Chinese ballistic missile submarine be sunk on its maiden voyage.65 Various U.S. allies in Asia were also pushing hard for a preventive attack.66 Early in 1966, U.S. nuclear forces in the Pacific were augmented by twenty B-52 bombers to be based at Guam, in addition to ten bombers that would now fly the “new Far East Airborne alert route fully loaded with nuclear weapons . . . [to provide] improved coverage of Chinese targets.”67 In spite of these preparations, cooler heads eventually prevailed. A meeting in mid-1965 between senior Chinese and British diplomats was interpreted in Washington as a gesture to show the Americans that the PRC would not seriously intervene in the Vietnam War if China was not attacked.68 A joint State-Defense study on China in mid-1966 likewise saw a relaxed threat: “In external relations, Peking will continue to avoid actions involving a high risk of a direct military clash with . . . the . . . U.S.”69 By 1966, China and the United States appeared to have reached a relatively stable status quo. Washington could take temporary comfort in three facts: first, China’s development of the bomb had not been accompanied by more aggressive behavior, as had been feared; second, SinoSoviet relations continued to worsen; and third, intelligence estimates claimed that the Chinese would not develop either ICBMs or thermonuclear warheads until the early 1970s at the earliest.70 While a conventional interpretation of the period shows U.S. leaders more and more inclined to view the Chinese nuclear arsenal as a useful counterweight to Soviet power in Asia,71 recent revelations suggest that in early 1969 Kissinger and Nixon briefly considered allying with the USSR against China. Indeed, Kissinger is said to have reviewed plans first developed in the Kennedy administration for a preventive attack on China’s nuclear arsenal, before eventually setting a course for rapprochement with Beijing.72 President Johnson, while perhaps more restrained than his predecessor, did carefully examine plans for preventive action against China’s nuclear facilities. Ultimately, he decided against this action in September 1964, but he left the option on the table in case the Soviets changed their minds, and especially if fighting broke out between the United States and China. Given the priority this mission appears to have occupied in U.S. war plans versus China, and given the escalation of the Vietnam War in the spring of 1965, we may conclude that the United States and China definitely did stand on the brink of a dangerous nuclear precipice in the first half of the 1960s.

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why the united states did not attack china’s nascent nuclear capability Feasibility If U.S. leaders had decided to strike Chinese nuclear facilities, it surely would have been a difficult, high-risk mission. Two methods of attack received careful consideration: commando raids and air strikes. The commando option held out the possibility that the Chinese nationalists could execute the raids, allowing Washington to deny its involvement. Thus, Herbert Johnson concluded, “Covert action seems to offer the politically most feasible option.”73 While some considered it possible that Baotou could be destroyed by a Nationalist sabotage team, it was determined that simultaneous action against Lanzhou would be extremely complex, if not impossible. Kennedy appears to have been particularly skeptical of the commando raid option, probably owing to fresh memories of the Bay of Pigs fiasco. At a meeting in September 1963 with visiting General Chiang Ching-kuo, Chiang Kai-shek’s son, Kennedy deduced through questioning that Kuomintang commando raids had suffered an average casualty rate of 85 percent over the previous year. In the same interview, he observed that sending 300–500 men by air to Baotou was problematic because they would likely be shot out of the sky en route.74 The most promising means of attack was a conventional air strike, the mission that the JCS had been ordered to plan on 31 July 1963. Military and civilian leaders in the Pentagon considered the mission to be feasible.75 While detailed plans for the air strikes remain classified, it is possible to speculate concerning some of the central difficulties. Targeted nuclear facilities deep in China’s interior in Xinjiang, Qinghai, and Gansu provinces would be pushing the operational range of U.S. bombers and strike aircraft to the limit. Indeed, just photographing the Lop Nur test facility had required the rather extraordinary step of launching U-2 spy planes from eastern India.76 Moreover, these long-range attacks would have to run the gauntlet of China’s air defenses, which, as we now know from Chinese sources, took special measures to protect the nuclear sites.77 Moreover, there is evidence of a paucity of U.S. intelligence about China’s air defenses. Thus, Bundy reported in a memo to President Johnson in January 1965, “We believe the Chinese are [now] using surfaceto-air missiles, but we have less information than we would like on how many there are and where.”78 Even if the bombers could get through, it was not certain whether they

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could guarantee comprehensive destruction of the targets. The estimates prepared by the Policy Planning Office under Herbert Johnson were particularly skeptical on this point. The April 1964 paper noted that even if the air strikes were maximally effective, the Chinese nuclear program would be set back just four to five years.79 At a meeting in mid-September 1964, he further argued, “A one-time attack wouldn’t do the job. It would only buy us some delay. To repeat the performance two or three times would be very difficult for the U.S.”80 Henry Rowen of ISA at the Pentagon responded to this argument at the same meeting, saying, “Such a spoiling operation could gain us 2–5 years. . . . How valuable [are] 2–5 years? [The delay] could be quite important.”81 The problem of efficiency is likely to have caused JCS planners to recommend using nuclear weapons if these operations were undertaken.82 While Kennedy apparently would occasionally “think aloud” to the effect that “it wouldn’t be too hard if we could somehow get kind of an anonymous airplane to go over there [and] take out the Chinese facilities,”83 nuclear operations were an unlikely solution given the restraint of nuclear nonuse norms on U.S. policy. Norms In examining the role of norms in shaping the U.S. position toward China’s nuclear weapons program in the 1960s, we must consider two rather different effects. First, norms prohibiting the use of nuclear weapons appear to have prevented serious planning for using U.S. nuclear weapons in preventive strikes against China’s nascent nuclear capability. Second, norms forbidding surprise or unprovoked attack may also have operated to constrain U.S. policy. Outside of Kennedy’s musings about “an anonymous plane,” newly declassified materials show little evidence of seriousness in developing the nuclear first-strike option.84 It seems significant, for example, that the most specific planning directive sent to the JCS asked for “a contingency plan for attack with conventional weapons.”85 It is not entirely clear whether there was any follow-up to the JCS response suggestion that nuclear weapons be considered for the mission, but Burr and Richelson’s authoritative study concludes, “[This] proposal was undoubtedly disregarded.”86 This conclusion is consistent with indications that U.S. leaders were concerned about the reaction if the United States broke with nonuse norms. A report from mid-1965 suggested, “The use of nuclear weapons by the U.S. would produce an overwhelmingly adverse reaction . . . [that] might mean the loss of key military bases in the Far East . . . and

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the reduction or termination of the U.S. presence in many parts of the non-aligned world.”87 In commenting on this study, Secretary Rusk was careful to say that the United States would not foreclose the nuclear option (specifically, to prevent a replay of the Korean War) but recognized that “this problem may affect our whole position in the world and could even be influenced by domestic attitudes. The gravity and difficulty of the decision should be recognized.”88 There is, in addition, some evidence that U.S. decision-makers were not willing to execute a “Pearl Harbor–style” surprise attack. The phrasing of the conclusions from the crucial 15 September meeting, in which President Johnson opted against an immediate strike on the Chinese facilities, points in this direction. The decision document states, “We are not in favor of unprovoked unilateral U.S. military action against Chinese nuclear installations at this time” (emphasis added). Such an attack, the document suggests, would be carefully considered “if we should find ourselves in hostilities at any level with the Chinese.”89 This conclusion echoed that of Herbert Johnson’s April feasibility study, which asserted, “Action against the ChiCom nuclear facilities which was incidental to other military actions taken against Communist China in response to Chinese aggression would generally be preferable to actions directed against nuclear facilities alone.”90 William Burr and Jeffrey Richelson add, “In the heat of the campaign, with Johnson running on a ‘peace platform’ against the hawkish Goldwater, the last thing that he wanted to contemplate was any military action against China.”91 It is quite plausible, therefore, that at the critical moment, the president was constrained by public feeling that the United States should not commit such a flagrantly aggressive action. The Soviet Factor That the Soviet factor entered U.S. calculations on how to respond to China’s developing nuclear capability is strongly suggested by the persistence showed by both the Kennedy and the Johnson administrations in attempting to gain Moscow’s cooperation, or at least its blessing, before striking at China’s arsenal. There is some evidence that, despite the Sino-Soviet rift, China continued to benefit from the legacy of deterrent commitments given by the USSR during the 1950s. While some analysts apparently believed that the Sino-Soviet conflict had deepened to the point that their mutual defense commitments no longer applied,92 many in the U.S. government were much less confident that the Soviets would stand aside. Serious concern

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about the Soviet reaction is evident in analyses from 1963–64. For example, one senior CIA official cautioned, “Soviet leaders must see themselves facing up to a most trying decision: whether to stand by and see China as a base of the Far Eastern Communist movement knocked into a cocked hat, or whether to come to China’s defense, thus finding themselves in a nuclear war with the U.S. for reasons not of their own choosing.”93 Herbert Johnson’s important April 1964 analysis suggested the possibility that the Soviets might misinterpret a strictly limited strike against China’s nuclear facilities for a larger conflict and feel compelled to react.94 The Soviets actually did attempt to reinforce Washington’s concerns about the Soviet reaction to any preventive attack against China when Ambassador Dobrynin reminded Secretary of State Rusk of the mutual defense treaty, just as Rusk was trying to gain Soviet assent for joint action.95 Avery Goldstein writes, “The Soviets, sensitive to Chinese accusations of collusion with the American imperialists, ignored or shot down each US trial balloon.”96 Perhaps more subtle than the possibility of direct Soviet intervention, but probably more decisive, was the concern that an attack on China might drive the Chinese and the Soviets back together, reestablishing the ominous Sino-Soviet bloc that had been so intimidating during the 1950s. This concern, for example, featured prominently in an April 1963 JCS memorandum on the prospect of a preventive attack on the Chinese nuclear arsenal: “If direct action is required, the U.S. should consider the effects not only on the ChiComs but also on the Sino-Soviet relationship.” Chang concludes, “Worried that a U.S. strike against China might still reunite the two Communist giants, [Washington] . . . hesitated to take unilateral action against Beijing. It continued to pursue its strategy of plying for the Soviets’ favor and waiting for Khrushchev to change his mind.”97 The Soviet factor may also be related to the role of norms, in that superpower agreement would lay a strong basis for an antiproliferation consensus that would enable the United States to strike. This may partly explain the remarkable persistence of both administrations in courting Moscow. Conventional Deterrence China’s large army, America’s primary commitment to Europe, and perhaps especially, both sides’ fresh memories of the Korean War acted as a powerful deterrent to a U.S. preventive attack. As Avery Goldstein writes, “China’s bloody participation [in the Korean War] manifested a resolve that enhanced the credibility of its conventional deterrent threat.”98

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The awe and fear with which U.S. officials viewed China’s vast army is most clearly demonstrated when we recall the previously cited memo written by NSC staff member James C. Thomas on the eve of a major U.S. escalation of the Vietnam conflict in early 1965: “It would be sheer folly to let the momentum of events . . . lead us into a land war with China in which our air and naval power would be relatively ineffective.”99 This fear penetrated to the highest levels of the U.S. government. During meetings on the Vietnam situation in mid-1965, McNamara reported to the president that if a number of conditions were fulfilled, including “most important, [if we] do not strike China—[Beijing] will probably not send regular ground forces or aircraft into the war.”100 It seems likely that he considered the converse to be true as well: that if the United States struck China, Beijing would respond with conventional forces. President Johnson repeatedly asked whether the United States could cope with a massive “Korea-like” Chinese intervention. For example, at one such strategy session on 22 July, the president grilled his Army chief of staff, General Harold Johnson: President: [General Douglas] MacArthur didn’t think [the Chinese] would come in either. Gen. Johnson: Yes, but this is not comparable to Korea . . . President: But China has plenty of divisions to move in don’t they? Gen. Johnson: Yes, they do. President: Then what would we do? Gen. Johnson: (long silence) If so, we have another ball game. President: But I have to take into account [that] they will.101

A few months later, Rusk was asked how he thought the Chinese would respond to a U.S. preventive strike. He answered: The ChiCom reaction would be violent and would result essentially in the employment of their principal weapon, their enormous manpower, in offensive retaliatory operations beyond their borders. In this connection we could not employ U.S. manpower to resist such an action. . . . [T]he U.S. only has 190 million people whereas China has over 600 million. . . . [You must appreciate] the impossibility of employment of U.S. manpower in Asia against such odds.102

Pondering the problem of possible PLA intervention in Southeast Asia, Rusk had commented just a month earlier that “successful opposition to the Chinese would create a terrific burden. . . . We have not really faced the problem of generating sufficient power to convince the ChiComs of their error.”103 Understanding that conventional deterrence was their strongest asset,

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Chinese threats during this period focus on this point. In mid-1964 at the ambassadorial talks in Warsaw between China and the United States, the Chinese representative warned, with little subtlety, that “650 million Chinese cannot be bullied easily.”104 Recall what Hershberg and Chen describe as the inverse of America’s massive retaliation strategy: “Zhou noted that the U.S might attack from the air, but China might respond ‘using [another] strategy, everywhere on the ground.’”105 U.S. officials were left to imagine “the possible scenarios for a massive conventional Chinese retaliatory strike.”106 A few weeks later, Zhou repeated the threat, this time to an intermediary at a conference in Indonesia. He warned, “If the U.S. bombs China . . . [y]ou cannot say that only an air war on your part is allowed, and the land war on my part is not allowed.” Nuclear Deterrence It is significant that there is no evidence of China brandishing its developing arsenal of nuclear weapons during this period of tensions.107 The potential deterrent role of Chinese nuclear forces during the mid-1960s is worth considering, if only because of the widely held notion that “not much is required to deter” when nuclear weapons are employed for deterrence purposes. Indeed, China specialist Avery Goldstein has recently published a book arguing that China’s nuclear experience proves exactly this thesis.108 But with regard to China’s arsenal in the mid-1960s, little evidence has emerged from U.S. archives to support this idea that “a little [nuclear] deterrence goes a long way.”109 Perhaps, some concerns from Herbert Johnson’s April 1964 study may support the view that the United States was restrained by China’s nascent nuclear arsenal. He notes that because of “gaps in intelligence about the PRC’s nuclear programs, Washington may not have identified all of the relevant targets.”110 He also suggests that “Chinese retaliation, perhaps against Taiwan or U.S. bases in East Asia, could not be dismissed.”111 Although Johnson does not specify “nuclear retaliation,” this does seem to be the implication of his warning, since most U.S. bases would otherwise be invulnerable to Chinese attack. Herbert Johnson’s concerns, however, appear to be the exception that proves the rule. Most U.S. analyses of potential Chinese reactions to a U.S. preventive strike do not evince concern about possible Chinese nuclear retaliation.112 Let us examine some documents where one might expect to see concern about China’s possible resort to nuclear weapons. A JCS study from April 1963 concludes, “The ChiComs are not expected to have a significant nuclear capability until after 1970,” and further that

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“the U.S. has the military forces and capability to counter quickly any military action which may be initiated by the ChiComs.”113 A CIA analysis from mid-1963 similarly boasted, “The Chinese will require perhaps decades before [their arsenal] could be expanded to a meaningful deterrent of the U.S.”114 During a September 1964 roundtable discussion of America’s preemptive options, Herbert Johnson noted that the U.S. likely possessed “an effective counter-force capability. The ChiComs would have to take into account possible pre-emptive U.S. action if they brandished missiles in a crisis.” The summary conclusion of an NSC meeting, which included the president, from the following month concluded that “many years would pass before the ChiComs would have a sophisticated delivery capability against nearby territory and we [do] not see them developing any intercontinental capabilities at this time.”115 Contemporary PRC specialists testify to the vulnerability of China’s arsenal during this period. Weapons designer Wang Deli, for example, explains, “After the USSR withdrew its help, China was suddenly on its own. . . . [E]verything was done with such expediency. . . . There was little redundancy. . . . Of course, they tried to protect the nuclear facilities . . . but the gap with the U.S. was too wide. . . . [We] could not stand up to [a] U.S. [attack].”116 Su Hao, an international relations specialist at the Foreign Affairs College in Beijing, explains, “At that time China was very poor. We lacked the capacity to build up facilities for increasing survivability against attacks.”117 Qinghua University’s Li Bin, an expert on nuclear weapons, also noted the extreme vulnerability of China’s arsenal during this period.118 Li Danhui, a Cold War historian, similarly concludes, “If there had been an American attack [against Chinese nuclear weapons and facilities], it would have been effective.”119 Such opinions seem to confirm the estimates made by American planners at the time. A JCS analysis from January 1965 considered what changes should be made to U.S. policy in light of the Chinese test of the previous autumn. The study concludes: “There is no military requirement to modify U.S. commitments at this time. The present ChiCom nuclear capability has not materially affected the existing balance of military power.” Significantly, however, it adds one important caveat: “Expansion of this capability will pose difficult problems in the future.”120 A review of intelligence estimates through 1966 shows a concern with mediumrange missiles and also thermonuclear warheads—the latter development not anticipated until the early 1970s—suggesting that these more powerful weapons might have been sufficient to necessitate adjustments in U.S. strategy.121 It is true that some analysts began at this time to push for a more flex-

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ible approach to China. One might expect to see these arguments based on China’s new nuclear arsenal, because China’s possession of the bomb would, in theory, increase the costs of any confrontation. It is significant that this argument was not made.122 PRC analyses of this period are consistent with these conclusions, emphasizing conventional, but not nuclear, deterrence. Thus, international relations specialist Zhang Xiaoming of Peking University argues, “Most important for the U.S. was to avoid another Korean war.”123 Similarly, Zhang Qingmin, an expert on U.S.-China relations at the Foreign Affairs College, explains that “the U.S. learned, because in the Korean War, China did not have nuclear weapons and still fought successfully. [Thus,] ground forces [were important], but [the United States] did not worry about Chinese nuclear forces, because these forces were so fragile in the beginning.”124 According to Cold War historian Shen Zhihua, the Chinese atomic bomb had no “use value” (shiyong jiazhi) during this period.125 PRC nuclear weapons scientists appear to concur.126 Finally, neither published PRC discussions of potential U.S.-Chinese conflict in Vietnam nor overviews of Chinese nuclear history and policy suggests the possibility of effective Chinese nuclear deterrence in the mid-1960s.127 We have seen that Presidents Kennedy and Johnson both reviewed plans for a preventive or preemptive attack against China during this period. It cannot be said that the Vietnam War was the root cause of these concerns, although it was a factor, because these apprehensions and calculations largely predated America’s entry into that conflict. Rather, the more basic cause of fundamental instability in U.S.-China relations during the early 1960s was China’s debut as a nuclear power. Why did this crisis, unique in that it occurred almost entirely behind closed doors, not flare into war? I have argued that a counterproliferation operation of this sort would have been difficult, chiefly because of the remoteness of the Chinese targets. Swift success could not have been guaranteed through the use of conventional weapons alone. Nonuse norms, however, constrained serious consideration of a nuclear first strike. Nor did an American president wish to be seen as the aggressor, although an excuse probably could have been found. There was some residual concern over whether the Soviet-Chinese mutual defense treaty was still active, but the more important reason behind Washington’s repeated solicitation of Moscow on this matter was the desire to keep SinoSoviet hostility boiling, and an attempt to build legitimacy for preventive action. While there is hardly any evidence to suggest that Washington was deterred by China’s small nuclear arsenal, there is much in both Chinese threats and recently declassified deliberations by U.S. leaders to sug-

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gest that the Chinese conventional threat made Washington think twice before initiating preventive action against China’s arsenal. Avery Goldstein’s analysis concedes that China’s nuclear deterrent probably lacked credibility until the mid-1970s. However, in concluding, based partly on China’s experience, that we too often “overlook the potential advantages of a world with a slowly growing number of nucleararmed states,” this analysis overlooks instabilities triggered in the short run by states moving toward possession of a secure nuclear deterrent.128 This study suggests, by contrast, that stable nuclear deterrence is not created overnight. There is little or no evidence suggesting that China’s nuclear test made U.S. leaders more cautious in their dealings with China. Instead, China’s nuclear weapons program caused American leaders to entertain the gravest of thoughts.

chapter five

Case 3: The Soviet Union and China

During the 1969 border crisis, China, which had tested its first atomic weapon only four and one half years earlier, appears to have directly challenged the Soviet Union, a power that already possessed a huge nuclear arsenal with advanced systems of reconnaissance, targeting, and delivery. Sino-Soviet relations in the late 1960s could even be considered a “crucial case” for “proliferation optimist” theorizing.1 Indeed, Kenneth Waltz makes extensive use of this case in his elaboration of the theory, observing, for example, “[For the Soviets] to locate . . . virtually every Chinese missile, aircraft, weapons storage area and production facility . . . is not good enough. . . . Not much is required to deter. What political-military objective is worth risking Vladivostok, Novosibirsk, and Tomsk?”2 This chapter draws on a number of recently published Russian and Chinese historical narratives, in addition to interviews among Russian and Chinese scholars and policymakers,3 to ask: given the fleeting opportunity to curb China’s nuclear ambitions, why did Soviet leaders, not widely celebrated as humanists, hesitate in the spring and summer of 1969?

to the ussuri clashes One of a number of sore points that developed between the two Communist giants during the late 1950s concerned the promised Soviet transfer of nuclear weapons to the Chinese.4 The memoirs of a former Soviet deputy foreign minister for the Far East, M. S. Kapitsa, published only in 1996, shed some light on this development. Kapitsa claims to have written the original Soviet message to the Chinese that attempted to explain

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why the Soviets were reneging on this commitment. According to Kapitsa, the Soviets were disturbed by Mao’s willingness to see the U.S. use nuclear weapons against Fujian province during the Taiwan Straits Crisis of 1958, believing the Chinese to be “too irresponsible for the possession of the ultimate weapon.”5 Concerning the Chinese reaction, Kapitsa quotes PRC foreign minister Chen Yi as swearing to the Soviet ambassador, “You have left us without pants, but we will build a bomb nevertheless.”6 Fulfilling Chen’s vow, the Chinese exploded an atomic bomb in 1964 and, impressively, a thermonuclear device just two years later. Alexander Elizavetin, Moscow’s ambassador to Beijing during the 1969 crisis, wrote in a 1992 essay, “Soviet military leaders watched attentively as . . . China succeeded in exploding an atomic device, . . . aware of the fact that Chinese nuclear forces could already execute certain missions.”7 Victor Gobarev, a retired officer from Soviet military intelligence, reflected in a recent survey of Sino-Soviet nuclear interaction, “The fact that the confrontation escalated in the year during which the Chinese conducted their first nuclear test was no coincidence.”8 Unnerved by Mao’s willingness to question the sanctity of the SinoSoviet border, however, Brezhnev undertook a buildup of armed forces in Siberia, the Far East, and Mongolia.9 While border “incidents” had begun to occur as early as 1960, and perhaps with some seriousness after 1966, the August 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and the articulation of the Brezhnev doctrine constituted a dangerous turning point in Sino-Soviet relations. The Cultural Revolution compounded the tense situation, demonstrating Mao’s radicalism, as well as creating political incentives for Chinese leaders to fashion a unifying external threat.10 Heavy fighting occurred on 2 March and 15 March in and around Damansky (Zhenbao) island on the Ussuri River.11 A certain degree of revisionism has emerged in Russian accounts of this fighting. For example, one recent press account is at pains to dispel Soviet propaganda from the period, which suggested that the Soviet border guards had easily repulsed the Chinese probes. Rather, this article paints a picture of near-paralyzing confusion on the Soviet side, of units sent piecemeal into the fray, and of humiliating losses.12 Another recent article criticizes the political and military leadership for seeking to defend an island that was clearly much closer to the Chinese side of the river.13 Nevertheless, it is striking that all Russian sources continue to maintain that the events of 2 March constituted a Chinese ambush.14 One might be tempted to attribute this uniformity of opinion among Russian narratives to a nationalist hangover, except that their PRC colleagues are apparently inclined to agree. According to Cold War historian Li Danhui, “Already in 1968, China began preparations to create a small

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war on the border.” She observes that, on at least two occasions prior to March 1969, Chinese border troops had tried to provoke a similar incident, “but the Soviets, feeling weak, did not accept the Chinese challenge and retreated.”15 Another PRC Cold War historian, Yang Kuisong, seconds this analysis: “There were already significant preparations in 1968, but the Russians did not come, so the planned ambush was not successful.”16 By contrast, Yang notes, “The attack of March 1969 was completely successful, because the Russians were not at all prepared.” Jiang Yi, a PRC specialist on Sino-Russian relations gives a similar analysis: “It is clear that Chinese leaders intentionally orchestrated this conflict. [Mao] did not want a war, but he did want a large-scale clash. . . . Soviet troops were completely unready.”17 Furthermore, an interview conducted by Yang with General Chen Xilian, commander of the Shenyang Military Region during the crisis, reveals that the Chinese troops deployed to attack at Zhenbao were an elite unit with special training and equipment.18 Regarding the larger clash on 15 March, Russian historian and sinologist Victor Usov relates details from an interview with Colonel Alexander Konstantinov, a participant in the battle.19 According to this account, the Soviet commander during the battle, who was killed in the action, had great difficulty securing help from regular army forces in the region and receiving orders because the defense minister was abroad and Brezhnev was on a train to Hungary. The Soviet commander was apparently forbidden to violate the Chinese border and, therefore, was forced to send his tanks and armored vehicles straight across the ice and directly into enemy fire (rather than bringing them around the flank, presumably), and losses were significant.20 Only in the afternoon, after communication had been established with Brezhnev, were regular army units thrown into the fray, beginning with a massive rocket and artillery attack that began around 1 p.m.21 According to a Soviet eyewitness account, “It was like a crematorium—several hundred Chinese died in the flames.”22 It should be noted that on 8 March the Soviets made the first nuclear threat of the crisis in an article in the military newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda.23 However, conciliatory gestures followed the 15 March clash, including Kosygin’s 21 March telephone appeal to the Chinese leadership (which was rebuffed by the Chinese)24 and the Soviet note of 29 March, which, according to Elizavetin, demonstrated to the Chinese that the Soviet side wanted to avoid escalation.25 April and May witnessed sporadic fighting, but of lower intensity. Both sides also made certain accommodating gestures. June saw tensions rise again, perhaps as a result of the gathering in Moscow of most of the world’s Communist parties for a conference. Over protests from Ro-

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mania, the Soviets sought to steer the forum toward a condemnation of China’s provocative actions on the border. Brezhnev made a number of ominous statements at the conference, portraying China as a threat to international security: “Peking’s combining of political adventurism with the atmosphere of sustained war hysteria introduced new elements into the international situation, elements which we have no right to ignore.”26 The crisis reached new heights between August and October, with the Soviets directing ominous threats at the Chinese through a number of conspicuous channels. Early in the month, the new commander of Soviet forces in the Far East, Colonel General V. Tolubko, an officer who had made his career in the Strategic Rocket Forces, wrote an article in Krasnaya Zvezda commemorating the success of Soviet troops in resisting Chinese incursions during the late 1920s. The most intense clash of arms since the battles of March came on 13 August, this time on the Xinjiang border. According to Kapitsa, Zhou and the Chinese leadership viewed this incident as extremely provocative, because the Chinese felt especially vulnerable in this region. In the September negotiations with Kosygin, Zhou is said to have noted, “You surrounded a Chinese formation with tanks and destroyed 20 soldiers. . . . The Soviet side has gone a long way down [the] path [of war].”27 There were a number of other indications in late August that the Soviets were contemplating striking Chinese nuclear facilities. A mid-level Soviet diplomat in Washington, D.C. asked an American diplomat on 13 August how the Americans would react to a Soviet strike against Chinese nuclear facilities. The CIA director announced to journalists on 27 August that the Soviets had “sounded out” East European officials on the subject of a Soviet preventive attack on China. In addition, American intelligence detected preparations consistent with a preventive strike at Soviet air bases in Siberia and the Far East during late August.28 Finally, a Pravda editorial of 28 August made the first explicit reference to the challenge posed by Chinese nuclear weapons: “Chinese arsenals [are] being filled with ever more new weapons. . . . [A] war would involve lethal weapons and modern delivery systems.”29 On 5 September, the United States conveyed a warning to the Soviets that “we could not fail to be deeply concerned” by any escalation of the crisis. Emergency negotiations between Zhou and Kosygin took place on 11 September at Beijing’s airport. The best Western surveys of the crisis, studies by Wich (1980) and Gelman (1982), give only sparse details of this important meeting. Therefore, I will summarize the important account offered in the recent Elizavetin article. Elizavetin claims that both sides agree that Zhou addressed the ques-

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tion of a Soviet preventive strike from the outset of the meeting, seeking a pledge from Kosygin himself.30 They also apparently agree that Zhou went to great lengths to explain that China had no aggressive intentions or potential, especially given the Cultural Revolution; that her nuclear program did not threaten the USSR; and therefore, that the Soviets had no grounds for preventive war.31 Elizavetin then elaborates those elements of the Soviet version that are missing from the Chinese version of the meeting. Kosygin reportedly emphasized that the USSR had no plans for war against China and did not believe that China was preparing for war. This version claims that Zhou made two references to absolute Soviet superiority in the air. Finally, Elizavetin spells out a Chinese perspective on the negotiations.32 Zhou is said to have asserted that China had plenty of resources and therefore did not seek territorial aggrandizement. Somewhat surprisingly, Zhou, according to this version, conceded that China was incapable of fighting a nuclear war, because of the weakness of its arsenal. Elizavetin writes that Zhou “especially emphasized that in the event of a Soviet attack on Chinese nuclear bases, his nation would consider itself to be in a war ‘to the end’ with the USSR.” According to Elizavetin, Zhou also asserted that “even in the event of the technical realization of this preventive strike, the USSR would create for itself colossal political problems for the decades ahead.”33 This crucial part of the negotiation is buttressed by the testimony of Li Jingjie, former director of Beijing’s Institute of East European, Russian and Central Asian Studies. Li explains, “Zhou threatened Kosygin, . . . ‘you can destroy my nuclear bases [but] I can still launch a [conventional] attack and weaken the Soviet Union.’” According to Li, Zhou’s reference point was the long war of resistance against Japan.34 Tentative and ambiguous agreements reached in Beijing by the two leaders seemed to have played some role in defusing the crisis. The weakness of the “understanding,” however, is illustrated by tensions that continued for more than a decade.35

moscow’s plan for a splendid first strike It is plausible that the Soviets never entertained the possibility of striking at China’s nuclear facilities but rather orchestrated the rumors as part of an elaborate sham aimed at coercing the Chinese.36 However, there were strong reasons for considering such a strike, including Mao’s radi-

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cal views on nuclear weapons, the traditional vulnerability of the Soviet Far East, and the shocking nature of the Chinese attack on Damansky. Moreover, newly available evidence suggests that the Soviets indeed seriously considered such a preventive blow. There is substantial reason to believe that Moscow’s extensive experience with Mao’s “paper tiger” philosophy concerning nuclear weapons may have inflated Soviet concerns. Khrushchev’s disagreements with Mao about the potential uses of nuclear weapons are well known. I have already noted Kapitsa’s belief that the Chinese were irresponsible in their discussions about nuclear weapons during the 1950s. Ilya Gaiduk, a Russian historian of the Cold War in Asia, explains Soviet perceptions during this period: “Considering the on-going Cultural Revolution, Moscow feared that China was becoming more and more unpredictable, and thus it was impossible to say how they would behave with the atomic bomb.”37 Such fears were likely compounded by an awareness of the longstanding vulnerability of Russia’s Far Eastern possessions, an awareness that dates to Russia’s great humiliation in the Russo-Japanese war. These lessons were reinforced by the Allied occupation of Vladivostok during the Russian Civil War. Successes against the Japanese in the region just prior to World War II depended to a very large extent on whether the European flank (always the priority) was secure. Eastern Russia was remote and relatively underpopulated, and its major cities from Novosibirsk to Vladivostok lay strung out along the railroad, which ran next to the Chinese border. The Soviets would have been hard-pressed to develop a strategy for protecting such a vulnerable supply line from an enemy that possessed vast numerical superiority. Finally and most importantly, such fears were accentuated by the shocking nature of the Chinese challenge, which, as has become clear from the testimony of PRC specialists, came in the form of an ambush. Cold War historians Yang Kuisong and Li Danhui have confirmed the premeditated nature of the attack, and Jiang Yi and other Chinese Sovietologists have noted that “Soviet troops were completely unready.”38 Li even describes the Soviet leadership’s reaction as mudeng koudai, literally “eyes wide, mouth gaping,” or dumbstruck.39 Russian specialists concur: for example, Gobarev observes, “Senior Soviet leaders were caught off guard as much as Stalin had been by the Germans in 1941.”40 Indeed, Valentin Karymov, a sinologist who served on the staff of the CPSU Central Committee with access to Soviet elites, recalled, “Damansky was a very dangerous precedent. . . . Nothing like this had ever occurred in the U.S.-Soviet rivalry. . . . They attacked the island and killed our soldiers.”41 Likewise, Lev Deluisin, another sinologist with access to the se-

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nior leadership, describes the mood in Moscow following the initial attack: “There was a kind of terror. . . . Among the leadership, there was a feeling that the Chinese would return to the attack.”42 Thus, RAND specialist Harry Gelman was correct in concluding, “Much of the alarm in 1969 that seemed to some Soviets in later years to have been exaggerated and unnecessary derived from this sense of dangerous uncertainty; if Chinese behavior was open-ended, then anything was possible.”43 The prospect of Chinese nuclear weapons changing the balance of power, the historical vulnerability of the Soviet eastern flank, and the shocking nature of the Chinese attack on Damansky appear to have set in motion serious consideration of options for preventive war. The most explicit account of decision-making during the crisis comes from Arkady Shevchenko, a high-ranking Soviet diplomat who defected to the United States in 1978. His memoirs are worth quoting at length: The events at Damansky had the effect of an electric shock on Moscow. The Politburo was terrified that the Chinese might make a large-scale intrusion into Soviet territory which China claimed. . . . From others I heard that the Soviet leadership had come close to using nuclear arms on China. A [Foreign] Ministry colleague who had been present at the Politburo discussion told me that Marshal Andrei Grechko, the Defense Minister, advocated a plan to “once and for all get rid of the Chinese threat.” He called for unrestricted use of multi-megaton bombs. . . . Fortunately, not many military men shared Grechko’s mad, bellicose stance. . . . I talked with one of Grechko’s colleagues, [General] Nikolai Ogarkov, . . . [who] took a more realist view of the prospect of war with China. . . . [He proposed] the alternative . . . to use a limited number of nuclear weapons in a kind of “surgical operation” to intimidate the Chinese and destroy their nuclear facilities. . . . Disagreements about bombing China stalemated the Politburo . . . for several months.”44

Russian specialists close to the Brezhnev leadership concede that such plans were developed. Thus, Karymov testifies, “Every kind of contingency plan was considered, including preventive strikes and limited attacks.”45 Anatoly Boliatko, a retired general in the Strategic Rocket Forces and a specialist in Asian security, explains, “All variants of plans are fully developed. . . . Knowing Grechko personally, I can say that it is conceivable that he favored a full strike.”46 Confronted with Shevchenko’s testimony, Deliusin made no denial: “Discussions occurred about whether to carry out a preventive strike against all of China’s nuclear complexes so as to resolve the problem. . . . Fortunately, the government rejected these options, but these opinions were expressed.” Moreover, according to Deluisin, these were not simply the opinions of military planners. He adds, “Among [various] civilian diplomats, there was the opinion that while we have the power, we should use it.”47

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New research by Victor Gobarev, a former Soviet military officer, suggests that the main thrust of Russian military preparations was in the direction of delivering a conventional preemptive blow rather than a nuclear first strike. According to Gobarev, such plans were developed and approved by the chief of staff and the defense minister, but never by the Politburo. He asserts, “The Russian military was very concerned in case China was losing the war . . . that Mao and his group of leaders would approve the use of several atomic bombs.”48 As to whether such a strike—executed with missiles and bombers—would be sufficient to entirely destroy the Chinese arsenal, Gobarev claims that “according to my own estimates and those of the General Staff, [such a preemptive strike] surely could have succeeded. . . . The major role here was played by Russian military intelligence. . . . They knew all too well where [the Chinese nuclear weapons and facilities] were.”49 The recent testimony of Karymov and Deluisin, and Gobarev’s research, all buttress the older testimony from Shevchenko. If we surmise that such drastic options were probably explored, we must then ask why they were not acted upon.

why the soviets did not strike Norms One explanation for Soviet decision-making is that Soviet leaders were constrained by norms. We have noted recent theorizing by Richard Price and Nina Tannenwald, who hold that a “taboo” formed around the use of nuclear weapons, so that the first use of such weapons was not even an option among leaders who considered themselves “civilized.” Absent from their work is empirically grounded analysis regarding Soviet views on nuclear weapons.50 The 1969 crisis is certainly an important case in this regard. Some observers of this crisis have cited the attitudes of Soviet leaders, the Soviet people, or world opinion as restraints on the use of nuclear weapons against China. Harrison Salisbury wrote at the time of the crisis, “No Russian government could face such a possibility; the prospect would bring the Soviet people up in arms against Moscow.”51 It seems clear that Soviet leaders sought to distance their views on nuclear weapons from Mao’s “irresponsible” views. But this differentiation had a certain propaganda value that should, of course, make us suspicious. More tangibly, Gobarev’s research offers some support for the role of nonuse norms in the 1969 crisis. In a recent article, he ob-

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serves that Brezhnev and other senior Soviet leaders were committed to the principle of no first use of nuclear weapons.52 When pressed on this point, he asserts that this conclusion is based on his review of Soviet war plans and oral histories, and explains: “I understand that you in the U.S. look at these things differently. . . . Despite being ‘animals,’ [Soviet leaders] always rejected first use.”53 Pavel Podvig, a Russian expert on Soviet nuclear weapons, offers further evidence for norms. According to Podvig, Soviet leaders of the late 1960s were faced with a choice between developing a MIRV for the existing SS-11 or designing a new missile to fit into specially hardened silos. Either solution would have improved deterrence, but the ultimate decision to harden silos indicates that the Soviets wanted the option of riding out a first strike. They were seeking to move away from a first strike or “launch on warning” posture. Increased interest in early warning and limiting missile defenses illustrates that “everything was moving in [the] direction [of no first use].”54 This evidence remains fragile,55 but Gobarev’s research finding that the option of a conventional strike was fully developed is consistent with the theory that norms were a constraint on Soviet leaders.56 Both Podvig and Garthoff conclude that the Soviets would have employed conventional weapons instead of nuclear weapons to strike Chinese nuclear facilities if this was feasible.57 Difficult as it is to prove the role of norms, we can acknowledge based on the above evidence that nonuse norms likely did play some role in the crisis of 1969. Nuclear Deterrence Was Waltz justified in using the Sino-Soviet case as an example of a situation where the mere possession of nuclear weapons by both sides prevented the outbreak of war? Recently, other scholars have used the case to support the proliferation optimist position.58 With the test of an atomic device in 1964 and a thermonuclear device two years later, the Chinese had developed some form of deterrent, but the achievement was incomplete without demonstrating survivable systems for delivery. As we saw in the last chapter, the DF-2 (CSS-1), with a range of 1,450 kilometers, was flight tested with a live 20-kiloton warhead in the fall of 1966. According to John Lewis and Xue Litai, the DF-3, with a range of 2,800 kilometers, first flew successfully in December of that year.59 But most Western analyses suggest that these missiles were not yet deployed and operational in the 1969 crisis.60 Indeed, the estimates presented in the Cambridge History of China date China’s first deployments of nuclear-tipped missiles to 1971–72 (see Table 5.1). Even

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The Soviet Union and China table 5.1 Chinese Nuclear Delivery Vehicles, 1969–73 Year

ICBM

MRBM

IRBM

SLBM

II-28

TU-16

SSM

1969–70

0

0

0

0

1970–71

0

0

0

0

1971–72

0

c. 20

0

1972–73

0

20–30

15–20

Total

150

0

0

150

150

10–20

0

160–70

0

150

c. 30

0

200

0

200

c. 100

0

335–50

Source: Robinson, “China Confronts the Soviet Union,” Cambridge History of China, vol. 15, part 2, p. 300.

if some DF-2s were deployed, their liquid fuel ensured cumbersome and time-consuming preparation.61 The Chinese may have possessed some quantity of nuclear-capable medium-range bombers, but these were considered obsolete.62 In addition, chaos caused by the Cultural Revolution seems to have slowed progress in China’s strategic weapons programs during this period.63 Chinese early-warning and command-and-control capabilities were primitive at best during the 1969 crisis. The CIA appears to have taken a stand close to the proliferation optimists during the crisis, arguing that “there was a low probability that the Soviet Union would attack China’s nuclear weapons complex because Soviet forces could not preclude the possibility that China would be able to hide a sufficient number of [nuclear] weapons.”64 However, the tenuous nature of the CIA’s analysis became clear when their original estimate of a 10 percent chance of a Soviet assault, based on their proliferation optimism, was amended to 50 percent in August 1969.65 Perhaps the strongest single piece of evidence for proliferation optimism in the 1969 crisis is to be found in journalist Patrick Tyler’s recent discussion of the crisis. He asserts that Mao not only dared to carry out thermonuclear tests during the crisis, but “two tests were conducted within six days of each other. China had never conducted two nuclear tests in such rapid succession, and Mao’s act carried an unmistakable political message for the Soviet divisions massed across the border.”66 Further evidence for proliferation optimism is to be found in a document cited by Yang Kuisong, in which Mao is said to have warned, “Moscow also needed to remember that China possessed its own nuclear bombs and could take a terrible revenge.”67 Despite the increased pace of Chinese testing during the crisis, most American, Russian, and Chinese scholars and strategists are deeply skep-

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The Soviet Union and China

tical of the proliferation optimist interpretation. The weaknesses in China’s nuclear weapons program were all too apparent. For example, two American scholars appraising the crisis concluded, “The PRC was said to lack a delivery system for nuclear warheads and to remain highly vulnerable to preemptive attacks by either the US or the Soviet Union.”68 Edward Luttwak concluded in 1982, “In the West there has been intermittent talk of a supposed ‘point of no return’ in regard to Soviet military action against the PRC—or rather against its nuclear arsenal. In fact there was no such time in the past, though there may be one in the future.”69 On the significance of China’s bomber force, two more analysts asked in the same volume, “Could a significant number of the surviving Chinese bombers . . . penetrate the most sophisticated electronic warfare and air defense system in the world?”70 Cold War historian Raymond Garthoff, looking back on the crisis, observes, “[The Soviets] had the feeling that they could deal with the very small Chinese [arsenal].”71 Avery Goldstein has recently published a study comparing China’s nuclear strategy to that of Britain and France. He argues that these states all turned to nuclear weapons as a logical alternative to prohibitively expensive conventional means for solving grave security challenges. The argument is quite consistent with proliferation optimism.72 However, it is noteworthy that even here, only very limited claims are made with respect to the Sino-Soviet crisis of 1969.73 Indeed, Avery Goldstein observes that Beijing could not “flaunt . . . a still dubious nuclear retaliatory capability.”74 Moreover, his survey of China’s nuclear strategy concludes, “By the mid-1980s the Chinese could at last be moderately confident of the dissuasive effects of their own small but potent nuclear arsenal.”75 Thus, according to this proliferation optimist account, the PRC had to labor for almost two more decades before securing a significant deterrent. Naturally, Soviet (and Russian) views on China’s nuclear potential are more important than American appraisals.76 Available evidence seems to confirm American opinions, however. Neither Shevchenko, Kapitsa, nor Elizavetin mention Chinese nuclear weapons as a deterrent in the crisis. Consistent with proliferation pessimist theory, Shevchenko does not even broach the question of Chinese nuclear potential until the end of his narrative: “[The crisis] was no joke to the Soviet leadership. The Chinese nuclear arsenal was growing.”77 Elizavetin offers some insight into Soviet military thinking: “Soviet military analysts definitely did not overestimate the capability and ambitions for China’s atomic weapons. A number of these analysts believed that China was completely incapable of mounting a retaliatory blow, that her existing forces were too vulnerable.”78 Another of Elizavetin’s observations is worth emphasizing here: “The Soviet military leadership was at this time extremely well-acquainted with the

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capabilities of the Chinese armed forces, because . . . they were built with their indispensable participation.”79 Indeed, Soviet advisors had familiarity with the most intricate details of the key elements in China’s nuclear weapons infrastructure, which were often located perilously close to the Soviet border.80 One of Moscow’s preeminent experts on Chinese nuclear forces emphasizes that “substantial” Chinese strategic rocket forces were only created in 1974. Before that, even the Chinese admitted that their program represented a “paper tiger.”81 Likewise, Vitaly Shlykov, a former colonel in military intelligence who oversaw intelligence estimates during the 1970s, recollected, “I do not think that we feared China’s nuclear potential during this period.”82 Alexei Vosskressenski, a specialist on Sino-Russian relations, contends that in the Sino-Soviet context nuclear weapons never played the deterrent role that they did in the European context.83 Anatoly Boliatko explains, “The development of Chinese nuclear weapons was quite slow in this period—they did not have sufficient stocks of [nuclear] weapons.”84 Recall that Gobarev’s research led him to the conclusion that Soviet intelligence possessed the targeting information requisite to carry out a disarming first strike.85 Lev Deliusin concludes, “[Nuclear] weapons may induce caution in some circumstances, but when they are in the hands of leaders who feel no responsibility, then they do not play a stabilizing, but rather a destabilizing role.”86 Chinese specialists largely agree with the analyses of their Russian and American colleagues cited above. Shen Dingli, an expert on Chinese nuclear forces, contends, “Since Russia was far advanced and China had just started, the relationship experienced a period of nuclear instability, in which Russia had incentive to attack . . . but after that period, China . . . paid more attention to accelerating its development of nuclear weapons.”87 Likewise, Cold War historian Yang notes, “The Russians did not fear Chinese nuclear weapons. They knew where they were, and felt that it would be easy to knock them out in a first strike. Moreover, Chinese missiles were not advanced at that time. Without effective aircraft or missiles, the nuclear weapons could not be delivered. They didn’t have the capability.”88 Thus, China’s leading historian of the crisis dismisses Mao’s threat to use nuclear weapons “to take a terrible revenge.” Recently declassified Chinese documents reveal substantial insecurities in this regard as well. Mao confided to a visitor just a few months prior to the Ussuri crisis, “Our country, in a sense, is still a non-nuclear power. With this little nuclear weaponry, we cannot be counted as a nuclear country. If we are to fight a war, we must use conventional weapons.”89 Moreover, the secret report four marshals prepared for Mao in September 1969 appears to view China’s nuclear arsenal as a liability: “Our

88

The Soviet Union and China

nuclear weapons are still under development. . . . A group of adventurers in the Soviet revisionist leadership want to seize this opportunity.”90 Finally, recall that in tense negotiations with Kosygin at the Beijing airport in September 1969, Zhou apparently did not discuss a nuclear response to Soviet attack, as the proliferation optimists would predict, but rather emphasized the likelihood that a Sino-Soviet war would be protracted.91 The case for a proliferation optimist interpretation of this crisis cannot be entirely dismissed, but this new testimony by Russian sinologists, military, and intelligence officials, in addition to Gobarev’s research, provides extensive counterevidence. When added to the fact that emerging evidence on the Chinese side also undercuts proliferation optimism, we have considerable reason to doubt the applicability of Waltz’s theory to this case. The American Factor American warnings to the Soviets late in the crisis raise the possibility that the U.S. position may have persuaded Soviet leaders against preventive war with China. The strategic “triangle” had begun to come into play during the crisis, but U.S.-Chinese contact emerged slowly and tentatively. When Nixon announced his plan for “Vietnamization” on 25 July, during a trip to Asia, calling for a gradual withdrawal of U.S. troops from South Vietnam, the plan was denounced by Beijing as a plot to “use Asians to fight Asians.”92 A Chinese statement of 5 August reviewing the Nixon trip referred to the American president as “the notorious god of war.”93 Nixon did not appear to take this insult personally, since, according to Kissinger, he explained to the NSC only a week later that the United States had a stake in China. Kissinger describes the 14 August NSC meeting as follows: “The President startled his cabinet colleagues by this revolutionary thesis . . . that the Soviet Union was the more aggressive party and that it was against our interests to let China be ‘smashed’ in a Sino-Soviet war.”94 Some have taken the U.S. statement of deep concern on 5 September as evidence that the United States, in indicating its opposition to a preventive war, effectively vetoed Soviet plans.95 American scholars have also embraced this explanation.96 Upon further examination, however, the argument is not plausible. The weakest part of the argument is the notion that the United States would have joined China in a war against the Soviet Union. The United States would not have joined such a war for four reasons. First, the American people would have opposed the expenditure of blood or much

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treasure for the defense of one communist country against another. Second, frustrations with the Vietnam War were running high during 1969, causing leaders and public alike to avoid greater commitments in Asia. Third, the United States lacked the conventional capabilities necessary to wage a major land war in Asia.97 Fourth, American leaders would have had little credibility in making nuclear threats against the USSR in this situation. Kissinger himself admits that direct U.S. involvement was beyond the realm of possibility. He writes, “A Soviet attack on China could not be ignored by us. . . . But a direct American challenge would not be supported by our public opinion and might even accelerate what we sought to prevent.”98 Similarly, Peter Rodman, a member of Kissinger’s staff at this time, recalls, “We had no contact with China, so the idea of coordinating military policy was out of the question. . . . The American public would have been completely mystified. . . . We’d [have made] a big fuss [but] intervening militarily would not have been feasible.”99 As regards the American nuclear deterrent, the Soviets must have been aware that if the alliance was wrangling over whether the Americans would sacrifice New York for Berlin, it was most unlikely to consider sacrificing (or even threatening to sacrifice) New York for Lop Nor.100 If the United States was extremely unlikely to intervene directly on behalf of the Chinese, there were nevertheless various indirect options. Certainly, stern U.S. criticism of Soviet actions would exact a political price, especially during a period in which Soviet leaders were seeking trade and technology benefits from detente.101 The possibility of aid to the Chinese was probably also a concern. But this kind of American aid would have taken time: time to establish supply networks and time to familiarize the Chinese with American weapons or tactics. More persuasive is the argument that war with China would have so drained the USSR of military resources that it would have lost its ability to effectively balance U.S. power.102 It is likely that the United States did play a role in Soviet calculations; however, this role was of secondary importance in that direct U.S. intervention was never a significant possibility. Thus, America’s role in the crisis has largely been overestimated.103 Conventional Deterrence A final explanation holds that the Soviets were ready and willing to strike Chinese nuclear facilities if necessary, but because of their conventional superiority, they could afford to wait and see how the situation devel-

31

31

31

31

1973–74

1974–75

1975–76

6

5

5

8

23

23

23

21

43

45

45

44

25

25

20

25

28

28

18

17

17

17

25

25

3

3

3

3

3

3

12

12

12

12

12

12

6

6

8

8

3

3

3

55

50

45

40

33

32

32

15

15

15

15

11

11

11

8

8

10

10

5

4

4

78

73

70

65

49

47

47

Source: Robinson, “China Confronts the Soviet Union,” Cambridge History of China, vol. 15, part 2, p. 299.

63

63

60

60

40

37

1972–73

21

21

Southwest 12

Tibet

8

Hainan 3

Northeast

60

Wuhan 25

Lanzhou

8

31

Fujian 28

China

Xinjiang

60

31

1971–72

19

1970–71

8

28

Eastern Europe 22

European USSR 60

Central USSR

32

South USSR

1969–70

Soviet Far East

1968–69

Year

Soviet Union

table 5.2 Soviet and Chinese Force Dispositions, 1969–76

Sino-Soviet border

The Soviet Union and China

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oped. When the Chinese made concessions in October, the Soviets did not need to escalate further. A great Soviet qualitative advantage in all categories of weaponry must be assumed.104 However, the PLA enjoyed the advantage with respect to logistics. The Chinese would clearly have shorter lines of supply,105 and moreover, the Russians’ vital Trans-Siberian railroad would have been vulnerable to interdiction. According to the most detailed data currently available, twenty-two Soviet divisions confronted forty-seven PLA divisions along the border in early 1969 (see Table 5.2). Most Western analyses give the Soviets an advantage because of their technological edge and the pernicious effects of the Cultural Revolution on the PLA.106 Perception of such an advantage is reflected to some degree in Russian appraisals.107 Nevertheless, none of the available Russian sources suggest that conventional superiority obviated the necessity of considering preventive war. Gobarev explains that the position taken by the KGB Main Intelligence Directorate during the crisis was that “there was no adequate defense against a large scale Chinese land invasion other than the use of the Soviet nuclear weapons.”108 The fifteen divisions defending the Soviet Far East in 1969 are also estimated to have been “under strength.”109 Gobarev explains, “[Soviet] troop levels only reached the capacity needed to repulse the Chinese on a conventional level during the mid-1970s. In 1969, the Soviets were not ready.”110 Another former Russian military intelligence officer familiar with the Sino-Soviet military balance in this period confirms this conclusion.111 Chinese analysts also give China the edge in conventional forces during the 1969 crisis. Yang Kuisong explains, “Because China has many more soldiers, it was felt that if they broke through the Russians would not be able to rectify the situation.”112 Jiang Yi suggests, “[Mao] made very exact calculations, that the USSR did not have adequate preparation, numbers, or experience to carry out a serious war with China.”113 Significantly, newly available U.S. documents suggest that even in 1974, subsequent to a massive reinforcement effort by Moscow, Beijing still felt confident in the conventional balance.114 Soviet generals would also have to reckon with China’s large rural population, which was well schooled in adverse material conditions and quite prepared for the rigors of “people’s war.” This factor seems to have been important to Soviet strategists. Shevchenko reports that General Ogarkov ultimately opposed a surgical strike as “too risky. A bomb or two would hardly annihilate a country like China, and the Chinese, with their vast population and deep knowledge of guerrilla warfare, would fight unrelentingly. The Soviet Union would be mired in endless war.”115

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The Soviet Union and China

Today Russian strategists emphasize the same factors in analyzing the 1969 crisis. For example, General Boliatko explains, “Nuclear weapons [only] have an important effect if you have concentrated kinds of targets . . . and when there’s not so much space. . . . But the factor of numbers, . . . [the prospect of] partisan war, that was important.”116 The Chinese seem to realize that the possibility of “people’s war” was their strongest deterrent against a Soviet attack, and so took every opportunity to advertise the salience of this factor. Thus, Russian sources, such as Kapitsa and Elizavetin, and Chinese authorities, such as Li Jingjie, agree that Zhou was at pains to make clear to Kosygin during their airport meeting that a Soviet attack would be treated by the Chinese as general war, and that the Chinese would fight “to the end.” Contemporary Chinese specialists likewise emphasize the deterrent role of “people’s war.” Yang argues, “Russia could not conquer China, it’s simply too large, there is no way to solve such a strategic problem.”117 Li Danhui explains, “If there was such a war, it would have been like the Vietnam War for the U.S. . . . very difficult to win. It would have been a huge drain on resources and Russia would not have power left to exert in Europe.”118 Chinese conventional deterrence provides a potent explanation for Russia’s hesitation to strike China’s nuclear facilities. Despite technological advantages, Moscow could not dismiss the PLA’s logistical and numerical advantages. Even if the PLA could be defeated, Mao’s strategy of “people’s war” left no conceivable possibility of advantageous war termination. Making use of newly available Russian and Chinese sources, this chapter has examined the impact of nuclear weapons on the Sino-Soviet conflict during the late 1960s, focusing on the 1969 crisis as one of the most dangerous moments of the entire Cold War era. After noting that Soviet leaders appear to have seriously considered a preventive strike against China’s nuclear facilities, I tested five hypotheses for why the Soviets ultimately opted against such an attack. Evidence presented in this study is sufficient to challenge the conventional explanation for Soviet restraint.119 While only access to archives in Moscow can definitively rule out the proliferation optimist interpretation of the Sino-Soviet crisis of 1969, preliminary evidence presented here suggests that scholars should be cautious about accepting the optimist interpretation. The leading authorities in both Russia and China—Russia’s Lev Deliusin and Victor Gobarev, and China’s Li Danhui and Yang Kuisong—agree that China’s nascent nuclear arsenal was vulnerable and destabilizing. Like China’s nascent nuclear arsenal, the role of the United States also appears to have been exaggerated. The United States had nei-

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ther the capability nor the will to directly participate in such a conflict. The evidence for a norms-based explanation remains tenuous but plausible. In a situation where nuclear weapons appeared to offer the most efficient solution for destroying China’s nuclear infrastructure, the suggestion that Soviet plans for a conventional attack reached the advanced planning stages may have significant theoretical meaning. Chinese conventional deterrence seems to have played the most important role in Soviet calculations. Despite Soviet advantages in technology, the Chinese held impressive advantages in manpower and logistics. Ultimately, the prospect of confronting Mao’s “people’s war” seems to have given the Kremlin leaders pause. Gaiduk observes, “What good would it have done to strike China with its vast population and territory? . . . The Chinese did not even fear it.”120 Moreover, descriptions of the Kosygin-Zhou negotiations by Kapitsa, Elizavetin, and Li Jingjie suggest that China’s decisive card during the crisis was not their nascent nuclear arsenal, but rather the threat to “fight to the end.”121 During the crisis of 1969, China appears to have passed through a very dangerous “valley of vulnerability.” Consistent with the hypotheses of the proliferation pessimists, the evidence suggests that states that possess small arsenals of WMD but lack China’s peculiar strengths have cause to fear.

v. mini-case: sino-soviet relations in the 1970s and 1980s As we have seen, the Sino-Soviet relationship during the late 1960s appears to have been plagued by instability flowing from a radically asymmetric nuclear balance. After the 1969 crisis, however, the relationship appears to have stabilized substantially despite continuing hostility. As in the superpower relationship, this stabilization probably reflected in part a natural process of mellowing. However, it is not far-fetched to suggest that China’s growing nuclear arsenal played a role in stabilizing the relationship. Probably reflecting Chinese lessons taken from the 1969 crisis, the succeeding decade witnessed China’s energetic development of its nuclear forces. Beginning in 1971, the first DF-4 missile units were deployed to sites in Northwest China, with Soviet cities as designated targets.122 By 1973, China may have fielded as many as fifty nuclear-tipped missiles within a force of perhaps 350 total nuclear weapons.123 Strenuous

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The Soviet Union and China

efforts at concealment and protection in this period are evident from U.S. military appraisals. Secretary of defense Harold Brown observed in 1974, “The Chinese are clearly sensitive to the importance of secondstrike capabilities and are making a considerable effort to minimize the vulnerability of their strategic offensive forces.”124 One part of this effort was adopting a doctrine of “in-cave storage/preparation and out-cave erection/filling/firing” for China’s medium-range missile, a step that Mao apparently ordered in May 1975.125 According to Lewis and Xue, by the mid-1970s, “Chinese missile commanders . . . and their leaders within official councils quietly expressed confidence that they now deployed a formidable and relatively invulnerable retaliatory arsenal.”126 This growth in capabilities prompted one senior Chinese military official to comment casually about the accuracy of China’s missile force, “It is unnecessary for us to achieve tremendous accuracy. If a nuclear war breaks out between China and the Soviet Union, I don’t think there is too much difference between the results [if] China’s ICBM misses its predetermined target, the Kremlin, and instead hits the Bolshoi Theater.”127 For fifteen years after the 1969 crisis, Sino-Soviet relations weathered further border tensions, the Chinese invasion of Vietnam, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and even China’s covert support of the anti-Soviet Mujahedeen fighters in that war. Tensions in this later period never again approached those of 1969. Indeed, examination of the most serious Sino-Soviet crisis of this period suggests a new caution in Moscow with respect to Beijing. On the day after China began its invasion of Vietnam in February 1979, the Kremlin issued a warning to Hanoi,128 but this was a far cry from the explicit nuclear threats issued during the 1969 crisis. According to one analysis, such threats were “more for Vietnamese, than for Chinese, consumption.”129 The Soviets did send an impressive naval flotilla consisting of fourteen warships to the coast of Vietnam. But it must have been painfully obvious to Hanoi that this was a symbolic gesture, since the fighting was limited to ground force units. Moscow informed Asian diplomats that it had no intention of intervening militarily in this conflict.130 There was no reinforcement of the Sino-Soviet border and “throughout, the U.S.S.R. sought not to raise the Chinese anxiety level.”131 As Douglas Pike observes, “The USSR’s behavior during the seventeen days of war was consistently conservative in terms of risk-taking. It took minimal action and carefully labeled each move so as to prevent misunderstanding by China. Pronouncements during the first week of the war were so restrained [that] they could only be interpreted as reassuring China that no USSR action against it was being contemplated.”132 A quite plausible explanation for Moscow’s cautious response is Bei-

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jing’s enhanced nuclear capabilities. If such an interpretation could be sustained by further evidence, it would confirm that proliferation is destabilizing over the short term but may be stabilizing in the long term as the inferior power crosses a deterrence threshold, creating rough nuclear symmetry and even “nuclear peace.”

chapter six

Case 4: China and India

As we saw in preceding chapters, U.S.-Soviet, Sino-American, and Sino-Soviet dyads all exhibited grave instabilities as the weaker power acquired nuclear weapons. Sino-Indian relations appear to represent an anomaly in this respect. Contrary to the predictions of the proliferation pessimists, Sino-Indian relations since 1962 have not witnessed great instability despite India’s relatively steady progress in developing nuclear weapons.1 This chapter will ask why these relations were relatively stable in spite of proliferation, and what lessons might be drawn for understanding future instances of nuclear proliferation.2

the sino-indian war of 1962 At the outset, it must be established that Sino-Indian stability is not a foregone conclusion. Often overlooked by Americans (perhaps owing to its temporal overlap with the Cuban missile crisis), the Sino-Indian War should not be brushed aside as a simple border skirmish, but rather must be seen as a key event structuring the Cold War balance of power in Asia. The war’s extensive effects can probably be traced to the extremely lopsided nature of its outcome. One Chinese narrative of the conflict observes, “As a result of poor officer initiative and command skills, a fear of close combat, and a hesitation to rise to the attack, the Indian Army was soundly defeated in every single combat engagement of the border war.”3 A second PRC account probably does not exaggerate too much in its description of the campaign’s closing battle: “The Tibetan border guards . . . concentrated in mass, outflanked and encircled the enemy, striking the head and tail. . . . These tactics enabled the annihilation [of several

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Indian Army brigades], . . . wiping out 8,800 invading Indian soldiers.”4 Indian accounts are consistent with the above descriptions, emphasizing the shock India experienced at this battlefield defeat. One recent appraisal notes, “The Chinese military offensive was a shock for the Indian people. . . . [They felt] misled by their own leadership which had proved incapable of defending India’s national security.”5 As for India’s longpopular leader, Jawaharlal Nehru, this account comments, “The Chinese offensive ruined his hopes, his idealism and his public prestige.”6 Expecting the loss of Assam and India’s other eastern provinces, in addition to a possible Chinese thrust into Himachal and Uttar Pradesh, Nehru apparently wrote a personal letter to President Kennedy late in the war, describing the situation as “very desperate” and requesting fifteen squadrons of bombers to halt the Chinese onslaught.7 Attempting to put this war in historical perspective, Chris Smith writes in his historical survey of post-independence Indian security policy, “The scale of the defeat and the culpability of both the civilian and military institutions cannot be underestimated. In terms of national identity, the 1962 war had an impact upon India similar to the U.S. defeat in Vietnam.”8 Along with the bitter bile accruing from the war itself, the Sino-Indian conflict would also assume significant geopolitical, ideological, and ethnic dimensions in the ensuing years.9

relative stability despite nuclear proliferation The 1960s As might be expected in the wake of such a conflict, Sino-Indian relations for the remainder of the 1960s were marked by a low degree of stability, though the belligerents did not revert to open warfare. China’s nuclear weapons program surged forward by leaps and bounds, while Beijing cultivated close relations with Pakistan, leading to a threat to intervene in the 1965 Indo-Pakistani War. India looked abroad for security guarantees but at the same time radically increased its defense spending, bolstering its Himalayan defenses, invigorating its nuclear research efforts, and launching an indigenous space program. India’s defense spending doubled in 1963, while the Five-Year Plan for Defense of the following year made ample room for special measures to cope with the threat from China, including: the raising of ten light in-

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China and India

fantry divisions, an initiative to support high-altitude training, and improvement of infrastructure, communications, and air transport, particularly in the border region.10 However, these preparations were far from complete by 1965, when, after more than a month of fighting between India and Pakistan, China threatened to intervene on behalf of Pakistan, forcing India to accept a U.N.-sponsored ceasefire.11 While the impact and credibility of the Chinese threat in this situation remains debatable,12 the Indians were introduced to the uncomfortable possibility of having to fight simultaneously on two fronts. Collaboration between Pakistan and China was close enough by the end of the decade that they agreed to build the strategic Karakoram highway, through territory claimed by India, for the purpose of connecting the two allies. China’s detonation of its first atomic weapon in October 1964 was especially unnerving to New Delhi, given the event’s proximity to the border war.13 Ganguly comments, “The political fallout in India over the Chinese nuclear explosion cannot be underestimated.”14 Some tried to minimize the achievement; for example, the Hindustan Times editorialized, “From all accounts, China’s bomb is of low capacity. An atomic device of this sort would be hardly better than a costly toy.”15 But India’s leaders were less nonchalant. Within weeks of the Chinese test, Nehru’s successor, Lal Badur Shastri, had authorized India’s top nuclear scientists to investigate the possibilities for matching the Chinese feat.16 China’s unexpectedly fast pace in developing both missiles and thermonuclear weapons added urgency to the Indian program.17 Many factors contributed to the adoption of what was subsequently dubbed the “option” strategy, under which the Indians refused to surrender the right to develop nuclear weapons, although they denied that they were doing so. India did not opt for a “crash” program because the economic situation was not propitious and quickly building a credible deterrent was viewed as technically out of India’s reach, especially given the backward state of Indian rocketry—the space program had only been founded in 1963. In addition, superpower extended deterrence was viewed as quite feasible, at least for the time being.18 Finally, they believed a crash program was “more likely to enhance the Chinese nuclear threat than to reduce it.”19 The measures to be undertaken, however, required secrecy and even obfuscation,20 so as to maintain critical superpower support during a lengthy transition period. The 1970s After coping with the challenge of realignment precipitated by Kissinger’s opening to China, the decade witnessed a gradual easing of Sino-Indi-

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an tensions. Somewhat counterintuitively, India’s nuclear test appears to have laid the groundwork for more stable relations. As the decade opened, however, the relationship evinced clear signs of a developing nuclear arms race. China’s April 1970 launch of a satellite inspired new fears in New Delhi. The considerable weight of the satellite implied that China was on the verge of testing an ICBM, a weapon that was seen to threaten both American and Soviet guarantees of Indian security.21 One month later, the Indian government published a new plan for developing atomic energy and space research in the 1970s, subsequently dubbed the Sarabhai Profile. This document advocated significantly increased funding for both programs but largely avoided discussion of military applications.22 Shortly thereafter, construction began on India’s premier weapons research reactor at Purnima.23 Tectonic changes in the global balance of power during 1971 appear to have focused India’s leaders on the need for a demonstration of atomic prowess. Kissinger’s overtures toward China, facilitated by Pakistan, had begun to bear fruit. Just two days after the Sino-American breakthrough was announced on 15 July, Kissinger phoned the Indian ambassador to inform him that the United States would not defend India if China intervened in a future Indo-Pakistani war.24 The Indian response—signing a treaty with the USSR—came swiftly, demonstrating at least some preparedness for this new development. On the other hand, the war that ensued in December 1971 imbued India’s leaders with uncertainty following renewed threats by China, which, for the first time, appeared to be backed by the U.S. Seventh Fleet.25 Raju Thomas concludes: The double nuclear indemnity provided by both superpowers against China before 1971 now appeared to have been reduced to the more dubious single Soviet nuclear guarantee. Indian apprehension had also risen because of the perception that the two superpowers had neutralized each other with their retaliatory strike and assured destruction capabilities, which tended to make potential and veiled Chinese nuclear threats appear more credible. The . . . nuclear test may be seen as the delayed Indian response to evolving global realignments. The timing of the test also appeared to confirm that the “go ahead” may have been given by Prime Minister Gandhi sometime in the spring of 1972, just after the visit of Nixon to Beijing in February 1972.26

India conducted a “peaceful nuclear explosion experiment” on 18 May 1974 in the western desert region, near the town of Pokhran.27 There is little or no evidence of the test causing instability in the SinoIndian relationship. Chris Smith writes, “Surprisingly, China greeted the event with indifference.”28 According to George Perkovich, “China responded to the Indian [test] with conscious aloofness, reporting the event without comment.”29 Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping told an unofficial Jap-

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anese delegation in Beijing that “China is not going to make an issue of the Indian nuclear test,” adding that China had “reassured Pakistan of its full support against [possible] Indian nuclear threat and blackmail.”30 India’s test appears to have given it the confidence to embark on a new relationship with China. In the face of diatribes from Beijing concerning India’s activities in the border province of Sikkim, India initiated its own “ping-pong diplomacy” in February 1975, followed by an announcement in April 1975 of its readiness to send an ambassador to Beijing (diplomatic relations had been severed in 1962).31 Zhao Weiwen, a Chinese specialist on India, explains that India wanted to negotiate with China not from a position of weakness, but rather from a position of strength.32 A border incident involving fatalities in November 1975 did not halt the momentum, and China reciprocated the Indian overture in 1976, followed by a restoration of trading relations in 1977. This attempt at normalizing relations reached its limit, however, when, in a highly embarrassing episode, China invaded Vietnam during the first visit to China by an Indian minister of external affairs. Relations soured considerably. In the nuclear realm, China continued its slow but steady deployment of new warheads, increasing its medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBM) and deploying tactical warheads for the first time.33 India’s new leader, Morarji Desai, elected in 1977 on a wave of disgust with Indira Gandhi’s two-year suspension of democracy, went further then any other Indian leader in arresting the development of India’s nuclear arsenal. At his very first press conference, Desai made it clear that “the government did not believe in nuclear weapons and that he doubted the necessity of peaceful nuclear explosions.”34 Desai nevertheless demurred from taking larger steps away from India’s option strategy, such as signing the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and accepting full-scope safeguards on its atomic program. Moreover, the government’s lengthy search for a “modern, deep-strike capability” during this period, which resulted in the purchase of two hundred nuclear-capable Jaguar aircraft in 1978, suggests a certain hedging of bets.35 The 1980s Considering the outbreak of two medium-sized wars in Asia during the course of 1979, both of which continued to simmer violently throughout the 1980s, the Sino-Indian dyad evinced impressive stability during this decade. Only in 1986–87 did war appear possible, but then leaders on both sides moved boldly to head off a confrontation. In the early 1980s, the threat from Pakistan, invigorated by U.S. arms

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sales aimed at deterring the USSR, became the central preoccupation of Indian strategists. While Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program had begun in earnest after India’s Pokhran test, the 1981 sale of U.S. nuclear-capable F-16s to Pakistan pushed the Indian nuclear debate away from the Chinese threat toward that emerging from Pakistan. Indira Gandhi was swept into power once again in January 1980. She set about correcting for Desai’s departure from India’s option strategy. The United States detected Indian preparations for further nuclear testing at the Rajasthan site in December 1980. According to George Perkovich’s recent survey of the Indian nuclear program, Gandhi actually authorized a test in early 1983, but then reversed the decision within twenty-four hours.36 India’s efforts in missilery proceeded with greater determination in this period. Although India had tested a four-stage rocket as early as 1980, the decision was made in 1983 to initiate an overt military missile development program. It is worth noting that the presiding defense minister, R. Venkataraman, overruled his scientific advisors and ordered the program to develop the long-range (1,500- to 2,500-km) Agni simultaneously with the shorter-range Privthi (instead of seriatim), suggesting that China remained a concern.37 In late 1986, a Sino-Indian crisis developed which served to demonstrate that however stable the relationship had become, it still could not be characterized as “normalized.” The Indian government’s creation of a new province, Arunachal Pradesh, out of a region that previously had been called simply the North-East Frontier Area, appeared to be a provocation to the Chinese, who in turn issued a number of threatening statements.38 In December 1986, the Hindustan Times warned, “China’s vigorous protest and not-so-veiled threat now is reminiscent of its posture in the months before the border war in 1962. . . . [For the Chinese Communist Party,] a small, winnable war against a large neighbor could prove a useful distraction [from domestic turmoil caused by economic reform].”39 By May 1987, each side was reported to have reinforced the frontier area with as many as 200,000 troops.40 The strategic setting of the 1986–87 crisis differed substantially from previous decades. First, Indian conventional forces were judged to be superior to their Chinese opponents.41 Under these conditions, Chinese nuclear forces served less as coercive instruments than as a deterrent to Indian assertiveness. Foreshadowing this development, a seminar on Indian nuclear policy in the early 1980s concluded, “We have kept quiet all these years about our territories occupied by the Chinese and also tolerated their helping the insurgency movement in the Northeast only because China happens to be a nuclear power.”42 On the other hand, India’s nuclear capabilities had most likely already become a factor in Chinese

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calculations. Indeed, Stephen Cohen reports that Indian Army commanders mobilized for the 1986–87 crisis were told regarding Chinese nuclear capabilities that the Indian government “had hedged on this matter,” saying, “We will tell you when you need to know.”43 Indeed, a recent Chinese report asserts that during the mid-1980s, India may have been producing ten to twenty nuclear weapons each year.44 Chinese assumptions about an Indian arsenal in the 1980s are buttressed by Chinese writings about the 1998 tests. Thus, one 1998 analysis of the Indian program asserts, “India now has a comprehensive nuclear capability—it can mate a nuclear warhead to any kind of missile.” This statement suggests that the Chinese viewed the 1998 tests as the culmination of an extensive development program rather than the beginning of one.45 The suggestion that by the second half of the 1980s a relatively stable “nuclear peace” had developed between the Asian giants seems quite plausible.46 Consistent with this notion, leaders in both states appeared during the 1986–87 crisis to be careful to keep hostilities from breaking out.47 No traces of ill will from this crisis were present when at the end of 1987 Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi made the bold gesture of traveling to China—the first visit by a head of state between the two states in almost four decades.48 In parallel with U.S.-Soviet relations, Sino-Indian relations at the end of the 1980s showed great promise not only for future stability but for transcending their rivalry altogether. The 1990s The 1990s did not witness a single war-threatening crisis between the two Asian giants, and therefore must be characterized as the most stable decade since the 1962 war. The early and mid-1990s saw a continuation of the momentum started by Gandhi’s 1988 visit. New Delhi attempted to restrain anti-China activities by Tibetans in India, while Beijing quietly altered its radical stand on Kashmir to a more moderate call for negotiations.49 By 1994, bilateral trade had reached US$765 million—more than ten times the 1984 figure.50 Although a border settlement eluded negotiators, the two countries did manage in 1996 to sign an agreement outlining a number of important confidence-building measures.51 In the wake of the Persian Gulf War, it even seemed possible that China and India might find common cause in limiting American power, allowing each to dominate in its respective sphere of influence.52 India’s nuclear tests in May 1998 created a new breach with China. While motives for the tests certainly included a broad desire to achieve a status on a par with the declared nuclear powers, in addition to an (ap-

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parently successful) attempt to tap into popular nationalist sentiment, concern about China’s military trajectory cannot be ruled out as a motive. In contrast to its previous indifference to Indian nuclear developments, China was clearly indignant at Indian leaders for emphasizing the “China threat” as a basic cause of the tests. Diplomatic visits and cooperative exchanges were put on hold.53 In an unusual step for Chinese foreign policy, Chinese diplomats called an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council to discuss the South Asian nuclear situation. Richard Hu notes, “The atmosphere and momentum that had existed since the Sino-Indian rapprochement over the last ten years suddenly vanished.”54 Nevertheless, the May 1998 test clearly did not in itself represent a full-blown military crisis, but rather was a break in a trend of improving relations.55 Despite evidence of continuing rivalry, the view that nuclear weapons may help to stabilize Sino-Indian relations in the future is surprisingly common among Chinese strategists. Former PRC ambassador to India Chen Ruisheng, for example, argues, “Especially after both sides have nuclear weapons, there is no possibility of fighting a war over the border question. . . . Nuclear weapons possessed by China and India will play a deterrent role.”56 According to Ma Jiali, a Chinese specialist on India, “Both sides have leaders that recognize that they must avoid nuclear conflict.”57 Likewise, PRC nuclear weapons expert Shen Dingli explains, “It is no longer a choice for us to defeat India devastatingly with conventional weapons, because if we achieve this then we will prompt India to escalate. We should not even plan to achieve this. We must be more cautious.”58

explanations for sino-indian stability Against a background of deep hostility, the Sino-Indian relationship has shown increasing stability over time. Contrary to the expectations of the proliferation pessimists, gradual nuclear proliferation by India does not seem to have caused extreme instability. Why has this hostile dyad been immune from the preemptive pressures that have afflicted other rivalries? Why did China acquiesce to India’s nuclear capability? Geography Between India and China lies the “greatest physical obstacle in the world outside of the polar icecaps.”59 The Himalayas, rising to 5,000 to 8,000

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meters across most of the border, present military challenges of such a magnitude that a full-scale invasion of the blitzkrieg type is viewed as technically infeasible—considerably easing the security dilemma. If good fences make good neighbors, these neighbors could not have asked for a better fence. In mountainous terrain, narrow and twisting roads and paths, trackless terrain, steep and slippery slopes, ravines, and precipices make the movement and deployment of large units impossible.60 Small and nimble infantry units have the advantage and can hold larger forces at bay relatively easily. Armor and artillery are of limited use because of their bulk, weight, and limited fields of observation and fire.61 Supply and coordination of forces in remote areas is also extremely problematic. In mountains as high as the Himalayas, weather and altitude frequently produce life-threatening situations for soldiers, even in the absence of combat. Soldiers in the high Himalayas cannot be expected to perform more than three hours of hard physical labor a day, versus twelve hours at lower altitudes.62 Indian Army brigadier general J. P. Dalvi describes, for example, how his brigade suffered numerous casualties from pulmonary edema and could barely subsist on the 30 percent of air-dropped provisions that were recoverable.63 A striking example of the vertical challenge the Himalayas pose to military strategists can be seen in Dalvi’s observation that it required no less than five days to traverse the twelve-mile front held by his brigade at the start of the Sino-Indian border conflict in 1962.64 It seems clear that this geographical factor has played a role in mitigating India’s fears about China in the period since the 1962 war, and vice versa. Though his credibility is somewhat dubious, Nehru did claim in the war’s aftermath that he knew a Chinese advance into the plains of India could not be sustained because they would inevitably outrun their supply lines.65 More convincing is the fact that subsequent Indian military planning, which in contemporary U.S. national security parlance might be dubbed “one and one half,” prepared for the possibility of fullscale war with Pakistan but only for limited war with China.66 An Indian defense analyst sought to reassure his jittery brethren in the late 1980s by explaining that Tibet was a Chinese province very distant from China’s production centers, and moreover, the Chengdu-Lhasa road crosses no fewer than fourteen mountain ranges.67 Certainly, geography is part of our answer in explaining Sino-Indian stability, but the explanation is not sufficient. After all, the Chinese demonstrated considerable prowess in the 1962 war, demonstrating that decisive engagements could be fought even in the high Himalayas. As Thomas notes, after 1962, Indians no longer viewed the Himalayas as an effective protective barrier.68

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Alliances Together with geography, a complex web of formal and informal alliances has served to mitigate Sino-Indian strategic competition. Experts appear to agree that the backing of both superpowers in the years immediately after the first Chinese nuclear test allowed India to avoid a “crash” or all-out bomb-building program.69 As discussed previously, the dramatic reshuffling of alliance partners in the early 1970s, particularly the Sino-U.S. rapprochement, is a potent, if not complete, explanation for India’s 1974 decision to opt for the Pokhran nuclear test. As the U.S. guarantee waned and was then withdrawn, the Indo-Soviet alliance was significantly strengthened, raising the question of how this relationship influenced Sino-Indian relations after 1971. It has been suggested that the newly strengthened Soviet deterrent commitment (and a possible Soviet military alert along the Chinese border in the course of the conflict) gave the Indians the confidence during the 1971 war to redeploy four mountain divisions away from the Chinese border to fight against Pakistan.70 But, after the war, voices in Indian defense debates frequently voiced skepticism about Moscow’s willingness to defend India. Thus, General J. N. Chaudhuri argued for Indian self-reliance, asserting, “The whole history of defense agreements is replete with unfulfilled promises, undue pressures, or what is perhaps worse, delayed and half-hearted measures.”71 Moreover, excessive reliance on Soviet security guarantees, it was argued, would significantly reduce Indian diplomatic flexibility.72 More significant than any verbal or written Soviet guarantee was the reality of the volatile Sino-Soviet conflict, which remained intensely bitter from the late 1960s until the mid-1980s. To the extent that Indian strategists appreciated that this other Asian rivalry was China’s first concern—and the primary justification for China’s growing nuclear arsenal—they evinced less concern about the “China threat,” enabling SinoIndian stability. There is evidence that this was understood; for example, S. K. Ghosh, an Indian expert on the PLA, wrote in 1978, “The first and foremost objective of China’s current defense policy is no doubt to deter the Soviet Union, and as such the strengthening of the PLA’s fire power consequent on modernization will have its impact on the crucial Sino-Soviet military confrontation by balancing . . . the Soviet Union.”73 China has, of course, also sought to leverage allies into this balance of power. Thus, the alliance with Pakistan, while certainly creating substantial suspicion in New Delhi, has worked to induce caution into Indian foreign policy. It appears that while China did avoid any overt bellicose

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answer to India’s Pokhran test in 1974, the decision was probably taken in Beijing at this time to covertly aid the Pakistani nuclear program. According to Perkovich, the Chinese took this step in June 1976, after eleven years of Pakistani solicitation.74 Beijing provided technologies such as ring magnets, special nuclear materials such as heavy water and tritium, integrated nuclear facilities such as the Kushab research reactor, and nuclear weapon designs.75 While risky, the strategy seems to have paid dividends for China. First, Pakistan’s nuclear efforts have absorbed more and more of the attention of Indian defense planners, thus lowering China’s profile. Second, Pakistani nuclear developments have served to check Indian nuclear ambitions, in that New Delhi has understood that any new round of testing and development would only incite a reaction from Islamabad. Both India and China have proven adept at maneuvering pieces on the vast Asian chessboard. While, in the case of China’s aid to Pakistani nuclear ambitions the rivalry was exported, these measures have served as a whole to stabilize the Sino-Indian relationship. Domestic Politics Sino-Indian relations have also been subject to the influence of domestic political developments in each country. Somewhat counterintuitively, these developments appear to have played a moderating role. The charge has often been made, no doubt with some truth, that the China bogey serves the Indian armed forces well by inflating defense budgets.76 On the other hand, Gandhian pacifism seems to have played some role in restraining India’s nuclear program.77 In observing this tradition, Bhim Sandhu explains, “India, the land of Buddha, Asoka, and Gandhi, is generally known as the country of nonviolence.”78 While Sandhu claims that the 1962 war signaled the end of pacifism in Indian politics, manifestations of it have been in evidence throughout India’s long nuclear debate. For example, one analyst argued in mid-1978, “As one who has voluntarily renounced the nuclear weapons option, India has the moral authority to highlight the diminishing value of nuclear weapons for achieving political purposes.”79 Such impulses certainly influenced the decision of prime minister Morarji Desai (1977–79). According to Perkovich, the “ascetic teetotaling Gandhian . . . repudiated what had been a celebrated demonstration of national prowess only three years earlier—and he did it all on his own.”80 Whereas other Indian leaders likely employed Gandhian pacifism selectively, perhaps even cynically, as a “cover” for India’s developing nuclear program, Desai was most assuredly the genuine article.

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A more comprehensive explanation for the emergence of stability in Sino-Indian relations emerges from Chinese politics. The stunning sweep of Mao’s power over China helped bring about such disasters as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. Chinese foreign policy under the “great helmsman” also teetered on, if not over, the brink of irrationality, for example in precipitating the Sino-Soviet conflict. It is perhaps not surprising, therefore, that impressive diplomatic overtures were made by New Delhi just when Mao’s influence was fading quickly, as he became more and more senile before dying in 1976. While distrust persists, allowing for the occasional storm, Sino-Indian relations have certainly been more stable after Mao. China’s No First Use Pledge American strategists have long dismissed “no first use” (NFU) pledges as unverifiable, unenforceable propaganda. Viewed narrowly from the perspective of crisis stability, this critique is compelling. On the other hand, the Sino-Indian case suggests that NFUs may have some utility in arresting arms races and easing suspicions within long-term rivalries. China’s NFU commitment figured prominently in initial Indian reports of China’s first nuclear test.81 A few days later, the Hindustan Times editorialized, “China’s bomb is a grave provocation to India . . . [but,] for a change, the Chinese rulers mean what they say when they pledge that they would not be the first to use the bomb.”82 In the absence of a “systematic analysis of the military security challenge posed by China,” at least in the public realm,83 China’s NFU appears to have formed, along with Gandhian pacifism, a kind of bedrock for antinuclear sentiments in Indian politics. Believers in the significance of the Chinese NFU based their argument not on the integrity of Chinese leaders, but rather on evolving nonuse norms. Thus, one Indian defense analyst concluded in 1970: “Those who consider the Chinese to be habitual liars will not trust [the NFU] pledge. But it should be remembered that China is the only country to have made such a pledge and that she cannot break it without paying a tremendous political cost.”84 An Indian general indicated his faith in nonuse norms when he argued, “[A Chinese nuclear attack against India] would be the first use of nuclear weapons since Hiroshima. At a time when China is at last showing a definite inclination to join the international community as a fully participating member, is it likely that she will use an atomic weapon against India?”85 Also arguing for the salience of norms, another Indian defense analyst wrote in the early 1980s, “It can be argued

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that these oral commitments have no binding force. On the other hand, it is also true that nuclear powers have so far not attacked a non-nuclear power with nuclear weapons even though the two types of powers have been engaged in numerous local wars.”86 For their part, Chinese analysts attempting to allay Indian fears in the 1990s have continued to emphasize the Chinese NFU.87 Naturally enough, faith in China’s NFU and evolving nonuse norms was far from universal among Indian political elites. Taking a cue from NATO strategists, one Indian analyst observed in 1986, “The strategic debate in Western Europe indicated that pledges of no-first use would provide no guarantees that nuclear weapons would not be used. In fact the usual ‘fog of war,’ increasing effectiveness of conventional weapons, [and] problems of command and control . . . tend to seriously lower nuclear thresholds.”88 China’s NFU was not persuasive enough to halt India’s nuclear program, and the Chinese threat continued to affect Indian nuclear calculations into the 1980s and 1990s. Nevertheless, the NFU may help to explain the seeming lack of urgency in Indian nuclear and missile development programs, thus contributing to Sino-Indian stability. Rough Symmetry In reviewing the history of India’s nuclear weapons program, it is relatively clear that while this program has certainly been buffeted by its share of bureaucratic politics and senior-level indecision, it has nonetheless progressed. Likewise, Stephen Cohen observed several years before the 1998 tests, “All Indian leaders since Nehru have resisted ‘the next step’ [i.e., overt weaponization], but most have moved further down the nuclear path in the absence of a good reason to freeze or dismantle their nuclear programs.”89 It seems that the nascent Indian capability, which was first revealed in the 1974 Pokhran test, has gradually matured into a “minimal deterrent” versus China’s “minimal deterrent,” and thus has become a stabilizing force in Sino-Indian relations.90 Discussions about the course of Indian nuclear development have often focused on the seemingly intractable geographical problem that India’s major cities lie within easy striking distance of Chinese territory, while most of China’s large cities are located on its eastern seaboard, far from India.91 However, some Indian strategists appreciated that India could use China’s strategy versus the superpowers against China itself. Thus Homi Bhaba, “father” of India’s bomb, argued in the wake of China’s 1964 nuclear test that deterring China was considerably less chal-

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lenging than deterring a superpower. He envisioned a deliverable Indian nuclear force “against a country not possessing a modern air-force and ground-to-air missiles,” such as China.92 Another Indian defense analyst made the same point a few years later: “Much has been said about the difficulty of acquiring an effective delivery system, [but] its effectiveness should be reckoned in terms of the capabilities of the country against whom it is likely to be deployed. . . . [I]t would not be too inhibiting to launch an effective air strike.”93 Of course, it would be difficult to designate a date after which India could be considered to have had a nuclear deterrent against China, except to say that this probably occurred in the mid- to late 1970s, and almost certainly by the 1980s.94 As one Chinese expert on India noted, Beijing did not believe that the so-called peaceful nuclear explosion of 1974 differed significantly from a weapon, and after this time it was assumed that India possessed nuclear weapons.95 Another testifies that Beijing knew New Delhi was producing nuclear weapons during the 1980s.96 I have already noted that Indian army commanders mobilized in the 1986–87 crisis were apparently reassured that Indian leaders had hedged against the Chinese nuclear threat.97 Moreover, it is clear that the Chinese were closely monitoring the development of India’s nuclear program during this period.98 From the standpoint of fielding an effective minimal deterrent, a “last-wire unconnected” policy of nuclear ambiguity could be just as effective as deployed weapons. It has been pointed out that geography remains a tremendous problem for Indian nuclear planners. Indeed, threatening the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, may not be the best way to deter Beijing. On the other hand, many important Chinese cities could be targeted if the Indian Air Force undertook one-way missions—quite conceivable for a nation in extremis.99 China’s nuclear threat to India is superficially similar to that posed by the superpowers to new proliferators, because China’s inventory of weapons has surely far outstripped India’s number of weapons for the entire course of this rivalry. If the Chinese had sought to undertake a disarming first strike against India—an attempt to eliminate its nuclear weapons and production facilities—they would not lack weapons, but only targets.100 China has lacked the satellite-imaging technology to make such precision attacks feasible. While China has been launching satellites since 1970, as late as 1988, these systems do not appear to have been capable of even the general identification of an adversary’s airfields, much less deployed aircraft or missiles.101 Even the inconceivable unleashing of China’s entire nuclear arsenal against India would not have solved the targeting problem, and therefore would have risked some form of Indian nuclear retaliation. Moreover, if we allow that, owing to global norms,

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a disarming counterproliferation strike must use conventional and not nuclear weapons, along the lines of the Israeli Osirak raid, the scenario becomes even more implausible. Sun Shihai explains, “China did not behave [aggressively] like a Western country. It did not have the means to react forcefully. . . . With the exception of using its nuclear forces, China had no options. If China had resorted to nuclear weapons, it would have been condemned as a rogue state.”102 The prospect of a Chinese Osirak raid against India’s nuclear program has not been of particular concern to Indian strategists, primarily because the Chinese Air Force has never been viewed as a serious threat. S. K. Ghosh wrote in 1976, “The PLA Air Force . . . has a basically defensive role, and, as such, does not pose any threat to . . . South Asia. The force does not possess long-range strategic bombers, nor does it have an ongoing program to develop such an aircraft.”103 Shen Dingli offers, “China never discussed the possibility of a conventional preemptive strike openly. . . . [I]n the 1970s, we did not have the [necessary] satellite capability . . . [nor] does China’s air force have this kind of capability.”104 It is ironic that Indian strategists seem to have turned against the Chinese a signature Chinese strategy of pursuing minimal deterrence.105 Jasjit Singh explains the simple logic of rough nuclear symmetry: “There is the question of relative capabilities and time-lags in catching up. One often hears the argument . . . that it is not possible to make up when you lag behind by X . . . number of years. This approach overlooks [a fundamental question,] which the Chinese policy-makers did not ignore: is it really necessary to catch up?”106 As one Chinese strategist confides, “Our posture stimulated lots of their thinking.”107 While the Chinese arsenal has developed into a plausible deterrent versus the superpowers, technical deficiencies, in addition to normative constraints, precluded the possibility of threatening India’s emerging nuclear forces. Therefore, it is quite conceivable that nonradical nuclear asymmetry, and particularly Chinese technical deficiencies, are responsible for more than two decades of “nuclear peace.” This chapter has explored an anomaly for the proliferation pessimists, who maintain that proliferation breeds instability because of the temptation for established nuclear powers to strike down new proliferators before they achieve genuine deterrence. Although this pattern is observable in other dyads, the Sino-Indian dyad evinces a relatively high degree of stability. In the wake of the lopsided Chinese victory in the 1962 war, the relationship was unstable throughout the 1960s. Counterintuitively, relations improved dramatically in the aftermath of India’s first nuclear test

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in 1974. During the 1980s and 1990s, relations moved on a continuously upward trajectory, with the exception of a single war-threatening crisis in 1986–87, in which leaders on both sides showed a desire to rein in the conflict, and no nuclear threats were voiced. The 1998 Indian nuclear tests represented a new setback for relations. China voiced its displeasure in the United Nations, but it did not make preparations for preemptive strikes.108 In this chapter, five explanations have been suggested for this relative stability in Sino-Indian relations since the 1970s. First, the Himalayas make large wars between the two Asian giants unlikely. Second, alliance politics, particularly Sino-Soviet and Indo-Pakistani frictions, have helped stabilize the Sino-Indian border by focusing each power’s attention elsewhere. Third, Gandhian pacifism and, more particularly, Mao’s death played a role in restraining Sino-Indian competition. Fourth, China’s no first use (NFU) pledge strengthened India’s antinuclear faction, reducing the likelihood of a nuclear arms race. Finally, various PLA deficiencies, particularly in the areas of air defense, remote sensing, and strategic air power, suggest that a Chinese conventional counterproliferation strike against India has never been realizable. These shortfalls in Chinese capabilities, in combination with the other factors cited, afforded India the opportunity to develop with relative ease a stabilizing minimal deterrent versus China. We might tentatively call this case confirming evidence for proliferation optimism. Proliferation did not fundamentally disturb Sino-Indian relations, and it can be argued, at least, that mutual deterrence now serves to caution leaders on both sides. The evolution of nuclear deterrence appears to have been one factor among many serving to cushion the process of proliferation in this case. Taken together with other cases, it seems most appropriate to employ this anomaly to further nuance the basic hypotheses of proliferation pessimism.

chapter seven

Case 5: Israel and Iraq

Widely criticized at the time as a grave breach of international norms, Israel’s 1981 strike against an Iraqi nuclear reactor looks very different with the benefit of historical perspective. A survey of U.S. proliferation policy from the early 1990s concludes with regard to the 1990–91 Persian Gulf War, “For many Americans who witnessed via television that brief but bloody conflict, and much more for the Americans who actually fought in the mercifully one-sided battle, the prospect of a nuclear armed Iraq must loom as a nightmare avoided.”1 Nor is this achievement marred by the scandal surrounding the hunt for “missing WMD” following the 2003 Iraq War, since the evidence for earlier robust Iraqi nuclear efforts are beyond dispute. Had this Israeli attack not gone forward, it is no exaggeration to say that the entire Persian Gulf might now be under the thumb of Saddam Hussein. Beyond its obvious historical importance, this attack has vital significance for the study of proliferation. Scholars and policymakers are now reexamining this event in light of the new Bush doctrine of preemption.2 Other nuclear rivalries have witnessed close calls—crises that came close but ultimately did not result in fighting. For the purposes of this book, the Osiraq strike represents an important paradigm: it demonstrates clearly the broader phenomena, which is of paramount interest. The Israel-Iraq conflict dyad has been characterized by glaring WMD asymmetry, a defining characteristic noted universally by observers of proliferation in the Middle East. Avner Cohen, for example, writes, “[A] Middle Eastern nuclear balance of terror was likely to be fragile because of the asymmetries among the parties.”3 By the early 1980s, Israel had fielded nuclear weapons for more than a decade and possessed advanced means for delivery of those weapons complemented by capabilities for conventional precision strikes. Iraq’s nuclear capability, still in the construction phase, made an inviting target.

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Despite the obvious connection between proliferation and instability in this case, it cannot be simply categorized as a clear victory for proliferation pessimist theorizing. Proliferation optimists will correctly object that this is not a fair test: after all, Iraq’s program was still in the development phase. While an extreme form of proliferation optimism would note that it is often uncertain when a proliferator crosses the nuclear threshold, I readily concede that this test of proliferation pessimism is clearly not a very challenging one. However, Israel’s relationship with Iraq during this period is still worth examining, because it illustrates so plainly the fundamental precepts of the proliferation pessimist argument: the fear of another power crossing the nuclear threshold, the “ticking clock,” and the various constraints that may or may not stay the hand of the superior power. In this chapter, I first review the course of Israel’s rise as a nuclear power. I then describe the so-called Begin doctrine, discussing in turn Iraq’s progress in the nuclear field and Israel’s decision-making process in formulating the doctrine, and sketching a portrait of the raid itself. The third section details various constraints on Israeli action, and the fourth section establishes Israel’s underlying motives. Finally, I look at the Begin doctrine in light of contemporary proliferation concerns, providing a broader context for considering the impact of WMD on strategic interaction in the Middle East.

israel becomes a nuclear power Because of the opacity of Israel’s nuclear weapons program, it is difficult to gauge the dimensions of its capabilities and the political consequences that have flowed from the existence of this “closet” arsenal. The experience of the 1990–91 Persian Gulf War, however, caused this arsenal to come partially into public view, as Israeli leaders voiced deterrent threats to Baghdad during the war. The publication of Avner Cohen’s Israel and the Bomb, which is based on exhaustive interviewing and newly available documents from U.S. archives, has shed further light on the Israeli atomic bomb project. After Israel’s most costly war, the War of Independence, the first prime minister, David Ben Gurion, understood that victory had come more as a result of Arab incompetence than by the brilliant feats of the new Israeli Defense Force (IDF).4 So desperate was Ben Gurion to solve Israel’s acute security problem that, as early as 1948, he was seeking out specialists in

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biological and chemical weapons.5 After the war, and with Hiroshima in mind, he sent the first Israeli scientists abroad to study nuclear physics. He also dispatched prospectors into the Negev Desert to search for uranium.6 For Ben Gurion and other early leaders, recent experience loomed large. As Shlomo Aronson observes, “Ben Gurion’s fear was the emergence of an Arab Hitler. . . . So [he] would not allow Israel to go about its business without pursuing a nuclear option.”7 While the prime minister worked to establish a cadre of nuclear physicists, Israel’s nuclear program suddenly took a dramatic leap forward thanks to the crafty diplomacy of a rising star in Israel’s new national security establishment, Shimon Peres. Playing on French frustrations in the Algerian War, Peres succeeded in structuring a quasi-alliance between France and Israel built on a common antagonism toward Egypt’s nationalist leader, Gamal Abdul Nasser.8 In exchange for limited nuclear cooperation, Israel offered France intelligence on Egypt’s support for the Algerian rebels. But the real breakthrough occurred when Nasser challenged France and Britain by nationalizing the Suez Canal in July 1956. When an aide rebuked Peres for offering to cooperate with the French against Egypt without prior consultation with Ben Gurion, Peres apparently responded that he would “rather risk his neck than risk missing a unique opportunity like this.”9 At a secret meeting in October, Peres clinched a deal with the French in which they pledged to build a reactor at Dimona and provide the uranium to fuel it.10 Peres would oversee Israel’s nuclear program for the crucial next decade. Ben Gurion did not want the military to oversee the nuclear project because he feared that the project would become mired in a competition with the IDF’s priority of preparing for conventional wars. Thus, he created a strong foundation for civilian control of nuclear issues.11 To maintain the project’s secrecy, funding was sought outside of the national budget, from “friends of Israel around the world.”12 As Ben Gurion viewed the Arab-Israeli balance of power in the late 1950s, noting the Arab manpower advantage of about thirty to one, he concluded, “The Arabs could afford to lose all rounds against Israel, while Israel could not afford to lose any.”13 The search for unconventional solutions proceeded apace. The Americans began to seriously suspect the Israelis of a nuclear weapons program when President Eisenhower was shown U-2 photos of the facilities at Dimona in 1958. The two CIA analysts who briefed Eisenhower on the Dimona photographs, however, left the White House with the impression that “Eisenhower wanted Israel to acquire nuclear weapons.”14 If Eisenhower was willing to wink at the Israeli nuclear program, his successor was not. Deeply convinced of the perils of nuclear proliferation, Kennedy was desperate to stop Mao Zedong, in particu-

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lar, from getting nuclear weapons (see Chapter 4). He seems to have believed that if the United States could restrain the Israelis (and the Germans), then the Soviets might restrain the Chinese.15 It was at this time that Israel’s nuclear program became the most delicate issue in U.S.-Israel relations. Under heavy pressure from the Kennedy administration and desperate to receive U.S. aid—especially conventional arms—Ben Gurion and his successor, Levi Eshkol, crafted Israel’s ambiguous nuclear posture, which remains in place today. Against the counsel of Golda Meir, who wanted the Israelis to tell the truth, the Israeli leadership opted for a formula that involved a nebulous pledge that Israel would not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons into the region and a blatant deception of official American visitors to Dimona.16 Israeli double-talk in response to American pressure on the nuclear issue reached farcical proportions in November 1968, when the ambassador to the United States (and later prime minister), Yitzak Rabin, explained to a senior Pentagon official that Israel did not consider the “mere possession” of an “unadvertised, untested” nuclear weapon to constitute the “introduction” of a nuclear weapon into the region.17 During the 1960s, Israel moved to deploy its first operational nuclear weapons. A crucial meeting apparently occurred in mid-1962, at which Israeli leaders argued over whether to invest more heavily in nuclear weapons or in tanks. While Ben Gurion ultimately agreed with those pushing to invest more heavily in armor, he nevertheless warned against putting all Israel’s eggs into one basket, and the nuclear weapons program continued.18 That same year, Israel completed a secret plant for plutonium separation, apparently built under the Dimona reactor.19 With nuclear delivery systems in mind, Israel made overtures to France in 1963 concerning the purchase of a short-range surface-to-surface missile, later named Jericho. Israel’s very first shipment of American-made Hawk antiaircraft missiles immediately went into service protecting the nation’s most sensitive target: the Dimona nuclear complex.20 In 1965, plutonium production began at Dimona for Israel’s first atomic bomb.21 Since 1960, Nasser had been threatening that Egypt would attack to prevent Israel from crossing the nuclear threshold.22 These warnings reached a crescendo in 1966. It is therefore plausible that nuclear bomb development was a proximate cause of the Arab-Israeli War of 1967, the so-called Six-Day War. While evidence on Egyptian motives has proven sparse, Avner Cohen argues convincingly that Egyptian reconnaissance flights over Dimona in the week prior to the war served as a crucial impetus for Israel’s preemptive strike.23 Working under obvious pressure, Israeli scientists were apparently successful in operationalizing two weapons by the time of the war.24 Peres appears to have proposed a nuclear

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demonstration test at that time. In his 1995 memoirs, he still claims that such a test would have prevented the war.25 Following the Six-Day War, Israel was liberated from the immediate threat of an Arab preventive attack against Dimona, and with war hero General Moshe Dayan’s full backing, and later that of the new prime minister, Golda Meir, Israel’s nuclear arsenal expanded broadly.26 Covert Soviet participation in the so-called War of Attrition, which raged over the Sinai during 1970, further encouraged the nuclear buildup.27 Analyses of the 1973 Yom Kippur War disagree over the role of Israel’s nuclear arsenal in the crisis. Maximalist interpretations view Israel’s nuclear deterrent as the fundamental reason for the limited objectives of the Egyptian and Syrian armies.28 Even minimalist accounts now suggest that Dayan, concerned by developments at the front, raised “some ideas connected with Israel’s nuclear capability.”29 Despite the Israeli victory, the experience of the Yom Kippur War, in particular Arab success in achieving surprise, their adept use of high-tech Soviet weapons, and high Israeli casualties, created widespread support for nuclearization.30 Entering office in May 1977, the first Likhud government, under Menachem Begin, faced the troubling possibility that Israel stood on the brink of a brand-new era of conflict with the Arab states, as its nuclear monopoly slipped away.

begin’s doctrine of nuclear monopoly Iraq’s nuclear weapons program was not created exclusively to respond to Israel. Iran, and the shah’s nuclear program in particular, may have been a greater concern for Baghdad. The program also served Saddam’s larger ambitions of leading the Arab world and dominating the Persian Gulf region. Although the Iraqi leadership was rational and agile enough to avoid an all-out nuclear exchange with Israel, they likely believed that the Arab cause could benefit from balancing the Israeli nuclear threat, thus enabling conventional options. Moreover, an Iraqi arsenal would serve to undermine Israel’s political will because of the Jewish state’s special sensitivity and vulnerability.31 When the price of oil skyrocketed during the 1973 OPEC oil embargo, Saddam saw an opportunity to realize these ambitions. French premier Jacques Chirac wanted to offset France’s ballooning energy bills. Visiting Baghdad in 1974, he sold the Iraqis $1.4 billion in French industrial equipment.32 Discussions regarding nuclear transfers were initiated dur-

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ing this visit. After another Chirac visit to Baghdad, followed by two visits by Saddam to Paris, the two powers signed an agreement on nuclear cooperation in November 1976. Khidir Hamza, a senior physicist in the Iraqi nuclear program who defected to the United States in 1994, writes of the Paris negotiations: “Chirac would eat old tires from the Tigris if it got him our nuclear deal, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, along with a prospect of cheap oil.”33 The following year, Italy agreed to supply Iraq with so-called hot cells—labs for separating nuclear elements.34 To illustrate Iraq’s impressive leverage vis-à-vis both France and Italy, consider that by 1979 Iraqi oil made up 21 percent of France’s oil purchases and 24 percent of Italy’s oil purchases from OPEC.35 The pattern of Iraqi purchases made clear their intention to build nuclear weapons. Five indicators are particularly persuasive. First, Iraq had originally wanted to purchase a gas-graphite reactor, which is inefficient at producing energy, despite the availability of more efficient pressurized water reactors. Gas-graphite reactors have been an important source of plutonium for nuclear weapons states. Second, the purchase of a huge materials testing reactor is suspicious for a country that does not produce nuclear reactors; the highly enriched uranium (HEU) fuel could be diverted to make nuclear weapons, or natural uranium could be bombarded with neutrons to produce weapons-grade plutonium. Third, when France offered to substitute a less suspicious “Caramel” fuel for the reactor, Iraq insisted on HEU. Fourth, Iraq made extensive purchases of pure and depleted uranium, which are of little conceivable use other than to produce plutonium. Finally, the hot cells purchased from Italy could only be for the purpose of plutonium separation.36 Nor was Saddam particularly guarded about his motives, boasting, for example, in 1975 that Iraq’s effort to buy a nuclear reactor represented “the first Arab attempt at nuclear arming.”37 If any doubt still remained, Hamza explains, “Everything at al-Tuwaitha was bought and built for only one purpose: to construct a nuclear bomb. We didn’t even make a pretense of generating power. Our electrical output was nil.”38 There is some debate as to how close the Iraqis were to achieving a nuclear weapon. Assuming IAEA safeguards were relatively effective, one source suggests that there would have been enough HEU to discreetly supply one device—or one to two plutonium devices over ten years.39 However, the Israelis had little faith in the IAEA inspectors, especially after they withdrew from the site at the start of the Iran-Iraq War.40 The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency was predicting that Iraq could have “several” nuclear weapons by 1981.41 Iraq already possessed a variety of nuclear-capable bombers, in addition to Scud missiles.42 Indeed, at least one top Israeli leader seems to have feared that, at the time of the Israe-

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li raid, Saddam might already have enough HEU for one bomb, which could be used to retaliate.43 Israeli diplomats began regular visits to Paris in 1975 to register their protests about French nuclear cooperation with Iraq. In August 1978, Begin convened Israel’s national security elite to consider the problem of the Iraqi nuclear weapons program. The group divided between hawks, led by former general Ariel Sharon, and doves, led by former general Yigael Yadin and the leaders of both the Mossad and military intelligence. Begin decided that foreign minister Moshe Dayan must go to Paris to present Israel’s case, and that the Mossad must make intelligence on the Iraqi nuclear program its number one priority. The prime minister closed the meeting by saying, “Gentleman, please think. A lot of thought has to be given to the question of how to prevent this.”44 Dayan’s pleas fell on deaf ears at the Quai d’Orsay, but just a few months later, in April 1979, the Mossad succeeded in reminding the French that the Israelis were deadly serious: a bomb did severe damage to reactor cores being readied for shipment to Iraq from the French port of Toulon. Hamza recalls, “The next time, we feared, they wouldn’t go after the equipment. They’d go after one of us.”45 Late in 1979, the IDF General Staff began in earnest to examine plans for attacking the Iraqi nuclear complex.46 By February 1980, air force chief General David Ivry was prepared to present variants to defense minister Ezer Weizman and IDF chief of staff General Raphael Eytan. It was agreed at this time that an air strike was the preferred option.47 By April, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) had completed the necessary refueling and ordinance tests. Ivry reported that the mission could be carried out on short notice.48 Two months later, the Mossad struck again. Fulfilling Hamza’s premonition, an Egyptian nuclear engineer working for the Iraqis was stabbed to death in his Paris hotel room. Over the next year, two Iraqi scientists would be poisoned while traveling in Europe.49 Shortly after the first shipment of French HEU reached Iraq in June, Dayan issued a blunt warning (considering Israel’s ambiguous nuclear status): “Israel never declared that it would not use such weapons or that it would be late in employing them.”50 Begin saw the opportunity he had been waiting for when Iraq invaded Iran in September 1980. He assembled his cabinet for a counsel of war in late October. He told his ministers: “A great clock is hanging over our heads, and it is ticking. Somewhere on the banks of the Tigris and the Euphrates, there are men plotting to annihilate us. . . . Every passing day brings them closer to their goal.” Invoking the Holocaust, the prime minister continued: “Employment of such weapons against concentrations of our civilian population will entail bloodshed the likes of which

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there has not been since ‘those days’ in the forties. In the face of such a danger, are we at liberty to sit with arms folded? Will we discharge our duty?”51 Begin wanted to move while Iraq’s attention was focused on Iran. The cabinet voted in favor of the attack. The decision was far from unanimous, however. Six of sixteen ministers declined to support the decision, including Deputy Prime Minister Yadin, who said he would resign rather than take responsibility for the ominous choice the government was making.52 Concerned about the possible impact on U.S.-Israeli relations, Israeli leaders decided that the raid should not go forward during the U.S. presidential election and inauguration. The Israeli Air Force (IAF) also wanted to await a further shipment of American-made F-16 attack aircraft.53 The IAF viewed striking a target six hundred miles distant as an extremely challenging mission.54 General Ezer Weizman, the leader of the IAF’s triumphant lightning strike, which had enabled Israel’s stunning 1967 victory, recalls: “Ever since the matter appeared on Israel’s agenda—immediately after the ‘56 Sinai war—it has been on my mind. . . . All that time, the question hammering at my brain was: what happens if we ever confront a nuclear reactor beyond our range?”55 The Iraqi reactor had fulfilled Weizman’s nightmare. To reach the target, the F-16s were to employ specially designed expendable fuel tanks. Just enough ordinance was carried to allow for the loss of a few aircraft to the formidable air defenses of the Iraqi nuclear complex.56 Indeed, after a September 1980 Iranian attack on the Osiraq nuclear reactor, which resulted in minimal damage, these defenses has been upgraded considerably. A hundred-foot-high earthen ramp had been constructed to protect the reactor, the dome of the reactor was painted over for camouflage, and the site was ringed with antiaircraft cannon, not to mention batteries of potent SA-2, SA-3, and SA-6 antiaircraft missiles controlled by a sophisticated radar system.57 As the IAF commanders completed their planning, they felt nagging doubts, exacerbated by the recent failed U.S. attempt to rescue hostages held in Iran. Ivry relates: “I thought, who can guarantee that we don’t have a technical hitch? The U.S. operation having deteriorated into catastrophe because of unforeseen events, doubts began to emerge among us too. Our . . . planning was good, but we were troubled by uncertainty.”58 On the morning of 7 June, the assault force flew down to a forward Israeli airbase close to Eilat in the Sinai.59 The pilots were addressed by Chief of Staff Eytan before their final briefing. He told them, “The alternative [to the raid] is our destruction.”60 Meanwhile, Begin had been making threatening public gestures toward Syria for the purpose of lowering the Iraqi guard.61 At 1600 hours, eight F-16s and eight F-15 escorts lifted off and flew to the east, over the Gulf of Aquaba and into

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Saudi airspace. Crossing the Euphrates and then the Tigris, the air fleet approached the target unscathed and began their bombing run. “Most of the pilots sensed the powerful blast released by their bombs. They thought they had been hit by antiaircraft fire; only later did they learn that they had come out unscathed.”62 Hamza offers an eyewitness Iraqi perspective: “The jets were buzzing like hornets over the aluminum dome of the French reactor, bombing and strafing. Then our antiaircraft guns opened up in staccato bursts. For the next few minutes the jets swooped and soared. Then as quickly as they came, they darted back west across the desert.”63 The Israeli planes, having flown low to evade enemy radar, now escaped at high altitude to conserve fuel.64 Hamza’s narrative indicates that the Israeli pilots had made a statement beyond the actual damage inflicted: “The fact that Iraqi gunners had failed to inflict even a single casualty on such a large number of warplanes in such close proximity in daylight was the ultimate in haplessness.”65 He credits an Israeli spy with supplying the critical information that the antiaircraft crews took a break for dinner each evening at 1800.66 Although it is well known that the raid did not put an end to Iraqi nuclear ambitions, Hamza concedes that the raid turned Osiraq into a “smoking, very expensive ruin.”67

risks Begin and his cabinet ultimately rejected the formation of a “balance of terror,” which some claimed was an inevitable outcome of proliferation. Hindsight suggests that they made the correct decision. However, to better understand the decision, it is imperative to assess the risks as they saw them. First and foremost, Israeli decision-makers appear to have been concerned about the impact on the most crucial Israeli diplomatic relations: with the United States on the one hand, and with Egypt on the other. In the wake of the Yom Kippur War, Israeli leaders had concluded that the quasi-alliance with the United States had to be the keystone of Israeli security.68 Victory in that conflict would have been difficult, if not impossible, without an emergency U.S. airlift of arms and ammunition. America’s advanced conventional weapons would be essential for maintaining Israel’s technological edge in the future. The IAF even delayed the strike in order to make use of newly arriving F-15s and F-16s, which predictably angered the Americans, because the United States stipulates that weapons not be used in “offensive operations.” A still greater com-

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plication resulted from the place of Iraq in the Reagan administration’s evolving Middle East strategy. Following the initiative of national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski at the close of the Carter administration, Reagan administration officials enthusiastically wooed Iraq to replace Iran as the focal point of an anti-Soviet coalition in the Persian Gulf.69 Finally, as Feldman observes, Israel’s image in the United States was bound to suffer: “Since the raid on Osiraq seemed to manifest a form of lawless behavior, the operation hurt the most sensitive nerves of America’s support for the Jewish state.”70 Although U.S. reactions to the raid were not entirely negative, the United States sponsored a resolution in the United Nations condemning the action. Even more worrisome from the Israeli point of view was the unprecedented suspension of a U.S. weapons transfer that had already been agreed to.71 Recall that the carefully timed raid had already been delayed by half a year to avoid entangling the issue in the U.S. presidential election. Damage to the relationship with the United States could not be avoided entirely.72 Coming just a year after the historic Camp David Accord with Egypt, the raid also had the potential to gravely damage this most important achievement in Israeli foreign policy. Indeed, the consequences for Israel’s relations with Egypt motivated much of the opposition from insiders to the proposed attack. Thus, defense minister Ezer Weizman, who retired in the midst of the deliberations on the raid, later said: “I would not have approved the operation, because I feared that it would have an adverse effect on our relations with Egypt, the first Arab state which had made peace with us.”73 The most ardent opponent of the raid within the cabinet, Deputy Prime Minister Yadin, had argued that Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel had introduced important fissures among the Arab states. In October 1980, as the cabinet was involved in its final deliberations, he asserted: “It is vital to maintain a policy which guarantees peace to Israel, and not take drastic action which will unite the entire Arab world against us.”74 The attack awkwardly came only three days after a summit meeting between Begin and Egyptian president Anwar Sadat. Although Sadat decided not to allow the raid to damage the peace process, he rebuked Begin directly, telling him that the episode was deeply embarrassing for him.75 Certainly, the raid took a toll on the evolving peace with Egypt. Other important concerns included the Soviet reaction, wider world opinion, and the mission’s overall feasibility. Among Yadin’s many objections was the possibility that in attacking Osiraq, Israel would be establishing an antiproliferation norm, and this norm might then justify a Soviet attack on Israel’s small arsenal.76 This argument, however, does not seem to have been taken very seriously by the wider group of Israeli decision-makers. A seemingly more realistic concern was that the Sovi-

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ets would gain influence in the region if the Arabs perceived a greater threat from Israel.77 But, overall, Israeli decision-makers appear to have understood that Iraq was not a typical Soviet client state (like Syria, for example), there was no Soviet commitment to its defense, and moreover, the Soviets had strenuously opposed Iraqi attempts to secure help for its nuclear weapons program.78 To ensure that the United States, Egypt, and the USSR, but also the rest of the world would not react too negatively to the raid, Begin understood that collateral damage had to be kept to an absolute minimum. In practical terms, this meant that the reactor had to be attacked before it became operational or “hot”; otherwise the risk of releasing a deadly radiation cloud within close proximity to the Iraqi capital would be considerable.79 Even without releasing such a radiation cloud, the raid, in the words of one U.S. analyst, “contributed to a growing perception that Israel has become an irrational, lawless state.”80 Just as with any military operation, Israeli leaders also had to consider, of course, the prospect of casualties and possible mission failure.81 We have noted that the failed 1979 U.S. mission to rescue American hostages in Tehran resonated powerfully in Jerusalem. While some have suggested that Begin was using the raid to boost his chances in the upcoming Israeli elections, it should be recognized that failure would likely have meant, at the very least, the end of his reign as prime minister.82 Finally, there was the risk of Arab, especially Iraqi, military retaliation. Indeed, after the raid, Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi called upon the Arab states to retaliate by striking Israel’s nuclear complex at Dimona.83 The IAF had carefully prepared for such contingencies, and this “active defense may have dissuaded these states from embarking upon such a venture.”84 Distracted by the more immediate Iranian threat, the Iraqi military was unlikely to be able to plan and execute a much more challenging mission against Israel. Schlomo Aronson speculates that Peres’s strenuous objection to the raid was partly based on the Labor Party leader’s fear that Saddam already had sufficient quantities of HEU to build a primitive bomb, which might be used to retaliate.85 There is no evidence, however, that Begin and his cabinet shared this concern. Ariel Sharon’s contention that “we will come to no harm if we destroy the reactor” appears to have been widely accepted.

imperatives It is clear that Begin and his ministers elected to strike the reactor when they did because of a coincidence of circumstances: the Iran-Iraq war, the

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imminent completion of the Iraqi research reactor, and the arrival of advanced new strike weapons from the United States. But this does not explain why Begin rejected the option of a “balance of terror” with Iraq. Certain reasons for rejecting the balance of terror concept are peculiar to Israel’s history and geo-strategic environment. A particularly strong historical influence was the experience of the Holocaust. Nuclear weapons trigger Israeli memories of the Holocaust because only they are seen as capable of destruction on the same scale. Here, the phrase “never again” takes on a most literal meaning: nuclear weapons could quite conceivably destroy the Jewish nation—just as Hitler intended. We have seen that the Holocaust played a critical role in motivating Ben Gurion to initiate Israel’s nuclear weapons project. For Begin, the Osiraq raid was another step in the pattern of policies established by Ben Gurion, a pattern that was historically informed by the Holocaust and valued self-reliance and survival above all else.86 Apparently, as the planes lifted off for Iraq on the evening of 7 June 1981, Begin occupied himself with prayer, contemplating the murder of his parents in the Holocaust and the fate of his grandchildren.87 Vandenbroucke observes, “[The decision to strike] sprang from more than a cold appraisal of the regional balance of power. Overlaying these calculations was a simpler emotion: the visceral fear of an atomic genocide. Inescapably, Israel embodies the memory of the Holocaust.”88 Another jarring memory probably had an impact on the Israeli decision: the experience of the Yom Kippur War. Against the advice of her military commanders, prime minister Golda Meir resisted approving an Israeli preemptive strike in October 1973, because she did not want Israel to appear to be the aggressor, as some had construed its preemptive action in the Six-Day War. This policy resulted in a near military disaster. Thousands of lives were lost, as Israeli border garrisons bore the brunt of the initial Arab attacks. This experience confirmed the importance of preemption in Israeli military doctrine, so that Begin and his colleagues felt no moral inhibitions about striking first.89 Indeed, Begin apparently invoked the analogy during the crucial cabinet meeting in late October 1980.90 Israel’s geo-strategic situation also undermines the possibility of a balance of terror. Put simply, Israel is too small. The bulk of its population and economic activity is located within a 40–50 kilometer radius of Tel Aviv.91 One analysis contends that one 200-kiloton weapon each on Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Haifa would effectively end its national existence.92 Indeed, Israeli chief of staff Eytan once observed, “Small states would be destroyed in a first strike, and thus we can’t afford a ‘balance of terror.’”93 Evron explains, “[Geographically] . . . Israel is operating . . . with-

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in the narrowest of security margins. In this respect, there is an enormous difference between the superpower context and the situation in which Israel finds itself. Both the U.S. and the Soviet Union could have absorbed a limited nuclear strike.”94 In addition to threat perceptions that are unique to Israeli historical and geographic circumstances, Begin and his colleagues also seem to have been motivated by more universal fears associated with proliferation, particularly concerning the adversary’s values and rationality. Yuval Ne’eman, an Israeli nuclear physicist and close advisor to Begin on the Osiraq issue, explains that nuclear deterrence rests on both parties’ acceptance of fear of nuclear war and responsibility regarding the lives of their own citizens.95 Here, Begin clearly felt Saddam could not be trusted with the ultimate weapon. Thus, he told his cabinet colleagues in October 1980, “Saddam Hussein is a bloodthirsty tyrant who seized power by killing his best friends with his own hands. He will not hesitate to employ weapons of mass destruction against us.”96 Moreover, there appears to be a widespread belief among Israeli strategists that many Arab leaders believe the Arab world could survive a nuclear conflict with Israel—and that the destruction of Israel might even be worth it.97 Robert Harkavy explains the essence of the cultural argument: “[The] ‘Islamic way of war’ . . . is often discussed . . . in the context of a relative disregard for casualties or death, fatalistic attitudes toward disaster and tragedy [i.e., a high threshold of pain], and martyrdom, all spotlighted by the florid, exaggerated style of Arab rhetoric, which is often portrayed in the West as appearing almost casual in its willingness to drown others and its proponents in ‘oceans of blood.’”98 Aronson criticizes Shai Feldman’s contention that Arab leaders are sufficiently rational to enable a stable balance of terror, asserting, “This is a historical-psychological argument that [is] far from his expertise.”99 Steinberg describes a “compressed rationality” among Israel’s Arab neighbors in which “decision-making structures are haphazard . . . with less access to information, small or no professional staffs, and greater cultural insularity.” He also emphasizes a “value system” that departs from a conventional weighing of broader national interests.100 In Begin’s calculations, these historical sentiments, in combination with Israel’s geographic vulnerability and his perception of his adversary’s irresponsibility, impelled him to strike the Iraqi nuclear complex, accepting the considerable diplomatic costs.

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the begin doctrine twenty years later According to information surfacing in the mid-1980s, Israel already possessed at that time a range of nuclear capabilities, from fission to fusion, tactical to strategic, that were compatible with many types of delivery systems.101 While the Jericho missile has a road-mobile variant, Israel appears to be developing submarine-launched cruise missiles to assure the deterrent’s security.102 Emphasizing the continuing importance of nuclear weapons in Israel’s security strategy, former IDF chief of staff and later prime minister Ehud Barak stated in 1995, “Israel’s nuclear policy . . . has not changed, will not change and cannot change, because it is a fundamental stand on a matter of survival which impacts on all the generations to come.”103 During the last two decades, Israel has made major strides in deploying satellites for early warning and targeting purposes, but the most ambitious WMD-related deployment to date is the Arrow missile defense system, the first two batteries of which are now operational.104 Considering global developments, Moscow’s much reduced role in the Middle East means that Israel can contemplate employing nuclear forces for defense and not merely deterrence.105 At the same time, Washington’s increased role in the region, which affords Jerusalem numerous benefits, also limits Israel’s scope of action to some extent. As one expert pointed out, today Israel could undertake a second Osiraq raid only at the risk of undermining the web of security in which Israel has become enmeshed.106 A decade after the raid against Osiraq, Israel-Iraq relations again encountered grave WMD instability. Whether Jerusalem was considering a 1990 repeat of the Osiraq raid is unclear, though the technical challenge had certainly increased.107 But it is absolutely clear that Iraqis feared a repeat of their 1981 humiliation, and so could have been prime candidates for the use ‘em or lose ‘em problem. Indeed, the infamous threat to “burn half of Israel” before the Persian Gulf War occurred in this unstable context. Gerald Steinberg concludes, “The events before and during [the 1991 Persian Gulf War] highlight the inherent sources of instability in the mutual deterrence relationship between Israel and Iraq.”108 Indeed, Saddam’s apparent strategy of using chemical weapons to deter attacks on his developing nuclear program appears to have backfired, as we will see in the following chapter. Chemical weapons might have also played a destabilizing role in Israel’s relations with Syria—and may do so in the future. Syria has gradually been increasing the accuracy and range of its chemically armed missiles— first deployed in 1987–88—in addition to the efficiency of the dispersion

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mechanism.109 Anthony Cordesman concludes: “The extent to which Syria’s missiles will be survivable [is questionable]. . . . Syria has a first strike or preemptive force and must use its missiles the moment that it feels they are under attack. . . . [This] could be extremely destabilizing in a SyrianIsraeli conflict.”110 While far from definitive, Israel’s aerial strike against Syrian radar in April 2001—the first such direct action against Syrian military targets since the early 1980s—tentatively suggests that Israeli decision-makers are not unduly constrained by Syria’s development of chemical weapons.111 Iran’s continued development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missile technology during the 1990s may eventually make it the ultimate test of the Begin doctrine. Iran has already successfully tested a ballistic missile, the Shehab-3, capable of striking Israel.112 Progress in the nuclear realm has been slower, thanks in no small part to American diplomatic efforts to forestall transfers from Russia, China, India, and Argentina.113 IAF general Shlomo Brom (ret.) emphasizes the operational difficulties of attempting to destroy Tehran’s nuclear capability. He explains that Iran is likely employing centrifuge technology to produce the necessary quantities of HEU. These centrifuges are apparently scattered all over the country, unlike the Iraqi program, which was concentrated in one central location. Moreover, he reports that Iranian facilities have generally been built underground, with the threat of air attack in mind.114 General Brom’s presentation, however, is quite consistent with the advice of another expert on Israeli strategy, who openly argues, “Jerusalem must: a) do whatever possible to convince Iran that it is not preparing for preemption b) do whatever possible to prepare for preemption.”115 General Brom does concede that as countermeasures have improved, so have IAF reconnaissance and strike capabilities.116 Other Israeli analysts, moreover, suggest that Israeli counterproliferation action against Iran would benefit from a more benign diplomatic environment, even the possible cooperation of Israeli allies, such as the United States or even Turkey.117 Certainly, the evolution of Israel’s relationship with Iran is likely to depend on factors unrelated to proliferation, including the success of political reformers in Tehran, and perhaps also on the progress of the peace process with the Palestinians, but it appears that the assumptions of the Begin doctrine have continued relevance for Israeli strategy.118 The Israeli raid on Osiraq in 1981 is the clearest historical demonstration of the central phenomena at issue in this book. This WMD rivalry rather suddenly witnessed the eruption of hostilities (limited though they were) because the superior power decided that the preservation of its superiority was both desirable and possible. I have endeavored to show that by

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the early 1980s Israel had become a formidable nuclear power. Indeed, it can be argued that its nuclear arsenal, first fielded in about 1967, has played an increasing role in the Arab-Israeli wars. Confronted by a nuclear challenger, oil-rich Iraq led by Saddam Hussein, Israel acted decisively to protect its nuclear monopoly. Far from an easy decision, Israeli leaders understood that the raid could jeopardize the very cornerstones of Israel’s security: its vital link to the United States and also perhaps the Camp David Accords, the greatest diplomatic achievement in the small state’s history. Recall that the peace deal with Egypt had been struck just two years before the Osiraq raid. Of course, Israel’s historical experience with the Holocaust, in addition to its extreme geo-strategic vulnerability to WMD attack, served to exaggerate fears of a balance of terror in the Middle East, but the decision was also influenced by much more universal concerns regarding the questionable rationality of the adversary state.119 In August 1978, at one of the earliest meetings on the issue, finance minister Simha Ehrlich, who almost never agreed with the bellicose agriculture minister, Ariel Sharon, explained his support for Sharon’s proposed strike against Iraq: “We must deny nuclear arms to an Arab state whose leaders [are] criminals and killers. . . . [W]e [have] to do everything to save ourselves.”120 Begin himself intoned during the crucial meeting of October 1980, “Saddam Hussein is a vicious and bloodthirsty tyrant. Why does he need . . . nuclear weapons?”121 Without passing judgment on the validity of this anxiety, suffice it to say that such fears, as we have seen, are almost universal in superior nuclear states challenged by proliferators.

chapter eight

Contemporary Cases: The 1990s

This study of asymmetric nuclear rivalries has been built on a foundation of deep historical case studies. My primary reason for focusing on cases from the Cold War was the hope that such cases would offer a more generous store of data. I also hoped that more balanced and objective assessments would be possible when discussing events in the more distant past. The passage of time enables a more complete perspective. This chapter surveys the evolving role of weapons of mass destruction in the post–Cold War era by examining a host of proliferation crises from the 1990s. Here, we broaden our concerns to encompass cases involving chemical and biological weapons, because the proposed model should be relevant to WMD interpreted broadly. The mini-cases that follow are not exhaustive, but they are sufficient to illustrate that asymmetric WMD rivalry is an important feature of the contemporary international system. Of course, even more contemporary cases—the Iraq War of 2003 and the ongoing crises with Iran and North Korea—are also extremely relevant to our thesis. For the reasons outlined above, however, these events need to be treated with special caution. To preserve the scholarly tenor of the present study, these “fresh cases” are treated almost exclusively in Chapter 10.

the united states and iraq The 1991 war against Iraq powerfully demonstrated the contours of the post–Cold War international system. Contrary to the hopes of many idealists, the war did not establish the preeminent role of the United Nations, and the world organization’s luster quickly faded. Rather, the most

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striking characteristic of the new world order is American hegemony, or unipolarity, enabled by two related developments. First, the collapse of the USSR and the decline of Russian power in general allowed the United States to intervene in regional conflict without risking global (nuclear) war. Second, the war, admittedly fought under ideal geostrategic conditions, demonstrated that the United States had attained a level of superiority in conventional fighting capability rarely witnessed in human history. But for our purposes, this conflict defines our present era because it was the first counterproliferation war. During the 1990s, the scope of Iraq’s WMD programs have gradually become clear. Testimony from one of Iraq’s chief nuclear weapons designers, who eventually defected to the United States, shows just how close Baghdad came to achieving nuclear weapons capability. Khidir Hamza describes how he traveled to the crumbling USSR in 1990, returning home with pockets filled with scraps of paper containing phone numbers of Soviet scientists eager to work on Saddam’s bomb. “All we needed was the top Soviet talent to iron out nagging problems. Within a few months, we could have a bomb—perhaps many in our hands.”1 According to Hamza, the regime was in such a hurry to complete a bomb after the occupation of Kuwait in August 1990 that the Russian-built reactor was kept running around the clock, making it pulse with radiation and causing many of its workers to fall ill from contamination.2 He also describes the “hulking, blimp-shaped, stainless-steel device” (the bomb prototype), which could only be dropped by an aircraft because of its size. However, it was apparently understood that delivery by aircraft was not feasible given the adversary’s air superiority.3 Even more of a concern for coalition forces were Iraq’s formidable stocks of chemical and biological weapons. In addition to vast stockpiles of nerve and mustard gas for battlefield use, the Iraqi army had extensive battlefield experience with these weapons. The United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) uncovered thirty chemical Scud warheads that were loaded and “ready to go.”4 Finally, Iraq now admits to producing at least 19,000 liters of botulinum toxin, 8,500 liters of concentrated anthrax, and 2,200 liters of concentrated aflatoxin. Iraq apparently made a broad effort to weaponize this arsenal beginning in December 1990, and more than one hundred gravity bombs and twenty-five missile warheads were eventually filled with the toxins.5 None of the recent revelations concerning Iraqi WMD after the 2003 Iraq War invalidate these earlier conclusions. It is true that the subject of WMD does not seem to have arisen during the earliest meetings among U.S. leaders about how to react to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. Clearly, Saddam’s “naked aggression” and his po-

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tential control over significant portions of the global oil supply played the determinate role in the earliest decisions to oppose the Iraqi dictator’s gambit. However, these motives were intimately tied to the issue of Iraq’s developing WMD arsenal. Thus, rewarding aggression enabled by WMD was a particularly dangerous precedent, and permitting Kuwaiti oil revenues to flow into Baghdad’s coffers would give Iraq that much more cash to spend on WMD development programs. Moreover, key players like NSC advisor Brent Scowcroft and secretary of defense Dick Cheney appear to have had Iraqi WMD on their minds even before the crisis.6 As it became clear that sanctions were not going to restore the status quo and U.S. leaders began to seriously contemplate the use of force, they seem to have arrived at the conclusion that Saddam had presented them with a perfect opportunity to curtail Iraqi WMD ambitions. In other words, Operation Desert Storm would be a preventive war—fought earlier so that an Iraq with more sophisticated WMD did not have to be faced later. By the fall, Saddam’s WMD programs had become an explicit war aim. Thus, CIA director William Webster said in October 1990 that the administration would have “‘no real confidence that the area will ever be secure again’ unless Saddam was ‘disassociated from his weapons of mass destruction.’”7 In November, President Bush himself explained, “No one knows precisely when this dictator may acquire atomic weapons or who they may be aimed at down the road. But we do know this for sure: he has never possessed a weapon that he hasn’t used.”8 Considering that the United States repeatedly resorted to force during the 1990s to maintain a sanctions and inspections regime to contain Saddam’s WMD arsenal, there is little doubt that proliferation was a major cause of the Gulf War. That this particular war aim garnered impressive support with the U.S. public,9 moreover, suggests that this pattern of intervention may be a durable characteristic of the post–Cold War era. Beyond illustrating that this asymmetric WMD rivalry was and is a source of great instability, the conflict raises important questions about future proliferation wars. In particular, the strategic impact of Iraqi chemical and biological weapons continues to be hotly debated. Many took it for granted that the American nuclear deterrent effectively restrained Saddam.10 However, there are substantial reasons for doubt in this regard. For the United States to retaliate with nuclear weapons would, first and foremost, have meant breaking the taboo against nuclear use. Unless U.S. forces had suffered truly horrific casualties, the administration would have found it difficult to justify using this scale of violence against Iraqi citizens. A survey of statements made by U.S. leaders indicates significant ambiguity about possible U.S. responses.11 For example, Colin Powell warned the Iraqis that an “unconventional” U.S. response

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to their use of chemical or biological weapons would involve targeting the economic infrastructure, including Iraq’s merchant fleet, port and oil facilities, railroads, and highways.12 While perhaps painful, such forms of retaliation would have been of a qualitatively different nature than retaliation in kind (i.e., WMD use by U.S. forces). In addition, Saddam had apparently sunk some $2.5 billion into preparations for withstanding nuclear attack, so he and his closest associates were likely to survive all but the most devastating nuclear attack.13 Finally, the Iraqi dictator ignored U.S. warnings about damaging Kuwaiti oil wells—warnings that were made together with those against unconventional weapons. Hamza comments, “Washington, Saddam reasoned, had no stomach for carrying out retaliation in kind.”14 The Iraqi decision not to resort to chemical warfare appears readily explainable: coalition forces were well prepared for this contingency—much better prepared than Iraqi forces. Furthermore, coalition forces quickly negated Saddam’s delivery capability. According to an expert analysis of the issue: “The neutralization of their air force, a prime delivery system, and the destruction of the transportation infrastructure meant that the only real chemical delivery capability that Iraq had at the beginning of the ground offensive were artillery and rockets . . . which were thoroughly targeted.”15 Saddam’s nonuse of biological weapons during the 1990-91 Gulf War still remains a mystery. In a recent study of this question, Avigdor Haselkorn concludes that Saddam had kept his biological arsenal in reserve in order to deter the coalition from “marching to Baghdad” and toppling his regime. The author’s most interesting evidence is a curious Scud missile warhead that was fired at Israel during the last days of the war. Instead of the usual conventional explosives, this warhead was a peculiar combination of concrete and metal, which some in Israeli intelligence thought to be a model configured to carry biological weapons. Haselkorn concludes, “Washington was so convinced that it could not deter or neutralize Saddam’s CB threat that it opted to stop the war rather than risk a cataclysmic conflagration.”16 Nor is Haselkorn’s the only expert study of the 1990-91 Gulf War to come to this conclusion.17 There is little doubt that America’s wartime leaders were deeply concerned about possible Iraqi use of biological weapons. Colin Powell, for example, maintains, “The wild card in this conflict was whether or not the Iraqis might resort to germ warfare.”18 Moreover, even the threat of attack seems to have had an impact on morale and on the pace of operations.19 Nevertheless, Haselkorn’s assertion that biological weapons were the determining factor in the Bush administration’s decision to end the war when and where it did may be overstated. In his short discussion

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of alternative explanations,20 Haselkorn does not, for example, grapple with the significant impact of the Vietnam legacy on U.S. war termination.21 A further problem with Haselkorn’s argument is the fact that Saddam appears to have been actively targeted during the war, in spite of his propensity to employ WMD.22 Since Haselkorn’s argument seems plausible, if not wholly persuasive, one must ask whether the pattern of coalition bombardment adequately accounted for the risks of igniting a WMD exchange. If the Iraqi leader was convinced that coalition aircraft were out to kill him and were bound to succeed, what other incentives remained to condition his behavior? There appears to be no evidence of concern on the part of coalition air planners about the possible “use ‘em or lose ‘em” reasoning, which would motivate the Iraqis to employ their WMD rather than letting them be destroyed by allied air strikes.23 Thus, suspected Iraqi WMD targets were struck from the very outset of the war. It is worthwhile to take note of another major use of force against Iraq in December 1998: Operation Desert Fox. President Clinton ordered four days of strikes because of Iraqi noncompliance with UNSCOM requests. More than three hundred combat sorties were flown, and more than four hundred cruise missiles were expended by U.S. and British forces. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Henry Shelton reported significant damage to twelve missile production sites and eleven command-and-control facilities. However, in contrast to the first Gulf War, planners apparently purposefully avoided striking chemical and biological weapons depots, for fear of civilian casualties from the release of toxins into the air.24 This episode is especially illuminating, because it illustrates not only the dilemmas associated with WMD targeting, but also that the instability generated by radical WMD asymmetry transcends partisan perspectives on strategy. In the light of the 2003 Iraq War, it is perhaps tempting to dismiss the impact of WMD during the first Gulf War. Indeed, Haselkorn’s thesis seems even more questionable given Washington’s resolve to remove Saddam’s regime in 2003, irrespective of the WMD risks. On the other hand, the UNSCOM revelations of WMD activity in Iraq prior to the first Gulf War are not wiped away by the difficulty in turning up weapons after the 2003 Iraq War. The important role of Iraqi WMD in precipitating the first Gulf War, if not in deciding the outcome, is an incontestable fact of history.

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the united states and north korea The second WMD crisis faced by the United States in the post–Cold War era was not long in coming, and it has clear echoes in our present predicament. The durability of the “rogue state” label testifies to the remarkable similarity between the crisis with North Korea and the preceding Persian Gulf War. Iraq and North Korea have been labeled rogue states not only because they both have challenged U.S. interests, but more specifically, because each has sought entry by clandestine means into the world’s most exclusive club: states possessing nuclear weapons. The crisis erupted in the summer of 1993, when North Korea refused to submit to IAEA inspections unless the United States agreed to bilateral talks. At that time, it was suspected that Pyongyang might already have reprocessed enough spent fuel for one or two nuclear weapons. By the fall, estimates predicted that North Korea might even have enough plutonium for an additional five or six weapons.25 A significant group of Washington commentators were sounding the drumbeat for war. Frank Gaffney emphasized the “ticking clock” that is characteristic of proliferation crises, observing: “[We should take] military steps to neutralize those [nuclear] facilities that we know about. . . . It is a question of going to war now . . . [rather] than later when such advantageous conditions will almost surely not exist.”26 Illustrating that Gaffney’s point of view was not extreme, the editors of the Economist made a similar argument: “Faced with a chilling choice of risks—between a preemptive strike to cripple North Korea’s nuclear program and waiting until its tough talk is backed up by nuclear threats—America would . . . be right to strike first.”27 Republican presidential candidate Senator Bob Dole said he supported a U.S. military buildup in Asia and “would back the Clinton Administration if it began planning a preemptive military strike.”28 These assertions might otherwise be dismissed as the ill-informed musings of the “yellow press” or of political outsiders except that insider accounts which appeared during the late 1990s confirm the gravity of the crisis with North Korea. One participant at a presidential briefing on war plans for the Korean peninsula commented, “That was very serious. . . . We don’t do that very often.”29 Indeed, William Perry, who took over as secretary of defense in the midst of the crisis, relates that the episode was the “most serious during my tenure,” and describes what can only be called a “council of war” with President Clinton in June 1994, in which “we knew that we were poised on the brink of a war that might involve weapons of mass destruction.”30 Perry makes no attempt to deny that the administration was close to

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executing a preemptive strike. In the fall of 1993, he ordered chairman of the Joint Chiefs John Shalikashvili and General Gary Luck, commander of allied forces in South Korea, to reassess Oplan 5027, the plan for resisting a North Korean invasion. At the same time, he formally requested that plans be drawn up for “destroying key components of the reactor site with a military attack.” Reviewing the Pentagon’s attack plans, Perry relates: The plan was impressive; it could be executed with only a few days’ alert, and it would entail little or no risk of U.S. casualties during the attack. Additionally, it had been designed so that it entailed a low risk of North Korean casualties and a very low risk of radiation release into the atmosphere. The North Koreans, of course, could rebuild the facilities destroyed by the attack, but without question it would have achieved its objective of setting back their nuclear program many years.31

Moreover, the former secretary of defense leaves little doubt that he was on the verge of recommending attack when former president Jimmy Carter’s mission suddenly reported that Pyongyang had relented. Perry explains that he viewed war as an “unpalatable option,” but allowing North Korea to obtain a nuclear arsenal was a “disastrous option,” and according to Perry, “Politics . . . consists of choosing between what is disastrous and what is merely unpalatable. . . . [A North Korean nuclear arsenal] would pose an unacceptable risk. . . . [T]he U.S. had to seek [its] elimination.”32 Despite the apparent feasibility of a counterproliferation strike, the United States acted in the crisis with palpable caution. Thus, Clinton told reporters in June 1994, “I don’t want any war talk. I want this to be about peace talk.”33 Moreover, the so-called Agreed Framework entailed significant U.S. costs. If Perry’s testimony is credible, some of the reasons given for this caution can be disregarded. It had been reported, for example, that the strike mission was unlikely to be successful.34 The fear of releasing an enormous and deadly cloud of radiation also appears to have been exaggerated. Finally, U.S. leaders do not appear to have been intimidated by the fact that North Korea might already possess one or two nuclear devices. These were seen as possibly adding “to the carnage of the war, but not changing the eventual result . . . —the defeat of North Korea.”35 Consistent with the overall conclusions of this study, the determining factors appear to have been the conventional balance, geography, and alliance constraints. There is ample evidence that U.S. leaders were impressed by North Korea’s conventional forces. Indeed, Perry observes that “[North Korea’s] million man ground force is . . . more than twice

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the size of the U.S. Army.”36 In explaining his decision not to recommend an immediate preemptive strike, Perry says, “Such an attack was very likely to incite the North Koreans to launch a military attack on South Korea. Even though the North Koreans would surely lose this second Korean War, they could cause hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of casualties before being defeated.”37 The secretary of defense was echoing the concerns of many in the armed forces. Thus, one Pentagon study predicted 300,000 to 500,000 casualties in the first ninety days of fighting.38 A high-ranking military officer said anonymously to a researcher: “In the process of getting proliferation under control, we didn’t [want] to cause a ground war to be fought on the peninsula . . . [which would entail] great cost.”39 Geography was another restraining factor. With Seoul situated close to the border, North Korean artillery could effectively level the capital in the opening round of a war, causing huge casualties and irreparable damage. Surprisingly, this proximity did not cause South Korea’s leaders to take a softer stand; rather, it was the Japanese who strongly protested American plans for a preemptive strike. However, in an event with important implications for the contours of the new international system, North Korea also appears to have benefited from a subtle Chinese deterrent threat. The Clinton administration seems to have taken the trouble to query Beijing as to how it would react to an American preemptive strike against the North Korean nuclear facilities. The Chinese official apparently responded, “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.” When asked how the official thought North Korea would react, the Chinese official responded, “Not North Korea, China.”40 Given the bloody history of Sino-American conflict on the Korean peninsula, American leaders could not afford to ignore Chinese threats. Exploration of China’s possible deterrent role in the 1994 crisis could increase U.S. understanding of Beijing’s nebulous role in the current crisis with North Korea. Like the Persian Gulf War, the Korean crisis of 1993–94 demonstrates the instability inherent in asymmetric nuclear rivalry. Just three years after the end of the Cold War, the United States stood on the brink of yet another war involving possible use of WMD. Such a war might very well have occurred, were it not for North Korea’s impressive conventional might, the proximity of Seoul to the border, and Beijing’s subtle threat to “react” to an American attack. The current crisis with North Korea is analyzed in Chapter 10.

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the united states and libya In the wake of Libya’s dramatic renunciation of its expansive WMD programs in late 2003 and early 2004,41 it is easy to forget the war-threatening crisis that erupted in the spring of 1996. Involving Muammar Qaddafi’s efforts to build an arsenal of chemical weapons, this brief but apparently severe crisis further demonstrates the instability of radically asymmetric WMD dyads. In particular, it shows that chemical weapons arsenals may generate conflict dynamics similar to those seen in asymmetric nuclear rivalries.42 Concern about Libyan chemical weapons originally surfaced in the late 1980s. When an alleged chemical weapons plant was destroyed by fire in 1990, Qaddafi accused Western intelligence agencies of sabotage, while the CIA claimed that the incident was part of a Libyan hoax to avoid international inspections.43 Seemingly emboldened by the Persian Gulf War, the American government initiated a crisis with Libya in 1996, without any immediate provocation from the Libyan dictator other than continued work on the apparently huge underground weapons complex at Tarhunah. In early 1996, American intelligence appears to have received warnings from German intelligence concerning the ongoing work at Tarhunah, including copies of construction plans and building specifications gathered from employees of German and Austrian companies that had participated in aspects of the Tarhunah project. As the administration response to the Libyan threat evolved, the primary concern appears to have been deterrence. In late March, secretary of defense William Perry emphasized in public statements that if U.S. forces were attacked with chemical weapons, “The whole range [of weapons] would be considered,” implying, of course, possible nuclear retaliation.44 In April, U.S. policy assumed a much harder edge, shifting from deterrence to warnings of preventive action. Illustrating the urgency of the situation as perceived in Washington, Perry made a special trip to Cairo in the beginning of April to discuss the situation with Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. He told reporters at that time that the United States would only consider military action when “other means have proven to be ineffective,” but he was “confident the U.S. [would] be successful in shutting down the [Tarhunah] operation before it gets started [in production].” However, in the same discussion, he apparently told reporters that conventional weapons could effectively destroy the plant during the construction phase.45 In another report, a U.S. official explained that close coordination with Cairo was

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necessary because Egypt could serve as a staging area for an American attack against Libya.46 Numerous commentators supported the administration’s hard-line position. For example, Newsday editorialized, “Like a growling dog that has never learned to behave, Libya may need another sharp tug at the choke chain.”47 At the end of April, Perry issued the most explicit threat to date: “If necessary, the United States is fully prepared to take other, more drastic preventive measures [than diplomatic and economic moves to stop the Libyan plant].”48 Such ominous statements were overshadowed to some extent by a controversy that erupted after Pentagon spokesman Kevin Bacon hinted that the newly developed B-61 nuclear earth-penetrator might be employed against the Tarhuna plant.49 Bacon officially retracted the statement about a week later, insisting, “Any implication that we would use nuclear weapons preemptively against this plant is just wrong. . . . We can accomplish this with conventional means.”50 The crisis was resolved only after Qaddafi traveled to Egypt in late May, where Mubarak claims to have convinced the Libyan dictator of the wisdom of desisting from his building plans for Tarhunah.51 U.S. intelligence subsequently verified the Egyptian president’s claim.52 This crisis starkly illustrates the instability of asymmetric WMD relationships because the crisis was driven entirely by capabilities. Unlike Saddam Hussein in 1990, Qaddafi did not brandish his developing arsenal, but rather claimed throughout that the plant was part of an irrigation project. U.S. determination to halt this instance of proliferation was absolutely clear; the secretary of defense had staked the administration’s reputation on preventing Libya from acquiring a chemical weapons arsenal. Qaddafi’s decision to back down under U.S. threats appears to confirm an overall conclusion of this study: that chemical weapons are a much weaker deterrent than nuclear weapons. However, had the Libyan dictator been building a plant to store nuclear weapons, one would expect the U.S. reaction to have been more severe. Indeed, if we move ahead to Libya’s recent agreement to full inspections, it is plausible that the key event was the October 2003 seizure of centrifuge parts bound for Tripoli, which increased Washington’s awareness of Libya’s ongoing nuclear program.53

the united states and china Although China is far from attaining superpower status, the steady growth of its economy combined with its strict authoritarian regime and

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revisionist foreign policy goals have prompted some to suggest that the United States and China are on a collision course.54 Competitive tendencies have decreased since the September 11 attacks, but possibilities for long-term rivalry remain. Since the U.S.-China balance in the nuclear realm is clearly asymmetric, the question naturally arises whether our analysis is applicable to this developing rivalry. I suggest that the model has some, but not total, applicability. On the one hand, China is a mature nuclear power. It has had operational ICBMs for more than two decades and SLBMs for only slightly less time. As previously noted, China moved to thermonuclear weapons even more quickly than the other nuclear powers. Moreover, the PLA appears to field a full complement of tactical nuclear weapons.55 Scholars have long held up China as the model nuclear weapons state: one that has invested just enough resources in nuclear weapons to secure minimum deterrence. With a “threat that leaves something to chance,” it is held that China can adequately protect its vital interests. Indeed, the argument has been made that “nuclear peace” is ultimately the most reliable safeguard against a future U.S.-China war.56 On the other hand, Chinese nuclear forces appear to have suffered from more than a decade of neglect, which is only now starting to be reversed. To the extent that its basing modes and deployments are understood in the public realm, they are a cause for concern. The limited numbers of silo-based ICBMs are obviously vulnerable. Moreover, China’s single operations ballistic missile submarine only rarely ventures out of port. Deployment of mobile ballistic missiles and a new generation of ballistic missile submarines will improve the situation of China’s strategic forces somewhat, but the range of the missiles and the relatively slow pace of deployment seemingly contributes to the overall weakness of China’s nuclear forces. Especially in light of continuing improvements to U.S. reconnaissance capabilities, it is conceivable that the United States has and retains a nuclear first-strike option, though probably not a conventional first-strike option, as some Chinese analysts fear.57 Nuclear asymmetry in U.S.-China relations could be destabilizing for a number of reasons. First, it may encourage the United States to adopt uncompromising positions, for example on the Taiwan question. Second, the Chinese may view limited nuclear options as a useful way to cope with U.S. conventional superiority.58 Beijing may believe that norms would restrain Washington from either large-scale nuclear preemption or retaliation. Moreover, the Chinese calculate that limited nuclear options could be successful because of perceived American casualty sensitivity.59 Third, as the United States introduces new strike technology, Chinese nuclear forces will necessarily have to shift to a higher alert status and even

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a launch-on-warning posture. In short, the stability of this nuclear balance is greater than those discussed as classic proliferation crises, and yet considerably lower than that, for example, of the late Cold War.60

south asia Not long before his historic visit to India in February 1999, President Clinton called Kashmir the most dangerous place in the entire world, making an oblique reference to the nuclear tests that had rocked South Asia less than a year earlier. While some Indians, including then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, apparently took offense at Clinton’s characterization,61 the president certainly echoed a broad consensus in the academic and nonproliferation communities that South Asia is the most likely site for a nuclear conflict in the coming century. This book challenges that conclusion and suggests that American leaders would do well to focus on adroit handling of U.S. involvement in several conflicts that are structurally more unstable than the current situation in South Asia. There are numerous reasons to doubt that the nuclear peace between the Cold War superpowers (see Chapter 3) can be emulated in South Asia. Factors exaggerating instability in this case include: these states share a long common border with disputed claims; they have fought three bloody wars since independence; regimes in both states are plagued by instability; nuclear force structures and command-and-control arrangements remain primitive; proximity makes for shorter flight times, affording decision-makers less time to distinguish an accident from a genuine attack; and finally, arms race stability is complicated by the fact that Indian force requirements are partially determined by a perceived threat from China.62 The impact of some of these factors is debatable. For example, proximity also vastly simplifies the problem of delivering nuclear weapons, suggesting that robust second-strike forces may be developed more quickly and at lesser expense. Taken together, however, these factors undeniably are a cause for concern. In some sense, this conflict dyad fits the generalized model elaborated in this study. The South Asian nuclear rivalry could be characterized as asymmetric. India exploded a nuclear device in 1974, long before the Pakistani nuclear program had matured.63 India’s greater resources ensure superiority in nuclear forces and supporting forces, such as early warning sensors. There are even rumors that Indian leaders considered preventive action against Pakistan’s nascent nuclear capabilities during

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the early 1980s. These reports mostly originate from speculations by U.S. intelligence sources, including a 1984 episode in which the CIA lost track of two squadrons of Indian Jaguar bombers and came to the conclusion that they were being readied for a raid on Pakistani nuclear facilities.64 The Pakistanis, moreover, have made extensive defense preparations, apparently expecting that an attack might be undertaken not just by India, but possibly by Israel or even the United States.65 According to a State Department report, the potential costs to India of undertaking a strike against Pakistani nuclear facilities at that time included: release of a cloud of radiation, the prospect of Pakistani retaliation against Indian nuclear facilities, the danger of escalating to general war, the threat of international sanctions, and a possibility that Pakistan’s allies would embargo India’s fuel supplies.66 Rajiv Gandhi officially denied that such studies were being undertaken in New Delhi.67 Indian and Pakistani leaders signed an unprecedented agreement in December 1985, in which they pledged not to attack one another’s nuclear facilities. This event must be seen as recognition on both sides of the potential for instability, as well as an apparent realization that both sides were vulnerable to such a strike. The 1985 agreement and the rumors associated with it hardly approach the serious military-political crises evident in the hostile dyads discussed in this study. Indeed, there is some evidence that nuclear weapons have brought a new stability to Indian-Pakistani relations. Such effects predated the 1998 nuclear tests. Thus, one study of the so-called 1988 Brasstacks crisis observes that “no Indian or Pakistani decisionmaker during the Brasstacks crisis has intimated that his government even considered a [preemptive] course of action.”68 Referring to the new stability flowing from the period of nuclear opacity, Indian Army chief of staff General K. Sundarji has suggested: “With . . . nuclear capability . . . as a backdrop, I rather suspect that many of these three wars wouldn’t have happened.”69 Since the 1998 tests, both states have indicated a willingness to sign the CTBT and, moreover, have engaged one another in a process of grand summitry. A closer examination of Indian and Pakistani capabilities helps explain why this asymmetric nuclear rivalry exhibits a perhaps unexpected tendency toward stability. In fact, this rivalry does not approximate the radical asymmetry evident, for example, in the U.S.-PRC dyad of the 1960s or the Israel-Iraq dyad of the early 1980s. Rather, it is closer in kind to the Sino-Indian rivalry we examined in Chapter 6. That is to say, the rivalry is characterized by a very rough symmetry that may enable stability. If we assume that the taboo against a nuclear first strike is very strong, then the Indians would be restricted to a conventional strike on the Osirak model. In theory, the Indian Air Force had such a capability, since it

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possessed five squadrons of British-designed Jaguar attack aircraft by the early 1980s.70 In practice, however, the Indian Air Force has proven to be a negligible factor in India’s wars, demonstrating only the most limited proficiency in aerial combat, ground support, and most importantly, precision strikes.71 On the chances of an Indian strike against Pakistan’s nuclear facilities, one American official quipped, “They don’t do things as neatly as the Israelis in [this] part of the world.”72 Even if extreme circumstances drove the Indian leadership to consider a nuclear first strike, planners in New Delhi would be lacking in reliable target intelligence. India’s best reconnaissance satellites have only 6-meter resolution, not enough to precisely identify ballistic missile units.73 Moreover, India’s satellites are easily foiled by weather and are very far from providing roundthe-clock battlefield coverage. According to one recent survey, “[India’s satellites] would be of little use in providing daily or hourly updates of a battlefield situation to military command centers.”74 As General Sundarji explains, “The Pakistanis have dispersed and hidden their nuclear weapons, and India does not have enough resources to find and strike them.”75 According to a very recent study by Ashley Tellis, “Counterforce targeting is likely to receive even less attention from India simply because Pakistan’s nuclear forces, which are steadily migrating to mobile ballistic missiles, will be largely undetectable in a conflict.”76 Sumit Ganguly agrees: “Clearly, neither side has the requisite capability to pursue a decapitating first strike against the other.”77 Moreover, recall that Pakistan acquired a reliable nuclear delivery system—the F-16—before India had one. This rough nuclear symmetry remains a strategic fact today: when India testfired its 2,000-kilometer Agni 2 ballistic missile in April 1999, Pakistan followed with a test of the Ghauri 2, with a similar range.78 Of course, the 1999 Kargill fighting was deeply disconcerting, not least because it followed hard upon the nuclear tests of the previous year. The fighting caused thousands of casualties and prompted the Indian High Command to take the unusual step of employing tactical airpower.79 Some have even gone so far as to suggest that Islamabad was seeking an opportunity to test the strength and possibilities of its new nuclear doctrine.80 However, as one expert on Indian defense policy noted, India had reacted to past provocations in Kashmir by thrusting into the heart of Pakistan, toward Lahore and Karachi, but in this case, “India was constrained from expanding the war across the international frontiers into Pakistan for fear of escalation to a nuclear war.”81 Indeed, it appears that Indian forces were rather careful about crossing the line of control separating Indian and Pakistani forces in Kashmir.82 Since the Kargill conflict, the India-Pakistan relationship has traversed further crises—in particular, during the winter of 2001–2. The most recent crisis was set off by

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a terrorist attack on the Indian parliament, but it probably also reflects opportunism on New Delhi’s part—an attempt to leverage the momentum of the American “war on terror” to constrain Pakistan-sponsored activities in Kashmir. A preliminary assessment of this crisis suggests that nuclear weapons are a force for stability on the subcontinent. As Stephen Cohen observed in the midst of that crisis: “There are sober people on both sides and I think they’re . . . proclaiming the threat of war, possibly nuclear war, but I don’t think they’re seriously planning for it.”83 It has been suggested that the present India-Pakistan conflict may be evidence for the so-called stability/instability paradox (see Chapter 2), which might be considered an offshoot of proliferation optimism.84 The logic is that nuclear weapons stifle all-out conflict, but the competition and tensions may well manifest themselves at much lower escalation rungs, in peripheral areas of conflict where actors attempt to test their adversary’s resolve. The stability of higher escalation rungs thus enables risk-taking at lower escalation rungs. Overall, however, it is evident that nuclearization, coupled with very limited precision strike capabilities, seems to have brought a basic stability to the bitter South Asian rivalry.

This chapter has attempted to apply the basic model of WMD asymmetry to the post–Cold War crises of the 1990s. I must reiterate a strong cautionary note that the ponderous veil of secrecy, in addition to the proximity of the events, precludes firm conclusions in any of these cases. Nevertheless, it is relatively clear that the Persian Gulf War, the 1994 Korean crisis, and the 1996 Libyan crisis all represent instances of instability flowing from WMD asymmetry. Where asymmetries are less radical, there is a possibility for higher levels of stability. This seems apparent for the South Asian rivalry and plausible, at least, for any evolving U.S.China rivalry.

chapter nine

Conclusion

This book has two goals. First, it has endeavored to improve our understanding of the contemporary global order by evaluating the stability of the asymmetric relationships that result from nuclear proliferation.1 Second, it has aimed to increase our knowledge of nuclear and WMD rivalry by undertaking a wide-ranging comparison of these rivalries. This concluding chapter begins with a brief restatement of the theoretical context for the research project, which is followed by a summary of the casework. A third section elaborates the study’s central findings, in addition to elucidating a number of weaker yet potentially important hypotheses. I also examine some implications of these findings, particularly as regards the evolution of U.S. counterproliferation policy.

valleys of vulnerability Debates about the significance of nuclear weapons for international relations comprise the core theoretical literature for this research. In these debates, proponents of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) argue that nuclear weapons effectively stabilized the Cold War, creating stark incentives that prevented any use of nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, so-called warfighters, or Nuclear Utilization Theorists (NUTs), were troubled by the possibility that deterrence would fail or that the Soviets might try to use nuclear parity to reap political gains. The extent to which the Cold War analogy is applicable to discussions of proliferation is subject to debate, but it is clearly influential to the extent that these two basic positions are mirrored in the contemporary debate between proliferation optimists and pessimists.

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Indeed, the present book fits most precisely into this dispute. Kenneth Waltz is the unquestioned leader of the optimists. His provocative essay, written in 1981 and entitled “More May Be Better,” argues that the spread of nuclear weapons would mitigate interstate conflict, essentially because small arsenals are difficult to destroy and have disproportionate deterrent effects. Moreover, any leader would be sensible enough to appreciate, or would quickly become socialized into, the simple logic of nuclear deterrence. Since proliferation has become a fundamental security issue following the Cold War, Waltz’s optimism has received greater attention and widespread support in the field of political science. Scholars have asserted that optimism is highly appropriate to understanding contemporary proliferation hot spots, for example in South Asia or the Middle East.2 In the late 1990s, proliferation optimism remained very much alive. Thus, one scholar observes, “The . . . ability of weaker states to create incentives for larger states to avoid military confrontation with them is a new phenomenon. The implications for international relations have yet to be fully appreciated.”3 Another is even bolder in his conclusions: “[Nuclear proliferation] forever [alters] the traditional ‘power politics’ relations between states first described by Thucydides.”4 As described in detail in the Epilogue, proliferation optimism has also played a conspicuous role in the debate surrounding the Bush doctrine. Critics of the Bush administration have argued that adversary WMD possession will inhibit U.S. military intervention. The antithetical view of proliferation’s consequences has been developed by a group of theorists now called proliferation pessimists. Defending a viewpoint often taken for granted in the U.S. government, these theorists have emphasized the destabilizing consequences of proliferation, fearing that wars and even use of WMD might result from this process. Thus, Joseph Nye explains: “There will be a temptation to destroy [new nuclear capabilities] by preemptive strikes while they are still small and vulnerable. The country that expects to create stable deterrence in a region by introducing nuclear weapons may have to pass through a dangerous ‘valley of vulnerability.’”5 Scholars such as Scott Sagan and Peter Feaver have constructed elaborate pessimist models. The former emphasizes the deleterious effects of unstable civil-military relations on overall dyadic stability, while the latter highlights the related difficulties of creating functioning command-and-control arrangements in developing countries.6 Representative of pessimist thinking, Colin Gray describes what he views as the futility of attempting to deter “every roguish regime [on] every issue,” and moreover, he warns regarding nonuse norms: “[The] taboo in question is just one detonation away from being exposed as a wishful thought.”7 Pessimists have long disputed the empirical validity of

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proliferation optimism, for example when Bruce Russet challenged Waltz directly with the observation “Nonoccurrence [of nuclear war] is not proof of the statement’s truth.”8 With the possible exception of the American case, however, proliferation pessimism has lacked a strong empirical rebuttal to the optimists. Indeed, one optimist noted recently in the pages of International Security, “[Proliferation] pessimism may be too closely tied to a single empirical example [i.e., the U.S.-Soviet experience].” Pointing to the “hard historical spadework that needs to be done,” he entreated scholars “to go beyond rote arguments over whether proliferation is good or bad and undertake empirical investigations into the actual behavior of new nuclear powers.”9 It is exactly this “soft spot” in the literature that this book aspires to fill.

case summaries The Early Cold War Detection of the October 1949 Semipatalinsk nuclear test, which the Soviets did not announce, in an attempt to obscure the contours of the nuclear balance, made Washington exceedingly jittery. Although a number of U.S. generals, including notably General Leslie Groves, who had overseen the Manhattan Project, had proposed preventive war against the USSR during the late 1940s, such talk reached a fever pitch by 1950.10 NSC-68 noted that there was a “powerful argument [for preventive war] in the light of history.”11 Truman had little or no interest in such proposals, and he chastised his civilian and military advisors accordingly. His successor apparently did not feel the same qualms and appears to have seriously explored the possibility of an American preventive war against the Soviet Union. In a memo to Dulles from September 1953, Eisenhower ruminated on whether “our duty to future generations did not require us to initiate war at the most propitious moment that we could designate.”12 In May 1954, Eisenhower listened to a JCS report that recommended “deliberately precipitating a war with the USSR in the near future, before Soviet thermonuclear capability became a real menace.”13 The president did not pass judgment immediately on this recommendation, but by the fall of 1954 he had come to the conclusion that preventive war was contrary to U.S. interests. Although the president halted preventive war deliberations

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at this time, preemptive war continued to be the basis of U.S. war planning well into the 1960s and beyond. A third destabilizing strategy that characterized this period of nuclear asymmetry between the superpowers was the propensity of the Soviet High Command to fear “going late,” prompting them toward preparations for “preemptive surprise strikes of terrible destructive force.”14 The American tendency to exploit their nuclear advantage was held in check by norms against striking first, a paucity of target intelligence before the advent of the U-2, and the enormous Soviet tank army poised to conquer Europe in the event of war. By contrast, the nascent Soviet arsenal appears to have had little or no deterrent effect during the early 1950s. Growing Soviet capabilities were duly noted by U.S. leaders, but those leaders do not seem to have been significantly constrained by the possibility of Soviet retaliation, for example during crises in Korea, the Taiwan Straits, and Indochina. The relative calm of the late Cold War should not obscure a true characterization of the earlier period as one of unstable transition. U.S.-China Relations in the Early 1960s China’s path to possession of a nuclear arsenal appears to have been just as dangerous as the Soviet route, as Beijing also traversed a period of grave instability in its relations with Washington. As early as the spring of 1961, Kennedy’s advisors were already counseling him that war with China was inevitable at some point and, moreover, that this war should take place “sooner rather than later,” because of Chinese nuclear weapons development.15 By the spring of 1963, the administration had a JCS report on military options for curtailing the Chinese nuclear program. Among the recommendations was a suggestion that the United States would greatly benefit from Russian cooperation on the matter. Thus, when Averill Harriman journeyed to Moscow to negotiate the Limited Test Ban Treaty in the summer of 1963, Kennedy instructed him to try to secure Russian cooperation for joint actions against China’s nuclear program. When Khrushchev refused Harriman’s persistent solicitations, the administration went ahead with planning for unilateral action. Kennedy was personally reviewing variants of such plans in the fall of 1963 when he was assassinated.16 Johnson appears to have had less enthusiasm than his predecessor for trying to stop the Chinese drive to secure nuclear weapons. Even so, a crucial meeting occurred in September 1964 in which Johnson and his NSC advisors agreed that striking Chinese nuclear facilities was not appropriate “at this time.” Considering that about 170,000 Chinese troops were serving in Vietnam at the height of PRC involvement, and noting

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that U.S. contingency planning viewed a preemptive strike against China’s nascent nuclear arsenal as a likely response to Chinese intervention, it seems appropriate to characterize the relationship in this period as gravely unstable. Again, the crucial stabilizing factors mitigating against an American strike appear to have been the impact of nonaggression norms on U.S. leaders and, most importantly, the possibility of Chinese conventional forces intervening in the Vietnam conflict in response to a U.S. attack. Secondary explanations for American restraint include the likely impact on the developing Sino-Soviet split and the difficulty of executing the proposed strikes. There is little or no evidence of American concern about Chinese nuclear retaliation. Available Chinese evidence supports this analysis. Sino-Soviet Relations in the Late 1960s Compared to the two preceding cases, there is much less information about the impact of nuclear weapons on Sino-Soviet relations. In particular, we do not have the kind of archival access necessary to prove conclusively that Kremlin leaders seriously considered plans akin to those reviewed by Kennedy and Johnson less than a decade before. However, post–Cold War narratives, including numerous interviews conducted with Russian and Chinese experts, support the conclusion that in this case radically asymmetric nuclear rivalry occasioned yet another close call. Chinese troops ambushed and killed dozens of Soviet border guards on the Ussuri River in early March 1969. One Russian narrative of the incident explains, “Senior Soviet leaders were caught off guard as much as Stalin had been by the Germans in 1941.”17 This shock, when combined with traditional Russian concern about the vulnerability of the Soviet Far East, and most importantly, a sense that Chinese nuclear weapons might be altering the balance of power in that region, precipitated deliberations in Moscow about a preventive strike. This is suggested not only by stern Soviet warnings, but also by U.S. intelligence indications that Soviet airfields in Siberia were preparing for a strike.18 New Russian testimony seems to confirm this account. Thus, Lev Deliusin, a prominent Russian sinologist with some access to the senior leadership, explains, “Discussions occurred about whether to carry out a preventive strike against all of China’s nuclear complexes. . . . There was the opinion that while we have the power, we should use it.”19 A common explanation for the crisis is that the Soviets were deterred by American warnings. American intervention, however, in a Sino-Soviet

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war was highly unlikely for a number of reasons, as U.S. leaders readily admit.20 Nor does nuclear deterrence provide a satisfying explanation, since Russian and Chinese experts concur that China’s nascent arsenal remained vulnerable to a Russian first strike. Norms may have played a role, but China’s vast conventional forces and, in particular, the threat of a protracted partisan war seem to have been the deciding factors for Soviet decision-makers. While Moscow ultimately opted against a preventive blow, the case nevertheless demonstrates the dangerous dynamics that flow from asymmetric nuclear rivalries. As one Chinese expert on nuclear weapons observes, “Since Russia was far advanced and China had just started [in the realm of nuclear weapons], the relationship experienced a period of nuclear instability, in which Russia had incentive to attack.”21 Sino-Indian Relations in the 1970s and 1980s In contrast to the other rivalries under examination in this study, the Sino-Indian relationship, while genuinely hostile, did not witness crises marked by nuclear threats and alerts. Here, then, is an exception to the overall pattern. In spite of nuclear proliferation, which created the underlying structural pattern of WMD asymmetry, this dyad does not appear to have experienced inordinate instability. Though many of the causes of stability in this case are perhaps unique to this relationship, and therefore of limited universalizability, the analysis is nevertheless fully developed because it represents a variation on the dependent variable of analysis (i.e., stability). The short but violent Sino-Indian War of 1962 left a legacy of bitterness that has made stability between these rivals anything but a foregone conclusion. Contrary to the expectations of proliferation pessimism, however, Sino-Indian relations actually improved in the wake of India’s first nuclear test in 1974. Less then a year later, the two countries began an exchange of ambassadors, a process that culminated in restoration of trading relations in 1977. Sino-Indian relations remained for the most part on an even keel throughout the 1980s—despite the regional insecurity emanating from two proximate medium-sized wars in Asia: Afghanistan and Cambodia. Relations continued to blossom in the 1990s, which saw increased trade. While deep underlying geopolitical factors continue to drive SinoIndian rivalry, the extent to which nuclear instability is not a major issue in Sino-Indian relations was amply demonstrated by China’s reaction to India’s 1998 nuclear tests. China’s leaders were indignant, but there is no

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evidence at all to suggest that they contemplated preventive or even preemptive action. In this instance of proliferation, there was no consequent military crisis. To some extent, Sino-Indian stability is satisfactorily explained by several factors: the geographical obstacle of the Himalayas, a web of alliances that guides the attention of Beijing and New Delhi to different axes of conflict, China’s tradition of “no first use,” and circumstances in the domestic politics of these states. However, it is also possible that Sino-Indian stability has been enhanced by a basic structural reality: the nuclear asymmetry between the countries is not radical. China has lacked the targeting capability, let alone means for precision conventional attack, thus allowing a roughly symmetrical nuclear balance to develop between the two states. Israel and Iraq in the 1970s and 1980s Israel’s strike against the Iraqi reactor at Osiraq illustrates in the starkest terms the central phenomena of interest in this book. Here, the condition of radical nuclear asymmetry tempted the superior power to nip the inferior in the bud. Despite certain unique aspects of the case, the decisionmaking surrounding the Osiraq raid powerfully demonstrates the “ticking clock” aspects of asymmetric WMD rivalries. Israel’s first leaders turned to unconventional solutions to redress grave manpower imbalances between them and their Arab neighbors. With some initial assistance from the French, the Israelis appear to have succeeded in fielding a small number of nuclear weapons by the time of the 1967 Six-Day War.22 When Iraq speeded up its nuclear project as Baghdad’s coffers filled with petrodollars during the 1970s, Israeli leaders faced the disturbing prospect that their nuclear monopoly was being undermined. Far from an easy decision for the Israeli leadership in 1979, the debate convulsed Begin’s cabinet, and opposition leaders denounced plans for the raid.23 Israeli leaders had to calculate the impact of the raid on world opinion, on the new peace agreement with Egypt, and especially on the all-important relationship with Washington, which at this time was courting Iraq for the anti-Soviet coalition it hoped to create in the Persian Gulf. Iraq had just strengthened the reactor’s air defenses, moreover, and Israeli leaders knew that the raid would not destroy Baghdad’s supply of fissile materials, meaning that a primitive bomb could theoretically be created and used for retaliation.24 Certainly, the Israeli experience of the Holocaust affected Begin’s deci-

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sion. Israel’s geostrategic context—the entire country could be effectively destroyed by a handful of nuclear weapons—also played a role in Jerusalem’s calculations. However, Israeli calculations are also fundamentally similar to those made in the other major cases in this study: there is a strong current of fear that the adversary will not behave rationally, and therefore cannot be trusted with the “absolute weapon.” Contemporary Cases: The 1990s The instability engendered by nuclear asymmetries in the past has been brought into much greater relief in the post–Cold War era. This is largely because, in a unipolar international system, the hegemon is not likely to be deterred by conventional forces and so may very well act on the temptation to curtail the nonconventional weapons capabilities of proliferating states. As the first counterproliferation war in history, the first Persian Gulf War (1990–91) represents a clear demonstration of the instability inherent in radically asymmetric WMD rivalry. While the Iraqis raced to complete their first nuclear weapons in 1990–91, President Bush took the opportunity offered by the invasion of Kuwait to attempt to disarm Iraq, explaining, “[Saddam] has never possessed a weapon that he hasn’t used.”25 The revelation that the Iraqi dictator had biological weapons fully armed and ready at that time—a fact that may be contested in more recent events but was derived from painstaking UNSCOM post–Gulf War work in Iraq—has prompted serious questions about the conduct of that war, including a charge that these weapons influenced America’s conditions for war termination.26 (The 2003 war against Saddam—and particularly the impact of WMD on this conflict—is considered in detail in the Epilogue.) In 1994, the United States found itself in almost identical circumstances regarding another rogue state: North Korea. To illustrate how close the United States came to fighting another counterproliferation war, former secretary of defense William Perry describes the war plan he ordered prepared: “The plan was impressive; it could be executed with only a few days’ alert. . . . [W]ithout question it could have achieved its objective of setting back their nuclear program many years.”27 (The current crisis with North Korea is also evaluated in the Epilogue.) During the spring of 1996, the United States became involved in still another proliferation crisis. With reference to the suspected Libyan chemical weapons complex at Tarhunah, Perry voiced an explicit threat: “If necessary, the United States is fully prepared to take other, more drastic

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preventive measures.”28 I considered two additional mini-cases in Chapter 8: the South Asian nuclear rivalry and the (re)developing rivalry in the nuclear realm between the United States and China. Despite much concern as a result of the Kargill fighting in 1999 and the winter 2001–2 war scare, the Indo-Pakistani rivalry appears to most closely resemble the Sino-Indian case presented in Chapter 6, exhibiting the potential for relative stability flowing from a rough symmetry in nuclear capabilities. This is what Indian general K. Sundarji was referring to when he said, “The Pakistanis have dispersed and hidden their nuclear weapons, and India does not have enough resources to find and strike them.”29 With respect to the evolving Sino-U.S. strategic competition, it is not clear which paradigm—rough symmetry or radical asymmetry—is applicable. With reference to China’s nuclear arsenal, it has been asked whether China should be considered a small Russia or a large North Korea. A possible veiled Chinese nuclear threat during the 1996 Taiwan Straits crisis does not inspire confidence that nuclear weapons will play a stabilizing role in this important relationship.30

findings Primary The study’s primary findings can be summarized by the two propositions that follow. A schematic of these propositions is given in Figure 1.1, “The Basic Model.” 1. Radically asymmetric nuclear (WMD) relationships are fundamentally unstable, because nascent arsenals do not deter effectively. The close calls apparent in the early Cold War and the Sino-American and SinoSoviet cases, in addition to the attack in the Israel-Iraq dyad, imply a certain empirical strength for proliferation pessimist theorizing. The first Persian Gulf War, in addition to proliferation crises involving North Korea and Libya, suggests that the problem is particularly significant in the contemporary international system. The recent articulation of the Bush doctrine also strongly implies that this model could be particularly applicable to present circumstances. The essential dynamic is that radical asymmetries create acute first-strike incentives. If proliferation optimists were to successfully link small arsenals with peaceful outcomes, the causal link would have to be revealed. Evidence of superior state caution flowing from inferior state WMD arsenals, however, remains extremely

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sparse. This research therefore agrees with another recent study of asymmetric WMD rivalry in finding that “Kenneth Waltz’s assurance that ‘not much is required to deter’ begins to ring a little hollow when applied to real world conflicts.”31 2. A given superior power’s propensity to attack the weaker state’s nascent nuclear (WMD) arsenal will substantially depend on the conventional balance, alliance dynamics, norms, and geography. In each of the three close calls, conventional deterrence provides the best overall explanation for stability. Alliances are also important, playing a conspicuous role in each of the three cases involving China. Norms were clearly significant in those cases involving the United States. However, it would be simplistic to conclude that democratic polities will be norm-abiding while other states will not, since there is some evidence that norms affected the Sino-Soviet and Sino-Indian rivalries, whereas Israeli leaders had few, if any, qualms about striking first. Geography was an important factor in the Sino-Indian case, but its impact is evident in almost all the cases. Secondary This research project was intended to provide an empirical test of proliferation optimist theorizing. The central finding is that proliferation optimism does not fare well. Instead, the cases lend tentative support to proliferation pessimist theorizing. Certain other hypotheses, however, emerge from the data. They are substantially weaker than the primary findings but potentially worthy of further investigation. 1. Proliferation optimism theorizing might still apply to fusion, even if not to fission, weapons. The early Cold War case suggests a clear turn in thinking among leaders (on both sides) from war-fighting to more cautious strategies when thermonuclear weaponry becomes operational. These findings are consistent with Gaddis, who wrote recently, “Atomic weapons might fit within the Clausewitzian concept that war could be an extension of policy by other means. Thermonuclear weapons could never do so.”32 The Sino-Soviet crisis may present a contrary finding in this regard.33 However, it is noteworthy that the Chinese had not succeeded in developing a thermonuclear missile warhead by 1969. 2. The use ‘em or lose ‘em reasoning may contribute to instability in asymmetric proliferation crises. This theoretical tendency alludes to the incentive of forces under attack to launch weapons, even without orders, rather than risk destruction and thus “total mission failure.” Russian doctrinal treatises, in addition to post–Cold War testimony about the Cuban missile crisis, suggest that this problem existed during the ear-

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ly Cold War.34 Deductive reasoning suggests that the problem becomes more acute in asymmetric circumstances, because the inferior side can ill afford losses. More intense investigation of early Russian and Chinese nuclear doctrine could shed light on this seemingly potent trigger for WMD conflict. The problem appears to be highly relevant to contemporary WMD crises as well. 3. Proliferator behavior may traverse three sequential phases: (a) aggressive, (b) cautious, and (c) aggressive. The first phase marks the period when a strong desire for WMD exists but development has only begun and results are a long way off. The proliferator sees a definite need to talk and act tough so as to play down the superior state’s nuclear monopoly. This can be seen in Soviet behavior during the 1948 Berlin crisis and also in Moscow’s attempts to claim that they had detonated a weapon long before the feat was actually accomplished.35 Chinese behavior toward the United States was also notably risk-acceptant in this first phase. Saddam’s aggressive rhetoric before the first Persian Gulf War may fit this pattern, and this kind of “bluffing” may also partly explain intelligence lapses prior to the 2003 Iraq War (see the Epilogue). During the second phase, when the WMD program begins to yield results, and during the initial deployment phase, the proliferator will likely act with great caution. Thus, Stalin’s behavior during the Korean War is noteworthy for its caution (i.e., refusing even to offer the Chinese overt air support).36 The same can be said of Chinese behavior toward the Americans during the early phases of the Vietnam War. Finally, in the third phase, the proliferator may be anxious to realize tangible strategic gains by playing its new nuclear card. This could explain Soviet behavior during the Berlin and Cuban crises, and also Chinese behavior in the 1969 crisis with the Soviets. 4. Satellites may be destabilizing. Remote sensing is often praised for enabling trust and, in particular, arms control verification.37 It must be recognized, however, that such capabilities are also highly relevant to planning disarming attacks. These capabilities played an important role in U.S. planning for possible strikes against the nascent Chinese arsenal in the early 1960s. One might reasonably ask how earlier availability of good targeting intelligence might have affected U.S. deliberations during the early Cold War. China’s distinct weakness in this regard may also have eased the impact of India’s early nuclear weapons development on Sino-Indian relations. 5. Windows of opportunity may reopen. Just as the USSR appeared to be definitively crossing over the deterrence threshold with the deployment of thermonuclear weapons in 1954–55, the advent of the U-2 program vastly improved target intelligence and once again made an American

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first strike somewhat feasible. Combining the increasing obsolescence of the Soviet bomber force with the ponderous and observable deployment of the ICBM force, Soviet nuclear forces may have been more vulnerable in the late 1950s and early 1960s than they had been initially. China’s recent force modernization, including a substantial space component, raises the possibility that the Sino-Indian nuclear balance could be more unstable in the future than it has been in the past. The same logic could apply to the Indo-Pakistani rivalry if India moves forward with an ambitious space program. 6. Military officers are not necessarily more inclined than civilian officials toward preventive war. Available data does not appear to support Sagan’s hypothesis.38 The idea of attacking China’s nuclear facilities appears to have had many civilian exponents in Washington, up to and including President Kennedy. According to Lev Deliusin, many ranking civilians argued in favor of a Soviet attack on Chinese nuclear facilities during the 1969 crisis.39 There is no evidence from the Sino-Indian case that the Chinese military was pressing for an attack, nor does any particular civil-military division manifest itself in the Israeli deliberations concerning the Osirak raid.40 Senior military officers seem to have been restraining civilian leaders during the U.S.-North Korean showdown of 1994.41 During the 2003 Iraq War, there is also evidence of caution on the part of the senior military leadership, in stark contrast to the civilian leadership at the Pentagon.42 7. Chemical weapons are no substitute for nuclear weapons, but their deployment may cause destabilizing confusion. Effective countermeasures suggest that chemical weapons are not in the same league of destructiveness as nuclear and perhaps biological weapons. There is no evidence of U.S. caution during the crisis with Libya in 1996. In addition, a consensus among Israeli strategists holds that Israel is not likely to be deterred by such weapons.43 It is possible that Syria and other Middle Eastern countries have deployed these weapons to boost the morale of their own publics and militaries when confronted with Israel’s nuclear arsenal. Alternatively, Arab leaders may genuinely believe that chemical weapons do constitute effective deterrent weapons. In that case, “overreaching,” on the model of Saddam’s extravagant rhetoric prior to the first Gulf War, could itself precipitate wars. The pattern may have repeated itself in the 2003 Iraq War. In this instance, Saddam might have calculated that a “bluff” with chemical and biological weapons could deter Washington. This possibility is discussed in detail in the Epilogue. 8. Nonuse norms are sufficiently robust that superior states will have a strong preference for conventional counterproliferation strikes, and may forgo an attack if conventional strikes are not feasible. U.S. planning for

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strikes against China in the early 1960s reveals this pattern, and new sources suggest that Moscow’s preparations to strike at Chinese nuclear facilities in 1969 may have been similarly restricted to conventional weapons.44 With advanced precision conventional strike capabilities, Israel could strike down Iraq’s nuclear capabilities in the development phase, but China had very limited choices for curbing India’s program. Finally, U.S. actions in the post–Cold War era also support this hypothesis.45 9. No first use (NFU) policies may restrain long-term nuclear rivalries. China’s NFU seems to have made a real contribution to the strength of the antinuclear camp in India. In slowing India’s march into the nuclear ranks, the NFU indirectly cushioned the impact of proliferation on this rivalry, easing the transition into roughly symmetrical deterrence.

the ascendance of counterproliferation in the post–cold war world The basic model presented here (see Figure 1.1) offers insight into past, present, and future proliferation crises. It explains that their inherent instability derives from incentives to strike the first blow. Reconsidering the possible constraints on a given superior power, note that in the post–Cold War world, the United States is not likely to be limited by an adversary’s conventional strength, as was often the case in the Cold War.46 Indeed, U.S. conventional superiority over most potential adversaries has never been greater. Nor is the proliferator likely to find effective alliance partners, since there is no longer any alternative superpower. These two conditions are the defining elements of the post–Cold War international system. We must consider that only norms and geography are left to constrain the United States from fighting a series of volatile counterproliferation wars. These conditions existed before 11 September 2001, and before the articulation of the Bush doctrine. The September 11 terror attacks appear to have significantly weakened norms in U.S. political culture that discourage preventive attack. Therefore, the post–September 11 world has witnessed a further exaggeration of the instability resulting from radical asymmetry in WMD rivalries. The U.S. military has been working for well over a decade at digesting the lessons of the early 1990s, actively preparing for contests with regional adversaries. This response to the proliferation challenge was called the Counterproliferation Initiative (CPI), inaugurated in 1993 by secretary of

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defense Les Aspin, who observed: “[WMD] may still be the great equalizer; the problem is that the U.S. may now be the equalizee.”47 Passive defense measures include development of chemical and biological weapons detectors, new protective suits, collapsible shelters, decontamination technologies, and also new doctrine for combat operations after adversary use of WMD.48 Active defense measures include efforts to deploy a national missile defense, in addition to the much less controversial imperative of deploying theater missile defenses. The CPI also has had a prominent counterforce component. Embarrassed by its inability to destroy mobile Scud missiles during the first Persian Gulf War, the Pentagon has been pursuing a number of new technologies and doctrines to overcome this deficiency. In addition to enhanced sensors, special munitions are being developed to destroy deep underground bunkers. Modeling of atmospheric dispersion is intended to help plan attacks against facilities that would not endanger surrounding civilian populations with radiological or biological contamination.49 U.S. nuclear forces have also apparently been preparing for regional contingencies. Such preparations have included introducing “adaptive planning” for more flexible and rapid targeting responses for the SLBM (Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missile) and ICBM forces, as well as development of the B61 Mod 11 bomb, which can be delivered by the B-2 and has enhanced earth-penetrating capability.50 FOIA releases by program critics claim to have unearthed a so-called “Silver Books Concept” undertaken by U.S. Strategic Command, which involved the planning of “a series of ‘silver bullet missions’ aimed at . . . [the] nuclear, chemical, biological, command, control, and communications installations [of regional adversaries].”51 The Nuclear Posture Review, which was leaked in spring 2002, suggests that rogue proliferators continue to be a focus of U.S. nuclear planning. Indeed, the most recent war with Iraq and the ongoing crisis with North Korea appear to have invigorated American counterforce planning, and even nuclear counterforce planning.52 Contemporary strategists observe that the war-fighting strategy outlined above is enabled by the underlying structural asymmetry that shapes the contours of possible confrontations with rogue proliferators. Barry Schneider concludes, “The enemy may only possess a half dozen or so of such weapons at the time of the conflict—few enough to neutralize.”53 Colin Gray notes the contrast between the present strategic environment and the late Cold War: “In this second nuclear age, by way of major contrast, none of the U.S.’s plausibly prospective foes . . . has to be conceded assurance in its ability to strike second. . . . [S]mall and probably quite primitive NBC-armed forces should be acutely vulnerable.”54 Michele Flournoy, who served in the Pentagon during the Clinton

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administration, similarly highlights this contrast: “Perhaps most important, nuclear proliferation will require U.S. decision-makers to consider, for the first time in decades, a much broader range of military options, [including] . . . preventive war, preemption, and defense.”55 According to another analyst: “[The CPI] amounts to a rather breathtaking grand strategy [to] strip nuclear weapons from governments not fully reliable in judgment . . . [and] political moderation. . . . [T]he U.S. would also again be essentially invulnerable . . . [and] would have highly usable military capability.”56 All of these observations preceded the articulation of the Bush doctrine in 2002, which has elevated these concerns to the center of national policy. Some analyses consistent with proliferation optimist theorizing contend that experience from the first Persian Gulf War (1990–91) shows that the CPI cannot succeed and that no American leader would actually embark on such a course. They emphasize the coalition’s failure, despite complete air superiority, to find all of Iraq’s WMD facilities, and the dismal results of the counter-Scud campaign.57 While it is difficult to say definitively whether these problems have been or will be solved, such analyses may underestimate U.S. potential to adapt to new conditions. It must be remembered that the first U.S. war against Saddam occurred at the end of an era in which the vast majority of U.S. intelligence assets were devoted to studying the Soviet military. Moreover, locating small mobile missile launchers and theater missile defense were not necessarily high priority missions before the creation of the CPI. Now that these missions have priority, these technical issues may well be solved. During the Clinton era, well before any notion of the Bush doctrine of preemption, U.S. defense analysts were debating whether or not Americans would support preventive or even preemptive action against rogue state WMD arsenals. Indeed, Philip Zelikow observed in the early 1990s that, in contrast to Israel’s strike against Iraq, “For America, a military bolt from the blue is not a serious contingency for defense planning [because of] . . . the more open and more questioning domestic environment.”58 The findings of this book support the notion that norms have been an important constraint on U.S. policy in such circumstances. On the other hand, recall that U.S. officials during the mid-1960s seemed to think that a crisis with China might allow them to overcome the obstacle of nonaggression norms.59 A RAND “Day After” simulation study from 1993 revealed that many U.S. policymakers would favor preemption without warning if America was confronted by a rogue state brandishing WMD.60 Israeli strategists appear to believe that the normative environment today is much more conducive to antiproliferation action

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Conclusion table 9.1 Summary of Case Studies

I. In-Depth Historical Case Studies Nuclear (WMD) Case

Balance

Outcome

U.S.–U.S.S.R. (1940s, 1950s)

Wide

Close Call

U.S.–P.R.C. (1960s)

Wide

Close Call

U.S.S.R.–P.R.C. (1960s)

Wide

Close Call

Narrow

Minor Crises

Wide

Attack

U.S.–U.S.S.R. (1970s, 1980s)

Narrow

Minor Crises

U.S.S.R.–P.R.C. (1970s, 1980s)

Narrow

Minor Crises

P.R.C.–India (1970s, 1980s) Israel–Iraq (1980s) II. Mini-Cases

U.S.–Iraq (1990s)

Wide

Attack

U.S.–North Korea (1990s)

Wide

Close Call

U.S.–Libya (1990s)

Wide

Close Call

U.S.–P.R.C. (1990s) India–Pakistan (1980s, 1990s)

?

1

Narrow

? Minor Crises

1

. Since the Chinese arsenal is undergoing modernization and the United States is on the verge of deploying missile defenses, it is increasingly difficult to characterize the nature of this relationship. Whether or not there was a nuclear component to the 1996 Taiwan Crisis also remains unclear due to the indirect nature of the articulated Chinese threat.

than it was in the 1980s.61 Even Zelikow conceded that norms could be molded so as to “support the use of force to contain the [proliferation] danger.”62 After September 11, 2001, these constraining norms may have been fundamentally weakened, though not altogether shattered (see the Epilogue). The process of proliferation has created radically asymmetric nuclear rivalries that gravely threaten the stability of multiple world regions. There are, in addition, other characteristics of the present strategic environment that only exaggerate this tendency toward instability. One

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Conclusion figure 9.1 Stability of WMD Rivalries Compared High U.S.–North Korea (1990s) U.S.–Iraq (1990s) UNSTABLE

Late Cold War

Superior State’s WMD Capability

U.S.–China (1960s) U.S.–China (1990s) U.S.S.R.–China (1960s)

STABLE

Early Cold War

Israel–Iraq (1980s)

RELATIVELY STABLE

China–India (1970s, 1980s) India–Pakistan (1980s, 1990s)

Low

Inferior State’s WMC Capability

High

Notes: This schematic does not represent exact quantifiable ratios of nuclear weapons balances. Rather, it illustrates my best estimates as to capabilities of relative balance of “nuclear weapons complexes.” For a working definition of “nuclear weapons complexes,” see Chapter 2.

is the phenomena described by military theorists as the “Revolution in Military Affairs” (RMA). Technological leaps in sensors, data processing, and stealth are thought to be transforming combat in terms of the “fundamental relationship between offense and defense, space and time, [and] fire and maneuver.”63 In this spirit, the Economist described U.S. precision strikes in the former Yugoslavia under the headline: “The Future of Warfare: Select Enemy. Delete.”64 The RMA, which only the U.S. military appears ready to exploit in the foreseeable future, is likely to have numerous applications for the CPI. Indeed, it has been observed that “in a world dominated by long-range, intelligent precision weapons, the first blow can prove decisive. . . . [I]ncentives for preemption may grow.”65 Thus, the RMA, with its unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and vastly enhanced sensors, may very well serve as the technological ba-

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sis for the CPI’s counterforce component. Another specialist concludes, “Using non-nuclear forces [to target an opponent’s WMD sites and command centers] is not new. . . . What is new is the rising capacity for doing it through very precise weapons.”66 A second aspect of the contemporary strategic environment that could exaggerate the instability of proliferation crises concerns America’s muchdebated sensitivity to casualties. The relatively costless American military campaigns of the 1990s may very well have had the perverse effect of convincing rogue state leaders that the United States is a “paper tiger” that will not tolerate casualties in war. As Molander and Wilson suggest, “The question remains whether nations such as the U.S. . . . [are] prepared to put military forces in ‘nuclear harm’s way.’”67 Many have argued that this perception is fundamentally a misconception.68 However, the logic of what might be called the “credibility gap” is relatively straightforward: even in the post–September 11 world, the United States faces no decisive threats to its national security—international terrorism is an extremely nebulous challenge—so it may be difficult at best and impossible at worst to fight costly wars for national interests that are less than obvious. Whether the United States is truly as casualty-sensitive as some claim is actually less important than the simple fact that this perception exists among those who would challenge America’s interests. Flournoy writes, “It may be difficult for some countries to believe that something 1,000 or 10,000 miles from the U.S. but only 10 miles from their border is seen by the U.S. to be as vital to its interests as their own.”69 The perception of U.S. unwillingness to bear heavy casualties may very well cause challengers to brandish WMD in crises with the United States. A less likely but still plausible scenario involves a challenger’s first use of WMD in a limited way, chiefly to warn, shock, and confuse the American leadership and people. Perhaps the least likely scenario is one in which the challenger unleashes their entire small WMD arsenal against U.S. forces. But even in this extreme case, one can imagine significant restraints on the U.S. leadership that might preclude massive nuclear retaliation.70 Therefore, a proliferator’s brandishing or even first use of WMD is quite conceivable, even leaving aside for the moment the use or lose dilemmas that U.S. targeting policy might precipitate. Nor is it clear that the perception of acute American casualty sensitivity has been dispelled by the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. We have seen that first-strike incentives are an inherent feature of asymmetric nuclear rivalry. The RMA is poised to exaggerate the incentives for the superior power. On the other hand, America’s credibility problem may create brandishing or first-strike incentives for the weaker power.

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Unfortunately, the two conditions are less likely to cancel one another out as to collectively reinforce the overall condition of instability.71

recommendations This book has sought to look forward by looking backward. The history presented here should help to illuminate the contours of our own circumstances, in particular warning us that the present international system contains the seeds of significant instability above and beyond the threat of terrorism, which is now gravely apparent. To the extent that nonproliferation efforts can discourage states from seeking WMD in the first place, these initiatives deserve energetic support. These efforts have been effectively analyzed elsewhere; here, we are concerned with the strategic consequences of proliferation, taking the process of WMD proliferation as a given. The basic asymmetric structure of confrontation is viewed as a problem to be managed. This unstable situation is best addressed through basic policies that mix urgent preparation and caution. As guarantor of the contemporary world order, the United States must maintain a diplomatic and military presence that spans the globe. In this capacity, the United States has been and will continue to be entangled in regional conflicts, some of which cannot be predicted in advance. If the United States is not to be driven out of crucial regions at the point of a sword, America needs to increase its readiness to fight WMD-armed rogue states. The CPI created by the Clinton administration made a strong start in the right direction. Some will argue that restricting the CPI—essentially the hard edge of the asymmetric relationship—could enhance stability. This may be true in a sense. On the other hand, the potential political consequences, including abandonment of entire regions, render this proposal unacceptable. Moreover, as one scholar observes, we “want to roll the dice of deterrence as few times as possible . . . [avoiding a situation in which] every conflict [becomes] . . . an exercise in brinkmanship.”72 Much remains to be done. For example, there is still no solution available for large-area, rapid decontamination.73 Missile defenses must be improved and expanded.74 In articulating the “axis of evil” and the subsequent Bush doctrine, the Bush administration boldly refused to accept that international terrorism, and particularly Al Qaeda, represented the only major threat to U.S. security. Instead, they have continued and expanded the notion inherited from the Clinton administration that WMD in the hands of despotic lunatics is simply unacceptable.

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On the other hand, prudence should always be a guiding principle in foreign policy. When considering proliferation crises, caution assumes an even higher value. Mistaken judgments could result in tens of thousands, if not millions, of casualties in the space of a few hours. The potential for catastrophic outcomes dictates that creativity and flexibility be amply employed. If that means paying an occasional “bribe,” this is a small price to pay in order to avoid a WMD war. It will be objected that threats must not be rewarded, since this behavior will only encourage aggression. Moreover, the public is certain to recoil at such dishonorable payoffs, especially in this age of American military predominance. But such policies, termed “the package deal” by one analyst,75 are far from appeasement in the Munich sense. In trying to buy off Germany during the 1930s, the Allies were risking their very survival because Germany was so strong. In the case of North Korea and other potential rogue states, “package deals” do not entail risks of this magnitude, but instead represent prudent alternatives to war—provided that the WMD programs are truly dismantled. With respect to military strategy, targeting must be adapted to special circumstances in which regional wars could approximate the classic limited wars of the Cold War. Air war planners would do well to separate out countervalue and counterleadership targets because, “[Treating] a nascent nuclear conflict as merely an exercise in conventional precision bombardment would be a recipe for disaster.”76 Caution, however, must also have limits. The further spread of WMD into the hands of potential U.S. adversaries, in particular, should not be tolerated. There will always be excuses for leaders not to act: opposition from the international community, uncertainty about targets, and so on.77 Upholding global order will occasionally demand bold action.

Walking away from the Cold War, many had the profound feeling that nuclear weapons had broken the cycle of catastrophic war into which the world had descended in the first half of the twentieth century. A cursory glance at post–World War II history suggests that nuclear weapons might perform this service for other dangerous interstate rivalries. This book’s findings challenge that seductive impression. A definitive answer to the question of whether small WMD arsenals will play a stabilizing or destabilizing role in future proliferation crises remains elusive, largely because so many archives remain closed to scholars. Moreover, some emerging evidence does support the optimist case; nuclear weapons seemed to have had a stabilizing impact under very particular conditions. However, a thorough examination of the available evi-

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dence in these rivalries suggests that, on the whole, the process appears to be profoundly destabilizing, introducing a grave risk of war in the short term. Where the proliferation optimists seem to be mistaken is in overlooking the short-term instability that is the most important effect of proliferation. The good news is that the United States will not bow easily before WMD blackmail. The bad news is that we face the prospect of a continuing series of counterproliferation wars.

chapter ten

Epilogue: The Bush Doctrine

During the year following the September 11 attacks, the so-called Bush doctrine gradually emerged. It was entirely reasonable to suppose that this doctrine would elevate counterterrorism against nonstate groups such as Al Qaeda to the centerpiece of U.S. national security policy. This has perhaps occurred on a rhetorical level, as an all-embracing title for the Bush doctrine could well be the “War on Terror.” However, closer examination reveals that the Bush doctrine relies heavily on the Counterproliferation Initiative (CPI), described in detail in Chapter 9, that was developed and promulgated during the Clinton administration. The continuing focus on rogue proliferators of WMD is unmistakable. As demonstrated at length in this study, the concept of preemption is hardly new, especially when considering responses to WMD proliferation. What is new is the extent to which preventive attack against hostile proliferators of WMD has become the centerpiece of U.S. national security policy—not just below the surface, but as an explicit foundation for U.S. defense and foreign policy planning. This development is evident in the three most important policy statements of the Bush doctrine. In the now famous State of the Union address of January 2002, just four months after the September 11 attacks, Bush grouped North Korea, Iraq, and Iran, explaining: “States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the world.” He continued, “I will not wait on events . . . as peril draws closer and closer. The United States . . . will not permit the world’s most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world’s most destructive weapons.”1 The Bush doctrine was more fully elaborated during a subsequent speech at West Point on 1 June 2002. Explaining that “we face a threat with no precedent,” he again focused narrowly on the threat of WMD: “The gravest danger to freedom lies at the perilous crossroads of radicalism and technology. . . . Our enemies

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. . . have been caught seeking these terrible weapons. . . . [W]e will oppose them with all of our power.” Unveiling the principle of preemption, Bush asserted, “We cannot defend America and our friends by hoping for the best. . . . If we wait for threats to fully materialize, then we will have waited too long.”2 The importance of preemption to the Bush doctrine was further underlined by the National Security Strategy, published by the White House in September 2002. The document states, “As a matter of common sense and self-defense, America will act against such emerging threats before they are fully formed. . . . History will judge harshly those who saw this coming danger but failed to act. . . . [T]he only path to peace and security is the path of action.”3 As a work of political science, this book has endeavored to present a value-free, objective or “positive” framework for understanding recent developments, in particular the increasing instability that is the natural strategic consequence of WMD proliferation. The Bush doctrine, outlined above, is built around the central causal variable identified in this research: fears resulting from WMD proliferation, which create powerful first-strike incentives. This is not coincidental. No doubt, the experience of the September 11 attacks painfully suggested the possible results of the spread of WMD, but these processes (including military plans and preparations, not to mention WMD crises) were quite apparent before September 11. Lawrence Freedman recently wrote, “Preemption, widely cited as the new fulcrum of U.S. security strategy, was never ruled out in the past.”4 Indeed, the prolonged genesis and stubborn survival of these concepts is a major theme of this book. Viewed in historical context, the Bush doctrine is not the triumph of “neoconservative” ideology that some have claimed, but rather a simple statement of objective fact—asymmetric WMD rivalries are inherently unstable—and the United States must be prepared for the worst consequences of that instability. If we step back from the stringent requirements of positivist political science, it is certainly appropriate in the present context to render normative judgments on the controversial Bush doctrine. Here, we stray into the realm of policy judgments—much more art than science. A vast and complicated array of values and interests are at stake in any policy decision, not to mention the most important kind of decision: those concerning the use of force. Before turning to the Bush doctrine in practice—the 2003 Iraq War and beyond—it is worth considering three distinct sets of criticism that have thus far emerged concerning the principles articulated in the Bush doctrine. The first set of critiques assails the motives of the Bush administration. Senator Edward Kennedy was at the forefront of this attack when he announced in September 2003 that the war was a “fraud . . .

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made up in Texas . . . [which was intended] to be good politically.”5 Various scholars have arrived at similar, albeit less shrill, conclusions. In a related analysis, John Steinbruner accuses the administration of pursuing policies that are “emotionally satisfying,” especially after the September 11 attacks, but “hardly the basis for responsible policy.”6 Similarly, Freedman describes an American leadership that is “yearning for a world in which problems can be eliminated by bold, timely and decisive strokes.”7 A second group of critiques raises concerns about the broad impact of the strategy on global politics and the international order as a whole. According to this line of criticism, the policy of “preemption” is more accurately referred to as “preventive war,”8 since the danger is not “clear and present,” and, as such, the doctrine must be considered a stark breach of international law. Yale Law School professor Bruce Ackerman admonishes the Bush administration: “None of the American military interventions since World War II has required such a wrenching revision of international law. . . . The President’s ‘realist’ advisors may choose to ignore international law, but this is not the view expressed in the Constitution of the United States.”9 There is also a related “copy-cat” argument: that the American precedent for preventive war is likely to encourage, or at least further justify, aggressive behavior by other powers. Ackerman continues, “[The Bush doctrine] will create a devastating precedent for India or Pakistan or China when they, too, seek to evade the Security Council by invoking an open-ended and fact-free notion of preemptive defense.”10 Another important criticism of the Bush doctrine is that it may distract and even detract from the larger goals of the War on Terror. At a practical level, resources for critical new homeland security initiatives may be frittered away in expensive foreign “adventures.” More abstractly, will a more aggressive U.S. global posture, especially in the Middle East, simply spawn hordes of fresh recruits for Al Qaeda? A third set of critiques focuses rather more narrowly on the internal logic and feasibility of the Bush doctrine. Can this doctrine stem the tide of WMD proliferation, preventing the use of catastrophic weapons? A common assessment holds that the Bush administration gravely errs when it conflates the threat of rogue state WMD with that of international terrorism. The evidence for linkage is tenuous, they argue, and this strategy ignores the potential for Cold War–style deterrence to be effective against rogue state tyrants, who appear to value their own survival above all. Some critics of the Bush doctrine argue that the doctrine will, in fact, have the exact opposite effect from what it is intended. Instead of arresting WMD proliferation, the doctrine could actually accelerate the process. Thus, it is frequently argued that Iran and North Korea have

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noticeably accelerated their respective efforts to achieve nuclear capability since the articulation of the “axis of evil” concept, and particularly since the Bush administration made clear that Iraq would be the test case for the new doctrine. An aggressive U.S. counterproliferation policy, it is said, has simply engendered more determined efforts by proliferators to develop substantial deterrent forces. Yet another strong argument against the Bush doctrine is the widespread concern that this doctrine may prompt the use of WMD that it is designed to prevent. According to this logic, rogue state leaders pursue WMD for essentially defensive reasons—to ensure the survival of themselves and their regimes. If they are subject to attack, and especially if Washington’s explicit goal is “regime change,” then these tyrants will have little or no incentive for restraint—and results may well be catastrophic. Whatever we now think of Saddam’s WMD arsenal, fears concerning potential retaliation were deep and widespread. This problem is compounded by the tremendous demands the Bush doctrine places on U.S. intelligence. Numerous critics have identified intelligence as the Achilles heel of the Bush doctrine, because the U.S. military generally “lacks the ability to precisely locate and pre-emptively target WMD, despite all the technical wizardry of its intelligence.”11 A final critique leveled at the Bush doctrine is that it amounts to a passing political fad or, in John Steinbruner’s words, “a transient political exercise,” because such a strategy is not sustainable. The American people have no tolerance, it is said, for continuous, aggressive, and perhaps increasingly costly efforts to rid the world of WMD aspirants. Bush’s falling poll numbers in the wake of Operation Iraqi Freedom was a clear sign that the War on Terror, especially in its most muscular interpretation, probably could not be sustained indefinitely. The wide array of criticism that has followed the articulation of the Bush doctrine in 2002 suggests deep fissures within the Washington foreign-policy establishment, academia, and grassroots America. This is somewhat peculiar, because, as the data presented in this book makes clear, preventive attack is hardly a revolutionary concept and much of the foundation for present policies was laid under the Clinton administration. However, the long history of preventive attack deliberations and WMD are not well understood by the wider public. This divisiveness could also be attributable to the shocking nature of the September 11 tragedy, competing interpretations of the causes of these events, and perhaps also the controversial circumstances surrounding the 2000 presidential election. Let us now consider in turn the three groups of critiques of the Bush doctrine. Of all the critiques, the conspiratorial claim that the Bush administra-

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tion designed the Bush doctrine for “political” (i.e., self-serving electoral) gain is the least serious. Any foreign policy specialist or military strategist understands that warfare is a highly risky enterprise, and that the “fog of war” often blights the surest victory. Modern U.S. history is replete with examples of presidents who suffered from military setbacks (Truman, Johnson, Carter)—nor are “clean” military victories even a sure bet at the ballot box, as George H. W. Bush learned in 1992. Thus, the Bush doctrine has never been part of Karl Rove’s electoral strategy. Rather, it was secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld who led in developing the Bush doctrine. It is safe to say that he does not have higher ambitions and seems generally indifferent to the opinions of journalists, foreign diplomats, or even the public. While it is certainly true that Republican Party strategists traditionally view national security issues as a party strength, charges of base motivations are unseemly and simply betray their own partisan motivations. A more subtle version of this critique questions the decision to “loudly proclaim” the Bush doctrine rather than to treat the tool of military preventive attack “quietly,” as one possible tool among many in the War on Terror. This is the way that the Clinton administration treated the CPI. However, this perspective does not account for the basic value of having a single, coherent strategy, so that all in Washington and beyond are aware of the dangers ahead. Thus, it was President Bush who insisted that the National Security Strategy be written in language that the “boys in Lubbock” could understand. The second group of critiques reflects deep unease concerning the broader impact of the Bush doctrine on U.S. foreign policy goals and world order generally. There is, indeed, some truth to the charge that “preemption” is a misnomer as regards the Bush doctrine. Insofar as the threat is identified as “grave and gathering,” rather than “clear and present,” the doctrine is more accurately described as “preventive attack”; hence, the title of this book. In effect, the Bush administration concedes that there is no “imminent threat.” However, the Bush doctrine argues that waiting for the threat to become imminent implies a willingness to absorb the first blow. When that first blow involves WMD and therefore could be decisive or at least catastrophic, an imminent threat is clearly too late. Making the case for altering traditional international law to reflect the realities of WMD proliferation, the National Security Strategy of September 2002 states, “We must adapt the concept of imminent threat to the capabilities and objectives of today’s adversaries.”12 The critical difference between the current threat and traditional national security threats, therefore, is that the warning signs are difficult to detect and interpret. Whereas volumes could be written on the parameters of Soviet military power and its likely trajectories, no such parallels exist in the murky world of WMD proliferation. As a result, decisions that could

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decide the fate of millions must be based on highly uncertain information. In such an atmosphere, it is no wonder that intentions may come to outweigh capability in threat analyses. Thus, the essence of the Bush administration’s claim is that advanced technology, in tandem with the terrorists’ grisly intentions, create a situation in which there is no meaningful distinction between preemption and prevention. The research in this book has taken the role of norms in international affairs seriously. Nevertheless, I cannot abide such grandiose critiques of the new doctrine as, for example: “[The Bush doctrine implies the] end of a system of international institutions, laws and norms that we have worked to build for more than half a century.”13 While norms do have a significant role in contemporary international relations, this role is much less important than that of power and the use of force. Thus, the structure of the current international order is built, first and foremost, on U.S. hegemony, alongside a cohort of significant albeit less powerful states. This order is not nearly as delicate as international legal scholars would have us believe. The United Nations, for example, could be shuttered tomorrow and few—at least in the sphere of international security—would likely notice. Indeed, many critics of the Bush administration’s unilateralism conveniently forget that Clinton blatantly ignored the U.N. Security Council in making war in Kosovo. Both the region and the world are substantially better off, though the lawyers howled mightily. Nor is it likely that the behavior of other important states will be much affected by the Bush doctrine, as the so-called copy-cat critique holds. It was briefly thought that Russia might act preemptively against Chechens hiding out in Georgia or that India might act unilaterally to solve the “Pakistan problem,” not to mention the possibility that China might use force against Taiwan in the newly permissive world environment. The more one knows of these particular situations, however, the more one realizes that the world is actually not “a seamless web,” and that factors quite independent of U.S. policies condition the actions of the various parties in each of these potential conflict areas. The balance of power and narrow calculations of interest, rather than rhetorical flourishes emanating from Washington, will as always predominate in the thinking of Moscow, New Delhi, and Beijing. Is the “axis of evil” a distraction from the War on Terror? This critique does have some merit. After all, the president and his national security team have finite time and energy. The Iraq crisis and ongoing crises with both North Korea and Iran concerning their WMD programs have and will continue to absorb much of that time and energy. Moreover, it has been suggested that troubled bilateral relations, including relations with Europe, could be adversely affecting potential counterterrorist op-

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erations in crucial breeding grounds. Certainly, relations with allies could be better, but there is no special reason to believe that close counterintelligence coordination has been substantially undermined. Even if such coordination were to break down—and there is no evidence that it has— U.S. allies still have strong incentives of their own to fight terrorism aggressively. Recent terrorist attacks in Turkey and Saudi Arabia illustrate the point. Regarding budgets, military operations have been expensive to be sure. Homeland security infrastructure and counterterrorist activities are relatively inexpensive when compared to military forces and operations. Thus, problems in the War on Terror are less likely to have resulted from budget shortfalls, and are more likely the result of mismanagement and especially bureaucratic red tape. Still, it is certainly worth pondering how much homeland security could be purchased for the building and operating costs of a single carrier battle group. The administration has claimed that the campaign against the axis of evil states is integral to combatting the supply side of the catastrophic (WMD) terrorism threat. However difficult it may be to identify actual links between terrorist networks and WMD-seeking rogue states, it is difficult to deny that such linkages are conceivable and even probable. For example, it would be utterly irresponsible to ignore Pyongyang’s April 2003 boast that it would sell nuclear technology to whomever it pleases. A final group of critiques focuses on the alleged internal contradictions within the Bush doctrine. First and foremost, there is a strong sense that deterrence should be adequate to contain any threat arising from WMDproliferating rogue states. The logic of this critique rests on the notion that if U.S. nuclear forces were sufficient to deter the much greater Soviet threat, why shouldn’t the same strategy work with these much weaker states? This logic is flawed on numerous levels. Most fundamentally, deterrence during the Cold War was not intrinsically stable. Today, it is common for strategists to describe the Cold War broadly as a “golden age” of stable nuclear deterrence.14 In fact, as Chapter 3 demonstrated, the early Cold War up until the Cuban missile crisis was rife with crises, which held real prospects for an atomic Armageddon. Fortunately, the National Security Strategy does not fall into this trap of romanticizing Cold War deterrence.15 The goal of our policies regarding rogue WMD proliferators should not have this rickety and precarious “balance of terror” as the desired end state. Even Robert Jervis, famous as a purveyor of the notion that stability followed from the “nuclear revolution,” rejects the concept of MAD for rogue WMD proliferators. He writes, “Why threaten to punish another country for an attack when you can beat it back? . . . In a world where the United States faces no peer competitor that could threaten it with complete annihilation, thinking in these terms

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makes no sense.”16 But if one were to accept, momentarily, the flawed argument that Cold War deterrence should be emulated, one would have to confront the problem that “stable deterrence” was (eventually) established (only) within a single hostile rivalry. In strict social science terms, N = 1. Common sense, and the most basic rule of statistics, cautions us against extrapolating from a single successful case. We should consider ourselves lucky to have emerged unscathed from the Cold War and not try to rerun the experiment. Besides, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the leadership of contemporary rogue proliferators operates under a “rationality” that is much more constrained even than that of the Kremlin during the Cold War.17 Yet another important critique of the internal logic of the Bush doctrine is the objection that the doctrine will accelerate rather than restrict WMD proliferation. Is it any coincidence, the critics note, that Iran and especially North Korea appear to be “racing to the bomb,” at precisely the same moment that the United States has undertaken its first major test of the Bush doctrine in Iraq. There is undoubtedly some truth to this criticism. North Korea brazenly announced every step of its accelerated nuclear weapons development process during the months leading up to and after the U.S. war against Iraq. On the other hand, it is very difficult to parse out analytically what exactly constitutes an acceleration. More likely, a perception of acceleration has resulted from increasing global attention to these issues and a dedicated political counterstrategy by the proliferators, specifically Pyongyang. But few critics have actually carried the argument to its logical but highly dubious conclusion: that the WMD programs would not exist but for the Bush doctrine. They would exist and, indeed, have existed, but they would go undiscovered and unnoticed. The Bush doctrine is both bold and courageous insofar as it seeks to confront rogue WMD proliferators rather than continually “kick the can down the road.” Without any Bush doctrine, this problem would still exist—in a form that was no less, and perhaps more, volatile. The rogue WMD proliferators would enjoy the twin advantages of conducting their work outside the international spotlight and gaining the chance to flex their new muscles at the moment of their choosing. A related challenge to the Bush doctrine is the notion that execution of the Bush doctrine—in practice, fighting a series of counterproliferation wars—could well lead to adversary use of WMD. There is, after all, a wide consensus that wars which explicitly target the adversary’s regimes are likely to prompt a resort to WMD, since the targeted leader has no incentive for restraint. We will examine this important question in the vital Iraqi and North Korean contexts below. Here, it is sufficient to say that given inevitable intelligence shortfalls, the critique must be conced-

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ed. WMD will likely be employed against the United States and its allies in the course of future counterproliferation wars. The costs will be considerable. The premise of the Bush doctrine, however, is that those costs will be far less if they are undertaken now rather than at some uncertain time in the future. In this context, it is useful to highlight an important perception gap. The Bush administration has maintained that the United States is presently engaged in a “war” that will entail substantial sacrifices. American society at large, and particularly the media, have resisted this terminology—preferring to hope that the War on Terror would resemble the largely casualty-free “wars” of the 1990s. The wars envisaged by the Bush doctrine are of a scale that would make the 2003 Iraq War and its aftermath seem a fortunate anomaly.

the bush doctrine in practice: the 2003 iraq war The recent Iraq War is the first test of the Bush doctrine. Despite the extremely successful execution of the war itself, the victory has been marred by postwar chaos, failure to discover a “smoking gun” with respect to WMD, and a stubborn insurgency that has expanded beyond the Sunni Triangle. Indeed, a myriad of critiques and controversy now surround the second Gulf War. On balance, however, the resolution of the “Iraq question” was necessary and just. Future citizens of that country, the Middle East generally, and, indeed, the United States are all likely to be thankful for these efforts in the future—even if that success seems elusive at present. Before contending with the broader arguments for and against war, let us consider narrowly the question of Iraqi WMD and its role in this conflict. The most recent Iraq War offers strong confirmation of this book’s central thesis—that WMD rivalries characterized by radical asymmetries are gravely destabilizing. Whereas proliferation optimism would have predicted that Iraq’s nascent WMD capabilities would deter the United States, this was not the case. An obvious critique—given that no actual WMD have been found—is that this could not be considered a genuine WMD rivalry. Iraq’s capabilities did not exist, so, according to this logic, the recent war is not a fair test of proliferation optimism. However, this critique overlooks the fact that there was a wide consensus within the

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United States before and during the war that Saddam had WMD and would use them in the war. To test our relevant theories, perception is more important than reality. The opinion that the United States should not attack Iraq precisely because of Saddam’s WMD arsenal—an outcome consistent with proliferation optimist theory—was actually rather widespread in the debate preceding the war. In the aftermath of the war, when the troubled search for WMD was reported in the press as a scandal on a par with the Lewinsky affair, it became difficult to recall the stark consequences of war that many had predicted. Richard Betts, writing in Foreign Affairs just two months before the war, painted the gravest possible picture: An invasion to get rid of Saddam would represent an American attempt to do what no government has ever done before: destroy a regime that possesses WMD. . . . [Saddam] will lash out with anything he has if Washington goes for his jugular and puts his back against the wall. . . . [T]here is no reason to doubt Saddam will try to use biological weapons.18

Graham Allison reached similar conclusions, and he urged Bush to follow Kennedy’s cautious example from the Cuban missile crisis: “Bush’s options today range from bad to worse. . . . [H]e can order a US attack on Iraq that his own best intelligence analysts predict could trigger a bioweapons reprisal against Americans. . . . Where the consequences could be catastrophic, never force an adversary to choose between humiliating retreat and war.”19 Nor were biological weapons the only concern, of course. Thus, in November 2002, a DIA report surfaced that suggested Iraq probably possessed “dusty” VX nerve gas that could penetrate even the Pentagon’s newest protective suits.20 These concerns were not restricted to the excited imagination of academics and journalists, as we may be tempted to conclude, given the failure to find actual weapons in Iraq. Were these just the warnings of those who had been fooled by the Bush administration’s “propaganda machine”? On the contrary, there is ample evidence to conclude that Iraqi WMD were not simply a convenient casus belli, but rather one of the foremost concerns of U.S. decision-makers as they went about planning the war. Examples of U.S. efforts to cope with the Iraqi threat of WMD use include the deployment of missile defense units, a doctrine of maneuver that would leave the enemy unable to pinpoint the location of U.S. force concentrations, and the controversial crash program of smallpox inoculations for U.S. military personnel and even medical first-responders back in the United States. Perhaps most telling of all, with respect to the sincerity of WMD fears, was the fact that army and marine formations moving on Baghdad in March–April 2003 were forced to wear

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their MOPP (Mission Oriented Protective Posture) suits during most if not all of the hot march on Baghdad. The impact of this gear is so great that it very likely was a major hindrance to the combat efficiency of these units.21 That WMD were a major concern but not a deterrent to a U.S. war against Saddam is also consistent with statements by the most senior U.S. officials in the months before the war. In explaining the development of possible war plans for Iraq back in September 2002, chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Richard Meyers explained that Iraqi WMD infrastructure would be struck in the first wave of attacks.22 At the same time, secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld announced that psychological operations would be employed in the hopes that “wise Iraqis will not obey orders to use weapons of mass destruction.”23 The gravity of the perceived threat was further underlined by the description of a speech in late February 2003—less than a month before the war—by deputy secretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz, which appeared in the London Daily Telegraph: A gathering of advocates of “regime change” in one of Washington’s oldest gentlemen’s clubs could easily have been an occasion for self-congratulation that Saddam Hussein was about to be overthrown by American forces. Instead the neoconservative true believers heard a sobering warning from Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy Pentagon chief, that the Iraqi dictator was poised to use chemical and biological weapons against American troops. There was a collective intake of breath at the starkness of what Mr. Wolfowitz said as he stood in the center of the oak-paneled reading room of the Metropolitan Club, founded in 1872 for “social and literary purposes.”

The assessment that Iraq would employ chemical and biological weapons in the coming conflict was also made by U.S. allies, such as Turkey, as well as by U.N. officials, notably WMD inspector Hans Blix.24 It is amply clear, therefore, that U.S. leaders were not deterred by the perceived WMD threat. As Wolfowitz noted in a December 2002 letter to the Washington Post: “One concern that is much greater than it was during the Persian Gulf War 11 years ago is the danger that Saddam Hussein might actually use his most terrible weapons. . . . War is brutal, risky and unpredictable; anyone who does not understand that should not be involved in military planning.”25 Thus, American leaders viewed the use of WMD in a war with Saddam as possible and even probable. One can only conclude that they were determined to fight through it. In their minds, the possible strategic gains outweighed the potential costs—including Iraqi use of WMD. The decision for war against Saddam, therefore, is further evidence to suggest the weakness of proliferation optimist

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reasoning. This weakness is perhaps most acutely demonstrated by Allison’s attempt, cited earlier, to link the Iraq crisis with the Cuban missile crisis. The comparison is completely inappropriate, since Soviet striking power at that time—amounting to hundreds of weapons, including thermonuclear warheads that could hit the U.S. homeland—was vastly larger than any WMD Saddam was thought to be capable of employing. Proliferation optimists are apparently disinclined to “think about the unthinkable,” but their superficial conclusion that the United States will be deterred by nascent WMD arsenals does not correspond to real world experience. It has been argued above that for the purposes of evaluating theories concerning the consequences of WMD proliferation, it is much more important to consider perceptions of WMD capabilities, avoiding the controversy-laden question of whether those capabilities did, in fact, exist. Let us now turn briefly to the scandal surrounding the intelligence estimates of Saddam’s WMD. Publication of the so-called Kay Report by David Kay, the head of the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), in October 2003, has helped to clarify the issue. In short, the report concedes that no weapons have been found, but the ISG “discovered dozens of WMD-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the UN during the inspections that began in 2002.”26 The October 2004 Duelfer Report comes to similar conclusions. Some of Kay’s revelations include: an Iraqi Intelligence Service program to sponsor graduate training abroad in the biological sciences (the only program of its kind), queries from both Saddam and Uday to Iraqi scientists regarding the time required to reactivate chemical weapons production, indications of an intention to reconstitute a centrifuge enrichment program, an attempt to create a 1,000-kilometer cruise missile, a live vial of botulinum toxin hidden in the home of a scientist, and a high-level dialogue with North Korea on weapons development.27 Kay’s report, while interim in nature, nevertheless provides a credible basis for discussion of the issue. There is no discernible attempt to exaggerate the data. Indeed, Kay’s researchers fully admit the existence of major errors in prewar intelligence. For example, the report states, “We have not yet found evidence to confirm pre-war reporting that Iraqi military units were prepared to use CW [chemical weapons] against Coalition forces.” But what of the weapons themselves? A number of mitigating factors should be kept in mind before accepting the widespread attacks on prewar intelligence estimates of Iraqi WMD. First, intelligence is inherently difficult—necessarily reliant on defectors and the like—and mistakes should surprise only those with no understanding of the enterprise. Sec-

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ond, the nature of chemical and biological weapons is such that it would have been relatively easy to dispose of them or to transport them abroad. Third, a very strong bipartisan consensus held that these weapons did exist or were under development. After all, Clinton ordered significant strikes against Iraq’s “WMD infrastructure” back in December 1998, as discussed in Chapter 8. Fourth, it may well be the case that U.S. intelligence had been taken in by an elaborate Iraqi bluff—a crude effort to deter and intimidate Washington. How else are we to interpret Uday’s January 2003 proclamation: “If they come, . . . Sept. 11, which they are crying over and see as a big thing, will be a real picnic for them, God willing,”28 not to mention his father’s refrain that he would engulf his enemies in a “sea of fire”?29 Yet another reason for possible overestimates of Iraqi capabilities springs from the first Persian Gulf War. After that experience, U.S. officials were shocked and actually embarrassed by revelations from U.N. inspectors regarding Iraqi WMD programs. These programs were much more advanced than was thought prior to the war. When we consider that many of the same decision-makers are at the helm today, it is entirely understandable that there would be a tendency to overshoot. A disturbing extrapolation of this tendency to swing between poles, evident throughout the Cold War, is that future intelligence analysts are now likely (once again) to err on the cautious side in their estimates, bearing in mind the mistakes of 2003. Beyond these mitigating factors, it is clear that the reasons for the war went far beyond WMD. Indeed, if WMD had been the sole criterion for the war, then it is quite possible that other members of the axis of evil would have been higher in the queue. The United States has achieved many strategic benefits from the war to eliminate Saddam’s regime. For example, it is no longer necessary to base large numbers of troops in Saudi Arabia, thus enabling more flexible policies toward Riyadh and, most importantly, removing U.S. forces from the holiest land in Islam. Since the war, Saudi Arabia has even taken its first halting steps in the direction of democratic reforms. More profound democratic stirrings among the Palestinians, in Egypt, and especially in Lebanon have prompted some to suggest that the relatively successful January 2005 elections in Iraq are having positive regionwide effects. Above and beyond these broader strategic benefits for Washington, it is abundantly clear that, despite much cynicism surrounding the Bush administration’s motives, a vital motive for the war was to liberate the Iraqi people. This is clear from President Bush’s statements in advance of the war, for instance in the January 2003 State of the Union address: No people on Earth yearn to be oppressed, or aspire to servitude, or eagerly await

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the knock of the secret police. If anyone doubts this, let them look to Afghanistan, where the Islamic “street” greeted the fall with song and celebration. Let the skeptics look to Islam’s own rich history. . . . America will take the side of brave men and women who advocate these values around the world, including the Islamic world, because we have a greater objective than eliminating threats.

Here, the extraordinary ambition of the Bush administration’s policies in Iraq is truly revealed. The ultimate goal, in short, is to give democracy in the Middle East a major boost by planting this “seed” in one of the region’s most pivotal states. Thus, the media’s prewar and postwar narrow and quasi-legalistic focus on WMD obscured the larger goals of the administration, which it made quite explicit. For many, close U.S. association with authoritarian regimes in such states as Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan is sufficient reason to cynically dismiss the Bush administration’s liberal intentions. However, such reasoning is flawed: it fails to recognize that just because humanitarian intervention is not practical everywhere, this does not mean that it is never warranted. In this case, U.S. policy was deeply implicated in the tyranny of Saddam and the suffering of the Iraqi people—as supporters of that regime in the 1980s, in failing to remove the regime in the 1991 war, and in maintaining the problematic sanction regime. It is not outlandish to suggest that part of the liberal intent in this case is related, among certain decision-makers, to regret over past policy judgments, which had profoundly negative consequences for the people of Iraq. In a sense, this was long overdue penance by American leaders. The challenge of rebuilding and restoring Iraq is immense. It is too early to pass definitive judgment on this war and its consequences. Given the risks involved and the considerable stakes, the decision for war was courageous, but two important flaws currently endanger America’s Iraq policy. First, it is worth considering whether an administration that came into office on a platform extremely hostile to the notion of nation-building can effectively build new secular states from scratch. Republican and also military distaste for such exercises has been reflected in poor execution. U.S. military forces are poorly trained and structured for such missions. For example, some of the most crucial units in such operations— civil affairs troops—are still relegated to reserve forces. This designation all but guarantees a lower degree of professionalism and commitment. Radical and widespread reform is necessary to rectify the problem, but little has been done by the Bush administration. Just as important, the Bush administration has made inadequate efforts on what should be the second pillar of the U.S. strategic vision for the Middle East: facilitating a final settlement to the Arab-Israeli conflict. The notion that regime change in Iraq could fundamentally alter the

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negative dynamics so pervasive in the contemporary Middle East was always premised on the notion of parallel progress in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Prime minister Ariel Sharon’s heavy reliance on force has proven largely incapable of halting Palestinian terror (though the fence seems to have had a positive impact), and Bush’s support for many of these policies has further hurt U.S. diplomacy in the region. Israeli security benefited substantially from the most recent Iraq war, as from the first Gulf War, and was immeasurably improved by the end of the Cold War. It is now time for Washington to cash in its chips with Israel’s leaders and compel them to act in their own interest by cutting a generous deal with the Palestinians. The passing of Yassir Arafat and the ascendance of Mahmoud Abbas make this an opportune moment. For its broader regional interests, the United States must recognize that a “grand bargain” settlement of the Palestinian issue over the next few years is no less important than what kind of government is ruling in Baghdad.

the way forward What lies ahead for the Bush doctrine? Is North Korea next in line, to be followed by Iran and then Syria? Or has Washington, and the Pentagon specifically, been so chastened by the challenge of postwar Iraq—the Bush doctrine in action—that there is no further appetite for preventive attack against nascent WMD arsenals? After the Iraq War, North Korea is the most important crisis to confront the present and subsequent administrations. Indeed, many have argued that the North Korean crisis is far more dangerous than was the showdown with Saddam and should have been given priority from the beginning. Certainly, part of the Bush administration’s reason for prioritizing Iraq over North Korea was the perception that Iraq represented “low-hanging fruit”—that its WMD programs were less well developed than North Korea’s. However, given the multiplicity of motives—especially relating to the future of the Middle East and that region’s ties to the September 11 attacks—it is rather easy to see why the administration wanted to keep North Korea for a time on the “back burner.” North Korean leader Kim Jong-il likely sensed that his regime would be safe during the U.S. war against Saddam because Washington was certain to avoid fighting two wars simultaneously. Therefore, in 2002–4, Pyongyang undertook a bold and risky gambit: North Korea charged relentlessly forward in developing a nuclear deterrent, or, by other ac-

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counts, they pretended to do so in order to extract the maximum concessions from the United States and the international community in return for disarmament. Let us briefly review these highly provocative steps on the part of Pyongyang and Washington’s responses to these maneuvers. The crisis broke in October 2002, when North Korean officials admitted to having a clandestine nuclear weapons development program after allegedly being confronted with evidence by U.S. officials. The following month, Washington convinced its allies to halt fuel oil shipments, which had been part of the 1994 Agreed Framework. In December, North Korea upped the ante by ejecting IAEA inspectors and dismantling surveillance cameras at its nuclear facilities. In January 2004, Pyongyang stated that it had “no intention of producing nuclear weapons,” and yet officially withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Perhaps in response to these measures, but even more likely as insurance against surprises by Pyongyang during the course of the Iraq War, Washington reinforced its forces on the peninsula in February and March, sending two thousand soldiers and the Carl Vinson Carrier Battle Group, as well as a force of thirteen stealth Nighthawk fighter bombers to the U.S. air base at Kunsan. Twenty-four long-range bombers were also put on alert, as a further hedge. On 2 March 2003, North Korean fighter planes “jumped” (challenged) an American reconnaissance plane off the North Korean coast. Just slightly more aggressive action by the North Koreans could easily have led to the outbreak of armed conflict. January 2004 witnessed a bizarre twist when a small group of Western scientists was invited to see North Korea’s nuclear deterrent. The scientists were permitted to see (and touch) what may have been a jar of plutonium and verify that eight thousand spent fuel rods had been removed for reprocessing from the storage facility at Yongbyon. However, this demonstration still left ample room for skepticism.30 Six-party talks have not, at the time of this writing, succeeded in resolving the crisis. It is hardly worth debating whether or not this asymmetric rivalry has been on the brink of war—that is clearly the case. As in 1993–94, this case makes clear the instability that results from the process of WMD proliferation. It was noted in the introductory chapter that the evolving situation has been taken to validate proliferation optimist theory, which posits that “not much is required to deter.” It is claimed that the nascent North Korean nuclear arsenal has been sufficient to make Washington extremely cautious. Nicholas Kristof, for example, suggests that in the case of American strikes against North Korean nuclear facilities, Pyongyang “would probably respond by turning South Korea (and American bases there) into what it describes as ‘a sea of flames.’” He is especially

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concerned that North Korea “already has a couple of nuclear weapons . . . —missiles that can dump nerve gas on American military bases in Asia, and Taepodong missiles that can drop nuclear warheads on Alaska and, soon, the lower 48 states.” The only solution, in Kristof’s view, is for the United States to “hold [its] nose and negotiate.”31 The above interpretation of the ongoing crisis with North Korea would only be decisively proven false if the United States were to embark on a preventive attack against North Korea. However, as I have amply discussed in considering the 1994 crisis (Chapter 8), theories of WMD proliferation are complicated in this particular case by the fact that the sprawling city of Seoul, home to more than 20 million in its metropolitan area, lies along the border with North Korea and is well within range of Pyongyang’s vast artillery force. With or without WMD, therefore, South Korea’s capital is hostage to the North Korean military. Despite the seemingly intractable vulnerability of Seoul, many U.S. commentators have urged the Bush administration to retain the option of force, if diplomatic measures fail to convince Pyongyang to disarm. As noted in Chapter 1, these figures include numerous former Clinton administration officials, such as Samuel Berger, Robert Galluci, Leon Fuerth, and Gary Samore.32 Among conservative commentators, there has been a reluctance to criticize the administration’s approach to date. However, in August 2003, R. James Woolsey, former CIA director, and General Thomas G. McInerney (USAF-ret.) published an article entitled “The Next Korean War.” Woolsey and McInerney take issue with “the reflexive rejection in the public debate of the use of force against North Korea.” If the United States mounted four thousand sorties a day—only eight hundred a day were conducted against Iraq in 2003—these authors claim that air power could “both . . . destroy Yongbyon and [also] . . . protect South Korea from attack by missile or artillery,” winning a decisive victory in thirty to sixty days. Noting that “we are not eager to see force used on the Korean Peninsula,” they warn against “[taking] refuge in denial.”33 An extremely detailed military analysis that appeared in the Seoul newspaper Wolgan Chungang in September 2003 similarly describes a U.S. military “flash of lightning” attack that should be ready for execution in approximately 2005. According to this report, new technologies and associated strategies make the “war scenario from ten years ago, which predicted an outcome of huge disaster, . . . nothing more than a useless old memory.” According to this report, the energetic restructuring and redeployment of U.S. forces in Korea (USFK) that is currently under way is meant to support this new war plan. Given such reports, it seems premature to assume that Washington will be deterred by Pyongyang’s WMD gambit.

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The Bush administration has thus far skillfully played its diplomatic hand with Pyongyang. Washington’s insistence on multilateral talks involving all of the major powers has ensured that Kim Jong-il cannot make separate promises to separate parties. Moreover, Tokyo, Moscow, and Beijing, in particular, have been forced to come face-to-face with North Korea’s mix of bluster and threats. If a diplomatic solution can be found, China is likely to be the crucial player at the diplomatic table, given that it is North Korea’s leading trading partner and aid donor. One could imagine, for example, a situation in which China agrees to guarantee North Korea’s security, obviating the need for nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, there are numerous reasons to be skeptical of China’s role in the current crisis: its own relations with North Korea have been tense over the last decade; it is deeply reluctant to exert pressure that might create a crisis and send hordes of refugees streaming across the border; Beijng may well sympathize with North Korea, given its own history of nuclear weapons development under external threat; and China could even prefer to see U.S. diplomatic and military attention focused on an ongoing Korean crisis rather than on the Taiwan Straits, for example. In order to energize China to proactively engage in the present crisis, Washington would be wise to consider some concessions to Beijing regarding the defense of Taiwan, for example by pushing energetically for crossstrait dialogue and curtailing military-to-military contacts.34 Such steps would surely get Beijing’s attention. Even if such a “grand bargain” could be achieved, it is difficult to imagine circumstances in which the regime in North Korea—where juche self-reliance is the state ideology—would agree to the kind of intrusive inspections that the United States must demand. A security guarantee would be a small price to pay for North Korean cooperation, but how could such an agreement be taken seriously, given North Korea’s track record? The 1994 Agreed Framework was an entirely appropriate and innovative diplomatic solution at that particular time, but it is obvious that this practice—simply a bribe—cannot be continued indefinitely. Nor should it be forgotten that a new agreement with Pyongyang may well prolong the suffering of millions of North Koreans. Indeed, if Seoul could be sufficiently protected, force might paradoxically be the most humanitarian of all the options. The third member of the axis of evil, Iran, also has not been idle. Revelations concerning a newly discovered uranium enrichment complex at Natanz, which emerged after mid-2002, have forced analysts to change their estimates concerning when Tehran might cross the nuclear threshold. Earlier estimates had projected five to eight years; it is now expected that Iran could have nuclear weapons in one to three years.35 America has long focused on Russian assistance in building a nuclear

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reactor at Bushehr. The fear was that the Iranians would seek to extract plutonium from the reactor’s nuclear fuel, but it now seems that Tehran has been pursuing clandestine uranium enrichment instead.36 In mid2003, the Natanz facility had 160 operational centrifuges, but an IAEA inspection team has confirmed seeing the components for one thousand additional machines. According to one report, “Nearby are huge underground buildings, built to a depth of 75 feet and able to withstand aerial attack. When finished, they will hold tens of thousands of centrifuges.”37 IAEA chairman Mohammed El Baradei visited Iran in February 2003 and confirmed that Iran’s gas centrifuge technology is “considerably further along than Iraq’s was at the time of the 1991 Persian Gulf War.”38 This revelation is particularly embarrassing to Russian officials, who, while plying nuclear technology to Iran, have always insisted that gas centrifuge technology was well beyond Iran’s reach.39 Iran also seeks plutonium, so it is building a 40-megawatt heavy water reactor at Arak. “This type of reactor, too small for electricity and larger than needed for research, is now providing fuel for atomic weapons programs in India, Israel and Pakistan.”40 For its part, the Iranian leadership now claims that enrichment facilities are required so that it can produce its own nuclear fuel for its reactors. In June 2003, Bush declared that the United States and its allies “will not tolerate the construction of a nuclear weapon” in Iran.41 At that time, a poll of Americans revealed that, despite the fact that U.S. forces are already committed in Iraq, a majority would support military action against Iran to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons.42 A month later, Tehran conducted a successful test of its new Shahab-3 missile, which can carry a 2,200-pound payload as far as 1,500 kilometers, and is quite probably “intended to carry a nuclear warhead.”43 This action prompted an explicit threat from Israel. An aide to Prime Minister Sharon told a reporter, “Any Iranian regime knows, of course, that Israel has the capability, the wherewithal, to deal with a military threat.”44 Here again is a case in which a small power seeking WMD is prompting anxiety in the superior powers, in this case both the United States and Israel, which may result in a preventive attack. One can certainly say that instability currently characterizes these relationships. A hopeful note in late October 2003 was Tehran’s agreement, in response to a “Triple Intervention” by England, France, and Germany, to suspend uranium enrichment in exchange for new cooperation and trade in high technology. However, at the end of the summer of 2004, Tehran reactivated uranium enrichment and gave the so-called EU-3 a brazen list of demands in return for future cooperation. Just because it has not worked with North Korea in 1994, the overall strategy of “engagement” has not been dis-

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credited. It is often noted that any payoff would be a small fraction of the cost of military conflict. However, an effective engagement strategy will depend not only on bringing a mix of sticks and carrots to the table but above all on a unity in the West and the broader global community that has thus far proven elusive. An Iranian journal that is close to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs recently ran an article that asked, “Does deployment of nuclear weapons— if possible and of the weak kind such as those of Pakistan—bring us security or insecurity against large countries such as the U.S.?” The author answered the question: “Certainly the answer is insecurity since Iran does not have the superior military technology of the U.S. and these weapons cannot play a deterrent and security role against the U.S.”45 This is also the conclusion of our historical survey of WMD proliferation crises. This comparative survey of WMD rivalries suggests that rogue proliferators have ample cause to fear. This is as it should be. A world in which most states, including the most irresponsible tyrants, control WMD is not acceptable, and a line must be drawn in the sand. But the American people are peace-loving and may be unwilling to fight bloody counterproliferation wars on a continual basis. It will be a tragic irony if North Korea, Iran, and others are permitted to develop and deploy WMD because the complications surrounding the 2003 Iraq War sapped our national will. In this difficult hour, we must summon our courage, so that our children do not have to.

Notes

chapter 1 1. Kenneth N. Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: More May Be Better, Adelphi Paper No. 171 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1981). 2. For an impressive list of Waltz’s adherents, see Peter R. Lavoy, “The Strategic Consequences of Proliferation: A Review Essay” Security Studies 4 (Summer 1995), p. 717. 3. One recent attempt to rectify this gap in the literature is Robert S. Litwak, “The New Calculus of Preemption,” Survival 44 (Winter 2002), pp. 53–79. 4. The most important data presented in this book concerns nuclear rivalry specifically. The five in-depth cases deal with nuclear weapons exclusively. Thus, the research conclusions will be most applicable to cases of nuclear proliferation. Moreover, it is clearly important to differentiate nuclear weapons from biological weapons, and especially from chemical weapons, which some believe do not merit classification with the two more destructive forms of WMD. Nevertheless, the theoretical issues raised by chemical and particularly biological weapons are similar enough to be taken into account in this work. Indeed, certain of the minicases (chapter 8) revolve exclusively around these secondary forms of WMD. Based on this much more limited set of data (the mini-cases), this work comes to some modest conclusions about the importance of differentiating between forms of WMD. The concept of WMD, however, is retained and employed in this book whenever broader conclusions appear to be warranted. On chemical and biological weapons specifically, see, for example, Scott D. Sagan, “The Commitment Trap: Why the U.S. Should Not Use Nuclear Threats to Deter Biological and Chemical Weapons Attacks,” International Security 24 (Spring 2000): 85–115. 5. Richard Lowry, “The Nukes We Need: Adapting Our Arsenal to Today,” National Review, 25 March 2002. 6. See, for example, “Ridge: Nuclear Weapons Documents Found,” CNN. com, 15 November 2001, on the web at http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/11/15/ret. ridge.nuclear/ accessed on 7 January 2003; or Robert S. Litwak, “The New Calculus of Preemption,” Survival 44 (Winter 2002–03): 70. 7. Jon B. Wolfsthal, “U.S. Needs A Contingency Plan For Pakistan’s Nuclear Arsenal,” Los Angeles Times, 16 October 2001.

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8. See “Bush State of the Union Address” on the web site of CNN.com at http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/01/29/bush.speech.txt/, accessed on 8 January 2003. 9. See “Remarks by President Bush at the 2002 Graduation Exercise of the U.S. Military Academy,” at http://www.ausa.org/RAMPnew/DDusmaspeech. htm, accessed on 8 January 2003. 10. The “National Security Strategy of the United States of America,” September 2002, is available on the White House web site at http://www.whitehouse. gov/nsc/nss.html; the “National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction,” December 2002, can be found on the web site of the Department of Defense at http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/ accessed on 8 January 2002. 11. See “Text of David Kay’s Unclassified Report,” 2 October 2003, on the web site of CNN at http://www-cgi.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/10/02/kay. report/ accessed on 12 November 2003. 12. Traditional definitions of preemptive and preventive war are based on the imminence of the threat. Both concepts reflect the advantages of striking first, but preemption presupposes the clear existence of an imminent threat. Preventive war, by contrast, is undertaken in anticipation of the emergence of an imminent threat. I consider the Bush administration’s argument that “imminence” has been fundamentally altered by the technology of mass destruction and the deviousness of present-day terrorists in the final chapter of this book. 13. See, for example, Alan J. Kuperman, “Pre-emption: Should the USA Punch First? No,” USA Today, 12 November 2002; Colin Clark, “Pentagon Preemption Policy Draws Doubts,” Defense News, 26 August 2002; and Bill Keller, “The Year in Ideas: Preemption,” New York Times Magazine, 15 December 2002. 14. See, for example, Graham Allison, “Is Iraq Like the Cuba Crisis? It’s Worth Bush Considering,” Christian Science Monitor, 31 October 2002. 15. Paul Wolfowitz, “United on the Risks of a War with Iraq,” Washington Post, 23 December 2002. 16. Patrick E. Tyler, “Baghdad Aide Warns U.S. of More ‘Dreadful’ Events,” New York Times, 5 February 2002. 17. George Jones and Anton La Guardia, “UK Warns Saddam of Nuclear Retaliation,” London Daily Telegraph, 21 March 2002. 18. David Sanger, “Bush Warns Foes Not to Use Weapons of Mass Destruction on U.S. Troops,” New York Times, 11 December 2002. 19. Arieh O’Sullivan, “Iran Warns Israel Against Attacking Nuclear Plant,” Jerusalem Post, 5 February 2002. 20. Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough, “Inside the Ring,” Washington Times, 10 May 2002. 21. Anonymous “top official” quoted in Paul Bedard, “Washington Whispers,” U.S. News & World Report, 13 January 2002. 22. Rumsfeld quoted in “U.S. Warns N. Korea on Plant,” Washington Post, 24 December 2002. 23. Samuel R. Berger and Robert L. Galluci, “Two Crises, No Back Burner,” Washington Post, 31 December 2002.

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24. Leon Fuerth, “Outfoxed by North Korea,” New York Times, 1 January 2003. 25. James Pinkerton, “Bush Will Put N. Korea on Hit List,” Long Island Newsday, 31 December 2002. 26. Michael Krepon, quoted in Faye Bowers and Howard LaFranchi, “Risk Rises For a Reignited Arms Race,” Christian Science Monitor, 31 December 2002. 27. Anthony Shadid, “CIA Says Risk of Nuclear Attack Greater Than Ever,” Boston Globe, 12 March 2002. 28. Lawrence Feedman and Efraim Karsh, The Gulf Conflict, 1990–91: Diplomacy and War in the New World Order (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993), pp. 220, 224. 29. Avigdor Haselkorn, The Continuing Storm: Iraq, Poisonous Weapons, and Deterrence (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999); Albert J. Mauroni, Chemical-Biological Defense: U.S. Military Policies and Decisions in the Gulf War (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1998), pp. 120, 127. 30. Barry Posen, “U.S. Security Policy in a Nuclear-Armed World, or: What If Iraq Had Nuclear Weapons?” Security Studies 6 (Spring 1997), pp. 22–23. 31. Quoted in Leon Sigal, Disarming Strangers: Nuclear Diplomacy with North Korea (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998), p. 81. 32. Ashton B. Carter and William J. Perry, Preventive Defense: A New Security Strategy for America (Washington, DC: Brookings, 1999), p. 131. 33. See, for example, John Garver, Face Off: China, the United States, and Taiwan’s Democratization (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997), pp. 127–33. 34. See, for example, Richard K. Betts, “The New Threat of Mass Destruction,” Foreign Affairs 77 (January/February 1998): 34. 35. Terry Atlas, “U.S. Threatens ‘Drastic’ Action Against Libya,” Toronto Star, 25 April 1996. 36. Gary Samore, quoted in Paul Kerr, “Libya’s Disarmament: A Model for U.S. Policy?” Arms Control Today 34 (June 2004): 36. 37. Quoted in Marc Dean Millot, “Facing the Reality of Regional Nuclear Adversaries,” Washington Quarterly 17 (Summer 1994): 50. 38. Joseph F. Pilat and Walter L. Kirchner, “The Technological Promise of Counterproliferation,” Washington Quarterly 18 (Winter 1995): 160–61. 39. Michele A. Flournoy, “Implications for U.S. Military Strategy,” in Robert D. Blackwill and Albert Carnesale, eds., New Nuclear States: Consequences for U.S. Policy (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1993), p. 137. 40. Barry R. Schneider, Future War and Counterproliferation: U.S. Military Responses to NBC Proliferation Threats (London: Praeger, 1999), p. 179. 41. Among the great powers, only the U.S.-China rivalry gives some reason for concern, especially in light of the persistent Taiwan problem. This problem, and particularly the impact of nuclear weapons in this relationship, is discussed briefly in Chapter 8. 42. Some limited assurance is offered by the obvious failure of the chemical

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weapons attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995 and the 2001 biological weapons attack on Washington D.C. to achieve widespread destruction. Of course, terrorists may be clever enough to employ low-tech methods to achieve mass destruction, as in the World Trade Center attack. However, terrorists have limited tools for achieving such results. The prospect of a successful WMD attack by a rogue state is sufficiently threatening to ensure America’s strategic focus on rogue state WMD, and in reality this focus has been maintained. Finally, the argument was made by the Bush administration that rogue states are a likely source of supplies for WMD terrorists, and so may be viewed as a significant precursor for the larger problem of WMD terrorism. 43. Peter Feaver, “Optimists, Pessimists, and Proliferation,” Security Studies 4 (Summer 1995): 769. 44. Brad Roberts, “Rethinking the Proliferation Debate,” Security Studies 4 (Summer 1995): 796. 45. David Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994); Avner Cohen, Israel and the Bomb (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998); Devin T. Hagerty, The Consequences of Proliferation: Lessons from South Asia (London: MIT Press, 1998). 46. Jorn Gjelstan and Olav Njolstad (eds.), Nuclear Rivalry and International Order (London: Sage, 1996). 47. David J. Karl, “Proliferation Pessimism and Emerging Nuclear Powers,” International Security 21 (Winter 1996/97), pg. 118. 48. Peter R. Lavoy, Scott D. Sagan, and James J. Wirtz (eds.), Planning the Unthinkable: How New Powers Will Use Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Weapons (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000). 49. Ibid., pp. 230–31. 50. Derek D. Smith, “Deterrence and Counterproliferation in an Age of Weapons of Mass Destruction,” Security Studies 12 (Summer 2003), p. 155. 51. Lawrence Freedman, The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy (New York: St. Martin’s, 1981), pg. 126. 52. Philip Tetlock and Aaron Belkin (eds.), Counterfactual Thought Experiments in World Politics: Logical, Methodological, and Psychological Perspectives (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996), p. 16.

chapter 2 1. See Benjamin Frankel, “The Brooding Shadow: Systemic Incentives and Nuclear Weapons Proliferation,” Security Studies 2 (Summer 1993): 37–76; Steven Frank, “Exploding the Black Box: The Historical Sociology of Nuclear Proliferation,” Security Studies 3 (Winter 1993/94): 259–94; Etel Solingen, “The Political Economy of Nuclear Restraint,” International Security 19 (Fall 1994): 126–69; and Bradley Thayer, “The Causes of Nuclear Proliferation and the Utility of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Regime,” Security Studies 4 (Spring 1995): 463–519.

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2. John L. Gaddis, We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History (London: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 86. 3. John Mueller, “Nine Propositions About the Historical Impact of Nuclear Weapons,” in Nuclear Rivalry and International Order, ed. Jorn Gjelstad and Olav Njolstad (London: Sage, 1996), pp. 56–57. 4. Gaddis, “Nuclear Weapons and Cold War History,” in Nuclear Rivalry and International Order, p. 47. 5. Jack Levy, “The Causes of War: A Review of Theories and Evidence,” in Behavior, Society, and Nuclear War: Vol. I, ed. P. E. Tetlock, J. L. Husbands, R. Jervis, P. C. Stern, and C. Tilly (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 291. 6. Bernard Brodie (ed.), The Absolute Weapon: Atomic Power and World Order (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1946), p. 76; Thomas Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1966), pp. 93, 97; Robert Jervis, The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution: Statecraft and the Prospect of Armageddon (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989). 7. Dan Reiter writes that theorists are overly concerned with preemptive strategies, which he suggests are a rare cause of war. Dan Reiter, “Exploding the Powder Keg Myth: Preemptive Wars Almost Never Happen,” International Security 20 (Fall 1995): 5. 8. On the origins of “second strike” terminology, see Freedman, Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, p. 136. 9. Quoted in Lawrence Freedman, “The First Two Generations of Nuclear Strategists,” in Makers of Modern Strategy: From Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age, ed. Peter Paret (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986), p. 776. 10. On Wohlstetter’s contribution, see Fred Kaplan, The Wizards of Armageddon (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983), pp. 85–124; Freedman, Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, p. 135. 11. Richard Rosencrance, “Albert Wohlstetter,” in Makers of Nuclear Strategy, ed. John Baylis and John Garnett (New York: St. Martin’s, 1991), pg. 65. 12. J. C. Garnett, “Herman Kahn,” in Makers of Nuclear Strategy, p. 90. 13. Richard K. Betts, Nuclear Blackmail and Nuclear Balance (Washington, DC: Brookings, 1986), p. 120. 14. See Glenn H. Snyder, “The Balance of Power and the Balance of Terror,” in Paul Seabury, ed., The Balance of Power (San Francisco: Chandler, 1965), pp. 198–99. 15. Keith B. Payne, Deterrence in the Second Nuclear Age (Lexington: University of Kentucky, 1996), p. 156. 16. This argument was first fully articulated in Kenneth N. Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: More May Be Better, Adelphi Paper No. 171 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1981). 17. The proliferation literature has implicitly adopted a simple model of deterrence: “Deterrence seeks to prevent undesired action by convincing the party who may be contemplating such action that its cost will exceed any possible gain.” Scholars of deterrence theory have traditionally emphasized four components of

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deterrence: defining the unacceptable action, communicating a commitment to punish the transgressor, possessing the requisite capabilities, and demonstrating the resolve to do so. Janice Gross Stein, “Deterrence and Reassurance,” in Behavior, Society, and Nuclear War, pp. 9–10. Much of this literature, built as it was around the Cold War confrontation, is not quite suitable for the proliferation debate, in which the U.S. may be the target (rather than the initiator) of deterrence strategies. However, this study will seek to avoid certain common pitfalls in the deterrence literature. For example, a major point of contention in debates about deterrence has been the tendency of the deterrence theorists to assume the hostile intent of one of the parties. In practice, such questionable assumptions influenced investigations of deterrence successes, as well as failures—a vital methodological difficulty. On this point, see Christopher H. Achen and Duncan Snidal, “Rational Deterrence Theory and Comparative Case Studies,” World Politics 41 (January 1989), pg. 161. By contrast, this study does not assume the “hostile” intentions of the “aggressor” party, but rather goes to great lengths to illustrate that considerations of preventive attack were genuine. 18. Kenneth N. Waltz, “More May Be Better,” in Scott Sagan and Kenneth N. Waltz, eds., The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate (New York: Norton, 1995), p. 33. 19. Ibid., p. 13. 20. Ibid., p. 19. 21. Ibid., p. 37. 22. Ibid., p. 36. 23. Ibid., p. 27. 24. Ibid., p. 37. 25. Ibid., p. 97. 26. Ibid., p. 20. 27. Martin van Creveld, Nuclear Proliferation and the Future of Conflict (New York: Free Press, 1993), p. 122. 28. Ibid., p. 124. 29. Thomas Preston, “‘From Lambs to Lions’: Nuclear Proliferation’s Grand Reshuffling of Interstate Security Relationships,” Cooperation and Conflict 32 (March 1997): 79. 30. Ibid. 31. Jordan Seng, “Less Is More: The Command and Control Advantages of Minor Nuclear States,” Security Studies 6 (Summer 1997): 63. 32. Hagerty, The Consequences of Nuclear Proliferation, p. 184. 33. Avery Goldstein, Deterrence and Security in the 21st Century: China, Britain, France, and the Enduring Legacy of the Nuclear Revolution (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000), p. 46. 34. Ibid., p. 298. 35. Arms control in asymmetric contexts is highly problematic for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that the inferior party is unlikely to want to be fully transparent about its weakness. 36. Paul Doty and Stephen Flank, “Arms Control for New Nuclear Nations,”

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in Robert Blackwill and Albert Carnesale, eds., New Nuclear States: Consequences for U.S. Policy (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1993), p. 53. 37. Steven E. Miller, “Assistance to Newly Proliferating Nations,” in New Nuclear States, pp. 116–20. 38. For our purposes, norms are defined as practices around which actors’ expectations converge. 39. Richard Price and Nina Tannenwald, “Norms and Deterrence: Nuclear and Chemical Weapons Taboos,” in The Culture of National Security, ed. Peter Katzenstein (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), p. 150. 40. Fred C. Ikle, “The Second Coming of the Nuclear Age,” Foreign Affairs 75 (January 1996), pg. 123. 41. Peter Feaver, “Neooptimists and the Enduring Problem of Nuclear Proliferation,” Security Studies 4 (Summer 1997): 104. 42. Max Singer, “The Future Role in the World and in the U.S. of Nuclear and Biological WMD,” unpublished manuscript submitted to the Office of Net Assessment—Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, 12 August 1999, p. 5. 43. John L. Gaddis, “Nuclear Weapons and the Cold War,” in Jorn Gjelstad and Olav Njelstad, eds., Nuclear Rivalry and International Order (London: Sage, 1996), pg. 52. 44. Scott D. Sagan, “More Will Be Worse,” in Sagan and Waltz, eds., The Spread of Nuclear Weapons, pp. 77–81. 45. Ibid., pp. 87–90. 46. Ibid., p. 96. 47. Most work in the new constructivist school focuses on “good” ideas—for example, human rights or decolonization norms. However, there has been some examination of the impact of “bad” or dangerous ideas. See, for example, Nina Halpern, “Creating Socialist Economies: Stalinist Political Economy and Impact of Ideas,” in Ideas and Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions, and Political Change, ed. Judith Goldstein and Robert E. Keohane (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993), pp. 87–110. 48. Paul Seabury and Angelo Codevilla, quoted in Peter Lavoy, “The Strategic Consequences of Proliferation: A Review Essay,” Security Studies 4 (Summer 1995), p. 713. 49. Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace (New York: McGraw Hill, 1948), p. 7. 50. Mark T. Clark, “Proliferation in the Second Nuclear Age,” Orbis 41 (Winter 1997), p. 136. 51. Michael Mandelbaum, “Lessons of the Next Nuclear War,” Foreign Affairs 74 (March/April 1995), p. 33. 52. William C. Martel, “Deterrence and Alternative Images of Nuclear Possession,” in T. V. Paul, Richard J. Harknett, and James J. Wirz, eds., The Absolute Weapon Revisited: Nuclear Arms and the Emerging International Order (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999), p. 223. 53. Payne, Deterrence in the Second Nuclear Age, pp. 52–53. 54. James G. Blight and David A. Welch, “Risking ‘The Destruction of Na-

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tions’: Lessons of the Cuban Missile Crisis for New and Aspiring Nuclear States,” Security Studies 4 (Summer 1995), pp. 843–44. 55. Peter Feaver, “Optimists, Pessimists, and Proliferation,” Security Studies 4 (Summer 1995), pg. 769. 56. Brad Roberts, “Rethinking the Proliferation Debate,” Security Studies 4 (Summer 1995), p. 796. 57. Gjelstad and Njolstad, eds., Nuclear Rivalry and International Order. 58. An obvious example is Mao’s denigration of nuclear weapons as “paper tigers,” while he devoted enormous resources to acquiring the capability. 59. Preston, “From Lambs to Lions,” p. 82. 60. See, for example, Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, p. 189; and Kenneth N. Waltz, A Theory of International Relations (New York: McGraw Hill, 1979), pp. 161–62. 61. Dale C. Copeland, “Neorealism and the Myth of Bipolar Stability: Toward a New Dynamic Realist Theory of Major War,” Security Studies 5 (Spring 1996), p. 30. 62. Gary King, Robert O. Keohane, and Sidney Verba, Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), p. 225. 63. Christopher Layne, “Kant or Cant: the Myth of the Democratic Peace,” in Michael E. Brown, Sean M. Lynn-Jones, and Steven E. Miller, eds., Debating the Democratic Peace (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996), p. 166. 64. Bruce Russett, “The Democratic Peace: And Yet It Moves,” in Debating the Democratic Peace, p. 339. 65. Tetlock and Belkin, eds., Counterfactual Thought Experiments in World Politics, p. 4. 66. Ibid., p. 37. 67. Gaddis, We Now Know, p. 261. 68. Stephen Van Evera, Guide to Methods for Students of Political Science (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997), p. 48, note 65. 69. King, Keohane, and Verba, Designing Social Inquiry, p. 219. 70. It is readily conceded that deeper causes of hostility are at work. At issue here is, therefore, an intermediary variable that may determine which hostile dyads are most prone to war. 71. This is one criterion cited for case selection by Van Evera, Guide to Methods, p. 83. 72. Sidney Tarrow, “Bridging the Qualitative-Quantitative Divide in Political Science,” American Political Science Review 89 (June 1995): 473. 73. A classic of this genre is John W. Lewis and Xue Litai, China Builds the Bomb (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988). More recent books of this type include AvnerCohen, Israel and the Bomb; and George Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb: The Impact on Global Proliferation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999).

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chapter 3 1. See, for example, Alan Kuperman, “Should the USA Punch First? No.” USA Today, 12 November 2002; Robert A. Levine, “Deterrence, Preemption and Prevention,” International Herald Tribune, 23 October 2002. 2. Freedman, Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, p. 50. 3. S. David S. Broscious, “Longing for International Control, Banking on American Superiority: Harry S. Truman’s Approach to Nuclear Weapons,” in John L. Gaddis, Phillip H. Gordon, Ernest May, and Jonathan Rosenberg, eds., Cold War Statesmen Confront the Bomb: Nuclear Diplomacy since 1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 16. 4. David A. Rosenberg, “Origins of Overkill: Nuclear Weapons and American Strategy, 1945–1960,” International Security 7 (Spring 1983): 14. 5. Broscious, “Longing for International Control,” p. 30. 6. Gaddis, We Now Know, p. 91. 7. Ibid., p. 99. 8. Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb, p. 272. See also Gaddis, We Now Know, pp. 92, 98. 9. Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb, p. 220. 10. Other 1944 estimates were more cautious than Groves’s. Ibid., p. 121. 11. Russian historian Y. I. Batiuk concludes that these grave intelligence failures made a fatal contribution to the development of the Cold War, and especially the nuclear arms race, by giving the Americans the false impression that they could maintain their nuclear superiority indefinitely. See his “Opasni Samoobman” (Dangerous self-delusion), Voeno-Istoricheski Zhurnal, no. 5 (1997): 68. 12. Kaplan, Wizards of Armageddon, p. 166. 13. Stalin’s order to build a Soviet atomic weapon, dated 20 August, was issued less than two weeks after the United States struck Japan with two atomic bombs. The declassified order from the Soviet archives appears in V. I. Ivkina, “Posle Xiroshimi i Nagasaki” (After Hiroshima and Nagasaki), Voeno-Istoricheski Zhurnal, no. 4 (1999): 65–67. 14. Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb, p. 132. 15. I. B. Khariton and I. H. Smirnov, Mifi i Realnost Sovetskovo Atomnovo Proyekta (Myths and Reality of the Soviet Atomic Project) (Arzamaz-16: Russian Federal Nuclear Center, 1994), pp. 8–9, 17. 16. Steven J. Zaloga, Target America: The Soviet Union and the Strategic Arms Race, 1945–64 (Novato, CA: Presidio, 1993), p. 71. A more imaginative project to deliver nuclear weapons against the United States emerged in the form of project 627, an effort to build a submarine that would fire an enormous nucleartipped “super torpedo.” The planned T-15 torpedo was to be 1.5 meters in width and 23 meters long, carrying a four-ton warhead to a range of thirty kilometers. The intended targets were American ports. This project was abandoned in the early 1950s due to opposition within the Navy to a ship that carried a single round and could not defend itself. There were also doubts about the feasibility of cruising so close to enemy shores. Adm. E. A. Shitikov, “A. D. Sacharov: ‘On Bil

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Shokirovan Lyudoedskim Xaracterom Proyekta’: Kak Sozdalos Morskoe Yadernoe Oruzhie” (A. D. Sacharov: “He Was Shocked by the Cannibalistic Nature of the Project”: How Naval Nuclear Weapons Were Developed), Voeno-Istoricheski Zhurnal, no. 9 (1994), pp. 37–38. 17. Zaloga, Target America, pp. 75–76. 18. Ibid., p. 76. 19. E. A. Negin and L. E. Goleusova, Sovetski Atomni Proyekt: Konyetz Atomnoi Monopoli—Kak Eto Bilo (The Soviet Atomic Project: The End of the Atomic Monopoly and How it Came About) (Arzamas: Nizhny Novgorod, 1995), p. 143. Khariton, however, recalls that the bomb design was finalized before consultation with the aircraft designers. Khariton and Smirnov, Mifi i Realnost, p. 27. 20. A Russian military source suggests that RDS may also stand for “Rossiya Delaet Sama” or “Russia Makes Its Own.” Col. A. V. Nedelin, “Yaderni Vek Otkril Dvyeri Novomu Periodu Istorii” (The Nuclear Century Opened the Door to a New Period of History), Voeno-Istoricheski Zhurnal, no. 6 (1999), p. 45. 21. Vitali Moroz, “Bomba i Sudbi” (The Bomb and Fate), Krasnaya Zvezda, 29 August 1999. 22. Negin and Goleusova, Sovetski Atomnoi Proyekt, p. 192. 23. Zaloga, Target America, p. 77. Russian sources do not confirm this allegedly failed test, though they do note one failed test in 1954. Negin and Goleusova, Sovetski Atomnoi Proyekt, p. 198; Khariton and Smirnov, Mifi and Realnost, pp. 46–47. However, it is conceded that the gap of more than two years between the first and second Soviet nuclear tests suggests that serious technical problems arose surrounding the building of a deliverable bomb. V. I. Batiuk, “Tak Rozhdalsya Mif o Sovetskoi Yadernoi Ugroze” (How the Myth of a Soviet Nuclear Threat Was Born), Voeno-Istoricheski Zhurnal, no. 1 (1998), p. 48. 24. Negin and Goleusova, Sovetski Atomnoi Proyekt, p. 181. Significantly, this account suggests that prior to 1949 the Soviets attempted to use large nonnuclear explosions to make the West believe the USSR possessed nuclear weapons. 25. Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb, p. 267. 26. As one might expect, this estimate appears to have considerably exaggerated the size of the Russian stockpile. While exact Russian figures are still unavailable, Russian military sources note that the USSR initiated serial production of atomic bombs based on the RDS-1 model only in December 1951, and moreover, they were introduced into the armed forces only in 1953–54. Nedelin, “Yaderni Vek Otkril Dvyeri,” p. 46. A recent Russian report suggests that the Sarov plant, which was dedicated to the production of the USSR’s first nuclear weapons, was designed to produce twenty weapons each year, but that early on this goal was revised upward. It remains unclear whether these goals were achieved. Yuri Zavalishin, “Boegolovki ot ‘Avangarda’” (Warheads from [the factory ] ‘Avantgard’), Krasnaya Zvezda, 19 December 1999, p. 4. 27. “A Report to the President Pursuant to the President’s Directive of January 31, 1950” (NSC-68), 7 April 1950, in Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States ( hereafter FRUS), 1950, Vol. 1: National Security Affairs, Foreign Economic Policy, p. 251.

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28. Roger Dingman, “Atomic Diplomacy During the Korean War,” in Sean M. Lynn-Jones, Steven E. Miller, and Stephen van Evera, eds., Nuclear Diplomacy and Crisis Management (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990), p. 120. 29. Ibid., p. 121. 30. Ibid., pp. 136–40. 31. Zaloga, Target America, p. 79. Serial production of the second Soviet bomb, RDS-2, began in 1954. Batiuk, “Tak Rozhdalsya Mif,” p. 48. 32. Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb, p. 230. 33. Ibid.; Andrew P. N. Erdmann, “‘War No Longer Has Any Logic Whatever’: Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Thermonuclear Revolution,” in Gaddis, Gordon, May, and Rosenberg, eds., Cold War Statesmen Confront the Bomb, p. 97. 34. Aaron L. Friedberg, In the Shadow of the Garrison State: America’s AntiStatism and Its Cold War Grand Strategy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000), pp. 130–39. 35. “Memorandum of Discussion at the 131st Meeting of the National Security Council,” 11 February 1953, FRUS 1952–54, Vol. 15: Korea, p. 770. 36. “Memorandum of Discussion at the 143rd Meeting of the National Security Council,” 6 May 1953, ibid., p. 977. 37. Quoted in Conrad C. Crane, “To Avert Impending Disaster: American Military Plans to Use Atomic Weapons During the Korean War,” Journal of Strategic Studies 23 (June 2000): 83. 38. Richard K. Betts, Nuclear Blackmail and Nuclear Balance (Washington DC: Brookings, 1987), p. 37. 39. Ibid., pp. 51–53. 40. Gordon H. Chang, “To the Nuclear Brink: Eisenhower, Dulles, and the Quemoy-Matsu Crisis,” in Lynn-Jones, Miller, and Van Evera, eds., Nuclear Diplomacy and Crisis Management, p. 201. 41. Ibid., p. 211. 42. Betts, Nuclear Blackmail and Nuclear Balance, p. 58. 43. Kaplan, Wizards of Armageddon, p. 112. 44. Zaloga, Target America, p. 83. 45. Kaplan, Wizards of Armageddon, p. 156. 46. Zaloga, Target America, p. 88. 47. Ibid., p. 161. 48. Ibid., p. 80. It is now acknowledged that mostly Soviet pilots were at the controls of the Mig-15s during these air battles. 49. Michail Pervov, Raketnoe Oruzhie Raketnich Voisk Strategichesogo Naznachenia (Missiles of the Strategic Rocket Forces) (Moscow: Violanta, 1999), p. 26. 50. Ibid., pp. 47–48. 51. Ibid., pp. 50–51. Such experiences apparently prompted Soviet commanders to overhaul alerting doctrine, aiming for a system of “permanent readiness.” On these reforms, see Gen. U. A. Yashin and Col. N. K. Monachov, “O Razvitii Teoreticheskich Osnov Boevovo Premenenia i Expluatatsii Raketnich Sistem Pervich Pokolenia” (On the Development of the Theoretical Basis of the Military

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Use and Exploitation of Rocket Systems of the First Generation), Voenaya Mysl, no. 2 (1995), pp. 74–75. 52. Zaloga, Target America, pp. 181–85. 53. Pervov, Raketnoe Oruzhie, p. 55. 54. Zaloga, Target America, p. 140. 55. Pervov, Raketnoe Oruzhie, pp. 60–61. 56. See, for example, Kaplan, Wizards of Armageddon, p. 135. 57. Friedberg, In the Shadow of the Garrison State, p. 139. 58. Betts, Nuclear Blackmail and Nuclear Balance, p. 184. 59. Erdmann, “War No Longer Has Any Logic Whatever,” pg. 106. 60. Ibid., pg. 107. 61. Quoted in Kaplan, Wizards of Armageddon, pg. 138. 62. Gaddis, We Now Know, p. 235. 63. Erdmann, “War No Longer Has Any Logic Whatever,” p. 110. 64. Thomas Christensen, Useful Adversaries: Grand Strategy, Domestic Mobilization, and Sino-American Conflict, 1947–58 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996), p. 196. 65. Betts, Nuclear Blackmail and Nuclear Balance, p. 69. 66. Erdmann, “War No Longer Has Any Logic Whatever,” p. 112. 67. William Burr, “Avoiding the Slippery Slope: The Eisenhower Administration and the Berlin Crisis, November 1958–January 1959,” Diplomatic History 18 (Spring 1994): 179, 203. 68. Betts, Nuclear Blackmail and Nuclear Balance, p. 188. 69. Pervov, Raketnoe Oruzhie, p. 56. 70. Betts, Nuclear Blackmail and Nuclear Balance, p. 101. 71. Philip Nash, “Bear Any Burden? John F. Kennedy and Nuclear Weapons,” in Gaddis, Gordon, May, and Rosenberg, eds., Cold War Statesmen Confront the Bomb, p. 129. 72. Ibid., p. 131. 73. Ibid., p. 132. 74. Schlesinger, quoted in Betts, Nuclear Blackmail and Nuclear Balance, p. 95 75. Marc Trachtenberg, History and Strategy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991), p. 258. 76. Nash, “Bear Any Burden?” p. 134. 77. Ibid., p. 133. Figures from Zaloga, Target America, p. 213. On how post– Cold War revelations buttress portrayals of Kennedy as extremely cautious, see Gaddis, We Now Know, p. 272. 78. Trachtenberg, History and Strategy, p. xi. 79. Russell D. Buhite and W. M. Christopher Hamel, “War for Peace: The Question of an American Preventive War Against the Soviet Union, 1945–55,” Diplomatic History 14 (Summer 1990): 372. 80. Ibid., p. 374. 81. Ibid., p. 373. 82. Ibid., p. 375.

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83. “Memorandum by the Assistant Secretary of State for Congressional Relations (McFall) to the Undersecretary of State (Webb),” 26 January 1950, FRUS 1950, Vol. 1: National Security Affairs, Foreign Economic Policy, p. 140. 84. Ibid., p. 141. 85. “A Report to the President Pursuant to the President’s Directive of January 31, 1950,” 7 April 1950, in ibid., p. 281. 86. Ibid. 87. Buhite and Hamel, “War for Peace,” pp. 377–78. 88. Trachtenberg, History and Strategy, p. 104. 89. Hanson Baldwin, quoted in Trachtenberg, History and Strategy, p. 117. 90. Ibid., p. 115. 91. Ibid., p. 124. 92. Ibid. 93. Rosenberg, “The Origins of Overkill,” p. 26. 94. Buhite and Hamel, “War for Peace,” pp. 378–79. 95. Trachtenberg, History and Strategy, p. 122. 96. “Memorandum by the Central Intelligence Agency,” 12 October 1950, FRUS 1950, Vol. 7: Korea, p. 937. See also ibid., pp. 522–23, 575, 602, 1091, 1106, 1277, 1448; FRUS 1950, Vol. 1: National Security Policy, Foreign Economic Policy, p. 481; and FRUS 1951, Vol. 7: Korea and China, p. 71. 97. Trachtenberg, History and Strategy, p. 122. 98. Ibid., p. 127. 99. “Memorandum of Discussion at the 144th Meeting of the National Security Council,” 13 May 1953, FRUS 1952–54, Vol. 15: Korea, p. 1016. 100. “Summaries Prepared by the NSC Staff of Project Solarium Presentation and Written Reports,” July 1953, FRUS 1952–54, Vol. 2: National Security Affairs, pp. 417–18. 101. Ibid., p. 434. 102. Ibid., p. 416. 103. Ibid., p. 417. 104. Ibid., p. 419. 105. Ibid., p. 434. 106. Trachtenberg, History and Strategy, p. 139. 107. Ibid., p. 140. 108. Ibid. Further evidence for this discussion appears in “Memorandum of Discussion at the 174th Meeting of the National Security Council,” 10 December 1953, FRUS 1952–54, Vol. 15: Korea, p. 1655. 109. Rosenberg, “Origins of Overkill,” p. 34; see also Freedman, Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, p. 126. 110. Gaddis, We Now Know, p. 233. 111. Rosenberg, “Origins of Overkill,” p. 42. 112. Buhite and Hamel, “War for Peace,” p. 373. 113. Ibid. 114. Rosenberg, “Origins of Overkill,” p. 17. 115. Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb, p. 230.

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116. Buhite and Hamel, “War for Peace,” p. 375. 117. Rosenberg, “Origins of Overkill,” p. 26. 118. Ibid., p. 25. 119. Broscious, “Longing for International Control,” p. 32. 120. Rosenberg, “Origins of Overkill,” p. 21. 121. Ibid., p. 34. 122. Erdmann, “War No Longer Has Any Logic Whatever,” p. 98. 123. “Memorandum of Discussion at the 257th Meeting of the National Security Council,” 4 August 1955, FRUS 1955–57, Vol. 19: National Security Policy, p. 98. 124. “Document One: Memorandum Op-36C/jm, 18 March 1954,” International Security 6 (Winter 1981/82), p. 25. 125. Ibid., p. 27. 126. Betts, “A Nuclear Golden Age,” p. 56. 127. Rosenberg, “Origins of Overkill,” p. 40. 128. Ibid., p. 63. 129. Erdmann, “War No Longer Has Any Logic Whatever,” pg. 112. 130. Rosenberg, “Origins of Overkill,” p. 66. 131. Zaloga, Target America, p. 67. 132. Vladislav Zubok and Constantine Pleshakov, Inside the Kremlin’s Cold War from Stalin to Khrushchev (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996), p. 154. 133. Vladislav Zubok, “Stalin and the Nuclear Age,” in Gaddis, Gordon, May, and Rosenberg, eds., Cold War Statesmen Confront the Bomb, pp. 55, 60. 134. Ibid., pp. 56–57. 135. Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb, p. 331. 136. Ibid., p. 332. 137. Freedman, Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, p. 150. 138. Pervov, Raketnoie Oruzhie, p. 29. On the first strike as the basic strategic conception of the Soviet Strategic Rocket Forces, see General U. A. Yashin and General N. K. Monachov, “O Stanovlenii Teoreticheskich Osnov Stroitelstvo i Boevovo Premenenia Raketnich Voisk Strategicheskovo Naznachenia” (On Establishing the Theoretical Basis for the Building and the Military use of the Strategic Rocket Forces), Voenaya Mysl, no. 3 (1997): 77. 139. Gaddis, We Now Know, p. 235. 140. See, for example, Generals Anatoli I. Gribkov and William Y. Smith, Operation ANADYR: U.S. and Soviet Generals Recount the Cuban Missile Crisis (Chicago: Edition Q, 1994), p. 5. 141. Zubok, “Stalin and the Nuclear Age,” p. 58. 142. Ibid. 143. Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb, p. 226. 144. Ibid., p. 227. 145. Kaplan, Wizards of Armageddon, p. 39. 146. Rosenberg, “Origins of Overkill,” p. 16. 147. Anthony Brown, ed., Dropshot: The American Plan for World War III

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Against Russia in 1957 (New York: Dial Press, 1978), p. 126. 148. “A Report to the President Pursuant to the President’s Directive of January 31, 1950,” 7 April 1950, FRUS 1950, Vol. 1: National Security Affairs, Foreign Economic Policy, pp. 265, 268, 281. 149. Trachtenberg, History and Strategy, p. 118. 150. Ibid., p. 119. 151. “Annex to Report to the NSC by the Executive Secretary (Lay),” 22 August 1952, FRUS 1952–54, Vol. 2: National Security Affairs, p. 109. It should be noted that non-Soviet Communist conventional forces also played a role in U.S. calculations. Thus, during the Dien Bien Phu debacle in Indochina, “The constraining factor [mitigating against U.S. intervention and nuclear use] was that this still would have involved committing large numbers of ground forces.” Freedman, Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, p. 89. 152. Rosenberg, “Origins of Overkill,” p. 27. 153. “Memorandum of Discussion at the 364th Meeting of the National Security Council,” 1 May 1958, FRUS, 1958–60, Vol. 3: National Security Policy, Arms Control and Disarmament, p. 88. 154. Rosenberg, “Origins of Overkill,” p. 14. 155. Erdmann, “War No Longer Has Any Logic Whatever,” p. 97; Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb, p. 332. 156. Zubok, “Stalin and the Nuclear Age,” p. 58. 157. Concerning the problem of range, for example, the B-50, essentially a B29 with mid-air refueling technology, entered the force in 1947. 158. Zaloga, Target America, p. 151. 159. Rosenberg, “Origins of Overkill,” p. 17. 160. Brown, Dropshot: The American Plan for World War III, pp. 200–1. 161. Rosenberg, “Origins of Overkill,” p. 17. 162. Ibid., p. 15. 163. Ibid., p. 21; Zaloga, Target America, p. 152. 164. Rosenberg, “Origins of Overkill,” p. 50. 165. Andrew Marshall, quoted in Trachtenberg, History and Strategy, p. 29. 166. Buhite and Hamel, “War for Peace,” p. 382. 167. Trachtenberg, History and Strategy, p. 124. 168. “A Report to the President Pursuant to the President’s Directive of January 31, 1950,” 7 April 1950, FRUS 1950, Vol. 1: National Security Affairs, Foreign Economic Policy, p. 281. 169. Rosenberg, “The Origins of Overkill,” p. 34. 170. See, for example, Broscious, “Longing for International Control,” p. 34; or Buhite and Hamel, “War for Peace,” p. 384. 171. Zubok, “Stalin and the Nuclear Age,” p. 56. 172. “Memorandum of the Substance of Discussion at a Department of StateJoint Chiefs of Staff Meeting,” 27 March 1953, FRUS 1952–54, Vol. 15: Korea, p. 818. 173. “NSC Staff Study: Analysis of Possible Courses of Actions in Korea,” in ibid., 2 April 1953, p. 846.

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174. Erdmann, “War No Longer Has Any Logic Whatever,” pp. 102, 104. 175. Betts, “A Nuclear Golden Age?” p. 40. 176. Brown, Dropshot, pp. 18, 25, 131. On the Europeans as “hostages,” see Freedman, Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, p. 139. On attempts to limit SAC dependence on foreign bases, see Kaplan, Wizards of Armageddon, p. 107. 177. For example, Prime Minister Clement Atlee was so concerned by Truman’s November 1950 suggestion that nuclear weapons were being considered for use in Korea that he immediately flew to Washington to consult with Truman. 178. “Memorandum of Discussion at the 144th Meeting of the National Security Council,” 13 May 1953, FRUS 1952–54, Vol. 15: Korea, p. 1016. 179. “Memorandum of Discussion at the 145th Meeting of the National Security Council,” 20 May 1953, in ibid., p. 1065. 180. Betts’s discussion of Eisenhower’s nuclear decision-making with regard to Korea makes almost no reference at all to Soviet nuclear capabilities, the one exception being a footnote that cites European concerns. Betts, Nuclear Blackmail and Nuclear Balance, pp. 37–47, especially footnote 63 on pp. 41–42. Nor does the Russian military make any claim to have deterred Eisenhower in these circumstances—a claim that does surface regarding later crises. See Nedelin, “Yaderni Vek Otkril Dvyeri,” p. 47. 181. “Memorandum of the Substance of Discussion at a Department of StateJoint Chiefs of Staff Meeting,” 27 March 1953, FRUS 1952–54, Vol. 15: Korea, p. 827. 182. The earliest suggestion that the United States might be devastated by Soviet nuclear weapons is in NSC-68. Here, the estimate is that in 1954 the Soviets could wage a campaign with one hundred weapons and the results would be “serious.” Some isolated studies imply extensive vulnerability before 1954. See Betts, “A Nuclear Golden Age?” p. 44. But this vulnerability was widely felt and recognized by the president only after 1955. Betts, Nuclear Blackmail and Nuclear Balance,” p. 184; Rosenberg, “Origins of Overkill,” p. 40; Erdmann, “War No Longer Has Any Logic Whatever,” p. 109. The Russian military appears to agree that 1954 was the date that “it was first recognized that there was a possibility that the U.S. could sustain unacceptable damage [from a Soviet nuclear attack].” Nedelin, “Yaderni Vek Otkril Dvyeri,” p. 47. 183. These figures are from John L. Gaddis, Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of Postwar American National Security Policy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), p. 286. 184. Warner R. Schilling, “U.S. Strategic Nuclear Concepts in the 1970s: The Search for Sufficiently Equivalent Countervailing Parity,” International Security 6 (Fall 1981): 49. 185. Betts, Nuclear Blackmail and Nuclear Balance, p. 184. 186. Benjamin S. Lambeth, “The Political Potential of Soviet Equivalence,” in Steven E. Miller, ed., Strategy and Nuclear Deterrence (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), pp. 257, 268. 187. Betts, Nuclear Blackmail and Nuclear Balance, p. 181. 188. Ibid.

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189. George Herring, America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1959–75 (New York: McGraw Hill, 1996), p. 127. 190. Ibid., p. 240. 191. Ibid., 274. 192. Betts, Nuclear Blackmail and Nuclear Balance, p. 126. The SAC Commander, when informed of the alert, was said to have continued his golf game. The Joint Chiefs were apparently similarly nonchalant. See p. 127 note 137. 193. Barry M. Blechman and Douglas M. Hart, “The Political Utility of Nuclear Weapons: The 1973 Middle East Crisis,” in Lynn-Jones, Miller, and Van Evera, eds., Nuclear Diplomacy and Crisis Management, p. 342. 194. Betts, Nuclear Blackmail and Nuclear Balance, p. 131. 195. It has been suggested that a nuclear crisis of serious proportions developed in November 1983 because Soviet leaders feared that NATO nuclear exercises, termed Able Archer, might be a cloak for a U.S. first strike against the USSR. See, for example, Peter V. Pry, War Scare: Russia and America on the Nuclear Brink (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1999), pp. 33–44. Pry’s contention that this crisis represented the Cold War’s second-closest brush with nuclear war appears to be an exaggeration. Tensions seem to have been increased by the unfortunate, but entirely fortuitous, timing of a number of coincidences, for example: malfunctioning Soviet early warning satellites (p. 37) and the U.S. Navy’s accidental disabling of a Soviet submarine (p. 40). The coincidence of these events with the NATO nuclear exercises suggests that this episode may be anomalous and not indicative of patterns of stability in the late Cold War. If Pry tried to build a systematic argument supporting the assertion that this crisis was the most dangerous of the Cold War after the Cuban missile crisis, he would, of course, have to compare it to those of the 1950s. 196. “Basic National Security Policy,” 15 March 1956, in FRUS 1955–57, Vol. 19: National Security Policy, p. 258.

chapter 4 1. Pioneering work on this subject was done first by historian Gordon Chang and more recently by William Burr and Jeffrey T. Richelson. See Gordon H. Chang, Friends and Enemies: The United States, China, and the Soviet Union, 1948–1972 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1990); and William Burr and Jeffrey T. Richelson, “Whether to ‘Strangle the Baby in the Cradle’: The United States and the Chinese Nuclear Program, 1960–64,” International Security 25 (Winter 2000/1), pp. 54–99. Research for this chapter was undertaken in Beijing during December 2000 in cooperation with the Foreign Affairs College, Peking University, and the Beijing Institute of Applied Physics and Computational Math. 2. Zhang Zhenjiang and Wang Shen, “Meiguo he Zhongguo de He Baozha” (The U.S. and China’s Nuclear Explosion), Dangdai Zhongguo Shi Yanjiu, no. 3 (May 1999): 31.

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3. John Wilson Lewis and Xue Litai, China Builds the Bomb (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988), p. 115. 4. William Burr and Jeffrey T. Richelson, “A Chinese Puzzle,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist 53, no. 4 (July/ August 1997): 43. 5. “National Intelligence Estimate” 28 July 1959, in FRUS 1958–60, Vol. 19: China, p. 579. 6. “National Intelligence Estimate,” 6 December 1960, in ibid., pp. 740–41; “National Intelligence Estimate,” 13 December 1960, in ibid., p. 746. 7. Lawrence Freedman, Kennedy’s Wars: Berlin, Cuba, Laos, and Vietnam (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 301. 8. Chang, Friends and Enemies, p. 232. 9. Ibid. 10. Lewis and Xue, China Builds the Bomb, pp. 90–103. 11. Ibid., p. 193. 12. Hu Side (Institute of Applied Physics and Computational Math), interview with author, Beijing, 13 December 2000. 13. Burr and Richelson, “Whether to ‘Strangle the Baby in the Cradle,’” p. 64. 14. Chang, Friends and Enemies, p. 237. 15. Ibid. These notes were taken by Roger Hilsman, director of the State Department’s Intelligence Bureau. 16. “Record of the 508th Meeting of the National Security Council,” 22 January 1963, in FRUS 1961–63, Vol. 8: National Security Policy, p. 462. 17. Burr and Richelson, “Whether to ‘Strangle the Baby in the Cradle,’” p. 68. Significant portions of the memo remain classified in the version published in FRUS, 1961–63, Vol. 7: Arms Control and Disarmament, p. 689–91. 18. Burr and Richelson, “Whether to ‘Strangle the Baby in the Cradle,’” p. 69. A less detailed discussion of this point is available in “Memorandum from the Joint Chiefs of Staff to Secretary of Defense McNamara,” 29 January 1963, in FRUS 1961–63, Vol. 7: Arms Control and Disarmament, p. 690. One can only speculate as to the exact meaning of this assertion. On the one hand, certainly China would feel more isolated if the Soviets endorsed the action. More tangibly, the Joint Chiefs might have hoped for detailed targeting information from the Soviets, considering that they had helped to build China’s nuclear weapons infrastructure. 19. Chang, Friends and Enemies, p. 237. A careful review of this issue by a PRC scholar can be found in Zhu Mingquan, “Bufen Hebao Shi Tanpan Guocheng de ‘Zhonguo Yinsu’” (The ‘China Factor’ and the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty), Zhongguo Waijiao, no. 3 (2000), pp. 36–41. 20. Chang, Friends and Enemies, pp. 240–41. 21. This observation comes from Assistant Secretary of State Benjamin Read, who was responsible for communications during the talks. Ibid., p. 242. 22. “Telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in the Soviet Union,” 15 July 1963, in FRUS 1961–63, Vol. 7: Arms Control and Disarmament, p. 801.

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23. Chang, Friends and Enemies, p. 246. 24. See “Telegram from the Embassy in the Soviet Union to the Department of State,” 27 July 1963, in FRUS 1961–63, vol. 7: Arms Control and Disarmament, pp. 858–60. Chang cites an administration official wishing to remain anonymous, who claims that “a joint Soviet preemptive nuclear attack was actually discussed,” though it apparently did not make it to the planning stage. Chang, Friends and Enemies, p. 245. 25. See footnote 7 of “Memorandum from Robert W. Komer of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy),” 26 February 1964, in FRUS 1961–64, vol. 30: China, p. 23. 26. Burr and Richelson, “Whether to ‘Strangle the Baby in the Cradle,’” p. 72. 27. Ibid. Burr and Richelson contend that the president was skeptical of using special forces for this counterproliferation mission because the Bay of Pigs fiasco was fresh in his memory. The Joint Chiefs were also apparently studying the possibility of using paramilitary forces against Chinese nuclear facilities at this time. Ibid., p. 74. 28. Chang, Friends and Enemies, p. 229. 29. Burr and Richelson, “Whether to ‘Strangle the Baby in the Cradle,’” p. 55. 30. Ibid., p. 77. An incomplete discussion of this paper is available in “Highlights from the Secretary of State Rusk’s Policy Planning Meeting,” 15 October 1963, in FRUS 1961–63, Vol. 22: Northeast Asia, pp. 309–402. 31. “Paper Prepared in the Policy Planning Council: ‘An Exploration of the Possible Bases for Action Against the Chinese Communist Nuclear Facilities,’” 14 April 1964, in FRUS 1964–68, Vol 30: China, p. 39. 32. Burr and Richelson, “Whether to ‘Strangle the Baby in the Cradle,’” p. 79. 33. Ibid., p. 79. 34. This is strongly suggested by a note, “I’m for it,” which was scribbled onto a NSC memorandum discussing a preventive strike. See footnote 8 of “Memorandum from Robert W. Komer of the National Security Council Staff of the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy),” 26 February 1964, in FRUS 1964–68, Vol. 30: China, p. 23. 35. “Paper Prepared in the Policy Planning Council: ‘An Exploration of the Possible Bases for Action Against the Chinese Communist Nuclear Facilities,’” 14 April 1964, in FRUS 1964–68, Vol. 30: China, p. 39. See also “Paper Prepared in the Policy Planning Council: ‘The Implications of a Chinese Communist Nuclear Capability,’” undated, in ibid., p. 58. 36. “Memorandum for the Record,” 15 September 1964, in FRUS 1964–68, Vol. 30: China, p. 94. 37. “Memorandum From Robert W. Komer of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy),” 18 September 1964, in ibid., pp. 96–97. 38. See Barry Naughton, “Industrial Policy During the Cultural Revolution:

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Military Preparation, Decentralization, and Leaps Forward,” in William Joseph, Christine Wong, and David Zweig, eds., New Perspectives on the Cultural Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), pp. 153–81. 39. Li Danhui (Institute of Modern History), interview with author, Beijing, 10 December 2000. 40. Chen Xiaodong, Shen Huo Zhi Guang (The Luster of the Magic Fire) (Beijing: Zhonggong Zhongyang Dang Xiao Chubanshe, 1995), p. 169. 41. Ibid. 42. Ibid. 43. Burr and Richelson, “Whether to ‘Strangle the Baby in the Cradle,’”, pp. 84–92. 44. “Memorandum of Conversation,” 17 October 1964, and “Memorandum of Conversation,” 25 October 1964, in FRUS 1964–68, Vol. 30: China, pp. 105, 115. 45. Burr and Richelson, “Whether to ‘Strangle the Baby in the Cradle,’” p. 94. 46. “Memorandum from the Joint Chiefs of Staff to Secretary of Defense McNamara,” 16 January 1965, in FRUS, 1964–68, Vol. 30: China, p. 145. 47. Hans M. Kristensen, “The Elusive Foe: China in U.S. Nuclear War Planning,” unpublished manuscript cited by permission of the author, p. 7. 48. Ibid. 49. Kuan Ha Yim, ed., China and the U.S., 1964–72 (New York: Facts on File, 1975), p. 29. 50. Jim Hershberg and Chen Jian, “Informing the Enemy: Sino-American Signaling and the Vietnam War, 1965,” unpublished manuscript cited by permission of the author, p. 15. 51. Ibid. 52. “Telegram from the Consulate General at Hong Kong to the Department of State,” 19 February 1965, in FRUS 1964–68, Vol. 30: China, pp. 257–59. 53. Chen Jian, “China’s Involvement in the Vietnam War, 1964–69,” China Quarterly, no. 142 (June 1995): 373. 54. Ibid., p. 375. 55. Hershberg and Chen, “Informing the Enemy,” p. 21. 56. Ibid., p. 23. 57. Ibid., p. 26. 58. Li Danhui, interview with author, Beijing, 10 December 2000. 59. Chen, “China’s Involvement in the Vietnam War,” p. 369. 60. Qiang, China and the Vietnam Wars, p. 135. 61. Chen, “China’s Involvement in the Vietnam War,” pp. 375–76. 62. “Memorandum from the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the Sec. of Defense (McNamara),” 2 March 1964, in FRUS 1964–68, Vol. 1: Vietnam, pp. 115–16. 63. “Information Memorandum from the Acting Deputy Under Secretary for Political Affairs (Thompson) to Secretary of State Rusk,” 15 July 1965, in FRUS 1964–68, Vol. 30: China, p. 186. 64. Ibid., p. 187. The others included 1) reunification of Vietnam, 2) destruc-

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tion of the Chinese industrial base, and 3) “even the elimination of the Communist regime in Peiping.” 65. Burr and Richelson, “Whether to ‘Strangle the Baby in the Cradle,’” p. 95. In fact, China’s first SSBN was not launched until 1981. Robert S. Norris, Andrew S. Burrows, and Richard W. Fieldhouse, Nuclear Weapons Databook: Vol. 5: British, French and Chinese Nuclear Forces (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1988), p. 369. 66. See comments by Madame Chiang Kai-shek in “Memorandum of Conversation,” 20 September 1965, in ibid., p. 208. Also see comments by General Khanh in “Memorandum for the Record by the Commanding General, Army Mobility (Sibley),” in FRUS 1964–68, Vietnam Vol. I, p. 667. 67. Kristensen, “The Elusive Foe,” p. 5. 68. Hershberg and Chen, “Informing the Enemy,” pp. 35–57. 69. “Study Prepared by the Special State-Defense Study Group,” in FRUS 1964–68, Vol. 30: China, p. 335. 70. “Special National Intelligence Estimate,” 3 November 1966, in FRUS 1964–68, Vol. 30: China, pp. 415–16. 71. Burr and Richelson, “A Chinese Puzzle,” p. 47. 72. Patrick Tyler, A Great Wall: Six Presidents and China: An Investigative History (New York: Public Affairs, 1999), p. 62. Kissinger denies Tyler’s allegations. Tyler’s most important source on this matter is former secretary of defense Melvin Laird. 73. “Paper Prepared in the Policy Planning Council,” 14 April 1964, in FRUS 1964–68, Vol. 30: China, p. 39. 74. “Memorandum of Conversation,” 11 September 1963, in FRUS 1961–63, Vol. 22: Northeast Asia, pp. 388, 391. 75. See JCS study conclusions cited in footnote 7 of “Memorandum from Robert W. Komer of the National Security Council to Special Assistant for National Security Affairs,” in FRUS 1964–68, Vol. 30: China, p. 23. See also the summary of the paper by Henry Rowen of ISA in the Office of the Secretary of Defense in “Memorandum from Robert W. Komer of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy),” 18 September 1964, in ibid., p. 97. 76. Burr and Richelson, “A Chinese Puzzle,” p. 45. See also Chris Pocock, Dragon Lady: The History of the U-2 Spyplane (Shrewsbury, England: Airlife, 1989). 77. See above, notes 12 and 42. 78. “Memorandum from the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy) to the President,” 10 January 1965, in FRUS 1964–68, Vol. 30: China, p. 144. One PRC expert on nuclear weapons disputed the notion that mission feasibility was a significant problem: “The nuclear facilities are large, visible and were vulnerable to an air strike. . . . U.S. military estimates probably are conservative worst case projections.” Li Bin (Qinghua University), interview with author, Beijing, 18 December 2000. 79. “Paper Prepared in the Policy Planning Council,” 14 April 1964, in FRUS 1964–68, Vol. 30: China, p. 39.

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80. “Memorandum from Robert W. Komer of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy), 18 September 1964, in FRUS 1964–68, Vol. 30: China, p. 98. 81. Ibid., p. 97. 82. See JCS study conclusions cited in footnote 7 of “Memorandum from Robert W. Komer of the National Security Council to Special Assistant for National Security Affairs,” in FRUS 1964–68, Vol. 30: China, p. 23. 83. Burr and Richelson, “Whether to ‘Strangle the Baby in the Cradle,’” p. 54. 84. It is likely that such a plan did exist for use in the event of total war. 85. See JCS study conclusions, cited in footnote 7 of “Memorandum from Robert W. Komer of the National Security Council to Special Assistant for National Security Affairs,” in FRUS 1964–68, Vol. 30: China, p. 23. 86. Burr and Richelson, “Whether to ‘Strangle the Baby in the Cradle,’” p. 75. 87. “Information Memorandum from the Acting Deputy Under Secretary for Political Affairs (Thompson) to Secretary of State Rusk,” 15 July 1965, in FRUS 1964–68, Vol. 30: China, p. 187. Rusk seems to have been particularly disturbed about Japan’s opposition to use of nuclear weapons. See “Memorandum of a Conversation Between Secretary of State Rusk and Prime Minister Khanh,” 18 April 1964, in FRUS 1964–68, Vol. 1: Vietnam, p. 244. 88. “Memorandum of Conversation,” 27 August 1964, in FRUS 1964–68, Vol. 30: China, p. 198. 89. “Memorandum for the Record,” 15 September 1964, in ibid., p. 94. 90. “Paper Prepared in the Policy Planning Council,” 14 April 1964, in ibid., p. 39. 91. Burr and Richelson, “Whether to ‘Strangle the Baby in the Cradle,’” p. 88. 92. Chang, Friends and Enemies, pp. 235–36. 93. “Memorandum from the Assistant Director of Central Intelligence for National Estimates (Kent) to the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs (Harriman),” 8 July 1963, in FRUS 1961–63, Vol. 7: Arms Control and Disarmament, p. 772. 94. Burr and Richelson, “Whether to ‘Strangle the Baby in the Cradle,’” p. 81. 95. “Memorandum of Conversation,” 25 September 1964, in FRUS 1964–68, Vol. 30: China, p. 105. 96. Avery Goldstein, Deterrence and Security, p. 104. 97. Chang, Friends and Enemies, p. 249. 98. Avery Goldstein, Deterrence and Security, p. 97. 99. Hershberg and Chen, “Informing the Enemy,” p. 15. 100. “Memorandum from Secretary of Defense McNamara to President Johnson,” 20 July 1965, in FRUS 1964–68, Vol. 3: Vietnam, p. 178. 101. “Notes of Meeting,” 22 July 1965, in FRUS 1964–68, Vol. 3: Vietnam, p. 215. See also “Memorandum of a Conversation,” 21 July 1965, in ibid., p. 204.

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102. “Memorandum of Conversation,” 20 September 1965, in FRUS 1964– 68, Vol. 30: China, p. 208. 103. “Memorandum of Conversation,” 27 August 1964, in FRUS 1964–68, Vol. 30: China, p. 201. 104. “Telegram from the Embassy in Poland to the Secretary of State,” 29 July 1964, in FRUS 1964–68, Vol. 30: China, p. 73. 105. Hershberg and Chen, “Informing the Enemy,” p. 30. 106. Ibid., p. 31. 107. The one possible exception occurred when Zhou Enlai told a visiting North African journalist in the spring of 1967: “[The] U.S would move to attack China when [the U.S.] was sure it would not affect the stability of the Soviet government. U.S. action against China would involve Chinese reactions against all bases of attack, specifically mentioning Japan, the Philippines, Laos, and Thailand.” See “Memorandum from the President’s Special Assistant (Rostow) to President Johnson,” 20 April 1967, in FRUS 1964–68, Vol. 30: China, p. 546. Although this threat did reach the desk of the president when the journalist agreed to be debriefed by U.S. officials, there are two reasons to be skeptical of the importance of this warning. First, the Chinese learned from the Korean War to choose their messengers carefully, preferring senior diplomats from states with good relations with the United States to journalists from neutral states. Second, by 1967, China and the United States had already arrived at a relatively stable tacit agreement concerning escalation of the Vietnam War. 108. See Avery Goldstein, Deterrence and Security. 109. Analyses of later periods do remark on the survivability of China’s arsenal. Thus, a declassified U.S. nuclear war planning document from 1982 notes, “The acute consciousness developed over a number of years by Chinese leaders of the possibilities [deleted] has generated predilections for concealment and deception in nuclear weapons deployment which could well cause substantial problems in ensuring that all weapons have been destroyed” (my emphases). This statement suggests that it took time for the Chinese to develop survivability and also implies that in prior periods the United States could ensure the destruction of all Chinese nuclear weapons. Kristensen, “The Elusive Foe,” p. 10. 110. Burr and Richelson, “Whether to ‘Strangle the Baby in the Cradle,’” p. 80. 111. Ibid., p. 81. 112. A plausible objection to this analysis is that this test of Chinese minimal deterrence is not sufficiently challenging, given that Chinese delivery systems remained fairly primitive during this period of great U.S.-China tension. However, the Sino-Soviet tensions that fueled the subsequent Sino-American rapprochement preclude this analysis from testing the impact of China’s minimal arsenal on U.S.-China relations during the 1970s. History provides an imperfect laboratory for the social scientist. Nevertheless, China first tested an air-dropped nuclear weapon in May 1965, suggesting that some conclusions about the impact of this nascent arsenal can be deduced. 113. This reports continues, “This assumes timely decision by the U.S. and a

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determination to use requisite force as may be determined by the situation.” This final phrase suggests that a Chinese conventional attack might create a substantial problem but could be dealt with if leaders were willing to respond promptly with nuclear weapons. “Memorandum from the Joint Chiefs of Staff to Secretary of Defense McNamara,” in FRUS 1961–63, Vol. 7: Arms Control and Disarmament, p. 691. 114. “Memorandum from the Assistant Director of Central Intelligence for National Estimates (Kent) to the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs (Harriman),” 8 July 1963, in FRUS 1961–63, Vol. 7: Arms Control and Disarmament, p. 771. 115. “Memorandum for the Record,” 17 October 1964, in FRUS 1964–68, Vol. 30: China, p. 111. 116. Wang Deli (Institute of Applied Physics and Computational Math), interview with author, Beijing, 13 December 2000. 117. Su Hao (Foreign Affairs College), interview with author, Beijing, 11 December 2000. 118. Li Bin, interview with author, Beijing, 18 December 2000. 119. Li Danhui, interview with author, Beijing, 10 December 2000. 120. “Memorandum from the Joint Chiefs of Staff to Secretary of Defense McNamara,” 16 January 1965, in FRUS 1964–68, Vol. 30: China, p. 145. 121. “National Intelligence Estimate,” 10 February 1965, “National Intelligence Estimate,” 10 March 1965, “Special National Intelligence Estimate,” 3 November 1966, in ibid., pp. 147–48, 154, 415–16. According to Lewis and Xue, the Chinese concentrated from an early date on building a thermonuclear warhead, understanding that this weapon might put China over the deterrence threshold. Lewis and Xue, China Builds the Bomb, p. 198. 122. See, for example, “Memorandum from Robert W. Komer of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy),” 23 November 1964, in FRUS 1964–68, Vol. 30: China, p. 130. See also “Study Prepared by the Special State-Defense Study Group,” June 1966, in ibid., p. 339. It is plausible that these fears were implicit and unstated, but it seems noteworthy that the only figure who explicitly raised serious concerns about Chinese nuclear capabilities during this period was Chiang Kaishek. He asserts in a diplomatic note from March 1965, “Our air defense system just cannot afford even [to allow] one of [the PRC bombers] to come through and deliver the weapon.” While many international relations theorists would expect this possibility to induce a more cautious approach, the Kuomindang leader simply requested that extra antiaircraft missiles be stored in reserve. “Telegram from Embassy in the Republic of China to the Department of State,” 23 March 1965, in ibid., p. 155. 123. Zhang Xiaoming (Peking University), interview with author, Beijing, 12 December 2000. 124. Zhang Qingmin (Foreign Affairs College), interview with author, Beijing, 18 December 2000. 125. Shen Zhihua (Peking University), interview with author, Beijing, 10 December 2000.

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126. The author met with four Chinese weapons designers at Beijing’s Institute of Applied Physics and Computational Math. Three—Hu Side, Wang Deli, and Liu Erxun— were skeptical of any deterrent role played by China’s atomic bomb in the Vietnam conflict. A fourth, Chen Xueyin, noted the importance of Chinese conventional forces but also stressed China’s ability to strike U.S. bases in the Pacific. Interviews with author, 13 December 2000. 127. Both surveys of possibilities for escalation in Vietnam emphasize Chinese deterrence, but neither makes any mention of China’s nuclear weapons program. See Shi Yinhong, “Jiashi Shengji Zhanlue ji qi Shibai” (The Gradual Escalation Strategy During the Vietnam War and Its Failure), Meiguo Yanjiu, no. 7 (June 1993): 107; and Li Danhui, “Zhong-Su Guanxi yu Zhongguo de Zhu Yue Kang Mei” (Sino-Soviet Relations and China’s Involvement in the Vietnam War), Dangdai Zhongguo Shi Tanjiu, no. 3 (May 1998): 112. Historically oriented discussions of Chinese nuclear policy and history include Wu Zhan, “He Weishe” (Nuclear Deterrence), Meiguo Yanjiu, no. 2 (February 1988), pp. 39–49; and more recently Zhu Zhengde and Xiong Yan, “Zhongguo He Wuqi Fazhan Jishi” (Recalling the Facts of China’s Development of Nuclear Weapons), Jizhe Xie Tianxia, no. 105 (May 2000): 72–77. 128. Goldstein, Deterrence and Security, p. 298.

chapter 5 1. A “crucial case” is one in which a given theory should be easily demonstrable. If the theory fails even this relatively simple test, then it is unlikely to explain harder cases. Two factors suggest that this is a crucial case. First, since the crisis occurred 4.5 years after the first Chinese test, China’s capabilities were developed to a greater degree than one might expect of other so-called recent proliferators. Indeed, drawing on immense resources, China had succeeded in testing missiles and thermonuclear weapons by 1969. Second, proliferation optimism is assisted by the region’s geographical peculiarities. Soviet cities in the Far East are situated very close to the Chinese border. Also, China’s vast expanses are conducive to the concealment of nuclear weapons. 2. Waltz, “More May Be Better,” p. 87. 3. Interviews were conducted in Moscow during March and May 2000 in cooperation with the Institute of the Far East, and in Beijing and Shanghai during July and August 2000 in cooperation with the Institute of East European, Russian, and Central Asian Studies. 4. It is generally recognized that the Sino-Soviet rupture had a great number of causes: ideological, historical, economic, geopolitical, and personal. On the origins of the break, see Edmund O. Clubb, China and Russia: The Great Game (New York: Columbia University Press, 1971). A more recent comprehensive treatment is Lowell Dittmer, Sino-Soviet Normalization and Its International Implications (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1992).

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5. M. S. Kapitsa. Na Raznich Parralelyach—Zapisky Diplomata (On Different Parallels—Notes of a Diplomat) (Moscow: Kniga I Bizness, 1996), p. 63. 6. Ibid., p. 63. Shen Zhihua downplays such traditional explanations for the Sino-Soviet split as Khrushchev’s proposed joint fleet, emphasizing instead the role of Moscow’s reversal on transferring nuclear weapons. He asserts, “They had come to a written agreement, and the U.S.S.R. was unwilling to honor it. . . . I believe this was an extremely important moment.” Shen Zhihua (Peking University), interview with author, Beijing, 16 July 2000. 7. Alexander Elizavetin, “Peregovory Kosygina i Zhou Enlai v Pekingskom Airoporte,” Problemy Dal’nego Vostoka 5 (1992): 46. 8. Viktor Gobarev, “Soviet Policy toward China: Developing Nuclear Weapons, 1949–1969,” Journal of Slavic Military Studies 12 (December 1999): 33. 9. Even contemporary Chinese accounts appear willing to concede that Soviet militarization of the conflict followed Mao’s inflammatory statements beginning in July 1963. See Li Danhui, “1969 Nian Zhong-Su Bianjie Chongtu: Yuanqi he Jieguo” (The Causes and Consequences of the Border Conflict between China and the Soviet Union in 1969), Dangdai Zhongguo Shi Yanjiu, no. 3 (1996): 42. 10. On China’s motives in the Ussuri Crisis, see Lyle Goldstein, “Return to Zhenbao Island: Who Started Shooting and Why It Matters,” China Quarterly 168 (December 2001): 985–97. 11. A very fresh reexamination of the border clashes can be found in Thomas Robinson, “The Sino-Soviet Border Conflicts of 1969: New Evidence Three Decades Later,” in Mark A. Ryan, David M. Finkelstein, and Michael A. McDevitt (eds.), Chinese Warfighting: The PLA Experience since 1969 (London: M.E. Sharpe, 2003), pp. 198–216. 12. Nikolai Lobodyuk, “Za Tumanami Damanskogo” (Behind the Clouds of Damansky), Nezavisimoe Voennoe Obozrenie, 26 March 1999, p. 3. 13. Vladislav Anikeev, “Bole Damanskogo: Posleslovie k Grustnoy Date” (The Battle of Damansky: Postcript to a Terrible Date), Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 30 March 1999, p. 5. 14. This interpretation of events is supported somewhat by the disproportionately large number of casualties suffered by the Soviets in the 2 March engagement: thirty-one dead, versus twenty Chinese soldiers killed. Richard Wich, SinoSoviet Crisis Politics: A Study of Political Change and Communication (London: Council on East Asian Studies—Harvard University, 1980), p. 105; Neville Maxwell, “The Chinese Account of the 1969 Fighting at Chenpao,” China Quarterly 56 (October/December 1973): 735. 15. Li Danhui (Peking University), interview with author, Beijing, 16 July 2000. 16. Yang Kuisong (Institute of Modern History), interview with author, Beijing, 19 July 2000. 17. Jiang Yi (Institute of East European, Russian, and Central Asian Studies), interview with author, Beijing, 20 July 2000. In her written work on the subject, Li is careful to label the incident as a “self-defense counterattack” (ziwei fanji), pointing to preceding border incidents where the Chinese had suffered casualties.

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Li Danhui, “1969 Nian Zhong-Su,” 46. She nevertheless rejects any notion that the Soviets provoked the major clash on 2 March: “The Russians are correct to blame Mao. . . . Brezhnev was even overseas. The Soviets were really panicked [because] they were absolutely unprepared.” With the notable exceptions of Neville Maxwell and Henry Kissinger, most American assessments are consistent with the conclusion that Chinese forces ambushed Soviet border guards on March 2nd. Maxwell, “The Chinese Account”; Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), p. 722. Kissinger writes, “The skirmishes invariably took place near major Soviet supply bases and far from Chinese communications centers—a pattern one would expect only if the Soviet forces were in fact the aggressors.” Early Western studies that concluded that the 2 March incident was an ambush include Thomas W. Robinson, “The Sino-Soviet Border Dispute: Background, Development, and the March 1969 Clashes,” American Political Science Review 116 (Dec. 1972): 1201; Wich, Sino-Soviet Crisis Politics, p. 104; Harry Gelman, The Soviet Far East Buildup and Soviet Risk-Taking Against China (Santa Monica: Rand R-2943-AF, 1982), p. 32. 18. Yang Kuisong, “The Sino-Soviet Border Clash of 1969: From Zhenbao Island to Sino-American Rapprochement,” Cold War History 1 (August 2000): 28–29. 19. Victor Usov, “Tragediya na Ussuri,” Problemy Dal’nego Vostoka, no. 3 (1994): 86. 20. Regarding these political restrictions, Usov’s research is confirmed by a recent interview with a participant in the battle, retired colonel Dmitri Krupenikov, which was published in “Ostrov Razdora,” Krasnie Zvezda, 13 March 1999, pg. 8. 21. Usov, “Tragediya na Ussuri,” p. 89. The narratives of Kapitsa and Lobodyuk confirm the course of these events. In addition, Lobodyuk relates how the Soviet commander was wounded in a over-hasty commitment of a platoon of the Soviet army’s newest (at that time) T-62 tank. The Chinese apparently succeeded in carting away this damaged lead T-62, causing considerable heartburn to the Soviet high command. Still another narrative of the battle claims that the Chinese were able to gather secrets of considerable importance by examining the instruments inside this captured tank. “No Kto, Skazhitye, Kto zhe Vernyot Tex, Kto Pogib Na Ostrove Damansky?” (Well, Who, After All, Will Return Those Who Died on Damansky Island?), Komsomolskaya Pravda, 2 March 1999, pp. 8–9. 22. Andrei Vladimirov, “Bolshaya Voina za Malenky Ostrov “ (Big Battle for a Small Island), Obshaya Gazeta, 10 March 1999, p. 13. Estimates of casualties (including wounded) during the second engagement are fifty to sixty on the Soviet side and as many eight hundred on the Chinese side. Thomas Robinson, “China Confronts the Soviet Union: Warfare and Diplomacy on China’s Inner Asian Frontiers,” in Cambridge History of China, Vol. 15: The People’s Republic, Part 2, ed. Roderick MacFarquhar and John K. Fairbank (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 261. 23. Wich, Sino-Soviet Crisis Politics, p. 106. 24. Declassified Chinese documents confirm these diplomatic overtures by

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the Soviet side. See “Document No. 5—Zhou Enlai’s Report to Mao Zedong and Mao’s Comments, 22 March 1969,” on the web site of The Cold War International History Project at http//>www.cwihp.si.edu/cwihplib.nsf/1 . . . 7f2a28525677c00686a6, p. 15. 25. Elizavetin, “Peregovory,” p. 50. 26. Wich, Sino-Soviet Crisis Politics, p. 149. 27. Kapitsa, Na Raznich Parellelyach, p. 86. 28. Henry Kissinger, The White House Years (Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1979), p. 183. 29. Wich, Sino-Soviet Crisis Politics, p. 190. 30. Usov observes, “There are many different versions of these negotiations . . . but all versions agree that among the first questions raised by Zhou was whether the Soviets would use nuclear weapons.” Victor Usov (Institute of the Far East), interview with author, Moscow, 29 May 2000. 31. Elizavetin, “Peregovory,” p. 55. 32. Contemporary Chinese accounts of the negotiations are considerably less complete than that offered by Elizavetin. Li Danhui’s 1996 article notes that both sides agreed to preserve the status quo, prevent armed conflict, and pull forces back from the border. She emphasizes that Kosygin was anxious to restore SinoSoviet economic ties. According to this account, nuclear weapons were only mentioned a week later, when Zhou cabled to Kosygin a request that both pledge not to use nuclear weapons first. “1969 Nian Zhong-Su,” p. 49. PRC Cold War historian Niu Jun contends that although during the meeting Zhou accused the Soviets of inventing the crisis to distract Soviet citizens from their troubles at home, after the meeting Zhou is said to have written a memorandum to Mao recommending that China act to calm the situation on the border and accelerate border negotiations with the USSR. Niu Jun, “1969 Nian Zhong-Su Bianjie Chongtu yu Zhonggwo Waijiao Zhanlue de Diaozheng” (The Sino-Soviet Border Clash of 1969 and the Adjustment of Chinese Diplomatic Strategy), Dangdai Zhongguo Shi Yanjiu, no. 1 (1999): 73. 33. Ibid., p. 56. Kapitsa does not mention the question of a preventive strike, which Elizavetin contends was a major issue in the negotiations. He confirms that Kosygin alluded to U.S. interest in a Sino-Soviet war, with which Zhou concurred (p. 83). According to this version, Zhou also emphasized the Chinese intention to resist “to the end” if war broke out (p. 84). Kapitsa’s version focuses on negotiations about the actual border. Kosygin is supposed to have said Soviet forces could not pull back from the border because of the location of Soviet bases, but he did promise to halt all menacing Soviet overflights (pp. 85–89). 34. Li Jingjie (Institute of East European, Russian, and Central Asian Studies), interview with author, Beijing, 17 July 2000. 35. That the Chinese put little faith in Kosygin’s assurances is illustrated by the fact that they were so convinced of an impending Soviet attack that an order was issued to senior leaders on 17 Oct. to evacuate from Chinese cities. See Roderick MacFarquhar, “Succession to Mao and the end of Maoism,” in The Politics of China: The Eras of Mao and Deng, ed. Roderick MacFarquhar (Cambridge:

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Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 264–65. 36. This is the position taken by Christopher Andrew and Oleg Gordievsky in The KGB: The Inside Story of Its Foreign Operations from Lenin to Gorbachev (New York: HarperCollins, 1990), p. 494; and by R. Craig Nation in Black Earth, Red Star: A History of Soviet Security Policy, 1917–1991 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992), p. 267. 37. Ilya Gaiduk (Institute of General History), interview with author, Moscow, 20 March 2000. 38. Li Danhui, Yang Kuisong, and Jiang Yi, interviews with author, Beijing, 16–20 July 2000. 39. Li Danhui, “1969 Nian Zhong-Su,” 47. 40. Gobarev, “Soviet Policy toward China,” p. 43. 41. Valentin Karymov, interview with author, Moscow, 30 May 2000. 42. Lev Deluisin (Institute of Oriental Studies), interview with author, Moscow, 14 March 2000. Christian Ostermann has reviewed relevant documents from the East German archives and concludes, “The documents reveal that the Soviets were nothing less than stunned [by the] level of preparation, violence and weaponry exhibited by the Chinese in carrying out the ambush. . . . [Soviet leaders thought]: ‘Was this the prelude to full-fledged war?’” “East German Documents on the Border Conflict, 1969,” on The Cold War International History Project web site at http://www.seas.gwu.edu/nsarchive/CWIHP/BULLETINS/ b6–7a13htm. 43. Gelman, Soviet Far East Buildup, p. 33. 44. Arkady N. Shevchenko, Breaking with Moscow (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985), p. 165. 45. Valentin Karymov, interview with author, Moscow, 30 May 2000. Eminent Cold War historian Raymond Garthoff cites evidence that Soviet planning went beyond theoretical discussions around the map board to actually include “mock attacks against targets made to resemble nuclear facilities in northwest China.” Raymond Garthoff, Detente and Confrontation: American-Soviet Relations from Nixon to Reagan (Washington, DC: Brookings, 1985), p. 209. 46. Gen. Anatoly Boliatko (ret.) (Institute of the Far East), interview with author, Moscow, 31 May 2000. 47. Lev Deluisin, interview with author, Moscow, 14 March 2000. 48. Col. Viktor Gobarev (ret.), interview with author, Washington, DC, 4 November 1999. 49. Ibid. 50. Richard Price and Nina Tannenwald, “Norms and Deterrence,” p. 149. 51. Harrison Salisbury, War between China and Russia (New York: W. W. Norton, 1969), p. 172. 52. Gobarev, “Soviet Policy toward China,” p. 40. 53. Victor Gobarev, interview with author, Washington, DC, 4 November 1999. 54. Pavel Podvig (Center for Arms Control Studies, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology), interview with author, Moscow, 14 March 2000.

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55. Gen. Anatoly Boliatko, interview with author, Moscow, 31 May 2000. 56. Development of conventional options could conceivably be driven by motives other than norms. But this would have been a problematic method of reducing risk, because of the “use ‘em or lose ‘em” problem. Thus, even if Chinese nuclear facilities were struck by conventional ordinance, there would be an incentive to launch nuclear weapons before they were entirely destroyed. 57. Pavel Podvig, interview with author, Moscow, 14 March 2000; Raymond Garthoff, interview with author, Washington, DC, 7 January 2000. 58. See, for example, Sumit Ganguly, Conflict Unending: India-Pakistan Tensions since 1947 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), p. 109. 59. John W. Lewis and Xue Litai, China Builds the Bomb, p. 213. 60. Charles Murphy asserts that such deployments occurred in the summer of 1970, not before, because China was thought to lack a suitable thermonuclear warhead. Charles H. Murphy, “Mainland China’s Evolving Nuclear Deterrent,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 28 (January 1972): 31. Gelman asserts that the DF-3 was certainly not deployed (The Soviet Far East Buildup, p. 43). The Nuclear Weapons Databook gives the Chinese twenty DF-2s in 1969 (Norris, Burrows, and Fieldhouse, Nuclear Weapons Databook, p. 362). According to Lewis and Xue, DF-2s were first deployed in 1966, but they were sited in northeast China to target U.S. bases in Japan. They do note deployments to cope with the Soviet threat, but not before 1971 (China Builds the Bomb, pp. 212–13). A subsequent study by John Lewis and Hua Di reports that the DF-2 “entered the arsenal” in September 1966 but still lacked its nuclear warhead. “China’s Ballistic Missile Programs,” International Security 17 (Fall 1992): 15. 61. Norris, Burrows, and Fieldhouse, Nuclear Weapons Databook, pp. 359, 366–68; Lewis and Hua, “China’s Ballistic Missile Programs,” p. 22. 62. Gelman, The Soviet Far East Buildup, p. 43. 63. Lewis and Xue, China Builds the Bomb, pp. 201–5; Chen Xiaodong, Shen Huo Zhi Guang (The Lustre of the Magic Flame) (Beijing: Zhonggong Zhongyang Dang Xiao Chubanshe, 1995), pp. 185–88. 64. Patrick Tyler, A Great Wall: Six Presidents and China: An Investigative History (New York: Public Affairs, 1999), pp. 65, 434–35 note 42. DIA Director General Daniel O. Graham, by contrast, held that a Soviet attack “was imminent” (p. 65) Also note that despite the overall confidence of the CIA, neither Director Richard Helms nor John Huizenga, director of the Board of National Estimates, “could . . . rule out a limited Soviet strike on China’s nuclear complexes” (p. 65). 65. Ibid., p. 68. Tyler gathered this information from interviews with former CIA officials. Few strategists have concurred with the proliferation optimists’ interpretation of the 1969 crisis. In the scholarly literature, only Harvey Nelsen believes early Chinese missile deployments had a deterrent effect. He writes, “Since the liquid-fueled missiles were vulnerable to preemptive attacks, deployment locations were chosen with the aim of preventing discovery by aerial reconnaissance. The PRC was quite successful in this; even the sophisticated satellite-imaging of the US was slow to discover missile sites and the cruder Soviet systems must have

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had trouble finding even a small proportion of them.” “Continuity and Change in Chinese Strategic Deterrence,” in Chinese Defense and Foreign Policy, ed. June T. Dreyer and Ipyong J. Kim (New York: Praeger, 1989), p. 257. This author is right to identify Soviet satellite imaging technology as a crucial element in this story. This weakness may explain the large number of overflights apparently conducted by the Soviets in the summer of 1969. According to Kapitsa, this issue was raised by Zhou during his meeting with Kosygin, which suggests that the number of overflights was great (p. 89). It is important to note that neither Waltz nor Nelsen examined the 1969 crisis specifically; rather they were generalizing about Chinese prospects during the 1970s as a whole, and therefore the above appraisal should be treated with caution. 66. Tyler, A Great Wall, p. 73. Examining the history of Chinese nuclear testing, one notes that the last Chinese test had occurred in December 1968, indicating that a “normal” testing schedule would have called for at least one test in late 1969. Moreover, the year that witnessed the greatest frequency in Chinese nuclear tests—four in 1976 (three in three months)—does not correlate with any particular political-military crisis. For a schedule of Chinese nuclear testing to 1978, see Lewis and Xue, China Builds the Bomb, pp. 244–45. 67. Yang, “The Sino-Soviet Border Clash of 1969,” p. 36. 68. Melvin Gurtov and Byon-Moo Hwang, China under Threat: The Politics and Strategy of Diplomacy (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980), p. 200. Examining subsequent decisions in the structuring of China’s nuclear forces, Gelman concludes that “Soviet steps in August may have encouraged doubts about the adequacy and survivability of the Chinese nuclear deterrent” (Soviet Far East Buildup, p. 43). In 1972, one defense analyst estimated that China “could acquire a limited but credible second-strike capability in five to seven years,” by 1979 at the earliest (Murphy, “Mainland China’s Evolving Nuclear Deterrent,” p. 34). 69. Edward Luttwak, “The PRC in Soviet Grand Strategy,” in China, the Soviet Union and the West, ed. Douglas Stuart and William Tow (Boulder: Westview, 1982), p. 267. 70. William C. Green and David Yost, “Soviet Military Options Regarding China,” in China, the Soviet Union and the West, ed. Stuart and Tow, p. 138. 71. Raymond Garthoff (Brookings Institution), interview with author, Washington, DC, 7 January 2000. 72. See, for example, Avery Goldstein, Deterrence and Security in the 21st Century, pg. 52. 73. Ibid., p. 87 note 69. 74. Ibid., p. 98. 75. Ibid., p. 89. 76. It is worth noting that American analyses of deterrent potential may generally be biased by extremely conservative requirements for “assured destruction.” On this point see Geoffrey Kemp, Nuclear Forces for Medium Powers, Adelphi Papers 106–7 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1974), p. 2. 77. Shevchenko, Breaking with Moscow, p. 166. 78. Elizavetin, “Peregovory,” p. 46.

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79. Ibid. 80. Lewis and Xue, China Builds the Bomb, pp. 89, 97, 99, 115, 143. 81. Col. V. Stefashin, “Evolutsiia Voennoy Strategii Kitaya” (The Evolution of China’s Military Strategy), Voennaya Mysl 3 (March 1994): 73. 82. Col. Vitaly Shlykov (ret.) (Council on Foreign and Defense Policy), interview with author, Moscow, 16 March 2000. Shlykov oversaw the development of annual reviews of foreign military strength during the early 1970s and thus was privy to the reports on China developed in the years after the crisis. 83. Alexei Voskressenski (Moscow State Institute for International Relations), interview with author, Moscow, 20 March 2000. Of all the Russian specialists interviewed, only Gaiduk approached the position of the proliferation optimists, disagreeing with Voskressenski: “I don’t exclude the possibility that the Ussuri crisis could have played the same role as the Caribbean crisis in the Soviet-American relationship.” 84. Gen. Anatoly Boliatko, interview with author, Moscow, 31 May 2000. Boliatko sees the nuclear factor as one of several that deterred the Soviets, but ranked other factors, particularly demographics and poor prospects for conventional war, as much more decisive. 85. Victor Gobarev, interview with author, Washington, DC, 4 November 2000. 86. Lev Deluisin, interview with author, Moscow, 14 March 2000. 87. Shen Dingli (Fudan University), interview with author, Shanghai, 27 July 2000. 88. Yang Kuisong, interview with author, Beijing, 19 July 2000. Shen Zhihua, Li Danhui, and Li Jingjie all discounted any deterrent role for nuclear weapons in the 1969 crisis. Only Jiang Yi inclined toward the proliferation optimist position, but even he describes nuclear weapons as a “minor factor.” Jiang Yi, interview with author, Beijing, 20 July 2000. 89. “Conversation between Mao Zedong and E. F. Hill,” in All under Heaven is Great Chaos—Beijing, the Sino-Soviet Border Clashes, and the Turn toward Sino-American Rapprochement, 1968–69, on the web site of the Cold War International History Project at http//>www.cwihp.si.edu/cwihplib.nsf/1 . . . 7f2a28525677c00686a69. 90. “Report by Four Chinese Marshals—Chen Yi, Ye Jianying, Niew Rongzhen, and Xu Xiangqian—to the CCP Central Committee, ‘Our Views About the Current Situation,’ 17 September 1969,” ibid. The four marshals make one rather cryptic reference to China’s minimal deterrent, but, apparently unsatisfied with this security, they conclude, “Even the use of nuclear weapons cannot conquer an unbending people. In the final analysis, the outcome of a war will be determined by the continuous fighting of the ground forces.” Ibid., 21. 91. Elizavetin, “Peregovory,” p. 56. 92. Wich, Sino-Soviet Crisis Politics, p. 180. 93. Ibid., p. 181. 94. Kissinger, White House Years, p. 182. 95. See, for example, Shevchenko, Breaking with Moscow, p. 166.

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96. See, for example, Avery Goldstein, Deterrence and Security in the 21st Century, p. 103. 97. The United States could have supplied the naval component of a SinoSoviet war relatively cheaply, but this contribution probably would have been negligible. 98. Kissinger, White House Years, pp. 185–86. 99. Peter Rodman (Nixon Center), interview with author, Washington DC, 4 November 1999. 100. On this point, Patrick Tyler explains, “America had few options. Two of the largest armies in the world were facing each other on the remote landmass of Asia, where the US had no allies, no bases and no means to interpose itself between these overpowering forces. If the Soviets attacked Chinese nuclear installations, there was no way to stop it. Short of an American nuclear attack on the Soviet Union—in other words, World War III—there was nothing Washington could do” (A Great Wall, p. 66). U.S. strategic forces do appear to have gone on alert during October 1969. There is little evidence, however, to suggest that this alert affected Soviet calculations. Tyler posits a radically new interpretation of U.S. decision-making in this period, suggesting that the Nixon administration was weighing the advantages of cooperating with a Soviet attack against China, hoping that the Soviets might halt arms shipments to North Vietnam as a return favor. Thus, he presents evidence that the administration ordered a classified study of how the United States might mount an attack on China (p. 62). During the October 1969 alert by U.S. strategic forces, therefore, Tyler finds that several B-52 squadrons, which were originally targeted in the SIOP on China, sat fueled and ready: “There was no mention of what the U.S. role would be, how the B-52 would respond—whether they would participate with, or retaliate against, the Soviet Union” (p. 67). Another theory holds that this higher level of alert was not even related to the Sino-Soviet crisis, but rather to new Soviet SSBN patrol patterns. See Bruce Blair, The Logic of Accidental Nuclear War (Washington DC: Brookings, 1993), pp. 180, 339 note 15. A very recent study by William Burr and Jeffrey Kimball uses declassified documents to illustrate that this alert was directed at coercing Soviet cooperation on Vietnam, and was not related to the Sino-Soviet crisis. See their “Nixon’s Nuclear Ploy,” on the web site of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists at http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/2003/jf03/ jf03burr_print.html, accessed 14 February 2003. 101. However, as Garthoff notes, this problem did not stay the Soviet hand with respect to Czechoslovakia in 1968, nor did this action disrupt the superpower detente for very long. Raymond Garthoff, interview with author, Washington, DC, 7 January 2000. 102. Jiang Yi contends, “It was not that the U.S. would interfere [in a SinoSoviet war], but if the USSR fought China, it would not have the strength to confront the U.S.” Jiang Yi, interview with author, Beijing, 20 July 2000. Luttwak also makes this argument, especially with respect to nuclear forces. Luttwak, “PRC in Soviet Grand Strategy,” p. 268; Gobarev, “Soviet Policy toward China,” p. 26.

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103. See, for example, Karl, “Proliferation Pessimism,” p. 103. 104. The sudden withdrawal of Soviet military aid in 1960 revealed substantial gaps in China’s military-industrial complex that later impaired the further development of its conventional forces. 105. The Chinese advantage of shorter supply lines could not be applied if the fighting occurred in or around the remote western province of Xinjiang. 106. See, for example, Michael Pillsbury, “Future Sino-American Security Ties: The View from Tokyo, Moscow, and Peking,” International Security 1 (Spring 1977): 136. 107. Elizavetin, “Peregovory,” p. 46. An article appearing in Pravda on 19 August asserted, “There is an enormous gap separating China’s clamorous declarations and its real potentialities as a threat to the Soviets.” Wich, Sino-Soviet Crisis Politics, p. 188. 108. Gobarev, “Soviet Policy toward China,” p. 28. 109. Thomas Robinson, “China Confronts the Soviet Union,” p. 292. Concerning readiness, Usov observes, “Traveling to the border in 1971, I was told that border defenses were only built up in the aftermath of the crisis. Events demonstrated that readiness had to be increased.” Victor Usov, interview with author, Moscow, 29 May 2000. 110. Victor Gobarev, interview with author, Washington, DC, 4 November 1999. The fact that Soviet buildup in the Far East during the early 1970s, described as “startlingly swift, broad and deep” and which plateaued at more than fifty divisions at high readiness by mid-decade, suggests the extent of the insecurity felt in 1969, when far fewer forces were in place. Thomas Robinson, “China Confronts the Soviet Union,” pp. 291–92. 111. Col. Vasily Shlykov, interview with author, Moscow, 16 March 2000. Contrasting the crisis of 1969 with the Sino-Soviet balance in the early 1980s, Luttwak also questions the notion of Soviet conventional superiority in 1969: “At the earlier date, Soviet military capabilities against the PRC were already very great but only at the two extreme ends of the intensity spectrum: for border skirmishing at one end and for the general nuclear bombardment of Chinese cities at the other. In between, the Soviet ability to wage nonnuclear war was quite small.” Comparing the earlier situation to the early 1980s, he notes, “Instead of the huts, tents, and dirt roads of the post-1967 days, there is now a full panoply of bases . . . railway spur lines . . . hard surface roads . . . headquarters and communications centers . . . supply depots, and repair facilities . . . as a result of [a] very great investment in fixed construction and ancillary equipment.” Luttwak, “The PRC in Soviet Grand Strategy,” pp. 268–69. 112. Yang Kuisong, interview with author, Beijing, 19 July 2000. 113. Jiang Yi, interview with author, Beijing, 20 July 2000. 114. See statement by Deng Xiaoping to Kissinger, cited in Goldstein, Deterrence and Defense in the 21st Century, p. 102 note 98. 115. Shevchenko, Breaking with Moscow, p. 165. 116. Gen. Anatoly Boliatko, interview with author, Moscow, 31 May 2000. 117. Yang Kuisong, interview with author, Beijing, 19 July 2000. 118. Li Danhui, interview with author, Beijing, 16 July 2000.

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119. See, for example, Karl, “Proliferation Pessimism,” p. 103; or Scott Sagan, “The Perils of Proliferation: Organization Theory, Deterrence Theory, and the Spread of Nuclear Weapons,” International Security 18 (Spring 1994): 85. 120. Ilya Gaiduk, interview with author, Moscow, 20 March 2000. 121. Predictably, a Chinese “parting shot” press release of October 10 made no mention of China’s nuclear arsenal but rather stressed China’s advantages: “Should a handful of war maniacs dare to raid China’s strategic sites . . . that will be war and the 700 million Chinese people would deal with the aggression.” Garthoff, Detente and Confrontation, p. 211. 122. Lewis and Xue, China Builds the Bomb, p. 214. 123. See Figure 5.1. 124. Quoted in Lewis and Xue, China Builds the Bomb, p. 215. 125. Avery Goldstein, “Understanding Nuclear Proliferation: Theoretical Explanation and China’s National Experience,” Security Studies 2 (Spring/Summer 1993): 252–53 note 58. 126. Lewis and Xue, China Builds the Bomb, p. 214. 127. Deputy Chief of Staff Zhang Aiping, quoted in ibid. 128. King C. Chen, China’s War with Vietnam (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1987), p. 108. 129. Ibid., p. 109. 130. Hemen Ray, China’s Vietnam War (New Delhi: Radiant Publishers, 1983), pg. 104. 131. Douglas Pike, Vietnam and the Soviet Union: Anatomy of an Alliance (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1986), p. 203. 132. Ibid.

chapter 6 1. It will be objected that China also achieved nuclear weapons status during this period. This is true, and the event did cause significant unease in India and elsewhere, as we have seen, but the focus of this study is rather on the dynamic that ensues between an established nuclear power and a challenging proliferator. In this case, the ten years separating the two nations’ first nuclear tests suggests that China’s monopoly was more entrenched than, for example, the U.S. monopoly after World War II, which only lasted five years. 2. Interviews for this chapter were conducted in Beijing and Shanghai during July and August 2000. 3. Wang Hongwei, Ximalaya Shan Qingjie: Zhong-Yin Guanxi Yanjiu (The Himalayan Sentiment: A Study in Sino-Indian Relations) (Beijing: Zhongguo Zangxue Chuban She, 1997), p. 233. 4. Wang Zhongxing, “60 Niandai Zhong-Yin Bianjing Chongtu yu Zhongguo Bianfang Budui de Ziwei Fangong Zuozhan” (The Sino-Indian Border Clash of the 1960s and the Chinese Border Guard’s Counterattack in Self-Defense), Dan-

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gdai Zhongguo Shi Yanjiu, no. 5 (1997): 23. 5. Bhim Sandhu, Unresolved Conflict: China and India (New Delhi: Radiant Publishers, 1988), p. 147. 6. Ibid., p. 148. 7. Steven A. Hoffman, India and the China Crisis (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), pp. 174–75; Sandhu, Unresolved Conflict, p. 156. 8. Chris Smith, India’s Ad Hoc Arsenal: Direction or Drift in Defense Policy (New York: SIPRI/Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 76. 9. The relationship between Tibetan nationalism and India is well-known. Less widely understood, however, is that China has responded by stirring up ethnic rebels in India’s northeast, for example in Nagaland. On China’s training of the Nagas, see Sampooran Singh, India and the Nuclear Bomb (New Delhi: S. Chand, 1971), p. 77. 10. Raju G. C. Thomas, Indian Security Policy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986), p. 27. 11. Chris Smith, India’s Ad Hoc Arsenal, p. 85. 12. See, for example, Lt. Gen. P. S. Bhagat, The Shield and the Sword: India 1965 and After—The New Dimensions (New Delhi: Vikas, 1974). 13. Sun Shihai and Zhu Bian, Yindu de Fazhan Jiqi Dui Wai Zhanlue (India’s Development and Its Foreign Policy Strategy) (Beijing: Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Chubanshe, 2000), p. 278. 14. Sumit Ganguly, Conflict Unending, p. 103. 15. “Mao’s Bang,” Hindustan Times, 19 October 1964, p. 7. 16. George Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb: The Impact on Global Proliferation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), p. 70. Smith places the definitive decision in late 1965 (p. 180). 17. Chris Smith, India’s Ad Hoc Arsenal, p. 181. 18. Days after the Chinese test, President Johnson pledged support to any states threatened by Chinese nuclear blackmail. The extent of this reliance is illustrated in Sanat Biswas, “China’s H-bomb,” Hindustan Times, 9 July 1967, p. 9. Biswas writes reassuringly, “The U.S. knows the location of virtually all the major Chinese air bases and will quickly discover the location of any missile sites.” The intensifying Sino-Soviet conflict at the end of the 1960s led to increased confidence in the Soviet deterrent. 19. Thomas, Indian Security Policy, p. 28. 20. Perkovich concedes that “an overt bomb building option was untenable” (India’s Nuclear Bomb, p. 84) Yet many of his broader conclusions become tenuous if one posits that India moved deliberately, albeit secretly, to build nuclear weapons. Indeed, Perkovich repeatedly asserts that bureaucratic momentum and domestic politics, rather than strategic calculation, kept India’s nuclear efforts moving forward (p. 85). But, given the secret nature of these deliberations and plans, it is quite plausible that such calculations were made, and were even decisive. On the necessity of secrecy, see Col. R. Rama Rao, “Why We Should Go Nuclear,” Hindustan Times, 13 April 1970, p. 9. Rao asserts, “A decision to go nuclear need not be announced.” On secrecy in these deliberations, see P.

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Chakravarty, “Bomb Issue Generates Heat Again,” Hindustan Times, 1 April 1970, p. 1. Here, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi is described as offering evasive replies to the nuclear queries of members of the Lok Sabha, and then telling them that “disclosure of the information and an open discussion on [the nuclear question] would not be in the public interest.” Even Chinese specialists accept that China was a major factor in India’s early decision to develop nuclear weapons. Shen Dingli, interview with author, Shanghai, 27 July 2000; Sun Shihai, interview with author, Beijing, 31 July 2000. In his most recent appraisal of India’s nuclear program, Sumit Ganguly cites both domestic and strategic incentives (Conflict Unending, p. 101). 21. G. D. Deshingkar, “China’s Earth Satellite: The Case for an Indian Bomb,” China Report 6 (May–June 1970): 28. 22. This initiative can be seen as an effort “to enable India to emerge as a threshold nuclear power.” Bhabani Sen Gupta, Nuclear Weapons? Policy Options for India (New Delhi: Sage, 1983), p. 4. By contrast, Perkovich takes the report at its word, citing Vikram Sarabhai’s antinuclear convictions (India’s Nuclear Bomb, p. 152). His further argument that India’s civilian and military space programs have little or no relationship—on the basis that early military rockets used liquid fuel, while civilian rockets use solid fuel (p. 155)—is also less than persuasive. 23. Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, p. 149. 24. Ibid., p. 163. 25. Five days after the Indo-Pakistani hostilities had broken out, Chinese forces appeared to be going to a heightened state of alert. Two days after that, a detachment of the U.S. Seventh Fleet, led by the USS Enterprise, sailed for the subcontinent, arriving in the Bay of Bengal on 15 December. Perhaps not surprisingly, Chinese analyses cite the American threat implicit in the deployment of the Enterprise as a major factor in Gandhi’s 1974 decision to test a nuclear device. Sun and Zhu, Yindu de Fazhan, p. 279. On 16 December, Beijing seems to have made a veiled threat to intervene by passing a diplomatic note to the Indian ambassador claiming that Indian forces had made intrusions into Tibet. See Robert Jackson, South Asian Crisis: India, Pakistan and Bangladesh (New York: Praeger, 1974), p. 140. It thus seems highly plausible that these moves by Pakistan’s coalition partners would cause New Delhi to reevaluate its security strategy. There is also some evidence of a Soviet alert along the Chinese border. For a discussion of its significance, see Garthoff, Detente and Confrontation, p. 282. 26. Chris Thomas, India’s Security Policy, p. 45. Other factors contributing to India’s doubts concerning Moscow’s extended deterrent include Indo-Soviet frictions over the equivocal position of the USSR (particularly relative to the United States and Britain) during the 1962 war and India’s overt criticism of the invasion of Czechoslovakia. 27. Recent discussions of the Indian nuclear program seek to highlight the domestic political incentives for Gandhi to order the test. Chris Smith, India’s Ad Hoc Arsenal, p. 189; and Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, p. 177. While they concede that the poor economic situation and Gandhi’s sagging popularity prob-

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ably played some role, these studies exaggerate this factor and deny the underlying strategic motive. Given that all can agree the test required approximately two years of intense preparation, the domestic political explanation, therefore, falls short. Indeed, Perkovich writes, “1972 arrived with Indira Gandhi in an unassailable position” (p. 166). 28. Chris Smith, India’s Ad Hoc Arsenal, p. 188. One simple reason for China’s mild reaction to the Indian test in 1974 is that PRC propaganda had insisted for years that the developing world states should “break the superpower monopoly” on nuclear weapons. Opposing India’s right to follow China’s course would obviously have been hypocritical. Wang Hongwei (Academy of Social Sciences), interview with author, Beijing, 31 July 2000. 29. Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, p. 187. 30. Asahi Shimbum, 6 June 1974, cited in B. M. Kaushik, “The Indian Nuclear Test, China and Pakistan,” China Report 10 (July–August 1974): 19. 31. See “Annual Report of the Ministry of [Indian] External Affairs for the Year 1975–76 [extract],” in R. K. Jain, ed., China—South Asian Relations, 1947– 80, Volume 2 (New Delhi: Harvester Press, 1981), pp. 464–65. 32. Zhao Weiwen (China Institute of Contemporary International Relations), interview with author, Beijing, 3 August 2000. See also Zhao Weiwen, Yin-Zhong Guanxi Fengyun Lu (A Record of Chinese-Indian Relations) (Beijing: Shi Shi Chu Ban She, 2000), pp. 234–35; Sun and Zhu, Yindu de Fazhan, p. 282. 33. Norris, Burrows, Fieldhouse, Nuclear Weapons Databook, Volume V, p. 359. 34. Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, p. 201. 35. On this purchase, see Chris Smith, India’s Ad Hoc Arsenal, pp. 99–103. 36. Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, p. 244. 37. Ibid., p. 247. 38. According to Zhao Weiwen, Indian aggressiveness in 1986 was a reaction to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s stated intention to take a more neutral stance regarding Sino-Indian relations. She explains, “The Indians wanted to see the Soviet reaction. Gandhi ordered a limited provocation. It was a probe. When the USSR did not support India, they quickly wrapped it up. Nobody wanted to fight a big war.” Zhao Weiwen, interview with author, Beijing, 3 August 2001. See also Zhao, Yin-Zhong Guanxi Fengyun Lu, pp. 291–95. 39. “China’s Hardening Stand,” Hindustan Times, 16 December 1986, p. 9. 40. Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, p. 289. This account also cites Indian newspaper reports of Chinese nuclear deployments to Tibet during the crisis. The Chinese side denied these reports. Perkovich notes that K. Subrahmanyam, a well-known Indian defense analyst, commented subsequently that “China had deployed [short- and medium-range] missiles in Tibet from the early 1970s” (p. 547). Thus, it is difficult to assess whether these “deployments” were related to the crisis or not. 41. There are many reasons for this shift in the balance of conventional military power. India has always viewed China as a first-order threat. The 1962 loss spurred reforms in preparedness for mountain warfare, which were well in

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place by the 1980s. In addition, the Indian armed forces received modern equipment from the USSR during the 1970s and 1980s. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA), on the other hand, has never considered India a first-order threat. China was weakened by the turbulence of the Cultural Revolution and lacked access to modern Western or Soviet equipment during the 1970s and 1980s. and was a low priority for reform during the early 1980s. Chinese sources concede that India had an edge in conventional weapons technology during this period. Zhao, Yin-Zhong Guanxi Fengyun Lu, p. 273. According to Tellis, India retains the conventional edge in the border region at present, but there is great concern about improved Chinese conventional capabilities, especially after 2010. Ashley Tellis, India’s Emerging Nuclear Posture (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2001), pp. 72–73. 42. Cited in Gupta, Nuclear Weapons? p. 112. 43. Cohen, quoted in Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, p. 289. 44. Chen Lineng, “Yindu He Nengli yu He Zhengsi” (India’s Nuclear Potential and Nuclear Policy), Guoji Zhanwang 24 (1996): 17. 45. Sang Zhongli, “Yindu He Zhanlue Poxi” (Analyzing Indian Nuclear Strategy), Xiandai Bingqi, no. 8 (1998): 2. 46. Stephen Cohen wrote in 1991 that India had “been engaged in a kind of nuclear diplomacy for several years” (“Nuclear Neighbors,” in Stephen Cohen, ed., Nuclear Proliferation in South Asia [Boulder, CO: Westview, 1991], p. 12). Chris Smith also assumes that India “possessed a nuclear capability” by the 1980s (India’s Ad Hoc Arsenal, p. 191). 47. Hoffman, India and the China Crisis, p. 231; Du Youkang (Shanghai Institute for International Relations), interview with author, Shanghai, 28 July 2000. 48. See Shri Prakash, “India-China Relations: A Comparative View of the 1950s and Early 1990s,” India Quarterly 102 (July–September 1996): 17. 49. Richard Weixing Hu, “India’s Nuclear Bomb and Future Sino-Indian Relations,” East Asia 17 (Spring 1999): 45. 50. Wang Hongyu, “Sino-Indian Relations—Present and Future,” Asian Survey 35 (June 1995): 551. 51. Hu, “India’s Nuclear Bomb,” p. 46. The relaxation of tensions has paid strategic dividends for India in the form of redeployments of mountain divisions and air squadrons away from the border with China, allowing for greater flexibility in dealing with Pakistan. J. Mohan Malik, “China-India Relations in the PostSoviet Era: The Continuing Rivalry,” China Quarterly 142 (June 1995): 320. 52. Malik, “China-India Relations,” p. 319. 53. Hu, “India’s Nuclear Bomb,” p. 55. 54. Ibid. 55. Cheng Ruisheng (China Institute of International Relations), interview with author, Beijing, 21 July 2000. 56. Ibid. 57. Ma Jiali (China Institute of Contemporary International Relations), interview with author, Beijing, 3 August 2000. 58. Shen Dingli (Fudan University), interview with author, Shanghai, 27 July 2000.

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59. Major General D. K. Palit, War in High Himalaya: The Indian Army in Crisis, 1962 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991), p. 22. 60. War Department, Field Manual FM 70-10: Mountain Operations (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1947), p. 2. 61. Ibid., p. 3. 62. Ravi Rikhye, “The Indo-Tibetan Border Today: Some Military Implications,” China Report 24 (July–September 1988): 289. 63. Brigadier General J. P. Dalvi, Himalayan Blunder (Bombay: Thacker, 1969), pp. 316, 321. 64. Ibid., p. 360. 65. Neville Maxwell, India’s China War (London: Jonathan Cape, 1970), p. 423. The claim is dubious given the seemingly panicked pleas that Nehru was writing to the West, which I noted above. Moreover, Nehru had a political incentive to claim that he had been “in control” of the war situation, despite India’s flagrant military failure. 66. On this long-standing strategy, see Thomas, Indian Security Policy, p. 19. According to Thomas, this “limited war” planning guidance precluded concerns about how Chinese nuclear forces might play a role in a Sino-Indian conflict. 67. Rikhye, “The Indo-Tibetan Border Today,” p. 293. 68. Thomas, Indian Security Policy, p. 26. 69. See, for example, Cohen, “Nuclear Neighbors,” p. 18. 70. Thomas, Indian Security Policy, p. 27. 71. General J. N. Chaudhuri, India’s Problems of National Security in the Seventies (New Delhi: United Service Institution of India, 1971), p. 20. 72. Singh, India and the Nuclear Bomb, p. 99. 73. S. K. Ghosh, “China’s Military Modernization Program,” China Report 14 (July–August 1978): 77; Thomas, Indian Security Policy, p. 27. 74. Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, p. 196. 75. Tellis, India’s Emerging Nuclear Posture, pp. 46–47. 76. Paradoxically, Indian strategists have often made the argument for nuclear weapons, underlining the need to cap spending on conventional weaponry. See, for example, K. Subrahmanyam, India and the Nuclear Challenge (New Delhi: Lancer International, 1986), p. 282. 77. Ma Jiali, interview with author, Beijing, 3 August 2000. 78. Sandhu, Unresolved Conflict, p. 160. 79. P. R. Chari, “The Emerging Strategic Balance,” China Report 14 (May– June 1978): 50. 80. Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, p. 203. 81. For example, NFU is explained in the fourth sentence of “China Explodes Its First Atomic Bomb,” Hindustan Times, 17 October 1964, p. 1. 82. “Mao’s Bang,” Hindustan Times, 19 October 1964, p. 7. 83. Perkovich repeatedly stresses that Indian nuclear decisions were made in the absence of informed strategic appraisals of the Chinese threat. Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, pp. 85, 123. Though he does present impressive interview data, we cannot be sure that such appraisals were never made within the Indian

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government until India’s national security archives are accessible. 84. Deshingkar, “China’s Earth Satellite,” p. 31. 85. Chaudhuri, India’s Problems of National Security, p. 24. 86. Gupta, Nuclear Weapons? p. 18. 87. Ma Jiali, “Hou Lungzhan Shidai Yindu de Dui Hua Guanxi” (Post–Cold War Sino-Indian Relations), Xiandai Guoji Guanxi, no. 3 (1994): 29. 88. Jasjit Singh, “The Threat of Nuclear Weapons,” in Subrahmanyam, ed., India and the Nuclear Challenge, p. 55. Also see Sampooran Singh, India and the Nuclear Bomb, p. 68. 89. Cohen, “Nuclear Neighbors,” p. 9. 90. Proliferation optimists appear to neglect the significance of this dyad. Waltz, Spread of Nuclear Weapons, p. 45. 91. Gupta, Nuclear Weapons? p. 27; Thomas, Indian Security Policy, p. 28; Tellis, India’s Emerging Nuclear Posture, p. 59. 92. Quoted in Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, p. 61. 93. R. K. Srivastava, “China’s Nuclear Threat and India’s Defense in the 70s: Five Scenarios,” China Report 6 (Nov.–Dec. 1970): 28. 94. On the process of “opaque” proliferation, see the special issue “Opaque Nuclear Proliferation: Methodological and Policy Implications,” Journal of Strategic Studies 13 (Sept. 1990). 95. Sun Shihai (Academy of Social Sciences), interview with author, Beijing, 31 July 2000; Sun and Zhu, Yindu de Fazhan, p. 279. 96. Du Youkang, interview with author, Shanghai, 28 July 2000. According to Sun and Zhu, the “prevailing wind” in New Delhi favored the development of nuclear weapons during the 1980s. Sun and Zhu, Yindu de Fazhan, pg. 279. 97. Stephen Cohen, quoted in Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb, p. 289. 98. Chinese specialists recognized India’s latent potential to field missiles with nuclear warheads as early as 1983. Ye Zhengjia, “Nanya Tanqiu Quyu Anchuan Zhanlue” (South Asia in Search of a Security Strategy), Guoji Wenti Yanjiu 3 (1983): 48. Moreover, a discussion of the informal Indo-Pakistani agreement not to attack each other’s nuclear research facilities also suggests a watchful eye on evolving deterrent relationships in South Asia. See Zheng Ruixiang, “Nanya Quyu Hezuo de Huigu yu Zhanwang” (South Asian Regional Cooperation in Retrospect and in the Future), Guoji Wenti Yanjiu 2 (1986): 20. 99. For a more skeptical view of India’s options, see Tellis, India’s Emerging Nuclear Posture, pp. 553–55. 100. On China’s nuclear forces targeted against India, see ibid., pp. 61–70. 101. See Ann M. Florini, “The Opening Skies: Third-Party Imaging Satellites and U.S. Security,” International Security 13 (Fall 1988): 106. Florini describes Chinese remote sensing capabilities as “primitive.” They are reported to be working on a thirty-meter resolution satellite, which is far from the six-meter resolution required for airfield facilities or 4.5-meter resolution required for aircraft (p. 98). 102. Sun Shihai, interview with author, Beijing, 31 July 2000. 103. S. K. Ghosh, “China’s Air Power,” China Report 12 (March–April 1976): 5.

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104. Shen Dingli, interview with author, Shanghai, 27 July 2000. 105. The deeper explanation for the adoption of these strategies is likely related to economic resource limitations. 106. Singh, India and the Nuclear Bomb, p. 56. According to Sun and Zhu, India is pursuing a nuclear force that emphasizes quality over quantity (Yindu de Fazhan, p. 283). 107. Shen Dingli, interview with author, Shanghai, 27 July 2000; see also Sun and Zhu, Yindu de Fazhan, p. 281. 108. This study has certain implications for the future of Sino-Indian relations. While there is little fear that the Himalayan barrier will erode significantly over the coming decades—in fact, the Himalayas are rising a few centimeters a year—other bases for Sino-Indian stability have either dissolved already or face a questionable future. Most clearly, the Sino-Soviet rapprochement, followed by the collapse of the USSR, has prompted Indians to suggest that “the Soviet umbrella over India . . . has been furled” (Cohen, “Nuclear Neighbors,” p. 8). India has lost not only these security guarantees but also its almost exclusive access to the Russian armory, as China now all but empties the store. Indeed, China’s military modernization, largely dismissed in Washington, looks more frightening from New Delhi’s vantage point. There, it is feared that the military equipment that “a ‘cashed up’ China is acquiring from Russia . . . will upset the balance of power in Asia” (Malik, “China-India Relations,” p. 324). Moreover, this modernization threatens to upset the delicate “rough symmetry” based on “minimal deterrence” that has emerged between China and India in the nuclear realm, as the PLA addresses various deficiencies, including satellite reconnaissance. India’s recently improved economic growth performance could also play a role in bringing about a genuine Sino-Indian strategic arms race. In addition, U.S. plans to field a limited missile shield may well exaggerate this possibility by fueling China’s determination to expand and modernize its nuclear forces and also to become a “space power.” As of 2005, however, these tendencies toward rivalry have been held in check by leaders in both capitals who are determined to enhance Sino-Indian cooperation.

chapter 7 1. Robert D. Blackwill and Albert Carnesale, “Introduction: Understanding the Problem,” in Robert D. Blackwill and Albert Carnesale, eds., New Nuclear States: Consequences for U.S. Policy (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1993), p. 3. 2. Secretary of State Colin Powell recently commented: “The Israelis did it in 1981. . . . Everyone now is quite pleased even though they got the devil criticized out of them at the time.” Quoted in Glenn Kessler and Peter Slevin, “Preemptive Strikes Must Be Decisive, Powell Says,” Washington Post, 16 June 2002. 3. Avner Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, p. 150. On the significance of such power asymmetries for this region, see also Yair Evron, Israel’s Nuclear Dilemma

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(London: Routledge, 1994), pp. 82–83, 117, 187; Shlomo Aronson, The Politics and Strategy of Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East: Opacity, Theory, and Reality, 1960–91—An Israeli Perspective, with Oded Brosh (Albany: SUNY Press, 1992), p. 56; Gerald Steinberg, “Parameters of Stable Deterrence in a Proliferated Middle East: Lessons from the 1991 Gulf War,” Nonproliferation Review 7 (Fall/Winter 2000): 56; Sami G. Hajjar, “Regional Perspectives on the Causes of Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction in the Middle East,” Comparative Strategy 19 (Jan./March 2000): 37–40. 4. Aronson, The Politics and Strategy of Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East, p. 49. 5. Avner Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, p. 11. 6. Aronson, The Politics and Strategy of Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East, p. 51. 7. Ibid., p. 19; Avner Cohen, Israel Builds the Bomb, p. 15. 8. Evron, Israel’s Nuclear Dilemma, p. 2. 9. Avner Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, p. 53. 10. Ibid., p. 54. 11. Ibid., p. 64. 12. Ibid., p. 70. 13. Aronson, The Politics and Strategy of Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East, p. 50. 14. Avner Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, p. 83. 15. Ibid., p. 157. 16. Avner Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, pp. 175–94. 17. Ibid., pp. 318–19. 18. Ibid., pp. 149–50; Evron, Israel’s Nuclear Dilemma, pp. 6–7. 19. Aronson, The Politics and Strategy of Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East, p. 73. 20. Avner Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, p. 269. 21. Aronson, The Politics and Strategy of Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East. 22. Egypt apparently halted its own nuclear weapons program in 1966 due to economic constraints. Ibid., p. 96. On the Egyptian nuclear program, see Evron, Israel’s Nuclear Dilemma, pp. 22–23. 23. Avner Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, pp. 269–72. 24. Ibid., p. 273. 25. Shimon Peres, Battling for Peace: Memoirs (London: Widenfield and Nicolson, 1995), pp. 166–67, cited in Avner Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, p. 415 note 74. 26. Avner Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, pp. 279–82. 27. Ibid., 287–89. 28. Aronson, The Politics and Strategy of Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East, pp. 140–47. See also Steinberg, “Deliberate Ambiguity: Evolution and Evaluation,” in Louis Rene Beres (ed.), Security or Armaggedon: Israel’s Nuclear Strategy (Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath, 1986), p. 33. 29. Evron, Israel’s Nuclear Dilemma, p. 72.

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30. Efraim Inbar, “Israel and Nuclear Weapons since 1973,” in Louis Rene Beres, ed., Security or Armageddon: Israeli Nuclear Strategy (Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Co., 1986), p. 61. 31. Evron, Israel’s Nuclear Dilemma, p. 18. 32. Shlomo Nakdimon, First Strike: The Exclusive Story of How Israel Foiled Iraq’s Attempt to Get the Bomb (New York: Summit, 1987), p. 49. 33. Khidhir Hamza, Saddam’s Bombmaker: The Terrifying Inside Story of the Iraqi Nuclear and Biological Weapons Agenda, with Jeff Stein (New York: Scribner, 2000), p. 103; see also p. 81. 34. Nakdimon, First Strike, p. 64. 35. Ibid., p. 79. 36. This paragraph draws heavily on Shai Feldman, “The Bombing of Osiraq—Revisited,” International Security 7 (Fall 1982): 115; and Lucien S. Vandenbroucke, “The Israeli Strike Against Osiraq: The Dynamics of Fear and Proliferation in the Middle East,” Air University Review 35 (Sept./Oct. 1984): 36–37. 37. Vandenbrouke, “The Israeli Strike Against Osiraq,” p. 37. 38. Hamza, Saddam’s Bombmaker, p. 120. 39. Vandenbrouke, “The Israeli Strike Against Osiraq,” pp. 38–39. 40. Feldman, “The Bombing of Osiraq—Revisited,” p. 121. 41. Nakdimon, First Strike, p. 156. 42. Ibid., p. 108. 43. Aronson, The Politics and Strategy of Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East, p. 175. This was Shimon Peres, a leader of the opposition Labor Party. 44. Ibid., pp. 91–95. 45. Hamza, Saddam’s Bombmaker, p. 110. 46. Nakdimon, First Strike, p. 110. 47. Ibid., p. 109. For a detailed analysis of the commando option, see Amos Perlmutter, Michael Handel, and Uri Bar-Joseph, Two Minutes over Baghdad (London: Valentine, Mitchell, and Co., 1982), pp. 93–98. In a recent interview, Ivry relates that commando operations were practiced in the Sinai Desert, but these options were abandoned in the wake of the failed American raid to free the hostages held in Tehran. Yizthak Chorin, “Charlie Haita Milat Hamafteach: 20 Shena Lehaftzatzat Hakur B’ Iraq” (Charlie Was the Code Word: Twenty Years since the Attack on the Iraqi Reactor), Ma’ariv, 12 June 2001, p. 66. 48. Nakdimon, First Strike, p. 117. 49. Hamza, Saddam’s Bombmaker, pp. 132–34. 50. Nakdimon, First Strike, p. 128. 51. Ibid., p. 163. 52. Ibid., pp. 167–68. 53. The American sale of the F-16 to the Israelis at this time was fortuitous. According to Ivry, the planes were originally built to fill an order placed by the shah of Iran. After the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the Americans were desperate to find another buyer, resulting in the smooth and efficient sale to Israel. Chorin, “Charlie Haita Milat Hamafteach,” p. 64. 54. Perlmutter, Handel, and Bar-Joseph, Two Minutes Over over Baghdad, p.

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109. See also Chorin, “Charlie Haita Milat Hamafteach,” p. 64. 55. Nakdimon, First Strike, p. 94. 56. While the IAF possessed precision-guided munitions (PGMs) by this time, conventional gravity bombs were employed during the Osiraq raid, because the available PGMs would have required Israeli pilots to stay longer over the targets, meaning a greater risk of losing aircraft. Because of the large target, “dumb” bombs could accomplish the mission without unnecessarily endangering the pilots (Gen. Shlomo Brom (ret.) (Jafee Center—Tel Aviv University), interview with author, Tel Aviv, 20 June 2001). The weapon of choice was most likely the reliable Mk 84 2,000-pound bomb (Perlmutter, Handel, and Bar-Joseph, Two Minutes over Baghdad, p. 126). Also see Chorin, “Charlie Haita Milat Hamafteach,” p. 66. 57. Nakdimon, First Strike, pp. 177, 190. 58. Ibid., p. 119. 59. The Etzion Air Base was used so the task force would not have to over fly Jordan, creating unnecessary diplomatic complications. Most of the flying was done in Saudi air space (Gen. Shlomo Brom, interview with author, Tel Aviv, 20 June 2001). This route is quite circuitous—the most direct path would have taken the planes over southern Syria or northern Jordan. See Perlmutter, Handel, and Bar-Joseph, Two Minutes over Baghdad, p. 116. 60. Nakdimon, First Strike, p. 210. 61. Ibid., p. 203. Perlmutter, Handel and Bar-Joseph, Two Minutes over Baghdad, p. 121. 62. Nakdimon, First Strike, pp. 218–19. 63. Hamza, Saddam’s Bombmaker, p. 128. 64. Gen. Shlomo Brom, interview with author, Tel Aviv, 20 June 2001. 65. Hamza, Saddam’s Bombmaker, p. 129. 66. Ibid., p. 129. General Brom, while refusing to comment on intelligence sources for the raid, questions Hamza’s explanation for the failed Iraqi air defenses. He argues that Iraqi missile crews would only have had seconds to lock on to the diving aircraft, which “in practice is very difficult” (Gen. Shlomo Brom, interview with author, Tel Aviv, 20 June 2001). The timing of the raid may have had more to do with the position of the setting sun (in the eyes of the Iraqi antiaircraft crews) than any information on the habits of the nuclear plant’s defenders (Perlmutter, Handel, and Bar-Joseph, Two Minutes over Baghdad, p. 98). 67. Hamza, Saddam’s Bombmaker, p. 130. 68. Efraim Inbar, Rabin and Israel’s National Security (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), pp. 34–57. 69. Feldman, “The Bombing of Osiraq—Revisited,” p. 129. 70. Ibid., p. 134. 71. Ibid., p. 131. 72. According to Efraim Inbar (BESA Center, Bar-Ilan University), Begin was less sensitive to American concerns than other Israeli leaders—for example, Rabin. Begin, he observes, was confident that the Reagan administration considered Israel a bulwark of anticommunism in the Middle East and therefore would

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not permit a major breach (interview with author, Tel Aviv, 18 June 2001). 73. Nakdimon, First Strike, p. 119. 74. Ibid., p. 160. 75. Efraim Kam argues that Egypt’s verbal denunciations did not reflect its true opinion of the Osiraq raid. He notes that nuclear weapons would have made Iraq the indisputable leader of the Arab world, which was clearly contrary to Egyptian interests. Other Arab states, for example Saudi Arabia, may have shared this sentiment. Efraim Kam (Jaffee Center, Tel Aviv University), interview with author, Tel Aviv, 19 June 2001. 76. Nakdimon, First Strike, p. 95. 77. Ibid., p. 114. 78. Efraim Kam, interview with author, Tel Aviv, 19 June 2001. See also Nakdimon, First Strike, p. 45. 79. On the dangers associated with military strikes against nuclear reactors, see Bennett Ramberg, “Attacks on Nuclear Reactors: The Implications of Israel’s Strike on Osiraq, “ Political Science Quarterly 97 (Winter 1982/83): 653–69. 80. Vandenbroucke, “The Israeli Strike Against Iraq,” p. 41. 81. According to General Brom, the IAF was prepared to rescue downed pilots, if necessary, deep in the Saudi and Iraqi deserts (interview with author, Tel Aviv, 20 January 2001). Ivry explains that he told members of the Israeli cabinet the risks of the raid could be compared to Israel’s deeper raids into Egypt, which suffered a loss rate of only 1.1 percent. Moreover, in this case the attackers would benefit from surprise (cited in Chorin, “Charlie Haita Milat Hamafteach,” p. 64). 82. The Begin government anticipated that the strike would not altogether halt the Iraqi program, but it hoped to at least delay it. As one Israeli government expert on proliferation explained, “If you cannot stop it, it is important to delay it as long as possible, hoping for a more favorable international situation in the future.” Ronnie Prosor (political counselor, Israeli embassy to the United States), interview with author, Washington, DC, 12 June 2001. See also Nakdimon, First Strike, pp. 160, 210, 215. 83. Feldman, “The Bombing of Osiraq—Reconsidered,” p. 138. 84. Ibid., p. 139; Nakdimon, First Strike, p. 117. 85. Aronson, The Politics and Strategy of Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East, p. 175. Perlmutter, Handel, and Bar-Joseph cite as the “main argument” of those Israeli leaders arguing against the raid the possibility that the Iraqis could build a nuclear weapon with the intact HEU. Perlmutter, Handel, and Bar-Joseph, Two Minutes over Baghdad, pp. 80–81. 86. Yuval Ne’eman (Tel Aviv University), interview with author, Tel Aviv, 20 June 2001. Ne’eman, a nuclear physicist and close advisor to Begin on the Osiraq issue, emphasizes the important link between the Holocaust and nuclear weapons for both Ben Gurion and Begin. 87. Nakdimon, First Strike, p. 212. 88. Vandenbroucke, “The Israeli Strike Against Iraq,” p. 40. 89. Ronnie Prosor, interview with author, Washington, DC, 12 June 2001.

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90. Nakdimon, First Strike, p. 164. 91. Evron, Israel’s Nuclear Dilemma, p. 118. 92. Robert E. Harkavy, “After the Gulf War: The Future of Israeli Nuclear Strategy,” Washington Quarterly 14 (Summer 1991): 171–72. 93. Aronson, The Politics and Strategy of Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East, p. 178. 94. Evron, Israel’s Nuclear Dilemma, pp. 125–26. 95. Yuval Ne’eman, interview with author, Tel Aviv, 20 June 2001. 96. Nakdimon, First Strike, p. 163. 97. Aronson, The Politics and Strategy of Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East, p. 180; Yuval Ne’eman, interview with author, Tel Aviv, 20 June 2001. 98. Harkavy, “After the Gulf War,” pp. 170–71. 99. Aronson, The Politics and Strategy of Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East, p. 177. 100. Steinberg, “Parameters of Stable Deterrence in a Proliferated Middle East,” p. 47; Steinberg, interview with author, Tel Aviv, 21 June 2001. 101. Harkavy, “After the Gulf War,” p. 177. 102. Aronson, The Politics and Strategy of Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East, p. 189; Gerald Steinberg, interview with author, 21 June 2001. 103. Cited in Steinberg, “Parameters of Stable Deterrence in a Proliferated Middle East,” pp. 47–48. 104. Ann Roosevelt, “Israel Arrow Weapon System Moving to a National Missile Defense,” Defense Daily, 3 August 2004, p. 1. 105. Harkavy, “After the Gulf War,” p. 168. For Arab perceptions that Israeli nuclear weapons could play an enhanced role in the post–Cold War environment, see Hajjar, “Regional Perspectives on the Causes of Proliferation,” p. 42. 106. Ronnie Prosor, interview with author, Washington, DC, 12 June 2001. 107. A possible explanation for Israeli reticence in these circumstances is that Jerusalem was not well informed about the progress of the Iraqis in the nuclear field. Efraim Inbar, interview with author, Tel Aviv, 18 June 2001. 108. Steinberg, “Parameters of Stable Deterrence in a Proliferated Middle East,” p. 57. Steinberg’s analysis stresses differing value systems and the lack of formal communication links as particularly dangerous characteristics of the relationship (p. 58). However, he also recognizes that the Israel preventive/preemptive temptation is a destabilizing element (pp. 53–54). 109. Danny Shoham, interview with author, Tel-Aviv, 18 June 2001. 110. Anthony N. Cordesman, Perilous Prospects: The Peace Process and the Arab-Israeli Military Balance (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1996), p. 254. A contrary view holds that chemical weapons mounted on ballistic missiles could be stabilizing for the region. See Thomas L. McNaugher, “Ballistic Missiles and Chemical Weapons: The Legacy of the Iran-Iraq War,” International Security 15 (Fall 1990): 5–33. 111. Indeed, it is not clear that Israel would act with any restraint in targeting Syria’s chemical weapons (Gen. Shlomo Brom, interview with author, 20 June 2001). For a Syrian perspective on the role of Syrian WMD in evolving relations

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with Israel, see M. Zuhair Diab, “Syria’s Chemical and Biological Weapons: Assessing Capabilities and Motivations,” Nonproliferation Review 5 (Fall 1997): 104–11. 112. Diab, “Syria’s Chemical and Biological Weapons,” p. 43. Also see his Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Developments in the Middle East: 1998–99 (Ramat Gan: BESA Center, 2000), pp. 19–20. 113. Efraim Kam, interview with author, Tel Aviv, 19 June 2001. 114. Gen. Shlomo Brom, interview with author, Tel Aviv, 20 June 2001. 115. Louis Rene Beres, “Israel, Iran, and Prospects for Nuclear War in the Middle East,” Strategic Review 21 (Spring 1993): 54–55. 116. General Shlomo Brom, interview with author, Tel Aviv, 20 June 2001. 117. Efraim Kam, interview with author, Tel Aviv, 19 June 2001; Efraim Inbar, interview with author, Tel Aviv, 18 June 2001. On the Israeli-Turkish quasi-alliance, see Amikan Nachmani, “The Remarkable Turkish-Israeli Tie,” Middle East Quarterly 5 (June 1998): 19–29. 118. Although Israel continues to battle WMD proliferation with any and all means, altered conditions may encourage an eventual transition to more stable mutual deterrence along the lines of the so-called balance of terror. According to Steinberg, Israeli strategists are much more amenable to this solution than they were twenty years ago (interview with author, Tel Aviv, 21 June 2001). Three trends are particularly important in this regard. First, Israel has likely now developed a nearly impregnable “second strike” force, easing earlier fears of an Arab first strike that could not be answered. Second, Israel’s geography prevents long-term maintenance of the nuclear war-fighting strategies that characterized, for example, the Cold War relationship between the superpowers. Finally, the introduction of biological weapons to the region may be much more effective than chemical weapons as a “poor man’s bomb.” These new elements of the Middle East strategic landscape suggest that the Begin doctrine has and should at present be viewed as a delaying tactic. 119. Perlmutter, Handel, and Bar-Joseph, for example, misconstrue Israeli motives by focusing exclusively on the raid’s connection to the Holocaust (Two Minutes over Baghdad, p. 83). 120. Nakdimon, First Strike, p. 95. 121. Ibid., p. 159.

chapter 8 1. Hamza, Saddam’s Bombmaker, pp. 231–32. 2. Ibid., p. 237 3. Ibid., pp. 239–40. The implication of this testimony is that Saddam did possess a very primitive bomb. On Iraqi progress in building an atomic weapon, see David Albright and Mark Hibbs, “Iraq and the Bomb: Were They Even Close?” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist 47 (March 1991): 16–25. These conclusions are

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partially recanted in David Albright and Robert Kelley, “Has Iraq Come Clean at Last,” on the web site of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist at http://bullatomisci.org/issues/1995/nd95/nd95albright.html. 4. Haselkorn, The Continuing Storm, p. 26. 5. Graham S. Pearson, The UNSCOM Saga: Chemical and Biological Weapons Non-proliferation (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999), p. 149. 6. George H. W. Bush and Brent Scowcroft, A World Transformed (New York: Knopf, 1998), p. 305; Freedman and Karsh, The Gulf Conflict, 1990–91, p. 220. 7. Freedman and Karsh, The Gulf Conflict, 1990–91, p. 220. 8. Ibid., p. 224. 9. Ibid., pp. 224, 227. 10. See, for example, Thomas Friedman, “Flimsy Arguments on Missile Defense: MAD Isn’t Crazy,” on the web at web.montereyca.com/content/Monterey/2001/07/29/commentary/f2.friedman.0729.htm. 11. Haselkorn, The Continuing Storm, pp. 60–61. 12. Colin L. Powell, My American Journey (New York: Random House, 1995), p. 504. 13. Haselkorn, The Continuing Storm, p. 65. 14. Hamza, Saddam’s Bombmaker, p. 244. 15. Mauroni, Chemical-Biological Defense, p. 125 16. Haselkorn, The Continuing Storm, p. 85. 17. Mauroni, Chemical-Biological Defense, pp. 120, 127. 18. Powell, My American Journey, p. 494. 19. Mauroni, Chemical-Biological Defense, pp. 97, 114–15. 20. Haselkorn, The Continuing Storm, pp. 227–33. 21. That legacy established an imperative for a neat and clean ending that precluded a costly and politically complex occupation. 22. Richard A. Pape, Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996), pp. 221–22. 23. Barry Posen, “U.S. Security Policy in a Nuclear-Armed World or: What If Iraq Had Nuclear Weapons?” Security Studies 6 (Spring 1997): 22–23. Posen goes so far as to say that all strategic bombing might have to be restricted in order to create conditions of intrawar deterrence. 24. This entire paragraph draws heavily on Litwak, “The New Calculus of Preemption,” pp. 63–64. 25. Ashton B. Carter and William J. Perry, Preventive Defense: A New Security Strategy for America (Washington, DC: Brookings, 1999), p. 126. 26. Frank Gaffney, quoted in Sigal, Disarming Strangers, p. 81. 27. Ibid. 28. Alan Fram, “Perry Warns North Korea That War Would Be Devastating,” Associated Press, 5 June 1994. 29. Sigal, Disarming Strangers, p. 95. 30. Carter and Perry, Preventive Defense, pp. 123, 131. 31. Ibid., p. 128.

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32. Ibid., pp. 123, 128. 33. Fram, “Perry Warns North Korea,” 5 June 1994. 34. Howard Scripps, “Pentagon’s Advice on Dealing with North Koreans: Ignore Them,” Arizona Republic, 24 March 1994, A11. See also Sigal, Disarming Strangers, p. 76. 35. Perry and Carter, Preventive Defense, p. 130. 36. Ibid., p. 124. 37. Ibid., p. 128. 38. Sigal, Disarming Strangers, p. 76. 39. Ibid., p. 75. 40. Ibid., p. 118. 41. See, for example, Mike Allen, “Libya Turns Over Rest of Its Nuclear Material,” Washington Post, 7 March 2004. 42. It is now clear that Western intelligence agencies underestimated the extent and ambition of Libya’s nuclear weapons program. Ibid. 43. Tim Weiner, “Huge Chemical Arms Plant Near Completion in Libya, U.S. Says,” New York Times, 25 February 1996, p. 8. 44. Sid Balman, Jr., “U.S. May Use Nuclear Strike to Chemicals,” United Press International, 28 March 1996. 45. John Roper, “Plant ‘More than a Year’ From Completion,” United Press International, 4 April 1996. 46. Philip Shenon, “Perry, in Egypt, Warns Libya to Halt Chemical Weapons Plant,” New York Times, 4 April 1996, p. 6. 47. “Libya’s Ghadafi Should Be Pulled Up Short Again,” Newsday, 5 April 1996, p. A36. 48. Terry Atlas, “U.S. Threatens ‘Drastic’ Action Against Libya,” Toronto Star, 25 April 1996, p. A21. 49. “U.S. Weapons Development Aims at Underground Targets,” Deutsche Presse-Agentur, 23 April 1996. 50. “U.S. Rules Out Nuclear Strike on Libya Plant,” Toronto Star, 8 May 1996, p. A15. 51. “Mubarak Says Gaddafi has Dropped Plans for Chemical Weapons Plant,” Deutche Presse-Agentur, 28 May 1996. 52. “Libya Halts Chemical Arms Plant,” United Press International, 19 March 1997. 53. Carla Anne Robbins, “Cargo Seizure Fueled Libya Arms Shift,” Wall Street Journal, 31 December 2003. 54. China’s revisionist aims are most obvious in regard to the status of Taiwan. For debate on whether China is a status quo power, see Lanxin Xiang, “Washington’s Misguided China Policy,” Survival (Autumn 2001), pp. 7–23; and David Shambaugh, “China or America: Which is the Revisionist Power?” Survival (Autumn 2001), pp. 25–30. 55. Alistair Iain Johnston, “China’s New ‘Old Thinking’: The Concept of Limited Deterrence,” International Security 20 (Winter 1995/96): 26–27. 56. See, for example, Avery Goldstein, “Great Expectations: Interpreting Chi-

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na’s Arrival,” International Security 22 (Winter 1997/98), pp. 71–73. 57. Shen Dingli, interview with author, Shanghai, 27 July 2000. 58. It could be said that this relationship has already experienced one nuclear crisis in the post–Cold War era. On nuclear aspects of the 1996 Taiwan Straits crisis, see Garver, Face Off, pp. 127–33. 59. On potential Chinese limited nuclear options, see Richard K. Betts and Thomas J. Christensen, “China: Getting the Questions Right,” National Interest 62(Winter 2000/1), pg. 27. 60. It is interesting to ask what kind of U.S.-Soviet crises are analogous to the contemporary Taiwan Straits problem. Berlin was also an isolated outpost that was difficult to defend, but a noteworthy difference is that leaders in Moscow could not claim that the German capital was a part of the “motherland.” 61. From CNN’s web site at http://www.cnn.com/2000/ASIANOW/south/03/21/ india.clinton.30/. 62. Many of these factors are enumerated in Joseph S. Nye, Jr., “Nuclear Advice for South Asia,” Washington Post, 25 November 1998, p. A22. 63. Pakistan appears to have launched its nuclear program in the wake of defeat in the 1971 war with India (Ganguly, Conflict Unending, p. 105). 64. Hagerty, The Consequences of Nuclear Proliferation, p. 86. 65. Ibid. 66. Ibid., p. 87. 67. Ibid., pg. 86. Outside of CIA speculation, the firmest evidence offered on Indian planning for a preemptive strike is Hagerty’s discussions with Indian officials, who said, “In a purely theoretical sense, some people may be looking at such scenarios” (p. 86). 68. Ibid., p. 116. 69. Ibid., p. 167. 70. George K. Tanham and Marcy Agmon, The Indian Air Force: Trends and Prospects (Santa Monica: RAND, 1995), p. 71. 71. Ibid., pp. 25–42. It is true, however, that Indian Air Force capabilities are improving rapidly. 72. Quoted in Hagerty, The Consequences of Nuclear Proliferation, p. 86. 73. Before Pakistan acquired ballistic missiles, it relied on aircraft for delivery. At that time India lacked the requisite satellite reconnaissance and the control of the air necessary for a conventional preventive strike. 74. Dinshaw Mistry, “Technology for Defense and Development: India’s Space Program,” in Raju G. C. Thomas and Amit Gupta (eds.), India’s Nuclear Security (London: Lynne Rienner, 2000), pp. 211–12. 75. Quoted in Stephen Rosen, Societies and Military Power: India and Its Armies (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996), p. 252. 76. Tellis, India’s Emerging Nuclear Posture, p. 358. 77. Ganguly, Conflict Unending, p. 108. 78. Raju G. C. Thomas, “India’s Nuclear and Missile Programs: Strategy, Intentions, and Capabilities,” in Raju G. C. Thomas and Amit Gupta (eds.), India’s Nuclear Security (London: Lynne Rienner, 2000), p. 87. 79. Ganguly, Conflict Unending, 116–20.

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80. Farah Zahrah, “Pakistan’s Elusive Search for Nuclear Parity with India,” in Raju G. C. Thomas and Amit Gupta (eds.), India’s Nuclear Security (London: Lynne Rienner, 2000), p. 155; Ganguly, Conflict Unending, p. 122. 81. Thomas, “India’s Nuclear Forces and Missile Programs,” p. 89. 82. Ganguly, Conflict Unending, p. 117. 83. “Ongoing Conflict,” 31 December 2001, on the web site of the Online News Hour at http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/asia/july-dec01/conflict_12– 31.html, accessed on 5 February 2003. 84. Ganguly, Conflict Unending, p. 127.

chapter 9 1. Note that such crucial terms as nuclear asymmetry and stability are defined in Chapter 2. 2. See Hagerty, The Consequences of Nuclear Proliferation; and Shai Feldman, Israeli Nuclear Deterrence: A Strategy for the 1980s (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986). 3. Richard J. Harknett, “State Preferences, Systemic Constraints, and the Absolute Weapon,” in T. V. Paul, Richard J. Harknett, and James J. Wirz (eds.), The Absolute Weapon Revisited: Nuclear Arms and the Emerging International Order (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999), pp. 65–66. 4. Thomas Preston, “‘From Lambs to Lions’: Nuclear Proliferation’s Grand Reshuffling of Interstate Security Relationships,” Conflict and Cooperation 32 (March 1997): 79. 5. Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Nuclear Ethics (New York: Free Press, 1988), p. 90. 6. Scott D. Sagan, “More Will Be Worse,” in Scott Sagan and Kenneth N. Waltz (eds.), The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate (New York: Norton, 1995), pp. 47–91; Peter Feaver, “Command and Control in Emerging Nuclear Nations,” International Security 17 (Winter 1992/93): 160–87. 7. Colin S. Gray, The Second Nuclear Age (London: Lynne Rienner, 1999), pp. 90, 163. 8. Bruce Russet, “Away from Nuclear Mythology,” in Dagobert L. Brito, Michael D. Intriligator, and Adele E. Wick (eds.), Strategies for Managing Nuclear Proliferation (Toronto: Lexington Books, 1983), pg. 148. 9. Karl, “Proliferation Pessimism and Emerging Nuclear Powers,” pp. 118– 19. 10. Buhite and Hamel, “War for Peace,” p. 372. 11. “A Report to the President Pursuant to the President’s Directive of January 31, 1950,” in ibid., 7 April 1950, p. 281. 12. Trachtenberg, History and Strategy, p. 140. 13. Rosenberg, “The Origins of Overkill,” p. 34. 14. Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb, p. 331–32. 15. Freedman, Kennedy’s Wars, p. 301.

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16. Burr and Richelson, “Whether to ‘Strangle the Baby in the Cradle,’” p. 72. 17. Gobarev, “Soviet Policy Toward China,” p. 48. 18. Kissinger, The White House Years, pp. 183–84. 19. Lev Deluisin (Institute of Oriental Studies), interview with author, Moscow, 14 March 2000. 20. Peter Rodman (Nixon Center), interview with author, Washington, DC, 4 November 1999; Kissinger, White House Years, pp. 185–86. 21. Shen Dingli (Fudan University), interview with author, Shanghai, 27 July 2000. 22. Avner Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, p. 273. 23. Nakdimon, First Strike, pp. 167–68. 24. Perlmutter, Handel, and Bar-Joseph, Two Minutes over Baghdad, pp. 80– 81. 25. Freedman and Karsh, The Gulf Conflict, 1990–91, p. 220. 26. See, for instance, Haselkorn, The Continuing Storm. 27. Carter and Perry, Preventive Defense, p. 128. 28. Terry Atlas, “U.S. Threatens ‘Drastic’ Action Against Libya,” Toronto Star, 25 April 1996, p. A21. 29. Quoted in Rosen, Societies and Military Power, pg. 252. 30. On these threats, see Garver, Face Off, pp. 127–33. 31. Derek D. Smith, “Deterrence and Counterproliferation,” p. 193. 32. John L. Gaddis, “Conclusion,” in Cold War Statesmen Confront the Bomb: Nuclear Diplomacy since 1945, ed. J. L. Gaddis, Philip H. Gordon, Earnest R. May, and Jonathan Rosenberg (London: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 265. 33. Recall that the Chinese tested a fusion device three years before the 1969 crisis, and yet there is little evidence of caution in the Kremlin as a result. 34. Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb, p. 332; Generals Anatoli I. Gribkov and Smith, Operation ANADYR, p. 5. 35. Gaddis, We Now Know, pp. 91–92; Negin and Goleusova, Sovetski Atomni Proyekt, p. 181. 36. Zubok and Pleshakov, Inside the Kremlin’s Cold War, pp. 66–68. 37. See, for example, Gaddis, “Nuclear Weapons and Cold War History,” p. 50; and Vipin Gupta, “Sensing the Threat—Remote Sensing Technologies,” in Stephen Cohen (ed.), Nuclear Proliferation in South Asia: The Prospects for Arms Control (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1991), pp. 225–264. 38. Sagan’s work is summarized in Chapter 2, and more briefly in this chapter. 39. Lev Deliusin, interview with author, Moscow, 14 March 2000. 40. Nakdimon, First Strike, pp. 91–110. 41. Sigal, Disarming Strangers: Nuclear Diplomacy with North Korea, pp. 75–76. 42. See, for example, David C. Isby, “Leaks and the Leadership,” Washington Times, 7 August 2002; or Jack Kelly, “Rummy vs. the Brass,” New York Post, 3 November 2002.

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43. Interviews, Israel, summer 2001. 44. Col. Viktor Gobarev (ret.), interview with author, Washington DC, 4 November 1999. 45. See, for example, “U.S. Rules Out Nuclear Strike on Libya Plant,” Toronto Star, 8 May 1996, p. A15. 46. The U.S.-North Korean crisis of 1994 may contradict this assertion. Certainly, there were concerns about North Korea’s conventional strength. Note, however, that the temporal proximity of the crisis to the Persian Gulf War and the geographical proximity of Seoul to the North Korean border also encouraged U.S. caution. Moreover, the U.S. position was not as cautious as it might have been. 47. Les Aspin, quoted in Millot, “Facing the Reality of Regional Nuclear Adversaries,” p. 50. 48. Pilat and Kirchner, “The Technological Promise of Counterproliferation,” pp. 160–61. 49. Ibid. 50. Hans M. Kristensen and Joshua Handler, “The USA and Counterproliferation: A New and Dubious Role for U.S. Nuclear Weapons,” Security Dialogue 27 (Dec. 1996): 392. 51. Ibid. 52. Richard T. Cooper, “Making Nuclear Bombs ‘Usable,’” Los Angeles Times, 3 February 2003; and William M. Arkin, “The Nuclear Option in Iraq,” Los Angeles Times, 26 January 2003. 53. Barry R. Schneider, Future War and Counterproliferation: U.S. Military Responses to NBC Proliferation Threats (London: Praeger, 1999), p. 179. 54. Gray, The Second Nuclear Age, pp. 145–46. 55. Flournoy, “Implications for U.S. Military Strategy,” p. 137. 56. Patrick M. Morgan, “The Impact of the Revolution in Military Affairs,” Journal of Strategic Studies 23 (March 2000): 152. 57. See, for example, Preston, “‘From Lambs to Lions,’” p. 79. 58. Philip Zelikow, “Offensive Military Operations,” in New Nuclear Nations, ed. Robert Blackwill and Albert Carnesale (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1993), pp. 169–70. 59. “Paper Prepared in the Policy Planning Council,” 14 April 1964, in FRUS, 1964–68, Vol. 30: China, p. 198. 60. Marc Dean Millot, Roger Molander, and Peter A. Wilson, The Day After . . . Study: Nuclear Proliferation in the Post-Cold War World, vol. 2 (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1993), pp. 53–54. According to the study, approximately one quarter of participants favored this option. 61. Efraim Kam, interview with author, Tel Aviv, 19 June 2001. 62. Zelikow, “Offensive Military Operations,” p. 191. 63. Eliot A. Cohen, “A Revolution in Warfare,” Foreign Affairs 75 (March/ April 1996), p. 44. 64. “The Future of Warfare: Select Enemy. Delete.,” Economist, 8 March 1997, p. 24.

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65. Eliot Cohen, “A Revolution in Warfare,” p. 45. 66. Morgan, “The Impact of the Revolution in Military Affairs,” p. 150. 67. Roger C. Molander, The Nuclear Asymptote: On Containing Nuclear Proliferation (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1993), p. 32. 68. See, for example, Eliot Cohen, “Twilight of the Citizen Soldier,” Parameters 31 (Summer 2001): 23–28. 69. Flournoy, “Implications for U.S. Military Strategy,” p. 151. 70. Schneider, Future War and Counterproliferation, p. 212. World opinion and poor targeting options are conceivable restraints, for example. 71. These conditions are unlikely to cancel each other out because of the problem of misperception. Leaders of rogue states may be inappropriately bold because they have failed to appreciate the implications of the RMA for counterproliferation doctrine, or they underestimated the will of the American public. However, it is just as conceivable that American leaders could make important errors in judgment based on poor intelligence, overly optimistic military assessments, a misreading of the public’s tolerance for casualties, and an overriding faith that rogue state leaders can be awed by American power. Thus, it may be extremely difficult for powers of radically unequal strength to arrive at a common reading of the “facts.” 72. Derek Smith, “Deterrence and Counterproliferation ,” pp. 169, 197. 73. Ibid., p. 108. 74. Like the CPI, missile defenses could add to instability by lowering the threshold success limit for a preemptive attack. However, it could be also be argued that missile defenses are stabilizing in that they could ease preemptive pressures on U.S. leaders by providing at least some prospect for defending against adversary first use. Certainly, the imperative of building missile defenses must always be weighed against a diverse set of national interests, notably maintaining robust conventional forces. The argument made by opponents of missile defense that ballistic missiles will not be a rogue state’s delivery system of choice amounts to an argument that generous funds should also be allocated to defense against both cruise missile defense and WMD terrorism. Nor is the argument that there is presently no threat particularly convincing, because it dangerously overestimates our ability to anticipate who our next adversary will be and what weapons they will field in that conflict. 75. See Michael J. Mazarr, “Going Just a Little Nuclear: Nonproliferation Lessons from North Korea,” International Security 20 (Fall 1995): 114. 76. James J. Wirtz, “Counterproliferation, Conventional Counterforce, and Nuclear War,” Journal of Strategic Studies 23 (March 2000): 7. See also Posen, “U.S. Security Policy in a Nuclear-Armed World,” pp. 17–23. 77. Gray, The Second Nuclear Age, p. 167.

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1. “President Delivers State of the Union Address,” on the web site of the White House at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/01/20020129– 11.html, p. 3, accessed 21 October 2003. 2. “President Bush Delivers Graduation Speech at West Point,” on the web site of the White House at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/06/20020601–3.html, pp. 2–3, accessed 23 October 2003. 3. National Security Strategy of the United States of America, on the web site of the White House at http://whitehouse.gov/nsc/print/nssall.html, p. 1, accessed 23 October 2003. 4. Lawrence Freedman, “Prevention, Not Preemption,” Washington Quarterly 26 (Spring 2003): 105. 5. “Kennedy: Case for War a ‘Fraud,’” on the web site of CBS News at http:// www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/09/19/politics/main574154.shtml, accessed 26 October 2003. 6. John D. Steinbruner, “Confusing Ends and Means: The Doctrine of Coercive Preemption,” Arms Control Today 33 (Jan./Feb. 2003): 3. 7. Freedman, “Prevention, not Preemption,” p. 114. 8. Many scholarly analyses draw attention to this problem. See, for example, Robert Jervis, “The Dustbin of History: Mutually Assured Destruction,” Foreign Policy 133(Nov./Dec. 2002): 41; or Francois Heisbourg, “A Work in Progress: The Bush Doctrine and Its Consequences,” Washington Quarterly 26 (Spring 2003): 77. 9. Bruce Ackerman, “But What’s the Legal Case for Preemption?” Washington Post, 18 August 2002. 10. Ibid. 11. Gregory Treverton, “Intelligence: The Achilles Heel of the Bush Doctrine,” Arms Control Today 33 (July/August 2003): 9–11. 12. National Security Strategy of the United States of America, on the web site of the White House at http://whitehouse.gov/nsc/print/nssall.html, p. 9, accessed 23 October 2003. 13. William Galston, “Perils of Preemption,” American Prospect, 23 September 2002, p. 23. 14. See, for example, G. John Ikenberry, “America’s Imperial Ambitions,” Foreign Affairs 81 (Sept./Oct. 2002): 45. 15. National Security Strategy of the United States of America, on the web site of the White House at http://whitehouse.gov/nsc/print/nssall.html, p. 9, accessed 23 October 2003. 16. Jervis, “The Dustbin of History,” p. 41. 17. A more complete discussion of the role of “rationality” in WMD crises can be found in Chapter 2. 18. Richard K. Betts, “Suicide from Fear of Death,” Foreign Affairs 82 (Jan./ Feb. 2003), p. 19. Graham Allison, “Is Iraq Like the Cuba Crisis? It’s Worth Bush Consider-

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ing,” Christian Science Monitor, 31 October 2002. 20. Matt Kelley, “Iraq May Have Chemicals to Defeat Protective Gear,” San Antonio Express-News, 18 November 2002. 21. See, for example, “Sheperd: Heat Can Make the Gear ‘Miserable,’” on the web site of CNN at http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/04/03/ sprj.irq.generals.shepperd/, accessed 30 October 2003. 22. Ann Scott Tyson, “Two Big Challenges Complicate Iraq Attack,” Christian Science Monitor, 25 September 2002. 23. Ibid. 24. Burak Ege Bekdil and Umit Enginsoy, “Turkey Wants U.S. Patriot Shield before Taking Action Against Iraq,” Defense News, 19 August 2002; Hans Blix quoted in Bob Drogin, “‘91 Iraq Toxics Plan Reported,” Los Angeles Times, 10 March 2003. 25. Paul Wolfowitz, “United on the Risks of War with Iraq,” Washington Post, 23 December 2002. 26. See “Text of David Kay’s Unclassified Statement,” on the web site of CNN at http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/10/02/kay.report/, accessed 16 October 2003. 27. Ibid., pp. 3–4, 6–7, 10. 28. Romesh Ratnesar, “Can They Strike Back?” Time, 3 February 2003. 29. Michael Schrage, “No Weapons. No Matter. We Called Saddam’s Bluff,” Washington Post, 11 May 2003. 30. Glenn Kessler, “N. Korean Evidence Called Uncertain,” Washington Post, 22 January 2004, p. 1. 31. Nicholas Kristof, “Hold Your Nose and Negotiate,” New York Times, 20 December 2002. 32. See Samuel R. Berger and Robert L. Galluci, “Two Crises, No Back Burner,” Washington Post, 31 December 2002; Leon Fuerth, “Outfoxed by North Korea,” New York Times, 1 January 2003; and Gary Samore, “The Korean Nuclear Crisis,” Survival 45 (Spring 2003): 23. 33. R. James Woolsey and Thomas G. McInerney, “The Next Korean War,” Wall Street Journal, 4 August 2003. 34. Irrespective of the Korean nuclear crisis, these steps are in accord with long-term U.S. national interests. The U.S. cannot indefinitely defend a small island that is less than one hundred miles off the coast of an ascendant nuclear power. 35. Ray Takeyh, “Iran’s Nuclear Calculations,” World Policy Journal 20 (Summer 2003): 21. 36. Joby Warrick and Glenn Kessler, “Iran’s Nuclear Program Speeds Ahead,” Washington Post, 10 March 2003. 37. David Albright and Corey Hinderstein, “Iran: Furor over Fuel,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist 59 (May/June 2003): 15. 38. Ibid., p. 12. 39. Ibid. 40. Gary Milhollin, “The Mullahs and the Bomb,” New York Times, 23 Oc-

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tober 2003. 41. David Sanger, “Bush Says U.S. Will Not Tolerate Building of Nuclear Arms by Iran,” New York Times, 19 June 2003. 42. Richard Morin and Claudia Deane, “Poll: Majority Backs Use of Force in Iran,” Washington Post, 24 June 2003. 43. David Albright and Corey Hinderstein, “Iran, Player or Rogue?” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist 59 (September/October 2003), p. 52. 44. Ramit Plushnick-Masti, “Israel is Ready to Stop Nukes,” Washington Times, 10 September 2003. 45. Takeyh, “Iran’s Nuclear Calculations,” p. 24.

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Index

Aaronson, Shlomo, 123–24 Afghanistan, 2, 54–55, 160 air power, 64, 66–68, 72, 80, 83, 86, 100, 109–10, 118–19, 129, 131, 180 alliances, 11, 69–70, 88–89, 105–6, 152, 155 Allison, Graham, 173, 175 Allison, John, 39 Anderson, Orville, 38 arms control, 17–18, 153, 161, 190n35 Arnold, Henry, 42 Aronson, Shlomo, 114 Aspin, Les, 7, 155–56 asymmetric WMD rivalry, 10–11, 52, 93, 149, 155, 158, 160–61, 172 balance of power, 9, 96, 99 Ball, George, 64 Begin, Menachem, 116, 118, 120, 124, 149 Belkin, Aaron, 24 Berger, Samuel, 180 Berlin crises: (1948), 28, 42, 153; (1958–59) 35, 43–44; (1961) biological weapons, 6, 113–14, 129– 31, 150, 154, 156, 173, 175–76 Ben-Gurion, David, 113, 115 Betts, Richard, 14, 32, 35, 51, 53, 54–55, 173 Bhaba, Homi, 108–9 Blix, Hans, 174 Boliatko, Anatoly, 82, 87

bomber gap, 33 Bowles, Chester, 57 Brezhnev, Leonid, 54, 77–79, 82 Brodie, Bernard, 14 Brom, Shlomo, 126 Brzezinski, Zbigniew, 120 Bundy, McGeorge, 14, 61, 67 Burnham, James, 38 Burr, William, 68 Bush, George, H.W., 130, 150, 168 Bush, George W., 2, 112, 144, 151, 161, 164–83 Carter, Jimmy, 168 case selection, 9, 11, 21–22, 24–26 casualty sensitivity, 160 Chang, Gordan, 32, 60 Chaudhuri, J.N., 105 chemical weapons, 6, 113–14, 125– 26, 129–31, 136–37, 154, 156, 173, 175–76, 185n4 Chen, Jian, 64, 72 Chen, Ruisheng, 103 Chen, Yi, 77 Cheney, Richard, 130 China, 152; and India, 96–11, 148– 49, 153–54; and North Korea, 135, 181; and Pakistan, 97–100, 105–6; and the Vietnam War, 64–65, 209n27; and Taiwan Straits Crises (1955), 32, 34; (1958) 34, 77; (1995–96), 6, 151, 158, 241n34; and the war with Vietnam (1979), 94, 100; and the United States,

264

Index

56–75, 137–39, 146–47, 151, 153, 157; and the USSR, 76–95, 105, 107, 115, 147–48, 153. Christensen, Thomas, 35 Churchill, Winston, 41 civil-military relations, 19, 114, 154 Clark, Mark, 32 Clinton, William, 132–33, 157, 161, 164, 168–69, 176 Cohen, Avner, 8, 112–13 Cohen, Stephen, 102, 108, 142 Collins, Lawton, 50 command and control, 84 constructivism, 17–18 conventional balance, 10–11, 45–47, 70–72, 81, 89–93, 101, 129, 134–35, 146–48, 150, 152, 155, 222–223n41 Cordesman, Anthony, 126 counterforce, 14, 44–45, 53, 156, 159–60 counterfactual reasoning, 23–24 Counterproliferation Initiative, 6–7, 155–57, 159, 161, 164, 168 crucial case, 76 Cuban Missile Crisis, 5, 14, 20, 36– 37, 45, 53, 153, 170, 173, 175 Dalvi, J. P., 103–4 Dayan, Moshe, 116, 118 Deliusin, Lev, 81–82, 87, 92, 147, 154 Deng Xiaoping, 65, 99–100 Desai, Morarji, 100, 106 Desert Fox, 132 deterrence: 9–10, 14, 16–17, 49–52, 62, 70–74, 84–93, 95, 98, 109, 123, 148, 152, 166, 170, 189– 90n17 Dimona nuclear facility, 115 Dobrynin, Anatoly, 61, 63 Dole, Robert, 133 Dulles, John, 32, 51, 145 early warning, 84 Egypt, 6, 54, 114–16, 121, 136, 149

Eisenhower, Dwight, 31–35, 40–44, 114, 145 Elizavetin, Alexander, 77–80, 86, 92 Erdmann, Andrew, 51 Eshkol, Levi, 115 escalation, 78, 103 Evron, Yair, 123–24 Eytan, Raphael, 118–19, 123 Feaver, Peter, 8, 18, 20, 144 Feldman, Shai, 124 first-strike incentive, 9, 11, 155, 159– 60, 165, 198n138 flexible response, 47 Flournoy, Michelle, 7, 156–57, 160 Freedman, Lawrence, 9, 45, 165–66 Fuchs, Klaus, 29 Fuerth, Leon, 4, 180. Gaddis, John, 13, 18, 28, 152 Gaffney, Frank, 133 Galluci, Robert, 180 Garthoff, Raymond, 86 Gelman, Harry, 82 geography, 10–11, 103–4, 108–9, 135, 152, 155 Gandhi, Mahatma, 106–7, 111 Gandhi, Indira, 100–1 Gandhi, Rajiv, 101–2 Ghosh, S. K., 110 Gjelstad, Jorn, 8, 20 Gobarev, Victor, 77, 81, 83, 88, 92 Goldstein, Avery 17, 70, 75, 86 Gray, Colin, 144, 156 Grechko, Andrei, 82 Groves, Leslie, 28–29, 38, 145 Haggerty, Devin, 8, 17 Hamza, Khidir, 117, 120, 129, 131 Harkavy, Robert, 124 Harriman, Averill, 59, 146 Haselkorn, Avigdor, 131–32 Hershberg, Jim, 64, 72 Holloway, David, 8, 26 Holocaust, 118, 123, 149–50

Index Hu, Richard, 103 Hu Side, 58 hydrogen bomb, 14, 32, 41, 125, 152–53 instability, 10–11, 22–23, 103 intelligence, 35–36, 48, 57–58, 62–63, 66, 77, 79, 85, 87, 91, 114, 117– 18, 120, 130, 146, 153, 157, 167, 171, 175–76, 193n11 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), 117, 133, 182 India: and China, 96–11, 153–55; and Pakistan 17, 101, 139–42, 151, 154; and the USSR, 99, 105–6 Iraq: and France, 116–17; and the Persian Gulf War (1991), 6, 16, 112, 125, 128–32, 153, 156; the Iraq War (2003), 2–5, 112, 132, 153–54, 156, 160, 169, 172–78 Iran, 3, 55, 122, 126, 166–67, 169, 171, 181–83 Israel: 3, 177–78; and the Osiraq Raid, 18, 110, 119–21, 126, 149–50, 154; and the Six Day War, 115–16, 123; and the Soviet Union, 121–22; and the Yom Kippur War, 54, 116, 123 Ivry, David, 118 Jervis, Robert, 14, 170 Jiang, Yi, 81, 91 Johnson, Harold, 71 Johnson, Herbert, 60–61, 63 Johnson, Louis, 39 Johnson, Lyndon, 61, 63, 66–67, 69, 71, 74, 146, 168 Kahn, Herman, 14 Kashmir, 102 Kay Report, 2, 175 Kapitsa, M., 76, 79, 81, 86, 92 Kaplan, Fred, 33 Karymov, Valentin, 82 Kennan, George, 38

265

Kennedy, Edward, 165–66 Kennedy, John 10, 20, 35–37, 57–60, 68, 74, 97, 114, 146, 154 Khrushchev, Nikita, 10, 20, 34–37, 45, 57, 59, 81 Kim Jong-il, 178 Kissinger, Henry, 53, 66, 88, 98–99, 205n72 Korean War, 30–32, 34, 40, 42–43, 48, 50, 70, 74, 153 Kosygin, Alexey, 78–80, 88, 212n32 Kurchatov, Igor, 29 Layne, Christopher, 23 launch on warning, 84 Lavoy, Peter, 8 Lemay, Curtis, 32, 43, 57–58 Lewis, John, 84 liberalism, 17–18 Libya, 6, 122, 136–37, 150–51, 154 Li Danhui, 65, 77–78, 81, 92 Li Jingjie, 80, 92 Limited Test Ban Treaty, 58–60, 146 Liu Shaoqi, 64 Luck, Gary, 134 Luttwak, Edward, 86 Malik, Ivan 46 Mandelbaum, Michael, 19 Ma, Jiali, 103 Mao, Zedong, 56–57, 62, 77, 80–81, 83, 85, 87, 93, 107, 111, 114, 192n58 Matthews, Francis, 39 Martel, William, 19–20 McCone, John, 58 McInerney, Thomas, 180 McNamara, Robert, 61, 70 Meir, Golda, 116, 123 Meyers, Richard, 174 methodology, 20 misperception, 239n71 missile defense, 14, 125, 156, 161, 239n74 Mubarak, Hosni, 136

266

Index

Mueller, John, 13 mutually assured destruction, 13–14, 143 Nasser, Gamal, 114 near misses, 23–24 Ne’eman, Yuval, 124 Nehru, Jawaharlal, 97, 104, 108 Njolstad, Olav, 8, 20 Nixon, Richard, 40, 66, 88 no first use, 84, 107–8, 111, 149, 155 Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), 100, 179 norms, 10–11, 17–18, 39, 49, 68–69, 83–84, 93. 109–10, 121, 144, 147– 48, 152, 154–55, 157–58, 169 North Korea: and China, 135; and the 1994 crisis, 6, 133–36, 150, 154; and the 2002–present crisis, 3–5, 156, 162, 166–67, 169, 171, 175, 178–81 NSC-68, 30, 38, 40, 42, 46–47, 49, 145 nuclear peace, 95,102, 138 Nuclear Posture Review, 156 nuclear testing, 85, 102, 105, 194n23, 216n66, 221–222n27 nuclear utilization theory, 143 Nye, Joseph, 144 oil, 130 opacity, 113 package deal, 162, 181 Pakistan: 2; and China, 97–100, 105–6; and India, 17, 97, 139–42, 151, 154 Palestinian issue, 177–78 parity, 55 Patton, George, 37 Payne, Keith, 15, 20 Peres, Shimon, 114–16 Perkovich, George, 99 Perry, William, 6, 133, 136–37, 150–51

Pike, Douglas, 94 Podvig, Pavel, 84 Powell, Colin, 130–31 preemption, 146–47, 164–65; and preventive war, 2, 166, 169, 186n12 Preston, Thomas, 16, 22 preventive war, 37–41, 52, 80, 130, 145, 148, 166, 169 Price, Richard, 17, 83 proliferation optimism: 9, 12, 15–18, 144, 151, 162–63; and the IndoPakistani case, 142; and the 2003 Iraq War, 172–75; and Israel’s Osirak raid, 112; and North Korea, 4, 179–80; and the Persian Gulf War, 157; and the Sino-Indian case, 111; and the Sino-Soviet case, 76, 84–86; proliferation pessimism: 9, 18–20, 144, 151, 162–63; and Israel’s Osirak raid, 113; and North Korea, 4; and the Sino-Indian case,111 Qaddafi, Muammar, 122, 136–37 Qaeda, 164, 166 Rabin, Yitzhak, 115 Rathjens, George, 63 rationality, 19, 37, 171 Reagan, Ronald, 53 realism, 17, 169 regime change, 167 revolution in military affairs, 159 rivalry: 9, 162; and hostile relationships, 11, 22–24; Richelson, Jeffrey, 68 Ridgeway, Matthew, 49 Roberts, Brad, 8, 20 Rosenberg, David, 44, 48 Rove, Karl, 168 Rowen, Henry, 61, 68 Rumsfeld, Donald, 4, 168, 174 Rusk, Dean, 61, 63, 69, 71 Russet, Bruce, 18, 145

Index Saddam, Hussein, 112, 122, 124, 127, 129, 131, 150, 153–54, 157; and relations with France, 116–18 Sadat, Anwar, 121 Sagan, Scott, 8, 18–19, 144, 154 Salisbury, Harrison, 83 Samore, Gary, 180 Sandu, Bhim, satellites, 99, 109–10, 125, 153, 214n65, 225n101 Schneider, Barry, 7, 156 Schelling, Thomas, 14 Scowcroft, Brent, 130 Scud missiles, 117, 156–57 Seng, Jordan, 17 September 11 Attacks, 5, 7, 155, 158, 160, 165, 167 Shalikashvili, John, 134 Sharon, Ariel, 118, 122 Shastri, Lal Badur, 98 Shelton, Henry, 132 Shen, Dingli, 87, 103 Shen, Zhihua, 74 Shevchenko, Arkady, 82–83, 86, 91 Shlykov, Vitaly, 87 Smith, Chris, 99 Smith, Walter, 39 Solarium, 40–41 South Korea, 134 Spaatz, Carl, 42 special forces, 60, 67, 203n27, 228n47 stability/instability paradox, 15, 142 Stalin, Joseph, 28, 44–46, 50, 81, 153, 193n13 Steinberg, Gerald, 124 Steinbruner, John, 166–67 Stimson, Henry, 28 submarines, 63, 65–66, 138, 156, 193–94n16, 201n195, 205n65 Sun, Shihai, 110 Sundarji, K., 151 Symington, Stuart, 39, 49 symmetric WMD rivalry, 10, 53, 110–11

267

Syria, 119, 122, 125–26, 154, 178, 231n111 Tannenwald, Nina, 17, 83 Tarhunah, 136, 150–51 Tetlock, Philip, 24 Third Front, 62 Thomas, Raju, 99, 104 Thompson, James, 63, 70 Tibet, 102 Trachtenberg, Marc, 37, 39, 47 Truman, Harry, 10, 28–31, 39, 42–43, 145, 168 Tyler, Patrick, 85 Tyler, William, 58 unipolarity, 5 United Kingdom: and Iraq, 3; and the Cold War, 51, 200n177 United Nations, 128 United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM), 129, 132, 150 use’em or lose’em dilemma, 44–45, 146, 152–53, 160, 214n56 USSR: and China, 57–58, 66, 69–70, 74, 76–95, 105, 107, 115, 147–48, 153; dissolution and proliferation of WMD expertise, 5, 129; and India, 99, 105–6; and the United States, 27–55, 145–46. Van Creveld, Martin, 16 Vietnam War, 53–54, 56, 61, 63, 66, 71, 74, 88–89, 97, 132, 146–47 Voskressenski, Alexei, 87 Waltz, Kenneth, 1, 15–16, 18, 76, 84, 144–45, 152 War on Terror, 1, 142, 164, 166–67, 169–70, 172 William Webster, 130 Weizman, Ezer, 118–19 Wirtz, James, 8 windows of opportunity, 153–54 Wohlstetter, Albert, 14

268 Wolfowitz, Paul, 3, 174 Woolsey, R.J., 180 Xue Litai, 84 Yadin, Yigael, 118–19, 121 Yang Kuisong, 78, 81, 87, 91

Index Zaloga, Stephen, 33, 44, 48 Zelickow, Philip, 157–58 Zhao Weiwen, 100 Zhou Enlai, 64, 72, 79–80, 88, 207n107, 212n32 Zhang, Xiaoming, 74 Zubok, Vladislav, 44