THE WANING NUCLEAR DETERRENT

The Unthinkable Must Be Thought About

DURING the H-bomb years it has become commonplace to say that nuclear war is "unthinkable" or "suicidal" or "preposterous," that it would bring "mutual annihilation" or "the end of civilization," or, as President Eisenhower put it, "a great emptiness." This apocalyptic vision of nuclear war, shared by both laymen and most defense experts, underlies a basic assumption of current U.S. defense policies: the threat of retaliatory nuclear attack by the U.S. is so frightening to Russian decision makers that it will automatically deter them from aggression.

Both the "mutual annihilation" vision and the automatic-deterrence strategy come under tough-minded bombardment in a newly published book, On Thermonuclear War (Princeton University; $10), which already is the talk of military thinkers across the U.S. Author: Herman Kahn, 38, senior staff physicist of the RAND Corp., the Air Force "think factory" headquartered in Santa Monica, Calif. One result of the idea that nuclear war is "unthinkable" is that too few men think about it in a serious way. But Kahn, consultant for the Atomic Energy Commission and the Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization, has spent much of the past decade thinking seriously about nuclear war.

Kahn's basic point is that nuclear war need not bring an inevitable "end of civilization" or even the "mutual annihilation" of the combatants. It is a part of U.S. Atomic Age folklore that there is no use trying to prepare for nuclear attack, that once deterrence fails all is lost. This attitude largely accounts for the feebleness of the U.S.'s civil defense programs. Backing up his case with a thicket of facts and figures, Kahn argues that advance preparations could make a difference between, say, 20 million and 80 million casualties.

As a start, Kahn urges a civil defense program that would include 1) identification of existing buildings that could serve as fallout shelters in an emergency, 2) wide distribution of inexpensive radiation-meters, 3) training of civil defense cadres, and 4) research on shelter designs and on methods of counteracting radiation and its effects. Such a first-step program could be undertaken for $500 million (less than 1% of the current federal budget).

Civil defense measures that can help the U.S. survive a Russian attack can also help Russia survive a U.S. attack.

Kahn points to evidence that the Russians give each citizen a minimum of 22 hours of compulsory civil defense training. If Russia gets braced for a nuclear attack and the U.S. fails to do so, argues Kahn, the U.S.'s deterrent strategy may be seriously weakened.

Kahn doubts whether, amid "all the stresses and strains of the cold war, all the sudden and unexpected changes, the possible accidents and miscalculations," the threat of U.S. nuclear retaliation can be relied upon in the 19603 to deter a Soviet attack on the U.S., much less deter an indirect provocation, such as seizure of West Berlin. The retaliation threat deters only to the extent that the Russians find it convincing.

As Russia achieves an unmistakable capability of launching a heavy nuclear assault on the U.S., perhaps in 1961, U.S. decision makers will have to face up to a powerful new factor: the threat of nuclear attack may not be enough to deter Communist incursions, since the Russians can counterthreaten nuclear retaliation upon the U.S. "Under current programs," warns Kahn, "the U.S. may in a few years find itself unwilling to accept a Soviet retaliatory blow, no matter what the provocation." Some U.S. officials are already aware of the looming limitations on U.S. deterrent power. Kahn quotes from Secretary of State Christian Herter's testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1959: "I can't conceive of the President involving us in an all-out nuclear war unless the facts showed clearly that we are in danger of devastation ourselves."

To make U.S. deterrent power more convincing, Kahn urges a broad program of preparation for a nuclear attack on the U.S.: civil defense measures, plus strengthening of U.S. air defenses against Russian bombers (a greater threat than missiles for a while yet), plus safeguarding Strategic Air Command bombers through dispersal and hardening of bases. The better prepared the U.S. is to fight back and recuperate after a nuclear attack, the less likely the Russians are to attack. In addition, Kahn advocates a buildup of conventional military forces, armed with non-nuclear weapons, to lessen the U.S.'s dependence on nuclear retaliatory power. For the long run, with the rapid development of ever more fearsome military technologies and the spread of nuclear weapons to smaller nations, Kahn thinks that no feasible combination of unilateral defense measures will provide national security. "If we are to reach the year 2,000, or even 1975 without a cataclysm of some sort," he says, the nations with nuclear capabilities must work out enforceable international arms-control agreements.

Kahn is only halfway optimistic about even the shorter-term prospects. He is convinced that with clear, realistic thinking about national defense and substantial increases in defense spending, the U.S. can deter nuclear war in the 19605, or survive and recuperate if deterrence fails. But he is far from convinced that the required expenditures of thought and money will be forthcoming. "The capacity of Western governments and peoples to indulge in wishful thinking about military problems," he says, "is almost unlimited."

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