MORAL CLARITY IN THE NUCLEAR AGE

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Although in recent times, as in earlier
times, there has been a tendency to use the expression "the Church" to mean
chiefly its ordained leaders, the clergy, the Church in fact consists of the entire
people of God, including those laymen and laywomen who participate in "the
saving mission of the Church." As the Second Vatican Council puts it:
Every layman should openly reveal to [his pastors] his
needs and desires with that freedom and confidence
which befits a son of God and a brother in Christ. An
individual layman, by reason of the knowledge, compe-
tence, or outstanding ability which he may enjoy, is per-
mitted and sometimes even obliged to express his opin-
ion on things which concern the good of the Church.
When occasions arise, let this be done through the agen-
cies set up by the Church for this purpose. Let it always
be done in truth, in courage, and in prudence, with rev-
erence and charity toward those who by reason of their
sacred office represent the person of Christ. [Lumen Gen-
tium, #37.]
In recent years, many laymen, laywomen, and cler-
gy have awaited the early drafts of a pastoral letter
from the U.S. bishops on morality in nuclear matters.
Both the first and second drafts that have appeared
have awakened many questions. Rather than merely
react to flawed portions of the two early drafts-with
which many bishops are not yet satisfied-it seemed
wiser to attempt a constructive statement of our own
reasoned moral views. The task is immensely difficult.
No more than our bishops do we expect complete
unanimity. Emulating their example, we are moved
by our responsibilities to the Gospel of Jesus Christ
and to our vocations as Christians in the world. We
hope that this constructive act will be useful to our
bishops, and we make it public in accord with their
express desire that the complex issues involved be
treated to extensive and reasoned debate.
For nearly the whole of our adult lifetimes, since
the first use of atomic power, and since the passing
of its secrets into the hands of the USSR, we have
all of us lived under the shadow of new and terrible
.weapons. Descriptions of the horrible devastation that
might be wrought upon the entire world through these
weapons have been set before the public not only in
scientific testimony but also in popular novels and
movies. For more than thirty years, a primary moral
imperative placed upon governments and peoples has
been to assure that these weapons shall never be un-
justly used.
The technology upon which these weapons are based
is sufficiently simple that its secrets have now become
dispersed throughout the world. Knowledge is good in
itself; so is human liberty; we can scarcely wish that
these secrets had never been learned. Moreover, it
is virtually impossible that, once discovered, they can
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be wholly repressed or permanently banished from
this earth. The moral imperative that they never be
unjustly used, therefore, will retain its full force for
the foreseeable future.
Yet it must immediately be observed that such
weapons have two quite different uses. The most ob-
vious use is through their explosion in warfare. The
more subtle use is through intimidation, since powers
that possess them exercise over others that do not a
threat beside which conventional armed forces pale.
While the use of nuclear weapons in the first sense is
From biblical times,
the human race
has often been
warned that God
might will or
permit its destruction
most to be guarded against, use in the second sense
also constitutes a grave danger to justice, liberty, and
peace. The moral imperative mentioned above applies
to both uses.
More than once in our lifetime, superior nuclear
force has obliged weaker nations either to surrender
(Japan) or to abandon projects in which they were
engaged (the USSR in Cuba) or otherwise to mod-
erate their intentions and actions. The possession of
nuclear weapons seems also to have moderated actions
that might in other times have led to confronta-
tion by force of conventional arms. In this sense,
while nuclear weapons constitute a grave threat to
justice, liberty, and peace, their possession has also
had pacific effects.
From biblical times, the human race has often been
warned that God might will or permit its destruction.
When Cain slew Abel, he prefigured the possibility of
a threat to all the progeny of Adam and Eve, includ-
ing himself, for by the same passion he might have
slain not only his brother but also his parents and
finally himself. In the story of Noah, the Bible in-
structs us in an image of the destruction of the whole
world by flood, and warns us of God's threat to de-
stroy all the world by fire.. Sodom, Gomorrah, and
other cities were utterly destroyed in vivid warning,
as was the Temple of Jerusalem. To live under threat
of flood, fire, glacier, plague, pestilence, war, and de-
struction is not novel for an imagination attuned to
biblical history. The destruction of Carthage, the lev-
eling of the glories of Greece and Rome, and the
coming night of barbarism inspired St. Augustine to
oppose secular millenarianism and a false sense of ca-
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tastrophe as he penned The Citty of God. The ruin of
civilization is not a theme new to our time, nor is the
theme of the destruction of all things living. Since
Jewish and Christian conscience has long been steeled
by contemplation of the fragility of this world and
the overpowering sovereignty of God, our generation
should not separate itself too dramatically from all
others. The prophecies in the Book of Revelation ex-
ceed even the horrors of the twentieth century.
In fulfilling the moral imperative to prevent unjust
uses of nuclear weapons, therefore, Christian citizens
must exercise clear and sustained thought. Any flight
of reason into panic must be quietly resisted, and ev-
ery flight into illusion curbed. Both for good and for
ill, the "mobilization of the masses" has frequently
characterized life in this century. Neither slogans nor
cold fear is a suitable substitute for prudent judg-
ment. Questions of this magnitude cannot be left to
experts, governmental or ecclesiastical, but must be
prayerfully and lucidly reflected upon by all citizens.
Only a broadly supported, carefully reasoned public
policy, sustained over decades, meets the imperative
laid upon all of us. Strong majorities must grasp and
nourish such a policy.
For this reason, we Catholic citizens welcome the
effort of the National Conference of Catholic Bish-
ops in the United States, and the bishops of various
Conferences in Europe and elsewhere, to draft pastoral
letters on nuclear arms. The bishops have a right and
a duty to express the truth of the Gospels entrusted
to them and to restate the Catholic tradition for our
time. On these matters, they, and only they, in their
vocation as teachers, have full authority with respect
to the Gospels and the Catholic faith.
According to the teaching of Jacques Maritain and
Etienne Gilson, there are three spheres of Gospel
teaching in human life.' The first concerns the life of
the spirit, human life in the light of eternity. The sec-
'See Maritain, "The Structure of Action," Integral Humanism.
trans. Joseph W. Evans (Scribner s, 1968). Addressing the Society
of Jesus on February 27, 1982, John Paul II said: "As 1 said on 2
July 1980 in Rio de Janeiro, priestly service. 'if it is really to be
faithful to itself, is essentially and per excellence spiritual. This
must be even more emphasized in our times against the many
tendencies to secularize the priest's work by reducing it to a pure-
ly philanthropic function. He is not a medical doctor, a social work-
er, a politician, or a trade unionist. In certain cases, no doubt.
the priest can help, but in a supplementary fashion-as in the past
priests have done so with remarkable success. Today, however,
these services are admirably rendered by other members of so-
ciety, whilst our service is always more precisely and specifically
spiritual.'" In his letter of March 25, 1982 to the entire Society
of Jesus, Father Dezza applied the prescriptions of the Holy Fa-
ther, while speaking of the recommendations presented by Pope
Paul VI: "The second recommendation was not to confuse roles
proper to priests with those proper to lay people. In the econom-
ic, social, and political fields, the role of the priest is to educate
toward justice and social commitment, and to encourage lay peo-
ple to arry out their duties fully without replacing them in these.
The priest's role is to indicate Christian principles concerning eco-
nomic, social, and political life; to denounce injustices, to exhort
people to work with the improvement or reform of institutions,
to 'expound the social doctrine of the Church. not so much to
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and concerns those areas of the social order on which
the Gospels and Catholic teaching directly impinge
and in which they are necessarily enmeshed-such
areas as are addressed in the social encyclicals of the
popes, for example. The third concerns the area of
worldly interpretation of social reality and fact, tac-
tical and strategic judgment oriented to results in the
concrete world of history, choice among various per-
missible means, practical detail, and, in general, ques-
tions of prudential judgment.
While in all three spheres every member of the
Church may have important witness to contribute,
there is an ordinary differentiation of functions and
The God of the Last
Judgment will not
be satisfied that
a Christian followed the
general authority
of his bishop
authority. In the first of these spheres, the teaching
of the bishops is clear and supreme when in conform-
ity with that of the Holy Father and the whole col-
lege of bishops. In the second, the teaching of the
bishops and popes is necessary and fruitful, although
more engaged with matters fraught with ambiguity
and danger of error. In the third, the focus of Cath-
olic teaching normally passes from the hands of the
bishops and popes to the concrete moral reasoning of
individual Catholics responsible for fulfilling their vo-
find solutions for concrete social and political problems, which is
the task of lay people, but to help them reflect on the principles
which should guide the search for such solutions.'"
cations in the worldThis is because in the world of
contingency and action, Church leaders cannot sum-
marize all concrete possibilities, but must enunciate re-
ligious ideals and moral principles and demand that
lay people apply them to concrete situations prudent-
ly and prayerfully. In this third sphere, the God of
the Last Judgment will not be satisfied by a claim
that a Christian followed the general authority of his
bishop or of anyone else; each will be judged by
what he or she did in the fight of his or her own con-
crete moral reasoning in particular cases. From such
personal responsibility, there will be no escape in the
encompassing light of Judgment.
It is in this third sphere that we associate ourselves
in the task of Christian moral reasoning, reflecting on
the realities of nuclear weapons in our time. We are
conscious of the presence of God. It is His judgment
we fear. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of
wisdom" (Proverbs 9:10). Being faithful to the teach-
ings of the Gospel and of the Catholic tradition, in-
cluding the recent teachings of the Second Vatican
Council, the popes, and the bishops, we propose to
deal as clearly and as conscientiously as we can with
the prudential matters of the third sphere. We speak
for no others but ourselves. The matters with which
we wrestle are, in the nature of the case, full of am-
biguity, complex in their chains of reasoning, depend-
ent upon difficult judgments of fact at every step.
Other Christians of good will are certain to make
quite different judgments at any of ten or twelve
places in the argument. So it always is in complex
judgments of fact. We are certain only that we have
tried to be faithful to biblical realism: both to the
Gospels and the Catholic tradition, and to a realistic
assessment of matters of fact and rational principle.
We welcome argument, since it is by argument that
we have arrived where we are, and by argument that
we hope to learn. Among ourselves, we also have
differences. Nonetheless, we have found it possible
to offer what follows as a public and moral policy,
which we as Catholics support.
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The Catholic tradition on war and peace is long and
complex: it reaches from the Old Testament and the
beginning of the New, from the slaughter of the inno-
cents at the birth of Christ to the baptism of the Ro-
man centurion, from the practice of the early Church
to recent statements by Pope John Paul 11. Its devel-
opment cannot be sketched in a straight line. It sel-
dom gives a simple answer to complex questions. It
speaks through many voices. It has produced multiple
forms of religious witness.
We rely upon The Pastoral Constitution on the
Church in the Modern World and on The Decree on
the Apostolate of the Laity of Vatican 11 (Walter M.
Abbott, SJ, ed., The Documents of Vatican II, Amer-
ica Press, 1966) as the most authoritative recent state-
ments on the question of nuclear weapons and on the
role of the laity. We note that The Pastoral Consti-
tution carefully differentiated in its own teaching be-
tween those elements "of permanent value" and oth-
ers of "only a transitory one." It said that future
"interpreters must bear in mind . . . the changeable
circumstances which the subject matter, by its very
nature, involves." In this spirit, we are mindful of
the indispensable, central role of accurate discrimina-
tion and sound prudential judgment.
We note also that Vatican II did not speak of nu-
clear weapons as such, but of "scientific weapons."
We understand this more general concept to be essen-
tial, since developments in rocketry, computers, and
explosives since 1945 have given even "conventional"
weapons awesome destructive power at great distances
and with amazing accuracy. Because of their power,
many of the novel "conventional" weapons seem to
fall under the same moral strictures as do nuclear
weapons, in terms of proportionality and discrimina-
tion in targeting. Indeed, the larger "conventional"
weapons now exceed in their destructive power the
smaller nuclear weapons. If one cannot distinguish be-
tween such weapons on the scale of sheer physical
power, nonetheless the divide between conventional
and nuclear explosives is a critical boundary.
The Pastoral Constitution bids us to read the "signs
of the times." We note three vital factors in particu-
eace in the wor[dtnday:
Catholic Perspectives
lar. The first is recorded in the Pastoral Constitu-
tion itself: "Insofar as men are sinful, the threat of
war hangs over them, and hang over them it will un-
til the return of Christ.... In spite of the fact that
recent wars have wrought physical and moral havoc
on our world, conflicts still produce their devastat-
ing effect day by day somewhere in the world." The
second comes from that constitution's definition of
peace: "This peace cannot be obtained on earth unless
personal values are safeguarded and men freely and
trustingly share with one another the riches of their
inner spirits and their talents." This is not the peace
of totalitarianism. It is the peace of liberty and jus-
tice. The third vital factor is that considerations of
the need to avoid nuclear war "compel us to under-
take an evaluation of war with an entirely new atti-
tude." It is a moral imperative to deter not only nu-
clear war but all war. Yet the very act of nuclear
deterrence has its own novel characteristics, involving
new ways of thinking about intention, threat, use,
At the center of the
Catholic teaching
on war and peace is
1) the sovereignty of God
and 2) the dignity
of the human person
means and ends, and Lesser evils. "An entirely new at-
titude" is indeed required on some of these matters.
At the center of the Catholic teaching on war and
peace is, first, the sovereignty of God and, second,
the dignity of the human person. The perennial sin-
fulness of human beings makes the threat of war per-
ennial; their longing to be true to the image of God
within them makes perennial the longing for peace.
Directly to take innocent human life is a prerogative
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is
only of the sovereign God, the Author of life. To de-
fend the dignity of human life is both the motive
force of peace and the just cause of war. When an
unjust aggressor injures human dignity, to stand aside
is a form of complicity and collusion. To resist an
unjust aggressor with proportionate means is de-
manded by justice. Thus, human dignity is the cause
both of just peace and of just war. As there are wars
that are unjust, so also there is peace that is unjust.
It is sometimes held that there are on these ques-
tions plural traditions in the Catholic Church, one ad-
dressed to Catholics and another addressed to the
pluralistic public, one evangelical and the other based
on natural law, one committed to pacifism and the
other committed to the tradition of just-war reason-
ing. But there is not one teaching for initiates, an-
other for the uninitiated; not one teaching for the
perfect, another for the imperfect. In the matter of
celibacy and marriage there may be two vocations in
the Church, yet one vision of a common faith. So in
matters of war and peace there is more than one vo-
cation, yet one common teaching about justice in war
and in peace. One common set of precepts, many dif-
ferent counsels; one life of charity, many different
vocations: this is our vision.
Tom wuttlie Kingdom
Although God has always promised His people
peace and rest, the paradoxical nature of these prom-
ises is ever-present in the Bible. "Not as the world
gives do I give peace," Jesus says (John 14:27). Again:
"I have come to bring not peace but the sword"
(Matthew 10:34). And, admonishing Peter in Geth-
semane, Jesus says: "Put your sword back into its
place; for all those who take up the sword shall per-
ish by the sword. Do you think that I cannot appeal
to my Father, and He will at once send me more
than twelve legions of angels? But how then should
the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?" (Mat-
thew 26:52-54).
In the Old Testament, God is often portrayed as
One Who leads His people into battle, Whose power
helps them to prevail, Who avenges wrongs done to
them by their enemies. Paradoxically, Gideon says,
"God is peace," and the blessing of the Lord on Is-
rael includes this, that "the Lord lift up His coun-
tenance and give you peace" (Numbers 6:23-27). Ezek-
iel speaks for Yahweh: "I will make a covenant of
peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant
with them . . ." (Ezekiel 37:26). Yet as sin persists,
so does war. False prophets "heal the wound of the
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people lightly" (Jeremiah 6:14). Peace would have
come, had people not persisted in sin: "O1 that you
had hearkened to my commandments! Then your
peace would have been like a river, and your right-
We sharply distinguish
between pacifism as
a personal commitment and
pacifism as a public
policy, compromising many
who are not pacifists
eousness like the waves of the sea" (Isaiah 48:18).
Only in the time of full righteousness and no more
sin shall the people "bend their swords into plow-
shares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation
shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall
they learn war any more" (Isaiah 2:4).
Although Jesus comes as the Prince of Peace, in-
augurating a kingdom of peace, He was a man of
sorrows, bloodily slain on the cross. He called His
disciples to share in self-sacrifice. His vision of this
world was no vision of the easy triumph of justice
and light. On the contrary, the vision of Jesus is a
divisive force in history, dividing even families, a two-
edged sword that "pierces to the division of soul and
spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerns the thoughts
and intentions of the heart" (Hebrews 4:12). It will
divide believer from infidel. It will trouble individu-
als, like the rich young man (Matthew 19:16-26), and
in time divide the nations. In this world Jesus does
not promise peace. When Jesus speaks of peace, it is
not as the absence of war between nations, or as an
end to persecution, or as a cessation of injustice, or
as an end to terror and lies, but, rather, as a form of
knowing and being in union with God (John 17:3), a
"peace which the world cannot give" (John 14:27). It
is worth noting that no one in the New Testament
thinks of telling the Roman centurions to give up
their military careers-neither Jesus (Matthew 8:
5-13), nor John the Baptist (Luke 3:14), nor St. Paul
(Acts 22:25).
In being condemned to a cruel death (Galatians
3:13), Jesus did not defend Himself against unjust
treatment and assaults upon His human dignity. He
followed here not His will, but His Father's, offering
a redemptive sacrifice for all. His gentleness under
torment, His nonviolence, and His forgiveness of His
killers have led some to choose, in imitation of Him,
nonviolence as a way of life, both in their persons
and in public policy. We recognize this choice, but
believe it to be a misreading both of the Scriptures
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and of virtually the entire Catholic tradition. We
sharply distinguish between pacifism as a personal
commitment, implicating only a person who is not a
public figure responsible for the lives of others, and
pacifism as a public policy, compromising many who
are not pacifists and endangering the very possibility
of pacifism itself. It is not justice if the human race
as a whole or in part is heaped with indignities, spat
upon, publicly humiliated, and destroyed, as Jesus
was. It is not moral to permit the human race so
to endure the injustice of the passion and death of
Christ. Many serious arguments against pacifism as
a Christian vocation have been offered throughout
Christian history. Closest to our own time, the argu-
ments of Reinhold Niebuhr and C. S. Lewis may be
cited. While following closely the paradoxical lan-
guage of the Scriptures and the Catholic tradition,
and choosing against pacifism for ourselves, how-
ever, we honor the liberty of others to choose differ-
ently, and, in particular, the calling of the clergy not
to take up arms.
]KhVdom mufHis
With Pope John Paul 11 we hold:
Christian optimism based on the glorious cross of Christ
and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit is no excuse for
self-deception. For Christians, peace on earth is always a
challenge because of the presence of sin in man's heart.
Although Christians put all their best energies into pre-
venting war or stopping it, they do not deceive them-
selves about their ability to cause peace to triumph, nor
about the effect of their efforts to this end. They there-
fore concern themselves with all human initiatives in fa-
vor of peace and very often take part in them. But they
regard them with realism and humility. One could al-
most say that they relativize them in two senses: they
relate them both to the self-deception of humanity and
to God's saving plan. ["World Day of Peace Message,"
1982.]
History is open; therefore, one must always say that
peace is possible. On the other hand, we heed Pope
John Paul II, who observes, in that same message,
"that in this world a totally and permanently peaceful
human society is unfortunately a utopia, and that
ideologies that hold up that prospect as easily at-
tainable are based on hopes that cannot be realized,
whatever the reason behind them."
History is full of ambiguities, contingencies, and
complex patterns of fact. No two people perceive
world affairs in identical fashion. Interpretations even
of the simplest events radically diverge. In this re-
spect, we cherish the wisdom of the Pastoral Consti-
tution:
Very often their Christian vision will suggest a certain
solution in some given situation. Yet it happens rather
frequently, and legitimately so, that some of the faithful,
with no less sincerity, will see the problem quite differ-
ently. Now if one or other of the proposed solutions is
too easily associated with the message of the Gospel, they
ought to remember that in those cases no one is permit-
ted to identify the authority of the Church exclusively
with his own opinion. Let them, then, try to guide each
other by sincere dialogue in a spirit of mutual charity
and with anxious interest above all in the common. good.
From some of the early Christians through Dorothy
Day and Martin Luther King Jr., some Christians-
joining others like Leo Tolstoy, Mahatma Gandhi,
and Norman Thomas-have held that any use of mili-
tary force is immoral. Yet we observe that military
and police power has been necessary from time im-
memorial to preserve civilized societies-and pacifists
themselves-against unjust aggression and brutal vio-
lation of rights. As a set of practical methods, non-
violent techniques have preeminence for nonpacifists
as well as for pacifists. They are, after all, the stuff
of diplomacy and statecraft, within which adversaries
observe civil discourse and amenities of many sorts.
Although a full discussion of these issues would take
us too far afield, we observe that there are important
distinctions to be made between force and violence,
between nonviolence and pacifism, and between the
power and the authority of the state. For example,
nonpacifists prefer nonviolence to violence, respect
for legitimate authority to naked state power, and
legitimate uses of force to violent acts. Deterrence
itself is a form of nonviolence, a legitimate use of
force, based upon Legitimate authority.
While some Christian communities, such as the
Mennonites, the Quakers, and the Church of the
Brethren, make the refusal of military service an obli-
gation for their members, the Catholic Church has
not done so-indeed, has afforded many arguments,
biblical, theological, moral, and political, against pac-
ifism. In this world of sin and threat of war, for ev-
ery pacifist who refuses to take up arms, some other
citizen, who would also prefer to five in peace, must
take his place. Nonetheless, in the full liberty of an
open church, nonviolent witness through a conscien-
tious refusal of military service has been honored in
the Catholic tradition. Recognizing this liberty of
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conscience, we nonetheless argue against the pacifist
option, as did C. S. Lewis in The Weight of Glory:
Only liberal societies tolerate pacifists. In the liberal soci-
ety, the number of pacifists will either be large enough to
cripple the state as a belligerent, or not. If not, you have
done nothing. If it is large enough, then you have handed
over the state which does tolerate pacifists to its totali-
tarian neighbor who does not. Pacifism of this kind is
taking the straight road to a world in which there will be
no pacifists.
Thus widespread pacifism in churches and universi-
ties during the 1930s helped convince Hitler and the
Japanese that the West lacked the resolve to defend
itself, and encouraged them to launch World War 11.
The pacifist refuses to restrain with proportionate
force an aggressor who is injuring the innocent. By
contrast, St. Augustine understood the command of
love to demand a just defense of the innocent. This
is because St. Augustine understood that the world
of history is in part evil, and that action to restrain
evil is an essential component of justice. While some
Christians stress the fact that the "New Kingdom" has
already come with Jesus, others, like Augustine, stress
the continuing power of sin and the complex texture
of social ambiguity. War, for example, may arise
from human sinfulness, but it may also afford a trag-
ic remedy for sin in political society. (It was in this
spirit that we observed, above, that the possession of
nuclear weapons has had both threatening and mod-
erating effects during the past 25 years.) Moreover,
if love demands the defense of others (such that a
For every pacifist
who refuses to take up
arms, some other
citizen, who would also
prefer to live in peace,,
must take his place
failure to defend them can be a sin), both love and
justice also command self-defense. Peace is sometimes
unjust; war is sometimes morally imperative. In clar-
ifying such paradoxes, the traditional just-war teach-
ing has stood the tests of time. Many who claim to
reject it do, nonetheless, invoke its criteria; as, for
example, in judging nuclear weapons immoral (for
lack of proportionality and discrimination), in de-
fending wars of liberation like those against Somoza
and the Shah, and in opposing the U.S. presence in
South Vietnam.
The essence of just-war theory lies in the convic-
tion that wars arewrong and to be avoided, except
under quite stringently defined conditions. These are
seven in number: 1) Only a competent authority may
declare a war for the common good and in the inter-
ests of the public order. 2) It must be inspired by a
just cause: such as to defend against aggression, to
protect innocent life and human rights from real and
certain injury, and to resist tyranny. 3) A right inten-
tion must guide the purpose, means, conduct, and
aims of war in the light of the "just cause." Violence
may be chosen only 4) as a last resort, when all
peaceful methods of negotiation have failed, and 5)
with probability of success-so that irrational resort
to force is not mandated in the name of justice. The
nature of the war itself must manifest 6) propor-
tionality: the damage to be inflicted and the costs
incurred must not constitute a greater evil than the
evil to be avoided. 7) Just means that are both dis-
criminate and proportional must be employed. This
means that: a) discrimination between combatants and
civilians, while not easy to observe under modern
conditions, must be maintained in every act of war;
b) the proportionality of each act of war derives from
its indirect, collateral, and long-term effects. It will
be noted that common-sense criticisms of wars and
the conduct of wars usually fall under one of these
headings.
There are some gaps in just-war theory today, since
new conditions have raised new questions. Among
these may be mentioned the following: a) Does any
band of idealists or cynics that takes up arms in the
name of a "just cause" constitute a competent author-
ity to launch a just war? b) Under what circum-
stances, if any, are acts of terrorism (that is, violent
acts directed at persons, property, or public order),
for whatever motives, whether revolutionary or ab-
surdest or other, justified? c) Considering the current
literature of instruction in the conduct of guerrilla
warfare, the training of terrorists, and the techniques
of espionage and subversion, what light can be shed
by just-war theory on existing practices in wide-
spread underground wars? d) According to just-war
theory, is a "cold war" of espionage and counter-
espionage to be preferred to a "hot war" of conven-
tional conflict, as a means of self-defense; and, if so,
according to what standards of behavior? e) Under
the "paradoxes of deterrence" (to be discussed below),
does the traditional teaching on "intention" have to be
refined and stated more precisely? f) If it may be con-
cluded that a particular totalitarian regime is evil in
a special way-as was the case with National Social-
ism under Adolf Hitler, at least from the time of the
death camps in 1941-do other nations acquire moral
responsibilities, in the name of justice, for what hap-
pens within those regimes? What responsibility have
citizens of one nation to be keepers of the human
rights of those of another? These are only a few of
the unanswered questions of our day.
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49- ?
Because of the unparalleled power of nuclear weap-
ons, it is easy to be deflected from reasoned discourse.
When one has listened to eminent scientists and phy-
sicians detail the horrors of the worst imaginable case
of nuclear destruction, one is driven to recall the les-
sons of Christian faith about the precariousness of all
human life, the approaching end of history, the per-
ennial wickedness and obdurateness of the human
race, and the total sovereignty of God. Nuclear weap-
ons have changed our world but have not altered the
fundamentals of the Jewish-Christian vision. In the bib-
lical era, only about fifty million human beings,
widely separated from each other, lived on earth. Un-
der ancient conditions of communications, those who
lived in a particular village, town, region, or country
believed they knew "the whole world," and did not
know they inhabited a tiny planet spinning in space.
For them, the destruction of their whole world could
descend in one violent sacking, pillaging, and leveling
-as, more than once, the heads of infants in Israel
were dashed against stones; and as Moscow, Kiev, War-
saw fell to Mongol invaders in horrors still not forgot-
ten. Images of horrible plague and destruction often
arose in medieval times. Not even our fears are as
novel as we think. This is the context in which Pope
John Paul 11 said at Hiroshima: "In the past it was pos-
Democracy itself
depends upon
the civility,
reasonableness, and
wisdom of the
public discussion
sible to destroy a village, a town, a region, even a
country. Now it is the whole planet that has come
under threat." Today, nuclear weapons add new di-
mensions of scale and time, through prolonged radio-
activity. These new possibilities make two questions
most insistent: Can nuclear war be prevented? If so,
which strategies and tactics, and which principles
of human behavior, are most likely to succeed in pre-
venting it? The first question involves a principle:
We must seek to prevent nuclear war. The second,
while also involving principles, is ultimately a ques-
tion for prudential judgment.
There is a widespread, well-organized, and well-
financed "peace movement" in several free countries
today, particularly in those about to make decisions
for their future defense against superior nuclear forces
now arrayed against them: West Germany, the Neth-
erlands, Denmark, Belgium, and the United Kingdom.
(France is militarily independent of NATO and has
its own deterrent; its "peace movement" is far less
visible.) There is also a well-organized "peace move-
ment" in many cities in the United States. Some have
found the public discussion here and abroad "un-
precedented in its scope and depth." Democratic so-
cieties entrust such matters to public discussion; that
is one reason they are worth defending. Democracy
itself depends upon the civility, reasonableness, and
wisdom of the discussion.
Political peace has always been precarious, and
statesmen imply fragility when they use such phrases
as "the balance of power." An overall balance of
power, always shifting, does not guarantee peace. Yet
experience has shown that the capacity to retaliate
in kind has prevented some weapons systems from
being used, even when peace is breached-e.g., chem-
ical weapons in World War 11. But deterrence has
never been wisely thought of as a "safe and stable"
April 1. 1983 / NATIONAL REVIEW 365
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0
system, except by comparison with other proposed
alternatives. Today a spiritual sea change does threat-
en deterrence. Since 1945, the 400 million citizens of
the NATO countries have enjoyed liberty and pros-
perity unparalleled in human history. Changes in
material conditions also unleashed new possibilities
for spiritual fulfillment. This great transformation in
As Secretary of
Defense Harold Brown
said, `When we
build, they build.
When we stop
building, they build'
life has been sudden and profound. Children can
scarcely know the almost wholly different conditions
under which their parents entered upon. life during
the Depression and wartime. The horrors and depriva-
tions of forty years ago are unknown to a majority
of those now living. Consequently, unrealistic and uto-
pian expectations find fertile soil. Deterrence is some-
times judged against ideals, not against recent history.
There is a danger that history may once again repeat
itself, not only in Europe but elsewhere. Preserving
peace and defending justice are political tasks; and pol-
itics, while always ambiguous and imperfect, is the in-
strument of natural law for the protection of the weak
and the innocent. Constitutional law, democratic proce-
dures, and political processes are far from perfect, but
they are noble in their dependence upon civil discourse,
persuasion, and realistic judgment about the less than
perfect.
To be sure, it is tragic that so much treasure has
had to be spent on arms since 1945. The postwar
world might have been different. Moreover, if one
compares the crude atomic bomb of 1945 and its
primitive delivery system with the weaponry to be
found 37 years later in the arsenals of the U.S. and
the USSR, one sees that the "arms race" means not
only treasure spent but conditions transformed. This
is true even though the total money spent on nuclear
weapons and their technology has been a very small
fraction of U.S. economic resources. Expenditures on
the research and production of nuclear weapons by
the United States since 1945 have been estimated to
be less than $400 billion, about S12 billion per year.
In fiscal year 1983, U.S. expenditures on nuclear
weapons constitute 9 per cent of the military budget,
2.9 per cent of the entire federal budget, and about
0.6 per cent of GNP. Compared to conventional
arms, nuclear arms are vastly less expensive.
366 NATIONAL REVIEW / April 1, 1983
Under the terms of the treaties ending World War
11, the United States has chiefly been charged with
the defense, not simply of its own interests, but of
Western Europe and Japan, as well. After the war,
all Western nations virtually disarmed. Even in the
face of a massive Soviet build-up since 1965-the
most massive in peacetime history-the defense budget
in 1981 for Western nations was, according to the
International Institute for Strategic Studies in Lon-
don: for Belgium, 3.3 per cent of GNP; Britain, 5.4,
Canada, 1.7; Denmark, 2.5; France, 4.1; Germany,
4.3; Greece, 5.7; Italy, 2.5; Japan, 0.9; Luxembourg.
1.2; Netherlands, 3.4; Norway, 3.3; Portugal, 3.8;
Spain, 1.9; Turkey, 4.5; U.S., 6.1. (It is estimated
that the Soviet Union spends, for its armed forces
alone, not counting the military KGB, between II
and 12 per cent. The Soviet GNP is lower than that
of the U.S.; but costs, not least in salaries to military
and military industries, are much lower in the So-
viet Union.) These considerations suggest two con-
clusions. First, the percentage of national resources
spent on arms by the Western allies is low. Second.
the percentage of national resources spent on nuclear
arms is, in the case of the U.S., ten times, as low.
Thus when, in 1976, the Holy See condemned the
arms race as a danger, an act of aggression against
the poor, and a folly that does not provide the se-
curity it promises, the Holy See could not reasonably
be interpreted as asking the Western allies to spend
much less than they are spending. The reason for
poverty in the world is not adequate defense. Fur-
thermore, efforts to supplant reliance on nuclear
weaponry with reliance on conventional weaponry
are bound to raise military costs dramatically, since
conventional weapons are far more expensive.
While we cannot speak for the "arms race" of Third
World countries or in the Soviet Union, we do note
that the percentage of world gross economic product
being spent on arms has declined during every year
since 1967. According to The Statistical Abstract of
the United States, in 1978, the last year for which fig-
ures are available, the world spent 5.4 per cent of its
gross economic product on arms, down from 6.7 per
cent a decade earlier. In 1978 this amounted to $480
billion. Since virtually all nations of the world are
welfare states to some degree or another, it must be
noted that government expenditures alone for health
and welfare, not counting expenditures by private
citizens on their own behalf, amounted to several
times the level of military expenditures. In the United
States, for example, the portion of the federal budg-
et spent on health and welfare programs of various
sorts during 1982 was 51 per cent, and on defense
programs, 26 per cent. This does not include human
services provided by state and local governments and
by private agencies of every sort. Since the United
States bears the free world's heaviest defense bur-
den, comparisons of percentages of human-services ex-
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penditures to military expenditures
in West Germany, the United King-
dom, and other nations are even
more favorable. In the free nations,
moneys from all sources spent on
health, education, welfare, and oth-
er human services exceed moneys
spent on weapons by a factor of
about twenty to one.
It is, nonetheless, true that low-
er spending on defense would be
advantageous to all. Since govern-
ment spending that creates deficits
has implications for inflation and
unemployment, every reduction in
pressure on government budgets
may have salutary effects through-
out the economy. For many reasons,
we favor the minimum amount of
defense spending consistent with
moral obligations to defend the
innocent with just means. We rec-
ognize that moral means may be
more costly than less moral means,
as conventional deterrence may be
more costly than nuclear deter-
rence, but we accept this as the
price of moral behavior.
To say no to nuclear war is both
a necessary and a complex task,
especially since saying no doesn't
make it so. It is also a task full of
paradox, and demands new ways of
thinking. It is a task demanding
perseverance from one generation
to another. It is a task exquisite-
ly dependent upon cool-headedness
and the force of reason, a task
made difficult by outbursts of pas-
sion, accusation, flagrant hyperbole,
and misleading assertion. In de-
nouncing the relations between the
United States and the USSR for be-
ing based upon a balance of nuclear
power, some critics fail to imagine
the consequences of losing a war to
a tyrannical power. Some also fail
to imagine the consequences of at-
tempting a balance of conventional
power. First, the history of modern
Europe is not reassuring about bal-
ances of conventional power. Sec-
ond, world leaders do not seem
by their behavior to fear conven-
tional wars-of which there have
been more than 67 since World
War 11-as they fear nuclear con-
flict. Third, at present the conven-
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April 1, 1983 / NATIONAL REVIEW
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 Approved For Release 2008/01/14: CIA-RDP85TOO153R000100060031-1
tional military arms of the Soviet Union sufficiently
outnumber those of Western Europe to create an im-
balance whose rectification would require immediate,
sustained, and heavy military expenditures by Western
nations. A political leader seeking to solicit those ex-
penditures from voters might not be successful, and
might not win support from the churches, the univer-
sities, and the press. In short, an alternative to the
nuclear balance is easier to talk about than to real-
ize. Further, it is one-sided to speak of "psychological
damage" done to ordinary people, especially the
young, by the nuclear balance without comparing it
to the "psychological damage" that would be caused
by heavier taxes and conscription for conventional
forces, on the one hand, and by intimidation under
"Finlandization," on the other. Appeasement, too,
causes "psychological damage." It is also extreme to
contrast the "billions readily spent for destructive in-
struments"-517 billion were spent in the U.S. in
1982 on strategic forces-with "pitched battles" being
waged in the U.S. Congress over "a fraction of this
amount for the homeless, the hungry, and the help-
less." Moneys allocated by Congress for housing assis-
tance, food stamps, Medicaid, Medicare, and other
forms of welfare vastly exceed moneys allocated for
nuclear arms. Although one might wish that cuts in
spending on nuclear weapons would go to the home-
less, the hungry, and the helpless, the second draft
of the Pastoral Letter of the U.S. Catholic Bishops
(November 1982) prudently observes: "Rejection of
some forms of nuclear deterrence might therefore re-
quire a willingness to pay higher costs to develop con-
ventional forces. Leaders and peoples of other nations
might also have to accept higher costs for their- own
defense if the United States Government were to
withdraw any threat to use nuclear weapons first."
Saying no to nuclear weapons might, therefore, impose
a greater burden on the poor than they now bear.
IRrfPud!u Deflate
Religious leaders who wish to influence public pol-
icy by influencing public opinion owe a special debt
to democratic states, and incur an obligation to de-
fend them against those who would destroy them.
"Rulers must be supported and enlightened by a pub-
lic opinion that encourages them or, where necessary,
expresses disapproval," Pope John Paul 11 says, thus
preferring societies in which the public may express
disapproval of their leaders. Is it just to defend such
societies with nuclear weapons? Some would "build a
barrier against the concept of nuclear war." But a
parchment barrier will not prevent nuclear war. As
even God's commandments have frequently been dis-
obeyed, so also a nuclear war may be waged by sin-
ful men. Since this possibility cannot be excluded, it
does not seem wrong for the potential victims of nu-
clear war to give some thought to surviving it. Is it
a necessary assumption that any one use of any one
type of nuclear weapon will result almost at once in
the explosion of every nuclear weapon? History is full
of surprises and sudden turns. What seems most prob-
able often does not occur. Prudent leaders must,
therefore, consider other possible eventualities.
It is possible that one step into nuclear warfare will
escalate outside human control to total expenditure
of every nuclear weapon. But this is not the only
possibility. Moral reflection requires the moralist to
face other eventualities. Today, these possibilities are
shaped by two great concrete realities: the actual na-
ture of the Soviet Union and the actual nature of the
United States and other Western democracies. The
problem of saying no to nuclear war is not abstract,
it is concretely directed most of all to Moscow, to
Washington, and to the European capitals. Actual de-
cisions about existing and forthcoming nuclear weap-
ons are made by real persons in specific political and
geographical locations. Moral thinking about nuclear
war must be concrete, as well as abstract.
CE'Concrete Moral Context
In deciding ethical questions in political matters it
is wise procedure to seek first a clear grasp of real-
ities, interests, and powers. This attained, one then
wisely asks: "What ought we to do?" and appeals to
all one's resources of vision and principle. Virtually
all arguments about the prevention of nuclear war
hinge on judgments concerning the nature of the So-
viet Union and its nuclear forces. In 1968, the U.S.
had a larger number of nuclear warheads, a great-
er total throw-weight, and a larger and more varied
number of delivery systems than did the Soviet Union.
In an effort to promote arms control, Secretary of
Defense Robert McNamara froze the strategic bomber
fleet at 600 aircraft, froze the number of land-based
missiles at 1,054, and froze the maximum number of
nuclear submarines at 41. By 1982 the total throw-
weight of U.S. nuclear arsenals had been reduced by
more than one-half, and warheads have been reduced
in number and size. Emphasis has been placed upon
smaller, more accurate warheads, in order to meet the
just-war criteria of proportionality and discrimina-
tion, and in order to avoid entrapment in a strategy
363 NATIONAL REVIEW / April 1. 1983
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of Mutual Assured Destruction. (We ourselves judge
that this shift away from MAD is morally correct
despite the fact that MAD affords conceptual sim-
plicity and lower costs.) Since 1968, no new delivery
system for U.S. land-based missiles has been built, no
new bomber has been built, and both the ICBM mis-
siles (1,052) and the B-52s (315) are entering obso-
lescence.
Since 1968, by contrast, the Soviets have developed
the number, power, variety, and accuracy of their de-
livery systems and warheads. As Carter's Defense Sec-
retary, Harold Brown, said: "When we build, they
If it is wrong for the
U.S. to have a
first-strike capability,
it would seem to
be wrong to acquiesce in
the Soviets' having one
build. When we stop building, they build." The U.S.
did try a freeze, for 14 years. The trend lines of So-
viet forces kept mounting, while those of U.S. forces
either fell or rose more slowly and have now become
subject to public pressure for a total freeze. The Soviets
have developed a strategic triad, with nuclear weap-
ons on aircraft and in submarines. Their land-based
missiles outnumber ours by a third, and are larger,
more modern, and more powerful.' Although some
critics of U.S. policy fear that the U.S. may by
1990 develop a first-strike capability against Soviet
land-based missiles-an intention denied by U.S.
officials-the Soviets already possess such a capa-
bility.t Their land-based missiles are sufficient in
number and power to deliver at least two warheads
on each of the 1,052 American silos, while still re-
taining a large number of warheads and delivery
systems for a second strike. If it is wrong for the
eThe Soviet ICBM force currently numbers 1,398 missiles, com-
pared to 1,052 for the U.S., and possesses greater aggregate throw-
weight than the U.S. missile force. The latest-generation Soviet
warheads are more accurate than their American counterparts, and
the smallest Soviet MIRVed warheads are twice as large as the
largest U.S. MIRVed warheads. See the Institute for Strategic
Studies, The Military Balance 1982-83, pp. 112-113; and the Com-
mittee on the Present Dangers Has America Become Number 2?
p. 16.
tAdmiral Thomas Hayward, the Chief of Naval Operations, tes-
tified before the Senate Armed Services Committee in 1979: "with
respect to essential equivalence it is my view that without
any question the Soviets will have a first-strike capability over the
next few years. If that is not a loss of essential equivalence, I do
not know what is." Military Implications of the Treat{' on the
Limitation of Strategic Arms and Protocol Thereto, Hearings, Sen-
ate Armed Services Committee, Part 1, p. 177.
U.S. to have a first-strike capability, it would seem
to be wrong to acquiesce in the Soviets' having one.
Some citizens are inclined to stress the possibilities
of negotiation, agreement, neighborly coexistence, and
perhaps even ultimate friendship with the Soviets.
Pointing out that now-friendly nations like Germane
and Japan were not long ago our foes, they correct-
ly say that in world affairs there are no permanent
enemies. They believe that taking risks, taking first
steps, and launching initiatives will draw the Soviet
leaders into amicable, or at least non-hostile, rela-
tions. Since the days of Lenin, the Soviets have fre-
quently supported "peace offensives." Surely, some cit-
izens conclude, peace is better than war, agreement
better than conflict, amity better than struggle.
Much depends on how cynical Soviet leaders are.
If their purpose is the eventual destruction of dem-
ocratic societies, feigned friendship may suit them
now. On the other hand, if the Soviet Union intends
to become a nation like other nations, committed to
living and letting live, respectful mutuality may be
possible. Among these and other possibilities, how
should we judge the purposes and character of the
leadership of the Soviet Union? That is the factual
question on which subsequent ethical judgment turns.
Naivete in this judgment, on the one hand, or exces-
sive cynicism, on the other, would undercut moral
correctness in later judgments. For it is not moral to
place trust in a liar, nor is it moral, from erroneous
hardness of heart, to withhold trust. Judgment about
the Soviet leaders must therefore be carefully devel-
oped, beginning with their own view of themselves
and their strategies for war. This is another instance
of the crucial role played by prudence.
In assessing the purposes and character of the So-
viet leaders, it is crucial to observe three facts. First,
the number of relevant decision-makers is very small
(14 in the Politburo), and their means of attaining
power and of holding power are far from regular,
systematic, open, and under public control. Much
jockeying goes on; there have been many murders, ex-
ecutions, disappearances, and obliterations from the
historical record ("nonpersons") among them. Second,
the ideology of Marxism-Leninism, which legitimates
their role in history, their authority, and their moral-
ity, operates as a check upon their behavior. Even
for those who do not believe this ideology in their
hearts, ideological deviation may swiftly become a
source of vulnerability to their positions and their
lives. Third, the culture of centuries of Russian expe-
rience, including xenophobia and a sense of inferior-
ity, affects their understanding of the role of the
Russian people in history. Observers properly debate
what comparative weights to assign to each of these
three characteristics: organizational struggle; the ideol-
ogy of Marxism-Leninism; and Russian experience
and culture. All three factors bear on the Soviet
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(Continued
NOVAK agreements; Soviet practice in observing treaties, while
370)
sense of security and historical destiny. All three must
be soberly considered. Whether one entertains prospects
of friendship or coexistence or struggle with such
leaders is much affected by such assessment. How one
weighs the moral value of Soviet words and deeds is
also affected by one's judgment about their cultural
world. Words spoken and deeds done have full sig-
nificance only in such contexts. How to interpret their
significance within one's own context is a quite dif-
ferent matter.
The record of arms-control negotiations during the
past hundred years has been, for the most part, a
record of deception on the part of the cynically am-
bitious and self-deception on the part of those who
thought peace might be bought cheap.* The record
Marxist-Leninist
ideology rejects
`bourgeois formalism,'
including
promises and
signed agreements
of other nations' negotiations with the Soviet Union
on nonaggression and noninterference pacts, and trea-
ties on chemical and biological warfare and the like,
has always demanded unusual amounts of vigilance
against betrayal. Marxist-Leninist ideology rejects
"bourgeois formalism," including promises and signed
'After chronicling the various unsuccessful efforts at arms con-
trol in this century, the historian Barbara Tuchman says: "I have
engaged in this long and dreary survey in order to show that con-
trol of war in the form of disarmament or limitation of arms has
been a fruitless effort." Part of the mason why this is the cast is
suggested by Salvador de Madariaga, chairman of the League of
Nations Disarmament Commission and Disarmament Conference,
who observed in his memoirs in 1973, as quoted by Mrs. Tuchman:
"The trouble with disarmament was (and still is) that the prob-
lem of war is tackled upside down and at the wrong end. . . .
Nations don't distrust each other bemuse they are armed; they are
armed because they distrust each other. And therefore to want
disarmament before a minimum of common agreement on funda-
mentals is as absurd as to want people to go undressed in win-
ter.'" New York Times Magazine, April 18, 1982.
See also Theodore Draper, "How Not to Think about Nuclear
War," The New York Review of Books, July IS, 1982: "Once dif-
ferent weapons and even different weapons systems must be eval-
uated and balanced off against each other, negotiations inevitably
degenerate into endlessly futile haggling sessions, brought to a
close only by agreement on a crazy quilt of trade-offs and loop-
holes. Negotiations of this sort become more important for the
mere consolation that the deadly antagonists are negotiating than
for anything the negotiations may bring forth. . . . short of abol-
ishing all nuclear weapons forever.... deterrence is all we have."
sometimes good, is selective. Furthermore, to demand
on-the-ground verifiability of Soviet arms is to de-
mand a sweeping change within the structure of Soviet
society. Despite all this, negotiations are both neces-
sary and useful. But signed agreements by Soviet lead-
ers cannot be prudently understood as deterrents to
any course of action Soviet leaders choose to take
when they choose to take it. Parchment barriers have
seldom restrained players of Realpolitik.
In 1968, Defense Secretary McNamara judged that
U.S. strategic forces were both superior to Soviet
forces and at a point of sufficiency for the deterrence
of any possible Soviet attack. For this reason, he in-
stituted the freeze mentioned above. Secretary Mc-
Namara's judgment was that the Soviets would build
up their forces until they reached parity. By 1972,
with the signing of SALT I, leaders on both sides
claimed that parity had been reached. Since 1974, the
Soviets have added two new generations of delivery
systems and warheads, with others in development.
This includes strategic missiles of unprecedented size
and throw-weight, and large, swift missiles for the Eu-
ropean theater, as well.t In a sense, the nuclear in-
itiative has passed into Soviet hands.
As for the United States, military budgets in con-
stant 1972 dollars remained relatively level from 1962
to 1982, and expenditures for nuclear weapons as a
percentage of the military budget and in constant
1972 dollars have also remained remarkably level.:
From 1968 until 1976, virtually every presidential
campaign and many congressional campaigns were
conducted on the pledge to cut military spending. As
tModernization of the Soviet ICBM force has focused on the
SS-17, SS-18, and SS-19 missiles; during the last decade, more
than half of Soviet silos have been rebuilt to house these weapons.
See Department of Defense, Soviet Military Power (U.S. Govern-
ment Printing Office, 1981), p. 54. Of particular concern is the
giant SS-18, which carries a payload large enough and is accurate
enough to threaten U.S. ICBMs in their silos. The SS-18. of which
308 have been deployed, dwarfs the proposed MX: it is 120 feet
high, 10 feet in diameter, has a throw-weight of 16,000 pounds,
and can carry up to 10 warheads. By comparison, the MX is 72
fat high, about 8 feet in diameter, has a throw-weight of about
8.000 pounds, and can carry 6 to 10 warheads. The SS-17 and SS-
19 are comparable in these respects to the MX. See The Military
Aalance 1982-83, p. 113 and Michael B. Donley, ed., The SALT
Handbook (The Heritage Foundation, 1979), pp. 62, 75. The Com-
mittee on the Present Danger notes that "in only the last five years.
the number of deployed Soviet IRSM [intermediate-range bal-
listic missile) warheads targeted on NATO-Europe and Asia-has
more than doubled." Has America Become No. 2? p. 21. The prin-
cipal threat is the Soviet SS-20: "The SS-20, with three MIRVs
per missile and significant improvements in survivability, mobility.
responsiveness, and accuracy, is a far more capable weapon than
the older SS-4 and SS-5 missiles.... [it] can cover the entire Eu-
ropean theater and provide significant coverage of other areas."
Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, United States Military
Posture for FY 1983, p. 27.
Charles Mohr, "Drop in U.S. Arms Spurs Debate on Military
Policy," New York Times. October 24, 1982. For spending on nu-
clear forces as a percentage of the military budget for 1%2-1982.
bee Kevin N. Lewis. The Economics of SALT Revisited (Rand
Corp., 1979), p. 10, and Caspar W. Weinberger, Annual Report
to Congress. Fiscal Year 1983, p. A-1.
3/
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a proportion of GNP, military spending went from 9
per cent in 1960 to 5 per cent in 1980. As a propor-
tion of the federal budget, military spending during
the same period went from 44 per cent to 23 per
cent. Beginning under President Carter, and con-
tinuing under President Reagan, the military budget
Were the Soviet Union
a benign nation,
the need for deterrence
would by now have
much diminished
or disappeared
(in actual outlays) has now been slated to rise, in real
terms, at 7 per cent per year, reaching about 6.3 per
cent of GNP and 32.4 per cent of the projected fed-
eral budget for 1984. Unlike other nations, the United
States is charged not solely with its own defense but
with that of Western Europe and Japan. It is esti-
mated that the maintenance of 303,000 troops in Eu-
rope costs the defense budget $133 billion yearly,
compared to the expenditure (in 1981) of $16.7 bil-
lion on all nuclear forces together.. U.S. strategic
bombers, under the McNamara freeze, have been re-
duced from 600 to 315. The number of land-based
ICBMs remains at 1,052. The number of nuclear sub-
marines remains at 31, of which only half are on
station at any one time. Military hardware inexorably
becomes obsolete and less reliable with age. Even
without expanding capacity, the replacement of weap-
ons systems every ten or fifteen years is required. Such
hardware, therefore, has a time factor: a preponder-
ance (almost two-thirds) of U.S. delivery systems are
more than ten years old, while a preponderance (more
than two-thirds) of Soviet delivery systems are less
than six years old.t Technology, of course, does
not stand still, so new generations of weapons have
new potential. For U.S. forces, such changes have
been generally in the direction of smaller warheads
and greater accuracy-
U.S. military strategy is defensive in configuration.
This fact is clearest in conventional weaponry. Nei-
ther U.S. nor NATO forces are equipped for offen-
sive use, not in numbers of tanks, nor in numbers of
fighters, bombers, or support vehicles. No attempt has
been made to match Soviet forces on the Western
front, tank for tank, artillery piece for artillery piece,
aircraft for aircraft. To equalize the numbers of
NATO forces with those of Soviet forces in Europe
would require raising the number of NATO fighter
planes and interceptors from 3,100 to the 8,600 of the
Warsaw Pact forces. To equalize tanks would require
raising the northern NATO number of 10,500 to the
Warsaw Pact number of 27,300. The Soviet all-ocean
navy now numbers 2,429 ships, the U.S. Navy 514.$
But the task of equalizing all forces is not necessary
for two reasons. First, the NATO configuration is
defensive, the Soviet offensive. Second, U.S. forces
are believed still to hold a technological edge, which,
however, has diminished over the years.
It has long been recognized that democracies are
inferior to dictatorships in their capacity to mobilize
armies during peacetime. Free voters are reluctant to
bear expenses not widely seen to be essential; they
discern many social needs of greater moment and val-
ue. Free economies seem to thrive on production for
peace rather than for military purposes, as the Jap-
anese, West German, and other economies demon-
strate. The ideology of the West does not require the
destruction of socialism, but the ideology of Marxism-
Leninism does teach a law of history according to
which socialism must replace capitalism. A part of
this law is encapsulated in the "Brezhnev Doctrine"
that nations, once socialist, may never be permitted
to return to an earlier stage in history. Such cultural
and political discrepancies are also part of the pres-
ent reality.
.For the number of U.S. military personnel in NATO, we Dr-
fense/81. Special Almanac Issue (September 1981): 22. The cost of
the U.S. commitment to NATO is liven in the remarks of Senator
Ted Stevens on. the continuing appropriations legislation for fiscal
year 1983. See the Congressional Record, December 16, 1982, 149,
pt. 3: S-15138. The budget figure for nuclear forces includes both
those over which the Department of Defense has jurisdiction and
those which the Department of Energy supervises, and covers all
personnel, operation and maintenance, and warhead procurement
costs, strategic as well as tactical/theater. 112-113 140; and So-
viet The Military Balance 1982-83, pp.
vMilitary Power, pp. 55-56. The data supplied by these sources
indicate that about 62 per cent of U.S. strategic warheads are on
systems with an initial operational capability prior to 1972, whereas
70 per cent of Soviet strategic warheads are on systems initially de-
ployed since 1977.
It is not necessary to decide the argument whether
Soviet forces, nuclear and conventional, are, now su-
17he Military Balance 1982-83, pp. 132-33. For figures on the
U.S. Navy we Annual Report to Congress. Fiscal Year 1983, p.
111-20. For the Soviet navy, we Soviet Military Power, p. 40. Both
sets of figures include attack submarines, major surface combat
vessels, and minor surface combatants (corvettes, patrol craft, mine-
sweepers, amphibious ships, and support craft). The U.S. figure as
given in the Report to Congress does not include ballistic-missile
submarines; the Soviet figure does. Adding this figure (31) to the
U.S. count gives 545 ships.
April 1. 1983 / NATIONAL REVIEW 35g
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9
perior to U.S. forces, whether in Europe or world-
wide. Forces superior in number are not necessarily
superior in other respects. More important for forces
committed to defense is the simpler question of suf-
ficiency for deterrence of aggression. Superiority is
not essential. Sufficiency is. Moreover, sufficiency to
deter aggression is a moral imperative of the right to
self-defense and the duty to defend the innocent from
unjust aggression. This includes the defense of good
citizens living under totalitarian regimes who, as Sol-
zhenitsyn reminds us, would be left by our failure
without any hope whatever.
This is the concrete context within which the moral
standing of doctrines of deterrence arises. The over-
riding moral imperative is to deter the use of nuclear
weapons, both their explosive use and their political
use to intimidate the free. To fulfill this imperative,
prolonged social sacrifices and resoluteness of public
will are indispensable. To weaken this will is immoral,
since a public unwilling to make these sacrifices fails
in its moral duty. That duty is purely defensive.
Some hold that it is not enough to deter aggres-
sion. One must also attempt to bring about changes
in the potential aggressor, especially by appeals to
self-interest in avoiding mutual destruction, by nego-
tiations, by cultural exchanges, by trade, and, in a
word, by peaceful and friendly pursuits. With these
arguments we are in full accord, when and insofar as
the potential aggressor shows himself by deeds to be
a mutual partner. Adolf Hitler, however, both be-
trayed and was betrayed by Josef Stalin. Not all states
seek relations of mutuality. In affairs of state, Aris-
totle once observed, one must be satisfied- with a tinc-
ture of virtue. Reinhold Niebuhr in Moral Man and
Immoral Society showed with several reasons why
this is so. Just conduct can, however, be morally de-
manded of states, and exacted by the force of arms.
An adequate morality of conduct between states,
therefore, must take account of the various moral
conducts of different states, including outlaw states
whose only moral law is their own aggrandizement.
Such states have appeared, and do appear, in history.
Knowledge about how such states act is pivotal.
In this context, moral clarity in a nuclear age raises
exceedingly difficult questions. A major complexity is
this. The deployment of Soviet nuclear arms on the
borders of the West has political uses far beyond ma-
terial considerations like potential physical destruc-
tion; this point has been well stressed by German
Catholics. Since nuclear weapons have a political as
well as an explosive use, deterrence of both uses de-
mands a sufficiency of threat. The only known path
to this sufficiency is a corresponding threat of destruc-
tion to a potential aggressor's industrial base or else
to its war-making capacity. The first alternative is
called "countervalue," the second "counterforce." The
moral problem posed by countervalue strategies is
that they hold noncombatants in urban areas hostage.
0
The moral problem posed by counterforce strategies
is that they awaken possibilities of a hair-trigger re-
sponse to perceived threats. The countervalue strate-
gies require much. less accuracy, fewer warheads and
delivery systems, and much less expenditure. The
counterforce strategies require far greater technologi-
cal sophistication, numbers, precision, and prior in-
telligence. It must be said that both strategies make
To abandon deterrence
is to neglect the
duty to defend the
innocent, to preserve
the Constitution
and the Republic
one sad, except by comparison with the only cur-
rent alternative. That alternative is to fail in the
duty of defending the innocent., by having no deter-
rent at all. Such a dilemma, like the Fall, ought not
to have existed, but when it does exist, actions to
prevent evil are not bad but good. On its face, it
would seem that countervalue strategies are less to be
approved, by the just-war criteria of lack of propor-
tionality and indiscriminate taking of innocent life.
Countervaluc strategies give rise to the terror of Mu-
tual Assured Destruction. On the other hand, some
support them because they seem to afford less risk
of miscalculation and cost less money. Furthermore,
some regimes are such that they do not shrink from
using Western principles to confound Western strate-
gies, deliberately emplacing offensive weaponry amidst
civilian targets.
It is clear that the complexities of nuclear deter-
rence change the meaning of "intention" and "threat"
as these words are usually used in moral discourse.
Those who intend to prevent the use of nuclear weap-
ons by maintaining a system of deterrence in readi-
ness for use do intend to use such weapons, but only
in order not to use them, and do threaten to use
them, but only in order to deter their use. That this
is not mere rationalization is shown by the fact that
several generations of nuclear-weapons systems have
become obsolete and been retired, without ever hav-
ing been used. These are considered to be successful
and moral systems. In the same way, deterrence is
judged to be successful insofar as nuclear war does
not occur.
That a human system like deterrence is not infal-
lible, is not foolproof, and does not convey full safe-
ty and security, goes without saying. In the world of
contingent matters of fact, no system is. That one
33
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might devoutly wish for some other
alternative also goes without saying.
Contemplation of the horror of a
breakdown in deterrence, through
either the outbreak of nuclear hos-
tilities or the intimidation of inno-
cent peoples, leads some to seek a
way out of this dilemma by putting
the best possible face upon the
enemy to be deterred. But this is to
deny the premise from which the
dilemma arises in the first place.
Were the Soviet Union a benign
nation, even a nation like Japan
and Germany, a nation like others,
the need for deterrence would by
now have much diminished or dis-
appeared. The U.S. has no deterrent
in place against any other power.
The reality of the Soviet Union
is the linchpin of the dilemma.
But the moral dilemma remains.
No choice before U.S. leaders is
wholly satisfactory. To abandon de-
terrence is to neglect the duty to
defend the innocent, to preserve the
Constitution and the Republic, and
to keep safe the very idea of po-
litical liberty. No President by his
oath of office can so act, nor can
a moral people.
We must, then, confront anew the
moral hazards of deterrence. The
fundamental moral principle here is
to make the moral choice that occa-
sions the fewest evil consequences.
To abandon deterrence occasions
the greatest evil, for it entails en-
dangering that liberty which is
more precious than life itself. Free
societies are an indispensable social
condition of free moral life and the
preservation of human rights. That
is why for the signers of the Dec-
laration of Independence (and for
millions before and since) liberty is
worth the pledge of life, fortune,
and sacred honor. If one chooses
deterrence, one does so as the
choice of a lesser evil. Insofar as
deterrence succeeds, no evil is com-
mitted and the worst evils-whether
of destruction in nuclear war or of
abandoning the duty to preserve
liberty-are avoided. It is the fun-
damental moral intention of those
who embrace deterrence that it
should succeed in preventing these
0
worse evils. Those who say that
deterrence may fail are, of course,
correct. But they do not, and can-
not, show that the abandonment
of deterrence will succeed either in
preventing nuclear devastation or
in preserving liberty. Their claim
to a superior morality is, therefore,
flawed in a fundamental respect.
An example may illustrate this.
Had Japan had the capacity in 1945
to strike Sacramento and Portland
as Hiroshima and Nagasaki were
struck, one may doubt that Presi-
dent Truman would have ordered
the flight of the Enola Gat. In that
case, a bloody amphibious assault
on the Japanese mainland might
have had to ensue, with far greater
devastation and loss of life than
actually occurred. Two points arise
from this illustration. Without justi-
fying the decision of President Tru-
man, the first highlights the uses of
deterrence from the point of view of
the Japanese. The second highlights
the awful destructive force even
of modern conventional warfare. It
was perhaps for this reason that the
Second Vatican Council spoke of
"modern scientific weapons" rather
than explicitly of nuclear weapons.
Some find the moral flaw in de-
terrence in the choice of an evil
means to attain a good end, calling
this "consequentialism." They admit
that the end of preventing nuclear
war is good. But they hold it evil
actually to intend to use any deter-
rent force lacking proportionality
and moral discrimination in order
to attain this end. This formulation
contains, we judge, two flaws. First,
the appropriate moral principle is
0
not the relation of means to ends
but the choice of a moral act that
prevents greater evil. Clearly, it is a
more moral choice and occasions
less evil to hold a deterrent inten-
tion than it is to allow nuclear
attack. Second, the nature of the
intention in deterrence is different
from intention in ordinary moral
action. There is a paradox in its
nature, such that the word "inten-
tion" is clearly used equivocally.
It is true that on entering the
arena of public policy and pruden-
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49
tial judgment, moral actors are
bound primarily by the ethic of
consequences rather than by the
ethic of intentions ("The road to
hell is paved with good intentions").
Further, existing alternatives in a
world of sin often present policy-
makers with no alternative that is
purely good, and oblige moral ac-
tors to choose the course that oc-
casions the least evils. Nonetheless,
the quality of moral intentions de-
serves moral scrutiny. Alas, the
word "intention" (like "threat") has
many meanings. Since many moral
issues cluster here, some detail is
necessary.
In the carrying of a firearm, a) a
policeman, b) a burglar, and c) a
murderer have each of them differ-
ent intentions with respect to using
the firearm. The policeman intends
deterrence but no actual use unless
governed by justice and the disci-
plines of his profession; the burglar
intends only a threatening and con-
ditioned use outside justice; the mur-
derer intends not a conditional but
a willful use. These three are only
a few of the many senses of "in-
tention" and "threat." The inten-
tion in deterrence, for example, is
analogous to, case a), not to b), and
certainly not to c). In nuclear mat-
ters, we would further distinguish
between a fundamental, secondary,
and architectonic intention. Each of
these must also be treated in turn.
The fundamental moral intention
in nuclear deterrence is never to
have to use the deterrent force.
That this is in fact so is shown by
the honorable discharge of military
officers, after their term of duty
expires, who have succeeded in their
fundamental intention. Besides this
fundamental intention, however, de-
terrence requires by its nature a
secondary intention. For the physi-
cal, material weapon is by itself no
deterrent without the engagement
of intellect and will on the part of
the entire public that called it into
being. It is also no deterrent if it
fails to meet and to halt the will,
intellect, and social organization of
the particular opposing regime. A
people that would be judged inca-
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? is
pable of willing to use the deterrent
would tempt an adversary to call
its bluff. Thus, a secondary inten-
tion cannot be separated from de-
terrence. Without that secondary
intention, distinct from the funda-
mental intention, a deterrent is no
longer a deterrent but only an in-
ert weapon backed up by a public
lie.
As a counter to this, some might
argue that the Soviet Union could
never be sure whether a weapon
held in readiness were backed by
the secondary intention to use it.
Given Soviet ideology about the
perfidy of capitalist powers, how-
ever, Soviet leaders would be
obliged to assume the worst. Argu-
ing the casuistry of truth-telling
may indeed permit leaders of one
nation to allow the leaders of an-
other, who have no title to know
the truth, to be self-deceived. But
probes and tests of real intentions
cannot be ruled out. In nuclear
matters, such uncertainty willfully
created would seem to constitute
immoral behavior.
The word intention has yet a
third sense, beyond the two subjec-
tive intentions we have so far dis-
cussed. The Catholic moral tradi-
tion holds that human acts have
objective intentionality apart from
subjective dispositions. In order to
construct and to maintain a nuclear
deterrent force, a democratic society
must generate a complex, highly ra-
tional, socially organized, objective
intentionality. Citizens through their
representatives vote funds for it; re-
search and production are organized;
elaborate systems of communication
and command are maintained. The
architectonic of objective political
intention suffuses the entire process.
This already is a sustained inten-
tion of a crucial sort. To be sure,
many individuals must also be com-
mitted to their tasks to infuse this
objective intentionality with appro-
priate subjective dispositions. The
latter are indispensable. But a soci-
ety that possesses a deterrent also
has an organized objective intention.
In the case of the United States, in-
dividuals add to this objective in-
tention subjective intentions which
are both fundamental-that the de-
terrent succeed in never being used
-and secondary-that the deterrent
be held in readiness for use. The
proposition that a nation may pos-
sess a deterrent but may pot in-
tend to use it is fulfilled by the
fundamental intention but not by
the objective intention and the sec-
ondary intention. To condemn the
latter is to frustrate the former and
to invite a host of greater evils.
Moral clarity in a nuclear age re-
quires that governments not willful-
ly allow certain kinds of miscalcula-
tion to arise in the minds of other
governments. While not every capa-
bility or intention or option needs
to be-or should be-revealed, a
basic and clear set of understand-
ings is necessary. This requirement
rules out bellicose threats as it
rules out mere bluff. Public state-
ments about nuclear policy must,
therefore, be unambiguous and rea-
soned, restrained and understated.
Leaders have sometimes erred in this
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 Approved For Release 2008/01/14: CIA-RDP85TOO153R000100060031-1
matter. Communications between a3versaries should be
swift, clear, unthreatening, and unambiguous, especial-
ly during times of stress. The record of the last 37
years shows that this is difficult but possible.
A dilemma arises when some say that counter-
value strategies are immoral in substance but prefer-
In carrying a firearm,
a policeman, a burglar,
and a murderer have
each of them different
intentions with respect to
using the firearm
able on grounds of economy and sufficiency; and that
counterforce strategies, more moral in substance, are
immoral because more dangerous. A similar dilemma
arises when some say that making nuclear weapons
smaller and more precise, so as to approximate the
force of larger conventional weapons, thus reducing
the moral problem of proportionality and discrimina-
tion, makes the use of nuclear weapons more think-
able and so should be avoided. If the use of both
sorts of nuclear weapons is to be deterred, total re-
liance on one alone is likely to enlarge the options
and temptations of an aggressor.
Similarly, some critics condemn the attainment by
the U.S. of a first-strike capability, while ignoring
the fact that the Soviets already have, or very shortly
will have, this capacity with respect to U.S. land-
based delivery systems. By first-strike capability is
meant the capacity to destroy the opponent's delivery
systems before they can be called into use. This the
United States does not have, and has no plans to at-
tain. The one hundred MX missiles requested by
President Reagan cannot possibly wipe out all Soviet
land-based missiles. Since two warheads on each silo
are believed to be required, the 1,398 Soviet land-
based delivery systems cannot be threatened by the
MX, for it would be suicide to strike some without
destroying all. Meanwhile, the existing 1,052 Ameri-
can silos are vulnerable to the multiple warheads of
a fraction of the Soviet missile force. Since U.S.
B-52s are not likely to penetrate Soviet defenses, a
first strike by the Soviets may leave only subma-
rine-launched missiles under U.S. command. To launch
these would guarantee a second strike on U.S. cities.
Given these capacities, the Soviets could, even with-
out a first strike, hold U.S. forces immobilized and
in checkmate, freeing Soviet conventional forces from
restraint. Nuclear weapons do not have to be fired in
order to exact surrender.
The reasons why tfie United States maintains a stra-
tegic triad-land-based, airborne, and submarine-borne
delivery systems-are two: first, to reduce the temp-
tation of a simple first strike; and, second, to pre-
vent the President of the United States from facing
only a single option, the command to destroy So-
viet cities. Such an option would be suicidal for
American cities. No President can be fairly placed
in that position.
In short, given the nature of the USSR's leadership,
its ideology, and its political culture, and recognizing
the configuration of its nuclear forces, we see no
completely satisfactory position: neither abandonment
of the deterrent, nor a deterrent strategy based upon
counterforce, nor a deterrent based upon counter-
value. Among these, we judge the best of the ambig-
uous but morally good options to reside in a com-
bination of counterforce and countervalue deterrence.
We uphold the fundamental intention of deterrence
that no nuclear weapon ever be used. We uphold the
secondary intention of being ready to use the deter-
rent within the narrowest feasible limits, as indis-
pensable to making deterrence work. We reject the
policy of national bluff that permits possession but
does not permit its essential secondary intention. We
discera no other way to defend the Constitution of
the United States, to protect its institutions of liber-
ty, and to prevent the most awful aggression against
innocent peoples here and elsewhere. It would hard-
ly be better for us if some other people bore this
burden, but in any case there is none that can lift it
from us. In due course, the Soviet Union may learn
to prefer ways of peace abroad and ways of liberty at
home-in which case, peace among nations may be
possible. For this we labor and pray.
and'Nuclear war
Even should the specter of nuclear war be lifted at
last from the human race, we recognize the horrors
of modern conventional warfare. The power and ter-
rible accuracy of rocket-driven conventional arms,
launched at great distances, became visible during the
last days of World War Il. These horrors have been
magnified since, as exhibited in the Falkland Islands
and elsewhere. In World War I, 15 million civilians
died. In World War 11, 51 million civilians died. In
some 67 conventional wars since that time, millions
of other civilians have died. It cannot be thought
that an end to nuclear deterrence will necessarily
usher in an era without war. Insofar as war springs
from evil in the human heart, insofar as that evil is
onventionatWar
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ineradicable except by the grace of God, and insofar
as human beings can, and do, resist God's grace, we
do not expect that war will ever be wholly eliminated
from human history. Nonetheless, the dream of a
world without war abides. Institutions of liberties and
rights, peaceful competition and cooperative labors,
We do not consider the
present situation
of nuclear deterrence
ideal; we consider
it a moral choice
involving the lesser evil
and the conversion of every human heart are devout-
ly to be labored for. They cannot be said to have yet
been attained. Like Christ, we see ahead the cross:
Not our will, but Thine be done.
Distinguished strategists have argued that an end
to nuclear deterrence raises the probability of conven-
tional war on the part of the Soviet Union. This is
because of the great superiority of the Soviets' con-
ventional forces, wherever they should choose to mass
them, on the central German plain or on the north-
ern borders of the Middle East. (See the analysis by
Edward N. Luttwak, "How to Think about Nuclear
War," Commentar),, August 1982.) However this may
be, we hold it to be a good worth sacrificing for to
raise the capabilities of NATO forces in Europe and
the Middle East to a level sufficient to deter any So-
viet temptation to aggression. The editors of The
Economist have worked out a study of the as-yet-
unmet requirements of such sufficiency. They hold
that this goal is costly, but attainable ("Without the
Bomb," July 31, 1982). Economically, at least, it is
feasible; whether political will for the sacrifices en-
tailed is available is questionable. Still, the present
weakness of NATO on the German plain now makes
recurrence to defense with tactical nuclear weapons a
necessary part of NATO strategy. To supplant this
reliance on tactical nuclear weapons with a sufficient
conventional deterrent seems to us both morally good
and morally required. Even so, prudence dictates that
the nuclear deterrent be held in reserve. Certainly.
it will have to be so until the current imbalance in
conventional forces is redressed. We urge speedy and
generous cooperation to this end, even though welfare
states naturally prefer to evade heavier expenditures
except for social programs.
It has not been sufficiently recognized, in the U.S.
and in Europe, that the people of the United States
have made themselves hostage to an outbreak of war
in Europe. Should such a war arise, and should a
terrified Europe demand that tactical nuclear weap-
ons be called into play (when, for example, Soviet
troops had made a breakthrough across half of Ger-
many), further nuclear escalation could not be ruled
out, in which the Soviets would threaten the United
States with nuclear destruction. To protect themselves
from this possibility, the people of the United States
might someday seek disengagement from the Euro-
pean theater. But this step, too, would have fateful
consequences not only for Europe and the United
States but for mankind. In this context, the cry of
.no first use" of tactical or other nuclear weapons
has for some much appeal. Heeding such a cry, the
United States might at first save itself. It would not
be likely to have done so for long. Until an ade-
quate conventional deterrent is in place in Europe,
we hold a pledge of "no first use" to be divisive and
destabilizing. Perhaps most clearly among our differ-
ences, this conviction differentiates our judgment
from that of the Bishops' second draft. Since NATO
forces are not designed for offensive use, the ques-
tion arises only in the case of Soviet aggression. De-
terrence of that aggression is the first moral imper-
ative. When NATO conventional forces are able to
present a sufficient deterrent without recourse to nu-
clear weapons, such a pledge would be in effect
whether stated or not.
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We do not consider the present situation of nu-
clear deterrence ideal; we consider it a moral choice
involving the lesser evil. When we look to the future,
we see both creative possibilities and even greater
dangers. The greatest danger is spiritual. Democratic
peoples find protracted danger and sacrifice more
onerous by far than do the leaders of totalitarian
states. The latter benefit by military mobilization; the
former find it a threat to democracy itself. Again,
successful deterrence buries the evidence that brought
it into play to begin with, and a free people must
take up the argument ever anew. Thus, hope for peace
nourishes illusions in a democratic people, eternal
vigilance being the price of liberty most difficult to
pay. That is why today broad popular discussion, ar-
gument, and consensus are indispensable to the pres-
ervation of liberty. The military strategy of the United
States and its allies depends upon popular understand-
ing and popular support.
In this respect, every citizen might well wish that
our lives were not burdened, as they are, by sacri-
Hope for peace
nourishes illusions
in a democratic people,
eternal vigilance being
the price of liberty
most difficult to pay
fives for defense. Many cannot help wishing that nu-
clear dangers might simply vanish. Indeed, much time
and energy is well spent trying to imagine prudent
steps to diminish the present danger.
Many citizens have hoped that a mutually verifi-
able nuclear freeze by both the U.S. and the USSR
would offer surcease. We judge that the hope that
the Soviets will consent to on-site verification is re-
390 NATIONAL REVIEW / April 1, 1983
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mote. We recognize that verification by technical means
such as satellite observation and electronic monitoring
is subject to deception and disinformation. Moreover,
there are four reasons for believing that a freeze now
would be destabilizing. First, the Soviet nuclear force
already holds two destabilizing advantages: its first-
strike capacity concerning the U.S. land-based Minute-
men, and its targeting of European capitals with
SS-20s. Similarly, the trend lines of new Soviet weap-
ons development are up, whereas the process of
strengthening U.S. and NATO deterrent forces is ap-
propriately democratic and slow. Second, a freeze at
present levels would not at all diminish the present
danger; it would freeze it in place. This danger in-
cludes the rapidly approaching obsolescence of U.S.
delivery systems and the relative youth of Soviet sys-
tems. Third, we note that a "verifiable" freeze-in-
cluding a freeze on nuclear research and development
(which can go on inside buildings anywhere)-would
require a massive regimen of verification beyond any-
thing remotely sustainable at present. Finally, Soviet
officials have begun offering schemes of reduction, be-
low levels envisioned in a mere freeze. For these rea-
sons, we judge that a negotiated freeze may well be
inferior to negotiated reductions, and thus cannot be
insisted on by moralists. Such concrete judgments
must finally be resolved democratically, by duly con-
stituted governments amid reasoned public debate,
in which good people disagree.
Since the Soviets have several forms of superiority
at present-not necessarily in every respect, but in
some important ones-it is obviously difficult for
Soviet leaders to surrender advantages they have
amassed through great sacrifices on the part of their
people. On the other hand, Soviet leaders have rea-
son to fear the greater inventiveness of free societies.
If American and NATO resolve were now to falter,
Soviet leaders would be likely to continue their
present successful strategy. If, on the contrary, they
must face the fact that the U.S. and NATO are de-
termined to maintain deterrence through new inven-
tions, they may conclude that they must alter their
course. The linchpin of preventing war is Soviet will.
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?
Soviet intentions, strategies, weapons development
and procurement follow from Soviet will. At the
present moment, we judge that negotiations for reduc-
tions in both strategic and theater nuclear weapons
coincide with real interests on both sides. Such nego-
tiations, however fragile and risky, as history shows,
have a reasonable prospect of success, provided that
the Soviets perceive greater risks in the determination
of Western nations to rectify the current imbalance.
Such an opportunity must be pursued, despite the
sorry record of arms negotiations in the past. Caution
is required, since negotiations for the sake of nego-
tiations may occasion greater evils. Criteria distin-
guishing moral from less than moral negotiations are
required. Many of our current difficulties arise out of
judgments made by American negotiators in the past.
The current emphasis on large offensive land-based
missiles, for example, and on offensive rather than
defensive weapons, arose from past negotiations. None-
theless, a change in Soviet will-through negotiations,
if possible-is to be pursued with determination.
The question of defensive weapons raises further
technological possibilities in the future. It is not our
role to recommend particular weapons systems, but it
is important to recall that technology does not stand
still and that the future is not determined. Future
developments in satellite detection systems, matched
with satellite laser weapons, could enable defenders to
destroy ballistic weapons shortly after take-off. Bal-
listic missiles would, therefore, be rendered obsolete.
Some experts hold that current laser technology af-
fords just such a defensive possibility; others believe
this is not feasible at all. In any case, this is a non-
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392 NATIONAL REVIEW / April 1, 1983
0
nuclear defense. As a deterrent system, it does not
rely on counterforce or countervalue but on non-
nuclear defensive instruments. Not only does its moral
character seem to be superior, but its implementa-
tion would seem to remove the threat of land-based
missile systems. While it is not our role here to pass
judgment for or against this or other particular sys-
tems, we do wish to note that the present situation
may one day be lifted from the human race. The hu-
man race is neither static nor foredoomed.
For most of its history, the human race did not
live under nuclear threat; there is nothing inevitable
or necessary about the continuance of that threat.
Efforts to remove it must be sound, prudent, and wise,
lest they result in a deterioration of the present sit-
uation into something even worse. But eventually to
lift such a threat is surely within the reach of sustained
moral efforts. It is the vocation of Christians and Jews
not only to reflect on the world but to change it, bring-
ing it closer to the outlines of the Kingdom promised
in both the Old and the New Testaments. It is the
vocation of American citizens, civilian and military,
called by the Seal of the United States to evoke Novus
Ordo Seclorum, a new order of liberty and justice
for all, to extend the boundaries of liberty and justice
by peaceful means, through the consent of the gov-
erned. Although not without failures and flaws, the
United States' foreign and military policy since World
War II has had as its purpose to defend and to ex-
tend such liberties, on which alone true peace can rest.
We cherish the hope that even our adversaries will
one day experience liberty for all their peoples, and
join with us in the cooperative task of bringing all
peoples on earth to a fuller measure of human devel-
opment, in peace, liberty, and justice for all mankind,
fulfilling thereby the will of God on earth. It is in
seeking to follow His will that we have, to the best
of our ability, formulated these arguments for the re-
spectful consideration of our fellow Catholics, our fel-
low citizens, and all persons of good will through-
out the world. May God favor this purpose. Though
His ways be dark, His constancy abides forever. 0
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