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The likelihood of atomic weapons actually being used could increase even faster than the number of states possessing them. For one thing, smaller nations—even France—have little or no knowledge of the immensely costly and complicated fail-safe system developed by the major powers to guard against inadvertent or unauthorized use of nuclear weapons. As atomic armaments become more and more commonplace, there will be an ever-increasing danger of Dr. Strangelove situations, in which individual officials or irresponsible regimes might use the bomb against hostile neighbors. In local arms races between small states, both sides will have a continuing incentive to strike first. "In a world of many nuclear powers," adds William Foster, "there may well be some who, unlike the U.S. and the Soviet Union, have relatively little to lose if nuclear weapons are used."
The most serious threat is that full-scale war could intentionally be triggered by what strategists call "catalytic" or "secondary trigger" attack, a nuclear strike launched by a smaller power in order to force a bigger one to come to its defense. The French have raised the possibility of this stratagem as a justification for their force de frappe. A fanciful but entirely feasible variant of this nuclear ploy is the subject of a new novel, Commander-1, in which Red China smuggles a few primitive but potent bombs into New York, Moscow and other points, and detonates them with radio signals; the U.S. and Russia, each assuming that the other is responsible, destroy each other in massive retaliatory attacks.
The U.S., which has unsuccessfully offered countless proposals for complete international control of nuclear armaments since the 1946 Baruch Plan, has long accepted the probability that more and more nations will inevitably learn the secrets of atomic energy. A major aim of the 1963 test ban treaty was to make it difficult for them to perfect nuclear weapons without incurring international opprobrium. Under the Atoms for Peace program, intended to dissuade such countries from using their new knowledge for military purposes, the U.S. since 1955 has supplied technological assistance, reactors and uranium to some 35 nations, from Turkey to Thailand, under strict guarantees that they will be used for peaceful ends.
As nations throughout the world learn to harness the atom for peaceful projects, however, more and more of them master the techniques of nuclear weaponry. For many, two decades after the first mushroom cloud, the bomb no longer seems an instrument of fate; it has become a status symbol. Says Washington's John J. McCloy, who has been intimately involved in U.S. defense and disarmament policy for 25 years: "Too many countries are simply trying to keep up with the Joneses. They want these weapons not only for defense, but as much for prestige."
The Cost of Membership
Nuclear one-upmanship will inevitably become even more fashionable over the next decade as the cost of such weapons is brought down closer to that of conventional armaments. Even today, any industrial society can develop a "nominal," 20-kiloton bomb (the size of the one dropped on Hiroshima) within five to seven years at a cost of only $100 million.