DEFENSE: Arming to Disarm in the Age of Detente

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to moderate their position at SALT II, Schlesinger recently disclosed that U.S. nuclear doctrine has been undergoing "major change" since last spring. For 20 years American and Soviet strategy has been based on a concept of deterrence that came to be known as mutual assured destruction. Called MAD, an acronym coined by the Hudson Institute's Brennan, the doctrine holds that peace is best maintained by threatening to obliterate an entire enemy society in retaliation for a nuclear attack. Thus, the policymakers argue, nuclear war becomes unthinkable.

Over the past three years, however, Nixon has from time to time expressed ethical and practical reservations about MAD. In his foreign policy message to Congress last May, for example, the President declared that deterrence based on the ability to kill tens of millions of Soviet citizens was "inconsistent with American values." He also said that he wanted a nuclear strategy that would have "greater flexibility," a phrase that went unexplained—and virtually unnoticed by the public—until last summer. At that time, Schlesinger disclosed that the U.S. missile force was being retriggered to give the U.S. a "counterforce" capability; i.e., the means to strike—if desired—only at Soviet military forces and installations rather than let loose a wholesale volley that would also destroy population centers.

To justify the change in strategy, the Secretary of Defense argued that MIRV advances might tempt the Soviet Union to launch a limited nuclear strike against the U.S. Under MAD, the only possible U.S. nuclear response would be an all-out attack on Soviet cities. That would not only be inhumane but suicidal, because Russia would retain enough missiles—particularly those aboard submarines, which are virtually invulnerable to attack—to obliterate U.S. population centers. Consequently, the President might decide to save American lives by not retaliating, in effect acquiescing to the aggression.

More Buttons. To avoid that, Schlesinger said, the President had to be allowed to respond in kind—for example, to destroy the submarine base at Murmansk in exchange for a hypothetical initial Russian obliteration of the U.S. base at Groton, Conn. Says Schlesinger: "We cannot allow the Soviets unilaterally to obtain a counterforce option that we ourselves lack. We must have a symmetrical balancing of the strategic forces on both sides."

The new strategy constitutes multiplying the number of buttons available to be pushed in a crisis, to provide more varieties of retaliation. As Schlesinger noted, "Most of the military objectives are already targeted." What Pentagon strategists are trying to do is war-game every limited attack the Soviets could make and program an appropriate, specific, equivalent American response to it. Declares Schlesinger: "We must maintain a military balance that offers no temptation to anybody." And, he might have added, that encourages Moscow to continue along the detente road with the U.S.

To critics, the counterforce strategy constitutes a dangerous escalation, since it changes the rules of the nuclear game: by making nuclear war more flexible, it becomes more thinkable, perhaps more tolerable, and therefore more possible. They also think it an expensive escalation, believing that it will