This analysis is commended by the Standing Committee for
Church in Society, The American Lutheran Church, as useful for
stimulating the thinking and acting of members of ALC
congregations. The paper seeks to develop the implications of
pertinent sections in "Mandate for Peacemaking," a statement
adopted by the ALC's 11th General Convention, September 1982. The
judgments expressed are those of the author, who is staff
specialist on foreign and military policy, Office for Governmental
Affairs, Lutheran Council in the USA, Washington, D.C. The Standing
Committee for Church in Society welcomes dialogue on the subject
matter of this paper and encourages ALC members to send their
comments to Office of Church in Society, 422 5. Fifth St.,
Minneapolis, MN 55415.
"Nuclear war cannot be won, and must never be fought." --
President Ronald Reagan
1. President Reagan's brief sentence sums up
the fundamental operating principle of U.S. and Soviet political
leaders of the past two decades concerning nuclear weapons. Since
at least the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 the actions of
both superpowers have been constrained by the knowledge of both
countries that nuclear weapons have no military value. The
use of them in war is the supremely irrational act.
2. At the same time, the political leadership
of both countries has either actively sought or grudgingly approved
the growth of nuclear arsenals and the development of new nuclear
weapons systems. Why, if there is no military purpose for them? It
is clear that nuclear weapons must have great political
value in the eyes of political leaders. The danger confronting the
world in the late twentieth century is that these political
pressures to build nuclear arsenals will create a situation where
the fundamental truth as expressed by President Reagan will be
ignored, overpowered, or simply forgotten, and that nuclear war
will occur.
I. NUCLEAR WEAPONS HAVE POLITICAL, NOT MILITARY,
USES
3. In order to prevent nuclear war, a variety
of strategies and tactics needs to be pursued. Trouble spots around
the world which could flare into U.S./Soviet confrontation need to
be isolated from that confrontation and resolved diplomatically.
The spread of nuclear weapons needs to be checked. The nuclear
relationship between the U.S. and the Soviet Union needs to be
managed and directed through arms control agreements. And the
political pressures for building nuclear weapons need to be
examined and lessened if possible. This paper is about the latter
task and how it relates to the others.
4. The political uses of nuclear weapons fall
into two arenas: international and domestic. The greatest of these
is in the international arena; one. country's nuclear weapons seem
to dissuade other countries from using their own nuclear weapons.
This political process is known as deterrence. It is a political
condition which has existed now for more than thirty years, and
obtained when nuclear powers had relatively small arsenals, as well
as when those countries have far larger stocks of weapons, as is
currently the case. It is also a condition fraught with ambiguities
and pitfalls -- both political and moral. It is the fundamental
rationale for the expansion of nuclear arsenals, and it is
inescapably founded on the willingness to do the unethical and
irrational.
. . . our nation's present commitment to the doctrine of
deterrence assumes the production and deployment of nuclear
weapons, and the threat to use them is implicit in the deterrence
theory. Our ethical dilemma is that weapons whose use cannot be
justified are needed to sustain the balance of fear in which
nuclear warfare has been prevented for more than three decades.
That ethical dilemma will remain until the nations can agree to
eliminate nuclear weapons from the earth. ("Mandate for
Peacemaking," adopted by the 11th general convention of The
American Lutheran Church, September 1982, section A-b).
5. Within the deterrence doctrine lay the seeds
for its own failure. In order for a country credibly to deter
another country's use of nuclear weapons, it must convey the
perception that it is willing to do the irrational -- use its
nuclear arsenal in war. In order to do that, it must make the
irrational appear rational (or as rational as possible). In order
to do that, both the U.S. and the Soviet Union have attempted to
create nuclear weapons which appear to the other to have a rational
military use. This has led both countries to build weapons
progressively smaller and more accurate. At some point the weapons
of one or both of the countries will become apparently
rational in military terms to their own leadership. At that point
deterrence fails, and nuclear war moves from a possibility through
miscalculation to a probability through the calculus of the
apparently rational.
6. And while deterrence -- especially
deterrence at low levels of armaments and within the context of
arms control and other methods of managing this political
relationship -- may serve a fundamentally good political purpose,
nuclear weapons have other political effects and uses in the
international arena. First, they have been brandished trying to
influence the actions of other countries in regional disputes
(during the 1973 war in the Middle East, for example). Second,
because of the need to preserve the credibility of deterrence,
resolution of political problems between the U.S. and the Soviet
Union may be prevented. The effects of deterrence are to entrench
differences between two countries, such as the continuing division
of Europe, rather than allow them to be resolved through political
and diplomatic means.
7. Thus, the political uses of nuclear weapons
in international relations are mixed. The domestic political uses
of nuclear weapons supplement the dangers inherent in international
uses, and thus are more malign. John Kennedy, for example, raised
the issue of nuclear weapons for at-home political purposes during
the 1960 presidential campaign, when he spoke of a "missile gap"
and blamed it on the Eisenhower-Nixon Administration. As a result
of such domestic campaign rhetoric, new and more
apparently usable nuclear weapons are built, even though
deterrence has shown no signs of failing. The new weapons then
contribute to the destabilization of the deterrence relationship,
which leads to calls for still more weapons on both sides, and the
cycle perpetuates itself.
8. Christians in the United States who seek to
prevent nuclear war, then, are called upon to examine carefully the
rationales used in defense of additions to nuclear arsenals.
Because of its inherent dangers, and conflicts with the traditional
ethical standards of the Christian community, deterrence can only
be tolerated at the lowest possible levels of armament, and only
within the context of other nuclear-war-preventing activities like
arms control and efforts to halt the proliferation of nuclear
weapons.
II. BURDEN OF PROOF ON PROPONENTS OF MORE
9. What assumptions must be made, and what
criteria are necessary, to help Christians evaluate the necessity
of additional nuclear weapons? In a democracy, how do we judge
whether our government should or should not build a nuclear weapon
system?
10. There are two levels of evaluations that
can be made. The first stands without reference to other criteria
and ethical standards. It stems simply from the current situation
in the world. Henceforth, the relevant question about a nuclear
weapons system cannot be "why not build it?" but ought be "why
build it?"
11. The burden of the argument therefore must
fall on the proponents of the weapon system, rather than on the
opponents. A presumption against additional weapons is the
prudent stance. This is especially important given recent research
into the effects of even a relatively "limited" nuclear exchange on
the global environment. The presumption must be that nuclear weapon
systems require especially compelling justification.
possession of nuclear weapons can only be justified
by their political usefulness . . .
the only political use acceptable to the just-war tradition is
prevention of nuclear war
12. In national debate over nuclear weapons, no
longer must opponents of a weapon be required to demonstrate that
the weapon violates a set of ethical and/or political criteria.
Rather, supporters of a weapon should demonstrate that it falls
within such a set of criteria, and fully describe what that set of
criteria is.
13. This is a significant change in thinking
about nuclear weapons in the United States; it addresses the
domestic political use of nuclear weapons at its core. Up to now,
it has been the opponents of strategic and tactical nuclear weapons
That have had to make their case in Congress, and in cities and
towns across the country. That may or may not have been the
appropriate basis of debate in the past. That is not the importance
of this point. What this fact demonstrates is that up to now,
political leadership has found it politically safer, in general, to
support nuclear arms with some exceptions than, in general, to
oppose nuclear arms with some exceptions. It is this political
dynamic which should be reversed.
14. After this initial presumption, the next
level of evaluation is a general evaluation stemming from a set of
ethical standards to determine which weapons, if any, may be
exceptions to the initial presumption against any new
weapons.
15. The Lutheran tradition, along with the vast
majority of Christians through history, has accepted the just-war
tradition as the set of ethical standards to be used in this realm.
Within the church a tradition of pacifism has coexisted with the
more widely held just-war ethic. Most adherents to the pacifist
tradition would end their ethical evaluations of weapons at this
point -- not because they are lazy or simplistic, but because of
the rigor of their ethical standards. Those Christians who do not
adhere to pacifism need to be equally rigorous in their ethical
process.
The just/unjust war ethic does not excuse believers from the
rigor of ethical thinking and decision-making on war and peace.
Just-war thinking rules out the option of unthinking compliance
with whatever policies a nation's political and military leadership
happens to be offering the people at a given time. ("Mandate
for Peacemaking," A-9).
16. The just-war tradition clearly prohibits
the firing of nuclear weapons, or other weapons of mass
destruction, because doing so would violate the conditions of
proportionality and of protection of non-combatants from attack.
The dilemma presented to "just warriors" by deterrence is the
distinction between use and possession of weapons of mass
destruction. The possession of such weapons can only be justified
by their political usefulness, and the only political use which
withstands scrutiny from the perspective of the just-war tradition
is the prevention of nuclear war ) through deterrence, through arms
control, and through nuclear non-proliferation. (For a discussion
of this, see the appropriate chapters of Peaceways,
Charles P. Lutz and Jerry L. Folk, et at., and When War Is
Unjust, by John Howard Yoder, both from Augsburg
Publishing.)
17. The reason for this is that other political
uses, especially in the domestic political arena, augment the
apparent military usefulness of nuclear weapons, as
already discussed. These political uses, and how they can be
prevented, or at least ameliorated, are the issues the just-war
adherent must tackle in evaluating nuclear weapons.
III. SEVEN QUESTIONS WE CAN ASK
18. Nuclear weapons are used for a variety of
political purposes. The questions non-pacifist Christians must ask
about a nuclear weapon should be designed to determine whether that
weapon will help prevent nuclear war (the only acceptable
use) or is being proposed for some other political reason. We hope
the following questions do just that.
A. Will the system actually accomplish its stated
objective? And is the objective stated correctly?
19. Many Lutherans, especially those in the Midwest,
remember a series of Nike missile bases designed to use
nuclear-tipped missiles to shoot down Soviet bombers attacking the
U.S. The system was built in the late 50s, and was essentially
scrapped in the late 60s and early 70s. There was a debate about
whether to continue it or not. The situation was this: in the 50s,
most of the Soviet nuclear weapons would have been dropped on the
U.S. by bombers. By the late 60s, by far most of the Soviet
warheads would have been "delivered" to the U.S. on rockets. The
Nike system could still shoot down the bombers, but what good would
that do if Soviet rockets still destroyed the U.S.?
20. It was relatively easy to come to the
conclusion that it didn't make sense to keep the bases. They
weren't going to help deter a nuclear war by convincing the Soviet
Union that it was useless to attack the U.S. That was the key to
the debate on the matter. The missiles could still shoot the Soviet
bombers, but that objective didn't make a difference any longer.
The primary objective is to prevent nuclear war. The missile's
objective could no longer help accomplish that. Yet many still
asked why dismantle a perfectly good weapon system? It's never been
politically easy to get rid of nuclear weapons even if they've
outlived their usefulness.
B. Are there other safer, less costly, or
non-nuclear, means of accomplishing the objective?
21. In the 60s, the U.S. built the Titan missile
system to deliver nuclear warheads. The U.S. is now in the process
of dismantling them, because they are old, expensive to maintain,
and dangerous (it was a Titan missile that exploded in its silo
some years ago and hurled its warhead onto a farmer's field). There
were only 54 Titan missiles with 54 warheads in the U.S. arsenal,
and in light of the 1000 Minuteman missiles with several thousand
warheads, the Titans weren't necessary to deter nuclear war.
Nonetheless, there was opposition to retiring the missiles, because
it was claimed that it was an act of "unilateral disarmament." The
missile's objective, for those who opposed its retirement, had
become something other than the prevention of nuclear war.
22. Another case is the issue of nuclear
weapons on sea-launched cruise missiles (SLCMs). These missiles are
small, highly accurate, jet-powered missiles. The Navy is now
putting them on ships, to be used to attack other ships on the high
seas. We should question whether they need nuclear warheads, or
whether conventional explosives would just as effectively serve the
objective. This use of nuclear warheads falsely increases their
apparent military purpose, weakens deterrence, and does not make
the weapon more capable of accomplishing its objective (sinking
ships -- remember the British destroyer Sheffield sunk by an
Argentine Excocet missile with conventional explosives) than
conventional weapons would. It also highlights another political
use of nuclear weapons: to "look tough." Many politicians think
they gain the most political support by advocating weapons more
powerful than necessary.
when nuclear weapons are used to send diplomatic
signals, attract votes, provide jobs,
or win political squabbles... it becomes harder to prevent nuclear
war
C. Can the objective even be accomplished?
23. This is, of course, one of the unanswered
questions concerning the Strategic Defense Initiative. But it is
one which has not been asked seriously enough in the development of
other nuclear or strategic weapons systems, either. A classic
example was the so-called "atomic cannon" built by the U.S. in the
50s. It was to be stationed in Europe, to defend against a Soviet
attack. When they were sent to Germany, it was discovered they were
too big to drive through the narrow streets of the towns and
villages, and because they were built with wheels, rather than
tracks (like a tank), they couldn't go across country. They simply
could not do what they were designed to do.
24. Another example is the Pershing II rockets
and ground-launched cruise missiles (GLCMs) the U.S. is now
deploying in Europe. In response to the Soviet deployment of SS-20
missiles, NATO leadership thought it was necessary to deploy new
weapons. A variety of weapons could have accomplished that
objective, based on ships in the Atlantic ocean or on planes based
on ships or in countries that already had nuclear weapons. The
European political leaders, however, requested Pershing us and
GLCMs in order to assure Europeans of U.S. loyalty to them by
having weapons deployed on the ground in Germany, Holland, Belgium,
and Italy. The objective was to express political
solidarity within the NATO alliance. The deployment, however, is
still causing political difficulties within the very countries it
was designed to reassure. Nuclear weapons are for deterring the use
of other nuclear weapons, not for sending political signals within
an alliance of friendly countries.
D. Does the weapon system promote, inhibit, or have
a neutral effect on arms control?
25. Arms control is another important tool to prevent
nuclear war. It does not make sense to deploy weapons which make
arms control more difficult. The deployment of some nuclear weapons
in submarines is an example of this. The Soviet submarine which was
grounded in Swedish waters some years ago was carrying nuclear
weapons, but it was not the kind of submarine from which the
Soviets could launch rockets, so the weapons must have been either
torpedoes or cruise missiles similar in shape and size to
torpedoes. Without having an American watching the Soviets load the
submarine, however, it is impossible to tell which. If it is
impossible to tell what kind of weapon, or the number of weapons,
it is impossible to control them through a treaty.
26. The Soviet submarine was not carrying the
kind of weapons controlled by treaties already negotiated by the
U.S. and the U.S.S.R. (if it had been, it would have been in gross
violation of the treaty, and that violation would certainly have
been made public). In response to these Soviet weapons, the U.S. is
now deploying SLCMs in submarines which haven't previously been
included in arms control negotiations. The U.S. SLCMs are like
missiles covered under SALT I and SALT II when launched from
aircraft. It is equally impossible for the Soviets to know how many
of these missiles are deployed, or in what submarines. Thus, the
Soviets can't be sure of verifying them. This is also an
unnecessary inhibition on arms control. Are nuclear weapons being
used for political tit-for-tat?
E. Is arms control being used as the reason to build
the weapon?
27. We cannot afford to ignore history: no weapon
system declared to be a bargaining chip in an arms control
negotiation has ever been bargained away by our
government. (We have less insight into Soviet bargaining tactics,
so it is more difficult to make such a statement about the Soviet
government, but it almost certainly applies to them, too.) In
addition, the politics of arms control in the United States has had
an extremely dangerous characteristic: in order to gain approval
for an arms control treaty, commitments to build additional weapons
not covered by the treaty have been made.
28. Critical evaluation of weapon systems, and
the resulting opposition to some of them, has doubtless
demonstrated to U.S. political leaders the commitment of the
American people to the arms control process. Many would argue
(including some current U.S. officials) that without that
opposition, the current negotiations would not be under way.
Moreover, domestic opposition to specific weapon systems can help
to make sure that the domestic politics of arms control serves to
slow the arms race, rather than legitimize or even fuel it.
F. Is there a reason to believe the weapon system is
being procured for domestic political, rather than national
security reasons?
29. This gets at one of the classic ways weapons make
their way through Congress. By spreading the development and
production of a weapon around the country, proponents of weapons
generate votes in support of those weapons. This is simply the use
of nuclear weapons for the political purpose of generating jobs and
economic benefits rather than preventing nuclear war.
30. Another, similar dynamic has to do with
rivalries among the military services. Nuclear weapons are the most
prestigious and politically powerful kinds of weapons for a service
to have. But not all forms of nuclear weapons need be given to all
services. Yet the U.S. is now building cruise missiles for the
Army, Navy, and Air Force. Both the Air Force and the Army have
nuclear equipped rockets based on land, and the Navy has rockets
based in submarines. Both the Air Force and the Navy have airplanes
capable of delivering nuclear weapons. In some cases there is good
reason for this; in others, the political realities meant that if
one service was to get a nuclear weapon system, the other services
had to get one as well, whether it served the purpose of preventing
nuclear war or not.
G. In a crisis, does the weapon promote
predictability on the part of the antagonists?
31. The least likely way nuclear war would start is
the completely unexpected "bolt-from-the-blue." It is much more
possible that one country's misjudgment of the other country's
intentions will lead to the use of nuclear weapons in desperation.
An important way of decreasing this possibility is to see whether
one country's weapons could give another the wrong perception.
32. There are two good recent examples of this.
The first is the Soviet Union's mid-70s buildup of large, accurate
missiles with many warheads. Whether the Soviets intended to or
not, they forced many in the U.S. to the conclusion that the
Soviets intended to attack the U.S. missiles. This was the "window
of vulnerability" some thought the U.S. faced. The United States,
in a crisis, might be faced with the decision either to launch its
missiles first, or to see them destroyed if the Soviets struck
first. Soviet political leadership had never indicated that such a
first-strike on their part was their intention, and many
characterized it as an unlikely "cosmic roll of the dice."
Nonetheless, because of the perceived capability of the Soviet
missiles, U.S. leadership would have to take such a possibility
into account.
33. Similarly, the U.S. deployment of Pershing
II missiles in Europe has served to make Soviet leaders unsure of
U.S. intent. These missiles would take between six and ten minutes
to reach the Soviet Union. Soviet leaders are worried that, in a
crisis, the U.S. might attempt a surprise attack; the targets would
be the offices, headquarters, and shelters of the Soviet political
leadership. The Soviet concern has been reenforced by public
writings by some U.S. nuclear theorists advocating such a
"decapitation" attack as a workable military use of nuclear
weapons.
34. Both of these are examples of the kinds of
weapons which do not increase security by preventing nuclear war,
but rather weapons which decrease security by making judgments in a
crisis more difficult. When the Pershing II deployment is
criticized using this argument, its supporters counter that it is
good that there is some uncertainty in the Soviet Union, because it
makes the problem of defending the Soviet Union more difficult. But
in any crisis, an accurate assessment of the antagonist's
intentions is essential if nuclear war is to be avoided. The
purpose of nuclear weapons is to prevent nuclear war, not make
problems for the adversary that also make a crisis harder to
manage.
IV. CONCLUSION
35. There are nuclear weapons being proposed
which may fulfill the requirements of this list of questions. There
are many more which will not. So far, other means of helping
prevent nuclear war have not been as successful as hoped. Arms
control efforts have a mixed record. And the spread of nuclear
weapons is a continuing danger to which we have not paid enough
attention. That doesn't mean they are failures; it only means that
after 40 years, the world is still learning how to prevent nuclear
war. But we also have 40 years of experience to learn from.
36. This list of questions is derived from that
experience. It alone cannot save us from nuclear war. Only wise
leadership in the countries which have nuclear weapons can do that.
So far, leadership in both the U.S. and the Soviet Union has kept
the first principle of nuclear weapons -- that nuclear war
cannot be won and must not be fought. The role of citizens in
a democracy is to help those leaders continue to keep it. That is
the purpose of this list. As shown in these examples, both the'
U.S. and the Soviet Union have at times made that more difficult,
not less, in the past decades. There are political uses of nuclear
weapons. They can be used to send diplomatic signals, attract
votes, prove resolve, provide jobs, or win political squabbles.
Almost inevitably, when used for those purposes, it becomes harder,
not easier, for leaders to prevent nuclear war.