If all threats were fully believable (except for the ones that were completely unbelievable) we might live in a strange world—perhaps a safe one, with many of the marks of a world based on enforceable law. Countries would hasten to set up their threats; and if the violence that would accompany infraction were confidently expected, and sufficiently dreadful to outweigh the fruits of transgression, the world might get frozen into a set of laws enforced by what we could figuratively call the Wrath of God. If we could threaten world inundation for any encroachment on the Berlin corridor, and everyone believed it and understood precisely what crime would bring about the deluge, it might not matter whether the whole thing were arranged by human or supernatural powers. If there were no uncertainty about what would and would not set off the violence, and if everyone could avoid accidentally overstepping the bounds, and if we and the Soviets (and everybody else) could avoid making simultaneous and incompatible threats, every nation would have to live within the rules set up by its adversary.
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The unpredictability is not due solely to what a destroyer commander might do at midnight when he comes across a Soviet (or American) freighter at sea, but to the psychological process by which particular things become identified with courage or appeasement or how particular things get included in or left out of a diplomatic package. Whether the removal of their missiles from Cuba while leaving behind 15,000 troops is a “defeat” for the Soviets or a “defeat” for the United States depends more on how it is construed than on the military significance of the troops, and the construction placed on the outcome is not easily foreseeable.
The resulting international relations often have the character of a competition in risk taking, characterized not so much by tests of force as by tests of nerve. Particularly in the relations between major adversaries—between East and West—issues are decided not by who can bring the most force to bear in a locality, or on a particular issue, but by who is eventually willing to bring more force to bear or able to make it appear that more is forthcoming.
There are few clear choices—since the close of World War II there have been but a few clear choices—between war and peace. The actual decisions to engage in war—whether the Korean War that did occur or a war at Berlin or Quemoy or Lebanon that did not—were decisions to engage in a war of uncertain size, uncertain as to adversary, as to the weapons involved, even as to the issues that might be brought into it and the possible outcomes that might result. They were decisions to embark on a risky engagement, one that could develop a momentum of its own and get out of hand. Whether it is better to be red than dead is hardly worth arguing about; it is not a choice that has arisen for us or has seemed about to arise in the nuclear era. The questions that do arise involve degrees of risk—what risk is worth taking, and how to evaluate the risk in-volved in a course of action. The perils that countries face are not as straightforward as suicide, but more like Russian roulette. The fact of uncertainty—the sheer unpredictability of dangerous events—not only blurs things, it changes their character. It adds an entire dimension to military relations: the manipulation of risk.
There is just no foreseeable route by which the United States and the Soviet Union could become engaged in a major nuclear war. This does not mean that a major nuclear war cannot occur. It only means that if it occurs it will result from a process that is not entirely foreseen, from reactions that are not fully predictable, from decisions that are not wholly deliberate, from events that are not fully under control.
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This does not mean that there is nothing the United States would fight a major war to defend, but that these are things that the Soviet Union would not fight a major war to obtain.
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The picture is drawn of a Soviet attack, say, on Greece or Turkey or West Germany, and the question is raised, would the United States then launch a retaliatory blow against the Soviet Union? Some answer a disdainful no, some answer a proud yes, but neither seems to be answering the pertinent question. The choice is unlikely to be one between everything and nothing. The question is really: is the United States likely to do something that is fraught with the danger of war, something that could lead—through a compounding of actions and reactions, of calculations and miscalculations, of alarms and false alarms, of commitments and challenges—to a major war?
This is why deterrent threats are often so credible. They do not need to depend on a willingness to commit anything like suicide in the face of a challenge. A response that carries some risk of war can be plausible, even reasonable, at a time when a final, ultimate decision to have a general war would be implausible or unreasonable. A country can threaten to stumble into a war even if it cannot credibly threaten to invite one.
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The idea, expressed by some writers, that such deterrence depends on a “credible first strike capability,” and that a country cannot plausibly threaten to engage in a general war over anything but a mortal assault on itself unless it has an appreciable capacity to blunt the other side’s attack, seems to depend on the clean-cut notion that war results—or is expected to result—only from a deliberate yes–no decision. But if war tends to result from a process, a dynamic process in which both sides get more and more deeply involved, more and more expectant, more and more concerned not to be a slow second in case the war starts, it is not a “credible first strike” that one threatens, but just plain war. The Soviet Union can indeed threaten us with war: they can even threaten us with a war that we eventually start, by threatening to get involved with us in a process that blows up into war. And some of the arguments about “superiority” and “inferiority” seem to imply that one of the two sides, being weaker, must absolutely fear war and concede while the other, being stronger, may confidently expect the other to yield. There is undoubtedly a good deal to the notion that the country with the less impressive military capability may be less feared, and the other may run the riskier course in a crisis; other things being equal, one anticipates that the strategically “superior” country has some advantage. But this is a far cry from the notion that the two sides just measure up to each other and one bows before the other’s superiority and acknowledges that he was only bluffing. Any situation that scares one side will scare both sides with the danger of a war that neither wants, and both will have to pick their way carefully through the crisis, never quite sure that the other knows how to avoid stumbling over the brink.
If “brinkmanship” means anything, it means manipulating the shared risk of war. It means exploiting the danger that somebody may inadvertently go over the brink, dragging the other with him. If two climbers are tied together, and one wants to intimidate the other by seeming about to fall over the edge, there has to be some uncertainty or anticipated irrationality or it won’t work. If the brink is clearly marked and provides a firm footing, no loose pebbles underfoot and no gusts of wind to catch one off guard, if each climber is in full control of himself and never gets dizzy, neither can pose any risk to the other by approaching the brink. There is no danger in approaching it; and while either can deliberately jump off, he cannot credibly pretend that he is about to. Any attempt to intimidate or to deter the other climber depends on the threat of slipping or stumbling. With loose ground, gusty winds, and a propensity toward dizziness, there is some danger when a climber approaches the edge; one can credibly threaten to fall off accidentally by standing near the brink.
Without uncertainty, deterrent threats of war would take the form of trip-wires. To incur commitment is to lay a trip-wire, one that is plainly visible, that cannot be stumbled on, and that is manifestly connected up to the machinery of war. And if effective, it works much like a physical barrier. The trip-wire will not be crossed as long as it has not been placed in an intolerable location, and it will not be placed in an intolerable location as long as there is no uncertainty about each other’s motives and nothing at issue that is worth a war to both sides. Either side can stick its neck out, confident that the other will not chop it off. As long as the process is a series of discrete steps, taken deliberately, without any uncertainty as to the consequences, this process of military commitment and maneuver would not lead to war. Imminent war—possible war—would be continually threatened, but the threats would work. They would work unless one side were pushed too far; but if the pushing side knows how far that is, it will not push that far.
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Prohibitive penalties imposed on deliberate actions are equivalent to ordinary rules.
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Skillful diplomacy, in the absence of uncertainty, consists in arranging things so that it is one’s opponent who is embarrassed by having the “last clear chance” to avert disaster by turning aside or abstaining from what he wanted to do.
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In this way uncertainty imports tactics of intimidation into the game. One can incur a moderate probability of disaster, sharing it with his adversary, as a deterrent or compellent device, where one could not take, or persuasively threaten to take, a deliberate last clear step into certain disaster.
The route by which major war might actually be reached would have the same kind of unpredictability. Either side can take steps—engaging in a limited war would usually be such a step—that genuinely raise the probability of a blow-up. This would be the case with intrusions, blockades, occupations of third areas, border incidents, enlargement of some small war, or any incident that involves a challenge and entails a response that may in turn have to be risky. Many of these actions and threats designed to pressure and intimidate would be nothing but noise, if it were reliably known that the situation could not get out of hand. They would neither impose risk nor demonstrate willingness to incur risk. And if they definitely would lead to major war, they would not be taken. (If war were desired, it would be started directly.) What makes them significant and usable is that they create a genuine risk—a danger that can be appreciated—that the thing will blow up for reasons not fully under control.
It has often been said, and correctly, that a general nuclear war would not liberate Berlin and that local military action in the neighborhood of Berlin could be overcome by Soviet military forces. But that is not all there is to say. What local military forces can do, even against very superior forces, is to initiate this uncertain process of escalation. One does not have to be able to win a local military engagement to make the threat of it effective. Being able to lose a local war in a dangerous and provocative manner may make the risk—not the sure consequences, but the possibility of this act—outweigh the apparent gains to the other side.
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The Soviet anticipation of the risks involved in a large-scale attack must include the danger that general war will result. If they underestimate the scale and duration of resistance and do attack, a purpose of resisting is to confront them, day after day, with an appreciation that life is risky, and that pursuit of the original objective is not worth the risk.
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The credibility of a massive American response is often depreciated: even in the event of the threatened loss of Europe the United States would not, it is sometimes said, respond to the fait accompli of a Soviet attack on Europe with anything as “suicidal” as general war. But that is a simple-minded notion of what makes general war credible. What can make it exceedingly credible to the Russians—and perhaps to the Chinese in the Far East—is that the triggering of general war can occur whether we intend it or not.
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However few the nuclears used, and however selectively they are used, their purpose should not be “tactical” because their consequences will not be tactical. With nuclears, it has become more than ever a war of risks and threats at the highest strategic level. It is a war of nuclear bargaining.
There are some inferences for NATO planning. First, nuclear weapons should not be evaluated mainly in terms of what they could do on the battlefield: the decision to introduce them, the way to use them, the targets to use them on, the scale on which to use them, the timing with which to use them, and the communications to accompany their use should not be determined (or not mainly determined) by how they affect the tactical course of the local war. Much more important is what they do to the expectation of general war, and what rules or patterns of expectations about local use are created.
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Second, as a corollary we should not think that the value or likely success of NATO armed forces depends solely, or even mainly, on whether they can win a local war. Particularly if nuclears are introduced, the war may never run its course. Even without the introduction of nuclears, a main function of resistance forces is to create and prolong a genuine sense of danger, of the potentiality of general war. This is not a danger that we create for the Russians and avoid ourselves; it is a danger we share with them. But it is this deterrent and intimidation function that deserves at least as much attention as the tactical military potentialities of the troops.
Third, forces that might seem to be quite “inadequate” by ordinary tactical standards can serve a purpose, particularly if they can threaten to keep the situation in turmoil for some period of time. The important thing is to preclude a quick, clean Soviet victory that quiets things down in short order.
Fourth, the deployment and equipment of nuclear-armed NATO troops, including the questions of which nationalities have nuclear weapons and which services have them, are affected by the purpose and function and character of nuclear and local war. If what is required is a skillful and well-controlled bargaining use of nuclears in the event the decision is taken to go above that threshold, and if the main purpose of nuclears is not to help the troops on the battlefield, it is much less necessary to decentralize nuclear weapons and decisions to local commanders. The strategy will need tight centralized control; it may not require the kind of close battlefield support that is often taken to justify distribution of small nuclears to the troops; and nuclears probably could be reserved to some special nuclear forces.
Fifth, if the main consequence of nuclear weapons, and the purpose of introducing them, is to create and signal a heightened risk of general war, our plans should reflect that purpose.
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Targets should be picked with a view to what the Soviet leadership perceives about the character of the war and about our intent, not for tactical importance. A target near or inside the U.S.S.R., for example, is important because it is near or inside the U.S.S.R., not because of its tactical contribution to the European battlefield.
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The Soviets must be persuaded that the war is getting out of hand but is not yet beyond the point of no return.
Sixth, we have to expect the Soviets to pursue their own policy of exploiting the risk of war. We cannot expect the Soviets to acquiesce in our unilateral nuclear demonstration. We have to be prepared to interpret and to respond to a Soviet nuclear “counterproposal.” Finding a way to terminate will be as important as choosing how to initiate such an exchange. (We should not take wholly for granted that the initiation would be ours.)
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It is not necessarily prudent to wait until the last desperate moment in a losing engagement to introduce nuclear weapons as a last resort. By the time they are desperately needed to prevent a debacle, it may be too late to use them carefully, discriminatingly, with a view to the message that is communicated, and with the maintenance of adequate control.
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In its extreme form the restrained, signaling, intimidating use of nuclears for brinkmanship has sometimes been called the “shot across the bow.” There is always a danger—Churchill and others have warned against it—of making a bold demonstration on so small a scale that the contrary of boldness is demonstrated. There is no cheap, safe way of using nuclears that scares the wits out of the Russians without scaring us too. Nevertheless, any use of nuclears is going to change the pattern of expectations about the war. It is going to rip a tradition of inhibition on their use. It is going to change everyone’s expectations about the future use of nuclears. Even those who have argued that nuclears ought to be considered just a more efficient kind of artillery will surely catch their breath when the first one goes off in anger.
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It is sometimes argued, quite correctly, that this tradition can be eroded, and the danger of “first use” reduced, by introducing nuclear weapons in some “safe” fashion, gradually getting the world used to nuclear weapons and dissipating the drama of nuclear explosions. Nuclear depth charges at sea, small nuclear warheads in air-to-air combat, or nuclear demolitions on defended soil may seem comparatively free of the danger of unlimited escalation, cause no more civil disruption than TNT, appear responsible, and set new traditions for actual use, including the tradition that nuclear weapons can be used without signaling all-out war.
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The earliest instance [of the game of chicken] I have come across, in a race with horse-drawn vehicles, antedates the auto by some time:
The road here led through a gully, and in one part the winter flood had broken down part of the road and made a hol-low. Menelaos was driving in the middle of the road, hoping that no one would try to pass too close to his wheel, but Antilochos turned his horses out of the track and followed him a little to one side. This frightened Menelaos, and he shouted at him:
“What reckless driving Antilochos! Hold in your horses. This place is narrow, soon you will have more room to pass. You will foul my car and destroy us both!”
But Antilochos only plied the whip and drove faster than ever, as if he did not hear. They raced about as far as the cast of quoit . . . and then [Menelaos] fell behind: he let the horses go slow himself, for he was afraid that they might all collide in that narrow space and overturn the cars and fall in a struggling heap.
This game of chicken took place outside the gates of Troy three thousand years ago. Antilochos won, though Homer says—somewhat ungenerously—“ by trick, not by merit.”
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These various games of chicken—the genuine ones that involve some real unpredictability—have some characteristics that are worth noting. One is that, unlike those sociable games it takes two to play, with chicken it takes two not to play. If you are publicly invited to play chicken and say you would rather not, you have just played.
Second, what is in dispute is usually not the issue of the moment, but everyone’s expectations about how a participant will behave in the future. To yield may be to signal that one can be expected to yield; to yield often or continually indicates acknowledgment that is one’s role. To yield repeatedly up to some limit and then to say “enough” may guarantee that the first show of obduracy loses the game for both sides. If you can get a reputation for being reckless, demanding, or unreliable—and apparently hot-rods, taxis, and cars with “driving school” license plates sometimes enjoy this advantage—you may find concessions made to you. (The driver of a wide American car on a narrow European street is at less of a disadvantage than a static calculation would indicate. The smaller cars squeeze over to give him room.) Between these extremes, one can get a reputation for being firm in demanding an appropriate share of the road but not aggressively challenging about the other’s half. Unfortunately, in less stylized games than the highway version, it is often hard to know just where the central or fair or expected division should lie, or even whether there should be any recognition of one contestant’s claim.
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When two rivals are coaxed by their friends to have it out in a fight, they may manage to shrug it off skillfully, but only if neither comes away looking exclusively responsible for turning down the opportunity. Both players can appreciate a rule that forbids play; if the cops break up the game before it starts, so that nobody plays and nobody is proved chicken, many and perhaps all of the players will consider it a great night, especially if their ultimate willingness to play was not doubted.
In fact, one of the great advantages of international law and custom, or an acknowledged code of ethics, is that a country may be obliged not to engage in some dangerous rivalry when it would actually prefer not to but might otherwise feel obliged to for the sake of its bargaining reputation. The boy who wears glasses and can’t see without them cannot fight if he wants to; but if he wants to avoid the fight it is not so obviously for lack of nerve. (Equally good, if he’d prefer not to fight but might feel obliged to, is to have an adversary who wears glasses. Both can hope that at least one of them is honorably precluded from joining the issue.) One of the values of laws, conventions, or traditions that restrain participation in games of nerve is that they provide a graceful way out.
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It is often argued that “face” is a frivolous asset to preserve, and that it is a sign of immaturity that a government can’t swallow its pride and lose face. It is undoubtedly true that false pride often tempts a government’s officials to take irrational risks or to do undignified things—to bully some small country that insults them, for example. But there is also the more serious kind of “face,” the kind that in modern jargon is known as a country’s “image,” consisting of other countries’ beliefs (their leaders’ beliefs, that is) about how the country can be expected to behave. It relates not to a country’s “worth” or “status” or even “honor,” but to its reputation for action. If the question is raised whether this kind of “face” is worth fighting over, the answer is that this kind of face is one of the few things worth fighting over. Few parts of the world are intrinsically worth the risk of serious war by themselves, especially when taken slice by slice, but defending them or running risks to protect them may preserve one’s commitments to action in other parts of the world and at later times. “Face” is merely the interdependence of a country’s commitments; it is a country’s reputation for action, the expectations other countries have about its behavior. We lost thirty thousand dead in Korea to save face for the United States and the United Nations, not to save South Korea for the South Koreans, and it was undoubtedly worth it. Soviet expectations about the behavior of the United States are one of the most valuable assets we possess in world affairs.
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It is often argued that “face” is a frivolous asset to preserve, and that it is a sign of immaturity that a government can’t swallow its pride and lose face. It is undoubtedly true that false pride often tempts a government’s officials to take irrational risks or to do undignified things—to bully some small country that insults them, for example. But there is also the more serious kind of “face,” the kind that in modern jargon is known as a country’s “image,” consisting of other countries’ beliefs (their leaders’ beliefs, that is) about how the country can be expected to behave. It relates not to a country’s “worth” or “status” or even “honor,” but to its reputation for action. If the question is raised whether this kind of “face” is worth fighting over, the answer is that this kind of face is one of the few things worth fighting over. Few parts of the world are intrinsically worth the risk of serious war by themselves, especially when taken slice by slice, but defending them or running risks to protect them may preserve one’s commitments to action in other parts of the world and at later times. “Face” is merely the interdependence of a country’s commitments; it is a country’s reputation for action, the expectations other countries have about its behavior. We lost thirty thousand dead in Korea to save face for the United States and the United Nations, not to save South Korea for the South Koreans, and it was undoubtedly worth it. Soviet expectations about the behavior of the United States are one of the most valuable assets we possess in world affairs.
