Home › Features › Essays › Nuclear Weapons and the U.S.S.R: The Nuclear Debate

Nuclear Weapons and the U.S.S.R: The Nuclear Debate

By Robert W. Tucker
Fall 1984
Article Summary and Author Biography

In the almost four decades since the appearance of nuclear weapons, concern over the dangers these weapons raise has varied markedly. A preoccupation with nuclear weapons has characterized only a very few, and even among these few anxiety over the prospects of nuclear war has not been a constant. Beyond the nuclear strategists and a small entourage, the nuclear question has not evoked a steady level of attention, let alone of anxiety. On the contrary, the attention of foreign policy elites, and even more the general public, has swung from one extreme to the other and within a brief period of time.

Robert W. Tucker is a professor at The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and President of the Lehrman Institute. He wishes to thank Michael Mandelbaum, Josef Joffe and Paul Dyster for their help.

Print Email
Login or Register to leave a comment.

Sign-up for free weekly updates from ForeignAffairs.com.

In the almost four decades since the appearance of nuclear weapons, concern over the dangers these weapons raise has varied markedly. A preoccupation with nuclear weapons has characterized only a very few, and even among these few anxiety over the prospects of nuclear war has not been a constant. Beyond the nuclear strategists and a small entourage, the nuclear question has not evoked a steady level of attention, let alone of anxiety. On the contrary, the attention of foreign policy elites, and even more the general public, has swung from one extreme to the other and within a brief period of time.

Thus at the outset of the Kennedy Administration, a preoccupation with the prospect of nuclear war characterized a portion of the foreign policy elites, but hardly the public at large. That preoccupation, in part the product of high and sustained international tension and in part the response to Administration calls for measures of civil defense, quickly dissipated in the wake of the Cuban missile crisis. Within the period of scarcely a year it had virtually disappeared. Yet there had been no significant change in the strategic relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union. Nor had the arms competition between the two powers been significantly altered. Certainly the 1963 partial test ban did not alter this competition, whether by making it less intense or less dangerous than it had been earlier. But the test ban did signal that the political relationship between the two states had changed modestly for the better and might register still further improvement. A substantial and even dramatic change in outlook toward the prospects of nuclear war went hand in hand with a changing political relationship.

Registration Required: Log in to continue reading

To continue reading, you must be a registered user or Foreign Affairs subscriber.

Please log in below or register with ForeignAffairs.com.

Buy PDF

Buy a premium PDF reprint of this article.

Related

Essay, Spring 1983
Reconsiderations: Periods of Peril: The Window of Vulnerability and Other Myths
Robert H. Johnson

In the post-World War II era Americans have had a pressing need to come to terms with two critical international uncertainties: the future character of Soviet behavior and the likely shape of the nuclear danger. One recurrent idea that seeks to deal with these uncertainties is the notion that the United States is about to enter a period of peril because of an adverse shift in the strategic nuclear balance. The idea was most in vogue during the 1950s, but it has recently been revived as the "window of vulnerability."

Read
Essay, Spring 1981
Reassessing Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy
Gerard C. Smith and George W. Rathjens

The possibility that additional nations, or even terrorists, might get nuclear weapons has been a cause of deep anxiety ever since the first atomic weapon was exploded in 1945. It has been the subject of one important treaty (the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, or NPT) and more recently preventing proliferation was one of the central objectives of the Carter Administration, in an effort that generated intense controversy. Today an assessment of that effort is important because nuclear proliferation continues to be a most dangerous prospect in the coming decades_deserving of as much attention as the Soviet Union and the national security risks arising from dependence on foreign oil, as well as the basic economic problems of high inflation and low productivity.

Read
Essay, Winter 1981
Arms Sales: The New Diplomacy
Andrew J. Pierre

The recent heated debate over the sale of Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) planes and F-15 fighter components to Saudi Arabia was only one of a number of controversies involving U.S. arms sales. The next weapons transfer which will meet congressional resistance is that of F-16 fighters to Pakistan, a sale which some believe will give a renewed impetus to the arms race on the subcontinent and undermine nonproliferation efforts. Serious questions are also being raised about the wisdom of the planned sale of F-16s to Venezuela, thereby crossing a technological threshold which in the past has restrained the transfer of the most advanced fighter aircraft to Latin America. Proposed new arms supply relationships with Argentina, Chile and Guatemala will draw the ire of those who are concerned about the dropping of past restrictions based upon these countries' human rights records. The Reagan Administration is faced with a tough decision regarding the sale of the FX fighter to Taiwan. Beijing has put Washington on notice that it considers the proposed sale as a "litmus test" of future Sino-American relations. But the same type of symbolism is attached to the sale by Taipei, which would view the failure to sell as a sign of abandonment.

Read