Chapter Seven
Third World Violence, Nuclear Danger

Why work with the Soviets to reduce the store of dynamite and then do nothing about the blasting caps?
—Bernard Avishai and Avner Cohen, Boston Globe

Except for the Cuban missile crisis and possibly one or two other cases, most scholars and commentators deny, explicitly or implicitly, that the incidents we described in Chapter 6 posed notable nuclear dangers. Hence, they imply, the nuclear states can continue to practice violence and destabilization in the Third World without inviting a worldwide disaster. Even those who are well aware of the consequences of a nuclear war and of the relevant history often express such complacency.

McGeorge Bundy, for example, writes that since 1962 the superpowers "have continuously kept a decent distance from the nuclear danger that any confrontation between them must always present…. There are episodes in this period that have been said to have such a color to them, but closely examined they show much more prudence than menace, and on both sides." The only episodes that have such a "color" for Bundy are several occasions during the Vietnam War, the 1969 border conflict between China and the Soviet Union, and the October 1973 crisis in the Middle East. Bundy's close examination of them discovered "great caution on the part of all states possessing nuclear weapons, caution not only with respect to their use, but also with respect to any step that might lead to a level of conflict in which someone else might be tempted to use them." As for all the other incidents that might be thought to have had a "color" of nuclear danger, "caution on the American side has been so visible as not to require detailed study."^[1]

Bundy is aware that "the most important thing that the United States

and the Soviet Union can do to stay clear of the 'nuclear tornado' is to see to it that they have no war of any kind with each other" and that "the avoidance of war means the avoidance of all steps that can bring Soviet and American forces into open conflict with one another." Nevertheless, based on his happy reading of the historical record, Bundy quickly adds: "This leaves room for contests in which each of the superpowers supports some other combatant, and even for conflicts in which one side is directly engaged against forces supported by the other, as in Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan." On the front between the two Koreas (with numerous American nuclear weapons deployed in the south), Bundy reassures us, "the situation is not comfortable, but it is stable." As for the rest of the Third World, "the study of nuclear danger can tell us very little about such hard areas for American policymakers as the Middle East or Central America or the Philippines, just as it cannot tell the Politburo how to handle its overextension in Afghanistan and Africa." Bundy likewise finds "no" danger of a nuclear war arising from events in Eastern or Western Europe.^[2]

The view that a proper respect for the nuclear danger "leaves room for" widespread superpower adventurism, including outright intervention with massive, nuclear-capable forces (as in Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan), is perhaps the most dangerous prevailing idea about nuclear war. The historical record, we believe, speaks for itself about the "prudence" and "caution" of the leaders of the nuclear states and about the safety of perpetual violence and intervention in a world peppered with enough nuclear weapons to destroy us all many times over.

To repeat, we do not claim that such actions necessarily made a nuclear war probable in the past or that they will make one probable in the future. We claim only that the nuclear danger is real—far too real for civilized people to accept—and that it lies here rather than in the arms race.

In truth, no one can estimate with any confidence the likelihood of a nuclear war. Given the historical record and the possible finality of a nuclear disaster, it is simply reckless arrogance to assume that there is "no" danger and to act accordingly. The people of the world have not given superpower leaders a license to make that judgment. Even the population of the United States, as we saw, has often been kept in the dark and excluded from any role in judging American actions with potential dangers on a planetary scale. A few considerations may help show that those dangers are in fact real.

Loose Cannon on the Nuclear Decks

Accidents and miscalculations during a crisis could lead to a nuclear disaster that neither side anticipates or wants. In peacetime, Paul Bracken writes, "with so many checks and balances, procedures for authentication of orders, and independent human interventions overlaid onto the control system for strategic weapons, the likelihood of accidental or inadvertent [nuclear] war is very, very low." But "the situation becomes very dangerous … when the [accidental] stresses occur in the midst of a Soviet-American crisis."^[3]

In the tension and chaos of an extreme confrontation, thousands of soldiers, sailors, and pilots could ignite a superpower war—and as we showed in Chapter 3, dozens, perhaps hundreds, might be able to actually launch nuclear weapons—no matter what the leaders of either side desired or ordered . As Barry Posen writes, "Conventional war rolls the nuclear dice."^[4] So does any conflict or crisis that could escalate to combat between the superpowers.

The Kennedys, for example, had no illusions about their ability to prevent the Cuban missile crisis from careening out of control. In one incident, a Soviet submarine escorting merchant ships approached the U.S. quarantine line around Cuba; a U.S. carrier was under orders to force it to the surface, if necessary with small depth charges. As Robert Kennedy writes, the president wondered: "Was the world on the brink of a holocaust? … President Kennedy had initiated the course of events, but he no longer had control over them."^[5]

Admiral Anderson, then chief of naval operations, later called the missile crisis "perhaps the finest opportunity since WWII for the U.S. naval antisubmarine forces to exercise at their trade [and] to perfect their skills." They did so all too well. According to the Department of Defense's "postmortem," the American destroyer Cecil "forced a Soviet submarine to the surface" on October 30. Indeed, the Navy succeeded "in surfacing five or six Soviet Foxtrot-class diesel-attack submarines in or near the quarantine zone," in at least one case reportedly by a depth-charge attack—that is, by fighting between major U.S. and Soviet naval combatants. According to an American admiral, one Soviet sub was crippled, could not submerge, and was forced to steam home on the surface.^[6] What if a Soviet sub had been sunk? Or what if a Soviet sub captain, to protect the lives of his crew, had returned fire in self-defense,

sinking a major American vessel and causing many injuries and deaths? Such events can lead to war.

Equally alarming, in the North Atlantic U.S. antisubmarine forces hunted Soviet submarines equipped with nuclear cruise missiles, "which at the time were the principal element of the Soviet strategic nuclear deterrent forces." Attacks on them would have essentially constituted a first strike against the Soviet deterrent. This activity was "much more provocative than anything the President and his advisors had either approved or wanted." As John Steinbruner notes, despite "an extraordinary effort to co-ordinate the actions of the government and to subject those actions to exhaustive deliberation," "the efforts to bring American policy under central direction must be said to have failed."^[7]

The Navy ran further risks. An American intelligence vessel steamed "just off the Cuban coast," and two warships, which "had the usual authority to fire at any hostile aircraft that approached them," crept to "within five or six miles of the Cuban coast." The Air Force sent a U-2 reconnaissance plane to the periphery of the Soviet Union on a supposedly routine mission during the crisis. When it "strayed" over Soviet territory, Soviet fighters scrambled to intercept it, and American jets were blithely dispatched to rescue it. On learning of this incident, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara reportedly "turned absolutely white, and yelled hysterically, 'This means war with the Soviet Union."' Khrushchev later wrote to Kennedy:

The question is, Mr. President: How should we regard this? What is this, a provocation? One of your planes violates our frontier during this anxious time we are both experiencing, when everything has been put into combat readiness. Is it not a fact that an intruding American plane could be easily taken for a nuclear bomber, which might push us to a fateful step; and all the more so since the U.S. Government and Pentagon long ago declared that you are maintaining a continuous nuclear bomber patrol?^[8]

Even the CIA got a chance to provoke fighting. Operation Mongoose, the agency's anti-Castro sabotage campaign, actually "ordered teams of covert agents into Cuba in order to support an invasion if it took place." On October 25, near the height of the crisis, the Cuban government foiled a sabotage attempt at the Matahambre copper mine. Amazingly, not until October 30 did the United States suspend Operation Mongoose attacks within Cuba—"once it had accidentally been learned that they were still going on!" But three six-man units were already in Cuba, and on November 8, in the midst of tense negotiations to end the crisis, "a

Cuban covert action sabotage team dispatched from the United States successfully blew up a Cuban industrial facility."^[9]

Unanticipated dangers, as we have seen, shadowed other crises as well, often, as in 1962, at sea. Kaplan notes that, "generally speaking, after 1962 superpower military confrontations—at least in terms of the nearness of military units to each other—took place at sea." Blechman and Kaplan observe that the U.S. Navy, using "warships [that] often have nuclear warheads on board … has been the foremost instrument for the United States' political uses of the armed forces: at all times, in all places, and regardless of the specifics of the situation." The respected strategic analyst Desmond Ball points out: "There is probably a greater likelihood of accidental or unauthorized launch of sea-based nuclear weapons [than others], and the constraints on the authorized release of nuclear weapons are possibly more relaxed than those that pertain to land-based systems…. It [is] likely that any major conflict at sea would escalate to a strategic nuclear exchange relatively quickly."^[10]

Even in calm times, the danger of accidental nuclear war lurks on and under the seas. Many collisions between Soviet and American warships have occurred, some during games of chicken. "Any one [of them]," Admiral Zumwalt writes, "could lead people to shoot at each other with results that might be by that time impossible to control." Harassment, some forms of which "are difficult to distinguish from preparations for hostilities," is also common, and "countermeasures to these provocations, such as maneuvering away from the threatening vessel, jamming or deceiving the adversary's electronic equipment, or directly harassing the threatening forces, could increase apprehensions on the other side, and thus 'prompt the very preemptive attack that they were meant to avoid.'" Soviet-American agreements have reduced the number and severity of serious incidents at sea, which in the late 1960s exceeded one hundred per year, but "serious collisions continue to occur at a rate of about half a dozen a year."^[11]

American submarines on "Holystone" surveillance missions in and near Soviet territorial waters have come close to trouble many times. One "is reported to have collided with an E-class submarine in Vladivostok Harbor in the mid-1960's when photographing the underside of the Soviet vessel." On another occasion, in November 1969, "the U.S.S. Gato is reported to have operated as close as one mile … off the Soviet coast; later on the same patrol the Gato collided with a Soviet submarine 15–25 miles … off the entrance to the White Sea, in the Barents Sea off the northern U.S.S.R." These and other similar collisions—"together

with more than a hundred other Holystone intrusion missions that were probably detected by Soviet forces but that they were unable to locate—could have been the catalyst for a chain of events that might have run from a localized engagement involving the intruding submarine to a full-scale nuclear exchange." Ball adds, "The general orders for Holystone missions reportedly state that, if threatened, the submarines 'have authority to use weapons.'" Incredibly, "in the November 1969 incident, the weapons officer of the Gato prepared to arm a SUBROC (UUM-44A) anti-submarine rocket (which carries a 1–5 kt W55 nuclear warhead) and three smaller nuclear torpedoes, and the submarine was 'maneuvered in preparation for combat.'" Reportedly "only one authentication—either from the ship's captain or her executive officer—was needed to prepare the torpedoes for launching."^[12]

During crises, the risk of unplanned nuclear war greatly increases: "Having nuclear weapons close at hand obviously makes it much easier to consider their employment—particularly in situations in which their use might provide the only means of achieving a particular objective or preventing one's own destruction." As Ball notes, "It is difficult to imagine a commander on an ASW [antisubmarine warfare] mission, having exhausted his supply of conventional depth charges and related antisubmarine munitions, not being seriously tempted to break open his cache of nuclear depth-charges." Though the sources of inadvertent nuclear escalation at sea could be reduced to some degree, "others are essentially immutable," and "it would be realistic to expect that any war would have a significant naval component." Therefore "even a conventional conflict should not be joined without national decision-makers having clearly and consciously determined that the purpose served by such action justifies the real risk of an all-out nuclear exchange."^[13]

Even if leaders retain effective control over their forces in the midst of conventional violence, they might decide to use nuclear weapons anyway, as irrational as this may sound. Psychopathology cannot be ruled out, especially given the bizarre 1973 record. In peacetime a destabilized leader would probably find it difficult to convince his subordinates to start World War III out of the blue. Lyndon Johnson reportedly remarked, "Some people wonder what would happen if I just woke up on the wrong side of the bed one day, decided I'd had it with the Russians, called the commander of SAC, and said, 'General, go get 'em!' You know what the general would say? 'Screw you, Mr. President.'" Gerald Ford recalls that "in the wake of Nixon's resignation, the newspapers were full of bizarre stories about his conduct in the final days. Some of

them indicated that [then secretary of defense] Schlesinger was so concerned about Nixon's mental stability that he had taken steps to make sure the President couldn't give orders to the Armed Services unilaterally."^[14] But in the midst of a tense crisis or war, such checks on an erratic executive may not be so easy to apply. Would the commander of SAC have said, "Screw you, Mr. President," to Nixon in October 1973?

Brinksmanship Forever

Even supposedly sane leaders, as we saw, have knowingly risked nuclear war in the Third World, often over even the most trivial stakes. Why? American, and to a lesser extent Soviet, leaders have long regarded Third World crises not as local matters of limited importance but as epic tests or challenges that can affect their nation's global reputation and power for years to come.

As Robert Jervis writes, "Throughout history, and especially for the great powers since 1945, states have often cared about specific issues less for their intrinsic value than for the conclusions they felt others would draw from the way they dealt with them." Leaders have therefore been obsessed with the need to constantly demonstrate "resolve," to project a strong "image," to establish intimidating "precedents," to show a willingness to run risks, even nuclear ones, and, above all, to make others believe that they will go to any lengths to "win" future Third World confrontations. That the local stakes in a crisis may be small makes no difference—because local stakes simply are not the point. Kissinger's memoirs explicitly disparage the "unwillingness to confront seemingly marginal challenges, depicting them as unworthy because they appear not to encapsulate the ultimate showdown."^[15]

The classic case is probably Quemoy and Matsu, the two "insignificant specks of land" over which the United States nearly went to nuclear war twice in the 1950s. As Brands observes, "Dulles and Eisenhower recognized that the U.S. was … approaching the brink of nuclear war over strategically trivial islands. However, they appeared to believe that U.S. credibility was on the line, and that if their approach didn't succeed, their entire defense policy might be undermined." Eisenhower expressed concern about the "psychological consequences" of letting the Chinese retake the islands and characterized the matter as a "concrete test" of his administration's resolve.^[16]

President Kennedy's real concern during the Cuban missile crisis,

as I. F. Stone wrote in 1966, was prestige. Remarkably, Kennedy's performance has become a model of how to conduct superpower foreign policy in the nuclear age. Richard Ned Lebow notes that Kennedy's "success" in the Cuban crisis "led responsible political analysts to exaggerate the efficacy of … demonstrations of resolve…. Political scientists enshrined the need for resolve at the core of widely-accepted theories of deterrence and compellence."^[17]

Nixon writes that during the 1970 War of Attrition crisis, he dictated a memorandum to Kissinger stating that he planned to "stand up" to the Soviet Union in Vietnam, Europe, and the Middle East: "It is a question of all or none…. This is it cold turkey." Later, after Syria intervened in the Black September conflict in Jordan and Kissinger duly "drafted a very stern note and delivered it to the Soviets, " Nixon says he told Kissinger, "They're testing us." The president reportedly told a National Security Council meeting: "There comes a time when the US is going to be tested as to its credibility in the area. The real question will be, will we act? Our action has to be considered in that light…. Is the question really a military one or is it our credibility as a power in that area?" A member of Kissinger's staff professed, "The precedent is what will worry them most of all, and the demonstration that we could and will use our air power and naval presence will cast a shadow over their calculations about how far we might go in support of Israel at a later date in a new crisis, and our international posture generally." Kissinger, according to the Kalb brothers, believed "that the United States would never become 'credible' to the Kremlin, the Middle East or anywhere, for that matter, unless it was prepared to show power—and use it—in defense of its interests." As Quandt concludes, "the United States treated the Jordan crisis as a superpower test of wills."^[18]

Referring to the 1970 Cienfuegos crisis, Kissinger writes, "I saw the Soviet move as going beyond its military implications; it was a part of a process of testing underway in different parts of the world." On the Indo-Pakistani war of 1971, he comments:

The victim of the attack was an ally—however reluctant many were to admit it—to which we had made several explicit promises concerning precisely this contingency. Clear treaty commitments reinforced by other undertakings dated back to 1959. One could debate the wisdom of these undertakings (and much of our bureaucracy was so eager to forget about them that for a time it proved next to impossible even for the White House to extract copies of the 1962 communications), but we could not ignore them. To do so would have disheartened allies like Iran and Turkey, which sympathized with Pakistan,

had the same commitment from us, and looked to our reaction as a token of American steadiness in potential crises affecting them. High stakes were therefore involved.

That Pakistan was then engaged in a major massacre, which had prompted the "attack," could on this logic be overlooked (especially considering that "allies like Iran and Turkey" were also prone to murdering their own people). Kissinger adds that "a reputation for unreliability was not something we could afford": "We had to act with determination to save larger interests and relationships … if we collapse now the Soviets won't respect us for it; the Chinese will despise us and the other countries will draw their own conclusions." Kissinger writes of ensuring that "the Russians retain their respect for us" and of "establishing an historical record of toughness … [that] might be used later to demonstrate that one's associates had wavered while one stood like a rock in a churning sea." Kissinger even complains about "the majority of informed opinion," which foolishly "sought to judge the confrontation on the subcontinent on the merits of the issues that had produced the crisis," including the fact, which Kissinger grants, that the American ally, Pakistan, "had unquestionably acted unwisely, brutally, and even immorally." After the crisis Nixon told the British prime minister: "The Soviets have tested us to see if they could control events … you have to consider the much bigger stakes in the Middle East and Europe." Nixon writes in his memoirs that "if we failed to help Pakistan, then Iran or any other country within the reach of Soviet influence might begin to question the dependability of American support."^[19]

In 1973 the logic of testing and image led directly to the nuclear alert. According to Kissinger, "We could not sit on the sidelines if the Middle East should rage out of control; the world would view it as a collapse of American authority, whatever alibi we put forward." Describing events as they started to become tense, he reflects: "I had learned in Nixon's first term, largely under his tutelage, that once a great nation commits itself, it must prevail…. However ambivalently it has arrived at the point of decision, it must pursue the course on which it is embarked with a determination to succeed. Otherwise it adds a reputation for incompetence to whatever controversy it is bound to incur on the merits of its decision." He agrees with Nixon that "we were now in a test of wills" and that "that's what we [were there] for." Nixon expressed his "grasp of the situation," as Kissinger put it, very simply: "This is bigger than the Middle East. We can't allow a Soviet-supported operation to

succeed against an American-supported operation. If it does, our credibility everywhere is severely shaken."^[20]

As Richard Ned Lebow observes, Moscow "has been chary of using its military might as a means of sending signals to the United States." By contrast, American military displays have "become standard operating procedure in times of crisis. When a president confronts a foreign threat, he reaches almost by reflex for a carrier group or a fighter squadron to send to the troubled area," often against the advice of military officers, who prefer to use force only to achieve a concrete objective. "Gunboat diplomacy," Lebow adds, "may be the accepted American way of dealing with adversaries, but it is a dangerous atavism in the late twentieth century. For very little in the way of apparent political return, it raises the risk of war."^[21]

Once defined as a historic test of wills, any conflict can quickly become a game of chicken in which neither side will back down. Each may then feel that even a terrible risk is better than defeat and humiliation. To terminate a crisis, a leader may decide to make the ultimate show of resolve, the use of nuclear weapons. Although such nuclear use might be limited at first—perhaps the "demonstration shot" discussed early in the Reagan administration, perhaps the use of several tactical nuclear weapons on a remote battlefield, perhaps the sinking of a single enemy ship with a nuclear warhead—escalation, as we have seen, cannot be fully controlled once the nuclear threshold is crossed. Even if command and control remain intact and even if an accidental or unauthorized catastrophe is avoided, the victim of a nuclear attack might believe that to back down now would be the ultimate signal of susceptibility to nuclear blackmail, leading to a global loss of prestige and power or even to further nuclear attacks. Escalation could easily continue until central control finally disintegrated and all-out nuclear war erupted.

Readying for Armageddon

American and Soviet leaders, as we saw, have already threatened to use nuclear weapons during numerous Third World conflicts, and in some cases the United States has actually put its weapons on alert and readied them for launch. Nuclear threats and alerts carry inherent risks of escalation and, again, could help produce a nuclear disaster that neither side intended.

As Daniel Ellsberg notes, on many occasions "U.S. nuclear weapons

have been used … in the precise way that a gun is used when you point it at someone's head in a direct confrontation, whether or not the trigger is pulled. … every president from Truman to Reagan, with the possible exception of Ford, felt compelled to consider or direct serious preparations for possible imminent U.S. initiation of tactical or strategic nuclear warfare, in the midst of an ongoing, intense, non-nuclear conflict or crisis." A major Brookings Institution study counts nineteen incidents between 1946 and the 1973 Middle Eastern war in which American strategic nuclear forces were actively involved in a political incident "in such context that a nuclear signal of some type could be inferred." These include four cases of "overt and explicit threat": Suez, 1956; Lebanon, 1958; Cuba, 1962; and Sinai, 1973.^[22]

The parallel Brookings study of Soviet military activities found that although verbal nuclear threats were common, particularly during the Khrushchev era, "in only one instance were data found confirming that the USSR had actually raised the alert status of forces presumably included in plans for nuclear attack upon the United States, Europe, or China." The stated exception is the Cuban missile crisis, though as Garthoff authoritatively reports, "while Soviet and Warsaw Pact alerts were prominently announced on October 23, they were in fact minimal in impact, mainly involving largely symbolic measures such as cancelling leaves. There were no major redeployments or high-readiness measures of the strategic missile force, air force, army, or navy." Moreover, "no information was discovered that would indicate that the USSR has ever redeployed strategic bomber units during a crisis," unlike the United States, which did so ten times between 1946 and 1973. Even in October 1973, by which time U.S. nuclear superiority had long given way to strategic stalemate, the Soviets did not respond in kind to the American Defcon III alert. The lack of Soviet nuclear alerts in crises is all the more remarkable considering that "the normal [noncrisis] levels of alert of Soviet strategic forces are much lower than those of U.S. strategic forces." The apparent explanation is simply that, unlike American officials in crises, "Soviet leaders may have been very anxious to restrict the risk of accident or unauthorized action." The Soviets, of course, may not be so cautious in the future. As Scott Sagan writes, there was "a dog that didn't bark" in both 1962 and 1973:

Certainly one of the significant reasons why both the 1962 and 1973 crises were resolved short of war is that Moscow quickly backed down rather than escalate the conflict. Especially with respect to predicting what would happen if there was a mutual high level nuclear alert in a future superpower crisis,

therefore, a simple reading of the past could be highly misleading … relative Soviet acquiescence when confronted with American nuclear threats in the past … cannot confidently be expected to be repeated in the future.^[23]

As Blechman and Hart write, "one cannot have the ostensible benefit of a nuclear threat without running its risks"—that is, one cannot intimidate an adversary unless the threat truly raises the chance of nuclear war. And threats do raise the risk because there is an enormous pressure to carry them out if their conditions are not met. Otherwise the state gets a reputation for crying wolf. "The result could be disastrous—U.S. policymakers being faced with the choice of admitting the emptiness of the nuclear threat, and thus undermining the credibility of fundamental U.S. commitments, or actually employing nuclear weapons."^[24] Thus nuclear war could conceivably break out simply because a superpower leader said it would—much as Kennedy went to the brink to remove Soviet missiles in Cuba largely because he had threatened to do so, and Nixon in turn demanded the removal of the Cuban submarine base in 1970 largely because he believed that Kennedy had implied that this is what the United States would do (see Chapter 8).

Nuclear threats remain a backbone of U.S. foreign policy, and not only with respect to Europe. President Carter, for example, said in his 1980 State of the Union address that "an attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force."^[25] The administration made clear that "any means necessary" not only included the use of nuclear weapons but essentially meant nuclear war. As Ellsberg notes, "In the weeks before and after Carter's State of the Union message — the White House almost jammed Washington talk shows and major front pages with authorized leaks, backgrounders, and official spokesmen all carrying the message that the president's commitment … was, at its heart, a threat of possible initiating of tactical nuclear warfare by the United States." A key highly classified Pentagon study of military options in the region was leaked to New York Times correspondent (and later high Reagan administration official) Richard Burt within days. He summarized its conclusion "that the American forces could not stop a Soviet thrust into northern Iran and that the United States should therefore consider using 'tactical' nuclear weapons in any conflict there." In a television appearance that week, Assistant Secretary of State for Public Information William Dyess underlined that the United States refused to rule out the option of initiating

nuclear war, noting dryly: "The Soviets know that this terrible weapon has been dropped on human beings twice in history and it was an American president who dropped it both times. Therefore, they have to take this into consideration in their calculus." In January 1981 departing Secretary of Defense Harold Brown (widely considered unusually progressive and thoughtful) reaffirmed that in the 1980s what will discourage the Soviets from moving on Iran or other parts of the Middle East is "the risk of World War III." In February, during Reagan's first week in office, the new president made clear that he subscribed to this policy. Acknowledging that "we know we couldn't" stop a major Soviet attack with conventional military means, he explained that the policy is "based on the assumption—and I think a correct assumption—the Soviet Union is not ready yet to take on that confrontation which could become World War III."^[26]

The Carter Doctrine was more than just words. The so-called Rapid Deployment Force (RDF), a reorganized unit for quick U.S. military intervention abroad, is evidently intended to make the threat plausible. Too small to do much good in a major conventional war, its key feature is probably the potent and little-known nuclear arsenal it would carry to a conflict. As Christopher Paine explains: "The RDF is designed as a 'tripwire'—to signal U.S. determination to escalate to nuclear weapons as much as to cope directly with opposing conventional forces. The RDF can serve as a sort of 'doomsday device' which an opponent dares attack only at risk of triggering a mutually destructive war." It comes complete with a wing of twenty-eight Strategic Air Command B-52H bombers (which, as General Richard Ellis of SAC lamented, cause "a great deal of problems" with allies, since "B-52s seem to have a stigma"). The RDF also carries an immense tactical nuclear arsenal, including nuclear-capable tactical jets, artillery pieces, and howitzers, not to mention the nearly unlimited nuclear firepower available from the U.S. Navy. Ellsberg calls the RDF a "portable Dienbienphu"—a reference to the besieged French base in Vietnam that John Foster Dulles wanted to "save" with three tactical nuclear weapons—whose rescue could serve as a justification for using nuclear weapons anywhere in the world .^[27]

Nuclear alerts constitute de facto nuclear threats and so share all their risks. But unlike simple threats, alerts also entail changes in the deployment and operation of nuclear weapons that greatly increase the chances of unintended or uncontrolled use. As Joseph Kruzel observes: "Something is far more likely to go wrong when forces are spring-loaded for action than when they are at rest. An unauthorized or accidental

launching of nuclear weapons à la Dr. Strangelove is more likely in a force at high readiness than in one at low readiness." Scott Sagan—who wrote the Harvard Nuclear Study Group's Living with Nuclear Weapons and subsequently became a Pentagon nuclear planner—agrees that "any decision to place nuclear forces on alert in the future will be an extremely dangerous step" because the predelegation of nuclear launch authority to lower-level commanders during an alert "would produce serious problems with respect to controlling or terminating a nuclear exchange once begun and at least would raise the possibility of accidental war occurring through a warning or assessment failure during a superpower crisis." Indeed, Sagan recognizes that in the future "keeping the alert at the desired level will be extremely difficult, and the degree of further grave escalation uncertain."^[28]

Yet, remarkably, he rejects a "no-alerts" policy on the grounds that "the failure to alert nuclear forces in a severe crisis, especially one in which Soviet strategic forces were moving to a higher state of readiness, might attempt the leadership in Moscow to continue escalating the crisis in the belief that the United States was willing to back down"—that is, it would show an unwillingness to compete in risk taking right to the brink, an unacceptable practice if you wish above all else for your state to win each confrontation. Many in government hold this view, though Sagan articulates it with unusual candor. As Lebow, who does not approve of using nuclear alerts for political purposes, notes, "The American defense establishment still conceives of nuclear alerts as an effective means of demonstrating resolve." Indeed, "this was the 'lesson' they learned from the 1962 and 1973 crises."^[29]

Where will the Next Great Crisis be?

Almost any local conflict, as we have seen, can become a stage on which each superpower attempts to prove its toughness and resolve to the world and thereby enhance its credibility and power "everywhere," as Nixon put it in 1973.^[30] If Quemoy and Matsu could become the unlikely proving ground for superpower prestige in 1954 and 1958, Cuba in 1962 and 1970, and the Indian subcontinent in 1971, who can say where the next great crisis will be?

U.S. officials have repeatedly discussed the option of blockading Nicaragua, an act that, as former U.S. secretary of the Navy John Lehman acknowledges, could lead to a superpower naval conflict. The Navy, Lehman notes, "cannot conceive that a naval conflict which engaged

Soviet forces could be localized"; it would be "instantaneously a global war."^[31]

As a coda to the war in Afghanistan or as an extension of their own bitter conflict, India and Pakistan could well go to war again. This time, as Leonard Spector notes, both will almost certainly "have all the essentials needed to manufacture atomic bombs and to deliver them by aircraft during any crisis lasting more than several weeks," and perhaps much faster. In fact, "by 1991, Pakistan could have as many as 15 Hiroshima-sized devices, while India could have produced more than 100." As we noted in Chapter 6, many feared that the two countries neared war amid major military mobilizations in December 1986 and January 1987. Each continues to accuse the other of fomenting ethnic unrest, and either could suffer a major internal conflict, perhaps even a civil war. Spector highlights "the risk of political instability in Pakistan, which could lead to nuclear weapons (or highly enriched uranium) becoming bargaining chips in a struggle for domestic power. Episodes of this kind appear to have occurred during periods of internal unrest in France and China during the 1960s and are not as far-fetched as they may first appear."^[32]

In Southeast Asia an American-backed guerrilla coalition dominated by Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge continues to battle the Soviet-backed Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia. The involvement of the U.S.-backed regime in Thailand poses particular dangers, such as an escalation of the periodic border and naval skirmishes to a Thai-Vietnamese war into which the superpowers could quickly be drawn. China, also aligned with the United States in these matters, could further internationalize the conflict—for example, by repeating its 1979 invasion of Vietnam—and thereby provoke Soviet involvement.

Elsewhere in Asia, more than 40,000 U.S. troops, "reportedly armed with some 150 tactical nuclear weapons … sit between 480,000 North Korean and 360,000 South Korean soldiers dug in along the DMZ." The U.S. troops constitute "an American nuclear tripwire stretched across the Korean peninsula," where "a second war could likely trigger an American nuclear attack on North Korea." Nuclear-armed Soviet naval forces in the North Pacific watch while enormous political upheaval and government repression continue to rack South Korea even after its nominal transition to democracy. The entire Pacific region, in fact, has become such a vast and unstable arena of nuclear-armed "eyeball-to-eyeball" superpower confrontation that "it is as likely that

World War III could begin in the Pacific as in Europe or the Middle East." For

while Cold War blocs have remained steady in Europe, they have shifted dramatically in the Pacific. Two major land wars and a host of bloody insurrections and heavily armed repressive governments have erupted in less than half a century. Communist, democratic, and nationalist insurgencies, as well as continuing conflicts between nations, will continue to make the region politically turbulent into the foreseeable future, heightening the possibility of superpower intervention. Should their interventions overlap, the superpowers could clash and escalate to nuclear war."^[33]

Southern Africa today is a bloody tangle of military conflicts, with Cuban troops defending Angola (and American oil interests) from U.S.-backed guerrillas, Zimbabwe helping Mozambique fend off South African—sponsored Renamo guerrillas, South African forces fighting rebels seeking an independent Namibia, and the antiapartheid struggle continuing within South Africa, which could well explode into civil war. One or more of these could lead to a major regional war in which both superpowers would feel some stake. Is it inconceivable, for example, that a rapidly deterioriating South African government, facing escalating cross-border guerrilla attacks, would expand its periodic attacks on its neighbors into a full-scale conquest of Mozambique or Angola, or even Zimbabwe? Would the Soviets necessarily stand aside, and would the United States sit back if they did not? Potentially dangerous incidents have occurred. On June 5, 1986, South Africa attacked three Soviet ships in the Angolan harbor of Namibe, sinking one of them. How many Americans have even heard of this significant event, much less heard their columnists and leaders condemn the dangers? Meanwhile Cuban soldiers and Soviet advisers in Angola continue to face South African attacks.^[34]

For all practical purposes, South Africa has had a nuclear weapons capability for about a decade. As Spector reports, "U.S. analysts now date South Africa's status as a state capable of producing nuclear weapons from 1980–1981." Pretoria may have had as many as "fourteen to twenty-three weapons as of the end of 1987," a significant problem considering South Africa's continual militarism and the seriousness of its internal instability. Spector warns of

the possibility that nuclear weapons or nuclear weapons material produced by South Africa's current regime might … fall into the hands of a radical faction—black or white—which had gained control of the government and

which might then use or threaten to use these nuclear assets to advance extremist objectives. Indeed, should domestic order crumble, governmental authorities could lose control over nuclear weapons or highly enriched uranium, which a non-governmental group might seize to create domestic or international turmoil or possibly sell or take into exile in order to lay the base for a return to power.^[35]

The simultaneous presence of Israeli and Syrian forces in Lebanon poses a constant risk of another Arab-Israeli war—all previous instances of which since 1956, as we have seen, have led to actual or threatened superpower intervention and a significant risk of nuclear crisis. The ongoing conflict over Palestinian self-rule, as Bernard Avishai and Avner Cohen point out, "cannot be indefinitely contained to the West Bank and Gaza" and could lead to "a conflagration that not only could engulf Israel and her neighbors, but also has the potential to draw the superpowers into an unprecedented round of nuclear brinksmanship." Others believe that "a new war in the Middle East would probably be interpreted by both sides as something of a final test—like two boxers struggling near the fifteenth round with a feeling that up to this point the match had been a draw…. In a sense, nuclear war could erupt at any time in a fifth round of fighting between Israel and the Arab states because the enemy would be figuratively, if not literally, at the capital gates."^[36]

Nuclear weapons will inescapably play at least an off-stage role in any future Middle East conflict. Much evidence suggests that Israel has a substantial and growing nuclear arsenal of "at least fifty to sixty nuclear devices—perhaps, significantly more—some of which are of an advanced design that makes them many times more powerful than the atomic weapons used in World War II." Israel has a big enough arsenal "to use a number of its nuclear weapons tactically, i.e., against military targets, during any conflict with its neighbors, while keeping a number of its weapons in reserve to threaten enemy cities." Israel even has the ability to deliver its warheads by ballistic missile, and not only against Arab states:

Although Israel has never acknowledged the existence of the Jericho II, the missile is undoubtedly seen as a means for strengthening the country's undeclared nuclear force…. More disturbing is Israel's apparent rationale for building a longer-range version of the missile, which seemingly is directed not only at Baghdad, Benghazi, and Riyadh … but also at least in part at the Soviet Union…. Israeli officials have indicated in off-the-record interviews that the missile is intended in part to deter massive Soviet intervention on

behalf of Syria in any future conflict—a scenario that could all too easily escalate into a high-stakes U.S.-Soviet confrontation.^[37]

Libya, Iraq, and Iran all appear to have nuclear ambitions, though apparently none will be able to make nuclear weapons in the near future. These states, as well as Egypt and Israel, already have potent strategic capabilities in the form of chemical weapons and have or soon will have ballistic missiles able to deliver them. Israeli planners worry about an Arab chemical attack in a future war and have publicly hinted that they might use nuclear weapons in retaliation, or perhaps even pre-emptively, to destroy Arab chemical warfare capabilities before they can be used against Israeli cities. Israel has already taken many steps to hamper Arab nuclear ambitions, in recent years by bombing an Iraqi nuclear plant and threatening to attack Saudi missiles that could reach Israeli cities. Seeking to forestall a threat to its own cities, the Soviet Union likewise warned Israel not to deploy the Jericho II missile.^[38] Unlike the long-stalemated nuclear arms race between the superpowers, the regional nuclear-chemical strategic arms race in the Middle East (as in other volatile regions) poses real dangers.

Gideon Raphael, the former director-general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry and the former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, writes that Syria's chemical warfare capabilities "could mean that the next war between Syria and Israel will degenerate into a contest between chemical and radiation weapons—with global implications." In 1984 and 1985 the Syrian defense minister stated that the Soviet Union had "guaranteed" that it would provide Damascus with nuclear warheads if Israel used nuclear weapons against Syria in a future war. Though the Soviet Union denied it, "other Soviet officials have reportedly told Western visitors that if Israel were to attack Syria itself—even if only with conventional armaments—Moscow would assist its ally with military force, including tactical nuclear weapons if necessary."^[39]

Avishai and Cohen argue that despite Israel's great conventional military superiority,

it is hard to see how an Israeli government would not consider using nuclear weapons to try to end [a war]. A longer, more drawn-out or inclusive regional war would mean thousands of Israeli casualties—a price the Israeli military will not want to pay…. If the IDF [Israeli Defense Forces] were to take heavy casualties on the Golan, or if, in the course of war with Syria, the Egyptians were to introduce a large armor force into the Sinai, what good choices would Israeli leaders be left with … particularly if the Syrians surprised

the IDF with chemical weapons carried by its own missiles? …. And who, then, would be in control of Israel's nuclear arsenal? The army? The defense minister himself? The Cabinet as a whole, which has never been involved with matters of nuclear strategy? The tiny coterie of nuclear technocrats shaped by Yuval Neeman—the leader of the ultra—right Tehiya Party?

As Peter Pry observes, "an atomically armed Israel could inadvertently escalate the next Middle Eastern conflict into a global holocaust."^[40]

As recent events graphically showed, the Persian Gulf likewise remains a potential nuclear flash point. The danger inherent in the Iraqi invasion of Iran greatly intensified when the United States intervened with a large nuclear-capable armada, ostensibly to protect Kuwaiti merchantmen. "If the United States is forced to retaliate in the event of an Iranian attack" on one of the U.S.-flagged Kuwaiti ships, the New York Times reported, "a number of Congressmen fear that the Russians could side with Iran, resulting in a direct American-Soviet confrontation." This logical concern did not dominate congressional criticism of the U.S. plan to protect Kuwaiti ships, since most discussions focused on American geopolitical interests. American warships, several Soviet merchant vessels, and an Iranian airliner were attacked, the United States fired on Iranian forces several times, and in at least one case, according to the Soviet press, "an Iranian frigate pointed its guns at a Soviet ship and made a hostile pass at a convoy under Soviet naval escort." In the closing stages of the war, the warships of four nuclear states—the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain, and France—plied the gulf. Many of these ships were equipped to fire nuclear weapons, and some probably had warheads aboard. The U.S.S. Stark, devastated by an Iraqi jet in the gulf, was unusual in lacking nuclear capabilities. The U.S.S. Vincennes, which shot down the Iranian airliner and engaged in combat with Iranian gunboats, can fire nuclear weapons—a significant fact that neither the Pentagon nor the U.S. news media brought to light during the intense news coverage of the ship's design and capabilities. As Christopher Paine notes, there is a clear American commitment to intervene in the gulf should U.S. interests appear to be threatened; "Soviet concern about developments in Iran, and Moscow's readiness to intervene militarily if necessary to prevent hostile forces from taking control along its southern borders, are matters of record." Consequently "there is a very great risk … of U.S. military intervention leading to confrontation with the Soviet Union which quickly threatens to become nuclear."^[41]

We could cite other potential Third World nuclear flash points, and

new ones are sure to erupt. The recent past offers little hope that the worst dangers are behind us. In the last few years every state known or presumed to have nuclear weapons has fought in the Third World: the United States in Grenada, Lebanon, Libya, and the Persian Gulf; the Soviet Union in Afghanistan; China in Vietnam; India in Sri Lanka and in clashes with Pakistan; Israel in the 1981 air attack on Iraq, the bombing of Tunis, and frequent ground, sea, and air attacks in Lebanon; Britain in the Falklands/Malvinas; France in Chad and the Pacific; South Africa in Namibia and Angola. Throughout the Third World, regional superpowers and major powers—such as China, India, Pakistan, Israel, South Africa, Brazil, and Argentina—already have or could soon have nuclear weapons, and as of this writing three of them (Israel, South Africa, and India) have regular troops fighting outside their borders. Nuclear danger, then, will hang over most future Third World conflicts.