February 10, 2007
Deterrence II Posted by John Steele Gordon at 04:05 PM EST Fredric Smoler’s post calls deterrence a slim reed upon which to depend if Iran should get nuclear weapons. I entirely agree, but for a slightly different reason. In the great geopolitical struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union, we relied on MAD (mutually assured destruction) to keep the Cold War from going hot. It worked (at least we’re all still here). But the governments of both countries were run by rational people. The Soviet leadership may have been thugs, with the moral constraints of Mafia dons, but they were rational thugs, unwilling to risk everything on one throw of the dice. I am not nearly so confident that the Iranian leadership is now, or will be in the future, so rational or so risk averse. The president, who is not the real power in the country to be sure, seems to me very much a loose cannon. And the mullahs presumably (although perhaps power has already absolutely corrupted them) think they are God’s anointed, which is a dangerous belief for those with nuclear capability to have. But that said, it seems to me the examples Mr. Smoler cites are not altogether apposite, as the countries involved are either non-nuclear on both sides or on one, with the aggressor the non-nuclear or using non-nuclear means. Pakistan might have risked trying to assassinate the Indian parliament, but I doubt it has ever seriously entertained the idea of lobbing a nuke into New Delhi, for fear of the consequences. So it seems to me that nukes deter nukes, but, as Mr. Smoler argues, they otherwise make aggression more likely. One reason for that, of course, is that possession of nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them makes a country, ipso facto, a Great Power, and Great Powers, by definition, must always be treated carefully and respectfully. Great Powers can get away with a lot that small powers would get slapped down hard for. When France was developing its “force de frappe” in the early 1960s, someone asked Charles de Gaulle why he was spending so much money on it when France couldn’t hope to come close to equaling the arsenals of the U.S. or the USSR. De Gaulle replied (I’m making up the exact words—which might take me hours to find—but the words are true in spirit to what he said), “Imagine there is a world crisis and I, as president of the Republic, have to protect the interests and safety of France. I call the White House to give the French position and ideas. If I don’t have the bomb, I talk to the undersecretary of state for European affairs. If I have the bomb, I talk to the President. That’s why.” By no means the least of the charms of nuclear weapons, especially for tyrants, is that they are a very cheap way of achieving Great Power status.
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