Comments on Progressive Historians: History For Our Future: A Brief History of "Deterrence" and "Massive Retal...

Mark, thanks for the clarification. My only quibb...

2008-04-25T17:23:00.000-05:00

Mark, thanks for the clarification. My only quibble with what you've said is that it's my understanding that "flexible response" was transitioned in through the end of the Eisenhower administration and the beginning of the Kennedy administration. Deterrence had its advocates in the Ike administration too, for instance Paul Nitze, who worked for every American president until I think Ford.

Good post, some comments:"Massive retaliation" was...

2008-04-25T16:18:00.000-05:00

Good post, some comments:

"Massive retaliation" was not DOA because there were vast differences in throw-weight, numbers of warheads and delivery systems. The U.S. could hit the USSR massively, the USSR could not do the same to the US on that scale until the mid-60's, after the Brezhnev nuclear build-up began ( but still enough to kill in the low tens of millions here and most Europeans).

Mostly, Dulles policy was meant to deter a Soviet conventional invasion of western Europe. Ike never seriously considered using nukes anywhere else and harshly rebuffed the suggestions that nukes be used or threatened over Laos or to stave off the defeat of the French at Dien bien phu. Or to nuke the moon as a demonstration of American prowess after sputnik.

"Massive Retaliation" was also aimed at keeping strict budgetary limits on conventional military spending by the Pentagon. Strategic bombers and nuclear warheads were far cheaper than Army divisions or carrier groups.

Kennedy abandoned "Massive Retaliation" for "Flexible Response" which later transitioned into "MAD" under LBJ and Nixon. The Soviets copied "flexible response" for the Red Army but never quite accepted MAD, doctrinally speaking, in the sense that MacNamara had hoped.

Ahistoricality, very good points. To your first p...

2008-04-24T08:54:00.000-05:00

Ahistoricality, very good points. To your first problem, I don't think the historical context has to be apparent to you or me in order to be troubling. Maybe I'm paranoid or a conspiracy theorist (I hope not), but I find it difficult to believe that Hillary is using phrases like "umbrella of deterrence" and "massive retaliation" without the full knowledge and consent of her national security team. These words may just be words to us, but they have very specific meanings to them -- saying "massive retaliation" to a defense intellectual is, as far as I can tell, like saying "final solution" to a Holocaust survivor. Essentially, I'm afraid that Hillary's dog-whistling to the neocons that she's going to be more aggressive than Bush, not less, while using words that the rest of us don't fully understand. I find it difficult to believe, as well, that some overzealous speechwriter just slipped these words into her talking points, or that she just came up with this on the fly somewhere. One doesn't use words like "massive retaliation" in ordinary conversation; in fact, no one's used the formulation "massive retaliation" as far as I can tell since at least 1960. I think these phrases have very specific meanings to a very specific segment of the population, and those meanings are incredibly terrifying to me.

As for Iran, as I mentioned to Mentarch above, there's nothing we need to do to "use deterrence" against Iran. Deterrence is in effect against Iran right now. It would take Iran half a century to achieve nuclear parity with the United States if the US build no new warheads and of no country or group of countries intervened in Iran to stop that from happening. Either they're deterred by America's overwhelming nuclear superiority, or they're not deterred by it because they're madmen. If the former, the only thing we need to do is not totally disarm for a few years (something that no current presidential candidate seems likely to do); if the latter, nothing we have or know right now can stop them. So what she said made no sense as regards Iran, which is why I tend toward the more extreme explanation.

The problem that I'm having is two-fold. First, yo...

2008-04-24T01:09:00.000-05:00

The problem that I'm having is two-fold. First, you're using the terms in a very specific historical context, whereas most people -- myself included -- are not actually aware of that: I didn't assume, for example, that "massive retaliation" meant a nuclear strike. The two are not really diametrically opposed, in my understanding -- deterrence is not based on a proportional response, but a massive, disproportionate one, and it worked because both sides had access to absurd first-strike and second-strike capacities. Dulles' idea is more or less irrelevant on arrival: the Soviet's had nukes by the time he delivered that speech, and there's no way a sane president was going to risk it; that said, it laid the foundation for the uncertainty as to whether US policymakers were, in fact, sane, which was useful at times.

Second, whether or not you believe the intelligence estimates regarding the actuality of Iranian nukes, the issue is on the table now and that is what Clinton was responding to. She didn't say anything about Iran's being a state sponsor of terror as a justification for nuclear bombing, or about their aggressive moves in the Persian Gulf as a justification for nuclear bombing; it was a straightforward warning with regard to WMD use against a long-time critical ally.

Hear, hear! ;-)

2008-04-23T23:58:00.000-05:00

Hear, hear! ;-)

Same deal. We've got way more nukes than they do,...

2008-04-23T23:37:00.000-05:00

Same deal. We've got way more nukes than they do, and ours are better. Deterrence is still fully operational against them.

Now, what would we do if a madman got control of those nukes? I don't know, but building more nukes wouldn't solve the problem. In fact, nothing any major American strategist has yet come up with would solve the problem. We should be spending our time researching that, instead of talking about nuking Moscow (got that, Hillary?).

Got it - thanks!Now, this brings up one country: *...

2008-04-23T23:14:00.000-05:00

Got it - thanks!

Now, this brings up one country: *Pakistan* ...

Good question. The reason we don't need to pursue...

2008-04-23T23:11:00.000-05:00

Good question. The reason we don't need to pursue deterrence with regard to Iran or North Korea is that neither country is a nuclear power. You don't need nukes to deter a country that has none; the "shock and awe" campaign we used against Iraq in 2003 would be more than adequate to destroy Iran or North Korea.

Now, you can say, "But what if Iran or North Korea DO get nukes?" The UN has estimated, if I recall, that it would take them 10-15 years to do so even if they defied every single UN order between now and then (and of course the UN would take action against them long before that). But if they did, despite decades of disarmament, the current nuclear arsenal would be more than adequate to take them out, despite Hillary's comment that deterrence "has not been effectively used in recent times."

In fact, deterrence has worked exceptionally well at doing what Nitze designed it to do: keep traditional tanks-and-bombs armies from directly attacking the U.S. Not one has done so, and even if North Korea or Iraq got nukes and wanted to use them against us, they'd be incapable of doing so rationally, because we'd still have vastly more and better nukes even if they developed nukes nonstop for the next 50 years.

What we have to worry about is exactly what we had to worry about in 1949: irrational people getting control of nukes (thankfully, this hasn't yet happened), and stateless insurgents attacking us or our allies. We're perfectly capable of dispatching with an enemy like Saddam, Iran, or North Korea, and would be if we didn't spend another dime on defense for the next half-century. The question is, how do we win 4GW wars? Hillary seems to say, nuke Moscow.

(To complete my question 0 it is late here and I a...

2008-04-23T22:58:00.000-05:00

(To complete my question 0 it is late here and I am way too sleepy to read, let alone comment)

My questions above were with regards to deterrence, of course.

I fully agree with your points concerning massive retalliation ... ;-)

"it's worth considering that deterrence only works...

2008-04-23T22:56:00.000-05:00

"it's worth considering that deterrence only works against an enemy that has a national base and that actually deploys tanks and troops in the field."

Ummm ... doesn't this applies to Iran?

Or North Korea?

I agree with your reasoning concerning terrorists - but did you just conflate terrorism with Iran?

Or did I misread?

(I am sincerely asking, here ...)