NUCLEAR HEURISTICS: SELECTED WRITINGS of Albert and ROBERTA WOHLSTETTER
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NUCLEAR HEURISTICS: SELECTED WRITINGS OF ALBERT AND ROBERTA WOHLSTETTER Robert Zarate Henry Sokolski Editors January 2009 Visit our website for other free publication downloads http://www.StrategicStudiesInstitute.army.mil/ To rate this publication click here. The views expressed in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government. This report is cleared for public release; distribution is unlimited. ***** This publication is a work of the U.S. Government as defined in Title 17, United States Code, Section 101. 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If you are interested in receiving this newsletter, please subscribe on our homepage at www.StrategicStudiesInstitute.army. mil/newsletter/. ISBN 1-58487-370-1 ii CONTENTS Preface Henry Sokolski..................................................................vii Acknowledgments..................................................................xi Introduction Albert and Roberta Wohlstetter on Nuclear-Age Strategy Robert Zarate........................................................................1 I. Analysis and Design of Strategic Policy.......................91 Commentary: How He Worked Henry S. Rowen................................................................ 93 Theory and Opposed-Systems Design (1968) Albert Wohlstetter...........................................................123 II. Nuclear Deterrence....................................................... 165 Commentary: On Nuclear Deterrence Alain C. Enthoven...........................................................167 The Delicate Balance of Terror (1958) Albert Wohlstetter...........................................................177 Excerpts on “Missile Gap” from General Comments on Senator Kennedy’s National Security Speeches (circa 1960) Albert Wohlstetter...........................................................213 On the Genesis of Nuclear Strategy: Letter to Michael Howard (1968) Albert Wohlstetter...........................................................217 iii III. Nuclear Proliferation...................................................255 Commentary: Timely Warnings Still—The Wohlstetters and Nuclear Proliferation Henry Sokolski................................................................257 Nuclear Sharing: NATO and the N + 1 Country (1961) Albert Wohlstetter...........................................................268 Spreading the Bomb without Quite Breaking the Rules (1976) Albert Wohlstetter...........................................................301 The Buddha Smiles: U.S. Peaceful Aid and the Indian Bomb (1978) Roberta Wohlstetter........................................................339 Signals, Noise and Article IV (1979) Albert Wohlstetter, Gregory S. Jones and Roberta Wohlstetter.................................................357 Nuclear Triggers and Safety Catches, the “FSU” and the “FSRs” (1992) Albert Wohlstetter...........................................................374 IV. Arms Race Myths vs. Strategic Competition’s Reality....................................................................................379 Commentary: Arms Race Myths vs. Strategic Competition’s Reality Richard Perle.....................................................................381 The Case for Strategic Force Defense (1969) Albert Wohlstetter...........................................................389 Racing Forward? Or Ambling Back? (1976) Albert Wohlstetter...........................................................414 iv On Arms Control: What We Should Look for in an Arms Agreement (1985) Albert and Roberta Wohlstetter....................................472 Arms Control That Could Work (1985) Albert Wohlstetter and Brian G. Chow.......................501 V. Towards Discriminate Deterrence.............................507 Commentary: Towards Discriminate Deterrence Stephen J. Lukasik...........................................................509 Strength, Interest and New Technologies (1968) Albert Wohlstetter...........................................................524 How Much is Enough? How Mad is MAD? (1974) Albert Wohlstetter...........................................................551 Bishops, Statesmen, and Other Strategists on the Bombing of Innocents (1983) Albert Wohlstetter...........................................................557 Connecting the Elements of the Strategy: Excerpt from Discriminate Deterrence (1988) The Commission on Integrated Long Term Strategy...................................................................604 RPM, or Revolutions by the Minute (1992) Albert Wohlstetter...........................................................613 v VI. Limiting and Managing New Risks.........................623 Commentary: Strategy as a Profession in the Future Security Environment Andrew W. Marshall.......................................................625 End of the Cold War? End of History and All War? Excerpt from an Outline for a Memoir (1989) Albert Wohlstetter...........................................................637 The Fax Shall Make You Free (1990) Albert Wohlstetter...........................................................639 The Bitter End: The Case for Re-Intervention in Iraq (1991) Albert Wohlstetter and Fred S. Hoffman.....................649 What the West Must Do in Bosnia: An Open Letter to President Clinton (1993) Albert Wohlstetter and Margaret Thatcher.................661 Boris Yeltsin as Abraham Lincoln? (1995) Albert Wohlstetter...........................................................669 About the Editors and Contributors ................................677 vi PREFACE Three years ago, I received a phone call and then a visit at my home from a University of Chicago graduate student eager to learn about Albert and Roberta Wohlstetter. Robert Zarate interviewed me for nearly 2 hours. It was clear from the questions that he asked me that his interest in the Wohlstetters’ work was more than casual. After Robert’s initial visit, he called me again several times to clarify and pursue additional questions. I recommended other experts who had worked with or studied under the Wohlstetters for him to interview. Harry Rowen, my former Defense Department boss, was one. Andrew Marshall, at the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment, was another. Both had worked closely with Albert and Roberta at RAND. Later, Harry and I contacted Joan Wohlstetter, Albert and Roberta’s daughter, and persuaded her to make her parents’ private papers at the Hoover Institution’s archives available to Robert. These papers are now open to the public, and some of them are included in this edited volume. Robert’s visits to Washington multiplied as he interviewed more of Albert’s former protégés, as well as his critics. In 2006, I asked Robert if he would be willing to help out at my nonprofit research organization, the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center (NPEC). He immediately agreed and assumed responsibility for completing research that had already been begun by Paul Lettow on the meaning of “nuclear energy for peaceful purposes” in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Although Robert was planning to write a comprehensive biography of Albert Wohlstetter, I encouraged him instead to publish short pieces on the Wohlstetters. His success here led to the next suggestion: an edited volume of Albert and Roberta’s key writings relating to nuclear proliferation and national security affairs, with commentaries by the Wohlstetters’ colleagues and students. I worked with him to develop a grant proposal. vii The result is this volume, which is designed not as a eulogy or a Festschrift, but as a testament to the continuing relevance of the work of Albert and Roberta Wohlstetter in the fields of nuclear and security policy analysis. Albert and Roberta wrote hundreds of articles and studies on U.S. policy on the Balkans, as well as the Persian Gulf; strategic command and control; intelligence and warning; NATO nuclear planning; U.S.-Russian arms control; strategic and theater missile defenses; the economics and military dangers of civilian nuclear energy; nuclear safeguards and nuclear nonproliferation; and military nuclear strategy and methods of policy analysis and design. Their contributions to and influence in these areas of policy were considerable. As a result, it simply is not possible to include in a single volume all of the studies and writings that one would need in order to cover the full extent of their work. Still, publishing selections of their most important writ- ings is worthwhile. Increased concern about