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Nuclear Tactics for Defending a Border

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Thornton Read
Thornton Read
Affiliation:
International Studies at Princeton University
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Extract

Although tactical nuclear weapons have been extensively integrated into NATO, there appears to be no clear doctrine for using them to control a battlefield or hold a defense perimeter. Even the possibility of a limited tactical nuclear war has been questioned. Disenchantment with tactical nuclear defense has stimulated an increased interest in the controlled use of strategic weapons and a demand for stronger conventional forces. But these alternatives also present problems.

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Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 15 , Issue 3 , April 1963, pp. 390 - 402
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1963

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References

1 The problems to which the present article is addressed are well presented by Kissinger, Henry A. in “The Unsolved Problems of European Defense,” Foreign Affairs, XL (July 1962), 515–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 The pros and cons of this strategy are discussed by a number of authors in Limited Strategic War, ed. by Klaus Knorr and Thornton Read (New York 1962).

3 The prospects and dangers of independent nuclear deterrents are discussed in Kis-singer, 531–41. See also Acheson, Dean, “The Practice of Partnership,” Foreign Affairs, XLI (January 1963), 247–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Henry A. Kissinger, “Strains on the Alliance,” ibid., 261–85; and Malcolm W. Hoag, “Nuclear Policy and French Intransigence,” ibid., 286–98.

4 For recent discussions of nuclear tactics, see Thornton Read, “Limited Strategic War and Tactical Nuclear War,” in Knorr and Read, eds., 67–116; Morton Halperin, Limited War in the Nuclear Age (in press) and “Nuclear Weapons and Limited War,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, V (June 1961), 146–66; and Dupuy, T. N., “Can America Fight a Limited Nuclear War?” Orbis, V (Spring 1961), 31–42Google Scholar [reprinted in Survival, III (September-October 1961), 220ff.].

5 The moral and political implications of making war a “spiritualized” contest of wills are critically examined by Paul Ramsey in The Limits of Nuclear War: Thinking About the Do-Able and the Un-Do-Able, Council on Religion and International Affairs (in press).

6 Now that we have small atomic weapons which overlap in yield with the largest high-explosive bombs, it has been claimed that the distinction between nuclear and conventional weapons is relatively unimportant. For a contrary view stressing the physical, operational, and symbolic importance of the conventional-nuclear distinction, see Read, in Knorr and Read, eds.

7 The most complete statement has been given by Nitze, in East-West Negotiations, Washington Center of Foreign Policy Research (Washington 1958), 28–37.Google Scholar

8 Kissinger, “Unsolved Problems of European Defense,” 525–26.

9 For a statement of the case for no first use, see Thornton Read, A Proposal to Neutralize Nuclear Weapons, Policy Memorandum No. 22, Center of International Studies (Princeton University, December 15, 1960), and “A New Proposal for Nuclear Arms Control,” New Leader, XLIV, June 12, 1961; and Halperin, Morton, A Proposal for a Ban on the Use of Nuclear Weapons, Study Memorandum No. 4, Special Study Group, Institute of Defense Analyses (Washington, October 6, 1961).Google Scholar For contrary arguments, see Kissinger, Henry A., The Necessity for Choice (New York 1960), 88–91.Google Scholar