The Atlantic | February 1963 | Cuba and the Nuclear Risk

More on foreign affairs from The Atlantic Monthly.

From the archives:

"Growth of Our Foreign Policy" (March 1900)
"The United States has come out of its shell and ceased to be a hermit among the nations, naturally and properly." By Richard Olney

From Atlantic Unbound:

Flashbacks: "A Near Miss" (October 24, 2002)
Articles on the Cuban missile crisis by Walter Lippmann, Jerome B. Wiesner, and Sheldon M. Stern remind us how close we came to disaster.

The Atlantic Monthly | February 1963

Cuba and the Nuclear Risk

Those of a skeptical nature in the United Kingdom and in France have raised the question of whether the United States could be trusted to defend the NATO countries in all contingencies, and if not, whether it might be wiser to have a nuclear striking force of European origin. This is Walter Lippmann's resounding answer, which he delivered in Paris on the occasion of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Paris Herald-Tribune.

by Walter Lippmann

.....

he closing years of the nineteenth century were also the closing years of the period of American isolation. The American doctrine of isolation was formulated by our first President: "The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible." For, he went on to say, "Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none or a very remote relation." This was the rule that we lived by with only a brief interlude, during the Wilson Administration, until well into the Second World War.

Today that original American doctrine has been reversed. Now we act on the principle that the vital interests of Europe are the vital interests of America. But in addition to this, there is something radically new in our situation. If there were not something radically new, we could devote all our resources to working out the economic and social and political connections of that greater community to which Europe and the Americas belong. But while we must develop this greater community, the time we live in calls for more than that, and our problems are of a different kind.

It is not only that isolation has ended. It is that we have begun to live in the first years of the nuclear age. Ours is an epoch when the rivalry of two great social orders includes a rivalry in nuclear arms. We were very conscious of that fact during the crisis over Cuba. For in Cuba there was, for the first time in history, the kind of grim and deadly confrontation which could have led to thermonuclear war.

As a scientific phenomenon, the nuclear age began in 1945 with the explosion of the first nuclear bomb. But in world relations the nuclear age really began about ten years later. Until nearly the end of the forties, the United States was the only nuclear power in the world. In 1949, the Soviet Union exploded a nuclear device. But it was not until the middle of the fifties that the Soviet Union began to have an armory of nuclear weapons. Beginning about 1955, the West had ceased to have a monopoly of nuclear weapons, and by the end of the 1950s, the Soviet Union had become a very formidable nuclear power.

Since 1955 there have existed in the world two rival and conflicting coalitions armed with nuclear weapons. They are in conflict at many points on the globe. They distrust profoundly each other's purposes.

The essential and novel fact in the contemporary conflict, which distinguishes it radically from the great conflicts of the past—as, for example, that between Islam and Christendom—is that the two coalitions possess nuclear weapons. These weapons differ from all other weapons, even those used as recently as the Second World War, in that they carry with them not only a greater quantity of violence but violence of a radically different order and kind.

In the wars of the prenuclear age, which ended with the bomb on Hiroshima, a victorious power was an organized state which could impose its terms on the vanquished. War damage, though great, was not irreparable, as we can see in the recovery of Europe and of the Soviet Union.

But after a full nuclear exchange, such as the United States and the Soviet Union are now capable of, there might well be over a hundred million dead. After the destruction of the great urban centers of the northern hemisphere, with the contamination of the earth, the water, and the air, there would be no such recovery as we have known after the two world wars of this century.

For all practical purposes, the devastation would be irreparable. The United States has the power to reduce Soviet society to a smoldering ruin, leaving the survivors shocked and starving and diseased. In an exchange of nuclear weapons, it is estimated coolly by our American experts that the Soviet Union could kill between thirty and seventy million Americans. I hesitate to say what would happen to Europe, whether or not it had a nuclear force of its own. But it is a fact that the Soviet Union has far more medium-range missiles capable of reaching Europe than it has long-range missiles capable of reaching the United States.

A war of that kind would be followed by a savage struggle for existence as people crawled out of their cellars, and all the democracies would have to be converted into military dictatorships in order to keep some semblance of order among the desperate survivors.

All that I have said has been said before. But it has not been said by men who have lived through an actual confrontation which could have produced such a catastrophe. If anyone wishes to understand the American position in the Cuban crisis and the American attitude toward military power in the world today, he must remember that responsible Americans do not dare to forget the reality of the nuclear age. I know some of these men. They live with these realities. For that reason, they do not find themselves in close sympathy with those Europeans who talk as if nuclear weapons were merely a bigger and better kind of artillery, and who think that the new weapons are subject to the same rules of warfare and of diplomacy as were the old.

ecause nuclear weapons mean mutual suicide, the paramount rule of policy in this age is that, as between the nuclear powers, there can be no important change in the status quo brought about by the threat of force or by the use of force. Nuclear war cannot be used, as war has been used in the past, as an instrument of national policy. The Cuban affair has much to teach us about the nature of diplomacy in the nuclear age.

The United States has for some time possessed a marked superiority in nuclear weapons. This superiority was quite sufficient to deter the Soviet Union from using or from threatening to use nuclear weapons to enforce its purposes in Cuba. But our superiority was not sufficient to permit the United States to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons to enforce all of our own purposes in Cuba.

President Kennedy was able to prevail because, having the power to achieve a limited objective, he had the wisdom to narrow his objective to what he had the power to achieve.

Thus, he had the power to deter the Soviet Union from attempting to break the blockade by Soviet naval action and by the threat of Soviet nuclear missiles. But the President himself could not use America's nuclear power to bring about the overthrow of Castro and the liquidation of a Communist regime in Cuba.

It was manifestly unthinkable to use nuclear weapons against Cuba. They had no relevance to the Cuban problem. It would have been an incalculable risk to invade and occupy Cuba at the risk of retaliatory military action against Berlin, action which could have escalated into nuclear war. The President adopted limited objectives which could be achieved by limited means. He demanded the removal of the Soviet strategic missiles. He did not demand the removal of the Castro regime or even of the Cuban defensive missiles.

The President was able to achieve the objectives to which he limited himself. Soviet nuclear power was neutralized by American nuclear power, and in the Cuban area, the United States also had overwhelming land, sea, and air forces which were quite capable of destroying or capturing the Soviet missiles. The Soviet government had no conventional forces in the Caribbean area, and once its nuclear power was neutralized, it had no other force it could use.

This was, as I see it, the military rationale of the Cuban affair. But I hasten to add that, while the confrontation ended peaceably, it was possible that things might have got out of hand in Moscow or in Washington. There were rash men in both places. But for several reasons things did not get out of hand. First of all, Mr. Khrushchev and Mr. Kennedy have intimate knowledge of nuclear weapons, and they have a poignant personal realization of the meaning of nuclear war. For another reason, throughout the crisis, the two heads of government kept channels of personal and official communication open.

Finally, and decisively, the United States, which had overall nuclear superiority and conventional superiority around Cuba, was careful to avoid the ultimate catastrophic mistake of nuclear diplomacy, which would be to surround the adversary and to leave him no way to retreat.

Washington did not forget that while nuclear war would be suicidal lunacy, it is an ever-present possibility. Nuclear war will not be prevented by fear of nuclear war. For, however lunatic it might be to commit suicide, a great power, if it is cornered, if all the exits are barred, if it is forced to choose between suicide and unconditional surrender, is quite likely to go to war.

This is one of the facts of life in the middle of the twentieth century. It is as much a fact as the existence of the megaton bomb itself, and it is a fact which must be given weight in the calculation of national policy. It was kept constantly in mind in the calculation of our Cuban policy.

There is a line of intolerable provocation and humiliation beyond which popular and governmental reactions are likely to become uncontrollable. It is the business of the governments to find out where that line is, and to stay well back of it.

Those who do not understand the nature of war in the nuclear age, those who think that war today is what war was in the past regard these careful attempts of statesmen not to carry provocation beyond the tolerable limits as weakness and softness and appeasement.

The Chinese do not understand the nuclear age, and they charge the Russians with appeasement for drawing back in Cuba. There are a good many people in the West who do not understand the nuclear age, and they are forever charging us with appeasement because we do not brandish the nuclear bomb in all our controversies with the Soviet Union. But prudence in seeking not to drive your opponent into a corner is not weakness and softness and appeasement. It is sanity and common sense and a due regard for human life.

It has, I know, been said in Europe that the United States has always had a special interest in Cuba, and that therefore the firm stand of the President is no proof that the United States would be equally firm in, let us say, Berlin.

Our answer to these skeptics must begin, I think, by asking them to look at what the United States was actually firm about in Cuba. It was firm, as I have already pointed out, about the Soviet strategic weapons in Cuba, which, in the American view, were offensive because they were good only for a first strike. Had the missiles been put in place, they would have changed seriously the balance of nuclear power in the world.

The United States deployed its whole military power, nuclear and conventional, against such an alteration of the status quo. It would do the same, and for the same kind of reason, if the Soviet Union moved with military force against Berlin or against any other point which is critically important to the maintenance of the status quo in the balance of strategic power.

From the archives:

"JFK's First-Strike Plan" (October 2001)
The Berlin crisis of 1961 does not loom large in the American memory, but it was an episode that brought the United States and the Soviet Union close to war—nuclear war. By Fred Kaplan But the United States did not use its power to unseat Castro or to crusade against Communism. It did not use its power for political or ideological ends. In my opinion, it will not risk a nuclear war in Europe over anything less than that for which it risked war in Cuba—that is to say, a radical move against the balance of strategic power. That is why the United States will defend the physical freedom of West Berlin. But it will not risk a nuclear war over political and juridical issues.

shall venture now to say a few words about the relations of the United States and Western Europe in regard to the world balance of power. During the Cuban confrontation it was evident in Washington that the crucial decisions were being made without consultation with our European allies. I would not for a moment minimize how hard it is for great and proud nations to feel that they are being taken to the brink of catastrophe while the outcome is being determined in Washington and Moscow.

As I understand what went on, our allies were not consulted in the Cuban crisis because of the belief that the risk of war would have been much increased. The American intention was to react sharply, but to react for a limited aim and with limited means. Had this intention become known before it was announced—and in a consultation it would almost surely have become known—there was a probability that the Soviet government would take the initiative either by proclaiming defiantly the presence of the missiles or by denouncing the proposed quarantine as an act of piracy.

Had that denunciation been made before the quarantine was proclaimed and enforced, both Moscow and Washington would have been committed to a collision course. Mr. Kennedy could not have gone backward. Mr. Khrushchev could not have done what in fact he did do, which was to accept the quarantine in what was, it seems to me, a rather elegant and nonchalant way.

Whether or not you think the American reason for not consulting Europe was a good reason, I think I am right in saying that our experience in the confrontation has confirmed us in the view that the command of nuclear power to balance Soviet nuclear power cannot be divided or shared.

The directing of the nuclear power of the Western world is like driving a car on a hair-raising mountain road. Only one man can sit at the wheel. Others in the car can help to decide, before he starts, whether to take the mountain road or to seek a safer though longer one. But once the road is chosen, once the objective, the policy, the strategic plan have been agreed to by consultation as a shared responsibility, there can be only one driver at the wheel. And while the other passengers may not wholly like him, whether or not they think he is a very good driver, it is still safer for all concerned than if there were two or three drivers trying to grab the steering wheel at the same time.

The Cuban confrontation demonstrated, we believe, not only that the command of nuclear power is indivisible; it demonstrated also the importance of conventional military power when nuclear power has been balanced and neutralized. The United States prevailed in Cuba because, after nuclear power had been neutralized, it had powerful conventional weapons.

The American position in this matter should not be misunderstood. The United States government is not interested in maintaining for itself a monopoly of nuclear weapons in the Western alliance. The United States does believe that within our alliance all nuclear forces, European and American, should be effectively integrated—that is to say, they should have agreed targets, intimate reciprocal intelligence, and, for the moments of decision, a unified command.

The American position is based not only on a conviction as to how Western nuclear forces should be directed; it is based also on the realization that the United States cannot afford to provide the nuclear power of the Western alliance, and contribute a disproportionate amount to the conventional defense of Europe, and in addition continue to meet its obligations in Asia and in Latin America. We believe that before the European nations, severally or jointly, commit themselves to the gigantic cost of becoming nuclear powers, they should realize that the American nuclear power is adequate, that it cannot be duplicated quickly, that all of Western Europe combined will almost certainly not make a nuclear force capable of substituting for the force which the Americans have built up in the past seventeen years.

At the same time, as the Cuban affair illustrated visibly, conventional forces are essential to the defense of Europe. The United States cannot afford to fulfill its worldwide obligations and also carry the main burden of the conventional defense of Europe. Europe cannot creat an adequate nuclear force and also adequate conventional forces; it seems to us essential as a practical matter that there be for the time being a division of labor.

Does this mean that Europe must leave the nuclear defense of the Western world to the United States? For some years to come, we believe that this is unavoidable, for it would take many years before Europe could have effective nuclear forces. It does mean that Europe must trust the honor and the competence of its American ally in providing and managing what will be at least 90 percent of all of the nuclear forces of the Western alliance.

Does this mean, as it is said, that we are asking Europe to supply the infantry while we supply the artillery? It does not mean that. The Cuban crisis proved conclusively that we prevailed not only because we had the nuclear power to neutralize Soviet nuclear power but because we also had superior conventional forces in the Caribbean.

It is all very well to call these conventional forces the infantry. But, in fact, they consisted of naval ships, air forces, paratroopers, and marines. To those who tell us that we are trying to monopolize the big weapons which give prestige, or that we are trying to reduce Europe to the prosaic role of supplying the foot soldiers, my reply is that we are providing for the defense of Europe a big share—perhaps a disproportionate share—of the conventional forces, including the foot soldiers.

There are times, I must confess, when we forget our own faults—they are always easy to forget—and when we become restless at being told again and again that we cannot be relied upon to fulfill our commitments involving Berlin and Germany and France, that we are soft and weak, that we care about Cuba and the western hemisphere but not about Europe, and that we do not understand Communism and its challenge.

We feel that we have earned the right to be trusted when we say that the vital interests of European security and prosperity are also the vital interests of the United States. Europe has been growing spectacularly in unity and in affluence, and we have looked upon this not as the rise of a rival power, but as a success in which we rejoice and in which we share.

To Europeans I say, trust us not to desert you or to betray you. Believe me when I tell you that the contemporary American superiority in nuclear weapons, which will pass away in the course of time, is a burden and not something that Americans are happy about. They do not gloat about it. They regard it as a grim, costly, dangerous responsibility which through no ambition of their own they find themselves committed to.

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