During the Cold War, neither the Soviet Union nor the United States held the upper hand when it
came to nuclear weapons. The world's two superpowers kept each other in check for 50 years
through a stalemate known as Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), in which either side could
destroy the other if attacked. But that is changing, and the shift has profound consequences, says
an article co-authored by Notre Dame political scientist Kier Lieber. The article was published
last March in the journal Foreign Affairs and reprinted in The New York Times.
Upon examining the tea leaves of diplomatic and Defense Department policy and running
a computer model simulating the likely outcome of a pre-emptive U.S. strike against Russia and
China, Lieber and Daryl Press of the University of Pennsylvania conclude that the United States
will soon have the upper hand over the potential rival nations. They also conclude that the U.S.
government apparently is pursuing a deliberate course of nuclear primacy.
The scholars note that the United States has significantly enhanced its nuclear arsenal
since the fall of the Soviet Union, whereas Russia's inherited arsenal has deteriorated and China
has been slow to expand its nuclear capability. Further, they point out that the limited nuclear
defense shield the United States is pursuing makes the most sense when viewed as an adjunct to
a first-strike capability, defending against the few retaliatory missiles a devastated foe might
attempt to launch.
Lieber and Press note that whether U.S. nuclear primacy is positive depends upon the
ideological perspective of the observer. The political scientists point out that military hawks
"will welcome the new nuclear era because they trust that U.S. dominance in both conventional
and nuclear weapons will help deter aggression by other countries." In contrast, doves will worry
about U.S. nuclear dominance, fearing it will "lure Washington into more aggressive behavior."
Finally, owls, whom the authors define as those who worry about inadvertent nuclear war, will
brood that threatened countries might adopt hair-trigger policies, such as giving nuclear control
to low-level commanders, which could lead to tragedy.
The article, which may be read in its entirety at the Foreign Affairs website, has
generated wide-ranging and intense international reaction, especially from some Russian
commentators, including former Russian Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar, who viewed it as
provocative.
In an interview with The Observer, Gideon Rose, managing editor of Foreign Affairs,
dismissed as ludicrous the idea that the article was an attempt to coerce Russia."The reason that
it struck a cord in Russia was that it made public in a very provocative way something that many
security experts understood but that Russian citizens may not have," Rose told Notre Dame's
student newspaper. "We thought it would provoke a response, but even we were surprised by
just how strong the response was in Russia."
(October 2006)
