The Spread of Nuclear Weapons
By HEDLEY BULL
IN the perspective of history, once a new Weapon has been shown to be of decisive im- portance in war and international politics, its subsequent acquisition by all of the major powers has the appearance of inevitability. The spread of artillery, after its importance had been demon- strated on the battlefields of Italy in the fifteenth century, seems to us to have been beyond all Possibility of interruption; and the hopes of the Poet Ariosto, that the 'curs'd device' might be Consigned to the depths of the ocean, seem feeble indeed. The spread of air power, once its promise had been glimpsed in the First World War, seems also to have been ineluctable; and nothing now appears so futile as the discussions of the 1920s and 1930s concerning internationalisation and demilitarisation of air transport. There seems at first sight no reason why the Pattern of previous military innovations will not be repeated in the case of nuclear weapons. The Pattern is already evident in our experience of them so far; on the one hand, the futile efforts of the first nuclear power, the United States, to hold up the march of events, by such devices as the MacMahon Act and the Baruch Plan; on the other hand, the steady expansion of- the nuclear club to its present membership of four. But the thesis of a new study, The Spread of Nuclear 14/capons, by Leonard Beaton and John M ad- d°x,* sponsored by the Institute for Strategic Studies, is directly contrary to any such supposi- tion. 'There is no justification for a mood of resig- nation born of the impression that nuclear weapons are spreading as inevitably and as surely as electric power or any other symbol of modern Industrialism. There is nothing inevitable Lbout them.'
, The new study, which eschews speculation and IS based on a detailed examination of the military capacities and political intentions of most of the middle-ranking powers, makes some cautious pre- dictions about the period between now and 1975. Of the Powers which are at present outside the
41Chatto and-WitiddsJ8s. _ nuclear club, but might be capable of breaking into it during that period, only China has indi- cated that she intends to do so. In all the other countries in this category there are strong forces which can be mobilised in favour of the stabilisa- tion of the present position. Canada and Japan are at present hostile to the idea of becoming nuclear powers; India and Israel, though they appear to be 'creating options' for themselves, by acquiring advanced nuclear industries which may be converted for military purposes, are offi- cially determined to remain outside the club; Germany and Italy, though they are anxious to provide themselves with a nuclear defence through Allied arrangements, do not aspire to nuclear independence; in Sweden, Switzerland and Australia, where the acquisition of nuclear weapons has been debated, the parties opposed to such a course are at present in the ascen- dancy.
The authors arc able to dispose of certain exaggerated claims about the speed with which the spread of nuclear weapons is likely to take place. One such claim is that any country that can make nuclear weapons, will make them: Canada, for five years or more, has provided an instance to the contrary. Another such claim is that there is likely to take place some kind of automatic chain reaction, as if every power were engaged in a' contest for nuclear strength and prestige with every other. In fact, of course, nations compete only with particular other nations. If. because of the tension that now exists between the two countries, China's becoming a nuclear power is likely to lead to increased de- mands for nuclear weapons in India, it does not follow that increased demands for them will be made in, say, Peru. Every country, indeed, needs to be treated as a special case. In France, for example, for special historical reasons, Britain's membership of the nuclear club pro- vided a stimulus in favour of a nuclear policy, that has no precise analogy elsewhere. In Sweden, the anxiety lest the creation of a nuclear force might lead Russia to absorb Finland, pro- vides an argument for staying outside the club, which does not affect the debate in other coun- tries.
The spread of nuclear weapons is in fact taking place more slowly than was thought likely when anxiety about 'the Nth Country problem' first became widespread about five years ago. One reason is that the non-military use of nuclear energy has not yet made the progress that was first predicted. Another reason is that the con- fessed failure of Britain to compete with the two super-powers in advanced delivery systems has undermined the notion of nuclear weapons as the 'equalisers' of nations, and suggested to lesser powers that they can compete in this field only with one another. And a third reason is that the super-powers have themselves drawn back from the policy of conversion to wholly nuclear strate- gies, upon which they were embarked.
However, although Messrs. Beaton and Mad- dox may be right in believing that the pressures for a sudden spread of nuclear weapons during the next decade are not irresistible, they give no convincing reasons why in the long run the out- come of this process should be other than what historical reflection would lead us to suppose. The physical ingredients of nuclear power, in the form of nuclear explosives, and the aircraft and missiles used to deliver them, are becoming steadily cheaper and more readily available. If certain countries like Canada have not developed the ambition to behave as great powers, or like Germany, Japan and increasingly Britain, have lost it, this does not apply to France, China and, in embryo, 'Europe.' Although many of America's allies are prepared to turn their backs on independent nuclear status, they see the only alternative to this as a share in the control of some kind of joint deterrent. The spread of nuclear weapons may, indeed, have, as one of its consequences, a consolidation of alliances into super-States, and a reduction in the total number of powers. But its spread across the international political system will not for this reason have been less complete.
Although it is directed against the notion of the inevitable spread of nuclear weapons, this book may be thought itself to provide confirma- tion of it. It represents a lowering of our sights as far as resistance to the spread is concerned, and an invitation to us to acclimatise ourselves to an increasingly nuclear environment. The expansion of the nuclear club to its present membership, the authors say, is irreversible. They are clearly resigned to the coming membership of China. The Nth Country problem, once seen as the problem of preventing further countries from being able to acquire nuclear weapons, they tend to see differently, as the problem of dissuading countries which are able to acquire them, from exercising their 'option' of doing so.
War and international politics cannot be insu- lated from the technological milieu in which they take place. If we were to avoid the military impli- cations of nuclear and space technology, it could only be by refraining from moving into the nuclear and space age. Important though it may be in the short run to resist the tide and so gain time, the problem in the long run is perhaps less that of preventing the spread of nuclear weapons than that of learning restraint in the use of them.
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