nuclear weapons caused peace between the superpowers and are, therefore, good (you know it makes sense)

Here's my long essay in case anyone is interested. Feel free to comment.

I have tweeked it slightly by correcting one or two grammatical and spelling errors (thank you David. It's 'precedent' not 'president' - what was I thinking?) and deleted about 500 words of boring and slightly irrelevant filler from the middle, but apart from that it's pretty much as submitted. I have also numbered the paragraphs for ease of reference.

Unfortunately my footnotes did not survive the cut/paste expedition from MS Word to Blogger but my bibliography seems to have made it intact.


TO WHAT EXTENT DID THE DEVELOPMENT OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS AFFECT INTERNATIONAL POLITICS BETWEEN 1945 AND 1962?

(1) No credible study of twentieth century world politics would be complete without consideration of the bold advances in the development of nuclear weapons and of the extent to which they affected the key decision and policy making of the time. In terms of being a legitimate instrument of international politics, the period of 1945 until 1962 in particular stands out as the glorious adolescence of nuclear technology and it is during this period, from the spectacular birth of the atomic bomb in the final months of the Second World War until the beginnings of realisation of the truly devastating potential of nuclear weaponry with the first attempts at strategic limitation in 1963, that they reached the zenith in their naked domination of strategic thought and decision making for the world’s principle political players.

(2) This essay will illustrate that the development of nuclear weapons was the single most significant factor to influence international politics throughout the entire Cold War period and, significantly, it was during their initial and formative two decades when the strategic decisions were made that would help to lay the foundations for international political activity during the rest of the period and which would leave a legacy of military and diplomatic precedent that would remain significant long after the Cold War period was to close. Many of the principles that were held to be prevalent at the time will be illustrated, as will some of the more contradictory and counter-intuitive aspects of nuclear strategy with which politicians and strategists alike wrangled then and historians have wrangled with since. Ultimately, it will be concluded that, whilst the weaponry that is the product of nuclear technology is commonly regarded today as being inherently bad, its introduction in 1945 and the initial strategies that were subsequently employed would eventually lead to the avoidance of major conflict and actually provide the prelude to mutually satisfying dialogue and diplomacy between two of the most powerful and antagonistic states that the world has ever hosted.

(3) World military history is full of examples of new and exciting technologies that, like nuclear weapons, came with the apparent promise of ending war forever. This was illustrated by Freedman who noted that the principles of nuclear strategy had their roots in the prevailing theories about airpower and strategic bombing theory from before the Second World War, and also by Crockatt who argued that:

'Prior to the First World War it was believed that the submarine, especially when used against civilian shipping, would be so indiscriminate in its effects that no power would seriously contemplate its use. The same was believed of mass aerial bombardment. The German submarine campaigns in the First World War, the German bombing of Guernica in the Spanish Civil War, and mass bombing of civilian targets by all sides in the Second World War put paid to these optimistic hopes. It seemed that the capacity of human beings to make mental adjustment to their physical capability to destroy each other was infinitely elastic. However, because of what we know about mans capacity for violence, we cannot be sure that the destructive power of nuclear weapons would restrain nations from war.'

What we can be sure of is that their presence on the international agenda opened dialogue and forced nations together where in the absence of any other incentive to do so, they could otherwise have drifted back into the inevitable consequence of war.

(4) One of the apparently revolutionary aspects of the advent of nuclear weaponry that was celebrated at the time by those governments who had the wherewithal to enjoy them was that they might finally offer the one thing that military strategists had been in search for since the birth of bellicosity itself; the military panacea. After an all too brief period of development, the atomic bomb was deployed against Japan in September 1945 as the debut spectacular of a new and exciting military capability. The effect on the, albeit already over-burdened, Japan was decisive and led to what was by far the most significant political event of the subject period, the end of the Second World War. It was apparent that the introduction of atomic weapons had 'inaugurated a totally new age in warfare, in which a single bombing raid could produce total destruction on a scale that was hitherto undreamed of.' Indeed, many prominent contemporary authors including Crockatt, who highlighted the history of conviction borne out of innovations which would bring about destructive power so great that ‘it would never be used and would provoke all parties into a recognition that war must be out-lawed.’ Indeed, historians at the time might be forgiven for concluding that even Einstein's basic theories on the inevitability of war were somewhat premature. [Einstein said 'So long as there are sovereign nations possessing great power, war is inevitable. That is not an attempt to say when it will come, but only that it is sure to come. That was true before the atomic bomb was made. What has been changed is the destructiveness of war.’] However, it should of course be noted, as Freeman has done, that to a greater extent than any other weapon system, nuclear weapons should be considered for their potential rather than actual physical capability, as ‘[t]he study of nuclear strategy is the study of the nonuse of these weapons.’ It is also vitally important to recognise the fact that the only occasion when nuclear weapons have actually been detonated in anger is when one side actually had a clear nuclear monopoly.

(5) With hindsight it is all too easy to conclude that the introduction of nuclear weapons was the work of mad men. Notwithstanding the importance of the relative psychological stability of the personalities leading the decision making of the age, there is little evidence to suggest that in the early days of their development, anyone knew of the full implications of nuclear detonation. This lack of evidence helps to illustrate the legitimacy of nuclear weapons as an instrument of international policy at the time. Like a stone had been unturned to reveal a new world of military possibilities and potential, the logic of nuclear capability and the strategies that were to be its product were profoundly simple and could be directly translated from traditional military thinking. However, despite the apparent naivety of early nuclear strategy, the power of nuclear technology was not lost on everyone. As early as November 1945, the American military strategist, Bernard Brodie managed to predict many of the significant features of the forthcoming nuclear arms race and highlighted a potentially revolutionary change ‘not merely in the destructiveness of modern war but in its basic character’ and pointed to his central theme of the concentration of ‘violence in terms of time.’ It is not surprising that despite their short period of gestation and the historical fact that technological military panaceas have generally proven to be flawed, those states with the resources to do so, i.e. the United States and the Soviet Union, embraced them with such fervour and immediately sought to capitalise on their potential by creating or improving their stock.

(6) In addition to their independent and reactionary role in the formulation of military tactics and strategy, nuclear weapons played a direct and crucial part in superpower relations that provided the principle control measure which effectively prevented escalation to hot war throughout the formative decades of the Cold War and continued to date. The early years of the Cold War and the relationship between the two superpowers of the age were shaped by many factors. Whilst the formulation of the Cold War was eventually to be predicated upon a concept of 'strategic nuclear balance', its course was effectively plotted by the various crises and confrontations of the period. Indeed, all of these events were influenced by nuclear weapon strategy and many were directly attributable to it. The development of nuclear weapons was the most influential factor in international politics throughout the entire Cold War period. However, that is not to say that nuclear weapon strategy was the principle factor that drove all strategic decision-making, indeed diplomatic efforts and other routine political and strategic activity associated with the relationship continued throughout and with it, the misunderstandings, limited etiquette, political and military posturing, diplomatic faux pas and other features so typical of human interaction of any given historical period continued unabated. Nuclear weapons brought something new, exciting and highly influential to the party: the potential ability to inflict a single blow so hard that it could bring an entire nation to its knees in a matter of days or even hours. It is therefore an attractive conclusion that this destructive potential was an entirely negative thing. Of course, the opposite might be been seen to be true. In addition to their bringing something that quite rightly ought to be denied to contemporary strategists and politicians as a legitimate physical incarnation of their diplomatic clout, the introduction of nuclear weapons should also be the cause of some celebration.

(7) The introduction of nuclear weapons on the international stage provided the agenda to reinvigorate the broken lines of communication between the superpowers. The principle protagonists of the Cold War were so divided by way of strategic beliefs and culture (the United States' with their isolationist outlook that was torn by remorse for their wartime allies and the requirement for a forward defensive posture and the contrasting Soviet traditionalist approach and its pursuit of international involvement) that a means was required to bridge this doctrinal divide and provide mutually interesting dialogue crucial to the prevention of escalation to a nuclear conclusion.

(8) Prior to the introduction of nuclear weaponry and all of its inherent potential, war was historically a slow moving and arguably a relatively civilised interaction that could be effectively controlled by diplomacy and well-briefed military commanders. Again, Brodie provides illustration of this with his central theme of nuclear weapons concentrating 'violence in terms of time'. Where historically war had been a multifaceted and highly involved undertaking, nuclear technology provided an opportunity for more limited single-dimensional conflict where there was little or no room for manoeuvre for either side. The hypothetical nuclear battle was not to be fought, won and lost in the field; it would take place in remote cabinet rooms with few mutually understood rules and conventions to guide its progress or limit operational exploitation. Indeed, it could be argued that, despite possessing devastating destructive potential, the actual use of nuclear weapons could be seen as the antithesis of total war as, where states that have conventional forces tend to use them, the opposite is true of nuclear weapons.

(9) The early decades of the Cold War, which significantly were also the early stages of nuclear weapon deployment, little was known (or at least admitted) about the wider effects of a nuclear detonation. Indeed, in many quarters the use of nuclear weapons was seen as little more than an accelerated but logical growth in the explosive power of conventional weaponry and concluded that they were to afford the user with greater combat power than ever before imagined (very attractive to governments seeking the ultimate in military efficiency) and that 'conventional' arms were doomed to obsolescence. Indeed, this was illustrated further by the prominent contemporary historian, Lawrence Freedman, who drew comparisons to the convention of overwhelming air power and the United State's notable reduction in traditional military forces prior to the introduction of the Soviet Union's own nuclear weaponry (as advertised as United States policy in NSC 68).

(10) Of course, delusions of a nuclear panacea were short-lived and eventually shelved as the result of events that demonstrated only too clearly the crippling limitations of any strategy that relied too heavily on any single component part or technological system. For the United States, The Korean War in particular demonstrated that in a conflict with limited aims, even where prosecuted by way of proxy at the behest of the superpowers themselves, having an inventory that boasted an apparently overwhelming nuclear arsenal had little operational value. Furthermore, the inherent impotence of nuclear weapons in deliberately limited circumstances highlights the major flaw in nuclear weapon strategy. This was not the first time that powerful states had come close to allowing themselves to become dislocated by technology and it will not be the last. Indeed, striking parallels can be drawn to the pursuit in the West today of technological military revolution which may eventually lead to their own defeat by dislocation through asymmetric means. However, and in any case, it is events such as Korea that help to illustrate the political strength inherent in nuclear weapons. By their very potential, they provided a common-sense solution as a generic control measure that bypassed political, ideological or cultural barriers.

(11) Between the Superpowers, nuclear weapons were to be understandably employed by both sides in efforts to maintain what was to become known as the 'strategic nuclear balance' and that came with the promise of another idea, that of 'mutually assured destruction'. It would be easy today to say with hindsight, that at best these strategies were folly. However, to write them off as such is to miss their real strength as an instrument of diplomacy. It is no accident that the first bipolar agreement of the Cold War was eventually to be one which would seek to limit the further development of nuclear weaponry with the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963. The risks associated with nuclear weaponry were too real and apparent to all to be ignored.

(12) The advent of nuclear weapons provided the means of clearing indoctrinated minds, opening dialogue, providing the narrative for the Cold War and helped to prevent a costly conventional war. The nuclear dichotomy provided a tangible common ground that would eventually lead to arms control and the closure of the Cold War. Nuclear weaponry deployment implications were a thing of hybrid character, on one hand they were the predominant disease throughout the Cold War and on the other they were the principle ingredient of the antidote.

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