National Affairs: THE WANING NUCLEAR DETERRENT

The Unthinkable Must Be Thought About

DURING the H-bomb years it has become commonplace to say that nuclear war is "unthinkable" or "suicidal" or "preposterous," that it would bring "mutual annihilation" or "the end of civilization," or, as President Eisenhower put it, "a great emptiness." This apocalyptic vision of nuclear war, shared by both laymen and most defense experts, underlies a basic assumption of current U.S. defense policies: the threat of retaliatory nuclear attack by the U.S. is so frightening to Russian decision makers that it will automatically deter them from aggression.

Both the "mutual annihilation" vision and the automatic-deterrence strategy come under tough-minded bombardment in a newly published book, On Thermonuclear War (Princeton University; $10), which already is the talk of military thinkers across the U.S. Author: Herman Kahn, 38, senior staff physicist of the RAND Corp., the Air Force "think factory" headquartered in Santa Monica, Calif. One result of the idea that nuclear war is "unthinkable" is that too few men think about it in a serious way. But Kahn, consultant for the Atomic Energy Commission and the Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization, has spent much of the past decade thinking seriously about nuclear war.

Kahn's basic point is that nuclear war need not bring an inevitable "end of civilization" or even the "mutual annihilation" of the combatants. It is a part of U.S. Atomic Age folklore that there is no use trying to prepare for nuclear attack, that once deterrence fails all is lost. This attitude largely accounts for the feebleness of the U.S.'s civil defense programs. Backing up his case with a thicket of facts and figures, Kahn argues that advance preparations could make a difference between, say, 20 million and 80 million casualties.

As a start, Kahn urges a civil defense program that would include 1) identification of existing buildings that could serve as fallout shelters in an emergency, 2) wide distribution of inexpensive radiation-meters, 3) training of civil defense cadres, and 4) research on shelter designs and on methods of counteracting radiation and its effects. Such a first-step program could be undertaken for $500 million (less than 1% of the current federal budget).

Civil defense measures that can help the U.S. survive a Russian attack can also help Russia survive a U.S. attack.

Kahn points to evidence that the Russians give each citizen a minimum of 22 hours of compulsory civil defense training. If Russia gets braced for a nuclear attack and the U.S. fails to do so, argues Kahn, the U.S.'s deterrent strategy may be seriously weakened.

Kahn doubts whether, amid "all the stresses and strains of the cold war, all the sudden and unexpected changes, the possible accidents and miscalculations," the threat of U.S. nuclear retaliation can be relied upon in the 19603 to deter a Soviet attack on the U.S., much less deter an indirect provocation, such as seizure of West Berlin. The retaliation threat deters only to the extent that the Russians find it convincing.