Yeah, Kaplan definitely isnât the only person who seems to totally dismiss the possibility that nuclear weapons have some value, from a countryâs own perspective, via aiding in deterrence. It seems to me that itâs often hard to pin down precisely what people are claiming and what their reasoning is.
when pressed, the people focus on quite defensible arguments like âThe US doesnât need the number of weapons it has, and having them increases overall risk to the USâ
but at other times, they seem to be saying/âimplying things more like âThe US doesnât need any nuclear weapons, and having them has no benefits at allâ
And I think this is problematic, because those two different sets/âtypes of claims have different implications for which policies should be pursued.
she seemed to be making the similar point that individual countries might not be made any safer by maintaining a nuclear arsenal because it unwittingly turns them into a target for other countries.
I should note that, while Iâm not sure if I agree with that claim overall, I think that that claim is much more reasonable than the claim that there is no deterrence value in having nuclear weapons. (Something can be net negative even if it has some positive effect.)
Iâd love to know what motivated Kaplanâs argument (assuming you were understanding him correctly)
My guess is that itâs a sort of ideological thing, and/âor a desire to make things sound as dramatic and simple as possible in order to build public/âelite support for a particular set of policies. This connects to my guess that thereâs a motte-and-bailey fallacy going on; Iâd guess Kaplan doesnât explicitly, fully believe strong versions of the things it sometimes sounds like heâs saying. (But this is just a guess, and one should be quite careful when arguing that other people believe something just due to bias. I donât want to be perceived as highly confident or highly dismissive of Kaplan.)
they seem to be saying/âimplying things more like âThe US doesnât need any nuclear weapons, and having them has no benefits at allâ
Does Kaplan speak at all about how the US would otherwise deter a USSR invasion of our European allies? Things like alternative proposals for deterrence, or arguments that NATO was superior in an immediate conventional conflict, or similar?
My understanding of the beginning of nuclear deterrence policy is that it was the cheaper option compared to maintaining a sufficiently huge air and transport capacity to respond rapidly to a Soviet land invasion in Europe. It feels to me like his understanding ofâor position onâthese details would be a factor in interpreting his position on nuclear weapons.
Kaplan does discuss how the US was worried about a Soviet invasion of the USâs European allies, and how this was a part of the motivation for having a large nuclear arsenal and also for specific aspects of the arsenal (e.g. stationing nuclear weapons in Europe itself so that the US could threaten to launch from Europe, which was assumed to be more credible than threatening to launch from the US since it seemed somewhat less likely to trigger a strike against the mainland US in response).
He also discusses how this consideration was sometimes raised as an argument against various arms reductions proposals. E.g., he says what I paraphrased in my cards as:
In the 1986 memo to Reagan entitled âWhy We Canât Commit to Eliminating All Nuclear Weapons Within 10 Yearsâ, what 3 key arguments does Poindexter give?
Such an agreement couldnât be verified
Other nuclear armed states might not also eliminate their weapons, and thus they might gain superiority
This would create a major risk to Western Europe, given the Sovietsâ advantage in conventional forces [emphasis added]
I canât remember whether, in the later chapters about more recent events, he directly confronts the question of whether the US would currently be able to deter Russian aggression effectively if it massively reduced or eliminated its nuclear arsenal. Though to be fair to him, the book isnât explicitly about what we should do, but rather things like the decision-making that has occurred in relation to US nuclear weapons, so he doesnât exactly have an obligation to cover that. (Though it seems to me that he does at times very much imply certain recommendations, or that certain actions have been reckless or crazy or must not be repeated.)
Mm, I can certainly see the temptation to lean towards ânuclear weapons likely donât actually work as deterrentsâ if one didnât have a strong conviction in the other direction.
I was under the impression that Beatrice seemed to be tentatively arguing that maintaining any sort of nuclear weapons capability would make an individual nation less safe from attack, but looking at the transcript again I think there is some potential ambiguity that means I could be mistrepresentingher postition.
Would be very interested to hear a more fleshed-out argument though.
Yeah, Kaplan definitely isnât the only person who seems to totally dismiss the possibility that nuclear weapons have some value, from a countryâs own perspective, via aiding in deterrence. It seems to me that itâs often hard to pin down precisely what people are claiming and what their reasoning is.
I think sometimes itâs a sort of motte-and-bailey fallacy, where:
when pressed, the people focus on quite defensible arguments like âThe US doesnât need the number of weapons it has, and having them increases overall risk to the USâ
but at other times, they seem to be saying/âimplying things more like âThe US doesnât need any nuclear weapons, and having them has no benefits at allâ
And I think this is problematic, because those two different sets/âtypes of claims have different implications for which policies should be pursued.
I should note that, while Iâm not sure if I agree with that claim overall, I think that that claim is much more reasonable than the claim that there is no deterrence value in having nuclear weapons. (Something can be net negative even if it has some positive effect.)
My guess is that itâs a sort of ideological thing, and/âor a desire to make things sound as dramatic and simple as possible in order to build public/âelite support for a particular set of policies. This connects to my guess that thereâs a motte-and-bailey fallacy going on; Iâd guess Kaplan doesnât explicitly, fully believe strong versions of the things it sometimes sounds like heâs saying. (But this is just a guess, and one should be quite careful when arguing that other people believe something just due to bias. I donât want to be perceived as highly confident or highly dismissive of Kaplan.)
Does Kaplan speak at all about how the US would otherwise deter a USSR invasion of our European allies? Things like alternative proposals for deterrence, or arguments that NATO was superior in an immediate conventional conflict, or similar?
My understanding of the beginning of nuclear deterrence policy is that it was the cheaper option compared to maintaining a sufficiently huge air and transport capacity to respond rapidly to a Soviet land invasion in Europe. It feels to me like his understanding ofâor position onâthese details would be a factor in interpreting his position on nuclear weapons.
Kaplan does discuss how the US was worried about a Soviet invasion of the USâs European allies, and how this was a part of the motivation for having a large nuclear arsenal and also for specific aspects of the arsenal (e.g. stationing nuclear weapons in Europe itself so that the US could threaten to launch from Europe, which was assumed to be more credible than threatening to launch from the US since it seemed somewhat less likely to trigger a strike against the mainland US in response).
He also discusses how this consideration was sometimes raised as an argument against various arms reductions proposals. E.g., he says what I paraphrased in my cards as:
Such an agreement couldnât be verified
Other nuclear armed states might not also eliminate their weapons, and thus they might gain superiority
This would create a major risk to Western Europe, given the Sovietsâ advantage in conventional forces [emphasis added]
I canât remember whether, in the later chapters about more recent events, he directly confronts the question of whether the US would currently be able to deter Russian aggression effectively if it massively reduced or eliminated its nuclear arsenal. Though to be fair to him, the book isnât explicitly about what we should do, but rather things like the decision-making that has occurred in relation to US nuclear weapons, so he doesnât exactly have an obligation to cover that. (Though it seems to me that he does at times very much imply certain recommendations, or that certain actions have been reckless or crazy or must not be repeated.)
Mm, I can certainly see the temptation to lean towards ânuclear weapons likely donât actually work as deterrentsâ if one didnât have a strong conviction in the other direction.
I was under the impression that Beatrice seemed to be tentatively arguing that maintaining any sort of nuclear weapons capability would make an individual nation less safe from attack, but looking at the transcript again I think there is some potential ambiguity that means I could be mistrepresenting her postition.
Would be very interested to hear a more fleshed-out argument though.