By Joshua Lederberg Dr. Lederberg is a Nobel Prize-win- ning professor of genetics at Stanford University who is also a student of the arms race and efforts to achieve arms control. WE STRATEGIC arms limitation talks (SALT), which will resume next month in Helsinki, have been la- beled the key to world survival through the next decade. Even if we frame the arms race as a byproduct of interna- tional politics rather than as a living, demoniacal being with independent ex- istence, no one doubts the value of a critical search, for practical limitations on the arms spiral, - Arms investment is shaped by dy- namic interplay of domestic and inter- national forces, actions and reactions, as much as by negotiated agreements. More than any other process, neverthe- less, these explicit agreements require us to examine the assumptions that un- derlie our strategies of defense and of conciliation. ’ In my own view the most important function of the arms limitation confer- ences is their educational value for the participants, so that the many internal policy-making forces within each coun- try may. better understand the full depth of their national interests, and how these may be pursued in the light of the perceptions of the other nations. It would then be a mistake, as Fred Ikle stressed for other reasons in . “How Nations Negotiate,” to judge the value of diplomatic negotiations solely jn terms of the agreements formally concluded. . Economic Factors ‘EN THE EYES of the poor countries, our commitment to the arms race has drained the very resources that might finance international develop- ment. Their political pressure dike an implicit threat that India might join the nuclear club) is certainly among ‘the main forces that have dragged the United States and the U.S.S.R. to the gonference tables in Vienna, Helsinki bnd Geneva. : . . ;> Whether the pattern of arms limita- tion now under negotiation within the SALT framework will result in much savings from arms budgets is proble- matical. This benefit may be a long- range consequence of the political sta- bility that is the central aim of stra- tegic policy. In the short run, there is more likely to be only a shifting of ex- penditures to the programs left out of the agreements. oo ‘Phe obvious, and in many ways de- sirable, contender here is the naval op- tion. Despite its expense as a launch platform, the submarine has long been advocated as the way to separate the retaliatory force from vulnerable ci-. cities, and to provide another resource for assured destruction of an attacker. .. Missile-launching surface ships, de- spite their vulnerability, may also be undeservedly neglected as inexpensive decoys and early-warning lures to di- lute an enemy’s first strike capability. The mix of cheap, vulnerable plat- forms must, however, be carefully cali- brated in order not to be confused with a force useful only for a first strike, There will be no lack of alterna- tive proposals, some quite plausible, to buy more reliability and to plug poten- tial gaps in systems dedicated to infi- nite security. Another stated argument for arms contro! is that the very accumulation of the stockpile, wilh its vast potential for overkill, makes it more likely that nu- clear war will break out. There is a core of rationality to this argument. The America’s first two nuclear submarines—the Nau- tilus, right, and the Seawolf—docked at Groton, . technology of nuclear weapons is likely to leak and proliferate in some propor- tion to the total effort devoted to them. The nonproliferation treaty would have been unnecessary if every nonnuclear country had first had to finance a Man- hattan project to learn to make a bomb, Furthermore, the chance of an unautho- rized psychotic or accidental firing with its potentially catastrophic con- sequences, is larger the more weapons abound, other things being equal. As to “overkill,” the metaphor makes sense for a first-strike capabili- ty — a small percentage of the stock- pile of either superpower could wipe out civilization — but a eredible deter- rent must still be perceived as inflict- ing a pre-emptive attack. Overkill po- tential is exactly what stabilizes the system to make unlikely the actual use in anger of a nuclear weapon. , From this point of view, it is point- less to discuss nuclear parity or suffi- ciency or superiority in terms of num- bers of missiles, which is the fashiona- ble game. The accuracy of intelligence about the location of missile launch sites, the precision of guidance, the shrewdness of target selection, the se- curity of command and control, and above all how well these are perceived by an enemy and by ourselves—these now become far more crucial to deter- rence than an advertisement of crude numbers of missiles or of warheads. The essential function of strategic arms is to ensure that they will never be used by either side, and that any threat of their use works to stabilize rather than to inflame the relations of competing nations, Will Stalemate Last? Te ARMS RACE having pro- gressed to an effective stalemate, which has worked better than anyone could have hoped 23 years ago, its main hazards today come from its side effects on both international and na- tional policies. The most scrious of Conn. The subm retaliatory force these is an unremitting anxlety and suspicion about possible technical © breakthroughs that might break the stalemate. At one level, this leads to the mutual reinforcement of distrust about each side’s intentions and plans, At another it provokes the constant search for the technology to do it first here. The main argument openly leveled by most academic physicists against the ABM is that it simply will not do any of the several jobs for which it is pur- portedly designed. The real force of their anxiety is that a long-range pro- gram of ABM research might eventu- ally develop methods that more credi- bly offer a prospect of antimissile de- fense. Needless to say, if would be comfort- ing to devise a world in which defense had a real margin over attack, but how do we get there except through closely monitored mutual agreements? In the process, the existing balance will be broken, and we will face the most seri- ous risks of either side’s feeling com- pelled to undertake a pre-emptive at- tack. At the very least both sides would strive to redouble their offen- sive weaponry in order to sustain the credibility of their retaliatory poten- tial. Effective defense against missiles ev- idently remains quite remote, but it might be technically achieved at the far end of an extensive program of trial and development, of which Safe- guard is the first step. This is a tech- nological “Race to Oblivion,” the his- _ tory of which has been authoritatively documented in Dr. Herbert York's re- tent book of that title. Dr. York recounts how the arms race mentality was exploited with great skill and mendacity in the 1960s 19 fund redundant and useless weapons systems, and to ensure that each of the services in an imperfectly unified de- fense establishment would be placated. United Press International tarine is one way of separating the from vulnerable cities. i He believes, as I do, that the security of the country depends only in part on technical innovation, and that we must address our greater efforts to stabiliz- ing the security of the world if we are to have any for ourselves, But we cannot overlook the need for technological creativity, which will rapidly disappear if we do not repair the sources of the cynicism of our youth about the legitimacy of our na- tional goals. By building so heavily on technological bases of security, while neglecting the causes of internal dis- affection, we have impaired our mili- tary security far more than any missile deficit would imply. Sputnik Overrated UTUAL MISPERCEPTIONS of strategic posture undoubtedly fueled the gravest international con- frontation to date, the Cuban missile - crisis in 1962. Dr. York recalls how we grossly overrated the military signifi- eance of Sputnik in 1957. The Soviets had, in fact, overbuilt their rockets in a way that suited them for space flight but slowed up their deployment in strategically significant numbers. The missile gap myth of the 1960 election campaign was based on vastly inflated estimates of the Soviet operational capability. This is a difficulty inherent in any intelligence organization, which will never be criticized as much for drawing the most extensive implica- tions out of fragmentary data as it would be for overlooking any possibil- ity. Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., in his “A. “Thousand Days,” makes the curious re- mark that the Soviets in 1960 were “in- nocent of the higher calculus of deter- rence as recently developed in the U.S." Therefore, they could not com. prehend the stabilizing purpose of President Kennedy's plans to enhance U.S. missilry. Knowing the actual strength of their own forces, they may in fact have viewed Kennedy’s missile program in the same way that Secre- tary Laird construes the SS-9s, namely the development of a first strike poten- tial that could smother the ability to retaliate. : “Too bad, that’s their problem!,” some might say. But that confusion may explain Khrushchev’s Cuban gambit, a desperate move that would have been senseless as a direct sirate- gic threat against the United States— provided the Russians really had an ample long-range missile force based on their own soil. When your opponent has nuclear weapons, his jitters are your problem, too. : An Overdrawn Parable N 1961, THE LATE Leo Szilard wrote a fictional parable, ‘The Mined Cities,” wherein the super- powers had exchanged the capability of assured destruction by allowing the major cities to be mined by the other side, The idea has been revived from time to time—but like Rep. Craig Hos- mer’s subgestion that we multiply world security by giving every country four A-bombs—it does an ingenious metaphor the worst injustice to take it too literally. The parable does point out that our cities are hostages to one another, whether the bombs are under- ground or need to be delivered by a 30-minute rocket flight. (This reason- ing also makes one question whether Moscow and Washington are the right cities to be shielded with ABMs, when the potentates would make the most credible hostages.) Why not then agree that the problem of mutual security has some technical solution, achievable at the lowest mutual rost? The establishment of a Soviet mis- sile base in Cuba, or American bomb- ers in Libya, entailed political compli- cations almost as unacceptable as giv- ing extraterritorial access into the U.S. capital to a Soviet bomb squad. And where would we fit the French and the Chinese? The nondeployment of a potential ABM system is a constructive equiva- lent to cheapening the hostage system, with the fewest side effects. MIRVs (multiple warhead missiles) complicate the deterrence equations, giving the first-striker a better chance to destroy a deterrent, but the naval option and a multiplication of feints are as plausi- - ble answers as any foreseeable ABM. As far as arms control is concerned, once the potential for MIRV was un- derstood, little room was left for any verifiable control over its further de- velopment. Indeed, the need to play out this act so that both sides could work out the implications of MIRV may have compelled the postponement of SALT until now. If we separate the gimmickry from the parable behind “The Mined Cit- ties,” we can see that the naval options may give us the greatest room for mu- tual advantage. Ironical schemes can be composed that point up some of the absurdities of the world system. For example, it would be more to our ad- vantage if Soviet submarines refueled at Portland, Maine, rather than at Cienfuegos, Cuba; and we might offer to exchange base privileges on USS. shores for their equivalent on the Black and Baltic Seas. But even if such superrational ex- changes could be negotiated, they would raise untold mischief through disputes over the interpretation of the guaranteed free access on which they would have to be based. Better that we work out a de facto equilibrium, pro- vided that this is based on the clear understanding that any solution must provide for a zone of strategic security on both sides, or nothing but desperate maneuvering can follow. Working Out the Bugs HE GREATEST ANXIETY about surprise attack in the next decade —for both sides are in fact expanding the naval option—is that new technol- ogy may impair the invulnerability of . the submarine. It is absolutely incon- ceivable that antisubmarine detection and warfare could reach the point of reliably removing the bulk of a retali- atory force in a single surprise attack, without having first been widely exer- cised and tested. Mutually advantage- ous agreements to limit such testing should be fairly amenable to verifica- tion. They could be a logical extension of the existing ban on testing nuclear weapons under water. There is also a danger that units of the naval strategic force may become involved in tactical conflicts, with a consequent erosion of the line that marks nuclear weapons off from all others. This will require very careful attention to our own doctrine. The problem of surprise attack can be formulated in’ more precise, quan- titative terms than any other aspect of defense strategy. There are still many uncertainties, for example the opera- tional reliability of immense computer programs, and the level of nuclear re- taliation that would be so “unaccepta- ble” to apotential attacker as to deter him.. Nevertheless, the analyst can make a fairly simple model of the array of forces, and ignore the com- plexities of mass psychology and ser- pentine recalculation that blur the scl- entifie predictability of any political confrontation. . The simplicity of the problem tothe rational analyst, and its appeal to the paranoia of the antirational, have cap- tured our attention and resources out of proportion to the role of surprise at- tack in world conflict. By overdesign- ing our solutions to that problem, we leave ourselves ever less prepared to cope with the actual difficulties of to- day’s world. What to Do? LL SIDES ARE approaching the conclusion that mutual defense against surprise attack needlessly con- sumes an inordinate portion of world resources. We seek a new pattern of reciprocal arms disposal whose very momentum would be the best assur- ance that it was not merely a gambit for strategic advantage. This would be hard to construct, merely against the fears, angers and entrenched interests of important elements within both su- perpowers. A: simple moratorium on the em- placement of strategic weapons has been suggested, but it is likely to be entangled in contentious differences over whether it should embrace air- craft, tactical missiles, and so on. From a technical standpoint, the most amenable place for controls is testing; a comprehensive freeze on all missile tests would be most easily veri- fied, and would provide the utmost as- surance against the perpetuation of a costly technology. However, none of these require precise re-entry after a brief, high velocity flight. Further- more, nothing would be lost in requir- ing a definite pattern of international participation in space missions to as- sure that these were a net benefit to the whole earth from which they have-. embarked. @ 1970, The Washington Post Co.