Melvyn P. Leffler, A Preponderance of Power

At Amazon, Melvyn P. Leffler, A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War.

Putin's War Is Fortifying the Democratic Alliance

I love this.

And remember what I wrote the other day: "Unipolarity Is Not Over."

From Michael Beckley and Hal Brands, at Foreign Affairs, "Return of Pax Americana?":

The United States and its allies have failed to prevent Russia from brutalizing Ukraine, but they can still win the larger struggle to save the international order. Russia’s savage invasion has exposed the gap between Western countries’ soaring liberal aspirations and the paltry resources they have devoted to defend them. The United States has declared great-power competition on Moscow and Beijing but has so far failed to summon the money, the creativity, or the urgency necessary to prevail in those rivalries. Yet Russian President Vladimir Putin has now inadvertently done the United States and its allies a tremendous favor. In shocking them out of their complacency, he has given them a historic opportunity to regroup and reload for an era of intense competition—not just with Russia but also with China—and, ultimately, to rebuild an international order that just recently looked to be headed for collapse.

This isn’t fantasy: it has happened before. In the late 1940s, the West was entering a previous period of great-power competition but had not made the investments or initiatives needed to win it. U.S. defense spending was pathetically inadequate, NATO existed only on paper, and neither Japan nor West Germany had been reintegrated into the free world. The Communist bloc seemed to have the momentum. Then, in June 1950, an instance of unprovoked authoritarian aggression—the Korean War—revolutionized Western politics and laid the foundation for a successful containment strategy. The policies that won the Cold War and thereby made the modern liberal international order were products of an unexpected hot war. The catastrophe in Ukraine could play a similar role today.

Putin’s aggression has created a window of strategic opportunity for Washington and its allies. The democracies must now undertake a major multilateral rearmament program and erect firmer defenses—military and otherwise—against the coming wave of autocratic aggression. They must exploit the current crisis to weaken the autocrats’ capacity for coercion and subversion and deepen the economic and diplomatic cooperation among liberal states around the globe. The invasion of Ukraine signals a new phase in an intensifying struggle to shape the international order. The democratic world won’t have a better chance to position itself for success.

SHOCK THERAPY

The United States has been talking tough about great-power competition for years. But to counter authoritarian rivals, a country needs more than self-righteous rhetoric. It also requires massive investments in military forces geared for high-intensity combat, sustained diplomacy to enlist and retain allies, and a willingness to confront adversaries and even risk war. Such commitments do not come naturally, especially to democracies that believe that peace is the norm. That is why ambitious competitive strategies usually sit on the shelf until a shocking event compels collective sacrifice.

Take containment. Now considered one of the most successful strategies in U.S. diplomatic history, containment was on the verge of failure before the Korean War broke out. During the late 1940s, the United States had undertaken a dangerous, long-term competition against a mighty authoritarian rival. U.S. officials had established maximalist objectives: the containment of Soviet power until that regime collapsed or mellowed and, in the words of President Harry Truman, support for “peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation.” Truman had begun to implement landmark policies such as the Marshall Plan to rebuild Western Europe and the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty. Yet before June 1950, containment remained more of an aspiration than a strategy.

Even as Cold War crises broke out in Berlin, Czechoslovakia, Iran, and Turkey, U.S. military spending plummeted from $83 billion at the end of World War II to $9 billion in 1948. The North Atlantic Treaty was new and feeble: the alliance lacked an integrated military command or anything approaching the forces it needed to defend Western Europe. Resource constraints forced Washington to write off China during its civil war, effectively standing aside as Mao Zedong’s Communists defeated Chiang Kai-Shek’s Nationalist government, and to draw a defense perimeter that initially excluded South Korea and Taiwan. U.S. statecraft combined sky-high ambitions with a bargain-basement approach to achieving them.

The reasons for this shortfall will sound familiar. U.S. officials hoped that the United States’ overall military superiority—especially its atomic monopoly—would compensate for weaknesses everywhere along the East-West divide. They found it hard to believe that even ruthless, totalitarian enemies might resort to war. In Washington, moreover, global visions competed with domestic priorities, such as taming inflation and balancing the budget. U.S. officials also planned to economize by splitting the country’s rivals—specifically, wooing Chinese leader Mao Zedong’s communists once they won China’s civil war and pulling that country away from the Soviet Union.

That policy failed: Mao sealed an alliance with Moscow in early 1950. Just months before, another strategic setback—the first Soviet nuclear test—had ended the United States’ atomic monopoly. Yet even then, Truman was unmoved. When Paul Nitze, the director of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff, crafted his famous memo, NSC-68, calling for a global diplomatic offensive supported by a massive military buildup, Truman politely ignored the paper and announced plans to cut the defense budget.

It took a brazen international land grab to shake Washington out of its torpor. North Korean Premier Kim Il Sung’s assault on South Korea, undertaken in collusion with Mao and the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, changed everything. The invasion convinced U.S. policymakers that the dictators were on the march and the danger of global conflict was growing. The conflict also dispelled any hope of dividing Moscow and Beijing: Washington now faced a communist monolith applying pressure all around the Eurasian periphery. In short, the North Korean invasion made the Truman administration fear that the postwar world was hanging in the balance.

U.S. policymakers decided not just to defend South Korea but to mount a global campaign to strengthen the noncommunist world. The North Atlantic Treaty became the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, with a unified command structure and 25 active divisions at its disposal. The Truman administration dispatched additional forces to Europe, where U.S. allies accelerated their military preparations and agreed, in principle, to rearm West Germany. In the Asia-Pacific, the United States created a cordon of security pacts involving Australia and New Zealand, Japan, and the Philippines and deployed naval forces to prevent a Chinese takeover of Taiwan.

The Korean War thus turbocharged the emergence of the global network of alliances and the enduring military deployments that constituted the backbone of containment. It precipitated the revival and rearmament of former enemies, Japan and West Germany, as core members of the free world. Underpinning all this was an enormous military buildup meant to make Soviet aggression unthinkable. U.S. defense spending more than tripled, reaching 14 percent of GDP in 1953; the U.S. nuclear arsenal and conventional forces more than doubled. “The Soviets respected nothing but force,” said Truman. “To build such force . . . is precisely what we are attempting to do now.”

To be sure, the Korean War also showed the danger of going too far...

Keep reading.

 

Corporate America's Now the Bastion Radical Leftism (VIDEO)

Here's Vivek Ramaswamy, for Prager University:

Timothy Snyder, Bloodlands

At Amazon, Timothy Snyder, Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin.

Janet Yellen Says No Danger to U.S. Dollar's Reserve Currency Status

I've been reading about the prospects of the greenback remaining the dominant money in global trade and finance. See, Benjamin J. Cohen, Currency Statecraft: Monetary Rivalry and Geopolitical Ambition.

Yellen says no fear, the dollar's still here.

At Bloomberg, "Yellen Rejects Notion Sanctions Could Undermine Dollar Dominance":

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the U.S. dollar is in no danger of losing its status as the world’s dominant reserve currency as a result of sanctions imposed against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.

“I don’t think the dollar has any serious competition, and is not likely to for a long time,” Yellen told reporters in response to questions following a speech in Denver on Friday.

Some commentators, including Credit Suisse Group AG interest-rate strategist Zoltan Pozsar, have warned sanctions that blocked Russia’s access to its foreign currency reserves could drive other countries away from the dollar.

“When you think about what makes the dollar a reserve currency, it’s that we have the deepest and most liquid capital markets of any country on earth,” Yellen said. “Treasury securities are safe, secure and immensely liquid. We have a well-functioning economic and financial system and the rule of law. There really is no other currency that can rival it as a reserve currency.”

 

Thirty-Five Killed as Russia Strikes Ukraine Military Base Near Polish Border (VIDEO)

War is hell. Bloody fucking hell.

At WSJ, "Russian Missiles Strike Ukrainian Military Training Base Near Polish Border":

Attack kills at least 35 and increases risk of war encroaching on NATO territory, after Moscow says arms shipments to Kyiv won’t be tolerated.

A Russian airstrike on a Ukrainian military training center close to the Polish border threw into sharp relief the hazards of the Western push to deliver arms support to Kyiv while avoiding direct conflict with a nuclear adversary.

The airstrike killed 35 people at the facility in Yavoriv about 10 miles from the Polish border early Sunday, far to the west of where the conflict has been concentrated, one day after Moscow warned the West that it would consider arms deliveries to Ukraine as legitimate targets.

A large portion of the military aid from the West—one of the largest transfers of arms in history—passes through Poland into western Ukraine, part of the fine line the U.S. and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, allies are walking between aiding Ukraine militarily while steering clear of providing troops or enforcing a no-fly zone that Ukraine has called for.

The expansion of Russia’s aggression to a target close to Poland also increases the risk of the war encroaching on NATO territory, which the U.S. has warned would be treated as an attack on the alliance. Any strike on Poland would bring “the full force of the NATO alliance to bear in responding to it,” Jake Sullivan, the U.S. national security adviser, said in an interview Sunday on CBS News’ “Face the Nation.”

Russia’s Defense Ministry said more attacks aimed at supply lines and foreign mercenaries supporting Ukraine were in the offing. Armaments supplied to Ukraine by the U.S. and its European allies—especially antitank and antiaircraft weapons—have played an important role in checking the advance of Russian ground troops, who have suffered heavy casualties in the north as they have tried to encircle the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.

But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has warned that military aid alone might not be enough to enable Ukraine to fight off Russia’s invasion, and has made increasingly urgent calls for a no-fly zone that would protect the supplies entering the country and the refugees fleeing to neighboring countries.

The U.S. and its European allies have said a no-fly zone that involved other countries’ air forces risks escalating the conflict because it would only be effective if it were empowered to deter Russian planes. The U.S. also last week declined to support a Polish plan to give the U.S. Soviet-built MiG-29 combat jets after the U.S. had broached the prospect of Poland supplying the planes directly to Ukraine.

While the West aids Ukraine, Russia has asked China for military equipment and other assistance for its war effort, according to U.S. officials, who didn’t specify what Russia had requested.

News of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s request for help from Beijing, first reported by the Washington Post, comes as Mr. Sullivan heads to Rome on Monday to meet with a top Chinese official to discuss Ukraine.

Mr. Sullivan spoke on CNN on Sunday of the growing concern inside the Biden administration that Russia might be looking for help in the conflict, though he didn’t acknowledge a specific request from Russia to China.

“We are also watching closely to see the extent to which China actually does provide any form of support, material support or economic support, to Russia,” Mr. Sullivan said. “It is a concern of ours, and we have communicated to Beijing that we will not stand by and allow any country to compensate Russia for its losses from the economic sanctions.”

In addition to supplying arms, the Biden administration and its allies have shared intelligence with Kyiv and inflicted sweeping economic sanctions against Russia. But they are facing calls from some quarters to do more...

 

CNN's Nic Robertson Leaves Russia in Despair (VIDEO)

Here, "After over three decades of covering Russia, I leave in despair. One man has extinguished the bright hope many once felt."

Andrew Bacevich, After the Apocalypse

At Amazon, Andrew Bacevich, After the Apocalypse: America's Role in a World Transformed.

Stunning Cindy Crawford in 1995

Crawford's still absolutely gorgeous, but damn --- back in 1995? Hoo boy. 

See, "Cindy Crawford 1995 Stunning Body."

Cockpit View from U.S. Air Force B-52H Stratofortress (VIDEO)

Following up, "Take a Peek Inside the Massive 'Stratofortress' B-52s Currently Doing Laps Around Eastern Europe."

Joe Biden's Dangerous Energy Policy

It's Newt Gingrich, at Newsweek, "Biden's Energy Policy is Helping Dictators and Harming Americans."

Taylor Lorenz, Pushing 40, Jumps to Washington Post, Still Grooming Teenagers for Clicks

This is a bad woman. Very bad.

At Free Beacon, "MEME GIRL: Taylor Lorenz Unites New York Times, Washington Post in Opposition to ‘Cringey’ Influencer Journalism."

'So Clearly There's an Intention for the United States to Be in Ukraine...' (VIDEO)

Following up from last week, "Victoria Nuland, Biden's Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Claims Ukraine Has 'Biological Research Facilities' (VIDEO)."

Here's Glenn Greenwald on Tucker's: 

Sunday Cartoon

From A.F. Branco.

More at Flopping Aces, "Sunday Funnies." 

Demand for Bomb Shelters and Iodine Pills Skyrockets in Europe

As noted earlier, I seriously doubt World War III is imminent, but the Europeans aren't taking any chances.

At NYT, "Pandemic Fears Give Way to a Rush for Bomb Shelters":

Since Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, European anxiety has shifted from Covid to nuclear annihilation. Bunkers, survival guides and iodine pills are flying off the shelves.

BAGNOLO SAN VITO, Italy — Across a footbridge from a busy shopping outlet surrounded by verdant fields in northern Italy, workers in a nondescript warehouse are preparing for a nuclear attack, its radioactive fallout and the end of the world as we know it.

“We have found ourselves in the midst of this giant cyclone of demand,” said Giulio Cavicchioli, as he showed off an underground air filtration system that “cleans” radioactive particles, nerve gas and other biological agents and played a video tour of a nuclear shelter that was “ready to use.” His company, Minus Energie, has gone from working on 50 bunkers in the past 22 years to fielding 500 inquiries in the past two weeks.

“It’s a hysteria for construction of bunkers,” he said, driven by the fear of Russian nuclear warheads reaching across Europe. “It’s much scarier now.”

In the days since President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia launched his war on Ukraine, and put his nuclear forces into “special combat readiness,” the intensifying violence and the legacy of two world wars has revived fears in Europe of nuclear calamity for the first time in decades.

Europe has already spent two years on high alert against the pandemic. But now the manifestations of its anxieties and desires for self-defense have shifted from the masks, vaccines and lockdowns of Covid to the bunkers, iodine pills and air raid sirens of nuclear war.

From Italy to Sweden, Belgium to Britain, the specter of nuclear war, which had seemed a relic of the past, is permeating a new generation of European consciousness. And it is prompting a new look at defense infrastructure, survival guides and fallout shelters that not long ago were the purview of camouflage-wearing, assault-weapon-toting survivalists or paranoid billionaires.

“We are extremely concerned by the nuclear safety, security and safeguards risks caused by the Russian invasion on Ukraine,” the European Union said in a statement on Wednesday.

“Since the fall of the Soviet Union, we’ve all forgotten about it and put it to bed, until, you know, the madman invaded,” said Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, the former commander of the United Kingdom’s and NATO’s Chemical, Biological and Nuclear Defense Forces, and now a visiting fellow at Magdalene College, Cambridge...

 

Central Bank Digital Currency

Whoever this guy is, N.S. Lyons, he's bloody amazing.

Here, "Just Say No to CBDCs":

You awake to find that today is special: it’s Stimmie Day! When you roll over and check your phone, you see a notification from your FedWallet app letting you know that another $2,000 in FedCoins has just been added directly to your account by the U.S. Federal Reserve.

To be honest, part of you would love to save that money for the long term, given that things have been getting rather uncertain and actually kind of crazy lately, what with the war and the economy and all… But you can’t, since these FedCoins are coded as usable for consumer purchases only, and will expire and vanish in seven days. So you’d better spend em while you’ve got em!

The latest PlayBox it is then. Everyone says Elden Ring 3 is the hottest VR game on the Metaverse right now, and you’ve really wanted to join in. Since you’re stubbornly old fashioned, you decide to check it out at BezosMart on the way home from work today before you get it delivered by drone to your tiny apartment.

But first you begin your day as you always do, with a quick stop at the local Starbrats’ automated, no-contact drive-through latte dispensary. Opening your FedWallet app and vaguely waving your smartphone at the machine is enough to complete the transaction. $14 in FedCoins are instantly deleted from your digital account at the Fed and recreated in Starbrats’ corporate account, well before the sweet, coffee-flavored milk beverage is deposited into your eager, grasping hands.

Your morning starts to go downhill quickly, however, when you realize that your SUV is almost out of gas. You pull the old clunker, with its antiquated combustion engine, into the nearest open station you can find – it looks pretty run-down – and roll up to the pump. A dull-eyed teenager in a facemask inserts a nozzle into your vehicle and waits for you to pre-pay. You wave your phone at the pump. Nothing happens. You try again. Your phone buzzes, and you look at it. There’s a message from the Fed: “You have already spent more than the $400 maximum weekly limit on fossil fuels specified in the FedWallet User Agreement. Your remaining account balance cannot be used to purchase non-renewable energy resources. Please make an alternative purchase. Have you considered a clean, affordable New Energy Vehicle? Thank you for doing your part to build a more just and sustainable world!”

You have in fact considered purchasing a clean, affordable New Energy Vehicle. But they still aren’t very affordable for you, what with the supply chain shortages. Despite the instant credit the Fed would add to your balance when buying an electric car – plus the permanent ten percent general subsidy you automatically receive on every purchase as a BIPOC individual thanks to the Fed’s Reparations Alternatives for Comprehensive Equity (RACE) program – the down payment on a new car would still be more than you can afford, even with your new stimmie coins.

Well, you’re not going to be able to make it to work at the warehouse on what you have in the tank. How could you be so foolish? You’re going to have no choice but to park here and blow a bunch of money on hailing one of those sleek, incredibly expensive self-driving electric cabs to take you there instead. But, as you’re about to tap the screen to do so, you notice there’s a classic fast-food joint next door. Might as well head there first to unload a little stimmie money. Nothing makes you feel better like a greasy breakfast sandwich.

Entering the establishment and sidling up to the old touchscreen kiosk, you order a McKraken with extra bacon. But when you wave your phone to pay, an error message pops up again. “You have exceeded your weekly purchase limit for complex animal protein, as stipulated in the FedWallet User Agreement. Have you considered purchasing a delicious vegan or mealworm alternative? Thank you for doing your part to build a more just and sustainable world!”

This is a sandwich too far for you during an especially hard week. “Ugh FedWallet is so fucking lame!” you post on Twatter as you idle hungrily in front of the kiosk. “Your message has been flagged for review,” says an immediate notification. “As a reminder, using ableist hate speech may impact your ESG score and future financing opportunities. Thank you for doing your part to build a more just and inclusive world!” “Omg this is absurd, life was so much better before FedCoin, when we still had cash!” you post again to Twatter, unable to control yourself. “Your account has been locked pending national security review,” says a notification from FedWallet. “As a reminder, the proliferation of false or misleading narratives which sow discord or undermine public trust in government institutions is classified as a potential domestic terrorism offence by the Department of Homeland Security. We value your feedback.”

You jerk awake, fumbling at your phone with trembling, sweaty fingers. Oh thank God, it was all just a terrible dream! You just dozed off while reading Rod Dreher’s blog. You can still eat all the steak and bacon you want. There’s nothing to worry about…

But no, you’re actually reading Politico, and see with horror that President Biden has just released a “sweeping” executive order directing the government to immediately begin moving to comprehensively regulate cryptocurrencies while developing a digital dollar issued by the Federal Reserve. “My Administration places the highest urgency on research and development efforts into the potential design and deployment options of a United States CBDC,” he declares, in a line probably narrated in a creepy whisper.

You are wracked by foreboding amid the sudden cawing of ravens.

At least you should be, because everything about central bank digital currency (CBDC) is the stuff of totalitarian nightmare...

Still more at the link.

 

Russia Asked China for Military Assistance in Ukraine

Thus making Putin's regime look all the weaker. 

And China's supposedly guarded in its newfound partnership. 

At the Financial Times, "US officials say Russia has asked China for military help in Ukraine":

Russia has asked China for military equipment to support its invasion of Ukraine, ​according to US officials, sparking concern in the White House that Beijing may undermine western efforts to help Ukrainian forces defend their country.

US officials told the Financial Times that Russia had requested military equipment and other assistance since the start of the invasion. They declined to give details about what Russia had requested.

Another person familiar with the situation said the US was preparing to warn its allies, amid some indications that China may be preparing to help Russia. Other US officials have said there were signs that Russia was running out of some kinds of weaponry as the war in Ukraine extends into its third week.

The White House did not comment. The Chinese embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for a comment.

The revelation comes as Jake Sullivan, US national security adviser, heads to Rome for talks on Monday with Yang Jiechi, China’s top foreign policy official.

Before leaving Washington on Sunday, Sullivan warned China not to try to “bail out” Russia by helping Moscow to circumvent the sanctions that the US and its allies have imposed on President Vladimir Putin and his regime...

The apparent request for equipment and other kinds of unspecified military assistance comes as the Russian military struggles to make as much progress in Ukraine as western intelligence believe they expected.

It also raises fresh questions about the China-Russia relationship, which has grown increasingly strong as both countries express their opposition to the US over everything from Nato to sanctions.

China has portrayed itself as a neutral actor in the Ukraine crisis and has refused to condemn Russia for invading the country. The US has also seen no sign that Chinese president Xi Jinping is willing to put any pressure on Putin...

 

Brent Renaud, Renowned Filmmaker and Journalist, 'Gunned Down' by Russian Forces in Ukraine

The Washington Examiner links Nick Stylianou, who reports, "Head of the Kyiv Police Department says that Russian troops opened fire on a car with foreign journalists in and shot dead 51-year-old New York Times videojournalist Brent Renaud in Irpin. One of his colleagues is injured and is in hospital."

The Times' story is here, "Brent Renaud, an American Journalist, Is Killed in Ukraine." The report indicates, "The Ukrainian authorities said he was killed in Irpin, a suburb that has been the site of intense shelling by Russian forces in recent days, but the details of his death were not immediately clear." 

You'd think the Times might have mentioned that Renaud's auto came under fire by Russian troops. Folks on Twitter are peeved by this section of the story:

Mr. Renaud had contributed to The Times in previous years, most recently in 2015, but he was not on assignment for the company in Ukraine. Early reports that he was working for The Times in Ukraine circulated because he was found with a Times press badge that had been issued for an assignment years ago...

Renaud was on assignment for Time. The magazine's statement is here, "A Statement from TIME on the Death of Journalist Brent Renaud," via Memeorandum.

Origins of the Nuclear Taboo

I heavily discount Russian threats to deploy nuclear weapons against the U.S. and its allies should the latter intervene militarily in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. That's not to say Vladimir Putin is dishonest or insincere in his threats (just bluffing). His rocket-test saber-rattling rightfully sows fear in countries involved in the conflict.

It's more I don't believe nuclear weapons are usable in the current day and age. Nuclear deterrence doctrines are so well-developed it'd be national suicide for a state to launch a first strike against the U.S. (and other nuclear armed states with concomitant deterrence capabilities.) But there's more: Since 1945 it's been, how do you say?, politically incorrect to use nukes. The international moral prohibitions and political consequences of first use of are overwhelming.

An entire "peace movement" developed during the Cold War to stigmatize and delegitimize states possessing nuclear weapons --- and protest activism worked as a powerfully constraint on the deployment of strategic capabilities. Popular culture, and especially the 1983 film, "The Day After," bombarded, if you will, the U.S. population with completely real and terrifying images of nuclear holocaust. The endless debates on nuclear war among state leaders, diplomats, and the military sector, severely complicated political decision-making. 

During the 1950s, when France fought an anti-colonial war in Vietnam, the notion of deploying the bomb horrified President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who exclaimed, "You boys must be crazy. We can’t use those awful things against the Asians for the second time in ten years. My God." Nuclear use is, basically, "racist." Atomic bombs were dropped on Japan --- not Germany --- to bring about the end of World War II. While it was the necessities of wartime planning and strategy that dictated the U.S. decision on when and where to drop the bomb, wartime diplomacy and U.S. peace efforts failed to induce Japan to surrender in 1945. At the time, fear of "Japs" and the "Yellow Peril" conditioned public acceptance of dropping the bomb on the Japanese people. The emperor gave us no choice. 

Over time there developed a powerful normative prohibition on the use of nukes, known as the "nuclear taboo." This concept is tested by ideational and normative theories of international politics. See, Nina Tennenwald, "Stigmatizing the Bomb: Origins of the Nuclear Taboo":

In 1958 Lt. Gen. James Gavin, a principal promoter in the U.S. military of the development of tactical nuclear weapons, wrote, “Nuclear weapons will become conventional for several reasons, among them cost, effectiveness against enemy weapons, and ease of handling.” Indeed, during the 1950s numerous U.S. leaders fully expected that a nuclear weapon would become “just another weapon.” Secretary of State John Foster Dulles accepted “the ultimate inevitability” that tactical nuclear weapons would gain “conventional” status. Adm. Arthur Radford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President Dwight Eisenhower, predicted in 1956 that the use of nuclear weapons “would become accepted throughout the world just as soon as people could lay their hands upon them.”

These leaders were articulating a view with a long tradition in the history of weapons and warfare: a weapon once introduced inevitably comes to be widely accepted as legitimate. In reality, however, nuclear weapons have come to be defined as abhorrent and unacceptable weapons of mass destruction, with a taboo on their use. This taboo is associated with a widespread revulsion toward nuclear weapons and broadly held inhibitions on their use. The opprobrium has come to apply to all nuclear weapons, not just to large bombs or to certain types or uses of nuclear weapons. It has developed to the point that uses of nuclear weapons that were once considered plausible by at least some U.S. decision makers—for example, tactical battlefield uses in limited wars and direct threats to deter enemies from conventional attack—have been severely delegitimized and are practically unthinkable policy options. Thomas Schelling has argued that “the evolution of that status [nuclear taboo] has been as important as the development of nuclear arsenals.” Evidence suggests that the taboo has helped to constrain resort to the use of nuclear weapons since 1945 both by reinforcing deterrence and by inducing restraint even in cases where deterrence did not operate.

What gave rise to this taboo? Schelling attributes the taboo to a general sense of revulsion associated with such destructive weapons and the perception that nuclear weapons have come to be viewed as different.6 He does not, however, trace the evolution of this process. Historian John Lewis Gaddis has argued that moral considerations help to explain the nonuse of nuclear weapons by the United States in the first ten years of the Cold War, but he does not specifically connect this sentiment to the development of a taboo.

Within the field of international relations, there has been little systematic analysis of the nuclear taboo. Traditional realists, of course, would be skeptical of the existence of a taboo, tending to see it as largely indistinguishable from prudential behavior. To the extent that a tradition of nonuse existed, it would reflect the interests of the most powerful (nuclear) states. Rationalist approaches, which are often sympathetic to norms, could easily incorporate the existence of a taboo. They would emphasize the uniquely destructive nature of nuclear weapons, the impossibility of defense, and therefore the (obvious) of having a social convention on their use.

As I show in this article, although there is some truth to these explanations, they are inadequate. The nuclear taboo was pursued in part against the preferences of the United States, which, for the first part of the nuclear era, opposed creation of a taboo because it would deny the self-proclaimed right of the United States to rely on nuclear weapons for its security. I argue for a broader explanation that emphasizes the role of a global antinuclear weapons movement and nonnuclear states, as well as Cold War power politics, in the development of the taboo.

The model of norm creation here highlights the role of antinuclear discourse and politics in the creation of the taboo. Although rationalist variables are important, the taboo cannot be explained simply as the straightforward result of rational adaptation to strategic circumstances. The larger questions are: where do global norms come from? How and why do they develop? And how are they maintained, disseminated, and strengthened? The case of the nuclear taboo is important theoretically because it challenges conventional views that international norms, especially in the security area, are created mainly by and for the powerful. The case is important practically because it illuminates an important source of restraint on the use of nuclear weapons.

In this article I locate the origins of the nuclear taboo after 1945 in a set of domestic and international factors and trace its subsequent development. Elsewhere I have analyzed how the taboo has influenced U.S. decision making in specific instances, but here I focus on what accounts for the rise of the taboo and how it developed in global politics and U.S. policy. Ideally, a full account require an examination of how the taboo came to be accepted and internalized in the decision making of other countries as well. The central role of the United States in the development of the taboo, however, makes it a particularly significant case...

Keep reading.

Rebekah Koffler, Putin's Playbook

At Amazon, Rebekah Koffler, Putin's Playbook: Russia's Secret Plan to Defeat America.