THE INESCAPABLE IRRATIONALITY OF MAD
In the late 1970s through the mid-1980s, some philosophers and strategists tried to counter the argumentative ground and policy stature gained by NUTS.93 However, strategists had widely come to accept game theory as a statement of orthodox instrumental rationality, and the puzzle of nuclear deterrence as isomorphic to the Prisoner’s Dilemma.94 Even moral philosophers were not able to successfully defend MAD despite its steadfast commitment to avoiding nuclear war because the moral agent necessarily views the pointless killing of noncombatants that would occur after deterrence fails to be unconscionable.
The Prisoner’s Dilemma model of nuclear security, which refused resolution by MAD, was only logically solvable by NUTS.95President Carter was especially susceptible and accountable to moral reasoning, a manifest fact amplified by his solo disapproval of the neutron bomb.96 In 1978, Gregory Kavka, one of the first moral philosophers to become captivated by game theory, argued that deterrence in various forms of punitive retaliation, including massive nuclear retaliation, must be inherently immoral because it depends on taking an action that is evil, the wanton destruction of innocent people.97 Kavka poses three questions. First, given the immorality of the contemplated retaliatory act, can it be reasonable to act on such an intention at the moment when deterrence has failed and all that remains is gross carnage?
like-minded strategists fully viewed PD 59 to be consistent with the gradual and persistent movement to NUTS from MAD mainly overseen by Schlesinger; for contemporary acknowledgment of this point, see “Information Memorandum for United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations,” Memorandum from the Committee of Foreign Relations Meeting, September 9, 1980, p. i of 8, memorandum attached to memo from Jasper Welch to Brzezinski, Sept.
11, 1980, “5/80-1/81,” Box 35, Brzezinski Collection, JCPL. To see how procurement could be divorced from employment, see David Lewis, “Buy Like a MADman, Use Like a NUT,” in his Papers in Ethics and Social Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 219-228.93 Jervis, “Realism, Game Theory, and Cooperation,” 1988; Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution, 1989; see also Paul M. Kattenburg, “MAD (Minimum Assured Deterrence) Is Still the Moral Position,” in Charles W. Kegley Jr., and Kenneth L. Schwab, eds., After the Cold War: Questioning the Morality of Nuclear Deterrence (Westview Press, 1991), 111-120.
94 See, e.g., David Gauthier,Morals by Agreement (New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 1986),and especially his earlier “Deterrence, Maximization, and Rationality,” Ethics (1984), 94:3, 474495; on the relationship between the puzzle of nuclear deterrence and the Prisoner’s Dilemma, see, e.g., Jervis, The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution, 1989, 129-133; and Gregory Kavka, Moral Paradoxes of Nuclear Deterrence, 1987, especially 46-47.
95 This historical record is clear that the moral scrutiny MAD received from philosophers who also used game theory, most prominently Gregory Kavka, first pointed out the immorality of even forming the intention to retaliate through a massive counter strike, see his “Some Paradoxes of Deterrence,” Journal of Moral Philosophy (1978) 75:6, 285-302.
96 James R. Schlesinger makes clear both Carter’s uncompromising moral character, which took a Kantian position on promises made, and his discomfort with nuclear weapons in “Interview with Dr. James R. Schlesinger,” 1984, 60-61, 72.
97 Kavka, “Some Paradoxes of Deterrence,” 1978, 288, see also 286; one of the earliest expositions on game theory through the lens of moral theory is R. B. Braithwaite, Theory of Games as a Tool for the Moral Philosopher (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1955).
Second, if it is clear that following through on such an intention must be immoral at the time of its enactment, then is it not the case that the mere formation of the deterrent intent of massive punitive harm is itself immoral? Third, in recognition of the patent immorality of both following through on the act and even the mere formation of the intention to implement the action, must it not be impossible for a moral agent to form such a deterrent intention?
According to this reasoning, deterrence via the threat of assured destruction is immoral.
At the behest of President Carter, this deterrent threat must then be contrary to moral judgment, and as it contravenes Carter’s bona fide moral preferences, it must be irrational. Enacting MAD once deterrence had failed would be patently immoral and contradicted the commander in chief’s humane values. Hence, acting on this threat both failed to further US interests and entailed irreverence for human life and must therefore be irrational, and hence incredible. An incredible deterrent threat is less than worthless.Schlesinger offered NUTS, or deterrence via strategic dominance, as the ideal antidote to this worrisome forfeit of national security. Despite its mismatch with strategic realities underlying superpower parity, NUTS demonstrated the willingness and ability to wage not only nuclear war but conflict at any level through the introduction of limited nuclear options (LNOs) that blurred the distinction between conventional and nuclear weapons. It circumvented the immorality of MAD by threatening escalation control for any military engagement, proposing all forms of military action as means to prevail, rather than as the final desperate act of a defeated nation. The demonstrated intention was thus considered to be crucial, even more important than the actual feasibility in maintaining effective deterrence or winning a nuclear war.
The tall order of escalation control, however, faces two challenges. First, not only are there no guarantees of capping nuclear confrontation, but “the amount of damage from a ‘small’ nuclear war might be so great that the damage caused by a small nuclear war might approach tha[t] expected in a full scale nuclear war.”[311] Second, the pursuit of supremacy itself has destabilizing implications ensuring a Prisoner’s Dilemma arms race at best and all-out war at worst. This point was raised at the Special Coordination Committee Meeting addressing a Memorandum for the President on the 1979 report “Nuclear Targeting Policy Review.” With respect to the pursuit of strategic dominance, David Aaron noted that “stability at one level can be the enemy of deterrence at another level.” He explained, “For example, overall strategic superiority may create a very stable situation with respect to deterring Soviet military initiatives, but be very destabilizing in the degree to which it encourage[s] Soviet efforts to improve and expand their forces.”[312] Countervailing strategists viewed that worst-case scenarios entailed enemy aggression and not accidental or erroneous misapplication of nuclear devices, proliferation, or the sheer destabilizing impact of mimicking a military posture consistent with preemptive attack.[313]
Carter’s dilemma was distinct from that of the counterforce supporters who came to predominate in his administration.
Whereas they were content to offer war for war and war (or strategic dominance) for peace, Carter sought to maintain the stance of war for war and peace for peace, as was consistent with classical liberal bilateral assurance of cooperation, and mutual deterrence against pathological hostility. During his early days in office, Carter said that “a single Poseidon boat was enough retaliatory power, that it really can by itself destroy the Soviet Union, and we really don’t need any more.”[314] Thus, while those promoting the Schlesinger Doctrine accepted the Prisoner’s Dilemma model of nuclear security and arms race, Carter’s position reflected Schelling’s original question: how does a classical liberal or prospective cooperator deter a predator?[315] Here is Carter’s riddle as assessed by Kavka:Let us call situations of the sort that nation N perceives itself as being in, Special Deterrent Situations (SDSs). More precisely, an agent is in an SDS when he reasonably and correctly believes that the following conditions hold. First, it is likely he must intend (conditionally) to apply a harmful sanction to innocent people, if an extremely harmful and unjust offense is to be prevented. Second, such an intention would very likely deter the offense. Third, the amounts of harm involved in the offense and the threatened sanction are very large and of roughly similar quantity (or the latter amount is smaller than the former). Finally, he would have conclusive moral reasons not to apply the sanction if the offense were to occur.[316]
Carter initially sought to maintain the openness of offering cooperation in exchange for cooperation and demonstrating the unequivocal greatness of Western institutions of market freedom and democratic self-governance. The challenge before him was to deter a predator without becoming one and to maintain the attitude of seeking mutual assurance of cooperation while still having the wherewithal to deter invasion.
Writing in 1978, Kavka had little wisdom for Carter because he finds that “in an SDS, a rational and morally good agent cannot (as a matter of logic) have (or form) the intention to apply the sanction if the offense [military attack] is committed.”[317] According to Kavka, the only way around this conclusion is to tie one’s decision making to a mechanical device, adopt a corrupted character, or defer to those actors whose character is morally ambiguous. Neither of the first two was possible for Carter. Therefore, NUTS advocates embodied the third possibility, and they conceded the PD preference ranking for unilateral defection.[318] Schlesinger clearly insisted that the United States should maintain dominance among competitors and hegemony over allies.
The victory of NUTS over MAD is logically unassailable if one accepts the Prisoner’s Dilemma representation of mutual security and the comprehensive reach of strategic rationality. As a result, President Carter exchanged the opportunity to emphasize the mutual assurance of amicable coexistence in favor of the United States demonstrating the predilection and capacity for unilateral defection in striving for ascendance. This posture seemed to solve the nuclear Prisoner’s Dilemma game, if the main worry were issuing a credible deterrent threat and having a plan to engage in violence for every conceivable Soviet action. However, if one’s main anxiety were to reduce chances for potential conflict as a shared responsibility or if one worried that the capability to dominate, even if not exercised, still maintains the potential to exercise asymmetric advantage, NUTS is unsatisfactory because it risks inviting the adversary to preemptive engagement and flirts with multiplying the dangers of accident and proliferation, not to mention that it stockpiles more weapons than could reasonably fulfill a meaningful destructive purpose.[319]