Nuclear Deterrence And Moral Restraint: Critical Choices For American Strategy

Nuclear deterrence and moral restraint This unusual collection of essays brings together the work of prominent philosophers, political scientists, policy analysts, and defense consultants. It moves beyond the stalemated debate between mutual assured destruction (MAD) and nuclear utilization target selection (NUTS) to propose ethical and strategic assessments of the fundamental underlying tendencies as well as the current options for deterrence. These tightly integrated essays vigorously debate the moral and the military aspects of current U.S. policies and of leading alternatives recently added to the agenda of policy options, ranging from forms of strategic defenses less ambitious than SDI, to competing varieties of finite deterrence, to conventional deterrence for Europe. Contributors: C. A. J. Coady, Harold A. Feiveson, Robert E. Foelber, Steven Lee, David Lewis, George H. Quester, Henry Shue, Leon Sloss, Lutz UnterSeher. Nuclear deterrence and moral restraint Critical choices for American strategy Edited by HENRY SHUE The right of the University of Cambridge to print and sell all manner of books was granted by Henry VIII in 1534. The University has printed and published continuously since 1584. CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS CAMBRIDGE NEW YORK PORT CHESTER MELBOURNE SYDNEY CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sao Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521380638 © Cambridge University Press 1989 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 1989 A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data Nuclear deterrence and moral restraint : critical choices for American strategy / edited by Henry Shue. p. cm. ISBN 0-521-38063-4. - ISBN 0-521-38967-4 (pbk.) 1. Nuclear arms control - United States - Moral and ethical aspects. 2. Nuclear arms control — Soviet Union — Moral and ethical aspects. 3. Deterrence (Strategy) — Moral and ethical aspects. I. Shue, Henry. JX1974.7.N8133 1989 172'.422-dc20 89-32209 ISBN 978-0-521-38063-8 hardback ISBN 978-0-521-38967-9 paperback Transferred to digital printing 2008 Contents Preface Notes on contributors Introduction Henry Shue 1 Having it both ways: the gradual wrong turn in American strategy Henry Shue 2 Finite counterforce David Lewis page vii x 1 13 51 3 Deterrence and the moral use of nuclear weapons Robert E. Foelber 115 4 Escaping from the bomb: immoral deterrence and the problem of extrication C. A. J. Coady 163 5 The necessary moral hypocrisy of the slide into mutual assured destruction George H. Quester 6 Finite deterrence Harold A. Feiveson 227 271 Contents 7 Defending Europe: toward a stable conventional det