軍備管理と核抑止の相剋-岐路に立つ西側の安全保障-

転換期の核抑止と軍備管理

抄録

The INF elimination Treaty signed by Reagan and Gorbachev on December 8, 1987 is a clear success in securing Soviet agreement to the NATO's arms control goals, such as the global zero of ‘deep cut’ and the intrusive verification measure of ‘on-site inspection, ’ which the SALT Treaties markedly failed to achieve in the 1970's. However, this Treaty has generated a good deal of confusion and unease in the West. The imbalance of conventional forces in Europe, which favors the Soviet Union, could become more dangerous if the West's nuclear deterrent is weakened. Radical nuclear arms reductions could be harmful to Western security.
This article aims to clarify the central thesis of whether arms control can be compatible with nuclear deterrence and Western security. It is a thesis that even the most thoughtful arms control theorists have so far failed to analyze in the postwar period.
First, any degree of denuclearization of Europe not tied to a redress of the Soviet conventional/chemical superiority will not make Europe safe for conventional/chemical warfare. At the same time, to implement the INF Treaty is to lose the only means of making a “Eurostrategic nuclear war (theater limited nuclear war in Europe), ” which could leave the USSR open to attack, but would give sanctuary to the USA, and which might dissuade most effectively the Soviet Union's decision of waging war upon NATO.
Second, the INF Treaty serves to decouple the U. S. strategic deterrent from Europe's defense, and creates phychologically an atmosphere among the American people to support the withdrawal of the American troops from Europe. Third, it would become the first step on the ‘slippery slope’ to the denuclearization of Europe, which will lead to neutralization of Europe. This is one of the ultimate goals pursued by the Soviets. Movement towards denuclearization also undermines the important principle of sharing the nuclear burden and risks within Alliance.
It is not unreasonable to conclude that the theoretical deficiency of arms control concepts, combined with related and false militico-strategic concepts, necessarily contradicts the end of national security and contributes to a worsening of the existing security situation. There are several reasons and causes.
The marked false strategic doctrine formulates a nuclear deterrence rationale to prevent an all-out or accidental nuclear war with the Soviet Union, divorcing from its original and right objectives to deter the Soviets from starting to invade with any type of weapons. Another deficiency is derived from the official U. S. persistence in believing in the erroneous theory of ‘nuclear equilibrium at a lower level, ’ which decreases proportionally the gross amount of destruction by the projected nuclear weapons and therefore the credibility of nuclear deterrence. The U. S. has not awakened to the danger caused by a radical cut of their own ‘nuclear deterrent’ in pursuit of a weakening of the Soviet ‘nuclear counter-deterrent’.
Especially, the U. S. does not recognize the geographical advantage of the central location in the Eurasian Continent which offers the Soviet state absolute safety and permits a multiplicity of applied pressures around the periphery. That is to say, the only retaliatory way to resist the unchangeable desire of the heartland power for the achievement of hegemony is to sustain a robust and superior nuclear capability, because only nuclear weapons can definitely give decisively destructive damages to the central or valuable part of the Soviet mainland.