Nuclear deterrence, the foundation of peace since the end of the Second World War, has now entered into a period of transition. As US-Soviet strategic nuclear forces reached “essential equivalence, ” the strategy of Assured Destruction began to be questioned. Doubts about the efficacy of this strategy produced the concept of a limited nuclear war strategy, as can be seen in the search for flexible options and the advocacy of “discriminate deterrence, ” and of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), which emphasizes strategic defense. The US and the Soviet Union both continue their arms race, both in terms of quantity and quality. Yet, in December 1988, the two superpowers signed the treaty to abolish Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF). Furthermore, the US and the Soviet Union continue to negotiate to reduce their strategic forces by half. Both countries have place a brake on increasing their nuclear forces, and it is possible that they will be able to go a step further and reduce these arsenals. Arms control policy has also entered a period of transition.
Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) was seen as a rational strategy in the 1960s. However, since the early 1970s, those responsible for US security policy began to entertain doubts regarding MAD. Moreover, the increase in Soviet military activism in the Third World only increased American suspicion. In 1974, the US Secretary for Defense, James Schlesinger, began to revise the MAD strategy, and since then, both the Carter and Reagan Administrations have subscribed to a “countervailing strategy, ” and have undertaken the modernization of American strategic nuclear forces.
The Soviet Union, even after it achieved parity with the US, continued to increase its nuclear forces. However, based on General-Secretary Gorbachev's “reasonable sufficiency” concept, the Soviet are moving away from an “offense-oriented” strategy and toward a “defense-oriented” strategy. It would appear also that the Soviets are moving away from their strategy of fighting and winning a nuclear war.
If the strategy of Mutual Assured Destruction can no longer be relied upon, what type of strategy will break the stalemate of nuclear deterrence? President Reagan has proposed the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). However, many people have expressed their doubts about the technology, the cost, and the military strategy of SDI. Furthermore, confusion on Western strategy exists within the alliance. The Treaty to abolish INF has both surprised and confused the countries of NATO, which have relied on nuclear deterrence throughout the postwar period. Arguments exist in Europe for the modernization of nuclear forces as well as for the denuclearization of Europe, and the debate is very confused.
Arguments about the future of nuclear strategy can be divided into three views. First, there is the view that a strategy based on MAD will be unavoidable in this century, and therefore we should return to MAD. The second view argues that MAD, based upon the murder of masses of people, is immoral, and therefore we should pursue and promote the SDI. And, a third view sees deterrence based on nuclear weapons as dangerous, and advocates a departure from nuclear deterrence. It is unclear which direction the US and the Soviet Union will choose in addressing strategic issues.
What we need is deterrence against war. In the foreseeable future, it is unlikely that we will find an effective method of maintaining the peace other than nuclear deterrence. But, we need stable deterrence. The Western countries need to find a balance between an effective strategy and arms control. It is irresponsible to simply reduce nuclear forces without paying attention to strategic concerns. However, excessively increasing nuclear forces only provoke the other side, and it is destabilizing. What we need to do now is to construct a new conception of deterrence stability.

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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.

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The question why the Soviet Union radically changed its foreign policy course which led to the end of the Cold War has been the subject of controversy in various academic journals on international relations. Realists argue that the economic downturn brought Gorbachev and other conservative leaders including the military to rethink its antagonistic policy toward the United States seeking for some respite. Constructivists, on the other hand, argue that the radical change in foreign policy was caused by the new idea and identification which Gorbachev had acquired through learning of the Common Security concept from Western peace researches. While these debates have shed light on how the end of Cold War began, they have been indifferent to how the U.S.-Soviet Cold War really ended. This paper focused on this missing point of these controversies.

From the perspective of Russian regional studies, the Gorbachev initiative including bold unilateral concessions were extremely rare in the history of a country with deep concerns on its national security like the Soviet Union. Those unilateral concessions were their tactics to make the Western nations believe in the Soviet sincerity to overcome mutual distrust and make Europe more safer place for their conducting economic reform. Even Gorbachev noticed mutual distrust between the Soviet Union and the West would not disappear overnight. Therefore what the Gorbachev’s team really aimed at was the lower -leveled parity of strategic forces between the West and the East. Since this simple fact was forgotten in the euphoria of Russian renouncement of communism and the alleged U.S. victory over the Soviet Union, the ‘ending’ of the end of the Cold War became quite ambiguous. START II was hastily signed in January 1993 by Boris El’tsin and George H. W. Bush. This treaty was to sum up a series of arms control negotiations which was to create the strategic stability between the two sides, but in reality it was much disadvantageous to weakened and confused Russia and only left a sense of unfairness to Russians.

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The nuclear umbrella of the United States has provided to Japan 1) deterrence against nuclear attack and 2) deterrence against non-nuclear attack by the Soviet Union since 1945. The question now arises whether the umbrella is still as effective against non-nuclear attack as in the past, mainly because the Soviets have achieved parity with the U. S. in strategic nuclear forces.
The system of nuclear umbrella includes 1) the U. S. nuclear forces, 2) conventional forces of the allies (protege of the U. S. nuclear umbrella) and 3) the reliable interdependance between the U. S. and the allies.
The nuclear umbrella of the U. S. has been extended to Western Europe and the Far East, including Japan, South Korea and the Philippines since the U. S. forces have been stationed in these three countries.
Observing the post-INF era after 1991, the situation of Far East is basically different from that of Western Europe as far as the credibility of nuclear umbrella is concerned. That is mainly because there has been no INF deployed on the ground of the Far East countries. We have no urgent task in the Far East countries like in NATO which now faces in compensating the abolishing INF system with modernization of battle ground nuclear weapons.
What we face in the Far East countries are 1) to cope with the constant build-up of the Soviet forces in Asia-Pacific Ocean area in both theatre nuclear forces and conventional forces and 2) to cope with the Soviet proposal to inspect all SLCMs (not only nuclear SLCMs but also conventional SLCMs) in the current U. S. -Soviet disarmament negotiation, which affects the U. S. nuclear policy (“Not Affirm, Not Deny” of the nuclear presence) and the non-nuclear policy of Japan and other Asian countries—a problem of the reliable interdependance.
To discuss the U. S. nuclear umbrella and Japan's role to keep deterrence effective in the future, we can use two scenarios.
One is a near-future scenario, in which we see an appropriate mix of nuclear forces and non-nuclear forces like in NATO to keep nuclear umbrella effective as a deterrence. What is neccessary in this scenario are:
a. Keeping the U. S. nuclear umbrella effective—mainly to deter the Soviet nuclear attack,
b. Ensuring and strengthening of the Japan's conventional forces—mainly to deter the Soviet conventional attack,
c. Strengthening Japan's defense sharing-1, 000 miles sea lane defense and air defense on the ocean,
d. Keeping the U. S. forces stationed in Japan safely,
e. Increasing Japan's ODA to the strategic countries, and
f. Reviewing Japan's Three Non-nuclear principles where neccessary—to accept the U. S. ships and aircrafts with nuclear weapons entering Japanese water and airport and to allow prior consultation on the deployment of the U. S. nuclear weapons in case of neccessity with the U. S.
The other scenario is for the 21st Century, in which we see more emphasis on high technology conventional weapons than nuclear weapons as a deterrence. In the 21st Century, we will see the still constant “relative decline” of the U. S. power and the still remarkable uprise of Japan's economic power. What is neccessary in this scenario are:
a. Still keeping the U. S. nuclear umbrella effective, but the role is relatively dimishing,
b. Enlarging dramatically Japan's role as mentioned above in b., c. d. and e.,
c. Seeing the motives of Japan's three non-nuclear principles diminishing as the role of nuclear weapons is diminishing, but we must allow consultation on such subject as the introduction of the long-range conventional high technology weapons on Japanese territory, where neccessary, and
d. Growing neccessity of development and deployment of the conventional high technology weapons as a deterrence.

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