This article is abridged from Speak Out Against the New Right edited by Herbert F. Vetter (Boston: Beacon Press, 1982)

Adequate words are lacking to express the full seriousness of our present situation. It is not just that our government and the Soviet government are for the moment on a collision course politically; it is the fact that the ultimate sanction behind the policies of both these governments is a type and volume of weaponry that could not possibly be used without utter disaster for everyone concerned.

For over thirty years wise and far-seeing people have been warning us about the futility of any war fought with these weapons and about the dangers involved in their very cultivation. Some of the first of these voices were those of great scientists, including outstandingly Albert Einstein himself. But there has been no lack of others. Every president of this country, from Dwight Eisenhower to Jimmy Carter, has tried to remind us that there could be no such thing as victory in a war fought with such weapons. So have a great many other eminent persons.

How have we got ourselves into this dangerous mess?

The answer, I think, is clear. It is primarily the inner momentum, the independent momentum, of the weapons race itself—the compulsions that arise and take charge of great powers when they enter upon a competition with each other in the building up of major armaments of any sort.

This is nothing new. I am a diplomatic historian. I see this same phenomenon playing its fateful part in the relations among the great European powers as much as a century ago. I see this competitive build-up of armaments conceived initially as a means to an end, soon becoming the end in itself. I see it taking possession of men's imagination and behavior, becoming a force in its own right, detaching itself from the political differences that initially inspired it, and then leading both parties, in variably and inexorably, to the war they no longer know how to avoid.

Is it possible to break out of this charmed and vicious circle? It is sobering to recognize that no country, at least to my knowledge, has yet done so. But no country, for that matter, has ever been faced with such great catastrophe, such plain and inalterable catastrophe, at the end of the line. Others in earlier decades, could beffudle themselves with dreams of something called “victory.” We, perhaps fortunately, are denied this seductive prospect. We have to break out of the circle. We have no other choice.

Whoever does not understand that when it comes to nuclear weapons the whole concept of relative advantage is illusory—whoever does not understand that when you are talking about preposterous quantities of overkill the relative sizes of arsenals have no serious meaning—whoever does not understand that the danger lies not in the possibility that someone else might have more missiles and warheads than you do, but in the very existence of these unconscionable quantities of highly poisonous explosives, and their existence, above all, in hands as weak and shaky and undependable as those of ourselves or our adversaries or any other mere human beings; whoever does not understand these things is never going to guide us out of this increasingly dark and menacing forest of bewilderments into which we have all wandered.

I can see no way out of this dilemma other than by a bold and sweeping departure—a departure that would cut surgically through all the exaggerated anxieties, the self-engendered nightmares, and the sophisticated mathematics of destruction in which we have all been entangled over these recent years, and would permit us to move smartly, with courage and decision, to the heart of the problem.

President Reagan recently said, and I think very wisely, that he would "negotiate as long as necessary to reduce the numbers of nuclear weapons to a point where neither side threatens the survival of the other." Now that is, of course, precisely the thought to which these present observations of mine are addressed."

What I have suggested is, of course, only a beginning. But a beginning has to be made somewhere; and if it has to be made, is it not best that it should be made where the dangers are the greatest, and their necessity the least? If a step of this nature could be successfully taken, people might find heart to tackle with greater confidence and determination the many problems that would still remain.

It will also be argued that there would be risks involved. I do not see them. I do not deny the possibility. But if there are, so what? Is it possible to conceive of any dangers greater than those that lie at the end of the collision course on which we are now embarked? And if not, why choose the greater—why choose, in fact, the greatest—of all risks, in the hopes of avoiding the lesser ones?

We are confronted here with two courses. At the end of the one lies hope—faint hope, if you will—uncertain hope, hope surrounded with dangers, if you insist—but hope nevertheless. At the end of the other lies, so far as I am able to see, no hope at all. Can there be—in the light of our duty not just to ourselves (for we are all going to die sooner or later) but of our duty to our own kind, our duty to the continuity of the generations, our duty to the great experiment of civilized life on this rare and rich and marvelous planet—can there really be, in the light of these claims on our loyalty, any question as to which course we should adopt?

In the final week of his life, Albert Einstein signed the last of the collective appeals against the development of nuclear weapons that he was ever to sign. He was dead before it could see publication. It was an appeal drafted, I gather, by Bertrand Russell. I had my differences with Russell at the time, as I do now in retrospect. But I would like to quote one sentence from the final paragraph of that statement, not just because it was the last one Einstein ever signed, but because it sums up, I think, all that I have been trying to say on the subject. It reads as follows:

What is necessary is only the overcoming of the military fixations that now command in so high degree the reactions on both sides, and the mustering of great courage by the statesmen in facing up to the task of relating military affairs to the other needs of the modern society. What is needed is that statesmen on both sides of the line should take their military establishments in hand and insist that these establishments should become the servants, not the masters and determinants, of political action. Both sides must learn to accept the fact that there is no security to be found in the quest for military superiority—that only in the reduction, not the multiplication, of the existing monstrous arsenals can the true security of any nation be found.

Update: Kennan on War with Iraq

In Washington, veteran diplomat George F. Kennan, who was the chief architect of the U.S. Cold War policy of containment and deterrence against communism, urged the U.S. Congress to take the lead in a decision on whether the United States should take military action against Iraq. In an interview with columnist Albert Eisele of The Hill, the 98-year-old Kennan said Bush "should not do what he's planning to do without a clear congressional mandate."

Kennan said broad war-making powers given to the executive branch, such as the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin resolution and a similar type of measure currently sought by the Bush Administration, "led to no good."

He criticized the Democratic opposition for thus far failing to oppose Bush's request for congressional acquiescence in allowing the administration to have unlimited war powers against Iraq.

"I wonder why the Democrats have not asked the president right out, 'What are you talking about? Are you talking about one war or two wars? And if it's two wars, have we really faced up to the competing demands of the two?"' said Kennan, referring to the already declared war against terrorism.

Kennan added that there should be a "very, very basic consideration" involved in dealing with Iraq, "Whenever you have a possibility of going in two ways, either for ... peaceful methods or for military methods, in the present age there is a strong prejudice for the peaceful ones. War seldom ever leads to good results."

"War has a momentum of its own, and it carries you away from all thoughtful intentions when you get into it. Today, if we went into Iraq, like the president would like us to do, you know where you begin. You never know where you are going to end," warned Kennan.

From U.S. Department of State, International Information Programs, September 27, 2002

In the interview, this 98-year-old diplomat and historian praised the diplomacy of Secretary of State Colin Powell, whom he called a man of strong loyalties in a difficult position who has been much more powerful in his statements than the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. Moreover, The Hill states, “Kennan was particularly critical of Congressional Democrats for failing to oppose Bush’s request for a blank check on Iraq.”

---

---

|TABLE OF CONTENTS|