David T. Bazelon
A NEW KIND OF WAR
What is mostly wrong with current popular thinking on the
nuclear confrontation is that almost everyone feels a responsibility to
take an
official
position immediately, before having thought through the
awful problem. As an example of this, note that threatening to push
the button and actually pushing
it
are two quite different acts. The
threat may achieve something in relation to the Soviet Union, and also
may keep it from achieving certain of its ends which we properly
oppose. Pushing the button will achieve nothing for anyone. The
moment it is pushed, everything we are struggling for in the world
will be lost, and domestically we will be transformed into the most
disaster-oriented military dictatorship anyone has ever imagined. There
very likely will be no government at all at that point, and any govern–
ment there may be will operate by machine-gun.
Most of us in America believe we would never push it first. As–
sume the Russians for one reason or another had done so: there would
be no point in our responding in kind at that time, except as an act
of monumental pique. But if this sort of thing is discussed, most of us
feel that the Russians might then consider pushing the button first-just
because we dared to mention it. So it is not discussed.
The human race has a long way to go before it can even con–
ceive life--I mean the resolution of serious conflict-without a resort
to ultimate force. But it is demonstrable today that the resort to
ultimate force is an act of suicide. In this sense, the essential politics
of our day cannot be understood apart from the psychology of suicide,
EDITOR'S NOTE:
This article is part of
PR's
discussion on the problems of the
cold war and the future of the West. Comment is invited.
