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PARTISAN REVIEW
PETER BLAU : I want to know if you believe that mutual assured
destruction on which we based our policy for the last twenty-five
years or so was completely crazy, and there was no reason at all to
assume as long as there's a balance that this discourages nuclear war.
Whereas if we build SDI and if it is successful, or partially suc–
cessful, then there will be an incentive for a first strike.
GEORGE CHAPLINE: Well it's a historical fact that the policy of
the past few decades has in fact been successful. However, the Soviets
are doing things which I find uncomfortable. They are continuing to
expand and modernize their offensive nuclear forces. They are
working, apparently, on a comprehensive antiballistic missile sys–
tem . And I think we have to respond to that in some effective way.
WASSILY LEONTIEF: Why? Why don't we simply build more
missiles?
JOHN PIKE: That's what the Reagan administration has proposed
to do .
WASSILY LEONTIEF: It's cheap, we know what it is.
GEORGE CHAPLINE: The mere fact that the policy has been suc–
cessful does not tell us in absolute terms how close or how far we
have ever been to the threshold of nuclear war. And it doesn't insure
that for the indefinite future we will never cross that threshold . Now
if you continue to increase your offensive missiles on both sides if
you ever do cross that threshold, it'll be that much worse. So I think
that what we want to strive for is somehow to encourage the Soviet
Union to decrease their offensive nuclear forces .
WASSILY LEONTIEF: No. We can saturate both sides in the num–
ber of offensive missiles if we don't have defenses. But it will make no
sense for anybody to add more. And ultimately we will have a
stalemate, when everybody will have quite enough to destroy the
other. But it will be a peaceful stalemate and, as the economists say,
it will be long before all the economic capabilities of either coun–
try, even of the weaker country, are exhausted. So this will still per–
mit peaceful development of both countries .
It
is entirely different if
we have a race which has no end , and defensive missiles will produce
unending races.
PETER SHAW: Mr. Pike, you said that there is nothing that can be
done at the present time to prevent either the Soviet Union or the
United States from killing 250 million people . But I believe that the
realistic danger that we face now as a result of the build-up that Mr.
Chapline described is not the kind of all-out attack that that
presumes. Rather, what is worrisome is the possibility that the
