42 



Deterrence 



The underpinning of detente remains the possession by both the 

 United States and the Soviet Union of an overwhelming nuclear 

 destructive capability sufficient to deny survival to either party in the 

 event of its use. Having learned to live with this fact for nearly two 

 decades, leaders of each nation, while still maneuvering for some slight 

 and transitory technological advantage. 1 are mainly seeking a pattern 

 of beneficial relationships for their own country — recognizing that it 

 may incidentally be beneficial to the adversary, but in the nonmilitary 

 sphere. Emerging out of this uneasy truce may possibly be a more or 

 less conscious balance of cooperation and conflict reflecting both 

 ideological opposition and mutual anxiety over survival. 



Weaponry 



The purpose of weaponry is national security. However, the enor- 

 mous destructive power of thermonuclear weapons accompanied by 

 irresistible delivery system possessed by the United States and the 

 Soviet Union has created an impasse. Both parties continue to invest 

 scientific talents and resources in further refinements of nuclear 

 weaponry but after a epiarter century of this arms race the impasse 

 continues, the destructive capability on both sides has increased, and 

 the national security on both sides has diminished. Beneath this 

 nuclear umbrella that makes overt conflict between the two super- 

 powers an act of insanity, the adversaries have experimented with 

 various kinds of war by proxy. Experiments in limited war by the 

 United States in Korea and Vietnam showed that U.S. high technology 

 weaponry had limited utility against a determined adversary in open 

 warfare. Competitive supply of weaponry to the opposing sides in the 

 Middle East has raised the level of intensity of that conflict and in- 

 creased the risk of confrontation between the superpowers. Exports 

 of U.S. weaponry to Latin America, Iran, Jordan, and other countries 

 has multiplied the potential destructiveness of warfare involving 

 these recipients; the gain to the United States has been measured in 

 favorable balanee-of-paymenis increments and varying degrees of 

 transitory influence, but the cost has frequently been diminished 

 national security for the United States. Proliferation of subnuclear 

 weaponry continues but the ultimate consequences appear to offer no 

 significant benefit to the United States while making small wars more 

 lethal and draining the resources of -mall States to maintain their 

 arsenals of high technology. 



The P.R.C. 



Emergence of the world's most populous nation from the self-im- 

 posed isolation of the period of painful transition to ;i Communist 

 dictatorship i- now in process. The growing military and economic 

 power of t hi- former "sleeping giant" gives indication that in time the 

 People's Republic of China will become, in some respects at least, 



the coequal pa rt ner ad \ er-a ry of holh the United States and the 

 Soviet Union. Meanwhile the l\ \i.(\, currently more hostile toward 

 the Soviel Union than toward the United Slate-, seeks to persuade 

 t he la t ter of the dangers of Soviel aggressive designs. 



1 A major technological advantage by either adversary would be Intolerable to th<> othor, 

 iiikI wniiiil pose :i serious Invitation t" preemptive attack before the new weapon could \w 

 deployed. 



