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C00002 00002	peace[f86,jmc]		Sometimes well meant peace advocacy increases the
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peace[f86,jmc]		Sometimes well meant peace advocacy increases the
probability of nuclear war.

There are two ways this can happen.

	1. This one is emphasized by defense advocates, of which I am one.
By taking and advocating actions that lead to the unilateral weakening of
the U.S., they increase the probability that the Communist Party of the
Soviet Union will take actions leading to war.  Of course, this position
depends on certain views of the likely or possible behavior of this party.
There is no way of sensibly discussing the danger of war while avoiding
discussion of Soviet behavior.  Unfortunately, the peace movement runs
continously from certain former U.S. secretaries of defense to the
official Soviet peace movement.  While the former Secretaries of Defense
don't have a high opinion of the Soviet leaders, I think, no-one in the
movement at all finds it convenient to criticize anyone else in it.

	2. The main emphasis of the peace movement in all flavors is that
the situation is desperate.  They say that if major changes aren't made
now, war is inevitable.  In so far as they succeed in communicating their
desperation, they induce oscillations in policy.  For example, when
President Carter spoke of ``inordinate fear of communism'' and when he
embraced Brezhnev, he was responding to peace movement ideas.  When the
Soviets invaded Afghanistan, his previous actions were remembered and
disapproved by large parts of the American public.  This made them more
responsive to anti-Soviet and right wing views and contributed to the
nomination and election of Ronald Reagan, a man of much stronger
anti-Soviet views than might otherwise have been electable.  I happen to
agree with Reagan's views.  [Some conservatives are also desperate.  They
worry that we are now enough militarily weaker than the Soviet Union that
they could beat us at a cost that ideological fanatics might find
acceptable].

	If the peace movement had been even more successful and had,
say, succeeded in electing McGovern in 1972, the oscillation back
to a hard line might have been even more violent.

	Both liberals and conservative should agree that violent
oscillations in policy are dangerous.  The conservatives would worry that
the liberal part of the cycle would make the U.S. so weak militarily that
the Soviets would be tempted to attack, and the liberals would worry that
the conservative part of the cycle would be so hard line as to provoke
war.

	They should also agree, but many wouldn't, that an atmosphere
of desperation causes oscillations.  If present policies are perceived
as disastrous, then voters will support candidates who promise
desperate remedies.  If these don't seem to be succeeding, then
a sufficient number of people may support desperate remedies of
the opposite kind.

	In fact the situation is dangerous but not desperate, and
desperate measures are not called for.  American policy has oscillated
substantially in the 40 years since World War II, and neither the
liberals nor the conservatives have caused nuclear war.  The liberals
can't point to anything substantially different about the situation
today than the situation in say 1969 after Nixon became president.
The conservatives have one thing to point to --- namely the increased
military power of the Soviet Union relative to the U.S.  Some liberals
dispute this evaluation, and others say it is meaningless because of
the U.S. capacity for overkill.

	My own view is that it is better to be safe than sorry.  Everyone
agrees with this general principle, of course, but my interpretation
of it is that it is safer for the U.S. to have more military strength
than the Soviet Union.