Book Review: Military and Scientific Affairs: On Escalation
| Author | Brian Crane |
| Published date | 01 December 1965 |
| Date | 01 December 1965 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/002070206502000414 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
BooK
REviEwS
541
NUCLEAR
WAR.
The
Impending
Strategic
Deadlock.
By
Neville Brown.
1965.
(London:
Pall
Mall
Press.
Toronto:
Burns
&
MacEachern,
238pp.
$7.75)
Although
this
book
is
described
by
the
author
as
"predominantly
a
technical
survey,"
it
may
be
a
useful
manual
for
the
general
reader.
Mr. Brown
has
sought
to
distinguish
the
elements
of
the
strategic
balance,
and
to
suggest ways
in
which
that
balance
may
evolve.
He
examines
both
the
weapons
themselves and
the
doctrines
which-if
ever
it
comes
to
that-will
govern
their
use.
Mr.
Brown's
assessment
of
the current
East-West
military
con-
frontation
is
that
it
is
becoming
increasingly
stable.
In the
mid-fifties,
Western
strategists
were
worried
that
the
Strategic
Air
Command
might
be
vulnerable
to
attack
by
Russian
bombers.
As
the
decade
progressed,
we
heard
a
great
deal
about a
missile
gap
which
favoured
the
Soviets.
But
neither
gap materialized, and
the
author
maintains
that
today
there
exists "something
close
to
a
strategic
stalemate
between
NATO
and
the
Warsaw
Pact.
..".
As
retaliatory
forces
become
invulnerable,
the
temptation
to
strike
first
diminishes
proportionately.
While
it
is
true
that
in
1965
the
West
holds
a
lead
in
both
quantity
and
quality
of
I.C.B.M.'s
and
ballistic
submarines,
this
is
not
regarded
as
likely to
make
the
Pentagon
trigger-happy.
Moreover,
the
lead
is
expected
to
disappear
by
the
end of
the
sixties.
About
1970,
Mr.
Brown
concludes,
both
sides
"will
have
lost
forever any
hope of
establishing
strategic
dominance".
By
his
own
admission,
the
conclusion
rests
on
the
premise
that
there
will
not
be a
breakthrough
in
the
anti-missile
defence of
North
America
or
the
U.S.S.R.
Of
the
future,
one
might
expect
warnings
of a
"space
gap".
But
in
the author's
view,
weapons
in
space
"will
add
nothing
as
long
as
I.C.B.M.'s
remain valid
instruments
of
war".
What
does
trouble
him
is
the
prospect
of
the
spread
of
military
nuclear
or
microbiological
capability
to
a
large
number
of
nations.
Should
this
happen,
"every-
thing
that
has
been
said
about
the
implications
of
strategic
stalemate
will
become obsolete."
Robert
Oppenheimer
used
to
compare
the
arms
race
to
the
predicament
of
two
scorpions
in
a bottle.
Our
main
concern
today
is
that
there may
be
a
population
explosion
among
the
scorpions.
Ottawa
MICHAEL
SHERMAN
ON
ESCALATION.
Metaphors
and
Scenarios.
By
Herman
Kahn.
1965.
(New
York:
Frederick
A.
Praeger.
Toronto:
Burns
&
MacEachern.
dvii,
308pp.
$8.50)
This
is
the
first
publication in
the
Hudson
Institute
Series
on
National
Security
and
International
Order.
The
initial research
was
financed
by
the
Martin
Company who
gave
the
Institute
a
contract
in
1961
to,
inter
alia,
"explore
the
complex
interrelations
of
national
and
international
order". With this
wide
mandate four
studies
were
prepared,
one of
which
has
been
expanded
into
this
book.
The approach
of
this
study,
the
author
tells
us
in
the
preface,
"is
propaedeutic
and
heuristic,
so
that
individuals
who
are
not
specialists
in
international
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