Book Review: Military and Scientific Affairs: Deterrence and Strategy
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206602100320 |
| Published date | 01 September 1966 |
| Author | John Gellner |
| Date | 01 September 1966 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
BOOK
REVIEWs
383
DETERRENCE
AND
STRATEGY.
By
Andre
Beaufre.
1965.
(London:
Faber
&
Faber.
Toronto:
Queenswood
House.
174pp.
$6.75)
A
little
belatedly and
by
far
not
as
massively
as
it
has
been done
and
is
being
done
in
the
United
States,
European theorists
are
now
examining
the fundamental
problems
of
military
strategy
in
the
nuclear
age. Not
surprisingly
the
French
are
leading
the
field:
the
implications
of
the
acquisition
of
military
nuclear
power
are,
after
all,
creating
the
main
issues
in
French
political
policy
today
The
three
outstanding
con-
tributions to the
discussion
have
come
from
Pierre
Gallois
(The
Balance
of
Terror),
Raymond
Aron
(The
Great
Debate)
and
Andre
Beaufre,
whose
second
book
this
is
(the first
was
An
Introduction
to
Strategy).
Like
their
U.S.
counterparts,
who
tend
to
come
from
the
ranks
of
college
professors,
the
three
Frenchmen,
two
or
whom
are
retired
generals,
base
their
argument
on
pure reason.
As
a
result,
reading
them
is in
itself an
intellectual
exercise.
It
leads
into
an
unreal
world
in
which
utter
rationality
reigns,
unaffected
by
the
vagaries
of
practical
politics
or
by
psychological
factors.
It
leaves
the average reader
dazzled
by
the
mental
tours
de
force
he
was
allowed
to
witness,
but
usually
also
thoroughly
confused.
Beaufre,
who
has
in
his
day contributed
to
the
confusion-for
instance,
by
his
definition
of
strategy
as
"the
art
of
the
dialectic
of
two
opposing
wills
using
force to
solve
their
dispute,
whatever
this
may
mean-blessedly
spares
the
reader
of
this
book
the
most
abstruse
of
the
theorizing.
After
a
chapter,
and
a
great
part
of
a
second,
which
are
brilliantly
clever
and
correspondingly indigestible,
he
comes
to the
brasstacks
of
the
present
politico-military
situation
in
the
world,
and
of
its
short-
and
long-term
implications.
From
there
on,
say
from
page
71
onwards,
Beaufre's
book
is
of
absorbing
interest.
It
is also
of
a kind
which
does
not
lend
itself
to
review
in
detail,
unless
one
had
the
inclination-and
were
given
the
space-to
write
an
essay-length
article
about
it.
Here,
it
may
suffice
to
place
Beaufre
in
his
appropriate
spot
among
the
French
theorists,
and
to
state
briefly
what
makes
him
occupy
that
spot.
Of
the
three
mentioned
above,
he
appears
to
be
closest
to
de
Gaulle's
thinking,
although
he
does
not
go
along with
it
in
all
respects. Beaufre
believes-and
makes
an
excellent
case
for
the
contention-that
smaller,
independent
nuclear
forces
are
not
"ineffective,
useless,
and
dangerous,
as
Mr.
McNamara
called
them,
but
eminently
useful.
They
make
the deterrent
more
uncertain, and
thus
more
stable.
They
force
the
great
nuclear
powers
into
concerted
action.
At
the
same
time,
they
ensure
that
such
"de
facto
solidarity"
will
not
lead
to
a
U.S.-Soviet
"condominium"
in
the
world,
but
only
to
an
all-
around
lowering
of
risks. Beaufre
also
agrees
with
de
Gaulle
that
third-party
nuclear
forces
can
not,
and
should
not
if they
are
to
per-
form
their
function,
be
integrated
with
those
of
a
major
power,
but
should
be
truly
allied with
them.
On
the
other
hand,
he
does
not
sub-
scribe
to
Gallois'
view
that
nuclear
power
is
per
se
destructive
of
alli-
ances,
and
he
parts
company
with
de
Gaulle
when
he
considers
NATO
even
in
its
present
form
"a
defence
system
of
considerable
defensive
value. Beaufre
is
also ahead
of
de
Gaulle,
even
though
not
in
outright
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