39

COMMENT

'Tlransarmament:
A New Jewish
Strategy On
The Nuclear. Peril

The present U.S. policy is one of both Red
and Dead; what is needed is a new
approach.

BY ARTHUR WASKOW

When Jews address what
to do about nuclear weapons,
we tend to divide into two
camps. One sees the issue as
a question of life or death; the
other, as a question of free-
dom or repression. It is in
fact, both; and we must begin
to see it that way.
The present policy of the
U.S. government is a policy
of both Red and Dead. That
is, it tends to increase both
Soviet repression of Jews and
other people, and the danger
of a world-wide nuclear
holocaust.
What we need to create is
a strategy for both reducing
Soviet repressiveness and
reducing the danger of world
holocaust. Such a strategy
could be called Transarma-
ment: moving from useless
and dangerous weapons to
approaches that can really
change our opponent. That is
what this article explores.
If the present policy is self-
destructive, why is the Amer-
ican public allowing the U.S. .
government to pursue it? The
main reason is that most of
us are addicted to an incor-
rect belief: that having more
nuclear weapons than the
Soviet Union makes us
stronger than the Soviet
Union. We are addicted
because, through most of
human history, having more
and more poWerful weapons
than your adversaries made
you more likely to win a war

Arthur Waskow is director of
The Shalom Center, a national
resource and organizing center
for Jewish perspectives on
preventing nuclear holocaust.
He is a member of the faculty
of the Reconstructionist Rab-
binical College and the editor of
New Menorah, a journal of
Jewish renewal. He is the
author of four books on nuclear
deterrence and disarmament and
author or co-author of six books ,
of Jewish thought including
These Holy Sparks: The
Rebirth of the Jewish People.

Copyright (c) 1986 by The Shalom Center.

against them — and therefore
politically more powerful
even without war. If you were
stronger enough, it might
even make war less likely,
and peace easier to keep. But
H-bombs cannot be used in
this way. For if they are
physically used they will
create Auschwitzes (not vic-
tories or defeats), and if they
are used as threats they do
not overawe the adversary as
real weapons used to do, and
in fact sill do.
Our addiction to these
ideas is also encouraged by
certain special interests that
have their own reasons for
supporting them. At the in-
stitutional level, the incorrect
belief in weapon superiority is
carried into U.S. strategy and
military budgets through
various theories of "counter-
force nuclear war," now
usually combined with Star
Wars (Strategic Defense In-
itiative). "Counterforce"
strategists argue that U.S.
nuclear weapons should be
targeted against Soviet
nuclear weapons, and to do so
effectively must be constant-
ly improved in power and ac-
curacy, and multiplied in
numbers — since the Soviets
are presumably multiplying
their weapons and hardening
their sites against attack.
Thus counterforce strategy
requires an arms race. The
main alternative strategy —
"adequate deterrence" —
assumes that any use of
strategic nuclear weapons
will in fact destroy many
cities — and preparing to do
so, rather than pretending
not to, will deter attack.
Since cities cannot be multi-
plied or "hardened" very
easily, this strategy does not
require adding to the number,
power, or accuracy of U.S.
weapons.
These counterforce strat-
egies have an important by-
product: They require the
constant multiplication of
amounts of money to buy

The Bomb: Are more and more powerful weapons a guarantee of victory?
The

more and more, newer and
newer, weapons systems.
These strategic theories are
thus very helpful to those in-
terests — governmental,
military, industrial, or scien-
tific — that are already in-
volved in making, planning,
building, justifying, buying,
or deploying such weapons.
But we should not fool
ourselves that "greedy mu-
nitions-makers" are the
primary cause of our addic-
tion. It is our own addiction,
to begin with; and first we
must cure ourselves.
The "Both Red and Dead"
policy of the present U.S.
government is vigorously
supported by a few specific
American Jewish leaders and
organizations because it feels
to them like a strong anti--
Soviet stance. It is vaguely
opposed by most Jews —
about 80% of whom (along
with most of their major
organizations) support a
bilateral nuclear freeze and
say that any nuclear "war"
would be horrendously de-
structive; but few have a
clear understanding that pre-
sent U.S. policy is built on
counterforce strategy; and
few oppose it with vigor and
consistency.
If American Jews were to
act on their values, exper-
iences, and interests, they

would be vigorously pushing
for "big carrot; adequate
stick" policies aimed at shift-
ing Soviet policty away from
repression of Jews and
others, away from militariza-
tion, toward a strategy of
"adequate deterrent" leading
to mutual nuclear disarma-
ment. The American strategy
most likely to push the
Soviets in this direction is
one that on our side moves
toward an "adequate deter-
rent," takes the enormous
amount of mmoney and
brainpower now put into the
counterforce weapon super-
iority strategy and instead
directs it toward the much
more clever use of political,
economic, and cultural wea-
pons — which are now the
most effective weapons for
actually changing the world.
Such a strategy should be
called Transarmament. Far
from "disarming" us, it
would actually give us far
more effective "arms" than
the ones we have now.
Now let us go back to look
at the crucial elements in this
line of argument. There are
two: the one that more wea-
pons and strategy will not
make us stronger, and the
one that it will not make us
safer. What is the evidence?
First the "stronger" ques-
tion. Statistics show that

when the U.S. ran the "wea-
pons" race harder, the So-
viets clamped down on emi-
gration of Soviet Jews. When
the U.S. (under Nixon, Ford,
and Carter) negotiated more
and more nearly accepted
rough nuclear-weapons pari-
ty, the Soviets eased up.
Why did this happen?
Sheer perversity? One rea-
sonable hypothesis is that
within the Soviet govern-
ment, there is constant
pushing and pulling between
military/repressive institu-
tions and relatively liberaliz-
ing institutions. When the
U.S. guns the arms race, it is
the military/repressive camp
that gets stronger, because
the swing people get fright-
ened that the U.S. might
really try to win military
superiority — and use it to
threaten the Soviet Union.
But the point of the Soviet
Jewry "curve" is that the
most intense American arma-
ment effort is by no means
the key to softening the Reds.
It is more likely to anger
them. So it is a sad mistake
for American Jews to follow
such a path out of our just
rage at Soviet behavior.
Changing Soviet behavior so
as to get more of what we
want — not less — requires
seichel (wisdom), not only
rage.

Continued on Page 44

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