The Medical Implications of Nuclear War (1986) / Chapter Skim
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23 The Nuclear Arms Race and the Psychology of Power
23 The Nuclear Arms Race and the Psychology of Power
Pages 474-484
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From page 474... ...
Once a bureaucratic unit has been set up and money has been allocated, the process unrolls virtually automatically from research to testing and then to development and deployment. This paper examines a psychological feature of national leaders that contributes to their resistance to public pressure for nuclear disarmament and is probably the chief psychological instigator of the nuclear arms race the will to power.
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From page 475... ...
In response to a leader's commands, human groups perform incredible acts of both heroism and destruction, including perpetrating massacres and committing mass suicide. Examined in this paper are some psychological aspects of the exercise of power in the anarchic and dangerous international environment with special reference to pursuit of the nuclear arms competition.
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From page 476... ...
In this connection a major psychological reason for the failure of antinuclear activists to influence national policies may be that their major appeals are to fear and compassion. Appeals to these emotions have been implicit throughout this symposium in the delineations of the many and varied horrors of a nuclear holocaust, and the distressing feelings the prospect of such an event arouses in children and the general public.
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From page 477... ...
Although fear and anger are prime instigators of violence in hand-tohand combat, the major destructiveness of modern war is inflicted on invisible targets by bombs and shells launched by soldiers who are simply obeying orders. Moreover, decisions of heads of state to go to war are usually based ostensibly on highly rational calculations.
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From page 478... ...
Groups that hold these values see themselves as peaceful, honorable, and humane, while portraying their opponents as treacherous, warlike, and cruel. As a result, each group attributes its own violent acts to irresistible environmental forces, while similar actions by the other are attributed to their innate evil qualities, a phenomenon psychologists have termed the attribution error (Jones and Davis, 1965~.
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From page 479... ...
To cite one example, every speaker in this symposium has used the terms nuclear war to refer to a nuclear holocaust, while simultaneously providing abundant evidence that a nuclear holocaust differs fundamentally from war in at least two crucial respects: it cannot be won in any meaningful sense of the term, and its destructiveness continues and probably increases long after hostilities have ceased. The mere use of the word war, by evoking images of the possibilities of victory and of survival of an intact society, can subtly distort one's thinking about the nuclear threat.
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From page 480... ...
NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND DEMONSTRATION OF RESOLVE As mentioned earlier, the successful exercise of power depends on both possession of the means of power and demonstration of the will to use it. Stronger will has often been a more important determinant of the victory than arms witness Hitler's successful invasion of the Rhineland in the face of vastly stronger French military power and the victory of the North Vietnamese over the United States.
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From page 481... ...
Under the spur of the drive for power each of the military services competes with the other for a larger share of the military budget, and each goes to great length to justify its need for ever new and more sophisticated weaponry. A possibly hopeful consequence of the universal recognition that the use of nuclear weapons in combat carries an inordinately high risk is that, in contrast to previous arms races, the major purpose of both nuclear superpowers is not to win a nuclear war but to avoid or prevent one.
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From page 482... ...
As already mentioned, within an orderly community resort to violence is inhibited by customs and rules, and leaders are free to devote their talents to socially desirable goals. Fortunately, technological innovations as radical as nuclear weaponry for the first time in human history have created a possibility that the psychological grounds for a world order, namely a worldwide sense of community, could be achieved.
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From page 483... ...
. CONCLUSION The emergence of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons of unimaginable destructiveness will eventually force national leaders to recognize that continued reliance on these instruments of power is incompatible with survival of their own nations if not civilization itself.
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From page 484... ...
1984. Preparation for nuclear war: The final madness.
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