Can Psychology Help Reduce the Risk of Nuclear War?

Abstract

Nuclear psychology, which began with the very best of intentions is, according to this article, doomed to failure and perpetual irrelevance unless it begins to take what the author refers to as a phenomenological approach to the subject. So far, too much attention has been given to "off-the-shelf' models derived from the psychological clinic and laboratory, and too little attention has been given to the actual perspective of nuclear policy makers, who are the people psychologists must influence if they hope to reduce the risk of a catastrophic nuclear war. The author attributes this trend to positivism, the belief that psychology is a natural science rather than one of the humanities. In his view, if psychologists wish to reduce nuclear risks, they must get more fully inside the viewpoints of policymakers, they must assume policymakers' roles at least in their imaginations, and only then will they come up with proposals that will make sense to the policy-making community. There are two requirements: (1) to obtain a greater understanding of what policymakers' thoughts and feelings are about during nuclear crises-those episodes when nuclear risks have been greatest, and (2) to know what it actually is like to have such thoughts and feelings at moments when the fate of the world is believed to be at stake. Importantly, this leads, or ought to lead, psychologists to the study of the Cuban missile crisis, the closest call by far to nuclear war between the superpowers. There is a great deal to be learned about the psychological reality of that moment of maximum nuclear danger in October, 1962. The author illustrates his argument with a literary metaphor drawn from John LeCarre 's The Little Drummer Girl. "She's panicked," Litvak announced suddenly to Becker's back. Puzzled, Becker turned and glanced at him. "She's gone over to them," Litvak insisted. His voice had a throaty instability. Becker returned to the window. "Part of her has gone over, part has stayed," he replied. "That is what we asked of her." "She's gone over!" Litvak repeated, rising on the swell of his own provocation. "It's happened with agents before. It's happened now... So what's her motivation? She's not Jewish. She's not anything. She's theirs. Forget her..." From the shallows of his sparse camp bed, Kurtz offered drowsy consolation. "Germany makes you jumpy Shimon. Ease off. What does it matter who she belongs to, so long as she keeps showing us the way?" (LeCarre, 1983)