The Psychology of Nuclear Statecraft

Abstract

The question that immediately comes to mind before reading Robert Jervis's The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution is whether such a study is still relevant in the post-Cold War era. There have been no superpower crises since 1973, and a nuclear war seems even more unlikely now that the Soviets have given up their East European empire and Germany plans to give large-scale financial aid to the Soviet Union. A brief answer would be that, even under these circumstances, the symbolic and psychological aspects of nuclear weapons are no less influential—or elusive. For example, commentators attached great significance to a hypothetical Soviet invasion of Western Europe, a rather costless gesture in view of the increasing improbability of a Soviet attack. Nevertheless, France and Britain resisted and eventually watered down this symbolic gesture of reassurance to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.1 The advent of nuclear weapons, Jervis argues, has increased the importance of symbols, beliefs, and perceptions. Nuclear weapons are an almost inconceivably powerful means of destruction; yet analysts and statesmen commonly refer to their "psychological effects" (pp. 1, 175–76). Beliefs create reality on nuclear questions. Because no nuclear war has occurred, it is policymakers' beliefs that determine what types of weapons might provoke preemption or whether it might be possible to fight a limited nuclear war (pp. 182–83). Jervis's collection of essays is valuable and unique precisely for its discussion of the psychological aspects of nuclear weapons and statecraft.