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The emergence of cooperation: national epistemic communities and the international evolution of the idea of nuclear arms control

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

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An American epistemic community played a key role in creating the international shared understanding and practice of nuclear arms control. In the absence of nuclear war, leaders' expectations of nuclear war and of its control were affected by causal theories and abstract propositions and models which, given their “scientific” and technical nature, were developed by an epistemic community. This study, which emphasizes the roles played by epistemic communities in policy innovation and in the diffusion of understandings across nations and communities, analyzes how the theoretical and practical ideas of the arms control epistemic community became political expectations, were diffused to the Soviet Union, and were ultimately embodied in the 1972 antiballistic missile (ABM) arms control treaty. In contrast to those studies that have concentrated primarily on the workings of international epistemic communities, this study stresses the notion that domestically developed theoretical expectations, which were worked out by a national group of experts and selected by the American government as the basis for negotiations with the Soviets, became the seed of the ABM regime. Moreover, by suggesting that the arms control epistemic community was really an aggregation of several factions that shared common ground against various intellectual and policy rivals, this study sheds light on the question of how much coherence an epistemic community requires. The political selection of new conceptual understandings, followed by their retention and diffusion at national and international levels, suggests an evolutionary approach at odds with explanations of international change advanced by structural realism and approaches based on it.

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Research Article
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Copyright © The IO Foundation 1992

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References

For their comments and insights, I am grateful to the members of the review committee of International Organization; to the other contributors to this special issue, especially Peter Haas and M. J. Peterson; to my colleagues at the Center for Science and International Affairs, especially Joseph Nye; and to Hayward Alker, Stephen Graubard, Joseph Grieco, Ernst Haas, and Thomas Schelling. Research funds were provided by the Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University, and by the Leonard Davis Institute for International Relations, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. An earlier version of this article was presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, D.C., 1988.

1. An epistemic community, as defined in this issue of IO, is a network of individuals or groups with an authoritative claim to policy-relevant knowledge within their domain of expertise. The community members share knowledge about the causation of social and physical phenomena in an area for which they have a reputation for competence, and they have a common set of normative beliefs about what will benefit human welfare in such a domain. While members are often from a number of different professions and disciplines, they adhere to the following: (1) shared consummatory values and principled beliefs; (2) shared causal beliefs or professional judgment; (3) common notions of validity based on intersubjective, internally defined criteria for validating knowledge; and (4) a common policy project.

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82. By developing plans for air reconnaissance, a nuclear freeze, nuclear arms reductions, and a set of objectives for arms control, Stassen augured the “golden era of arms control.”

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89. According to Gray, “Contemporary arms-control theory was an invention of the strategic studies community in the period 1958–60.” See ibid., p. 72.

90. Firestone notes that the Committee of Principals was “a high-level interagency group designed to coordinate and ultimately ratify arms control policy. Founded in August 1958, the committee was initially composed of the secretary of state as chairman, the secretary of defense, the chairman of the AEC [Atomic Energy Commission], the director of the CIA [Central Intelligence Agency], and the president's special adviser on science and technology.” See Firestone, Bernard J., The Quest for Nuclear Stability: John F. Kennedy and the Soviet Union (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1982), p. 76.Google Scholar

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95. See Weber, Steve and Drell, Sidney, “Attempts to Regulate Military Activities in Space,” in George, Alexander L., Farley, Philip J., and Dallin, Alexander, eds., U.S.-Soviet Security Cooperation: Achievements, Failures, Lessons (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), p. 388Google Scholar. On ACDA, see Walker, Paul F., “The U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency: Policy-Making in Strategic Arms Limitations,” Ph.D. diss., MIT, Cambridge, Mass., 1978.Google Scholar

96. York, Herbert F., Making Weapons, Talking Peace: A Physicist's Odyssey from Hiroshima to Geneva (New York: Basic Books, 1987), p. 119.Google Scholar

97. Kaplan, , Wizards of Armageddon, pp. 332–33.Google Scholar

98. Schlesinger, AThousand Days, p. 494.Google Scholar

99. See York, , Making Weapons, Talking Peace, pp. 222–26;Google Scholar and Kaplan, , Wizards of Armageddon, p. 345.Google Scholar

100. Ball, Desmond, Politics and Force Levels: The Strategic Missile Program of the Kennedy Administration (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), pp. 8285.Google Scholar

101. My discussion of the hotline idea is based on Ury's, William L.Beyond the Hotline: How Crisis Control Can Prevent Nuclear War (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1985), pp. 142 and 44, and on interviews.Google Scholar

102. See Talbott, , The Master of the Game, p. 79;Google Scholar and Schlesinger, , A Thousand Days, p. 475.Google Scholar

103. See Adler, , The Power of IdeologyGoogle Scholar. See also Hyland, William L., “Institutional Impediments,” in Burt, Richard, ed., Arms Control and Defense in the 1980s (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1982), p. 101.Google Scholar

104. Schlesinger, , A Thousand Days, p. 504.Google Scholar

105. Newhouse, John, Cold Down: The Story of SALT (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1973), p. 69.Google Scholar

106. In Counsels of War, pp. 197–98Google Scholar, Herken quotes some of McNamara's concerns: “There is a kind of mad momentum intrinsic to the development of all nuclear weaponry.… If a system works-and works well-there is a strong pressure from all directions to procure and deploy the weapon out of all proportion to the prudent level required.” Herken points out that what McNamara termed “an action-reaction phenomenon” dominated and escalated the arms race.

107. In November 1964, the Soviets first paraded what appeared to be an ABM system. The system, called Galosh, “was believed to be composed of a network of radars and a two- or three-stage, solid-fueled interceptor missile designed for long-range, ex-atmospheric interception of incoming ICBM s.” See Yanarella, Ernst J., The Missile Defense Controversy: Strategy, Technolog, and Politics, 1955–1972 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1977), p. 118.Google Scholar

108. On the politics of ABM control up to 1972, see Yanarella, , The Missile Defense Controversy;Google ScholarAdams, Benson D., Ballistic Missile Defense (New York: American Elsevier, 1971)Google Scholar; Halperin, Morton, Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1974)Google Scholar; Newhouse, , Cold Down;Google ScholarSmith, Gerard, The Story of SALT, 2d ed. (New York: Pergamon-Brassey, 1989)Google Scholar; Kaplan, , Wizards ofArmageddon;Google Scholar and Herken, , Counsels of War.Google Scholar

109. See Schwartz, David N., “Past and Present: The Historical Legacy,” in Carter, Ashton B. and Schwartz, David N., eds., Ballistic Missile Defense (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1984), pp. 332–33.Google Scholar

110. York, , Making Weapons, Talking Peace, pp. 222–23.Google Scholar

111. For a discussion of Wiesner and York's article, see Herken, , Counsels of War, p. 193Google Scholar. Herken notes that Paul Nitze called the article “outrageous, an incitement, an example of dirty pool.”

112. Sentinel was a light area missile defense system set to be deployed in fifteen sites in the continental United States, one site in Hawaii, and one in Alaska. The system consisted of various radars and either a Spartan missile or a Sprint missile, depending on the site. See Adams, , Ballistic Missile Defense, p. 177.Google Scholar

113. Newhouse, , Cold Down, pp. 50 and 115–16.Google Scholar

114. Adams, , Ballistic Missile Defense, p. 186.Google Scholar

115. Yanarella, , The Missile Defense Controversy, pp. 144–47.Google Scholar

116. Adams, , Ballistic Missile Defense, p. 193.Google Scholar

117. Kahn said that the public debate had been one-sided because about “ninety percent of the scientists who normally speak in public, or who consult part-time for the government on defense issues, as well as the vast preponderance of the public literature on the subject, opposed ABM.” See Herman, Kahn, “The Missile Defense Debate in Perspective,” in Holst and Schneider, Why ABM, p. 285Google Scholar. For a good source on the involvement of pro- and anti- ABM scientists in the ABM debate, see Cahn, Anne Hessing, Eggheads and Warheads: Scientists and the ABM (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Center for International Studies, 1971)Google Scholar. In the “battle of books,” the counterpart to Why ABM was the anti-ABM work edited by Chayes, Abram and Wiesner, Jerome B., ABM: An Evaluation of the Decision to Deploy an Antiballistic Missile System (New York: Signet, 1969).Google Scholar

118. Safeguard incorporated both area and terminal defense capabilities, using the same components as Sentinel but deploying these components with the aim of defending Minuteman silos. For command and control reasons, Washington, D.C., would be defended as well. Adams, , Ballistic Missile Defense, p. 200.Google Scholar

119. According to Brenner, “Each testimony [before Congress] delineated the technical and political aspects of the issue while assiduously drawing the necessary distinctions between those questions amenable to scientific judgment and those requiring subjective estimates. By stipulating the logical connections between acceptance of ABM and its multiple consequences, these analyses heightened awareness of the issue's subtle interdependencies. They discredited the Administration's casual use of the syllogistic argument that in the past had relied successfully on faith (in the simple equation that more arms means more security) and fear (of Soviet aggression).” See Brenner, , “The Theorist as Actor,” pp. 115–16.Google Scholar

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122. See testimony of Marshal Shulman, in U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, The Strategic and Foreign Policy Implications of Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on International Organization and Disarmament Affairs, part 1, 91st Congress, 1st sess., 03 1969, p. 154Google Scholar. See also the testimony of Vincent Rock, P., in U.S. Congress, Strategy and Science: Hearings, p. 224Google Scholar, which included the following argument: “In terms of aid, in terms of weapons … there is a great deal of copying, of action and reaction, reciprocal action of a kind, between the nations of the world. … As we know, all nations collect each other's basic and applied scientific output. There is a tremendous interaction going on as a result of having to read and cope with the ideas the other fellow is putting out.…

123. The Soviet-American Disarmament Studies Group, referred to as the Doty group, started to meet in 1965 and met for ten years. The first conference of the Darmouth group took place in 1959. An official collaboration between the American and Soviet academies of sciences has taken place under the guidance of W. Panofsky and S. Sagdeev.

124. Clemens, Walter C. Jr, Can Russia Change? The USSR Confronts Global Interdependence (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1990), p. 67.Google Scholar

125. Holst, , “Strategic Arms Control and Stability,” pp. 258, 264, and 268.Google Scholar

126. The Soviet views were cited by Allyn, Bruce J. in “Toward a Common Framework: Avoiding Inadvertent War and Crisis,” in Allison, Graham T. and Ury, William L. (with Bruce J. Allyn), eds., Windows of Opportunity: From Cold War to Peaceful Competition in US-Soviet Relations (Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger, 1989), p. 188.Google Scholar

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129. See Stein, Peter and Feaver, Peter, Assuring Control of Nuclear Weapons: The Evolution of Permissive Action Links (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Center for Science and International Affairs, 1987).Google Scholar

130. See Ranger, , Arms and Politics, p. 7Google Scholar. Dinerstein and his colleagues at RAND noted in the early 1960s that the technical arms control approach seemed to hold no interest for Soviet military planners. According to Dougherty, however, “Some change was noticeable after the Cuban missile crisis. … During the past decade [1963–1973], there have been signs that the Soviets have begun to take more seriously the Western ideas of ‘arms control.’ “ See Dinerstein, Herbert S., Goure, Leon, and Wolfe, Thomas W., “Introduction” to the English translation of Soviet Military Strategy, ed. by Sokolovskiy, Soviet marshal V. D. (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1963), p. 77;Google Scholar and Dougherty, James E., How to Think About Arms Control and Disarmament (New York: Crane, Russak, 1973), p. 71.Google Scholar

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135. Hippel, Frank von, “Arms Control Physics: The New Soviet Connection,” Physics Today, 11 1989, p. 39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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137. Regarding the Soviet reactions, see Newhouse, , Cold Down, p. 102.Google Scholar

138. Holloway, David, The Soviet Union and the Arms Race, 2d ed. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1989), p. 44.Google Scholar

139. See MccGwire, Michael, “Why the Soviets Are Serious About Arms Control,” Brookings Review, Spring 1987, p. 11Google Scholar. In a review of MccGwire's book, Military Objectives in Soviet Foreign Policy (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1987)Google Scholar, Bluth argued that the changes which MccGwire said occurred at the end of 1966 actually started in 1964 and 1965. Bluth's point was indeed proved by a flurry of Soviet articles discussing the possibility of doctrinal change in the 1964–65 period. See Bluth, Christopher, “The Evolution of Soviet Military Doctrine,” Survival 30 (0304 1988), p. 149.Google Scholar

140. Payne, , The Soviet Union and SALT, p. 18.Google Scholar

141. Ibid., p. 7.

142. Arbatov, Georgi A. and Oltman, William, Soviet Viewpoint (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1981), p. 130.Google Scholar

143. Andrei Kokoshin, personal communication.

144. Payne, , The Soviet Union and SALT, pp. 46 and 59.Google Scholar

145. See ibid., p. 126. Larionov, V. V. made the statement in “Transformatsüa kontseptsii ‘strategicheskoi dostatochnosti,’“ SShA, 11 1971Google Scholar. Gromyko later made this same point, as did the minister of foreign affairs. It was almost an official statement of the Soviet government's position.

146. Payne, , The Soviet Union and SALT, pp. 4041, 47, and 76.Google Scholar

147. Ibid., p. 76.

148. Ibid., p. 66.

149. Other reasons that led the Soviet leaders to sign a Soviet–U.S. strategic arms control treaty included the following: they perceived that the Americans held a strong edge in the technological race; they realized that multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRV s) were entering into the strategic equation; they wanted to institutionalize parity with the United States and, if possible, improve their strategic situation in areas unrestricted by SALT; they wanted to project power; they wished to strengthen detente with the West; and they hoped that the resulting economic savings could be directed back to the civilian sector.

150. See Garthoff, Raymond L., “Mutual Deterrence and Strategic Arms Limitation in Soviet Policy,” International Security 2 (Summer 1978), p. 126;Google Scholar and Halperin, Morton, “The Decision to Deploy the ABM: Bureaucratic and Domestic Politics in the Johnson Administration,” World Politics 25 (10 1972), p. 95.Google Scholar

151. The faces refer to complementary and mutually reinforcing processes. They are ideal types, and “the distinction between ‘faces’ tends to break down at the margin.” See James, Scott C. and Lake, David A., “The Second Face of Hegemony: Britain's Repeal of the Corn Laws and the American Walker Tariff of 1846,” International Organization 43 (Winter 1989), p. 4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

152. Ibid.

153. Herken, , Counsels of War, p. 247.Google Scholar

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156. This awareness of the value of cooperation for national security was essential. According to Davis, “As the naive type of unsafeguarded arms control of the 1920's became clearly inappropriate to the problems of the next three decades, there developed a relatively harmless tradition in politics of paying it lip service, so as not to offend the gentler elements of public opinion, and of ignoring it in practice. This tradition of the white lie [was] carried over into the nuclear age. … For several critical years the habit of pretending to work for disarmament served to mask the fact that the political leadership of the United States did not want disarmament. More specifically, those in Washington who considered arms control undesirable or impractical clearly had the upper hand in the process of making and administering policy, with the help of others who thought the Russians would never sign anyway, or would sign and cheat.” See Davis, , “Recent Policy Making in the United States Government,” pp. 379–80.Google Scholar

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163. I owe this insight to Craig Murphy. See Murphy, Craig N., “Color It Mitrany: Two Patterns of Progress in International Relations,” working paper, Wellesley College, Wellesley, Mass., 1989.Google Scholar

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