Let me make one final point. I think that it's a horrible kind of conclusion to reach, and I wish I personally hadn't reached it, but you have to at some point come to a judgment in your own mind whether a lot of the issues we're talking about are...discreet problems, that can in fact be solved...whether you think...international relations is more a set of conditions which are managed for better or for worse and kind of for the most part never go away....I personally think international relations is much more the latter....We've had a Middle East problem for 3000 years, we'll have a Middle East problem for another 3000 years. It's not just a matter of the fact that the Israelis don't want to grant this kid of autonomy relationship to these particular Palestinians on the West Bank at this time. If they did it we'd have some other problem....
It's somewhat depressing, and it's quite antithetical to the American character, which is very problem-solving oriented. I think the Europeans are much far ahead of us in this respect. They've kind of lived with ambiguities and complexities and permanent problems for a long time.
Sherwin: I totally agree with that. If I believe that the system that existed now would in fact maintain peace for 6000 years. I would up you six, and say 12. I mean, why not. I mean, what we're all concerned with is peace, so it's basically our assumptions that are at odds about the structure of things.
You're an optimist, that is, to the extent that anyone can be optimistic in this world...[thinking that there is] a better chance at maintaining stability and peace than to start to fool around with the system in significant ways. I'm concerned that the direction we're going is putting with respect to nuclear weapons too much weight on the camel's back...and we haven't even mentioned proliferation, which of course is going to complicate it....So I'm a pessimist.
Mandelbaum: If one wishes to think of nuclear weapons as a problem, then it seems the solution is a more radical transformation of international politics than anything that we know about or have reason to expect will occur in our lifetimes. But of course even if we are stuck with the task of managing nuclear weapons, even if we accept that they will always be with us....
Sherwin: Could I just ask you, Michael, to define what you mean by management and what you mean by structural changes in international relations?
Mandelbaum: Structural changes I take to mean the disappearance of sovereignty, the creation of some sort of world government....Changes of management would involve no-first use proposals. It would involve [a] fool-proof, non-proliferation. It might involve drastic reductions in the arsenals of the two sides. It would involve...a radical improvement in U.S. Soviet relations.
Crimson: Do you think there was really a good chance to prevent the events of the last 37 years in the arms race we've had at the inception or that once it became apparent that these weapons could be built that they would be built?
Mandelbaum: Well this is a real difference between us, and I think that it's reflected in our...relative optimism and pessimism about improving management techniques. My argument is a kind of inevitablist argument, that it was not at all likely that things would turn out much differently than they did.
Sherwin: The major point that I would make about the...missed opportunity that I point out specifically during the war--Niels Bohr's suggestion to Roosevelt and Churchill that they approach Stalin with an assurance that nuclear weapons would not be used against the Soviet Union after the war and that what we want to do is get together and start building a plan for the international control of atomic energy.
The most important historical point there is that is pointing to the state of mind of Roosevelt and Churchill with respect to nuclear weapons, that this idea was rejected because they already viewed nuclear weapons as a very important and critical and advantageous part of the Anglo-American power in the post-World War II period. I wouldn't argue that thing would have come out differently. I would insist that they may have come out differently if the orientation of the Western statesmen was different.
Crimson: I guess we could wrap it up with a different kind of question, which is whether you expect to see a nuclear explosion in your lifetime and how you think it would be most likely to come about?
Mandelbaum: That question evokes not a reasoned estimate of the future but one's deepest sense of what the world is like....The chances of the United States or the Soviet Union exploding a nuclear weapon in anger against the other is small. On the other hand, if I didn't believe that. I don't think that I would be able to write about these issues in a more or less academic manner. So perhaps all I'm telling you is what my outlook on life is.
It seems to me that the second nuclear war is likely to take place between lesser nuclear powers outside Europe, but that such a war is perhaps not as likely as we might imagine. We haven't talked about proliferation, but one of the great fears that people have about the spread of nuclear weapons into states that don't possess them at the moment is that the conditions that have made for the nuclear peace between the United States and the Soviet Union will not [occur] elsewhere. Perhaps the most intriguing question of all is what will be the world's reaction to the second nuclear war? Will the next nuclear war provide the stimulus for making the world safer?
Sherwin: If there is a nuclear war in our lifetime on the periphery, let's say, that is outside of Europe and not between the United States and the Soviet Union. I'm very pessimistic about what that will encourage.
I think the major powers have a rather paternalistic view towards the third world and the argument will be, 'Look we managed to avoid nuclear war for 40 years or 50 years or whatever it is, and these countries get nuclear weapons and within 10 years they're using them. We told you so. We can handle it and they can't...I know for certain in my mind that the possibility of [nuclear war] exists in our lifetime...that's why I feel that these management techniques or reversal of the nuclear arms race...are necessary.
If we're successful, that's good, and that's what we have to work toward....What we're living with, ultimately, is a northern hemisphere, if not worldwide, Jonestown. And that is something we have to work to prevent.
'It seems always better to err on the side of caution....Continuing to run the nuclear arms race, erring on the side of caution...hasn't really been all that dangerous. It's simply been a moderate expense.'
'It is the extended-nuclear umbrella that we have to back away from....It's getting too dangerous. The weapons are getting too sophisticated. There are too many of them. They're being used to counter too many situations, and we have to begin to move back to a position of nuclear weapons for deterrence of nuclear war. And I think that a no-first use approach is a good step....I would certainly be for taking that step unilaterally. In other words, a general point that I would make is that arms control and the general political situation are totally linked.'