EVERYBODY KNOWS that the United States maintains and ever strengthens its nuclear arsenal to deter the Soviet Union from realizing its aggressive designs against the West.

Everybody also knows that the two superpowers possess enough nuclear firepower to destroy the earth many times over.

To Win a Nuclear War: The Pentagon's Secret War Plans

By Michio Kaku and Daniel Axelrod.

South End Press: 356 pp.

Most everybody senses that these two truths don't quite mesh and that there must be something more to nukes than deterrence.

In To Win a Nuclear War, a disturbing history of American nuclear strategy, Drs. Michio Kaku and Daniel Axelrod, professors of physics at the City University of New York and the University of Michigan respectively, illustrate that most everybody is right.

"Despite public statements about 'deterrence' and 'defense,''' they write, "the true nuclear policy of the Pentagon has envisioned using nuclear weapons to threaten, fight, survive and even 'win' a nuclear war." Current advances in laser and computer technology, they found, are renewing the American emphasis on nuclear war-fighting capability, which was in decline in the early '70s.

The Pentagon has procured weapon systems and designed strategies in the belief that "the nuclear weapon is a pervasive influence in all aspects of diplomacy and of conventional war." Its strategists are guided by the theory of "escalation dominance," which says that America's adversaries must be convinced that the United States can prevail at any level of armed hostilities. Far from playing catch-up to a fictional Soviet nuclear edge, the U.S. is pursuing superiority at all levels of conflict.

TODAY THE United States is procuring and deploying the hardware--the neutron bomb, cruise missile, B-1 bomber and Pershing II--that will enable it to fight at the intermediate rungs. Most frighteningly, the Reagan Administration is also actively pursuing the Holy Grail of nuclear war-fighting: the capacity to launch a pre-emptive first strike that would destroy the Soviet Union's own second strike capability.

Neither the United States nor the Soviet Union has ever possessed the capability to execute a disarming first strike. But now President Reagan is intent on undermining the Soviet retaliatory force, the very basis of nuclear deterrence.

The MX and Trident II missiles, along with the Pershing II, are the most accurate ballistic missiles in the world--the ultimate first strike weapons. Their accuracy, which the authors say is "comparable to hitting the eye of a fly at a distance of 10 miles," is unnecessary for a second strike against Soviet cities. They are intended for one type of target--Soviet missile silos. They serve one function--pre-emptive first strike.

WITHIN FIVE to 10 years, according to one estimate, the U.S. will be able to destroy almost all Soviet land-based missiles in a first strike. Meanwhile, advances in U.S. antisubmarine warfare threaten the formerly invulnerable Soviet submarine fleet.

This is where the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) comes in. As the U.S. achieves the ability to destroy more and more of the Soviet missile force in a surprise attack, SDI becomes more and more sensible--and more and more insidious. Star Wars is not primarily intended to shield the United States from a Soviet first strike. This, according to most experts, is an impossible task. Rather, its purpose would be to mop up the small percentage of Soviet missiles that would escape a U.S. first strike.

The Pentagon seeks a disarming first strike capability. The MX, Trident and SDI systems can be seen in no other way.

These are not novel disclosures. To some, these developments are encouraging; after all, a disarming first strike capability, according to escalation dominance theorists, will translate into concrete political advantages. There is little need for concern, these neo-hawks hasten to add, because the U.S. will not actually exercise this capacity.

It is precisely this self-serving complacency that the authors of To Win a Nuclear War attack. American presidents have, for example, considered using nuclear weapons in Korea, Vietnam, and the Middle East. Moreover, Kaku and Axelrod report, Presidents Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy seriously looked at detailed plans to initiate a surprise nuclear attack on the Soviet Union.

These were not mere contingency plans; they were operational plans advocated by some of the nation's top military and civilian strategists. In his memoirs, Eisenhower recalled that while president-elect he thought "it was clear that we would have to use atomic weapons" in Korea.

SOME OF the judgments expressed in To Win a Nuclear War are open to debate. We cannot, for instance, ever hope to determine with mathematical precision how close any president came on a given occasion to launching a nuclear attack, or what factors ultimately convinced him not to do so. The authors assessment that these decisions were made on prudential, and not moral grounds, seems overstated.

Such problems, however, do not detract from the main lessons to be learned from To Win a Nuclear War. First, there are always those in the upper echelons of the American government and military who, under certain circumstances, will recommend a pre-emptive strike against the Soviet Union. There will always be some who belive, as does Richard Pipes, that "there is no alternative to war with the Soviet Union if the Russians do not abondon communism."

Second, the absence of a (unclear) against a Soviet retaliatory attack has been perhaps the major factor frustrating plans for a U.S. first strike. Star Wars is destabilizing, therefore, whether or not Reagan or his successors might ever actually launch a pre-emptive strike. It could result in the Soviets adopting--understandably--a "use 'em or lose 'em" mentality.

"THERE'S THE 'peace through trust guys' and the 'peace through strength guys,''' an Army general said a few years ago, sizing up the chief division between nuclear strategists. Not quite. The schism is really between the 'peace through superiority guys' and the 'peace through parity-because-superiority-is unattainable/too costly/too dangerous guys.'

Should the United States seek nuclear superiority over the Soviet Union? Or is superiority a dangerous chimera that we must not pursue? Americans must ultimately decide. Events of the day, though, remind us of the potential for White House strategists to circumvent the wishes and expectations of the American people. It is incumbent, then, that we make our decision clear.