Nuclear consequences of the welfare state

Summary and conclusion

Using newly available data on comprehensive measures of U.S. and Soviet nuclear stockpiles this paper has investigated statistically the dynamics of nuclear arms acquisition by these nations over the past two decades. There is no evidence of a nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union.

On the contrary, there is clear evidence of Soviet ‘nuclear opportunism’ and American ‘nuclear drift’ over this period. During these decades the U.S. welfare system has expanded in two directions: into the federal budget, crowding-out defense, and into the private sector, reducing the untaxed taxable capacity of the nation. This process has rendered U.S. nuclear force levels unresponsive to changes in Soviet nuclear force, while allowing the Soviets to pursue political dominance through nuclear superiority as American ‘latent strength’ has declined. Estimates indicate that U.S. latent strength has lagged about one to five percentage points below that which would have forestalled further Soviet nuclear arms accumulation and stabilized relative force ratios. The SALT agreements appear to have hastened this process by facilitating an acceleration in the rate of increase of U.S. non-defense expenditures as a percent of GNP.

It is difficult to see how democracy and the West are to survive without a reallocation of resources towards defense. The analysis herein suggests, however, that restoring U.S./Soviet nuclear parity via a U.S. arms buildup, or a negotiated arms control agreement, will be difficult, if not impossible. With nuclear parity virtually unattainable, development of a strategic defense is of vital importance. Such a defense may allow us to escape from the rather ominous predicament into which we have drifted, ironically, in the pursuit of security.