DETENTE AS FUTURE HISTORY

COLONEL J. G. THOMPSON, USAMR. J. E. TRINNAMAN

THE SPACESHIP AND THE LIFEBOAT:METAPHORS FOR THE 19908

are such linkages only the creation of menand nations bent on assuring their ownsurvival, designs that bind us enduringly to nonation) no resource, other than those dictatedby the shifting requirements of themarketplace and the maintenance of security?

If there are no proper historicalantecedents among which to search for cluesto these questions we confront a dilemma, foronly through analysis of the rich textures ofhistorical reality can we begin to understandthe workings of those conditions and trendsthat underlie the chronicle of historicalevents. In this situation, a perspective of thefuture as history offers a doubleadvantage-the rich suggestiveness of thehistori~l viewpoint, and a means of breakingaway from the limits of the surprise-freeprojection of historical antecedents andcurrent trends. We invent a stream of history,then trace its sinuous course back to thepresent reality so that we might assess and, ifwe choose, alter its directions while its banks

by

he world trends beginning toemerge in the 1960s and '70s arequalitatively new and changefundamentally the traditional

l1cepts of relations among states. There may{therefore, no proper historical antecedentsthe detente developing between the United

ates and the Soviet Union. Communication,al1sportation, trade patterns, and mutualependencies have made the world

~~bstantially smaller. Modernization and'gustrial and commercial development are'rtexorably drawing the world's people closer.

e most telling evidence of fundamentalsKllnge during this period was the emergence()L concern, for the first time in humanhistory, over the survival of the human

ecies.This concern may take the form of some

l'ecific questions: Are nations engaged in thereation of a true global interdependence inhich all nations are inevitably linked inommon need for support and sustenance? Or

Colonel John G. Thompson served throughout WorldII in the Mediterranean and European Theaters;

the Korean conflict in combat and general staffposiitiorlS; and in various operational assignments during

several tours in Vietnam. He hasbeen Director of Graduate Studiesand Research at the US ArmyCommand and General StaffCollege, and is currently assignedto the Strategic Studies Institute.He holds a doctorate in English,and is a graduate of the Commandand General Staff College, theArmed Forces Staff College, andthe Air War College.

Mr. James E. Trinnaman joined the Strategic StudiesInstitute in 1973. Mr. Trinnaman holds degrees inPolitical Science and Econon:llcs from Hobart College andthe John Hopkins University. Fornine years he was a researchscientist in the AmericanUniversity's Center for Researchin Social Systems. He has alsoworked as a senior sta.ff scientistfor Operations Research, Inc., andmore recently. as an operationsresearch analyst with the USArmy Logistics EvaluationAgency.

PARAMETERS, The Journal of the US Army War College, Vol. 5, No.1. 1975

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4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE The Spaceship and the Lifeboat: Metaphors for the 1990s. Detente asFuture History

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are yet undefined by men and events.Accordingly, the arguments of-this article arecast in the form of a retrospective of thehistory of the 1970s and '80s from a vantagepoint in the mid-l 990s.l

S usanne Langer suggested that it isprobably impossible to approach a

problem except through the door ofmetaphor, and looking at the future as historyposes such a problem.2 Also, as George Eliotremarked in Middlemarch that, "All of us getour thoughts entangled in metaphor, and actfatally on the strength of them." Since,therefore, we cannot avoid metaphor, we canat least try to lessen the incidence of "fatalentanglements" through explicit recognitionof their existence, by the conscious pitting ofmetaphor against metaphor. The competitivein terplay and tension thereby createdbetween and among them may result inperceptions and solutions relatively freer offossilized metaphors.

The two central metaphors of our time,within whose contrasting perspectives will beplayed out the main drama of detente overthe next 15 to 20 years, and whose competingpressures will largely determine its course intothe 1990s, are those of the spaceship (earth)and the lifeboat. 3

The spaceship metaphor, used first byKenneth Boulding,4 suggests that the earth isin process of transition from an open to aclosed system. A closed system is one inwhich all inputs and outputs are linked insome manner, and there is no place outsidethe system from which one can drawresources, or into which one can depositwastes. When that happens the earth will be,for all intents and purposes, a spaceshipcontaining limited and unexpandablereservoirs for both extraction and pollution,and in which each and every part mustnecessarily coexist in an interdependentrelationship with every other part. We thenhave a limited capital stock in reserves, goods,people, organizations, and knowledge, and noway to expand any of these except at theexpense of one or more of the others. Successin the system will be defined in terms ofefficient maintenance of this stock, and

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improvement as any new technique whichmaintains this stock with lessenedthroughput-that is, less consumption ofresources as inputs or less output in the formof pollution. This definition does not suggestthat all parts of the system-people, nations,and so on-are of equal importance, but thatall are ultimately bound to all others, andmust seek common cause in preserving thesystem. Although the world has not yetarrived at a closed system, it is approachingthat point rapidly and there appears to be noway of slowing or reversing this trend.

The lifeboat metaphor, suggested byGarrett Hardin,S also recognizes the growthof many dependencies in the world, but itdenies that the achievement and maintenanceof a closed spaceship system is evenachievable, let alone desirable. This metaphorconceives each nation as a lifeboat withlimited carrying capacity, cast on turbulentseas, and surrounded by a diverse array ofother lifeboats. About one-third of theworld's population lives on relativelyspacious, well-stocked lifeboats. The othertwo-thirds live on poorer and more crowdedlifeboats, and some have been spilling excesspeople overboard for some time. The USlifeboat is among the well-to-do, but there aresome signs that it may have already exceededits capacity, that is, is living on its capital,such as its stored petroleum and coal. It willsoon have to live on its income alone.Therefore, the highest ethic is theachievement and maintenance of a state ofself-sufficiency and recognition that not alllifeboats may be able to achieve the same. Itis imperative that the United States determineits carrying capacity, and to what extent itcan use its limited stores to help others towhom its survival is inextricably linked. Forthe rest, neither contemporary morality isappropriate- the Christian ideal of being ourbrother's keeper, and the Marxist ideal of toeach according to his need-both areprescriptions for disaster. We must recognizethat the irresponsible population growth oftwo-thirds of the world is depleting theecological structure to the point where everylife saved today in a foundering lifeboatdiminishes the quality of life for all

SPACESHIP: I would agree with that. And Iwould add that the nations engaging in arelationship of detente, recognizing eachother as powers in the world, will each haveinterests, desires, and goals imcompatible withthose of the others.

LIFEBOAT: I'll go further. Suchincompatibilities exist almost regardless of theform of government and ideology-though inthe case of the United States and the SovietUnion, the incompatibilities are reinforced bythose differences.

SPACESHIP: What makes this particularexample of detente unique is that the "third"power threat was, for the first time in history,not another nation, or group of nations, but apower that the two held in common-thepower of strategic nuclear destruction. Thispower was possessed by both in roughly equalamounts, and either one could conceivablydestroy the other, and perhaps the rest of theworld as well. The existence of this power, by

LIFEBOAT: Though we may agree on littleelse today, I suggest it might be useful tobegin with a common understanding of thebasic nature of detente, its underlyingmechanisms. The common ingredient, I think,in all historical examples of detentedeveloping between two nations who wouldotherwise be hostile toward one another is theimposition of a threat, historically from athird power, that is a more serious problem tothem both than either is to the other.

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set of policy judgments, and thepersuasiveness of the opposing logic, shouldenhance appreciation of the effects on futureevents.

To suggest and highlight tensions betweenthese metaphors is our purpose, and the 1995retrospective our method. Let us now jointwo metaphorical advocates as they sitcomfortably wrapped in the historicalcertain ty of 1995 and argue the merits oftheir respective constructs from the history of(for them) the past two decades.

T he truth, of course, does notnecessarily inhere in either metaphor;

rather, it grows out of the tensions betweenthem. Facile labels, such as "liberal" or"conservative," "internationlist" or"isolationist," fit neither image, for both aregrounded in realistic apprehension of the tiesthat link nations and societies. But the oneperspective says, "I must work towardachievement of a true order of internationalinterdependence, because both my survivaland my prosperity depend upon it." Theother says, "I cannot, even if I would, createor manage an organically interdependentworld; wisdom lies in recognition of thistruth. It follows, then, that the greatest goodlies in securing the well-being of myself andthose few others whose destinies areinextricably linked to my own."

These two metaphorical constructs possessdistinctly different, dichotomous world views,and the dominance of one would lead to ahistory increasingly divergent from thatcreated by dominance of the other. However,the real world history into the 1990s is morelikely to be dictated from the competitiveinterplay and tensions between theseconstructs, rather than from the exclusiveoperation of one. For this reason, anawareness of the influence of these metaphorshas particular relevance to contemporaryworld problems. Broad national policies fordealing with the most basic economic andpolitical dilemmas of the next quarter centuryor more are now in process of developmentand definition. Energy, food, and othercritical resource policies and monetary andtrade policies all reflect aspects of thesemetaphors, e.g., an energy policy that says weseek to be forever independent of foreignenergy resources after 1985 reflects a"lifeboat" view of the world. Awareness ofwhich metaphor's logic is operating in a given

subsequent generations. The name of thegame now is human survival; we mustconcentrate on improving our own chancesand those few others who contribute to theimprovement of our chances. The rest mustlearn to fend for themselves or perish in thesea.

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the mid-l 960s, following the Cuban MissileCrisis, had taken on a life of its own, bigger,more terrible, potentially less controllablethan the aggregate of all the rest of the forceseach could unleash agalnst the other.

LIFEBOAT: In such circumstances, eachpower needs to arrive at some workingunderstanding with the other by which hemay somehow influence or control thepotential effects of that "third power." Sothere has been general agreement thatcommunications channels are essential,especially in time of crisis, to provideassurance tha t the actions of one will not putthe other in mortal danger of facing the thirdpower alone, to forestall the temptation ofpreemptive attack, and to assure that onedoesn't achieve technological surprises overthe other.

SPACESHIP: These, surely, were the primarygenerational-or operational, if youprefer-elements of detente in the 1970s. Bythat time, the post-World War II era haddrawn to a close and the last of the problemsleft over from the conclusion of that war wereresolved or had entered substantially newphases. The status of Eastern Europe hadbeen stabilized, and the special interests ofthe Soviet Union recognized by the UnitedStates, Western Europe, and the rest of theworld. Relations between the People'sRepublic of China (PRC) and the UnitedStates had begun to be normalized. Theinordinate worldwide power and influence ofthe United States began to take on a balancemore in keeping with its relative military andeconomic power and its more narrow, realpolitical interests. The last of the old colonialempires were dismantled, and the bulk of thenewly-emerging nations had completed thatseemingly necessary secondpost-independence revolution where morepermanent interests and structures take overfrom those that won independence.

Against the backdrop of these events, therewas a growing recognition that new forces andconditions had taken hold in the world whichwere going to require a substantially-changedfocus in world affairs, substantially-changed

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relations among states, and radically new andbroader institutions to manage them.Foremost among these was the sense of ashrinking world, a growing interdependence inwhich almost any economic, political,military, social, or technological activity,change, or advancement anywhere in theworld would have increasingly direct,increasingly profound effects on ahnost allother parts of the globe.

LIFEBOAT: Now you've lost me-or, rather,I think you've become lost in myth. I agreethat since World War II the world has beendrifting-and I emphasize drifting-into anincreasing state of interdependence-moreaccurately, dependence. And look what it gotus: an energy crisis of major proportions,efforts of supplier nations to band togetherinto blocs to put the squeeze on consumerna tions, a steady erosion of nationalsovereignties, a vast growth of nationalmilitary establishments, and economic piracyon a scale unprecedented in the world'shistory. Agalh, this is not interdependence; itis dependence. It is also simple recognition ofthe fact that we can neither create normanage some mythical state of globalinterdependence.

The central issue is this: Our lifeboatcapacity is limited, our population growthsuch that we are rapidly narrowing an alreadydangerously small safety factor; and ourpattern of resource consumption is surely aprescription for disaster. Since we long agorecognized that there are substantial portionsof humanity out there that are going to perishand saving them is beyond our capacity,attempting to do so will only further reducethe odds against our own survival. What, then,are our options? We can seek to discriminate,on some basis, as to whom we will try to help.But on what basis? On extremity of need?According to the contribution made to ourown ability to survive?

As I think you'll agree, none of this impliesisolationism in the old-fashioned sense of theword. Indeed, the continued survival andrelative prosperity of Western Europe andJapan substantially enhance our own abilityto survive. For that matter, the stability of

the Soviet Union is essential to maintaincontrol over the strategic nuclear and otherconventional threats that we pose to oneanother.

SPACESIDP: True enough, perhaps, but yourvision is flat, two-dimensional. Let me sketcha third. Detente between the United Statesand the USSR was an early manifestation of amuch broader pattern of necessity-strategicnuclear weapons must be controlled as a vitalnational interest of both parties. The wholetraditional spectrum of conflict andcompetition between the two superpowersmust be moderated to focus on far moreserious dangers-of overpopulation, with itsattendant starvation, disease, and chronicinability to undertake the moderndevelopmental process; on the rapidlyincreasing spread of arms, including nuclearones; and on growing imbalances in essentialraw materials and energy resources.

Obviously, those naive few who expecteddetente to result in a withering away of allstrain and competition in relations betweenthe two superpowers were disappointed. Asyou know, these conditions continuedthroughout the 1980s often with greatintensity. Nevertheless, the primary thrust ofUS policy during the late 1970s and '80s, as Isee it, was to keep the essence of detentealive, to create an atmosphere ofaccommodation and cooperation, andgradually to encourage the Soviet Union-andthe People's Republic of China, too-intoactive participation in meeting the challengesfaced increasingly by the entire world. Ourobjective was to promote, however gradually,the idea that all nations, but especially therich and the powerful, must ultimately find itin their own best interest to participateactively in finding solutions to the world'sproblems, to take their legitimate places ofleadership in a community of nations whosefa tes are inextricably bound together.Continued US leadership was vital to theworld in this process to provide economicvitality, technological impetus, and amodicum of security. In effect, the UnitedStates began to act as the flywheel of theworld's engine, recognizing its limitations but

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seeking constantly to provide balance. And Ithink you'll agree that a USSR perceptiblyless paranoid, a less schizoid China, and a lessmorbid, Hamlet-like United States ultimatelyemerged.

LIFEBOAT: So we agree to disagree aboutthe fundamental nature of those forces thatactually shaped the course of detente throughthe 1970s and '80s. Perhaps, though, we cannarrow the range of our disagreement by amore explicit review of those major trendsand conditions that resulted from the pull ofthese competing forces. What do you considerthe relevant trends and how do you see them?

SPACESHIP: In the 1970s and '80s,economic factors emerged as the predominantinfluence on the relations among nations. Theemergence of the Organization of PetroleumExporting Countries (OPEC) which broughttogether otherwise disparate nations, and itssuccessful manipulation of the price andquantity of oil available to world markets,was the fIrst of a long series of worldeconomic realignments. With the perceptionthat irreplaceable raw materials, such as fossilfuels and most minerals and metals, werebecoming scarce, resource supplier countrieswith the greatest political, social, religious,and economic differences in other spherescould still collaborate and orchestrate tradepolicy. While achieving joint control of thesupplier side of the market in a particularcommodity, these nations found that theycould acquire greater relative benefits in tradewith resource consumer countries, and thattransportation, communication, and tradevolumes would continue to grow, evertigh tening the grip of real economicinterdependence among nations.

From my Spaceship point of view, thiscreated several world advantages. First, ittended to redirect greater proportions ofmoney into the developing areas, greatlyfacilitating their development efforts, and in.that way diversifying and enhancing the worldeconomic system. Second, by giving almostthe entire range of developing countries anever greater stake in the stability of worldtrade and financial structures, it has tended to

reduce the willingness of states to jeopardizethe system by warfare or other acts ofinternational perfidy. Third, it hasincreasingly forced the industrially developedworld-the United States, Japan, and WesternEurope-to restrain further economic growth,apply conservationist measures to resourceconsumption, and redirect technologicaldevelopments to achieving greater economiesand efficiencies-no more built-inobsolescence, systems designed for maximumrecycling, and growth built on more efficienteconomic production, not simply moreproduction. I acknowledge that thesedevelopments have had a profound effect onthe overall standard of living in the UnitedStates over the past two decades, but theyhave also laid the foundation for anunparalleleq world stability.

LIFEBOAT: On the contrary, thesedevelopments have brought the United Statescloser to disaster than ever before in history.Failure to reverse this trend in the 1970s, tostop forging chains of economicinterdependence, by force if necessary, hasimposed an incalculable toll on our nationalstrength. Admittedly, the United States wasless affected by these developments than therest of the Western world, but a 25 percentreduction in the standard of living in thiscountry was a bitter consequence of ourunwillingness to act. Western Europe andJapan, whose continued industrial andmilitary potential have been vital to ournational security, were left fully exposed tothese series of economic shocks, wereweakened both economically and militarily,and are now chronically endangered bypolitical movements on both the extremeright and left. And we should have foreseenthat participation by the Soviet Union in thisincreasingly interdependent world was goingto be very limited. Because of their relativelyabundant resources and their willingness toimpose any level of economic controls toforce any necessary reduction of domesticstandards of living to escape the trap ofinterdependence, the Soviets have emergedwith relatively more strength than the FreeWorld. And China has become an even more

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extreme case, a country almost totallyinner-directed, for all intents and purposes aseparate world.

Add to this the economic dilemma posedby the continuing population growth and thechronic inadequacies and maldistributions ofworld food supplies. Since 1970, the worldpopulation has increased from 4 to about 6billion people, roughly a doubling every 35years. The developing nations accounted for80 percent of this growth, while mostdeveloped nations succeeded in achieving alevel of replacement fertility, if not actualzero population growth. By the year 2000,the entire world will look something like theNetherlands did in 1970: about 400 peopleper square kilometer of the best suited landand about 19 per square kilometer on all therest.6 This issue, perhaps better than anyother, proves the necessity of adopting thelifeboat view. Despite our best efforts, there isno way for the United States, Canada, andAustralia, the last of the major food exportingnations, to make up the food deficits of therest of the world. Failure of most developingcountries to recognize that their demandsupon our agricultural system can belegitimized only by their accepting theconcomitant responsibility to bring theirpopulation growth under control and to makeevery effort to feed themselves first has led usall to this dilemma. Instead of playing moralchampion by wasting our agricultural reservesin trying to make up the difference betweenstarvation and survival for two-thirds of therest of the world, and doing it badly at that,the United States should have begun long agoto orchestrate its food distribution in its ownnarrower national interest. First, we shouldhave built our own reserves to protect againstpoor crop years; second, used food as aneconomic weapon to influence commerce inother commodities necessary to us and to ourallies; third, when possible, used food to exactpolitical and military concessions from ourpotential enemies. The rest of the world,those offering no particular commodity orstrategic advantage to us, must fend forthemselves.

SPACESHIP: Your argument seems

persuasive, but it is based, unfortunately, on anarrow, transitory set of circumstances.Although it is true that the population growthof some nations relative to their real andpotential resources appears out of hand, infact most nations have adopted populationgrowth control measures. Others, includingmany in South America, Africa, and theSoviet Union, can afford to grow stilI further,or accept immigration from other areasbecause of the size of their exploitableresource base. Advancements in agriculturehave come more slowly in the past decade.Tropical agriculture has continued to resistthe revolu tion that new technology appearedto offer, and the oceans have proved to be adisappointing source of additional proteins.This is stilI a transitional period; we arebuying time-time for population growths andmovements to become more rational, more inline with improvements in agriculturaltechnology. The attempt to use food as aneconomic weapon in the service of narrow,national interests would be the supreme folly.Food and technology are the two principalproducts the United States brings to anincreasingly interdependent world. Indeed,they are among the primary mechanisms ofinterdependency. The flow of food andtechnological innovation from the UnitedStates does have a moderating influence onthe markets of all other commodities, for therest of the world can iII-afford to jeopardizethe economic well-being of the world's grainstorehouse, that small part of the world whichcontinues to provide the margin between abarely adequate diet and starvation for a largepercentage of the world's population. If wesucceed in orchestrating our food surpluspolicies correctly, we promote stability in thesystem-the flywheel effect-and continue toprovide the framework within which morestable population growth/food productionand distribution can ultimately be built. Ourbasic security is served best, not by operatingas an external force against the world, but bycontinuing to work within the system,moderating, to the extent of our ability, thosedivisive forces stilI in the world.

A natural outgrowth of the development ofthe spaceship earth system has been the

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tremendous development of bilateral,mUltilateral, and world institutions andassociations, resembling an untidy patchworkof overlapping and often seeminglycontradictory organizational structures amongstates. Consortia of consumer and suppliercountries have come into being, and regionaland special interest associations have becomeboth numerous and powerful. Some focusdirectly on governing monetary andcommodity policies; others work moreindirectly by coordinating policy, establishingcharters, and monitoring the workings of thehuge multinational corporations which are theworking arm of much of the world's trade;and others promote research and act aschannels for technological transfer. At thesame time, our understanding of thedevelopment process and the pursuit ofeconomic maturity is much moresophisticated. It was popular in the I960s and'70s to talk in terms of rich versus poornations, developed versus developing nations,and so on. Today, we are aware of a muchbroader economic spectrum, more reluctantto lump sizeable groups of nations intosimplistic categories which overlookpreponderant national differences anddifferent problem sets. Today, we recognizethe existence of a score or more of relativelystable, developed, industrial states, and abouta score more of rapidly expanding,industrializing nations. Beyond these is a widespectrum of developing nations with perhapsfewer or more specialized capabilities andpotentialities. There is a growing awarenessthat heavy industrialization and commercialdevelopment along classical lines are notappropriate goals for many of these states.Many wiII have to develop specialized talents,high-technology light industry, tourism, orservice-orien ted economies. The morefortunate of these will find that, sometime inthe 2Ist century, they will have leap-froggedpast the larger, industrialized states directlyinto the post-industrial world.

LIFEBOAT: My lifeboat view may besomewhat less grandiose and globe-girdling,but it suggests that all this development of apatchwork quilt of international organizations

and associations is but the furtherinstitutionalization of a growinginterdependence already allowed to proceedentirely too far. Most of these associationswere created to bring pressure on the UnitedStates and our industrially developed Westernallies. Far from rationalizing andaccommodating world trade to the benefit ofall, you have merely participated passively inthe development of those instrumentsdesigned for our economic destruction, morevulnerable than ever to every political oreconomic whim which captures someone'sfancy. I don't wish the rest of the world ill. Itwould be desirable for all nations to developtheir full economic potential in harmoniousways. But the dictates of simple humansurvival suggest that the United States mustfirst look out for itself and those whosepolitical, economic and military strengths areinextricably linked to its own. Fortunately,the whole ball game has not yet been givenaway. I see an opportunity of regaining a largemeasure of our economic independence byexercising our capacity to exploit the richesof the oceans and seabeds.

Through the 1970s and '80s, nations withdirect access to the oceans continued toextend their sovereign limits generally to theedge of the continental slope. The series ofinternational ocean cOllferences through thisperiod succeeded in maintaining the right ofinnocent passage through these waters, butacknowledged the righ~ of these states tocontrol and exploit the! resources containedthere. The United States, the Soviet Union,Western Europe, and Japan emerged asforemost in the development of the newtechnologies for exploitation of theseresources. Seabed minerals and metals miningand oil extraction are now common, and theprocessing of sea water for both minerals andfresh water has made great advances.Exploitation of ocean currents and wave andtidal action for the generation of electricity isnow under way. Most developing nations areacquiring access to these resources throughthe chartering of corporations from thedeveloped countries for the exploitation ofparticular geographic areas. By the 1990showever, the technology which would permit

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access to the far more vast, central oceandepths began to emerge. Once againcontroversy developed among states as to theproper division of the wealth andresponsibilities of deep-sea exploitation. Manyhave argued that the profits should be usedprincipally on behalf of the still developingnations, the less well-endowed states,regardless of their proximity to the oceans.The United States should not squander itstechnological edge in this area in the name ofsome amorphous ideological concept such asinterdependence. This may very well be thelast opportunity for the United States and itsallies to recapture their economicindependence, to free themselves from thecontinuing burden of maintaining the balance.The United States must attain self-sufficiencyin all important minerals, metals, and energy,and our unhampered exploitation of thecentral oceans and seabeds offers us thisopportunity.

SPACESHIP: To approach exploitation of theoceans and seabed in this manner is to missthree critical opportunities and to encouragethe most divisive forces still present in thesystem between the interests of powerful andwealthy nations on the one hand, and thestill-developing ones on the other. First, byencouraging full participation by all states inthe exploitation of the oceans and seabedsand the benefits to be derived from them, weencourage acceptance of interdependence andthe conviction that we must work together tosurvive and prosper. Second, these riches canbe used as the vehicle for the economicdevelopment of countries without therequisite internal resources. This process isessential for easing latent frictions created bythe growing divisions between the increasinglyprosperous countries, the rela tively lessprosperous, and the seemingly perpetuallypoor. Third, a fully cooperative program ofexploitation is a further inducement to theSoviet Union to become a full andparticipating member of this increasinglyclosed system. The same inducements can beoffered China as an alternative to continuedisolation.

This is not to suggest that the transition

will be easy. It will require an immenseaugmentation of bureaucratic machinery ofnational governments and numerous newregional and international organizations tocoordinate policy, allocate resources, andmanage the necessary monetary systems. So Imust agree with you that exploitation of theoceans poses what might very well be a fmaland unique opportunity to the United States,but it is one of being able to offer the worldthe most powerful added inducement toreconciliation to and accommodation with aninevitably interdependent world.

LIFEBOAT: One of the most striking aspectsof the history of the late 1970s and thedecade of the '80s was the absence ofprolonged, large-scale military conflict-this inspite of an enormous proliferation of militaryforce around the world. How do you view thisseeming paradox?

SPACESHIP: Proliferation is the proper wordfor what's happened. First, there was thecontinued dominant nuclear position of thetwo superpowers. A rough strategic paritypersisted in spite of continuing qualitative andquantitative increases on both sides. But it isinteresting to note that the term, "parity,"was a progressively less accurate term. Perhapsa better description of the Soviet positionnow is Walter Laqueur's term,NDMS-Non-Decisive Military Superiority.7

Then there was the proliferation of nucleararms. Thirty-five nations were members of theclub by 1990, though none had yet attainedthe status of a true superpower-that is,possessing global delivery systems andcredible second-strike capabilities and, on thenon-nuclear plane, the capability to projectmilitary power on a global scale. Purely innuclear terms, China had come close toachieving superpower status by 1990, but hercapability continued to be focused almostexclusively on the Soviet Union.

Perhaps the most significant developments,however, were in the growth and diffusion ofconventional military power. In part, thisprocess stemmed from strong economic andpolitical nationalism among the rapidlydeveloping nations, and the resultant growthof national military establishments.

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Pathetically, perhaps, military force increaseswere an accurate gauge of the character andextent of economic progress during theperiod.

Of equal importance, however, were thetruly revolutionary impacts of changes inmilitary technology. Easy distinctionsbetween nuclear and non-nuclear in thecontinuum of military force had disappeared.Precision guidance, coupled withsophisticated battlefield surveillance, targetacquisition, and data handling devices andtechniques, widened the range of militaryforce options, enabled their application withsurgical precision, and provided a capabilityto engage selected targets with nearly 100percent effectiveness. Although suchdevelopments initially added weight to thedefense, the advantage turned out to be shortlived-even illusory-in the technologicalseesaw, for it was based on an assumptionthat the defender's delivery means would berelatively less vulnerable to attack than thoseof the attacker, while the attacker's verymovement would expose him to detectionand, thus, destruction. Although movementon the battlefield did, indeed, become almostprohibitively expensive, it gradually becameclear that the primary issue was notmovement, but presence on the battlefield.By the mid-eighties, military technology wassuch that both defender and attacker shared acommon vulnerability, a common inability toavoid detection of mobile forces oradequately protect fixed or semi-fixedinstallations.

It has been supposed that the preciseapplication of force in measured amountswould result in minimum damage to otherthan military targets. But the suppositionfailed to take into account the increasinglyurban character of the world's population. By1990, more than 50 percent of the earth's sixbillion people were to be found in urban,industrialized environments. Much of WesternEurope had become a vast, urban sprawl, andEastern Europe and the western portions ofthe USSR only less so. The intermixture ofpopulation, industrial, and military targetsmade real discrimination in targetingprogressively more difficult.

For these reasons, war became an

increasingly costly enterprise-shorter, butin finitely more intense, with winnersincreasingly likely to lose that which theysought to gain in the very process of winning.

These developments also raised the ante forthose major powers who sought to projectconventional military power about the globe.Not only did they have to contend withstronger national military capabilities in everyregion of the world, but the vulnerability offixed and semi-fixed bases, of all forms ofsurface and air transport, and, to a significantextent, even undersea craft, contributed to adecline in the credibility of major powermilitary forces. But, throughout the period,the central reality remained: theconsequences of any action which mightunleash nuclear war between East and Westwere potentially so disastrous thatsuperpower military capabilities inevitablybecame, rather than rational instruments ofmilitary offense, twin fields of force withinwhose polarizing influence all other forms andlevels of conflict were necessarily played. Inthis context, military conflict, at whateverlevel and in whatever form, was played on aglobal stage in the decade of the 1980s.Strategic military interdependence, in thisbroad sense, became a reality.

Such interdependencies were, moreover,reinforced by a host of economic and politicallinkages. Modern arms, without whichsuccessful war could not be waged in the late1970s and '80s, continued to be produced bya relative handful of industrialized nations.Their availability to rich and poor alike wassubject to the political as well as economicstrategies of supplier and supplied. And, evenwithout such constraints, economicinterdependencies, whether intraregional orinterregional in scope, resulted in the directand indirect involvement of manygovernments and supranational agencies inpotential conflicts. Never in history had somany pressures, from so many quarters, beenarrayed in restraint of military adventurism.War went corporate in the 1980s.

LIFEBOAT: I'd agree that war wentcorporate, that the direct exercise of militaryforce could no longer be considered the sole

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and priv.ate concern of the primarycombatants. To a degree, of course, this hasalways been true. But these new corporatelinkages, far from being reflections of a truestate of interdependence, stemmed fromincreasingly desperate attempts to enhancenational positions, national securities. Theerosion of our capacity to defend nationalinterests had profound effects on militaryalliances. Western Europe became much lessdependent on the United States forcontinental defense. By the latter part of the1980s, the United States had withdrawn thelast of its continental-based land forces fromNATO, and the focus of joint US-WesternEuropean operations shifted to defense of theNorth Atlantic and Mediterranean areas.Japan was also increasingly capable ofattending to its own defense. The SoutheastAsia Treaty Organization had becomeessentially an economic coordinationassociation, generally less important than thepatchwork of regional and special interestorganizations and bilateral agreements whichemerged. The Central Treaty Organizationwas replaced by a similar patchwork ofagreements between and among the UnitedStates, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan. Bycontrast, the Warsaw Pact continued as theSoviet vehicle to maintain control overEastern Europe, while China exercised aproponderant influence over the continentalstates of Southeast Asia.

SPACESHIP: You seem to regard thesedevelopments as evidence of vast andunsettling change-even of chaos. I view them,however, with relative equanimity. Such shiftsin alliances and spheres of influence, togetherwith the rise of numerous new power centers,have actually resulted in giving many morenations a vested in terest in the newinternational system. It has tended topromote stability, acceptance of policyrestraint, and a desire to seek accommodationand cooperation. On balance, I believeincreased commerce among nations and thewide variety of international institutionalstructures that have emerged over the pasttwo decades are strong enough to absorboccasional shocks and readjustments. I say

this in full awareness that the militaryenvironment of the 1990s is potentially farmore explosive than it was in the 1970s, andthat it takes fewer and fewer disaffected ordisenfranchised people to impose seriousstrains on the system.

LIFEBOAT: You've touched the heart of themilitary problem. Such linkages as you havedescribed are forged, as you yourselfsuggested, in the name of national "vestedinterests"-that is, to reinforce nationalsecurity and well-being. Militarily andeconomicallY, this is definitely not the voyageof the good spaceship earth, but the rightingand bailing out of a number of nationallifeboats adrift in stormy seas. While it's truethat the use of military force in warfightingroles has 4eclined, its use in positivediplomatic roles-of deterrence, provision ofvaried options, hedge against uncertainty, andpsychological instrument-bas actually grownover the past 20 years. The very avoidance ofits direct, functional use attests to its utility.

SPACESlllP: But you're forgetting that theutility of military force in these "positivediplomatic roles" depends on perceptions ofits credible use in the basic function for whichit was designed-to destroy people and things.To the extent that you've eroded its ability toperform that function-even if that erosion isa paradoxical result of its veryefficiency-you've also eroded its real value asa political instrument. So 1 would simplysuggest that the perceived utility of modemmilitary force-however lethal, howeverwidely diffused-has been generally declining.At the same time, its diffusion has resulted ina rough military balance within thecommunity of nations. This process did not,of itself, contribute significantly to thecreation of an interdependent worldcommunity, but it did serve to buy somedesperately needed time. Even in the early1970s, the rudiments of a world communitystructure were beginning to become visible.Because we were able to defer the physicalshocks and economic chaos of large-scalemilitary conflict for a little longer, howevercostly to the world's economic and psychic

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well-being, by 1990 the structure of thatcommunity was becoming increasingly clearand its existence a growing reality.

LIFEBOAT: I must say that your rhetoric ismore compelling than your evidence. What wereally had in the late 1970s and '80s weresimply more and more sovereign nations onthe world scene, all exercising their sovereignright to be pathetically, even fatally inept intheir domestic and international calculations.So I am far less sanguine regarding the wholedrift of these events. Increasing economicinterdependence and the network of tiesamong states have severely reduced ourcapacity to take independent action aroundthe world in our own economic interest. Anda major actor, the Soviet Union, remains atleast partially outside the system, lesssusceptible to its influences, and with muchgreater capacity to manipulate the system toits own advantage. I am not at all convincedthat the development of the internationalsystem you describe will be so attractive tothe Soviet Union as to encourage fullparticipation in it. The opportunities formischief as an outsider are simply too great. Ido believe, however, that parity in nucleararms, so expensively achieved and barelymaintained, has been the principal motiveforce behind the exercise of mutual restraintin avoidance of direct confrontations. So,while we Witnessed, in the 1970s and '80s,radical changes in the growth and diffusion ofmilitary power and in the character of itspolitical uses, it is by no means becoming, asyou have hinted, an anachronism. Mankindhas not yet devised a practical substitute forit.

History has served to remind us time andagain of the force of this reality, as events andconditions, political or technological, upsetexisting military equations. Consider theheadlines in this morning's newspapers-thatthe Soviet Union has developed, and may infact be in process of deploying, a relativelycheap and highly effective radiant energydefense system against nuclear orconventional attack. Your cherished balancesand parities that have endured so long seemabout to go glimmering. A new phase in the

strategic arms race appears imminent, sincethese weapons promise something close toinvulnerability to attack bycurrently-deployed offensive nuclear systems.It is not difficult to postulate a remarkablyuniform state of mutual defense capabilityamong the major powers developing withinthe course of the next five to ten years. Butthis, of course, is current history, and we'redealing with history only to 1990. I mentionit, however, to point up the extraordinarilyrapid pace of technological change over thepast two decades. The surprises were many;and this breakthrough, or one having similarconsequences, might well have occurred atany time over the past 20 years, rather than,as it turned out, in 1995.

SPACESHIP: Surely, the impact oftechnology has been enormous. But of evengreater significance, I think, has been thegrowth in our ability to control and directtechnology and its social consequences. In the1980s and '90s, for the first time, man beganto gain some control over the political choicesthat his burgeoning technologies presentedhim, and to begin to foresee the socialconsequences of his choices. In short, hebegan to acquire the tools to control his ownsocial destiny, however crude.

LIFEBOAT: Perhaps crude is the word. Wedidn't seem to do very well in foreseeing theconsequences of military technologies, nor incurbing their proliferation when we did.Budgetary problems, particularly in theWestern world, contributed to this state ofaffairs. Within the United States, because ofdomestic problems and a lingering wearinessof the burdens of being a superpower in anungrateful world, we experienced strongpressures for reduced defense budgets,particularly in the mid and late 1970s.Increased personnel and acquisition costs,combined with extremely rapid advances intechnology, resulted in early obsolescence andconsequent increases in rates of requiredacquisition. But these requirements rancounter to equally urgent requirements forthe maximization of available combat power.

Soviet defense budgets continued to grow

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at a constant yearly rate of approximately 3percent. The military spending gap did,indeed, widen during the late 1970s and early, 80s, and it wasn't until 1985 thatcongressional concern over the introductionof several new weapons in the Soviet arsenalresulted in some closing of the gap,particularly in terms of research anddevelopment expenditures. It is noteworthythat the Soviet attitudes toward detenteactually followed quite closely the ups anddowns of perceived differentials in US andSoviet capabilities.

SPACESHIP: Yet, it was no small thing thatall this madness actually did buy ustime-time to let those forces making forinterdependence forge links strong enough tohold despite the absence of the military clubto enforce mutual respect and support; time,in short, to create a substitute for militaryforce. But I must reluctantly conclude thatthat time had not yet come in 1990.

LIFEBOAT: I can't resist observing that yourconclusion is realistic and your hope forlorn.Consider, for example, the one major mode ofviolence that has experienced a sharp rise infrequency, intensity, and militarily effectiveemployment in recent years: urban guerrillawarfare/political terrorism.

In face of greatly increased social stressesincident to rapid economic and technologicalchange and the increasingly urban characterof developing nations, societies not onlygenerated the political and social discontentwhich lead to violence, but also developedincreased vulnerabilities to the use of guerrillatactics and terrorism. Societies learned tocope with these tendencies only at theexpense of political freedoms. In theauthoritarian socialist world this caused littleoutward stress, but the strains were visiblewithin the Western democracies and the morevulnerable nations of South America, Asia,and Africa. Their response, predictably, wasthe imposition of greater social controls,expanded police forces, and increasingintrusions on individual liberties.

A newly-disturbing note is that within thepast several years we've seen the public

disclosure of evidence that urban guerrillawarfare has been employed by one stateagainst others-possibly for the fIrst time inhistory on a comparable scale and for clearlyrational ends. I refer to the outbreak of avirulent and as yet unidentified cattle diseasein the major beef-producing Western nationslast year that virtually eliminated them fromthe international beef-exporting markets thisyear. The benefIts, to certain nations, areclear. A number of similar, seeminglyinexplicable disasters have occurred in othermajor Western countries. But, so far, nocounteractions-which demand confirmation,not mere suspicion-have been taken. All ofthis suggests that where violence in one formis frustrated it will fInd other outlets; and thatwhere vulnerabilities exist they will beexploited.

SPACESIDP: As we wind down thisdiscussion, it occurs to me that our areas ofagreement are at least as important as thoseon which we disagree. Let me tick off a fewof the more important:

• First, I think we agree that the past twodecades of detente have been useful-evenessential-in terms of defining and limitingmilitary competition between the UnitedStates and the Soviet Union. From time totime, it has also permitted accommodationand cooperation in other areas of competitionwhich might otherwise have gotten out ofhand.

• It was vital that the United States recoverquickly in the 1970s from its sense of loss ofdirection resulting from the Vietnamexperience and the series of economic shocksthat began with the oil crisis. But, in the late1970s and '80s we did begin to build and havesince further developed a sense of world role,and of moral, political, economic, andtechnological leadership.

• We also share the belief that it isimperative to make long-range planning anever more integral part of our policymakingsystem. As the world becomes smaller, moreclosely linked in mutual dependencies, andmore vulnerable to rapidly developing chainsof events, it becomes essential to foresee thelong-range consequences of policies, actions,and inactions.

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• I think we also share a sense of urgencyabout the 1990s, that many of the unresolvedproblems of the '80s are only now reachingmajor, and often crisis, proportions. Witnessour population and food/resourcesimbalances, the bitter race to control theresources of the oceans and seabeds, and therapid growth and diffusion of military poweraround the globe. Solutions are harder tocome by, more difficult and costly toimplement; therefore, we can no longer affordto avoid decisions by pursuing multiple andfrequen tly con tradictory policies andprograms.

LIFEBOAT: I can subscribe to those points.It is, however, the areas of disagreement thatare critical to this discussion.

While you view the creation and growth ofinterdependencies among the states of theworld as inevitable, and mostly desirable inthe creation of a closed system, I see in thema series of lopsided dependencies whichincreasingly impose constraints on pursuit ofour own survival. I doubt that yourever-more-closely-linked and organicallycoherent world system is attainable, and evenif it were, whether it could ever be managedso as to avoid continuing chaos. We mustfocus principally on our own need and thoseof the few others in the world whose survivalis linked inextricably to our own.

We also differ on our views of the fu ture ofdetente. You see it as a process in which weare .continuing to buy time until the SovietUnion and China see that it is in their ownbest interests to accept participation, in termsboth of benefIts and responsibilities, in thegrowth of an interdependent world. However,I see detente as limited to the necessarycontrol of our mutual destructive capability,especially in strategic nuclear weapons butalso in the new weapons systems that havebeen developed and are now being acquiredby both sides. We must, at all costs, avoid thecreation of national dependencies beyondthose essential to survival and well-being, forso long as the Soviet Union remains largelyoutside your interdependent world system, itcan perpetually manipulate that system to thedetriment of all those entangled in it-andthat includes the United States.

While you see the history of detente todate as having forged ever-stronger linksbetween the Soviet Union and the worldsystem, I see that the Soviets have abuseddetente and taken advantage of our myopia togain access to our technology and buy time toconstruct an immense, modern industrial andmilitary power. Detente has been useful tothe extent that it has reduced the chances ofdirect confrontation and avoided mutualdestruction. But the price may ultimately beproven to be too high if in that process wealso create fatal vulnerabilities.

T HE "spaceship" and the "lifeboat":these two views of the future as history

have been both too general and too specific.The course of history into the 1990s is goingto be dictated by competitive tensionsbetween these two metaphorical constructs,and the dominance of one wiJI lead to ahistory increasingly divergent from that whichwould be created by dominance of the other.Our understanding of these metaphors-toperceive which is operational in a given set ofpolicy judgments-is essential in developingcoherent strategy for survival in theincreasingly troubled waters, or space, on ourcourse into the future.

* * * * *

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NOTES

!. This paper stems from a USAWC StrategicStudies Institute project on prospects for the futureto the year 1990, short title Forecast 90. The authorsare indebted to COL J. G. Pappageorge, COL M. D.Munger, and Dr. Jesste A. Miller whose contributionsto Forecast 90 were used in preparation of thisarticle. The authors, however, accept saleresponsibility for the assertions and projections in thearticle.

2. Susanne K. Langer, Philosophy in a New Key(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1942).

3. While we attempted to reflect the basicconcepts of the spaceship and lifeboat metaphors, asarticulated by Kenneth Boulding and Garrett Hardin,we did assume some license in their interpretationand use.

4. Kenneth E. Boulding, "The Economics of theComing Spaceship Earth," in Environmental Qualityin a Growing Economy, ed. Herny Jarrett (Baltimore:Johns Hopkins Press, 1966), pp. 3·14.

5. Garrett Hardin, "Living on a Lifeboat,"BioScience, 24, 10 (October 1974), 561-68.

6. Isaac Asimov, "Let's Suppose ... A Tale for theYear 3550 A.D.," The UNESCO Courier (july-August1974), 64-65; Ansley J. Coale, "The History of theHuman Population," Scientific American, 231, 3(September 1974), 41-5!.

7. Walter Laqueur, "The Next Ten Years, AReview of History Yet to Be Written," Harper·sMagazine (December 1974),68-76.