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The Medical Implications of Nuclear War, Institute of
Medicine. ~ 1986 by the National Academy of Sciences.
National Academy Press, Washington, D.C.
The Nuclear Arms Race and
the Psychology of Power
JEROME D. FRANK, M.D., PH.D.
The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Baltimore, Maryland
INTRODUCTION
The information presented in this volume on the reactions of children,
adolescents, and the general public to the threat of a nuclear holocaust
has been most illuminating. This paper shifts the focus from the potential
victims of such a disaster to its creators, the national decision makers of
the nuclear powers.
Leaders of the national security establishments throughout the world
are remarkably impervious to outside pressures. Marches, rallies, and
demonstrations attracting millions of participants; numerous writings in
medical and academic journals; and many conferences have had no ap-
preciable impact on the nuclear arms race. There are reasons for the
ineffectiveness of such activities. Probably the most important is the rapid
formation of vast technological, scientific, economic, bureaucratic, and
military constituencies behind every new weapon system. Often the only
decision involving a new weapon system is the first one. Once a bureau-
cratic unit has been set up and money has been allocated, the process
unrolls virtually automatically from research to testing and then to de-
velopment and deployment.
This paper examines a psychological feature of national leaders that
contributes to their resistance to public pressure for nuclear disarmament
and is probably the chief psychological instigator of the nuclear arms
race the will to power. The Roman historian Tacitus has called this drive
the most flagrant of all the passions, and the contemporary military his
474
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THE NUCLEI ARMS MCE kD THE PSYCHOLOGY OF POWER 475
torian Michael Howard has written, "The causes of war remain rooted in
perceptions by statesmen of the growth of hostile power and the fears for
the restriction . . .
of their own" (Howard. 19841.
The counterpart of the drive for power is the equally strong propensity
to obey (Milgram, 19741. Were there not a drive to obey orders, leaders
would be powerless, and this drive seems to be as powerful as any other
human propensity. In recognition of this fact, instillation of automatic
obedience to command is a major function of all military training. In
response to a leader's commands, human groups perform incredible acts
of both heroism and destruction, including perpetrating massacres and
committing mass suicide.
Examined in this paper are some psychological aspects of the exercise
of power in the anarchic and dangerous international environment with
special reference to pursuit of the nuclear arms competition. The presen-
tation therefore inevitably emphasizes the aspects of power that are socially
destructive. Obviously the power drive accounts for ambition, competi-
tiveness, and other characteristics of members of a healthy society. The
prevalence of such qualities is necessary for the emergence of leaders who
are essential for the organization and functioning of any group. Without
people willing to give orders and others willing to obey them, societies
could not organize themselves or protect themselves against the external
threats.
In organized, cohesive societies, moreover, the drive for power gen-
erally expresses itself constructively. Leaders seek to enhance the welfare
of their followers, and rules, social customs, and shared values inhibit the
use of violence to resolve conflicts. Only in the absence of such constraints
is violence the final arbiter of power struggles (Schmookler, 19831.
PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS OF LEADERS
All successful leaders have certain psychological characteristics that,
in varying degrees, are essential to the exercise of power. Among these
characteristics are practicality, a low threshold for suspiciousness, opti-
mism, and strength of will.
.
Successful exercise of leadership requires that leaders acquire and con-
trol the means of exerting power, whether these means be weaponry or
mastery of the structure and finances of the organizations they lead. As
a result, leaders are characteristically men of action who seek to master
practical problems as they arise. Most are impatient of abstractions and
theoretical considerations.
To advance in the hierarchy of leadership, it is helpful, perhaps essen-
tial, for an aspiring leader to have a low threshold of suspicion of the
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IMAGES AND RISKS OF NUC~FAR WAR
intentions of others. All leaders at times must conceal information from
others, even if this requires dissembling or deceit. An example was Pres-
ident Kennedy's concealment from the Russian ambassador of his knowl-
edge of the Russian missile bases being constructed in Cuba. In their rise
to power, furthermore, leaders are likely to encounter some superiors who
wish to hold them back, rivals who seek to displace them, and subordinates
who seek to curry favor. The recognition of leaders that they themselves
sometimes dissemble and their experiences in thwarting machinations of
those around them may facilitate the formation of the image of the enemy
discussed below.
Leaders' optimism contributes to their ability to persevere in the face
of disappointments and defeats. Leaders who have reached the top have
typically experienced more victories than defeats, sometimes despite
prophecies of defeat by their advisers, so such leaders develop high con-
fidence in their judgment and ability to prevail.
Optimism contributes finally to strength of will, probably the most
important single psychological attribute of the successful leader. Strength
of will involves not only the ability to persist in spite of obstacles but also
to endure physical suffering as well as unpleasant emotions such as fear.
Moreover the effective use of power involves the infliction of as much
suffering on the opponent as is necessary to prevail.
In this connection a major psychological reason for the failure of anti-
nuclear activists to influence national policies may be that their major
appeals are to fear and compassion. Appeals to these emotions have been
implicit throughout this symposium in the delineations of the many and
varied horrors of a nuclear holocaust, and the distressing feelings the
prospect of such an event arouses in children and the general public.
Fear powerfully motivates most people, and appeals to compassion
resonate particularly with physicians and other members of the helping
professions. Yet it is hard to imagine two emotions less likely to influence
those with a strong power drive. In fact, for members of the national
security establishment, appeals to such emotions are counterproductive
because those who make them are readily dismissed as cowards and sen-
timentalists.
EMOTIONAL INSTIGATORS OF VIOLENCE
International struggles differ primarily from domestic ones in that there
are no enforceable rules for guiding the course of conflict into nonviolent
channels, and opportunities for mutual accommodation are restricted by
the fact that two rival groups may be operating under different rules and
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THE NUCLEI ARMS RACE ID THE PSYCHOLOGY OF POWER 477
with different values. In such an anarchic situation, victory goes to the
side that can bring to bear superior means of violence.
The proclivity to resort to violence is deeply rooted in the human psyche.
At an emotional level the two main instigators of violent behavior are fear
and anger. Fear instigates violence in an animal only when it feels cor-
nered, that is, when it is unable to flee. Because of their symbolic powers,
humans often feel cornered even when physically they are not. The rec-
ognition of a warrior that flight would mark him as a coward and expose
him to the contempt of his fellows is often a more powerful obstacle to
flight than any physical barrier could be, leaving the warrior no alternative
but to fight. Similarly, a national leader might well feel cornered by the
prospect of loss of his domestic power base if he yielded to an enemy's
threat.
Anger, which is the typical response to frustration, evokes the urge to
harm or destroy its source. Since under the goad of the drive to power
groups seek continually to expand, inevitably they eventually collide and
thus frustrate each other. So the international arena never lacks for stimuli
to fear and anger.
The role of emotions in influencing decisions of national leaders is hard
to evaluate. Historically emotions have influenced leaders' behavior in
crises where rapid decisions had to be made under conditions of extreme
tension (George, 1986~. By and large, however, leaders are among the
most emotionally stable members of their societies, because in order to
reach the top they must have weathered many emotionally stressful sit-
uations.
Although fear and anger are prime instigators of violence in hand-to-
hand combat, the major destructiveness of modern war is inflicted on
invisible targets by bombs and shells launched by soldiers who are simply
obeying orders. Moreover, decisions of heads of state to go to war are
usually based ostensibly on highly rational calculations. On the other hand,
emotions can influence ostensibly rational decisions of national leaders in
subtle ways (Janis, in press). Emotional reactions almost certainly con-
tribute to the frequent misinterpretations by leaders of antagonistic groups
of each other's capabilities and intentions.
THE IMAGE OF THE ENEMY
The major psychological instigator of the accumulation of weaponry
and the major target for its use has always been another group perceived
as an enemy (Frank, 19821. Humans, like all social creatures, are pro-
grammed to fear and mistrust members of groups other than their own.
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IMAGES AND RISKS OF NUCLEAR WAR
When two such groups find themselves in conflict this mutual distrust
escalates to what has been termed the image of the enemy. No matter
who the conflicting groups are, each sees the other as warlike, cruel, and
treacherous. This perception was correct for those societies, from the
Assyrians to the Nazis, whose values glorified military conquest and death
in battle.
Fortunately, according to the dominant values of the two leading in-
ternational antagonists today, the United States and the Soviet Union, war
is an evil, justified only in the service of the highest moral goals or in
self-defense. Groups that hold these values see themselves as peaceful,
honorable, and humane, while portraying their opponents as treacherous,
warlike, and cruel. As a result, each group attributes its own violent acts
to irresistible environmental forces, while similar actions by the other are
attributed to their innate evil qualities, a phenomenon psychologists have
termed the attribution error (Jones and Davis, 1965~. Each antagonist
attributes the atrocious acts of an enemy to the enemy's viciousness, while
attributing those committed by itself to regrettable necessities.
Unfortunately the evil image of the enemy is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Whatever the characteristics of warring groups initially, each group, in
its effort to combat what it perceives as the treacherousness and warlike-
ness of the other, becomes treacherous and warlike itself. Enemies that
do not recognize each other to be treacherous and warlike would not long
survive. So each antagonist can legitimately justify its own accumulation
of weaponry as being necessary for self-defense.
VIOLENCE AND NUCLEAR WEAPONS
In an anarchic world the ultimate means of controlling the behavior of
an enemy has been the threat or actual use of violence. Efforts to resolve
international conflicts by negotiation have always been conducted in this
context. The creditability of the threat of violence depended on the ability
to maintain the tightest control possible over the course of battle should
negotiations break down. Control was sought through battle plans based
primarily on experience with previous wars. Even when based on extensive
previous experience, these plans have often failed to work under battle
conditions. Scenarios for waging limited or controlled nuclear war are
based only on extrapolations from Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the results
of underground tests. Most of the creators of these scenarios have never
been in combat or even witnessed a nuclear explosion, and none, of course,
has experienced a nuclear holocaust. To quote a high-ranking military
expert: "In a very literal use of the language, they do not know what they
are talking about" (T. L. Davies, Rear Admiral, U.S. Navy, personal
communication, 19821. If battle plans based on extensive experience so
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THE NUCLEI ARMS RACE ID THE PSYCHOLOGY OF POWER 479
often failed under conditions of actual combat, what are the chances of
success for these computerized nuclear fantasies?
In addition to the unfamiliarity of nuclear weapons, their unprecedented
destructiveness coupled with such phenomena as electromagnetic pulses
hamper the ability to maintain the tight command and control that would
be required to assure the successful use of nuclear weapons in battle.
Breakdowns of command and control leading to serious errors have fre-
quently occurred under the stress and confusion of combat. Nuclear weap-
ons allow virtually no margin for error. As the historian Henry Steele
Commager puts it, "Technologically for the first time we've reached the
stage of the irretrievable mistake."
National leaders are well aware of these considerations. They never-
theless continue to place their faith in weaponry because no alternative
means of exercising power is in sight. They continue to create ever more
elaborate and sophisticated nuclear weapon systems in hopes of acquiring
meaningful superiority over their rivals.
NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND CONCEPTUAL INERTIA
To be able to pursue this goal, leaders must psychologically assimilate
nuclear weapons to conventional weapons, with which relative power had
meaning. The view of nuclear weapons as simply bigger conventional
ones is a manifestation of what has been called conceptual inertia or the
force of habit. Whenever humans are faced with a brand new problem
they try to make it look like an old, familiar one and then attempt to solve
it by the same means that succeeded with the familiar one.
The assimilation of nuclear weapons to conventional ones is abetted by
the misuse of language. Words used to describe arms races and nuclear
weapons are still almost exclusively those used for conventional weapons.
Concepts such as superiority, inferiority, defense, margin of safety, and
so on, dominate the language of military affairs. As semanticists have
pointed out, in the absence of actual experience reality is what we tell
ourselves it is, so if we use the wrong words to describe a situation, we
are off on the wrong foot before we even know we have started to think
(Rapoport, 1984~.
To cite one example, every speaker in this symposium has used the
terms nuclear war to refer to a nuclear holocaust, while simultaneously
providing abundant evidence that a nuclear holocaust differs fundamentally
from war in at least two crucial respects: it cannot be won in any mean-
ingful sense of the term, and its destructiveness continues and probably
increases long after hostilities have ceased. The mere use of the word
war, by evoking images of the possibilities of victory and of survival of
an intact society, can subtly distort one's thinking about the nuclear threat.
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IMAGES AND RISKS OF NUCLEAR WAR
The pursuit of greater security through technology is strikingly exem-
plified by the Strategic Defense Initiative. Proponents justify research on
this program by citing the solutions of many problems long thought to be
insoluble, examples being human flight, the splitting of the atom, and the
cracking of the genetic code. Moreover, an effective defense, it has been
said, has been developed against every weapon in the past. This statement
is probably true, but only because a considerably less than perfect defense
was adequate against even the most powerful prenuclear weapon. Ade-
quate protection against nuclear warheads would require a virtually perfect
defense. This has never been achieved against any weapon because the
same mental processes that devise the defense are simultaneously thinking
~ . . .
Oi ways 0 circumventing it.
The triumphs of technology in mastering inanimate nature depend on
the fact that the physical world does not fight back. The problem remains
stationary during attempts to solve it. The real problem posed by an
enemy's weapons, however, lies not in their physical properties but in the
mental processes of the enemy's weapons experts. Since the mental pro-
cesses of all humans are similar, although one side may achieve a tem-
porary technological advantage, the other inevitably catches up.
The optimism of national leaders seems to prevent them from drawing
this obvious conclusion, creating what has been termed the fallacy of the
last move. Leaders of each side apparently believe that its latest techno-
logical solution to threats created by an enemy's weapons will assure final
victory, while actually both are pursuing an ever-receding goal.
NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND DEMONSTRATION OF RESOLVE
As mentioned earlier, the successful exercise of power depends on both
possession of the means of power and demonstration of the will to use it.
Stronger will has often been a more important determinant of the victory
than arms witness Hitler's successful invasion of the Rhineland in the
face of vastly stronger French military power and the victory of the North
Vietnamese over the United States.
The more conventional weapons a nation had the more powerful it
appeared to be and, indeed, the more powerful it really was. The accu-
mulation of nuclear weapons, beyond the level where each nuclear op-
ponent can destroy the other many tirades over, no matter how large or
sophisticated the other's nuclear arsenal (a level long since exceeded by
the United States and the Soviet Union), conveys only the appearance of
security and power. As a result, the main function of nuclear weapons
has become to demonstrate determination to prevail. For example, Pres-
ident Reagan has argued for the support of the MX and other weapons
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THE NUCLEI ARMS RACE ID THE PSYCHOLOGY OF POWER 481
systems of dubious military value on this ground: "Indeed should Congress
delay or eliminate the Peacekeeper program, it would send an unmistakable
signal to the Soviet Union that we do not possess the resolve required
. . . to maintain . . . the policy of deterrence" (Reagan, 1985~.
To put it bluntly, with nuclear weapons appearance is really all that
counts: " . . . objective reality, whatever that may be, is simply irrelevant:
only the subjective phenomena of perception and valuejudgment count"
(Luttwak, 1977~. Furthermore, an arsenal that is continually innovating
is a more convincing demonstration of will than one that is static: "A
growing and innovative arsenal will be perceived as more powerful than
one which is static-even if the latter retains an advantage in purely
technical terms" (Kline, 19751.
These arguments, incidentally, provide intellectual justification for the
pursuit of an endless arms race not only with the military establishments
of other nations but also within the military establishment of each of them.
Under the spur of the drive for power each of the military services competes
with the other for a larger share of the military budget, and each goes
to great length to justify its need for ever new and more sophisticated
weaponry.
A possibly hopeful consequence of the universal recognition that the
use of nuclear weapons in combat carries an inordinately high risk is that,
in contrast to previous arms races, the major purpose of both nuclear
superpowers is not to win a nuclear war but to avoid or prevent one.
Unfortunately, this goal itself becomes a justification for pursuit of the
nuclear arms race.
The justification goes something like this: Prudence requires that mil-
itary policy be based on the worst case assessment, the worst case in this
instance being that the opponents believe they can win a nuclear war.
Each side can quote ample evidence for this possibility in the form of
public statements by military and political leaders, military directives,
elaborate preparations to enable essential leaders to function during a
prolonged nuclear war, and the like. Should the opponents come to believe
that they could prevail in a nuclear war, the argument continues, they
might threaten to attack. Our side would then be faced with the dread
alternatives of yielding to this nuclear blackmail or launching a nuclear
holocaust. Therefore our side must maintain escalation dominance-that
is, sufficient superiority at every level of armaments and in all nuclear
weapon systems, so that the opponents could not possibly believe black-
mail would succeed.
In short, there seems to be no limit to the intellectual gymnastics leaders
of national security establishments will perform to avoid confronting the
realization that weapons chemical and biological as well as nuclear-
are becoming too destructive to be usable as instruments of power.
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IMAGES AND RISKS OF NUCLEAR WAR
GROUNDS FOR HOPE CREATED BY NEW TECHNOLOGIES
The analysis I have presented implies a bleak future for humankind. In
searching for crumbs of hope, I recollect that violence is the ultimate
source of power only in an anarchic world. As already mentioned, within
an orderly community resort to violence is inhibited by customs and rules,
and leaders are free to devote their talents to socially desirable goals.
Fortunately, technological innovations as radical as nuclear weaponry for
the first time in human history have created a possibility that the psycho-
logical grounds for a world order, namely a worldwide sense of com-
munity, could be achieved.
A hopeful consideration in this respect is that nations can change from
enemies to friends with remarkable rapidity when they discover that co-
operation can yield vastly greater benefits than antagonism to both. Wit-
ness the evolution of relationships between the People's Republic of China
and the United States. In 1976, according tc public opinion polls, about
75 percent of Americans saw China as a hostile power. Only 6 years later,
in 1982, the same percentage saw China as a friendly power or close ally
(Kalven, 1982), even though the Chinese leaders, like the Russian ones,
were still atheists and had treated their own people as ruthlessly as the
Soviet leaders did theirs.
The most immediate task is to reduce mutual fear and mistrust among
the nations of the world. Technological advances as revolutionary as
nuclear weaponry are now available to promote this goal. Modern com-
munication equipment is already being used in the hot line and to reduce
the probability of incidents at sea, two important steps to reducing the
mutual fear of nuclear war starting by inadvertence or accident.
At the public level, a major technological advance is worldwide elec-
tronic communication by satellite. Electronic communications could be
used with great effectiveness to increase mutual understanding among the
peoples of the world. Millions of international voice channels will soon
be available (Ahmad and Hashmi, 1983), and already it is possible to
reach almost everyone on earth simultaneously. Even many of the very
poor possess transistor radios, and television receivers are set up in many
village squares. Audiovisual communication circumvents the literacy bar-
rier and has considerably more effect on behavior than the written word.
A more potent method for reducing international mistrust than increased
communication is international cooperation toward goals that all nations
want but none can achieve alone. The modern world provides many new
opportunities and incentives for cooperation in the pursuit of such super-
ordinate goals. Successful examples are the Antarctic Treaty based on the
International Geophysical Year, the program devised by the nations bor
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THE NUCLEI ARMS RACE ID THE PSYCHOLOGY OF POWER 483
dering the Mediterranean to clean it up, and the elimination of smallpox.
There is good experimental evidence that although no one episode of
cooperation has much effect on group antagonisms, repeated experiences
of this sort do gradually build a sense of mutual trust (Sherif and Shenf,
1966).
CONCLUSION
The emergence of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons of un-
imaginable destructiveness will eventually force national leaders to rec-
ognize that continued reliance on these instruments of power is incom-
patible with survival of their own nations if not civilization itself.
To put it bluntly, these weapons are making war obsolete as an arbiter
of international conflict. As a result, national leaders will be forced to
find other means of satisfying the will to power. Concomitantly many
new technologies are emerging that for the first time could enable the
peoples of all nations, through cooperative activities, to achieve heights
of well-being that our ancestors could not even imagine.
Perhaps it is not too much to hope that the threat of annihilation by
violent conflict on the one hand and the prospect of unprecedented benefits
through international cooperation on the other will yet persuade the world's
leaders to use their power for constructive rather than destructive ends.
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standing. Pp. 1-3 in Proceedings of the Thirty-Second Pugwash Conference on Science
and World Affairs. London: Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs.
Frank, J. D. 1982. The image of the enemy. Pp. 115-136 in Sanity and Survival in the
Nuclear Age. New York: Random House.
George, A. L. 1986. The impact of crisis-induced stress on decision making. This volume.
Howard, M. 1984. The causes of wars. Wilson Quarterly, Summer, 99.
Janis, I. In press. Problems of international crisis management in the nuclear age. J. Social
Issues.
Jones, E. E., and K. E. Davis. 1965. From acts to dispositions: the attribution process in
person perception. In L. Berkowitz (ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology,
Vol. 2. New York: Academic Press.
Kalven, J. 1982. A talk with Louis Harris. Bull. Atomic Sci. September, 3-5.
Kline, R. 1975. World power assessment. Washington, D.C.: Center for Strategic and
International Studies.
Luttwak, E. N. 1977. Perceptions of military force and U.S. policy. Survival, January-
February, 4.
Milgram, S. 1974. Obedience to Authority. New York: Harper & Row.
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Rapoport, A. 1984. Preparation for nuclear war: The final madness. Am. J. Orthopsych.
54:524-529.
Reagan, R. R. 1985. Message to the Congress, March 4.
Schmookler, A. B. 1983. The Parable of the Tribes: The Problem of Power in Social
Evolution. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press.
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Intergroup Conflict and Cooperation. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
arms race
