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Arms Control: Proposal for a Special Surveillance Force

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

T. C. Schelling
T. C. Schelling
Affiliation:
Harvard University
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Extract

This article proposes that there be discussed with the Russians the establishment (for each of us, separately, and perhaps for other countries) of a Special Surveillance Force. Its function would be to observe the enemy's behavior, at the enemy's invitation, and to report home instantly through authentic channels. The purpose is to help tranquilize crises that threaten to erupt into general war, particularly crises aggravated by the instability of strategic deterrence—by the urgency, if general war seems imminent, of starting it before the enemy does.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 13 , Issue 1 , October 1960 , pp. 1 - 18
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1960

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References

1 Regarding the possibility of “accidental war,” and its deterrence, see T. C. Schelling, “Meteors, Mischief, and War,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, XVI, No. 7 (September 1960), pp. 292ff.

2 Schelling, T. C., “Surprise Attack and Disarmament,” in Knorr, Klaus, ed., NATO and American Security, Princeton, N.J., 1959, pp. 176–208.Google Scholar

3 There is a prerequisite that, if not now provided, should come at the head of this proposal. It is that facilities and arrangements, of a mobile and versatile sort, for communication between the Soviet and American governments be worked out and in some way concerted on, and that each side have adequate communication and other arrangements within its own government and military services to make sudden negotiation possible in the circumstances that would surround a crisis of this sort.

4 For an elaboration of this point, see Schelling, T. C., The Strategy of Conflict, Cambridge, Mass., 1960Google Scholar, ch. 8, “The Threat That Leaves Something to Chance.”

5 The arms-control significance of such communication with the enemy is discussed further in Schelling, T. C., “Reciprocal Measures for Arms Stabilization,” Dædalus (Fall 1960), pp. 892–913.Google Scholar