The Great Antagonism

THE nuclear arms race poses a mortal and increasingly pressing danger to civilization. It is obvious that the chief source of peril lies not in the nuclear weapons but in the human beings behind them, and that therefore the danger can only be resolved by changes in human attitudes. As a psychiatrist I have been struck by certain parallels between the behavior of nations today and that of mental patients. Though such parallels are always open to question, calling attention to them may serve to stimulate thinking about the human problems of the arms race.

The prize for which the United States and Russia are unwittingly contending is mutual destruction, yet neither side seems able to change its course of action. A nuclear accident or error of judgment which could trigger a full-scale war becomes more probable with each passing day, as the power to fire nuclear weapons becomes ever more widely diffused and the warning time for effective retaliation steadily decreases. A year ago General Omar Bradley put it this way: “We are now speeding inexorably toward a day when even the ingenuity of our scientists may be unable to save us from the consequences of a single rash act or a lone reckless hand upon the switch of an uninterceptorable missile.”

Society reacts to this terrifying situation in two characteristic ways, both of which impede its solution. One is a remarkable indifference, probably best illustrated by the almost total apathy concerning civil defense in both Russia and the United States; the other is the building of still more nuclear weapons, thereby intensifying the behavior which created the problem in the first place. Psychiatrists are familiar with both types of reaction in their patients and have termed them “denial” and “repetition compulsion.”

In psychiatric jargon, denial is a patient’s attempt to deal with a massive threat by denying its existence. Examples are the patient with blindness due to brain disease who insists that he can see, or the patient in the back ward of a mental hospital who maintains that she is in a palace. The term is also used, perhaps unwarrantably, for the refusal of some mortally ill patients to accept the imminence of death. Since death is inevitable, it is perhaps just as well that no human being can steadily contemplate his own demise. In fact, without this safety device, life would probably be unbearable. So it is understandable that each person sees himself as surviving a nuclear war, and this is not affected by the fact that millions are faced with death simultaneously.

It is particularly easy to deny the dangers of nuclear weapons because they are both unprecedented and impalpable. Nuclear energy is of an order of magnitude far beyond anything human beings have experienced before, except possibly those who live on the slopes of volcanoes. The vast majority of Americans have never experienced even the destruction wrought by conventional weapons. Our land has not directly suffered war for about one hundred years, and then only a small area was involved. It is impossible to imagine the destructive power of twenty million tons of TNT, which a single hydrogen bomb can generate, much less what it would mean if hundreds or thousands of hydrogen bombs exploded. Moreover, the nuclear threat does not impinge on any of the senses. Submarines lurking offshore, airplanes miles overhead, poised guided missiles thousands of miles away, even strontium 90 nibbling at our bone marrow are all tasteless, odorless, silent, invisible, and impalpable. As a result it requires a constant effort of imagination to be aware of their presence.

Denial of a danger prevents taking action to remove it. If the problem does not exist psychologically, there is no incentive to do anything about it. When death is threatened from sources beyond human control, denial is as good a way of handling it as any, since nothing can be done. But when the death threat is of human making and can be removed by human beings, then the tendency to deny its existence is tragic.

MORE, alarming than the tendency to deny the dangers of the nuclear arms race is the fact that attempts to find solutions lead only to intensification of a course of action which enhances the danger. Why can we not change behavior which we know is only making matters worse? One reason may be that we are frightened, and anxiety if too strong tends to make rigid both perception and behavior.

Patients with emotional illness often show remarkable rigidity of behavior, which Freud labeled the repetition compulsion. They keep repeating the very acts which cause trouble for them. This seems to be partly a result of their chronic anxiety. The patient clings to a faulty solution to a problem because he is afraid to give it up. The more anxious a person is, the more rigid his behavior tends to become. Similarly, the more menacing the arms race becomes, the more frantically we build more weapons and the less we seem able to seek more sensible alternatives. Anxiety also tends to freeze one’s perceptions of the world. There is nothing harder to stand than ambiguity, so when faced with a dangerous situation one tends to oversimplify it. Everything becomes black and white. To use a technical term, thinking tends to become stereotyped.

This is seen clearly in the stereotype of “the enemy.” No matter who the enemy is or who we are, the enemy tends to be perceived as intellectually inferior but possessed of an animal cunning which enables him easily to outwit us. The enemy is seen as cruel, treacherous, and bent on aggression. Our side is seen as intellectually superior but guileless and therefore easily victimized, peace-loving, honorable, and fighting only in selfdefense. These stereotypes are probably as old as the human race and may be related to the fact that we are group animals. All gregarious creatures from ants to man automatically fear and hate the stranger, and whenever a group feels threatened by another, these primeval feelings reassert themselves. It is remarkable how rapidly the stereotype of the enemy can be shifted from one group to another. Scarcely more than a decade ago, Germany and Japan were cast in this role and Russia was our noble ally. Russia has now changed places with Germany and Japan, and we are not even embarrassed by the memory of our recent pictures of these three countries.

The fact that the enemy — whoever he may be — is viewed as completely untrustworthy is a major source of tensions leading to war.

The terrible thing about the mutual distrust of enemies is that it is justified. Some enemies are untrustworthy to begin with, but all become so eventually. Enemies cannot trust each other because each is forced to act in such a way as to justify the other’s misgivings. This is an example of what the sociologist Robert K. Merton has termed the “self-fulfilling prophecy.”

The operation of the self-fulfilling prophecy is perhaps best seen in the behavior of individuals. All social behavior tends to elicit corresponding behavior from the person toward whom it is directed. Friendliness begets a friendly response, hostility a hostile one. So if you expect someone to react to you in a certain way, you may act toward him in such a manner that he reacts in the way you predicted. Thus you cause your own prophecy to be fulfilled.

This can be seen most clearly in psychiatric patients, because of the rigidity of their behavior. A good example is the paranoid patient who expects everyone to be his enemy. You may be disposed to be friendly when you first meet him. Since he is sure you hate him, however, he persistently rebuffs your advances and maintains a surly, suspicious manner. In the face of this you are very apt to come to dislike him. Thus he succeeds in confirming his prophecy that everyone is against him, and will be even more suspicious of the next person he meets.

The same kind of mechanism operates at the level of societies. Russia and the United States each claim to base their foreign policy on the premise that the other would attack if it dared, and so each behaves in such a way as to make an attack increasingly likely. As General Douglas MacArthur pointed out in a speech to the American Legion in 1955, present tensions are “kept alive by two great illusions. The one, a complete belief on the part of the Soviet world that the capitalist powers are preparing to attack it; that sooner or later we intend to strike. And the other, a complete belief on the part of the capitalist countries that the Soviets are preparing to attack us. Both are wrong. Each side, so far as the masses are concerned, is equally desirous of peace. For either side, war with the other would mean nothing but disaster. Both equally dread it. But the constant acceleration of preparation may well, without specific intent, ultimately produce a spontaneous combustion.”

The mutual expectancy of Russia and the United States that the other plans to attack leads each to negotiate to gain a supposed advantage, intensifying the mutual distrust. Russia wanted to ban atomic weapons when we alone had them; we want to ban outer space as an area of conflict now that Russia seems to be ahead in this field. We ring Russia with bomber and missile bases, she treacherously crushes Hungary and develops ICBM’s, each thereby strengthening the other’s fear of attack and increasing the probability that it will occur.

ANOTHER source of our inability to break out of our suicidal behavior pattern is that the existence of limitless destructive energy has drastically changed the traditional meanings of certain words and phrases, such as “defense,” “national security,” and “balance of power.” Use of these in their former meanings has become so automatic that we no longer subject them to critical scrutiny, especially since their connotations are reassuring. As a result, we may commit ourselves to a false conclusion even before we have started to think. It is especially hard to realize that the words are being misused because everyone does it from partisans of world government to isolationists. Moreover the misuse is casual, as if it were selfevident, which helps it to escape critical scrutiny.

For example, we automatically refer to our nuclear arms policy as one of defense, yet there is no defense against nuclear weapons in the strict sense of the term. According to the dictionary, “defense” is “the state of being defended,” and “defend” is defined as “to shield from attack or violence, protect.” In pre-atomic days it was a comforting thought that for each new offense weapon, a genuine defense was eventually developed. Even though the protection it afforded was never perfect, it was adequate. Today, when one fighter-bomber with nuclear weapons carries more destructive power than all the bombers in World War II, a defense that is even 90 per cent effective would not prevent vast destruction. What is really meant by defense today is deterrence through threat of retaliation. But in using the word “defense” to justify continued arming, we automatically slip into thinking of it in its old connotation. For example, Robert Nathan recently spoke of our creating a “massive defensive shield.” There is no shield against nuclear weapons, but only a precarious “balance of terror” which is, at best, a brief reprieve and which may, with luck, gain us enough time to find a better solution.

Another phrase which no longer means anything is “balance of power,” and concepts implied by it, such as “catching up” with the Russians, are equally meaningless. For phrases implying relative strength have no meaning when each side can destroy the other many times over. What does “catch up” mean when, according to President Eisenhower, we can already bring “near annihilation” to Russia? And how do we know when we have caught up? We are said to have about 35,000 atom bombs; Russia, 10,000. Are we balanced or not?

A third phrase which is rapidly losing its meaning is “national security.” These words imply that one nation can be secure at the expense of the security of other nations. No nation can control the fall-out it receives from atomic explosions anywhere in the world; soon no nation will be able to control its own weather. Every inch of the globe can soon come under observation or attack from earth satellites. Those who think in terms of national security already foresee America fighting Russia for control of the moon. In today’s world, either all nations are secure or none is.

Finally, there is the word “stalemate.” Those who feel we must continue the arms race argue that if we maintain the stalemate long enough, eventually things will somehow work out. This term, derived from chess, conjures up an image of static deadlock which involves no further threat to either side. The arms race is far from static. Each day it continues increases the chances of mutual destruction and decreases the chances of peaceful accommodation. The use of “stalemate” to describe this state of affairs can only lead to faulty thinking and a false sense of security.

One sign that a person’s thinking processes have gone seriously awry is inability to detect absurdities. For example, if a patient can see nothing wrong with the statement, “Bill Jones’s feet are so big he has to put his pants on over his head,” psychiatrists worry about the intactness of his intellectual processes. Our failure to take account of the changed meanings of words leads us to make statements which are almost as absurd. A recent editorial in the Baltimore Sun spoke of “the grim business of balancing power against power as our only means of assuring peace.” How can balancing power against power, which in the past has led only to war, assure peace? And what does it mean to balance power against power after each side has enough power to destroy the other many times over? Pronouncements about American missile and bomber bases in the NATO countries contain a more striking absurdity, which passes unnoticed, perhaps because the contradictory thoughts do not occur in the same statement. The contradictory statements are that these bases will enable us to retaliate instantly, and that the missiles cannot be fired except after consulting with our allies.

This is the kind of semantic tangle in which we find ourselves today. We seem to have slipped into George Orwell’s world of doublethink without knowing it.

To summarize: the inability of Russia and America to break out of the arms race may involve several psychological factors. Fear tends to make us deny the existence ol the danger, especially since the threat lies outside previous experience. When we do face up to it, the same fear makes it difficult for each country to change the behavior which creates the danger, especially since each is forced to behave in such a way as to confirm the other’s suspicions — the self-fulfilling prophecy.

These social attitudes are probably as old as mankind. In the past they have regularly led to wars which destroyed small portions of humanity. From the standpoint of the human race this was tolerable, for there were always enough survivors. Now, for the first time, these attitudes must be drastically modified if the human adventure is to continue. The task is made more difficult because nuclear energy has changed the traditional meanings of certain words that we habitually use in thinking about the issues of war and peace.

PSYGHOTHERAPY tries to produce beneficial changes of attitude in individuals. Whether principles of psychotherapy can be applied to societies is highly questionable, but the implications of certain of these principles for halting the nuclear arms race may warrant exploration.

Psychotherapy tries to help the patient to see his problems and his faulty solutions more clearly, as the first step toward finding better ones. At the same time, by offering emotional support, the psychotherapist tries to reduce the patient’s anxiety and help him to find the courage to experiment with more flexible, less stereotyped ways of perceiving others and behaving toward them. By improving his ability to communicate with others, the patient gains more satisfactions and suffers less frustrations, thereby diminishing his anxiety. Thus a process of progressive improvement may be started. For this process to succeed, the patient must have confidence that the therapist is competent to help him and has his welfare at heart.

In attempting to apply psychotherapeutic principles to today’s sick world, the obvious question is: Who is to be the psychotherapist? Who has the confidence of both the United States and Russia, and is viewed by them as competent to resolve their differences? At first glance the question seems absurd, yet certain groups may potentially function in this way. The industrially backward and relatively unarmed nations, Small and large, who can only lose by a nuclear war may be able through the United Nations gradually to modify the behavior of the major powers. Many nuclear physicists seem able to focus on the welfare of humanity regardless of the side of the Iron Curtain from which they come, and their prestige is great in all nations. That both Russia and the United States agreed to a conference to devise adequate measures of inspection of a test ban on nuclear weapons is a sign that both, at least provisionally, trust the other’s scientists as well as their own.

Even in the absence of a psychotherapist, psychotherapeutic principles may be applicable to aspects of our present dilemma. For example, they suggest that it is vitally important for each person to make a constant effort to keep his thinking straight. One must fight the tendency to deny the extent and immediacy of the danger, and make sure the words one habitually uses in thinking about the problem are appropriate. Only in these ways can the real nature of the issues be kept clearly in mind.

The psychotherapeutic emphasis on improved communication seems especially relevant. Communication between Russians and Americans at every level should be encouraged. As we come to see each other engaged in our occupations at home, we may find grounds for mutual understanding which are now hidden by the stereotype of the enemy. Today Russian and American scientists collaborate successfully in the International Geophysical Year, athletes compete without bloodshed, and artists from each country have been enthusiastically welcomed in the other. So we may hope that expanded communication between Russia and the United States may, in time, help weaken the will of each to destroy the other without diminishing the will to compete by peaceful means.

But the beneficial effects of improved communication appear only slowly, and the danger increases rapidly. What is needed is a change in our behavior toward Russia today, especially at the conference table. We now enter into negotiations to call Russia’s bluff or to justify further arming by proving that negotiations are futile. This guarantees failure and an intensification of mutual distrust. To break this vicious circle we would have to negotiate on the assumption that the Russians want peace as strongly as we do. Just as changing habitual neurotic behavior involves risk for a patient, so this change of attitude would also involve some risk, but it is not as great as the danger entailed by our present course. If we can look beyond our fears, there are signs that the risk may not be as great as we think. It is true that no country, including Russia and the United States, can be trusted when its vital interests are involved, but Russia has a vital interest in maintaining peace.

There is no doubt that Russia is bending every effort to make the entire world a Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, but she is achieving her goal so successfully by means short of war that she would seem to have much more to lose than to gain by trying to destroy us at great cost to herself. She knows much more of the horrors of war than we do. In the last war she lost an estimated 7 million soldiers and 20 million to 40 million civilians; we lost 300,000 soldiers and a negligible number of civilians. She is making immense strides in education, science, and industry; and despite our talk of catching up, her rate of gain in these areas far exceeds ours. She is being equally successful in winning the uncommitted nations by exporting technicians and doctors, increasing monetary aid, and, above all, by the example of a nation that has pulled itself up from an industrially backward country to a pre-eminent position in one generation.

Nor must it be assumed that the Russian and American ways of life will always be totally incompatible. Russia is still a ruthless dictatorship, but stirrings of freedom are discernible. Dr. Horsley Gantt, an American psychiatrist who speaks Russian fluently, was constantly accompanied by an interpreter on a visit to Russia some twenty years ago. On a recent trip he was allowed to go alone to visit his colleagues, and they were not afraid to receive him. News dispatches in the past year have contained many suggestions that political, industrial, legal, and agricultural policies are in flux, and transfer of power within Russia has become more peaceful and orderly. Although the treacherous execution of Nagy shows that Russia’s policy toward the satellites is still one of terror, it may be significant that since the execution of Beria, no defeated Russian leader has been publicly killed.

If we and Russia can break away from the stereotype of each other as the enemy, we may be able to reach an agreement to stop testing nuclear weapons, with an arrangement for mutual inspection. Regardless of its effect on nuclear armaments, such an agreement, if it worked, would be of the utmost psychological importance. For it would be the first, and therefore the most crucial, step toward the establishment of mutual confidence. Then it would become possible to move further along the road to the ultimate goal: a general system for maintaining world peace and disarmament.