America and Russia: Why Haven’t We Fought? : RETREAT FROM DOOMSDAY The Obsolescence of Major War <i> by John Mueller (Basic Books:$20.95; 313 pp.) </i>

“On May 15, 1984, the major countries of the developed world had managed to remain at peace with each other for the longest continuous stretch of time since the days of the Roman Empire.” The achievement of this happy and steadily extended record, writes John Mueller, was no mere matter of luck, nor was it the product of a restraint imposed by a balance of nuclear terror. Rather it marked another step in a historical process that began several centuries ago when lesser European powers like Holland, Sweden and Switzerland concluded that war was really a stupid, repulsive and futile enterprise, and determined to do their best not to have anything more to do with it. Since then the conviction seems to have spread among an increasing number of developed countries that, contrary to the general view of preceding millenniums, war isn’t one of life’s necessities. War certainly has not become obsolete or unthinkable. But for the developed nations that have the most to lose from war’s destructiveness it has, argues Mueller, become “rationally unthinkable.”

The provocative idea that major war may increasingly be regarded as no less absurd and intolerable than dueling, slavery, bearbaiting or human sacrifice is enormously appealing. It’s also a conclusion that would seem to be supported (if not proven) by the long peace that has prevailed among the major powers since the end of World War II. That war, Mueller believes, may in fact come to be seen as the war that ended wars, at least where the world’s better-off countries are concerned. Since 1945 there have been no wars among the 44 nations with the highest per capita wealth, with the single brief exception of the Soviet Union’s invasion of Hungary in 1956. “Never before in history have so many well-armed, important countries spent so much time not using their arms against each other.”

To be sure, the United States and the Soviet Union have gone to war since 1945, not against each other, but with results that seem to have forced them to reassess their ideas about expansionism and containment, and about where national interests truly lie. The Korean War, launched nearly 40 years ago by the Communist north with the support of the Soviet Union and China, provoked a response that “ended any thought of flirting with . . . direct, over-the-border war as a method for advancing the international Communist cause.” The bitter U.S. experience in Vietnam and the no less unhappy Soviet adventure in Afghanistan seem likely to keep the superpowers from intervening in the Third World for some time to come.

The central question, though, is how the the United States and the Soviet Union have managed to steer clear of fighting each other despite the ample opportunities and provocations that have occurred since 1945, first over broken Soviet promises about the political future of Eastern Europe, later over Berlin, Korea, Cuba, the Middle East. The answer, says Mueller, is that well-publicized appearances to the contrary, the two countries have never been remotely close to direct conflict. Earlier international wars grew out of the conclusion of those who fought them that they were unavoidable and even desirable as a way to settle disputes. The United States and the Soviet Union, though, have simply never seen it in their interests to go to war. It didn’t always seem that way at various times of crisis. Yet Mueller makes a plausible case for this conclusion.

First, for all of Stalin’s probing for Western weak spots and dedication to coercion and subversion, and for all of Khrushchev’s bluster and missile-rattling, Soviet policy has consistently proven to be cautious and risk-averse. Even at the height of the Cuban missile crisis, for example, the Soviets avoided putting their armed forces on even a demonstration alert. Like the United States, the Soviets instead made plain they wanted to work out of the confrontation, not intensify it. Wars, says a military historian who has looked at every conflict since 1400, begin not by accident but because at least one side thinks it can gain something by fighting. That conclusion has been lacking in the U.S.--Soviet confrontation.

Mueller’s provocative assessment is that nuclear weapons probably have had little to do with keeping the superpowers from direct conflict. Insofar as military deterrence has preserved the peace, he writes, the chief constraint has been the fear of escalation to the horribly destructive levels of World War I or World War II. As both wars showed, it doesn’t require nuclear weapons to kill millions of people and reduce cities to rubble. The leaders of the Soviet Union, which suffered 20 million dead in World War II, can’t be accused of always being peace-loving. But whatever the crises and bluster they have from time to time produced, they have been careful to act ultimately with prudence in their relations with the United States.

Is major war obsolescent, then? Mueller thinks the weight of evidence clearly points that way, although he stops short of saying such wars have become impossible. If, for example, Mikhail Gorbachev fails to get the Soviet economy working, it is not inconceivable that growing frustration could induce him or, more likely, his successors to turn to belligerency as a last resort. But that seems unlikely. The chief goal of most countries today is not to grab someone else’s territory or reach for greater national glory, but to become more prosperous and raise living standards. War is now generally recognized in the developed world as an inefficient way to achieve prosperity. That, along with some promising signs of greater realism and mellowing in Gorbachev’s Soviet Union, opens interesting prospects for arms control agreements and reduced military budgets.

What is one to make of Mueller’s analysis? It is self-evident that something has constrained the big powers from going to war with each other since 1945, despite plenty of chances to do so. Deducing just what considerations are responsible for that constraint must remain a matter of informed speculation, and all such speculation inevitably is open to argument. What can be said of “Retreat From Doomsday” is that Mueller argues his case very well indeed. Drawing on a vast literature, he has written a stimulating book, and a hopeful one.