Draft Chapter VI - Overall Report

December 2, 1957

# CHAPTER VI
## THE NATURE OF THE MILITARY CHALLENGE

### I

The most terrible aspect of contemporary history lies in the fact that mankind has achieved the power to destroy itself. Nothing could have demonstrated better the finiteness of the human scale than the enormity of the technology which is now unfolding before us. For centuries humanity has sought to ease its condition of life by tapping the powers of nature. But at the moment of its greatest technological triumph, humanity finds itself appalled by the immensity of its achievement. Henceforth human conduct on a national scale must take place in the fearful knowledge that miscalculation may involve the end of civilized existence.

The terror of modern weapons is best described not be adjectives but by facts. The largest conventional bomb of World War II had an explosive power of 20 tons of TNT. The atomic bomb exploded over Hiroshima represented a thousandfold increase over this "blockbuster": its explosive equivalent was 20 thousand tons (20 kilotons). By 1953 thermonuclear weapons had been developed which increased the destructiveness of weapons another thousandfold to 20 million tons (20 megatons). Moreover, there are no upper limits: nuclear or thermonuclear devices can be constructed of almost any desired power. And as the weapons have become more powerful it has also become possible to make them more discriminating. As a result, the spectrum of nuclear weapons ranges

CHAPTER VI

December 5, 1947

I

The most terrible aspect of contemporary history lies in the fact that mankind has achieved the power to destroy itself. Nothing could have demonstrated better the finiteness of the human scale than the certainty of the technology which is now unfolding before us. For contemporary humanity has sought to ease its condition of life by tapping the powers of nature, but at the moment which is now unfolding before us. For contemporary humanity has sought to ease its condition of life by tapping the powers of nature, but at the moment which is now unfolding before us. For contemporary humanity has sought to ease its condition of life by tapping the powers of nature, but at the moment which is now unfolding before us. The most terrible aspect of contemporary history lies in the fact that, in the end of civilised existence, the must take place in the fearful knowledge that miseducation may involve the timeliness of its achievement. Henceforth human conduct on a national scale of its greatest technological triumph, humanity itself appalled by the to ease its condition of life by tapping the powers of nature, but at the moment which is now unfolding before us. For contemporary humanity has sought to ease its condition of life by tapping the powers of nature, but at the moment which is now unfolding before us. For contemporary humanity has sought to ease its condition of life by tapping the powers of nature, but at the moment which is now unfolding before us. The most terrible aspect of contemporary history lies in the fact that, in the end of civilised existence, the

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from those of only 100 tons TNT equivalent to others capable of eradicating a
city.

The explosive power of a weapon is not very meaningful unless it is
translated into some comparative magnitudes. The Hiroshima bomb had a radius
of total destruction of 1 1/2 miles. Within this area the fatality rate was 75 per
cent. The blast and heat effects destroyed or set fire to buildings within an area
of 4.4 square miles. The explosions killed 70 thousand in Hiroshima and 35
thousand in Nagasaki. In addition there were 100 to 180 thousand casualties in
Hiroshima and between 50 and 100 thousand in Nagasaki. The effects of radi-
ation may not become fully apparent for several decades.

For all their horror the weapons exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasaki
were "small-yield" by current standards. A 20-megaton weapon would have a
lethal radius of 8 miles; its area of total destruction would be 48 square miles.
Detonated over Manhattan, such a weapon would produce at least 4 million
deaths and maybe two million injured from heat and blast alone; it would level
all of Manhattan south of 96th Street and would seriously damage the remainder.
Moreover, if the fireball of a megaton weapon touches the ground it sucks up
particles of earth and rubble and deposits them downwind as radioactive material.
The ellipse of the fall-out of the Eniwetok test in 1953 covered an area of 10
thousand square miles, or a territory larger than the state of New Jersey. A
successful attack on 50 of the most important metropolitan areas of the United
States -- and this will soon be well within Soviet capabilities, if it is not

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already -- would bring under fire 40 per cent of our population, 50 per cent of our key facilities and 60 per cent of our industry.

This is the ominous background against which policy must be framed in the nuclear age. There is no doubt that all-out war in the nuclear age would be and extreme disaster. In these circumstances it is not surprising that there has grown up the notion that war is no longer a proper instrument of policy and that the maintenance of peace overrides all other concerns.

But if the attainment of a stable peace reflects the deep aspirations of the American people and the hopes of the world-at-large, still the attainment of peace is not as easy as the desire for it. In the face of a power or group of powers prepared to exert overt or covert pressure, peace can only be guaranteed by surrender. For in the unstable setting of many parts of the globe, an inability or unwillingness to intervene with force is tantamount to a passive acceptance of whatever changes the strength of the opponent may enforce. This could lead to the demoralization or subversion of the international order. It would represent the achievement of peace, but at the default of all our values. Hence the issue is not the desirability of peace but the price we should pay for it.

We may be certain that international developments will cause us to decide again and again what the price of peace shall be. We are confronted by two powers, the USSR and Communist China, which have based their domestic control apparatus on the myth of a permanently hostile outside world, and which view protestations of peaceful intentions unsupported by resolve and strength

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as either hypocrisy or stupidity. To be sure, the Soviet Union and Communist
China have alternated periods of intransigence with conciliation. But the
slogan "peaceful coexistence" has never in the past had more than a tactical
significance. After World War II, it did not stand in the way of Soviet domin-
ation of the satellite orbit and the breaking of the most solemn wartime pledges.
After the Geneva Summit conference it did not restrain the Soviet Union from
selling arms to Egypt, thereby inviting an upheaval that has not ended to this
day. In 1957 it did not keep the Soviet Union from threatening nuclear attacks
on Norway, Denmark and Turkey. Both their doctrine and their internal dynamism
will impel the Soviet Union and Communist China to fill every vacuum and to
exploit every dissatisfaction. The unwillingness to resort to force in the face
of such a challenge will lead to a series of withdrawals and eventually either
to surrender or to a cataclysmic war.

Moreover the possibility of war does not have to assume deliberate
intents on the part of the Soviet bloc. There are tensions around the Soviet
periphery and indeed within the Soviet orbit which might flare up into violence
even without outside encouragement. The leaders of many new states may find
foreign adventures an outlet for domestic frustrations. Rabid nationalism may
make impossible the peaceful solution of other disputes. In such circumstances
the two great power centers may be involved even against their will and the
fate of the world may depend on their willingness to run risks. Paradoxically
the prospects of peace depend to an important extent on the firmness and

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ability of the United States and the non-communist world to elaborate the principles and interests they are willing to defend by force if necessary.

Equally important is the ability to develop the appropriate degree of force to resist encroachments. For the decision of peace and war depends as much on psychological as on physical factors. It is all very well to assert that we are opposed to peace at any price. But the price of peace cannot be determined in the abstract. If there is lack of clarity about our purpose in the world, we shall have difficulty in deciding whether a given issue is "worth" contending for. If our military doctrine poses alternatives which policy makers are unwilling to confront, or if our military strength cannot be applied to the situation most likely to arise, we shall find ourselves paralyzed no matter how powerful our over-all military establishment.

The dilemma of the nuclear age can therefore be summed up as follows:

The horrors of modern war cause statesmen to recoil -- and properly -- before its consequences. But the unwillingness to run any risks amounts to giving the Soviet leaders a blank check. This alternative has been described as the choice between Armageddon and defeat without war. We can escape the paralysis presented by such prospects only be developing a high degree of flexibility both in our diplomacy and in our strategy, by placing a maximum number of steps between doing nothing and doing everything, by learning to choose among limited objectives in order to avoid the supreme choice between surrender or suicide.

December 2, 1957

II

Thus the ultimate aim is to harmonize our power and our policy. But we
are handicapped in this task by many factors, including not least the nature of
our historical experience. Our tradition leads us to believe that peace is the
"normal" relation among states. As a result we have conceived the purpose of
our military policy to be the assembling of an overwhelming power to "punish"
the disturber of the peace: the aggressor. Meanwhile we have never had to
define aggression itself, other than as an unambiguous military act or as some-
thing as vague as the quest for world domination. In either case we have been
so geographically remote from the scene of aggressive action that we have been
able to rely on relatively small forces-in-being and on the mobilization of our
resources only *after* a war had started. Because many other powers would be
threatened before the danger to our security became explicit, we could count on
allies to hold a line while we rallied both our physical and psychological resour-
ces. And finally, because wars were fought with conventional technology we
could identify strategy with a superior offensive effort, confident that the side
able to inflict more damage than its opponent would generally retain sufficient
resources at the end of a war to impose its will.

All these preconceptions have been overthrown by political and techno-
logical developments since World War II. In the face of the Soviet strategy of
ambiguity, carefully calculated so that the risks of resisting any given encroach-
ment always seem out of proportion to the objective or designed to appeal to

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what the Free World has come to consider "legitimate," it has become clear that the recognition of aggression may prove as difficult as finding the means to resist it. At the same time that the forms of aggression have multiplied and become more ambiguous, we have lost the safety-indicators of a more secure past. Unlike World Wars I and II, we can no longer think of our military effort as being designed for a conflict which we enter after the issues have become clear beyond peradventure, in order to tip the scales of victory. The smaller powers having lost either the strength or the willingness to resist alone, the international equilibrium will depend on our ability, psychological and military, to engage our forces in the *early* stages of a conflict.

This importance of forces-in-being is magnified by the altered significance of industrial potential. As long as there prevailed a certain balance between the destructiveness of weapons and the complexity of their means of manufacture, victory in war could be achieved only through a quantity of equipment too large to stockpile. Then, an attack on productive facilities was a highly effective strategy. But with modern technology industrial potential must be used *before* a war breaks out. Each major power is able to destroy the production facilities of its opponents in a matter of hours after the "outbreak" of war. And long before attrition can set in, the social structure is likely to have collapsed. Modern war, if it is all-out war, will have to be fought with the forces-in-being available at the outset.

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The destructiveness of the new weapons technology has also fundamen-
tally affected the concept of the margin of superiority required for victory. In
the past victory could be equated with a superior offensive effort because the
margin of destructiveness reflected a real difference in strength. Even then an
insistence on total victory often produced a degree of exhaustion which under-
mined the position of all the contenders relative to other powers, as happened
to Europe in World War I. The destructiveness of modern weapons has removed
any doubt on this score. It deprives victory in an all-out war of its historical
meaning because even the side which inflicts greater devastation that its oppon-
ent will very likely not retain sufficient resources to impose its will.

Thus our military problem begins with the new conception that actual
power-in-being, once it passes a given threshold, is more important than poten-
tial power, no matter how large. But the effectiveness of actual power is meas-
ured not by its size alone, but by its relevance to the uses for which it may be
called upon. Unless we assume that every conflict will be all-out, we cannot
confine our armory to nuclear weapons. There is still a need for "conventional"
weapons. And this imposes on policy makers an unparalleled problem of choice
brought about by the explosive rapidity with which modern weapons technology
is developing. Almost up to the outbreak of World War II a weapons system
would be good for almost a generation; the equipment of a U. S. rifle company
hardly changed between 1919 and 1940. Today a weapons system begins to be
obsolescent when it has barely gone into production. The B-17 "Flying Fortress"

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remained in operational use for a decade; the B-36 intercontinental bomber was obsolescent in less than seven years; and the B-52 jet bomber is beginning to be outdated even before all wings of our Strategic Air Command are fully equipped with it.

This technological race places an extraordinary premium on the ability to assess developing trends correctly and to back decisions firmly over a period of time. It also places the side which is on the defensive at special disadvantage. The aggressor needs to prepare only for the war he proposes to fight. But the side which concedes the first blow must place its planning and procurement over an indefinite period and in such a manner that no strategic weakness is created at any given point.

Moreover, it is impossible to achieve security by attempting to purchase all possible weapons systems, because with proliferating technology such a course would invite financial disaster. The F-51, a late World War II fighter plane, required 151,000 engineering man-hours and cost $21,000. The F-100, its 1957 equivalent, requires 404,000 engineering man-hours and costs $486,000. Even if it were possible to procure every weapon that can be developed, it would not solve our strategic problem. It would merely shift the issue from procurement to utilization; it would overwhelm policy makers with a multiplicity of possible courses which because of their very number would paralyze action.

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The basic problem of American strategy then is twofold. It must abandon its reliance on industrial "potential" in favor of actual force-in-being. And it must choose its forces-in-being to suit the demands to be placed on them.

Thus nothing is more vital than an assessment of what those demands are likely to be. It is to this critical evaluation of possibilities that we now turn.

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III

Among the possible challenges we may confront, three stand out
most starkly: all-out war, limited war and a kind of war new to the
twentieth century: the disguised or obscure war concealed as internal
take-over or as civil war. Of these threats to our security, all-out war
is the most overwhelming. It can be defined as an attack of such magnitude
that our survival would be directly and immediately at stake. It is
therefore the ultimate war, in which no inhibitions would apply and in
which both sides would resort to every weapon in their arsenal.

With modern weapons such a war would involve catastrophic
casualties. It is doubtful that civilized life as we know it could withstand
the carnage. Even the nominal victor would have suffered losses which
would shake its social fabric. This is particularly true for the side which
concedes the first blow. Whatever the hope of success of the aggressor,
the victim will have suffered a devastating blow at the outset. In an all-
out war, the side which is on the defensive can use its military power only
to stave off defeat, not to impose its will.

For this reason the purpose of our capability for all-out war is above
all to prevent war from breaking out; it is effective to the extent that it
deters sudden onslaught. At the same time, our capability for all-out war
is the essential requisite for all other measures. For as will be seen below,

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the more discriminating applications of our military force presuppose an
adequate deterrent posture: limited war can be kept limited only if an
opponent must consider expansion of the war highly dangerous to himself.

But what is an adequate deterrent posture? No more difficult problem
confronts American strategic planning. In the early post-war period,
deterrence was thought to result from being able to pose an overpowering
offensive threat to the Soviet homeland. With the end of our invulnerability,
we have been forced to consider deterrents in terms of defensive capacities
as well as counter offensive strength. In the age of the long-range missile,
even the known ability of a society to withstand attack will become an
increasingly important deterrent.

Thus the capability for all-out war must be composed of a combination
of three factors. It must comprise a retaliatory force sufficiently powerful
and well protected so that no matter what the scale of the enemy attack,
it can return a blow which will inflict an unacceptable amount of damage
on the aggressor. Secondly, it requires an active defense which can
provide effective warning for the retaliatory force and which is able to
reduce the enemy blow to the smallest possible proportions. And
finally, it entails a passive defense which reduces the value of the enemy
offense and the incentive for it. The task of strategy is to decide on the
relative emphasis to be given to offensive and defensive capabilities and
the "mix" which will provide the greatest flexibility.

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But while all-out war represents the greatest danger it does not constitute the most likely threat. In fact, the necessity of maintaining the complex strategic balance for all-out war creates a psychological distortion. It transforms the mode of preparing for one kind of war into a doctrine for the only possible strategy; it gives rise to the illusion that protection against one danger exhausts the range of our possible perils. But as all-out war opens ever more terrible vistas and as the complexity of its strategy makes victory ever more difficult to calculate, a threshold is created below which a given provocation does not seem "worth" an all-out war. And with the increasing horror of the new weapons technology this threshold is constantly rising. As a result, we face the strategic problem of limited war.

The distinctive features of limited war are two-fold. On the one hand it necessitates an armamentarium different in quantity and kind from that required by all-out war. To a certain extent the forces designed to deter all-out war will also be useful in preventing or stifling limited war. It would be dangerous, however, to rely on them for the purpose of waging it. The deterrent force for all-out war should be designed to inflict maximum destruction in the shortest possible time. The weapons system for a limited war should be flexible and discriminating; it requires units of high mobility which can be moved to trouble spots at a moment's notice. Moreover, since the chief sanction against the expansion of a limited war

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resides in a crushing capability for retaliation, the main deterrent force must be kept at a particular state of readiness during periods of limited conflict. An aggressor who could tempt us to utilize our strategic striking force for limited war would gain an advantage however military operations ended. To consider our strategic striking force as a dual-purpose force would weaken the deterrent precisely when it should be strongest.

The second distinctive characteristic of limited war is perhaps even more important, but it is political rather than technological. This is the purpose of limited war. For unlike all-out war, limited war cannot involve or seem to involve national survival directly. A nation faced with the threat of a crucial defeat--a defeat which would jeopardize its political or social continuance or seriously impair its economic or military strength-- will not be able to afford to lose the struggle in which it is engaged. In such circumstances limited war could easily explode into all-out war. Hence the essential precondition for limited war is a tacit admission on both sides that a favorable outcome is not absolutely mandatory. Limited war implies the self-discipline to rest content with limited victories and to accept limited defeats. The effective conduct of limited war thus depends on the ability to relate power and policy. It requires forces graduated to the objective under dispute and a diplomacy which can show the opponent a way out short of unconditional surrender. It provides a test of our maturity; of our willingness

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to run circumscribed but real risks in the face of ill-defined but real challenges
and of our readiness to make peace on the basis of less than total victory.
In the past we have been ill-prepared for such a course of action. Our forces-
in-being were neither mobilized nor mobile. Our interpretation of each
challenge has tended to make it one involving Armageddon or defeat without
war. We have failed to appreciate that the military and political capability
for limited war may keep the peace by removing the motive for aggression.

Perhaps the most difficult military challenge we may have to face is one which
is made to appear, insofar as it is possible, to be no war at all. The
"obscure war" may break out in the form of internal revolution or civil war;
it may be instigated by outside forces or merely be exploited by them.
Greece has furnished one example; Vietnam another; the Middle East still
another. Whatever the degree of initial Soviet responsibility, one of the
greatest threats to the security of the Free World is gradual Soviet infiltration
and domination of vital areas through steps each of which is so small and
seemingly so "legitimate" that it does not seem to justify overt intervention.

Thus the "obscure" war represents the conflict with which in terms
of our preconceptions and the structure of our forces we are least prepared
to deal. It is the essence of the obscure war that its nature is ambiguous.
A civil war has not traditionally been thought to justify foreign intervention

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however much its outcome may affect the international equilibrium. The
gradual subversion of a government is difficult to deal with from the outside,
even though the fate of millions may depend on it. Any intrusion into the
domestic affairs of another nation is sure to bring charges of imperialism.

Even should we overcome these psychological obstacles and wish to
make our influence felt, we will not find it easy to do so. The typical form
of affecting the course of events of the obscure war is by assistance to
local forces with whom we share a community of interests. But our over-all
strength is extremely difficult to apply to this form of conflict. Superiority
in strategic striking power vis-a-vis the Soviet Union, even if it could be
maintained, does not guarantee effective action in situations of great
delicacy. A multi-megaton weapon is not a fit instrument for a civil war.
A complicated nuclear establishment may be unnecessary for resisting a
revolutionary upheaval and the local forces on which we must so largely
depend may not be able to utilize it.

Of course our ultimate aim must be to prevent such situations from
arising. An effective and imaginative policy should be able to keep matters
from getting out of hand. But equally an effective ability to assist our
friends may be an important factor in their decision to resist and maintain
their freedom. There can be no minimizing the moral dilemma which such a
policy involves; at what point is it clear that infiltration is a clear and present

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danger? How shall we determine when a revolutionary movement is indigenous
and when it is guided and imposed from without? And if our course is
relatively clear in the latter instance, what of the former?

These misgivings and hesitations are the price we pay for our framework
of values. In this respect the obscure war is a touchstone of our national
morality. Force will never supply an answer to humanity's aspirations. But
timidity may endanger it equally. Our objective, however we may fall short
of attaining it, must be to use our force to bring about a framework of security
in which human aspirations may be worked out in freedom.

IV

It is against this background of the possible missions which may have
to be performed that we must examine the over-all strategic balance.

Let us begin with a prospectus of the modern means of war. Its out-
standing characteristic is a military technology in a state of spectacular
proliferation. Starting with World War II scientific research has produced
military equipment and new patterns of military operations at an ever
accelerating pace. During the war, trucks and tanks were developed which
were able to swim as well as to operate on land; rocket weapons and electronic
fuses became commonplace; new equipment and techniques of air support for
surface forces were introduced. Improvement in the means of land, sea and
air transportation considerably lessened the difficulty of achieving a

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concentration of military force at great distances from the home base and
across amphibious defenses.

Radar, which at the time of Pearl Harbor was a rudimentary and un-
trusted device, had by 1945 become an indispensable tool of all major weapons
systems. New aircraft with improved performance and navigation and bombing
systems added powerful new strategic offensive capabilities. And uranium,
a scientific curiosity in 1941, had by 1945, become the core of a weapon to
stagger the imagination.

And the curve of military technology continues to rise: The crude U.S.
bomb of 1945 has been outmoded by a broad range of highly developed weapons.
Energy releases have risen from the original 20,000 tons of TNT equivalent to
many million tons. The Hiroshima bomb required a large aircraft and crew.
Equally powerful warheads have been reduced in size and simplified to the
point where they can be employed effectively in anti-aircraft rockets. And
with the increasing capacity for the production of fissionable materials,
nuclear and thermonuclear weapons have become available in very large
quantities.

The outlook is even more portentous than the achievements of the
recent past. Aircraft will be capable of cruising at several times the speed
of sound, of bombing from altitudes of a dozen miles and more, and of carrying
air-launched missiles so that they need not pass directly over heavily
defended target areas. New high energy fuels can give them greatly increased

defended target areas. New high energy fuels can give them greatly increased
and air-launched missiles so that they need not have to fly directly over heavily
or sound, of low altitudes at a close range and more, and of carry-
recent heat. Aircraft will be capable of cruising at several times the speed
The outlook is even more portentous than the achievements of the
durables.

With the increasing capacity for the production of fusible materials,
belong where they can be employed effectively in anti-aircraft rockets. And
Equally powerful warheads have been reduced in size and simplified to the
many million tons. The Hubble bomb returned a large aircraft and crew,
Energy release have been from the original 50,000 tons of TNT equivalent to
bomb of 1942 has been outpaced by a broad range of highly developed weapons.
And the curve of military technology continues to rise: The crude U.S.

atладер the imagination,
a scientific curiosity in 1941, had by 1942, become one of a weapon to
systems added powerful new strategic offensive capabilities. And uranium,
systema. New aircraft with improved performance and navigation and bombing
trusted device, had by 1942 become an indispensable tool of all major weapons
radar, which at the time of Pearl Harbor was a rudimentary and un-

cross ambuscations defences.

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December 3, 1942
Draft Chapter VI - Overall Report

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range and performance. Nuclear power may even remove the problem of
aircraft range entirely.

Within a very short time, a major role in both offense and defense
will be played by missiles. It will be possible to produce missiles of almost
any desired range, from very short distances analogous to traditional artillery
to intercontinental ranges of five thousand miles or more. Because these
weapons require much less elaborate installations than airplanes, it will
be possible to disperse them more easily and they will therefore be more
invulnerable to surprise attack. Earth satellites are a special adaptation
of missiles which will be able to accomplish a great deal of uninterrupted
reconnaissance.

As nuclear propulsion comes of age submarines will be of increasing
importance. They will insure use of the sea where surface ships could not
hope to survive. They can pose a threat to our harbors and to our allies by
interrupting sea communications. As a platform for missiles they can
generate a constant threat of a sudden, devastating blow from unpredictable
directions.

These are not dreams of the far distant future. Even the most remote
among them is attainable within the next 10-15 years. By that time, most of
them will be in the hands of several nations.

From this only partial catalog of the means of war, major protagonists

from this only partial control of the means of war, major bioterrorists
will be in the hands of several nations.

Among them is attainable within the next 10-15 years. By that time, most of
these are not dreams of the far distant future. Even the most remote
directions.

Generate a constant threat of a sudden, devastating blow from unpredictable
interrupting sea communications. As a platform for missiles they can
hope to survive. They can face a threat to our lives and to our allies by
importance. They will future use of the sea where surface ships could not
be Unless propulsion comes of some substance will be of increasing
reconnaissance.

of missiles which will be able to accomplish a great deal of unintended
inviolable to subdue attack. Earth satellites are a special adaptation
be possible to diabolize them more easily and they will therefore be more
useful in reducing much less elaborate installations than planes, it will
be to intercontinental ranges of five thousand miles or more. Because these
any desired range, from very short distances analogous to traditional artillery
will be played by missiles. It will be possible to produce missiles of almost
Within a very short time, a major role in both offence and defence
aircraft range entirely.

December 2, 1987
Draft Chapter VI - Overall Report

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will have to equip their forces for the strategic and tactical ends which they deem most vital. How successfully they do so--how imaginatively they match the choice of means to the ends which they will elect and which their opponents will force upon them--will determine the strategic balance of the next twenty years. But meanwhile, what of the balance today and in the immediate offing? Let us briefly examine the military capabilities and characteristics of the South and of our own nation.

In the past the United States has suffered from a tendency to underestimate the military technology of the USSR. When the Soviet Union produced their first long-range bomber we comforted ourselves with the thought that it was a copy of our B-29. When it developed jet fighters, we ascribed it to imitation of a British design. When our atomic monopoly was ended we took it as a reflection on our security methods rather than as an indication that our technological lead was inherently ephemeral.

In the meantime the Soviet Union has demonstrated that its achievements in the immediate post-war period were far from accidental. Today Soviet science is at least equal to our own in most strategically significant categories. Meanwhile the total Soviet technological capability is increasing at a pace faster than that of the United States.

This Soviet technological skill is matched by a high order of managerial ability, at least at the level of over-all national priorities. Several times in recent years the USSR has demonstrated a striking ability to surpass

times in recent years the U-828 has demonstrated a striking ability to ambuscate
all units, at least at the level of over-all national priorities. Several

This Soviet technological skill is matched by a high order of manu-
sterial ability, at least at the level of over-all national priorities. Several
 categories. Meanwhile the total Soviet technological capability is increasing
 Soviet science is at least equal to our own in most strategically significant
 means in the immediate post-war period were far from accidental. Today

In the meantime the Soviet Union has demonstrated that its achieve-
indication that our technological lead was inherently opposite.

ended we took it as a reflection on our security methods rather than as an
ascribed it to imitation of a British design. When our atomic monopoly was
thought that it was a copy of our B-52. When it developed let fighters, we
produced their first long-range bomber we committed ourselves with the
estimate the military technology of the U-828. When the Soviet Union

In the past the United States has suffered from a tendency to under-
characteristics of the South and of our own nation.

immediate oiling? Let us briefly examine the military capabilities and
next twenty years. But meanwhile, what of the balance today and in the
opponents will force upon them--will determine the strategic balance of the
match the choice of means to the ends which they will elect and which their
demain vital. How successfully they do so--how imaginatively they
will have to equip their forces for the strategic and tactical ends which they

Draft Chapter VI - Overall Report
December 3, 1947

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the United States in reducing "lead times": the interval between drawing board and operational weapon. This seems to be due to two factors: first, the Kremlin's decisions on new weapons are made with firmness and prosecuted by a system of effective priorities. And second, the Soviet Union has placed a much greater emphasis on science, particularly on basic science, than the United States.

The result of the Soviet concentration on military technology is an impressive military establishment which already poses a mortal threat to the free world and which is growing larger. Its main features can be summarized as follows:

The U.S.S.R. has a preponderance of conventional ground forces compared to any similar forces around its periphery and well able to maintain political control inside the Soviet orbit.

The Soviet shipbuilding program has long concentrated on submarines. A fleet of over 400 is already in operation. This number is greatly in excess of the German force which crippled Allied surface shipping during the early years of World War II. There is no doubt about the capability of the U.S.S.R. to develop atomic power plants for its navy or to adapt ships and submarines to launch short and medium-range missiles.

Soviet missiles are ahead of our own. This is due, at least in part, to the fact that the Soviet Union has given high priority to guided missiles for at least 10 years and that during part of this period our own missile program

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was dormant. As a result, the Soviet Union already possesses missiles capable of reaching all of Western Europe, Japan and Formosa from Russian or Chinese bases. Intercontinental ranges will soon follow. Launched from submarines, even short-range missiles could pose a serious threat to the continental United States.

Soviet airplane development has been impressive and in some respects at least as advanced as our own. Soviet air defense is based on a good radar detection and tracking system, supported by a large number of all-weather interceptor aircraft, an increasing proportion of which is supersonic. Ground-to-air missiles are a major element in it and are likely to gain in effectiveness relative to the manned bomber. In short, Soviet military strength is already enormous and growing rapidly! As compared with the U.S.S.R., the United States now has three principal military advantages:

We have superior operational experience in the use of long-range manned airplanes and geography favors our system of advanced bases.

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We have superior and more flexible naval power, especially surface
naval power.

We have more atomic weapons, and a greater variety of them.

However, some aspects of these advantages must be qualified, and
others are only temporary. Thus our superiority in long-range bombers is
not static. It is always in competition with improving defenses, and in
any case its importance will decline as missiles increasingly take over
missions heretofore performed by manned planes. In the interval many U.S.
forward bases will be exposed to the political instability of the areas in
which they are located and all of our air bases are vulnerable to surprise
attack, particularly from Soviet missiles.

Nor can our present superiority at sea be assumed as a continuing
advantage. The aircraft carrier, around which our naval power is built, is
limited in its capability for sustained heavy action by the need for re-
fueling facilities, particularly for its aircraft complement. The value of its
freedom from the political uncertainties of foreign bases is therefore a
matter of degree. So also is the value of its mobility for escaping attack
since a large surface ship can be detected over great distances by airborne
radar. Moreover, our anti-submarine capability is not adequate to deal
with the growing Soviet underwater threat.

The third point of present U.S. military advantage is in the number

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and variety of atomic weapons. But the U.S.S.R. can make good any strategically meaningful advantage well within the 10-15 years under consideration here.

Thus it appears that the U.S. is losing its lead over the U.S.S.R. in the race of military technology. Unless the trend is altered, our margin of superiority in this respect will inevitably vanish. If that happens subsequent events may be harsh and unforgiving.

V

Yet another source of major concern is the organization of our Defense Department. For the threat of our diminishing technological advantage is compounded by a threat which that selfsame technology poses to the effective directors of our military effort. In a word, our existing technical strength is partly vitiated and dissipated by our failure to adapt our administrative organization to the new realities of military science.

Traditionally the organizational expression of our strategic doctrine has been the assignment of separate roles and missions to each of the services--Army, Air Force and the Navy. Each of these services has had the primary responsibility of defeating its enemy counterpart; the Army for the land battle, the Navy for control of the seas and the Air Force for the control of the air. These missions were based, in effect, on means of locomotion--everything moving by water being assigned to the Navy, every-

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thing moving by land to the Army, and everything moving through the air
to the Air Force.

Originally this assignment of roles represented distinguishable
strategic tasks; the Army was powerless on the sea beyond the range of its
coastal artillery, and the Navy was unable to project itself far inland. The
Air Force was not yet independent, and the range of its planes was sufficient-
ly short to permit a division of functions between the Navy and Army air arms
to follow roughly that between the senior services. Each service was,
therefore, able to control all the weapons it considered essential for
achieving its mission. It could in effect develop its own strategy without
too much concern with that of the sister service or without too much
dependence on the interpretation of a sister service as to what constituted
an essential target.

But the long-range airplane, the ballistic missile and the incom-
parable destructiveness of weapons have almost obliterated the traditional
boundaries among the services. Today, no service can achieve its
primary mission without either trespassing on the role of the other services
or calling on them for assistance. With modern weapons the distinction of
land, sea and air warfare has lost its meaning. The criteria by which any
future wars can be distinguished turn on the nature of the conflict, the
issues in dispute, the geographical area of hostilities rather than on means
of locomotion.

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It is this antiquated concept of missions which inhibits cooperation among the services. For so long as each service has the primary mission of defeating its enemy counterpart, and so long as there does not exist an agreed strategic doctrine, no service can afford to relinquish control over a weapon which it considers essential for the performance of its mission. The Navy's conception of what is essential to win control of the seas may involve a bombing of shipyards which is an Air Force "pre-rogative." The Army's notion of achieving its mission may require the aerial destruction of factories, and the Air Force requirement for air control may include the occupation and protection of advanced air bases. In view of the necessity for quick reaction imposed by the increasing speed and power of modern weapons, each service will seek to escape this dilemma by embracing as many weapons as possible.

A duplication of weapons systems and a proliferation of partially conflicting doctrines is inevitable. The division of functions which worked relatively smoothly for a century and a half has become a source of bitter rivalry in the nuclear age. Each new weapon has led to a bitter wrangle as to which service should control it. It was thus with the A-bomb: it is now the case with missiles. And in each instance the doctrinal issue was evaded by permitting each service to develop its own weapon even if it duplicated the efforts of a sister service.

Such a solution is costly. It prevents us from drawing the full benefit from our military expenditures and in every crisis it confronts our policy