CHAPTER III

The Dilemmas of American Security
Part II

One of the problems of strategy in the nuclear age is how to estab-
lish a relationship between a policy of deterrence and the strategy for
fighting a war should deterrence fail. From the point of view of its impact
on the aggressor's actions, maximum deterrence can be equated with maximum
destructiveness. From the point of view of its contribution to the willing-
ness to implement it, the optimum strategy is one which achieves its goals
at minimum risk. The temptation of policy, is to seek to combine the advan-
tage of every course of action: to achieve maximum deterrence but also at
minimum risks. Ever since the end of our atomic monopoly, however, strategy
has had to deal with a paradox: the greater the destructive capability at its
disposal, the greater grew the reluctance to use it. It became apparent that
deterrence reflects not only a physical but a psychological relationship;
deterrence is greatest where a military capability is coupled with a willing-
ness to act; it is achieved where one side's readiness to run risks in relation
to the other is at a maximum; it is least effective when the willingness to run
risks is low, however strong the military capability. It is the task of the

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strategic doctrine to strike a balance between the military and the psycho-
logical considerations. A strategy which poses alternatives policy-makers
are unwilling to confront will induce either paralysis or improvisation. A
strategy which interprets its opportunities flexibly may gain a crucial ad-
vantage because it permits initiative and thereby shifts the risk of counter-
moves to the other side.

Our strategic doctrine in the post-war period hardly made for flexi-
bility, however. It had defined a single cause of war, surprise attack and
a single objective, the defense of Europe; it had presented all-out war as
the solution and it had relied on our industrial potential backed by strategic
air power for victory. The speech by Secretary Acheson implying that we would
not defend Korea represented the reverse side of our conviction that Europe
was the main prize and our inability to conceive wars of intermediary objec-
tives. For in all-out war with the U.S.S.R., Korea was indeed outside our de-
fensive perimeter, its fate would have to depend on the outcome of a struggle
fought in other theaters.

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As a result, Korea caught us completely unprepared, not only militarily but above all doctrinally. Here was a war to which an all-out strategy seemed peculiarly unsuited. It has been remarked that had the Korean war not actually taken place we would never have believed in its possibility. 1)

When reality clashes with our expectations of it, frustration is the inevitable consequence. It was a KOREAN WAR courageous decision to resist an aggression so totally at variance with all previous planning. The penalty we paid for our doctrinal rigidity, however, was the need to improvise a strategy under the pressure of events and an increased difficulty in harmonizing political and military objectives. Throughout the Korean war we were inhibited not only by our reluctance to expand the conflict, but above all by our consciousness that this was not the war for which we had prepared. The result was unending conflict between the commanders responsible for fighting the war and seeking to apply literally the doctrine that defeat was equivalent to crushing the enemy—the only doctrine we had—and the responsible officials in Washington who in the light of their preconceptions could only consider the Korean war a strategic diversion. It is with these disputes that we are concerned here; a later chapter will deal with the strategic lessons of the Korean war.

1. William Kaufmann, "Policy Objectives and Military Action in the Korean War." The Rand Corporation Memorandum No. P-836, p. 1.

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II

It would be a mistake to consider the disputes produced by the Korean
war a debate between advocates of a policy of limited war and those who
believed in an all-out strategy. On the contrary, both the advocates and
the opponents of a greater effort in Korea agreed that war was by its nature
not all-out, that it could be won only by crushing the enemy totally. Where
they differed was not in their notion of the nature of war, but in their
interpretation of the significance of the <u>Korean</u> war. Mac Arthur was
advocating a show-down in the Far East; his critics wished to conserve our
strength for an all-out test over Europe. The frustration of the <u>Korean</u>
war was produced in Mac Arthur because it was not enough of a war in terms
of our notion of war; in <u>that</u> of his opponents <u>that</u> it was too much of
a war in terms of the strategy we had developed. The dispute produced by
the <u>Korean</u> war was therefore less a conflict over the nature of strategy
as a disagreement over the <u>area</u> in which it could best be applied and the
degree of preparedness it presupposed.

Mac Arthur was only expressing accepted doctrine when he asserted that
"the general definition which for many decades has been accepted was that

68

war was the ultimate process of politics; that when all other political
means fail you go to force; and when you do that the balance of control,
the main interest involved...is the control of the military. A theater
commander in a campaign is not merely limited to the handling of his troops,
he commands the whole area politically, economically and militarily...I do
unquestionably state that when men become locked in battle there should be
no artifice under the name of politics--which should...decrease their chance
of winning." ²) But precisely because they accepted this, MacArthur's opponents
sought to keep the Korean War to the smallest proportions and to reserve their
all-out, nation-wide war for a different contingency: "Enlargement of the war
in Korea would probably delight the Kremlin more than anything else we could
do," replied General Bradley. "It would necessarily tie down...our sea and
airpower in an area that is not the critical strategic prize. Red China
is not the powerful nation seeking to dominate the world. Frankly, in the
opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, this strategy would involve us in the
wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time and with the wrong enemy." ³)

2. MacArthur Hearings, p. 45.

3. MacArthur Hearings, p. 731ff.

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It is expressive of the literalness of our notion of power that we
were certain that a war <u>about</u> Europe would necessarily take the form of a
battle <u>for</u> Europe. This was the real contention between MacArthur and his
opponents and it was reflected also in their argument about the nature of
preparedness: "You have got a war on your hands," MacArthur maintained, "and
you can't just say: 'Let that war continue while I prepare for some other
war'...Does your global plan for defense of this U.S. consist of permitting
war indefinitely to go on in the Pacific...If you are not going to bring the
war to a decisive conclusion what does preparedness mean?" The difficulty was,
of course, that it was precisely the global nature of our defense plans which
caused us to feel unprepared for the challenges of the Korean war. It was
therefore as much our <u>concept</u> of preparedness as the <u>adequacy</u> of our prepared-
ness which proved to be at issue. The assumption behind our military planning
had been that our wars would be fought against a principal enemy, that our
forces-in-being need only protect us against disaster and gain us the time to
mobilize our industrial potential. In short, we had developed an all-out strat-
egy to be implemented by initially limited forces. This doctrine presupposed
two related contingencies: that the threat of the principal enemy would always
be unambiguous and that there would exist some forces which held the line

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while we brought our industrial potential to bear. But the transformation
of the post-war period, was precisely the end of our ability to reserve our-
selves only for unambiguous threats. The intermediary powers having lost
either the strength or the will to resist peripheral transformations, any
war had to involve us in the first instance; our forces-in-being would have
to be strong enough to absorb the blows heretofore directed against our allies.
It, therefore, reflected the lessons of our history: the condition for a cen-
tury and a half of neutrality had been the existence of powers which would be
affected by peripheral transformations before us and which had the capability
to resist them. For a threat to affect us directly, it had to be unambiguous by
definition almost, it had to be presented by a principal enemy. In the face
of an overriding danger, the paralyzing effect on policy of our insistence on
"purely" military considerations went unnoticed. For with survival at stake,
the alternatives presented themselves as clear-cut and absolute.

The big problem of a limited war turned out to be that its challenge was
either not presented by a principal power or that it did not appear as a princi-
pal threat. In such a situation the concern with a principal enemy coupled with
a doctrine of all-out war caused us during the Korean war to seek to conserve
our resources for a "purer" threat: "Air power and particularly the application

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of strategic airpower" said General Vandenberg "should go to the heart of
the enemy industrial centers to be reasonably efficient. Now the source of
the material that is coming to the Communists...is from Russia...In my opin-
ion the United States Air Force is the single potential that has kept the
balance of power in our favor...We cannot afford to...at the periphery as long
as we have a shoestring air force...it must be utilized until it is larger by
holding it intact as nearly as possible against a major enemy."

Our preoccupation with an all-out strategy, therefore, caused us to
consider the Korean war as an aberration and a strategic diversion. The re-
liance on "purely" military considerations compounded the inherent conservatism
of our strategic planning. It is almost axiomatic that military planners are
never satisfied with their "readiness." War always has an element of uncertainty
because victory depends not only on power but on the manner in which the factors
of power are combined. Within limits, superior leadership and doctrine can
compensate for inferior resources. It is the temptation of military planning
to escape this element of uncertainty by assembling overwhelmingly preponderant
force, to substitute power for conception. But overwhelming force against a

5. MacArthur Hearings, p. 1378; p. 1385.

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major enemy is difficult to assemble in peace-time particularly with a defensive strategy which reacts only to overt threats. For the threat becomes overt only through an adverse change in power relationships, so that a power which adopts a defensive strategy is likely to be forced into war at the precise moment when its enemy considers his relative position to be most favorable. In the past this was obscured because we either fought our war against powers where our initial superiority was overwhelming such as our expeditions against Mexico or in Central America; or we entered the war with the knowledge that we would have time to bring our industrial potential to bear as in World

War I; or we were forced into the war through a direct attack as in World War II.

An all-out strategy which has to commit its forces in the initial stages, however, can only heighten the conviction of the military planners that they are not "ready" and to cause them, in all situations short of a direct attack on the United States, to advocate postponing a show-down to a more propitious moment:

> "We feel we are not in the best position for meeting a global war," said General Bradley. "...We would very much like to avoid a war at this time

6. The Civil War was an exception, but then its lessons were thought to have been due to its character as a civil war.

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not only as to our readiness but the longer you can avoid a war the better chance you have for avoiding it altogether." 7) We do not want to become involved in a world struggle at any time," said General Marshall "and certainly not prior to the time that we are reasonably prepared to meet it." 8)

The Soviet thrust in Korea had thus been divested at the point where we were weakest psychologically, at the inconsistency between our all-out strategy, our policy of coalitions, [our force in being] and our inhibitions. It is remarkable that all Administration spokesmen were unanimous about our strategic superiority; but they were also agreed that we must avoid an all-out war. The postulate that an all-out war had to be avoided short of an overt Soviet attack was the reverse side of our inability to conceive intermediary transformations; it also reflected our tradition of reserving our military commitment for it represented our attempt to escape ambiguity. Given the threat which we knew the Soviets must soon pose when they developed their nuclear capability further, it is possible to doubt the desire to avoid all-out war. the premise that time was on our side or at least to raise the question whether the U.S.S.R. did not have more to lose from an all-out war than we. Be that as it may, our announced reluctance to engage in all-out war gave the Soviet

7. MacArthur Hearings, p. 896.

8. *Ibid.*, p. 479.

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bloc a psychological advantage, for in the face of our inhibitions, even our opportunities turned into risks: "Russia possesses a very valuable ally in China," said General Marshall. "...Now in view of their treaty with the Chinese Communist regime...if it appears that they have failed to support that government in its fight in Korea, we have a very special situation because it affects every other satellite government...Whether or not the Soviet government can afford to have China defeated decisively and put in a position where the reaction of China toward the Soviet government might be one of deep distrust because they were not fully supported, that introduces a new factor in the current active situation..."

This interpretation of the Korean war indicated that the psychological balance of deterrence may be even more important than the physical equation. Our deterrent was effective in Europe because Europe *mattered* to us — whatever the reason. It was, therefore, credible that we would resist aggression even at the risk of all-out war; the psychological balance was in our favor despite the fact that the physical balance was, if anything, less favorable than in Korea. Korea, on the other hand, demonstrated the psychological advantage of the side which can shift the risk of initiating an all-out war to its opponent either

9 MacArthur Hearings, p. 593ff., p. 432.

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were waiting for an excuse either to intervene in Asia or to launch itself into
11) Europe. By thus posing absolute alternatives as our only choices, both sides
inhibited a consideration of the basic problem raised by limited war: the na-
ture of the transformations compatible with a policy of limited objectives. It
was perhaps true that the U.S.S.R. would not permit an unambiguous defeat of
China in an all-out war. But it did not follow that the U.S.S.R. would risk an
all-out war to prevent any transformation in our favor. A limited war is in-
consistent with an attempt to impose unconditional surrender. But the impossi-
bility of imposing unconditional surrender should not be confused with the in-
evitability of a stalemate.

Our strategic doctrine made it very difficult, however, to think of in-
termediary transformations: its absoluteness increased our inhibitions; its
defensiveness led us to examine all problems in terms of risks and to analyze
Soviet reactions as if all options were equally open to them; and above all the
separation of force and diplomacy tended to paralyze both. The objective of our
campaign was variously announced as repelling aggression, as resisting aggression,
as punishing aggression, as the security of our forces. Each of these objec-
tives was defined in military terms and assumed that diplomacy would take over

11. *Ibid.*, pp. 942, 687, 593 and 594.

12. See MacArthur Hearings, p.478 (General Marshall); p. 937 (General Bradley); p. 1225 (General Collins); p. 1191 (General Collins); p. 1717 (Secretary Acheson); p. 570 (General Marshall).

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war thus represented an application of the doctrine of containment; in fact, it
was explicitly justified in those terms. 13) But it suffered the same drawbacks.
The notion that negotiation and the establishment of a position of strength were
successive phases caused diplomacy at some stages of the Korean war to become the
prisoner of military operations and at other stages it led to an atrophy of strategy.

The objective of resisting aggression while it seemed like a minimum
objective was consistent with a policy of limited war only if we could give it
precise political terms, a political expression and if we could induce the enemy to negotiate. But throughout
the Korean war we made our objectives dependent on the military situation: they
fluctuated with the fortunes of battle between repelling aggression, unification,
the security of our forces and a guaranteed armistice. This tended to transform
what was intended as a war of limited objectives into a war of unconditional
surrender. By adapting our political objectives to the military situation, parti-
cularly after Inchon, we provided the enemy an incentive to seek to restore the
military balance as a prerequisite to any negotiation. Thus the attempt by both sides
on his part to achieve a position of strength prior to negotiation resulted in
a vicious circle of gradually expanding commitments. In Korea this circle was stopped only

13. *Ibid.*, p. 886 (General Bradley).

because an equilibrium was established between the physical inability of the Chinese to invest more resources and our psychological unwillingness to do so. 14)

The same attitude towards power which prevented our diplomacy from setting limits to our military effort when we had the upper hand, also kept it from drawing strength from our military posture when we started negotiating the armistice. Our decision to stop military operations, except of a purely defensive nature, at the commencement of the armistice negotiations reflected our legalistic bias: our conviction that there was some inherent logic in the process of negotiation reflected our which operated independently of the pressures brought to bear. But the decision to stop military operations removed the only incentive the Chinese had for a settlement; it led to the frustration of two years of inconclusive negotiations. In short, our separation of force and diplomacy caused our power to lack direction and our negotiations to lack force.

If the Korean war made evident the gap between one policy of deterrence and the strategy we were prepared to implement, it also brought into focus the inconsistency between our doctrine of instant retaliation and a coalition policy. For if retaliation was achieved by maximum retaliation protection for threatened areas was

14. To be sure, the situation was complicated by the refusal of the North Koreans to negotiate after Inchon and this in turn forced us to seek security in destroying the enemy forces. But it was one thing to advance north of the 38th parallel to destroy the enemy forces it was another to do so with the stated objective of unifying Korea. If we were concerned about Chinese intervention our diplomacy should have sought to create a framework of limited objectives and made clear that we advanced only because the enemy refused to negotiate. see

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If this was true one of the primary functions of the Korean war was to demonstrate the validity of the principle of collective security: "[Korea] was a test case" said Secretary Acheson, "whether our collective security system 18) would survive or crumble." The maintenance of united action was, therefore, itself one of the goals of the Korean war and when it conflicted with any objectives attainable on the Peninsula, the latter had to give way: "This is the first time" said General Bradley "that we have had a U.N. field command...We should do everything within our power to keep from breaking up a U.N. field command and discouraging them from taking U.N. action in the future." 19) "Our Allies" said Secretary Acheson "are understandably reluctant to be drawn into a general war in the Far East...If it developed out of an American impatience with the effort to repel aggression...we would be increasing our risks at the same time that we reduced our strength by reducing the strength and determination of our coalition. We cannot expect that one system of collective security will long survive if we take steps which would unnecessarily and dangerously expose the people who are in a system with us." 20) It was for this reason that we rejected any expansion of the Korean war; even "hot pursuit" of enemy planes seemed too risky

18. MacArthur Hearings, p. 1715.

19. Ibid., p. 1077.

20. Ibid., p. 1719.

when six of our allies opposed it. 21)

Thus our doctrine of collective security proved as literal as our concept of power; indeed, it was its reverse side. And just as our doctrine of power, it neglected the psychological aspect of policy. For the doctrine of collective security developed by the Administration was inconsistent with a policy of limited war. The belief that maximum power was achieved by the involvement of the greatest number of allies represented an admission on our part that the issues in the Korean war could not be localized. It furnished an excuse--if any was needed--for Soviet pressure against our allies. And it increased their sense of vulnerability, over an area of only the most/concern to them. To be sure, in the early stages of the Korean war this was not apparent; indeed the eagerness with which our allies sent contingents seemed to prove the contrary. But the willingness of our allies to participate in the Korean war reflected their lack of certainty that we would assist them in defense of their own countries. Their interest in Korea was, therefore, purely symbolic: to commit us to the principle of collective security. Beyond this any cooperation was inhibited by the consciousness of their vulnerability which Secretary Acheson had

21. MacArthur Hearings, p. 2078.

so eloquently described. Since the principle of collective security was established by our entering the Korean war, the pressure of our allies from then on was asserted in favor of a strategy of limited _unlimited_ risk. This is not to say that our allies were "wrong;" only that they tended to look at the Korean war from a perspective that did not make for long-range thinking.

Thus our attempt to assemble the maximum number of allies involved the same psychological problem as our all-out strategy: the greater the force, the greater became the reluctance to apply it. As with _un_ our all-out strategy that of we overlooked/the effectiveness/that power depends on the willingness to use it.

To the extent that our military doctrine offered us all-or-nothing solutions, it increased our difficulty in coming to grips with ambiguous challenges. To the extent that we sought to generalize our system of alliances we reduced its readiness to act in areas where the interests of the partners was not of the same order. For an alliance represents an increment in strength only when it reflects a common purpose. In its absence the requirement of unity will give a veto to the least resolute member of an alliance or to the power which has least at stake in the issue at dispute. Thus the insistence on collective security may have the paradoxical result of paralyzing the power capable of resisting _alone_; this at least has been the history of the Western alliance in every crisis from Korea to Suez.

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The realization that an alliance represents an attempt at joint action by powers which are sovereign and therefore likely to have different conceptions of their interests accounts for the fact that effective coalitions in the past have been directed against a specific threat or confined to a specific area.

It would have occurred to no one that the pre-World War I Anglo-French Entente gave France a veto over British actions in South East Asia or Britain a veto over French actions in North Africa. Under these circumstances, an alliance augmented the power of the allies in the areas where their interests were most in harmony, while they retained freedom of action in areas which were of primary concern to only one of the partners. A system of global collective security (could therefore operate effectively only against a threat which obliterated all disagreements among its components either about its nature or about the strategy for dealing with it. But the distinguishing feature of the post-war period is two-fold: the skill of the Soviets in presenting their challenges so ambiguously as to magnify all inhibitions against resistance and the increasing difficulty of most of our European make allies to play an extra-European role. Our insistence that they do so could only increase the domestic difficulties of already weak

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85

governments and it undermined the cohesiveness of N.A.T.O. even within Europe.

Moreover, the insistence on Allied support did not take into account the power relationships: in a limited war we did not require the increment in strength represented by Allied support, while the attempt to obtain it might undermine the psychological framework for dealing with an all-out threat.

In short, the policy of collective security revealed a similar complexity as our policy of deterrence. Its effectiveness depended on a balance between power and will, between the physical and the psychological component of policy. But as with the strategic opportunities offered by the Korean War, consideration of the nature of our alliance policy was inhibited by posing our alternatives too absolutely. And just as in our policy of deterrence can be purchased only by creating less absolute alternatives in the application of our power, so collective action may be obtained by setting an alliance less ambitious goals, by confining it to purposes we and our allies share. For the choice in Korea was not necessarily collective action or isolation in a global war as was often maintained during the MacArthur Hearings. Had we set ourselves more ambitious goals in Korea one of two things might have happened: (a) the war would have spread in the Pacific without becoming all-out; (b) it might have led to an all-out war between the United States and the Soviet bloc.

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IV

The utility of a doctrine is its ability to guide action by furnishing criteria of significance. In its absence, policy must be improvised under the pressure of events, a procedure which emphasizes the particular of each situation and bogs down planning in a mass of detail. A doctrine which fits a large number of situations contributes to the flexibility of policy. A doctrine which fits only a limited range of circumstances paralyzes action. But the bane of doctrine is dogmatism: the insistence on clinging to concepts after they have outlived their usefulness, the attempt to shape reality to conform to our preconceptions.

This was the American attitude to the frustrations of the Korean war. Our reaction was not that our doctrine had been indadequate because it had created a gap between our power and our policy; rather we drew the conclusion that our frustrations were caused by our departure from "pure" doctrine. We did not attempt to analyze the strategic problem of limited war; rather there grew up a determination never to engage in a limited war again. Whether these postulates of American strategic thought were interpreted in Secretary Dulles' "massive retaliation" speech and subsequent article, 22) in Vice President Nixon's reply to Adlai Stevenson of March 13, 1954, or in Mr. Finletter's lucid

22. John Foster Dulles, "Policy for Security and Peace," *Foreign Affairs*, April 1954

89

which Mr. Finletter called the "grey areas," Sino-Soviet moves could be prevented
only by the threat of a general war.

The distinguishing feature of this strategic doctrine was not its
novelty but its orthodoxy. Here was the pre-Korea U.S. military doctrine
buttressed by the lessons we drew from the Korean conflict which came to symbolize
the frustrations experienced in waging peripheral wars. And it contained all
the inconsistencies of the pre-Korean thought, sharpened by a renewed budgetary
squeeze and the fact that another technological revolution--the discovery of
thermo-nuclear weapons--had occurred. This in turn either made irrelevant or
disabled what was in effect a World War II strategy to which nuclear weapons
had been added.

most recent
Thus the last great hearings on U.S. security, the hearings on Air power
of a sub-committee of the Senate Armed Services committee headed by Senator
Symington turned into a restatement of familiar doctrine. All services, except
the army agreed that the next war would start with a surprise attack. 25) To be
sure, we had since learned to give this attack a concrete meaning and we assumed
with more logic than before Korea that it would be directed against our Strategic
Air Force and its base structure, not against our industry.

25. See p. 50 (General Spaatz); p. 185 (General Le May); p. 1055 (Admiral Griffin); p. 1845 (General Twining); p. 21 (General Bradley).

90

In the meantime too the term deterrence had become an incantation rather than
a strategic doctrine: it was used by every service to justify the weapons systems
it thought essential. 26) But if deterrence retained any operational meaning
beyond the budgetary battle, it was the familiar identification of deterrence
with retaliatory power: "We must carefully weigh the proportions of our defense
effort" said Secretary Wilson "that we put in forces and weapons of a defensive
nature as compared to the portion of our effort that we plan in forces and
weapons of a deterrent or retaliatory nature." 27)

The equation, deterrent equals retaliatory offensive striking power, led to an identification of security with an ability to inflict a greater amount of damage than we suffer: "The key to the enemy decision [to attack]" said the SAC briefing "is our relative strength. We use the term relative because our strength as compared to his determines what he has to pay in excess costs as to whatever action he undertakes." 28) The notion that the decision of peace or war depended on the ability to inflict disproportionate damage demonstrated the traditionalism of our military thought. When the power of individual weapons

26. See Symington Hearings, p. 101 (General Le May); p. 264 (General Partridge); p. 463 (General Weyland); p. 1033 (Admiral Combs); among many others.

27. *Ibid.*, p. 1616.

28. *Ibid.*, p. 185.

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was relatively small it was true that the side which could deliver the greater
weight of offensive effort would generally win because the relative damage
would reflect the comparative offensive effort and yet not be so drastic as to
affect the ability of the stronger side to continue the war. But the strategic
caused
wrought by the nuclear weapons is the fact that relative damage may be meaningless.

With thermo-nuclear weapons even an inferior retaliatory capacity may deter, not
because it can inflict disproportionate damage, but because it can inflict unacceptable
losses. This if anything should have been the lesson of the Korean war which
we refused to expand (where we were deterred from expanding it) despite Soviet
strategic inferiority. 29)

To be sure, General Le May admitted that the unacceptability of damage
and not the disproportion of it would bring about deterrence. But in practice
he could see no way of assuring this level of absolute numerical
superiority of our long-range striking force. 30) This in turn involved the
following syllogism: (1) Deterrence is produced by absolute superiority in long-range air power. (2) Only one side can deter: "I think I pointed out" said

29. This should not be construed as an argument for an inferior retaliatory capability; it is merely to indicate that we have to be clear about the nature of deterrence and the significant factors of military superiority. See below ch. II,

30. Symington Hearings, p. 220.

93

of resources. For, as will be seen in the next chapter, the punishment which
has to be inflicted to gain uncontested air supremacy makes it highly unlikely
that port facilities will still be strategically meaningful after the air battle.

These inconsistencies were kept from being made explicit only by the need for
lining up at least two of the three votes in the Joint Chiefs of Staff in order
to obtain approval of force levels.

[Thus] the performance of the pre-Korea period was repeated. The three
services developed partially overlapping, partially inconsistent strategies
appealing to their primary missions as laid down in the Key West agreement: the
Air Force spoke of winning the air battle, the Navy of keeping the sea lanes
open and the Army of conducting brush-fire war. And because their force levels
were set in the basis of their primary missions, all the pressures made for
perpetualization of the division of functions which the power of modern weapons
had made almost meaningless. In the absence of an agreed doctrine, the conflict
of missions was irreconcilable. The Army request for more airlift 37) was correct
in terms of its need for mobility in meeting brushfire war. But the Air Force's
reply that the resources could better be devoted to procuring additional aircraft
was equally justified in terms of its mission of winning the air battle. The

36. Symington Hearings, p.

37. *Ibid.*, p.

94

Navy's insistence on a long-range airplane was wise, if bombing port facilities would affect the course of a general war. It was unnecessary if KBOESAC strikes would decide the issue in a relatively short period.

As a result the Symington hearings revealed an attempt by each service to hoard weapons of maximum range and destructiveness because in the absence of an agreed doctrine no service could rely on a sister service's interpretation of what constituted an essential target: "The Navy would have to change their doctrine to engage in strategic bombing" said General Twining, when it was pointed out to him that the new navy attack bombers had a combat radius in excess of 1500 miles. "...Admiral Burke has said his job is to get control of the seas, and that is what he is going to do. That is his job...His job is not to go in and strike strategic targets. Mine is...so the Strategic Air Force has to be just as big, just as strong, just as ready, regardless of this Navy contribution on these targets." 38) "The function of the army is the destruction of the enemy army," said General Taylor in justifying Army development of a 1500 mile missile, "the primary function of the Air Force is to destroy enemy air power and for the Navy to destroy enemy naval power...If you accept the fact that the army exists to destroy hostile armies, then any missile which will destroy hostile 38. Symington Hearings, p. 1840. See also p. 178 (General Le May).

97

to divert resources from a flexible military establishment, for the primary reason that Britain wanted to make certain the targets considered essential for her safety would be hit. (42)

The attempt to control all essential missions is in fact not the expression of strategic thought but a substitute for it. Because of the power of modern weapons, it reinforces our already powerful inclination to identify military superiority with a certain level of technological achievement. And because the technology is so very complicated its mastery may not only confer a false feeling of security; it may also cause us to pay insufficient attention to the strategic revolution which has taken place. General Le May's notion that only one side possesses a deterrent is no longer applicable, if it ever was. While the United States enjoyed an absolute atomic monopoly even a small number of nuclear weapons possessed a powerful deterrent effect. But with the growing Soviet nuclear stockpile the American strategic problem is transformed: No matter how vast our remaining margin in number and refinement of ultimate weapons, henceforth not only they but we must fear them. In such a situation deterrence can no longer be measured by absolute power; it depends on a complex of physical and 42. See *Manchester Guardian*, December 20, 1954.

psychological factors in which the price to be paid, the importance of the contenders attach to the objective in dispute, and their ability to bring their power to bear become crucial factors. To seek safety in numerical superiority or even in technological superiority may come close to a Maginot line, whereas, Moreover, a mentality, to seek in magnitude a substitute for conception, is in many fields where our present weapons system is already adequate for performing its mission, technological advances will add much less to our effective strength than to that of the Soviet bloc. This would seem to be true of the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile or the atomic submarine. And when weapons can be made of any degree of destructiveness there must come a point where additional increments of power yield diminishing returns. What is the sense in a weapon that can destroy a city twice over?

Thus for the first time in military history there exists the possibility of a stalemate despite an absolute superiority in numbers and in technology. It is a stalemate not so much in power as in the assessment of risks; an uneasy balance which shifts from region to region with the importance the contenders attach to them and the alternatives their strategy and their weapons systems present them. The key to its mastery will therefore depend on the ability to

present them. The key to its majority will therefore depend on the ability to
attach to them and the alternatives their strategy and their weapons system
balance which shifts from region to region with the importance the contenders
It is a statement not so much in power as in the assessment of risk at some
of a statement despite an absolute superiority in numbers and in technology.

Thus for the first time in military strategy there exists the possibility
degrad to a city twice over?

of power being diminished resumes. What if the same in a weapon that can
degrad of destructiveness there must come a point where additional increments
Belligerent Massacre or the atomic annihilation. And when weapons can be made of any
than to that of the Soviet Union. This would seem to be true of the Intercontinental
its mission, technological advances will add much less to our effective attestation
and life where our present weapons system is already adequate for performing
military might, to seek in magnitude a substitute for conception, that in
inferiority or even in technological superiority may come close to a magnet
print their power to bear become crucial factors. To seek safety in munitions
contenders attach to the objective in dispute someone and their ability to
beyondological factors in which the brute to be said, the importance at the