VII-81

aspirations can be accomplished. We should never give up our principles nor ask
other nations to surrender theirs. But we must also realize that neither we nor our
allies nor the uncommitted can realize their principles unless they survive. We
cannot, for these reasons, permit the balance of power to be overturned for the sake
of allied unity or the approbation of the uncommitted, for the condition of any
future cooperation with them is precisely the maintenance of a strategic balance
between us and the Soviet bloc.

The challenge to our leadership is all the greater if it is considered against
the background of the spread of nuclear technology. Within a generation, and prob-
ably in less time than that, most countries will possess installations for the peace-
ful uses of nuclear energy and therefore the wherewithal to manufacture nuclear
weapons. And even if this should not prove to be the case the Soviets may find it
advantageous to increase international tensions by making available nuclear weapons
to other powers, on the model of their own deal with Egypt and Syria. But nuclear
weapons in the hands of weak, irresponsible or merely ignorant governments present
grave dangers. Unless the United States has demonstrated its ability to develop a
concept of aggression which makes for stability and a willingness to run risks for
it, many areas of the world will play the role of the Balkans in European politics:
the fuse which will set off a holocaust. The United States therefore requires a
twentieth century equivalent of "showing the flag", an ability and a readiness to
make our power felt quickly and decisively, not only to deter Soviet aggression but
also to impress the uncommitted with our capacity for decisive action.

The strategic aspect of our relations with the uncommitted is only one aspect
and perhaps not the most difficult of our relations with the formerly dependent
powers. For while strategy can set the frame-work for our relations with the newly
independent states its context has to be furnished by other methods. In fact our
insistence that security is achieved primarily by a military grouping of Powers has
been one of the chief causes for our failure to develop a sense of common purpose in

VII-82

many areas of the world. For whatever the temptations for the uncommitted in the international field, their hopes for economic development and stability depend on a long period of peace. It may not be logical that they should seek to escape their dilemmas by denying the reality of the Soviet threat -- but it is a fact of political life. The creation by us of military alliances in the former colonial areas, is therefore considered by many of the newly independent states as an irritating inter-ruption of their primary concern and lends color to Soviet peace offensives. Moreover, the military contribution of SEATO and the Baghdad Pact (to which we belong in all but in name) does not compensate for the decision of India and Egypt to stand apart and for the domestic pressures these instruments generated in some of the signatory countries.

The primary function of these pacts is to draw a line across which the U.S.S.R. cannot move without the risk of war, and to legitimize intervention by the United States should war break out. But the line could have been better drawn by a unilateral declaration. Behind this shield we could then have concentrated on the primary problem of creating a sense of common purpose by emphasizing shared objectives, primarily by striving for the grouping of Powers to assist in economic development. Had we emphasized these nonmilitary functions of SEATO, it would have been much more difficult for India or Indonesia to stay aloof. As these political groupings gain in economic strength, their own interest would dictate a more active concern for common defense; at least it would provide the economic base for a meaningful defense. A powerful grouping of states on the Russian borders is against the interests of the Soviet Union regardless of whether the purpose of this grouping is primarily military. And by the same token, such a grouping is desirable from the American point of view even if it does not go along with our every policy.

The problem of the uncommitted states cannot be solved, however, merely by an economic grouping of Powers. It is related to the whole U.S. posture. Anti-Americanism is fashionable today in many parts of the globe. As the richest and most powerful nation, we are the natural target for all frustrations. As the Power which bears

VII-33

the primary responsibility for the defense of the free world, we are unpopular with all who are so preoccupied with the development of their own countries that they are unwilling to pay sufficient attention to foreign threats. We should, of course, seek to allay legitimate grievances, but we would be wrong to take every criticism at face value. A great deal of anti-Americanism hides a feeling of insecurity both material and spiritual. Many of our most voluble critics in South-East Asia would be terrified were our military protection suddenly withdrawn. The neutrality of the uncommitted is possible, after all, only so long as the United States remains strong both spiritually and physically.

In its relations with the uncommitted the United States must therefore develop not only a greater compassion but also a greater majesty. The picture of high American officials scurrying to all quarters of the globe to inform themselves on each crisis as it develops cannot but make an impression of uncertainty. The nervousness exhibited in our reactions to Soviet moves must contrast unfavorably with what appears to be the deliberate, even ruthless purposefulness of the Soviets. Our attempt after every crisis to restore the situation to as close an approximation of the status quo ante as possible, may well convey the lack of a sense of direction. We should, moreover, be able to utilize the very insistence by many of the newly independent powers on lack of uncommitment for acts of United States leadership. The bargaining position of such countries as India depends to a great extent on their ability, indeed on their skill, in finding a position between the major blocs. They will not lightly forego this advantage even should they disagree with specific measures we might take. In every concrete case their role of mediator impels them to find formula to reconcile conflicting viewpoints. Even so flagrant a violation of the principle of the U.N. Charter as the Soviet attack in Hungary found India reluctant to line up completely with the United States. To gear our policy to what the uncommitted powers will accept may mainly increase their feeling of insecurity or force them to move away from us to demonstrate their independence. Soviet rigidity

XI-3

colonization, so much taken for granted, that it was never made explicit.

The problems of a United States strategic doctrine appear most sharply in three areas: that of the natural budget of government organization and of the attitudes of our people and above all our leadership groups. Each will be discussed in turn.

## II

The budgetary process reveals perhaps most immediately the problem of reconciling doctrine and technology; the danger that in the absence of a strategic doctrine meaningful choices are almost impossible. Our budgetary process still reflects the categories of thought of a period when our problems were primarily domestic. The chief concerns of the government were fiscal policy and a sound economy was thought to depend on a balanced budget. Strategic problems did not loom very large both because of our seeming invulnerability and because of the slow rate of technological change. Because we believed that we could remain aloof from foreign involvements, no incentive existed for developing a distinctive strategic doctrine. As a result the government through much of our history was absorbed by fiscal policy; it was the field above others in which the relationship between purpose and policy was best understood. Foreign policy and military policy, even more, were conceived in defense and essentially technical terms; as the solution of problems imposed by the outside world.

But conditions have now changed. Our most immediate problems are no longer domestic, but foreign; the great danger to our security is not so much economic collapse, as military defeat. We no longer have the choice of staying aloof from foreign involvements. On the contrary, whenever we have attempted to dissociate ourselves from the immediate impact of events,

XI-4

as in the Middle East, the result has been a sacrifice of both strategic position and fiscal interests. Our failure to assume responsibility has inevitably led to the creation of a vacuum to be retrieved only by eventual expenditures much greater than those which would have been necessary had our policy been more precautionary. Moreover, weapons technology is far from stable; it is developing at an ever-increasing rate and produces both weapons and delivery vehicles of extraordinary complexity, which put into question many long cherished notions of strategy and tactics. It is no longer a problem of replacing one weapon with another as was the typical challenge of pre-World War II military policy. Rather the key problem of military policy has become to choose among a proliferation of partially overlapping, partially inconsistent weapons systems which are in a state of constant flux. In the past, a weapons system would be good for a generation at least; but today it may be outdated when it has hardly left the blue-print stage.

The B-17, the Flying Fortress of World War II fame, cost $______ and remained in operational use for over a decade. The B-36 Intercontinental Bomber which cost $34 million began being obsolescent within six years of its first delivery. Against the defensive systems which seem in the offing, the B-52 our current heavy jet bomber which costs $8 million is likely to be obsolescent within five years at the outside. And the rate of obsolescence of fighter planes is even shorter, three years on the average.

The shorter the life of these weapons, the greater their complexity and the higher their cost. The F-51, a late World War II fighter plane required 154,000 engineering man hours; for the F-86 production in 1948 it had risen to 132,000,000 man hours and the supersonic F-100 produced less than five years later required 404,000,000 man hours. 1) The F-51 cost

1. Symington Hearings, p. 549.

XI-5

$26,000; the F-86 - $121,000; the F-100 costs $48.6,000. The first B-17 costs $500 thousands for research and development and production; it was developed as a private risk by the Boeing Aircraft company. The first B-52, our latest jet bomber, cost $50 million and all research and development had to be underwritten by the government. The B-17 weighed 35 thousands pounds, the B-52 weighs 400 thousand pounds.

And concurrently with the development of ever more complex and costly planes the new missiles are going into production partly duplicating the strategic mission of existing weapons and raising new problems of cost, development and strategic employment.

The task of strategy, however, is not simply to provide the tools of war, but also to utilize these tools for the purpose of war. Indeed without a concept of the purpose and the nature of war, it is impossible to make an effective choice among the new weapons, technology produces. The problem is complicated because not only do different weapons systems compete within each service, but also because the services compete among each other for the control of different weapons systems. Thus in the absence of an agreed doctrine all pressures make for a resolution of problems on the basis of administrative decisions or for a proliferation of weapons systems with no clear conception of the use to which they would be put in case of war - in fact, the absence of a clear strategic doctrine is one of the reasons for the proliferation of weapon systems.

compounds

Our budgetary process/these difficulties. Until 1921, each department of the government made its requests directly to the Congress and Congress exercised its control through a highly detailed system of appropriations. As government grew more complex, it became evident that review by Congressional Committees did not suffice even to control departamental expenditures effectively, much

Henry A. Kissinger

In his whimsical essay "Perpetual Peace" written in 1795 the German philosopher Kant predicted that world peace could be attained in one of two ways: by a moral consensus which he identified with a republican form of government, or by a cycle of wars of ever-increasing violence which would reduce the major powers to impotence.

There is no evidence that Kant's essay was taken seriously in his lifetime, or indeed for a century and a half afterwards. But much of the current discussion about the impact of new weapons has the apocalyptic quality of a premonition of Kant's second proposition, It is only natural, of course, that an age which has known two world wars and an uneasy armistice since should have as its central problem the attainment of peace. ~~But~~ It is paradoxical, ~~that so much hope should concentrate on~~ However,

man's most destructive capabilities. We are told that the growth of thermo-nuclear stockpiles has created a "nuclear stalemate" which makes war, if not too risky, at least unprofitable. The Secretary of State has

- 2 -

argued that there is an increasing realization of the horrors of a nuclear holocaust, that there exists "no alternative to peace." Mr. Stassen has maintained that the peaceful application of nuclear energy has made irrelevant most of the traditional reasons for fighting wars because each major power can now bring about a tremendous increase in its power output without annexing either foreign territory or foreign labor. And Walter Lippman has interpreted the Geneva "summit conference" as a non-aggression treaty: a recognition by the U.S. and the USSR that war is no longer a conceivable instrument of policy and that for this reason international disputes can be settled only means of diplomacy.

These assertions have passed almost without challenge. They fit in well with a national psychology which considers peace as the "normal" pattern of relations among states and which has few doubts that reasonable men meeting in an atmosphere of good will can settle all differences by honest compromise. But too much depends on the correctness of such positions not to subject them to closer scrutiny. For the new weapons--

- 3 -

as every revolution--has not only a technical but a conceptual side.

Until power is used, it is, as Colonel Lincoln from West Point has wisely said, what people think it is. But except for the two explosions of obsolete type bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, no nuclear weapons have ever been set off in wartime; there exists therefore no previous experience on which to draw. To a considerable extent the impact of the new weapons on strategy, on policy, indeed on survival, depends on our interpretation of their significance.

Paul Nitze in his searching article in *Foreign Affairs* has distinguished action policy from declaratory policy—the policy one has and the policy one announces. But there exists a level of policy even more fundamental—the conception of alternatives which underlies any action, the standards of debate which may be all the more fundamental for never being made explicit. It, therefore, becomes of crucial importance that the U. S. not paralyze itself by developing a calculus of risks according to which all dangers would seem to on our side. For if the Soviets

- 4 -

interpret the meaning of new technological developments more flexibly
they may gain a crucial advantage, not because their doctrine is
correct, but because it is flexible; not because their action is wise,
but because they possess a doctrine which permits them to act at all.

It may be argued that we do possess a military doctrine, the
threat of "instant retaliation." But "instant retaliation" is no longer
a workable strategic concept for it simplifies Soviet policy and it
deprives our diplomacy of flexibility. It simplifies Soviet policy
because it puts a premium on probing actions where the risks of total
war seem out of proportion to the objectives to be obtained. And it
limits our flexibility because the decision to resist is never taken
in the abstract, it always reflects a calculus of risks and as the Soviet
nuclear stockpile grows our reluctance to run the risks of a major war
will increase. We shall continue to insist that we shall fight for our
vital interests; but the borderline between what is considered vital and
what is peripheral will shift with the growth of the Soviet nuclear stockpile. ¹

¹For a fuller discussion see the author's "Military Policy and the Defense of the Grey Areas," *Foreign Affairs*, April, 1955.

- 5 -

But perhaps the Soviets are facing the same problem? Perhaps an equilibrium can be attained, if not of mutual comprehension, then of mutual terror? There is some evidence for this in the reiterated Soviet statements of the horrors of a hydrogen核war. But apart from the fact that these statements are usually addressed to foreigners and may, therefore, be designed to increase the inhibitions of others, it makes all the difference which side has to initiate thermo-nuclear war.
As long as the Soviets possess a sufficiently flexible weapons system, they can confront us with a series of contingencies which shift the risk of initiating an all-out war on us; which force us to calculate all objectives in terms of the destruction of New York or Washington or Chicago.

Thus, even if the Soviet are sincere in their professions of their fear of all-out war, the need for a reappraisal of our military doctrine does not diminish. For it is one of the most difficult tasks of statesmanship to reconcile the professions of another power with its potential.
If the international order possessed the sanction of domestic arrangements, relations could be conducted largely on the basis of what states assert

- 6 -

their intentions to be. But in an international order composed of sovereign states, the intentions of naother power are subject to no compulsion, its potential is always capable of béing used with hostile intent. This is the real meaning of "atomic blackmail,": As the Soviet nuclear stockpile grows overt threats have become unnecessary; in every calculation of its risks, each power will have to include the Soviet stockpile of atomic weapons and ballistic missiles.

The phrase "there is no alternative to peace" can therefore only lead to a paralysis of policy. It is tantamount to a renunciation of power and a staking of everything on the persuasiveness of one's professions. This would have been difficult at any period; it becomes an invitation to disaster when confronted with a revolutionary power which prides itself on its superior understanding of "objective" forces, and to which professions unrelated to a plausible possibility of employing force will seem either hypocrisy or stupidity. Force and diplomacy are not discrete realms; on the contrary, the ultimate pressure during negotiations has always been the possibility that recourse might be had to force. All the

-7-

[y]

great international congresses occurred either at the end of wars
which had established the relative strength of the contending powers
or achieved their settlements on the basis of a grouping of states whose

strength was so well understood that recourse to force was unnecessary. 2

Further continued

To be sure, the threat to use force was not always made explicit and
many conferences were conducted in a spirit of good-will and harmony,
But this only reflected the fact that the protagonists understood the
limits set by the ultimate sanction of using force and conducted them-
selves accordingly.

If the slogan "there is no alternative to peace" becomes accepted
doctrine, it will remove both a powerful brake on Soviet probing actions
and any incentive for making concessions. And if we couple it with the
statement that we do not accept the status quo we can only give impetus
to Soviet peace offensives without generating a meaningful pressure on
the Soviet sphere. The more terrible we paint the impact of modern
weapons technology, the greater will be the reluctance to run the risk

²See the authors' "The Congress of Vienna-A Reappraisal," *World Politics*. January 1956.

- 8 -

of any action that may involve its use. The strength of the British
position in the 19th century was a clear understanding of the nature of
sea power and a strategic doctrine which permitted this understanding to
be translated into reality. The difficulty with present military techno-
logy is that we are far from an agreement about its essential components
and that the very power of modern weapons far from giving us freedom of
action, seems to inhibit it. In short, our weapons technology and the
objectives for employing them have become incommensurable. No more
urgent task confronts the U. S. than to bring them into harmony.

II

But perhaps this incommensurability is inherent in the new weapons
and not in the military doctrine? Perhaps we are moving into a new era
of international relations in which the powers will have to adjust them-
selves to the fact that force can no longer be used? What of the
"nuclear stalemate" so often invoked?

The first thing to notice is that the term"nuclear stalemate"
covers many relationships, each with different consequences for policy.
In one sense, for example, it refers to a condition in which one side

-9-

possesses a defensive capability to absorb for all practical purposes the maximum air-offensive potential of the other. In this case, there would occur a stalemate in the air-battle and the issue of the war would depend on alternative weapons systems. Such a stalemate, moreover, would make war more, rather than less, likely because neither side would need to calculate with widespread physical destruction. Another kind of stalemate would occur if both sides possessed a sufficient offensive capability to inflict catastrophic blows on the other. This is the situation most frequently thought of when the term "stalemate" is used. Such a stalemate, if it exists, would have a deterrent effect, but not to all forms of aggression. On the contrary, the deterrent effect works both ways: not only aggression, but the resistance to it becomes risky. What this type of stalemate deters is not war as such, but all-out war. The side which can present its challenges in less than all-out form would thereby gain a decided advantage.

Moreover, even if there does exist a stalemate, it does not make it for stability in the present volatile state of technology, and much less exists, is not stable, but can be ended at any moment by a technological for a consciousness of harmony. The centre of a technological breakthrough by the other side would always loom large. It would lend an apocalyptic quality to all current international relations.

- 10 -

breakthrough. To be sure, not every technological breakthrough is of the same significance. A more elegant delivery system by itself will not prove decisive, provided either side can get a sufficient number of weapons on the target. A fundamental advance in the relation of offense to defense, on the other hand, may upset the military equation completely. Military superiority, therefore, depends not on the effectiveness of any one weapon, but on the relation of offense and defense to each other.

The importance of this offense-defense "mix" can be illustrated by the following example: If one power places all its bets on strategic air power while the other side develops a very large defensive capability and only moderate offensive air-power, it may happen that the defensive capability of the offensively weaker power will absorb the total offense of the other side, thus freeing the initially weaker SAC for a mortal blow.

Still the technical problems can be overdone. For the purpose of national policy the significance of the term "stalemate" resides not in the technical, but in the psychological aspect. For the "stalemate" is not anything new. In a very real sense there has been a nuclear stalemate since the explosions over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was, to be sure, not a physical stalemate: for close to a decade the U. S.

was relatively immune from Soviet retaliation. But it was a stalemate
none the less in the sense that we never succeeded in translating our
*military* advantage into an act of policy. This was due to many factors:
a theory of war which knew no issue save total victory, the *memory of the*
*most recent insistence on unconditional surrender*, humanitarian impulses,
lack of clarity about the process in which we found ourselves involved.
But whatever the reason, the U.S. atomic monopoly had at best a deterrent
effect. It may have prevented a further expansion of the Soviet sphere;
it did not enable us to achieve a strategic transformation in our favor.
Even the deterrent effect is questionable: assuming that there had never
been an atomic bomb, would we have surrendered Europe to the Soviets?
Would the USSR have risked a general war, so soon after having its territory
devastated by the Germans and losing, on the most conservative estimates,
10 million dead? Not even a dictatorship can do everything simultaneously.

But apart from the questionable deterrence to an all-out war, the
period of our atomic monopoly witnessed the consolidation of a satellite
orbit in Eastern Europe, the triumph of Communism in *China* and most

fundamentally, the growth of the Soviet atomic stockpile. We did not even
use our atomic monopoly to <u>enforce</u> an international control of the atom,
as if the Soviet would be more prepared to accept a meaningful system of
regulation after they possessed the capacity to retaliate on the U.S.
than before. Those who expect great things from technological breakthroughs
would do well to study American actions after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. No
foreseeable technological breakthrough is likely to be more fundamental
than the discovery of the A bomb. Yet its possession did not enable us
to prevent another power which never hid its hostile intent to expand
its orbit and to develop a capacity to inflict a mortal blow on the U.S.
It is a situation for which history offers no parallel.

What happened? Simply that we added the A bomb to our military
arsenal without integrating its implications into our thinking; that we
saw in it a tool in a theory of warfare which had showed a poverty, indeed
almost an absence of conception during the two world wars, but which
became completely inapplicable after the explosions over Hiroshima and
Nagasaki. For over a century before the outbreak of World War I, wars

were an extension of policy. Because they were fought for determinate objectives there existed a rough commensurability between the force employed and the goal sought. But with the outbreak of World War I, war suddenly seemed to become an end in itself. After the first few months of the war, none of the protagonists would have been able to name an objective other than the total defeat of the enemy or at least they would have named objectives, such as the German demand for the annexation of Belgium, which amounted to unconditional surrender. This was all the more remarkable because none of the political leaders had prepared for anything but a war in the 19th century style, with rapid movements and quick decisions, so that the stalemate of the first winter was due primarily to the exhaustion of munition supplies.³ There had in fact occurred a hiatus between military and political planning which has never been bridged. The military staffs had developed plans for total victory, because these are the most determinate plans possible in which all factors are under the control of the military. But the political leadership proved incapable

³See Raymond Aron. *A Century of Total War*.

-14-

-18-

of giving this conception a concrete expression in terms of peace aims.

The result was four years of war of ever-increasing violence which carried
its hatreds into a peace treaty which considered more the redressing of
sacrifices than the stability of the international order and which led
within less than a generation to another world war fought in the same style.

The notion that war and peace, political and military goals were
discrete entities had become so commonplace by the end of World War II
that the most powerful nation in the world found itself paralyzed by the
enormity of its own weapons technology. If every war had to be fought
to unconditional surrender, then indeed it was immoral to devastate huma-
nity for the objectives in dispute. In every concrete instance, even
in the matter of regulation of the atom which affected our very survival
we found ourselves stalemated by our own preconceptions: the consequences
of our actions seemed always to outbalance the gains to be achieved.

"Preventive war" became a slogan to stop all disputes—and properly so if the only alternative to peace was the nuclear destruction of cities.

Thus our policy became entirely defensive: we possessed a doctrine of
power to repel overt aggression, but we could not translate it into a

positive goal. And even in the one instance where we resisted aggression we did not use the weapon around which our whole military planning had been built. The hiatus between military and national policy was complete:

Our power was incommensurable with the objectives which our national policy and our military doctrine could not find any intermediary application for our power.

The original "stalemate" was therefore entirely psychological: that we were appalled by the enormity of the consequences of nuclear war. The growth of the Soviet atomic stockpile has merely brought the physical equation in line with the psychological one; it has increased the reluctance to engage in a general war even more. To be sure, it has also added nice questions of the balance of military forces, particularly about the relations of offensive to defensive capabilities. But it has not changed the fundamental question: how the political and military doctrines can be harmonized, how our power can give impetus to our policy rather than paralyzing it.

III

One way of avoiding the problem is to deny that it exists. It
is possible to argue that the whole term stalemate is illusory, that in
an all-out war one side is almost certain to be able to "win" in the
sense of being able to impose its will on its antagonist. This is tech-
nically correct. But it does not affect the calculus by which the decision
to enter the war is taken: in its crudest form whether it is "worth" fighting
the war in the first place. Obviously no power will start a war it thinks
it is going to lose. But it will also be reluctant to start a war during
the course of which it thinks it will lose its national subsistence. It
is doubtful whether France would have entered World War I had she known
the losses she would suffer. The capacity to inflict greater losses
on the enemy than one suffers, is the condition of policy; it cannot be
its end. It is the reserve which guarantees the limits of other measures;
it cannot by itself be translated into an instrument of policy except in
the marginal case of a direct attack on the territorial U. S.

Others have maintained that the war can be logically limited to
the battlefield or to military forces, however defined. This has a certain

17
- 21 -

validity, which will be discussed below. For the moment, it is
important to notice that there is no military rationale which limits
a war in the absence of political direction; the two world wars illustrate
this sufficiently. In Paul Nitze's hypothetical all-out war confined to
air-fields and SAC installations, the bombing of cities would be unwise
in the early stages of the war and unnecessary in the later ones, after
air-superiority has been achieved. But no power will let itself be put
into the position of being at the mercy of its opponent. It may at least
attempt to equalize the *threat* of nuclear extinction by inflicting its
*actuality* on the enemy and thereby deprive him of the fruits of his
victory, or at least make it too risky for him to seek *victory*. The
analogy of air to sea battles is only partially correct. It is *true*
that in sea warfare a slight advantage has usually been translated into
total superiority. But it is equally true that the weaker power has usually
sought to make up for its inferiority either by a surprise attack, such
as in the bombing of Pearl Harbor, or by seeking to force the enemy
into the kind of war where his superiority became irrelevant, such as
Hannibal's flanking move against Rome across the Alps or Napoleon's

⁴ See *Foreign Affairs*, January 1956.

'Continental System'. There is no point in fighting an air-battle, if
you are not going to win it. Unconditional surrender-or depriving the
enemy of his nuclear capability--cannot be achieved by subterfuge.

Still others seek to avoid the horrors of nuclear war by outlawing
nuclear weapons and returning to "conventional armaments." But apart
from the fact that the distinction between nuclear and conventional
weapons becomes increasingly nebulous as the range of low-yield weapons
is increased, it will be impossible to reverse present trends. The whole
planning and procurement of our defense establishment presupposes the use
of nuclear weapons and procurement cycles cannot be altered every few

Still this is an argument from policy and policy can be reversed,
years, however, the author has become reluctantly convinced that the
but the
emphasis on nuclear weapons is correct, provided it can find a proper
diversification and political expression. For any future war will be
nuclear, whatever the weapons used. At a minimum forces will have to
maneuver as if nuclear weapons might be used. This is true because the
side which concentrates its forces might thereby give its opponent the
precise incentive he needs to use nuclear weapons. But if forces are

bribease incentive he needs to use nuclear weapons. But it forces are
aside which concentrates its forces a might thereby give its opponent the
maneuver as if nuclear weapons might be used. This is true because the
uncertain, whatever the weapons need. At a minimum forces will have to
diversification and briefing expression. For such influence will be
emphasized on nuclear weapons is correct, provided it can find a broker
but the

~~but this~~

~~the author has become reflectively convinced that the~~

~~of nuclear weapons and briefing cycles cannot be altered every law~~

~~banning and brocurement of our defense establishment brevatures the use~~

~~is increased, it will be impossible to reverse present trends. The whole~~

~~weapons becomes increasingly nephanons as the range of low-yield weapons~~

~~from the fact that the distinction between nuclear and conventional~~

~~nuclear weapons and returning to "conventional armaments." But apart~~

~~Still others seek to avoid the horrors of nuclear war by outwitting~~

~~enough of its nuclear capability--cannot be achieved by sheerorge.~~

~~Which is the same wind~~

~~You are not going to win it. Unconditional surrender--or depriving the~~

~~Continental System". There is no point in fighting an air-petite, if~~

→ 18 →

- 19 -

dispersed, they will not be able to hold a line or achieve a breakthrough
with conventional weapons, because the destructive power of conventional
weapons is so much smaller. Finally, nuclear weapons, particularly of
the low-yield type, seem to offer the best opportunity to compensate for
our inferiority in man-power and to use our superiority in technology to
best advantage. To be sure, we have to consider not only the damage we
can inflict, but the losses we would suffer. On the balance, however,
the advantage is probably on our side. An increase in fire-power has
generally aided the defensive and we are much more likely to resist
aggression than to initiate it; nuclear war raises special problems of
control, of maneuver and of diversified capability which our system,
industrial and political, should be better able to withstand than that of
the Soviets.

But we are faced with the paradox that we are preparing for a
nuclear war we were reluctant to fight even when we possessed an atomic
monopoly, and that we have not yet found a rationale for it even when
weapons have become incomparably more destructive. Our previous analysis
may offer one clue out of this impasse, however: the difficulty of giving
our power a positive expression was due to our reluctance to engage in an
all-out war, it need not extend to other forms of conflict. The problem
of present-day strategy is, therefore, to devise alternative strategies
and weapons systems to confront the other side with contingencies from
which it can extricate itself only by thermo-nuclear war; but to deter it
from this step by our retaliatory capacity. All Soviet moves in the post-
war period have had this character: They have faced us with problems which
by themselves did not seem "worth" an all-out nuclear war,⁵ but with

⁵ See for example Mr. Finletter's letter to the *Herald Tribune*, Dec. 22, 1955.

- 20 -

which we were unable to deal by an alternative strategy. We refused
to defeat the Chinese in Korea because we were unwilling to risk an
all-out conflict. We saw no solution to the Indo-Chinese crisis without
increasing danters we were reluctant to confront. It is not for nothing
that Soviet propaganda has played on two related themes: that there is
no such thing as a "limited" nuclear war and "ban the bomb." For both
have the corollary "there is no alternative to peace," and both deprive
our policy of flexibility and sap resistance to the preferred form of
Soviet strategy: peripheral wars, internal subversion and atomic blackmail.

IV

We have, therefore, to return to an earlier question: whether the
nuclear period permits a policy of intermediary objectives. Before
answering this question, it may be useful to analyze precisely what is
meant by a limited war. Is a war limited because it involves less than
the available military resources or is it limited because not all national
resources are used for it? In the 17th century, for example, Louis XIV
employed almost his whole army constantly for a period of close to twenty-
five years. But his military establishment utilized only a relatively

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But if neither an agreed legitimacy nor a stable power relationship exist today, they may be outweighed by the third factor in the quation: the fear of thermo-nuclear war. Never before have the consequences of all-out war been so unambiguous; never the gains so incommensurable with the sacrifices. What statesman who declared war in 1914 would not have recoiled had he known the shape of the world in 1918? Today every weapons test augurs much worse horrors. There exists, therefore, a limiting condition to every diplomatic move. The distinction between tactical and strategic nuclear weapons may be nebulous in military terms, but each power has a powerful incentive to make some distinction, however tenuous its logic: the fear of thermo-nuclear extinction. This fear should be utilized to guarantee the "limits" of war and diplomacy. The graduated employment of force is thus not an alternative to massive retaliation, but its complement: for it is the capability for "massive retaliation" which provides the sanction against expanding the war.

The U. S. strategic problem, then, can be summed up in these propositions: a) thermo-nuclear war should be avoided, except as a last resort;

war is relatively simple to plan for, because its limits are set by
military considerations and even by military capacity. It is, therefore,
tantamount to an abdication of policy. The defining characteristic of
limited wars, on the other hand, is precisely the imposition of ground rules
which define its relationship to political objectives. Planning here
becomes much more conjectural, much more subtle and much more indeterminate.
The military, therefore, tend to resist it as outside their scope; unless
the political leadership assumes the responsibility for defining the frame-
work within which the military are to develop plans and capabilities.

In devising a doctrine for the graduated employment of force, we
should have no illusions of the political objectives attainable by it.
Graduated deterrence is not a cheaper substitute for "massive retaliation";
it involves the recognition that with the passing of our atomic monopoly,
the possibility of imposing unconditional surrender at an acceptable cost has
disappeared. At the same time, the renunciation of unconditional surrender
is not the same as the acceptance of a military stalemate. The notion

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that there is no alternative between total victory or the status quo
ante is much too mechanical. An enemy might accept intermediary trans-
formations if his military position became untenable without resorting to
all-out war. If SAC retains its retaliatory capacity, the other side
may decide that amputation is preferable to suicide. In these terms the
calculus of risks by which a limited nuclear war is expanded into an
all-out XXR thermo-nuclear exchange is almost the same (by which a limited
conventional war is expanded into an all-out war. Whether we can
achieve local transformation will, therefore, depend on three conditions:

(continued on page 31)

a) on the ability to generate pressures other than the threat of thermo-
nuclear war; b) on the ability to create a climate of opinion in which
national survival is not thought to be at stake; c) on the ability to
keep control of public opinion should a disagreement arise over whether
national survival is at stake.

The prerequisite for the graduated employment of force then is not
only the capability for it, but its plausibility to the other side. Soviet
reactions to American measures will depend not only on what we intend to
do but what we are thought to intend to do. But is it possible to bring
about a climate in which national survival is thought not to be at stake?
Will the Soviets accept any withdrawal or will they not consider it a first
step in an attempt to overthrow them? It must be admitted that there are
reasonable grounds for pessimism. One cause of the revolutionary intran-
significance of the Soviets is after all their sense of insecurity, their
conviction of a permanently hostile outside world. It is a conviction,
moreover, which is produced not by U.S. policies, but by the existence
of the U.S. as the strongest capitalist power. On the other hand, the

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problem is not simply one of reassuring the Soviets which is probably
a well-nigh impossible effort, but of giving effect to the one interest
we have presumably in common: that we both wish to avoid a thermo-nuclear
war. Given this attitude, an all-out war is likely only in two contingencies:
[SECRET] If the Soviets miscalculate their opportunity
to achieve hegemony in Eurasia by peripheral actions which in the absence
of a capability for the graduated employment of force, may force us into
an all-out war; or if the USSR should misunderstand our intentions and treat
every US military move as if it were the prelude to an all-out war. It,
therefore, becomes the task of our diplomacy to convey to the Soviet
bloc that we are capable of courses other than all-out war or inaction,
and that we intend to use this capability. This will not inevitably
prevent an all-out war: if the Soviets feel strong enough to know us out
by a surprise attack, they will presumably do so. But it does prevent
an all-out war based either on a miscalculation or on a misunderstanding
of our intentions.

Moreover while the Marxist philosophy has heretofore *imparted great flexibility* in Soviet policy *great flexibility*, we may be able to use it as well to give effect to a policy of graduated deterrence. The belief in inevitable triumph is afterall as consistent with tactical withdrawal as with an effort to fill every power vacuum. All of Soviet history testifies to the fact that this is not a regime for *last stands* if other alternatives present themselves. One need only *study the abject efforts of the Politburo in the months before the German invasion* to come to a settlement with Hitler to realize that if confronted with superior power the Soviets do not hesitate to apply Lenin's dictum: One step backward, two steps forward. And this tendency is supported by all of Russian history. Russia has always been less able to apply force subtly than massively; it has always been more vulnerable to wars outside *its territories* than within, and to *limited* peripheral* rather than all-out war.

But what measures are available to our diplomacy to create a framework of limited objectives? Of course, diplomacy cannot operate in a vacuum; it cannot develop a receptivity for the graduated employment of force as

long as we cling to an all-or-nothing military policy. But a modification
of our military doctrine is not enough; it is the task of our diplomacy
by itself
to convey it to the outside world. We must, therefore, As a first step, therefore,
we should talk less about all-out war and more about other alternatives, for the logical
corollary to "massive retaliation" is the slogan "there is no alternative
to peace." We should also remember that every act of a major power has not only
a substantive but a symbolic significance. Tests of high-yield weapons
no doubt have their place, although there must be an upper limit of effectiveness,
and their deterrent effect must be weighed against their impact on the
growth of neutralism abroad and eventually in this country. But in the
present low-yield weapons are much more likely to be translatable into
situation
political advantage. No one doubts our ability to fight an all-out war;
what is at issue is our willingness to fight for anything save a direct
attack on the U.S. and the meaningfulness of such a resistance should it
take place. In our public pronouncements and in our actions we should
therefore stress more our capability for limited than for all-out war.

But if it is one task of our diplomacy to present our intentions in
a way to give us maximum flexibility, it is another to leave no doubt

about the aspects of our military policy we cannot compromise. We
cannot sacrifice basic national strategy to propaganda victories. Foreign
policy is the act of utilizing the facts of life, not of denying their
existence. And one of the fundamental facts of life is that any future
war will be nuclear, that present trends cannot be reversed. It is
not

reason afford
therefore, etc.
to speak of abolishing nuclear arms even
as a long-range goal, even with a fool-proof inspection system. If we
surrender our nuclear capability the Soviets will retain a conventional
strength which would place all of Eurasia at their mercy. It would be
dangerous if we committed
ourselves to a course where the Soviets can confront us with impossible
alternatives by accepting our own proposals.

We cannot, for this reason, accept even by implication the notion
that nuclear weapons are in a special category. On the contrary, in all
our pronouncements we must make clear that the next war will be a nuclear
war. But while we cannot escape
we should express our willingness to mitigate its horrors. The political
framework for the graduated employment of force is not created by "ban

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the bomb" proposals, but by proposals which seek to define the conditions
of its use. It is, therefore, important that there occur a high-level
pronouncement which would define as precisely as possible what is under-
took by the graduated employment of force, just as the doctrine of massive
retaliation explains the rationale for all-out conflicts.

Such a declaration might then lead to proposals which would attempt
to make these conditions bi-lateral. One fruitful field of activity might
be conventions based on the established concept of "open cities". We could
announce, for example, that we shall not bomb cities except in retaliation
and provided that they are not used as military bases. Although a
systematic effort to define the term "military base" is beyond the scope
of this article, it is important to stress one point: that because of the
luxury we enjoyed in World War II of being able to bomb the enemy without
fear of retaliation, we may have come to define the term "military" much
too widely. To be sure, almost every civilian activity bears on a war
effort in some way, but no commander attacks every enemy position.
On the contrary, he attacks where his losses will be fewest, where
there exists the most favorable relationship between his risks

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and his gains. We cannot define "military base" in such a way that
every production facility is a target. Nor is this necessary. Up to
World War II, the destructive potential of individual weapons was relatively
so small that huge quantities were required to achieve a decision on the
battlefield. Since these could only be supplied out of current production
it made sense to seek to cut them off at the source. The destructiveness
of modern weapons is such, however, that the stockpile at the outbreak
of a war will probably suffice for its cours and, in any case, it may
be more decisively employed on the battlefield than against production
centers.

⁸ The concept of "open city" should, therefore, exclude primarily
air-bases, troop concentrations and weapons stockpiles.

Such a proposal would have substantial advantages even if not
accepted by the Soviets. It would at a minimum shift attention from
the unrealistic and dangerous "ban the bomb", and "there is no alternative
to peace" agitation to a field where constructive progress is possible.

It may force the Soviets to consider alternatives to all-out war

⁸For an elaboration of these ideas see Leghorn, "No Need to Bomb Cities to Win Wars." U. S. News and World Report.

which they may embody in counter-proposals. In the process, a clearer
understanding of the opposing strategies may remove at least the danger
that an all-out war breaks out because of a misunderstanding of the
intentions of the other side. ⁹

Many variations and alternatives of the above proposal are possible.
They are intended to indicate a direction, not a program. However, both
our diplomacy and our military policy will be sterile unless they are
backed by an enlightened public opinion. (Theoretically the Soviets face
the same problem, but their power and willingness to manipulate (and to
suppress) is much greater than ours). And public opinion in the U.S. is
faced by two contradictroy dangers: on the one hand, the residue from the
period of our atomic monopoly which considers only what the damage we can
inflict, not what we might suffer and which might therefore have little
patience with intermediary solutions; on the other, the prospect that as
the destructive potential of the new weapons comes to be increasingly
realized there may grow up an American neutralism. Our leadership will have to
steer between this Scylla and Charybdis, it must educate the people not

⁹ Most of these ideas have been advanced in greater length and detail elsewhere. They are outlined here only to indicate the direction our diplomacy might take.

only to our dangers, but also to our opportunities. It can take comfort
from the fact that despite all the confusions and disappointments of the
post-war period, the American people has at no time been unresponsive to
firm Presidential leadership.

VI

The discussion up to this point has concerned primarily the impact
of our diplomacy and of our military policy on the Soviet bloc. Its
impact on our allies and the *uncommitted* is no less important. There
can be little doubt that our system of alliances is undergoing a crisis.
Many reasons exist for this, the Soviet peace offensive, the domestic
problems of France, the economic stagnation of Britain. But perhaps the
most fundamental cause is the absence of a unifying military doctrine.
The purpose of an alliance is two-fold: to confront the aggressor with
superior force and to give each ally a greater degree of security than he
could attain alone. But our current military doctrine coupled with the
growth of the *nuclear* stockpile makes both of these conditions problematical
in the eyes of our NATO partners. In all *nuclear* war the

ground strength of our NATO partners will be almost irrelevant; in
terms of the doctrine of <u>massive retaliation</u> our Allies see little military
<u>significance in their own contribution</u>. To be sure, their air-bases are
important to <u>our</u> strategy, but this is no inducement to countries who
want above all to avoid the ravages of an all-out war. We have for this
reason to develop a military doctrine which makes not only sense to us,
but also to our Allies; which guarantees not only our ultimate victory, but
their own survival.

The situation is complicated by the growth of the Soviet atomic
stockpile which confronts all of Western Europe with the imminence of
nuclear destruction. This places an entirely different complexion on the
decision to enter a war or on a policy of alliances which implies it.
Heretofore, a nation threatened with attack would generally resist,
but if the most that could happen to it, as the result of an unsuccessful
war, was the loss of its national substance. But now, where most of our
NATO partners consider the <u>outbreak</u> of a war as leading to national disin-
tegration, our system of alliances is in dire jeopardy. It can be restored,

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b) No power possessing a thermo-nuclear capability will accept unconditional surrender without employing it and no nation is likely to risk thermo-nuclear destruction except to the extent that it believes its survival to be at stake.

c) It is, therefore, the task of diplomacy to create a political framework of limited objectives, a framework, that is, in which the question of national survival is not involved in every issue.

d) Since diplomacy which is not related to a plausible employment of force is sterile, it must be the task of our military policy to develop a doctrine and a capability for the graduated employment of force.

V

A doctrine for the graduated employment of force would enable us to escape the vicious circle in which we find ourselves and which can best be described as a flight into technology. We reply to every Soviet advance in the nuclear field by devising more fearful weapons, but in the (A more flexible weapons system and doctrine would extend the range of our processA reduce our willingness to employ them, such as a doctrine of alternatives we alternatives by posing less graduated deterrence, however, can only be the result of a political decision; the military cannot be asked to arrive at it on the basis of purely military considerations, for it presents them with peculiar difficulties. An all-out

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It has been said that our dilemma stems from the fact that we seem confronted by the alternative of Armageddon or defeat without war. We can overcome the paralysis induced by this prospect only by creating the alternatives both in our diplomacy, as well as in our military policy. But these measures require strong nerves. We can make the graduated employment of force stick only if we leave no doubt about our readiness to face a final show-down; its effectiveness will depend on our willingness to confront Armageddon.

small proportion of the national resources. This was not due to any
self-restraint on the part of the French king, but to the nature of his
domestic structure which made it impossible for him to conscript his
subjects or to levy income-taxes or to confiscate property. His military
establishment was therefore limited by his available resources and with
of
it the wars he fought. On the other hand, the wars/Prussia while they
did not exceed in scope those of France, involved an incomparably greater
mobilization of national resources. This was because Prussia's wealth
she
was so much less that it could retain her position as a major power only
by a domestic tour de force, by organizing the whole state for war. Still
Prussia's exertions only gave her a precarious parity with stronger states;
she did not force them to emulate her; the wars remained limited because
the major powers were able to mobilize only a small proportion of their
national resources for war and because the one power which was not so
restricted did not thereby achieve a decisive advantage.

Since the French Revolution the domestic restrictions on the capacity
of governments to mobilize national resources have increasingly disappeared.
To be sure, there still exist differences not in the *power*, but in the