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

65

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.

EY

66

As a result, Korea caught us completely unprepared, not only militarily

not initiated by surprise attack on the us
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 <u>UNRESISTABLE</u> courageous decision to <u>RESIST</u> 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
<u>strategic lessons of the Korean war.</u>

1. William Kaufmann, "Policy Objectives and Military Action in the Korean War."
   <u>The Rand Corporation Memorandum No. P-886</u>, p. 1.

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
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 *Korean* 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 Korean
war was produced in Mac Arthur because it was not enough of a war in terms
of our notion of war; in *that* of his opponents *because* it was too much of
a war in terms of the strategy we had developed. The dispute produced by
the Korean war was therefore less a conflict over the nature of strategy
as a disagreement over the *area* 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

69

It is expressive of the literalness of our notion of power that we
were certain that a war **about** Europe would necessarily take the form of a
battle **for** 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 **concept** of preparedness as the **adequacy** 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

70

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

71

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.

72

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.

73

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 directed 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 of
~~it also reflected our tradition of reserving our military commitment for an all-out threat;~~ 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
~~(behind 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.

74

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.

75

through a more flexible strategy or a greater determination. The same deter-
rent policy which was thought to be effective in restraining a Soviet attack
on Europe was assumed to be incapable of restraining the U.S.S.R. to keep its
ally from being defeated in Korea: we thought we could not afford to win in
Korea, because Russia could not afford to lose. Implicit in this attitude was
a value judgment: that Korea was not "worth" an all-out war -- the only war
for which our doctrine provided.

The Korean war was a peripheral war therefore, not only because of its
geographic location, but because of our difficulty in coming to grips with it.
It was kept limited, not because we believed in limited war, but because we were
reluctant to engage in all-out war. Whatever aspect of the Korean war we consi-
dered: geographic location, strategy for conducting it, coalition policy or
our "readiness," we resolved into an argument for keeping it to the smallest
possible proportions. And because we considered the Korean war an aberration
from the "pure" case, many of the disputes produced by it turned on the question
of whether we could achieve an all-out victory: MacArthur argued as if the So-
viet time-table could not be affected by any U.S. measures and that we could,
therefore, crush China completely. 10) His opponents argued as if the U.S.S.R.

10. MacArthur Hearings, pp. 9, 69, 130, 198.

76

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. 12) 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).

[y]

77

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 REDUCE IT and give it to 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, particularly after Inchon, we provided the enemy an incentive to seek to restore the military balance as a prerequisite to any negotiation on this part. Thus the attempt by both sides to achieve a position of strength prior to negotiation can lead only to a vicious circle of gradually expanding commitments. In Korea this circle was stopped only 13. Ibid., p. 886 (General Bradley).

78

because an equilibrium was established between the physical inability of the Chinese to invest more resources in the conflict 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 policy 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 our 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 deterrence was achieved by maximum retaliation, power, and 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 [X]

79

achieved not necessarily by resisting aggression on the ground but by treating an attack on them as a cause of war. In such a strategy only those countries from which we could launch retaliatory strikes had to be physically defended; our contribution to the defense of other areas would consist of our retaliatory power -- this at least had been the burden of every statement of defense policy after the war. But confronted with the Soviet capability to overrun Europe, our allies recoiled before the implications of this doctrine. It became clear that we could no longer rely on allies to hold a line while we mobilized; instead the roles would be reversed: unless we could offer a degree of protection against foreign occupation we would be without allies. This realization reinforced our already powerful inhibitions and gave us an additional motive for considering limiting our risks in Korea. And minimum risk, Clausewitz once said, is achieved by pure resistance, by precisely balancing every hostile move. "Our judgments," said Admiral Sherman, "have been influenced by two concepts. One is that we should if possible avoid a general war and second...that we must at all costs [emphasis added] avoid getting so much of our military potential absorbed in the Far East that we should then lose our ability to hold Western Europe."

"The basic premise of our foreign policy," said Secretary Acheson, "is that time is on our side if we make good use of it. That does not mean that in due time

15. MacArthur Hearings, p. 1585.

80

we can match the Soviet Union man for man and tank for tank. What it does mean
is that we must use the time to build...a sufficient force in being both in the
United States and among our allies to shield our great potential against the
possibility of a quick and easy onslaught and to ensure that our allies will
not suffer occupation and destruction."

Moreover, our doctrine of collective security exhibited the same absolutism as our military policy: it asserted that aggression would be deterred if it were confronted by unambiguous force and by the collective action of all free peoples. The two conditions were in fact conceived as complementary: the maximum force would be assembled by the widest possible system of collective security:

> "The basis upon which we are building our security in addition to the strength of our Armed Forces is collective security," said Secretary Acheson. "[Our Allies] are the most fundamental force in the security of the United States. It is of transcendant importance that in all parts of the world where danger of war may be created we work absolutely hand in hand with our Allies." 17) [Emphasis added]

16. MacArthur Hearings, p. 1585.

17. *Ibid*., p. 1764.

81

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 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 objective 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." 18) "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 remote part of the country. 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 country. 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.

83

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 unknown 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 our all-out strategy that we overlooked, the effectiveness of 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. 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.

84

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 allies to play an extra-European role. Our insistence that they do so could only increase the domestic difficulties of already weak

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.

86

In the former contingency allied support would have been unnecessary; an all-out war, on the other hand, could have taken two forms: It could have been confined to the Pacific or it could have become truly global through a Soviet attack on Europe. An all-out war which did not lead to the occupation of Europe, IN WHICH OUR EUROPEAN ALLIES REMAINED NEUTRAL, would have achieved through a legal device what we strained every effort to accomplish by force: Europe would have been protected by its neutrality, instead of through our alliance, but the accretion to Soviet power represented by Europe's industry and skilled labor--the contingency we seemed to fear most--would have been prevented nonetheless. Even then, of course, the choice of our allies would not have been so simple. It was one thing for them to refuse to support us in a limited war; it was quite another to stand by them while we lost a total war, whatever its locale, for this would have left them at the mercy of the U.S.S.R. But had the war become all-out through a Soviet attack on Europe, N.A.T.O. would have become operative automatically and our allies would have confronted the naked choice of survival. This is not to say that it would have been wise to expand the war in Korea. It is simply to indicate that substantial expansion of the condition of policy is to be made in the United States on the basis of the alternatives WE pose to our options. For our strategy did not involve any options.

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, gives flexibility to 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 response to the frustrations of the Korean war. Our reaction was not that our doctrine had been inadequate 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

book *Power and Policy*, they amounted to the assertion that the chief deterrent to Soviet aggression resided in United States nuclear superiority. The corollary we drew from this reaffirmation of our orthodoxy was that the United States *should* not exhaust itself in a war of attrition on peripheral areas or keep in being forces so large as to drain our economy without adding to our effective strength on A-day (the hypothetical date of the outbreak of the nuclear war). 24)

Since only the threat of "massive retaliation" could deter Soviet aggression, major reliance *was* to be placed on the development of our Strategic Air Force and an increasing the power of our nuclear arsenal. Since the Sino-Soviet *bloc* possessed interior lines of communication and is therefore able to choose the point of attack, we *must* not let ourselves be lured into areas where we would be strategically at a disadvantage. Instead we should inhibit aggression at its source by the threat of a general war. To be sure, there were some areas where we would resist aggression on the ground, the N.A.T.O. region, for example, and for the defense of these, it was argued, *that* ground forces perhaps backed by nuclear weapons were essential. But in the remainder of the world, the part

23. Thomas K. Finletter, *Power and Policy*. New York: Harcourt, 1954.

24. *Ibid.*, p. 231.

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
distorted what was in effect a World War II strategy to which nuclear weapons
had been added.

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.

91

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 transformation
(CAUSE!) 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 47

30. Symington Hearings, p. 220.

92

General Le May that in 1958 [The Soviet long-range air force] were going to be stronger, and from then on getting stronger...and that the deterrent force would then transfer to Russia from the United States." 31)

But this definition of deterrence contained all the dilemmas of our pre-Korea doctrine. "All modern military men, whether they be airmen, soldiers or sailors agree that no surface military tasks can be undertaken until air superiority is achieved. [General Le May stated] "Therefore, the first thing that must be done in a moderates to win the air power battle..." 32) "Air power is decisive. [It does not necessarily mean that the war is over the minute the air power battle has been won. It does mean when the air power battle has been won you are free to roam the skies of the enemy, the decisive phase has been concluded." 33) If land operations were impossible before victory in the air battle, however, they were unnecessary afterwards. Once it was possible to roam the enemy sky at will, there were more efficient ways to impose surrender than land warfare. 34) By the same token, the carrier forces designed to hit shipyards and port facilities, 35) could in terms of Air Force doctrine represent only a diversion

31. Symington Hearings, p. 213.

32. *Ibid.*, p. 102.

33. *Ibid.*, p. 167.

34. This view was made explicit in the semi-official *Air Force*, May 1956.

35. Symington Hearings, *op. cit.*, p. 1028.

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 of 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 on 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

\#x 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 tkexSAC 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).

an area which far transcends any ordinary definition of a target. In all these
cases, the collateral implications of the weapons system or the strategy far
transcend the primary mission which is the justification for its existence.

But the setting of force levels on the basis of primary missions, inhibits the
consideration of these collateral effects. Thus the primary missions become
ends in themselves and this in turn exaggerates the abstractness of our military
doctrine. Given the range of modern weapons, the attempt to develop a weapons
system capable of destroying any enemy target that can affect a service's
primary mission must lead to an attempt by each service to develop its own
strategic capability, with its own doctrine. But neither winning the air battle,
nor keeping the sea lanes open, nor destroying the hostile armies can be ends
in themselves. They are means to an objective which transcends purely military
considerations, although military considerations determine the prize to be paid
and therefore affect the willingness to act. To complicate matters further,
the same lack of doctrinal coordination which causes duplication among the services
also leads to a duplication of missions between us and the ally perhaps most
prepared to make a substantial military effort. It has caused Great Britain to
create a Strategic Air Force too weak to win an air battle but strong enough

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, hence-
forth 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 prize 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, for 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

99

combine physical and psychological factors; to develop weapons systems which do not paralyze the will and strategies which permit us to shift the risks of counter-action to the other side. Safety henceforth can no longer be absolute-- it will have to depend on the understanding of nuance. The pernicious aspect of the lack of doctrinal agreement among the services is precisely that it tempts each of the services to aim for absolute solutions in purely military terms and therefore inhibits the attempt to bridge the gap which has opened between power and the objectives for which to use them.

A revolution cannot be mastered until it is understood. The temptation is always to seek to integrate it into familiar doctrine: to deny that it is a revolution. Nothing is more important, therefore, than to attempt an assessment of the two technological revolutions we have witnessed in the past decade in order to determine their impact on our, by now, traditional notions of surprise attack, deterrence and war.