From: Lincoln Barnett

First Draft--Chapter IX, Overall Report

November 25, 1957

THE NATURE OF THE COMMUNIST CHALLENGE

For forty years now the world has anxiously watched the spread of Communist
influence and power. The process has been erratic, or at least has appeared
to be erratic, as its leaders adroitly alternated between postures of
aggression and conciliation, confusing their opposition by a policy of ambiguity
planned ambiguity, and utilizing a vast and versatile arsenal of weapons
within which purely military armament was only one. In the perspective of history
it is clear, however, that the Communist expansion has progressed both steadily
and with astonishing speed and momentum.

Today the scope of the Communist challenge is apparent in terms of
simple geography. For the consolidation of the alliance bringing together the Soviet
Union and Red China has extended the fortress of Communism across the entire land
mass of Eurasia from the Danube to the Pacific shore. Encompassing nearly one billion
people, buffered on all sides by its cushion of satellite states, the Sino-Soviet

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bloc encompasses a gigantic conglomeration of human and material resources constituting what is probably the most dangerous coalition of power in world history. Yet geography, population and resources do not present the complete picture. One must also take into consideration two other crucial components of any analysis of the international equation: strength (both in being and potential) and purpose.

So far as strength-in-being is concerned, it became evident in the fall of 1949, when the Russians exploded their first atomic bomb, that the Communists had succeeded more swiftly than anyone believed possible in reducing our lead in nuclear science and closing the gap in weapons of mass destruction. Eight years later, in the fall of 1957, when Sputnik I and II streaked across the firmament, the western world awakened to the stunning realization that the Russians had not only closed the gap but brilliantly surpassed American scientists and military technicians in the development of rocketry, missiles and satellites. The impact of the Russian achievement vis-a-vis our own progress was evaluated by eminent men of science as a strategic defeat of first magnitude. "We have lost a major battle in science," declared Dr. Edward Teller, chief architect of the hydrogen bomb, "a battle greater than Pearl Harbor."

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Any future view of the potential and rapidly unfolding strength of the U.S.S.R. affords no better grounds for reassurance. The Russians are turning out scientists and engineers in far greater numbers per annum than we are; and what is a far graver consideration, the graduates of their excellent institutions of higher education surpass our own not only quantitatively but in the quality of their education and training. Estimates of the time it may take us to overtake or even catch up with the Russians in the highly arcane field of military technology range from three to ten years. How long it may take us to recapture our once undisputed supremacy in the field of applied science as a whole is a question no one presently cares to answer.

The military and strategic challenge thus presented to the United States and its democratic allies will be discussed more fully in the following chapter. But here it must be emphasized that the dynamic element in military power is its purpose—the purpose that brought it into being, the purpose that sustains it (often against the disadvantage of other aspects of national life) and the purpose to which it may ultimately be applied. Immediate, short-range objectives may seem to loom suddenly, fade away, or vary from month to month. The long-range purposes of the Communist leaders, however, have remained constant, basically unchanged over the decades—despite temporary shifts in policy,

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despite palace revolutions, despite the recently-heralded program of "De-Stalinization" and the subsequent initiation of the new program of "controlled relaxation."

All of these apparent deviations have been mere chameleon changes in outer coloration, designed to camouflage and confuse, yet lying well within the basic spectrum of Marxist-Leninist doctrine as enunciated half a century ago. Today, no less than in the past, the purpose of every Communist maneuver in every area of activity remains the same: the advancement of world revolution and the extension of Communist hegemony around the globe.

No less ardently than the Russians, the Chinese Communists are dedicated to the achievement of this objective through implacable conflict, in which the reduction of western power and the instrumentalization of United States policy is their primary goal.

The strength of the Communist purpose is the driving force which has produced not only the recent and spectacular victory of the Soviet scientists in the arms race, but a whole complex of less glittering but nevertheless important successes on a variety of fronts ranging from the military conquest of North Viet Nam to the capture of the automobile market in Iceland.

For the Communist world is quintessentially dynamic. It cannot attain equilibrium until its purposes are achieved. One reason for its condition of perpetual motion is, of course, fear--a company of men deeply inbred suspicion that it is threatened constantly by powerful,

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hostile and aggressive enemy states that would destroy it were its own defensive potential not sufficient to deter them. Americans find it <u>impossible</u> to believe, for example, that the Soviet leaders <u>actually</u> believe that we are likely to attack them. Yet Russia has been invaded and ravaged by many times in history.

Their experience of foreign attack has provided an important part of their thinking, but it is not the only long background of their attitudes and policies toward the outside world. In addition, deeply colored their attitudes and policies toward the outside world, and has led directly to their present accumulation of power and quest for <u>insatiable</u> more.

Another element <u>influencing</u> the momentum of the Communist purpose is a kind of messianic impulse, a sense of mission to convert or coerce the rest of mankind into an acceptance of the ideas and goals set forth in the official dogmas of the Marxkst-Leninist political religion. A good many <u>schizophrenics</u>, many of them able students of the Soviet Union, tend to discount this messianic attitude so much as <u>denying</u> demagogy--a mere fig leaf covering the nakedness of the <u>Russian</u> <u>Communist</u> drive for power. Yet the fact remains that the Soviet claim to represent the <u>true</u> interests of the downtrodden has had an enormous effect in the erstwhile colonial areas, the newly-liberated <u>underdeveloped countries</u>, and underdeveloped <u>developed countries</u> and even <u>developed</u> everywhere else on earth where <u>majority dissatisfaction</u> and <u>discontent</u> have prevailed, where men have felt themselves exploited and abused and have felt the surge of aspiration to a better way of life.

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despite
On the other hand, for all their protestations of aspiring to lead the "progressive mankind" toward the goals of "universal socialism", the Communist powers have often acted in a way suggesting that they have been impelled also by such nationalistic or imperialist motives. The Soviet Union, for all its enormous real estate, has obviously pursued an expansionist policy in quest of additional military security and economic gain. While no Communist theoretician would ever admit to discerning any imperialist component in Soviet foreign policy, it is a curious fact that in every country which the Russians have occupied by subversion or force, a Soviet pattern of culture and administration has been swiftly imposed. As for the Chinese, they have a centuries-old tradition of national pride, xenophobia and self-esteem; they have always been the dominant power in East Asia, and they intend to remain so. Quite apart from Communist doctrine, it is clear that the multitudes of Chinese who have given up allegiance and support to Mao, regard their dictator as the founder of a new dynasty.

The Communist purpose may thus be envisaged as a manifold of defensive, messianic and imperialist forces, acting in concert to provide the propulsive energy for the greatest political and military machine ever known on earth. One must never forget, moreover, that in its application, the division between political and military elements (so clear-cut to the western mind) is functional

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and not organic. The Communists recognize fully that war and peace are purely relative and operational concepts, that military conflict is only one way of carrying on warfare and can be effectively alternated with political, psychological, economic and diplomatic methods. Lenin was well aware of Clausewitz's famous aphorism, "War is a continuation of politics by other means." He often quoted it and often paraphrased it, observing once, "Political tactics and military tactics are what is called in German Grenzgebiet (borderland)." From his studies of Clausewitz and other philosophers and historians of war, Lenin arrived at a concept of strategy which epitomized Communist operations around the world until today, the concept of protracted conflict: "The soundest strategy in war is to postpone operations until the moral disintegration of the enemy renders the delivery of the moral blow both possible and easy." Stalin further embellished Lenin's ideas with the concept of the policy of ambiguity, the simultaneous implementation of purposes, seemingly contrary publications, the tactical zig-zag, designed to confuse the enemy and defer a showdown until circumstances produced the for decisive action. Propitious opportunity. It was Stalin also who developed to its highest peak the strategy of employing indirect rather than direct means to achieve final objectives.

A clear and dramatic picture of the successful application of these strategic concepts can be discerned in the events of the

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decade beginning in 1946. In that year the Soviet Union was confronted with
two powerful realities: the advent of the nuclear age, and the emergence of the
United States as the most powerful and outspoken opponent of Communism, and endowed
with a monopoly of atomic weapons. Stalin consequently launched a gigantic
effort to transform the international power situation, and neutralize America's
atomic superiority. On the one hand Russian scientists labored frantically to
develop their own atom bomb--which they succeeded in doing within the space of three
years. On the other hand the principle of controlling elements of Soviet foreign policy
was to prevent a war, at all cost, until the U.S. technological lead could be narrowed or closed.
All of their provocations in Europe, such as the Berlin blockade, were conceived and executed
of a piecemeal, feint and jab policy, that neither threatened nor risked a knockout.
When they decided to test the firmness of American purpose in the Far East, they
acted indirectly by manipulating the puppet regime of North Korea to launch an
attack in June 1950. And when the United States responded violently they induced
the Chinese Communist regime to enter the war. By using the puppet regimes of North
Korea and Vietminh, as well as their Chinese ally, Mao Zedong, and by working through
the Communist parties (especially in France and Italy) in Western Europe, the Western
Soviet Union was able to evade responsibility for actions controlled from Moscow.

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Similarly, in western Europe, they have utilized the Moscow-directed Communist parties in France and Italy to build Popular Front governments, exploit parliamentary procedure, gain posts on key military and defense committees, dilute the effectiveness of the western alliance, and manipulate an election in the direction of a pro-Soviet foreign policy. In a pro-Soviet direction, they perceived that the legal-mindedness of the western nations would serve as an insulation that would prevent international friction from igniting into the holocaust of total war.

In the meantime they used this tactical decade to develop their own technology in the domain of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. In this they were consummately successful. It is evident therefore, that unlike the United States, which has placed its reliance on a strategic concept of all-out response to all-out war, the Communists do not bank on any strategy or any one "master weapon". With the exception of their strategy, derives from that ability to vary tactical combinations, synthezing every operational technique that has ever proved workable in history. In line with their direction, philosophy, Contrary to popular legend, they are not committed to seizure of power by armed uprisings. The armed uprising is merely one of their techniques, and by no means an exclusive method of conquest. Their skill has derived from their ability to vary tactical combinations, synthesizing

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method every operational technique that has ever proved workable in history, and tailoring their techniques to concrete situations. In line with Lenin's philosophy of protracted, universal conflict, they have held their vast armed forces in reserve, while coordinating their operations on a global front through a series of campaigns, an immense range of sub-total conflict techniques, such as@ revolution, violence, dialectics, persuasion, strikes, espionage, sabotage, propaganda (including mass appeals, pacifism, anti-militarism, defeatism), international popular front groups, formal alliances, informal ententes, guerilla wars, civil wars, and national liberation and anti-colonial crusades.

their economic and political ~~the Communist~~ Although the Communist ideology is well known to Americans, their cooperation in the doctrine of conflict management ~~universally~~ has been generally ignored, and in our ~~strategic~~ own experience planning we have evolved nothing as yet to match it.~~ successful~~ employment has had profound effects around the world. Today the Communist goal of driving the West United States from power and influence in Eurasia and isolating us on our continental island is approaching ~~to realization.~~ The gap between Russian military strength and ours has been closed. Our advanced air base structure is being undercut politically at many points, and largely neutralized by the Soviet's successful development of intercontinental and intermediate range

NATO is in a state of jeopardy. The threat to the middle east are in ferment, and our relations

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with France are vastly complicated by the Algerian situation, Britain and Japan are all being wooed by the possibility of trade with the Communist bloc. Germany is being wooed by the bait of Germany unity. The Arab countries of the Middle East are divided and in ferment. And we are dangerously isolated from the governments and peoples of the underdeveloped countries of Africa and Southeast Asia, with no clear cut policy capable of aligning them with our abiding interests. In short, the successful employment of the Communist strategy has had profound repercussions around the world.

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Over the years, the successes of the Communist juggernaut have been extra-
nal ordinary in terms of both space and time. For example, in 1917,
Communism claimed 17 percent of the earth's territory, 9 percent of its population,
and 7 percent of

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its industrial production. Today, four decades later, the Communist countries claim more than 25 percent of the land surfaces of the earth, more than 34 percent of its population, and 30 percent of its industrial production. Historically, the spread of Communism would probably take rank with the spread of Islam, or that of militant Catholicism in the age of exploration under the Spanish Empire.

Even more astonishing, however, is the development that has taken place within the fountainhead of the Communist movement--the U.S.S.R. itself. Here, out of the chaos of this momentous revolution, the first Soviet leaders succeeded in organizing a government, effecting impressive economic advances, formulating a revolutionary dogma and conveying it to all corners of the earth, and achieving in a single generation a degree of industrialization which had taken western

In the domain of science and technology, the progress of Russia is, of course, most dramatically symbolized by the Sputniks, which assert, incontestably, that in short span of 40 years between 1917 and 1957, the people of the Soviet Union evolved from a backward society of largely illiterate peasants into the earth's foremost pioneers in the exploration of interplanetary space.