CONTROLS, INSPECTION AND LIMITED WAR

By Henry A. Kissinger

> It is remarkable to what an extent the nuclear age has produced a penchant for absolute solutions. It is as if the very enormity of the new technology has made it impossible to conceive of intermediate objectives. The quest for absolutes obscures the attainable remedies; in focussing energies on the desirable it inhibits a consideration of the possible. And it overlooks that no policy can combine the advantages of every course of action.

In strategy the manifestation of this tendency is our theory of deterrence.

Because we have identified deterrence with the threat of maximum destructive-ness, we have relied on the threat of all-out war as the chief counter to Sov-iet aggression. But the more absolute have been the alternatives posed by our strategic doctrine, the more reluctant we have been to react to it. A policy of deterrence cannot rest on merely posing the maximum threat; it must also consider the strategy we are prepared to implement should deterrence fail. The quest for absolute power may merely serve to paralyze the will. By emphasizing the physical aspect of deterrence we have neglected the psychological component.

By our concern with the most absolute limit of deterrence we have committed

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ourselves to the most catastrophic strategy.

Conversely, the more terrible the sanctions created by our strategic doc-
trine, the more total have been the demands made in diplomacy. The fear of
total war has had its counterpart the call for total diplomacy. Diplomacy is
asked to solve by negotiation the contemporary schism that has been produced
because one of the two Great Power blocs explicitly rejects the observance of
agreements if they do not reflect a relation of forces. It has been said that
force has abdicated.

It is no wonder that these dilemmas should have become most apparent in
the area where strategy and diplomacy meet most obviously: that of negotiation
to control the use of nuclear weapons. Just as in our policy of deterrence we
have emphasized power at the expense of the willingness to use it, so in our
efforts to achieve international control of the new technology we have concentrated
on disarmament instead of on the problem of mitigating the consequences
of a nuclear war. The concern with disarmament has been the counterpart of the
strategy of massive retaliation. Both seek to achieve their ends by the threat
of maximum destruction. Both their quest for total remedies prevent the consideration of all less dramatic alternatives: massive retaliation of a strategy
of limited war; disarmament of a program which might spare mankind the worst

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II

The gap between strategy and diplomacy cannot be bridged by disarmament negotiations as heretofore conceived. For the always difficult task of disarmament negotiations is made virtually impossible by the instability and complexity of weapons technology, which has made it difficult to agree wither on reduction of forces or on control over the development of new weapons.

A reduction of forces is difficult to negotiate because it seeks to compare incommensurables: What is the relation between the Soviet ability to over-run Eurasia and American air and sea power. If the United States weakens its Strategic Air Command it would be years before it could be reconstituted. If the Soviets reduce their ground forces the strategic impact would be much less and they could be reassembled in a matter of weeks. Even substantial reduction of Soviet forces would not eliminate the availability of large reserves of trained and rapidly mobilizable manpower.

Even should a scale of comparison of different weapons systems be negotiable among Powers which have been unable to agree on much less complicated issues, it would still not remove the real security problem: the rapid rate of change of modern technology. Disarmament plans of the past were based on the assumption of a relatively stable weapons technology. Once the proposed reduction of forces

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was implemented, strategic relationship would remain constant. But under present conditions the real armaments race is in the laboratories. No reduction of forces, however scrupulously carried out, could protect the Powers against a technological breakthrough. Even were strategic striking forces kept at fixed levels and rigidly controlled, an advance in air-defense sufficient to contain the opposing retaliatory force would upset the strategic balance completely.

The rate of technological change, in fact, has outstripped the pace of diplomatic negotiations. Because stockpiles have usually accumulated before negotiations could agree on the nature of their problem, efforts to control the development of new weapons have proved futile. Since each scientific advance opens the way to innumerable others, it is next to impossible to define a meaningful point at which to "cut off" weapons developments. At the beginning of the atomic age, a strict inspection system might have succeeded in stopping the elaboration of nuclear weapons. By 1952, it might still have been possible to "control" the development of thermonuclear weapons, albeit with great difficulty.

For the hydrogen bomb developed so naturally out of research and production of nuclear weapons that a foolproof inspection system would have been infinitely complicated. In any case, by 1957, the production of thermonuclear devices had so far outstripped any possible control machinery that the emphasis of disarma-

[Y]

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ment negotiations turned from eliminating stockpiles of thermonuclear weapons to methods of restraining their use.

Moreover, once a weapon is developed, the next stage is to elaborate its applications until ever wider realms of strategy become dependent on it. A nation may be willing to forego the offensive use of nuclear weapons, but it will be most reluctant to give up its defensive applications, as in anti-aircraft or anti-missile weapons. But in advanced stages of elaboration, weapons often find a dual purpose: the launching site for anti-aircraft missiles can be used as well for attacking ground targets; a nuclear weapon launched from a plane against enemy bombers will be equally useful against supply centers. In short, weapons can be kept from being added to stockpiles only at their inception when their implications are least understood. By the time their potential is realized, the possibility of preventing their addition to existing arsenals by means of inspection or control will have disappeared. Thus if missiles are to be controlled, it will have to be within the next two years before they go into mass production.

The difficulty of developing meaningful control machinery to end the production and development of new weapons has caused most disarmament negotiations since 1955 to concern themselves with means to prevent surprise attack. Since one of the causes for present tensions, it is argued, is the insecurity produced

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by the fear of imminent catastrophe, an inspection system which reduced the
danger of surprise attack would also remove some of the urgency from internat-
ional relationships. This was the reasoning behind President Eisenhower's pro-
posal at the Geneva summit conference to exchange military blueprints with the
Soviet Union and to permit aerial reconnaissance of each other's territories.
The principle that inspection may prevent surprise attack has been accepted in
the Soviet counterproposal for stationing ground observers at strategic points
in the territory of the other nation.

It cannot be denied that the danger of surprise attack contributes to the
tensions of the nuclear age even if it does not cause them. It is less clear,
however, that uncertainty about the opponent's intentions would be significantly
reduced by inspection; or that the inspection schemes, if implemented, would add
a great deal to existing warning methods and intelligence information. Because
a strategic striking force cannot afford to be caught on the ground, it must be
prepared to attack from its training bases at a moment's notice. If properly
prepared, it should require no noticeable mobilization to launch its blow. An
enemy should not be able to tell whether a given flight is a training mission or
a surprise attack until its early warning line is crossed. To be sure, the Sov-
iet Long Range Air Force has not yet reached this stage of readiness. Because

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it probably does not possess a capability for aerial refueling, it would have
to transfer its planes to advance bases on the Kola or Chukotki peninsulas be-
fore it could attack. A system of inspection would inform us of this move and
it might therefore increase our warning time. Nevertheless, the gain would be
only a relative one, because any substantial movement of the Soviet Long Range
Air Force to advance bases could hardly escape high altitude detection or gen-
eral intelligence surveillance even in the absence of inspection. And the next
family of Soviet planes will be able to launch an attack on the United States
from training bases.

Because of the greater range of our planes and the nature of our base sys-
tem, the Soviet Union would gain very little either from ground inspection or
from aerial surveillance. They know the location of most of our air bases and,
since they will presumably strike the first blow in an all-out war, they are as-
sured of maximum warning in any case. It can be argued, of course, that the
U.S.S.R. may not evaluate the danger of a United States surprise attack so low
and that it would therefore gain added security from an inspection system. But
unless most planes are grounded all the time and both sides are certain that no
substantial installations are hidden, there is no guarantee that planes in so-
called training flights will not be used for surprise attack. Even filing flight

[N]

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plans in advance will not eliminate this danger. Given the speed of modern planes, by the time inspectors realize a violation of a flight plan has occurred and can communicate this information to their home government, the planes will probably have reached the opposing early warning lines in any case. Moreover, if flight plans are cleverly arranged - and every incentive would seem to exist for doing this - it will be very difficult to discover whether a given flight is a move to advance bases or a prelude to an all-out attack.

A system of even this inspection could, of course, be coupled with the grounding of all planes, except perhaps a very small number insufficient to inflict a catastrophic blow. Such a course would be highly dangerous, however. It would be difficult to maintain the readiness or the morale of the retaliatory force without constant training. Since our strategy is more dependent on its strategic striking forces than that of the Soviet Union, the grounding of all planes will work to the advantage of the other side. Even should we develop a capability for limited war equal to that of the Soviet Union, the grounding of our strategic air force would stand to benefit our opponent. It would tell him the precise deployment of our retaliatory force and enable him to concentrate his attack and his defenses against it. To be sure, we would have the same information about the Soviet Long Range Air Force. But it would be much less useful to us. Since we

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concede the first blow, information about the deployment of the Soviet Long Range Air Force will not help a great deal: It would presumably have left its bases by the time we became aware that an attack is imminent.

The maximum warning achievable by even a perfect inspection system is the interval between the time when planes leave their bases and when they would have been detected by existing warning systems. With the present family of airplanes this would amount to perhaps three hours for the state which is being attacked. The aggressor would gain an additional warning time from an inspection system because he would, in any case, alert his defenses before mounting his blow. To be sure, three hours is not negligible. But since the victim of aggression cannot be certain what the apparent violation of inspection means he may have difficulty utilizing the additional warning effectively. He will be tempted to delay his counterblow until the aggressor crosses the early warning line, which is precisely the situation today.

Moreover, as the speed of planes increases, the warning time afforded by even a perfect inspection system, correctly interpreted, will be progressively reduced. In the age of the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile - in less than ten years - the maximum warning time possible, assuming perfect communication between the inspector and the home government, would be thirty minutes, the period

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of time the missile would be in transit. In the age of the missile and the supersonic bomber, even a foolproof inspection system will tell the Powers only what they already know: that the opponent possesses the capability of launching a devastating attack at a moment's notice and with a minimum of warning.

The extreme readiness of the forces-in-being also reduces the use of aerial reconnaissance. Since flying time from the interior of the U.S.S.R. to our early warning line is about five hours with the present family of airplanes, each base of the Soviet Long Range Air Force would have to be photographed at least every five hours. If the reconnaissance occurred at longer intervals, the Early Warning Line would provide a better indication of a surprise attack because an attack launched immediately after an aerial inspection would reach the Early Warning Line before the next reconnaissance sortie discovered that the opposing force had left its base. As the speed of planes increases the frequency of reconnaissance missions would also have to be increased so that in practice reconnaissance planes would probably have to hover over enemy airfields almost constantly. And in the missile age aerial reconnaissance would be fortunate if it could discover launching sites; it would not be able to warn of impending attack.

It is therefore difficult to imagine that present vigilance could be reduced or that insecurity would be removed by any inspection system now in pros-

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pect. The machinery required would be so formidable and the benefits relatively
so trivial or uncertain that an inspection system may actually have pernicious
consequences. It may give a misleading impression of security and therefore
tempt us into relaxing our preparedness. More likely, however, it would induce
both sides to place their striking forces into an even greater state of readiness
in order to compensate for the loss of secrecy by a demonstration of power.

Indeed, unless designed with extraordinary care, a system of inspection may
well make a tense situation more difficult. The value of inspection depends
not only on the collection but also on the interpretation of facts. But the
information produced by inspection systems is inevitably fragmentary and is like-
ly to be most difficult to obtain when it is most needed, when international ten-
sions are at their height. On the other hand, the only meaningful reaction to
a seeming violation is to launch an immediate retaliatory attack because pro-
tests could not begin to be effective before enemy planes had reached their tar-
get. The knowledge that all-out war is the sanction for seeming violations may
well add to the tenseness of international relations. Instead of reducing the
danger of thermonuclear conflict, an inspection system may make an all-out war
based on a misunderstanding of the opponents intentions more likely. From the
point of view of preventing war (1), ignorance may be preferable to partial

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knowledge.

ed to approach each other only after they have been overtaken by technological developments that made those positions irrelevant.

Thus the attempt to eliminate war through disarmament is the obverse of the effort to deter aggression through maximum retaliatory power and to defeat the enemy through the widest system of collective security. Each of these measures is highly useful and desirable as long as it succeeds; the objection concerns not the goal, but the consequences of failure. For in each case the attempt to avoid war carries with it a fearful sanction: the more total the peace sought, the more total the consequences of violating an agreement. The policy of deterrence through maximum retaliatory power involves the sanction of all-out thermonuclear war; a doctrine of world-wide collective security involves the sanction of global war; and a system of general disarmament has as its sanction a combination of these. Disarmament negotiations, as heretofore conceived, may therefore cause war - if it does come - to take the most absolute form; in their quest for total solutions they may prevent the achievement of intermediary goals which are attainable.

### III

One such attainable goal is to mitigate the horrors of war. One of the most

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important tasks of disarmament negotiations should therefore be to establish a
common understanding of the possibilities and mutual advantages of limiting war-
fare. There has been a shrinking away from this effort, as if the admission that
war may occur could itself be a factor in bringing it on, or perhaps because of
lack of clarity about the possibilities of war limitation in the nuclear age.

A program to mitigate the horrors of war would help overcome the impasse
in which we find ourselves paralyzed by the implications of our deterrent stra-
tegy. It would have the advantage of focussing thinking on things to accomplish
rather than those which should not be done. It would relate disarmament to stra-
tegy and thus help to bridge the gap between force and diplomacy. It would over-
come a situation in which the Soviet leaders can conduct atomic blackmail in the
guise of disarmament negotiations and transform conferences into a fertile ground
for paralyzing the will to resist by evoking the most fearful consequences of
such a course.

Above all, a program to mitigate the horrors of war could be used to clar-
ify insofar as diplomacy is able, the intentions of the opposing sides and there-
by prevent the catastrophe of an all-out war caused by miscalculation. Even a
unilateral declaration of what we understand by limited war would accomplish a
great deal because it would provide a strong incentive to the Soviet Union to

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nature of limited war may be important because it is not certain that the
Soviets have fully analyzed all the options of the nuclear period. In so far
as the repeated Soviet denials of the possibility of limited nuclear war repre-
sent ~~their~~ real conviction and not simply a form of psychological warfare, an
energetic diplomacy addressed to the problem of war limitation might stimulate
~~constitutive~~ thinking on the part of the Soviet general staff.

Before we can convey our notion of war-limitation to the other side, however,
we have to admit its possibility to ourselves and we have to be clear in our own
mind about its nature. At present no such clarity exists either among our military
or among our political leaders. Our services are operating on the basis of par-
tially overlapping, partly inconsistent doctrines, some of which deny the possi-
bility of limited war while others define it so variously that even from a strict-
ly military point of view we can hardly be said to be able to conduct limited war
either physically or conceptually. The separation of our strategic doctrine from
diplomacy, the notion that victory is an end in itself, approach what Clausewitz
considered the most abstract concept of war: a war characterized by an uninter-
rupted series of blows of ever increasing intensity, until the will of the enemy
is broken.

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The difficulty of developing meaningful control machinery to end the pro-
duction and development of certain weapons has caused most disarmament negotia-
tions since 1955 to concern themselves with means to prevent surprise attack.

Since it is said that one of the causes for present tensions is the insecurity caused by the consciousness of imminent catastrophe, and that consequently an inspection system which reduced the danger of surprise attack would also remove some of the urgency from international relationships. This was the reasoning behind President Eisenhower's proposal at the Geneva summit conference to exchange military blueprints with the Soviet Union and to permit aerial reconnaissance of each other's territories. The principle that inspection may prevent surprise attack has been accepted in the Soviet counterproposal for stationing ground observers at strategic points in the territory of the other nation.

It cannot be denied that the danger of surprise attack contributes to the
tensions of the nuclear age even if it does not cause them. It is less clear,
however, that uncertainty about the opponent's intentions would be significantly
reduced by inspection; or that the inspection schemes, if implemented, would add
a great deal to existing warning methods and intelligence information. Whether
inspection systems either of ground observers or of aerial reconnaissance or
both would appreciably reduce the element of surprise either for all-out or for

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as the major movement of armies was by road or rail. When combat forces are composed of small, self-sufficient and highly mobile units moving by helicopter and verticle take-off aircraft the interdiction of communication centers will lose much of its significance. Finally, in a war which will be fought largely by the forces-in-being, the destruction of industrial potential will play a much smaller role.

Thus it is possible to visualize limitations at least as to targets and to the size of weapons used. We might propose that neither bases of the opposing strategic air forces nor towns above a certain size would be attacked, provided that these bases were not used to support tactical operations and that the towns contained no military installations. Such a proposal could be combined with general disarmament plans by requiring each side to list its strategic air bases which would then be immune from attack. It would be desirable, although not essential, that inspectors be admitted to all these bases. We might propose that air bases within a stated distance of the battle zone, say 500 miles, would be immune from bombardment, only if inspectors were admitted to verify that such bases were not being used for tactical purposes. Likewise all cities within the same distance of the battle zone would be immune from nuclear attack if they were declared "open" and admitted inspectors. An open city would be one which did

[Y] Kissinger - 21.

opposing staffs to consider options other than the stark alternative of total
peace (which may mean total surrender) or total war.

The elimination of area targets will place an upper limit on the size of
weapons it will be profitable to use. Since fall-out becomes a serious problem
only in the range of 500 kilotons and above, we might propose that no weapon
larger than 500 kilotons will be employed unless the enemy uses it first. If
this were not agreed upon, we might propose that any weapons above 500 kilotons
should be so-called "clean" bombs which eliminate fall-out. This would be
self-policing, since any significant fall-out would indicate a violation.

It may be objected that the program outlined would in effect neutralize
cities and seriously interfere with military operations. From the military
standpoint, however, it would seem to make little difference whether a city is
neutralized by the presence of inspection teams or through the explosion of meg-
aton weapons. As for impairing military operations, the handicap would be the
same for both sides, and the military will have to accept the fact that short of
a thermonuclear holocaust, purely military decisions are no longer possible and so
they must adapt their tactics and technology.

Other criticisms assert that a program for limiting war assumes a degree of

(1). The "clean" bomb eliminates the last stage of the fission-fusion-fission
process. Since fusion produces very little radioactivity, the fall-out is con-
fined to the radioactivity of the trigger mechanism and this is not a serious
problem.

[Y]

Kissinger - 22.

human rationality for which history offers no warranty. But history offers no
example for the extraordinary destructiveness of modern weapons either. A pro-
gram that seeks to establish some principles of war limitation in advance of
hostilities would seem to make fewer demands on rationality than one which at-
tempted to improvise the rules of war in the confusion of battle.

The United States should therefore shift the emphasis of disarmament neg-
otiations from the technically almost impossible problem of preventing surprise
attack to an effort to mitigate the horror of war. We should leave no doubt
that any aggression by the Communist bloc may be resisted with nuclear weapons,
but we should make every effort to limit their effect and to spare the civilian
population as much as possible. Without damage to our interests, we could an-
nounce that Soviet aggression would be resisted with nuclear weapons if neces-
sary; that in resisting we would not use nuclear weapons of more than 500 kilo-
tons explosive power unless the enemy used them first; that we would in any case
use "clean" bombs with minimal fall-out effects, unless the enemy violated the
understanding; that we would not attack the enemy retaliatory force or enemy cit-
ies located more than a certain distance behind the battle zone (say, 500 miles);
that within this zone we would not use nuclear weapons against cities declared
open and so verified by inspection, the inspectors to remain in the battle zone

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against surprise attack, as an instrument for keeping the war limited, and as a
device to maintain contact with the opponent so that a political settlement is
made possible at any point in the military operations.

The limitation of war described here is impossible, however, without a
strategic doctrine adapted to the nuclear weapons. It presupposes an ability
to use force with discrimination and to establish political goals in which the
question of national survival is not involved in every issue. It also requires
a public opinion which has been educated in the realities of the nuclear age.
A program of war limitation, in short, cannot be used as a cheaper means of im-
posing unconditional surrender. The possibility of total security exists no
longer. Limited war and the diplomacy appropriate to it is a means of escaping
from the sterility of the quest for absolute peace, which paralyzes by the un-
reality of its hopes, and for absolute victory, which paralyzes by the vastness
of its consequences.

By Henry A. Kissinger

The more absolute the sanctions of modern war, the more absolute have been
the demands made on diplomacy. The fear of total war has had as its counter-
part the call for total diplomacy. Diplomacy is asked to solve by negotiations
two major concurrent revolutions, that of the Soviet bloc and that of the newly
independent states, and at a moment when it has never had fewer tools at its
disposal. It is said that force having abdicated, diplomacy must take over.
But diplomacy may be handicapped in taking over precisely because force has
abdicated.

It is therefore asking too much of diplomacy that it should resolve pre-
sent-day conflicts. It can provide a forum for the settlement of disputes which
have become unprofitable for both side. It can keep open channels for informa-
tion. Most importantly it can enable each side the convey its intentions to the
other. Indeed, this is perhaps the most important function of diplomacy in the
nuclear age. For the primary bridge between the two sides at present is a com-
mon fear. They may not agree on any positive goals, but both the Soviet bloc
and the free world have at least one interest in common: that neither side can

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be interested in an all-out war. The interest in avoiding an all-out war is so overpowering that it should provide a strong incentive at least to explore the possibility of limiting war. If diplomacy cannot give effect to the one interest both sides have overwhelmingly in common, it is futile to ask it to settle the more fundamental issues of ideological conflict and revolutionary upheaval.

## II

The always difficult task of conducting disarmament negotiations has been made virtually impossible today by the instability of weapons technology. Because the rate of change of technology is more rapid than the pace of diplomatic negotiations, stockpiles of weapons have usually accumulated before the negotiators can even agree on the precise nature of their problem. Moreover, under present conditions the real armaments race is in the laboratories. No reduction of forces, however scrupulously carried out, could protect the Powers against a technological breakthrough. Even were strategic striking forces kept at fixed levels and rigidly controlled, an advance in air-defense sufficient to contain the opposing retaliatory force would upset the strategic balance completely.

The knowledge by each Power that the others are working on even more fearful means of destruction or on means of attacking with impunity would cause current international relations to be carried on in an atmosphere of tenseness and immi-

Kissinger - 2.

the possibility of limiting war. If diplomacy cannot give effect to the one
interest both sides have overwhelmingly in common, it is futile to ask it to
settle more fundamental issues.

II

One of the most absolute demands upon diplomacy has been in the area of disarmament. As traditionally conceived, disarmament represents the quest for an absolute solution to the problem of security - an attempt to achieve total peace in the hope of avoiding total war. It requires the major atomic Powers to stake their survival on the observance of international agreements in an international order where the breach of agreements has become commonplace and where one of the two great power blocs explicitly rejects the observance of agreements if they do not reflect a relation of forces.

The always difficult task of conducting disarmament negotiations has been
made virtually impossible today by the instability of weapons technology. Be-
cause the rate of change of technology is more rapid than the pace of diplomatic
negotiations, stockpiles of weapons have usually accumulated before the negoti-
ators can even agree on the precise nature of their problem. Disarmament nego-
tiations may therefore create an illusion of progress through the give-and-take
of diplomacy, whereas in fact positions have tended to approach each other only

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had so far outstripped any possible control machinery that the emphasis of dis-
armament negotiations turned from eliminating stockpiles of thermonuclear wea-
pons to methods of restraining their use.

The problem of control is magnified by the diffusion of nuclear technology
through programs for the peaceful uses of atomic energy. As more and more nat-
ions develop the capacity to build nuclear weapons, effective control even among
the smaller Powers will be almost out of the question. Another obstacle to con-
trol is that once a weapon is developed the next stage is to elaborate its uses
until ever wider realms of strategy become dependent on it. A nation may be
willing to forego the offensive use of nuclear weapons, but it will be most re-
luctant to give up its defensive applications, as in anti-aircraft or anti-mis-
sile weapons. Therefore weapons can be banned only at their inception when their
implications are least understood. Thus if missiles are to be controlled, it
will have to be within the next two years before they go into mass production.
By the time their potential is realized, the possibility of preventing their ad-
dition to existing arsenals by means of inspection or control will have disap-
peared.

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quire little build-up to go into action. Thus in a limited war an inspection
system is unlikely to provide substantial additional warning.

The most important requirement of an inspection system is that it reduce
rather than add to the danger of an all-out war resulting from a misunderstand-
ing of the opponents' intentions. But the inspection systems so far advanced
do not seem to meet this test. Inspection is likely to run into most difficul-
ties and evasions when it is most needed, when international tensions are at
their height. The information produced is of necessity fragmentary; since no
chance can be taken, any apparent violation must be dealt with as if it were
a prelude to the worst contingency. If this is not done, an inspection system
may merely aid the aggressor.

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be interested in an all-out war. The interest in avoiding an all-out war is so overpowering that it should provide a strong incentive at least to explore the possibility of limiting war. If diplomacy cannot give effect to the one interest both sides have overwhelmingly in common, it is futile to ask it to settle the more fundamental issues, of ideological conflict and revolutionary upheaval.

One of the most absolute demands upon diplomacy has been in the area of disarmament. As traditionally conceived, disarmament represents the quest for an absolute solution to the problem of security, and attempt to secure total peace in the hope of avoiding an absolute solution to the problem of security. It has been required the major atomic as we would avoid total war. It has requires the major atomic

The knowledge by each Power that the others are working on even more fearful means of destruction or on means of attacking with impunity would cause current international relations to be carried on in an atmosphere of tension and immi-

[N]

Kissinger - 10.

quire little build-up to go into action. Thus in a limited war it is doubtful
whether an inspection system would supply substantial additional warning.
is unlikely to provide

The most important requirement of an inspection system is that it
It is vital that an inspection system reduce rather than add to the danger
of an all-out war produced by a misunderstanding of the opponents' intentions.
But the inspection systems so far advanced do not seem to meet this test. In-
spection is likely to run into most difficulties and evasions when it is most
needed, when international tensions are at their height. The information pro-
duced is of necessity fragmentary; since no chance can be taken, any apparent
violation must be dealt with as if it were a prelude to the worst contingency.
this is not done,
If not, an inspection system may merely aid the aggressor.

[Y]

Kissinger - 23.

parts would then have a much higher credibility. The inspectors would have their own communication system and would operate even during hostilities.

The elimination of area targets will place an upper limit on the size of weapons it will be profitable to use. Since fall-out becomes a serious problem only in the range of 500 kilotons and above, we might propose that no weapon larger than 500 kilotons will be employed unless the enemy uses it first. If this were not agreed upon, we might propose that any weapons above 500 kilotons should be so-called "clean" bombs which eliminate fall-out. (2)

Such a program would have several advantages over inspection schemes designed only to prevent surprise attack. The objection to inspection as a bar to all-out war is not that it will not work but that even if effective the information it produces does not address itself to the real security problem. Given the high state of readiness of strategic striking forces and their increasing speed, even a perfect inspection system will not add significantly to the existing warning time. In all-out war, the aggressor, having already staked his national existence, will lose every incentive to make the inspection system as soon as he decides on a surprise attack. In limited war, on the other hand, the aggressor can be assumed to remain anxious to avoid a thermonuclear holocaust; this indeed is why the war remains limited. He would therefore be eager to con-

Kissinger - 24.

tinue to observe limitations - at least as long as the other side possesses a
sufficient retaliatory force to make all-out war seem unattractive. And both
protagonists will presumably be eager, not reluctant to overlook occasional vio-
lations.

An additional advantage of the plan is that the inspectors would serve as
points of political contact. Thus the mechanics of arms limitation would also
improve the opportunity for a rapid settlement should the contenders desire it.
And by relating disarmament negotiations to military strategy it would force the
opposing staffs to consider options other than the stark alternative of total
peace (which may mean total surrender) or total war.

It may be objected that the program outlined would in effect neutralize
cities and seriously interfere with military operations. From the military stand-
point, however, it would seem to make little difference whether a city is neutral-
ized by the presence of inspection teams or through the explosion of megaton
weapons. As far as impairing military operations, the handicap would be the same
for both sides. The military will have to accept the fact that short of a ther-
monuclear holocaust, purely military decisions are no longer possible and that
they must adapt their tactics to the new technology.

Kissinger - 26.

tiations from the technically almost impossible problem of preventing surprise
attack to an effort to mitigate the horror of war. We should leave no doubt that
aggression by the Communist bloc may be resisted with nuclear weapons, but we
should make every effort to limit their effect and to spare the civilian popula-
tion as much as possible. Without damage to our interests, we could announce
that Soviet aggression would be resisted with nuclear weapons if necessary; that
in resisting we would not use nuclear weapons of more than 500 kilotons explo-
sive power unless the enemy used them first; that we would in any case use "clean"
bombs with minimal fall-out effects, unless the enemy violated the understanding;
that we would not attack the enemy retaliatory force or enemy cities located
more than a certain distance behind the battle zone (say, 500 miles); that with-
in this zone we would not use nuclear weapons against cities declared open and
so verified by inspection, the inspectors to remain in the battle zone even dur-
ing the course of military operations.

We would lose nothing even if we made such an announcement unilaterally
since our strategy for an all-out war is based in any case on permitting the other
side to strike the first blow. If the Soviets begin a war by an all-out surprise
attack, nothing will have been lost by elaborating a doctrine of limited war; we
would react by using every weapon in our arsenal. If they begin hostilities on

The change of organization of the services should be supplemented by strengthening the organization for strategic decisions of the civilian side of the Department of Defense. At present the Secretary of Defense is at best an arbiter of doctrinal disputes. He possesses neither the staff nor the organization to shape them. This reflects the notion implicit in the present organization that strategic doctrine reflects "purely" military considerations and it has been embodied in the organization of the Joint Chiefs whose Chairman reports directly to the President and attends meetings of the National Security Council.

Such a separation of strategy and policy can be achieved only to the detriment of both. It causes military policy to become identified with the most absolute applications of power and it tempts diplomacy into an overconcern with finesse. The difficult problems of national policy are in the area where political, economic, psy-

front problems of national policy are in the area where political, economic, social, and national conditions of power and its temporary diploma into an overconcern with time, space, and of both. It causes military policy to become identified with the most absolute ability. Such a separation of strategy and policy can be achieved only to the degree meetings of the National Security Council.

of the Joint Chiefs whose Chairman reports directly to the President and attends
lectures "barely" military considerations and it has been embedded in the organization
reflecting the notion implicit in the present organization that strategic doctrine re-
disputes. He possesses neither the staff nor the organization to step in. This
of Defense. At present the Secretary of Defense is at best an adder or co-efficient
ing the organization for strategic decisions of the civilian side of the Department
The change of organization of the services should be supplemented by strength-

But our effort to assess the meaning of the new technology has been inhibited not only by our past, with its seeming lesson that security could be absolute, but by the lessons of military history in general. Throughout history, the military has sought for means to destroy their target completely although heretofore technology permitted only approximations to this goal. Modern weapons, however, seem to assure not only total destruction of the target, but also total duration of the "kill." Unfortunately the capability of total destruction brings with it collateral consequences which paralyze its use.

This paradox that the greater our power, the greater our inhibitions has given a frustrating quality to our quest for a military doctrine. Our past makes us more comfortable with technology than with doctrine and their training impels the military toward an all-purpose weapons system of maximum destructiveness. Yet this quest for absolute answers is inhibited, not only

It would be a mistake, however, to expect too much from organizational remedies. For many of the difficulties described in this chapter and in this book have been caused by national traits which are deeply ingrained in the American experience. As in all tragedies, many of our problems have been produced in spite of our good intentions and have been caused not by our worst qualities but by our best. What is at issue, therefore, is not a policy but an attitude.

Thus it is possible to visualize limitations at least as to targets and to
the size of weapons used. We might propose that neither bases of the opposing
strategic air forces nor towns above a certain size would be attacked, provided
that these bases were not used to support tactical operations and that the towns
contained no military installations. Such a proposal could be combined with
general disarmament plans by requiring each side to list its strategic air bases
which would then be immune from attack. It would be desirable, although not es-
sential, that inspectors be admitted to these bases. Likewise we might propose
that all cities within a distance of, say, 500 miles of the combat zone would be
immune from nuclear attack if they were declared "open" and admitted inspectors.
An open city would be one which did not contain, within a radius of 30 miles from
the center, any installations that could be used against military forces. The
term military installation should be literally defined and not extended to indus-
trial plants. Cities at a greater distance from the battle zone would be immune
altogether. Although the inspectors might be provided by neutral nations, it
would be preferable if they were experts of the opposing side because their re-

24.

war would tilt the strategic balance in his favor however the limited war ended.

Moreover, any utilization of the Strategic Force might create doubt about our intentions to keep the war limited and thereby unleash a retaliatory blow. And both the Strategic and the Tactical Forces should be self-contained because if the Tactical Forces are considered an auxiliary to an all-out strategy, we will always be tempted to conserve them for a final show-down or a clearer provocation. Finally the Strategic as well as the Tactical Forces should be able to accomplish their missions with the forces-in-being. It is evident that a Strategic Force must be ready to meet a surprise attack. But the Tactical Force, too, should not have to rely on substantial mobilization because large-scale mobilization might be taken by the enemy as a prelude to an all-out showdown and because half-trained reserves would probably not be adequate for the speed and complexity of modern war.*

would properly not be adequate for the speed and complexity of modern war.

the enemy as a whole to an all-out showdown and because self-trained reserves rely on substantial modification because large-scale modification might be taken place ready to meet a surprise attack. But the Tactical Force, too, should not have to mistake with the forces-in-being. It is evident that a Strategic Force must be the Strategic as well as the Tactical Force, should be able to accomplish their tasks to conserve them for a final show-down or a cleaner precession. Briefly, tactical forces are considered an auxiliary to an all-out strategy, we will study the Strategic and the Tactical Forces should be self-contained because it the Tentations to keep the war limited and thereby release a retaliatory flow. And post Moreover, and utilization of the Strategic Force might create doubt about our inva- tion would tilt the strategic balance in its favor however the limited war ended.

57.

[A]

In our defense establishment then is for units capable of fighting local actions and specifically designed for this purpose. At present, the Air Force is too preoccupied with all-out war and with a doctrine of complete air superiority; the Army is too small and its organization too cumbersome; only the Navy possesses a force capable of discriminating offensive operations, but it may be handicapped in a limited war by its doctrine of anti-submarine warfare.

In view of the fact that the Strategic Air Command is for all practical purposes a part of the Air Force, the priority given to all-out war by air doctrine is <u>completely understandable and proper.</u> It is only natural that the best crews, the best equipment and the choicest bases should go to our retaliatory force. But the penalty paid for the preoccupation with the strategic striking force is that the mode of operation which is necessary for all-out war becomes the pattern for the conduct of <u>limited war</u>, <u>as well</u> The "pure" air doctrine which forms the basis of the strategy of the Strategic Air Command maintains that the air is indivisible, that wars can be won only by dominating the sky completely.<sup>12)</sup> Because this condition can be achieved, however, only in all-out war, air doctrine has never felt comfortable with a strategy of limited war and has sought to transform it into as close to a "small" all-out war as it could by achieving complete domination over a combat zone.<sup>13)</sup> But with the speed and range of modern weapons such a course will become increasingly inconsistent with a policy of war-limitation. To achieve complete domination of the air over a combat zone, which under modern conditions will itself be

12. Sir John Slessor, *Strategy for the West* (New York: Morrow, 1954), p. 105.

13. U.S. Senate, *Study of Airpower*, Hearings before the Subcommittee on the Air Force of the Committee on Armed Services, 84th Cong., 2nd Sess. (Washington: GPO, 1956), p. 472. [Presentation of the Tactical Air Command]

It may be argued that the officers of all services attend each other's war colleges even now. But it is one thing to attend a service school as an outsider to learn the point of view of another service, at a stage of the officer's career when his general attitude is well settled; it is quite another to provide incentives from the earliest stages of an officer's career to consider strategic problems apart from the interests of his service. The quality of a staff officer would then be judged less on the basis of his skill in defending his service's point of view in the coördinating procedure of the Pentagon than by his contribution to an over-all doctrine or at least by his ability to operate within it. In a single service, loyalty to the organization would be identical with the requirements of doctrine. Doctrine would no longer be a tool of inter-service rivalry but a subject to be considered on its own merits.

If our military staffs could become clear about a doctrine of limited war, we could then use disarmament negotiations to seek some acceptance of it by the other side. It would not be necessary that such a concept be embodied in an international treaty or even that the Soviets formally adhere to it. There should be no illusions, in fact, about the ease with which the Soviets might be induced to forego the advantages of atomic blackmail. The primary purpose of such a program would be to convey our intentions to the Soviet bloc and to encourage it

[Y]

16.

III

It is easier to describe difficulties than to propose remedies. Many of the obstacles to the development of doctrine are inherent in the complexity of the problem and in the novelty of the challenge confronting us. No previous generation has had to master so many revolutions occurring simultaneously, in ideology, in emerging new nations, in the existence of an irreconcilably hostile bloc of powers and in the rapidly changing weapons technology. The concern with technology is understandable in a situation where the penalty for a wrong guess about weapons systems may be national catastrophe. The predilection with all-out war stems almost inevitably from the fact that it is our gravest, if not our most likely danger, and therefore rightly the first priority of our defense effort. Provision for it is so complicated, moreover, that it can easily obscure all other concerns. The fact remains that survival will depend on our ability to overcome these obstacles. Posterity will not judge us by the vastness of our challenge but by our ability to surmount it.

The basic challenge to any society is how it can bring its leadership to think naturally and spontaneously about the problems of greatest over-all concern. An administrative mechanism charged with developing strategic doctrine will be ineffective if nothing in the daily experience of the individuals comprising it leads them naturally to reflection about the problems of strategy. The mere fact that each high official spends a certain amount of time on the interdepartmental committees charged with producing over-all objectives is not conclusive. Strategic doctrine is not achieved merely by an apportionment of time; its profundity depends on the ability to transcend spontaneously the technical requirements of the moment.

Leadership is therefore an aspect of a more general problem faced by any society; the need to strike a balance between the requirements of organization and the need for inspiration. Organization expresses the importance of continuity; the

17.

routine by which it operates represents a recognition that a society must be able to assimilate mediocrity. Inspiration, on the other hand, is the mechanism of growth; it is the ability to transcend a framework which has come to be taken for granted. The stability of a society depends on its skill in organization which enables it to react mechanically to "ordinary" problems and to utilize its resources to best effect. The greatness of a society, however, derives from its willingness to chart new ground beyond the confines of routine. Without organization every problem becomes a special case; its energies will then be absorbed in analyzing and identifying at the expense of constructive thought. Without inspiration a society will stagnate; it will lose the ability to adapt to new circumstances or to generate new goals. The experience of a people tends to be confined to the level of its average performance. But leadership is the refusal to confine action to average performance; it is the willingness to define purposes perhaps only vaguely apprehended by the multitude. A society learns only from experience: it "knows" only when it is too late to act. But a statesman must act as if his inspirations were already experience, as if his aspiration were "truth." A statesman must therefore be an educator. He must bridge the gap between a society's experience and his vision, between its tradition and its future.

In this task his possibilities are limited because there is an inherent tension between the mode of action of a bureaucracy and the pattern of statesmanship. A smoothly-working bureaucracy creates the illusion that it is running by itself; it will therefore seek to reduce all problems to administrative terms. The basic motivation of a bureaucracy is its quest for safety; the necessary emphasis on routine creates a bias in favor of a policy of minimum risk. A bureaucracy therefore has a tendency to exaggerate the technical complexities of its problems, and to seek to reduce questions of judgment to a minimum. Technical problems are

18.

[N]

susceptible to "objective" analysis. Questions of judgment cannot be so dealt with; they therefore tend to be resisted as being too uncertain. An administrative mechanism has a bias in favor of the status quo, however arrived at. Short of an ambitious catastrophe, the status quo has the advantage of familiarity; no "objective" criteria can prove that a change of course will yield superior results. Thus the inclination of a bureaucracy is to deny the possibility of great conception by classifying it as "unsound," "risky" or other terms which testify to a preference for equilibrium over exceptional performance.

Only at great peril can national strategy be confined to the mode of understanding of an administrative mechanism. For profound policy thrives on creativity; administration on an avoidance of deviation. Policy is judged by its grasp of opportunities, bureaucracies by their skill in avoiding dangers. It is no accident that most great statesmen were opposed by the "experts" in their foreign offices, for the very greatness of the statesman's conception tends to make it inaccessible to those whose primary concern is with safety and minimum risk.

A society owes its vitality to its ability to establish a balance between the requirement of organization and the need for inspiration. The danger of too much stress on organization is bureaucratization and lack of imagination. The peril of excessive emphasis on inspiration is a tour de force producing lack of continuity and organizational instability. The best balance is produced by a bureaucracy which runs sufficiently smoothly to take care of ordinary problems as a matter of routine; but not so pervasive as to inhibit the creative thought which is inseparable from statesmanship.

The complexities of contemporary life inhibit the establishment of this balance, however. For the mastery of any one field whether it is politics, science, or industry, is so difficult that it discourages reflection about its relationship to other activities. The structure of most organizations is growing so intricate

19.

that the effort to learn to manipulate it tends to leave little energy for a con-
sideration of its purpose. The ultimate in bureaucratization comes about when the
internal problems of an administrative mechanism approach the complexity of the
problems with which it was designed to deal, a condition rapidly being reached in
many aspects of modern life.

Thus at a moment when the capacity to think conceptually was never more impor-
tant, technical problems have become so complicated that they tend to preempt all
attention. At a time when our society needs "generalists" above all, individuals
with a wide orbit and universal interests, all pressures tend to restrict the orbit
of the individual and to produce narrow interests. A strong leadership group is
developed when the qualities which are encouraged in reaching the top approximate
the qualities required for effective over-all guidance. But the structure of a mod-
ern society tends to run counter to developing these abilities. The skill required
in attaining eminence within a large administrative mechanism is essentially mani-
pulative; it is the ability to adapt to prevailing standards and to improve effici-
ency within a framework which is given. But the qualities required for leadership
are primarily creative; it is to set the framework within which administration op-
erates. The patterns of thinking developed in the rise to eminence may therefore
inhibit effectiveness when eminence is reached. The rewards in a bureaucracy are
for an ability not to upset the equilibrium; the requirement of leadership is the
ability to galvanize an organization and to prevent that an equilibrium become an
end in itself. The incentive of an organization is specialized skill; the imperative
of leadership is scope and vision which in turn may be unrecognized at lower levels
because of the insufficiency of the challenge.

Many of the difficulties of our governmental apparatus are therefore only symp-
toms of challenges faced by our society at large. Their solution will ultimately
depend on developments within American life; whether we can maintain standards of

Kissinger - 27.

a limited scale, a limited war could be fought according to rules established
well in advance. And the inspection system sketched here would serve a threefold
purpose - as a warning against surprise attack, as an instrument for keeping the
war limited, and as a device to maintain contact with the opponent so that a
political settlement is made possible at any point in the military operations.

The limitation of war described here is impossible, however, without a strategic doctrine adapted to the nuclear weapons. It presupposes an ability to use force with discrimination and to establish political goals in which the question of national survival is not involved in every issue. It also requires a public opinion which has been educated in the realities of the nuclear age. A program of war limitation, in short, cannot be used as a cheaper means of imposing unconditional surrender. The possibility of total solutions exists no longer. Limited war and the diplomacy appropriate to it is a means of escaping from the sterility of the quest for absolute peace, which paralyzes by the unreality of its hopes, and for absolute victory, which paralyzes by the vastness of its consequences.

The test of an organization is how naturally and spontaneously it enables its leadership to address itself to the problems of greatest over-all concern. There is little in the organization of our National Defense Establishment that impels the service chiefs in a spontaneous fashion into a consideration of over-all strategic doctrine.

The service chiefs have risen to their position through a lifetime of dedication to one arm. They are a product of its problems, its training schools, its environment. The qualities of loyalty and single-mindedness which were encouraged in their rise to the top may be precisely the qualities which inhibit over-all thought at the pinnacle. Maintaining the morale of their service can never be far from their mind. And the problems of mastering the primary mission of each service are becoming so complex that they almost inevitably inhibit a consideration of their relationship to an over-all mission; or more accurately, they lead to a psychological distortion in which over-all strategy tends to be equated with a service's primary mission.

the role of education in the individual; it relates seemingly disparate experi-
ences into a meaningful pattern. By explaining the significance of events in advance
of their occurrence, it enables most problems to be dealt with as a matter of
routine and reserves creative thought for unusual or unexpected situations.

The test of a strategic doctrine is whether it can establish a pattern
of response -- a routine -- in foreign policy for the most likely challenges. The
degree to which a society confronts situations in its relations with other groups
which seem to it unexpected reveals a breakdown of its strategic thought. If a
society faces too many unexpected contingencies its leadership will no longer be
able to draw strength from the corporative effort; the routine on which its action
is based will seem incongruous; the machinery for making decisions will become over-
loaded. This is why Machiavelli said: "Nothing is easier to effect than what the
enemy thinks you will never attempt to do." An unexpected situation faces improvi-
sation; it therefore deprives a society of the advantage of sober calculation. More-
over while improvisation may only inhibit the best performance of an individual; it
may produce more serious consequences for a society. In extreme cases, members of
the group may take independent action and thereby complicate an effective over-all
response. Or it may lead to panic, the inability to make any response to a challenge
except by fleeing from it.

The Romans stampeded when they first confronted Hannibal's elephants. This
was not because the elephants were decisive by themselves; it was simply that the
Romans had never considered a mode for dealing with the military use of elephants.
Within a few years they had developed a mode of action for coping with the charges
of the beasts; with the proper doctrine it became an "expected" tactic to be con-
fronted, like any other, through discipline instead of through flight. Similarly,
the rapid German tank thrusts in 1940 demoralized the French army above all because
such maneuvers had been explicitly rejected by French doctrine; a German tank force

actually inferior in numbers was enabled to rout its opponent because its mode of
action appeared "unnatural" to French commanders: they possessed no concepts for
dealing with it. Before the end of the war, the strategic doctrine of the allies
had caught up with German tactics; henceforth they could react to armored warfare
almost as a matter of routine. Surprise can take two forms, then: an unexpected
timing and an unexpected mode of action. An opponent can be aware of the probable
nature of a maneuver but still be caught off-guard by its timing: the secret of
Napoleon's victories was that he confused his enemies by the rapidity of his maneuvers.
Conversely it is possible to be aware that an attack is imminent and yet be found
unprepared by its nature. In 1941, we knew that Japan was planning a military move,
but our strategic doctrine did not foresee an attack on Hawaii.

20.

excellence in the face of the demands of mass education; whether we can create in-centives for generalists where the rewards for specialization are so immediate; whether we can generate reflectiveness when technical problems take away the leisure of most talented individuals.

Thus the key to a proper doctrine is the correct understanding of
the elements of one's superiority; and to develop the capacity to apply
them more rapidly than the opponent either through the choice of an
advantageous battlefield or through the superior utilization of existing
weapons systems.

[Y]

Kissinger - 17.

Such a doctrine is inconsistent with a policy of limiting war. It is not only that we must find means to prevent the most extreme violence; we must also seek to slow down the tempo of modern war lest the rapidity with which operations succeed each other prevent the establishment of a relationship between political and military objectives. If these objectives lose contact with one another, war is likely to grow by imperceptible stages into an all-out effort.

orthodoxy, the ceiling is not as rigid as its advocates maintain. It also means
that if the current defense budget is too low even to maintain our retaliatory
force, as war argued by the Chiefs of each service before the Symington Committee,*
an increase in expenditures is essential to remedy this situation and to bring about
the limited war capability described earlier*¹²—limited war capabilities where we
are weakest: airlift, tactical air support, expanded and modernized ground forces
and even anti-submarine warfare.

* The minimum requests by each service were as follows:

Air Force      $23 billion (Symington) p. 1494
Navy          13 billion      "      p. 1358
Army          12 billion      "      p. 1280

Although these figures are by no means conclusive and the requests were reduced by the Secretary of Defense from $48 billion to $38 billion, the budget was held down only by deferring major new procurement. Every deferred expenditure will increase the pressure in the future years either to increase the budget or to reduce forces. And no new provision was made for the limited war capabilities where we are weakest: airlift, tactical air support, expanded and modernized ground forces and even anti-submarine warfare.

** See above Chapter Five, p. ___

*** This difficulty is not confined to the field of defense policy although it is perhaps most evident there. The European Recovery Program (E.R.P.), for example, was launched by an authorization for the expenditure of $15 billion over a five-year period. Although Congress was not legally bound thereby to appropriate this

Thus the budgetary process is one of the factors which inhibit strategic thought. The frequency of review, the increasing complexity of the weapons systems, the difficulty of analyzing budgetary requests all combine to put a premium on technical concerns. Because the service chiefs must spend such a disproportionate share of their time in preparing or justifying the budget, and because the morale of the service depends on the share they obtain for it, all the pressures tend to transform the members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff into advocates of a service point of view. Because the passage of the budget is facilitated by the appearance of interservice harmony, there occurs just sufficient compromise to insure the perpetuation of all disputes.

But while it is true that the emphasis of technology at the expense of doctrine reflects more deep-seated problems, it is equally the case that our present administrative mechanism exaggerates the trends already inherent in our society. What has been said earlier with regard to the Joint Chiefs of Staff illustrates the prob-

21.

to new situations is illustrated by the attitude of both the German and American
staffs to the emergence of missiles. In both Germany and the United States the
Airforce concentrated initially on developing what was in effect an unmanned bomb:
the V-1 guided missile in Germany, TALOS and SNARK in the United States. In both
Germany and the United States, the army developed the closest approximation in the
missile field to an artillery projectile: the V-2 rocket in Germany, the Honest John,
Nike and Redstone missiles in the United States. In developing these weapons the
services were not being consciously parochial; they simply concentrated on the things
they knew best; they were doing what came naturally.

[N]

CHAPTER X

Diplomacy and the Limitation of Armaments

It may seem like a paradox to ask diplomacy that it rescue mankind from the horrors of a thermo-nuclear holocaust by devising a framework of war limitation. Is not the situation revolutionary precisely because the Soviet bloc considers the gulf between different social systems as irreconcilable? How can there be an agreement on the limitation of war when all negotiations with the Soviets have proved that the two sides have rarely been able to agree even on what constituted a reasonable demand?

Diplomacy has never faced a more fearful challenge. For almost everything conspires against the subtle negotiation, the artful compromise, the ability to formulate without opening unnecessary wounds of classical diplomacy. Diplomacy the art of settling dispute by negotiation rather than through force, presupposes that all the major powers accept a framework which establishes a balance between the requirement of change and the imperative of continued harmony. Negotiations are made necessary by the dissatisfaction of some Power with the status quo, for were all Powers perfectly satisfied there would be nothing to negotiate about. But negotiations can lead to a conclusion only if the parties to the dispute accept some common standard transcending the dispute: They must either agree that the continued maintenance of the international system is more important than any dispute within it; or else there must be a general understanding that the

X - 2

consequences of not making concessions will be more serious than
those of doing so. Historically settlements have come about
through a combination of the advantage of continued harmony com-
bined with a fear of the consequences of proving obdurate. The spon-
taneity of international relations has depended on which of the
two factors, harmony or fear, has been emphasized. The smaller
the interest in harmony, the greater has been the requirement of
fear produced by force or the threat of force. The greater the
interest of the major Powers in continued good relations, the less
necessary has been the recourse to force.

The result has been that diplomacy has proved most effica-
cious in periods when the conception of the various Powers of
their vital interests were most in accord. Diplomacy has been
least able to settle disputes when there was a conflict in the
notions of "vital" interests. For there is a limiting condition
to all diplomatic negotiations: that no nation can negotiate
about its own survival and that no nation will give up what it
considers its "vital" interests for the sake of continued harmony.
An international order that does not protect a Power's conception
of its vital interests will not seem worth preserving to this
Power: its relations with the remainder of the international com-
munity will therefore be revolutionary. Whenever there appears
a revolutionary Power or group of Powers the emphasis of the con-
duct of international relations changes. Because a revolutionary
Power is distinguished precisely by its attack on the existing
order the requirement of continued harmony will no longer supply

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X - 3

an impetus for the settlement of disputes. Because vital interests
in such a situation seem constantly in conflict, negotiations be-
come increasingly futile. Henceforth, disagreements tend to be
pushed to their logical extreme and relations based on force or
the threat of force.

The contemporary revolution is taking place in an unprece-
dented manner, however. Rarely has there been less common ground
among the major Powers, but never has recourse to force been more
inhibited. This brings about a dual frustration with respect to
power and with respect to diplomacy. Were weapons technology
stable, an equilibrium might be established between the antagonism
of a revolutionary period and the fear of a nuclear war. But
weapons systems are changing at an ever-accelerating rate so that
every major Power is living with the consciousness that its sur-
vival is at the mercy of a technological breakthrough by its oppon-
ent. The inhibitions with respect to the use of force therefore
do not abolish the revolutionary contest; they transform it into
an armament race and into a struggle for the allegiance of those
areas of the world as yet uncommitted. And because of the reluc-
tance of the non-Soviet world to resort to force, the Soviet bloc
is able to exacerbate all tensions among the secondary Powers.
Encouraged to give vent to all their resentments many of the newly
independent states are tempted to play an international role out
of proportion to their strength and to their willingness to assume
responsibilities. The sense of impotence of formerly powerful
states and the aspirations to greatness of still weak and often

X - 6

goals. For an aggressor can hope to break the resistance of
his opponent by a sudden onslaught only in very special circum-
stances. Unless a surprise attack eliminates the retaliatory
force itself, it will not be able to prevent a devastating coun-
terblow even if it should inflict catastrophic losses on the
enemy society. For a well-organized retaliatory force should be
able to launch its counter-attack mechanically and before the
demoralizing effect of a surprise attack can make itself felt.

All-out war therefore ceases to be a rational instrument
of policy. It would be likely only if one side felt strong
enough to eliminate the other's retaliatory force -- to prevent
this contingency can be avoided only by a wise military policy
and not by diplomacy. Or else all-out war could break out be-
cause/a miscalculation or a misunderstanding. A miscalculation
could be produced by the belief of the Soviets that they were
free to conduct operations of limited objectives with impunity.
And a misunderstanding because the Soviets may mistake what is
an American decision to resist locally as a prelude to all-out
war and react accordingly. These are the only kinds of all-out
war it is in the power of our diplomacy to avoid by conveying
our intentions to the Soviets as unambiguously as possible, and
by making clear what we understand by limited war.

To state the task is easier than to accomplish it. To be
sure, as long as our retaliatory force is adequate, both sides
have every interest in avoiding all-out war. But the same fac-
tors which make it difficult to settle disputes will also inhibit

[x]

X - 9

or its survival to be in danger. If the contested issues seem peripheral, if in other words, the question of survival is not involved in every dispute, the Powers will not feel the need for maximum vigilance. But in an international order, the components of which feel on the brink of catastrophe, a constantly rising level of armaments is inevitable. In the absence of an agreement on the legitimacy of the international order safety can be found only in the maximum development of strength. Between the Congress of Vienna and the unification of Germany, the standing armies of the major Powers were very small, because none of the outstanding disputes involved -- or was thought to involve -- a matter of life and death. After 1871 there started an armaments war which has not been ended to this day. Between the unification of Germany and World War 1, Europe was torn by two schisms which to the Powers concerned seemed to involve "vital" interests; that between France and Germany over Alsace-Lorraine and that between the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Russia over the fate of the Balkans. After the first World War, the rebellion of Germany and the U.S.S.R. against the Treaty of Versailles and the rise of the dictatorships created a climate of insecurity which doomed all disarmament efforts to futility. And after the second World War the intransigence of the Soviet bloc forced the Free World to restore a measure of its strength even after it had disarmed unilaterally almost to the point of impotence.

There is little indication therefore that the level of

[Y]

X - 10

armaments itself produces tension. Great Britain has a strategic airforce and a nuclear stockpile capable of inflicting serious, although perhaps not fatal, damage on the United States. But this fact has caused no uneasiness in the United States and no increase in our defense effort. Conversely Great Britain did not seek to prevent the development by the United States of a navy of a size which it had fought innumerable wars to keep out of the hands of a continental Power. This was because the "vital interests" of both Powers are in sufficient harmony so that they can have a large measure of confidence in each other's intentions; they can afford to stand by in the face of the development of a weapons system capable of imperiling their security and perhaps even their survival because they know that this capability will not be used. To be sure, the degree of confidence between the United States and Great Britain is exceptional.

More usually, Powers are conscious of some clashing "vital interests" and as a result an increase in the level of armaments of any one major Power may set in motion the vicious circle. It operates as a warning that henceforth the willingness to run risks will be greater. The other Powers can escape the pressure only by making concessions, (a dangerous course for it may whet appetites and establish a method for settling future disputes) or else they are obliged to enter the armaments race themselves.

But while it is easy to see the vicious circle of an armament race, it is not clear that general disarmament is a peaceful remedy. In a sense, the call for universal disarmament is the

[4]

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most obvious example of the kind of total diplomacy described earlier. For it demands that diplomacy remove by negotiations the consequences of disputes it has not been able to solve directly. If the disagreements between the two blocs had been tractable, the armaments race would never have started. Since negotiations on specific issues have proved unavailing, it is improbable that a general disarmament scheme acceptable to all parties can be negotiated. A general disarmament scheme to be successful must deprive each party of the ability to inflict a catastrophic blow on the other or at least it must not give either side an additional advantage. But such a relationship is almost impossible to negotiate on an over-all basis. For the same mistrust which produced the armaments race will inhibit confidence in any agreement that may be negotiated and it will color the proposals which may be advanced. Each side will seek to deprive the other of the capability it fears most as a prelude to negotiations while keeping its most effective weapon under its control until the last moment. Thus, the phasing of disarmament has proved almost as difficult a matter to negotiate as the manner of it. Thus during our atomic monopoly the Soviets insisted that the outlawing of nuclear weapons precede any negotiations on disarmament, while we in turn refused to discuss surrendering our atomic stockpile until an air-tight control machinery had first been put into operation.

With the growth of the Soviet nuclear stockpile both sides have continued to strive to neutralize the other's strongest weapon.

The Soviet Union has attempted to expel our troops and particularly

[Y]

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our airbases from Eurasia; we have striven for means to neutralize
the Soviet ground strength. Each side wishes to protect itself
against the consequences of the other's bad faith; each side, in
short, brings to the negotiations the precise attitude which caused
the armaments race in the first place.

There are, moreover, reasons inherent in the structure of
international relations and in the state of technology why a
reduction of forces cannot go beyond a certain point. None of the
major Powers -- or at least not the U.S.S.R. -- would accept a
reduction of their relative position vis-a-vis the secondary Powers.
Nothing will induce the U.S.S.R. to accept a force level which
would reduce its ability to control the satellites or to play a
major role in contiguous areas such as the Middle East. But forces
sufficient to accomplish this task are also sufficient to imperil
all the peripheral Powers of Eurasia. A reduction of forces
which did not affect the relative Soviet position vis-a-vis the
secondary Powers would not diminish the basic security problem of
the non-Soviet world.

On the technical plane, a reduction of forces seeks to compare incommensurables: what is the relation between the Soviet ability to Eurasia and American missile ships with 1500 mile range which, within a decade at most, will be able to bring most of the U.S.S.R. under attack? If the United States weakened its Strategic Air Command, it would take years before it could be reconstituted; if the Soviets cut their ground-forces the strategic impact would

[x]

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be much smaller and given the military structure of Soviet society, they could be reassembled in a matter of weeks. A substantial reduction of Soviet forces would not eliminate the consciousness by the other Powers of the availability of large reserves of trained and rapidly mobilizable manpower. That such thoughts were not far from Soviet minds is shown by Zhukov's speech to the 20th Party Congress in 1956 explaining the Soviet arms reduction:

> "As a result of the reduction of the armed forces, a certain proportion of the draft group will not enter the forces. We must take steps to see that the young people who are released from the draft will receive, even outside the Army, the military training necessary to fulfill their duty to defend their homeland." In such an atmosphere, a reduction in forces would not contribute a great deal to a lessening of tensions. Even should a scale of comparison of different weapons systems be negotiable among Powers which have been unable to agree on much less complicated issues, it would still not remove the real security problem: the uncertainty of each side about the other's intentions and the fact that the potential strength of a Power exerts pressure on its neighbors even at relatively low levels of armaments. Moreover, disarmaments negotiations based on categories of thought of the Twenties and Thirties miss the essential transformation that given the power of modern weapons, the reduction of forces in the category of retaliatory striking power would have to be almost total

(1) Current Digest Volume VIII, No. 10 (Speech by Zhukov)

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With such a preponderance of force it could then play the role of a world policeman and enforce a peace if necessary. The United Nations police force for Egypt was greeted in some quarters as the forerunner of such an international agency.

The idea of escaping the tensions of international relations by an analogy to domestic police powers has come up repeatedly in the past, and usually at periods when international tensions made it least realizable. It is true, as the advocates of the plan of world government contend, that the system of sovereign states is itself a cause of international tensions because a sovereign will can, in some sense only, be controlled by superior force. As a result, any increase in strength of one Power forces all others to follow suit and, in a two-power world, armed with thermo-nuclear weapons, this must lead to an increasingly explosive situation. But it is hardly realistic to expect sovereign nations whose failure to agree on issues of much less importance has brought about the armaments race, to be able to agree on giving up their sovereignty. History offers no example of sovereign states surrendering their sovereignty except to outside compulsion. To be sure the lessons of history are no more conclusive than the unparalleled destructiveness of modern weapons. Still it is difficult to see any motive which could induce the Soviets to give up their thermo-nuclear stockpile to

4/ Thomas Knight Finletter, *Power and Policy*, (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1954) p.3924
Charles Bolte - *The Price of Peace* (Boston: The Beacon Press, 1956) pp. 68 ff.

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an international body. And the reaction of the United States
Congress will hardly be more hospitable.

The proposals for world government in its various forms
would therefore hardly warrant extensive consideration as offer-
ing even a negotiating basis in the foreseeable future were they
not such an excellent illustration of a prevailing notion: that
the United Nations somehow has a reality beyond that of the
Powers comprising it. It is a symptom of our legalistic bias
that so many consider a legal entity, the United Nations as a
real entity which somehow transcends the collective will of its
members. For as long as the United Nations is composed of sove-
reign states, it will reflect the precise rivalries that animate
those Powers outside it. To be sure, the United Nations offers
a convenient forum for the settlement of disputes, and it can
give symbolic expression to the consensus of world opinion on
the issues where it can be marshalled. But the gap between the
symbolic acts of the United Nations and its willingness to run
substantive risks is inherent in its structure. For the dele-
gates represent not a popular constituency but sovereign govern-
ments and they vote not their convictions but the instructions
they receive. Thus the United Nations is dependent on the wil-
lingness to run risks of its component government which differ
as we have seen, with different conceptions of the national
interest.⁵/ The United Nations police force came into being

5/ See above p.

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in Egypt because it involved no assumption of substantive risk. It would never have entered Egypt had not both parties to the dispute accepted it and had not both parties sought a device to liquidate military operations. The United Nations force did not cause the cessation of the attack; rather it ratified a decision already made. It does not for this reason offer a particularly hopeful model for what will be the real security problem of our period: the growing Soviet power coupled with a refusal to yield to anything except superior force.

The argument that a supra-national authority can resolve tensions which have proved intractable in direct negotiations, and that it could be entrusted with the exclusive custody of weapons capable of encompassing the destruction of humanity, reflects two related notions: that aggression is by its nature unambiguous and that weakness somehow guarantees responsibility and perhaps even superior morality. But in the nuclear age recognizing aggression has proved as complicated as resisting it. "ere a supra-national Disarmament Executive charged with enforcing the peace to come it is predictable that its major problem would be to define a meaningful concept of aggression. Moreover, it would be difficult to find Powers clearly recognized as neutral to act as custodians of the thermo-nuclear stockpile or with sufficient technical competence to administer it were they so recognized. Nor is it clear why a monopoly of power in the hands of states dependent for their equipment, their training and their facilities on the two super-Powers

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should offer a guarantee of stability. It is not at all obvious
that weakness guarantees responsibility or that Powers which
have difficulty playing a role in their own regions will be able
to judge global problems with subtlety and discrimination. And
this still overlooks the dilemmas of where to store the inter-
national stockpile of bombs, where to locate the bases of the
international air force -- all of which will become matters of
life-and-death to the nations of the world.

In short, there is no escaping from the responsibilities
of the thermo-nuclear age into a supra-national authority, for
if all its complicated problems could be negotiated, the sub-
stantive issues now dividing the world would be soluble too.
The quest for an international Disarmament Authority is in fact
the most absolute manifestation of total diplomacy, it is the
counterpart in diplomacy to a military policy of all-out war.
And it has the same pernicious consequences.

By leaving no room between total war and total peace
it may ensure that war, if it does come, will take the most
absolute

X-4

immature Powers have contributed to the demoralization of the
international system.

On the other hand, the more absolute the sanctions of
modern war, the more absolute have been the demands made on dip-
lomacy. The fear of total war has had as its counterpart the
call for total diplomacy. Diplomacy is asked to solve by nego-
tiations two major concurrent revolutions, that of the Soviet
bloc and that of the newly independent states, and at a moment
when many of the pressures traditionally available to it, even
in "legitimate" international orders, have lost their potency.
As a result, in a situation which has never been more tense,
when it
diplomacy has never had fewer tools at its disposal. It is said
that force having abdicated, diplomacy must take over. But dip-
lomacy may be handicapped in taking over precisely because force
has abdicated. To the extent that the Soviet bloc becomes convin-
ced that it can initiate negotiations with impunity and break
them off without penalty, conferences become a tool of Soviet
propaganda. The incommensurability between the tensions produced
by the revolutionary international situation and the pressures
available to diplomacy may be inherent in the present state of
weapons technology. If so, it will not make for stability; rather
it will depreciate the seriousness of diplomatic intercourse.

It is therefore asking too much of diplomacy that it should
resolve present-day conflicts. It can provide a forum for the
settlement of disputes which have become unprofitable for both
side. It can keep open channels for information. Most importantly

it can enable each side to convey its intentions to the other.

> Indeed, this The task of leaving no doubt about a Power's intentions
> is perhaps the most important function of diplomacy in the nuclear age. For the primary bridge between the two sides at present is a common fear. They may not agree on any positive goals, but both the Soviet bloc and the Free World have at least one interest in common: that neither side can be interested in an all-out war. In the past, the greater the revolutionary schism, the more protracted and violent the resulting war as is demonstrated both by the Thirty Year's War and the wars of the French Revolution. Wars have almost inevitably accompanied revolutionary periods because either the revolutionary Power hoped that it might reshape reality to accord with its notion of justice or else the Powers which represented legitimacy and the status quo thought that they might put an end to the prevailing insecurity once and for all. Wars occured in a sense because of faulty intelligence, because with conventional technology it was never possible to calculate the relation of forces precisely, and because both sides could expect that the victor could retain sufficient resources to impose his will.

But in the face of the horrors of nuclear warfare, it does not require special precision of calculation to determine the consequences of all-out war. Despite the strenuous Soviet efforts to define their risks as smaller than those of their opponents, it would take an extraordinary degree of fanaticism to believe that all-out war could be used to achieve any positive

negotiators can even agree on the precise nature of their problem. In the process, the predominant concern with disarmament may prevent the achievement of goals which are possible: a general understanding regarding some principles of war limitation which may not avoid war, but which may be a factor in mitigating its horrors.

Disarmament negotiations have taken two forms: attempts to reduce the level of armaments or to eliminate the most destructive weapons from the arsenals of the Powers and schemes of control and inspection to supervise whatever agreements might be reached on the first point. In the later stages of disarmament negotiations, control and inspection schemes have played a prominent role even in the absence of any agreement regarding the reduction of forces. It has been assumed that any system of control that reduced the possibility of surprise attack would also ease international tensions.

The notion that armaments are the cause and not the reflection of conflict is not new. It has been the basis of schemes of disarmament plans throughout history; it was the rationale for all the disarmament conferences in the Twenties and Thirties. Nevertheless it is open to serious doubt. The level of armaments has been lowest in periods which have been least vocal about the problem of disarmament; it has been highest during periods when disarmament has been most implicitly the focus of diplomatic negotiations. This is no accident. The level of armament of a Power reflects the extent to which it believes its vital interests

57 [N]

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before the capability of inflicting a devastating blow would be impaired. Finally, disarmament plans of the past were based on the assumption of a stable weapons technology. The reduction of forces sought to be achieved at least had the merit that once it was implemented strategic relationships would remain constant.

No P-38F nor P-38J nor any other aircraft, under present conditions the real armaments race is in the laboratories. No reduction of forces, however scrupulously carried out, could protect the P-38s against a technological breakthrough. Even were strategic striking forces kept at fixed levels and rigidly controlled, an advance in air-defense sufficient to contain the opposing retaliatory force would upset the strategic balance completely. The knowledge by each power that the others are working on even more fearful means of destruction or on means of attacking with impunity would cause current international relations to be carried on in an atmosphere of tenseness and imminent catastrophe whatever agreements might be concluded about reduction of forces.

Efforts to agree on systems of inspection and control have proved as illuory as the attempt to reduce armaments — and for the same reason.

17

[Y]

part of its stockpile to protect itself against the possibility that its opponent might do so. As a result, a control machinery is futile to prevent the use of nuclear weapons at this stage of their development even assuming the desirability of doing so.

And so it is with each new technological discovery. In the very early stages of its development, a scrupulous control system might forestall its addition to the strategic arsenal. But by the time disarmament negotiations have run their tortuous course, the weapon will have become so sophisticated and the production of it will have reached such proportions that any control machinery may magnify rather than reduce the existing insecurity: it would compound the present fear of surprise attack by concern about the violation of the agreement by the other side.

Moreover, the inconclusiveness of negotiations about control machinery reflects not only the prevailing distrust but the inherent complexity of the problem. It is one thing to prevent a stockpile from developing, it is quite another to control it once it has come into existence, and it is even more difficult to eliminate it. Since scientific growth is exponential, it is next to impossible to define a meaningful point to "cut off" weapons developments. At the beginning of the atomic age, a strict inspection system might have succeeded in stopping the elaboration of nuclear weapons. By 1952, it might still have been possible to "control" the development of thermo-nuclear weapons, albeit with great difficulty. For the hydrogen bomb developed so naturally out of research and production of nuclear weapons that a foolproof inspection system would have been infinitely complicated. In any case, by 1957, the production of thermo-nuclear devices had so far outstripped any possible control machinery that the emphasis of disarmament negotiations

[Y]

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a relative one, because any substantial movement of the Soviet Long Range Air Force to advance bases could hardly escape high altitude detection or general intelligence surveillance even in the absence of inspection. And the next family of Soviet planes will be able to launch an attack on the United States from their training bases.

Because of the greater range of our planes and the nature of our base system, the Soviets would gain very little either from ground inspection or from aerial surveillance. They know the location of most of our air-bases and, since they will presumably strike the first blow in an all-out war, they are assured of maximum warning in any case. It can be argued, of course, that the U.S.S.R. may not evaluate the danger of a United States surprise attack so low and that it would therefore gain added security from an inspection system. But the danger of added assurance would be so achieved. Unless all planes are grounded all the time and both sides are certain that no substantial air-installations are hidden, there is no guarantee that planes on so-called training missions will not be used for a surprise attack. Even filing flight plans in advance will not eliminate this danger. For given the speed of modern planes, by the time inspectors realize a violation of a flight plan has occurred and can communicate this information to their home government, the planes will probably have reached the opposing early warning lines in any case. Moreover, if flight plans are cleverly arranged -- and every incentive would seem to exist for doing this -- it will be very difficult to discover whether a given flight is a move to advance bases or a prelude to an all-out attack. Nor is it clear

[x]

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what consequences would follow from a ~~seeming violation, of the~~ an apparent
~~inspection procedure.~~ Would any violation, however slight, call
for unleashing ~~of the~~ a retaliatory force? It would ~~seems unlikely~~
that any Power would be prepared to invoke so drastic a remedy.
But if it does not, the net result of even an ~~effective~~ delay
~~inspec~~ tion system will be to wait with the retaliatory blow until the
aggressor crosses the early warning line, which is precisely the
situation today.

Thus the maximum warning achievable by inspection systems
is the interval between the time when planes leave their bases
and when they would have been detected by existing warning sys-
tems. With the present family of airplanes, an inspection sys-
tem at best would add perhaps three hours warning to the side
which is being attacked. The aggressor would gain no additional
warning time from an inspection system because he would, in any
case, alert his defenses before mounting his attack. To be sure,
three hours additional warning is not negligible; it may indeed
spell the difference between survival and catastrophe. But since
the victim of aggression is almost certain to be a *status quo*
Power having everything to gain from assuming its opponent's good
faith, it may have difficulty psychologically utilizing this ad-
ditional warning effectively because it will tend to ascribe the
violation to a technical breakdown to be removed by protests or
negotiation. Moreover, as the range of planes is extended, they
will be able to strike from training bases and it will become in-
creasingly difficult to interpret their movements correctly.

[Y]

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As the speed of planes is increased, the warning time afforded by even a perfect inspection system, correctly interpreted, will be progressively reduced. In the age of the Intercontinental Ballistic missile -- in less than ten years -- the maximum warning time possible, assuming perfect communication between the inspector and the home government, would be thirty minutes, because the missile would be in transit for only this period of time. In the age of the missile and the supersonic bomber, even a foolproof inspection system will only tell the Powers what they already know: that the opponent possesses the capability of launching a devastating attack at a moment's notice and with a minimum of warning.

The proposals for inspection as a bar to surprise attack in fact reflect the categories of thought of a period when forces-in-being could not be decisive and above all when their power and speed were of a much lower order. As long as the forces-in-being were relatively cumbersome and needed to be concentrated before an attack could be launched the warning afforded by an inspection system might have been strategically significant. As late as 1946 had the Baruch Plan been accepted a nation determined on nuclear war would have had to wait several months or even years after a violation until its stockpiles had been built up to respectable levels. The existence of a control system in such conditions afforded all Powers a breathing spell. With the power and speed of current weapons, however, even an airtight inspection system would not supply such guarantees. When wars can be fought by

[x]

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out war capacity would be so formidable and the benefits relatively so trivial or uncertain that an inspection system may actually have pernicious consequences. It may give a misleading impression of security and therefore tempt us into relaxing our preparedness. More likely, however, ~~it would~~ a sides to place their striking forces into an even greater state of readiness in order to compensate for the loss of secrecy. Nor would inspection materially reduce the chances of local aggression. The Soviets would find it difficult even under present condition to stage a significant build-up in any threatened area without it becoming known. To overemphasize the role of inspection as a bar to local war is to underrate the intelligence information already available. There is no major area in which the Soviets could launch a major blow without our learning of the build-up. Yet it is not knowledge of an impending attack which deters or defeats it but the known capability and the willingness to resist. In the face of the strategy of ambiguity employed by the Kremlin, knowledge of troop concentrations has in the past not always given a clear indication of Soviet intentions, a difficulty compounded by the reluctance of the non-Soviet world of coming to grips with the dangers facing it. Thus during the week while Soviet troops were pouring into Hungary there was a great deal of speculation in the West that these movements were in fact a prelude to a Soviet withdrawal in order to save face or to guard the Soviet lines of communication. Moreover, as the armies of the major powers are being reorganized

[Y]

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for nuclear war, they will develop many of the characteristics of the strategic forces. They will be highly mobile and capable of striking across considerable distances from their base areas. With the proper doctrine and equipment, they should require a little minimum build-up to go into action. Thus in a limited war it is doubtful whether an inspection system would supply substantial additional warning.

This is not to say that inspections systems are without any utility. The very agreement to them may serve as a symbol of peaceful intentions. But peaceful intentions could be conveyed as well in other ways, particularly through the settlement of some of the disputes which have divided the Soviet bloc from the Free World. Conversely, in the present climate of distrust, an inspection system might do little more than add another element of contention. Indeed, unless designed with extraordinary care, a system of inspection may well make a tense situation even more explosive. In view of the complexity of the strategy for all-out war, the value of an inspection system depends not only on the collection, but also on the interpretation of facts. Correct interpretation is all the more important because the only meaningful reaction to the violation of an agreement is to launch an immediate retaliatory strike. Negotiations and protests could not begin to be effective before the enemy force has reached its targets. It is therefore vital that an inspection system reduce rather than add to the danger of an all-out war produced by a misunderstanding of the opponents' intentions. But the

[Y]

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inspection systems so far advanced do not seem to meet this test. The information they produced is of necessity fragmentary; since no chance can be taken, on an optimistic interpretation any apparent violation must be dealt with as if it were a prelude to the worst contingency. Moreover, Inspection is likely to run into most difficulties and evasions when it is most needed, when international tensions are at their height. Unless the protagonists are prepared to draw the full consequences from seeming violations, an inspection system may aid an aggressor, by lulling its opponent. But to draw the full consequences on the basis of inevitably fragmentary and contradictory information, is both psychologically difficult for status quo Powers and it may well add to the tense-ness of relationships. Inspection systems may yield collateral results to either side such as loosening up the Soviet control apparatus or giving a fuller picture of military installations; but they will do little to eliminate the underlying tension.

It is the technical complexity of inspection and its futility in the present climate of distrust which caused some thoughtful individuals, appalled at the prospect of nuclear war, to advocate world-government as the only solution. It is argued that as long as both sides possess thermo-nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them a vicious spiral of constantly growing insecurity and redoubled efforts of protection against surprise is inevitable. The only solution is the surrender of all strategic weapons to a world authority which would be the sole agency to possess heavy armaments and the means for delivering them. The Disarmament Executive should be composed of minor Powers which are not part of the East-West struggle.

[Y]

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The almost exclusive concern with means to avoid war begins to be the most intractable element of the problems posed by nuclear weapons. It requires the major atomic Powers to stake their survival on the observance of an international agreement in an international order where the breach of agreements has become commonplace and where one of the two great power blocs, containing a group of Powers, the Soviet bloc, the doctrine of which explicitly rejects the observance of agreements if they do not reflect a relation of forces. To ask the Soviets to accept the idea of an indefinitely prolonged equilibrium is tantamount to asking them to cease being Leninists in which case, in turn, international relationships would automatically lose a great deal of their tenseness.

Disarmament negotiations may therefore create an illusion of progress through the give-and-take of diplomatic interchange, whereas in fact which positions have tended to approach each other only after they have been overtaken by technological developments, that made those positions irrelevant, to the primary security concerns. The attempt to eliminate war through disarmament is the reverse side of the effort. To deter aggression through maximum retaliatory power and to defeat the enemy through the widest system of collective security. Each of these measures is highly useful and desirable as long as they succeed; the objection concerns not the goal, but the consequences of failure. For in each case the attempt to avoid

[Y]

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war carries with it a fearful sanction: the more total the peace sought, the more total the consequences of violating an agreement. The policy of deterrence through maximum retaliatory power involves the sanction of all-out thermo-nuclear war; a doctrine of world-wide collective security involves the sanction of global war; and a system of general disarmament has as its sanction a combination of these.

In this manner disarmament negotiations may assist the erosion of the psychological framework to Soviet aggression. Based as they are on the correct assumption of the fearful horror of nuclear war, they may become tools for paralyzing the will to resist aggression by evoking the most fearful consequences of such a course. By means of disarmament negotiations the Soviets can conduct atomic black-mail in the guise of peace offensives and transform conferences into fertile grounds for "ban the bomb" propaganda. Thus disarmament negotiations, as heretofore conceived, may cause war, if it does come to take the most absolute form; in their quest for total solutions they may prevent the achievement of intermediary goals which are attainable.

And the possibility of war does not even have to assume bad faith on the part of the major protagonists. The revolution taking place in so many parts of the globe will provide its own impetus; it will create its own tensions not necessarily sought by any of the major Powers. The conflict over the Suez Canal was hardly foreseen

X-34

One of the most important tasks of disarmament negotiations should therefore be to establish a framework of war limitation. Because it would permit the translation of the agreement into military doctrine instead of considering disarmament a prelude to the end of military problems, A program to mitigate the horrors of war would have the advantage of focusing thinking on things to accomplish rather than those which should not be done. It would relate disarmament to strategy and thus bridge the gap between force and diplomacy. Above all, it could be used to clarify insofar as diplomacy is able, the intentions of the opposing sides and *thoroughly* it may therefore prevent the catastrophe of an all-out war caused by miscalculation. Even a unilateral declaration of what we understand by limited war would accomplish a great deal because it *may* provide a strong incentive to the Soviet Union to adopt a similar interpretation. Finally, given the likelihood that any war which involves the two major blocs will be nuclear, even if it should not be all-out, it will be imperative to establish in advance the psychological and political framework of such a conflict. Under present conditions, the sudden introduction of nuclear weapons might in a war/have devastating effects on world opinion or it might unleash an all-out war.

It has been argued that the deliberate ambiguity of our present position, which refuses to define what we understand by

[Y]

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limited war, or under what circumstances we might fight it, is in
itself a deterrent because the enemy can never be certain that
military action on his part may not unleash all-out war. But
if we wish to pose the maximum deterrent, an explicit declaration
of massive retaliation would seem by far more advantageous. The
purpose of our ambiguity is to combine the advantage of two in-
compatible courses: to pose the threat of all-out war for purposes
of deterrence, but to keep open the possibility of a less cata-
strophic strategy should deterrence fail. If the ambiguity, is to
serve any purpose, however, it may have precisely the contrary
effect; it may give rise to the notion that we do not intend to
resist at all and thus encourage aggression. Or it may cause an
aggressor to interpret resistance which we intend to localize as
a prelude to an all-out war. Instead of strengthening the deter-
rent and giving scope for a non-catastrophic strategy, the delibe-
rate ambiguity of our position may weaken the deterrent and bring
on the most catastrophic kind of war.

Moreover, a diplomatic program designed to convey our un-
derstanding of the nature of limited war to the other side may be
important because it is not certain that the Soviets have fully
analyzed all the options of the nuclear period. Insofar as the
repeated Soviet denials of the possibility of limited nuclear war
represent their real conviction and not simply a form of psycho-

x-36

[Y]

logical warfare, an energetic diplomacy addressed to the problem of war limitation might be a substitute for lack of imagination on the part of the Soviet general staff.

Before we can convey our notion of war-limitation to the other side, however, we have to admit its possibility to ourselves and we have to be clear in our own mind about its nature. And at present no such clarity exists either ~~militarily~~ or ~~politically~~ among the leaders. Our services, as we have seen, are operating on the basis of partially overlapping, partly inconsistent doctrines, some of which deny the possibility of limited war while others define it so variously that even from a strictly military point of view ... we can hardly be said to possess either the doctrine or the capability for limited war. The separation of our strategic doctrine from diplomacy, its notion that victory is an end in itself defined by rendering the enemy defenseless, approach to what Clausewitz considered the most abstract concept of war: a war characterized by in which there takes place an uninterrupted series of blows of ever increasing intensity, until the will of the enemy is broken.

Such a doctrine is inconsistent with a policy of war, limitation. It is not only that limited war must find means to prevent the most extreme violence; it must also find means to slow down

6. See above chapters through

[Y]

X-37

the tempo of modern war lest the rapidity with which operations succeed each other prevent the establishment of a relation between political and military objectives, without which any war is likely to grow by imperceptible stages into an all-out effort. The goal of war can no longer be military victory strictly speaking, but a precise series of political conditions which are fully understood by the opponent. The purpose of a limited war is to inflict losses or to pose risks for the enemy out of proportion to the objectives under dispute. The more moderate the objective, the less violent the cause of the war is likely to be. This does not mean that military operations cannot extend beyond the territory or objective in dispute; indeed one way of increasing the enemy's willingness to settle is to deprive him of something (a piece of territory or an objective) he can regain only by making peace. But the result of a limited war cannot depend on military considerations alone; it must reflect an ability to harmonize political and military objectives. A "purely" military decision in a limited war is therefore a contradiction in terms.

A limited war between major Powers can remain limited only if at some point one of the protagonists prefers a limited defeat to an additional investment of resources or if both sides are willing to settle for a stalemate in preference to an assumption of continued risk. In either case, however, the protagonists retain

X-38

the **physical** ability to increase their investment. To the extent that both parties do so the war will gradually expand until one or both Powers reach the limit of their physical resources -- until the war has become total. To the extent that only one party is willing to run greater risks it gains an advantage. The ability to conduct a limited war, therefore, presupposes an understanding of the psychology by which the opponent's calculus of risks is determined and to present him at every point with an opportunity for settlement that appears more favorable than continuation of the war. Skill is therefore required not only in presenting physical, but also in presenting psychological challenges.

For this reason limited war cannot be conceived as a small all-out war, with a series of uninterrupted blows prepared in secrecy until the opponent's will is broken. On the contrary, it is important to develop a concept of military operations conducted in phases which permit an assessment of the risks and possibilities for settlement at each stage before recourse is had to the next phase of operations. Paradoxical as it may seem in the jet age, strategic doctrine should address itself to the problem of slowing down, if not the pace of military operations, at least the rapidity with which they succeed each other. Strategic doctrine must never lose sight of the fact that its purpose is to affect the will of the enemy, not to destroy him, but that it can be limited only by presenting the enemy with an unfavorable calculus of risks, and so on.

[Y]

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This requires pauses for calculation. A concept of operations should not lose sight of the fact that the speed of modern weapons may have outstripped the capacity of the human mind to evaluate the significance of events. It should compensate for this in the sequence of operations, however rapid the maneuvers in each stage. Each campaign should be conceived in a series of self-contained phases, each of which implies a political objective, and with a sufficient interval between them to permit the application of political and psychological pressures.

Therefore, too, it will be necessary to give up the notion that direct diplomatic contact ceases when military operations begin. Rather direct contact is now more necessary to ensure that both sides possess as much information as possible about the consequences of expanding a war and to be able to present political formulae for a settlement. To the degree that diplomacy presents alternatives to expanding a conflict it will inhibit the decision to run greater risks. To the extent that military operations can be conducted in stages, so that a sequence of events is approximately concluded before the next commitment is made, it will give an opportunity for an evaluation of the circumstances which make a settlement advisable and for the proper balancing of political, psychological and military risks. Not the least of the paradoxes of the nuclear age may be that, contrary to traditional notions, lack of secrecy may be a military weapon and that in a

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[Y]

period of the most advanced technology, battles will approach
the stylized contests of the feudal period which served as much
as a test of a will as a trial in strength.

If our military staffs could become clear about a doctrine
of limited war, we could then use the disarmament negotiations to
seek to establish a degree of acceptance of it by the other side.
It would not be necessary that such a concept be embodied in an
international treaty or even that the Soviets formally adhere to
it. There should be no illusions, in fact, about the ease with
which the Soviets might be induced to forego the advantages of
atomic blackmail. The primary purpose of such a program would
be to convey our intentions to the Soviet bloc and to encourage
likewise in its own self-interest.
it to consider a limitation of war with its own military planning.
The incentive for Soviet co-operation in substance, if not in form,
would be self-interest; it can work only to the extent that our
military policy leaves no doubt that all-out war would mean disas-
ter for the Soviet bloc. A program of arms limitation would
presuppose an adequate retaliatory capability: it would not
prevent every kind of all-out war; only those which develop from
miscalculations or a misunderstanding of the opponent's intentions.

It is difficult for anyone who does not possess all the
technical information to sketch a program of war limitation in
detail. 7 P With a doctrine of limited war,
It would seem however that many of the long cherished

7. For an excellent brief statement, see Sir Anthony Buzzard, P. M.S. Blackett, Denis Healey, and Richard Gould-Adams, *On Limiting Atomic War*, (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1956).

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military decisions are no longer possible. Other criticisms
assert that a program of war limitation assumes a degree of
human rationality for which history offers no warranty. But
history offers no example for the extraordinary destructiveness
of modern weapons either. A program that seeks to establish
some principles of war limitation in advance of hostilities would
seem to make fewer demands on rationality than one which attempted
to improvise the rules of war in the confusion of battle.

The United States should therefore shift the emphasis of
disarmament negotiations from the technically almost impossible
problem of preventing surprise attack to an effort to mitigate the
horror of war. It should do so, moreover, in order to make a
distinction between Soviet "ban the bomb" propaganda and disarma-
ment. We should leave no doubt that any aggression by the Com-
munist bloc may be resisted with nuclear weapons, and we should
create the framework for this, well in advance of any emergency.
But while we should treat the use of nuclear weapons as not-
negotiable, we should make every effort to limit their effect
and to spare the civilian population as much as possible. Without damage to our
interests, we could therefore announce that Soviet aggression would be resisted
with nuclear weapons if necessary; that in resisting we would not
use fission-fusion-fission weapons of more than 500 kilotons
explosive power unless the enemy used them first; that we would

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[Y]

would possess a powerful incentive to test our sincerity. If the Soviets begin the war as an all-out surprise attack, the nothing will have been lost by elaborating a doctrine of limited war; same relation obtains heretofore and we would react by using every weapon in our arsenal. If they begin it as a limited war, a limited war could be fought according to rules established well in advance. And the inspection system sketched here would serve a dual purpose as a warning against surprise attack, as an instrument of war limitation, and as a device to establish contact with the opponent for a political settlement during the conduct of operations.

The limitation of war proposal described here is impossible, however, without the strategic doctrine described earlier or some adaptation of it. It presupposes an ability to use force with discrimination and to establish political goals in which the question of national survival is not involved in every issue. It also requires a public opinion which has been educated in the realities of the nuclear age. A program of war limitation, in short, cannot be used as a cheaper means of imposing unconditional surrender. Deep aerial penetrations of enemy territory will have to be foregone by both sides lest they unleash

12 e

12. See above, Chapter VI, p.

13. See above, Chapter VI, p.

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a retaliatory strike. The relationship of force to diplomacy is not to be established as a variation of all-out war. The possibility of total security has ended with our atomic mono-poly. Limited war and the diplomacy appropriate to it is a means of escape from the sterility of the quest for absolute peace, which in the face of a dedicated revolutionary Power paralyzes by the vagueness of its hopes, and for absolute victory, which in the face of the enormity of modern weapons paralyzes by the vastness of its consequences.