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VI - DEFENSE ORGANIZATION

Because of the tremendous significance of the affairs which center
in the Department of Defense, all studies of the national security inevitably
concern themselves to some extent with the organization and methods of the
Pentagon. This concern is not new. It has been a preoccupation of successive
administrations since the creation of the original National Military Establishment
ten years ago. It has been the subject of numerous studies which have found
the organization of the Department of Defense inadequate to its task.

While detailed organizational recommendations lead quickly to arguments
outside the scope of this panel's undertaking, we have nevertheless sought to
identify the critical areas of weakness and to advance several broad principles
which should guide the development of specific organizational changes. It
seems to us that the major defects in the present organization are inherent and
organic, and will be further aggravated by the passage of time. These defects
are three in number:

1 - As now defined, the roles and missions assigned to the individual military services are competitive, rather than complementary; moreover, they are out of accord with both weapons technology and the principal military threats to our national safety;

2 - The present organization and responsibilities of the Joint Chiefs of Staff precludes the development of a comprehensive and coherent strategic doctrine for the United States;

Chiefs of Staff include the development of a comprehensive

5. The present organization and responsibilities of the Joint

our national security;

weapons technology and the principal military threats to
complementarity; moreover, they are out of accord with both
individual military services are competitive, rather than

1. As now defined, the roles and missions assigned to the
are three in number:

organic, and will be further aggravated by the passage of time. These defects
seem to us that the major defects in the present organization are inherent and
which should guide the development of a specific organizational changes. It
identify the critical areas of weakness and to advance several broad principles
outside the scope of this panel's undertaking, we have nevertheless sought to

While details of organizational recommendations lead quickly to arguments
the organization of the Department of Defense inadequate to its task.

ten years ago. It has been the subject of numerous studies which have found
administrations since the creation of the original National Military Establishment
pension. This concern is not new. It has been a preoccupation of successive
concern themselves to some extent with the organization and methods of the
in the Department of Defense, all studies of the national security inevitably

Because of the tremendous significance of the advances which center

VI - DEFENSE ORGANIZATION

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3 - The Secretary of Defense is so burdened with the negative tasks of arbitrating and controlling inter-service disputes that he cannot play his full part in the initiation and development of high military policy.

These points will be discussed in order.

## The Problem of Roles and Missions

The range and destructiveness of modern weapons have tended to overleap the traditional boundaries among the services. As a result, our effort to develop an adequate strategic plan has been beset by interservice rivalry. This rivalry is not due fundamentally to "parochialism" on the part of our military leaders; it is built into the present assignment of roles and missions.

Ten years ago, whatever else was hoped for in the new defense organization, one result was expected by the public: that through joint planning by the Chiefs of Staff, supplemented when necessary by the authority of the Secretary of Defense, we would develop in concert our potential in all three media of operations: land, sea, and air. Such has not occurred. With the advantage of hindsight, it is now clear that the organization itself doomed this important goal.

However one judges the wisdom of this initial assignment of roles and missions, one fact is self evident: the stage was set for rivalry. The only

vectors, one left its sentient equivalent; the state was not for royalty. The only

Homer once told the window of his initial assignment of roles and

important cost.

advantage of principle. If it is now clear that the organization itself deemed it

Secretary of Defense, was which he developed in concert our potential in all three
by the Chief of Staff, supplemented when necessarily by the authority of the
organization, one resultant was expected by the public: that through joint planning

Ten Years ago, whatever else was done for in the new defense
mistrices.

of our military leaders; it is built into the present assignment of roles and
royalty. This royalty is due due fundamentally to "photoillustration" on the part
of the development agencies associated with the program by interagency
overseen the traditional periphery among the services. As a result, our
to develop an adequate staff plan has been hindered by interagency
overlap.

The range and diversity of modern weapons have tended to

the utilization and development of high military policy.

service debutes that he cannot possibly full well in
negative tasks of arbitrating and controlling inter-

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question in this regard was whether the competition could be kept at a healthy level and prevented from becoming destructive of efficiency (cf. The "B-36 Hearings").

Then came the new capabilities inherent in guided missiles. The army, never content with the quantity on the organization of its tactical air support saw the possibility of again having its own tactical air power. It also saw its short range air defense missiles developing into replacements for manned inter-ceptor aircraft, and capable further of destroying enemy ballistic missiles in flight. The navy saw the possibilities of missiles launched from ships and submarines enlarging its role in strategic air warfare. Needless to say, the air force saw in all of this an undermining of the integrity of its mission and the unity of air power which had supplied the very reason for its creation.

For More importantly, the assignment of roles and missions among the Army, Air Force and the Navy has become increasingly inconsistent with the new technology. Each of these services has had the mission of defeating its enemy counterpart: the Army has had primary responsibility for the land battle, the Navy for control of the seas and the Air Force for the control of the air. These missions were based, in effect, on means of locomotion with everything moving by water assigned to the Navy, everything moving by land assigned to the Army and everything moving through the air assigned to the Air Force.

Ten years ago this assignment of roles still represented distinguishable strategic tasks. Each service was, therefore, able to control exclusively the

strategic tasks. Each service was, therefore, able to control exclusively the
Ten Years ago this assignment of roles still represented distinguishable
Army and everything moving through the air assigned to the Air Force,
moving by water assigned to the Navy, everything moving by land assigned to the
These missions were based, in effect, on means of locomotion with everything
the Navy for control of the sea and the Air Force for the control of the air,
enemy counterpart; the Army had primary responsibility for the land battle,
new technology. Each of these services has had the mission of defeating the
Army, Air Force and the Navy have become indirectly inconsistent with the
More incompatibility, the statement of roles and missions among the
the unity of air power which had supplied the very reason for its creation,
space force saw in all of this an underpinning of the intensity of its mission and
and marines outflanking its role in strategic air warfare. Needless to say, the
flight. The navy saw the possibilities of missiles launched from ships and
copter aircraft, and capable further of destroying enemy ballistic missiles in
short range air defense missiles developing into replacements for manned in-
sight the possibility of again having its own tactical air power. It also saw its
never content with the quantity on the organization of its tactical air support
then came the new capabilities inherent in guided missiles. The army,
Hearings).

level and prevented from becoming destructive of efficiency (cf. The "B-36
direction in this regard was whether the competition could be kept at a healthy

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weapons considered essential for achieving its mission. In general it could
develop its own strategy without too much risk of duplicating the tasks of a
sister service, and without too much risk of conflict over the issue of what
constituted essential targets.

But the long-range airplane, the ballistic missile and the overwhelming
destructiveness of the new weapons have almost obliterated the traditional
boundaries among the services. Today, no service can achieve its primary
mission without either trespassing on the role of the other services or calling
on them for assistance. Some services, like the Navy, operate in all the media -
sea, land and air. Other missions are shared by two or more services, such as
tactical air support. Thus we have three services with airpower and two with
armies; the Air Force responsible for coordinating air defense but the Army
responsible for the air defense of specific targets.

As a result the division of functions which worked without fundamental
frictions until the end of World War II has become a source of bitter rivalry
in the nuclear age. Each new weapon has led to a wrangle as to which service
should control it. It is inherent in the philosophy and training of each service
that it should see in the developing enemy threat predominantly those elements
which its own particular organization seems best adapted to counter. And each
service by a natural rationalization, judges the proper balance of forces to be
that one which maximizes its own role.

Such a procedure is costly and inefficient. It leads to a duplication of

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weapons systems. It prevents us from drawing the full benefit from our military expenditures and in every crisis confronts our policy makers with needlessly conflicting advice. New weapons are pressed into the strait jacket of obsolescent missions instead of refashioning missions to conform to revolutionary departures in technology and to new military problems.

Conversely, where there is no competition or duplication of mission, and little glamor in the tasks, the present organization may neglect certain vital tasks. An example is the problem of airlift for the ground forces. Providing such facilities our airforce responsibility is very expensive. When budgets are tight, the airforce is not likely to favor this mission at the expense of its primary task of defeating the enemy in the air, especially against the background of growing Soviet strength in planes and missiles. On the other hand the *demy* is prevented by our mechanistic assignment of functions from developing and operating the transport aircraft it must have to move its forces swiftly to the combat zone.

## The Joint Chiefs of Staff

Except for the Chairman, the members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff are the senior officers of the military services. Therefore, even with the best will in the world, they must be in considerable part advocates of a service point of view. Each has risen to his position through a lifetime of dedication to his service. He is primarily the product of its training schools, its problems, its environment. Maintaining the status and morale of his service can never be far

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from his mind. Thus under the present organization most of the decisive pressures on the JCS organization are imposed by the individual services, and it functions too often as a committee of partisan adversaries engaged in advancing service positions and compromising service differences. Too little in present arrangements permits the Chiefs of Staff time and opportunity to think spontaneously or comprehensively about overall strategic problems. The result is that our military plans for meeting foreseeable threats are a patchwork of compromise between conflicting strategic concepts or simply completely uncoordinated service war plans. The readiness of our forces for the time of dire emergency cannot be allowed to rest solely on committee action.

## The Role of the Secretary of Defense

The organization of the military establishment into three competing services, and the aggravation of this difficulty by obsolete roles & missions, have shaped the role of the Secretary of Defense in ways not foreseen when the office was created in 1947. To a great extent these conditions have confined him to the essentially negative functions of adjudication and discipline. He has become the referee in disputes over policy issues originating in the services or in the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It is the essence of a referee's position that disputes reach him only after positions have hardened. The Secretary of Defense has, in consequence, found it difficult to play the positive, creative role which befits the cabinet officer who is a full member, with the President and the Secretary of State, of the high policy triumvirate for foreign and military affairs.

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In order to exercise the functions of adjudication and discipline, the Secretary of Defense and his staff are overwhelmed with many housekeeping and management functions which, were it not for deep-seated interservice rivalry, could be better handled by the individual services. This condition is reflected in a proliferation of Assistant Secretaries of Defense and the elaborate organization of the Secretary's office as a vast business concern with heavy emphasis on financial controls. We certainly do not dispute the need for financial controls, nor for the nation's largest enterprise to be run in a business-like manner. Nevertheless a principal objective of any reorganization plan should be to create conditions in which the Secretary of Defense can play a larger, more positive role in the initiation and formulation of broad military policy, and can relegate to the substructures of the defense organization a substantial portion of his present administrative burden.

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## Proposed Remedies

The foregoing analysis indicates that the difficulties described are inherent in the present organization of the Defense Department, that they cannot be removed merely by adjustments of the present structure. The obstacles to correcting these deficiencies are formidable indeed, and no panacea is at hand. Yet the growing increase in technological complexity, the foreseeable rise in the cost of maintaining first-line weapons systems, and the interdependence of foreign policy and military capability make it clear to us that our future security -- which is to say, our survival as a nation -- will require a far more efficient system for military planning and military decisions than now exists.

To remedy the central weaknesses, we feel competent to put forward certain general proposals for consideration. In our judgment a plan for reorganization of the Defense Department should include the following elements:

a) The military services, as such, should be removed from the channel of operational command. They should cease to be individually responsible for carrying out particular combat missions. Their function should henceforth be to provide administrative support for the combined functional commands (to be described below) in matters of recruitment, training, research, procurement and supply. Freed from the responsibilities for operational commands, the service chiefs and their civilian superiors could concentrate on tasks of management and logistics.

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b) All of the operational military forces of the United States should be organized into functional commands to perform the missions which seem called for by our strategic requirements. No foreseeable conflict will fit the category of land, sea or air battle. As a result, unified commands are essential for the conduct of military operations as in fact they have been both in World War II and in the Korean War. Each such command should be composed of the appropriate elements from each military service brought together under a single commander. The units assigned to each functional commander should be organic to his command and not simply placed temporarily under his operational control. As units completed their training within the existing services they would be assigned to a functional command. Each command would be, in effect, a combined force with its own doctrine and trained to carry out distinctive tasks.

The composition and mission of these commands should not be frozen by legislation. They should be determined from time to time in the President's discretion, so that they remain congruent with technology and with the tasks an evolving strategy will require to be performed.

In such an organization officers would be brought more naturally to address themselves to strategic doctrine. To be sure, there will be rivalry between the functional commands; competition is a healthy concomitant of high morale. But with each functional area representing a distinguishable strategic option, the requirements of self-interest and of strategic doctrine would be much more in harmony than now.

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c) The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff should be given a **stronger role, specifically by giving him control over the staff. He should also be designated Principal Military Advisor to the Secretary of Defense and the National Security Council.** The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is the only member who can give his full-time attention to problems of overall strategic doctrine. It is therefore logical that he be the Principal Military Advisor to the President and the Secretary of Defense instead of the Joint Chiefs collectively. At the same time he should be in a position to shape strategic planning. One major obstacle is the situation in which officers on inter-service committees are negotiators rather than planners and tend to represent the point of view of a service rather than the overall approach. A unified staff under the direct control of the Chairman would remove at least some of the service pressures on the members of the staff.

d) The chain of operational command should be from the President through the Secretary of Defense to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Any modern war requires a rapid reaction time and this can be achieved only if there are a minimum number of organizational layers. Since the present division of functions among the military services often represents no distinguishable strategic option, the separate military departments should be relieved from responsibility for military operations. At the same time this proposal recognizes that the Secretary of Defense is the deputy commander-in-chief. His position in the line of command should thus preserve civilian control over the armed forces.

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e) The line of logistic command should be from the President through the Secretary of Defense to the existing military departments. This recommendation is an application to logistics and manpower of the previous recommendation.

f) All officers above the rank of Brigadier General or equivalent should be absorbed into a new and separate service (which might be called the Armed Service of the United States). For effective overall planning, it is essential that we develop a group of officers who throughout their careers have been encouraged to concern themselves with questions of strategic doctrine.

The procedure recommended here would retain the specialization necessary to command specific units and the morale which goes with membership in a service. At the higher levels, however, where the requirement is for an overall view there would exist a group of officers whose primary loyalties transcend service boundaries. Since entry into this group would be the goal of all officers throughout their careers, junior officers would have an incentive to take an overall view. Their future would depend on their ability to consider the whole, not as is so frequently the case today on the ability to defend the point of view of their service on interdepartmental committees. This proposal takes cognizance of the great impetus derived from service experience and motivation; but service experience will be most effective if it can be freed from the necessity of adhering to current instructions of individual services.

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g) The Secretary of Defense should be given authority to cancel or transfer development and procurement programs among the services.

He should also be given a direct appropriation for the conduct of long-range research and development programs not carried out by any of the services. One of the outstanding characteristics of the present period is the integral connection between strategy and technology. When technology was relatively stable, the technical aspect of military planning usually involved problems either of procurement or of engineering. But today with technology developing at an explosive rate, the direction of its change is itself a primary strategic concern. As a result, the next war may well be won or lost in the laboratories and on the drawing boards. As long as the Secretary of Defense cannot shape the direction of research and development, his role will be the essentially passive one of arbitrating disputes formulated elsewhere. Where so much depends on keeping up and staying ahead in the technological race, it is essential that our weapons development reflects a clear sense of direction and not a compromise.

Research and development poses another challenge to our military establishment. In the fields of engineering and procurement where most of its experience lies, goals are fixed and progress can be gauged by well understood criteria. By contrast, it is the nature of basic research that its results are uncertain and that together with its very discoveries it produces the criteria for judging them. A bureaucratic approach to it can only stifle creativity. The mode of organization and the pattern of creativity therefore tend to

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clash and when they do bureaucratic norms should be subordinate. With
respect to our fundamental problem of regaining our technological supremacy,
it is the task of our military establishment -- as of the national government --
to bring about an environment conducive to real creativity. As our government
has grown, it has followed the familiar course into a system of rewards that
favor caution and mediocrity. Seldom is anyone punished for inaction, but
often for measures that were risky and failed. It is especially important that
this pattern be reversed in research where there is an inherent uncertainty
and where great achievement is particularly inseparable from great risk.

The Problem of Lead Times

Lead time -- the interval between conception and execution -- has
never been more crucial. The best plans will be fruitless if they cannot be
implemented sufficiently quickly. The best production apparatus will be
ineffective if it requires too long to produce the necessary implements of war.
A nation can score a basic advantage if it can either develop or produce
weapons more rapidly than its opponent.

One of the major weaknesses in our strategic posture has been our
inordinately long lead times. They have been produced in part by the cumber-
some machinery in the Department of Defense and the National Government.
In part they have been caused by a quest for perfection in development and its
corollary an overconcern with the avoidance of mistake. It is essential that

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we compress our lead times and the recommendations in this report should help in this direction. At the same time there has to be a greater willingness to run risks both in procurement and in development. Speed is of greater importance than security.

## Strategy and Psychology

One of the great weaknesses in the organization of our national government is the absence of a clear focus to assess the psychological impact of our actions. Whatever the wisdom of the decision not to engage in a race with the Soviets in the satellite field, it does not appear that the psychological impact of a Soviet breakthrough in this field had been sufficiently analyzed. Yet the riskier the more revolutionary developments of technology, the more their significance depends on the interpretation placed on them. Since very few of the modern weapons have ever been used in wartime, the riskier policy reflects depends on what people think with respect to them. It is therefore essential that within our national government there exist a mechanism to assess the impact both at home and abroad of our actions in the military field as in others. This is a problem far transcending the organization of the Department of Defense. It is mentioned here only because a section on organizational remedies would be incomplete without it.

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## Summary

If adopted together, the proposals in this chapter give promise of achieving the following objectives: (1) they would eliminate the root causes of interservice rivalry while fully utilizing the reservoir of leadership and special skills which each service represents; (2) through the device of functional combatant commands, the U.S. armed forces would be organized to carry out the distinguishable strategic and tactical tasks which correspond to the actual military threats which confront us; (3) through creation of a separate service for senior officers and provision for its administration by the Secretary of Defense, the motivation of the entire officer corps would be basically changed, for the goal of high rank and broad command could be reached only by transcending the boundaries of a particular service; (4) responsibility for strategic planning and for strategic direction of the armed forces would be clearly fixed in a high professional officer responsible to the President and the Secretary of Defense, and supported by a strong staff drawn from all of the services. Achievement of these objectives would provide a unity and a coherence that are now absent from our Defense organization.

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# VII - ALLIANCES AND THE ROLE OF FORCE

Since the end of World War II, the U.S. has entered into a wide variety of military agreements with other states ranging from the sweeping multilateral defense arrangements of the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Association to a large number of bilateral agreements with individual nations. Our Army, Navy and Air Forces overseas are a token of our determination to carry out these commitments.

## The Basis of the U.S. System of Alliances

Strategically, the U.S. system of alliances is invaluable in the overall world-balance of power. Overseas bases provide advanced observation and warning posts against Soviet aggression. They bring striking forces closer to enemy targets, thus complicating the opponent's defensive problem. The advent of missiles will not reduce the importance of alliances for the security of all their members. To be sure, missiles will increase the vulnerability of many of our allies, as well as of our overseas airbases. On the other hand, intermediate and short-range missiles can reach almost all of the U.S.S.R. from present free-world territory. The geographic relationship is such that intermediate range missiles in the hands or on the territory of our allies have the same strategic significance as intercontinental missiles in the hands of the U.S.S.R. And the shorter range the missile, the more mobile its launching site and, therefore, the more invulnerable to Soviet surprise attack.

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The significance of alliances has been further increased by the growth of the Soviet nuclear stockpile. As long as the United States possessed an atomic monopoly, the chief significance of alliances was in providing advance notice of American intentions. As long as the chief deterrent to Soviet aggression was thought to reside in U.S. superiority in strategic striking power, there was an understandable reluctance on the part of our allies to make a major military effort of their own. As long as it was believed that the issue of a war would be decided elsewhere, few of our allies saw much significance in a large military contribution of their own. The reliance on an all-out strategy tended to run counter to our desires for building *allied* strength.

But with the growth of the Soviet nuclear stockpile and the means to deliver it, *all* members of the alliance have an equal interest in removing any Soviet illusion that it might use its capability for all-out war as a shield behind which to expand by more limited means. They also share an interest to keep any war that does break out to the smallest proportions. This is possible only to the extent that local resistance is feasible. Alliance arrangements can provide local forces to deter or check limited aggression. They can strengthen local will to resist because they guarantee that a threatened country would not stand alone. The efficacy of our alliance policy may not only determine victory or defeat in limited war; it is a good insurance against such wars breaking out in the first place.

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Too flat!

Alliances and the United Nations

lessening of our

Nothing said about our alliance system should be taken as a derogation
support of ( or confidence in) as an instrument of our policy (OR) as
of the United Nations. The United Nations remains the greatest symbol of
man's hope for peace. It has proved its ability to act in a number of situations
from Korea to Suez. It remains an indispensable forum for expressing the hopes
of humanity.

Still it would be idle to pretend that under present circumstances the
United Nations can replace our alliance policy. The Soviet veto in the Security
Council prevents effective action in all situations where Communist powers are
parties to the dispute. And these are precisely the cases which present the
gravest threat to the security of the world. Moreover, many other dangers may
see the United Nations paralyzed either by Communist intransigence or by
disputes among U.N. members extraneous to the issues actually at stake.
Thus while we should strive to transform resistance to aggression into the
widest possible expression of the police powers of humanity, we cannot permit
the world to be dominated by hostile states because these have been able to
In the absence of
hamstring the machinery of the United Nations. Failing United Nations action
nations
we should try to act in concert with the widest grouping of states attainable --
a possibility foreseen in Articles 51 and 52 which has provided the juridical
basis of our system of alliances within the world organization. Our system of
alliances thus is not an alternative to the United Nations but its complement:
it can provide security where the processes of the United Nations may be too
slow or its action ineffective.

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Pressure on Our Alliance System

To assert that alliances are important does not imply that all is well
with our alliance policy. Any evaluation must recognize three sets of forces
tending to weaken our system of alliances: the fear of Communist military
power, the ambiguity of communist tactics of aggression, and the lack of a
defense concept offering to our allies reasonable prospects of security. Any
alliance embracing a large number of nations over a considerable territory
tends to diminish in effectiveness, especially in the face of a challenge that
does not present a clear and present danger to the entire alliance. Our allies
are faced with a situation in which, at one and the same time, the danger of
war seems less imminent and the fear of the consequences of war grows greater.

Berle
suggested
be deleted.

In Europe and in Asia, the communist bloc is steadily improving its military
capabilities, including nuclear weapons and delivery systems. Against the
threat of nuclear attack, many of our allies have little defense of their own.
The fear that the use of even the smallest atomic weapon would involve
enormous destruction -- a fear assiduously fostered by the U.S.S.R. -- has
weakened the will to resist of many of our allies, in and out of NATO.

A correlative force contributing to the reluctance of many countries to
make a substantial military effort is the growing cost and complexity of modern
weapons. This imposes a fearful burden on frail economies as well as requiring
skills and facilities which some of our allies do not have. The attainment of a
capability to deter or to check local aggression is made much more difficult and
in many cases such capabilities are actually decreasing, while the need for

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such local deterrents has become greater than ever. Aggravating the other pressures on our alliance arrangements is the concept of aggression which underlies them. Existing treaties essentially are concerned with open attack by armed regular troops, and do not cover a whole range of communist aggressive techniques, from civil war or economic strangulation to slow takeovers by communist-guided and communist-armed fifth columns.

As a result the communist bloc has learned that if it keeps its challenges sufficiently ambiguous, and below the level which the non-communist world considers to warrant major war, we and our allies may prove unable or unwilling to take effective action. Neither Korea nor Indochina, for example, seemed to some of our allies worth running major risks, and Suez found the shoe on the other foot. Confronted by an ambiguous threat, even a group of nations whose interests are very similar find it exceedingly difficult to achieve an effective concerted response.

## Alliance Strategy

One of the major problems faced by our alliance policy is to devise a military strategy equally meaningful to us and to our allies. In view of its manifold interests and commitments the United States has been understandably reluctant to commit itself specifically to defend allied territories, and has relied largely on its strategic striking power, supplemented by mobile sea and tactical air power, to deter aggression at all levels. While our allies have of necessity acquiesced in this concept, they have never abandoned their wish to see their own homelands protected from local invasion or devastation.

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This difference of concepts has meant that, with the partial exception
of NATO our security arrangements are not based on a military strategy equally
meaningful to all partners. This lack of an agreed strategy has resulted in
weaknesses, indecisions and contradictions at all levels of our security
arrangements. It has led to endless difficulties in formulating and implementing
U.S. base agreements and military aid programs. There have been disagreements
among the U.S. services concerning military requirements and programs. And
there has been a reluctance on the part of our allies to make or to meet specific
force commitments, partly because the function those forces would perform has
been so vague. Moreover our strategy is largely atomic, those of our allies
generally non-atomic, and their forces are designed accordingly. Thus as
nuclear weapons and delivery systems increase, present allied forces will
become less capable of making meaningful military contributions to other than
internal security missions.

The United States must therefore make a concerted effort, together with
its allies, to develop and obtain plans meeting the joint security requirements
of all partners. The act of consultation will be of itself of great significance
for one of the reasons for the sense of impotence of many of our allies is
ignorance about the nature of modern military technology and a sense of being
left out from decisions which affect their fate. If allied forces are to be capable
of acting in concert with U.S. forces, we will have to assist in their transformation and development. This does not mean we should equip all allied elements

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along the lines of comparable U.S. units. To the maximum degree possible both the types and levels of equipment provided allied forces should be tailored to the missions which suit their particular security requirements. And we should not set standards for our allies based on our own levels of technology. But we must establish a measure of harmony between the tactical doctrine of our allies and our own and equip the respective forces accordingly.

In effect, the free world is faced with a task of strengthening and re-equipping its forces at least comparable in magnitude to that which it faced in 1950, and at a time when both rapidly changing technology and, in many parts of the world, decreasing popular support for military programs combine to make the job even more costly and difficult. It is probable that the United States will have to provide -- either directly or indirectly -- much of the equipment needed by our allies, or else see their political stability decline along with their military strength. As a result, U.S. military aid programs will necessarily Say that these proposed military measures must be coordinated with rather than be costly, supplemented by positive international programs (for cohesiveness) - Use at the beginning of the report:

Nor are the proposed military measures sufficient by themselves. They must be supplemented by positive programs for political cohesiveness, for economic and technical assistance, and by other measures discussed more fully by various groups of the overall study project of which this panel is but one part.

economic and technical assistance to nations seeking to develop free institutions and by measures that have to be taken in the light of our great moral and religious heritage to strengthen education, economy and social well being. These policies and plans are discussed more fully by various other groups of the overall study project of which this panel is but a part.

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The actions required to strengthen our system of alliances will be
neither easy nor cheap. And, despite our efforts, we can still expect to
be confronted with situations in which the choice may seem to lie between
acquiescence in communist aggression or acceptance of splits among our
allies. This much we can say concerning such decisions: we must act with
resolution or accept grave losses.

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# VIII - THE SPECIAL CASE OF NATO

## Introduction

### Our conviction of

It is no derogation of the value of our alliances in other parts of the
is not lessened by ( or weakened by) giving
world to give special treatment in this report to the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization. It is militarily the most highly developed of our multiple
alliances. It covers an area of great cultural and economic significance to
both East and West. It embraces nations with whom we share a common
spiritual and cultural heritage.

Make
this more
positive.

In order to appreciate the importance of NATO we need only to contemplate our situation if Western Europe were in Soviet hands. The Communist Bloc would have an industrial potential equal to our own. It would lie astride the world's main communications lines. It could flank and engulf the Middle East. It would be able to manipulate the man power, factories and cultural prestige of Europe to dominate Africa and infiltrate South America.

## The Weaknesses of NATO

Feels we
should em-
phasize the
change in
relationships.
not a
weakness.

May make
Europe stronger. Great weakness in Europe today is that they are not willing to add to the new
strength coming in.

The factors which make the NATO area essential to U.S. security also
create difficulties and complications. For Western Europe is deeply affected by
the revolutionary transformation going on in the world. European political and
fundamentally affected (or changed)
economic power has been weakened by the wholesale and continuing loss of
colonial possessions in Asia, the Middle East and Africa. As the danger of
Soviet aggression has come to seem less imminent, the sense of urgency on

II - Report
December 22, 1957

which NATO was founded has declined and a number of rivalries and irritations between NATO members have been revived. The dispute over Cyprus was permitted to fester to the detriment of NATO; France, against the wishes of some of her allies remains heavily embroiled in Algeria. Germany is offered the choice of unification on Soviet terms or continued membership in NATO and no unification. The Anglo-French adventure in Suez has not strengthened NATO ties while the recent British White Paper on Defense, whose issuance was surely hastened by the debacle at Suez, foreshadows sharp reductions of British military power in Germany.

Sentiment toward neutralism, or at least toward a more passive adherence to the alliance, has been growing in some NATO countries. Many factors contribute to this psychological retreat from nuclear reality including the relative weakness of our NATO partners as compared to the two super states and the frictions and antagonisms inherent in any alliance system. But perhaps the most pervasive reason is the fear of the consequences of nuclear warfare. This fear involves paradox and ambivalence: Europeans recoil from the damage and destruction they believe would result from the use of any sort of atomic weapons on their densely populated territories, but they are also beginning to be afraid that the growing Soviet nuclear stockpile will make the U.S. reluctant to risk devastation of the American mainland in order to protect Europe.

This does not mean that NATO is falling apart or has lost its importance. Whatever the disagreements within NATO, the U.S.S.R. has demonstrated the significance it attaches to NATO by its incessant efforts to disrupt it. But it

These
paragraphs
were suggested
for deletion.

Jameson [N]

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December 22, 1957

- 56 -

does mean that NATO will have to be adapted to the new conditions created by an evolving technology. It will have to find new means of political and economic collaboration; it will have to find a new expression for its military strategy.

## NATO Strategy

Pages 56-57:

It was suggested that these be rewritten in the light of the recent conference

However, before either of these objectives can be attained, attention will have to be paid to certain fundamental weaknesses in NATO strategy and military policy. Since 1954, all NATO planning has been based on the assumption that in any major war NATO forces would use nuclear weapons from the outset. Accordingly, NATO strategy calls for the maintenance of two components: a shield of local tactical forces and a sword of nuclear retaliatory force. The shield component of NATO has a double purpose: it provides sufficient tactical forces in Western Europe to discourage or contain local aggression, and its presence notifies the communists that a major aggression, with which these forces might not be able to cope, would trigger the second component of NATO strategy, the sword of strategic striking forces carrying nuclear weapons.

However, three factors have served to cast serious doubts upon this strategy. The first is the Soviet development of a large-scale air-atomic capability, which has led to fears that the "sword" of NATO -- the strategic air forces of the United States and the United Kingdom -- may not be unsheathed in the event of Soviet aggression.

II - Report
December 22, 1957

- 57 -

Check with
NATO expert
on this.
Strategic
striking forces
are under
NATO command
in principle.

The second factor is that recent trends in U.S. military policy, and perhaps even more in British military policy, have done much to discredit the NATO doctrine, for both countries have emphasized the massive deterrent rather than the shield force. Thus the Europeans are placed in a position where they can no longer trust the strategic striking force to deter war, and yet see that force strengthened at the apparent expense of forces needed for their defense. Coupled with this is the fact that the strategic striking forces are not under NATO command, that of the tactical forces only the British and the Americans possess nuclear weapons, and that the opposing Soviet forces are daily increasing *their* capabilities to wage both strategic and tactical nuclear warfare. Under these circumstances many Europeans may well regard war as solely a choice between occupation and destruction.

A third factor making for instability is the reverse of the above: a tendency on the part of some NATO allies to seek to escape their dilemmas by a policy of disengagement. There is an understandable temptation to depend for deterrence on the military effort of a stronger power and, should aggression take place nevertheless, to rely for protection on a war fought elsewhere. Thus while the strategic striking forces in the exclusive possession of the United States and the United Kingdom tend to produce a sense of impotence, they also provide a feeling of security inhibiting a major effort.

[Y]

II - Report
December 22, 1957

- 58 -

NATO Objectives

The problem of NATO is therefore one of will as much as of power.
All partners must realize that security can be enhanced only by a sharing of
risks. And they should all be placed into a position where they are able to
contribute, at least to some extent, to their own security.

The ultimate answers to the problems of NATO will be found not in
the realm of strategy but of policy. NATO to survive must generate a common
sense of political purpose. Many of the difficulties of NATO are aspects of
East-West relations in general; others are produced by situations outside of
NATO area proper. Subpanel I is dealing with the political problem at greater
length. Still, it would be idle to pretend that an alliance designed to provide
security against aggression can survive if it is not able to develop a common
military strategy in which all partners can play a role. If it cannot adapt itself
to new conditions, it must of necessity become sterile.

Fortunately there are two factors which seem to offer possibilities for
a viable common strategy. The first of these is the disaffection in the Soviet
bloc, so vividly illustrated in the cases of Hungary and Poland. This reduces
the combat value of satellite forces and makes even more precarious the already
tenuous line of communications between the Soviet forces in Central Europe and
their home base. The second, and more important, is the availability in quantity
of tactical nuclear weapons. The great advantage accruing to tactical defensive
forces, through preparation of positions, prior determination of target areas and

[Y]

II - Report
December 22, 1957

- 59 -

stockpiling of both nuclear and conventional munitions, offers hope that even relatively small NATO forces could hurl back a local attack and blunt major aggression. It is perhaps too early to say that this is possible; it is crucial that we re-examine our present concept of the capabilities required to defend Western Europe in addition to the threat of strategic retaliation on the U.S.S.R.

Thus a prime element in the new strategy should be the strengthening of the NATO shield forces and backing them up with locally based missiles. The ability to resist local incursions will remove one temptation to aggression. The knowledge that an attack will meet with substantial local resistance provides an additional deterrent to Soviet aggression. The United States should approach with conviction this task of strengthening the shield forces, for it is equally in our interest to see that a conflict arising in Europe, either by design or by miscalculation, does not immediately result in all-out war.

A corollary of this central problem of establishing an adequate NATO members of NATO or NATO itself ???

shield is to provide within Europe -- controlled by Europeans -- an atomic capability that will substantially reduce Europe's dependence on U.S. strategic air power. This is necessary both to restore the declining power position of NATO vis-a-vis the U.S.S.R. and to bolster the European sense of hope and of participation, which are basic ingredients of the will to resist. The development of European forces armed with nuclear weapons, and possessing their own delivery systems could create a kind of atomic stand-off between Europe and the U.S.S.R., similar to the broader strategic stand-off now existing between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Check with NATO expert.

Do we mean that this will substantially reduce NATO's dependence on strategic power? Re-establish NATO's goal of doing that.

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December 22, 1957

- 60 -

A strong NATO shield is all the more important because one of the purposes of the growing Soviet naval threat is undoubtedly to bring about a situation where the Soviet Union may be able to interrupt sea communications between us and our NATO allies by submarines and by mining European harbors.

In such a situation, the willingness to resist a simultaneous Soviet invasion will depend importantly on the forces available in Europe and under NATO control.

## The Role of the United States

As the strongest power in NATO, and the most influential in shaping its counsels, the United States has a major role to play in carrying out the policies recommended. First of all, this will require that we share with our allies scientific and technical information and that we assist in mobilizing the research and development capability of NATO both in the civilian and the military field. Second, we must strive for a true military interdependence which closely ties together the United States and the other NATO powers.

Thirdly, we must acknowledge the necessity for maintaining in Europe for an indefinite period a strong contribution to the shield forces. And finally, we must provide those of our allies which desire them with nuclear weapons and delivery systems, as well as with some of the other complex equipment of modern war.

II - Report
December 22, 1957

It will be unrealistic to say that such policies would be either cheap or without risk. There are always questions of cost to be considered and issues of security against espionage to be weighed. These are more than unbalanced however by the need to strengthen Europe militarily, in order for us to be effective politically. A strong, self-reliant Europe is a major American concern. Such a Europe, continuing along its present path toward greater unity, could become a great partner in the future evolution of free society.

II. - Report
December 22, 1957

X - CIVIL DEFENSE

There are few problems of the atomic age with which the United States
Because of
has had greater difficulty in coming to grips than civil defense. Our tradi-
tional invulnerability to direct military attack and our predilection for the of-
we
fensive over the defensive have combined to cause us to treat civil defense as
a minor adjunct of our overall strategic posture both in terms of planning and
in the resources allocated to it.

Margaret
Hickey raised
point that
this phrase
could be
construed as
threatening.

The full civil defense problem is well beyond the scope of this report.
The technical possibilities of defending our cities and homes, the costs, the
impact on our national psychology and ways of working and living -- these
present a complex of considerations deserving detailed and separate examina-
tion. Nevertheless, the connection between civil defense and the other elements
of our national security requires a general evaluation of the possibilities.

If relations with the Soviet bloc ever reach the showdown stage, the
edge of difference which may be very fine, will depend on the strength of the
competing wills. This in turn may well reflect the relative vulnerabilities. It is
an oppressive thought that such circumstances might in fact occur, but it would
be feckless to suggest that they are impossible. Courage in crisis, if it is to
be effective and continuing, must rest on at least a modicum of hope.

Deterrence in short, depends on a combination of power and will. The
factor of power requires a retaliatory capability sufficient to overcome any
enemy defense, and as invulnerable as possible to surprise attack. The factor

II - Report
December 22, 1957

- 72 -

which
of will may hinge importantly on a reasonable combination of passive and active
defense measures. An enemy who felt confident that he could disrupt and dis-
organize our society while preserving the substance of his own would be
tempted to launch an all-out blow. Conversely the ability to protect our popu-
lation at least to a degree may enable us to act with firmness and resolution
in times of crisis. In the age of the ballistic missile the known capability of
a society to withstand attack will become an increasingly important deterrent.

Civil defense will not be easy, and it can never be complete. Pro-
tecting against massively destructive weapons is an enormous problem.

A 20-megaton thermonuclear weapon, for example, with a radius of surface
destruction by blast and heat of between five to eight miles will inevitably have
devastating consequences.

Difficulty does not mean impotence, however. While it may be im-
possible to protect the population against the blast and heat of an atomic ex-
plosion, protection against radioactive fall-out and other contamination appears
to be a great deal easier. Above all, it is essential that our people understand
the dangers of modern weapons and the possibilities of mitigating their effects,
so that we may respond with discipline and so that no enemy can assume that a
sudden attack would disorganize our society.

While the whole field of civil defense requires, above all, the most
careful study, it is possible to state a few general principles in relation to it:

1. Civil defense must be considered as part of the overall U.S. strategic posture. It must be faced forthrightly. It should be

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December 22, 1957

- 73 -

part of our defense planning and included in our overall strategic
plans. The expense involved should be treated as an addition to
existing military outlays.

2. The American people need to be told more clearly the dimensions of the problem of civil defense and what can be done to reduce them. Any effective civil defense program must have as a pre-requisite a program of public information supported by the Federal Government and carried through at all levels.

3. A civil defense program should be integrated with the construction program needed for the normal development of our expanding population and economy.

coordinating

4. A cadre charged with <u>supervising</u> civil defense activities must be developed and trained immediately.

An effective civil defense program can be separated into three stages:

1. <u>To provide warning, where possible and information about radiological levels.</u> This requires an attack-proof radio-net to broadcast instructions during and after an attack. The cost of such a program would be reasonable.

2. Protection against fall-out. It has been estimated that half of the casualties of a large-scale atomic attack or between 25 - 30 million might result from radioactive fall-out. To prevent such a calamity, a fall-out shelter program is vital and it is essential that individuals in an area contaminated by radioactivity, chemicals,

II - Report

December 22, 1957

[Y]

- 74 -

or biological agents behave with discipline and effectiveness.

A proportion of this program could be locally financed.

3. **Protection against atomic blast and heat.** This is a major problem particularly in our big urban concentrations. This panel has heard testimony that it is possible to construct shelters capable of resisting even a direct hit, located so that they can be reached within 15 to 30 minutes by the population they serve, and useful meanwhile for peacetime purposes, such as underground passages.

The subject is of such complexity, however, and the costs are so very large that this report cannot plausibly go further than to commend such a deep shelter program for careful study. If indeed it proves feasible it will add greatly to our security as a nation.

The major difficulty with civil defense has been our failure to treat it as an integral part of our defense planning. As a result, civil defense has been badly neglected and such steps as have been taken have been fitful and only inadequately related to our over-all strategic posture. The immediate task is to make a start in the direction of civil defense, both by including it

at every level of governmental & voluntary organizations.
directly in our defense planning and ~~by mobilizing incentives for local support.~~ The words

...were
criticized by
most members
as being
meaningless

The purpose should be to protect as great a proportion of our population as possible and to permit a disciplined and efficient effort in case of an attack.

The immediate task is to construct an attack-proof radio-net to
begin a program of fall-out shelters. The shelter program should be carried out

Jamieson

II - Report

December 22, 1957

- 75 -

with a maximum degree of cooperation with local and state authorities. Thus

> **..does not reflect the strong position**
> **Arthur Burns felt the government should take in supporting shelters.**

> in addition to federal and state and local spending tax incentives might be
> created for all new construction which includes fall-out shelters, low interest
> federal loans to all private construction including fall-out shelters. A program
> of fall-out shelters might (in case of attack) reduce casualties by 25 - 30 million.

In addition to the protection of the population against fall-out, provision should be made for the post-attack period. It will be highly important to stockpile food supplies and industrial reserves in safe places to prevent famine and to enable the early resumption of economic activity. At the same time a continuation of organized activity will be aided by the greatest possible degree of dispersal of industry. It would be too costly to disperse existing industrial installations but tax incentives could be provided for the location of new facilities away from main concentrations.

The main feature to note with respect to civil defense is that time
is running out. It does not make sense to engage in a major military effort
without at the same time protecting our most important resource: our civilian
population. The cost of launching even a gradual civil defense program, may
well be high -- but the price of being without it may be national disintegration.

No mention is made of the need for the survey of possible
post-attack defense requirements.

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December 22, 1957

- 76 -

# XI - BUDGET FOR NATIONAL SECURITY

Achievement of the objectives of our national security programs in the years ahead hinges on the availability of financial resources and the manner in which they are applied. There is grave reason for concern with respect to recent levels of military appropriations as well as with respect to the workings of the budgetary process.

## The Budgetary Level

Programs of great importance to U. S. security now suffer from insufficient funds, and at present budgetary levels our prospects are bleak.

Several reasons have brought about this state of affairs. When the Korean war ended, it was natural that an effort be made to reduce military expenditures. But the execution of these reductions, displaying less accuracy than force, had serious consequences. These did not become evident for some time because of a backlog of unspent appropriations. For example, the momentum of the Air Force build-up continued until unspent appropriations from 1952 to 1953 ran out and, where major procurement is concerned, the Army has been living off its pre-1954 appropriations.

The result has been a serious imbalance in our military posture. Recent budgetary levels could be maintained only by a reduction of forces in all services, a process which has been slowly going on for the past three years. The budgetary squeeze has affected not only force levels, it has also produced

[Y]

II - Report

December 22, 1957

- 77 -

a slowed down effort in certain fields such as missile research, where our
position vis-a-vis the U.S.S.R. could have been maintained with a relatively
small additional effort.

Recent military expenditures are therefore inadequate to maintain
even our current force-levels at least with our present wasteful organization.
But events have made clear the inadequacy of our present force structure. And
remedies have to be sought against the background of an increasingly complex
technology which will inevitably multiply costs.

Shouldn't give the impression panel doesn't know or can't do. This panel does not possess the technical competence to determine if is discussed by another panel. We have the budgetary level which could assure our security, ~~which is also~~ is confined to ourselves to listing the major shortcomings in our strategic posture.

## Strategic Forces

Re-work headings or leave out subsequent headings. Not clear what comes under what. Strategic Forces are active defense, too.

## Deterrence

1. Unless aircraft procurement to modernize existing units is authorized into the 1960's, a gap in ready forces between the latest types of manned aircraft and the operational stage of ballistic missiles seems unavoidable. We cannot risk obsolescence of present weapons before new ones are ready.

2. The SAC base structure, long out of phase with other elements in its program, should be made less vulnerable to surprise attack through dispersion and other protective measures.

II - Report
December 22, 1957

- 78 -

3. Accelerated research and development support should be provided for such key programs as missiles and advance reconnaissance systems.

4. The SAC alert time should be reduced.

Active Defense ☑️ re-do headings

Today, the U.S.S.R. can attack the U.S. with a strong bomber force and with submarine-launched missiles. In a few years it will be able to attack with a stronger bomber force, greatly improved submarine-launched missiles, and numerous ICBM's.

Accurately delivered on our biggest cities, only twenty-five nuclear weapons -- a small proportion of the total the U.S.S.R. can send against us -- could kill 25,000,000 persons, not counting those who might die from the effects of a radioactive fall-out carried many miles downwind.

Whichever side first achieves a strong defense will be in a strong psychological position. Should the Soviet Union achieve a really effective air defense ahead of us the balance of power will fall to her. She will then be able to blackmail the entire free world, because few nations will act vigorously if they know that they may be devastated with relative impunity.

Early warning and anti-missile defense systems therefore require greater attention.

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December 22, 1957

## Tactical Forces

To provide something more than the token mobile units presently in being, additional troop lift should be authorized in the form both of modern aircraft and modern ships.

The Army should be permitted to speed up the modernization of its division structure.

## Navy

Anti-submarine warfare requires additional funds. The program of equipping both surface and underwater ships with nuclear propulsion and missiles of various types should be accelerated. We require a larger number of modern, nuclear powered submarines.

## Personnel

With the complexity of modern weapons, the importance of a highly competent professional force has never been greater. But present pay scales are inadequate to retain the skilled officers and men necessary to an effective and economic military establishment. Neither are we attracting a sufficient number of the best of our youth to military careers.

No reflection of Anna Rosenberg's and General McCormack's feeling that assured retirement pay was necessary.

II - Report
December 22, 1957

- 80m.

## Civil Defense

A start should be made on a program of fall-out shelters and related warning and communications equipment.

### This pgh should not come under Civil Defense.

The above deficiencies in our strategic posture can be removed only by a substantially increased defense effort even allowing for a more efficient utilization of resources through the reorganization of the Department of Defense. The price of survival will not be low. [On the other hand its effects will be cushioned by the expected growth of our Gross National Product. The impact of defense spending on our national economy will be discussed in detail by Subpanel IV.] This much seems clear however to this panel: The valid measurement of defense is against security achieved and in the efficiency with which resources devoted to it are utilized. We can afford to survive.

## The Budgetary Process

An increased defense effort will not be fully effective however unless it is accompanied by the organizational changes outlined in Section VII. These in turn can be prompted by improvements of existing methods of presenting the budget.

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December 22, 1957

- 81 -

The budgetary process could be greatly improved if military budgets were prepared and presented in more meaningful terms. The present method of preparation does not give the President, the Secretary of Defense, Congress or the public a clear indication of what the funds requested will accomplish in terms of military missions or effective units. As a result, it is natural for Congress to make reductions by percentage cuts across-the-board, rather than by selective examinations of individual programs.

Complete budgetary reform may not be immediately feasible. However, a start can be made toward a system that corresponds more closely to the general strategic philosophy of this report. It should not be too difficult, for example, to restate the presentation of the Air Force budget, so that instead of the present categories of "aircraft and related procurement," "procurement other than aircraft," "operation and maintenance," "military personnel," etc., there would be a clear indication of how much goes to strategic air, to air defense, to tactical air, and to air transport. The present budget structures of the other services are equally far from indicating expenditures along mission lines.

Another highly desirable change is to transform the present one-year budget cycle to two years. Under present rules, the top personnel of the services spend the first six months of every year preparing, justifying and revising the budgetary requests of their departments. The next six months are consumed in testifying before congressional committees and otherwise defending the service budgets as approved by the President. If the budgetary process would extend

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December 22, 1957

- 82 -

over an entire congressional term, the energies of key personnel could be
directed toward strategic doctrine and overall management. At the same time
congressional control would be more meaningful because the examination of
requests could then be more careful.

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December 22, 1957

- 83 -

XII - CONCLUSION

No aspect of America's problems presents a deeper challenge than the field of national security. It is not only because the technical problems are so complex, though an accelerating technology will test severely our wisdom and our ability to make choices. Nor is the economic challenge the most complicated one we face, though the price of security in the nuclear age is high and likely to increase. It is not even the field of strategic doctrine which presents our deepest problem though military strength is sterile without a doctrine for employing it.

Rather our chief difficulty resides in our whole approach to the security problem of power and it reflects some of the most attractive qualities of American society. We like to believe that reasonable men can settle all disputes through good-will and compromise and that power should be invoked only as a last resort. We therefore tend to think of diplomacy and force as successive and separate phases of national policy. Unfortunately the position in which we find ourselves does not permit such absolute distinctions. In a revolutionary period the ability and willingness to use force may in itself provide a factor of stability. To a world threatened by aggression and infiltration, American strength and resolution are essential if there is to be a guarantee of security.

To be sure, this may not always be apparent in the public declarations of other nations. To countries primarily concerned with domestic development

II - Report

December 22, 1957

foreign aggression may seem unreal and the measures required to resist it may appear as irritating interruptions of more primary tasks. But while we should have full understanding for the psychology which produces these reactions, we would be wrong to gear our policy to it. Force will not solve the problems of this period but the willingness to use it may afford the breathing spell in which nations can work out their own destiny without foreign interference. We must not forget that the neutrality of many nations is possible only as long as we are strong, just as for a century and a half the British navy made possible our neutrality. Many of our most vocal critics would be deeply troubled were our military protection suddenly withdrawn.

Power is a fact whether it be ours of that of the Soviet Union. Its existence cannot be ignored. The dilemmas which it imposes cannot be wished away. Yet the power of modern weapons confronts us with a moral dilemma. The extensive and indiscriminate use of modern weapons in all-out war runs counter to our deepest sense of international morality. We/should seek to prevent and to limit them if they limit such wars as may break out to the smallest area and to conduct them with the minimum loss of civilian life. Yet in the conflict between despotism and freedom, it would be immoral were we to shrink from the defense of the values for which we stand at whatever intensity which may be forced on us.

We are engaged in the phase of a global struggle which has come to be known as the cold war. In this report we have tried to set forth those measures which we feel it imperative to accept in the interest of national security. We consider them essential if we are to reduce the likelihood of war,

II - Report

December 22, 1957

- 18 -

No mention made of U. S. guided missiles and industrial power as requested respectively by Gordon Dean and Lucius Clay.

U.S. Capabilities

As compared with the U.S.S.R., the United States now has these military advantages:

* Should include a reference to the powerful morale of a free people with their historic devotion to an idealism which gives them tremendous vitality and motivation. Discussed in O.P. as one of U.S. capabilities

We have a superior industrial base and production know-how, which, providing we use it properly, should enable us to assign high priority to a greater variety of projects than the U.S.S.R.

We have superior operational experience in the use of long-range manned airplanes and geography favors our system of advanced bases.

We have superior and more flexible naval power, especially surface naval power.

We have more atomic weapons, and a greater variety of them.

However, some of these advantages must be qualified, and others Clay felt should reflect more are only temporary. For example, our long-range bomber force is always in of the strength of the U.S. competition with the improving defenses of our potential enemy. And our through its advantage in training is transitory because missiles will increasingly take industrial potential over missions heretofore performed by manned planes. Moreover some U.S. and managerial assets. forward bases will continue to be exposed to the instability of the areas in which they are located and all of our air bases are vulnerable to surprise attack, particularly from Soviet missiles.

Nor can we afford to take for granted an indefinite continuation of our present superiority at sea. The aircraft carrier, around which our naval power is built, faces a problem of limited refueling facilities, particularly

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December 22, 1957

- 19 -

Feels pgh would be strengthened by
omitting this sentence.

for its aircraft complement. The value of its freedom from the political
uncertainties of foreign bases is therefore a matter of degree. The unresolved
naval weakness is that our anti-submarine capability is not adequate to deal
with the growing Soviet underwater threat.

The third point of present U.S. military advantage is in the number
and variety of atomic weapons. But the U.S.S.R. is closing the gap and
because of the destructiveness of nuclear weapons numerical superiority
beyond a certain point may be meaningless.

Thus it appears that the U.S. is losing its lead over the U.S.S.R.
in the military race. For a little while yet we possess the shield of a clear
superiority in strategic striking power. But unless present trends are
altered, the world balance of power will shift in favor of the Soviet bloc.
If that should happen we would not be given another chance to remedy our
failings. However, it is emphatically not too late if the American people
and its leadership are prepared to make the big effort required now and in
the years ahead.

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December 22, 1957

- 20 -

IV - MISSIONS

The types of conflict by which we may be challenged pose particular problems because they tend to overleap the traditional boundaries between the military services. With modern weapons the distinction of land, sea and air warfare has lost a great deal of its validity. The criteria by which any future wars can be distinguished turn on the nature of the conflict, the issues in dispute, the geographical area of hostilities rather than on means of locomotion.

Among the possible challenges we may confront, three stand out most starkly: all-out war, limited war and a kind of war new to the twentieth century and highly developed by the communists -- the disguised or obscure, war concealed as internal take-over or as civil war.

All-Out War

Of the threats to our security, all-out war is the most overwhelming. It can be defined as an attack of such magnitude that our survival would be directly and immediately at stake. It is therefore the ultimate war, in which no inhibitions can be counted upon as regards the case of weapons.

With modern weapons such a war would involve catastrophic casualties. It is doubtful that civilized life as we know it could withstand the carnage. Even the nominal victor would have suffered losses which would shake its social fabric. This is particularly true for the side which concedes the first

[Y]

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December 22, 1957

- 21 -

blow, if it be directed in large part against his population.

For this reason the purpose of our capability for all-out war is above
all to prevent war from breaking out; it is effective to the extent that it
deters a sudden onslaught. At the same time, our capability for all-out war
is the essential precondition for any more discriminating application of our
power. The capability to conduct all-out war does not protect all our
security interests. But it does preserve our ability to protect these interests
by means less drastic than all-out war. Limited war, for instance, can be
kept limited only if an opponent must consider expansion of the war highly
unattractive. An overwhelming readiness for all-out war must therefore be
the first charge on our military establishment.

The basic requirement for all-out war is a strategic striking force so
well protected and numerous that it can overcome any defense. Moreover,
the hard core of the striking force, whether based at home or overseas,
must be continuously alert, fully armed, and as secure as possible against
destruction or neutralization by surprise attack.

Thus the second requirement for all-out war is an active and passive
defense system capable of protecting the bulk of our striking force and of
blunting the effects of enemy attack against our centers of population and
industry. Dispersal, the hardening of bases and critical installations
against nuclear weapons through underground shelters and the increasing use
of ground, sea, and undersea missiles will all help to reduce vulnerability

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December 22, 1957

- 22 -

to successful enemy attack. Early warning and air defense measures will reduce the likelihood that such attacks might be successful.

As attacking vehicles have become speedier and weapons ever more destructive, increasing attention will have to be paid to passive defense, often called civil defense, which seeks to blunt the enemy offense by reducing the damage as much as possible. This can be accomplished through shelters, dispersal of industries, and the stockpiling of critical supplies. A power which has succeeded in protecting its population at least to some degree is in a stronger psychological position than an opponent totally vulnerable to attack. In the age of the long-range missile, the known ability of a society to withstand attack through passive defense will become an increasingly important deterrent.

Readiness for all-out war therefore reflects a combination of three factors: (a) A retaliatory force sufficiently powerful and well-protected so that no matter what the scale of the enemy attack, the aggressor must have to contend with a return blow which will inflict an unacceptable amount of damage; (b) An active defense which can provide effective survival of the retaliatory force and which is able to reduce the enemy blow to the smallest possible proportions; (c) A passive defense which reduces the value of the enemy offense and the incentive for it.

The importance of defensive measures is that they force the enemy to increase his investment of resources in his offensive effort without

II - Report

December 22, 1957

- 23 -

adding to its strategic effectiveness. The necessity of a crushing retaliatory force is that it can deprive the aggressor of the fruits of a surprise attack. The task of strategy is to decide on the relative emphasis to be given to offensive and defensive capabilities and the "mix" which will provide the greatest degree of deterrence.

In looking at the strategic equation for all-out war there is reason for serious concern. Our strategic striking power, on which we have heretofore relied as the major element of our security, is imperiled by Soviet missile developments and the inadequate dispersal of our Strategic Air Command. Our active defense designed against manned planes will have to be redesigned for the missile age. Our civil defense program is completely inadequate. The effort to keep up our capability for all-out war will therefore require a substantially greater effort.

## Limited War

Unfortunately, readiness for all-out war does not exhaust our strategic problem. For no matter how vast our over-all strength, we face the dilemma that the magnitude of the total does not assure its sufficiency in any particular situation. Even if we are able to deter all-out war by the threat of total annihilation, our peril remains. Until the development of a Soviet nuclear stockpile and the means to deliver it, our retaliatory force could serve as the major deterrent to Soviet aggression. But as the Soviet capability to attack American cities increases, it will raise the threshold

Better left out. Slows down argument. Hopes we can omit references to offensive capabilities since there is pretty general agreement we would not take the offensive from standpoint of being the aggressor.

II - Report

December 22, 1957

- 24 -

of provocation which would unleash our retaliatory force. And with the increasing horror of weapons technology this threshold is constantly rising. It is not that we will not fight if our national survival is threatened. It is simply that we shall interpret the requirements of our survival increasingly stringently if we must weigh all objectives against the destruction of New York or Washington or Chicago. If all-out war becomes our only riposte to aggression, the Soviet Union will be enabled to use its strategic striking force as a shield behind which to expand by more limited methods and to confront us with the alternative of acceding to what will seem a marginal Soviet gain or a world-wide holocaust.

As a result, though all-out war is a great danger, it does not represent the most likely threat. Thus we face the strategic problem of limited war, the form of conflict which overturns the balance of power by installments, any one of which does not seem to warrant a final showdown.

Does not like this expression.

The distinctive feature of limited war is that its outcome does not involve or seem to involve national survival. It is for this precise reason that we have had such difficulty in coming to grips with it. For any peripheral Soviet move raises doubts whether this particular encroachment warrants a final showdown. Another difficulty has been caused by our lack of mobile forces capable of intervening rapidly and decisively and of restoring a local situation before matters get out of hand. Thus we may be forced into the position of choosing between Armageddon and defeat without

[Y]

II - Report

December 22, 1957

- 25 -

war. In each crisis our inhibitions have tended to exceed those of the
Soviet Union.

To a certain extent, the forces designed to deter all-out war will
also be useful in preventing or stifling limited war. It would be dangerous,
however, to rely too heavily on our strategic striking force to fight limited
war. Since the chief sanction against the expansion of a limited war resides
in a crushing capability for retaliation, the deterrent force must be kept at
a state of the highest readiness particularly during periods of limited
conflict. An aggressor who could tempt us to use up our strategic striking
force in a limited war would gain an advantage however those particular
military operations ended. To consider our strategic striking force as a
dual-purpose force would weaken the deterrent precisely when it should be
strongest. The practical effect of a dual-purpose weapons system is to
withdraw it from the availability for limited war.

It is therefore imperative that we develop forces which can intervene
rapidly and which are able to make their power felt with discrimination. We
require much more airlift capacity. Our mobile forces must be tailored to
the gamut of possible limited wars which may range from a war involving
several allies to relatively minor police actions. At one end of the spectrum
limited war may require a highly complicated weapons system including
nuclear weapons. On the other end of the spectrum it may involve con-
ventional forces capable of assisting friendly governments resisting
border incursions.

II - Report

December 22, 1957

- 26 -

The effectiveness of our power thus depends on our unmistakable
ability and willingness to oppose force with force at whatever level of
intensity may be required. We do not now possess that capability. The
greatest point of concern about the U.S. strategic position is that our
distaste for limited risks may ultimately lead us into the ultimate risk at a
rate determined not by us but by Communist policy.

The Political Problem

We must not make the mistake of assuming that even a diversified
military establishment can protect us against the total range of our dangers.
To begin with, force by itself is useless without the resolution to use it
if need be. A great deal, therefore depends not only on our physical but
also on our psychological and political readiness. An effective policy must
not only find the means to resist transformations of the strategic balance,
it must also be able to determine what transformations to resist. As events
have proved, the latter may be our most difficult challenge and it depends
on the wisdom and courage of our political leadership.

For our security can be imperiled not only by overt aggression but
also by transformations which are made to appear, insofar as is possible,
to be no war at all. Those "concealed wars" may break out in the form of
internal revolution or civil war; they may be instigated by outside forces
or merely be exploited by them. Greece has furnished one example;

II - Report

December 22, 1957

- 27 -

Vietnam another; the Middle East still another. Whatever the degree of initial Soviet responsibility, one of the greatest threats to the security of the Free World is gradual Soviet infiltration and domination of vital areas through steps each of which is so small and seemingly so "legitimate" that it does not seem to justify overt intervention.

These conflicts raise issues with which in terms of our preconceptions and the structure of our forces we are least prepared to deal. A civil war has not traditionally been thought to justify foreign intervention however much its outcome may affect the international balance. The gradual subversion of a government is difficult to deal with from the outside, even though the fate of millions may depend on it.

As a result, unless we have a clear understanding of our national purpose we shall find ourselves paralyzed in the face of upheavals which may completely overturn the international equilibrium. We must also realize that it is the essence of these concealed conflicts that the issue they present is deliberately and intrinsically unclear. To ask for certainty in such situations is a prescription for inaction. Nor is it possible in advance to determine the nature of the conflict or every United States response. The problem in its deepest sense is not military but political and will therefore be treated more fully by Subpanel I. It should be our aim to prevent such situations from breaking into the open. When they do become acute we may have a choice only between evils. Our security and

II - Report

December 22, 1957

- 28 -

that of the rest of the non-Communist world will then hinge importantly on our willingness to protect the international equilibrium in situations which fit neither the soldier's classic concept of war nor the diplomat's traditional concept of aggression.

[x]

II - Report

December 22, 1957

- 6 -

The prospects of peace, therefore, depend on the strength and firmness of the United States and other free nations, on their joint ability to relate this phrase stops flow of sentence and power to purpose, on the willingness to act resolutely in the face of continuing peril and ambiguous challenges.

II - Report
December 22, 1957

II - THE NATURE OF OUR STRATEGIC PROBLEM

Ever since our unilateral disarmament at the end of World War II pro-
duced not the peace we desired so earnestly but Soviet intransigence, the
United States has been forced to engage in a military effort unprecedented in
our history in peace-time. But the effort to harmonize our power and our
policy has been handicapped by many factors including the nature of our
historical experience. Tradition impels us to believe that peace is the
"normal" relation among states. As a result we have conceived it to be the
task of our military policy to assemble overwhelming power to "punish" the
disturber of the peace -- the aggressor. Aggression has appeared to us as
an unambiguous and clear act. Because we have been geographically remote
from the major centers of world affairs we have been able to rely on relatively
small forces-in-being and to mobilize our resources only after a war had
countries
started. Because many other powers would be threatened before the danger
to our security became explicit, we have in the past been able to count on
moral
allies to hold a forward line while we rallied both our physical, and psycho-
logical resources.

Many of these ideas have been overthrown by technological develop-
ments since World War II and by the emergence of the United States in the
forefront of world affairs. Soviet policy has coupled an attempt to develop
overwhelming power with a strategy of deliberate ambiguity, so calculated
to seem out of proportion

not the
place to put
that in.

Sees the word
power as
a combination
of strength &
military
measures.
Should use
word country.
Also Power
translates
badly in
other
languages.

II - Report

December 22, 1957

to the objective or else designed to appeal to what the Free World has come to
consider "legitimate." As a consequence, the recognition of aggression has
often proved as difficult as finding the means to resist it. A symptom of the
**just as an earlier committee of the League of Nations**
difficulty is that a United Nations committee **charged with the task of defining**
aggression was forced to give up.

This paragraph
was to be
rewritten
by Dean Rusk.

At the same time that the forms of aggression have multiplied and **factors** become more ambiguous, we have lost the safety **indicators** of a more secure past. We can no longer think of our military effort as designed for a conflict which we enter only after great deliberation and after other nations had run the initial risks as was the case in World War I and II. Since many powers no longer have the ability to resist alone, the international equilibrium will depend on our ability, psychological and military, to engage our forces promptly and decisively.

The importance of forces-in-being is magnified by the altered
significance of industrial potential. As long as there prevailed a certain
balance between the destructiveness of weapons and the complexity of their
means of manufacture, victory in war could be achieved only through a
quantity of equipment too large to stockpile before the outbreak of hostilities.
Then, an attack on production facilities was a highly effective strategy. But
with modern technology industrial potential must be used **before** a war breaks
out. Unless a massive and reliable defense is developed each major power
will be able to destroy in a matter of hours the production facilities of its

II - Report
December 22, 1957

- 9 -

opponents with a few weapons relatively simple to manufacture. And long
before attrition can set in, the social structure is likely to have collapsed.

Thus our military problem, with which this particular Subpanel is
exclusively concerned, has three aspects:

(a) We require industrial, technological and scientific potential in
order to be prepared for the long haul. Without an adequate industrial plant
it is impossible to produce the spectrum of weapons to assure security.

Without a pool of scientific talent and a high level of scientific activity, we
shall not be able to maintain the strategic balance in a situation when the
real armaments race is in the laboratories. But scientific development by
itself is ineffective strategically if it cannot be translated into operational
weapons. Great importance therefore attaches to two kinds of lead-time:
the interval between the drawing board and operational weapon; and the
rapidity with which weapons can be manufactured. A lag in either category
is certain to create a strategic weakness. For this reason, great importance
attaches to our industrial base, to our policy with respect to science and
education and to policies to promote long-term growth and stability.

(b) At the same time long-range programs and balance cannot become
ends in themselves. However powerful we may be over the long pull, our
strategic effectiveness in any given crisis depends importantly on our active
forces supplemented by any quickly mobilizable reserve capabilities. Given
the power and destructiveness of modern weapons, we can not count on an
extended period of mobilization prior to the outbreak of any hostilities.

II - Report
December 22, 1957

A WORD BY THE PANEL

This Report is the result of a group effort by Panel II of the Special Studies Project of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Although not every member subscribes to every detail, it reflects our substantial agreement.

Starting in the fall of 1956, we were charged with exploring the military aspect of the United States' security problem, the strategies most likely to achieve our security and the challenges in this field which may face the country during the next ten to fifteen years. We have had the benefit of specially prepared papers. We have heard testimony of numerous experts in relevant security areas. We have sought to make our report as specific as possible, for most of the tough problems will always be specific as they become critical. On the other hand, too much of the raw material of our consideration will be shaped by events in science and human affairs which have yet to happen for us to have attempted to blueprint every detail of our military posture.

It is our judgment that all is not well with present U. S. security policies and operations. The overall U. S. strategic concept lags behind developments in technology and in the world political situation. Defense organization in major ways is unrelated to critically important military missions. Governmental systems of budgets, appropriations, and financial management are painfully out of gear with the radically accelerating flow of military developments. The United States system of alliances must be adapted to rapidly changing strategic requirements. United States strength is inadequate with respect to important challenges with which we may be confronted.

Lucius Clay disagreed with this last sentence. He felt this overlooked much of our strength.

II - Report
December 22, 1957

- 2 -

We are convinced that sizeable corrective steps can be taken now.

We believe that the security of the United States supersedes any
budgetary considerations.

Our Panel therefore hopes that the most important result of recent
Soviet advances in the field of earth satellites may be that they will serve
as a catalyst for a genuinely deep review of the basic attitudes and policies
affecting the security of our country.

For the U. S. lag in missiles and space machines, however worrisome,
is a symptom and not a cause. It reflects a general complacency over the
past dozen years. It is now vitally important to the U. S. to calculate its
strategy and security requirements on an integrated and long-range basis,
and to set about correcting all significant deficiencies.

II - Report
December 22, 1957

# I - FRAMEWORK OF THE STUDY

The world is living through a period of swift and far-reaching upheavals. Standards and institutions which have remained unchanged for centuries are breaking down. Millions who have hitherto accepted their place in life are clamoring for a new and meaningful existence. Western Europe, the fountain-head of our civilization, has lost its position of pre-eminence in world affairs. Across the great land-mass of Eurasia and on the continent of Africa new nations are rising in the place of colonial empires.

The world is yearning to realize its aspirations in peace. But it is faced by two somber threats: the Communist thrust to exploit all dissatisfactions and to exacerbate all tensions, and the new weapons technology capable of obliterating civilization.

Clay felt this
unfair to U.S.,
which has
participated
for more
than a
generation
in world
affairs.

The United States has thus been placed in a fateful position. Our whole tradition impels us to desire peace. Relatively invulnerable behind two great oceans, we have until the end of World War II asked little of the world save to be free to work out our destiny undisturbed. But we have been forced to realize that our security is inextricably bound up with the safety of the rest of the non-Communist world and that freedom everywhere depends on to defend it. save humanity from the peril our strength and resolution. Force alone will not supply the answer to the effectively mobilized obligation for self-defense hopes of humanity. Yet our power can help bring about a framework of security in which these aspirations may be realized in freedom and without fear.

Looking at the world from the perspective of our past isolation, perhaps the most difficult thing for us is to accept the reality of our peril. Other and

II - Report
December 22, 1957

- 4 -

more exposed nations have had to learn to live over a period of centuries with
the consciousness that their existence might be imperiled by foreign attack.
It is a new experience for us.

A new technology of unprecedented power and destructiveness has
placed <u>all</u> nations of the world into dire peril. The largest "conventional" bomb
of World War II -- the famous blockbuster -- had an explosive power of 20 tons
of TNT. The first atomic bomb had an explosive equivalent of 20 thousand tons
of TNT, a thousand fold increase. Today weapons with an explosive equiv-
alent of 20 million tons (20 megatons) have been tested and there is no
theoretical upper limit: it is possible to construct weapons of almost any
desired explosive power.

As the weapons have become more powerful, their speed of delivery
has grown ever faster. Soon missiles will be able to travel intercontinental
distances and wipe out whole cities in one blow. An attack on 50 of our
most important metropolitan areas would bring under five 55 per cent of our
population and 75 per cent of our industry. Moreover if the fireball of a
megaton weapon touches the ground, it sucks up particles of earth and
buildings and deposits them downwind as radioactive material. The area of
this "fall-out" will depend on meteorological conditions, but it may cover an
area of 10 thousand square miles or the size of the State of New Jersey. An
attack on 50 of our most important urban centers would, in the absence of
effective defensive measures, produce at least 10-15 million dead and 15-20

[Y]

II - Report

December 22, 1957

- 5 -

million injured from blast and heat and perhaps another 30 million casualties
from "fall-out".

What gives this weapons technology its ominous quality is that it is
in the hands of a Communist movement which has proclaimed for over a
generation now -- the last time in the Moscow declaration of all Communist
states on November 16, 1957 -- the irreconcilability of its system with that
of the free world. Of course "peaceful co-existence" has reappeared periodic-
ally as a Soviet slogan. But, as used in Soviet propaganda, it has never had
more than tactical significance. After World War II, it did not stand in the
way of Soviet domination of the satellite orbit and the breaking of the most
solemn wartime pledges. It did not stop the Berlin airlift, the Greek civil war
and the Korean aggression. After the Geneva "summit" conference "peaceful
coexistence" did not restrain the Soviet Union from selling arms to Egypt,
thereby inviting a crisis in the Middle East that has not ended to this day.
In 1957 it did not keep the Soviet Union from threatening nuclear attacks on
Norway, Denmark and Turkey. Both their doctrine and their internal dynamism
will impel the Soviet Union and Communist China to try to fill every vacuum
and to encourage every dissatisfaction. Should the U.S.S.R. and Communist
China ever attain strategic superiority we can be certain that subsequent
events will be brutal and unforgiving. And the power of these states,
particularly of the U.S.S.R., has been growing threateningly both absolutely
and relative to the United States.

II - Report

December 22, 1957

- 10 -

I suggest a slight
change here.

This could be
interpreted
or rather
made propa-
ganda use of,
as if we
would con-
centrate
our capa-
bilities to
deliver a
crushing
blow on the
Soviet
homeland

total

(c) But however vast our over-all strength, it may still be ineffective
brought to bear on the issues in dispute.
in meeting certain challenges if it can not be applied with discrimination.

With

Until the development of the Soviet nuclear stockpile and the means to deliver
can no longer rely for deterrence on our overall strategic superiority.

it, we could concentrate on our capability to deliver a crushing blow on the

Soviet homeland as the deterrent to all types of aggression. But with the
inflict a crushing blow on
growth of the Soviet capability to retaliatate on the United States we may be
reluctant to risk resisting Soviet moves at their periphery. There exists the
great danger that the Soviet Union will be able to use its nuclear striking force
as a shield behind which to expand by more limited means. Thus the test of
our military establishment is two-fold: one, the existence of retaliatory force
sufficiently powerful to discourage an all-out attack; and, two, the ability
to make our response fit all other challenges.

These three factors -- the importance of industrial potential, the
crucial role of forces-in-being, and the necessity of a versatile military
establishment -- impose on policy makers an unparalleled problem of choice.

It is further complicated by the explosive rapidity with which technology is
developing. Almost up to the outbreak of World War II a weapons system
would be good for nearly a generation; the equipment of U. S. ground forces
really changed very little between 1919 and 1940. Today a weapons system
begins to be obsolescent when it has barely gone into production. The B-17
"Flying Fortress" remained in operational use for a decade; the B-36 inter-
continental bomber was obsolescent in less than seven years; and the B-52

II - Report

December 22, 1957

- 11 -

jet bomber is beginning to be outdated even before all wings of our Strategic
Air Command are fully equipped with it.

Moreover, all weapons are becoming increasingly costly. A new
submarine costs ten times as much as its World War II counterpart. A B-52
wing is four times as expensive as the B-36 wings it replaces.

This technological race places an extraordinary premium on the ability
to assess developing trends correctly and to back decisions firmly over a
period of time. It also places the side which is on the defensive at special
disadvantage. The aggressor needs prepare only for the war he proposes to
fight. But the side which is on the defensive must gear its planning and
procurement for as long as the danger of aggression continues and in such
a manner that no important strategic weakness is created at any given point.

The basic problem of American strategy then is the ability to make
effective choices. This will depend on our national resolution, the courage
of our leadership and the effectiveness of the organization of our government.
The test of our military policy will be its relevance to the tasks to which we
may be challenged.

II - Report

December 22, 1957

-12-

III - DEVELOPING POWER TRENDS

The outstanding characteristic of the strategic equation is a military
technology in a state of spectacular change. Starting with World War II
scientific research has produced military equipment and new patterns of
military operations at an ever accelerating pace. Four trends appear to be
of particular significance.

1. <u>Weapon technology will become increasingly complex with a corresponding increase in the difficulty of choosing the most effective combination of weapons.</u> The crude U.S. bomb of 1945 has been outmoded by a broad range of highly developed weapons. Energy releases have risen from the original 20,000 tons of TNT equivalent to many million tons. The Hiroshima bomb required a large aircraft and crew. Equally powerful warheads have been reduced in size and simplified to the point where they can be employed effectively in anti-aircraft rockets. And with the increasing capacity for the production of fissionable materials, nuclear and thermonuclear weapons have become available in very large quantities.

The outlook is even more portentous than the achievements of the
recent past. Aircraft will be capable of cruising at several times the speed
of sound, of bombing from altitudes of a dozen miles and more, and of
carrying air-launched missiles so that they need not pass directly over
heavily defended target areas. New high energy fuels can give them greatly
increased range and performance.

title
Feels this/should be reworded
ELECTRONIC in line with fact that
this Chapter deals merely with
military technology

Feels this
repeats part
of material
under Frame-
work in II.

II - Report

December 22, 1957

- 13 -

Within a very short time, a major role in both offense and defense will be played by missiles. It will be possible to produce missiles of almost any desired range, from very short distances analogous to traditional artillery to intercontinental ranges of five thousand miles or more. Because these weapons require less extensive installations than airplanes, it will be possible to disperse them more easily and they will therefore be more invulnerable to surprise attack.

Earth satellites are a special adaptation of missiles which explore a new frontier. To develop them new technologies are required which will have important military applications.

Submarines, already an extremely powerful weapon will be even more important as nuclear propulsion comes of age. They pose a threat to our harbors and to our allies by interrupting sea communications. As a platform for missiles they can pose a constant threat of a sudden, devastating blow from unpredictable directions.

These are not dreams of the far distant future. Many of these weapons are in existence now; even the most remote among them is attainable within the next 10-15 years. By that time, many of them will be in the hands of several nations.

2. The rate of technological change will continue to accentuate the advantage of lead-time the offense enjoys relative to the defense. Both

advantage of leaving the enemy's forces relative to the defense. But

S. The rate of technological change will continue to accelerate the several nations.

The next 10-15 years. By that time, many of them will be in the range of are in existence now; even the most remote among them is attainable within a few decades.

for missiles they can base a constant threat of a sudden, devastating blow.

Missiles and to our allies by interrupting air communications. As a platform:

important is a nuclear propulsion engine of age. They pose a threat to our

submarines, usually extremely powerful weapons will be even more

A new frontier. To develop them new technologies are required which will

able to annihilate attack.

possible to diabolize them more easily and they will therefore be more invincible.

Weapons require less extensive infrastructures than satellites, it will be

any desired range, from very short distances analogous to traditional utilities

will be played by missiles. It will be possible to produce missiles of similar

Within a very short time, a water route in both offense and defense

December 22, 1967
II - Report

II - Report

December 22, 1957

- 14 -

offense and defense will improve -- and improve enormously. However, foreseeable new offensive weapons such as intercontinental ballistic missiles -- sudden in action, massively destructive, difficult to destroy either before launching or in flight -- will greatly aggravate the problems of strategic defense and enormously increase its costs.

Paragraph 3 does not appear to reflect exactly the views of Jake Potofsky and Arthur Burns, who were much more bullish on the United States.

3. The U.S.S.R. and Communist China will continue to gain in economic and technological overall military/strength. Although the rate of economic growth of these countries may slow down, the economic superiority of the West will become increasingly less significant militarily at present levels of effort. By sacrificing the civilian sector of its economy, the U.S.S.R. has already caught up with the United States in many major fields of military technology. In certain areas assigned high priority by the Kremlin the Soviets have surpassed us, qualitatively as well as quantitatively. Unless we greatly increase our pace and level of effort, they will achieve superiority in many other fields as well.

Go back to old draft including ec. & technological Pgh doesn't hit otherwise.

4. The concept of "scarcity" in nuclear weapons will disappear from the calculations of the U.S., the U.S.S.R., and to a lesser extent Britain.

The U.S., the U.S.S.R. and Britain will continue to increase the number and variety of their atomic weapons. Other countries will in due course have their own atomic arms if on a more limited scale.

Alt schul

[Y]

II - Report

December 22, 1957

- 15 -

## Soviet Capabilities

Ever since World War II, the United States has suffered from a tendency to underestimate the military technology of the U.S.S.R. When the Soviet Union produced its first long-range bomber we comforted ourselves with the belief that it was just a copy of our B-29. When it developed jet fighters we dismissed it as the imitation of a British design. When our atomic monopoly was ended we took it as a reflection on our security methods against espionage rather than as an indication that our technological lead was inherently ephemeral.

In the meantime the Soviet Union has demonstrated that its achievements in the immediate post-war period were far from accidental. Today Soviet science is at least equal to our own in many strategically significant categories. In the military field, the technological capability of the U.S.S.R. is increasing at a pace obviously faster than that of the United States. If not reversed this trend alone will place the free world in dire jeopardy.

The result of the Soviet concentration on military technology is an impressive military establishment which already poses a mortal threat to the free world and which is growing larger. Its main features can be summarized as follows:

The Soviet ground forces, far superior numerically to our own, have been reorganized and re-equipped for atomic war. New rockets and missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads add to their atomic capability; new

II - Report

December 22, 1957

- 16 -

tanks, artillery pieces, and light weapons give them a powerful conventional strength. Vehicles and communications equipment have been markedly improved. The Soviet Army not only is far superior numerically to available ground forces in Western or Southern Europe, but is progressively increasing its margin of superiority. In addition to these substantial forces-in-being, the U.S.S.R. possesses a vast and readily mobilizable reserve.

The Soviet Union now has the second largest navy in the world. While producing large numbers of light vessels, the Soviet Union has long concentrated on submarines. A fleet of over 400 is already in operation. This number is greatly in excess of the German force which severely menaced Allied surface shipping during the early years of World War II. There is no doubt about the capacity of the U.S.S.R. to develop naval atomic power plants, or to adapt ships and submarines to launch short and medium-range missiles; in fact Soviet leaders have pointedly discussed the vulnerability of the United States to such attacks.

Soviet air defense is based on a good radar detection and tracking system, supported by a large number of all-weather interceptor aircraft, an increasing proportion of which is supersonic. Ground-to-air missiles are a major element of the air defense of important areas, and this system is being progressively extended.

Over the last ten years the U.S.S.R. has not only maintained the largest air force in the world, but has progressively re-equipped it with new

II - Report

December 22, 1957

- 17 -

and modern aircraft. The Soviet Union now produces many aircraft at least as advanced as our own -- and produces them in large numbers. Moreover, the Soviets have impressively demonstrated their ability to manufacture modern electronic equipment and to master the techniques required to guide and direct defensive and offensive aerial operations.

The Soviet weapons program has given high priority to the development of rockets and missiles. A medium range ballistic missile within range of Japan, Taiwan, and most of Western Europe from Communist bloc bases is already operational and missiles of intercontinental range will soon follow.

In all of its programs the Kremlin has apparently given high priority to the development of a long-range air-atomic capability. From what is known of the present Soviet stockpile of nuclear weapons it is inferior to that of the United States, but it is already enormous and it is growing rapidly. Moreover, the U.S.S.R. possesses a long-range delivery system which, although second to ours, is considerable. Soviet nuclear attacks of great severity are possible now; within a few years the U.S.S.R. will be capable of delivering massive air and missile attacks against all major targets in the non-communist world. In short Soviet military strength is already enormous and is growing rapidly.