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of France because only by forcing it could its in an offensive strategy which would force Germany into a two-front war in pressure on the Central European powers be eased. But with the building of the Maginot line the condition of military cooperation between France and her allies disappeared. For when France adopted the strategic defensive, Germany was enabled to defeat her opponents in detail. In every crisis both France and her allies were torn between their political commitments and military needs; and France's allies were forced to choose between suicidal resistance or surrender.

In the event, whatever course they chose--whether surrender as Czechoslovakia or resistance as Poland--proved equally disastrous. The French system of alliances, so imposing on paper, could not survive any of the tests for which it was designed. It did not discourage aggression because it could not in fact assemble superior power and in time its calls for assistance went unheeded because a legal obligation by itself will not impel common action if the requirements of international survival seem to counsel a different course.

In short, it is not the fact of alliances which deters aggression, but the application it can be given in any concrete case.

Since then, end of World War II, the United States has created a vast and complicated system of alliances. We have multilateral pacts in the multilateral

Western Hemisphere expressed in the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance; we have joined the North Atlantic Treaty, another multilateral instrument for the defense of Western Europe. We were instrumental in negotiating the Southeast Asia Defense Treaty which unites us with Australia, France, New Zealand, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand and the United Kingdom in a much loser defense arrangement. Then there is the ANZUS pact signed by us together with New Zealand and Australia. Finally we have entered into bilateral defense treaties with Japan, Nationalist China, South Korea and the Philippines. Moreover, we are indirectly connected with the Baghdad pact which unites two of our allies in NATO, Britain and Turkey and one of our partners in SEATO, Pakistan together with Iraq.

The chief purpose of this intricate structure is to surround the Soviet periphery with a system of alliances so that an attack on any part of it will always confront an aggressor with an alignment of powers which would make him hesitate. A world wide system of collective security is extremely difficult to implement, however. For if we examine these alliances on which U.S. policy is based in terms of the three criteria outlined above we find that either they do not share a common purpose or they add little to our effective strength,

316

or both. To us the Soviet threat overshadows all else; but Pakistan is more concerned with India than with the U.S.S.R. and China; Iraq entered the Bagdad pact primarily for the military advantage it conferred over Egypt and Saudi Arabia. And in neither SEATO nor the Bagdad pact are we associated with partners with whom we share the degree of common purpose conferred by the cultural heritage which unites us with our European allies. In such circumstances a system of collective security leads in fact to a dilution of purposes and to an air of unreality in which the existence of an alliance and not the resolution behind it is considered a guarantee of security.

These problems are magnified, moreover, by the tendency of our strategic doctrine to transform every war into an all-out war. For while it is true that all our security arrangements are regional in nature, they are given a world-wide application by our increasing inability both doctrinally and technically to fight any war except total war. Thus the outbreak of any war anywhere becomes of immediate concern to all our allies and causes them in every crisis to exert pressure

for a policy of minimyth risk. Nor will these pressures be avoided by
declarations that the United States reserves the right of unilateral
action such as Secretary Dulles' statement to the NATO council in
December 1956. As long as our military doctrine threatens to trans-
form every war into an all-out war, it becomes of inevitable concern to
our allies, whether by right or by self-interest, and they will do their
best to prevent any action on our part that threatens to involve them.

Moreover our attitude with respect to collective action has been
highly ambiguous. During the United Nations debate on the Middle East
and on many other occasions previously, we have given the impression
that unless all allies (and sometimes even all Powers) resist any
aggression anywhere jointly no common action was possible

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at all: "Power which is shared among a group of sovereign nations" said Secretary Dulles "cannot be used effectively unless the participating countries are in accord. Such accord would be totally unattainable except for collective self-defense. Because collective security responds to the needs and highest aspirations of mankind, it has been invoked by many nations. The United States which in 1914 and again in 1939 sought safety in neutrality has now learned by hard experience that security lies in collective action...So, the United States is today a party to mutual security treaties which bind us collectively with the defense of no less than forty-four countries. We are proud to have these multiple ties of trust and confidence."

A world-wide system of collective security is extremely difficult to implement, however. The acid test of an alliance is its ability to achieve agreement on two related problems: whether a given challenge *in fact* represents aggression and *if so*, what form resistance should take, assuming the answer to the *first question* to be in the affirmative. But differences in geographic position, history, power and domestic structure almost ensure that a consensus is almost impossible to attain except against a threat so overpowering that

2. June 24, 1955.

1.

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it obliterates all differences both about its nature or about the strategy for dealing with it. Against any other danger united action is almost inevitably reduced to the lowest common denominator, for the essence of sovereignty is that Powers have, or at least may have, different conceptions of their interest and therefore also about what constitutes a threat. A North Vietnamese troop movement may be a mortal danger to Laos; but it can be of only marginal interest to Tunisia. A domestic upheaval in Syria may disquiet Turkey; it will seem much less dangerous to Portugal.

Against an aggressor skilled in presenting ambiguous challenges, whose ambiguity resides precisely in their being presented either as the expression of limited aims or the result of a "legitimate" grievance, there will occur endless wrangling over whether a specific challenge in fact constitutes aggression and about the measures to deal with it even should it be considered a threat. For at least some

318a

of the powers interested in peace and the status quo will not believe
in the reality of a global threat until the aggressor has "demonstrated"
he is intent on world domination and he will not have demonstrated
this
it until the balance of power is already overturned.

As long as the challenge is not overwhelming, it may, actually be
aided by a world-wide system of collective security. It is the essence
of an *intermediary* threat that it affects the interests of various
Powers differently -- therein indeed resides its ambiguity. No state can
negotiate about its survival -- this is the limiting condition of dip-
lomacy. By the same token no state can expect another to run the same
risks for its vital interests as itself. To be sure, all states have
a *symbolic* interest in every dispute: not to permit the elaboration of
a *set of rules* which when applied to them might work to their disad-
vantage. They are therefore interested in elaborating a concept of
aggression which they may invoke for their own protection. But the

318c

the only consensus attainable. Even where there is agreement on the
symbolic aspect of collective security, on the nature of aggression or
on what constitutes a just claim, it will still be exceedingly difficult
to achieve a common stand on the consequences that should flow from
this agreement. The difference in effectiveness between the United
Nations in Egypt and in Hungary illustrates this point. In both cases
the United Nations, which is the most inclusive organ of collective
security, expressed its disapproval. This symbolic act was effective
towards Britain and France primarily because it involved no assumption
of substantive risk. It worked because Britain and France recoiled
before the fact and not the consequences of united world opinion. By
contrast, United Nations resolutions proved ineffective in bringing
about the evacuation of Hungary or the unification of Korea. For in
these cases the majority which was willing to go on record to
agree or expect that it implies risks were assumed by the majority in the
Egyptian case. This gap between the symbolic

318d

and the substantive aspect of collective security may therefore actually
demoralize resistance. The statesman of a threatened country trying to
decide whether to resist aggression will not be reassured by the fact
that an attack on his state may be condemned. Unless he can be assured
of more tangible existence, he may make the best terms he can.

Thus a world wide system of collective security in its quest for
assembling maximum power, brings about a threshold below which common
action is impossible and unilateral action is inhibited by the very
doctrine of collective security. As with our military doctrine, the
greater the force assembled the less the willingness to use it and the
smaller its credibility. It leads to an inconsistency
between the first and second purposes which have historically animated
coalitions: between the attempt to leave no doubt about the alignment
of forces and providing an added incentive for common action. For in
every crisis the very magnitude and complexity of a world wide
system of alliances will supply a powerful incentive for inaction. It is

318e

not that the value of common action will be denied; it is simply that
many actions will not seem to warrant calling into action the machinery
of collective security or of drawing drastic consequences once it has
been set into motion.

319

To insist on a world wide system of collective security may therefore
have the paradoxical result of paralyzing the Power or Powers capable
of resisting alone. The theoretical gain in strength is more than
outweighed by the dilution of a common purpose. At the same time, in
every crisis short of an overriding attack a world wide system of
collective security gives a veto to the ally with least interest in the
issue at dispute and often with least power to make his views prevail.

From Korea to the Chinese off-shore islands through Indochina to Suez
some powerful members of our system of coalitions have found that the
alliance did not fit the particular contingency actually under dispute
or took positions which made unity attainable only by foregoing any risks.

And the result of each loss of position was a heightened determination
to "strengthen" the alliance, to seek to compensate for a loss of position
by escaping into a formal unity. Thus Korea led to the Anzus pact,

Indochina to SEATO, the Soviet incursion into the Middle East to the
Bagdad pact and the Suez crisis to an effort to tighten the bonds of NATO,

320

The fact that the alliance has seemed to inhibit the action of the powers with most at stake in a given dispute has caused it to become a whipping boy in all countries. If governments have acted outside the sphere of their primary interest, it has undermined their domestic support and if they did not it has strained the alliance. A vacuum has thereby been created in which governments see in the existence of a formal unity a substitute for common action or inaction blame the alliance for failure to do what they never had any intention of doing in the first place. Thus Secretary Dulles implied that only lack of British support prevented our intervention in Indochina and the British Cabinet has given the impression that American vacillation was responsible for the failure of its policy in the Middle East.

II

The prerequisite for an effective system of alliances then is to get clear what purpose we wish coalitions to serve. We have given three basic answers: The first is a variation of our doctrine of deterrence; it asserts that aggression is deterred by assembling overwhelming force.

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objective to protect the nation and to safeguard the future of its people...

The conviction grew that the best way to protect the security of our nation and of our people was to prevent war and that the way to go about it was through an *international* system of collective security. We have been building our strength together with our allies."

The second argument as to why we have a strategic interest in denying the peripheral areas of Eurasia and particularly Western Europe to the Soviet bloc because the accretion of strength represented by its industrial resources and trained manpower might tip the balance against us: "We estimate" said General Bradley "that the manpower of the countries of Western Europe is over 300 million. Their industrial capacity is very substantial and if that were added to that which Russia already has, it would make them even more formidable and increase their chances..." "If we should ever lose our allies completely and be confined to the Western Hemisphere, we would have an entirely different situation and different standards of living than we have at the present time."

The final reason advanced for our system of alliances has been in terms

2. J. Korean Hearings, p. 1715.

3. J. Ibid., p. 883.

4. J. Ibid., p. 745.

Can't you find any articulate military men?
My god, what a set of quotes!

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of the airbases they afford us. Our system of overseas bases is said to add to our deterrent because it complicates the Soviet defensive problem and because it represents a guarantee of swift and deadly retaliation: "In raising that feeling of freedom" said General Vandenberg "from that threat which they felt was hanging over their head went the freedom of allowing themselves the luxury of giving us air bases..."

The difficulty with these arguments is not that they are invalid but that they are partially inconsistent. At best they explain our interest in the system of alliances; they do not supply an incentive for allied assistance to us. In fact, our theory of deterrence tends to erode the psychological basis for collective action. For the only ally which represents a significant accretion to our strength in an all-out war is Great Britain because alone of our allies it possesses nuclear weapons and a small

5. *Ibid.*, p. 1481.

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strategic air force for delivering them. If deterrence is achieved by maximum retaliatory power most of our allies are <u>dispendable</u> in a militaryope and from the point of view of the equation for all-out war any attempt to strengthen them must represent a diversion of resources. This, indeed, is a belief held by many Air Force officers both in the United States and Great Britain.

To be sure, we require bases in some countries both for our retaliatory force and to obtain early warning. But the location of our Strategic Air Force bases at the periphery of Eurasia, in Spain, in Morocco and in Saudi Arabia makes clear that <u>in an</u> <u>point of view</u> of all-out air-war we do not require allied support in the areas immediately contiguous to the Soviet periphery.

Conviction

This is reflected in our military posture for nowhere around the Soviet periphery are there sufficient forces to resist a Soviet attack on the ground.

The security of these areas against Soviet aggression is therefore achieved, if at all, by the over-all strategic balance between us and the Soviet bloc. (Such a strategy, however, removes any incentive for allied support.)

Our allies realize that in an all-out war they will add to our effective only
or by serving as bases)
by supplying facilities; they see no significance in MX a military contribution
of their own. A reliance on all-out war as the chief deterrent will sap our
system of alliances in two ways then: either our Allies will feel that any

324

military effort on their part is unnecessary or they may be led to the conviction
that peace is preferable to war even on terms almost akin to surrender. "For
the Allied staffs, the twelve German divisions are less important than the
airfields and especially the radar stations in West Germany" wrote a leading
German newspaper. "This means nothing less than that our fate ... is dependent
on the calculations of the Allied staffs...If in a few years the General Staffs
should arrive at the conclusion that they no longer need the West German space
they may be ready to give it up."

Our attempt to take account of this feeling has led to a further
strategic distortion. It has caused us and Great Britain to build up forces
in Western Europe too small to resist an all-out attack and too large for
police actions, the feasibility of which in Western Europe, moreover, our strategic
doctrine explicitly rejects. Thus Great Britain has four of its
divisions in Germany and the United States five of its combat-ready fourteen.
It is difficult to relate so heavy an investment in resources to an all-out
strategy, although various rationalizations have been attempted. It is said
for example, that one reason for stationing nearly half of the strategic

7. *Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung*, June 23, 1955.

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It is clear that the Western Alliance has reserve of its strength to prevent a Soviet attack with the garrison troops in Eastern Germany which vary between 25 and 30 divisions. A Soviet offensive against our present strength in Western Europe would require substantial reinforcements and this in turn would enable us to undertake diplomatic steps to avert the conflict or to give the most unambiguous warning to the U.S.S.R. divisions seem a heavy price to pay for an opportunity to repeat a threat that we have made repeatedly and presumably ineffectually if the U.S.S.R. is reinforcing for an attack.

Another argument which seeks to reconcile the commitment of such large forces in Western Europe with an all-out strategy asserts that NATO forces are not designed to defeat a Soviet attack but to hold a line long enough for the strategic bombardment of the U.S.S.R. to take effect. "We will still need troops on the ground" said the British White Paper on Defense of 1955 "to hold the enemy well to the East in Europe in the vital initial stages of a war. This would give time for the effects of our strategic air offensive to make itself felt." But given the speed with which a thermo-nuclear exchange

7. See Chester Wilmot. "If NATO Had to Fight," *Foreign Affairs*, Vol. 32, p. 203.

8. Statement on Defense, 1955, p. 8. See also a statement by the First Lord of the Admiralty, Viscount:
"The nuclear weapon and the air forces which are the present means of delivering it...must be supplemented...by the ability of the forces of NATO to hold the line until the nuclear counteroffensive has broken the force of the enemy assault." Hansard (House of Lords), March 21, 1956. See also British Statement on Defense, 1956, p. 4.

326

would take place and the devastation if would cause it is difficult to
imagine concurrent land warfare of major proportions or to assign any strategic
significance to it should it take place. After a thermo-nuclear exchange
both sides are almost certain to be so exhausted that a major land-battle could
hardly be sustained. Conversely if the nuclear counter-offensive should succeed
in defeating the aggressor--in whatever meaning one may attack to defeat--
the ground forces which might be in the field would be strategically insignificant.

Another

A third argument maintains that the troops in position around the Soviet
periphery in Western Europe do not have any strategic significance by them-
selves. Their function is to serve as a token of our determination, as a trip
wire xx or a plate glass window the smashing of which would unleash all-out
thermo-nuclear retaliation.<sup>8</sup><sup>10)</sup> In many respects this is a most remarkable
argument though it has rarely been challenged. For it says nothing less than
that our repeated assertions that we would defend Western Europe by all-out

by themselves; that it requires more an additional proof of our
war will not be believed unless we demonstrate our determination by a screen
determination than the most solemnly repeated declarations.)
of token forces. This is in itself a symptom of the low credibility of a
threat of all-out war even for the defense of Europe. We hardly have to
station ground troops in Maine or in Nova Scotia to make clear our determination
to the world.<sup>10.</sup> Sir John Slessor. <u>Strategy for West</u>, p.<sup>8</sup>

8

326

Therefore to resist an attack on the Western Hemisphere: it should be possible to devise less elaborate means for showing our resolution to fight an all-out war than the stationing of one third of our strategic reserve in an area where

Totally they are both vulnerable and which they are not expected to be able to hold. The creation of a plate glass window to unleash our Strategic Air Command) Nor is this a particular incentive to our allies to make a military contribution

The very choice The term indicates That it may, of their own. It is the nature of plate glass windows to be shattered and eventual victory will be small consolation to allies which have meanwhile the major concern of our allies is not victory in the last battle but in the suffered catastrophe. First,

Moreover, it can be argued that the stationing of such large ground forces in Western Europe is inconsistent with the "trip wire" theory. If we rely on the deterrent effect of the threat of all-out war, the existence of substantial ground forces in Western Europe may produce a Soviet miscalculation which brings on an unnecessary total war. For the U.S.S.R. may interpret our build-up as a determination to fight local actions while we may treat a Soviet attack as the prelude to all-out war. A very thin screen of forces would represent a more effective token of our determination to defend Europe by all-out war for it would leave no doubt about our strategic options.

The above is not intended as an argument against attempting a local defense of Europe. It is simply to indicate the inconsistency of our strategic doctrine.

to resist an attack on the Western Hemisphere, we have never been able to decide how to protect threatened areas: whether to defend them on the ground or whether to treat an attack on them as the cause of war. The former strategy would involve resisting aggression wherever it occurred or at least in areas we wished to deny to the Soviets. The second strategy would treat aggression as a cause of war, but it would involve no commitment about the area where we proposed to fight--it is in effect the doctrine of massive retaliation "at places of our own choosing." Because massive retaliation offers no protection against Soviet occupation, it is not really consistent with a policy of alliances for it removes any incentive for allied assistance. Our allies are not interested in furnishing a trip wire or in being liberated. Our strategic on the other hand, doctrine, however, with its emphasis on posing the maximum threat has never felt comfortable with a doctrine of local defense, particularly in Europe.

The result has been a compromise which has sought to combine two incompatible courses of action: we have built up a force in Western Europe to reassure the Europeans and to serve as a warning against Soviet incursions. Our establishment in Europe is redundant in an all-out war, however, and insufficient for local defence. Because our European allies have seen no significance in a military contribution to an all-out strategy, they have made just enough of

a defense effort to induce us to keep our forces on the Continent but not enough of one to constitute an effective barrier to Soviet aggression. The result of all these half-measures and mutual pretenses has been the stationary stationing of substantial ground-forces in the one area which our strategic doctrine explicitly rejects the possibility of local war. While in the peripheral areas of Asia and the Middle East where the possibility of local war is admitted we possess neither local forces nor a capability to get them into position quickly.

The implications of the growing Soviet nuclear capability would seem to impose a measure of harmony, however, between the interest of the United States on over-all strategy and the concern of our allies with local defense. For the end of our invulnerability has altered our strategic options: until the development of the Soviet Long Range Air Force and thermo-nuclear stockpile we had a real choice between a strategy of massive retaliation and a strategy of local defense. The only inhibition to our action was then produced by the range of our heavy bombers. To the extent that these required overseas airbases, we had to provide the degree of security against foreign

11. See, for example, General Gruenther's final statement on leaving NATO.

9. *New York Times*, Nov 14, 1956.

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invasion which alone could induce allies to furnish facilities. ¹⁰ In all other areas we had the option of defense by local or all-out war. But in the face of the horrors of thermo-nuclear war, it is in our own interest to seek to defend Eurasia by means other than all-out war: to devise a strategy which will enable us to achieve our objectives at less fearful cost than a thermo-nuclear exchange. In fact, the destructiveness of modern weapons has made all-out war the most costly strategy to be invoked only if all else fails.

This applies even to the defense of Europe. We have insisted for so long that an attack on Europe would be the signal for an all-out war that we may well find ourselves engaged in the most wasteful kind of struggle because other alternatives have never been considered. It may be true that Europe is the chief strategic prize but it does not follow that we must inevitably adopt a strategy in its defense which is certain to drain our national substance at the beginning of any struggle over it. As the awareness of the destructiveness of modern weapons becomes more diffused it is not reasonable to assume that the United States and even more the United Kingdom would be prepared to commit suicide to deny an area, however important, to an enemy, all the more so if the Soviet Union shows its customary skill in presenting

¹⁰ 12. See Denis Healey. "The Atom Bomb and the Alliance," *Confluence*. April 1956.

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its challenge ambiguously: What if the Red Army attacks in Europe explicitly to disarm Western Germany and offers immunity to the United States and the United Kingdom from strategic bombing and a withdrawal to the Oder after achieving its limited objective? Is it clear that France would fight under such circumstances? Or that the United Kingdom would initiate an all-out war which, however it ended, would mean the end of British civilization? Or that an American President would trade 50 American cities for Western Europe? And even if he should be prepared to do so, it would still be the task of our strategy to develop less fearful options than national catastrophe or surrender.

It may be argued that the U.S.S.R. faces the same problem, that it too may be prepared to risk total devastation for a marginal gain. But the psychological bloc against initiating all-out war cannot be emphasized often enough. A stalemate occurs in chess only if neither King can move without placing itself into check or if neither side has enough pieces left to achieve a checkmate. The stalemate can be transformed into a checkmate if either side has an alternative move, even if it is of marginal importance by itself, so long as the next move of the opponent would result in his mate. In short,

fought as the next move of the opponent would result in his fate. In short, he has an alternative move, even if it is of marginal importance by itself, so a checkmate. The stalemate can be transformed into a checkmate if either side placing itself into check or it neither side has enough pieces left to advance enough. A stalemate occurs in chess only if neither King can move without beneficial piece against initiating all-out war cannot be emphasized often may be prepared to risk total defeatation for a marginal gain. But the not

If may be argued that the U.3.8.R. faces the same problem that it too or surrender.

On strategy to defeat less fearful options than national catastrophe must and even if he should be prepared to do so, it would still be the task of that an American President would trade 20 American cities for Western Europe? which, however it ended, would mean the end of British civilization. Or and circumstances? Or that the United Kingdom would initiate an all-out war achieving its limited objective? Is it clear that France would fight under United Kingdom from a strategic position and a withdrawal to the Open after to claim Western Germany and otters immunity to the United States and the its challenge explicitly: What if the Red Army attacks in Europe explicitly

330

if the Soviets can pass the risk of initiating all-out war to us there is great danger that soon no areas outside the Western Hemisphere will seem "worth" contending for. And even should the assessment prove mistaken, it would still not be in our interest to resort immediately to all-out war. It is not simply that there are inherent limitations to the credibility of the threat of suicide, it is above all that the most important wasteful and cataclysmic strategy should not be our only possible riposte. There is a contradiction in conducting a war fought presumably to maintain the historical experience and tradition of a people with a strategy which is almost certain to destroy its national substance.

Thus our alliances should not be considered as complementary to an all-out strategy, but as an alternative to it. In an all-out war few of our allies will add to our striking power and they will have no incentive to furnish Trip-wire the trigger to unleash it. But our capability for all-out war can be used as a shield to organize local defense and our assistance should be conceived as a means to make local defense possible. In this resides our only chance to avoid the impasse which has been the bane of our coalition policy: the gap between the belief of our allies that they were already protected by our thermo-nuclear capability to which they did not feel they had a contribution

332

to make and their terror of its consequences which made them reluctant to
invoke it. Only by developing a strategy which admits the possibility of
local defense can we escape the never-never land where our military contribution
to the ground defense of our allies is greater than their own and where current
investment in local defense cannot have any strategic return because our strategic
doctrine does not feel comfortable with limited war and our allies have not
yet considered an alternative strategy.

The sense of common purpose which has been lacking in our coalition
policy can be conferred then by the interest we now share with our allies in
avoiding all-out thermo-nuclear war. Thus our policy of coalitions should
not be justified as an addition to our strategic thinking striking power, but
as a means to enable us to pursue the least costly strategy. The incentive
for our allies would not be to furnish a plate glass window or a trip wire, but
their conviction that the best means of avoiding thermo-nuclear war resides
in our joint ability to make local aggression too costly. Our task is to make
it clear to them that they cannot avoid their dilemmas by neutrality or surrender,
for if we are pushed out of Eurasia they will bring on what they fear most.
Confined to the Western Hemisphere, we would have no choice but to fight an

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all-out war. To be sure, the Soviets have skillfully fomented NEUTRALISM by giving the impression that local resistance must inevitably lead to all-out war. But the Soviets can be no more interested than we in all-out war--at least if we behave effectively and maintain adequate retaliatory forces.

The fear of thermo-nuclear extinction would provide a powerful sanction against expanding a conflict.

Far from being inconsistent with a strategy of limited war our policy of alliances would represent a special application of it. But as in a strategy of limited war, it is less a question of physical resources than of understanding the strategic implications of the new technology. For neither the necessity of a strategy of limited war nor the conduct of it have been clarified either by us or by our partners. In NATO, for example, atomic cannons have been added to a force pomposed largely of conventional organizations with the traditional cumbersome supply system and with tactics essentially drawn from World War II. Indeed the very term atomic cannon testifies to the persistence of obsolescent concepts: to an attempt to add nuclear weapons to traditional strategy as simply a more efficient and more powerful explosive.

This has been compounded by the fact that among our Allies only the United Kingdom is a nuclear power and that as a result neither technology nor training