THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON

March 9, 1971

HAK:

The attached memo suggests that you use the
Annual Review as the springboard for discussion
at the Industry-Government Seminar of the
National Institute of Public Affairs, Wednesday
evening, 10 March.

If you elect to do so, we also suggest that you
take this occasion to distribute copies of the
Annual Review to the participants. If you
agree, we will have copies available for this
purpose.

RTK

Will distribute copies of Annual Review

Yes ____

No ____

MEMORANDUM

NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL

INFORMATION

March 9, 1971

MEMORANDUM FOR: DR. KISSINGER

FROM: RICHARD T. KENNEDY

SUBJECT: Your Participation in the Industry - Government Seminar of the National Institute of Public Affairs, on "National Security in the Coming Decade" -- Wednesday, March 10

You have agreed to participate in the Industry-Government Seminar of the National Institute of Public Affairs on Wednesday, March 10. The subject of the meeting will be "The Elements of National Security in the Coming Decade."

The scenario will be remarks by you for 10-15 minutes followed by discussion for about an hour. The participants are 35-40 senior executives of business and government. A list of participants at the February meeting of the group (at which Mort Halperin was guest speaker) is at Tab A.

Frederic Cleaveland, the President of the Institute, has sent you a package of material which has been provided to all of the participants as background for the meeting. The basic piece is a paper entitled, "The Elements of National Security in the Coming Decade," prepared by James Robinson, the Director of the Seminar. Robinson's piece and our summary are at Tab B. He also included a list of questions to serve as a guide to the readings (attached at end of Robinson's piece).

The subject of the discussion and the nature of the questions posed by Robinson suggest that the President's Foreign Policy Report is the ideal springboard for you to launch the discussion with your prefatory remarks (Robinson's paper liberally and sympathetically quotes from last year's report). Accordingly, we have enclosed briefing material prepared for you in connection with your TV discussion of the

Industry-Government Seminar

Participants in the March 3, 1971 Meeting

Norman Beckman
Vice President
American Airlines

Larry A. Jobe
Assistant Secretary for
Administration
Department of Commerce

James S. Bingay
Executive Vice President
Mutual of New York

Warren Johnston
Assistant Chief
Congressional Research Service
(Guest of Dr. Beckman)

Theodore Britton
Deputy Assistant Secretary
for Research and Technology
Department of Housing and
Urban Development
(Representing Mr. Finger)

Robert F. Keller
Assistant Comptroller General
of the United States
General Accounting Office

Lucille DiPalma
Management Analysis
Department of Housing and
Urban Development

James F. Kelly
Vice President for
Administration
Georgetown University

Warren G. Elliott
General Counsel
Aetna Life & Casualty

George Lawton
Research Fellow
The Brookings Institution

Robert F. Froehlke
Assistant Secretary of Defense
(Administration)
Department of Defense

William A. Leece
Vice President, Government
Affairs
Prudential Insurance Company
of America

Morton Halperin
Senior Fellow
The Brookings Institution

David E. Lockwood
Institute for Defense Analyses

J. R. Heller, III
Partner
Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering

Bernard Loeffke
White House Fellow
National Security Council

William J. Montweiler
Consultant, Members of Congress
for Peace Through Law

James B. Robinson
Director, Industry-Government
Seminars
National Institute of Public Affairs

Stephen Ross
Senior Rapporteur
U. S. Atomic Energy Commission

Spencer J. Schedler
Assistant Secretary of the
Air Force (Financial Management)
Department of the Air Force

SUMMARY OF

"The Elements of National Security in the Coming Decade"

(by James B. Robinson, Director
Industry - Government Seminars)

The Robinson article (14 pages) poses the basic questions about national security -- what is it? who makes the decisions? how much should it cost? -- and provides brief discussion of the issues. References cited in the text include Henry Kissinger (4 footnotes), the 1970 Foreign Policy Report (4 footnotes), Paul Warnke, Dean Acheson, George Kennan, Hans Morgenthau, Carl Kaysen, Earl Ravenal, and James Reston.

Robinson grapples first with the definitional problem. If security is survival, survival of what? What about "internal threats"? Where do we draw the line in defending our overseas interests? The President is cited, together with leaders of the Kennedy-Johnson Administrations, to demonstrate the continuity of the theme that *while peace is our goal, military strength is crucial to its achievement*. This section closes with the point: "Unfortunately, so much has happened and so much has changed in these last few years that nothing less than a complete and open debate on both the bases and the implications of our national security policy may be required today to return harmony to this country."

Robinson then underlines the importance of *communicating* our national security goals and motivations through well-coordinated and fully integrated policy *and* by efforts to communicate with *peoples* as well as *governments*.

A central theme of the article is the American urge for universal formulae and abstract or rhetorical concepts to clothe our policy. Criticizing Wilsonian idealism in our foreign policy, he cites Kissinger, Morgenthau, and Kennan in support of the propositions that the national interest must be our guide and that "order, stability and security" must be the precondition of our striving for "transcendental values." Yet too often we have sought formulae attractive and applicable worldwide, with the result that we please no one and end up reacting inconsistently in an ad hoc fashion to problems. Again quoting Kissinger, he urges that we need a clearer conception of the world and of our role and priorities in it.

Robinson then turns to the question of who decides our policy, noting the President's "reassertion of Executive Branch authority" in foreign affairs and the "vastly expanded" NSC structure designed to support him. He observes that this process is occurring while Congress (especially the Senate) has pressed vigorously its role in defining "national commitments," and while elements of the public -- the young, the hard hats, etc. -- have taken to the streets. He closes this discussion by stressing the need for

balance between leadership and responsiveness to public opinion; if the
latter is lacking, "the greatest threat to national security might well come
from within ... "

On the question of how much we should spend on defense, Robinson notes,
without qualification, that defense spending rose from $10.3 billion to
$78.7 billion between 1947 and 1969, and he points to the growing debate
on national priorities. Without specifically acknowledging the Administra-
tion's shift from strategic superiority to strategic sufficiency, he argues
for the latter (citing Carl Kaysen in Agenda for the Nation). He calls for
reexamination of our general purpose forces, recognizes the shift to a
1-1/2 war strategy, but urges that our posture necessarily hinges on what
we decide to do with our troops in Europe. Finally he quotes Earl Ravenal
to the effect that strategies must not be determined by "limited budgets."

As a closing note, Robinson points to the dangers to national security of
such global problems as population growth.

THE ELEMENTS OF NATIONAL SECURITY IN THE COMING DECADE

Dictionaries define security as freedom from danger. Most dictionaires,
however, do not define national security. Yet, national security is probably
both the primary goal and responsibility of governments. As former
Secretary of State Dean Acheson remarked:

Like our own Constitution, the corpus diplomaticum in its
order of priorities rated ahead of promotion of the general welfare
the insurance of domestic tranquillity and provision for the common
defense. It placed the strategic approach to practicable objectives,
concretely and realistically conceived, ahead of generalization,
even those wearing the garb of idealism. 1/

Despite this, most people today seem to be hard pressed to define what
actually constitutes national security. Abstracting from considerations of
efficiency and effectivenss, though, how can we achieve -- or even judge
our attempts at achieving -- this all important goal if we do not really
understand what we are seeking?

Some define national security as survival. But survival of what --
people, the nation, the government, democracy? Are we interested merely
in physical survival or also in the maintenance of our spiritual values?
Some define it as protection against the threat of external violence. But
an equal threat may well come from within. For example, today we seem
to be increasingly confronted with the very real possibility that the internal
stability of this country is subject to a clear and present danger. Others
define it as defense of national interests on a global basis. They claim
that any country maintaining an attitude of hostility to us should be con-
sidered a negative in tallying up our national security policy. But how do
we determine how far beyond this we should go? Do we move to preempt
a possible external aggression? Are we primarily concerned about our
territorial integrity; freedom of commerce and travel; protection of
American citizens, investment and property; potential enemy alliances;
unfriendly governments; strategic areas; access to raw materials and
strategic commodities, etc.? Where do we draw the line? Whose support

1/ *Present at the Creation*, New York, W. W. Norton & Co., Inc., 1969, p. 727.

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or friendship is really necessary and whose is a luxury? What areas are
vital? Where, if anywhere, can we afford a power vacuum?

To most, the ultimate goal of our policy should be an enduring peace.
But this is still pretty vague. As President Nixon has remarked: "Peace
must be far more than the absence of war. Peace must provide a durable
structure of international relationships which inhibits or removes the causes
of war." ²/ Moreover, there seems to be a consensus: "The freedom and
security of the American people -- the primary goal of our foreign policy --
are principally dependent on our military strength." ³/ Secretary McNamara
and Rusk and U. N. Ambassador Stevenson stated almost a decade ago:

> But no nation today can ensure its security in isolation
> from the rest of the world. . . (We seek) to protect and promote
> American interest and the interest of all free men. . . .

> To accomplish this, our program embraces five main
> lines of action: (1) to deter or defeat aggression on any level,
> whether of nuclear attack or limited war or subversion and
> guerrilla tactics; (2) progress through partnership; (3) to
> help the less developed areas modernize without sacrificing
> their independence or their pursuit of democracy; (4) to help
> create a genuine world community, based on cooperation and
> law; (5) to end the arms race, narrow the areas of conflict and
> continue to search for peace. (Last portion paraphrased.) ⁴/

> Much of this has been continued by President Nixon. He has designed
> his foreign policy around three basic principles: partnership, strength, and
> the willingness to negotiate. But it is quite a jump from these principles

2/ "United States Foreign Policy for the 1970's: A New Strategy for Peace," Message to Congress, February 18, 1970. See Attachment 1.

3/ Department of State Bulletin, October 15, 1962.

4/ Ibid.

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to their guarantee. To achieve them we have spared little in effort and expense. But we have not very often really understood what we were so freely spending our might and manpower to achieve. The Joint Chiefs of Staff define "National Strategy" as "the art and science of developing and using the political, economic and psychological powers of a nation together with its armed forces, during peace and war, to secure national survival and goals." Unfortunately, so much has happened and so much has changed in these last few years that nothing less than a complete and open debate on both the bases and implications of our national security policy may be required today to return harmony to this country.

But there is another equally important aspect here. Beginning with the Monroe Doctrine, this country has tried to indicate to the world its national interest. Ambassador Reischauer has remarked that the most important guideline in making American foreign policy should be that it "must be simple, straightforward and clear." Our intentions must be fully understood; our actions totally open. Secondly, the process of policy formulation must be fully integrated and coordinated. The relation -- either open or implied -- between overseas commitments, military presence, foreign aid, foreign trade and diplomatic manuvering must be carefully analyzed lest we confuse with our intentions. Finally, we should free ourselves from antiquated customs of traditional diplomacy and operate according to Twentieth Century realities. Governments are not countries; we must learn to think of the leaders as separate from the people. For example, although it may be easy to convince those in charge, changing national attitudes is usually immensely more complicated. More often than not, it is at this level we most often fail to communicate. Seldom is there very much popular understanding of America's goals, actions and motivations. 5/

While the clear enunciation of those principles that lie behind our national strategy is both desirable and necessary, we seem to have found it difficult in practice to limit ourselves to either realistic or comprehensible goals. George F. Kennan is only one of many who "have been struck by the congenital aversion of Americans to taking specific decisions on specific problems, and by their persistent urge to seek universal formulae or

5/ Cf. *Beyond Viet Nam: U. S. and Asia*, New York, Vintage Books, 1967, pp. 221-223.

- 4 -

doctrines in which to clothe and justify particular actions. "⁶/ When we claim we fight to make the world "safe for democracy" or for the "freedom and dignity of mankind," we build false expectations not only abroad but also at home. The reaction of the young to Vietnam, the Dominican Republic and Cambodia only echoes the concern and anguish of many intellects and legislators. They come to believe the rhetoric and, therefore, resent the reality. Many find such problems of little importance. The reality is so stark that it is axiomatic to them that the end justifies the means. Reacting to the interminable testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in regard to the NATO pact, Ambassador Kennan, for example, finds it "typical of that mixture of arid legalism and semantic pretentiousness that so often passes, in the halls of our domestic-political life, for statesmanship. . . . What we need, in order to make an effective foreign policy, is action -- not promises to act; decisions -- not legal undertakings or attempts to generalize future conduct."⁷/ Valid a point as this is, we must remember that policy is never made in a vacuum.

National security policy is basically both pragmatic and opportunistic. The more it is based on abstract, philosophical values, the less realistic it becomes. This is hard for Americans to accept. "A sense of mission, " Henry Kissinger writes, " is clearly a legacy of American history; to most Americans, America has always stood for something other than its own grandeur. But a clearer understanding of America's interests and of the requirements of equilibrium can give perspective to our idealism and lead to humane and moderate objectives, especially in relation to political and social change." (Emphasis added.)⁸/ It may be difficult for many to accept that our military posture and foreign policy should be based on expediency rather than on traditional American values and that it should be shaped by what many regard as obscure, Machiavellian technocrats rather than by public opinion, but it really could not be otherwise.

6/ *Memoirs: 1925-1950*, Bantam Books, Boston, 1967, p. 339.

7/ Ibid., p. 342.

8/ Agenda for the Nation, Washington, D. C., The Brookings Institution, 1968, p. 612. (Note: This piece is reproduced as Attachment 2).

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The shapers of America's earliest foreign policy, Alexander Hamilton and George Washington, made clear the primacy of the national interest over moral obligations and it remained more or less true up until the time of President Wilson. On October 27, 1913, he declared: "It is a very perilous thing to determine the foreign policy of the nation in the terms of material interest. It not only is unfair to those with whom you are dealing, but it is degrading as regards your own actions. . . We dare not turn from the principle that morality and not expediency is the thing that must guide us, and that we will never condone iniquity because it is most convenient to do so." Inspiring as these words were, Wilson's legacy was not a satisfying one. The compromises, confusion, and mistakes attributable to this policy seem to outweigh any possible advantages. It is unfortunate that, since then, we do not seem to have been able to shake the moralistic tone that became attached to national security considerations. Professor Hans J. Morgenthau has observed: "It has been frequently argued against the realist's conception of foreign policy that its key concept, the national interest, does not provide an acceptable standard for political action."9/ In fact, though, nothing less than the national interest, that is, survival and security, can and should determine our actions. Instead of regarding this negatively, we should regard it positively. It is perhaps this aspect more than any other that the President has sought to communicate to the American people.

In a world of on-rushing change, we can no longer rest contented with familiar ideas or assume that the future will be a projection of the present. If we are to meet both the peril and the opportunity of change, we require a clear and positive vision of the world we seek -- and of America's contribution to bringing it about. . .

The concept of peace is as old as civilization. . .

The pursuit of peace means building a structure of stability in which the rights of each nation are respected: the rights of national independence, self-determination, the right to be secure within its own borders, and to be free from intimidation.

9/ Cf. "The Primacy of the National Interest," The American Scholar, Volume XVIII, Number 2, Spring 1949.

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There is a relationship between peace and freedom. Because man yearns for peace, when the people are free to choose, their choice is more likely to be peace among nations; and because man yearns for freedom, when peace is secure, the thrust of social evolution is toward greater freedom within nations. 10/

Before one can strive for the transcendental values, there must be a certain degree of order, stability, security. One must not only be safe, but more importantly, feel safe. Then he may act in an idealistic manner. But there is no requirement that he will. Countries are like people. "Countries do not assume burdens because it is fair, only because it is necessary. . . . A nation assumes responsibilities not only because it has resources, but because it has a certain view of its own destiny." 11/ America assumed a dominant role in world affairs because she was forced to. Nature abhors a vacuum. America's actions in the last 30 years have, if anything, proved this.

Because of her piecemeal approach, though, her policy has tended to be one ad hoc arrangement after another. Unconditional surrender, cold war, containment, Truman Doctrine, Marshall Plan, collective security, massive retaliation, bi-polarity, missile gap, flexible response, polycentric versus monolithic, nuclear superiority, parity and sufficiency, alliance obligation, sphere of influence, nuclear non-proliferation, arms limitation, multilateral versus bilateral, Guam doctrine, ABM, MIRV -- to mention but a few -- reflect the various thrusts embarked on in the last 25 years. All too often, though, we have reacted rather than initiated. Because we have not fully understood what we sought to achieve, we have often approached the problem from the wrong direction. Because we have often sought a common denominator that would satisfy all shades of public opinion both at home and abroad, we have often succeeded in pleasing no one. Because we have often misconstrued the dimensions of our global responsibility, we have overacted in some areas and underacted in others.

10/ The President's Message, op. cit.

11/ Henry Kissinger, op. cit., p. 597.

THE NIXON DOCTRINE

209

the imminent entry of China into a war where we or one of our allies might have provided the provocation. It is conceivable that two such lesser contingencies could arise, in Europe and Asia, and that one of them could develop to the point of a conflict. In that event we would be reluctant to consider our conventional forces for either theater available for the other. Motivated by illusions of decisive action and immunity from retaliation, we might be tempted to dispose of the Asian conflict by technological escalation.

Therefore, if we remain committed to the defense of interests in both theaters, but maintain conventional forces for only one large contingency, our strategy is biased toward the earlier use of nuclear weapons. Of course, there is no necessary continuum of escalation from conventional war to tactical nuclear war. But the 1½-war strategy provides the President with fewer alternatives and renders the resort to nuclear weapons a more compelling choice, as well as making nuclear threat a more obvious residual feature of our diplomacy.

And so the "balance" promised in the new security policy is achieved—but not by adjusting our commitments, restricting our objectives or modifying our conception of the interests of the United States. Rather, budgetary stringencies inspire a reduction in force levels; a "1½-war strategy" is tailored to fit the intractable realities; and a series of rationalizations is constructed to validate the new strategy—rationalizations that simply stipulate a reduced threat, count heavily on subsidized and coerced allied efforts at self-defense, and suggest an early nuclear reaction if our calculations prove insufficiently conservative.

Thus the Nixon Doctrine reveals an apparent contradiction between objectives and strategy. Are we seeing the beginning of a return to the defense posture of the 1950s, with unabated commitments to a collection of front-line client-states, but with limited options and a renewed flirtation with the fantasy of tactical nuclear warfare?

## IV

The new security policy not only shifts substantively down to a 1½-war strategy but also changes the model for determining defense requirements. Instead of the classic progression from the definition of foreign policy interests to the formulation of objec-

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tives, to the prescription of strategies, to the calculation of forces and their costs, we now see a constrained calculus that proceeds in reverse from limited budgets to trimmed forces to arbitrary strategies. The implications are not transmitted through the system to include a revision of objectives and interests. At best the system is balanced back from resources through strategies; the imbalance is shifted to a point between strategies and objectives.

But even the strategies and the forces may be out of balance. For the budget-constrained strategy revision is complemented by a fundamental change in the defense planning process. The previous system was requirements-oriented: there was, in theory, no prior budgetary restriction. Rather, planning began with the stated worldwide defense objective and resulted in forces and a budget which were recommended to the President and the Congress as systematically entailed by our defense objectives. Of course, the ideal system foundered on the institutional realities of weapons-systems and force creation. Indeed, the philosophy of unconstrained implementation of security objectives—"buy what you need"—encouraged inflated requirements within the framework of 2½ wars. And the attempts of the Secretary to limit forces only led the military to attempts to goldplate those prescribed forces, while keeping a ledger on the "shortfall" between the imposed strategy and the imposed force structure. But at least the direction and scope of the planning process compelled attention to the relevance and adequacy of the forces, and allowed the possibility of reasoning back from the rejection of excessive requirements to the questioning of overambitious strategies, extensive commitments and artificial interests.

By contrast, the new defense planning process begins simultaneously with "strategic guidance" and "fiscal guidance," established by the President and the National Security Council. The new procedure has attained certain efficiencies in managing the Pentagon budget cycle. But from the policy standpoint it is another matter: within the fiscal ceilings we will get the forces and weapons systems that the organization tends to produce— not the ones we might need. Of the two kinds of guidance, the fiscal is quantitative and unarguable; the strategic is verbal and elastic. If there is a coincidence of those forces and systems tailored to the fiscal guidance and those derived from the strategic guidance, it will be either accidental or contrived.

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THE NIXON DOCTRINE 211

More likely, the Services will interpret the new guidance as a set of parameters within which they can promote self-serving programs. Under conditions of budgetary stringency they will skimp on manpower, supplies, war reserve stocks, maintenance and transport, while preserving headquarters, cadres of units, research and development of large new systems, and sophisticated technological overhead. In effect they will tend, as in the 1950s, to sacrifice those items that maintain balance, readiness and sustainability of effort, and to insist on those items that insure morale, careers and the competitive position of each Service.

Thus the Administration's defense planning procedure allows a second contradiction: between strategy and forces. This country may well end the 1970s with the worst of both worlds: on the one hand, a full panoply of commitments and a strategy that continues to serve an ambitious policy of containment; on the other, a worldwide sprinkling of token deployments and a force structure that is still expensive, but unbalanced, unready and irrelevant to our security.

V

The disabilities of the Nixon Doctrine follow from its insistence on the containment of China in face of budgetary pressures that arise not out of absolute scarcity of resources, but out of the nation's unwillingness to make large sacrifices for objectives that cannot be credibly invoked by its leadership. If the Administration is to be consistent in revising our defense posture and limiting defense budgets, it must consider a commensurate curtailment of our foreign policy objectives in Asia. Adjusting the intermediate-term strategies will not effect the reconciliation and will permit an honest implementation of the force and budget cuts.

But the Nixon Doctrine does not resolve the Asian defense problem in this fundamental way: rather, it appears as another formula for permanent confrontation with China. What are the issues that elude the perennial expressions of interest, by several administrations, in accommodating China? During the Johnson Administration the policy of containment ceded to a variant characterized as "containment without isolation." The shift, however, was accompanied by no tangible initiatives and induced no reciprocity from China. President Nixon entered office with a mandate—which he had created largely himself through his campaign emphasis—to bring about a reconciliation

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with China. His Administration has relaxed certain restrictions on trade and travel and revived the Warsaw ambassadorial talks. But such moves, though impressive as indications of enlightenment, do not touch on the essential concerns of China. However we ultimately conceive our interests, we might as well be realistic about the eventual price of a real accommodation with China.

This price would include three kinds of consideration: (1) diplomatic recognition and admission without qualification to the United Nations and the permanent Security Council seat; (2) affirmation of a one-China policy, even allowing the eventual accession of Taiwan to the mainland; (3) removal of the U.S. military presence on the mainland of Asia, without substituting a naval cordon, a ring of nearby island bases, a host of Asian mercenary armies, or a nuclear tripwire. The components of such a withdrawal would be: liquidation of the Vietnam war and removal of all U.S. forces there; retraction of all U.S. troops from other mainland Asian countries and Taiwan and closure of all bases; termination of military assistance to mainland states and cessation of efforts to create proxy forces to continue our mission; and dissolution of our security alliances with the "forward-defense" countries of Thailand, Taiwan and Korea.

Such a program would amount to a major diplomatic revolution. It might take a quarter of a century to implement, even with the most sophisticated public and political support within the United States. It would alienate client régimes, unsettle for long intervals our relations with the Soviets, and tax the understanding of major allies such as Japan and Australia. It would signify the renunciation of our efforts to control events in Asia; henceforth we would control only our responses to events.

But it is fair to ask whether we will not arrive at this disposition of affairs in Asia at some point, whether we will it or not. Should this occur after a quarter of a century of tension and devastation, or political manœuvre and diplomatic search? It is also fair to speculate that a more neutral, or even positive, relationship with China might give us a new scope of advantages. We might benefit eventually from a commercial relationship with China, rather than conceding the economic penetration of the mainland by Japan and Western Europe while we remain frozen in our historic impasse. We might also, simply through the dissolution of predictable enmity with China, make it more difficult for the Soviets to challenge us in other areas of the world.

THE NIXON DOCTRINE 213

And we might find it useful to have a counterpoise to Japan, which is still our principal Pacific competitor, economic and potentially military, and a possible future partner of the U.S.S.R. in such common interests as counterbalancing China and developing eastern Siberia.

The tangible expression of containment is our security alliances and the other strong, though less formal, military commitments around the periphery of China. These commitments, it can be argued, create the threat to us by transforming otherwise neutral events into situations of relevance to our interests; perpetuate the confrontation with China that gives substance to the threat, by frustrating the essential motives of China; lock us into a posture of forward defense on the mainland of Asia; and dictate the requirement for large general purpose forces or equivalent means of deterrence and defense.

Our alliances in Asia do not form a coherent and comprehensive system such as NATO. Rather they are a collection of bilateral agreements, plus the multilateral SEATO pact, contracted separately from 1951 through 1962. Even the purposes served by these alliances, as seen at the time of their negotiation, were diverse. Containment of China might have been a concurrent motive, but it did not uniformly inspire the creation of the pacts. Quite apart from containing our enemies, several of the treaties exhibit motives of containing our allies as well.

The ANZUS and Philippine treaties of 1951, though signed against the backdrop of the Korean War, related more to the fear of Japan which these allies derived from World War II. The 1953 agreement with the Republic of Korea was, among other things, a price for Syngman Rhee's restraint from attempting to reunify the peninsula by force. Similarly the treaty with the Republic of China in 1955 was in part a quid pro quo for Chiang's acceptance of "re-leashing" during the Straits crisis of that year. The SEATO alliance of 1954, which extended protection to South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, arose less from the vision of true collective defense than the desire of the United States to have a legal basis for discretionary intervention under the nominal coloration of "united action." The bilateral U.S.-Thai adjunct to SEATO, negotiated by Rusk and Thanat in 1962, reassured the Thais, during the events that led to the Laos neutralization accords, that the U.S. would respond to a threat to Thai security, regardless of the reaction of other SEATO

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signatories; this agreement, too, was a price to secure the acquiescence of an ally in an arrangement that suited the interest of the United States. The 1960 Security Treaty with Japan, revising the original treaty of 1951, reaffirmed U.S. administration of Okinawa and perpetuated our use of bases in the Japanese home islands, subject to prior consultation for nuclear or direct combat deployments. (The Nixon-Sato communiqué of October 1969 pledged reversion of Okinawa to Japan by 1972, a status that implies removal of nuclear weapons and submission to the "homeland formula" for consultation on the use of bases.)

Though deterrence has always been the primary function of our alliances, their military content has changed profoundly from the time they were contracted. The Dulles policy, in the pacts of 1953-55, did not emphasize the actual defense of allied territory or contemplate the dispatch of U.S. ground forces to any point where the communist powers chose to apply military force. Rather, it aimed at nuclear deterrence of overt aggression. In this concept the alliances served to establish a territorial definition. The implied countermeasure was the discretionary application of American nuclear force against communist airfields, supply centers, ports and perhaps industries and cities. The concept was not clearly resolved: it was semi-strategic and semi-tactical, partially punitive and partially for direct military effect. Also, cases short of obvious aggression, such as subversion and support for internal revolutionary struggles, were acknowledged to be imprecise and difficult. In Indochina in 1954 the Eisenhower Administration could not identify an appropriate enemy or target to fit the massive nuclear response and narrowly declined to intervene. Of course, it also sensed the lack of formal alliance protection over Southeast Asia as an impediment to intervention and moved to create SEATO within two months of the partition of Vietnam.

The refinement of tactical battlefield nuclear weapons in the middle and later 1950s made conceivable the notion of actual nuclear defense confined to the theater of conflict. The Kennedy-McNamara policy of flexible response, including counterinsurgency techniques and large balanced conventional forces, provided the practical means of containing a wider spectrum of Chinese or Chinese-supported initiatives. Thus the policy of close-in containment of China—involving the actual forward defense of allied territory—acquired its content.

THE NIXON DOCTRINE

215

There is a set of propositions that qualifies military deterrence: the more explicit and obvious our commitment, the more effective in preventing war, but the less effective in preventing our involvement in war; conversely, the more attenuated our commitment, the less certain our involvement, but the more probable a hostile initiative.

An administration with a more relaxed view of Asia might take the risk of the second proposition and look more neutrally on a communist probe. But this Administration appears likely to maintain its deterrent stance and take its chances on involvement in conflict. This would mean that it will not overtly diminish any commitment; indeed it is likely to reaffirm and reinforce any commitment that is beset by doubt. But to maintain the deterrent effect of our commitments in the face of reductions in budgets, forces and deployments, the Administration must replace deleted capabilities with some equivalent, such as increased rapid deployment ability or nuclear threat. This Administration could not count entirely on the mobility of our forces, which can be evidenced only by massive exercises and adequate lift resources, which are far from certain to be appropriated. Residually, it is forced to rely on nuclear deterrence, which need only be hinted. The point is that our mode of deterrence and our provisions for defense will now progressively diverge from the preferences of our treaty partners. Our proposed substitution of technology and threat for our manpower and presence might be equivalent from our point of view, but not from that of our allies.

None of our Asian defense arrangements is specific about the tangible support that might be evoked by an act of aggression. No joint defense force with agreed war plans and command structures exists. Our military concept could become, rather than the forward defense of all territory, a mobile defense, an enclave strategy, or even a nuclear tripwire. In another dimension, our commitment might be satisfied by various types of support, such as logistical, tactical air or nuclear fire. U.S. contingency plans are essentially unilateral and subject to uncommunicated change. And implementation of all treaties refers to our constitutional procedures, which are themselves in a phase of more stringent interpretation.

Because of this scope for manoeuvre or evasion, our Asian allies will be correspondingly more sensitive to interpretive com-

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FOREIGN AFFAIRS

mentary by U.S. officials and to shifts in our military posture. Already they sense that the substantive content of our alliances is affected by the President's choice of worldwide strategy. The selected strategy is described as defending both Europe and Asia —though alternatively. But it is clear that Europe holds priority and claims virtually as many resources as previously; the major war case associated with the reduction in active forces is Asia. Although no alliances are formally disturbed, our Asian allies, as they count our divisions and analyze our posture statements and policy declarations, have cause for concern that behind the façade of ritualistic reiteration we might have altered our capability and specific intent to fulfill our treaty commitments.

Thus we can devalue the diplomatic and deterrent effect of our alliances without even gaining immunity from involvement, simply by shifting strategies, debating criteria for intervention and making arbitrary adjustments in force levels. In view of the liabilities of this course—which is the course of the present Administration—we might as well face the problem more directly and begin to consider the broader alternatives to containment, with their full implications for our alliances in Asia.

VII

As long as we assert interests in Asia that (1) entail defending territory, (2) could plausibly be threatened by hostile actions and (3) are evidenced by alliances that dispose us to a military response, we are exposed to the contingency of involvement. If we maintain this exposure through insistence on our present Asian commitments, while adopting budget-constrained strategies, we risk a future defeat or stalemate, or we allow ourselves to be moved toward reliance on nuclear weapons.

To avoid these alternatives, two courses are available. One is heavy dependence on allied forces to fulfill defense requirements. This is the hope of Asianization, offered prominently by the Nixon Doctrine. But this policy binds us closely to the fate of our Asian clients and diminishes our control over our involvement; and there is still the liability that U.S. forces might be required to rescue the efforts of our allies.

The other course is a process of military readjustment and political accommodation that would make it far less likely that we would become involved every time there is some slippage in the extensive diplomatic "fault" that runs along the rim of Asia.

THE NIXON DOCTRINE

217

This course is arduous and complex, and as little under our uni-
lateral and absolute control as a course of military deterrence.
But the consequences of not budging from our present set of
ambitions and illusions—or of trifling with the unalterable pur-
poses of China by limiting ourselves to insubstantial diplomatic
initiatives—are far bleaker.

The situation calls not for a symbolic shift in strategy—such
as the 1½-war doctrine—which is founded on the hope that the
contingencies that would test it, to which we are still liable, might
not occur. The situation is not amenable to purely instrumental
solutions, such as the calculated equippage of allied armies or the
reliance on technological escalation. The situation requires a
fundamental questioning and revision of the containment of
China.

The confusion that surrounds the Nixon Doctrine is appro-
priate to its conflicting message and incomplete intent. While
pledging to honor all of our existing commitments, the President
has placed them all in considerable doubt. While offering prom-
ise of avoiding involvement in future Asian conflicts, he has
biased the nature of our participation. Thus, in the attempt to
perpetuate our control of the destiny of Asia, the Nixon Doc-
trine may forfeit control of our own destiny in Asia.

While "Public Opinion" is a wraith which defies precise description, there is no doubt that it is there and that it must be reckoned with in our strategic process. Public support is not only vital to the support of a strategy, but plays a very large role in the choice of strategy. It is, in fact, critical if all the gears of our cumbersome system are to mesh.

Professor Almond addresses this subject directly and he points out some of the unique aspects of national security policy as opposed to public policy (internal domestic programs) in general. He recommends some specific future actions.

## PUBLIC OPINION AND NATIONAL SECURITY POLICY *

### Gabriel A. Almond

National security policy is that part of a nation's foreign policy which is concerned with the allocation of resources for the production, deployment, and employment of what we might call the coercive facilities which a nation uses in pursuing its interests. These coercive facilities are one among a number of foreign policy instrumentalities. Diplomatic negotiation is another, economic means are another, and mass communication is a fourth. These four means — military, diplomatic, economic, and symbolic — are the four major instruments of foreign policy. The art of

foreign policy consists in the selection of foreign policy goals consistent with the interests and values of the people of the nation and capable of achievement at bearable costs in the international arena, and in the utilization of these means in effective combination for the attainment of these goals.

It is obvious from this that we cannot separate national security policy from the goals which it is intended to achieve on the one hand, or from the other instruments of foreign policy. One classic illustration of the interdependence of foreign policy means is the Panmunjon negotiations during the "Cease fire" of the Korean war when the Communists won a military victory through the use of diplomacy and when we lost the fruits of a military victory through our failure to appreciate the interdependence of military and diplomatic means in the conduct of foreign policy. If we cannot separate national security policy from the other elements of foreign policy, or separate the making of national security policy from the rest of the foreign policy-making process, there are a few special points which have to be made about the relation of public opinion and national security policy. These have to do with (1) the highly technical nature of most of the issues of

**Gabriel A. Almond** was born in 1911 in Illinois. A Chicago PhD, he is an educator and student of government. He was with the Office of War Information in the United States and Europe during the Second World War, with the Department of State for a short while in 1950, and has worked with both government sponsored and privately sponsored research organizations. He has been a university professor at Yale and Stanford (where he is currently head of the Political Science Department). He has edited various professional publications, and has written several books on international relations, politics, and competing ideologies.

Reprinted from The Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol XX, No. 2, Summer 1956, with permission of The Public Opinion Quarterly.

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security policy, (2) the problem of secrecy in the handling of security policy information, and (3) the enormous risks involved in the making of policies governing the magnitude of the security effort, its composition, its deployment, and its employment. These three characteristics of national security policy taken together create a situation of extraordinary gravity, and put the utmost strain on our capacity to make and maintain a foreign policy which is both democratic and effective.

First, let us examine the highly technical character of the issues of national security policy. It takes a most specialized competence to make intelligent judgments of such questions as how our basic resources shall be allocated among the major military services, or how within these services these resources shall be allocated to the various weapons systems, and how these weapons shall be knit together in a common strategic plan. It takes a highly specialized competence to make intelligent judgments of questions relating to the deployment of these facilities - where shall we have what kinds of bases, how much of a strategic reserve shall we maintain, how shall our efforts be coordinated with those of our allies and the like. Finally, it takes both specialized competence and the most exacting sense of moral responsibility to make intelligent judgments as to the conditions under which we shall employ what kinds of military action - the staffing and training of foreign troops, the employment of conventional armaments, the use of tactical nuclear weapons, and finally the use of strategic nuclear weapons. The problem of making intelligent decisions in these areas is one of extraordinary difficulty and complexity even for those who are highly trained specialists.

I referred secondly to the problem of secrecy, for much of the essential information necessary to appraise national security policy decisions has to be withheld from public knowledge and discussion. Without it public discussion is helpless, or often positively misled by leaks and rumors. These two characteristics of national security policy -

the technical nature of the problems and the security of some of the essential information - combine to produce a shallow base for public discussion of security policy issues. And if we take this in conjunction with the third characteristic of national security policy - the gravity of the issues with which it deals - we have stated the difficulties in the relationship between public opinion and national security policy in their full dimensions. For national security policy does deal with the issues of life and death - not of "expendable" proportions of societies and these resources - but in the contemporary world with the very life and death of whole societies and their cultures. The pathos of the man in the street in this connection, therefore, lies in the fact that he is confronted with issues in which the stakes are so high as to be almost meaningless, and so complex as to be beyond his understanding. Stating the problem in this pessimistic way avoids the temptation of easy answers, and evangelical optimism which so often enter into discussions of the role of public opinion in the formation of public policy.

## THE POLICY PROCESS

Any thoroughgoing analysis of the process by means of which national security policy is made will have to cover five elements - (a) the formal governmental agencies including the Executive and the Congress, (b) the media of communication, (c) interest groups, (d) the attentive public, and (e) the mass media.

**Government.** Let us start with the first of these, the formal governmental agencies, and treat them insofar as they affect the role of the non-governmental agencies and forces. In this respect the Executive and the Congress play a role of enormous importance in the public discussion of foreign policy and national security policy issues. They are largely responsible for setting the terms of public debate. The Executive initiates public discussion by taking action or by proposing legislation. In so doing it in effect proposes a theory or an hypothesis, that by doing such

55

and such, certain consequences will follow. This ordinarily initiates public debate which involves the exploration of the Executive action or proposal and the examination of other alternatives. Nowhere more than in foreign policy and particularly national security policy is public opinion so dependent on the initiative of the Executive. The classic illustration, of course, is China policy. The Administration in 1947-48-49 chose not only to be inactive, but also largely silent about the collapse of Nationalist China and its consequences. It took the position that no reasonable amount of aid could rescue the Nationalists. It also in effect was taking the position that the fall of China to the Communists did not require any rectification of the American security position. The silence of the administration during these years meant that there was no discussion of these significant issues, and that the mobilization of Chinese military power and the Korean war fell upon American public opinion with an enormous impact. This was a case in which the Executive failed in its responsibility to initiate foreign policy and public discussion. Without such initiative it is usually impossible to utilize our intellectual resources in appraising foreign policy alternatives. At the very time China was collapsing, the military budget was being cut. The Executive failed to lead in a process of examination of the consequences of that policy, particularly the implications for national security policy.

If it is the primary job of the Executive to initiate national security action and legislation, it is the task of the Congress to set the terms of the debate, to explore other alternatives, to modify Executive proposals, and to ratify or to reject them. Contrary to the terms of the Constitution, the Executive initiates legislative action, and the Congress, modifies and ratifies. Together they give structure to the issues of national security policy, and thereby facilitate public discussion.

**The Media.** The media of mass communication have the primary function of communicating the foreign policy and security

issues as formulated by the Executive, and as reformulated by the Congress to different parts of the public. But this function is not simply a matter of neutral communication. It involves selection, interpretation, in other words decisions about the salience of issues, and the importance of information.

'Are you sort of against, undecidedly against, firmly against, kind of for, hesitantly for, completely for, reluctantly for, painfully undecided or temporarily noncommittal about LBJ?'

Darcy-Philadelphia Evening Bulletin.

Reprinted by permission.

Let me say one general thing about the media of communication in this respect and then proceed to some more differentiated comments. Taken by and large and with noteworthy exceptions the mass media in this country, as in others, tend to perpetuate two unfortunate tendencies in mass opinion. They deepen complacency and indifference in the absence of a hot story in the foreign policy field, or when they have a sensational item they play it to the maximum, and hence encourage panic reactions. But this is true primarily of the mass media.

One way of classifying the media of communication from the point of view of national security policy is to distinguish

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the "quality media" — newspapers like the New York Times, the Herald Tribune, and the Christian Science Monitor, the journals of opinion, the news weeklies, the serious newspaper columnists, radio and TV commentators, and influential publicists — from the mass media of which the tabloids are the best illustration.

The quality media reach the attentive public with foreign policy and security policy debate. They take an active part in the structuring of issues. They participate in foreign policy discussion continually. They reach into the formal governmental agencies and among the non-governmental opinion leaders. They help create a kind of laboratory atmosphere in which foreign policy ideas can be tested out through the use of responsible speculation and imagination. They constitute a "feedback" on the consequences of policy decisions, and furnish the necessary basis for the constant process of modifying and adapting decisions which have already been made.

If a careful study were made, we would probably find that the impact of the quality media has been increasing over the past years, that they are now meeting a much larger demand for continuous and serious information on the issues of foreign and security policy. The trend is moderately encouraging, and the possibilities of a responsible foreign policy discussion are greater today than they were ten years ago.

**Interest groups.** As you know America is unique in the number and variety of its voluntary organized groups. There are literally thousands of groups in the United States which take an active part in the making of public policy. There are economic interest groups, ethnic groups, religious groups, veterans groups, civic groups, women's groups, young people's groups. There are groups which are active at the national level, the regional level, the state level, and the local level. The U. S. is unique not only in the number and variety of its pressure and interest groups, it is also unique in the number of its

civic groups. One of the most striking things that comes out of a comparison of French and German interest groups with the American, is that the civic general interest group is practically absent on the European continent. They have special interest groups in profusion, but they have no civic reform groups, — Parent Teachers Associations, League of Women Voters, Foreign Policy associations and the like. This graduation of public to private is one of the most striking characteristics of the American democratic tradition. Civic responsibility and political involvement extend beyond governmental office into the private citizenry.

Now what is the function of interest groups in the making of foreign policy? We have ceased viewing them as sinister, lobbying organizations engaged in corrupt practices of one kind or another, although some of them continue to operate this way. In their constructive aspect, organized interest groups, play the role of translating general policies into their special impacts on particular groups. They constitute a special group of brokers who bargain for modification in policy in exchange for special group support. In doing this they add another useful dimension to the foreign policy-making process. We cannot quarrel with the function they perform, but only with its misuse. Policies do not affect all interests equally. They often impose inequalities in sacrifice. Some mechanism is essential to represent interests, to anticipate such inequalities of impact, and to moderate them to the extent that is possible.

Interest groups do not always enter into the process of making security policy in the same way as the adoption of the North Atlantic Treaty and the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act demonstrate. In the first case there was a well dramatized issue, with considerable public interest. It was the great national organizations which became active in connection with the North Atlantic Treaty. The Chamber of Commerce, the Labor Federations, the national farm organizations and the like took a responsible part in the national debate on the treaty. In contrast whenever the re-

57

newal of the reciprocal trade agreements act comes up for consideration the impact of interest groups is fragmentary, local, and special, and hence irrational in its impact on national policy. It is the wheat farmers, the watchmakers, the textile manufacturers and the like who enter into the policy making process and attempt, often with success, to carve out special domains of privilege and protection.

In this respect, much depends on how widespread and active public discussion is. If there is a well-publicized discussion of a security issue, with the Executive and the Congress engaged in an active debate, and if the media of communication bring these issues to the general public, the irrational and special impact of interest groups can be kept within proportions. If there is no live public discussion reaching to the grass roots, special groups working largely without publicity can bring effective pressure to bear on Congressmen in their own constituencies, or on members of the Executive. There is a kind of twilight of public discussion which gives cover to this kind of effort.

Those who have had responsibilities in the field of Congressional liaison and public relations will recognize these differences in the patterns of pressure group activity. There is less to be concerned about when there is a great public issue up for discussion, and when the media of communication are active in publicizing it. The worries begin once a law has been enacted and the administrators have to decide how to place the orders or where to locate the bases. Then the whole machinery of special interest groups becomes activated, working through Congressional and political party contacts, striving for exceptions to general rules, and for special and local advantage.

## OPINION AND POLICY

Now let us turn to public opinion proper. In connection with the media of communication, we discussed the quality media and the mass

media, and in connection with interest groups we distinguished between general or civic interest groups and special and local interest groups. These differences in the structure of the media of communication and the interest groups are reflected in the structure of public opinion. It is useful in thinking about public opinion and its impact on national security policy to distinguish three elements - the mass public, attention groups, and the attentive public. The mass public, fed by the mass media, is generally uninformed about national security policy issues. It responds to these issues with moods. It looks at headlines in the press, or listens to news over the radio for cues for mood responses in public discussion of foreign policy. It does not listen to the content of discussion but to its tone. A presidential statement that a crisis exists will ordinarily be registered in the form of apprehension. A reassuring statement will be received with complacency reactions. In both cases the reaction has no depth and no structure. For persons responsible for the making of security policy these mood impacts of the mass public have a highly irrational effect. Often public opinion is apathetic when it should be concerned, and panicky when it should be calm. But the problem is even more complicated than this, for these irrational mood impulses are not only general phenomena of public opinion; they enter into policy-making in the specialized form of attention groups. An issue involving Eastern Europe brings Americans of Slavic origin into the policy-making process with a sudden impact as it did in 1952 when the Republicans announced their policy of liberation. An issue involving Israel and the Arab states suddenly creates a special attention group among Jews in the United States. One can go down the line of Italians, Germans, Irish, and the like, to refer only to attention groups which have an ethnic base. There are many other kinds, and their impact on public policy and security policy can be understood in terms of the analogy of loaded pistols which are triggered off by special issues which bring generally inattentive and uninformed groups into a sudden impact on the policy-making process.

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These irrational tendencies are, however, counteracted by the attentive public - a stratum of public opinion which is more analytically oriented to problems of public affairs, which is regularly informed on these issues, and which constitutes a critical audience for the discussion of public issues. This group is increasing in size and in discrimination. It is fed by the universities, sustained by the quality media of communication, and organized by the civic interest groups. The forces which can limit the impact of special interest, can contain and overcome indifference and panic, are the attentive public, the universities and colleges which train it, and the quality media which inform it and whose very quality depends on its existence, and to the civic and general interest groups which bring its impact to bear on policy-makers.

## CONCLUSIONS

It has been suggested that the issues of national security policy differ from other issues of public policy in three respects - the highly technical character of the issues, the element of secrecy, and the gravity of the stakes and the risks involved. If one examines the American political process from the point of view of its capacity to handle issues of this kind, one has to recognize that it is in respect of these issues that we are weakest. Military policy has long been the special domain of the military specialist. There are only half a dozen places in the country where problems of national security policy are being seriously treated in academic terms today. The media of communication and the interest groups are also weak in this regard. The shortage of this kind of expertise outside of the military establishment itself, is attributable to the recency of our military and foreign policy responsibilities. We simply have not had the time to train and develop this kind of interest and competence at the points where it is needed.

A sound program of public opinion development in the field of national security policy would have as its main aim the creation of an attentive public competent to handle the issues of national security policy. This means in very specific terms four lines of action: (1) The introduction of problems of military policy into university curricula and the development of military scholarship in the universities to produce a leadership with a basic competence to understand the issues of security policy. (2) The development of soundly trained military specialists in the media of communication to ensure that the issues of security policy will be rapidly and accurately transmitted throughout the significant strata of the population. (3) The training of specialists in problems of military policy in the major interest groups to ensure more responsible interest group pressures. (4) The development of scholarship in political and military affairs among the military leadership to create a homogeneous leadership capable of organizing and articulating the issues in public debate.

In other words competence to handle military and security problems in their relation to foreign policy and other aspects of public policy must be introduced effectively into the processes of public opinion formation. We have to create depth in the public discussion of security problems. The model of the future toward which we ought to strive is one in which basic military and security issues can be thrashed out in a lively public discussion, with alternative points of view presented before an interested and informed audience. It is only in this way that the strengths of a democratic political process - the interplay of free minds - can be introduced into the making of security policy. Without it, we are as vulnerable in the policy-making sphere, as the lack of an essential weapons system might make us in the military sphere.

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The following analysis of the objectives of a state illustrates the semantic problems faced by students and practitioners of national strategy. Many people - the first chapter of this book, for example - would call Professor Van Dyke's "objectives" by the name "goals" and many people feel that security is really a national "interest" rather than an objective. Variations in definition, as we have seen, can become a major stumbling block to understanding. Now that the foregoing has been said, however, we should also note that the author presents a clear outline and that his points are indeed valid.

SECURITY AND SOVEREIGNTY *

Vernon Van Dyke

SECURITY AND SOVEREIGNTY

The paramount objective of every state, as a general rule, is self-preservation or survival. More broadly, the objective is security. When necessary, governments normally sacrifice every other objective, and require that citizens and subjects do likewise, to preserve the state. Peace is often sacrificed for this purpose; states wage war, if survival requires it. Efforts to enhance prosperity are also curtailed or abandoned, if survival is at stake. The greater the threat of destruction, the stronger will be the tendency to abandon political and economic principles and practices, such as free speech, free enterprise, and free elections, which seem to stand in the way of survival. Those moral and religious principles which interfere seriously with measures for self-preservation are likely to be reinterpreted. At the same time, citizens of the states who can contribute to its preservation are expected and required to do so, even though it cost

them their lives.

Although these generalizations are sound, they are subject to interpretation and qualification. . . . Precisely what is to be rendered secure, and how much security is desired? . . . regularly included [is] territory and people, though it is often difficult to say precisely what territory and people. Generally, the territorial self is defined in terms of the status quo, but it may also be defined in terms of a past situation or a future expectation. The basic proposition is that governments wish to retain what they have, or, more accurately, to avoid being compelled by other states to give up what they have. It is an involuntary loss which is to be guarded against especially.

The self also regularly includes sovereignty and equality. Sovereignty . . . denotes the status of an entity supreme over domestic law but subject to international law. Each state wants to be able to fix and enforce law within its own domain as it pleases; it wants to retain an area of law over which it is supremo. There is therefore a strong tendency to restrict the development of international law and of international executive, legislative, and judicial agencies. Equality means that the rights of one state are entitled to as much respect as the rights of any other state; there

Vernon B. Van Dyke. Born in Idaho, 1912, he is a professor of political science who has taught at DePauw, Yale and Iowa. This selection is from his first book. He also has published on political philosophy.

\* Extracted from International Politics, by Vernon Van Dyke. Copyright 1957 by Appleton-Century-Crafts, Inc. By permission of the publishers.

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is a determination to maintain the principle, in which even the most powerful acquiesce, that power as such gives no special rights. Title to sovereignty and equality is commonly regarded as so precious that it is to be preserved at any cost. However, just as territory is sometimes ceded voluntarily without any sense of damage to the territorial self, so are treaties sometimes voluntarily accepted which restrict the sphere of sovereignty and establish unequal rights.

The self is also usually considered as including a particular political and economic system. States want to avoid being compelled by external pressures to modify the social system under which they live. Communist states want the world to be safe for Communism, and democratic states want the world to be safe for democracy. The elites in every society (i.e., those who get the most of the best) are almost certain to think that the system under which they have secured privileges should be preserved, and others may share the belief; the social system or way of life becomes an essential part of the self whose survival is sought. Perhaps, in addition, attempts may be made to extend the social system to other states.

Security is a somewhat broader concept than self-preservation or survival. It relates not only to the ultimate desire that the state survive but also to the desire that it should live without serious external threat to values or interests which are regarded as important or vital. The concept is a vague one. The values or interests to be kept secure must be selected and defined; the nature and extent of foreign threats must be appraised; the degree of security sought must be determined; and the methods of promoting security must be selected. Each step involves judgment and choice. States may make judgments and choices which render the concept incapable of general application; a number of states, all genuinely seeking security, may do it in such a way that security for one means insecurity for another. International friction and war may develop out of incompatible conceptions of the requirements of security.

Whether all existing states should be preserved or kept secure is a question about which detached observers might well have doubts. It is difficult to believe that a rational, omniscient, and omnipotent being would divide the world precisely as it is divided; such a being would presumably amalgamate or federate many states, possibly all of them. But the situation is somewhat analogous to that faced by the director of a children's camp who, when confronted with problems of children whom he did not like, said that he always had to keep reminding himself that somebody loved every precious one of them, even though he could not see why; he could not disregard them without unpleasant consequences. Similar forces operate in relation to love for, or loyalty to, the state. It may be based on rational or irrational considerations, or both, but still it exists.

However... there are qualifications to the proposition that governments and people attach paramount value to the preservation of the state. Sometimes there is a willingness to risk the very existence of the state in an effort to achieve other values. On rare occasions some states have voluntarily accepted annexation by, or amalgamation with, other states. Sometimes there are disaffected elements in the population (e.g., national minorities, colonial peoples, communists in a non-communist state, and non-communists in a communist state) who attach little or no value to the preservation of the state. Conscientious objectors refuse to defend the state by military means. Advocates of one or another form of international federation or world government, though presumably willing to defend the state against external threats, nevertheless want it to go out of existence as a sovereign entity on agreed conditions.

But despite qualifications and exceptions, the general rule is that states seek self-preservation and security above all.

## AGGRANDIZEMENT

In modern times it is rare for statesmen

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to say that they seek territorial aggrandizement, yet it is obvious that they engage in it. ... Nationalism itself calls for expansion on the part of those states which do not already encompass what is deemed to be national territory. Messianic movements, whether religious or secular, likewise sometimes call for expansion. Islam was extended by military means, in part for the greater glory of Allah. Various Christian statesmen, more in earlier than in recent times, have been moved to engage in expansion ostensibly to save foreign souls. A mission civilisatrice or the idea of taking up the White Man's Burden has sometimes been cited as an excuse or reason for aggrandizement. as in King Leopold's venture into the region of the Congo and as in Mussolini's attack on Ethiopia. Economic penetration has frequently led to the establishment of political control, particularly for weak and backward countries. The habit of war and domestic economic and political conditions that help bring war on have produced wars which in turn have led to aggrandizement....

War and the expectation of war have combined with the desire for survival or security in bringing about many acts of aggrandizement. Machiavelli long ago observed that "fear to lose stirs the same passions in men as the desire to gain, as men do not believe themselves sure of what they already possess except by acquiring more." Thomas Hobbes endorsed this observation in paraphrasing it. Even the most superficial survey of diplomatic history establishes its truth. It is rare for war to break out simply because a state desires control over a strategic point which may be of value in future war, but once war has broken out, for whatever reasons, belligerents commonly seek to take advantage of the opportunities which it provides for seizing strategically desirable territory from the enemy. Neutrals may enter a war partly for this reason, as Japan did in relation to World War I.

On top of all this, aggrandizement sometimes occurs because of cultural and psycho-

logical forces which produce in many men a craving for power and glory. Such men are no doubt disproportionately represented among the statesmen of the world, for some measure of this craving is practically prerequisite to achieving or retaining positions of political responsibility....

The various forces making for expansion are so strong and have been so often manifested in history that some describo expansion as a virtual law of politics. Martin Wight, for example, declares:

> It is the general nature of all Powers to expand. The energies of their inhabitants expand economically, culturally, and politically, and unless there is a strong counter-reason, all these tendencies will be summed up in territorial expansion....

Wight goes on to say that "every Power tends to expand until it reaches an equilibrium that is the product of two factors: external pressure and internal organization." In other words, they continue to expand as long as internal organization and resources permit the mustering of the necessary strength, or until they are stopped by some countervailing force. The countervailing force might be a natural barrier, such as an ocean or a mountain chain, or the armed might of other states....

... Probably most statesmen most of the time give no thought to the possibility of taking other people's territory. Other values and goals are often more important. Yet the desire for aggrandizement, though not universal and constant, has appeared frequently enough that it must be listed among the significant goals that states sometimes seek.

## PEACE

Statesmen frequently say that they seek peace. Affirmations of a desire for peace have become almost a universal feature of diplomacy. In many treaties, including the Charter of the United Nations, states have pledged themselves to peace. War itself is

34

sometimes said to be fought on behalf of
peace, as when President Truman declared that
"our men [in Korea] are fighting for the propo-
sition that peace shall be the law of this
earth." In most countries, and particularly in
democratic countries, popular sentiment vir-
tually compels the endorsement of peace.
Even Hitler, while making statements which
the discerning could only interpret as endorse-
ments of war, also felt it necessary to make
rather frequent protestations of a desire for
peace.

As usually defined, peace means the
absence of war. Yet, when statesmen and
others say that they seek peace, so defined,
there is always an explicit or implicit proviso.
No statesman wants peace at any price. There
are always some things which they want more
than they want peace. It may be survival or
security; it may be unification of the nation or
other aggrandizement; it may be the protection
and promotion of commercial interests or
ideological principles; it may be freedom or
justice. The very fact that wars occur demon-
strates that peace is not the paramount value.
This is not to say that professions of a desire
for peace are necessarily hypocritical, al-
though sometimes they undoubtedly are. It
is rather to say that, although statesmen and
others commonly want peace, they regularly
want other things more. They want peace,
provided that it is compatible with the preser-
vation and promotion of other values which
are more precious.

This point is obvious and simple, yet
it is one which is often ignored, and the
results of ignoring it are sometimes unfortu-
nate. The objective of peace calls for inter-
national negotiation, and successful nego-
tiation commonly requires compromise. The
danger is that, if peace is made an absolute
value and war is ruled out as a possibility,
compromise may lead to futile concessions
and appeasement. It is perhaps no accident
that the British Prime Minister who declared
in 1938 that peace was the greatest interest
of the British Empire should have been the

principal author of the policy of appeasing
Hitler. Moreover, it is easy, however unsound,
to jump from the premise that peace is the
objective to the conclusion that armaments and
a military establishment are unnecessary.
The American peace movement between the
wars, for example, was largely a movement
for disarmament. The danger in this is that
the state will find itself in a position of
weakness when it realizes that it regards
some values as more precious than peace and
when it feels bound to fight for them....

In sum, peace is among the objectives
that states pursue, but their pursuit of it is
not unqualified. When peace is defined as
the absence of war, states sometimes abandon
it and go to war for the preservation or pro-
motion of goals deemed more important. When
it is defined as a situation of law and order,
to be supported by war (police action) if
necessary, states usually abandon it when the
prospective short-run risks and costs in terms
of other values appear to be greater than the
prospective gains.

## PROSPERITY

Protection and promotion of the economic
well-being of some or all of the population
constitute a regular objective of states, pur-
sued by means of both domestic and foreign
policies. This proposition holds, regardless
of the economic system involved. . . . [but]
it is one thing to acknowledge that economic
considerations exert a substantial influence
on foreign policies and quite another to con-
tend that economic conditions and forces
control foreign policies. Marxists generally
make this claim, though they differ among
themselves in explaining and supporting the
conclusion they reach. The extreme view that
all wars under capitalism are economic in
origin is not supported by historical evidence;
nor, in the light of the numerous factors
influencing the behavior of states, is such a
claim even superficially plausible.

35

## THE PROTECTION AND PROMOTION OF IDEOLOGY

Along with sovereignty goes the right of each state to establish and maintain the social, economic, and political system of its choice, which implies adherence to the ideology of its choice. One of the regular objectives of states is to preserve this right and to preserve the favored ideology. When states adhere to substantially the same ideology, this causes no difficulty; in fact, it constitutes a force making for cooperation. However, sharp ideological differences are a source of discord and possible war.

The reasons for this are fairly obvious. No social system and no ideology are totally good or totally bad. In varying proportions, there are good and bad features in each. Moreover, no social system operates through the years with uniform success and effectiveness; economic, political, and other difficulties periodically arise. The natural consequence of the bad features of a system and of its periodic special difficulties is that it will not evoke loyalty uniformly among different groups and classes. Varying proportions of the population of every state are always more or less disaffected. Given some knowledge of an alien ideology, some or all of the disaffected will be attracted by it. The very existence and example of an alien social system and an alien ideology are therefore to some extent subversive. The subversive influence may be so slight as to be politically insignificant (Oriental ideologies, for example, have never produced much impact in the West), or it may be so great as to produce intense demands for change. The ideology of the French Revolution proved to be quite subversive to the monarchical system in Europe, and today liberalism and communism are subversive of each other....

It might be noted that domestic and international factors combine in creating a threat of war rising from subversive influences. A country with faith in its own ideology and

hope for the future need have little fear of the subversive influence of an alien ideology, and international relations need not be troubled by a theoretical ideological conflict. However, a country without faith and hope, or a country with allies who are without faith and hope, has much to fear. International tensions arising out of an ideological conflict are as much a measure of domestic doubts and insecurities as of efforts from abroad to create revolution.

## JUSTICE

All states profess to seek justice for themselves and to desire it for others. To the extent that international law is deemed to incorporate justice, support for justice becomes support for law and order. Where international law is deemed to be unjust, support for justice involves demands for change, and demands for change may lead to conflict and war.

Even within countries where there is at least vague agreement on standards of justice, it is often difficult to determine precisely what would be just in concrete circumstances. There are judicial struggles over what the law is and legislative struggles over what the law should be. These are struggles to determine the official definition of justice. Where there is little or no agreement on standards of justice, the struggles are naturally all the more likely to be resolved on the basis of power. The official definition of justice then becomes a reflection of the desires of the strong.

The struggle over justice among countries is similar to the struggle over justice within countries. Where international law is deemed to incorporate justice, the struggle over the application of law can be a judicial matter. Where there is general agreement on standards of justice but belief that existing law scarcely reflects those standards, there is basis for negotiation and agreement. But where conceptions of justice are markedly different, resolution of such disputes as arise will occur on the basis of a power struggle which may take the form of war....

36

[W]

CHARLES WOLF, JR.

MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL
COMPLEXITIES

"Do we buy more defense than we 'need'?" Those who, like General David Shoup, view the "new American militarism" as having an insidiously controlling grip throughout society, answer with a resounding affirmative. Others, like Dean Acheson, who feel that the military-industrial complex (MIC) is at most a "marginal" problem, are inclined to answer in the negative. How can one usefully approach this question, as well as account for the widely divergent answers that people give to it?

The answer to the initial question depends on whether one thinks the national decisionmaking process tends to misestimate one or more of three variables.

The first variable concerns the threat, and whether the decision process operates to bias threat estimates. If one believes the threat tends to be overestimated, the answer to the initial question is biased upward. Accordingly, if the assumption previously underlying U. S. planning for general-purpose forces was to prepare for 2-plus simultaneous major contingencies, a better assumption should be 1-plus simultaneous contingencies, or something similar, instead. The composition of threat estimates is, of course, as important as their total size. For instance, the strategic threat may be underestimated while the conventional threat is overestimated. The result is not one good estimate, but two bad ones. Thus, the U.S. military both overestimated and underestimated the Viet Cong: including tanks and anti-tank weaponry in the equipment of U. S. divisions in Vietnam reflected an error of the first type;

> How can one approach the question of the role of the Military-Industrial Complex in American life? What is its degree of influence? Charles Wolf, Jr. who discusses the problem is head of the Economies Department at the Rand Corporation. The views he expresses here, however, are his own and should not be interpreted as reflecting those of Rand or the official opinion or policy of any of its governmental or private research sponsors.

the heavy casualties repeatedly incurred by U. S. troops on large-unit actions, due to booby traps and land mines, were a consequence of the second type of error.

Lying behind the proper threat estimate are a number of basic, and usually unexamined, premises. For example, what premise does one adopt about the interdependencies of the estimate, the decisions we make based on it, and the actions of others, both allies and adversaries? (Are these actions compensating, or are they largely independent of our own actions? Over what time period?) What estimate is proper also depends on how willing one is to bear the risks of underestimating rather than overestimating.

The more one views the Soviet Union or the Chinese People's Republic as implacably hostile (or simply disposed to exploit any opportunity for advantage against us or our allies), the higher one tends to assess the threat and the number of contingencies we should be prepared for; hence, the more defense we need. On the other hand, the more

one views potential adversaries as being in compensatory ways — responding to whatever we do in efforting ways — and the more one feels disposed to bear risks, the less defense we need.

A second variable is the social opportunity costs associated with other public (as well as private) resource claims — that is, the benefits foregone from other possible uses to which military resources would be put if not expended on defense. To the extent that people believe that military activities take resources away from other national programs (especially those at home), and to the extent that they assess the other needs as more compelling than national security needs, to this extent people feel that we buy more defense than we need or can afford. In principle, these costs depend on the output resulting from using resources for other purposes. When someone says that resources should, from the standpoint of national goals, be devoted to poverty rather than defense, he is implying something about the consequences of devoting more resources to the poverty problem. All too frequently, however, he stops with the foregone inputs, and avoids the crucial question of what the output would be.

The third variable concerns the efficiency of defense production. In this case, we take as given the need or demand for military activities. We then ask whether there are characteristics of the MIC that inflate the costs of producing defense services — for example, in the weapons acquisition process, in the way we man and operate bases, perhaps in the way we tend to fight unconventional

February 1971

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 19

[k]

wars in a conventional manner? (If demand is relatively inelastic, higher unit costs will increase the amount expended on defense.)

In other words, while the first variable concerns whether, and to what extent, the armed services, the Congress, defense industry, and the defense research community tend to inflate demand (in relation to other national needs), the third variable concerns the effect of the MIC in inflating the cost of meeting any given demand. Underestimates of social opportunity costs can affect both demand and supply.

## MIC Characteristics

Next, consider characteristics of the MIC which people have in mind when they contend that some of these variables tend to be misestimated, and hence that we buy more defense than we need or can afford. These characteristics are presumed to be unique to the MIC, or to differ in substantial degree from those which are associated with other industrial complexes (OICs).

What are these characteristics and how do they affect the variables of the model?

1. Secrecy is one such characteristic. The demand for defense is exag-

gered, it is argued, because those with access to secret information are part of the MIC and so are biased on the side of higher threat estimates. Unavailability of classified information also protects inefficiency in the production and operation of forces and systems, and prevents careful comparison of the returns from defense with those from other public sector activities.

2. The complexity of weapons systems makes it additionally difficult for the outsider to judge whether a system is being produced or employed efficiently, or whether a proposed system is needed at all.

3. Supported by secrecy and complexity is the supposed absence of countervailing forces to oppose or control the MIC. As a result, exaggerated estimates of the threat and inflated production costs are insufficiently challenged, and nondefense uses or resources get inadequately represented as competing claimants for defense resources.

4. Related to the absence or weakness of countervailing forces is the contention that the MIC is riddled with conflicts of interest. Those who determine the demand (e.g., the military services, the Armed Services Committees, defense intellectuals)

are in, or at a later time acquire, a position also to benefit from higher costs in meeting that demand. Both demand and supply can be biased upward as a result.

5. The appeal which can be made to patriotism and national tradition is another characteristic that putatively strengthens the MIC's hand in overestimating threats, inflating production costs and underestimating social costs. Consider the familiar belief that we can "afford" whatever national security expenditures we "need"; that "nothing is too good for our fighting men."

6. The scale of defense spending is also a relevant characteristic. Since the magnitudes involved are so huge, additions to them may be more easily obscured. And when defense expenditures are increased in wartime, the urgency of the circumstances and the pace at which the additions occur are often so pressing that circumspection and independent review may go by the board.

7. Institutional rigidity is advanced as a final perverse characteristic of the military. The "go-by-the-manual" syndrome tends to impede innovation and adaptation. Substantial inefficiencies and increased costs are likely to result.

## An Evaluation

Let us consider these characteristics in turn to see how each bears on the original question. Most of the seven attributes are not unique to the MIC. They apply equally, or with greater force, to other complexes, especially health care and education — the two from which I will draw most of my examples. But in part the argument is intended simply to establish a benchmark. If, as is sometimes suggested, the defense budget is "out-of-control," we need to know whether that is because these characteristics apply to the MIC uniquely, or to an egregious extent. If they don't, then we can't use this benchmark as the explanation, or else we have to accept an equal presumption that OICs are out of control too.

Secrecy is one characteristic that applies uniquely to defense questions. Even here, however, the extent to which this characteristic prevents scrutiny and control may be

20

exaggerated. Anyone who invests a modest amount of time in reviewing the Defense Secretary's annual posture statement has access to a great deal of relevant information on which to base judgments about strategy and weapons systems choices. To some extent, classification is an impediment to full disclosure. But the extent to which this restricts discussion is much exaggerated. Much of the relevant information on threats and systems, and on the uncertainties surrounding them, is openly available (as suggested by the recent public debate on the SS-9). Nonetheless, I would agree that more information should be made available to raise the level of public understanding and discussion, and that the communications media, as well as other institutions, can do a far better job of presenting the available information than they have in the past. (Incidentally, secrecy can lead to underestimates, as well as overestimates, of threats. Consider the United Kingdom before World War II, or the United States before Pearl Harbor.)

The complexity of defense matters poses a further obstacle to intelligent and public judgments. But is this obstacle any greater than what we confront in education? For example, the Coleman report suggested some of these complexities when it pointed out that expenditures on schools and on teachers' salaries, or on changes in class size, or on changing student-teacher ratios, did not seem to affect educational performance (U.S. National Center for Educational Statistics, 1966). Notwithstanding various criticisms di-

rected against the study, Coleman's major results, by and large, have stood up remarkably well. Billions of dollars and words are expended on programs and arguments in this field without a clear understanding of what inputs are likely to be effective in raising educational performance. Are these issues really any less complex, or better understood than, for example, those that relate to the vulnerability of land-based or sea-based missiles, or to

the case for (or against) providing a "thin" ABM but not a "thick" one?

Next, consider the contention about a lack of countervailing forces to check the MIC. In fact, there are numerous and strong countervalences. For example, analytical countervales (systems analysis, planning-programming-and-budgeting systems, and other means of analyzing costs in relation to effectiveness) have been much more extensively and effectively applied in the military sector than in any other public activity. There has been nothing in health and education approaching the application of these techniques to the defense sector. Without slighting the technical difficulties involved in such new applications, and without exaggerating the results already attained in defense, it is fair to say that political and organizational opposition to applying these techniques of budget control and resource management has been much more severe in health and education than in defense.

The same applies when one looks at other countervales. Groups and individuals in Congress, in the media, in the academy, and in public life that dispute and control military expenditures are powerful, active and visible. Opponents of the American Medical Association and the teachers' unions, with the knowledge and organization to argue effectively for cost reduction, for improvements in quality, and for institutional and technological innovation, are rare and their arguments usually short-lived — in Congress or among the public generally.

Concerning conflict-of-interest problems within the MIC (for example, in connection with the 2,000 retired military officers who are employed in executive positions in defense industry), one should note the existence of a similar problem in the health-care industry. For example, the National Institutes of Health have often been hard-pressed to find panel members to decide on research allocations in a particular field who would not themselves be in a position to benefit, or to have their institutions, students or colleagues benefit, from such allocations. Panning does in fact often come close

February 1971 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 21

to conflicts of interest, with attempts made to relieve the problem by such unsatisfactory devices as having a panel member leave the room when a grant to his institution is considered, or using foreign panel members.

Now consider the notion I discussed in connection with patriotism and nationalism that "nothing is too good for our men." In the health-care industry, conventional wisdom tends to justify increased costs in much the same way that inefficiencies are protected in defense matters. Again, "nothing is too good." Drastically escalating costs, with quite ambiguous effects on the quality of output, tend to result. Indeed, both health and education have been such sacred cows, with the purposes they serve so highly valued, that even raising the question of inefficiency is regarded as crass and unfeeling.

Consider next the point about institutional rigidity in the military tending to inflate costs through inefficiency. By way of comparison, the educational system has always operated so as to prevent or impede differentiation of teachers' salaries according to market value. Thus, the costs of getting better mathematics and science teachers in high school are enormously inflated, because salary levels that would enable the schools to compete for these skills have to be extended to teachers of physical education, home economics and history as well.

(Incidentally, although the point is not "secret," it is well-known to the public?) More particularly, this costly institutional rigidity results from the inertia of school administrators, as well as the political power of teachers' unions. As a barrier to innovation in health care, the institutional rigidity of the American Medical Association is no less a force to be reckoned with (for example, in its opposition to large-scale expansion of group practice, prepaid comprehensive medical care programs like the Kaiser Foundation, or the substitution of paramedical for medical personnel) than is the professional military in its insistence that war be played by the (last) book, almost irrespective of changed circumstances, as in Vietnam.

Or consider the effect of institutional inertia on the introduction of new technology. Here the education industry is at the opposite pole from the military services: technological innovations (such as computer assisted instruction, or automated record-keeping and information retrieval systems) have been painfully slow in developing, in sharp contrast to the military services, which sometimes latch onto the newest technology almost regardless of its effectiveness. In both cases the effect is increased costs. Moreover, this malpractice cannot be extenuated in education by one of

the serious impediments to efficiency in the military: the fact that reliable testing procedures for new systems can only be provided in wartime.

Turning finally to scale, the budget for the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare is nearly $65 billion for fiscal year 1971 ($23 billion is for health and education). The defense budget is larger ($72 billion), although this figure has come down by $7 billion in two years (and considerably more than that in real terms due to price inflation). In fact, as a proportion of federal expenditures (36 per cent), and as a proportion of GNP (seven per cent), defense expenditures are now at their lowest shares in 20 years.

Of course, defense is still awfully large. Yet if one adds state and local expenditures in health and education (another $40 billion) to the federal figures mentioned above, the total amount exceeds the defense budget. Expenditures on health care alone run to about $50 billion annually, of which more than 30 per cent is public expenditure. The education industry entails annual outlays of about $60 billion, three-quarters of which is public expenditures. In their extensive interactions with the public sector at all levels, both of these complex industries are highly organized, politicized, and influential. While their efforts are not as centralized at the federal level, particularly in the case of education, as those of the MICs, this difference entails disadvantages, as well as advantages, from the standpoint of public awareness and control.

So the military is huge, and demanding of public scrutiny and control. But the scale problem is not fundamentally different from that of the OICs.

One of the numerous complexities about the MIC is that it is surely not the sole offender nor, probably, the worst. And if the answer to the question of whether we spend too much on defense remains elusive, the facts are that these expenditures are controlled relatively severely and that the totals are already sharply reduced and will probably be more so.

22

U

BY WILLIAM P. BUNDY

# THE DEATH OF DOCTRINE

"General propositions do not decide concrete cases." Justice Holmes's familiar saying almost inevitably comes to mind when one sees American air and naval power married to South Vietnamese ground forces fighting in Cambodia—and now apparently raiding in Laos. Was this what the President had in mind in his statement at Guam two summers ago—a statement which he later proudly elaborated into a Nixon doctrine worldwide in its application? Or, for that matter, has the doctrine any relevance to his resolve to maintain U.S. troop strength in Europe, where the capacity of our allies to do more militarily is self-evident?

Surely the answer is negative in both cases. On their merits, I am a skeptic about the Indochina actions, but a supporter of the firm posture in Europe. The point is, however, that it will take a conjuring trick in next week's foreign-policy message to breathe any continuing life into the Nixon doctrine. As a meaningful description of specific policy, it is dead. All it tells us is that the U.S. is in a transitional stage in its foreign policy, seeking a gradual but selective reduction in its role overseas. And this the world knew already.

## NET RESULT

There must be a lesson here for those who persist in trying to cram foreign policy into doctrinal capsules. The American public has a thirst for generalization, and its leaders have been ready to oblige for the past 25 years. The list is long: the Truman doctrine, "massive retaliation," counterinsurgency, the Grand Design for Europe and the Atlantic, economic development by the numbers, the Alliance for Progress. Under some of these labels, good and important things were done. But when one considers just the excessive hopes they aroused and counterforces they evoked, the net result of most of these capsules was negative and unhelpful.

Even the best descriptive terms have a finite half life before they wear out or become corrupted. The phrase "cold war" was coined by Walter Lippmann to connote a state of struggle and tension, not to label the policies and attitudes his nation adopted over his frequent dissent. But today, situation and policy attitude are inextricably linked. Thus, while I wholly agree with my colleague George Ball as to the present Russian posture and threat, his sophis-

ticated arguments do not gain by association with a now-simplistic term. One can bury the Thirty Years War and still get on with the problem of keeping Louis XIV under control.

## THE 'THINGS'

So, as Justice Holmes also said: "Let us talk things, not words." The real tyranny of labels is that they tend to keep us from digging deeply into particular situations (to me the cardinal error Americans made for at least fifteen years in Vietnam). What happens if we work outward from the particular and not inward from the general? What are the "things" worth talking about?

First and foremost, the persisting individual character of nations and regions of the world. Here the most vivid illustrations come in the area of economic progress. None of the generalizations of a decade ago can begin to explain the dramatic success stories of Iran, South Korea, all the ethnically Chinese areas of non-Communist Asia, or (not to get into ideology) East Germany. One is driven back, not to discarded notions of race, but certainly to the unfashionable notion that certain groups of people have acquired traditions of energy, organization and confidence that for the time being make them better at improving their material lot than others. Or perhaps they care more about it.

Second, regions too are more particular than we have tended to assume. Despite Mr. Myrdal's monumental work, India and Southeast Asia do not belong in the same hopper, nor either with Northeast Asia or mainland China. Similar degrees of difference obtain in Latin America and Black Africa. And why not, when the most mature "continent" runs from Scandinavia to Iberia?

Thirdly, regions are emerging as new centers of power in their own right, or at least as the arbiters of change in their neighborhoods. Great powers from the outside will increasingly have to accept and conform to a local common law, as we are now doing, for example, in accepting a Communist regime in Chile.

These are broad points. Some may provide a handle for new American policies. Perhaps it is enough, for now, if we recognize that we have tried to carry general propositions too far and have often paid a heavy price for doing so. It is time to stop the TV advertising and kick the habit.

NEWSWEEK, February 15, 1971

# 1. DEFENSE AS AN ECONOMIC PROBLEM

National security¹ depends upon many factors, which writers on the subject classify in different ways. Important among them are the morale of a country's soldiers, the number and ingenuity of its scientists, the character and skill of its political and military leaders, its geographic position relative to other countries, and even — in this nuclear age — the prevailing winds that blow across its expanses.

But national security also depends upon economic factors, which are variously interpreted and defined. Most speakers and writers who stress the importance of economic factors are referring to the economic strength of the nation, as contrasted with its military forces. They allege that the United States exerted a decisive influence in the later stages of World Wars I and II through its superior economic strength. Russia, it has been said, is more fearful of “Detroit” than of either the Strategic Air Command or the Divisions of NATO.

Other experts use the concept of economic factors more narrowly, to refer to the constraints on military forces imposed by the budget — the necessity to limit costs. Thus, Professor Kissinger² contrasts “doctrinal,” “technological,” and “fiscal” influences on our military strategy and concludes that the fiscal, as well as the technological, has been too influential at the expense of military doctrine. Similarly Mr. Hanson Baldwin explains that “In the Western World — though not in Russia — costs are a more decisive factor in shaping defense than is military logic.”³

In this book we will be concerned with economics in its most general sense. Economics is not exclusively concerned, as the above interpretations imply, with certain types of activities (industrial) rather than others (military), or with the traditional points of view of budgeteers and controllers.⁴ Being truly economical does not mean scrimping — reducing expenditures no matter how important the things to be bought. Nor does

¹In most of this volume, the terms “defense” and “national security” will be used interchangeably. Wherever defense is used in a narrower sense, e.g., defense as opposed to offense, we believe the context will make this clear.

²Henry A. Kissinger, "Strategy and Organization," *Foreign Affairs*, April 1957, pp. 379-394.

³"Arms and the Atom—I," *New York Times*, May 14, 1957, p. 21.

⁴Problems of eliminating redundant overhead costs, preventing the padding of expense accounts, restricting the use of chauffeur-driven cars to top officials, etc., while important, are relatively narrow management problems, and not our concern in this book.

2 THE ECONOMICS OF DEFENSE IN THE NUCLEAR AGE

it means implementing some stated doctrine regardless of cost. Rather
economics is concerned with allocating resources — choosing doctrines and
techniques — so as to get the most out of available resources. To econ-
omize in this sense may imply spending less on some things and more on
others. But always economics or economizing means trying to make the
most efficient use of the resources available in all activities in any circum-
stances.

In our view the problem of combining limited quantities of missiles, crews, bases, and maintenance facilities to "produce" a strategic air force that will maximize deterrence of enemy attack is just as much a problem in economics (although in some respects a harder one) as the problem of combining limited quantities of coke, iron ore, scrap, blast furnaces, and mill facilities to produce steel in such a way as to maximize profits. In both cases there is an objective, there are budgetary and other resource constraints, and there is a challenge to economize.

Economy and efficiency are two ways of looking at the same charac-
teristic of an operation. If a manufacturer or a military commander has
a fixed budget (or other fixed resources) and attempts to maximize his
production or the attainment of his objective, we say that he has the
problem of using his resources efficiently. But if his production goal or
other objective is fixed, his problem is to economize on his use of re-
sources, that is, to minimize his costs. These problems may sound like
different problems; in fact they are logically equivalent. For any level of
either budget or objective, the choices that maximize the attainment of
an objective for a given budget are the same choices that minimize the
cost of attaining that objective.⁵ If the Bessemer process is the most
economical method of producing steel from the one point of view, it is
the most efficient from the other. If Missile X is the system that provides
maximum deterrence with a $10 billion SAC budget, it is also the missile
which most economically achieves that level of deterrence. In other words,
there is no conflict of interest between the budgeteer who is supposed to
be interested in economizing and the military commander who is supposed
to be interested in efficiency — except in the determination of the size
of the budget or the magnitude of the objective to be achieved. They
should be able to agree on all the "subsequent" decisions.

For this reason it is misleading to imply, as do Kissinger and Baldwin
in the articles just quoted, that economic or cost factors are necessarily
in conflict with strategic, doctrinal, and technological considerations, and
must somehow be reconciled with them, with not too much weight being
assigned the economic. There is a conflict between defense and other goods

⁵This point is elaborated upon in Chapter 7 and in the Appendix on "The Simple Mathematics of Maximization" at the end of the book.

[1]

3

in deciding on the size of the military budget.⁶ Economizing involves deciding how much of other things to sacrifice in the interests of military strength. But in all decisions on how to spend the military budget — on what kinds of equipment and forces, to implement what kind of strategy — there is no such conflict. Strategy, technology, and economy are not three independent “considerations” to be assigned appropriate weights, but interdependent elements of the same problem. Strategies are ways of using budgets or resources to achieve military objectives. Technology defines the possible strategies. The economic problem is to choose that strategy, including equipment and everything else necessary to implement it, which is most efficient (maximizes the attainment of the objective with the given resources) or economical (minimizes the cost of achieving the given objective) — the strategy which is most efficient also being the most economical.

Strategy and cost are as interdependent as the front and rear sights of a rifle. One cannot assign relative weights to the importance of the positions of the front and rear sights. It does not make sense to ask the correct position of the rear sight except in relation to the front sight and the target. Similarly one cannot economize except in choosing strategies (or tactics or methods) to achieve objectives. The job of economizing, which some would delegate to budgeteers and comptrollers, cannot be distinguished from the whole task of making military decisions.

ECONOMIZING AT DIFFERENT LEVELS

The problem of national security might in theory be regarded as one
big economic problem. The nation has certain resources — now and pros-
pectively in the future — which are conventionally classified by economists
as various sorts of land, labor, and capital. These resources can be used
to satisfy many objectives of the nation and its individual citizens —
national security, a high standard of living, social security, a rapid rate
of economic growth, and so on. These are, of course, competing objectives.
In general, the more resources the nation devotes to national security, the
less it will have for social security and vice versa. We could (as some
economists have done)⁷ conceive of a “social welfare function” which we
would attempt to maximize by an appropriate allocation of the nation’s
resources among the various activities satisfying these objectives.

In fact, for reasons which will become familiar as we proceed but
are in any event obvious, this kind of approach to the problem of national

⁶ See Chapter 4.

⁷See Kenneth J. Arrow, *Social Choice and Individual Values*, John Wiley and Sons, New York, 1951, and A. Bergson (Burk), "A Reformulation of Certain Aspects of Welfare Economics," *Quarterly Journal of Economics*, February 1938, pp. 310-334.

4 THE ECONOMICS OF DEFENSE IN THE NUCLEAR AGE

security is completely impractical and sterile. We have to break economic problems, like so many others, into manageable pieces before we can make a good beginning at finding solutions. And in fact, in the United States and all other countries, governments and departments of defense are organized to deal with appropriate parts of the grand problem at many different levels.

As a beginning let us consider economic problems at each of three rather gross levels. National security, from the point of view of an economist, may be said to depend on three things: (1) the quantity of national resources available, now and in the future; (2) the proportion of these resources allocated to national security purposes; and (3) the efficiency with which the resources so allocated are used.

Several parts of the government — including, for example, the Council of Economic Advisers and the Joint Congressional Committee on the Economic Report — are concerned with problems at the first and "highest" of these levels. Of course the quantity of resources existing in the present cannot be influenced by economic policy; but their full and productive employment can be, and so can their rate of growth, and therefore the quantity of resources that will be available in the future. Present resources are the consequence of past economic policies.

Problems at the second level are the special responsibility of the Bureau of the Budget and the Appropriations Committees of Congress, although all executive departments are deeply involved, and every Congressman is interested. We decide the proportion of national resources to be devoted to defense when we vote a national security budget. In effect we are then choosing between more defense and more of other things. President Eisenhower expressed this choice vividly:

> The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.

> It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population.

> It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.

> It is some 50 miles of concrete highway.⁸

Problems at the third level — the efficient use of the resources allocated for defense — are primarily and in the first instance internal problems of the defense departments and agencies, although for reasons that we will have to examine, the President, other departments, and the Congress are concerned with the solutions to some of them. The problems consist in choosing efficiently, or economically, among the alternative methods of achieving military tasks or objectives. These alternative

⁸"The Chance for Peace," an address reprinted in *The Department of State Bulletin*, April 27, 1953, p. 600.

5

methods may be different strategies, different tactics, various forces, or
different weapons.

It is not apparent to many who are unfamiliar with military problems
how wide the range of choice really is. There is typically an infinity of
ways to carry out a military mission, some much more efficient, or
economical, than others. Consider the range of choice in the following
three examples, taken from three different levels of decision-making
within the departments of the government concerned with defense:

a. The provision of some measure of protection to the United States economy and population against atomic attack. The broad "pure" alternatives include: (1) widespread dispersal of industry and population before attack; (2) shelters and underground construction; (3) fighter and missile defenses; (4) full reliance on an atomic striking force for deterrence or, in some circumstances, to destroy the enemy striking force on the ground. There are, of course, many ways of implementing each broad alternative, as well as many "mixes" or combinations of the pure alternatives.

b. Extension of the range of bomber aircraft. Broad alternatives include the use of: (1) operating bases farther forward, fixed or floating; (2) air refueling; (3) staging bases forward for ground refueling; (4) larger aircraft with greater fuel capacity. If there is time enough for a development program, additional alternatives would include the use of: (5) high energy fuels, chemical or nuclear; (6) lighter structural materials; (7) boundary layer control; and many others.

c. The design of a new machine gun. There are many possible performance characteristics: range, accuracy, lethality of bullet, durability, reliability — some of which may have high military worth, some little. Each has its cost in money, development time, and production time; each its "trade-off" against other characteristics.

This factoring of the big economic problem into many subproblems at different levels has some disadvantages, which we will consider at appropriate places. But it makes both the analytical and the decision-making problems tractable, an advantage not to be lightly discarded. The sergeant in the *New Yorker* cartoon understands the point well when he shouts: "I'm telling you for the last time, Harwick. It's none of your business how much it costs the taxpayers. Your job is to fire that gun."⁹

The Conference Board-National Institute of Public Affairs
Industry-Government Seminars
1970-71 Season

<table><thead><tr><th>Date</th><th>Event</th><th>Host</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>October 7, 1970</td><td>Shaping Our National Priorities<br>Charles L. Schultze<br>Senior Fellow<br>The Brookings Institution<br>(Former Director, Bureau of the Budget)</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>October 21, 1970</td><td>Shaping Our National Priorities<br>Raymond Bauer<br>Professor<br>Harvard Business School</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>November 4, 1970</td><td>Consumer Power--Economic & Political Impl<br>Philip Elman<br>Visiting Professor<br>Georgetown Law Center<br>(Former Federal Trade Commissioner)</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>November 18, 1970</td><td>Consumer Power--Economic & Political Impl<br>Benjamin Rosenthal<br>U. S. Congressman from New York</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>December 2, 1970</td><td>Business and Social Responsibility<br>Sol M. Linowitz, Chairman<br>Urban Coalition and<br>Senior Partner, Coudert Brothers</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>December 16, 1970</td><td>Business and Social Responsibility<br>Dan W. Lufkin, Chairman<br>Executive Committee<br>Donaldson, Lufkin and Jenrette</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>January 6, 1971</td><td>An Incomes Policy<br>Edwin Dale, Financial News Writer<br>The New York Times Bureau</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>January 20, 1971</td><td>An Incomes Policy<br>The Honorable Murray Weidenbaum<br>Assistant Secretary<br>Department of the Treasury</td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

National Industrial Conference Board-National Institute of Public Affairs
Industry-Government Seminars
A New Series Started February 1970

February 4, 1970
The President's Legislative Program
William Safire
Special Assistant to the President

His guest:
The Honorable Claude Kirk
Governor of the State of Florida

Bradley Patterson
Executive Director
National Advisory Council on
Economic Opportunity

February 18, 1970
The President's Legislative Program
Bryce Harlow
Counsellor to the President

March 4, 1970
Implications of the New Federalism
Richard Nathan
Assistant Director
Bureau of the Budget

March 18, 1970
Implications of the New Federalism
Norman Beckman
Chief of Government and
General Research
Legislative Reference Service
Library of Congress

April 1, 1970
Toward Shaping A National Environmental
Strategy
Haynes Johnson
Staff Writer
The Washington Post

Industry-Government Seminar Topics
NICB-NIPA -- Started February, 1970

Page Two

April 15, 1970
Toward Shaping A National Environmental
Strategy
William J. Van Ness
Special Counsel
Senate Interior and Insular Affairs
Committee, U. S. Senate

May 6, 1970
Collective Bargaining and Public
Employee Unions
Richard J. Murphy
Harbridge House

May 20, 1970
Collective Bargaining and Public
Employee Unions
Congressman Morris K. Udall
Chairman, Subcommittee on Compensation
House Committee on the Post Office and
Civil Service

June 3, 1970
Housing the American People
Jeh Vincent Johnson
Architect
Gindele & Johnson

June 17, 1970
Housing the American People
The Reverend Walter E. Fauntroy
President
Model Inner City Community Organization, In

[c]

- 3 -

Floyd H. Hyde
Assistant Secretary for Model
Cities and Governmental
Relations
Department of Housing and
Urban Development

Nicholas Johnson
Commissioner
Federal Communications
Commission

Howard S. Kaltenborn
Vice President
Westinghouse Electric
Corporation

Ferdinand Kramer
President
Draper and Kramer, Inc.

John F. Lee
Executive Vice President
New York Clearing House

Charles F. Luce
Chairman of the Board
Consolidated Edison Company
of New York, Inc.

Donald F. McMahon
Vice President
The Conference Board

Carl H. Madden
Chief Economist
U. S. Chamber of Commerce

Sherman J. Maisel
Member
Board of Governors
Federal Reserve System

Andrew P. Miller
Attorney General
State of Virginia

Charles Moeller, Jr.
Vice President - Economics
Metropolitan Life

Frank Nunlist
Assistant Postmaster General
for Operations

Arthur M. Okun.
Senior Fellow
The Brookings Institution

Harold C. Passer
Assistant Secretary for Economics
Department of Commerce

Nathan W. Pearson
Vice President
T. Mellon and Sons

- 4 -

John A. Perkins
Graduate School of Management
Northwestern University

James T. Ramey
Member
Atomic Energy Commission

Stanley H. Ruttenberg
President
Stanley H. Ruttenberg and
Associates, Inc.

Howard E. Shuman
Administrative Assistant to
Senator William Proxmire

Rocco C. Siciliano
Under Secretary of Commerce

Elmer B. Staats
Comptroller General of the
United States

John R. Stark
Executive Director
Joint Economic Committee

Charles B. Stauffacher
Senior Executive Vice President
Continental Can Company

Herbert Stein
Member
Council of Economic Advisers

Harvey T. Stephens
Executive Vice President
Automatic Retailers of
America, Inc.

Stanley S. Surrey
Harvard Law School

Alexander B. Trowbridge
President
National Industrial Conference
Board, Inc.

Charles E. Wampler
Retired Vice President and
Secretary
American Telephone and
Telegraph Company

James E. Webb
Washington, D. C.

MEMORANDUM

THE WHITE HOUSE

WASHINGTON

March 10, 1971

MEMORANDUM FOR MR. KISSINGER

FROM: D. Dave Halperin

SUBJECT: National Institute of Public Affairs Dinner

The dinner this evening will be held in the Mount Vernon Room
of the Madison Hotel with the schedule as follows:

5:30 Cocktails
6:30 Dinner
7:15 Meeting
9:15 Adjourn
(approx)

I have explained to the Institute that you would probably not be able
to be present for the dinner portion this evening but would arrive in
time to speak and be present for discussions. They are also aware
that you will probably have to leave around 9:00.

At 7:15 the Chairman, Lee White (former head of the Federal Power
Commission) will stand and call the meeting to order and introduce
you. There are no other speakers scheduled, and the topic they have
suggested is "The Elements of National Security in the Coming Decade."
They expect that you will speak for 15-20 minutes and then open the
floor to questions and answers. I have explained that to the extent
that you speak about the National Security Council, you will deal with
procedural issues -- and also that you would prefer not to be constrained
by the stated topic; this is perfectly agreeable with all concerned.

For your information, previous speakers have included Bryce Harlow,
John Ehrlichman, Claude Kirk, Sol Linowitz, and Charles Schultz.

The group to which you will be speaking will include 30-35 prominent
men in government and industry. Some who will be present are:

- 2 -

James Biggs

Under Secretary of Transportation

Alan Boyd

President of the Illinois Central Railroad
(and former Secretary of Transportation)

Matthew Hale

General Counsel, American Bankers Association

Paul H. Madden

Chief Economist, U.S. Chamber of Commerce

John R. Stark

Executive Director, Joint Economic Committee

James E. Webb

Washington, D. C.

Lee Bloom

General Counsel, Lever Brothers

Thomas Dine

Legislative Assistant to Senator Church

Eugene Birnbaum

Vice President, Chase Manhattan Bank

Herbert Fales

Manager, International Department, American Security and Trust Co.

William Baroody

Assistant to the Secretary and Deputy Secretary of Defense

John Smith

Legislative Assistant to Senator Dole

Dr. David Moore

Senior Vice President, Conference Board

A more complete list will be provided later this afternoon, and you
will have it with you when you leave.