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Dr. Arnold Kramish (Physicist, The RAND Corporation):

As a physicist I can perhaps tell you something about the actual production of the bomb. An atomic bomb cannot be manufactured without first making fissionable material. The plutonium manufacturing process is not easy, but it is still the least costly for a small nation and the best known. Construction of facilities for the manufacture of U235 is cheaper in the long run, but requires a large capital expenditure and advanced engineering technique. Three reactors at Marcoule (in the Avignon region of southeastern France) produce about 150 kilograms of plutonium per year, which is more than enough for a test program and some stockpiling. They are also being used for some experiments in atomic power, and three power plants are being built (by Electricite de France, or E.D.F., the French National Power Company) at Chinon. However, the production of *cheap* electric power means producing material which is not suitable for use in atomic weapons, so it is an open question how much of the power plant capacity will be used to produce plutonium of weapons grade (the plants at Chinon have five times the plutonium producing capacity of those at Marcoule).

By 1958 the French had announced a gaseous diffusion plant to enrich uranium to 3 per cent (from its natural state of .71 per cent). This was a plant of modest cost, but after the explosion of three bombs in 1960* it was decided that weapons

* Four plutonium bombs were exploded in the Tanezrouft area of the Sahara desert, at the Reggan proving grounds, on February 13, April 1, and December 27, 1960, and April 25, 1961.

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grade (enriched over 90 per cent) U₂₃₅ was needed, as well as
highly enriched uranium for projected atomic submarines.

The costs of the later plant built for this purpose were much
greater than that of the original plant, causing the press to
claim that the French were in trouble because of rising costs.

Since the first tests in the Sahara, most explosions have been
underground, and the French now claim a prototype bomb to be
carried by their *Mirage* bomber. They are also preparing to test
a thermonuclear device in the Pacific.

[1c]

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Dr. Lawrence Scheinmann (Department of Political Science, UCLA):

French nuclear policy over the last two decades has been characterized by a considerable amount of continuity. Technically, French atomic efforts predate the Second World War with the work in the 1930s of Frederic Joliot-Curie and others attached to the Curie laboratory. In the wake of German aggression French nuclear scientists turned their immediate attention to the problem of harnessing nuclear power for destructive purposes but the French defeat put an end to this work. In 1945 the French provisional Government under Charles de Gaulle established the Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique (Atomic Energy Commission - CEA) for the general purpose of developing scientific, industrial and military atomic potential. Priority was given to peaceful development in these early years not only because of the lack of need of atomic weapons for defensive purposes at this time, but also because French nuclear capacity in the technical and material sense was severely limited. The CEA was under the joint leadership of Joliot-Curie, a Communist Party member, and Raoul Dautry, a conservative-oriented administrator. The scientific services held the balance of power in these early years but this was not terribly important because of the limited nature of the work and tasks involved.

In the turn of the decade the CEA underwent a reorganization which, among other things, wrested policy control from the hands of the scientists and put the balance of authority and suasion in the hands of the administrative leadership of the organization. At the same time, the government took a greater degree of interest in the nature and potential effects of atomic development and

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approved, in 1952, a five year atomic development plan. Two options were open to the French at this time from a theoretical point of view: either to develop series of research reactors, fuel for which would be purchased from other countries such as the United States (a condition of dependency *ab initio*); or, the development of production reactors designed to provide France with nuclear fuels which could be put to research, industrial or even military use. The five-year plan followed the latter option, and provided for the production of Plutonium, one of the two known nuclear fuels at that time. The alternate fuel was enriched uranium but technologically and financially this was a much more costly alternative. Nevertheless, French scientists and political personnel were aware (the former perhaps more than the latter) that plutonium had only found a military use up to that time whereas U235, less toxic and more manageable, could definitely be used for a variety of purposes.

The period 1952-1958 witnessed the development of a variety of incentives for atomic weapons construction. Military-political incentives (separable for analytic purposes but not in practice except on a tenuous basis) included the Soviet, American and British programs, especially the latter; the fear of being relegated to the status of a second-class power; rising nationalism; the treatment of France in the NATO decision-making framework. By 1957 the French program's groundwork was in the process of being firmly emplaced. In this same year several things converged to give a thrust to French military nuclear development: the Soviet sputnik threw the credibility of the American deterrent into

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serious relief and caused French military planners to rethink
the validity of a purely national deterrent. On top of this at
the 1957 NATO meeting (December, 1957), Secretary of State
Dulles asked that American Thor and Jupiter missiles (IRBMs)
be placed on allied soil along the Soviet perimeter. Eventually,
Britain, Turkey and Italy consented, but the French were driven
to conclude that if missiles were to be placed on French soil
it would be better if those missiles were totally French (i.e.
vehicle plus warhead). The French parliament never came to grips
with the specific question of nuclear weapons for France, but on
the basis of American policy and French responsiveness to that
policy, the Gaillard government, in April, 1957, gave the final
green light to an atomic bomb project.

Along with these political considerations and political
incentives were some purely military incentives: French recog-
nition that an army without nuclear weapons in the nuclear age
was nothing more than a police force; the fact of German rearmament
and a traditional desire to be one step up on the Germans in
this realm. Indo-China and Suez had taught the French that
they were negotiating from weakness when their national interests
diverged from those of the United States (Suez especially was
crucial). There were other incentives which cut across these
lines: for example the economic argument, heavily pushed by
military planners such as General Ailleret that nuclears gave a
"big bang for the buck;" or the technical argument that American
aid in nuclear development was contingent upon French progress--

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a belief opened up by the modifications of the Atomic Energy Act in 1958.

In sum, French nuclear policy has a history which is considerably longer than that of the Gaullist Fifth Republic. It is submitted that the conditions which led to the development of the French military nuclear capacity--as enlarged and expanded by General De Gaulle--have not markedly changed. Consequently, we should be wary of over-simplified views which might lead us to believe that post-Gaullist governments will scrap the existing projects and program. Frenchmen, Gaullist and otherwise, do not want nuclear dependence on the United States. Some alternative to this and to the policy of a purely national nuclear force will be sought and found.

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Dr. James Schlesinger (Economist, The RAND Corporation):

In recent years the following three general aspects of American policy in regard to the proliferation of nuclear weapons have emerged:

1. Avoidance of proliferation. There are some moral objections to proliferation, some feelings of guilt in the scientific community, and perhaps more emphasized, there are strategic considerations.

2. Greater cohesion in NATO. The drive here has been to avoid instability and to promote greater political unity. Political instability within NATO was an argument both for and against giving the French nuclear assistance. At the time of Nassau the Kennedy administration came very close to assisting French nuclear efforts, but was dissuaded more by the adamancy of De Gaulle than by considerations of proliferation. By refusing to help the French, we lost the opportunity to impose on them the same safeguards as we did on the British, who, by the terms of agreement with us, are not allowed to give atomic information to others.

3. Greater military effectiveness within the Alliance.

The chief desire here is for unified management of the deterrent in accordance with American strategic doctrine. The French doctrine advocates "city-busting" rather than controlled counterforce, meaning if deterrence fails the Soviets are to be left with no incentive for sparing cities. We fear the French are "trigger-happy" and irresponsible. This imposes a

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block on negotiations and also prevents much objective analysis
of their strategic doctrine. Hence, the present deadlock.

Now lets consider for a minute the costs of the French program.
This might shed some light on the economic potential of the 4th
countries to proliferate. The gaseous diffusion plant at Pierrelatte
has been taken to represent both French technical failure and
inability to estimate costs accurately. But Americans have used
erroneous comparisons in drawing conclusions. The 1958 plant at
Pierrelatte was for peaceful purposes, but the re-design in 1960-
61 was for military purposes, and was much larger. The costs
are alleged to have gone from $110 million to $1.1 billion, and
the estimated date of completion from 1963 to 1967. But the French
always knew the new plant would cost about $500 million for
construction alone, and be finished about 1966. The real comparison
would be to what American costs would be--about $600 million for
construction alone. The expansion at Pierrelatte was due to a
1960 decision to move ahead with a greatly expanded atomic
program but was treated simply as a matter of cost miscalculation,
and was on that basis fuzzed past the French public.

The French are actually doing moderately well. There has
been a bulge in expenditures for the mid-60's but Washington is
overestimating what their costs should be. It should only cost
the French about $300 million a year for their entire weapons
program (including hydrogen weapons) by the early 70's. By
contrast, plutonium weapons would only cost about $50 million
a year, showing how cheap it is to manufacture plutonium bombs
and underscoring the danger of proliferation.

[10]

As you all know, the initial incentives for the Atlantic Alliance involved the building of a Western military force to counter the threat of a common enemy. At the time, this was important to Western security, but the emphasis on the central front is no longer so severe. The stress upon this area is understandable, but out of date, so to speak. There are some who say that if deterrence works at all, it works there, on the central front. However, this tells us nothing about deterrence problems of the "periphery." NATO should not be obsessed with the central front any more than the United States should be obsessed with the possibility of a direct Soviet attack on the American heartland. What some think of as the "periphery" of NATO is quite central to those living there. All parts of NATO should be of relatively equal concern to the United States, and I take only somewhat seriously the notion that the central front attack problem should be the criterion for evolving strategy. NATO must shape itself after events.

A major decision for NATO policy planners is going to be whether Europe is thought of as being defended against a Soviet attack which takes place in the course of central war, or as a limited attack in Europe alone. Regarding the central war situation, there are two questions: should Europe be shot up in order to expel Russians who would surrender anyhow if the Soviet Union was defeated in central war? Would they in fact attack Europe in the course of central war? Soviet troops

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might just be badly needed at home if Soviet society is in chaos
from thermonuclear attack, or the Soviets might want to keep
them there out of concern for fending off an attack from the
West.

In the next ten years, the major NATO involvement is likely
to be what it has been in the past, that is, the Berlin
crisis, the 1956 Hungarian uprisings, and perhaps the 1962
Cuban crisis---the war of maneuver and nerves with the aid of
local tactical deterrent force rather than an actual fire fight.
I am inclined to agree with Bernard Brodie when he says that it
is in fact *hard* to start a war, and a successful maneuver to
establish a military precedence may be enough.

If NATO grows up it may be interested in having a NATO
foreign policy, and in acquiring obligations and interests
outside the NATO area. However, NATO commitments alone do not
define the nature of incentives to react in defense of a given
country. We can expect that individual NATO countries will have
individual defense commitments outside NATO. Do we have a
commitment to defend India against Chinese attack, for example?
Are we more obligated to Finland or Berlin? Finland is probably
relying on the United States. So aren't we obligated then?
And what implications for NATO does this commitment have? We
have to realize that NATO is not Germany with perhpas France
behind it. Even such seemingly peripheral incidents as Suez
or Lebanon should be taken into consideration by NATO when framing
criteria for weapons and policies.

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Regarding these so-called peripheral areas, another thing to be kept in mind is the fact that speed of response will be more important in future incidents than size or scale of response. A small task force in 24 hours will be much more decisive in these areas than a later large scale force. We don't have enough pertinent knowledge of escalation, particularly where nuclear weapons are involved. We don't know just what Soviet reactions will be in a fight, nor do they know our own reactions---particularly given our ignorance of how they will react. So wars are likely to be wars of nerves more than anything else. If so, the use of nuclear weapons to scare, rather than kill, may be in order, but we must make sure that we really do demonstrate what we set out to---and not just our own fear of nuclear weapons. There is a mistaken belief that there is some cheap easy way of scaring the Russians. If we detonate a medium sized bomb 100,000 feet over Moscow to break a few windows, thinking to scare the Soviets into submission, we may do no more than demonstrate that we're only willing to explode it 100,000 feet in the air--that we lack the nerve to go further. This probably would not intimidate the Soviet Union.

We must also guard against the mistake of waiting too long, and using nuclear weapons to avoid a military catastrophe at the last moment, instead of using them earlier to forestall that eventuality. After all, if we get into a situation where we envisage having to use nuclear weapons in 24 hours, it may be wiser to use them as instruments of demonstration now, thereby

wiser to use them as instruments of demonstration now, thereby
enjoying having to use nuclear weapons in 54 hours, if they may be
eventually. After all, if we get into a situation where we
fast moment instead of waiting them earlier to forestall that
and using nuclear weapons to avoid a military catastrophe at the
We must also guard against the mistake of waiting too long.

The Soviet Union.

the nerve to do further. This probably would not inhibit
only willing to explode it 100,000 feet in the air--that we lack
into annihilation, we may do no more than demonstrate that we're
over Moscow to break a few windows, thinking to acquire the Soviet
the Ruina. If we demonstrate a medium sized bomb 100,000 feet
is a mistake, believe it there is a some easy way of acquiring
out to--and not just our own fear of nuclear weapons. There
but we must make sure that we really do demonstrate what we set
or nuclear weapons to acquire, rather than kill, may be in order
to be were of some more than anything else. It so the use
given our ignorance of how they will react. So were are likely
will be in a fight, not do they know our own reactions--particularly
we are involved. We don't know that what Soviet reactions
pertinent knowledge of acoustics, particularly where nuclear
these areas than a later far more acoustical force. We don't have enough
A small task force in 54 hours will be much more decisive in
more important in future incidents than a rise or a scale of response.
to be kept in mind is the fact that speed of response will be
lessening these so-called peripherial areas another thing.

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possibly avoiding having to use them for more serious purposes
24 hours hence.

The use of nuclear weapons for demonstration purposes is
significant because it would shatter a twenty year old tradition
against the use of such weapons. Even one explosion may therefore
make a big difference, though there is a danger that too small
a shot may be interpreted as a sign of weakness, not resolve,
and therefore have negative results. An exchange of shots by
deliberate intent between American and Soviet troops may in fact
be just as dramatic as the use of nuclear weapons.

[10]

The strategic issues that trouble NATO arise fundamentally
from incompletely shared national interests and understandings.
They will not be cured by any organizational reforms, although
they may be alleviated or worsened. Decisions within the
alliance are constrained severely by the need to secure unanimity.
Drastic proposals for the reform of NATO seek to modify the
principle of unanimity itself in a move toward federation.

The less drastic proposals discussed in this seminar (see, e.g.,
Alastair Buchan, "The Reform of NATO," *Foreign Affairs*, January
1962), seek better politico/military planning. Yet such planning
can only design better alternatives and clarify choices among
them, for there would still be no sovereign power within NATO
to decide among them.

Would-be reformers find the current organization anomalous.
A sizeable international staff, planning together on strategic
problems, rather than as delegates for country positions, is
found low on the organization chart (lower left in attached
chart) under a senior field commander, the Supreme Allied
Commander, Europe. No such staff is found at nominally higher
echelons. * And SACEUR's staff is small, split between operational
and longer-run planning duties, and composed almost exclusively
of serving military officers from the member nations. National

* Beginning July 1, 1964, however, all members of the Planning
Staff of the Standing Group will serve in an international capacity,
with staffing to "ensure a broader participation on the part of
officers from non-Standing Group nations in the preparation of
NATO Military plans and policies."

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strategic planning for the major member nations (especially the U.S.) can, in contrast, draw upon much larger military/civilian staffs, with a much greater infusion of technological, economic, and political expertise directly into the planning process.

The NATO organization reflects an earlier era in national planning, with military authorities assigned to formulate military requirements after political guidance had set objectives. Economic constraints were to be imposed later as modifications upon military requirements, rather than with economic considerations included as an integral part of the military planning process. This "requirements" approach, with division of labor rather than shared labor among political, military, and economic echelons, works fairly well in some cases. Thus, the ground forces required in conventional war to defend a front in Europe may depend mainly upon some physical constants -- area to be defended and its terrain -- and some major variables that military authorities can predict reasonably well, notably the likely size of opposed armies. Yet even in these cases new weapons, different air/ground proportions, etc., can make calculations very difficult, and one set of equally-effective forces may have very different political implications than another set.

The farther away a problem gets from traditional defense planning, the less applicable the customary "requirements" approach is likely to be. As one example, anti-ballistic missile defence

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can serve. Staggering in technological complexity and cost, and with important but subtle impacts upon arms races, it cannot be considered at all well in purely military terms. In NATO it mostly today is not considered at all, which is one of several bad ways to consider the problem. If it were to be considered urgently, no adequate NATO staff exists. There are no comparable counterparts in NATO, for example, of the contributing parts of the American Department of Defense represented by service technical staffs, the Director for Research and Engineering, the Systems Analysis and Programming elements of the Comptroller, International Security Affairs, and contract researchers.

To create new joint politico/military staffs directly under a revamped North Atlantic Council and Secretary-General, as has been suggested, risks moving some military planning from SHAPE to a place where it might be better done in theory, but hamstrung in practice. The only sure product of larger joint staffs is more paper. Putting planning issues closer to the Council might raise individual national vetoes sooner and more often. There would still be no single authority to make decisions. Consequently, some (Vandevanter) are more skeptical about such reforms than others (Hoag), and the issue is open.

Currently some improvised greater synthesis in planning is mandatory, because the force planning of the NATO Military Authorities has moved farther away from country force and financial plans. The plans must be reconciled ultimately, and some advance

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reconciliation is highly desirable. The current "Stikker
Exercise" in NATO was motivated by this goal. Larger aspirations,
which may be utopian, are to free the current official planners
from looking only at minor variations of one strategic package.
If they are not so freed, any systematic appraisals of broadly
different strategic alternatives will then by default come to
a NATO forum only from member nations. The appraisals them-
selves will not result from shared planning within the Alliance
structure.

Whatever the "Grand Design" for NATO [Seyom Brown's preceding seminar] -- informal hierarchy, two-pillar partnership between the U.S. and Europe, Atlantic confederation, or even more pragmatically, an Atlantic Concert -- American policy-makers will find that design incompatible with a sizeable proliferation of national nuclear capabilities. Such a proliferation is divisive within the alliance, as expressed arguments for it bring American guarantees into question for those members that cannot or do not aspire to national capabilities, as well as for those that do; as weapons come under the control of others still less trusted; and as resources committed to proliferation reduce capabilities for collective rather than national self defense.

Yet American policy-makers sympathize with European aspirations for greater status and participation in nuclear affairs. More sharing in alliance nuclear policy, and in collective nuclear forces, are favored where nuclear separatism is not. Meaningful policy sharing, which need not raise such sharp "whose finger on what trigger, and what safety-catch?" issues, exists, is growing, and can be extended. Operations can be coordinated and information shared, despite security problems, about capabilities, plans, and likely outcomes of nuclear exchanges as a result of current and alternative NATO nuclear policies. Such information is greatly needed; for example, the ABC's of the new strategic options for

[10]

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American strategic forces (including "city-sparing") possibilities are still little understood in Europe. European officers have long participated actively at SHAPE in nuclear planning for Allied Command Europe, influencing what would be hit by SACEUR's forces and how; and now their participation is extending to Omaha and SAC. Our allies will be in a much better position to understand key strategic planning decisions -- what options for possible use by existing forces; which additions, and how many, to future forces -- and hence to argue intelligently about and influence them.

Numerous schemes for collective nuclear forces within the alliance were proposed in the late 1950's. It was argued that nuclear policy sharing would not go far enough toward meeting legitimate European aspirations, and that American resistance to even a collective force would stimulate a worse alternative in national forces. Hence, the MLF was a compromise between those Americans who wanted no help to allied nuclear forces and those who wanted more help to national forces, and gained its political force as a compromise. Its proponents were more idealistic, desiring a deeper NATO association that would clearly extend beyond 1969 and/or a supranational European force. Whether America positively desires a European force as an ultimate outcome can be hedged, as the European nations reluctant to yield a purely national veto in such a force (e.g., Great Britain) are more likely to face this concession soon within an MLF grouping that

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includes the United States. Hence the MLF can further a European
force if that evolution is desired, as well as an Atlantic one.

The valuable negative function of the MLF is to demonstrate
that America is not the key obstacle to supranationalism in
strategic systems. This function was met from end-1960 to
late-1962 by proclaimed American willingness, with remaining
responsive initiatives left to Europeans. This permissiveness
changed, however, to salesmanship, which to this observer was
a mistake. Two penalties have been serious: (1) an undue
concentration within the Administration of scarce creative energies
upon the one goal to the neglect of others; and (2) excessive
claims for the MLF that redound upon other goals. For example,
to make MLF membership seem the road to influence over nuclear
planning is to undermine broader policy sharing programs that
would give such influence to all cooperative allies; and to make
an MRBM in the MLF seem an answer to Soviet MRBM's, unlike an
American ICBM, is to strengthen military arguments for NATO
MRBM's that would not be multi-manned.

It seems desirable now to push the MLF less and make
appropriately modest claims for it, while trying to work out
specific implementations, including those for firing control,
that might resolve divergent interests among participants. An
Atlantic aspiration for the MLF seems appropriate, although its
compatibility with a European force can be noted. Broadened
nuclear policy sharing measures should be developed independently
of the MLF. At the same time a broader goal for the MLF,

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foreign to its original purpose, has become more relevant. If
the alliance as a whole reverts still more to traditional
peacetime coalition patterns, an inner-core grouping collected
around the MLF may be able to preserve and extend peacetime
military command arrangements and other forms of interdependence
that are not possible for NATO as a whole. In this sense the
MLF can be a foundation for contingency planning against a disruption
of the alliance.

[c]

As noted in a previous seminar (January 3rd) on "Tactical Nuclear Alternatives," interest in conventional defense for NATO arises primarily from the problems and risks of alternative defenses. The principal argument for conventional defense is that it will preserve the "firebreak" between nuclear and other weapons at a time when other "firebreaks" between initial hostilities and theater-wide nuclear war look unpromising. If no promising "firebreaks" are preserved, will NATO be able to pose a credible deterrent and meet foreign policy challenges?

Conventional defense also should fit the comparative advantage of the West because it stresses resources, where NATO has and should continue to have a sizeable advantage over the Warsaw Bloc. Beyond economic potential, NATO already outmans the Bloc in military manpower by about 30 per cent, and out-spends it on defense by a much greater margin. And conventional defense should be stabilizing in a long-run arms race context. If NATO builds a good base for conventional defense, then it should be unattractive for the Soviets to attempt to offset it by extending the arms race in this dimension. In quantitative terms, the *incremental* rate of military exchange in any extension of this part of the arms race should then look unrewarding to the enemy. (See attached illustrative graph).

If, for the moment, a good conventional defense is assumed to be feasible, the arguments about disirability take a simplified form. First, such a defense should be inherently credible, because its use is consistent with limiting damage to NATO in war as well as with denying gain to the enemy. Second, a good

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conventional defense should enhance the credibility of residual
nuclear threats because it will at least drive the enemy to an
unmistakably large and violent attack. Third, it will provide
a capability for safe response in inherently ambiguous situations,
and thus provide time for political consultation among member
nations to reach a sober decision about the nature of the crisis
and an appropriate forceful response to it. A commitment to an
immediate nuclear response provides no such safety margin, and
raises doubts about its credibility in an actual crisis.

But the worry, particularly in European circles, is that an
evident concern with conventional capabilities will be interpreted
by the enemy a weakening of nuclear resolve, and hence of deter-
rence, while sizeable defense spending in NATO will in fact lead
to poor conventional capabilities instead of the good capabilities
that are possible. If so, the probability of war may rise; and,
in any hostilities, an attempt at initial response that is
confined to conventional arms may lead quickly to a deteriorating
military situation. If a choice between nuclear response or
partial capitulation is delayed until after several days of a
losing conventional battle, both of these remaining alternatives
may look much worse than they looked in the first hour. Hence
there is great pressure either to commit oneself to very prompt
use of nuclear weapons or to good conventional defense, but not
to a queasy compromise that would combine poor conventional capa-
bilities with great reliance upon them. As the stock of tactical
nuclear weapons that are deployed forward in Europe rises, the

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choice among policies sharpens. If the weapons are not to be
used promptly, military commanders cannot place dependence upon
them; and if political authorization for their use is delayed,
there are greater risks that NATO weapons will be overrun
before their combat mission is fulfilled.

A clear-cut doctrinal solution that gave forward commanders
assurance that they could use tactical weapons immediately amounts,
however, to a vote of zero confidence, and not merely low or
medium confidence, in the possibility of conventional defense.
NATO will never know in the event of hostilities whether it would
have done well or badly in a conventional phase because there
will be no such phase. An extensive predelegation of nuclear
authorization to commanders also means a loss of central control
at top political levels.

In view of weaknesses within the Warsaw Bloc, and their lesser
resources devoted to theater capabilities, a good conventional
defense for NATO should not, in principle, be difficult to achieve.
Prevalant pessimism arises, in part, from old quantitative perspec-
tives and traditional methods of threat assessment. When in
doubt, military planners naturally assume the worst about enemy
capabilities, intentions, and conditions for war outbreak; e.g.,
premediated Soviet attack directed suddenly at NATO weaknesses
with full cooperation from Soviet satellites. From these methods
one tends to get a "twelve foot Russian," with so extreme a
view of the threat that in despair only radical and risky NATO
responses are presumed to be possible. Tradtional prenuclear

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conservative methods lead paradoxically, to radical nuclear prescriptions.

Currently Secretary McNamara has tried to counter excessive pessimism by pointing out that the Soviet reduced ground army is only large enough to supply 40 or 50 full division forces in the American definition of such a force. Further, he notes, the West has better tactical air power; Soviet doctrine is backward; their satellites unreliable; and an outbreak of limited hostilities might well begin with some sizeable initiatives by NATO rather than the Soviets. The obvious current possibility is Soviet interference with access to West Berlin, in which case any first shots would come from NATO forces if NATO had the courage to fire them.

Such are the optimistic considerations which are being emphasized in an effort to break away from an assessment of military situations that was relevant years ago when the Soviet army was far larger and NATO forces (before the German buildup) were much smaller. But a long list can be made on the pessimistic side, fundamentally because there has been no doctrinal consensus within the Alliance that would lead to military planning that would eliminate conventional deficiencies. One of the four major NATO powers, the United Kingdom, has never contributed greatly to conventional defense on the Continent. More conspicuously in recent years, France has proceeded to reorganize and reduce her army so that only a handful of divisions are designed to fight beyond French borders. Only two major powers, the United States and the Federal Republic, are left with sizeable contributions

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on the Central Front.

Many specific examples of key qualitative deficiencies can be cited. For example, a fixation upon nuclear war has led to a choice for the protection of theater aircraft between very elaborate and expensive protection (as one alternative, very hard shelters) or no protection at all. The result has been no protection, with resultant high vulnerability even against non-nuclear attack. The American Defense Department has again requested funds for inexpensive "soft shelters," but none as yet are under construction even for American aircraft. Comparable examples of remediable deficiencies can be listed in other areas. None of the other NATO armies can match the American 7th Army in conventional artillery, and the main direction of others' aircraft programs is still from conventional to nuclear delivery capability, rather than to the dual capability that has been the aim for American tactical forces in the last three years.

More generally, there remain the problems of maldeployment and imbalance in the theater posture. The long Northern Front is thinly covered. Central Front forces remain in the locations chosen for occupation of Germany after World War II, rather than locations directed towards a forward defense of the Federal Republic near the Iron Curtain. Strength in some sectors is partly vitiated by weakness in neighboring sectors. The notable political example is the position of the American 7th Army. Its expensive high quality may not be fully useable because forces to its north and south are too weak to cover its flanks adequately. In the long run, all the forces must approach some

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comparable standard. Hopefully it will be a high one, but, failing that, it will be a common low level. Continued imbalance is simply inefficient. Yet a lowering of American forces to European quality standards raises the specter of seeming partial American withdrawal, with all its disruptive political overtones.

Given the extent to which NATO outspends the Warsaw Bloc, and the great problems within the Bloc, NATO can afford a tremendous amount of waste. Equally clearly, excessive waste is intolerable to all, especially when some see little relevance in conventional capabilities anyway. The resources already exist to deny to the Soviet Union any easy conventional advantage in Europe, but those resources must be redirected and coherently related. They will only be so redirected when and if a doctrinal consensus emerges that explicitly recognizes the utility of conventional defense.

[c]

The term Grand Design, with reference to our North Atlantic area policies, is only a cryptic title for that loose collection of the expressions -- in action and in declaration -- that tries to define the underlying orientation of our European policies. Therefore, when I claim I am going to present an alternative to the Grand Design, no one should expect of me anything less loose or more systematic than this loose collection of expressions and actions that comprises the official "Grand Design" for the North Atlantic area.

Actually the official Grand Design for the North Atlantic area is less a "design" than a way of defining the "problem" of the American relation to Europe. As in other aspects of life, you only have a problem when you feel some set of goals is being frustrated.

Our Government, within the last few years at least, seems to have felt an urgent need to give some integrating orientation toward our policies toward Europe, feeling that probably the reason why we were being frustrated in specific aspects of those policies was that we had no clear conception of exactly what it is we wanted. This feeling of frustration, to be sure, plagued previous administrations also; but it was possibly not until the Kennedy Administration that we had a talent for exploring the basic assumptions of policy at the highest level -- a sufficient talent to even hope to formulate a Grand Design which would give an

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integrating orientation to our policies.

Let me characterize, if I can, the formulation of alternatives that seems to have emerged from this search for a Grand Design. To do so, I am going to present a number of "ideal types," in the Weberian sense, which I feel underlie the statements as to what the problem is which are presented in less "ideal-type" form by administration spokesmen. I am going to here characterize, and you may think it as a caricature, the way the alternatives are seen.

The administration appears to characterize the problem as involving a choice between four alternative futures for the Atlantic community. And a choice has to be made from among these four:

> The Atlantic area could configure itself as an *informal hierarchy*; it could configure itself as a *dumbbell*; it could configure itself as some kind of a *political federation* congruent with the Atlantic area we are talking about; or, finally, it could configure itself into a *group of national fortresses*.

**INFORMAL HIERARCHY**

The *informal hierarchy*, as a design for the North Atlantic area, is something that has been assumed to exist up until very recently. Some assume it is still in existence. It is based upon a vast discrepancy in power among the national units, with one of the units, namely the United States, occupying the apex of the hierarchy. The informal hierarchy is such that the basic decisions on the allocation of resources throughout the North Atlantic area are in large measure determined by that power which

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occupies the apex.

Now it has been recognized by those in office, and observers
out of office, that such an informal hierarchy probably assumes
the existence of some global bipolarity of power -- this in order
to sustain the ties that bind the lesser members to the more
powerful leader.

The informal hierarchy in the West, in the North Atlantic
area, does not require supranational forms of organization. The
hierarchy works without formalizing it.

The military expression of this informal hierarchy would show
the United States as kind of a "nuclear trustee" for all members.
And there would be a specialization of roles for defense in the
area. Present policies, arrangements, and proposals for the future
that imply this ideal type, this basic gross configuration within
the North Atlantic area, are probably the "sword and shield"
doctrine, in which SAC, the American Strategic Air Command,
is regarded as <u>the</u> strategic deterrent force; the controlled
counterforce doctrine for the use of the strategic capabilities
of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization; and the multilateral
force design.

With respect to the MLF, I'm not talking about the way it has
been sold in the rhetoric. I'm saying that its *design* implies
an informal hierarchy. Sometimes it is suggested that there
might be a renegotiation of the MLF design, which might allow for
a different political configuration of the North Atlantic area.
But the contemplated *shape* of the MLF as its original founding

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seems to imply the persistence of an informal hierarchy.

Many currently popular arms control policies and proposals to restrict the spread of nuclear weapons seem also to imply a perpetuation of this informal hierarchy in the North Atlantic area.

I think the clearest, recent expression of what would be involved diplomatically and militarily for the perpetuation of this informal hierarchy as a design for the North Atlantic area occurred in Dean Acheson's *Foreign Affairs* article of January 1963.

## DUMBBELL

Another alternative which has not been elaborated in detail, in actual policy or even in suggestions, might be called the *dumb-bell*. This is a two-headed decision-making arrangement for the North Atlantic area. Some advocates resent the ambiguous connections in the word "dumbbell" and prefer, if a short-hand be sought, "two-pillars."

In political expression, this "ideal type" would probably show some supranational forms in Western Europe. In some conceptions this supranational form of organization for Western Europe is supposed to include Britain. Logically there is no necessary implication in the "dumbbell" for a supranational form of organization for Western Europe. Western Europe, in fact, could exhibit itself as an informal hierarchy. Indeed, this probably is de Gaulle's image of the Western European half of the dumbbell. But nonetheless it is clearly a two-headed monster for making the major decisions for the allocation of resources and values

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within the entire alliance.

The military expressions of the dumbbell would probably involve
a European nuclear strategic force, under European command and
control; and this carries with it, as a correlative, a rejection
of the Achesonian specialization of roles concept for defense of
the Atlantic area -- that is, now the queen's role, in addition
to the pawn's role, would be performed by the European command.
There may of course be a specialization of roles within Europe
itself -- if the queen's role is played by France -- which could
find some members of a European informal hierarchy still in the
role of the foot sloggers.

There is a great deal of questioning, in Europe and the United
States, as to whether this dumbbell arrangement is at all feasible
or desirable. But it is suggested as something to be taken
seriously by a number of statements that have been made recently
in Washington: The pleas for the evolution of the Common Market
into a political union would seem to imply the evolution toward
a dumbbell configuration, at least as one step toward the future
evolution of the North Atlantic area. Also, more recently,
suggestions for abandoning the unanimity principle for the
multilateral force at the time that Europe makes impressive strides
toward political unity seem to imply that we take seriously the
evolution of the present system in North Atlantica toward some
kind of a dumbbell configuration.

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NORTH ATLANTICA

There is a third alternative that is suggested as a gross pattern for the future of the North Atlantic area; we might simply call this "North Atlantica." In its political expression, this "ideal type" would require the most important decisions for the whole area to be made by a majority vote or a qualified majority, rather than according to the principle of unanimity among the member units. It implies the evolution toward a political system in which the laws of North Atlantica itself are supreme over those of the constituent states.

Its military expression, of course, would show true indivisibility of defense, and a functional, rather than geographic specialization of roles within the North Atlantic area.

This configuration doesn't seem to allow for a pattern of multipolarity within the area, unless of course we have powerful regional pressure-groups. It seems to exclude "neutrals" (such exclusion being implicit in the existence of a unified defense establishment and foreign policy). And it also would seem to exclude radical regime changes, say in Italy or France, which would go in the direction of neutralism, or go in a direction fundamentally at odds with the basic anti-Eastern thrust which appears to underlie any design for achieving greater cohesion and greater supranationality within the North Atlantic area.

Present policies, arrangements, and proposals which seem to imply that North Atlantica is the preferred, although "distant," goal are the Kennedy Declaration of Interdependence of July 4, 1962; the MLF rhetoric; efforts to enhance the power of the NATO

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staffs; attempts to achieve NATO-wide weapons procurement; and
various integration of force schemes.

## NATIONAL FORTRESSES

The fourth basic image of a possible configuration within
the North Atlantic area is of **national fortresses** (fortress France,
fortress Britain, fortress Germany, and fortress America). The
assumed political expression of this configuration would involve
traditional balance-of-power international politics among the
North Atlantic nations, and might involve these separate fortresses
in separate deals with Communist nations. This "ideal type"
conjures up the image of petty rivalries and possibly wars on
the old European pattern. We would presumably be in the nuclear
nth country world, or near to it.

Present tendencies within the United States which are often
pointed to, to show that this development is not merely a
hallucination but a real possibility to be guarded against, are
the growth of isolationist sentiment now, some 19 years after
World War II, Congressional reaction to the balance-of-payments
problem and also strategic force **posture** recommendations which
suggest movement toward a strict second-strike-only nuclear
deterrence policy (that is, a nuclear weapons posture which
contemplates their use only in case the United States itself
were under direct nuclear attack).

## TOWARD AN EXPANDED SET OF ALTERNATIVES

I am not suggesting that the Administration now clearly advocates
any one of these alternatives. What I am suggesting, though,

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is that this range of alternatives tends to inform the more prosaic
and pragmatic sounding discussions that we get on European problems
from Washington. But very often the formulation of alternatives
stops right here.

My contention is that such a truncation of the range of
possible alternatives compels an overly stark choice: Either we
try to evolve toward a North Atlantica -- as I have characterized
it here (sometimes of course this includes a variation of the
dumbbell as a step toward North Atlantica) -- or we are going to
find ourselves, willy-nilly, with the informal hierarchy evolving
toward a configuration which features national fortresses:
Fortress America, Fortress France, Fortress Britain, and
horror of horrors, Fortress Germany.

Now my basic discomfiture with this formulation of alternatives
is that it can, in fact, become a self-confirming prophecy.
Every frustration of our Grand Design for a North Atlantica can
be defined as a push toward the national fortress world by the U.S.
public, and by Congress; and there can be a feedback effect
through European opinion which becomes suspicious of our own
tough talk toward them -- talk which may involve a hint of more
than discomfiture, a hint of possible withdrawal of the United
States entanglement in the affairs of Europe. Thus the way in
which the problem is formulated can itself reinforce European
objections to the American presence and can arouse suspicions
of American attempts to reassert the informal hierarchy, which
of course, is outdated. Such a voicing of European suspicions
can further feed American resentment and thereby begin the process
which confirms the original prophecy: that the stark choices

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are either evolution toward a North Atlantica or toward a system
of national fortresses.

NORTH ATLANTIC CONCERT: THE FIFTH ALTERNATIVE

Now here is where I would like to suggest another alternative
to expand the range of alternatives and make the choices less
stark. I do see germs of this fifth alternative within many
statements and analyses that are coming out of official Washington
today, but let me here give it a handle and explore some of its
implications.

We can call this a North Atlantic Concert. The term concert
is a literary metaphor. It suggests separate instruments; it
suggests no hierarchy (I'm thinking here of a jazz concert* not
a symphony concert where you have a conductor). But it also suggests
a set of common themes, expressing itself in shifting configurations
and variations.

Politically, it would allow for a multipolar world. It
would allow for regime changes within the North Atlantic area,
would even allow for popular front governments should they
emerge in some of the key nations in the area. It would not be
a "crisis" for neutral regimes to come to power in the area.
It would allow for separate deals with Communist nations. In
fact, there could be a good deal of rivalry within the North
Atlantic area itself without a shattering of the whole design.

In its military expression, the Concert would allow for
a degree of strategic self-sufficiency. There of course could
still be close and continual military consultation between members

* A chamber concert might be more felicitous.

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who felt their fundamental, diplomatic, and foreign policy interests coincided. Between these particular members there could still be bilateral or even multilateral sharing and integration of commands, and bilateral or multilateral sharing of nuclear strategic weapons. It would allow for bilateral or multilateral strategic and tactical coordination. But it would *not* insist that these patterns of sharing and coordination be North Atlantic wide, include *all* members. Nor would it be embarrassed by special relationships. It would not be self-consciously defensive when only some members of the North Atlantic area went along with sharing arrangements involving the United States.

Now there are certain events and trends today that suggest this conception is already being accepted, albeit somewhat reluctantly: The British have been excluded from the Common Market. (If this means that the British are in fact going to be excluded from a European political union, it makes it very difficult for us to be serious about urging the dumbbell configuration upon Europe.) There is also a growing realism about de Gaulle and others, a recognition that it is not only de Gaulle, but something in the legitimate pride of a great nation, and in the pride of some other nations within Europe, which make them reluctant to have the evolution of a North Atlantic occur along lines which seem to preserve the informal hierarchy with the United States at the apex, even if only during the evolutionary processs. Despite all of the rebuffs and the frustrations we have suffered, there appears to be a rededication to continued American participation and entanglement in the affairs of Europe, whether or not our preferred design is accepted. New concepts, however, are

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probably needed to define this emerging realism in positive
ways. As yet, the recognition that we are going to have to adjust
our expectations for the emerging future of Europe tends to have
an apologetic ring. We seem to be searching, passively, for
accommodation to the least of possible evils rather than attempting
to aggressively reformulate a future role for the United States
in an emerging North Atlantic Concert of nations.

DISCUSSION

MALCOLM W. HOAG: Let me make one or two comments, and confine them to that because I'll get my shot with a somewhat different point of view in later meetings of this seminar.

On the business of these Grand Designs or "ideal types," I think
it might be helpful to break loose from the military field which
we have been looking at too much. Consider trade, for example,
which can be traced easier. It goes all the way back to the
Marshall Plan when people had to make a choice. And the choice
was: We are very clear that we want Europe to revive economically.
Now do we want Europe to become a common market (customs union),
or should this goal be subordinated to the more cosmopolitan
free-trade aspiration? Do we want Europe to become a powerful
club, or a looser club with a bigger membership? And that issue
was faced before there was a North Atlantic Alliance, before there
was much of a military build-up at all. The great argument tended
to be resolved, at least within the State Department, in terms
of saying: We prefer European integration, even though a strong
customs union in Europe may in many respects be prejudicial to
American trade. Now you can see that issue today in the "Chicken
War," and, much more importantly, in the whole issue of agricultural
exports from America to Europe. Do you want this customs union,
or would you rather not have them creating a trade-pool that can
divert trade away from America as well as create trade beneficial
to America? That was and is a choice, and policy planners had
and have to take a stand.

Now to jump almost to the end point; when you speak of your
"fifth alternative" I'm inclined to think what you are doing is
making a virtue of, and putting a title on, what policy-makers
have to do day by day. What you are doing is putting a capital
"p" on "pragmatism," when pragmatism with a little p is what
bureaucrats have to practice every day of the week. They roll
with the punch and say: "We have this issue, this little war

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about chickens versus retaliatory measures, we have got to work it out with the Common Market, and somehow we will handle it." It is handled; these issues have to be handled.

In a sense, what you would like to do is to say as we do this: "Now don't anybody get upset about deep implications for the Grand Design: you know this doesn't mean a trade war next year, it just means we had a little skirmish and that's it." Ninety per cent of government operations, domestic as well as international, I think are so governed; but policy planners have to look beyond that. I think they _have_ to say something more.

A North Atlantic Concert is what we live with 90 per cent of the time; but we have to have a clearer idea where we are going the day after tomorrow, because some of these pragmatic choices are going to be governed by, or sensitive to, which way we want to go.

When we come back to the military area, on which in later seminars I will have more to say, there you do get very sharply this question: Is America positively in favor of a European supranational grouping or is America positively in favor of Atlantica, in your terms, but willing to make do with supranational European Union? It makes a big difference.

Some of our European critics, I think rightly have tended to say that as they talk to people on one bank of the Potomac in Washington in the State Department, they get this flavor: America positively wants a supranational European grouping. It agrees with Jean Monnet in aspiration. They get this feeling out of European Regional Affairs in the State Department or out of Policy Planning. Then they cross the Potomac to the Pentagon where people are dealing with problems that do dwarf in their dimensions the economic problems, and they get the impression: No, the American government on this side of the River is for Atlantica. So they are entitled to come to the White House and say: "By the way fellows, which _is_ it?" They are entitled to ask that question. And any American Administration has to answer it. Not in terms necessarily of a firm blueprint -- rarely has it been that tidy -- but you have to have in your own mind an idea of a goal that lies behind just tomorrow's decision.

And, in a way, in terms of the categories you use (which I think are fair ones) an American Administration in its own mind has to be clear that it is against alternative _four_ in your grouping -- a collection of fortresses -- not merely because of all the disruption that it foresees from a fortress Germany, but because if this is the way we want to go, we have no answer at all for the Luxembourgs or the Danmarks who can never be fortresses of their own. If you break down the collective defense, what happens to the little fellow? So I think all of the American Administration have been clear they are against number _four_. That's easy; you can speak for any of your first three and still be against the fourth one.

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Now it gets harder when you ask which of those first three are
you for. It's very hard to answer that.

You raise a lot of tough issues. But I don't think you can
solve them; and this is in sum my criticism of your approach:
You can't solve that choice between one, two, and three by saying
it's unnecessary to make it. We can blur over it, and put a
capital "p" on "pragmatism" and have a new name for it which is
North Atlantic concert. Nobody could ever be against North Atlantic
concert. It's wonderful. But that does not suffice as a guide
to long-range planning. You have a supreme political virtue, but seminars
should push people beyond what would be an all virtuous political position.

**SEYOM BROWN:** I am. I think there is something more involved
here than simply urging pragmatism. What I'm suggesting is that
we should be against inhibitions to pragmatic judgment in high
places. What I'm suggesting is that we may have too much of a
compulsion to define the future we're evolving toward. It may
in fact be unrealistic to have as an orienting principle something
which is supposed to be better than the preservation or the mainten-
ance of the state system. This may in fact inhibit pragmatic
judgments. It may thereby inhibit an effective defense of the
West.

What I want is a **liberation** from "ideology" which inhibits our
making choices necessary to our security and the preservation of
our basic national interests. Now, concretely, it's difficult
to point to a decision "x" which was inhibited by such ideological
inhibitions to pragmatism. But it is very possible that our attempt
to work out some kind of a cooperation with various European
nations to supply effective logistic systems has been inhibited
by our preferences for those solutions which are supranational
ones, rather than strictly bilateral. It may be that some of
our relations with France have inhibited the development of a
more effective rather than a weaker and vulnerable French nuclear
capability. French development along more constructive lines
may have been inhibited by our overcommitment to supranational
forms for North Atlantica.

**HOAG:** It is always possible that in any area you can be too
doctrinaire, which I think is what you were saying; and, in being
too doctrinaire, get yourself in a lot of trouble. But the
virtue of doctrine in anything in government is to get a degree
of consistency in policies. Then you've got thousands of people
out working on how to achieve the common purpose. You see this

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particularly in the military: If you write the doctrine down, it is there and it means something.

Let me cite the obvious example of working backwards on the nuclear question. Look at what we did with respect to France: We are delivering to them this year the installment of the aerial tankers which will make their nuclear force operational in the 1960's. Without those tankers they would be three or four years behind. We did this with our left hand. Now with our right hand we are doing other things. Now if you have a consistent policy which says: No, all things considered, we are against proliferation of nuclear weapons; this might be wrong, but it will keep you from the left hand-right hand undoing things.

And the much more important general example is the entire history of our special relationship to the United Kingdom throughout this period. The easy thing to do always was say: "Well, we have been partners with these people since World War II, including strategic bombing in World War II, and including building bombs." The natural thing to do is do tomorrow what you did yesterday. Perpetuate a bilateral relationship which is very comfortable as long as it does not create precedents for your treatment of other people. But it did create precedents, and it has raised hell in dealing with France every year since 1958. Similarly you create a new precedent for some of these other countries tomorrow, possibly with all 13.

**QUESTION:** This is something along the same line: It seems to me that this alternative part is too unstructured where the others may be too structured. You have got to take into account the fact that with this North Atlantic Concert we could end up constantly on the political defensive to the more structured positions being taken by the Europeans. We might constantly find ourselves back peddling into a position of accommodation with these other countries rather than being in a position of taking an aggressive policy. You may be just too loosely grouped to have anything really effective carried out.

**BROWN:** It would seem however that aggressive American policies in such a loose structure would be possible -- policies which are consistent with actual American power for bargaining with whatever European groupings that might emerge. We would usually be asking for something which we could show was clearly in our own self-interest. For example, if we wanted to get Germany committed to our conception of strategy, regardless of whether France went along -- we might be able to more effectively pressure Germany if we appealed primarily to our "special relationship" with her. Under our present policies we are very susceptible to counter thrusts from Germany that pressing for our strategic concept is going to cause some embarrassment to our whole attempt to achieve a cohesive NATO structure. Now we are very susceptible, and it seems to me unnecessarily defensive and embarrassed, by the special relationship that we have had with Britain. We allowed

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de Gaulle to browbeat us over this special relationship. We tried to apologize for it rather than assert it. Similarly with Germany: Any suggestion that we might have a special relationship with Germany, which to me seems in the *nature* of our relationship with Germany, makes us defensive so that in effect we are providing European adversaries (I don't think it is improper to regard our European allies as in part adversaries), with a psychological political bludgeon to use against us when we try and get them to go along with us.

**QUESTION:** Well that comes back to the same point that Dr. Hoag is making. You say we shouldn't define our future at all and just play with a capital "p," "pragmatism."

**BROWN:** I am not saying that we should not define our national future. I am suggesting that it is possible that the extension of our definition of what is valuable to the United States into a definition of what is valuable and of value for the entire North Atlantic area may be what is giving us trouble. We can still insist that the preservation of the line of defense where it is, in Europe, is definitely of value to us, and we will do all we can to make sure that it stays that way. We can properly regard NATO as an instrument of that national interest. But it seems to me that we need not expand our definition of national interest and national values to asserting that the value of supranationalism for the North Atlantic area is a good one in and of itself. It must always be evaluated instrumentally, as servicing or not servicing American interests.

I am not for complete pragmatism -- a disoriented foreign policy without any conception of what you are for or what you are against. I am suggesting with regard to one of those things that we say we are for that it is not self-evident to me that we should be for it. There are any number of other values that we ought to want to uphold, probably more basic than supranationalism. We want a non-totalitarian world in addition to a non-totalitarian United States, and so on.

**QUESTION:** It seems to me one problem that causes difficulty in your fifth alternative is that it's of a totally different type than the others. The first four are goals to attain. The fifth is just a *method* of obtaining a goal.

**BROWN:** That is precisely its virtue. Our prevailing design for the North Atlantic has been put forward mistakenly in terms of a *goal*, as an "end." Rather, the designs should only be a *means* to the preservation of what it is that we value. Now this design has become a goal which is compelling in itself. What I am suggesting here is that the configuration of the Atlantic area as a "Concert" may be more servicable to what it is that we value than the configuration of the North Atlantic area in a supranational unit.

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Now let me elaborate that a bit more. If, in fact, we begin to
really integrate defense establishments throughout the North
Atlantic area, what happens if you have a regime change on the
part of a key unit within the North Atlantic area? Suppose
France for example _does_ go popular front. And suppose France is
an essential component in the activation of effective military
force within Europe. It may be that at the time that you need
to activate this military force, one of your essential components
is just not going to go along and going to frustrate it entirely.

Now we have been talking about an MLF. The MLF quite clearly
does not take off a large hunk of the American strategic capa-
bility. Now nobody is advocating this; but I merely want to
pursue the implications of achieving strategic integration.
Suppose you make it _the_ strategic instrument servicable to all
of the areas within the overarching North Atlantic area; you make
 _the_ strategic instrument subject of course to political control
by political decision-making bodies of that entire area: If
it is a _responsible_ strategic instrument, it is not going to be
able to be activated unless there is a consensus achieved within
that area. What that means is that you are probably giving
yourself a less flexible instrument. Now I am not suggesting
the MLF _is_ that, because the MLF even if it were unplugged in
wartime could not inhibit or hobble the basic strategic power of
the alliance. But if you can imagine an MLF-type arrangement for
the basic strategic force, either with a unanimity principle
of the units within the political system or of some qualified
majority voting in order to activate it, it seems to me that
you might be inhibiting greatly your strategic effectiveness.

**QUESTION:** One of your remarks seems to be a bit ironic: You suggest the possibility that either France or Germany or another key unit to the North Atlantic alliance might at some time go out of the alliance thereby creating certain difficulties. Well, is this not the same dilemma that France today poses to us when she asks whether we ourselves would pull out?

**BROWN:** I don't know if it's the same. Each pull-out in advance of the time when you actually have a supranational establishment for some part quasi integrated establishment can be handed because it doesn't necessarily collapse the whole structure. But if you have begun the process of evolution toward North Atlantic so that you are at a stage when pull-out can be critical and collapse the whole structure, it is a different order of problem than France's disagreements with us now, such as France's refusal to have our nuclear weapons stationed on her soil.

**WILLIAM F. GERBERDING:** I was going to suggest that it seems the difference between your two positions /to Hoag and Brown/ is probably due to a differing anticipation about the extent to which the United States can influence the events in Europe; and that you are not intrinsically, either one of you, more or less in favor of the establishment of goals. You just have a different

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appreciation of how likely it is we are going to be able to achieve
those kinds of goals, any one of the first three. It seems to
me that the first one is really not the goal either, as two and
three are kinds of goals.

Since I am inclined towards Seyom's view, or the view I'm attributing
to you, namely that we're not likely to be able to achieve those
goals, I would like to cheat a little bit and ask not the speaker
but the other man to talk about what he said he is going to talk
about later; we may not be here later. [Laughter.] Do you think that
my attempt to psyche out why you have arrived at the conclusion
is accurate? And secondly, do you in fact have any reason to
believe that our influence over European integration or non-
integration is more powerful than I'm suggesting I believe it is?

**HOAG:** That is a good point. The first thing I deliberately set
out to stress was the point of disagreement. Where I would
agree with Seyom very much is if he would say, regardless of
whether you are for his alternatives one, two, or three, if you
get so doctrinaire that you say our future hinges on getting
this one in the next two years or else we are dead, that is
fanaticism; and we have that in politics. If you do that, you
are asking for an enormous disillusionment. There is not going
to be Atlantica; I will further assert there is not going to be
supranational Europe in the sixties in the sense that will
stretch to defense. But I will talk more about that later.
But what I am saying is: Decisions that you have to make next
year are conditioned by which road you want to travel. You could
go back and take specific decisions which have had a big impact.
Do we admit that France met the terms of the 1958 amendment to
the Atomic Energy Act? -- which they did. The question was do
we admit that they did, and accept the implications? Our answer
was no. Now we had to answer that question and we had to answer
it in terms of what are the repercussions to a lot of other
people, and what is the American interest in the long haul as
well as the short.

We can do the same thing on the trade issue. And what we have
essentially tried to do was to revise our trade agreements in
such a way that when the real Europe came (in fact we rigged
the whole legislation in terms of Britain getting into the Common
Market) we then have an arrangement by which there would be free
trade in a whole range of products. And then when we looked
at all the detailed calculations later, when Britain wasn't in,
the great big list came down to a small one.

But what I want to say is: even though, realistically, you're
quite pessimistic about achieving anybody's Grand Design tomorrow,
you need to know the direction to make the host of decisions tomorrow
that will be up and some of which are unavoidable.

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**GERBERDING:** If I could just make one brief comment: I think that one of the problems is that my pessimism is not simply about tomorrow or next administration. I would project my "pessimism" much further. I would talk about the seventies as well as the sixties; and if you are pessimistic about that, then I tend to lose some interest in the goals, and tend to think that their operational significance in day-to-day decisions are less.

**HOAG:** That could well be. Let me just cite one more example. Back in Marshall Plan days, if you trace the beginnings of the Common Market back, you find there was a European Payments Union which the Marshall Plan planners planned. It was a tremendous step toward the Common Market. Now you ask: Can you get an ample explanation for doing it under the fifth alternative? Some ingenious fellows got together and made a scheme. But when you create this scheme, the question comes up of different political trends of Europe, some of which are going the Monnet direction. Now do we want to help (having taken the one step which we know we want) Europe evolve further toward economic integration, or don't we? What you could have said is: The European Payments Union ought to die after it solves the temporary problem, and be replaced by the world institution which we have created -- The International Monetary Fund, and so forth. That would have been one way to have consistent American policy. But people had to choose right then. Did they want to go back that way, or do they want to go the other? Now it happens they decided to go the other, within the Marshall Plan and subsequently.

I think Walt Rostow made this point when he was at UCLA in his speech. He went back to the end forties.

**GERBERDING:** He is a "goal man."

**HOAG:** He is a goal man, a very big "goal man"; and his theme was: We sat around and had big arguments back then. Is it not in American self-interest to keep Europe fragmented? If they remain fragmented, we are so big relative to any single one of them that our bargaining power is always tremendous. And there was a big tussle within the administration, and they got an answer: **No**, we are not for a fragmented Europe.

That same issue, you know, isn't dead; it keeps coming up. Are we for these things in **defense**, moving in the direction of joint European control, if at all, **or** a joint broader Atlantic control, again, if at all. If the two are always perfectly consistent you have no problem. The same goal gives the same action. But things don't always come out and you have to know.

**BROWN:** I am particularly concerned about American public reaction to the formulation of alternatives which I think that we overlook at our peril -- if our design for increasing supranationalism is in fact going to be frustrated. Are we going to continue to define that as the thing that we should all be interested in.

[10]

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and as a basic compelling impetus to American policy? If so, we are likely to define what happens to us more severely, have a more severe reaction. Our goals will in fact be frustrated. This can boomerang: a commitment to that goal, if not realized in practice, can really create pressures upon our top decision-makers to go towards the fortress America concept. And I think you already find that. You find people as "responsible" as Senator Morse, for example, acting like a William Borah. You even find someone like Fulbright tending to say: "Why should we have as many commitments as we have to European nations when de Gaulle isn't even going along with us on our plans for NATO and so on?"

If rather our objectives are defined more modestly, it seems that you don't have quite as much of a likelihood of an isolationist reaction to what happens within Europe: to the desire of certain Europeans to develop their own strategic forces; to the desire of certain Europeans to have their own strategic doctrine and to reject ours; to various kinds of nationalistic sounding sentiments on the part of Europeans. It's less likely that we react to such developments as being some kind of terrible slap in the face.

Our definition of international politics ought to be a little bit more in line with the kind of definition of international politics that we get from our academic scholars like Hans Morgenthau, who says that international politics is a competition for power; it is the pursuit of self-interest; and other nations have that right to assert their self-interest vigorously also. I think possibly we are inviting that popular extreme reaction toward the frustration of our supranational goals when we continue to reinforce the expectations of a supranational pattern in Europe.

**WILSON:** Isn't it possible to define publicly our goals consistent with what we can really get tomorrow, and not get involved in these public flaps about the fact that we're being slapped in the face, but nevertheless, at the same time have some kind of a conception of the trends which we are trying to force out of the future?

**BROWN:** I don't disagree with that. All I'm saying is that it may be possible to have a more precise definition of long-range policies and happenings in the world which are likely to serve American national interests and those which are likely not to serve American interests: to have certain well worked out conceptions even as to the desirable kinds of relationships we want with our European allies, to articulate them, to make them the basis of more concrete decisions. I do say, however, that I see no necessary reason now why these have to insist upon a particular evolution towards supranational forms in Europe. Why does it have to be that as an orienting principle for our more concrete decisions? Now, in other words, I'm trying to throw the burden of proof upon the advocate of supranational forms. Why?

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**HOAG:** You are entitled to put the burden that way. A European can say to us today and ask after today: Do you want this MLF to grow into a European force from an Atlantic force? Good question. You ought to get an answer.

**QUESTION:** Or do you not want it not to grow at all?

**HOAG:** Yes. But this other thing you know I think you've cited, Seyom: You're worried about this resurging isolationism because we put our goals so high and then we get frustrated. Well, that's right; it can happen. But it is also true, as you spoke quite correctly earlier, among friends and allies there are adversary relationships. There is bargaining in any alliance. Now this new isolationism that's cropping up has some of these implications. Now if we're throwing Senators' names around, the clearest one is Senator Church who is making several speeches on this theme. He's got it very simplified: He's saying, "If you Europeans go route four, you are inviting us to pull out and we _will_ pull out." Now when he makes those speeches, which get reprinted in Europe, this _does_ have great bargaining impact. Now it's too blunt a tool; and maybe the wrong man swinging it; but, within limits, this has to be done. Take the other extreme: If you're totally unclear about whether you like number four, or you don't like it, you never play this bargaining concept. Never. And that's going too far in the other extreme.

**BROWN:** I do of course know that there are series of arguments, on military grounds, why separate nuclear forces may be inefficient, more vulnerable, and so on. There are also good reasons which may be advanced as arms control considerations why you don't want to encourage the rapid proliferation of independent defense establishments within Europe.

I'm asking, however, for reassessment of the ways in which these particular developments are likely to serve us or to negate basic American interests. I'm asking for that, in a sense, _all over again_. I'm asking also for a new evaluation assuming the following hypothesis:

Suppose, just for the sake of argument we accept as true, that come 1975 and 1980 we are going to have, whether we like it or not, an independent _force de frappe_; and we are not going to have an integrated nuclear arrangement within North Atlantic; and we are going to have other embryo nuclear capabilities developing. This is the hypothesis.

If we accept _that_, then there are two alternative political conditions that I would like to have evaluated. One is where that situation just described has emerged over our very strenuous protest and over our attempts to discourage it as much as possible -- to sabotage and frustrate the proliferation of these capabilities. The other condition is one in which we have seen this coming

anyway, and we have attempted to effect as much of a constructive
relationship with these emerging nuclear powers as possible, and
attempted to get them to share with us our strategic doctrine
and conceptions, and so on.

**WILSON:** It's rather a tendentious choice.

**HOAG:** And it's a wrong choice, because you've said if this outcome
of history is "x", wouldn't you have liked to have gotten there
by a graceful road rather than by an ungraceful road?

**BROWN:** That's right.

**HOAG:** Which is wrong, because you're talking about a part of
history which very clearly we can influence enormously. We can
next year create six new nuclear powers in the North Atlantic
alliance, just like that. All we have to do, which requires as
a minimum, a Presidential decision and possibly Congressional
action, is to make a new determination about what governs the
release of nuclear weapons. The European forces are there
trained with the equipment, and American warheads are right by.
Now you can do that next year. We can't talk about this "history"
as something that just happened.

Henry V. Kiebler

Sincerely yours,

With high regards.

Term starts.
Let us have lunch together when the
some of the Seminar papers submitted.

are out of money again, but I should try to get
Seminar are correct. The trouble is that we
Your views about the Defense Policy
it would be almost useless.

It should be almost useless.
I think so before, it would get so complicated that
we have not answered your letters of June 8 and
If I tried to explain to you why I

Dear Bert:

Comprimento: Massachusetts
Harvard University Law School
Rumford Hall
Professor W. Batchon Leach

August 30, 1964

Law School of Harvard University
Cambridge 38, Mass.

9 October 1964

Dr. Henry A. Kissinger
Director
Harvard Defense Studies Program
6 Divinity Avenue
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Dear Henry,

I have a letter from Burton Moyer, who is the Recruiter for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, giving dates upon which he will be available for interview here and enclosing ten copies of a description of the "Executive Trainee Program."

I think this should be brought to the attention of our students, and I should be glad to do this at a Seminar session in the near future if you would like me to.

WBL:has