2 March 1950

Note to:Professor W. Y. Elliott

I. This note has been suggested by some remarks of Secretary of the Air Thomas K. Finletter (26 Feb. 1951) regarding the problem of "grey areas." These areas were defined in terms of two conditions: (1) the absence of U.S. ground forces, so that a Soviet move would not constitute overt aggression against the United States, and (2) Their relatively far distance from major U.S. bases preventing effective U.S. assistance. The Middle East was felt to meet these conditions. The writer believes that the statement of the problem in these terms illustrates some of the basic shortcomings of our foreign policy.

II. The following assumptions seem to characterize this definition of "grey areas":

a. Secretary Acheson's "situation of strength" policy is conceived as the physical containment of the Soviet Union by the assembly of superior force at every point around the Soviet periphery.

b. U.S. policy is defined in terms of the available military potential in each threatened area.

c. U.S. countermeasures to peripheral actions by the Soviet Union may be confined to "limited wars" at the threatened point.

III. It is felt that these assumptions fail to do justice to the geographical or strategic realities of the situation. They prevent an integrated policy and lead to the fragmentation of U.S. political, military and psychological effort. The concept of "grey" areas is inadequate for the following reasons:

a. The policy of "physical containment" reflects an unnecessarily defensive attitude and hides the only real deterrent to Soviet aggression: the threat of a major war with the United States.

b. By attempting to achieve situations of strength at each point around the Soviet periphery as a condition for our policy, we in effect allow the Soviet General Staff to deploy our forces and to lure our Armed Forces into endless adventures.

c. The policy fails to take into account the relative geographical positions. The Soviet Union's possession of interior lines of communication enables it to concentrate major forces at any point of its choice and to achieve local superiorities. By treating each threat as a limited problem, defined in terms of local conditions, we enable the Soviet Union to increase the determinacy of its calculations, to choose points of involvement for major U.S. discomfiture while retaining complete discretion as to the limit of its own commitment.

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b. This force might be constituted as a desert training center on the model of General Patton's efforts in California in the last war.

c. Such a force with its air and supporting units must could not be ignored by the Soviet Union in the event of major conflict and might well force a battle on the terrain of the U.S. choosing where U.S. technological superiority will be maximized and no possibilities for the employment of large ground armies exist.

d. The U.S. contribution could be found by reducing U.S. commitments in the Far East (particularly in Korea), by rearming Japan, which would then assume the major burden of its ground defense. (Is the Soviet Union prolonging the Korean war to prevent just such a contingency?) Some few additional divisions might spend part of their training period at the projected training center. The objections of exposing U.S. troops to potential annihilation would hardly apply in this area. By taking advanced training in the desert and rotation after 9 months, a considerable force could be constantly kept in being.

## Conclusions:

a. The concept of "grey" areas should be replaced by an integrated policy which will not mask fragment U.S. efforts in a stationary defensive posture. Soviet moves should be treated as aspects of a pattern. The threat of a major war should be considered the primary deterrent to Soviet Aggression, not a series of limited, peripheral wars.

b. The defense of key areas can perhaps be accomplished by the utilization of indigenous manpower (Europe, Japan) and the constitution of a highly trained, mobile force as a strategic reserve near or in the Middle East, threatening the flank of any Soviet move into weakly held areas of the Ukraine, and the Balkan satellites.

...H.K.