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A WORD BY THE PANEL

This Report is the result of a group effort by Panel II of the Special Studies Project of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Although not every member subscribes to all details, it reflects our substantial agreement. Needless to emphasize, our participation in this effort has been as individual citizens; no organization among the number with which we are variously associated is in any way responsible for our findings.

We were charged with exploring the International Security Objectives of the United States, the strategies most likely to attain these objectives and, generally, the problems and opportunities in this field which may face the country during the next ten to fifteen years. Recognizing the imponderables in our task, we are pleased that it has still been possible to make our report fairly specific, for most of the tough problems will always be specific as they become critical. To have tried to make our conclusions sharper would have required going into detail beyond the extent to which we can trust the durability of our judgment. Too much of the raw material of our consideration will be shaped by events in science and human affairs which have yet to happen for us to have attempted to blueprint the details of our military posture.

The membership of our group represents considerable experience in security affairs. Also, we have had the benefit, in committee, of the thoughts of numerous experts in relevant security areas through the means of many conversations and specially prepared papers.

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From the same background of experience, we realize how great can be the gap between what is ultimately desirable and what is, in practice, feasible to change at any one point in time. Nevertheless, we hope that our report may help in the genuinely deep review we believe to be necessary of some of the basic attitudes and policies affecting the security of our country.

For it is our judgment that all is not well with present U. S. security policies and operations. The overall U. S. strategic concept lags behind foreseeable developments in technology and in the world political situation. Defense organization does not adequately relate responsibility and authority to critically important military missions. Governmental systems of budgets, appropriations, and financial management are painfully out of gear with the radically accelerating flow of military developments.

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

The report touches on a large number of very complicated issues. It therefore seems useful to set forth in terse form thus at the beginning some of the main threads of conviction that run through the report.

- U. S. security policy holds no place for preventive war.

- A condition of effective stand-off between Soviet and U. S. strategic power is rapidly approaching. By adding to the difficulties of any U. S. decision to invoke the ultimate sanction of retaliation on the power centers of aggression, such a power balance will permit the communists to raise the level of intensity of minor war.

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- The attainment by the U.S.S.R. of a strategic power position satisfactory to the Kremlin will not of itself necessarily make wars more probable. However, limited wars promoted or supported by international communism have erupted from time to time and are likely to continue to do so until the overall expansionist threat has subsided, which will not be soon, however inevitable the event may be in the end.

- All-out war initiated by the U.S.S.R. is possible but unlikely, and can be kept unlikely by proper attention to U. S. strategic power, and a clear resolve to use it, if need be.

- The U. S. stands in need of a clear and rigorous conception of the role of force in meeting and reducing the threat. The conception must embrace the ambiguous as well as the overt challenge to the survival of independent nations.

- The U. S. must continue to press for the creation of conditions that will make possible a substantial reduction in world armaments. Meanwhile, it is vital to the security of democracy everywhere to guard against the illusion that any degree of disarmament now in prospect can justify relaxing our vigilance.

- The U. S. policy of alliances depends for success on a strategy meeting the local security needs of allies as well as the global requirements of the United States.

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- It is simply not practical for the U. S. to rest its main deterrence of either major or serious minor war on inefficient weapons. Given the cost of modern military forces and the overall strategic situation, realistic readiness to resist aggression of any substantial scale must be based on the use of atomic weapons if necessary. Men of peace might wish it differently, and that includes the group from whose discussions this report issues, but such is the fact.

- The range and power of modern weapons overleaps the traditional boundaries between operational roles of the armed services. The organization of the defense establishment needs to bring a much closer relationship between service organizational motivation and the broad strategic and tactical missions that U. S. forces must be ready to perform.

- On the national balance sheet of a democracy the cost of defense can be charged only against the maintenance of a condition of peace and security in which the other fundamental elements of national life may progress and prosper. The valid measurements of efficiency in defense are those which relate money and effort expended to security achieved, and they necessarily grow less exact as notions of absolute national safety disappear. Even very small defense expenditures can represent unjustifiable waste; even huge expenditures can be too small.

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- In due course, a re-tailoring of the U. S. military establish-
ment to conform more accurately with the military mission areas
of an adequate security posture can result in greatly increased
effectiveness of defense expenditures. However, for the present,
U. S. military budgets, now being decreased, should be increased.
The new money will be most efficiently spent if the annual rate of
increase is generally regular.

- Civil Defense should be considered as an integral part of the U. S. strategic posture. Considering the scale of U. S. efforts toward achieving and maintaining the military means of security, it is not logical that the Civil Defense effort should be negligible, as it has been.

- In the end, the effectiveness of the U. S. military posture depends on the nation's moral and psychological strength, on its willingness to accept the necessary risks of war, on its subtlety in understanding aggression, on the strength of its purpose.

We would like to stress, what is surely unnecessary, that our comments
are aimed at concepts and procedures, not at individuals. We know how very
much competence and dedication is found among those in government who bear
the main responsibility for the national security. Indeed, we are sure that
even our most adverse criticism will find support among many who know what
needs doing and are trying to accomplish it.

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# I. THE FRAMEWORK OF THE STUDY

The world is living in a period of swift and far-reaching change. Since 1914 we have witnessed two global wars of tremendous violence, the Russian revolution, two Chinese revolutions, the drastic decline of the French and British imperial systems. Hundreds of millions of former subjects of colonial empires are now joining in new or would-be nations. They are thrusting impatiently towards political independence, of ten without adequate institutions or preparation, and they are demanding that their economic development be rapid, often without capital resources or training.

It is in the interest of the entire world that the United States remain determined to preserve the integrity and vitality of its own free society. Thoughtful free men everywhere well know that the future of their freedom depends on the survival of freedom here. By the same token, the U. S. must contribute to a common world defense and promote the common welfare. But these great objectives are the prime target of another power having opposite intentions.

The relentless ambitions of International Communism are well-known. It seeks to expand its own power. It strives to degrade the influence of Western Europe. It works to prevent new nations from achieving genuine freedom and plans to capture them if possible. And it is determined to isolate the United States.

The communist threat is subtle despite the brutal face it presents when the chips are down. The end objectives of communism have from the

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start been made abundantly clear by its principal prophets, but its strategists and tacticians, in pursuing aggrandizement, are masters of ambiguity in the use of power. Communist ideological fervor may be running out, but it is succeeded by a hard practicality that ultimately may prove even more dangerous. Opportunist Stalinism, convinced of ultimate world domination, could, by the nature of its tenets, accept setbacks as temporary tactical adjustments. It is by no means sure that present and future Soviet governments will always be able to take so detached a view.

In addition to these moral and political challenges, science and technology are in process of spectacular proliferation. They are sweeping into the past the tradition of a fortress America invulnerable behind her oceans. There are no oceans, neither of water nor of air, to modern means for delivering nuclear warheads. The time is very close, if not already here, when the U.S.S.R. and the U.S. will be capable of destroying each other with great suddenness by large-scale atomic attack. Similar, if less comprehensive capabilities will in due course be in the hands of Britain and possibly other countries.

## The Problem of American Security

Such are the elements that go to make up the turbulent surroundings in which the United States must build the structure of its security for the years ahead, deprived of much of the protection it has historically enjoyed. Beyond any question, our country can create and maintain all of the elements

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of military power it needs to protect and promote its welfare and to assist appropriately in the defense and development of the rest of the non-Soviet world. The practical questions turn rather on our willingness to maintain the required forces, the adequacy and accuracy of the strategic concept by which they are designed, and the wisdom and timeliness of their use when needed.

Whatever equilibrium may be achieved in the atomic age will be uneasy. We are in danger and will continue to be. But so is our opponent, and he has reasons at least as good as our own for making sure that the issue is not resolved by all-out war. The challenge then, is psychological and moral as much as military; it is whether we pursue a strategy which enables our response to be flexible; whether we fully relate our strength to our purpose; whether we sustain the spiritual and intellectual resource to act resolutely in the face of continuing peril.

## The Level of the Military Effort

As the cost of military equipment increases, as the lead-times from drawing board to operational weapons lengthens, as the technological choices open to scientists and military men multiply into the thousands, the problems connected with maintaining the necessary military strength become increasingly complex. Our total resources are adequate and, given leadership and an understanding of the facts, the American people will sustain whatever level of military effort is necessary. The critical questions therefore center not so much upon U. S. resources as upon the spirit and skill with which we organize and apply them.

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Underlying all the technical complexities is a practical question: what general level of military strength should the United States strive to achieve and maintain? A clear answer is especially difficult because amount of strength depends on kinds of strength, and military technology is advancing so swiftly. Yet a sound decision must be found if we are to keep an adequate military posture at rational levels of expenditure, and avoid erratic behavior in making our power felt.

In later chapters of this report, answers are suggested in terms of dollar expenditures and composition of forces. But here, considering the nature of our overall problem, one conclusion is inescapable: despite all the attention paid to security matters in the U.S. during recent years, we still stand in need of a clear recognition of the role of force in our national strategy.

Force-in-being is the physical deterrent to Soviet aggression and supplies a key factor in preventing irresponsibility elsewhere from subverting the international order. Force-in-being will determine the degree to which our policy-makers can face the risks and the opportunities of the nuclear age.

We are faced with two military problems which are closely intertwined, yet contain fundamental differences: the threat of all-out war and continuing pressures toward limited war. Neither of the resulting tasks is cheap, although the cost can vary widely according to the accuracy with which we assess the continuing threat and design our means for reducing it. Neither task is simple. And both tasks require a stern and abiding resolve.

Deterring all-out war is the more straightfoward challenge. Though it requires unremitting effort, it fits in more closely with our national tradition

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than the challenge posed by the limited war. Our country was brought into
being and has been developed by men of action, who habitually address
themselves to the successive jobs at hand and proceed in the conviction that
what needs to be done is somehow always to be accomplished. We instinctively
believe that each problem has a final solution, that once a problem is clearly
defined, it can be clearly solved by the massive application of diligence and
strength. Our traditional attitude towards war has been to wait until a threat
is completely overt and then to move in and defeat it absolutely.

As a result, Americans are unaccustomed to using military power with
subtlety and discrimination for limited purposes in ambiguous situations.
Indeed, we rather repulse the idea. Now, confronted by security problems
ranging from hydrogen bombs and a third of the world enslaved by communism
to crumbling empires and manifestations of revolution in another third, the
most fundamental of our difficulties is how to cope with the unclear on a
heroic scale. We have still to develop the best adaptation of our essential
national dynamism to a new challenge: survival as a never-ending series of
international adjustments and counterbalances in which no problem is finally
resolved and we are not offered the option of real peace.

Force will not fulfill the free world's aspirations. But our willingness
and ability to use our strength may provide the shield behind which these
aspirations can be realized.

We are criticized, and sometimes justly, for the ways in which we
do our duty, but the unforgivable dereliction would be to leave it undone.

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This is the truth that cannot be wished away; the fact that sets the magnitude of our risks and responsibilities.

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## II. DEVELOPING POWER TRENDS

The next 10-15 years are certain to see economic, technological, psychological and political changes that will significantly influence the military position of the United States and its allies. Four trends appear to be of particular significance.

1. Technological development will continue to favor the offense relative to the defense. Both will improve. But predicted new offensive weapons -- such as intercontinental ballistic missiles -- sudden in action, massively destructive, relatively invulnerable either before launching or in flight, will greatly aggravate the problems of defense and greatly raise its costs. This area will be examined in the chapter on Weapons.

2. Weapons technology will become increasingly complex with a corresponding increase in the difficulty of choosing the most effective combination of weapons. There will be continued increase in the cost of developing and manufacturing them. The new weapons technology will be increasingly disrespectful of the traditional boundaries between the military services. Chapters on Missions, the organization of the Department of Defense and the Budget will take up this set of problems.

3. The U.S.S.R. and Communist China will continue to gain in overall economic, industrial and technological strength. The present economic superiority of the West will become less significant. The U.S.S.R. will catch up with the U.S. in many major fields of military technology. In

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certain areas assigned high priority by the Kremlin, the Soviets will surpass us unless we increase our present pace and level of effort. The consequences of these developments will be discussed in chapters on Alliances and NATO.

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

The U.S., the U.S.S.R. and Britain now seem likely to continue to increase the number and variety of their atomic weapons. On a more limited scale, other countries will in due course have their own atomic arms capacity. And there will be increasing worldwide awareness and apprehension of the power of nuclear weapons and the consequences of a general war. Chapters on Disarmament and on Civil Defense will consider some of these implications.

## Soviet Military Capabilities

In the past the U. S. has suffered from a tendency to underestimate military technology in the U.S.S.R. At first we took the Soviet production of large numbers of copies of our B-29 as flattery of our long-range bomber concept and our technology. Their first jet fighters, also produced in large numbers, were explained as having been made possible by the imitation of the design of a semi-obsolescent British engine. But then the Soviets proceeded to prove not only that we had no monopoly on the atomic bomb but also demonstrated a mature mastery of the military implications of science and technology, especially in air power.

Today Soviet science is at least the equal of our own in most military applications. Soviet weapons engineering has proved adequate to the challenge

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of the technological revolution. The total Soviet technological capability is growing larger, enabling the assignment of high priority to an ever-increasing number of projects. Several times in recent years the U.S.S.R. has demonstrated a striking ability to surpass U.S. performance in telescoping lead times from initial decision to weapons-in-being. Ten years ago this possibility would have been ridiculed. Yet it is happening, and mainly for one simple reason: The Kremlin's decisions on the new weapons to be produced are made with firmness, and the projects decided upon are adequately and consistently supported according to a system of effective priorities.

The result of the Soviet concentration on military technology is an impressive military establishment capable of posing a mortal threat to the free world. Its main features can be summarized as follows:

Preponderance in ground forces gives the U.S.S.R. an imposing capability, far superior to any similar forces in Western or Central Europe, or in the Far East for that matter, and well able to maintain political control inside the Soviet bloc.

The Soviet shipbuilding program has long concentrated on submarines. A fleet of over 400 is already in operation. This number is greatly in excess of the German force which severely menaced Allied surface shipping during the early years of World War II. There is no doubt about the capability of the U.S.S.R. to develop naval atomic power plants, or to adapt ships and submarines to launch short and medium-range missiles.

The Soviet Union now produces aircraft in some important respects at least as advanced as our own, and has demonstrated rather impressive

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electronic techniques. New Soviet rocket weapons are obviously far beyond
the German technology captured in 1945, and apparently not behind our own.

For at least 10 years the Soviet weapon development program has given
high priority to guided missiles. A ballistic missile capable of reaching all
of Western Europe, Japan and Taiwan from Russian or Chinese bases should
be ready within three years, at the most. Intercontinental ranges will soon
follow. Launched from submarines, even short-range missiles can pose a
significant threat to the continental United States.

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

The Kremlin places high priority on the development of long-range
air-atomic striking power. The U.S.S.R. already possesses a considerable
nuclear and thermonuclear stockpile and delivery system. Soviet attacks
of great severity will in a few years be possible against all major targets in
the non-communist world. From what is known of the present Soviet
capability, it is inferior to that of the U.S. but is already enormous and it
is growing rapidly.

## U. S. Military Advantages and Vulnerabilities

As compared with the U.S.S.R., our country now has three principal
military advantages.

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We have superior long-range air atomic air power and a more advan-
tageously positioned forward base system.

We have superior and more flexible naval power.

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

However, some aspects of these advantages must be qualified, and
parts of them may be all too temporary.

Our long-range bomber capability is not a static asset, being always
in competition with improving defenses. Some U. S. forward air bases are
politically vulnerable because of instability of the areas in which they are
located. All of our air bases, particularly the forward ones, are vulnerable to
surprise attack. The system as a whole is deficient in intermediate bases and
dispersal facilities while the readiness of present bomber forces is con-
siderably handicapped by difficulties in retaining highly trained personnel.

New, high performance, long-range aircraft are needed, as well as
intercontinental missiles.

Nor can a continuing advantage be assumed from our present superiority
at sea. The large aircraft carrier, around which our naval power is built,
is limited in its capability for sustained heavy action of general war by the
availability of refueling facilities, particularly for its aircraft complement.
The value of its freedom from the political uncertainties of foreign bases is
therefore a matter of degree, and not absolute. So also is the value of its
mobility for escaping attack since a large surface ship is detectable by
airborne equipment over great distances and highly susceptible to destruction

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by atomic weapons. Our force of modern submarines should be increased, and
so should our anti-submarine capability.

The third point of present U. S. military advantage is in the number
and variety of atomic weapons. But the U.S.S.R. can make good any
strategically meaningful advantage well within the 10-15 years under con-
sideration here, and U. S. weapons research and development cannot always
be more skillful than the Russian. Neither can we be sure that we are doing
as well as the U.S.S.R. in the necessary tight integration of atomic weapons
into military doctrine and practice, especially in the support of army units.

Already there exists between the U. S. and the U.S.S.R. a substantial
measure of mutual deterrence in the equation of all-out war. It is most likely
that the balance will come progressively more even. Just maintaining a
reasonably stable equilibrium of force is neither easy nor cheap. In fact,
as of now, the U. S. is losing its lead over the U.S.S.R. in the race of military
technology. Unless the trend is altered, our margin of superiority in this
respect will inevitably vanish -- perhaps well before the end of the 10-15 year
period under study here. If that happens we may be sure that subsequent
events will be harsh and unforgiving.

Paradoxically, the free world possesses an inherent superiority in
effective manpower and industrial base but the nations of the free world have
not chosen to mobilize this superiority. And, as this brief review has indicated,
those categories of military power which we have chosen to emphasize are
becoming increasingly vulnerable to Soviet technological progress.

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Against the background of a technology in rapid flux and the exertions
of the Soviet state, our security can be maintained only by unremitting effort.
It is infinitely preferable for history to find that we tried too hard than to run
the risk of underestimating the magnitude of the task.

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### III. WEAPONS

#### The Attainment of Weapons Superiority

Americans have come to recognize that our general technological superiority by no means guarantees military superiority. Unfortunately, we have not yet admitted that the race can be painfully close even in specifically selected fields. More importantly, we have not yet fully recognized that if our selection in locating the vital points is faulty, either in technology or in policy, we may be hopelessly outclassed.

It is superficial now to demand that we have a Navy second to none, an Army that yields to no one in the ways we choose to fight, or an Air Force the Kremlin dares not challenge overtly. That is bluster and not defense. We must designate the critical missions of defense far more precisely than is possible by measuring them simply in terms of land, sea or air warfare.

Neither is it more than part of the right answer to promote reduction of armaments. Of course a civilized world must continue to advocate controls over the weapons that could destroy civilization. However, the effectiveness of our advocacy will depend on the strength of the position from which we speak. Meanwhile we must solve quite severe practical problems simply to maintain our present position. These problems involve highly professional analyses of the wars we may have to fight, and technically sophisticated choices of weapon systems conforming to the requirements of likely conflicts. And however wise we may prove to be, the job of achieving and maintaining

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superiority, even in a limited number of carefully selected endeavors, is going
to be very difficult.

The Course of Technology

Throughout history the discoveries of science and the developments of
technology have been converted, in due course, into new elements of military
power. In peacetime, the conversion process including the necessary read-
justments in military philosophy, strategy and tactics, is traditionally rather
slow and often resisted by the military.

But it is accelerated in wartime. In World War II scientific research
was translated so rapidly into weapons, military equipment and new patterns
of military operations that both tactics and strategy changed radically in a
half a decade. Trucks and tanks were developed which were able to swim as
well as to operate on land; rocket weapons and electronic fuses became
commonplace; new equipment and techniques of air support for surface forces
were introduced. Improvement in the means of land, sea and air transportation
considerably lessened the difficulty of achieving a concentration of military
force at great distances from the home base and across amphibious defenses.

Radar, which at the time of Pearl Harbor was a rudimentary and un-
trusted device had become an indispensable tool of all major weapons systems
by 1945. New aircraft with strikingly improved flight performance and naviga-
tion and bombing systems added powerful new strategic air offensive capabili-
ties. And uranium, in 1941 a scientific curiosity, had by 1945, become the
core of a weaponto stagger the imagination.

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Towards the close of World War II, further developments in the pro-
pulsion of air vehicles opened yet another era of war fare, one of high-speed
jet aircraft and very high performance guided missiles in which we now find
ourselves.

And the curve of military technology continues to rise.

New Weapons

On the static and crowded battlefield of World War I, chemical warfare was employed with remarkable effectiveness. In World War II, chemical weapons were not used on any substantial scale partly due to humanitarian considerations but more practically because in a war of movement and dispersion fewer military targets were vulnerable to such weapons, and not even the Axis dictators facing defeat could see in their military use an advantage sufficiently decisive to justify the risk of retaliation on populations.

But chemical warfare agents have been greatly refined in effectiveness, and so have biological agents. And radiological materials have become available. Even if they were not used on a large scale, some of them could cause great damage in war, for example in sabotage and morale weapons.

Nor can there be any doubt that in case of all-out war the inhibitions against their use would be vastly reduced. Whatever may have been the objectives of the elaborate fantasy of communist charges of germ warfare in Korea, one result was to ease the psychological problem of future use of chemical or bacteriological weapons by the communists, if they so choose.

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In the field of atomic weapons, the crude U. S. bomb of 1945 has been outmoded by a broad range of highly sophisticated weapons. With the addition of hydrogen, energy releases have risen from the original 20,000 tons of TNT equivalent explosive power to many million tons. The Hiroshima bomb required a large aircraft and crew for its transport and delivery. Equally powerful warheads have been reduced in size and weight and simplified in use to the point where they can, for example, be employed effectively in anti-aircraft rockets.

As capacity for the production of fissionable materials increases, these weapons become available in very large quantities. Developments in weapons technology will lower the general hazard of radioactivity resulting from their use.

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

In due course nuclear power can remove the problem of aircraft range entirely, and make it possible for both offensive and defensive aircraft to be continuously and conveniently on station in flight.

Earth satellites can meet a need for uninterrupted reconnaissance. Offensive and defensive missiles of all pertinent ranges, and aircraft that need no runways or large airdrome facilities, will enable universal dispersal

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of weapons and greatly reduce the vulnerability of military forces to surprise attack. Improvements in reliability of weapons and equipment will add greatly to their instantaneous readiness.

Developments in submarines, especially as nuclear propulsion comes of age, will insure use of the sea where surface ships could not hope to survive -- an important capability despite all foreseeable developments in air vehicles.

Powerful light-weight weapons and properly designed air transport in adequate amount will make possible quick and discrete application of military power, at any chosen place in the world.

These are not dreams of the far distant future; even the most remote among them is attainable within the next 10-15 years and many of them will be in the hands of several nations.

The resulting weapons systems will be ever more disrespectful of traditional organizational boundaries drawn between the mission responsibilities of armies, navies, and air forces -- if indeed such respect remains in significant degree even now.

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IV. MISSIONS

In addition to radically new types of weapons, another major force, also disrespectful of organizational boundaries, operates to fix the military missions of the U. S. defense establishment: the types of wars communist aggression may present to us.

The second world war brought to an end the era in which it was meaningful to think of military operations at sea or on land as strategically distinct one from the other, or to think of either as separable from the air battle. Since then, as the range and destructiveness of weapons has increased inexorably, the familiar yardsticks of land, sea and air power have become progressively less useful for measuring some of the most crucial military problems of the United States.

Unfortunately, the attempts at new definitions and slogans have been less than altogether helpful to a general understanding of U. S. military requirements. The U. S. has come to talk of big and little wars, of total and limited war, of general and local war, of atomic and non-atomic war, of peripheral war, of brush-fire war. Some of these terms are defined interchangeably and the intended meanings of all vary widely depending on who uses them. Thus an annoying problem of definitions has added confusion to the security discussions. This becomes important because the U. S. arrives at decisions through debate. And in recent years even the issues of debate have been difficult to pin down.

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A meaningful discussion presupposes an understanding of the types of conflict to which we may be challenged. This report considers mainly three: all-out war, limited war, and the concealed or obscure war, disguised to appear perhaps as internal revolution or at most only a local fracas.

## The All-Out War

It is of paramount importance to recognize that strategic power is no less essential to the control of small wars than it is to the deterrence of all-out war. The strategic deterrent force by no means protects all of our security interests but it is vital to the preservation of our ability to protect them by other means. It is our insurance against the supreme blackmail.

The power effectiveness of our strategic offensive-defensive force cannot be precisely measured; the calculations of strategy can never be mathematically exact. It is clear, however, that our offensive capability must be sufficient to overcome any defense, and so assessed in the Kremlin. Nor can we forego, in advance, the sanction of all-out war in any particular situation where it in fact presents a realistic threat to our enemies and is needed to contribute to the securing of our interests by the prevention or control of war.

A strategic striking force discharges its mission with complete success only if it deters and is never used. It is precisely because the United States does not wish to see it used, that our offensive-defensive capability must be a terrible force.

All-out war would be the ultimate war so far as we are concerned. It is not the most likely war; in fact, if we keep our strategic power in a high

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state of readiness and invulnerability, it is very unlikely. But because it would be the war of final peril, it denies us any luxury of wishful thinking. It demands the offensive and defensive weapons and forces in being that can deter all-out war by being demonstably able to wage one. The hard core of the strike force must be as secure as possible against neutralization whether home based or overseas, continuously alert, armed with weapons that cannot be destroyed by surprise attack, and decisively superior to any defenses the enemy can present.

We maintain this frightful force to help discipline the events which might require its use; we believe that by all odds we should succeed in our purpose; in any event we see no worthy alternative. But we announce by its maintenance the possibility that we may be forced to use it in the interest of our survival. Unpleasant as it may be for a democracy which abhors the thought of massively destructive and fundamentally senseless war, our physical capability to fight must be coupled with a declared and recognized willingness to do so if necessary. The United States has an overriding obligation to make sure that no enemy is left with the slightest doubt on this point. He must be certain that swift and terrible retaliation would follow if we became convinced that our survival was immediately and directly at stake. This is the sine qua non of strategic deterrence, the moral complement without which the existence of our great offensive power would cease to prohibit, and could actually tempt, all-out attack on us.

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The Limited War

At the other end of the spectrum of open war is the limited war, geographically limited by the decision of the principal protagonists or by logistics and terrain, distinguished primarily by the decision of the major opponents that the particular battle is not to become an immediate test of their own survival.

The force requirements of the limited war are in some important respects quite different from the requirements for all-out war, although big-war forces can always contribute to the conduct of limited military operations, and big-war capabilities are essential to keeping small wars from developing into larger ones.

Limited war requires flexible and mobile forces, designed for rapid action and equipped with up-to-date weapons and strategic and tactical airlift. Being limited in scale, it is a war that almost by definition affords sanctuaries outside the immediate battle area, for logistical and operational support bases capable of funneling forces into combat via long-range air transport and surface shipping.

The capabilities of our army, navy, and air forces for limited wars can be markedly improved in weapons, transportation, organization and training. Most important is the development of a strategic and tactical air lift capacity appropriate to our worldwide responsibilities.

The combat air element is a complex problem. Both land-based and ship-based aircraft have an important role but much needs to be done to improve their short or vertical take-off capabilities. Reconnaissance and

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communications equipment needs improvement. Missiles for launching from the ground, from aircraft, and from surface ships and submarines are needed.

In the end, with skillful capitalization of technology, there can be no question of our ability to create and maintain the agile yet powerful forces needed to deter limited wars or to conduct and control them should they break out. And such a capability, together with a known determination to use it when necessary, is essential to our security.

## The Obscure War

Finally, there is the war that is made to seem, in so far as is possible, not a war at all. It appears frequently in the guise of supposedly internal revolution, although instigated, of course, and supported to a chosen extent, by outside forces. Such wars go on continuously and break into the open when the local situation demands or permits. Greece has furnished one example, Vietnam another, the Middle East has provided still another through Soviet arms support to Egypt, Syria and Yemen.

In general, U.S. military involvement takes the form of support of local elements whose interests accord with our own. Much of our Mutual Defense Assistance programs are thus aimed at stabilizing local situations so that these obscure wars are more difficult for communism to foment or to win. Much of our support to the United Nations as an element for keeping the peace derives from our belief in the value of an informed and favorable world opinion to sustain the morale and strength of conviction of indigenous political elements which prefer independence to foreign domination.

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The military requirements imposed on the United States by conflicts in this area are often of a different order from those of open warfare envisioning joint action of U. S. and local forces. The first weapons needed are those suited to the maintenance of order, and the object is not the defeat of the military might of Communist China or the Soviet Union.

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# V. THE STRATEGIC STAND-OFF AND LIMITED WAR

## The Strategic Equation

What then is the implication of these trends for U. S. strategy?
It is no exaggeration to assert that the survival of a free world to now
has been due importantly to the assumption by the United States of a major
share of responsibility for its defense.

Greece and a Nationalist China on Taiwan survive first because
they have the will to be independent, but also because of U. S. assistance.
Our leadership and military strength saved the Republic of Korea in a bitter
war that local patriots could not have won alone. The communist aggression
in Vietnam would not have been stopped at the present limits without our
help. Our firm determination to defend the NATO countries has been a
critical factor in catalyzing their necessary rebirth of strength and confi-
dence. Through our world-wide system of mutual defense pacts and our
vast program of international economic and military aid we have assisted
in the stabilization of many other non-communist governments. We main-
tain a strategic retaliatory capability adequate to leave the Kremlin no
temptation to start a major war. We support almost three million men
under arms and spend 40 billion dollars a year on defense.

With his government implementing all these measures and shouldering
all these burdens, it is reasonable for an American to ask how then there
could be cause for serious concern with our defense effort.

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But there is indeed room for concern. The magnitude of the total does not insure its sufficiency, and we are inadequately prepared, militarily or psychologically, for vital, particular threats.

The United States is confronted by a powerful and subtle enemy who regards the presence or absence of open hostilities at any time or place outside his own power center as a tactical decision determined by the opportunities that peace or non-peace offer him. The only peace he will permit is that which he finds necessary or expedient. The limited wars he foments -- or takes over and supports -- are no longer local, in the accustomed sense of the word, but parts of a pattern of world conquest.

Beyond any question, the existence of U. S. strategic air power has been since 1945, and still is, the major physical power factor in restraining Russo-Chinese ambitions of conquest. It furnishes a sanction against the reckless spreading of lesser wars as well as against deliberate decision for general war. And as certain as any power trend can be in a time of rapid change is that the last wish of the rulers of the communist bloc would be to see a full-scale thermonuclear war which could destroy its regimes and its treasured physical accomplishments.

On the other hand, as their suppression of the struggle for liberty in Hungary and their military moves against Greece, South Korea and Vietnam have demonstrated, U. S. strategic power has not denied them a wide range of military actions short of general war. And an accumulation of such actions can powerfully support the long-term communist goal of neutralizing

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weapons and level of force seem most efficient for the purpose.

Until a really impressive and reliable reduction in communist armaments takes place, it is impossible for the U. S. at present or any foreseeable budgetary levels to contemplate the maintencance of a military establishment that would be capable of fighting either large or serious small wars without the use of atomic weapons. The force requirements would be enormously increased, the cost would be staggering, and whatever our intentions, we would still face the prospect of nuclear weapons in enemy hands. To contend that wars fought for limited objectives will inevitably run out of control if atomic weapons are used amounts to staking deterrence entirely on the threat of all-out war. A limited capability for non-atomic war will always exist as a by-product of the maintenance of atomic forces, but the essential case of the U. S. deterrent will rest in the atomic capability.

## Organization and Security Concept

We thus return to a familiar point. Neither the weapon systems available to us, nor the wars we may have to fight, are confined by organizational boundaries now existing between the Army, Navy and Air force.

All important possible wars closely involve the future of all three services. All important new weapons profoundly affect all three.

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For understandable reasons, each service finds in each important new technological development a duty to identify itself and its role in the national security with the sweep of scientific progress. It is inherent in the philosophy and training of each service that it should see in the enemy threat predominantly those elements which its particular professional role seems best adapted to counter. But each organization naturally judges the proper balance to be the one that maximizes its own role.

As a consequence, the efforts of the three services toward the development of overall security concepts and strategy are consistently governed not just by the competition of ideas but also, and intensely, by organizational competition for dominant roles. This situation should be reversed. The broad military missions -- of offense and defense, for small and large wars -- should clearly predominate over the roles of the individual services.

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VI. DEFENSE ORGANIZATION

Because of the tremendous significance of the affairs which center
in the Department of Defense, all studies of the national security inevitably
concern themselves to some extent with the organization and methods of
the Pentagon. The judgments upon it have often been severe, for the conduct
of the business of defense is obviously inefficient.

It is therefore appropriate to emphasize that many of the widely
publicized deficiencies of the Department of Defense are beyond its
ability to correct alone. Some of the most important tools for improvement
are in the hands of other departments and agencies of the Executive,
such as the Bureau of the Budget. Still other Executive departments, such
as State, have compelling voices in shaping military policy. Under the
Constitution, the powers of the Congress take sharp and personal form
in the powerful committees of both houses, The General Accounting
Office, the Civil Service Commission, the Treasury, and many other
agencies of government have strong influence. So do party politics, major
news media, and public opinion generally.

All of this is inherent in our democratic system, and the checks
and balances, when not abused, are proper parts of the system. But such
abuses do occur, and not all of the sins attributed to the Department of
Defense are its own.

Still it is necessary to emphasize that the structure and procedures
of the Department need major improvements. The situation is not new;

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it has been a preoccupation of successive administrations during the 10
years since the creation of the original National Military Establishment.
It has been the subject of numerous studies, from within and without.

Several sets of specific suggestions for improvement have been
considered in the course of preparing this report, steps in the right direction
if not purporting to be complete solutions in all cases. However, detailed
organizational recommendations lead quickly to detailed arguments outside
the main stream of concern of this report, which has to do with the basic
concepts and strategies of security. It is in this context that discussion
here is restricted to two genuinely fundamental organizational points:

1. The Department of Defense is not organized to fight a major war, and

2. Meanwhile, for keeping a tightly effective overall condition of war readiness, the mission of the organization, now largely disciplinary, needs a more positive motivation.

These points will be discussed in order.

## Defense Organization and the Conduct of War

The Department of Defense, on the Civilian side, is elaborately organized along industrial lines, to manage a vast business enterprise. Its controls are mainly financial in nature. In the event of sudden, large-scale hostilities it could serve only by abdicating as an organization, leaving the Secretary of Defense, as regards his civilian assistants and

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staff, with the few among them having duties actually relevant to the
conduct of such a war.

On the military side, he would have the Joint Chiefs of Staff as
a Command Post, and, for execution, the designated commanders of
operational forces in the field: overseas theaters, fleets at sea, the
Strategic Air Command, and the Continental Air Defense Command. The
problems of these senior military echelons would differ from those of the
Secretary's office only in degree. They too are heavily burdened with
peace-time administration, with the result that they are at least as much
business offices as combat headquarters.

A violent shift of mission of our military headquarters when a war
starts is so much a part of our national history that it seems to be difficult
to become concerned that such might be required once again. But the
next time could find our survival as a nation depending on instantaneous
and perfect command efficiency beyond the capacity of an organization
in the process of changing gears.

It may seem unfair to test our peacetime defense organization
against the ultimate threat, but it is certainly in order to point out that
war readiness, being the main mission of the defense establishment,
deserves over-riding priority in its organization, which it does not now have.
And the basic fault lies with us -- the people -- more than with the harrassed
officials who serve us in the Pentagon. They deserve a better opportunity

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to conduct their business so that their primary attention can be on
defense, as free as possible of relatively meaningless administrative
detail. We can give them the better opportunity quite simply by making
it known in the many ways available to us, that our main interest in defense
management is that it produce for us defenses that are ready, and are closely
designed for the threat. A little less savoring, on our part, of lurid stories
of fantastic waste in some obscure corner, for example, or of the mishandling
of some personnel matter, can save great waste of effort and attention on
the part of key officials bearing heavy responsibility for our security.

The cogent question may perhaps be best asked from another direction:
do we not owe it to ourselves to support with determination a trend which
in time will greatly reduce the non-essential distractions in the organization
responsible for our war readiness?

## The Problem of Roles and Missions

The Joint Chiefs of Staff organization has brought a substantial degree
of inter-communication to the three services. But the composition of the
body causes its primary function to be arbitration among competing services.
Because the Joint Chiefs are at the same time the Chiefs of the Army, Navy
and Air Force (plus a Chairman) they inevitably reflect the differences which
produce inter-service disputes in the first place. This is especially in
matters where they are asked to adjudicate disputes which can involve
the very existence of their service.

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When conflicts cannot be solved at the JCS level, they are reconciled at a fiscal level by the funds allocated to the various services. This non-strategic method of decision too frequently acerbates the underlying service tensions by seeming to ignore the underlying strategic challenges.

Historically, the assignment of roles and missions among the services was based on media of combat and means of transportation: the Army being responsible for land warfare, the Navy for control of the seas, and -- more recently -- the Air Force for domination of the skies. As was set forth in preceding chapters, the range and destructiveness of modern weapons now cross over these boundaries, and no important possible future war will respect such a division of responsibilities at all closely. One result of the wide recognition of this fact by the services is a situation in which it is common to find one service in the performance of its own stated mission, striving to be able to carry out tasks overlapping the primary mission of a sister service.

Or, where there is no competition or duplication of mission, the present organization can, for reasons that easily become complex, leave a mission incompleted. An example is the problem of airlift for ground forces. In one sense, this mission is peripheral to the Air Force's primary mission of defeating the enemy in the air. In another sense, it is peripheral to the army's primary mission of winning the land battle. Yet air lift is integral both to total air power and to mobility of army forces.

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To complicate matters further, weapons are developed, as science makes them possible, on the initiative of the strongly motivated individual services. The standard justification of a new development is that the new capability benefits the service in question, as indeed it usually does. The more spectacular the new weapon, the stronger is the motivation for its attainment and the less critical the attention paid to its particular place in an accurately pre-designed and agreed-upon overall scheme of weapons. The restraints of the Department of Defense, the enforcement of which supply its main motivation, tend generally to be overwhelmed by the powerful drives of the services, which enjoy the great strength of having positive missions, not just disciplinary functions.

On occasion, the Department of Defense stops a major weapon program as poaching by one service in the preserve of another. Such action usually leaves the proponents of the lost cause convinced that the decision resulted from political and budgetary pressures: if the losing service was working outside of its operational role, why had the decision been so long an expensively delayed? If the judgment was technical, where was the new proff, short of testing a prototype?

More generally, the controls of the Department of Defense have seemed to the proponents of all causes in all services to be applied rather indiscriminately across the board, accomplishing in the main a slow-down among the worthy and unworthy alike, the resort of authority which is convinced that total expenditures must be reduced but which is unable to say where.

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Thus the Department of Defense is accused -- and not entirely
without justice -- both of too little discipline and of too much, both of
excessive economy and of waste. It is the contention of this report that
real cures are not likely to be found through the more rigorous application
of the techniques of business and financial management. In fact, in two
most important respects, these have an affect opposite from the intention.
First, the tighter the detailed controls of top defense management -- which
cannot know the details of its vast enterprise -- the less room is left for
the kind of spontaneous adaptation at lower levels which is most effective
in producing good husbandry of resources. Second, the tighter the budget
prospects, the stronger is the competition among services for identification
with the weapons most likely to attract the larger appropriations. The result
is that even slighter attention will be paid to ostensible service boundaries
as well as to the less spectacular missions.

## Concept and Strategy

Foremost among all requirements for defense reorganization
is to provide a more positive strategic mission to the top command echelon
of our defense establishment. The present missions are management discipline
and adjudication of disputes, negative tasks in contrast to the thrusting,
separate drives of the services, each anxious to maximize its own contribution
to the country's security, and its own role in it. It is in the nature of the
referee's position, that problems come to him only after positions have

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hardened, and insufficient room is left for shaping and influencing decisions
in their formative stage.

The objective should be to replace present procedures with a system
of influence and control in which strategic doctrine emanates from the
top of the organization. However much conceptual inspiration may originate
within the services, overall strategic doctrine cannot effectively be a
patchwork of their individual concepts. This applies equally to the broad
strategies, to the military missions which give body to the strategies, and
to the assignment of roles to the several services.

Since 1945 there have been many urgent recommendations to promote
this end. They include a single chief of staff and staff for the armed forces;
a single uniform for all, a military staff and/or a board of senior strategic
advisors for the Secretary of Defense; divorce of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
from their individual service responsibilities, replacement of the present
Joint Chiefs by a new set representing not the three services but major
mission areas involving combined forces of strategic offense-defense,
"tactical" forces for lesser wars, and the maintenance of overseas lines of
communications.

Among such suggestions, by far the most important line of thought
is that which seeks to strengthen in high councils voices that can speak
primarily for integrated strategic and tactical mission areas rather than
primarily for the interests of the individual services therein. Useful moves
have been made in this direction in recent years; for example, the appointment

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of commanders-in-chief for strategic air and continental air defense, reporting to the Secretary of Defense; and privileged to comment on the future requirements of their commands. This report strongly supports this organizational trend, while pointing out that the present solution still leaves serious gaps. The responsibility for concepts, strategies, and readiness related to limited wars needs centralizing with firmness not less than that now applied to all-out war. Moreover, the representation of all integrated mission areas needs to be brought to bear earlier, more intimately, and more responsibly in the making of the crucial decisions on the creation of new weapons and strategies.

Whether this can best be accomplished by revising or adding to the composition of the present Joint Chiefs or by other means cannot be decided outside the responsible governmental framework. This report will have fully served its purpose in this respect if it makes only the one cardinal point, that the present organization fails by a wide margin to foster -- in some ways positively inhibits -- the use of our best military minds in tackling our most difficult military problems. We need the judgment that rests on their service experience and motivation; we will best enjoy it the more they can be freed from the necessity for adhering to the current instructions of their individual services.

A related organizational requirement is for the closest possible relationship between strategy and the management of defense resources. Successive Secretaries of Defense have run a gamut of opinion regarding

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this relationship. Of course strategy and management cannot be separated
and the organization of the Department of Defense must provide for the
balanced contribution of both. And the goal of the entire organization,
Secretaries and Chiefs, civilian and military, must have positive goals. It
cannot flourish on control as its primary purpose.

A Purpose Through Technology

If the high command of the defense establishment is to play a
major role in the development of security concepts and strategy, it must
first predominate in the policies affecting military technology -- at the
formative stages of developments, not after enormous expenditures of time
and money have gone to waste because of tardiness in straightening out
formal service prerogatives. The top level of the Department must be able
to keep the relationship between technology and strategy under constant
review to assure that three urgent demands of U. S. military security be
met:

1. We must overlook no good bets in science and technology for important new military capabilities, for improving present strategies, and for making possible advantageous new strategies.

2. We must select and emphasize new developments that contribute most to meeting the paramount military needs, in accordance with the military missions we must be able to perform.

3. We must conduct competitive weapon developments, where desired, as competitions in technology only, and cease to use them in

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default of strategic decision, as determinants for the assignment of
operational roles among the services.

The recent increased support of the Weapons Systems Evaluation
Group of the Department of Defense, and the end of a needless organ-
izational dichotomy between responsibilities called "Development" and
"Engineering" at the Assistant Secretarial level, are good, though modest
steps in the direction are urged here.

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## VII. ALLIANCES AND THE ROLE OF FORCE

The system of alliances which the United States has erected involves the disbursements of billions of dollars, the distribution of immense stores of American military equipment, and the dispersal of American soldiers to stations and bases all around the globe. The U. S. has now entered into a multitude of military agreements with sovereign states involving a wide range of different types of commitments and partners from the sweeping multilateral defense agreements of the InterAmerican Treaty of Reciprocal Association to a large number of bilateral agreements with individual nations.

An equally integral part of the U. S. system of alliances is the agreements authorizing our complex of overseas bases. The U. S. maintains abroad a variety of bases ranging from large strategic air bases, naval installations, and theater supply areas to various tactical installations, logistical facilities, and staging areas. And during the past eleven years, the U. S. has expended a large effort to strengthen the military forces of our allies.

### Rationale of the U. S. System of Alliances

Strategically, the U. S. alliance commitments and expenditures are invaluable to us in maintaining that favorable balance of power versus the communist bloc which is needed to deter a general war. The U. S. system of overseas bases provides advanced observation and warning posts; it furnishes valuable dispersal areas for the SAC; it brings U. S. striking forces closer to enemy targets, thus complicating the opponent's defensive problem; it permits

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employment of medium-range bombers as well as easier refueling of long-range
bombers based in the U. S. The wide dispersal permitted by this base complex
imposes severe restrictions on communist war planning. Overseas bases will
be an essential element of our effective striking power for at least the next
decade and will continue to be of significant importance even with the attain-
ment of an effective inter-continental bomber force and to the advent of inter-
continental missiles.

Another contribution of the overseas base complex is the invaluable
means it provides for maintaining effective footholds in important strategic
areas. Air and naval bases in particular permit other peoples to visualize
our power; while the physical presence of a limited U. S. complement serves
to reinforce our common purpose; as a token of our determination and as a
symbol of joint effort.

Besides their value to the United States, alliances can be of equally
significant help to our allies. If the horrors of all-out war are making limited
local wars all the more worrisome a threat -- then alliances take on added
dimension as an instrument of military security. For in deterring as well as
fighting limited wars, competent forces close to the scene of conflict and
strategic reserves are both of great importance.

Thus alliance arrangements can provide local forces to deter or check
limited aggression. They can warn potential aggressors of our willingness to
defend specific areas. They can strengthen local will to resist because they
guarantee that a threatened country would not stand alone. The efficacy of

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our alliance policy may not only determine victory or defeat in limited war,
it is a good insurance against such wars breaking out in the first place.

## Pressures on Our Alliance System

An evaluation of U. S. alliances must recognize the growing attractiveness of the doctrine of neutrality to many of our allies. In Europe and in Asia, the communist bloc is steadily improving its military capabilities, including nuclear weapons and delivery systems. Against the threat of such attack, many of our allies have little defense except that provided by our treaty obligations. Acutely aware of their military vulnerability, weakened by domestic pressures and precarious economies and tempted by communist blandishments, some are understandably reluctant to contemplate the use of force.

Any alliance embracing a large number of nations over a considerable territory tends to dilute the effective capacity of its stronger members, especially in the face of a challenge that does not present a clear and present danger to the entire alliance. The fear -- assiduously fostered by Soviet propaganda -- that even the lowest order of atomic weapons would involve enormous casualties has weakened the will to resist among many of our allies, in and out of NATO.

A correlative force contributing to the reluctance of many to make a substantial military effort is the growing cost and complexity of modern weapons. This imposes a fearful burden on frail economies as well as requiring skills and facilities our allies often do not have. Under domestic pressure to

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reduce defense expenditures, their capability to deter or to check local aggres-
sions is made much more difficult while the need for such local deterrents has
by no means reduced.

Aggression, Twentieth Century Style

Aggravating the other pressures on our alliance arrangements is the concept of aggression which underlies them. Essentially restricted to the crossing of frontiers by armed regular troops, such a definition renders it extremely difficult to prepare adequate counters against a whole range of communist aggressive techniques, from civil war or economic strangulation to slow takeovers by communist-guided and communist-armed fifth columns.

As a result the communist bloc has learned that if it keeps its challenges sufficiently ambiguous and below the level which the non-communist world considers to warrant major war, we and our allies may prove unable or unwilling to take effective action. Neither Korea nor Indochina, for example, seemed worth an expanded war nor did our alliances seem to fit the issues actually in dispute. And Suez presented an even more difficult problem.

Confronted by an ambiguous threat, even a group of nations whose interests are very similar find it exceedingly difficult to achieve an effective concerted response, especially if this response could lead to really frightening risks.

Nor can the United Nations provide the deterrent to the new style
aggression. To be sure, the UN represents the world's best hope of event-
ually controlling the aggressive ambitions of national powers. But we cannot

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afford to depend on the UN and the UN, if it is to survive, cannot afford to have us depend on it for actions which it does not have the power to take nor to enforce.

The communist veto in the Security Council, and the ability of one-third-plus-one of the members to defeat any action proposed by a preponderant majority of the General Assembly, indicates severe limitations upon UN resistance to aggression. The UN is an indispensable neutral ground for the expression of opinion and for the exchange of views between parties in dispute, and it may be more effective against minor aggressive powers than the League of Nations before it. But, by its very constitution it cannot now deal with the major security threat to free world countries: aggression, backed by the U.S.S.R. or China. Whatever its political economic and social contributions -- and they are immense -- as now constituted the United Nations cannot function as the world's police force.

The U. S. under its obligations to the UN Charter has a moral responsibility to place questions involving aggression before the UN. However, when the world organization fails to take action in time, or if it should be thwarted by a Soviet veto, the United States for its own safety, must feel free to take the counter-measures required by its own interests, if necessary unilaterally.

## The Military Aspect of Alliance

Perhaps the greatest difficulty faced by our alliance policy is to devise a military strategy equally meaningful to us and our allies.

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With the partial exception of the NATO alliance, our present mutual security arrangements do not reflect a genuine, common concept. It is not clear whether *one*; alliances represent an obligation of military assistance, i.e., a device to insure that the U. S. will engage in all-out war if an ally is attacked; or *two*; whether they are collective security arrangements, to combine the strength of allies so that the overall power of the alliance will deter the communists from aggressive moves; or *three*; whether they are pacts whose existence legitimizes our intervention when necessary on the territories of our allies.

Moreover, as is well known, our strategy is largely atomic; those of our allies, necessarily non-atomic.

The lack of a clear strategic doctrine is reflected in weaknesses, indecisions and contradictions at all levels of our security arrangements. It has led to endless difficulties in formulating and implementing U. S. base agreements and military aid programs. There have been disagreements among the U. S. services and there has been a reluctance on the part of our allies to make specific force commitments partly because of budgetary considerations; partly because the function those forces would perform has been so vague.

The United States must therefore make a concerted effort with its allies to achieve a clear and effective combined strategy.

Such efforts should aim at the development and acceptance of integrated strategic concepts designed to cope with various types of threats

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ranging from strategic nuclear attack to armed insurrection by communist-
dominated elements.

But as the U. S. comes increasingly to rely on nuclear weapons,
allied forces will become less capable of making meaningful military contri-
butions to the success of such operations. Therefore, the U. S. must join
in the development of allied forces capable of operation in concert with U. S.
forces in various types of military operations. This does not mean we should
equip all allied elements along the lines of comparable U. S. units. To the
maximum degree possible both the types and levels of equipment provided
allied forces should be tailored to the missions which they are expected to
perform. And we should not set standards for our allies based on our own
levels of technology. But we must establish a measure of harmony between
the tactical doctrine of our allies and our own. In some areas this implies
a concept embracing atomic warfare and an atomic weapons capability on
the part of allies.

As a result, the cost of military aid programs will necessarily be
large. The U. S. will have to provide -- either directly or indirectly --
much of the military resources our allies need or else see the political
reliability of these countries decline along with their military strength. And
the task is not only large, but also is complicated both by rapidly changing
technology and by decreasing popular support for military programs.

The actions involved will not be easy or cheap and many of them
will be perplexing. Nor are the proposed military measures sufficient by

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themselves. They must be supplemented by preventive programs: economic and technical assistance and education to improve governmental administration discussed more fully by other groups of the overall study project of which this report is one product.

We must remain aware that the hardest decisions will be those required in situations involving a conflict of ethical or moral values each of which seems in itself desirable. This type of conflict reflects, unfortunately, the essence of the ambiguity with which communism is likely to present its challenges: the threat is sheathed in circumstances designed to create on our part a moral or psychological reluctance to act. Yet our choice is to act with resolution or to accept grave losses. History does not deal kindly with nations who refuse to make value choices.

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VIII. THE SPECIAL CASE OF NATO

It is no derogation of the great strategic importance of our alliances
in other parts of the world to give special treatment in this report to the case
of NATO. It is militarily the most highly developed of our multiple alliances,
covers an area of great cultural and economic significance to both East and
West, and embraces the nations whose historical conflicts have led to two
world wars in our time.

In order to appreciate the importance of NATO we need only to contem-
plate our situation if Western Europe were in hostile hands or lay divided and
helpless before Soviet aggression: The Communist Bloc would have an indus-
trial potential equal to our own; it would straddle the world's main communi-
cations lines and engulf the Middle East; it would be able to manipulate the
manpower, factories and cultural prestige of Europe, to dominate Africa and
infiltrate South America. It is not hard to visualize the loss of Western Eur-
ope as prelude to a beleaguered United States retiring to what it would hope
would remain Fortress America, but a fortress to which the surrounding Com-
munist World could largely forbid trade of raw material.

The Weaknesses of NATO

The factors which make the NATO area essential to U. S. security
also create difficulties and complications. For Western Europe is deeply
affected by the revolutionary transformation going on in the world. The
change of international climate in the past few years has tended to dissolve

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August 21, 1957

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the sense of urgency upon which NATO was founded and to revive a number of rivalries and irritations between NATO members. The dispute over Cyprus was permitted to fester to the detriment of NATO; France has had to withdraw most of her European divisions to Algeria. Germany is offered the choice of unification on Soviet terms or continued membership in NATO and no unification. The Anglo-French adventure in Suez, has not strengthened NATO ties while the recent British White Paper on Defense, which was surely hastened by the debacle at Suez, announced sharp reductions of British military power in Germany.

The Soviet development of a large-scale air-atomic capability has created progressive contradictions between the organization of NATO forces and the strategy to which they seem committed. We and our allies maintain ground forces in Europe that, while small, are not insignificant as a "shield". But the stated NATO strategy of defense, indeed the only viable strategy, depends so heavily on atomic weapons as to seem to rule out almost completely the use of non-atomic forces except as a trip-wire for atomic war and for consolidating the situation which would exist after the decisive phase. In the same dichotomy of concept, NATO maintains a supply system that is highly vulnerable to nuclear weapons.

In addition to these strictly military weaknesses NATO sentiment towards neutralism or at least disengagement has been growing among NATO countries. Many factors contribute to this psychological retreat from nuclear reality: the relative weakness of our NATO partners as compared to the two