ARMY

magazine of the ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY

Vol. 7 • No. 10 • May 1957

EDITOR & PUBLISHER

Lt. Gen. Walter L. Weible, USA, rtd.

ASSISTANT PUBLISHER

Col. Arthur Symons, Arty-USAR

Assistants—Arthur S. Welch, Esther E. Bennett, C. M. Pierce, Frances C. Van Dornes, LaRue Stump, Marlene F. Wilson, Ruth Luzzati, Robert Coleman

EXECUTIVE EDITOR

John B. Spore

ASSOCIATE EDITOR

N. J. Anthony

ADVERTISING & PROMOTION DIRECTOR

Col. Robert F. Cocklin, Arty-USAR

Assistants—Mary F. Grant, David Miller, Karen Hershfield

CIRCULATION MANAGER

Dominic Mulloy

Assistants—Emma O. Snellings, Aileen Huber, Mildred M. Guthrie, Mary Jo Schaffner, Dolores E. Govan, Doris Deal, Louise E. Ryan

ARMY is a professional military magazine devoted to the dissemination of information and ideas relating to the military art and science representing the interests of the entire Army. ARMY magazine strives to—

Advance man's knowledge of warfare in the fields of strategy, tactics, logistics, operations, administration, weapons and weapons systems.

Advance man's knowledge and understanding of the soldier as an individual, as a member of a trained unit, and as a member of the whole Army; emphasizing leadership, esprit, loyalty, and a high sense of duty.

Disseminate knowledge of military history, especially articles that have application to current problems or foster tradition and create esprit.

Explain the important and vital role of the United States Army in the Nation's defense and show that the Army is alert to the challenges of new weapons, machines, and methods.

Advance the status of the soldier's profession.
—AUSA By Laws, Par. 13 Article II

This is Our Army Life

What the Jest Was Worth. ... Brig. Gen. Frank W. Moorman 20

There's Lots That's Good About the Army. Col. Hugh M. Exton 24

The Wearing of the Army Green. ... Major Multissimus 26

Men & Methods

An Inspection of Command Inspections. Capt. William A. Brown 29
From TRAINFIRE I to TRAINFIRE II.

Lt. Col. E. S. Sanders as told to H. J. Burkert, Jr. 36

Group Shock and the Future Battle. Brig. Gen. S. L. A. Marshall 48

The Life of Reilly. ... Lt. Col. Willard L. Jones 52

The Noncommissioned Leader. ... Major William Gardner Bell 55

Organization & Tactics

Standardization Among Allies. ... Col. J. S. Lawrance, Jr. 32

Coordination and Muscular Movement in the Hedgerows.

Capt. Martin Blumenson 42

... To Fight Overseas. ... Col. A. J. Cornelson 50

Erector Set Artillery. ... Col. John D. Byrne 60

Strategy and Organization. ... Henry A. Kissinger 63

Cerebrations

Our Mission is to Train. ... Lt. Col. Richard J. Byrne 74

Give the Corporal Back His Squad. ... Lt. Col. George Juskalian 75

The Soldier's Outfit is His Home. Lt. Col. E. McC. Dannemiller 76

Intelligence is the Commander's Responsibility.

Col. Robert P. Hagen 78

Gone Are the Days. ... Lt. Col. Kenneth T. Barnaby, Jr. 80

AUSA

Report from Your AUSA CP. ... 87

AUSA Regional Activities. ... 87

Departments

The Month's Mail ... 8 The Army's Month ... 16

Front and Center ... 12 The Month's Reading ... 82

The Month's Books ... 91

THE MONTH'S COVER

During a monthly field exercise, SETAF Army Band members leave instruments to go into the field as vehicle drivers and camp guards. Sergeant of the Guard Riley Collins talks with sentries PFC Harold Whitum and PFC John Burroughs. (Photo by U.S. Army Signal Corps.)

ARMY is published monthly by the Association of the United States Army. Publication date: 25th of preceding month. Publication, Editorial and Executive Offices: 1529 Eighteenth Street, N.W., Washington 6, D. C. Copyright©, 1957, by Association of the United States Army. Entered as Second Class Matter at Washington, D. C., additional entry at Richmond, Va., under the Act of March 3, 1879. Articles appearing in ARMY do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the officers, or members of the Council of Trustees of the Association of the U. S. Army, or the editors.

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4

ARMY

SAMUEL AGABIAN has been appointed Manager of the Air Armament Division. Formerly works manager, Mr. Agabian is an Annapolis graduate and former Marine Corps officer. His work at Sperry has included responsibility for computing gunsights, bombsights, antiaircraft devices, radar and infrared developments.

MYRON D. LOCKWOOD, manager of the Surface Armament Division, was formerly a systems engineering director. A World War II Lt. Col. of Artillery, and military-technical advisor at M.I.T., Mr. Lockwood has been associated with Sperry projects in underwater torpedo fire controls, guidance computers for missiles, antiaircraft control systems and inertial navigation equipment.

## AIR ARMAMENT

* Air-to-air missiles and systems

* Air-to-surface missiles

* Airborne radars

* Airborne beacons

* Airborne electronic countermeasures

* Bombing-navigation systems

* Aircraft fire control radars

* Airborne inertial systems

## SURFACE ARMAMENT

* Surface-to-surface missiles

* Surface-to-air missiles

* Ground and shipboard search radars

* Ground and ship tracking radars

* Battlefield surveillance equipment

* Mortar and artillery locators

* Land, ship and submarine fire control systems

* Computers

* Land and ship-based transmitters

* Weapon direction systems

* Ground and ship-based electronic countermeasures

**SPERRY GYROSCOPE COMPANY**
Great Neck, New York

DIVISION OF SPERRY RAND CORPORATION

MAY 1957

3

# Strategy and Organization

The problems of survival will have
to be solved in the minds of men

HENRY A. KISSINGER

WHATEVER the problem-whether it concerns our military strategy, our system of alliances or our relations with the Soviet bloc-the nuclear age demands above all a clarification of doctrine. At a moment when technology has put within our grasp a command of nature never before imagined, we are driven to realize that everything depends on our ability to use power with subtlety and discrimination. In the absence of concepts that define the nature of power, its purpose and its relation to policy, the possession of it may serve merely to paralyze the will. All the difficult choices of the nuclear

Henry A. Kissinger is Director of the Harvard International Seminar; Director of Special Studies, Rockefeller Brothers' Fund; and Associate, Foreign Policy Research Institute of the University of Pennsylvania. This article, somewhat condensed, and reprinted by permission from Foreign Affairs, April 1957 (Copyright by Council on Foreign Relations, Inc., New York), is adapted from a study prepared for the Council on Foreign Relations, which will be published in June under the title, "Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy."

period-the nature of its weapons sys-
tems, the risks diplomacy can run, the
issues for which to contend-presuppose
a doctrinal answer before they can find
a technical one.

Resources vs. Strategy

This is particularly true of military
strategy. Because we have won two
world wars by outproducing our op-
ponent, we have tended to equate mili-
tary superiority with superiority in re-
sources and technology. Yet history
demonstrates that superiority in strate-
gic doctrine has at least as often been
the cause of victory as has superiority
in resources. Superior doctrine enabled
the Germans in 1940 to defeat an Al-
lied army superior in numbers and at
least equal in equipment but wedded
to an outmoded concept of warfare.
Superior mobility and the use of artil-
lery, a better relationship between fire
and movement, furnished the basis of
Napoleon's victories. These were victo-
ries not of resources but of strategic
d doctrine: the ability to break the frame-
work which had come to be taken for
granted and to present the antagonist
with contingencies he had never con-
sidered.

Strategic doctrine translates power

into policy. Whether the goals of a
state are offensive or defensive, whether
it seeks to achieve or prevent a change,
its strategic doctrine must be able to
define what objectives are worth con-
tending for and to develop the appro-
priate force for achieving them. By
establishing a pattern of response in
advance of crisis situations, strategic
d doctrine permits a Power to act pur-
posefully in the face of challenges. In
its absence a Power will constantly be
surprised by events. An adequate stra-
tegic doctrine is therefore the basic re-
quirement of American security.

IT may be argued, of course, that we
do possess a strategic doctrine ex-
pressed in the decisions of the Joint
Chiefs of Staffs and of the National
Security Council on the basis of which
the force levels of our Armed Forces
are determined by Congress. But the
decisions of the Joint Chiefs and of the
National Security Council give a mis-
leading impression of unity of purpose.
The officials comprising these bodies
are either service chiefs or heads of ex-
ecutive departments. As administrators
of complicated organizations, they must
give most of their attention to reducing
the friction of the administrative ma-

MAY 1957

63

chine both within their department and
in the relation of their department to
other agencies. The heads of depart-
ments do not stand above the battle of
the bureaucracy; they are spokesmen
for it. In fact, the departmental view-
point is sometimes purposely exagger-
ated in order to facilitate compromise.

As a result, the conclusions of both
the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Na-
tional Security Council reflect more
the attainable consensus among sover-
eign departments than a sense of direc-
tion. Because agreement is frequently
unattainable except by framing con-
clusions in very general language, de-
cisions by the Joint Chiefs of Staff or
the National Security Council do not
end interdepartmental disputes. Instead
they shift them to an interpretation of
the meaning of directives. And depart-
ments or services whose disagreements
prevented the development of doctrine
in the first place will choose the exege-
sis closest to their original point of
view. The seeming unanimity of our
policy-making bodies only defers the
doctrinal dilemma until some crisis or
the budgetary process forces a recon-
sideration under the pressure of events.

Within the Department of Defense
these problems are compounded by the
obsolescent division of functions among
the services and the predominant rôle
played by fiscal considerations in set-
ting force levels. The Key West agree-
ment of 1948 confirmed the traditional
division.

Overlapping Missions

Until the end of World War II, this
assignment of rôles represented distin-
guishable strategic options: the Army
was in fact powerless on the sea beyond
the range of its coastal artillery and the
Navy could not project itself far in-
land. The Air Force was not yet in-
dependent and the range of planes was
sufficiently short to permit the division
of functions among naval and army air
forces to follow roughly the division
among the senior services.

But with modern weapons, the tradi-
tional definition of primary missions
amounts to giving each service a claim
to develop a capability for total war.
For the sky cannot be dominated short
of a scale of attack on the opposing re-
taliatory force which will unleash an
all-out conflict; control of the seas im-
plies the destruction of industrial fa-
cilities and supply depots deep in ene-
my territory, as Admiral Burke testified
before the Symington Committee; and

the Army has declared a 1,500-mile
missile essential for the performance of
its mission. A division of functions
among the services makes sense only
if the functions in fact represent dis-
tinguishable strategic missions. If each
service in the performance of its pri-
mary mission must carry out tasks in-
separable from the primary mission of
a sister service, energies will be increas-
ingly absorbed in jurisdictional dis-
putes. Nor can this problem be avoided
by administrative fiat as has repeatedly
been attempted. The inter-service rival-
ries are inherent in the definition of
missions; they result inevitably from
a division of rôles on the basis of means
of locomotion in the face of a technolo-
gy which makes a mockery of such
distinctions.

As a consequence of the lack of doc-
trinal agreement, none of the services
can be certain that a sister service's
interpretation of what constitutes an
essential target accords with its own.
It is therefore convinced that it cannot
relinquish control over any weapon
which it believes important to the
achievement of its mission. The only
way a service can be certain that its
targets will in fact be attacked is to
seek to obtain every weapon that can

be used against them, even if such a
weapon already exists in a sister service.

Controversy Compounded

The rigid division of functions there-
fore exacerbates disputes among the
services. Since no service can achieve
its primary mission without defeating
the enemy completely, each service will
always consider its force levels inade-
quate and will be convinced that one
reason for this inadequacy is a trans-
gression by a sister service on its field
of jurisdiction. Moreover, while the
present assignment of rôles produces
a duplication of some categories of
weapons, it causes some others to fall
between two stools. The disputes be-
tween the Army and the Air Force
regarding the importance of airlift pro-
vide an illustration. The Air Force,
charged with defeating the enemy air
arm, must look on an investment in
planes having no strategic or tactical
combat effectiveness as a diversion of
resources. The Army, on the other
hand, cannot carry out its mission if it
is not able to get into position rapid-
ly. The present division of functions,
therefore, produces either duplication
or an inability to consider requirements
in terms of overall strategy.

Drawing by Alan Dunn

© 1957 The New Yorker Magazine, Inc.

"Gentlemen, I don't want to be an alarmist, but what if
the next war isn't over in ten minutes?"

MAY 1957

65

Another factor which inhibits the de-
velopment of strategic doctrine is pre-
dominance of fiscal considerations in
our defense planning. This is not even
always a question of deliberate choice.
One of the reasons for the emphasis on
fiscal policy and technology has been
that the former has been explicit and
the latter impressively demanding. In
the process of coördinating diverse poli-
cies, which is the primary function of
the National Security Council, there
always exists a clear fiscal policy, large-
ly because governmental economy is the
raison d'être of the Bureau of the Budg-
et and because only one agency-the
Treasury Department-is responsible
for setting objectives in the fiscal field.
But there is rarely, if ever, a clear Na-
tional Security policy to oppose it. On
the contrary, the contending services
have been tempted to enlist the backing
of the Treasury Department and the
Bureau of the Budget by advocating
their particular strategy as contributing
to governmental economy. The fiscal
viewpoint, therefore, often comes to
predominate by default; in a conceptual
vacuum the side with the clearest and
most consistent position will gain as-
cendancy.

## Budget Rules Doctrine

Whatever the reason, every adminis-
tration since World War II has at
some time held the view that this coun-
try could not afford more than a certain
sum for military appropriations. Now
the imposition of a budgetary ceiling is
not inevitably pernicious; a removal of
all budgetary restrictions would inhibit
d doctrine even more, because it would
lead each service to hoard weapons for
every eventuality-as occurred to some
extent during the Korean War. And
the proliferation of weapons systems
unrelated to doctrine will cause stra-
tegic decisions-which always involve
choices-to be made in the confusion
of battle. Budgetary requests are not
formulated in the light of strategic doc-
trine; rather doctrine is tailored and if
necessary invented to fit budgetary re-
quests.

As a result, budgetary pressures com-
pound the inherent conservation of the
military and end in subordinating doc-
trine to the battle for appropriations.
Each service pushes weapons develop-
ment in every category without suf-
ficient regard for the program of other
services, and each service seeks to ob-
tain control over as many different
weapons as possible as a form of in-
surance against drastic budgetary cuts

in the future. The predominance of
fiscal considerations in our defense
planning actually encourages a subtle
form of waste: in the absence of an
agreed strategic doctrine, it leads to
the proliferation of partially overlap-
ping, partially inconsistent weapons
systems. Because to relinquish a weap-
ons system may mean to relinquish the
appropriations that go with it, every
service has a powerful incentive to hold
on to every weapon even after it has
outlived its usefulness.

The doctrinal handicap imposed by
the predominance of fiscal considera-
tions is not compensated for by an
increase in civilian control either with-
in the Executive Branch or by Con-
gress. The difficulty of effective control
over military programs is due to two
factors: the fiction of the yearly review
of programs and their technical com-
plexity. The yearly review is increas-
ingly inconsistent with the realities of
defense planning. The hiatus between
development and procurement is sev-
eral years in the case of most weapons;
the introduction of a new weapon into
a unit implies that all units will be
so equipped over a period of time. Thus
the first order for B-52s logically car-
ried with it the obligation to continue
procurement until all heavy bomber
wings of the Strategic Air Command
were composed of jet planes. Similar-
ly, the beginning of construction of an
aircraft carrier makes almost inescapa-
ble future appropriations to complete
its construction.

In these circumstances, a yearly re-
view does not bring about effective
control; it does ensure, however, that
no dispute is ever finally resolved.
Each year the same arguments about
the efficacy of limited war, airlift and
the relative merits of carrier and stra-
tegic aviation are repeated, and they
are not settled until some technical
development outstrips the dispute or an
administrative decision allocates rôles
and missions which the losing service
accepts only because it has every pros-
pect of reopening the issue in the fol-
lowing year. In the absence of doc-
trinal agreement, inter-service disputes
can be resolved only by compromises
which may define merely the least un-
acceptable strategy or by adding to mis-
sions and weapons systems.

The technical complexity of most
disputes complicates civilian control
and particularly Congressional control
even further. Within the Department
of Defense the multiplication of civil-
ian officials, often in office for only a

year or two, causes the Secretary and
Assistant Secretaries to become less
agents of control than a device to
legitimize inter-service disputes. Their
short term in office makes it difficult
if not impossible for them to become
familiar with the subtleties of the stra-
tegic problems. Instead of being able
to establish a unified concept, they
become spokesmen for the professional
staff on whose advice they depend.

## Congressional Control

As for Congressional control, the
only forum where the over-all defense
program can be considered is in the
Appropriations Committee. A mean-
ingful judgment by the Congress on
the defense budget would presuppose
an assessment of the military strength
achieved by a given expenditure and
the relationship of this strength to a
set of national security objectives. Nei-
ther condition is met by current prac-
tice. To be sure, the budget is intro-
duced by testimony of the service
chiefs and their civilian superiors re-
garding the gravity of the international
situation. But no attempt is made to
show the relationship of strategy to
events abroad beyond the general im-
plication that the proposed program
would ensure the security of the Unit-
ed States. In turn, the Congressional
Committees can make their judgments
only in terms of a vague assessment
of the international situation: they will
be hesitant to reduce the budget if
they feel the situation too grave and
they will be disposed to pare requests
drastically when they think the situa-
tion is not as serious as represented.

Such Congressional consideration of
strategic concepts as does take place is
usually produced by the dissatisfaction
of some service with its budgetary al-
locations. Thus the B-36 hearings in
1949 resulted from the cancellation by
Secretary Johnson of the Navy's giant
carrier and the Symington Committee
hearings on air power were the con-
sequence of the budgetary ceiling im-
posed on the Air Force (and other
services too) by Secretary Wilson. This
procedure has the disadvantage of em-
phasizing the problems of one particu-
lar service and of obscuring the real
difficulties which occur in the area of
overlapping strategies. Moreover, even
the hearings explicitly addressed to the
problems of the rôles and missions of
the services tend to be conducted in
the familiar technical categories. Thus
during the Symington hearings on
American air power in 1956, relatively

66

ARMY

little attention was paid to the strategic concepts of the services; on the whole, the Committee was content to take the services at their own valuations. But a great deal of time was spent on the relative numbers of the Soviet and United States heavy bomber forces and the relative thrust of jet engines. These figures are important, to be sure, but their meaning derives from strategic doctrine. Without a concept of war—or at least of air war—comparative numbers mean little and the relative thrust of jet engines means less. The quest for numbers is a symptom of the abdication of doctrine.

## The Budget Climate

In order to create a favorable climate for their budgetary requests, the services tend to emphasize the most ominous aspects of the United States security problem. Because of their awareness that there exists a greater receptiveness for programs which seem to offer total solutions, each service is encouraged to stress the part of its mission which poses the most absolute sanctions. Thus in 1951 the Army produced the "atomic cannon," a cumbersome, hybrid and already obsolescent weapon, in part to obtain access to the nuclear stockpile. Similarly, after the B-36 hearings, the Navy ceased to oppose the identification of deterrence with maximum retaliatory power; in fact, it adopted the theory as its own and in its budgetary presentations, at least, it has emphasized its contribution to the strategic striking force more than its less dramatic task of anti-submarine warfare. And Congressional hearings leave little doubt that even within the Air Force, SAC has the most prestige value.

Thus the budgetary process places a premium on the weapons systems which fit best with the traditional preconceptions of American strategic thought. It is not that the belief in the importance of strategic striking forces is wrong in itself; indeed, the Strategic Air Command must continue to have the first claim on our defense budget. It is simply that the overemphasis on total solutions reinforces the already powerful tendency against supplementing our retaliatory force with subtler military capabilities that address themselves to the likelier dangers and involve a less destructive strategy. A vicious circle is thereby set up: the more terrible we paint Soviet capabilities,

the more we confirm our predilection for an all-out strategy. But the more fearful the consequences of our strategy, the more reluctant will the political leadership be to invoke it. In every crisis, we are obliged to gear our measures to the availability of forces instead of having in advance geared our forces to the most likely danger. And even with respect to the forces which we have available our hesitations are multiplied because the services do not agree about strategy either for limited or for total war, but particularly for the former.

THE temptation in planning strategy is to substitute power for conception, to identify doctrine with the maximum development of strength. But a basic change in the nuclear age is that victory in an all-out war has lost its traditional meaning. With conventional technology, the side which could mount a superior offensive effort would generally retain a sufficient margin to impose its will. In a thermonuclear war, on the other hand, a superior offensive effort may prove strategically insignificant because even the weaker side may be able to inflict a degree of destruction which no society can support. The doctrinal challenge of the nuclear age is therefore the ability to use force with discrimination and to establish political goals in which the question of national survival is not involved in every issue. Strategic doctrine can no longer confine itself to the problem of providing the weapons for war; it must also relate them to the purpose of war.

## The Goal of Limited War

Against the ominous background of thermonuclear devastation, the goal of war can no longer be military victory as we have known it. Rather it should be the attainment of certain specific political conditions which are fully understood by the opponent. The purpose of limited war is to inflict losses or to pose risks for the enemy out of proportion to the objectives under dispute. The more moderate the objective, the less violent the war is likely to be. This does not mean that military operations cannot extend beyond the territory or objective in dispute; indeed, one way of increasing the enemy's willingness to come to terms is to take away from him something which he can regain *only* by making peace. But it does mean that the conduct of a limited war cannot depend on military considerations alone; it must reflect an ability to harmonize political and military objectives. A "purely" military decision in a limited war is therefore a contradiction in terms.

A war between major Powers can remain limited only if at some point one of the protagonists prefers a limited defeat to an additional commitment of resources or if both sides are willing to settle for a stalemate in preference to an assumption of continued risk. In either case, however, the protagonists retain the *physical* ability to increase their commitment. To the extent that both sides do increase their commitment the war will gradually expand until one or both Powers reach the limit of their physical resources—until the war has become total. To the extent that only one side is willing to run greater risks it gains an advantage. The ability to conduct a limited war depends therefore on an understanding of the psychology by which the opponent calculates his risks and on the ability to present him at every point with an opportunity for a settlement that appears more favorable than would result if the war continued.

## Altered Strategy

With a doctrine of limited war, many of the long cherished notions of warfare will have to be modified or abandoned. One of the cardinal principles of air strategy is that wars can be won only by dominating the air space completely. But any attempt to deprive an enemy of his retaliatory force would inevitably bring on all-out war. Confronted by the prospect that it will be completely impotent once its retaliatory force has been destroyed, a Power will almost certainly decide to use it to deprive its opponent of the means to impose his will. Thus the minimum condition for limiting war will be the immunity of the enemy's retaliatory forces.

Even control of the air over a combat zone will be increasingly irreconcilable with a policy of limited war, particularly if control requires deep penetration of enemy territory. For the enemy is likely to interpret any deep penetration as an approaching attack on his retaliatory force. In any war between major nuclear Powers, sanctuary areas will be almost essential.

Limited war cannot be conceived as a small all-out war characterized by a series of uninterrupted blows mounted war cannot depend on military considerations alone; it must reflect an ability to harmonize political and military objectives. A "purely" military decision in a limited war is therefore a contradiction in terms.

68

ARMY

ing in intensity until the opponent's will is broken. On the contrary, it is important to develop a concept of military operations conducted in phases which permit an assessment of the possibilities for settlement at each stage before recourse is had to the next phase of operations. Paradoxical as it may seem in the jet age, strategic doctrine should address itself to the problem of slowing down, if not the pace of military operations, at least the rapidity with which they succeed each other. We must never forget that henceforth the purpose of strategy must be to affect the will of the enemy, not to destroy him, and that war can be limited only by presenting the enemy with an unfavorable calculus of risks. This requires pauses for calculation. Every campaign should be conceived as a series of self-contained phases, each of which implies a particular political objective, and with a sufficient interval between them to permit the application of political and psychological pressures.

Therefore, it will also be necessary to give up the notion that direct diplomatic contact ceases when military operations begin. Rather, direct contact is essential to ensure that both sides possess as much information as possible about the consequences of expanding a war and are able to present political formulas for a settlement. ...

Such a change in traditional notions of warfare will not be simple to bring about. On closer examination it may even prove technically impossible. But the discouraging aspect of so much of our thinking about strategy is its refusal to admit that the new technology requires a new order of tactics. Instead we tend to add nuclear weapons to existing strategy as merely a more efficient explosive. This will not only produce appalling casualties; it also may not be adequate to the challenges we will confront. Any progress in our manner of conducting war must therefore be preceded by a doctrinal revolution. We must recognize the new strategy conceptually before we can explore its technical feasibility. It is, to be sure, a tremendous task, but history will not excuse the inadequacy of the response by the vastness of the challenge.

## A Single Service?

AMONG the obstacles to an adequate response is the organization of our military establishment. To develop a

strategic doctrine requires an administrative structure which leads officers to reflect spontaneously about questions of over-all concern throughout their careers. And this is impossible as long as there exists a division of functions among our services which is growing increasingly arbitrary. A strategy utilizing missiles is not necessarily analogous to air strategy because missiles fly through the air, any more than a 1,500-mile missile is a tactical weapon because it is fired like an artillery projectile.

It may well be that the separation of the Army and the Air Force in 1948 occurred two decades too late and at the precise moment when the distinction between ground and air strategy was becoming obsolete. Instead of making the Army Air Corps independent it would probably have been sounder to mix the two organizations more thoroughly. The separation of the two services was achieved to the detriment of both; different service academies, training schools and war colleges inevitably emphasize a particular aspect of strategy instead of an over-all doctrine in which traditional distinctions should be disappearing, in which the Army should begin to approach the mobility of the Air Force and the Air Force to develop the relative discrimination of ground warfare.

It would still be the wisest course to move in the direction of a single service initially by amalgamating the Army and the Air Force. The strategic problems of the Navy may remain sufficiently distinct not to require integration and in any case resistance to complete unification in the Navy would be so bitter as to obviate its advantages. A unified service with a single system of service schools would force officers at a formative stage of their careers into a framework less narrowly addressed to the concerns of a particular service.

## Two Basic Commands

Complete unification among the services is probably out of the question.... It may therefore be best to begin reorganization by creating two basic commands, each representing a clearly distinguishable strategic mission. The Army, Navy and Air Force would continue as administrative and training units, much as the training commands *within* the various services function today. But for all other purposes two basic organizations would be created:

The Strategic Forces would be the units required for all-out war; they would include the Strategic Air Command; the Air Defense Command; those units of the Army required to protect overseas bases; and the units of the Navy which are to participate in the retaliatory attack. The Tactical Forces would be the Army, Air Force and Navy units required for limited war. The Strategic Forces would probably be under Air Force command, the Tactical Forces under an Army officer. The training and doctrine of each Force should be uniform and its officers should attend the same technical and service schools. The schools would continue to be administered by a parent service but the curriculum and student body should be determined by the Force commander.

Such a division would reflect the realities of the strategic situation. While the Tactical Forces might be required in an all-out war and for such a purpose would come under the command of the Strategic Forces, the Strategic Forces should not be utilized for limited war and should be as self-contained as possible even for all-out war. The strategic striking force is the chief deterrent against all-out war; it must therefore be reserved for this contingency. This is particularly important during a limited war, because, to the extent that our retaliatory force was expended in such a conflict, the enemy would lose his incentive for keeping the war limited. An aggressor who could tempt us to utilize our strategic striking force for limited war would gain a strategic advantage, however military operations ended. For to the extent that our retaliatory force suffered attrition in a limited war, our ability to deter the enemy from all-out war would be reduced—and thereby the sanction for keeping the war limited. To consider our strategic striking force as a dual-purpose force will weaken the deterrent to all-out war precisely when it should be strongest.

## Different Concepts

Moreover, the nature of the weapons, the planning and the concept of operations differ radically between forces useful for all-out war and those which should be ready for limited war. The weapons system for all-out war is designed to inflict maximum destruction in the shortest possible time. The weapons system for a limited war, on the other hand, should be flexible and discriminating. In an all-out war the

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targets are known in advance, in fact each crew of the Strategic Air Command is training for a specific Soviet target all the time. Everything depends, therefore, on the efficiency with which the plan for all-out war can be implemented. In a limited war neither the locale of the conflict nor the targets can be determined in advance. Everything here depends on the rapidity with which planning can adjust to a developing situation.

The strategic problem in limited war is to apply graduated amounts of destruction for limited objectives and also to permit the necessary breathing-spaces for political contacts. Hence a weapons system for limited war is basically different from a retaliatory force. Limited wars require units of high mobility and considerable firepower which can be quickly moved to trouble spots and which can bring their power to bear with discrimination. The capability for rapid deployment is crucial. For, given the power of modern weapons and the speed of movement of military units, everything depends on seizing a position as rapidly as possible because it will be very difficult to dislodge an enemy once he has become established. Since aggression is unlikely to occur unless the aggressor doubts either the capability or the willingness of its opponent to intervene, the ability to get into position rapidly even with relatively small forces can serve as a gauge of the determination to resist and contribute to the re-establishment of an equilibrium before either side becomes too heavily committed.

The division of our forces into Strategic and Tactical Forces would reflect the real nature of the strategic problem we confront: the necessity of being protected against all-out war as the prerequisite of all other measures and the capability to fight limited war as the form of conflict where the cost is commensurate with the issues actually under dispute.

## JCS Would Change

In such an organization, too, the Joint Chiefs of Staff would change their character. They would be composed of a Chairman, the Chief of the Tactical Forces, the Chief of the Strategic Forces, the Chief of Naval Operations (to represent operations such as anti-submarine warfare which do not fit into any of the above categories). Such a group would in its very nature be more oriented towards doctrine than

the present Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Chief of each Force would represent an integrated strategic mission and not a means of locomotion. Since service chiefs would continue to administer the traditional services, the Chief of each Force would be freed of many of the routine problems of administration which, as Admiral Radford pointed out before the Symington Committee, make the Chairman the only member of the present group who can give his full attention to over-all strategy.

The advantage of the proposed organization for the conduct of military operations is demonstrated by the fact that joint commands reflecting the same basic concept have been set up in every recent war in which we have been engaged. The new organization would create in peacetime the structure which the requirements of combat would impose on us in any case. To be sure, there would be a possibility of the same contest over appropriations as now between the Chiefs of the Strategic and the Tactical Forces. And there would be the same temptation to invent doctrine to support budgetary requests. But with each Force representing a distinguishable strategic mission, self-interest and requirements of strategic doctrine would be in harmony.

## A Two-Year Budget?

In attempting to channel military thought towards doctrine, it would be desirable, however, to relieve some of the pressure inherent in the almost incessant process of either preparing, negotiating or justifying budgets. A great deal would be gained by an extension of the budget cycle for defense appropriations to a period of two years. Thus the military budget would coincide with the term of the House of Representatives. And, as we have seen, many of the essential commitments for major procurement of necessity extend over several years.

To be sure, in its initial stages such a procedure might sharpen inter-service rivalries because commitments would now be more fundamental. But bringing the inter-service disputes to a head would produce healthy consequences in the long run. The failure to resolve current doctrinal disagreements and the pretense of harmony at each budgetary hearing cause the conflict to rage by subterfuge, by planned leaks to newspapers or to Congressmen. A two-year budgetary cycle would free the service

chiefs from the constant pressure of short-term consideration; it might encourage planning to turn from the essentially defensive task of justifying force levels to the consideration of the purpose of those forces.

With the emergence of an agreed strategic doctrine within the Department of Defense, the whole process of formulating security objectives within the Executive Branch would gain in balance. An explicit Department of Defense position would then confront the fiscal position. With a better structure for producing strategic decisions and a longer interval between budget hearings (the latter, though helpful, is not essential), inter-service disputes would lose a great deal of their intensity. Doctrine could then be built on the only sound basis: a concept of the nature and possible goals of war.

In the absence of a generally understood doctrine, our actions will of necessity prove haphazard; conflicting proposals will compete with each other without an effective basis for their resolution. Each problem, as it arises, will seem novel and energies will be absorbed in analyzing its nature rather than in seeking solutions. Our services will find it impossible to make a meaningful choice among the mass of new weapons with which their research and development programs will soon overwhelm them. We will continue to cede the initiative to others and our course will become increasingly defensive.

Many of our problems in the post-war period have been produced by our failure to accept the doctrinal challenge. We have tended to ascribe our standards of reasonable behavior to the Soviet leaders; we have had difficulty in defining our purposes in relation to the revolutionary forces loose in the world. Above all, we have had a penchant for considering our problems as primarily technical and to confuse strategy with the maximum development of power.

One of the paradoxical lessons of the nuclear age is that at the moment when we are acquiring an unparalleled command over nature, we are forced to realize as never before that the problems of survival will have to be solved above all in the minds of men. In this task the fate of the mammoth and the dinosaur may serve as a warning that brute strength does not always supply the mechanism in the struggle for survival.

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