II. Strategic Doctrine and the Domestic Consensus.

In devising its strategy, every advanced country has more
technical choices than it can afford. Whether it chooses missiles with
large or small warheads, whether it emphasizes nuclear or conventional
power will depend more on its strategic doctrine than on the technology
available to it. But strategic doctrine must not become something
theoretical or dogmatic. Its role is to define the likely dangers and
how to deal with them, to project feasible goals and how to attain them.
It must furnish a mode of action for the circumstances it defines as
"ordinary". Its adequacy will be tested according to whether these
ordinary events do in fact occur and whether the forces developed in
their anticipation are adequate to deal with the real challenges.

In the inter-war period French strategic doctrine exalted the
value of the defensive and built its plans around the Maginot Line. How-
ever, the likely German attempts to overthrow the Treaty of Versailles
could be prevented only by French offensive action. By the time the Maginot Line
might prove useful, in other words, the Versailles settlement would already
have been overturned. Thus the French strategic doctrine contributed to
the paralysis of French policy. When German armies reoccupied the Rhine-
land and attacked France's allies in Eastern Europe, French power remained
passive and French diplomacy stood impotent. Even when the long-awaited
attack in the West finally came, it turned the flank of the French forti-
fications.