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# CHAPTER IV
## THE NATURE OF THE STRATEGIC DEBATE

### A. American Strategic Doctrine and NATO Policy

When the Atlantic Alliance was formed in 1949, Soviet aggression was believed to be imminent. As a result, there was a natural preoccupation with military security. Allied cohesion grew greatest with respect to strategic matters. An integrated headquarters staffed by officers of various nationalities was set up near Paris (SHAPE). A joint defense plan was developed. Some agreement about the nature of the common defense has always been central to the cohesiveness of NATO.

In recent years, such agreement has been difficult to achieve and for good reasons. Weapons are novel and untested--and everything depends on them. Offensive power has far outstripped defensive power. Every ally--no matter how powerful--faces a level of destruction which in the past would have been considered catastrophic. Finally, modern technology makes available more choices than the Alliance can afford to implement. High risk combines with multiple choice to produce controversy.

Whether the allies choose land or sea-based missiles, whether they emphasize nuclear or conventional weapons depends less on technology than on strategic doctrine. Strategic doctrine, as here used, does not connote something abstract or dogmatic. In the absence of any relevant experience, its role is to define the likely dangers and how to deal with them, to project feasible goals and outline plans for attaining them. It must furnish a mode of action for the circumstances it defines as "ordinary."

1. See also, Chapter I, p. 1.

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Its adequacy will be demonstrated by whether these events do in fact occur and whether the forces and procedures developed in anticipating them are adequate to deal with the real challenges.

In the inter-war period French strategic doctrine exalted the value of the strategic defensive and built its plans around the Maginot Line. However, the likely German attempts to overthrow the Treaty of Versailles could be prevented only by French offensive action. The Maginot Line could prove useful, in other words, only after the Versailles settlement was already overturned. Thus French strategic doctrine contributed to the paralysis of French foreign policy. When German armies reoccupied the Rhineland 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 took place in an area which had not been fortified.

If a mistaken strategic doctrine absorbs energy in reconciling what happens with what is expected, an excessively complicated or esoteric doctrine can break down under the stress of decision-making. The Schlieffen Plan, Germany's military design for World War I, provided for every contingency except the psychological strain on the commander. It failed largely because the German leaders lost their nerve. In the face of Russian advances into East Germany--which were foreseen by the Schlieffen Plan--the Germans rushed reinforcements from the West and thus weakened their offensive thrust at the crucial moment. It adds to the irony of the situation that these reinforcements were in transit when the decisive battles in both the East and the West were being fought.

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But if there is no doctrine at all and a society operates
pragmatically, solving problems "on their merits" as the saying goes,
every event becomes a special case. More energy is spent on deciding
where one is than where one is going. Each event is compartmentalized
and dealt with under pressure by experts in the special difficulties it
involves without an adequate consideration of its relation to other
occurrences. American policy has been prone to this approach.

The problem of agreeing on strategic doctrine is difficult within
each government. The difficulty has been magnified within the Alliance
because disputes about strategy become symbols for larger disagreements
on policy. To be sure, differences of opinion about strategy have been
real enough. But their urgency is due to the fact that something deeper
than the analysis of weapons systems is involved. Disputes have become
exacerbated because the United States and its European critics have rarely
been talking about the same thing.

The United States has stressed the technical adequacy of its
strategic views and the analytic accuracy of its strategic assessments.
Our European critics have emphasized the political and psychological
framework within which these decisions will have to be implemented. The
United States has reiterated its formal commitment to the defense of
Europe--as if a legal clause could settle the problem of credibility in
the nuclear age once and for all. Our European allies consider even the
most solemn undertakings less conclusive. Too many of them have betrayed
allies of their own not to be concerned over the impact of the unprecedented
stress of nuclear war on obligations incurred many years before under
completely different circumstances.

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The sense of insecurity of most of our European allies has been magnified by the one-sided relationship which has grown up in the military field within the Atlantic Alliance. In no other area has the dependence of Europe on the United States been so great or so prolonged. In every other field American policy has deliberately sought to reduce Europe's dependence on the United States; in the military sphere the thrust of United States policy has been to make our tutelage more bearable.

When the United States gave economic assistance to Europe after World War II, it tried to induce its European allies to assume responsibility for developing a joint program and for a method to divide up the total available aid. Though United States representatives played an active and important advisory role, the basic scheme was European. This cooperative effort spawned the Schumann Plan and later the Common Market. It had the further consequence of encouraging the emergence of a responsible group of European leaders, dedicated to Atlantic partnership and experienced in working with the United States. The Atlantic Alliance owes a great deal to the habits of cooperation and mutual respect developed during the Marshall Plan.

In the military field, by contrast, the United States never encouraged the emergence of a specifically European point of view. It made no effort to stimulate European institutions comparable to those which it had fostered in the economic sphere. The West European Union, which originally had been expected to play that role, has remained dormant. Thus, NATO strategy throughout has been based on more or less unilateral American conceptions. The consultative role of

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our European allies has been confined in effect to the technical
implementation of American views. No specifically European concept
of defense--and no real European sense of responsibility--developed.

This state of affairs had many causes. At the beginning of
NATO, our allies, remembering our tradition of isolationism, actively
encouraged a predominant United States military role. A hegemonic
position for the United States seemed the best guarantee of our commitment
to the defense of Europe. Later on many allies used our dominant
position as an excuse to avoid difficult domestic choices. They
encouraged us to assume the burden of defense expenditures and the stress
of difficult strategic decisions. We acquiesced because we were
psychologically more deeply engaged in the military than in the economic
field. A military occupation of Europe was rightly considered a challenge
to our survival. Most importantly, the United States possessed a monopoly
of nuclear weapons on which the security of the West was believed to
depend.

However valid the reasons, the disequilibrium in responsibility
between us and our European partners could not be healthy in the long
run. It was unprecedented that the defense of an area so rich and
potentially so powerful as Europe should be left to a country three
thousand miles away and with a recent history of isolationism. The result
has been that many of our allies have seen their role primarily as that
of lobbyists trying to sway decisions not their own.

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This attitude contributes to Allied discord. Charged with the major responsibility for the common defense, the United States has been obliged to adapt its strategy to a rapidly changing technology.

Many of our European allies, on the other hand, the status quo as seemed the best guarantee of our reliability. Unilateral change of our strategic views have a symbolic quality for them. If we are able to alter our views about strategy, might not the same be true of more fundamental commitments? If our allies were primarily concerned with the technical aspects of strategy, they should be worried if we rigidly continue existing doctrine

when circumstances change. It has been a measure of Europe's sense of impotence that the opposite has been the case.

The United States, in turn, has fallen into the habit of dealing with its European allies, except Great Britain, almost psychotherapeutically. It has tended to confuse periodic briefings and reassurance with consultation and it has sought to muffle expressions of concern, rather than deal with the underlying causes. This is the psychological background for the strategic debate which has been taking place since the beginning of NATO and with particular intensity since 1961.

In order to understand the impact on our allies of the change in United States strategic concepts in 1961, it is necessary to examine briefly the doctrine which was replaced. When the Korean War first raised the specter of a Soviet attack on Europe, NATO developed the Lisbon goals, which envisaged a largely conventional defense of Europe. These provided for some thirty-five to forty regular and some fifty-five to sixty reserve divisions. It soon became apparent, however, that no European ally was prepared to make the sacrifices necessary to raise these forces.

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The advent of the Eisenhower Administration in 1953 led to a new defense policy--called the New Look--which placed much greater emphasis on nuclear forces. In 1957 the United States submitted to NATO what came to be known as the Radford Plan--initially to the dismay of the Europeans. This plan started from the premise that NATO was permanently inferior in conventional strength to the hordes of easily mobilized Soviet manpower. To base NATO's strategy on resisting a Soviet attack with conventional weapons was to emphasize Communist superiority. Therefore, the defense of NATO should depend on nuclear weapons. Any attack on Europe would involve general nuclear war. The purpose of the military establishment on the Continent was primarily to delay a Soviet advance long enough for the effects of nuclear war to make themselves felt. The ground forces were to be a "trip wire" or a "plate glass window."

As a result, large numbers of tactical nuclear weapons were shipped into Europe under the so-called double-veto system. This required the consent of both the United States and the host country for a nuclear weapon to be used. Moreover, the definition of "tactical" was such that the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe (SACEUR) was to be able to destroy all Soviet weapons capable of attacking Europe. The nuclear arsenal in Europe thus included weapons of a range and destructiveness indistinguishable from some of those in the arsenal of the Strategic Air Command (SAC). They could be called "tactical" only in the sense that they were stationed in Europe and not in the United States and that they were controlled by SACEUR rather than the commanding general of SAC.

According to this strategic concept, conventional weapons played a minor role. Their function was to deal with minor incursions; they were

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to act as a screen to determine that a full-scale Soviet attack was taking place. Though there was some talk of a "pause" before nuclear weapons might be used, the logistic system of NATO left little doubt about the real emphasis of NATO strategy. None of NATO's conventional forces had supplies for more than two weeks, and several national contingents were considerably worse off. In case of large-scale Soviet attack, nuclear weapons would have to be used practically from the outset. "The pause," General Norstad was reported to have observed, "will probably take place *before* the outbreak of hostilities." NATO doctrine described conventional weapons as the "shield" and nuclear weapons as the "sword" of the Alliance.

Almost concurrently with the disclosure of the Radford Plan in 1957, the United States came to believe that it was inferior to the Soviet Union in long-range missiles. In order to close this "missile gap," the United States pressed its NATO allies to permit the installation of intermediate-range ballistic missiles on their territory. These were thought to be essential to the over-all strategic posture of the West. The concern of some of our allies regarding the vulnerability of these missiles was rejected. It was argued that the Soviets would not be able to launch a blow against our European bases without an unacceptable risk of an all-out United States counterblow and that a coordinated Soviet attack against U.S. overseas and domestic bases would prove technically difficult to stage. In pursuit of these policies, intermediate-range missiles were stationed in Greece, Turkey and Great Britain.

2

The IRBM's in Greece and Turkey were under SACEUR; those in Great Britain were not part of NATO.

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Whatever the validity of the judgments that led to the stationing of these missiles in Europe, they tended to establish an inextricable link between the defense of Europe and that of the United States. As long as the United States believed that its European bases were essential to redress the strategic balance, an attack on Europe would threaten the survival of the United States immediately rather than indirectly. Deployment rather than a judgment to be taken in the circumstances of the moment would dictate the decision to go to nuclear war.

With the advent of the new United States administration in 1961, these policies were drastically and suddenly changed. Starting early in 1961, the Kennedy Administration developed a four-pronged strategic theory which has remained essentially unchanged under President Johnson.

1. **Flexible Response:** When it took office, the Kennedy Administration found itself confronted with a strategy for general war which emphasized a single all-out response. If general nuclear war proved inevitable, the goal was to be to destroy the opposing society essentially in one blow.

The Kennedy Administration sought to replace this conception with an approach which offered more alternatives. It attempted to develop the maximum number of options even for the contingency of general nuclear war--a strategy summed up in the phrase "flexible response." This strategy was described by Secretary of Defense McNamara in 1962 as follows:

> . . . our forces can be used in several different ways. We may have to retali ate with a single massive attack. Or, we may be able to use our retaliatory forces to limit damage done to ourselves, and our allies, by knocking out the enemy's bases before he has had time to launch his second salvos. We may seek to terminate a war on favorable

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terms by using our forces as a bargaining weapon--by
threatening further attack.

In any case, our large reserve of protected firepower would give an enemy an incentive to avoid our cities and to stop a war. Our new policy gives us the flexibility to choose among several operational plans, but does not require that we make any advance commitment with respect to doctrine or targets. We shall be committed only to a system that gives us the ability to use our forces in a controlled and deliberate way, so as best to pursue the interests of the United States, our Allies, and the rest of the Free World.³

Official explanations about how this capability for flexible
response would be used have shifted from time to time and have not always
been consistent. Criticizing the nuclear forces of Britain and France,
Secretary McNamara argued that the United States proposed to rely on a
counterforce strategy and confine its initial attacks to military targets.

The U.S. has come to the conclusion that to the extent feasible, basic military strategy in a possible general nuclear war should be approached in much the same way that more conventional military operations have been regarded in the past. That is to say, principal military objectives . . . should be the destruction of the enemy's military forces, not of his civilian population.⁴

Throughout 1962 Secretary McNamara insisted that the United States
had the capability to destroy the entire Soviet military target system
even after absorbing a first blow. The corollary was, of course, that the

³ Robert S. McNamara, Address before the Fellows of the American Bar Foundation Dinner, Chicago, Illinois, February 17, 1962, Department of Defense, Office of Public Affairs, News Release No. 239-62, February 17, 1962, pp. 6-7. Cited in William W. Kaufmann, *The McNamara Strategy* (New York: Harper & Row, 1964), p. 75.

⁴ McNamara, Address at the Commencement Exercises, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, June 16, 1962, Department of Defense. Office of Public Affairs, News Release No. 980-62, June 16, 1962, p. 9. See also statement on RS-70, *New York Times*, March 16, 1962.

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U.S. would be able to overwhelm Soviet strategic forces by striking first, for instance in response to an attack on Europe. But if this assessment was correct, the purpose of building up conventional forces in Europe was far from obvious. If Soviet strategic forces were indeed so much more vulnerable than ours, a Soviet conventional attack on Europe would be too risky to be at all probable. NATO strategy would be able to rely primarily on United States strategic nuclear power.

More recently Secretary McNamara has been less sanguine about the prospects for a counterforce strategy. He has argued that the growing size of the opposing strategic forces requires us to define more modest objectives than the original counterforce doctrine had seemed to imply. He now maintains that no matter how large our strategic forces, they will not be able to prevent vast damage. The strategy of flexible response is not designed to achieve victory in the traditional sense; its function is to limit damage by destroying as many of the weapons held in reserve by an aggressor after he has launched an initial blow:

> . . . a "damage-limiting" strategy appears to be the most practical and effective course for us to follow. . . .
> 
> While there are still some differences of judgment on just how large such a U.S. strategic force should be, there is general agreement that it should be large enough to ensure the destruction, singly or in combination, of the Soviet Union, Communist China, and the Communist satellites as national societies, under the worst possible circumstances of war outbreak that can reasonably be postulated, and, in addition, to destroy their warmaking capability so as to limit, to the extent practicable, damage to this country and to our allies.

5
McNamara, Hearings, Department of Defense, Appropriations for 1965, House Appropriations Subcommittee (38th Cong., 2nd sess., Part 4), pp. 27-8.

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Under Secretary Ball has criticized these nuclear forces because "the road toward nuclear proliferation has no logical ending."

At first, these criticisms were directed against the French nuclear program alone. However, they could be applied with equal logic to the British strategic force, although it has been in existence with American support for over a decade. Robert Bowie, one of the most eloquent defenders of official nuclear policy, has made this explicit. In short, the requirement of central control is interpreted by the Pentagon to mean the integration of strategic nuclear forces in a way that forecloses the technical possibility of independent use. If any of our allies are to have nuclear forces of their own--and the clear United States preference is that they do not--these must be an adjunct to United States strategic forces and under what amounts in practice to American control.

3. **Tactical Nuclear Weapons:** United States strategic doctrine has shown considerable ambivalence about tactical nuclear weapons which were previously considered the key element of the military establishment on the Continent. On the one hand, the number of tactical nuclear weapons on the Continent has been considerably increased--according to official

7 George Ball, "NATO and World Responsibility," *The Atlantic Community Quarterly*, Vol. 2, No. 2 (Summer 1964), p. 211.

8 Robert Bowie, "Tensions Within the Alliance," *Foreign Affairs*, Vol. 43, No. 1 (October 1963), p. 66.

*Strategy and the Atlantic Alliance*, International Organization, Special issue on the Atlantic Community, Vol. 17, No. 3 (Summer 1963), pp. 722-726.

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Pentagon estimates by some sixty per cent. On the other hand, tactical
nuclear weapons do not really fit the Administration's strategic concept.

Tactical nuclear weapons in the hands of front line units are
extremely difficult to subject to the central command and control envisaged
by the new doctrine. If used for local defense, they would be likely to
pass rapidly beyond the control of governments or high level commanders.
The Administration has repeatedly stressed the danger of such escalation.
As Deputy Secretary of Defense Gilpatric put it, "I, for one, have never
believed in a so-called limited nuclear war. I just don't know how you
build a limit into it once you start using any kind of a nuclear bang."
And in the spring of 1961, Secretary McNamara said that, in his concept,
limited war in effect excluded the use of any nuclear weapons. "I think by
'limited' war we simply mean war that is carried on for the most part with
non nuclear weapons. " Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Alain C.
Enthoven said on February 10, 1963:

> There has been, in recent years, the development of
> small nuclear weapons having yields equivalent to a few
> thousand tons of TNT or less. The day will come, if it
> has not already, when there will be nuclear weapons of
> smaller yield than the largest high explosive weapons.
> When that day comes, will there no longer be a distinction
> between nuclear and conventional weapons? Some have argued
> to that effect. But they are mistaken. There is and will
> remain an important distinction, a "firebreak" if you
> like, between nuclear and non-nuclear war, a

New York Times, June 7, 1961

McNamara, Department of Defense, Appropriations for 1962,
Hearings, Committee on Appropriations, House Subcommittee (87th Cong.,
1st sess., 1961, Part 3), p. 136.

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recognizable qualitative distinction that both combatants
can recognize and agree upon, if they want to agree upon
one. And in the nuclear age they will have a very powerful
incentive to agree upon this distinction and limitation,
because if they do not there does not appear to be another
easily recognizable limitation on weapons--no other obvious
"firebreak"--all the way up the destructive spectrum to
large-scale thermonuclear war.¹¹

In sum, if any use of nuclear weapons is likely to lead to an
uncontrolled general nuclear exchange, it follows that the Administration's
strictures against independent nuclear forces apply to a considerable extent
to tactical nuclear weapons on the continent of Europe as well.

Administration statements have made clear that the tactical nuclear weapons
in Europe were too vulnerable to serve as reliable second-strike weapons,
and thus were not needed to deter or to fight a general nuclear war:

> There is no question but today our strategic retaliatory forces of bombers, missiles and Polaris are fully capable of destroying Soviet targets, even after absorbing an initial nuclear suprise attack. Allowing for losses from an initial enemy attack we calculate that our forces would destroy virtually all Soviet targets without any help from deployed tactical air units of carrier task forces which, of course, have the capability of attacking these targets with nuclear weapons.¹²

If official doctrine is ambivalent about tactical nuclear
weapons, it is hostile to the overseas deployment of strategic delivery
systems. Accordingly, intermediate-range ballistic missiles have been

11 Alain C. Enthoven, U.S. Senate, Committee on Armed Services, Military Procurement Authorization: Fiscal Year 1964; Hearings on H.R. 2440 (88th Cong., 1st sess., 1963), p. 168.

12 McNamara, Address to the Fellows of the American Bar Foundation, Chicago, February 17, 1962, op. cit, p. .

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withdrawn from Britain, Italy and Turkey. This has been justified by
the argument that the new weapons such as the Polaris missiles are more
effective and by assertions (which incidentally had been rejected four
years earlier) that land-based missiles are too vulnerable.

4. Conventional Defense: If European national nuclear forces are irrelevant or worse and tactical nuclear weapons are overvalued, it follows that American strategic doctrine considers Europe's optimum contribution to be in the field of conventional defense. This argument has been pressed insistently. "The decision to employ tactical nuclear weapons," testified Secretary McNamara before the House Armed Services Committee in January 1963, "should not be forced upon us simply because we have no other way to cope with a particular situation."

The corollary for United States doctrine is that the most desirable
objective is to resist a Soviet conventional attack with purely conventional
means. Secretary McNamara added that existing NATO conventional
capabilities were adequate to deal with any "major incursion." Nevertheless,
he urged that they be strengthened to give us "capabilities for dealing
with even larger Soviet attacks"--in other words, a massive, sustained
Soviet offensive. This view was made explicit by Alain C. Enthoven a
little later that year:

> . . . we will have no sensible alternative to building
> up our conventional forces to the point at which they
> can safely resist all forms of non-nuclear aggression.

13

McNamara, Statement before the House Armed Services Committee, The Fiscal Year 1964-68, Defense Program, 1964 Defense Budget, January 30, 1963, p. 18.

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Our forces will be adequate if we can never be forced
because of weakness to be the first to have to resort
to nuclear weapons.¹⁴

This feature of the new United States strategic doctrine was
vividly symbolized in the Nassau Agreement which reversed the traditional
concepts of "shield" and "sword" in NATO doctrine. This change, decided
bilaterally by Great Britain and the United States, described the nuclear
weapons as the "shield" and the conventional weapons as the "sword" of
the Alliance--implying that the United States envisaged an essentially
conventional defense of Europe.

The new strategic doctrine made a sharp debate almost inevitable.
The drastic change of views within the space of less than five years cast
into question either our steadiness or our judgment. Those allied leaders
who had staked their prestige on supporting the American view of the
Fifties found themselves in the embarrassing position of seeing some of
their opposition's arguments vindicated by a change of heart in Washington.
This explains much of the bitterness of the debate.

Moreover, many of the changes tended to decouple deployment for
general war from the defense of Europe. With American strategic forces
located in the United States or at sea, the former military necessity to
respond to an attack on Europe with nuclear retaliation was reduced. And
this was made explicit by the emphasis placed on conventional defense.

14

Enthoven, Address to the Loyola University Forum for National
Affairs, Los Angeles, February 10, 1963. Cited in *Survival*, Vol. V,
No. 3 (May-June 1963), p. 98.

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This raised issues of sovereignty which had been muted when American
nuclear retaliation had been believed to be automatic.

This is not to say that a reconsideration of NATO strategy was
unnecessary. On the contrary, it was unavoidable. It would have been
inexcusable not to adapt NATO strategy to the obvious fact that the
opposing nuclear forces were increasing with every year. The American
mistake was a failure to understand that this reassessment was bound to
lead to a debate in which the traditional notions of self-defense would
loom very large. The European mistake was to attempt to ensure our
constancy by freezing us into a posture rendered obsolete by the growth of
Soviet retaliatory power and improvements in its invulnerability. But
tactical errors of either side should not affect the judgment that a
change in NATO strategy had become overdue--even if the remedies proposed
were not always wise.

As it was, the advent of a new, highly analytical Administration
in the United States coincided with the deliberate policy of President
de Gaulle to assert a more independent role. This made disputes more
urgent, particularly with respect to the role of conventional forces and
the issue of nuclear control.

## B. The Nature of the Debate: Nuclear or Conventional Defense

The strategic debate in the alliance was at first given a slightly
unreal quality by the desire of Washington to maintain an appearance of
continuity. When the Kennedy Administration early in 1961 sought to
convince NATO to strengthen its conventional forces, our allies inquired
whether the United States was reducing its reliance on nuclear weapons.

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We replied that the proposed build-up did not involve any lessened
confidence in what had come to be called "The Deterrent." On the
contrary, United States strategic forces were being expanded and made
more invulnerable. The non-nuclear build-up, far from diminishing
the credibility of our nuclear power, would actually enhance it.

According to official American statements, the NATO policy being
promulgated was not new. We were simply asking our allies to live up to
their previous commitments. The goal was flexibility of response.

This curious dialogue, in which a change of emphasis in United
States policy was defended in terms of traditional doctrines of NATO,
produced new misgivings. Our allies asked why if the reliance on nuclear
deterrence remained unimpaired, conventional forces had to be strengthened.
Did not American efforts to build up conventional strength involve a risk?
Since even thirty divisions would probably not be enough to stop a full
scale Soviet attack, a build-up might raise doubts about the American
nuclear commitment and thus might make aggression more likely. The result
was a paradoxical argument about whether an increase in NATO's strength
would weaken its over-all defensive posture. The emphasis on conventional
weapons had the strange consequence of exacerbating the issue of nuclear
control.

15 McNamara, Speech to the Fellows of the American Bar Foundation, Chicago, February 17, 1962, op. cit., p. 8.

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This was no accident. As long as NATO strategy was nuclear and the United States had no obvious alternative to nuclear retaliation, the Europeans were ready to acquiesce in the hegemonic position of the United States. They reasoned that this was the price which had to be paid for an automatic American nuclear response. However, one of the essential characteristics of the doctrine of flexible response is that American nuclear reaction will occur--if at all--deliberately and in stages. The very qualities that have made the new doctrine desirable for Americans raise questions for Europeans of how the American commitment will be interpreted under the stress of nuclear war. This, in turn, has brought to a head a difference in perspective between the American and the European conception of NATO which has always existed.

Ever since the beginning of NATO, the military establishment on the Continent has been seen in symbolic terms by the Europeans and in military terms by the United States. When the Korean War seemed to indicate that Soviet aggression might be imminent, serious efforts were made to turn NATO into a more effective military instrument. However, given the enormous disparity in military and economic strength between the United States and Europe, the primary concern of the European countries was to commit the United States to their defense. They considered NATO above all a means to obtain American protection, by which they meant American nuclear protection.

At the same time, Europeans have had too much experience with the tenuousness of formal commitments not to strive for more tangible guarantees. This led to pressures for the stationing of American troops in Europe.

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European reasoning was similar to that ascribed to a French marshal in 1912 when he was asked how many British troops he wanted for the eventuality of a European war. He is reported to have replied: "We need only one, who we will make sure is killed on the first day of the war." In the nuclear age, the price of a guarantee has risen to something like five divisions.

With so many American troops permanently stationed in Europe, it was only sensible to try to give them some meaningful military mission. Even in the heyday of the doctrine of massive retaliation in the Fifties, NATO forces were larger than the prevailing strategic concept seemed to demand. Indeed, the number was somewhat inconsistent with it. Despite the United States commitment to a retaliatory strategy, we constantly pressed for a European contribution of ground forces. The Europeans, though they agreed to a succession of NATO force goals, never really believed in the doctrines used to rationalize them. Rather they considered their military contribution a fee to be paid for United States nuclear protection. Our allies agreed to our requests. But they tried to make certain that their actual contributions would be only large enough to induce us to keep a substantial military establishment in Europe, yet not so high as to provide a real alternative to nuclear retaliation. They were opposed to giving the conventional forces a central military mission; but they also resisted any hint of American withdrawal.

This ambivalence was brought into the open by the shift in United States strategic doctrine in 1961. The American attempt to strengthen conventional forces brought [illegible] [illegible] [illegible] [illegible] to the fore

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the issue of nuclear control which for many Europeans had always been
the crux of the matter. For the first time, U.S. strategic views were
publicly challenged, at first hesitantly, then ever more explicitly. Europe
had by now gained sufficient self-confidence so that the mere enunciation
of an American policy no longer guaranteed its acceptance. The pre-emptory
way in which the United States proceeded added ruffled feelings to
substantive disagreements. And France compounded these problems by giving
European doubts their most extreme formulation.

But while European concerns were understandable and inherent in
the relationship which had grown up between Europe and the United States
in the strategic field, by 1961 a changing technology had made a reassessment
of NATO doctrine essential. Traditional NATO strategy assumed United
States strategic preponderance. This superiority enabled us not only to
prevent an attack on the United States but also to protect our allies by
what amounted to a unilateral American guarantee. The Soviet Union did
possess superior conventional strength. But it could not use it for fear
of triggering the Strategic Air Command. It could not attack the United
States at the same time as Europe--even after it became technically able
to do so--because, while this would have increased American losses, a
Soviet defeat would nevertheless have been inevitable. Until the middle
Sixties, the security of NATO had thus depended essentially on the ability
of the United States to destroy the Soviet retaliatory power--technically
speaking, on the American capacity to conduct a counterforce strategy.

Any prudent planning for NATO in the 1960's was bound to start
from the assumption that the utility of a counterforce strategy--in the
sense of an ability to disarm the opponent--for the defense of Europe is

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we can destroy remains constant throughout the 1960's--an unwarrantedly optimistic assumption--the absolute number which is left will rise.

Thus, the Soviet capability to devastate NATO countries in a counterblow will inevitably increase.

These factors are certain to reduce any President's readiness to initiate general war. Secretary McNamara was courageous in making this statement. To have pretended otherwise would have been sheer irresponsibility on our part and a convenient delusion for some of our allies. Even our best efforts will not prevent the credibility of a "disarming" counterforce strategy from declining in the years ahead. It will grow ever more difficult to convince the Soviets that such a capability exists or that we are prepared to run the risks it involves. This problem has been accurately described by Secretary McNamara as follows:

> Fully hard ICBM sites can be destroyed but only at great cost in terms of the numbers of offensive weapons required to dig them out. Furthermore, in a second strike situation we would be attacking, for the most part, empty sites from which the missiles had already been fired.

> The value of trying to provide a capability to destroy a very high proportion of Soviet hard ICBM sites becomes even more questionable in view of the expected increase in the Soviet missile launching submarine force. . .

But if the United States was correct in insisting that an adaptation of NATO strategy was necessary, it was less sensitive to the political and

16
McNamara, Military Procurement Authorization Fiscal Year 1964, Senate Armed Services Committee (83rd Cong., 1st sess.), p. 41.

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psychological implications of its insight. It is not necessary to agree
with General Gallois that growing nuclear capabilities end all
possibility of alliance to recognize that they bring about a drastically
changed situation. Ultimately, it could lead to a merging of sovereignty
within the Atlantic area. But until this comes to pass, the age of mutual
invulnerability of retaliatory forces and of mutual vulnerability of
civilian populations has produced a gap between the technical requirements
of the new strategy and the political realities of an alliance of sovereign
states. The doctrine of multiple options seeks to make any American
nuclear response depend on decisions to be taken in the circumstances of
the moment. The very quality of deliberation which makes this strategy
militarily desirable for the United States raises for our allies the issue
of sovereignty with its latent possibility of a unilateral change of
heart. This is all the more true because the decisions to implement the
flexible response will have to be made under the unprecedented stress of
actual or imminent nuclear war. The central command and control system
which is the key feature of the new doctrine is American. The United States
will determine--to the extent that the enemy cooperates--how and with what
weapons the war is to be fought and on what terms it will be concluded.
To entrust the most fateful decision any nation may have to make to another
sovereign state, however close, creates enormous insecurities.

Doubts produced by the new doctrine for nuclear war were reinforced
by simultaneous American pressures for the build-up of conventional forces.
Secretary McNamara has argued that a build-up of conventional forces by the

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Europeans--indeed, a specialization by the Europeans in conventional weapons--would enhance the credibility of the nuclear arsenal:

> If we have shown ourselves able and ready to engage in large-scale non-nuclear warfare in response to a Communist provocation, the Soviets can hardly misconstrue two things: first, that we regard this provocation as a challenge to our vital interests; and second, that we will use nuclear weapons to prevail, if this becomes necessary.¹⁷

This estimate has left many Europeans unconvinced. The reason is not that the Europeans fail to understand the notion of flexible response--though they do have trouble with some of its subtler applications. Rather, it is that they reject its applicability for themselves. When the issue is Asia or Latin America, Europeans usually conceive even more "options" than the United States. With respect to the defense of Europe, their attitude is more rigid. Europeans are likely to agree with the following assessment of Soviet intentions by Secretary of the Navy Paul Nitze (then Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs):

> Communists demonstrate both a proclivity for bold political actions against a background of impressive military force and also careful calculation of risks and a staunch desire to keep events under their own control. Because they can be expected sensibly to avoid high risks of nuclear war or events leading to it, their military actions against the West at any one moment are likely to be controlled in size and aimed at limited objectives. /Emphasis added./¹⁸

17 McNamara, Address before the Fellows of the American Bar Foundation, Chicago, Illinois, February 17, 1962, op. cit., p. 9.

18 Paul H. Nitze, Address before the Cleveland Council on World Affairs, Cleveland, Ohio, March 2, 1963. Cited in Kaufmann, op. cit., pp. 130-1.

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But most Europeans would not consider an attack on Central Europe as confined to limited objectives. If Secretary Nitze is correct in his view that the Soviets recoil before a high risk of nuclear war, then a limited attack in Europe is likely only if the American nuclear guarantee has lost some of its credibility. A few additional conventional divisions thus may appear to Europeans as too insignificant to affect the conventional balance but significant enough to produce concern about possible American reluctance to face the risks of nuclear war.

This is well illustrated by the reactions to the concepts which have been used to justify the strengthening of NATO's conventional forces. The purpose of the conventional forces has been said to be to provide a "pause" in military operations in order to permit the Soviets to "appreciate the wider risks involved." The ground forces, in other words, are supposed to define a "threshold" below which nuclear weapons would not have to be used.

These arguments rather than increase the willingness to engage in a conventional build-up raised the issue of nuclear strategy in acute form. To begin with, it is far from certain that at the end of a given period of conventional operations the Soviets will confront more clearly the wider risks of nuclear war. If a full-scale conventional attack were

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to occur, the Soviets presumably would have already discounted the threat of nuclear retaliation; a full-scale Soviet attack on Central Europe is not likely to occur inadvertently. But if the attack does take place, why should NATO's bargaining position be better at the end of a period of thirty days (the usual target date for the build-up)--when our conventional forces would have presumably been decimated--than at the beginning? What if at that point the Soviets offered to negotiate after having gained possession of their prize? If nuclear war is too risky for the West at the start of the conflict, why should it not be even more risky when the local issue has in effect already been decided and when the devastation caused by a nuclear exchange may make the local situation seem irrelevant? If, on the other hand, it is argued that the Soviets would never dare to defeat NATO's ground forces lest this trigger a nuclear exchange, what is gained by increasing the number of NATO divisions beyond a level which forces the Soviets into a major commitment?

The same difficulty applies to the concept of a "threshold." This was defined by the then Deputy Secretary of Defense, Roswell Gilpatric, as follows: "The current doctrine is that if NATO forces were about to be overwhelmed by non-nuclear attacks from the bloc countries, NATO would make use of nuclear arms." This raises two questions: (a) Who determines whether the NATO conventional forces are being overwhelmed? (b) Assuming this determination is made, how are nuclear weapons then to be used?

19

New York Times, June 7, 1961.

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course, expect to win--without seeking to neutralize the nuclear weapons
on the Continent?

The issue of conventional defense has been muted since 1964 because the United States has apparently had second thoughts about its previous course. But it lasted long enough to make the issue of nuclear control one of the central unresolved problems of the Alliance. As long as the United States insists on central control over the nuclear weapons of the Alliance, as well as total freedom of action with respect to them, the European incentive in the development of strategy is likely to be exactly the opposite of ours. Rather than permit a "pause" for "appreciating the wider risks involved," Europeans prefer to force us to make our response as automatic as possible.

This has little to do with whether the United States could "afford" to lose Europe. It is rooted in the nature of sovereignty and is made more acute by the destructiveness of nuclear weapons. Robert Bowie has criticized British nuclear policy before the Assembly of the Western European Union as follows: "Britain. . . has retained a national command structure and the right to withdraw them at its option. This means that they certainly could not be counted upon by any of the others to be available in case of need." [*Emphasis added.*] If this concern is valid when applied

20
For a splendid analysis of this problem of the conventional defense of Europe see Bernard Brodie, "What Price Conventional Capabilities in Europe," *The Reporter*, Vol. 28, No. 11 (May 23, 1963), pp. 25-33.

21
*Proceedings, Assembly of Western European Union, Ninth Ordinary Session, Second Part, IV, December 1963, p. 125.*

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have resisted a reduction of United States forces because to many Europeans these represent the surest guarantee of American nuclear protection. It is just as difficult for Europeans to face the fact that these attitudes are inconsistent as it has been for Americans to admit that increased emphasis on local defense is incompatible with United States hegemony in nuclear matters.

The problem can then be summed up as follows: Exclusive U.S. control of nuclear strategy is politically and psychologically difficult to reconcile with a strategy of multiple choices or flexible response. The European refusal to assign a meaningful military mission to conventional forces in Europe is incompatible with the indefinite retention of large U.S. forces there. If the United States places a high enough value on conventional defense, it will have to concede Europe a measure of autonomy in nuclear control. Or else it will have to move to an effective sharing of sovereignty. If the Europeans want to insist on an automatic nuclear response, a reconsideration of our conventional deployment on the Continent will become inevitable. Refusal to face these facts will guarantee a perpetuation of present disputes and increasing disarray within NATO.

### C. NATO's Nuclear Dilemma

NATO's nuclear dilemma has developed because there is an increasing inconsistency between the technical requirements of strategy and an international order based on the nation-state. Three factors have produced the difficulty: (a) the military requirement for centralized control, (b) the desire of each major ally to have substantial

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community which would be essentially a federal government. In the absence
of a more embracing political structure, a clash of interests is
inevitable.

This is illustrated by two United States policies: (a) the sharp
attack on the national nuclear forces of Britain and France, and (b) the
various schemes to achieve central command and control over the nuclear
weapons of the Alliance within the present framework of NATO.

With respect to national nuclear forces, Great Britain since 1951
and France since 1958 have been engaged in a program to develop nuclear
capabilities under their own control. In 1954, an amendment to the
McMahon Act made possible United States nuclear assistance to Great
Britain. The provisions of the amended McMahon Act have never been extended
to France. This discrimination has been a constant source of irritation in
Franco-American relations--and would have been regardless of which government
was in power in France.

United States policy, which had been tolerant of the nuclear
programs of its allies, grew increasingly hostile from 1961 onward. The
French nuclear program was described as irrelevant and harmful to the
Alliance. The same criticisms, if more muted, were applied to the British
nuclear program. The tension inherent in an attack on major defense
programs of two close allies exacerbated the debate about other aspects of
NATO strategic doctrine--particularly the role of conventional weapons.

United States opposition to the British and French nuclear programs
was supported by the following major arguments: There was no strategic
need for national nuclear forces, since all significant targets were already

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Groups heretofore not noted for their interest in defense programs began to use American arguments against governments which had, until then, been most responsible for close NATO ties. Some of those supporting United States views on nuclear control had in the past had neutralist leanings. They did not find it difficult to reconcile themselves to America's assumption of almost exclusive responsibility for their defense. Those taking the defense problem seriously were driven to one of two conclusions: Either they urged the United States to give up some of its freedom of action and move in the direction of a real sharing of sovereignty; or else they came increasingly to demand some degree of autonomy in the nuclear field.

Moreover, United States arguments involved a difference in perspective with our allies even on purely military grounds. Our European critics have identified the doctrine of flexible response with the concept, enunciated by Secretary McNamara at Ann Arbor in 1962, of counterforce operations designed to disarm the enemy. Many of them consider this concept unrealistic and even those who agree with the general notion of flexible response give it a different content than at least the early versions of Pentagon doctrine.

A capability to conduct flexible operations in a way that appears able to withstand严酷的戰鬥To densely populated Europe, the distinction between military and civilian "disarming" targets seems more ephemeral. While not objecting to a ^ strategy as one possible option, our European nuclear allies see no compelling reasons to subordinate all considerations to what may well be a very remote contingency.

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This is all the more true because United States pronouncements are postulating a scenario for general nuclear war that seems somewhat remote. In his presentations to the Armed Services Committee in 1963 and in 1964, Secretary McNamara described only *one* contingency for general nuclear war: a full-scale Soviet nuclear attack on the United States and (perhaps) Europe concentrating on military targets. The United States would then respond by attacking Soviet residual forces and other targets.

But it is not clear what could possibly tempt even a rash Soviet planner into such a course or why the Soviets would then attack American missile sites. If they did attack, As long as the present numerical imbalance between Soviet and American strategic forces remains, there is no

22

In fact, in his testimony before the Armed Services Committees in January 1964, Secretary McNamara has usually associated the defense of Europe with *tactical*, not *strategic*, nuclear weapons should the conventional forces prove inadequate. Thus, in his report to the Armed Services Committee on the Fiscal Years 1965-69, Defense Program and Defense Budget (January 27, 1964), Secretary McNamara said:

> . . . a large-scale Soviet attack on Western Europe . . . would be extremely dangerous to our own security, and would compel us to respond immediately with whatever force was needed to halt the onslaught, even with tactical nuclear weapons, if necessary. [Emphasis added.] (pp. 56-7)

And a little further on, when discussing General Purpose Forces, Secretary McNamara said:

(1) The forces envisioned in NATO plans for the end of 1966 . . . could hold an initial Soviet attack on the central front using non-nuclear means alone;

(2) Until these requirements are met, the defense of Europe against an all-out Soviet attack, even if such an attack were limited to non-nuclear means, would require the use of tactical nuclear weapons on our part. [Emphasis added.] (p. 58)

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conceivable gain for the Soviets in launching a blow against the United
States strategic forces. Even if every Soviet missile destroyed an
American delivery vehicle, the Soviets would have disarmed themselves
and would find themselves confronted with a large American force
unrestrained by any Soviet threat.

In short, a counterstrategy "disarming" strategy cannot be an
optimum strategy for both sides. Soviet military theorists have
consistently denied the possibility of the kind of war described by
Pentagon officials. This would not be decisive were it not in accord
with the realities of the strategic equation; for a war confined to
military targets, even if it were technically feasible, cannot be in the
interest of the weaker side. As the United States reduced the Soviet
retaliatory force, the sensible strategy for the Soviets would be to begin
attacking American cities, perhaps "controlling" their response by
destroying some smaller towns first.

another way of saying that

This is a flexible response should not be confused with counterforce
strategy. The Soviets may well have an incentive to "control" their
response, but not necessarily to direct their blow against military
targets. This situation is likely to multiply pressures for European
nuclear forces or for a more effective voice in ours. As has been
frequently pointed out by Pentagon spokesmen, the Soviet delivery vehicles
aimed at Europe far exceed in number those deployed against the United
States. It has also been emphasized that even a "controlled" nuclear war
would produce far greater casualties in Europe than in the United States,
perhaps exceeding even the tens of millions estimated for North America.
In these conditions, it is understandable that some Europeans have come

[N]

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five Polaris submarines had already been "committed" to NATO with more to come.24 In his report to the House Armed Services Committee of January 1963, Secretary McNamara announced that the United States had "earmarked a fully operational Polaris force to the NATO command."25

These measures were largely symbolic. Since they did little more than paper over the real conflicts involved, they served only to make the disputes more acute. For one thing, there was a serious question about precisely what is implied by the term "assignment." All forces in NATO are under national command in peacetime. NATO headquarters are planning outfits that control the forces "assigned" to them only during specified maneuvers or in war. Each ally retains the right to go to war according to its own constitutional processes. The right to withdraw forces is inherent, and "assignment" does not significantly restrict the independent disposition of NATO forces. This has been demonstrated by the United States withdrawal of forces from Germany for action in Lebanon, by the French withdrawal of its fleet from NATO, by the use of NATO-assigned forces by both Greece and Turkey during the Cyprus crisis and by the withdrawal of British forces from Germany for use in Malaysia. Thus, the

24 *New York Times*, May 6, 1962. No more submarines have, in fact, been assigned.

25 *Hearings on Military Posture, Committee on Armed Services, House (88th Cong., 1st. sess.)*, p. 298.

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assignment of American and British strategic units to NATO does not
significantly restrict the ability to use these forces for national
purposes (or, what is more relevant, to refrain from using them). The
escape clauses in the Nassau Agreement with respect to use in national
emergencies which were so severely criticized gave Britain no additional
rights; if Britain were to abandon these clauses, as the Labor Party has
proposed, this would not significantly restrict its ability to use its
nuclear forces in the inconceivable case that it would be prepared to go
to nuclear war without the United States.

But assuming that "assignment" does imply a higher degree of
commitment, what precisely was its strategic significance? Did it mean
that there was a stronger obligation to use submarines "assigned" to
NATO than SAC in the defense of Europe? What was one to make of the
phrase in the communique after the NATO ministerial meeting in Athens
in May 1962 which stated that the United States and Great Britain had
given "firm assurances that their strategic forces will continue to
provide defense against threats to the alliance beyond the capability of
NATO-committed forces to deal with"? Did this mean that there were
two "thresholds" in NATO strategy: one between conventional and nuclear
war and another between the strategic forces assigned to NATO and the rest
of SAC? If so, this would mean either that the counterforce strategy on
which the Administration had staked so much would have to be abandoned or

26

Text of communique, New York Times, May 7, 1962.

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problem could be solved by giving SACEUR authority to use battlefield weapons at his discretion. Aside from the difficulty of distinguishing between "tactical" and "strategic" weapons, this would represent an unprecedented abdication of Constitutional responsibilities. It is difficult to imagine any President agreeing to this step. And even if it were taken, it would probably compound the problem. The predelegation of authority would be confined to the most obvious and unambiguous cases. A guideline so conceived will omit more cases than it specifies and thus raise uncertainties precisely about the ambiguous cases that have caused the greatest worries.

To be sure, some of the arguments made by Europeans on behalf of their nuclear forces have hardly helped matters. The French have pressed their case with a Cartesian rationalism that sometimes threatens to turn valid arguments into parodies. It is one thing to argue the undeniable fact that in the age of nuclear plenty the old notions of nuclear protection must be modified and that a redistribution of responsibilities is required. It is quite another to insist that this ends all possibility of one country's coming to the assistance of another. The French national nuclear force has in fact some utility only as long as France can count on American support in case of a nuclear war. As long as France's retaliatory force is composed of airplanes it could be overwhelmed by a Soviet pre-emptive attack, if the Soviets could be certain that the United States would remain aloof. It is because the Soviets cannot be certain of this, that the force de frappe makes more sense than American commentators usually admit. The real argument for the existing national nuclear forces

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been reluctant to respond to American pressures for an increase in
conventional forces. The United States proposals for sharing nuclear
control had not met the real concerns of those Europeans asking either
for a greater share in nuclear decisions or for greater autonomy with
respect to them. In order to escape this impasse, the United
States--starting early in 1963--began ever more urgently to press a
scheme for a NATO nuclear force, the so-called Multilateral Force (MLF).

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See also, Chapter I, p. 1.

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Many of our European allies, on the other hand, the status quo as seemed the best guarantee of our reliability. Unilateral change of our strategic views have a symbolic quality for them. If we are able to alter our views about strategy, might not the same be true of more fundamental commitments? If our allies were primarily concerned with the technical aspects of strategy, they should be worried if we rigidly continue existing doctrine views when circumstances change. It has been a measure of Europe's sense of impotence that the opposite has been the case.

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Almost concurrently with the disclosure of the Radford Plan in 1957, the United States came to believe that it was inferior to the Soviet Union in long-range missiles. In order to close this "missile gap," the United States pressed its NATO allies to permit the installation of intermediate-range ballistic missiles on their territory. These were thought to be essential to the over-all strategic posture of the West. The concern of some of our allies regarding the vulnerability of these missiles was rejected. It was argued that the Soviets would not be able to launch a blow against our European bases without an unacceptable risk of an all-out United States counterblow and that a coordinated Soviet attack against U.S. overseas and domestic bases would prove technically difficult to stage. In pursuit of these policies, intermediate-range missiles 2 were stationed in Greece, Turkey and Great Britain.

2

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> . . . our forces can be used in several different ways.
> We may have to retali ate with a single massive attack.
> Or, we may be able to use our retaliatory forces to limit
> damage done to ourselves, and our allies, by knocking out
> the enemy's bases before he has had time to launch his
> second salvos. We may seek to terminate a war on favorable

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⁴ McNamara, Address at the Commencement Exercises, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, June 16, 1962, Department of Defense, Office of Public Affairs, News Release No. 980-62, June 16, 1962, p. 9. See also statement on RS-70, *New York Times*, March 16, 1962.

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5
McNamara, Hearings, Department of Defense, Appropriations for 1965, House Appropriations Subcommittee (88th Cong., 2nd sess., Part 4), pp. 27-8.

["H.A. Kissinger", "12/14/64", "IV-13", "Under-secretary Ball has criticized these nuclear forces because \"the road toward nuclear proliferation has no logical ending.\"", "At first, these criticisms were directed against the French nuclear program alone. However, they could be applied with equal logic to the British strategic force, although it has been in existence with American support for over a decade. Robert Bowie, one of the most eloquent defenders of official nuclear policy, has made this explicit. In short, the requirement of central control is interpreted by the Pentagon to mean the integration of strategic nuclear forces in a way that forecloses the technical possibility of independent use. If any of our allies are to have nuclear forces of their own--and the clear United States preference is that they do not--these must be an adjunct to United States strategic forces and under what amounts in practice to American control.", "3. **Tactical Nuclear Weapons:** United States strategic doctrine has shown considerable ambivalence about tactical nuclear weapons which were previously considered the key element of the military establishment on the Continent. On the one hand, the number of tactical nuclear weapons on the Continent has been considerably increased--according to official", "George Ball, \"NATO and World Responsibility,\" *The Atlantic Community Quarterly*, Vol. 2, No. 2 (Summer 1964), p. 211.", "Robert Bowie, \"Tensions Within the Alliance,\" *Foreign Affairs*, Vol. 43, No. 1 (October 1963), p. 66.", "______, Strategy and the Atlantic Alliance," *International Organization*, Special issue on the Atlantic Community, Vol. 17, No. 3 (Summer 1963), pp. 722-726."]

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There has been, in recent years, the development of
small nuclear weapons having yields equivalent to a few
thousand tons of TNT or less. The day will come, if it
has not already, when there will be nuclear weapons of
smaller yield than the largest high explosive weapons.
When that day comes, will there no longer be a distinction
between nuclear and conventional weapons? Some have argued
to that effect. But they are mistaken. There is and will
remain an important distinction, a "firebreak" if you
like, between nuclear and non-nuclear war, a

New York Times, June 7, 1961

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12 McNamara, Address to the Fellows of the American Bar Foundation, Chicago, February 17, 1962, op. cit., p. .

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13

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14

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B. The Nature of the Debate: Nuclear or Conventional Defense?

The strategic debate in the alliance was at first given a slightly
unreal quality by the desire of Washington to maintain an appearance of
continuity. When the Kennedy Administration, early in 1961, sought to
convince NATO to strengthen its conventional forces, our allies inquired
whether the United States was reducing its reliance on nuclear weapons.

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This was no accident. As long as NATO strategy was nuclear and the United States had no obvious alternative to nuclear retaliation, the Europeans were ready to acquiesce in the hegemonial position of the United States. They reasoned that this was the price which had to be paid for an automatic American nuclear response. However, one of the essential characteristics of the doctrine of flexible response is that American nuclear reaction will occur--if at all--deliberately and in stages. The very qualities that have made the new doctrine desirable for Americans raise questions for Europeans of how the American commitment will be interpreted under the stress of nuclear war. This, in turn, has brought to a head a difference in perspective between the American and the European conception of NATO which has always existed.

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This ambivalence was brought into the open by the shift in United States strategic doctrine in 1961. The American attempt to strengthen conventional forces brought <u>conventional weapons</u> and <u>conventional funding</u> to the fore

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bound to decline. Indeed, Secretary McNamara's statements in 1962 about the efficacy of a counterforce strategy, while technically correct at the time they were made, were misleading if applied to the foreseeable state of affairs. A the strategic and political significance of our numerical superiority was certain to diminish. For the immediate future - as long as the Soviet missile force remains relatively small - a counterforce "disarming" strategy may remain technically feasible. This situation should be treated by NATO as a temporary respite permitting an adjustment to inevitable realities.

For one thing, the more sophisticated missile systems which are now or will soon be in operation, are dispersed, thus preventing one attacking missile from destroying more than one on the ground. Also, many missiles are protected in hardened underground sites, which means that more than one attacking missile is necessary to destroy a defending one. Other missiles will be mobile or based at sea, creating the need for coordinating many different forms of attack. These factors will greatly magnify the force required for a successful counterforce "disarming" strike.

The constantly growing complexity of staging a missile attack is bound to reduce the political utility of a counterforce "disarming" strategy--perhaps even faster than is warranted by purely military considerations. In the face of risks which are certain to mount dramatically, it will grow ever more difficult to convince political leaders that they should rely on a strategy based on intelligence which is fragmentary and use large numbers of weapons for which there is no operational experience in wartime. Even if the proportion of the opposing strategic force which

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16

McNamara, Military Procurement Authorization Fiscal Year 1964, Senate Armed Services Committee (88th Cong., 1st sess.), p. 41.

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psychological implications of its insight. It is not necessary to agree
with General Gallois that growing nuclear capabilities end <u>all</u>
possibility of alliance to recognize that they bring about a drastically
changed situation. Ultimately, it could lead to a merging of sovereignty
within the Atlantic area. But until this comes to pass, the age of mutual
invulnerability of retaliatory forces and of mutual vulnerability of
civilian populations has produced a gap between the technical requirements
of the new strategy and the political realities of an alliance of sovereign
states. The doctrine of multiple options seeks to make any American
nuclear response depend on decisions to be taken in the circumstances of
the moment. The very quality of deliberation which makes this strategy
militarily desirable for the United States raises for our allies the issue
of sovereignty with its latent possibility of a unilateral change of
heart. This is all the more true because the decisions to implement the
flexible response will have to be made under the unprecedented stress of
actual or imminent nuclear war. The central command and control system
which is the key feature of the new doctrine is American. The United States
will determine--to the extent that the enemy cooperates--how and with what
weapons the war is to be fought and on what terms it will be concluded.
To entrust the most fateful decision any nation may have to make to another
sovereign state, however close, creates enormous insecurities.

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> If we have shown ourselves able and ready to engage in large-scale non-nuclear warfare in response to a Communist provocation, the Soviets can hardly misconstrue two things: first, that we regard this provocation as a challenge to our vital interests; and second, that we will use nuclear weapons to prevail, if if this becomes necessary.¹⁷

This estimate has left many Europeans unconvinced. The reason is not that the Europeans fail to understand the notion of flexible response--though they do have trouble with some of its subtler applications. Rather it is that they reject its applicability for themselves. When the issue is Asia or Latin America, Europeans usually conceive even more "options" than the United States. With respect to the defense of Europe, their attitude is more rigid. Europeans are likely to agree with the following assessment of Soviet intentions by Secretary of the Navy Paul Nitze (then Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs):

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19

New York Times, June 7, 1961.

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This has little to do with whether the United States could "afford"
to lose Europe. It is rooted in the nature of sovereignty and is made more
acute by the destructiveness of nuclear weapons. Robert Bowie has
criticized British nuclear policy before the Assembly of the Western
European Union as follows: "Britain. . . has retained a national command
structure and the right to withdraw them at its option. This means that
they certainly could not be counted upon by any of the others to be available
in case of need." [Emphasis added.] If this concern is valid when applied

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to British nuclear forces, which are, after all, assigned to NATO, it
must be even stronger regarding United States strategic forces which
remain under exclusive American control.

The debate about the level of conventional forces has mortgaged
the Alliance in two other respects. It is dangerous to develop a
as essential
strategic doctrine which postulates a form of defense which other allies
are unable or unwilling to support. Failure to reach the announced goals
can then foster a sense of impotence or support a policy of neutrality.
Moreover, in formulating policy for the Alliance, the United States has a
responsibility to consider whether its preferred schemes can be maintained over
an extended
~A~ period of time. If not, their benefits must be weighed against the loss
of confidence engendered by frequent shifts of position. It is already
apparent that both in Washington and London, the opinion is gaining ground
that conventional forces in Europe can be reduced. Such a step would have
had ~~preferably~~ unfortunate political consequences at any time, occurring
two years after insistent American pressures that these forces be built
up, the negative impact will be greatly increased.

If the United States has lacked consistency and, occasionally,
psychological insight, some of our European critics have not helped matters
by treating existing NATO doctrine as sacrosanct and by the deliberate
tendency--especially on the part of France--to put the worst possible
construction on our actions. United States proposals for a strengthening
of conventional forces have been treated with the same panic as later
hints that some American troops might be withdrawn. Most Europeans do not
want to give conventional forces a larger role because they fear that it
will diminish the effectiveness of the nuclear deterrent. But they also

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### C. NATO's Nuclear Dilemma

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influence on common decisions, especially during crises, in defining the
_casus belli_ and in participating in the planning of the controlled
operations foreseen by the doctrine of flexible response, and (c) the
wish at least of the major allies to share in the prestige and the
political power which control of the nuclear weapons confers or is
thought to confer.

The dilemma arises because there is no scheme which can reconcile
these objectives perfectly so long as the Atlantic Alliance remains
composed of sovereign states. Occasionally, the debate has been
exceedingly bitter because neither the United States nor its European
critics has been prepared to admit that a genuine conflict of interests
exists. The United States has insisted that the only valid criterion
for solving NATO's nuclear problem is the technical requirement of central
command and control. Accustomed to a hegemonial position, we have been
slow to see and even slower to admit that, while our strategic doctrine
serves our own special military and political interests, it may not
equally fit the needs of others. Our European critics have deduced their
strategic views with an abstract kind of _a priori_ logic from the
nature of political sovereignty. There is merit in their political
analysis, but they have refused to face the fact that there must be some
relationship between a political posture and what is strategically feasible.
NATO's nuclear dilemma arises because the only political solution which
could resolve the contradiction is unattainable in the short- or middle-term:
Turning over _all_ the nuclear weapons of the Alliance to an authority
embracing the North Atlantic area--a supranational political and defense

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covered by United States strategic forces. National nuclear forces were
divisive because their very existence implied distrust of the United
States. They were wasteful and would divert resources from the conventional
build-up which should be the primary NATO effort. They would promote
nuclear proliferation. Just as France imitated the example of Britain,
the argument ran, so Germany would follow the lead of France. Italy and
other European countries would then follow. Finally, it was argued,
national nuclear forces would make impossible the flexible response which
was the key to United States strategy. National nuclear forces were too
small and too vulnerable to concentrate on military targets. But if they
attacked population centers, the enemy in rage and frustration would
retaliate against the civilian population of the United States.

Regardless of the merits of these arguments, they were certain to
lead to a bitter, divisive debate. A full-scale theoretical onslaught on
major programs of close allies impelled their governments to elaborate a
doctrine to justify them which, by the terms of reference of the debate,
could not help but stress differences in perspective with the United States.
The political impact of United States views thus went far beyond the technical
arguments in which they were couched. To ask a government to confess the
bankruptcy of a policy which it has pursued at heavy expense for over a
decade is to undermine its domestic position and to evoke reactions of
hostility. We might ask ourselves how an American administration would
respond if an allied government publicly and repeatedly insisted that one
of our major programs was "divisive," "dangerous" and "useless."

The involvement of United States strategic doctrine in the domestic
disputes of close allies produced a curious reversal of electoral positions.

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To be appeared actively in supporting the United States densely populated Europe, the distinction between military and civilian "disarming" targets seems more ephemeral. While not objecting to a ^ strategy as one possible option, our European nuclear allies see no compelling reasons to subordinate all considerations to what may well be a very remote contingency.

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But it is not clear what could possibly tempt even a rash Soviet planner into such a course or why the Soviets would then attack American missile sites. *Attacking and attacking*. As long as the present numerical imbalance between Soviet and American strategic forces remains, there is no

> . . . a large-scale Soviet attack on Western Europe . . . would be extremely dangerous to our own security, and would compel us to respond immediately with whatever force was needed to halt the onslaught, even with tactical nuclear weapons, if necessary. *Emphasis added.*

(pp. 56-7)

(2) Until these requirements are met, the defense of Europe against an all-out Soviet attack, even if such an attack were limited to non-nuclear means, would require the use of tactical nuclear weapons on our part. *Emphasis added.*
(p. 58)

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In short, a counter Strategic 

another way of saying that