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By contrast, the British policy goal over two centuries was to prevent any country from dominating the European continent. Aware that continental resources were insufficient for hegemonic aspirations, Britain concentrated on maintaining a navy which could confine any aggressor to the European land mass. Britain's army, small and compact, was designed to intervene to tip the balance. In this fashion Britain was able to act as the balancer of the European equilibrium.

An excessively rigid strategic doctrine can absorb great energy in the attempt to reconcile what happens with what is expected. If it is too complicated, it 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 Eastern Germany--foreseen by the Schlieffen plan--they rushed reinforcements from the West weakening their offensive power 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.

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 deciding where one is than where one is going. Each event is compartmentalized and dealt with by experts in the special difficulties it involves without an adequate understanding of its relation to other occurrences. This is the risk United States policy has been running since it undertook the stewardship of the free world.

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INSERT L to VI-9

These allies should constitute a nuclear force drawn from contingents
from the United States, Great Britain and France, together with
longer-range weapons (say over three hundred miles) in Germany under
the double-veto system. The size of that force should depend on its
mission; but <u>all</u> weapons relevant to that mission should be assigned
to it. The group negotiating the establishment of this nuclear force
could eventually etc...