Nuclear deterrence strategy: theory and policy

Authors Howse, Peter Godfrey, 1945-

Publisher The University of Arizona.

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Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/318054 . HUCLEAR DBTERHB1IOE STRATEGY:

THEORY AND POLICY

Peter Godfrey Horse

A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the

DEPARTMENT OF GOVERNMENT .

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

In the Graduate College

THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA

196B STATEMENT BY AUTHOR

This thesis has been submitted in partial fulfill­ ment of requirements for an advanced degree at The University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under the rules of the Library.

Brief quotations from this thesis are allowable with­ out special permission, provided that accurate acknowledgment of source is made. Requests for permissions for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the head of the major department or the Dean of the Graduate College when in his judgment the proposed use of the material is in the interests of scholar­ ship. In all other instances, however, permission must be obtained from the author.

APPROVAL BY THESIS DIRECTOR

This thesis has been approved on the date shown below:

R. E. Mitchell Professor of Government PBEFACE

This work is based upon an insatiable- desire to inquire rather deeply into the origin of what the author-be­ lieves is the most important question confronting'every man, woman, and child (and most especially$, the political ' scientist) in this country today— -that of our very survival„ Heveh before in our history has there been a problem of the proportions of the one which faces us at this time„ We are confronted with a myriad of problems from the local to the

international level* let, all the others seem ,to pale, almost to insignificance it seems, before this one which the late President Kennedy analogized to the threat of the sword of Damocles hanging-over mankind*

The author would like to acknowledge his greatest

debt to Dr* Ralph E„ Mitchell of the Department of Government, The University of Arizona, who directed and

inspired this research and made innumerable substantive and editorial suggestions which vastly improved the end product. His aid in meeting.the necessary deadline for this manuscript is also beyond expressible thanks, . Additionally, inestimable gratitude is due my wife, Claudia, for her fantastic, patience in putting up, through several months of this research, with a home largely

cluttered in toto with the data for this manuscript* • Her iii iv efforts in reviewing this work, correcting the uncountable grammarical errors which it contained, typing the final copy and*: lastly, protecting me from my environment 'enough to give me time to write it have not gone at all unnoticede Given all this impressive assistance, the statement that both the views expressed and. the errors made herein are my own.should be more than pro formae In fact, the above mentioned disagreed on various points of both substance and organization, but being a naturally stubborn sort, I fre­ quently ignored their advicee The views, errors, and blame, therefore, are certainly my own0 TABLE OF' OOEMTS

Page;

ABSjlEAOT « . e e e e o-»6o o-o o e e o.e eo o o.e * e e Vp

C B A P J.EB, o e" e o c 9 o fr e o o 9 e s o » o . o e o o - o 8 0

I. IHTR0DUGT10E . e « o e » 1 II. THE AGE OF MASSIVE RETALIATION: ...... AMERIO.M BETBRRENOE STRATEGY . . ■ ...... SEAR0H1S EOR AH ANSWER ...... 10

THe H e w Lo o 2c © © © © . © . © © © © © . © 11 The Policy of lias sive Retaliation . © © © © 15 The Policy of Limited War ©..©©©©.© 20.

III. LETERREHOB IN THEORY . © © = © © ...... ©,©. © 29 The Conceptual Requirements for © © © . © © Lotorrou.ee © ©..© © © © © © © © © © © 5^ The Military Requirements for © © © © © © © Deterrence: The Delicate © © © © © © © © Balance of,Terror © © © © © © © © © ... © 41 Deterrence Typology © © © © © © © © © © © © 48 Conclusion ©©.©©, © © © © © © © © © © © © 58

IV© DETERRENCE THEORY IN PRACTICE: O O O • © C O o O-: 1 • THE RISE AID PALL OP STRATEGIC , © . © , . » COUNTS RE OROE *. © © .© © © . © © © © © © © © © © 63

The Theory of Strategic Counterfbrce © ... 64 The Policy of Strategic Counterforce © . © 71 Objections to Strategic Counterforce '© © © 92

V© CONCLUSION. © o o . © © o o o o © o © o o o a o 102

RnEnRnNCES © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © © 109 ABSTRACT

The intent of this research is an analysis of American nuclear deterrence strategy in both theory and practice, examining its evolution, development, and implica~ tions0 This necessitated first a consideration of the recent past® The Doctrine, of Massive Retaliation, rightly or wrongly, has come to characterize the 1950s® .1 concluded that this policy was not a feasible one for reasons of credibility and instability® The analysis of deterrence theory indicated certain requirements for an effective. and relevant deterrence strategy® • The "counterforce" strategy of deterrence which

Defense Secretary MeRamara explicated in the early 1960s was considered in depth® Its origins, rise, and, finally, its- fall were traced® It was then subjected to a rigorous critique which pointed up a great number of difficulties and, ultimately, the reasons why it did not remain the central

tenet of United States strategy® • . In concluding I departed from my strictly descriptive- analytical posture and entered the realm of the policy-maker in positing my own strategy based upon a finite deterrence,

Polaris submarine strategy, which 1 believe would lead to a more stable and secure world.

vl CHAPTER I

IEPRODUCTION

As we move through the closing years of the twentieth century the most enlightened and humane among our contemporaries are in a state at once apprehensive and exhilarateds The sources of appre^ hension are spread on the face of the modern worlde These are the brute facts of a globe divided against itself and armed with excess capability for annihi­ lation 0 Exhilaration comes in part from defiance of danger. It is? also, grounded in knowledge of the abounding opportunities in reach of our techno- scientific civilization. This universalizing culture flies precariously between utopia and cremation.^

It is to. the hope that in the coming years we may tend more towards the former rather than the latter conclu­ sion that this paper is dedicated. The purpose in undertaking this research is to attempt to reach at least a partial understanding of the strategic planning by this country for the use of this great capacity for world destruction. This will be done partly in order to draw some conclusions about not only strategic deterrence theory and its application but also to cast,some light on what Bernard Brodie calls the Intellectual No-Man8s land. difficulty is that 81 the re exists in America no

16 Harold D. Lasswe11? "Foreword" to Richard A. Falk and Saul H. Mendlovitz? Toward a Theory of War Prevention. Vol. I in The Strategy- of World ■ Qrder (New™YorFi World.Law Fund „ 19667r~F®""l.iio • . . " ' 2. Bernard Brodie, Strategy in the Missile Age (Princeton, New Jersey; . Prince ton University Press, 1959)? P« 7. '' 1 tradition of intellectual concern with that border area where military problems and political ones .meet*"3- This ' situation has become especially dangerous today, because for the first time in man's history the very opening event by which a. nation enters into war may well decide irretrievably whether or not that nation will continue to exist. This so critically important event will reflect the preparations which were made or were not made beforehand. We obviously, therefore, cannot go on "blithely letting one group of specialists decide how to wage war and another decide when and to what purpose, with only the most casual and spasmodic communication between them,"2

The basic fact is that the military man has been forced into the position of dealing with subject matter which extends far beyond the expertise of his own profession. He has learned all too well the advantages to-be accrued from dealing with the physical scientist, but when it comes to questions involving the political environment, national objectives, or any of the vast array of value-oriented propositions which can be made about national defense his liaison with the experts in. these areas leaves a very great deal to be desired. The military certainly are less cogni­ zant of this need for assistance in these areas than they

1, Ibid., pp. 7 and 8. - 3 are .In the field of technology* At the same time9 social scientists are often insensitive to the existence of military needs and to their own deficiencies in meeting those needs* ' . . .

One major excuse which can he offered as a defense against this charge of lack of communication is the barrier of secrecy which is so costly to the process, of understanding*.

This barrier seems to be concealing more today than it ever has before* Yet, we cannot put all the blame on the security barrier for the general ignorance of defense problems* The quantity of data available to the interested observer is a great deal more than one might guess* To gather it system­ atically, however,, requires interest, effort,, and discipline*

The security barrier unquestionably'depresses such interest*

However, this barrier’s bad effects would not be nearly so critical if civilian scholars, especially in the behavioral sciences, understood the great stakes involved and their opportunities to contribute insight and skill to this great common problem.-*- The specific concern in this work is the development of policy— "policy" in an extremely broad sense. First, some of the more relevant portions of that body of literature loosely titled "deterrence theory" will be examined and then certain aspects of the Kennedy-McNamara central nuclear war

1* Ibid*, pp, 7-10. strategy of the early 1960s (specifically,, the Hcounterforce" doctrine) will he dealt with as a kind of “case study” In the application of deterrence theory« I will explicate and analyze this policy from two perspectives^first., in relation- to what has gone before (iee®..? the Dulles-Elsenhower doctrine of massive retaliation) in order to appreciate the evolu­ tionary nature of this particular policy formulation and to place-it in the context of recent history; then,. I will examine, the effects of this strategy upon the national', security and the stability of the worlds - Some of the more subtle implications will be analyzed and the arguments on both sides of the issue will be considered critically*

At this point it would seem appropriate to remark on the very need for any particular strategy at all, 0, B»

Marshall sums up the need quite well when he defines strategy as a “choosing,11 That is, strategy is needed because there are limitations to the means available to achieve the goals of any country-^even a. country as rich and as powerful -as the United States® Priorities must be assigned and it becomes the job of the policy-maker to assign 1 - - them to the best of his ability® . '

1® 0® B® Marshall, "Strategy and Purpose in United States Foreign Policy," in Robert A® Goldwin (ed.), Beyond the Cold War (Chicago:. Rand Mcllally, 1965)?. p. 4® Since "the topic of -central-war or general--war alternatives is concerned with « » e choices among strategic forces,"3- it "becomes all the more critical that we recognize that the. method of our choosing is "primarily a product of the American mentality ,® * e- characterized "by pragmatic' reasoning, technical one-sidedness and an exaggerated belief in technical solutions, This tendency by Americans to "reject attempts, real or pseudo, to build up elaborate theoretical machinery « 6 *,■- was a fine, perhaps optimal practical policy for one hundred and seventy-five years, but many now believe that when it comes to problems of foreign policy, this approach will no longer workc 11 In its place we now need "a program, blueprint or theory of where we are and where we want to be; that we cannot meet our.« » 0 problems unless we think .more intensely

0 0 o about fundamentals than we have in the past®" Thus, we need to "sharpen our conceptual tools and our language6"

For, "while there is always the possibility that lucky

lo R, Ho McMahan, Jr® and D. Taylor, "Central War Alternatives," in Stephen Enke (ed,), Defense Managemen t . (Englewood Cliffs, Hew Jerseys Prentice-Hail, igBYTT"P» iT2?® 2e Ferdinand 0® Miksche, "is the Atomic Deterrent a Bluff?" in John Erickson (ed*), The.Mlitary-Technical Revolutions Its Impact on Strategy and Foreign Policy (Hew Yorks Praeger, 196(3 ), p® '3&7 ™ 6

muddling through or unassisted statesmanship will get us. out

of the mess we are in «, e . this (is) unlikely without

guidance from systematic professional work,,.11-*-

Keeping this perspective in .mind it is necessary that it he pointed out that, though the complexities of

deterrence strategy in hoth theory and practice will be

probed, what will not be done is possibly just as relevant*

As originally intended, specific changes or reforms in

either the structure, strategy, or tactics of the military

forces were to be posited, but will not now be suggested*

Decisions of this kind, as the author has found out the hard way, are not nearly so simple to make as some authors would

have us believe*. On the contrary, they are highly complex

and involved* They involve hard choices between costly . weapons~alternatives within the constraints of a limited

budgetary system* Alternatives have to be judged in the

context of both the political (in the very broadest sense)

and the technological environments*. , This decision-making

process requires the application of certain areas of very

specialized knowledge, the results of which are at once usually highly classified and not likely to mean much to the

non-specialist anyway* (Certain qualifications to this

1* Herman Kahn, ’’Strategy, .Foreign Policy, and Thermonuclear War,M in Robert A* Goldwin (ed*), America Armed (Chicago: Rand McHally, 1961), p* 70.* disavowal of .value-judgmental intent are very much in order and it should be pointed out that the author will almost certainly renege on his promises of non-normative objectivity posted abovee) The methodology in this research has included a two- step data collection processe First, I analyzed, in detail the major scholarly writings on deterrence in general and strategic doctrine in'particulare Then, I examined the public documents, published research of government and of private corporations, and the pertinent Congressional committee hearings which were availablee There is more involved in my purpose than simple the explication of theoretical constructs® Since the "overriding task of modern statecraft is to restrain military power and control it for legitimate political ends,11-*" I will hope to provide some small stimulus to productive thought in this most critical of all policy areas— the consideration of the alternatives of war and peace and the consequences of each®

For, "safety will not be achieved by the conventional ideas and methods of disarmament and diplomacy, which are trivial

1® Robert B® Osgood, "The Uses of Military Power in the Cold War," in Robert A® Goldwin, America Armed, op, cit®, P®1®. 8 and totally Inadequate compared with the new elements of the situation* Fundamentally new ideas are necessary for organizing human societye,s-*-

Such thought, as Herman Kahn has said, has been for so long Hunthinkable * Our central purpose for this paper is to help make thinkable the unthinkable, for only then is a beginning to be made in the construction of defense policy based upon reality instead qf myth*

To summarize, the intent of this research is an analysis of American nuclear deterrence strategy in both theory and practice, its evolution, development, and implica­ tions » What I will be doing is in many ways unique and will, I hope, lay the groundwork for future research in this vital area* Bernard Brodie wrote in 1959 in a work which was a great deal ahead of its time then and,certainly is still true today: Perhaps the most elementary, the most truistic, and yet the most Important point one can make is that the kind of sudden and overwhelming calamity that one is talking about today in any reference to an all-out or total war would be an utterly different

1© Oskar Morgenstern, The Question of National Defense (Hew York: Random House, 1959), pe 295®

26 Herman Kahn, Thinking About the Unthinkable (Hew York: Horizon Press7~T9^27T . 9 and immeasurably worse phenomenon from war as we have known it in the paste ,Also# and equally important, the chances of its occurring are finite and perhaps even substantial, the more so as we ignore them. One almost blushes to have to make.such seemingly trite statements; but we are daily bombarded with indications, in the words and acts of high officials among others, that the points have simply not sunk home ,3-

1, Brodie, op, clt,,'p, 391 - OHAPEBR II

THE AGE OP MASSIVE EETALIATI01S

AMERI0A1 DE-TERRENOE STRATEGY SEARCHES POE AH ANSWER

To say that the 1950s were the years of Massive

Retaliation may be $ in fact, an overgeneralization* 11 PureM

massive retaliation may have never actually existed in either

theory or fact outside of the mind of the Secretary of State

of the United States* However, it has come to characterize

the nuclear strategy pursued by the United States in the

1950s and whether the characterization is valid or not, It ' i has come to be accepted by most writers *

General Maxwell Taylor is one who feels that

this was the era of reliance on Massive Retaliation as our basic concept; that is, on the use .or the threatened use of nuclear weapons to assure the, maintenance of the peace in all its forms * Although our experience in Korea demonstrated the fallacy of

1«, There is virtually no comprehensive study of massive retaliation to date of any great academic value * However, several studies do make some contributions in this area* Among them are: Coral Bell, negotiation Prom Strength (Hew York: Alfred A* Knopf, 1963); Bernard Brodie, op* cit*; Paul Peeters, Massive Retaliation: The Policy and Its Critics (Chicago:” Henry Regnery Company, 1959Tr~a^3e'st, a reactionary, distorted apology for massive retaliation; and Warner Schilling, Paul Y* Hammond $ and Glenn H* Snyder (eds* ), .Strategy, Politics, and Defense Budgets (Hew York: Columbia, 195277

10 . . 11

this reliance on nuclear weapons as an all-weathers all. purpose deterrent, nonetheless we did not shift to a strategy of Flexible Response until the advent of the''Kennedy Administration in 196lo^ Though the Secretary of State virtually retracted massive retaliation during the immediate months.after it was first pronounced, it. was the original speech which stood and not the retractions® By examining the ,scourse actually pur™ sued by national defense policy and military programming over the next several years,H it becomes obvious that the

"massive retaliation idea became the basic orientation of

American defense policy®

We will examine that idea in detail immediately after we consider the underlying policy of the United States, government which prompted it®

Ihe "Uew Look"

The theme of the Eisenhower Administration’s "lew Look" was first set by Admiral Radford, Chairman of the

Joint Chiefs of Staff, in an address to the Rational Press

Club on December 14, 1953? in which air power was stressed above and beyond all as the panacea for American defense problems and for the absolution of "hot spots®"5

1® Maxwe11 De Taylor, Responsibility and Response, (lew York; Harper and Row, 1 9 6 T T 7 p « 2™ 2® Brodie, op® cit®, p» 249®

3® ' Admiral Arthur W® Ra.dford, "The ’lew Look's Defense Plans of the Ration," Vital Speeches of the Day, XX, (January 1, 1954), pp. 171-173. ~ 12

This very strong emphasis upon 11 supremacy in air

power11.put the Eisenhower Administration on record as . following a course considerably different from that pursued

by the Truman Administration^ 'Though massive retaliation was na military model whose shaping had begun as long before as 1952,11 Secretary of State Ache son’s notion of strength was ’’balanced" between nuclear power and near parity in con­ ventional war forcese^

The strategic implications to the new look were

spelled out in ESO 162/2 which was approved by President

Eisenhower on October 3 0 9 1953»

This document provided the basic statement of the lew Look’s strategic design that was publicly announced in January, 1954. The principle signifi- nance of the paper was its determination to the JOS that the services could plan to use tactical and strategic nuclear weapons in future military conflict whenever it would be to the advantage of the United States, The decision was of fundamental strategic importancee The Truman Administration had never arrived , at a clear position on the use of nuclear weapons. How, the nuclear Rubicon had seemingly been crossed,2

The rationale behind this decision was primarily a budgetary one, not necessarily a military one, Glenn.Snyder

lc Bell, op, cite, p, 154»

2, Edward A,. Kolodziej, The Uncommon Defense and Congress, 1945-1963 (Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University Press, l93FT^pT%F6 13 notes that ^any wars larger than small 'brush fire* or 'border incidents 1 were to be considered nuclear for planning purposes 6 ' .The new look was certainly more than simply strategic doctrine (in fact, the strategic implications were probably the least important in the mind of the Administration)6 It was basically economically and politically motivated„ The Administration’s commitment to lower taxes, a balanced budget, decreased federal spending, and a reduced national debt provided the context in which strategic policy would have to be formulated0 ,The new look "burdened the nation's economy less.and suited.the American citizen's almost tradi­ tional concept of the role of the military I to animate a powerful technology rather than to be subsidized by it =ts^ The military budget was structured entirely in the context of these economic, not military, factors* Admiral fiadford admitted this himself when he testified to the Senate Subcommittee on Appropriations that the Joint Chiefs obtained prospective national income figures over the long pull, * e „ eliminated the more or less fixed expenses, and „ „ 0 came up with a military program which was adequate for the security of the United States,

1» Glenn EU Snyder, "The New look of 1953,H in Schilling, op* cit*, p. 437* 2* Pierre Gallois, The Balance of Terror (Cambridge, Massachusetts; Houghton Mifflin, 196irJ7™p7™rG5”6 3* United States Senate, Subcommittee of the Appro- : priations Committee, Hearings, Department of Defense ■ Appropriations, FY 1955, ~H3rd~ Congress," 2nd Session, 1954, P* g3. . . : ■ 14

General Matthew Rldgway was slightly more expressive# writing shortly after his retirements "The force levels provided (for 1955$ 1956, 1957) were not primarily "based on military needse .They were not based on the freely reached conclusions of the Joint Chiefs of Staffe They were squeezed between the framework of arbitrary manpower and fiscal limits, a complete inversion of the normal process*

Even a major apologist for the new look, William B*

Kintner, admits (albeit in a most roundabout way) that the major objective was economic; In part, the doctrine represented an effort to- capitalize on advanced United States technology with the aim of gaining diplomatic flexibility for deter­ ring Communist aggression while avoiding another Korean-type war, A related purpose of the "new look" and the doctrine of massive retaliation was to reduce defense■spending,^ (Emphasis added) .

Despite the obvious dangers inherent in constructing a national security policy upon the quicksands of economic considerations, the Congress, in early 1954, received the new look sympathetically. The bargain-basement price tag and the outward simplicity of the new look seemed to have impressed the Congress to a great extent and it was accepted with little questioning,

1, Matthew B, Eidgway, Soldier (Kew Yorks Harper, 1956), p e 289, ■

2, .' William R, Kintner, Peace and the Strategy Con­ flict (lew York; Praeger, 1967), pp"» 27 and 287, 15

The Policy of Massive Retaliation

Kadford‘s speech of December, 1953, prepared the.way for Secretary of State John Foster Dulles’s famous (or infamous?) pronouncement of January 12, 1954„ In an address to the Council on Foreign Relations he described the policy of ’’massive, instant retaliations” before military planning could be changed, the President, and his advisors, as represented by the Rational Security Council, had to make some basic policy decision,, This has been. dones The basic decision was „ « e to depend primarily upon a great canacity to retaliate, instantly, by means and at places of our own choosing*^ (Fmphasis added;

Mr. Dulles further stated that ”lt is not sound military strategy to commit United States land forces to

A s i a * " 2 And, he concluded that ’’the way to deter aggression. is * » e to be willing and able to respond * * * at places and with means of our own choosing, n,5 This would entail ’’placing more reliance on deterrent power and less dependence on local defense power.”2$‘

The real significance of the '’massive retalia­ tion’ speech was that «, . . was an avowal that the Western powers, for reasons of economy, had decided to reduce the number of military options open to

1® John Foster Dulles, ’’Foreign Relations and Rational Security: Maximum Deterrent at Bearable Cost,” taeM Dl_^^^ , XXX, (January 25, 1954), pp. 108■ 2® Ibid®,, pp. 107 and 108e . Ibid., n. 108® ' 4 e Ibid,, p. 107. 16

.themselves, to try and make their last“diteh sanc­ tion look convincing for ditches that everyone knew were less than final and hope to supply conviction by verbal ferocity,! Secretary Dulles assumed that his speech was quite self-explanatory and very clear® He felt that he was simply elucidating a policy of "more security, less c o s t , "2 which. fit in quite well with the budget goals of the Eisenhower Administration (more "bang for the buck" in the parlance of the day)® Instead, the speech aroused a very vocal and wide­ spread adverse reaction which, though it was "surprisingly slow in c o m i n g , "3 was not the less trenchant for its tardi­ ness®^ This was especially true in Army and Navy circles where massive retaliation was seen for what it was, a threat to their budgets In favor of the more glamorous Air Force weaponry® In addition, (t)he framers of the massive retaliation policy were seemingly not greatly concerned by the facts that the USSR had exploded an atomic bomb in 1949 and a.thermonuclear device in 1953® That is, they did not seem to consider the possibility that the Soviet Union would be able to inflict unacceptable devastation on the USA® In other words, the nuclear stalemate was not foreseen in working out this policy® Perhaps this was because most Americans easily assumed that they could keep far in advance of the Soviet Union in scientific and technical development— »a conceit which, was finally shattered by the launching of Sputnik I in 1957®3

1® Bell, op® cit®, p. 154® 2® Dulles, op® cit®, p® 107® 3» Brodie, op® cit®, p® 249® 4® See especially James Re8ton,The New York Times, January 17, 1954; and Adlai Stevenson and Chester W. Bowie's, The. New York Times, over the next few weeks® 5® E® 1. M. Burns., Megamurder (New York: Pantheon Books, 1966), pp® 114 and lib® . “ 17

However, much more unsettling was the uncertainty Involved in Mr® Dulles's policy® He failed to spell out the retaliation formula in any concrete way® It could be assumed that a direct attack upon the United States by the Soviet ■ ^ Union would be met with "massive retaliation", but would an attack upon Western Europe by Eastern Europe be so met? Or, would a Korean~type conflict be resolved by the United States retaliating massively against the population centers of

Russia and the People's Republic of China? Ache son's own­

er! ticism of the Dulles policy emphasized this point:

"Strategic atomic bombing is not our first but our last •

resort® * « ® If it is said, as it sometimes has been, that we. cannot afford another war like Korea, the answer is that

such a war is the only kind that we or anyone else can

afford®"3- (Emphasis added) In March, Eisenhower appeared to modify "instant retaliation" by stating that the Congress would be consulted at length before any action would, be taken in the IndO”China conflicted Kintner feels that this was, in effect, an aban*» donment of the strategy since "Eisenhower rejected the use of. United States, strategic and tactical air power to save the French forces besieged at Dien Bien Phu®^

1® Bell, op® cit®, pp® 15-4 and .155« See also, The" Hew York Times, March 28, 1954, p® 1. 2® The Hew York Times, March 17, 1954, p® 1®

3® Kintner, op® cit®, p® 29® 18

Shortly after the Eisenhower statement, Dulles in a press conference attempted to clarify his January "clarifi­ cation" of American retaliatory policy? The question of the circumstances under which you retaliate, where you retaliate, how quickly you retaliate is a matter which has to "be- dealt with "in the light of the facts of . each particular ease <» One thing I want to make clear beyond possibility of doubt is that 1 don’t believe you should tell the enemy in advance just where, how, and when you plan to retaliate* The whole essence of the program is that the action should be an action of our choosing . and he is not to know in advance what it is, and that uncertainty on his part is a key to the success of the p o l T c ^ T ( =Eniphasis addedj™^*™^

Dulles’s own words indicted the policy better than any critic could hope to do* The entire principle of deter­ rence must rest upon at least a rough understanding of what" punishment will be meted out for what acts* Dulles’s purposely ambiguous stance was in direct contradiction to deterrence theory* His coy talk of not letting a potential aggressor know "in advance just where, when, and how the

United States would retaliate made no s e n s e *"2 p0r, in the case of a sudden direct nuclear attack upon the United States, the retaliation would certainly be swift and positive, or

"spasm" in Kahn’s terminology* But, since "the Dulles policy

1® The Hew York Times, March 17, 1954, p* 4* 2* Ralph E* Lapp, Kill and Overkill: The Strategy of Annihilation (Hew York: Basic Books, 1952*J7™pT^2e 19 conceded that not every local war would he turned Into a world war and that homhs would not necessarily he dropped on . China and Eussia*18 It "implied that some local wars might turn into world war," The dangers inherent in this kind of thinking is obvious. One possible result would he the main- tenance of the United States on the brink of nuclear war; the other, that the policy would become a monumental bluff which would progressively deprecate the prestige and influence of the United States in the world at large. Either conclu­ sion was not very palatable to contemplate,^

The credibility of massive retaliation, if it ever really was credible, was certainly eroded when, in May, 1955? the Soviets showed the world their Bison long-range jet bomber which permitted the USSR to make a two-way strike against the US, The strength of United States protection for her allies, with this danger of direct attack upon the

Forth American continent, obviously became a great deal less credible. However, for better or for worse, massive retali­ ation remained the strategy of the United States throughout the middle 1950s— at least in a tacit way, though from the beginning, as we have seen, it was open to considerable question and ultimately to considered reevaluation,

1. Ibid,, 20

The Policy of Limited War Insofar as local wars were concerned, the policy of massive retaliation eventually fell of its own weight* Neither civilians'nor the military could live with the awesome thought that any small war - might explode into a world nuclear conflict* Deterrence-minded thinkers began to speculate on finding a way to have one's cake and eat it too t that is, to use nuclear weapons to discourage aggression without engulfing whole nations*^

The Congress, beginning with the Democratic takeover in 1955$ became considerably more questioning in its attitude toward, the Administration's strategy*. Until 1956, however,, the major dissent came from the Army and even this was in the form of sporadic thrusts upon only portions of the

Administration s strategy,.instead of a separate coherent strategic position which could be contrasted in toto with the Administration's plan*. Finally,

■ all of its many disgruntlements were codified into a strategic view that contrasted sharply with the Administration's official position* The army disa­ greed with almost every major element of the Administration's massive retaliation doctrine„ While it conceded the air force's request for stra­ tegic retaliatory forces to deter general war, it denied that such a conflict was likely to ensue as nuclear■parity was.reached,2 The Army felt that the"much.more likely war would be a limited conflict, requiring the use of large, highly mobile ground forces* Mutual deterrence rendered a policy of

lo Ibid*,. p». 84e

2e. Kolodziej, op* cit*, p« 229o 21 avoiding total war imperative* since no rational purpose could be achieved through such devastating military action* .,sAs nuclear parity became a reality* both sides, army spokes­ men argued, would make every effort to avoid general war* This situation placed a premium.on conventional and irregular warfare forces* "3- The Army viewed the lack of such limited war forces as a distinct liability to the United States* Reliance upon the Administration's schemes gave the nation only the choice, in the event of a non-nuclear attack, of all-out war, inef­ fectual resistance, or •capitulation* Eone of these options served United States.foreign policy objectives* The first choice would be disastrous for all and the latter two would result in dangerous, even fatal, erosion; of the diplomatic position of this country vis-a-vis the communist powers and the rest of the world*2 To offset this, the * * * army advanced what it termed a "tridimensional” strategy of deterrence, resting on large land, sea, and air contingents* Massive Retaliation would give way to measured retaliation* Military responses to Soviet initiatives would be proportional to the mili­ tary force, geographical area, and political stakes at issue * The ability .to wage limited and conven­ tional warfare would provide American diplomacy with a greater range of choice in the use of force to achieve the nation's foreign policy goals*5

1* Ibid* *

2* Ibid*, pp* 229 and 230*

3* Ibid., p. 2 3 0 * 22

General Maxwell Taylor, who had replaced General Rldgway as Army Chief of Staff, presented this plan, in greatly detailed form, to the Congress in early 1956

Although he was not successful in getting a larger slice of the defense appropriations pie, the issue was joined and much of the groundwork was laid for the great changes of the early 1960s when General Taylor was finally vindicated*

Additional reevaluation came in the form of a study underwritten by the Council on Foreign Relations» A group of thirty-™three experts under the chairmanship of Gordon Dean devoted eighteen months to the study of the problems of foreign policy in the nuclear age* In 1957, prior to the launching of Sputnik, Dr* Henry A. Kissinger reported the conclusions of the group in Nuclear Weapons and Foreign

Policy? The essence of the work was the doctrine of

"limited nuclear warfare "-— limited in the sense that only "tactical" nuclear weapons would be used* Dr* Kissinger, solved the problem of confining tactical nuclear weapons to only the battlefield by proposing a sort of . "code of nuclear

le . United Stages House of Representatives, House Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee, Hearings, Department of Defense Appropriations, FT 1957 ,**lWthCongre ss, 2 3 T ~ S e ^ s T 6 n 7 " l ^ 6 7 ^ p p T ^ 3 2 ~ ^ ^ ’~'------

2* .Henry A* Kissinger, Nuclear Weapons and Foreign ' Policy (New York; Harper, 1957)® z 23 conduct--a kind of Marquis of Queensberry Buies— to which the contestants would pledge themselves.^ These rules would he designed to prevent military engagement from escalating to a general conflagration.

(Though the Army's dissent from massive retaliation and Kissinger’s program for "limited" nuclear war certainly were not analogous, they did tend to complement one another in their rejection of "total war" and acceptance of "limited'" war. The use of tactical nuclear weapons' does, in no way, have to restrict the deployment of large numbers of army . ground forces., .Indeed, some might argue that an emphasis on tactical nuclear warfare actually Increases the need for regular army troops.)

It is this writer's opinion that, had the launching of Sputnik occurred before Dr. Kissinger's book was published, it never would have gone to press. (Indeed,

Kissinger, in the light of the changed world, did retract much of the philosophy of the book in 1961 in an article he titled "A Reappraisal."^)

1= Lapp, op. cit., p. 85e

2. Henry A. Kissinger, "Limited Wars Conventional or Nuclear? A Reappraisal, in Arms Control,'Disarmaments and National Security, Donald G-. Brennah'TadTTT^T^eW Yorks George Braziller, I 9S1 ), pp. 138-152, Also in Henry A. Kissinger, The Necessity for Choices Prospects of American Foreign Policy "(New “Yorks Harper, 1961) . 24

Kissinger made two assumptions in writing the book? which, if accepted, render'his prescriptions for the conduct of war quite palatable e (This writer could never so accept them.) They are; (a) that nuclear war can be limited by

“rulesl$ and (b) that due to otir vastly superior industrial and economic base and our more effective democratic institui­ tions , we have a technological superiority which can never be equalled and, therefore, we can afford to take the initi­ ative in “tactical" or limited war.^" The first assumption is acceptable only if one can expect man to return to the age of chivalry when combatants fought only on weekdays (except during the harvest season when they did not fight at all) and avoided tearing up the towns and cities in their quest for combat. However, the modern, scenario might well run more like this s Two '“gentle­ men" armies face each other. . They each have a variety of tactical nuclear weapons, suitable for all occasions, coming in every style, and size. For the United States, this might range from the bazooka missile, or the Davy Crockett (appropriately named for the hero of the Alamo who, we can assume, went down fighting", but at least took a lot of them bad guys with him?), to the 500-mile-range -Pershing missile.

The contestants open fire with their lighter, front-line weapons, utilized much the same as conventional weapons

..

- . 1. Kissinger, Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy, or. pit., pp. 193 swd D.SPn"'-----'---- . • • 25 would be* One side is suddenly pushed hack by the other „ dan it be expected to accept this, or will it bring.in supporting fire from longer-range missiles in the rear? Then, will not the other side have to retaliate by bringing its heaviest fire to bear against these missile launchers? And so on up the escalation ladder they go until the word'

"limited" loses all meaning*

One is thus forced to accept Lapp’s conclusion that neither side will accept defeat when it still has "unused weapons that can be thrown into the balance, limited war or no limited war* To suggest that a nuclear conflict could be disciplined or restrained from expanding is indeed an armchair exercise*

Kissinger's second assumption about American superiority in technology was demolished by the launching of Sputnik in October of 1957= The technology gap still existed, but the positions of leader and follower appeared to be reversed* After the launching of Sputnik,. Kissinger's words seemed slightly out of date t Which side is likely to gain from adopting limited nuclear war? Here our superior industrial potential, the broader range of our technology and the adaptability of our social institutions should give us the advantage e 2

1* Lapp, ope cit*, p» 86e

2» Kissinger, Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy, OP* cites P« 1 9 4 * 26

Kissinger's hypothesis was that our•technology could save us from repeating incidents like the Korean conflict$ by graduating our deterrent such that the nuclear punishment would fit the supposed crime«, The plan became very popular in most strategic planning circles both in and out of government* Secretary Dulles immediately accepted it as a modification of massive retaliation. In an article in

Foreign' Affairs he noted that:

it is possible to alter the character of nuclear weapons. It seems now that their use need not involve vast destruction and widespread harm to humanity. Recent tests point to the. possibility of possessing nuclear weapons the destructiveness . ■ and radiation effects of which can be confined substantially to predetermined targets.

In the future it. may thus be feasible to place less reliance upon deterrence of vast retaliatory power. It may be possible to defend countries by. nuclear weapons so mobile, or so placed, as to make ".military invasion with conventional forces a hazardous attempt,^

In other words, the massive retaliation idea was being "phased out," However, we can guess this was a result not of "weapons development that we presumably did not know about"^ in January, 1954, It was rather more likely that

1, John Foster Dulles, "Challenge and Response in United States Policy," Foreign Affairs, XXXFI, (October, 1957), pp. 31 and 32, - ' r 2, Brodie, op, clt,, p, 262, ■ ; ■ ■■■■ 27 .

Dulles realized that reliance upon “massive retaliation to defend American interests in areas of secondary importance . was too dangerous e It was comparable to using dynamite to exterminate rats in the .cellar*1^'.. Dr® Edward Teller carried the tactical war scheme to its next logical (or illogical?) conclusion: with his. advocacy of “humaneH nuclear war made safe by use of “clean" H-bombs which produced comparatively little radioactive fallout*^

Fortunatelyj the events of the latter part of 1958 killed $ if not burled, the concept of limited - nuclear, war as a viable strategic doctrine®. In both the Lebanon, and Quemoy crises only conventional war forces were utilized, tactical, nuclear weapons being conspicuous by their absence®. “The : great debate on the doctrine of limited war came to a predict­ able conclusion®. Aside from Dr® Teller and a few other ardent champions of tactical nuclear weapons, most.of the doctrine's advocates ceased .to clamor for it*"? As we have noted, even its chief author. Dr. Kissinger, reconsidered . and changed his mind about the possibility of maintaining a nuclear war on a “limited-only" basis®^

1* Burns, op® elt®, p® 118®,. "

2. Edward Teller, “Alternatives for Security," Foreign Affairs, XXX7I. (January,. .1958),. pp®, 201-208®.

3* Lapp, op. cit®, p. 86®

: 4® See page 23, footnote 2® 28

With the retraction of both massive retaliation and limited nuclear war as realistic strategies by their authors* the curtain was rung down upon the unsettled days of the •

1950s with the leadership of the nation still groping for a

deterrence strategy. The year 1961 brought a new administra- •

tion and with it.some long-overdue rethinking of American

global strategy. It is with this new ’-new look" that we will'conclude after some intermediate consideration of ' . .

deterrence theory. .CHAPTER III ' DET3BEBH0B •' IN. THEORY

The road leading from the stone age to the IOBM-"though it may have been more than a million: years in the building— -seems to have run in a ' single direction® If one is inclined to be cynical, one might conclude that man’s history seems to be charac- . terized not so much by consistent periods of peace, occasionally punctuated by warfare; but "rather by persistent outbreaks of warfare, wearily put aside from time to time by periods of exhaus- - tion and recovery—-that parade under the name of peace. Today, every inhabitant of the planet must contemplate the day when: this planet may no longer ; . be habitablea. Every man, woman,-and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident or miscalculation or by madness*2 . ¥e begin, of course,,.with one major assumption which must be accepted before any consideration of deterrence theory is relevant6. This assumption is that "the prevention; of general war (deterrence) is the dominant raison d ’etre.of our strategic forcese”3 In other words,, we seek our

.1* Robert S® McNamara, ’’United States Nuclear Strategy; Missile.Defense $” Vital Soee dies of the Day, XIXI1I, (October 1, .1967.),. pe"T5Td 2® John P* Kennedy,. ”The Future of the U » N « Organ™ izatlon, ” Vital Speeches of the Day, X X V I I I (October 15, I962), p e .2®

3o . McMahan and Taylor, op® cit,, p® 115e

29 30

security through$ hopefully, only the- potential of violence,

not its actual use 0 We seek, in Robert Osgood's words,■"the

discouraging of a hostile act by manipulating the fear of.

military counteraction,This phenomenon of deterrence is

"as old as the state system itself, and even older; but

never before has the security of nations depended so much upon it,

Further, "the idea of 'deterrence 1 assumes that we

not only can estimate enemy intentions but can influence .

them , V . We confront potential enemies with threats of ,

resistance and punishment for misbehavior and with assur­

ances that they will not receive gratuitous punishment if

they stay within bounds,To effect this requires what

Kissinger calls "deterrent power,This deterrent power "involves a complex interaction of psychology, economics, politics, and technologically"based military capability,"5

tuiHTft» :.fcBj«aaar»«aacgaaMJ^rsvs&j+TKcrss w : - 1. 08good, opu_cit^, p. 7» . "2, Ibid,,

. 3, Thomas 0, Schelling, "Managing the Arms Eace," in David M, Abshire and Richard V, Allen (eds,), Rational . . Security; Political, Military, and Economic Strategies in the Becfeda- Ahead "Thew Yorks . Praeger, I963T, p. S‘03, A very righte^t compendium of trivia with very few exceptions; the above article by Schelling being one of the exceptions,

4, Henry A, Kissinger, "American Strategic Doctrine and Diplomacy," in Michael Howard (ed,), The Theory and Practice of War (Hew York; Praeger, 19651 $ p, 274,

5 . McMahan, op, clt,, p. 115, and depends.nnot only on the devastation an attacking nation must expect to absorb, but also on the gains expected from nuclear ware As long as both antagonists must expect to suffer enormous damage, however, no conceivable gains could offset or exceed the losses, and self-deterrence results unless irrationality intervenes.

Very roughly, there exist two schools of thought on the means used in deterrence. The first, called the Marmersn by Anatpl Rapoport, believes (a) "that the capacity to destroy the opponent is necessary to prevent him from de­ stroying you,t$ and (b) "that the capacity to destroy the opponent is sufficient to prevent him from destroying y o u .

The second group, the "disarmers,11 believes that "peace through a power standoff • ©• ® the simple premise (upon which) our future rests,"? is leading to nuclear Armageddon via an ever more dangerous and increasing arms race.

1. Klaus Knorr,. On the Uses of Military Power in the Huclear Age (Princeton? Prince ton University Press,

2. Anatol Rapoport, Strategy and Conscience (Hew Yorks Harper, 1964), p. 187,

3. Robert A. Rentier and Phillips Outright, Hostage America (Boston; Beacon Press, 1963), p. 2» 32

Surprisingly enough, though there are scattered hits and pieces, there is no well-defined, eclectic theory of deterrence applicable at the international level. For example, though "deterrence has been an important concept in criminal law for a long time, little has been done to exploit this for international applications and implications

The problem is most likely directly traceable to the newness of the threat. We s,re in what Erickson calls "stage one11 of the "military revolution,11 This stage is "hermetically sealed from successive stages by the single circumstances the twin:attributes of newness and ‘unusedness,’

Men and nations have for centuries been able to wreak limited violence upon each other, but it is only over the last decade or more that this violence has threatened the very existence of man on the planet. Thus, it is that

,!tdeterrence’ as a central objective of United States national security policy is traceable directly to the devel­ opment of nuclear weapons and long-range air power,

1, Thomas 0, Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (Hew York! Oxford University Press, 1953T7p * 10, 2, ■ John Erickson (ed,), The Military-Technical Revolutions Its Impact on Strategy"and Foreign Policy (Hew Yorks Praeger, i960;, p. I* 3, Glenn H, Snyder, "Deterrence, by Denial and Punishment," in Davis B, Bobrow (ed,). Components of • Defense Policy (Chicagos Rand McHally, 19651, p. 209, 33

This lack.of study should not, of course, in any way

deprecate the importance of the concept of deterrencee In

this day of the potential annihilation of the larger part, if not all, of our species, the concept of the preparation

for war on the assumption that this preparation will, by its very nature, keep the peace assumes a position of extreme

importance and, therefore„ should be considered in close

detail. As was pointed out above, "though the phenomenon-:'of

military deterrence is as old as the state system itself,li

it never .has had the imperative attached to it as, it does in

this day* It is, then, for these reasons that we will now

analyze the nature of deterrence, its objectives, and its

requirements before looking at its application in policy*

The Conceptual Requirements for Deterrence

William ¥e Kaufmann sets forth the conceptual

criteria for deterrence quite cogently in his work. Military-

Policy and national Security*-1- We will now draw upon that

study in giving a brief resume of these requirements,^

1* William W, Kaufman (ed.), Military Policy and national Security (Prince ton i Princeton University Press, 19551 * 2, See also Kissinger, "American Strategic Doctrine and Diplomacy," op, cit*, for Kissinger's own criteria for an effective deterrence strategy* They include domestic consensus, credibility, and. endorsement by allies, and are .strikingly similar to Kaufmann's requirements* 34

'Basically, "deterrence means'preventing certain types of contingencies from arising,This being the all- encompassing. objective,

it becomes necessary to communicate in some way to a prospective antagonist"what is likely to happen to him should he create the contingency in question, e e e The expectation is that, confronted with this prospect, he will be deterred from moving in direc­ tions that are regarded as inimical, at least so long as other less intolerable alternatives are open to him,2 (Emphasis added)

therefore, a deterrence policy is, in Kaufmann‘s words, Ha special .kind of forecast," . It is a forecast of. the risks a potential, enemy will run if he follows certain alternative.courses of action. This forecast may take a number of forms„ It can be in public policy statements by governmental policy-makers, "by some pattern of behavior which will lead the antagonist to deduce our probable course of action in various contingencies, or by a combination of diplomatic and other means,

How, this forecast of what response will be meted out to what action regardless of how it is communicated can be meant in either of two ways. It can be a quite serious statement of intentions or it can be nothing more than a

1» Kaufmahn, op, clt,, p, 17*

2, Ibid,, • 3® Ibid,,. 35 pure bluff* ' Either way, there is considerable risk involved though wa bluff taken seriously is more useful (to deter­ rence ) than a serious threat interpreted as a. bluff

There exists the risk that, despite effective communication of the policy and its reception by the antagonist, the antagonist, for any of a variety of reasons from disbelief to a desire to test resolve, will challenge the deterrer to

"put up or shut up," The deterrer then has two possible alternatives. He can carry out his threatened action and be prepared to take whatever consequences will accrue or he may back down and "let the challenge go unheeded,11 In the latter case, the final cost to the deterrer in loss of pres­ tige, decrease in the "capacity for instituting effective . deterrence policies in the future," and encouragement of the antagonist to take "further actions of a detrimental charac­ ter" may well be as considerable as the cost "attached to the fulfillment of the forecast*

Herman Kahn speaks of "nuclear incredulity"^ and so it is that the key to the maximization of the policy effec­ tiveness and the minimization of the risk of either of these

. I, Kissinger, "American Strategic Doctrine and Diplomacy," ojo*__c3^U, p, 275*

2= Kaufmann,- op, cit., p, 18,

3° Herman Kahn, On Escalation: Metaphors and Scenarios (Hew York; . Praeger, 195577™P* 897 36 two unpleasant alternatives above Is CHEDlBILITYe Kaufmann sees, three primary and crucial audiences to whom a deter~ rence policy must be credible if it is to be successful: the enemy* domestic, and allied a.udiencese

The most important audience is, of course, the supposed enemy. The first sine qua non here is identlfi- cation of the enemy, ifhile somewhat elementary, this could, in some instances, be grossly mistaken. For example, since the Viet~Cong operate largely independently of Moscow and

Peiping, a threat of destruction of those cities would most likely be meaningless in deterring Viet^Cong activities in South .Viet”Hame

After it is clear exactly who our antagonist is, it is then necessary to establish credibility in three major areas: capability, cost, and intentions,^- "The enemy must be persuaded that we have the capability to act; that, in acting, we could inflict costs greater than the advantages to be won from attaining his objective; and, that we really would act as specified in the stated contingency,

The capability must be actual (in existence at the time the deterrence policy is explicated), not potential.

To say that we will have nxH number of IOEMs in 1970 cannot help us in 1968 (the converse could, in fact, be true),

1, Kaufmann, op, cit,, p * 19*

2 C Ibid,* 37

Additionally, the antagonist must not only "believe that, the capability exists but S8also that its power is operational,n

That is, that it can, indeed, ,9get through to Its targets and inflict a most burdensome cost upon him«*^

Assuming the problems of capability and cost are solved, there then comes the far more difficult and complex problem of clearly making our intentions credible to our antagonist,. Our opponents may be expected to utilize three major sources of information about our possible intentions; our "record of performance in comparable contingencies dur­ ing the recent past; the statements and behavior of (our) government; and the attitudes of public opinion, both domestic and a l l i e d ® •

A deterrence policy should maintain consistency with the nation's recent international behavior® A deterrence strategy which involves a sharp break with past behavior, even if it be the result of internal policy changes, is likely to have a great deal of difficulty obtaining credi­ bility® “Similarly, the credibility of the policy will vary with the degree of consistency in the speech and action of the government and its executive agencies®“3 Contradictions of a deterrence policy as enunciated by a high official by

1® Ibid® 0 2® Ibid®,

3« Ibid®. 38 other government officials will do irreparable damage to the credibility of that policy* (This was the case of what happened to Secretary of State Dulles's massive retaliation doctrine when it was ‘'clarified'8 by Eisenhower shortly after the Secretary first spelled it out*) "Nor will official statements seem convincing if actions are being taken simultaneously to nullify the statements, or if nothing concrete is being done to support thenu"^

finally, a policy of deterrence will seem credible only to the extent that important segments of public opinion in domestic and allied countries support its intentions*

One obvious shortcoming which the democratic countries have vis-a-vis their totalitarian counterparts in the policy formulation process is their great need for popular support for policies * The policy formulation process is, then, much more than simply the "enunciation of intentions by govern­ mental leaderse

This consideration suggests a rather crucial and . specific requirement that a policy of deterrence must fulfill* In other words, there must be some relationship between the value of the objective sought and the costs involved in its attainment, A policy of deterrence which does not fulfill this requirement Is likely to result only in deterring . the deterrer,3

I, Ibid,, pp.'19' and 206 20 Ibid,, p, 20,

3. Ibid,, , 39

The - credibility of our. own de terrent in the eyes of our own people and in those of our allies is all-important,"' thene For, if the people of this country do not accept the credibility of a deterrence posture, how could we expect the leaders of our opponents to possibly do so? Additionally, we have seen a prime.example in the case of Western Europe of the failure of the credibility of our massive retaliation deterrent position with the resulting break-up of the Atlantic Alliance and the construction of the French Force de Frappe. The Western Europeans obviously had little faith in our declarations that the United States would risk its ■ own annihilation in order to come to the defense of Europe,

Would it not be a little too much to expect that the leaders of the Soviet Union would have even more faith in the policy?

The whole dilemma centers around the diminished credibility of the American use of its deterrent capability to rescue Western Europe: where ■ Americans are interested in multiple options, the Europeans are concerned with an option that does not expose them, e. • • The central issue is confidence t already eroded by circumstances not • wholly intrinsic to HATO circumstances. The lack of confidence in a possible American response on their behalf causes the Europeans to be over­ confident in assessing the significance of . independent deterrents,1 (Emphasis added)

1, Erickson, op, cit,, p, 11, 40

In concluding this section on the conceptual, required ments of deterrence$ it would seem appropriate to remark that Kaufmann applied these;requirements to the Eisenhower-

Dulles policy of massive retaliation and found it to be wanting on virtually all counts,, It is little wonder that the policy did not last long* The truly amazing thing is that it did last, at least in theory, for as long as it did!

Kaufmann sums up the major difficulty with deterrence t Our problem, therefore, is to find deterrents that forecast costs sufficient to discourage the enemy, but not provocative enough to make him turn, out of fear and desperation, to contingencies of the last re sorte We must, in a word, try to fit the punishment to the crime e This is much more difficult in the international arena than in domestic society where elaborate and reasonably effective systems of legal deterrents have been developed. But it is by no means impossible.1

This brings to a conclusion our discussion of the conceptual requirements of deterrence. Albert Wohlstetter, who, according to Henry Kissinger, has "more than any other individual „ 0 =, provided the intellectual Impetus for the recasting of American military strategy in the 1960s,"2 sets

1„ Kaufmann, op. city, p. 29o

2. Henry A. Kissinger (ed«,), Problems of National Strategy (New Yorks Praeger, 1965)., p7~3TT*" ™ *■ up some additional criteria in the form of the military requirements which must be met if a deterrence policy is to work® As we shall see, deterrence, in order to be effective and workable, must meet both Kaufmaim1s and Wohlstetter*s criteriae

The Military Requirements for Deterrence;

The Delicate Balance of Terror

Wohlstetter, in an article which Thomas Schelling has titled 15one of the three or four articles in this field in the past dozen years that have really counted,stated that "(d)eterrence in the 1960s is neither assured nor impossible but will be the product of sustained intelligent effort and hard choices, responsibly made0,52

To Wohlstetter, deterrence is not at all an auto­ matic occurrence brought about by the "mutual balance of terrors11 He emphasizes, instead, that the requirements for deterrence are "stringent" and that "though we have heard so much about the atomic stalemate and the receding probability of war which it has produced,"3 deterrence will.be much

lo Arthur Herzog, The War-Peace Establishment~(Hew Yorks Harper, 1963), p* 64* 2* Albert Wohlstetter, "The Delicate Balance of Terror," Foreign Affairs, XXXYU (January, 1959 )/>;.. p« 211*

3s Ibid*» 42

harder to achieve in the 1960s than it was in the non­

nuclear and limited-nuclear paste Thus, deterrence is not the necessary consequence of "both sides having a nuclear

delivery capability. Therefore, Wohlstetter would say that

total nuclear war is not at all obsolete and mutual annihi­

lation is certainly not the only possible result of general

war,, (The reader should keep in mind that Wohlstetter wrote

in 1959 and, presumably, might wish to alter his ideas.some­

what in the light of today's technology* This writer takes exception With some of the premises noted above* However,

. we have the benefit of 20-20 hindsight and find much more

comfort in the conclusions which are to follow*)

Wohlstetter did not accept Dr. Oppenheimer's simile

of the two scorpions in the bottle. He felt that, on the

contrary, "by attacking its enemy's strategic forces,, a

country could disarm the other 'scorpion1 and not be stung

back.This writer does not at all agree with this position

(it was not feasible even at the time Wohlstetter put it forth). It is quite analogous to the game theorists' con­

ception of "zero sum" games in which each side tries to "win" the entire stake in a bitter conflict. In,his i960 work, The Strategy of Conflict, Harvard Economist Thomas 0.

1. Morton H. Halperin,.Contemporary Military Strategy (Boston: little. Brown and Company, 1 § W T T S p. 10. .43

Schelling spelled out the absurdity of zero-sum in the thermonuclear ages .• The precarious strategy of the cold war and nuclear stalemate has often been expressed in game-type analogies! two enemies within reach of each other’s poison arrows on opposite sides . of a canyon, the poison so slow that either could shoot the other before he died; * « « two neighbors each controlling dynamite in the other’s basement, trying to find mutual security through some arrangement of electric switches and detonators*^

We have to agree with J* David Singer that zero-sum'games should be scrapped

Since deterrence is not automatic but is, Instead, according to Wohlstetter, a ’’delicate balance of terror,” it has certain-requirements which must be fulfilled for the deterrent to be effective0 Chief among these, and the one upon which all the others are based, is the possession of the capability to strike back after absorbing a first strike, or in other words, ,$a capability to strike second*The only really effective way, then, to deter attack resides in

’’being able to strike back in spite of it*(One problem

■ 1* Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, op* pit*, p * 120* 2* J* David Singer, ’’The Return to Multilateral Diplomacy,” Yale Review (Autumn, 1963), p* 38*

3. Wohlstetter, op* clt*, p* 213*

■ 4 * Ibid*, in the past has been the confusing of deterrence with the matching or exceeding of the enemy’s potential to strike first*)

. In order to achieve a secure strike-second capabil­ ity, and thus a true deterrent posture, Wohlstetter postulates six "hurdles" or obstacles which must.be success­ fully crossed by.a strategic deterrence system* These become the very nucleus, militarily, of an effective' deter­ rence strategy*

The first hurdle is the "attainment of a stable, steady-state peace-time operation within feasible budgets,"!

The problems of accidental or unpremeditated war breaking out are exceptionally severe over a long time span due to decentralization, large-scale dispersal, and the existence of mobile weapons. Additional dangers arise in the use of armed air alert forces and some of the proposals for bom­ bardment satellites,

. The second part of this hurdle is the sometimes- underestimated one of budget limitations. Even a nation as rich as this one has constraints upon what it can feasibly spend upon security (though one might never realize this from reading the Armed Services Committee hearings!). Many, of the "relevant cost comparisons » , , are between 45 competing systems| others concern the extra costs to the enemy of canceling an additional expenditure of our own. - For Example, a squadron of heavy bomhers costing, with their associated tankers and penetration . aids,.perhaps $500,000,000 over five years, might "be eliminated, if it were otherwise unprotected, by an enemy intercontinental ballistic missile costing perhaps Sl6,000,000e After making allow-. •ance for the unreliability and inaccuracy of the ...missile, this means a ratio of some ten for one or better® To achieve safety, by brute numbers in so unfavorable a competition is not likely to be viable economically or politically. However, a viable peacetime operation is only the first hurdle to be surmounted*2

The second hurdle consists in surviving the enemy attack® "Ground alert systems placed deep within a warning net look good against a manned bomber attack, much less good against intercontinental ballistic missiles, and not good at all against missiles launched from the sea®In the.case of the latter attacks, which are.the most likely in the late;

1960s and after, systems similar to .the "Minuteman, which may be sheltered and dispersed as well as alert would do well®"^ Even better at surviving an attack would be the

Polaris submarines which have the twin advantages of mobility and concealment® However, at the next hurdle, the

1® Ibid®, p® 219® 2® Ibid®, p.® 220® 3® Ibid® ® 4® Ibid®» • ■ : . communication of the. decision to retaliate, the Polaris suffers some possibly severe, handicaps since communication . over long distances may he jammed or, more importantly, since communication centers may have been destroyed® •

The fourth hurdle, the "ability to reach enemy territory with fuel enough to complete the mission,has, since Wohlstetter wrote his article $ been largely removed with the replacement of bombers by missiles though it does definitely still apply to .that, portion of .our deterrent system which consists of manned bombers®. The fifth major hurdle .in the program consists of the aggressor’s long-range interceptors and close-in missile defenses® In order to maintain an acceptably high

"survivability ratio,H our missiles may require "heavy loads . of radar decoys, electronic jammers, and other aids to defense penetration® This, In turn, will considerably . lessen the payloads which can be delivered on target, and ' will, therefore, require larger.numbers of strategic weapons®

The sixth and final hurdle is the destruction of the target "in spite of the passive defenses that may. protect it*w3- This applies especially to low-payioad systems such

1, Ibid® o 2® Ibid®® 4? as the Polarisc Por example $ five Polaris-type missiles

(one half megaton each) would be more than sufficient to destroy most of the population of a city of 900*000 spread over forty square miles. However* if the population is protected in shelters, it could take as many as sixty

Polaris missiles to do the same damage to the population,.

The point to be emphasized in contemplating these above steps to nuclear deterrence is that "prizes for a retaliatory capability are not distributed for getting over one of these jumps, A sytem must get over all six , , »

The power to strike back after a massive thermonuclear sur­ prise attack is by no means as automatic as is widely believed,'"-*- It is a matter of "comparative risks" and due to the strategic advantages held by the aggressor and the rapid changes in technology "deterrence will require an urgent and continuing effort."2 We have seen that the key to deterrence is a pro­ tected retaliatory capability since, if "it is clear that the aggressor . , . will suffer catastrophic damage in the event of his aggression, he then has strong reason not to attack, even though he can administer great d a m a g e ,"5

.1, Ibid,,

2, Ibid,, p. 222, 3e Ibid,, p., 230* 48

The conclusion, ' therefore, is that a ’’protected retaliatory capability has a stabilizing influence not only in deterring rational attack, but also in offering every inducement to both powers to reduce the chance of accidental ware

(Emphasis added)

It is interesting to note that one of Wohlstetter’s major critics, P.-Mo So Blackett, while rejecting the ’’deli­ cacy” thesis in toto, does suggest that deployment of the protected, retaliatory-only Polaris submarines leads to a greatly improved stability in the balance of terror0^ The

Polaris thus becomes a stabilizer for Blackett as it most certainly would for Wohlstetter, even taking into account its above-mentioned shortcomings0

DeAerr^uoe ^Typology

We shall now turn to a consideration of deterrence theory as expressed by Herman Kahn«» Our justification for examining some of the thought of this ’’analyst”^ need only be based upon the impact which his writings and:research have hadB. Both President Kennedy and Secretary of Defense

1 o Ibid * &

2* Po Me S» Blackett, Studies of Wars Nuclear and . Conventional (New York: Hill and™Wang, 19^27T™pT"T^oT^~™™^

3o This is Herzog s classification® Op® cite, ppe 74-86® . -. McNamara Mhad been heavily influenced, by the works of

Herman Kahn$ who had examined the implications of « total war with ruthless precisiont"^

Our discussion is partially based upon Kahn*s epic work, On Thermonuclear War, which was considered to be

"monumental" by Morton Halperin, and must certainly have been read with care by John Kennedy. We will, also examine portions of other of Kahn's writings in the course of the discussion. Since, for Kahn, deterrence is dissuasion by terser ror,t33 he delineates three types of deterrence, which he feels cover all the alternatives available to threaten or promise a potential enemy. Therefore, the emphasis should be upon "the impact of our capabilities on the enemy's mind rather than on his body. Type I deterrence— deterrence of a direct attack— has as its objective the deterrence of any direct attack upon the United States military forces, population, or property. This is accomplished, by threatening clearly that

1. David Rees, "Towards the McNamara.Doctrine," in Erickson, op. cit., p. 89.

2. Herman Kahn, On Thermonuclear War (Princeton; Princeton University PresF7~19^l7T

5o Kahn, On Escalation, qp. cit,, p. 281.

4. Kahn, On Thermonuclear War, op. cit., p. 126. . 50

13in all circumstances an attack on the United States would he a serious mistake,""*" that is, that "any attack, however carefully designed or /brilliantly executed, will result in such a high probability of an unacceptable amount of damage being caused to some oh all of the attacker's population, industry, or military forces, that our enemy must rule it : out as a choice even if he is desperate or biased by wishful thinking6n2 This deterrence concept, considered the sine qua non of American (or, for that matter, Soviet) nuclear strategy, is held by the British to be l$ 'passive deterrence ' on the plausible, but possibly incorrect, assumption that it requires no act of will to respond to a violation.,"5 The response, then, is considered to be unthinkable, automatic, inevitable, and relatively total. The major difficulty with this deterrence scheme comes when "deterrence" per se no longer exists| that is, when deterrence has broken down and the shooting has started.

Then the deterring nation is in a position of striking second* Therefore, it must be able to absorb the first

I* Kahn, "Strategy, Foreign Policy,, and Thermo­ nuclear War," op, cit., p® 52,

2, Ibid., 3® Kahn, On Thermonuclear War, op. cit,, p, 126, 51 surprise attack and still "be in a secure enough position to strike back in a massive waye

. In short $ a satisfactory. Type I Deterrent for the United States must provide an objective basis for Soviet calculations that no matter how skillful, ingenious, or optimistic they are, and no matter how negatively they view their alternatives in a desperate crisis, an attack on the United States would guarantee 0 « unacceptable large-scale destruction of Soviet civil society and military forcesel

Just exactly what military hardware is necessary for this destruction is dependent upon, the estimates we make of the "post-attack environments®"2 This environment will include the damage done to our forces by the aggressor's first strike, the degree of coordination (or lack thereof) of the remaining United States forces, and the defense shield our forces will have to penetrate to strike a devastating blow to the war's initiator0 Type II deterrence— deterrence of extreme provoca­ tion— is defined "as using strategic, threats to deter an enemy from engaging in very provocative acts other than a direct attack upon the United States itself,"3 The threat

1, Kahn,. "Strategy, Foreign Policy, and Thermo­ nuclear War," op, cit*, p, 53e

2, Kahn, On Thermonuclear War, op, cit., p, 128,

3c Herman Kahn, "The Hature and Feasibility of War and Deterrence," in Bobrow, op. cit,, p. 193, 52 would be in the form of nan 'all-out! nuclear reprisal"I against# for example, the Soviet Union for a nuclear or conventional strike against Western Europe, As opposed to Type I deterrence, this is labeled H 'active deterrence' because it clearly takes an act of the will to initiate„"2

If,ifor example, the Soviets attacked Europe with conventional forces and overran Allied conventional forces, it would require a conscious decision (and a very difficult one) for the United States to live up to the M T O obligations as it is normally under­ stood and to attack the Soviet Union with strategic , forces,3

Type II deterrence is basically distinct from Type I in that the latter "requires us to launch a counterattack after the enemy has launched an attack on our forces,"^ while the former "envisages a reprisal attack by our undamaged and, at the moment, unthreatened f o r c e s , "3 Type I is, then, basically a defensive posture, while Type II lends itself readily to a nuclear first strike, few people ques­ tion Type I while many "reject Type 11 deterrence as

. 1, Kahn, "Strategy, Foreign Policy, and Thermo-' nuclear War," op, cit,, p* 50,

2, Kahn, On Thermonuclear War, op, cit,, p, 126, .

3, Kahn, On Escalation, op, cit,, p, 283,

4, Kahn, "Strategy, Foreign Policy, and Thermo­ nuclear War," op, cit., p, 54, 5=. Ibid., 53 bellicose,, aggressive., or-.tending-to stimulate ' the arms race,"! It also suffers a "credibility gap” under Kaufmann1s criteria as posited above,

The third, and last, Type III deterrence— the- deter­ rence of moderate provocation— is Kahn's "catch all” deterrence category for provocations which cannot be covered under the first two categories. This would include the vast majority of provocations which are (or so we would hope!) limited in their scope.and threat* Type III deterrence might be titled ,} 'tlt-f or-tat ‘, graduated, or controlled deterrence. It refers to acts that are deterred because the potential aggressor is afraid that the defender or others will take limited actions, military or non-military, that will make the aggression unprofitable„

In addition to the deterrence of provocative acts.

Type III deterrence includes the positive attribute of encouraging "acceptable behavior,”3 The means utilized under

Type III deterrence include:!"ordinary limited war, the use of all kinds of mobilizations and demonstration tactics, the show of force, and, finally, some types of controlled war as are envisaged in a Controlled Reprisal or low-level

Controlled Counterforce attack,"^

1, Ibid,. 2, Kahn, On Thermonuclear War, op, cit,, p, 126, Kahn, "Strategy, Foreign Policy,, and Thermo­ nuclear War,.” op. cit., p, 67. 4. Ibid,. 54

An example of the sometimes subtle implications to

Type III deterrence strategy is the. case of the Korean ¥ar»

Besides the direct military force brought to bear against the aggressors, thier provocation became a direct spur to our military capability in being, "in June, 1950,' the

United States was engaged in-a great debate on whether the defense budget should be 14, 15, or 16 billion dollars.

Along came Korea. Congress quickly authorized 60 billion dollars, an increase by a factor of four! Regardless of what successes the Communist effort may or may not have had on the battlefields of Korea, the huge increase in military appropriations "represents an enormous military defeat for the Soviets.

Kahn has further postulated a six-point scale for measuring the degrees of deterrence, which it might be possible to apply to the three types of deterrence examined above. They are briefly defined as follows; 1. Minimum Deterrence. "A relatively small deterrent

threat that depends on unreliable mechanisms, sanc­

tity of thresholds, nuclear taboos, or even the

‘inconveniences' that might have to be accepted by. an opponent."5

1. Kahn, "The Nature and Feasibilty of War and Deterrence/' op. cit., p. 202.

2. Ibid.. 3® Kahn, On Escalation, op. cit., p. 279® 55v

2 C Workable Deterrence® This deterrence would yield

"a capacity of inflicting several million casual­

ties on an attackerSH and would, thus, be

exceptionally effective in all but the most severe

of crises® 3® Adequate Deterrence® This deterrent threat would

promise "to kill 5-10 per cent of the opposing

nation's population®’1. This capability "should deter

attack in any crisis characterized by the rungs of

traditional crises®H However, it is only "adequate"

in the sense that "it could, fail to give a nation

the deterrence, much less the confidence, it might

need to negotiate an intense or bizarre crisis®"

4® Reliable Deterrence® The kill probability under

this deterrent would exceed one third of an oppo­

nent's population® "Reliable" is "understood as

meaning that it is almost impossible to imagine a

realistic scenario in which the other side would be

willing to accept this kind of loss, whatever the

provocation--short of an all-out attack®"

5® Approaching Absolute Deterrence® The capability to

kill under this deterrent posture would be "some­

where between half and 200 percent of the opponent's

population®"^ This "overkill factor" of two, if it

1® Ibid®, pp® 279 and 280® came to pass, would be considered "an end to history"

and, presumably, no decision-maker "could justify

accepting this kind of damage," regardless of the objective»

6e Stark Deterrence® This deterrence capability entails

an .'"overkill factor of ten or more, so that even the

blind, fanatical, or stupid would understand the

situation®" This deterrent "one would be tempted

to call a «. ® "absolute1 , e 6 but of course even

such a deterrent could fail®"I .

In concluding this rather nightmarish section

(speaking of the "end of history" and "overkill factors" tends to leave this writer slightly limp!), we can see that

"there is a broad range of circumstances in which even a minimum deterrent might work, and there are conceivable circumstances in which a stark deterrent might fail®" The degree of deterrence a nation requires is dependent upon a number of matters including the "range of scenarios" consid­ ered possible and the "degree of assurance one feels necessary for various situations®

I® .Ibid«,•«, .

2e Ibide® 57

We will now look.very briefly at the specific strategies which deal with the problem of deterring or fighting a general war® The reader will note that these will all fall easily within Kahn’s scale for measuring degrees of deterrencee The first is the strategy of minimum'deterrence, which uses a "relatively small strategic force to attack enemy population centers in order to convince the enemy that it will only use the force in retaliation for an enemy first strike."3- This strategy is, then, only a second- strike strategy. The emphasis is upon deterrence, not upon actual war-waging. Secondly, there is the strategy of controlled response. Under this system of deterrence a country attempts to "convince its opponent that it will not use strategic forces except by careful and deliberate decision and that if it does employ strategic forces, it will be in a limited and controlled .way, perhaps only against strategic forces." The way is thus left open here for a nuclear first- strike in return for a major provocation. The emphasis shifts, under this strategy, from not.only "deterring a general nuclear war but also on limiting damage in the event that such a war were to occur." The force requirements

1. Halperin, op. cit., p. 25. 58 under a strategy of controlled, response Include a nrela>-' tively large strategic force=-"perhaps about two thousancd strategic delivery vehicles, with very good command and control sytems— and. the ability to use this force in controlled, limited, and precise ways< "3- Controlled response seems to resemble closely current American strate­ gic policy®

Finally, there is the strategy of credible first strike® By using this strategy, "a. country would convey to its enemy that there is a significant probabiltiy that a first strike will be launched in the event of various- kinds of provocation®15 If war should actually break out, "this strategy prescribes a very large first strike directed at all of the enemy's strategic forces®" The strategic force required for such a first strike policy is exceptionally large~~"two or three times more than that called for by a controlled response strategy--capable of destroying most of

the enemy's ® .0 * forces®"^

Conclusion

In concluding this necessarily arbitrary and scanty overview of deterrence theory it might be useful to consider for a moment the ultimate results and implications of a

1» Ibid®® 2® Ibid®, pp® 25 and 26® 59

deterrence strategy when implemented. The result can take one of two forms; it can succeed or it can fail. One of

those who has feared the failure of deterrence was Senator

Huhert Humphrey. He wrote'in 1958 that %: -security system

based on massive ‘strength, a ‘balance of terror,1 is not

satisfactory as a security system. It is extremely waste­ ful of money, talent and energy. . «', How much better if we could use the resources for . . . schools, houses, hospi­

tals, roads . . . Moreover, our deterrent policy is bankrupt because "it simply does not provide real security.

Ho matter how far our rockets can travel or how many nuclear warheads we have, a terrible risk remains. If the deterrent fails, it means most of the people of this country and the

Soviet Union would p e r i s h . "2

Paul Johnson goes one step further in his criticism of deterrence. He feels that (a) "the deterrent not merely

fails to deter, but has exactly the opposite effect,"^ because by "making the deterrent the principle Instrument of

your foreign policy, you inevitably place its direction . . .

1. Hubert H. Humphrey,."Hirst Step Toward Disarma­ ment," The Eation, C1XXV (May 24, 1958), p. 468.

2. Ibid..

3. Paul Johnson, "The Fallacy of the Deterrent," The Hew Statesman,. LV. (March 8, 1958)', p. 294. Also in Charles A. McClelland (ed«), nuclear Weapons, Missiles, and Future War (San Francisco; . Chandler, I960), pp. 94-98. ™ in the hands- of the military?" and (b) "the deterrent? supposedly the slave of diplomacy? has the inevitable

tendency? in its search for speed and efficiency? to become

its masterc h-

On the other hand $ Brie Promm seems to be more con-™

cerned with the dangers inherent in the very success of

deterrence„ In posing the question? "What if deterrence w o r k s ? he states that "the biggest and most pervasive

reality in any man's life if deterrence should ■'work1 is the

poised missile? the humming data processor connected to it?

the waiting radiation counters and seismographs? the overall

technocratic perfection (overlaying the nagging but impotent

fear of its imperfection) of the mechanism of holocaust®

Alternatively? Bernard Brodie has considerable

criticism for those who lack faith in deterrence«, He declares that "unless we are dealing with utter madmen?

there is no conceivable reason why in any necessary show­

down, with the Soviet Union? appropriate manipulations of -

force and threats of force? certainly coordinated with more

lo Ibid® o

2a Brio Fromm? "The Case for Unilateral Disarma­ ment?" Daedalus, LXXXIX (Fall? i960), pe 1019® 3® Ibid® e 61 positive diplomatic maneuvers $ cannot "bring about deterrence.in another earlier work, Brodie observed that "there is a special 'it-must-not-fail* urgency about deterrence."2 (This writer certainly seconds that I)

Successful deterrence is a possibility, but only if we find the right ingredients to make it work. These are certainly not easy to come up with; yet, if we are to exist on this planet we must do just that. David Rees is one who. thinks we are making this progress and, in so doing, are returning Western strategy to "Clausewitzian first princi­ ples:; "S that is, "that the object of conflict is more to effect the enemy’s will than to destroy him =

In concluding this chapter it might be. appropriate to note the partial contents of a conversation between

Arthur Herzog and Albert Wohlstetter which largely sums up the overall, general objective of deterrence in the nuclear age. Wohlstetter, in responding to a question from Herzog, stated that: There are good and bad, that is, adequate and inadequate, or stable and unstable, deterrents.

1. Bernard Brodie, Escalation and the Huclear Option (Princeton? Princeton University Press, 1963 J7 p. 74. 2. Brodie, Strategy in the Missile Age, op. cit,, p 0 393. — 3® Rees, op. cit., p. 92.

4. . Ibid.. 62

The stability of a deterrent is measured by the shocks it can--sustain* A good deterrent is one that works in crisis when the risks an adversary ■might feel in not striking would be very large*. . We want a deterrent that will make striking with . nuclear arms the worst of all possible alterna­ tives available to an adversary, even when the ' . alternatives may look bad *.* . The object of a deterrent is to reduce, the chances of war*^ (Emphasis added)

We will now turn to a less abstract. (though no less complicated) world, that of the actual practice of deter­ rence policy, specifically that of the early 1960s and the policy of “counterforce18 as outlined, implemented, and, finally, abandoned by Secretary of Defense, Robert A* •

McNamara. .'

1» Herzog, op* cit«, pp* 64 and 65* CHAPTER TV DETERRENCE THEORY IN PRACTICES

THE RISE AND PALI OP STRATEGIC COUNTSRPORCE

«, e e technology has now circumscribed us all with a conceivable horizon of horror that could dwarf any catastrophe that has befallen man in his more than a million years on earth,!

In a number of respects$ the first years of the

Kennedy Administration paralleled the first two years of the

Eisenhower Administration* The “good guysn replaced the

“bad guys“ in the Pentagon as elsewheree This was nowhere more evident than in the choice of General Haxwell D«, Taylor as Chairman.of the Joint Chiefs of Staff* He, like Admiral

Radford, had the President’s fullest confidence and, in addi­ tion, seemed to be totally vindicated for his stand on strategic matters in the 1950s* A “new” deterrence strategy was soon explicated and, just as rapidly, it seemed, was

“clarified” out of existence* Finally, and probably most significantly, a ne'vr Secretary of Defense named Robert

Strange McNamara was recruited from industry to clean up the

Department of Defense and to set its course straight again*

1* Robert S, McNamara,'“United States Nuclear Strategy: Missile Defense,” op* cit., p, 738=. The address was to the editors of the United Press International in San Francisco on September 18, 1967* 63 64

The world tensions were still very much in existence, though

in considerably more subtle form than the Korean War, but

the electorate looked forward to changes for the better in

America's power relationships with her real or imagined enemies„

The Theory of Strategic Qounterforce

The main event of the early 1960s rapidly became the

• very involved controversy over the problem of deterring a

major aggression— not a limited or peripheral one— a direct

attack upon ourselves or upon Western Europe, The contrast

with the early Dulles"Eisenhower years and its worry with . "bogging down in a land war in Asia" is obvious* The concern

then was primarily the deterrence of Korean-type limited

wars, with not much attention being paid to the form deter™

rence should take to prevent direct attack upon the United

States*

The central question Secretary McHamara found him­ self trying to answer was: What form of retaliation would be the most effective in discouraging attack upon ourselves -

and our closest allies? This question marked the "continua­

tion. of a debate begun during the previous administration on

the proper strategy for employing strategic offensive forces*

2* Robert K* Ginsburgh, U* S'* Military Strategy in the Sixties (Eew Tories. ¥* •¥« N o r t o n 19^5J ™ p Y ’69 65

Among other choices, this debate encompassed massive retaliation versus flexible response, nuclear superiority, versus overkill, and finite deterrence (countercity) capa­ bility versus war-waging (counterforce) capability.

The new administration quickly went on record for flexible response,^ remained largely ambiguous about over­ kill (though its actions spoke louder than its words in this area) and stimulated a fierce debate over finite deterrence and counterforce’strategies. Hanson Baldwin, the noted military commentator,, had foreseen this debate in 1959 when he remarked that "the real debate, bound to increase in volume and tempo, is between the concept of 'finite' (its opponents call it 'minimum') deterrence, and the concept of

'counterforce' strategy (its opponents call it 'infinite' deterrence)oBaldwin contended that the question became one of making the choice between maintaining "enough nuclear delivery capabilities merely to devastate and destroy an enemy's cities,"^ and maintaining a "force capable of

destroying or 'blunting' the enemy's nuclear delivery capa- Mlities~=>his airfields and bombers and missile placements."^

lo See William ¥„ Kaufmann, The McNamara Strategy (Hew York; Harper, 1964), and Maxwell B. Taylor, The Uncer- tain Trumpet (London; Stevens, I960) for two treatments.of what "flexible response" entailed in policy. 2. The Hew York Times, February 1, 1959® 3® Ibid.. 4. Ibid.. 66

Since ,,(w)hen the Kennedy Administration assumed power $ the two most commonly advocated strategies for United States ' strategic nuclear forces were finite deterrence and counter™ force,^ it is to the making of the choice between the two that this chapter will be addressed*

Basically, there are three target systems to be - considered when contemplating wars the rival's military forces, his industry, and his population* A counterforce attack would concentrate on the first while a countervalue attack, as envisaged by a finite deterrence posture, would center on the latter two "value targets*u

As we pointed out in the last chapter, a la

Wohlstetter, an.all-out total war was, in some circles, no longer considered to be the only possible form of nuclear war* Military theorists contend that there is an inter­ mediate step between tactical nuclear war and final, escalation: this-is termed the ’counter-force 1 strike, the aim of which is to neutralize the enemy’s nuclear forces8 Since; this implies re- ' straint regarding the ultimate step— that is, total counter-city destruction— it is in the strict- . . est sense a ’limited’ form of war, The strategic purpose of counter-force is to eliminate (as com­ pletely as possible) the enemy’s second-strike capability, not absolute destruction*^

. 1* Kintner, op* cites pffi 35* 2 e I)* K, Dalit, War in the Deterrent Age (Pew York: A» So Barnes, 1968), pe. lS9% - Thus$ counterforce becomes a form of “military interpolation in the political ladder of escalation,n since it "is a ‘mili­ tary ‘ .measure, unlike the political strategy of deterrence;

and it is basically dependent on superiority of force „ "3-

Theoretically, at least, "(c)ounterforce „ 0 e tries

to keep thermonuclear war from being absolute by directing

such a war against military target"2 only, leaving the popu- .

latlon relatively intact to act as "hostages," since the

"fate of a civilian population is the final bargaining •

i s s u e , "3 The theory behind this strategy is that (a) "by

destroying enemy weapons., we weaken their ability to hurt ' us $" and (b) "proddedrby our retention of the ultimate

ability to retaliate against population later if necessary, r

the enemy will refrain from attacking our population centers„

Thus, deterrence would not cease upon the. initiation of

hostilities, but "would be continued during the war,"5 It . would be. possible that "the Main Streets of Painesvilles and

the Center Cities would remain intact,The war would then

.1» Ibid,, pp« 168 and 169o 2e Robert A»-Levine, The Arms Debate (Cambridge; • Harvard University Press, 196377^=^27^7 _ 3, Kintner, op, cite, p Q 35=

4 0 Levine, op. cit., p. 174=

5.' Richard Pryklund, 100 Million Lives: l-jaxlmum . Survival in a Unclear War (Hew York: ■ MacmiTXan7”T9o2T7"p = 40..

6o Ibid., n. 41. 68

take on vestiges of “controlled warn (or “limited war" as we pointed out above), instead of the “spasm War" which Kahn

puts at the' apex of the -escalation ladders"^

Under a counterforce strategy, then, our missiles would be aimed and programmed for only military establish" ments, missile launching pads, and bomber airfields, not at

cities (unless, of course, they contained important military

installstionS"~which most cities do!)* “Historically, of

course * the term.(counterforce) and the philosophy are often

associated With the Air 'Force 's interest in destroying an

enemy on the ground e“2 Oounterforce, therefore,

purported to revert to classical strategic doctrine, long departed from by the partisans of mass, destruc­ tion. air warfare, that the most effective line of action in war is to destroy,- or otherwise render powerless, the enemy*s armed forces® When one side no longer had the means to resist, his territory ...and wealth' would lie at the mercy, of the victor in the conflict between military forces® The van" . quished would have to surrender, or:agree to the victor's terms of peace®-/

Conversely, countervalue, or more definitively, "finite deterrence," rejects unconditionally the idea that

atomic war can be waged in a limited and controlled manner,

’ • le Kahn, On Escalation, op® cit®, pp® 50 and 51*

2® Ibid®, p® 292®

3o B u m s , op® cit., p® 208® sparing damage to a nation's- population and industry or* at worst,.holding such damage to acceptable limits* Thus,

“(t)he goal of finite deterrence is to make nuclear war so catastrophic as to be unthinkable, and its purpose is to deter any nuclear attack on the United .States by fact of a

U, S<> capability to destroy the enemy's cities in retalia­ tion*"^ The emphasis under a finite deterrence posture is, therefore, on deterrence, on preventing the catastrophy from taking place* Finite, deterrence is roughly analogous to Halperin's

"reliable" deterrence posture and Kahn's Type I deterrence, which we explicated in the previous chapter, though there are some subtle differences0 In addition, finite deterrence seeks only minimal civil defense and limited, active air defense„ An antimissile sytem is, therefore, not at all appropriate I Finite deterrence is relevant only as a second strike posture e It would be unthinkable for it to be used in preventive or pre-emptive war scenarios* Thus, a very good case can be made for its tendencies toward stabilizing nuclear international relations*

In summing up, our "great debate" may be rephrased as essentially a conflict between the "advocates of increas­ ing the invulnerability of the deterrent and those who feel

.-1, Kintner, op, pit., p, 36* 70 that .priority must be given to increasing the striking force So’®-*' We might then conclude that •

the increasing Invulnerability of the deterrents might have a stabilizing influence on the balance of terrors since it would reduce the advantage an aggressor could hope to gain from a surprise attack. On the other hand* an increase in the striking force without a correlative increase in invulnerability must inevitably render the bal~. ance more unstable by increasing the rewards of aggression (or of '’initiativeV) ®

Before beginning our analysis of the policy accept” ance of any particular deterrence strategy, we must point out that no United States strategic position could ever fit exactly into any precise mold, "Strategies have overlapping boundaries,"3 Additionally, there are always weapons systems•left over from earlier eras that cannot be discarded too abruptly for economic, political, and other reasons.

Therefore, no strategy could be implemented with strict adherence to its presumed distinctions. For .example, a finite deterrence or countervalue strategy, though it hypo~ thetically includes only cities as targets, would also be a. counterforce strategy in the sense that forces located in urban areas would be destroyed.. Likewise, though a counter- force strategy would, in theory, spare all populated areas.

Is Edouard le Ghait, Uo.Carte Blanche to Capricorn (Hew York? Bookfield House, 19^077" pT~W7" ™ ‘ 2e Ibido *

3© Kintner, op. cits.* p. 33© 71

it would be impossible to preclude collateral damage to these areas when attacking military forces with nuclear weaponss This point seems obvious in the making? yet, one

can all too easily become caught up in the terminology and

rhetoric of strategic dialogue and lose sight of the funda­ mental premises upon which that dialogue is based*

The Policy of. Strategic Counterforce

President Kennedy, in his budget message to the

Congress on March 28, 1961, stated what he felt was the posi­

tion of his administration in regard to the contingency of .

nuclear war: Our strategic arms, and defense must be adequate to deter any deliberate attack on the United States or our allies by making clear to any potential aggressor that sufficient retaliatory forces will be able to survive a first strike and penetrate his defense in order to inflict'unacceptable losses upon him* (Smphasis added) The President further instructed Secretary McEamara 11 (t)o

develop the force structure necessary to our military

requirements without regard to arbitrary budget ceilingsj and procure and operate this force at the lowest possible

c o s t * (The contrast with the previous president’s policy guidelines in this matter is striking $).

1„ United States House, of Representatives, United. -States Defense Policies in 1961, House Document Eo« 502, BTth Congress, 2nd Session," 196"29 p* 9* ■ 2e . United States House of Representatives, Recom­ mendations Relating to Our Defense Budget, House Document Ho* 123,' Wth.'Congres*s, "1st "Session, 19§T? p„ 2e 7 2

It fell to the new Secretary of Defense* Bobert S. McEfamara* to deliver the force structure. necessary to carry out these policy goals of the President* His plan was to _ accomplish this by the fabrication of a i?mixn of Polaris and Minuteman missiles and manned bombers * When questioned as to how this mix was formulated he responded to the mem­ bers of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense that two factors were involveds l$ (a) the requirement for an

Invulnerable force and the quantity of such a force required to achieve certain units of target destruction and (b) the relative costs of achieving that force e

The way in which this force* when fully developed* would be utilized in case of war was elaborated upon by General Maxwell Taylor* the new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs* in a speech to the Hew York Printers 8 Association in January of 1962* Taylor reiterated the points made by the President*' Our forces were to used solely as retaliatory forces* They would be only invulnerable second strike forces* However*

Taylor added one note to this basic doctrine— that of retal­ iatory counterforce *2 (which may be a contradiction in terms)*

1* United States House of Representatives* House ■ Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee* Hearings on Military Posture9 87th Congress* 1st Session* 1961, p» 24* 2, Maxwell.Do Taylor* "Our Changing Military Policy: Greater Flexibility*" Vital Speeches of the Day* XXVIII (March 15* 1962)9 ppJ 3^7%349@ 73

The stage was now set for McNamara1s most famous and most controversial public pronouncement. In a commence-

ment address to the graduating class of the University-of

Michigan on June 16,-1962, -Secretary McNamara put the

Kennedy Administration on record as basing its deterrence

strategy on the doctrine of strategic counterforce, This

new McNamara doctrine, as we shall see, was only massive -

retaliation slightly updated and. refined by the Harvard

Business .School ^systems analysts” and the Pentagon ”whiz

kids,” McNamara noted, in probably the most relevant part -'

of the speech, that: The United States has come to the conclusion that, to the extent feasible, basic military stra- tegy in a possible general nuclear war should be approached in much the same way that more conven­ tional military operations have been regarded in the past,~ That is to say, principal military objectives, in the event of a nuclear.war stem­ ming from a major attack on the alliance, should • be the destruction of the enemy's military forces, not of his civilian popuIationPT^amphasis added)

(Secretary McNamara also made a reference to the ”, , , Sino

Soviet drive for world dominatlonoThis writer thinks that while this statement is not necessarily germane to what

.is under discussion here, it is significant that a man of

1, Robert 8, McNamara, ”The United States and Western Europe:■ Concrete Problems of Maintaining a Free Com numity,” Vital Speeches of the Bay, XXVIII (July 1, 1962), p* 628, 2, Ibid,,,p, 627, 74

Mr* McNamara's caliber could still consider "world communism^ to be,, apparently, a monolithic structure as late as the summer of 1962®) In the Ann Arbor speech, McNamara "clearly indicated - that he had chosen a counterforce strategy rather than the

'city-busting 1 strategy of minimum deterrence®However, he did not accept the Air Force's "pure" counterforce stra­ tegy— i»e., that the overall objective is "to disarmyour potential enemy before he can harm you® He felt, rather, that it is also possible "for us to retain , c <> reserve striking power to destroy an enemy society if driven to it® In other words, we are giving a possible opponent the strong­ est imaginable incentive to refrain from striking our own cities,"5 This seemed to somewhat soften his earlier state­ ment in the same speech of a stronger "pure" counterforce policy; "if, despite all our efforts, nuclear war should occur, our best hope lies in conducting a centrally control­ led campaign against all of the enemy's vital nuclear capabilities, while retaining reserve forces, all centrally controlled®

I® Ginsburgh, op® cit®, p® ?0o

2e Kintner, op® cit®, p® 470

3o McNamara, "The United States and Western Europe: Concrete Problems of Maintaining a Free Community,." op® cit®, p® 628® ■■ - ■.

4® Ibid®, p. 627® . . . , 7 5

18It is also worth noting that he favored the . counterforce strategy 1 to the extent feasible, ll5- This would seem to indicate that McUamara felt that either the increased capability of the Soviets to wage nuclear war might erode the strategy or that the increased costs of maintaining such a posture would become prohibitives even. for the United Statese '

The question then arisesi Uhy, in facts did

McHamara put forth this doctrine of what we could call t8neo~counterforce?fi Several hypotheses present themselves and the real answer is most likely a combination of one or all of the in o First# the pressures for European nuclear prolifderation were becoming quite strong# especially from the French„ Under a counterforce strategy such as McNamara was proposing it would be impossible for small national nuclear war forces to wage war against the major powers*

In other words# to paraphrase Merelman, those with much (in nuclear weaponry) would still be able to ignore the possible reactions of those with little.^

le Ginsburgh# op. cit.# p. 70.

2® Richard M. Merelman, 18On the Neo-Elitist Critique of Community Power,n American Political Science Review# LXII (June, 1968), p. 455. 76

Secondly, a case can be made for the Kennedy

Administration feeling the need for ^developing a rationale for the use of existing weapons syterns. It became rapidly apparent that the "missile gapH was an inverse one“~i„e , that the gap was in the United States' favor, not in the

Soviet Union/s as had been contended in the campaign of I960*

As a result, the Administration found itself in the poten­ tially embarassing position of having a super-abundance of nuclear weapons and delivery vehicles» "Thus, in this case o o 0 doctrine followed the development of weapons systems*"2 it is possible that "(t)he Administration asked itself what could be done with the Polaris and Minuteman ■ forces that were, to be produced within the next several • years"3 and came up with the counterforce doctrine as an answer. Thirdly, it is possible.that the Kennedy Administra­ tion was frankly appalled by the "brinkmanship stance which

Secretary of State Dulles had assumed as a prominent feature of American foreign policy,and. desired to disseminate as much information as possible about United States strategic

l e Halperin, op, cite, p 0 79=

2, Ibid,s

3, Ibid,*

. 4, Kolodziej, op, clt, s p,. 338, 77 superiority and the kinds of responses that an enemy could expect "if the United States were militarily or politically challenged," It.could, thus, he argued that the. Kennedy

Administration:wanted no part of the Eisenhower

Administration’s insistence upon "keeping the enemy guessing about American intentions and military capabilities*"^ Finally, it is possible that the officials of the

Administration were attempting to utilize the nuclear superiority of this country in a diplomatic way* President

Kennedy suggested this in a commencement address to the

United States Military Academy at West Point, when he declared that "our forces e * o must fulfill a broader role-= as a complement to our diplomacy-^as .an arm of our diplomacy— as a deterrent to our adversaries and as a symbol to our allies of our determination to support them*"^

It is quite probable that

judging by his statements during the campaign, Mr* . Kennedy expected to come into office confronted with Soviet superiority in strategic weapons* Instead, he found that the United States still ■ possessed an■overwhelming strategic advantage0 The . Administration asserted the political value of this .superiority; that it gave the United States greater freedom of political maneuver on inter~ national questions

le Ibid*, , ' 2= John P, Kennedy, "Paris, London,.and-Vienna Meetings," Vital Speeches of the Pay,- XXVII (July 1, 1961)'#' P. 547, : 3» Halperin, op, cit,, pp, 54 and . 55, -. ' ' 78

McNamara’s Ann Arbor speech was the conclusion of the reasoning processes through which - the Kennedy Adminis­ tration had been going ever since it took office„ The parallel with the Dulles-Radford line of reasoning in 1953 and 1954 was,-in many ways,amazing* ■ Again, the government of the United States was, seemingly, going to attempt to extort diplomatic and political advantage from strategic weapons superiority! Certain enthusiasts for counterforce doctrine, both in and out of government, carried this to its next logical step and asserted "that the President and the

United States had adopted a new strategy by which, at' times and _places of our own choosing, we could ’exercise the initiative,’ a euphemism for - waging preventive or pre- - emptive war*(Emphasis added).

One critic who takes a very dim view of counterforce in any form concludes that the doctrine of strategic counter- force u(l)ike Dulles’s doctrine of massive retaliation, its blood brother, . *-* hoped to harvest a political ’spillover bonus’ from our fantastic nuclear superiority* The deter- rent effect of nuclear weapons could, he hoped, protect

Berlin and other critical areas of the Pree World*

1* George E. .Lowe, The Age of Deterrence (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1954"), pTf^O* . 2* Lbide, p6 241* 79

e o e the United States announced to the world (via McNamara)•that.we were going to preserve, the option ' of fighting a controlled thermonuclear war* and ' from this capability it was calculated by some of the Pentagon “Whiz Kids’1 that the United States would reap the same political benefits that the Soviets allegedly received from Khruschev ?s ”rocket rattling„” Americanss like Communistss under this ■ theory would use the threat of a thermonuclear war as an instrument of foreign policy* The inherent difference* which some technocrats and * * * hard, liners find difficult to understand* is that the United States is a Western democracy operating under representative principles and backed by 2000 years of Christian-Humanist traditions* She cannot brandish the threat, of thermonuclear Armageddon . with as much facility or credibility as a Communist nation*-**

Reaction to the Secretary of Defense’s Ann Arbor

speech was exceedingly swift and loud* Por the most part*

the reaction was extremely adversee A great deal of protest was heard from universities * government defense agencies * and military research organizations*? (One exception to the latter category, we would expect to be the Hand Corporation ■since counterforce was basically Air Force doctrine*)

On the other hand* McNamara's speech encouraged all

of those who had been pushing for United States acceptance

of an aggressive first strike nuclear strategy* ■ McNamara* probably unintentionally* had put himself in the position of

confirming the view that* though conventional forces were

1. Ibid*, p* 243* This writer does not necessarily . subscribe to Mr.* Lowe's scathing. indictment posted here, but it certainly does raise some interesting questions which it could be the purpose of future research to resolve*

2* Singer* qp,*,..cit*,,;p* 44* : 80

useful$, they were certainly of secondary importance and, .henceforth, thermonuclear counterforce would be the primary force relied upon to solve our political and military diffi-

cultiese This was in direct opposition to the policy enunciated by General Taylor in his January speech outlining ■

the "balanced forces" strategy which the United;States was

to pursue under Kennedy and Mchamara* If one accepts this

assessment of. the effect of Mclamara"s.speech,. then the

analogy between this action and the attempt by a previous

administration to do essentially the'same thing under the

title of "massive retaliation" is fairly obviouse

The official house-organ of the United States Air

Force, Air Force and Space Digest, felt that uMr0 McNamara’s,

speech, described by some as a switch in strategy, actually

was an endorsement of.the Air Force’s doctrine,of counter-

force capability*"^ Since the Air Force‘s "doctrine" ■ contained subtle overtones of first strike counterforce,,

this endorsement would have had extremely important implica­

tions® In addition, if this were true, the Air Force.would

finally have acceded to the undeniable primacy in overall

military.strategy, which it had struggled for ever since the

end of World War II» ■ : : ‘

le "NATO Turns'to.Counterforce,"Air Force and Space Digest, VI (July,.1962), p6 16* 81

.The Air Force's conclusion was shared by Michael

Bower. Writing in The Hew Republic, he remarked that the

MeHamara proposal was "inextricably linked * » . to a counterforce first strike strategy."^ Dr. Robert Osgood agreed substantially with this assessment and indicated that "some proponents of a counterforce "strategy now advocate 'winning1 a nuclear war by disarming the enemy in an all-out attack upon his strategic nuclear weapons."2 Regardless of what McHamara really meant at Ann Arbor, this,, then, was the way in which it was interpreted; and that may be, in the long run, the most relevant consideration for any policy . pronouncement I

But, what did the so-called "enemy" think of all this talk of counterforce, first strike, and "winning11 a nuclear war? The answer was not long in coming and from the

Russian Premier himself. Less than a month after McHamara's speech, in an address on July 10, 1962, to the World Confer­ ence on General Disarmament and.Peace, Premier Khrushchev stated that "President Kennedy feels that the balance of

1. Michael Bower, "Controlled Thermonuclear War," The Hew Republic, CXLVII (July 30, 1962), p. 12.

2. Robert B. Osgood, "Huclear Arms I Uses and Limits," The Hew Republic, CXLVII (September 10, 1962), Pe 16. 82 strength has tipped in favor of the United States«H He further propogandized that "the league of war~industrial monopolies, the 'death merchants, 1 and the zealot millta^- rists— this military-^industrial complex as ex-President

Eisenhower described it— -is heating up the arms race to a frenzy."^ Khrushchev then addressed himself directly to

McHamara's speech: . .

Lately, the militarists talk more and more about thermonuclear war0 Take Defense Secretary McUamara's speech of June 16c He says in it that an understanding may be reached to use nuclear weapons solely for striking at the armed forces, and not at the big cities. The U« S« press says that MeUamara's statement had the approval of the White. House, and interprets it as a sort of proposal to the Soviet Union on 'rules' of con­ ducting a nuclear war,2

■The Russian Premier then unequivocally rejected McNamara's proposal for a form of "Marquis of Queensberry" rulebook to guide the conduct of nuclear war: It is a monstrous proposal filled from begin­ ning to end with a misanthropic disdain for men, for mankind, because it seeks to legalize nuclear war and thereby the murder of millions upon mil­ lions of people,. It is the grossest of deceptions also as far as the population of the U, S, is concerned. Are there no armed forces in the big cities and in their vicinity?^

1, The New York Times, July 11, 1962, p, 4 e

2, Ibid,» 3, Ibid,, 83

Mr, Khrushchev further remarked that' H(s)ome.responsible

So state men go to the length of saying publicly that they are prepared to take the ‘initiative V in a nuclear conflict with the Soviet Union„n His response to this was to mention the Russian possession of a "global rocket" with a multi- \ megaton warhead9 which would be "practically impervious to defense *

But, to what can we attribute this verbal flak from

Moscow which Mcliamara * s' speech generated? . Its very in ten- ■ sity seemed significant, even in an age when we have become used to "rocket rattling*H The answer would appear to be that we were challenging the Soviet Union to a game which it simply could not play. It could not because it was vastly, inferior in strategic forces to the United States,2 "For a war of attrition, even if it were technically feasible, can­ not be in the Interest of the weaker side. Against a numerically superior opponent, the sensible strategy would be to be gin attacking cities, perhaps ‘controlling8 the re­ sponse by destroying some smaller towns firstoThe

1* Ibid* *

2. The Military.Balance, 1982-1963 (London; The , Institute for Strategic Studies, 19^*3ITpp^" 2-5* ■ 3* . Kissinger, "American Strategic Doctrine and Diplomacy," op*'clt., p, 282* 84 strategy of counterforce requires that both the United

States and the Soviet Union "play the game0n The Russians could not compete and, thus, they made it crystal clear that, they had no intention of going along with the United States . on a policy which vastly deprecated their strengths and emphasized those of the United Statese (The Soviets were put in a position which might be roughly analogous to George

Wallace debating H e Rap Brown in Harlem with the latter writing, the aggenda for the debate,) ' -

Allen Wo Dulles, director of the Central Intelligence

Agency, probably summed up the feeling of the Soviets fairly well when, in an address to a seminar on. strategy held at the Rational War College, he said, with characteristic under­ statement: "The theory that either of the great nuclear powers could destroy the other without the attacker, himself being devastated is not, I believe, subscribed to on the other side of the iron curtain 0 o M^ •

After feeling the effects of considerable disen­ chantment with his Ann Arbor policy pronouncement, McNamara was forced to take several large steps backward from his counterforce position, which had,, largely unwilled by him, evolved into "pure" counterforcee The comparison with John

Poster Dulles’s "clarification” of massive retaliation eight years before is striking! '

!«, Lapp, op,, olt«, po. 894 . ■ .

On July 6, 1962, scarcely three weeks post Ann

Arbor, McNamara.told a news conference that the Ann Arbor speech was an outline of a “flexible response strategy” since the United States could not be ^certain how a nuclear war would' developThe conclusion was that the United

States might or might not spare Soviet cities*^

Dro Henry Kissinger commented very appropriately in the July issue of Foreign .Affairs that a counterforce strategy is infeasible, if not impossible, as soon as an enemy, or potential enemy, renders his deterrent invulner­ able , thereby depriving your own counterforce of any targets to countero^ Dr® Kissinger’s comments would seem to have put the controversy back into its proper perspective, yet counterforce was not yet finished off, even though Go L»

Sulzberger pronounced it "dead” in a dispatch on July 8, 1962, to The New York Times0 Sulzberger charged that the Kennedy

Administration was playing a game of "thinking one strategy and preparing-another o'(He did not delineate which was which, however0) He contended that if counterforce was used by both sides in a nuclear confrontation, the Western Alli­ ance .would suffer 25,000,000 dead at the offset®^

1» The New York Times, July 7, 1962, p« 1«, 2e Henry A a Kissinger, "The Unsolved Problems of European Defense,n Foreign Affairs, XL'. (July, 1962), p» 524, 3o. The New York Times, July 9, 1962, p. 30o 4 o lb id a o 86

Counterforce was deemed to be an' invalid stategy by Mr» Sulzberger for three reasonss

lo ¥e must persuade everyone to stick to the

"rules;^

2«, We must make an infinitely costly transferral of

all military Installations .'from the cities to the countryside; and %

3» We must begin a crash program of fall-out

shelter construction/-

If counterforce was not yet, in Sulzberger's words,

"dead," it was dealt a very severe blow b%7' Hanson Baldwin on

July 26„ This was Mrc Baldwin's famous "leak" in which he revealed that the Soviets were building shields at missile' sites and, thus, seemingly fulfilling Kissinger's prophecy6

The hardening, so far, is not comparable to the underground silo type of launching tubes now being constucted in the United States for the Air Force's Minute man intercontinental ballistic missile .= = 0 . (it is) comparable to the ’coffin type’ shields ■ used for the Atlas missiles

The respected military analyst continueds

o „ o the Russians are deliberately building only a few of their huge, ponderous and expensive first- generation missiles, but are deliberately, fitting, the largest possible warheads to them in order to achieve maximum political and psychological effect and, in case of war, widespread damage and destruc­ tion by means of pattern boinbardmento

lo Ibid..

2. The Hew York Times, July 26, 1962, p. 1. 87

It became clear, then, that the Russians* policies were remaining consistent with their.pronouncements indicating ; that countervalue war was the only one likely*

■ Concerning the other class of .missiles, those being made invulnerable to other than a direct hit, Baldwin felt. . that

(t)he advent of Russian.missile“firing submarines and hardened 'land-based missile sites indicates, to many in Washington that Soviet strategic thinking, is roughly along the same lines as our own. Moscow, like Washington, is trying, to. make its nuclear deter- rent and retaliatory power less and less vulnerable, to surprise attack...

As the invulnerability of missile launching: sites increases and each side finds it impossible... to knock out the other rs nuclear capability by a surprise first strike, the stability of the deter­ rent, is expected to increase~"T~T~TT' (Emphasis : adde d

McEamara soon confirmed the validity of the

Baldwin "leak" and, moreover, felt that it. was actually a . good sign that Russia was hardening her missile sites. As

Baldwin pointed out, this would stabilize the deterrent, since the Soviet Union would no longer feel the pressures, to strike first during an intense crisis. . "

'Finally, before the.Army Association on October 10,

19.62, McEamara formally disengaged himself from the counter- force strategy as he had enunciated.it at Ann.Arbor. The

The occasion was, appropriately enough, a dinner memorial­ izing General George Catlett Marshall. McEamara (and we can

Ibid.§ p. 2, 88

suppose the Kennedy Administration) now.had adopted in toto the much more realistic and stable philosophy of deterrence based on retaliatory .second-strike power:

We deter the Soviets from using their growing nuclear force by maintaining a nuclear force strong enough and survivable enough to ride out any con­ ceivable nuclear attack, and to survive with sufficient power to cause unacceptable damage.to the attacker The Administration, for which McNamara was the

■spokesman, had now gone full circlee McNamara's October 10 speech was virtually identical in.content to that of

President Kennedy in March of 196lB The Administration, after its unfortunate adventure into the world of counter- force , first-strike nuclear war, had finally settled upon retaliatory, second-strike countervalue war as the basis for its nuclear deterrence* There were still to be some rumblings of counterforce around for a long time, but for the public record, at least, they were no longer the official doctrine of the Administration* Any remaining doubt concerning this, matter was completely dispelled during the House Armed Services' Commit­ tee Hearings on Military Posture on January 30 and 31,-1963e

McNamara spent the better parts of four days reading his l6l-page ".Defense. Budget for 1964 and Review of the Defense

Policies, 1964-1968" and single-handedly defending his ..

le The New York Times, October 11, 1962, p* 35® . 89 budget and strategy before the often-times hostile commit­ tee • He unequivocally rejected a first-strike, .war-winning counterforce policy— the policy that he had appeared'to flirt with in the Ann Arbor speech: .= o it is „ more important today e e « that we concentrate our efforts on the kind of strategic offensive forces which will be able to ride out an all-out attack by nuclear-armed.IOBMs or submarine-launched missiles in sufficient strength to strike back decisively » And that is our primary objective."^

It will become increasingly difficult, regard­ less of the form of the attack, to destroy a sufficiently large proportion of the Soviet’s strategic nuclear forces to preclude major damage ' to the United States, regardless of how large or what kind of strategic forces we builde

Even if we were to double and triple our forces we would not be able to destroy quickly all or almost all of the hardened IOEM sites*

And even if we could do that, we know no way to destroy the enemy’s missile launching submarines at the same time e „ <> What we are proposing is a capability to strike ; back,after absorbing ,_the ..first .blow..;.h3his means we have to build and maintain a second strike force<,2 (Emphasis added)

1 a United States House of Representatives, Committee on Armed Services, Hearings, on Defense Posture and He R» 2440, 88th Congress, 1st Sess 1 o n 1 9 P* 30SV

2*. Ibid*, p e 309 = 90

This .second strike would be finite"-I85O missiles and,1000 bombers by the late 1960s^"»"-and it could blast the entire target system in Russia simultaneously; strike back first at missile' and bomber bases and other military targets, or .

"if necessary, strike back at the Soviet urban and Indus™ trial complex in a controlled and deliberate way.

In one of the more significant statements ever made by McK'amara as Secretary of Defense he concluded that; "We have not found it feasible, at this time, to.provide a capability for insuring the destruction of any very large portion of the fully hard IOBM sites or missile-launching submarinese"3 Counterforce, in theory and in practice, was surely dead and buried now! MclTamara further. elaborated under questioning from

Congressman Arends;

Today we know that the great majority of the . Soviet strategic force, both their bombers and. their missiles, are in soft configurations* Under these circumstances it seems almost inconceivable to me that were the Soviet Union to attack the United States they would attack other than our cities, because they have no possibility of holding in reserve forces for later use against

1, In the early part of 1968 American strategic power was based upon 1710 missiles (.1054 land-based ICBMs and 656 fleet ballistic missiles) and 595 bombers (520 long- range heavy bombers and 75 medium bombers)* The Military Balance, .1967-1968.(London; The Institute for Strategic ■ sO!eii^l9^BTr™PP» 5-9 o "■■.2.e Hearings on Defense Posture-, op, cit,, p 0 309*

3, Ibid., p. 310.. 91

our cities with any expectation that those forces would survive a th S 6 attack.

And this leads me to the conclusion I have already stated, that under today's circumstances I personally believe any nuclear attack b y .the Soviet Union on the United States will include an attack on the major urban areas of the United States,1

McMamara did hold out the possibility, though small,

that in the future ,!a Soviet attack might be directed pri­

marily against our military installations„"2 He proposed

that our weapons system have two characteristics in order 'J. :

that it might be able to meet this "very improbable"

'situation; The first is that it must be invulnerable because my set of premises require that we hold back a certain portion of our force, even under ; attack by the Soviet Union, which means that it must be able to survive that attack. So it must be Invulnerable,

Secondly, the force must be larger than ■ would otherwise be the casee Because since no- force can be completely invulnerable, we will lose a portion of it under those, circumstances and we must buy more than we otherwise would buy,- , I think there is a very real.possibility ■ that if you were to change this paragraph on page 31 of my classified statement to read that . under no circumstances would we consider with­ holding a portion of our force for later use against the Soviet cities or some other Soviet targets, I believe that if you were to change the assumption to this new assumption as I have

le Ibid,, p, 332,

2, Ibid,, p, 310, 92

stated it, there would he strong: reasons to reduce the forces which we are requesting funds to pro- cure7^~™TEmpha,sis added) McNamara summarized the intent of his strategy doc­

trine for the committees

The combination of the numbers of the POLARIS, invulnerable as they are, the hardening of the MUtfUTEMAN, all taken in relation to the estimated numbers of Soviet offensive 'systems, leads us to the conclusion that we can survive a Soviet attack with sufficient:"force. left to be absolutely cer­ tain of destroying the Soviet Union,^ (Emphasis .added)

We have now followed the rise and fall of strategic counter-force as.the controlling concept of nuclear deterrence for the United States, But the question remains t Why did it fall? We will now seek to answer this question®

Objections to Strategic Oounterforce

J® David Singer concludes that the anguished cries of protest from universities, governmental defense agencies, and military research organizations-contributed heavily to the downfall of the counterforce doctrine®3 $his is most certainly true in substance, but what were these protesta­

tions built upon?

1® Ibide e

2® Ibid®, pp6 378 and 379»

3» Singer, op® cit®, p0 44e 93

There are a number of logical objections to a counterforce theory such as that posited by Secretary McKamara, even though it was by no means- a "pure" or total counterforce doctrine c We have alluded to some of these objections before, but we will now endeavor to go into more detail upon some of the major ones®

The first problem area involves the technological problems inherent in a counterforce strategy. Chief among the technological difficulties is that of the invulnera­ bility of weapons systems. As we noted above, a counterforce strategy becomes something of a technological improbability once the deterrent becomes invulnerable since there simply are no targets to counter. "The strategy is of no value if both sides have well-protected strategic forcesThis problem is also present, but in a different form, if the strike is a retaliatory one. "Counterforce and retaliation do not add up."2 Striking at enemy military strength after the initial exercise of that strength is "tantamount to hitting at empty silos.Even an administrative apologist for counterforce (who, incidentally, seemed to still accept

1. Halperin, op. cit., p. 84.

.2. Ralph Sc Lapp, The Weapons Culture (Hew York: ¥ o Wo Norton, 1968), p. 65.

3. Ibid.. 94 the Ann. Arbor doctrine sometime after McHamara had with­ drawn it) reckoned'that we are up against the limitations with, counterforce that "our counter-attacking forces are likely to be spent destroying many empty bases.and launch­ ing sites*Quite.some limitation^ Mr* Enthoveni Counterforce implies a separation between population centers and atomic forces, which is not the case in fact in the United States* "Major counterforce targets are. practi­ cally inseparable from the cities*l$^ Examination of the

"present deployment of Air Force missiles shows that in , practice our forces have not been separated from our popu­ lations., regardless of Air Force theory,Tucson, Arizona, with its encircling ring of Air Force Titan II missile launching pads is a prime and close-to-home example of.what a top priority "counterforce" target would consist of.

Three hundred and sixty magatons is the figure.most often given for countering the missile bases' in the Tucson area* Force of this magnitude would render the valley uninhabit­ able for a number of years And, in Hew England, near

1* Alain 0, Enthoven, "U* S* Defense Policy for the 1960s,"'in Wesley W* Posvar, et, al, (eds),' American Defense Policy (Baltimore; ' Johns Hopkins "Press, 196577"!?315®' 2, Kahn, On Escalation, op* cit,, p, 168* 3, Arthur I, Waskow, The Limits of Defense (Garden City, Hew York: Double day, 19^2"), p, 22* Condensation in . James Roosevelt (ed*), The. Libera l 'Papers (Chicago: Quad­ rangle Books, 1962), .pp* "121-1543 4* .Donald C, Latham and Thomas L* Martin, Jr*,' Strategy for Survival (Tucson: University of Arizona Press,

195377 ‘ . - 95

America’s' densest population concentration, the Air Force has established facilities for firing one hundred and fifty missiles, 11 Thus making the whole Hew England region a prime

target for ’counterforce 1 attack* One. writer concludes

that a counterforce strategy is "naive, "2 for ^ j_s “^uite likely that a few hundred of the thousands of bombs or rockets would also land on areas other than military targets and that the side affected by this would hardly interpret it as counterforce strategy and would respond to it ruthlessly with countercity-strategy,

Closely connected with the problem of separating population and forces is the problem of what to do with the population while the H-bombs are raining down, .supposedly upon targets of strategic importance. Evacuation to fall­ out shelters is the obvious answer to the proponents of counterforce. Yet, the usability of those shelters is open to great question. Hot only would the evacuation Itself

(presumably this would occur every time a major crisis arose) cause wholesale disruptions and damage to the economy, but life under the authoritarianism which shelter living would : require would be far from the. democratic and humanitarian one we profess to have now,

1, Waskow, op, cit,, p, 23,' 2, Miksche, op, cit,, p, 42. -

■ 3. . Ibid.. 96

Another technological problem inherent in.counter- force strategy is- that of.determining just where- the enemy

strategic forces are located, (This is particularly likely

to be true for the American capability to-find and destroy

Soviet bases, since secrecy and space are both greater in the Soviet Union and pose a greater problem to our intelli­ gence-gathering forces and the accuracy of our weapons,)

"As the retaliatory forces multiply and become dispersed, it will grow increasingly difficult to pin-point the tar­ gets precisely or to give the President enough confidence that their exact location is known,"3- The temptation will thus arise for one. side or the other to make its attack total in order to be sure that all the enemy’s forces are hit,

Hext, the problem of control arises, .Counterforce is to a great extent based upon the notion (in line with Wohlstetter’s rule number three) that intensely rational control, can be maintained over the fighting of a thermo­ nuclear war. With communications knocked out and jammed and with panic seizing vast portions of the populace, who could believe that decision-makers— if any are left around— would respond in a completely cairn, cool, and thoroughly reasoned way? . Would not the missile base commander, cut off

1, Kissinger, "American -Strategic Doctrine and Diplomacy," op, eft*, p, 281, 97 from communication with his superiors or, indeed9 from communication with anybody* he more likely to push the but­ ton for an all-out countervalue attack? ' Maybe against the wrong country? Others, without orders and surrounded by chaos, might succumb to irrational fear and hatred and end up by firing'H-bombs at everything in sight. In short, an attempt at actually fighting a counterforce war would quite likely result in the collapse of the nation-state on both sides. The careful,' second-by-second control that would be absolutely necessary to, keep a counter force war actually directed against forces would be impossible, and the counter- force war would degenerate into a completely disordered thermonuclear disaster,3-

Another objective to counterforce concerns

Wohlstetter*s rules five and six, the destruction of the target system. Accomplishing this objective is much in doubt given the problems of invulnerability, lack of knowledge of target locations, and control, as mentioned above» Unless the target system in destroyed "the residual damage-producing capabilities of the enemy after an

American counterforce strike are likely to remain huge,"2

1, Waskow, op. clto, pp. 26 and 27..

2. Brodie, Escalation and the Unclear Option, op. cit., p. 64. - • ** "" - 98

Finally, in the realm of technological difficulties,

there exists the problem of inexperience and lack.of confi­ dence* While this may seem a minimal consideration, it

definitely is worthy of note* For "there are bound to be increasing political and psychological obstacles to a strategy that is based on fragmentary intelligence and that depends on large numbers of weapons for which there is no operational experience in wartime. The second major problem area with couhterforce is that it will become a stimulus leading "to an accelerated arms race."2 rp0 effective, a counterforce strategy must

depend upon numerical superiority in nuclear weapons* "If

the Russians „ 0 » are known to possess 2000 units of . various sizes, the Americans must have 2000-pluse Since

this superiority must be maintained indefinitely hereafter, counterforce strategy, inevitably ends in an arms race for nuclear stockpiles*"^ This, in effect, breaks Wohlstetterfs

rule number one concerning "feasible budgets" and cost limi­

tations 6

lo Kissinger, "American Strategic Doctrine and Diplomacy," op* cits, p* 281, • .

2e Halperin, op* cit*, p, 84*

' Palit, op* cit., p. 169, 99

The third problem area concerns the very serious possibility that, with counterforce, "we might strike firstsCounterforce does definitely possess first strike

.tendencies0 Some critics go so far as to say that "counter- force strategy can be defended logically only if the goal is to strike a. pre-emptive b l o w , "2 since the idea of counter- force is focused on aiming at the bases of the enemy’s deterrent forces, it "makes sense only if one envisages firing the first shot before the opponent’s missiles have left their emplacements,

Under the fourth problem area, counterforce suffers from a lack of credibility. Few of Kaufmann’s criteria in this regard are met. Most important, by far, is the

"credibility gap" counterforce suffers with our major antag­ onist, the Soviet Union, .for, as we pointed out previously, it takes two to play the game of strategic counterforce and it is obvious that the Soviet Union does not find counter­ force acceptable. A fifth difficulty with counterforce is that it may tend to make war more likely by making it more "acceptable" (only twenty or thirty million dead, supposedly),.^ This, in

I, Halperin, op. cit., p. 84. . 2. Le Ghait, op, cit., p. 49. • 3, Ibid., pp. 49 and 50.

4, ¥askow, op. cit.., p. 29. 100

turn? would seem to lead .to a definite reduction in the deterrent effect of our nuclear war .strategys which is . supposedly the most important consideration in setting up a

nuclear war doctrine„ nThe Kremlin$ .in weighing the pros

and cons of an attack# might mark down one more pro if it

•were confident that our re taliation would spare Eed cities„

finally, a counterforce strategy contains certain moral implications which should at least be mentioned. The.

assumption is that .Americans would "not' find unacceptable

the death of about 30 million- of their fellow countrymen.

This assumption in itself# ignoring all the weaknesses of

counter-force theory# has a quality that, seems extremely

dangerous to American liberties,"2 There are# obviously# a great number of additional moral questions which can. be raised.(especially if one desires to put counterforce and

"first, strike" in the same category). We desire only that the reader be aware that they do exist and should be consi- ■;

dered when an analysis of this crucial problem is undertaken.

In concluding this chapter we need to note the .

remarks of two very different analysts which might put. all

that has been said heretofore into •perspective, Dr, Henry Kissinger stated that "(a) counterforce strategy designed.to

I, I’ryklund, on, cit, # p6 57«

. . 2, Waskow# on, cit,# p, 29o 101 win a victory after we -concede the first blow is an illusion*Ferdinand Miksche went further and dismissed our entire area of inquiry: "all reference to c.ounterforc'e strategy is nonsense.112 Fortunately3 it seems that. President Kennedy and■Secretary McHamara accepted many, if not all, of the above objections to counterforce whether they were necessarily justified by Mchamara’s ."limited" counterforce exposition or not* The President realized that, if nuclear-war should break out, it would not be a counterforce war: •

It is ancifonlc but,accurate fact that the two strongest powers are the two most in dan- \ ger of devastation* All we have built, all • we have worked for, would be destroyed in the first 24 hourse3.

I* Kissinger, The necessity for Ohoice: . Prospects ■ of American Foreign Policy, op* 6it0, pc 380

2* Miksche, op* cit,, p e 43* 3® John Fo. Kennedy, The Strategy of Peace," Vital Speeches of the Pay, XXIX (July 1, 1963), p» 559? delivered at commencement exercises, American University, Washington, . D, Co* See also, Robert S* McNamara, ;"Decision Making in. the Defense Department," Vital Speeches of the Day, XXIX (June 1, 1963), pp, 508-512; delivered before the American Society of Newspaper Editors,. Washington, D. 0* = CHAPTER V

COHCLUSIOH

I wantj however* to make one■point patently clear? our current numerical superiority over the Soviet Union, in reliable, accurate * and effective warheads is both greater than we had originally planned* and is In fact more than we require,1

However foolish unlimited war may: have been in the past, it is now no longer merely foolish, but suicidal as. well.

It is said that nothing can prevent a man from suicide, if he is sufficiently determined to commit It,2

With counterforce discredited, what should American nuclear deterrence come to consist of? For this writer, our deterrence posture should be.based on not only effective

deterrence per se, but also on the equal goal of stability for international order® Deterrence has been considered at

length in this work, but the problem 'of,stability has been,

to a great extent, slighted® ' .We do not at all agree with.

William Kintner when he. states Hthat as the Soviet Union

.nears the U. S, strategic position and gains leverage, the

1® Mc.Hamara, "United-States Unclear Strategy: Missile Defense," op. cit., p. 739«.

. 2. Ibid., p. 743®. '

-• : 102 103 balance of power will become more unstable and the proba­ bility of general international instability will be greater® M3- Quite the. contrary seems true„ As nuclear parity becomes a reality, stability will actually increase„

"Stability is achieved when each nation believes that the

strategic advantage of striking first is overshadowed by the tremendous cost of doing s o ® The very case under parity I

"When neither nation can destroy the other's retaliatory force in a first strike, e „. e■there will be no first strike Such a. system is a 'stable ' one®"3

According to the late Professor Szilard, there is a level of nuclear armaments which is sufficient, to inflict • unacceptable damage in a counterblow®^ .Our "forces must be used only for the purpose of threatening a counterblow in

case of an atomic attack directed against our territory®"5

This is the basis for a finite, or minimum, deterrence' policy, and is the only truly stable deterrence posture®

1.® Kintner, op® cit®, p® 179o 2® ■ Brodie, Strategy in the Missile Age, op. cit., p® 303® " " * 3® Harrison Brown and James Real, Community of.Rear (Santa Barbara: The Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, I960), p® 22®.

4® Leo. Szilard,' "'Minimal Deterrent' vs® Saturation Parity," Bulletin of the Atomic. Scientists, XV (March, 1964) p® 8® - — r—

. .5® Ibid.® ‘ ' 104

This was definitely not the policy of the United States in

the early 1960s, though there may be some indications that

we may move in this direction in the not-too-distant future Becoming more specific and, in so doing,.reneging on my earlier promise of remaining non-normative-, throughout

this work, I will now remark on what can be done to achieve

the twin goals: of stability and effective, deterrence =

Our nuclear deterrent should be revised to make it a

truly retaliatory force rather than one which might appear . to b e ■prepared for a first strike 0 This is roughly the

■ direction in which the United .States has gone since 1963„

. The massive retaliation-counterforce strategy was doomed by

the "true deterrent," the Fleet Ballistic Missile Submarine»

With the establishment of the mutual invulnerability of. ■ deterrence systems, by both the United States and the Soviet

Union two things occurred: (a) it was next, to impossible to

. justify any strategic weapons that,were not second-strike,

and (b) stability between•the two great powers was greatly

increasedB With a great deal of the advantage to launching a first strike rendered inoperable by missile invulnera­

bility, the incentive to do so in case of crisis was.

greatly decreased* . ' ■

We have come, then, a long way since the uncertain :

days of 1962, yet there, is still much that could be done to

.increase the stability of our deterrent and, thus, to lessen 105 the risk of nuclear, war that much.mores Specifically^ this writer "believes that the most effective' way, of doing this • would be to place, -our main reliance upon the Polaristype missiles, - The program for ICBMs based within the confines of the United States should be cut back sharply and, hope­ fully, be eliminated altogether as the ocean-deployed •

Polaris force becomes an adequate deterrent,

: Several Important gains would be achieved by this kind of policy. Our deterrent forces would be a great deal less vulnerable to knockout by an enemy. They would not be in positions where they would draw attack upon the homeland as now, (The Titan missile bases around Tucson being, as. previously indicated, a prime example of this,) Our popu­ lation and our military installations of a strategic character would be separated. More time would be allowed for the Investigation of alarms, thus reducing the"chance of war by accident or miscalculation. Some of the moral difficulties with our present deterrence system would be .. alleviated, . Putting our missiles under water would lessen the need to put our population underground and, with them,. a number of their individual liberties which this form of action would involve. ■ The advantages to a first strike would be virtually zero, (The Polaris, by its very nature-- warhead, accuracy, etc.--can only be a countervalue, second strike weapon. Its use as a first strike or counterforce 106 weapon would be inconceivable,,). War, under .the circum­ stances of Polaris-only deterrence would not be acceptable under any condition, since it would have to involve, by definition, the annihilation of cities*

The cost of Polaris-type deterrence would be 'quite reasonable in comparison with other systems„ The.Soviet

Union could probably be encouraged -in this direction also— for mutual benefit, (Indications are that she is, at this moment, moving in just this direction,) This form of deter­ rence would, most likely, be credible to enemies and allies alike, ' Its non-provocative nature would also seem to make it quite acceptable to public opinion. Counterforce would become less than irrelevant with forces made up of submarine fleets operating in the secrecy of the seas„ Relatively few submarines would be needed to do the job, since each has

"an operating area that is never smaller than the state of Texas,"-*- Thus, control problems could be held to a minimum.

And, finally, as a force established for deterrence, not the waging, of pre-emptive or preventive counterforce war, the

Polaris program would remove much of the steam from the arms race,

1, Jeremy J, Stone, Containing the Arms Race (Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 1966), p, 142, . : 10?

. . In short# the reliance upon the Polaris.would produce a more stable deterrent, sufficient for the purposes of deterrence hut not calculated to spur both sides to building stronger and stronger forces for a possible pre­ emptive strike„ In other words, we would adopt the finite and minimum deterrence .posture recommended by Professor

Szilard* The emphasis would be on deterrence, on the pre­ vention of the "unthinkable," A first strike or an attempt at "war-winning11 would be futile: it could not possibly save the attacker from heavy and total retaliation.

This proposal is not intended as the perfect cure- all for our strategy problems, While it does answer most of the objections posited in the previous chapter, it still is open to a few— e.g,, the control, problem. However, it does seem to be a more stable deterrent, offering at least some hope of ending the nuclear arms race and of a first step toward the reduction of the danger of a massive surprise attack*

Ultimately, of course, we will have to take the long view and accept that "the capacity to wage war is the most dispensable of all instruments of national survival and welfareDeterrence, in one form or another, may prevent

1 ® Walter-Mill!s, "The Uselessness-of Military .. Power," in Goldwin, America.Armed, op, cit», p* 37, . 108

war„ "but a stable and lasting peace can - only come through harmonization of the international politics of the great nations$ accompanied by disarmament«

.The foregoing is a very complex problem and 1 certainly do not profess to have found nEhe Answer," The

real answer may never ultimately be founds yet it is in the

delving for it that one can come, to, appreciate the complex-*

ities and subtleties of national security policy-making,

Even if the "action-oriented" person does, nob, in any way,

effect a change in the direction he. would like, he can, at • least, take some solace in having "been there" to.the extent

that, now he has a better understanding of why things are as

they are,. (This. is. not to say that he should necessarily

be content to- allow them. to remain "as they are L")

Professor Kissinger sums up better than this writer

could ever hope to doi ", , , national security policy is

not primarily a technical problem., but a challenge to

■political understanding and,, ultimately, to philosophical ;

insight,"2 :

1® Burns, op, cit,p, 158,

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