As the United States moves further into the tense decade of the 1960s, the revolution in its strategic position that began at the end of World War II shows no signs of settling. Amid a world in ferment, traditional approaches to national defense, war, and peace are being challenged as never before. Burgeoning changes in military technology, exploding populations, dissolving empires, rising new states, Communism on the loose, are compelling the United States to seek its national security in new directions. For policy makers and strategic planners the choices are difficult, the solutions not clear. As crisis succeeds crisis in different parts of the world, statesmen and strategists seek desperately to close the gaps between weapons and concepts, between force and policy and strategy. In a world suddenly grown small and dangerous, it is no longer easy to separate national from international security. Nowhere is the shift in the traditional strategic position and thinking better reflected than in the U. S. relations with Europe and NATO—with sovereign partners in a state of strategic flux.
When the United States decided in 1949 to join with European allies in the peacetime coalition, NATO, it broke with a tradition of over 150 years. For most of its young existence it lay sheltered behind the geographic barriers of the broad oceans that bathe its shores, and enjoyed the protection of the British Navy in the Atlantic. The balance of power that normally existed among the major powers of the world before World War II ensured its insularity and security and reinforced the premise, basic in its foreign policy, that alliances were contrary to its national interests. Historically, as European members of NATO are well aware, American nationalism was linked to anti-colonial traditions, and isolationist and anti-coalition sentiments. Traditionally opposed to becoming involved in European quarrels, it nevertheless had strong bonds of culture, language, and tradition with Western Europe, especially England. A combination of fortunate circumstances had kept the energies of this democratic nation of “doers” who had fled the turmoils of Europe concentrated for the most part on domestic pursuits in their own continent. Rich in resources, highly industrialized, the young but powerful giant that grew up in the New World had only at the close of the 19th century begun to look “outward.” Not until the middle of the 20th century, after two devastating world wars had upset the European balance, did the United States fall heir to leadership on the world stage—and then reluctantly.
These factors colored American attitudes toward national security, war and peace, and military planning. It is small wonder that in this peaceful land absolutist ideas of national security took hold. Distinctions between war and peace normally seemed hard and fast in most of its national existence. Its whole tradition in war became first to declare, then to prepare. Based on its experience in World War I, the American approach to European war was to hold off as long as possible, enter it only long enough to give the bullies who started it a thrashing, get the boys home and then try to remain uninvolved as before.
To most Americans, therefore, war was an aberration—an unwelcome disturber of normalcy. In the period between World Wars I and II, national policy was deeply influenced by popular beliefs that the United States should neither enter into military alliances nor maintain forces capable of offensive action. At the same time that legalistic-moral strain that has so influenced the American approach to foreign affairs, to which students of our foreign policy have pointed, remained strong. American statesmen put their faith in subscription by nations to principles and declarations of justice and morality, in agreements to disarm and outlaw war, to keep the world at peace. This idealistic strain, reflected in President Wilson’s policies toward Europe during and after World War I, was to find its echo in President Roosevelt’s World War II policies.
World War II gave the United States a major experience in coalition warfare. In World War I, the U. S. government had cautiously defined its relationship with the powers allied against Germany as that of an associated power. In World War II, though the United States was the last to join the Grand Alliance, it virtually integrated its resources with those of Great Britain. Never had two “comrades-in-arms” had so intimate a relationship—an alliance within an alliance. That war also marked the most extensive experience with coalition strategy the United States had had up to that date.
Certain characteristics of the American conduct of that war are important to understand the heritage of American planners now engaged in NATO. While Pearl Harbor took the nation and its strategic planners by surprise, the planners were already considerably advanced in their war planning both at home and in their contacts with their British opposites. Indeed, never had the nation entered a war with its planning so advanced. Under the President’s leadership between 1939 and 1941, the country had gradually mobilized and the planners had laid aside their earlier academic planning exercises to gear their plans for coalition warfare. They thus had a valuable lesson in planning for war in advance of war. Secondly, throughout the conflict, a loose relationship existed between the President and the military—in what might be termed the American doctrine of the separation of military and political powers. He determined the what; they the how in executing policy. His relatively loose hold on the reins gave the military a large area of freedom of action in the military conduct of the war. This approach offered a sharp contrast with the more closely knit politico-military systems of Great Britain and the U.S.S.R. Thirdly, the President and his military staff could never forget the war against Japan and had to take that part of the world into account— a compulsion that was to play an important part in the relations among the Big Three and in the development of war strategy.
Difficult as that struggle appeared at the time, and hard as the strategic decisions then seemed to be, actually as we get more perspective on that war in the tense years that have intervened, the strategic choices appear to have been relatively clear-cut. Problems like Germany versus Asia first, the cross- Channel versus the Mediterranean, Southern France versus the Balkans, invasion versus bombardment and blockade vis-a-vis Germany and Japan seem simple compared to the problems that have arisen since the end of the war. Actually, the conduct of the war resulted from a composite Allied strategy hammered out on the “anvil of necessity”— combining American and Soviet notions of concentration with British peripheral strategy.
As American power came increasingly into play from early 1943 onward and British power began to wane, American ideas— backed by the Russians—began to win out. American support of a cross-Channel invasion strategy was ideally tailored to a large-scale economy capable of producing military hardware, to a democracy impatient with war, anxious to limit casualties, and intent on putting a quick end to the whole disagreeable business. American concentration on military objectives and bringing the war to as swift and decisive a military conclusion as possible has, in the disillusionment that followed the close of the war, led to harsh criticism of its alleged political and military naivete—to the charge of overconcentration on military objectives.
While these charges grossly oversimplify the American strategic case, it is certainly true that in the absence of political instructions to the contrary, the Western powers concluded the struggle against Germany as the American military chiefs had wished to wage it from the beginning—-a conventional war of concentration, a technical soldier’s game. Yet, in dealing with coalition strategy, American military planners made tremendous strides and became more and more experienced and sophisticated. Before the war was over, they were matching the British in the arts of military diplomacy—in the forging of strategic plans and decisions in the combined committees and negotiations during the conferences of the Big Three. Nevertheless, on the basis of experience in World War II, many sophisticated commentators in Europe—even those appreciative of American aid since the war—cite the American approach to war as too blunt, too naive, too dedicated to a direct approach, too unaware of the political objects of war, too forgetful, in short, of Clausewitz’s teachings of the larger aims of warfare.
The United States had entered the war with the balance of power in Europe upset; the war ended with the balance of power further disarranged. Soviet power that had flowed into central and eastern Europe, in the last year of the conflict, consolidated its hold. Germany had been decisively defeated; England and France had been too severely weakened in the struggle to restore the balance. The U.S.S.R. had emerged stronger than ever—a threat to the permanent destruction of the European balance. The United States emerged as the strongest power in the world—the only power, given the weakened political, military, and economic position of Western Europe, capable of redressing the balance. To restore that balance, the United States has resorted to a combination of regional alliances, bi-lateral military agreements, and military and economic assistance.
In the uneasy postwar world, the environment of American strategic planning has changed considerably. Traditions are in conflict with realities and old bases of American foreign and military policy have been upset. In a shrinking world, with two superpowers capable of ministering atomic destruction on each other, the United States can no longer count on the traditional protective barriers of geography and the presence of a strong friend on the intervening waters able in itself to seal off the troubles of the old world from the new. As never before in its history, the frontiers of the United States in the oceans and in the very air above have become “live” frontiers.
At the same time, the United States has had to look for means of offsetting the Soviet advantage vis-a-vis Europe in interior lines. Unlike the United States, the Soviet Union stands in the middle of her web; the United States must reinforce across oceans and keep watch on distant frontiers from Norway through the Middle East to the China Seas. Revolutionary changes in military techniques —in the range, speed, and accuracy of new weapons—have impelled the United States to erect its alliances and complete its plans in peacetime. The apparent need for a longterm mobilization to meet the continuing Soviet threat represents another break with the familiar American approach to military affairs. Involvement in a peacetime coalition, with all its attendant political and military problems, complicates the world of the strategic planners. Hardly a military problem today does not have its political and economic aspects or implications. Strategy is no longer the simple case of military planning that it was in World War II. Public opinion has become a more potent factor and the planner operates more in the fishbowl of the public glare than his earlier counterparts ever did.
In a world where distinctions between peace and war seem to be becoming academic, the desire for absolute security on the part of the American people nevertheless persists. Neither the experience of his country’s history nor his own military tradition offers the planner sure guides to the future. Indeed, the uneasy world of conflicting camps living in a drawn-out period of tension would seem to put the United States closer to the military experience of continental countries of 1870 to 1914 than any era in our own nation’s background. American military tradition centered in “victory” in war—itself an absolutist concept— also complicates the outlook of a planner who knows all-out nuclear war between two superpowers means destruction to both sides and probably to their allies as well. Whether the inconclusive ending of the more conventional and “limited” conflict known as the Korean War—so frustrating to Americans—is to be typical or atypical of warfare in these atomic times is still not clear.
It is against this shifting background in the strategic position of the United States—now for the first time itself vulnerable—that the American postwar approach to military planning and coalition strategy must be viewed. The search for new strategic directions has been taking place on the internal (national) as well as the external (international) planes. On the national plane much of the postwar debate has centered on organization and strategic concepts. The several National Defense Acts since World War II are essentially attempts to improve the machinery for decision making—to gear the Defense Department and the services for the nation’s new strategic responsibilities. They began with the act of 1947—itself in large measure the outgrowth of World War II experience and a reflection of the movement for unification of the services and for improvement of the politico-military machinery in government.
While the debate over missions and roles of the services and the relationships of the component parts of the Defense Establishment has by no means been resolved, certain trends have become readily apparent. The movement toward centralization of control has been gaining strength. In the setup the Department of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff have been gaining steadily with the position of the Secretary of Defense becoming more and more important; the focus of power has been steadily moving up from the level of secretaries of the services and the service departments. Though there is still much talk about unification—unified commands are becoming more and more common and more will undoubtedly take place along this line—the movement toward centralization on the defense level is unmistakable.
In the long run, until the revolution in military technology slows down or stabilizes itself, changes in organizational machinery may prove to be in the nature of tinkering rather than of fundamental adjustment. Within this framework much planning effort has been and is expended on short-range, midrange, and long-range planning. A serious effort has been made to tie that cycle to production lead-time. Never before in the nation’s history have such effort and thought been expended on long-range planning and on formulating comprehensive blueprints that might serve as purposeful guides for the country in the politico-military area. To produce a national strategy and a military program to match for the long haul is, of course, a new art in the United States and the search for the most efficient machinery from the level of the services right up through the National Security Council at the apex of the structure to develop them will continue.
The problem of organizational machinery represents one aspect of dealing with new strategic directions. Strategic concepts are the other side of the coin. It may even be argued that until there is agreement on concept, no amount of changes in the machinery will long endure—that machinery should itself reflect approved strategic concepts, that organization should signify the institutionalizing of ideas.
Those concepts are in the process of flux. Partly this fluidity results from the impact of the continuing revolution in weapons; partly from the changed American strategic outlook —the reliance by the United States on collective security in the postwar period; and partly from the changing threat. All of these factors are themselves in transition. The big question is the nature of modern war—what form it may take, how to avoid it, and how and with what to fight it if it comes.
One can hardly pick up a magazine or newspaper in the United States these days without finding the latest contribution to the strategic debate. Words like “deterrence,” “massive retaliation,” “limited nuclear war” have become everyday vocabulary for educated Americans. Theorists openly argue their views—some, like Henry A. Kissinger, are convinced that limited nuclear war in Europe is feasible, that rules of the game can be laid down and both sides will follow them; others are equally persuasive that it is not possible, that the Kissinger thesis is based on an unrealistic notion of nuclear chivalry. Some feel SAC is becoming outmoded, that the big deterrent is only a big noise, that small and graduated deterrents are the answer. In the Presidential campaign of 1960 political parties openly discussed modern warfare and the best strategy and means with which to deal with it. Even learned universities, like Harvard, debate in their defense studies courses the merits of hardening bases and the feasibility of limited nuclear war in Europe. On all levels the need to increase the range of options in the strategy of the West is coming to the fore.
Needless to say, the services are engaged in elaborating their positions. The mounting costs of weapons and increasing competition for the defense dollar have been pressing the services to stake out their claims forcefully and have sharpened the debate. In a nutshell and at the risk of oversimplification, three general positions have emerged in recent years. As might be expected, the Air Force, energetically following its own bent since it received its independence from the Army in 1947, has put its hopes on SAC and has tended to regard limited war as possible only on the fringes—in the underdeveloped areas of the world. The Army, stressing continued need for the mobile ground soldier, has put more stress on limited war—conventional if possible and supplemented by nuclear weapons where necessary. Indeed, General Maxwell Taylor, the former Army Chief of Staff, argued that, given the approach of atomic parity, the sword and shield had reversed themselves; that atomic power had become the shield and ground power the sword in NATO. The Navy, relying on Polaris and the nuclear submarine as its new strategic weapon, also holds for support of the Army in limited joint operations—its more conventional role—and therefore occupies a middle position between the other two services. The permutations, combinations, and nuances in each of these positions may, of course, change as new technological breakthroughs occur, the competition for the defense dollar becomes even keener than now, and the trend toward unified commands continues.
Perhaps even more vital is the subtle change in the American strategic outlook on national security vis-a-vis NATO. The fundamental military objective of the United States —like that of all countries—is to insure its national security. In the early days of NATO when the great fear was the threat of large- scale overt aggression by the Soviet Army on the European continent, American planning was much influenced by actions necessary in the event of an all-out war.
Instinctively thinking in terms of U. S. experience in 20th century coalition warfare, the Americans stressed the need to provide adequate forces to meet an initial attack and subsequently launch a counteroffensive in order to achieve ultimate victory against any nation that attacked the United States or its NATO allies. To win, it was important to safeguard the “arsenal of democracy,” air and sea lines of communication and overseas bases. This view of national security was very close to World War II thinking. War was still the aberration; overseas bases and decisive, large- scale, offensive military action from them still the way to victory. These were still the days of the American monopoly of the atomic umbrella, of the relative invulnerability of American national territory—before the Soviets had built up a large strategic air force, long-range submarines and achieved their own nuclear arsenal and delivery systems.
In those early days of NATO—even in an all-out war—the United States could still hope to be able to trade space for time and survive. The fundamental objective of U. S. security could be achieved even if the defending forces in Europe had to retreat from the line of the Rhine—even if the outer perimeter of the NATO defense cordon were lost. Europe could be viewed as providing for defense in depth and the overseas bases for counter-offensive action. Needless to say, this does not mean that Americans contemplated a desertion of Europe; indeed the divisions and materiel they dispatched to Europe were their visible commitment to their stake in European defense.
In recent years a great and subtle change has taken place in the American strategic outlook on national security within the NATO framework. A number of factors have eroded the semi-independent view of the nation’s security. The approach of Soviet atomic parity, the spread of independent atomic powers—England, and more recently France, German inclusion in NATO bringing NATO’s central Europe portion right up against the Iron Curtain, the growth of nuclear weapons -—IRBMs and ICBMs under Soviet control, the vulnerability of the United States itself—are all part of this change. There is little space in Europe within which to withdraw and even less time—if the Soviets should launch a full- scale missile war.
It is doubtful if Russia will hit Europe hard without hitting the United States first or at the same time. The establishment of strong beachheads and the leisurely mobilization of troops for a full-scale counter-offensive may be a thing of the past. Indeed the swing in NATO in the last few years—for military, political and psychological reasons—has been toward no line of retreat. Under these circumstances, the United States has been trying to shore up Europe—since 1957—with new missile bases and weapons.
While fears have been expressed in some European countries that their security is being made subject to American will, it is often forgotten that the United States has itself through its own action begun to be more dependent on Europe for protection of its own security. If pressing the button under the double veto system of nuclear weapon control gives the United States a share in European security, pressing the other button gives Europe a share in involving American security.
In short, Europe’s part in the control of the safety catch means that no nuclear warhead can be fitted to the allied missile without the ally’s consent. From the American point of view, Europeans have been offered a material and psychological demonstration of U. S. involvement in European defense, in addition to the guarantee represented in the continued presence of our divisions. Willy-nilly, in this shrunken world, the chief ally has become more and more dependent on its partners.
At the same time, American planners have been wrestling with the problem of the relationship between deterrence and national security. In the early years of NATO, the motion was quite common that somehow the American monopoly of the atomic bomb would insure our national security (as well as our allies)—short of the forces and weapons normally required to fulfill our national objectives. The equation seemed to be the more bombs the more security. Given the American penchant for absolutes in defense and its traditions of neutrality, this view has frightened many European analysts.
Perhaps the concern was best summed up in the reference of the British Economist (2 November 1957) to “America’s Maginot line of atomic security.” Yet the realization is strong in both Europe and the United States that somehow overt war must be avoided. And just as NATO’s SHAPE under General Lauris Norstad broadened the concept of deterrence to include the shield, so the American services have been stressing the need for bolstering their arms—conventional as well as nuclear—to ward off the threat of war, small as well as large. Indeed the Army’s recent emphasis on making its forces mobile and encouraging scientific research in conventional arms is designed to deter limited action as well as to fight it.
From all indications, despite the increasing meshing of American national with European security, popular notions persist on both sides of the Atlantic that will continue to plague American planners. On the one hand, there is the image that American observers frequently encounter in Europe, even in countries friendly to the United States, that many Europeans feel the struggle is basically between the United States and Russia—and that their countries are on the sidelines and not really able to influence the result. From their standpoint, in the military field they are being drawn into a fight between the two big superpowers. From that point of view, the European nations in NATO represent simply overseas bases for American military action— offensive or defensive.
On the other hand, there is the lingering notion in the United States that this country is pouring its treasure into European bases and giving its men to defend Europe. This factor of public opinion operates subtly behind strategy and one of the most difficult and necessary tasks is to educate public opinion in the United States—and Europe—to the realities of America’s international position and the requirements of modern warfare and strategy. However justified European suspicions of the relationship of European bases to American security may have been in the early years, it is clear that only a narrow view of the requirements of American national security today would support those fears. The emphasis on “allied” and “NATO” bases in NATO today is a move to stress common purposes. It is even possible if the progress of technology continues and nuclear weapons are mounted on mobile platforms, e.g. railroads, submarines and surface ships, and more reliance is placed on ICBMs, the whole issue of “bases” will disappear.
There appears to be less quarrel of European nations with other basic supports of U. S. national security. European nations recognize that the United States has global interests and commitments outside of NATO and that the United States must provide for the security of its interests in the Western Hemisphere, in Asia and the Pacific. They realize that non-NATO areas supply strategic materials—oil, rubber, tin, etc.—for American as well as NATO defense.
The only potential conflict arises from the relative magnitude of American efforts in these areas when these conflict with purely NATO requirements. Since the United States has been more than upholding its share of the NATO costs, the issue has remained potential rather than actual. If the military-economic demands of Asia or the Pacific should become critical, however, this issue may arise—as it did in World War II—and as it might have, had the Korean War continued. In that event, the absence of an international military staff agency to relate global with NATO military requirements—as the Combined Chiefs of Staff (CCS) allocated Allied resources between Europe and Asia in World War II— may prove serious.
Thus, to understand the changes in the American strategic position, it is important to recognize that within a generation the policy of the United States has undergone a revolutionary reversal. Since the end of World War II, the United States has diligently sought and built up alliances all over the troubled world. Indeed it has enthusiastically been collecting allies like precious coins—it now numbers over 40 in its collection. It has in a very short time oscillated from one extreme to another.
The trend of warfare and technology, and the nature of the threat appear to be forcing the United States into closer and closer bonds with its allies and to merge its security with that of its friends—some new, some old. Yet, like all states that enter coalitions, the United States is a hostage to its own past. Underneath official policy, traditional American attitudes about alliances and national security die hard. Even serious students of American strategy and policy are asking searching questions about the value of alliances for the long haul. Can the elements of American national power—economic, political and military—be brought into proper balance and most effectively applied through alliances? Do alliances really augment America’s power to achieve its own national objectives? Can allies be relied upon to fight in the face of nuclear threat? Are some allies to be regarded as more equal than others? Is it possible to design a flexible strategy that will provide security to all the members of the alliance? Do alliances restrict American strategy or give it more options? Are alliances the most effective means of organizing the defense of the Free World?
Some believe that the United States has been excessively occupied with creating military alliances and therefore will lose friends and alienate neutrals. Others point to history and note that alliances and counter-alliances themselves often lead to the conflict they were designed to prevent. Others feel that the benefits the United States receives do not match the contributions it makes to its alliances. Others think that alliances, for all their weaknesses, are effective power groups to maintain the balance of power in the world. Some would argue that the United States has already performed its most useful and necessary function as the local nucleus of power in Europe, while Europe was weak; and now that Western Europe and Germany are becoming stronger, European defense could most effectively be clustered about an indigenous European center of power. Some, like George F. Kennan, look for withdrawal of American power from Europe; others, like Ben T. Moore, argue for letting Europe look after its own defenses in a loose partnership with her transatlantic allies.
For the United States, the basic issue is as Professor Lincoln Gordon said in the spring 1959 Tale Review, “whether our military association with Europe is a mere temporary aberration, arising from the combination of European economic weakness in the late 1940’s with a passing need for overseas bases for medium-range aircraft, or whether that association reflects a real and lasting community of interests.
As time goes on, this thinking that now goes on quietly beneath the surface of official policy—among reflective students of strategy and policy—may break into open and sharp debate. It could come from European dissatisfaction with American leadership, or with American disenchantment with European contributions to the alliance and the costs of supporting an armed modern coalition and keeping its weaponry up to date. Be that as it may, it is clear that no equally effective and agreed alternative to NATO has appeared in American strategic thinking and that, for some time to come at least, NATO represents the most concrete means of joining American and European power.
The price of U. S. participation will be to continue to shore up NATO and many of its officers will be engaged in the “pick and shovel” work this requires. For the United States has become the military metropolis of the Western world. Yet it is also clear that the United States which began as the dominant power in NATO must now share that leadership with the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. And continuing threats and probes make all the more necessary an addition to the old military adage of “know your enemy”—“know your ally.”
As the United States moves out to uncharted frontiers in the tense and dangerous world of the 1960s, its policy makers and strategists are being challenged as never before. Fast moving changes in the world are altering traditional assumptions of national security. Along with the change in the power balance in the world, power itself is assuming new forms. A whole new complex of political, economic, military, and technological realities—all in process of flux—presents a shifting, restless environment in which national security must somehow be safeguarded. Hardly an issue of the day—whether it be nuclear testing, arms control and disarmament, civil defense, space exploration, the United Nations, the Common Market, aid to underdeveloped countries, relations with neutrals—does not have bearing on the over-all problem.
The era of independent control of national security even by super-powers may have ended. And just as the distinctions between war and peace have become blurred in the mid-20th century, the distinctions between national and international strategy appear increasingly indivisible. American policy makers and strategists seeking national security in new directions will need the same qualities of courage and ingenuity that distinguished their pioneering forebears. In permanently joining its own security with global freedom, the United States may yet make its most memorable contribution on the stage of world history. Out of the mid-20th century crisis in national and international security may come its greatest test and opportunity.