SECURITY COMMITMENTS OF U.S. AND ALLIES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78-03362A000700130001-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 17
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 20, 2002
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: March 1, 1954
• Content Type: SUMMARY

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OFFICE OF TRAINING
DIRECTIVE
fvi IR i 54
COURSE: Phase I -- Orientation
SUBJECT: Security Commltments of U.S. and Allies HOURS: 50 25X1
METHOD OF PRESENTATION: Lecture INSTRUCTOR
OBJECTIVES OF INSTRUCTION:
SUMMARY OF PRESENTATION:
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SUBJECTS WITH WHICH COORDINATION IS REQUIRED:
REFERENCES:
REMARKS:
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SECURITY C:DMMITMENTS OF THE U.S. AND ITS ALLIES
In discussing this general subject of the security commitments of the
United States, I am going to try and put t1-pose commitments in two general
groupings. The first group will be the kind that we normally speak of, that
we normally write about and that we normally discuss under this general
heading Security Commitments of the U.S. and this first group will include
the formal and written and treatyized security commitments which this country
has entered into. These, as you will find from my remarks this afternoon,
I regard as, rather less important than the second group of security commit-
ments which are essentially in my view the commitments we make to ourselves
for our own protection and in our on self-interest. But this first group
of security commitments are those which normally would be discussed in any
academic class on international relations; they are those which you would
list if you were requirdd by a congressional committee to place down your
listing of security commitments; they are the ones that are subjects of
editorials in the New York Times; and they are in general that group of
security commitments which we include as the formalized, written treaty
televisioned type of security commitments. These number five, six I think
perhaps we better say, six in all for this country at the present time.
These six are as follows:
First, under the Charter of the United Nations this country, as are
all the signatories of the United Nations, is pledged "to maintain interna-
tional peace and security, to take effective collective measures for the
prevention and removal of the treats to the peace and to suppress active
aggression or other breaches of the peace." There is no enforcing machinery
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established in the United Nations organization for the active implementation
of these particular ends save to work in the Security Council by unanimous
agreement there, unless one of the members happens to be absent happily at
the moment. There is no supra-national institution to force from the various
united nations an especial observance of this particular clause. This
clause, in fact, represents, as much of the Charter and the organization
itself, a rather stong hope that many of these things can be accomplished
and. a rather strong suggestion to the members that they so conduct themselves
as to carry out these various proposals; but really I would suggest to you
no specific commitment of the United States was suspect to any specific
course of action. The theory, I suppose, is that we are always concerned
to maintain international peace and security and to take effective collec-
tive measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace.
first, and perhaps most important in terms of its general understanding,
is that which we call the North Atlantic Treaty. And in that North Atlantic
Treaty, the signatories to that document undertake to agree that an armed
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attack against any one or more of them, that means of the signatories,
in "urope or North America, shall be considered an attack against them all.
And they agree they shall take such action as they deem necessary including
the use of armed forces to restore and maintain the security of the North
Atlantic area. Now what action is deemed necessary, it is not established
in the treaty. This is left up to the individual decision of the individual
powers concerned. I would emphasize to you that from the North Atlantic
Treaty this country has no security commitment whatsoever to any other
state which signed that treaty except that the United States is committed
to take such action as the United States deems necessary in the fulfill-
ment of this general treaty. Now that the United States might feel it
necessary to take some very specific and very strong action in the event
of an attack a-,ainst one of the signatories of the North Atlantic Treaty
might or might not be the case depending upon the allocation of our own
national resources and the contemporary political picture of the moment.
The commitment that is involved in the sense of the promise, in the
sense of the blank check with respect to the North Atlantic Treaty, is
only if we or if any of our allies are attacked, we shall take such action
as we deem necessary to restore and maintain the security of the North
Atlantic area.
The Rio Fact operates in the Latin American area, and is the third of
these six pacts of which I will speak. The Rio Pact agrees amongst the
si.-natories, who are the Latin American States, of course, that an armed
attack by any state-against an American state should be considered an
attack against all the American states, and consequently each one of the
contracting parties undertakes to assist in meeting the attack in the
exercise of the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense
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recognized by the Charter of the United Nations.
This would appear on the surface of it to be rather more specific
than the North Atlantic Treaty language, and certainly not to include
within it that small escape clause, "as it deems necessary", but I would
call your attention to the exact language that is used in the Rio Pact:
"...an armed attack b any state against an American state should be
considered as an attack against all the American states and so contracting
parties undertake to assist in meeting the attack." As you may know of
some of the military thinking of this country, it does not envisage the
defen.oe of the further reaches of Alaska, if they should be attacked.
This, of course, is United States territory. It's quite possible that
equally the military thinking would feel that the further reaches of
Latin America, particularly South America, would not be sensible in terms
of this pact. I do not know, but I would suggest that the phrase "assist
in the language of this pact" indicates that this country is committed to
assistance. Now whether this assistance means the kind of assistance the
South Korean Republic received in warding off the North Korean attack
or whether it means the ambulance the Swedes gave the U.N. coiimnd, I
don't know. But the extent of the assistance which was included under
the terms of the Rio Pact, I suggest, might vary in that immensity between
the single ambulance and the rather colorful crew that goes with it and
the more material and specific assistance involved in what would amount to
a state of co-belligerency with the South Koreans in resisting North Korean
and Communist aggression.
There is no instrumentality in the Rio Pact for formally bringing
this assistance about. There is, of course, the Organization of American
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body which could compel any state to give any specified or particular kind
of assistance to any state which was attacked by any other state under the
terms of the Rio Pact. We also have made in this written category, the
first group of which I speak, we also have made three general agreements
in the Far East.
One, with our colleagues in Australia and in New Zealand, has led to
the setting up of what is called Anzus - Australia, New Zealand, United
States, one r with the Philippines and one with Japan. Now the first two
of these deal rather more specifically and equally with the relationships
between sovereign states. In the Philippines, and amain in the case of
Australia and New Zealand, we pledged that if there are hostilities, if
attacks are made, then we shall do whatever is needed, whatever is required
within our constitutional processes to provide assistance to the attacked
party.
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As you may have imagined from the remarks I have made in introducing
this subject, ?icy own view would be that the actual co..it_;ient involved in
any of these, with the possible exception of suppressing a riot in Tokyo,
is very lim=.ted. That the treaties and agreements which I have alluded to
here may represent a reflection of the other group of commitments which I
will speak of in the second part is, of course, quite possible. That, in
fact, the written word in the North Atlantic Treaty, while it doesn't
promise anything, is but a recognition of larger con]nitments which we
have, in fact, undertaken because of or-r national self-interest may be
true. But that these security commitments of ours to other powers have
any force, any validity or any reality simply because they are promises
to other people to do something gratuitously for them and on their behalf
I think is simply incorrect, and I think for an intelligence officer especial-
ly it must be put out of your mind.
These so-called commitments are not commitments in any sense of the
word in which you or I would understand it in a contractual relationship.
They are not a commitment for you to rent my house for a year. They are
not a 'ommitment for me to sell you my car for a thousand dollars. They
are not a commitment for you even to look after my dog while I take a two
week vacation. All of these things involve a specific promise, a specific
obligation, if only moral, to do something. None of the obligations
involved in these security commitments have any particular weight upon us
and are primarily commitments to examine the situation; and presumptively,
if warrant attacks should break out, we would be examining it anyway, both
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find that any commitment to examine the situation would simply be a
needless one in terms of what we actually were doing at the time.
Now let me move from what I obviously consider the less important
commitments, if indeed they are commitments at all, to what I think are
the more important commitments, what I called the second group of
comxl,itments. Let me emphasize that I think these are important commit-
ments because t'-ey are commitments to ourselves. Some of you may not
remember Mr. lllooseveltts famous statement about the national debt, that
it wasn't really important because we owed it to ourselves and we could
collect it from ourselves at anytime we wished. Now whether this is
good or bad economics, or good or bad politics I don't know, but
certainly in international affairs the only commitments on a security
stance that have any meaning are those commitments you make to yourself,
because in the making of those commitments you are convinced that you
are advancing your national interest and protecting your national state.
Now the first of these commitments has really nothing to do with
international relations as such. It is a simple commitment to defend the
area, the territory which you inhabit as a state, to defend if you will
your own country. Now there may be many arguments as to just how you do
this. As you know, there are many arguments today as to how far we go
into defending America - whether you defend it in the air, or on the
,,water, or on the ground, whether you defend it with X billion or 21
billion or Y billions of dollars, or whether you defend it with alliances,
with foreign aid, with assistance programs, with GCti, with TCA, with OSP5
whatever the outfit may be at the moment, but the basic commitment that you
snake -indeed the whole me2% 8of thgAwnrd7~$s gi~bOb? J-6bbi,r is the
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in this agency and in the Department of State; and I think we would
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commitment to defend the state. If you do not make that commitment, then
really you have put yourself outside the scope of what I an talking about
here - Security Commitments of the United States. If you do not make the
basic commitment to defend the state, then the concept of commitment has
no meaning because you are relating other commitments not to the state but
to something outside or above or below or alongside the concept of the
national state. So that I would suggest to you that the first commitment
that we make in international relations is the general commitment to
defend the state.
The second general commitment I would suggest that we make is a
general observation, perhaps, a general motif of foreign policy in which
we seek some kind of system of international relations in which the appeal
to violence becomes less a characteristic to society than it has been in
the past -- a commitment in which our general foreign policy in the further-
ance of commitment number one, for security and for the defense of the
state, in which we seek as a general commitment agreement among states to
sort of live the good life internationally. Specifically, for example,
with respect to the Soviet Union, I think that our present commitment on
the Soviet Union, even despite the change of political administration, the
present commitment with respect to the Soviet Union is not to overthrow
the Soviet State, but to try to get the Soviet State, if we can, to live
a normal and tolerable political life, in which the exchange of individuals
and the exchange of ideas and the opening up of frontiers and the limitation
of armament,, etc., form a pattern of what you might call tolerant and
tolerable international life. Now whether this is correct or not, I don't
know, but I would certainly suggest to you that the whole history of the
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Republic has been one involving these two basic security commitments.
The first to defend the Republic and the second to try, as much as we
feel wise and prudent at the time, to try to build an international
system in which there is a measure of toleration and tolerability between
the member states, so that they are not at one another's throats every
generation or every half generation or quarter generation.
Now, when these two security commitments are obviously and equally
the general basis of foreign policy, what then are the specific security
commitments in the terms in which you would normally be asked to list them
from an area basis?
First, of course, and most important, is the security commitment to
Canada. Now it's not a commitment to Canada. It's a commitment to the
United States in re Canada, and I think this is a most important one for
us to bear in mind. It's true we have with our Canadian friends a number
of interlocking organizations, boards, committees, commissions, defense
agparatae, etc. We have also, particularly in the far northern regions,
entered upon defense arrangements, radar screens, training arrangements., and
so on which, I am sure, are very useful. But, basically, the security
commitment we make to ourselves in re Canada is simply that the occupation
of Canada by a foreign state, or an attack upon Canada by a foreign state
would be so contrary to national self-interest that we are committed to
ourselves to defend Canada.
Now, to a somewhat lesser extent, but still to a very substantial
one, this applies to Latin America. Whether it would apply to the extreme
southern tip of Chile or Argentina I do not know.
Whether it would apply
to trained Argentinian positions in the Antarctic, I am sure I do know it
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would not. Whether it 1-could ar.ly to the Falkland Islands, if the
,Argentinians succeeded in maintaining a train to the Falkland Islands, I
just don't know. But basically, Latin America and Canada together form
the security commitment that America makes to itself with respect to the
New World. A commitment which the Monroe Doctrine recognized more complete-
ly than any later document can underline for you, tI-e basic character of
the New World as a part of the American security sphere. 11hat we would
do in any given circumstance if the Communists should attack any part of
this area we cannot now say. What we would do if the Communists succeeded
in achieving power in any part of this area we cannot now say. What we
can, I think, establish pretty firmly, however, is that any external
attack upon any part of this area from Alaska down to the further reaches
of South America would very probably involve virtually immediate mobili-
zation and war on the part of this country. And it would so involve that
mobilization and that war because the basic security commitment that we
have made to ourselves is that it is intolerable, and I use the word
literally, it is intolerable to our national security and our national
self-interest that any part of this New World territory should come
under Soviet rule.
It is probably more intolerable today that this should happen than
it was at the time of the original issuance of the Monroe Doctrine, if
there be any degrees of comparability in such a way. But certainly today,
the prospect of the Red Army establishing bases, to use a specific case,
in any part of this territory would, I suggest - well, we can't say one
hundred per cent for sure - would almost certainly lead us, if I may use
the language of the NIE, would almost certainly lead us into a situation
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Whether this would operate in the same way if a Communist government,
as in Guatemala, should achieve a measure of domestic power by other than
actual armed force, in the sense of external armed force, I don't know.
I think you would find a measure of confusion on this issue which it
would be difficult to relate to the immediate problem, which would have
to be solved. But if there were external attacks, as used in the security
commitments I have outlined to you in Part One, there is no question but
that that attack, I think, would be met by mobilization and war on the
part of this country.
As you go around the rest of the hemisphere - the rest of the Plobe -
to complete this picture of security comunitments, however, your picture,
I think, gets less and less clear until, if you go completely around to
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In the southern area of Europe outside the NATO boundary, by this
of course, we mean Yugoslavia, I think we can say that a satellite and/or
Soviet attacks on Yugoslavia would similarly be met by extensive United
States assistance including manpower which might or might not actually
involve a declaration of war against the Soviet Union.
But most of all, I would like to leave with you the thought about
this area and the area of the New World. It's not the precise frontier on
which this line is to be drawn, but rather the concept that the commit-
ment which is involved, the security commitment which is involved in this
whole system of thinking is not something that you negotiate and sign and
publish and collect at the end of the year in a volume of documents
relating to foreign affairs. The commitment which is involved is an
unwritten guess as to inhere your immediate national security and your
immediate national self-interest may lie with respect to this particular
situation. That the Yugoslavian situation, picture, region, whatever you
wish to call it, might at one time be within and at. another time be out-
side this particular kind of delimitation-is perfectly possible. You
cannot sit down with parchment and pen and write out in detail what
the security commitments of the United States are, because those commit-
ments are a mirror of the wealth of our resources and the international
situation. And at one time they may be one thing and a minute later
they may be something entirely different.
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So that going around the globe, I think that you can see that we
can have areas which we will regard ourselves as territorial security
commitments. But we will re,?ard them as territorial security commitments
not because of these treaties, not because of the United Nations, only
and simply because at the moment at which decision is made these areas
lie within the broader area in which we make a generalized security
commitment to ourselves, because it is in that broader area that we
have decided that we cannot, that it becomes intolerable to us to
permit an enel~; to seize control. Because if he seizes that control,
our position then becomes so difficult that it's not so impossible that
we feel that the balance of pourer is substantially changed to our single
disadvantage. So that basically this whole concept of security comm.miit-
ments I would sum. to you as being commitments to ourselves in the
protection of our national security and our national self-interest.
And I would suggest that as intelligence officers, it is important
for all of you to remember that the formalized sort of commitment, the
thing that we have put in little charts like this which appear very
prettily in the New York Times on Sunday, you know, and are very well
drawn with numbers - these are really not important. These may very
well represent a sort of psychological cream on the top of the. pie, but
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and they are not the reason the pie is-ea en. nay may represent a
sort of acknowledgement of a fact situation which exists, and they
may very well represent in their various terminologies, and in the
ceremonies surrounding their signing, etc., an acknowledgement of our
own national security. But the basic commitment that we make is not
to any forei,~n state, it's to ourselves and the basic commitment is
that of our own security and our own national self-interest.
ONfl E TIA
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