LETTER TO HONORABLE ALLEN DULLES FROM HAROLD E. STASSEN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80B01676R004200120021-2
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 40
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 11, 2003
• Sequence Number: 21
• Publication Date: February 1, 1956
• Content Type: LETTER

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February 1., 1956
Honorable Allen Dulles
Director
Central Intelligence Agency
Dear Allen:
Enclosed find the Kissinger article and the Bromley
Smith memorandum. Also enclosed is a copy of my telegram to
Kissinger.
Enclosures (3)
NSC review(s) completed.
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QVLWO
February 1, 1956
Mr. Elliott has circulated to the NSC Planning Board a paper called "Force
and Diplomacy in the Nuclear Period" by Henry A. Kissinger, which is to appear
"soon" in Foreign Affairs.
Whether by intent or as a result of carelessness, Mr. Kissinger presents
President Eisenhower as a leader of the "no-alternative-to-peace" agitation, which
he equates with peace at any price. On page 1 Mr. Kissinger says, "The President
has argued that there is an increasing realization of the horrors of a nuclear
holocaust, that there exists 'no alternative to peace.'" On page 27 he says,
"It would., at a minimum, shift attention from the unrealistic and dangerous 'ban
the bombs, and 'there is no alternative to peaces agitation to a field where
constrictive progress is possible."
Cdr. Kissinger has misrepresented the President's position by misquoting him,
In remarks made at Constitution Hall on October 19, I95Mt, the - Pr(3'ident-sa4.4,
"Since-the advent of nuclear weapons, it seems clear that there--is-no longer any
alternative to peace, if there is to be a happy and well world."(underlining added)
It is clear from remarks . c _ Pj ow this quotation t at We-Presiaent was refer
ring to the effects of a general war in which nuclear weapons were used. He
went on to say in the paragraph following the quoted sentence that, "the soldier
can no longer regain a peace that is usable to the world. I believe that the
best he could do would be to retain some semblance of a tattered nation in a
world that was very greatly in ashes and relics of destruction. But possibly
he could keep us from immediate and complete domination by some outside force?
That would be a poor climate in -which to start again the development of a peace,
Certainly it would be a far worse opportunity than we now have."
A few days later, in an address at Trinity College in Hartford, the Presi-
dent mentioned again in a more formal way his views on nuclear warfare, He
said, "We have arrived at that point when war does not present the possibility
of victory or defeat, War would present to us only the alternative in degrees
of destructions There could be no truly successful outcomes"
On numerous occasions the President has made crystal clear that he does
not believe in peace at any pries. The latest expression of his view is con-
tained in the January 6 State of the Union Message in which he said, "If
Communist rulers understand that America's response to aggression will be swift
and decisive -, that never shall we buy peace at the expense of honor or faith ~?
they will be powerfully deterred from launching a military venture engulfing
their own peoples and many others in disaster." An even more precise statement
on his position is contained in the remarks made at the lighting of the National
Christmas Tree on December 17, 1954 , when he- said'"tmeria-aiT .# s is for peace
based'upon decency and right. But l.et no man think that we want peace at any
price; that we shall forsake principle in resigned tolerance of evident evil;
or that we may pawn our honor for transitory concession,"
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Mrr. Kiosingerts statement of the President's position is so distorted
and misleading that some attempt should be made to correct the manuscript prior
to its publication, Presumably Mr. Elliottts attention should be called to
the inaccuracy in the paper with a view to persuading Mr. Kissinger to correct
it prior to publication.
If you feel it wcsld be worthwrhile, I will prepare an analysis of the
thesis of the article, which has pretty big gaps in its logic, as well as some
rather naive courses of action.
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 srold Z. St"M
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_ 5- v
Nuclear Period ,
WASHINGTON
THE WHITE HOUS ''
Ott has circuited aloe 't of your
t your quote of a mingle phrase from the
brave a statue give
euvmt United States poliey. The Preaideit c e phrase wm altema
nid of a sent ewe which in its entire reads as follow
of nu ear meapxw,, it seem clear there iv no I
1954,t
hat _
arsncYy3e in
not 311+e*n
Or transit y Bence i ;t.IV
to pose, t re is to he a hIM and well s id, '
could more correctly be trsns] ated as again that the xt?
application of Beer a rZr has prided a c tr'uetl
for were of
about a
t
The Preesit
a Policy of Pftft at
i r,
at price and that
and awl Peru, For OX&VU a in mess
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Dr, Henry A. Kissinger page 2.
to the National Industrial Conference Board. dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel
tober 27, 1955s I said as follows "Every country has figuratively open
to it an undeveloped nuclear country equal in size to its present territory,
which it can develop and enjoy without contending with a rival claimant. Under
these circumstances, coveting or clairin the developed territory of another
rith the inevitable risk of mutual devastation is sheer folly. This
the f an.danenta.3. fact of the atomic age which is slowly penetrating the minds of
men ever ihere,n
Harold F;. Stassen
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EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT
Office of Defense Mobilization
Washington 25, D. C.
January 27, 1956
FROM William Y Elliott
ODM Member
SUBJECT Force and Diplomacy in the Nuclear Period
by Henry A. Kissinger
The attached is a part of a study that Henry Kissinger has
been doing for the Council on Foreign Relations. It supplements his
articles in the Yale Review and in Foreign Affairs, dated April. 1955.
This article will, itself soon appear in an issue of Foreign Affairs.
I hope you will find it interesting.
ODM-1L 82U.
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FORCE AND I)IPLOM4CY IN THE NUCLEAR PERIOD
by
Henry A. Kissinger
In his whimsical essay "Perpetual Peace" written in 1795 the
German philosopher Kant predicted that world peace could be attained
in one of two ways: by a moral consensus which he identified with a
republican form of government, or by a cycle of wars of ever-increasing
violence which would reduce the major powers to impotence.
There is no evidence that Kant's essay was taken seriously in his
lifetime, or indeed for a century and a half afterwards. But much of the
current discussion about the impact of new weapons has the apocalyptic
quality of a premonition of Kant's second proposition, It is only natural,
of course, that an age which has known two world wars and an uneasy
armistice since should have as its central problem the attainment of
peace. It is paradoxical, however, that so much hope should concentrate
on man's most destructive capabilities. We are told that the growth of
thermo-nuclear stockpiles has created a "nuclear stalemate" which
makes war, if not too risky, at least unprofitable. The President has
argued that there is an increasing realization of the horrors of a nuclear
holocaust, that there exists "no alternative to peace. "
Mr. Stassen has
maintained that the peaceful application of nuclear energy has made ir-
relevant most of the traditional reasons for fighting wars because each
major power can now bring about a tremendous increase in its power output
without annexing either foreign territory or foreign labor.. And. Walter Lippman
has interpreted the Geneva "summit conference" as a non-aggression
treaty: Ap psieorflotd~el st ROpl /O$(1 &nClthRUP 9.1(W.6RH442KI:2Q92de2
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longer a conceivable instrument of policy and that for this reason
international disputes can be settled only by means of diplomacy.
These assertions have passed almost without challenge. They
fit in well with a national psychology which considers peace as the
"normal" pattern of relations among states and which has few doubts
that reasonable men meeting in an atmosphere of good will can settle
all differences by honest compromise. Too much depends, however, on
the correctness of such propositions not to subject them to closer
scrutiny. For the impact of the new weapons -- as every revolution --
has not only a technical but a conceptual side. Until power is used,
it is, as Colonel Lincoln from West Point has wisely said, what people
think it is. But except for the two explosions of obsolete type bombs
over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, no nuclear weapons have ever been set off
in wartime; there exists therefore no previous experience on which to
draw. To a considerable extent the impact of the new weapons on
strategy, on policy, indeed on survival, depends on our interpretation
of their significance.
It, therefore, becomes of crucial importance that the U. S. not
paralyze itself by developing a calculus of risks according to which all
dangers would seem to be on our side. For if the Soviets interpret the
meaning of new technological developments more flexibly they may gain
a crucial advantage,. not because their .doctrine is correct, but because it
is flexible; not because their action is wise, but because they possess
doctrine which permits them to act at all. Massive retaliation, our
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simplifies Soviet policy because it puts a premium on probing actions
where the risks of total war seem out of proportion to the objectives
to be obtained. And it limits our flexibility because the decision to
resist is never taken in the abstract; it always reflects a calculus
of risks and as the Soviet nuclear stockpile grows our reluctance to run
the risks of a major war will increase. We shall continue to insist that
we shall fight for our vital interests; but the borderline between what
is considered vital and what is peripheral will shift with the growth of
the Soviet nuclear stockpile. I
But perhaps the Soviets are facing the same problem' Perhaps an
equilibrium can be attained, if not of mutual comprehension, then of
mutual terror? There is some evidence for this in the reiterated Soviet
statements of the horrors of a hydrogen war. But apart from the fact
that these statements are usually addressed to foreigners and may, there-
fore, be designed to increase the inhibitions of others, it makes all the
difference which side has to initiate thermonuclear war, As long as the
Soviets possess a sufficiently flexible weapons system, they can confront
us with a series of contingencies which shift the risk of initiating an all-
out war on us; which force us to calculate peripheral objectives in
terms of the destruction of New York or Washington or Chicago.
Thus, even if the Soviet are sincere in their professions of their
fear of all-out war, the need for a reappraisal of our military doctrine
does not diminish. For it is one of the most difficult tasks of statesmanship
'For a fuller discussion see the author's ".Military Policy and the Defense
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4-
to reconcile the professions of another power with its potential, If
the international order possessed the sanction of domestic arrangements,
relations could be conducted largely on the basis of what states assert
their intentions to be. But in an international order composed of sovereign
states, the intentions of another power are subject to no compulsion, its
potential is always capable of being used with hostile intent. This is the
real meaning of "atomic blackmail, " As the Soviet nuclear stockpile
grows overt threats have become unnecessary; every calculation of
risks will have to include the Soviet stockpile of atomic weapons and
ballistic missiles.
The phrase "there is no alternative to peace" can therefore only
lead to a p&-alysis of policy. It is tantamount to a renunciation of power
and a staking of everything on the professions of another sovereign state.
This would have been difficult at any period; it becomes an invitation to
disaster when confronted with a revolutionary power which prides itself
on its superior understanding of "objective" forces, and to which professions
unrelated to a plausible possibility of employing force will seem either
hypocrisy or stupidity. Force and diplocacy are not discrete realms; on the
contrary, the ultimate pressure during negotiations have always been the
possibity that recourse might be had to force. All the great international
congresses occurred either at the end of wars which had established the
relative strength of the contending powers or achieved their settlements on
the basis of a grouping of states whose strength was so well understood
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that recourse to force was unnecessary, 2
impetus to Soviet peace offensives without generating a meaningful pressure
on the Soviet sphere. The more terriblo the weapons technology, the
greater will be the reluctance to run the risk of any action that may
involve its use. The strength of the British positions in the 19th
century was a clear understanding of the nature of sea power and a strategic
doctrine which permitted this understanding to be translated into re rlity.
The difficulty with present military technology is that we are far from an
agreement about its essential components and that the very power of
modern weapons far from giving us freedom of action, seems to inhibit
it, In short, our weapons technology and the objectives for employing them
have become incommensurable. No more urgent. task confronts the U. S.
than to bring them into harmony,
To be sure, the threat
to use force was not always made explicit and many conferences were
conducted in a spirit of good-will and harmony, But this only reflected
the fact that the protagonists understood the limits set by the ultimate
sanction of using force and conducted themselves accordingly.
If the slogan "there is no alternative to peace" becomes accepted
doctrine, it will remove both a powerful brake on Soviet probing
actions and any incentive for making concessions. And if we couple it
with the statement :-that:we do not accept the status quo we will only give
2 See the author's "The Congress of Vienna - A Reappraisal, " World
Politics, January, 1956,
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II
But perhaps this incommensurability is inherent in the new
weapons and not in the military doctrine ~ Perhaps we are moving
into a new era of international relations in which the powers will
have to adjust themselves to the fact that force can no longer be
used? What of the "nuclear stalemate" so often invoked?
The first thing to notice is that the term "nuclear stalemate"
covers many relationships, each with different consequences for
policy., In one sense, for example, it refers to a condition in which
one side possesses a defensive capability to absorb for all practical
purposes the maximum air -offensive potential of the other. In
this case, there would occur a stalemate in the air battle and the
issue of the war would depend on alternative weapons systems. Such
a stalemate, moreover, would make war more, rather than less,
likely because neither side would need to calculate with widespread
physical destruction. Another kind of stalemate would occur if
both sides possessed a sufficient offensive capability to inflict
catastrophic blows on the other. This is the situation most frequently
thought of when the term "stalemate" is used. Such a stalemate, if it
exists, would have a deterrent effect, but not to all forms of aggression.
On the contrary, the deterrent effect works both ways not only
aggression, but the resistance to it becomes risky.. What this type
of stalemate deters is not war as such, but all-out war. The side
which can present its challenges in less than all-out form would
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Moreover, even if there does exist a stalemate, it does not
make for stability in the present volatile state of technology, and
much less for a consciousness of harmony. The specter of a tech-
nological breakthrough by the other side would always loom large;
it would lend an apocalyptic quality to all current international relations.
To be sure, nct arytechnological breakthrough is of the same signi-
ficance. A more elegant delivery system by itself will not prove decisive,
provided either side can get a sufficient number of weapons on the target.
A fundamental advance in the relation of offense to defense, on the
other hand, may upset the military equation completely. Military super-
iority, therefore, depends not on the effectiveness of any one weapon,
but on the relation of offense and defense to each other. The importance
of this offense-defense "mix" can be illustrated by the following
example: If one power places all its bets on strategic air power while
the other side develops a very large defensive capability and only moderate
offensive air power, it may happen that the defensive capability of the
offensively weaker power will absorb the total offense of the other
side, thus freeing the initially weaker SAC for a mortal blow.
Still the technical problems can be overdone. For the purpose of
national policy the significance of the term "stalemate" resides not in
the technical, but in the psychological aspect. For the "stalemate"
is not anything new. In a very real sense there has been a nuclear
stalemate since the explosions over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was,
to be sure, not a physical stalemate; for close to a decade the U. S.
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none the less in the sense that we never succeeded in translating
our military advantage into an act of policy. This was due to
many factors: a theory of war which knew no issue save total
victory, humanitarian impulses, lack of clarity about the process
in which we found ourselves involved, But whatever the reason,
the U. S. atomic monopoly had at best a deterrent effect. It may
have prevented a further expansion of the Soviet sphere; it did not
enable us to achieve a strategic transformation in our favor. Even
the deterrent effect is questionable: assuming that there had never
been an atomic bomb, would we have surrendered Europe to the
Soviets? Would the LT. S. S. R. have risked a general war, so soon
after having its territory devastated by the Germans and losing, on
the most conservative estimates, 10 million dead? Not even a dictator-
ship can do everything simultaneously.
But apart from the questionable deterrence to an all-out war, the
period of our atomic monopoly witnessed the consolidation of a satellite
orbit in Eastern Europe, the triumph of Communism in China and
most fundamentally, the growth of the Soviet atomic stockpile. Those who
expect great things from technological breakthroughs would do well to
study American actions after Iiroshirna and Nagasaki. No foreseeable
technological breakthrough is likely to be more fundamental than the
discovery of the A-bomb. Yet its possession did not enable us to
prevent another power which never hid its hostile intent to expand its
orbit and to develop a capacity to inflict a mortal blow on the U. S.
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What happened? Simply that we added the A-bomb to our military
arsenal without integrating its implications into our thinking; that we saw
in it a tool in a theory of warfare which had showed a poverty, indeed
almost an absence of conception during the two world wars, but which
became completely inapplicable after the explosions over Hiroshima
and Nagasaki. For over a century before the outbreak of World War I,
wars were an extension of policy. Because they were fought for determinate
objectives there existed a rough commensurability between the force
employed and the goal sought, But with the outbreak of World War I,
war suddenly seemed to become an end in itself. After the first
few months. of the war, none of the protagonists would have been able
to name an objective other than the total defeat of the enemy or at least they
would have named objectives, such as the German demand for the annexation
of Belgium, which amounted to unconditional surrender. This was all
the more remarkable because none of the political leaders had prepared
for anything but a war in the 19th century style, with rapid movements and
quick decisions, so that the stalemate of the first winter was due pri-
3
marily to the exhaustion of the munitions supplies. There had in fact
occurred a hiatus between military and political planning which has
never been bridged. The military staffs had developed plans for
total victory, because thepe are the most determinate plans possible in
which all factors are under the control of the military. But the political
leadership proved incapable of giving this conception a concrete expression
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in terms of peace aims. The result was four years of war of ever-
increasing violence which carried its hatreds into a peace treaty that
considered more the -redressing of sacrifices than the stability of the
international order and led within less than a generation to another world
war fought in the same style.
The notion that war and peace, political and military goals were
discrete entities had become so commonplace by the end of World War If
that the most powerful nation in the world found itself paralyzed by the
enormity of its own weapons technology. In every concrete instance,
even in the matter of the regulation of the atom which affected our very
survival we found ourselves stalemated by our own preconceptions:
the consequences of our actions always seemed to outbalance the
gains to be achieved. Thus our policy became entirely defensive: we
possessed a doctrine of power to repel overt aggression, but we could
not translate it into a positive goal. And even in the one instance where
we resisted aggression we did not use the weapon around which our
whole military planning had been built. The hiatus between military
and national policy was complete; our power was incommensurable
with the objectives of our national policy and our military doctrine could
not find any intermediary application for our power. The growth of the
Soviet atomic stockpile has merely brpught the physical equation in
line with the psychological one; it has increased the reluctance to
engage in a general war even more. But it has not changed the funda-
mental question: how the political and military doctrines can be harmonized,
how our power can give impetus to our policy rather than paralyze it.
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III
One way of avoiding the problem is to deny that it exists, It is
possible to argue that the whole term "stalemate" is illusory, that in
an all-out war one side Is almost certain to be able to "win" in the
sense of being able to impose its will on its antagonist.. This is technically
correct. But it does not affect the calculus by which the decision to enter
the war is taken; in its crudest form whether it is "worth" fighting the
war in the first place. Obviously no power will start a war it thinks
it is going to lose. But it will also be reluctant to start a war during the
course of which it thinks it will lose its national substance, It is doubt-
ful whether France would have entered World War I had she known the
losses she would suffer. The capacity to inflict greater losses on the
enemy than one suffers, is the condition of policy; it cannot be its end.
The transformation imposed by the "nuclear stalemate" is not that
victory in an all-out war has become technically impossible, but that it
can no longer be imposed at an acceptable cost. Nor is this conclusion
avoided by an appeal to military rationality. In Paul Nitze's hypothetical
all-out war, for example, confined to air-fields and SAC installations,
the bombing of cities would be unwise in the early stages of the war and
4
unnecessary in the later ones after air-superiority has been achieved.
But this assumes that victory is the only rational objective of a power in
war. It overlooks that war is not only the instrument for imposing one's
will on the defeated, but also a tool for defeating this intent by making it
too costly. An air-battle would be a rational strategy for the side which
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has a strategic advantage either in terms of base structure or in
weapons potential, for it would put the enemy at its mercy at a
minimum cost. But for the side.4 which stands to lose the air-battle
and which seeks to exact a maximum price for its defeat, the most
rational strategy may well reside in the greatest destructiveness..
It may at least attempt to equalize the threat of nuclear destruction';
by inflicting its actuali y on the enemy and thereby deprive, hi m of the
fruits of his victory or at least make it too risky for him to seek total
victory. Unconditional surrender -- or depriving the enemy of his
nuclear capability which amounts to the same thing--cannot be
achieved by subterfuge.
Others seek to avoid the horrors of nuclear war by outlawing
nuclear weapons and returning to "conventional armaments, " But
apart from the fact that the distinction between nuclear and conventional
weapons becomes increasingly nebulous as the range of low-yield
weapons is increased, it will be impossible to reverse present trends.
The whole planning and procurement of our defense establishment pre-
supposes the use of nuclear weapons and procurement cycles cannot be
altered every few years...
To be sure, the above argument is circular : it reasons from
existing policy and policy can be reversed. But the author has become
reluctantly convinced that the emphasis on nuclear weapons is correct,
provided it can find a proper diversification and political expression.
For the possession of nuclear weapons systems by both sides insures that
any future war will be nuclear At a minimum forces will have to
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maneuver as if nuclear weapons might be used. This is true because the side
which concentrates its forces might thereby give its opponent the precise
incentive he needs to use nuclear weapons. But if forces are dispersed,
they will not be able to hold a line or achieve a breakthrough with convention-
al weapons, because the destructive power of conventional weapons is so much
smaller. Finally, nuclear weapons, particularly of the low-yield type,
seem to offer the best opportunity to compensate for our inferiority in
man-power and to use our superiority in technology to best advantage. Of
course, we have to consider not only the damage we can inflict, but the
losses we would suffer. On the balance, however, the advantage is probably
on our side: an increase in fire-power has generally aided the defensive
and we are much more likely to resist aggression than to initiate it;
clear war raises special problems of control, of maneuver and of diver-
sified capability which our system, indubtrial and political, should be
better able to withstand than that of the Soviets.
It is not for nothing that Soviet propaganda has played on two related
themes; that there is no such thing as a "limited" nuclear war and "ban
the bomb." For both have the corollary "There is no alternative to
peace," and both deprive our policy of flexibility and sap resistance to
the preferred form of Soviet strategy: peripheral wars, internal subversion
and atomic blackmail.
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IV
We have, therefore, to return to an earlier question: whether
the nuclear period permits a policy of limited ware? Before answering
this question, it may be useful to analyze precisely what is meant by
a limited war. Is a war limited because it involves less than the
available military resources or is it limited because not all national
resources are used for it? In the l7th century, for example, Louis XIV
employed almost his whole army constantly for a period of close to twenty-
five years. But his military establishment utilized only a relatively
small proportion of the national resources. This was not due to any
self-restraint on the part of the French king, but to the nature of his
domestic structure which made it impossible for him to conscript his
subjects or to levy income-taxes or to confiscate property. His military
establishment was, therefore, limited by his available resources and with
it the wars he fought. On the other hand, the wars of Prussia while
they did not exceed in scope those of France, involved an incomparably
greater mobilization of national resources. This was because Prussia's
wealth was so much less that she could retain her position as a major
power only by a domestic tour de force, by organizing the whole state for
war. Still Prussia's exertions only gave her a.precarious parity with
stronger states; she did not force them to emulate her; the wars remained
limited because the major powers were able to mobilize only a small
proportion of their national resources for war and because the one power
which was not so restricted did not thereby achieve a decisive advantage.
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Since the French Revolution, the domestic restrictions on the
capacity of governments to mobilize national resources have increasingly
disappeared. To be sure, there still exist differences not in the power,
but in the willingness to exact sacrifices: one of the sources of Soviet
strength is her readiness to devote a much larger proportion of the
national income to military expenditures than the U.S. But for our
present purpose it is sufficient to point out that no major power will.
be forced to adopt a strategy of limited objectives because of insuffi-
cient resources. With modern weapons systems, a limited war will be an
act of policy, not of necessity.
What then is a limited war under modern conditions? One can
think of many models; a war confined to a geographic area, a war that
does not utilize the whole weapons system, but limits its employment to
specific targets. But none of these military definitions seem adequate:
a way may be confined geographically or in terms of targets and yet drain
the national substance, as happened in France in World War I. The fact
that the whole weapons system is not employed, or that the destructive
capability of the existing weapons system is small, is no more a gua-
rantee against excessive suffering. A new world war fought with World
War II weapons might in the long run prove as destructive as a short
nuclear war. In the Thirty Year's War the number In each army was small
by present-day standards, the power of the weapons was negligible measured
against modern armaments and yet it is estimated that at least 30% of the
population of Germany died during its oourse as a result of its length
and its indetermination. In short, there exists no mill tary wyy to
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limit a war, expressed in Clausewitz's dictum that ware tend towards
the maximum of violence and that the only rational military objective
is the destruction of the enemy's will to resist.6 Wars can be limited only
by political decisions, by defining objectives which do not threaten
the survival of the enemy.
an all-out war is a war the
objective of which is to render the enemy defenseless. A limited war is
one for a determinate objective which by its very existence will establish
a certain commensurability between the force eu loved and the goal to be
attained. The prerequisite for a policy of limited war is the re-intro-
duction of the political element into our concept of warfare; the
surrender of the notion that policy ends when war begins, or that war
has goals different from those of national policy.7
In the great periods of European Cabinet diplomacy between the
Treaty of Westphalia and the French Revolution and between the Congress
of Vienna and the outbreak of the first World War, 'wars were limited
but not through an agreement on the battlefield. Rather there existed
a political framework which led to a general consciousness of limited
risks. This political framework was due to several factors; there was,
to begin with, a conscious decision that the upheavals of the Thirty
Year's War and of the Napoleonic wars should not occur again. This
decision proved most effective in the period immediately following the
wars, but it gave the international orders created by the Treaty of West-
phalia and the Congress of Vienna the breathing spell necessary to
6 Clausew1tz. Vom Krie. Leipzig: R Behr's Verlag, 1918. p. 3
7 This too was recognized by Clausewitz. Although wars, he argued,
tend towards a maximum of violence, they never reach it. The violence
is always tempered by the political reactions of states, by their domestic
structures and by their calculation of risk. Clausewitz, op, cit., p. l0ff.
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convince the major powers that none of the outstanding disputes involved
their survival. More important was the fact that the international order
did not contain a revolutionary power. No state was so dissatisfied with
the peace settlement that it sought to gain its ends by overthrowing it
and no power considered its domestic notion of justice as incompatible
with that of the other components of the international order. Finally,
in an era of stable weapons technology, both the strength of the powers
and the assessment of it were relatively fixed, the risks of surprise
attack and of unforeseen technological developments were relatively small.
All this did not make conflicts impossible, but it limited them to
disputes within a given framework; wars occurred, but they were fought
in the name of the existing framework and the peace was legitimized as
the better expression of an agreed consensus.
If we inquire which of these factors -- fear of war, legitimacy
and a stable power relationship -- is present today, little cause for
optimism remains. None of the major powers accept either the present
framework of the international order or the domestic structure of the
other states. On the contrary, we are confronted by a power which for
over a generation has proclaimed the incompatibility of its domestic
notion of justice with that of other states, and which has built an in-
ternal control system on the myth of a permanently hostile world. Every
agreement with the Soviet bloc has proved temporary because it has been
interpreted by the Soviet bloc as a tactical maneuver to prepare positions
for the inevitable showdown. The slogan of "peaceful coexistence" cannot
obscure the fact that we are living in a revolutionary period. For the
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,justification of peaceful coexistence advanced by the Soviets is precisely
their, conviction that it will enable them to subvert the existing structure
by means other than all-out war,
Nor is the nature of power relationships more reassuring. Even
with a less volatile technology a two-power world would have an inherent
element of instability because an increase in strength of one side cannot
be made up by superior political dexterity, but is tantamount to an
absolute weakening of the other side. Moreover, the weapons technology
is far from stable. Almost up to the outbreak of World War II a weapons
system would be good for a generation at least, while today it may be
out-dated when it has barely passed the blue-print stage. Yet the failure
to plan on the basis of these "prematurely aged" weapons might at any
given point of time create a vital weakness, In the technological race,
moreover, the side which has adopted the military doctrine that its
opponent can always strike the first blow is at a distinct disadvantage,
for it cannot afford a single mistake; it cannot afford to fall behind
even for an instant, It must phase its planning and procurement over an
indefinite period while its opponent, if he is determined on a show-down,
can plan for a target date.
But if neither an agreed legitimacy nor a stable power relation-
ship exist today, they may be outweighed by the third factor in the
equation: the fear of thermo-nuclear war. Never before have the conse-
quences of all-out war been so unambiguous; never the gains so incommen-
surable with the sacrifices. What statesman who declared war in 1914
would not have recoiled had he known the shape of the world in 1918?
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Today every weapons test augurs much worse horrors. There exists,
therefore, a limiting condition to every diplomatic move. The distinction
between tactical and strategic nuclear weapons may be nebulous in mili-
tary terms, but every power has a powerful incentive to make some
distinction, however tenuous its logic: the fear of thermo-nuclear extinc-
tion. This fear should be utilized to guarantee the "limits" of war
and diplomacy.8
The problem of present-day strategy is, therefore, to devise
alternative atrategiAs aad weapons systems to confront the other side
with contingencies from which it can extricate itself only by thermo-
nuclear war; but to deter it from this step by an adequate retaliatory
capacity. All Soviet moves in the post-war period have had this character:
they have faced us with problems which by themselves did not seem "worth"
an all-out nuclear war,9 but with which we were unable to deal by an
alternative strategy, We refused to defeat the Chinese in Korea because
we were unwilling to risk an all-out conflict; we saw no solution to
the Indo-Chinese crisis without increasing dangers we were reluctant to
confront. A capability for the graduated employment of force may reverse
or at least arrest this trend. Graduated deterrence is thus not an
alternative to massive retaliation, but its complement: for it is the
capability for "massive retaliation" which provides the sanction against
expanding the war.
8These considerations do not apply, of course, to a totally irra-
tional decision to enter a war; Hitler presumably would have been in-
different to bringing the world down around him. But even if Hitler would
not have accepted this reasoning, the certainty of nuclear destruction
might have given the German military, on the verge of revolt, the incentive
to refuse to carry out the order to enter the war. Similar considerations
may apply to the Soviet military leadership.
9 See for example Mr. Finletter's letter to the Herald Tribune, Aec.22,'55?
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The U S strategic problem, then, can be summed up in these
propositions:
a) All-out thermo-nuclear war should be avoided, except as a
last resort.
b) No power possessing a thermo-nuclear capability will accept
unconditional surrender without employing it and no nation is likely to
risk thermo-nuclear destruction except to the extent that it believes
its survival to be at stake.
c) it is, therefore, the task of our diplomacy to make clear that
we do not aim for unconditional surrender; to create a framework in which
the question of national survival is not involved in every issue. But
equally we should leave no doubt about our determination to achieve
intermediate objectives.
a) since diplomacy which is not related to a plausible employment
of force is sterile, it Must be the task of our military policy to
develop a doctrine and a, capability for the graduated employment of force.
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V
A doctrine for the graduated employment of force would enable us
to es2ape the vicious circle in which we find ourselves and which can
best be described as a flight into technology. We reply to every Soviet
advance in the nuclear field by devising more fearful weapons, but in
the process we reduce our willingness to employ them. A more flexible
weapons system, which emphasized low-yield weapons, would extend the
range of our alternatives by posing less absolute consequences. Such
weapons system and the doctrine it implies can, however, only be the
result of a political decision; the military cannot be asked to arrive at
it on the basis of purely military considerations, for it presents
them with peculiar difficulties. An all-out war is relatively simple
to plan for, because its limits are set by military considerations and
even by military capacity. The defining characteristic of limited wars,
on the other hand, is precisely the imposition of ground, rules which
define its relationship to political objectives. Planning here becomes
much more conjectural, much more subtle and much more indeterminate,
The military, therefore, tend to resist it as outside their scope, unless
the political leadership assumes the responsibility for defining the frame-
work within which the military are to develop plans and capabilities.
In devising a doctrine for the graduated employment of force, we
should have no illusi.ons of the political objectives attainable by it,
Graduated deterrence is not a cheap substitute for "massive retaliation";
it involves the recognition that with the passing of our atomic monopoly,
the possibility of imposing unconditional surrender at an acceptable cost
has disappeared. The graduated employment of force, therefore, presupposes
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a capability which is really "graduated." If we build our whole strategy
around "absolute" weapons, professions of limited objectives will be
meaningless and any use of nuclear weapons is likely to touch off an all-
out war. Our ability to fight a limited nuclear war
depends, therefore,
on our ability to extend the range of weapons in the low-yield field and
to devise tactics for their utilization. 10
The renunciation of unconditional surrender does not mean the
acceptance of a military stalemate. The notion that there is no alterna-
tive between total victory or the status quo ante is much too mechanical.
An enemy might accept intermediary transformations if his military position
became untenable without resorting to all-out war. If SAC retains its
retaliatory capacity, the other side may decide that amputation is pre,
ferable to suicide. In these terms, the calculus of risks by which a
limited nuclear war is expanded into an all-out thermo-nuclear exchange
is almost the same as that by which a limited conventional. war is expanded
into an all-out war. Whether we can achieve local transformations will,
therefore, depend on three conditions:
on the ability to generate pressures other than the threat of
thermo-nuclear war;
b) on the ability to create a climate of opinion in which national
survival is not thought to be at stake;
c) on the ability to keep control of public opinion should a dis-
agreement arise over whether national survival is at stake.
100ne of the most important tasks of planning would seem to be the
"war-gaming" of situations which involve the use of nuclear weapons by
both sides and what would constitute victory in such a war. It is only
fair to say that both the importance of low-yield weapons and changed
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The prerequisite for the graduated employment of force, then, is
not only the capability for it, but its plausibility to the other side.
Soviet reactions to American measures will depend not only on what we
intend to do but what we are thought to intend to do. But is it possible
to bring about a climate in which national survival is thought not to
be at stake? Will the Soviets accept any withdrawal or will they not
consider it a first step in an attempt to overthrow them" It must be
admitted that there are reasonable grounds for pessimism. One cause of
the revolutionary intransigence of the Soviets is, after all, their sense
of insecurity, their conviction of a permanently hostile outside world.
It is a vonvjction, moreover, which is produce, not by U.S. policies,
but by the existence of the U.S, as the strongest capitalist power. On
the other hand, the problem is not simply one of reassuring the Soviets
which is probably a well-nigh impossible effort, but of giving effect
to the one interest we have presumably in common; that we both wish to
avoid a thermo-nuclear war. Given this attitude, an all-out war is
likely only in two contingencies; if the Soviets miscalculate their oppor-
tunity to achieve hegemony in Eurasia by peripheral actions which, in
the absence of a capability for the graduated employment of force, may
force us into an all-out war; or if the USSR should misunderstand our
intentions and treat every US military move as if it were the prelude to
an all-out war. It, therefore, becomes the task of our diplomacy to
convey to the Soviet bloc that we are capable of courses other than all-out
war, or inaction, and that we intend to use this capability. This will
not inevitably prevent an all-out war: if the Soviets feel strong enough
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to knock us out by a surprise attack, they will presumably do so. But
it may prevent an all-out war based either on a miscalculation or on a
misunderstanding of our intentions.
Moreover, while the Marxist philosophy has heretofore imparted
great flexibility to Soviet policy, we may be able to use it as well
to. give effect to a policy of graduated deterrence. The belief in inevi-
table triumph is after all as consistent with tactical withdrawal as with
an effort to fill every power vacuum. All of Soviet history testifies
to the fact that this is not a regime for last stands if other alternatives
present themselves. One need only study the abject efforts of the Polit-
buro in the months before the German invasion to come to a settlement
with Hitler to realize that if confronted, with superior power the Soviets
do not hesitate to apply Lenin's dictum: one step backward, two steps forward.
And this tendency is supported by all of Russian history. Russia has
always been less able to apply force subtly than massively; it has always
been more vulnerable to ware outside its territories, than within, and to
limited rather than all-out war.
But what measures are available to our diplomacy to create a frame-
work of limited objectives? Fortunately the imbalance in our national
strategy has been caused less by our diplomacy than by our military policy.
Indeed, our difficulty has been precisely the fact that our moderate
pronouncements have seemed incongruous in the face of an all-or-nothing
military policy and that ouxr diplomacy has been deprived of flexibility
because massive retaliation has had as its corollary the slogan "there
is no alternative to peace." A modification of our military doctrine
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would, therefore, go a long way towards creating a framework of limited
objectives; the next step would be to convey this change to the outside
world. In this task, it be well to remember that every act of a
major power has not only a substantive but a symbolic significance.
Tests of high-yield weapons no doubt have their place, although there
roust be an upper limit of practical effectiveness, and their deterrent
effect has to be weighed against their impact on the growth of neutralism
abroad and eventually in this country. But in the present situation,
low-yield weapons are much more likely to be translatable into political
advantage. No one doubts our ability to fight an all-out war; what is
at issue is our willingness to fight for anything save a direct attack
on the U. S. and the meaningfulness of such a resistance should it take
place.
But if it is one task of our diplomacy to present our intentions
in a way to give us maximum flexibility, it is another to leave no doubt
about the aspects of our militer4T policy we cannot compromise. We cannot
sacrifice basic national strategy to -,Propaganda victories. Foreign
policy is the art of utilizing the facts of life, not of den:;ing their
existence. knd one of the fundamental facts of life is that any future
war will be nuclear, that present trends should not be reversed. To
speak of abolishing nuclear arms even as a long-range goal, even with a
fool-proof inspection system is extremely hazardous, If we surrender
our nuclear capability the Soviets will retain a conventional strength
which would place all of Lurasia at their mercy; they would, therefore,
be in a position to confront us with impossible alternatives by accepting
our own proposals.
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We should, for this reason, reject even the implications that
nuclear weapons are in a special category from modern weapons in general.
But while we cannot escape the facts imposed on us by modern technology
we should express our willingness to mitigate their horrors. The political
framework for the graduated employment of force is not created by "ban
the bomb" agitation, but by proposals which seek to define the conditions
of its use. It is, therefore, important that there occur a high-level
pronouncement which would define as precisely as possible what is under-
stood by the graduated employment of force, just as the doctrine of massive
retaliation explained the rationale for all-out conflicts.
Such a declaration might then lead to proposals which would attempt
to make these conditions bi-lateral. One - ruitful field of activity might
be conventions based on the established concept of "open cities". We could
announce, for example, that we shall not bomb cities except in retaliation
and provided that they are not used as military bases. Although a
systematic effort to define the term "military base" is beyond the scope
of this article, it is important to stress one point: that because of the
luxury we enjoyed in World War II of being able to bomb the enemy without
fear of retaliation, we may have come to define the term "military" much
too widely. To be sure, almost every civilian activity bears on a war
effort in some way, but no commander attacks every enemy position. On the
contrary, he attacks where his losses will be fewest, where there exists
the most favorable relationship between his risks and his gains. We
cannot define "military base" in such a way that every production facility
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is a target. Nor is this necessary. Up to World liar II, the destructive
potential of individual weapons was relatively so small that huge
quantities were required to achieve a decision on the battlefield. Since
these could only be supplied out of current production it made sense to
seek to cut them off at the source, The destructiveness of modern
weapons is such, however, that the stockpile at the outbreak of a war
will probably suffice for its course and, in any case, it may be more
ll
decisively employed on the battlefield than against production centers.
The concept of "open city" should, therefore, exclude primarily air-
bases, troop concentrations and weapons stockpiles.
Such a proposal would have substantial advantages even if not
accepted by the `soviets. It would, at a minimum, shift attention from
the unrealistic and dangerous "ban the bomb", and "there is no alternative
to peace" agititation to a field where constructive progress is possible.
It may force the Soviets to consider alternatives to all-out war which
they may embody in counter-proposals. In the process, a clearer under-
standing of the opposing strategies may remove at least the danger that
an all-out war breaks out because of a misunderstanding of tale intentions
of the other side.12
For an elaboration of these ideas see Richard C. Leghorn, "No Need
to Bomb Cities to Udin 14ars." U .S. News and world, Report, Jan, 26, 1955.
l2igost of these ideas have been advanced in ire rter length and detail
elsewhere. They are outlined here only to indicate the direction our
diplomacy might take,
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Many variations and alternatives of the above proposal are possible.
They are intended to indicate a direction, not a program. However, both
our diplomacy and our n iiit^,ry policy will be sterile unleus they are
backed by an er_ihtened public opinion. (Theoretically the Soviets face
the same problem., but their power and willingness to manipulate public
opinion and to suppress it is much greater than ours). And public opinion
in the U. S. is faced by two contradictory dangers: on the one hand, the
residue from the period of our atomic monopoly which considers only
what the damage we can inflict, not the losses we might suffer and which
might therefore have little patience with intermediary solutions; on
the other, the prospect that as the destructive potential of the new
weapons comes to be increasingly realized there may grow up an American
neutralism. Our leadership will have to steer between this Scylla and
Charybdis, it must educate the people not only to our dangers, but also
to our opportunities, It can take comfort from the fact that despite
all the confusions and disappointments of the post-war period, the
American people have at no time been unresponsive to firm presidential
leadership
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VI
The discussion up to this point has concerned primarily the impact
of our diplomacy and of our military policy on the Soviet bloc. Its
impact on our Allies and the uncommitted is no less important. There
can be little doubt that our system of alliance is undergoing a crisis.
Many reasons exist for this, the Soviet peace offensive, the domestic
problems of France, the economic stagnation of Britain. But perhaps
the most fundamental cause is the absence of a unifying military doctrine.
The purpose of an alliance is two-fold: to confront the aggressor with
superior force and to give each ally a greater degree of security than
he could attain alone. But our current military doctrine coupled with
the growth of the Soviet nuclear stockpile makes both of these conditions
problematical in the eyes of our NATO partne s. In an all-out thermo-
nuclear war the ground strength of our NATO partners will be almost
irrelevant; in terms of the doctrine of massive retaliation our Allies
see little military silr nifi :anco in their own contribution. To be sure,
their air-bases are important to our strategy, but this is no inducement
to countries who want above all to avoid the ravages of an all-out war.
Ede have for this reason to develop a military doctrine which makes not
only sense to us, but also to our Allies; which guarantees not only our
ultimate victory, but their own survival.
The situation is complicated by the growth of the Soviet atomic
stockpile which confronts all of Western Europe with the imminence of
nuclear destruction. This places an entirely different complexion on
the decision to enter a war or on a policy of alliances which implies it.
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Heretofore, a nation threatened with attack would generally resist,
because the worst that could happen to it, as the result of an unsuccessful
war, was the loss of its national substance. But not, where most of
our NATO partne::z cor_;ider the outbreak of a war as leading to national
disintegration, our system of alliances is in dire jeopardy. It can be
restored, if at all, only by two measures:
a) by a military doctrine and capability which makes clear that
not every war is necessarily an all-out thermonuclear war, even in Europe;
b) by measures such as the air-defense of NATO,* which reduce the
sense of impotence of our Allies should thermonuclear war break out.
The problem with respect to the uncommitted, particularly the
newly independent powers is more complicated. Where our NATO partners suffer
from a perhaps excessive awareness of the reality of power, the former
colonial states seem hardly aware of its existence and nature. This is
understandable. The leaders of the newly independent states achieved
their positions by distinguishing themselves in the struggle with the
former colonial power. But the independence movements almost without
exception providea a poor preparation for an understanding of modern power
relationships. Based on the dogmas of late 19th century liberalism and
its pacifism, the independence movements depended for their cohesion
more on ideological agreement than on an evaluation of power factors.
Indeed, the claim to superior spirituality was and is the battlecry of, for
example, Indian nationalism. Moreover, the bad conscience of the colonial
power and their increasing weakness gave the struggle for independence
more the character of a domestic debate than of a power a spute. To be
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sure, many of the leaders of the newly independent powers spent years
in jail and suffered heroically for their cause. It is not to deny the
measure of their dedication to assert that the results achieved were
out of proportion to their suffering. Empires which had hold vast dominions
for hundreds of years disappeared without a shot being fired and without
making a serious effort to maintain themselves.
And if it is difficult for the leaders to retain a sense of
proportion, it is next to impossible for the mass of the people. On the
whole, they were involved in the struggle for independence only with their
sympathies; to them the disappearance of the colonial powers must seem
nothing short of miraculous. Moreover, most of the people of the newly
independent states live in pre-industrial societies. It would be difficult
enough for them to grasp the full impact of industrialism, it is too much to
expect them to understand the meaning of nuclear technology. It is,, therefore,
understandable that in former colonial areas there is an over-estimation of
what can be achieved by the power of words alone; a penchant for believing
that every problem can be solved by a proclamation. Nor is this tendency
diminished by the. rewards that fall to the uncor.;mitted in the struggle
for allegiance of two big power centers. The temptation to defer the
solution of difficult internal problems by entering the international
arena, to solidify a complicated domestic position by triumphs in the
field of ford.: policy must be overwhelming.
But, however understandable, it is a dangerous trend. If this were
a tranquil period, nothing would be involved but minor irritations. But
in the present crisis, their dogmatism tends to mare the newly independent
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states susceptible to Soviet "peace offensives" and their lack of
appreciation of power relationships may cause them to overestimate the
protective power of moral precepts. Moreover, the only visible power in
the newly independent states is that of Soviet or Chinese armies on
their borders. The U. S.., therefore, requires a 20th century concept
for "showing the flag", which will permit us to make our power felt auickly
and decisively, not only to deter Soviet aggression, but to impress the
uncommitted with our capacity for action. This does not mean rattling
the "atom bomb". On the contrary, our show of force should be restrained
and be used to underscore our moderation. What it does require is greater
mobility and a weapons system that poses less absolute sanctions than
thermonuclear war.
To be sure, this is an ungrateful and indeed an unpopular course.
But we will not be able to avoid unpopularity; in the short run, all we
can hope for is respect. Moreover, condescending as it may seem, we have
an important educational task to perform with respect to nuclear power
in the newly independent countries. Within a generation and probably in
less time than that, most of these states will possess nuclear power
plants and, therefore, the wherewitbal to manufacture nuclear weapons.
And even if this should not prove the case, the Soviets may find it ad-
vantageous to increase international tensions by making available nuclear
weapons, on the model of their arms deal with Egypt, But nuclear weapons
in the hands of weak or irresponsible or merely ignorant governments
present,grave danZcrs. Unless the U. S. has demonstrated its ability to
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prevent their use or has at least established internationally accepted
ground-rules for their graduated employment, many areas of the world
will begin to play the traditional role of the Balkans in European politics:
the fuse which will set off a holocaust.
VII
Paul Nitze in his searching article in Foreign lifZairs has distin-
guished action policy from declaratory policy -- the policy one has and
the policy one announces, But there exists a level of policy even more
fundamental -- the conception of alternatives which underlies any action,
the standards of debate which may be all the more fundamental for never
being made explicit. One of our difficulties in the nuclear period has
been our tendency to treat its problems priiiiarily as technical, But
power is meaninUless in the absence of a doctrine for employing it. It
has always been true that the side which developed the more flexible
doctrine thereby achieved a decided advantage, all other factors being
equal: superior mobility and the use of artillery, a superior relationship
between fire and moveiaent furnished the basis of Napoleon's victories.
The ability to understand the importance of railroads in concentrating
forces was a reason for Prussia's victories in the 19th century. Similar
examples would be the victories of the Roman legions over the Macedonian
phalanx, of the English archers against the medieval knights (in part,
of course, also a technological breakthrough). All these were victories not
of superior resources, but of superior doctrine: the ability to break the
framework which had cor,ie to be taken for granted and of making the victory
all the more complete for facing the antagonist with contingencies which
he had never even considered.
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To be sure, military doctrine will not by itself be able to deal
with the present period of revolutionary change. We need other measures:
an imaginative diplomacy, an ability to identify ourselves with the
aspirations of humanity. But we always seem in danger of focussing on
the current Soviet threat and of neglecting the alternative strategies
open to them. During the period of Soviet militancy, we were so pre-
occupied with building defensive barriers that we neglected the psycho-
logical framework which could alone make them meaningful,,. And now, with
the Soviet emphasis on more indirect methods of penetration, we stand
in danger of forgetting that economic aid presupposes at least a modicum
of security against foreign invasion.
The debate provoked by Mr. Dulles' statements in Life again empha-
sized our dilemma: the enormity of modern weapons makes any thought of
war seem repugnant, but the refusal to run the risk of war amounts to giving
the Soviets a blank check. The dilemma has been defined as the alter-
native between Armageddon or defeat without war. We can overcome the
paralysis induced by this prospect only by creating other alternatives both
in our diplomacy, as well as in our military policy, But these measures
require strong nerves. We can make the graduated employment of force stick
only if we leave no doubt about our readiness to face a final show-down;
its effectiveness will depend on our willingness to confront Armageddon.
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