Source: Naval War College Review, Vol. XXVII
(May-June, 1975), pp. 51-108. Also in
U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States: 1950, Volume I. NSC 68:
United States Objectives and Programs for National Security (April 14, 1950)
A Report to the President
Pursuant to the President's Directive of January 31,
1950
TOP SECRET
[Washington,] April 7, 1950
Contents
Terms of Reference
Analysis
I. Background of the Present World Crisis
II. The Fundamental Purpose of the United States
III. The Fundamental Design of the Kremlin
IV. The Underlying Conflict in the Realm of Ideas and
Values Between the U.S. Purpose and the Kremlin Design
Nature of the Conflict
Objectives
Means
V. Soviet Intentions and Capabilities--Actual and
Potential
VI. U.S. Intentions and Capabilities--Actual and
Potential
VII. Present Risks
VIII. Atomic Armaments
A. Military Evaluation of U.S. and U.S.S.R. Atomic
Capabilities
B. Stockpiling and Use of Atomic Weapons
C. International Control of Atomic Energy
IX. Possible Courses of Action
Introduction
The Role of Negotiation
A. The First Course—Continuation of Current Policies,
with Current and Currently Projected Programs for Carrying Out These Projects
B. The Second Course—Isolation
C. The Third Course—War
D. The Remaining Course of Action—A Rapid Build-up of
Political, Economic, and Military Strength in the Free World
Conclusions
Recommendations
TERMS OF REFERENCE
The following report is submitted in response to the
President's directive of January 31 which reads:
That the President direct the Secretary of State and
the Secretary of Defense to undertake a reexamination of our objectives in
peace and war and of the effect of these objectives on our strategic plans, in
the light of the probable fission bomb capability and possible thermonuclear
bomb capability of the Soviet Union.
The document which recommended that such a directive
be issued reads in part:
It must be considered whether a decision to proceed
with a program directed toward determining feasibility prejudges the more
fundamental decisions (a) as to whether, in the event that a test of a
thermonuclear weapon proves successful, such weapons should be stockpiled, or
(b) if stockpiled, the conditions under which they might be used in war. If a
test of a thermonuclear weapon proves successful, the pressures to produce and
stockpile such weapons to be held for the same purposes for which fission bombs
are then being held will be greatly increased. The question of use policy can
be adequately assessed only as a part of a general reexamination of this
country's strategic plans and its objectives in peace and war. Such
reexamination would need to consider national policy not only with respect to
possible thermonuclear weapons, but also with respect to fission weapons--viewed
in the light of the probable fission bomb capability and the possible
thermonuclear bomb capability of the Soviet Union. The moral, psychological,
and political questions involved in this problem would need to be taken into
account and be given due weight. The outcome of this reexamination would have a
crucial bearing on the further question as to whether there should be a
revision in the nature of the agreements, including the international control
of atomic energy, which we have been seeking to reach with the U.S.S.R.
ANALYSIS
I. Background of the
Present Crisis
Within the past thirty-five years the world has
experienced two global wars of tremendous violence. It has witnessed two
revolutions--the Russian and the Chinese--of extreme scope and intensity. It
has also seen the collapse of five empires--the Ottoman, the Austro-Hungarian,
German, Italian, and Japanese--and the drastic decline of two major imperial
systems, the British and the French. During the span of one generation, the
international distribution of power has been fundamentally altered. For several
centuries it had proved impossible for any one nation to gain such preponderant
strength that a coalition of other nations could not in time face it with
greater strength. The international scene was marked by recurring periods of
violence and war, but a system of sovereign and independent states was
maintained, over which no state was able to achieve hegemony.
Two complex sets of factors have now basically
altered this historic distribution of power. First, the defeat of Germany and
Japan and the decline of the British and French Empires have interacted with
the development of the United States and the Soviet Union in such a way that
power increasingly gravitated to these two centers. Second, the Soviet Union,
unlike previous aspirants to hegemony, is animated by a new fanatic faith,
anti-thetical to our own, and seeks to impose its absolute authority over the
rest of the world. Conflict has, therefore, become endemic and is waged, on the
part of the Soviet Union, by violent or non-violent methods in accordance with
the dictates of expediency. With the development of increasingly terrifying
weapons of mass destruction, every individual faces the ever-present
possibility of annihilation should the conflict enter the phase of total war.
On the one hand, the people of the world yearn for
relief from the anxiety arising from the risk of atomic war. On the other hand,
any substantial further extension of the area under the domination of the
Kremlin would raise the possibility that no coalition adequate to confront the
Kremlin with greater strength could be assembled. It is in this context that
this Republic and its citizens in the ascendancy of their strength stand in
their deepest peril.
The issues that face us are momentous, involving the
fulfillment or destruction not only of this Republic but of civilization
itself. They are issues which will not await our deliberations. With conscience
and resolution this Government and the people it represents must now take new
and fateful decisions.
II. Fundamental Purpose
of the United States
The fundamental purpose of the United States is laid
down in the Preamble to the Constitution: “. . . to form a more perfect Union,
establish justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence,
promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves
and our Posterity.” In essence, the fundamental purpose is to assure the
integrity and vitality of our free society, which is founded upon the dignity
and worth of the individual.
Three realities emerge as a consequence of this
purpose: Our determination to maintain the essential elements of individual
freedom, as set forth in the Constitution and Bill of Rights; our determination
to create conditions under which our free and democratic system can live and
prosper; and our determination to fight if necessary to defend our way of life,
for which as in the Declaration of Independence, “with a firm reliance on the
protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives,
our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”
III. Fundamental Design
of the Kremlin
The fundamental design of those who control the
Soviet Union and the international communist movement is to retain and solidify
their absolute power, first in the Soviet Union and second in the areas now
under their control. In the minds of the Soviet leaders, however, achievement
of this design requires the dynamic extension of their authority and the
ultimate elimination of any effective opposition to their authority.
The design, therefore, calls for the complete
subversion or forcible destruction of the machinery of government and structure
of society in the countries of the non-Soviet world and their replacement by an
apparatus and structure subservient to and controlled from the Kremlin. To that
end Soviet efforts are now directed toward the domination of the Eurasian land
mass. The United States, as the principal center of power in the non-Soviet
world and the bulwark of opposition to Soviet expansion, is the principal enemy
whose integrity and vitality must be subverted or destroyed by one means or
another if the Kremlin is to achieve its fundamental design.
IV. The Underlying
Conflict in the Realm of ideas and Values between the U.S. Purpose and the
Kremlin Design
A. NATURE OF CONFLICT
The Kremlin regards the United States as the only
major threat to the conflict between idea of slavery under the grim oligarchy
of the Kremlin, which has come to a crisis with the polarization of power
described in Section I, and the exclusive possession of atomic weapons by the
two protagonists. The idea of freedom, moreover, is peculiarly and intolerably
subversive of the idea of slavery. But the converse is not true. The implacable
purpose of the slave state to eliminate the challenge of freedom has placed the
two great powers at opposite poles. It is this fact which gives the present
polarization of power the quality of crisis.
The free society values the individual as an end in
himself, requiring of him only that measure of self-discipline and
self-restraint which make the rights of each individual compatible with the
rights of every other individual. The freedom of the individual has as its
counterpart, therefore, the negative responsibility of the individual not to
exercise his freedom in ways inconsistent with the freedom of other individuals
and the positive responsibility to make constructive use of his freedom in the
building of a just society.
From this idea of freedom with responsibility derives
the marvelous diversity, the deep tolerance, the lawfulness of the free
society. This is the explanation of the strength of free men. It constitutes
the integrity and the vitality of a free and democratic system. The free
society attempts to create and maintain an environment in which every
individual has the opportunity to realize his creative powers. It also explains
why the free society tolerates those within it who would use their freedom to
destroy it. By the same token, in relations between nations, the prime reliance
of the free society is on the strength and appeal of its idea, and it feels no
compulsion sooner or later to bring all societies into conformity with it.
For the free society does not fear, it welcomes,
diversity. It derives its strength from its hospitality even to antipathetic
ideas. It is a market for free trade in ideas, secure in its faith that free
men will take the best wares, and grow to a fuller and better realization of
their powers in exercising their choice.
The idea of freedom is the most contagious idea in
history, more contagious than the idea of submission to authority. For the
breadth of freedom cannot be tolerated in a society which has come under the
domination of an individual or group of individuals with a will to absolute
power. Where the despot holds absolute power--the absolute power of the
absolutely powerful will--all other wills must be subjugated in an act of
willing submission, a degradation willed by the individual upon himself under
the compulsion of a perverted faith. It is the first article of this faith that
he finds and can only find the meaning of his existence in serving the ends of
the system. The system becomes God, and submission to the will of God becomes
submission to the will of the system. It is not enough to yield outwardly to
the system--even Gandhian non-violence is not acceptable--for the spirit of
resistance and the devotion to a higher authority might then remain, and the
individual would not be wholly submissive.
The same compulsion which demands total power over
all men within the Soviet state without a single exception, demands total power
over all Communist Parties and all states under Soviet domination. Thus Stalin
has said that the theory and tactics of Leninism as expounded by the Bolshevik
party are mandatory for the proletarian parties of all countries. A true
internationalist is defined as one who unhesitatingly upholds the position of
the Soviet Union and in the satellite states true patriotism is love of the
Soviet Union. By the same token the “peace policy” of the Soviet Union,
described at a Party Congress as “a more advantageous form of fighting
capitalism,” is a device to divide and immobilize the non-Communist world, and
the peace the Soviet Union seeks is the peace of total conformity to Soviet
policy.
The antipathy of slavery to freedom explains the iron
curtain, the isolation, the autarchy of the society whose end is absolute
power. The existence and persistence of the idea of freedom is a permanent and
continuous threat to the foundation of the slave society; and it therefore
regards as intolerable the long continued existence of freedom in the world.
What is new, what makes the continuing crisis, is the polarization of power
which now inescapably confronts the slave society with the free.
The assault on free institutions is world-wide now,
and in the context of the present polarization of power a defeat of free
institutions anywhere is a defeat everywhere. The shock we sustained in the
destruction of Czechoslovakia was not in the measure of Czechoslovakia's
material importance to us. In a material sense, her capabilities were already
at Soviet disposal. But when the integrity of Czechoslovak institutions was
destroyed, it was in the intangible scale of values that we registered a loss
more damaging than the material loss we had already suffered.
Thus unwillingly our free society finds itself
mortally challenged by the Soviet system. No other value system is so wholly
irreconcilable with ours, so implacable in its purpose to destroy ours, so
capable of turning to its own uses the most dangerous and divisive trends in
our own society, no other so skillfully and powerfully evokes the elements of
irrationality in human nature everywhere, and no other has the support of a
great and growing center of military power.
B. OBJECTIVES
The objectives of a free society are determined by
its fundamental values and by the necessity for maintaining the material
environment in which they flourish. Logically and in fact, therefore, the
Kremlin's challenge to the United States is directed not only to our values but
to our physical capacity to protect their environment. It is a challenge which
encompasses both peace and war and our objectives in peace and war must take
account of it.
Thus we must make ourselves strong, both in the way
in which we affirm our values in the conduct of our national life, and in the
development of our military and economic strength.
We must lead in building a successfully functioning
political and economic system in the free world. It is only by practical
affirmation, abroad as well as at home, of our essential values, that we can
preserve our own integrity, in which lies the real frustration of the Kremlin
design.
But beyond thus affirming our values our policy and
actions must be such as to foster a fundamental change in the nature of the
Soviet system, a change toward which the frustration of the design is the first
and perhaps the most important step. Clearly it will not only be less costly
but more effective if this change occurs to a maximum extent as a result of
internal forces in Soviet society.
In a shrinking world, which now faces the threat of
atomic warfare, it is not an adequate objective merely to seek to check the
Kremlin design, for the absence of order among nations is becoming less and
less tolerable. This fact imposes on us, in our own interests, the
responsibility of world leadership. It demands that we make the attempt, and
accept the risks inherent in it, to bring about order and justice by means consistent
with the principles of freedom and democracy. We should limit our requirement
of the Soviet Union to its participation with other nations on the basis of
equality and respect for the rights of others. Subject to this requirement, we
must with our allies and the former subject peoples seek to create a world
society based on the principle of consent. Its framework cannot be inflexible.
It will consist of many national communities of great and varying abilities and
resources, and hence of war potential. The seeds of conflicts will inevitably
exist or will come into being. To acknowledge this is only to acknowledge the
impossibility of a final solution. Not to acknowledge it can be fatally
dangerous in a world in which there are no final solutions.
All these objectives of a free society are equally
valid and necessary in peace and war. But every consideration of devotion to
our fundamental values and to our national security demands that we seek to
achieve them by the strategy of the cold war. It is only by developing the
moral and material strength of the free world that the Soviet regime will
become convinced of the falsity of its assumptions and that the pre-conditions
for workable agreements can be created. By practically demonstrating the
integrity and vitality of our system the free world widens the area of possible
agreement and thus can hope gradually to bring about a Soviet acknowledgement
of realities which in sum will eventually constitute a frustration of the
Soviet design. Short of this, however, it might be possible to create a
situation which will induce the Soviet Union to accommodate itself, with or
without the conscious abandonment of its design, to coexistence on tolerable
terms with the non-Soviet world. Such a development would be a triumph for the
idea of freedom and democracy. It must be an immediate objective of United
States policy.
There is no reason, in the event of war, for us to
alter our overall objectives. They do not include unconditional surrender, the
subjugation of the Russian peoples or a Russia shorn of its economic potential.
Such a course would irrevocably unite the Russian people behind the regime
which enslaves them. Rather these objectives contemplate Soviet acceptance of
the specific and limited conditions requisite to an international environment
in which free institutions can flourish, and in which the Russian peoples will
have a new chance to work out their own destiny. If we can make the Russian
people our allies in the enterprise we will obviously have made our task easier
and victory more certain.
The objectives outlined in NSC 20/4 (November 23,
1948) ... are fully consistent with the objectives stated in this paper, and
they remain valid. The growing intensity of the conflict which has been imposed
upon us, however, requires the changes of emphasis and the additions that are
apparent. Coupled with the probable fission bomb capability and possible
thermonuclear bomb capability of the Soviet Union, the intensifying struggle
requires us to face the fact that we can expect no lasting abatement of the
crisis unless and until a change occurs in the nature of the Soviet system.
C. MEANS
The free society is limited in its choice of means to
achieve its ends.
Compulsion is the negation of freedom, except when it
is used to enforce the rights common to all. The resort to force, internally or
externally, is therefore a last resort for a free society. The act is
permissible only when one individual or groups of individuals within it
threaten the basic rights of other individuals or when another society seeks to
impose its will upon it. The free society cherishes and protects as fundamental
the rights of the minority against the will of a majority, because these rights
are the inalienable rights of each and every individual.
The resort to force, to compulsion, to the imposition
of its will is therefore a difficult and dangerous act for a free society,
which is warranted only in the face of even greater dangers. The necessity of
the act must be clear and compelling; the act must commend itself to the
overwhelming majority as an inescapable exception to the basic idea of freedom;
or the regenerative capacity of free men after the act has been performed will
be endangered.
The Kremlin is able to select whatever means are
expedient in seeking to carry out its fundamental design. Thus it can make the
best of several possible worlds, conducting the struggle on those levels where
it considers it profitable and enjoying the benefits of a pseudo-peace on those
levels where it is not ready for a contest. At the ideological or psychological
level, in the struggle for men's minds, the conflict is worldwide. At the
political and economic level, within states and in the relations between
states, the struggle for power is being intensified. And at the military level,
the Kremlin has thus far been careful not to commit a technical breach of the
peace, although using its vast forces to intimidate its neighbors, and to
support an aggressive foreign policy, and not hesitating through its agents to
resort to arms in favorable circumstances. The attempt to carry out its
fundamental design is being pressed, therefore, with all means which are
believed expedient in the present situation, and the Kremlin has inextricably
engaged us in the conflict between its design and our purpose.
We have no such freedom of choice, and least of all
in the use of force. Resort to war is not only a last resort for a free
society, but it is also an act which cannot definitively end the fundamental
conflict in the realm of ideas. The idea of slavery can only be overcome by the
timely and persistent demonstration of the superiority of the idea of freedom.
Military victory alone would only partially and perhaps only temporarily affect
the fundamental conflict, for although the ability of the Kremlin to threaten
our security might be for a time destroyed, the resurgence of totalitarian
forces and the re-establishment of the Soviet system or its equivalent would
not be long delayed unless great progress were made in the fundamental
conflict.
Practical and ideological considerations therefore
both impel us to the conclusion that we have no choice but to demonstrate the
superiority of the idea of freedom by its constructive application, and to
attempt to change the world situation by means short of war in such a way as to
frustrate the Kremlin design and hasten the decay of the Soviet system.
For us the role of military power is to serve the
national purpose by deterring an attack upon us while we seek by other means to
create an environment in which our free society can flourish, and by fighting,
if necessary, to defend the integrity and vitality of our free society and to
defeat any aggressor. The Kremlin uses Soviet military power to back up and
serve the Kremlin design. It does not hesitate to use military force
aggressively if that course is expedient in the achievement of its design. The
differences between our fundamental purpose and the Kremlin design, therefore,
are reflected in our respective attitudes toward and use of military force.
Our free society, confronted by a threat to its basic
values, naturally will take such action, including the use of military force,
as may be required to protect those values. The integrity of our system will
not be jeopardized by any measures, covert or overt, violent or non-violent,
which serve the purposes of frustrating the Kremlin design, nor does the
necessity for conducting ourselves so as to affirm our values in actions as
well as words forbid such measures, provided only they are appropriately
calculated to that end and are not so excessive or misdirected as to make us
enemies of the people instead of the evil men who have enslaved them.
But if war comes, what is the role of force? Unless
we so use it that the Russian people can perceive that our effort is directed
against the regime and its power for aggression, and not against their own
interests, we will unite the regime and the people in the kind of last ditch
fight in which no underlying problems are solved, new ones are created, and
where our basic principles are obscured and compromised. If we do not in the
application of force demonstrate the nature of our objectives we will, in fact,
have compromised from the outset our fundamental purpose. In the words of the
Federalist (No. 28) “The means to be employed must be proportioned to the
extent of the mischief.” The mischief may be a global war or it may be a Soviet
campaign for limited objectives. In either case we should take no avoidable
initiative which would cause it to become a war of annihilation, and if we have
the forces to defeat a Soviet drive for limited objectives it may well be to
our interest not to let it become a global war. Our aim in applying force must
be to compel the acceptance of terms consistent with our objectives, and our
capabilities for the application of force should, therefore, within the limits
of what we can sustain over the long pull, be congruent to the range of tasks
which we may encounter.
V. Soviet Intentions and
Capabilities
A. POLITICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL
The Kremlin's design for world domination begins at
home. The first concern of a despotic oligarchy is that the local base of its
power and authority be secure. The massive fact of the iron curtain isolating
the Soviet peoples from the outside world, the repeated political purges within
the USSR and the institutionalized crimes of the MVD [the Soviet Ministry of
Internal Affairs] are evidence that the Kremlin does not feel secure at home
and that “the entire coercive force of the socialist state” is more than ever
one of seeking to impose its absolute authority over “the economy, manner of
life, and consciousness of people” (Vyshinski, The Law of the Soviet State, p.
74). Similar evidence in the satellite states of Eastern Europe leads to the
conclusion that this same policy, in less advanced phases, is being applied to
the Kremlin's colonial areas.
Being a totalitarian dictatorship, the Kremlin's
objectives in these policies is the total subjective submission of the peoples
now under its control. The concentration camp is the prototype of the society
which these policies are designed to achieve, a society in which the
personality of the individual is so broken and perverted that he participates
affirmatively in his own degradation.
The Kremlin's policy toward areas not under its
control is the elimination of resistance to its will and the extension of its
influence and control. It is driven to follow this policy because it cannot,
for the reasons set forth in Chapter IV, tolerate the existence of free societies;
to the Kremlin the most mild and inoffensive free society is an affront, a
challenge and a subversive influence. Given the nature of the Kremlin, and the
evidence at hand, it seems clear that the ends toward which this policy is
directed are the same as those where its control has already been established.
The means employed by the Kremlin in pursuit of this
policy are limited only by considerations of expediency. Doctrine is not a
limiting factor; rather it dictates the employment of violence, subversion, and
deceit, and rejects moral considerations. In any event, the Kremlin's
conviction of its own infallibility has made its devotion to theory so
subjective that past or present pronouncements as to doctrine offer no reliable
guide to future actions. The only apparent restraints on resort to war are,
therefore, calculations of practicality.
With particular reference to the United States, the
Kremlin's strategic and tactical policy is affected by its estimate that we are
not only the greatest immediate obstacle which stands between it and world
domination, we are also the only power which could release forces in the free
and Soviet worlds which could destroy it. The Kremlin's policy toward us is
consequently animated by a peculiarly virulent blend of hatred and fear. Its
strategy has been one of attempting to undermine the complex of forces, in this
country and in the rest of the free world, on which our power is based. In this
it has both adhered to doctrine and followed the sound principle of seeking
maximum results with minimum risks and commitments. The present application of
this strategy is a new form of expression for traditional Russian caution.
However, there is no justification in Soviet theory or practice for predicting
that, should the Kremlin become convinced that it could cause our downfall by
one conclusive blow, it would not seek that solution.
In considering the capabilities of the Soviet world,
it is of prime importance to remember that, in contrast to ours, they are being
drawn upon close to the maximum possible extent. Also in contrast to us, the
Soviet world can do more with less--it has a lower standard of living, its
economy requires less to keep it functioning, and its military machine operates
effectively with less elaborate equipment and organization.
The capabilities of the Soviet world are being
exploited to the full because the Kremlin is inescapably militant. It is
inescapably militant because it possesses and is possessed by a world-wide
revolutionary movement, because it ' is the inheritor of Russian imperialism,
and because it is a totalitarian dictatorship. Persistent crisis, conflict, and
expansion are the essence of the Kremlin's militancy. This dynamism serves to
intensify all Soviet capabilities.
Two enormous organizations, the Communist Party and
the secret police, are an outstanding source of strength to the Kremlin. In the
Party, it has an apparatus designed to impose at home an ideological uniformity
among its people and to act abroad as an instrument of propaganda, subversion
and espionage. In its police apparatus, it has a domestic repressive instrument
guaranteeing under present circumstances the continued security of the Kremlin.
The demonstrated capabilities of these two basic organizations, operating
openly or in disguise, in mass or through single agents, is unparalleled in
history. The party, the police and the conspicuous might of the Soviet military
machine together tend to create an overall impression of irresistible Soviet
power among many peoples of the free world.
The ideological pretensions of the Kremlin are
another great source of strength. Its identification of the Soviet system with
communism, its peace campaigns and its championing of colonial peoples may be
viewed with apathy, if not cynicism, by the oppressed totalitariat of the
Soviet world, but in the free world these ideas find favorable responses in
vulnerable segments of society. They have found a particularly receptive
audience in Asia, especially as the Asiatics have been impressed by what has
been plausibly portrayed to them as the rapid advance of the USSR from a
backward society to a position of great world power. Thus, in its pretensions
to being (a) the source of a new universal faith and (b) the model “scientific”
society, the Kremlin cynically identifies itself with the genuine aspirations
of large numbers of people, and places itself at the head of an international
crusade with all of the benefits which derive therefrom.
Finally, there is a category of capabilities,
strictly speaking neither institutional nor ideological, which should be taken
into consideration. The extraordinary flexibility of Soviet tactics is
certainly a strength. It derives from the utterly amoral and opportunistic
conduct of Soviet policy. Combining this quality with the elements of secrecy,
the Kremlin possesses a formidable capacity to act with the widest tactical
latitude, with stealth, and with speed.
The greatest vulnerability of the Kremlin lies in the
basic nature of its relations with the Soviet people.
That relationship is characterized by universal
suspicion, fear, and denunciation. It is a relationship in which the Kremlin
relies, not only for its power but its very survival, on intricately devised
mechanisms of coercion. The Soviet monolith is held together by the iron
curtain around it and the iron bars within it, not by any force of natural
cohesion. These artificial mechanisms of unity have never been intelligently
challenged by a strong outside force. The full measure of their vulnerability
is therefore not yet evident.
The Kremlin's relations with its satellites and their
peoples is likewise a vulnerability. Nationalism still remains the most potent
emotional-political force. The well-known ills of colonialism are compounded,
however, by the excessive demands of the Kremlin that its satellites accept not
only the imperial authority of Moscow but that they believe in and proclaim the
ideological primacy and infallibility of the Kremlin. These excessive
requirements can be made good only through extreme coercion. The result is that
if a satellite feels able to effect its independence of the Kremlin, as Tito
was able to do, it is likely to break away.
In short, Soviet ideas and practices run counter to
the best and potentially the strongest instincts of men, and deny their most
fundamental aspirations. Against an adversary which effectively affirmed the
constructive and hopeful instincts of men and was capable of fulfilling their
fundamental aspirations, the Soviet system might prove to be fatally weak.
The problem of succession to Stalin is also a Kremlin
vulnerability. In a system where supreme power is acquired and held through
violence and intimidation, the transfer of that power may well produce a period
of instability.
In a very real sense, the Kremlin is a victim of, its
own dynamism. This dynamism can become a weakness if it is frustrated, if in
its forward thrusts it encounters a superior force which halts the expansion
and exerts a superior counterpressure. Yet the Kremlin cannot relax the
condition of crisis and mobilization, for to do so would be to lose its
dynamism, whereas the seeds of decay within the Soviet system would begin to
flourish and fructify.
The Kremlin is, of course, aware of these weaknesses.
It must know that in the present world situation they are of secondary
significance. So long as the Kremlin retains the initiative, so long as it can
keep on the offensive unchallenged by clearly superior counter-force--spiritual
as well as material--its vulnerabilities are largely inoperative and even concealed
by its successes. The Kremlin has not yet been given real reason to fear and be
diverted by the rot within its system.
B. ECONOMIC
The Kremlin has no economic intentions unrelated to
its overall policies. Economics in the Soviet world is not an end in itself The
Kremlin's policy, in so far as it has to do with economics, is to utilize
economic processes to contribute to the overall strength, particularly the
war-making capacity of the Soviet system. The material welfare of the
totalitariat is severely subordinated to the interest of the system.
As for capabilities, even granting optimistic Soviet
reports of production, the total economic strength of the U.S.S.R. compares
with that of the U.S. as roughly one to four. This is reflected not only in gross
national product (1949: USSR $65 billion; U.S. $250 billion), but in production
of key commodities in 1949:
Assuming the maintenance of present policies, while a
large U.S. advantage is likely to remain, the Soviet Union will be steadily
reducing the discrepancy between its overall economic strength and that of the
U.S. by continuing to devote proportionately more to capital investment than
the U.S.
But a full-scale effort by the U.S. would be capable
of precipitately altering this trend. The USSR today is on a near maximum
production basis. No matter what efforts Moscow might make, only a relatively
slight change in the rate of increase in overall production could be brought
about. In the U.S., on the other hand, a very rapid absolute expansion could be
realized. The fact remains, however, that so long as the Soviet Union is
virtually mobilized, and the United States has scarcely begun to summon up its
forces, the greater capabilities of the U.S. are to that extent inoperative in
the struggle for power. Moreover, as the Soviet attainment of an atomic
capability has demonstrated, the totalitarian state, at least in time of peace,
can focus its efforts on any given project far more readily than the democratic
state.
In other fields--general technological competence,
skilled labor resources, productivity of labor force, etc.--the gap between the
USSR and the U.S. roughly corresponds to the gap in production. In the field of
scientific research, however, the margin of United States superiority is
unclear, especially if the Kremlin can utilize European talents.
C. MILITARY
The Soviet Union is developing the military capacity
to support its design for world domination. The Soviet Union actually possesses
armed forces far in excess of those necessary to defend its national territory.
These armed forces are probably not yet considered by the Soviet Union to be
sufficient to initiate a war which would involve the United States. This
excessive strength, coupled now with an atomic capability, provides the Soviet
Union with great coercive power for use in time of peace in furtherance of its
objectives and serves as a deterrent to the victims of its aggression from
taking any action in opposition to its tactics which would risk war.
Should a major war occur in 1950 the Soviet Union and
its satellites are considered by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to be in a
sufficiently advanced state of preparation immediately to undertake and carry
out the following campaigns.
a. To overrun Western Europe, with the possible
exception of the Iberian and Scandinavian Peninsulas; to drive toward the
oil-bearing areas of the Near and Middle East; and to consolidate Communist
gains in the Far East;
b. To launch air attacks against the British Isles
and air and sea attacks against the lines of communications of the Western
Powers in the Atlantic and the Pacific;
c. To attack selected targets with atomic weapons,
now including the likelihood of such attacks against targets in Alaska, Canada,
and the United States. Alternatively, this capability, coupled with other
actions open to the Soviet Union, might deny the United Kingdom as an effective
base of operations for allied forces. It also should be possible for the Soviet
Union to prevent any allied “Normandy” type amphibious operations intended to
force a reentry into the continent of Europe.
After the Soviet Union completed its initial
campaigns and consolidated its positions in the Western European area, it could
simultaneously conduct:
a. Full-scale air and limited sea operations against
the British Isles;
b. Invasions of the Iberian and Scandinavian
Peninsulas;
c. Further operations in the Near and Middle East,
continued air operations against the North American continent, and air and sea
operations against Atlantic and Pacific lines of communication; and
d. Diversionary attacks in other areas.
During the course of the offensive operations listed
in the second and third paragraphs above, the Soviet Union will have an air
defense capability with respect to the vital areas of its own and its satellites'
territories which can oppose but cannot prevent allied air operations against
these areas.
It is not known whether the Soviet Union possesses
war reserves and arsenal capabilities sufficient to supply its satellite armies
or even its own forces throughout a long war. It might not be in the interest
of the Soviet Union to equip fully its satellite armies, since the possibility
of defections would exist.
It is not possible at this time to assess accurately
the finite disadvantages to the Soviet Union which may accrue through the
implementation of the Economic Cooperation Act of 1948, as amended, and the
Mutual Defense Assistance Act of 1949. It should be expected that, as this
implementation progresses, the internal security situation of the recipient
nations should improve concurrently. In addition, a strong United States
military position, plus increases in the armaments of the nations of Western
Europe, should strengthen the determination of the recipient nations to counter
Soviet moves and in event of war could be considered as likely to delay
operations and increase the time required for the Soviet Union to overrun
Western Europe. In all probability, although United States backing will stiffen
their determination, the armaments increase under the present aid programs will
not be of any major consequence prior to 1952. Unless the military strength of
the Western European nations is increased on a much larger scale than under
current programs and at an accelerated rate, it is more than likely that those
nations will not be able to oppose even by 1960 the Soviet armed forces in war
with any degree of effectiveness. Considering the Soviet Union military
capability, the long-range allied military objective in Western Europe must
envisage an increased military strength in that area sufficient possibly to
deter the Soviet Union from a major war or, in any event, to delay materially
the overrunning of Western Europe and, if feasible, to hold a bridgehead on the
continent against Soviet Union offensives.
We do not know accurately what the Soviet atomic
capability is but the Central Intelligence Agency intelligence estimates,
concurred in by State, Army, Navy, Air Force, and Atomic Energy Commission,
assign to the Soviet Union a production capability giving it a fission bomb
stockpile within the following ranges:
This estimate is admittedly based on incomplete
coverage of Soviet activities and represents the production capabilities of
known or deducible Soviet plants. If others exist, as is possible, this estimate
could lead us into a feeling of superiority in our atomic stockpile that might
be dangerously misleading, particularly with regard to the timing of a possible
Soviet offensive. On the other hand, if the Soviet Union experiences operating
difficulties, this estimate would be reduced. There is some evidence that the
Soviet Union is acquiring certain materials essential to research on and
development of thermonuclear weapons.
The Soviet Union now has aircraft able to deliver the
atomic bomb. Our Intelligence estimates assign to the Soviet Union an atomic
bomber capability already in excess of that needed to deliver available bombs.
We have at present no evaluated estimate regarding the Soviet accuracy of
delivery on target. It is believed that the Soviets cannot deliver their bombs
on target with a degree of accuracy comparable to ours, but a planning estimate
might well place it at 40-60 percent of bombs sorted. For planning purposes,
therefore, the date the Soviets possess an atomic stockpile of 200 bombs would
be a critical date for the United States, for the delivery of 100 atomic bombs
on targets in the United States would seriously damage this country.
At the time the Soviet Union has a substantial atomic
stockpile and if it is assumed that it will strike a strong surprise blow and
if it is assumed further that its atomic attacks will be met with no more
effective defense opposition than the United States and its allies have
programmed, results of those attacks could include:
a. Laying waste to the British Isles and thus
depriving the Western Powers of their use as a base;
b. Destruction of the vital centers and of the
communications of Western Europe, thus precluding effective defense by the
Western Powers; and
c. Delivering devastating attacks on certain vital
centers of the United States and Canada.
The possession by the Soviet Union of a thermonuclear
capability in addition to this substantial atomic stockpile would result in
tremendously increased damage.
During this decade, the defensive capabilities of the
Soviet Union will probably be strengthened, particularly by the development and
use of modem aircraft, aircraft warning and communications devices, and
defensive guided missiles.
VI. U.S. Intentions and
Capabilities--Actual and Potential
A. POLITICAL AND
PSYCHOLOGICAL
Our overall policy at the present time may be
described as one designed to foster a world environment in which the American
system can survive and flourish. It therefore rejects the concept of isolation
and affirms the necessity of our positive participation in the world community.
This broad intention embraces two subsidiary
policies. One is a policy which we would probably pursue even if there were no
Soviet threat. It is a policy of attempting to develop a healthy international
community. The other is the policy of “containing” the Soviet system. These two
policies are closely interrelated and interact on one another. Nevertheless,
the distinction between them is basically valid and contributes to a clearer
understanding of what we are trying to do.
The policy of striving to develop a healthy
international community is the long-term constructive effort which we are
engaged in. It was this policy which gave rise to our vigorous sponsorship of
the United Nations. It is of course the principal reason for our long
continuing endeavors to create and now develop the Inter-American system. It,
as much as containment, underlay our efforts to rehabilitate Western Europe.
Most of our international economic activities can likewise be explained in
terms of this policy.
In a world of polarized power, the policies designed
to develop a healthy international community are more than ever necessary to
our own strength.
As for the policy of “containment,” it is one which
seeks by all means short of war to (1) block further expansion of Soviet power,
(2) expose the falsities of Soviet pretensions, (3) induce a retraction of the
Kremlin's control and influence, and (4) in general, so foster the seeds of
destruction within the Soviet system that the Kremlin is brought at least to
the point of modifying its behavior to conform to generally accepted
international standards.
It was and continues to be cardinal in this policy
that we possess superior overall power in ourselves or in dependable
combination with other likeminded nations. One of the most important
ingredients of power is military strength. In the concept of “containment,” the
maintenance of a strong military posture is deemed to be essential for two
reasons: (1) as an ultimate guarantee of our national security and (2) as an
indispensable backdrop to the conduct of the policy of “containment.” Without
superior aggregate military strength, in being and readily mobilizable, a
policy of “containment”--which is in effect a policy of calculated and gradual
coercion--is no more than a policy of bluff.
At the same time, it is essential to the successful
conduct of a policy of “containment” that we always leave open the possibility
of negotiation with the USSR. A diplomatic freeze--and we are in one now--tends
to defeat the very purposes of “containment” because it raises tensions at the
same time that it makes Soviet retractions and adjustments in the direction of
moderated behavior more difficult. It also tends to inhibit our initiative and
deprives us of opportunities for maintaining a moral ascendancy in our struggle
with the Soviet system.
In “containment” it is desirable to exert pressure in
a fashion which will avoid so far as possible directly challenging Soviet
prestige, to keep open the possibility for the USSR to retreat before pressure
with a minimum loss of face and to secure political advantage from the failure
of the Kremlin to yield or take advantage of the openings we leave it.
We have failed to implement adequately these two
fundamental aspects of “containment.” In the face of obviously mounting Soviet
military strength ours has declined relatively. Partly as a byproduct of this,
but also for other reasons, we now find ourselves at a diplomatic impasse with
the Soviet Union, with the Kremlin growing bolder, with both of us holding on
grimly to what we have, and with ourselves facing difficult decisions.
In examining our capabilities it is relevant to ask
at the outset--capabilities for what? The answer cannot be stated solely in the
negative terms of resisting the Kremlin design. It includes also our
capabilities to attain the fundamental purpose of the United States, and to
foster a world environment in which our free society can survive and flourish.
Potentially we have these capabilities. We know we
have them in the economic and military fields. Potentially we also have them in
the political and psychological fields. The vast majority of Americans are
confident that the system of values which animates our society--the principles
of freedom, tolerance, the importance of the individual, and the supremacy of
reason over will--are valid and more vital than the ideology which is the fuel
of Soviet dynamism. Translated into terms relevant to the lives of other
peoples--our system of values can become perhaps a powerful appeal to millions
who now seek or find in authoritarianism a refuge from anxieties, bafflement,
and insecurity.
Essentially, our democracy also possesses a unique
degree of unity. Our society is fundamentally more cohesive than the Soviet
system, the solidarity of which is artificially created through force, fear,
and favor. This means that expressions of national consensus in our society are
soundly and solidly based. It means that the possibility of revolution in this
country is fundamentally less than that in the Soviet system.
These capabilities within us constitute a great
potential force in our international relations. The potential within us of
bearing witness to the values by which we live holds promise for a dynamic
manifestation to the rest of the world of the vitality of our system. The
essential tolerance of our world outlook, our generous and constructive
impulses, and the absence of covetousness in our international relations are
assets of potentially enormous influence.
These then are our potential capabilities. Between
them and our capabilities currently being utilized is a wide gap of
unactualized power. In sharp contrast is the situation of the Soviet world. Its
capabilities are inferior to those of our allies and to our own. But they are
mobilized close to the maximum possible extent.
The full power which resides within the American
people will be evoked only through the traditional democratic process: This
process requires, firstly, that sufficient information regarding the basic
political, economic, and military elements of the present situation be made
publicly available so that an intelligent popular opinion may be formed. Having
achieved a comprehension of the issues now confronting this Republic, it will
then be possible for the American people and the American Government to arrive
at a consensus. Out of this common view will develop a determination of the
national will and a solid resolute expression of that will. The initiative in
this process lies with the Government.
The democratic way is harder than the authoritarian
way because, in seeking to protect and fulfill the individual, it demands of
him understanding, judgment, and positive participation in the increasingly
complex and exacting problems of the modern world. It demands that he exercise
discrimination: that while pursuing through free inquiry the search for truth
he knows when he should commit an act of faith; that he distinguish between the
necessity for tolerance and the necessity for just suppression. A free society
is vulnerable in that it is easy for people to lapse into excesses--the
excesses of a permanently open mind wishfully waiting for evidence that evil
design may become noble purpose, the excess of faith becoming prejudice, the
excess of tolerance degenerating into indulgence of conspiracy and the excess
of resorting to suppression when more moderate measures are not only more
appropriate but more effective.
In coping with dictatorial governments acting in
secrecy and with speed, we are also vulnerable in that the democratic process
necessarily operates in the open and at a deliberate tempo. Weaknesses in our
situation are readily apparent and subject to immediate exploitation. This
Government therefore cannot afford in the face of the totalitarian challenge to
operate on a narrow margin of strength. A democracy can compensate for its
natural vulnerability only if it maintains clearly superior overall power in
its most inclusive sense.
The very virtues of our system likewise handicap us
in certain respects in our relations with our allies. While it is a general
source of strength to us that our relations with our allies are conducted on a
basis of persuasion and consent rather than compulsion and capitulation, it is
also evident that dissent among us can become a vulnerability. Sometimes the
dissent has its principal roots abroad in situations about which we can do
nothing. Sometimes it arises largely out of certain weaknesses within
ourselves, about which we can do something--our native impetuosity and a
tendency to expect too much from people widely divergent from us.
The full capabilities of the rest of the free world
are a potential increment to our own capabilities. It may even be said that the
capabilities of the Soviet world, specifically the capabilities of the masses
who have nothing to lose but their Soviet chains, are a potential which can be
enlisted on our side.
Like our own capabilities, those of the rest of the
free world exceed the capabilities of the Soviet system. Like our own they are
far from being effectively mobilized and employed in the struggle against the
Kremlin design. This is so because the rest of the free world lacks a sense of
unity, confidence, and common purpose. This is true in even the most
homogeneous and advanced segment of the free world--Western Europe.
As we ourselves demonstrate power, confidence, and a
sense of moral and political direction, so those same qualities will be evoked
in Western Europe. In such a situation, we may also anticipate a general
improvement in the political tone in Latin America, Asia, and Africa and the
real beginnings of awakening among the Soviet totalitariat.
In the absence of affirmative decision on our part,
the rest of the free world is almost certain to become demoralized. Our friends
will become more than a liability to us; they can eventually become a positive
increment to Soviet power.
In sum, the capabilities of our allies are, in an
important sense, a function of our own. An affirmative decision to summon up
the potential within ourselves would evoke the potential strength within others
and add it to our own.
B. ECONOMIC
1. Capabilities. In contrast to the war economy of
the Soviet world (cf. Ch. V-B), the American economy (and the economy of the
free world as a whole) is at present directed to the provision of rising
standards of living. The military budget of the United States represents 6 to 7
percent of its gross national product (as against 13.8 percent for the Soviet
Union). Our North Atlantic Treaty [NAT] allies devoted 4.8 percent of their
national product to military purposes in 1949.
This difference in emphasis between the two economies
means that the readiness of the free world to support a war effort is tending
to decline relative to that of the Soviet Union. There is little direct
investment in production facilities for military end-products and in dispersal.
There are relatively few men receiving military training and a relatively low
rate of production of weapons. However, given time to convert to a war effort,
the capabilities of the United States economy and also of the Western European
economy would be tremendous. In the light of Soviet military capabilities, a
question which may be of decisive importance in the event of war is the
question whether there will be time to mobilize our superior human and material
resources for a war effort (cf. Chs. VIII and IX).
The capability of the American economy to support a
build-up of economic and military strength at home and to assist a build-up
abroad is limited not, as in the case of the Soviet Union, so much by the
ability to produce as by the decision on the proper allocation of resources to
this and other purposes. Even Western Europe could afford to assign a
substantially larger proportion of its resources to defense, if the necessary
foundation in public understanding and will could be laid, and if the
assistance needed to meet its dollar deficit were provided.
A few statistics will help to clarify this point
[Table 1].
The Soviet Union is now allocating nearly 40 percent
of its gross available resources to military purposes and investment, much of
which is in war-supporting industries. It is estimated that even in an
emergency the Soviet Union could not increase this proportion to much more than
50 percent, or by one-fourth. The United States, on the other hand, is allocating
only about 20 percent of its resources to defense and investment (or 22 percent
including foreign assistance), and little of its investment outlays are
directed to war-supporting industries. In an emergency the United States could
allocate more than 50 percent of its resources to military purposes and foreign
assistance, or five to six times as much as at present.
The same point can be brought out by statistics on
the use of important products. The Soviet Union is using 14 percent of its
ingot steel, 47 percent of its primary aluminum, and 18.5 percent of its crude
oil for military purposes, while the corresponding percentages for the United
States are 1.7, 8.6, and 5.6. Despite the tremendously larger production of
these goods in the United States than the Soviet Union, the latter is actually
using, for military purposes, nearly twice as much steel as the United States
and 8 to 26 percent more aluminum.
Table 1. Percentage of Gross Available Resources
Allocated to Investment, National Defense, and Consumption in East and West,
1949 (in percent of total)
(a) crude estimate. [Footnote in the source text.]
(b) Includes Soviet Zone of Germany; otherwise 5
percent. [Footnote in the source text.]
Perhaps the most impressive indication of the
economic superiority of the free world over the Soviet world which can be made on the basis of
available data is provided in comparisons (based mainly on the Economic Survey
of Europe, 1948) [Table 2].
(a) 1949 data. [Footnote in the source text.]
(b) for the European NAT countries and for the
satellites, the data include output by major producers. [Footnote in the source
text.]
It should be noted that these comparisons understate
the relative position of the NAT countries for several reasons: (1) Canada is
excluded because comparable data were not available; (2) the data for the USSR
are the 1950 targets (as stated in the fourth five-year plan) rather than
actual rates of production and are believed to exceed in many cases the
production actually achieved; (3) the data for the European NAT countries are
actual data for 1948, and production has generally increased since that time.
Furthermore, the United States could achieve a
substantial absolute increase in output and could thereby increase the
allocation of resources to a build-up of the economic and military strength of
itself and its allies without suffering a decline in its real standard of
living. Industrial production declined by 10 percent between the first quarter
of 1948 and the last quarter of 1949, and by approximately one-fourth between
1944 and 1949. In March 1950 there were approximately 4,750,000 unemployed, as
compared to 1,070,000 in 1943 and 670,000 in 1944. The gross national product
declined slowly in 1949 from the peak reached in 1948 ($262 billion in 1948 to
an annual rate of $256 billion in the last six months of 1949), and in terms of
constant prices declined by about 20 percent between 1944 and 1948.
With a high level of economic activity, the United
States could soon attain a gross national product of $300 billion per year, as
was pointed out in the President's Economic Report (January 1950). Progress in
this direction would permit, and might itself be aided by, a buildup of the
economic and military strength of the United States and the free world; furthermore,
if a dynamic expansion of the economy were achieved, the necessary build-up
could be accomplished without a decrease in the national standard of living
because the required resources could be obtained by siphoning off a part of the
annual increment in the gross national product. These are facts of fundamental
importance in considering the courses of action open to the United States (cf.
Ch. IX).
2. Intentions. Foreign economic policy is a major
instrument in the conduct of United States foreign relations. It is an
instrument which can powerfully influence the world environment in ways
favorable to the security and welfare of this country. It is also an instrument
which, if unwisely formulated and employed, can do actual harm to our national
interests. It is an instrument uniquely suited to our capabilities, provided we
have the tenacity of purpose and the understanding requisite to a realization
of its potentials. Finally, it is an instrument peculiarly appropriate to the
cold war.
The preceding analysis has indicated that an
essential element in a program to frustrate the Kremlin design is the
development of a successfully functioning system among the free nations. It is
clear that economic conditions are among the fundamental determinants of the
will and the strength to resist subversion and aggression.
United States foreign economic policy has been
designed to assist in the building of such a system and such conditions in the
free world. The principal features of this policy can be summarized as follows:
assistance to Western Europe in recovery and the
creation of a viable economy (the European Recovery Program);
assistance to other countries because of their
special needs arising out of the war or the cold war and our special interests
in or responsibility for meeting them (grant assistance to Japan, the
Philippines, and Korea, loans and credits by the Export-Import Bank, the
International Monetary Fund, and the International Bank to Indonesia,
Yugoslavia, Iran, etc.);
assistance in the development of underdeveloped areas
(the Point IV program and loans and credits to various countries, overlapping
to some extent with those mentioned under 2);
military assistance to the North Atlantic Treaty
countries, Greece, Turkey, etc.;
restriction of East-West trade in items of military
importance to the East;
purchase and stockpiling of strategic materials; and
efforts to reestablish an international economy based
on multilateral trade, declining trade barriers, and convertible currencies
(the GATT-ITO program, the Reciprocal Trade Agreements program, the IMF-IBRD
program, and the program now being developed to solve the problem of the United
States balance of payments).
In both their short and long term aspects, these
policies and programs are directed to the strengthening of the free world and
therefore to the frustration of the Kremlin design. Despite certain
inadequacies and inconsistencies, which are now being studied in connection
with the problem of the United States balance of payments, the United States
has generally pursued a foreign economic policy which has powerfully supported
its overall objectives. The question must nevertheless be asked whether current
and currently projected programs will adequately support this policy in the
future, in terms both of need and urgency.
The last year has been indecisive in the economic
field. The Soviet Union has made considerable progress in integrating the
satellite economies of Eastern Europe into the Soviet economy, but still faces
very large problems, especially with China. The free nations have important
accomplishments to record, but also have tremendous problems still ahead. On
balance, neither side can claim any great advantage in this field over its
relative position a year ago. The important question therefore becomes: what
are the trends?
Several conclusions seem to emerge. First, the Soviet
Union is widening the gap between its preparedness for war and the
unpreparedness of the free world for war. It is devoting a far greater
proportion of its resources to military purposes than are the free nations and,
in significant components of military power, a greater absolute quantity of
resources. Second, the Communist success in China, taken with the
politico-economic situation in the rest of South and South-East Asia, provides
a springboard for a further incursion in this troubled area. Although Communist
China faces serious economic problems which may impose some strains on the
Soviet economy, it is probable that the social and economic problems faced by the
free nations in this area present more than offsetting opportunities for
Communist expansion. Third, the Soviet Union holds positions in Europe which,
if it maneuvers skillfully, could be used to do great damage to the Western
European economy and to the maintenance of the Western orientation of certain
countries, particularly Germany and Austria. Fourth, despite (and in part
because of) the Titoist' defection, the Soviet Union has accelerated its
efforts to integrate satellite economy with its own and to increase the degree
of autarchy within the areas under its control.
Fifth, meanwhile, Western Europe, with American (and
Canadian) assistance, has achieved a record level of production. However, it
faces the prospect of a rapid tapering off of American assistance without the
possibility of achieving, by its own efforts, a satisfactory equilibrium with
the dollar area. It has also made very little progress toward “economic
integration,” which would in the long run tend to improve its productivity and
to provide an economic environment conducive to political stability. In
particular, the movement toward economic integration does not appear to be
rapid enough to provide Western Germany with adequate economic opportunities in
the West. The United Kingdom still faces economic problems which may require a
moderate but politically difficult decline in the British standard of living or
more American assistance than is contemplated. At the same time, a
strengthening of the British position is needed if the stability of the
Commonwealth is not to be impaired and if it is to be a focus of resistance to
Communist expansion in South and South-East Asia. Improvement of the British
position is also vital in building up the defensive capabilities of Western
Europe.
Sixth, throughout Asia the stability of the present
moderate governments, which are more in sympathy with our purposes than any
probable successor regimes would be, is doubtful. The problem is only in part
an economic one. Assistance in economic development is important as a means of
holding out to the peoples of Asia some prospect of improvement in standards of
living under their present governments. But probably more important are a
strengthening of central institutions, an improvement in administration, and
generally a development of an economic and social structure within which the
peoples of Asia can make more effective use of their great human and material
resources.
Seventh, and perhaps most important, there are
indications of a let-down of United States efforts under the pressure of the
domestic budgetary situation, disillusion resulting from excessively optimistic
expectations about the duration and results of our assistance programs, and
doubts about the wisdom of continuing to strengthen the free nations as against
preparedness measures in light of the intensity of the cold war.
Eighth, there are grounds for predicting that the
United States and other free nations will within a period of a few years at
most experience a decline in economic activity of serious proportions unless
more positive governmental programs are developed than are now available.
In short, as we look into the future, the programs
now planned will not meet the requirements of the free nations. The difficulty
does not lie so much in the inadequacy or misdirection of policy as in the
inadequacy of planned programs, in terms of timing or impact, to achieve our
objectives. The risks inherent in this situation are set forth in the following
chapter and a course of action designed to reinvigorate our efforts in order to
reverse the present trends and to achieve our fundamental purpose is outlined
in Chapter IX.
C. MILITARY
The United States now possesses the greatest military
potential of any single nation in the world. The military weaknesses of the
United States vis-à-vis the Soviet Union, however, include its numerical
inferiority in forces in being and in total manpower. Coupled with the
inferiority of forces in being, the United States also lacks tenable positions
from which to employ its forces in event of war and munitions power in being
and readily available.
It is true that the United States armed forces are
now stronger than ever before in other times of apparent peace; it is also true
that there exists a sharp disparity between our actual military strength and
our commitments. The relationship of our strength to our present commitments,
however, is not alone the governing factor. The world situation, as well as
commitments, should govern; hence, our military strength more properly should be
related to the world situation confronting us. When our military strength is
related to the world situation and balanced against the likely exigencies of
such a situation, it is clear that our military strength is becoming
dangerously inadequate.
If war should begin in 1950, the United States and
its allies will have the military capability of conducting defensive operations
to provide a reasonable measure of protection to the Western Hemisphere, bases
in the Western Pacific, and essential military lines of communication; and an
inadequate measure of protection to vital military bases in the United Kingdom
and in the Near and Middle East. We will have the capability of conducting
powerful offensive air operations against vital elements of the Soviet war-making
capacity.
The scale of the operations listed in the preceding
paragraph is limited by the effective forces and material in being of the
United States and its allies vis-à-vis the Soviet Union. Consistent with the
aggressive threat facing us and in consonance with overall strategic plans, the
United States must provide to its allies on a continuing basis as large amounts
of military assistance as possible without serious detriment to the United
States operational requirements.
If the potential military capabilities of the United
States and its allies were rapidly and effectively developed, sufficient forces
could be produced probably to deter war, or if the Soviet Union chooses war, to
withstand the initial Soviet attacks, to stabilize supporting attacks, and to
retaliate in turn with even greater impact on the Soviet capabilities. From the
military point of view alone, however, this would require not only the
generation of the necessary military forces but also the development and
stockpiling of improved weapons of all types.
Under existing peacetime conditions, a period of from
two to three years is required to produce a material increase in military
power. Such increased power could be provided in a somewhat shorter period in a
declared period of emergency or in wartime through a full-out national effort.
Any increase in military power in peacetime, however, should be related both to
its probable military role in war, to the implementation of immediate and
long-term United States foreign policy vis-à-vis the Soviet Union, and to the
realities of the existing situation. If such a course of increasing our
military power is adopted now, the United States would have the capability of
eliminating the disparity between its military strength and the exigencies of
the situation we face; eventually of gaining the initiative in the “cold” war
and of materially delaying if not stopping the Soviet offensives in war itself.
VII. Present Risks
A. GENERAL
It is apparent from the preceding sections that the
integrity and vitality of our system is in greater jeopardy than ever before in
our history. Even if there were no Soviet Union we would face the great problem
of the free society, accentuated many fold in this industrial age, of
reconciling order, security, the need for participation, with the requirement
of freedom. We would face the fact that in a shrinking world the absence of
order among nations is becoming less and less tolerable. The Kremlin design
seeks to impose order among nations by means which would destroy our free and
democratic system. The Kremlin's possession of atomic weapons puts new power
behind its design, and increases the jeopardy to our system. It adds new
strains to the uneasy equilibrium-without-order which exists in the world and
raises new doubts in men's minds whether the world will long tolerate this
tension without moving toward some kind of order, on somebody's terms.
The risks we face are of a new order of magnitude,
commensurate with the total struggle in which we are engaged. For a free society
there is never total victory, since freedom and democracy are never wholly
attained, are always in the process of being attained. But defeat at the hands
of the totalitarian is total defeat. These risks crowd in on us, in a shrinking
world of polarized power, so as to give us no choice, ultimately, between
meeting them effectively or being overcome by them.
B. SPECIFIC
It is quite clear from Soviet theory and practice
that the Kremlin seeks to bring the free world under its dominion by the
methods of the cold war. The preferred technique is to subvert by infiltration
and intimidation. Every institution of our society is an instrument which it is
sought to stultify and turn against our purposes. Those that touch most closely
our material and moral strength are obviously the prime targets, labor unions,
civic enterprises, schools, churches, and all media for influencing opinion.
The effort is not so much to make them serve obvious Soviet ends as to prevent
them from serving our ends, and thus to make them sources of confusion in our
economy, our culture, and our body politic. The doubts and diversities that in
terms of our values are part of the merit of a free system, the weaknesses and
the problems that are peculiar to it, the rights and privileges that free men
enjoy, and the disorganization and destruction left in the wake of the last
attack on our freedoms, all are but opportunities for the Kremlin to do its
evil work. Every advantage is taken of the fact that our means of prevention
and retaliation are limited by those principles and scruples which are
precisely the ones that give our freedom and democracy its meaning for us. None
of our scruples deter those whose only code is “morality is that which serves
the revolution.”
Since everything that gives us or others respect for
our institutions is a suitable object for attack, it also fits the Kremlin's
design that where, with impunity, we can be insulted and made to suffer
indignity the opportunity shall not be missed, particularly in any context which
can be used to cast dishonor on our country, our system, our motives, or our
methods. Thus the means by which we sought to restore our own economic health
in the '30's, and now seek to restore that of the free world, come equally
under attack. The military aid by which we sought to help the free world was
frantically denounced by the Communists in the early days of the last war, and
of course our present efforts to develop adequate military strength for
ourselves and our allies are equally denounced.
At the same time the Soviet Union is seeking to
create overwhelming military force, in order to back up infiltration with
intimidation. In the only terms in which it understands strength, it is seeking
to demonstrate to the free world that force and the will to use it are on the
side of the Kremlin, that those who lack it are decadent and doomed. In local
incidents it threatens and encroaches both for the sake of local gains and to
increase anxiety and defeatism in all the free world.
The possession of atomic weapons at each of the
opposite poles of power, and the inability (for different reasons) of either
side to place any trust in the other, puts a premium on a surprise attack
against us. It equally puts a premium on a more violent and ruthless
prosecution of its design by cold war, especially if the Kremlin is
sufficiently objective to realize the improbability of our prosecuting a
preventive war. It also puts a premium on piecemeal aggression against others,
counting on our unwillingness to engage in atomic war unless we are directly
attacked. We run all these risks and the added risk of being confused and
immobilized by our inability to weigh and choose, and pursue a firm course
based on a rational assessment of each.
The risk that we may thereby be prevented or too long
delayed in taking all needful measures to maintain the integrity and vitality
of our system is great. The risk that our allies will lose their determination
is greater. And the risk that in this manner a descending spiral of too little
and too late, of doubt and recrimination, may present us with ever narrower and
more desperate alternatives, is the greatest risk of all. For example, it is
clear that our present weakness would prevent us from offering effective
resistance at any of several vital pressure points. The only deterrent we can
present to the Kremlin is the evidence we give that we may make any of the
critical points which we cannot hold the occasion for a global war of
annihilation.
The risk of having no better choice than to capitulate
or precipitate a global war at any of a number of pressure points is bad enough
in itself, but it is multiplied by the weakness it imparts to our position in
the cold war. Instead of appearing strong and resolute we are continually at
the verge of appearing and being alternately irresolute and desperate; yet it
is the cold war which we must win, because both the Kremlin design, and our
fundamental purpose give it the first priority.
The frustration of the Kremlin design, however,
cannot be accomplished by us alone, as will appear from the analysis in Chapter
IX, B. Strength at the center, in the United States, is only the first of two
essential elements. The second is that our allies and potential allies do not
as a result of a sense of frustration or of Soviet intimidation drift into a
course of neutrality eventually leading to Soviet domination. If this were to
happen in Germany the effect upon Western Europe and eventually upon us might
be catastrophic.
But there are risks in making ourselves strong. A
large measure of sacrifice and discipline will be demanded of the American
people. They will be asked to give up some of the benefits which they have come
to associate with their freedoms. Nothing could be more important than that
they fully understand the reasons for this. The risks of a superficial
understanding or of an inadequate appreciation of the issues are obvious and
might lead to the adoption of measures which in themselves would jeopardize the
integrity of our system. At any point in the process of demonstrating our will
to make good our fundamental purpose, the Kremlin may decide to precipitate a
general war, or in testing us, may go too far. These are risks we will invite
by making ourselves strong, but they are lesser risks than those we seek to
avoid. Our fundamental purpose is more likely to be defeated from lack of the
will to maintain it, than from any mistakes we may make or assault we may
undergo because of asserting that will. No people in history have preserved
their freedom who thought that by not being strong enough to protect themselves
they might prove inoffensive to their enemies.
VIII. Atomic Armaments
A. MILITARY EVALUATION OF
U.S. AND USSR ATOMIC CAPABILITIES
1. The United States now has an atomic capability,
including both numbers and deliverability, estimated to be adequate, if
effectively utilized, to deliver a serious blow against the war-making capacity
of the USSR. It is doubted whether such a blow, even if it resulted in the
complete destruction of the contemplated target systems, would cause the USSR
to sue for terms or prevent Soviet forces from occupying Western Europe against
such ground resistance as could presently be mobilized. A very serious initial
blow could, however, so reduce the capabilities of the USSR to supply and equip
its military organization and its civilian population as to give the United
States the prospect of developing a general military superiority in a war of
long duration.
2. As the atomic capability of the USSR increases, it
will have an increased ability to hit at our atomic bases and installations and
thus seriously hamper the ability of the United States to carry out an attack
such as that outlined above. It is quite possible that in the near future the
USSR will have a sufficient number of atomic bombs and a sufficient
deliverability to raise a question whether Britain with its present inadequate
air defense could be relied upon as an advance base from which a major portion
of the U.S. attack could be launched.
It is estimated that, within the next four years, the
USSR will attain the capability of seriously damaging vital centers of the
United States, provided it strikes a surprise blow and provided further that
the blow is opposed by no more effective opposition than we now have
programmed. Such a blow could so seriously damage the United States as to
greatly reduce its superiority in economic potential.
Effective opposition to this Soviet capability will
require among other measures greatly increased air warning systems, air
defenses, and vigorous development and implementation of a civilian defense
program which has been thoroughly integrated with the military defense systems.
In time the atomic capability of the USSR can be
expected to grow to a point where, given surprise and no more effective
opposition than we now have programmed, the possibility of a decisive initial
attack cannot be excluded.
3. In the initial phases of an atomic war, the
advantages of initiative and surprise would be very great. A police state
living behind an iron curtain has an enormous advantage in maintaining the
necessary security and centralization of decision required to capitalize on
this advantage.
4. For the moment our atomic retaliatory capability
is probably adequate to deter the Kremlin from a deliberate direct military
attack against ourselves or other free peoples. However, when it calculates
that it has a sufficient atomic capability to make a surprise attack on us,
nullifying our atomic superiority and creating a military situation decisively
in its favor, the Kremlin might be tempted to strike swiftly and with stealth.
The existence of two large atomic capabilities in such a relationship might
well act, therefore, not as a deterrent, but as an incitement to war.
5. A further increase in the number and power of our
atomic weapons is necessary in order to assure the effectiveness of any U.S.
retaliatory blow, but would not of itself seem to change the basic logic of the
above points. Greatly increased general air, ground, and sea strength, and
increased air defense and civilian defense programs would also be necessary to
provide reasonable assurance that the free world could survive an initial
surprise atomic attack of the weight which it is estimated the USSR will be
capable of delivering by 1954 and still permit the free world to go on to the
eventual attainment of its objectives. Furthermore, such a build-up of strength
could safeguard and increase our retaliatory power, and thus might put off for
some time the date when the Soviet Union could calculate that a surprise blow
would be advantageous. This would provide additional time for the effects of
our policies to produce a modification of the Soviet system.
6. If the USSR develops a thermonuclear weapon ahead
of the U.S., the risks of greatly increased Soviet pressure against all the
free world, or an attack against the U.S., will be greatly increased.
7. If the U.S. develops a thermonuclear weapon ahead
of the USSR, the U.S. should for the time being be able to bring increased
pressure on the USSR.
B. STOCKPILING AND USE OF
ATOMIC WEAPONS
1. From the foregoing analysis it appears that it
would be to the long-term advantage of the United States if atomic weapons were
to be effectively eliminated from national peacetime armaments; the additional objectives
which must be secured if there is to be a reasonable prospect of such effective
elimination of atomic weapons are discussed in Chapter IX. In the absence of
such elimination and the securing of these objectives, it would appear that we
have no alternative but to increase our atomic capability as rapidly as other
considerations make appropriate. In either case, it appears to be imperative to
increase as rapidly as possible our general air, ground, and sea strength and
that of our allies to a point where we are militarily not so heavily dependent
on atomic weapons.
2. As is indicated in Chapter IV, it is important
that the United States employ military force only if the necessity for its use
is clear and compelling and commends itself to the overwhelming majority of our
people. The United States cannot therefore engage in war except as a reaction
to aggression of so clear and compelling a nature as to bring the overwhelming
majority of our people to accept the use of military force. In the event war comes,
our use of force must be to compel the acceptance of our objectives and must be
congruent to the range of tasks which we may encounter.
In the event of a general war with the USSR, it must
be anticipated that atomic weapons will be used by each side in the manner it
deems best suited to accomplish its objectives. In view of our vulnerability to
Soviet atomic attack, it has been argued that we might wish to hold our atomic
weapons only for retaliation against prior use by the USSR. To be able to do so
and still have hope of achieving our objectives, the non-atomic military
capabilities of ourselves and our allies would have to be fully developed and
the political weaknesses of the Soviet Union fully exploited. In the event of
war, however, we could not be sure that we could move toward the attainment of
these objectives without the USSR's resorting sooner or later to the use of its
atomic weapons. Only if we had overwhelming atomic superiority and obtained
command of the air might the USSR be deterred from employing its atomic weapons
as we progressed toward the attainment of our objectives.
In the event the USSR develops by 1954 the atomic
capability which we now anticipate, it is hardly conceivable that, if war
comes, the Soviet leaders would refrain from the use of atomic weapons unless
they felt fully confident of attaining their objectives by other means.
In the event we use atomic weapons either in
retaliation for their prior use by the USSR or because there is no alternative
method by which we can attain our objectives, it is imperative that the
strategic and tactical targets against which they are used be appropriate and
the manner in which they are used be consistent with those objectives.
It appears to follow from the above that we should
produce and stockpile thermonuclear weapons in the event they prove feasible
and would add significantly to our net capability. Not enough is yet known of
their potentialities to warrant a judgment at this time regarding their use in
war to attain our objectives.
3. It has been suggested that we announce that we
will not use atomic weapons except in retaliation against the prior use of such
weapons by an aggressor. It has been argued that such a declaration would
decrease the danger of an atomic attack against the United States and its
allies.
In our present situation of relative unpreparedness
in conventional weapons, such a declaration would be interpreted by the USSR as
an admission of great weakness and by our allies as a clear indication that we
intended to abandon them. Furthermore, it is doubtful whether such a
declaration would be taken sufficiently seriously by the Kremlin to constitute
an important factor in determining whether or not to attack the United States.
It is to be anticipated that the Kremlin would weigh the facts of our
capability far more heavily than a declaration of what we proposed to do with
that capability.
Unless we are prepared to abandon our objectives, we
cannot make such a declaration in good faith until we are confident that we
will be in a position to attain our objectives without war, or, in the event of
war, without recourse to the use of atomic weapons for strategic or tactical
purposes.
C. INTERNATIONAL CONTROL
OF ATOMIC ENERGY
1. A discussion of certain of the basic considerations
involved in securing effective international control is necessary to make clear
why the additional objectives discussed in Chapter IX must be secured.
2. No system of international control could prevent
the production and use of atomic weapons in the event of a prolonged war. Even
the most effective system of international control could, of itself, only
provide (a) assurance that atomic weapons had been eliminated from national
peacetime armaments and (b) immediate notice of a violation. In essence, an effective
international control system would be expected to assure a certain amount of
time after notice of violation before atomic weapons could be used in war.
3. The time period between notice of violation and
possible use of atomic weapons in war which a control system could be expected
to assure depends upon a number of factors.
The dismantling of existing stockpiles of bombs and
the destruction of casings and firing mechanisms could by themselves give
little assurance of securing time. Casings and firing mechanisms are presumably
easy to produce, even surreptitiously, and the assembly of weapons does not
take much time.
If existing stocks of fissionable materials were in
some way eliminated and the future production of fissionable materials
effectively controlled, war could not start with a surprise atomic attack.
In order to assure an appreciable time lag between
notice of violation and the time when atomic weapons might be available in
quantity, it would be necessary to destroy all plants capable of making large
amounts of fissionable material. Such action would, however, require a
moratorium on those possible peacetime uses which call for large quantities of
fissionable materials.
Effective control over the production and stockpiling
of raw materials might further extend the time period which effective
international control would assure. Now that the Russians have learned the
technique of producing atomic weapons, the time between violation of an
international control agreement and production of atomic weapons will be
shorter than was estimated in 1946, except possibly in the field of
thermonuclear or other new types of weapons.
4. The certainty of notice of violation also depends
upon a number of factors. In the absence of good faith, it is to be doubted
whether any system can be designed which will give certainty of notice of
violation. International ownership of raw materials and fissionable materials
and international ownership and operation of dangerous facilities, coupled with
inspection based on continuous unlimited freedom of access to all parts of the
Soviet Union (as well as to all parts of the territory of other signatories to
the control agreement) appear to be necessary to give the requisite degree of
assurance against secret violations. As the Soviet stockpile of fissionable
materials grows, the amount which the USSR might secretly withhold and not
declare to the inspection agency grows. In this sense, the earlier an agreement
is consummated the greater the security it would offer. The possibility of
successful secret production operations also increases with developments which
may reduce the size and power consumption of individual reactors. The
development of a thermonuclear bomb would increase many fold the damage a given
amount of fissionable material could do and would, therefore, vastly increase
the danger that a decisive advantage could be gained through secret operations.
5. The relative sacrifices which would be involved in
international control need also to be considered. If it were possible to
negotiate an effective system of international control the United States would
presumably sacrifice a much larger stockpile of atomic weapons and a much
larger production capacity than would the USSR. The opening up of national
territory to international inspection involved in an adequate control and
inspection system would have a far greater impact on the USSR than on the
United States. If the control system involves the destruction of all large
reactors and thus a moratorium on certain possible peacetime uses, the USSR can
be expected to argue that it, because of greater need for new sources of
energy, would be making a greater sacrifice in this regard than the United
States.
6. The United States and the peoples of the world as
a whole desire a respite from the dangers of atomic warfare. The chief
difficulty lies in the danger that the respite would be short and that we might
not have adequate notice of its pending termination. For such an arrangement to
be in the interest of the United States, it is essential that the agreement be
entered into in good faith by both sides and the probability against its
violation high.
7. The most substantial contribution to security of
an effective international control system would, of course, be the opening up of
the Soviet Union, as required under the UN plan. Such opening up is not,
however, compatible with the maintenance of the Soviet system in its present
rigor. This is a major reason for the Soviet refusal to accept the UN plan.
The studies which began with the Acheson-Lilienthal
committee and culminated in the present UN plan made it clear that inspection
of atomic facilities would not alone give the assurance of control; but that
ownership and operation by an international authority of the world's atomic energy
activities from the mine to the last use of fissionable materials was also
essential. The delegation of sovereignty which this implies is necessary for
effective control and, therefore, is as necessary for the United States and the
rest of the free world as it is presently unacceptable to the Soviet Union.
It is also clear that a control authority not
susceptible directly or indirectly to Soviet domination is equally essential.
As the Soviet Union would regard any country not under its domination as under
the potential if not the actual domination of the United States, it is clear
that what the United States and the non-Soviet world must insist on, the Soviet
Union at present rejects.
The principal immediate benefit of international
control would be to make a surprise atomic attack impossible, assuming the
elimination of large reactors and the effective disposal of stockpiles of
fissionable materials. But it is almost certain that the Soviet Union would not
agree to the elimination of large reactors, unless the impracticability of
producing atomic power for peaceful purposes had been demonstrated beyond a
doubt. By the same token, it would not now agree to elimination of its
stockpile of fissionable materials.
Finally, the absence of good faith on the part of the
USSR must be assumed until there is concrete evidence that there has been a
decisive change in Soviet policies. It is to be doubted whether such a change
can take place without a change in the nature of the Soviet system itself.
The above considerations make it clear that at least
a major change in the relative power positions of the United States and the
Soviet Union would have to take place before an effective system of
international control could be negotiated. The Soviet Union would have had to
have moved a substantial distance down the path of accommodation and compromise
before such an arrangement would be conceivable. This conclusion is supported
by the Third Report of the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission to the
Security Council, May 17, 1948, in which it is stated that “. . . the majority
of the Commission has been unable to secure . . . their acceptance of the
nature and extent of participation in the world community required of all
nations in this field.... As a result, the Commission has been forced to
recognize that agreement on effective measures for the control of atomic energy
is itself dependent on cooperation in broader fields of policy.”
In short, it is impossible to hope than an effective
plan for international control can be negotiated unless and until the Kremlin
design has been frustrated to a point at which a genuine and drastic change in
Soviet policies has taken place.
IX. Possible Courses of
Action
Introduction. Four possible courses of action by the
United States in the present situation can be distinguished. They are:
a. Continuation of current policies, with current and
currently projected programs for carrying out these policies;
b. Isolation;
c. War; and
d. A more rapid building up of the political,
economic, and military strength of the free world than provided under a, with
the purpose of reaching, if possible, a tolerable state of order among nations
without war and of preparing to defend ourselves in the event that the free
world is attacked.
The role of negotiation. Negotiation must be
considered in relation to these courses of action. A negotiator always attempts
to achieve an agreement which is somewhat better than the realities of his
fundamental position would justify and which is, in any case, not worse than
his fundamental position requires. This is as true in relations among sovereign
states as in relations between individuals. The Soviet Union possesses several
advantages over the free world in negotiations on any issue:
a. It can and does enforce secrecy on all significant
facts about conditions within the Soviet Union, so that it can be expected to
know more about the realities of the free world's position than the free world
knows about its position;
b. It does not have to be responsive in any important
sense to public opinion;
c. It does not have to consult and agree with any
other countries on the terms it will offer 'And accept; and
d. It can influence public opinion in other countries
while insulating the peoples under its control.
These are important advantages. Together with the
unfavorable trend of our power position, they militate, as is shown in Section
A below, against successful negotiation of a general settlement at this time.
For although the United States probably now possesses, principally in atomic
weapons, a force adequate to deliver a powerful blow upon the Soviet Union and
to open the road to victory in a long war, it is not sufficient by itself to
advance the position of the United States in the cold war.
The problem is to create such political and economic
conditions in the free world, backed by force sufficient to inhibit Soviet
attack, that the Kremlin will accommodate itself to these conditions, gradually
withdraw, and eventually change its policies drastically. It has been shown in
Chapter VIII that truly effective control of atomic energy would require such
an opening up of the Soviet Union and such evidence in other ways of its good
faith and its intent to co-exist in peace as to reflect or at least initiate a
change in the Soviet system.
Clearly under present circumstances we will not be
able to negotiate a settlement which calls for a change in the Soviet system.
What, then, is the role of negotiation?
In the first place, the public in the United States
and in other free countries will require, as a condition to firm policies and
adequate programs directed to the frustration of the Kremlin design, that the
free world be continuously prepared to negotiate agreements with the Soviet
Union on equitable terms. It is still argued by many people here and abroad
that equitable agreements with the Soviet Union are possible, and this view
will gain force if the Soviet Union begins to show signs of accommodation, even
on unimportant issues.
The free countries must always, therefore, be
prepared to negotiate and must be ready to take the initiative at times in
seeking negotiation. They must develop a negotiating position which defines the
issues and the terms on which they would be prepared--and at what stages--to
accept agreements with the Soviet Union. The terms must be fair in the view of
popular opinion in the free world. This means that they must be consistent with
a positive program for peace--in harmony with the United Nations' Charter and
providing, at a minimum, for the effective control of all armaments by the
United Nations or a successor organization. The terms must not require more of
the Soviet Union than such behavior and such participation in a world
organization. The fact that such conduct by the Soviet Union is impossible
without such a radical change in Soviet policies as to constitute a change in
the Soviet system would then emerge as a result of the Kremlin's unwillingness
to accept such terms or of its bad faith in observing them.
A sound negotiating position is, therefore, an
essential element in the ideological conflict. For some time after a decision
to build up strength, any offer of, or attempt at, negotiation of a general
settlement along the lines of the Berkeley speech by the Secretary of State
could be only a tactic.' Nevertheless, concurrently with a decision and a start
on building up the strength of the free world, it may be desirable to pursue
this tactic both to gain public support for the program and to minimize the
immediate risks of war. It is urgently necessary for the United States to
determine its negotiating position and to obtain agreement with its major
allies on the purposes and terms of negotiation.
In the second place, assuming that the United States
in cooperation with other free countries decides and acts to increase the
strength of the free world and assuming that the Kremlin chooses the path of
accommodation, it will from time to time be necessary and desirable to
negotiate on various specific issues with the Kremlin as the area of possible agreement
widens.
The Kremlin will have three major objectives in
negotiations with the United States. The first is to eliminate the atomic
capabilities of the United States; the second is to prevent the effective
mobilization of the superior potential of the free world in human and material
resources; and the third is to secure a withdrawal of United States forces
from, and commitments to, Europe and Japan. Depending on its evaluation of its
own strengths and weaknesses as against the West's (particularly the ability
and will of the West to sustain its efforts), it will or will not be prepared
to make important concessions to achieve these major objectives. It is unlikely
that the Kremlin's evaluation is such that it would now be prepared to make
significant concessions.
The objectives of the United States and other free
countries in negotiations with the Soviet Union (apart from the ideological
objectives discussed above) are to record, in a formal fashion which will
facilitate the consolidation and further advance of our position, the process
of Soviet accommodation to the new political, psychological, and economic
conditions in the world which will result from adoption of the fourth course of
action and which will be supported by the increasing military strength
developed as an integral part of that course of action. In short, our
objectives are to record, where desirable, the gradual withdrawal of the Soviet
Union and to facilitate that process by making negotiation, if possible, always
more expedient than resort to force.
It must be presumed that for some time the Kremlin
will accept agreements only if it is convinced that by acting in bad faith
whenever and wherever there is an opportunity to do so with impunity, it can
derive greater advantage from the agreements than the free world. For this
reason, we must take care that any agreements are enforceable or that they are
not susceptible of violation without detection and the possibility of effective
countermeasures.
This further suggests that we will have to consider
carefully the order in which agreements can be concluded. Agreement on the
control of atomic energy would result in a relatively greater disarmament of
the United States than of the Soviet Union, even assuming considerable progress
in building up the strength of the free world in conventional forces and
weapons. It might be accepted by the Soviet Union as part of a deliberate
design to move against Western Europe and other areas of strategic importance
with conventional forces and weapons. In this event, the United States would
find itself at war, having previously disarmed itself in its most important
weapon, and would be engaged in a race to redevelop atomic weapons.
This seems to indicate that for the time being the
United States and other free countries would have to insist on concurrent
agreement on the control of nonatomic forces and weapons and perhaps on the
other elements of a general settlement, notably peace treaties with Germany,
Austria, and Japan and the withdrawal of Soviet influence from the satellites.
If, contrary to our expectations, the Soviet Union should accept agreements
promising effective control of atomic energy and conventional armaments,
without any other changes in Soviet policies, we would have to consider very
carefully whether we could accept such agreements. It is unlikely that this
problem will arise.
To the extent that the United States and the rest of
the free world succeed in so building up their strength in conventional forces
and weapons that a Soviet attack with similar forces could be thwarted or held,
we will gain increased flexibility and can seek agreements on the various
issues in any order, as they become negotiable.
In the third place, negotiation will play a part in
the building up of the strength of the free world, apart from the ideological
strength discussed above. This is most evident in the problems of Germany,
Austria, and Japan. In the process of building up strength, it may be desirable
for the free nations, without the Soviet Union, to conclude separate
arrangements with Japan, Western Germany, and Austria which would enlist the
energies and resources of these countries in support of the free world. This
will be difficult unless it has been demonstrated by attempted negotiation with
the Soviet Union that the Soviet Union is not prepared to accept treaties of
peace which would leave these countries free, under adequate safeguards, to
participate in the United Nations and in regional or broader associations of
states consistent with the United Nations' Charter and providing security and
adequate opportunities for the peaceful development of their political and
economic life.
This demonstrates the importance, from the point of
view of negotiation as well as for its relationship to the building up of the
strength of the free world (see Section D below), of the problem of closer
association--on a regional or a broader basis--among the free countries.
In conclusion, negotiation is not a possible separate
course of action but rather a means of gaining support for a program of
building strength, of recording, where necessary and desirable, progress in the
cold war, and of facilitating further progress while helping to minimize the
risks of war. Ultimately, it is our objective to negotiate a settlement with the
Soviet Union (or a successor state or states) on which the world can place
reliance as an enforceable instrument of peace. But it is important to
emphasize that such a settlement can only record the progress which the free
world will have made in creating a political and economic system in the world
so successful that the frustration of the Kremlin's design for world domination
will be complete. The analysis in the following sections indicates that the
building of such a system requires expanded and accelerated programs for the
carrying out of current policies.
A. THE FIRST
COURSE--CONTINUATION OF CURRENT POLICIES, WITH CURRENT AND CURRENTLY PROJECTED
PROGRAMS FOR CARRYING OUT THESE POLICIES
1. Military aspects. On the basis of current
programs, the United States has a large potential military capability but an
actual capability which, though improving, is declining relative to the USSR,
particularly in light of its probable fission bomb capability and possible
thermonuclear bomb capability. The same holds true for the free world as a
whole relative to the Soviet world as a whole. If war breaks out in 1950 or in
the next few years, the United States and its allies, apart from a powerful
atomic blow, will be compelled to conduct delaying actions, while building up
their strength for a general offensive. A frank evaluation of the requirements,
to defend the United States and its vital interests and to support a vigorous
initiative in the cold war, on the one hand, and of present capabilities, on
the other, indicates that there is a sharp and growing disparity between them.
A review of Soviet policy shows that the military
capabilities, actual and potential, of the United States and the rest of the
free world, together with the apparent determination of the free world to
resist further Soviet expansion, have not induced the Kremlin to relax its
pressures generally or to give up the initiative in the cold war. On the
contrary, the Soviet Union has consistently pursued a bold foreign policy,
modified only when its probing revealed a determination and an ability of the
free world to resist encroachment upon it. The relative military capabilities
of the free world are declining, with the result that its determination to
resist may also decline and that the security of the United States and the free
world as a whole will be jeopardized.
From the military point of view, the actual and
potential capabilities of the United States, given a continuation of current
and projected programs, will become less and less effective as a war deterrent.
Improvement of the state of readiness will become more and more important not
only to inhibit the launching of war by the Soviet Union but also to support a
national policy designed to reverse the present ominous trends in international
relations. A building up of the military capabilities of the United States and
the free world is a pre-condition to the achievement of the objectives outlined
in this report and to the protection of the United States against disaster.
Fortunately, the United States military establishment
has been developed into a unified and effective force as a result of the
policies laid down by the Congress and the vigorous carrying out of these
policies by the Administration in the fields of both organization and economy.
It is, therefore, a base upon which increased strength can be rapidly built
with maximum efficiency and economy.
2. Political aspects. The Soviet Union is pursuing
the initiative in the conflict with the free world. Its atomic capabilities,
together with its successes in the Far East, have led to an increasing
confidence on its part and to an increasing nervousness in Western Europe and
the rest of the free world. We cannot be sure, of course, how vigorously the
Soviet Union will pursue its initiative, nor can we be sure of the strength or
weakness of the other free countries in reacting to it. There are, however,
ominous signs of further deterioration in the Far East. There are also some
indications that a decline in morale and confidence in Western Europe may be
expected. In particular, the situation in Germany is unsettled. Should the
belief or suspicion spread that the free nations are not now able to prevent
the Soviet Union from taking, if it chooses, the military actions outlined in
Chapter V, the determination of the free countries to resist probably would
lessen and there would be an increasing temptation for them to seek a position
of neutrality.
Politically, recognition of the military implications
of a continuation of present trends will mean that the United States and
especially other free countries will tend to shift to the defensive, or to
follow a dangerous policy of bluff, because the maintenance of a firm
initiative in the cold war is closely related to aggregate strength in being
and readily available.
This is largely a problem of the incongruity of the
current actual capabilities of the free world and the threat to it, for the
free world has an economic and military potential far superior to the potential
of the Soviet Union and its satellites. The shadow of Soviet force falls darkly
on Western Europe and Asia and supports a policy of encroachment. The free
world lacks adequate means--in the form of forces in being--to thwart such
expansion locally. The United States will therefore be confronted more
frequently with the dilemma of reacting totally to a limited extension of
Soviet control or of not reacting at all (except with ineffectual protests and
half measures). Continuation of present trends is likely to lead, therefore, to
a gradual withdrawal under the direct or indirect pressure of the Soviet Union,
until we discover one day that we have sacrificed positions of vital interest.
In other words, the United States would have chosen, by lack of the necessary
decisions and actions, to fall back to isolation in the Western Hemisphere.
This course would at best result in only a relatively brief truce and would be
ended either by our capitulation or by a defensive war--on unfavorable terms
from unfavorable positions--against a Soviet Empire compromising all or most of
Eurasia. (See Section B.)
3. Economic and social aspects. As was pointed out in
Chapter Vl, the present foreign economic policies and programs of the United
States will not produce a solution to the problem of international economic
equilibrium, notably the problem of the dollar gap, and will not create an
economic base conducive to political stability in many important free
countries.
The European Recovery Program has been successful in
assisting the restoration and expansion of production in Western Europe and has
been a major factor in checking the dry rot of Communism in Western Europe.
However, little progress has been made toward the resumption by Western Europe
of a position of influence in world affairs commensurate with its potential
strength. Progress in this direction will require integrated political,
economic, and military policies and programs, which are supported by the United
States and the Western European countries and which will probably require a
deeper participation by the United States than has been contemplated.
The Point IV Program and other assistance programs
will not adequately supplement, as now projected, the efforts of other
important countries to develop effective institutions, to improve the
administration of their affairs, and to achieve a sufficient measure of
economic development. The moderate regimes now in power in many countries, like
India, Indonesia, Pakistan, and the Philippines, will probably be unable to
restore or retain their popular support and authority unless they are assisted
in bringing about a more rapid improvement of the economic and social structure
than present programs will make possible.
The Executive Branch is now undertaking a study of
the problem of the United States balance of payments and of the measures which
might be taken by the United States to assist in establishing international
economic equilibrium. This is a very important project and work on it should
have a high priority. However, unless such an economic program is matched and
supplemented by an equally far-sighted and vigorous political and military
program, we will not be successful in checking and rolling back the Kremlin's
drive.
4. Negotiation. In short, by continuing along its
present course the free world will not succeed in making effective use of its
vastly superior political, economic, and military potential to build a
tolerable state of order among nations. On the contrary, the political,
economic, and military situation of the free world is already unsatisfactory
and will become less favorable unless we act to reverse present trends.
This situation is one which militates against
successful negotiations with the Kremlin--for the terms of agreements on
important pending issues would reflect present realities and would therefore be
unacceptable, if not disastrous, to the United States and the rest of the free
world. Unless a decision had been made and action undertaken to build up the
strength, in the broadest sense, of the United States and the free world, an attempt
to negotiate a general settlement on terms acceptable to us would be
ineffective and probably long drawn out, and might thereby seriously delay the
necessary measures to build up our strength.
This is true despite the fact that the United States
now has the capability of delivering a powerful blow against the Soviet Union
in the event of war, for one of the present realities is that the United States
is not prepared to threaten the use of our present atomic superiority to coerce
the Soviet Union into acceptable agreements. In light of present trends, the
Soviet Union will not withdraw and the only conceivable basis for a general
settlement would be spheres of influence and of no influenced “settlement”
which the Kremlin could readily exploit to its great advantage. The idea that
Germany or Japan or other important areas can exist as islands of neutrality in
a divided world is unreal, given the Kremlin design for world domination.
B. THE SECOND COURSE—ISOLATION
Continuation of present trends, it has been shown
above, will lead progressively to the withdrawal of the United States from most
of its present commitments in Europe and Asia and to our isolation in the
Western Hemisphere and its approaches. This would result not from a conscious
decision but from a failure to take the actions necessary to bring our
capabilities into line with our commitments and thus to a withdrawal under
pressure. This pressure might come from our present Allies, who will tend to
seek other “solutions” unless they have confidence in our determination to
accelerate our efforts to build a successfully functioning political and
economic system in the free world.
There are some who advocate a deliberate decision to
isolate ourselves. Superficially, this has some attractiveness as a course of
action, for it appears to bring our commitments and capabilities into harmony
by reducing the former and by concentrating our present, or perhaps even
reduced, military expenditures on the defense of the United States.
This argument overlooks the relativity of
capabilities. With the United States in an isolated position, we would have to
face the probability that the Soviet Union would quickly dominate most of
Eurasia, probably without meeting armed resistance. It would thus acquire a
potential far superior to our own, and would promptly proceed to develop this
potential with the purpose of eliminating our power, which would, even in
isolation, remain as a challenge to it and as an obstacle to the imposition of
its kind of order in the world. There is no way to make ourselves inoffensive
to the Kremlin except by complete submission to its will. Therefore isolation
would in the end condemn us to capitulate or to fight alone and on the defensive,
with drastically limited offensive and retaliatory capabilities in comparison
with the Soviet Union. (These are the only possibilities, unless we are
prepared to risk the future on the hazard that the Soviet Empire, because of
over-extension or other reasons, will spontaneously destroy itself from
within.)
The argument also overlooks the imponderable, but
nevertheless drastic, effects on our belief in ourselves and in our way of life
of a deliberate decision to isolate ourselves. As the Soviet Union came to
dominate free countries, it is clear that many Americans would feel a deep
sense of responsibility and guilt for having abandoned their former friends and
allies. As the Soviet Union mobilized the resources of Eurasia, increased its
relative military capabilities, and heightened its threat to our security, some
would be tempted to accept “peace” on its terms, while many would seek to
defend the United States by creating a regimented system which would permit the
assignment of a tremendous part of our resources to defense. Under such a state
of affairs our national morale would be corrupted and the integrity and
vitality of our system subverted.
Under this course of action, there would be no
negotiation, unless on the Kremlin's terms, for we would have given up
everything of importance.
It is possible that at some point in the course of
isolation, many Americans would come to favor a surprise attack on the Soviet
Union and the area under its control, in a desperate attempt to alter
decisively the balance of power by an overwhelming blow with modem weapons of
mass destruction. It appears unlikely that the Soviet Union would wait for such
an attack before launching one of its own. But even if it did and even if our
attack were successful, it is clear that the United States would face appalling
tasks in establishing a tolerable state of order among nations after such a war
and after Soviet occupation of all or most of Eurasia for some years. These
tasks appear so enormous and success so unlikely that reason dictates an
attempt to achieve our objectives by other means.
C. THE THIRD COURSE—WAR
Some Americans favor a deliberate decision to go to
war against the Soviet Union in the near future. It goes without saying that
the idea of “preventive” war--in the sense of a military attack not provoked by
a military attack upon us or our allies--is generally unacceptable to
Americans. Its supporters argue that since the Soviet Union is in fact at war
with the free world now and that since the failure of the Soviet Union to use
all-out military force is explainable on grounds of expediency, we are at war
and should conduct ourselves accordingly. Some further argue that the free
world is probably unable, except under the crisis of war, to mobilize and
direct its resources to the checking and rolling back of the Kremlin's drive
for world dominion. This is a powerful argument in the light of history, but
the considerations against war are so compelling that the free world must
demonstrate that this argument is wrong. The case for war is premised on the
assumption that the United States could launch and sustain an attack of
sufficient impact to gain a decisive advantage for the free world in a long war
and perhaps to win an early decision.
The ability of the United States to launch effective
offensive operations is now limited to attack with atomic weapons. A powerful
blow could be delivered upon the Soviet Union, but it is estimated that these
operations alone would not force or induce the Kremlin to capitulate and that
the Kremlin would still be able to use the forces under its control to dominate
most or all of Eurasia. This would probably mean a long and difficult struggle
during which the free institutions of Western Europe and many freedom-loving
people would be destroyed and the regenerative capacity of Western Europe dealt
a crippling blow.
Apart from this, however, a surprise attack upon the
Soviet Union, despite the provocativeness of recent Soviet behavior, would be
repugnant to many Americans. Although the American people would probably rally
in support of the war effort, the shock of responsibility for a surprise attack
would be morally corrosive. Many would doubt that it was a “just war” and that
all reasonable possibilities for a peaceful settlement had been explored in
good faith. Many more, proportionately, would hold such views in other
countries, particularly in Western Europe and particularly after Soviet
occupation, if only because the Soviet Union would liquidate articulate
opponents. It would, therefore, be difficult after such a war to create a
satisfactory international order among nations. Victory in such a war would
have brought us little if at all closer to victory in the fundamental
ideological conflict.
These considerations are no less weighty because they
are imponderable, and they rule out an attack unless it is demonstrably in the
nature of a counter-attack to a blow which is on its way or about to be
delivered. (The military advantages of landing the first blow become
increasingly important with modem weapons, and this is a fact which requires us
to be on the alert in order to strike with our full weight as soon as we are
attacked, and, if possible, before the Soviet blow is actually delivered.) If
the argument of Chapter IV is accepted, it follows that there is no “easy”
solution and that the only sure victory lies in the frustration of the Kremlin
design by the steady development of the moral and material strength of the free
world and its projection into the Soviet world in such a way as to bring about
an internal change in the Soviet system.
D. THE REMAINING COURSE
OF ACTION--A RAPID BUILD-UP OF POLITICAL, ECONOMIC, AND MILITARY STRENGTH IN
THE FREE WORLD
A more rapid build-up of political, economic, and
military strength and thereby of confidence in the free world than is now
contemplated is the only course which is consistent with progress toward
achieving our fundamental purpose. The frustration of the Kremlin design
requires the free world to develop a successfully functioning political and
economic system and a vigorous political offensive against the Soviet Union.
These, in turn, require an adequate military shield under which they can
develop. It is necessary to have the military power to deter, if possible,
Soviet expansion, and to defeat, if necessary, aggressive Soviet or
Soviet-directed actions of a limited or total character. The potential strength
of the free world is great; its ability to develop these military capabilities
and its will to resist Soviet expansion will be determined by the wisdom and
will with which it undertakes to meet its political and economic problems.
1. Military aspects. It has been indicated in Chapter
VI that U.S. military capabilities are strategically more defensive in nature
than offensive and are more potential than actual. It is evident, from an
analysis of the past and of the trend of weapon development, that there is now
and will be in the future no absolute defense. The history of war also
indicates that a favorable decision can only be achieved through offensive
action. Even a defensive strategy, if it is to be successful, calls not only
for defensive forces to hold vital positions while mobilizing and preparing for
the offensive, but also for offensive forces to attack the enemy and keep him
off balance.
The two fundamental requirements which must be met by
forces in being or readily available are support of foreign policy and
protection against disaster. To meet the second requirement, the forces in
being or readily available must be able, at a minimum, to perform certain basic
tasks:
a. To defend the Western Hemisphere and essential
allied areas in order that their war-making capabilities can be developed;
b. To provide and protect a mobilization base while
the offensive forces required for victory are being built up;
c. To conduct offensive operations to destroy vital
elements of the Soviet war-making capacity, and to keep the enemy off balance
until the full offensive strength of the United States and its allies can be
brought to bear;
d. To defend and maintain the lines of communication
and base areas necessary to the execution of the above tasks; and
e. To provide such aid to allies as is essential to
the execution of their role in the above tasks.
In the broadest terms, the ability to perform these
tasks requires a build-up of military strength by the United States and its
allies to a point at which the combined strength will be superior for at least
these tasks, both initially and throughout a war, to the forces that can be
brought to bear by the Soviet Union and its satellites. In specific terms, it
is not essential to match item for item with the Soviet Union, but to provide
an adequate defense against air attack on the United States and Canada and an
adequate defense against air and surface attack on the United Kingdom and
Western Europe, Alaska, the Western Pacific, Africa, and the Near and Middle
East, and on the long lines of communication to these areas. Furthermore, it is
mandatory that in building up our strength, we enlarge upon our technical
superiority by an accelerated exploitation of the scientific potential of the
United States and our allies.
Forces of this size and character are necessary not
only for protection against disaster but also to support our foreign policy. In
fact, it can be argued that larger forces in being and readily available are
necessary to inhibit a would-be aggressor than to provide the nucleus of
strength and the mobilization base on which the tremendous forces required for
victory can be built. For example, in both World Wars I and 11 the ultimate
victors had the strength, in the end, to win though they had not had the
strength in being or readily available to prevent the outbreak of war. In part,
at least, this was because they had not had the military strength on which to
base a strong foreign policy. At any rate, it is clear that a substantial and
rapid building up of strength in the free world is necessary to support a firm
policy intended to check and to roll back the Kremlin's drive for world
domination.
Moreover, the United States and the other free
countries do not now have the forces in being and readily available to defeat
local Soviet moves with local action, but must accept reverses or make these
local moves the occasion for war--for which we are not prepared. This situation
makes for great uneasiness among our allies, particularly in Western Europe,
for whom total war means, initially, Soviet occupation. Thus, unless our
combined strength is rapidly increased, our allies will tend to become
increasingly reluctant to support a firm foreign policy on our part and
increasingly anxious to seek other solutions, even though they are aware that
appeasement means defeat. An important advantage in adopting the fourth course
of action lies in its psychological impact--the revival of confidence and hope
in the future. It is recognized, of course, that any announcement of the
recommended course of action could be exploited by the Soviet Union in its
peace campaign and would have adverse psychological effects in certain parts of
the free world until the necessary increase in strength has been achieved.
Therefore, in any announcement of policy and in the character of the measures
adopted, emphasis should be given to the essentially defensive character and
care should be taken to minimize, so far as possible, unfavorable domestic and
foreign reactions.
2. Political and economic aspects. The immediate
objectives--to the achievement of which such a build-up of strength is a
necessary though not a sufficient condition--are a renewed initiative in the
cold war and a situation to which the Kremlin would find it expedient to
accommodate itself, first by relaxing tensions and pressures and then by
gradual withdrawal. The United States cannot alone provide the resources
required for such a build-up of strength. The other free countries must carry
their part of the burden, but their ability and determination to do it will
depend on the action the United States takes to develop its own strength and on
the adequacy of its foreign political and economic policies. Improvement in
political and economic conditions in the free world, as has been emphasized
above, is necessary as a basis for building up the will and the means to resist
and for dynamically affirming the integrity and vitality of our free and
democratic way of life on which our ultimate victory depends.
At the same time, we should take dynamic steps to
reduce the power and influence of the Kremlin inside the Soviet Union and other
areas under its control. The objective would be the establishment of friendly
regimes not under Kremlin domination. Such action is essential to engage the
Kremlin's attention, keep it off balance, and force an increased expenditure of
Soviet resources in counteraction. In other words, it would be the current
Soviet cold war technique used against the Soviet Union.
A program for rapidly building up strength and
improving political and economic conditions will place heavy demands on our
courage and intelligence; it will be costly; it will be dangerous. But
half-measures will be more costly and more dangerous, for they will be
inadequate to prevent and may actually invite war. Budgetary considerations
will need to be subordinated to the stark fact that our very independence as a
nation may be at stake.
A comprehensive and decisive program to win the peace
and frustrate the Kremlin design should be so designed that it can be sustained
for as long as necessary to achieve our national objectives. It would probably
involve:
The development of an adequate political and economic
framework for the achievement of our long-range objectives.
A substantial increase in expenditures for military
purposes adequate to meet the requirements for the tasks listed in Section D-1.
A substantial increase in military assistance
programs, designed to foster cooperative efforts, which will adequately and
efficiently meet the requirements of our allies for the tasks referred to in
Section D-l-e.
Some increase in economic assistance programs and
recognition of the need to continue these programs until their purposes have
been accomplished.
A concerted attack on the problem of the United
States balance of payments, along the lines already approved by the President.
Development of programs designed to build and
maintain confidence among other peoples in our strength and resolution, and to
wage overt psychological warfare calculated to encourage mass defections from
Soviet allegiance and to frustrate the Kremlin design in other ways.
Intensification of affirmative and timely measures
and operations by covert means in the fields of economic warfare and political
and psychological warfare with a view to fomenting and supporting unrest and
revolt in selected strategic satellite countries.
Development of internal security and civilian defense
programs.
Improvement and intensification of intelligence
activities.
Reduction of Federal expenditures for purposes other
than defense and foreign assistance, if necessary by the deferment of certain
desirable programs.
Increased taxes.
Essential as prerequisites to the success of this
program would be (a) consultations with Congressional leaders designed to make
the program the object of non-partisan legislative support, and (b) a
presentation to the public of a full explanation of the facts and implications
of present international trends.
The program will be costly, but it is relevant to
recall the disproportion between the potential capabilities of the Soviet and
non-Soviet worlds (cf. Chapters V and VI). The Soviet Union is currently
devoting about 40 percent of available resources (gross national product plus
reparations, equal in 1949 to about $65 billion) to military expenditures (14
percent) and to investment (26 percent), much of which is in war-supporting
industries. In an emergency the Soviet Union could increase the allocation of
resources to these purposes to about 50 percent, or by one-fourth.
The United States is currently devoting about 22
percent of its gross national product ($255 billion in 1949) to military
expenditures (6 percent), foreign assistance (2 percent), and investment (14
percent), little of which is in war-supporting industries. (As was pointed out
in Chapter V, the “fighting value” obtained per dollar of expenditure by the
Soviet Union considerably exceeds that obtained by the United States, primarily
because of the extremely low military and civilian living standards in the
Soviet Union.) In an emergency the United States could devote upward of 50
percent of its gross national product to these purposes (as it did during the
last war), an increase of several times present expenditures for direct and
indirect military purposes and foreign assistance.
From the point of view of the economy as a whole, the
program might not result in a real decrease in the standard of living, for the
economic effects of the program might be to increase the gross national product
by more than the amount being absorbed for additional military and foreign
assistance purposes. One of the most significant lessons of our World War 11
experience was that the American economy, when it operates at a level
approaching full efficiency, can provide enormous resources for purposes other
than civilian consumption while simultaneously providing a high standard of
living. After allowing for price changes, personal consumption expenditures
rose by about one-fifth between 1939 and 1944, even though the economy had in
the meantime increased the amount of resources going into Government use by $60
$65 billion (in 1939 prices).
This comparison between the potentials of the Soviet
Union and the United States also holds true for the Soviet world and the free
world and is of fundamental importance in considering the courses of action
open to the United States.
The comparison gives renewed emphasis to the fact
that the problems faced by the free countries in their efforts to build a
successfully functioning system lie not so much in the field of economics as in
the field of politics. The building of such a system may require more rapid
progress toward the closer association of the free countries in harmony with
the concept of the United Nations. It is clear that our long-range objectives
require a strengthened United Nations, or a successor organization, to which
the world can look for the maintenance of peace and order in a system based on
freedom and justice. It also seems clear that a unifying ideal of this kind
might awaken and arouse the latent spiritual energies of free men everywhere
and obtain their enthusiastic support for a positive program for peace going
far beyond the frustration of the Kremlin design and opening vistas to the
future that would outweigh short-run sacrifices.
The threat to the free world involved in the
development of the Soviet Union's atomic and other capabilities will rise
steadily and rather rapidly. For the time being, the United States possesses a
marked atomic superiority over the Soviet Union which, together with the
potential capabilities of the United States and other free countries in other
forces and weapons, inhibits aggressive Soviet action. This provides an
opportunity for the United States, in cooperation with other free countries, to
launch a build-up of strength which will support a firm policy directed to the
frustration of the Kremlin design. The immediate goal of our efforts to build a
successfully functioning political and economic system in the free world backed
by adequate military strength is to postpone and avert the disastrous situation
which, in light of the Soviet Union's probable fission bomb capability and
possible thermonuclear bomb capability, might arise in 1954 on a continuation
of our present programs. By acting promptly and vigorously in such a way that
this date is, so to speak, pushed into the future, we would permit time for the
process of accommodation, withdrawal and frustration to produce the necessary
changes in the Soviet system. Time is short, however, and the risks of war
attendant upon a decision to build up strength will steadily increase the
longer we defer it.
CONCLUSIONS AND
RECOMMENDATIONS
Conclusions
The foregoing analysis indicates that the probable
fission bomb capability and possible thermonuclear bomb capability of the
Soviet Union have greatly intensified the Soviet threat to the security of the
United States. This threat is of the same character as that described in NSC
20/4 (approved by the President on November 24, 1948) but is more immediate than
had previously been estimated. In particular, the United States now faces the
contingency that within the next four or five years the Soviet Union will
possess the military capability of delivering a surprise atomic attack of such
weight that the United States must have substantially increased general air,
ground, and sea strength, atomic capabilities, and air and civilian defenses to
deter war and to provide reasonable assurance, in the event of war, that it
could survive the initial blow and go on to the eventual attainment of its
objectives. In return, this contingency requires the intensification of our
efforts in the fields of intelligence and research and development.
Allowing for the immediacy of the danger, the
following statement of Soviet threats, contained in NSC 20/4, remains valid:
14. The gravest threat to the security of the United
States within the foreseeable future stems from the hostile designs and
formidable power of the USSR, and from the nature of the Soviet system.
15. The political, economic, and psychological
warfare which the USSR is now waging has dangerous potentialities for weakening
the relative world position of the United States and disrupting its traditional
institutions by means short of war, unless sufficient resistance is encountered
in the policies of this and other non-communist countries.
16. The risk of war with the USSR is sufficient to
warrant, in common prudence, timely and adequate preparation by the United
States.
a. Even though present estimates indicate that the
Soviet leaders probably do not intend deliberate armed action involving the
United States at this time, the possibility of such deliberate resort to war
cannot be ruled out.
b. Now and for the foreseeable future there is a
continuing danger that war will arise either through Soviet miscalculation of
the determination of the United States to use all the means at its command to
safeguard its security, through Soviet misinterpretation of our intentions, or
through U.S. miscalculation of Soviet reactions to measures which we might
take.
17. Soviet domination of the potential power of
Eurasia, whether achieved by armed aggression or by political and subversive
means, would be strategically and politically unacceptable to the United
States.
18. The capability of the United States either in
peace or in the event of war to cope with threats to its security or to gain
its objectives would be severely weakened by internal development, important
among which are:
a. Serious espionage, subversion and sabotage, particularly
by concerted and well-directed communist activity.
b. Prolonged or exaggerated economic instability.
c. Internal political and social disunity.
d. Inadequate or excessive armament or foreign aid
expenditures.
e. An excessive or wasteful usage of our resources in
time of peace.
f. Lessening of U.S. prestige and influence through
vacillation of appeasement or lack of skill and imagination in the conduct of
its foreign policy or by shirking world responsibilities.
g. Development of a false sense of security through a
deceptive change in Soviet tactics.
Although such developments as those indicated in
paragraph 18 above would severely weaken the capability of the United States
and its allies to cope with the Soviet threat to their security, considerable
progress has been made since 1948 in laying the foundation upon which adequate
strength can now be rapidly built.
The analysis also confirms that our objectives with
respect to the Soviet Union, in time of peace as well as in time of war, as
stated in NSC 20/4 (para. 19), are still valid, as are the aims and measures
stated therein (paras. 20 and 21). Our current security programs and strategic
plans are based upon these objectives, aims, and measures:
19.
a. To reduce the power and influence of the USSR to
limits which no longer constitute a threat to the peace, national independence,
and stability of the world family of nations.
b. To bring about a basic change in the conduct of
international relations by the government in power in Russia, to conform with
the purposes and principles set forth in the UN Charter.
In pursuing these objectives, due care must be taken
to avoid permanently impairing our economy and the fundamental values and
institutions inherent in our way of life.
20. We should endeavor to achieve our general
objectives by methods short of war through the pursuit of the following aims:
a. To encourage and promote the gradual retraction of
undue Russian power and influence from the present perimeter areas around
traditional Russian boundaries and the emergence of the satellite countries as
entities independent of the USSR.
b. To encourage the development among the Russian
peoples of attitudes which may help to modify current Soviet behavior and
permit a revival of the national life of groups evidencing the ability and
determination to achieve and maintain national independence.
c. To eradicate the myth by which people remote from
Soviet military influence are held in a position of subservience to Moscow and
to cause the world at large to see and understand the true nature of the USSR
and the Soviet-directed world communist party, and to adopt a logical and
realistic attitude toward them.
d. To create situations which will compel the Soviet
Government to recognize the practical undesirability of acting on the basis of
its present concepts and the necessity of behaving in accordance with precepts
of international conduct, as set forth in the purposes and principles of the UN
Charter.
21. Attainment of these aims requires that the United
States:
a. Develop a level of military readiness which can be
maintained as long as necessary as a deterrent to Soviet aggression, as
indispensable support to our political attitude toward the USSR, as a source of
encouragement to nations resisting Soviet political aggression, and as an
adequate basis for immediate military commitments and for rapid mobilization
should war prove unavoidable.
b. Assure the internal security of the United States
against dangers of sabotage, subversion, and espionage.
c. Maximize our economic potential, including the
strengthening of our peacetime economy and the establishment of essential
reserves readily available in the event of war.
d. Strengthen the orientation toward the United
States of the non-Soviet nations; and help such of those nations as are able
and willing to make an important contribution to U.S. security, to increase
their economic and political stability and their military capability.
e. Place the maximum strain on the Soviet structure
of power and particularly on the relationships between Moscow and the satellite
countries.
f. Keep the U.S. public fully informed and cognizant
of the threats to our national security so that it will be prepared to support
the measures which we must accordingly adopt.
In the light of present and prospective Soviet atomic
capabilities, the action which can be taken under present programs and plans,
however, becomes dangerously inadequate, in both timing and scope, to
accomplish the rapid progress toward the attainment of the United States
political, economic, and military objectives which is now imperative.
A continuation of present trends would result in a
serious decline in the strength of the free world relative to the Soviet Union
and its satellites. This unfavorable trend arises from the inadequacy of
current programs and plans rather than from any error in our objectives and
aims. These trends lead in the direction of isolation, not by deliberate
decision but by lack of the necessary basis for a vigorous initiative in the
conflict with the Soviet Union.
Our position as the center of power in the free world
places a heavy responsibility upon the United States for leadership. We must
organize and enlist the energies and resources of the free world in a positive
program for peace which will frustrate the Kremlin design for world domination
by creating a situation in the free world to which the Kremlin will be
compelled to adjust. Without such a cooperative effort, led by the United
States, we will have to make gradual withdrawals under pressure until we
discover one day that we have sacrificed positions of vital interest.
It is imperative that this trend be reversed by a
much more rapid and concerted build-up of the actual strength of both the
United States and the other nations of the free world. The analysis shows that
this will be costly and will involve significant domestic financial and
economic adjustments.
The execution of such a build-up, however, requires
that the United States have an affirmative program beyond the solely defensive
one of countering the threat posed by the Soviet Union. This program must light
the path to peace and order among nations in a system based on freedom and
justice, as contemplated in the Charter of the United Nations. Further, it must
envisage the political and economic measures with which and the military shield
behind which the free world can work to frustrate the Kremlin design by the
strategy of the cold war; for every consideration of devotion to our
fundamental values and to our national security demands that we achieve our
objectives by the strategy of the cold war, building up our military strength
in order that it may not have to be used. The only sure victory lies in the
frustration of the Kremlin design by the steady development of the moral and
material strength of the free world and its projection into the Soviet world in
such a way as to bring about an internal change in the Soviet system. Such a
positive program--harmonious with our fundamental national purpose and our
objectives--is necessary if we are to regain and retain the initiative and to
win and hold the necessary popular support and cooperation in the United States
and the rest of the free world.
This program should include a plan for negotiation
with the Soviet Union, developed and agreed with our allies and which is
consonant with our objectives. The United States and its allies, particularly
the United Kingdom and France, should always be ready to negotiate with the
Soviet Union on terms consistent with our objectives. The present world
situation, however, is one which militates against successful negotiations with
the Kremlin--for the terms of agreements on important pending issues would
reflect present realities and would therefore be unacceptable, if not
disastrous, to the United States and the rest of the free world. After a
decision and a start on building up the strength of the free world has been
made, it might then be desirable for the United States to take an initiative in
seeking negotiations in the hope that it might facilitate the process of
accommodation by the Kremlin to the new situation. Failing that, the
unwillingness of the Kremlin to accept equitable terms or its bad faith in
observing them would assist in consolidating popular opinion in the free world
in support of the measures necessary to sustain the build-up.
In summary, we must, by means of a rapid and
sustained build-up of the political, economic, and military strength of the
free world, and by means of an affirmative program intended to wrest the
initiative from the Soviet Union, confront it with convincing evidence of the
determination and ability of the free world to frustrate the Kremlin design of
a world dominated by its will. Such evidence is the only means short of war
which eventually may force the Kremlin to abandon its present course of action
and to negotiate acceptable agreements on issues of major importance.
The whole success of the proposed program hangs
ultimately on recognition by this Government, the American people, and all free
peoples, that the cold war is in fact a real war in which the survival of the
free world is at stake. Essential prerequisites to success are consultations
with Congressional leaders designed to make the program the object of
non-partisan legislative support, and a presentation to the public of a full
explanation of the facts and implications of the present international
situation. The prosecution of the program will require of us all the ingenuity,
sacrifice, and unity demanded by the vital importance of the issue and the
tenacity to persevere until our national objectives have been attained.
Recommendations
That the President:
a. Approve the foregoing Conclusions.
b. Direct the National Security Council, under the
continuing direction of the President, and with the participation of other
Departments and Agencies as appropriate, to coordinate and insure the
implementation of the Conclusions herein on an urgent and continuing basis for
as long as necessary to achieve our objectives. For this purpose,
representatives of the member Departments and Agencies, the Joint Chiefs of
Staff or their deputies, and other Departments and Agencies as required should
be constituted as a revised and strengthened staff organization under the
National Security Council to develop coordinated programs for consideration by
the National Security Council.
NOTES
1. Marshal Tito, the Communist leader of Yugoslavia,
broke away from the Soviet bloc in 1948.
2. The Secretary of State listed seven areas in which
the Soviet Union could modify its behavior in such a way as to permit
co-existence in reasonable security. These were:
Treaties of peace with Austria, Germany, Japan and
relaxation of pressures in the Far East;
Withdrawal of Soviet forces and influence from
satellite area;
Cooperation in the United Nations;
Control of atomic energy and of conventional
armaments;
Abandonment of indirect aggression;
Proper treatment of official representatives of the
U.S.;
Increased access to the Soviet Union of persons and
ideas from other countries. [Footnote in the source text. For the text of the
address delivered by Secretary Acheson at the University of California,
Berkeley, on March 16, 1950, concerning United States--Soviet relations, see
Department of State Bulletin, March 27, 1950, pp. 473-478.]
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