The U. S. Navy has traditionally been the champion of limited war. Naval leaders have long insisted that our country should not overconcentrate on one weapon or prepare solely for one kind of war. Especially since the end of World War II, they have pleaded for a flexible military policy, for versatile, balanced military forces capable of fighting any war, any where, any time.
Notwithstanding, as late as 1956, Americans were ready to accept a formula which promised to prevent future wars—and if it did not, a quick, cheap, and easy way of winning them. One might have expected a reappraisal of this magic recipe after the fall of Czechoslovakia, the Berlin blockade, the Korean aggression, and the explosion of the Soviet A- bomb on September 22, 1949. Certainly, overemphasis and overreliance on massive retaliation should have been corrected when the Soviets exploded their H-bomb on August 12, 1953, and after the Indo-Chinese war, the Formosa crisis, the Polish revolution, the Russo-Hungarian war, and the several alarms in the Middle East.
In addition, the tacit agreement not to initiate general war, which was supposedly reached at the 1955 Summit Meeting at Geneva, and the subsequent Soviet economic and diplomatic initiatives in Asia and the Middle East might well have occasioned a reexamination of the relative probability of general war and limited political and military action in Soviet global strategy. While massive retaliation may have prevented direct aggression in Western Europe and upon our own hemisphere—if indeed this was ever really planned—it certainly did not and has not dissuaded the Soviets from advancing unflinchingly toward their goal of eventual world domination.
As stated above, it was not until 1956 that limited war, the alternative to total war, became socially admissible and intellectually acceptable once again. Piecemeal aggression by the Soviets was recognized to be as dangerous as the Soviet threat of direct aggression—and much more likely. The word “again” is emphasized because total wars are a human invention of the 20th Century. Limited war, in contrast, has been an ancient and much discussed subject. In fact, since the days of chivalry, limited war has been the rule rather than the exception, and it was not until the Great War of 1914-1918, World War II, the rise of air power, and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima that the subject fell into eclipse and disrespect.
Not until 1955 was a graduate thesis at the National War College—two that year—devoted to the subject of limited war. In 1956, six theses were devoted to the subject. In early 1957, the Chief of Naval Operations made a significant statement: “A limited war is the type of war most likely to occur in the thermonuclear age.” And in mid-1957, limited war became a publicly discussed topic with the appearance of two excellent and provocative books, both by non-military men: Kissinger’s Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy and Osgood’s Limited War.
To illustrate the serious and widespread attention the subject of limited war was receiving just before Sputnik, consider four brief excerpts from American journals:
Time Magazine (August 26, 1957, p. 15)
“Policy planners . . . insist that the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the National Security Council are now well aware of the need to be ready for small wars .... It takes a firm hand and steady nerves to face a small war challenge, to resist the outcries against atomic weapons and to confront the enemy with the choice of backing down or risking all-out war.”
Washington Post (August 12, 1957; Mr. Chalmers M. Roberts)
“The new doctrine of limiting war has reached a state of considerable formulation at the State Department .... Dulles has accepted the thesis advanced by Henry M. Kissinger in his Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy, a book which is having a powerful impact on Washington. This is the thesis that the two major powers, America and Russia, could keep a small war, even a small nuclear war, limited provided each is convinced that the alternative of enlarging it is unacceptable. Dulles disagrees, however, with the idea that ‘rules’ for small wars should be publicly spelled out in advance ....”_
New York Times Magazine (August 18, 1957; Mr. Hanson Baldwin)
“The threat of nuclear bombardment may deter world wars but it obviously has not deterred small wars . . . border conflicts, peripheral struggles, or even major wars like Korea and Indo-China. It did not stop the Anglo-French attack upon Port Said .... An overdependence upon it [nuclear deterrence] obviously hampers our diplomacy, reducing its flexibility and concentrates too much of our military effort upon a strategy that, because of fear of consequences, we would be most reluctant to implement .... Small wars—the most likely kind of war we face—cannot be deterred or even won by nuclear weapons alone .... The demand for variety and versatility in the forces needed has not been lessened by the advent of the nuclear-missile age; it has been increased—we must have a flexible strategy, freedom of choice, alternative of action . . . .”
Foreign Affairs (October 1957, p. 31; Sec. of State. Mr. John Foster Dulles)
“In the future it may thus be feasible to place less reliance upon the deterrence of vast retaliatory power.”
These statements, and the books on limited war, were evidence that a ground swell was forming to re-examine our overdependence upon massive retaliation and our fixation on total war. Then came Sputnik I and II. One of their principal effects was psychological rather than rational. If the Soviets could place a half-ton, dog-carrying satellite in orbit, did it not follow that the Soviets were ahead of us in the massive retaliation field? At this writing, one result seems to be more dependence upon deterrence and less concern for the problems of limited war.
For we are now hastening to strengthen and buy more deterrence, to harden and disperse our fixed land bases, and to reduce the reaction time of our aircraft and crews. Land- based IRBM’s are being rushed into production and overseas. Also, as a result of Sputniks, we are racing into a missile outer space program to “catch up” with the Soviets. Soviet earth satellites will be followed by rockets ricocheting off the moon or circling behind it; these will be followed by reconnaissance-capable satellites, eventually followed by missile-carrying, manned satellites; and as all these seemingly fantastic items become feasible, a new family of anti-satellite-missile- destroyers will be created.
In other words, the current drive to “catch up” is not a final, one-shot race. There will be many succeeding generations of deterrence weapons, and the deterrence race appears to be a never-ending contest.
To be sure, we must stay abreast of the Soviets in this missile-outer space-deterrence field, but we must also realize that while this race goes on and on, the Soviets1 will be relentlessly pressing into any soft spot on the Free World’s periphery—preferably a spot where no one is looking—the Middle East, Indonesia, inducing Yugoslavia to go back behind the Iron Curtain, intensifying their psychological and economic warfare programs for India, burrowing into Africa and into our own Western Hemisphere.
Here, indeed lies the greatest danger of total war. By not being ready, willing, and able to prevent by anticipation and action and/or to respond to such Communist penetrations, the awful actuality of all-out nuclear war between the U.S.S.R. and U.S.A. can most easily occur. The Communists, flushed with their recent scientific achievements, impressed by their several limited war gains, and calculating the temper of the United States, are probably considering further moves on their periphery—Indonesia, Laos, Lebanon, for example—unless, of course, they are resolutely confronted with superior force. With belated realization, the United States will suddenly react in the same manner we unexpectedly resisted aggression in Korea. Once engaged, the opposing forces may take successive actions which could lead past the point of no return. Apprehensive and trigger tense, the opposing deterrence forces straining at the leash, the ozone filled with alarms and false alarms, threats, vague reports of warheads-on-the-way, the world could unwittingly stumble into the abyss. For this reason, the U. S. Navy must be—for the sake of our country, not for the sake of the Navy— the champion of limited war and of preparedness for it.
For example, speculate what might have happened in June, 1950, after the Communists invaded Korea. Assume that in the Far East the United States had had a four-carrier task force, amphibious lift for the First Marine Division, two mobile U. S. Air Force fighter squadrons, and U. S. Air Force air lift sufficient to air drop one division of U. S. army paratroopers. Assume also the public declaration that Korea lay outside our defense perimeter had not been made. Assume further that South Korea had a small but able army.2 Assume that all of these U. S. forces could have been in action on the Korean peninsula in less than a week. Not only is there good reason to believe that the Korean War might never have occurred, but if it had, there is also good reason to think that the Red aggression could quickly have been defeated.
Limited war is the Navy’s forte, and, despite the Sputniks, limited war is still the most likely type of conflict that might occur in the years ahead. But without sea power, fighting limited wars and keeping them limited is clearly impossible. To any group of planners who study the world’s several trouble areas— Algeria, the Middle East, Laos, Indonesia, Formosa, and Korea, as well, to mention but a few—positive, speedy action by the United States in any area of the globe is directly dependent on the availability, the mobility, the versatility, and the flexibility of sea power. Modern American sea power is a combination of mobile air power (aircraft carriers), of mobile land power (the U. S. Marines) and of mobile sea power (amphibious lift and seaborne logistics). If there is another Middle East crisis, another Korea, another grab for Formosa, the first call will be for sea power, as was the case in Korea, in Indo-China, in Suez, and in Jordan.
In 1958, the United States faces the most serious challenge in its history. Similarly, the U. S. Navy is confronted with greater opportunities, greater challenges, and graver responsibilities than ever before in its history. In seizing our opportunities, facing our challenges, and discharging our responsibilities, let us remember these five points:
First, let us recognize that being ready, willing, and able to fight limited wars is a grim business, fraught with vast danger. Let us recognize that limited war is not a separate and distinct type of war. Limited war and total war are inseparably related; and limited war might spill over and become total. It need not, but it might. We must recognize, therefore, the inherent, inescapable possibility that in projecting ourselves into any limited conflict, we may come face to face with the unwanted total war. But if limiting a future conflict is not possible, then indeed our only choice is between surrender and total war, possibly total destruction.
Second, we must not convince ourselves that the Soviets, automatically with mathematical precision and malice aforethought, will launch the surprise nuclear holocaust at the magic, precalculated moment when their nuclear power exceeds ours by the factor of X. By manipulating a few bar charts and graphs, and using inflated guesstimates of what the enemy might have tomorrow, one can manufacture any future period as the year of crisis and greatest danger. Such calculations create an obsession, indeed a neurotic fixation on total war.
Third, we must not be misled by numbers. If one is obsessed by the consequences of a total war, the following analysis is easy to make: the Communists have X numbers of bombs, Y numbers of intercontinental airplanes, Z numbers of missile submarines, and W numbers of ICBM’s. QED: The United States must not only have weapons X, Y, Z, and W but in 2X, 3Y, 4W and 5Z amounts. Such arithmetic is false and self-defeating. If the tragedy of a nuclear armageddon ever happens, the adage of “enough is enough” will apply. The United States needs what she needs—deterrent forces which are trained, ready, dispersed, and mobile. We do not need an arithmetical equality between our deterrent force and that of the Communists, and we must not allow such a false equation to be made at the expense of limited war capabilities.
The fourth and related problem can be called “the problem of second priority.” In the current drive to match the Russians, flexible, versatile, balanced forces for fighting future limited wars are likely to be given second priority and left-over funds. The deterrence of the big war costs big money; the race for space costs big money; and there will certainly be a limit to total defense funds. With the high costs of the accelerated missile-outer space program, plus deterrence improvement funding, the left-over funds for limited war forces will be a thin sliver of the pie. It will be easy for some to believe that second-hand ships and second-rate forces are sufficient for limited war. Unless this pitfall is avoided, there will be weaker and reduced task forces, fewer amphibious ships to lift the troops, fewer mobile air bases and aircraft to control the air and deliver ground support, fewer antisubmarine warfare forces, weaker mine warfare defenses, fewer helicopters for the Marines, and fewer aircraft to lift Army ground forces to the limited war theater. Thus, our response to a limited war will not be the product of a carefully calculated estimate of the actual situation and of the enemy’s intentions, but will be dictated by the total war bias in our in-being forces and weapons systems. Even if we want to limit the war, we will be in a poor position to do so.
Fifth, while it is quite true that a third World War is not inevitable, it does not follow that all wars and conflicts are not inevitable. Indeed, man’s turbulent history proves the converse to be true. Nor is there any evidence to indicate any imminent improvement in man’s basic nature. Until that nature is changed, conflict shall continue. So long as some men covet what other men have, so long as they quarrel, so long as they hate, so long as they lust for power and are impelled by greed, there will be wars. Man’s cleverness has brought him to the time when he can destroy himself and lay waste his planet. But until his basic nature is changed, the choice is not, unfortunately, either “war” or “peace,” but “total war” or “limited war.” If we are wise enough to prepare for limited war, we may deter it, avoid defeat by detail and avoid the third world war nobody wants.
What, then, is the naval challenge for 1958? Stated negatively, the naval challenge is to prevent our country from regluing its eyes and its thoughts upon the notion of “one weapon and one war.” Stated positively, the naval challenge for 1958 is to continue to be the eloquent champion of flexible, versatile, balanced mobile forces—in the Navy itself and between the services. With properly equipped, balanced, and adequate forces for limited war (let’s face it, this means expanding the Navy, Marines, Tactical Air, and Army), and with our friends of the Free World, we may then draw a line and erect a new sign of aggressive containment: “Halt—no more defeat in detail.”
In conclusion, total war will occur:
(1) Unless the long-range result of continued Communist piecemeal aggression is given equal recognition and priority in funds and forces, as is the danger of total war.
(2) Unless the enemy’s intentions are sanely related to his capabilities.
(3) And unless we stop confusing the consequences of total war with probability of total war.
The Navy, therefore, must continue to urge flexible, versatile, mobile forces, and precision weapons which can be tailored for any task —whether it be the mere presence of a task force in a tense area, the application of small pressures, or the full employment of the Navy’s precision power.
1. As announced in -their “Declaration” meeting of Representatives of the Communist and Workers’ Parties of the Socialist countries, held in Moscow November 14 to 16, 1957.
2. There was actually only an understrength one- carrier task force, no Marine Division, no mobile U. S. Air Force fighter squadrons, no Army paratroops, and no ROK Army worthy of the name in the Far East in June, 1950.