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^hree decades ago, Germans and other Europeans supplied the muscle, and the American taxpayer furnished the money to fasten a devastated continent’s recovery.
Today, military muscle and money are needed, n°t for offense, but for defense of a threatened Europe. How, then, shall the NATO nations divide the labor for this herculean effort?
. When General Montcalm, who had been fighting ln Canada against Britain, returned to France seeking ^'nforcements, Prime Minister Choiseul, who had een fighting the Prussians on the Continent for SfiVen years, was less than sympathetic, p Dear Sir,” said Choiseul, ‘‘When the house is on lre> one does not care about the stable.”
„ To be sure, Mr. Minister,” replied Montcalm, you don’t speak like a horse.”
Strategic conceptions depend primarily on percep- tlQns of the threat. Five thousand miles of water Separate U. S. and European appreciations of the 0st immediate, the most vital threat, the one that People in the street can easily understand and dread. ^ e visceral perception of public opinion in our erUocracies dictates, in the final analysis, the Strategic options of policymakers. Likewise, the Strategic concepts and, correlatively, the force postUres in the United States, must primarily fit the ^Pectations of American public opinion for survival . ’Te U. S. homeland in this nuclear age. Secondary> they must meet the needs of America’s allies. This very simple truth seems to have been ignored °n both sides of the Atlantic during the last 30 years. The present troubles in the Western alliance Sterr> from a basic mistake: the conception of European defense should not have been “made in U.S.A.,” simply because the perception of the threat in Europe was not, and could not be, the same as the one observed from Kansas City or Washington. Today, the Western allies should recognize this difference and admit that the magnitude of the threat requires some “division of labor” among them in the field of strategic concepts. The needs of European defense are specific to the European continent, where the nuclear military threat is multiform. Europe can be destroyed by missiles, it can be invaded by land, airborne or seaborne forces, or it can be conquered through subversion. Not America.
The only vital threat to the United States consists of Soviet missiles. Military thinking in the United States quite normally has been oriented for years against this form of threat. Deterrence of the unthinkable—strategic nuclear war—has been the cornerstone of U. S. military policy, and the growing Soviet potential in this field is bound to focus U. S. attention more and more toward the sky.
During the Fifties and Sixties, the crushing U. S. strategic power was more than enough to alleviate fears of any aggression in this field. It was so crushing, indeed, that the U. S. nuclear umbrella and mastery of the seas could be extended with some credibility across the Atlantic to the Iron Curtain. A generation of Europeans has been raised under this umbrella, and the European policymakers found in the protective shadow of “extended deterrence” an excuse to evade the immediate and unpopular financial burden of continental defense. One can say that official European strategic thinking has slept comfortably for more than 30 years under the nuclear umbrella of the United States. Today, the rain of cold “SALT” water is waking up minds on this side of the Atlantic.
Both Atlantic partners are equally guilty of this neglect. The Europeans can be blamed because they
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allowed their friends to carry the main burden, both intellectual and material, to the breaking point. The Americans are culpable because they overestimated their own strength, underestimated their opponent, downgraded their friends, and did not change their line when the rise of Soviet strategic power became apparent in the late Sixties. Conservative complacency—plus the sirens’ songs of detente and arms control—seems to have anesthetized the allies while the Soviet machinery was piling up nuclear missiles and military might at an unbelievable rate.
The fear of nuclear strikes on the United States has always been and will remain, quite understandably, a major preoccupation of U. S. public opinion. Deterrence of nuclear war continues to be the main objective of the U. S. strategy. It cannot be otherwise.
Since the bombing of Hiroshima, nuclear mythology has consistently equated the military atom with the tool of apocalypse. Millions of dead, even the end of the human race have been widely advertised, particularly in the United States, for the purpose of reciprocal deterrence. Nuclear peace was assured through the exchange of symbolic hostages. Mutual assured destruction (MAD) strategy was pushed to the limit of the strange logic of our time when both superpowers agreed in SALT I (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks) not to deploy anti-ballistic missile (ABM) defenses, thus offering each other their cities as permanent hostages.
It is time to realize that this deadly vulnerability of the United States, accepted by treaty, to Soviet hydrogen bombs cannot be forever the only guarantee of European defense against all forms of Soviet blackmail or aggression on the continent. Here, the practical consequence of MAD strategy—of this bilateral hostage system—has for the Continent several appalling aspects.
The fear of escalation to nuclear holocaust has led to a visceral fear of all forms of nuclear war in Amen-
Can public opinion. Ten years ago, the deadly theory °f Robert McNamara, Alain Enthoven, and company practically banned the use of any nuclear defensive (tactical) weapon. This was based on the fallacious notion that once the atom was put into motion, there could be no “firebreak” thinkable, and escalation to the apocalypse was unavoidable. Hence, a policy has evolved of keeping in U. S. political hands the trigger of any nuclear weapon. Who can really believe in the American nuclear commitment, as long as this commitment means suicide in the minds of U. S. citizens? Such a theory is absurd, of course, because escalation does not depend on the nature of weapons, but rather on the political will to shoot further, up t° collective suicide. MAD strategy, in itself, has at (east the merit of preventing escalation to the superpower’s homeland. But this “no firebreak” theory has been so deeply ingrained in the U. S. mind that ehere is no hope of reversing this attitude in the foreseeable future. A few years ago, a Gallup poll Published in Time magazine found that less than (0% of the American public was ready to accept the 'dea of using U. S. tactical weapons for the sake of allies. The Europeans had better think it over, ^othoven has killed the credibility of the nuclear alliance, and NATO is almost dead because of his devastating theory.
Under these psychological conditions, the deployment of modern tactical nuclear weapons has een banned for years. The main U. S. effort has een in the field of weaponry which directly ^hreatens the United States. Just a few years back,
• S. General Andrew J. Goodpaster, then the Su- Pfeme Allied Commander of NATO forces in Europe, c°mplained to Congress that his arsenal was based on ® nuclear technology “ten or twenty years old. ...” Uropeans had better ask themselves why U. S. strategic weaponry was refined to reach the present ^tage of multiple, independently targeted reentry ve- hlcles (MIRV), ABMs, and the like, when the nuclear arsenal specifically designed for their own defense ^■mained the blind “blunderbusses” of the Fifties, nR indiscriminately to devastate friends and foes alike.
Given this U. S. political reluctance to rely clearly °n nuclear tactics for European defense, everything "'as done to induce the Europeans to raise mass armies and provide the means of a comprehensive strategy of “flexible response.” Everything was done to uat end, except the one move that might have sucCeeded: a clear-cut admission that nuclear tactics ",°uld never be used. Instead, a halfhearted “tactical guarantee” in the form of delayed nuclear response "'as still maintained in the flexible response strategy.
The Europeans preferred to believe in it rather than pay the appalling price of a serious conventional posture to check the Soviet Army. Worst of all, while it was reluctant to rely on nuclear weapons to defend its allies, the United States tried to prevent them from acquiring such weapons.lt tried to delay, for instance, the continental force de frappe built by the French and induced other nations to scuttle their future defense potential by signing the nuclear nonproliferation treaty.
The net result of this equivocal U. S. approach to European defense is this: the “flexible response” strategy was nuclear enough to give an excuse to the Europeans for not raising old-fashioned conventional divisions and conventional enough to convince the U. S. public that there was still a chance to avoid the dreaded nuclear warfare and the end of America. The armies in Western Europe have had their manpower quantities calculated on the ground that modern weapons would be employed. But their organization and tactical doctrine are set up as if the weapons would not be.
Under such conditions, Western military leaders could not be at all sure of the kind of weapons they would use. And they could not devise a proper nuclear tactical doctrine, because there is no doctrine for Russian roulette. The only good way to play this game is not to play at all. Starting a conventional fight against the Soviet Army according to the present hybrid flexible response, given the disproportion in numbers, would mean immediate retreat on German territory, pending a political decision of using nuclear tactics on the lost German ground. It is also very likely that there would be a submersion of friendly forces and a correlative paralysis of one’s nuclear weapons on mixed military formations. This is playing into the Soviet scheme of tactical warfare in Europe, which is devised exactly to that end. In other words, if deterrence were to fail in the European theater, the result would be quite clear. According to many experts, the delayed nuclear response would allow the Soviet Army to reach the Rhine in a matter of three to five days.
If, some day in the future, historians had to explain why the Western allies had lost World War III, they could charge only the Western strategic and tactical doctrines, because the disproportion of manpower and technological and economical potential of the iwo camps is enormous. The all-directions defense problems of the 200 million Russians are fantastic, with 700 million Chinese on the east, 250 million Western Europeans on the west, the colossal U. S. strategic threat over their heads, the U. S. Navy ruling on the surrounding seas, and the trouble within their Communist empire. Thank God, this massive array of manpower and material resources that they might have to face if going to war is, by far, the most convincing deterrent.
Then the answer to the Soviet military challenge, given this huge disproportion in potential, should not be too difficult. The only problem is a matter of allied organization and strategic and tactical doctrines. To begin with, it is a matter of division of labor between the Atlantic partners, Europe and America.
The first thing that must be done is to recognize that, as pointed out above, local strategic conceptions depend on local threat perceptions. Strategic options are much better devised by the people directly interested in the solution of local strategic problems than by faraway friends. Division of labor in doctrinal thinking should give the Europeans the responsibility of dealing with their specific continental defense problems and let the Americans cope with their own, which are sufficient in themselves to absorb U. S. brainpower. Very roughly speaking, and assuming once more that the United States is mainly interested in avoiding its own destruction through strategic deterrence, for its own sake and for the sake of keeping mastery of the seas for the common cause, the U. S. overall mission should concentrate on these two aspects of the global Soviet military threat.
Assuming that the continental Europeans are mainly interested in avoiding their destruction through theater strategic deterrence and checking the Soviet Army invasion through tactical defense, the Europeans should take care of this part of the overall military challenge. They have the means, provided they get U. S. comprehension and help in the beginning. Such division of labor interplays perfectly, because the U. S. challenge in the stratosphere and on the seas stimulates the Soviets to counteract it and thus diverts a considerable part of its military potential from the Soviet Army on the European peninsula.
If there were indeed a real defensive alliance able to devise, at the summit conference, a strategy of allocation of resources for common defense on global terms, without parochial or national prejudices, division of labor of this kind would quickly exhaust the Soviets’ economic and technological capability to follow suit in their all-directions military problem. They would be forced into acceptable arms control agreements.
Naturally, division of labor does not mean that Europe or the United States has to rely entirely on the partner for whole categories of forces. It means only that European nations, for instance, while they keep their navies, should not duplicate the U. S. Navy as the French did in relation to the British Home Fleet before World War II. Nor does it mean that the United States should give up land forces in Europe on the grounds that the Europeans have enough manpower to match the Soviet Army. Of course, the point is that each partner should concentrate its main effort on its own part of the overall mission.
Given such a general scheme, the United States would probably applaud the idea of this “Europeanization” of European defense and the prospect, in the foreseeable future, of a progressive diminution of its sizable land commitment in the Continent. But Americans also have to consider the other side of the coin, for it would require a fundamental revision of the past policy which has led to the present military impasse.
First and foremost, it should be clear to all concerned, friends and foes alike, that Europe is not going to be defended with bows and arrows. Europeans are not going to raise conventional mass armies as Secretary McNamara once hoped; instead, Europeans will rely on modern defensive technology, including, to begin with, nuclear weapons adequate in quantity and quality, particularly the neutron bomb- The nuclear trigger will lie in their hands, and in the appropriate nuclear tactics doctrine devised and implemented by them. Then the “firebreak” myth of immediate escalation to the holocaust, if a nuclear shell is used on the Iron Curtain, should be blown up in American minds. In fact, the risk of Soviet suicidal escalation across the Atlantic to help a land attack on the central front is extremely thin indeed, provided the United States does its part of the mission correctly and keeps, at least, parity and preferably superiority with the Soviet intercontinental arsenal. In any case, this risk for the common cause has to be accepted, if there is to be any alliance at all.
Second, and correlatively, all the measures taken by the United States in the past decades to prevent the Continental countries from acquiring modern weapons, for fear of nuclear war started by some “it" responsible ally,” should be immediately removed. The present Soviet pressures to obtain from its SALT “partner” a clause banning the transfer to allies of modern defense technology should be reviewed m this light. The choice is difficult but clear. Either the United States wants the Europeans to take care of their own defense, and helps them to do so, or ic prefers to make a selfish “deal” with the Soviets. The choice is up to Americans, but it should be simple If SALT agreements are bought at this price, then the Soviets have reached their main political objective-
'-he alliance is dead, Europe might be lost, and ultimately the United States. It is as simple as that.
Third, assuming that a military alliance is necesSary, common defense should be an overriding con- Slderation in the West. Economic competition among nations will remain unavoidable as long as the Free World remains free. This is not bad in itself. But the choices for the real priorities—U.S.S.R. or Europe, defense or economy—must be clear if any Progress is to be made at all.
To sum it up, division of labor requires from Eh S. policymakers an agonizing reappraisal of their Past approach to inter-allied relations, especially on nuclear matters, from leadership to partnership, with the implications that “partnership” carries. As for Europe, division of labor would require, first of all, a clear and commonly accepted solution for the specific Problems of deterrence and defense of the Continent.
0<Jay, modern technology seems to give the answer.
The European Role: Let’s assume that, in the alliance, the United States assumes the burden in which it has an immediate interest for its own survival, deterrence of the Soviet strategic forces and mastery of the seas. Let us assume also that the U. S. strategic posture is such that it can “pin down,” missile for missile, warhead for warhead, the opposite intercontinental arsenal. Then, Europe would have to deal, in the theater strategic equation, with this marginal part of the Soviet arsenal which is not pinned down by the Atlantic partner. Today, these include the Soviet intermediate range ballistic missiles and tactical bombers. The latter are very “strategic” for Europeans but are “tactical” for the Americans if we agree with the SALT definitions of weaponry. (Incidentally, this definition, by itself, underlines the above contention of the need to devise strategy on local perception of the threat.)
The overall threat to continental Europe is threefold: civilian subversion, military invasion, and nuclear destruction. The risk of subversion by indigenous Communist parties has gradually faded away since World War II. The European economic boom has gradually diminished the appeal of “Socialism a la Russe" in Western European societies. The permanent example of life in the Communist empire, east of the Iron Curtain, is the best deterrent possible against this permanent form of the threat, even for the West European Communists who seem to prefer a new brand called “Eurocommunism.” The only risk of “Sovietization” is linked to a military action by the Soviet Army, which would develop enough supporters to build “democraties populaires,” following the scheme which succeeded in Eastern Europe after World War II and more recently in Czechoslovakia. There, civilian subversion closely depends on military invasion. In fact, it is the same threat. The third threat, massive destruction through strategic bombing, deserves close scrutiny.
Here the American nightmare—which was born in the United States when the atom and Sputnik turned the tables, destroyed the protective ocean barriers, and made North America vulnerable for the first time in history—appears almost negligible to Europeans, compared to threat number two. Its awesome prospect is more than compensated for by its unlikelihood. In sum, the Europeans are not too much afraid of a massive assault on the Continent, because they cannot imagine what political or military purpose would be served by such an undertaking by the Soviets. The Soviets’ only reasonable objective could be seizure of European economic power and political control of populations. Massive thermonuclear assault would defeat both purposes. A heap of radioactive rubble is not a valuable economic objective, and political control of survivors would be quite difficult, even with their former followers, after such a treatment.
This form of threat (nuclear destruction), the most awful, is the less likely for the Continent, whereas it is the only one that directly bothers Americans. Hence the “intellectual divorce” within the alliance. Of course, it has to be deterred, if only to check the blackmailing power of nuclear missiles. And it has been used quite effectively—by Nikita Khrushchev during the Suez crisis. This missile-rattling must be stopped at all costs.
Today, there is only one answer: retaliation in kind. Deterrence in the strategic field, especially for Western Europe, can be achieved only through MAD strategy, that is, with a sizable number of civilians and cities as hostages on the other side. All in all, given the combined value of Soviet defense (if present SALT agreements on antiballistic missiles remain valid in the future), the burden of achieving a local MAD strategy between NATO Europe and the U.S.S.R. does not appear beyond the means of the European technological and economic potential.
Now, pending the faraway European political unity, one can seriously argue that the credibility of a French or British nuclear guarantee regarding the Germans, who can’t become nuclear partners, or the Italians who don’t want to, is at least as questionable as the U. S. nuclear commitment has been regarding Europe as a whole, and much less impressive, given the size of the respective strategic arsenals. One can say that if the French question the American resolve to “die for Danzig,” neither would they be willing-
This might be correct. National suicide for the sake of others is difficult to believe indeed, f°r friends and foes alike, and hard for public opinion to swallow, as the Gallup poll previously mentioned suggests for the United States. Still, the Atlantic is much wider than the Rhine, the Alps, or the English Channel. The sense of “being in the same boat” is much more acute between the French and Germans than between Texans and Bavarians. Still, the French cannot hope that the Soviet General Staff would make the mistake of stopping along the Rhine—as Hitler did at the Channel in 1940—and leave France as a beachhead for a new Operation Overlord. Such an invasion would be unthinkable if the Atlantic shores were defended with Soviet nuclear weapons- Finally, nuclear solidarity among Europeans is more built in by geography than it is between the United States and Europe, and the two nuclear umbrellas of France and Britain are, although much smaller, a b*1 more credible—let’s say less incredible—than the U. S. extended deterrence umbrella. And the combi' nation of the three, assuming they remain coupled in the alliance, would borrow some credibility from the small ones and power from the big one, for the puf' pose of deterrence of the strategic threat.
However, given the fact that only national sanctuaries are endowed with credible protection, all European nations should be “sanctuarized.” They all, if they so desire, should possess the key to nuclear strategic retaliation. This is not very difficult, since strategic deterrence—the hostaging system—-*s based on retaliation, not on first-strike capabilities- Giving Germans a retaliatory power, under double
ke
y> would give them in the strategic field the Privilege they already have in the tactical field with e Bundeswehr’s Pershings and Lances. Any nuclear attack on Federal Republic of Germany territory VV°u^d presumably start NATO’s nuclear answer. Only
a Soviet cle;
conventional attack raises doubts about a nu- ar answer. The Germans and all other European sh nat*ons should have the right and the means to °°t back—not first—if exposed to strategic at- ck. Soviet nuclear strategic blackmail could not be ^Pplied. Maybe some multilateral force or other type European theater arrangement could, in that way, Utralize the intolerable “inferiority complex’’ of ^nuclear nations and prevent the Soviet Union
from using it for political purposes against them individually. The retaliatory trigger is not the nuclear trigger, able to launch an attack. It is a guarantee of solidarity of allies if one of them is under physical nuclear attack. It is the least we can do to convince all allies that there is an alliance, if they need this additional proof. This is so because nuclear retaliation against nuclear attack is absolutely credible, for all concerned, and cannot be disputed on moral grounds.
Moreover, as we will see below, “sanctuarization” of all Europe against strategic threats, if the concerned nations (especially Germany) so desire, would add a powerful building block to the shield of tactical deterrence, which is European problem number one, since it has to cope with the most likely and dangerous form of the Soviet threat. By physically tying strategic deterrence to tactical defense, it would supply the missing link in a comprehensive deterrence posture for the West, and extend the inhibiting power of the strategic atom to the outposts of the field on the central front. This would be a true, physical, credible extended deterrence.
The City Walls: Protection of Western Europe against an assault by the Warsaw Pact forces is primarily a matter of military tactics. (See “The Fence and the Defense,” Proceedings, October 1963, pages 30-41.) Deterrence, which in the strategic area can be based only on retaliation in kind—MAD strategy—since there is no hermetic defense technically feasible or economically attainable for the time being against MIRV rockets, is, for land forces, only an effect of defense, as it has always been. You deter if the enemy is convinced that your defense is stronger than his offense. This is obvious. Here the formula is exactly contrary to the one used for strategic deterrence, in which your potential offense must be greater than the enemy’s potential defense. For many centuries, city walls were the surest way to deter attacks and were built all over the world for that purpose. The number of such exclusively defensive efforts by old communities to protect themselves is enough to testify that, a long time ago, defense generally had precedence over offense. Long sieges were necessary to overcome the city walls, and most of the time the defenders had to surrender for lack of food or supplies, rather than being vanquished by military assault. Then, after a thousand years, technology, in the form of gunpowder, turned the tables. Gradually, offense became the best defense.
In fact, modern technology has in recent years made tremendous strides in the field of firepower. The combined power of nuclear explosives, associated
Before gunpowder turned the table, the walls of cities were the surest way to deter or withstand attacks. For example, the dreams of Viking glory were smashed forever against the impregnable walls of Paris in the early days of the 10th century.
with the increased accuracy of projectiles, has multiplied a thousandfold the effectiveness of firepower. On the other hand, the means of movement— armored formations or fighter-bombers—have not changed dramatically since World War II. This rough approach to the problems would, at first look, indicate that the balance is tilting toward defense, as in World War I, and for the same reasons. But we must dig further, because some tacticians argue that modern firepower helps to destroy defense and facilitate penetration. Technology in itself is neutral, but it can be safely said that the accuracy and power of modern weaponry favor destruction of targets to such an extent that any spotted target, flying, running, or walking, is or will be a dead target. Then the critical question boils down to this: what form of military action offers more targets to the enemy fire—offense or defense?
On the battlefield, it is obviously offense. The attacker has to show up either in the air or on the ground if he wants to cross the line and advance. Then he is spotted—and naked. He no longer has protection or concealment, since the prompt radiation of nuclear explosives (especially neutron bombs) has nullified armor. Moreover, he is a live target, a moving one. All the modern gadgets, “tac-nucs,” smart bombs, etc., can concentrate instantly on the advancing troops. On the contrary, the defender enjoys the benefits of cover and concealment; a nuclear missile hidden in the Black Forest would not be easily spotted. It can be moved from time to time. Dummies can be installed to fool an opponent’s aerial surveillance or intelligence. From 10, 100, 200 kilometers or more from the line of contact, “smart” kilotons or megatons can instantly transform square kilometers into frying pans along the Iron Curtain on which the attacking units would be destroyed. All in all, the vulnerability of forces—attacking or defending—makes all the difference. Today, this difference appears enormous. The linear defense concept of World War I, rendered obsolete by motorization and the blitzkriegs of World War II, is again feasible. The only chance of land attack would be the preliminary destruction by counterbattery of the defender’s firepower.
But at this point, one can see that strategic deter
rence and tactical defense interlock perfectly. To have any chance of success, any ground attack would require, to begin with, the bombing in greath depth of the hostile territory in order to destroy the defender s nuclear batteries, missile launching sites, or tactical airfields. This would clearly be a strategic attack on Germany with the credible retaliation on the attacker’s homeland. This is why sanctuarization of Western Europe, and especially of Germany, is so important today. This is why nuclear tactical defense is so crucial for overall deterrence. It imposes the physical necessity of escalation to strategic strikes for a prospective aggressor to get any military advantage- Who can believe that the Soviets would try to take Kassel or Luebeck if they had to risk Moscow? To do that, they would have to start the dreaded process o» escalation -themselves.
This is a far cry from the time when the defender, not the aggressor, had to threaten escalation with the massive retaliation concept; or even with flexible response concepts advocating possible jumps by the defender into nuclear warfare. Deterrence and peace were then based on the questionable will of the defender to enter the nuclear game. If modern technology—and “tac-nucs”—were to be used for tacti' cal defense, then escalation (geographical escalation, not technical escalation) would be the choice of the aggressor. This would be self-deterrence, and no
Miscalculation could precipitate the world into a nu- c^ear conflict.
Let us then build continental defense on modern technology, which clearly favors defense today. If one adds the defensive potential of “tac-nucs” to the tac- tlcal picture of the Yom Kippur War, this experience May mark the beginning of the end of the glamorous Liuderian times, “Panzer’s twilight” in the history of Warfare. It also signifies the end of the times when attack was the best defense and the sword the best shield. Let us then concentrate on this shield for con- tMental defense by building the European Wall along the Iron Curtain.
The vital point is to recognize that modern ttchnology tilts the balance toward defense, and to eiP this salutary trend, because defense is deterrence and deterrence is peace. Never in Western history as peace had such a chance, because never since the |*Mes when the city walls effectively protected whole uMan communities has defense had such an advantage. Division of labor in the alliance should rest Primarily with the European nations, along with the responsibility and the burden of finding the proper answer to this vital problem and of taking the proper StePs to deter land attack on the Continent.
Defense and Arms Control: The rise of defense tecHnology gives an unprecedented chance to go a ead in arms control and detente. For the first time 'n Modern history, it appears possible to throw away °ffensive weapons without diminishing one’s defen- s,ve potential; it is possible to reinforce the shield While we reduce the sword and ultimately substitute eMnse for terror to assure deterrence and peace. DisarMament attempts in the past always failed, because When attack was the best defense, it was too risky for governments to throw away the sword which was, at e time, the best shield—for instance, to throw aWay tanks when tanks were the best anti-tank de- yiCe- Today, the technological revolution tilting the Iar>ce toward defense allows an entirely new ap- th°aCh t0 arms control. The city walls never £. reatened anyone. Neither did the Maginot or Sieg- ^Md lines. The military threat, in land warfare, is k Vl°usly the threat of invasion with manpower. If 0th sides are sincere in their proclamations on arms C°nttol, for instance mutual balanced force reduc- ns—they might reduce their costly offensive k eans of armored divisions, their fighter-bombers, the protective wall of tactical nuclear defense. ney might also reduce the dangerous array of inter- Minental ballistic missiles which are mainly in- uMents of terror, not of warfare, and get rid of D strategies, which were built on terror rather than defense at the time when nuclear stockpiles were limited to a few strategic weapons. Nuclear weapons, by themselves, can destroy, but they cannot control. The purpose of war is control, not destruction. The Europeans would feel safer on their Continent if the Soviet Army had ten times more tactical nuclear weapons and three times fewer mechanized divisions. It should be the same on the other side. Pending the necessary confidence among nations to achieve disarmament, the new “city walls” would give a sense of security and perhaps the long- awaited “green light” for significant arms control negotiations. The politicians should, in those negotiations, help the technicians tilt the balance beyond the point of no return. Peace definitely wins where defense becomes the only physically feasible course of action. But here again, the division of labor in the Western alliance should imply the participation of Europeans in arms control negotiations in their main field of interest: defense of Western Europe, which cannot be separated from SALT business.*
Arms control, like Western strategy, is a global matter in which everyone has a role to play. Let’s build security on defense rather than terror, and the chances of achieving arms control will automatically appear. Then the scientists and technicians—whose consciences were so much disturbed at the beginning of the Atomic Age because they did not know if they were working for good or evil—might find a new incentive for their creativity. Thanks to them, thanks to the new “city walls” that modern technology permits us to imagine today, defense would take over offense. Perhaps victory over war is in sight.
#What is the interest of Continental Europe in SALT if the Soviets, in the process, are allowed to continue to multiply their SS-20 warheads, which are not included in such negotiations?
Educated at France’s military college of Saint Cyr, Colonel Geneste escaped to Spain from Nazi-occupied France and joined the Free French Forces. Subsequently, he served with the 2nd French Armored Division, 3rd American Army. After World War II, he took part in the Indochina campaign, and from 1951 to 1957 he served in Algeria. In 1959-60, he attended the Armed Forces Staff College, Norfolk, Virginia. He was an instructor and liaison officer in the U. S. Command and General Staff College, and, prior to his retirement in 1965, was Assistant Commandant, 12th Chasseurs, Sedan, Ardennes, France. He is the coauthor of Arms Control for the Late Sixties U.S.A. (1967) and Modern Guerrilla Warfare U.S.A. (1962), and has written numerous articles on military subjects for various periodicals. Included have been four previous Proceedings articles, the most recent of which was “Vietnam ... A New Type of War?” in May 1968. Colonel Geneste is now vice president of Cercle D’Etudes de Strategic Totale, a revival of the former Institut Franfais d’Etudes Strategies.