Needed—A Military Strategy Of Mobility*

The purpose of this article is to stimulate the development of a modern and satisfactory military strategy. The “massive retaliation” strategy of today is essentially the strategic bombing concept of World War II and is hopelessly inadequate in an age of thermonuclear weapons and pilotless vehicles. To a certain extent, strategy changes must always follow technological developments. We are now in the second atomic decade, a period which has witnessed scientific revelations of a scope and quantity never before thought possible; yet our basic military strategy is unchanged. Our military needs are not bigger and better bombs that get there faster; rather, our need is for a practical and rational way of harnessing our know-how so that we can withstand an all-out surprise attack with a certain surviving military capability for victory.

The actions and methods contemplated herein may, to some, smack of an entirely different and radical strategy. To others, the suggestions may be regarded as mere modifications of established doctrine. The concept to be stressed is that modern technology can be directed to insure our defense without millions of United States casualties and without necessarily becoming committed to a war of indiscriminate thermonuclear bombardment.

Two essential characteristics of an optimum military capability are (a) the protection of the civilian population from hostile military weapons and forces and (b) an unqualified ability to destroy hostile military forces of any nation or group of nations as required. The National Defense Establishment falls far short on both counts.

It is relevant here to document the gravity of these two shortcomings. In an interview last year, General Curtis E. LeMay, Chief of the U. S. Strategic Air Command, stated:

“We have our own air defense system, and certainly it is efficient enough to intercept some enemy attacks. However, I think most authorities agree that you cannot stop a well planned, well coordinated air attack once it gets under way.

Question: “Then we can’t depend alone on mere retaliation?

Answer: “I don’t think so—not on retaliation in the sense that we are bombed with a really heavy attack first and then we launch an attack.”

The significance of this vulnerability to enemy attack is suggested by the Federal Civil Defense Administration’s exercise Operation Alert, held June 15-17, 1955. Governor Val Peterson, FCDA Administrator, reported to the Senate Committee on Armed Forces that in Operation Alert, 58 cities were assumed to be struck by bombs ranging from 20,000 tons of TNT (20 KT) equivalent to thermonuclear bombs of five million tons of TNT (5 MT) equivalent. Fatalities caused by this attack would have numbered sixteen million, with another eight million injured. An estimated 25 million persons would have been homeless. Almost one out of three persons in the United States would have been killed, injured, or made homeless by this attack.

One reaction to our military and civil vulnerability to attack has provided the basic argument for the “preventive war” concept. Moral considerations far outweigh the arguments in favor of a preventive war. United States policy is based on maintaining peace, not initiating war.

The probability of eventual missile warfare is a major factor in any evaluation of our capability to protect our civil population and to destroy hostile forces. Research and development work on missiles is probably the highest priority task within the United States and the Soviet Union. As a result of these “crash” programs, availability of missiles for operational use is a matter of differing interpretation. Matador, the Air Force’s surface-to-surface missile, is reported by Secretary of the Air Force Donald Quarles to be in operational squadrons in the United States and Europe. Admiral Arleigh Burke, Chief of Naval Operations, has stated that Regulus, a surface-to-surface bombardment missile, is also operational in some of our submarines, cruisers, and carriers. Both these missiles have the configuration of conventional aircraft and necessary limitations of speed, range, etc., of their particular design.

Developmental time for missiles with 5,000 mile range and speeds in the Mach 5-15 category (five to fifteen times the speed of sound, the so-called intercontinental ballistic missile) has been undoubtedly shortened by technological break-throughs in destructiveness of the payload of the missile, the warhead. The greater the destructiveness of the warhead, or bomb, the less precise the missile guidance requirements. A simplified comparison of this progress in destruction can be obtained from the atomic bombs dropped on Japan and those “utilized” in Operation Alert in 1955. The twenty KT Japanese bomb had a blast damage radius of 2 miles, and the 1955 Operation Alert bombs were rated at 250 times the Japanese TNT equivalent. The evolution of missile development is quite clear from these improvements in range, speed, and destructiveness. Any stationary target, regardless of its location on the surface of the globe, is to be susceptible of destruction by intercontinental missiles.

The military requirement, in an age of thermonuclear bombs and intercontinental ballistic missiles, is to obtain an unfailing capability for massive retaliation, and if war does occur, to destroy the enemy’s capacity for waging war with a minimum number of U. S. casualties. This is a large order. Even today it is not being filled. Predictions of tens of millions of casualties in the United States and the supposedly inevitable destruction of our industrial capability are especially serious.

A possible solution is suggested by considering how we, in peacetime, can force the enemy to change his wartime strategy. Let us exclude appeals to humanitarian instincts, or agreements with the enemy restricting size and number of bombs. Nor shall we include an analysis of the military rationality so hopefully described by Arnold Wolfers in the Yale Review, Winter 1956, under the title “Could a War in Europe Be Limited?” These exclusions are consistent, for our purposes, with the war plans of Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, as revealed by Field Marshall Montgomery, in his address to the California Institute of Technology, November 29, 1954.

“I want to make it absolutely clear that we at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe are basing all our operational planning on using atomic and thermonuclear weapons in our defense. With us it is no longer: ‘They may possibly be used.’ It is very definitely: ‘They will be used, if we are attacked.’

“The reason for this action is that we cannot match the strength that could be brought against us unless we use nuclear weapons; and our political chiefs have never shown any great enthusiasm in giving us the numbers to be able to do this without using such weapons. . . .”

A two-fold program can meet our military requirement and force the enemy to change his strategy and tactics to our benefit: (1) replace part of our stationary defenses with a mobile, moving defense now; (2) change the prospective battlefield from the United States proper to the high seas or to the polar regions.

Fundamentally, a war consists of a succession of battles. Just as two opponents are necessary for a war, so are two opponents necessary for a battle. Of more importance, the two opponents must agree on a battle field, else there will be no battle.

The vulnerability of General LeMay’s “massive retaliation” stems from our poor choice of the battlefield. This is particularly true because political and moral considerations require our forces to absorb the first blow. Wittingly or not, the battlefield we have chosen is not a good one now. As the enemy’s relative long-range air force and missile capability increases, it can become only worse for us, and more tempting to an already aggressively-minded enemy.

The area of battle specifically chosen by United States strategists consists of those areas vital to massive retaliation. According to General LeMay and other prominent military spokesmen, the decisive battle areas will be Strategic Air Command bases and associated facilities. The destruction of these bases by surprise attack, which so concerns General LeMay and other military planners, would probably cause millions of casualties to the civilian population, especially if the bombs were thermonuclear and caused widespread fallout. Fortunately, there is decreasing necessity for the United States proper to be the locale of decisive warfare with the Soviet Union.

The developments which can be shaped to minimize our present problem of military and civil defense can be grouped into three principal areas: the technological breakthrough in seaplane manufacture, the successful use of atomic power in submarines and its adaptation for other types of propulsion, and, lastly, the changing character of war.

Current and projected developments in seaplanes represent an entirely new weapons system. Seaplane design is no longer fettered by the inefficient propeller and the sharply curved contours of conventional seaplane hulls. If properly directed, this new type of aircraft and related accessories could become the basis for an entirely new strategy that would eliminate the present vulnerability of massive retaliation to surprise attack. The possession of intercontinental ballistic missiles would not enable an enemy to destroy a seaplane weapons system in the same way as he would be capable of destroying a land- based “massive retaliation.”

Some indication of the revolutionary possibilities of this new dimension in warfare can be obtained from the U. S. Navy’s P6M-1 Martin Seamaster. This four-engine seaplane has a speed in excess of 600 mph, a payload of fifteen tons, and according to the Chief of Naval Operations, “. . . is the fastest low altitude attack aircraft in existence today.” It is, of course, capable of carrying atomic and other type bombs. The possibilities of this seaplane as a new concept of warfare are implied from the facts that she can use the water runways of the world and can be supplied by submarines as well as surface craft.

This versatility and flexibility makes the entire weapons system almost impossible to destroy, as compared with land-based aircraft. The land bases equipped to handle our huge SAC bombers are huge, complicated, expensive installations, exceedingly difficult to conceal from the enemy. As General Nathan F. Twining, Air Force Chief of Staff, observed in New York on October 11, 1955, “We do not have nearly enough bases for adequate dispersal or efficient operation, and most of those we do have are overloaded with planes, people and buildings.” Nor is this shortage confined to military land bases. On February 5, 1956, at the Air Force Association’s “Jet Age Conference” Civil Air Administrator Charles J. Lowen startled his audience with the observation that ocean-hopping jet airliners are making many American airport runways obsolete. Indeed, the only exception he made was Boston Airport, with its 10,000 foot runway.

Dispersal of jet bombers on land bases is necessarily limited; by contrast, there is no limit to the dispersal of seaplanes. Seventy per cent of the surface of the world can be used for 10,000 mile long runways for seaplanes.

The Secretary of the Navy described additional aspects of the new seaplane strategy to a Los Angeles audience, March 1: “If you want to romance its possibilities, look at a world map and imagine the numberless bases from where a seaplane can operate. The oceans and seas will be its bases. These waterfields will cost nothing. They will require little maintenance, and their use will pose no problem of sovereignty.”

Besides providing unlimited bases, a military strategy emphasizing seaplanes would nullify the Soviet argument that calls for “the prohibition of foreign military bases by one state on the territory of another.” A decreased dependence on SAC bases within the borders of foreign countries would not only increase our own military self-sufficiency, but also eliminate possible conflicts and tensions in the field of international politics. The world-wide air base expenditures are enormous; to date, according to US AF General Earle Partridge, the cost has been seven billion dollars. Savings in foreign base negotiations, construction, and maintenance should be quite substantial, perhaps enough to fund much of the seaplane weapons system itself. A seaplane strategy could also supplement the existing ring of U. S. fixed and vulnerable air bases on Japan, the Philippines, Subic Bay, Guam, Tinian, Saipan, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa.

Propulsion by atomic power is a demonstrated reality and is the second development that promises to revolutionize the tactics of the new military strategy. The Nautilus, first atomic-powered submarine, has cruised 25,000 miles without refueling and has travelled underwater from New London, Connecticut, to Puerto Rico, a distance of 1,300 miles, in 84 hours. It is the world’s first true submarine, in that it can travel faster underwater than on the surface. Heretofore, submarines have been ships, capable of being temporarily submersed.

An atomic-powered vessel can practically ignore refueling problems for an entire war. Most military analysts believe that an atomic war will be over in a few days or weeks. A power plant similar to that installed in the Nautilus can operate two-and-a-half years before a new fuel charge is necessary. The U. S. Navy, which so far has the only atom-powered vessels in the world, is in various stages of production of a half-dozen other submarines and is beginning work on reactors for surface vessels, including those in the aircraft carrier class.

The probability of adapting nuclear power to seaplanes is much greater than the prospects for land-based nuclear aircraft. Air Pictorial, a United Kingdom magazine, states when the atom-powered engine first becomes a practicable proposition for aircraft, so far as present knowledge and probability go, only the flying boat will be capable of using it. The seaplane’s advantage stems from the necessity for a nuclear- powered aircraft to contain material for shielding crew and passengers from radio activity. The newsletter of the Society of British Aircraft Constructors states that Saunders-Roe, builders of the huge Princess flying boats, has estimated the minimum all- up weight of an aircraft designed to use atomic propulsion to be in the region of 500,000 pounds. This weight is far in excess of today’s aircraft. Moreover, because fuel consumption of an atomic power plant is negligible, the landing weight of an atomic-powered aircraft will be essentially the same as the take-off weight. Land-based atomic-powered aircraft would conceivably require an entirely new network of extremely expensive bases, or at the very least, elaborate modification and lengthening of existing runways. On the other hand, seaplanes can utilize water runways of unlimited length. These sea runways have no known weight absorption ceiling and are indestructible.

In the experimental and prototype phases of development, seaplanes will have many safety advantages over land planes. By confining flights to ocean areas, the radiation and contamination hazards to populated and industrial areas would be reduced. The most dangerous periods, landing and take-off, would necessarily occur on water. Atomic- powered, land-based aircraft are conceivable, but present opinion indicates their development will depend upon, and follow, atomic- powered seaplanes. It is noted that the airborne nuclear reactor now being tested in a land-based B-36 does not provide propulsive power. The test objective is simply to determine the reactor’s effects upon the components of the aircraft in flight.

In addition to the technological breakthrough in seaplane design, and the possibilities of atomic power, the third development of significance is the changing nature of war. Modern war depends upon extremely complicated weapons. The time required to produce modern bombers is not measured in days or weeks, but in months and tens of months. Longer periods are required for ships; and tanks are ever becoming more difficult to produce. These different weapons are, of course, much more efficient and deadly than their predecessors. Because these weapons and thermonuclear bombs are so efficient and require so much time to produce, the weight of analysis indicates that a modern war will be over in a relatively short time, and will be conclusive with whatever war material has been produced before the war starts. Such a short conflict would be quite different from World Wars I and II, which were decisively influenced by the post M-day war material produced by the United States.

To the extent that the conclusion of a modern war is independent of wartime industrial production, the military significance of the long run industrial potential declines as soon as war begins. After hostilities begin, the military management problem becomes one of maximizing the utility of whatever goods have already been produced. In view of this prospective limitation on combat material, two steps appear mandatory—peacetime maintenance of a military force adequately equipped for “massive retaliation” and the complete separation from the civil and industrial population of the targets likely to be bombed by an enemy. Our annual $35 billion defense appropriation is designed to accomplish the first of these objectives. It is not clear that the possibilities of the second step, i.e., clear separation of our military targets from our civilian population, have been recognized. Action to achieve this second objective by spatial dispersion and other differentiations is a part of the over-all strategy contemplated herein.

This first atomic decade has been marked by subservience of the military planners to the physicists and mathematicians that produced the atomic bomb. A case could be made for a finding that the scientists and the technicians have in fact determined our national destiny by producing an endless succession of ever greater bombs. The scientific job has been done in remarkable fashion. Unfortunately the achievements in improvement of offensive capabilities have far surpassed progress in defensive capabilities. The past, however, is not important. Our first chore is to design a more acceptable strategy within the present framework of scientific and engineering knowledge. Our second chore is to assure the production of the requisite material for implementing it.

A strategy of mobility has been suggested and is believed consistent and attainable with resources at our present disposal. Assuming that an enemy has the means with which to destroy any known stationary target, we can now institute a program of concealing the location of part of our massive retaliation from the enemy. This can be accomplished by deploying missile-equipped submarines in secure locations throughout the world. If need be, some of these submarines could lay on the bottom for extended periods. Constantly cruising aircraft carriers are another obvious move. For seaplanes, hundreds of suitable isolated harbors throughout the world can be selected, and seaplanes could follow a standard, but nonetheless variable, procedure of movement from one temporary haven to another. Maintenance, fuel, armament, etc., could be provided by submarines or other naval vessels already envisioned as part of the seaplane weapons system. Nuclear power can augment this mobility to the extreme of continuous flights of armed aircraft from North Pole to South Pole.

This mobile strategy would force the Soviet Union to deal with two distinct elements of military power. Of most immediate concern to them would probably be the in-flight or “ready” forces of seaplanes, submarines equipped with guided missiles, aircraft carriers, etc. Failure of the Soviet Union to plan a war without destroying these moving forces would be inconceivable, for, if not destroyed, this moving defensive force could change to offensive, and by prearrangement proceed to lay waste the Soviet Union. Upon signal, the moving defense would launch their weapons of destruction, or in the case of the seaplanes, proceed to assigned targets.

The familiar baseball saying is, “If you can’t see it, you can’t hit it.” In warfare, even in an age of intercontinental missiles, “If you can’t locate it, you can’t hit it.”

Varying the cruising patterns of our mobile defense would make it technologically impossible for any aggressor to predict with certainty the location of our everchanging defense. Without this knowledge, no rational enemy would initiate hostilities.

A defensive military policy offers the United States the opportunity to determine many of the conditions of the war. This opportunity, if recognized, can be exploited to make war unacceptable to an enemy. Is this not the objective of the United Nations and the foreign policy of the United States? A mobile defense, for example, forces the enemy to develop weapons beyond any known technical ability. If the enemy cannot develop them, our defenses are unassailable and peace is preserved.

The danger of surprise attack is almost eliminated by a strategy based on a mobile defense. Historically, surprise has been of crucial military importance. Many analysts believe that if we can eliminate the possibility of a surprise attack, we eliminate the danger of a thermonuclear war. Vulnerability to surprise attack was undoubtedly a vital consideration in the formulation of President Eisenhower’s mutual aerial surveillance plan. Mobile defense would eliminate surprise by first increasing the chances of early detection of any massive assault. Secondly, and of most significance, forces scattered throughout the world could not possibly be destroyed simultaneously. Under one pattern of defensive strategy, for example, cruising defensive forces in the Antarctic; South Pacific; North and South Atlantic; Alaska, etc., would have to be destroyed simultaneously with land-based massive retaliation in Europe, North Africa, United States, etc. Because of today’s instantaneous communication, the first overt attack would alert all defensive forces, wherever located. Existing and planned warning and surveillance systems such as the Distant Early Warning line, Pine Tree line, etc., would make assurance against surprise attack “doubly sure.”

With a strategy of mobility and concealment, the United States deterrent of “massive retaliation” would be unaffected by the technological race for the first intercontinental ballistic missile. This is not to mean that we should lessen our own ballistic missile efforts. If our military strength is to continue to fulfill the role of the great peacemaker, we must strive to lead the world in all phases of weapons. Granting the condition when both the United States and USSR possess ballistic missiles, mobility and concealment of a significant portion of our massive retaliation will be an important military requirement.

Soviet Premier Nikolai Bulganin stated in an interview of December 31, last year, “It is wrong to assert that inasmuch as East and West possess hydrogen weapons, the possibility of a thermonuclear war is automatically excluded.” War is an ever-present danger, but there is no requirement that we be bound to the bombing strategy of World War II. Such a strategy is suicidal. We must, and we can, make the realities of total warfare less frightening, and more manageable, by intensive application of energy and imagination to its terrible challenges. Our problems are not hopeless; they simply await the effort of solution. If we do not attempt a solution, we justly forfeit our material, cultural, and religious heritage. The purpose of this article has been to stimulate the development of such a solution.