Since the atomic explosion at Hiroshima we have come to regard our nuclear capability as our main sword, the chief striking power behind our foreign policy, while we gradually relegated our “conventional” forces to the role of a shield, still needed, but supposedly inadequate for the execution of our political will and global commitments.
Is such a supposition justified, and are the respective roles which we assigned the two aspects of military might warranted by the facts? Or, in other words, is the defense posture built on this basis able to guarantee victory in the present struggle?
To answer these questions, let us first review the chain of events since that fateful day when the first atomic bomb was dropped.
In 1945, after World War II, the Western World, for all practical purposes, disarmed. The United States reduced its armed forces from some 12,500,000 in 1945 to a mere 1,500,000 in 1947. At the same time the armies of the liberated countries were still weak and largely busy with colonial uprisings, while the military might of Germany and Japan had been wiped out completely. This retrenchment was carried out in the belief that the dawning new era would have little need for the use of armed forces in international relations; it was the only logical conclusion to be drawn in the peaceful and optimistic climate following the war.
Disarmament of the West was a unilateral move, however, since the Soviet Union continued to maintain a powerful force-in-being, far in excess of anything the West could muster even one year after the war. But public opinion the world over was inclined to be tolerant with this show of caution by a country that had suffered so severely by foreign invasion and one that professed peaceful intentions at every opportunity.
Besides, the West, or at least its leader, the United States, had in its possession a most effective means to balance out all the armed might of the rest of the world: the monopoly in atomic bombs, together with an efficient system of delivering it, the Strategic Air Command.
With this potent persuader, the United States had a power to preserve peace which no one would dare to challenge. Let the Russians keep their 200 divisions; they could not attack us nor prevent swift retaliation in case of an overt act of aggression, because we could stop them quickly by dropping a few of these super-weapons on their land. Thus, even though the West was weak in the so-called conventional forces, there apparently existed an effective equilibrium of power as the best deterrent to war.
Quite naturally again, this concept gave rise to a strategic doctrine for the West, in which American nuclear capacity was considered to be the sword of the Western World, with the classical services of Army, Navy, and tactical Air Force reduced to the status of mere policing units. This dogma well satisfied the wishful thinking of that period and if the preservation of peace at any price is the chief purpose of national policy and of the armed force which supports it, the reliance on this “ultimate” weapon seemed to be well justified, for no major “war” occurred during the next few years.
But if the object of national policy is the promotion of human dignity, the preservation of peoples’ right of self-determination, and the creation of favorable conditions for promoting life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, then the world suffered incredible losses in those few years. Poland, Rumania, Bulgaria, Hungary, East Germany, Albania, Czechoslovakia, and—for a while—Yugoslavia, were in that short period swallowed up by a Soviet Union which had no intention of playing the game according to the hopeful expectations of Western idealists. These countries, with a territory of some 500,000 square miles, a population of 100,000,000 people, and an economic strength of half that of the U.S.S.R., were incorporated into the Russian empire, most of them very much against their will and certainly against Western interests.
Not satisfied even with these enormous successes, the Soviet Union, already the largest landowner in the world, exerted pressure in every direction in order to gain still more land. With the fall of China, International Communism achieved its greatest triumph, adding half of Asia to its fast expanding realm. While in 1945 it had controlled only about one-twelfth of the world’s population, by 1949 it held sway over one-third of it.
But the significant part of this unprecedented success is that, with the exception of China, it was all accomplished without any fighting. Using every promising means at their disposal, political subversion, economic pressure, or military threat, the Russians were able to gain their objectives by “peaceful” methods. Yet there can be no doubt that these schemes would not have worked if it had not been for the presence, or known proximity, of the Russian army, which stood ready to implement by force the tactics of “conquest without war.” This was proved sufficiently by its behavior in the uprisings in Poland and East Germany and by the brutal suppression of the Hungarian revolt. If Russian forces did not have to go into action more often, it was because there was nothing to oppose them, because there existed a power vacuum which the Communists could fill without risk. And since there was no Western counter-force to back them up, the elected governments of the threatened countries had no other choice than to surrender.
To be sure, we had the atom bomb and could have tried to stop Russian aggression with it. But since the Soviets had evaded the overt use of force in their rapacious advance, they had avoided giving us the necessary provocation, and we were exceedingly reluctant to use such a deadly weapon on a people who only yesterday had been our allies. Despite the speed and ruthlessness of the Russian conquests, the process appeared at first less ominous than it actually was, painful but not sufficiently pernicious to justify the unsheathing of our over-powerful sword. Yet, lacking in conventional strength, that was all we had to oppose the Communist offensive.
So, being the sole possessor of the most powerful weapon in existence, we escaped war, enjoyed a few years of “peace”—and lost one third of the world! While the Free World was being raped and suffered irreparable damage—not by war, but by the lack of adequate defenses—we had to look on helplessly, despite our monopoly in atomic bombs.
It took two years of this bitter experience to shake the shrinking remnants of the Free World out of their complacency, to open their eyes to the mortal danger of “annihilation on the installment plan.” Yet this was, and still is, the oft-repeated aim of Communist policy! Firmly believing that the downfall of the “Capitalist World” is historically inevitable and will come automatically because of the “inner contradictions” inherent in it, the Communists will do everything except risk war to achieve their goal of world domination. They are always ready to make life harder for us in order to hurry up our inescapable destiny, inciting others against us, and punching holes in our armor whenever it can be done without real danger to themselves. The record shows that this policy has paid them better dividends than any actual use of force would have done. Yet they could pursue this policy only because they knew that there was little we could do to stop them.
Most of the conquered countries were land- bound and could not be reached except over land, which would call for ground forces sufficiently strong to pose a Western counterweight to the large Russian army in the East. If such a Western force had been available at that time and in the right place, it is more than doubtful that the Communist coup d’état in Czechoslovakia, for instance, would have succeeded. For to use force in the face of effective opposition is about the last thing the masters of the Kremlin want to do.
In 1947 the dire necessity for a political and military reappraisal was finally widely recognized in the Western World. Step by step measures were taken to counter the headlong advance of Communism, utilizing those tools of national policy in which the West still held an advantage. To help remedy the economic ills of war-torn Europe and thereby minimize the chances of internal subversion, the Marshall Plan was instituted. To overcome the military weakness of the West, the principle of collective security was adopted. Within a short time this led to the formation of NATO, and a number of other bilateral or multilateral mutual assistance pacts. The Free World was organizing itself so as to prevent further encroachment on its territories.
The actual implementation of this new policy of cooperative security was necessarily slow, but the precipitate march of events demanded a quicker and more immediately effective response if further conquests were to be prevented. Communist pressure on Greece and Turkey, for instance, was mounting, while the British, who had hitherto acted as their protectors, were compelled to admit their inability to furnish them further assistance. In this emergency the American government stepped in, acting quickly and decisively. Within a few days after a Greek plea for help, President Truman proclaimed his Doctrine, which promises U. S. support to all free people resisting aggression, and began sending economic, technical, and military aid to the two countries. As a result, they never did succumb to the Communists.
This American declaration of intention to oppose further aggression was a powerful instrument in the effort to restrain the Soviets. But determination would not have been enough; in fact, it did not save Czechoslovakia, which fell to the Communists a short time afterwards. The difference between the two situations lay in the kind of military power which was available to back up the political announcement. While Czechoslovakia is inaccessible to Western aid except by land— where the West was weakest—Greece and Turkey can be reached by sea and hence lie within the realm of our sea power. And, except for the atomic bomb, this was the only effective weapon we had. With the kind of mobility, staying capacity, and possibility of surprise which sea power affords, even a relatively small army can carry decisive weight. For this reason our Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean and our Seventh Fleet in the Far East, with their contingents of Marines, are in most cases sufficient to deter not only war itself, but—which is equally important—other forms of aggressiveness as well.
The Western show of determination to resist, together with the evident ability of our sea power to lend it authority, had the desired result: no European country situated along the seaboard of the continent was forced to capitulate to the Communists! The mere presence of force as presented by the Western fleet in the disputed area had done what the entire nuclear arsenal could not achieve.
While the reestablishment of a new Western military force through regional arrangements was proceeding slowly, the Russians, in 1949, exploded an atomic bomb of their own and thereby shattered our monopoly in that field. This event, unexpected at that early date, completely upset whatever balance of power might have existed heretofore. Suddenly the scales dipped far down on the Communist side, and only a more rapid building up of the West’s classical capacity could reestablish some sort of equilibrium. Otherwise our nuclear arsenal would lose whatever deterrent power it had as soon as the Russians succeeded in developing an effective delivery system to supplement the bomb.
But even though for a number of years the Communists would still be trailing us in nuclear capability their continued superiority in land power gave them enough confidence to start another series of offensives. With further aggression in Europe becoming too risky, they shifted their attention to East Asia and invaded the southern part of Korea, from which we had just evacuated most of our occupational troops.
Goaded beyond endurance by this constant probing and grabbing and realizing that we could not afford to withdraw any farther without losing the confidence of our allies, we quickly decided to give South Korea full military help to drive the Communists back. Soon we found ourselves engaged in one of the “little” wars which are constantly breaking out somewhere on the globe. But although such wars had never ceased to occur, this was the first post-World War II conflict in which this country itself became an active participant.
As a “limited” conflict, that is, one which is restricted in the political objectives of the belligerent, confined in geographic area, and restrained in the means of violence employed, the Korean War—like most such campaigns— offered little opportunity for the use of atomic bombs but called for forces of the “conventional” type. It was exactly because the Communists thought that we did not have enough of these and could not challenge them that they dared openly to attack a country friendly to us. But several factors, which they had not sufficiently considered, helped us to balance their numerical superiority and to win what would have been a complete victory without the interference of Red China.
First of all, we had considerable ground troops stationed in nearby Japan and hence did not have to send them all the way across the Pacific, in which case they would have arrived too late to do much good. Secondly, we had, in the beginning, a vast preponderance of tactical air power and maintained superiority in this weapon over the Communists to the end of the struggle. But thirdly, we had unequalled sea power, which enabled us to carry troops and supplies to Korea undisturbed, to give direct support to our armies and air forces there, and to strike the decisive low in the purely Korean phase of the war by our amphibious landing at Inchon. Without this, we could not, in fact, have even begun to fight, because we could not convey sufficient forces there, and South Korea would have joined the list of Communist victims. Again, sea-borne mobility enabled even relatively small ground and air forces to hold their own against mass armies.
The Korean War convincingly demonstrated the continued need of conventional arms, which, if used properly, are still able to bring about decisions in 99% of all international conflicts. Nuclear weapons certainly have a definite usefulness, but only in a very narrowly restricted field, which is total or all- out war between the power giants. And that only if one of them has, or believes that it has, a decisive advantage. Otherwise the very destructiveness of these weapons tends to limit their use, as each of the opponents must expect to get as much as he can give, which means unacceptable national devastation. Only a lunatic would resort to war under such circumstances.
Because of this and because for ideological reasons both sides are anxious to avoid a major war, the catastrophe of nuclear attacks is most unlikely as long as the antagonists can maintain a reasonable mutual balance of military power. But that does not—and did not so far—exclude minor conflicts involving the use of armed force, local disturbances, “brush-fires,” police actions, and so forth. Nor does it end the use of pressure in international relations by the mere presence of superior conventional forces. In fact, the nuclear stalemate makes the employment of “limited” pressure more probable than ever, because it preserves the Soviet preponderance in conventional forces and, indeed, assigns to these the main share in the execution of Communist policy.
The only way for us to maintain an adequate power structure is thus a more vigorous build-up of our conventional arms, and the logical way to do that quickly and adequately is through collective action of the surviving freedom-loving nations. While each one of them may be inferior to the Soviet Bloc, the combination of all of them is potentially still much more powerful, richer in natural resources, industrial production, brain power, and spiritual strength. If we have the will to activate this potential, to make the necessary sacrifices, and evolve a military doctrine which will utilize these assets to best advantage, we still can wield a military’ potency greater than that of our antagonists.
The necessity of an over-all superior military' posture for the West was reemphasized by the logical evolution of Western policy. Having finally forced overt Communist aggression to a standstill and thus concluded the “containment” phase, the Free World must eventually proceed to the next step, which is the gradual rolling back of Communist domination, a liberation of those nations which had been robbed of their independence. This new and necessary goal was adopted by the Eisenhower administration, with abundant popular support, as one of its main political objectives.
But during the next few years, which were supposed to reestablish the power equilibrium, several events tended to confuse the picture and prevent military thinking from crystallizing. One was the introduction of the hydrogen bomb, which gave the West a renewed feeling of technological superiority. Yet within the year the Russians caught up with us and thereby again neutralized whatever advantage we might have had. Another was the death of Stalin, which for a while lulled the World into thinking that the end of the Communist bid for world domination had arrived and that therefore the need for stronger military forces had ended.
As a result of these influences, NATO’s ground forces, for instance—that part of the needed military structure which the European partners should and could best provide—were never developed even to the modest size envisioned by NATO military leaders and accepted as the minimum by the Europeans themselves. It is still a tragic fact that in Western Europe no more than about fourteen army divisions, with very few reserve formations to back them, face a Russian army of more than a hundred divisions in active service.
But if Western Europe is dragging its feet in the build-up of its armed strength, it is not entirely its own fault. Much of the blame must rest on the faulty military theory which still looks at nuclear capacity as our main sword, with the shield of conventional forces assigned the uninspiring role of a trip wire, needed only to activate our nuclear retaliatory power in case of attack. This would, then, automatically lead to a nuclear war, which is supposed to end quickly, and have little need for conventional forces. As the Europeans see it, fourteen divisions can serve as a trip wire just as well as fifty; besides, the prospect of a nuclear struggle, in which they might be the first victims without having much influence on its conduct, cannot be popular in an area which has experienced the frightful destruction caused even by old-type bombs. If at the NATO conference of 1954 the allies decided to place their main reliance on nuclear weapons, they were thinking only of the problem of preventing war rather than of winning it, of containment rather than regaining lost ground, and of limiting the burden of armament which they had to shoulder. But it is our own overemphasis on our nuclear capability which has fostered this attitude.
Moreover, power being regarded as the ultimate basis of standing in the world, no nation today can feel it is in the front rank of world affairs unless it can boast membership in the nuclear club. To achieve this enviable position, and the prestige attached to it, nations are forced to neglect their conventional forces, if they wish to avoid national bankruptcy. But in gaining nuclear independence, they only add a weapon on which we already have enough, thus unnecessarily duplicating our efforts, while failing to contribute that which is needed most.
As a consequence, the West’s over-all military power remains weak and insufficient to execute the political will of the community. Only if we could persuade ourselves as well as our allies that there are alternatives to nuclear suicide, only if we can show them that they can—and must—make an essential, indispensable contribution to the necessary common military effort, will they be ready to do their proper share in the recreation of an effective military establishment. Yet without a balanced, versatile, and flexible power position, the West has only two choices: either to resort to unacceptable mutual massacre, or completely renounce the use of military pressure, continuing to lose ground instead of recapturing it. Nuclear capacity alone has amply proved itself to be an inadequate instrument of a positive policy, unable even to avoid war.
During these crucial years between 1953 and 1957 another set of events served to demonstrate anew the need as well as the present insufficiency of modernized conventional forces in the West. One was the Suez Crisis in late 1956. To keep the Canal open to their vital traffic, the British and the French decided to attack Egypt and occupy the waterway. The dropping of an atomic bomb clearly was out of the question, as it would only have rendered the Canal impassable. In order to prevent the Egyptians from sinking obstacles in its course, only a quick surprise action by the classical team of army, navy, and air force had a chance of success. But for that kind of action the British and French, with their conventional power sorely neglected, lacked the necessary degree of mobility. Although the military operations as such were well executed, the slow pace gave the opponent enough warning to block the traffic flow and thus bring about exactly what was to be prevented.
But such is the tenacity of preconceived notions that despite this painful and emphatic lesson, the British government soon afterwards announced its intention to cut down even further on conventional forces so as to concentrate more on nuclear weapons.
The Hungarian revolt also and once more confirmed the lessons of the preceding years. Lacking an army to act as a counter-threat to the Russians, we again had to look on im- potently while land-bound Hungary was trampled into submission, thus missing our best chance yet of unrolling the Iron Curtain with the full and wholehearted cooperation of the subjugated peoples. The best the West could do was to implore them not to try such an attempt again, because it was neither ready nor able to come to their aid.
Shortly after this, however, came the jolt of the Sputnik and with it finally the full realization that, at least in the field of military hardware, the Russians were not only catching up with us but actually getting ahead of us. The launching of the earth satellite indicated their ability to fire Inter-Continental-Ballistic- Missiles which could carry nuclear warheads to this country directly from Russian bases. That gave our opponents a delivery system which would soon became superior to our SAC, and hence actually give them the edge in total strategic capability. If our sword was blunt before, it is quite dull now, and the military balance once more is badly disturbed.
What can we do to rectify this precarious situation? Fortunately, there remain to us still numerous possibilities, and all we need to do is to choose the most promising ones and then proceed energetically and without further delay to implement them. But to do so meaningfully and within the limits of our economic capacity, we must accept certain presuppositions, which seem to be clearly indicated by the history of the last ten or fifteen years.
We can assume without undue risk that the Communists are no more anxious to start a nuclear war than we are and that, despite the nuclear blackmail in which they like to engage, they will do everything possible to avoid it. But that does not mean that they will renounce the use of all forms of violence in pursuing their determination to overthrow the Free World, if they feel they can get by with such violence.
Another recognition to which we are compelled by experience is that any lead we still may have in military technology is only temporary and illusory, because the Russians will soon catch up with us in this particular field. Thus the argument that the equipment of our conventional services with tactical nuclear weapons permits us to keep our forces small is invalid. Using the same gear in connection with their numerical superiority, the Russians will still be able to keep ahead of us. Besides, any employment of a small thermo-nuclear device will only invite the use of a somewhat larger one by the other side, until in a short time the maximum size is reached and nuclear warfare is waged in all its frightfulness.
If we wish to utilize our still superior economic potential, we cannot want war to be decided within a few hours or days, because that would give us no chance to mobilize that potential in support of our military effort. Naturally, we would not wish to prolong an armed conflict any more than we would want to start it. But to think of and prepare for only a war of short duration would mean to throw away one of our greatest assets.
Another factor which we must consider is geography. The Communist Bloc occupies a vast and continuous land mass, while the members of the Free World are scattered all over the globe. To avoid being overrun one by one, with each conquest adding to Communist strength, we must form firm alliances and help each other in every way possible. In most cases that can only be done by using sea communications, which leads to the necessity of protecting them and consequently of maintaining our naval power. Because the Russians realize the vital importance of sea lanes for us, they are concentrating heavily on the building of submarines with which to attack our ships and disrupt our communication lines.
Besides, while its location permits the Soviet Union to surround itself with a protective layer of satellite countries, the seas reach deep into the Communist land mass and thus penetrate this defensive screen. The Russians, conscious of this fact, are particularly sensitive to any threat coming from the sea.
There are various reasons why we of the West cannot easily match the Communists in the massive manpower which they keep under arms, ready to execute their schemes. And, as we have found, in most other aspects of military capacity they are at least equal to us. There is only one essential property in which, because of natural and psychological factors, we can permanently keep ahead of them if we decide to do so, and that is mobility. By its very nature, Russian power is of the steamroller type, inexorable, but slow and rigid. We, on the other hand, prefer the blitzkrieg kind of warfare, in which movement takes the place of mass. Besides, in our superior sea- power, taken in conjunction with relative geographic positions, we have an additional and highly developed sort of mobility which the Russians only possess in rudimentary form, so that they cannot readily compete with us on that score. Their coasts and most of their harbors are icebound a large part of the year and they are remote from the main arteries of world traffic; they are forced by geography to divide their fleet into four virtually separate parts, none of which can be very strong. They are not, and never were, a seafaring people. These natural and hence more permanent obstacles to a vigorous exercise of seapower are expressed in the small size of their merchant fleet, which constitutes only about 3.0% of the world total, while the West controls practically all the rest. It also shows itself in the paltriness of the Russian naval record as compared to that of their armies. While they might be able to threaten our control of the seas, they cannot hope to exploit for themselves a seaborne mobility comparable to that of the West.
Seapower thus becomes one of the stable assets on our side, since it cannot be nullified except by a complete reversal of world conditions. Proceeding on the principle of opposing our strength to Communist weakness we must, therefore, make full use of it in developing our mobility to the highest possible degree, so as to counterbalance Communist numbers. For while a steamroller is hard to stop by frontal opposition, a jeep can at any time run circles around and outmaneuver it. But we can achieve the full benefits of superior mobility only by the full utilization of our seapower potential.
After these preliminary considerations we £\. can look for specific measures which must be taken to reestablish the disturbed balance of power on a more permanent and reliable basis than merely increased concentration on nuclear capability.
The first requirement is for a change in our military doctrine. Instead of considering nuclear capability as our sword, while small conventional forces are considered good enough for the role of our shield, we must now reverse their respective positions. Then our' nuclear arsenal, together with the best available delivery system, becomes our shield, which must protect us from disaster by deterring nuclear war, and keep any war that might break out within bearable limits. For that purpose we need to keep it only strong enough to maintain a sort of nuclear equilibrium with our antagonists.
Our basic services, Army, Navy, and Air Force, must again take on the role of our sword, the principal weapon with which to nip in the bud outbreaks of violence, to win wars wherever they occur, and to implement a policy of recouping losses rather than merely preventing them. At present this sword requires grinding, because it is not sufficiently keen to perform its tasks quickly, efficiently, and at minimum cost to us. This sharpening need not generally increase the size of the sword but only give it better striking power, by rendering it more mobile or easier to handle.
In concrete terms, this reversal of military philosophy will lead to a series of steps which, if taken resolutely and without delay, will give us an appropriate power position and become a guarantee of the ultimate triumph of the Free World:
1. Maintain and develop our atomic-biological-chemical-radiological arsenal together with the best delivery systems obtainable.
2. For the present, neutralize Russian advances in producing ICBMs by expanding, dispersing, and alerting all forms of retaliatory power available to us.
3. Thus, to supplement the deterrent potential of SAC, increase our strength in aircraft carriers, still the most powerful ships afloat until missile-carrying vessels may replace them, and build up our fleet of missile carrying ships, especially submarines. They can cover practically all parts of the Soviet Empire with projectiles of only intermediate range. In that way we can use our seaborne mobility to balance Russian advantages in other fields.
4. As long as we do not have a reliable I CBM—which of course we want to develop as fast as possible—also utilize our geographic position to surround the Communist Heartland with a series of launching sites within the striking distance of available IRBMs. For that we need the assent of our allies situated in the rimland of Eurasia. Before they give it, they will have to understand that the nuclear shield protects them as well as it does us, and that it actually decreases the danger of hydrogen bombs being dropped on them. But we can count on their wholehearted cooperation only if we can maintain communications with them, which again points to the need of adequate sea power.
5. Fortify our shield by all possible measures of civilian defense; unless we feel reasonably protected, we may easily get panicky and take hasty and ineffectual action.
The next group of steps has to do with the most advantageous way to sharpen our sword, by reinstating and revitalizing our conventional fighting capacity. This can be done only by a modernized team of land, sea, and air forces, organized so as to give maximum support to each other, each employing its knowhow and experience to support the other and to increase and diversify the mobility of the whole.
6. As a result we should come out with two kinds of forces: Strategic Striking Force composed of seasoned, highly trained, and suitably equipped troops, which can be thrown into action anywhere along the Eurasian perimeter within a matter of hours, to stamp out brush fires, establish spearheads for larger and slower armies following them, or come to the aid of an ally. This Free World “Fire Brigade” would not have to be very large but should be deployed at strategic points along the Eurasian defensive perimeter, so as to reduce distances. It would have to be kept in a high state of preparedness and alertness and be permanently provided with a serviceable system of fast transportation, composed of ships, planes, helicopters, and land vehicles.
Ideally and logically, the Strategic Striking Force of the Free World should be formed by contingents of all allied nations and removed from control by any individual country, so as not to be subject to withdrawal from its task of serving the free community as a whole. This may be difficult to achieve politically, but it nevertheless is a military necessity, if the Free World wants to protect itself against any form of aggression.
7. Naturally, such a relatively small force cannot perform all the military duties which may develop. It must be supplemented by regular armies in each of the allied states. These national forces might be organized somewhat similar to the new U. S. Strategic Army Corps (STRAC) and again be provided with the most appropriate transportation facilities to give them maximum mobility.
8. The Free World alliances must adopt the principle of an “internationally balanced” force, with every nation contributing that which it can do best and needs most. Some overlapping is unavoidable and necessary, but as far as possible the tasks to be performed should be equitably distributed among the members.
That would mean, for instance, that the continental European nations would concentrate on building up tactical air forces and coastal fleets, so that they could be of real help in the defense of their territory, the direct and logistic support of their armies, and the protection of shipping within their own waters. On the other hand, they would refrain from spending money on developing a nuclear arsenal of their own, oceanic fleets, or strategic air forces, which are suitable primarily for global operations and major offensive moves. These tasks could be left to the United States and Great Britain, who already possess, and are constantly improving, the means necessary to carry them out.
The implementation of these measures would finally give the Free World the power tools which it needs to pursue a positive and active policy. But to be prepared to win a war need not mean liking it or going into it lightheartedly. On the contrary, we must do all we can to prevent it, limit the damage it wreaks, and lighten the burden it imposes on humanity. This would include disarmament by mutual agreement, even if that will do nothing but cut costs. But it must not be one-sided, as it was in 1945, because that only invites aggression. Nor must the reduction of forces or weapons lull us into a false sense of security, for that may be the very reason for Soviet agreement to such a move.
The fact that the Soviet Union itself continues to maintain a huge conventional military establishment, in addition to its fast-growing nuclear capability, and all other means of massive destruction, clearly indicates that the need for these “basic” forces remains and must be satisfied in the best possible way.
Naturally, military power alone is not sufficient to protect us and to uphold freedom in the world. For that, many other factors are essential, above all ideas and ideals, moral and economic fortitude, political wisdom and diplomatic skill, and the convincing demonstration that our way of life is indeed the superior one, that others can benefit by adopting its principles, and that we stand ready to help them in such an endeavor. But without suitable military power to give us time to let these other forces do their work, and thus to guarantee the survival of this same way of life in our own countries, even our best efforts along these other lines would be futile.