1. At the request of the Secretary of Defense, the attached statement of
General Twining’s views on the current review of Basic National Security
Policy is forwarded for your information and use.
2. The forwarding of this material directly to you has been approved,
personally, by General
Twining.
Attachment
Paper Prepared by the JCS
[Facsimile Page 2]
VIEWS OF CHAIRMAN, JOINT CHIEFS OF
STAFF ON BASIC NATIONAL SECURITY POLICY (THESE VIEWS WERE
PROVIDED TO THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE ON 8 MAY 1959)
1. I would like to dispense with the philosophy which accompanies the
arguments that are being advanced for changing our present Basic
National Security Policy and deal directly with the consequences and
major implications of such changes if they were to be made.
TACTICAL FORCES
2. The first major implication is with respect to limited war
situations. We would no longer consider atomic weapons as an
integral part of our military establishment, to be used when
militarily advantageous to us. Regardless of the military
disadvantages, we would attempt to fight on land, at sea, and in the
air with conventional forces, and we would use nuclear weapons only
as a last resort. This change of policy could have the following
consequences:
- a.
- Decision to use nuclear weapons could come too late (in a
situation such as an invasion of Formosa).
- b.
- Unacceptably heavy attrition of our limited forces could
occur in an attempt to conduct a conventional campaign under
conditions which, from a military standpoint, clearly call
for the early use of nuclear weapons.
- c.
- The change in policy would leak to the world, and our
posture for deterrence of Soviet-inspired local aggression,
the world over, would suffer greatly.
3. With respect to watering down our present policy for the use of
nuclear weapons when militarily advantageous to us, I would point
out that over a period of years we have progressively reduced the
size of our military establishment and the number of major combat
units in our land, sea and air forces. Every reduction has been
justified by the President, by the Secretary of Defense and by the
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the basis of increased
firepower inherent in modern weapons. Concurrent with these
reductions, and facing a numerically superior enemy on all fronts,
we have integrated atomic firepower into our land, sea and air
forces under the assumption that this firepower, while not to be used initially in a limited engagement,
would be immediately responsive to the military situation if
required.
[Facsimile Page 3]
4. In fact, all of our forces, strategic and tactical, land, sea and
air, are reliant on atomic firepower if they meet serious, sustained
[Typeset Page 776]
resistance. Under present policy, our forces can enter an engagement
against overwhelming numbers of Soviet proxy troops with confidence
in the outcome, because the atomic firepower can be used if needed,
and can be used before our own forces are decimated. To actually
apply the suggested new policy would reduce our tactical flexibility
and capability in one stroke to the level which the Soviet Union
would like to see. This is not to say that we are completely
powerless without nuclear weapons. We have demonstrated twice within
the last year that we can react quickly and with effective results
in local and limited actions. However, at Lebanon the first unit in
the area was a Marine BLT with organic atomic capability, the Sixth
Fleet was offshore with atomic capability, and the U.S. Air Force
units at Adana had an atomic capability. Similarly, during the
Taiwan incident the atomic capability of our deployed tactical
forces was always in the background. These two operations might have
come off differently, in a tactical sense, short of general war, if
the atomic backup had been absent, or if the enemy knew we would
hesitate to use it.
5. There are times when political considerations are overriding.
There are also times in which military realities must be the basis
for political decision. In this case, any serious attempt to change
the present policy on the use of nuclear weapons would have to be
phased over a period of years, and we would have to be willing to
double or triple the budget, over a period of years, to provide any
semblance of the limited war combat capability which we possess
today.
STRATEGIC FORCES
6. The second major implication bears on our strategic nuclear
forces. Under a budgetary and personnel ceiling roughly
approximating what we now have, the power of our strategic nuclear
forces would progressively decline as “conventional” capability and
“limited war” capability, in consonance with the revised policy,
demanded more and more of the resources available. This is the
specific objective of some elements of the military
establishment.
7. Under the assumption of no major increase in available resources,
within a few years we could be in the following tragic condition:
- a.
- Having a capability for attacking only a restricted
strategic target system, as opposed to Soviet capability to
attack thousands of targets, we would have no effective
strategic deterrent. We would
[Facsimile Page 4]
have little
counter-force capability, no strength in foreign policy as
engendered by Soviet knowledge of a preemptive capability,
and no possible strategic military response to any Soviet
action, short of a Soviet-initiated attack on our population
centers, and, even in this event, it would be doubtful that
a retaliatory capability geared to a few hundred cities
could survive to perform its task.
- b.
- Paralleling this decline in the strategic capability we
would have increased “limited war” and “conventional”
capability to some degree,
[Typeset Page 777]
but this increase would
be insignificant in comparison to opposing Soviet Bloc
forces, and would still be far below the requirement for
meeting either a Soviet non-nuclear challenge, or limited
nuclear challenge, in Europe, in the Far East and in the
Middle East.
8. In summary, the net effect of the revisions in the Basic National
Security Policy which have been suggested, if actually implemented,
would be as follows:
One: Due to the fear of use of nuclear weapons
on the part of some elements of the Government, political
restrictions on their use would be imposed which would reduce to an
unacceptable level the combat capability of our tactical forces,
land, sea and air.
Two: Our strategic nuclear capability would
decline to relative impotency in the matter of a few years.
Three: The only alternative to these
consequences would be a vastly increased budget and personnel
ceiling.
9. In my judgment, we should not tamper with the present wording in
the military section of the paper. There has been no change in our
basic policy of containment and deterrence, and there has been no
change in our defense funding policy. The present military section
of NSC 5810/1 provides adequate
guidance for the development of properly balanced military forces,
establishes a reasonable policy for the use of nuclear weapons, and
should not be changed.
