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.
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4. In fact, all of our forces, strategic and tactical, land, sea and air,
are reliant on atomic firepower if they meet serious, sustained
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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
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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,
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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.
