Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958–1960, Volume III, National Security Policy; Arms Control and Disarmament, Microfiche Supplement

53. Memorandum from Stroh to Robertson.¹

Washington, May 8, 1958

SUBJECT

• Basic National Security Policy

Encl: (1) CNO’s Views on Basic National Policy—NSC 5810

1. Attached hereto (encl (1)) is a copy of the paper which I understand Admiral Burke spoke to you about last evening (7 May).

2. Admiral Burke would very much appreciate it if you could glance over it and give him the benefit of your reaction as to the language, grammar, or any other field, but more particularly the appropriateness and verity of the thoughts expressed.

3. As you know, the Joint Chiefs of Staff are to confer with the Secretary of Defense next Tuesday (13 May) on this matter, at which time each of the Chiefs and the Chairman will express their views and state why they feel NSC 5810 should be altered or left alone as the case may be.

4. Admiral Burke would also very much appreciate it if you could find the opportunity to ask for Mr. Murphy’s opinion in this matter even if he can spare the time only for a cursory glance.

Very respectfully,

Robert J. Stroh

Enclosure

Paper Prepared by the Chief of Naval Operations

Washington, undated

THE CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS’ VISION ON THE BASIC NATIONAL POLICY—NSC 5810

Basic National Security Policies—as other statements of policies and objectives—are frequently defined in such broad and ambiguous terms that, although everybody can agree to the wording, the language cannot serve as a guide in any specific case.

Our major difficulty in writing a National Security Policy is to obtain specific language which will convey the same general thoughts to those who must plan for, and execute the policy.

There are several different ways of losing Europe, the Middle East, Asia and other areas; one of them being destruction of the United States, another being by permitting any one of our allies to be attacked by any communist country without immediately coming to our allies’ aid; and another by permitting our allies to lose confidence in our intentions, or our strength, or our willingness to help, or our judgment; and as a result, accommodate themselves to communism.

The main military elements of national strategy—now—are:

To reject the concept of preventive war or acts intended to provoke war, while at the same time making it clear that we are determined to oppose aggression despite risk of general war.

To deter the Soviets from starting general nuclear war by convincing them the United States has the nuclear power to destroy Russia, and will do so if they initiate general war.

To maintain the various United States nuclear retaliatory forces in such deployment and posture that regardless of what Russia does, even with a surprise attack, Russia will be utterly destroyed by the retaliatory attacks.

To build and maintain a defensive system for the continental U.S. of sufficient size and effectiveness that our military striking forces in the U.S. cannot be dealt a knock-out blow by a Russian surprise attack and be sure that the Russians are convinced that this is true.

To convince our allies that an overt military attack by Russia on any one of our allies will automatically cause the U.S. to unleash a nuclear retaliatory attack on Russia.

To maintain United States military forces of appropriate types, adequate and ready to defeat or hold, with the help of indigenous forces, local communist aggression in undeveloped areas of the world.

To render direct economic and military assistance to allies in order to build up recipient nation’s ability to participate in its own defense.

The Situation Now

The United States has had, for quite a few years, the assured nuclear retaliatory capability to destroy Russia.

Russia probably is convinced she will be destroyed if she attacks the United States in general war.

Russia on the other hand probably also is convinced she cannot destroy U.S. retaliatory power, in a surprise attack, or by any other means.

The United States does not find itself in a wholly satisfactory international position at the present time. American prestige is not as great as it has been in the past, our influence throughout the world is lessening somewhat, our military and economic power does not command the respect and admiration it once did.

The Soviets and the other Communist States have lived under the shadow of powerful United States nuclear retaliatory forces for a decade—and have become accustomed to their existence, and yet—the Communists have taken actions to expand their control over more territory and more people of the world without let up.

Egypt and Syria are coming more and more under communist domination. Nasser is in Russia being advised that the sure way of filling his empty coffers is to seize all Middle East oil properties, a view he may find attractive if he can figure how to do it—and the Soviets will assist in the machinations to accomplish this end.

Indonesia is in a turmoil and the probability of this rich undeveloped country coming under communist control is greater than it was a year ago.

Should Indonesia go communist, Thailand, Laos and other Asian countries may follow suit to accommodate themselves to what they may consider the winning side.

Russia has made technical advances as well. The USSR has developed the capability to wreak severe damage on the United States with nuclear weapons. She has a large number of submarines. She has developed some ICBM capability. She was the first to put a satellite in orbit.

The world was surprised at the technological advances made by Russia, and probably credits the USSR with capabilities greater than actually exist.

It is just recently that the world has come to place significance on the USSR ability to severely damage the United States with several weapons systems regardless of the efforts we may make on our continental defense.

People are now commencing to question our policies, or perhaps only our relative superiority to the USSR, probably due to many factors, but certainly including the continuing expansion of communism, the increasing technical competence of the USSR, and the means Russia now has to damage the United States.

The fact that, despite our great defensive efforts, the USSR can now inflict severe damage on continental United States, apparently has shaken the confidence of some of our allies that the United States will in fact make a nuclear retaliatory attack on the USSR unless the immediate security of the United States is jeopardized. They may believe that the fear in the United States of the threat that we have not yet learned to live with stoically will immobilize our will—and our power—at the crucial showdown. They really question our national will to act as we say we intend to.

Others among our allies question our judgment on placing sole reliance on massive nuclear retaliation to defeat aggression, of launching headlong into a general nuclear war in retaliation of what they may consider a “small aggression.” Especially is this questioned when they visualize that the nation aggressed against is not a near neighbor, nor is its opinion necessarily asked before action is taken. These people are reported not to want to associate themselves in alliances which may become involved in a general nuclear war, automatically initiated to defend some other nation—and a war to which they cannot contribute, will have little voice in the control thereof, and, in their view, provide only their country as a battleground to be devastated.

Probable Future Situations

The USSR, as she develops an ICBM and a submarine missile capability, also may come to believe that the United States will not actually launch retaliatory strikes unless United States security is directly jeopardized. If she comes to believe this, the USSR can be expected to continuously expose the United States to the threat of severe destruction so as to keep the United States so pre-occupied with preparing for general nuclear war that we will not take appropriate action in time to stop the gradual expansion of communist domination of other countries by other means. She can also be expected to be very careful not to provide sufficient provocation to the United States to launch our nuclear retaliatory forces.

Also, Russia may be expected to continue to exploit U.S. general war posture in perpetrating fear among our allies that through nervous anxiety the U.S. might itself set off the nuclear war either (1) as an inappropriate response to little probes or (2) by accident.

The communists, by intrigue, subversion, political warfare, and propaganda, will do their best to intensify any lack of confidence of our allies, not only in our ability and willingness to conduct general war in the protection of our allies, but also in our willingness and skill to prevent nations from coming under communist domination by less dramatic action.

They will continue blackmail, sabotage, espionage, guerrilla warfare, economic warfare, local civil insurrection, and all the other tricks that they have used in the past, including limited war by proxy, to conquer more countries.

The threat of massive nuclear retaliation will not stop these actions in the future any more than it has in the past. Massive nuclear striking power is important, but it is not the solution to all of our problems, or even most of them.

Future Policy

It isn’t that we don’t need adequate retaliatory power of diverse types. We do. The difficulty is in determining how much we need. Any more than what we need is not only wasted, but it uses resources which might otherwise be made available for the more probable military actions. Of course, we must have a safety factor in determining the amount that we need. Probably the maximum amount of retaliatory force the U.S. needs for a general war would not exceed twice the amount required to kill half the Russians. These retaliatory forces should be reasonably immune to a Soviet long-range missile build up. The point is, I think, that even if we had an unlimited and overwhelming retaliatory force, there are many situations which have arisen, and similar situations will arise again, where these overwhelming forces would not provide the solution. We should not therefore imply that these forces can solve all of our military problems. It comes down to a question of emphasis, or degree, or balance. In my opinion, we have given the appearance of becoming so engrossed and absorbed in the prospects of general nuclear war that our allies, as well as the communists, and I think even we ourselves, are not sufficiently alert to the prospects of other types of military action.

The USSR must remain convinced that if the USSR overtly attacks any one of our allies directly, we will launch those retaliatory forces against the USSR. But at the same time, the USSR, as well as our allies, must also be convinced that we would not launch a massive retaliatory effort against the Soviet Union in reply to every communist effort to expansion, including overt attacks by non-Russian communists.

Russia and China and other communists, and most particularly the free world, should be convinced that we will use sufficient force promptly to quell even non-Russian communist attacks and will not rely solely upon massive retaliation as punishment. The punishment must fit the crime.

The world must realize that we intend to use atomic weapons when the situation may call for atomic weapons in any action, but at the same time, they must have confidence that we will use them with discrimination in limited war because we realize that excessive amounts of force would unnecessarily destroy people and facilities.

We are at war now—not peace. We should not only realize, but act upon the realization, that treaties, negotiations and economic pacts, as well as limited military operations, are the weapons of this war.

Therefore, in addition to the performance of their combatant functions, the U.S. must have military forces also capable of performing various other functions which will permit diplomatic maneuvering in support of U.S. cold war offensive.

The U.S. must be able to recognize and act quickly on small problems as they occur in the world and before those problems grow to a big size requiring big action.

In order for the U.S. to continue to be an influence in the world, the U.S. must have allies and friendly neutrals.

Our allies will require forces under their own control sufficient to enable them to contribute significantly to their own defense, since they are showing increasing reluctance to placing major reliance on the United States’ massive retaliatory strikes on Russia.

The U.S. should permit our allies the pride of achievement associated with contributing significantly to their own defense. Since their greatest commodity is manpower, the U.S. will probably have to continue to supply our allies with a great deal of their armaments.

In my opinion, these steps would make it clear to the world that communist expansion by whatever means will be dealt with by the U.S. by the most appropriate means. No one, least of all the Russians, should have any doubt of our determination.

Probably the only effective way of convincing the world of our resolution is to take firm and timely action of whatever kind is necessary to prevent the communists from gaining further footholds in non-communist countries. This should include the willingness to conduct limited war, to assist friendly countries to maintain freedom from communism regardless of the steps that are taken to impose communism.

It is my opinion that the adoption of the more specific language proposed by the JCS majority view will more nearly provide the necessary guidance for reorientation of our military strategy to meet the requirements of the situation which now faces us.

1. Source: Transmits views of Chief of Naval Operations on NSC 5810. Top Secret. 9 pp. NARA, RG 59, Central Files, 711.5/5-858.