30. Letter From the President’s Deputy Special Assistant for National
Security Affairs (Kaysen)
to the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security
Affairs (Rowen)0
Washington, June 16,
1961.
Dear Henry: Attached is a comment on your draft of
the military and related sections of the Basic National Security Policy
which you sent to us on 22 May.1 These comments,
which I have put together, reflect the views of the relevant people here and
have been discussed with Mr. Bundy.
The nature of our comments is such as to make it unnecessary at this time to
attempt a detailed examination of the language of the document.
I will be glad to answer any questions, or discuss the comments with you at
your convenience.
Cordially yours,
Attachment3
SUBJECT
- Draft of Proposed “Military and Related Aspects of Basic National
Security Policy”
- 1.
-
The fourteen sections of the document (labeled A-N in the
longer explanatory part) appear to fall into two quite different
parts. Sections E, F, H, and N (corresponding to pages 4-6,
6-12, 14-22, and 30, respectively, of the shorter document)
contain a basic revision of military policy and doctrine for
both general and local war. Their substantive content deals with
problems that are primarily military in content and that fall
[Page 103] within the
operating responsibility of the Defense Department. The other
sections deal with a wide variety of problems ranging from a
statement of basic national objectives to alliances and civil
defense to arms reduction. These problems are less narrowly
military, and they involve the operating responsibilities of the
State Department and in some cases other Departments, as well as
those of the Defense Department. Further, the statement of a new
national policy with respect to many of them involves the
resolution of political problems which are not explicitly faced
in the present draft.
For these reasons, and also because of the importance we attach
to restating our military doctrine as soon as feasible, we
suggest that the scope of the document be substantially narrowed
to encompass just those issues dealt with in the central
paragraphs listed above. When so narrowed, it could take the
form of an amendment of the present BNSP, which would be followed by other amendments
as soon as possible.
- 2.
-
The new views on central war contain two important components.
The first is the proposition that our initial recognition of the
outbreak of central war should not result in a spasm in which we
fire off everything we can in the way of strategic weapons.
Rather, we should substitute a doctrine of controlled response,
which emphasizes the maintenance of some reserve strategic
nuclear striking capacity, and which has as its goal the
limitation of damage and the avoidance of a situation in which
we are inferior in military strength after the first exchange.
For the single goal of “prevailing” in central war, the new
doctrine substitutes a spectrum of possible goals running from
superiority to stalemate, the appropriate one of which is to be
sought in the light of the situation at the time.
We agree on the importance of this change, and the associated
changes in the mechanism of command and control which are
necessary to put it into practice.
- 3.
- The second component of the discussion of general war is the
explicit introduction of second-strike counterforce
(countermilitary) capability as an objective to be achieved by our
striking force.4 The
paper does not seem entirely clear on just what scope is to be given
to this objective. On the one hand, it seems clear that a flexible
capability for second strike response would include some capacity
for hitting military targets, unless the forces were deliberately
designed to preclude this, in terms of accuracy, etc. In this sense,
stating counterforce capability as an objective adds nothing that is
not already implied by the doctrine of flexible [Page 104] response. On the other hand, the
inclusion of this capability does represent a significant change
from the present doctrine of deterrence. Once we move from that
doctrine, we raise the host of problems attendant on the interaction
of our decisions with those of the Soviet Union. If we try to
increase our second-strike counterforce capability, and by so doing,
stimulate them to do the same, are we in fact adding to our
security? The draft perhaps deals with this problem by implication,
in terms of budget constraints at the present level. It has been
argued that counterforce capability that covers more than a part of
the enemy’s striking power is at best a transient achievement. Enemy
response to our own buildup, plus the real intelligence problems of
targetting the force of the other side, make it unclear as to just
how much counterforce capability we have at any time and thus, since
we cannot really rely on it in choosing our actions, an attempt to
build it into our strategy may be dangerous, as well as wasteful. In
our judgment, the consequences of the explicit introduction of
counterforce capability should be dealt with more directly, and the
desired scope of this capability stated more clearly.
- 4.
-
The draft proposes that, in local war, we place main, but not
sole reliance on non-nuclear weapons. With this we are in hearty
agreement. But there are two aspects of this proposition that
are unclear. First, the present transition point from
conventional to nuclear response—namely, any war involving more
than 300-350 thousand troops—is accepted without discussion. We
think this point deserves explicit explanation, including the
consideration of how desirable it would be to have a larger
conventional capability in order to make possible a higher
transition point. Similarly, a more explicit treatment of the
feasibility of local nuclear war is desirable. At least the
alternative of mobilizing more non-nuclear forces might be
brought in.
At present, the draft makes no explicit geographic references in
its discussion of local war. It would be better to make explicit
that it does not deal with the NATO area, and refer to the recent NSC paper on this
subject.
- 5.
- The present draft follows the traditional style of BNSP papers. This style, with its
heavy reliance on abstract and somewhat dogmatic statement, may be
dictated by the nature of the task. The added explanatory section is
a commendable innovation. It could perhaps be carried further by
modifying it in two ways. First, another annex is needed which
indicates in concrete and, where possible, quantitative, terms how
far our present force position is from achieving the desired
capabilities, and what would have to be done to go the whole way.
Second, the basic explanatory material might be treated as a sort of
“legislative history,” which provides various examples of how the
doctrines would apply in [Page 105]
specific circumstances, and thus reduce the scope for partisan
exegesis of the abstract language of the NSC directive paper.5
