Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977–1980, Volume IV, National Security Policy

26. Summary of Conclusions and Minutes of a Policy Review Committee Meeting¹

Washington, July 8, 1977, 10–11:45 a.m.

SUBJECT

• PRM–10 Military Strategy and Force Posture

PARTICIPANTS

• The Vice President (first hour)
• A. Denis Clift

• Defense

  • Secretary Harold Brown, Chairman
  • Charles W. Duncan
  • David E. McGiffert
  • Lynn E. Davis

• JCS

  • General George S. Brown
  • Lt Gen William Y. Smith

• State

  • Deputy Secretary Warren Christopher
  • Leslie H. Gelb

• CIA

  • Admiral Stansfield Turner
  • Robert Bowie

• OMB

  • Bowman Cutter
  • Edward R. Jayne II

• ACDA

  • Spurgeon Keeny
  • Robert Behr

• NSC

  • Zbigniew Brzezinski
  • David L. Aaron
  • Victor Utgoff
  • James Thomson
  • Samuel Huntington

SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS

In a meeting to discuss the general purpose force issues highlighted in the July 6, 1977 Military Strategy and Force Posture report,² the PRC reviewed the following issues:

1. US Strategy for Europe. Dr. Brzezinski stated that it is not possible in the current political environment to gain support—in the US or especially in Europe—for procurement of the conventional forces required to assure that NATO could maintain territorial integrity if deterrence failed. Most participants agreed. Dr. Brzezinski proposed a “stalemate” strategy, under which NATO would fall back and stalemate the Soviets, leaving the Soviets to face the political consequences of their aggression, including a mobilized US. These potential consequences would help deter the Soviets. General Brown, however, thought that NATO could move in the direction of preventing territorial loss by maintaining the 3% per year growth in real defense spending agreed to at the May NATO Defense Ministerial meeting. All agreed that strategy for NATO must continue to rely on a combination of strategic nuclear, theater nuclear, and conventional forces for deterrence, and that we wanted first to emphasize conventional force improvements. After current efforts at improved conventional capability have succeeded or failed, we may want to turn to theater nuclear policy, especially the potentially critical role of the land-based cruise missile. The group agreed that a distinction between declaratory strategy and actual capability was necessary; for example, we cannot—for political reasons—announce a strategy that includes any loss of West German territory.

2. Operations outside of Europe during a NATO/Pact War. There was general agreement that taking initiatives against the Soviet Union, especially Soviet territory, could have important consequences in a war: they might provide trading material, hurt the Soviets’ ability to prosecute war in Europe, or divert Soviet forces. Secretary Brown, however, did not see any opportunities that would worry the Soviets enough to help in the context of a war in Europe. Mr. Aaron suggested that it may be more important to defend our access to the Persian Gulf than to take initiatives.

3. Crisis Management and Local Wars. The participants generally agreed that forces procured for this purpose should be added to those required for a NATO/Warsaw Pact war. The Middle East, the Persian Gulf and Korea would be the most important areas. Forces acquired for these purposes would be ample to handle contingencies that might occur elsewhere. Dr. Brzezinski suggested the creation of a highly responsive, global strike force; the Second Division might become available for this purpose after its withdrawal from Korea is complete.

4. East Asia. All agreed that, beyond the ground force withdrawals from Korea, the US should make no further changes in its military posture in the Far East for the time being. Some thought that a few small steps towards increasing our presence—such as filling out the fighter wing in Korea or undertaking some exercises with ground force units—might help assure Far Eastern nations that we intend to remain a Far Eastern power.

5. Forces and Costs. There was concern, expressed particularly by Mr. Aaron and Mr. Jayne, that the large range of forces estimated for the alternative integrated military strategies (AIMS) made it difficult to understand the cost constraint on the choice of strategy. Secretary Brown agreed to do further work on that aspect.

Minutes

Secretary Brown: I want to start with some introductory remarks. This part of the PRM–10 effort was not designed to produce specific force postures. Rather, the approach was based on creating analytical building blocks for various geographical areas of the world or fields of conflict. These were put together to create illustrative strategies, or AIMS, to see what the overall strategy would look like and the kinds of forces that would be required.

The study did not define national objectives. It did not investigate theater nuclear forces. It did not look into the problems of mobilization and industrial bases.

A set of questions emerged from the study that I want to discuss here today and that I hope to use to elicit guidance from the President. I don’t believe this study provides a basis for overall military strategy and force posture decisions. We in DOD will be taking a look at where we are today, where we want to be, and what sorts of incremental changes we should be making, depending on what emerges in the future.

Let’s turn to the first question. Zbig, would you like to begin?

Dr. Brzezinski: First, I would like to ask: How do the AIMS relate to the questions? I noticed that on page two the study leads off with a description of the AIMS.

Secretary Brown: Well, let’s take Europe as an example. AIMS E, F and G all have the property of blunting a Soviet attack but losing territory. H and I would be more demanding; in these AIMS we would recover lost territory and would be able to sustain conflict for 90 days. In AIMS J we would sustain conflict indefinitely. And in AIMS M we would counterattack on the flanks. AIMS E, F, and G correspond roughly to what we can do today. AIMS F Variant corresponds to what we say we can do today. The rest of the AIMS are more than we can do today.

Dr. Brzezinski: Just to get things going, I think that US military strategy for Europe ought to be neither intimidation nor deterrence but some degree of ambiguity so that Soviet military planners can’t calculate precisely what would happen if they attack. This implies the maintenance of our strategic forces and the current relationship of theater nuclear forces to conventional forces and strategic forces. If deterrence fails, our posture ought to be to blunt the Soviet attack. It is unreasonable to hope to restore boundaries. The Europeans simply won’t spend the money to accomplish that.

Secretary Brown: How would you handle this policy with West Germany? Our present declaratory posture is forward defense.

Dr. Brzezinski: What matters is how the Soviets view this posture. If we can blunt them and stalemate the conflict, then the Soviets would have to deal with a massive adverse political reaction, both in America and throughout the world. They would be put on the political defensive. This range of uncertainty about what would occur, including the consequences of a stalemate, is likely to deter the Soviets.

General Brown: I don’t understand how you feel that a stalemate strategy will deter the Soviets. If we can’t get back territory, then they would simply be able to grab it.

Dr. Brzezinski: But they would have to deal with the long-term political consequences of such an act. I’m not saying that I like this strategy, but it’s the best we can do: the Allies are a problem—they won’t do more—and I’m not sure we can afford a buildup, either.

General Brown: That’s saying that we can’t match the Soviets militarily.

Secretary Brown: We cannot match them in building up a massive military establishment.

Dr. Brzezinski: Okay. Look at AIMS H and I and see what they cost. Congress won’t fund that. We simply have to hope that the long-term consequences of a potential stalemate will act as a restraint on the Soviets.

General Brown: The restraint will act on us, not them.

Secretary Brown: If we hope for a stalemate, then what do we do about sustaining capability? Zbig seems to be talking about a situation where we would rely on a massive mobilization base. We need advance planning for that and don’t have it.

Dr. Brzezinski: How about 60 days? I don’t like 90 days because that means a long destructive war in Europe. But 30 days is just simply too short; it’s risky. Sixty days is obviously an arbitrary intermediate number. But we need some time to put pressure on the Soviets.

General Brown: The JCS starting point is NATO strategy—the military strategy that has been developed in MC 14/3. We commit forces on that basis to NATO every year. The US and the FRG are the two strong partners of the Alliance. I fear that if we begin now to take a dramatic step in new directions, we are going to have problems, especially with the Germans and especially if we appear to back off NATO strategy. The JCS think: we have to be able to stop a Warsaw Pact attack; we have to throw the Soviets back to the pre-war boundaries.

Dr. Brzezinski: But how many forces do we need for that?

General Brown: Options I, J, and M are about what we think NATO needs. Zbig’s options are F, H, and I.

Secretary Brown: Zbig is talking about F Variant with 60 days.

Mr. Aaron: General Brown, what could we do today?

General Brown: The JCS judgment is shown in the study itself.

Dr. Brzezinski: Is that orderly withdrawal?

General Brown: Between just us and the Germans we could do better than that.

Secretary Brown: Essentially it’s the “limit loss” strategy. Look at the chart on page III-3.

General Brown: But we don’t have 90 days of sustaining capability.

Secretary Brown: But we have more than 30. We plan to keep 30 in the theater.

Admiral Turner: I want to re-emphasize David Aaron’s point. The Allies can’t even last for 30 days.

Mr. Aaron: NATO is like Victorian society: it’s built on hypocrisy. We say we want to do one thing but we all know we can only do another. But we can’t go back to a 30-day sustaining capability, nor can we talk about territorial loss because of the consequences for Germany. We might want to look at other options. For example, maybe we want to have nuclear forces in the theater that can strike the USSR. With the conventional situation being what it is, should we not put GLCM in the theater?

General Brown: That’s going the other way. We want to improve conventional forces and raise the nuclear threshold.

Mr. Aaron: We are faced with a choice: more theater nuclear forces, or more conventional capability.

Mr. McGiffert: You are not describing alternatives; we can do both.

Secretary Brown: Yes. You can continue to try to improve conventional capability. Stan, what about the warning question?

Admiral Turner: We are working now on an estimate on warning, so I don’t want to say more about that now, [2 lines not declassified]. Also, I worry from an historical standpoint about the idea of a short war. That’s what everyone thought before World War I and World War II.

Secretary Brown: But, if you know that the other guy is going to run out of materiel, all you need to do is outlast him.

Mr. Bowie: I do not understand how a stalemate strategy will deter him.

Secretary Brown: That’s what we do in Korea.

Mr. Bowie: Korea is a situation where the forces on both sides are equal. The stalemate strategy postulates weakness, however.

Secretary Brown: Because it is widely held that the defense has an advantage.

Dr. Brzezinski: George, what would it cost to do what you want to do in Europe?

General Brown: We can move toward what we want to accomplish with actions such as our current initiatives program in NATO. The agreement with the Allies to maintain 3 percent real growth in spending, better Allied reserves, etc.

Dr. Brzezinski: You say that we can pursue H at the cost of F. I’m pleased.

General Brown: I’m optimistic that we can do much better than today if we stick with the 3 percent growth.

Secretary Brown: All these arguments rest on the premise that Bob Bowie has challenged: that the defense has an advantage.

Mr. Bowie: This takes us back to yesterday’s discussion; we have a technological advantage. Let’s be inventive and see if we can’t counter the Soviets militarily without maximizing forces.

Mr. Jayne: How long can the Soviets sustain conflict?

Admiral Turner: [2 lines not declassified] It is obvious from this paper that we need to do a good deal more work here. I don’t know how much we have done in the past.

Mr. Duncan: We need to move toward the 90-day goal in lock step with NATO. We must increase conventional capability. If we move from the goal of improved conventional capability, we will have political problems; and we will harm our deterrent, too.

Dr. Brzezinski: Are we talking about constructing a wish list for the President, or are we going to devise a strategy that we can accomplish?

Mr. Jayne: We already went to the President with a wish list. We can’t do that again. The President said he wanted to get into the details, but the study’s cover memo implies that we want to go over the generalities again.

Secretary Brown: But we need costs to be able to do what you propose, and the ones in the report aren’t good enough.

Mr. Duncan: I wanted earlier to emphasize the importance of the first 7 to 14 days of a conflict. That means that improvements in readiness and early reinforcement come before sustaining capability.

Mr. Aaron: I endorse that.

Mr. Christopher: I want to focus on foreign policy. First, it’s desirable to confirm NATO strategy as it exists today. We can’t talk about giving away the FRG. But we can’t talk about holding out for a year, either. I’m one of David’s Victorians. It is also important not to overstate the threat. Otherwise, the analysis creates a high level of demand that appears to make the strategy unattainable. We need to keep working on the conventional deterrent.

Secretary Brown: Let’s turn now to areas outside of Europe. Is it possible to hurt the USSR outside of Europe?

Mr. Christopher: We want to emphasize ambiguity. Make the Soviets think that we might do something to them.

Mr. Duncan: I agree.

Secretary Brown: However, it’s not so obvious what we can do to the Soviets.

Dr. Brzezinski: You need to relate this area to the first one. Since I favor stalemate in Europe, I favor an activist strategy in other areas. For example, if there are states allied to the USSR, we can capture them and perhaps hope for a territorial trade. Cuba is an easy target.

Mr. Gelb: Would you want to buy forces for that?

Dr. Brzezinski: Yes. I think we need a global strike force. The Second Division might become part of that when it comes out of Korea.

Secretary Brown: Why not put the same capability in Europe?

Dr. Brzezinski: That’s not the point where conflict is most likely to occur.

Mr. Christopher: What are the most attractive targets?

General Brown: Perhaps Soviet territory in the northwest Pacific. But that is very risky in response to something like Berlin.

Mr. Aaron: This must be seen in terms of what sort of force multipliers you can create to help yourself—northwest Asia maybe. However, we would be better off sizing our forces to help out in the Persian Gulf, which is important because of the oil. Why not size forces for Europe plus what we need for the Persian Gulf?

Secretary Brown: What would worry the Soviets most? Why would they care about Cuba, if they were fighting in Europe?

Dr. Brzezinski: It would be a political defeat.

Admiral Turner: [1 line not declassified]

Dr. Brzezinski: We cannot anticipate [less than 1 line not declassified] help in such a situation. They would prefer to sit tight and watch the two giants fight it out. We might consider such actions as naval blockades.

General Brown: Yes, and we could take action against their fishing fleets.

Secretary Brown: How does this help in the context of a war for Europe? Let’s move now to a discussion about local wars and crisis management. Are there specific regions of the world that we should worry about?

Dr. Brzezinski: I agree with David. The Persian Gulf, in addition to the Middle East, is an important area.

Secretary Brown: Is it likely that we need no special capability for Africa or Latin America?

General Brown: The most likely problem in Latin America might result from a failure to ratify a Panama Treaty.

Secretary Brown: The Middle East is probably the most demanding scenario, so if we have enough for that, we will have enough for anywhere else.

Mr. Aaron: There are two places we need to project our power: Korea and the Persian Gulf. The basic force sizing question has to do with splitting the difference.

Secretary Brown: But in Korea we plan to be ambiguous about deployment of ground forces.

Mr. Aaron: What is the Pacific fleet for? Ought we move it into the Indian Ocean?

Mr. Jayne: Let’s look at East Asia. Why don’t we get the Japanese to do more in terms of their air and naval capabilities?

Dr. Brzezinski: Japanese politics won’t permit. Either we will get incremental improvements or, if there is a great political shock (such as the loss of Korea), we might get a big jump. But that shock might separate us from the Japanese.

Admiral Turner: We need crisis management forces to maintain free use of the seas and in the event of terrorism.

Secretary Brown: Divisions don’t help you there. You need a rapid reaction capability.

Mr. Aaron: The problem is to maintain secrecy.

Secretary Brown: The military can maintain secrecy.

General Brown: The problem with maintaining secrecy occurs during the planning stages here in D.C. We can move a battalion out of Fort Bragg without a problem.

Dr. Brzezinski: We are talking about two kinds of force: (1) a small, long-range, rapidly deployable strike force; and (2) a larger force for intervention.

Mr. Jayne: Why does the overall Navy structure appear insensitive to the strategy?

Secretary Brown: The Navy is not immediately identifiable with any of these strategies. It’s sort of an infrastructure. Also, we didn’t include a war-at-sea scenario.

Dr. Brzezinski: What would it take to reconfigure the Second Division into a mobile versatile strike force for Korea, the Mideast and Europe?

Secretary Brown: A big expense is lift. Also, forces configured for one place may not be suitable for another. But it’s worth looking at.

Mr. Christopher: We have not paid enough attention to Africa. It’s a potential hot spot. What sorts of military forces do we need to protect the territorial integrity of states in Africa? Look how well the French did in Zaire.

Secretary Brown: I guess we all agree that these forces must be additive to the forces procured for other reasons. Let’s turn now to our strategy for East Asia. We’ve covered much of it already.

Mr. Christopher: It’s important that we continue to be an Asian power, not only for the smaller countries but for the Chinese.

Mr. Duncan: We need to maintain our current status, by, for example, staying in the Philippines.

Mr. McGiffert: I would go further and look for a few small steps we can take in the direction away from reductions.

Secretary Brown: We can fill out the wing of aircraft in Korea. That’s a small plus, isn’t it?

Mr. McGiffert: Very small, because aircraft can be easily moved out.

Secretary Brown: Could we leave ground forces in East Asia?

Mr. McGiffert: We might consider leaving one of the Second Division’s brigades in Okinawa, although there may be real estate problems.

Mr. Christopher: I see an advantage to moving all the ground forces back here; we might want to use them somewhere else.

Dr. Brzezinski: We must maintain our military presence in East Asia for now except for the withdrawal from Korea. We need to make some moves that show that our military commitment to Korea is unaffected by the withdrawals. I am worried about that recent Chinese statement. We need to look at some positive steps: perhaps more aircraft or rotational exercises with ground force units.

Secretary Brown: Such things are part of a package that I am sending to the President. I would like to sum up now.

We talked about Europe, in particular the important difference between declaratory policy and actual capability. Few of us believe that we can match the Soviets in Europe, although some thought (George Brown) that we could work toward a strategy of minimum territorial loss if we maintained 3 percent real growth per year for NATO spending. Most believe, however, that we would suffer territorial loss in a conflict. But we must continue to work on improving the conventional link of what I call the NATO Tripod (to distinguish it from the Strategic Triad). We might have to augment our theater nuclear forces, but first we want to work on conventional force improvements. After this attempt has succeeded or failed, we will turn to theater nuclear forces; land-based cruise missiles are critical.

We talked about what we might do outside of Europe during a war with the Warsaw Pact. We agreed that additional forces that could take initiatives against the USSR to make up for European losses could be important. But it is not clear exactly what we could do.

We discussed local wars. We agreed that the Middle East and the Persian Gulf are critical, and also that the forces needed for local wars must be additive to the forces needed for Europe. The Second Division might become available for this purpose. We touched slightly on Africa, Latin America, and war-at-sea.

We also talked about East Asia. All agreed that we should make no further changes now except for the withdrawal from Korea. There is some thought that we might augment our presence in the area slightly; for example, we might fill out the fighter wing in Korea or undertake more exercises. We might also consider stationing more ground forces outside of Korea; but there is a question of room and whether it would be better to have them at home available for other purposes.

Our next step is to discuss strategic forces next week. Then I guess Zbig will synthesize the whole thing. I believe we can take this study to the President in the present form. We can get his views on the key questions and on the size of the Defense Budget.

Mr. Aaron: Can’t we get better costs? It’s hard to answer these questions without understanding that constraint.

Secretary Brown: It’s easy to cost-out a particular force. Our difficulty is in narrowing the range of estimated forces.

Mr. Jayne: I’m afraid if you don’t narrow the range of forces now, the President will do it for you.

Secretary Brown: We will work on it.

1. Source: Carter Library, National Security Council, Institutional Files, Box 62, PRC 022, 7/8/77, US/USSR—PRM 10. Top Secret; Sensitive. The meeting took place in the White House Situation Room.
2. The July 6 Military Strategy and Force Posture is ibid.