Since the Services are currently drawing up their programs on the basis
of the CG, this is not the point to make
specific decisions on weapons programs; but rather to examine the
underlying policy assumptions and ensure that an adequate range of
options is maintained and examined. You will have further opportunities
to examine defense programs during the OMB Spring Review, your review of DOD’s Status Report in September, and the final budget
review in December.
I think it likely that the Chiefs will make a strong pitch for more
money, based on Soviet military programs and political activity, for
example in the Horn and Afghanistan. While you should take the
opportunity to affirm your interest in doing what is necessary to
preserve a strong defense posture regardless of cost, I don’t believe
you should make firm commitments at this point.
The following annotated agenda may help you structure the lunch and the
NSC meeting.
1. CTB. You
should seek to neutralize any JCS
opposition to our CTB position—a five
year treaty with a review conference in the fifth year plus Senate
ratification of any extension, strong safeguards and Presidential
assurance that any reliability testing required after five years could
be carried out.
2. SALT/Strategic
Programs. The Chiefs will be looking for specific weapons
decisions to show that SALT does not
imply a slackening in US efforts to
maintain strategic equivalence with the Soviets. The CG suggests that their concerns would be
significantly moderated if we were to improve our air defenses as an
answer to Backfire, commit ourselves to a new ICBM as an answer to Minuteman vulnerability, and establish
options for a significant expansion of our strategic forces in order to
maintain essential equivalence. The danger is that we could find
ourselves committed to potentially open-ended programs and still face
military opposition to SALT.
3. Navy. This question involves enormously
complicated issues regarding the appropriate missions for the Navy and
the forces required to carry them out. It also involves important
questions of foreign and domestic policy. Unfortunately, the Navy and
OSD have become so polarized on
this issue that neither can produce an adequate analytical basis for
making decisions which will be politically credible. For this reason, I
believe you should direct the National Security Council to develop a
plan of action for resolving the larger Navy issues, perhaps through the
PRM/SCC process or through a special NSC organized group with experts from outside the
government.
Assuming that you are able to finish the above agenda during the lunch,
you may want to turn to the following topics during the NSC meeting.
While I believe you can safely endorse Harold’s programs as useful
planning targets and as appropriate reflections of your defense policy,
you should probably avoid blanket endorsements of the degree to which
Harold has implemented these priorities: all three impact directly on
the missions and required force levels of the Navy.
On theater nuclear forces Secretary Brown is directing the Air Force to
plan on European GLCM deployments in
the early 80s—specifically the Tomahawk, which is capable of 2500 km
though this range could be shortened. He also directs the Air Force to
develop a plan for a new 2000 km MRBM—which would probably be available
in the late 80s. This is a crucial issue that could shape the nature of
our relations with Europe for a decade. However, this guidance heavily
prejudices any future decisions on NATO long-range strike capability. First, it establishes a
requirement for long range capability, which you have not yet decided is
needed. Second, it tilts the decision toward GLCM because (1) the new MRBM should not be available until
well after GLCM, and (2) the range of
the MRBM is shorter than GLCM.
Nonetheless, MRBMs could have a number of military advantages compared
to GLCM (speed of flight, penetration)
and political advantages (fewer arms control problems, more direct
response to SS–20 and therefore more difficult to propagandize
against).
Attachment
Paper Prepared in the Department of Defense9
DOD FISCAL
GUIDANCE
If not the most important issue in the Consolidated Guidance (CG), the size of the Defense budget in
FY 80 through FY 84 is certainly high on the list. In
accord with an earlier agreement with the OMB, the basic Fiscal Guidance for DoD planning is
based on the $126 billion submission to the Congress for FY 79. For the five years covered in
the CG, it grows at slightly less
than 3% annually in terms of real TOA.
I think it is clear that the Defense program must grow in real terms,
given the obvious and continuing growth on the Soviet side. The
particular growth rate allowed in the CG is tied more to the commitment we have jointly
undertaken with our NATO allies
than it is to any firm conviction that it will assure, in the words
of PD–18, that “the United States
will maintain an overall balance of military power between the
United States and its allies on the one hand and the Soviet Union
and its allies on the other at least as favorable as that that now
exists.” That is an important goal, and one to which I firmly
subscribe. Unfortunately, it is hard to measure that balance in any
precise and unambiguous way. And of course we cannot be sure as to
what the Soviet forces of the future will turn out to be. Thus,
there is inevitably a lot of judgment involved in deciding whether
the Fiscal Guidance in the CG is or
is not enough for us to be able to meet that basic objective stated
in PD–18.
To further complicate the issue, it is not merely a question of
whether you, or I, or the Joint Chiefs of Staff feel that the Fiscal
Guidance is high enough to assure maintenance of the current
balance. The perceptions of that balance—and particularly of the
trend in that balance—on the part of Soviets, on the part of our
allies, on the part of the third world, and even on the part of the
United States public, can have a major effect on what actually
happens on the world scene. So we have to judge not only how we view
the trend in that balance, but also how we think others will view
it.
Though there is no way to make such a difficult and critically
important judgment simple, I do hope to illuminate the issue
somewhat better than it has been in the past. This year, instead of
asking the Services to submit only programs to match the basic level
of the Fiscal Guidance, I have asked them also to submit
modifications of those
[Page 277]
programs to meet both higher and lower spending levels. The spread
on either side of the basic level will start out at ±5% in FY80, rising to ±9% by FY84. This should allow us to consider
two kinds of possibilities: reallocations within a given budget
level; and net changes in the total budget level. For example, if
one Service should propose a particularly attractive program at its
augmented level, we could consider adopting part or all of it, and
selecting in compensation an offsetting amount of the other
Services’ programs at the decremented level.
On the other hand, we will be able to combine all the incremented
programs (or portions of them) to see what larger Defense budgets
would buy, or combine all the decremented programs to see what we
would have to give up with smaller Defense budgets. I am sure we
will be able to do that much—to describe the effects in terms of
force structure. I will also do my best to describe for you what
those effects imply in terms of practical capability.
Therefore, I think that then, rather than now, will be a better time
for you to judge the adequacy of the Fiscal Guidance. For the
moment, there are two things in this connection of which you should
be aware. First, the Fiscal Guidance represents a cut of roughly 5%
from the previous Five Year Defense Plan (submitted by the Ford
Administration in January 1977 and revised by us in a rather pro
forma manner in February of 1977). It will thus force compensating
cuts in previously planned procurement, force structure, operations,
R&D, or whatever. While that
is hardly a palatable prospect for the Military Departments, I think
it is important that the Five Year Defense Plan be kept realistic
rather than fanciful.
The second point is that the current Fiscal Guidance is particularly
tight in the case of the Department of the Navy. The CG notes that there is a real
possibility that our current naval force structure cannot be
supported for long within the fiscal limits implied by the CG. The basic problem is that the unit
costs of Navy hardware as a whole—ships, aircraft, submarines—are
rising faster than the Defense budget and the Navy’s share of it.
Three ships we are considering for the FY80 program (a Trident submarine, a nuclear-powered
cruiser, and a mid-sized conventional carrier) would alone cost
almost $4 billion—not much less than our entire FY79 program (though that program is
somewhat smaller than normal). In recent years the Navy has been
able to buy only about half the tactical aircraft it needs to
support a properly modernized force on a long-term basis; in FY79, it will not be able to buy enough
aircraft even to offset its expected peacetime losses. The CG directs a 14% cut in our amphibious
assult shipping force in an effort to reallocate funds to higher
priority needs.
This situation faces us with something of a dilemma. On the one hand,
we could decide just to do the best we can at the current level of
[Page 278]
funding. Though I
suspect we might see some reduction in near-term naval capability as
a result, the full effects would manifest themselves only a decade
or more from now when deliveries of the relatively small number of
ships we can fund today will prove inadequate to replace the ships
that will have to be retired then, and force levels will have to
drop.
On the other hand, we could fund the Navy at a higher level—perhaps
$3 billion higher annually just to meet the Navy’s desired
shipbuilding program—today. If that were done within the current DoD
budget by transferring funds from the other Services, I have no
doubt it would jeopardize our efforts to improve our capability (and
particularly our early capability) in the Central Front of NATO—one of our most important
objectives, and a key thrust of the CG (which I will discuss further below). If it were
done not by transferring funds from the other Services, but by
adding to the DoD budget, we would still be faced with the question
of whether we would rather spend that $3 billion that way—to
maintain the Navy’s capabilities a decade or more from now—or
whether those funds should not also be applied to our immediate,
pressing needs for the Central Front or to ground and air forces for
contingencies elsewhere.
That, of course, is a classic problem of balancing near-term against
long-term goals. Though I can describe the alternatives for you, the
judgment has to be subjective, and you should be aware of the
problem.
I would like to turn next from the general subject of the level of
the Defense budget to some other fundamental issues, starting in the
strategic nuclear field with the perennial question of how much is
enough. By any reasonable calculation, we are able today, and will
be able tomorrow, to absorb a Soviet nuclear strike and still
inflict damage in retaliation that we would consider catastrophic
and intolerable for the Soviet Union. That should be enough to
accomplish our ends if we have bought sufficient insurance to offset
Soviet ASW, air defense, civil
defense, attacks on our command and control, etc., and if the Soviet
leadership viewed the world precisely as we do. But the evidence,
such as it is, is that they do not. We therefore simply cannot be
sure that damage predictions that we may view as awesome would, in
fact, deter the Soviet leadership from nuclear attacks.
I noted above the importance of how the Soviets, our allies, the
third world, and even we perceive the overall balance of military
power. That applies as well—indeed particularly—to the strategic
balance. Should that balance be perceived as significantly in favor
of the Soviets, it is conceivable that they would be emboldened to
attempt political coercion, not only of us, but of our allies, whose
will to resist could well be undermined should they perceive our
strategic forces to be markedly inferior to those of the
Soviets.
[Page 279]
Thus, the CG notes that the ability
to inflict “unacceptable” damage in retaliation against the Soviet
Union is a necessary but not sufficient criterion. It directs,
therefore, that we maintain essential equivalence10 (as does PD–18). This policy has a fundamental effect on the
design of our strategic forces. It is quite different from the
so-called mutual assured destruction policy we had in the ’60s, and
certainly very different from a minimum deterrence policy, as indeed
it should be.
The need to maintain essential equivalence leads directly into three
related issues discussed in the CG:
the Cruise Missile Carrier (CMC);
the SLBM force; and the ICBM force. The CG directs the Air Force to program the
development of a CMC based on
transport aircraft, either military or commercial. We are looking at
an option to deploy 100 CMCs with
about 6,000 cruise missiles by FY
87, though we could deploy them more rapidly [less
than 1 line not declassified]. Thus, the CMC gives us one option to match a
very considerable increase in future Soviet forces.
The SLBM force faces a more
difficult problem. The Trident building program has run into serious
delays. Its costs have risen to the point where the Trident program
we really need is increasingly difficult to accommodate within the
Navy’s shipbuilding budget without displacing other important ships
(though I view no other ship as equal in importance to a Trident),
and our existing Poseidon submarines are growing old. If we are
limited, either by the budget or by yard capacity, to one Trident
per year, and if we also find we must retire Poseidon boats at age
25, the CG shows that the number of
SLBM launch tubes will begin
to fall after FY87, and be smaller
by FY90 than the number we have now.
(The destructive capability of the force, however, though suffering
a temporary dip in the early ’90s, would continue to grow.)
These problems with the SLBM force
are troubling. Because of the tightness of the Navy budget, I have
told Secretary Claytor that he can consider dropping the current
Trident building rate from the current 1½ per year to one per year
if he feels that the budget level leaves him no other choice, but
that in that case he must also address the problem of maintaining
SLBM launcher levels in the
early ’90s. That means, of course, finding a way to assure that the
Poseidon SSBNs can be operated
beyond their planned retirement dates.
The ICBM force issue turns on the
growing vulnerability of the Minuteman force to the increasing
number and accuracy of Soviet warheads. By FY84, we would expect [less than 1
line not declassified] attrition in the silos if we decided
to ride out an attack. Within the next six months or a year, we will
have to decide what to do, and we are studying the issues and
running tests in the field to help us with that decision.
Land-mobile basing of one sort or another with either Minuteman
[Page 280]
or MX missiles is one
possibility (MX thus far appearing to be the better choice). The
questions of which basing mode looks best, and of cost, of
vulnerability, of land availability, of ecology, etc., need more
study. But one thing is clear: with a land-mobile system, it will
take at least [less than 1 line not
declassified] to restore the ICBM retaliatory capability, [less
than 1 line not declassified] that we have today. If we
feel we must restore the balance more rapidly so as not to be
perceived to be in an inferior position, we could deploy MX in
silos, possibly as early as 1984. If we had to depend significantly
on these missiles in retaliation, we would probably be driven to a
launch-under-attack policy.
Another issue in the strategic nuclear area involves defense of the
continent against Soviet bombers. Our policy in recent years has
been not to invest heavily in continental air defense on grounds
that it makes little sense in an era when we are defenseless against
ICBMs and SLBMs.11
However, we have maintained a modest force dedicated to air defense,
and we would plan to supplement it in a crisis with fighter aircraft
that could be made available from the General Purpose Forces in the
CONUS. That policy has been
likened to a “Coast Guard of the air”—the intention being to prevent
overflight provocations and “free rides”, without really aspiring to
substantially reduce US casualties
in an all-out attack.
While the General Purpose Force aircraft that might be available are
quite modern (F–14, F–15, and—soon—F–16s), the dedicated aircraft
are quite old (F–101s, F–106s, and some F–4s). However, the advent
of the Soviet Backfire has changed the character of the possible
threat. In response, the CG now
directs that the equivalent of a wing (nominally 72 aircraft) of
F–15s from the Tactical Air Command be made available for a crisis.
There are SALT ratification
implications to this issue.
One final strategic issue has to do with civil defense. As you know,
the Soviets have shown great interest and considerable activity in
this field. While I do not believe that that effort significantly
enhances the prospects for Soviet society as a whole following any
full-scale nuclear exchange, it has obviously had an effect on
international perceptions, particularly in contrast to our small and
static civil defense program. For that reason alone, I believe at
least modest efforts on our part could have a high payoff.12
But beyond perceptions, our studies this past summer have shown that
a relatively modest program, centering on evacuation and some
fallout protection, could increase US survivors from roughly a fifth of the population to
at least half, given a week’s warning of impending
[Page 281]
attack (trying to protect against a
bolt-out-of-the-blue attack would be immensely expensive). Whether
such evacuations are really practical we cannot tell, but since they
may occur spontaneously in a deep crisis, I believe some planning
along those lines would be a wise precaution in any event.
Accordingly, the CG directs the
start of such a modest program in FY80. Its extra cost—beyond the roughly $100 million we now
spend annually—would start at about $50 million, rising to about
$200 million a year by FY84.
These strategic issues, and more, are covered in the first of the two
attached excerpts (Section B) from the CG. The second excerpt (Section C) covers the next
general issue I would like to discuss—our military participation in
the NATO alliance. My memorandum
of December 10th to you (“NATO
Initiatives and Improvements”) covers a good deal of the background,
and I will not repeat that here. But the CG contains some important decisions of which you
should be aware.
NATO
Planning for NATO in the last
administration was based primarily on a scenario in which a) the
Warsaw Pact would mobilize for 30 days prior to an attack on NATO, and b) NATO would detect and react to the
Pact mobilization a week after it started, and thus have 23 days to
mobilize before war breaks out in Europe. Though we might quarrel
with some of the details of such a scenario, we do not question its
underlying plausibility. What we do question, however, is the
concept of basing so much of our planning on that single scenario,
since it is but one of many equally plausible scenarios. Therefore,
we now plan instead on being able to meet a Warsaw Pact attack under
a variety of scenarios under the following assumptions.
We believe (and thus assume) that we would be able to detect any
full-scale Warsaw Pact mobilization in one day after it starts. We
next assume that, within one day thereafter, the NATO nations would begin to act on
that intelligence in at least limited ways, such as increasing
readiness, deploying some forces forward, etc., but not necessarily
mobilizing. Obviously, mobilizing at that point would be very much
to NATO’s advantage, but we
recognize that coming to such a momentous decision might take time.
(In Europe, mobilization traditionally bears even more ominous
connotations than it does in this country.) Indeed, we do not want
to plan forces that cannot tolerate any delay in the mobilization
decision. Our assumption, therefore, is that that decision might
take as long as four days (i.e., on the 5th day of the Pact
mobilization) unless, of course, the Pact attacks sooner than the
5th day.
Though we make some provisions for earlier (and thus smaller)
attacks, the earliest attack we program against is one of 40
divisions on the Central Front 4 days after Pact mobilization
starts. We also specify
[Page 282]
larger possible attacks starting after longer periods of
mobilization, based on our analysis of Warsaw Pact force readiness
and logistic constraints behind the inter-German border. Our
objective now is to be able to cope not just with an attack
occurring after one particular mobilization time (and thus of one
particular size on D-Day), but rather with an attack varying
appropriately in size and occurring after any mobilization time from
the 4-day minimum onward.13
This change has had major ramifications in our planning. With 23 days
to prepare before the fighting breaks out, we could do a lot with
mobility forces (particularly with airlift) to move divisions to
Europe and reinforce NATO for the
coming attack. But when the problem gets down to much less than a
week’s warning, there is really only one practical solution: we must
preposition equipment in Europe. We have the passenger airlift to
move the troops quickly (especially by commandeering our vast
commercial fleets under the CRAF
program), but there is no practical way to move their heavy
equipment in that short a time. (This does not mean that cargo
airlift has no further utility. It is still just as important for
deployments in non-NATO
contingencies, for inter-theater lift, possibly even for
intra-theater lift, and it is still needed for a NATO war, though we cannot count on
it for our early requirements.)
The CG thus lays plans for
prepositioning equipment for all the active combat divisions planned
for deployment to Europe except for two very light divisions (the
82nd airborne and the 101st Air Assault) and the 2nd Division after
its withdrawal from Korea.14 This is an ambitious program, and
thus it is still in the tentative stage. We need further analysis of
where in Europe we are going to store all that equipment; we need to
make sure it’s not vulnerable;15 we need to make sure our tentative plan
to get all this done by FY84 is
practical. Thus, what we have so far is the outline of a plan that
is subject to change. But I hasten to add that this is a serious
plan, and one of the key elements in improving our contribution to
the alliance. Consequently in the Fiscal Guidance to the Services, I
have diverted funds from the Navy and the Air Force to the Army to
pay for this prepositioning.16 If later analysis
indicates that the scope or timing of this tentative plan is too
ambitious, I will return an appropriate amount of funding to the
Navy and Air
[Page 283]
Force. But
for the moment, the assumption in the CG is that we will carry out this important and
ambitious program.
Similar reallocations in the Fiscal Guidance have been made for two
other programs to improve our NATO
capability. The first is to add 9 new heavy battalions17 over
the period FY80–FY82 to increase the capability of our
active heavy divisions. Armored and mechanized strength is
particularly important in Europe, and this is a way of adding to our
real combat power without having to add the overhead involved in
creating new divisions.
The other change in the Fiscal Guidance is to fund the conversion of
the 9th Division from infantry to mechanized. This is still a
tentative program, and we have delayed the start until FY81 to give us time to finish a study
before we commit ourselves to the conversion. The issue is the
proper balance between heavy and light divisions, and a major factor
in that balance is what sorts of forces we need for non-NATO contingencies—the subject of the
study. At present, the active force (including the Marines) consists
of 8 light and 11 heavy divisions. The light divisions are preferred
for jungle or mountainous terrain, and for fighting in cities. They
are also more easily transported, but are somewhat less mobile on
their own. Arguments for conversion of the 9th to a heavy division
are that a larger number of heavy divisions would help us not only
in NATO, but probably also in the
Middle East or the Persian Gulf area, which are likely areas for
heavy armored warfare, and in Korea where, even if the terrain is
mostly mountainous, the ROK forces
are likely to need armored or mechanized reinforcement more than
infantry. However, I will reserve judgment on mechanizing the 9th
Division. If we should decide against it, I will, of course, return
the funds now set aside for it to the Navy and Air Force.
A major thrust in our NATO planning
is our emphasis on early combat capability. As the CG says, “Our near-term objective is to
assure that NATO could not be
overwhelmed in the first few weeks of a blitzkrieg war, and we will
invest and spend our resources preferentially to that end. When that
assurance is reasonably in hand, we will turn our attention to
whatever additional capability NATO might need to be able to fight for at least as
long as the Warsaw Pact”.
That policy has important ramifications. Our emphasis on
prepositioning is one such, but there are many others. We do not
plan to buy ammunition to sustain our capability to fight in Europe
well after our NATO allies will
have run out.18 Much of our antisubmarine warfare
[Page 284]
capability, which involves
long lead times, is planned more against the future, when we expect
to turn our attention to sustaining capability, than it is against
the present, when we must first make sure that NATO is not overwhelmed even before
the first convoys from the United States can arrive. The utility of
low-readiness reserve units in this kind of a NATO war would be dubious at best,
and we will thus try to move as much funding as we can to units that
can be kept ready enough to meet our critical early
requirements.
There are two justifications for this emphasis. The first is simple
enough: it doesn’t matter how much long-term sustaining capability
we may have if we cannot hold out for the first few weeks. And we
may not be able to; the current balance of forces gives no cause for
complacency, so our first task is to improve it. The second reason
is, I think, equally practical: our NATO allies have traditionally shown little interest in
building a sustaining capability, preferring to rely on the
deterrent of nuclear warfare.19 I believe they are now seriously
interested in trying to improve their conventional capability, at
least for the initial fighting.20 But there must be real—not
just planned—progress in improving that initial capability, and more
confidence on their part that the Soviets can be held, before they
will show any interest in preparing for a longer war. To face them
with both requirements at once would increase the risk that they
would do neither. And until they are ready to improve their
sustainability, there would be little use in our trying to go it
alone: If it’s at all uncertain that the coalition as a whole can
stop the Soviets, it’s obvious that United States forces can’t do it
alone (nor should we).
I mentioned above that the balance of forces in Europe gives no cause
for complacency, though the improvements we are planning will help.
As things stand, it looks as if NATO will be outgunned on the ground (by one measure of
firepower) by about 80% for the first 10–45 days after Pact
mobilization. The offense traditionally requires a force
superiority, but whether the 80% advantage is enough to tempt them
to attack is unknowable. It is certainly worthy of our concern. We
do hold an advantage in the air-to-ground capability of our tactical
airpower, but they outnumber us in terms of aircraft that can be
used in air-to-air combat.21
There is one other important issue in connection with NATO. We have concentrated heavily on
the Central Front, yet NATO also
faces threats on its flanks. Aside from military threats, the flank
countries
[Page 285]
face political
pressures from the East. Should they lose confidence in NATO’s ability to cover the flanks as
well as the Central Front, they may find it more tempting to reach
individual accommodations of one kind or another with the Soviet
Union—to become “Finlandized”. Once that process of political
fission starts, it is hard to predict where it might end.
We have not neglected the flanks in spite of our concentration on the
Center. However, on the Southern flank, the problems between the
Greeks and the Turks, and the uncertainty of the future complexion
of Italian governments make it difficult to develop any firm
fundamental plans. To the north, the CG recommends planning for the augmentation of
Norwegian defenses with Marine forces and Air Force tactical air, as
well as planning to assure that the Soviets could not overwhelm
Iceland in an effort to control the Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom
gap—the site of one of our most important barriers to the entry of
Soviet air and naval forces into the Atlantic.
Nonetheless, the proper balance between attention to the Central
Front and attention to the flanks is also a subjective matter. Our
present concentration on the former is due to a conviction that that
is where we face the greatest threat, and that that is where we risk
the most serious defeat.
I cite all this not to give the impression that the cause is
hopeless. I believe, in fact, that it is more hopeful today than it
has been at any time in the recent past because I believe NATO is beginning to take the threat
seriously, and to do something about it. The problem is soluble; it
will take time, and money, and—most importantly—our leadership, but
I believe we are on the right track.
Just as we have a difficult judgment to make, within our planning for
NATO as a whole, as to how
much of our effort and attention we should concentrate on the center
as opposed to the flanks, we face a similar question as to how much
of our effort and attention we should concentrate on NATO as opposed to other
contingencies. There are three other geographical areas of primary
concern: the Far East; the Middle East; and the Persian Gulf. With
some exceptions, our analyses of potential contingencies, our
understanding of the effects that different kinds and amounts of
military force might have, and our exploration of the military
alternatives for the United States in those areas are far less
well-developed than they are in the case of the Central Front of
NATO. We are working to make
progress here before the issuance of next year’s Consolidated
Guidance.
In the Far East, the CG notes that
our withdrawal from Southeast Asia, and our planned drawdown of
ground forces from Korea, have led to concern on the part of nations
in that area—allied with us and otherwise—as to our continued
interest and commitment. The CG
[Page 286]
affirms that, to allay
such concerns to the degree we can, there will be no further
withdrawals of forces from the Western Pacific beyond those already
scheduled for Korea. (I might note, in that connection, the strong
effect that that policy has on our aircraft carrier force level. It
means that we will have to continue to deploy two carriers in the
Western Pacific. Those, combined with the two deployed carriers in
the Mediterranean, translate into a total carrier force requirement
of 12, given practical rotation and overhaul factors. Reducing the
carrier force level to less than 12 would require us to reduce these
overseas deployments in one way or another.) The CG also directs the already announced
increase in Air Force fighter aircraft (from 60 to 72) in Korea,
planning for joint exercises in the analysis of Korean logistic
requirements, and the examination of low-cost hedges against the
possibility of ground force redeployment. The Far East section of
the CG also discusses the issue of a
Sino-Soviet war, as well as the implications in that region should
we become involved in a world-wide war with the Soviet Union.
The Section in the CG on the Middle
East notes that while Arab inventories of military equipment are
expected to remain considerably larger than those of Israel, the
ratio is improving for the Israelis, and we would expect them to
prevail in any war at least through 1983. The CG also notes that the outcome of any
associated naval confrontation between the United States and the
Soviet Union would depend heavily on the amount of prior
reinforcement on either side. The normal two-carrier force we keep
in the Mediterranean would have to be doubled for us to have
confidence in its survival if opposed by the Soviets in the Eastern
Mediterranean. [4 lines not declassified] The
CG discusses both the Soviets’
and our capability to intervene with military force in a Mid-East
war, and directs that we maintain the capability to counter Soviet
intervention.
The concern we attach to the Persian Gulf area is noted in the very
front of the CG with the words:
“events in the Persian Gulf could soften the glue that binds the
(NATO) alliance together as
surely as could an imbalance of military force across the
inter-German border”. The section in the CG covering the Persian Gulf outlines the military
forces in the area, including the local Soviet threat, and discusses
United States options, such as the possible resupply of Iran,
defense of oil facilities and sea lines of communication, and even
the use of US forces in the area.
However, pending results of current studies, we are not at the point
of being able to draw many conclusions with confidence. For the
moment, the CG directs maintenance
of the current Middle East Force, intermittent naval and tactical
air deployments to the Indian Ocean with joint exercises, and
limiting construction for Diego Garcia to that already
programmed.
[Page 287]
A final important point in the CG is
the direction that we plan for “1½” simultaneous contingencies; the
one refers to NATO, the half to a
lesser contingency outside of NATO, such as in one of the three areas discussed
immediately above. The word “simultaneous” means that we will
program enough forces so that we would not be forced to abandon a
non-NATO contingency, and pull
out our forces, should a NATO-Warsaw Pact war break out. This policy is also in line
with PD–18, and its effect is that
we earmark and design a portion of our forces especially for such
contingencies. For planning purposes, the CG identifies those forces as a Marine Division/Wing
team, two Army divisions (one light and one mechanized) with
appropriate support including a heavy brigade, three Air Force
tactical wings, and three Navy carriers and accompanying support.
(Though earmarked for non-NATO
contingencies, these forces could be used in Europe as well.)
Further details on all these and other matters, of course, will be
found in the Consolidated Guidance.
