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

71. Memorandum From Samuel Huntington of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Brzezinski)¹

Washington, August 1, 1978

SUBJECT

• PD/NSC–18 Follow-On Study on Nuclear Targeting Policy²

In general the DOD report provides an excellent description and critique of existing targeting policy and appropriately sets forth the major issues deserving of top-level consideration and decision. I have only a couple of comments on the report and on the Utgoff/Molander review of the report.³

Two basic issues runs through the report.

The first is the need for a much higher degree of flexibility in targeting policy than has previously been the case. Options for the limited employment of nuclear weapons should be multiplied; political considerations should play a greater role in the selection of targets; and, since no plan—particularly in these uncharted waters—can anticipate what will be needed in a given contingency, a high capability for Presidential flexibility and improvisation in a nuclear confrontation should be built into our command, administrative, and technical institutions. On these points, I think there is general agreement among Utgoff/Molander, the authors of the report, and myself.⁴

The second basic issue relates to the relative priority we should give to targeting war-fighting capabilities compared to war-recovery capabilities. Here for a variety of reasons the report criticizes what it perceives to be our current emphasis on war-recovery resources and recommends greater emphasis on war-fighting capabilities. Victor and Roger are dubious about this conclusion; I support it.

The question of war-fighting vs. war-recovery comes up in two contexts. The report emphasizes the extent to which Soviet doctrine and practice differ from the US. This is, I think, accurate and valuable. The report points out that the intelligence community now agrees that the Soviets believe that “a superior war-fighting capability, including what US strategists would call counterforce and damage-limiting capabilities, is the best type of deterrent.” Vic and Roger argue that one cannot extrapolate from what the Soviets see as necessary to deter a US attack to what may be necessary for the US to have to deter a Soviet attack. Their argument, however, presupposes a disjunction in Soviet thinking which certainly doesn’t exist in ours and which is psychologically and politically most improbable. We know that the Soviets stress C3 and military capabilities, offensively and defensively, at the conventional and theater nuclear levels as well as at the strategic level. Surely, US ability to destroy substantial portions of Soviet C3 and strategic offensive forces (before or after a Soviet attack) will weigh much more heavily with the Soviets as a deterrent than US ability to destroy a few more cities.⁵

The question of war-fighting vs. war-recovery also comes up in the section on “General War Objectives.” The description of current policy in this section was, for me, the most startling and disturbing segment of the report. The report cites the 1974 NUWEP⁶ as identifying four principal targets for destruction: economic and military recovery resources; C3; nuclear offensive forces; conventional forces. Current policy sets forth the priorities in the allocation of weapons against these targets under conditions of day-to-day alert and generated forces as follows:

Table 1 Weapons Allocation Priorities⁷

	Current Policy
Targets	Day-to-day alert	Generated forces	Desirable Policy	SU Strike	US Strike
1. Recovery resources	1	1	4	1	3
2. C3	2	2	2	4	1
3. Nuclear offensive forces	4	3	1	2	2
4. Conventional forces	3	4	3	3	4

In both cases, under current policy sufficient weapons will be allocated to destroy Target 1 (recovery resources), before they are allocated, with decreasing emphasis, to the other targets in the order indicated.

The paper makes the point that this order of priorities applies only to the allocation of weapons, not to the temporal order in which the targets might be attacked. It does, however, also seriously question the current emphasis on targeting recovery resources. I would underwrite that concern in spades. The high priority currently given recovery resources surely puts the cart before the horse. If we should get into a general nuclear war, the first priority has to be the destruction of those enemy forces which have the capability to do serious damage to ourselves and our allies. We ought to take every measure we can to protect ourselves so that we survive in the best possible shape before we begin trying to prevent our opponent from recovering after the war. Recognizing that the characteristics of our weapons may limit the number we wish to direct towards military targets, nonetheless, it would still make much more sense to reorder the priorities as indicated in the third column of Table 1, so as to give top priority to enemy nuclear forces and C3, while relegating recovery resources to a residual fourth place.⁸

1. Source: Carter Library, National Security Affairs, Staff Material, Defense/Security, Huntington, Box 64, [PRM–32]: 8/78. Secret. Sent for information. Copies were sent to Utgoff and Molander.
2. See Document 32.
3. Not found.
4. Brzezinski drew a vertical line in the left margin next to the portion of this paragraph that begins with “particularly” and ends with “and myself.”
5. Brzezinski drew a vertical line in the left margin next to this sentence and wrote: “Why?”
6. See Foreign Relations, 1969–1976, vol. XXXV, National Security Policy, 1973–1976, footnote 4, Document 31.
7. Brzezinski added the columns labeled “SU Strike” and “US Strike” by hand.
8. Brzezinski drew a vertical line in the left margin next to this paragraph and wrote below it: “Who strikes first?”