197. Memorandum From Donald Fortier of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (McFarlane)1
SUBJECT
- Second Term Planning
The memorandum we prepared at your direction in May illustrated key policy choices the President will face in a possible second term.2 The next step was to identify the national security areas that required hard looks and expert consideration in order to provide a firm basis for the strategic choices the President eventually makes. Steve Sestanovich, Steve Rosen and I—drawing on advice from Harry Rowen, Andy Marshall and others—have now completed our list of topics for planning papers focussed on 14 issues. We have also chosen the people we think are best qualified to write them.
The list of topics and names has gone through numerous evolutions. We need to ensure that the papers provide a fresh, intelligent look at U.S. policies; and the evaluations not only have to be substantively solid, but also well grounded in bureaucratic and Congressional realities. We have in the end settled on different formats for different topics. In rare cases, one person seemed uniquely suited for the task—combining expert knowledge with a capacity and inclination to go well beyond the conventional in posing penetrating questions about future policy choices. Albert Wohlstetter, for example, is one of the best [Page 840] informed and most creative thinkers on the subject of strategic weapons and arms control. If Albert has the time, there is no one better able to write the paper in that area, a paper we believe to be crucial.
In other cases, a team of people seemed the best way to bring together the needed mix of expert knowledge and creative, critical thinking. The work on NATO, for example, would be coordinated by Samuel Huntington, who has done outstanding work on new strategies for NATO, in consultation with experts on the military issues (Mike Leonard), the West European political climate (Dennis Kloske), and the West European economy (Bruce Scott, who has given a great deal of thought to ways of making the European economy more dynamic). In the area of improving security assistance, Frank Carlucci will best be able to tell us how to structure the possible tradeoff between defense and foreign aid that would allow us to reconstitute our resource base. John Wolf can provide technical expertise on the programs, and Alison3 or someone who is equally sensitive to the current legislative aid environment, can advise about Congressional realities.
In most cases, we sought writers who were not in the government working on the subject in question—in order to get papers with some distance from the immediate political struggle. In one case, that of Japan, there was simply no substitute for Paul Wolfowitz. We are more than confident of his ability to think objectively about his own area of East Asia and Japan.
A separable problem we had to consider is the possible reluctance of some people to involve themselves in what may seem like a partisan effort. In general, we think this can be handled by expressing the President’s interest in keeping a true planning process alive at a time when campaign politics ordinarily takes over. We would, for example, simply ask James Billington and Adam Ulam to write papers describing what they believe to be the fruitful and fruitless ways to work with the Soviet Union over the next two years, given their understanding of the Soviet leadership and of their foreign policy. This is a question that might legitimately be asked of an outsider by our Administration at any time. Even here, however, you should be prepared to assure them that they and their work will not be drawn into the campaign process. The straighter we are with them, the more serious their contribution will be.
In other cases, we can handle the problem a bit differently. Our requests for papers, for example, need not reveal the ultimate purpose of the project—the practice that, for reasons of security, we will follow with regard to some of the more junior members of certain groups.
[Page 841]Finally, where specialized knowledge and capabilities could only be provided by people who conceivably might be the source of dispute, we decided to work through trusted individuals who already were sponsoring their research. Shahrahm Chubin’s knowledge of Iranian internal politics and the strategic position of Iran in Soviet and Western thinking is excellent, and we will deal with him through Andrew Marshall.
Less crucial but still very important is the need to ensure that we receive completed, useful, papers on time. As a result, in some cases, we propose commissioning parallel efforts to hedge against the possibility that a single expert who was called upon to write a paper might run into difficulties that would preclude finishing the first cut on time. On the arms control and strategic modernization paper, we commissioned a parallel effort designed to generate more specific data on congressional sensitivities and current programs, with the though that this data could serve as grist for Albert’s second cut.
In several cases, we will need you to contact our nominee yourself. Albert Wholstetter should be approached by you, as should Frank Carlucci and others to ensure that the process continues to go forward.
We are preparing terms of reference to send to the paper writers if you approve them. In both the strategic and NATO papers we need to ask how can we move from essentially passive strategies against relatively implausible threats to more active and intelligent strategies against real threats. Because of the special importance and character of the Soviet-American Relations and Defense Procurement papers, we have attached the TORs for those papers. All of the TORs will share some characteristics. We will ask all writers to:
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- Discuss the trends in their area. For example, in the weapons procurement area, what are the technological trends, and what can we expect to be available at various times? What can we expect if U.S. policy continues on a “business-as-usual” basis?
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- What are the strengths and weaknesses of the U.S. in a given area? The strengths and weaknesses of our opponents?
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- What are the goals of the U.S. in this area? This question should draw from the writers their views on the strategic importance and strategic position of their area. Is the Persian Gulf increasing or decreasing in importance for the U.S. because of the changes in the oil market? Should East Asia receive more or less attention from the U.S. relative to our other areas of concern.
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- Then, the writers will have to lay out their strategy for how we can reach the goals that have been identified given the trends and our strengths and weaknesses relative to our opponents. If constraints exist, [Page 842] how can we work our way around them? Or can we? What can we do soon? What should we prepare to do down the road?
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- Finally, what obstacles will we face if we try to implement these strategies? On the Hill? In the bureaucracy? Politically? What can we do now that will help us overcome these obstacles later?
This structure will not dictate the content of any paper, but it will ensure that we do not get interesting but irrelevant historical analyses, or projections into the future, but rather specific ideas on how we can use our assets to overcome our obstacles and opponents to reach our goals. We ourselves will need in our own monitoring to continually ask the question: How does the proposed strategy fit into Presidential timing and priorities? Will the President need to intervene personally in this area? Will he need to act early?
This structure also will ensure that the papers will help us even if we do not agree with their recommendations. We will gain from the data in the trends sections, and form new perspectives on our strengths and our goals.
The papers will be no more than 20 pages, and we will direct the authors to submit their work within four weeks of our request. This will put the papers in our hands by the beginning of August, and give us some time to review them with other members of the planning effort, and commission a second and more integrative cut in August. This will enable us to provide input over the course of the late summer regarding those second term decisions that can be foreshadowed, and to keep certain desirable decisions from being forestalled by inadvertent postures.
RECOMMENDATION
- 1.
- That you review and approve the attached list (Tab I) of paper topics and authors.4
- 2.
- That you review and approve the points for telephone conversations (Tab II)5 with Albert Wohlstetter, Sam Huntington, Frank Carlucci, and others. If it is possible to call at least Wohlstetter and Huntington before you depart, it would be a great help.6
- Source: Reagan Library, Donald Fortier Files, Subject File, Policy Planning (Second Term) I: [06/13/1984–09/13/1984]. Secret. Sent for action.↩
- Presumably a reference to the undated memorandum from McFarlane to Reagan. See the attachment to Document 196.↩
- Reference is to Alison Fortier.↩
- McFarlane did not approve or disapprove the recommendation.↩
- Attached but not printed is the undated “Second Term Planning Process: Talking Points for Phone Contacts.” Attached but not printed at Tab III are the undated “Soviet American Relations: Strategic Overview” and “Developing Leverage in U.S. Defense Procurement Terms of Reference.”↩
- McFarlane did not approve or disapprove the recommendation.↩
- Secret. No drafting information appears on the paper. All brackets are in the original.↩