10. Letter From Secretary of State Rusk to Secretary of Defense McNamara1
Washington, February 4,
1961.
Dear Bob:
As I indicated in the NSC meeting February
1,2 I am sending you certain revisions in the memorandum
concerning foreign policy considerations bearing on DOD budgetary planning which Secretary Herter sent to Secretary
Gates in June 1960.3 This should be looked
upon as preliminary to the long-range study of the U.S. military posture on
which you and we are shortly to be engaged.
We will give this matter continuing study and will advise you of any further
thoughts we may have.
I would be glad to discuss these considerations with you, or to have them
discussed by our staffs, if you believe that this would be helpful.
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I am sending a copy of this paper to Dave Bell.
Sincerely,
Enclosure5
SUBJECT
- Foreign Policy Considerations Bearing on the US Defense
Posture
I. Major Foreign Policy
Requirements
- 1.
- General War Deterrent. An effective,
invulnerable, and reliable US
nuclear retaliatory force is required both to deter general war and
to frustrate nuclear blackmail.
- (a)
- Its effectiveness must be evident
so that both the USSR and
our allies will feel no uncertainty on this point.
- (b)
- Its invulnerability must be such
that (i) the Communists and our allies will realize that it
could not be destroyed; (ii) we will not need to use it
hastily or preemptively in a grave crisis, in order to
prevent its being crippled by a possible Soviet attack;
(iii) we will not, in the event of such a crisis, have to
take such “crash” measures to enhance its invulnerability as
the Soviets would be likely to consider evidence of
impending attack.
- (c)
-
Its reliability must (i) be such
as to minimize the risk of accidental war; (ii) not be
so dependent on bases and forces on foreign territory as
to cause the Soviets to believe that they could blunt
its effectiveness by pressing our allies to limit the
use of their territory or forces for this purpose.
Effective civil defense measures
will also be required to make credible our deterrent to
general war.
- 2.
- Limited Operations. A mobile, substantial,
and flexible US capability for operations
short of general war is essential to meet the threat of limited
aggression, which is likely to assume increasing importance in the
years ahead.
- (a)
- Its mobility must be such that our
allies and the Communists will realize that it can respond
promptly to threats in any part of the world.
- (b)
- Its size must be sufficiently
substantial so that the US will be able to respond
effectively to limited aggressions involving sizeable
Communist forces, without requiring the redeployment of our
force contributions
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to NATO and without
crippling the base for partial or complete mobilization in
the US.
- (c)
- Its flexibility must be such as to
enable the US (i) to respond in each case with a use of
force appropriate to the threat, and (ii) to achieve its
military objective in case of non-nuclear attack without use
of nuclear weapons, if the President so decides at the time,
in the light of relevant considerations—including likely
Communist and free world reactions. We attach the greatest
importance to “raising the threshold” beyond which the
President might have to decide to initiate the use of
nuclear weapons.
- 3.
- Counter-Guerrilla Capabilities. An improved
capability to deal with threats to the internal security of
free-world states, such as the threat of guerrilla insurgency, is
urgently needed. These threats have recently been stepped up by the
Communists and their allies, and it is likely they will be further
expanded and extended. Free world capabilities to meet these threats
must include US ability to give to the indigenous elements charged
with maintaining internal security in individual countries advice,
training and assistance which is tailored to the tasks they
face.
- 4.
- Guerrilla Capabilities. Increased and
improved guerrilla capabilities could also make a substantial
contribution to defense of the free world. This will require that
the US and other selected free world countries maintain special
forces, which are trained and equipped for guerrilla tasks.
II. Major Regional
Requirements
In addition to these basic considerations, two regional requirements are
sufficiently important to merit special notice.
- 5.
- NATO. A
cohesive NATO alliance, based on a
convincing US commitment and a strategy
in which our allies continue to have confidence, is essential.
- (a)
- A convincing US commitment involves
a continuing US willingness to station substantial US
military forces in Europe and to commit US-manned MRBM’s in Europe or in
European waters to NATO
during the next few years. Our allies view the presence and
commitment of US forces as an essential element of the
assurance that we will respond, despite growing Soviet
nuclear capabilities, to future threats against the Treaty
area in Europe. In the absence of a reduction in the Soviet
threat, any reduction in the over-all combat effectiveness
of US NATO-committed forces
in Europe would seriously damage allied cohesion, as well as
weaken our negotiating position vis-à-vis the USSR.
- (b)
- A strategy in which our allies have confidence will be one
that gives NATO the option
of responding without nuclear weapons to substantial attack
on NATO Europe by Soviet
ready non-nuclear forces, for a long enough period to
enforce a pause which would give the Soviets time to
appreciate the wider risks of the course on which they are
embarked
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and provide
an opportunity for negotiations. This will require (i)
Shield non-nuclear forces adequate to discharge this
mission, which means not only pressing European countries to
build up and modernize Shield forces but also ensuring that
US forces in the Shield have fully modern weapons; (ii)
arrangements to ensure that such Shield nuclear capabilities
as may be required to deter more massive Soviet aggression
will not be automatically used in the event Shield forces
become engaged against forces not themselves using nuclear
weapons.
- 6.
- Asian Periphery of the Bloc. The free
world’s military posture along the Asian rim of the Bloc should be
capable of rapid response to a wide spectrum of threats. Chinese
Communist policy is likely to pose such threats, with emphasis on
infiltration and guerrilla warfare, with greater urgency in the
years ahead.
Threatened free world states in the area will be best able to concentrate
on the tasks of maintaining internal security and eliminating guerrilla
insurgency, where it is present, if they do not have to keep an undue
proportion of their forces inactive to guard against overt invasion.
It is, therefore, important not only to have mobile, flexible and
substantial US forces (para. 2) but also to have them deployed in
forward areas of the western Pacific, in order to present our allies and
the Communists with tangible evidence of our capacity to respond to
aggression. As a related task, the State and Defense Departments and
CIA should give urgent attention to
improving the morale and fighting effectiveness of non-Western forces
with whom we are allied or closely associated.
