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Report to the National Security Council by Project Solarium Task Force B - Part 3 of 5
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Report to the National Security Council by Project Solarium Task Force B - Part 3 of 5
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f. Task Force "B" believes that its proposal does not differ
substantially in the magnitude of commitments and responsibilities from U.S.
policy today, except for the matter of a clarification of our commitments
and a candid and forceful public statement of our policy. It believes, how-
ever, that this exception is of vital importance. Under present policies not
only do we leave dangerous uncertainties in the minds of both friends and
enemies abroad; we also fail to provide a stable basis at home for main-
taining the military posture that could reduce the danger.
B. POLITICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS OF ALTERNATIVE "B".
1. Alternative "B" provides the only reliable barrier against new
Soviet Bloc aggression.
a. The main danger to peace arises from the risk that the
Soviet leadorship may embark upon new military moves at selected "soft spots"
on the assumption that the United Nations is impotent to act and that the
United States has not made up its mind (a) whether or not to oppose with
military force any specific act of Soviet aggression and (b) whether to oppose
aggression by peripheral defense or by strategic use of its full power.
b. Persistence of this obscurity tempts the Soviet Government
to misjudge the probable gains which it can secure from one or more peripheral
aggressions end to misoalculate the risk of provoking a general war. The
proposed policy eliminates this twilight zone by making clear that the United
States will retaliate with all the power at its disposal against any Soviet
or satellite aggression across the periphery of the Free World. Likewise,
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it makes it clear that the United States, as under its present policy, does
not propose to initiate armed aggression against the periphery of the Soviet
Bloc.
c. This is a statement of U.S. military capabilities and
political intentions which the Soviet leaders can understand, and to which
they can adjust their practical policies just as they have done in the past
whenever the balance of power in the world was unfavorable to the expansion
of thoir control. In the opinion of Task Force "B", judging from the record
of the past and from the evidence of Soviet caution in the face of the danger
of general war, the Soviet leadership will take such a statement of U.S.
policy seriously and will avoid challenging it by direct military moves
across the Free World periphery.
2. Alternative "B" supports the principles of the Charter of the
United Nations and should ultimately strengthen the ability of the United
Nations to preservo peace and security.
a. The first stated purpose of the United Nations is "To
maintain international peace and security," to prevent and remove threats
to the peace, and to suppress "acts of aggression or other breaches of the
peace" (Article 1. (1) of the U.N. Charter). Under Article 2 (4) all members
have agreed to "refrain in their international relations from the threat
or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence
of any state "
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b. Alternative "B" places U.S. strategic power behind these
principles of the Charter which the U.S.S.R. in the past has been able to
flout. It supports the right of every state to be free from "the threat or
use of force against its territorial integrity or political independence
=
It represents no threat to the Soviet Bloc unless Soviet or satellite forces
are used to commit aggression in violation of the Charter.
C. The Charter also provides that "Nothing in the present
Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-
defense if an armed attack occurs against a member of the United Nations,
until the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to maintain
international peace and security" (Article 51).
a. The various alliances to which the United States is now
committed are built on this right of individual and collective self-defense.
The proposed policy merely gives a somewhat wider application to a principle
which is already accepted by the United States and many other nations, It
affirms the intention of the United States to invoke Article 51 of the U.N.
Charter and become an immediate, full partner of any nation of the Free World
which may be attacked by the Soviet Bloc.
e. From the beginning, it has been recognized that the United
Nations can operate effectively only if the great powers have an overriding
joint interest in maintaining peace and in acting in concert to prevent or
punish aggression. This common interest has so far been lacking since the
Soviet Government regards U.N. membership as a means of preventing resistance
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by the United Nations or its individual members to the expansion of Soviet
control over other states. Once the United States makes clear its determina-
tion to use its full power against Soviet aggression, the Soviet Government
will, for the first time, have a vital interest in preventing the outbreak
of general war and in respecting the territorial integrity and political
independence of the states of the Free World. Whatever attitude the Soviet
Government takes toward the United Nations, that organization should have a
better chance to grow up to its responsibilities and to become effective
in safeguarding peace and security once the full military power of the
United States is committed to action against the Soviet Bloc in case of
armed attack across the Free World periphery.
f. The U.N. Charber contains specific provisions for collec-
tive action in the event of breaches of the peace and acts of aggression,
such action to be determined by the Security Council. The United States, in
arrogating to itself the right to decide when aggression has taken place and
what should be done in revaliation, and to resort to military force to carry
out those decisions, could be charged with setting itself up as policeman
for the world and with acting unilaterally in violation of the spirit of the
Charter, It is clear, however, that the United Nations, while it might take
an immodiate and sivioug stand in the event of new aggrescion, as it did on
Kores in 1950, cannot be counted on to take effective action, and that to
make U.S. action dependent on a decision of the Security Council, where the
U.S.S.R. has a veto, or on a vote of the General Assembly would rob the
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warning of general war of its desired effect and nullify the essential pur-
pose of Alternative "B".
3. Alternative "B" favors the development of regional groupings
and more effective cooperation for defense among Free World nations.
a. Adoption of Alternative "B" by the United States will con-
vince the other nations of the Free World of the utility of their own efforts
to reinforce their security through forming or strengthening regional group-
ings for collective defense. It will place clearly before them the decisions
on how much they are willing to do, individually and collectively, to
strengthen their Abternal security against subversion, to raise the cost and
thus lessen the likelihood of Soviet aggression, and to improve the prospects
of their survival in case the Soviet leadership should at some time provoke
a general wer. It will make regional defense efforts more purposeful and more
hopeful, strengthening the understanding that the individual nation can no
longer assure its own defense single-handed or on the basis of arrangements
for U.S. aid, but only through solid and enduring regional groupings, More-
over, clarification of U.S. policy with respect to Sovieb aggression may make
some of the dangerous intwa-regional problems, such as Franco-German differ-
ences, easi er to solve and should enable the U.S. to play a more constructive
role in the search for smoke solutions.
b. EJ bringing fato proper perspective the central fact that
U.S. strategic power is the sole ultimate deterrent to peripheral Soviet
aggreasions, Alternative "B" will undercut the suspicion, widely propagated
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abroad, that the U.S. aim in supporting regional defense pacts is to "get
other people to fight its battles." The United States will no longer be in
the ridiculous and dangerous posture of begging the countries directly
menaced by Soviet aggression to defend themselves, although it will be ready
to assist them in strengthening their defenses and to participate with them
in regional groupings.
4. Alternative "B" promotes the development of a "Free World
loyalty.'
a. In Western Europe, particularly in France, Germany and
Italy, the inability of the traditional nation-state to provide for the
physical protection of its people has greatly weakened the active loyalty
of many groups to the state, Only a small part of this "disattached loyalty"
adheres to supra-nabional European, Christian and damocratic-Socialist
symbols, whereas a very large part attaches itself to the spuriously supra-
national symbols and action organizations of Moscow. At present the differ-
ential redistribution of this "disattached loyalty" works to Soviet advantage
end to U.S. disadvantage. The creation of active hope for the successful
and prosperous survival of the Free World, clearly backed by U.S. power and
by effective regional groupings. will arrest and may well reverse this
unfavorable trand.
5. Walle Alternative "3" provides no ironclad guarantee against
pro-Soviet subversion of states within the Free World, it offers the best
prospect of forestalling subversion or limiting its effects.
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a. Through inhibiting Soviet moves to gain territory by moving
armed forces across the Free World periphery, the proposed policy neutralizes
one of the strongest Soviet instruments of political expansion: the near-by
presence of superior Soviet or satellite forces prepared to assure the
victory, or the continued existence, of a pro-Soviet regime in the victim
country.
b. Weak states living close to the Soviet periphery will have
less reason to fear Soviet political pressure and the threat of subversion.
Creation of this deterrent against Soviet aggression will strip down the
Communist and pro-Communist internal forces to the hard core and inhibit
their ability to attract or blackmail large numbers of timid and self-seeking
persons who now follow the Communist line. In some free countries of Western
Europe, where a large part of the Communist Party vote represents either a
protest against existing conditions or fear that the country will in the not
distant future come under Soviet domination, Alternative "B" will reduce the
presently worrisome possibility that such countries may lose their freedom
through the processes of free elections.
c. The Soviet leadership may still be able to foster pro-Soviet
regimes by political means, without actually moving a soldier or a plane
across the Free World periphery, but Alternative "B" offers the best prospect
of either forestalling subversion or limiting its effects. Since the country
in danger of subversion will be closely linked to the Free World, a pro-Soviet
overturn is less likely to happen without warning, and the Free World will
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have a better opportunity to take preventive measures. Realizing in advance
that a pro-Soviet overturn may expose their country to the risk of a general
war brought on by Soviet aggression, the leaders and people of a country
menaced by subversion will be much less likely to acquiesce in subjugation.
d. Under paragraph 3 of the policy defended by this Task
Force, the United States reserves freedom of action, in the event of indigenous
Communist seizure of power in countries of the Free World, to take all mea-
sures necessary to re-establish a situation compatible with the security in-
terests of the United States and its allies.
e. If a Free World country should come under the control of
a pro-Soviet regime, the United States could still invoke the threat of retal-
iation by general war in order to inhibit the movement of Soviet Bloc forces
across its borders, even if invited. True, the crossing would be more dif-
ficult to detect and certify, since the newly subverted state might cooperate
with the Soviet regime in attempting to deny or conceal the movement of Soviet
forces across the periphery. But aggression by substantial forces cannot be
long concealed.
f. If Soviet or satellite forces are inhibited from moving
in, the Free World will retain a wide range of non-military weapons through
which it can exert political, economic and psychological pressures on the
subverted state. While Alternative "B" leaves open the question whether the
United States would resort either to local intervention or to general war in
order to restore the Free World periphery, this degree of political uncertain-
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ty is far narrower than the present uncertainty as to whether the United
States will, if necessary, use its strategic power to prevent encroachments
upon the Free World.
g. If the United States decided to accept the fact of the
addition of a formerly free state to the Soviet Bloc, the line of Alternative
"B" would be considered redrawn accordingly.
6. Alt ernative "B" would strengthen, on balance, British and
French support of U.S. policy.
a. The proposed policy emphasizes the preponderant role of
the United States in the defense of the Free World and the relative decline
which has occurred in the great-power status of Britain and France, i.e., in
their ability to defend themselves by their own forces and to exert power
outward from their relatively shrunken power centers. Any resentment and
jealousy on their part should be tempered by the fact that henceforth the
United States itself will be the really vital target for Soviet all-out at-
tack. In addition, Alternative "B" will reduce the menace which peripheral
and colonial wars represent for Britain and France in areas, particularly in
Asia, where they have considerable direct and indirect interests. Their po-
sitions will be greatly strengthened by knowing that, if the Soviet leader-
ship embarks on a peripheral war against them or any of their overseas pos-
sessions or spheres of interest, the full U.S. power will be exerted on
their side from the beginning.
b. It should be made clear to Britain and France that, after
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the adoption of Alternative "B", the U.S. will continue its frequent and
regular consultations with them concerning the whole range of Free World-
Soviet relations.
C. Britain and France will also have prominent roles in
implementing the defense of the Free World through regional defense group-
ings. However, the United States must deflect and if necessary resist
their pressure to secure a "veto" over the ultimate U.S. power of decision
to invoke general war against Soviet acts of substantial aggression. The
more actively Britain and France participate in implementing Alternative "B"
up to but excluding the ultimate decision on general war, the more readily
they will accommodate their policies to the American position as one based
realistically on the actual location of responsibility. Such tripartite
cooperation will also make it easier to obtain general concurrence from re-
gional groupings such as NATO.
7. Alternative "B" strengthens the security of Free World states,
including those at present uncommitted to the active defense of the Free
World.
a. Alternative "B" will reinforce greatly the confidence
of other NATO members in the ability and determination of the United Stat es
to exert its full power effectively and promptly in retaliation against
Soviet aggression. There will be some objection on the ground that NATO
may be drawn into general war by a unilateral U.S. decision growing out of
Soviet action outside the NATO area, but this possibility already exists un-
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der present policies.
b. Countries which are now divided, such as Germany, Austria,
and Korea, will feel an initial resentment based on their belief that the
new policy recognizes and perpetuates these divisions. However, the United
States will make clear that its policy with respect to unification of these
countries remains unchanged; it has never promised to initiate the use of
military force in order to reunify them but it will continue to take every
non-military initiative to this end. Positive proposals for German unity on
terms acceptable to U.S. interests can be put forward as a basis for nego-
tiation at roughly the same time that the proposed policy is announced.
C, The Chinese Nationalist regime on Formosa may regard the
policy as denying it the opportunity to liberate mainland China; however,
Task Force "B" does not believe that temporary discouragement resulting from
this reaction will have any substantial effect on such political and military
value as the Chinese Nationalists may have for the West.
d. The Japanese people will feel greater confidence in the
efficacy of the U.S.-Japanese security pact and will consider that Alterna-
tive "B" reduces the likelihood of a Soviet aggression directed primarily
at them. It will clarify the range of permitted and mutually profitable
trade with the Asiatic mainland and thus improve the operation of the Japan-
ese economy.
e. The proposed policy may be widely regarded in the Middle
East and South Asia as a U.S. assertion of authority incompatible with their
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jealously guarded independence and soverèignty. Such objectives would not
deprive the policy of its desired effect and could hardly make the problems
in U.S. relations with these countries much more difficult than they are at
present. In due course, moreover, these countries should realize that the
proposed U.S. policy enhances their security and improves their ability to
utilize their newly won or restored sovereignty to the greater benefit of
their people.
f.
Supporters of any policy which envisages a series of
peripheral wars in Asia in which the United States must continue to pour out
its manpower and resources against Asian armies, yet cannot win any more
decisive victory than to block an individual local aggression, must take into
account not only the human and material cost but also the effects on U.S.
prestige and the psychological impact upon the peoples of Asia. Alternative
"B" will enable the United States to project its power into Asia while at the
same time avoiding the types of situations, both military and political,
which tend to turn the tides of Asian sentiment against the United States and
the West.
g.
The Latin American states will feel that the proposed
policy improves the possibility of inhibiting new Soviet aggression and thus
increases the security of the Western Hemisphere. They would not be called
on to take military action unless a Soviet attack took place within the area
specified by the Rio Treaty of 1947.
8.
Alternative "B" may improve the ability of the satellites to
resist complete integration into the Soviet power-system.
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a. The first impact of the proposed policy will probably
be to discourage pro-Western elements within the Soviet Bloc. It will seem
to thom that the United States has again "recognized" the "right" of the
Soviet Union to control these countries. The elements of latent opposition
probably feel that, the more successful the West is in postponing or pre-
venting a general war, the more remote in time is the prospect of liberating
their countries from Soviet control,
b. However, the U.S. Government will not be establishing a
new policy toward the satellites, for it has never stated that it proposed
to initiate military action to liberate them from Soviet control. It will
continue tc stress their right to freedom and to work by all non-military
measures for their liberation.
C, The proposed policy will not inhibit the United States
from taking action to support a satellite that, like Yugoslavia, is suc-
cessful in breaking away from the Soviet Bloc, especially if the new govern-
ment appeals to the United Nations, The United States will retain a free
hand to act as the circumstances existing at the time required, possibly
by redefining the Free World periphery which the U.S.S.R. cannot cross with-
out general war to include the country in question.
d. In the long run, it may prove more useful to the captive
peoples if the United States sets forth frankly the limits of its policy.
False hopes of early U.S. military action have repeatedly led to the exposure
and destruction of valuable elements of resistance; any American policy which
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alternately holds out hopes and destroys them must have that result.
e. Under Alternative "B" the peoples of the Soviet Bloc will
know that they must adapt their plans to the prospect of an extended co-
existence between the Free World and the Soviet world, unless there is an
unexpected rapid deterioration in the latter. Pro-Western elements in ad-
ministration, in industry, in cultural life and even in the Communist parties
will know what they must do in order to survive and to take part in their
liberation in case a general war breaks out,
f. Being almost universally convinced that Soviet policy
will eventually force a general war, the satellite peoples will continue to
count on the eventual restoration of their freedom. Unlike Americans, they
have memories of decades and generations of covert resistance to hated alien
rule and can therefore understand the need for patience and camouflage in
order to conserve their latent strength for the day of ultimate liberation.
Since they are doubtful of the ability of the United States to defeat the
Soviet Union in peripheral wars and are confident of its ability to win a
general war, their will to resist Sovietization will be hardened by the
adoption of Alternative "B". They will also know that a general war will
strike directly at the center of Soviet power; it makes it less probable that
their homelands will be devastated by large-scale land warfare and more prob-
able that they will be able to contribute effectively to their liberation.
g. If Soviet peripheral aggression brings on a general war,
the liberation of the satellites becomes automatically a direct aim of U.S.
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policy. Both the Soviet leadership and the peoples of the satellites under-
stand this perfectly. Meanwhile, the fact that U.S. power is available to
restrain Soviet ambitions may force the Soviet leadership to treat its
satellites somewhat less ruthlessly and may even enable the satellite Com-
munish leaders to exercise some degree of bargaining power in their dealings
with Moscow.
? Alt ernative "B" offers the best chance of deterring Communist
China from renewed aggression,
a. While Communist China is not a satellite in the helple SS
status of Poland OK Hungery, neither is it a political entity completely
independent of the U.S.S.R. The Soviet leadership will act to control the
actions of Communist China if it is convinced that this is necessary in order
to avoid the risk to itself of a general war.
b. Since the devastation or conquest of China would not, by
itself, weaken seriously Soviet capacity to wage peripheral wars elsewhere or
to embark on a general war, the Soviet Government would not be much worried
at the risk of a war involving China alone, but would be deeply concerned
over the risk of a general war against itself. A renewed threat of peri-
pheral aggression by Communist China can be for estalled most effectively by
Alternative "B", which makes it clear to the Soviet leadership that a Chinese
Communist attack on a Free World country will be the cause, not of a U.S.
peripheral war against China, but of a general U.S. war of retaliation di-
rected against the Soviet Union,
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c. We must recognize that this U.S. policy, initially at
least, will bind Communist China more closely to the Soviet Union. At the
same time, it gives to the Soviet leadership the maximum incentive to in-
hibit any new peripheral aggressions by China. No direct strategic or
political pressure which the United States can exert on China offers an
equally strong opportunity to prevent further peripheral aggressions by Com-
munist China,
do So long as Communist China has better prospects of achiev-
ing its basic aims through close cooperation with the Soviet leadership than
through conciliation of the United States, it will continue to work with
Moseow and against the United States. Ariong Communist Chinese aims are:
reopening of trade with the non-Soviet world, full membership in the U.N.,
occupation of Formosa and elimination of the Nationalist regime as a poten-
tial competitor, domination of Korea, annexation of Hong Kong, neutralization
of Japan as a prelude to making it into a satellite, establishment of Com-
mund.st regimes in Indo-China, Thailand, Burma, Malaya, Indonesia and the
Philippines, and assistance to Indian Communists in establishing a Communist
India. Only the first two of these aims - reopening of trade and membership
in the U.N. - are compatible with the interests of the Free World. The entire
roster of Chinese Communist aims is fully compatible with Soviet aims, leav-
ing to one side the question, of no practical significance at present, whether
too many successes by China would tend to raise its bargaining power within
the Sino-Soviet partnership.
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e. China's desire to reopen trade with the Free World is
not a strong enough factor in itself to lead its government to make polit-
ical concessions or to relax its expansionist ambitions. Both Russia and
China believe that the West needs their trade and that competing capitalists
will sooner or later vie with each other to trade with them. Alternative "B"
will make it clear to Moscow and Peiping that they cannot rely on commercial
competition to destroy the political unity of the Free World in its resist-
ance to aggression and will therefore make it safer for the Free World to
reopen trade in non-strategic goods. Reopening Free World trade with China,
under the political situation thus created, would improve China's bargaining
power in its dealings with the Soviet Union and might, over time, convince
the Chinese Communists of the desirability as well as the necessity of
abandoning their expansionist aims and of asserting their independence of
the Soviet program of conquest. Alternative "B" does not promise this se-
quence of desirable events, but it does most to encourage this line of
development.
f. If Communist China becomes restive in its unequal part-
nership with the Soviet Union, it may decide to pursue separate interests
of its OWLIO But it is not likely to undertake armed aggression in defiance
of the U.S.S.R. If the Chinese Communists decide to free themselves of
Soviet dominance in the foreseeable future, they will see several ways of
doing so less dangerous for themselves and more profitable for China than
provoking the U.S. to general war by armed attack across the Free World
periphery.
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g. Differences of interest between the two regimes exist
potentially, but are far less effective at present than those interests and
ambitions which bind them together. Probably the best way at this time to
make these potential frictions useful to the Free World and to promote ulti-
mate separation of China from Soviet leadership is to ignore them, to treat
the Chinese Communists as Soviet satellites, to hold Moscow as well as Peiping,
responsible for any aggression by Communist China, and thus to maximize fric-
tions between them, while inhibiting both from pursuing their common aims
through aggression.
10, Alternative "B" offers the possibility of attaining or main-
taining solutions of the Tresently active peripheral conflicts in Korea and
Indo-China,
a. If the conflict in Korea is stabilized, either by truce
or political settlement, Alternative "B" provides a means whereby the border
separating the Republic of Korea from the Soviet Bloc can be guaranteed by
the warning of general war. Such a warning will provide security to South
Korea wi thout the assumption by the United States of an obligation to defend
South Korean territory on the spot, and it should make possible the with-
drawal of the bulk of U.S. forces from Korea. If the United States has
already concluded, or is committed to conclude, a mutual assistance treaty
with the Korean Government, the warning of general war will be useful in
backing it up.
b. The application of Alternative "B" to the Indo-China
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situation will dispell the present strong possibility of substantial mili-
tary intervention by Communist China, The problem of dealing with the Viet
Minh can then be better assessed by France, by the Associated States, and
by the U.S. Government, and dealt with decisively without fear of meeting
a situation such as developed when the Chinese came into Korea in force.
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C.
ECONOMIC IMPLICATIONS
I. Meeting the requirements both of peripheral wars and prepa-
ration for general war over a Long period places a dangerous strain on the
U.S.
a. Task Force "B" considers the external threst to the very
existence of the United States more important than any internal threat to
its economic and financial stability, even though provision for the effec-
tive defense of the United States in turn depends to an importent degree
upon the maintenance of internal economic and financial stability. Accord-
ingly, the fullest use practicable of the economic resources of the United
States will be necessary to provide for this defense as long as the present
Soviet threat continues. The level of provision of funds for defense will,
however, be importantly conditioned by the willingness of Congress and the
public to bear taxation. This willingness will be affected by the awareness
of Congress and the public of the gravity of the Soviet threat to our national
security.
b. It is of great importance that the resources of the
United States should be used with maximum effect in the provision for defense
needs, so that the likelihood of inflation or of the comprehensive and ex-
treme 'leasures necessary to control inflation may be reduced to the minimum.
C. The continuation of a policy by which we must be prepared
for Korea-type wars all over the world - and actually fight such wars whenever
the Soviet leadership decides to launch them - as well as to prepare to fight
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a general war, and by which we must provide economic and military aid suf-
ficient for a policy of local containment everywhere, will eventually create
unnecessarily great stresses and strains in the U.S. economy. Under such a
policy, pursued indefinitely, both higher taxes and budgetary deficits would
be unavoidable, and comprehensive and rigid economic controls would eventu-
ally be required.
d, All these consequences could be endured and would have
to be endured if they were really necessary to provide for the survival of
the United States. The real economic hazard inherent in an unwise foreign
policy which would impose such heavy expenditures over a long period would
be that such expenditures might leave insufficient resources available to
provide adequately for some vital aspect of national security, such as conti-
nental defense.
e. By introducing clarity and firmness into its position
through Alternative "B", the United States will be able to avoid the uncer-
tainties and dangers inherent in our current foreign policy, as well as the
unnecessary expenditures involved therein.
2.
Removal of the threat of piecemeal Soviet aggression would
enable the United States to employ its resources most effectively for national
and Free World security and to maintain its economic position over the long-
term in the face of growing Soviet economic power.
a. It is not argued that the adoption of Alternative "B"
would enable the United States to decrease the present levels of expenditure
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for national defense. These expenditures may have to be kept at the highest
level practicable for the indefinite future. The proposed policy will, how-
ever, enable us to employ our economic resources more effectively for mili-
tary preparation than at present. Relatively greater economic resources
could be allocated to preparation for waging general war with its accompani-
ment of the development of atomic and other unconventional types of weapons.
Relatively less economic resources need be allocated to preparations for
the defense of areas of little strategic importance. The proposed policy,
moreover, would help to eliminate the peaks and valleys in our defense ex-
penditures now associated with successive crises of threatened or actual
localized aggression by the Soviet Bloc, together with the economic fluctua-
tions engendered thereby.
b. Soviet economic capabilities are probably developing
somewhat more rapidly than our own, although not spectacularlysso. None of
the three alternative policies affords the possibility of altering signifi-
cantly this assumed somewhat greater rate of Soviet economic growth. The
evidence clearly shows, however, that during the next decade the economic
strength of the U.S.S.R. will not nearly attain parity with that of the
United States nor will the relative economic position of the U.S.S.R. improve
to a degree involving an unacceptable risk to the United States. During a
period of this length, in which our own economy continued to remain stable
and to expand, changes in conditions within the Soviet Bloc or in the nature
or attitude of the Soviet regime could significantly reduce the threat which
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Soviet-Communist imperialism now represents.
3.
Adjustment to the situation created by the proposed U.S.
policy would be less easy and less advantageous for the U.S.S.R. than for
the United States.
a. At present the initiative rests with the Soviet Government
in deciding whether, where and when peripheral wars are to be waged. It is
unnecessary for the Soviet Government to prepare for local wars which it does
not plan to wage. Nor does the Soviet Government have to expect peaks and
valleys in public support for armaments expenditures as does the United
States under present policy.
b. If the U.S. Government made it clear that any war which
would be fought would be a general war involving the use of atomic weapons,
it could be expected that the U.S.S.R. without reducing its total military
expenditures would shift more of its economic resources into preparation for
this type of war than would otherwise be the case. However, the gain to the
U.S.S.R. in the precision with which its economic resources could be allocated
would be much less than in the case of the United States, since the reduc-
tion in uncertainty would be so much less. Moreover, traditional Russian
reliance on large land armies and the need for conventional forces to main-
tain control within the Soviet Bloc would act as a brake on such a readjust-
ment.
c. The elimination of peripheral wars would also rob the
Soviet leaders of the advantage they now possess in being able to use the
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resources of a satellite such as China in war against the United States while
conserving Russian resources.
4.
As in the case of the United States, the adoption of Alterna-
tive "B" would enable the other countries of the Free World to utilize their
economic resources to best effect.
a. Under present circumstances, the governments of these coun-
tries know that it is well-nigh impossible to provide a level of armaments'
expenditure great enough to be able to resist Soviet military aggression at
each spot where it may occur so long as the atomic power of the United States
is not invoked. Without the assurance that resistance to aggression on their
part would be accompanied by the application of the full military force of
the United States at points of maximum effect, each country faces the dis-
couraging prospect that preparation for defense may only insure that a long
and perhaps inconclusive war will be fought on its territory. Fortified with
that assurance, and also with the knowledge that the United States had pro-
vided a real deterrent to Soviet attack, they could provide more effectively
for their own defense and would no longer need to feel that they were dissi-
pating their economic resources in trying to reach the unattainable goal of
being able to provide purely local defense against Soviet aggression.
b. It might be argued that if Alternative "B" were adopted
each country would rely simply upon the deterrent effect on the Soviet Union
of such a declaration and refuse to provide for its own defense at all.
This temptation exists, however, for each individual country under existing
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policy. Denmark or the Netherlands, for example, might well argue even now
that nothing they do in the way of preparation for war will have a decisive
effect in determining the outcome of any war in which the United States and
the U.S.S.R. are the principal antagonists. The United States at the present
time can, indeed, appeal to the public conscience of such a country and even
threaten to withhold economic and military aid in order to insure defense
contributions. All these possibilities of persuasion and of sanctions by
the United States to ensure a fair sharing of the burdens of mutual defense
will still st under Alternative "B".
c. The proposed U.S. policy will furnish the temptation to
some countries to demand increased economic assistance from the U.S. There
is no reason, however, why it will be either more necessary or more desirable
to provide increased aid. Actually, taking into consideration the lessened
danger of aggression and the more efficient use of economic resources for
defense, such aid as is rendered should produce more in the way of results
than comparable assistance in the past. Removal of at least part of the
substantial element of fear, which has built up Communist strength in free
countries, should increase the confidence and political stability upon which
economic strength and progress in these countries so largely depend. These
factors should reduce the amount of economic aid the United States will need
to furnish.
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5. Alternative "B" is compatible with some expansion of East-West
trade, but the basic criterion on trade control policies will still be the
balance of advantage to the Free World.
a. The implementation of Alternative "B" does not depend
upon a strengthening of the barriers to East-West trade, since even a complete
severance of such trade would not prevent, though it would hamper somewhat,
the progress of Soviet armament. Furthermore, short of conditions or all-
out war total severance of trade would be completely impracticable,
b. The adoption of the proposed policy will probably have
the psychological effect of increasing pressure from our allies for the
relaxation of barriers to East-West trade. Some relaxation of controls might
even be proposed by the United States concurrently with the announcement of
the new policy. The reduction in trade now occasioned by these barriers is
an economic cost both to the Soviet Bloc and the Free World. Whether certain
of them should actually be reduced or even eliminated depends upon whether
the Soviet Bloc or the Free World suffers the greater injury by their reten-
tion. This criterion would remain the appropriate touchstone for decision
as at the present time. The elimination of peripheral "shooting wars", how-
ever, would make it possible to decide the desired level of East-West trade
upon a less emotional basis.
D. PRCBABLE SOVIET REACTIONS TO ALTERNATIVE "B".
1. Task Force "B" is convinced that the Scviet leadership desires
to avoid general war, will take the U.S. warning seriously, and will not take
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the risks involved in starting new peripheral wars, at least until such time
as the power equation has become much more favorable to the U.S.S.R. through
such developments as the growth of Soviet atomic power or the disintegration
of the Free World coalition.
2. The Soviet Union is likely to adopt a defensive military
posture, continuing a high level of military expenditure and capital invest-
ment and strengthening the economic self-sufficiency of the Soviet Bloc. It
can be expected to retain sufficient control over its satellites in Europe
and to exert sufficient pressure on Communist China to prevent action by
these regimes which would involve the U.S.S.R. in general war. Fearing
general war, it will retain Soviet and satellite armed forces within the present
Soviet Bloc periphery.
3. The Soviet Union will continue to exploit political and propa-
ganda methods to stimulate friction and disunity within the Free World, in
the hope of disintegrating it. Within the non-Soviet areas, it will use
Communist elements (a) to confuse and divide the Free World, and (b) to prepare
to carry out diversion, sabotage and espionage in case of a general war.
4. The Soviet Union may, however, combine a defensive military
posture with a more offensive political program. It may actively encourage,
by political, economic and propaganda means, the coming into power of pro-
Soviet regimes in politically vulnerable countries situated within the Free
World periphery. It may count on divisions of opinion within the Free World
over what to do about such cases of non-military subversion to assure the
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survival of pro-Soviet regimes without the threat or promise of Soviet armed
assistance. With the sharpened polarization or strategic and political
power between the Soviet and United States centers, the Soviet leadership
will continue to work to transform all forms of anti-American feeling, fed
by social, economic and national discontents, into "neutralist" or actively
pro-Soviet feelings.
5. It is possible that the Soviet leadership may go farther and
decide to offer armed protection to any adjacent Free World country which
may come under the control of a pro-Soviet regime, at the risk of a decision
by the United States to reply by general war, The Soviet Union may reckon
on confusing the issue so as to place the label of aggression on retaliatory
U.S. actions and may rely on the restraining influence of U.S. allies or
freinds to prevent the United States from carrying out the threat of strategic
retaliation. The Soviet leadership would be unlikely, however, to adopt this
course in the foreseeable future unless it believed, correctly or incorrectly,
that it could both survive an atomic war and enlarge its power base decisively.
6, Even though adopting initially a defensive posture, the U.S.S.R.
will be working frantically to achieve atomic plenty, avoiding the risks of
general war until its atomic potential has grown to a point at which it will,
by Soviet calculation, (a) deter the United States from exerting its own
atomic potential, or (b) deprive the United States of the capability of con-
tinuing the atomic war to victory. The Soviet Government may believe that,
with the balance of atomic power thus evened up, the final decision could then
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be imposed, not by the atomic factor, but by its own more powerful conven-
tional forces. At this point, the U.S.S.R. might run great risks of a
mutually destructive general war in order to annex important peripheral
areas of the Free World, to terrorize weaker states of the Free World into
"neutral" or satellite status, to divide the United States from its allies,
and to isolate the United States in the Western Hemisphere or in North
America while it was engaged in absorbing and exploiting the power potential
of Europe, Asia and Africa.
7. The ability of the Soviet leadership, over a considerable
period of time, to carry on successfully this policy of waiting, preparation
and ultimate assumption of great risks and sacrifices, is uncertain. It
would require the indefinite and unrelenting maintenance of present Soviet
psychological pressures. These pressures are based on a remnant of revo-
lutionary enthusiasm grown stale after 35 years even within the top leader-
ship and on the aftermath of defensive counter-offensive national upsurge
against Hitler's unprovoked effort to conquer, destroy or enslave the Russian
people "for a thousand years". Over time, these psychological factors, at
present favorable to Soviet purposes, will lose their force.
8. Finally, it is within the realm of possibility that the U.S.S.R.
will gradually relinquish the active and increasingly risky pursuit of its
program of world expansion. In the past the Soviet leadership has shown con-
siderable flexibility in adjusting its immediate goals to changes in real
and recognized power situations. It would be as wrong to assert that Soviet
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policies and aims will never change over time as to predict the exact nature
of such changes.
9. It cannot be ruled out that internal struggles for power or
other strains on the Soviet regime may bring changes in Russia's posture and
attitudes toward the Free World. Internally, the Soviet system has hardened
into an all-powerful bureaucracy bound together by the exercise and enjoy-
ment of power. Now that the limits of Soviet control have been pushed far
beyond the pre-1939 territorial boundaries, the leadership cannot assume
that the Soviet masses share emotionally and support enthusiastically the
ambition of the rulers to expand their empire still further. As further
expansion is rendered more risky by an American policy which clearly defines
the retaliatory threat of general war, the Soviet leadership will have to
reckon with increasing reluctance on the part of the Soviet peoples to bear
the consequences of its expansionist ambitions and with the latent risk of
losing control over them as a consequence of a partial or complete defeat.
This may lead the Soviet leadership to value more highly the retention of the
power and territory which it has acquired and to measure more realistically
the risk of giving effect to its aims of further expansion.
10. Initially, the Soviet leadership will picture Alternative "B"
to the peoples of the Soviet Bloc as a new external threat of aggressive
encirclement and threatened destruction and will probably succeed in flogging
them into continuing the present level of exertions and sacrifices. However,
over a period of years, the defensive purpose of American policy will become
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