Air University Review, September-October 1969
Ever since the United States became involved in Vietnam, the strategy being followed has been debated from every conceivable angel. The hue and cry often reached deafening proportions, with the press pointing the blame in all directions but specially demanding what the military devise a new strategy. These demands carried the connotation that the military was responsible for the strategy that failed. In rebuttal, a few voices (mainly military) pointed out that it was a civilian strategy, devised by civilians and executed by civilians, to include control of the smallest detail of military operations.
As in most debates, there is a bit of truth on each side. Perhaps more time must pass before the facts can be objectively sifted, coldly analyzed, and translated into irrefutable conclusions by the Toynbees, Tolstois, and Morisons of the future. But what are the historians of the future likely to find in their search for facts upon which to base analyses? What will the periodicals of today tell them? How are they likely to categorize the personalities involved, their philosophies, the forces at play, the authority in contention, and the decisions made?
In one arena, the military, the events have been so continuous, so open, so widely publicized in the journals of the world that the play and counterplay of military forces, their subtle application in the power struggle, their threatened use, their actual use, hardly need the jelling process of time to make sense. Thus historians of the future are likely to view today’s events in the military arena much as we now do. They are likely to find that there has been a pattern, a sense of direction, a thread that traces its course throughout the period of war and near war in which we live.
They are likely, for instance, in researching the current debate on strategy in Vietnam, to find that the military does have legitimate contentions that the strategy being followed is largely a civilian strategy and that the controls imposed by civilian authority have been restrictive on military operations. The historian will also find, however, that the military is far from blameless. The basic strategy, the strategy of flexible response, the strategy of gradualism, was promoted and sold to civilian authorities by responsible military men. A quick review of the journals of the years 1955 to 1961 should dispel any doubt that General Maxwell Taylor was the principal architect of the strategy of flexible response. This is well documented, and no analysis or conjecture will be required by future historians to set down as fact that General Taylor tried to sell his concept when he was a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; that he was unsuccessful; that General Eisenhower, then President is reported to have used the word “parochial” to describe Taylor’s feelings; that General Taylor left the Joint Chiefs and wrote a book; that he continued to promote his concept; that President Kennedy recalled him to active service. Perhaps President Kennedy had already decided on flexible response and simply sought out General Taylor in order to obtain support and give his strategy a military flavor. But this is conjecture which is best left to the future historian.
It is not historical conjecture, however, that President Kennedy, by selecting the strategy of General Taylor, in effect accepted advice outside the active, organized military establishment, outside his principal advisers, the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In fact, this same body of military men had rejected General Taylor’s concept. President Eisenhower, Supreme Commander during World War II, rejected it. Yet the rejected concept suddenly became national policy. Historians have no choice but to view this as fact.
Historians will only be able to speculate, however, whether the Joint Chiefs of Staff as a corporate body would have recommended that flexible response should have been announced as U.S. strategy. Most certainly, there is evidence in the journals of the time that the Joint Chiefs wholeheartedly supported such a strategy; but supporting a decision once it has been made is quite different from recommending the decision. History will undoubtedly conclude, therefore, that the military cannot disown entirely any responsibility for a concept of fighting a war that by all standards has been found wanting in Vietnam.
Why the strategy of flexible response has been found wanting is not such a moot question to the historian as the debate implies. Some of the reasons for the predicament of Vietnam become apparent if the concept of flexible response is analyzed in the light of historical events leading up to flexible response and its impact on the enemy. How did the potential enemy view this shift in U.S. policy? Did his subsequent actions reveal his views as to our intentions in relation to possible actions he might take? What were his conclusions as to what might happen to him, what risks he could take?
The historian must ask these questions in the light of the basic U.S. objective. This objective, from a historical point of view, has been and always will be to deter war and, hopefully, to eliminate war as an instrument of national policy. In this light, the historian must also recognize that the strategy to deter war is quite different from the strategy to fight a war once it starts. One strategy involves what the potential enemy thinks is likely to happen to him, while the other is what actually does happen. Flexible response by its very nature is associated with the latter—how to fight a war after it starts. The whole concept revolves around the theory that, in the nuclear age, wars must be managed and kept within acceptable nonnuclear limits. To the historian this may well be considered the first flaw in the concept of flexible response, or at least the official announcement that U.S. policy would be based on such a concept may be so considered. The historian will ask himself: Did not the announcement of such a concept remove some doubts the aggressor had as to what might happen to him? Did not the announcement carry with it the suggestion that the U.S. was attempting to find an acceptable strategy for war somewhat short of a nuclear strategy? Did this not, in turn, carry with it the deep, significant implication that the United States believed that nonnuclear war was inevitable? Analyzed in this light, in the light of the enemy reaction, the announcement that flexible response would be U.S. policy could have no other effect than to convince would-be aggressors that the U.S. was weakening its deterrent, that the risks of aggression were not as great, that caution was not so important.
The historian will find that until the concept of flexible response became U.S. policy many people firmly believed that considerable progress had been made toward reducing the likelihood of war. This hope of progress was based on the apparent fact that the existence of a capability for nuclear warfare was sufficient to deter war, to make it unthinkable, to eliminate it as an instrument of national policy.
In reviewing history as it pertains to the philosophy of deterrence, a historian may find in the annals of time that the facts are quite clear. He will find that at the end of World War II the United States reduced its military capability to the point of impotence. The Soviet Union initiated no corresponding reduction. As a result, her strength in conventional forces vis-á-vis that of the United States became overwhelming. The United States was confronted by a situation in which the few nuclear weapons available for use against the Soviet Union would certainly wreak havoc, but the number might not be sufficient to prevent the Soviet Union from overrunning Europe. Furthermore, there existed in the world and in most segments of U.S. society a moral compulsion against the use of nuclear weapons.
As a result of these factors, the power position of the Soviet Union was sufficiently strong to permit exploitation by the leaders of Communism. Accordingly, Soviet policy and actions during the period of 1946-48 were extremely aggressive and gave every indication that the Soviet Union intended to place all of Europe, and ultimately the rest of the world, under the red banner of Communism. Soviet diplomacy was characterized by naked, often-brutal force, rarely restrained by fear of effective counter action by the United States.
The United States, reacting to this threat and pursuing the objective of “peace through strength” (deterrence), forged a mighty nuclear-capable force, consisting primarily of strategic air power, with which to confront the leaders of the Soviet Union unless they refrained from the use of force to support their plan to communize the world.
The policy of nuclear deterrence was successful. The leaders of the Soviet Union ere deterred from initiating general war. They were also deterred from overt use of their forces in limited war for fear such a war would escalate to nuclear war. Soviet planners, in analyzing U.S. strength, realized that the United States had no alternative except to use nuclear weapons to prevent defeat in limited war. The spectrum of wars likely to occur, therefore, was compressed. The threat of Soviet forces could no longer tip the balance in favor of a Communist take-over. Winston Churchill attested to this fact when he expressed the view that if it were not for the existence of U.S. nuclear power all of Europe would be under Communist domination. The Soviets under the threat of nuclear war were forced to temper their probes against the West. No longer could Soviet diplomacy remain untethered; no longer could the Soviets risk the provocation of direct, overt challenge. Soviet diplomacy was forced to become less inflexible, less daring, more cautious. In fact, the Soviets were forced into a policy of peaceful coexistence, a policy which gave promise that future relations between the Free World and the Communists would become less of a dangerous polarity involving constant risk of war and more of an equilibrium with adherence to diplomatic standards designed to minimize the risk of war—to prevent the casus belli from arising because the consequences of war would be disastrous.
The threat of nuclear war was undoubtedly the major contributing factor to this tempering effect on Soviet diplomacy and Soviet aggressive intentions. The Soviets realized that further aggression by the Communists had to be more covert, less provocative, less discernible—aggression somewhat lower in the spectrum of war. War by proxy appeared to be an acceptable risk, and the invasion of South Korea by North Korea resulted. Here too the challenge was met. North Korea was defeated. The Communists were forced to escalate the war by the introduction of Chinese military units in order to salvage their original position. They never quite succeeded. Shortly thereafter the Communists sought to negotiate an end to hostilities. Many factors undoubtedly influenced the Communists to end the war short of achieving any of the objectives for which the war had begun. Not the least of these factors was the fear that the United States was considering the use of nuclear weapons and threatening courses of action, the logical conclusion of which would be escalation to engulf Communist China.
The war ended, and although there has been constant bickering ever since, the one impression that was created, the climate of opinion that has endured, is that the United States would not go through another experience similar to Korea. No longer would the United States respond with undue restraint to aggression by China or her proxies. No longer would sanctuaries be respected. No longer would the United States lean over backward to keep the war from escalating to the use of nuclear weapons. The U.S. would use all of its power if a situation like Korea erupted again. This impression was not lost on the Communists, and the tactic of direct overt invasion of one small nation by a Communist satellite was discarded. The spectrum of war was compressed further. The Communists were forced further down the scale to find a type of aggression that was acceptable, not so risky as to provoke U.S. counteraction, not too sophisticated (so as to circumvent U.S. technological superiority), and, most important, a type of war in which the U.S. threat to use nuclear weapons would not be credible.
At about the same time that the Communists were searching for new ways to expand their system by force, the United States, having just concluded an election which resulted in a change in administration, suddenly announced that flexible response would become U.S. policy. In essence, the new policy as reported in the press of 1961 contained two main points:
First, the policy of nuclear response would serve primarily as a deterrent to all-out general war. Second, aggressions short of general war should be deterred by creating powerful, balanced forces that could be used in flexible combinations. Response to aggression should be with only the amount of force needed to stop the aggression.
Analyzed in relationship to history, analyzed as to its impact on the enemy and its impact on the basic U.S. policy to deter war, to eliminate war, the announcement couldn’t have come at a worse time. To a historian analyzing events in the perspective of past United States policy, the sudden shift from an announced policy of massive retaliation to one of flexible response was an open invitation for the enemy to calculate U.S. intentions and determination accurately. The shift told the Communists things that many people believed would reverse the desirable trend toward less daring, more cautious action which had compressed the spectrum of war to a very low order. The flexible response policy was an invitation to disaster, an invitation to the enemy to test the policy. The policy of nuclear retaliation, on the other hand, had inhibited him from trying something for fear that the response would be overwhelming.
History will reveal that, during the Eisenhower years when this country followed an announced policy of massive retaliation, we were in reality following an unannounced policy of flexible response. The historical events of Lebanon, the Taiwan crisis, action in Laos, Vietnam, and Berlin—all support this view. In other words, this country followed a grand strategy involving a policy within a policy—one political, the other military. It was an overall political strategy to deter war, to prevent war, to eliminate it as an instrument of Communist policy. It was a military strategy of response according to our desires, entirely unpredictable to the enemy.
In the light of history, there is no contention that it does not make sense to pursue a policy of flexible response. But many people believe that it did not make sense for the President to announce such a policy. Announcing to the world that the U.S. would follow flexible response only served to weaken the U.S. deterrent by informing the enemy that the political or grand strategy was being subordinated to the military strategy. Our sudden shift could only mean that we were concerned with finding an acceptable strategy to fight a war once it began, rather than a strategy to deter war. We were in effect saying that war cannot be eliminated as an instrument of national policy; that war is an acceptable policy if the fighting is kept within manageable pro-portions.
This “managed war” theory was also saying more. For one thing, the theory presupposes that either side may accept defeat, even to the extent of losing large numbers of men and great quantities of materiel, rather than using all its available power, if necessary, to avoid defeat. The theory also presupposes that one of the contending parties will seek to negotiate before the scope and intensity of the combat escalate into a war of great magnitude. And the theory presupposes that both sides are willing to fight to a draw or that one side is willing to accept a limited defeat both in combat and in the negotiations which follow.
In regard to the effect on the enemy, is not such a theory self-defeating? By accepting war as inevitable, do we not invite it? Does not acceptance of the nonnuclear, flexible response theory only serve to convince the Communists that the United States does not plan ever to use nuclear weapons? And does this not in turn encourage the enemy to begin a war, knowing the restraints imposed offer a gamble at odds favorable to him? History tends to support this conclusion. Since the announcement of the policy of flexible response, Communist probes have been bolder and more aggressive. Witness the Berlin wall, the subsequent Berlin Crisis, Cuba, the Dominican affair, Vietnam, and lately the Pueblo incident. Ironically, the Cuban crisis was resolved not by the threat of flexible response but by President Kennedy’s threat of retaliatory nuclear attack on the Soviet Union itself.
History, therefore, is likely to conclude that previous U.S. actions in confronting the U.S.S.R. in Europe, in meeting the challenge in Korea, in the Taiwan crisis, in Cuba, and in other incidents forced the Communists to choose less intense, less provocative, less overt forms of aggression. The specter of likely defeat in major war or the risk that limited aggression would escalate to major war tempered relations between the Communists and the Free World. War, therefore, was less likely. The casus belli was missing, and there existed a hope that war between major powers could conceivably be eliminated as an instrument of national policy.
The concept of flexible response and the manner in which it is being applied in Vietnam appear to reverse this trend. The fear is that Vietnam has convinced the Communists that the United States is willing to engage in conventional operations of considerable magnitude, to impose self-restraints, and to use less than its full power against an aggressor. The Communists can rightfully conclude, therefore, that the need for caution in diplomacy and in the use of force to support political objectives has been lessened because the consequences of miscalculation have been diminished. The policy of flexible response as a deterrent to the cautious probe, the disguised internal uprising, the undiscernible coup de main is not credible!
Whether our preoccupation with flexible response has placed the United States government in a position from which it can never return to a strategy of dynamic deterrence only the enemy knows and only history will reveal. It can be argued that the deterrent to the cautious probe has been destroyed by the prolonged nature and magnitude of the war in Vietnam. It can also be argued, and history will tend to prove, that the theory of flexible response has not been applied as the theory intends. The concept of flexible response requires the response to be rapid and in such strength as to quickly restore the situation to the previous status quo. The enemy should not only be stopped, he should be confronted with such overwhelming force that he cannot pursue his original course of action successfully and therefore will abandon the effort, returning to his original position. In other words, the enemy must not be permitted to escalate at a pace within his capability and resources. This mode of flexible response has not been applied in Vietnam. On the contrary, U.S. escalation has been gradual and at a pace the enemy can match; hence, the term “gradualism,” the connotation of which is a violation of the concept of flexible response.
But there is reason to believe that Ho Chi Minh would never have initiated action in Vietnam had he vaguely suspected that U.S. determination would escalate the war to its current magnitude. There is also reason to believe that this lesson has not been lost on other would-be aggressors. If Vietnam is a lesson to the world that the United States is willing to escalate—indeed will escalate in order to prohibit the aggressor from achieving his objectives—then we have taken a major step toward a return to a strategy of dynamic deterrence. This willingness to escalate is the key to deterring future aggressions at the lower end of the spectrum of war. This, I think, is why history will be kind to President Johnson and Secretary of State Rusk, because if we continue to stand firm in Vietnam as they advocated, then the world will have made incalculable progress toward eliminating war as the curse of mankind. Why? Because any would-be aggressor, the Soviet Union included, must face the inescapable conclusion that the higher a war escalates, the greater will be the military advantage of the United States. The fear of escalation, therefore, is a definite advantage to the United States. It is a tactical advantage in operations. It is a strategic advantage in the political struggle between the Free World and the Communist World because it has a temporizing effect, it creates doubt, it discourages aggression.
If we had failed to stand firm in Vietnam, if we had sought to negotiate at any price, if we had announced, as some wish to announce, that the United States will never again become involved in a war such as Vietnam, then a return to a strategy of deterrence would be well-nigh impossible. Progress toward eliminating war would have been slowed. From the long-range point of view, our willingness to escalate to forestall success by the enemy, our willingness to continue fighting rather than accept a disguised defeat at the Paris peace talks, and the determination we have shown are the only means of salvaging what was almost lost by the 1961 decision to announce a strategy of flexible response, a strategy of how to fight rather than how to deter war.
Bolling Air Force Base, D.C.
Colonel William C. Moore (USMA) is Chief of Staff, Headquarters Command USAF, Bolling AFB, D.C. After flying training and B-24 transition, he joined the 494th Bomb Group, spending the last year of World War II in the Pacific Theater, where he commanded the 867th Bomb Squadron. Postwar assignments have been as Director of Statistical Services, Fourth Air Force, 1949; as Commander, 29th Troop Carrier Squadron, Germany, during the Berlin Airlift; Chief, Combat Operations Center, and Combat Operations Plans Division, Hq Eastern Air Defense Force, 1952; Member, Strategic Plans Group, Joint Chief of Staff, 1956; Director of Requirements, Far Eastern Air Force, Japan, and on the war planning staff, CINCPAC, 1960; as student, National War College, 1961; Director of Operations, 810th Air Division (SAC), 1963; and in Plans and Policy Division, Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE), until joining Headquarters Command, 1966.
Disclaimer
The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.
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