Air University Review July-August 1967

New Dimensions for National Security Planning

Lieutenant Colonel William E. Simons

In what ways has the shaping of national security policy changed during the decade of the sixties? Three quite dissimilar books, published in 1965 and 1966, provide some thought-provoking answers. Although their content, quality, and style differ markedly each projects a significant theme.

American Strategy: A New Perspectives by Urs Schwarz, is an attempt to describe the growth of American strategic thinking in the twentieth century.* The author, foreign editor of a Swiss newspaper, has leaned heavily on the periodical literature, on theoretical formulations of defense policy and arms control, and on a few familiar speeches by government officials. He has made little use of such primary source documents as reports by government study committees or records of Congressional hearings on military programs. As a result, his view of strategy formulation suffers. While the book describes several theories and ideas that have circulated through the strategy literature, it does not present them within an accurate context of realistic strategic alternatives and actual policy decisions.

In many respects, it is a confused book. Its treatment of arms control and disarmament rationale as a component of “strategic doctrine” is troublesome to a reader for whom military doctrine has a specific functional meaning. The author’s use of historical analogies to show traditional influences on more recent American politico-military reasoning displays inadequate understanding of both the strategic realities of earlier periods and the legitimate differences in contemporary political opinion. His attribution to certain writings of major influence on military strategy is often questionable, as in his claim that statements in the July 1950 issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists were “the most significant” in establishing the theme for studies on limited war. The book’s emphasis on words and theories at the expense of decisions and actions leads to distortions of strategic policy, as in his faulting of “massive retaliation” for the lack of U.S. assistance to the French in Indochina but his failing to acknowledge that the same Administration intervened with conventional forces in Lebanon and the Taiwan Strait.

Despite the author’s limited grasp of the dynamics and substance of U.S. strategy, his European background contributes insights which comprise a significant central theme: that whereas for other states the need to preserve one’s security through discouraging aggression has always been real, the concept of preparing or threatening to use military power for international political ends is a relatively recent feature of the American mentality.

Arms, Money, and Politics was written by Julius Duscha, a political and economics reporter for the Washington Post.** His familiarity with governmental processes is amply demonstrated by his exposition and his skillful use of public documents. The Congressional Record and news releases by government agencies comprise his major sources, and his understanding of both their literal and inferential value is quite evident. The book provides good reading and valuable perspective for the military man, although the author frequently displays a robust irreverence for the services’ doctrinal views regarding the need for certain favored weapon systems.

The author’s understanding of Congress and some of its motivations furnishes the book’s main theme. He argues that the so-called “military-industrial complex” does not represent a sinister conspiracy against the public welfare; on the contrary, it is openly supported and exploited by many segments of the public, which benefits directly from continually high levels of defense spending. Recognizing this, he claims, Congress has been reticent to challenge such expenditures, particularly so in contrast to its tightfisted handling of annual outlays for foreign aid, education, and the like.

The author cautions the need for greater restraint in appropriating defense funds and urges cuts in spending to enable more liberal financing of other programs affecting future U.S. security. His principal concern, in this respect, is the possible impact of partial disarmament on our defense-oriented economy. In a particularly provocative chapter (Number 7), he describes and analyzes various motivations for Congressional, military, and industrial resistance to disarmament proposals in general and, in another chapter, to the 1963 Partial Test-Ban Agreement in particular. He urges more objective and serious study of this long-range political and economic problem.

The National Security Council was edited by Senator Henry M. Jackson, who served as Chairman of the Senate subcommittees on National Policy Machinery and on National Security and International Operations.*** It consists of (1) excerpts from the subcommittee staff reports on specific features of our national security machinery, including national security staffing problems at Cabinet level, activities and problems of the National Security Council, the role of the Secretary of State, and the significance of Bureau of the Budget functions; (2) the Chairman’s concluding recommendations; and (3) selected testimony of several prominent witnesses, all resulting from subcommittee hearings conducted from 1959 through 1961.

The book has historical significance, since many of the subcommittee’s interim and final recommendations were implemented by the Kennedy Administration during 1961 and 1962. For example, in the appointment of McGeorge Bundy as Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, 1 January 1961, he was given the task of consolidating the functions of the National Security Council Secretariat and the Operations Coordinating Board and generally simplifying NSC procedures. The position of the Secretary of State was strengthened by assigning his regional Assistant Secretaries and the Department’s Policy Planning Council the responsibility for policy coordination formerly charged to NSC staff divisions. Means of improving mutual understanding and lateral personnel movement among different government agencies were developed, including the creation of a continuous State-Defense officer exchange program. Even though these and other recommended changes have already been incorporated into the national security policy-making machinery, the discussion of basic administrative principles and central policy-making issues has considerable value for the current reader.

Perhaps the most valuable parts of Senator Jackson’s book are the selected testimonies. They contain the views of officials who have been instrumental in shaping our national security policy in recent years—men like Dean Rusk, Robert S. McNamara, McGeorge Bundy, David Bell, and their counterparts in earlier Administrations. Of these, perhaps the outstanding contribution to national security literature is made by the collected views of successive special advisers to the President on foreign and military affairs. Unlike the top officials in State and Defense, the role of these influential figures has seldom been examined systematically. Their descriptions of day-to-day activities provide valuable insights into the evolving processes by which national security policy is formulated.

Taken together, the three books say some rather significant things about national security planning. For one thing, they make clear the fact that national security has become a matter of providing for more than just military defense. The public vitality of the United States and of those nations whose interests are entwined with ours can be threatened by many forces besides aggressive enemies. Economic dislocation, social unrest, political instability, disease, ignorance, and fear of change are equally debilitating, and in some quarters of the globe they are more imminent than the threat of attack.

It is this reality which underlies the predominant concern of Jackson subcommittee witnesses with effective means of coordinating the policies and operations of various government agencies. This reality further explains the consistent recommendation that the Secretary of State, rather than the Secretary of Defense, be given proper recognition and authority as the President’s chief Cabinet-level adviser on national security matters. Of the Cabinet officials, only he “is primarily charged with looking at our nation as a whole in its relation to the outside world.” (Jackson, p. 45) To him falls the responsibility of coordinating the policy planning and operational activities of all national security agencies.

The broadened definition of national security explains also the subcommittee’s recommendations for greater lateral movement of government officials among different agencies. In its view, and that of several witnesses, the officer exchange program existing between State and Defense should be broadened to include at least the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Treasury, Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), and Bureau of the Budget. Eventually, the subcommittee notes, the cross-training and broadened perspectives afforded by such exchanges may point the way toward a more formalized “joint career service” in the area of national security, for specially qualified military and civilian officials.

The practical importance of coordinating the various program plans which contribute to national security is brought into sharp focus by the budgetary process. An expanded role for the Bureau of the Budget in national policy formulation was recommended by the Jackson subcommittee, and the range of decisions necessitated by the budget process was made explicit in the testimony of David Bell: not only must the government decide U.S. weapon and force requirements, but also it must determine the extent to which direct military aid and military outlays are required by our allies. Moreover,

…….budgeting for national security requires us to consider the addition to our security that may be made by contributing to the economic and social development of other countries through foreign economic aid. And, finally, budgeting for national security requires us to consider the underlying strength of our national economy—the requirements of economic stability and growth, and of the skill, education, and morale of our people. (Jackson, p. 208)

Some of the difficulties of budgeting for such a broad range of program expenditures are discussed by Duscha. Of particular note is his recognition of distinct Congressional preferences in authorizing funds for the different program areas. For example, rather superficial questioning of requests for huge military outlays is compared with lengthy examination in minute detail of requests for foreign aid appropriations. The impact of this tendency on the domestic aspects of broadly conceived security interests is also dealt with. In illustrating his philosophy that in bigness there is waste, Duscha speculates on the extent to which funds, resources, and skilled manpower expended on military defense have been diverted unnecessarily from education, transportation, urban renewal, labor retraining, public order, and conservation. It is a timely question in view of President Johnson’s latest State of the Union message, in which he indicates his understanding of the Congressional mind by labeling the requested surtax, “to support the Vietnam war.”

A second significant fact made clear by the books under review is that the formulation of national strategy and defense policy has become an increasingly important part of the nation’s vital political processes. This has occurred with respect to both the substance of policy and procedures shaping it.

Changes in the substance of national military policy have affected the political life of the United States both in the international community and at home. The developing extent of the interaction between U.S. military power and U.S. foreign policy is a main thread running through the Schwarz book. In the years since World War II, American military commitments have ceased being characterized by independent expeditionary forces bent on total destruction of an enemy war machine in the name of moralistic war aims. Much of the fervor attached to earlier concepts of “just” war has been transferred to resisting Communism and to military readiness to oppose aggression. In addition to deterring the major Communist power, the United States has engaged in a number of crisis deployments and limited conflicts to preserve the political integrity of threatened allies. Through regional and bilateral defense arrangements, it has committed portions of its standing military establishment to prolonged service alongside allied units on opposite sides of the globe.

At home, as Duscha points out, the nature of post-World War II military commitments and the weapons on which they depend have brought economic prosperity to some regions of the United States at the expense of others. Certain regions simply have not been successful in the competition for prime contracts in the booming electronics and aerospace defense industries, As a result, these areas have become special targets for electioneering by parties out of power and special focuses for nonmilitary programs sponsored by Administrations in power.

The procedures for shaping military policy have affected our political processes m a variety of ways. One of the major military policy procedures is the annual Congressional appropriation of funds for military research and development, for new procurement, and for the operation and maintenance of existing forces. Decisions on the first two of these budgetary items are closely related to choices among strategy alternatives. As the Duscha book makes clear, this interrelatedness has contributed to vigorous participation in strategy and policy debates on the part of politicians and lobbyists. Defeat for a contending strategy might result in a lack of contracts and a loss of jobs for certain segments of the defense industry. Hence, the advocacy of particular strategies and their component weapon systems has become a regular part of campaign oratory and of legislative debate.

The military services also act as lobbyists for their favorite concepts and weapon proposals. To the extent that they are successful, they can exercise a major impact on the nation’s budgetary commitments for years to come. Once selected, modern weapons require a continuous commitment of funds to feed their necessary numbers into the inventory, to sustain the forces and facilities needed to maintain and operate them, and eventually to modernize them in response to countering capabilities developed by potential enemies. Recognition of this led Senator J. William Fulbright in 1964 to warn (Duscha, p.18):

To the extent that the American people and the Congress shrink from questioning the size and cost of our defense establishment, they are permitting military men, with their highly specialized viewpoints, to make political judgments of the greatest importance regarding the priorities of public policy and the allocation of public funds.

The long-term commitments resulting from weapon and strategy choices have caused the policy planning machinery itself to become the focal point for political debate. The Jackson subcommittee hearings reveal interesting patterns of controversy between spokesmen for Administrations in power and their critics, some of whom later became their successors. Incumbent advisers to both President Eisenhower and President Kennedy seemed to stress that national security policy planning was more effective if accomplished by representatives of departments with operational responsibilities. Critics from outside the Administration currently in power on the other hand, frequently stressed the virtues of independent planning staffs whose members were freed from ties to operating bureaucracies. That the responsibilities of public office may influence attitudes on such issues is illustrated by the views of Walt W. Rostow, whose criticism of interdepartmental committees in the Eisenhower National Security Council figured in the 1960 testimony. Later, after becoming head of the Department of State’s Policy Planning Council, under President Kennedy, he apparently modified his viewpoint. He is reported to have encouraged members of that body to stay abreast of current operational problems, stating:

The great forces which shape the long-run course of diplomatic events are embedded in particular decisions, addressed to immediate, short-run circumstances…¹

The necessity for coordinating several different national security programs and the additional complications injected by foreign and domestic politics accentuate a third fact brought out by these volumes: Our national interests and objectives must be clarified and understood to a greater degree than ever before. Among the national security tasks listed in its concluding statement, the Jackson subcommittee assigned first position to “defining our vital interests” and developing a clear set of objective priorities. As the statement explains, “Unless our top officials are in basic agreement about what is paramount for the national interest—what comes first and what comes second—there is bound to be drift and confusion below.” Furthermore, as Schwarz argues, the likelihood that technological developments for the foreseeable future will not alter the strategic environment tends to give the policy-maker the leading role. Since technology seems likely to improve only upon existing capabilities, the challenge will be to put the wide range now available to better use. This “enable[s] the planner on the highest level to ask first, ‘What do I want to achieve?’” (Schwarz, p.129. Italics added.)

The value of these three books derives not only from what they say but also from the kind of thought that they tend to provoke. When their main themes are viewed in the light of problems associated with the Vietnam war, the potentialities for nuclear proliferation, the recent European initiatives for improved East-West relations, and the potential revolution in intercontinental transport, the likelihood of a critical re-examination of U.S. national security policy becomes apparent. Indeed, such a review seems to have been initiated in the recent hearings conducted by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In anticipation of post-Vietnam circumstances, a reappraisal of policy may well stress improvement of its viability for the long haul, as was emphasized in the post-Korean period.² In any event, the problems discussed below seem worthy of consideration.

In the past, considerable thought and energy have been devoted to coordinating the policies and program plans of various agencies contributing to the national security effort. Much additional work is needed to coordinate the implementation of these policies in the field. For example, despite the excellent concept of “country team” operations, there is considerable room for improvement in the field integration of military assistance, foreign economic aid, and technical assistance for nation building. To carry out these programs, the U.S. government has set in motion at various historical intervals several different agencies. Though they perhaps seek common objectives in each country where they serve, they nevertheless operate according to different perceptions of what needs to be done, according to their respective professional training and their particular bureaucratic constraints. Moreover, they often operate with different levels of budgetary support, as a result of which some exist with little sense of program security and with serious problems of personnel discontinuity.

Early U.S. activities in South Vietnam illustrate some of the difficulties. During the Diem era, CIA and regular military assistance programs operated side by side, the former aiming to improve the internal security apparatus through the training of police officials and the latter strengthening the army through training in conventional military equipment and tactics. The initial program to train unconventional counterinsurgent forces was also conducted by the CIA, among the Montagnards. Later, similar training was provided for Vietnamese Special Forces units by U.S. Army advisers. In the meantime, while increasing amounts of economic and technical assistance were being dispensed for nation-building purposes through International Co-operation Administration (ICA) and, later, Agency for International Development (AID) channels, the bulk of the Vietnamese armed forces continued to receive conventional military training from their advisers. One ironic result saw military and economic resources that were increasingly necessary for Diem’s strategic hamlet and rural pacification programs being consumed inefficiently by Vietnamese province chiefs whose basic orientation was toward conventional military methods and objectives.³

Similarly conflicting programs are possible today in other recipient countries because of the multifaceted nature of our national security activities. Problems of coordination are particularly acute with regard to military assistance, a program with a rather complex structure. Though specified in law as competitive for support “with other activities and programs of the Department of Defense” (Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, Sec. 504B), military assistance is budgeted and reviewed in Congress as an element of foreign policy. As with other foreign aid, responsibility for determining its value to a particular country rests with the Secretary of State, who also reviews regional program plans to ensure their compatibility with U.S. policy. In actual practice he has delegated the authority to perform these functions to the AID Administrator. However, the Secretary does not control military assistance operations in the field. The training of recipients of U.S. military equipment and the determining of equipment requirements are administered by the Department of Defense, through the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The JCS develop program priorities and recommend the strategic and military force objectives to be achieved in particular regions and countries. Through the appropriate unified commanders, they also establish and supervise the Military Advisory Assistance Groups (MAAG) that conduct the training of foreign military forces.⁴

Under the unified commanders, the training and weaponry dispensed through most MAAG’s tend to be managed as part of theater-wide military preparations, oriented to the strategic assumptions of the cold war. This tendency and the structural features described give MAAG staffs an operational style that is not always compatible with that of other members of the country team. In several countries, MAAG chiefs command training staffs of hundreds, who are selected primarily for their proficiency with the conventional arms and equipment and the military techniques that receive primary instructional emphasis. Since the MAAG chiefs are answerable directly to the unified commands for the contribution which their programs make to regional defense, this instruction may be subjected to extensive formalized supervision in an effort to ensure its adherence to prescribed standards. Efforts to prepare host military organizations for assisting in the alleviation of internal conditions that encourage political and social instability may get short shrift. Among MAAG-type programs, notable exceptions are found in the military missions to Latin American countries; the Southern Command focuses its training efforts primarily on the complementary tasks of civic action and counterinsurgency.

Even in countries receiving considerable U.S. support for nation-building efforts, few embassies conduct extensive field operations. Few receive manpower and program budgetary support comparable to the MAAG organizations. Small embassy staff groups work in specialized functional areas, where their activities consist primarily of reporting on conditions, analyzing problem areas, and recommending program needs. Apart from Vietnam, economic and technical assistance field teams are modest in size. There is little in the way of a staff supervisory structure, and the operations are highly dependent on the approach taken by individual advisers. The concern of these nonmilitary elements of the country team is for local stability requirements, based on study of the political, economic, and military problems of a particular nation. The differences in style of operating between these country teams and a MAAG make coordinated control over all their operations a goal that is seldom achieved.

If coordinating the efforts of a variety of executive agencies is difficult, determining an effective role for the Congress in the pursuit of broadly defined national security interests also presents a challenge. Control of the purse strings for the different implementing agencies will continue to give Congress a strong influence over national security programs, but the traditional method of reviewing most agency programs in separate committees places limits on that body’s ability to evaluate the overall national security effort in full perspective. Furthermore, Congressional investigatory powers are not normally called into play until programs the Congress has supported give evidence of falling short of their initially stated goals. By this time an agency may have developed considerable inertia through its field operations and its bureaucratic relationships.

To the extent that civilian control over national security policy is viewed as being exercised through elected representatives in the legislative branch, this tradition may be in jeopardy. Moreover, the degree of control exercised may become less a result of overall policy judgment and more a reflection of the political motivations of individual committee memberships. That different Congressional committees are characterized by different attitudes toward equally significant aspects of our national security program has been illustrated in the controversy concerning the value of bombing North Vietnam. In a press conference on 24 February 1967, Secretary McNamara explained how apparent differences of viewpoint between himself and Secretary Rusk had resulted from their requirement to respond to different groups in the Congress. Some of the most vigorous advocates of harsher measures sit on the armed services committees of both houses, while several of the senators most vocal in urging cessation of the bombing are members of the Foreign Relations Committee. When different committee views are reflected in appropriations judgments for particular agencies, an assortment of national security programs that is not wholly in accord with overall national policy becomes a distinct possibility.

To call attention to problems such as these is obviously far easier than to propose solutions. Indeed, after the careful study which these issues require, some of the concerns expressed here may be found quite inappropriate. For example, is civilian legislative control a realistic operational principle in an era when the formulation and implementation of policy require the full-time efforts of trained professionals in a variety of areas? Is a carefully integrated, master national security policy necessarily advantageous in a world characterized by such dynamics as the erosion of former alliance systems, the spread of sophisticated weapons, the thrust toward national independence, and the conflict between ideology and pragmatism as a guide for national conduct? In our assistance to other nations, is regional planning under a unified commander or coordination of country team efforts by an ambassador any more effective than a system encouraging pragmatic opportunism on the part of local U.S. field teams? The three books under review do not attempt to resolve these dilemmas, but it is evident that such questions were in the minds of the authors as they wrote.

Had these volumes been written more recently, they would perhaps have raised yet another question: To what extent has the increasingly elaborate apparatus for shaping national security policy been equipped to reflect the public will? How the public views the relationship between such policy elements as economic aid, military assistance, and direct U.S. military commitment could have an important bearing on Congressional actions in particular. As the conflict in Vietnam illustrates, the choices between such elements may not always be clear at the time when vital decisions are necessary. Yet those whose sons and treasure would be consumed in any direct military involvement have vital interests and viewpoints that ought to be reflected in future national security policy judgments.

Santa Monica, California

*Urs Schwarz, American Strategy: A New Perspective (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1966, $4.50), xiv and 178 pp.

**Julius Duscha, Arms, Money, and Politics (New York: Ives Washburn, Inc., 1965, $4.50), 202 pp.

***Henry M. Jackson (ed.), The National Security Council (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1965, $5. 95), 306 pp.

 

 

Notes

1. Quoted in R. G. Colbert and R. N. Ginsburgh, “The Policy Planning Council,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, XCII, 4 (April 1966), 80.

2. See Glenn H. Snyder, “The ‘New Look’ of 1953,” in Schilling, Hammond, and Snyder, Strategy, Politics and Defense Budgets (New York: Columbia University Press, 1962), pp. 386-491.

3. CIA activities in South Vietnam were reported by Peter Grose in the New York Times, 5 October 1964.

4. See Harold A. Hovey, United States Military Assistance: A Study of Policies and Practices (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1965), pp. 138-45.

Contributor

Lieutenant Colonel William E. Simons (USNA; Ed.D., Columbia University) is assigned to the RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, California, as a research associate. He served as squadron adjutant and Assistant Installations Engineer, Selfridge AFB, Michigan, 1950-51; Personnel Services Officer, Selfridge AFB, to September 1952; student, Squadron Officer School and Columbia University, to February 1954; staff member, Air Force Institute of Technology, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, to January 1956; Wing Supervisor of artic survival training, NCO management training, and OJT, Thule AFB, Greenland, to December 1956; Assistant Professor of History, U. S. Air Force Academy, to June 1962; and Planning and Programming Officer, Deputy Directorate of Advance Planning, DCS/Plans and Operations, Hq USAF. Colonel Simons has written a book, Liberty Education in the Service Academies (1965), and numerous articles for professional journals.

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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