GENERAL- - MAS D WHITE CHIEF OF STAFF us AF f lf7 1 II C Mar DATE _ 30 __ _ _59 _ __ MEMORANDUM TO General White Here is a copy of Admiral Burke's letter referred to by Colonel Jennison in his briefing at Vandenberg He does not have a document from which we can quote the Navy's criticizing the Air Force its planned inhuman and indiscriminate bombing of cities and populations I have asked the Secretary's office of Research and Analysis to come up with such a quote if possible from the Ops 23 work in the B-36 controversy of 1949 GSB · ----✓✓ I DEPARnlENT OF THE NAVY OFFICE OF THE CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERAT' ONS WASHINGTON 25 D Co 30 July 1958 CNO PERSONAL LETTER NO 5 TO Retired Flag Officers SUBJECT Pertinent Information SUMMARY OF MAJOR STRATEGIC CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE 1960-70 ERA The loss of the U S r onopoly on high yield nuclear weapons• coupled with Russian advance in long-range delivery systems has created a new situation-in which the classical goals and concepts of military power require modification Military superiority in unlimited war no longer connotes ability to win -- nobody wins a suicide pact Thus all-out war is obsolete as an instrument of national policy Nevertheless such a war can occur either through an irrational act or through rational miscalculation This possibility preempts the first consideration of all who are concerned with the survival of free societies The 'solution' that has received most widespread attention is that of disarmament In the past general disarmament has never promised the worla anything better than an unstable power vacuum From the apparent Soviet eagerness to embrace it disarmament now seems to represent World Communism's chosen quickest route to its standing objective world domination The West has urgent neea to discover a less-illusory solution which accepts t h facts of Soviet capability and hostile intent y1 i leads Lu a mutual cteterrence of all-out war sufficiently stable to survive occasional periods of tension Such a solution must involve a posture of strength if we are to concede no political objectives Yet common sense requires that it not commit us to a never-ending arms race Is it possible consistent with this requirement to stabilize and strengthen nuclear deterrence against the possibility of Soviet miscalculation by unilateral action on our part If so what should that action be To answer these questions we must analyze some of the dangers and weaknesses of our present position The salient features of our current strategic retaliatory forces are 1 their substantial si e 2 their vulnerability - more - ' r' t 1 There are -good historical reasons fer both features In the pre-ICBM era it made some sense to provide ourselves with generous forces additional to the modest forces needed t o all-out attack by threatening major Soviet cities specifically for disarming our opponent or for 'blunting' his attack by striking at his known airfields Also while He held an atomic monopoly we had no cause for concern about our own vulnerability But the coming advent of Russian nuclear-warhead ICBM's sited in locations we can only guess at will render the U S 'blunting' or disarming mission impossible and hence meaningless Unfortunately this does not work both ways since we cannot keep secret the locations of our strategic manned bomber bases and first-generation ICBM sites The vulnerability of these makes it entirely feasible for the Russians to plan a surprise 'blunting' or disarming mission against • As a result we shall soon find ourselves in the new uncomfortable position of relying largely on the of our striking forces to offset their vulnerability Such a state of affairs is obviously a prescription for an arms race and also an invitation to the enemy for preventive-war adventurism For how can we be sure that his calculation of our residual strength after his attack will agree with ours well enough to deter him The possibility of all-out war through miscalculation is all too evident The trouble here is rooted in the vulnerability of our deterrent forces to surprise attack A first order of business therefore is to provide ourselves with striking power as nearly secure against surw ise as ssible When this has been done the invitation to preventive war will be WJ thdrawr The need will vanish for huge U s strategic forces either to offset vulnerability or to disarm the opponent snown above to be a largely futile objective in the coming era · As perhaps the most important pay-off from making our future strategic forces proof against surprise attack we shall also gain time to think in periods of tension The commander of a vulnerable retaliatory system has only minutes from the first radar indication of a possible missile attack to the time when all his installations may be obliterated The indication may be false -- but every minute he delays in tryi i 0 to eval ate it increases the chance that he may never be able to fire But u· our retaliatory forces are invulnerable retaliation will lose this night-marish semi-automatic 'hair-trigger' quality The constant pressure to strike first in order to avoid being disarmed the most dangerous feature of vulnerable striking systems will be eliminated The fleY ib i lity of our retaliatory strategy will also be improved in that we can elect to retaliate gradually instead of instantly We can then apply political coercion if we like to gain national objectives more advantageous than simple revenge - more - - Moreover as increasing numbers of nations come into possession of nuclear weapons the ability to withhold retaliation until we are sure of the identity of our opponent will in the possible event of anonymous attack reduce the chance of mistaken retaliationo Such a chance will always exist if we must retaliate 'instantly' or else risk not being able to retaliate at allo Security of our strategic forces against surprise attack is for all these reasons a necessary objective but we must be careful in the way we go about seeking i to There are two o lys one of which can do as much ha I'in as goodo Th fortress concept of invulnerability to a pre-supposed level of attack involves 'hardening' and active defense of fixed installations that is to say burying them in concrete deep under ground and surrounding them with anti-missile batteries both at tremendous expenseo This concept merely promotes an arms raceo It challenges the enemy in an area endless mass-production of higher-yield more-accurate missiles where he is ready and able to re pond impressivelyo Fortress-busting is always possible since any fixed defenses including all foreseeable anti-ICBM defenses can be overwhelmed by numberso Once embarked on this course we will be committed to build installations a 'ld defenses faster than the enemy can build missiles to knock them outo contrast security against surprise when achieved through mobility and concealment discourages an arms raceo This concept challenges the enemy in an area militar f intelligence where he can clearly be frustrated eogo by submarine or mobile land-based missile systemso Numbers of missiles will avail the enemy nothing if he does not know the location of his targeto We in effect take an initiative which he can overcom only by maintaining hour-to-hour fine-comb surveillance of all our land areas fil il the vast oceanso By To the extent that we rely on the fortress concept to achieve security against surprise we commit ourselves to an eternal strength-sapping race in which tile Soviets have a head starto But we can get off the armsrace treadmill at the starto We can decisively lessen the cbance of allout war through enemy miscalculationo We can do so by adopting for our next-generatio'l rr taliatory systems not merely the broad requirement of 'invulnerability' but through mobility and concealment To avoid needless the provocative over-inflation of our strategic forces their si e should be set by an objective of generous adequacy for deterrence alone i eo for an ability to destroy major urban areas not by the false goal of adequacy for winning - more - When this has been done Soviet recognition of the resulting thermonuclear stalemate can be expected to induce them to vent their aggressions only at lower levels of- conflict than all-out war As a result U S military capabilties for wars of limited objectives and means in the Indo-China Suez or Korean pattern will become more rather than less essential in the age of absolute weapons - i f we are to avoid being 11 nibbled to death 11 The sizeable reductions in strategic forces pemitted by their security against attack i f we elect to procure secure forces of the type discussed above should in time free funds to quild up these badly-needed capabilities for deterring limited wars and also for competing with the Soviets in other areas such as political and economic warfare space travel etc where we now offer them a less-than-maximum challenge