MILITARY DETERRENCE

Will the military balance shift during the remaining years of the 1970's? It's a fact now that the Soviet Union's inventory of modern, highly technical, strategic weapons is approaching, and in some cases surpassing ours, both in quality and in quantity. And, within a few years we can expect that the People's Republic of China will also have the capability of launching ICBM's against targets in the United States.

This change in the balance of power is a major concern to all of us and the threat is continuing to grow. Improvements in Soviet strategic weaponry-- surface, subsurface and air--continue as evidenced by the increasing expenditures of research and development appropriations.

The following excerpts from the Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger amplify the above remarks. In his February 1975 report to the Congress on the FY 1976 Defense Budget and FY 1976-1980 Defense Programs, Secretary Schlesinger stated in part:

"The U. S. Role

"A major issue that we must face as a nation concerns the degree of initiative and leadership that the United States should provide in the face of these global complexities. As a result of events last year in the Middle East, no one can doubt that the world has become truly interdependent and that American citizens remain vitally concerned with its evolution. Clashes in various parts of the world have demonstrated the importance of U. S. diplomatic efforts both to foreign governments and to our own citizens. And we are all aware that we have become vulnerable to nuclear attack. It is also quite obvious that the United States will remain one of only two superpowers for many years to come. For that very reason, however passive and restricted our role in specific situations, we will loom as a major factor in the calculations of other nations, and many of them will seek to involve us in their affairs. Such was the case in the earlier part of this century; it is even more so now.

"But none of these realities mean that we must take initiatives, try to shape the future to our ideals, work toward results favorable to our interests, or forestall unwanted challenges. In principle, at least, a relatively passive policy, a sense of limited liability, and a minimal military posture are alternatives that are open to us.

"Some of our citizens might even find favor in such a role, provided that their own particular oxen were not gored in the process. An active foreign policy implies risks, but so does passivity.

There is no risk-free policy. In the face of uncertainty and a not altogether friendly world, it is more prudent to shape the future by our own actions than to let others do it for us.

"It is also worth recalling that a number of factors, in addition to our diplomatic relationships with the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, have changed during the last generation.

The United States, while remaining the great arsenal and reserve of democracy, has also joined its first line of defense; moreover, it is alone as the superpower of the non-communist world.

It is all well and good to add up the population and gross
national product of the European Economic Community and
pretend that it is a substitute for the United States; but
it will be many years before the nine members of the
Community can act with the unity, coherence, and efficiency
that we command.

In the meantime, despite the promising dialogues begun with the USSR and the PRC, it would surely be unwise to forego the maintenance of a balance of power in critical areas of the world.

"Perhaps all will go well without the maintenance of such balances and the deterrence of hostile acts that go with them. Perhaps we can now depend on the good will of others to preserve the independence and territorial integrity of our friends and the protection of our farflung interests. But we ought not to tempt fate in that particular fashion. That being the case, there is no alternative to a strong defense establishment for the United States as a basis for its continued leadership in the world.

"Moreover, there is little reason why we should expect this requirement to change in the future. Despite our hopes for detente and an end to the cold war, we have been driven out of the Paradise of isolation and noninvolvement which characterized the America of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; and as Thomas Wolfe reminded us in another connection: We can't go home again. No longer can we expect other nations by themselves to man the front

lines of freedom.

No longer can we depend on the strength of our allies to buy us the time to expand our defense production base, to mobilize and deploy our forces, to learn the lessons of the conflict from the mistakes of others, and to turn the tide of war in our favor. The luxury of time and the old role that went with it are gone, perhaps forever.

"In these circumstance, barring the millennium, ready military power will continue to be necessary; without it, anarchy will ensue. As President Ford has pointed out: "A strong defense is the surest way to peace. Strength makes detente attainable. Weakness invites war...." In a volatile world, a credible deterrent capability is essential to our well-being. The real issue thus is hardly one of need; it centers on the types and magnitudes of deterrent forces that we must have.

"The Basis for Planning

"A world in which so many conditions are changing simultaneously makes it difficult to state with precision what those types and magnitudes of forces should be. But as a very great power in the forefront of world politics, we cannot afford to play the accordion with our military posture any longer. As long as interests differ among the powers and competition continues (however muted), we must aim for an economical and stable defense posture that is suitable to the environment and that we can sustain over the long haul.

"The movement toward detente with the USSR and the PRC may seem to suggest that such a posture can be very minimal indeed. Before we reach that conclusion, however, we would do well to remember that where the USSR is concerned, we can reasonably expect:

a relaxation but not an eradication of tensions with the
United States;

-- a move away from the risk of direct military confrontation
with the United States (as long as we maintain our military
strength), but not at the sacrifice of any major interests
as perceived by Moscow;

-- a continued pursuit of and even an increase in the

ideological struggle;

the maintenance of a relatively closed society and a

cloak of great secrecy around the decisions of her
government;

a belief that the atmosphere of detente has arrived because, as the Soviet leadership might put it, the correlation of forces has begun to shift in their favor;

-- the continued allocation of major resources to a strong
and growing military posture, and a singularly persistent
effort to create a balance of military power more favorable
to the USSR.

"With the differences that exist between our own social system and that of the USSR, and with the differences in political and economic objectives, it would be surprising indeed if there were not an extended period of time between the first steps toward detente and the more deeply cooperative relationship to which we aspire. Meanwhile, we must anticipate that moments of cooperation and agreement will alternate with periods of dispute and competition. In such circumstances the risk of confrontation, crisis, and miscalculation will remain present as has been the case in the recent past. No one should be under any illusion about the extent, availability, and readiness of American military power should comparable cases arise in the future. A minimal military establishment will hardly meet the requirements.

"This concern should not be taken as opposition to a reduction in military arms and budgets. On the contrary, the Department of Defense has urged and still urges and encourages progress toward the equitable control and reduction of both strategic nuclear and general purpose forces. Arms control agreements such as the President has initiated at Vladivostok not only remove uncertainties from the process of military planning; they also offer hope of reducing the costs of the arms competition and removing some of the tensions and suspicions that invariably accompany accelerations in the competition. Precisely for these reasons, the Department of Defense supports the earliest possible effort on the part of the United States to lower the currently agreed ceilings on strategic delivery vehicles below 2,400.

"Even as we support and actually desire arms reductions, we must be realistic in our expectations of how much can be accomplished in the near term. The actual removal of all nuclear forces from the

arsenals of the world -- however desirable -- is not something that we can seriously anticipate, and the knowledge of nuclear fission and fusion is likely to be with us as long as the human race survives. This equally obvious but often-neglected prospect also holds true for the general purpose forces where, as yet, we have made little progress in the direction of arms control.

"The main point, however, is that even if we continue to move forward on the arms control front, and even if successive constraints are imposed on the major military establishments, we will still have to engage in force planning within these constraints.

"There are a number of principles that should guide our planning under these conditions.

"First, our forces -- together with those of our allies-- must be a function, not of internal political disputes, but of our needs in light of the capabilities and programs of potential adversaries.

"'Second, we must avoid unilateral reductions in the baseline posture that we consider appropriate to our interests; in a period of transition and uncertainty, reductions should result from international agreement rather than from temporary budgetary exigencies or the impulse to set a good example for the other side.

"Third, we should nonetheless continue to strive for the utmost efficiency in the use of our scarce defense dollars and, as long as our baseline force requirements are not fully met, continue to convert excess overhead and support into increased combat power.

"Fourth, our planning should abide meticulously by the spirit as well as the letter of existing arms control agreements and guidelines; in fact, we should plan toward the Vladivostok goals and our desire for other equitable agreements.

"To proceed otherwise

and particularly to engage in unilateral force reductions will not foster further detente and arms control. Instead it will simply create the kind of weakness that invites miscalculations, probes, tests, and the risk of disaster. Despite frequent use of the term "arms race," the United States has not engaged in the life-or-death competition that occurred among the European powers in the 1930's; and our defense budget, both as a percent of GNP and in its decline (in constant dollars), is a clear reflection of that fact. Indeed, we have been engaged in the rather