Preparing for the Unexpected: The Need for a New Military Strategy
The U.S. military establishment is at a historic turning point. It can continue with the same strategy that has dominated its thinking, training and procurement for the past 32 years. That is a concept of prepared defenses and predeployed forces in Europe and in Korea, along with forward-deployed naval forces, on the assumption that being ready for those requirements will automatically be adequate for whatever other contingencies may arise.
Admiral Stansfield Turner, USN (ret.), was Director of Central Intelligence from 1977 to 1981. Previously, he was Commander in Chief, Allied Forces Southern Europe, and President of the Naval War College, among other positions. Captain George Thibault, USN, is Chairman of the Department of Military Strategy at the National War College. The views expressed in this article are personal, and do not imply Department of Defense endorsement of factual accuracy or opinion.
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One vital benefit which is struggling to emerge from the prolonged debate about President Reagan's military budget proposals is a recognition that this country and its NATO allies have until now, incredibly, lacked a meaningful and coherent strategy of defense against the Soviet Union. Appreciation of this fact may not yet fully have penetrated the Pentagon or been recognized by Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger. But it does appear to have reached the White House. The first indication of this came in a little noticed but potentially vastly important statement made by William P. Clark, the President's National Security Adviser, at Georgetown University last May 20. Our new strategy, he declared, would include "diplomatic, political, economic and informational components built on a foundation of military strength." In a limited application of this concept, he noted that "We must force our principal adversary, the Soviet Union, to bear the brunt of its economic shortcomings."
What wise men had promised has not happened. What the damned fools predicted has actually come to pass," exclaimed Lord Melbourne during one of the British politician's fits of exasperation over the situation in Ireland. Well, viewing the post-World War II course of Soviet-American relations, one is tempted to echo the nineteenth-century statesman's sentiments.
"The unity of the Alliance is the basis of any successful relationship with the East." The converse of this remark by President Reagan also holds true: agreement in the Alliance on policy toward the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, as well as agreement on political, economic and military strategy: this is the basis of the Alliance's cohesion and its ability to act.
