A National Security Agenda for the Second Nixon Administration
Schneider, William Jr.
William Schneider, Jr.: A National Security Agenda for the Second Nixon Administration An essay which dwells on a subject which has not yet come to pass, namely, a second term as president for...
...The habit of dependence on the United States for direct security support can only be changed gradually and carefully, and replaced with an appropriate substitute...
...While the details supporting this assertion are beyond the scope of this essay, suffice it to say that NATO's conventional force posture must soon be revised from one which is primarily defensive (delaying a Soviet conventional assault while the nuclear decision is made) to one where NATO forces are credibly prepared to wage war throughout Eastern Europe if attacked...
...His decisions to conduct military operations in Cambodia in 1970, and in 1972 to bomb and mine North Vietnamese ports in the face of a Vietnik PR-blitz has few precedents in presidential courage and resolve...
...Such a change in basic strategy is necessary if the NATO alliance is to remain a believable military organization over the next decade...
...At the same time, the President should seek a revision in NATO strategy to better coincide with the realities of the U.S.-Soviet strategic balance...
...alliance structure in Asia (including South Korea and the Republic of China) than to the care and feeding of our adversaries...
...Simultaneously, the President should employ the full weight of his office to provide an adequate R & D and procurement mobilization base to permit the United States to vastly expand and modernize U.S...
...The major task for the next four years is to obtain an agreement involving ICBMs and SLBMs (intercontinental and submarinelaunched ballistic missiles) which conforms to the Jackson Amendment (i.e., parity in these systems) to the Interim SALT Agreement on Offensive Weapons before further discussions on any other elements of the strategic equation are considered...
...history, NATO, is in an advanced state of disrepair due to neglect and some malfeasance since the mid-1960s...
...Such care will require more persuasive and determined efforts by the President to assure congressional support for adequate funding of military assistance and related U.S...
...Preparatory discussions in Helsinki will begin on November 22nd for the Soviet-inspired thirty-four nation Conference on European Security and Cooperation (CESC...
...role in the region...
...With regard to Vietnam, President Nixon stands virtually without peer...
...Similarly the NATO focus at MBFR should be upon restrictions on Soviet maneuvers (the preferred Soviet technique for mounting an invasion, such as in Czechoslovakia) and eliminating the Soviet's anti-revolutionary divisions (e.g., the twenty tank divisions in East Germany) in Eastern Europe...
...military alliances...
...withdrawal from serious substantive participation in most, if not all, major U.S...
...forces in the Central Front region should be met with glacial U.S...
...The Vietnam issue is by no means settled, but the manner in which it is eventually settled will have awesome implications for U.S...
...Moreover, the President must assign a higher diplomatic priority to the maintenance of the U.S...
...The second term of the Nixon Administration is especially interesting because of the watershed character of Mr...
...Failure to do so can have very serious near term consequences...
...Nixon's stewardship over several basic national security policy issues in the past four years...
...The consequences of a "disgraceful" settlement in Vietnam requires a policy of facilitating the adjustment of U.S...
...Brandt perceived that the United States would not be willing in the long run to defend Europe from the Soviet Union...
...Should President Nixon win with a margin approaching that attained by Eisenhower, he will have an overpowering mandate to pursue sensible policies...
...This policy is, of course, dominated by the strictures imposed by the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks...
...participation in both conferences does not justify more than the smallest movement in the political seismograph calculating costs and benefits...
...Such a policy has too often been lacking in the first term...
...policy in the region...
...Based upon the contemporary and anticipated capabilities of U.S...
...6, No...
...The nature of the 1972 campaign has drawn battle lines on national security policy more sharply than they have been drawn for a generation...
...foreign policy for years and perhaps decades...
...Asian (and probably European) alliance partners to early U.S...
...This decay in the NATO alliance could hardly come at a more inopportune time...
...There is a special irony with regard to Vietnam, for President Nixon's decisions on Vietnam are unquestionably the noblest of his presidency...
...The failure of the United States to respond to the Soviet strategic nuclear buildup in the late 1960s has cost the United States, at least for the foreseeable future, the ability to credibly retain the nuclear "first-use" option in Europe against Soviet expansion...
...The nature of a "disgraceful" settlement in Vietnam has been discussed by other commentators (e.g., Herman Kahn in Can We Win In Vietnam?, Pergamon, New York, 1968), and generally involves an agreement which would effectively eliminate the chances for South Vietnamese political survival, however papered-over with rhetoric to the contrary...
...The most significant peacetime alliance in U.S...
...Nevertheless, it is an exercise which merits attention in the case of national security policy because the problems reflect concerns facing any president, not merely those facing the incumbent...
...Soviet efforts to trim West German and U.S...
...military intervention (excepting advanced technology skills such as air and Naval bombardment) only in the case of overt aggression is entirely appropriate...
...This conference holds virtually unlimited promise of politically neutralizing the NATO alliance while facilitating the Soviet stranglehold over the people of Eastern Europe...
...An acquaintance of this writer, a long-time West Berlin resident and an intimate of Willy Brandt, the current West German Chancellor - at least through the November 19th West German election - has observed that Brandt's attitude toward the Soviet bloc changed in 1961 from opposition to accommodation following President Kennedy's collapse of nerve in the face of Khruschev's bombast in failing to react significantly to the Berlin Wall...
...Nevertheless, by a series of bizarre missteps by the United States too complex to describe here, participation is assured...
...Ironically, it is precisely in those areas of concern - alliance relations (both in Asia and Europe) and strategic arms limitation policy - where the president has been most energetic, that are the most urgent items on the agenda for the second" term...
...The consequences of recent U.S...
...During the next four years, the President must take decisive steps to defend the United States and NATO from political-military erosion at the CESC and MBFR...
...alliance interests (hence the secure place of "alliance relations" as a major second-term agenda element), and one cannot truthfully claim surprise that the axe may fall on Vietnam as well...
...One can only recall recent history wistfully and wonder what the world would have been like if Hitler had been stopped when he attempted to re-militarize the Rhine in 1936 (The Alternative, Vol...
...William Schneider, Jr.: A National Security Agenda for the Second Nixon Administration An essay which dwells on a subject which has not yet come to pass, namely, a second term as president for Richard Nixon, is a rather risky business at best, for providence often makes the most sober reflection appear foolish...
...The agenda in Europe is more subtle, but hardly less important...
...1. A Rhineland Fantasy" by Jacqueline Kasun), or Eisenhower had intervened in the East German uprising of 1953 or the Hungarian revolt of 1956, or if Kennedy had fully supported the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961...
...strategic forces if such an agreement is not forthcoming...
...policy efforts in Asia in the next four years needs to be devoted to helping U.S...
...At approximately the same time, the U.S.-proposed Conference on Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions (MBFR) between NATO and the Warsaw Pact should begin...
...Asian alliance partners to a changing U.S...
...alliance partners assimilate the "catalytic" rather than direct role of U.S...
...While it is risky to predict the continuity of behavior of an incumbent president with a four-year track record of discontinuous change, this writer opts for continuity with regard to Vietnam...
...As of this writing (early October), the casual reader is bored to anesthesia with rumors of an impending settlement of the conflict in Vietnam...
...capabilities...
...State and Defense Department professionals agree - virtually to a man - that U.S...
...strategic nuclear defense policy...
...Such a defensive position necessarily implies stubborn insistence at CESC on the discussion of such issues as Soviet, restrictions on emigration, the dissemi nation of information, and economic restrictions on firms trading with the Soviet Union with equal resistance to the discussion of such favorite Soviet themes as European economic cooperation and political association with the United States...
...Our history is littered with the shattered illusions of foreign supporters whose faith in the United States was crushed by the intractable reticence of too many American Commanders-in-Chief...
...allies in Asia, the Nixon doctrine of limiting support to logistics, advisory, training, and diplomatic efforts while offering direct U.S...
...The agenda proposed here is a large, but not impossible order to fill...
...We can only hope that the renowned Nixon political antennae are sensitive to the opportunity.the opportunity...
...This rather weighty presumption having been made, the burden of U.S...
...Such an effort means more than money and presidential attention - it requires a personnel policy for key national security policy positions which will install individuals whose beliefs reflect presidential resolve...
...policy in East and Southeast Asia with an honorable settlement of the Vietnam issue requires a policy for the next four years of facilitating the adjustment of U.S...
...Indeed, 1972 is a vintage year for selling out traditional perceptions of U.S...
...resistance...
...The final task which should be on the Nixon national security agenda for the second term has a most direct relationship to the security of the U.S...
Vol. 6 • December 1972 • No. 3
