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...
...strategic forces if such an agreement is not forthcoming...
...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...
...State and Defense Department professionals agree - virtually to a man - that U.S...
...We can only hope that the renowned Nixon political antennae are sensitive to the opportunity.the opportunity...
...The Vietnam issue is by no means settled, but the manner in which it is eventually settled will have awesome implications for U.S...
...capabilities...
...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...
...The consequences of a "disgraceful" settlement in Vietnam requires a policy of facilitating the adjustment of U.S...
...alliance partners assimilate the "catalytic" rather than direct role of U.S...
...The second term of the Nixon Administration is especially interesting because of the watershed character of Mr...
...Asian alliance partners to a changing U.S...
...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...
...The consequences of recent U.S...
...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...
...Nevertheless, by a series of bizarre missteps by the United States too complex to describe here, participation is assured...
...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...
...Such a change in basic strategy is necessary if the NATO alliance is to remain a believable military organization over the next decade...
...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...
...strategic nuclear defense policy...
...Soviet efforts to trim West German and U.S...
...This rather weighty presumption having been made, the burden of U.S...
...There is a special irony with regard to Vietnam, for President Nixon's decisions on Vietnam are unquestionably the noblest of his presidency...
...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...
...Asian (and probably European) alliance partners to early U.S...
...Failure to do so can have very serious near term consequences...
...Brandt perceived that the United States would not be willing in the long run to defend Europe from the Soviet Union...
...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...
...Based upon the contemporary and anticipated capabilities of U.S...
...allies in Asia, the Nixon doctrine of limiting support to logistics, advisory, training, and diplomatic efforts while offering direct U.S...
...The nature of the 1972 campaign has drawn battle lines on national security policy more sharply than they have been drawn for a generation...
...The agenda proposed here is a large, but not impossible order to fill...
...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...
...Moreover, the President must assign a higher diplomatic priority to the maintenance of the U.S...
...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...
...withdrawal from serious substantive participation in most, if not all, major 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...
...Indeed, 1972 is a vintage year for selling out traditional perceptions of U.S...
...policy in the region...
...foreign policy for years and perhaps decades...
...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...
...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...
...Such a policy has too often been lacking in the first term...
...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...
...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...
...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...
...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...
...As of this writing (early October), the casual reader is bored to anesthesia with rumors of an impending settlement of the conflict in Vietnam...
...policy efforts in Asia in the next four years needs to be devoted to helping U.S...
...The agenda in Europe is more subtle, but hardly less important...
...military intervention (excepting advanced technology skills such as air and Naval bombardment) only in the case of overt aggression is entirely appropriate...
...alliance structure in Asia (including South Korea and the Republic of China) than to the care and feeding of our adversaries...
...forces in the Central Front region should be met with glacial U.S...
...This decay in the NATO alliance could hardly come at a more inopportune time...
...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...
...military alliances...
...With regard to Vietnam, President Nixon stands virtually without peer...
...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...
...resistance...
...Preparatory discussions in Helsinki will begin on November 22nd for the Soviet-inspired thirty-four nation Conference on European Security and Cooperation (CESC...
...6, No...
...This conference holds virtually unlimited promise of politically neutralizing the NATO alliance while facilitating the Soviet stranglehold over the people of Eastern Europe...
...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...
...Nixon's stewardship over several basic national security policy issues in the past four years...
...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...
...history, NATO, is in an advanced state of disrepair due to neglect and some malfeasance since the mid-1960s...
...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...
...participation in both conferences does not justify more than the smallest movement in the political seismograph calculating costs and benefits...
...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...
...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...
...role in the region...
...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...
...The most significant peacetime alliance in U.S...
...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...
Vol. 6 • December 1972 • No. 3
