For a Mobile Defense
HARRIGAN, ANTHONY
WRITERS and WRITING For a Mobile Defense Strategy in the Missile Age. By Bernard Brodie. Princeton. 423 pp. $6.50. Reviewed by Anthony Harrigan Contributor to "Proceedings," U.S. Naval...
...Many students of defense problems do not go along with the opinion of airpower advocates that war in our time means one big bang and nothing else...
...There can now be no question," he writes, "that strategic bombardment power—in which we include missiles and by which we mean defensive as well as offensive measures—absolutely dominates" in modern warfare...
...Strategy in the Missile Age was undertaken by the Rand Corporation as part of its research program for the Air Force...
...Yet even the Air Force, reluctant to make a clean break with the past, now shows signs of facing up to the change...
...If approved by Congress, SAC will man special trains on which will be loaded the solid-fueled Minuteman missile scheduled for delivery in 1963...
...This budget, which is the last the Administration will present to Congress, reflects the same "more bang for a buck" philosophy that has been the controlling influence in the Defense Department since 1953...
...He asserts that the Strategic Air Command "deserves and enjoys a first priority charge upon the defense budget...
...Brodie's emphasis on the importance of the manned bomber seems almost quaint...
...His special point of view is that of the believer in the decisiveness of strategic air bombardment in any war of the future...
...This alternative strategy is not favored by Brodie...
...Indeed, it seems that the burden of proof rests on the airpower advocates, inasmuch as Soviet preparedness is not concentrated in one field but includes an enormous submarine fleet and a tremendous army equipped to fight with or without nuclear weapons...
...SAC's announcement of plans for missile trains is one sign...
...defense policy...
...They assert that the missile systems emphasized by the Administration comprise a nuclear age Maginot Line...
...The ideas contained in the book are widely held by Americans who believe that national security can be obtained by having lots of big bombs, and fast planes and missiles in which to deliver them...
...Cancellation of aircraft types now under development would send a shock through the industry and through the Western states where it is concentrated...
...Thus the Air Force has made plain that it realizes the importance of mobility...
...Other elements in our defense posture would include large, mobile naval and tactical air and ground task forces which would be able to move into situations such as occurred in Lebanon, Formosa, Laos and on the Indian border...
...Naval Institute ANNOUNCEMENT THAT the 1961 defense budget will feature more missiles and less manpower, without any increase in the present $41 billion level of spending, indicates the character of the Eisenhower Administration's military strategy...
...Neither has it found favor with the Budget Bureau strategists of the Eisenhower Administration, who prefer the simplicities of the big bomb approach over the complexities of strategic task forces...
...Many students of defense problems believe that United States reliance on the instruments of massive retaliation leaves the nation largely unprepared to fight the brush-fire wars which may characterize World War III...
...Brodie calls for "hardening" of air and missile bases, saying: "If aircraft are worth maintaining at all— and the informed consensus is that they will be for a long time to come —they are worth putting in strong shelters...
...Another strategy might be based on the belief that the best use of the armed forces is finite deterrence, especially in areas threatened by Communist expansionism...
...Despite Brodie's assertions to the contrary, these ideas are open to question...
...This philosophy is, however, encountering increased resistance both inside and outside the defense establishment...
...In view of the book's provocative nature, THE NEW LEADER asked two of its contributors, Anthony Harrigan and Arnold Wolfers —each an expert in the field—to present their disparate views on Brodie's challenging new analysis...
...Bernard Brodie, senior staff member of the Rand Corporation, a research agency for the Air Force, discusses in his new book the prevailing defense philosophy of recent years...
...A fleet of 50 missile-carrying submarines would, in the opinion of some defense observers, provide all the deterrence the nation needs or can expect to have...
...But then one must remember that the Air Force leadership has an undeniable sentimental attachment to the type of weapon that made possible the independence of their service in 1947...
...The strategy in the missile age which Brodie favors is by no means the only strategy available to the United States...
...These ideas have been the official philosophy of the Air Force...
...Beyond sentiment is the tremendous stake which the aircraft industry has in the status quo...
...Bernard Brodie's study has been widely hailed as one of the most searching of the many books published this year on U.S...
...The purpose of these trains is to avoid the need for "hardening" of missiles in concrete emplacements such as Brodie advocates...
Vol. 42 • December 1959 • No. 47
