The Kennedy Cabinet-Three Articles : 'Twilight War':
HARRIGAN, ANTHONY
Secretary of Defense McNamara is faced with the task of preparing the U.S. for 'Twilight War' By Anthony Harrigan No Secretary of Defense has faced a more difficult task than the one that...
...Using nationalist fronts as a camouflage, they have successfully penetrated these areas through stepped-up psychological, political and economic warfare...
...Of course, this does not mean forgetting altogether about the longrange weapons necessary in the event of all-out war...
...McNamara's major task, therefore, will be to give the United States the capability to take appropriate action under such conditions as exist in "twilight war...
...To continue to add to our present "over-kill" capacity would be a waste of precious national resources...
...For he is taking over in the Pentagon at a time of military transition, a time when the services must adjust to reality...
...This all-or-nothing strategy may be comforting, but it cannot cope with the realities of Communist aggression...
...National defense cannot be implemented by spending more and more to achieve nuclear destruction...
...First priority must go to forces of the cold and limited war to make Communist nibbling unprofitable...
...International Communism has already realized that relying solely on a general nuclear war capability is unwise...
...The kind of tailored deterrent needed by the U.S...
...This already has led to fiscal neglect of the forces needed in an era in which Communist advances are the result of nibbling operations...
...Money has been poured into futuristic weapons systems without sufficient regard for our political objectives overseas...
...It is a threat, moreover, which the most influential circles in the Pentagon and the National Security Council have thus far refused to acknowledge...
...No new ICBMs or intermediate range missiles have been positively identified in the Soviet Union or other Communist countries besides the two sites that have been used for experimental launching...
...for 'Twilight War' By Anthony Harrigan No Secretary of Defense has faced a more difficult task than the one that confronts Robert Strange McNamara...
...They obviously believe that they will succeed in gaining control of Africa from Capetown to the shores of the Mediterranean, and in establishing political bases along the edges of the Indian Ocean and the South Atlantic...
...includes highly mobile combat forces, para-military units for unconventional warfare and a new fleet with shipboard Marines and psychological warfare units that could operate in the Indian Ocean, African waters and the South Atlantic...
...For a decade, Communist military sights were focused on European objectives...
...Anthony Harrigan is on the staff of the Charleston News and Courier...
...Indeed, it is worth noting the recent report of Hanson W. Baldwin, military editor of the New York Times, that "there have been few Soviet tests recently of long-range ballistic missiles...
...This the real threat—the threat that is sometimes called "politwar" or "twilight war...
...One has only to read the doctrines of Ernesto "Che" Guevara in Cuba to grasp the strategy of the Communists in the next decade...
...This does not mean, of course, that the Communists are disarming...
...If the Defense Department accepts the theory of finite nuclear deterence, funds will then be available for counter-operations against the enemy in the areas where he is working...
...The nation's current policy—based on spiraling numbers of manned bombers and ballistic missiles—offers only a rigid and unreal response to the Soviet and Communist Chinese military challenge...
...First of all, the Defense Department has to face up to the nuclear stalemate...
...But it is foolish for the United States to speak of grand intentions in Africa, Asia and Latin America if it lacks the military capability to support its objectives...
...Finite deterrence is all the nation needs...
...In the late 1950s, however, the Soviets and the Chinese decided to aim at Africa, Latin America and the weak nations bordering the Indian Ocean...
...In recent years we have permitted ourselves to become hypnotized by the weapons of mass destruction...
...The Eisenhower Administration's doctrine of massive retaliation carried out by an enormous counterforce of planes and missiles makes no sense today...
...Rather, it indicates that they have decided to carry out any future aggression on a different level—a fact which the United States must recognize...
Vol. 44 • January 1961 • No. 1
