Word: mcnamara
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...revolutions in underdeveloped countries. Yet America's policy toward these revolutions is to an astounding degree, as Raymond Aron suggests in The Great Debate, a result of the relationship between the American thermonuclear force and the Soviet one. Aron outlines with incredible brilliance the whole theory of power (the McNamara Doctrine) behind American foreign policy...
These three themes run through the entire work. The first, deterrence, is the main subject. The McNamara doctrine of deterrence replaced the Eisenhower strategy of unleashing nuclear holocaust if the enemy crossed a line drawn by John Foster Dulles with a strategy of graduated response. If, for example, the Soviet Union misreads American intentions as it did in Korea, the U.S. is now prepared to meet Russia with conventional weapons first instead of immediately blowing both civilizations off the map. If the Russians were still unconvinced, tactical nu- thermonuclear responses ranging from "counterforce" (against Soviet missiles) to "countercity" (self-evident...
...merit of the McNamara doctrine, according to Aron, is that it reduces the immediate danger of "nuclear spasm," as American theorists refer to all-out war. But it does so at the cost of increasing the likelihood of conventional or guerrilla wars in which (since massive retaliation is not as imminent) firmness of intent may be tested. Thus Aron speaks of both Russia and the U.S. wielding conventional "swords" behind a nuclear "shield," as the U.S. did when it used the Navy to stop Russian ships during the Cuban missile crisis. The act was possible because of local American superiority...
Equally, in Vietnam (though this has happened since Aron wrote) one can see the logic of the McNamara Doctrine at work. While the guerrilla war is in large part a peasant revolt, it is also politically organized by the Vietnamese Communists, and supported by the Chinese, who do not believe in the firmness of American intentions in the face of an unpopular and seemingly impossible war. The McNamara Doctrine suggests that the enemy should be met with increasingly powerful conventional forces. Whether or not the Chinese are sufficiently directly involved in South Vietnam to make application of the doctrine relevant...
...Infantry Division (mechanized) at Fort Carson, Colo.; the 101st Air borne Division at Fort Campbell, Ky.; and what is left of the 82nd Airborne Division after some 12,000 of its men were sent from Fort Bragg, N.C., to the Dominican Republic. In addition, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara has designated six National Guard and Reserve divisions as high-priority out fits furnished with the most modern sort of equipment and in a state ,of readiness that could take them into combat anywhere in the world within 30 to 60 days. By rough estimate, there are 110,000 Army combat...