Word: pentagons
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...despite all these reassurances and disclaimers, the Pentagon's Gilpatric was right when he described Western defense policy as "entering a new phase." This is evident in East-West relations: Washington seems determined to pursue a détente with Moscow, and the Kremlin, beset by economic and Chinese troubles, seems willing to accept at least a cold war pause. The "new phase" is even more sharply evident in the increasingly outdated design of NATO, whose members are deeply split over the philosophy and practice of Western defense. The whole structure of the Western Alliance is being reexamined...
European combat troops will henceforth move direct to Bremerhaven, the big North German seaport. Recently, the Pentagon announced that 5,400 members of the 4th Logistical Command, in France, will be brought home...
Arguments for Fullback. Last August when McNamara reshuffled the Berlin Command, trimming away 600 men from the garrison there, then declared his intention to remove the 3,500 men of the U.S. 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment from Germany, the Bonn government reacted frantically. The Pentagon intends to reduce the U.S.'s Germany contingent by still more troops, most of them noncombat types. But to soothe jangled German nerves, the withdrawals were suspended until last week's Big Lift exercise demonstrated just how swiftly the U.S. troops could be returned in case of trouble...
...more attractive argument is the possible improvement in the U.S. balance of payments. Actually, while the Pentagon could trim a lot out of its budget (every division costs some $75 million a year), there would be no great saving to the gold flow, since West Germany is tied by a so-called "offset" agreement to spend some $650 million a year in 1962-64 on materiel purchases in the U.S. The guarantee to offset U.S. dollar
Most Washington planners feel that this theory had merit while the U.S. enjoyed its nuclear monopoly, but cannot be applied to a period of approximate nuclear parity between East and West. In such a situation, according to dominant Pentagon thinking, the U.S. must have a maximum number of "options" allowing it to hit back on any level appropriate to any attack. If the Russians were to stage various "incidents" at Berlin or even tried to seize some West German territory with conventional force, argue American strategists, the U.S. should not be forced to choose between doing nothing or starting...