Flexible response
Flexible Response ( Engl. , Is flexible response ') is a NATO - nuclear strategy against the Warsaw Pact , the basic features already in 1959 of US -General Maxwell D. Taylor as an alternative model to President Dwight D. Eisenhower's concept of the New Look and the controversial strategy of Massive retaliation was proposed. Flexible Response was created by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 picked up and was considered NATO's defense strategy (MC 14/3) of 1967 / 68 until the end of the Cold War . It can be seen as an example of brinkmanship .
Need for a new military strategy
The nuclear weapons and their enormous potential for destruction have changed the global foreign and security policy after 1945 fundamentally. With its atomic bomb project , the Soviet Union was able to break the US nuclear monopoly in 1949, earlier than expected. Even so, the early years of the Cold War were marked by a clear American superiority in terms of the number of warheads and means of delivery. After the Korean War, under the new US President Dwight D. Eisenhower , the concept of massive retaliation was officially in effect from 1954 . Such a rigid all-or-nothing strategy no longer seemed appropriate after the Sputnik shock and in view of the growing Soviet nuclear potential. In principle, any minor military conflict could have triggered an escalation that could lead to the complete annihilation of both sides. The massive armament and the ability for both sides to carry out nuclear first strikes made the need for a change of strategy all the more clear. Critics of the principle of massive retaliation already pointed out the vulnerability of the US strategic bomber fleet at the end of the 1950s : a Soviet surprise attack on the most important bomber bases in the USA would have almost eliminated the possibility of a nuclear retaliation . The analyst and political advisor Albert Wohlstetter noted in this context: “Such an ability, if it is not coupled with the possibility of retaliatory strike, […] could be interpreted as an intention to strike first. In that case, it would rather provoke a general war than deter it. "
The main features of a new strategy have been formulated:
- Conflicts must be able to be responded to with a range of possibilities without provoking a nuclear strike in every case.
- Appropriately graduated military responses require the renewed involvement of conventional forces.
- The aim of conventional and nuclear armed forces is to be as flexible as possible.
- In the course of his strategic considerations, the opponent must be forced to weigh up the costs and benefits.
Political developments
Kennedy's election as President of the United States in 1960 brought about some fundamental changes in the country's security policy. The principle of flexibility became Kennedy's leitmotif. He not only took up the strategy of flexible response developed by the military and academics , but also designed his government differently than his predecessor. In order to shorten the information and decision-making paths, inter-ministerial task forces were formed and a close advisory group was set up around the President himself.
With the aim of being able to wage several wars at the same time, the army's manpower was increased by 25 percent, special troops were trained in anti-guerrilla warfare, and the nuclear arsenal of the United States was enlarged. The main focus of these efforts, which made defense spending in the United States rise faster than ever before, were securing the second strike capacity with nuclear weapons, the possibility of effective intervention in the Moscow-supported " wars of liberation " in third world countries and finally ensuring the credibility of the American deterrent potential .
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The strategy of flexible response was intended to enable the US president and his advisors to react differently to different types of attack by the enemy: the means could be adapted to the goal and no alternatives were excluded in principle. The military leadership thus had an abundance of options. In contrast to the previously common strategy of massive retaliation , every attack (including with conventional weapons) should no longer be answered with a general nuclear counterattack. If the enemy were to take military action (which was not a surprise nuclear attack), a step-by-step plan would be followed.
- Direct Defense
- Entering into combat operations with conventional troops to stop the enemy and prevent him from achieving his goals.
- Deliberate Escalation (English 'planned escalation')
- Thoughtful use of resources that go beyond conventional troops and thus cause the conflict to escalate. This phase envisaged the possible use of tactical nuclear weapons, especially in the event of conventional inferiority of their own troops. As the core of the flexible response , this level should trigger uncertainty among the enemy about whether the benefits of his military action outweigh the expected costs.
- General Nuclear Response (English 'general nuclear response')
- Immediate total use of strategic nuclear weapons as an action or reaction (first or second strike) with spatial expansion of the conflict.
When John F. Kennedy took office, the focus of the strategic US nuclear arsenal was still on the long-range bombers of the US Air Force . Land-based ICBMs ( ICBM , also subordinated to the US Air Force's SAC) and the US Navy’s missile-equipped submarine fleet were under construction. A combination of strategic and sub-strategic nuclear weapons (aerial bombs of the tactical air forces, artillery and mines of the land forces) should guarantee the greatest possible flexibility depending on the area, type of provocation and planned impact.
The NATO took over this concept in 1967 as a defense strategy. It seemed suitable to counter the assumed conventional superiority of the Warsaw Pact in Europe. Its suitability for reality also met with doubts within the Western alliance, especially in France. In the Soviet Union, the idea of being able to limit a war once nuclear weapons had been used was considered illusory.
One of the western negotiation goals in the MBFR negotiations, which was related to the nuclear strategy of the Flexible Response , was parity in conventional weapons.
At the NATO summit in Rome on November 8, 1991, a new strategy for the alliance was decided. It relied on the triad of dialogue, cooperation and maintenance of defense capabilities and replaced the flexible response concept .
literature
- John Lewis Gaddis : Strategies of Containment. A Critical Appraisal of American National Policy During the Cold War. Revised and expanded edition. Oxford University Press, Oxford et al. 2005, ISBN 0-19-517447-X .
- J. Michael Legge: Theater Nuclear Weapons and the NATO Strategy of Flexible Response (= RAND . Report No. R-2964-FF). RAND Corporation, Santa Monica CA 1983, ISBN 0-8330-0475-1 .
- Urs Roemer: The strategy of "flexible response" and the formulation of American policy on Vietnam under President Kennedy (= Zurich contributions to security policy and conflict research. Issue 16). Research Center for Security Policy and Conflict Analysis, Zurich 1991, ISBN 3-905641-05-4 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ MC 14/3 (Final) (PDF; 186 kB) Overall Strategic Concept for the Defense of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Area . NATO Strategy Documents 1949–1969. Pp. 345-370.
- ↑ Flexible Response- the concept of graduated deterrence
- ↑ “When not coupled with the ability to strike in retaliation, such a capability might suggest [...] an intention to strike first. If so, it would tend to provoke rather than deter general war. " Albert Wohlstetter: The Delicate Balance of Terror (P-1472; PDF; 3.1 MB). Santa Monica: RAND Corporation , 1958. p. 31.
- ↑ MC 14/3 (Final) (PDF; 186 kB) Overall Strategic Concept for the Defense of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Area . NATO Strategy Documents 1949–1969. P. 358 f.