Presidential Doctorines

The Kennedy Doctrine of Flexible Response

Flexible Response

Flexible response was a defense strategy implemented by John F. Kennedy in 1961 to address his administration's skepticism of Dwight Eisenhower's New Look policy of massive retaliation. Flexible response called for mutual deterrence at strategic, tactical and conventional levels, giving the United States the capability to respond to aggression across the spectrum of warfare, not limited only to nuclear arms.

History

The New Look policy, though initially useful, quickly became obsolete with the introduction of inter-continental delivery systems that undermined the credibility of a deterrence threat. The cornerstone of U.S. and European defense strategy was then threatened as the U.S. could no longer rely on nuclear threats to provide security for it and its allies.

John F. Kennedy won the presidency by claiming that the Republican party had allowed the U.S. to fall behind the Soviets into a missile gap. Upon entering office Kennedy cited General Maxwell Taylor's book The Uncertain Trumpet to Congress for its conclusion that massive retaliation left the U.S. with only two choices: defeat on the ground or the resort to the use of nuclear weapons. Technology had improved since massive retaliation was adopted. Improvements in communication and transportation meant U.S. forces could be deployed more effectively, quickly, and flexibly than before. Advisers persuaded Kennedy that having multiple options would allow the president to apply the appropriate amount of force at the right place without risking escalation or losing alternatives. This would improve credibility for deterrence as the U.S. would now have low-intensity options and therefore would be more likely to use them, rather than massive retaliation's all-or-nothing options.

Flexible response was implemented to develop several options across the spectrum of warfare, other than the nuclear option, for quickly dealing with enemy aggression. In addition, the survivability of the retaliatory capability was stressed, leading to the diversification of the strategic force, development of the strategic triad and half the Strategic Air Command force being put on permanent alert status.

The Kennedy Doctrine did not include the ability to fight nuclear wars because of the idea that it would undermine deterrence, was technologically unworkable, would fuel the arms race, and was not politically feasible. Importance was also placed on counterinsurgency and the development of unconventional military forces, unconventional tactics and “civic action” programs.

Types of Flexible Response

There are four different avenues of response: informational, diplomatic, economic, and military. Informational responses are designed to both increase the awareness of the problem and to gain support for potential conflict from both the public and Congress. Diplomatic responses are centered on strengthening international support for the issue and possibly withdrawing embassy staff from the region to ensure their safety. Examples of economic responses include imposing sanctions on the offending country, embargoing their trade goods, and the cancellation of any funding that the country may be receiving. Finally, there is the multitude of military responses available, ranging from increasing troop preparation and stationing them in the target area all the way up to launch a limited nuclear strike. Together, these options allow the president to decide what level of commitment is warranted in any given situation and react accordingly without having to resort straight to threats of nuclear annihilation.

Stages of Flexible Response

A staged plan was devised to counter any Soviet military action other than a first strike consisting of three stages:

(1) Direct defense: In case of a conventional Soviet attack (meaning non-nuclear or this would be considered a first strike) initial efforts would be to try and stop the Soviet advance with conventional weapons. This meant that the foreseen Soviet attack on West-Germany would be tried to be forced to a halt by NATO's European forces, Allied Command Europe.

(2) Deliberate Escalation: This phase would be entered when conventional NATO forces were succumbing under the Soviet attack. This was actually expected as intelligence indicated Soviet divisions outnumbered NATO divisions by far. In this phase NATO forces would switch to a limited use of nuclear weapons, such as recently developed tactical nuclear weapons (like nuclear artillery).

(3) General Nuclear Response: This was the last phase or stage which more or less corresponded to the mutual assured destruction scenario, meaning the total nuclear attack on the Communist world. If the Soviets had not already done so, this would make them switch to all-out attack as well.

Development of the Strategic Triad

By 1960, the United States had three means of strategic forces: ICBMs, SLBMs, and strategic bombers. This triad made it possible for the United States to impose unacceptable damage to the Soviet Union with one strategic force independent of the other two forces. These different forces had their advantages and disadvantages. Bombers could deliver large payloads and strike with great accuracy, but were slow, vulnerable while on the ground, and could be shot down. ICBMs are safe in their underground silos while on the ground, but were less accurate than bombers and could not be called back when launched. Submarines were least vulnerable but were also least accurate and communication could be poor at times. Each of these forces provided the United States with different options to tailor their response to the situation.

The Two-and-a-half War Doctrine

Part of Flexible response was the strategy of being able to fight over the entire spectrum of violence by developing diverse forces for different types of warfare. This meant being able to fight multiple wars simultaneously; specifically, the US should have the peacetime capability to fight two large regional wars and a small brushfire war at the same time. The consequence of this was to increase recruiting, investment and research for the U.S. force posture.

Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD)

The strategic doctrine for Kennedy’s flexible response was assured destruction . Flexible response made a second strike capability its guiding principle of deterrence. In the event of Soviet nuclear aggression, the Soviets would know that enough U.S. nuclear capability would survive their strike to destroy their cities and industry. Robert McNamara argued for the definition of what was “unacceptable” to the enemy as the destruction of 50% of industry and 25% of the population. Deterrence depended on influence to show that violence and aggression did not pay, and being explicit about the level of destruction the U.S. was willing to inflict on the enemy was one way to illustrate this point. Assured destruction relied on deterrence by punishment, precision and credibility.

No-cities Doctrine

Defense Secretary McNamara sought to limit damage to the U.S. by developing a separate strategy for offense and defense. The offensive strategy was one of counterforce , seeking to destroy Soviet military installations and hardware and thus disable this hardware before it could be used. In a 1962 speech to the University of Michigan, McNamara announced that the U.S. would refrain from striking countervalue targets (cities) early in nuclear war, reserving such force later in war should the Soviets not show similar restraint. This would not only induce the Soviets to spare American cities, but would secure the United States bargaining advantage by holding hostage something that the Soviets might want to keep.

The defensive strategy involved developing a system to intercept incoming Soviet missiles. Bombers could be easily shot down, but missiles still remained a credible threat. The United States began developing anti-ballistic missile program, modifying its Nike missiles to intercept incoming missiles. Ultimately this program was abandoned by the adoption of the anti-ballistic missile treaty.

(I) Flexible response

Also called Flexible Deterrent Options (FDO), the term flexible response first appeared in U.S. General Maxwell D. Taylor’s The Uncertain Trumpet (1960), which sharply criticized U.S. national security policy. Initially designed to thwart communist expansion more effectively, the strategy has become a fundamental principle of American military thinking.

When President Kennedy took office in 1961, he modified Eisenhower’s policy of massive retaliation and adopted a stance of flexible response. This policy included the use of conventional forces in war and offered alternatives to total nuclear war. The alternatives consisted of an increase in conventional weapons systems and introduced the concept of limited nuclear war. Both President Kennedy and his successor, Lyndon Johnson, determined that effective military power meant stronger conventional military forces and nuclear options short of global nuclear war. Flexible response marked a shift away from the previous policy of massive retaliation. While Kennedy believed nuclear deterrence remained paramount, he also understood that limited wars and low intensity conflicts should be fought with conventional weapons.

The New Look Strategy

Flexible response was an alternative to President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s New Look national security policy. The New Look approach relied heavily on the capacity for a devastating assault with nuclear weapons — the strategy of massive retaliation — to fight Soviet military provocations, regardless of whether they involved nuclear weapons or not. New Look was considered inexpensive because the Eisenhower administration thought it could deter all forms of aggression by the Soviet Union and China without maintaining large conventional military forces.

Development of the Flexible Deterrent Options Strategy

By 1960, however, U.S. public opinion was turning against New Look because it was not effective in stemming communist-inspired Third World revolutions. Many felt that a new, more-flexible approach was needed to address such low-level “brushfire” conflicts. Almost as soon as he moved into the White House in 1961, President Kennedy instructed his advisers to begin drafting a new strategy to safeguard the U.S. role in the world. The new administration strongly believed that the United States should have a wide variety of military and nonmilitary responses to communist provocations. Kennedy presented to Congress an outline of a strategy that would come to be known as Flexible Deterrent Options in March 1961, and it was adopted as an official national security policy of the United States. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization adopted the strategy in 1967.

Flexible response gave the president the ability to select from nonmilitary options, as well as military options, when responding to a crisis and allowed the United States to meet each hostile action with a proportional reaction. The lines of attack included diplomatic measures (such as pursuing strong relations with potential allies while being ready to withdraw embassy personnel on short notice), political measures (such as increasing the dialogue with the press and releasing frequent public policy statements), economic measures (such as increasing or canceling American aid to other countries), and, perhaps most important, military measures (such as modernizing the U.S. missile fleet, increasing conventional capabilities and intensifying training for special forces).

The strategy was quite costly, however, because developing and maintaining sizable conventional and unconventional weapons, as well as various kinds of military personnel, required considerable expenditures. During the Cold War, flexible response contributed to both the avoidance of nuclear conflict and the proliferation of limited yet vicious military clashes. The strategy had the effect of increasing the credibility of the American armed forces, because it could leverage an appropriate proportional response to different kinds of crises (which would deter an enemy’s appetite for smaller, limited wars), while also reassuring allied countries.

Like most Cold War strategies, flexible response yielded mixed results. Although the combination of diplomacy, economic sanctions, and a threatening military posture solved some crises, including the Cuban missile crisis and the 1965 coup d’état in the Dominican Republic, the same combination failed to bring about a positive resolution to the Vietnam War. Flexible response was no highly explicit theory nor written in a single authoritative source, but it was realistic in that nuclear weapons couldn't be used. It tried to provide credible means to match non-nuclear escalation. The word "flexible" stressed the value of having "multiple options" available should a crisis arise. Having multiple options during a crisis appeared to be better than reference to a few preset war scenarios. Having multiple options was thought to enhance the credibility of the U.S. deterrent (reassuring allies while deterring the opponent). At the same time, however, flexibility also made it improbable that the U.S. would want or need to initiate a nuclear attack. In effect, flexible response called for the continued presence (in Europe) of sizable conventional forces. Conventional forces were to serve two functions, a deterrent function and the function to fight limited wars. The main argument of the Eisenhower administration had been that conventional forces were too costly and nuclear weapons would have "more bang for the buck." Kennedy wanted to deter all wars, general or limited, nuclear or conventional, large or small. Eisenhower and Dulles wanted to achieve similar goals but at minimal cost. Their risk was to either not act at all or respond at all levels of threat beyond the original provocation. Kennedy disregarded costs and emphasized sufficient flexibility to avoid either escalation or humiliation. In particular, Kennedy wanted to increase the range of available options prior to resort to nuclear war. The threshold beyond which the President might have to decide to initiate the use of nuclear weapons had to be raised. Also, the damage caused by a war with tactical nuclear weapons seemed too high. Furthermore, Kennedy believed that the European allies should contribute more to their defense. Moreover, a continued reliance on nuclear weapons could lead to their further proliferation. The basic idea of flexible response, then, was to increase the ability to confine the response to non-nuclear weapons.