Reassessing U.S. Strategy in the Aftermath of the Korean War

Debating American Grand Strategy After Major War

Reassessing U.S. Strategy in the Aftermath of the Korean War by William Stueck William Stueck is professor of history at the University of Georgia. He is the author of, among other works, Rethinking the Korean War (Princeton University Press, 2002) and The Korean War: An International History (Princeton University, 1995).

Abstract: This article examines the reassessment of U.S. strategy that Dwight D. Eisenhower directed after replacing Harry S. Truman in the White House in January 1953, as he worked to bring the Korean War to an end and then confronted the problems remaining in its aftermath. Despite much of the rhetoric of the early Eisenhower administration, the outcome of that reassessment fit more closely the objective of containment than key strategic formulations of its predecessor. Why was this so? How did the orientation apply to ending the war in Korea and sustaining the U.S. position there and elsewhere after the armistice? What insights, if any, do the process of reassessment and its outcome provide for the present? Answers to these questions serve to emphasize the dynamic and contingent nature of American strategy in the early Cold War and the importance of flexible, engaged leadership in the White House.

I

n Strategies of Containment, John Lewis Gaddis defines strategy as ‘‘the process by which ends are related to means, intentions to capabilities, objectives to resources,’’1 and he accurately views U.S. Cold War strategy as often in a state of flux. Indeed, the label ‘‘containment’’ was not always a precise description of American objectives. While key strategic planning documents of the Truman administration such as NSC 20/4 of November 1948 and NSC 68 of April 1950 emphasized the need to prevent the Soviet Union from controlling the resources of the Eurasian land mass, an objective consistent with the label containment, both devoted considerable attention to measures aimed at rolling back Soviet power or eliminating it entirely.2 1

John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of Postwar American National Security Policy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), p. viii. 2 For the text of NSC 20/4, see U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1948, vol. 1 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1974), pp. 662–69. Henceforth volumes in this series will be cited as FRUS, with the year and volume number following. For the text of NSC 68, see FRUS, 1950, 1, pp. 235–92. # 2009 Published by Elsevier Limited on behalf of Foreign Policy Research Institute.

Fall 2009

|

571

STUECK Eisenhower’s Road to Power Eisenhower entered office as a Republican replacing a Democrat and with a new Republican majority in both houses of Congress, a reflection of the unpopularity of Truman during his last years in office. During his 1952 campaign for the residency, Eisenhower had sharply attacked the existing national security leadership. He had served extensively under Truman, of course, as army chief of staff, as an informal chairman of the joint chiefs of staff before the position was created by law in 1949, and as the first commander of NATO forces in Europe. He agreed with U.S. multilateralism, the U.S. orientation toward Europe, and U.S. intervention in Korea in June 1950. His criticism focused on the alleged wastefulness, defensiveness, and incoherence of Truman’s policies. Typical of presidential campaigns, in which candidates have to assuage divergent constituencies, Eisenhower was short on specifics. He criticized Truman for failing to prevent the outbreak of war in Korea and promised to dedicate himself to ‘‘an intelligent and honorable way’’ to end the fighting there, but offered no plan for doing so. On Eastern Europe, he endorsed the goal of liberating people from the Soviet yoke, but said little about how this would be accomplished, except that it would be by peaceful means over time. And on defense spending, he argued that current levels could not be sustained without damaging the American economy, but provided no details on the size of the necessary reductions or how they could be attained. Campaign circumstances aside, Eisenhower understood that the issues facing the United States in its struggle with the Soviet Union defied easy solution, that making adjustments in American strategy would require extensive deliberation after he entered office.3 Ending the War in Korea Eisenhower knew that his domestic support would erode if he did not soon end the fighting in Korea. With over 300,000 American military personnel on the peninsula, he also grasped the significance of an armistice to any substantial reduction in defense spending. At the same time, he had to deal with the right wing of his party and the Syngman Rhee regime in South Korea, who wanted total victory in the conflict, and the strong Democratic minority in Congress, resentful of GOP attacks on its party’s course in Asia and poised to resist any concession to the Communists on the disposition of prisoners-of-war (POWs), the one issue delaying an armistice. The new president ordered staffers to explore the option of escalation, with the objective of either an 3

For a concise treatment of Eisenhower’s handling of national security issues during his campaign, see Robert R. Bowie and Richard H. Immerman, Waging Peace: How Eisenhower Shaped an Enduring Cold War Strategy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 70–80.

572

|

Orbis

Korean War advance to the narrow neck of the peninsula or its northern boundary. Yet public opinion showed marginal tolerance for more sacrifices and European allies displayed shaky support for even the former administration’s position. Worse still, estimates indicated that the achievement of new military victories would require a major conventional buildup and the use of atomic weapons against China. Given the Sino-Soviet alliance, such a course could produce global war, Soviet nuclear strikes on the U.S. mainland, with perhaps as many as 9 million civilian casualties, and/or a fracture in the NATO alliance. In Eisenhower’s thinking, Korea did not warrant the burdens and risks of pursuing total victory. His dual challenge was to pressure the Communists into accepting the Truman administration’s position for no-forced-repatriation of POWs and then to achieve the acquiescence of his own party at home and President Rhee in Korea.4 Through a combination of skill and luck, Eisenhower achieved an armistice on July 27, 1953, without significant concessions on the POW issue. The Communists expected him to increase pressure in Asia and he made a series of early moves to reinforce that expectation, including an expansion of South Korea’s army and an announcement that the Nationalist government on Taiwan would no longer be prevented from attacking the mainland. In the midst of these, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin died. Within weeks the Communists signaled a willingness to settle the POW issue. Finally, on June 4—after the United States had bombed dikes in North Korea, thus threatening its food supply; made clear that it was willing to terminate negotiations rather than bend on the principle of no-forced-repatriation; and possibly threatened the use of nuclear weapons—the Communists accepted the U.S. position. Now, though, Rhee threatened to remove South Korean troops from the United Nations Command. On June 18 his forces guarding anticommunist Korean POWs released them from custody. Outraged, the Communists demanded their immediate return plus assurances that the United States would enforce an armistice on its side. Himself angry at Rhee, Eisenhower stood firm with the Communists and the South Korean leader eventually accepted an armistice without actually signing it. His price was U.S. assurances of major military and economic assistance and a military security pact. In the aftermath of Stalin’s death, divisions had appeared in the Soviet leadership as well as unrest among Eastern European satellites, so the Communists accepted American conditions for an armistice. Eisenhower had won a limited victory, but its durability and strategic implications remained uncertain. If an end in combat would help reduce U.S. expenditures in Korea, effective deterrence was likely to be expensive. South Korea remained less than critical in a physical sense, but the lengths to which the United States had gone to create South Korea and then to save it from 4

This account is based on my The Korean War: An International History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995), pp. 306–47.

Fall 2009

|

573

STUECK military attack had produced a stake in its survival important to U.S. credibility worldwide. Yet Rhee was a difficult ally. He desired passionately to unite Korea under his rule and saw force as the only way of doing so. In addition, he showed limited interest in realistic economic development programs, which were crucial to the ROK’s long-term stability. Eisenhower, believing his own nation’s economic health critical to the course of the Cold War and worried that that health was threatened by American spending abroad, faced difficult choices in constructing a policy toward post-armistice Korea. Reviewing Global Strategy: Context, Organization, and Personalities A review of U.S. global strategy did not await an armistice in Korea, and in many ways the new president’s approach to the war foreshadowed the review’s outcome. Global strategy had been under constant review during the last years of the Truman administration, thus making Eisenhower’s task a good deal easier. The Truman administration’s review had focused on both the immediacy and degree of the Soviet threat to the United States. The outbreak of war in Korea had given great momentum to NSC 68’s argument that the Soviet threat required a major expansion in U.S. national security spending, a view that became more compelling still after China intervened on the peninsula in the fall of 1950. As a result, defense spending increased from roughly $14 billion for fiscal year 1950 to over $62 billion two years later. In his final budget message to Congress in January 1953, President Truman estimated the fiscal year 1954 budget at $45.5 billion, with annual spending after that in the range of $35–40 billion.5 Meanwhile, covert operations of the Central Intelligence Agency had expanded sixteen times and Truman had created the Psychological Strategy Board to develop and coordinate rapidly augmented efforts to undermine Soviet strength through propaganda.6 Yet defense spending stood well short of what the Joint Chiefs of Staff believed necessary, as President Truman and Congress, concerned about a rising budget deficit and additional tax hikes, had made substantial cuts in the defense budget recommendations offered by the uniformed military. These cuts became easier as military conditions in Korea stabilized during 1951 and no further Communist moves developed on the Soviet periphery. They also gained force from the ongoing critiques of NSC 68 by Charles Bohlen, the leading Soviet expert in the State Department. Bohlen did not deny the possibility of war with the Soviet Union, but he believed that Kremlin leaders were motivated primarily by a desire to 5 Michael J. Hogan, A Cross of Iron: Harry S. Truman and the Origins of the National Security State, 1945–1954 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 324. 6 Melvyn Leffler, A Preponderance of Power: National Security Policy, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War (Stanford, C.A.: Stanford University Press, 1992), pp. 490–91.

574

|

Orbis

Korean War protect their regime rather than by a fanatical commitment to Marxist–Leninist ideology, which made them more cautious than asserted in NSC 68. The Soviets, he believed, would never attack the United States before they held a first-strike nuclear capability sufficient to eliminate American retaliatory power, as to do so would result in the destruction of their control over their own country.7 Bohlen also challenged NSC 68’s supposition that, if the United States achieved a preponderance of military power and pursued an aggressive psychological warfare strategy, political benefits would follow in the form of a less aggressive Soviet Union that might retreat from Eastern Europe. Since regime survival was the primary goal of Soviet leaders, Bohlen reasoned, U.S. military superiority, combined with covert and psychological warfare against the Soviet bloc, would merely induce them to tighten their hold over their satellites and homeland. Only the fall of the Soviet regime would lead to achievement of U.S. national security objectives, and such a development could not be anticipated for the foreseeable future. Thus Bohlen proposed ‘‘completing the consolidation of a free world defensive position which will enable us to stop Soviet expansion in all key areas’’ and competition with the Soviet Union ‘‘into the indefinite future with an ‘element of rational hope’ based on confidence in the intrinsic superiority of our system. . ..’’8 Members of the Policy Planning Staff in the State Department and the Psychological Strategy Board demurred, producing an intense internal struggle during the last eighteen months of the Truman administration based on divergent readings of Soviet capabilities, intentions, and vulnerabilities. Bohlen’s views largely won out in NSC 135/3, approved by the president in September 1952, and NSC 141 submitted in January 1953.9 Dissension remained in a variety of areas, however, and dissenters stood poised to counterattack once the new administration entered office.10 One of Eisenhower’s criticisms of the Truman administration’s policies rested in the way they were made and carried out. As president-elect, Eisenhower set up a President’s Advisory Commission for Government Organization and chose Robert Cutler, a dissenter on the Psychological Strategy Board, to fill a new position, special assistant to the president for national security affairs. The commission solicited advice for reorganization from dozens of people familiar with government operations. Then Cutler established study groups made up of present and former insiders to the executive branch to review NSC documents and provide recommendations for reform. 7

Gregory Mitrovich, Undermining the Kremlin: America’s Strategy to Subvert the Soviet Bloc, 1947–1956 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2000), pp. 86–87. 8 Senior Staff Meeting, July 8, 1952, File Folder 334, NSC Files, Box 24, SMOF-PSB files 323–334, Harry S. Truman Presidential Library, Independence, Mo., as quoted in ibid., pp. 93–94. 9 FRUS, 1952–1954, 2, 222. 10 Mitrovich, Undermining the Kremlin, pp. 95–121; Bowie and Immerman, Waging Peace, pp. 29–40.

Fall 2009

|

575

STUECK Cutler submitted a plan to reorganize the NSC on March 16, which Eisenhower immediately approved.11 The new president insisted that the NSC be the most important advisory body to the commander-in-chief on national security issues. It should provide a forum for resolving differences within the executive branch, informing top officials on the key problems the nation faced, and guiding his subordinates on the parameters of policy, thereby enhancing implementation. For the body to serve these purposes, the president himself must actively preside at weekly meetings, the focus of which would be policy papers prepared by a new Planning Board. Headed by the new special assistant and made up of an individual from each of the organizations represented on the NSC, the body would not make definitive proposals to the NSC. Rather it would provide thoughtful analysis and real options to members of the NSC, who would be the final discussants on major policy decisions with an engaged president the ultimate decider. To ensure that policies were faithfully executed, the president eventually created the Operations Coordinating Board, which also assumed the tasks of the dismantled Psychological Strategy Board.12 The system suited an administration headed by a person seasoned on issues of national security, recognized as such by his subordinates, and engaged in the policymaking process. Eisenhower possessed all those qualities, plus a belief that full and open debate among top officials represented a healthy method of developing well-thought-out policies and a commitment to their execution. His key appointments ensured fulfillment of his desire for an intense exchange of viewpoints. John Foster Dulles as secretary of state was second only to Eisenhower on the national security team. With decades of experience in diplomacy, Dulles had served since 1944 as the leading adviser on foreign policy to GOP presidential candidates. An internationalist influenced by Wilsonian ideas, he also had served several times on the U.S. delegation to the United Nations during the Truman administration and as the chief American negotiator of the U.S. peace treaty with Japan. Self-confident and self-righteous, at times to the point of arrogance, Dulles was an active, assertive participant in NSC discussions. Other top players on the national security team included Charles E. Wilson as secretary of defense, George Humphrey as secretary of the treasury, and Joseph Dodge as director of the Budget Bureau. As the president of General Motors, the world’s biggest corporation, Wilson possessed outstanding experience operating a large organization, which Eisenhower anticipated 11 The sections on organizational reform and personalities is based largely on ibid., pp. 83–95, 99–105, 181–82. 12 Kenneth Osgood, Total Cold War: Eisenhower’s Secret Propaganda Battle at Home and Abroad (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2006), pp. 85–88.

576

|

Orbis

Korean War he would put to good use in overseeing the Pentagon. Humphrey, also president of a giant corporation, and Dodge, a Detroit banker with experience in the reconstruction of Germany’s and Japan’s economies after World War II, were known for their passion for balanced budgets. Not formally a member of the NSC, Dodge participated frequently in its meetings on defense spending. Budget crunchers could expect to receive support in the NSC once Admiral Arthur W. Radford succeeded General Omar Bradley as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in August 1953. Bradley had presided over a military leadership unable to agree on the division of missions amongst the armed services and that consistently proposed defense budgets exceeding what the civilian leadership and Congress accepted. Radford was a well-known fiscal conservative, Asia-firster, and devotee of air and naval power. While Eisenhower disagreed on the second priority, he liked the admiral as an intelligent, forceful advocate and a darling of the Taft wing of the GOP. Other less frequent or occasional participants in NSC debates included Allen Dulles, the new CIA director and younger brother of the secretary of state; Harold Stassen, the new director of the Mutual Security Agency (later renamed the Foreign Operations Administration), and Richard Nixon, the new vice president. Review of Military Spending A document passed on to NSC members on February 6, 1953 by Executive Secretary James Lay revealed the breadth of the impending reassessment. It posed twelve ‘‘major questions’’ that had grown out of the preliminary review of ‘‘approved national security policies’’ and ranged in topic from the nature of the Soviet threat to the adequacy of the resources currently allocated to countering it and the merits of their present distribution.13 The one obvious question not explicitly posed was, should the United States reduce its expenditures on national security? Its absence perhaps reflected the assumption behind all NSC papers since NSC 68 that, if anything, the defense budget should increase. Eisenhower’s new team made no such assumption, and given the time frame for presenting a FY 1954 budget, the issue took priority in early deliberations of the NSC. On February 11 the president told members that the challenge was ‘‘to figure out a preparedness program that will give us a respectable position without bankrupting the nation.’’14 Humphrey and Dodge quickly developed a plan to balance the FY 1954 budget, in part through cuts in national security spending. At the NSC meeting on February 18, they proposed a limit on all government expenditures, calculating 13 14

FRUS, 1952–1954, 2, pp. 230–31. Ibid., p. 236.

Fall 2009

|

577

STUECK the cost of all programs and operations, and then making cuts in them, especially defense, insofar as the total cost exceeded the limit.15 Secretary of State Dulles disagreed, arguing that adoption of a ceiling on defense spending before development of a general strategic concept made no sense. Placing greater emphasis on atomic weapons over conventional forces, Dulles thought, would generate substantial savings, but the wisdom of this course had not been determined. Eisenhower and Bradley followed with remarks that expanding both atomic and conventional capabilities was important. Humphrey replied that this could not be done within the limits of U.S. economic capabilities. Dissatisfied with the Humphrey/Dodge approach yet unwilling to accept the contention of the Joint Chiefs that the defense budget actually should be increased, the president formed a panel of seven distinguished Americans outside the government, who would come to Washington to participate in the process. The group submitted its report on March 31, by which time Dodge had advanced a plan to delay a balanced budget until FY 1955 but called for substantial reductions in defense spending and was resisted by the military. With clear memories of the economies forced on the Joint Chiefs during 1949 and early 1950 by former Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson and the subsequent outbreak of war in Korea, Bradley declared that cutbacks now would represent an invitation to new Communist aggression along the SinoSoviet periphery. Even Wilson, while believing that some economies were possible without reducing combat forces, opposed arbitrary ceilings on the defense budget. The outside panel leaned to the side of the budget hawks, arguing for a limit to combined military, mutual security, and atomic energy expenditures at $45 billion. Cuts should come in all three areas, but especially in military spending, which was bloated because of excessive overlap and duplication, the rigid pursuit of force goals by an early date, and an underestimation of the role of atomic weapons. Although Humphrey and Dodge thought the specific figure proposed was excessive by over ten percent, Eisenhower leaned in the other direction, with strong backing from civilians Dulles and Wilson. As Bowie and Immerman remark, the president’s call on the outsiders ‘‘had more to do with convincing the Republican right wing and the American business community that he was doing everything he could to trim defense spending than with his respect for their advice on weighty strategic issues.’’16 In April the administration moved rapidly to adopt a budget proposal for FY 1954. First the Planning Board drafted NSC 149, which declared that ‘‘the survival of the free world depends on the maintenance by the United States of a sound, strong economy.’’ While sustaining that objective over the long term 15

My description of the meeting is based on Bowie and Immerman, Waging Peace, pp. 99–101. Ibid., pp. 104–5. For minutes of the NSC meeting of March 31, see FRUS, 1952–1954, vol. 2, pp. 264–81. 16

578

|

Orbis

Korean War required a balanced budget, U.S. ‘‘commitments and responsibilities’’ made it possible to achieve that goal ‘‘only gradually.’’ To start moving in that direction, the United States would ‘‘increase emphasis on. . .maintenance of production plant capacity in the United States in lieu of large reserve stocks of end-items,’’ reduce overhead, and eliminate ‘‘waste and duplication;’’ it would ‘‘decrease emphasis on. . .expansion of NATO forces in being [and]. . .of U.S. armed forces and materiel stocks to full D-day readiness by early fixed target dates.’’ The savings to the FY 1954 national security budget would be $1.2 billion.17 With minor adjustments, NSC 149—now NSC 149/2—gained NSC approval on April 28. Eisenhower quickly presented the proposed military budget to Republican congressional leaders, several of whom expressed disappointment at the meager cuts; but the president defended his position. In subsequent hearings on Capitol Hill, the JCS resisted even the administration’s proposed reductions, but Congress reduced the proposal for military spending from $43.2 billion to $40.3 billion and mutual security spending from $5.8 billion to $4.5 billion.18 Project Solarium By the time Eisenhower temporarily resolved the budget issue, he had delivered a major foreign policy speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors. The April 16 address grew out of advisers’ sentiments that the United States should exploit Stalin’s death with a psychological warfare offensive. Initial drafts developed under the supervision of C. D. Jackson, the new special assistant for cold war operations and a psychological warfare enthusiast, proved unacceptable to the State Department, leading Eisenhower himself to take control over the process. That process reflected the continuing influence of Bohlen, who argued that a ‘‘direct. . .psychological assault on the Soviet structure or leadership’’ would only delay prospects for dissent among Stalin’s successors, make them less receptive to resolving issues with the United States, and help reinforce Soviet control over the rest of the Communist world. Others argued that any ambitious proposal for negotiations with the Soviets, as included in the early drafts, needed careful vetting with U.S. allies lest it increase divisions in the West.19 The president wanted ‘‘a serious bid for peace,’’ an appeal to all peoples in an effort to shift international politics away from the prevailing cutthroat competition to a system less focused on armaments and more on improving standards of living worldwide.20 17

Ibid., pp. 281–87. Bowie and Immerman, Waging Peace, pp. 107–8. 19 FRUS, 1952–1954, 8, pp. 1100–13. 20 Emmet John Hughes, The Ordeal of Power: A Political Memoir (New York: Atheneum, 1963), pp. 103–5. 18

Fall 2009

|

579

STUECK The resulting speech, in Eisenhower’s mind, avoided a confrontational tone while articulating his country’s most appealing values, such as democracy, peace, and material well-being. It also recited the key issues between East and West that required resolution—Korea, Indochina, and Malaya in Asia; Germany, Austria, and the Soviet satellites in Europe—in order to scale back the expensive and dangerous arms race.21 The most extraordinary aspect of the enterprise was the effort to disseminate the address beyond the United States, through translations into dozens of languages, through broadcasts by radio and television stations in the West, as well as Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, and through press releases and millions of pamphlets distributed around the globe.22 Eisenhower’s early decisions on the budget and psychological warfare revealed his predilection for avoiding quick fixes for perceived deficiencies in U.S. strategy, but they did not detract from his determination to explore alternatives. That determination manifested itself in early June in Project Solarium, which focused on how aggressive the United States should be toward the Soviet Union and its allies. The exercise developed from a discussion on May 8 between the president and several advisers. The senior Dulles painted a stark picture of global trends: ‘‘Practically everywhere one looks. . .there is no strong holding point and the danger everywhere of Communist penetration. . .. The Reds today have the better position.’’ He expressed support for a more aggressive U.S. strategy. Eisenhower agreed that the current American course ‘‘was leading to disaster’’ and decided to assemble three ‘‘teams of bright young fellows,’’ each to examine and defend one of three options.23 Eisenhower excluded the extremes of preventive war and unilateral disarmament, as well as sole dependence on U.S. economic and military power and an attempt to fundamentally restructure international organization. Broadly speaking, the contest was between Task Force A, headed by George F. Kennan, the original formulator of containment, which was to advocate a fine-tuning of the late Truman administration’s course ‘‘without materially increasing the risk of general war,’’ and Task Force C, captained by Admiral R. L. Conolly, which was to advance a more aggressive course limited only by the admonition against ‘‘initiating general war.’’ In Task Force A’s approach, the United States would maintain armed forces sufficient ‘‘to provide for the security of the United States and to assist in the defense of vital areas of the free world’’ and ‘‘continue to exploit the vulnerabilities of the Soviets and their satellites by political, economic, and psychological measures.’’ 21

U.S. President, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1953 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1967), pp. 179–88. 22 Bowie and Immerman, Waging Peace, p. 120. 23 Ibid., pp. 124–25; ‘‘Project Solarium: Principal Points Made by JFD,’’ file ‘‘Project Solarium (3),’’ Box 15, WHO-NSC Staff Papers 1948–1961, Executive Secretary’s Subject File, Eisenhower Presidential Library, Abilene, Ks., as quoted in Mitrovich, Undermining the Kremlin, pp. 135–36.

580

|

Orbis

Korean War The assumptions were that ‘‘time can be used to the advantage of the free world’’ and that, if the United States built ‘‘up and maintain[ed] the strength of the free world during a period of years, Soviet power will deteriorate or relatively decline to a point which no longer constitutes a threat to the security of the United States and to world peace.’’ ‘‘Military operations’’ might be necessary that would present ‘‘the grave risk of general war,’’ but Washington would seek their localization ‘‘as far as possible.’’24 In contrast, Task Force C assumed that time was not working in the West’s favor and that the United States must ‘‘increase efforts to disturb and weaken the Soviet Bloc[,]. . .to create the maximum disruption and popular resistance’’ there.25 Task Force B, headed by Major General J. McCormack, had a narrower mission: to defend a policy that would define ‘‘a continuous line around the Soviet Bloc beyond which the United States will not permit Soviet or Satellite military forces to advance without general war,’’ communicate that policy clearly to the Soviet Union, and ‘‘reserve freedom of action’’ in the event that ‘‘indigenous Communist forces in countries beyond the borders of the Soviet Bloc’’ seized power. Deterrence of Soviet aggression was the key objective, the clarity of American intentions and U.S. superiority in nuclear weapons the key instruments. The hope was that the approach would avert U.S. involvement in peripheral wars such as Korea, which severely drained American resources.26 On July 16 the task forces presented their studies to the National Security Council. Eisenhower expressed enthusiasm about their work, emphasized the need to avoid global war and warned of the rise of a ‘‘garrison state’’ at home. He also stressed that U.S. allies must be persuaded to go along with any strategy the U.S. adopted and that the peoples of both the United States and allied nations must be educated if they were to be asked to pay higher taxes. He asked the task forces to meet together in an attempt to synthesize their arguments into a single proposal.27 That effort proved futile. Task Forces A and C believed their premises too divergent to make compromise possible. Task Force A reasoned that the United States could sustain deterrence indefinitely against an attack on Western Europe or the American homeland through maintenance of substantial tactical NATO forces and a strong U.S. capability to retaliate with nuclear weapons directly against the Soviet Union. Further, a well-organized, dynamic political and psychological warfare campaign, ‘‘shrewdly and subtly carried out,’’ could gradually ‘‘undermine the effectiveness of Kremlin control over the Soviet Orbit and sap the strength of the Soviet power machine.’’ This campaign would include a loosening of trade restrictions on Eastern Europe 24

FRUS, 1952–1954, 2, pp. 399–400. Ibid., p. 416. 26 Ibid., p. 414. 27 Ibid., p. 397. 25

Fall 2009

|

581

STUECK and a diplomatic effort to unite a neutral, rearmed Germany. ‘‘Because the pressures and examples from the Free World, acting on the spiritual and material weakness of the totalitarian system, will progressively cause that system to deteriorate,’’ the report argued, Soviet leaders would eventually alter their aggressive course.28 Team A placed high priority on patience and working to strengthen the Western alliance. Task Force C doubted that, under current trends, deterrence could succeed beyond the next five years. By that time Soviet military forces would hold both superiority on the Eurasian landmass and a capacity to launch a massive nuclear strike on the American homeland. Given the Kremlin’s ‘‘mortal hostility. . .toward the West,’’ a substantial risk of global war would exist so long as the Soviet regime survived, and all the more so because the enemy would interpret American caution as grounded in fear. Thus early action was required to reduce ‘‘Soviet power and militancy’’ before the Soviet Union developed an ability ‘‘to inflict critical damage on the U.S.’’ Such action should include political offensives, but also ‘‘military (short of general war), paramilitary, economic and covert operations’’ aimed at separating ‘‘selected areas,’’ including Hainan and several Eastern European countries, from Communist control as well as administering ‘‘clear-cut defeats’’ to the Communists in Indochina and Korea.29 Task Force C recognized that this strategy would create strains in the NATO alliance, but believed that early successes would keep allies in tow. All three task forces agreed that the U.S. economy could endure a continuation of or increase in the present level of national security spending. In fact, without representatives from the Treasury or the Budget Bureau, all three of them viewed an increase in that spending as probably necessary for the short term, with Task Force C suggesting a $60 billion annual level until 1958, after which it could begin to go down substantially. Task Forces A and C also agreed on a diplomatic initiative for a unified Germany and the possible need to fight conventional wars in peripheral areas, while Task Forces B and C agreed that increased U.S. unilateralism was desirable. The last two thought that the approach of Task Force A was too close to that of the Truman administration, which they regarded as clearly inadequate, especially outside Europe. Yet Task Force C also thought Task Force B’s emphasis on nuclear weapons and defending a static line on the Soviet periphery too defensive.30 28 A summary of Task Force A’s report is in ibid., pp. 399–412; the summary and quotations from the full report are based on or taken from Bowie and Immerman, Waging Peace, pp. 128–31. 29 For a summary of Task Force C’s report, see FRUS, 1952–1954, 1, pp. 416–34. The entire report is not fully declassified. The summary of and quotations from the sanitized version are taken from Bowie and Immerman, Waging Peace, pp. 133–37. 30 For a summary of Task Force B’s report, which was by far the shortest of the three, see ibid., pp. 131–33 and FRUS, 1952–1954, 1, pp. 412–16.

582

|

Orbis

Korean War Refining U.S. Strategy: NSC 162/2 With the task forces unable to produce a single paper, the job fell to the NSC Planning Board. On September 30 it put forth NSC 162, with some of the divisions among the Operation Solarium task forces resolved and others not. With the Treasury and the Budget Bureau represented on the Policy Committee, a series of additional divisions appeared, rooted in disagreements on U.S. economic capabilities. Where possible, the document presented a single viewpoint, where not, it offered a side A and a side B.31 By this time the international situation had clarified somewhat. In the Soviet Union, G. M. Malenkov had emerged at the head of a collective leadership. Soviet troops had quickly suppressed a June uprising in East Germany and unrest in other Eastern European countries also had subsided. In early August, with the Korean armistice in place, the Soviets followed the United States by nine months with a successful test of an H-bomb. Shortly thereafter, in a coup d’e´tat instigated by the CIA in Iran, a left-wing nationalist government had been overthrown and replaced by a regime more accommodating to the United States. At the beginning of September, the Christian Democratic chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, had won a clear-cut victory in elections in West Germany, thus strengthening forces favoring rapid movement on rearmament. On the other hand, rumors had surfaced in Western Europe that the United States was about to reduce its troop levels there, which increased fears, especially in France, of German rearmament. During October two major NSC meetings focused exclusively on NSC 162. On October 30 the president approved an amended version as NSC 162/2.32 One highlight was Eisenhower’s clear rejection of the extreme Humphrey/ Dodge position on national security spending; another was Secretary Dulles’ shift from support of a strategy envisioned by Task Force C to forceful defense of a more modest one integrating efforts at negotiated settlements with the Soviets on some issues, emphasis on nuclear weapons in deterring Soviet aggression, and restrained action to undermine the Soviet bloc. The result was a paper without the declaration going back to NSC 20/4 that a change in the nature of the Soviet regime was essential for successful negotiations. Now, it was believed, Soviet leaders might accept reasonable ‘‘negotiated settlements’’ if the United States took ‘‘feasible political, economic, propaganda and covert measures designed to create and exploit troublesome problems for the USSR. . ..’’33 Areas mentioned for possible negotiations included Germany, Austria, Korea, and arms control. With the Soviet Union well on the way toward ‘‘nuclear plenty’’ and having weathered the storm after 31

Ibid., pp. 491–514. For minutes of the two meetings, see ibid., pp. 514–34 and 567–76; for NSC 162/2, see ibid., pp. 577–97. 33 Ibid., p. 595. 32

Fall 2009

|

583

STUECK Stalin’s death, the United States prepared to settle in for the long haul. A U.S. ‘‘preponderance of [military] power’’ no longer appeared possible, or necessary so long as the United States maintained a capacity to launch a devastating counterstrike on the Soviet homeland. Such maintenance, in turn, required U.S. bases positioned closer to Soviet territory than the continental United States, and this required allies who possessed confidence at once in Washington’s prudence and will. Patience and multilateralism had won out over panic and going it alone. Eisenhower remained determined to make spending cuts. In November he set long-term force goals that reduced army divisions from 21 to 14, navy ships from 1,200 to 1,030, and air force wings from 143 to 137. Already he had projected annual national security spending for the long term at $40 billion, with $33 billion of that for the military.34 To implement such cuts, the president pushed for reductions in U.S. divisions in Korea and in ‘‘overhead and supporting’’ units in U.S. divisions at home and in Europe. While an early reduction in the number of American divisions in Europe was deemed inadvisable until NATO had moved forward on German rearmament, that course was to be ‘‘constantly studied.’’35 In less than ten months Eisenhower had directed a major reassessment of American strategy that produced significant shifts in emphasis, if not general direction. Perceptions of the Soviet Union in NSC 20/4 and NSC 68 had been modified for good, as had the latter’s estimates of U.S. military needs and the timeline for their attainment. Rather than maintaining relatively balanced forces among the armed services, a priority was placed on the air force and its ability to deliver a nuclear strike on the Soviet Union. To ensure that the United States retained a second strike capability over the long term, Eisenhower had ordered development of early warning and continental defense systems. The process of reassessment did not end with NSC 162/2. The Soviet explosion of a thermonuclear device in August 1953 had persuaded Dulles to shift away from an aggressive liberation strategy in Eastern Europe, but it dramatized the long-term threat to the U.S. second strike capability, which, it was believed, could not be secured simply through early warning and air raid shelters. The president well understood the strategic logic here: if a second strike capability could not be sustained, then a first strike on the Soviet Union while the United States retained superiority in nuclear weapons and delivery capability represented an option difficult to resist.36 Thus in 1954 Eisenhower created a panel of scientists to make further recommendations on countering a 34

Aaron Friedberg, In the Shadow of the Garrison State: America’s Anti-Statism and Its Cold War Strategy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000), pp. 130–32. 35 FRUS, 1952–1954, 2, pp. 597–98. 36 See Marc Trachtenberg, ‘‘A ‘Wasting Asset’? American Strategy and the Shifting Nuclear Balance, 1949–1954,’’ International Security, Winter 1988/89.

584

|

Orbis

Korean War surprise attack after the Soviets had developed a stockpile of thermonuclear bombs and intercontinental ballistic missiles. The result was a series of measures, including development of the U-2 spy plane and the triad of delivery systems—bombers, land-based missiles, and submarine launched missiles.37 Nor were the precise roles of psychological and covert warfare fully determined in NSC 162/2. While both were to be enhanced in comparison to the Truman administration, neither was to be pursued inside the Soviet bloc to a point that would substantially increase the risk of general war. Korea and the Limits of the ‘New Look’ How did this reassessment apply to Korea? The answer, in combination with the German case, reveals the extent and the limits of Eisenhower’s ‘‘New Look.’’ By the end of 1955, the United States had reduced its military manpower in Korea from more than 300,000 to under 60,000.38 Eisenhower hoped that retention there of most of the remaining forces would prove unnecessary. In addition to his concern about cost, the president regarded protracted occupations as bound to fail. One possible solution in Korea was its neutralization under the Republic of Korea (ROK) after unification through U.N. supervised nationwide elections. This idea received extensive consideration during the summer and fall of 1953 and was broached with South Korea, but neither the JCS in Washington nor Rhee in Seoul liked it. The breakdown of the Geneva conference on Korea in the spring of 1954 confirmed that such a solution was not acceptable to the Communists either. Unlike in Austria, where an agreement for neutralization emerged in 1955, Korea’s unification under the American plan required the Soviets and the Chinese to sacrifice a regime, the DPRK, in which they possessed a considerable stake. Even when combined with a joint withdrawal of foreign forces, thus eliminating an American military presence on continental East Asia, this solution proved unacceptable. That left deterrence of North Korea and China as the only U.S. option, and the question was whether or not it could be successfully employed over time without a sizable American military presence on the peninsula. Beyond the presence of U.S. forces, three instruments of deterrence existed. First was the ‘‘greater sanctions statement’’ issued immediately following the armistice, which was formulated and promoted by the United States and 37

Bowie and Immerman, Waging Peace, p. 248. Unless otherwise noted, the material from this section based on my ‘‘Ambivalent Occupation: American Forces in Korea, 1953 to the Present,’’ in Robert Wampler (ed.), Trilateralism and Beyond: Great Power Politics and the Korean Security Dilemma in the Cold War and After (forthcoming with Kent State University Press). 38

Fall 2009

|

585

STUECK signed by fifteen other contributors to the U.N. effort in Korea. This declaration asserted that, in the event of a resumption of the fighting by the Communist side, the military response in all likelihood would not be limited to Korea. Second was the conclusion of a U.S.–South Korean military security pact in August 1953. Third was the ongoing presence of major U.S. ground, naval, and air forces in nearby Japan and Okinawa. To at least two U.S. military commanders in the western Pacific during 1954 and 1955, these deterrents required, at most, a token American military presence in Korea. If a large military presence on the peninsula was not absolutely necessary, reasons for further reductions existed even if no significant budgetary savings would result. The United States now had defense commitments to Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, Australia, and New Zealand, and increasingly direct involvement in Indochina. As General Maxwell D. Taylor, the U.S. Far Eastern Commander and U.N. Commander in Korea, wrote in mid-1955, ‘‘the withdrawal of U.S./U.N. forces from Korea and their concentration elsewhere in [the] FEC would free them from the restrictions of the armistice on their modernization as well as provide a sounder strategic distribution of force to meet U.S. commitments in the Far East.’’39 At times Eisenhower appeared to agree, but further reductions in Korea never occurred under his watch. The question is, why? The president was the ultimate decider on all major decisions involving U.S. national security strategy. Although he regarded Korea as marginal in a military sense, he believed it vital for political/psychological reasons. When frustrations over dealing with President Rhee led subordinates to suggest the possibility of withdrawing from Korea, Eisenhower cut them off, declaring that negating all that the United States had fought for in over three years of war was unacceptable. Thus withdrawal of American forces from the peninsula could occur only if he concluded that the ROK would remain secure. Conditions in Korea and the surrounding area during the late 1950s did not inspire confidence in Washington. Even China’s final withdrawal of troops from North Korea in 1958 did not assuage U.S. concerns. The Chinese and North Koreans had not abided by the armistice agreement regarding international inspections in North Korea and the buildup of military forces there. As a result North Korea possessed air forces far superior to those stationed in the ROK. In addition, the maintenance of large concentrations of troops in Manchuria left China capable of quickly reintroducing forces to the peninsula. Furthermore, during 1958 China adopted an aggressive revolutionary strategy toward the Third World, ended discussions with the United States in Warsaw and peace initiatives toward the Nationalist government, and provoked a second crisis in the Taiwan strait. Considerable bitterness remained in the United States toward the PRC because of its role in the Korean War, and Eisenhower refused to give it the benefit of the doubt regarding its intentions. 39

586

Taylor to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, June?, 1955, in FRUS, 1955–1957, 23, pp. 108–10.

|

Orbis

Korean War Reinforcing concerns about China were doubts about the solidity of the U.S. alliance with Japan. In the two years following the armistice in Korea, the United States had reduced by half its military personnel in Japan, and it hoped to reduce them by half again, to around 50,000. Yet Japan was the great strategic prize of the western Pacific and, as with Korea, Eisenhower had no intention of implementing cuts that might undermine security. Moreover, Japan and Okinawa constituted the focal points for security operations in the entire region from Northeast to Southeast Asia and the Japanese resisted building up their forces or amending their constitution to make possible a contribution to regional security, thus leaving the task largely to the United States. Worse still, neutralist sentiment grew among the Japanese, who resented the unequal treaty of alliance imposed on them in 1951, feared it would entangle them in another war, and looked anxiously to develop markets with China and the Soviet Union. Neither the alliance’s survival nor U.S. base rights in Japan and Okinawa were assured and any buildup of American forces there to compensate for further reductions in Korea might only worsen Japanese sensibilities, especially if it meant modernizing those forces with atomic weapons. Conditions within South Korea magnified doubts about further troop withdrawals. Now in his eighties and beset with a variety of infirmities, Rhee progressively lost support at home. U.S. observers feared growing public discontent and subversive activity from the North. The presence of sizable American forces in the Republic of Korea, Washington believed, contributed to internal stability. Adding to U.S. caution, Rhee never stopped advocating a march north to unite the peninsula under his control. Retention of sizable American forces in Korea became a means of keeping the United Nations Command under a U.S. general, with ROK forces serving within that framework. The South Korean economy reinforced other concerns. Despite massive U.S. aid, corruption, inefficiency, and the absence of vision on the Korean side prevented steady growth, as did maintenance of an ROK army of 700,000 men. In 1957 the Eisenhower administration began an effort to persuade Rhee to reduce his armed forces. The campaign coincided with an announcement of the suspension of provisions in the armistice agreement against the introduction of new weapons, thus paving the way for modernization of both U.S. and ROK forces. Further withdrawal of American troops on the peninsula would ensure failure of the push for ROK reductions, which by late 1960 had reached 100,000 under a new regime in Seoul more amenable to U.S. advice. By the time Eisenhower left office, the Soviet Union had vastly increased its nuclear stockpile and deployed missiles that could reach the United States. Those developments made him less aggressive than Truman in employing covert and psychological methods of undermining satellite regimes in Eastern Europe. Although a peace treaty for Austria had been concluded in 1955, resulting in the withdrawal of foreign troops from that country, no Fall 2009

|

587

STUECK serious negotiations had occurred for German unification and in the same year NATO had agreed on the rearmament of West Germany, with a projected contribution of twelve army division to NATO forces. Even with that addition, Soviet conventional forces in Europe far outnumbered its NATO counterparts. Eisenhower tried to make up for the disparity through the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons to the continent. Yet Western European nations had signed off on German rearmament with the understanding that major U.S. ground forces would remain in Central Europe. And with the continuing migration of East Germans to the West through Berlin, the Soviets increased tensions late in the decade with demands for an early settlement to end the divided occupation of the city. Between 1955 and 1960 the United States reduced its forces in Germany by nearly ten percent, but 237,000 troops remained.40 In the end Eisenhower’s strategic reassessment had a limited impact. While attitudes toward the Soviet Union remained hostile, an understanding emerged among American officials that a preponderance of military power was beyond reach, that it was unnecessary to maintain peace and competitiveness with the Soviets, and that prudence dictated retention of a clear retaliatory capability against nuclear attack as well as stable alliances with Western Europe, Japan, and several smaller powers around the globe. Combined with a relatively cautious psychological warfare program designed to exploit weaknesses in the Soviet empire, thus keeping the Kremlin off balance, and economic and military assistance programs to emerging countries in the Third World, the United States could expect, over the long term, to retain strength at home and demonstrate to others the superiority of its own system. This outlook joined with an end to the fighting in Korea to produce a sharp reduction in defense spending in FY 1955. Even as such spending crept upward from FY 1957 onward, economic growth meant that it never again reached ten percent of the gross national product while Eisenhower remained in office.41 The emphasis on nuclear weapons resulted in a nearly twenty percent drop in army and marine corps manpower between 1955 and 1960 and a substantial increase in the air force share of the defense budget.42 Yet some key army leaders never fully accepted massive retaliation, and as the Soviets developed their nuclear strike capability an increasing number of critics emerged in Congress and the private sector. Indeed, the Korean and German cases demonstrate that Eisenhower himself understood the limitations of his innovation. While his refusal to employ U.S. air power in Indochina in an attempt to bail out the French in 1954 40

Daniel J. Nelson, A History of U.S. Military Forces in Germany (London: Westview Press, 1987), p. 81. 41 Based on figures in The Statistical History of the United States From Colonial Times to the Present (New York: Basic Books, 1976), pp. 224 and 1116. 42 Ibid., p. 1141.

588

|

Orbis

Korean War reflected his desire to avoid expensive wars in peripheral areas, his subsequent push for the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization and support for an independent South Vietnam revealed his belief that much was at stake in the outcome of post-colonial struggles at nation-building. By 1959, General Maxwell D. Taylor remarks in his memoirs, the president’s strategy was ‘‘a hybrid which. . .bore some resemblance to the strategy of Flexible Response soon to be adopted by the Kennedy Administration.’’43 Then and Now—Comparisons and Prognostications Eisenhower is commonly rated among the top ten American presidents. This is primarily due to his leadership in national security affairs—his skillful use of carrots and sticks in ending the Korean War, and adroit management of its aftermath; his wise resistance to military intervention in Vietnam in 1954 and subsequent refusal to employ force in cases that could have led to prolonged, costly, and unpopular interventions. He was also successful in strengthening the NATO alliance through German rearmament and the deployment of nuclear weapons to Europe and the Japanese alliance through the renegotiation of the security treaty of 1952. He refused to overreact to the Soviet development of hydrogen bombs and long-range missiles and developed a constructive dialogue with Soviet leaders in the aftermath of Stalin’s death. Perhaps he was fortunate in the timing of his presidency, which began less than two months before Stalin’s passing and was nudged between the exceptional challenges encountered by Truman and the prospect for the total collapse of Indochina to communism faced by Lyndon Johnson. Yet one can hardly read the minutes of National Security Council meetings during the Eisenhower period or gaze retrospectively at overall foreign policy outcomes without admiring the president’s grasp of issues, control over process, and wisdom in rendering judgments. That the eight years of his presidency seem relatively tranquil compared to the periods before and after may say more about his finesse in handling difficult issues and situations than about his luck in drawing a superior hand. Certainly Americans of his time did not regard the problems facing the nation as straightforward or easy to solve. President Barack Obama has the last circumstance in common with Eisenhower—and he has a good deal more as well. If given his limited experience on national security matters and the extraordinarily bright and seasoned team with which he has surrounded himself, Obama may not always be the smartest person in the room, he shows every indication of being actively engaged in the process of developing and executing American strategy. As Eisenhower, but he is temperamentally and intellectually comfortable with intense exchanges of opinion and averse to making decisions based on 43

Maxwell D. Taylor, Swords and Ploughshares (New York: W. W. Norton, 1972), p. 169.

Fall 2009

|

589

STUECK impulse or ideology rather than careful calculation and reflection. He lacks Eisenhower’s stature at home on national security issues, and he governs in an era in which leaking and backbiting are a professional sport. Yet Obama started out with even greater stature abroad, in no small part due to the unpopularity there of his predecessor and the contrast in the public persona of the two men. The direction of the Obama administration so far indicates less of a break with its predecessor on national security issues than might have been anticipated by the presidential campaign of 2008, an obvious parallel with Eisenhower. In both cases the new administrations were able to build on shifts that occurred during the later stages of their predecessors. Another parallel is that the two men entered office with serious concerns about the nation’s economic well-being. Yet Eisenhower had the good fortune to inherit a fundamentally strong economy that faced long-term dangers best addressed through gradual adjustments in fiscal policy. Obama, on the other hand, confronted a severe economic crisis that required immediate and drastic action. In fact, both at home and abroad Truman left Eisenhower with problems of less magnitude than George W. Bush left for Obama. As a result, while the challenges before Eisenhower required steadiness, intelligence, and sound management, those that face Obama require all of those plus a sizable dose of inspiration, including eventually the courage to call on the American people to make difficult sacrifices and then the political acuity to persuade them to do so. Although his party’s majority in Congress may be more secure than that of Eisenhower, Obama is far less likely to get substantial cooperation from the opposition. Given the number and magnitude of issues confronting Obama today, should historians of the mid-twenty-first century look back on his presidency with favor, his ranking is likely to exceed even Eisenhower’s.

590

|

Orbis