C _ OUTSIDE THE SYSTEM THE WHITE HO L SE WASHl - G TON INFORMATION MEMORANDUM FOR THE PRESIDENT FROH ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI SUBJEC'I' The Carter Transformation of Our Strategic Doctrine I want to summarize for you the fundamental change occuring in U S strategic doctrine over the last · three years You may or may not want to take public credit for it but you should have a clear view in your own mind of its historic significance That is being obscured and confused iri the public fuss over PD-59 the last of a series of related directives you have signed C The Requirement for Change There have been two previous · transformations in our strategic doctrine Tr e first 1 massive retaliation occurred in the 1950s under President Eisenhower It was designed to deter the Soviets by our large lead in nuclear weapons and strategic bo nbers The second assured destruction was sponsored in the 1960s by Presidents Kennedy and Johnson as they watched Soviet forces grow and the U S lead shrink Secretary McNamara designed the concept primarily as a budgetary instrument to decide how much was enough in strategic forces The doctrinal notion was added by others They however believed the Soviets would stop their buildup at near our force levels When they did not and when they introduced new qualitative capabilities the doctrine lost much of its relevance To revise our doctrine then became a critical although unpopular task in face of the continuing Soviet buildup through the 1970s You have accomplished this through a number of directives which put rr uch more emphasis on objective capabilities to reinforce the subjective and psychological aspects of deterrence C What Has Been Done Based upon reviews and recommendations from the agencies in response to conceptualization and coordination by the NSC you have directed a that we maintain essential equivalence in general purpose and strategic force levels PD-18 that strategic defense is part of the overall military balance PD-41 that national objectives be met for telecommunications to support all levels of conflict PD-53 that mobilization planning guidance be developed for all agencies DOD b e ing only one of them PD-57 that a conceptually new approach be C Fr on August 26 1986 - applied to continuity of government and maintenance ot'·the National Command Authority under nuclear attack PD-58 that a significant step be taken in the evolutionary process of our argeting policy PD-59 • An elaboration of each of these is important to give you a more textured appreciation of the overall policy changes C PD-18 signed in August 1977 put stress on reversing the conventional force balance adverse trends in Europe acquiring a U S rapid deployment force and maintaining strategic force essential equivalence in face of the continuing Soviet buildup It directed a number of followon efforts because as PRM-10 showed ·the implications of parity with the USSR were complex and needed several additional U S responses C PD-41 on civil defense policy signed in September 1978 revived the view that defensive capabilities are part of the strategic balance even if only a small part The idea of defense was abandoned in the 1960s after serious attention to it by both President Eisenhower and for a time President Kennedy Studies by CIA corroborated the Soviet ooen literature about Soviet civil defense canabilities and a disper ed Soviet population even partially disper ed might make a difference of tens of millions of initial survivors Changes in our targeting could not reduce the difference significantly C PD-53 national security telecom_munications policy was sign d in November 1979 It set forth for the first tiroe national CI objectives which Defense as the executive agent of -the National Cmmnunications System set up by Kennedy after the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 when he found agencies with separate and non-interoperable communications systems a paralyzing condition for his control has the responsibility to implement not only in its c 3 r programs but also with guidance to common carriers on interoperability and survivability for crisis and war PD-53 changed fundamentally the objective of telecommunications heretofore sufficient to communicate an execution message for a retaliatory strike but nothing more for endurance _flexiblity and a prolonged conflict U PD-57 mobilization planning guidance signed in March 1980 tasked the first work on mobilization guidance at the national level since the 1950s Treated as less than a serious issue even in the Defense Department until lately mobilization responsibilities in other agencies although critical for wartime had long been a joke As the Soviet buildup cancelled our superiority the joke became a dangerous one undercutting our credibility in the eyes of careful foreign observers Little concrete result has been achieved to date but the level of serious interest is surprisingly high after PD-57's emergence A parallel achievement in manpower mobilization has been the draft regi sgration law It is a major step C PD-58 Continuity of Government c 3 I signed this June initiates a wholly new conceptual approach to r -ia king the National Corrunand Authori t y and the Presidency for civil governreent survivable under conditions of • SE oe c 3 ' -'S f € 0 v repeated nuclear attack The existing system built in 'the 1950s was judged vulnerable already by 1962 in a report to President Kennedy President Nixon received a similar report in 1970 but failed to act on it Neither report offered a solution to the problem of hardsite vulnerability Until the new system is built and tested it is doubtful that the U S could ride out a well-conceived Soviet attack on our national c3r carry through to a third or fourth ranking successor if need be and retaliate in a coordinated manner Even if we were lucky enough to do that the staff support for the Presidency to mobilize control the forces and govern the civil sector is lacking PD-58 requires the development of precisely that support S PD-59 the nuclear weapons employment policy directive completes the series It is to some extent an addition to NSDM-242 the first effort at limited nuclear options taken in 1974 by Nixon and Schlesinge I want to spell out for you in -some detail the differences between the two directives however because there are claims already being made that PD-59 is nothing new just a rehash of NSDM-242 C a NSDM-242 divided the SIOP into little pre-planned options i e LNOs All targets were fixed and located in the present target base They were to be fired to demonstrate our resolve PD-59 calls for limited strike capabilities against military targets fixed and mobile to prevent their conduct of operations against us This means that we must be able to locate targets even mobile ones during a conflict This is a major difference one that is possible with improving technology in c3r particularly intelligence C b NSDM-242 put most emphasis on targeting postwar recovery resources i e cities and industry PD-59 retains this insofar as it retains the SIOP For all other targeting and even within the _SIOP after economic recovery targets are hit PD-59 puts the t rgeting emphasis on these categories all military c 3 r and war-supporting industry C c NSDM-242 treated c 3 r as needed to transmit emergency action messages to our forces to chat with Mosco• - via MOLINK and for diplomacy with other states PD-59 calls for c 3 r of a much more flexibile and extensive kind 1 control of both nuclear and general purpose forces operations and 2 a ''look-shoot-look capability to locate new and moving targets rapidly through a prolonged conflict C d NSD - -242 called f' ff a secure reserve force no size specified for protection and coercion PD-59 calls for an increased reserve force Its purpose is to give the President larger means for influencing the unfolding military campaign not for psychological coercion and further demonstrations of resolve with LNOs which may or may not affect the enemy's mil tiary capabilities c e N DM- 42 said noth ng about acquisition policy only employme nt policy Prograramatically therefore NSDM-242 remained a dead letter PD-59 ties acquisition to employment policy That means that E ECLASvlFIED 4 0MB Defense and programs the DCI must C take the new policy into account in their budgets -and NSDM-242 kept the old theoretical baggage trying to make a limited retaliatory or even a first-use strike more credible as the SIOP became less credible Could the g s public sit calmly through such LNOs having not even civil defense protection NSDM-242 was a misconceived document It merely exaggerated the flaws of the SIOP PD-59 is fundamentally different while not designed to be a war fighting doctrine it takes into account Soviet employment doctrine because with the Soviet acquisition of such large and accurate forces that doctrine cannot be ignored if deterrence is to be maintained To fail to make this change would be to risk drifting into a situation where our doctrine and capabilities could in a crisis deter ourselves more than the Soviets C In summary you have taken a series of steps that add up to a major revision of our strategic doctrine the third one since World War Ir The previous two like this one have been driven by Soviet force development This is the first phase of the task The second the policy programmatic C phase will be a major task of your second-term defense 1