Strategy in the Decade of the 1980s

Paul H. Nitze

From Foreign Affairs, Fall 1980

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Summary:  An important element in recent European criticism of U.S. foreign policy is the claim that neither the Administration nor its critics has presented a coherent strategy for the decade of the 1980s. Responsible Europeans suggest that American statements on foreign policy have stressed the value of good personal relations, the importance of goodwill, and the desirability of shared aims, but have offered little in the way of practical guidelines as to how we should deal with the growing power of the Soviet Union. These critics ascribe the erratic nature of U.S. policy to the lack of a sound strategic concept. They are not, however, much happier on this score with the Administration?s domestic critics than with the Administration.

Paul H. Nitze was Director of the Policy Planning Staff in the Department of State from 1950 to 1953, Secretary of the Navy and Deputy Secretary of Defense in the 1963-69 period, and a member of the U.S. SALT delegation from 1969 to 1974. He is currently Chairman, Policy Studies, of the Committee on the Present Danger. This article reflects his personal views.

An important element in recent European criticism of U.S. foreign policy is the claim that neither the Administration nor its critics has presented a coherent strategy for the decade of the 1980s. Responsible Europeans suggest that American statements on foreign policy have stressed the value of good personal relations, the importance of goodwill, and the desirability of shared aims, but have offered little in the way of practical guidelines as to how we should deal with the growing power of the Soviet Union. These critics ascribe the erratic nature of U.S. policy to the lack of a sound strategic concept. They are not, however, much happier on this score with the Administration's domestic critics than with the Administration.

It is timely, therefore, to outline an approach to a more coherent Western strategy. By way of introduction, I offer some comments on basic concepts, on the evolution of the correlation of forces, and on Soviet strategy.

II

Clausewitz uses the word "strategy" to describe an approach to war which links the outcomes of a number of military engagements in space and in time. Its object is to achieve a favorable overall position in which your opponent has no remaining courses of action open to him reasonably likely to reverse the course of the war. He must, therefore, accommodate to your side's political will.

Since Clausewitz's time, much thought has gone into expanding his concept into something broader than military strategy, often called "grand strategy," in which all factors bearing on the evolving situation-including economic, political and psychological factors as well as military-are taken into account over long periods of time, including times both of peace and of war. The Soviet leaders are careful students of Clausewitz and his successors and pay much attention to questions of doctrine, policy, strategy and tactics. Doctrine includes principles that are virtually unchanging over time, such as the primacy of the Communist Party over the state, the high importance of maintaining the security of the Soviet Union as the base of the Soviet Communist Party's power, the historical inevitability of progress toward world communism, and the Party's duty to assist that progress by exploiting class tensions and the tensions resulting from colonialism.

Policy deals more specifically with what should be the general aims and lines of action in a given era and thus changes somewhat over time depending on basic changes in the world situation. The Soviets view strategy as being considerably more flexible and fluid, the better to capitalize on new opportunities for exploitation as they may arise.

One of the basic Soviet guidelines for action is that there must be a careful and continuously updated appraisal of what they call the correlation of forces. When the correlation of forces has evolved significantly in the Soviets' favor, their doctrine calls upon them to exploit that change to nail down permanent gains for their side. Having once achieved what they intend to be a permanent gain, the Brezhnev Doctrine, in effect, calls on them to ...

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