Flexible response was a defense strategy implemented by John F. Kennedy in 1961 to address the Kennedy administration's skepticism of Dwight Eisenhower's New Look and its policy of Massive Retaliation. Flexible response calls 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.
Read more about Flexible Response: History, Stages in The Flexible Response, Development of The Strategic Triad, Two-and-a-half War Doctrine, Assured Destruction, Further Reading
Famous quotes containing the words flexible and/or response:
“Freedom is the essence of this faith. It has for its object simply to make men good and wise. Its institutions then should be as flexible as the wants of men. That form out of which the life and suitableness have departed should be as worthless in its eyes as the dead leaves that are falling around us.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I’ll never forget my father’s response when I told him I wanted to be a lawyer. He said, “If you do this, no man will ever want you.””
—Cassandra Dunn (b. c. 1931)