Schlesinger Doctrine

The "Schlesinger Doctrine" is the name, given by the press, to a major re-alignment of United States nuclear strike policy that was announced in January 1974 by the US Secretary of Defense, James Schlesinger. It outlined a broad selection of counterforce options against a wide variety of potential enemy actions, a major change from earlier SIOP policies of the Kennedy and Johnson eras that focussed on Mutually Assured Destruction and typically included only one or two "all out" plans of action that used the entire U.S nuclear arsenal in a single strike. A key element of the new plans were a variety of limited strikes solely against enemy military targets while ensuring the survivability of the U.S. second-strike capability, which was intended to leave an opening for a negotiated settlement.