Schlesinger Doctrine - Schlesinger's Reforms

Schlesinger's Reforms

Nominated by Richard Nixon on May 10, 1973, Schlesinger became Secretary of Defense on July 2. As a university professor, researcher at Rand, and government official in three agencies, he had acquired an impressive background in national security affairs.

Analyzing U.S. nuclear strategy, Schlesinger noted that the policies developed in the 1950s and 1960s were based on an overwhelming U.S. lead in nuclear forces. The plans focussed on doing as much damage to the USSR and its allies as possible, regardless of the actions the Soviets might take in response. Schlesinger stated that "deterrence is not a substitute for defense; defense capabilities, representing the potential for effective counteraction, are the essential condition of deterrence. He expressed grave doubts about the entire concept of mutually assured destruction (MAD).

Schlesinger felt that a credible deterrence would need to be based on several conditions; the U.S. would need to maintain some level of force parity with the USSR, the force would have to be highly survivable, and based on its survivability, there should be a wide range of plans that would not boil down to one of a number of different massive attacks. His new strategy was based on a number of limited counterforce attacks that would "limit the chances of uncontrolled escalation" and "hit meaningful targets" without causing widespread collateral damage. In most of these plans, majority of the U.S.'s nuclear force would be withheld in the hope that the enemy would not attack U.S. cities, while still inflicting serious military damage that might end any ongoing actions. He explicitly disavowed any intention to acquire a first-strike capability against the USSR.

Schlesinger described the new doctrine as having three main aspects:

1. The National Command Authority or its successors should have many choices about the use of weapons, always having an option to escalate.
2. Targeting should make it very explicit that the first requisite is selective retaliation against the enemy's military (i.e., tailored counterforce).
3. Some targets and target classes should not be struck, at least at first, to give the opponent a rational reason to terminate the conflict. Reduced collateral damage was another benefit of this "withhold" method. Nixon codified the basic concept as part of NSDM-242, which came into force as SIOP-5 in 1976.

In order to meet the needs of SIOP-5, a number of changes were made to the U.S. force structure. The B-1 bomber, recently cancelled, was brought back in order to provide a survivable strike option that could be launched as a show of U.S. intent. Additionally, Schlesinger put an emphasis on short range weapons that had clear counterforce capability, whose use would not signify an all-out countervalue attack. This led to further work on systems like the Pershing II and various basing arrangements in Europe that would not reach fruition until the 1980s.