The attitude of the American public toward its Armed Forces, especially the Army, has undergone a revolutionary change in the past ten years or so. Although, in the course of our history, we have fought eight major wars and dozens of minor ones, it has heretofore been implicit in our people's thinking that peace, and peace with safety, is the norm of human existence, and war or the danger of war a freakish exception to the intended order of things. Our past military policy, insofar as we may be said to have had one, reflected this naive habit of thought. In periods of peace the Army was maintained in a skeleton form, essentially as a "cadre." It considered itself lucky if it could obtain enough men and money to keep going even in cadre form. On the outbreak of war there would be a sudden huge expansion, with its concomitant confusion, inefficiency, and waste of money'. As the war progressed the new levies would learn their trade, often in the school of the battlefield where tuition charges are high. At the end of the war we would have a well trained and up-to-date Army. Then the voters would decide that there was no longer a great

We and Soviet Russia each possess weapons which, if used without limit in an all-out atomic war, could produce mutual devastation. In such a war, victory in the true sense would be impos

need for one, and the cycle of deflation would begin all over again.

The rise of Communist imperialism, with an announced program of world conquest, has ended such unrealistic national thinking. Every intelligent American knows today that his nation's safety, and perhaps his own life, depend on maintaining permanently in being the best manned, best equipped, and best trained Armed Forces that money, brains, and devotion can produce. And he is ready to pick up the check.

Therefore it has at last become possible for the leaders of our Army (as of its sister Services, the Navy and the Air Force) to enunciate a clear, concrete, and long-term policy of national defense; to state what principles must guide the Army, what are its basic missions, and what must be done to accomplish them; and to work systematically toward their accomplishment, with reasonable assurance that the Administration, Congress, and the nation as a whole will continue to back them and give them the tools to do the job.

Below I have set forth briefly my understanding of the Army's currentlyaccepted missions, principles, and policies2.

sible for either participant. Obviously, then, "the primary purpose of all military activities bearing on security is to prevent general atomic war3.

Taylor Report, p. 4; italics mine.

However, this is only one part of the picture. Even if the Communist empires attacked us without provocation or warning, we would still be capable of immediate retaliation on a scale that would destroy them. Therefore, while all-out war remains a threat and a grave one, it is for the present unlikely that the other side will deliberately start one; and it is quite certain that we shall not.

But it does not follow that there is any present indication of an end to Communist aggression. Quite the contrary. It is the nature of such militant dictatorships to be always on the march, to feed on dynamism. Accordingly, in the absence of a general atomic war, we may expect continuing attempts at limited aggression, either by subversion, by military force, or by a combination of the two.

That sort of thing has in fact been going on since 1946, when-in response to a popular clamor for "bringing the boys home"-we cut our Armed Forces to the bone, and thereby became a nation charged with the leadership of the free world but without the means of exercising it. This was a signal for world Communism to resume its march. Communist-inspired civil war, guerrilla warfare, riots, and other disturbances broke out in China, Indochina, Egypt, India, Greece, the Netherlands East Indies, and elsewhere. The program has continued to the present day. Since World War II ended there have been fourteen small wars; and in eight of them the Communists have been directly involved.

Such a program of limited aggression cannot be prevented by the massive atomic power which we have created as a deterrent to an all-out attack on ourselves and our Allies. It went on visibly, in fact, in the years when we had a monopoly of such power. And it is an exceedingly dangerous program. In the first place, there is always the possibility of a local and limited conflict expanding into a general war. Even if this does not occur, successive limited Communist gains could lead to the "piecemeal erosion of the free world,

Taylor Report, page 4.

whose nations might either be absorbed into the Communist system or seek refuge in neutralism, leaving us isolated. Finally, the continued success of such a program might persuade our antagonists of our impotence, and thereby encourage them to make an all-out attack.

Accordingly, while the first task of our Armed Forces is to prevent a general war, a second and very vital task is to deter the Communist powers from instigating limited and local aggressive moves; or, if they are made, to defeat them quickly and decisively. And the task of dealing with such "brush fire wars” is peculiarly one for the Army to handle.

From these basic requirements can be logically deduced the kind of Army we must have today. It requires five categories of forces: those involved in continental defense against air attack; those deployed overseas; the Strategic Army Corps in the United States; the reserves; and the training and other personnel who assist allied and friendly nations to improve the efficiency of their own armed forces.

Continental defense-the assurance of our nation's safety against a direct attack by planes or missiles-is outstandingly important. It involves achieving and maintaining technological superiority over the Communist bloc; using that superiority to create a powerful arsenal of atomic weapons, and the means of delivering them on a devastating scale against targets in an aggressor's country; and preventing an enemy from wrecking the delivery system before it could be set in motion, thus crippling our own country.

For the present, a large-scale retaliatory attack against an aggressor would be primarily the task of the Strategic Air Command and of the airplane carriers and missile-launching vessels of the Navy. The Army's major contribution to continental defense in this sense is the Army Air Defense Command, which operates as an element of the overall North American Air Defense Command. Its Nike missile batteries, which surround many of our major cities and industrial areas, would be

extremely effective against enemy planes, and are an important deterrent to aggresssion. A major task of the Armed Forces is to make our continental defense system equally effective against enemy missiles, by the so-called "antimissile missile" and its accessories.

The Army's oversea forces currently represent about 40% of its active strength. They are stationed in some seventy-odd foreign nations and in our oversea possessions. Two especially important contingents are in Europe and Korea.

In Europe is our Seventh Army, consisting of five divisions and supporting troops; the best equipped, best trained, and most combat-ready ground forces in Western Europe. They form the hard core of the NATO ground shield. The function of that shield is to prevent a surprise penetration by Communist ground forces, holding them at arm's length until NATO's retaliatory forces could strike at them with heavy atomic attacks. The Seventh Army, deployed along the Iron Curtain, is also a reminder to the Communists that aggression in this area would be met at once by the full power of the United States.

Similarly we maintain in Korea, in the Eighth Army, a corps of two American divisions deployed alongside the Korean forces. The Eighth Army faces a Communist force of some 700,000, separated from it only by the 4,000-yard strip of the demilitarized zone. At the time of the Korean armistice we committed ourselves to meet any renewal of hostilities with our full armed strength. Our divisions there are a guarantee to our South Korean friends of our ability and intention to discharge that commitment.

If our oversea forces became heavily engaged, we would have to come to their aid promptly and effectively. Also, there is required a combat-ready "fire brigade," all or part of which can be sent at once to an area where it is needed to protect the interests of the United States and our Allies. For this purpose the Army maintains in the United States what is called the Strategic Army Force.

One element of this is the Strategic Army Corps (STRAC). It is presently composed of the Headquarters XVIII Airborne Corps at Fort Bragg, North Carolina; 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Kentucky; 82d Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina; 4th Infantry Division at Fort Lewis, Washington; 1st Infantry Division at Fort Riley, Kansas; and supporting units. (These units, based upon the Army's worldwide commitments, are subject to change.) STRAC is the Army's mobile combat ready force, designed to meet the initial requirements of limited war or to provide initial reinforcements in a general war. Its mission is to be operationally ready on a moment's notice-hence its adopted slogan: "Skilled, Tough, Ready Around the Clock." Its effectiveness and speed of movement are dependent upon the availability of adequate air and sea lift. It has atomic capability.

At the present time, not all of STRAC could be moved by air in one operation in a short time. However, the kind of readiness that is its specialty was vividly demonstrated on 15 May 1958. The emergency grew out of serious disorders by organized mobs in the capital city of Venezuela, during an official visit of Vice President Nixon. A Communist revolt against the Venezuelan government appeared to be developing. President Eisenhower decided to move U. S. forces into positions where they could promptly assist the Venezuelan authorities if that became necessary. At 3:55 PM on 13 May the Commanding General, 101st Airborne Division, was ordered to alert a task force of two companies for immediate movement to Ramey Air Force Base, Puerto Rico. At 8:35 AM of 14 May, less than 17 hours later, this group of around 500 highly trained fighting men, armed and equipped for any situation that might arise, had completed its movement to Puerto Rico, a distance of 1,740 miles.

The remaining Strategic Army Forces, including certain designated Reserve and National Guard units, are planned as STRAC reinforcements and to reconstitute the strategic reserve in the

CONUS in the event that STRAC, or elements thereof, are deployed. These forces have been designed and developed to support not only the STRAC but the entire Army mobilization requirement in limited or general

war.

The decision to send this force out of the country would be a grave one. By its very nature it would be made in an atmosphere of world tension. Its immediate effect would be to strip the United States of nearly all the entire combat forces of the active Army. This brings us to a consideration of the fourth category of Army forces, the reserve components.

These units and personnel, which have become so vital an element of national defense, are discussed at length elsewhere in this volume. It is enough here to point out how they fit into the overall picture. In such a situation as exists today-a period of peace, though an uneasy peace-many individual reservists are on duty in the Active Army, supplementing the regulars. If the dispatch overseas of the Strategic Army Corps or any considerable part of it became necessary, reserve forces would be required at once to fill the vacuum thus created, and in effect to constitute a replacement for STRAC, ready in its turn to back up the oversea effort. The scale on which this would occur would of course depend on the nature and duration of the emergency. In a serious emergency-not to speak of a general war in the true sense-it would be a large scale. Units of all types and sizes from divisions to companies, as well as trained individuals, would be needed in quantity to build up new strategic forces, properly balanced and fully trained, in the first six months of the war.

This is "the primary and most important field for the reserves. Without

them, the Army can strike only one punch-that represented by its active forces. These have never been large in the past, and seem likely to become smaller in the future. If the Army is to be able to strike more than once, to follow up with repeated blows until an enemy is brought to the floor, we need ready reserves in large numbers.""

The Army is able to place increased reliance on its reserves because of their growing effectiveness. This increase in effectiveness is the result of the socalled Reserve Forces Act of 1955, and action taken under its provisions. For the first time in our history we are developing reserve forces which would be ready for combat only a few months after mobilization. We may look forward to a time when these units will be at virtually 100% strength, with fully trained personnel, and capable of prompt action in an emergency.

Finally, the Army has the task of helping to create deterrent forces to Communism throughout the world by increasing the military strength of our allies, through training missions and other means. From the Army viewpoint, America's military aid program is of the utmost strategic value. It allows the development of efficient local fighting forces which can protect nearby areas from aggression, and either defeat the aggressor with their own strength or gain the indispensable time needed for the arrival of American help. The Army is giving assistance of this sort in some 44 free countries, and is directly or indirectly aiding in the improvement of over 200 foreign combat divisions. A complementary task is the stockpiling, in the territory of certain of our allies and with their permission, of enough critical equipment to supply their needs and ours until wartime production and shipments could get under way.

What is this modern American Army on which has been imposed such a staggering load of global responsibili

ties? What does it look like, viewed close up?

It is, in every sense of the phrase, Big Business. It is an imposing sight; to no one more so than to an old-line regular like myself, who can remember it in the days before 1914, with its strength of 90,000, its horse-drawn 3inch field artillery and mule-drawn wagon transport, and its handful of eccentrics who had developed an interest in aviation. The Army of 1958 has changed past all knowledge, not only since that remote period but since World War II; for that matter, since the armistice in Korea.

The most spectacular change has been the recent "pentomic" reorganization of the combat divisions. In an era when a single artillery shell or missile with an atomic load has a radius of destruction measured in thousands of feet, it is obvious that neither the units, the weapons, nor the tactics of the past can remain unchanged. What is needed is a ground force which can be broken into small self-contained units, widely dispersed, fast-moving, and armed with immensely powerful weapons, yet capable of coordinated action under a single commander; and which can also fight with conventional weapons, in minor hostilities where atomic weapons and tactics might be out of place.

Shortly after the close of World War II the Army began an elaborate series of studies and tests to determine how these ends could be attained. The result can best be described briefly as follows":

"The new structure improves the Army's ability to fight effectively under conditions of atomic warfare without losing the capability to conduct conventional warfare.

"The atomic battlefield of the future will be wider and deeper than battlefields of the past. There will probably be a checkerboard disposition of units with considerable gaps between combat elements. Consequently, Army units are being organized and trained for allround combat.

"The problem of the ground commander will be to find the enemy, to determine his configuration, and then to destroy him by directing conventional or atomic fire upon him, using organic

7 Taylor Report, p. 8; italics mine.

weapons or calling down the fires of missiles deployed well to the rear. Thereafter, the commander will need instant mobility to exploit the effects of this destructive fire. . . . The new divisions are designed to accomplish these difficult tasks.

"The Army now has a completely airtransportable airborne division. (Its) major features are: Five battle groups as opposed to the conventional three. Each battle group has a headquarters company, a mortar battery, and five rifle companies. A major reorganization of the division artillery provides an atomic-capable Honest John rocket battery and five batteries of 105mm artillery.

"The new infantry division has . . five battle groups, [which are] administratively self-contained and air-transportable units organized essentially like the groups in the airborne division. The division retains its tank battalion, but the battle groups lack the tank companies that were common to the former regiments. A reconnaissance battalion replaces the former reconnaissance company to employ fully the division's nuclear firepower, and the artillery is completely reorganized to include an atomic capability.

"While the infantry and airborne divisions required major reorganization, the armored division, with its armorprotected mobility and its favorable firepower-to-manpower ratio, is well suited for the mobile, dispersed type warfare envisioned for the future. However, the division artillery now has an atomic capability.

"The new infantry and airborne divisions have the following advantages over their older counterparts: increased front-line fighting strength; increased mobility through Army Aviation and cross-country vehicles; atomic capability in the artillery; and greatly improved firepower."

This fearsome aggregate of destructive power represented by our combat divisions is the most dramatic aspect of today's Army. But in terms of manpower it is only a minority of the whole. Behind it is a complex supporting organization whose activities, when