Washington Rules

America’s Path to Permanent War

Andrew J. Bacevich

Extract :

1-    The advent of semiwar

Old Iron Ass :

Shortly after the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had brought Japan to its knees, LeMay told a Pentagon board :”Our only defense is a striking-power-in-being of such size that it is capable of delivering a stronger blow than any of our potential enemies.[1] » He now set out to create just such a force.

A set of fortuitous circumstances helped. When the Soviets tested their own bomb in August 1949, they shattered Washington’s nuclear complacency. In June 1950, the North Korean invasion of South Korea removed the postwar cap on military spending. Defense dollars became available in abundance. At about the same time, the United States developed the capability to mass-produce nuclear weapons. As an age of nuclear scarcity gave way to an era of atomic plenty, the supply of bombs no longer constrained SAC’s development.

Dwight D. Eisenhower’s election to the presidency in 1952 proved a boon for LeMay and Sac. The concept of ”massive retaliation” now emerged as the centerpiece of Cold War strategy. Elected in part because of popular dissatisfaction with a costly, inconclusive war in Korea, Ike had no intention of being drawn into anything even remotely similar. Massive retaliation promised that Soviet aggression anywhere would elicit an all-out nuclear response. Ensuring the “credibility” and responsiveness of the nuclear strike force therefore became the Pentagon’s highest priority.

Meawhile, the rapid pace of innovation in aircraft and weapons design, jet engines, rocketry, and communications presented a dazzling array of ever-improving capabilities for LeMay to purchase. He wasted no time in exploiting these opportunities. His achievement was threefold.

First, he expanded SAC[2] by several orders of magnitude, acquiring people, aircraft, weapons, and real estate at a prodigious rate. By the mid-1950s, LeMay’s command oversaw some 200,000 personnel operating from 55 bases. As one historian has put it, SAC became ”an air force within an air force,” a personal fiefdom over which LeMay ruled as completely as Dulles ruled the Cia.[3]

Second, in place of the lackadaisical standards existing in 1948, LeMay imbued his command with a culture of maximum readiness. In effect, as Dulles did with the CIA, he put SAC on a war footing, converting it into a “cocked weapon.” The phrase was no mere metaphor.

Book: Washington Rules, America’s Path to Permanent War

Andrew J. Bacevich

Metropolitain Books

Henry Holt and Company New York