The New Look policy, though initially useful, quickly became obsolete with the introduction of
During his presidential campaign, John F. Kennedy claimed that the
Flexible Response was implemented to develop several options across the spectrum of warfare, other than the nuclear option, for quickly dealing with enemy aggression. In addition, the survivability of the retaliatory capability was stressed, leading to the diversification of the strategic force, development of the strategic triad, and half the Strategic Air Command force being put on permanent alert status.
The Kennedy doctrine did not include the ability to fight nuclear wars because of the idea that it would undermine deterrence, was technologically unworkable, would fuel the arms race, and was not politically feasible.[citation needed]
Importance was also placed on counterinsurgency and the development of unconventional military forces, unconventional tactics, and "civic action" programs.
A staged plan was devised to counter any Soviet military action other than a first strike. On 7 October 1966 an informal session of the NATO Military Committee called for the flexibility of choice to meet varying contingencies. The new NATO Strategic Concept, MC 14/3, approved at the end of 1967, envisaged three types of military responses to aggression against NATO:
Direct defense: In case of a conventional Soviet attack (meaning non-nuclear therefore not considered a first strike) initial efforts would be to try to stop the Soviet advance with conventional weapons. That meant to try to force the foreseen Soviet attack on West Germany to a halt by NATO's European forces, Allied Command Europe.
Deliberate Escalation: If conventional NATO forces were succumbing under the Soviet attack, that was actually expected as intelligence that indicated that Soviet divisions greatly outnumbered NATO divisions. Then a series of possible steps ”to defeat aggression by raising but where possible controlling, the scope and intensity of combat“ with the ”threat of nuclear response" would be taken. Among the examples provided were ”broadening or intensifying a non-nuclear engagement, possibly by opening another front or initiating action at sea in response to low-intensity aggression“, ”demonstrative use of nuclear weapons“, and ”selective nuclear strikes on interdiction targets". In this phase, NATO forces could switch to a limited use of nuclear weapons, such as recently-developed tactical nuclear weapons (like nuclear artillery).
General Nuclear Response: The last phase or stage more or less corresponded to the mutual assured destruction scenario. The total nuclear attack on the communist world likely resulting in a Soviet response in kind if it had not already done so.[1]
By 1960, the United States had three means of strategic forces:
Part of Flexible response was the strategy of being able to fight over the entire spectrum of violence by developing diverse forces for different types of warfare. This meant being able to fight multiple wars simultaneously; specifically, the US should have the peacetime capability to fight two large regional wars and a small brushfire war at the same time. The consequence of this was to increase recruiting, investment, and research for the US force posture.
The strategic doctrine for Kennedy's Flexible response was Assured Destruction. Flexible response made
Defense Secretary McNamara sought to limit damage to the U.S. by developing a separate strategy for offense and defense. The offensive strategy was one of
The defensive strategy involved developing a system to intercept incoming Soviet missiles. Bombers could be easily shot down, but missiles still remained a credible threat. As a result, the United States began developing an