The Myth of Flexible Response: United States Strategy in Europe during the 1960s

Re-assessing foreign policy 1969–72

“…This, so the theory ran, would offer decision-makers greater flexibility during a confrontation with the USSR and prevent a scenario where a president of the United States would be forced to surrender or precipitate a nuclear Armageddon in response to any Soviet military aggression in Europe. 53 However, NATO's force levels fell well short of being able to realistically pursue this flexible response strategy. As Nixon's team had been informed prior to taking office, and soon concluded once in office, the Warsaw Pact held an advantage in conventional forces and had also reached parity with the United States in the nuclear realm.…”

The Systemic and Ideological Sources of Grand Strategic Doctrine: American Foreign Policy in the Twentieth Century

“…The contribution of flexible response to the American balancing strategy can be seen in two areas: the centralization of control over nuclear weapons and investment in ground force capabilities. 67 CENTRALIZING NUCLEAR WEAPONS. The reduced emphasis on nuclear weapons facilitated greater control over the management of European politics: flexible response provided a rationale for ending the Eisenhower nuclear sharing schemes and the political independence that came with them.…”

“…Our world trade would be at the mercy of the combine and our increasingly better relations with our twenty neighbors to the South would end-unless we were willing to go to war on their behalf against a German-Russian dominated Europe." 67 The State Department was making much the same argument about the coming collapse of free trade principles at the hands of European totalitarianism. Following the partition of Poland, Hull feared the Nazi-Soviet entente would "prevent any Europeans from trading with us except on conditions which Berlin lays down."…”

“…If liberal values were to gain needed international breathing space, the German economic project would have to be stopped, and/or the German power position would have to be reduced. 0 DIPLOMATIC POLICY 67 Roosevelt 70 To be sure, the positive liberal rights were not the only source of the Roosevelt administration's fears of autarky. As TLFP expects, the administration believed strongly in the peaceful effects of economic liberalism, especially Secretary Hull.…”

“…The ERP would encourage such a force by making economic integration a goal of the American effort, in the hopes that this would lay the groundwork for political integration. The Europeans were to be encouraged "to assume there was no one to help them, to imagine that they had no choice but to try to work out an acceptable economic future without any outside support" and thus "adjust themselves to certain basic 67 changes which have occurred and are continuing to occur in their international position." Once Europe had adopted the economic pattern of the United States-a giant area of free exchange and efficiently coordinated production-it would be prepared to lift its own burdens.…”