ABSTRACT
The Eisenhower administration disagreed with symmetry—that is, the development of large conventional and nuclear forces mirroring the Soviet military establishment, although determined to seize the psychological and foreign policy initiative. The free world must devise a better strategy for its defense, based on its own special assets. Its assets include, especially, air and naval power and atomic weapons which are available in a wide range, suitable not only for strategic bombing but also for extensive tactical use. The speed and power of modern weapons has thus brought about a paradoxical consequence: henceforth the only outcome of an all-out war will be that both contenders must lose. Thus, the minor powers are in a sense insulated from the nuclear age by the incommensurability between the power of nuclear weapons and the objectives for which they might be employed, as well as by the inhibitions which are generated by a major reliance on an all-out strategy.
