Noam Chomsky - Turning the Tide U.S. intervention in

The Race to Destruction
5. The Roots of the Pentagon System
Classics in Politics: Turning the Tide Noam Chomsky
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espite its generally frivolous character, there is a sense in which
the defensive rhetoric is appropriate: we must defend the Grand
Area from its own populations—from ‘‘internal aggression” which
threatens the Fifth Freedom. But why do we need strategic weapons to
guarantee the right to intervene in our vast domains?
There is a reason. Strategic weapons provide an “umbrella” for
intervention and aggression with impunity. The argument has been
developed in various forms by planners. Carter’s Secretary of Defense
Harold Brown reported to Congress that with our strategic nuclear
capabilities in place, “our other forces become meaningful instruments
of military and political power,” a sound observation. Paul Nitze made a
similar point in NSC 141 in January, 1953. He argued that a civil
defense program was necessary for two basic reasons: (1) to make a
first strike against the USSR a feasible prospect, and (2) to guarantee
“the freedom of the United States Government to take strong actions in
the cold war” without too much concern over Soviet retaliation: Soviet
advances in nuclear weaponry “would present an extremely grave threat
to the United States” because they “would tend to impose greater
caution in our cold war policies to the extent that these policies involve
significant threat of general war.” Our “cold war policies” are the regular
policies of intervention, and it is important to maintain our freedom to
carry them out. The argument carries over to the development of
strategic weapons, for the reasons given by Harold Brown. 80
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Notice that what concerned Nitze in 1953 was the “deadly
connection”: the fear that intervention might lead to nuclear war. Civil
defense being inconceivable, an intimidating posture is therefore
required so that we need not be overly cautious in our Cold War policies