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NSC 68 was the culmination of President Truman’s Cold War strategy. Is assumed that a Soviet nuclear attack on the US was inevitable by 1954 and the US needed a huge military to continue on the fight afterward. That means Truman, and most of the establishment, treated nuclear war
As inevitable. They also saw nuclear weapons as a weapon to actively used in international politics, though Truman had sought to prevent their further use in Korea. But he had signed on to their inevitable use in NSC 68. NSC 68 quadrupled defense spending to unsustainable levels
But this was seen as acceptable since it was needed after the inevitable nuclear war of 1954. This was the doctrine in place when Ike ran for President and assumed the office. He knew it was suicidal and threw it out. He replaced it with the nuclear deterrent, which was much
Cheaper. It was financially sustainable and allowed the US to successfully contain communism until its collapse in 1991. It still allows the US to project its power around the world. NSC 68 was far too expensive and would have caused a debt crisis by the mid 50s. The nuclear
Deterrent successfully kept the peace by deterring communism on a macro scale. More than that, it ended wars between major powers, at least until the rise of non kinetic cyber war. This means that Ike the main architect of ending great power wars. But it goes beyond that.
Remember what I said about nuclear weapons being seen as a weapon to be actively used? That remained true in the 50s, and Ike’s advisors wanted to use it over and over again in Cold War crises. Korea. Diem Bien Phu. Taiwan. Suez. Hungary. Taiwan again. Berlin. In each crisis
Ike’s advisors pushed for a nuclear attack to defeat the communist aggression. Each time Ike refused, finding a peaceful solution, though one that often involved bluffing to the communists that his deterrent was serious. Ike defused at least the seven nuclear crises I listed,
Though he also faced many lesser ones. This was the most dangerous decade in history. Tensions between the superpowers were at their height and nuclear weapons were seen as something to be used, even a first resort. But Ike’s refusal to use them changed that. He made them a
Deterrent. Think about that. Ike turned nuclear weapons from a tool to be actively used into a deterrent that ended great power wars but wasn’t to be used either. How do we know this? Look at the advice that the Joint Chiefs gave JFK in the Cuban Missile Crisis. They told him to
Launch conventional air strikes on the Soviet missile sites and possibly an invasion. That’s a far cry from the advice Ike unanimously and repeatedly received from his advisors: to use nuclear weapons just because the French army was sieged in Vietnam or the Chinese refused to
Return pows from the Korean War. This was a huge shift, and Ike’s refusal to use nuclear weapons again made it happen. It didn’t have to be this way. The continued use of nuclear weapons would have opened the door to their further use. It would have set different rules for the
Post war world. Anybody could use them instead of their only being a deterrent. Especially when we were committed to NSC 68. This is a huge legacy, greater than almost any other leader in history. I think it’s the greatest of Ike’s career and of any 20th century President.
I hope this clarifies why I value Ike so highly and why I think he saved the world (along with his actions in WW2). It’s why I rank him over FDR and see him as the greatest foreign policy President. Truman put us on the track to nuclear weapons being a viable option forever.
Ike changed that. He’s the main reason for nuclear non use since WW2. Thank you for reading. I like Ike.
@EPoe187 @BenWinegard @ZeteticAdvocate @xavierbonilla87 @PrezWisdom I hope this clarifies my thoughts on Ike for when we debate Presidents.
