Archive Report
Archive Report
Reappraisal of Defense Program and Policy
The new concept of national defense strategy is coming up for further examination as Congress prepares to act on the military budget of the Eisenhower administration for the fiscal year 1955.
For several weeks in the wake of the Eniwetok-Bikini hydrogen bomb tests, with their disclosure of the devastating power of the newest nuclear weapons, members of Congress have been questioning earlier assumptions about Air Force levels, plans for continental defense, and the overall balance of forces in the military establishment. At the same time, some of the principal allies of the United States have been voicing their concern about the foreign policy counterpart of the so-called “new look” in defense—the doctrine of “massive retaliation” to deter aggression.