Heresy from a Man of Action

By Hugh Sidey

Retired General Maxwell D. Taylor is an intellectual soldier who examines global trouble spots from the heights. His view of the struggle below goes far beyond armies. He sees U.S. national security concerns in terms of critical raw materials and the potential collisions of exploding populations as well as in numbers of tanks and planes. The author of The Uncertain Trumpet, which questioned the doctrine of massive nuclear retaliation, sounds a compelling note in a plan for national strength that comes not only from scholarship but from a life of action.

As a U.S. Army captain, Taylor hiked the dusty plains of China in 1937 beside "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell, studying the advance of the Japanese army. In the eerie nether light of 3 a.m. on June 6,1944, Taylor--by then a brigadier general --floated to earth behind Utah Beach in Normandy, gathered a handful of his men from the 101st Airborne Division and secured one of the causeways over which troops from the Allied armada would march onto mainland Europe. Later he served as Army Chief of Staff and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Now, at 80, he is a guardian of the nation's conscience.

Despite the budget snipping under way at the White House, Taylor fears that the Reagan Administration may yet launch an orgy of aimless military buying and building that will weaken us economically. He worries about stockpiling mountains of weapons for a surprise nuclear salvo that is the least likely of conflicts. Meanwhile, the nation might be left unprepared for small, sharp fights that could paralyze us by cutting off oil or scarce minerals. Taylor notes that OPEC price increases shook the foundation of NATO and diminished American power as much as some Soviet military improvements.

Taylor would begin at the top by replacing the National Security Council with a national policy council that would chart our threats, interests and priorities on a broader scale. Such a body would include Cabinet officers and experts who would determine which problems require military action and how much and where diplomacy should be sharpened and intensified.

Spouting heresy in a mild and disarming manner, the wiry general doubts that we need the new MX missile system. He would exploit cruise missiles and hurry research to put future nuclear weapons on submarines. He would put no more American muscle into NATO, believing that if the Soviets decide to attack nations on the fringes of the Iron Curtain there is no way we can win. Our strategy must be to prevent such a move by raising the costs to their interests around the globe. Taylor argues that we need to take a closer look at the Kremlin's strengths and weaknesses. Can the Soviets go on enlarging their immense military machine or might they, as Churchill once warned, be on the verge of killing themselves in getting strong?

From his Massachusetts Avenue apartment, General Taylor can almost see the White House, where national security must be planned. Ronald Reagan and his advisers, he believes, should decide how to make major war too costly for any adversary and how we can best fight for our interests in limited conflicts. The President should then not worry so much about numbers of weapons as a measure of our security, Taylor insists. American spirit and economic health mean more.

Maxwell Taylor still reads Clausewitz, the 19th century German strategist who defined war as an extension of politics by other means. Taylor has almost decided that the idea of "strategic war" is a misnomer foisted on us by academics who seem to dwell on the idea of the apocalypse. "Clausewitz says war is a way of getting something," muses Taylor. "Strategic war destroys everything." And that, says the old soldier decisively, is not war at all.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.