Britain, America and Allied Tactical Nuclear Operations, 1966–1970

Abstract

Any military commander who is honest with himself, or with those he’s speaking to, will admit that he has made mistakes in the application of military power. He’s killed people unnecessarily – his own troops or other troops – through mistakes, through errors of judgment. A hundred, or thousands, or tens of thousands, maybe even a hundred thousand. But, he hasn’t destroyed nations.

And the conventional wisdom is don’t make the same mistake twice, learn from your mistakes. And we all do. Maybe we make the same mistake three times, but hopefully not four or five. There’ll be no learning period with nuclear weapons. You make one mistake and you’re going to destroy nations.

Robert McNamara, The Fog of War: Eleven lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara

The reflections of Robert McNamara’s, the US Secretary of Defence from 1961 to 1968, were born of experiences such as the Cuban Missile Crisis and his attempts to reform America’s nuclear war plan; the Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP). McNamara came to the conclusion that nuclear strategy needed to be under tight political control from the high policy level. The move into the Nuclear Planning Group had alleviated the pressures for a European say in command and control (C²) at the high policy level, at the same time as the change of NATO doctrine from one of ‘Massive Retaliation’ into ‘Flexible Response’.