(3 of 4)
On its tougher side, applied to specific situations, the Nixon Doctrine means that the U.S., despite domestic pressures, will not reduce its conventional forces in the NATO defense of Europe or renounce the use of tactical nuclear weapons there. While encouraging efforts at a détente between Western Europe and the Soviet Union, the U.S. will insist upon a harmonious Western approach—a warning to West Germany and France that the U.S. is suspicious of separate deals with the U.S.S.R. The imminence of "a momentous advance" in European economic unity pleases the U.S., says Nixon, but he demands that the European Community also accommodate U.S. trade interests. Similarly, the U.S. applauds the revival of Japan as a world economic power, but urges Japan to open its own markets to more U.S. exports.
Beyond the eventual impact of the Nixon Doctrine, the President claims, "in the long run, the most significant result of negotiations between the superpowers in the past year could be in the field of arms control." The report says that the Administration has painstakingly prepared for the present SALT talks and has explored multiple options; unlike previous weapons negotiators, its team is "not the prisoner of bureaucratic jockeying to come up with an agreed response" whenever the Soviet Union takes a new position. The talks, Nixon observes, have thus proceeded in "a thoughtful, nonpolemical manner" with "calm, reasoned dialogue."
Both powers, the report states, have reached a condition of nuclear "sufficiency" in which neither is clearly superior and either can devastate the other. The Soviet Union has surpassed the U.S. in intercontinental ballistic missiles (1,440 to 1,054) and is expected to catch up in submarine-launched missiles within three years (the current U.S. lead is 656 to 350). Says Nixon: "The U.S. and the Soviet Union have now reached a point where small numerical advantages in strategic forces have little military relevance. The attempt to obtain large advantages would spark an arms race which would, in the end, prove pointless."
U.S. experts fear that the new Soviet S59 missiles, with accurate multiple warheads, could knock out land-based U.S. ICBMs and give the Russians an advantage. Deployment of the SS-9s has been slowed, but the Nixon paper expresses concern that this may be only a pause while improvements are being made. Meanwhile, the U.S. is installing its own multiple-targeted missiles, but they are said to be too inaccurate and too small for pinpoint destruction of Soviet missile sites and are only retaliatory weapons against cities. Nixon is insisting that the U.S. must continue to protect its own sites with the Safeguard ABM system until agreement is reached on the limitation of both offensive and defensive weapons.
More generally, Nixon argues, "there is an absolute point below which our security forces must never be allowed to go. For it serves no purpose in conflicts between nations to have been almost strong enough."