Judged in the light of the Christian doctrine of war, as this has been developed over the course of the centuries, the United States military strategy in the age of nuclear warfare stands condemned, as barbarous, un-Christian, irrational and doomed to be defeated by the Soviet military planners and strategists in the Kremlin. The American military planners have placed our nation’s safety in jeopardy by their foolish adherence to the false dilemma suicide or surrender and they have refused to take into account the Christian principles of defending one’s nation against naked aggression. Underlying this Christian doctrine of war is the basic assumption that war is not simply a problem of aggression; more fundamentally it is a problem of injustice. It is the concept of justice that links the use of military force with God’s moral order. For this reason Christians have believed that a defensive war to repress injustice and to defend man’s natural rights and liberties is morally admissible. By means of this principle Christians have found a solution to the false extremes of pacifism on the one hand and bellicosity on the other. In addition to this fundamental principle, the Church has also taught that in addition to the right to defend one’s country against outside aggression, the expected results from defending one’s nation against attack must be proportionate to the sacrifices involved. This in turn involves a limitation in the use of force. Only as much force must be used to repel aggression as is militarily necessary. Does this principle not exclude the use of nuclear weapons per se? According to the late Pope Pius XII it does not. A nation which has been subjected to an “obvious and extremely grave injustice” may defend itself by the use of nuclear weapons. But this does not give such a nation any moral right to engage in total war nor to demand the unconditional surrender of the enemy.

It is on these last two points that by a strange twist of irony the godless military strategists of the Soviet Union have proved themselves to be closer to the old Christian doctrine of war than have the so-called Christian Americans. Ever since President Harry Truman ordered the dropping of the atomic bombs upon Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1945 the American government has been guided by the barbaric doctrine that the only way to defend America against a Soviet Communist nuclear attack is to destroy as many Russian civilians and people as possible. Hence the scare tactics now being resorted to by the Carter Administration to force the U.S. Senate into signing the SALT II Treaty with Soviet Russia. The American people are told by the mass media that in any war between the Soviet Union and the United States both sides will try to destroy each other’s populations in the vain hoping of achieving the “total” surrender of the other side.

In actual fact if the Soviet Union were to inflict a nuclear first strike upon our country, the great majority of Americans would survive since the Soviet missiles and nuclear weapons have been specifically designed to destroy our nuclear missile bases not our centers of population. The Communists intend to defeat the United States not to destroy it. In Soviet Strategy in the Nuclear Age, Raymond L. Garthoff wrote: “The fundamental Soviet objective which determine political and military strategies may be concisely summarized in one sentence: Advance the power of the Soviet Union in whatever ways are most expedient so long as the survival of the Soviet power itself is not endangered.” For the Soviet Union survival is not the issue any longer as they know they now have enough radar and other developed systems of defense to destroy any missiles which America may be able to deliver after receiving a first Russian nuclear strike. In Soviet military thought military action is subordinate to political aims; with us military action has created its own aims, and there is only one aim; “victory,” that is, the unconditional surrender of the Soviets. Gartoff further points out that “The Soviet strategic concept in the thermonuclear ear, as before, is founded on the belief that the primary objectives of military operations is the destruction of hostile military forces, and NOT the annihilation of the economic and population resources of the enemy.” In other words the Russian Communists will wage nuclear war upon us in such a way so as NOT to destroy American’s economic and productive capacity, which they want to take over intact for their own use.

The method then by which America will be doomed to defeat is simple, namely the use of Russian thermonuclear blackmail, to force us to negotiate a surrender. The acceptance by President Carter of the presence of a brigade of Soviet combat troops in Cuba is a clear illustration of this strategy.

The Soviet strategic objective is to conquer the United States, without the necessity for any nuclear war at all, if possible, and with the use of a Soviet first strike, if necessary, to destroy our ability to retaliate. To achieve this objective, it is necessary for the Russians to encircle the United States so thoroughly that resistance would be suicidal. Many, if not most Americans have become so softened by materialism and atheism that they would prefer surrender to suicide.

In order to avoid a nuclear conflict before the Communist encirclement is complete, it is desirable that each increment of encirclement should be of a magnitude that, while it may cause us to protest, it will not cause direct confrontation. Diplomatic protests are acceptable to the Communists, but economic and military actions on our part are not.

Is the Soviet strategy proving successful? The answer is yes! The overwhelming majority of American liberals and even some so-called conservatives have applauded the President for his appeasement of the Communists in Cuba, for that is what it really amounts to. As an example, let me quote Senator Walter D. Huddleston (D-Ky) who stated on Sept. 15 last in The Los Angeles Times concerning the Cuban affair “There is a time for confrontation, but it should come only when this nation’s vital interests are at stake-not when situations develop, which, while undesirable, do not go to the heart of our vital interests.”

How many Soviet troops in Cuba does the Senator think “go to the heart of our vital interests,” and merit direct confrontation? For the sake of argument, let us assume that the answer is 30,000. If this total were reached by surreptitious increments of 3,000 troops a month, would each of these increments be regarded as undesirable but of insufficient magnitude to justify confrontation? If any increment were discovered, our liberals would no doubt argue that the change in the status quo was of minor importance.

At what point will the encircling Soviet forces be so great that resistance to Soviet demands will become equated with our national suicide? According to Henry Kissinger that point of no military return is rapidly being reached. Speaking at a conference held in Brussels during the last Labor Day weekend, titled “Nato, the next 30 Years,” Kissinger said that the West’s ability to deter Soviet attack is failing at all levels-conventional, thermonuclear, and strategic. In Europe the Soviet superiority in conventional forces had, in the past, been counterbalanced by NATO tactical nuclear weapons. Now, however, the Soviets are ahead in theater nuclear weapons, and Kissinger stated that the U.S. may be unwilling to use strategic nuclear weapons in Europe’s defense. He asked the question: “If you were Secretary of State or security adviser, what would you recommend the president of the United States to do in such circumstances. How would he improve his relative military position? Of course, he could threaten a full-scale strategic response, but will he do it? Is it a realistic course? (New Republic, Sept. 15, page 17). The answer to such a question is obvious. Make the best possible deal with the Soviets, even if that accommodation is really surrender, it will not be necessary to call it by that name and it will be possible for America to “save face” at least temporarily, even though it will not then be possible in the end to save our historic freedoms.

Let us wake up before it is too late. Given the present Soviet Communist nuclear superiority in both attack and defensive nuclear weapons the Russian policy of defeating us by blackmail is working. Suppose the Russians now move into the Panama Canal Zone. What would President Carter do? Given the Soviet’s ability to carry out a disarming nuclear strike on the U.S. and the latter’s inability to disarm the Soviet Union, would Carter really risk killing Russian soldiers in Panama? It would be more reasonable to absorb the loss of the Canal, and of course of the last shreds of American influence left in the world.

Such losses could not help but jar the American people into realizing that their own government’s strategic inferiority to the Soviet Union can only lead to their own enslavement. Can the Soviet strategy for our defeat be itself overcome? The answer is yes if only enough loyalist Americans will demand of their Congressmen that immediate steps be taken to make use of America’s vastly superior military technology in revamping our whole defense system. Our American nation is not doomed to defeat. We possess the technology to build much better weapons of the same kind than the Russians now possess that are even better than theirs. More important, the U.S. possesses the technology to build weapons of defense of totally different kinds from those presently enjoyed by the Communists, weapons which will both safeguard our freedoms and enable us to employ a military strategy within the frame of reference of the Christian principle limitation in the use of means necessary to defend ourselves without destroying millions of Russians. I refer in particular to the development of a crash program to build space–based lasers which will hone in on Russian missiles destroying them over the oceans before they ever approach our own missile bases. I refer to a program which would take our Minutemen out of their holes and fit them with counterforce warheads, as well, fitting Polaris-Poseidon submarines with counterforce warheads. I refer to the building of a truly mobile MX anti–missile system, unhampered by Goldberg basing schemes, as well as the use of anti–missiles. If the British could invent the “Blue-Diver” device which enables their Vulcan and Victor bombers in the British Royal Air Force strike command to create artificial magnetic storms which blur enemy radar screens, then there is no reason at all why the Americans cannot also build jamming devices against any missile the Soviets choose to send against us. We may not be able to complete such a defense system in time, but as least let us try. Let not the American eagle be proved after 200 years to have been only a paper eagle easily destroyed by t he Russian bear. Let us trust in God and keep our defenses against Communist aggression in fighting shape.

E.L. Hebden Taylor is a professor of Sociology at Dordt College, at Sioux Center, Iowa.