At the moment I am reading a book on the cold war, and came up with the following questions.
After The korean war broke out a policy paper (NSC-68) by Paul Nitze, was adopted as the basis for re armament. This postulated both a convential force build up and a nuclear build up.
In 1952 NATO had the Lisbon conference where the alliance agreed on a primarily convential defence and a goal of 96 divisons.
This all changed in 1953 when Eisenhower became president and introduced his "New Look" this postulated Massive Thermonuclear retailiation to any soviet threat to western europe.
Now if the Democrats had won the elections of 52 (Im a brit so dont know what the POD would have to be), Im presuming the policy of massive retailiation would not have come about. How would this affect the US Military in terms of strength, equipment etc in the late 50s early 60s? Would NATO have attempted to meet the Lisbon force goals? and how would the overall cold war be affected?
After The korean war broke out a policy paper (NSC-68) by Paul Nitze, was adopted as the basis for re armament. This postulated both a convential force build up and a nuclear build up.
In 1952 NATO had the Lisbon conference where the alliance agreed on a primarily convential defence and a goal of 96 divisons.
This all changed in 1953 when Eisenhower became president and introduced his "New Look" this postulated Massive Thermonuclear retailiation to any soviet threat to western europe.
Now if the Democrats had won the elections of 52 (Im a brit so dont know what the POD would have to be), Im presuming the policy of massive retailiation would not have come about. How would this affect the US Military in terms of strength, equipment etc in the late 50s early 60s? Would NATO have attempted to meet the Lisbon force goals? and how would the overall cold war be affected?