NSC 68

NSC 68

NSC 68

NSC-68 assumed that the Soviet Union wanted to expand until it controlled the Eurasian landmass, and that its eventual goal was world domination. The threat was of such magnitude that it might destroy the United States, if not civilization itself. Thus, however unwillingly, the United States faced a mortal challenge from the Soviets. To counter the threat, the United States had to dominate the world and create an environment amenable to its survival and prosperity.

Realistically, the United States would have pursued this course whether or not the Soviet threat existed. But because the threat existed, the United States had to contain it while protecting the free world. The containment of communism and the protection of freedom would require a strong military deterrent. Soviet aggression or sponsorship of aggression by others might well require the military to defeat aggression, whether limited or total (Wells, 1999).

According to NSC-68, the United States and the Soviet Union were at war as leaders of a bipolar world. Only one would survive. U.S. policy would use the Soviet threat as justification for establishing political, economic, and military dominance of the free world. Given that the war was real and not just one of words, the United States had to be aggressive politically and militarily. It should use psychological warfare to create defections from the Soviet bloc and otherwise hamper Soviet efforts. Covert economic, political, and psychological techniques would encourage and abet revolts and unrest in satellites. At home, meanwhile, the United States needed to implement internal security and civil defense programs so that the American people would accept the need to fight and win nuclear war, even on a global scale (May, 1993).

NSC-68 also argued that Soviet influence needed to be contained in “peripheral” areas as well as Europe and Japan. In ...