B u u MAY 9 1964 
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DA PAM 360-206 
HE LOCKWOOD EMORIAL LIBRAR · 
TROOP TOPICS
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WHY WE SERVE••• 

DA PAMPHLET 360-206 HEADQUARTERS, DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY 
WASHINGTON D.C. 20310 
THE PURPOSE 
This Troop Topic provides background information for commanders and instructors to aid them in developing in the individual soldier an understanding of why his service in the Army is necessary. It explains why the Communist threat to the United States and other free nations requires our military preparedness and the service of well-trained soldiers. 
This material is intended primarily to provide source information for instruction during the individual training phase; however, it is applicable during any stage of training when commanders wish· to review and re-emphasize the facts and principles which are covered herein. Because of the scope covered, the material necessarily exceeds in length the usual Troop Topic in order that instructors may have sufficient background in one publication. 
This pamphlet supersedes DA Pam 355-2, 18 March 1955. 

Todoy' s A r my i s o balanced h ighly-trained 
cambot reody force tho! spends a majority 
of its ti me maintai ning top efficiency. 
INTRODUCTIO N 

WHY WE SE RVE ••• 
Our Army today is the largest and most powerful the United States has ever maintained on a standing basis during peacetime. The military service of the individual soldier, together with that of almost one million other Americans sharing in this obligation of citizenship, has made possible a dynamic, flexible, and responsive Army unparalleled in our Nation's history. Furthermore, our Armed Forces are the most powerful Army-NavyAir Force defense team we have ever assembled in peacetime. 
The posture of our Armed Forces was in mind, when President John F. Kennedy said in a speech 
at the University of Maine on 19 October 1963 : "This Nation today is stronger than ever before, strengthened by both the increased power of our defenses and our increased efforts for peace, strengthened by both our resolve to resist coercion and our constant search for solutions." 
What are the reasons for this unprecedented peacetime preparedness? Why do we have to maintain such a powerful Army, ready for immediate action? And why do we need men to serve for a total of six years' active and reserve duty, or to continue their enlistment as Regular soldiers? Indeed , why do we serve? 


We Arm for 
Self-Defense 

The purpose of military preparedness and Army 
service is self-defense. The size and deployment of 
our Army is connected directly with its assigned 
missions involving the defense of the Nation. All 
of the men and women in the Army are needed 
to help carry out its missions. 
We are required to perform the traditional and 
basic mission of the Army, which is to fight and 
defeat the enemy in sustained land combat. We 
·are also required to serve as a deterrent force 
against aggression. Combat-ready forces serving 
in overseas areas or ready in the United States for 
instant deployment to threatened areas act as our 
visible deterrence against any aggressor intent on 
using force to expand his territory and influence. 
The United States is neither an aggressive nor 
a militaristic nation. We shall never use our mili
tary power to wage an aggressive war. We have no 
designs on any other nation's territory or rights. 
In our relations with our world neighobrs, our main 
desire is to be able to live in security and peace. 

Why Army Service? 
Whether we are serving stateside or overseas, we are contributing directly to the worldwide defensive strength which safeguards our country and international peace. Thus the underlying reason which brings us into the Army is the Communist threat which can be met only by adequate military preparedness in the United States and throughout the Free World. 
Soldiers recognize this fundamental fact about their service, especially since the Berlin crisis in 1961 and the Cuban confrontation in the following year. Major areas of tension and conflict from Berlin to Cuba to Southeast Asia continue to remind us that the Communist have not abandoned their basic aims and ambitions. 
Soldiers need to know more about the threat than the simple fact that it endangers our security and world peace, and is therefore the reason for our preparedness. For example, the soldier needs to know how the Soviet Union aggressively expanded its power following World War II, and how his Army service contributes to holding back the 
Communist advance and safeguarding the United 
States against aggression. 
To find out these things we must review the international situation as it was in the postwar period after WW II, take a look at the wartime agreements that bound the Soviet Union to a course of cooperation with all nations, and then trace in actual course of events in which the Soviet Union deliberately violated its signed agreements. At the same time, we shall describe the steps which we and the other free nations have taken to counter Communist aggression. 

The Communist Goal 
The security of our Nation and the other nations of the Free World is threatened by the unrelenting forces of international communism. The goal of the Communists is to communize the world, using any weapon or activity that helps them advance toward their objective. 
The Soviet Union is the number one force behind the Communist threat. Her capital, Moscow, has been the headquarters of international communism since 1917, the year Lenin and his Bolshevik revolutionaries seized power in Russia and set up the first Communist dictatorship. The Soviet Union and Communist China together control and influence the area of the world that has come to be called the "Sino-Soviet bloc." Any differences between these two powers are concerned not with ultimate objective, but with the method of achieving that objective. 
Secretary of State Dean Rusk, in February 1963 declared : "Both principal Communist powers are committed to a Communist world system, to the destruction of freedom. The chief arguments between them are over how best to "bury" us-that is, over method. That .gives us no reason to relax our guard." 
Within the Sino-Soviet sphere of control and influence are a billion people, or about one-third of the world's population, in a vast area which includes the Soviet Union, the Eastern European satellites, mainland China, North Korea, North 

Vietnam, and Cuba. There are no less than 14 countries under Communist regimes. 
This is the slave world of the Communist who believe that their mission is to expand the SinoSoviet bloc area into a Communist world empire. What they have done in Eastern Europe, the Far East, and Cuba, they plan to do elsewhere. The Communist threat extends to every free nation, 
gravely endangering international peace and all human freedom. 
That is the reason why the United States has joined in several alliance to oppose Sino-Soviet Communist advances. These alliances, which build strong military and economic defenses against Communist aggression, commit us to more than 40 nations. 
The scene: Budapest, Hungary. Date : Twenty· six October 1956. Ruuian tanks and a rmored cars prowled the area during the fou rt h day af the battling with Hungarian Freedom Fighters. 
This scene in Regensburg, Germany in 
February I945 is typical of the destruction throughout Europe following World War II. The rebuilding a stable, peaceful world was to be a tremendau• task. One that Soviet Russia wonted only on its terms . 
THE WORLD IN 1945 

THE SOVIETS LAUNCH POSTWAR AGGRESSION 
The most urgent task facing the postwar world in 1945 was to restore some kind of order out of the chaos and ruin that World War II had left in its wake. The major battlegrounds of Europe and Asia had suffered the most death and destruction. The job of restoring order and rebuilding a stable, peaceful world had to begin in the war-ravaged countries that had been overrun during the course of the fighting. 
This situation gave the Communist a golden opportunity to expand their power and influence far beyond the borders of the Soviet Union. During the course of the war they had attached to the Soviet Union large new territories which included the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania; large sections of Finland, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Rumania, and East Prussia; the Kurile Islands and the southern half of Sakhalin, north of Japan; and Tannu Tuva 

near Outer Mongolia. 
These territorial gains did not satisfy the Communists who continued to look for ways to extend communism outward from its base in the Soviet Union. 
Wartime Agreements 
In all of the wartime conferences attended by the Soviets they made pledges for postwar cooperation. During the war years, the leaders of the Soviet Union, the United States, and Britain met at three important conferences. These were held at Teheran, in Iran, in November, 1943 ; Yalta, in the Soviet Union, in February, 1945 ; and Potsdam, in Germany, in July-August, 1945. 
At the Teheran Conference, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin called for " a world family of democratic nations." At the Yalta Conference, the three leaders agreed to divide Germany temporarily among the occupying forces ; to help Poland form a provisional government of national unity, with free elections to be held as soon as possible ; and to help all other liberated countries whose governments had been destroyed during Axis occupation to set up freely chosen governments. They also agreed to solve through diplomatic channels the problem of Iran, which in 1941 agreed to protective occupation by British and Soviet troops. Stalin also promised to enter the Asiatic theater of war, and to form a pact of friendship and alliance with China. 
At the Potsdam Conference, the Soviet Union agreed with Great Britain and the United States to administer the four zones of Germany as a single economic unit and to replace the enemy dictatorships in the former Nazi satellite states of Slovkia (eastern half of Czechoslovakia) , Hungary, Rumania, and Bulgaria with demoncratic governments. 
Also at Potsdam, the British and Americans reaffirmed the pledge they made with Nationalist China in 1943 that Korea would become free and independent in due course after the war was over. Stalin said he would abide by this pledge when he entered the war against Japan. Later he also agreed with the United States on an arrangement for handling the surrender of the large numbers of Japanese troops in Korea. Soviet troops, who were already in Korea at the time of the agreement, would accept surrender of all Japanese north of the 38th parallel while American troops, the nearest 
being in Okinawa, would enter Korea and accept 
surrender of all Japanese south of that line. The 
38th parallel was never intended to create a perma
nent division between the northern and southern 
halves of Korea. 
Finally, in the Treaty of Friendship and Alliance signed in Moscow in August 1945, the Soviets pledged to respect the sovereignty of the Chinese Nationalist Government and not to interfere in China's internal affairs. 
The Stage Is Set 
All of these wartime agreements committed the 
Soviet Union to a course of peace and cooperation 
with other nations, including working closely with 
her allies in restoring order in devastated countries 
and helping them set up free governments. 
But the planners of the Communist world empire never intended to follow a constructive and peaceful program of rebuilding the areas torn by the war. Instead, the Communists used the status of the Soviet Union as a ranking world power, her veto power in the UN Security Council, her strategic position at the center of the Eurasian continent, and her huge occupation armies in eastern Europe, northern Iran, and Northern Korea to serve aggressive purposes of international communism. 
Eastern Europe Falls Behind the Iron Curtain 
Eastern Europe was the first part of the world to pass behind the Iron Curtain. In its drive toward Germany from the east during the closing 

The Iron Curtain, zig·zogging north from Au•trio to the Baltic Sea, ha• changed the way of life lor thau•and• of Central European• . It c!ivide• lamilie•, friend• and even village• . 

campaign of the war, the Red Army had overrun Europe as far as the western-most parts of Czechoslovakia and Austria and the east bank of the Elbe River in Germany. The Soviets set up military governments in countries whose governments had been destroyed during the Nazi occupation. In the 
former Axis satellite states, the Red Army was the sole occupying force, simply because it had gotten their first. Taking advantage of the situation, the Communist blamed the war and the human misery which followed on "capitalist imperialism" and began to lower the Iron Curtain over most of the war-weakened countries whose independence they had solemnly agreed to preserve. 
During 1945 almost the whole of eastern Europe -with the exception of Finland, Greece, and Austria-passed under varying degrees of Soviet political and economic control. In Bulgaria and Rumania the Communists used the threat of the occupying Red Army to sponsor dictatorships several months before Germany's surrender in May 1945. In Albania, which was occupied by Italy during most of the war, a Communist "united front" party seized power in December 1944. In Yugoslavia the Partisan leader, Tito, set up his Communist regime in March 1945. 
In Poland the Communist-sponsored Lublin government took full control in June 1945, in direct violation of Stalin's Yalta agreement to allow the return of the Polish government in exile to help form a true provisional government of national unity. Polish elections were finally held in 1947, after two years of Communist police rule and terror had stamped out or intimidated all opposition. 
By the end of 1945 Hungary and.Czechoslovakia were the only eastern European states occupied or "liberated" by the Red Army that had not passed completely under Soviet domination. During the next few years, however, powerful Communist minorities, supported by Moscow, gradually eliminated all opposition in these two countries and finally overthrew the established governments. 
Attempt in Iran 
While the Communists were taking over the countries of eastern Europe through subversion and threat of force, they were also busy breaking their 
agreements and pledges elsewhere in the world. They made an attempt early in 1946 to seize control of Iran by starting a revolt against the government in the Soviet-occupied northern province of Azerbaijan, bordering on the Soviet Union, where a Communist puppet regime had been set up. Iran's appeal to the United Nations, the Security Council's first case, resulted in the Soviet Union withdrawing from the threatened country. 

Soviet Bad Faith 
Throughout 1945, it was plain that "peace and cooperation" to the Communist meant the opportunity to spread communism by infiltration, direct assistance to Communist minorities, and guerrilla warfare in Greece and Asia. While the other Allies were fulfilling their wartime agreements and re-storing freedom to friends and former enemies alike, the Soviet Union was not even giving freedom to those she pretended were her friends. While we were working among refugees and often supporting entire populations under the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration created in 1943, the Communists were making every effort to block postwar recovery and stir up trouble everywhere. 

Peace .and Strength 
When the Soviets backed down before majority opinion in the United Nations and gave up their first attempt to grab Iran and her oil wealth, it is significant that the strength of our Armed Forces still stood at more than three million, despite extremely rapid postwar demobilization. But at that time, in the spring of 1946, we failed to see what is now quite clear: Since 1945 the high point in hopes for peace has coincided with the high point in the strength of our Armed Forces, while the boldest Communist moves after the war's end have been made when our fighting potential, along with that of our allies, was at its lowest. 
By the summer of 1946 demobilization had cut the total armed strength of the Western Allies to scarcely more than token forces, scattered in all 

parts of the world. One year after victory in Europe, our Armed Forces dropped from a peak 
of 12 million to less than three million. The drop in Army strength was from eight and a quarter million to two million. In the meantime Soviet armed forces, consistly mostly of the Red Army's ground divisions, had also dropped from their peak of 12 million, but not nearly as much nor as 
rapidly as in the non-Communist nations. 
Germany 
The problem of Germany brought about the first open break between the governments of the Western Allies and the Soviet Union. According to the Potsdam agreement, occupied Germany was to be administered as a single economic unit. Democratic political parties were to be encouraged. 
The Allied Commanders of the American, British, and French zones in western Germany worked together on the four-power Allied Control Council. The Soviets in eastern Germany however were completely uncooperative, refusing to allow their allies access to that area and even refusing to furnish the Control Council the information needed for effective four-power administration. Berlin, in the heart of the Soviet Zone and divided into four Allied Sectors, was the scene of constant trouble. 
At the Foreign Ministers' conference at Paris in July 1946 the Soviets proposed a strong centralized German government controlled by the Four Power Commission at Potsdam in the Soviet Zone, in which they would have the right of veto. The Western Allies already had experienced the Soviet veto in the United Nations Security Council where the Soviet Union was able to prevent action on many postwar problems. After seeing how the Communists seized power in Poland, they knew that a centralized government located in the Soviet Zone would be almost sure to end up as a Communist puppet regime. 
The Western Allies had plans to help Germany 
to become self-supporting as soon as possible and 
develop a freely elected, democratic form of gov
ernment. To forestall the Soviet plans for a com
munized Germany, and restore economic health 
and self-government to at least the part of Ger
m any over which they had control, a new Allied 
policy was required. 

The Turning Point 
The new policy was announced by Secretary of State James F. Byrnes in a speech at Stuttgart, Germany, in September 1946. In effect, the speech invited every German to join with the Western 
nations and started events moving in the direction of a rearmed West Germany's full partnership in the Free World's defensive alliance. The fusion of the American and British zones into an economic union called Bizonia was later enlarged by the joining of the French which made the recovery effort known as Trizonia. The Soviets refused to join and began making the economic division of Germany a political division as well. 
The political division of Germany began at the end of 1946, when elections were held all over Germany for new State Diets or Landtags to take over civil administration under Allied control. In the Soviet Zone a Communist-dominated party won with the help of Soviet troops, and started setting up the East German puppet regime for the Soviet Union. In each of the Western zones there was a decisive victory against communism, thus paving the way for the development of a freely elected government of all West Germany, which came into being as the Federal Republic of Germany two years later. 
1947-Crisis in Europe 
While these events were taking place, and the 
Soviet Union was becoming more and more aggres
sive, the Western statesmen had no real power to 
back them up. They were trying to negotiate with 
the Soviets from a position of obvious weakness. 
The situation in Asia was becoming critical. But 
in Europe the crisis had already come. 
Europe was on the verge of economic and polit
ical collapse. Hundreds of thousands of its people 
were living from day to day with little hope for 
the future. Communists were in a number of key 
positions in France, Italy, and Greece. The Soviets 
massed 40 combat divisions in Central Europe with 
over 100 more in reserve. We had two divisions 
stationed in Germany with no more than six com
bat battalions at home. The British and the French 


likewise had only two divisions each in their occupation zones. Sir Winston Churchill said several years later that, in his opinion, only the atomic bomb in the hands of the United States prevented all Europe from being communized at that time. 
The United States Organizes Resistance 
"Peace Through Power" 
The year 1947 was one of great decisions for the 
United States and the Free World. The warborn 
alliance between the Western Allies and the Soviet 
Union had for all practical purposes come to an 
end. In the United States our Government and 
people faced the realities of a situation which, after 
two years of futile negotiations with the Soviets, 
had been brought into sharp focus by the problem 
of a divided Germany. 
It was clear that the Soviet Union was embarked 
upon a course that would eventually lead to a 
Communist-dominated world unless the United 
States, as the only nation strong enough to do so, 
took immediate steps to organize resistance to the 
spread of communism. 
Truman Doctrine 
A significant step was taken with the beginning of a program of economic and military aid to Greece and Turkey. In Greece a Communist minority, backed by powerful guerrilla forces, was attempting to seize power. When a commission of the United Nations Security Council reported in 1947 that Greece's Communist-dominated northern neighbors were supporting the guerrillas, the Soviet Union used her veto to keep the United Nations from taking action. 
At the same time the Soviet Union was waging a war of nerves against Turkey, demanding a share in the strategic Dardenelles and pieces of Turkish territory. Great Britain had been giving both Greece and Turkey economic and military aid since 1945. But by February 1947, faced with a crushing economic crisis, the British were no longer able to continue this aid and still maintain garri
sons in Germany, Burma, Malaya, the Suez, and 
elsewhere in the world. 
The American decision to take up the burden of 
support to Greece and Turkey established the policy 
known as the Truman Doctrine. President Harry 
S . Truman, in a message to Congress in March 1947 asked for an appropriation of $400 million for aid to the two threatened nations. His message emphasized the threat of totalitarian aggression to United State security: 
"Totalitarian regimes imposed on free peoples, 
by direct or indirect aggression, undermine founda
tions of international peace and hence the security 
of the United States." 
The aid given under the Truman Doctrine made 
it possible for the Greek government to defeat the 
Communist guerrillas by 1949, and provided Tur
key the critical margin of strength needed to cause 
the Soviet Union to withdraw her demands. The 
Doctrine was the beginning of our worldwide mili
tary, economic, and technical assistance program 
for helping the free nations strengthen defenses 
against the Communist threat. 

In 1947 we also took the first step in building the system of alliances, or regional security pacts which form the Free World's coalition for defense. This step was taken when we and the 20 other states of the Americas signed the InterAmerican Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance, or Rio Pact, which was the first of our mutual defense treaties. The members of the Rio Pact have agreed that an armed attack on any one member will be regarded as an attack on all members, and they will act together for the common defense. 

Vandenberg Resolution 
Not long after the signing of the Rio Pact, the growing Communist threat to Europe and Asia brought about the the approval by the United States Senate of the Vandenberg Resolution, which paved the way for the other defensive alliances we have since formed with nations located outside the Western Hemisphere. The right to form such defensive alliances is provided for in Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. The American action reaffirmed the policy of "achieving international peace and security through the United Nations." 

Marshall Plan 

The European Recovery Program, or Marshall Plan, was the next major step in organizing resistance to Communist expansion. The program, launched in mid-1947, was available to the whole European community, but the Communist satellites were not allowed to have anything to do with it. 
In spite of Communist efforts to sabotage the Marshall Plan, it did succeed in saving Europe from its crisis. Production, employment, and human hope began to rise and the Communist parties in free Europe began to dwindle in membership. By the time Marshall Plan operations were turned over to the Mutal Security Agency in early 1952, the economic and political stability of Western Europe had been largely restored. 
With these steps in 1947-the Truman Doctrine, the Rio Pact, and the Marshall Plan-the United States and the other free nations set forth on an entirely new course to reach their goal of a stable and peaceful world community of nations. Since peace through harmony had failed, because of Communist efforts to dominate the world, the Western Allies turned to the only other solution: peace through power. 
Worldwide "Cold War" 
The Communists, in turn, launched a full-scale 
political and economic offensive against the free 
nations, with the United States and Great Britain 
as the main targets. Communists parties every
where were ordered to carry on war against "capi
talist imperialism." The growing struggle between 
the Western Allies and the Soviet Union, which 
began in the early days of the occupation of Ger
many, developed into an unofficially declared polit
ical and economic war on a global scale. This 
struggle between all of the nations of the Free 
World and those that make up the Sino-Soviet 
bloc, became known universally as the "Cold War." 
During 1948, the year the postwar strength of 
the our Army reached its lowest point and we be
gan our second peacetime draft, the Communist 
made some of their most dangerous moves in the 

General of the Army, George C. Marshall, Father of the European Recovery Program. The European Recovery Program succeeded in 
saving western Europe from communist domination. 
Cold War: the seizure of Czechoslovakia, the Berlin blockade, and stepped-up guerrilla warfare in Asia and support to the Chinese Reds. When the Iron Curtain fell in front of Czechoslovakia in February, the nations of Western Europe awakened to the hard fact that rebuilding their economic strength and political stability together was not enough by itself to hold back the nibbling advance of communism. Equally important was adequate military strength, joined in common purpose. It is now generally believed that Czechoslovakia fell to Communist subversion mainly because the balance of military strength in Europe had swung heavily in favor of the Soviet Union. Forty Red Army divisions maneuvered at the small nation's doorstep while the six divisions of the Western Allies in Germany represented almost all of free Europe's organized armed force. 
BerlinBlockade 
On 16 June 1948, using as an excuse the currency reform the western powers had instituted to lift the Germany economy out of chaos, the Soviets walked out of the four power governing body for Berlin. 


The first American aircraft unloading food ond supplies in Berlin. At the peak of th i s enormous airlift from 3,000 to -4,000 ton' of fuel, food and necessities were flown to the isolated city daily. 
Eight days later, on 24 June, the blockade of Berlin began. The Communists expected to starve the West Berliners into submission and force the withdrawal of the American, British, and French from the city. The Western Allies countered this threat with a great airlift which saved West Berlin from starvation and surrender to the Communists. The gigantic air transport operation was bringing in 3,000 to 4,000 tons of food, fuel, and other necessities of life daily to more than two million people before the Communists called the blockade off in the spring of 1949. 
Far East 
While the attention of the West was focused on the emergency in Europe during 1948-and our Army dropped to less than 600,000-the Communists in Asia began their all-out campaign of internal aggression against the governments and peoples of China, the Philippines, Indochina, Malaya, Burma, and Indonesia. 
By the end of 1948 the situation reached the crisis stage in China, the Communist's number one target in Asia. As soon as Japan surrendered in 1945 the Chinese Communists launched a campaign to overthrow the established National Government by armed force. Early in this campaign the Soviet Union began actively supporting the Chinese rebels by helping them equip their armies. This was, of course, in direct violation of Stalin's Yalta agreement and his Treaty of Friendship and Alliance with the Nationalist Government. 
In 1949, when the balance of military strength continued to be heavily weighted in favor of the Soviets, the Chinese Communists overran the mainland of China, forcing the Nationalist Government to evacuate to the island of Formosa. A Communist government was set up at Peiping and proclaimed as the "People's Republic of China." 

NATO 

The Free World's major step toward counterbalancing Communist military strength in the place where that strength was centered, in Europe, was the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The need for a counterbalance was made clear by simple statistics: within three years, from 1945 to 1948, communism had been imposed upon European nations at the rate of 346 square miles a day. In most instances, entire countries had disappeared beneath the dark shadow of the hammer and sickle. 
Taking a stand against the continuation of this process of aggressio~ and absorption, five nations -Britain, France, The Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg-signed in 1948 the Brussels Treaty. A year later, in April 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty was signed by twelve countries: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States. 
The treaty contained a clear warning to any would-be aggressor that "an attack against any of us shall be considered an attack against us all." Three years later Greece and Turkey joined the Alliance, and in 1955 the Federal Republic of Germany became NATO's fifteenth member. The NATO partnership has transferred the military weakness that in 1948 left Western Europe wide open to Communist attack into the most powerful peacetime defense force in history. 
Permanently stationed from the North Sea to the Alps are the troops of seven of the 15 NATO members. The West Germans have nine divisions, the United States five, the British three, the French two, the Belgians and Dutch together about two and a half, and the Canadians a single brigade. For the first time, military forces of the United States were formally allied in peacetime with likeminded friends for the common defense against Communist aggression. 

Military Assistance 
Soon after the NATO alliance came into being, our Mutual Defense Assistance Program, or MDAP, was authorized by Congress to help bolster NATO and broaden the scope of our earlier efforts to strengthen the military defense of our allies. Under MDAP, the predecessor of the present day Mutual Security Program, the first arms shipments to our NATO partners commenced in early 1950. 
Military assistance, granted on a bilateral basis, was independent of the regional alliances being fo rmed by the Free World, but it contributed substantially to the might of the receipient countriessom e SO nations-to make them effective members of the Free W.orld's collective defense team. 
Military Assistance Advisory Groups, or MAAGs and Missions are usually joint in nature but composed primarily of Army elements. Army personnel serving in these groups and missions have a key role in contributing to the combat readiness of 80 percent of the ground force strength of the Free World-equivalent in number to about 200 Army divisions. 

Korea-Communism Shifts to Open Warfare 
Soon after the Soviet Union's first successful atomic explosion in September 1949, the Communists presented a grave challenge in international peace in their effort to enslave all of Korea. In the early morning of 25 June 1950, the Communist's first experiment in military conquest by local satellit e aggression was launched when the North Korean puppet forces attacked across Korea's 38th parallel. This surprise attack against the Republic of Korea was a brutal blow to the peace of the world. It was directed against a peaceful people ruled by an independent government of their own choosing, which was brought into bei~g under the sponsorship of the United Nations. As in the Berlin blockade, the challenge to the Free World was direct and this time more dangerous. 
The Soviets had created their North Korean satellite two years before the armed attack against the small undefended Republic of Korea. They had done so in direct violation of their 1945 agreement not to regard the 38th parallel as a permanent dividing line, and in violation of the United Nations plan to establish a free government for all Korea. We had withdrawn our troops from South 

Korea a year before the attack, after the Soviets announced they had withdrawn their troops from North Korea. But the Iron Curtain along the 38th parallel, as well as the refusal of Communists to allow the United Nation observers behind that barrier, prevented anyone from seeing the powerful army they were training and equipping for aggression. 
This first case of local satellite aggression in Korea carried a message of deep meaning to the Free World : the Communists now considered their empire strong enough to make it safe for them to go beyond the tactics of subversion and threat of force to the use of undisguised armed attack. 
NORTH KOREA 
• PYONGYANG 
The de·mililorized zone in Korea, a 1000-yord deep area gen· erolly along the 38th parallel, isolates the northern hall of 
Korea from the Republic of Korea. 
The UN Acts 

The attempt to conquer South Korea by force  
brought decisive United Nations action which the  
Soviet Union seems not to have expected, for at  
the time she was boycotting the Security Council  
and her veto was therefore absent from its meet 
ings. Acting upon a resolution introduced by the  
United States, the Council lost no time in brand 
ing the attack as a breach of the peace and calling  
for the immediate withdrawal of the North Korean  
forces to the 38th parallel. When they continued  
their advance, the Council then recommended that  
the United Nations members go to the aid of South  
Korea.  
Altogether, 21 nations took a direct part in the  
United Nations stand in Korea to save the republic  
they had helped to bring into being. Sixteen na 
tions, led by the United States, sent armed forces  
to fight under the United Nations Command. They  
were Australia, Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Ethio 
pia, France, Greece, Luxembourg, The Netherlands,  
New Zealand, the Philippines, Thailand, Turkey,  
the Union of South Africa, the United Kingdom,  
and the United States. Six others-Chile, India,  
Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Italy-contrib 
uted medical services, supplies, and other services.  
Red China Intervenes  
In September 1950, General Douglas Mac 
Arthur's successful landing at Inchon led to the  
encirclement and rout of the North Koreans and  
an advance into North Korea. A state of national  
emergency was proclaimed in the United States by  
the President soon after Red China threw in hun 
dreds of thousands of trained, well-equipped troops  
against the United Nations forces.  
The sudden demands of the Korean conflict required the partial mobilization that eventually  I  
brought our Armed Forces to their greatest "peace 
time" strength. The conflict also led Congress to  ~ 
amend the 1948 draft law to give the President  
power to order part of the Reserve Components  
into active service when no war or emergency has  
been declared by Congress.  
These were considered necessary steps to build  
up our Armed Forces, because at the time the  
Communists struck in Korea our fighting strength  
was at one of the lowest points in the postwar  
period.  


When the Korean armistice was signed in July 1953, after three years of bitter fighting-including two years of truce negotiations-South Korea was still free and international peace has been preserved. This was the first time in history that a group of nations had voluntarily joined together to uphold the principle that the peace of all depends on checking an armed attack against a single country. 
Japan 
The conquest of South Korea would have given 
the Communists a springboard for launching an 
attack against Japan. That industrialized nation, 
with its highly skilled people, is one of the Com
munists' main targets in Asia. The Soviets did not 
take part in Japan's occupation after V-J Day, 
and thus were prevented from dividing the country 
as they did in' the case of Germany, but they made 
every attempt to block our efforts to make Japan 
free and prosperous. 
The Allied occupation of Japan following the 
war ended on 28 April 1952 , when the Treaty of 
Peace came into effect. It was signed in San 
Francisco on 5 September 1951 by 49 friendly na
tions; the Soviet Union and two of her satellites, 
Poland and Czechoslovakia, refused to sign. The 
treaty restored Japan to full sovereignty and in
dependence and made her a welcome member of 
the family of free nations. It also provided for her 
future security by permitting her to rearm and 
form security pacts with other nations. 
Like other nations in the Free World, Japan 
realized that collective security was the best way 
to guard against the Communist threat. In a 
Security Treaty signed 8 September 1951, she and 
the United States agreed that U.S. military forces 
should be stationed in Japan to protect the defense
less country. 
A new security treaty entitled "Treaty of Mutual 
Cooperation and Security" was signed by the 
United States and Japan on 19 January 1960. 
Under the treaty, the United States is granted fa
cilities and areas in Japan for the use of its Armed 
Forces. The new treaty pledges the United States 
and Japan to consult each other whenever Japan's 
security "or international peace and security in the 
Far East is threatened." 
Penetration in 
Southeast Asia 

After Communist expansion was checked in 
Europe and Korea, the threat shifted in 1953 to Southeast Asia where guerrilla warfare had been going on since the end of World War II. 
The number one target was Indochina, the gateway to the rich resources of all Southeast Asia. The local governments of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Loas and their peoples were weakened under the combined pressures of continuous armed attacks and political subversion. French support to the defense of these Associated States during the long indecisive struggle was draining her economy. Be
sides, the need to assign some of her best divisions to the French Union forces fighting the rebels was slowing the building of her NATO strength. 
By 1954 the Communist attempt to seize Indochina by internal military conquest was endangering world peace and the security of the entire Pacific area. Communist China was not only helping to train and equip the Vietminh rebels but also was reinforcing them with technicians and Korean veterans. 
In May the surrender of Dienbienphu, after a heroic stand of many months by the greatly outnumbered French Union troops, deepened the crisis. After the fall of this fortress guarding the Urategic Red River Delta, the Communists advanced on the Vietnam capital of Hanoi forced the French government to begin armistice negotiations at the Geneva Conference attended by France, the Indochina states, Communist China, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and the United States. 
In the cease-fire terms signed in July by all of the conferees, except the United States, France and her allies made the best of a bad situation. A truce line was set up along the 17th parallel, corresponding to the existing military situation, as the dividing line between Communist North Vietnam and Southern Vietnam. Both sides agreed that this line was temporary and for military purposes only, with free elections to be held in July 1956 to decide Vietnam's political status. However these elections were never held; the country remained divided with two governments, Communist in the north and anti-Communist in the south. 
During the period 1954-57, the Communist Vietminh created relatively few incidents in the South. In 1958, however, they began to increase the use 

of violence. In early 1959, they began a virulent propaganda campaign, and Vietminh agents began to pour into the South. The mainspring of the Viet Cong, as the Vietminh are called in the South, are the hard-core guerrillas-trained full-time soldiers. Their tactics include disruption of administration, cutting communications, blocking roads, blasting bridges, plundering villages, assassination and open attacks on anti-Communist elements. 
United States aid has been vital in the Republic of Vietnam government's program to defeat the guerrillas. Arms and ammunition have been furnished under the Military Assistance Program, Army Special Forces personnel have trained the Vietnamese in techniques of guerrilla warfare, such as laying ambushes and attacking guerrilla strongholds. The Army has also furnished helicopters and armored personnel carriers which have given the South Vietnamese forces greater mobility so that they can pursue the enemy. 
The Army further assisted the South Vietnamese in the establishment of strategic villages, a concept used on the American frontier and which was effective in fighting guerrillas in Malaya. A strategic village consists of defenses of barbed wire, watchtowers, booby traps, and ditches filled with 
bamboo spikes set up around the village area. The villagers are armed and trained to resist attacks by the Viet Cong and have radio communication with Government forces. Movement of people and supplies is controlled by means of curfews and identity cards; anyone on the roads or trails at night is assumed to be a Communist. The Viet 
Cong, thus denied easy access to the villages, must initiate an attack and lay themselves open to ambush, reversing the former pattern of the war where they had been able to enter villages freely, escape attack, and then ambush their pursuers. 
An important part of the strategic village program is the sending of civic action teams into these areas. These teams consist of a medical technician, a schoolteacher, an agriculture representative, several public administration advisers, and a youth activities adviser, in addition to a police adviser, a civil guard liaison officer to operate the radio, and a squad of soldiers to issue weapons and train the villagers in their use. Many of these team members are trained by members of our Army. 
We regard the Communist attempt to conquer South Vietnam as a threat to our own security, as 
well as to the Free World. A Communist victory there would not only be a serious strategic and economic blow but might lead many Asians to believe that communism is indeed the wave of the future. 
Laos 
Until April 1953 Laos remained relatively free of active fighting except for sporadic guerrilla activity. Then twice in 1953 and once in 1954 Vietnamese Communist forces, aided by the Pathet Lao, invaded Laos and nearly reached Luang Prabang. 
In the 1954 Geneva Conference to work out settlement of the Indochina hostilities, the agreements concerning Laos provided provided for the withdrawal of North Vietnamese Communist forces. But the North Vietnamese never complied with the terms of the accord. 
By the close of 1960 the Pathet Lao began a new offensive in the North, assisted by Soviet airlifts from North Vietnam, and inflicted severe losses on the Royal Lao Army. 
In early May 1961 a de facto cease-fire was accomplished and on 16 May a 14-nation conference was convened at Geneva again to settle the Lao question. The conference tentatively approved a draft declaration on the independence and neutrality of Laos and a draft protocal providing for the withdrawal of all foreign troops. These agreements 
were subject to approval by the Lao government which on 9 July presented to the conference at Geneva a statement of neutrality. The United States completed the withdrawal of its military advisors on 6 October 1962 under an International Commission of Supervision and Control. There remains considerable doubt whether all foreign Communist military personnel were withdrawn. 
When the Communist broke the year-old ceasefire in Laos and sent military units toward the border of Thailand, President Kennedy on 15 May 1962, announced the dispatch of American military forces into Thailand in order to fulfill speedily its obligations to Thailand under the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization. The President explained that this was a defensive act, wholly consistent with the United Nations Charter. Subsequently, elements of these units were withdrawn. 

On 11 June 1962, neutralist Souvanna Phouma announced agreement on the formation of a coalition government which eased the crisis, but did not end the disorder in Laos. 
Manila Pact 
Each nation in Southeast Asia has gone about the task of resisting Communist aggression in its own way, depending on its history and experience, its geographical position, and its concept of the dangers which it faces. Some governments have concluded that their independence is best served by neutrality; others are convinced that their interests can best be served by a collective defense alliance. 
Among these latter nations are Thailand and the Philippine Republic which have joined with the United States, France, Australia, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Pakistan to form an alliance for their mutual protection. Each of these powers recognized that the extension of Communist control into Vietnam exposed the remainder of Southeast Asia to danger. All were aware that a threat to the security of this area constituted a threat to the security of the entire Free World. 
At Manila in September 1954 these eight powers took action under the charter of the United Nations to form the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty (Manila Pact) and the Pacific Charter. The Manila Pact is a treaty for mutual defense against both open armed attack and internal subversion. The Pacific Charter dedicates all the signatories to uphold the principles of self-determination, self-government, and independence for all countries whose people desire it and are able to undertake its responsibilities. Since the formation of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) in 1954, its members have done much to increase their capacity to deter would-be aggressors by building an efficient collective defense system. 

The Berlin Wall 
A striking change took place in the status of Berlin on 13 August 1961, when the Communists began building a wall separating East Berlin from West Berlin, in order to prevent the daily largescale defections of their citizens to the West. This 
On 13 August 1961 the Communists begon building the fomous "Wall" to prevent doily defections from the eosl. 
was another test by the Soviet government of the firmness of our determination in Berlin. Soviet Premier Khrushchev in his 2 June ultimatum declared that if the West refused to negotiate "at the end of the year" on a proposed transformation of West Berlin into a demilitarized "free city" within the territory of East Germany that the Soviet Union would take unilateral action in signing a treaty with East Germany. The building of the wall by the East Germans afforded material proof of the serious nature of the crisis we faced. 
Speeches by the Communist leader, the increased Soviet military budget, and the suspension of scheduled troop cuts all necessitated a re-examination of our preparedness to defend our rights in Berlin. These rights were established by military victory in World War II and had not been relinquished. No unilateral action by the Soviet Union could legally change them in any way. 
This new threat to a peaceful settlement of the Berlin problem, required us to increase our military forces. The posture existing at the time was inadequate to deal with the situation then or with others which would develop in the future. The Army on 25 July 1961 had an authorized strength of 875,000, an actual strength of about 860,600. There were 14 divisions, only 11 of them combat ready. 

How to increase the Army strength at once with trained individuals and units was the problem which was solved by the Reserve Components -the Army National Guard and the Army Reserve. With Congressional approval, over 113,000 officers and enlisted men of these components were calleq to active duty. To expand the training base, make possible the reinforcement of our overseas deployments, and strengthen our Strategic Reserve, some 438 nondivisional combat and combat support units were ordered to active duty. The division-sized units called up included the 100th USAR Training Division from Kentucky and two Army National Guard Divisions, the 32d Infantry from Wisconsin and the 49th Armored from Texas. 
As the National Guardsmen and Army Reservists returned to their homes in August 1962 they left behind a more powerful Army than we had a year before. The Army was ready-with 16 active divisions-to meet its many requirements. A test of its strength was to come in a few months. 
·I 

The Cuban Crisis 
President Kennedy had already pointed out that the Berlin crisis of 1961 was not an isolated problem. 
The worldwide threat of communism was indicated by challenge in Southeast Asia as well as in the Western Hemisphere. In Latin America, the Communist plan was to have the Castro regime act as a lever to pry away the whole southern half of the hemisphere by the transformation of Cuba into a strategic nuclear base. Th-. establishment in Cuba of missile bases which could fire medium-range ballistic missiles capable of striking Washington, D.C., the Panama Canal, Cape Canaveral, Mexico City or any other city in the southeastern part of the United States or Central America constituted an explicit threat to the peace and security of all the Americas. The brazen move was in flagrant and deliberate violation of the Rio Pact. 
On 22 October 1962, the President outlined the nation's response to the Cuban buildup and di

rected the Armed Forces to prepare for any eventualities. In preparation for possible operational missions, the Army pre-positioned combat forces, established a logistical base in Florida, and intensified training of all alerted forces. 
Our visible military strength-Army, Navy, and Air Force-and our determination to use this power if forced to do so led Premier Khrushchev to agree on 28 October to dismantling and withdrawal of the offensive missiles. This was the second instance in the 60's of our military power being used to prevent a war rather than fight a war. The lesson was clear: aggressive conduct, if allowed to grow unchecked and unchallenged, ultimately leads to. war. 
The Price of Preparedness 
From the bitter experiences of the postwar years we and our allies have learned that when the Soviets and their followers talk of peace they mean on their own terms, and those terms mean unopposed expansion of Soviet power and influence. Above all, we and our allies have learned that holding back the further advance of communism depends on more than great moral, political, and economic strength to counter the combined sterngth of the Soviet bloc. The success of peace through power strategy requires armed forces capable of meeting on at least equal terms and under all conditions of warfare, any or all of the armed forces at the Communist command. 
The build-up of large combat-ready forces in the United States, capable of instant deployment to threatened areas, serves to deter the Communists from using force to expand their territory and influence. The fact that West Berlin stands intact today as an outpost of freedom can be attributed to Communist respect for our military power and our determination to use that power to protect our rights. 
Communist Tactics and Strategy 
Our balanced military strength is designed to meet a three-pronged challenge aimed at the Free World by the Communists. One prong is the recognized strategic nuclear strike capability of the Soviet Union. Secondly, there is the massive two and one-half million-man army of the Soviet Union, well led, with modern tactics and weapons, and its counterpart, the some two million-man army of Red China. 
The third prong is the demonstrated capability -and the intent--of Communist nations to instigate and support guerrilla warfare thoughout the Free World. The effectiveness of this tactic of boring from within was evidenced by their victories in Indochina and Cuba. Also Communist inspired insurgency and guerrilla campaign in South Vietnam attest to the continuation of such tactics wherever and whenever possible. 
The military strength of the Soviet Union and Red China is vested primarily in armies. This is in keeping with the fact that they are continental nations, both in the land mass they occupy and in attitude. And, with the exception of the missile bases they installed in Cuba, the challenges that they have presented to date have been directly supported by their landpower. 
Currently the Soviets maintain over 150 line divisions in their standing army, about two-thirds of which are combat ready. In addition to line divisions, there are numerous surface-to-air missile units; artillery divisions, and separate artillery, anti-aircraft artillery, and anti-tank brigades and regiments. 
The satellite army ground forces of about 900,000 men organized into 60 line divisions are, well trained and well equipped. They constitute a significant potential augmentation of Soviet Army strength in time of war. 
The Communist Chinese Army of more than 150 divisions plus supporting units has been reorganized in past years. This has included the standardization of weapons with resulting simplification and increased efficiency in supply. More service and support units have been organized and her military school system has been expanded. 
Communist China poses the most serious threat of all the Communist states other than the Soviet Union. Based on their record in the past, it is reasonable to assume that any Chinese Communist attempt to expand will be backed by the threat or use of their military power. 

Responsive Power 
Facing the threat of world conquest posed by the Sino-Soviet bloc, we have recognized the importance of a forward looking military posture which 

insures us responsive power. Four main elements constitute adequate responsive power: 
One, a balanced offensive-defensive combination to deter or respond to nuclear attack on us. This is composed of secure strategic nuclear strike forces, supported by the active and passive defenses necessary to insure national survival. 
Two, balanced land, sea, and air forces of such strength, composition, and flexibility that they can successfully engage the enemy in the extended phase of a general war, or be capable of dealing with lesser conflicts of whatever scale and before they can be expanded into all-out general war. These forces are capable of fighting with or without nuclear weapons and are deployed both overseas and in strategic reserve in the U.S. 
As a member of the national defense team, the active Army guards the Nation's freedom with 16 combat ready divisions. Positioned overseas where they join with our allies in defending the Free World against Communist aggression are eight seasoned divisions. These are backed by eight divisions that comprise the two-corps Strategic Army Corps, or STRAC. In Big Lift, a demonstration of combat readiness in October 1963, a STRAC armored division of 14,500 troops was airlifted from Texas to Germany, "married" up with its prepositioned equipment, and became operational in approximately 111 hours. 
The third element of an adequate responsive power is a capability to combat subversion and guerrilla warfare which threaten the stability of small nations throughout the world. Our greatest contribution in this field is to provide training assistance, operational advice, and equipment to our allies to assist them in developing well coordinated, hard hitting guerrilla and counterguerrilla local troops able to protect their interest against Communist-supported forces. 
Four, a long-range air and sea lift to swiftly project our military strength abroad or to reinforce our forces already deployed. 
In short, we must maintain an extremely flexible military posture, capable of fighting wars across a wide range of possibilities. Such a force, by its very strength, can deter war. 
To strengthen our deterrent, and to realize the full potential of collective security, we have joined 4 collective security organizations : The InterAmerican Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance, or Rio 
Treaty; the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO ; the Australia-New Zealand-U.S. Treaty, or ANZUS ; and the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization or SEATO. 
Bilateral treaties commit the United States to defense arrangements with the Republic of China, the Philippines, the Republic of Korea, and Japan. The parties to these treaties recognize that an armed attack against one party is dangerous to the peace and safety of the others, and each declares that it will react in accordance with its constitutional processes. 
Lastly, while the U.S. is not a member of the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) it has declared its determination to cooperate with Iran, Pakistan, Turkey, and the UK to strengthen the united defense posture in this Middle Eastern area. The U .S. participates in CENTO military exercises, U.S. general officers have served as chairman of the CENTO Military Committee while U.S. officials are members of other important committees, and the U .S. Secretary of State attends the meetings of the CENTO Ministerial Council. 
No Substitute for Trained Fighting Men 
The soldier's service in our large peacetime Army is the direct result of the military preparedness forced upon our Nation by the Communist threat to freedom. He is needed to serve as a soldier because land aggression has proved to be the principal means of Communist expansion. The shield of armed strength that protects us and all free people is, and must continue to be, a shield of combined ground, sea, and air power. The real basis of that power is men. In war and defense against war there is no substitute for trained fighting men, equipped and supported by all available weapons and materiel that provide them their striking po wer and mobility in combat. 
All components of military power-ground, sea, and air-are involved in preservation of the principles of why we serve. There is constant striving for the closest possible training of our Army, Navy, and Air Force and those of other nations which are united with us against the Communist menace. 
Summary 

Today, there are no less than 14 countries under Communist regimes. The Communists control territory which stretches unbroken from Central Europe to Southeast Asia and contains a population of over one billion--one third--of all mankind. Recent events remind us of the continuing threats of the Soviet and Red Chinese regimes to expand their influence world-wide. We are faced with many challenges as in Berlin, as in Southeast AsiD where borders are less guarded and the enemy hard to find. We face a challenge in our hemisphere and wherever freedom is at stake. 
At the present time, there are several aspects of the Communist military threat which demand particular attention. One of these is the Soviet capability to attack the nations of the Free World with nuclear weapons delivered by long-range aircraft and missiles. Another is the capability of the Communists to form large modern combat forces with a high degree of readiness for either nuclear or non-nuclear war. Still another is their substantial unconventional warfare capability and their willingness to prompt subversive activities. 
With this wide range of capabilities, the Communists use a variety of techniques in the Cold War. These include intimidation, the threat of ground assault, subversion, insurgency, and guerrilla warfare. But if Communist techniques vary in different parts of the globe, their objective remains the same-world conquest. From their actions in the past, and from their own statements today, we can conclude that the Communist ambition of world domination will persist into the foreseeable future. 
Those of us who serve in the Army today have an all-important mission : to maintain combat readiness and eternal vigilance on Freedom's Frontier. What the future has in store, we don't know but we will be ready for it. The United States is not preparing to start a war. We are ready and will stay ready to fight if necessary, and will be prepared to defeat any aggression. Our basic policy is to preserve the peace ; we are not aggressors. So long as the forces of communism strive to engulf the world, we have no alternative but to defend ourselves and to serve the principles for which the Free World stands. 
We are determined to meet the Communist challenge and to safeguard the security of the United States and the Free World. In this determination, the reasons why we serve stand apparent today and in the future. 


By Order of the Secretary of the Army: 
EARLE G. WHEELER, 
General , United States Army, Official : Chief ofStaff 
J. C . LAMBERT, 
Mqfor General, United States Army, 
The Adjutant General. 
Distribution: 
Active Amry: One ( I) copy pe r eac h T en ( I 0) Military Personnel. NG: None. USAR: Units-Corps ( I) ; Corps Arty ( I ); Div ( I ); Di v Arty ( I) ; Bde ( I) ; Regt/Gp/Bg (I) ; Bn (I); Co/Btry (1). 
* U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : IH.C 0-721-154 
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HEADQUARTERS, DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY