NSC-68
node
The US National Security Council review of 1950 that converted containment from a diplomatic posture into a budget. Drafted largely by Paul Nitze at the State Department Policy Planning Staff, it argued that the Soviet Union was pursuing unlimited aims, that the American defence establishment as then funded could not meet them, and that the answer was a very large and sustained peacetime military build-up together with the development of thermonuclear weapons. Its analytical style is worth noticing: it treats the confrontation as global and indivisible, so that a setback anywhere is a setback everywhere, which is the reasoning that later justified intervention in places of little intrinsic strategic weight. Delivered to Truman in April 1950, it was initially regarded as unaffordable; the outbreak of the Korean War in June made its recommendations politically possible, and defence spending rose steeply. The document remained classified until 1975.
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Timeline
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Connections · 1
- Containmentderived_from
Assembled narrative · 1
Assembled from 14 blocks · 1 evidence · 5 related
- Story
- The US National Security Council review of 1950 that converted containment from a diplomatic posture into a budget. Drafted largely by Paul Nitze at the State Department Policy Planning Staff, it argued that the Soviet Union was pursuing unlimited aims, that the American defence establishment as then funded could not meet them, and that the answer was a very large and sustained peacetime military build-up together with the development of thermonuclear weapons. Its analytical style is worth noticing: it treats the confrontation as global and indivisible, so that a setback anywhere is a setback everywhere, which is the reasoning that later justified intervention in places of little intrinsic strategic weight. Delivered to Truman in April 1950, it was initially regarded as unaffordable; the outbreak of the Korean War in June made its recommendations politically possible, and defence spending rose steeply. The document remained classified until 1975.
- Knowledge
- Containment
- NSC-68
- Connections
- Containment
- The Soviet Union tests its first nuclear device
- NSC-68
- Truman asks Congress to support Greece and Turkey
- Marshall proposes European economic recovery
- The Berlin blockade and airlift
- Evidence
- Supports the 1950 date, the authorship associated with Paul Nitze, the argument for a large sustained peacetime build-up and the indivisibility framing of the confrontation. V55 verification basis: NOT consulted — www.archives.gov is blocked by the environment's egress proxy; nothing is quoted from the document and no budget figure is given.
Observed changes · 0
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