NATIONAL SE-CURITY POLICY


with ours, so implacable in its purpose to destroy ours, so capable of
turning to its own uses the most dangerous and divisive trends in our
own society, no other so skillfully and powerfully evokes the elements
of irrationality in human nature everywhere, and no other has the
support of a great and growing center of military power.
B. Objectives:
  The objectives:of a free society are determined by its fundamental
values and by the necessity for maintaining the material environment
in which they flourish. Logically and in fact, therefore, the Kremlin's
challenge to the United States is directed not only to our values but
to our physical capacity to protect their environment. It is a- challenge
which encompasses both peace and war and our objectives in peace
and war must take account of it.
  1. Thus we must make ourselves strong, both in the way in which
we affirm our values in the conduct of our national life, and in the
development of our military and economic strength.
  2. We must lead in building a successfully functioning political and
economic system in the free world. It is only by practical affirmation,
abroad as well as at home, of our essential values, that welcan preserve
our own integritY, in which lies the real frustration of the Kremlin
design.
  3. But beyond thus affirming our values our policy and actions must
be such as to foster a fundamental change in the nature of the Soviet
system, a change toward which the frustration of the design is the
first and perhaps the most important step. Clearly it will not only be
less costly but more effective if this change occurs to'a maximum
extent as a result of internal forces in Soviet society.
  In a shrinking world, which now faces the threat of atomic warfare,
it is not an adequate objective merely to seek to check the Kremlin
design, for the absence of order among nations is becoming less and
less tolerable.- This fact imposes on us, in our own interests, the re-
sponsibility of world leadership. It demands that we make the atttempt,
and accept the risks inherent in it, to bring about order and justice by
means consistent with the principles of freedom and democracy. We
should limit our requirement of ,the Soviet Union to its participation
with other nations on the basis of equality and respect for the rights
of others. Subject to this requirement, we must with our allies and the
former subject peoples seek to create a world society based on the
principle of consent. Its framework cannot be inflexible. it will con-'
sist of many national communities of great and varying abilities and
resources, and-hence of war potential. The seeds of conflicts Will in-
evitably exist or will come into being. To acknowledge this is only to
acknowledge the impossibility of a final solution. Not to acknowledge
it can be fatally dangerous-ina world in Which there are no final
solutions.


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