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26 January 1950

MEMORANDUM FOE THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE:


 * Subject: Military Objectives in Military Aid Programs

The Joint Chiefs of Staff have reviewed the current Mutual Defense Assistance Program and have considered the military implications of future programs of this nature. From their study, they evolved the following objectives as the military basis for future military assistance programs.

The long-range overall military objective of United States military defense assistance programs should be the development of conditions which will improve to the maximum extent possible, within economic realities both current and foreseen, the ability of the United States in event of war to implement in conjunction with its allies a long-range strategic concept. Briefly, that concept is that the United States, in collaboration with its allies, will seek to impose the allied war objectives upon the USSR by conducting a strategic offensive in western Eurasia and a strategic defensive in the Far East.

Specific long-range objectives in furtherance of the overall military objective for future military defense assistance programs should be:


 * . Development of sufficient military power in Western Europe to prevent loss or destruction of the Industrial complexes in that region and to control those areas from which future operations can best be projected;


 * . The security and the use of Greenland, Iceland, the Azores, the United Kingdom, and French Northwest Africa;


 * . Denial to our enemy of naval and air bases in Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France;


 * . Development of the Italian armed forces authorized by the peace treaty to their maximum strength and combat effectiveness. If peace treaty limitations are lifted, development of sufficient military power in Italy to delay materially and possibly to check Soviet invasion, to prevent loss of Sicily to an enemy, and to defend successfully those sea and air approaches within and adjacent' to Italy which will be necessary for offensive operations;

Rh