NSC 68 and the Soviet threat: a new perspective on Western threat perception and policy making

Abstract

Late in the summer of 1950, after the outbreak of the Korean War, the US administration adopted a policy paper entitled NSC 68. This paper was drafted in February and March and it paved the way for the most comprehensive re-armament programme the United States had ever undertaken in time of peace. US defence expenditure was increased from 6.9% of the US GNP in Fiscal 1951 to 12.7% in Fiscal 1952, rising to 13.8% in Fiscal 1953; NSC 68 thus ushered in the post-World War II peak of US defence spending as percentage of GNP. In his admirable work on US defence strategy, John Lewis Gaddis has called NSC 68 ‘a deeply flawed document’. He concludes his analysis of NSC 68 by saying that the US Administration adopted measures which