Action History, Declaratory History, and the Reagan Years

Abstract

M,.ore than thirty years ago Paul H. Nitze published an influential essay, "Atoms, Strategy, and Policy," in Foreign Affairs, which offered a penetrating critique of the Eisenhower-Dulles nuclear strategy of massive retaliation.1 Most significant, however, was the conceptual distinction he drew between declaratory policy and action policy. Nitze defined declaratory policy as "policy statements which have as their aim political and psychological effects." Action policy was described as the "general guidelines which we believe should and will in fact govern our actions in various contingencies."2 Nitze argued that whereas the Eisenhower administration's declaratory policy rested on massive retaliation, its action policy actually set in motion the doctrine of gradual deterrence. This sharp disjunction troubled Nitze because he believed that the psychological and political effectiveness of declaratory policy would be vitiated if it departed too greatly from action policy.3