How Did Maxwell D. Taylor Change American Foreign Policy

Maxwell D. Taylor and The Changes American National Security Between the Eisenhower Administration and the Kennedy Administration

The Cold War in the 1950s-1960s shaped American national security more than ever. The transition from the Eisenhower Administration to the Kennedy Administration showed the changes national security would go through in the course of almost a decade. However, there have been many criticisms of national security during this time period, and Maxwell D. Taylor, Kennedy’s chief military advisor, is one of those critics. His criticism of Eisenhower’s New Look and Massive Retaliation strategies towards Soviet threats shows a progression of United States foreign policy from the 1950s to the early 1960s from a static policy to a more flexible one. As a response, both Taylor and Kennedy created Flexible Response in order to combat the Soviet Union more effectively and aggressively unlike Eisenhower’s more stagnant and dated New Look policy. In Taylor’s “Security Will Not

He states; “Such a program needs to be based on a flexible military strategy designed to deter war, large or small...”(Taylor, 175). The New Look only provides temporary solutions when really the United States needs more responses to Soviet threats. If nuclear war is the only option both countries could use, then it would lead to worldwide catastrophe. As a result, Taylor outlines a less-static plan in order to combat the Soviets. The first two steps involve a long-range missile force and properly equipped mobile forces. The next two steps are more diplomatic, with having an effective system of alliances and procedures for assuring the most effective uses of different program resources. These four steps ultimately outline what will later be known as the Kennedy Administration’s Flexible Response policy (Taylor,