A third area of increasing strength is the struggle against subversion. Our adversaries, convinced that direct attack would be aimless, today resort … - Lyndon B. Johnson

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A third area of increasing strength is the struggle against subversion. Our adversaries, convinced that direct attack would be aimless, today resort to terror, subversion, and guerrilla warfare. To meet this threat we began a large effort to train special forces to fight internal subversion. Since January 1961 we have increased these specialized forces eight times. We have trained more than 100,000 officers in these techniques. We have given special emphasis to this form of warfare in the training of all military units. Our army now has six special action forces on call around the world to assist our friendly nations. They are skilled in the languages and problems of the area in which they are stationed. The Navy and the Air Force have several thousand men whose abilities, training, equipment, and mission are designed to combat clandestine attack. And behind these groups are five brigade-size backup forces ready to move into instant action. But just as subversion has many faces, our responses must take many forms. We have worked to increase and integrate all the resources, political and social as well as military and economic, needed to meet a threat which tears at the entire fabric of a society. But success in fighting subversion ultimately rests on the skill of the soldiers of the threatened country. We now have 344 teams at work in 49 countries to train the local military in the most advanced techniques of internal defense. Subversive warfare is often difficult, dirty, and deadly. Victory comes only to those with the desire to protect their own freedom. But such conflict requires weapons as well as will, ability as well as aspiration. And we will continue to increase this strength until our adversaries are convinced that this course too will not lead to conquest.