Eisenhower and Massive Retaliation

***By the time this speech was given, the Eisenhower Administration had been in power for approximately a year. Containment would remain essential to American foreign policy under Eisenhower but it would evolve.  This speech helped to outline the approach this new administration would have to containing communism abroad. 
Speech of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles before the Council on Foreign Relations –  - 1/12/54 ***

It is now nearly a year since the Eisenhower administration took office. During that year I have often spoken of various parts of our foreign policies. Tonight I should like to present an overall view of those policies which relate to our security.

…We need to recall that what we did (in Korea) was in the main emergency action, imposed on us by our enemies….It is necessary also to say that emergency measures – however good for the emergency – do not necessarily make good permanent policies. Emergency measures are costly; they are superficial; and they imply that the enemy has the initiative. They cannot be depended on to serve our long-time interests.

This "long time" factor is of critical importance. The Soviet Communists are planning for what they call "an entire historical era," and we should do the same. They seek, through many types of maneuvers, gradually to divide and weaken the free nations by overextending them in efforts which, as Lenin put it, are "beyond their strength, so that they come to practical bankruptcy." Then, said Lenin, "our victory is assured." Then, said Stalin, will be "the moment for the decisive blow." 
In the face of this strategy, measures cannot be judged adequate merely because they ward off an immediate danger. It is essential to do this, but it is also essential to do so without exhausting ourselves. 
When the Eisenhower administration applied this test, we felt that some transformations were needed. It is not sound military strategy permanently to commit U.S. land forces to Asia to a degree that leaves us no strategic reserves. It is not sound economics, or good foreign policy, to support permanently other countries; for in the long run, that creates as much ill will as good will. Also, it is not sound to become permanently committed to military expenditures so vast that they lead to "practical bankruptcy." 

We need allies and collective security. Our purpose is to make these relations more effective, less costly. This can be done by placing more reliance on deterrent power and less dependence on local defensive power. This is accepted practice so far as local communities are concerned. We keep locks on our doors, but we do not have an armed guard in every home. We rely principally on a community security system so well equipped to punish any who break in and steal that, in fact, would be aggressors are generally deterred. That is the modern way of getting maximum protection at a bearable cost. What the Eisenhower administration seeks is a similar international security system. We want, for ourselves and the other free nations, a maximum deterrent at a bearable cost. 

Local defense will always be important. But there is no local defense which alone will contain the mighty land power of the Communist world. Local defenses must be reinforced by the further deterrent of massive retaliatory power. A potential aggressor must know that he cannot always prescribe battle conditions that suit him. Otherwise, for example, a potential aggressor, who is glutted with manpower, might be tempted to attack in confidence that resistance would be confined to manpower. He might be tempted to attack in places where his superiority was decisive. 

The way to deter aggression is for the free community to be willing and able to respond vigorously at places and with means of its own choosing… The basic decision was to depend primarily up on a great capacity to retaliate, instantly by means and at places of our choosing.

Why does Dulles employ the analogy of “locks on our doors…but no armed guards in every home” and what does it mean?

What is meant by maximum deterrent at a bearable cost?

Define “massive retaliatory power.” Why did Dulles choose these words?