KISSINGER, HENRY A.

Dear Gene:

Many thanks for your letter of August 14 and for sending me a copy of "Vietnam, Politics vs. Geography." It has been a long time since I have heard from you and I was very interested to look over your article. I do appreciate your sending it to me and hope that you will stay in touch.

Dr. Eugene Rabinowitch
State University of New York at Albany
Department of Chemistry
1400 Washington Avenue
Albany, New York 12203

jlp:8/23/71

RECEIVED
SEP 1 1971
CENTRAL FILES

STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK AT ALBANY

1400 Washington Avenue, Albany, N. Y. 12203

DEPARTMENT OF CHEMISTRY

August 14, 1971

Dr. Henry Kissinger
The White House
Washington, D. C.

Dear Henry:

I am sending you a copy of an article, in a
probably vain hope that you might glance at it.
I doubt that if you do so, you will take seriously
the second part (dealing with a need to end all
power politics, at the time when the ultima ratio
regem -- war -- has ceased to provide a plausible
"limiting condition" of diplomacy). But perhaps,
the "geopolitical" argument of the first part,
may find your approval.

With best regards.

ER:n

Enc.

518 • 457-3300 • Cable Address SUALB

VIETNAM

POLITICS VS. GEOGRAPHY

(Some heretical thoughts)

David Lloyd George, the great British leader in World War I, proposed in 1918 to send a river fleet up the Dnieper to land troops in Kiev and help patriotic Russians to re-establish the Eastern front, abandoned by Lenin's newly-installed communist government. This was when I first became aware how little politicians cared about geography: below Kiev lie the famous Dnieper rapids, blocking the passage of ships.

Since then, I have been often reminded of widespread disregard of geography by statesmen and public alike, but never as consistently as in the discussion of the Vietnam War. And yet, if there ever was a war in which geography is the key factor, this is it.

American intervention in Vietnam seemed a logical continuation of the earlier intervention in Korea. In both cases, the communist-ruled Northern half of the country set out to take over the non-communist Southern half. However, geography dictated different strategies of these take-overs. Korea is a long, narrow peninsula. The only way for the North to take over the South was a breakthrough across the demarcation line - an open invasion; and this is what the North did. The invasion almost succeeded; but MacArthur's holding out at Pusan at the Southern tip of Korea, and his landing far North at Inchon (made possible by the American domination of the sea), forced a headlong retreat of the invading Northern armies and ultimately permitted to re-establish approximately the pre-invasion demarcation line. Behind this line, protected on both flanks by American seapower, a government initially not much stronger or more democratic than the successive South-Vietnamese regimes, was able to assert

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its control and build up an effective army. It could even afford allowing a certain extent of political freedom, and a two-party system. Recently this political stability led to rather spectacular economic growth further legitimizing the regime.

The initial political situation in Vietnam differed substantially from that in Korea. It is enough to recall that Ho-Chi-Min was the victorious leader in Vietnam's liberation war against the French, while Kim Il Sung was a nobody installed in North Korea by occupying Soviet troops. On the opposite side, Syngman Rhee, while a crusty old dictator, had been a leader in the fight for Korean independence against Japan - while the South Vietnamese colonels, if they did fight in the liberation war at all, did it on the French side. But even more decisive than this political difference between Korea and Indochina, has been, in my belief, the difference in their geography. Both countries are long and narrow - roughly speaking, a thousand miles long and a hundred miles wide; but while Korea is protected on both sides by water, Vietnam has, on its Eastern flank a <u>wide</u> long mountainous jungle border. This open flank could not be effectively sealed off even by a million-man army; and behind it lay the militarily powerless countries of Cambodia and Laos.

The existence of this unprotected flank dictated to the North the choice of infiltration and guerilla war as strategy for taking over the South; and it effectively prevented the establishment of a stable control of the South by Saigon. (This was demonstrated most strikingly by the Tet offensive hitting simultaneously at all major cities of South Vietnam; and is still demonstrated every day by flare-ups of fighting near Danang, Saigon and in the Mekong delta.)

As long as more and more American forces were poured into S. Vietnam, an unstable equilibrium of sorts could be maintained, leaving much of the countryside to Vietcong guerillas, while holding cities under Saigon's control. But

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when Americans got fed up with the bottomless pit of the Vietnam War, and decided on gradual withdrawal, the likely inability of South Vietnam to defend its jungle flank made elimination of bases and interception of supply lines in Laos and Cambodia appear as pre-condition for undisturbed American withdrawal (not to speak - hopefully, but not very realistically,- of military stability after this withdrawal). The coup that toppled Prince Sihanouk at Pnom Penh - whether spontaneous or engineered from abroad - gave the green light for these operations, and first the invasion of Cambodia and then that of Laos, followed.

The first one was relatively successful, at least in cutting off the supply line from the Cambodian harbors; the second one not, because the area of invasion, in the waist of Laos, proved to be too close to bases in North Vietnam, permitting the Northern command to throw unexpectedly large forces into the battle and force Southern invaders into headlong retreat. The failure of the operation to paralyze the supply lines was clearly demonstrated by recent resumption by the North of offensive operations in Cambodia.

A look at the map of Indochina shows how unlikely is the establishment of a stable East-West dividing line there. In difference from the Korean peninsula, the Indochinese peninsula has the shape not of a sleeve, but of a wide funnel; the distance from the Gulf of Tonkin to the Gulf of Siam is roughly a thousand miles, while that across the Korean Peninsula is more like a hundred. To effectively protect South Vietnam's Eastern flank from intrusions, all of Cambodia and the Southern half of Laos should be under firm non-communist control; and it is doubtful that the armed forces of these countries can effectively achieve this. The popular support of the regimes in Vientiane, Pnom Penh, (and Bangkok) is an important factor in the equation; but fundamentally, the situation is dominated by the geography of the region.

The successive American administrations all had practically the same aim in Indochina: to establish there, as they did in Korea (and earlier, in Central Europe), a stable dividing line between two spheres of influence - that is, the influence of communist powers (Moscow or Peking) and the other, that of Washington. But geography makes the achievement of this aim extremely unlikely. Even the line now established across Korea may well not survive American withdrawal from Vietnam. Ultimately, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore will have no choice but to seek accommodation with the dominant regional power, China (as often pointed out by Professor Hans Morgenthau).

In the face of this geographic situation, discussions of an "accommodation", of a "compromise peace", of a "coalition regime" in Saigon, or of "neutralization" of the area, are utterly irrelevant, and show only the weakness of American liberals for high-sounding words and their incapacity to look into the face of harsh power realities. They remind one of English plans of creating a "coalition government" - including Lenin and the white generals! - in 1918 to represent Russia at the Versailles peace talks.

As long as the earth remains divided into spheres of influence of imperial powers, the only "real" problem of world politics is where the dividing lines between these spheres are to be drawn. This is what the Berlin blockade, the Soviet reconquest of Hungary and Czechoslovakia, and the Korean War, had been all about, and this is what the Vietnam War had been and still is about. The ideological conflicts are but a "superstructure" - to use a Marxist term - on this fundamental reality.

The "crime" of American policy in Vietnam is not that of having engaged in an "unjust", "immoral", or "unconstitutional" war, but that of having attempted to fight a war "against geography" - a war which, because of the geographic conditions, would not be brought to a conclusion, and required ever-increasing

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investments of human and material resources; a war which for the same reasons entailed brutal repressions against suspected allies of an elusive enemy, frustrated American military leaders [and caused] a need to resort to devastation of broad stretches of land, and mass displacement of civilian population.

Americans have become accustomed to consider themselves as under no external constraints in the choice of their policies. Location on a separate continent, and rapidly growing wealth, long sustained this delusion.

Most often, the delusion of American freedom of action takes the militaristic form: "we can win any war" (or "we can prevent any war"), "if we only know what we want and use our full power to achieve it;" or, if we don't fight with one arm tied behind our back. But it may also take the opposite form: "we can stay out of any war"; "we can end any war by a reasonable, fair peace" or "if there is a war somewhere, it is because the U.S. had started, encouraged or failed to end it." A supreme example of this attitude was the vote of Congresswoman Jeanette Rankin against the declaration of war on Japan *after* the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor!

Both extremes of American opinion are not aware that the U.S., while militarily and economically the most powerful nation on earth, is only one player in the world power game of "sovereign" nations, played according to traditional rules. It is in our power to fight or refuse fighting certain battles in this endless power contest; it was within our power (and it would have been a wiser decision) to concede in advance the impossibility of establishing a stable dividing line anywhere on the continent of Asia, and therefore leave China and the Soviet Union to struggle for spheres of influence there. But it is not in our power to change the brutal character of this power contest, by painting it in attractive ideological hues. The official language: "helping the people of

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South East Asia" in "fighting for a free society" or "for their self-determination" is a mixture of propaganda and self-deception and so are the radical slogans of "fighting against the will of the peoples of South East Asia, or "fighting a war of colonial oppression."

To get out of the age-old game of power politics in which we are bogged down in South East Asia, would require much more radical, a truly revolutionary reorientation, than had been dreamed of by any American politician, including the most vocal enemies of the Vietnam War, or even their campus allies.

Power contests had been the content of international policies in all history, ever since the evolution of mankind has led to its division into self-centered, warring groups - first families, then tribes, then nations and empires. This traditional form of international existence has been selected as successful in the history of mankind; but it has become deadly dangerous to the whole human species since man's capacity for destruction in war had been multiplied thousands of times by the discovery of nuclear and other scientific weapons. Furthermore, these contests are becoming unnecessary, since science and technology are making the growth of national wealth and power increasingly independent from possession of greater territory, or access to more natural resources, by permitting to create synthetic wealth from abundant raw materials - common rock, sea water, air, and ultimately deriving energy - the basis of all wealth - not from limited sources of fossil fuels, but from the unlimited supply of sea water (fission power) or sunlight.

The challenge of our era is to put an end to power politics; and this revolutionary change will not be reached - or even brought nearer - by getting out of any specific war - say, (that in Vietnam! By itself, this will merely mean a surcease until another power conflict confronts America. That this may happen on a more "favorable" terrain, or in an area where American "national interests"

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are more obviously at stake than they are now in South East Asia, will
make little difference, until the tradition of power politics is broken.
A much more radical new departure is needed! In example, one of the major
participants in the game of power politics would decide to quit it - al
together! - this showing the way to all others, even at the risk that some
may not follow. Somebody must declare the Emperor is naked - that war
has become too destructive to serve any political aims; and that preparing
for war as means to preserve peace has become a gigantic game of Russian
roulette; that national wealth and power have ceased to be the stake of
a zero-sum game; that economic progress in the scientific and technologi
cal age has become a game in which all nations can win at the same time; thus
Under these conditions, the arms race has become a senseless waste, and
power politics, which used to be called - justly! - "Realpolitik", has
become the opposite of it: a nightmare. Somebody must find the will to
stand up from the table and say "I don't play this game any more."
Somebody must dismantle his whole military establishment, and turn its
scientific and technological potential to constructive purposes. Somebody -
why not the U.S.? - must take this risk, because if none breaks the spell
now forcing nations to pursue policies which each one of them knows to be
not only crushingly expensive, but also offering no realistic chance of
success, the chances for human survival are bleak indeed!

As long as American enemies of Vietnam War do not graduate from fight-
ing against one/they dislike to struggling for an end to war as an institu-
tion, their campaign will remain only another pathetic episode in the
history of power politics. Withdrawal from Vietnam will be followed not
by a release of financial means and national energy for constructive at-
tack on great problems of our society, but, after a brief relaxation, by