23

[y]

And a U. S. policy which attempts to reduce the Soviet peace offensive to concrete terms might be a means to separate the USSR from its satellites including China. While it is impossible to predict the precise circumstances of such a split, it may be possible to outline the general framework in which it may occur. The USSR may give up its hold on its satellites if it finds that the effort to hold them in line absorbs ever more of its strength. And this effort may become increasingly difficult if the satellites should become convinced not only that they are pawns, but that they are sacrificeable, that to follow the Soviet line may confront them with disaster without an assurance of effective or total Soviet aid. (Thus, Tito's disenchantment over Molotov's luke-warm support on the Trieste issue was one of the reasons for his split with the Cominform.) Just as the Western system of alliances has been severely strained by Soviet moves in areas of peripheral interest to our Allies, so the U. S. should attempt to bring about contingencies which accentuate potential differences in interest within the Soviet bloc. It was not easy for Britain to risk nuclear bombing for Northern Indo-China, but would the USSR have risked everything for the sake of increasing the power of China, particularly if U. S. intervention had been accompanied by a guarantee of China's southern boundary, perhaps under Indian super-vision? How much would China risk to prevent the unification of Germany? Similarly, a Soviet withdrawal from Eastern Germany would involve far more than a shifting of the Soviet boundary one hundred miles to the East. It would be, above all, a signal to the minor satellites that they are ex-pendable and therefore encourage Titoism. Just because the USSR knows this we can afford to bid high for German unity, very much higher than we have heretofore, and therefore gain at least the advantage of the advocacy of moderation among the uncommitted. The U. S. must explode the myth that the Soviet bloc is perfectly flexible, perfectly free in its decisions,

24

monolithic and willing to run all risks. To the extent that hesitation appears within the Soviet bloc, the resolution of our Allies will improve and even more is this true should there appear a real fissure.

But if the U. S. reserves the right to act unilaterally in posing certain contingencies, it must be willing to stand alone for limited periods of time and for specific objectives. We must not insist on perfect unanimity, particularly in areas outside the main sphere of interest of unstable governments. To ask a French ministry hard put to play a European role to make itself responsible for our measures in Korea is to hamstring any decisive action and to erode the domestic support of the governments concerned. Indeed, a modicum of dissociation may strengthen the governments domestically and make their support all the more meaningful when offered on essential issues. The U. S. interest is not to be found, after all, in the creation of satellite but of strong self-reliant governments. And it is in the nature of self-reliant governments that they may have their own ideas. It is ridiculous to accuse Mendes-France of having killed EDC when not one of his predecessors ever sought to bring it to a vote over a two and a half year period. Strong, non-communist governments even if they disagree at times with the U. S. are more useful than vacillating weak ministries and more certain to act decisively on fundamentals. In short, we must stop paying a price for the pretense of united action and concentrate on those areas in which common action is attainable. When it is not attainable, the U. S. will be free to decide whether its own interests or the total strategic position require unilateral action and so should be our Allies in areas of most concern to them.

But all this will be meaningless unless the U. S. rapidly increases its military strength. As the Soviet nuclear stockpile grows, the sense of peril of our Allies will increase proportionately. With 19 divisions

25

we doom ourselves to ineffectualness except in a general war. It is said
that we cannot afford local actions, that this in effect gives the Soviet
General Staff the capacity to deploy our resources. To this it might be
replied that local actions may be the only ones we <u>can</u> afford. As the
horrors of a thermo-nuclear war increase, not only will any Administration
be more and more reluctant to unleash it, but also the results achievable
by it will proportionately decrease. The more we talk of the destructive-
ness of our nuclear weapons, the less likely do we make their strategic
use. A military victory in Korea or even the refusal to conclude an armistice
might have saved Indo-China. And U. S. intervention in Indo-China would have
protected South East Asia better than any conceivable attainable SEATO.

The U. S. gamble on an all-or-nothing military policy actually encourages
the USSR to undertake local action therefore and to confront us with the
option of surrender or nuclear war. As long as the Soviet General Staff
knows we <u>cannot</u> interfere on the ground and in proportion as their nuclear
capacity grows, they will be ever more ready to risk local adventures
and shift the onus for the ultimate decision on the U. S., well aware
that few objectives "are worth" the nuclear destruction of New York or
Washington. It will therefore be imperative to increase our army, our
air defense net, our <u>tactical</u> nuclear capacity and our military expenditures,
for no diplomacy is stronger than the power behind it.

These, then, are the basic principles which might guide U. S. strategy
and the steps which might avert the alternative of surrender or total nuclear
war. It must be clear that total war can be avoided only by being ready
for it and unafraid. But conversely, preventive war is unwise until it
has been prepared psychologically and unnecessary if the U. S. can bring
about a reversal of the present trend by other means. The above strategy
might assist in such a task. And if it failed, it would at least provide

26

the moral basis for a more decisive effort. It might be objected that
nothing has been offered except generalizations, that their application
to concrete instances will still prove contingent. This cannot be denied.
Nothing is more difficult than for an outsider to chart the blueprint of
a policy. And while principles are not selfimplementing, without them the
effort to deal with day-to-day affairs becomes obscured by an obsession
with detail. It may be worthwhile, nevertheless, to sketch the application
of these principles in three areas: the moral framework of U. S. policy,
the problem of German rearmament, and the problem of South East Asia.

V. <u>A Sketch for a U. S. Policy in Certain Areas</u>

(a) <u>The Moral Framework of U. S. Policy</u>

Enough has been said in the preceding pages about the nature of the
task confronting the U. S.: (1) to give its policy a wider perspective
by projecting a clearer image of itself; (2) to use the deep-seated popular
currents, such as the quest for peace and for the rise in living standards,
to legitimize its policy; (3) to wrest the diplomatic initiative from the
USSR; and (4) to rally the Free World in order to create an effective
balance of power on the Eurasian continent and to reduce the Soviet sphere.
Point (1) involves the necessity of bringing the domestic and foreign
policies of the U. S. into closer alignment, to decide once and for all
whether a balanced budget and worldwide commitments are compatible, and
to act accordingly. We could not ask other powers to commit themselves
to joint action in Indo-China when the domestic situation within the U. S.
exhibited such deep fissures on that very point. An end must be put,
moreover, to the plethora of conflicting statements emanating from purported
spokesmen of the Administration, perhaps by appointing as advisor on cold-
war strategy someone closer to the President. The country has rarely been
an obstacle to decisive Presidential leadership. Had the President in the

27

year before Geneva spoken with less equivocation, Nixon's trial balloon
might have suffered a happier fate.

But above all it is necessary that the U. S. more closely identify
itself with popular aspirations. By its overconcern with the formal side
of its endeavor, with the mutual security arrangements, the aid programs and
defense pacts without paying adequate attention to their political framework,
the U. S. has given unnecessary ammunition to Soviet policy and has deprived
itself of the full benefits of its unparalleled generosity. What can be
done in this direction has been proved by the reception of the President's
speech regarding atomic disarmament before the UN. But what is required
is a continuing effort, not a one-shot approach; a constant effort to make
the quest for peace concrete and demonstrating that the USSR is its real
obstacle. Similarly, if India could not be induced to join a *military*
defense pact in South East Asia, it might participate in an economic
effort to raise the standard of living. If an Asian conference to set up
SEATO proves impossible, one of the Colombo model might provide an even
more effective means for a measure of common action. An unremitting U. S.
effort in these matters and for disarmament both in atomic and in conventional
weapons would soon wrest the diplomatic initiative from the USSR. And no
other issue provides a more fertile field for a beginning than the rearmament
of Germany.

(b) <u>The Rearmament of Germany</u>

That Germany should be rearmed has been long recognized. But the
means to achieve it have been less clear and confused by conflicting motives.
France was afraid, above all, to be left alone in Europe with a resurgent
Germany; the U. S. was above all concerned with getting 12 German divisions
on the Elbe and Britain was interested to commit the U. S. in Europe and
not to commit itself further than the U. S. We staked everything on EDC,

28

in part because we mistook a French stalking horse for a serious proposal and deluded ourselves that we understood the domestic politics of a foreign country better than the indigenous statesmen. Now with the collapse of EDC, we run the risk that in a fit of frustration we may permit our displeasure with France to supersede sober calculation. For, however unanimous the five foreign ministers at Brussels were regarding EDC, it should not be overlooked that their agreement was tenuous and in a sense unreal because confined to a single issue as the lesser of two evils. The memory of German aggression is still pervasive. The fear of Germany may once more provide an opening wedge for skillful Soviet diplomacy, as the conflict within the British Labour Party abundantly proves.

It would be a great mistake, therefore, to rush into German rearmament in the name of the defense of the Elbe or as an end in itself. Such a policy would encounter obstacles even within Germany, particularly after the first flush of anti-French passion has worn off. For it is not rearmament that the Germans desire as much as unity and sovereignty. And any policy which seems to run counter to these feelings would soon be confronted with heavy opposition from a combination of nationalists and Socialists. It is the task of the U. S. to set the German rearmament into its proper framework by coupling it with an aggressive campaign for German unity to assuage German feelings and of disarmament in order to generalize whatever controls may be placed on Germany. No issue is more suitable to embarrass the USSR than German unification under present circumstances, for however dressed up, it would involve the sacrifice of a satellite government. And no time is more propitious than the present with the Adenauer government heavily mortgaged vis-a-vis the USSR and in no position to make an anti-Western deal of it. Under these circumstances the U. S. is in a strong position to press for German unity on the most moderate terms, including even the

29

temporary establishment of an all-German coalition government if its time
period is strictly limited, say, to six months and its jurisdiction to the
preparation of all-German elections. The moral weight of the Adenauer
government should be able to submerge their opposite numbers from the East
and the result of free elections cannot be in doubt. As an alternative
or concomitantly, Secretary Byrnes' proposal for a Four-Power Alliance
might be resurrected in order to induce the USSR to loosen its hold on
Eastern Germany. As a first step in the direction of German unity full
sovereignty should be granted Western Germany, but not without making
concrete proposals for German unity. And German rearmament should be coupled
with a detailed proposal for disarmament on the Continent according to a
fixed ratio, say that Germany's army should not exceed that of France and
Poland or at least be in a certain ratio to the army of the major con-
tinental powers. This would transform the control of German rearmament from
a German to a European problem and would enable us to bring pressure on
the Soviet satellites in the process. In short, German rearmament is not
an end in itself. It should be used as a means to bring increasing pressure
on the USSR and its satellites, but it should be presented as an aspect of
the quest for German unity and legitimized by a proposal for general dis-
armament.

(c) The Defense of South East Asia

No more pressing problem confronts the U. S. at the moment than to
arrest the Communist tide in Asia. It is there that the strategic balance
is in greater danger, there that Communism seems most irresistible. The
combination of anti-colonialism, nationalism, and Communist imperialism,
backed by the might of China, is formidable indeed, although not so for-
midable as it has been made to appear by Western indecisiveness. For all
its resources, it is doubtful that China could long sustain a major war

30

without giving up the domestic measures it seems intent on implementing.
And it is doubtful that it would jeopardize all its gains in the face of
determined resistance. The U. S. thus confronts two tasks: to stem the
Red tide and to build moral dikes against internal subversion. These
two efforts should not be confused, and the tendency to see the defense
of South East Asia entirely as a military problem may repeat the errors of
EDC. To stop China one requires power, and only the U. S. is in a position
to furnish that. The physical assistance that Thailand or Pakistan can give
in this task is negligible. SEATO conceived as a military pact may there-
fore only add weakness to weakness while the absence of India and Indonesia
probably outweighs the symbolic advantage of the facade of united action.
On the other hand, the Asian governments are useful in conferring legiti-
macy on the U. S. effort to identify itself with the popular currents in
that area. It should be a basic postulate of U. S. policy that a further
encroachment of Communist power in that area be prevented by war if necessary.
But concurrently every effort should be made and no resource spared to make
Southern Vietnam viable and a show-place for the capabilities of the Free
World. It would be more meaningful, therefore, to call an Asian conference
to discuss means of raising the standard of living in South East Asia and
have Southern Vietnam apply to such a conference for assistance, than to
discuss a military defense the main burden of which must in any case fall
on the U. S. It is doubtful whether India would refuse such an invitation.

## VI. Conclusion

Whatever is said in such a paper as this must necessarily appear
fragmentary and, because of limitations of space, pat. Every proposal has
infinite nuances which would have to be dealt with but which would swell
this paper to unmanageable size. Many problems such as Formosa and the
admission of Red China to the UN were not discussed at all, the former

31

because it is not negotiable for domestic and strategic reasons, the latter
because it is primarily a psychological problem depending on the further
development of the world situation. An examination of available alter-
natives has seemed to this writer to indicate that both preventive war
and the continuation of the present policy are untenable and to pose the
issue in these terms is to doom the debate to sterility. The course
proposed in this paper may not prove feasible for a number of reasons,
and it may be too abstract. It should, then, be a challenge to other
minds to help the U. S. and the Free World to overcome the impasse of its
policy and the terrible dangers confronting it.

# THE IMPASSAGE OF AMERICAN POLICY AND PREVENTIVE WAR

## I. The Problem

That U. S. policy has reached an impasse hardly requires restatement. The collapse of South-East Asia, the hesitations of our Western Allies, the rumblings in Japan, the changing weapons balance, all point to a crisis nonetheless serious for being denied in official pronouncements from Washington. Within the past fifteen months, the USSR has managed to capture the peace offensive so that all over the world the U. S. increasingly appears as the obstacle to peace; it has made great strides in the development of its nuclear weapons and thus confronted Western Europe at least with imminent neutralization; it holds the diplomatic initiative in every corner of the globe with the U. S. vacillating between bombast and pliability but in any case reduced to relative ineffectiveness. EDC designed to protect Europe has become a mortgage on American prestige, and the present line-up of the projected South East Asia Pact indicates that its major function will be to add weakness to weakness.

In these circumstances, it is not surprising that thoughtful people should reflect about the measures to arrest this trend. Nor that the proposed remedial steps should assume an apocalyptic quality commensurate with the dangers facing us. Confronted with possible neutralization, war may appear as the preferable alternative and preventive war the means to force a showdown before the cards become hopelessly stacked against us. But war is too serious a matter to be undertaken in a fit of frustration. And before admitting the bankruptcy of policy it may be wise to analyze the causes of our present dilemma and the minimum elements of U. S. security thereby to determine the range of possible alternatives.

## II. The Causes of the Present Impasse

It would be a mistake to assume that the present paralysis is a recent development. Many of our difficulties are of long standing, although recent policies heightened the tensions within the Free World while giving the diplomatic initiative entirely to the other side. The causes of the present impasse will therefore be

- 2 -

discussed under two headings: (a) those attributable to U. S. policy since the war, and (b) those peculiar to the measures of the past two years.

(a) The Long-term Problems of the U. S.

The long-standing difficulties of U. S. policy reflect the defects of its virtues. It was only natural that a nation which in less than a decade transformed itself from an insular into a world power and in the process took on a range of commitments almost unique in history, that such a nation should become fascinated by the process of its involvement and not its underlying causes. The pacts, the alliances, the aid programs, and above all the Soviet threat came to seem as self-evident guideposts along an unalterable route, as ends in themselves requiring no further justification. Above all, was this true of the Soviet threat. Having wrenched itself loose from its dreams of isolation, the U. S. has come to regard the Soviet colossus as ominous in proportion as the U. S. yearning for peace was great. Just because the U. S. policy-makers were aware of the purity of their motives in the immediate post-war period, they reacted to Soviet intransigence in a mood of outraged innocence and self-righteous indignation. So it came about the Soviet threat became a basic postulate of U. S. policy, the final "legitimization" of its system of alliances.

But however correct this view, it came increasingly to miss the point abroad, for policy like myth justifies itself not by its truth but by its acceptability. And the basic fact all over the world has been the reluctance of the other powers to believe in unbridgeable schisms. This can be variously explained, by the fear of nuclear destruction, the memory of two World Wars and of foreign occupations; but it is a fact of political life. The desire for peace is the predominant feature of the domestic situation in almost all the countries of the world, and any attempt to act counter to it was bound to erode the domestic support of the governments involved. The primary U. S. policy should have been constantly to demonstrate Soviet intransigence and thereby create a climate of opinion for common action. Instead, it has

- 3 -

been assumed that the chief U. S. task was to bring about a certain level of military
strength and that this depended almost entirely on U. S. policy and U. S. pressure.

Communist strategy has thus had an unnecessarily easy task. Since the U. S.
coalition effect was justified by a threat which was not felt as such by the public
opinion of our Allies, Soviet "peace offensives" have had a fertile ground for cheap
victories. U. S. pressure could be represented to seem almost as pervasive as that
of the USSR, and U. S. intransigence has become the shibboleth of the very people who
would blanch at the prospect of being left alone in Eurasia with the USSR. U. S.
strategy had put the cart before the horse. It had assumed Soviet bad faith and had
conceived its task as primarily technical, the creation of an adequate defense force.
But in fact the problem proved principally psychological: the bringing about of a
climate of opinion which would support such a force. By acting with a rationalistic
matter-of-factness, the U. S. had laid the groundwork for the present impasse: the
governments of our Allies, knowing the facts of life, formally agreed to U. S. pro-
posals; but this very act of agreement made them lose domestic support leading to the
paradoxical situation that present-day foreign ministers enjoy considerable popularity
in every country save their own. Thus Titoism as a phenomenon of the cold war has
been a major problem for the West as well as for the USSR. The real danger to the
U. S. system of alliances may well prove to be not communism but reverse Titoism —
nationalist governments which, to prove their independence of the U. S. will lean
increasingly on the USSR.

This has been magnified by the U. S. view of the Alliance as exemplified by
Secretary Acheson's article in the *New York Times Magazine*. Its major thesis that
everything that "strengthens" an alliance is good while its opposite is detrimental
cannot be questioned. But if in practice it leads to a conception of unity as an end
in itself, it becomes self-defeating. For if an alliance is equated with the con-
sensus of its members, its policy is shaped by its weakest component. And if every

- 4 -

action has to be *preceded* by the agreement of every last ally, an intolerable strain
will be placed on the domestic support of weak governments. Skillful Soviet diplomacy
could exploit this dilemma: by means of peace offensives it paralyzed any decisive
action in areas where there existed a community of interests and the power to make it
effective, such as in Europe. And by confining its aggressive moves to areas of only
peripheral interest to our Allies, the USSR has put a great strain on Allied action.
Korea is a case in point: it is safe to say that the only interest of our European
Allies in the Korean war was symbolic, to commit the U. S. to the principle of
collective security. Beyond that any decisive action was inhibited by the reluctance
of our Allies to run the risk of nuclear war in a theatre of only the remotest concern
to them. This is not to say that our Allies were "wrong;" simply that they tended to
look at the Korean war from a perspective which did not make for long-range thinking.
Similarly, to make intervention in Indo-China dependent on prior Allied agreement was
to admit futility. In short, unity is not an end in itself but a consequence of
certain acts and decisions. It will emerge whenever there is a community of interests
either evident or demonstrated. It is the task of the member of the coalition freest
in his decision to bring about that community if necessary by an act of leadership
which permits no further equivocation. That there may be disagreement within the
Allied camp *before* such steps is less important than what there will occur *afterwards*.
A U. S. offensive in Korea in 1951, for which all our commanders on the spot thought
the chances excellent, might have been objected to by our allies. But if successful
and if followed by a moderate peace offer on our part, it would have done more to
establish U. S. leadership and conciliatoriness than any number of soothing pronounce-
ments which left open the question whether they were not impelled by naivete or by
weakness. (A later section will discuss the limits of unilateral U. S. action.)

To summarize: even before the change of administration certain troublespots in
the position of the free world had become apparent. The psychological basis for the

- 5 -

military effort projected by U. S. policy was slipping away, as was evidenced by the
difficulties already experienced by EDC. In addition, the insistence on formal unity
had caused Allied relationships to be conducted in a never-never land of formal agree-
ment and lagging implementation, of a mutual reluctance to antagonize the other party
coupled with lawyer-like evasions and a sacrifice of the substance of action to the
form of agreement. In the process the domestic support of all governments of the
Western coalition was being eroded, setting the stage for the reaction to the events
of the past two years in which energy has been increasingly absorbed in a diplomatic
civil war: a sterile effort to hold our Allies in line.

(b) <u>Events of the Past Two Years</u>

But the real deterioration of the U. S. position has occurred in the past two
years and paradoxically during a period of maximum strain for the USSR, when it had to
change its leadership, put down satellite revolts, and gear its economy to a greater
production of consumer's goods. Although U. S. policy is not alone responsible for
this deterioration, it has contributed to it through two sins of commission and one
of omission, apart from the general confusion engendered by the plethora of conflict-
ing statements emanating from Washington. Two of these failures have to do with U.S.
defense policy, the third with the failure to take advantage of a great opportunity,
the death of Stalin. Each of these problems will be discussed in order.

1. <u>The "New Look" Military Policy.</u> The real difficulty with the "New Look" is that it cannot decide whether it is a strategy for fighting the cold war or a means of winning a shooting war. If the latter and insofar as it pursues the doctrine that the U. S. must choose the theatre of conflict of a major war for its own maximum advantage, it is unexceptionable. But if it is conceived as a means of winning the cold war <u>without</u> a major conflict, it runs counter to any coalition policy, and, far from deterring Soviet agression, it may actually encourage it. The New Look inhibits a coalition policy because it tends to magnify the sense of impotence which is already one of the

- 6 -

chief banes of America's Allies. Since the U. S. maintains a monopoly of atomic know-how and even more of production, since it alone has the capacity to deliver nuclear weapons, everything tends to encourage irresponsibility on the part of our Allies, domestically by the amalgamation of anti-Americanism and the quest for peace and internationally by the advocacy of "peaceful coexistence" even on terms akin to surrender. (The visit of the delegation from the British Labour Party falls at least partly into that category). Moreover, the U. S. no longer possesses a monopoly of nuclear weapons, and in its absence the chief aim of our Allies will always be to avoid, not to win, a nuclear war while U. S. demonstrations of nuclear power may actually work to the advantage of the USSR. Thus the explosion of the U. S. hydrogen bomb did more to paralyze British action in Indo-China than any threat on the part of the USSR.

The strain on the U. S. system of alliances has been compounded by the frequent announcements that the U. S. will no longer engage in local actions. But one of the major concerns of the leaders of those parts of Eurasia not yet under Societ domination has been to prevent another foreign occupation. They know that the country which would emerge from such an ordeal, even in the most favorable contingency, would be so transformed as to make the running of major risks seem ludicrous. Nor will they be reassured by the fact that as a consequence of a Soviet move which engulfs them nuclear devastation may be visited on Moscow. As has often been pointed out, particularly by European leaders, it is not the last battle which concerns them but the first, and present U. S. military policy does not augur too well for it. If it is true that most foreign governments are caught in the dilemma that they are aware of the extent of Soviet power while their public refuses to believe in the reality of this danger, then an announced policy of total nuclear war or nothing may serve to erode completely public support for any bold policy. And it will induce hesitation even in those who have few illusions about the Soviet threat but who cannot be blind to their own vulnerability. (See Churchill's recent attitude.) Finally, the strategic problem for the

- 7 -

Soviet bloc becomes vastly simplified. With nineteen divisions, some of them under-strength, the U. S. is clearly in no position to fight local wars. The Soviet bloc knows, therefore, that as long as it confines itself to peripheral moves and in areas where their own superiority in conventional weapons is overwhelming, it is relatively safe. By gradually engulfing the weaker peripheral countries and by refusing to present a clear-cut challenge, the USSR may therefore present the U. S. with a series of contingencies we are powerless, or at least unwilling, to stop. Many factors led to the collapse of Indo-China, not all of them of the making of the U. S. But it remains true that American weakness in conventional weapons limited Soviet risks. And the same may occur in other areas.

In short, the U. S. strategic problem has two aspects: to create a level of thermo-nuclear strength to deter the Soviet Union from a major war or from agression in areas which cannot be defended by an indigenous effort; but to integrate this with a policy which does not paralyze the will to resist in areas where there exist indigenous resources for defense. This does not mean that we must fight wherever the Soviet High Command seeks to deploy our strategic reserve; only that we must retain the capacity to intervene locally and adopt a diplomacy which entertains the possibility, at least, of limited wars for determinate objectives. If we assert that ultimate nuclear weapons represent the only deterrent to Soviet aggression, one of two consequences become almost inevitable: Either our Allies will feel that any military effort on their part is unnecessary or else it may lead them to the conviction that peace is preferable to war almost at any price. For this reason, the only U. S. policy consistent with a policy of alliances is one which minimizes (or seems to minimize) the risks of nuclear war while giving reasonable protection against Soviet occupation through the use of conventional armies. If the U. S. wants to derive political benefits from its nuclear superiority, it must emphasize the tactical not the strategic aspect of recent technological developments, the aspect, in short, which can arrest a conventional army on the ground.

→ 8 ←

2. **The Meaning of the Changing Weapons Balance.** Nothing less than the above is implied by the change in the weapons balance. As long as the U. S. possessed a mono-poly of atomic weapons and the willingness to use them, instant retaliation was a workable strategic concept. But with the Soviet development of its own nuclear system plus a strategic air force plus guided missiles, a point will be reached almost mathematically where the USSR will have attained a measure of parity in weapons development with the U. S. which will permit it to start a conventional war (for example, "to disarm Germany") and to dare us to retaliate with nuclear weapons. What will then be the U. S. position vis-a-vis its Allies? Would we then dare to unleash the horrors of a thermo-nuclear war or would we be forced into a conventional war, having however first lost our Allies through our military policy? No system of alliances is better than the strategy to make it effective, as the experience of the French system of alliances in the inter-war period demonstrates. No political progress can be made by the U. S. until it adjusts its military policy to the technological facts of life, above all that the period of our nuclear monopoly is over.

3. **The Missed Opportunity.** The situation, then, is serious. Our Allies seem on the verge of neutralization by the preponderant strength of the USSR in conventional weapons and their new-found capacity for nuclear war. While the U. S. oscillates between soothing declarations and frantic efforts to build a security wall by means of mutual defense agreements, South East Asia is disintegrating, and with it the whole power-balance will be in jeopardy. A bloc extending from the Elbe to Malaya, if given sufficient time to develop its resources in manpower and raw materials, may soon test the resolution of the Free World to the utmost and will always represent an overpowering threat to the free nations of Eurasia which have been almost reduced to peninsular appendages to the huge land-mass. In this situation, it may be useful for purposes of contrast to recall two crucial points of maximum Soviet weakness, which a skillful Western diplomacy might have exploited — the first in 1946, when the USSR was emerg-

- 9 -

ing from an unparalleled blood-letting, and the second in 1953, after the death of
Stalin. But on both occasions the Soviet Union transformed its weakness into an asset
and thus emerged stronger for its difficulties: in 1946 by bluffing a non-existent
strength, in 1953 by means of a peace offensive which bids fair to split the Free
World. In 1946 America was still too close to the period of intimate wartime relations
with Russia to adopt a bold and flexible policy. And in any case the constellations
as well as the power relationship of that period are irretrievably gone. But we are
still suffering from our sins of omission in 1953. It would require a separate paper
to deal with our possibilities at that moment and it can never be proved that an
alternative policy would have in fact succeeded. But if ever there was a time when it
might have been possible to drive a wedge between the USSR and its satellites, to re-
duce the Soviet sphere or to commit the USSR to a nationalist instead of an imperia-
list policy, the time was propitious after the death of Stalin. The Politbureau is
not staffed by supermen and anybody less might have been hard put to change the govern-
ment, put down internal schisms, defeat satellite revolts, increase the production of
consumer's goods, and withstand a determined U. S. diplomatic offensive. It would not
have been wise to be intransigent, since this might have consolidated the Soviet
leadership. But the USSR should under no circumstances have been permitted to gain
the benefits from the advocacy of peace without running any of the risks of its accom-
plishment. The task of U. S. strategy was to reduce the Soviet peace offensive to
concrete terms as quickly as possible in order to gain a moral basis for continuing the
cold war if necessary. In May 1953, in discussing a possible U. S. strategy, the
present writer argued: "A conciliatory attitude on the part of the USSR which is per-
mitted to remain largely formal is more dangerous than a continuation of the cold war.
By relaxing the pressure, it permits the completion of internal consolidation and
leaves the ultimate choice of policy and its timing in the hands of Soviet leaders.
Thus, the USSR would obtain at little or no cost its maximum objective — gaining

- 10 -

time and disrupting the U. S. system of alliances." This in fact has happened. We wasted nearly a year by formalistic indecision while the Soviet leadership consolidated itself. When the USSR re-emerged on the diplomatic scene, we permitted a European conference, in which we held most of the cards, to be transformed into an Asian one in which we held none without obtaining a single equivalent. In the process, by a series of bluffs we have undermined our prestige, while EDC, for which presumably all these sacrifices were brought, has collapsed so completely that it is useless even as a negotiating weapon versus the USSR. The period of weakness of the USSR is over; we knew nothing better to do with our opportunities than to distribute food packages in Berlin — *unuseful gimmick, but no more than that*. Indeed, the USSR appears to have been strengthened by the death of Stalin. Its policy is more flexible; even the satellite revolts have proved advantageous for they have led to the identification of some of the anti-communist underground organizations. Everywhere the USSR holds the diplomatic initiative; the power balance is changing in its favor, while the U. S. threatens a reappraisal of its policy, not towards the USSR, but towards its Allies.

### III. The Conditions of U. S. Security

This then is the situation confronting the U. S., without doubt the nadir of its post-war position. It is not surprising that at this juncture there should appear advocates of radical solutions, who propose to cut the Gordian knot at one blow by a policy of preventive war. There are many things that can be said against such a policy, above all that it is not feasible with the present Administration; and by the time a new Administration comes into office the Soviet atomic capability may have improved so much that preventive war no longer seems attractive. But even were the policy feasible, its advocates would have the burden of demonstrating that no other course was open. For preventive war is not an act of policy but of desperation. It would be justified only if the U. S. were confronted by imminent neutralization and then only if the neutralization were absolute, that is, if the total power balance

- 11 -

were on the point of shifting irrevocably against the U. S. Before discussing the wisdom of such a step, therefore, it will be necessary to examine the minimum and the optimum conditions of U. S. security to determine whether they can be realized only by preventive war.

Every international system must have some inherent safeguards in the balance of forces within it. To become completely dependent on the continued goodwill of another sovereign state is tantamount to an abdication of policy whose task it is to provide for the worst contingency. No major power can voluntarily accept neutralization, therefore; nor can peace as such be an objective of policy. Whenever peace becomes a direct objective of policy the international system is at the mercy of its most ruthless member. Whenever a power or group of powers achieves physical preponderance, self-restraint disappears. A peace which does not contain a relative balance of forces will prove ephemeral regardless of the domestic structure of the component states — at least history offers no example to the contrary. But in a world of two super-powers such an equilibrium is peculiarly difficult to attain. The classic balance of power implied that no power or combination of powers would be able to defeat its opposite grouping totally. But the fewer the factors to be balanced the greater the penalty for miscalculation and the more inflexible the contending positions. Soviet - U.S. relations would therefore be difficult at best, but they are given a peculiar urgency by the dynamism of a revolutionary ideology which causes its disciples to regard the entire non-communist world as potential enemies.

What, then, are the elements of U. S. security? What power can be balanced against the Soviet colossus to prevent U. S. neutralization? All thinking on this topic has to start from the geopolitical fact that in relation to Eurasia the U. S. is an island power with inferior resources, at present only in manpower but in time even in industrial capacity. Were Eurasia to fall under the control of a single power or group of powers and were this group given sufficient time to exploit its resources, the U.S.

- 12 -

would be neutralized, that is, it would not be master of its own policy any longer. The U. S. can, therefore, never permit the resources of Eurasia to be organized by one power, even less of a power avowedly hostile to the U. S. And as an island power the influence of the U. S. should be particularly strong in the peninsulas accessible to sea power: Korea, South East Asia, the Indian Sub-Continent, Turkey, Greece, Italy, Spain and Western Europe. If this is true, the U. S. cannot cast off Western Europe in a fit of frustration. It may be able to win a war without the assistance of Western Europe, but it cannot survive a long period of peace without denying Western Europe to the USSR. If the U. S. ever became confined to the "fortress America," it would be forced into a military effort not consistent with what is now considered the "American way of life." And even at that price the existence of the U. S. confronted by three-quarters of the human race and not much less of its resources would be precarious. The basic question for the U. S., therefore, becomes first whether Western Europe and the peninsulas of Eurasia can be made secure against the Soviet threat and second, whether, assuming they can be made secure, this will prevent the neutralization of the U. S.

However dismal the present outlook, it should not be forgotten that the crisis is one not only of power but of will, that the industrial capacity of the Free World now and for the foreseeable future far exceeds that of the Soviet bloc. In 1941, Germany alone nearly defeated the USSR, and the combination of the U. S. plus Western Europe should certainly be able to contain it. The steel production of Western Europe should still equal that of the USSR, and in Asia, China appears so strong at least in part because of the irresolution of her opponents. The task of creating a balance of power would therefore be far from hopeless, if one considers nothing but the available resources. What the advocates of preventive war mean, however, when they speak of the increasing neutralization of the U. S., is something else: that the present balance of military strength on the Eurasian continent is so uneven that the peninsulas are not only at the mercy of the Soviet bloc but conscious of it; that the Soviet development

- 13 -

of nuclear weapons and guided missiles paralyzes their action and that therefore the U. S. stands in imminent danger of isolation while the USSR holds the diplomatic initiative and bides its time for ultimate military action. All this is true, but the real question arises whether it requires a total nuclear war to reverse this trend or whether intermediary steps are possible.

It must be said at once that there is an air of unreality about the argument for preventive war, an assumption that all options are equally open, and that there are no limits set by public opinion or Congress to U. S. action. Moreover, the policy of preventive war is not an alternative to the "New Look" but its reverse side, an assertion that now is the time for instant retaliation. And just because it poses such fearful risks and impossible alternatives, it leads to an atrophy of policy. But quite apart from its domestic feasibility, one does not start a global war with 16 divisions and without allies. Under present circumstances, such a step would be an act of frivolity whose consequences might prove more terrible than the conditions it seeks to allay. Even a policy of maximum risks would consequently have to move through some intermediary phases to prepare public opinion, to strengthen America's military power, and to rally our Allies, if possible. The real question confronting the U. S. in the short term, therefore, is the nature of these intermediary steps. If carefully planned and boldly executed, they might improve the pattern of world relations and minimize the dangers of a total war. And if they failed, the question of total war could be re-examined in a healthier climate and from a stronger posture. Both the advocates and the opponents of preventive war might therefore agree on a course of action which takes them part of the way together. But first they must agree on the direction in which they are heading, on a definition of the optimum conditions of U. S. security, and the long-term goal of U. S. strategy:

> While a balance is attainable along existing lines on the Eurasian continent, it will nevertheless always remain precarious. As long as London is within the range of

- 14 -

Soviet guided missiles, British policy will be tentative. As long as Soviet armies are poised on the Elbe, Western Europe will be insecure. As long as China strides unopposed through South East Asia, the uncommitted powers will seek their safety in neutralism. The vision the Soviet bloc presents to the outside world is one of ruthless strength allied with artful cunning, of constant readiness to utilize force coupled with the diplomatic skill to secure its fruits. The task confronting the U.S. is twofold, therefore: (1) in the short term, to stem the Soviet tide; (2) in the long term, to reduce the Soviet sphere and to demonstrate the limitations of Soviet power and skills. In this equation the latter term, the demonstration of the limitations of Soviet power, is almost as important as the reduction of the Soviet sphere. To the extent that the components of the Free World, now obsessed by a sense of their impotence, realize that the other side, too, can know hesitation, that behind the facade of monolithic power the Soviet bloc, too, shrinks from certain consequences, to that extent their resolution will be strengthened and their policy emboldened. And only the U. S. is in a position to make this demonstration.

The U. S. strategic problem can therefore be summarized as follows: there is less danger of physical neutralization of the U. S. than of moral isolation. The Free World, even in its present extent, should be able to muster enough resources in the foreseeable future to contain any Soviet aggression. But the problem is serious precisely because the will to use this strength is lacking through a combination of a sense of impotence produced by the memory of foreign occupations and Soviet superiority in conventional weapons. The Soviet acquisition of nuclear weapons gives the situation a particular urgency, although not for the reason usually alleged. The real danger in the Soviet nuclear arsenal resides not in the Soviet capacity to neutralize the U.S. but in the fact that with both sides possessing ultimate weapons the risk of their use becomes so indeterminate as to be prohibitive. **Thus, the Soviet nuclear arsenal may have the paradoxical result that nuclear weapons will not be used at all, at least**

- 15 -

**strategically.** And if this is true, the Soviet preponderance in conventional weapons again becomes a factor. The Red Army on the Elbe might have been restrained by the fear of an atomic bombardment of Moscow, but by the same token it may be liberated by the new-found Soviet capacity to retaliate on Washington. The U. S. strategic goal should be thus defined: (a) **In the short term, to prevent a further extension of the Soviet sphere at any cost.** (b) **In the long term, to reduce the Soviet bloc to an extent from which it cannot win an aggressive conventional war while it will be deterred from a nuclear war by U. S. technological superiority.** The next section will deal with a possible U. S. strategy to attain these objectives.

#### IV. Principles of a U. S. Strategy

Nobody is in a position to chart the details of U. S. policy — particularly from the outside. It will always be conditioned by unexpected happenings and the events of the day. But it should be possible to establish certain principles which would shape the day-to-day decisions. But first it will be necessary to deal with an objection to the long-term goal of U. S. strategy postulated above, that the reduction of the Soviet sphere to the extent is tantamount to a neutralization of the USSR and therefore unattainable without a nuclear war. It may be that the reduction is not possible without a nuclear war, but the reason will not be that a contraction would leave the USSR at the mercy of the U.S. For the USSR reduced even to the boundaries now comprising its metropolitan territories will still be a formidable enemy, even after it lost the capacity to win an aggressive war. The very vastness of its territories would inhibit attack, and its nuclear capacity would still exist for defensive purposes. A Russia incapable of winning an aggressive war but unassailable within its territories would merely have returned to its traditional posture vis-a-vis Europe.

But this has a corollary, if nuclear war is to be avoided. The USSR should not only be reduced to its metropolitan territories, but it should be made to feel secure within them, for otherwise no contraction of its sphere without desperate measures is

- 16 -

conceivable. To be sure, the USSR is not likely to withdraw voluntarily at any price. Its insecurity derives, after all, from the existence of the U. S. as a non-communist power not from U. S. policy. Nevertheless a reversal of present U. S. tactics of tough talk and soft action to tough action and flexible diplomacy would substantially after the pattern of international relations. At a minimum it would rally the Free World. At a maximum, it might strengthen the "peace parties" within the Soviet bloc, the groups not willing to risk everything for peripheral objectives. And even if a Soviet withdrawal cannot be induced, the Soviet sphere could contract as the consequence of a rift within it. A great deal has been written about this, and all such discussion is conjectural. But this much is clear: the rift will not occur by itself. Too much is to be gained by unity, too many prizes are still to be won, the memory of Tito is still too fresh for the U. S. to be able to count on Soviet mistakes. A split between the USSR and its satellites can only come about through outside pressure, through the creation of contingencies which may force a divergence in views into the open. And this is a problem for the U. S. Only the U. S. is strong enough to adopt a world-wide strategy; only the U. S. can pose the ultimate alternative. But what diplomacy can harmonize the minimum objective of rallying the Free World with the maximum objective of reducing the Soviet sphere? What is implied by the term "outside pressure?"

The first principle for U. S. policy is to become aware that we are engaged in a revolutionary contest, a contest, that is, about the nature legitimacy or what is considered "reasonable." This means that normal diplomatic patterns are transformed. No longer do conferences attempt to settle disputes by the adjustment of differences but they become elaborate stage plays for the benefit of those yet uncommitted, to attach them to one or the other of the contending parties. In a "legitimate" international order demands once made are negotiable; in a revolutionary order they are programmatic. To formulate minimum demands in a stable order is to surrender the advantage

- 17 -

flexibility in negotiation. To formulate formalistic or self-righteous demands to an antagonist who will in any case reject them is to compound the chief difficulty of a revolutionary period: to convince the uncommitted that the revolutionary is, in fact, a revolutionary, that his objectives are unlimited. And it yields him the advantage of the advocacy of moderation without the risk of its accomplishment. In Berlin, the real problem was not to "get it over with" nor the contest as such between Dulles and Molotov but the impact of that contest on France and to a lesser extent on Germany. And Geneva proved who had better understood the domestic situation of our Allies; Dulles who agreed to Geneva as a means to force the ratification of EDC or Molotov who converted it into an aspect of the Soviet peace offensive.

Self-righteous formalism has been the bane of American post-war diplomacy. Instead of impatiently rejecting proposals for a 4-power conference as delaying our efforts to build a defense community, we should have sought it as the best means of strengthening our alliance and of bringing pressure on the USSR. Instead of taking the Soviet's bad faith for granted, we should lose no opportunity for demonstrating it. We should never reject Soviet proposals, however propagandistic in intent, so pre-emptorily that, as happened with the Russian proposal to join NATO, they are turned down before they officially reach Washington. Instead, we should give the appearance of considering them and, if at all possible, answer with a counterproposal which shifts the onus for the failure of the negotiation to the other side. We should not be afraid of conferences, for a conference that fails does not return things to the starting point but can be used as a springboard for more decisive action.

This is another way of saying that the U. S. must restore a greater flexibility to its diplomacy. A policy is a means to achieve an objective. However meritorious, it should never become an end in itself. A too rigid commitment can only increase the determinacy of calculation of the other side and will cause a repetition of the debacles of EDC and Geneva. EDC might have collapsed in any case, but the rigidity

- 18 -

of U. S. policy certainly did not help matters, If EDC could be sold at all, it should
have been presented as a European and not an American policy. And the most efficacious
means to speed it up might have been to use it as a negotiating weapon towards the
USSR by offering to forego it in return for certain concessions such as the unifica-
tion of Germany. In any case, the U. S. should have had an alternative policy ready
and activated as the prospects for EDC grew dimmer. EDC is not, after all, the only
way to rearm Germany, as Mendes-France correctly insisted. The basic problem in the
rearming of Germany is to accomplish it without alienating our other European allies--
a difficult but not insoluble task. Anything beyond that should occur with the
approval but not under the pressure of the U. S.

A third consideration involves the nature of U. S. leadership. As the strongest
power by far in the world, U. S. leadership is inescapable and cannot be avoided by
an act of will. And the failure to lead merely serves to create a vacuum. It is be-
ing said that Geneva and the fate of EDC indicate the limits of U. S. leadership,
that in fact the illusion of American omnipotence has been more baneful than the recog-
nition of limits. But Geneva and EDC prove merely the limitations of oscillating and
formalistic leadership. Geneva reached an impasse because it was badly prepared, be-
cause the U. S. did not get clear about its own objectives, and in a last-minute
frenzy of indecision shifted the responsibility for action to Allies hard put to make
a decision even in their own primary sphere of interest. And EDC should never have
been given such importance in the first place. The U. S. can go far in setting common
objectives; it cannot prescribe all the means to attain them. EDC was one of the
policies to achieve German rearmament -- which in turn was the only really essential
objective for U. S. leadership and one it bids fair to achieve.

The difficulty with American leadership has been that in the previous administra-
tion it was concerned with the form of inter-Allied relationship, and in the present
administration it has been ineffective because it has been impossible to tell what the

- 19 -

U. S. really wanted. It can never be the task of leadership to solicit a consensus,
but to create the conditions which will make a consensus possible. A leader, if he
performs his true function, must resign himself to being alone part of the time, at
least while he charts the road. To demand of Britain that it run the risk of nuclear
bombing to save Hanoi is to ask the impossible. Decisive U. S. leadership and uni-
lateral intervention in Indo-China could have demonstrated that the other side does
not face nuclear bombing with equanimity either and that the neutralists cannot escape
their dilemma by inhibiting U. S. action. And had this unilateral action been accom-
panied by a political proposal, such as a political trusteeship for Indo-China under
Indian or Pakistani or Indonesian chairmanship and a guarantee of China's southern
boundary, it would have done more to demonstrate U. S. determination and moderation
than any number of formalistic declarations. Had this action succeeded without a
general war -- as is likely -- it would have given just as much heart to our European
allies as Geneva convinced them of their impotence. And had a general war developed
after the U. S. had given sufficient guarantees of limited objectives, its moral basis
would not have been badly prepared. Similarly, it is beside the point to argue that
an offensive in Korea, say in 1951, was unwise because it had no military objective.
This may be true militarily, but it _did_ have a _political_ objective: (a) to discourage
future Chinese aggression (Indo-China was best defended in Korea), and (b) to give the
U. S. an opportunity to demonstrate its political leadership by a show of moderation
thereby to rally the Free World and perhaps to split the Soviet bloc. (The same was
still true in 1953.) In short, it should be the task of U. S. leadership, unilater-
ally if necessary, to pose the contingencies which make united action more than a
drain on America's freedom of maneuver. By unyielding perseverance under pressure and
by moderation where we have the upper hand, we may give courage to our Allies and, in
the best circumstances, bring about a split in the Soviet bloc.

The importance of a diplomacy of determinate objectives cannot be over-emphasized

- 20 -

but neither can the importance of achieving them. Unilateral U. S. action should never be a march into infinity but related to concrete political goals and always tied to a conciliatory gesture which permits a translation of whatever strategic advantage is gained into political terms. Or at least larger goals should be approached in finite stages, for then they lose their terror — and their temptation. Only in this manner can we rally our wavering allies in Europe and the uncommitted in Asia. The basic fact of political life all over the world is the quest for peace. It is the U. S. task to utilize this yearning to legitimize its policy and thereby attach to it all those now confused by the skill of the Soviet peace offensive. This is not to say that we should give up our efforts to build defensive barriers, only that these barriers will be more efficiently built if they are placed in a wider perspective. Military strength is essential but it cannot legitimize itself. It is incumbent on the U. S. to find a political framework for its military goals. (1.)

(1) How a more flexible diplomacy could increase the pressure on the USSR might perhaps be illustrated by the analogy of a bull-fight: There is no doubt that the bull is stronger, but his strength is generally ineffective because his actions are determinate, his moves predictable. As long as the matador dominates the bull, his movements seem masterly, his maneuvers daring, all of which is only a reflection of the bull's blind impetuosity. But as soon as the bull does something unexpected, when he no longer permits himself to be paralyzed by his own impatience, his superior strength becomes effective. Then the certainty will leave his antagonist; then the matador will not only have to think about his own moves but those of the bull and the more indeterminate the bull's actions, the more telling the disparity in power will become.

- 21 -

sacrificeable, that to follow the Soviet line may confront them with disaster without an assurance of effective or total Soviet aid. (Thus, Tito's disenchantment over Molotov's luke-warm support on the Trieste issue was one of the reasons for his split with the Cominform.) Just as the Western system of alliances has been severely strained by Soviet moves in areas of peripheral interest to our Allies, so the U. S. should attempt to bring about contingencies which accentuate potential differences in interest within the Soviet bloc. It was not easy for Britain to risk nuclear bombing for Northern Indo-China, but would the USSR have risked everything for the sake of increasing the power of China, particularly if U. S. intervention had been accompanied by a guarantee of China's southern boundary, perhaps under Indian supervision? How much would China risk to prevent the unification of Germany? Similarly, a Soviet withdrawal from Eastern Germany would involve far more than a shifting of the Soviet boundary one hundred miles to the East. It would be, above all, a signal to the minor satellites that they are expendable and therefore encourage Titoism. Just because the USSR knows this we can afford to bid high for German unity, very much higher than we have heretofore, and therefore gain at least the advantage of the advocacy of moderation among the uncommitted. The U. S. must explode the myth that the Soviet bloc is perfectly flexible, perfectly free in its decisions, monolithic and willing to run all risks. To the extent that hesitation appears within the Soviet bloc, the resolution of our Allies will improve and even more is this true should there appear a real fissure.

- 22 -

governments concerned. Indeed, a modicum of dissociation may strengthen the govern-
ments domestically and make their support all the more meaningful when offered on
essential issues. The U. S. interest is not to be found, after all, in the creation
of satellite but of strong self-reliant governments. And it is in the nature of self-
reliant governments that they may have their own ideas. It is ridiculous to accuse
Mendes-France of having killed EDC when not one of his predecessors ever sought to
bring it to a vote over a two and a half year period. Strong, non-communist govern-
ments even if they disagree at times with the U. S. are more useful than vacillating
weak ministries and more certain to act decisively on fundamentals. In short, we must
stop paying a price for the pretense of united action and concentrate on those areas
in which common action is attainable. When it is not attainable, the U. S. will be
free to decide whether its own interests or the total strategic position require uni-
lateral action and so should be our Allies in areas of most concern to them.

But all this will be meaningless unless the U. S. rapidly increases its military
strength. As the Soviet nuclear stockpile grows, the sense of peril of our Allies will
increase proportionately. With 16 divisions we doom ourselves to ineffectualness
except in a general war. It is said that we cannot afford local actions, that this in
effect gives the Soviet General Staff the capacity to deploy our resources. To this
it might be replied that local actions may be the only ones we can afford. As the
horrors of a thermo-nuclear war increase, not only will any Administration be more and
more reluctant to unleash it, but also the results achievable by it will proportionately
decrease. The more we talk of the destructiveness of our nuclear weapons, the less
likely do we make their strategic use. A military victory in Korea or even the re-
fusal to conclude an armistice might have saved Indo-China. And U. S. intervention in
Indo-China would have protected South East Asia better than any conceivable attainable
SEATO. The U. S. gamble on an all-or-nothing military policy actually encourages the
USSR to undertake local action therefore and to confront us with the option of

- 23 -

surrender or nuclear war. As long as the Soviet General Staff knows we **cannot** inter-
fere on the ground and in proportion as their nuclear capacity grows, they will be
ever more ready to risk local adventures and shift the onus for the ultimate decision
on the U. S., well aware that few objectives "are worth" the nuclear destruction of
New York or Washington. It will therefore be imperative to increase our army, our air
defense net, our **tactical** nuclear capacity and our military expenditures, for no diplo-
macy is stronger than the power behind it.

These, then, are the basic principles which might guide U. S. strategy and the
steps which might avert the alternative of surrender or total nuclear war. It must be
clear that total war can be avoided only by being ready for it and unafraid. But con-
versely, preventive war is unwise until it has been prepared psychologically and unnec-
essary if the U. S. can bring about a reversal of the present trend by other means.
The above strategy might assist in such a task. And if it failed, it would at least
provide the moral basis for a more decisive effort. It might be objected that nothing
has been offered except generalizations, that their application to concrete instances
will still prove contingent. This cannot be denied. Nothing is more difficult than
for an outsider to chart the blueprint of a policy. And while principles are not self-
implementing, without them the effort to deal with day-to-day affairs becomes obscured
by an obsession with detail. It may be worthwhile, nevertheless, to sketch the appli-
cation of these principles in three areas: the moral framework of U. S. policy, the
problem of German rearmament, and the problem of South East Asia.

Enough has been said in the preceding pages about the nature of the task con-
fronting the U. S.: (1) to give its policy a wider perspective by projecting a clearer
image of itself; (2) to use the deep-seated popular currents, such as the quest for
peace and for the rise in living standards, to legitimize its policy; (3) to wrest the

- 24 -

diplomatic initiative from the USSR; and (4) to rally the Free World in order to create
an effective balance of power on the Eurasian continent and to reduce the Soviet sphere.
Point (1) involves the necessity of bringing the domestic and foreign policies of the
U. S. into closer alignment, to decide once and for all whether a balanced budget and
worldwide commitments are compatible, and to act accordingly. We could not ask other
powers to commit themselves to joint action in Indo-China when the domestic situation
within the U. S. exhibited such deep fissures on that very point. An end must be put,
moreover, to the plethora of conflicting statements emanating from purported spokesmen
of the Administration, perhaps by appointing as advisor on cold-war strategy someone
closer to the President. The country has rarely been an obstacle to decisive
Presidential leadership. Had the President in the year before Geneva spoken with less
equivocation, Nixon's trial ballon might have suffered a happier fate.

But above all it is necessary that the U. S. more closely identify itself with
popular aspirations. By its overconcern with the formal side of its endeavor, with the
mutual security arrangements, the aid programs and defense pacts without paying ade-
quate attention to their political framework, the U. S. has given unnecessary ammuni-
tion to Soviet policy and has deprived itself of the full benefits of its unparalleled
generosity. What can be done in this direction has been proved by the reception of
the President's speech regarding atomic disarmament before the UN. But what is re-
quired is a continuing effort, not a one-shot approach; a constant effort to make the
quest for peace concrete and demonstrating that the USSR is its real obstacle.
Similarly, if India could not be induced to join a military defense pact in South East
Asia, it might participate in an economic effort to raise the standard of living. If
an Asian conference to set up SEATO proves impossible, one on the Colombo model might
provide an even more effective means for a measure of common action. An unremitting
U. S. effort in these matters and for disarmament both in atomic and in conventional
weapons would soon wrest the diplomatic initiative from the USSR. And no other issue

- 25 -

(b) The Rearmament of Germany

That Germany should be rearmed has been long recognized. But the means to achieve it have been less clear and confused by conflicting motives. France was afraid, above all, to be left alone in Europe with a resurgent Germany; the U. S. was above all concerned with getting 12 German divisions on the Elbe and Britain was interested to commit the U. S. in Europe and not to commit itself further than the U. S. We staked everything on EDC, in part because we mistook a French stalking horse for a serious proposal and deluded ourselves that we understood the domestic politics of a foreign country better than the indigenous statesmen. Now with the collapse of EDC, we run the risk that in a fit of frustration we may permit our displeasure with France to supersede sober calculation. For, however unanimous the five foreign ministers at Brussels were regarding EDC, it should not be overlooked that their agreement was tenuous and in a sense unreal because confined to a single issue as the lesser of two evils. The memory of German aggression is still pervasive. The fear of Germany may once more provide an opening wedge for skillful Soviet diplomacy, as the conflict within the British Labour Party abundantly proves.

It would be a great mistake, therefore, to rush into German rearmament in the name of the defense of the Elbe or as an end in itself. Such a policy would encounter obstacles even within Germany, particularly after the first flush of anti-French passion has worn off. For it is not rearmament that the Germans desire as much as unity and sovereignty. And any policy which seems to run counter to these feelings would soon be confronted with heavy opposition from a combination of nationalists and Socialists. It is the task of the U.S. to set the German rearmament into its proper framework by coupling it with an aggressive campaign for German unity to assuage German feelings and of disarmament in order to generalize whatever controls may be placed on Germany. No issue is more suitable to embarrass the USSR than German unification under present

- 26 -

circumstances, for however dressed up, it would involve the sacrifice of a satellite government. And no time is more propitious than the present with the Adenauer government heavily mortgaged vis-a-vis the USSR and in no position to make an anti-Western deal with it. Under these circumstances the U. S. is in a strong position to press for German unity on the most moderate terms, including even the temporary establishment of an all-German coalition government if its time period is strictly limited, say, to six months and its jurisdiction to the preparation of all-German elections. The moral weight of the Adenauer government should be able to submerge their opposite numbers from the East and the result of free elections cannot be in doubt. As an alternative or concomitantly, Secretary Byrnes' proposal for a Four-Power Alliance might be resurrected in order to induce the USSR to loosen its hold on Eastern Germany. As a first step in the direction of German unity full sovereignty should be granted Western Germany, but not without making concrete proposals for German unity. And German rearmament should be coupled with a detailed proposal for disarmament on the Continent according to a fixed ratio, say that Germany's army should not exceed that of France and Poland or at least be in a certain ratio to the army of the major continental powers. This would transform the control of German rearmament from a German to a European problem and would enable us to bring pressure on the Soviet satellites in the process. In short, German rearmament is not an end in itself. It should be used as a means to bring increasing pressure on the USSR and its satellites, but it should be presented as an aspect of the quest for German unity and legitimized by a proposal for general disarmament.

**(c) The Defense of South East Asia**

No more pressing problem confronts the U. S. at the moment than to arrest the Communist tide in Asia. It is there that the strategic balance is in greatest danger, there that Communism seems most irresistible. The combination of anti-colonialism, nationalism, and Communist imperialism, backed by the might of China, is formidable

- 27 -

indeed, although not so formidable as it has been made to appear by Western indecisiveness. For all its resources, it is doubtful that China could long sustain a major war without giving up the domestic measures it seems intent on implementing. And it is doubtful that it would jeopardize all its gains in the face of determined resistance. The U. S. thus confronts two tasks: to stem the Red tide and to build moral dikes against internal subversion. These two efforts should not be confused, and the tendency to see the defense of South East Asia entirely as a military problem may repeat the errors of EDC. To stop China one requires power, and only the U. S. is in a position to furnish that. The physical assistance that Thailand or Pakistan can give in this task is negligible. SEATO conceived as a military pact may therefore only add weakness to weakness while the absence of India and Indonesia probably outweighs the symbolic advantage of the facade of united action. On the other hand, the Asian governments are useful in conferring legitimacy on the U. S. effort to identify itself with the popular currents in that area. It should be a basic postulate of U. S. policy that a further encroachment of Communist power in that area be prevented by war if necessary. But concurrently every effort should be made and no resource spared to make Southern Vietnam viable and a show-place for the capabilities of the Free World. It would be more meaningful, therefore, to call an Asian conference to discuss means of raising the standard of living in South East Asia and have Southern Vietnam apply to such a conference for assistance, than to discuss a military defense the main burden of which must in any case fall on the U. S. It is doubtful whether India would refuse such an invitation.

## VI. Conclusion

- 28 -

at all, the former because it is not negotiable for domestic and strategic reasons,
the latter because it is primarily a psychological problem depending on the further
development of the world situation. An examination of available alternatives has
seemed to this writer to indicate that both preventive war and the continuation of the
present policy are untenable and to pose the issue in these terms is to doom the de-
bate to sterility. The course proposed in this paper may not prove feasible for a
number of reasons, and it may be too abstract. It should, then, be a challenge to
other minds to help the U. S. and the Free World to overcome the impasse of its policy
and the terrible dangers confronting it.

Henry A. Kissinger

September 15, 1954

# THE IMPASS OF AMERICAN POLICY AND PREVENTIVE WAR

## I. The Problem

- 2 -

[Y]

- 3 -

[Y]

- 4 -

[Y]

- 5 -

1. The "New Look" Military Policy. The real difficulty with the "New Look" is that it cannot decide whether it is a strategy for fighting the cold war or a means of winning a shooting war. If the latter and insofar as it pursues the doctrine that the U. S. must choose the theatre of conflict of a major war for its own maximum advantage, it is unexceptionable. But if it is conceived as a means of winning the cold war *without* a major conflict, it runs counter to any coalition policy, and, far from deterring Soviet agression, it may actually encourage it. The New Look inhibits a coalition policy because it tends to magnify the sense of impotence which is already one of the

- 6 -

- 7 -

In short, the U. S. strategic problem has two aspects: to create a level of thermo-nuclear strength to deter the Soviet Union from a major war or from aggression in areas which cannot be defended by an indigenous effort; but to integrate this with a policy which does not paralyze the will to resist in areas where there exist indigenous resources for defense. This does not mean that we must fight wherever the Soviet High Command seeks to deploy our strategic reserve; only that we must retain the capacity to intervene locally and adopt a diplomacy which entertains the possibility, at least, of limited wars for determinate objectives. If we assert that ultimate nuclear weapons represent the only deterrent to Soviet aggression, one of two consequences become almost inevitable: Either our Allies will feel that any military effort on their part is unnecessary or else it may lead them to the conviction that peace is preferable to war almost at any price. For this reason, the only U. S. policy consistent with a policy of alliances is one which minimizes (or seems to minimize) the risks of nuclear war while giving reasonable protection against Soviet occupation through the use of conventional armies. If the U. S. wants to derive political benefits from its nuclear superiority, it must emphasize the tactical not the strategic aspect of recent technological developments, the aspect, in short, which can arrest a conventional army on the ground.

- 8 -

[Y]

3. **The Missed Opportunity.** The situation, then, is serious. Our Allies seem on the verge of neutralization by the preponderant strength of the USSR in conventional weapons and their new-found capacity for nuclear war. While the U. S. oscillates between soothing declarations and frantic efforts to build a security wall by means of mutual defense agreements, South East Asia is disintegrating, and with it the whole power-balance will be in jeopardy. A bloc extending from the Elbe to Malaya, if given sufficient time to develop its resources in manpower and raw materials, may soon test the resolution of the Free World to the utmost and will always represent an overpowering threat to the free nations of Eurasia which have been almost reduced to peninsular appendages to the huge land-mass. In this situation, it may be useful for purposes of contrast to recall two crucial points of maximum Soviet weakness, which a skillful Western diplomacy might have exploited -- the first in 1946, when the USSR was emerg-

- 9 -

- 10 -

time and disrupting the U. S. system of alliances." This in fact has happened. We wasted nearly a year by formalistic indecision while the Soviet leadership consolidated itself. When the USSR re-emerged on the diplomatic scene, we permitted a European conference, in which we held most of the cards, to be transformed into an Asian one in which we held none without obtaining a single equivalent. In the process, by a series of bluffs we have undermined our prestige, while EDC, for which presumably all these sacrifices were brought, has collapsed so completely that it is useless even as a negotiating weapon versus the USSR. The period of weakness of the USSR is over; we knew nothing better to do with our opportunities than to distribute food packages in Berlin — a useful gimmick, but no more than that. Indeed, the USSR appears to have been strengthened by the death of Stalin. Its policy is more flexible; even the satellite revolts have proved advantageous for they have led to the identification of some of the anti-communist underground organizations. Everywhere the USSR holds the diplomatic initiative; the power balance is changing in its favor, while the U. S. threatens a reappraisal of its policy, not towards the USSR, but towards its Allies.

- 11 -

- 12 -

The U. S. can, therefore, never permit the resources of Eurasia to be organized by one power, even less of a power avowedly hostile to the U. S. And as an island power the influence of the U. S. should be particularly strong in the peninsulas accessible to sea power: Korea, South East Asia, the Indian Sub-Continent, Turkey, Greece, Italy, Spain and Western Europe. If this is true, the U. S. cannot cast off Western Europe *without dire consequences*, in a fit of frustration. It may be able to win a war without the assistance of Western Europe, but it cannot survive a long period of peace without denying Western Europe to the USSR. If the U. S. ever became confined to the "fortress America," it would be forced into a military effort not consistent with what is now considered the "American way of life." And even at that price the existence of the U. S. confronted by three-quarters of the human race and not much less of its resources would be precarious. The basic question for the U. S., therefore, becomes first whether Western Europe and the peninsulas of Eurasia can be made secure against the Soviet threat and second, whether, assuming they can be made secure, this will prevent the neutralization of the U. S.

- 13 -

[y]

> While a balance is attainable along existing lines on the Eurasian continent, it will nevertheless always remain precariously weak. As long as London is within the range of

- 14 -

- 15 -

- 16 -

- 17 -

[Y]

- 18 -

of U. S. policy certainly did not help matters. If EDC could be sold at all, it should
have been presented as a European and not an American policy. And the most efficacious
means to speed it up might have been to use it as a negotiating weapon towards the
USSR by offering to forego it in return for certain concessions such as the unifica-
tion of Germany. In any case, the U. S. should have had an alternative policy ready
and activated as the prospects for EDC grew dimmer. EDC is not, after all, the only
way to rearm Germany, as Mendes-France correctly insisted. The basic problem in the
rearming of Germany is to accomplish it without alienating our other European allies—
a difficult but not insoluble task. Anything beyond that should occur with the
approval but not under the pressure of the U. S.

A third consideration involves the nature of U. S. leadership. As the strongest
power by far in the world, U. S. leadership is inescapable and cannot be avoided by
an act of will. And the failure to lead merely serves to create a vacuum. It is be-
ing said that Geneva and the fate of EDC indicate the limits of U. S. leadership,
that in fact the illusion of American omnipotence has been more baneful than the recog-
nition of limits. But Geneva and EDC prove merely the limitations of oscillating and
formalistic leadership. Geneva reached an impasse because it was badly prepared, be-
cause the U. S. did not get clear about its own objectives, and in a last-minute
frenzy of indecision shifted the responsibility for action to Allies hard put to make
a decision even in their own primary sphere of interest. And EDC should never have
been given such importance in the first place. The U. S. can go far in setting common
objectives; it cannot prescribe all the means to attain them. EDC was one of the
policies to achieve German rearmament — which in turn was the only really essential
objective for U. S. leadership and one it bids fair to achieve.

- 19 -

The importance of a diplomacy of determinate objectives cannot be over-estimated

- 20 -

- 21 -

- 22 -

[Y]

- 23 -

These, then, are the basic principles which might guide U. S. strategy and the steps which might avert the alternative of surrender or total nuclear war. It must be clear that total war can be avoided only by being ready for it and unafraid. But conversely, preventive war is unwise until it has been prepared psychologically and unnecessary if the U. S. can bring about a reversal of the present trend by other means. The above strategy might assist in such a task. And if it failed, it would at least provide the moral basis for a more decisive effort. It might be objected that nothing has been offered except generalizations, that their application to concrete instances will still prove contingent. This cannot be denied. Nothing is more difficult than for an outsider to chart the blueprint of a policy. And while principles are not self-implementing, without them the effort to deal with day-to-day affairs becomes obscured by an obsession with detail. It may be worthwhile, nevertheless, to sketch the application of these principles in three areas: the moral framework of U. S. policy, the problem of German rearmament, and the problem of South East Asia.

## V. *A Sketch for a U. S. Policy in Certain Areas*

### (a) *The Moral Framework of U. S. Policy*

- 24 -

- 25 -

(b) The Rearmament of Germany

- 26 -

- 27 -

## VI. Conclusion

- 28 -

Henry A. Kissinger

September 15, 1954