FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Vol. 47

OCTOBER 1968

No. 1

WORLD ORDER
AND AMERICAN RESPONSIBILITY

By Charles W. Yost

ONE lesson of the last fifteen years, most conspicuous in the Viet Nam war, is that the capacity of even the strongest power to intervene effectively in other states has been eroded by time, space and history. Apparently the only state a great power can still attack with impunity is one of its allies. Even there, as the Soviet Union will no doubt discover, the costs of intervention will in time heavily outweigh the gains.

Far from encouraging the two superpowers to protect their interests or their creeds by the exercise of military force, the consequences of intervention in Viet Nam and Czechoslovakia are likely to make them much more chary of doing so in the future. Indeed, as far as Americans are concerned, Viet Nam risks causing them to revert to their post-World War I fantasy of withdrawal and isolation. The dissidence of Czechoslovakia, like that of China, is another symptom of the disintegration of the communist monolith, which will limit Russia's freedom of action.

Yet the world in the autumn of 1968, despite all the lessons of the past, is no less unstable than it was a few years ago. The appetite for ever more devastating weapons quickens the arms race at all levels and in all latitudes; détente is interrupted and Europe once more brutally shaken by the misuse of the Red Army; peace in Viet Nam seems as far off as ever and China as hostile; the interminable conflict in the Middle East threatens more than ever before to provoke new confrontations among the great powers.

We can argue about what “responsibilities” the United States or any other state must assume in face of this situation. What is not open to doubt is that the United States and the Soviet Union

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at least, however harshly each may condemn the other's behavior, have an overriding national interest in restricting possible occasions for a nuclear war to the absolute minimum, since both would be likely to become main targets and suffer most. It therefore continues to be in the interests of both, as much if not more than before, to prevent or limit international violence in places where both are directly or indirectly involved and where the violence might escalate into wider hostilities and drag them both in.

To what extent does this mean that the United States has a continuing national interest, over and above an international responsibility, to check violence wherever it occurs? In other words, what is the proper mean between, on the one hand, overinvolve-ment, compulsive military intervention, "policing the world" and, on the other, abdication of responsibility, neo-isolationism, letting the rest of the world "stew in its own juice?"

## II

Two preliminary comments come to mind. First, the United States does not confront this question with complete freedom to act or not to act. Over the past twenty years it has entered into treaties and given assurances which involve explicit security commitments vis-à-vis its NATO, OAS and SEATO partners, as well as a number of individual states, such as Japan, Australia and New Zealand, Israel, the Philippines, Nationalist China, South Korea, South Viet Nam, etc. It has also assumed less explicit but significant obligations in other cases. These commitments are not necessarily assumed forever; some should no doubt be revised now, but all are, to a greater or less degree, still binding.

Second, despite its great power and an occasional tendency to use it unilaterally, the United States has on the whole since 1945 preferred to share with others its responsibilities for the maintenance of peace. It endeavored first to share with the whole United Nations and, when that proved infeasible, with the allies mentioned above, grouped in military pacts whenever possible. However, most of these pacts seem at the moment of declining validity. What are future prospects for more effective sharing of worldwide security responsibilities?

In seeking partners to carry such responsibilities the United States would naturally turn first to the Western Europeans who are our traditional friends, who have the necessary resources and talents, and who if united could be substantially equal to us in

ORDER AND AMERICAN RESPONSIBILITY 3

power. Unfortunately, there is grave question whether, over the
next decade, they will unite sufficiently to be willing or able to
carry security responsibilities outside their own continent.

They may do so. After the passing of de Gaulle the momentum
toward European unity may resume and prevail. The United
States should certainly encourage such movement. The experience
of the last twenty years, however, makes clear the limits to what
even a friendly and powerful outsider can do in this sense and
the hazards of too warm an advocacy by an outsider. It is plain
that European unity must grow out of European imperatives,
European convictions and European will.

There seems, alas, an equal possibility that over the next decade
Europe will *not* move significantly toward further political unity
and international responsibility but that, for a time at least, re-
surgent nationalism and separatism may prevail. If the great
European states remain separate, they all too probably may con-
tinue, at least for several years, to retract rather than enlarge their
security responsibilities outside the Continent and still further
divide and diminish those inside. The experience of last year in
the Middle East suggests that even where their interests are
deeply involved, close to but outside Europe, European states are
unwilling to bear risks and burdens. Thus, unless unification pro-
ceeds more rapidly and decisively than we have a right to assume,
a significant European role in maintaining international security
outside the Continent seems doubtful during the next decade.

In East Asia only Japan among the non-communist states
seems potentially powerful enough to play a major security role
even in its own region, not to mention elsewhere. It too has the
talents and resources; it is already in many ways more competent
and influential than China. Yet strong psychological and political
factors inside and outside Japan seem likely to inhibit it for a
number of years from rearming substantially or being willing or
able to play its natural part in maintaining the security of East
Asia. The United States would be unwise prematurely to press
it to do so.

The OAS has a limited capability to assist the United States in
security matters inside the Western Hemisphere; it has none out-
side. There are no other states or groups of states anywhere
capable of playing such a role in the near future, except to a minor
extent in their immediate neighborhoods.

The United Nations has demonstrated a limited peacekeeping

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capability during the past twenty years. It has not fulfilled this role in the decisive way the authors of the Charter intended, but through arrangements negotiated by the Secretary-General, at the behest of the Security Council or the General Assembly, with parties to conflicts and with states willing to contribute forces, observers, funds and logistic support. Even this limited peacekeeping capacity has diminished recently: the new Afro-Asian majority in the Assembly practically excludes any peacekeeping decision by that body which is unacceptable either to the United States or to the U.S.S.R.; the Secretary-General's freedom of action has been reduced thereby as well as by the more restrictive policy toward him adopted recently by the U.S.S.R. and France; the absence of Communist China, North Viet Nam and North Korea inhibits the United Nations from undertaking peacekeeping in East Asia; and the dismissal of UNEF by the United Arab Republic reduces its capabilities in the Middle East. The United Nations is therefore in fact limited to such peacekeeping operations as may be approved not only by the Security Council—including of course the United States and the U.S.S.R.—but also by the parties most concerned in an actual or threatened conflict.

One's reluctant conclusion is that over the next decade the effective responsibility for international security may rest very largely with the United States and the U.S.S.R., either in competition or coöoperation, or more likely in some untidy combination of the two.

### III

What does this actually mean in practice?

It probably means, first, that in case serious international disorder is provoked by communist states, parties or movements, the United States, if it considers that this disorder threatens its own "vital" interests or those of an ally, will have either to work out with the Soviet Union an agreed means of checking or limiting it, or act against it more or less unilaterally with only such help as the state or states directly concerned can supply.

If the Soviet Union has itself either provoked or encouraged the disorder, it will obviously not be willing to coöperate in suppressing it, though it may join in preventing serious escalation. If the disorder has been provoked (after a Viet Nam settlement) by one of the East Asian communist states, particularly China, the Soviets may coöperate in checking it, especially if it violates

ORDER AND AMERICAN RESPONSIBILITY 5

international agreements they have signed, though their action
may be discreet and ambiguous.

The degree to which Soviet leaders themselves will in the future
encourage or support "wars of national liberation" will depend
primarily on developments inside the Soviet Union. But clearly
four factors already restrain them from doing so: (1) the fear
that such wars may escalate; (2) the strong objection of most
Afro-Asian and Latin American states to communist revolution-
ary movements inside independent nations; (3) the apprehension
that the Chinese might gain most from such wars; (4) the decline
of revolutionary fervor inside the Soviet Union and its preoccupa-
tion with preserving the status quo inside its own bloc. Indeed
the intervention in Czechoslovakia, while it was clearly a victory
for the reactionary Stalinists inside the Kremlin, may further in-
hibit Soviet involvement in "wars of liberation," both by the prob-
lems it will create within the bloc and by its impairment of the
Soviet posture as a "liberator."

The Soviets will of course be more willing to coöperate in check-
iug or limiting international disorders having no significant com-
munist component. They have done so recently in the Cyprus
conflict, the India-Pakistan war of 1965 and, to a limited extent,
the post-hostilities phase of the Middle East crisis of 1967. Even
in such cases, however, domestic preoccupations or conflicting
interests of friends of the United States and the U.S.S.R. will
often lead to differing assessments as to just when and how peace-
keeping should be conducted and the lengths to which it should
be carried.

The conception of Chinese national interests held by its com-
munist leaders may still for some time reflect quite esoteric esti-
mates of the hazards and benefits of wars not directly and im-
mediately involving China. Since 1949, and particularly since
1953, Mao and his principal colleagues have shown remarkable
prudence in this respect. For some time, however, they may be
expected to encourage international violence in the belief that it
will not escalate to a point involving themselves. In this judgment
they may sometimes prove wrong.

The present time, when the Chinese régime is momentarily in-
capable of governing effectively and is hostile both to the United
States and the U.S.S.R., is perhaps uniquely favorable for these
two to commence more genuine coöoperation. The United States
should remember that if a more pragmatic régime in Peking

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emerges from the present turmoil it might resume coöoperation with the Soviet Union and again confront the United States with a communist bloc of over one billion people; in the meantime Soviet suppression of "revisionism" in Prague may narrow the gulf between Moscow and Peking. On the other hand, Moscow is aware that if the radical Chinese Communists consolidate their power and successfully continue their nuclear weapons development, they might constitute a much more serious threat.

Nevertheless, competition with the United States has become a way of life for the Soviet leadership; they are obviously trying to close the "missile gap;" they are desperately trying to stave off disintegration or impairment of their East European empire; they are developing a greater capability to intervene with conventional military forces in areas not contiguous to their own territory; they are determined to be recognized as a "world power" on more or less the same level as the United States. To the extent they succeed, their new capabilities will tempt them to make the same mistakes the United States has made in Viet Nam and elsewhere. They have just made a tragic though traditional mistake in Czechoslovakia. Soon the question will arise whether they will perceive any better than the Americans did that their new capabilities, exercised unilaterally, are just as likely to be damaging as to be favorable to their own interests, not to mention the interests of others.

The other side of the coin of the efforts of the Soviets to achieve status and recognition is their recurrent interest (temporarily in abeyance during Viet Nam) in being in conspicuous association with the United States. "Summit meetings," "hot lines" and similar devices emphasize equality of status; they also facilitate common action in areas which have so far been very narrow but which could be widened. The appalling consequences of direct confrontation between them has long been apparent to both sides; the possible consequences of indirect and involuntary confrontation are also gradually becoming apparent. If we are right in estimating that in the coming decade limitation of international violence may be largely dependent on some coöoperation between the United States and the U.S.S.R., the former should be no more inhibited in seeking it because of Czechoslovakia than the Soviet Union has been because of Viet Nam. After twenty years of bitter hostility and still unimpaired ideological incompatibility, coöoperation will at best be precarious and partial. It still seems so es-

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ORDER AND AMERICAN RESPONSIBILITY 7

sential, however, that the new American administration should
promptly undertake to explore whether it is feasible and how ex-
tensive and reliable it might become.

The Soviet leaders should be aware, however, that, if they persis
t in suppressing all liberalization in Eastern Europe by force,
they risk once again so antagonizing American public opinion that
all coöoperation between the two countries, even that which is
much in the interest of both, will for a further period of time be
politically out of the question. After all, the cold war was born in
Eastern Europe and will have eventually to be buried there.

The main areas requiring urgent examination are: (1) the nu-
clear arms race and its impending escalation, which poison the
relationship between the two states, limit their ability to deal
with grave domestic problems and make the whole balance of
international order and peace precarious; (2) the security situa-
tion in East Asia where, after Viet Nam, the two states may be
able to find a limited common interest in preventing the outbreak
of further hostilities from which China could profit; (3) the
security situation in the Middle East where the aggravation of
the Arab-Israeli conflict, the withdrawal of Britain and the in-
creasingly active Soviet policy create a likelihood not only of more
local conflict but, unless precautions are taken, of more great-
power involvement.

A hazard involved in such far-reaching American-Soviet con-
sultation, and perhaps limited agreement, even for such unex-
ceptionable ends, would be the anxiety created on the one hand
in Western Europe and Japan and on the other among the "de-
veloping" states that the two superpowers were setting up a dual
hegemony to police the world. Unhappily there is little likelihood
that they could reach wide enough areas of agreement in the
foreseeable future to give substance to such anxiety. A much
greater danger would be that their agreement would fall far short
even of maintaining basic international security. Nevertheless,
the United States should seek at all times to bring its allies and
friends into the nexus of negotiation and agreement whenever
their interests are involved and they may be willing to participate
and share responsibility. If any are excluded from peacekeeping,
it should be only because they exclude themselves. It is the regret-
ful thesis of this article, on the basis of the evidence so far at hand,
that over the next decade many are likely to do so.

In cases, however, where the United States, the Soviets and

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M]

whoever else may be willing to share responsibility are agreed that some immediate exercise of peacekeeping force is required, the appropriate instrument will usually be the United Nations. Exercise of force properly authorized and conducted by the United Nations has the sanction of more than 120 member states; it avoids unilateral intervention by either superpower, reaction by the other, or the appearance of dual hegemony by both; it can be carried out through procedures elaborated and accepted over the past twenty years. At the present time any such U.N. peacekeeping would have to be conducted under those procedures; that is to say, it would have to be sanctioned by the Security Council, would also require the consent of the government or governments within whose territory the operation is to take place, would be manned by ad hoc contingents from states other than the United States and the U.S.S.R., and would be supported by funds voluntarily contributed by a minority of U.N. members.

If, over a period of years, the two superpowers and others should decide that it is in their common interest to use the United Nations systematically for peacekeeping, it might be possible gradually to activate the more decisive procedures for the maintenance of international security laid down in the Charter, that is, to revive the Military Staff Committee and to negotiate among member states special agreements providing armed forces and facilities to the United Nations on a regular and permanent basis.

## IV

So much for the first alternative by which serious international violence might be curbed over the next decade, namely, by limited coöoperation between the United States, the U.S.S.R. and others both inside and outside the United Nations. But what if even sincere and persistent efforts to work out this coöoperation prove abortive? What if the legacies of the cold war prove still to dominate thought and policy on both sides?

There will certainly, at the very least, be cases in which the Soviet Union refuses to coöperate in peacekeeping, either because it or one of its friends has provoked the violence, or because it expects to extract some political capital from the conflict, or simply because it does not want to become involved. In these cases—if our conclusion is correct that no other state will be willing to play a significant security role outside Europe and Latin America during the next decade—the only alternative to per-

ORDER AND AMERICAN RESPONSIBILITY 9

mitting the violence to proceed unchecked would be unilateral intervention by the United States, assisted only by those closely involved. In the light of our recent experience, when would such unilateral intervention be justified and when would it not?

We have referred to treaty commitments which the United States must respect if it is not to lose all international credit. These commitments are not necessarily for all time. Some, such as those to SEATO and implicitly to CENTO, are in many respects out of date and in need of early review. Those to NATO and the OAS, on the other hand, while evolving, still have solid justification. Under existing circumstances the United States would no doubt have to join in resisting an attack, if requested by the party attacked, on Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand and Israel. It would also probably feel obligated to assist, though it is not clear to what degree, certain other states, such as India and Iran, if they were attacked by communist neighbors.

The most important twilight zones, where the United States most needs to clarify its obligations, interests and intentions, would appear to be Southeast Asia and the Middle East. We have already suggested that, after Viet Nam, the United States and the U.S.S.R. jointly endeavor to sort out their interests and commitments in these areas and to work toward stabilization there. While one could not be sanguine about the response, Communist China should certainly also be offered the opportunity to take part in such stabilization. What, however, if this joint reëxamination proves unproductive or, because of the limited influence of the United States and the U.S.S.R. in these areas, inconclusive?

The most decisive lesson of Viet Nam would seem to be that, no matter how much force it may expend, the United States cannot ensure the security of a country whose government is unable to mobilize and maintain sufficient popular support to control domestic insurgency. It can assist by checking external invasion or massive aid to insurgents, but only the local government can suppress the insurgency itself. If indigenous dissidents, whether or not communist, whether or not supported from outside, are able to mobilize and maintain more effective popular support than the government, they will eventually prevail. The United States cannot prevent them even if it so desires and even if it is willing for a time to pour out lives and resources to that end. Under such circumstances, unpalatable as it may be, the United

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States will have to reconcile itself to the "loss" of the country in question, either to the communists or to other effective insurgents. (Of course the United States should not put itself in the position of always opposing insurgency and supporting the status quo. After all, its principles are revolutionary even if its political action outside its borders cannot often be.)

The problem of violent insurgency, wherever it arises throughout the underdeveloped world, will essentially be solved or not solved by the will and capacity of the government and the élite to meet to a sufficient degree the political and economic imperatives of their evolving society. The role of the United States, to the extent it wishes and is asked, will be to assist these governments and élites to meet these imperatives before armed insurgency has broken out or at least before it has reached unmanageable proportions. If the local government and the élite are unable or unwilling to meet these imperatives, the United States will certainly not be able to do so.

These principles of course apply to the states of Southeast Asia, including the Philippines and Indonesia. The survival of their governments will depend upon their success or lack of it in meeting the above-mentioned imperatives. They can be given, if they wish, military "guarantees" and economic aid, but their fate will be determined by their will, their capacity, their sophisticated concern for the "hearts and minds" of the people.

It seems improbable that China or North Viet Nam will undertake overt aggression against Southeast Asian states (after the end of the present conflict), at least for some time, because of domestic conditions. The United States would be justified, however, in giving new or renewed assurances of support in case of *such* aggression to any Southeast Asian state or group of states that asked for them. Particularly if the outcome in Viet Nam proves to be unfavorable or ambiguous, such assurances might be required to block a rapid exploitation of the "domino theory." Great care should be exercised, however, to ensure that any assurances, other than those having to do with overt invasion, are not open-ended and are strictly dependent on appropriate performance by the recipient government.

One means of reducing unilateral American peacekeeping responsibilities in Southeast Asia after a Viet Nam settlement might be what is loosely called a "neutralization" of the area. The means would be a treaty guaranteeing the independence and territorial

ORDER AND AMERICAN RESPONSIBILITY II

integrity of some or all of the states there on condition of their "nonalignment" with any military bloc. Such "neutralization" would, however, hardly be meaningful unless underwritten by Communist China and North Viet Nam, which may or may not be inclined to coöperate. In any case the area's conspicuous vulnerability to communist misbehavior presents a further compelling argument, in addition to many others, that the United States should persistently seek accommodation of its differences with Peking and support all feasible means for drawing China back into the community of nations. The most obvious first means of doing so would be a change of American policy regarding Chinese representation in the United Nations.

In the Middle East the situation is different because the United Nations has long been and still is deeply involved there and because the chief great power concerned, other than the United States, is the Soviet Union rather than China. Moreover, the state in the area to which the United States is most heavily committed, Israel, has shown a remarkable capacity for taking care of itself.

Indeed the chief problem for the United States arising from the Arab-Israeli conflict is not the danger that Israel may be overrun but the fact that the rigidity of both sides perpetuates the conflict and sucks in the two superpowers. The commitment of the United States to one and the U.S.S.R. to the other has long embroiled the United States with the Arabs, and now risks embroiling it with the Soviet Union over interests not really "vital" to either side. In this sense the Middle East could, with even less reason, come to play a disastrous role between the two superpowers similar to that which the Balkans played between the two European alliances before 1914.

In view of the passionate nationalism of most of the states in the area, as well as its fragmentation and the crisscross of rivalries among the countries involved, it is most unlikely that either the Soviet Union or the United States could hope to dominate the area or any significant part of it. New intruders into the Arab world cannot expect, particularly in this day and age, to be any more permanently successful than old ones were. It can hardly be doubted that their aid will be used by their respective clients more in the interests of the clients than of the patrons.

If this analysis is correct, both the United States and the Soviets should firmly forgo unilateral military intervention in the area or indeed other competitive measures which could lead to

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confrontation between them. The traditional involvement of the United Nations creates a convenient cushion, to the extent they use it, between the interests of the two superpowers and their respective friends. Before new disasters occur, the United States, the U.S.S.R. and the Europeans should exert every ounce of leverage they possess to achieve whatever elements of settlement can be extracted from the Security Council resolution of last November. If multilateral peacekeeping fails again in the Middle East, there is little we can do unilaterally that would not entail greater peril than profit to ourselves and our friends.

Only a few words need to be said about the expediency of unilateral American military intervention in areas outside East and Southeast Asia and the Middle East. As far as Latin America is concerned, the machinery of the Organization of American States is available. It would seem to be a sound principle that the United States should not intervene militarily in Latin America without the approval of a substantial majority of the OAS. One can imagine cases of massive intervention by an external power, as the introduction of missiles into Cuba, which might require a response by the United States even in the absence of OAS sanction, but such cases will occur very rarely if at all. In Latin America as elsewhere, the proper emphasis of our policy will be to assist Latin American states, if they wish us to do so, in meeting the political and economic imperatives of modernization and, where necessary, in dealing with incipient insurgency. As in Southeast Asia, if and when insurgency should reach massive proportions in any country and the local government should lose the support of most of its population, it would be beyond the power of the United States to maintain the status quo.

As to Africa, while the state of the continent is in many ways tragic and violence seems almost certain to proliferate, there is little chance that American military intervention would be either attractive or useful. What can be done, the Organization of African Unity and the United Nations will have to do, though neither can do much until the developed states decide that it is contrary to their interests to permit a whole continent to stagnate.

There are at least three potential threats to international security in Africa. One would be an outbreak of violence between the "radical" and "moderate" Arab states on the North African littoral, with one side (as in the Middle East) being backed by the Soviet Union and the other by the United States and some of

ORDER AND AMERICAN RESPONSIBILITY 13

its European allies. A second would be the outbreak of large-scale racial war in South Africa, Rhodesia and the Portuguese colonies. A third would be a comprehensive and successful Chinese exploitation of retarded development, frustrated expectations, violence and despair. None of these eventualities seems probable within the next few years, but the existence of all of them is further evidence of the need for creating over the next decade more effective multilateral peacekeeping machinery.

v

To sum up, what conclusions in regard to U.S. responsibilities for the maintenance of international security during the coming decade emerge from the above analysis?

1. There will be substantial international violence, particularly in the underdeveloped countries of Asia and Africa and perhaps in Latin America. Much of this violence may not be of overwhelming international concern, but some will involve the interests of great powers and will risk escalation into more general war.

2. Allies of the United States are likely to be unwilling or unable during this period to assume significant peacekeeping responsibilities outside of their own region. Only in Europe and Latin America will such allies be able to assume a major role in peacekeeping even inside their own region.

3. The United Nations will be able to play a significant peacekeeping role only in cases where the United States and the U.S.S.R. are agreed that it shall do so.

4. Only the United States and the U.S.S.R. are therefore likely during this period to have and to be willing to exercise significant worldwide military capabilities and responsibilities. Peacekeeping during the decade may therefore be largely a factor either of competition or coöoperation between those two states.

5. To the extent that Western Europe might be united or—even disunited—that its separate states might be willing to assume some worldwide security responsibilities, it should be constantly encouraged to do so. This would apply also to Japan, if and when it chooses to rearm significantly. Even in the absence of willingness to assume such responsibilities, these states should be given the opportunity to participate in U.S. negotiations on security matters with the communist powers.

6. Despite their ideological incompatibility and their unresolved confrontations, mostly indirect, in Europe, East Asia and the