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standing and philosophical insight:

"Today, the situation is more complicated. A great
degree of sophistication in technical studies has been
achieved--so much, in fact, that the danger today is
precisely the opposite of what it was a decade ago.
Skill in quantitative analysis may downgrade those
factors that cannot be quantified. A complex strategic
theory may be so intellectually satisfying that the
difficulties of human beings employing it in moments of
great tension and confusion may be overlooked. It may
be tempting to treat allies as factors of a security
arrangement and to forget that their ultimate contribu-
tion depends on intangibles of political will. In the
day-to-day press of events, we may lose sight of the
fact that we need sound general criteria for measuring
political progress in the developing countries. This
is another way of saying that national security policy
is not primarily a technical problem, but a challenge to
political understanding and, ultimately, to philosophical
insight." (Problems of National Strategy, p. 477.)

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IV. RELATIONS WITH THE SOVIET UNION

A revolutionary power is a nation which does not accept the legitimacy of the international framework. Its objectives are theoretically unlimited; clashes cannot be "adjusted" in the ordinary sense by diplomacy, and indeed the very existence of a revolutionary power guarantees that neither it nor its opponents can ever be reassured of their security:

"Whenever there exists a power which considers the international order or the manner of legitimizing it oppressive, relations between it and other powers will be revolutionary. In such cases, it is not the adjustment of differences within a given system which will be at issue, but the system itself. Adjustments are possible, but they will be conceived as tactical manoeuvres to consolidate positions for the inevitable showdown, or as tools to undermine the morale of the antagonist. To be sure, the motivation of the revolutionary power may well be defensive; it may well be sincere in its protestations of feeling threatened. But the distinguishing feature of a revolutionary power is not that it feels threatened--such feeling is inherent in the nature of international relations based on sovereign states--but that nothing can reassure it. Only absolute security--the neutralization of the opponent-is considered a sufficient guarantee, and thus the desire of one power for absolute security means absolute insecurity for all the others.

"Diplomacy, the art of restraining the exercise of power, cannot function in such an environment. It is a mistake to assume that diplomacy can always settle international disputes if there is 'good faith' and 'willingness to come to an agreement'. For in a revolutionary international order, each power will seem to its opponent to lack precisely these qualities. Diplomats can still meet but they cannot persuade, for they have ceased to speak the same language. In the absence of an agreement on what constitutes a reasonable demand, diplomatic conferences are occupied with sterile repetitions of basic positions and accusations of bad faith, or allegations of 'unreasonable-ness' and 'subversion'. They become elaborate stage plays which attempt to attach as yet uncommitted powers to one of the opposing systems.

"For powers long accustomed to tranquillity and without experience with disaster, this is a hard lesson to come by. Lulled by a period of stability which had seemed permanent, they find it nearly impossible to take at face

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value the assertion of the revolutionary power that it
means to smash the existing framework. The defenders
of the status quo therefore tend to begin by treating
the revolutionary power as if its protestations were
merely tactical; as if it really accepted the existing
legitimacy but overstated its case for bargaining pur-
poses; as if it were motivated by specific grievances
to be assuaged by limited concessions. Those who warn
against the danger in time are considered alarmists;
those who counsel adaptation to circumstance are con-
sidered balanced and sane, for they have all the good
'reasons' on their side: the arguments accepted as valid
in the existing framework. 'Appeasement,' where it is
not a device to gain time, is the result of an inability
to come to grips with a policy of unlimited objectives.

"But it is the essence of a revolutionary power that it possesses the courage of its convictions, that it is willing, indeed eager, to push its principles to their ultimate conclusion. Whatever else a revolutionary power may achieve therefore, it tends to erode, if not the legitimacy of the international order, at least the restraint with which such an order operates." (A World Restored, pp. 2-3.)

The Soviet Union, by its ideology and domestic structure,
exemplifies the challenge of a revolutionary power to the
international system. Ideology provides for Soviet leaders a
psychological certainty and moral absolutism. The quest for
absolute security means insecurity for all other nations:

"However attenuated, Communist ideology is, in part,
responsible for international tensions. This is less
because of specific Marxist tactical prescriptions--
with respect to which Communists have shown a high degree
of flexibility--than because of the basic Marxist-
Leninist categories for interpreting reality. Communist
leaders never tire of affirming that Marxism-Leninism
is the key element of their self-proclaimed superiority
over the outside world; as Marxist-Leninists they are
convinced that they understand the historical process
better than the non-Communist world does.

"The essence of Marxism-Leninsim--and the reason that
normal diplomacy with Communist states is so difficult--
is the view that 'objective' factors such as the social
structure, the economic process, and, above all, the
class struggle are more important than the personal con-
victions of statesmen. Belief in the predominance of
objective factors explains the Soviet approach to the
problem of security. If personal convictions are

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'subjective,' Soviet security cannot be allowed to rest on the good will of other statesmen, especially those of a different social system. This produces a quest for what may be described as absolute security--the attempt to be so strong as to be independent of the decisions of other countries. But absolute security for one country means absolute insecurity for all others; it can be achieved only by reducing other states to impotence. Thus an essentially defensive foreign policy can grow indistinguishable from traditional aggression." ("Domestic Structure and Foreign Policy," p. 519.)

The recruitment pattern and personal background of Soviet leaders add an element of ruthlessness and singlemindedness:

"Anyone succeeding in Communist leadership struggles must be single-minded, unemotional, dedicated, and, above all, motivated by an enormous desire for power. Nothing in the personal experience of Soviet leaders would lead them to accept protestations of good will at face value. Suspiciousness is inherent in their domestic position. It is unlikely that their attitude toward the outside world is more benign than toward their own colleagues or that they would expect more consideration from it." ("Domestic Structure and Foreign Policy," p. 520.)

Their training and experience thus give Soviet leaders a psychological advantage over Western statesmen:

"Whatever the qualities of Soviet leadership, its training is eminently political and conceptual. Reading Lenin or Mao or Stalin, one is struck by the emphasis on the relationship between political, military, psychological, and economic factors, the insistence on finding a conceptual basis for political action and on the need for dominating a situation by flexible tactics and inflexible purpose. And the internal struggles in the Kremlin ensure that only the most iron-nerved reach the top. Against the Politburo, trained to think in general terms and freed of problems of day-to-day administration, we have pitted leaders overwhelmed with departmental duties and trained to think that the cardinal sin is to transgress on another's field of specialization. To our leaders, policy is a series of discrete problems; to the Soviet leaders it is an aspect of a continuing political process. As a result, the contest between us and the Soviet system has had many of the attributes of any contest between a professional and an amateur. Even a mediocre professional will usually defeat an excellent amateur, not because the amateur does not know what to do

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but because he cannot react with sufficient speed and consistency. Our leaders have not lacked ability but they have had to learn while doing, and this has imposed too great a handicap." (Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy, pp. 249-250.)

The Soviets thus seem to have an advantage in will power, and a knack for probing at points of the West's psychological weakness:

"Theoretically, the psychological balance should favor the defender. The aggressor can gain only what he has never possessed; the defender stands to lose something heretofore identified with his world position. That the Communist bloc has managed to press on all peripheral areas nonetheless is due to two factors: (a) the Communist ability to bring to bear forces graduated to the nature of the issue. This has shifted the onus and the risk of initiating all-out war on us. In effect, we have paralyzed ourselves by the alternatives which our own doctrine and military establishment have presented; (b) superior Communist will power or at least the reputation for it. The Soviet leaders have managed to convince many in the West that their desire to prevail is stronger than the West's interest in the status quo." (Necessity for Choice, p. 49.)

"In any conflict the side which is animated by faith in victory has a decided advantage over an opponent who wishes above all to preserve the status quo. It will be prepared to run greater risks because its purpose will be stronger. The advantage of initiative is that each move opens the possibility of several further steps. If carried far enough, it will force the opponent to protect itself against an ever growing number of contingencies and, therefore, to concentrate on purely defensive measures." (Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy, p. 246.)

The nature of the Soviet challenge is inherently and deliberately ambiguous. It can only be met by a precautionary foreign policy, which is morally difficult for a status quo power to conduct:

"The nature of the Soviet challenge is, therefore, inherently ambiguous. It uses the 'legitimate' language of its opponents in a fashion which distorts its meaning and increases the hesitations of the other side. The belief in an inevitable historical progress leads the Soviet leaders to maintain a constant pressure just short of the challenge

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which they believe would produce a final showdown. To be sure, the Soviet leadership may miscalculate and thus bring on a holocaust despite its most rational calculations. But meanwhile, all dividing lines between war and peace, aggression and the *status quo* are gradually eroded and in a manner which never presents a clear-cut issue to the West.

***

"The Soviet strategy of ambiguity can ultimately be countered only by a policy of precaution, by attempting to nip Soviet moves in the bud before Soviet prestige becomes so deeply engaged that any countermeasures increase the risk of war. Yet a policy of precaution is the most difficult of all for *status quo* powers to implement. All their preconceptions tempt them to wait until the Soviet threat has become unambiguous and the danger has grown overt, by which time it may well be too late. The Soviet leadership, therefore, presents to the West a challenge which may be moral even more than physical. Many of the Soviet gains have been due in large part to a greater moral toughness, to a greater readiness to run risks, both physical and moral, than their opponents. And despite the moral bankruptcy of Soviet theory, which with every passing year is demonstrated anew, the Soviet power center has made gains which were not justified by the relation of forces but were largely due to the inward uncertainty of their declared victims." (*Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy*, pp. 58-59.)

The American attitude to negotiation complicates the problem. Negotiation is sometimes feared and resisted; but once it begins, there is insistent pressure for flexibility, novelty, and compromise:

"Many of the erratic tendencies in American policy are traceable to our impatience. The lack of persistence, the oscillation between rigid adherence to the *status quo* and desire for novelty for its own sake show our discomfort when faced with protracted deadlock. We grow restless when good will goes unrewarded and when proposals have to be maintained over a long period of time.

"When reality clashes with its anticipated form, frustration is the inevitable consequence. We have, therefore, been torn between adopting a pose of indignation and seeking to solve all problems at one fell swoop. We have been at times reluctant, indeed seemingly afraid to negotiate. We have also acted as if all our difficulties could

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be removed by personal rapport among the statesmen.
Periods of overconcern with military security have
alternated with periods when we saw in a changed
Soviet tone an approach to an end of tensions.

***

"Flexibility has been the insistent demand. But occasionally the impression has been left that the diplomatic deadlock is due at least in part to the inadequacy of the diplomatic method. It has been said that we have an obligation to make 'acceptable' proposals. It has been urged that we must break diplomatic deadlocks with new offers. The frustration of the Cold War can be ended, so the argument goes, through willingness to compromise. When two sides take positions, each unacceptable to the other, it is said that the solution lies somewhere in between.

***

"If agreement is usually found between the two starting points, there is no point in making moderate offers. Good bargaining technique would suggest a point of departure far more extreme than what one is willing to accept. The more outrageous the initial proposition, the better is the prospect that what one 'really' wants will be considered a compromise.

"Such a method of negotiation is particularly difficult for a democracy. When the negotiators adhere to a maxim which makes compromise desirable in itself, effectiveness at the conference table depends on overstating one's demands. Yet extreme proposals make it difficult to muster public support. The dilemma is real. If we want to be perfectly flexible, we should start with a maximum program and offer 'concessions' in the course of the conference. On the other hand, if we make proposals in which we really believe, we must inevitably be somewhat rigid about them. We cannot change our view about a just arrangement every year. At some point, our program must be settled or no American proposal will mean anything.

"The emphasis on compromise for its own sake brings about an atmosphere of 'damned if you do and damned if you don't.' If the West develops a careful, serious program and maintains it over a period of years, it will be accused of in flexibility, no matter how moderate the original proposals. But if it starts with a bargaining program, it runs the risk of being accused of intransigence. And when it seeks

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to combine both approaches, it faces the dilemma that the program will not be precise enough to be maintained with conviction and yet will not have sufficient 'play' in it to permit major concessions.

***

"The formalism of the Western approach to negotiations raises the question whether the real obstacle to a flexible and purposeful Western diplomacy is not the absence of moral assurance. The impression is sometimes strong that too many in the West consider conviction incompatible with negotiation." (Necessity for Choice, pp. 181, 211-214.)

"Containment" policy and its successor, the concept of "negotiation from strength," were both preoccupied with the attempt to assess Soviet intentions and to look for, or help promote, the "mellowing" of the Soviet internal system. This approach was misguided.

For one thing, there is little we can do directly to affect the Soviet domestic structure. We should be concerned in the first instance to deal with Soviet international behavior; any mellowing that occurs is likely to result only if Soviet expansionism is rebuffed:

"The emerging middle class in Russia may, of course, in time ameliorate the rigors of Soviet doctrine. It has happened before in history that a revolutionary movement has lost its messianic élan. But it has usually occurred only when such a movement came to be opposed with equal fervor or when it reached the limit of its military strength. The Turks did not stop voluntarily at the gates of Vienna or the Arabs in southern France. Rather, a line was established because they had been defeated in battle, and the decay did not set in until the West for several centuries exercised unremitting pressure to push them back.

"But the important question is: To what extent can we afford to gear our policy to assumptions regarding the possible transformation of Soviet society? The test of policy is its ability to provide for the worst contingency; it can always escape its dilemmas by relying on history or the good will of the opposing states. A wise policy will keep under its own control all factors essential to survival. It will not count too much on changes in domestic structures of other states, particularly of avowedly revolutionary powers like the U.S.S.R. or Communist China, where both the historical record and the often-repeated proclamations should inspire caution.

***

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"To be sure, the United States should utilize all opportunities to bring about a more moderate course within the Soviet bloc. But, while we should always leave open avenues for a basic change in Soviet leadership, we should have few illusions about the degree to which these can be promoted by a conciliatory American policy. For when we have been most conciliatory, as after the Geneva summit conference, the Soviet leaders have been most insistent about feeling threatened. They are probably sincere in these assertions but, whether or not they feel threatened, the point to bear in mind is that nothing can reassure them. Because their doctrine *requires* them to fear us, they strive for absolute security: the neutralization of the United States and the elimination of all our influence from Europe and Asia. And because absolute security for the U.S.S.R. means absolute insecurity for us, the only safe United States policy is one which is built on the assumption of a continued revolutionary struggle, even though the methods may vary with the requirements of the changing situation." (*Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy*, pp. 76-77.)

A preoccupation with Soviet domestic trends leads us into the realm of the unprovable and distracts us from formulating our own purposes:

"The notion that the primary goal of Western policy had to be the transformation of Soviet society turned the debate over negotiations into an almost sociological argument about Soviet domestic developments. As the death of Stalin saw no change in the West's rigid distrust of negotiations, many thoughtful people, anguished by the prospects of infinitely prolonged tension, sought, almost desperately, to prove that the moment for a diplomatic confrontation had arrived at last. The idea that a Soviet change of heart had to precede effective negotiations was rarely questioned. The practical requirements of coexistence in the nuclear age did not seem to be sufficient justification for the need to negotiate. Instead, a great deal of ingenuity was expended in proving that a Soviet change had occurred. . . .

"The theory of the inherent bad faith of the Communists was thus countered by another theory which sought to demonstrate that Soviet society was in the midst of a basic transformation. The growing bureaucracy would impose legal restraints. Universal education would encourage a more skeptical attitude. The pressure for consumers' goods had already made the Soviet government more conciliatory.

-45-

Mr. Khrushchev was said to be the apostle of this new course. He was thought to be the most liberal of Soviet leaders and any reluctance by the West to negotiate would undermine his domestic position. ...

"The heat of their argument sometimes obscured the fact that the advocates and the opponents of negotiation agreed in their fundamental assumptions. They were in accord that an effective settlement presupposed a change in the Soviet system. They were at one in thinking that Western diplomacy should seek to influence Soviet internal developments. Both groups gave the impression that the nature of a possible settlement with the Communist world was perfectly obvious. At least they debated more about the desirability or the form of negotiations than about their substance: whether, for example, to meet at the summit or at some lower level. They differed primarily about the issue of timing. The opponents of negotiation maintained that the Soviet change of heart was still in the future, while the advocates claimed that it had already taken place.

***

"In the process, more attention was paid to whether we should negotiate than to what we should negotiate about. The dispute over Soviet domestic developments diverted energies from elaborating our own purposes. It caused us to make an issue of what should have been taken for granted: our willingness to negotiate. And it deflected us from elaborating a concrete program which alone would have made negotiations meaningful. The advocates of 'positions of strength' as well as the proponents of negotiation were so preoccupied with the 'automatic' transformation of Soviet society that they overlooked the more important task of defining for ourselves just what kind of settlement would be consistent with our values and relevant to our security--regardless of the domestic structure of the Soviet Union." (Necessity for Choice, pp. 201-203.)

Wishful thinking about liberalizing trends in the Soviet Union may paradoxically strengthen the hard-liners. There have to be penalties for intransigence if there is to be an incentive for the Soviets to be truly moderate. Otherwise the Soviets can use arms control talks as a "safety valve:"

"The eagerness of many in the West to emphasize the liberalizing implications of Soviet economic trends and to make favorable interpretation of Soviet intentions a test of good faith may have the paradoxical consequence

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of strengthening the Soviet hard-liners. Soviet troops had hardly arrived in Prague when some Western leaders began to insist that the invasion would not affect the quest for detente while others continued to indicate a nostalgia for high-level meetings. Such an attitude hardly serves the cause of peace. The risk is great that if there is no penalty for intransigence there is no incentive for conciliation. The Kremlin may use negotiations—including arms control—as a safety valve to dissipate Western suspicions rather than as a serious endeavor to resolve concrete disputes or to remove the scourge of nuclear war." ("Central Issues of American Foreign Policy," p. 609.)

The temptation to see liberalization in the Soviet Union is only natural for a status quo power like the United States, but it is a form of wishful thinking:

"A people to whom the advantages of peace seem self-evident will always be strongly tempted to consider intransigence a temporary aberration. They will see in every change of tone a change of heart. This tendency is powerfully reinforced by our separation for nearly a century and a half from the mainstream of international affairs and the priority we assigned to the development of an unsettled continent. With such a tradition, economic life came to appear as the most significant field of activity. It was easy to believe that any sensible nation would prefer economic development to foreign adventures.

***

"Thus, whatever aspect of the Soviet system they have considered, many in the West have sought to solve our policy dilemma by making the most favorable assumptions about Soviet trends. At one time, we drew comfort from the fact that the Soviet leaders required peace in order to devote themselves to building up their economy. A decade and a half later, a more benign Soviet policy was predicted with exactly the opposite argument. Now the already accomplished industrialization was thought to give the Soviet leaders too much of a stake in their society for them to risk foreign adventures." (Necessity for Choice, pp. 205-207.)

Similarly, rather than seeking to promote a rift between the USSR and China, we would do better to concentrate on our own purposes. Such a rift may occur but not if we aim at it:

"These considerations apply also to the frequently voiced view that we should conduct our diplomacy so as to bring

-47-

about a rift between Communist China and the U.S.S.R. Of course, the possibility of a rift must not be overlooked. And if it occurs, we should take advantage of it rather than force the erstwhile partners into a new alliance through intransigence. Yet this is a far cry from the proposition that we can promote a split. In 1948 no Western policy could have set itself the goal of encouraging Tito to break away from Stalin. The attempt to do so might have been the best way to prevent it. Similarly, our diplomacy cannot have as a goal what we can only treat as a fortunate event. We will be better advised to concentrate on our purposes than to chase the will-o'-the-wisp of Soviet domestic developments or a split in the Communist bloc." (Necessity for Choice, pp. 209-210.)

We should be prepared to negotiate whatever Communist motivations may be. The test is whether a given measure enhances stability or detracts from it, whether it reflects our purposes, not theirs:

> "It is not necessary to settle the question of the real intentions of the Communist leaders in the abstract. For we should be prepared to negotiate no matter what Communist motivations may be. Our responsibility is essentially the same whatever assessment we make of Communist purposes or trends. This becomes apparent if we ask ourselves whether we would offer concessions to a 'liberal' Soviet leader which we would refuse to make to a Stalinist. An affirmative answer would be patently absurd, for it would mean that a liberal Communist could exact gains from us denied to a more intransigent one. Surely the liberalism of a Soviet leader is not tested by the concessions which we have to make to him--though Mr. Khrushchev has striven hard to create this impression.

> "A responsible approach to negotiations must be quite different. We should make no unjustified concessions to a Soviet leader simply because we consider him to be liberal. We should not refuse to make concessions, which are otherwise desirable, simply because we consider a Soviet leader Stalinist. The ultimate test in either case is whether a given measure enhances stability or detracts from it. Above all, our measures should not be so dependent on either the Kremlin's smiles or its frowns. Negotiations with the Soviet Union must be justified by our purposes, not theirs. If the Soviet Union really wants a settlement, negotiations will reveal this. If Soviet overtures to end the Cold War are a tactical maneuver, a purposeful diplomacy should be able to make Soviet bad faith evident." (Necessity for Choice, p. 210.)

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There are, in fact, trends making for moderation in
Soviet behavior and trends making for belligerence. Our
objective must be to give maximum incentive to the positive
trends:

"There is need for an assessment of those factors in the
Soviet system that produce belligerence and those that
encourage accommodation. These are delicately balanced.
It should be the goal of Western policy to give a maximum
spur to the peaceful trends.

"Two factors encourage intransigence in the Communist
world: the qualities of the men who rise to leadership
positions and the ideology on which the Communist system
is built.

***

"These factors, which almost overnight could produce
again an expansionist Communist foreign policy, must be
balanced against restraints that, over a period of time,
may become dominant. First, there is the power of modern
weapons. Ideological hostility comes up against the stark
risks of nuclear warfare. Soviet leaders must be acutely
aware that, if they press intransigence beyond a certain
point, they run the risk of hazarding what they have built
up at so much sacrifice over four decades.

"... if the West conducts itself with reasonable prudence, the traditional methods of military pressure can be made increasingly unattractive. Then agreements may be possible to implement one interest which the two great nuclear powers must have in common: to prevent a nuclear holocaust. It is significant that one of the principal arguments advanced by Soviet leaders on behalf of peaceful co-existence is that nuclear war is too dangerous. It is in the West's interest to see to it that it remain so.

"Another factor which acts as a restraint on Soviet foreign policy is the instability of the leadership group. A great deal of the energy of Soviet leaders is absorbed in internal maneuvering. It is a symptom of weakness that, over forty years after seizing power, the Soviet Union has not solved the problem of legitimate succession." (The Troubled Partnership, pp. 193-194, 199-200.)

On this basis, *détente is possible*. Strength and self-
confidence, and a sense of our own purposes, make a conciliatory

-49-

policy feasible. We must impose penalties for intransigence
but we must have positive goals of our own:

"A lasting settlement is possible only if the Soviet leaders become convinced that they will not be able to use the West's desire for peace to demoralize it. If they are serious about their desire to avoid war, they must realize that negotiations can be used for purely tactical purposes only so often and that, measured against the dangers of such a course, the gains they may score are paltry. We in turn should strive to demonstrate to the Soviet leaders that they have a real policy decision to make which we will do everything possible to ease. They must face the fact that the policy of applying relentless pressures on the West creates untold perils for all the peoples of the world. On the other hand, they must be convinced that they can increase their security through negotiation. Should they seriously seek a settlement, they would find us flexible and conciliatory.

"Negotiations are important. But it is essential to conduct them without illusions. We do not need to postulate a basic Soviet transformation in order to believe in the possibility of a settlement. Nor is it a prerequisite to successful negotiation to pretend that a relaxation of tensions is primarily within Western control. The West must have much more positive goals than to divine Soviet intent. We do ourselves an injustice if we make an issue of the desirability of relaxing tensions or of ending the Cold War. The test of conciliatoriness does not reside in interpreting Soviet trends in the most favorable manner. Nor does it consist of proving the desirability of peace-- which should be taken for granted. Rather, the challenge which confronts the West is to determine what are the possibilities of a settlement which does not hazard our security and is consistent with our values. Only in the purposeful is flexibility a virtue." (Necessity for Choice, p. 217.)

Our policy cannot be a totally negative policy of resistance
to Communist dangers, partly for domestic reasons:

"To overcome this danger requires a more dynamic conception of world affairs. A great historical movement which is represented by the coming together of communism and the anti-colonial revolution cannot be mastered by negative motives. A policy impelled primarily by a desire to prevent an expansion of the Soviet sphere ensures that militarily we will be forced always to fight at the point of our greatest weakness; that diplomatically we will always contest issues of maximum embarrassment to us; that

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spiritually we will convey an impression of uncertainty."
(Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy, pp. 245-246.)

"A coalition of democracies cannot confine itself to a policy of negation. The free world requires an attitude of conciliation for its very cohesion. It cannot be asked to wait rigidly in the face of mounting tensions without making an effort to break the deadlock. Mr. Dulles was more often right than his critics in assessing Soviet intentions. And the course of events since his death has borne out his distrust of personal diplomacy. But he took for granted what it should have been his constant effort to demonstrate. He made a strong case for what to reject, but he was not equally convincing about what to affirm. The difficulty with Mr. Dulles' policy was not that he was wrong about Communism but that he was right about so little else." (Necessity for Choice, p. 201.)

If we maintain our strength and defend our interests, we
can also be conciliatory. After the Cuban missile crisis, for
example, new opportunities were before us:

"We should now be able to confront the Soviets with both
confidence and moderation. Henceforth, moderation will
appear an act of policy, for it is a virtue only in those
who are thought to have a choice.

***

"The desirability of lessening international tension requires no debates. But the prerequisite is that the Soviet leaders come to see the perils for mankind as well as for themselves of turning all diplomacy into harassment, pressure, and political warfare. We, in turn, have an obligation to make it clear that we do not propose to threaten legitimate Russian national interests. Responsible Russians should be given every chance to understand that the obstacle to coexistence is the Communist quest for world domination. On such a basis negotiations are highly desirable.

"For too long the Western Alliance has been beset by doubts, recriminations, and uncertainty. In strategy and diplomacy it has failed to establish its priorities. The President's handling of the Cuban crisis has given us another chance to vindicate the leadership of the West. And here is where our greatest opportunity lies." ("Reflections on Cuba," pp. 23-24.)

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Negotiations on arms control, for example, can be
important to peace, but we must be clearer about our purposes
and the criteria of security:

> "These perplexities have spurred new interest in arms-control negotiations, especially those dealing with strategic missiles. These negotiations can be important for the peace and security of the world. But to be effective, they require an intellectual resolution of the issues which have bedeviled the formulation of military policy. Unless we are able to give an operational meaning to terms such as 'superiority' or 'stability,' negotiations will lack criteria by which to judge progress."
> ("Central Issues of American Foreign Policy," p. 592.)

There is a danger that as we seek détente with the Soviets,
domestic Communist parties in Western European countries may
become more respectable:

> "Moreover, to the degree that the Soviet Union is certified as the more conciliatory Communist country, a 'respectable' form of Communism begins to intrude into the domestic scene of several of our Allies. One of the major achievements of the postwar period in Europe has been the isolation of the Communist parties. Under the impact of many factors, this isolation is beginning to break down. In Italy, for example, the 'opening to the Left' has resulted in new-found strength for the Communist Party. In France, the demoralization of the traditional parties by De Gaulle and the change in tactics by the Communist Party has opened up prospects of a Popular Front for the first time in thirty years." (The Troubled Partnership, pp. 204-205.)

To guard against this danger and for détente to succeed,
the West must (1) act purposefully, (2) stay united and avoid
bilateral approaches, and (3) focus on specific settlements of
the concrete issues that underlie East-West tensions:

> "Domestic considerations impel many Western leaders to present themselves to their electorate as the architects of a lasting peace. The temptation is, therefore, strong to treat a more conciliatory Communist tone as a permanent conversion to a peaceful course and to gear everything to personal diplomacy.

> "Such attitudes will cause the West to squander its opportunities, as has happened so often in the past. The prospects for peace are not served by leaving the Soviet leadership with the impression that any action, no matter

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how belligerent, can always be reversed by a change of
tone. Negotiations will prove empty if they are con-
fined to vague protestations of goodwill. If a détente
is not to be part of another cycle leading to renewed
tensions, it is essential that negotiations be concrete
and programs specific.

***

"If the West is to act purposefully in this situation, it must develop a common policy and a specific program. The temptation for bilateral approaches is great. Each national leader, depending on his temperament, has visions of appearing as the arbiter of a final settlement or of adding Communist pressures to his own as a bargaining device within the Alliance. This sets up a vicious circle. Since leaders generally do not reach eminence without a touch of vanity and since some stake their prestige on their ability to woo their Soviet counterparts, they tend to present their contacts with the Soviets as a considerable accomplishment. But the real issues have gone unresolved because they are genuinely difficult; hence they are usually avoided during summit diplomacy in favor of showy but essentially peripheral gestures. The vaguer the East-West discourse, the greater will be the confusion in the West." (The Troubled Partnership, pp. 203-205.)

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V. EUROPE AND NATO

The policy difficulties which beset the Atlantic
alliance in the 1960's were seen as due to basic structural
problems--the difficulty of adjusting a 20-year-old coalition
to changed conditions:

"Today, however, NATO is in disarray as well. Actions by the United States--above all, frequent unilateral changes of policy--are partially responsible. But the most important cause is the transformation of the international environment, specifically the decline in the preeminence of the superpowers and the emergence of political multipolarity. Where the alliances outside of Europe have never been vital because they failed to take into account the military bipolarity of the fifties, NATO is in difficulties because it has yet to adjust to the political multipolarity of the late sixties.

***

"One problem, paradoxically, is the growth of European economic strength and political self-confidence. At the end of the Second World War, Europe was dependent on the United States for economic assistance, political stability, and military protection. As long as Europe needed the shelter of a superpower, American predominance was inevitable. In relations with the United States, European statesmen acted as lobbyists rather than as diplomats. Their influence depended less on the weight of their countries than on the impact of their personalities. A form of consultation evolved whereby Europeans sought to influence American actions by giving us a reputation to uphold or--to put it more crudely--by oscillating between flattery and almost plaintive appeals for reassurance. The United States, secure in its predominance, in turn concentrated on soothing occasional European outbreaks of insecurity rather than on analyzing their causes.

"Tutelage is a comfortable relationship for the senior partner, but it is demoralizing in the long run. It breeds illusions of omniscience on one side and attitudes of impotent irresponsibility on the other. In any event, the United States could not expect to perpetuate the accident of Europe's postwar exhaustion into a permanent pattern of international relations. Europe's economic recovery inevitably led to a return to more traditional political pressures." ("Central Issues of American Foreign Policy, pp. 594-595.)

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American policymakers were particularly slow to adjust to the new conditions of the Atlantic relationship:

"Perhaps the deepest danger we face is that, as with all great achievements, nostalgia for the patterns of action that were appropriate when America was predominant and Europe impotent may become an obstacle to the creativity needed to deal with an entirely new situation. Those Americans who deserve the greatest credit for promoting the recovery of Europe and forging existing Atlantic ties are finding it most difficult to adjust to conditions in which American leadership is no longer unquestioned. The fact of a challenge to American pre-eminence is almost as irritating to them as its content. They suffer from the distortion of perspective produced when, in the late forties, the end of America's isolation coincided with the temporary loss of Europe's ability to play an effective international role or to protect itself against foreign danger. They remember a Europe torn by World War II. Every European country--with the exception of Great Britain--had known defeat at one time or another during that conflict. Every country--again with the exception of Great Britain--had been the victim of foreign occupation. Societies were shattered. Europe was dependent on the United States for its material well-being, domestic cohesion and safety from invasion.

"United States-European relationships took on their present cast during this period. Faced with a ravaged Europe, the United States came to deal with its Allies paternalistically. This has involved a certain self-righteousness and impatience with criticism. American policymakers often act as if disagreement with their views is due to ignorance which must be overcome by extensive briefings and insistent reiteration. They are less inclined to inquire whether there may be come merit in an opposing view than in overwhelming it with floods of emissaries, official and semi-official. As a result, the United States and Europe have too often conducted their dialogue over the technical implementation of a blueprint manufactured in America." (The Troubled Partnership, pp. 5-6.)

Even though Europe had grown in economic strength, the gap in military power between America and its allies had grown even more. This fact had paradoxically accelerated the tendencies to polycentrism:

"... polycentrism does not reflect so much the emergence of new centers of physical power as the attempt by allies to establish new centers of decision.

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"The gap in military strength between the United States and its European Allies has in fact widened, not narrowed, in the past decade. What has changed is the use to which the power can be put. On the one hand, the enormous risks of nuclear warfare call into question traditional pledges of formal assistance. On the other hand, those issues with respect to which nuclear threats are credible are so clear-cut as not to seem to require formal reinforcement. Polycentrism is on the rise not because the world has ceased to be bipolar, but because with respect to nuclear weapons it essentially remains so. President de Gaulle is convinced that those circumstances in which the United States might be prepared to resort to its nuclear weapons cannot be fundamentally affected by his actions. In other words, the United States commitment need not be purchased by being conciliatory and cannot be jeopardized by intransigence--within very wide limits at least." (The Troubled Partnership, pp. 16-17.)

You pointed out the need for *improved consultation*, but procedures alone could not create unity on substance where it did not already exist:

"Consultation, therefore, is far from a panacea. It is least effective when it is most needed: when there exist basic differences of assessment or of interest. It works best in *implementing* a consensus rather than in *creating* it. Nevertheless, an improvement in the consultative process should be one of the primary objectives of the Alliance." (The Troubled Partnership, p. 227.)

In an age of unprecedentedly complex military technology, insuring unanimity in a coalition was particularly difficult. The problem at bottom was not technical but psychological and political:

"Differences in perspective are unavoidable when one partner possesses not only an effective monopoly of power but also a monopoly of expertise. The American tendency to treat psychological and political problems as if they were primarily technical compounds the difficulty. As leader of the Alliance, the United States cannot rest on the theoretical adequacy of its views. It is also responsible for the answer to questions as these: Do the Allies understand American strategic doctrine? Do they believe it? Does it encourage confidence or a sense of impotence? A too complicated strategy can lead to the paralysis of will of those who may ultimately have to implement it.

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"Moreover, the United States has been slow to admit to itself that real differences of interest between us and our Allies are possible. Our penchant for treating the Atlantic area as if it were a single unit runs counter to the fact that the Alliance is still composed of sovereign states. If NATO were, in fact, one political entity, it could concentrate on the most efficient form of over-all defense. In that case, exposing a part of the Alliance's territory to the fluctuations of a local conflict could seem a small price to avoid the devastation of general war.

"But as long as the Alliance is based on sovereign states, they will not acquiesce in a strategy which appears to them to spell the end of their national existence." (The Troubled Partnership, p. 21.)

Our European allies had historical reasons to question the self-evident validity of legal undertakings:

"The United States has stressed the technical adequacy of its strategic views and the analytic accuracy of its strategic assessments. Our European critics have emphasized the political and psychological framework within which these decisions will have to be implemented. The United States has reiterated its formal commitment to the defense of Europe--as if a legal clause could settle the problems of credibility in the nuclear age once and for all. Our European Allies are wary of even the most solemn undertakings. Too many of them have seen alliances disintegrate not to be concerned over the impact of the unprecedented stress of nuclear war on obligations incurred many years before under completely different circumstances. (The Troubled Partnership, pp. 93-94.)

American strategic doctrine for NATO consisted, in the mid-1960's, of four principles:

"Starting early in 1961, the Kennedy Administration developed a four-pronged strategic theory which has remained essentially unchanged under President Johnson.

1. **Flexible Response:** When it took office, the Kennedy Administration found itself confronted with a strategy for general war which emphasized a single all-out response. If general nuclear war proved inevitable, the goal was to be to destroy the opposing society virtually with one blow.

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"The Kennedy Administration sought to replace this strategy with a doctrine which offered more alternatives. It attempted to develop the maximum number of options even for the contingency of general nuclear war--a strategy summed up in the phrase 'flexible response.'

***

"2. **Hostility to National Nuclear Forces:** Flexible response, however its objectives are defined, presupposes a centralized system of command and control and highly invulnerable strategic forces. The possibility of conducting nuclear war discriminately depends on an over-all plan controlled by individuals familiar with the strategic context. United States doctrine has considered the existence of strategic nuclear forces not under United States control inconsistent with these requirements.

***

"3. **Tactical Nuclear Weapons:** United States strategic doctrine has shown considerable ambivalence about tactical nuclear weapons which were previously considered the key element of the military establishment on the Continent. On the one hand, the number of tactical nuclear weapons on the Continent has been considerably increased, according to official Pentagon estimates, by some 60 per cent. On the other hand, tactical nuclear weapons do not really fit the Administration's strategic concept.

***

"4. **Conventional Defense:** If European national nuclear forces are irrelevant or worse and tactical nuclear weapons are overvalued, it follows that American strategic doctrine considers Europe's optimum contribution to be in the field of conventional defense. This argument has been pressed insistently." (The Troubled Partnership, pp. 98-104.)

You agreed with the Administration that local defense was an essential part of deterrence. Only local defense could deny the aggressor a fait accompli:

"If the free world is to avoid gradual erosion, it must be able to avoid the *fait accompli* of Communist occupation. A capacity for local defense is essential to bring our deterrent policy in line with the strategy for fighting a war and the requirements of our security with those of our allies.

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"A *fait accompli* changes the attempt to *prevent* a given event, which is the basis of deterrence, to an effort to *compel* a certain course of action. Once a *fait accompli* exists, the purpose of strategy is no longer to induce a potential aggressor to refrain from attacking. It must force him to withdraw. In deciding to attack, the psychological burden is on the aggressor: he must take an affirmative step and his hesitation will be great in proportion as the objective seems unattainable. Once the aggressor is in possession of his prize, however, the psychological burden shifts in his favor. The defender must now assume the risk of the first move. The aggressor can confine himself to outwaiting his opponent. The aggressor becomes more committed to his prize the longer he is in possession of it, while his opponent's incentive to persevere is diminished with every day that the *fait accompli* endures. When resisting occupation, the defender has the option of persevering in self-defense or surrendering. When the aggressor has already gained his objective, the defender can have peace by settling for the new status quo. In all limited-war strategies save that of local defense, the psychological balance is in favor of the aggressor and will become so increasingly the longer the conflict lasts. This is because only local defense can prevent a *fait accompli*." (Necessity for Choice, p. 75.)

But the Europeans wanted American forces in Europe as a token of a political commitment; this was more important to them than assigning those forces a precise military mission. The unilateral shift of American strategy in 1961 raised in acute form the issue of America's nuclear commitment that was the crux of the difference of perspectives between the two sides of the Atlantic. This produced NATO's political crisis:

"With so many American troops permanently stationed in Europe, it was only sensible to try to give them some meaningful military mission. Even in the heyday of the doctrine of massive retaliation in the fifties, NATO forces were larger than the prevailing strategic concept seemed to demand. Indeed the number was somewhat inconsistent with it. Despite the United States commitment to a retaliatory strategy, we constantly pressed for a European contribution of ground forces. The Europeans, though they agreed to a succession of NATO force goals, never really believed in the doctrines used to rationalize them. Rather they considered their military contribution a fee to be paid for the United States nuclear protection. Our Allies agreed to our requests. But they tried to make certain that their actual contributions would be only

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large enough to induce us to keep a substantial military
establishment in Europe, yet not so high as to provide a
real alternative to nuclear retaliation. They were
opposed to giving the conventional forces a central mili-
tary mission; but they also resisted any hint of American
withdrawal.

"This ambivalence was brought into the open by the shift
in United States strategic doctrine in 1961. The American
attempt to strengthen conventional forces brought to the
fore the issue of nuclear control, which for many Europeans
had always been the crux of the matter. For the first time,
United States strategic views were publicly challenged, at
first hesitantly, then ever more explicitly. Europe had
by now gained sufficient self-confidence so that the mere
enunciation of an American policy no longer guaranteed its
acceptance. The pre-emptory way in which the United States
proceeded added ruffled feelings to substantive disagree-
ments. And France compounded these problems by giving
European doubts their most extreme formulation." (The
Troubled Partnership, pp. 107-108)

Europe had to learn that Alliance forces had to be linked
to a plausible strategy; the U.S. had to learn that European
nations were unlikely to accept total American hegemony over
nuclear decisions:

"On strictly strategic grounds, the United States doctrine
is more nearly correct than the alternative of its European
critics; division of labor within an alliance conceived as
a unit _does_ promote the most efficient allocation of
resources. What the United States overlooked was that
NATO is _not_ a single political unit, nor it is likely to
be one in the foreseeable future. The blind spot of the
United States has been its unwillingness to face the
political implications of its strategic views: Central
command and control over all the nuclear weapons of the
Alliance is incompatible with undiluted sovereignty. The
United States cannot insist on integration of strategy
while jealously guarding its complete freedom of political
decision. Using an abstract _a priori_ logic, our European
critics have deduced their strategic views from their
conception of the nature of political sovereignty. There
is merit in their political analysis, but they have refused
to face the fact that there must be some relationship
between a political posture and what is strategically
feasible." (The Troubled Partnership, pp. 124-125.)

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The Multilateral Force (MLF), which U.S. policymakers proposed as a solution, was no solution at all. It compounded the problem instead of solving it:

> "The MLF cannot at one and the same time satisfy demands for nuclear sharing and assuage concerns about nuclear proliferation.

> "Originated to fulfill SACEUR's military requirement, pressed as a counter to a French challenge, the MLF stands in danger of compounding every problem it was supposed to solve. It has prevented a reconsideration of the strategic missions that gave rise to the military requirement. Rather than heal the rift in the Alliance, the MLF is likely to multiply divisions. There is something absurd about trying to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons by bringing the non-nuclear countries of NATO into the nuclear field, often with only their reluctant assent. It makes no sense to attempt to revitalize NATO with a project which, because of the opposition of France and other Allies, will have to be set up outside of NATO.

***

> "Another potential dispute derives from the fact that the Federal Republic favors the Multilateral Force partly to increase its share of nuclear control. Most other countries --especially Great Britain--will participate, if at all, in order to prevent an increase of German control. This difference can be obscured in the early stages of the MLF; it, too, will become more and more acute as time goes on.

***

> "The MLF may therefore strengthen the very tendencies it seeks to combat. In its advocacy of the MLF, the United States has granted almost all of the propositions of its European critics. It has agreed that possession of nuclear weapons is a criterion of equality. It has granted that ownership of some strategic forces is essential for participation in strategic planning and political decisions. It has admitted that influence in the Alliance somehow depends on access to a strategic nuclear arsenal. It has differed only about the nature of ownership and the way control should be exercised. But since the control procedures of the MLF patently favor United States hegemony, they can be used by the nationalists and extremists as a proof of American bad faith." (The Troubled Partnership, pp. 151-154.)

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The real issue was to achieve substantive accord on basic policy questions, which had to precede attempts at nuclear integration:

"The MLF reverses the correct priorities. Political unity must precede, it cannot follow, nuclear integration. To pursue nuclear multilateralism while foreign policy remains national must emphasize divergent interests. The imagination and dedication expended on the MLF would, therefore, have been better spent in strengthening political cohesion. Our allies are not likely to be convinced that their interests will be taken seriously during the improbable eventuality of general nuclear war when no consensus exists for the conduct of day-to-day diplomacy and for crisis situations. Rather than take the detour through the MLF, it would have been wiser to aim directly for coordination of policy by setting up a body to develop common policies for many unsolved problems of the Alliance in the East-West relations, strategic doctrine, trade policy, arms control or relations with the emerging nations." (The Troubled Partnership, p. 155.)

The United States therefore should resign itself to national nuclear forces and seek to insure that they are complementary to U.S. strategic forces:

"For their limited objectives, the British and French nuclear forces are not so ineffective as we sometimes insist. The ratio of the combined British and French forces to those of the Soviet Union is more favorable than was that of the Soviet Union vis-a-vis the United States in the fifties. Despite the overwhelming strategic superiority of the United States, no one would maintain that the Soviet strategic force had no deterrent value. And certainly in relation to any threats from new nuclear powers, the British and French forces would be formidable.

"The nuclear forces of our Allies should not be viewed as an alternative to United States strategic power, but as a complement. The fear of some American officials that the French nuclear force of less than a hundred delivery vehicles could be seriously considered as possible replacement for our arsenal of thousands is to give little credit to the ability of our Allies to perceive their own interests. Close coordination between Europe and the United States in the nuclear field is dictated by self-interest; and Europeans have more to gain from it than the United States." (The Troubled Partnership, p. 166.)

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A political planning mechanism was required in NATO to deal with crises and with issues of control over nuclear policy. An Allied Nuclear Force should be constituted out of the three national nuclear forces:

"Until either Atlantic or European political cohesion progresses further, the nuclear policy of the Alliance should be three-pronged: (1) There is need for a political mechanism to plan long-term policy, to manage crises and to control the nuclear weapons of the Alliance. This may require the establishment of an Executive Committee of the NATO Council composed of the United States, Britain, France, the Federal Republic, Italy and a rotating representative of the smaller countries. (2) The military advice to this Committee should come from a group of senior officers from the United States, Great Britain, France and the Federal Republic of Germany. It might be useful to charge the NATO Standing Group with this task. In that case it would have to be expanded to include the Federal Republic, and its seat would have to be transferred from Washington to Paris. (3) An Allied Nuclear Force should be constituted from the strategic forces of the United States, Great Britain and France and, perhaps, including the long-range weapons in Europe under the double-veto system." (The Troubled Partnership, pp. 170-171.)

The issue of tactical nuclear weapons also had to be addressed. Tactical nuclear weapons were probably necessary in order to deny the aggressor any significant territorial advance. But their mission, vulnerability, and deployment should be redefined:

"When retaliatory forces grow increasingly invulnerable, as Secretary McNamara has postulated, the pressures against rapid escalation would probably be great. There may be no logical stopping place once nuclear weapons are being used. There is, however, a very crucial psychological obstacle to automatic escalation. When mutual invulnerability guarantees catastrophic destruction and offers no prospect of great military advantage, neither side can be very eager to let escalation proceed automatically. Both sides are likely to look for excuses to limit, not expand, military operations.

***

"Nevertheless, even though a full-scale attack on Europe would inevitably bring the strategic forces into play,

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there is a problem of relating their action to local
operations. Strategic forces are not designed to affect
a local situation directly. Whether used demonstratively,
punitively or in discriminating counterforce operations,
their purpose is to force the aggressor into ordering an
end to his local attacks, not to blunt the attacks them-
selves.

"But is it wise to neglect the local outcome? It is at
least possible that once strategic weapons are used,
however discriminatingly, all other considerations could
become submerged in the desire to end a spiral toward ever
greater devastation. If the aggressor has made major
advances, the ensuing confusion and panic may well enable
him to consolidate his gains.

"This suggests that, together with an agreed doctrine for
the use of strategic forces, the Alliance requires a
nuclear capability to deny an aggressor a significant
territorial advance. Tactical weapons used early in the
face of a full-scale attack could perform this role. If
a standstill in military operations can be forced, a
major objective of the defense will have been achieved.
Aggression would have no object if it were certain to
result in a stalemate.

***

"To achieve these objectives, the tactical nuclear estab-
lishment on the Continent must be adapted along the
following lines: (1) its mission must be redefined,
(2) its vulnerability must be reduced and (3) its deploy-
ment must be changed." (The Troubled Partnership, pp.
181-183.)

American policymakers had not only new strategic doctrines to sell, but also formulas for European unity. The U.S. insisted on a federal Europe, regarding no other form of unity as valid or adequate. Nationalism, rampant all over the world, was held to be obsolete on the continent that gave birth to it:

"European political unity was considered by American
policymakers as a prerequisite to the formation of an
Atlantic community. On July 4, 1962, President Kennedy
proclaimed his Declaration of Interdependence between the
United States and a united Europe. A politically and
economically integrated Europe would become an equal
partner with the United States and share with us the

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burdens and obligations of world leadership. To its fervent enthusiasts, in Europe as well as in the United States, such a partnership seemed realizable by only one method: a politically unified Europe in close association with the United States. Similarly, a single solution was offered for the achievement of European unity: supranational federal institutions controlled by a European Parliament.

"Four arguments were generally advanced on behalf of a federal Europe: to end Europe's internecine wars, to provide a counterweight to the U.S.S.R., to bind Germany indissolubly to the West and to provide an adequate partner for the United States. American pronouncements always equated a united Europe with supranational institutions. Anything less was not considered to be unity.

"The American view, for all its idealism, contained some inconsistencies. In the emerging areas the nation-state was treated as natural, and in Eastern Europe great hope was placed in nationalism as a counterweight to Communism. But in Western Europe, where the concept of nationalism had originated, American policy decried the nation-state as outdated and backward." (The Troubled Partnership, pp. 33-37.)

U.S. policymakers never seemed to examine their presupposition that a harmony of interest and perspective would exist between a united Europe and the United States. Yet it was wrong to assume that cooperation would be automatic. It was inevitable that Europe would try to establish an identity by contrast to the United States:

"There is no evidence that any serious consideration was given to whether a partnership among equals was really likely to operate as smoothly or mechanically as official pronouncements suggested. Occasionally the question was posed hypothetically only to be rejected. McGeorge Bundy explained the dominant view as follows: '... in the end our confidence in Europe rests on deeper and more solid political grounds. These peoples are our cousins by history and culture, by language and religion.' Unfortunately, Europe's record of internecine wars suggests that cultural affinity does not guarantee the absence of political rivalry.

"The notion that there was a harmony of interests between the United States and Europe remained unquestioned.

***

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"... Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, as well as Secretary Rusk, have hinted that the United States was prepared to grant to a united Europe that nuclear autonomic which it had resisted conceding to individual allies--even though many of the arguments made against the national nuclear forces would seem to apply as strongly to a European nuclear force.

***

"But whatever the structure, origin or degree of European integration--whether it was the Europe of De Gaulle or the Europe of Monnet--one question could not be postponed indefinitely: What kind of policy would a united Europe pursue? The assumption that a united Europe and the United States would inevitably conduct parallel policies and have similar views about appropriate tactics runs counter to historical experience. A separate identity has usually been established by opposition to a dominant power: The European sense of identity is unlikely to be an exception to this general rule--its motive could well be to insist on a specifically European view of the world.

"This is all the more true because a European sense of identity can no longer be nourished by fear of the U.S.S.R. Even if the reality of a military threat were accepted--as it is not--it would provide an incentive for American military protection and thus lead to pressures for Atlantic, not European, integration. In short, a united Europe is likely to insist on a specifically European view of world affairs--which is another way of saying that it will challenge American hegemony in Atlantic policy. This may well be a price worth paying for European unity; but American policy has suffered from an unwillingness to recognize that there is a price to be paid." (The Troubled Partnership, pp. 35-40.)

Nevertheless, you argued that European unity was essential for the vitality of the West. The U.S. would exhaust itself if it had no partner. But we should be less formalistic and more philosophical in our support for European unity:

"Even with the best will, the present structure encourages American unilateralism and European irresponsibility. This is a serious problem for the United States. If the United States remains the trustee of every noncommunist area, it will exhaust its psychological resources. No country can act wisely simultaneously in every part of the globe at every moment of time. A more pluralistic world--especially in relationships with friends--is profoundly in our long-term interest. Political multipolarity,

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while difficult to get used to, is the precondition for
a new period of creativity. Painful as it may be to
admit, we could benefit from a counterweight that would
discipline our occasional impetuosity and, by supplying
historical perspective, modify our penchant for abstract
and 'final' solutions.

"All of this suggests that there is no alternative to
European unity either for the United States or for Europe.
In its absence, the malaise can only be alleviated, not
ended. Ultimately, this is a problem primarily for the
Europeans. In the recent past, the United States has often
defeated its purposes by committing itself to one partic-
ular form of European unity--that of federalism. It has
also complicated British membership in the Common Market
by making it a direct objective of American policy.

"In the next decade the architectonic approach to Atlantic policy will no longer be possible. The American contribution must be more philosophical; it will have to consist more of understanding and quiet, behind-the-scenes encouragement than of the propagation of formal institutional structures. Involved here is the American conception of how nations cooperate. A tradition of legalism and habits of predominance have produced a tendency to multiply formal arrangements." ("Central Issues of American Foreign Policy," p. 599.)

"Burden-sharing" was not the real reason for European unity. Europe had lost interest in playing a global role; cooperation was more likely on Atlantic issues than on global issues:

"In the decade ahead, we cannot aim at unity as an end in
itself; it must emerge from common conceptions and new
structures.

"'Burden-sharing' will not supply that impetus. Countries do not assume burdens because it is fair, only because it is necessary. While there are strong arguments for Atlantic partnership and European unity, enabling Europe to play a global role is not one of them. A nation assumes responsibilities not only because it has resources but because it has a certain view of its own destiny. Through the greater part of its history--until the Second World War--the United States possessed the resources but not the philosophy for a global role. Today, the poorest Western European country--Portugal--has the widest commitments outside Europe because its historic image of itself has become bound up with its overseas possessions. This condition is unlikely to be met by any other European country--

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with the possible exception of Great Britain--no matter
what its increase in power. Partially as the result of
decolonization, Europeans are unlikely to conduct a
significant global policy whatever their resources or
their degree of unity. Cooperation between the United
States and Europe must concentrate on issues within the
Atlantic area rather than global partnership.

***

"Policy outside Europe is likely to be divergent. Given the changed European perspective, an effort to bring about global burden-sharing might only produce stagnation. The allies would be able to agree primarily on doing nothing. Any crisis occurring anywhere would turn automatically and organically world-wide. American acceptance of European autonomy implies also European acceptance of a degree of American autonomy with respect to areas in which, for understandable reasons, European concern has lessened." ("Central Issues of American Foreign Policy," pp. 597, 601.)

Had it not been for de Gaulle, these problems might have
remained dormant for years. But the problem of France raised all
these issues acutely and painfully in the early 1960's. America
had to understand that nations had a history and sense of self,
and any coalition had to relate the common effort to this sense
of national identity:

"However, a society rarely draws its inspiration from
serving as a contributor to an over-all division of labor;
more usually its cohesiveness reflects a sense of shared
historical experience and the conviction that it represents
a more or less unique set of values. An alliance cannot
be vital unless it conforms, at least to some extent, to
the image which the states composing it have of themselves.
The test of any coalition is its ability to relate the
common effort to the values, aspirations and national
peculiarities of the individual allies." (The Troubled
Partnership, pp. 41-42.)

President de Gaulle was an "illusionist," whose overriding
objective was always to restore France's sense of pride and
identity:

"A certain egocentricity on our part causes us to see many
of his actions as being motivated primarily by a desire to
annoy or to humiliate us. In fact, his central concern is
likely to be quite different. For the greater part of his
career, he has had to be an illusionist. In the face of
all evidence to the contrary, he has striven to restore

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France's greatness by his passionate belief in it. At first he was the leader of an insignificant faction of Frenchmen casting their lot with the Allies. His primary task, as he saw it, was to reestablish the identity and the integrity of France. Churchill and Roosevelt could concentrate on the tangible goal of military victory. To De Gaulle, the war had an intangible purpose. Victory was empty if it did not also restore the position, indeed the soul, of France. Churchill and Roosevelt understandably considered this quest peripheral to their central objective and treated De Gaulle's insistence as an irritating interruption of more important problems.

"The conflict between the pragmatic and the intangible that started during the war has continued to this day. The United States, blessed with stable government, its sense of identity enhanced by its war experience, could pursue singlemindedly whatever technical schemes its bureaucracy thought up at any given moment. To De Gaulle, governing a country wracked by a generation of conflict and decades of frustration, the mode of reaching a goal has been as important as the objective itself. He judges the merit of a policy not only by technical criteria but also by its contribution to France's sense of identity."
*(The Troubled Partnership, p. 44.)*

It was morally essential for de Gaulle that a nation have the right of independent decision:

"De Gaulle has chosen to revitalize France by an act of faith powerful enough to override a seemingly contrary reality. In his view, an almost mystical communion has existed since the war between himself as the embodiment of the general interest and the French people. . . . The effort to achieve greatness required that France regain--wherever possible--the right of independent decision. France could agree with the decisions of others: but it had to make clear that this represented a voluntary act and not the abdication of the impotent.

***

"In De Gaulle's concept, a great nation moves at its own pace; its objectives are dictated by its interests. Its sense of purpose enables it to become the master of events instead of their prisoner.

"Consequently the dispute between France and the United States centers, in part, around the philosophical issue

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of how nations cooperate. Washington urges a structure
which makes separate action physically impossible by
assigning each partner a portion of the over-all task.
Paris insists that a consensus is meaningful only if
each partner has a real choice. Therefore, each ally
must--at least theoretically--be able to act autonomously.
Washington, postulating a community of interests, relies
on consultation as the principal means for solving dis-
agreements. In its view, influence is proportionate to
a nation's contribution to a common effort, somewhat like
share-owning in a stock company. Paris insists that
influence depends not only on the existence of consulta-
tive machinery but also on what options are available in
case of disagreement." (The Troubled Partnership, pp.
45-46.)

De Gaulle, operating in a different time-frame from
American policymakers, saw nation-states as the only responsible
actors on the world stage:

"De Gaulle's nationalism is in the tradition of Mazzini, who thought that nations which achieved their independence would respect the dignity of others. His diplomacy is in the style of Bismarck, who strove ruthlessly to achieve what he considered Prussia's rightful place, but who then tried to preserve the new equilibrium through prudence, restraint and moderation. His policy is bound to clash with ours because he is operating in a different time-frame." (The Troubled Partnership, p. 47.)

De Gaulle saw equilibrium as the only true nature of peace:

"De Gaulle's view is more historical. Peace to him is not a final settlement but a new, perhaps more stable, balance of forces. 'Now, in the last analysis and as always, it is the only in equilibrium that the world will find peace.' An equilibrium can never be permanent but must be adjusted in constant struggles. Tension, according to De Gaulle, is not caused so much by the personal attitudes of individual Communist leaders as by the dynamics of the system which they represent. To him, internal instability is the distinguishing feature of Communist leadership groups." (The Troubled Partnership, p. 58.)

De Gaulle sided with China in the Sino-Soviet dispute in
order to counterbalance the U.S.S.R.--and you seemed partly to
agree--while American policymakers, more inclined to judge by a
nation's intentions, tended to side with the Communist power
which professed the more peaceful goals:

"Views differ, finally, about the significance of the
Sino-Soviet split and about policy toward Communist China.

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The United States, convinced of the importance of intentions in the conduct of foreign policy, is tempted to back the Communist power which professes the more peaceful goals. De Gaulle, believing that an equilibrium is the only reliable basis for stability, is more concerned with establishing a counterweight to the stronger Communist partner. He is prepared, if necessary, to play off its weaker Communist opponent against it. The United States, with its global responsibilities, sees in Communist China an objective threat to its interests. De Gaulle, leading a country primarily concerned with European affairs, considers a Russia extending its power into the center of Europe as the principal danger. China, to him, is a distant country which could become useful in diverting Soviet energies. What is involved here is a certain divergence of American and European interests; De Gaulle's analysis is far from unique in Europe, even if his methods of implementing it are." (The Troubled Partnership, pp. 59-60.)

The thrust of de Gaulle's policy was to make it impossible for the U.S. to deal with the Soviet Union over the heads of Europe:

> "In short, peace according to De Gaulle is achieved not by a personal reconciliation but by the establishment of a more stable equilibrium. France and Europe must contribute in bringing about this balance not as the object of policy but as its author. De Gaulle is thus concerned not only with the fact of negotiations but also with France's role in them. He would object to *any* settlement that France did not help to formulate--regardless of his opinion of its substance. The major thrust of De Gaulle's policy is to make it impossible for the United States to deal with the Soviet Union over the heads of France and the rest of Europe." (The Troubled Partnership, p. 60.)

De Gaulle's failing lay in his provocative style and methods, which were antagonistic to the sober reexamination of Atlantic relationships that was so sorely needed. He would be his own undoing:

> "Ironically, De Gaulle has become a symbol on both sides of the Atlantic of principles contrary to his pronouncements and probably to his intentions. He has enabled many in Europe not previously noted for their devotion either to European unity or to Atlantic partnership to advocate some ideal model of either relationship in order to thwart whatever progress is possible now. By evoking

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so many memories of authoritarian rule, De Gaulle has polarized the discussion within Europe in a manner that makes it next to impossible to come to grips with the substance of his thought. A strong Europe was bound to present a challenge to American leadership. But by couching this challenge so woundingly, De Gaulle has spurred American self-righteousness rather than the objective reexamination of Atlantic relationships which the situation demands.

"History will probably demonstrate that De Gaulle's conceptions--as distinct from his style--were greater than those of most of his critics. But a statesman must work with the material at hand. If the sweep of his conceptions exceeds the capacity of his environment to absorb them, he will fail regardless of the validity of his insights. If his style makes him unassimilable, it becomes irrelevant whether he is right or wrong. Great men build truly only if they remember that their achievement must be maintained by the less gifted individuals who are likely to follow them. A structure which can be preserved only if there is a great man in each generation is inherently fragile. This may be the nemesis of De Gaulle's success." (The Troubled Partnership, pp. 62-63.)

Your critique of American Alliance policy in the '60's focused also on the problem of Germany. Insecurity was endemic in the German situation and the U.S. should not subject it to constant changes of policy, which only add to its fears and temptations:

"Washington has at times shown signs of impatience toward the German leaders and their frequent need for reassurance. However, insecurity is endemic in the German situation. A divided country with frontiers that correspond to no historical experience, a society that has lived through two disastrous defeats and four domestic upheavals in forty years cannot know inward security. The need to belong to something, to rescue some predictability out of chaos, is overwhelming. To subject such a country to constant changes of policy--as we have done--is to undermine its stability.

***

"Thus Germany is growing more vulnerable to Soviet cajolery or Communist blackmail--a trend further magnified by American hints that Germany should be more flexible toward the East. As long as Germany could avoid a direct confrontation by pleading the pre-eminent role of some other

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relationship--the Western Alliance or the Franco-German Treaty--these dangers were minimized. The combination of De Gaulle's abruptness and America's short-sighted reaction to it threatens to bring about what each of the rivals should fear most: a Germany increasingly absorbed in its own unfulfilled national aims and aware of the bargaining position conferred on it by its central position and growing power.

"All this threatens to upset the delicate balance on which Germany's integration into the Atlantic Alliance was built. It exposes the Federal Republic to dangerous pressures and temptations. Germany has emerged as the balance wheel of the Western Alliance. The most exposed Western ally, 17 million of whose people are Communist hostages, has become the focal point of all disputes. Its internal structure may not be equal to this strain." (The Troubled Partner-ship, pp. 25, 208.)

The Federal Republic was particularly vulnerable to offers from East Germany of humanitarian measures in return for conferring greater legitimacy on the GDR. If the FRG chose this route, we should not oppose it, but we should not encourage it. It could be indistinguishable from traditional German nationalism:

"German political leaders may find themselves facing a growing dilemma. In return for easing the fate of their population, the East Germans can demand concrete political gains. Confronted by popular pressures and moved by humanitarian impulses, no German government will find it easy to be dispassionate in deciding at what point an accumulation of seemingly marginal concessions has produced an irreversible trend. In turn, every West German concession to the German Democratic Republic will strengthen those in the West who favor recognition of that satellite regime. The result is more likely to be the indefinite continuation of two hostile, competing German states than progress toward unification.

"To be sure, if German political leaders are determined to pursue this course, there is nothing we can do to prevent it. But we should make certain that the West cannot be blamed for the probable consequences. And we should do nothing to promote policies that may lead to a growing demoralization of the Federal Republic. In 1962, an 'opening to the Left' in Italy was supposed to isolate and weaken the Communist Party. Instead it has undermined the center and opened the way to respectability for the Communists. The same role could be played in Germany by the policy of 'technical contacts' or of 'little steps' and with much more dangerous results.

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"Those in Washington and London who believe that the so-called 'flexible' Germans will always follow their lead may, moreover, be in for some unpleasant surprises. The German version of flexibility could become indistinguishable from traditional nationalism." (The Troubled Partnership, pp. 214-215.)

It might be advisable for the FRG to pursue improvement of relations with its East European neighbors, in order to isolate the GDR. Renunciation of its claims to the eastern territories would be inevitable as part of this; when to play this card was a tactical question:

"One possible method for ameliorating the Hallstein Doctrine with respect to Eastern Europe would be for the Federal Republic to announce that in order to promote a final settlement it would establish diplomatic relations with all of Germany's neighbors, enabling it to bring about direct contact with Poland and Czechoslovakia. Such a policy will not in itself lead to unification. Nor will it make the East European countries abandon their preference for a divided Germany. It will, however, contribute to the isolation of East Germany and hence promote its moralization. It is likely to reduce the already small East European incentive to support Soviet or East German pressures against exposed Western positions such as Berlin.

***

"To be sure, it is an important tactical question at what point the Federal Republic should renounce its claims. It is possible to sympathize with the reluctance to offer such a painful sacrifice gratuitously. But it is essential to recognize that acceptance by Germany of its eastern frontiers will have to be part of any responsible program for unification." (The Troubled Partnership, pp. 218-220.)

The future of the West, in sum, was in its own hands. The creativity and dynamism of the West were unmatched. Our diversity could be a source of strength. The basic principle of moral leadership, as we have seen in pp. 34ff above--to shape reality according to purpose--was the deepest common task facing the Western alliance:

"What the West can mean to others depends therefore in great part on what it means to itself. In the heyday of

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colonialism, Western political forms were widely imitated. The leaders of independence movements fought their oppressors in the name of principles they had acquired from them. The reason was that for all the wrongs it committed, the West appeared dynamic, creative and vital. If the West is still to contribute to the rest of the world, it will have to begin by demonstrating in its internal relationships that its wellsprings of creativity have not run dry.

"The opportunity is great. The dynamic periods of Western history occurred when unity was forged from diversity. This is the task once again. . . .

"The challenge is whether the difference in perspective between the two sides of the Atlantic, which is at the heart of many disagreements, can be turned into a source of strength. Our idealism and impetuosity would gain depth if leavened by the European sense of tragedy. And the European consciousness of history could recover dynamism if bolstered by our hopefulness.

"The deepest question before the West may thus be what kind of vision it has of its future. With the growth of bureaucracy and expertise on both sides of the Atlantic, there is a danger of becoming mired by the prudent, the tactical or the expedient. Problems that are recognized are treated with considerable adeptness. But many problems are not recognized. The solution of immediate issues has priority over the shaping of the future. The expert has a vested interest in the existing framework; doing the familiar very well has, after all, made him an expert. His weakness is that he may confuse creativity with a projection of the present into the future. He respects 'facts' and considers them something to be adjusted to, perhaps to be manipulated, but not to be transcended.

"In the decades ahead, the West will have to lift its sights. When technique becomes exalted over purpose, men become the victims of their complexities. They forget that every great achievement in every field was a vision before it became a reality. Both sides of the Atlantic would do well to keep in mind that there are two kinds of realists: those who use facts and those who create them. The West requires nothing so much as men able to create their own reality." (The Troubled Partnership, pp. 250-251.)

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VI. POLITICAL EVOLUTION: THE NEW NATIONS

The new nations of the Third World pose a novel challenge. Yet the prevailing American thinking about them has tended to treat them according to the categories of Western experience. *Third World leaders* are a charismatic type; their goals are thus not necessarily those of pragmatic or even ideological leaders. Contrary to Western conceptions, their aims cannot be limited to or satisfied by mere economic development:

"For many of the leaders of the new nations the bureaucratic-pragmatic approach of the West is irrelevant because they are more interested in the future which they wish to construct than in the manipulation of the environment which dominates the thinking of the pragmatists. And ideology is not satisfactory because doctrine supplies rigid categories which overshadow the personal experiences which have provided the impetus for so many of the leaders of the new nations.

"The type of individual who leads a struggle for independence has been sustained in the risks and suffering of such a course primarily by a commitment to a vision which enabled him to override conditions which had seemed overwhelmingly hostile. Revolutionaries are rarely motivated primarily by material considerations--though the illusion that they are persists in the West. Material incentives do not cause a man to risk his existence and to launch himself into the uncertainties of a revolutionary struggle. If Castro or Sukarno had been principally interested in economics, their talents would have guaranteed them a brilliant career in the societies they overthrew. What made their sacrifices worthwhile to them was a vision of the future--or a quest for political power. To revolutionaries the significant reality is the world which they are striving to being about, not the world they are fighting to overcome.

"This difference in perspective accounts for the inconclusiveness of much of the dialogue between the West and many of the leaders of the new countries. The West has a tendency to believe that the tensions in the emerging nations are caused by a low level of economic activity. To the apostles of economic development, raising the gross national product seems the key to political stability. They believe that it should receive the highest priority from the political leaders of new countries and supply their chief motivation.

"But to the charismatic heads of many of the new nations, economic progress, while not unwelcome, offers too limited

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a scope for their ambitions. It can be achieved only by slow, painful, highly technical measures which contrast with the heroic exertions of the struggle for independence. Results are long-delayed; credit for them cannot be clearly established. If Castro were to act on the advice of theorists of economic development, the best he could hope for would be that after some decades he would lead a small progressive country--perhaps a Switzerland of the Caribbean. Compared to the prospect of leading a revolution throughout Latin America, this goal would appear trivial, boring, perhaps even unreal to him." ("Domestic Structure and Foreign Policy," p. 522.)

Their temptations to play a dramatic role in foreign affairs are great, because of both international temptations and the need to distract attention from domestic difficulties:

"The competition of the superpowers makes it likely that economic assistance will be forthcoming regardless of the actions of the recipient. Indeed the more obstrusive their foreign policy the greater is their prospect of being wooed by the chief contenders.

"The tendency toward a reckless policy is magnified by the uncertain sense of identity of many of the new nations. National boundaries often correspond to the administrative subdivisions established by the former colonial rulers. States thus have few of the attributes of nineteenth-century European nationalism: common language, common culture, or even common history. In many cases, the only common experience is a century or so of imperial rule. As a result, there is a great pressure toward authoritarian rule, and a high incentive to use foreign policy as a means of bringing about domestic cohesion.

***

"No matter what the system of government, many of the leaders of the new nations use foreign policy as a means to escape intractable internal difficulties and as a device to achieve domestic cohesion. The international arena provides an opportunity for the dramatic measures which are impossible at home. These are often cast in an anti-Western mold because this is the easiest way to re-create the struggle against imperial rule which is the principal unifying element for many new nations. The incentive is particularly strong because the rivalry of the nuclear powers eliminates many of the risks which previously were associated with an adventurous foreign policy--especially if that foreign policy is directed against the West which lacks any effective sanctions." ("Domestic Structure and Foreign Policy, p. 523.)

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The small countries thus learn the game of playing off the superpowers against each other. They also have a potential for undermining international stability, either by generating crises as in the Middle East or by their internal vulnerability as in Asia or Africa:

"In their turn, the major powers are handicapped by a paradox. Though their relative superiority over other nations has never been greater, it has also never been less relevant. The use of nuclear weapons against the uncommitted is for all practical purposes excluded. Other military forces have in the meantime become less and less suitable for the low-threshold warfare that is waged in uncommitted areas.

"A diplomacy of weakness has been the result. When the uncommitted nations threaten the West: 'If I go Communist it will be worse for you than for me,' this creates a pattern for blackmail. It encourages local conflicts into which major powers are drawn, often against their wishes. As a corollary, it means that any major country determined to upset the equilibrium can do so at little cost. The sale of obsolescent military equipment to nations in a troubled area, like for example the Middle East, can undermine stability in a way that could not have been achieved by direct action.

"If the uncommitted nations today have unprecedented scope for pursuing their self-interest, they are also subject to novel pressures. In the past, neutrality was usually the posture of very cohesive nations, certain of their identity and determined to defend it. But many newly independent nations are still in search of an identity. Often the sole link among their peoples is the common experience of colonial rule. Domestic cohesion is only precariously assured.

"Thus, while the governments are relatively safe from the military pressures that have traditionally weighed on neutral nations, they are extraordinarily susceptible to domestic subversion." (Problems of National Strategy, pp. 330-331.)

Guerrilla war can result, which the West is politically, militarily and psychologically least prepared to cope with:

"The most frequent and likely kind of war is the one for which the West is least prepared--militarily, politically, and psychologically. In guerrilla war, superior firepower loses its old relevance. Guerrillas need only join

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battle in places where they enjoy superiority, but the defenders must be strong everywhere, in anticipation of the unexpected. The ability to occupy territory is no longer decisive, for the real target has become the morale of the population and the system of the civil administration. If these can be undermined through protracted struggle, the insurgents will prevail no matter how many battles the defending forces have won.

"What makes the situation particularly complex is that there is no purely military solution to guerrilla war. Pacification requires a government capable of enlisting the loyalty of the population. But such a government is difficult to establish because of the very nature of guerrilla war, whose chief targets are often civil administrators. Moreover, for a Western government aiding an Asian or African ally, the criteria of stable government may prove elusive. Government can be stable by being oppressive. By contrast, a developing society inevitably creates dislocations. How does one achieve both development and stability, both progress and security? There is no more urgent task for analysis than to inquire into the nature of stable enlightened government in developing nations." (Problems of National Strategy, pp. 331-332.)

The West has approached the problem of the Third World as if it were a problem of fostering economic growth. The assumption is that economic growth will promote political democracy. This is not only demonstrably untrue historically but is also, ironically, a mode of analysis more congenial to Marxism than to Western thought and ideals:

"The hope for the West in the underdeveloped areas, it is said, is to identify itself with the striving for economic growth. Competition with the Communists should take place above all in the realm of industrialization. Our task should be to prove our ability to raise the standard of living more efficiently than our Communist opponents without resorting to their methods of regimentation. In the long run the satisfaction of wants will promote a more liberal political system as well. In our approach both to the new nations and to Communism we should expect political results not from the impact of our ideas but from the indirect influence of a transformation of the economy.

"The interesting question then presents itself: are these interpretations, often hailed as alternatives to Marxism, not in fact a purer version of Marxism than that practiced in Communist countries? The notion that the economic

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structure inevitably has certain associated political forms is surely acceptable to Marxists. The proposition that values are altered by changing the economy is also one of the keystones of Marxism. Indeed, the Communist interpretation of history differs from many of the evolutionary theories of the West not so much in its assumptions as in the conclusions drawn from them. The dispute is not between two different philosophies but instead concerns the interpretation of a very similar orthodoxy: Communism maintains that industrialization inevitably produces the dictatorship of the proletariat. The evolutionary theories described above hold that economic development involves an automatic trend towards liberal institutions.

***

"There is, moreover, serious doubt about the historical validity of these evolutionary theories. The record regarding the relationship between economic development and a moderate foreign policy, between industrialization and enlightened domestic institutions, between education and the questioning spirit is not nearly so hopeful as is so often suggested. Industrialization did not make Germany less militant; quite the contrary. A rate of economic development exceeding that of any contemporary new nation did not make Japan a peaceful country. The opposition to modern totalitarianism has rarely centered in the bureaucracies or in the universities. The educational system of Germany was one of the glories of the nation. Yet the evidence would indicate that its support of one of the most vicious dictatorships of modern times far outweighed its resistance to it. Nor is the situation very different in the Soviet Union. For many centuries and in many societies education has had the function of indoctrination. It has been conceived as a tool to strengthen state control. On the historical record this attempt has succeeded more frequently than it has failed, particularly if one judges events by the time scale relevant to the life of an individual and not by centuries.

"Indeed, there is no country in which democratic institutions developed after industrialization and as a result of economic development. Where the rudiments of democratic institutions did not exist at the beginning of the industrial revolution, they did not receive impetus from industrial growth. . . . In all the traditional democratic societies, the essentials of the governmental system antedated the industrial revolution." (Necessity for Choice, pp. 299-301.)

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The problem of the new nations is the malaise of the quest for internal legitimacy; it has little to do with economic development. The same process took centuries in the West:

"Almost all of the new countries suffer from a revolutionary malaise: revolutions succeed through the coming together of all resentments. But the elimination of existing structures compounds the difficulty of establishing political consensus. A successful revolution leaves as its legacy a profound dislocation. In the new countries, contrary to all revolutionary expectations, the task of construction emerges as less glamorous and more complex than the struggle for freedom; the exaltation of the quest for independence cannot be perpetuated. Sooner or later, positive goals must replace resentment of the former colonial power as a motive force. In the absence of autonomous social forces, this unifying role tends to be performed by the state.

"But the assumption of this role by the state does not produce stability. When social cohesiveness is slight, the struggle for control of authority is correspondingly more bitter. When government is the principal, sometimes the sole, expression of national identity, opposition comes to be considered treason. The profound social or religious schisms of many of the new nations turn the control of political authority quite literally into a matter of life and death. Where political obligation follows racial, religious, or tribal lines, self-restraint breaks down. Domestic conflicts assume the character of civil war. Such traditional authority as exists is personal or feudal. The problem is to make it 'legitimate'--to develop a notion of political obligation which depends on legal norms rather than on coercive power or personal loyalty.

"This process took centuries in Europe. It must be accomplished in decades in the new nations, where pre-conditions of success are less favorable than at comparable periods in Europe." ("Central Issues of American Foreign Policy," pp. 603-604.)

Thus Communism, ostensibly a doctrine of materialism, ironically has greater appeal in the new nations, which are looking for a source of internal legitimacy, than do Western ideas, which have been traditionally a system of moral values but are seeking to compete here by techniques of economic efficiency:

"This is why communism has never succeeded in the industrialized Western countries for which its theory was

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devised; its greatest successes have been in developing societies. This is no accident. Industrialization-- in its early phases--multiplies dislocations. It smashes the traditional framework. It requires a system of values which makes the sacrifices involved in capital formation tolerable and which furnishes some integrating principles to contain psychological frustrations.

"Communism is able to supply legitimacy for the sacrifices inseparably connected with capital formation in an age when the maxims of laissez faire are no longer acceptable. And Leninism has the attraction of providing a rationale for holding on to power. Many of the leaders of the new countries are revolutionaries who sustained themselves through the struggle for independence by visions of the transformations to be brought about after victory. They are not predisposed even to admit the possibility of giving up power in their hour of triumph. Since they usually began their struggle for independence while in a small minority and sustained it against heavy odds, they are not likely to be repelled by the notion that it is possible to 'force men to be free.'

"The ironic feature of the current situation is that Marxism, professing a materialistic philosophy, is accepted only where it does not exist: in some new countries and among protest movements of the advanced democratic countries. Its appeal is its idealistic component and not its economic theory. It offers a doctrine of substantive change and an explanation of final purposes. Its philosophy has totally failed to inspire the younger generation in communist countries where its bureaucratic reality is obvious.

"On the other hand, the United States, professing an idealistic philosophy, often fails to gain acceptance for democratic values because of its heavy reliance on economic factors. It has answers to technical dislocations but has not been able to contribute much to building a political and moral consensus. It offers a procedure for change but little content for it." ("Central Issues of American Foreign Policy," pp. 605-606.)

While the new nations by and large count for little on the scales of power, the issue being contested here has moral relevance for us, particularly for a younger generation bored with solely technical challenges:

"Yet their relations with other countries are not the most significant aspect of the turmoil of the new countries.

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It is in the new countries that questions of the purpose of political life and the meaning of political legitimacy --key issues also in the modern state--pose themselves in their most acute form. The new nations weigh little in the physical balance of power. But the forces unleashed in the emergence of so many new states may well affect the moral balance of the world--the convictions which form the structure for the world of tomorrow. This adds a new dimension to the problem of multipolarity.

***

"Irrelevance to one of the great revolutions of our time will mean that we will ultimately be engulfed by it--if not physically, then psychologically. Already some of the protest movements have made heroes of leaders in repressive new countries. The absurdity of founding a claim for freedom on protagonists of the totalitarian state--such as Guevara or Ho or Mao--underlines the impact of the travail of the new countries on older societies which share none of their technical but some of their spiritual problems, especially the problem of the nature of authority in the modern world. To a young generation in rebellion against bureaucracy and bored with material comfort, these societies offer at least the challenge of unlimited opportunity (and occasionally unlimited manipulativeness) in the quest for justice.

"A world which is bipolar militarily and multipolar politically thus confronts an additional problem. Side by side with the physical balance of power, there exists a psychological balance based on intangibles of value and belief. The presuppositions of the physical equilibrium have changed drastically; those of the psychological balance remain to be discovered." ("Central Issues of American Foreign Policy," pp. 603-606.)

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## VII. THE RELEVANCE OF HISTORY

Historical experience is a guide but never a precise blueprint for the present and future. History teaches only by analogy. Yet no significant conclusions are possible about the study of foreign affairs without an awareness of the historical context -- a nation's consciousness of its own past:

> "There remains the question of the validity of conclusions drawn from historical experience, expressed in the assertion that historical events are essentially unique. It can be admitted that events do not recur precisely, that in this sense history does not 'repeat' itself. But this is true of even the coarsest physical experience. A man seeing an elephant for the first time would not know what he was confronting. (Unless he had seen a picture or description which is a substitute for experience.) When he saw a second elephant, he might be able to name it by abstracting from its individual appearance in time and by establishing a standard of correspondence. A concept, therefore, never says 'everything' about an object nor a 'law' about a class. . . . Whatever relationship exists depends, not on a precise correspondence, but on a similarity of the problems confronted. And the conclusions will reflect--just as with any other generalization --the ability to abstract from the uniqueness of individual experience.

A physical law is an explanation and not a description, and history teaches by analogy, not identity. This means that the lessons of history are never automatic, that they can be apprehended only by a standard which admits the significance of a range of experience, that the answers we obtain will never be better than the questions we pose. No profound conclusions were drawn in the natural sciences before the significance of sensory experience was admitted by what was essentially a moral act. No significant conclusions are possible in the study of foreign affairs--the study of states acting as units--without an awareness of the historical context. For societies exist in time more than in space. At any given moment a state is but a collection of individuals, as positivist scholars have never wearied of pointing out. But it achieves identity through the consciousness of a common history. This is the only 'experience' nations have, their only possibility of learning from themselves. History is the memory of states.

> "To be sure, states tend to be forgetful. It is not often that nations learn from the past, even rarer that they draw

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the correct conclusions from it. For the lessons of
historical experience, as of personal experience, are
contingent. They teach the consequences of certain
actions, but they cannot force a recognition of com-
parable situations. An individual may have experienced
that a hot stove burns but, when confronted with a
metallic object of a certain size, he must decide from
case to case whether it is in fact a stove before his
knowledge will prove useful. A people may be aware of
the probable consequences of a revolutionary situation.
But its knowledge will be empty if it cannot recognize
a revolutionary situation. There is this difference
between physical and historical knowledge, however:
each generation is permitted only one effort of
abstraction; it can attempt only one interpretation
and a single experiment, for it is its own subject.
This is the challenge of history and its tragedy; it
is the shape 'destiny' assumes on the earth. And its
solution, even its recognition, is perhaps the most
difficult task of statesmanship." (A World Restored,
pp. 330-332.)

# Reflections on Cuba

HENRY A. KISSINGER

On October 22, President Kennedy boldly seized an opportunity given few statesmen: to change the course of events by one dramatic move. His action achieved far more than the immediate goal of dismantling Soviet missile bases in Cuba. It exploded the myth that in every situation the Soviets were prepared to run greater risks than we. This myth had been the basis of Soviet atomic blackmail and had transformed too many conferences into opportunities for the Soviets to set the terms of negotiations. The President's stroke demonstrated that a great power leads not so much by its words as by its actions, that initiative creates its own consensus.

It is clear that we took skillful advantage of a serious Soviet miscalculation. But even this success does not free us from the need to understand how we arrived at the point where such a dramatic and risky action was necessary. What tempted the Soviets into so rash, so foolhardy an adventure as establishing missile bases on an island

only ninety miles from our shores?

Part of the answer probably lies in a fault common to many dictatorships: the Soviets began to take their own propaganda too seriously. The Soviet leaders had spoken so insistently and so confidently of their capacity to protect "national liberation movements" that they overlooked the difference between supporting guerrilla warfare in Southeast Asia and establishing a missile base in the Western Hemisphere. In the one case, the Communists could engage us in highly ambiguous situations and with a mode of warfare that is very difficult for us to deal with quickly. In Cuba, the only purpose the Soviet action could possibly serve was to threaten United States territory directly, an issue that lent itself to decisive resolution.

Another reason for the Soviets' behavior may have been a crude interpretation of the possibilities of nuclear deterrence. The Soviet leaders may really have believed that a limited number of nuclear missiles in Cuba would make the risks of an

American attack on Cuba seem out of proportion to the gains to be achieved. This argument, however, does not explain why the threat of nuclear retaliation had to be mounted from Cuba. As long as the bases remained under exclusive Soviet control, they were after all only an extension of Soviet nuclear power and not relevant to a local defense of Cuba. If the Soviets felt that missiles based on Cuban territory were necessary to redress the over-all strategic balance, then the Soviet arsenal of intercontinental rockets must be much smaller than had generally been believed. If, on the other hand, the Soviets consider their arsenal of intercontinental rockets adequate, then nuclear bases in Cuba were irrelevant to the security problem in Cuba. Given the vulnerability of these bases, it is difficult to understand to what military problem they were addressed.

The chief benefit the Soviets would have obtained from these bases was political, not military. Missiles in Cuba would have been an over-

whelming proof of the inexorable advance of Soviet power and of U.S. impotence. Such a success would have emboldened all the extremist elements in Latin America and would have disheartened our allies. A U.S. government incapable of preventing the establishment of Soviet missile bases in Cuba would certainly have been thought incapable of detending interests farther from its shores. Had the Soviets succeeded in their gamble in Cuba, another critical showdown on Berlin would not have been long delayed. Perhaps Khrushchev counted on a dramatic unveiling of the projection of Soviet nuclear power into the Western Hemisphere to force us into a diplomatic settlement on his terms in Berlin, disarmament, and other issues.

WITH THE STAKES so high, what made the Soviets believe they could get away with it? Over the past decade Khrushchev may well have become convinced that the United States would never run risks to protect its interests, either because it did not understand its interests or because it did not have the appropriate doctrine for using its power. In Suez we collaborated with the Soviets to humiliate our closest allies. Our intervention in Lebanon did not prevent the displacement of the only Middle Eastern government that had accepted the Eisenhower Doctrine. A year and a half ago in Cuba, we gambled on indirect intervention and accepted failure when it miscarried. In Laos we pretended a readiness to intervene, only to settle for a solution that is at best ambiguous. Our reaction to the building of the Berlin Wall may have indicated a propensity to accept just about any *fait accompli*. All this may have led the Soviet leaders to the conviction that given a face-saving formula, the United States would choose retreat rather than a head-on confrontation.

This judgment may have been confirmed by our first reactions to the Soviet arms build-up in Cuba. Though President Kennedy made it clear in his press conference of September 13 that we would take a grave view of the introduction of offensive weapons, this distinction was in itself nebulous and the statement

was in the context of an explanation of why we would not intervene at that time. From then until October 22, administration spokesmen emphasized the risks of both blockade and invasion. They pointed out that we possessed perfect intelligence about Cuban affairs and had detected no offensive build-up. Senator Keating's allegation on October 10

that offensive missiles were being installed in Cuba was denied. It must be assumed that preparations for the installation of those missiles had been going forward for some weeks, even if the actual missiles were not put in place until the middle of October. The Soviet leaders may well have decided that the administration knew of these preparations and had decided to acquiesce by denying their existence.

## Where They Went Wrong

Nevertheless, even making allowance for all past U.S. vacillations, it is difficult to explain Soviet actions except as a colossal blunder. The Russians clearly misjudged the character of the President and the mood of the country. They failed to understand that it is highly unlikely for any man to be nominated or elected President who does not have a strong will to prevail—a consideration particularly crucial in the case of a President who has had to overcome handicaps of youth and religion to achieve his position. Moreover, even if they thought that the President meant to ignore the existence of the missile sites, they should have realized that this would have provided only a brief respite. No President could have avoided taking action in the face of such a challenge, and the public would not have tolerated

acquiescence. If Soviet diplomats and intelligence personnel failed to warn of the possibility of a U.S. invasion, the Soviet system has fallen prey to a common disease of dictatorships: that the top leaders are told only what they wish to hear.

The original misjudgment was compounded by many others. As we have seen, the bases were of only marginal military use in a defensive war. In an offensive war their effectiveness was reduced by the enormous difficulty—if not impossibility—of co-ordinating a first strike from the Soviet Union and Cuba. If the Soviets thought that they required bases closer to the United States, it is not clear why they did not choose safer launching platforms than Cuba—ships and submarines, for example. Militarily, the action was confused; its gains hardly justified the risks.

Politically, the Soviet miscalculation was equally great. The purpose of the missile bases in Cuba may well have been to force us into accepting Soviet terms over such issues as Berlin. However, an attempt to connect any issue outside the Western Hemisphere with Cuba was bound to make us increasingly intractable. We could not have left the impression that we were trading the vital interests of our allies for our own without undermining any claim to leadership in the West.

If the Soviets counted on allied disunity to provide an interval of hesitation to consolidate their bases, this was foiled by the President's decisiveness. After the President's speech, the only way other nations could gain an influence over our actions was by supporting us. The Soviets even misunderstood the temper of the uncommitted. Most of them are glad enough to play off both sides against each other, but their attitude is bound to be very different if the protection of "national liberation movements" takes the form of nuclear missile bases that would project them into the very center of the East-West conflict.

PERHAPS the most fundamental mistake was in assessing the reason for their earlier successes. They had expanded in Eurasia, above all, because they were able to choose the battlefield and the issue. They had generally confronted the United

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States with ambiguous challenges whose threat to U.S. security seemed vague and remote. The area of conflict was usually close to the center of Communist strength. Thus the Communists were capable of increasing their commitment—"escalating," as the technical term has it—by small increments while the United States could escape its difficulties only by threatening nuclear war.

In Cuba, however, the Soviets chose to challenge us in the most direct and brutal fashion. Here the threat was not remote or the issue confused. The secrecy and the rapidity of the build-up underlined the menace. But ruthlessness and deception do not necessarily bring their own reward. The challenge took place in an area close to our strength, on an island easily accessible to our overwhelmingly superior sea power. This time we were able to escalate gradually while the Soviets could respond, if at all, only with the threat of nuclear war. Thus the Soviets threw away their traditional advantages in a gamble that left them no recourse if it failed.

The result was a demonstration that the over-all strategic balance was far from being as favorable to the Communists as their propaganda had painted it. In fact, the course of events proved that the statements of Defense Secretary McNamara and Deputy Secretary Gilpatric have made about our nuclear superiority are essentially correct. The crisis could not have ended so quickly and decisively but for the fact that the United States can win a general war if it strikes first and can inflict intolerable damage on the Soviet Union even if it is the victim of a surprise attack.

Whatever one's reservations about the counterforce strategy enunciated by Secretary McNamara for the long term, it proved its efficacy in the Cuban crisis. The Soviet leaders did not dare invoke the threat of nuclear war against our blockade. If we believed the threat, even a nation like ours might feel compelled to strike pre-emptively. And if the Soviets struck first, they would only bring about the destruction of their homeland—without being able to affect the outcome in Cuba. Moreover, the Soviets refrained from starting crises in places where they enjoyed local

superiority, such as Berlin or Turkey. They obviously calculated that two crises occurring simultaneously, particularly if one of them involved bases in Cuba, carried with them an exorbitant risk of nuclear war. In short, for this crisis at least, the credibility of our deterrent was greater than theirs.

As a result, contrary to their usual practice, the Soviet leaders did not assume a posture of belligerency. Messages of conciliation chased each other. The demand for dismantling our Turkish bases was barely turned down before Khrushchev sounded the retreat in Cuba. He had drawn the correct conclusion that the best thing he could do was cut his losses. He could not credibly invoke the threat of general war over Cuba. And he could not menace other areas closer to the source of Soviet power because these were protected by our strategic superiority.

## Back to the Treadmill?

Where do we go from here? We have a unique opportunity. The hesitations of the past years can be turned into an asset for us in the eyes of those who have come to realize that we exhausted all means of concilia-

tion before taking decisive steps. The doubts expressed, particularly in Europe, about our capacity for leadership have been significantly reduced. We have the best opportunity in a decade to establish unity among our allies, particularly in the Atlantic area and the Western Hemisphere. And in the uncommitted nations, some second thoughts are likely to develop about the reliability of Soviet guarantees or about the purposes

for which they are given. The overweening self-confidence of the Soviets, which has turned almost all diplomatic contacts into probing operations for another advance, must have suffered a severe blow. We should now be able to confront the Soviets with both confidence and moderation. Henceforth, moderation will appear an act of policy, for it is a virtue only in those who are thought to have a choice.

But in order to draw the proper lessons from the Cuban crisis, we owe it to ourselves not to confuse ourselves with irrelevancies. Already one reads about the need to save Khrushchev from the hard-line Stalinists. According to one version, Khrushchev has faced down the militant generals in a dramatic confrontation. Surely the time has come to declare a moratorium on such trivial speculations. It should be plain that our ability to play domestic politics in the Kremlin is extremely limited. Nor is there any evidence of a "peaceful" Khrushchev facing down hard-line Stalinists. If Khrushchev planned the Cuban adventure, it is difficult to see how much more reckless hard-line Stalinists could have been. If the Cuban policy was imposed on Khrushchev, he does not need any further assistance to prove that such tactics are bound to be disastrous.

Indeed, the administration might well take this opportunity to compare the expectations of the past two years with the actual course of events. It may be useful to consider what influence the confusion of a conciliatory tone with a conciliatory policy by so many self-appointed emissaries to the Kremlin—and by some official ones as well—had on Khrushchev's expectation that his gamble in the Caribbean would succeed.

These considerations bear also on the question of whether the lesson of Cuba is that the "tough" line has prevailed over the "soft" one in our own national councils. For too long, adjectives such as these have served as substitutes for thought. Rather than debate abstract words like "tough" and "soft," we now have an opportunity to clarify the substance of the programs to which any such words must refer. Those who press for immediate resumption of nego-

November 22, 1962

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tiations do not generate a program; the reverse is true. In the absence of a clear purpose, negotiating tactics predominate over substance. This leads to the exaltation of "negotiability," which is often merely a way of trying to discover the minimum terms the Soviets will settle for. It produces the constant demand for "new ideas" which, while unexceptionable in itself, may only serve to prevent the Soviets from accepting any American proposal, since a better one may be coming along any minute.

No purpose would be served if we returned to the weary treadmill of proposals that have been repeated so often that their tired phrases seem to have become ends in themselves. We now have the opportunity to define what we stand for rather than go through a shopping list of Soviet demands in an effort to determine which of them may be tolerable. In particular, the best time to articulate our notion of a settlement in Central Europe is *before* another Berlin crisis is upon us and while the impetus of our action in Cuba still invigorates the alliance.

## Prudence and Intuition

For too long the Western Alliance has been beset by doubts, recriminations, and uncertainty. In strategy and diplomacy it has failed to establish its priorities. The President's handling of the Cuban crisis has given us another chance to vindicate the leadership of the West. And here is where our greatest opportunity lies. The "great design" for Atlantic partnership still remains to be realized, but for the first time in years the moral basis for it exists. The

Alliance for Progress can also be pursued with greater mutual conviction. Even the uncommitted nations should have been shaken out of their complacency and shallowness by the concurrent shocks of Cuba and the Chinese invasion of India. There is now therefore a possibility for us to free our relations with the new nations from the inhibitions of a dialogue between opportunism and sentimentality.

Whether we can seize this opportunity depends on an intangible issue: the attitudes of our government toward the most difficult problem of policymaking, that of conjecture. The dilemma of any statesman is that he can never be certain about the probable course of events. In reaching a decision, he must inevitably act on the basis of an intuition that is inherently unprovable. If he insists on certainty, he runs the danger of becoming a prisoner of events.

His resolution must reside not in "facts" as commonly conceived but in his vision of the future.

The Cuban crisis raises some questions in this respect. The administration has demonstrated skill, daring, and decisiveness in dealing with a problem once it was recognized. A number of doubts remain about the time required to assess the nature of the Soviet build-up. This is not exclusively a problem of our intelligence setup. It is above all a question of the criteria of certainty by which a government operates. We shall not be able to wait everywhere for "hard" intelligence about Soviet intentions. Most situations will prove more ambiguous, most opportunities will appear less clear. The challenge, then, is to couple the prudence, calculation, and skill of a government of experts with an act of imagination that encompasses the opportunities before us.

BERRY

# Where Do We Go from Victory?

MAX FRANKEL

PITY the Washington Policy Maker. He is burdened, after Cuba, with new prowess, respect, and momentum and therefore with guilt. Unexpected challenge has suddenly turned into unwanted opportunity. But Policy Maker wants to be a gracious winner, to be loved, not feared. Initiative seems almost as unwelcome as it is unaccustomed. He goes to his analyst, the Kremlinologist.

For the Kremlinologist, as for any analyst, business is good when times are bad. He is trained to see danger, not opportunity. And he treats the

ailment, not the patient. He is today less concerned with what else Washington might do to the Kremlin than with what the Kremlin might not do to Washington. And with what the Kremlin might do for the Kremlin.

Policy Maker, thy guilt is just; he says. For to the Kremlinologist Communism is schizophrenic. Some Communists are better than others; the trouble with the Cuban affair was that Washington was forced to triumph over the better ones. So there is danger

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