On both these counts the United States should serve clear public notice that its policies are going to change. The Third World is the battleground on which much of the present phase of World War III is being fought. It is in the interests of Third World peoples and nations, as well as our own, that our side prevail. If we win World War III, all peoples can survive and go their own way, with the chance to advance toward freedom and prosperity. If the Soviets win, all will become slaves and satellites.
Nations confronting Soviet-supported threats need arms to defend themselves, and this includes the majority of such regimes that are nondemocratic as well as the minority that might be called democratic. We should not collapse in a flutter when accused of being “arms merchants.” In World War II we proudly declared ourselves “the arsenal of democracy.” In World War III it is just as vital that our friends have the arms to defend themselves. We should be less fastidious and more forthcoming in supplying arms where they are needed to stem the Soviet advance. We should stop condemning a friendly government and refusing it aid when its existence is threatened, merely because its elections are no more honest than our own have sometimes been in places like Boston or Chicago. Even if the regime is repressive or authoritarian, the communist alternative is likely to be not only worse for the West, but worse for the people of the country itself.
A more fundamental step we should take is to knock down the “no trespassing” signs that surround the Soviet empire and that have limited the war to our side of the border. We should declare that henceforth we will consider ourselves as free to forage on the Soviet side as they have been to forage on ours.
This does not mean automatically supporting any and all liberation movements within the Soviet sphere. The same sort of practical constraints that kept the West from intervening to help the Hungarians in 1956 and the Czechs in 1968, for example, still operate, and it would be a cruel disservice to hold out false hopes of assistance to those who would not receive it. But we should consider ourselves free to support those we perceive it is in our interest to support, either overtly or covertly, and we should do so without apology. A popular, pro-Western rebel leader such as Jonas Savimbi in communist-ruled Angola should not be turned away when he comes to the United States seeking support.
• • •
A strategy for victory requires, over the long term, that we check Soviet strengths and exploit Soviet weaknesses. The principal Soviet strength is military, and Soviet strategy is based on force. Economically, we outproduce them. In terms of providing what people want, of satisfying the strivings of the human spirit, there simply is no contest between the two systems; the West wins hands down. The Soviets can conquer, but they can never persuade. Moscow has been very successful in extending its domination over other nations, but totally unsuccessful in winning the support of the people of those nations.
More than 2,000 years ago the ancient Chinese strategist Sun Tzu set forth this principle: Engage with the ch’eng—the ordinary, direct force—but win with the ch’i—the extraordinary, indirect force. In his wisdom he saw that the two are mutually reinforcing and that the way to victory is by the simultaneous use of both.
In our own time we have no choice but to engage with the ch’eng—to counterpose our military strength to that of the Soviet Union, to hold our alliances together and increase the combined strength of the West. This is the way to avoid defeat; this is the way to contain Soviet advance. It is an essential first step, just as the tide has to stop coming in before it goes out. The next step—to go on toward victory, to win with the ch’i—is at once more complex, more subtle, and more demanding. Yet here again the West has the greatest advantages, if only we can marshal and use them.
This requires patience. It requires perseverance. The pattern of Soviet advance has been two steps forward and, occasionally, one step backward; the pattern of a successful reversal of that advance will be one step backward and two steps forward.
Defeat, if it comes, is likely to be incremental, coming upon us with that “gradualism and apparent inevitability” that Acheson warned of. By the same token, victory, if it comes, will come step by careful step, and it will be achieved by avoiding missteps. We have to learn to recognize incremental gains as real gains. The direction of change, the momentum of history, as it is perceived by the leaders of other nations, will be a vital element in our success or failure. We will have to work at the small victories that, cumulatively, will reverse the backward momentum and signal those leaders looking for a bandwagon that the West is moving forward. When a river floods, those who live along its unprotected banks gather up their belongings and flee to safety. But those who live on protected banks are secure against the flood. The combination of the West’s military strength and its demonstrated will to use it is, in effect, a levee that will contain the rising river of Soviet expansionism. As long as that levee remains high enough and sound enough, the nations that live along its banks will have the courage to stand rather than flee. As more stand successfully, more will be emboldened to join them in making a stand.
• • •
The Soviets’ goal is total victory and everything they do is designed to achieve that goal. Their favorite tactic is to identify a potential Western or Third World weak point, and then concentrate overwhelming force on that particular point. At various times that weak point has been an unstable government, as in Italy; an unpopular government, as in Nicaragua; a nation’s will, as in their attempts to win the Vietnam War on the American home front; or guilt, as in their efforts to make the West defensive about anything to which the communists attach the label “imperialism.” They have had some very significant successes with these tactics, but they too have weak points, on which they are extremely vulnerable.
One weak point is that they consistently act in ways that make them intensely unpopular. Their aggressive bullying breeds an angry response in others. To the Soviets, alliances are only a pit stop on the road to satellization; other nations are targets of aggression, potential Soviet Socialist Republics. When Lenin commented that “we will support Kerensky as the rope does the hanged man,” he neatly defined the nature of Soviet friendship. This has not been lost on those whose friendship the Soviets seek to cultivate.
When they do get a foot in the door, the Soviets often behave so boorishly and heavy-handedly that their hosts throw them out. Soviet advisers were thrown out of Egypt in 1972 and Somalia in 1977. Pro-Soviet governments were ousted in Chile in 1973, in Peru in 1976, and in Ghana in 1966. Nor do they always manage to establish a foothold when they try. Communist or communist-backed rebellions have been put down in many countries, including Greece in 1949, the Philippines in 1953, Malaya in 1960, the Congo in 1962, and Oman in 1975. Communist coup attempts have been successfully foiled in the Dominican Republic and Indonesia in 1965, in the Sudan in 1971, in Portugal in 1975, and in many other places as well.
• • •
The Chinese formerly referred to the Soviets as their “elder brother”; now China has become the Soviet Union’s bitterest enemy, a giant that shares 4,000 miles of border with the U.S.S.R. and claims parts of its territory.
There has been a great deal of talk about “playing the China card.” This talk is insulting to the Chinese, who do not like to be considered a “card” to be “played.” Some say we sought closer relations with Peking during my administration so we could use the Chinese against Moscow, and that Moscow was then forced to seek better relations with us. This is a valid assessment, but it is only a half-truth. Even if there had been no differences between Russia and China, it would still have been in our interest to improve relations with China. Further, as Henry Kissinger has pointed out, the notion “that we use China to annoy the Soviets as a penalty for Soviet conduct” is dangerous for two reasons: because “China is an extremely neuralgic point for the Soviet Union and they may not react rationally,” and also because “it may even have a bad effect in Peking. If we improve our ties with Peking in order to punish the Soviet
Union, this may leave the implication that if we want to improve our relations with the Soviet Union or if the Soviet Union makes some concessions to us, we may lower the level of our activities with Peking. So we ought to have a settled, long-range policy.”
It is in our interest to have a strong China, because a weak China invites aggression and increases the danger of war. We and our European allies should do what is necessary to see that China acquires the military strength necessary to provide for its defense. For their part, the Chinese want to see a strong and resolute United States. If they see us backing down before the Soviets, they may decide that their interests lie in a rapprochement with the Soviet Union—not because they will suddenly agree with the Soviets or stop hating and fearing them, but because the combination of Soviet strength and U.S. weakness will cause them to reassess where their interests lie.
Promoting Sino-Soviet rivalry cannot, in and of itself, be a U.S. policy. But the rivalry is there, and it provides an opportunity, an environment, in which to design a policy. Triangular diplomacy can work to our advantage or our disadvantage. As long as that rivalry persists, however, it not only ties down a large portion of the Soviet forces militarily and affects the overall balance of power; it also seriously undermines the Soviet position in the Third World. In speaking to many Third World leaders China has credentials the United States cannot match. They will listen to Chinese warnings when they might discount our own.
• • •
The Soviets have reason to feel insecure. Theirs is a system that can only be kept in power by force. Wherever their capacity to exercise force weakens, their rule is threatened.
The peoples of Eastern Europe hate their Russian overlords. In the short term the chance that any of these nations will detach itself from the Soviet embrace is slim. The Soviets have shown that they have the will to use whatever force it takes to crush an East European rebellion. They know how shaky their hold is on Eastern Europe and how vulnerable the whole area would be to the “domino effect” if one nation should successfully break free. But Eastern Europe will remain a perpetual problem for the Soviet Union. The peoples of Eastern Europe have tasted freedom, something the Russian people have never tasted, except for a few brief months in 1917. Eventually, unless the Soviet Union first succeeds in its goal of world domination, the nations of Eastern Europe will become free.
Until they do, suppressing their urge to freedom will be a constant drain on Soviet resources. When they do, the Soviets may find that they cannot post a “quarantine” sign on their own borders to keep out the contagion of freedom.
Among the strongest potential allies we have in the struggle against the Kremlin leadership are the people of the Soviet Union. As one of the most powerful voices of the Russian people, Alexander Solzhenitsyn has pointed out: “All oppressed peoples are on the side of the West: the Russians, the various nationalities of the U.S.S.R., the Chinese, and the Cubans. Only by relying on this alliance can the West’s strategy succeed. Only together with the oppressed will the West constitute the decisive force on earth. These people are communism’s Achilles heel. They can be freedom’s secret weapon if we recognize their immense strategic importance.”
History shows that among nations, alignments change. In World War II we and the Soviet Union fought together against Germany and Japan; now Japan and West Germany are our allies against the Soviet Union. China was our ally in World War II, then our enemy in Korea and Vietnam; now China is, not our ally, but our friend, and the enemy of the Soviet Union.
As we look at the potential strengths of the Western side, we can count among them not only our allies but also those other nations that stand in an uneasy relation to the Soviet Union, half in and half out of the Soviet embrace. Even if they do not come over to our side, we gain when they move away from the Soviet side.
The freely associated nations of the West can use all their forces to ward off aggression. The Soviet Union has to use part of its forces to keep its “allies” under control. The Western alliance is strengthened by the innate desire of man to be free. The Soviet Union is vulnerable to the innate resistance of man to tyranny.
• • •
In this struggle, the strength of the Soviets is military. They seek victory through aggression and intimidation; in order to achieve this, they seek military superiority. They rule by force, and they seek to extend their rule by force.
We must check this ambition. We must have the strength and the will to prevent their winning by force. But then we must carry the struggle into those areas where they are weak and we are strong. Despite their strength militarily, they fail utterly at providing what people want.
People want peace. They want material progress. They want to be free from foreign domination. They want the “higher values”—freedom of speech, travel, worship, choice; liberty in all its aspects.
The Soviets promise peace, and bring war; they promise economic progress, and bring poverty; they promise “liberation,” and bring a new imperialism; they promise freedom, and bring slavery. In all these areas, their own record is the best answer to their rhetoric. Wherever the Soviets and the West are matched in competition, there simply is no contest.
We must hold the line against aggression, both direct and indirect, so that those who opt for the West need not fear that they will be on the losing side. We must stand by our friends, so that those who want to be our friends will not fear to be our friends. We should use our enormous economic power to further the progress of our friends, and to squeeze our potential enemies.
• • •
In the short term—if we restore the strength of our defenses—we can halt, and then turn back, the tide of Soviet advance by concentrating our efforts in the immediate target areas and showing a steadfast determination to do what is necessary to keep aggression from succeeding. As the nations of the West grow stronger, as they visibly muster their will, as they demonstrate that they will not repeat the mistakes of Munich, two things will happen. Third World leaders who want to ride with a winner will look more respectfully on the West, calculating the advantages that friendly relations with us can bring. And the Soviet leaders will reevaluate the costs of adventurism, recognizing that as the strength, cohesion, and will of the West increase arithmetically, the costs of aggression will go up geometrically.
Over the longer term we can encourage peaceful evolution within the Soviet Union itself. However, this is a task not of decades but of generations. Pressed too rapidly, it would bring a brutal repression; developed gradually, so that it less directly threatens those in power at any given time, it can gradually show results, just as it did under the Tsars in the nineteenth century.
• • •
The task that confronts us is not one for the United States alone. As the present threat to the Persian Gulf makes starkly clear, the entire West has an immediate stake in the struggle. So do the threatened nations themselves. It makes no sense for the United States to provide the arms, the money, and the men to meet every crisis. There are more than 3 billion people outside the Soviet bloc, of which only 200 million are Americans. As the French have shown in Africa, sometimes our allies can respond more effectively than we can, especially in areas with which they have a long familiarity. The oil-rich Moslem nations of the Persian Gulf share a common interest in defending their own independence, and Islam, against any expansion of the Soviet thrust into Afghanistan. But the West does look to the United States for leadership. And the Soviets do look at the United States in calculating what they can get away with.
If the Soviet leaders look westward and see an American leadership that eyes their moves in a measured way, that clearly refuses to bow, that walks without faltering, that knows what it is doing, that is determined to do whatever has to be done in order to ensure the survival and security of the West, then those Soviet leaders will not be tempted to gamble all in a high-stakes throw of the dice. They will make their cost-benefit analyses, and postpone or abandon ambitions that no longer seem wo
rth the candle. Then we will see how preparation for war can help avert war; how having strength can free us from the necessity of using it.
I have often cited Sir Robert Thompson’s equation: national power equals applied resources plus manpower times will. The will to use power multiplies its effectiveness; when that will is clearly perceived by the adversary, the actual application of power may be unnecessary.
Power by itself is neutral; it can be used for good or for evil. Its results are not measured by intentions. Power used with good intentions, but ineptly, can be as destructive as power used with bad intentions. The greatest tragedy of all, however, occurs when those who have power fail to use it, and because of that failure lives and even freedom itself are lost.
The human spirit has time and again transcended the most terrible assaults on it; civilizations fall to barbarians, but eventually barbarism succumbs to civilization. But this victory of the spirit takes place over a very long term. Our challenge now is to show that a particular civilization—ours—can triumph over a particular barbarism—Soviet communism—so that freedom will be preserved for our children and grandchildren.
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The Sword and the Spirit
There are only two powers in the world, the sword and the spirit. In the long run the sword will always be conquered by the spirit.
—Napoleon
Britain’s former Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, still crisply lucid at eighty-five, recently compared the present situation in the world with that in Europe before World War II. “Speaking honestly,” he declared, “I would say that we are now at 1935 or 1936.” He went on to warn: “We can save ourselves only by looking at the realities, and by organizing the resistance which we must create if what we have won in two world wars we shall not lose in the third.”
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