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Good evening and welcome to the Sunday forum. Tonight we're presenting highlights from the recently held 50 First School of International Relations sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts. The session was recorded at Tufts University in Medford on January 24th 1073 the topic was the United States and its alliances. And the session was divided into two parts the first on the origins and growth of the Cold War and the second on the future of alliances. Their participants included Professor William Griffith professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Charles Mayer assistant professor of history at Harvard. Yuri Ronn professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts. Robert W. Tucker professor of political science at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University and the moderator was a former Massachusetts state representative Michael Dukakis who more recently has served as the moderator of the advocates see nationally on the Public Broadcasting Service.
It's a particular pleasure for me to be with you because despite my exposure to at least a few national and international issues on the advocates. Most of my involvement obviously in the commonwealth has been in the hurly burly of state politics and it's not often that we have an opportunity to be able to sit back and listen as people talk about the fundamental issues of foreign affairs and international relations as we're going to do today so I'm looking forward as one individual to listening and I think being educated on what in my judgment has to be the critical foreign policy issue facing the United States today. The president as we all know it announced that that incredible and difficult and almost impossible war is apparently now over. Whatever that means and in his inaugural address just a few days ago he suggested at least that the United States was going to be adopting for itself a somewhat different view of its role in the
world than it had heretofore. Done at least during what might be called the Cold War period of the 50s in the early 60s. And yet if you listen to the president's address he made it clear that as he said we continued to consider the government of the Republic of South Vietnam whatever that is. The legitimate song legitimate government of South Vietnam which suggests that while we may be moving in new directions we still apparently have a foot in the 50s and 60s as well and we are still thinking in terms of alliances and the recognition of governments and the approval of some in the disapproval of others. Which only goes I think to demonstrate and illustrate that there is a kind of schizophrenia about all of this which affects the American public both all of us as citizens and our elected officials of both parties.
We talk about winding down our role as the world's policeman and yet we're still talking in many cases in it and many times as if we're back in the era of the 50s and 60s when alliances and treaties and commitments around the world were part and parcel of our foreign policy and in fact one of the really critical elements of the debate over Vietnam has been whether or not we had or have a commitment to somebody in the first boss. And the proponents of the war at least support of the present policy I think have made that commitment. The South Vietnamese government one of the keystones of their policy as they attempt to wind down the war. So the question of our alliances and our role in the world is very much with us as I've said. I think it's the critical issue of the foreign policy of the 70s and perhaps the 80s and 90s and that's going to be the subject of our discussion this morning. And first That's a Charles Mayer he is an assistant professor of history at Harvard.
He has made a specialty of your modern European history and in particular the Cold War. He is currently on sabbatical leave from Harvard and is helping former ambassador and Governor Avril Harriman with the preparation of his memoirs of his diplomatic service I tell you this academic life is wonderful. You have those kinds of opportunities. And he is going to lead off this morning by addressing us for no more than 25 minutes. On the origins and structures of the Cold War resume. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Dukakis. I think that some of you some of you have asked whether I am playing the role of house radical today in a sort of political game of political symmetry I should make it clear at the outset that I'm not speaking here to represent the
position of the left or really to represent a particular political position in advance. I think that as the I will try and present fairly what I think are the critical views of what we roughly call the left toward their foreign policy of the last generation and questions debate may arise. But I should make it clear from the outset that I am not here as house revisionist or house house radical. I think this is this is an appropriate day to discuss this. This question of our alliances. I think we're all grateful today that this this wretched war is finally drawing to a close. And I think in view of the cease fire it's appropriate to ask what we were fighting for fighting for in Vietnam and how it fits in with the generation of American policy. I think by this time there are a few who would not feel that Vietnam aren't our role in Vietnam became if it did not originate as a tragic error tragic in
many ways. First of all of course in the extent the destruction. Wrought upon Vietnamese society our own society in more subtle ways and in terms of those killed and wounded tragic to I think many would agree in our coming into conflict with a group which the more we looked at it seemed to be less directed and a puppet of some distant communist capital. Then one created by a local revolutionary situation and bred in the collapse of the French and other colonial society in Vietnam. And. Finally tragic for the for the regimes that the type of regimes that we have tolerated as legitimate expressions of self-determination in South Vietnam. Well for those of us with a historical interest the question remains. Was this long effort in Vietnam a logical sense an inevitable outgrowth of the Cold War of the thrust of American foreign policy
since the Second World War. And that's the question that I would like to address. Today. Unfortunately it was the Dukakis Brown which has to be rather ruthless and we academics are secret is it just used to talking 50 minutes which is their customary. But I will try and be to the point. I my coming through on this infernal apparatus. Good. Was the effort in Vietnam then a logical and inevitable outgrowth of the Cold War. What is the Cold War. By this I mean the confrontation with communism and communist powers in a sense is misbegotten and effort is our fight in Vietnam. Was it perhaps unnecessary and was it based on a view of an enemy which was overdrawn and exaggerated. These questions have been posed about the origins of the Cold War by a group that we lumped together today. Revisionist historical revisionist. And I think it's instructive especially at the beginning of a day long session where the United States has been where it is
going to sort out their view their views and refresh their memory about the beginnings of the Cold War. At the time it developed in the aftermath of World War Two and most Americans saw simple development behind the Cold War a Stalinist Russia which had despond the objective of commun I think as much of the world as it could for the sake of its alliance it desperately needed to fight the Germans in World War Two reverted after 1945 to a sort of Bolshevism that was to be imposed by force and subversion. This was the orthodox view and the US according to this view could not resist the events where Soviet armies had marched. That is in Eastern Europe. But by firmness over Iran and in forty six in Greece and Turkey in the announcement of the Truman Doctrine in 47 in reconstructing West Europe with the Marshall Plan of 47 and 48 in the formation of NATO's. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949. Finally by resisting
aggression in Korea the US according to this view contained the outward thrust of communism by the 1960s However as probably most of you are at least familiar in some hazy sense and many of you perhaps in detail. This view was under widespread challenge and I want to I will consider the counter arguments not in the order in which they were raised but in the sense grouping them by logical theme. The religion is united in saying first that we were provocative the United States was provocative and had forced the Soviets to act in a defensive measure in Eastern Europe and clamping down front what they considered friendly i.e. communist governments in Eastern Europe. We were provocative in several ways. One some said we had shown bad faith during the Second World War itself. We had not opened up a second front in northern Europe when Russia was bearing but I thought that the brunt of the war in terms of manpower. Secondly and perhaps most
crucially of the issues at the root of the Cold War we supported a reactionary London Polish government in exile in London and this government refused the reasonable border concessions the religion of which Stalin demanded to have security against any German resurgence after the war. Consequently Stalin was forced to support a counter government of Polish communists that would give him the territorial arrangements roughly pushing the Polish borders westward as they are today. A government that would sanction these arrangements which he thought necessary to protect against the Soviet Union territorially against the revival of Germany. And indeed the Polish issue is worth stressing because now having done a fair amount of work in the cold war having followed investor Harriman's documents through this period I think that was at the nucleus of developing mistrust as it emerged
in late 44 45 as Germany was collapsing in Europe. The recognition of the Communists was admittedly a government of not entities in Poland by Stalin alienated Roosevelt as well as from a likewise in Romania a comparable situation a row as the Soviets supposedly going to the revisionist inserted their own friendly government to protect themselves against the Germans against a fifth column as they as they fought the and the last stages of the war. And moreover say the revisionists the the Soviets had given us undisputed control over reconstructing Italy after the war and Greece and expected control of Romania in return when we bought a pro-Western government or for governments that allowed the participation of liberals the Soviets reacted defensively and used a measure of coercion through communist controlled Interior Ministry's and and resorted to sense
as a defensive measure to the process that occurred in the late 40s of making these governments ever. Tightly control and into satellites. Then the revisionists say there was provoke provocation further several economic issues Lend-Lease the aid which the United States had extended in the war materials. The revisionist feel was cut off abruptly and brutally to the Soviets immediately after the European war ended in May 1945. A postwar credit such as we extended to Great Britain to the extent of three or four billion dollars could have been extended to the Soviet Union but the State Department according to the revision is delayed and delayed. This very their request and this and refused to extend the credit unless political concessions were given in return for little concessions which they never receive. Finally there was a hassle over German reparations in which the revisionists believe
simple justice dictated that it devastated Russia should have her. Her will by and large that after Germany had destroyed virtually all the industrial equipment and vast amounts of housing in western Russia it was only good sense and equity that the Russians should be able to make claims upon Germany. We agreed under Roosevelt but we reverted to our fly on this stand under Truman that is between February 1945 and July 19. Well finally there are important arguments we associate with specific provision that go out Rowan's has raised the question of the atomic bomb and essentially suggest that we use the atomic bomb on Japan not to defeat Japan because Japan most people recognised was headed for inevitable defeat by this time. But really to a nominal allies the Russians and to show them that we that we had this sort of
Trungpa now and also to shorten the war so that Russia would be able to get less out of her participation in Manchuria. I think this is one of the most. This is an argument perhaps that has created more stir. Then any other because of the the charge of immorality and of ruthlessness that underlies that it suggests. Secondly there is a group identifies with William Appleman Williams and more recently Gabriel Kolko who suggests that the cold originated not because Truman say was that Roosevelt or more of a bumpkin and didn't know how to deal with the Russians but because the basic structure of United States capitalism demanded that we try and integrate areas of the world into a semi dependent economy. That American capitalism to avoid a relapse into the unemployment of the 30s required markets and investments throughout the world and that our insistence upon the
open door. That is our access to markets and investment led the Russians in Eastern Europe to react in the way we associate with the imposition of satellite. And cocoa indeed argues essentially that the world of the United States was seeking to make the world safe for capitalism. Trying to make. As I said Eastern Europe and other areas since banana republics to put it a little provocatively of the depended upon the United States and that consequently our enemies the enemies of the United States. When the left in all these countries independent radical movements who resisted this this attempt by the United States the Cocos twists the originality and where the revisionist argument finally lies is that we misidentified the left. The independent left in these countries with Moscow. Left for call for the modern revisionists are sort of peasant movements. And here are the revisionists do
see a strain that goes from the resistance movements who fought the Germans and Italy and France. To Tito fought the Germans and Yugoslavia to Japanese and China. Finally a lot of the movements like Castro's movement and the NLF the National Liberation Front in South Vietnam that roughly all these are. Movements that were developed against. Outside conquerors. And that they were rough equivalents of each other at the peasants fighting in the NLF are really the heirs of the Italian resistance to the Germans in the last stage of world war 2 or to Tito and that the US is a reactionary power most fear these movements because they interfere with the Germanic designs but says the Soviet Union fears them too. And he cites Stalins dislike of Mao Tito in 1945 so our identification of the Soviet
Union was a panicky era in the Cold War in a sense was a mistake in so far as it led the United States to confront Soviet Russia in Europe. Ultimately for these writers like what you call go American capitalism that is at fault. This is a rather bleak diagnosis because it seems hard to change the economic structure of the country. Well in this view of course it does appear as the climax of a policy that was started a generation ago. And it seems almost an inevitable outgrowth of the economic structures of this country in which we depend upon the consumption and the private market to absorb the great productive energies that we have. OK those are the revisionist views that we have and how do we evaluate these claims. Now at this point if I were the revisionist I would say. I think the picture is more subtle and I hope you will bear
with me that of picking and choosing the historical issues must be fought out individual individually some of them are are of greater and some of lesser merit. It is true I believe that a Stalin could have seen provocative action on our part. Truman's language in his early period of inexperience was often harsh it was not the conciliatory words that Roosevelt had constantly used in an effort to keep the alliance together and create the United Nations. Why should we not have ceded him Eastern Europe and allowed him this security. And especially since we all knew the Soviet Union and others recognize that Poland was in some sense critical to Soviet security feelings in Eastern Europe. And why couldn't we have been more graceful on economic issues because these were relatively cheap concessions to make it. Well I think the revisionists are right in the sense that Stalin was in a certain sense conservative in the sense that he was thinking about the territorial security of the
Soviet Union and the security of its regime. But he was not thinking about imposing communism throughout the world throughout Europe. I think history does show it was a sober diplomat kept his wartime commitments. Nevertheless I think there was a certain inevitability about the origins of a regional Soviet American confrontation. The United States could not just simply have written off Eastern Europe and said OK Stalin that's your chunk of the pie and Western Europe is our chunk of the pie. The warden thought after all for Universalist objectives a grandma prosy and self-determination our streak of Wilsonian. Now some objected to this canon objected to this in the 1950s as you may know there was a whole school of realist that was their term foreign policy writers who said that in a sense we should approach foreign policy more in a Machiavellian in a route politics sort of way and not
worry about the universal objectives but I think their objection implied making phone calls taking foreign policy completely out of the Democratic arena and making it completely sort of the subject of the executive service until Richard Nixon This had never been achieved. Now with Henry Kissinger who was Afro foreign minister in the old style in a sense we may be on our way to doing it. I'm not sure the result was a hit. But in any case I don't think it was in the cards and 45 to have written off Eastern Europe. We had to contest the governments we had to. Who are any Democrat United States government was probably compelled by electoral opinion and just a general feelings of decency to object. What were communists and known communists and rather ruthless Communists put in charge of the ministries of the interior. Secondly I believe the atomic bomb issue was raised by a heroic is in a sense a red
herring. I don't think the record shows that we use the bomb to overawe the Soviets the planning for this had been in the works. There may have been a sort of terrible. So the lack of empathy in their use of it on Asian people. But the fact what we can be accused of a certain mechanism and a certain lack of value to reconsider the implications of it. But I don't know but it was it was ground out of a war machine by its own momentum not to not be not because we thought that we would have one up on the Soviet Union to use it and in fact it didn't. While most people felt Japan was soon to collapse the collective authorities United States could not take the risk and felt they could not go the American people and saying we did not use this last thing to shorten the war. Especially if they fear that Japan might have to be invaded in a very costly invasion. Thirdly America of course is a capitalist. This does not require the revisionist
to look to illuminate us its foreign policy mechanism answers to the two economic considerations. But and I think this does lead to a certain narrow in the policy and some of the shameful policy in the third world and what it leads to great worries about revolutionary regimes and conflicts of issue in Latin America. I think here that our relations with Castro as they emerge in 59 60 and 61 were a tragic error that didn't arise and would not have arisen had let's say the structures of economic power in this country been different. But this was not the stake in Eastern Europe despite America's insistence on free trade. We did not have economic interests there and few people suggested that we can contest these areas because of economic interests. If you look at the telegrams what you see is concern about opposition about liberals but people of the peasant
parties of this area gradually being deprived of their rights of free expression and losing control over the ministries of the Interior which were the center of police power in these countries. So I don't think that capitalism is really the state in a direct sense in South Vietnam. Well this deals with the question of origins of the Cold War and as I say this is a mixed bag. Yes provide the United States with provocative in many ways I think could have handled things with more subtlety and yet I believe a certain inevitability about the confrontation was was necessary after all German. How about you been in the center of Europe since 1938 that is controlling a good deal of countries outside Germany suddenly collapse both the West and the east Russia to fill this vacuum. We had hitherto had an ideological opposition to Bolshevism or communism. Now in the wake of this collapse it for all we were fighting in the same territory and trampling on the same venue was bound to lead to some conflict.
Well what about the further course of development. Very briefly here I think the revisionist thrust is more maybe more just by the escalation of the Cold War not the origins is something that I view as a more of an avoidable and in a sense more tragic then the origins of this confrontation because it required imposing upon the United States or entailed an anti-communist consensus. The growth of what we consider to be McCarthyism I think here we have to look at the events in the late 40s and early 50s we reacted very strongly to Soviet presence in Iran in 1906. We took it when the British defaulted on their allied commitments to Greece and Turkey in 47 we Gen up we stepped into the breach and to get congressional support President Truman generalize this into a commitment to support free countries against subversion or aggressive aggression from outside anywhere any time in a sense that
we. Escalated the stakes of the universe ality of the Cold War. At home we have left because of various political competitions between Republicans and Democrats fearing to be burned on the anti-communist issue when we imposed the doxy of perception in our country which I think was probably disastrous. Secondly we went on to a military response and this is the first about post-war alliances NATO. I think it is for this military response we may have greatly overestimated the power of Soviet strength in Eastern Europe and I think we may have overestimated its downs intent to march westward. We certainly overestimated in the 50s we we the idea that we made a basic error in thinking that we could both integrate Germany is the keystone of the Western alliance and then have East Germany sort of just join up with West Germany. However for at least 10 years this was the line that Dulles and now our and others felt that by integrating West Germany we were more likely to get is Germany too. It's only in
the last months that the West Germans have finally come to terms with. This issue would recognize that two German states must exist. Well they don't however at first Alliance didn't have a purpose besides the crude defensive one and I think revisionists may lose it here. It gave some credibility to the United States determination to say it made us. A hostage in Western Europe but said that we regarded this area as an event vital to our own defense interests and it prevented a moral collapse that is a collapse if Soviet pressure was applied directly. It prevented the sense of things being given away as much as the Western Allies had given away chunks of Czechoslovakia in 38. There are indirect uses of of our. And frankly this is one of the reasons that I'm a little locked in to endorse the Mansfield amendment today which would have us bring back our troops. Well.
Again I will turn and say I think Nader was a. Sensing a qualified achievement of American diplomacy. I think in the terms in which it was presented were perhaps crude terms in simplistic terms that is a response to a real direct Soviet threat of marching to Paris or beyond. However what it really did however in strengthening the Western regimes and in preventing a sense of panic and the internal changes in these countries that is exceeding large chunks of communist influence as well as had happened in Czechoslovakia with her had was worth doing. Well one is this qualified assessment of the coords ardent developments to 1050 leave us in respect to judging the revisionist claims of US imperialism and where does it take us in considering U.S. foreign policy today. And this is I think what I can usefully conclude because I think
the left this was where the developer left us with certain and it caps it left us with a certain test of strength mentality. Every area where the culture economy moonshots what you will it was seen to be it was justified our aspirations were justified not in terms of their inherent value but in terms of beating the Soviets least this was the case until perhaps five years ago and this is a mentality that continued under Kennedy I believe and I think it certainly continues and it under Nixon. I mean if Nixon going to the Washington Redskins playing Peking 11 he would. That would be the ultimate justification of the Washington Redskins. Thank you. I I just hope it color plays better.
Secondly I think just as greatly it left an inability to evaluate and assess what an independent radical left meant in each of these countries we had to deal with. Here I agree with the revisionists but not necessarily for their reasons. I think our perceptions of local revolutionary or resistance movements of which the FLN is a descendant we must remember that the movement that the capital with which we are going to sign some initial piece yesterday will bring a cease fire been set it is has been fighting first US then then the French and in part the Japanese and before that the French for 30 years or more. You know these moments are not just agrarian reform is to use an old expression they're not anti-authoritarian necessarily they have their ugly side and they can impose upon their own country requires you know vast sort of upheaval and something turns that requires
dispossessing elites wise take over land and generally it's accompanied by processes of violence that we find hard sitting in America to condone. However they are often more legitimate aspirants national aspirants more legitimate have a better claim I think on the Genom of power than our discredited conservative candidates. If that is you and me if you look at Greece Cuba Yugoslavia China. I'm the. On the contrary our forte as it has has been brainpower confrontation in 1946 we handle this in one hundred forty seven forty eight over Greece and Turkey and one thousand sixty two. The Cold War whether it trained us for bipolar confrontation between Moscow and Washington or whether now in the age which has a grip of development of all the senses a multi-polar that is many centers of power you know and a return to the balance of power confrontation
still what it has left us with and what we are best at is a dealing with nation states who and figuring out how to live and how to pose. And despite its expansion of the game despite the change in terms of the Cold War we still are trained for a game of nation state confrontation and I would like to suggest closing that this may be our weakness. Kissinger and Nixon like Metternich. I can deal with established powers but better than national movements we remain ironically unable to judge and live with areas of where nation states do not really exist the areas of semi sovereignty and nationalist rebellion and the lessons of the Cold War Alternately do not lie in determining whether the revisionists are right or wrong are they lying shellac however confirmed. Was it a reluctance to give legitimacy to a nationalist revolutionary movement either as friend or foe. We just don't know how to handle these it took us four years to sign a peace within or at least four years and we still do not know how to cope with the National Liberation
Front which perhaps will remain on mint logo mentioned in this bs. And as a result we have I think this is a basic lesson to learn and it may prove the undoing of this fragile truce that we're signed. But. Thank you. I suppose the question we all want to as pros marriage assuming that the Peking 11 when Would President Nixon call their coaching graduate. Well you know I'm one of them. Made in that opening presentation a great many concepts an awful lot of the world covering it. I suspected it. Why take us just to analyze things. Samir spoke about I don't know how many of you are familiar with the term revisionist. Are you is it a new one for many of. You understand it. If I understand it what it means is a developing
body of academic thought among others. Many of the younger people in the academic and foreign policy scene recently have in effect suggested that the cold war psychology and the American reasons for engaging in Cold War strategy were largely manufactured by people motives and that what we should have done in the late 40s and early 50s was to be friendlier and more understanding really the fears and problems of the Soviet Union had we done that we would have had to engage in the kind of broadly based total global strategy which our cold warriors and I use that term in a neutral way because they were on both sides of the fence politically in fact engaged in response to what the revisions say was for the most part threat from the Soviet Union and its allies. And our second speaker I think is uniquely equipped to deal
with that kind of revisionist view of our post-war history. He is currently a professor of political science and technology. But he was plunged into this problem during his military service as a United States Army where he was the chief of the did not speak Asian branch of United States military government in Bavaria. What do you think he was and has been a political advisor to Radio Free Europe during the 50s which is you know it was the most and financed and sponsored radio station which attempted to beam information of the kind people and used in Europe were getting through into Eastern Europe. He has been an adjunct professor of Soviet diplomacy at the Fletcher School and has written a number of books most of which concentrate on the area of. Chinese Soviet relations and he is here
and will be speaking to us on what is now a transformation of the Cold War. Thank you. Thank you very much. Let me begin by saying very briefly my point of view on the revisionist controversy. I should be brief because in the first place Charlie Maris laid out very well their theses. And secondly I agree with much of his evaluation of them in particular that they are. They validly criticize not only the emotionalism but the universalism and the making everything into an ideology of American foreign policy once the cold war got going we were too concerned with communism we were too concerned with democracy and we were and are too little concerned with Russia as a state. China as a state. Germany Japan and whatever
ideology was more important probably than it now is. In Russia and in America. In both instances it accentuated the Cold War and its decline in America and to some extent Russia has been one of the factors. But I shall argue not the main one which has led to the Cold War being transformed. Although clearly not in it. But having Russia or China not been communist had they been fashioned indeed probably had they been Democratic. I think the Cold War would have occurred. It was a structural conflict. Two major powers with a vacuum between them. The history of Russia and in some respects the history of America. Have been histories of confident nationalistic expansionist powers. Stalin's main purpose in Eastern Europe. Has been far
less I think that of having security against Germany. Of which EON had half intended to keep it as rather than to get back what the Russian Empire lost. And it's also been because he was not satisfied. Nor of the Russian his successors ever since been satisfied. With powers in Eastern Europe which would be independent domestic policy but would support Soviet foreign policy. He is not in other words been satisfied with the series of Finland. Nor have his successes. And this is likely to remain so. Let me then add only one more thing about the revisionist. But their major cast of mind appears to me as somewhat vulgar and uninformed Marxism. Marx brought many things of wisdom into the world but he also brought. I think many ideas which have been proved to be nonsense. And secondly they are informed or rather uninformed by a
massive ignorance about the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe since without exception they have been trained in the study of American foreign policy. And know little of the history and nothing of the languages nothing of the culture of the other areas the world in which they deal. Just to give you one example the Polish government in exile during the war in London was not reactionary. On the contrary it was composed primarily of the Left parties within the country. But what does one know of Poland who does not even know this. I therefore find them stimulating and in one respect the question of absolutism and ideology. Are useful corrective. But in general to be used with great caution and indeed use little if you want to read of a book which is far sounder than anything they've written read Professor out of a lamb's book from Harvard. The rivals he does know something the so you let me pick up the story now where Professor Mayer left off. With the height of
the Cold War which was clearly the Berlin blockade and the Korean War. The change that occurred thereafter is what I want to talk about and obviously brief and inevitably over simplified French. Let me begin with the year 1955 the Geneva Summit Conference. Eisenhower and Khrushchev in Geneva this happen for many reasons I will name to the death of stout. Resulted in his successors changing their foreign policy. It is not true that many great men make no difference in history. They normally make most of the difference. And Stalin although undoubtedly a bloody tyrant was a great man and he made Russia far stronger than he's ever been before his successors decided for a series of reasons to change their strategy. To begin to try to have a day taunt with the United States. A relaxation of tension but at the
same time to take a more forward position toward the Third World. And in particular toward the Middle East and India. Stalin is Professor Mayer said was in many respects conservative. Although hardly an Eastern Europe. But he did not do very much about the Third World and her stuff. Decided to continue building up the Soviet Union militarily just seek for a partial detente with the United States and to expand Russian power. Toward the areas the Czar's that always wanted to expand it. Egypt and India and I come to say more later of what success they had as to the United States. Eisenhower was indeed a man of peace. He was concerned about lowering tension. The United States I think in general has tended to reciprocate Soviet offers of detente and he was concerned and the Russians were concerned. About the second great factor. After Stalin's death which
has transformed the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union that is the existence and the danger of atomic weapons which are as Winston Churchill said. Both the terror and the guarantee of peace in our times. I don't want to say that you should love the bomb but had it not been for the atomic bomb we would probably have a war with the Soviet Union over Berlin. Sometime in the last 20 years. The atomic bomb has frozen boundaries. For it is far too risky to try to change them. It is made general war far less likely and the fear of atomic destruction the fear of an accidental war. And the fear on the part of Washington and Moscow of other countries getting the kind of atomic weapons we and the Russians that. This was the other major factor which led to detente in Europe. Because of this detente and because of the anti
Russian. And also anti communist nationalist feelings of most of the countries of Eastern Europe. The Soviet Union a sense that and from time to time had great problems. There. Poland Hungary 56 Czechoslovakia 68 the Polish seacoast riots in 1970. It is always handled them as the czars always handle Poland by brute force force the Emperor Nicholas The first said after crushing in blood the Polish rising of 1830. I cannot afford to give to the people of Poland liberties that I am forced to deny to my own people. Russia controlled most of Poland for a hundred and twenty five years and only lost it because it lost the first war. It's unlikely to give it up again soon and they set a little or nothing to do with communism. In any case the Soviets continue to have difficulties with Eastern Europe. And continue
to hold at least the northern part of it a century by military force. But they have suffered and this is one of the transformations of the Cold War. Some loss of influence in the Balkans. Albania China Yugoslavia to Yugoslavia. And Romania. Has. Partially. And brilliantly followed the Romanian tradition of centuries of picking exactly the right time to betray its a lot of. At the same time the detente and the rise of the economic power. And ppl the political stability of Western Europe. Resulted in problems for the United States with its alliances there in particular the general goal the departure of France from the NATO's integrated command. Thus the alliances of the Soviet Union Eastern Europe and the United States in Western Europe. Became more
complex. And less effective. And this was another transformation of the Cold War. Indeed the United States has been faced in the last 15 years. By a major rise of Soviet military power. And the Western European and Japanese economic power and the American military and economic position. Is less strong far less strong than it was 10 years ago. But the so we did have another problem. And this I would argue has been the major transformation of the Cold War. The collapse of the Sino-Soviet alliance. Another point which I would certainly give to the revision is about even more to people who are not revisionist but who have for some time tried. In vain to get Washington to understand the significance of this is that it took the United States a long time to understand that the Sino-Soviet Alliance had indeed collapsed.
Indeed Americans believed in the myth the proletarian internationalism that all Communists must. Necessarily be together. Long after the communists had learned that it had collapsed. This was Marxist greatest myth. It's somewhat related to the myth that many of the revisionists about the world wide association of genuine peasant radicals which I think can best be termed as Professor Stuart he was of Harvard himself once a proponent of this as a term that the two and a half International. I think it's largely a romantic myth. There are many peasant radicals but they're very different and the ones in Italy in the ones in Vietnam are about as different as one can manage in any case the Sino-Soviet dispute was caused both by nationalistic and ideological factors. Primarily I think the former you know strong Russia know strong China could probably have gotten
along. If only because Czarist Russia had torn away so much territory from China and because Stalin and Christophe were determined. To keep China essentially a second class citizen. And the International Communist movement. While trying it was determined to be equal and when the Russians refused equality. To be superior there were many other causes these were the main ones. In any case the alliance collapsed in 1050 not long before anyone in the West really believed it was in much difficulty. It collapsed in other words effectively before the Vietnam War. In the American phase of it began it collapsed about the same time shortly after Castro took over Cuba. It was followed by. An event which I think did a leg. The logical consequences of this collapse far I argue the logical consequence has been the Sino-American rapprochement and an
intensification of the sino of the Soviet American Day to the development of a political military triangle in the world. This I think has been the key transformation of the Cold War. Why was this delay. Why did not trying to immediately turn toward the United States. And why did the United States maintain so stubbornly its total hostility to China. After all if China is faced by hostile Russia and is weaker than Russia it should logically turn toward Russia as an enemy of the United States. If the United States is faced as it has been for the next the last 10 years by stronger Russia. Conflict moving toward military power play and thermonuclear missiles. Building up in the 7:00 ocean Navy Why should the United States not move toward China for Africa as a mayor when I argue that this is thinking in the outdated terms of nation states. But I prefer to deal with the real world than what I regard as the utopian hopes
that this will change in our lifetime in this respect I think. And Kissinger is perhaps wiser to study meditation than to study a left wing agrarian radicals. If this change did not occur in the six days but only in the seven days I would argue for two reasons. First the Cultural Revolution in which China turned inward on itself. And for a while seemed to be tearing itself apart. Much like the Taiping Rebellion and the boxer rebellions of the 19th century. A kind of youthful and peasant anarchist and perhaps a. Brief but. A development which paralyzed Chinese foreign policy during that period. And secondly because the United States was still involved in the Vietnam War. And therefore seemed to China militarily to be menacing its southern flank. But the preconditions therefore for the transformation of the Cold
War the development of the Sino-Soviet American trying where the end of the Cultural Revolution the winding down of the war in Vietnam. And thirdly and perhaps most decisively the enormous Russian military deployment on the Chinese frontier. The Russians have about a half million troops on the Chinese northern boundaries. The Americans had a half million troops close to the southern boundaries of China. But Nixon took them away. And the war is now ended. So China. Is believing whether correctly or not is not the point. That it is menaced by a Soviet attack. And no longer believing that is menaced by the United States. Had no alternative but to move toward the United States to invite the chief American Imperialist to Peking. And thereby. And this is what they got out of it
to make the Russians more uncertain what the Americans would do if they if the Russians did attack China. So much for proletarian internationalism. Why did the United States do it for a reason. I r would argue. That President Nixon correctly did not was for his own American sentimentalism which expects statesmen of the major power always to say what they're doing. No other nation in the world would feel it could afford this naive luxury. President Nixon did it to check rising Russian power to use the threat of China against the Russians. And this I think was also rather successful particularly after he demonstrated by the mining of my phone. Another factor in the transformation of world politics. He demonstrated to the world and to annoy that the Russians and the Chinese were perfectly prepared
to betray their allies in Hanoi in the interests of detente with the United States. And only after that was he able having face down the Russians to go to Moscow and make out there as well as he did. I don't want you to think I'm a total proponent of Nixon's foreign policy I think he did made one very serious blunder. He sacrificed much of our good relations with Japan. Which I think is far more important to China for our kid is a visit to Peking. But I think that in general the result of his policies has been the intensification of American detente with China and with the Soviet Union the Soviet Union has had other reasons for detente with the United States than China. A reason probably as important. Is its need for Western and particularly American trade technology and greater.
Well Russia has been moving up to parity with the United States militarily. It has been drastically falling behind the United States in technology. And sense the Russian rulers seem unwilling to carry out the drastic reforms that would be required to bring them their technology up by their own efforts. They seem to feel it necessary to buy it from Germany Japan and the United States and they probably also hope. That by giving us these markets we will be less inclined. To sell them to China. And thereby build build up China. Their great fear. Against the United States for the nightmare of the Soviet Union is not. That Germany or Japan or the United States. Or two or three. Will so trade with China will so give China trade and technology that China can become something like another Japan and be totally hostile to the Soviet Union.
I would argue therefore that for the reasons I've described picking and Moscow have decided for the present on a strategic policy of detente with the United States and the United States has decided not as under Kennedy and Johnson the foreign policy of detente only with the Soviet Union. But I think far more correctly with both to put the matter bluntly in a fashion which President Nixon correctly does not. The United States is now able to manipulate the Soviet Union and China against each other to American advantage. While the Soviet Union and China are not able to manipulate the United States for their advantage. Now this is obviously a desirable position. The only problem is won't continue for it is based on a very high level of Sino-Soviet hostility. Which means that the Chinese in particular are prepared to accept this and the
resulting benefits to the United States rather then have a partial detente with the Soviet Union and thereby lessen Washington's ability. To manipulate. Moscow and picking against each other. And for example to mine high fall and bomb going on. With impunity. And perhaps even with success. I don't propose to discuss here the question of the desirability of American policy in Vietnam. Or of the bombing or of the money. That's something presumably may come up this afternoon. I'm simply trying to describe as I see it the role that this has played in the transformation of the Cold War. It is clearly it seems to me aided the Soviet Union and to some extent China. Particularly in the enormous cost of the United States of the Vietnam War. While the Soviets got for much
less. But I would argue that this also has been transformed in the last year and that probably one of the reasons why the Vietnam War has come to a conclusion is that for the first time. By Washington's manipulation of Moscow and picking against each other. Moscow and the king have found their interests more with the detente with the United States. And therefore some of the war then of the support of Hanoi against the United States. All this it seems to me confirms Indeed I would argue all that I've been saying confirms. Something which the revisionists rightly criticize as the emotionalism of American foreign policy. The far too great role of ideology in it. The Wilsonian ism of which Professor Mayer spoke. The desire to have democracies in our own image everywhere. Which seems to me. Unlikely to
succeed but has been one thread in American foreign policy the concern about whether American allies are democratic. Spain Brazil. How Greece. And some people. Yugoslavia. I would argue however that the transformation of the Cold War has been. To a very considerable extent. The result of the collapse of the alliance between Russia and China. And of the end of the obdurate American policy of hostility to China and that has been in a certain sense the adoption by the present government in Washington of a policy which I would suppose Stalin. And Mao have always followed. Indeed almost any statesman in history is always fun. But which has often been resisted in the United States a policy I would argue
classically described. By British Prime Minister in the 19th century Lord Palmerston when an answer to a question about the alliances of Great Britain replied Her Majesty's government has neither permanent friends no permanent enemies but only a permanent interest in. I commend this statement to your attention finally to conclude. Let me simply say that another transformation of the Cold War and one which I would suspect within the next four years is likely to have increasing the tension in this country has been the development and the transformation of economic trying go the United States Western Europe and Japan. What this is Mitt.
And this seems to me to put perhaps best the transformation is that the United States has seen its Cold War enemies. Russia and China remain its enemies. But less so in this. Sense therefore there are two triangles. The political and the economic they intersect with the United States being only the only member of both. And our allies are also limited by the extent of our economic competition with the challenges therefore to American foreign policy. In the transformation of the Cold War are that it is far more complex. There is more shades of grey than black or white. But is not amenable. I would argue. To emotionalism. To vulgar Marxism. To will sone an ism. Or to ideology. It is amenable basically to Lord Palmerston's view of national
interest. We may be growing up fast enough and we can no longer afford not to grow up. It seems to me. To come to this perhaps unsentimental perhaps an idealistic but I would argue a realistic point of view. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Resisting is I must an irrepressible personal urge to respond to both sides and. In view of the inability of Great Britain among others to avoid major confrontations ever since Lord Palmerston made that statement. We now turn to you. So let's begin with a first question if it's ready the standard and Program Committee and then we'll toss around.
You write your own. I don't think it helps us very much to say product of mentality. I suppose I indicated that I was reluctant to buy the Mansfield amendment which would effectively pull back troops. The reasons are as follows. I do not think as I develop to you that those troops really represent. I do not think that there is at present. Perhaps there is a danger of a Russian army sweeping westward from the elbow and driving to Paris or the Pyrenees or wherever it wish to go. It is Russians now that would trigger a world war. I think that the presence of a limited force in Europe and I'm certainly in favor of
trying to reduce it if we can work out this very thorny package of mutual balanced force reduction that is where the Soviets pull back some forces and forces. This is perhaps the most difficult entrance because we don't know how the balance of the missile situation very well but. I think the troop presence in Europe at a low level serves another purpose a more concealed purpose if you will one of these is indicating to the Europeans that we aren't going to make a deal with the Soviets above their head. This morning we tried to deal with the background for the problem that we face today where the call originated. Why. How real was it how necessary was it and where are we at the present time. We're now faced very squarely with the future of American foreign policy and in particular the future of our alliance. And from what we heard this morning I gather that we are moving in
new directions but. At least to some extent our two speakers disagreed as to what that direction out of Big you're with us today to discuss the future of our alliances our two men both of them academics but not entirely. They're going to speak from two I think contrasting points of view. And first we have with us from the Fletcher School of Diplomacy. A man who has been deeply involved in this problem. He is now at Fletcher. And before that taught at MIT in Columbia among other places he's an associate of the Russian Research Center at Harvard and he's the author run of works on Soviet foreign policy and Soviet military aid to the Third World and Soviet policy in the Middle East and
Middle Eastern diplomatic history and also on the politics of the time which I guess is a fancy way of saying that he's an expert on how you overthrow governments or maybe I don't know it's rogue or perhaps on how you overthrow them a little more skillfully than we've been overthrowing him over the past couple of decades. He's right. I think my pronunciation is correct and he will have about 25 minutes. So first on the future of our alliances. With. Our subject is the future of alliances and. I would presume today it would be correct to say that it would be the future of alliances. After Vietnam. It's a fact these days. To assume not only. That the United States is in full retreat from the alliance system which
characterized 25 years after World War Two. But that such disengagement would be the proper way. Of meeting the existences. Of the present situation. Now this is something that. Is based on a number of witnesses which I submit. Are not self-evident. And we may need to be documented. Among. Positions that our perception. Perhaps was. And that it has no place now so. That nuclear power and sought have not been an impossibility. Unlikely that other forms of confrontation between the superpowers. That America's allies and in view of
these supposed facts. Are looking to take the place of military alliances and together to replace the old. And consequently. And in balance will be produced between China. Japan. The United States the USSR and Europe to take the place of the balance of terror between east and west. Now all of these propositions represent wishes and hopes that may be highly desirable. But as I've said yet facts. Or at any rate they still remain to be supported by hard evidence. It's perfectly correct of course that some of the award today is a monstrous and. Highly unlikely contingency and that an overt Soviet attack on the United States or Western Europe. Remains a very remote possibility since these are the these which are most
likely to precipitate a nuclear conflict. But surely it is a conclusion that this also means. That the Soviet leadership has abandoned aspirations altogether. At least those aspirations which are to be achieved by means short of such overt and suicidal missions. And that it is safe therefore. To regard the Soviet Union as a status quo power that will last. That are likely to change the. Then it could be a balance which exists today. The last five years have witnessed the brutal Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia a major Soviet military intuition into the Mediterranean and the Middle East dynamic Soviet encouragement both militarily and diplomatically of India's recent intervention against
Pakistan. A major influx of sophisticated Soviet hardware on the eve of the North Vietnamese offensive. And finally and unsuccessful attempt to create a secret nuclear submarine base in Cuba. Now it's somewhat ironic that the same period has seen feverish Soviet attempts to create a network of pacts with such countries as Egypt and India. At the very time when here in the West. Analysts and commentators alike have denounced alliances and other treaties of commitment as an enemy. Of the so-called Dynasty back to mania. And the Soviet Union at any rate clearly regards the extension of its own network of alliances and other treaty relationships as being highly desirable and helpful to the furtherance of its own global aims and policies. While eager to denounce the United States as the
gendarme of the world. Soviet leadership appears to be not at all on the same boat in itself. And it is surely worthy of inquiry at least just why we should consider to ourselves what the Kremlin considers to be useful to itself. This does not mean of course that alliances. And commitments should not be subjected to a close examination. It is perfectly true that some doubts and hesitations have become evident in the ranks of. America's allies in Europe and in the Pacific. But I submit. That a closing. Will reveal that such misgivings are due less to convictions of that political military threat no longer exists. Then to doubts which are very largely related to the domestic atmosphere of the United States. As to whether America's will and determination to fulfill their commitments a book can still be
taken. It is from this point of view. And because it confirms the existence of a genuine B-town that song plays in the book because at least. It appears to have frozen America's strategic weapon system in a number two position and by so doing it has thrown doubt upon America's preparedness to engage in serious risks for herself. For the sake of helping her allies abroad. Those who consoled themselves with this development by saying that it doesn't matter because the various powers in a new world pentagonal structure will take care of their own interests. Have failed in my opinion to shoulder the onus of proof. For instance it's all very well to speak of a new world power called Europe. But the hard reality today. Seems to be de Gaulle's concept of love up to pottery with its disability and
the need to. Pursuing their separate past. Rather than any united European polity implementing a single diplomatic or military line. Nor is there much proof yet that Japan in spite of the most. Impressive gross national product has either the power or the will. To re-emerge on the world scene as a primary political or military element. Statically I feel it is mainly the economists with their natural penchant for economic determinism who have tried to sell us the concept that a large D and B is necessarily equivalent to real power for the time being at least I think that political will and determination can at least for as much if not for more. As for China in spite of some propagandistic with tensions all the evidence indicates that her leaders are so obsessed and perhaps correctly so with the fear of a Soviet attack. That China
remains very far from being able to play a really active role on the world scene other than by helping the United States to cancel out some of the strategic and political advantages. Which the Soviet Union has gained of late. Regrettably therefore there seems to be little alternative. As yet. To the United States itself continuing to provide the linchpin. For a Western alliance system that can deter Soviet take immobile SLAs in sensitive spots of the globe. But in this context. It is clear. That the United States can no longer be expected to provide the bulk of the manpower needed for this burdensome task. And it is precisely to this question. That the Nixon doctrine and other aspects of conduit ministration policy have addressed themselves. Briefly. The Nixon doctrine proposes
that America shall help to provide the weapons and support the infrastructure of friendly countries whose governments and peoples have demonstrated the will and the ability to defend themselves and to provide their own manpower. This does not mean that American troops cannot ever. Or anyone be used to blow it in case of need. It does mean. That they shall be supplementary to indigenous forces that will shoulder the bulk of the burden and that America supply will you go will be to deter Soviet intervention. Such a stance. If credibly maintained and orchestrated together with the Sienese diversion of Soviet attention and military resources which is posed by the existence of a hostile China along the Soviet eastern flank. A China which has found its way toward an understanding with the United States should be sufficient to deter up further Soviet SLAs into exposed areas of the globe.
If however America is to play such a role. In a way that will carry conviction in spite of the prevalence of domestic opposition to American engagement the blog and the emergence of streams of neo isolationism this requires. That the American administration should orchestrate its planned unpredictability and by this I mean. That in spite of congressional and other dissent the Soviet Union should never be able to take it for granted that in certain situations the US administration would be incapable of acting going to beaning to deter credibly. The United States must remain unpredictable. And in fact was the Nixon and Dr. Kissinger over the last three years have demonstrated precisely this aspect both in Southeast Asia and in the Middle East and Soviet counter reactions to American reactions have as a result become much more cautious.
There is a regrettable tendency here today to be impatient with allies and highly tolerant of opponent. It's very instructive that the word pleasure. When used in the media today is almost always used in reference to friends and hardly ever in connection with adversaries. Because of this tendency. It's essential to understand. That alliances between great powers and small if they are to be meaningful and to last. Must be based on the recognition that both sides have national interests which must be safeguarded scrupulously by the alliance itself. Otherwise there is a natural but land of a tendency for the great the power to assume. That the alliance is meant to serve its own interests and that the assertion by the smaller partner of its national
interest is in and a reasonable display of spleen opulence. Yet it should be remembered that while the larger partner in an alliance has the greater physical power. The smaller may have much more vital interests at stake concerning often its very survival or destruction. It is likely therefore to bring far greater will and determination to bear on such issues than the larger the lines but in my opinion it behooves a great power to understand and remember this fact. There's a very good example available from the history of the mid 1960s Turkey. A loyal friend and ally dating back to its great participation in the Korean War. Had agreed under considerable American pressure to a settlement in Cyprus the so-called agreement which fell far short of Turkish aspirations but at least it got until the Turkish
minority on the island. Certain constitutional rights and privileges to ensure its survival. Turkey herself was specifically given the right to intervene in Cyprus should these constitutional guarantees be broken. Now in the mid 1960s Archbishop O'Connor's of Cyprus unilaterally book the agreement deprive the Turkish mine no idea of its God and peace and so it did with annihilation. At this point Turkey invoked the right to intervene. Only to be informed by the United States in what was virtually an ultimatum. That if Turkey proceeded the United States would no longer field against Soviet intervention. And it is not be surprising that at this point the US alliance became I think the worst of us from a Turkish point of view. And Turkey since then has moved away from the United States and in a neutral its direction and I think this is a classical example of how not to conduct Alliance policies.
And in any way an examination of alliances and commitments. There should be a clear definition. What are the vital national interests of the United States and the various partners with Specter. And a mutual understanding. Should be reached. That any alliance will scrupulously respect these interests on both sides. If they are utterly incompatible with one another or with a Alliance that the United States has made with another country. Then I deliberate choice should be made and one of our other alliance should be jettisoned. Now an alliance system which is carefully tailored along such lines. Plus commitments fashioned in accordance with the Nixon doctrine. U.S. willpower. Orchestrated planned unpredictability and the whole structure reinforced by an entente between the United States and China. These are some of the ingredients for a credible deterrence policy.
Which a lot is likely to prevent the kinds of miscalculations and without and confrontations that could endanger world peace. And in this context I believe it is of vital importance to understand that policies in the world today. Are shaped far less. By power realities. Than by perceptions of one's own perceptions. And those of one's own people those of one's and eyes. Of one's adversary of his allies. And of various parties. It is these perceptions which govern the judgments of all the participants in the great global compassed it power is strong only to the extent that it is perceived to be strong. And it is this image which in the final result will determine the global lineup. Because in the last resort the image becomes reality.
Now a great power. Which deliberately jettisons its allies. Will be deemed to have lost the will to defend its own interests abroad. And the pallete interests of its weapons. It will appear lonely and isolated on the world scene and it will end up by being isolated. Since no one wishes to be linked to a partner perceived to lack the will for self-assertion. This may be a very sad fact but it is the reality of the contemporary world just the same. And finally. There remains a small. Inverted commas a small mark question. Peace and Freedom in divisible no less today than 40 years ago. Some commitments should not be likely abandoned for the sake of egotistical concerns which are allegedly of greater moment because they deal with domestic questions. In the end self-interest is served best. When it is served in the
most in like manner. Namely by embracing one's friends as well as one's own concerns about us and all the achievements of a Norway or Denmark or of little abate. When faced by a hostile in the spring of 1940. Admittedly these were small countries. But the moment holds true for great powers as well. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. It was run on time. We can move I must say to you the more I listen to this discussion the more it's clear to me that Greek ancestry is a great night for all of the cars. In case you're wondering what pentagonal means nothing to do with the Defense Department.
I guess I have something to do with five powers in the world. Principal powers. The money has been used a number of times here and for those of you not have a lot of ancestors I guess that means that if you're him only it was a nation you want to control other nations. So all of that revisionist view of things that you now know something about. Let's move for a second speaker. A gentleman who goes. I think it's fair to say if he wasn't already here it was to my own consciousness as one of the principal spokesman for what might be coy a restrained role for the United States in the world. He is interestingly enough a graduate of the Naval Academy. When I asked him about it before we began he said it was a long time ago. But I don't really think he has to apologize for it he did his graduate work California-Berkeley.
He is presently a professor at. The School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins and before that he's been on the job time's faculty was a member of the faculty or staff they were college I was taught I was coached. I don't know many of you would cut those to 90 minutes I was in the old Dick Cavett slide not too long ago that ABC did 1972 the year it was only three of the year it was coming or something. But apart from the general highlight of the show you remark to the fellow that was imitating President Nixon which caught me most. It was his announcement to all of us that after Mr. Kissinger wrote that you know negotiations in Iraq because he was probably from China to take a trip to the Democratic Republic of. North Vietnam he was going to be dispatching a special mission to the People's Republic of Massachusetts. Mr..
Thank you Mr. Tucker is one of the state dearest and so it was a special pleasure that I welcomed people from problems as she was for her thanks. Well I'm a lamentable substitute for the president admittedly but. I'm delighted to visit the People's Republic of Massachusetts. I would like to address myself to the to three of the four questions that are on your sheet. Not to the fourth except. Perhaps as it might arise in the question period that is the fourth being really the first. Should the United States withdraw from all military alliances but it take up the other three and especially to begin with the central one which is the third really do alliances serve the security needs of the United States in the 1970s.
Now in answering that question I think that we ought to go back and look at alliances historically which I take it. It was done to a certain extent this morning. But I hope that I will not repeat what has already been said you have to understand the origin of the American alliance the origins of the American alliance system. And in understanding the origins of the American alliance system you also have to keep in mind that when you talk about the security needs of the United States you're talking about a fairly complicated issue. Since security has many dimensions many faces. You see in the nineteen thirties when the great debate over intervention that is intervention in the European conflict occurred those who argued for intervention and insisted that a world
governed a Eurasia governed by a hostile power especially a Europe governed by a hostile power would pose a threat to America's security interests. Now when they said that they meant it and every sense of the term they meant that it would not only confront America with a undesirable world a world that would be inimical to American institutions. But they thought that it would confront America with a threat to its physical security its physical security in the Western Hemisphere and indeed a threat to physical security or a threat that even though not directly one of physical security but of such magnitude as to. Hold out the possibility of eroding the nation's institutions is what we might call core security. In a balance of power system which was of course the system of the 1930s and the system of World War 2 the balance of
power system. Walter Lippmann argued in a famous book of that period isolation is the worst of all profit possible predicaments and when he said isolation is the worst of all possible predicaments what he meant was that a state that does not align itself with other states so that in the event of a possible war it can avoid defeat and even more hopefully deter or. Completely a state that does not choose such an option is instead choosing the worst of all possible predicaments. It was to avoid this worst of all possible predicaments that those who insisted upon intervening ultimately had their way they had their way because of the specter of a fascist victory. And indeed of a Japanese
victory in in Asia held out the prospect of a Eurasia in control of hostile power and Eurasia and drove a hostile power which would pose a permanent threat to the United States in the western hemisphere. Now substantially the same considerations that ultimately impelled America's intervention in World War Two subsequently impelled a course of action. That made the cold war inevitable and that led to the most striking feature of the Cold war on America's side which was the American alliance system. The American alliance system and the Cold War generally was the product of a conviction that if the United States were not to make its power felt in Eurasia and most immediately in the post-war years in Europe that we
might find ourselves confronted with the kind of situation that we found ourselves confronted with in the period immediately preceding the second world war. It is true that even by the late 1940s the structure of American of America's security position or core security the structure of America's security position had changed considerably. That is to say it had improved. We were not nearly as vulnerable by the late 40s to threat of an extra continental origin as we were in the late 30s. But men could be readily excused for not appreciating this after all the kind of transformation that we went through in the post-World War Two period is the kind of transformation that doesn't really seem in the men's consciousness for a very considerable amount of time.
Even so and despite what revisionist literature might attempt to persuade you of today there did exist a threat to American security even in the core Sans. And if man by which I mean American Statesman those responsible for American policy. If men exaggerated that threat it was altogether understandable that they did do so in the light of their recent experience. But you should distinguish this notion of security from security in its core dimension which is first and foremost physical security and then of course material security and the integrity of the nation's institutions. This security the latter kind of security that I've been talking about can be has been given various expressions I would say security means
greater than physical dimensions. All right states throughout history without exception I do believe have wished to for what they consider to be a favorable environment. There's no use asking me why do you wish to do so they simply wish to do so and a favorable environment is inevitably inevitably an environment which if it does not reflect some of the characteristics of a great power is one in which the influence of a great power will be felt so inevitably the security of its greater than physical dimension carries as one of its most important components influence. Now it's only by assuming that the structure of American security remains essentially unchanged from what it was 25 years ago that one could find a threat to the nation's physical security in abandoning its alliance system which
I see at this juncture. I am not advocating that can be reserved to a separate occasion. I am insisting that America's physical security its core security would not be threatened by an abandonment of its alliance structure. Because it's no longer and the reason for that is that America's core security is no longer dependent on balance of power considerations balance of power calculations that sounds very strange at a time when the balance of power of the concept of the balance of power the cliche's of the balance of power have become so common. Today and so fashionable it is nevertheless true. America's poor security is no longer a point no longer dependent upon the balance of power calculations.
That is the result of nuclear missile weapons nuclear missile weapons you see give to a state which states rarely if indeed ever in history have had and that is a surfeit of deterrent power. States have never had this. That is why they have always had to join with other states and that most character is the active state graph namely the making of alliances to the Great for the great nuclear power. This most curator is the act of state craft is no longer essential and it is no longer essential as I said. Because that power now has a surfeit of deterrent strength. And so for the great nuclear power alliances are no longer an indispensable hedge against an uncertain future. The loss of allies even the most important allies would not significantly alter the prospects of an adversary surviving an attack.
Let us say since that's what we're mostly interested in surviving an attack upon the United States we can take the most extreme the most deplorable the most unlikely and the contingency that we would not tolerate. We may nevertheless take it and say that a Soviet Union wholly in control of western Europe is equally in control of western Europe would still really pose no greater threat to the physical security of the United States than the Soviet Union of today. And so we have retention of the post-war system of commitments and incidentally when I say that I think we should distinguish between our great alliance commitments and all others simply in terms of their most obvious significant from where we are. We are talking about our two commitments one to Western Europe and the other to Japan. Those are not our only commitments but those are most important.
And still with retention of the post-war system of commitments can be justified in terms of what I call this narrow or poor concept of security. The grounds for doing so must be other than conventional balance of power calculations. Now there is one argument that is important and it is given in your question for To what extent will isolationism or a movement toward it encourage proliferation. The reason why that is important is because there are many people and a vast majority who believe that there is at least one threat despite everything I've said or even agreeing with what I have just said. To believe there is one threat to the United States one threat to its physical security and that is in nuclear proliferation. That that and nuclear proliferation it is argued would result if the American presence were to measurably decrease throughout the world.
That. Withdrawal of the American presence that was section of the American presence would bring. Proliferation some degree it's disputed how much in a strain. First point. Second point is with more states having nuclear weapons there's a greater possibility of nuclear conflict and the third point is with a greater possibility of nuclear conflict there's a greater possibility that the one contingency that could threaten America's physical security would increase namely that we would be with a we're drawn into a nuclear war. You know I think that one should not attempt to do the impossible and set and try to argue that a withdrawal a substantial withdrawal of the American presence would not lead to nuclear proliferation. It would lead to nuclear proliferation. It's foolish to think that you can conclude that you could terminate the treaty with Japan the security treaty with Japan and the Japan wouldn't
be considerably more tempted to go the nuclear road than it is today obviously it would. How far nuclear proliferation would go. Who would get nuclear weapons and who would not do so is a question that remains open. Indeed the question of nuclear proliferation even if the American presence remains substantially unchanged is quite an open question. But we needn't get into those intricacies. The one thing I think that we can admit and not argue over is that there would be a measure of nuclear proliferation. The second question is of course how much greater would be the prospects of a nuclear conflict that unfortunately depends to a certain extent on the first question that is how many states have it. If you assume that there would be a modest degree of proliferation which is what I do assume and I think it's reasonable to assume that I do not think that there would be a much greater prospect for a nuclear conflict.
Certainly there wouldn't as far as the prime candidates are concerned I do not think for example in Japan with nuclear weapons would be tempted into courses of action that would precipitate or come close to doing a nuclear conflict not a Japan that can be literally destroyed by six or seven thermonuclear weapons. I don't think for example to take a rather extreme case that so he cited the proliferation argument. I don't think that an Israel would behave more irresponsibly or indeed much more aggressively than the Israel of today if Israel. Were to have. Atomic weapons which of course for all I know she might have today. Now and I do I think it seems reasonable to assume that European states which already have nuclear weapons namely France and Britain if they were to make a more determined effort in the nuclear field would behave more irresponsibly
than they would today. So what we really come to though is the third issue and it's an issue that the previous speaker touched upon and that is the issue of the indivisibility of nuclear peace. This in the visibility of nuclear peace is almost an article of faith for most people and that peace is indivisible today as it was 40 years ago which we heard a few minutes ago is taken as an article of faith I do not share it. The argument about the indivisibility of a nuclear peace obviously can't be based on historical evidence since there isn't any. And furthermore even though it's put forth with fervor it's not established by this fervor it is still speculative. The fact is that the nuclear piece may prove as divisible as any other piece minute now
and given the expected consequences of employing nuclear weapons it may in fact prove even more divisible. In fact we might assume that it would prove more divisible. In view of those consequences. There is a further consideration. Quite apart from the consequences of entering into a nuclear conflict you see yesterday peace was invisible to the degree that an imbalance of military power was the possible and even the probable price of choosing isolation from a conflict that involved other major powers. Today peace is in the visible to the degree that a balance of deep fear and power would be at worst unaffected and at best improved by choosing isolation from a nuclear conflict involving other nuclear powers in a
system governed by conventional balance of power. That is the balance of power of yesterday. The fear of being isolated was synonymous with the fear of vulnerability to attack by superior force and thus you see the conclusion was drawn and became a dog. That piece is indivisible. That the principal military powers must all be at peace or war. In a system governed by a balance of deterring nuclear power the fears of isolation and vulnerability to attack are no longer synonymous. And to this extent we must revise this undoubted truth of the previous age. Nuclear weapons have not created a community of fate. On the contrary the probable effect of these weapons has been to make peace more divisible than it has been in a very long
time. Now I cannot go into the other arguments that deal with the American alliance system today. I think though that I can sum up in order to stay within my time limits I can make two or three points which would at least open the door for further discussion. You do not have to assume that the Soviet Union would sweep over Europe to wish to maintain the NATO's structure. All you have to assume is that Sylvia's influence over Western Europe with it would increase very considerably and American influence would decrease very considerably. To wish to keep NATO structure quite apart from the prospect of physical attack those who argue that we must keep may do in time. Intact really do not stress the idea of a Soviet Union. You're going
to physically attack Western Europe. What they do stress is the idea of a Soviet Union that would exercise considerably more influence. That would turn Europe in a direction that we would find identifiable. And you see that opens up a larger issue that larger issue is that probably the real stake that's involved and the want to over which men will argue in the future there as concerns the American alliance structure is not the stake over which they primarily argued. A quarter of a century ago. But it is the state of influence. What would be the effect on America's World position in terms of the influence that it has in the world were it to either abandon or to substantially alter the alliance structure. I think those who believe that the that American influence in the world would. Not only road but practically disappear exaggerate
considerably. I think much more likely if there is to be a serious change in the American alliance structure much more likely is that the American influence would decrease. There certainly would be a decrease in this nation's influence but I do not look upon that with the Great Britain that others do. Thank you thank you. Gentlemen thank you very much. I hope you won't. Feel too unhappy with Mr. Tucker's reference to men making decisions women are making them all the time these days. Maybe they ought to make more of them in the field of foreign policy. Gentlemen. Thank you. Use the term in the broad sense OK. Kyra. That was not intended.
As a good way to get our question period under way. We're getting those papers around I guess our program committee is going to start off for you all for your questions down so let's begin. Well I'm not sure of the question because the will of the people.
From what I gathered of the will of the people in the last elections it was Mr. Nixon. Thank you. I'm so sorry but the figures speak differently. Maybe not even. It's always a lonely but by no means an enjoyable task to swim against the current. Well I have obviously. No intention to enter into. Constitutional questions I'm not an expert on the subject. As far as I can judge under the existing constitutional arrangements the executive does have a fair amount of leeway which it as it lies and I think both its supporters and its opponents would agree that it has.
To make the most of this power of unpredictability by unpredictability I do not mean to act irrationally. I do not mean to do things that you did not anticipate yourself. It means to deprive your opponent of assurance that he can undertake certain actions with impunity because you are so tied hand and foot by. Domestic constraints by congressional and other limitations that you cannot respond. Let me explain how this works. The Soviet Union is not necessarily a monolithic state in its actions. It has a great many factional disputes from within with which it has to contend. And it happens very frequently. That the number one man in the Soviet Union. Will propose a. And interventionist course of action. As for instance Mr. Breton of did in the Czechoslovak case very often factional opponents will
try to test him before he takes such action will say we are not sure as you seem to be that the inaction of our opponents can be taken for granted. You seem to think it is safe. In terms of a US US as our relationship. We are not as sure as you are proving the onus of death. To undertake interventionist and possibly adventurous and therefore dangerous action. Is on the man who has to undertake it. Now if he can say with absolute certainty I know for a fact that the United States will do nothing whatsoever. Then he takes the glass out from underneath the feet of his opponents and he can proceed with his course of action. This in fact happened in the Czechoslovak case. Western if it was so challenge by certain of his opponents and the Soviet Union did little that the leak information intelligence information that it might invade Czechoslovakia before the event. As a way of eliciting a US response and the response that came
wasn't. Well we don't think the Soviet Union is going to do such a thing but if they do there's nothing whatsoever we can do about it. And that response was taken by Mr. Brezhnev and was waved by him. Underneath the noses of his opponents to say to them you see it is safe I can go ahead you have not a leg to stand on you cannot possibly ople such action by the Soviet Union. Now if the United States has in a series of actions and I could go into them if you want me to do. That it is not entirely predictable that such an action cannot be taken for granted. This gives a definite argument to opposition elements within the Kremlin who are not necessarily more dovish than is the question of this but who like to oppose him because they are his person. It gives them a go for saying this is not safe this is not something that we can do with impunity we dont know. The Americans just might do something about it. And therefore it certainly acts in the direction of greater cohesion. It helps
to have strained by his own domestic opponents and limits his course of action and therefore makes for less intervention possibilities for less confrontation possibilities and I think for lesser dangers to the peace. Thank you again for the benefit of both our speakers. We're going to try to give you a couple of minutes for each of these answers to questions which I will try to put together up here from the ones that we've received See if you can keep them as brief as you can so that we get as many questions out and answers out as possible. Once again a gentlemanly question that was raised this morning recurrence with even greater vigor of thinking that is the whole question of this phrase the national interest. You heard a lot this morning. We've heard from both of you this afternoon. And we hear it all the time from our spokesman in Washington and with overdoing it and trying to stay within the two minute limit if this is possible.
Can you each of you with us during this goes time just. Tell us what it is you meet when you talk about the national interest what are in the national interest the United States what is it we're trying to protect or strengthen. When we use the phrase and then talk about a policy to implement it. The core of the concept of national interest. If not almost synonymous with it is in this idea of security. Which doesn't mean which is not too helpful. I mean but at any rate when I use the term security I O most could have used the term national interest. It's obviously. The bases the root of a nation's interest to preserve itself the preservation of itself means that it must protect its territorial integrity and political independence. So physical
security is the number the four meaning of a stick of security but of a national interest as well. Beyond that it's a part of the national interest that nothing. Happened to seriously challenge the nation's central institutions and its material will be which we can put I suppose in a general phrase the quality of its life. Now that is a part of security and it is I take it all for our interest beyond this and even this begins to be a little nebulous this second ring that I've given you beyond this is an even more difficult one. And it refers to those various things that states and particularly great states have wanted throughout history. Among them as I told you the desire to have an environment it finds congenial. And environment defines
congenial is certainly an environment that has one characteristic namely that it is amenable in large measure to it's in whatever school comes to an end I hope you will enjoy it as much as I have. I hope you go out of here not only with. Expanded vocabulary but a lot of food for thought. It's been a pleasure. This panel when I want to talk about it is to run on just one more. Tonight the Sunday forum has presented highlights from the recently held a fifty first school of international relations sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts. The session was recorded at Tufts University on January 24th 1973. Their disciplines included Professor William Griffith of the political science department at MIT. Charles Maier assistant professor of history at Harvard.
You're a non professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts. Robert Tucker professor of political science at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University and the sessions moderator was former Massachusetts state representative Michael Dukakis. More recently seen as the moderator of the advocates on the Public Broadcasting Service. We invite you to join us next week at this time for the Sunday forum on the eastern Public Radio Network.
Series
Sunday Forum
Episode
The United States And Its Alliances
Producing Organization
WGBH Educational Foundation
Contributing Organization
WGBH (Boston, Massachusetts)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip/15-547pw08t
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Description
Series Description
Sunday Forum is a weekly show presenting recordings of public addresses on topics of public interest.
Created Date
1973-01-24
Genres
Event Coverage
Topics
Public Affairs
Media type
Sound
Duration
01:58:44
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Credits
Producing Organization: WGBH Educational Foundation
Production Unit: Radio
AAPB Contributor Holdings
WGBH
Identifier: 73-0107-02-11-001 (WGBH Item ID)
Format: 1/4 inch audio tape
Generation: Master
Duration: 01:58:45
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Citations
Chicago: “Sunday Forum; The United States And Its Alliances,” 1973-01-24, WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed March 28, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-547pw08t.
MLA: “Sunday Forum; The United States And Its Alliances.” 1973-01-24. WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. March 28, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-547pw08t>.
APA: Sunday Forum; The United States And Its Alliances. Boston, MA: WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-547pw08t