Realism and Thermonuclear Paranoia

There are exactly 186 years between the Declaration of Independence and the Inauguration of John F. Kennedy, and it can be proven that any given one of them was a crisis. If necessary, a similar case can probably be made for any of the 153 years preceding, as well.

Which is not to deny that 1961 is a crisis year, and one that may appear to our posterity among the half-dozen most important in the country's history. But there are crises and there are crises. If this one is important, it is precisely because the very existence of a posterity is in doubt. Unfortunately, political critics seem to be hypnotized by this threat, so terrified by the razor-edge context of their debates that a quality of frenzy dominates even the most lucid of them.

The clock on the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists is now at seven minutes to mid-night. Realists and idealists alike will be clock-watching in the 60's, and it is possible that just this will prevent them from exercising their proper function as sober analysts.

No Lack of Sobriety

No one could accuse Henry Kissinger of lacking sobriety. In his most recent book, The Necessity For Choice, he dares to dwell at length on possibilities the mere mention of which sends otherwise calm men into intellectual St. Vitus Dance. Kissinger's critics err grievously when they accuse him of being war-happy; on the contrary, he sometimes seems to be infected, in a unique way, with the same thermonuclear paranoia that vitiates the thinking of his opponents. For example, he provides a precise, methodical critique of summit conferences as substitute for well- formulated policies, but he might well jeoparadize his position when he speaks, in conclusion, of "the perils of having as principal negotiators the men who make the final decision about the use of hydrogen bombs. Frustration or humiliation may cause them to embark on an irrevocable course."

Such reasoning is less typical of Kissinger's thought than of the policies against which he inveighs, but it does stand behind him, like Herblock's H-bomb, casting a shadow of urgency on much that he says. It would be unfair to characterize Kissinger as a man in terror of his own viewpoint. Whether or not his programs are useful, he performs a valuable service in his general analysis, which he himself considers more important than the specifics. If only in disabusing liberals of Polyanna attitudes, he justifies himself with a clear and often unarguable description of the alternatives facing American foreign policy in the present decade.

"It would be idle," he declares, "to pretend that all our problems are soluble or that all errors can be avoided. We can, however, attempt to clarify our choices." It is to this task that he addresses himself in The Necessity For Choice.

He begins with an analysis of the deterrence strategy that has dominated American military doctrine for the last 15 years. In our failure (1) to align our diplomatic policy with military strategy, and (2) to make adequate provisions for a policy should deterrence fail, we have laid ourselves open to the danger of being paralyzed by our arsenal (1) if threatened with all-out war, and (2) if faced with nuclear blackmail in a limited conflict. By making all strategy contingent on the former, we have failed to come to grips with the latter. "Against an opponent known to consider nuclear war as the worse evil, nuclear blackmail is an almost fool-proof strategy." Juxtapose this statement with the following: "To rely entirely on the continued good will of another sovereign state is an abdication of statesmanship and self-respect"--and you have the central point of Kissinger's critique.

And a valid critique it certainly seems to be. It is as if some overwhelming fear precludes a discussion of alternatives: "massive retaliationists" seem allergic to consideration of what might happen if they should be wrong, and disarmament advocates refuse to discuss the matter entirely.

"If we place only a little step between surrender and all-out war," Kissinger states, "the Soviet opportunity to blackmail the free world will substantially remain. The dread alternative of surrender or suicide will even be compounded by the risk of a series of 'small' defeats, none of which seems 'worth' an all-our war.... In the approaching period of mutual invulnerability, the United States cannot impose on itself the burden of having to respond to every challenge with the threat of self-destruction."

Acceptable Solution

The acceptable solution seems to be a combination of "finite deterrence" with a build-up of local conventional forces for limited warfare. Far more workable than either massive retaliation, which is useless against attrition, or total disarmament, which carries with it excellent incentives for violation, this plan would aim at a situation in which:

"Deterrence would be complete if the aggressor could not defeat the military forces of the free world whatever form aggression took. If adequate limited war forces are coupled with an invulnerable retaliatory force, the aggressor would be unable to benefit from either limited or all-out conflict.... The purpose of a strategy of limited war, then, is first to strengthen deterrence, and, second, if deterrence should fail, to provide an opportunity for settlement before the automatism of the retaliatory forces takes over."

Kissinger's second major theme is the Western Alliance. On this topic, no longer shielded by expertise, he is more vulnerable to lay criticism. He calls, essentially, for three things: (1) strengthening of the NATO alliance, accompanied by an integration of diplomatic policy, (2) bringing nuclear weapons partly under NATO control (with NATO participating in arms control discussions as a unit), and (3) unification of Germany, probably as a military neutral, but closely tied economically to NATO.

German Unification Essential

The latter point Kissinger deems essential, because "neither [West nor East Germany] is secure so long as the other exists", and "as long as Germany remains divided, the danger of an explosion exists, whatever the wishes of the chief protagonists." He rejects as unfeasible a series of proposals, including disengagement, and then affirms a plan as technical as the others, indistinguishable to the layman from any number of similar programs. It involves an agreed level of armament in Central Europe, partial pull-back of Big Four forces, and employment of "the eastern borders of a unified Germany" as the central dividing line. Yet only six pages above Kissinger had remarked that "the Kremlin has made clear innumerable times that it would not tolerate the overthrow of a Communist regime." And immediately following his positive proposal he notes that:

"To be sure, short of a major reversal, the Soviet Union would derisively reject any such proposals. But the reason is not that they would fail to contribute to stability. Rather it is that the Soviet Union is reluctant" (sic) "to give up its East German puppet, its springboard for wrecking NATO and for the eventual domination of all of Germany. The melancholy fact may be that in their present state of mind the Soviet leaders are interested only in those agreements in Europe which contribute to instability."

The analysis may be all very well, but what good does it do us to know that the best proposals Dr. Kissinger can think up are too one-sided for the Russians to accept? If the overthrow of East Germany is impossible without a war, how can an arms control plan based on a united and pro-Western make any sense at all? Kissinger does not rule out a neutralized Germany, but his definition of acceptability is tantamount to the same un- Soviet Society," so often invoked as the inevitable outcome of history and the prelude to peace. Such a transformation, he argues, is not only unlikely, it is the most dangerous presupposition that the Western Alliance could make.

But Kissinger slips up precisely at the core of this issue: how do you distinguish between a revolutionary state that is a threat and one that is not? In other words, is a nationalist revolution a threat, or only a Communist revolution? Was Castro, before the inflow of Soviet-bloc technicians, a menace to world order, or not? America has indeed a psychological task in accepting the intractability of the Russians and renouncing the hope that tomorrow Communists will suddenly become "nice guys". But it also faces a task in turning an equally permanent force, the new nations, to some course acceptable in liberal terms. If no criteria exist to distinguish revolutionary friend from revolutionary foe, we have exchanged the inability to recognize our enemies for the inability to recognize our comrades.

And yet, for those in command of American foreign policy, Kissinger has a valuable message: "The West must have much more positive goals than to divine Soviet intent." We must unbend from our defensive diplomatic position, adopt a course aimed at implementing specific aims, especially in Africa and Asia, and not exhaust all our ideas in containment of the Soviets, "As the strongest and most cohesive nation in the free world," Kissinger states, "we have an obligation to lead and not simply depend on the course of events."

Kissinger goes on to devote 77 pages to the debate over arms control and disarmament, which will not be extended here. In brief, however, his argument rests on the proposition that "arms control schemes will be effective if they contain their own incentive for observation and if there can be confidence, not in the other side but in the control arrangement." This would not be true, he asserts, of total disarmament, a slight evasion of which would result in enormous gain, and which would thereby prove an irresistible temptation for the aggressive power. Stabilization at a relatively high level of armament, on the other hand, would require a large-scale evasion in order to produce any benefit at all.

There is, it must be noted, a contradiction regarding one detail. Kissinger rejects the idea of utilizing an "International police force" (presumably the U.N.) in inspection of total disarmament--for many reasons, among them that "few countries will be willing to subject their survival to majority votes in the General Assembly." Yet he comes back to suggest that the International Atomic Energy Agency aid in the reduction of nuclear stockpiles under a control plan. There is of course, a difference between an international police force and an administrative body. But it is hard to see where the IAEA would get the power and the cooperation which the U.N. wouldn't have. What applies to sovereignty in one case applies to all: either countries will code part of it for the international interests, or they will not.

* * *

Dr. Kissinger's principal contribution to the discussion of contemporary foreign affairs rests in his analysis of the picture as a whole, rather than in his concrete proposals. Certainly to the non-governmental reader, this will be the greatest virtue of the book.

The Necessity For Choice is valuable from this point of view. It evades with fair consistency the pitfalls of crisis-ridden thinking, the temptation to search for panaceas or slogans. It calls on intellectuals and policy-makers alike to gear their thinking to the least optimistic assumptions, and attempt the best modus operandi from there. It is for just this reason that some of the contradictions and evasions are so disturbing. Those passages which betray the same irrationality that pervades most American thinking about foreign policy in the nuclear age are likely to undermine the rest of the work.

Take, for example, the recurring theme that some proposal or other will not work because it makes unwarranted assumptions about the tractability of the Communists, or about the magic superiority of the free world. Over and over schemes are condemned out of hand as irresponsible and visionary. Yet this form of argument appears:

"Perhaps, as is often alleged, public opinion in the West would not support [local build-up of conventional forces]. But no one can know, for the issue has never been presented to it. If the democracies cannot muster a leadership willing to stake its political future on a program essential to survival, its political future is dim indeed...."

"If no meaningful scheme involving inspection is acceptable, the melancholy conclusion may be that the requirements of the Soviet domestic system are incompatible with serious arms control measures...."

Most distressing of all, perhaps, is the advocated plan which concludes: "The argument that this kind of spiritual elan is beyond the capability of democracy is equivalent to saying that democracy is doomed."

But this is no argument at all! It begs the question to say that "if we have any hope at all. It isR-1