“I have been over into the future and it works”—Lincoln Steffens
Preface—An Enigma
At the turn of the twentieth century, something happened to the way we fight wars. We fought World War I “to make the world safe for democracy,” which it didn’t. We fought World War II as “the war to end all wars,” which it wasn’t. We fought a police action in Korea, which it wasn’t, to defend an area in our defense perimeter, which it wasn’t, and under political restrictions which prevented achieving a military victory. We are now confronted with the most terrible prospect of all, total war with massive nuclear weapons promising, optimistically, annihilation to both sides.
Since the turn of the century, we appear to have displayed a remarkable ability to win the war and lose the peace, or perhaps in some minds, to lose the war as well as the peace. The question naturally arises—what are our hopes for better luck in the future? Do we visualize military victory over the Soviet Union plus occupation and enforcement of a democratic system of self-government upon peoples who have never known freedom? Will not total destruction of Soviet Russia, like total destruction of Germany twice already in our lifetime, result in the creation of still another monster, perhaps one grinning inscrutably from the East over the prostrate peoples of Europe? In short, how do we choose courses of action to suggest a less gloomy conclusion?
A Retroglance
General MacArthur at the time of his retirement criticized the military stalemate in Korea with the statement, “War’s very object is victory . . . in war there can be no substitute for victory.”
But the term victory can be misplaced when applied to war. We achieve victory in battle, but in war there is only success or failure in achieving the objective. In the past, wars were relatively simple and uncomplicated. There was little difference between achieving the military victory and achieving the objective. Prior to the twentieth century, American wars were fought over problems which were generally solved or eliminated by the direct application of military force—although to an Arkansan there may be a degree of oversimplification here as far as solution of Civil War problems is concerned. The American heritage prior to World War I steeped us in the belief that war is a last resort which is really not even a part of our policy but rather a condition of extremity which occurs when “policies” have failed.
Most military theorists today accept Clausewitz’ oft-quoted, “war is politics carried on by other means.” But if war is politics carried on by other means, then the aim in war must be a political aim. Military victory is only a step toward fulfilling national political objectives; it is a beginning and not an end. National policy looks to the broad aim of winning the peace; the military operation must be conceived, planned, and carried out solely to support the political aim.
Our policy in the past rarely considered war as a political instrument, nor did national strategy properly envision the problem or requirements of a stable and lasting peace. In both world wars, we fought to win, period. Ironically, overwhelming military success actually aggravated political difficulties.
The Korean War marked the first, albeit uneasy, agreement of military and political strategies in war. Despite the bad taste in the mouth from the unsatisfactory stalemate in the military campaign, Korea was nevertheless a successful campaign. Here the military means did achieve a valid political end. Most of the difficulties in Korea stemmed not from lack of a political objective but from use of military force beyond fulfillment of that objective. But the UN action frustrated Communist aggression in Korea and pinned down Communist forces for the better part of three years while free Asia had a chance to get on its feet. On the basis of the strong condemnation by the UN of the Communist aggression, the strong support in the UN for the United States defense of South Korea, for our decision to negotiate a peace along the 38th parallel, and for the decision not to pursue an unlimited military campaign, Korea is a significant U. S. success and a major failure for Moscow and Peking. The chance that we will again be challenged under similar circumstances, in the current period of “summitry” is rather remote.
The conclusion suggested is that war itself achieves few positive aims; that even military victory is only a stepping stone on the path to a more important goal which war makes possible but by no means achieves.
A Look at the Theory of Disagreement . . .
Development of future policy is greatly influenced by recent developments in the theory of war itself. Primarily, we no longer find a clear dividing line between peace and war. In contrast to the era, exploded by World War II, of wars which were undeclared largely to avoid censure by world political organizations, we are now in an era of continuous war tension, even though generally without an actual state of hostilities. Communist doctrine considers military action merely one aspect of continuous conflict. Hence military force is always close to the fore in international problems. Never before have we seen so wide a range of possible war situations nor of the equally close interplay of the factors of national survival—political, military, psychological, and economic.
U. S. policy in the cold war era has been publicized as the policy of containment—to stop Soviet military forces from advancing beyond the territorial limits which they had reached in 1947. Having stopped the Communist advance, the second phase of containment exploits points of U. S. local superiority to roll back Soviet power, with the object of increasing the stress within the Kremlin to force a policy more amenable to the American view. Critics of the containment policy claim it is purely defensive and virtually writes off the oppressed peoples within the Soviet orbit, that it accepts the coexistence of Communism and capitalism and utterly fails to comprehend the revolutionary nature of the Communist system which cannot be “contained” by battle lines nor geographic areas.
We can hardly deny, however, that containment has been a most useful expedient. When proclaimed, the United States and allies were politically, morally, and physically incapable of undertaking a more positive anti-Soviet course of action. To appreciate the success of our policy, one need only review the vast improvement in the strength of the anti-Soviet world in the decade since containment was invoked.
But the containment policy is a temporary expedient which may soon be obsolete. In West Germany, France, Italy, Greece, Turkey, South Korea, and Japan enough viability has been infused that “containment” is largely meaningless. In East Germany, Poland, Hungary, Yugoslavia, and other areas where cracks have appeared in the Soviet armor, more specific, positive courses of action are needed. In the Middle East, Indonesia, India, and the few other areas where containment is still more or less valid, a requirement for a much more individually tailored policy is strongly indicated.
New weapons and new strategies have markedly changed military planning in the cold war era. In the early postwar years exclusive possession of the nuclear bomb produced the theory of massive nuclear attacks as a deterrent to the initiation of war and ushered in a new concept in international relations. Where previously a nation would not go to war if it feared to lose, now it could not because of potential destruction to the homeland, quite apart from success or failure at the battle front. Even with acquisition of a nuclear capability by the Soviets and the end of our atomic weapon monopoly, the deterrent philosophy needed modification only to the extent of a gradual change to the acceptance of the theory of the mutual deterrent. And in the era of plentiful possession of the tools of mutual annihilation by both sides, it is perhaps the supreme gesture of an ironic fate that the most moral of nations should be leagued to the most amoral by a weapon generally judged to be the most immoral.
Mutual deterrence, in theory at least, excludes both sides from total war. Successful only when not used, and completely inflexible when used, the political value of total war is essentially negative. The very success in not having been used in a situation will inevitably raise doubt as to whether it would have been used; the very success in influencing policy contains paradoxically the seeds of its own decay.
The conclusion is rather apparent that total war with massive nuclear weapons is unlikely. The possession of a deterrent force is a necessary form of life insurance on national survival, but the existence of the force largely rules out its use. The negative aspects of the deterrent theory indicate an urgent need for much greater flexibility in applying the means of political power. We already have a gap between the policy of deterrence and what to do if the deterrent fails. We cannot continue to justify an “all or nothing” defense against a cold war threat which is far short of “all” and far greater than “nothing.” We cannot forever use a sledgehammer policy and invite being nibbled to death over small issues which patently are not worth unlimbering the Great Persuader.
It is equally apparent that the vital flexibility of military means is the role natural to sea power. The contrast of the flexibility and mobility of sea power with the rigidity of massive fixed retaliatory systems is not unlike the relation of the checkbook and the bank. Should Uncle Sam find it necessary to exert his influence worldwide, what more appropriate symbol of America than that he wave the checkbook? Or must he always be expected to carry along the bank as well?
One other important change in the modern theory of war results from the development of small and special purpose nuclear weapons for use in limited war. The theory behind use of total weapons in situations short of total war presupposes some type of understanding between the United States and the U.S.S.R. as to limitation on weapon size, provocation, and areas of application. Surmounting this obstacle requires a considerable degree of optimism. Negotiating such an agreement appears grossly unlikely. No indication has yet appeared of a desire by either side for an understanding on employment of nuclear weapons. With presently planned weapons one can only conclude that the use of nuclear weapons in limited war may be the point of no return on the path to total war. From no less an authority than Admiral Radford, comes the statement that, “I think it is pretty generally understood that the United States are not going to allow themselves to be defeated with the best weapons still unused.”
Should it be of interest, in fact, Mr. Khrushchev has also stated that limited nuclear war is not possible, that there is no real difference between tactical and strategic use of atomic weapons, “nor could there be any. . . . Both World Wars I and II started as limited wars.”
Lastly, the desire to use nuclear weapons in limited warfare has generated requests by allies for nuclear arms. Should we fulfill these requests, the authority to initiate limited or total nuclear war will, to a degree, pass from our hands. And I need not dwell upon the possible attractiveness to some desperate country of a policy deliberately involving us in a nuclear war as a desperate last resort of a tottering regime. Lest this conclusion sound a bit extreme, the following item on the most stable and staid of our allies is quoted from the London Observer, 16 April 1957:
“ ... it is impossible to follow the Defense debates without gaining the most disquieting impression that some Ministers are insistent on the largest possible British nuclear strike force, not to help the United States deter Russia from war, nor even to handle Russian aggression without American aid. Its real purpose is to be able to involve America in war at our discretion.”
. . . and Another Look at the Disagreeable
Future courses of action must, of course, be developed from accurate estimates of enemy capabilities. Current Soviet potentialities for land, sea, and air warfare with conventional and unconventional, manned or unmanned weapons, need no repetition. But can we accept these widely publicized estimates at face value? The evidence is to the contrary. To integrate these estimates into a realistic appraisal of the effectiveness of the Soviet war machine, many factors beyond naked figures of strength must not be lost sight of.
The Soviet system is a police state whose forced industrialization policies, imposed on a people tired and devastated in a costly war, must leave them disillusioned and skeptical of the goals of Communism. Her economy is deficient. Despite huge strides to lift herself from a primitive state, she still presents a growing diversity of outlook between the ruling class and the masses. Her economic progress is far less than that of West Germany; even the widely proclaimed leap forward to equality with the United States does not in fact indicate that she will surpass the rate of growth even of Western Europe. The Soviet people have legitimate and serious grievances in the failure of the regime to solve the agriculture crisis, to provide sufficient housing and adequate supplies of consumer goods, to relax the tempo of demands for further sacrifice and to reduce the terror. The very harshness and brutality of the Soviet suppression of the Hungarian revolt—the first time the mask was lifted even a little bit to show the bestial character beneath—may be symptomatic of an inferiority complex and a deep pathological fear of the West.
The Soviet economy has areas of great weakness. A critically inefficient agricultural system consumes 57% of the Soviet labor force compared with only 4% in the United States. Soviet agricultural goals in the new Seven Year Plan appear in some cases to be set almost capriciously—to surpass the United States and not necessarily to solve the farm crisis. Unless the goal fits into a master plan for economic improvement, regardless of whether or not it surpasses the United States at some stage of total development, it is no more meaningful than if Communist China were to go all-out next year to surpass us in production of chrome-tipped tail-fins to the exclusion of basic industry.
Militarily, Soviet Russia is a land power with a non-maritime tradition. Her 450 submarines could present a terrible threat to the West if a sizable number should eventually be built with nuclear power and missile capabilities. We must remember, however, that the Soviets possessed half their present number of submarines at the start of World War II, five times the German U-boat strength at that time. Yet they accomplished only 1/250 of the damage inflicted by the Germans. There is considerable oversimplification in this comparison. It is advanced as indicative of a measure of performance only. The Soviet war record on the whole was grossly inflated and non-objective—a fact which will remain valid even after completion of the current revision of their history books, and despite the medals which non-hero Khrushchev wears even on his civilian clothes. The Soviets, incredibly, made no preparation for atomic warfare prior to the autumn of 1953; the main task of the Navy expressed as late as 1957 “is and will remain co-operation with the Soviet Army.”
The Soviet Long Range Air Force has apparently not yet the capability to conduct massive nuclear attacks on the United States despite vast efforts in this direction. The Soviet ability to support huge conventional military forces—admittedly a very expensive burden—must be far more difficult under the Soviet budget than under ours. The resiliency of the Soviet economy is virtually non-existent. Economists stress the great flexibility in our economy for vastly increased military expenditures in contrast to the inflexibility of the Soviet economy. Conditioned by the definition that an economist is one who has a Phi Beta Kappa key at one end of his watch chain and at the other, no watch, I will suggest a simpler approach.
The estimated Gross National Product of the U. S. for 1959 is $445 billion and for the U.S.S.R. $183 billion. If we deduct the military budget from each, the net consumer wealth per capita in the U. S. is $2300 and for the Soviet citizen only $700. If both military budgets were to be increased by ten or twenty billion dollars to buy increasingly expensive modern armaments, simple arithmetic will show a greatly increased hardship on the Soviet citizen. His reduction in per capita share of consumer income is three times that of the American. And since he is already at or near the level of bare subsistence, a major increase in military effort must involve not only a great strain on the economy but great danger of dropping the consumer share below subsistence level.
I do not doubt the tremendous capability of the Soviet state to develop and produce advanced weapons of war. (I have seen no official statement that the Sputniks and Luniks “beep” with a German accent.) I also concede that all sorts of tricks can be played with ruble and dollar exchanges. But a semiprimitive state supporting the world’s largest conventional armed force and attempting to industrialize herself overnight cannot all at the same time afford the luxury of developing also a deluxe war machine. The conclusion is simply that the Soviet state is powerful but not all-powerful—nor may it ever be.
An Internal Inspection . . .
Before developing further the ever more apparent necessity for flexibility in applying political or military power, consideration must be given to certain internal factors which shape our policy development.
Formation of foreign policy in the United States has historically been a chore ranking a poor second to an intense national preoccupation with a fascinating and highly profitable domestic way of life. Prior to 1952, no national election had ever been decided on a foreign policy issue. Prior to V-J Day in fact, our foreign policy was largely one of “no policy.” With little interest in other people’s problems, no policy was really necessary. When wars interrupted our soliloquy, we paused only long enough to win the fighting and immediately turned back to internal problems with vigor redoubled to make up for lost time. Not until World War II thrust upon us a position of unparalleled power and world leadership were we forced to create machinery in the government for making foreign policy. The National Security Act of 1947 founded the National Security Council to pull together facets of policy machinery in the Army, Navy, State Department, White House, Treasury, and others. So little prior interest had we in foreign affairs, in fact, that the Act found it necessary to provide even a common meeting place for top level discussion of foreign policy. Not even the State Department had an office, group, committee, or an individual other than the Secretary himself assigned to the task of planning foreign policy.
Much criticism has been heaped on the quality of United States participation in our first decade of leadership in world affairs. To the contrary, we should be humbled and gratified at the achievements of the American people in foreign affairs in so few short years. Overnight we assumed political and moral leadership of a world in a state of utter chaos. The weakness of United States policy appeared not in its insincerity but in its inconsistency. We lacked the tremendous stability and long experience in diplomacy which took nine centuries for the British to develop. Withal we had no monopoly in errors of either omission or commission, and yet the progress of the Free World in the last decade and a half justifies considerable optimism that eventually, granted continued mercy and assistance of the Almighty, we shall prevail. On the world’s oceans our ship of state is launched successfully, but on a sea influenced by rip tides, strong winds, and erratic crosscurrents. To steer a successful course will require skillful navigation and an excellent chart.
. . . and an Introspection
Psychological factors within our policy machinery greatly hinder the development of a sophisticated and dynamic political power apparatus.
First, we are susceptible to a “bogey man” complex in which we treat an enemy as the apotheosis of all evil, as a demoniac creature which must be utterly destroyed. But the Communist state is not necessarily the ultimate and final enemy who alone stands between us and everlasting peace and contentment. Nor was Hitler. Our judgment is clouded by a perennial American dream of the millennium. Soviet Russia should be recognized as neither the only enemy nor the ultimate. The defeat of Communism must be planned and carried out by policies which look far beyond the Soviet menace. Once and for all we must avoid defeating the immediate enemy only to create in his wake a future and still more terrible threat to international harmony. Such a threat is not inconceivable following the death of Communism. Perhaps from Germany and a united Western Europe, from an Indo-African or an Asian monster in the southeast—or from a system which may truly be out of this world—policy looks not to the threat but to the creation of the ultimate order of mankind.
Secondly, we must avoid our predilection for impressing our way of life and system of government intact upon the peoples of the world as a panacea for all evil. Certain unenlightened foreign countries actually seem to prefer their own antiquated, tyrannical, barbaric, and archaic systems to the proven superiority of the chrome-plated, bureaucratic system of waste and indulgence which is ours. After all, the American system was originated by radicals and political misfits from eighteenth century Europe whose ideas were even then unpalatable to majority opinion. Our progress in two centuries of unrestrained development of these ideas has certainly not conditioned European nations, and least of all Russian peoples, to any greater acceptance. Freedom of the individual is too enlightened for most foreign nations to appreciate. We must not be too immature to realize it. We must be content to aim at a world order of stable and independent peoples without the sometimes dubious initiation into the order by swallowing our democratic system whole.
Third, we display a great lack of placidity in international outlook. A basic distrust and, at least until recently, even a disgust with power politics has caused doubts that we can hold our own on the world gameboard. From insecurity, we have generally overplayed our hand. We have accepted as our own problems of other peoples in which we have no direct interest. Americans are an impatient people. We tackle a problem head-on, apply a too-quick and too shallow solution, and expect the problem to evaporate. Our “crisis to oblivion” ratio is absolutely unsurpassed in history. We don’t hesitate to tackle “the Mediterranean problem” which existed before the birth of Christ and will probably persist until the second coming. Yet we profess to be able to solve it in time for the Sunday supplements. Impatience has cost us more in diplomatic negotiations perhaps than any other single factor. Because “democracy has a right to know,” negotiations are invariably handled with one eye focused on the next elections and the other on the late afternoon newspapers. Where no press release is available, one is invented by shallow journalists. To sell more newspapers, it usually must magnify the issue out of all context. But the dateline technique hazards diplomatic success and plays directly into the hands of the enemy. Above all, we must learn to keep the mission always in mind. We must learn that in international affairs, today is unimportant; only tomorrow is important and then only in the light of what happened yesterday. Public opinion is of great value in a democracy in the long-range view. In the short-range view, its defects must be overcome with a policy of “gentle deceit.” Information agencies must publicize problems objectively so as to help the general sympathy and the public understanding. Alexander Hamilton said in The Federalist, “The republican principle demands that the deliberate sense of the community should govern the conduct of those to whom is entrusted the management of their affairs; but it does not require an unqualified complaisance to every sudden breeze of passion, or to every transient impulse which the people may receive from the arts of men who flatter their prejudices and betray their interests.” Sporadic, un-coordinated efforts to counter Soviet policy will generally fail. The Communist doctrine of historical inevitability has inclined Soviet policy to patience and tenacity. United States policy must be long-term, patient, firm, vigilant, consistent—and equally tenacious.
Fourth, the generally selfish and shortsighted motivation of the legislative bodies is wholly out of keeping with the broad role we are compelled to play worldwide. Congressmen argue about foreign loans not as instruments of world policy but as credits at the country store. Legislative action on foreign security programs is at the mercy of selfish influences from American foreign investments, on the one hand, and competitive domestic interests, on the other. The Congress suffers from a great excess of politicians and a great shortage of statesmen. Pre-occupied with the problem of periodic purification at the polls, forward legislative programs are debated with eyes always backward to observe the results among the constituents. To gear the American political machinery to conduct an enlightened foreign policy in such an atmosphere is a real challenge. Certainly called for is a far less negative approach to foreign policy and less shortsighted truckling to vociferous and self-serving elements of public opinion.
Fifth, last, and most important influence on political power is the anxiety neurosis in that fortress of exalted brooding which is present day Washington. I find myself utterly out of sympathy with the “harbinger of doom” attitude which is so typical of Washington of the Sputnik-Lunik era. Americans are supposedly an optimistic people, but presently we are in the grip of a vast inferiority complex, the reasons for which are obscure. A realistic appraisal of the threat of the Communist system indicates no reasonable justification for the pall of official gloom in which we find ourselves. With our huge American surpluses there is one product which too often appears in strangely short supply—pure courage. Scare propaganda to stimulate allies, neutrals, and the American public has reacted so that we have scared ourselves. It is high time that we get to work to be worthy of the position in world affairs which the efforts of our courageous forefathers have gained for us—and commence re-exporting American courage and optimism in the form of aggressive and farsighted foreign policy.
And Finally—the Proposal
Human thought seems to follow a cycle of imprisonment and liberation. When first set forth intellectual concepts free our imaginations. But as what once was new hardens into dogma, these same concepts become like so many prison walls that shut in our minds. In no field is the need for a mental prison break more urgent than in what we call politics—Samuel Lubell, Revolt of the Moderates.
Politics, with the indispensable elements of military might, is the key index of a nation’s power and prestige. Wielding politico-military influence in a situation which is neither war nor peace, however, seems to have us at a considerable disadvantage. A new approach is indicated. Lenin has said, “War is part of the whole. The whole is politics.” In the Lenin view, the cold war is a limited war, limited not only in the ends but also in the means. One cannot doubt that the cold war is the direct result of the policies of the Kremlin carried out by its agents throughout the world. The methods of this war are propaganda and espionage, agitation and sabotage, civil disruption and mass discontent, as well as outright hostilities and peripheral war.
The scale of tension in this type of limited war spans the entire gamut of human experience. Here the battleground takes many different forms. This limited war appears as—
. . . the micro-war, the war of little pieces, the war of worldwide subversion, propaganda and espionage,
. . . the mini-war, or tiny war, of Suez, Lebanon, or Berlin,
. . . the mezzo-war, the half war, of Indochina, VietNam, or Qucmoy,
. . . the matri-war, the war against the “mother,” the blood bath of Hungary, East Germany, and Poland,
. . . the multi-war, the conventional war of many, the aggressive war in Korea,
—and finally, past the limits of human tolerance,
. . . the mega-war, the nuclear war, the total war.
Preventing the malignant contagion of this hydra-headed monster from spreading through the Free World requires an unprecedented approach to an unprecedented problem. An extraordinary peril will never succumb to ordinary efforts. The immediate goal is, of course, to destroy international Communism and the Communist domination over the peoples of Soviet Russia and Asia and to establish in Communist-dominated areas a system of stable and independent governments responsive to the will of the people. The ultimate goal is a peaceful order or union throughout the world.
Sun Tzu in 500 B.C. said, “To secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself.” To destroy Communism we must destroy the roots from which it springs. For too long we have refused to consider the cold war as limited war. Limited only by the elasticity of the means available to pursue war in a democracy, we must carefully plan our integrated war offensive. The mega-war deterrent, always ready offstage, perhaps obscure in the icy wastes of the Arctic, must be kept obscure. The great and irreplaceable flexibility of conventional war at sea, on land, or in the air must remain at the call of the multi- and matri-war offensive, and to a lesser extent of the mezzo- and mini-war.
Behind the shield of military might lies the second offensive where the pump of freedom is primed at the well-spring of economic aid—aid scaled from the “bread and freedom” appeal in the micro- and matri- war, to the march of dollars in the mini- and mezzo-war, and the vast support effort of the multi-war. Last but not least are the indirect and the devious methods of waging the micro-war, the mini-war, and the mezzo-war. Here the weapons are the furtive voice, the secret word, the appeal to the half- destroyed memory and to the still flickering spirit. This battlefield lies wholly within the mind of man. In the war of claim against counter claim, of truth against the big lie, of honor against hate, of dignity against degradation, and hope against abysmal despair, there is no relenting, no compromising, and no truce. Here religion is the fifth column, and education of the elite the unfailing probe to the heart of a faulty ideology and the inevitable challenge to the claim of infallibility. The mini-wars, micro-wars, and mezzo-wars challenge the American spirit to gird as never before. If we would survive engulfment by a system in which even home and hearth are exploited, we must be able to return the challenge.
We must win the limited war in order not to wage the total one. The West has success in its hands in the animation by inflexible resolution, belief in itself, and belief in the mission of liberty. Aron, in The Century of Total War, says: In the limited war more even than in the total one, courage and faith count as much as material resources. The will to win will not eliminate the perils that are to be our daily lot for years, but it can give us a better chance for overcoming them.
A graduate of the U. S. Naval Academy in the Class of 1939, Captain Schratz had extensive duty in submarines during World War II and in the Korean conflict, including command of the famous USS Pickerel. Currently serving on the Staff, U. S. Naval War College, he was awarded his master’s degree in International Relations from Boston University this month.