The rallying cry of an appeasement organization, portrayed in a recent novel on American politics, was “I would rather crawl on my knees to Moscow than die under an Atom bomb.” This sentiment, of course, repudiates everything that is courageous and honorable and dignified in the human being. We must—as the first step toward saving American freedom—affirm the contrary view and make it the cornerstone of our foreign policy: that we would rather die than lose our freedom. There are ways which I will suggest later on—not easy ways, to be sure—in which we may save both our freedom and our lives; but all such suggestions are meaningless and vain unless we first understand what the objective is. We want to stay alive, of course; but more than that we want to be free. We want to have peace; but before that we want to establish the conditions that will make peace tolerable. “Like it or not,” Eugene Lyons has written, “the great and inescapable task of our epoch is not to end the Cold War but to win it.”
I suggest that we look at America’s present foreign policy, and ask whether it is conducive to victory. There are several aspects of this policy. Let us measure each of them by the test: Does it help defeat the enemy?
Defensive Alliances
Through NATO, SEATO and the Central Treaty Organization in mid-Asia, we have served notice on the Kremlin that overt Communist aggression in certain areas of the world will be opposed by American arms. It is likely that the existence of these alliances has helped discourage military adventurism by the Communists.
Still, we should not overestimate the value of the alliances. Though they play a significant role in safeguarding American freedom, there are a number of reasons why it is a limited role.
First, the alliance system is not coextensive with the line that must be held if enemy expansion is to be prevented. There are huge areas of the non-Communist world that the alliances do not touch. Nor—even assuming America is strong enough to guard a worldwide defense perimeter—is there any prospect of bringing these areas into the system. The so-called neutral countries of the Middle East, Africa and Southern Asia have refused to align themselves with the anti-Communist cause, and it is in those areas, as we might expect, that the Communists are making significant strides. This is a critical weakness. If all of those areas should fall under Communist rule, the alliances would be outflanked everywhere: the system would be reduced to a series of outposts, and probably indefensible ones at that, in a wholly hostile world.
Secondly, the alliance system does not protect even its members against the most prevalent kind of Communist aggression: political penetration and internal subversion. Iraq is a case in point. We had pledged ourselves to support the Iraqi against overt Soviet aggression—not only under the Baghdad Pact of which Iraq was the cornerstone, but also under the Eisenhower Doctrine. Iraq fell victim to a pro-Communist coup without an American or Russian shot being fired. Cuba is another example. If the Red Army had landed in Havana, we would have come to Cuba’s aid. Castro’s forces, however, were native Cubans; as a result, a pro-Communist regime has become entrenched on our very doorstep through the technique of internal subversion. And so it will always be with an enemy that lays even more emphasis on political warfare than on military warfare. So it will be until we learn to meet the enemy on his own grounds.
But thirdly, the alliance system cannot adequately protect its members even against overt aggression. In the past, the Communists have been kept in check by America’s strategic air arm. Indeed, in the light of the weakness of the allied nations’ conventional military forces, our nuclear superiority has been the alliances’ only real weapon. But as the Soviet Union draws abreast of us in nuclear strength, that weakness could prove our undoing. In a nuclear stalemate, where neither side is prepared to go “all out” over local issues, the side with the superior conventional forces has an obvious advantage. Moreover, it is clear that we cannot hope to match the Communist world man for man, nor are we capable of furnishing the guns and tanks necessary to defend thirty nations scattered over the face of the globe. The long-overdue answer, as we will see later on, lies in the development of a nuclear capacity for limited wars.
Finally—and I consider this the most serious defect of all—the alliance system is completely defensive in nature and outlook. This fact, in the light of the Communists’ dynamic, offensive strategy, ultimately dooms it to failure. No nation at war, employing an exclusively defensive strategy, can hope to survive for long. Like the boxer who refuses to throw a punch, the defense-bound nation will be cut down sooner or later. As long as every encounter with the enemy is fought on his initiative, on grounds of his choosing and with weapons of his choosing, we shall keep on losing the Cold War.
Foreign Aid
Another aspect of
