Desirable ends - discussion of peace movements around the world

National Review, June 10, 1988 by Brian Crozier

DESIRABLE ENDS

IS PEACE a desirable end? Thus phrased, it must be admitted, this question bristles with semantic and philosophical supplementaries. How do you define "peace"? What do you mean by "desirable"? Is an "end" final?

I am prompted to such reflections by the sudden (i.e., uncoordinated) rush of "peace" talks envisaging as possible outcomes "peace" in Afghanistan, in Angola, in and around Nicaragua, and in Cambodia.

At any time, whether in the great East/West conflict or in the regional conflicts that are components of it, "peace" is available. All you have to do is raise your arms and surrender. Is this the kind of peace we are talking about? Is this the kind of peace we would consider a "desirable end"?

If "peace" were an absolute, there would be no grounds for hesitation. Of course peace (i.e., the absence of fighting and destruction) is better than war. But before answering the question I started with, we really have to consider another one: Who is fighting for what? Or if you prefer, What is the fighting about?

What troubles me is the thought that the State Department and Britain's Foreign Office see each of these situation in one-dimensional terms. The kinetic Mr. Chester Crocker, for instance, has been understandably obsessed with the problems of southern Africa for many years. Afghanistan is not, at least directly, his concern. Nicaragua? Cambodia? Well, other desks and desk officers are tasked accordingly.

To Secretaries of State and Foreign Secretaries falls the wider task of seeing the problems as a whole, of strategic thinking, and one sometimes wonders whether that is the way they think. Let us go back to my suggested examples. A common factor unites them. There would have been no need for peace talks on Afghanitan if the Soviet armed forces hadn't moved in nine years ago. there would have been no Angola problem in its present form if, arounf 1960, the Soviets had not started the intensified training of terrorists and guerrillas of the MPLA, with a view to taking over at such time as the Portuguese colonial power should collapse. (Nor, it should be added, would the nasty regime in Luanda have survived as long as it has if the U.S. Congress had not vetoed the provision of arms for Dr. Savimbi of UNITA.)

For that matter, there would have been no regional Nicaraguan problem if the Soviets had not set up their Cuban outpost and masterminded the Communist takeover in Managua.

Cambodia? Well, that is a slightly more complex problem. The Chinese Communists backed the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime, which (such is the absurdity of the UN) is still internationally recognized as legitimate. But the Soviet factor lies at the heart of this conflict as well as of the others. The Vietnamese surrogates of the Soviet Union invaded and occupied Cambodia. So there, as elsewhere, the problem is the same: the extension of Soviet power.

I have mentioned legitimacy: an intrusive issue. Technically, the MPLA government is "legitimate"; that is, internationally recognized. This lends status to Cuba in the Angolan conflict, although I cannot, offhand, imagine what was legitimate in the gigantic Soviet airlift that brought Cuban forces to the rescue of the Angolan colonial outpost. Technically, South Africa is also legitimate, despite the opprobrium attracted by apartheid.

All of this means that Angola, Cuba, and South Africa are represented at the peace talks that opened at a secret place in Britain in early May. What about Savimbi's UNITA? Ah well, you see, they're rebels, lacking legitimacy. So they have to wait on the sidelines in a conflict in which, in moral terms, their legitimacy is surely far stronger than the MPLA's.

Adolfo Calero's Contras, one up on UNITA's forces, went to Managua for peace talks with the Sandinistas, who duly treated them like rebels who would have to lay down their arms and be good boys if they wanted promises of democracy.

So, to get back to aims and ends. In ex-French Indochina, from 1930 on Ho Chi Minh knew perfectly well what his followers wanted: to oust the French and set up a Communist regime. They achieved their ends. And the French knew what, in contrast, they wanted: to stay on, but not at the price that was being exacted-protracted war.

The same is true, in stronger terms, of the American involvement in Vietnam. The Americans wanted to help the non-Communist (I didn't say "democratic") regime in South Vietnam to defend itself against the Communist onslaught, but not at the cost of a long-term commitment, rising defense costs, student unrest at home, etc.

IN ANGOLA, with the long shadow of the absurd Clark Amendment interfering with clear vision, the U.S. wasn't even sure, for years, whether it wanted to help the anti-guerrillas or just stay out of trouble. In Central America, the White House has, on occasion, wanted one thing and Congress another, not always with immaculate clarity.

At least in Afghanistan, the issue was clear, if only because the Soviets were visibly there, massacring villagers and performing other foul deeds.