Ain't gonna study War no more - Cold - U.S. foreign policy

National Review, March 19, 1990 by John P. Roche

AS MEDIA Clausewitzes and hyperthyroid pols keep demanding that President George Bush formulate a "grand strategy," I am simply pleased that events in Eastern Europe and Russia have moved at such a pace that all the Washington deep-thinkers are bogged down in last week's crisis. To borrow a phrase from Winston Churchill, who in January 1944 was plagued by critics in search of his overall strategic concept, what we need is an "underall strategic concept." The fundament of this approach should be the maxim: "Never get mixed up in the religious wars of other people's churches."

To say this is not to suggest for a moment that the time has come to take a nice nap. We are watching a movement of political tectonic plates unmatched since the breakup of the old European order at the end of World War I, and--as the inhabitants of San Francisco can testify--plate movement generates earthquakes. However, suppressing the inordinate hubris that seems to be an ingredient of what Tocqueville called "American exceptionalism," we have to realize that while we can blowup the world, we simply can't persuade Azeris to be lovable toward Armenians, or vice versa.

British Foreign Secretary Grey once observed that the cure for Europe's woes would be to educate foreign statesmen at English public schools. This strikes an American as a bit snotty, but a similar "Pygmalion compulsion" is as much a part of our national character as it was when Woodrow Wilson set out on the war to end all wars. A classic example is my file of New York Times editorials announcing our obligation to save the Khmer from the Khmer Rouges . . . not, of course, unilaterally, or by force, but by some exotic rite conducted by the UN, ASEAN, or even the Rosicrucians.

In short, there will be earthquakes--the hard-faced men in uniform may decide to close Gorbachev's playground before they find themselves the praetorian guard of the Grand Duchy of Muscovy--and all those missiles are still in place. Nor should we forget the existence of the Chinese intercontinental missile capability or the potential for missile proliferation. Recall: the Iraqi regime, as savage a bunch of thugs as ever walked the earth, has tested an intermediate-range missile which could deliver nerve gas all over the neighborhood . . . and they liked the job nerve gas did on their rebellious Kurds. No, it's still a bit early to talk about a "peace dividend."

But it is not too soon to talk about a historical division of labor. As a premature cold-warrior (it is forgotten that we Social Democrats, a small band, in 1942 demanded an I.C.R.C. investigation of the Katyn massacres of Polish officers, objected to Yalta, and even deprecated both the United Nations and the Nuremberg Trials on the ground that Stalin's participation made them a bad joke), I have now spent half a century on the ideological barricade against totalitarianism. Unlike the impatient Bertrand Russell, and others, who wanted a pre-emptive war with the Soviets while we still held the nuclear monopoly, we argued that if Soviet power were contained, the odious system would eventually implode. It has, and we find the world's second largest outdoor slum, alas, with horrendous military power. (To those who assert we should have taken the Russell option, I would say--leaving morality out of it--it was impossible: the American people in an acute withdrawal syndrome would no more have tolerated it than they would have supported an expeditionary force to "Save China.")

Let us put it bluntly: Since 1947, when the Truman Administration (with Stalin's full cooperation) convinced the American people to rescue and revive Western Europe, American power--military, economic, and political--has been the bulwark of human freedom. Some critics say, haven't we wasted a huge amount of money on an arms race? Yes, we have spent a lot of money, fortunately unnecessarily (so far: there are still those SS-18s, 19s, 24s, 25s, plus SSBNs deployed), but--in terms of a percentage of GNP--nothing like what they have expended. But an arms race? We have been arguing about deploying a mobile ICBM for over a decade; they have over thirty rail-mobile 24s and 165 plus road-mobile 25s prowling around the countryside. (Figures from the International Institute of Strategic Studies.)

Moreover, I grew up in a non-arms-race and was in a world war at age 19; since 1946 we have had, thank God, no central wars. Deterrence has deterred partly because we have built up our military power, but perhaps even more because the Soviets have been terrified of American technology. When they read our Defense budget with its trivial allocation to R & D and missile technology, they chuckle and figure it's as phony as their Defense budget: we must have a "death ray" up our sleeve. (The funds are probably secreted in one of those lush Aid to Dependent Generals accounts!)

I THINK it is now safe enough to start a fundamental reordering of our priorities, starting from the premise that our European and Japanese friends have reached the stage in life where they can support their own defense. With Marshall Plan funds we established the foundation for the flourishing European economy; our offshore procurement policies during the Korean and Vietnamese wars did the same thing for Japan. This is not a call to abandon military alliances, but rather to cost them out realistically. Why, for example, should roughly thirty thousand American soldiers and their dependents be living in German slum housing? Why are there 250,000 American troops still in Europe? "A reassuring, symbolic presence?"