Real War (43 page)

When I took office it was a time for consolidation, for retrenchment, both at home and abroad. New conditions called for a new strategy to deal not only with the old problems but also with the new challenges and opportunities that had emerged. That new strategy included the Nixon Doctrine, under which we undertook to provide arms and money to nations in the path of direct or indirect aggression, if they would provide the men. It included our opening to China. It included new openings to nations of Eastern Europe that wanted to reach out to the West. It also included a calculated move from confrontation toward negotiation with the Soviet Union, in an effort to channel as much of our competition as possible into peaceful paths, to limit nuclear arms, to create a web of interdependencies that would raise the cost to the Soviets of future aggressiveness and would reduce the danger of nuclear war.

Much of the opposition to détente arises from a misunderstanding of what détente is and what it is not. Détente is not entente.
An entente is an alliance between nations with a common interest. Détente is an understanding between states with different interests. This is the situation that exists between the United States and Russia. We differ in very basic ways from the Soviet Union. Our interests are, for the most part, fundamentally opposed to theirs and will continue to be so.

Theodore Draper writes that détente has become “a profoundly ambiguous means to an evasively contradictory end.” And so it has. The meaning of détente, as originally envisaged by my administration, has become so distorted, both by Soviet behavior and by misunderstanding in the United States, that the term has lost its usefulness as a description of Soviet-American relations. When détente is said to be the “alternative to the cold war” it even becomes an obstacle to clear thought.

What I meant by détente was not an “alternative to the cold war.” Both détente and cold war are alternatives to hot war, specifically to nuclear war, between the two powers. The major object of détente is the avoidance of nuclear war. But détente alone will not avoid nuclear war. Sufficient U.S. strength to maintain the nuclear balance, and the demonstrated capacity and determination of the United States to deter Soviet aggression, are indispensable to that purpose.

Competition is an inevitable element in Soviet-American relations, but even so, some cooperation is possible and, in fact, essential. Détente was an attempt to expand the cooperative element and to place certain limits on the competitive. It did not call for a relaxed vigilance on the part of the United States or reduced opposition to Soviet attempts to advance their interests at the cost of our own. Détente allowed hope, it did not provide a basis for euphoria.

We did not expect that the Soviet leaders would abandon their fundamental objectives, but rather that they might be more cooperative in arrangements to promote our mutual interests. We knew that they had no intention of ceasing their struggle against the West. Brezhnev, during his talks with me at three U.S.-Soviet summits, even in his most conciliatory moments, never backed away from the premise that the Soviet Union would continue to support “wars of liberation.” The same was true of the Chinese leaders in my talks with them. And I was just as firm in indicating that the United States would
continue to resist such efforts, as we had in Vietnam. The Soviet leaders called for intensification of the “ideological struggle.” To them, as
Walter Laqueur has pointed out, that does not “refer to philosophical debates over the merits of the respective social systems but to real political struggle which may well involve limited military operations. It means, for all practical purposes, the extension of the Soviet sphere of influence.” Détente did not require that we ignore that reality, and it did not mean that we would fail to oppose Soviet attempts to expand their domination. In fact, to gain cooperation we had to show the Soviet leaders that we were capable of effective opposition if forced to it. That is why my decision to mine Haiphong and increase bombing of North Vietnam in reaction to the Soviet-supported offensive against South Vietnam before the 1972 summit meeting in Moscow was essential. There can be no détente without containment, for we must expect the Soviets to take advantage of any opening we give them. And that is what many people have tended to forget, which is why the term
détente
has become so distorted.

•  •  •

In considering strategies for dealing with the Soviets in the future we should think of détente as a complement to containment rather than as a substitute for it. Containment, the task of resisting Russian expansionism, must remain the
sine qua non
of U.S. foreign policy, for if we do not present the Soviets with penalties for aggressive behavior, they will have no reason to be deterred from it. And détente, an attempt to avoid possible fatal miscalculations, to reduce differences where possible through negotiation, and to provide positive incentives for the Russians and the Chinese to cooperate with us in maintaining a stable world order, is only good sense in the nuclear age.

Containment without détente is both dangerous, because of the awesome nuclear arsenals of the superpowers, and foolish, because it prevents us from taking advantage of the differences between the U.S.S.R. and China. But détente without containment is a hollow illusion. The Russians will have no incentive to moderate their aggressive behavior if they find that aggression pays. If the positive inducements of détente are offered without the threat of the negative sanctions of containment, then in practice détente will amount to self-delusion and appeasement.

If the Russians think they can get away with using détente as a cover for aggression, either direct or indirect, they will try. In recent years they have not only tried but succeeded, just as they have succeeded in using aggression as a cover for shifting the military balance in their favor. But this is not an indictment of détente itself. Rather, it reflects the fact that the United States has not demonstrated the resolve needed to make détente work in our interests, while the Soviets have shown that they can make it work in their interests. Détente can still provide a basis for a successful U.S. approach, but only in conjunction with those policies of strength, courage, and will that are necessary to it.

Both containment and détente are appropriate policies for dealing with a dictatorship. The British strategist
B. H. Liddell Hart succinctly explained why the Russians will understand us when we speak the language of force: “The less that a nation has regard for moral obligations the more it tends to respect physical strength.” He cautions:

It is folly to imagine that the aggressive types, whether individuals or nations, can be bought off—or, in the modern language, “appeased”—since the payment of danegeld stimulates a demand for more danegeld. But they can be curbed. Their very belief in force makes them more susceptible to the deterrent effect of a formidable opposing force. . . .

While it is hard to make a real peace with the predatory types, it is easier to induce them to accept a state of truce—and far less exhausting than an attempt to crush them, whereby they are, like all types of mankind, infused with the courage of desperation.

The Russians understand power and they respond to it far more readily than they do to high-sounding calls to cooperate for the good of all mankind. They actually trust us more when we talk the language of power than when we preach to them about our ideals.

Winston Churchill once said, “I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.” Now, as then, the Russians will not cooperate with us unless it is in their interest to do so.

Détente does not magically eliminate differences in attitudes,
values, and interests that are grounded in the outlooks nations inherit, the ideologies they embrace, and the economic and military realities they face. Instead it is a process whereby nations seek to live with their differences rather than die for them. The differences cannot be obliterated. The options are limited to trying to come to grips with these tensions and managing them, or letting them totally determine the nature of international relations. One of the best rationales I have heard for détente was expressed by the British Governor-General of Australia, William Slim, when I saw him in 1953. He felt strongly that “we must break the ice. If we don't break it, we will all get frozen into it so tight that it will take an atom bomb to break it.”

This is what détente is about, from the American standpoint—breaking the ice, where that is possible, and trying to approach our differences rationally.

The negotiated Berlin agreement of 1971 is an example of what détente can accomplish. In 1948, and again in 1958, tensions over Berlin threatened to involve the United States and the U.S.S.R. in an escalation that neither wanted. Afterward, Berlin—divided between East and West, and located deep within East Germany—remained a sore spot for both sides and a constant source of possible confrontation. In 1971, after sixteen months of intense negotiation, we reached agreement with the Soviet Union on access to Berlin and on other related and potentially dangerous problems. These Berlin agreements covered matters that might in themselves have seemed relatively minor, but that were extremely touchy for both sides, and the dangers they eliminated were very great. In reaching the agreements we had successfully replaced confrontation with negotiation. It was the Berlin Agreement that paved the way for the first U.S.-Soviet summit of my administration in 1972. We felt that if we could resolve our differences on such a thorny, long-lived controversy, we might be able to reach agreement on other issues.

What détente
can
do is to reduce the possibilities of a miscalculation leading to nuclear war, and eliminate some of the trouble spots by replacing confrontation with negotiation.

There are many things détente
cannot
do. It cannot suddenly turn the Russians into “good guys.” And it cannot eliminate
the fact that we are in competition with them all over the world and that some of these tensions are inevitably going to lead to confrontations. What we can hope is that détente will minimize the dangers in the minor areas by replacing confrontation with negotiation, and provide ways to resolve peacefully the confrontations in the major areas. As superpowers with the ability to destroy each other, we both have a stake in seeing that confrontations are not allowed to get out of hand.

Some apparently think that if we really tried to get to know the Russians we could resolve all our differences and come to an understanding. To believe this is to ignore centuries of totally different national experiences, to disregard the effects of diametrically opposed ideologies, to lose sight of the tense geopolitical and military rivalry that pervades our relationship with the Soviet Union. “Getting to know you” does not necessarily mean getting to like you. In fact, in this case, it may mean finding out that we like each other even less than we thought.

Liking each other is one thing. Learning to live with each other is another. If we can talk to each other, at least we stand a chance of finding and cultivating some areas of common interest and avoiding the miscalculation and suspicion that occur when two sides are isolated from each other. If we do not talk, we will not find anything on which to cooperate and our differences will only grow and our hatreds harden. Then it may really taken an atom bomb to break us out of the ice.

Churchill remarked many years ago that “Russia fears our friendship more than our enmity. The Soviet dictatorship could not stand free intercourse with the West.” His solution: “We must make Moscow fear our enmity more than our friendship.” This concept is central to a successful détente. We can make the Soviets fear our enmity more than our friendship by showing them we are a dangerous enemy, but it also will help if we can demonstrate that we are a worthwhile friend. Economically they desperately need our cooperation. This is something we can offer them—if they moderate their aggressive behavior.

Détente is not a matter of changing the Russians' intentions. It is a matter of changing their cost-benefit calculations. It is a matter of making their aggressive actions more costly, and therefore less worthwhile, and their peaceful initiatives more beneficial from the viewpoint of their own national interest.
The usual academic search for clues to Russian behavior is not only futile, it misses the fundamental point, which is that what they do depends on what we do. If we demonstrate a willingness to stand up to them when they try to push us around and to sit down with them when they behave more reasonably, they will be more accommodating. The key to the behavior of the Russians lies as much with us as it does with them. In order to be able to sit down with the Russians you must first be able to stand up to them.

The optimists have naïvely believed that détente can erase all the problems and conflicts of national interest between us and the two great communist powers. The critics of détente are equally in error in concluding that because détente cannot do everything, it can do nothing. The fact is that the Soviets are committed to the expansion of their power
to as great an extent as they can safely and profitably achieve.
They will not stop pressing us, testing for weak points, probing for areas of expansion. If we demonstrate that the economic and diplomatic payoff to them will be greater if they cooperate with us rather than confront us, they will draw the obvious conclusion. But if we are pushovers in opposition and niggardly in friendship, they will again draw the obvious conclusion. The choice, in many ways, is ours.

Stating general principles for a realistic détente is one thing. Applying those principles is another. No area of foreign policy is covered with more mine fields for an American President than this. A misstep—whether by being too soft or by being too tough—can lead to disaster. It is vitally important to avoid violent swings between euphoria and total disillusion.