Real War (45 page)

Containment and détente have both been essentially defensive strategies, designed to keep the Soviets from advancing and to keep World War III from escalating. Now, with the West having let down its guard, the walls of containment have been ruptured and the Soviets have made ominous moves toward escalation. We need a defensive strategy in the short term to counter these Soviet thrusts. We also need a forward strategy for the longer term. Soviet strategy is not defensive; it is designed to secure victory. The only answer to a strategy of victory on the Soviet side is a strategy of victory for the West.

The Soviet goal remains what it has been: to win without war if possible, with war if necessary. Victory for the West does not necessarily mean victory in war. But victory without war requires us to be strong enough to prevent the Soviets from winning either with war or without it.

We must restore our military strength, so that once again we will unquestionably have both the power to defend our interests and the capacity to project that power to trouble spots around the globe. This will take time, and time is running out. If we begin quickly and vigorously, we can lessen that period of acute peril during which the Soviets will have military superiority
over us. A 5 percent increase in the military budget is wholly inadequate to turn the tide. This would still leave the Soviets outspending us by a wide margin, and therefore widening their military lead over us in the dangerous years of the early and mid-1980s. All a 5 percent increase will do is reduce the rate of increase of Soviet strength relative to that of the United States. This is not a mark of resolve. It is a mark of temporization.

Our friends and adversaries alike are well aware that either a guarantee or a warning by the United States is only as strong as the forces backing it up. Further, it is only as strong as the demonstrated will of the President to use those forces if necessary. When a President repeatedly makes a political issue out of the claim that no American has been killed in combat during his administration, he wins points at home but loses clout abroad; other leaders must wonder how far he would let himself be pushed before he would risk that record.

A strategy of victory requires that we move urgently to restore both the intelligence and the covert arms of the CIA, so that we can have better information and more means of dealing with threats to ourselves and others—and so that we too can fight the twilight war on those many hidden fronts on which our adversary is engaged, now too often without effective opposition.

We should restore honor to those who fight the nation's wars, whether in the uniform of the armed forces or in the often more hazardous mufti of the CIA.

•  •  •

The nations most directly in the path of Soviet ambition are often weak and unstable. Aggression in World War III comes more often under borders than over them, in the form of Soviet-supported coups or insurgencies. The United States has been taking a beating all over the world because the deck has been stacked: neutral or Western-oriented nations have been open hunting grounds for the Soviets and their proxies, while Communist-oriented countries have been privileged sanctuaries; and the Russians have been giving their clients guns, while we have been giving ours lectures on human rights.

On both these counts the United States should serve clear public notice that its policies are going to change. The Third World is the battleground on which much of the present phase of World War III is being fought. It is in the interests of Third
World peoples and nations, as well as our own, that our side prevail. If we win World War III, all peoples can survive and go their own way, with the chance to advance toward freedom and prosperity. If the Soviets win, all will become slaves and satellites.

Nations confronting Soviet-supported threats need arms to defend themselves, and this includes the majority of such regimes that are nondemocratic as well as the minority that might be called democratic. We should not collapse in a flutter when accused of being “arms merchants.” In World War II we proudly declared ourselves “the arsenal of democracy.” In World War III it is just as vital that our friends have the arms to defend themselves. We should be less fastidious and more forthcoming in supplying arms where they are needed to stem the Soviet advance. We should stop condemning a friendly government and refusing it aid when its existence is threatened, merely because its elections are no more honest than our own have sometimes been in places like Boston or Chicago. Even if the regime is repressive or authoritarian, the communist alternative is likely to be not only worse for the West, but worse for the people of the country itself.

A more fundamental step we should take is to knock down the “no trespassing” signs that surround the Soviet empire and that have limited the war to our side of the border. We should declare that henceforth we will consider ourselves as free to forage on the Soviet side as they have been to forage on ours.

This does not mean automatically supporting any and all liberation movements within the Soviet sphere. The same sort of practical constraints that kept the West from intervening to help the Hungarians in 1956 and the Czechs in 1968, for example, still operate, and it would be a cruel disservice to hold out false hopes of assistance to those who would not receive it. But we should consider ourselves free to support those we perceive it is in our interest to support, either overtly or covertly, and we should do so without apology. A popular, pro-Western rebel leader such as Jonas Savimbi in communist-ruled Angola should not be turned away when he comes to the United States seeking support.

•  •  •

A strategy for victory requires, over the long term, that we check Soviet strengths and exploit Soviet weaknesses. The
principal Soviet strength is military, and Soviet strategy is based on force. Economically, we outproduce them. In terms of providing what people want, of satisfying the strivings of the human spirit, there simply is no contest between the two systems; the West wins hands down. The Soviets can conquer, but they can never persuade. Moscow has been very successful in extending its domination over other nations, but totally unsuccessful in winning the support of the people of those nations.

More than 2,000 years ago the ancient Chinese strategist Sun Tzu set forth this principle: Engage with the
ch'eng
—the ordinary, direct force—but win with the
ch'i
—the extraordinary, indirect force. In his wisdom he saw that the two are mutually reinforcing and that the way to victory is by the simultaneous use of both.

In our own time we have no choice but to engage with the
ch'eng
—to counterpose our military strength to that of the Soviet Union, to hold our alliances together and increase the combined strength of the West. This is the way to avoid defeat; this is the way to contain Soviet advance. It is an essential first step, just as the tide has to stop coming in before it goes out. The next step—to go on toward victory, to win with the
ch'i
—is at once more complex, more subtle, and more demanding. Yet here again the West has the greatest advantages, if only we can marshal and use them.

This requires patience. It requires perseverance. The pattern of Soviet advance has been two steps forward and, occasionally, one step backward; the pattern of a successful reversal of that advance will be one step backward and two steps forward.

Defeat, if it comes, is likely to be incremental, coming upon us with that “gradualism and apparent inevitability” that Acheson warned of. By the same token, victory, if it comes, will come step by careful step, and it will be achieved by avoiding missteps. We have to learn to recognize incremental gains as real gains. The
direction
of change, the momentum of history, as it is perceived by the leaders of other nations, will be a vital element in our success or failure. We will have to work at the small victories that, cumulatively, will reverse the backward momentum and signal those leaders looking for a bandwagon that the West is moving forward. When a river floods, those who live
along its unprotected banks gather up their belongings and flee to safety. But those who live on protected banks are secure against the flood. The combination of the West's military strength and its demonstrated will to use it is, in effect, a levee that will contain the rising river of Soviet expansionism. As long as that levee remains high enough and sound enough, the nations that live along its banks will have the courage to stand rather than flee. As more stand successfully, more will be emboldened to join them in making a stand.

•  •  •

The Soviets' goal is total victory and everything they do is designed to achieve that goal. Their favorite tactic is to identify a potential Western or Third World weak point, and then concentrate overwhelming force on that particular point. At various times that weak point has been an unstable government, as in Italy; an unpopular government, as in Nicaragua; a nation's will, as in their attempts to win the Vietnam War on the American home front; or guilt, as in their efforts to make the West defensive about anything to which the communists attach the label “imperialism.” They have had some very significant successes with these tactics, but they too have weak points, on which they are extremely vulnerable.

One weak point is that they consistently act in ways that make them intensely unpopular. Their aggressive bullying breeds an angry response in others. To the Soviets, alliances are only a pit stop on the road to satellization; other nations are targets of aggression, potential Soviet Socialist Republics. When Lenin commented that “we will support Kerensky as the rope does the hanged man,” he neatly defined the nature of Soviet friendship. This has not been lost on those whose friendship the Soviets seek to cultivate.

When they do get a foot in the door, the Soviets often behave so boorishly and heavy-handedly that their hosts throw them out. Soviet advisers were thrown out of Egypt in 1972 and Somalia in 1977. Pro-Soviet governments were ousted in Chile in 1973, in Peru in 1976, and in Ghana in 1966. Nor do they always manage to establish a foothold when they try. Communist or communist-backed rebellions have been put down in many countries, including Greece in 1949, the Philippines in 1953, Malaya in 1960, the Congo in 1962, and Oman in 1975.
Communist coup attempts have been successfully foiled in the Dominican Republic and Indonesia in 1965, in the Sudan in 1971, in Portugal in 1975, and in many other places as well.

•  •  •

The Chinese formerly referred to the Soviets as their “elder brother”; now China has become the Soviet Union's bitterest enemy, a giant that shares 4,000 miles of border with the U.S.S.R. and claims parts of its territory.

There has been a great deal of talk about “playing the China card.” This talk is insulting to the Chinese, who do not like to be considered a “card” to be “played.” Some say we sought closer relations with Peking during my administration so we could use the Chinese against Moscow, and that Moscow was then forced to seek better relations with us. This is a valid assessment, but it is only a half-truth. Even if there had been no differences between Russia and China, it would still have been in our interest to improve relations with China. Further, as
Henry Kissinger has pointed out, the notion “that we use China to annoy the Soviets as a penalty for Soviet conduct” is dangerous for two reasons: because “China is an extremely neuralgic point for the Soviet Union and they may not react rationally,” and also because “it may even have a bad effect in Peking. If we improve our ties with Peking in order to punish the Soviet Union, this may leave the implication that if we want to improve our relations with the Soviet Union or if the Soviet Union makes some concessions to us, we may lower the level of our activities with Peking. So we ought to have a settled, long-range policy.”

It is in our interest to have a strong China, because a weak China invites aggression and increases the danger of war. We and our European allies should do what is necessary to see that China acquires the military strength necessary to provide for its defense. For their part, the Chinese want to see a strong and resolute United States. If they see us backing down before the Soviets, they may decide that their interests lie in a rapprochement with the Soviet Union—not because they will suddenly agree with the Soviets or stop hating and fearing them, but because the combination of Soviet strength and U.S. weakness will cause them to reassess where their interests lie.

Promoting Sino-Soviet rivalry cannot, in and of itself, be a
U.S. policy. But the rivalry is there, and it provides an opportunity, an environment, in which to design a policy. Triangular diplomacy can work to our advantage or our disadvantage. As long as that rivalry persists, however, it not only ties down a large portion of the Soviet forces militarily and affects the overall balance of power; it also seriously undermines the Soviet position in the Third World. In speaking to many Third World leaders China has credentials the United States cannot match. They will listen to Chinese warnings when they might discount our own.

•  •  •

The Soviets have reason to feel insecure. Theirs is a system that can only be kept in power by force. Wherever their capacity to exercise force weakens, their rule is threatened.

The peoples of Eastern Europe hate their Russian overlords. In the short term the chance that any of these nations will detach itself from the Soviet embrace is slim. The Soviets have shown that they have the will to use whatever force it takes to crush an East European rebellion. They know how shaky their hold is on Eastern Europe and how vulnerable the whole area would be to the “domino effect” if one nation should successfully break free. But Eastern Europe will remain a perpetual problem for the Soviet Union. The peoples of Eastern Europe have tasted freedom, something the Russian people have never tasted, except for a few brief months in 1917. Eventually, unless the Soviet Union first succeeds in its goal of world domination, the nations of Eastern Europe will become free.