Real Peace

by Richard Nixon

  The Russians know that there are other ways to defeat Europe besides “On to Bonn!” or “On to Paris!” Theirs is an Anaconda Plan on a much grander scale. Like a giant octopus they might wrap one coil around the oil jugular at the Persian Gulf; another could reach into Africa and cut off the flow to Europe of key raw materials. The West depends on the resources of the developing world to keep its economies and its armies functioning. The Soviets know that depriving the West of these resources could injure it as mortally as a direct military assault.

  There are those who say that since the U.S. is the Soviet Union’s principal adversary, countering Soviet aggression, especially in the developing world, is Washington’s problem. This is a fatal delusion. The U.S. is far more self-sufficient in resources than Europe. While we could get along without the oil of the Persian Gulf, Japan and Europe, with the exception of Britain and the North Sea countries, could not. Europe and Japan have a far greater stake in what happens in Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Yemen, and other Soviet targets in the Gulf than has the United States.

  Recently, because of such programs as the rapid deployment force, the United States has improved its ability to act quickly in crises on the other side of the world. While the rapid deployment force is a good idea, too much such power would be too much of a good thing. It might encourage our allies in their tendency to think that the U.S. can do it all. The Europeans have generations of experience in dealing with the nations of Africa and the Mideast. If a crisis that threatens the alliance’s interests erupts in the Europeans’ backyard, they should be prepared to act on behalf of the alliance. France’s playing the lead role in Chad, for instance, is an indispensable factor in stopping the Soviets, through their Libyan proxies, from muscling into central Africa.

  The idea that the United States could or should act as the policeman of the world is obsolete. Peace is everybody’s business. And real peace will not be built unless everyone does his share in building it and keeping it in good repair.

  The United States, Europe and Japan must consolidate and learn to use their economic power. Together we could use our strategic economic edge in the same way the U.S. once used its military edge: to deter Soviet aggression around the world. Separately we are isolated nations the Soviets can deal with individually and even play off against one another. Together we out-produce the Soviet bloc by over three to one. Separately any attempt to deter Soviet aggression with economic power is doomed to failure.

  The pipeline fiasco proved this point. The United States’ trade with the Soviet Union in 1982 was $2.5 billion; Western Europe’s was $40.7 billion. Acting together, we could have had a massive impact on the Soviets. But when the Europeans refused to go along, we found that acting alone amounted to a woefully ineffective gesture.

  At present NATO recognizes and is beginning to repair the rips in the fabric of its military deterrent. By failing to unite on economic questions in addition to military ones, the West is denying itself the advantage in an area where it still has superiority over the Soviet bloc. To be united militarily but divided economically courts disaster. But by concerting the use of their economic power the U.S. and its allies can develop a powerful weapon to deter Soviet adventurism, while forging an equally powerful instrument with which to encourage peaceful change within the Soviet bloc.

  • • •

  Economic power can be both our sword and our plowshare. Unfortunately, so far the profound differences that have existed between the members of the Western alliance over the use of economic power have made it a useless weapon in our strategic arsenal. In the future, however, we cannot afford to let any of our weapons go unused. The Soviet Union wages the contest across the entire board, militarily, economically, and ideologically. For the West, meeting the Soviets on each of these fronts is both an opportunity and a necessity.

  A U.S. President who goes to the summit with the leader of the Soviet Union should carry with him the chits of the other major industrial powers. When he sits across from his Soviet counterpart it should be as if the leaders of all the nations of the Western alliance were arrayed at his right and left at the negotiating table.

  When President Reagan meets Andropov the consensus statement in support of theater nuclear weapons that emerged from the recent Williamsburg summit guarantees that he will hold a stronger hand than he would have otherwise. Now that the economic picture in the United States and Europe is improving another meeting of the Western leaders might produce the agreement on unified economic policies that has proved so elusive in the past few years. Before meeting with our adversaries it is essential that we meet with our allies. The Western powers and Japan should schedule an additional summit before the Soviet-American summit.

  Such a show of unity has two advantages. It makes it unmistakably clear to the Soviets that the alliance is sound. It also gives the Europeans a chance to help set the agenda.

  The U.S. is far more powerful than it was two decades ago, but relative to the rest of the alliance it has proportionately less power than it once had. That means the alliance as a whole is more powerful than it used to be, but only if it acts as an alliance and not a mutual admiration society composed only of fair-weather friends.

  Our alliance should not be like OPEC, a cartel whose fabric is in immediate danger of being rent whenever market conditions make it profitable for one or more members to bolt. The members of the Western alliance must accept that the only kind of action that will have an effect in the struggle with the Soviet Union is unified action—that in matters of East-West relations it is in each nation’s interest to serve the alliance’s interest.

  This applies not only to the Europeans but to the United States as well. Europe’s military contribution is as indispensable as ours; along with Japan its combined economy is greater than ours. Yet on matters affecting the whole alliance American Administrations have too often acted first and consulted with our allies second, and then only as an afterthought. By virtue of our position as the “leader of the Western world” we have sometimes treated the Europeans as poor relations who were expected to follow us meekly down any path we chose to take.

  The Europeans have centuries of experience in leadership. Every one of our political institutions is based on European models or theories. They know the way the world works. The fact that we are the West’s most powerful nation does not mean that we have a monopoly on wisdom. America needs Europe not just because of its economic power and potential military power but because of its brain power. Real peace is too important to settle for anything less than the best thinking the Western world can mobilize to achieve our goal.

  CHINA

  Before negotiating with our adversaries we should develop a consensus on key issues with our allies and friends. This is true of Japan and the nations of Western Europe. It is also true of the People’s Republic of China. That is why, apart from other issues, President Reagan’s meeting with Chinese leaders next spring is vitally important.

  Our relationship with China is a key element of our strategy vis-a-vis the Soviet Union. Many in the United States opposed our China initiative 11 years ago because of their opposition to communism in any form. They contended that since both China and Russia are communist powers, we should treat both as potential adversaries. They failed to recognize a profound difference. The Soviet Union threatens us. China does not. If we had not undertaken that initiative and China had been forced back into the Soviet orbit, the threat to the West of Soviet communist aggression would be infinitely greater than it is today.

  When I travelled to China in 1972 to meet Mao and Zhou, it was in the interests of both nations that we forge a new link based not on common ideals, which bind us to our Western allies, but on common interests. Both sides recognized that despite our profound philosophical differences we had no reason to be enemies and a powerful reason to be friends: our mutual interest in deterring the Soviet threat.

  That threat is much greater today than it was then. The Soviet Union is ahead of the United Sta
tes in strategic land-based missiles. In addition it has every major military installation in China targeted with its powerful SS-20s. The 50 Soviet divisions on the Chinese border, the Soviets’ invasion of Afghanistan, and Soviet domination of Southeast Asia threaten China with the possibility of encirclement, a prospect it did not face in 1972.

  Both China and the United States should increase their military strength to deter Soviet aggression in Asia. An important goal in any talks between the Reagan Administration and China’s pragmatic new leadership should be to generate more action and less talk about joint defensive efforts. Public posturing about our military cooperation only irritates the Soviets. It does not frighten or deter them.

  The relationship between the U.S. and China, however, must be more than simply a strategic and military one. Many, by speaking flippantly of “playing the China card,” imply that one billion Chinese are just an ace in the hole for the U.S. to deploy against the Russians whenever it suits our interests. This trivializes a profoundly important relationship. If two nations treat their relationship like a game of cards, what they build will be a house of cards that will collapse when hit with the first ill wind.

  I believed in 1972 and still believe that even if there were no Soviet threat, the world’s most prosperous nation and the world’s most populous nation must work together if we are to succeed in building a safer, better world.

  Such a relationship, based on the prospects for long-term benefit rather than the dictates of short-term expediency, will require careful tending. It should not be allowed to founder on minor obstacles such as textile imports or the fate of Chinese defectors, or even more difficult ones such as the Taiwan question.

  When President Reagan and the Chinese leaders meet they are certain to find that the interests that draw them together are infinitely more important than the differences that could drive them apart.

  We should welcome and not fear China’s attempt to reduce tensions with the Soviet Union. Those who cynically observe that it might serve our interests for the two communist giants to fight each other are out of their minds. A war between two major powers in the nuclear age would inevitably escalate into a world war. Consequently it is in our interests for China and the Soviets to try to reduce tensions between them which could result in war. It is equally in China’s interests for the U.S. and the Soviet Union to try to reduce tensions between them which could result in war.

  On the other hand, both China and the United States should approach any negotiations with the Russians with hard-headed realism. Neither China nor the U.S. threatens the other. When the Soviet Union adopts this same policy toward both of us, only then will progress be made in reducing tensions.

  China and the United States are held together now by a common fear of the Soviet Union. But as is true in NATO or any other formal arrangement among nations, fear alone is not enough to sustain our new relationship. Fear is the result of the actions of other nations, such as the Soviet Union. When fear is our only incentive to stay together, in effect we leave our fate in the hands of others. A relationship will last only if we have compelling reasons to work together apart from fear of what others do. If our relationship is based on economic cooperation, our fate remains in our hands. If our relationship is to grow, in the next ten years Sino-U.S. economic cooperation can and should become at least as important as our military cooperation.

  Our economic relationship is a natural one. China is still a developing nation; it needs rapid economic progress. The two areas where its need is the greatest are the two in which the United States is best able to provide: agriculture and technology. The progress in the first ten years of our new relationship has been substantial—our trade with China is twice as great as our trade with the Soviet Union. The increase in U.S.-China trade in the next ten years could be dramatically higher.

  Closer economic ties between China and the U.S. have strategically significant implications. A weak China invites aggression. China cannot become stronger militarily unless it becomes stronger economically. A strong China will be a problem for the Soviet Union long before it is a problem for us. In the foreseeable future we have more to fear from a China that is too weak—and therefore subject to Soviet intimidation—than one that is too strong.

  What is needed in our economic relations is not a Mao-style “great leap forward,” which has connotations of unreality, but a new leap forward, based on the realization that increased Sino-U.S. cooperation could prove to be the decisive factor in ensuring the health and growth of our relationship in the future. Apart from the security aspect, China, with its enormous natural and human resources, will inevitably become an economic giant in the next century and potentially one of America’s most important trading partners.

  China’s leaders have two often contradictory interests. The first is communist ideology. The second is survival, which means not only physical survival but also economic growth and development. Under Deng Xiaoping and his pragmatic colleagues, survival is in the ascendant over ideology. We can help keep it that way by making sure China’s faith in the West is constantly renewed and strengthened. If China loses confidence in our military power and our will to use it to deter Soviet aggression, it will have no choice but to seek a rapprochement with the Soviet Union. By the same token, if China’s hopes for economic progress through increased trade with the West prove illusory, they will be tempted to turn toward the Soviet Union, despite their distrust and dislike of the Russians. An enlightened, hard-headed U.S. and Western policy to meet China’s needs for both security and economic progress will assure that China is not faced with that Hobson’s choice.

  Too many people assume that the United States has the primary responsibility for satisfying China’s need for economic progress. Our role is significant. But Western Europe’s trade with China in 1982 was equal to ours, and Japan’s was twice as much. Europe and Japan have as great a stake as we do in helping China develop its economic strength so that it will be able to build the necessary military power to deter Soviet aggression.

  The Sino-Soviet split in 1961 and the U.S.-China rapprochement in 1972 were the most significant geopolitical events of the post-World War II era. The West has no higher priority than to pursue policies which will convince the Chinese leaders that their hopes for security and economic progress will be realized if they turn West rather than turning to the polar bear in the north. There can be no real peace in Asia if China comes under Soviet domination.

  THE THIRD WORLD

  The greatest threat to peace comes not from the possibility of a direct conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union, but from the chance that a small war in the Third World will drag in the two superpowers and escalate into a world war. If our goal is real peace, we must address ourselves to the conditions in the Third World that bring about conflict and war.

  Three and a quarter billion people live in the developing nations of Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and Asia, the vast majority of them in abject poverty. Their average per capita income is $600 a year, compared with $10,000 in the United States. Their societies are starkly divided between the very rich and the very poor. Their governments are seldom democratic and often corrupt.

  Poverty and bad government are nothing new. What is new is that millions who endure poverty and bad government can now know what they are missing. To see how the other half lives all they have to do is switch on their television sets. Their realization that those who live in the West are far more wealthy, far more comfortable, and far better fed has created enormous frustration and tension throughout the developing world.

  This tension and frustration make revolutionary change inevitable. The question is whether change will come by peaceful means or by violence, whether it destroys or builds, whether it will leave totalitarianism or freedom in its wake.

  Although the Soviet Union is the source of many of the conflicts in the Third World and profits from most of them, it is not the only cause. If the Soviet Union did not exist th
ere would still be regional conflicts and civil wars. The Palestinian people would still fight for a homeland, Iran and Iraq would still be at war, and India and Pakistan, two of the world’s poorest countries, would still be spending $8 billion a year on defense—not because they fear the Soviets, but because they fear each other.

  Still, even in these conflicts the Soviet Union is sometimes an instigator, sometimes a facilitator, occasionally an observer waiting for the right moment for taking an active role. In virtually every region of the world—the Middle East, the Persian Gulf, Southeast Asia, the Asian subcontinent, Latin America—the Soviets are involved in one way or another in doing what they do best: making bad situations worse. Their long-term goal is to initiate or assist in the overthrow of any government that is not under communist domination, especially in the Third World where regimes are often temptingly unstable.

  The stakes are high, for it is not just the Third World that is at stake. When the interests of the great powers collide in areas like the Middle East and the Persian Gulf, any small war between their respective allies can rapidly escalate into a world war. In the Middle East crises of 1956, 1958, 1967, and 1973, for example, the superpowers were drawn toward the precipice of direct conflict by the actions of their allies in the region. The world saw how easily the cradle of civilization could become its grave.

  The most immediate threat to peace in the Third World is Soviet adventurism—not overt aggression across borders by Soviet troops as in Afghanistan, but covert aggression under borders by Soviet proxy forces.

  The Soviets are shrewd observers of the international scene who know what the geopolitical market will bear. They avoid promoting invasions across borders such as North Korea’s invasion of South Korea. In that case communist aggression provided a clear rationale for response by a united West.