Page:Minority of One September 1961.pdf/3
Another Type of Deterrence
By Sidney Lens
Seldom in history have nations remained moral for any length of time. We may take it as axiomatic that when a nation is not bellicose it is only because it is either weak, or so well situated that it can afford to rest on the status quo. Even relatively peaceful countries such as Sweden have at one time or another used violence against other nations. The United States - by European standards a peaceful power - also has a spotted record. We need only recall the wars against weak nations such as Mexico and Spain. From 1775 to 1923 alone the United States Army was involved in 110 military conflicts.
The danger of war, then, is inherent in the very concept of national sovereignty. Each state has its own economic and social interests, and its own power (military or otherwise) to defend those interests. In critical moments, when it believes that its status or existence is threatened by another nation-state, it will use military force to defend itself.
Most Americans believe that military force is in the final analysis the only deterrent. But this is a gross oversimplification, and not entirely correct either. There are historical periods when social revolution has been an even greater deterrent than the military. Napoleon's armies would never have advanced as far as they did if it were not for the force of the French Revolution which found converts everywhere and which undermined France's enemies. Weak nations could not have staved off great military powers if it were not for the deterrent force of social revolution. The diplomatic deterrent can also be an effective one at times. All too often the relationship of the great powers has been so evenly balanced that other nations, weak in military strength, have been able to improve their status by clever diplomacy. Even the strong sometimes enhance their position through pitting one enemy against the other, thus immobilizing both. The examples of different types of deterrents make history a rewarding study.
Until World War I, the United States used as its "deterrent" the policy of isolation, or neutralism, or - put more bluntly - playing off one side against another. If the thirteen colonies in 1776 had not allied with France against Britain there would have been no United States. To defend its position in the Western Hemisphere against Spain, the United States came to an understanding with Britain. Against weaker powers, such as Mexico, the United States, as already indicated, used military force; but to stave off stronger powers it relied on the proverbial playing off of both ends against the middle. It compensated for its military and economic inferiority by diplomatic manoeuvring.
Nazi Germany, while it was rebuilding its military deterrent, used a clever diplomatic deterrent. It convinced the Western powers to permit it to rearm and to gobble up pieces of territory by posing to them the "threat of Russian Communism." The advanced West, ever fearful of social instability, ever concerned that social revolution would engulf it, yielded grudgingly to this diplomatic blackmail on the theory that Hitlerism was the lesser evil and would finally be appeased.
The Soviet Union, for its part, has used a non-military deterrent to defend itself - the threat of internal revolution. This has proved itself to be the most effective deterrent of our historical epoch; it made possible the emergence of Russia from a weak, inconsequential economic nation to one of the two major power blocs. At Brest-Litovsk in 1918 Trotsky broadcasted to the workers and soldiers of Germany over the heads of the German leaders urging them to rebel. The Germans, fearful of revolt at home, had to give serious consideration to this threat. (There is little doubt that the rebellion of the sailors of Kiel, which presaged the German revolution of 1918-1919, was a major factor in the decision of the Kaiser to sue for peace even though not a single inch of his country was as yet in enemy hands.)
For a decade and a half the United States has relied on an accretion of military power as its primary deterrent to the spread of Soviet power.
To some Americans this has been proof positive that military deterrence must be the main prong of American strategy - important enough so that it utilizes $45 billion a year of the budget. But this begs the question and clouds the issue. The point isn't whether it can gain a momentary tactical advantage, but whether as a policy it secures the status of the nation it allegedly defends. In that sense the strategy of (military) deterrence has been a fiasco.
The first serious limitation of the theory of deterrence is that it has been incapable of decisive action in revolutionary situations. Theoretically, a great power should find it simple to defeat ill-equipped nationalist units. But it doesn't work out that way. A century ago, Britain conquered all of India with scarcely 100,000 troops. Today, France has committed much larger numbers in both Viet Nam and Algeria but has been incapable of achieving victory. Military superiority by itself has proven ineffective against national revolution in Viet Nam, Algeria, Ghana, the Belgian Congo, and other trouble spots. It may stalemate a revolution (as in Algeria), but it has shown itself incapable of defeating it. Since most of the world is underdeveloped, and since most of the underdeveloped areas are now in the midst of revolution, this particular limitation of the military deterrent is a highly important one. Military power, characteristically, has been the big stick behind diplomatic power, But this no longer obtains in the areas involved in national revolution. Here nationalism proves itself a more effective deterrent against the West than the military power of the West.
An even greater limitation to the military deterrent flows from its auxiliary effects. It is wrong to think of military deterrence as merely a military matter; it has political and social consequences of overriding significance. It leads to the support of the status quo in the external world - which is fatal during a period of revolution - and to a trend towards the garrison state inside the United States.
The policy of military deterrence requires a network of military allies and military bases in other countries. The United States therefore finds itself in a position of trading aid for military bases, or supporting conservative regimes in the underdeveloped areas, because they are the only ones willing to form military alliances. It is axiomatic that new, revolutionary, nations should eschew such alliances. Their orientation is towards economic development. They seek to satisfy their people through social improvement rather than the promise of military conquest. It is only the static nations that are willing to become military partners of the West. For them military aid is an important factor in maintaining internal control of their populations. It is also a means of enriching corrupt officials. America's most fervid allies in the underdeveloped areas have also been the world's most socially-backward regimes Formosa, Thailand, Jordan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, etc., etc. Further, the policy of military deterrence commits the United States to defending its NATO allies in their colonialist ventures - or at least not seriously challenging them. In critical situations the decision of American policy is with its military, rather than social, considerations. Thus the policy of military deterrence ends with the United States' becoming the major prop of a status quo which is crumb- ling everywhere. It is an ineffective policy that can lead - and has led - only to further and further setbacks.
A second consequence of military deterrence is that it transforms the United States itself in the military image. Nowadays whole nations are totally involved in warfare - either in production or in the front lines. The civilian population, like the military, must therefore be welded into a disciplined force, ready to obey orders. The loyalty, security and similar pro- grams are meant precisely to develop the military elan within the population. If our reliance for defense is to be primarily on military preparedness, we need a conformist people ready to obey orders unquestioningly. Thus the attractiveness of the United States as a forward- looking, progressive nation, born of revolution, declines. Instead the image of the U. S. overseas is one of stifling national and social revolution abroad, and regressing or standing still at home.
By any standard of logic or history the evidence indicates that the strategy of military deterrence in the current epoch not only does not prevent further decline of Western influence - it guarantees it.
America's task is to perfect another defense that will preserve its status.
In a revolutionary world, with more than thirty-five national revolutions since the war, it seems clear that the obvious means of maintaining and extending American influence is through a social offensive. Just as the United States itself could not be preserved in the 1930's without a program of social reformism, so the world today can not be defended from totalitarianism without a progressive social program. It can not survive part-rich, part-poor; the day of revolutionary equalization is at hand. And that nation will sustain its position most effectively which joins the "revolution of rising expectations" rather than stands aside or hinders it. Only through a social offensive can the United States deter its decline.
Viewed in this light, any program for dis- armament or banning of nuclear tests must mesh with the social deterrent. It is probably impossible for the United States to disarm with- out a major social transformation internally and a reoriented non-militarist policy externally. But assuming that it were possible, it would not promote a final peace unless it were part of the mechanism of social transformation. The social deterrent and disarmament are related and inseparable strategies that must be promoted together.
Our choice is not between something perfect and something in which there is a chance of failure. It is a choice between a policy of military deterrence which guarantees our decline and perhaps condemns us to thermonuclear extinction, or a policy of social deterrence which is the only hope that mankind can survive and that we as a nation will move forward.
Mr. Lens is a Chicago labor leader, author and lecturer. This article is based on a lecture delivered at a Conference of the Committees of Correspondence in Chicago.