An Old Road to New Wars

...At a recent series of Congressional hearings, a, succession of witnesses whose claim to expertise in foreign affairs is beyond challenge confessed their bafflement about the meaning of the Nixon Doctrine...

...It totaled $5,144,200,000...

...It presumed to establish the desirable size and composition of the military forces of nearly every sovereign non-Communist nation in the world...

...It is even more frightening to think that we could become so emotionally involved that it would be considered 'unpatriotic' to admit our errors...

...Subsequent testimony disclosed that Fulbright had overlooked at least one source of military assistance funds— some $700 million diverted to arms purchases in the last six years from the Food for Peace program...

...On the other hand, both China and Vietnam are likely to continue to aid and assist insurgent movements for a long time to come...

...In another area of the world, WestThe American Way' Since the end of World War II, we have trained some 320,000 officers and enlisted men from over seventy countries—220,000 of them in the United States and 100,000 overseas...

...He received an astonishing array of answers: "The total of all the sums involved for estimated proposed fiscal year 1971 military assistance and sales comes to ERWIN KNOLL is Washington Editor of The Progressive...

...For most of the stuff there is no charge and no return...

...The truth of the matter is that I don't know what the total figure is, and I doubt that anyone else does...

...Hoopes, Fulbright, and Katzenbach were among those who testified in January at hearings on "economic issues in military assistance" conducted by the Joint Economic Committee's Subcommittee on Economy in Government...

...Wohlhorn: They didn't know what they were in Washington, sir...

...military assistance, whatever its magnitude, cannot make giants out of pygmies...

...military assistance cannot under any circumstances substitute for United States power in that area...

...When he first visited Saigon in 1952, Bowles recalled, French casualties already totaled 38,000 dead...

...This is precisely the effect American military aid has had in Greece, as Katzenbach was able to demonstrate from his own experience...

...The annex was forwaided each year to the Secretary of Defense as JCS guidance for the military assistance program...

...The French assured us that their objective was not to re-establish their former colonial position," Bowles recounted, "but rather to 'block Communism' and to 'protect French property' (phrases calculated to salve American consciences and to win American support), and we agreed to what I believe was one of the most cynical and indefensible political bargains in the history of American foreign policy...

...Wohlhorn: Yes, sir...

...Government will at the same time frown on any effort by the recipient to reach a genuine understanding with Communist China...

...it means that people are poorer than they otherwise were, increasing the amount of starvation and misery and discontent," he said, "and it increases the prospects for subversion...

...Wohlhorn: They don't know what they were...

...Rather, it is prepared to argue that arms assistance is a marvelously constructive way to dispose of the excessive and obsolete products of America's military-industrial complex...

...Having established that military aid has involved the expenditure of "incredible sums . . . that neither the Congress nor the general public has been aware of," Proxmire raised this question: "Could it be that the beginning of Vietnam was like the Nixon Doctrine —that is, rather than getting involved in an armed conflict you sent arms and equipment and other types of aid...

...This is supposed to give the United States a lower profile...

...arms was arriving daily...

...We attempted to get this information, and we were informed it would take from three to six months to obtain this type of information on the excesses or the items which were turned over in Vietnam...

...Faster-I think it's gaining on us" In Indochina, and on a smaller scale in Africa and Latin America, Bowles testified, the usual pattern has been this: "A partial military commitment is made to a given country which has then led to a greater and still greater commitment...

...Despite their professions of ignorance, they shed much light on the murky Nixon Doctrine, for if the Doctrine means anything at all, it means— as the President's budget asserts—"substantially higher" expenditures for foreign military aid...

...It seems to me that the major problem is to reach some kind of accommodation with China for the benefit of all parties...

...it leads to programs that are absurdly small if it is assumed that the American commitment is in doubt and that the U.S...

...But the American military, who then, as now, had the determining voice in decisions about arms assistance, "were constantly providing military supplies . . . even during the period when we presumably cut off military assistance...

...We are still waiting for an authoritative full-scale interpretation of just what the Doctrine is supposed to mean," said Senator J. W. Fulbright, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who also referred to the Doctrine as "some very broad and vague guidelines...

...We went to the Department of Defense...

...Perhaps he understood it after all...

...I confess that as yet I do not wholly understand," said Nicholas Katzen-bach, the former Under Secretary of State...

...military property turned over to the government of South Vietnam was not included "since we have not been able to locate such figures within the Department of Defense...

...At the time of the Greek colonels' coup, he testified, the State Department was determined to show its "severe political disapproval" by halting all arms shipments to Greece...

...Lieutenant General Robert H. Warren, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Military Assistance and Sales, told Proxmire that many millions of dollars worth of military equipment will become "available" for disposal in the coming year...

...Wohlhorn: This is right...

...The problem here seems to be that no one is in charge," Proxmire complained...

...just less than $7 billion/' said Senator Fulbright...

...Substantially higher than what...

...We will try to concentrate, as far as I understand it, on sending arms rather than troops, but you need to send technical advisers along to show how the complicated equipment should be used and to exercise some control over its use...

...disengagement or in political stability in that part of the world...

...It is a doctrine as yet difficult to understand because I don't think it has been fully unveiled," said Town-send Hoopes, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs and author of The Limits of Intervention...

...That figure may be higher than what has actually been done...

...Senator Proxmire: Why didn't they know...

...The missing statistic produced this colloquy between Proxmire and one of Staats's assistants, Eugene C. Wohlhorn: Mr...

...Congressman Brown didn't say, but Katzenbach may have provided the answer: "I think there is a danger of repeating the Vietnam pattern, and I think the more we put in, the more important it appears to be to our national security, the more U.S...

...In February, 1954, two months before the fall of Dienbienphu, Admiral Arthur W. Radford, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, declared that "the development of a broad strategic concept by the French and [their allied] Vietnamese commanders in Indochina, supported by the United States' financial and military assistance, should insure within a very few months a favorable turn in the course of the war...

...military assistance, whatever its magnitude, cannot make giants out of pygmies . . .'" Much the same point was made by former Under Secretary of State Kat-zenbajch, who was, during his time in officeL one of the stanchest supporters of President Johnson's war policies...

...Thus the pattern was set almost two decades ago for applying the Nixon Doctrine to Vietnam...

...This is true in Southeast Asia, and I think it is true in other countries as well...

...Such arguments are not likely to deter the Nixon Administration...

...This deft maneuver—Proxmire called it "kind of a double-think Orwellian operation" —was disclosed by the head of the General Accounting Office, Comptroller General Elmer B. Staats, who furnished the Subcommittee with his own computations for U.S...

...Staats, in turn, acknowledged that a substantial item was missing from his calculations: the value of U.S...

...A logical consequence of massive American military aid, Katzenbach noted, is that it will be followed by direct American military intervention if aid alone proves inadequate...

...What I find most worrisome about this dismal story," Bowles testified, "is that there is no evidence that we are capable of learning from our own mistakes and even less from the mistakes of others...

...Vietnamization, Cambodianiza-tion, Laotianization today...

...Those who are shaping our policies today are still seeking an outcome that can be labeled a 'victory.' " Townsend Hoopes's chief contribution to the Proxmire hearings—and to an understanding of the Nixon Doctrine—came in his description of the bizarre military thinking that helps determine the shape of the arms assistance program...

...Armistead I. Selden, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, before the Proxmire Subcommittee ern Europe, the President strongly rejects any concept that Americans would pay mercenaries to do their fighting for them, and is insisting on maintaining at least the current dimensions of the American physical presence in Europe...

...It should be perfectly clear, Hoopes told the Subcommittee, "that the cluster of small, diverse, widely separated Asian recipients of U.S...

...If we assume that 1971 is a more or less typical year," Fulbright noted, "then the total military outflow from the United States since 1945 would be in the order of $175 billion...

...Military aid tends to be "self-defeating" in economic as well as political terms, Senator Proxmire concluded...

...Representative Clarence J. Brown, Ohio Republican, a member of the Proxmire Subcommittee, and the Administration's faithful watchdog at the military assistance hearings, wondered aloud "whether we will go to the expense of taking everything out of Vietnam that we put in there or whether...

...foreign policy objectives because it affords many foreign military men—a number of whom are destined to become influential in their countries' future courses of action—an exposure to all that is inherent to what we think of as the American Way...

...Senator Proxmire : They have been giving this away for years, haven't they...

...Senator Proxmire: And they still haven't set up a system to let them know how much they are giving away...

...I think there is no question about the fact that the net result of these transfers was to reduce the capacity of the Congress to scrutinize these programs," Hoopes said...

...In terms of Annex J, all military aid programs "are in deep trouble and have suffered from progressive 'short-falls' for years," Hoopes said...

...Given the extent of the American military investment, it was inevitable that Bowles's own proposal for a neutralized Indochina was rejected in the early 1960s, and that the wheels were set in motion for an ever-widening war...

...Communist prospects of achieving any decisive immediate successes are nonexistent...

...He also established the direct link between this "gigantic discount supermarket" and the Nixon Doctrine: "We believe that the best hope in reducing our overseas involvements and expenditures lies in getting allied and friendly nations to do even more than they are now doing in their own defense...

...In some respects the United States has been transformed from the 'arsenal of democracy' to a gigantic discount supermarket with no checkout counters, no cash registers, no store managers—only clerks who blithely deliver to foreign governments of practically any political persuasion whatever they happen to see and like...

...Wohlhorn: The Defense people told us, "We just don't have the figures...

...Senator Proxmire: They don't know what they were...

...But Hoopes made it clear that he saw no prospect for such accommodation under the Nixon Doctrine...

...Tomorrow the world...

...Senator Fulbright, for one, thought otherwise...

...Therefore, U.S...

...it might not be appropriate to negotiate some kind of a trade-off with the Vietnamese relating to having some kind of rights in Vietnam for future activity...

...foreign military aid in fiscal 1970...

...it goes to the junk yard," the General said...

...There are so many different ways in which this outflow occurs that it is difficult to be sure one has counted all of them...

...Much of this money in effect will go to mercenaries...

...Subcommittee Chairman William Proxmire, Wisconsin Democrat, attempted to elicit from his witnesses how much was actually being spent on all forms of foreign military aid...

...From 1965 to 1967—the period when he was Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs—Annex J "was one of those examples of military logic carried to ludicrous extremes," Hoopes testified...

...Accordingly, total obligational authority in 1971 and 1972 will be substantially higher than in 1970...

...The Nixon Doctrine, well into its second year as the proclaimed mainstay of America's "new" foreign policy^ remains, in Winston Churchill's phrase, a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma...

...Whatever 'Vietnamization' is, it is not an admission of failure, only an attempt to shift the military burden...

...it cannot determine the military balance of Asia...

...The more insurgency, the more counterinsurgency, and repression is almost inevitable...

...If nobody wants to buy it—that is, the countries that are authorized to— you cannot sell it to any private institution, and the last place it goes is to military assistance, and if we don't use it or can't...

...The French military and political officers with whom I talked were blindly confident of a military victory and the American officials in charge of our vast military assistance program generally shared their confidence," Bowles said...

...It was this reminder that emerged as the central findings of the Prox-mire hearings: the realization that the Nixon Doctrine is not something new, but merely a reaffirmation and expansion of the policy that has guided the United States since the beginning of the Cold War—the policy that guided it into becoming the self-proclaimed policeman of the world, the policy that guided it into the Indochina quagmire...

...it cannot serve as a substitute for the U.S...

...It was this kind of testimony that prompted Proxmire to charge that the administration of military assistance was a case not of mismanagement but of "unmanagement...

...Leaving the contradictions to one side," Fulbright went on, "there can be no prospect of any great savings to be employed for domestic purposes under the heading of implementing the Nixon Doctrine...

...One thing is becoming increasingly clear, namely that the Nixon Doctrine will not save us any money...

...In addition to the obvious and tangible results it produces, the Military Assistance Training Program is especially important to the attainment of U.S...

...presence...

...President Nixon's proposed Federal budget for fiscal 1972...

...This approach leads to proposed military assistance programs that are larger than necessary, if a continuing American commitment is assumed...

...What kind of "future activity...

...Senator Proxmire : Could they give any kind of a rough estimate...

...Senator Proxmire: They have given away hundreds of millions of dollars but they don't know what it is...

...At minimum cost...

...That is why, in the interest of maintaining an adequate defense posture at minimum cost, the growing use of credit-assisted sales of military equipment, as well as military grant assistance, seem clearly indicated for the immediate future...

...Thelproblem that I have with large-scale ^nilitary assistance to Southeast Asia," he testified, "is simply that we cannot, on the one hand, really expect any of these nations to be a substitute for the United States if the purpose is to contain Communist China...

...While the 'Doctrine' is of course embryonic and amorphous, one is justified in observing that the Nixon Administration appears to see it as an instrument for carrying on the Cold War by other means...

...it included countries to which the United States neither gave nor contemplated giving military assistance...

...If this is true," Katzenbach added, "then I have serious doubts that large-scale military assistance is in fact going to result in either U.S...

...The Administration's principal witness at the Proxmire hearings, Armi-stead I. Selden, provided his own total for military assistance expenditures—a figure which Proxmire characterized as a "gross understatement...

...Indeed, all the talk about how much better, if not cheaper, it is to employ Asian soldiers rather than American ones reminds us forcibly of the period of the early 1950s, when that was one of the main themes used in support of our 'military security' programs...

...moreover, they have almost no experience in or serious inclination toward military or political cooperation with each other...

...prestige is at stake, the more we continue to get involved and presumably if our national security really is involved we will, if necessary, send our own forces," he said...

...For success of what...

...If I understand the Nixon Doctrine," Katzenbach added, "it is in essence a process of Vietnamization in other countries...

...Individually and collectively, they lack significant military capacity, wealth, political stability, or social cohesion...

...Those who are seeking to infuse the Nixon Doctrine with some coherence have not, it seems to me, given enough thought to that central reality," Hoopes went on...

...it calculated the military budget of each country, and then estimated the added equipment, training, and incremental funding that would be required to bring that country's forces up to JCS standards of size and quality...

...In the case of Vietnam, Bowles said, American military aid began by attempting to shore up French colonialism immediately after World War II, and ultimately reached a total of $2 billion in arms before the French met disaster at Dienbienphu...

...It appears to put the United States in the uncomfortable position of supporting military governments and opposed to often needed political change...

...The manpower and dollar totals were, of course, astronomical...

...Wohlhorn: No, sir...

...An average of one 10,000-ton freighter bearing U.S...

...It was during Hoopes's tenure at the Pentagon—the period of massive escalation of the Vietnam war—that the bulk of American military assistance to South Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos was transferred from the foreign aid program, where it had come under the surveillance of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to the Defense Department budget, where it came under the surveillance of no one at all...

...American military aid was two and a half times as great as the entire world-wide Point Four economic assistance program, and equal to the Marshall Plan contribution to France itself...

...U.S...

...President Nixon's budget last year listed outlays of $545 million for "military assistance" in fiscal 1970 and $625 million in fiscal 1971, The new budget, not yet available when the Subcommittee conducted its inquiry, projects expenditures of $1,025,000,000 in fiscal 1972...

...To realize that hope, however, requires that we must continue, if requested, to give or sell them the tools they need for this bigger load we are urging them to assume," Selden told the Subcommittee...

...Perhaps we are all beginning to understand...

...When we provide these big conventional arms that require manpower and a great commitment of resources to support them, it impoverishes these countries...

...Eventually the commitment becomes one that few would have supported if they had foreseen the political consequences, but which has gradually become a matter of national prestige which, it is said, we cannot abandon as a matter of principle...

...In one area of the world, Southeast Asia, the Administration requests increased sums of military and economic assistance in order to substitute for American forces which are slowly being withdrawn...

...A second logical consequence is the encouragement of military solutions to political problems...

...The Nixon Administration seems to be fashioning a policy in which insubstantial fringe states are expected to become the principal agents of containment...

...Wohlhorn: Because their system hadn't been set up to accumulate such data...

...Drawing on his long diplomatic experience, former Ambassador Chester Bowles, who served as Under Secretary of State in the Kennedy Administration and twice was Ambassador to India, went back to 1945 to demonstrate to the Subcommittee how "misused military assistance upsets regional power balances, commits us to support factions and leaders who are more often than not at odds with their people, and leads into situations which we cannot control...

...Selden, who served in Congress for sixteen years as a Representative from Alabama and now is Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, did some hasty pencil work at the witness table and pronounced the total to be $4.9 billion...

...The Nixon Doctrine An Old Road to New Wars by ERWIN KNOLL "Military assistance and sales programs supplement the efforts of other countries to provide for their own defense and ease the transition of our allies and friends to a position of greater self-reliance—a fundamental requirement for success of the Nixon Doctrine...

...I think the continued policy of arming small states who are themselves in substance on the fringes of China is a source of continuing instability," Hoopes testified...

...Rather, he saw the likelihood of a continuing American military presence in Indochina...

...There is nothing new about this policy...

...it destabilizes them...

...He told the Subcommittee about the "free world force goals" projected by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Annex J of a document called the Joint Strategic Operation Plan (and familiarly known at the Pentagon as "jay-sop...