LET'S CALL IT QUITS': E.P. THOMPSON ON THE COLD WAR
Matthiessen, Constance
'Let's Call It Quits' E.P. THOMPSON ON THE COLD WAR BY CONSTANCE MATTHIESSEN E.P. Thompson is the most prominent figure in the European peace movement. British historian, social critic, and...
...I remember quite clearly how, as a boy in the 1930s, it seemed that European colonialism and the British Empire would be there forever...
...But these companies were running into difficulties, as the battle over the MX demonstrated...
...But if one or two get through onto New York or Boston, goodbye New York...
...I remember a time eight years ago when this kind of unilateral defense policy was not a very popular cause in the Labour Party...
...Olaf Palme had much more of a presence on the world stage than any British prime minister since the time of Churchill...
...Britain could do all this without necessarily leaving NATO...
...I think that if the peace movement is just a "no" movement, and its main message is how frightful nukes are, you lay yourself open to things like Star Wars...
...So you are trading not five oranges for five oranges, but five oranges for five apples...
...developments and importing them— and the scientists that produce them—to the United States...
...Some members of the British Labour Party believe that if Britain gets rid of American nuclear bases here, we should ask the Soviets to get rid of an equivalent number of nuclear weapons on their side...
...Q: You wrote a "Letter to America," published in The Nation magazine (May 10,1986), in which you invited the United States to leave NATO...
...As we see, Greece isn't walking out of NATO, but Greece would like to get rid of American bases in Greece...
...The late emergence of this very virulent nationalism is very much like the worst days of British imperialism, when Britain had a conviction that it had a white man's burden to fulfill, a civilizing mission...
...THOMPSON: The interesting question to me is not what is Star Wars, but why is Star Wars...
...response to its unilateral defense policy...
...this could be done...
...But outside of the two superpowers, people are tired of this...
...We see the possibility that in Europe, the middle and smaller nations East and West may begin to act as mediators between the superpowers...
...Despite the failure of the NATO referendum in Spain, the government only succeeded by making extensive promises to reduce bases and to keep Spain nuclear-free...
...That is the case with Star Wars: A lot of people want to drive it their own way...
...The Spanish would like to reduce American bases...
...In the end, however, he agreed to discuss some of his ideas on U.S./ European relations, Star Wars, British defense policy, the American peace movement, and other issues...
...forces in Europe as forces of occupation...
...In END, we are not very impressed with this...
...It is a question of doing hardnosed deals, of trying to build symbolic weapons-free zones, but more important, and quite feasibly, a zone of disengagement in Central Europe, which would involve—in the East and the West—withdrawal of nuclear weapons and cutting of conventional forces, creating a demilitarized zone through the center of Europe, going along with increased trade and cultural relations...
...If you take that view, you can still argue that nukes are so counterproductive and so dangerous that you should replace them with other weapons, but you are still in the whole framework of military remedies...
...The Soviet Union is now overripe for modernization and measures of democratization...
...The Norwegians are in the balance, and the Greek position is known...
...But they are bloody determined to stay, and they have in many nations outstayed their welcome...
...It is quite possible to envisage some grand summit meeting— under a different President, possibly under Gorbachev—when the two leaders would say: "All right, let's make a historical compromise...
...We in the Western European peace movement don't like to be in the position where our desire to get out from under the hegemony of the U.S...
...And there is a strong feeling in Europe that emphasis on technical arms-control solutions is a way of avoiding political resolutions...
...THOMPSON: Both halves of Europe are resentful of the tutelage and hegemony of their own superpower...
...These arms-control and summit meetings go on over Europe's head: We really aren't participants...
...We would like to see the breakdown of this unnatural bipolar situation...
...They get on with developing economic and cultural relations...
...THOMPSON: Essentially, I believe that the world is either going to blow up, or it is going to be changed out of all recognition...
...nuclear bases in Britain...
...The fact of the matter is, the United States should know that if it stamps on the tail of this aged, molting lion, it will start to growl...
...And yet, within a few years after World War II, the entire apparatus of British colonialism vanished like dew on a hot summer day...
...There are quite a lot of things we might be able to do ourselves without waiting for the superpowers...
...THOMPSON: Actually, it would be the first accession of stature and influence that Britain has had in twenty years...
...THOMPSON: The British peace movement has had a great deal of influence in turning constituency opinion in the last seven years...
...That is, the position of the Freeze movement was that the superpower conflict is an arms-control problem, a technical problem, a problem that can be solved by improved methods of verification and so on, rather than raising questions about the Cold War itself...
...armed forces supported...
...we don't have a seat at the table...
...Another very important element behind Star Wars is the rise of economic and political competitors in recent years: Japan, West Germany, France...
...The origins of the Cold War lie in ideology, but they are also part of the need each superpower has for an opponent to bind together its own disparate nationalities, to control its client states, and to control dissident elements in its own society...
...This would be very confusing to the public, because either there is a great communist menace or there isn't...
...I fear that they will confuse their case by wrapping themselves in the British flag and saying they are as much concerned with defense as the Tories, and they mean to build up a huge navy, and they are going to modernize conventional forces, and they are going to keep war production going...
...Q: In giving up a nuclear capability and joining the nonaligned nations, wouldn't Britain be relinquishing its already diminished position on the world stage...
...So the military had that incentive to silence their doubts and support Star Wars...
...And if the United States didn't like it, it could get out...
...I mean in our own time, I mean in the next fifteen years...
...You can see the ideological force of the fairy story that President Reagan is trying to sell to the American public: that of putting a shield over the top of America so it will once again be back in the days of Hiroshima when the United States had the bomb but no one else did, when America could nuke the outside world but no one could nuke it...
...If missile silos are dug deep into concrete-reinforced emplacements, and one or two nukes manage to get through, it won't disable all the weapons in their silos...
...Germany is divided in half, but Germans East and West sleep snugly abed at night, not alarmed by imminent invasion on either side...
...It prefers not to alarm the electorate and the public with the possibility that there would be consequences...
...has been inviolate from invasion...
...The American peace movement is always working out its strategies in relation to the Soviet Union, and trying to satisfy the American public that it is going to be an equitable deal...
...This is, of course, an ideological fiction...
...The arrogance and insensitivity of this constituency is amazing the rest of the world now, and it is making the courageous and continuing work of the American peace tradition extremely difficult...
...This is very short-sighted...
...nuclear bases on British soil...
...It has to have a politics of hope...
...It had to go out and prove to American citizens that it wasn't going to give anything away for nothing, that this was an equal proposal...
...In any historical process there are a lot of people wrestling for the driving wheel...
...Beyond that, what we want is a return to a world before the Cold War...
...The notion that America has a mission to interfere in nations right across the world, that American blood and life are twenty times more sacred than the blood of Europeans and 100 times more sacred than the blood of Asians, is quite shocking to us...
...You set a process going, and the actors who put their foot on the gas first often get pushed out of the seat, and other actors jostle in and take hold of the wheel...
...What we are trying to persuade the Labour Party to do is to acknowledge that Britain cannot hope to save itself from a nuclear war, but it can play a useful role as mediator...
...There is no way in which any nation could opt out of a nuclear war if there was one...
...The objective should be the withdrawal of all U.S...
...Gorbachev's modernizing group—I don't think they are democrats, but they are modern-minded, efficiency-minded—can't stand any more diversion of resources to a military build-up...
...The third reason was ideological, part of the extraordinary development of what I would call "aggressive isolationism," which is the mark of the Reagan Administration...
...This is precisely what could lead to a military coup in the Soviet Union, and to the strengthening of the hard line, and even to adventurist policies...
...THOMPSON: There is plenty of historical evidence that this is counterproductive...
...So Reagan turned this around in his mind, and it was at this point that support for the Freeze was at its height, and he saw the recipe—Star Wars—which would both deflate the peace movement and keep the great space giants afloat...
...Today, when matters are in a delicate balance, Sweden has more influence in the world than Britain, precisely because it is in a quasi-independent position...
...THOMPSON: Yes, I think so...
...This nationalism can be accounted for in part by the fact that the population of the United States has been collected from all corners of the globe, so there is a constant search for American identity...
...military-industrial complex is seen as anti-American...
...competitors...
...It has to base itself on a best-case ¦analysis or a better-case analysis...
...The Soviets said these forces were there for a "temporary" visit...
...We've been buried under Uncle Sam...
...They want out from the arms race...
...bases and forces from Western Europe, and of all Soviet bases and forces from Eastern and Central Europe...
...We have to project possible better ways of relating, and to act to make these projections feasible...
...They sometimes even resent it more than they do the supposed menace of the other...
...Administration have to do with tensions between the United States and Europe...
...We now have a situation in which the drift is not just of one isolated nation away from the United States, but of a whole bloc of European" nations that either have or will shortly have governments influenced by peace movements...
...This policy also coincides, it happens, with British trading and political interests...
...bases and forces from Western Europe, and of all Soviet bases from Eastern and Central Europe.' Q: How much do the politics of the current U.S...
...We want to rebuild trade with China, which is now becoming more non-aligned, and with India, with Africa, and with Latin American nations...
...The whole motor of deterrence is worst-case analysis: What if the other side does A and we do B. That way you have to build weapons C, D, and E. The peace movement has got to be a "yes" movement...
...It is not a question of submitting to communism in any political or cultural respect whatsoever...
...history, apart from the last episode when the British burned Washington in 1814, the U.S...
...You must have the sense, celebrated on the Fourth of July, of being the center of the free world...
...If the United States does respond, one can expect a very strong response from the British public...
...It can contribute in the long run to healing the world, and therefore will lessen the danger to the American public, too...
...The election next year in West Germany holds the possibility of the return of the Social Democrats, or of a Social Democrat/Green alliance...
...Let's call it quits...
...Constance Matthiessen is a free-lance writer currently living in Paris...
...THOMPSON: If you look at U.S...
...They amicably exchange spies with each other...
...In thirty years' time either both blocs will become so militarized, so rigid, that in one way or another they will drift into nuclear war, or one has got to get to the root of things and come up with a historical compromise...
...Q: How hopeful are you for the future...
...there obviously are, though I don't think they have the upper hand at the moment...
...There is an attempt now in the center of Europe for a healing process, below the level of governments, below the level of armaments—a gradual healing process in terms of trade and cultural relations...
...The Labour Party has voted to enact this policy if it gains power in the next elections (to be held by June 1988...
...You Americans have a problem, just the way the Russian people have a problem: You are obsessed with each other...
...This would not be a victory for either side, but a mutual compromise...
...British historian, social critic, and visionary, he has helped take the discussion of peace issues beyond arms control to explore the roots of the Cold War and the possibilities of reforming the superpower divisions of the world...
...First, there were certain military advantages that different lobbies in the U.S...
...What is your assessment of this strategy...
...They think there are more weapons on both sides than any rationality can justify, that there is plenty of fat that can be cut without the least danger, even in hard-nosed military terms...
...It is doubtful that any of the U.S...
...But it is now becoming clear that several nations in South and Western Europe are trying to edge away from the United States, and the end process will be Swedenization, or Austria-ization...
...You can commence the argument by taking as a given that there is and ever will be a Soviet threat, and therefore you must have a high level of defense...
...This is not isolationism of the old kind, and in fact could be presented as a return to a new kind of internationalism...
...Anyone who has looked at the record knows that if any elements of SDI work at all, they will defend weapons, not people...
...And in the name of SDI, it can actually impose CIA-controlled security measures on U.S...
...It is full of pressures at every level...
...That attitude is creating resentment, even in myself, and I am half American...
...But nothing would be more likely to strengthen the old guard and the military in the Soviet Union than the sense that they are being placed under unbearable military and economic pressure...
...Q: Given this reality, why has the concept of Star Wars gotten so far...
...THOMPSON: In Europe, there is very great concern about American nationalism...
...The Danish parliamentary majority is influenced by the peace movement and has refused to endorse Star Wars...
...Q: You've theorized that Star Wars and the vision of a shield against nuclear attack has its roots in U.S...
...I don't myself believe in the politics of fear...
...Star Wars is a perfect scenario for reestablishing U.S...
...It's not a question of going on as we are, a little bit one way, a little bit the other way, for the next thirty years.' THOMPSON: The Labour Party leadership prefers to pretend that the United States would take no steps...
...The objective should be the withdrawal of all U.S...
...This is where a lot more thinking needs to take place within the American peace movement...
...Star Wars was a takeover of the whole rhetoric, the whole notion of the Freeze movement...
...In the further realm of possibility, END would like to see negotiations quite different from the quid pro quo of current arms negotiations...
...It is absolutely essential for the viability of that regime that they should begin to produce some consumer goods, that they should actually have decent food and decent commodities like toilet rolls and tampons...
...THOMPSON: This is not an expression of isolationism, because it will be accompanied, we hope, by an Ostpolitik, that is, a policy toward the East...
...I don't think we can...
...THOMPSON: Certainly the Atlantic has been getting wider for the last ten years...
...Q: The British Labour Party has promised, if it gains power in the next election, to pursue a program of nuclear disarmament including cancellation of the Trident submarine program, dismantling the Polaris, and the elimination of U.S...
...This is something we have been through ourselves and got ashamed of and feel guilty about, but we find it now coming back from the United States...
...No, this would be the first time in twenty years that Britain would begin to look like a self-respecting independent nation again...
...Gorbachev knows this...
...New problems would arise...
...In order to make this definition of identity, you must have "another" which you contrast yourself with...
...This is conceivable...
...Once that is completed, he intends to get back to his historical research and writing...
...Q^An American visiting Europe J gets the sense, much more ap-• parent here than in the United aiaies, that the recent direction of American foreign policy has created rifts in the Atlantic alliance...
...It is a metaphor that has substance, given growing differences between the U.S...
...We don't think it makes a whole lot of sense...
...Thompson is tall and imposing, with ivory hair, startling eyes, and an abrupt manner...
...What do you mean...
...From the standpoint of Western Europe, the division of our continent into two blocs is an abnormal situation, and the aim of the statesmen should be to end it...
...Therefore, he would like to see a slowdown of the arms race, and he would like to see the end of the Star Wars business...
...My view is that we should take it step by step, and if the United States reacts with offensive outrage and sanctions after Britain expels its weapons, this will probably strengthen the Dunkirk spirit, the independent mood of the British people...
...The second force behind Star Wars has to do with what that great Marxist, General Eisenhower, called the military-industrial complex, which is now twenty-five years older and stronger than it was when he left office...
...As one German scientist has said, "They want to pluck the raisins out of the pudding...
...They would become more non-aligned, not necessarily by walking out of NATO...
...So far there has been no development of an Ostpolitik, of a constructive politic toward the communist bloc and the nonaligned world—the party hasn't thought that through...
...What are the major political and financial forces promoting Star Wars...
...history, that it represents a desire in the United States to have invulnerable borders once again...
...I don't think it is a question of going on as we are, a little bit one way, a little bit the other way, for the next thirty years...
...It provides a means of draining off hightech developments that are in advance of U.S...
...Symbolically, what this proposal means is that while U.S...
...The world is either going to blow up, or it is going to be changed out of all recognition...
...But this is not the end of the story...
...It is bleeding our allies, it brings a sense of incredible danger...
...Q: Is there widespread support for ending this division...
...Obviously the systems in the two blocs are quite different, and obviously in certain Eastern European countries the Soviet presence has to be regarded as a force of occupation, whereas you would not describe, except symbolically, U.S...
...This situation is bleeding both our countries...
...And he advised the British Labour Party on its innovative and controversial defense policy, which involves an ambitious program of nuclear disarmament, including the elimination of U.S...
...We've been swallowed in Atlanticism...
...By taking an antinuclear step, we can free ourselves for new relations with nonaligned nations, who now comprise probably the majority of the world's population...
...So if Britain were also to have a Labour government, you would have a whole bloc of nations that could certainly cut themselves off from the Star Wars strategy, engage in Ostpolitik toward the East, and mount a majority in NATO, thus leaving the United States exposed...
...I think fear is disabling...
...I wonder whether the peace movement might not introduce a new emphasis on the benefits of American withdrawal from its overextended engagements around the globe...
...Q: In the United States, the move away from NATO is viewed as isolationism...
...In those parts of the globe where the two broken halves of the world lie against each other, there is much less sense of concern and fear of the other than there is in the extreme poles, in Moscow and Washington...
...Thompson is also an activist...
...Before devoting his energies to disarmament, Thompson taught history for many years at the University of Warwick, where he wrote the seminal text, The Making of the English Working Class...
...Not by the victory of one side or another, because that would lead inevitably to conventional war and nuclear war, but by enlightened statesmanship, increased trade, cultural exchanges, and the natural process of reform...
...The growing desire for independence in both halves of Europe should be welcomed by the population in the Soviet Union and the United States because the current situation creates an immense expense of taxes, manpower, and resources...
...Q: The Reagan Administration's arms strategy seems to be based on an effort to force the Soviets to the bargaining table by increased defense spending and by the development of new programs like the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI...
...Petty nationalisms-silenced in the big-bloc confrontation-would be revived...
...If the British Labour Party comes to power, it will expel American nuclear bases...
...influence would diminish in Britain, Soviet influence would diminish in Czechoslovakia...
...But the basic bipolar division of the world is what brings us into real danger...
...He and his wife, Dorothy, also a historian, live and work in a rambling house bordered by ancient trees and a lush vegetable garden...
...How serious is this modest proposal...
...That seems a sensible way of trading...
...It was partly successful because of a weak point in the Freeze movement, which was its avoidance of politics...
...That means we will be accused of Utopianism sometimes, but that is the only way through...
...These huge arms and aerospace contractors are, of course, immensely powerful and have an extremely strong lobby in Washington...
...What the Labour Party has not done is to think through what the consequences of its defense policy will be...
...Q: Is the Labour Party taking steps to prepare for the U.S...
...His more recent books on the arms race and relations between the superpowers have become bibles of the peace movement: He edited Protest and Survive and the recently published Star Wars, and wrote Double Exposure and The Heavy Dancers...
...You'd have to invent communism if it didn't exist, because communism provides the foil...
...And if there is, we might as well have nukes, because the navy isn't going to do much good in a nuclear war...
...they had to be told a new story...
...The American taxpayers were getting bored with all this defense spending...
...Thompson is currently working on a book that will be a follow-up to Protest and Survive...
...Measures to withdraw them would relieve the United States and the USSR not only of these responsibilities, but also of the extreme danger in which this unnatural situation places them...
...This was the first time they realized they could actually be reached...
...Reagan's fantasy is to return America to 'the days of Hiroshima when the United States had the bomb but no one else did, when America could nuke the outside world but no one could nuke it.9 At the same time, the United States can subcontract the lower-level tin-bashing work to West European industries...
...high-tech hegemony and domination over its rivals in the name of common defense...
...This is going on in the Soviet Union also...
...THOMPSON: Our view is radically different...
...It is isolationism armed with nukes, withdrawal from real political engagement with the world, and emphasis on technological solutions, military solutions, military muscle—an image of the United States free from any form of nuclear threat...
...It is not sufficient to explain this nationalism by pointing to Reagan, because Reagan has a populist constituency in Middle America, which he is always addressing and getting good vibes from...
...So Star Wars is for defending weapons, not people...
...I don't like this guru business," he said...
...There was always some reason or another why India couldn't become independent, and so on...
...Goodbye Boston...
...Both countries are always looking at each other, trying to show up each other, to challenge each other...
...Now it goes without opposition...
...Or you can direct attention to the question of why there is a Cold War at all, and the strategies that offer a best-case hope of getting rid of the worst forms of the Cold War...
...Q: You say that one motive in the development of the Star Wars policy may have been the undermining of the American Nuclear Freeze movement...
...Even at its height, the American Freeze movement was defensive...
...I don't mean that there would be no more problems in the world...
...But such a healing process seems miles away still from the United States and the Soviet Union...
...Isolationism has always been seen as a cause of the populist Right...
...He does not particularly enjoy being interviewed...
...An additional demand would be that the Soviets withdraw the forces that entered Czechoslovakia in 1968 to put down the "Prague Spring...
...It is obvious that East and Central European nations would like to edge away somewhat from the Soviet Union, and are trying to do so—the end process being, if you like, Finlandization...
...He is a founder of European Nuclear Disarmament (END) and vice president of its British counterpart, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), two groups that have played a key role in creating a Europe-wide movement for peace...
...It is in their immediate short-term interest...
...Q: How does the British peace movement differ with the Labour party on the question of conventional weapons...
...And I think this is the only strategy that is good enough for a peace movement...
...The reduction of 100 SS-20s wouldn't really make much difference to the balance of the blocs...
...and many of its NATO allies...
...All the wars have been "over there," somewhere else...
...And, of course, every city with a Labour-controlled council is a nuclear-free zone...
...Well, eighteen years is a long time for a temporary visit...
...This weak point exposed it to a takeover of this kind...
...Do you think the Reagan Administration was successful...
...The drift of Europe away from the United States presents problems and choices for the American peace movement, because it often sees the Western allies as a restraining force on the Pentagon...
...interviewed Thompson at his home in Worcester, England, before the Reykjavik summit...
...It is possible that the present bloc structure could vanish just as quickly...
...But what would make a symbolic difference is if the Soviets, at a minimum, withdrew their recently deployed short-range missiles from East Germany and Czechoslovakia...
...THOMPSON: The proposal that the United States be expelled from NATO first came from members of the Danish peace movement, but I'm using it as a metaphor rather than an immediate practical possibility...
...What role have END and CND played in pushing the Labour Party toward these positions...
...It would be point defense, defense of missile silos, because defense of missile silos doesn't have to be 100 per cent leak-proof...
...But when it bleeped over the United States, it created something very near panic in the American public...
...The first bruise to that dream came with Sputnik, which was not a military weapon...
...generals really believed in Reagan's dream, but they did want more money for specific researches—things like satellites, ASATS, laser beams—and for upgrading their communications systems...
...This is not impossible...
...What we want is a return to a world before the Cold War...
...This is not to say there are no hawks in the Soviet Union...
...It could be that we are coming to the end of a whole phase of a world marked by two-bloc thinking—Atlanticism on one side, the Communist International on the other...
Vol. 50 • December 1986 • No. 12
