Beyond the Power Blocs

...The cold war between Russia and the West is no longer a contest for world supremacy so much as a kind of military gymnastics with vague moral overtones...

...Even if the cold war between America and Russia were ressurrected, it could never again take its old form...

...Long the fulcrum of NATO, and indeed the basic reason for its existence, West Germany is now seeking to play a freer role between East and West...

...Further, it has given the smaller Communist nations a remarkable freedom of action to pursue their individual paths—a freedom which has been evidenced in Albania's defiance of Russia, and by North Korea's remarkable warning against Chinese interference...

...The Atlantic Alliance is foundering under the impact of a new European nationalism, and the East European states are no longer behaving as though they were satel lites of Moscow...

...Even the politi...

...The superpowers have kept a firm hand on their allies and are in unspoken agreement that territorial changes in Europe will not be settled by force...

...Europe—once the major area of contention between America and Russia—has now become a haven of stability...

...It would be a tragic irony if the passing of the bipolar cold-war confrontation should be succeeded by the attempt to assert an American suzerainty over the areas lying along the fringes of the Communist giants...

...Provocations—such as Berlin, Korea, Hungary, Cuba—which in an earlier time would almost certainly have led to open war, were smothered and ultimately resolved by compromise...

...In Eastern Europe today there is no "bloc...

...While dependent upon Washington for protection, the new government in Bonn refuses to antagonize Gaullist France and is showing a surprising initiative in launching its own "opening to the East...

...Gaullist France may have been the first to realize that American military protection need not entail American political domination, but it is Germany and China—two nations with real grievances—that pose the real danger to the unspoken accord of the superpowers...

...The implacability of the cold war remains only in the ideological rhetoric of which neither side has been fully able to unburden itself...

...They have shown that the real struggle for most of mankind is not between Communists and anti-Communists, or between Americans and Russians, but between the rich and the poor, between the developed nations and the economically-backward ones...

...The passage of the colonial world to formal independence is one of the great revolutions of our time—greater in impact than even the Russian Revolution...

...With considerable reluctance, but with virtually no choice, Moscow has had to accept the equality of its erstwhile dependents in matters of ideology...

...Where the non-nuclear powers are concerned, it has been basically irrelevant...

...It helped to spare Europe a major war for nearly a century, and it tolerated a certain degree of diversity for the states it encompassed...

...The revival of nationalism is even expressed in territorial disputes once again coming out into the open in the factious Balkans...

...It has pushed our frontiers beyond the Western hemisphere to the mainland of Asia and the jungles of Africa...

...At the very least, the war in Vietnam has demonstrated that the break-up of the cold-war power blocs has not brought about the tranquility that many liberals and radicals unrealistically imagined...

...Their mu tual dedication to Marxism has apparently only sharpened their differ• ences, for it has added the problem of heresy to the normal conflict of national interest...

...and it has not been of any use to the United States during either the Korean or the Vietnam War...

...Not a single European ally has come to our aid in Vietnam, and virtually all of them disapprove of what we are doing there—France publicly, the others mostly privately...

...The best they can do is to seek to smother conflict where it affects them directly, and cooperate, insofar as possible, to isolate the violence in the emerging countries so that they are not dragged into these disorders...

...A world which revolved around the twin poles of Moscow and Washington has been split into scores of minor and major poles...

...Even if the United States were to pursue a more restrained concept of where her national interest lay...

...Thus, they have tried to close the atomic club to new members, an act whose self-serving cynicism is not diminished by the fact of its probable desirability...

...Russia has been quiescent in Latin America since the Cuban missile crisis, and the United States has been reluctant to exploit the revived nationalism now sweeping Eastern Europe...

...The passing of the cold-war world has not solved our problems...

...The more serious problem is whether it is still possible...

...Communism has come to embrace so wide a spectrum of requirements and compulsions on the part of the respective parties and regimes," as George Kennan has written, "that any determined attempt to reimpose unity on the movement would merely cause it to break violently apart at one point or another...

...This is why the Administration has struggled so hard to bring the specter of China into the Vietnam equation, even though this has involved a considerable twisting of logic and evidence...

...Because of the contest with Russia over power and ideology, the United States became involved in countries very remote from traditional American interests and pledged itself to a struggle that knew no territorial limitations...

...These new nations are concerned with political ideology only insofar as it can be used to achieve the goals they want—above all, the development of their economies...

...The Communist victory in Yugoslavia did not augment Russian power, any more than a Communist North Korea or a Communist North Vietnam has increased Chinese power...

...As far as the containment of Russia is concerned, China is Europe's natural ally, and the Europeans are setting the stage for this alliance by aiding China's attempts at industrialization...

...it did not aid the French during the long agony of the Algerian War...

...Incapable of protecting themselves, they sought Amercian protection on virtually any terms...

...When faced with the turmoil of the Third World and with the rise of new powers, such as China, to challenge American pre-eminence, there is the temptation among many to have the United States play the role of a global policeman...

...Now that the superpowers are less interested in the formal loyalty of the neutrals, they are also willing to pay less for it in the form of military assistance and foreign-aid bribes...

...The Bomb has helped to keep the peace, and in this sense its development may be less of a misfortune than we now realize...

...Their primary value now seems to be that of keeping recalcitrant allies in line and maintaining an essentially bipolar balance of power...

...Less concerned with the differences between Communism and anti-Communism than with the struggle for equality and economic development, they have put the Russo-American cold war into a new focus...

...This is a phenomenon which we admit in Europe, although we deny it in Asia and are today engaged in demonstrating our denial by the most violent means in Vietnam...

...The obscene guardian of an uneasy peace, the Bomb has forced America and Russia to find ways of resolving, or of learning to live with, their differences...

...But the development of the Bomb and its gradual dispersal to a host of relatively minor powers has deprived Russia and America of some of their advantages of size and power...

...Beginning as a struggle for power in a war-shattered Europe, the cold war soon became an ideological contest embracing all the continents...

...But above all what is necessary in the post-cold-war world is a clear recognition of where our real interests lie and what are the limitations our actions must be guided by...

...There is a kind of collusion taking place between the superpowers: a collusion to keep Europe divided into rival alliances, to restrain China, to keep the lid on the Third World, to prevent new members from joining the atomic club...

...Ideological differences remain, but they are no longer proclaimed with the old fervor, nor are they allowed to stand in the way of political agreements...

...Perhaps these differences over economics, politics, and even military strategy would be less important if there were a common consensus on the basic problems that affect the Atlantic allies...

...In this sense it may be not so much a hang-over from the cold war (although to some degree it is, insofar as our assessment of Ho Chi Minh is concerned), as an attempt to stake out the boundaries of America's global power...

...But the cold war has also been an exhilirating time in American history...

...But it is precisely this consensus which now seems to be lacking...

...Confronted by the insubordination of their allies and the defiance of the neutrals, America and Russia are in the declining days of their condominium...

...The language of the French Revolution had spread throughout Europe, even after France herself returned to conservatism and monarchy...

...Although remnants of the cold war remain, particularly in the official language of the State Department, the main dispute between nations is not so much over ideology as it is over power and influence...

...Only a decade ago much of Africa and even parts of Asia were ruled directly from Europe, or had just begun to emerge from such rule...

...Today it is virtually unthinkable that either side would launch a war over Europe, or that they would allow any situation to arise in Europe that could threaten to ignite such a war...

...And in turn this has been reinforced by the extraordinary recovery of Western Europe...

...Indeed, they look with favor on the growth of Chinese power, for they see it as a means of balancing Russian power in the East...

...A fourth factor contributing to the passing of the cold-war world has been the declining importance of nuclear weapons as a diplomatic tool...

...it has only changed them, for, as Churchill said as long ago as 1945, "when the war of the giants is over, the war of the pygmies will begin...

...But what was important was that this ideology expressed itself in nationalistic fervor and the struggle for political equality by peoples who were, or believed themselves to be, suppressed...

...With the achievement of both an ideological and a power balance between America and Russia, the blocs they lead have been subject to severe strain and even the threat of disintegration...

...It has not made the small equal to the great, but like the pistol it has helped bridge some of the disparities of power...

...Each remains committed to its ideology, but the detente and the nuclear balance take precedence over ideological proselytyzing...

...If this means that they will not be settled at all during the foreseeable future, then so much the better as far as the interests of Moscow and Washington are concerned...

...Gradually, we seem to be returning to an older kind of struggle, the kind Metternich tried to deal with after the Napoleonic wars and the appease merit of ideological fervor in republican France...

...One might argue that it would be a wholesome development insofar as world peace is concerned...

...But as neutralism becomes easier, so the rewards of commitment are less enticing...

...A common ideology has not glossed over the sharp differences separating two giants—one pursuing affluence and "peaceful coexistence," the other mired in poverty and preaching world revolution...

...This refusal to accept American leadership is also shown in the negotiations over the treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons...

...It may, in fact, even weaken it—as a Communist China weakened Russia's hold over other Communist states...

...For the nuclear powers it has frozen the status quo—as in central Europe...

...Communism has failed as an economic system in Eastern Europe...

...Experience has demonstrated that the atomic bomb has not permitted its possessor to impose its will upon any rival...

...The resistance of the European allies to American direction can be seen not only in the withdrawal of France from NATO—a withdrawal which is supported by virtually all shades of French opinion—but even in the reluctance of West Germany to accept Washington's lead in such matters as defense costs and nuclear non-proliferation...

...Indeed, the reality is quite the reverse...

...This can be seen in at least four crucial areas: • First, there is the disintegration of the Soviet-ruled bloc and the open rebellion of Peking...

...In a sense, all of these complaints are right...

...Although it made us fear for our safety, the struggle with Communism also excited us with the knowledge that we were one of the world's arbiters...

...They are learning to carry on their competition in terms of a traditional power rivalry...

...There is a new fluidity and even a new independence in European politics as nations on both sides of the Iron Curtain explore new ways of resolving the differences that have kept them separated for more than 20 years...

...The atomic monopoly, so long enjoyed by Moscow and Washington, has now been broken by China...

...Today the European colonial empires have virtually disappeared, except for the Portuguese territories in Africa and a few curiosities such as Rio Muni and Timoz...

...It may be that, beneath the fury of an outdated rhetoric, Vietnam is not so much a war of ideology as a war for power and influence: a war to demonstrate to China that the United States is, as the President has said, a Pacific power, and even an Asian power...

...Everywhere in the Soviet bloc Communism has been forced to take a back seat to nationalism, as each nation seeks its own road to prosperity—sometimes at the expense of its neighbors...

...The war in Vietnam can be justified to public opinion in terms of the coldwar rhetoric of Communism v. anti-Communism...

...Rephrasing diplomacy in terms of economic development, the emerging nations have helped take the ideological sting out of the cold war...

...This pattern of self-restraint dates back to the worst days of the cold war, and has now been reinforced by the dictates of "peaceful coexistence...

...Neutralism has lost its "immorality...

...The cold war was real and it was deadly...

...Roosevelt's vision of a great power directorship over the world is theoretically feasible...

...The decay of NATO and the Dulles complex of alliances, the disintegration of the Communist bloc, the spread of nuclear weapons, and the diminution of the Bomb as a means of superpower control, the revolutionary rise of the ex-colonial peoples—all this has radically changed the world power structure from what it was during the cold-war period...

...Rather than agitate trouble in such places as Laos and Kashmir, the superpowers have tried to smother grievances, and after the dissatisfying experience of the Congo they have sought to keep the cold war out of Africa...

...What lies beyond the cold war and the break-up of the rival power blocs is a world where even such great powers as America and Russia cannot hope to assert their will in areas outside their own vital interests...

...The rise of new powers and the shattering of the old alliances have threatened the dominance the two nuclear giants have enjoyed...

...Diplomacy has yet to catch up with history...

...They are not gravely concerned by the expansion of Communism in Asia and share none of our apprehension about China...

...The tortuous negotiations of the "Kennedy round" for mutual tariff reductions and the refusal of the Europeans to lower their tariffs without American concessions have shown that the Europeans have gained a great deal of leverage through the Common Market...

...Perhaps the Austro-Hungarian empire was not such a bad thing...

...Can Washington today decree a German settlement without the accord of Bonn...

...Even the disintegration of NATO itself is being accepted by most Europeans, who look upon the transfer of its headquarters to Belgium as the final acknowledgement of its descent into bureaucratic irrelevance...

...even if Washington and Moscow were to cooperate overtly in such areas of mutual concern as Central Europe, there is little reason to assume a decline in international tensions...

...The American occupation, benevolent though it may have been, is becoming an anachronism to a Europe in quest of reconciliation...

...The recent decision by Bucharest to extend formal diplomatic recognition to the West German government in Bonn, over vehement protests from Moscow and Pankow, is simply a case in point...

...Today it is the Communist states of the East that are subject to grave internal stresses, while it is the nations of Western Europe that are strong, prosperous and relatively stable...

...The reunification of Germany has been put into the deep-freeze along with the multilateral nuclear force (MLF...

...The alliances they maintain are usable only for defense against one another...

...Not merely is Russia less of a threat and the Communist bloc less of a reality...

...Perhaps historians will decree that the American empire, too, has not been such a bad thing: that it has been maintained with a minimum of overt coercion, that it has helped keep the peace, and that it has been relatively benevolent for most of the peoples who live within its confines...

...But the Atlantic bloc is no more, and America is now faced with allies with a mind, and policies, of their own...

...Having been incapable of decreeing a European peace treaty or reaching an accord on nuclear weapons during a time when they could enforce it upon weaker nations, they now find that the agreements they reach may be binding upon no one but themselves...

...Keeping restless allies in check, trying to maintain a nuclear balance, resentfully financing the development of the emerging nations, and trying to prevent the instability of the new states from drawing them into an open confrontation with one another, Moscow and Washington are moving toward an unacknowledged, but nonetheless real, cooperation...

...Even in economics the identity of interests between Europe and America—always more apparent than real—has begun to break down...

...The coming struggle is not going to be one between Communists and anti-Communists—despite the inflated rhetoric of the war in Vietnam—but rather between rising states and established ones, between those who seek and those who already possess...

...Instead of a single Communist Church centered in Moscow, there are a variety of churches, each with its own Pope...

...In so doing, they have forced America and Russia to realize that as wealthy, stable, and prosperous societies, they have more in common with one another than with the aspiring poor in the Third World...

...As the balance of terror has become more stable, so the struggle between America and Russia has been muted...

...France has shown that the alliance will endure even though NATO is dismantled, and that even if American soldiers were withdrawn from Europe the American guarantee would still remain valid...

...Thus Communist authorities throughout the world are evolving their own solutions for local problems: the Rumanians are inviting Western investors, the Yugoslays are creating a mixed capitalistsocialist system, the Czechs are imposing a market economy, and even the Russians themselves are following the lead of their protectorates and experimenting in economics...

...As this desire to reconcile the two parts of a divided continent becomes increasingly important to Europeans, the ties of the Atlantic Alliance seem unduly restrictive...

...To invert Clausewitz's famous dictum, it has forced them to resort to diplomacy as a continuation of warfare by other means...

...Thus we can no longer assume that a Communist revolution in one country will necessarily benefit an existing Communist regime in any other country...

...It has now become clear that the focus of American diplomacy is shifting away from Europe, where the Soviet Union has long since been contained, to the impoverished and unstable states of the Third World...

...it has also lost some of its economic rewards...

...It inspired the hysteria of the McCarthy period and the anxiety that has marked our relations with the rest of the world...

...But outside of Europe they have shown an indifference to American diplomacy that frequently borders on disdain...

...Through their challenge to the nations of the West, and by the extraordinary human and material potential they possess, these nations have re-framed the world power structure...

...But even there that justification no longer carries its old conviction, and much of the uneasiness over the war among people who are neither liberals nor radicals stems from the fact that Communism per se is not considered to be the menace it once was...

...In foreign affairs the disintegration of Communist unity has, of course, been even more dramatic...

...but Western Europe is no longer so weak and prey to Communist pressures...

...As the United States refused to support the rebellious East Berliners in 1953 or the Hungarians in 1956, and accepted the Berlin Wall in 1961, so the Russians tolerated the Berlin airlift, have respected the security of West Berlin, and have not challenged our devastation of Communist North Vietnam...

...Today the Europeans are chafing under what they term American "hegemony" and face with equanimity the day when American soldiers will have departed from the continent...

...As the Russian military threat has diminished and as the solidity of the Communist bloc has cracked, so the united front in the West has seemed less important...

...This break between Moscow and Peking has removed the old fear that world Communism could be put at the service of the Soviet state, a fear that for so long haunted American diplomacy...

...The East European nations, which are satellites no more, are free to pursue their own internal policies, and even their own foreign policies so long as they do not endanger the security of the Soviet Union...

...It is a paradox, but an unavoidable one, that the Bomb has kept the peace between the superpowers, while permitting lesser grievances to be fought in its shadow...

...But that relief could well be tempered by even a cursory glance at the new power struggle emerging on the horizon...

...To retain their pre-eminence, the superpowers must prevent other nations, whether allies or foes, from upsetting the nuclear balance or forcing them into a nuclear confrontation...

...it has failed even more dramatically in its effort to provide a more potent ideology than nationalism...

...Yet while the military organization decays, the alliance will endure so long as it seems to the mutual advantage of America and Europe...

...The present detente, and the joint effort to forge a treaty banning the proliferation of nuclear weapons, comes as a result of their realization of this fact...

...The world of the cold-war period—a world rigidly divided into two rival blocs—has now passed into history...

...Eastern Europe may be nominally Communist, but it is burdened with a heavy history of xenophobia and suspicion that two decades of Communist rule have not overcome...

...Economic stagnation has been confined to the history books, along with the worst nightmares of the Nazi period, and the feeling of political impotence is now being replaced by a new European quest for identity...

...Aware of their common interests, determined not to be drawn into a nuclear war against their will by actions of nations such as China or Germany, the superpowers are now forced to reconsider the value of their alliances...

...Once again masters of their own country, caught up in the flush of their revolution, seething with resentment against the foreigners who dominated them for so long, determined to gain a place in the world commensurate with their immense potential, the Chinese are today challenging the Russians not only over the interpretation of Marxist scripture, but over the disputed territories they claim were seized from them by the Czars during the nineteenth century...

...Yet each time they have been drawing to the brink, the superpowers have pulled back, fearful of a conflict whose destruction would nullify whatever issue was at stake...

...But what they lack in riches and technical skills, they more than compensate for in a fierce nationalism that is Europe's most troublesome legacy to the Third World...

...We cannot contain all the violence in the world, and perhaps the best we can do is to make sure that it does not involve us over causes that are not our own and whose reasons we do not understand...

...With the lessening of the danger of a European war, the cold-war alliances have lost their cohesion, and even much of their reason for being...

...There is no common accord between America and her allies on the crucial issues now facing American diplomacy: the war in Vietnam, the containment of China, the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons, the defense of Europe, or the struggle against Communism in the Third World...

...Even the propaganda war has come to be considered bad taste in both rival capitals...

...Can Moscow do so without the agreement of Pankow...

...That this may be true, however, does not necessarily make it undesirable...

...The past is now prologue to the post-cold-war world that we are living in...

...The ideological struggle has shifted from Europe to Asia and the revolution-prone states of the Third World...

...Instead of a "Communist world" and a "free world," there are a confusing series of shifting relationships between great and small powers...

...Removed from the cold-war arsenal, economic assistance to the poorer countries is coming to seem more of a chore than an opportunity to America and Russia...

...Such a judgment may have a good deal to recommend it, but it is not really to the point, for the real test of an empire is not whether it is beneficent but whether it is viable...

...They are now engaged in an attempt to stabilize the arms race by an agreement on anti-missile systems, are sharing the burden of building up India as a rival to China, and are apparently agreed that Castro should be kept isolated...

...But it is the basic fact of life in Asia, where there has been an open rupture between Russia and China...

...Far better, after all, to have the world controlled by two satiated superpowers acting in cooperation than to have it fought over by two implacably hostile nations bent on world dominion...

...Behind that rhetoric, however, lie the elements of an accord dictated by common interests...

...The cold war both caused and justified the creation of a benevolent American empire...

...This has been evident not only in the nuclear test-ban treaty of 1963 and the proposed non-proliferation treaty, but also in the current war in Vietnam...

...Their ability to control or speak for others is steadily diminishing, and the days of their hegemony appear to be numbered...

...This is, however, precisely what we have maintained in Europe, the Middle East, and Japan along the fringes of the Soviet Union, and what we have achieved along the fringes of China everywhere but in Vietnam...

...The break-up of the power blocs directed from Washington and Moscow has brought a new fluidity, and a new instability, to world affairs...

...To many Europeans it now seems that the rival alliances can be maintained only at the cost of keeping Europe divided, and if the Iron Curtain is to be demolished, it can be done only by dismantling the rival blocs directed from Moscow and Washington...

...Relief with the passing of the cold-war struggle between America and Russia is natural, particularly among liberals who all along have decried both the goals and the methods of the cold war...

...Yet in trying to raise themselves from economic primitiveness and exploitation, they have had nowhere to turn for help but to the rich nations—and above all, to the superpowers...

...there is simply a group of states proclaiming formal allegiance to the same ideology, and dependent upon Soviet power for external protection...

...This is not because of Washington's noble heart, but because America's own interests require that Western Europe be defended from a Russian attack...

...On the contrary, the subsiding of the cold war between the giants has permitted smaller powers to give vent to their grievances against one another, and violence to take place on a local level without necessarily threatening the nuclear balance and the Russo-America detente...

...The cold war has been a demoralizing force in American life, forcing us to concentrate on such questions as security and prestige...

...Wealthy giants in a world of restless allies, resentful pygmies, and hostile challengers, America and Russia find themselves drawn together in a search for common solutions to common problems...

...The Bomb serves as a means by which one nuclear power can deter another...

...Not only have the Germans declared that they will not sign a treaty which discriminates against them, but so have the Italians—while the French, of course, refuse to sign altogether...

...Neither Washington nor Moscow has any intention of attacking the other, and each is willing to let his rival reign within his sphere of influence...

...But this is not a desirable role for America, and it has now become apparent in Vietnam that it is not even a feasible one...

...Throughout Africa and Asia scores of new nations have been carved from the remnants of the European empires, and are now demanding their rights to political equality and economic development...

...Insofar as the containment of Russia is concerned, the European allies are willing to support American strategy—even though they are often reluctant to contribute to it...

...Allegiance to a common ideology did not prevent the Yugoslays from defying Moscow, nor has it prevented the Rumanians from expanding their Western links over Russia's objections...

...The breakup of the Communist bloc has made it clear that Coinmunism is no more capable of providing a cement for power alliances than is capitalism or Catholicism...

...Europe today is no longer the cockpit of the world, but a rather tiresome sideshow whose inconveniences the superpowers are willing to tolerate so long as it does not get out of hand...

...These essays will form part of a book we are preparing on the general theme of foreign affairs and foreign policy.—ED...

...But may it not be too late...

...Possession of a Bomb did not help the British avoid costly colonial wars in Malaya and Cyprus...

...This is vitally important, for without the Bomb it is quite likely that America and Russia long ago would have been at war over one of their many areas of disagreement...

...This is no doubt why Stalin persisted for so long in backing Chiang Kai-shek against Mao Tse-tung, for he must have realized that a Communist China could be a powerful rival to Russia within the Communist system...

...The rise of an independent, and now defiant, Communist government in Peking has shattered whatever hopes Moscow entertained for controlling the world Communist movement...

...This, of course, is what de Gaulle has warned of all along, what the Chinese mean when they talk about Soviet cooperation with the "imperialists," and what West German Chancellor Kiesinger meant when he accused Russia and America of "a form of atomic complicity" in the non-proliferation treaty...

...The division and occupation of Europe by foreign powers—a division that has now lasted for nearly a quarter century—has come to seem as unnatural as it is undesirable to Europeans on both sides of the Iron Curtain...

...Only 20 years ago the West Europeans seemed prey to revolution from within and aggression from without...

...This is not yet pronounced in Eastern Europe, where such states as Poland and East Germany feel themselves dependent upon Moscow for protection against possible West German "revanchism," and where the other Communist states recognize that they must remain formal members of the Warsaw Pact so long as Russia insists upon it...

...It has made the United States, for the first time in its history, a global power...

...Without the Bomb they are the two greatest powers on earth, incomparably superior to any current rival...

...Cooperation, accord, even collusion between Washington and Moscow is possible, and in many respects desirable...

...They are no longer viable instruments by which the superpowers can assert their will upon weaker nations...

...Soviet messianism—sweeping in its presumptions, although usually tailored in its actions to serve the interests of the Russian state—was matched by an equally fervent American messianism in the form of anti-Communism...

...A tacit cooperation between the superpowers has been in effect for some time, even though both would be reluctant to admit it officially...

...Now that this elementary fact has begun to be grasped by most European governments, the old loyalty toward NATO has given way to skepticism and even open indifference...

...This tacit cooperation between Washington and Moscow has gone so far that the United States was embarrassed by the request of Stalin's daughter for asylum, and persuaded her to go to Switzerland instead...

...Europe's resurgence from defeat and demoralization to prosperity and self-confidence is one of the most extraordinary success stories of modern history...

...The disintegration of the cold-war alliances has diminished the usable power of the nuclear giants...

...On that count the benevolent American empire cannot expect to maintain its cohesion without the use of methods which may be repugnant to the American people...

...Further, it has now become apparent that both Russia and America have had their effective power diminished by the development of the atomic bomb...

...Outside the system of rival alliances, the cold-war neutrals have found that their allegiance to one camp or another is no longer so ardently desired by Moscow or Washington, and that it is not impossible to maintain the middle course they have proclaimed as their goal...

...cal differences have now been accepted with resignation and a certain mutual respect...

...One can no longer be sure what constitutes Communist orthodoxy because there is no single orthodoxy...

...The decay of the two rival blocs has been accompanied by the sudden rise of the underdeveloped states to global prominence...

...Perhaps this is why the Administration considers the Vietnam War such a "test case," for it fears that if the war is lost to the Vietcong guerrillas, China will establish a sphere of influence in Southeast Asia, and America will no longer be an "Asian power...

...But the Bomb has not given its possessors the means to settle their political grievances, nor even to assert their will over non-nuclear powers...

...It has sharply restricted the agreements they can impose upon other nations...

...With a few fortunate exceptions, these nations are mostly poor and illequipped for the ordeals of independence...

...This is not because superpowers today are more reasonable than those of the past, but because the atomic bomb has made full-scale warfare suicidal between major powers...

...Soviet control over Eastern Europe has been sharply diminished, and such states as Hungary and Rumania have shown a willingness to pursue their own national policies even in the face of Russian objections...

...A parallel development is decay of the Atlantic Alliance...