Whose Containment Is This Anyway?
Reagan's foreign policy is being forged amidst a wide-ranging debate within the official bureaucracy and the unofficial foreign policy establishment of "private" policy planning institutions...
...And the Right .is angry that, in its view, the Reagan Administration's action in Central America has not matched its bellicose rhetoric...
...Unilateralism Within the Reagan bureaucracy, the debate revolves around "multilateralism" and "unilateralism...
...That means heeding Western Europe's insistence on the permanence of East-West trade and strengthening NATO politically as well as militarily through the two-track strategy of modernizing weapons systems and pursuing arms control...
...Reagan's foreign policy is being forged amidst a wide-ranging debate within the official bureaucracy and the unofficial foreign policy establishment of "private" policy planning institutions (e.g., Council on Foreign Relations [CFR], Hoover Institute) and such publications as Foreign Policy and Commentary...
...The United States should lead the West in escalating peacetime competition with the Soviet Union through economic warfare...
...Ten years ago the U.S...
...Yet there is still disagreement about the nature of the beast and how to tame it...
...They maintain, however: "This should not mean that we support their repressive practices, and for the sake of their own survival we may at times need to press for internal reforms...
...Multilateralism vs...
...Weinberger's unilateralism assumes the United States can and must have the global military predominance to "go it alone" if necessary...
...The West "needs" Middle East oil, says Tucker, and thus has a vital interest in doing everything necessary to counter Soviet challenges and internal upheaval...
...What has Changed...
...1 2 Moderate containment strategists advocate a modified human rights policy...
...The United States, maintains the CFR's Commission on U.S.-Soviet Relations, should support governments that respect human rights in preference 28MaylJune 1982 29 __ to those that do not, although "it will often be necessary for us to work with some which do not, especially on security matters...
...In the latter sphere, the debate revolves around rightwing, moderate and liberal versions of containment...
...Revolutions and wars of national liberation-and even elections with socialist and communist participation--are plots to breed more Soviet proxies...
...Where some dismiss Central America's strategic importance, others highlight its oil and potential oil and its sea lanes...
...Detenteniks, Saudiniks and Rightniks The Right has criticized both Haig's multilateralism and Weinberger's unilateralism.' 5 A Conservative Digest poll of delegates at the February 1982 Conservative Political Action Conference gave Reagan a B-minus for overall foreign policy and ranked Haig as the worst Cabinet member...
...What most distinguishes "multilateralism" from "unilateralism" is its emphasis on revitalizing the Western alliance through consultation, coordination and compromise...
...Unilateralists (and right-wingers) believe that economic and scientific sanctions against the Soviets will help to roll back the "Iron Curtain" by crippling the Soviet Union technologically and putting intolerable pressure upon its economy and the economies of Eastern Europe and Cuba, Defense Secretary Weinberger with Prime Minister Thatcher in London.30 NACLA Report thereby helping to destabilize the Soviet bloc...
...Rather, Western Europe and Japan should follow the U.S...
...A 1981 Foreign Policy article began with the words: "Few in the politically relevant spectrum these days would challenge the assertion that the Soviet Union is a menace...
...isolationist forces should they ever get angry and strong enough...
...Washington should not accommodate its policy to meet the concerns of its allies...
...a According to the Right, the "free world" must do more than confront the Soviet Union on a geopolitical chessboard (with help from "Red China" no less...
...work so hard to undo a coup which had prevented the accession to power of a man [Hernin Siles Zuazo] whose vice president had strong Castroite leanings and ties, whose coalition included the Communist Party of Bolivia and the Castroite MIR, and whose elevation had been strongly supported by the Soviet Union...
...The United States obviously wants to keep Central America tied to its historic sphere of influence, but, says Tucker, "We have now passed the period of overthrowing an Arbenz in Guatemala, when disposing of governments to which we took offense was a quite easy undertaking...
...1 3 Liberal Containment The most liberal-and presently least popular-form of containment calls for a revitalization of detente, maximum accommodation of change in the third world and a strong emphasis on reform and economic aid.' 4 On southern Africa, this position is articulated in a report by the Rockefeller Foundation's Study Commission on U.S...
...Within the Reagan Administration the debate has taken a somewhat different form: Haig's "multilateralism" versus Weinberger's "unilateralism...
...7 Such disagreement is evident in disputes about where, when and how to "draw the line...
...would have sponsored it, fifteen years ago we would have conducted it...
...Interestingly enough, it is Weinberger and the Pentagon who ride the brake on intervention in Central America--not because they think such intervention is unjustified, but because they think it is too costly under present circumstances...
...would have welcomed a coup that blocked a government with a significant Communist/Castroite component...
...it must wage a global battle against communist ideology...
...While many elements of unilateralism are shared by the Right, like the belief in reasserting nuclear superiority over the Soviet Union, the Weinberger version is seen as far too pro-Arab (appeasing Saudi Arabia...
...She then lamented: "Even five years ago, the U.S...
...At the January conference of the neoconservative Committee For The Free World, Haig and the State Department were accused of being too "detentenik"' '-appeasing martial law in Poland (while selling out Taiwan...
...It is advocated by such hardline trilateralists as Zbigniew Brzezinski and such "pragmatic conservatives" as Robert Tucker ofJohns Hopkins University, who served on the CFR Commission on U.S.-Soviet Relations...
...Policy Toward Southern Africa: South Africa: Time Running Out...
...9 Moderate Containment "Moderate containment," alias limited containment and selective engagement, is an attempt to reconcile the neocolonialist aspirations 27NACLA Report of the 1950s with the limits of the 1980s...
...El Salvador may be the right war, but it's at the wrong time...
...The Pentagon fears that public opposition to an escalating war in El Salvador would unravel the consensus behind the larger military build-up...
...lead-or risk being left behind by U.S...
...A section entitled "The Security Situation in the Third World" downplays the importance of ideology: "We can also agree to take a relatively relaxed view about a number of so-called 'Marxist' regimes in the Third World whose relationship with the Soviet Union is tenuous and cynical...
...Central America, on the other hand, is a case of " want," with no vital resources worth the risks of intervention...
...a joint report by the heads of the CFR and leading British, French and West German foreign affairs institutes...
...A major problem with Tucker's cost-benefit containment (from an imperialist perspective) is that there is no consensus as to what is "need...
...Where some see southern Africa as unimportant, others call it the Persian Gulf of minerals...
...About the Carter Administration's policy of support for "constructive change" in Bolivia, Kirkpatrick has asked: "Why did the U.S...
...Tucker argues that the key to moderate containment is the ability to distinguish between "need" and "want," as illustrated by the Middle East and Central America...
...Containment theory focuses on the Soviet Union...
...What Should Be Done...
...With the notable exception of Central America, Haig has generally practiced moderate containment...
...As Norman Podhoretz put it in a recent lament over Reagan policy: "The Administration seemed more worried about hurting a few bankers [over Poland] than about hurting the Soviet empire...
...Right-Wing Containment The right-wing position (including New Right, older Right and neoconservative) is the simplest...
...Other aspects of moderate containment are fleshed out in Western Security...
...They say draw the line everywhere...
...1 David Rockefeller made this point on a recent 10-nation tour of Africa in March 1982, when he urged normalization of relations with Angola and said African countries which are "allegedly Marxist" pose no threat and would prefer closer relations with the West...
Vol. 16 • May 1982 • No. 3
