America and the Asians

...That does not mean, of course, that we can take a strategic defeat in Asia lightly, or that we can be indifferent to the moral perils to our cause on that continent...

...The point to consider is that a Republican administration now faces some of the same perplexities which a previous administration faced before it...

...The other is that Europe's technical efficiency and power is a richer prize than all the square miles of Asia...

...It is altogether wholesome, irrespective of the virtues and weaknesses of particular administrations, that there should be this alternation of authority...

...The first fact to notice is that the West is ideologically at a disadvantage in Asia...

...It merely calls attention to the fact that the terror of Communist tyranny cannot be clearly discerned by peoples which have never known our freedom and whose vision is colored by resentful memories of ancient wrongs and by illusions about a future which would be free if the oppression which they erroneously regard as the only source of evil were removed...

...Now we are made aware of the fact that there is a vast process at work in Asia which it may be beyond our power to frustrate...

...The Communists will doubtless offer peace proposals to the weary French which entail the de facto subjugation of the three Indo-Chinese states, and the French will be forced to accept them unless we promise to come to their support...

...He resented those charges and has since proved that the attainment of peace was indeed one of the "dearest prizes" of his life...

...AMERICA AND THE ASIANS By Reinhold Niebuhr The Republicans, like the Democrats, are finding it hard to cope with the West's ideological disadvantage in Asia The desperate situation in Indo-China, where Dienbienphu has fallen and an "honorable peace," so desperately desired by the war-weary French, is impossible unless we promise more help than the American public seems prepared to give, throws a vivid light on some commonly overlooked aspects of our worldwide struggle with Communism...

...These are the hazards to our cause not recognized by the "Asia-firsters," who do not consider the nuances of international politics but merely count noses and square miles to determine how much progress we or the Communists may have made...

...That will make nonsense of all the threats of "massive retaliation," and all the promises that reliance on atomic weapons will relieve the American taxpayer of grievous military burdens...

...Thus, Britain learned, as we have, that neither party is solely responsible for the conditions the nation faces or is able to provide simple solutions for complex issues...

...One is that Europe is as passionately devoted as we are to the conditions of freedom and justice which have slowly evolved in our common civilization...

...In Asia, we are trying to prevent the spread of Communism in nations which are just emerging from the organic and static cohesion of agrarian cultures and are either celebrating or longing for freedom from Western "imperialism" and "colonialism...

...But I also welcome the situation because it is a source of virtue and patience for all of us as Americans...

...Being a lifelong opponent of the Republican party may have colored my convictions, so that I cannot see its superior virtues and am forced to regret its inadequacies in foreign policy...

...We ought not to support them unless they promise real freedom to the Indo-Chinese states...

...It forces us to a more rational view of our international burdens and dispels the "illusions of American omnipotence," to use Dennis Brogan's phrase...

...We must hope that the French will learn that military valor cannot compensate for lack of political and moral imagination, and that the price they have paid in blood would not have been so high and their sacrifices so futile if they had given Indo-China a genuine partnership in a common struggle...

...The tardiness of the French in granting independence to Indo-China served to fan the flames of resentment against the West throughout Asia, and deprived the anti-Communist cause of the moral basis without which mere military power is always futile...

...This analysis does not assume that Communism would truly "liberate" Asian nations...

...It was also instructive for the British public to see that the Conservative party continued to bear the heavy burdens of rearmament initiated by Labor while, at the same time, it genuinely tried to ease those burdens to the degree that they seemed to imperil the economy...

...If we fight the war, we will be obliged to frustrate Communist purposes locally without becoming involved in an all-out war with China...

...They are filled with resentment of past displays of the white man's arrogance (which, incidentally, was a more serious vice of our relation to Asia than the economic "exploitation" about which the Communists speak so much...

...It will be remembered that Churchill was accused during the election campaign of being indifferent to the perils of war...

...We are a powerful nation, but not so powerful that we can compel the vast forces of political upheaval on a continent to conform to "the American interest...

...In Britain, the shift in parties has had something of the same wholesome effect upon the nation's sense of responsibility...

...Such threats were more than useless, because they merely put us at a greater moral disadvantage...

...Thus, the fact is obscured that we are bound to Europe as we are not bound to Asia by two basic facts...

...This does not exclude the possibility that one party or the other may be superior in wisdom or have a superior solution for a particular problem...

...Thus, we see that the alternation of authority between parties is a very necessary device of democracy, not only for the purpose of changing policy when one administration ceases to express the will or mood of the people, but also to impress upon the nation—particularly ours, which is comparatively new to the vast responsibilities it now carries—that there are certain permanent hazards and perplexities, certain intractable conditions which a foreign policy must consider, no matter which party is in power...

...Communism may spread from China to Indo-China even if we try to prevent it...

...The pretension to superior wisdom was therefore what I found most intolerable, and I particularly appreciate the present situation because it dispels those pretensions...

...Thus, the necessity of resisting Communism locally, without undertaking the fearful responsibility of initiating a global atomic war, will be established as a permanent problem of our foreign policy, and not the consequence of the weaknesses or errors of a particular administration...

...In Europe, we are fighting to preserve a common civilization with nations which are in fact the seedbed of our heritage of justice and freedom...

...It has been widely asserted, for instance, that China was conquered by the Communists because of some fault in our policy toward China...

...For this reason, we could not help the French by threats of "massive retaliation...

...The second important fact that emerges from this crisis concerns not the problems of Asia but the workings of a democracy...

...For it tends to dispel the cherished illusion that a particular administration created conditions which are in fact the product of stubborn historical forces beyond the control of any nation or government...

...We will have to prove our wisdom by beguiling the historical forces rather than prove our power by coercing them...

...But if we do, we will, I hope, accept the hard necessities of such a conflict without hearing anyone say that the war could have been avoided and is therefore an "Eisenhower war...