The Limits of Military Power:
NIEBUHR, REINHOLD
In the turbulent revolution now going on in Asia, raw force can accomplish little to check the onrush of Communism THE LIMITS OF MILITARY POWER By Reinhold Niebuhr AS WE RECEIVE day-by-day...
...and the trouble with Bao Dai...
...President Eisenhower, standing on the brink of war, finally retreated—partly because he had the sixth sense to know that such a commitment would not be popular, and partly because the Senatorial leaders were reluctant to give him the authority...
...Military power is...
...Our nation is singularly innocent of the military tradition and bereft of the military caste traditionally associated with Prussia...
...We are therefore tempted to an undue reliance on the obvious might which we possess, particularly since our apprenticeship in the leadership of world affairs has been brief, and we have not had time to accustom ourselves to the acquisition, and to know the importance, of prestige as a source of power...
...It can prevent something which we abhor more than conflict, and it can enforce our will and purpose momentarily on a recalcitrant foe...
...We are certainly more disinterested than the French in desiring only the health of the new nation, and its sufficient strength to ward off the Communist peril from the north...
...We are preoccupied with our "defense perimeter" in Asia and have little interest in the vast political complexities of the great continent except to express consistent contempt for the great uncommitted nation...
...The second reason is that our leadership in the world is drawn primarily from our economic and the consequent military strength...
...Therefore, our military power can not be as potent as we think in making our world hegemony sufferable either to our friends and allies or to ourselves...
...Having resisted the temptation to resolve the IndoChinese situation purely by force and by the support of a French imperialism which came to terms with the rising tide of nationalism too tardily, we are doing rather better than the French in coping with the complex problems of a nation which desires freedom but cannot find the unity which would give substance to its independence...
...This impatience is the more grievous because the very technical achievements which have endowed us with superior military power have also given us living standards which are beyond the dreams of avarice of the nontechnical cultures and which militate against our moral prestige...
...even in international disputes, military force has its limits...
...in fact, suspicions that the French have aggravated the problem of Vietnam both by their support of Bao Dai and by possibly covert support of the rebellious forces...
...India, though that nation's neutralism is not informed by the slightest degree of sympathy for Communism...
...We are in a serious predicament in Asia and are therefore tempted to rely too much on our fists to extricate ourselves from our seeming hazards...
...Perhaps we have done well enough to give us a better reputation in Asia as a political, rather than a military, power...
...Thus, our preoccupation with military power and strategy places us in a false light in Asia, particularly since it creates a picture which seems to conform to the Communist slogans which identify "militarism" and "imperialism" with "capitalism...
...therefore, necessary, particularly in moments of crisis when the community faces recalcitrance and anarchy at home, and dispute with another community abroad...
...It is more effective in international disputes than in domestic ones because the order and peace of a community is primarily dependent upon forces of cohesion and accommodation for which pure force is an irrelevance...
...In any event, we seemed about committed to "save'' the last bastion of freedom by military action...
...regarded as a puppet of the French, is a reminder of the old trouble which made the Vietnamese struggle against Communism so ineffective...
...The fortress was besieged, and we were given to understand that its fall would seriously alter the whole strategic picture in Asia...
...But the loyalties and cohesions of the community are managed and transfigured not by force but by a wise statecraft...
...In fact, military might may tend to aggravate our moral and political embarrassments...
...But the contemporary situation in Vietnam should certainly instruct us on the limits of military power in the long cold war...
...Vice President Nixon, speaking to an editors' dinner, hinted that it would probably be necessary to support the French military effort if catastrophe was to be avoided...
...Yet we are made to appear in Asian eyes as the new Prussians...
...and that we, who have always been "anti-imperialist" at least in theory if not in consistent practice, are now regarded as the primary exponents of "imperialism" to the nascent nations of Asia...
...There are...
...The resentments of the Asian people against the white man's arrogance and against the imperialist impact of a technical civilization are bound to prove handicaps to our cause even when it is contending against a vicious tyranny...
...In the turbulent revolution now going on in Asia, raw force can accomplish little to check the onrush of Communism THE LIMITS OF MILITARY POWER By Reinhold Niebuhr AS WE RECEIVE day-by-day news of the agonies of disunity and potential chaos which South Vietnam is undergoing in trying to achieve order and unity, it is well to remember that, only a few short months ago, our whole nation was excited by the crisis in the war between Vietnam and the Communists involving the obscure fort of Dienbienphu...
...We saved the whole situation by prompt military action in Korea...
...We have not had comparable lessons, which may be the reason we do not have a comparable wisdom...
...It is primarily limited by the morale of the community which exercises the force...
...There are probably two reasons for this strange turn of events...
...but we ought at any rate have more patience with neutralism, particularly since we emerged only so recently from a like mood vis-a-vis Europe...
...The first is the fact that a serious predicament may persuade even a pacific man to rely upon his fists...
...Military power is...
...But we do have to keep it in that position of the ultimate instance and not use a meat-axe in situations in which a deft manipulation of loyalties or channeling of aspirations is called for...
...Our attitude toward India is typical of our indifference toward the political complexities of a continent in ferment, our blindness to the hazards which our cause inevitably faces on that continent...
...Britain learned the limits of force in Ireland and then in India...
...These moral and political hazards cannot be overcome by the show of military power...
...The Government's desperate victory over military formations which are alternately described as "river pirates" and "religious sects" reveals the lack of solidity and unity in the community...
...We treat the Asian continent, with its nationalistic and social upheavals, as if it were possible to establish order out of chaos by the assertion of military might...
...For what we are witnessing is the revelation of the poverty of our cause in moral and political terms in a nation which we sought to save from Communist aggression by military defense...
...It lacked the cohesion and morale to avail itself of the proffered aid...
...It must be taken for granted that no amount of political skill or wisdom in the tumultuous affairs of the Asian revolution can obviate the necessity of strong military power, nor obscure the importance of our supremacy in atomic weapons...
...in short, ineffective when it lacks a moral and political base...
...It is well to remember that in collective, as well as individual, life the force which coerces the body but does not persuade the will can have only negative significance...
...That is why pure military power was so ineffective in Vietnam and why, incidentally, no amount of military aid could save the Chinese Nationalist cause...
...That poverty is revealed by the still-lingering resentment against French imperialism, by the opposition to the puppet "Chief of State" Bao Dai on the part of the people of the budding nation, and by their own inability to achieve unity against divisive forces within their nation...
...Economic power can be quickly transmuted into military power, particularly in a technical age, and more particularly in an atomic age...
...Despite these obvious limits of military power, the American nation has become strangely enamored with military might...
...No doubt military action must frequently be the ultima ratio in a struggle with a foe...
...or to learn patience with the endless complexities of loyalties and resentments of traditions and established forms of cohesion which govern the actions of nations...
...The combination of fear and envy, which our power and good fortune excites, militates against our moral and political prestige, which is the real source of authority in the political realm...
...It is the fist of a hand: but the hand must be attached to an arm, and the arm to a body: and the body must be robust before the fist can be effective...
...This fact is probably the cause of the paradoxical fact that Britain, which only recently divested itself of its Asian empire, is more popular in Asia than we...
...The Administration seemed on the verge of committing at least our Air Force to this struggle...
...The question is why we permitted ourselves to appear in this unfavorable light in the whole of Asia...
...We can not dispense with military power as the ultima ratio of international relations...
...It is not so certain that it may not possess illusions about this tyranny...
Vol. 38 • May 1955 • No. 22
