Hot War-Cold War-Cool War:

...Such actions have led some observers to the conclusion that the "new look" has now been discarded in favor of a return to the "old look...

...Admittedly, a contest for power has been in progress since Stalin's death...

...His program of plowing up virgin lands has not proved successful...

...It may be that Stalin, along with many people, looked upon the atom bomb as just another more powerful weapon, one which did not require a change in Soviet foreign policy...

...Secondly, Geneva signified a general acceptance of the idea that, since weapons have become so destructive, and since both East and West have large quantities of these weapons, neither side is likely to risk a large-scale war...

...The situation today may be one of coexistence, but it is a highly competitive coexistence...

...Isn't it just as logical to assume that one of the contestants, or one of the competing factions, could gain support by advocating a "get tough" policy...

...It is perhaps too early to tell whether the cool war has also brought a willingness on the part of the Soviet Union to make a genuine effort to control the use of atomic weapons: we can only hope that it has...

...One explanation commonly put forward is the supposed economic weakness of the Soviet Union...

...It is said, rather hopefully, that the American-imposed ban on strategic commodities is putting a serious strain on the Communist economies, is limiting their military power, and is thereby forcing the Communist nations to become more conciliatory...

...Were the gestures of friendship by Khrushchev, Bulganin and Company merely parlor tricks designed to mesmerize innocent Americans...

...As Bulganin said recently, "It is wrong to assert that, inasmuch as East and West possess hydrogen weapons, the possibility of a thermonuclear war is automatically excluded...

...A second objective of the present Soviet "peace" policy is to lull us into a false feeling of security, to get us to relax our guard and thus make it possible for the Soviets to inflict an atomic Pear] Harbor or extend their domination by other means...

...Thus, it seems doubtful that the situation in agriculture is responsible for the "new look...

...What about the events of recent months--the sale of arms to Egypt, the inflammatory speeches of Khrushchev and Bulganin in Asia, and Soviet press attacks on Eisenhower...

...but with certain weapons barred...

...A number of answers can be made to this criticism...

...It is reckless to assume that the Soviets would refrain from starting a hot war if they became convinced that they could defeat us without suffering a massive counter-attack...

...Burma...

...Second is the possibility of cold war...

...This argument is likewise unconvincing...

...First, and worst, would be a hot war...

...At present, Mr, Hammond is teaching courses on Russian history and foreign affairs at the University of Virginia, His analysis of the course East-West relations are likely to lake in the near future is based on an address he delivered in Washington before a recent meeting of the American Historical Association...

...Another is to offer these countries the armaments that the West has refused to supply, as in the case of Egypt...

...It is certainly not difficult to imagine that in the next few months, as in the past few months, the "Spirit of Geneva" will continue to melt away, polite language will again disappear from Soviet-American intercourse, and we will revert to the former situation of open disputes openly arrived at...

...The Soviet leaders know that we have large stockpiles of atom and hydrogen bombs, and they are painfully conscious of the geographic advantage we derive from our air bases in Greenland...

...One factor delaying the shift may have been the personality of the aging master himself, dictator Stalin...

...The "new look" apparently is designed to bring about the removal of American overseas air bases, the withdrawal of American forces from foreign countries, the prevention of West German rearmament, and the weakening of such defensive arrangements as NATO...

...It is doubtless true that the Soviet leaders would like to have peace and a relaxation of tension for several years, so as to be able to ameliorate their various economic problems, improve living conditions, and develop the economies of the other countries of the Soviet bloc, particularly China...

...The open struggle of the past ten years is merely changing its form...

...The Soviet economy, it is said, might somehow be able to hobble along and avoid complete collapse if it were not for the fact that the armaments race, and particularly the competition in nuclear weapons, absorbs so much of its economic resources...

...What were the motives behind this change...

...The ban on the shipment of military commodities has not prevented Soviet development of top-quality jet fighters, long-range jet bombers, or atomic weapons...

...There seem to be three possible courses which future Soviet policy might take hot war, cold war, or cool war...

...Such a relationship differs from the cold war in such superficial aspects as the exchange of cultural and scientific delegations, the release of Western prisoners from Communist labor camps, and a change in the tone of the propaganda war...

...Occasionally, the argument is put forward that one of the chief objectives of the "new look" is the restoration of East-West trade, particularly the removal of restrictions on strategic goods...

...It is war...

...The postwar years have seen a steady rise in industrial production and in the standard of living, despite the high cost of armaments...

...Examples are the Soviet withdrawals from Austria and the Porkkala peninsula...

...What has happened to the "Spirit of Geneva" and all that it implied...

...economic, social and cultural tasks that it would like to devote its entire power to their fulfilment...

...But there is no clear indication that the purge of Beria or the demotion of Malenkov was connected with disagreements over foreign policy...

...Furthermore, the ability to make concessions to foreign powers without fear of domestic difficulties is a sign of a strong government rather than a weak one...

...Nor is it easy to understand why they should be particularly worried about morale...

...If fear of an atomic war is one of the chief causes of the "new look," then why wasn't this policy adopted during the period from 1945 to 1949...

...History provides many examples of leaders embarking on foreign adventures as a means of increasing prestige at home and diverting attention from internal problems...

...Was the "Spirit of Geneva" only a drunken stupor imparted by too much vodka...

...The Kremlin wishes, moreover, to reduce the widespread fear of the Soviet Union, thereby removing the cement which has united the free world and creating an atmosphere in which conflicts among "capitalist stales can flourish...

...you might say, has been replaced by a boxing match in which padded gloves are worn and certain rules are observed...

...Part of the explanation for what looks like a shift in Soviet policy since Geneva may lie simply in the fact that there are two main variants of the "new look"--one for nations committed to the West, and another for nations that are neutral...

...The Strategic Air Command is like a loaded gun pointed at the vitals of Russia, and the rulers in the Kremlin must be desperately eager not to pull the trigger...

...In those countries receiving American military aid or belonging to Western-sponsored blocs, the Kremlin objective seems to be to reduce the fear of the Soviet Union and persuade them that military expenditures and alliances are unnecessary...

...Khrushchev himself admitted that the number of livestock in the USSR in 1953 was less than in 1928...

...The overall picture of the Soviet economy is one of impressive strength, and of strength that is increasing at a rapid rate...

...Recognition of this fact has had two effects: On the one hand, the Soviet leaders feel that they need not speak so sweetly now, since the danger of war has lessened...

...No doubt a number of factors are involved, but two objectives stand out...

...There has been a gradual abandonment, in the West as well as in the East, of the unusually restrained language that prevailed just after the July meeting...

...In the first place, there is considerable difference between the early-type atom bombs, equal to about 20 thousand tons of TNT, and a modern hydrogen bomb, equal to 20 million tons of TNT and spreading deadly dust over thousands of square miles...

...The primitive slugfest...

...Afghanistan and Egypt...

...Third, we may have a continuation of what might be called the cool war, the situation in which we now find ourselves...

...or "peace offensive...

...To the former colonies of Asia and the Middle East they say: "Keep out of Western 'imperialist' alliances and we will give you aid, with no strings attached...

...More important, the cool war has brought a Soviet willingness to bargain and to make concessions on points which, if not crucial to Soviet security, still cannot be brushed aside as insignificant...

...when we had the Abomb but Russia did not...

...It was not until after the start of the Korean War that Western rearmament began in earnest, and it was some years more before we had built up Western military might...

...the settlement of the dispute with Tito, the evacuation of Austria, and the invitation to the Porgy and Bess troupe to visit Russia are only a few of the varied manifestations of what has been called the Soviet "new look," "new course...

...Or is the "old look" merely hidden behind .1 veil of propaganda...

...Another variant of the argument regarding Soviet economic weakness has to do with the high cost of armaments...

...Secretary Dulles put it more bluntly when he told a Congressional committee that the Soviet economic system "is on the point of collapsing...

...If the "new look" is not due primarily to economic weaknesses or to other internal problems, what then is the explanation...

...The leaders of the Soviet Union have never put living standards first in their thoughts, and they are not doing so today...

...There is no evidence, however, that the food situation in the Soviet Union has as yet become serious enough to cause a change in foreign policy...

...The Soviet Union is almost completely self-sufficient, and foreign trade has never loomed large in its economy except during brief emergency periods...

...Has Soviet foreign policy changed fundamentally...

...One is to reduce the danger of a big war by effecting a relaxation in the diplomatic atmosphere, to eliminate the possibility that the advocates of so-called "preventive war" will come to dominate American policy, to bring an end to the inflammable atmosphere in which some accident could serve as the Sarajevo of an atomic holocaust, and, if possible, to devise some method of preventing the use of atomic weapons...

...Of the many Western visitors to the Soviet Union in the last two years, none has reported that the supply of food is any worse than previously...

...What are the facts...

...There doubtless are some special items that the Soviet Union would be pleased to purchase...

...SEATO and the Baghdad Pact...

...East and West may return to a condition of irreconcilable antagonism, full-scale political warfare, and unrestricted competition for military supremacy...

...One is to denounce colonialism...

...That this policy is having considerable success is shown by Britain's decision to reduce its armed forces one-eighth, by the Cyprus dispute, by the weakening of Yugoslavia's ties to the West, and by Egypt's decision to buy arms from Czechoslovakia--to cite only a few examples...

...But no one has shown just how a struggle for power automatically produces a foreign policy of conciliation...

...In a cool war, the struggle between Communism and the free world continues, but it is carried on within certain limitations...

...Thomas T. Hammond is the author of Yugoslavia Between East and West (1954), and was one of the contributors to Continuity and Change in Russian and Soviet Thought (1955), a symposium edited by Ernest J. Simmons...

...But the need for these commodities is hardly great enough to have caused a major change in foreign policy...

...Some commentators have argued that the Kremlin rulers feel they must follow foreign policies that will permit them to invest more of their resources in consumer goods, so as to meet the demands of the Soviet people for a steadily rising standard of living and thus mollify discontent...

...Still another is to promise trade, technical assistance and diplomatic support, as with India...

...However, in these countries the great decline in Western trade is due not only to American legislation, but also to a deliberate Soviet policy of consolidating its control over the Communist bloc and cutting it off from dependence on the West...

...Iceland, Alaska, Western Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East...

...The other Communist states, especially China, have probably been hurt more by the restrictions...

...He has also published articles in Foreign Affairs, the Virginia Quarterly Review and various other scholarly journals...

...West German Chancellor Adenauer, for example, declared recently that the Soviet Union "has to fulfil such a mass of...

...We have as much as the Soviets to gain from the avoidance of further killing and destruction...

...But this is far from saying that the Soviet Union is seeking a relaxation of international tensions because of the overwhelming pressure of economic weakness...

...The ending of the wars in Korea and Indo-China...

...Furthermore, it should be remembered that the years when America had a monopoly of the A-bomb were also the years in which we were demobilizing our army and withdrawing most of our forces from overseas...

...It is sometimes maintained that the "new look" in Soviet foreign policy is a reflection of the struggle for power among Stalin's successors...

...These suppositions seem overly optimistic...

...The present talk of peaceful coexistence is a siren song intended to lure the free nations off their course and wreck them on the shoals of disarmament, disunity, pacifism and neutralism...

...What, then, of the future...

...To Western-bloc nations the Soviets say: "Why burden yourselves with expensive armaments if there is going to be no war...

...The Soviet Union may be wearing brass knuckles under its gloves and it may occasionally hit below the belt, but at least it feels constrained to hide these actions and it no longer openly proclaims the contest to be a fight to the death...

...Isn't it reasonable to suppose that the preponderant motive behind the adoption of the new policy was the urgent desire to avoid a thermonuclear war which the USSR might lose...

...From the West's point of view, the cool war has both advantages and dangers...

...If the death of Stalin had been followed by a policy of increased belligerence and intractability, we may be sure that this also would have been explained by some as a reflection of the struggle within the Kremlin...

...On the other hand, some nations which formerly felt threatened by the USSR now believe that they no longer have to concern themselves so much with building up defenses against a possible Soviet invasion...

...Old, irascible, and set in his ways, he probably found it difficult to change his policies or his methods...

...But when all of these economic arguments are added together, they still do not constitute reasons sufficient to have forced the Soviet Union to adopt a more conciliatory foreign policy...

...The answer may lie first of all in the fact that the meeting at the summit was oversold to the world public, and we have since been experiencing the inevitable let-down...

...Was it a result of Soviet weakness...

...It is difficult to see just how a struggle for power is necessarily connected with any particular foreign policy...

...There can be no doubt that one sector of the Soviet economy--agriculture--has failed miserably...

...A fourth tactic is to put the diplomatic squeeze on pro-Western countries like Pakistan and Israel by supporting the claims of their enemies...

...The chief danger is, of course, that we might relax and become demoralized, lower our guard, and thus lay ourselves open to a Communist knockout...

...Early in 1955, he confessed that the production of grain had not kept up with the growth of population...

...Accessibility to outside markets also would allow the Soviet Union to make up for temporary shortages caused by faulty planning or underfulfilment of production goals...

...It is, to reverse the phrase of Clausewitz, war continued by other means...

...Let us look at some of the possible explanations for the "new look" in Soviet foreign policy and attempt to assay the validity of each...

...Real wages have risen steadily since the war, with the result that Soviet citizens are living better now than they have in many years--perhaps better than in any year since the Revolution...

...In those former colonies that have remained aloof from Western blocs, the Soviet Union is using four different tactics...

...His successors, on the other hand, were happy to bring a halt to policies which had succeeded in uniting much of the world against the Soviet Union...