A Year of Transition

...It is a tragic irony that the slogan of massive retaliation has been revived just at the moment when its implementation would mean suicide, while the attempt to build ground defenses is in danger of collapsing just at the moment when tactical atomic weapons have made it realistic...

...But for this reason the West would be wise to renounce direct military lies with any of Israel's Arab neighbors—with the exception of Iraq, which is a member of the Baghdad Pact—and to concentrate on economic assistance...

...its new team needs as much time as possible to establish itself with the electorate...

...While as a moral attitude neutralism is always dangerous, as a state policy neutrality may well help the West rather than Russia in some countries which are not directly open to Communist military pressure...

...Now the Labor party also has settled its leadership by choosing a young and moderate figure who may be expected to remain its head for 20 years...

...Sir Winston Churchill argued that risk of war was less because Russia had broken America's monopoly of nuclear weapons...

...Moreover, when the British people is suffering few major discontents it prefers safety and stability to a gamble on dynamic personalities...

...At a time when the two parties seemed little divided on major policy issues, this contrast of leadership was probably decisive...

...Like America in similar circumstances, most of the infant Asian states felt that they would be compromising their newly-won independence by entangling themselves in the problems of the ex-colonial powers...

...A series of pending by-elections may show whether this change has brought Labor an immediate accession of strength, but already the latest opinion polls show Labor with a small lead, whereas it trailed by 3 per cent at the general election...

...Provided we can militarily contain Communism on the frontiers of the free world, we need not insist on diplomatic uniformity behind them...

...In its reaction to recent Soviet economic moves in Asia and the Middle East, the West has shown itself far too simple...

...Unfortunately, 1955 revealed a dangerous confusion at the heart of Western military policy, In order to explain a change in Soviet policy which had not taken place, some Western statement invented a strategic security which does not exist...

...In foreign policy they seem to be abandoning the Grand Design laid down by Ernest Bevin in favor of short-term improvisations which are more in their tradition...

...1955 saw Western Germany enter NATO as an independent state...

...This task will be lighter because, after several years in which the parties seemed to have little to fight about, fundamental divisions of both principles and policy are emerging again...

...It must be admitted that, despite all the West's economic sacrifices to aid free Asia, its continual political gaffes—like that of Dulles on Goa—leave the casual Asian observer with the impression that the West, and not Communism, is the real threat to his independence...

...But over-emphasis on the thermonuclear deterrent has made many Germans feel that their security will be assured by the atomic stalemate even if they make no effort to help NATO organize the land defense of Western Europe and themselves...

...A term was already set to the phase of Anglo-Saxon predominance in the non-Communist world and the strains imposed on Western unity by the rise of new powers made it both possible and necessary for Russia to pursue a more flexible policy...

...In Europe we have yet to develop a strategy which makes sense of our present military alliances...

...it also saw Germany assert her independence by entering into diplomatic relations with Russia against American advice...

...So far we have failed to develop that sense of real community which will enable our policies to survive in a world of many independent powers...

...In domestic policy the Conservatives, although they know it would be suicide to abandon the Welfare State, think that with increased productivity they can throw the burden of paying for it mainly on those who receive its benefits...

...Against this background, the visit of Khrushchev and Bulganin to India and Burma was a natural stage in Asia's diplomatic coming of age...

...And in their opposition to all forms of physical control by the state they are as doctrinaire as Labor ever was in its criticisms of private enterprise...

...From this point of view, Churchill's withdrawal was a double gain for the Conservative party...

...NATO now depends for its very survival on the loyalty of Western Germany...

...Though economic aid from Russia may give the Communists a marginal political influence, this aid also increases the stability of existing regimes and strengthens confidence in the possibility of progress without Communism...

...Those who are prepared to look can already trace the main outlines of the new normalcy...

...In Britain, both major political parties have acquired a new and younger leadership...

...We have yet to find a policy for Asia and the Middle East which takes account of the desire of independent governments to maintain their military neutrality...

...Perhaps the best way of summing up the changes is to say that the postwar period has come to an end...

...Though the countries which border on the Soviet Union know where the real danger lies, the Arab states to the south are still obsessed by their quarrel with Israel...

...In the long run, too, the West has an enormous advantage compared with the Communist states: It does not demand a total uniformity of both domestic and foreign policy as the final price for friendship...

...Ten years after the defeat of Germany and Japan, the world is settling into a steadier pattern...

...They are moving steadily away from a progressive income tax toward a general system of indirect taxation which is regressive in its effects...

...Only when the West sees the new Asian states as equal and independent members of the world community will it be able to develop an effective response to the policy of Russia and China in that area...

...Stalin foresaw in 1952, more clearly than some Western leaders, that the postwar period in international politics was coming to an end...

...Thus it directly benefits the West in the cold war...

...For this reason it was essential for the Labor party to make a change now...

...Fundamental changes have taken place in both the national and international scenes, but it is difficult to discern their final implications...

...In the Middle East, also...

...Russia is appearing to offer sensitive new states the chance to free themselves from dependence on Western military and economic aid...

...The retirement of Sir Winston Churchill gave the Conservatives the chance to fight last year's election with a new team...

...Their imperialist nostalgia, too, is muffling their responses to the colonial challenge in many parts of the world...

...With the resurgence of Germany and Japan, with the emergence of independent powers in Asia and the Middle East, the cold war would no longer be a struggle between the white victors of World War II...

...Labor fought with its leadership problem still unsettled...

...As the world enters 1956, it is difficult to feel satisfied that Western policy has adjusted itself to the immense changes of the past 12 months...

...In the world as a whole, attention has been focused, perhaps unwisely, on the changes in Soviet leadership and their apparent impact on Russian foreign policy...

...Though Russia's immense ineptitude has for the time being discouraged such a tendency, it could revive overnight under Soviet smiles...

...It is more difficult and dangerous for a party to jettison its older leaders in opposition than in office, since its junior leaders have less chance of making their mark on the public from the Opposition front bench than as ministers...

...This strategic confusion is particularly dangerous in its effect on Germany...

...One swallow does not make a summer, however, and Labor has yet to produce an impressive front-bench team which can appeal to the public as an alternative government at the next election...

...On all these major issues, the Labor party under Gaitskell will offer a vigorous and effective opposition...

...From this it is a short step to bargaining with Russia about reunification at the expense of Germany's membership in NATO...

...A YEAR OF TRANSITION A British Labor MP surveys events in his own country and the West's gains and losses throughout the free world during the last twelve months By Denis Healey London Seen from London, 1955 has been above all a year of transition...

...A war between Israel and the Arabs would be an unmitigated disaster for the West...

...In areas which have no common frontier with Communism, the main danger comes from economic despair...

...A combination of loose thinking about Soviet foreign policy with loose thinking about the diplomatic implications of the approaching nuclear stalemate has led public opinion and even governments in many Western countries to think that it is no longer necessary to organize local defense of the free world's frontiers...

...Sir Anthony Eden in the Conservative party and Aneurin Bevan in the Labor party are the only major figures surviving from the Thirties...

...The Bandung Conference in April emphasized the nature of the transformation in Asia and the Middle East...

...They also were asserting their neutrality as well as their independence when they sought direct contact with the leaders of Russia and China...

...Perhaps in both continents our main weakness is the same: Our postwar policies were developed at a time when America and Britain were the only effective powers in the free world...

...I say unwisely because it has become crystal clear that Stalin's successors, Malenkov no less than Khrushchev and Bulganin, have conducted their foreign policy not only according to the general principles developed by Lenin and Stalin, but also according to the specific advice offered by Stalin in the pamphlet he published just before his death...