Thinking Aloud

...Irving Kristol, a regular contributor to this department, is a former editor at Commentary and the Reporter and the first American editor of Encounter...

...Whether one or the other or still another of the many possibilities is realized is a function, not of abstract principle, but of specific historical contingencies...

...But I can already hear the objection: "Yes, but if the United States acts on such principles, why should not the Soviet Union do likewise...

...Cuba in and by itself is not, never has been, and never could be a "threat" to the United States...

...And the fundamental question it poses is: Do we have an adequate foreign policy for a great power engaged in a cold war...

...For instance, they might use Cuba as an arms depot and training ground for guerrilla forces in northern Brazil...

...In a sense, Cuba would represent a problem even if there were no Soviet arms or technicians on that island, and even if the Castro regime subscribed to an ideology other than Communism...

...The obvious logic of this point of view is that we ought to invite the Russians into Mexico, as a hostage for the security of West Germany...

...We should then be faced with the same kind of challenge that the Trujillo dictatorship presented to us: how to persuade a petty tyrant to ameliorate the abuse of his power-or, failing that, how to get rid of his regime altogether...

...Third, the longer we delay, the deeper we allow the Soviets to get involved in Cuba, the graver the risk that any action on our part would indeed set off a world war...

...Which is not to say that the Cuban problem is imaginary...

...Second, the price of intervention rises daily: a year ago it would have cost us a thousand casualties, today the Pentagon estimates the number at 25,000, next year it could be double that...

...Once again, this would seem to be a needlessly complicated way of losing a war...

...No one would question the Soviet Union's "right" to ask this of Finland...

...The trouble with those who flaunt these formal geographical analogies is that they ignore the existence of the cold war...

...Neither conscience nor reason prescribes that, each time we score a gain, we must figure out a way to suffer a corresponding loss...

...But if, on the other hand, we have no intention of allowing a Soviet Cuba to endure over the longer term, then the case for prompt intervention would appear to be irrefutable...

...In any event, the obvious and sensible policy for us would be to take immediate action to nip this possibility in the bud...

...Up until recently, a respectable argument might have been made for permitting the Castro regime to stew in its own juice, a showcase-in-reverse for Latin America, as it were...

...but it was not in the cards...

...Besides, there has been so much nervous twaddle along this line that it has been all but forgotten that the United States already possesses a full-fledged military base-in Cuba...

...I do not mean to suggest that we have a sacred mission to export American democracy to Cuba or elsewhere...

...It is also said by those who oppose armed intervention in Cuba-and none other than Dean Rusk himself has stressed this point-that if we "cause trouble" in Cuba, the Russians will "cause trouble" in Berlin...

...But Cuba today is not the Dominican Republic of yesterday...

...Such a prescription would amount to nothing more than a roundabout way of losing a war...

...On the other hand, there are Chester Bowles, Walter Lippmann and the Administration itself denying that Cuba as yet constitutes a threat to the United States and calling for a posture of "watchful waiting" against any "act of aggression" from that source...

...all great powers do...

...It is improbable in the extreme that they will use Cuba as a base for overt military conquest in Latin America...

...If it is really conceivable that Cuba, under these circumstances, could be a menace to the security of the United States, then we ought to resign from the cold war right now...

...The answer, of course, is that the Soviet Union does act on these same principles...

...It goes without saying that we would not have minded if Finland were for us another Turkey, and under the circumstances of the cold war we had a "right" to envisage this possibility...

...If we are resigned to the loss of Cuba, for arcane reasons that cannot be revealed to the public at large -if, for example, we have been so busy making missiles that we forgot to manufacture bullets-then let us at least make the act of resignation with dignity...

...For our security would then be too fragile to survive exposure to anything more inclement than a United Nations debate...

...The world is not a single community, and there is no supreme juridical sovereignty to define and allocate the "rights" of nations...

...The fact that the Cuban tyranny is Communist, and that it is on its way to transforming the island into a military outpost of Soviet power, gives the case an urgency it might otherwise not have...

...It is better to intervene in Cuba now than to intervene in Brazil a year from now...

...In the condition of cold war, one must take it for granted that each side will seize every opportunity to exercise its rights (as it sees them) to the best of its ability...

...First, the tyranny is now too well-armed for any kind of underground resistance to be effective...

...Why should it tolerate enemy bases in Turkey, for instance...

...If their trouble-making has stopped short of a military grab of Berlin, it is because our position in that city was of such long standing, and our commitment to its defense so explicit and unambiguous, that such a grab could only be in effect a declaration of nuclear warand if ever the Soviets should have such a declaration in mind, Berlin would be the city that interested them least...

...I gather, too, that there are even some people in Washington who believe that a Soviet Cuba could be a blessing in disguise...

...The fact that this regime is an unscrupulous tyranny which daily commits atrocities against its own people (a sizeable number of whom have found refuge on our shores) would itself be a cause for concern...

...nor would anyone question the power of the Soviets to enforce this "right," Finland having neither the means to defend itself nor allies to come to its defense...

...It is a pitiful spectacle, our Secretary of State, our ambassadors, our ministers, scurrying around from ally to ally, pleading with them not to hire out their merchant ships to carry Russian material to Cuba...

...On the one hand, we are told by the Wall Street Journal that "the threat from Cuba almost daily mounts...

...If that's the best we can do, then it is better to accept defeat in this instance and do nothing-and inform the world that we intend to do nothing...

...Those who are always talking Turkey conveniently forget the existence of Finland-a nation which manages to stay outside the Soviet bloc only by virtue of making it a cardinal principle of its foreign policy not to provoke its powerful neighbor...

...It does not concede us any "right" to our bases in Turkey, and it tolerates them for the same reason we may yet have to tolerate a Soviet base in Cuba-because, out of weakness or miscalculation or sheer bad luck, there is no alternative short of a major (i.e., nuclear) war...

...Somehow, one had received the impression that they had been doing something like this even before anyone had ever heard of Fidel Castro...

...Its military position being so hopeless, it would be a hostage for the security of Berlin...

...I do not know what the Soviets are up to in Cuba, but I assume they are up to no good...

...For all the attention the newspapers are paying to it, one might get the impression that Guantanamo is some kind of seaside resort...

...He is currently senior editor of Basic Books...

...Even a Russian base in Cuba, should one ever be established, would not-in and by itself-be such a threat: Isolated outposts in the shadow of enemy power are not exactly what military men lust after in this day and age of intercontinental missiles...

...But any great power has the obligationor, if you wish, is constrained by necessity-to see to it, so far as its power allows and the dictates of prudence permit, that its smaller neighbors have relatively stable governments which will honor their various treaty commitments, refrain from adventurous escapades, recognize certain minimum human decencies, and (to put it bluntly) not cause more trouble than they are entitled to...

...But they are an ingenious people, and I have no doubt they can devise and create various kinds of mischief from their Cuban sanctuary...

...Similarly, it also goes without saying that Russia would be pleased to see Cuba become its Turkey, just as we would now be relieved to settle for its becoming our Finland, rather than our ally as once we hoped...

...But it is a problem only because it represents a point-a significant and highly publicized, if not crucial point-of conflict between the two major protagonists of the cold war...

...If the Russians move against Berlin, we would move against Cuba...

...It is far more a political problem than a military one...

...But the arrival of Soviet arms and men has changed things in three decisive respects...

...But how preposterous both these propositions are...