Eroding Alliances
CHAMBERLIN, WILLIAM HENRY
PERSPECTIVES Eroding Alliances By William Henry Chamberlin The decade of the 1940s witnessed a great shift of wartime alliances. Favored by a policy of passive American acceptance of...
...Similarly, the British bus deal with Cuba cannot help but adversely effect the U.S.'s economic war against Castro...
...Both by its timing and accompanying circumstances, this last must be considered a knife thrust at the heart of United States policy in the Far East...
...The chief factors in the current erosion of alliances are the emergence of Charles de Gaulle, with his prickly nationalism and suspicious dislike of the "AngloSaxons," and the widening of the rift between the Soviet Union and Red China...
...Then, a year ago, he vetoed the admission of Great Britain to the Common Market, even though the other five members of the EEC favored, and still favor, Britain's entry...
...Luckily, this situation is equally true of our two principal opponents, the Soviet Union and Communist China...
...De Gaulle is the chief but surely not the only party to have recently hacked away at Western solidarity...
...It was thereby transformed from an ally into an implacable foe...
...First, he has kept most of France's armed forces outside NATO control...
...Favored by a policy of passive American acceptance of one act of territorial spoliation after another, the Soviet Union emerged as a vast, militant empire, the principal enemy of the freedom and independence of the peoples of the non-Communist world...
...This complete change in the image of Stalin's Russia from a reliable, friendly ally and a somewhat misunderstood democracy was recognized by 1946, but only after a large area in Eastern and Central Europe had been lost to Communist domination...
...itself stands firm...
...Our share in squeezing the Dutch out of an enlightened administration in West New Guinea is nothing to be proud of, and Sukarno's bellicose stance in regard to Malaysia indicates that our efforts to pacify him have also failed...
...Many plausible blueprints for closer unity among Western nations have been drawn up since the end of the War...
...And now comes the General's decision to establish diplomatic relations with Communist China...
...A similar change of fronts occurred in the Far East during the '40s...
...Fortunately, the harm he has done can be held to a minimum if the U.S...
...But now, in the '60s, there are signs of the erosion of alliances on both sides of the iron—as well as bamboo— curtain, although a complete reversal such as took place at the end of World War II seems improbable...
...The '50s marked a period of consolidation of the opposing alliances, as the cold war more and more clearly became one of the principal facts of the world situation...
...Nor is the United States entitled to assume a self-righteous pose for itself...
...Yet there are distressing signs pointing to an era when the United States may have to go it alone if a really vital national interest is challenged, for it appears that the cooperation of its allies cannot be wholly depended upon...
...America, after all, is the ultimate guarantor of Thailand, South Vietnam, South Korea, and Malaysia, as well as Japan and the Philippines...
...General de Gaulle has delivered, coolly and deliberately, three solid blows against the West...
...China, the cornerstone of American policy in that part of the world, fell under Communist control...
...We have more than once failed to discharge the obligations of a faithful ally...
...By recognizing Peking, de Gaulle has strengthened the forces of Communist aggression in the Orient while at the same time weakening the forces of resistance...
...With the passing of time, the importance of the German Federal Republic and Japan as vital partners in a new scheme of alliances became increasingly evident...
...The Chinese Communist regime might have broken down when its "Great Leap Forward" very nearly ended in a broken neck, if Canada had not stepped in and offered to sell the Chinese large quantities of wheat...
...In addition, a more impersonal factor is at work: the difficulty of maintaining a closeworking Western alliance—with all the concomitant willingness to sacrifice what may seem to be immediate national interests that such an alliance implies—at a time when there is neither war nor the imminent threat of war...
...Italy also took its place in the Western camp...
Vol. 47 • February 1964 • No. 4
