Superpower Politics

...This overwhelming fact continues to cast its shadow upon everything that happens on the international political chessboard...

...In different ways, Japan's position has been strengthened too...

...How extensive and lasting these accomplishments will ultimately prove to be, of course, only the future can show...

...Indeed, Japan and the United States are likely to occupy vital positions in the rivalry between the two Communist countries...

...The Soviet Union, fearing such a common front, has sought to draw the United States into limited cooperation...

...When talking of this, one must be careful to note that the Soviet bloc in Europe, with the minor exception of Rumania, remains as coherent as it has always been, and the Kremlin is resolved to keep it that way...

...Hans J. Morgenthau, Leonard Davis Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the City University of New York, often analyzes international affairs in these pages...

...Already it is possible to put one's finger on positive achievements in three areas: the global atmosphere, international power relations, and nuclear arms control...

...On the one hand, the arms control agreements signed by President Nixon and Secretary Brezhnev impose for the time being quantitative limitations upon the nuclear competition, holding out the promise of an actual reduction in nuclear warheads...

...That is what has happened in the Middle East and in Indochina, and the Declaration of Principles issued at the end of the Moscow summit meeting points in the same direction...

...But there are still only two superpowers on the face of the earth—two nations, that is, capable of destroying each other with nuclear weapons...

...The Russians have, for instance, suggested the engagement of Japan in the development of Siberia...

...As a consequence of developments dating back to the '50s, of which China's new position forms an integral part, the two-bloc system is in a process of transformation...

...For the Soviet Union, in order to enhance the security of its western frontiers, seeks to diminish the American presence in Europe, weaken nato and isolate West Germany...

...It is noteworthy, however, that an American President who has consistently built his political career on uncompromising anti-Communism at home and abroad traveled to the capitals of the two major Communist powers to replace "confrontation" with "negotiation...

...Furthermore, Japan could serve as a major factor either in the Soviet containment of China or in China's escape from Soviet encirclement...

...This is not insignificant, for ideological differences are by their very nature insolvable?good must try to triumph over evil and cannot compromise with it...

...Contradictory forces are at work...

...China is trying to compensate for its position vis-a-vis the Soviet Union by seeming to be establishing a common front with the United States...

...After the public manifestations of good will, demonstrating the belief of all sides in the possibility not merely of "peaceful coexistence" but of the common pursuit of common interests, it will be difficult to revert to the ideological fervor of the Cold War...

...No visit, no legal arrangement, no political contrivance can alter that fundamental fact of world politics...

...If they were unable to resolve matters of even secondary importance, will they be able to deal peacefully with the issues of primary importance that are bound to arise when great powers like Japan and West Germany begin to make full use of their newly won maneuverability...

...traditional power conflicts can be dealt with and settled by the normal methods of diplomatic bargaining and compromise...

...In Asia, the most important result of President Nixon's new diplomacy has been the emergence of China not as a super but as a great power, albeit one that is eager to play the role of a superpower with American support...

...Considering their geography and the concentrations of population and industry in West Germany and Japan, one realizes that they would be destroyed by a second-rate nuclear attack, whereas such a strike could be absorbed by the U.S...

...It is less certain, however, that the expanded options of the super and great powers will improve the chances for preserving peace...

...They understand how great a risk it is for them to oppose the Russians in their present weak state...

...The answer to that question depends upon the willingness of the superpowers to play down and insulate conflicts directly or indirectly involving their interests...

...The ability to do this when issues of critical importance pit the U.S...

...Thus future disputes among the United States, the Soviet Union and China are likely to take the form of traditional power conflicts rather than ideological struggles between "good" and "evil...

...On the other hand, while the United States and China have for all practical purposes eliminated Taiwan as a bone of serious contention, the United States and the Soviet Union could not settle the issues between them threatening war, namely Vietnam and the Middle East...

...It is in the West that disintegration is the order of the day, and the European Security Conference promoted by the Russians is likely to accentuate the trend...

...If the promise of warhead reductions is fulfilled, nuclear weapons would be relegated to their proper function as deterrents?to be maintained but not to be used —and the tendency toward proliferation implicit in an uncontrolled nuclear arms race would be stifled...

...AFTER THE SUMMIT-2 Superpower Politics BY HANS J. MORGENTHAU The cause of peace has unquestionably been advanced by President Nixon's trips to Peking and Moscow and by the agreements concluded on those occasions...

...Recent events are often said to have moved the bipolar world in which we have lived since the end of World War II into a five-, four-, or three-polar world...

...It can be taken for granted that the USSR has no illusions about the military capabilities of China—and that the Chinese know what the Russians know...

...At the same time, Moscow has attempted to neutralize China through a policy of containment in South and Southeast Asia...

...This situation obviously provides Washington with new opportunities for flexible diplomacy: It can shift its weight from the Soviet to the Chinese side of the scale, as it did in the India-Pakistan war of 1971, or vice versa, as the occasion might require...

...and the USSR (and China as well, if and when it becomes a first-rate nuclear power...

...and the USSR against each other will be the ultimate test of the success of the Nixon-Brezhnev talks, and of the quality of American and Soviet statesmanship in general...

...There is an organic relationship between the continental configuration of the United States and the Soviet Union and their status as superpowers...

...As the final outcome of these developments, Kremlin leaders like Khrushchev have envisaged a highly industrialized West Germany firmly tied by economic interests to a Soviet Union badly in need of consumer products and of facilities for their production...

...They also failed to solve the essentially technical problems of the Soviet Union's World War II debts and the development of more extensive trade relations...

...World politics is certainly in greater flux today than at any time since the end of World War II...

...The key provision in the agreements is the strict limitation of defensive missiles to 200 for each side, eliminating the incentive to increase offensive missiles drastically in the hope of saturating the enemy's defensive systems...

...Japan and West Germany may be called great powers, but they do not compare to the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, and in the nuclear age it is unlikely that they ever will...

...If they can not agree on these issues, they might at least quarantine them and prevent their infecting the whole body politic...

...The importance of Japan's productivity to the economies of both China and the Soviet Union parallels that of West Germany's to the economy of the USSR...

...What has changed, therefore, is not the postwar period's bipolarity but the two-bloc system that grew out of it...