Our Global Thrusts
Neal, Fred Warner
BOOKS Our Global Thrusts THE UNITED STATES IN THE POSTWAR WORLD, by James P. Warburg. Atheneum. 327 pp. $6.50. Reviewed by Fred Warner Neal TJERHAPS THE most significant fac tor...
...Most fundamental errors in our approach to the world since 1945 stem from a near-paranoia about Communism, and Warburg has been consistent in attacking this...
...As proof, advocates of our policy invariably have cited the Communist "take-over" in Eastern Europe and the revolution in Greece...
...He faces up to the fact of China and declares that if the United States "wishes to retain any in fluence at all in Asia, it must adopt a less hostile policy toward Peking and end the war in Vietnam...
...Of all the books, pamphlets, speeches, and letters Warburg has written on foreign policy since World War II, this is perhaps the most complete and definitive...
...But there is little other nations can do about it meaningfully, so great is our might...
...In varying degrees, our entire social fabric has been corrupted by our power...
...Only the American people can —if anyone can—curb their government and change its foreign policy...
...Overlapping the Establishment, but with a separate identity of its own, Warburg sees the "Industrial-Military Complex...
...He comes down hard on President Truman, not only in regard to foreign policy but in regard to his responsibility for launching the anti-Communist witch-hunt in 1947...
...Thus U.S...
...There are plenty of those concerned for America's welfare who want to halt the process before the corruption becomes absolute, but thus far they have not had much success...
...The United States in the Postwar World is at its best in its account of foreign policy steps that led up to and then comprised the cold war...
...The need for doing so may be less in the interest of others than in our own interest...
...As for the individuals, they comprise what Warburg calls "the Establishment" and are "fairly representative of a larger group of bankers, industrialists, businessmen, lawyers, and educators who are now and then consulted by the White House...
...Warburg himself is, of course, a sort of maverick and peripheral member of the Establishment...
...But as our power is so much greater, so is our impact on the world...
...foreign policy is a world problem...
...In many instances, however, Warburg seems too hurried and superficial to be penetrating—as, for example, in his treatment of the Korean war—but this does not detract from the work as a whole...
...Other nations contribute their share to international discord and danger...
...The major weakness of the book, in my opinion, is the lack of a theoretical structure that might have helped explain not only why so many of our foreign policy steps were colossal errors but also why we took them...
...He argues cogently that Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, occurring as a result of the military operations against the Germans and in effect agreed to by Great Britain and the United States, could hardly be condemned for destroying democracy where it did not exist...
...Reviewed by Fred Warner Neal TJERHAPS THE most significant fac tor in the world today is the unprecedented and nearly boundless military power and wealth of the United States...
...In this book, Warburg is admirably clear in his recognition of our gross misjudgment of Soviet intentions...
...He forthrightly states that the Greek Communists were not aided by the Soviet Union (which, indeed, as he might have pointed out, opposed them...
...While liberties have not yet been undermined, they have—as Warburg points out—been threatened, in large part in connection with foreign policy and foreign policy attitudes foisted on us by postwar Presidents and their advisers...
...And if some think it is over-generous with citations from Warburg, most of them are pertinent and well illustrate the persistence of the author over the years...
...It is to this question that one of the most outspoken and prolific critics of American foreign policy, James P. Warburg, addresses himself in The United States in the Postwar World...
...Thus far, alas, we have demonstrated neither the knowledge, wisdom, nor sense of restraint necessary for such power...
...This is doubtless why his chapter on "Who Makes Our Foreign Policy" is disappointing...
...For the most part, it consists simply of a listing of persons identified with one phase or another of foreign policy, with some reference to the constitutional, and de facto, roles of the executive and legislative branches of the government...
...In this connection, he properly notes that government research connections with the nation's universities have "tended to dry up an important source of critical analysis of foreign policy and to make some of our institutions of learning into factories of rationalization for policies that would benefit from academic dissent...
...How did the United States get into this fix, where so many see it as disregarding and violating its most cher ished ideals and—however inadvertently—threatening the peace and progress of the world...
...The most important result of this aberration has been confusion about the Soviet Union and the conviction that it was trying to dominate, if not conquer, the world...
...Warburg's general case against our foreign policy orientation is stronger than ever before...
...His resulting "respectability" is one reason why his criticisms of foreign policy are so important, but it also may explain why he lets some of the more proper Establishmentarians off so easily...
...We are rapidly isolating ourselves from the world we aspire to lead...
...BOOKS Our Global Thrusts THE UNITED STATES IN THE POSTWAR WORLD, by James P. Warburg...
...Warburg does not dwell on the institutional aspects of foreign policy development, although he points out that the President has come to have powers in this field beyond those envisaged in the Constitution...
...And he writes with knowledge and perception about the case of Czechoslovakia, where Communism was instituted by the Czechs themselves and not by outside forces...
...The United States in the Postwar World is important, useful, and a significant contribution to foreign policy understanding...
...It is not just a question of bad America versus the good world...
...Lord Acton was not speaking of nations when he framed his maxim about power corrupting, but it applies nonetheless...
Vol. 31 • April 1967 • No. 4
