The Sources of Insecurity
Barnet, Richard J.
The Sources of Insecurity Cold War fantasies hold us in thrall BY RICHARD J. BARNET What is the purpose of American foreign policy? When our Republic was founded 200 years ago, the goal was...
...Even to begin this process requires the building of positive political relations, and this task, rather than the technicalities of arms control, is where our emphasis should be placed...
...The Federal Reserve Bank in New York translates that into 250,000 lost American jobs...
...Whether one side or the other is "ahead" is a subjective judgment that depends on many considerations beyond quantity or accuracy of weapons...
...the policy of meddlesome interventionism...
...The arms talks failed because of the "bargaining chip" theory of negotiations...
...Unfortunately, it never became policy...
...But scientists don't like to make slow and imprecise weapons...
...Today, there is nothing to prevent any multinational from closing down a plant in the United States and moving it to South Korea or the Philippines, where the return on the dollar will be much greater...
...But no one is looking...
...Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan managed to shatter the pro-American national security consensus in Germany, and it cannot be put back together again...
...The strength of our nation is in our people and in the values for which the Republic was established, the values that inspire us to be more than just metabolizing organisms, more than just consumers, more than just achievers...
...The document, negotiated by President Kennedy's adviser and Nikita Khrushchev's deputy foreign minister, outlined the stages of a disarmament process that would lead to a general and complete disarmament...
...There is nothing inevitable about Soviet expansionism...
...Rome was always being attacked by evil-minded neighbors, always fighting for breathing space...
...The tunnel vision of the Cold War keeps us focused on the insoluble problem— achieving national security through the arms race—while the problems we could and must solve go unattended...
...The less defensible the policies, the less dissent we tolerate...
...The serious discord between ourselves and the Europeans will not be overcome unless we take the lead in the fight for denuclearization...
...It gives us a chance to redefine the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union...
...The Cold War is far more about power than about freedom...
...Increasingly, Europeans—and especially Germans— are viewing deterrence as a form of roulette in which two reprobate gamblers are using European civilizations for chips...
...The effective common management of East-West relations in a way that reduces the very high state of readiness and confrontation in Europe is central to the restoration of good relations...
...Why should the Soviets, who are unable to control Eastern Europe with military power, try to bite off Western Europe...
...prosperity because our workers cannot compete with underpaid workers in Third World dictatorships, nor can the majority of the population in such countries afford to buy our goods...
...The whole world was pervaded by a host of enemies and it was manifestly Rome's duty to guard against their indubitably aggressive designs...
...Before we can denuclearize our forces, however, we must denuclearize our thinking and our military strategy...
...The greenhouse effect, acid rain, and the destruction of topsoil threaten development everywhere, and hence world peace...
...A fight for liberty against tyranny is, indeed, being fought in the world, but it is not the fight we are waging...
...We are needlessly isolated in the world because we treat other nations, especially poor and weak ones, as mere pawns in a global power struggle...
...But the United States makes foreign policy without weighing its economic implications...
...trade will continue to grow...
...Our mutual interests are important, however, and can only be preserved by reducing the high level of mobilization and confrontation in the center of Europe...
...our failures will not ease U.S...
...But nothing in politics can be frozen for very long...
...There was no corner of the known world where some interest was not alleged to be in danger or under actual attack...
...major arms talks were held, a Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) was signed, and still more weapons were produced...
...And when it was utterly impossible to contrive such an interest, why then it was the national honor that had been assaulted...
...Whatever can be said about the dark side of the Soviet system, the leaders in the Kremlin are not Hitler...
...In our interdependent global system, we simply cannot destroy the economy of Nicaragua without damaging the economy of Honduras and other Central American countries...
...Forty years after World War II, the superpowers should relax their grip on the two halves of the divided continent...
...We must begin by looking at the world as it is...
...The past twenty years of Third World history demonstrate that revolutionary countries are eager to sell their resources to the United States...
...The "bargaining chip" theory of negotiations has already produced a predictable result: the aiming of more missiles by the Soviets against Western Europe and a growing sense of alarm and hopelessness on the continent...
...When a nation is obsessed with implausible challenges, it tends to ignore real risks and fails to respond...
...Our Government supports, for ideological reasons, the very military dictatorships that are eroding our economy's competitive strength...
...We need to engage the Soviet Union in building a framework for an alternative security system in which the behavior of both superpowers will change...
...Ours is a world of rapidly escalating economic crisis...
...Largely because of its own domestic failings and clumsy operations abroad, the Soviet Union is more isolated now than it has been since World War II...
...Why should you...
...Enormous forces are at work in our society and in Soviet society that depend on the arms race...
...We ought to take nuclear weapons out of Europe, and we ought to press the Russians to take theirs out, too...
...That is why so many Europeans poured into the streets to protest...
...Ours is a world of catastrophic famine...
...But the United States does not benefit from Soviet misfortune, except perhaps when our farmers reap profits from Russian crop disasters...
...The goal was simple: to block hostile interference so that Americans could freely build the community of their choice...
...The United States interprets every such insurrection in the Third World as a Soviet-inspired assault on our interests...
...There is a growing sense in Europe that the United States is neither interested in managing the collective relationship with the Soviet Union nor competent to do so...
...The only patriotism possible in today's world is the aspiration to be a nation of builders, not destroyers...
...When our Republic was founded 200 years ago, the goal was not to flex our muscles before the world, nor was it to acquire as many clients and bases as possible...
...It is quite clear by now that Europe has political, economic, and military interests that diverge from those of the United States...
...Third World revolutions, born of desperation, are inevitably and invariably messy...
...But an agreement on Berlin and the two Germanies occurred, and the arms race leaped ahead...
...By imposing cruel and inequitable austerity measures on Third World countries, we reduce the potential market for goods we produce...
...But deterrence can only work if we accept its inherent paradox: Deterrence must be stabilized before it can be transcended, yet it cannot be stabilized until there is a commitment to transcend it...
...Soviet failures will not ease Soviet militarism...
...Richard J. Barnet is a senior fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C...
...By subjecting them to military pressure, we encourage the militarization of their societies...
...Vietnam, Iran, Lebanon, and Nicaragua are only the most prominent examples...
...You have to catch up, of course...
...Thus we need not merely a "no first use" declaration, but also a "no first use" posture which is reflected in policy, military doctrine, and deployment...
...As Albert Einstein observed after we dropped the Bomb on Japan, there is simply no technical answer to security...
...If the interests were not Roman they were those of Rome's allies, and if Rome had no allies then allies would be invented...
...We show our love of country not by going abroad to slay monsters but by building a community here that can stand as an example to a world we can neither dominate nor neglect...
...The Sources of Insecurity Cold War fantasies hold us in thrall BY RICHARD J. BARNET What is the purpose of American foreign policy...
...And with this development, the risk acquires a whole new dimension...
...Like Rome, we are mortally wounding ourselves by the very policies we pursue in the name of strength...
...The placement of intermediaterange missiles in Europe, which was supposed to underscore the American commitment to the continent's security, actually heightened the feeling of vulnerability to nuclear war...
...Nor, for that matter, does the Soviet Union benefit from the misfortunes that have befallen the United States...
...Ours is a world of mutually reinforcing ecological crises that do not vanish when they leave the pages of the newspapers and the fifty-second segments on the television screens...
...Many years ago, Joseph Schumpeter analyzed the foreign policy of ancient Rome in terms eerily appropriate to our times...
...The Soviet Union, regardless of the propaganda issuing from Washington, is not about to attack either the United States or Western Europe...
...His latest book is "The Alliance: America, Europe, Japan...
...But the regimes that emerge need not be permanent enemies of the United States...
...militarism...
...We have seen in the history of arms control that there are two times when you can't reach an agreement: One is when you are ahead...
...But the more we scrutinize it, the more obvious it becomes that the emperor has no clothes...
...they need our markets...
...The international economic policies we sponsor, under the aegis of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, are similarly self-defeating...
...the policy of continual preparation for war...
...It is a way to stabilize deterrence, but it is not politically achievable unless we have the imagination to see beyond it...
...The other is when you are behind...
...The very process of maintaining deterrence has ensured a never-ending arms race now entering the frontiers of space...
...Largely because of the turmoil in Latin America which we have fueled, our exports to the region have dropped by $20 billion in the last two years...
...The nuclear freeze proposal is a political statement that we must move beyond the arms race...
...The Romans, he said, pursued a policy that "pretended to aspire to peace but unerringly generated war...
...The most pressing problems of our world cannot be solved by a struggle between the superpowers...
...If anything, failures to reform our respective systems will make us both more militaristic...
...In my view, no effective alternative to deterrence exists at this time...
...Ironically, by treating all revolutions as battlegrounds in the Cold War, our Government inflicts pain not only on the Third World but also on the United States...
...It was once thought that the arms race could be stabilized through technology: We would make very slow, survivable "second strike" weapons...
...We must halt the export of production by multinational corporations that have no accountability to either local or national public authorities...
...Fortunately, there is no consensus in this country— or even within its armed forces—for large-scale military intervention...
...This country is roughly twice as dependent on world trade as it was ten years ago, but many of our national policies are based on the dubious premise that, whatever we do, U.S...
...Unless we begin to take a more enlightened and realistic view, we will neither improve our relations with the Soviet Union nor reverse the arms race...
...The consensus in opposition to intervention is growing...
...At the heart of our foreign and military policy lies another great misconception: that revolutionary nationalist regimes jeopardize our security...
...If it is seen as an insurance policy tucked away in a drawer somewhere, we can sustain the illusion that it is working—or, at least, we cannot prove it is defective until war comes...
...New, more sophisticated weapons on one side always spur the production of counterweapons on the other...
...in Africa alone, twenty-two countries teeter on the edge of starvation...
...We cannot achieve greater security by moving to the next technological level of weapons development...
...The consensus that supported the 1954 overthrow of the Guatemalan government or the 1965 invasion of the Dominican Republic is no longer intact...
...There are so many interconnections in the world that economic warfare is bound to have a boomerang effect...
...Often, U.S.-based multinationals flee our shores for the more favorable climate of military dictatorships, which eagerly collaborate in keeping wages down...
...What is the next stage...
...the freeze can work only if it is seen as a short transition to something else...
...Our goals have been either grandiose or muddled, or both...
...As a result, the lethal innovations have taken on a life of their own...
...Refashioning our nuclear policy is vital to improving our relationships with Western Europe, which are now under heavy strain...
...Such a process was begun in 1961, largely as a propaganda exercise, to be sure, but the McCloy-Zorin Declaration offers a model for the sort of comprehensive disarmament agreement now so urgently needed...
...By straying from it, as we often have over the past 100 years, we have undermined our security and sapped our strength...
...They like to make fast and accurate ones...
...There are things we want as a nation that we should not want, and there are things we may desire but simply cannot have...
...The alliance cannot continue to rest on the supposition of an implausible defense against an improbable attack...
...Deterrence cannot be stabilized until the mutual threat is reduced and the nuclear powers ease tension to the point where they can be weaned from the false security of the Bomb...
...Deterrence works, if it works at all, when we think about it least...
...Without question, the prevention of nuclear war must be the first goal of our foreign policy...
...Like a prudent individual, a country seeking real security should try to assess the risks and challenges it faces...
...The conventional wisdom of the 1960s and 1970s assumed that a political settlement in Central Europe, coupled with arms negotiations, would change the direction and pace of the arms race...
...The decade of SALT was also the decade of the MIRV, SS-18, Trident, Cruise, and Pershing II—proof that the theory of managing the arms race simultaneously by arms buildup and arms control does not work...
...It is absurd to believe that such small and impoverished nations as Nicaragua and Vietnam are threats to the United States because of the way they organize their social systems...
...Many events in the Third World—where, according to Henry Kissinger, nothing important ever happens— we do not understand and control...
...This original objective is still valid...
...The fight," Schumpeter continued, "was always invested with an aura of legality...
...In the real world, which offers a formidable variety of real threats, this one is far down the list...
...The reduction of nuclear weapons to a level sufficiently low to remove the catastrophic danger to the planet...
...They rarely turn out as we would want...
...We are systematically forcing people all over the world to drop out of the consumer classes, leaving fewer buyers for American products...
...the problems of Third World debt, the increasing concentration of wealth, and austerity for the poor and middle classes in both developed and developing nations directly threaten future U.S...
...We have neglected to consider what is necessary to our fundamental interests and what is feasible...
Vol. 48 • July 1984 • No. 7
