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.cb ENDING DEPENDENCE ON AMERICA


My thesis is that foreign countries have become dependent on America
to an extent that is bad for us and them, and that America should end
this dependence by becoming as nationalist as (say) France.  Ending
this dependence cost Europe a lot - a country may lose its independence
to the Communists before they wake up and defend themselves,
but the alternatives are probably worse.

Ordinarily, analogies between the behavior of individuals and the
behavior of countries are not very good, but the relation between our
"allies" and ourselves are very like those between an adolescent and
his parents.  At the end of World War II, when Europe and Japan were
devastated and the U.S. was at the height of its prosperity, national
unity, and technological lead, the U.S.  quite properly organized the
Western countries, both for their economic recovery and for the
common defense against Stalin's expansionism.  At first, the
alliance was genuine, considering the relative strengths of its
members, and the allies contributed at least token forces in the
Korean war which was the first test of strength with Communism.

By the time of the Vietnam war Europe had recovered and had much
more industrial strength and population than the Soviet Union
and its allies, but the alliance had disintegrated, and
the major allies all found reasons for not helping defend South
Vietnam against Communist expansion.  If South Korea is attacked
again, it is entirely clear that the allies will not help at all, no
matter how blatant the aggression; the only question is whether the
United States will live up to its stated commitments.  The issue of
responsibility for the disintegration of NATO is also put in terms of
whether the U.S. will live up to its commitments.

The reason we have gotten into this state seems clear.  With an open
ended U.S. commitment, one European politician could always
outflank another on the left - by promising to do less for the common
defense and finding more captious reasons to justify it.  Such a
policy had the further advantage that it contributed to the
prosperity of his country by saving money.  Unfortunately,
President Kennedy's rhetoric about "No sacrifice too great, etc."
was precisely such an open ended commitment.  As long as America was
far richer than all European countries, it found the further
justification that even with its larger per capita percentage
contribution, Americans were still better off as individuals.  The
fact that this is no longer true hasn't changed the relation of
dependency, and only U.S. rejection of the relation will do so.
Even serious talk of doing so will generate a storm of weeping and
wailing such hasn't been seen before, but the Europeans will survive
that.

Another factor that encouraged the dependency was the desire to
prevent nuclear spread by having the U.S. take the responsibility for
the nuclear defense of Europe.  This was a good thing to try, but it
contributed to the dependency that led to Europeans abandoning
responsibilities for free world interests outside Europe.  If it
makes any difference, the development of European moral one-upness
with respect to the U.S. is one of the main reasons why we can no
longer defend them.  Perhaps they can develop some kind of joint
deterrent, but we must retire to the role we had at the beginning of
World War II - a distant potential ally that may step in if the
situation gets sufficiently desperate after the Europeans have
already done their best.

This dependency relation encouraged the criticism of the U.S.  that
helped lead to the U.S.  losing confidence that it was fighting
tyranny rather than supporting it and to the consequent abandonment
of the Vietnamese after they had finally reached the point of
defending themselves with U.S.  material support.  (Of course, the
Vietnamese reached the point of defending themselves only when it
became clear that the U.S. ground troops were going to be withdrawn,
illustrating the previous point about dependency, but they didn't
give up until it became clear that the U.S.  Congress was determined
that they should lose and would do whatever was necessary to insure
that result.  The U.S. will only recover its morale fully when it
becomes accepted that we did wrong in abandoning the Vietnamese, but
that may take until people who had a hand in the disaster no longer
dominate policy).  Actually, the Nixon policy very nearly saved South
Vietnam and might have succeeded if he hadn't convinced himself that
illegal methods were justified in fighting off his domestic
attackers.  He also didn't realize that while his predecessors
engaged in illegality without trouble, he could not.

The basic fact about dependency is that as long as one can count on
someone else to provide some kind of help free of charge, one does
so.  Parents often have to force children to support themselves, even
though our culture indoctrinates them into expecting to do so.  The
United States can claim no special virtue in the matter; whenever a
group in our population - whether it be the airlines, the oil
drillers, people on welfare, or professors - has succeeded in
grabbing onto a teat of the sow, it hangs on for dear life.  If
Martians came down in flying saucers and offered first to make up New
York City's deficit and later the national deficit, the offer would
be accepted and our dependence on them would soon become a
matter of right, and we wouldn't be grateful.

The relation of the underdeveloped countries to the developed ones,
and to the United States in particular, has been similar.  A reaction
to this dependence has eventually developed.  Consider that
India eventually became hostile to the United States.  Consider
that having become hostile, they are now beginning to implement
compulsory birth control - something that could never have been
implemented as long as we were considered their friends,
and the leftists could call it American sponsored genocide.  Of course,
their independence is not accompanied by good will towards the United
States; they had to tell themselves that our previous aid was badly
motivated, and naturally it made most of us mad.  It is our interest,
and probably in theirs, that we stay mad at them and certainly that
they stay mad at us.  Certainly, anything that allows politicians in
underdeveloped countries to kid themselves and their constituents
into believing that the developed countries can be pressured either
by moralizing or militarism into further handouts will only delay
their seriously undertaking to solve their problems.  Nor can we
solve their problems with any plausible amount of aid.  All
experience shows that when a country without pre-existing standards
of performance receives large-scale aid, every bureaucrat finds that
getting cousin's son safely into the bureaucracy takes
precedence over any nonsense that some rich and foolish foreigner is
trying to put over - no doubt for some imperialist reason.

The best solution is for the U.S. to adopt a technology-only policy
towards aiding the underdeveloped world except when there is an utter
disaster.  We should help an utter disaster only through a mechanism
in which the country declares itself politically bankrupt.  Then
we take not only the ⊗responsibility for relieving the situation but
also full ⊗governmental ⊗authority for the duration of the crisis.
In other words, the country temporarily becomes a colony. Don't forget
that the two greatest economic successes since World War II were in
countries subject to American military occupation.  Countries receiving
assistance without the authority did much worse.  The only
case in which we should aid a country without this condition, is when
we are convinced that the country is managing its affairs almost as
well as they can be managed.  With such terms, it will take a
real disaster before we will be called in.

The U.S. should demand that the NATO treaty be renegotiated as a
condition for our staying in.  First, there have been 40,000
American soldiers in Korea for 25 years.  Let them be replaced by
40,000 German soldiers for the next 25 years with the Europeans
providing complete logistical support for them.  No doubt the our
allies will reject this absurd proposal indignantly, telling us that
they don't care about Asia anyway, and, besides, the South Korean
government isn't pure enough.  Our reply should be to the
effect that then they can handle the next Berlin crisis themselves.
I don't know whether that would bring them around, but if they lost
Berlin, they would be ready for a genuine alliance thereafter.  Secondly,
we should demand that they undertake to defend the continued
existence of Israel.

Besides the danger of losing Berlin, which is more a danger to the
Germans than it is to us, there is the additional danger that the
Germans will be motivated to acquire their own nuclear weapons.
Unfortunately, this danger must be accepted - not only with regard to
the Germans, but with regard to many other nations as well.  When the
policeman quits, everyone must defend himself as best he can, and
when the policeman is no longer supported, he will quit.

The countries with the most obvious need for their own nuclear
weapons are Israel, South Korea, Taiwan, and South Africa.  Each of
them is in a position where its survival is quite likely to depend on
its posession of nuclear weapons.  In the case of Israel, this has
already affected the policies of its neighbors.  It seems clear that
Egypt has concluded that there is no real possibility of eliminating
Israel without self-destruction.  The other Arab states probably also
understand this, but groups within these countries still have much to
gain by pretending otherwise.  The posession of nuclear weapons by
these countries represents a danger to the United States, so we are
not motivated to help them acquire them, but our politics now
prevents the kind of guarantee of their security that would obviate
the need.  The situation will become acute after the nominations,
when it will become clear whether the Democratic candidate will agree
to continue Ford's guarantees to South Korea.  If not, the South
Koreans' best chance of survival may be to ask the U.S. to leave and
go all out for their own deterrent.

If South Korea or Israel is forced to use or even brandish nuclear
weapons in order to survive, a qualitatively new stage in
proliferation will be reached.  Except for the first atomic bombs
that ended World War II and the first Soviet bombs that ended the
American monopoly, the posession of nuclear weapons has only brought
minor prestige to the posessor and some criticism from public opinion
in other countries.  As soon as the first country preserves its
independence by flourishing nuclear weapons, the urge to posess them
will become much harder to resist.  Imagine the effect on public
opinion in Japan if the despised South Koreans have their own
deterrent and it proves to deter.

In Europe, there is a faint hope that nuclear proliferation might be
avoided by threatening the Russians that proliferation is the
alternative to a genuine arms limitation.  The Russians
have a certain sentimental objection to West German nuclear weapons
and might pay a reasonably high price to avoid it.  If
Europe would agree to a genuine alliance accepting world-wide
responsibilities, then proliferation might be avoided for a long
time.  As things are going now, the Communists will push until
someone deters them.

The course I have advocated is dangerous, as every departure from
established trends is dangerous.  However, the Kissinger policy of
bluff towards the Russians coupled with false assurances to the
Europeans of a unilateral American commitment is a sure recipe for
disaster.  The bluff concerning a reaction to further Cuban
adventures in Africa was immediately called and no similar bluff
has a chance of working.

Those who see the dangers of this approach, should contemplate
whether their actions have contributed to making it necessary.

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John Mcarthy
Stanford, California

This note is filed as DEPEND[W76,JMC].
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