THE U.S. AND BRITAIN

Allies Undermine Each Other To Foe's Benefit

RELATIONS between the U.S. and Britain are now worse than most Americans think. On dozens of specific questions, debated in the world's chancelleries and at the U.N.. the attitudes and policies of the two allies are not merely different but actively opposed. Many a British diplomat spends more time undermining a U.S. position than in building joint defenses against Communism. And many a U.S. diplomat, busily countermining the British, worries more about them than he does about the Russians. Both nations are spending political energy against each other that could be used against the common foe.

British-American disunion is deeply significant. Since the cold war began, the anti-Communist side has had the preponderant power--military, economic and moral--but superiority has never been exercised to register proportionate gains in cold-war politics. The Communists have usually had the initiative. When they lost it, they took strong defensive positions and encouraged dissension among the anti-Communist coalition.

This typical Communist strategy was demonstrated to the world last August. The Korean armistice ended a round in which the Reds had taken the initiative, lost it at Inchon, regained it by the Red Chinese invasion, and settled down to a military stalemate translated by the armistice to a political stalemate. The U.S., by warning that it would not tolerate a new or stepped-up Red aggression, cramped the Kremlin's next move. Could the anti-Communist side, taking off from Panmunjom, find a politial initiative? It did not find one. Instead, the U.S. and Britain locked horns in the U.N. over the issue of admitting India to the Korean peace conference. Today, the anti-Communist alliance is too divided to take full advantage of one of the great political victories of the cold war: the failure of the Reds to win back more than 3% of the North Korean and Chinese prisoners whom they have interviewed.

Weakness in the anti-Communist camp is broader than U.S.British conflict. Often it has been the result of division and indecision inside the U.S. Government. But as the U.S. position under Eisenhower and Dulles became clearer and more consistent, it was bound to come into conflict with "neutralist" sentiment among the allies. In the last year of Truman-Acheson, the U.S.-British divergence was growing. It has become sharper.

Specific conflicts in which it is notably grave:

Red China. Undismayed by Peking's stony refusal to give full recognition to Her Majesty's government, Britain insists on recognizing Mao Tse-tung, wants his representative to take Nationalist China's seat (with veto) on the U.N. Security Council. The British argument: all governments in power should be recognized, not matter how they gained power or how they behave. Britain hopes to encourage Mao to become a Tito. The U.S. believes that recognition will vastly increase Red China's prestige and help to fasten Communism on all of Asia.

Nehru. On China and most other Asian questions. British Commonwealth policy is heavily influenced by India's Nehru. Britons, galled for decades by U.S. pressure for a free India, now take a wry delight in Nehru's anti-Americanism. They want to build up Nehru as Asia's leader. The U.S. is convinced that Nehru misunderstands and underestimates the Communist threat. By sitting out the Korean war, he showed that his country is not prepared to defend Asia from Red aggression.

Middle East. Day in and day out the British-American conflict seethes through the Middle East. Beside it the joint Anglo-American opposition to Communism is a half-forgotten, far-off thing. Present British Middle East policies have their roots in traditional Tory policies. Britain's prewar Tory policy was to keep the Moslem world divided and weak, politically and economically, so that British traders could operate on terms advantageous to them. The U.S. today sees the Middle East (as it sees almost all international problems) largely as part of the struggle with world Communism; Middle East weakness creates a dangerous power vacuum that cannot be filled simply by building British and American military bases. Strategy against the Soviet Union and long-run commercial policy, in the U.S. view, both call for the political and economic strengthening of this area, even if the immediate effect is the loss of some commercial advantages. Iran was almost lost while British and Americans fought each other and Communist power grew.

Europe. British-U.S. agreement seems to be much closer in Europe, but even there serious differences are coming to light. British and U.S. views agree that the U.S.S.R. now has a dangerously overbalancing power in Europe and that this should be corrected by building up strength west of the Iron Curtain. But as progress toward this goal continues, it is increasingly clear that Britain will want to stop when the point of European balance is reached; the U.S. will want a Europe overbalanced against Russia. The U.S., measuring on a larger scale, foresees that a merely balanced Europe would free world Communism for further aggression in the Far East.

More fundamentally, the U.S. sees Communism as a highly mobile enemy that can strike anywhere without fear of being contained by localized balance. An American trying to estimate the intentions or reactions of the Soviet state will tend to draw his information from the theory of Marxism and the actual record of Communism. A Briton will tend to emphasize the history of Czarist Russia and to look upon Communist imperialism as a projection of the ancient Russian pressure against Europe.

Germany. The British are showing many more reservations than the Americans about the strength of West Germany. Their fear is partly commercial, partly the result of having been horribly hurt in two wars by German power. It is to the credit of British magnanimity and good sense that they tolerate a resurgent Germany to the extent that they do. But Britain still wants to limit Germany to what can be contained in a purely European balance.

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