The New US. Role in the World

THE end of World War II probably marked the pinnacle of U.S. prestige; the height of the Viet Nam War may well have marked its nadir. Hamilton Fish Armstrong, retiring editor of Foreign Affairs, writes in the current issue: "The methods we have used in fighting the war have scandalized and disgusted public opinion in almost all foreign countries. Not since we withdrew into comfortable isolation in 1920 has the prestige of the U.S. stood so low."

Even America's staunchest allies, while not unsympathetic, used to be dismayed by Washington's obsession with Viet Nam. Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger have begun to rebuild American prestige and influence by the daring, skillful summit diplomacy that led to the agreement with Hanoi. To achieve their grandly labeled "generation of peace," Nixon and Kissinger are seeking to limit the American role in the world, concentrating on great power relationships and on learning to live with all kinds of Communist regimes.

In Kissinger's view, American involvement in Viet Nam stemmed from "an outmoded foreign policy concept" long before the Nixon Administration came into office. "In seeking to establish new relationships," he has said, "our concern is not to withdraw from the world. We are trying to find a posture to remain committed to the world yet to have a policy that is emotionally sustainable in this country."

Diplomatic Game. Nixon's new policy is a direct shift away from the cold war rigidity and messianism of the 1950s and early 1960s--an ideological policy based upon a national agreement that the U.S. had a moral responsibility to contain Communism. As Harvard Political Scientist Stanley Hoffmann observes, "The external development of the 1960s made obsolete the strategy that had been devised in the late 1940s. The war in Viet Nam destroyed the consensus. In a way, this may have been a service--at what a price--for it forced Americans to face the obsolescence of policy earlier than they probably otherwise would have."

Describing the Kissinger-Nixon design, Hoffmann continues: "Ideology would not disappear, but its external effects would be neutralized; different political systems would coexist. A great power would be more concerned with its maneuvers with and around the other major states than with the courtship of the weak. Thus mobility would be restored to the diplomatic game, and changes in the international system would once more result from the playing of the game itself rather than from 'eyeball to eyeball' crises."

The new direction of U.S. foreign policy was illustrated by the Administration's success in separating Viet Nam from America's relationships with China and the Soviet Union. Both nations agreed to proceed with the Nixon summit meetings because they were more concerned about their own national interests than with Marxist orthodoxies. In future dealings with the two Communist superpowers, the U.S. must adroitly avoid giving the impression that it is aiding one at the expense of the other; tricky as this balancing act might sometimes become, it will afford the U.S. far more leverage than it had when Peking remained in isolation.

Perhaps inevitably, the often stage-managed drama of Nixon's pragmatic diplomacy has proved to be jarring to some. The imposition of martial law in the Philippines and in South Korea is almost certainly linked to the thaw in U.S.-Chinese relations, the end of the Viet Nam War and a sense of a lessening American commitment to Asia. In the Shanghai communique, the U.S. declared that it would "progressively reduce its forces and military installations on Taiwan as tension in the area [Indochina] diminishes." But the Chinese themselves emphasized during the summit that they did not want the U.S. to withdraw completely from Asia--presumably because they do not want the Japanese, or possibly the Russians, to fill the resulting vacuum.

The end of the Viet Nam War will make possible a presidential visit to Japan next year, another "historic first" that Richard Nixon dearly covets. He is also aware that American ties with Europe are in urgent need of strengthening and redefining. Kissinger in fact has already dubbed 1973 "the year of Europe," and a Viet Nam settlement will undoubtedly be capped by a triumphal visit to Europe in the spring.

But it will take far more than that to restore the U.S.'s prestige and moral power. In the end, the world's judgment of the Nixon-Kissinger settlement will probably rest on whether an independent government can survive in Saigon. It will also depend upon the way in which the U.S. chooses to help the shattered nations of Indochina rebuild.

The war's end will inevitably improve America's standing with Third World nations, although present U.S. policy toward them, as Columbia University Professor Zbigniew Brzezinski observes, is currently one of benign neglect. He adds, "This cannot long endure, because we are going to see more fragmentation and unrest in those areas that will impose themselves on our society." One reason for this, says Brzezinski, is the political impact of U.S. investments and raw material needs. Whether the Viet Nam settlement will lead toward progress in the Middle East remains to be seen; the U.S. can reasonably hope that as a result of the Moscow summit the Soviets will be willing to help keep the situation there defused.

The war shattered the twin assumptions that America is virtually omnipotent and that its power is invariably used to advance the cause of peace; in doing so, Viet Nam also altered the nation's defense strategy. Obviously the U.S. will not soon again dispatch "advisers" let alone other military forces to intervene abroad. Nor will the U.S. rely so heavily on its weaponry--particularly its massive airpower.

The size of America's nuclear arsenal is partially frozen by treaty. Nonetheless, the U.S. will continue to improve the quality of its present weapons even as it reduces the size of the nation's armed forces from 2,300,000 today to perhaps 2,000,000. With a few exceptions, most notably the NATO commitment in Europe (which could be scaled down if future Mutual Balanced Force Reduction talks with Warsaw Pact Nations are successful), these troops will be stationed on the ground in the U.S. There will still be nuclear-equipped American forces in the air and under the sea; but the myth that this technologically sophisticated deterrent is invincible in all circumstances--particularly against a tough, dedicated, nontechnological foe--has been destroyed.

What lessons has the U.S. learned from the longest and most costly war in its history? "That good intentions and physical power are not enough," says Political Scientist Hans Morgenthau, an early critic of the war. "What is required is a wisdom and recognition of limits that our national experience hadn't taught us." As the cold war disappears, suggests former Diplomat George Kennan, one of the principal architects of America's policy of containment, the U.S. will be free to concentrate on such larger issues as the control of strategic weaponry, the salvation of man's environment and "the organization of international life."

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