Realism and Reality
By ANTHONY HARTLEY Tinquest on American foreign policy has lasted a good time now, but fortunately the coroner (whoever he may be) has not yet had to deliver a verdict. The evidence given before him (which might suggest a death-wish) includes the considerable spread of Soviet influence in the World over the last eight years; the failure to find durable political elements on which to found an alliance with such countries as Japan and South Korea; and isolated incidents of the U2 type, Which Make Washington look foolish and dismay even the stoutest partisans of NATO. To account for the ebb of American power since the advent of the Eisenhower administra- tion in 1952 it is fair to remember that the posi- tions which the USA took up between 1945 and 1952 were based on its lead in atomic weapons, and that without this lead many of those positions are artificial. American bases from Spitzbergen to Kamchatka via Teheran and Bangkok—all round the edges of the Eurasian land mass— represent an effort (and dispersion of effort) Which imposes an immense strain on the country responsible for them. And the doctrine of 'con- tainment' had the disadvantage of allowing the Russians to choose the point at which they wished to break out. In these conditions even the slightest relaxation of vigilance could mean a lost base on the periphery of the Communist bloc, and it is only surprising that American foreign policy has not suffered still more reverses with the growth of Soviet strength. Some Americans, however, look deeper than geographical facts for the causes of diplomatic failure. A stream of analyses, plans and doctrines has flowed from across the Atlantic, much of it from the typewriters of State Department plan- ners, ex-State Department planners or men pro- fessionally concerned in other ways with foreign Policy. A good deal of this literature is devoted to lamenting the conditions in which the American diplomat has to work, from the suspicion of experts shown by Senate Committees to the ten- dency even of an informed public to see problems in terms of absolute good and evil. Many of these treatises join in denunciation of thisfilleolo- +Ilea' approach to policy, and, though the authors of the two most recent books* on the subject differ in their starting-point (Mr. Halle was a member of the State Department Polipy Planning 8taff and Mr. Thompson is associate director of
* AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY: THEORY AND
Resirrv. By Louis I. Halle. (Allen and Unwin, 25s.) POLITICAL REALISM AND THE CRISIS OF WORLD roulics. By Kenneth W. Thompson. (Princeton, 40s.) social sciences at the Rockefeller Foundation), they are alike in calling for a new 'realism.'
Undoubtedly it is disastrous to let foreign policy be obsessed with slogans, a process which in the end comes down to believing one's own propaganda, and allowing phrases such as 'con- tainment,' disengagement,"the roll-back' to hypnotise the minds that created them. But just what is 'realism' in a foreign policy context? It is fairly easy to see what it is not; Mr. Halle tells the cautionary tale of the tyrannical President Somoza of Nicaragua; who was received with honour in Washington in 1939; rejected, by sever- ance of diplomatic relations, during the period when Mr. Spruille Braden controlled the US's Latin American policy (1945-46); and granted a death-bed reconciliation in 1956; and plainly this is no way to run a railroad (it would hardly even be the way to run a brothel). But Mr. Braden's dislike of dictators as such has more to be said for it than Mr. Halle Would admit. President Somoza happened to be a dictator who lasted : President Batista was one who did not, and the results of a 'realistic' acceptance of his regime are likely to be more serious for America than those of a momentary priggish refusal to have any- thing to do with the Nicaraguan tyrant (and also, be it remembered, with Peron).
In the light of these instances 'realism' would appear to consist in deciding which bandwagon has the most staying-power and then leaping on 'it. But this is not the whole truth—however im- portant backing winners may be for a diplomat. Foreign policy is not cnly the seeking of tactical advantage, and those concerned with it are not a collection of Talleyrands (it might be better if they were, but that is not the point). The con- fused ideals of the modern world are themselves a force that has to be taken into consideration when policy, is decided. 'Realism' may consist in looking at things as they are; but it also consists in realising how they look to other people. In modern conditions diplomacy has been supple- mented as an instrument of State policy by propa- ganda and other devices of political warfare, and it is just in the use of these new weapons that America has shown itself maladroit. It might be argued without too much paradox that it is not a lack of 'realism' that has afflicted US policy of recent years but a failure to appear sufficiently idealistic.
It is unwise for a country in the course of its foreign policy to commit actions which too flag- rantly contradict its professed ideals. It is equally unwise for it to refuse to have 'anything to do with regimes which contradict those ideals, if their'rulers appear likely to remain (if revolution is. brewing, it is up to the diplomats to inform their governments). Perhaps this is as far as any- one can go in generalising about idealism and realism in the twentieth-century foreign policy. But in America's case both rules have been ignored. By backing rickety dictators in South Korea and Formosa, while refusing to recognise a Communist Chinese regime which was obvi- ously there to stay, the US Government made themselves appear Machiavellian without actually being so, or gathering any of cynicism's advan- tages. And the blame for this seems to lie with a political system ill-adapted to cope with the urgency of world events rather than with any victory of the starry-eyed over the stern-faced. 'Idealism' and 'realism' are not opposed but alternative concepts of foreign policy. What is essential is to know when to employ the one and when the other. But for this swiftness and de- cision are needed, and it is the tragedy of Ameri- can foreign policy that it has been 'half-dead at the top' for so long.
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