CRISIS FOR THE WEST
THE immediate task for the Western Powers is to salvage something from the wreck in South-East Asia. It would be inconsistent not to make the attempt, since the whole of Western policy for eight years or more has been directed— with considerable success—to resistance to Communist aggres- sion. It would also be unrealistic to let the situation go by default, since the loss of a single fortress, Dien Bien Phu, is not the same thing as the loss of all Indo-China, much less of the whole of South-East Asia. If it is logical and realistic for the French representatives at Geneva to refuse to admit to the conference the so-called resistance governments of Cambodia and Laos, it will also be logical and realistic to demonstrate that the writ of these " governments " does not run in the areas to which they lay claim. It is impossible at the moment to deny to the Viet-minh the parts of Indo-China which it has conquered. It would be stupid to make it a present of the parts which it has not conquered. It would be doubly stupid in that there is no reason whatever to believe that Communist expansionism in Asia would halt at the borders of Indo-China—that the Communists have " no further territorial ambitions."
The first task is therefore to decide, as a matter of practical military calculation, at which point a line can be drawn. This task is being undertaken at the Five-Power staff talks in Singapore between Britain, the United States, Australia, New Zealand and France. But once the line has been decided upon it will still be necessary for the Powers concerned to consolidate both militarily and politically behind it. That will be a tremen- dous task. Even in Western Europe, where the line drew itself and where all the countries immediately behind it agreed on the necessity for defence, it has take five years for NATO to be built up into a reasonably satisfactory organisation with sufficient organised strength to reduce the risk of Communist aggression. In Asia nobody can say with confidence where the line should be drawn; nobody can say when the Asian countries which recently met at Colombo, and which still lie outside the Communist orbit, will wake up fully to the need to defend themselves; and, worst of all, nobody knows how long it will take Britain, France and the United States to restore full confidence and understanding among themselves.
There is no point in understating the difficulties which have arisen in the past few weeks. It is not merely that British, 'French and American policies have,got out of line. A vicious circle has established itself with the British and Americans unsure about the will and the ability of the French to take part in an anti-Communist stand in South-East Asia; with the British refusing to fall in with the suggestion of a strong military intervention in support of the French in northern Viet-nim; with the Americans blaming the British for the collapse of the strong policies which Mr. Dulles tried to promote. Nor is that the only difficulty in the way of the re-establishment of close understanding. There is also the fact that any effective new policy for South-East Asia must go hand in hand with willingness to commit armed forces to back that policy. That requires determination on the part of both Governments and peoples, and that in turn heightens the strain on any Govern- ment faced with the possibility of having to undertake a strong, and possibly dangerous, policy abroad in the face of opposition at home. All three Western Governments are faced with all these difficulties in varying degrees. The task of restoring a healthy relationship between them is therefore both hard and complicated. arisen. The chronic internal weakness of France since the war, the tendency to leave the hardest and most dangerous tasks to a small minority (which is discussed in an article from Paris on a later page) and a series of errors in the military conduct of the war in Indo-China make up the account which the French must now face, with reluctance and distaste. Mr. Dulles's tendency to underestimate the diplomatic difficultieS of a strong policy, President Eisenhower's unwillingness to give a courageous lead, and the internal shortcomings of the Republican party have given American foreign policy its worst set-back since the war. Sir Winston Churchill's determination to stake everything on high-level international meetings, the unwillingness of the British Government to back the un' doubtedly clumsy but fundamentally sound basic American policy of firmness in the face of all Communist manoeuvres, and the pernicious activities of a blindly anti-American element in Britain, have removed for the time being the possibility of a positive British lead.
In this matter of the apportionment of blame it is easy to slide over into recriminations between countries. Self* criticism would be more to the point. For Britain it should surely be clear by now, that the policy (if it can be called a policy) of seeking conferences without first concerting the issues which those conferences were to discuss has been completely mistaken. It began a year ago with Sir Winston Churchill's speech of May 11th, 1953, suggesting a meeting of heads of Governments. It has led to nothing but a series of delays interspersed with unsatisfactory conferences of Foreign Ministers. The original idea that Sir Winston should himself meet the other heads of Governments—in particular President Eisenhower and Mr. Malenkov—has been completely forgotten. The one hope that the Russians might be forced into a corner at the Berlin meeting and driven to make a concession on German unity was not fulfilled. Instead the Western Powers have themselves been manoeuvred into a corner at Geneva. Yet still this hopeless game is being played out to the end. Still co-ordination in the West is being put second to a hope of concession in the East. That is primarily Britain's fault— a fault in which we have persisted so long that the powerful anti-British elements in the United States have been given bigger stick with which to beat us than they have ever had before. hensible. But it is doubtful whether they would have become 4,9 pronounced, and so led to major international mistakes, America's allies had behaved with a greater sense of funda- mental unity of purpose. What is right about American foreign policy is its firmness towards the Communist Powers, and its Widerlying determination not to make an unnecessary con- ?ession out of false weakness or wishful thinking. Too many people in this country have foolishly decided to ignore this tIndarnental strategic truth and to concentrate instead on the tactical clumsiness of Mr. Dulles, to forget the basic distinction between right and wrong, and to forget that the Communists are materialists, who never fail to recognise the existence of facts even when they do not like those facts. It was because the Western Powers had the will to do the right thing, and face the possible consequences, in the Berlin air lift, in their support for Greece, and in Korea, that they got their way. Now they must recover that will after the set-back of Indo- China. And the first step is the re-establishment of close co-operation between the Governments of Britain and the United States.
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