AMERICAN POLICY
FROM the very first day of the war in Korea and until this hour the mainstay of the defence of the non-Communist, world against open military aggression has been the prompt and effective action of the United States Government and the United States forces. The United Nations has also played its part from the beginning in refusing to countenance aggression and in refuiing to treat the period of Mr. Malik's presidency of the Security Council as anything but an unfortunate interlude during which action has been hampered. The day may come when the armed forces,—ground, sea and air—of all the members of the United Nations may be employed on such a scale that the present burden on the Americans may be substantially lessened. But that day has not come yet and for practical purposes the only forseeable situation is one in which the United States is the dominant partner of all the United Nations forces in the Korean war. Consequently it is important above all things for the whole civilised world that the Americans shall at all times act as one. It is also desirable that they shall speak as one, but it is already dear that that is too much to ask. As heard from this side of the Atlantic the voices of the United States are becoming a Babel, but fortunately action is not yet compromised and there is little reason to fear that it ever will be.
Yet it will be necessary for the British people, and the peoples of all the non-Communist world, to hold fast in the next few weeks to the basic idea that it is action that matters. It should . not be difficult to do that. For nearly ten years now the situ- ation has repeatedly arisen in which the American Government and people have been faced with a situation in which the fate of particular countries, and even the fate of the world, has depended on their making a right decision. They have always made that right decision, but in almost every case they have argued and discussed and gone through every stage of the American demo- cratic process while the rest of the world waited with its heart in its mouth. The isolationists have had their say. The lunatic fringe has had a hearing. But in the end the United States Government, both during and after the war, has done the right thing. And it is at least a reasonable expectation that it will not make a mistake now, when the decision is as crucial as it has ever been. The key figure is President Truman, and he has not made a mistake over Korea yet.
Most of the other voices that have been heard are little more than voices but it is not possible to say of any one of them that it is vox et praeteria nihil. Those Republican stalwarts who have put the idea of a bipartisan foreign policy behind them and have their eyes fixed on the November elections and little else beside are intent on discrediting President Truman, Mr. Acheson and the State Department. They are hardly likely to succeed, but they may be a considerable nuisance. Mr. Francis Matthews, who has had a hallucination in which the United States under- takes a world war at once and wins it as " the first aggressors for peace," has had his statement repudiated by the State Depart- ment and in any case his voice has been drownedby louder ones which have been raised subsequently. But Mr. Matthews is the Secretary of the Navy and it would only be by some superhuman effort that he could keep his personal opinions and his official duty completely separate. Moreover the sense of urgency among the American people generally is probably more highly - developed than it is here and in these circumstances many and various violent opinions may be violently advanced. But it is still unlikely that all these voices, each with its modicum of real power, will be able to upset the policy determined by the President of the United States. In fact the question of a real division of power only arises when another figure, and a most formidable figure, is taken account of General Douglas MacArthur is the kind of force with which the United States Government has seldom had to deal. Within a constitution which is founded on and works through, a system of checks and balances he is unique and anomalous. He can only be checked by the President of the United States and he can only be balanced by the dominant weight of American opinion. For opinion in the rest of the world outside the United States he obviously cares nothing: He has pressed the powers of the commanding General to unprecedented limits. The veretan Democrat, Mr. James Cox, who said " This is not Rome nor the days of Caesar," was issuing a warning which General MacArthur might well take to heart. The General cannot be dismissed as a mere voice. He is also a power. The position which he has built up for himself, primarily in -Japan, but to some extent throughout the Far East, is something more than a facade. It is a political fact. Nor can General Mac- Arthur's personal views be separated from his official action. In visiting Chiang Kai-Shek in Formosa a few weeks ago he was almost certainly exceeding his official duty in the pursuit of his personal policy. That is difficult to deny despite the fact that the United States Government has tried to preserve the appear- ance of unified policy. In sending his fantastic message to the National Encampment of Veterans of Foreigns War in which he outlined his strategic views on Formosa he in effect defied the Administration. The President had no alternative but to repudiate this statement and to direct General MacArthur to withdraw it. But since the General only withdrew it as a matter of form, and since he still retains the real powers of the United Nations commander in Korea, his fate still hangs in the balance. It is practically certain that the majority of opinion within the United Nations would favour his dismissal.
Presumably the General would run true to form and defend himself against such dismissal on purely military grounds. In every other respect he has burnt his boats. He has treated the opinion of the United Nations, both individually and collectively with indifference. In a few cases—that of the United King- dom, for example—he has treated it with dislike. He possibly understands the profound significance of " face " among the peoples of the Far East, but it is difficult to see how a commander whose authority is limited in the way that General MacArthur's is can save his face entirely. As to American opinion he has committed political sacrilege by defying the President and the Constitution. It is the kind of mistake that only a man who has lived far from American soil for many years could possibly make. Consequently in the face of all these political errors, General MacArthur Must put up a defence on grounds of military policy which must not be merely respectable. It must be over- whelming. It is hard to see how he could do anything of the kind. There is hardly a point in the United Nations campaign—which means, in effect, the MacArthur campaign—in Korea so far, which is entirely free from blemish. The original failure of the intelligence services to give any warning of the impending North Korean attack is notorious. The decision to denude South Korea of American troops. and arms was a military decision, in which General MacArthur presumably -played some part. The piecemeal resistance put up by the South Korean and American forces between the 38th Parallel and the present beach-head certainly gave scope for 'plenty of heroism, but the higher direction of it was not always faultless. The neglect of the devices of deception and small amphibious diversions con- tinued until well into August. The use of the heavy bomber force has been lacking in imagination and not very effective militarily. The regular communiques from Tokyo have managed somehow to tell too much and too little at the same time.
But all these things are evidence for an inquest which may never be held. General MacArthur, it appears, would prefer to base his defence on policy for the future, and in this at least he is right. But all the information that is available about that policy at the time this is written falls far short of giving reassurance. It is based on the theory of the " protective shield " '(a typical Arthurian redundancy) of islands in the Pacific, which would dominate, it is said, every Asiatic port from Vladivostok to Singapore. This chain would be available for both defensive and offensive operations. Now this theory is not new. It was advanced during the last war and a considerable number of lives were lost in the course of putting it into practice. It has much of the grand simplicity which is liable to be somewhat damaged in the stern test of war. And, of course, it involves holding on to Formosa at all costs. It is just possible that it is a valid theory. It is just possible that General MacArthur, if he were willing, could argue away the purely geographical defects in it (some of which were enumerated in a note in the Spectator of August 18th) and could suggest some way of getting round the difficulties of the very long sea lines of communication which it involves and the potential danger of submarine attack. Per- haps he could do all this. But that would only make his case barely tenable. It would not make it overwhelming—which is what it must be if General MacArthur is to be sure of retaining his command of the forces put at his disposal by the United Nations.
Previous page
