RUSSIA'S MOVE
IF the sudden Russian decision to send Mr. Malik to take his turn as president of •the Security Council of the United Nations had no other good effect it at least reminded the Western world of the possibilities of diplomacy. What Mr. Malik might do, the gambits he might try, the advantages he might attempt to gain, and even the concessions he might be driven to make, all became matters for general speculation from the moment that he notified the Secretary-General, on the night of July 27th, that he intended to take his seat on August 1st. Nobody was very hopeful of a reasonable outcome, for the simple reason that the Russians have always used the United Nations as an offensive instrument in the pursuit of their own policies, so that in returning after six months' ineffective and faintly ridiculous marching in and out of the council chamber, they were in effect resuming a weapon which they had previously dropped. But at least it was a less murderous weapon than the tanks supplied to the North Koreans. The devices of diplomacy are ones to which the Western Powers can willingly resort, and they have presumably reminded themselves that, despite the misgivings which Mr. Malik's sudden return occasioned, skill in the use of those devices is not—or should, not be—a Russian monopoly.
Consequently, although hope of a reasonable outcome of the sittings of the Security Council this month cannot be strong, it can at least exist. The Russians do not go in for large conces- sions. But it is part of the business of diplomatists to watch for small ones. The majority still expect little from the Russian move. The wise are prepared for the sudden twist which might turn the whole episode into a dangerous offensive. It may have been Mr. Malik's main intention to play to an Asian gallery by posing as the opponent of all foreign intervention in Asia, but if that is what he is doing then it should not be im- possible to turn the argument against him. But most important of all is the undeniable fact that if the fighting in Korea is to be stopped by diplomatic means the most important move still lies with Russia. The non-Communist members of the United Nations can pass resolutions and send their armed forces to fight in Korea, but the one thing they cannot do is to stop the war quickly.
This means that the Russians alone have the answer to the most important questions, including the question which so many people have given the foremost place in their thoughts—whether or not Korea marks the beginning of the third world war. Surely the very fact that the Russians alone can provide the answer should be sufficient evidence of the unprofitability of speculation on that point. The practice of canvassing the motives and intentions of the other side has been shown in the five years of post-war history to be crude, unprofitable and dangerous. The question whether the third world war has begun is hard to answer in any case, but it is primarily a matter of Russian intentions and therefore the Russians are better able to give an answer than anyone else. And since this would be the last question to which they could be expected to give a clear answer, it is best to admit that the answer is not known. Those who say that the world war has begun, and those who assert that it has not begun are both wasting their time. It is not that both parties have found the wrong answer—for one of them has obviously, though accidentally, hit upon the right one. The point is that they are answering the wrong question. There are a number of immediate and practical questions to be settled in Korea and, at Lake Success. The best thing that all concerned can do is to concentrate attention on those questions, for if they are properly settled then the larger and more distant dangers can be reduced. To hold the beach-head, to push back the invaders, to enforce a cease-fire, to press the negotiations with Mr. Malik to the point at which a genuine settlement can either be made or be proved impossible, to impress on the Russian leaders by every means available the unshakable determination of the non- Communist Powers to have no more aggression—these are the tasks on hand. They are numerous enough to leave no time for aimless speculation about the horrors of a more distant time.
About the military task there is little to be said that has not been said already. The largest available forces must be rushed to Korea in the shortest possible time, and the necessary sacrifice's to be made by civilians must be made quickly and effectively since the longer they are postponed the larger they will be. This work, it must be hoped, is already well in hand. But the work at Lake Success is only just beginning. If, as is possible, Mr. Malik has been authorised, after putting up the tooth-and-nail resistance which is de rigueur for all Russian negotiators, to make a small concession, then there is every case for keeping Western policy as open as possible in order to leave room for that concession. The possibility of such a move cannot be ruled out. Mr. Malik does not habitually practise the blustering and bullying tactics of Mr. Vyshinsky at international gatherings. He has already had to eat a very small crumb of humble pie by sitting down with a Chinese nationalist delegate and even perpitting him to speak. And always in the back- ground there is the optimistic thesis that, first, the Russians made a major mistake in launching the North Korean offensive without making due allowance for the American resistance and, second, that they know it. Both parts of the thesis may be questioned. There exists in the United States a school of thought which holds that in tying up large American forces in an area where there are no purely military advantages to be gained, international Communism has done precisely what it wanted and needed to do. And the possibilities of misunderstanding by the Kremlin of any given situation are infinite. But still the possibility of fruitful negotiation at Lake Success is not quite dead and the need to leave room for peaceful manoeuvre remains.
If that need is accepted, then it must also be accepted that certain mistakes of method have been made in the past few weeks. It was perhaps unwise to glace so much emphasis on resolutions of the Security Council when it was clear from the start that the Russians would treat those resolutions as illegal and would therefore have to lose face in a most drastic manner In order to comply with them. The direct approach to the Soviet Government, outside the United Nations, was perhaps not pursued with sufficient circumspection and persistence. Possibly Mr. Nehru's approach to Premier Stalin was too readily taken to be an unsolicited attempt at mediation, and possibly the Indian suggestion that the Chinese seat on the Security Council should be taken over by a Peking representative was too sharply characterised as an attempt to extract concessions in return for a cease-fire. Insufficient attention may have been given by the Western Powers to the elementary fact that there is an Asian point of view on this whole question and that it is different from the Western point of view. All these are possibili- ties and no more. It may be that nothing the Western Powers could do would succeed in persuading the Russians to the smallest show of reason. But in the circumstances it was unwise to narrow the field of negotiation when there were possible advantages to bq gained by widening it. That does not imply that the effort to defeat the aggressors in the field should slacken, or that the main asset of the non-Communist world, which is a firm and manifest determination to stop any further outbreaks of barbarism, should be in any way prejudiced. For the time being fighting and peaceful negotiation have to go on side by side. But, since the peaceful method is the best, no possibility of using it must be thrown away. Above all it must not lapse if and when one side or the other wins the day in the present Korean campaign or if the front becomes stabilised. It must be kept open against the day when tempers may have cooled, when the value of military demonstrations may have fallen, and when the Russians for their own reasons (since they are unlikely to recognise anyone else's) may decide that genuine negotiation, with genuine give and take, is the best course. That day may never come. Mr. Malik may have decided that he has already exhausted the possibility of aggression to rules of order and Mr. Stalin may have made up his mind that the Communist aims can only be served by aggression without any rules at all. But it is still a little early for the rest of the world to give up all hope that sanity may prevail.
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