It is a sheer coincidence that the triumph of the neo-Stalinist hardliners in the Soviet Union has been followed by the election of a right-wing conservative of the Dullesian era as President of the United States. But it does not by any means follow that American conservatism and Soviet conservatism will reinforce each other and lead to an intensification of the cold war.
If there is one point on which there is a broad consensus both in Washington and Moscow it is that the two super-powers must at all cost avoid a direct confrontation and another costly and futile arms race and that they must co-operate on issues of common interest like the non-proliferation treaty. Irrespective of Mr. Nixon’s professed alarm at the sharp reduction in America’s nuclear superiority over Russia, his promise to close the so-called survival gap and his opposition to an immediate ratification of the non-proliferation treaty by the Senate on the eve of the presidential election as a mark of protest against the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia, he cannot make a significant departure from President Johnson’s policy of extending the area of agreement and co-operation with Moscow.
Mr. Nixon is not the wild man he has often been made out to be by his opponents. Crude anti-communism is no more than a convenient symbol which helps to make him acceptable to the dominant conservative sentiment in the United States. It is notable in this context that Mr. Nixon has been as anxious to visit Moscow for face-to-face and wide-ranging discussions with Soviet leaders as President Johnson. He expressed a desire to do so at the time of the Miami convention which chose him as the Republican nominee and has done so again immediately after the election. No one in the White House can ignore or even sidetrack the grim compulsions of the nuclear age.
Soviet Stand
Mr. Brezhnev and Mr. Kosygin have not been opposed to Mr. Nixon’s election as Mr Khrushchev was in 1960. At an early stage of the American electoral campaign the Soviet press carried a fairly friendly and sympathetic profile of Mr. Nixon and later it avoided comment which would have shown a decisive Soviet preference for Mr. Humphrey. To the extent Moscow has used its influence in Hanoi in favour of a conciliatory posture by the latter towards the United States in connection with the stoppage of bombing the Soviet leadership can be said to have helped Mr Humphrey. But it would be rash to read too much into speculation of this kind because it is quite possible that Hanoi came to the conclusion that this was the most opportune time to make a deal with Washington and thus secure the end of bombing and that Moscow only concurred with the decision.
There is at least one reason why the Soviet Government should welcome Mr. Nixon’s victory over Mr. Humphrey. It was on the cards that if the latter had been elected President he would have made a determined bid to open a dialogue with China. The name of Prof. Doak Barnett, who coined the phrase “containment without isolation’’ at the time of the great China debate in the United States in 1966, was often mentioned as an Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs. Mr. Katzenbach who would have occupied an important office in a Humphrey administration also favours the policy of trying to build bridges with China.
There is no assurance that the effort would have succeeded. To begin with it would almost certainly have been rebuffed. But the advocates of a dialogue with China are thinking of the post-Mao period and of placing themselves in a position to take advantage of the rise of more moderate men to top positions. Since the spectre of China haunts the Soviet Union, the fact of the effort itself would have caused many sleepless nights in the Kremlin.
Main Hurdle
The Soviet leadership can now feel reasonably reassured because it appears unlikely that Mr. Nixon will embark on the adventure of trying to build bridges with China. The principal obstacle clearly is his firm and deep commitment to Marshal Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalist regime in Formosa. No development can be completely ruled out in our rapidly changing world and it is within the realm of the possible that a liberal Secretary of State like Mr. Nelson Rockefeller might be able to overcome the President-elect’s prejudices and begin the attempt to break the deadlock with China. But the task will not be easy.
Mr. Nixon has the reputation of being a hawk. He is quoted as having told a closed door meeting of southern Republicans during the election campaign that if he was confronted with the same kind of choice as President Johnson he would not have rejected the idea of using nuclear weapons against North Viet Nam. Such reports cannot be taken at their face value. Also they cannot frighten anyone who is familiar with the American political style. Extremist talk there is often used to span the gulf between the awesome US military power and its usability and effectiveness.
Since President Johnson will soon be leaving the White House and Mr. Humphrey has lost the election it would be tempting for some people to discover hitherto unsuspected virtues in them and thereby to establish that there are some fundamental differences between Mr. Nixon’s and their approach to major international issues like Viet Nam or West Asia. This would be an utterly futile exercise. At least on these two specific issues there are no differences at all.
Bombing Halt
Mr. Nixon has concurred in President Johnson’s decision to end the bombing of North Viet Nam though he could not have approved of its timing in view of the clear advantage it gave to his adversary. Like President Johnson, Mr. Nixon would like to de-Americanise the war and entrust larger responsibilities to the South Viet Namese forces which are currently being provided with more modern equipment. It is unbelievable but it is true that in the past one year the Viet Cong has invariably been better equipped by the Russians and the Chinese than the South Viet Namese armed forces.
During the entire election campaign Mr. Humphrey did not at any stage promise that he would be able to bring the boys back home soon. All that he offered was a reduction in the level of American forces in South Viet Nam. Mr Nixon did not make any such promise but he will also have to de-escalate the war and de-Americanise it because that alone would enable him to maintain his country’s military presence on the Asian mainland for a pretty long period.
Whatever view one takes of the morality and wisdom of the American commitment in Viet Nam it is inconceivable that Washington would agree to a sudden withdrawal and thus agree to destroy its credibility as a super-power.
As for West Asia Mr. Nixon has been more outspoken in his support for Israel than either President Johnson or Mr. Humphrey. He might even be more willing to sell highly sophisticated military hardware like the Phantom aircraft to Tel Aviv than the present incumbent of the White House has been. Here again the difference is more of style than of content.
There is a consensus in the United States that Israel must be enable to maintain its present military edge over the Arabs, that it is entitled to safe and agreed frontiers, that a serious effort should be made to reach an agreement with the Soviet Union to limit the sale of arms to countries in the region, that Moscow is making a determined bid to gain ascendancy in the vital oil-rich region and that a long-term settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict is contingent on Russo-American agreement. Mr. Nixon subscribes to this consensus as much as Mr. Humphrey or President Johnson.
The near identity of outlook between Mr. Nixon and Mr. Humphrey is further underscored by two points. First, like the defeated Democratic candidate the President-elect has said that the United States is over-extended, that it must curtail its external commitments and that the centre of American foreign policy must be shifted back to Europe from Asia. Whether the latter objective can be achieved so long as the war m Viet Nam continues and so long there is uncertainty regarding Chinese intentions, is a different matter.
Disenchantment
The American disillusionment with the US role in the world is not a new phenomenon. This disenchantment was not politically effective so long as the divorce between the country’s physical power and political authority was not so obvious as it has become in the past two years and so long as the myth of monolithic communism could be maintained. Senator McCarthy came to embody the widespread American desire to cut losses and to tend their own gardens. The massive support he secured among the country’s youth and the reckless manner in which Congress has slashed foreign aid should together leave no room for doubt that the period of American expansion is behind us.
It is difficult to believe that Mr. Humphrey could have overcome the massive opposition to foreign aid if he had been elected President. But he would have tried. Mr. Nixon may not even try unless he comes to recognise that this attitude negates his larger objective of containing Soviet and Chinese influence.
All this is not to suggest that the choice was between tweedledum and tweedledee and that no vital issues were involved in this election. In the context of the American political scene it was a contest between the forces of liberalism and of conservatism and the latter have won a landslide victory because in the larger framework the votes polled by Mr. Wallace should also be credited to Mr. Nixon.
Evasive
It would be slanderous to suggest that Mr. Nixon is a racist like Mr. Wallace. But he chose the law-and-order platform and capitalised on the white man’s resentment against the Negro’s claim to equality. Mr. Nixon is too well informed not to have known that relatively only a small number of whites have been killed by Negroes and that Negro violence is symptomatic of a deeper malaise. He has been generally evasive on the issue of racial equality and far from enthusiastic about the use of federal funds to help the Negroes in the fields of education, housing and technical training. That 96 per cent of the Negroes are reported to have voted for Mr. Humphrey shows that Mr. Nixon will have to work pretty hard to win their confidence and prevent a disastrous racial division in the country.
This is the most important issue which faces the US Government and on present showing Mr. Nixon lacks the necessary sympathy for the Negro community to be able to tackle it. It is possible that he would grow as he assumes the responsibilities of his great office. On the other hand Mr. Humphrey’s commitment to the cause of racial equality has been unequivocal.
This is not all. America’s West European allies and Japan which have a great stake in the continued expansion of the US economy are worried lest Mr. Nixon jeopardise the steady growth achieved by the last two Democratic administrations in an effort to reduce the deficit, balance the budget and cut taxes to induce businessmen to invest in slums, build low-cost houses and train Negroes for jobs.
As far as India is concerned, as Vice-President under President Eisenhower Mr. Nixon was all for the military alliance with Pakistan and was highly critical of Mr. Nehru’s policy of non-alignment. But the relevance of that attitude in the new circumstances is far from clear. Mr. Nixon made some references to India in an article in the Foreign Affairs quarterly in October 1967. These display a certain amount of sympathy and understanding and it might be relevant to quote them. He said:
“Any discussion of Asia’s future must ultimately focus on the respective roles of four giants: India, the world’s most populous non-communist nation; Japan, Asia’s principal industrial and economic power; China, the world’s most populous nation and Asia’s most immediate threat; and the United States, the greatest Pacific power. (Although the USSR occupies much of the land map of Asia, its principal focus is toward the West and its vast Asian lands are an appendage of European Russia.)
Overpopulation
“India is both challenging and frustrating: challenging because of its promise, frustrating because of its performance. It suffers from escalating overpopulation, from too much emphasis on industrialization and not enough on agriculture, and from too doctrinaire a reliance on Government enterprise instead of private enterprise. Many are deeply pessimistic about its future. One has to remember, however, that in the past five years India has fought two wars and faced two catastrophic droughts. On both the population and the agricultural fronts, India’s present leaders at least are trying. And the essential factor, from the standpoint of US policy, is that a nation of nearly half a billion people is seeking ways to wrench itself forward without a sacrifice of basic freedoms; in exceedingly difficult circumstances, the ideal of evolutionary change is being tested. For the most populous representative democracy in the world to fail, while Communist China – surmounting its troubles – succeeded, would be a disaster of worldwide proportions. Thus the United States must do two things: (1) continue its aid and support for Indian economic objectives; and (2) do its best to persuade the Indian Government to shift its means and adjust its institutions so that those objectives can be more quickly and more effectively secured, drawing from the lessons not only of the United States but also of India’s more successful neighbours, including Pakistan.”
The Times of India 8 November 1968