Neither the fantastic feat of landing man on the moon nor President Nixon’s current tour and his promises of support to the US allies in Asia can cover up the projected cuts in US military establishment in South-East Asia. The plain fact is that an era is drawing to a close in its Asia policy as the US prepares to withdraw its forces from Viet Nam and bury once and for all the Dullesian politics of an anti-communist crusade.
It can be argued that the United States has decided to withdraw its troops only from South Viet Nam, that even there it will not scuttle its commitments in unseemly haste, that it will maintain its naval presence in the region, that it will continue to meet its obligations to its allies and that it is prepared to take under its nuclear umbrella all countries that are looking for cover out of fear of China.
All this is true. But it does not detract from the fact that the interventionist phase in America’s Asia policy is over and that, unlike in the past, Washington will not be anxious to assume responsibility for the security of countries and regimes in the region against threats of external aggression and internal subversion. It has learnt the bitter lesson that an outside power can at best provide the weapons of resistance; it cannot give a people the necessary will to flight insurrection and aggression. As President Nixon has emphasised again and again during his current tour, the people of Asia have to fight themselves for their independence.
Welcome
This is a welcome development as far as it goes. But does it go far enough? Judging by the tenor of President Nixon’s speeches and official briefings on the eve of his departure on the present trip it appears that Washington continues to hug the illusion that an effective collective security arrangement is still practicable in South and South-East Asia for the containment of China.
It is possible that the public utterances of President Nixon do not reflect his thinking or that of his advisers and that these are intended to provide a convenient facade behind which a new policy can be shaped and implemented without creating the impression of a sudden break with the past. But whatever the intention, they tend to create a lot of confusion.
In the context of the Soviet talk of the need for collective security in Asia, Mr. Nixon’s speeches cannot but strengthen the impression that the two super-powers are working in concert and thus weaken the resistance of those who are not enthusiastic about Russia’s efforts to establish itself as the preponderant power from the Mediterranean to the Pacific. They also muffle the message that the American chief executive should wish to convey – that Washington does not consider Chairman Mao Tse-tung and his top colleagues as psychopaths and maniacs who are determined to blow up the human race in a nuclear conflagration and that it is prepared to open a dialogue with them whenever they are willing to do so. In fact they foster the impression that Washington cannot overcome its anti-China obsession.
It is understandable that as a Pacific power with vivid memories of Pearl Harbour, the United States should wish to maintain its bases in Japan, Formosa, the Philippines and Australia. But this can be done under bilateral agreements as at present except in the case of Australia which is covered by the Anzus Pact. Whatever arrangement the United States may have in view for the Pacific, it need not in any case be projected to the countries of South and South-East Asia. They should be allowed to shape their own policies and destinies without external interference and guidance.
Best Time
Even if the American disengagement from the South-East Asia mainland involves a certain risk, this is the best time to take it. As it happens China is preoccupied with the problem of its own security – some say survival – vis-a-vis the Soviet Union all along their 4,500-mile-long common frontier and it is obviously not in a position to embark on an adventurist course in the south. It may provoke some border clashes with India and step up assistance to dissident tribesmen in northern Burma and north-eastern India. But on the whole it is likely to leave its southern neighbours alone, particularly if they do not have American bases on their territories and do not draw too close to the Soviet Union. In the new situation neutrality may indeed add to the security of countries on the southern flanks of China.
After the investment of over $100 billion and incalculable energy it is not easy for the United States to admit that it does not possess answers to the region’s problems of security, modernisation, nation-building and so on. The past assurances to Thailand and the fear that its disengagement from the mainland may encourage the Chinese to adopt an expansionist course further discourage Washington from making this admission. The experience in Korea in 1950 – the communists invaded the south within a fortnight of Mr. Dean Acheson’s statement – which failed to include South Korea within the US defence perimeter – also influences American thinking.
But the situation today is vastly different from that in 1950 when Russia and China were allies. They are now such bitter enemies that responsible commentators like Harrison E. Salisbury of The New York Times freely discuss the possibility of a Soviet strike at China’s nuclear installations.
It is not suggested that President Nixon should make a declaration minimising the Chinese danger and completely disengaging his country from the security problems of South and South-East Asia. This is neither desirable nor possible. But he should be willing to recognise that a disaster will not occur if he takes a more relaxed view of the South-East Asian scene, occupies a back seat in the struggle for the containment of China and lets the Russians do the job. In any case he should be wary of arousing expectations which he knows the US is in no position to fulfil in view of the mounting opposition at home to external involvement.
Missionary Zeal
As in the field of defence, so in the field of economic development, the United States has taken it for granted all along that it is both possible and desirable to promote regional co-operation on a multilateral basis among Asian countries and has pushed this concept with missionary zeal. The failure of all its efforts to achieve any significant result has not reduced its ardour. Old myths die hard.
This approach made some sense so long as the US entertained the hope that a multilateral economic arrangement could pave the way for a collective security agreement. And the Nixon Administration would be justified in endorsing the talk of regional co-operation if it wanted to pursue the old American policy of trying to build up an anti-China bloc. But if it takes a realistic view of the situation and comes to recognise that collective security is a non-starter it should be willing to re-examine its concept of regional economic co-operation as well.
President Nixon has undertaken the present trip at a difficult time. The neo-isolationist sentiment is fairly strong in the US, the Congress is very suspicious of presidential initiatives in foreign policy and the climate of opinion is hostile not only to military involvement abroad but also to economic aid. The bipartisan consensus of the ‘fifties has been shattered by the course of events in Viet Nam and a new consensus has yet to emerge. The American people are not even certain whether Asia should continue to get the attention it has received since 1962 when the confrontation with Russia over Cuba led to a detente and whether they should revert to the policy of “Europe first”.
In other words, President Nixon has little room for manoeuvre just now. Whatever he may say, he is in no position to make specific commitments beyond assuring his friends and allies that the United States will stay in Asia in spite of the debacle in Viet Nam and that they can depend on it for assistance in the event of blatant Chinese aggression.
But this mood cannot last forever. Once the Viet Nam war is out of the way it would, in all probability, not be difficult for the US Administration to stabilise American military power in the Pacific and the Indian Ocean at a fairly high level. It is desirable that it should do so in order to provide a strategic counterweight to both China and Russia. The preponderance of Soviet military power in the ‘seventies, like that of US military power in the ‘fifties, is not likely to contribute to the independence of the countries of South-East Asia. It is not in their interest therefore that the Soviet Union should have an unchallenged sway in the region.
Meanwhile Asian countries, specially those like India and Indonesia which are non-aligned, need not be dismayed at the strength of neo-isolationism in America. It gives them an opportunity to place their relations with the United States on a rational footing. So long as Washington was in a Messianic mood and so long as it behaved as if it knew all the answers to all the problems, a relationship of equality was just not possible. Since it is now in a more chastened mood, a meaningful dialogue with it can begin.
The Times of India 30 July 1969