After a brief visit to the United States recently it appears to me that that country is going through the most profound psychological change since 1945 when it emerged as the most powerful nation in the world. It is trying to come to terms with the reality of the decline in its power and influence. It is beginning to acknowledge to itself that it cannot manipulate other societies beyond a certain extent.
This formulation is open to the objection that this is not a new development. This is in a sense true. The United States has always recognised the limits of its power. For example, it sat idly by at the height of its military ascendancy in 1956 when Soviet tanks rolled into Hungary and crushed the movement for autonomy. Mr Fulbright and other thoughtful Americans began to warn their countrymen against “arrogance of power” in the mid-’sixties and by 1968 opposition in the United States to the war in Vietnam had become so sharp that President Johnson had to drop out of the electoral battle on that account.
Vietnam was a traumatic experience for Americans. There they suffered the first military defeat in their history. The actions they resorted to – bombing of helpless villages day after day, defoliation of jungles, uprooting of millions of people from their ancestral homes and so on – tarnished their self-image as a moral people. But the war also helped cover from view the reality that the decline of America as an economic power had begun and that this was not essentially the result of Vietnam, though it might have accelerated the process somewhat. The United States had run a $ 30 billion deficit the same year (1965) as it stepped up its direct military intervention in Vietnam beyond a few thousand advisers and trainers. And seldom has it achieved a favourable balance of payments since with the result that over 600 billion unwanted dollars are currently in foreign hands.
Compartments
In retrospect, especially after the Chinese attack on Vietnam, even the cold warriors in the United States find it difficult to deny that the Vietnamese were fighting for their freedom and not for expansion of either the Soviet empire or the Chinese empire. But so long as the war was on, it helped sustain the myth that the world was basically divided into communists and non-communists. This was comforting to the Americans because it lent legitimacy to the effort to establish their hegemony in the non-communist world.
The circumstances in which the war ended in Vietnam also helped the American people avoid facing up to the reality. It ended amidst the Watergate scandal which enabled them literally to turn their back on Vietnam.
It will be unfair to suggest that they invented Mr Nixon’s crimes at home in order to be able to forget Vietnam. But they blew them up out of proportion all right and this helped them feel good and forget about Vietnam. What did it matter if they bombed the poor Vietnamese, Laotians and Cambodians when they exposed the “crook” in the White House who was out to subvert the constitution? So a lot of Americans appear to have argued to themselves. Indeed, a number of well placed Americans anxious to return to the business of organising the world convinced themselves that it was only a matter of time before their countrymen would get over the trauma of Vietnam and would be ready once again to “accept their international responsibilities”. Mr Kissinger and Mr Brzezinski certainly entertained such a hope.
Those who are inclined to think that I have overdrawn the picture will find it instructive to note that while Mr Nixon has been condemned to obloquy and oblivion, Mr Kissinger, at least partly responsible for the policy which led to the brutalisation of the Kampucheans, one of the most humane, peace-loving and civilised people in the world, remains a hero of the Republicans in the United States. Mr William Shawcross’s book Sideshow exposing his role in Kampuchea and TV programmes based on it have not lowered his standing which remains so high that criticism by him of SALT-II could have seriously endangered the agreement. This can be the result of only a convenient loss of memory on the part of a lot of Americans.
Comparison
Comparisons are seldom wholly apt. But it will not be too wide off the mark to compare America’s Vietnam war and the accompanying decline in the competitiveness of many of its industries with Britain’s Boer War and the erosion of its industrial supremacy by Germany. By that reckoning, 1973-79 may come to be regarded as America’s 1947. In 1947 Britain conceded independence to India and began the process of dismantling the empire. In 1973-79 the United States accepted defeat in Vietnam, effective Soviet intervention in various African countries, the collapse of the Shah in Iran, its powerful ally and surrogate in the critically important Persian Gulf region, without making any overt or covert attempt to rescue him – indeed, Mr Kissinger is not far wrong when he argues that the US administration’s advice to him to make up with the opposition aggravated the crisis leading to the Shah’s overthrow – and the defiance by Saudi Arabia’s rulers, who have looked to it for their security for over two decades.
Britain sought, albeit unwittingly, to cover up the reality of its decline by converting the white colonies into self-governing members of the Commonwealth. The United States has been seeking solace in the normalisation of its relations with China and trying to convince itself that Beijing (Peking) can help it freeze the present power balance in the world and hold the Soviet Union at bay.
The comparison must look far-fetched if only because the United States is not an imperialist power in the sense Britain was. But while the difference is real, it cannot be seriously denied that the United States stepped into the place of West European imperialist powers – Britain, France, Holland and Belgium – which had been too enfeebled to hold on to their colonies for long. It did so in the name of containing the Soviet Union and the communist movement which it said was directed by Moscow. And in all probability it believed what it said. But that cannot detract from the fact that it saw itself as the non-communist world gendarme and that this cast it in an imperial role if not an imperialist one in the 18-19th century sense of the term. It is this imperial role which the United States is now finding difficult, perhaps impossible to sustain.
Perspective
It is not possible for me to recall any specific statement by Mr Kissinger which can lend itself to the inference that he saw the issue in its proper perspective. On the contrary, it can be argued, in view of his support for the CIA’s involvement in Angola, that he thought it was still possible for the United States to impose its will on distant lands. But his policy framework with its special and heavy emphasis of dealing with the Soviet Union would suggest that he was sensitive to America’s central problem. He defined it as one of averting a nuclear conflict between the two super-powers and said that the only way to do it was to make it profitable for the Soviet Union to maintain good relations with the United States.
This policy was bound to come under attack on various counts – implied disregard for Western Europe and Japan, the so-called unreliability of Soviet leadership, and so on. But basically it was unacceptable to a lot of Americans because implicit in it was acceptance of the end of their brief century, and of the need for working out new norms of behaviour for themselves in the world community. The difficulty has not been overcome since. But now fewer Americans believe that it is possible for them to restore the status quo ante vis-a-vis the Soviet Union which had been condemned to the status of the second power for many, many years. The Americans admit that Russia has caught up with them in the military field and realise that this has far-reaching implications for them and the world. This prospect does not please them, but they do not entertain the hope of being able to reverse this process.
The process of adjustment to the facts of international life cannot be painless and quick. It is going to be painful and prolonged. The storm over the presence of 2,000-3,000 Soviet troops in Cuba and the resistance to the SALT II agreement in the senate and the country leave no room for doubt on this score.
The Times of India 10 October 1979