Page 4 University Daily Kansan, April 6, 1981
Opinion
Handling the Kremlin
The Soviet Union: largest country by area in the world. Third largest by population. The "other" superpower.
Impressive statistics. Yet the United States today lacks a consistent policy toward the Soviet Union. That's not surprising; foreign policy tends to be created to deal with individual situations rather than long-term effects. And changes in administration don't help the formulation of a unified policy.
But just what are the Soviets' motives? How should the United States respond to Soviet activities? Are the Russians trying to take over the world, or just merely trying to survive? Are the Russians fiends or friends?
These questions are debated on this page today. In the past, opinions about the Soviet Union have been highly polarized. At one end of the debate is the Red Menace theory, which paints the Soviets as leaders of the International Worldwide Communist Conspiracy. In the eyes of this paranoid approach, the Soviets are modern-day Hitters.
At the other extreme are those
favoring the Guilt Approach, fostered by post-Vietnam ethics. By this philosophy, the Soviets aren't any worse than Americans (and might in fact be better), and in any case, if a government turns communist somewhere in the world, it's because that country's people wanted it that way, and the United States has no right to interfere.
Somewhere between these two poles should be a reasonable ground for U.S. policy to be formulated. It shouldn't assume that anyone is necessarily the good guys or the bad guys, and it should take into account the nationalism and the needs of both the United States and the Soviet Union. It should be based upon neither paranoia nor guilt.
The non-foreign policy that has prevailed since the death of the flawed detente can't be continued forever. It's important that America come to grips with the problem (if any) raised by the Soviets. With hundreds of nucleartipped missiles poised on both sides of the globe, it would be sheer folly to do otherwise.
Letters to the Editor
City commission elections a chance to halt the sprawl
To the editor:
I hope that everyone who enjoys living in Lawrence, even if only temporarily, will remember to vote in Tuesday's city commission election. This crucial election is destined to decide if Lawrence remains the kind of place most of us like to live in.
You have probably noticed the extensive radio and newspaper advertising campaign which the Lawrence Association of Homebuilders has purchased for the upcoming city commission election. Don't be fooled by their pitch. These land developers have only one interest in the local political scene: to line their pockets with the commercial candidates who will give them a free rain to create more foxy commercial stores and uncontrolled suburban sprawl.
They care nothing for preserving either our beautiful downtown area or our diverse older neighborhoods. Lawrence can grow while keeping our exceptional quality of life if we elect
a city commission that has not been bought by these developers.
Tuesday is your chance to help save our town from becoming another casualty of the plastic pollution.
Systems programmer, academic computer center
South African policy
To the editor:
I would like to ask what the difference is between Andrew Young's meeting with the Palestine Liberation Organization in New York and Jeane Kirkpatrick's meeting with a South African general. Official U.S. policy toward Islam has always seemed that the Reagan administration's observance of it has direct contradictions by the State department of its own statements are lies.
Timothy Pogacar Lawrence graduate student
The University Daily Kansan welcomes letters to the editor. Letters should be typewritten, double-spaced and not exceed 500 words. They should include the writer's name, address and telephone number. If the writer is afairer than the university, the letter should include the writer's home town or faculty or staff position.
The Kansan reserves the right to edit letters for publication.
Letters Policy
"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, require any hardship, support any friend, ensure our survival and the success of liberty."
Soviet aggression must be contained
I thought I'd begin by quoting Alexander Haig on what American foreign policy with respect to the Soviet Union should be—namely, one of containment. But I found someone who put it more eloquently and more forcefully than he does. The above words are excerpted from the 1961 inaugural address of President John F. Kennedy.
The classic definition of containment was given in 1947 by George Kennan, a policy formulator for the State Department. This definition hits the mark in a more technical, less poetical way than Kennedy's does. Containment is "The adroit and vigilant application of a comprehensive approach to geographical and political points, corresponding to the shifts and maneuvers of Soviet policy."
We first practiced containment when in 1947 we gave economic and political aid to Greece Turkey, countries that otherwise would have been the next to fall under the force of Soviet hegemony (after Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, East Germany, Yugoslavia, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia and Czechoslovakia). Though they were less directly focused, the Marshall Plan and the formation of NATO were subsequent manifestations of containment policy.
U. S. involvement in the Korean War is perhaps the best example of successful containment policy in effect. This time the communist attempt to overrun an unwilling, non-aligned country was challenged by American armed forces.
Although containment can take various forms, we were not practicing containment when we imposed a grain embargo on the Soviets after they invaded Afghanistan. The requirements of Kennan's definition of it simply weren't met. The grain embargo was neither "adroit" nor "diluent."
volvement was out of the question, we could have at least made the embargo cover other areas, such as high science technology, thereby making the punishment come closer to fitting the crime. We have been "contained" insofar as what they gained in territory would have lost in technology.
An example of a batched opportunity to contain Soviet expansionism that will be tested in the next decade.
Though admittedly American military in-
ERIC
BRENDE
principle, American involvement there was sound. In practice, it was not. The trouble was largely that the politicians in Washington were prepared only to go halfway in the Soviet affront to liberty transpiring there. The doctrine that Kennedy enunciated so forthrightly in his inaugural address in effect was watered down because pay only a limited price, bear only a limited burden, meet only a limited hardship, to assure the survival and the success of liberty."
But why bother to contain the Soviet Union in the first place? What would happen if we didn't? For an answer, just look at the events of the last six years or so. Under detente, which might better be named "Vietnam Penance" or "Strategic Retreat," American defense spending was drastically cut; crippling restraints were placed on our own intelligence-gathering facilities. But a foreign intervention virtually ceased; and we went back to "no evil" and to "see no evil." In short, we set up "reverse containment"—a perfect power vacuum.
Meanwhile, the Soviets accelerated their own defense spending, and increased foreign subversion and terrorism. In the six years since 1974, the Soviets increased their gained control of countries amounting to half the
population of the United States; namely, Angola, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, South Vernon, Mozambique, Laos, Cambodia, South Vietnam and Grenada.
Was liberty, as Kernedy referred to it in no speech, encroached upon by any of these Soviet actions as we stood idly by 701 courseit was. Not only liberty, but life and the pursuit of happiness.
Take Afghanistan. Even before the Soviet troops marched in, the Soviet-backed political coup present at the time was responsible for the murders of three of that nation's presidents and over 100,000 civilians, and the torture and execution of thousands more.
For the future, how should the United States apply the doctrine of containment if, say, Russian troops were to move from Afghanistan into Iran? Meeting force with counterforce in this case would almost certainly require us to assume, in fairly, if it were to appear that the Iranians were willing to use the status quo would be altered greatly in the few years Soviet, for no amount of grain embargoes, science embargoes or Olympic boycotts could possibly offset such a windfall.
Thus, we have witnessed over the last few years just what happens when we don't attempt to contain the Soviet Union. It expands. Not only does it expand, it becomes more entrenched. Kennedy spoke of contracts. And incidentally, so does the long-term prospect for continued liberty for the United States itself. Indeed, even now we can counteract the momentum of the ever-improved advantages the Soviets now have within their powers.
We also have witnessed, during the Vietnam War, what happens when we attempt to contain the Soviet Union without being committed to our cause.
We also have witnessed 15 years of peace and prosperity while a Soviet containment policy was in effect.
Thus, we are left with only one alternative—a staunch containment policy with respect to the Soviet Union, or any other foe of "the survival and the success of liberty." It may require embargoes, economic aid, political aid or everything President Kennedy said it would.
America can't afford blanket foreign policy
Twenty years ago, the iron-fisted dictator of the Dominican Republic, Rafael Trujillo, was assassinated. With Trujillo gone, President Kennedy saw three possibilities. In descending order of preference, he said they were "a decent democratic regime, a continuation of the Trujillo regime or a Castro regime. We ought to aim at the first, but we really can't renounce the second until we are sure that we can avoid the third."
As American historian Stephen Ambrose observed, "This typified Kennyse's—and America's—approach to the Third World. Above all, he (Kennedy) was determined to keep out Soviet influence and retain American economic and political influence."
However, the tragedy of Vietnam showed the world the folly of a "good guys bad guys" approach to foreign policy. The battle-weary Southeast Asian country seemingly was final proof that "universal containment"—the favorite phrase of the Johnson administration—would not work. The responsibility of guaranteeing freedom—defined as upholding literally the communist system, however despotic, wherever it existed, whatever the cost—was impossible.
But wait, Reagan's secretary of state,
Alexander Haig, testifying before the Senate
"Oppressor!"
Foreign Relations Committee, revealed an anti-Soviet policy so antique that you want to run to the attic for your bobby shoes and blue suede shoes. In his testimony Haig described virtually every country from Central America to Africa to the Middle East, as being Soviet-American conflicts.
Haig is convinced that the Vietnam experience, which resulted in decreased American
DAVID HENRY
intervention in other countries' affairs, was a mistake. It jeopardized our ability to influence world events and assure access to raw materials. According to Haig, this fundamentally wrong approach to the Soviets should be reversed by a record American military buildup and increased intervention in the affairs of Third World countries.
At the heart of this policy is the unyielding belief that the Soviet Union, if given its way, will eventually dominate the entire world. This view of a global Communist threat led President Putin to send thousands of troops in South Vietnam, tomorrow they will be in Haiti and next week they will be in San Francisco."
There was, and still is, an obvious flaw with this approach, a difficulty inherent in the policy of Soviet containment. Namely, if the threat is really as pervasive as Hag says it is and if the threat actually as cosmic as he claims, it makes it likely that the snake's tail while leaving the head alone.
For all his posturing to the contrary, Haig's blanket policy is all wet. It's like scraping off dandelion tops to prevent them from spreading; it simply doesn't work.
Yet no one on this side of reason would support a military invasion of the Soviet Union; the results would be devastating. Therefore, if we reject Håil's blatant analysis of foreign affairs and attempt to "arm" them," we are faced with a situational approach to Soviet intervention as an alternative.
Before we involve ourselves in another country's affairs, we should determine our action based on the specific circumstances of the situation, not with anti-Soviet rhetoric.
Currently, this Reagan-Haig doctrine has potentially serious consequences. Most notably is our increasing involvement in El Salvador, a small Central American country involved in civil war. Upon taking office, the Reagan administration trashed the Carter policy of linking further aid to El Salvador to decreased human rights and security in Haiti, however, kept the linkage but observed the
He claimed Soviet and Cuban arms given to the rebels transformed the civil war into a
classic East-West, Soviet-American struggle. And although the Salvadoran army crushed the much-feared guerrilla offensive in late January, nonetheless, Haig believed the Salvadorans have ordered armaments and military advisers into the country.
His motivation? Haig's insistence that El Salvador was part of a "four-faced US operation" that began with the takeover of Nicaragua, to be followed by El Salvador, Honduras and finally Guatemala. ... "A hit list if you will."
The Soviet response of increased intervention was predictable—causing a further polarization of guerrillas and the ruling junta. Now both nations are rushing to outfit their chosen sides in the war of ideologies. Like Vietnam, the real victim will be Salvadorans, not Americans or Soviets.
The Reagan administration's anti-Soviet policy is not confined to Central America. Last week, the White House asked Congress to lift the ban on aid to Angolan rebels fighting the Soviet-backed Angolan government. This request requested Angolan nation's that back the current Angolan government's support of Namibia, which is fighting to free itself of white-ruled South Africa.
South Africa, which last week sent bombers deep into Angola to attack Nambib renibel troops, is immune from administration criticism. In his television interview with Walter Cronkite in March, Reagan referred to South Africa as "the island that has stood by us in every war we've ever fought," a country that, strategically, is essential to the free world in its production of minerals."
Such action could be just the excuse Pretoria is looking for to delay the dismantling of apartheid laws and to slow the independence of Namibia. It also supports of South Africa could easily send outraged black-African nations scurrying to the Krukmel – the very thing Hagos hopes to prevent.
European allies, as well as many Americans, justifiably fear that the United States, in the name of anti-Communism, may form a closer relationship with the raist apartheid government.
In both El Salvador and South Africa, the Reagan administration's refusal to view the situations as anything but a Soviet-American dichotomy is short-sighted and reactionary. We must use us that unnecessary intervention under the guise of anti-Communism can have tragic results.
Hlai acquired the Senate committee last week that any policy that "suggested total preoccupation with the so-called Russians-arecoming-syndrome" would have to be labeled with a mind, current actions speak louder than words, the Reagan administration's actions in the coming months will squitch the worries that a blanket anti-Soviet foreign policy inevitably brings.
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