The Cold War as an Exercise in Autism: The US Government,the Governments of Western Europe,and the People

A small point for Europeans and Americans, but in the Pacific theater of the Cold War the political East is in the geographical West and vice versa. A reference to the conflict as being between socialism and capitalism may exaggerate the economic dimension, as being between dictatorship and democracy is too much of a black-white picture, as being between the Soviet Union and the United States underestimates the degree of mobilization both at government and people levels in many countries in East and West. Hence, we stick to the usual term: the Cold War.

One reason for this may be that military people are more technical and politicians more ideological: they are zweckrational and wertrational, respectively, in the Weberian sense. A discussion of the adequacy of the means makes sense to the military man whereas the more politically minded may interpret any such discussion as indicative of ideological weakness, e.g. of being less against and (much) less in favor of the respective superpowers, depending on where one lives.

To the contrary, we may also argue that the Soviet Union withdrew from politically and ideologically tenable positions: “As it was, the British were able to suppress the resistance forces in Greece by armed force, the only such action by any Allied power in the course of the war. In Italy, Togliatti, the Communist leader, returned from Moscow with orders to cooperate with the Allied authorities. And the Italian resistance, composed of 150,000 fighters, surrendered their arms uncomplainingly. Thorez, the French Communist leader, accepted de Gaulle's authority and helped to preserve the French state. Even in Eastern Europe, Communist governments were a consequence of the cold war, not its cause. In the Far East, Stalin aided the recovery of China by Chian Kai-Shek, and the subsequent victory of Mao Tse-tung was highly unwelcome to him.” This position, by A. J. P. Taylor, Essays in English History (London: Penguin, 1976), may well be located closer to how this period is regarded in the 21st century than the historiography produced by the ideologies of the Cold War. Attention should be paid to the implicit indictment of Stalin.

See Chapters 3.2-3 in my There Are Alternatives! (Nottingham: Spokesman, 1984) pp 93–109, to some extent based on the work by Michael Wallace. From this type of reasoning two courses of action can be recommended for war-avoidance purposes: to stop the arms race, or to avoid direct confrontation. The superpowers have been incapable of the former, ibid., Chapter 4, but not of the latter: the Nixon-Brezhnev “traffic rules” for the Cold War have to a large extent functioned in the sense that US and Soviet soldiers have not confronted each other eye to eye, gun to gun (but maybe button to button, over their nuclear war control consoles).

Of course the arms race deprives both superpower populations of a certain amount of living standard, possibly more and from a lower average level, in the Soviet Union than in the United States. However, given the expectations in an average US family the level attained may be a much lower proportion of the level hoped for than in the Soviet Union; the ability to cope with hardship much higher in the Soviet Union; and the collective defiance arising from outside pressure also much higher. Add to this that, at least in principle, the US population has more of an opportunity to voice a protest against the arms level. A change of course for economic reasons may be more likely in the United States. Or an effort to use a war as a tension release mechanism.

These are the “Four Roads to Peace and Security” referred to in the subtitle of There Are Alternatives!, op. cit., note 4.

I am using here the logic of the chapters in There Are Alternatives!, op. cit., note 4.

Vicenç Fisas Armengol, “Los Gastos Militares en los Paises Neutralies,” El Pais, August 20, 1986, compares Spain, his own country, where this argument played a certain role in connection with the referendum with the six neutral countries Austria, Finland, Ireland, Sweden, Switzerland and Yugoslavia on the one hand and NATO without and with the North American countries on the other, in terms of population surface, income per capita, military expenses 1976 and 1985 (including annual increase in the period), percentage military expenditure of the gross domestic product and military expenditure per inhabitant and per square kilometer. In terms of military expenditure per capita only Switzerland and Sweden are somewhat higher than Euro-NATO but lower than NATO total; in terms of expenditure per square kilometer all of them are lower than both Euro-NATO and NATO total except Switzerland—perhaps more due to the smallness of the country than the vastness of the military budget. Relative to the gross domestic product only Yugoslavia is higher than EURO-NATO, but somewhat lower than the NATO total. Spain is in general located towards the higher end of the neutral countries (as it once was), permitting the author to conclude that “the cost of a defense policy of this type does not imply high level of costs and in any case never higher than what is already the case in Spain.” There remains, of course, the problem of what type of policy offers more security—but the data are rather unambiguous as to the economic costs. And that also goes for the increase: only Austria is higher than Euro-NATO (but lower than NATO total).

I am indebted to Dieter Senghaas for his seminal work in this field. See his Abschreckung und Frieden: Studien zur organisierter Friedlosigkeit (Frankfurt: Europäische Verlagsanstalt, 1969, 1981).

The Figure is an adaptation of the scheme used for analyzing imperialism in “A Structural Theory of Imperialism,” Essays in Peace Research, Vol. IV, Chapter 13 (Copenhagen: Ejlers, 1980). A more detailed analysis would make a distinction between people in the superpower and people in the client countries. This is imperialism theory applied, combining military, economic, cultural and political aspects.

From Cohen Stephen F. , The Nation, 26 January, 1985. p. 72. The figures are official Soviet figures.

Let me counter with a personal experience. Travelling through the Soviet Union in a camping car in the summer of 1982 I came to an early Sunday morning ceremony close to Novgorod commemorating one of the numerous battles where the Red Army was able to stop the Nazi onslaught. After the ceremony was over I went to the commanding officer and said, in poor Russian, that he should know that there were numerous people in the West extremely grateful for what the Soviet army had done. The man had tears in his eyes when he embraced me. Why is it so difficult for Western leaders to acknowledge the obvious?.

Op. cit., note 8.

Reaganism, in my book Hitlerism, Stalinism, Reaganism: Three Variations on a Theme by Orwell (Oslo: Gyldendal, 1984); is analyzed in terms of these three principles not only as values, but as analytical handles in order to understand the phenomenon.

For an effort to explore this theme, see Galtung Johan , “Big Powers and the World Feudal Structure,” Essays in Peace Research, Vol. IV, Chapter 10, (Copenhagen: Ejlers, 1980), pp 352–65.

Thus, the FBI played a major role in connection with the collection of evidence against the alleged Norwegian spy, Arne Treholt. See Mads Andenaes, Vi anklager! (Oslo, 1984).

Of course, this incurs costs for the United States, and very much so. Fisas op. cit., note 8 gives military expenses as 2.4% of the GDP for the neutral countries, 3.7% for Euro-NATO and 5.6% for NATO as a whole. There are costs in being a Leader. On the other hand, the trip-wire mechanisms are essential for WEG to guarantee that they are not cheated when the chips are down; that all the years of submissiveness have not been in vain.

Against this may be argued that a Soviet invasion of, say, Finland would be a casus belli, that the United States would retaliate, if not in Finland and if not against the Soviet mainland, against a fourth country. But, is this likely? The United States did nothing of any military significance in connection with Hungary in 1956 or Czechoslovakia in 1968 which does not prove the point since these were WTO countries. But US action in case of an attack on NATO allies is also in doubt, which makes the point.

For one effort to analyze the kind of society this will add up to after a nuclear war, see Galtung Johan , Environment, Development and Military Activity (Oslo: Universitetsforiaget, 1982).

A distinction has to be made, then, between the peace movement as for instance, an antimissile movement with limited goals and the Peace Movement as a social movement with a historical function of some major significance: abolition of war. Like the movement for the abolition of slavery, the Peace Movement has its ups and downs.

On the other hand, a certain split between Prime Minister Craxi and Defense Minister Spadolini is discernible here, the latter possibly being the most submissive among his colleagues in Western Europe.

What is interesting about those elections is not only that the Greens were able to increase their vote from 5.6% in March 1983 to 8.3%, given the hostility towards them and the novelty of the issues they bring into politics, but also that the Social Democrats did not lose more (from 38.2% to 37%) in spite of being perceived as having moved to the left and the “danger of a red-green coalition” (which, of course, will come sooner or later). The loser was CDU, down to 44.3% from 48.8%—mainly losing, it seems, to the liberal party in the government coalition. One interpretation of this is that the Peace Movement has left the streets as a peace movement and is increasingly getting into the parties and the parliament.

The great articulation period was between the formation of NATO in 1949 and WTO in 1955—but, of course, started earlier. When is still a matter of dispute.

According to the United States to get the Soviet Union to the negotiation table; according to Egon Bahr to get the United States to the negotiation table. The double track idea can also be seen as a general feature of NATO policy as expressed in the Harmel statement much earlier.

This is what General Bernard Rogers, Supreme Allied Commander in Europe said in testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee March 1983: “Most people believe that it was because of the SS-20 that we modernized. We should have modernized irrespective of the SS-20 because we had this gap in our spectrum of defense developing and we needed to close the gap,” Generals for Peace and Disarmament, A Challenge to US/NATO Strategy (New York: University Books, 1984), p. 4. I am indebted to Tom Rochon for this reference.

See Sloan S. , Defense Burden Sharing, (Washington: Congressional Research Service, 1983. Often the outsider sees it best. For an excellent analysis of the “deal,” see M. Zuberi, Strategy, Technology and Insecurity: An Ensemble of Apprehensions New Delhi: 1984). Zuberi makes a point not included in the present analysis: “several of these countries were engaged in suppressing national liberation movement in their colonies in the early stages of the evolution of NATO. Policing the colonies was considered more urgent than raising troops for a hypothetical conflict in Europe.”.

However, it may be stronger in the United States than in Western Europe. I have witnessed massive rallies in the United States (e.g. in Portland, Oregon, October 1983) protesting deployment of the Euro-missiles as a threat to the European populations, not vice versa.

I think relatively few Norwegians, hearing criticism of their own country would refer automatically to the critic as “anti-Norwegian.” Yet, the term “anti-American” is quickly articulated when the United States is criticized from the outside.

The term “realist” should not be confused with realistic.

The seven biggest contributors to the United States as “foreign stock” all decreased in percentage terms from 1960 to 1970: Italy (13.3% to 12.6%), Germany (12.7% to 10.8%), Canada (9.3% to 9.0%), UK (8.5% to 7.3%), Poland (8.2% to 7.1%), Soviet Union (6.7% to 5.8%) and Ireland (5.2% to 4.3%). Mexico (5.1% to 7.0%) and Asia (3.4% to 5.2%) both increased. Recently the change has become more obvious; the point here is only to show that this has been the tendency for a long time, U.S. Census of Population, 1960, 1970.

See, for instance, the article by Robert English, a former Defense Department policy analyst, “Offensive Star Wars,” The New Republic, February 24, 1986.

For an analysis of the New Zealand case, see Hanson F. Allan , “Trouble in the Family: New Zealand's Antinuclear Policy,” SAIS Review, Vol. 7, No. 1, Winter–Spring, 1987, pp. 139–55.

The best keeper of that record is probably the world famous linguist Noam Chomsky; Turning the Tide (Boston: Southend, 1985) being one of the more recent.

For an excellent discussion of this theme, see Krippendorff Ekkehart , Staat und Krieg. Die historische Logik politischer Unvernunft. (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1985).

For a discussion of this theme, see Fuller J. E. C. , The Conduct of War 1789–1961 (London: Methuen, 1972), Chapter II, Unlimited War.

For this purpose it may even be advantageous for WEG not to participate in those summit meetings in order not to be co-responsible; yet trying to press USG into repeating the exercise.

Only open criticism involves third parties who start watching the process. This may stimulate the critic to follow up his critique but may also galvanize the superpower into more resistance to change. Good politics would be based on both methods, with judicious selection on the basis of the situation.

I use the terms describing the two camps of Die Grünen in Germany, where the SPD can be seen as realo, no doubt sooner or later cooperating with the green realos. But the political function of the fundamentalos will remain significant.

They are then construed, in the United States, as anti-American demonstrations, by the same logic as antiZionism is reconstructed as antiSemitism and antisocialist countries attitudes as antisocialism.

The NATO decision of December 12, 1979 to station the Euro-missiles was seen by many as an effort to Europeanize nuclear war, even to Western Europe. Logically the United States had to come up with a forward and more conventional strategy, air-land battle offering Western Europe what the Soviet Union offers its people: battles in Eastern Europe.