Card Playing in International Relations : The United States and the Great Power Triangle

Joseph Nogee , "Polarity: An Ambiguous Concept," Orbis (Vol. 78, No. 4, Winter, 1975).

As Aristotle said, " Look for precision in each class of things just as far as the nature of the subject admits" Quoted in Joseph Frankel , The Making of Foreign Policy: An Analysis of Decision Making (London : Oxford University Press, 1967), p. 8. Our definition is more in keeping with Frankel's notion of a model as helping "... organise the field and enables us to tackle to our satisfaction its major problems ... a model is merely a convenient way of looking at things from a specific angle" Joseph Frankel , Contemporary International Theory and the Behaviour of States (London: Oxford University Press, 1973), pp. 15-16.

Michael Yahuda , "Problems of Continuity in Chinese Foreign Policy ," Asian Affairs (Vol. 8, Part 3, October 1977), pp. 320-322.

Chinese polarity can also be seen in terms of the definition in physics, i.e. as a source of attraction. The emergence of the Chinese model for development and its attraction for certain less developed countries is a case in point.

In referring to the great power system we do not mean the entire configuration of states, but rather the specific relationship of the two or three great powers as they relate to each other. Furthermore the analysis assumes that there is an important distinction to be drawn between the objective and subjective appreciation of the great power triangle, i.e. the pattern of interaction may be the result of the complex interplay between three autonomous actors and this may be imperfectly understood by one, two, or all three of the decision-making units.

E. Clubb to Sec. State, June 1, 1949 in Foreign Relations of the United States (Vol. 8), The Far East: China. (Washington : USGPO, 1978), pp. 357-359.

Mao to members of the Democratic League apparently in June 1949, according to the report of the League's leaders to Clubb Clubb to Sec. State, July 19, 1949. Ibid. pp. 443-445.

Reports of important discussions in the U.S. about the possibility of Mao emerging as another Tito were viewed as leaks by C.C.P. leaders. Clubb to Sec. State, August 18, 1949. Ibid. pp. 496-498. Most U.S. officials also did not understand the subtlety of C.C.P. signals, especially in the period of obviously intense Chinese factional policies. For some of the different U.S. positions see Clubb to Sec. State, June 27, 1949. Ibid. p. 398. Kohler to Sec. State, June 27, pp. 399-400. The actual breakdown in talks is in Clubb to Sec. State, June 24, pp. 397-398. Mao's July 1 speech on the People's Democratic Dictatorship marked another major negative stage in the process. Stuart to Sec. State, July 6, pp. 405-407 and July 12, p. 424, on discussions with Huang Hua, Chou's alleged protegé in the " liberal" faction.

The view of these two events is based on Gerald Segal, " From Bipolarity to the Great Power Triangle: Moscow, Peking, Washington, 1961-1968." Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, London School of Economics and Political Science, 1979. On the test ban see Walter Clemens Jr. , The Arms Race and Sino-Soviet Relations (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1968).

Ibid. Chap. 2 and Charles Stevenson , The End of Nowhere ( Boston: Beacon Press, 1972), pp. 190-192. Interviews with Averell Harriman for the John F. Kennedy Library ( Waltham, Mass., January 17, 1965), pp. 109-110 and with William Sullivan , June 16, 1970, p. 27.

Georg Simmel, Kurt Wolff, trans. The Sociology of Georg Simmel (New York: Free Press, 1950), pp. 154-162 and Theodore Mills , "Power Relations in the Three-Person Group ," American Sociological Review (Vol. 11, No. 4, August 1953), p. 356.

International Herald Tribune (Paris), January 20, 1979.

The last point is made by Victor Zorza , "Secrets Behind China's Smile," The Guardian (London), January 27, 1979.

Jonathan Schell , The Time of Illusion (New York: Vintage Books, 1975); Tad Szulc , The Illusion of Peace (New York: Viking Press, 1978), especially Chap. 4.

This was especially true during the Vietnam war. For example, Ambassador Thompson's cable from Moscow 3756 to Sec. State, March 4, 1967. State 149084 Rusk to U.S. Embassy Moscow, March 4, 1967, and State 140351 to U.S. Embassy Moscow, February 19, 1967, from Katzenbach, all in U.S. Dept. of Defense. United States-Vietnam Relations 1945-1967. (Washington: USGPO, 1971), Negotiations (VoL VI, Chap. 3). Sunflower, Chronology. These previously classified final volumes of the Pentagon Papers were obtained by Morton Halperin's Project on National Security and Civil Liberties in a law suit and kindly made available to the author.

On the Deng visit see for example the International Herald Tribune, February 1, 1979. On President Johnson's reaction see Lyndon Johnson , The Vantage Point (New York: Holt Rinehart and Winston, 1971), p. 481.

U.S.-Soviet Union-China-The Great Power Triangle. Hearings before the Subcommittee on Future Foreign Policy and Development of the House Committee on International Relations. 94th Congress, October 1975-June 1976 (Washington: USGPO, 1976).

On the supposed factional splits see for example The Economist , November 25, 1978; The Guardian, January 20, 1979; Time Magazine, January 8, 1979. For earlier aspects see The International Herald Tribune , January 7, 1979. The Soviets' view of the same split can be seen in Ibid., January 13, 1979.

For example, Donald Zagoria , " Normalising Relations with China Without 'Abandoning' Taiwan," Pacific Community (Vol. 19, No. 1, October 1977 ). Joseph Scheibel , " The Soviet Union and the Sino-American Relationship ," Orbis (Vol. 21, No. 1, Spring, 1977); Uri Ra'anan , "The Washington-Moscow-Peking Triangle: A Re-examination of Chinese and Soviet Concepts " and Robert ScaIapino , " The Dragon, The Tiger and Wolf: Sino-Soviet Relations and Their Impact on Asia," Orbis (Vol. 19, No. 3, Fall, 1975). See also The Economist, November 18, 1978. For a careful statement of Soviet concern about Sino-American relations see Georgi Arbatov to Jonathan Power , " The New Voice of the Kremlin," The Observer ( London), November 12, 1978.

A specific example is the U.S.-U.S.S.R. contacts in late 1966 when Gromyko met Johnson and Rusk and discussed the Kremlin's growing concern with China, New York Times. November 22, 23, 1966.

On the latter two contacts see New York Times, May 28, 1978; The International Herald Tribune, January 31, 1979.

See Robert McNamara's view of the ABM and the U.S.S.R. in New York Times, September 19, 1967.

On the "hunter-killer satellites" see the view of U.S. intelligence experts quoted in The International Herald Tribune, December 20, 1976. Also, the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress released an intelligence estimate in January 1979 which noted that the U.S.S.R. had 650,000 troops facing China, more than are deployed in Eastern Europe and an increase of 63 per cent. since 1969. 80 per cent. of the increase in Soviet military manpower in the past decade went to forces on the Chinese border. The International Herald Tribune, January 27,1979.

Segal, "From Bipolarity to the Great Power Triangle," Chaps. 3 and 5. For the 1962 Sino-Indian case see Khrushchev's December 12 speech to the Supreme Soviet in the Current Digest of the Soviet Press (Vol. 14, No. 52), p. 7. For the 1965 India-Pakistan case see William Griffith , Sino-Soviet Relations, 1964-1965 (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1967), and Polish radio on September 22 as quoted in BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, E. Europe, No. 19, 1968 , p. 1.