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January 1964
Vol 42, Number 2 << Previous: October 1963 | Next: April 1964 >> FIND FOREIGN AFFAIRS ON A NEWSSTAND NEAR YOU  |  |
Polycentrism and Western Policy
George F. Kennan
Much of the discussion in Western countries today of the problem of
relations with world Communism centers around the recent disintegration of
that extreme concentration of power in Moscow which characterized the
Communist bloc in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, and the
emergence in its place of a plurality of independent or partially
independent centers of political authority within the bloc: the growth, in
other words, of what has come to be described as "polycentrism." There is
widespread recognition that this process represents a fundamental change in
the nature of world Communism as a political force on the world scene; and
there is an instinctive awareness throughout Western opinion that no change
of this order could fail to have important connotations for Western policy.
But just what these connotations are is a question on which much
uncertainty and confusion still prevail.
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Détente through Firmness
Kai-Uwe von Hassel
Some 15 years ago the editor of this journal wrote that "the present risk
of war seems to me to come chiefly from allowing the world to continue in a
twilight zone where one side assumes that collective security exists and
the other counts on taking advantage of the fact that it does not."[i] At
that time, the United Nations had disappointed many people in their belief
that the provisions of the Charter, and in particular the powers attributed
to the Security Council, would not only be a means of bringing the world
powers together around the conference table but would also help to create
the collective instrument of a U.N. Force which would be able to bring to
bear the wish of all mankind for peace.
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The Pakistan-American Alliance
Mohammed Ayub Khan
It is nearly ten years since Pakistan became an ally of the West. In May
1954, Pakistan signed the Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement with the
United States. Later in that year it became a member of SEATO along with
the United States, Britain, France, Thailand, the Philippines, Australia
and New Zealand. A year later, it joined the Baghdad Pact, another mutual
defense organization, with Britain, Turkey, Iran and Iraq. The United
States has not joined this organization, but has remained closely
associated with it since its inception. In 1958, when Iraq left this pact,
it was renamed CENTO (Central Treaty Organization): it continued to
comprise Turkey, Iran and Pakistan as its regional members. Early in 1959,
Pakistan signed (as did Turkey and Iran) a bilateral Agreement of
Coöperation with the United States, which was designed further to reinforce
the defensive purposes of CENTO.
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Aid, Trade and Economic Development
Isaiah Frank
In the spring of 1964 representatives of more than 110 countries will
gather in Geneva for the United Nations Conference on Trade and
Development. To say that the less developed countries have high hopes for
this event would be the understatement of the year. Again and again at
meetings of the Preparatory Committee for the Conference the refrain was
that the Conference would be the single most important international event
for the less developed countries since the founding of the United Nations.
These countries look to the Conference to lay the foundations for a "new
international division of labor"; to formulate a new and "dynamic
international trade policy"; and, as one representative to the Preparatory
Committee recently wrote, to advance the goal of "economic emancipation"
from the neo-colonialism implicit in present trade relations between rich
and poor countries.
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The Challenge to Military Professionalism
Colonel Robert N. Ginsburgh
The mounting tension in civil-military relations within our Government is
made up of many factors-especially, perhaps, the tightening of civilian
control and the postwar changes in the nature of war and of the military
profession itself. The conflicts are reported almost daily by the Pentagon
press corps, and the frustrations of the military are made evident in the
writings of Generals Gavin, Ridgway, Taylor, Medaris, White and Admiral
Anderson. It is not that these men question the principle of civilian
control. Nor is the struggle simply a contest for power. What the military
are principally reacting to is the implicit challenge to their
professionalism.
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Toward Unity in Africa
Clyde Sanger
No one who looked down from the galleries last May on the glittering array
of African heads of state assembled in Africa Hall at Addis Ababa could
fail to see that this meeting constituted an historic landmark. But just
what sort of landmark was it? Clearly it had greater significance than a
gathering of emperors, kings, presidents and prime ministers at a single
sparkling event-like, say, a coronation in Britain. But was there as much
common purpose in Addis as moved the 55 men who met in Philadelphia in May
1787? President Nkrumah of Ghana had hoped and intended that there should
be; in speeches, memoranda and even a full-length book he had urged the
states to form a single parliament forthwith. But gazing down on the
patrician head of the Mwami of Burundi facing the taut Ben Bella, observers
must have realized that the differences of past experience and future
problems impeded any such swift fusion into one close entity. It is still
too early to assess the full achievements of the Addis conference-how far
short it fell of Nkrumah's ideal, how much more important it was than just
an imperial jamboree. But enough has happened in the months since May to
attempt at least a progress report.
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British Defense Policy Under Labor
Anthony Verrier
Mr. Harold Wilson has been leader of the Labor Party for nearly a year; in
1964 he may well become Britain's first Socialist Prime Minister in 13
years. Around his aims and methods, and in particular his expressed belief
in the possibility of a new society created by technological as much as by
political change, have gathered much speculation and comment. However, he
is by nature cautious, anxious to nourish growing party aspirations rather
than initiate controversial debate, and therefore unlikely to be hasty in
making innovations in either domestic or foreign policies. It is the latter
which will be considered here.
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New Perspective on the North
Trevor Lloyd
"The war and the aeroplane have driven home to Canadians the importance of
their Northland, in strategy, in resources and in communications," Lester
B. Pearson wrote in these pages some years ago.[i] They have learned, he
said, that the earth is still round and that the shortest routes between
many important spots in it lie over the North Pole.
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Soviet Second Thoughts on Tsarist Colonialism
Lowett R. Tillett
In the endless campaign for ideological purification which goes on in the
Soviet Union, the "historical front" is accorded high priority. No academic
discipline has received such constant attention and supervision from the
Party as that called "historical science," and no group of scholars has
been so frequently out of step.
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Czech Stalinists Die Hard
Victor A. Velen
For the first time since the Communist take-over in Czechoslovakia,
liberalizing forces are emerging and making headway. In 1963, ten years
after Stalin's death, one of the last bastions of classical Stalinism began
cautiously to de-Stalinize, rehabilitating the ghosts of the Slansky trial
and purging from the government some of those who were most responsible for
Stalinist crimes. Up to the fall of 1963 the most significant event in this
evolution was the dismissal, on September 20, of the Prime Minister, Viliam
Siroky, an old-time Stalinist wheel in the Slovak Communist Party, along
with a number of other members of the government who had been deeply
compromised by their activities during the period of the "cult of
personality." But others, primarily President Antonin Novotny himself,
still held the reins of power and were consequently dragging their feet in
implementing a process that ultimately was bound to cause their own
downfall.
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