ARMS AND INFLUENCE BY THOMAS C. SCHELLING NEW HAVEN AND LONDON YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS2 THE ART OF COMMITMENT [No one seems to doubt that federal troops are available to de- fend California. I have, however, heard Frenchmen doubt whether American troops can be counted on to defend France, ‘or American misiles to blast Russia in case France fs attacked It hardly scems necessary to tll the Russians that we should fight them if they attack us. But we goto great lengths to tll the Russians that they wil have America to contend with f they or their satellites attack countries associated with us. Saying 30, unfortunately, does not make it true; and if i is true, saying so ‘does not always make it believed. We evidently do not want war ‘and would only fight if we had to. The problem is to demon- strate that we would ave to, Teis a tradition in military planning to attend to an enemy capabilities, not his intentions. (But deterrence is_about_in not jist esa enemy intentions but influencing em. The hardest part is}eommunicating ove own intentions, ar at best is uly, costly aM aAgerOUS, ai at WORSE ‘tous, Nations have been known to buff they have also beea Enowa to make threats sincerely and change their minds when the chips were down, Many territories are just not worth a war, especially war that can get out of hand. A persuasive threat of| war may deter an aggressor; the problem is to make it pet suasive, to keep it from sounding like a blu, = Military forces are commonly expected to defend theiehome- lands, even to di gloriously in a futile effort at defense, When CChorchill sad that the British would fight on the beaches no- boxy supposed that he had sat up all night running once more through the calculations to make sure that that was the right 236 ARMS AND INFLUENCE icy. Declaring war against Germany for the attack on Po- Tend though, wats diferent kind of decion nt a simple re flex but a matter of “policy.” Some threats are inherently persua- sive, some have to be made persuasive, and some are bound to took like blu. “This chapter is about the threats that are hard to make, the ‘ones that ate not inherently so credible that they can be taken or granted, the ones that commit a country to an action that it might in somebody's judgment prefer not to take. A good start- ing point is the national boundary. As a tentative approxi- mmation—a very tentative one—the difference between the hational homeland and everything “abroad” is the difference between threats that ate inherently credible, even if unspoken, tnd the threats that have to be made credible. To project the Shadow of one's military force over other countries and te ‘aries i an-act of diplomacy. To fight abroad is military act io persuade enemies of allies that one would fight abroad, inder circumstances of great cost and risk, requites more than & ee el ‘communicating them persuasively to ‘countries be- have. Credibility and Rationality 1.s.a paradox of deterrence that jn dhnestning to hurt some. pdt he-misbchaves, it need not ical dilferencé “it would hurt you too—i you ean make him believe ‘baarmuuch t-would Just you too—if you can make him Beliewé the-dhrea. People walk against trafic igts on busy strets, de-~ ee ETRE principe appli’ in Hungary M1986. The West was deterned by fear of the consequences from entering into what ‘might have been a legitimate altercation with the Soviet Union fn the proper status of Hungary. The West was deterred not in the bell that the Soviet Union was stronger than the West or ‘that a war, if it ensued, would hurt the West more than the So- viet bloc, The West was deterred because the Soviet Union was strong enough, and likely enough to react militarily, to make THE ART OF COMMITMENT 2 Hungary seem not worth the risk, no matter who might get hurt “Another paradox of deterrence is that it does not always help to be, oro be believed to be, fll rational, coolheaded, and in contol of enesef or of one's contr. One of Joseph Conrad books, Tie Secret Agent, concerns a group of anarchists in London who were tying to destroy bourgeois society. One of their techniques was bomb explosions; Greenwich Observatory vas the objective in this book. They got thir nitroglycerin fom 4 stunted litle chemist, The authorities knew whets they got their stuff and who made it for them. Bu this Tite purveyor of nitrglyeerin walked safely past the London police. A. young ‘man who wasted in with the job at Greenwich asked him why the police didnot capture him. His answer was that they would not shoot him from a distance-—that would be a denial of bout- 20is morality, and serve the anarchists’ cause —and they dared ‘ot capture him physially Because he always kept some “tu” on his person. He kept a hand in his pocket, he sid, holding @ bull atthe end of a tube that reached a container of nitro. lveetn in is jacket pocket. All he ad to do was to press that Tite tall and- anybody within his immediate. neighborhood would be blown to bis with him. His young companion won- dered why the police would believe anything so preposterous a6 that the chemist would actualy blow himself up. The ile rman's explanation was calm, “Tn the lst instance its character alone that makes for one's safety »-. T have the means to make myself dead, but that by isl, you understand, is abso. lately nothing ia the way of protection. What fs efective isthe boli thse people have in my wil to use the means. Thats their impression. I is absolute, Thercfore Tam deadly." We can call him a fanatic or a faker, or a shrewd dipo- mast; but it was worth something to hit to have it belived that be would do it, preposterous or not. Ihave been told that in mental institutions there are mates who are either very crazy or very wise, or both, who make clear to the attendants thet 1, Jeph Conrad The Secret Agent (New York, Doubleday, Pa an Conpany, B33), pp 08, Foams wv8 ARMS AND INFLUENCE they may slit their own veins or light their clothes on fire if they don't have their way. I understand that they sometimes have their way, Recall the trouble we had persuading Mossadegh in the early 1950s that he might do his country irreparable damage if he did not become more reasonable with respect to his country and the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, Threats did not get through to him very well. He wore pajamas, and, according to reports, he ‘wept. And when British or American diplomats tried to expisin ‘what would happen to his country if he continued to be ob- stinate, and why the West would not bail him out of his diicul- ties, it was apparently uncertain whether he even compre- hhended what vas being said to him, It must have been a lite like trying to persuade a new puppy that you will beat him to death if he wets on the floor. If he cannot hear you, or cannot understand you, or cannot control himself, the threat cannot work and you very likely wll noteven make it. ‘Sometimes we can get lite eredit for not having everything guite under conttol, for being a litle impulsive or unreliable. ‘Teaming up with an impulsive ally may do it. There have been serious supgestions that nuclear weapons should be put directly at the disposal of German troops, on the grounds that the Ger= Imans would be less reluctant to use them—and that Soviet lead crs know they would be less reluctant—than their American colleagues in the early stages of war or ambiguous aggression. ‘And in part, the motive behind the proposals that authority to use nuclear weapons be delegated in peacetime to theater com- ‘anders or even lower levels of command, as inthe presidential campaign of 1964, isto substitute military boldness for civil Inesitancy in a criss or atleast to make it look that way to the enemy, Sending a high-ranking military officer to Berlin, Que- ‘moy, o Saigon in a erisis carries a suggestion that authority bas ‘been delegated to someone beyond the reach of political inhibi tion and bureaucratic delays, or even of presidential responsibil ty, someone whose personal reactions will be in a bold military tradition, The intense dissatisfaction of many senators with President Kennedy's restraint over Cuba in early 1962, and THE ART OF COMMITMENT 2 with the way matters were left atthe close of the crisis in that November, though in many ways an embarrassment to the Pres- ‘dont, may nevertheless have helped to convey to the Cubans and to the Soviets that, however peaceable the President might want tobe, there were political limits to is patience, ‘A vivid exhibition of national impulsiveness at the highest level of government was described by Averell Harriman in his account of a mecting with Khrushchev in 1959, “Your gen- czas," said Khrushchev, “talk of maintaining your postio Berlin with force. That is blu.” With what Harriman describes as angry emphasis, Khrushchev went on, “If you send in tanks, they will burn and make no mistake about it. If you want war, you can have it, but remember it will be your wa. Our rockets will ly automatically.” At this point, according to Harriman, Khirushchev's colleagues around the table chorused the word. “automatically.” The tte of Harriman's article in Life maga- zine was, “My Alarming Interview with Khrushchev.” * The Premier's later desk-thumping with shoe in the hall of the General Assembly was pictorial evidence that high-ranking Russians know how to put on a performance. General Pree Gallois, an outstanding French erte of Amer- ‘can military policy, has eredited Khrushchev with a “shrowd understanding of the polities of deterrence,” evidenced by this “irrational outburst” in the presence of Secretary Harriman, © Gallois “hardly sees Moscow launching its atomic missiles at Washington because of Berlin" (especially, I suppore, since Khrushchev may not have had any atthe time), but apparently thinks nevertheless that the United States ought to appreciate, as Khrushehey did, the need for a kind of irrational auto. maticty and a commitment to blind and total retaliation Even granting, however, that somebody important may be Somewhat intimidated by ‘the Russian responsive chorus on automaticity, I doubt whether we want the American govern- ment to rely, for the erediblty ofits deterrent threat, on a cor- responding ritual. We ought to get something a ite less 2 July 13, 1959, p. 33. 53, Rese de Defense Natfonle, October 1962.” ARMS AND INFLUENCE idiosyncratic for 50 billion dollars a year of defense expendi- ture, A government that is obliged to appear responsible in its foreign policy can hardly cultivate forever the appearance of impetuosity on the most important decisions in its care, Khni- shehev may have needed a short cut to deterrence, but the ‘American government ought to be mature enovgh and rich enough to arrange a persuasive sequence of threatened re- sponses that are not wholly a matter of guessing a president's temper Sil, impetuesty, irrationality, and automaticity are not en- tirely without substance, Displays can be effective, and when President Kennedy took his turn at it people were impressed, possibly even people in the Kremlin, President Kennedy chose ‘most impressive occasion for his declaration on “automatic ity.” It was his address of October 22, 1962, launching the Coban crisis. In an unusually deliberate and solemn statement he said, “Third: it shall be the policy of this nation to regard Any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, roquiring a fll retaliatory response upon the So- viet Union." Coming less than six months after Secretary Me- Namari's olfiial elucidation of the strategy of controlled and flexible response, the reaction implied in the President's state- ment would have been not only irrational but probably — depending on just what “full retaliatory response” meant to the President or to the Russians—inconsistent with one of the oundations of the President's own military policy, a foundation that was laid as early a8 his first defense budget message of 1961, which stressed the importance of proportioning the re- sponse to the provocation, even in war itself. Nevertheless, it 4. Altert and Roberts Wohlseter have evaluated this statement of Kennedys in "Controlling the Riss in Cuba" Adeiph Papers. 17 ‘onion, Ioitte for Sttepe Stoic, 1968). They ares ha THis ocr not sound liken contd response” They. go on to\say, “The Mempe, ic appeiy, was to sty thatthe United State wo0ld fespond {o's missle aginst Hs neighbors as It would Tespend to” one azn It" And the policy, they say, would Jsve open the posty of = ‘onto, or lest than “ull” faction. Even i've dargard the word THE ART OF COMMITMENT a ‘was not entirely incredible; and, for all I know, the President ‘meant it ‘AS a matier of fact it is most unlikely—actually it is inconceivable—that in preparing his address the President sent Wword to senior military and civilian officals that this particular paragraph of his speech was not to be construed as policy. Even the paragraph was pure rhetoric, it would probably have been. construed in the crisis atmosphere of that eventful Monday as ‘an act of policy. Just airing such 2 policy must have made it Somewhat more likely that a single atomic explosion in this hemisphere would have been the signal for full-scale nuclear Even if the President had said something quite contrary, had ‘cautioned the Soviets that now was the time for them t0 take seriously Secretary MeNamara's message and the President’ ‘own language about proportioning military response to the provocation; if he had served notice that the United States would not be panicked into all-out war by a single atomic event, particularly one that might not have been fully premeditated by the Soviet leadership; his remarks stil would not have elimi- nated the possibilty that a single Cuban missile, if it contained 4 nuclear warhead and exploded on the North American conti- nent, could have triggered the full frantic fury of all-out war, While it is hard for a government, particulatly a respoasible ‘government, to appear irrational whenever such an appearance is expedient, it is equally hard for a government, even a respon- sible one, 19 guarantee its own moderation in every circum- stance, ull" though, the treat i sil one of nucle war; and unless we gusl- iy the won “any nuclear mise" to mean enough to denote delber- ‘fe Soviet alc the statement sll hs tobe cad tahun fo Kiros Shevs rocket stitement, wit allowance for dilerencet in al. and Since The’ pat ot thatthe threats nee ier S mibake or «Blut, but tht i dil imply fettion more ready taken a inp han iter econ, ipporonte™ ac ane ot ‘ecesuly serving the naional interest if te contingency ase bat fevethelew a possibly impressive threat if the goverment ean Credited with ar impo a m2 ARMS AND INFLUENCE Allo his may suggest that deterrent threats are a matter of ssilve, impetuony, pain obstinacy, of, a8 the anarchist put it sheer character Itt not esy to change our character; And ‘coming fanatic or mpetsoun would be sigh price to pay for imaking Our threats convincing. We have not the character of fanatics and cannot sare countries the way Hier could, We fave substitute brains and skill for obstinacy or insanity (Even then we are at some disadvantage: Hier bad the Skil and the charoter—of 3 st) TE we could relly make it believed that we woud Isvach gen- eral war for every minor infraction of any code ofeiguete that se wanted to publish forthe Soviet blo, and it there were high wobbly that the faders in the Kremlin know where thei Interests lay and would mot destroy their wm county out of sheer obstinacy, we could threaten anything we wanted 0. We ould ay down the rules end snnounce tha if they broke any fone of them we would ine the nisleareqivslen of the Wrath Of God. The fac that the flood would engul sto, elevant to whether or nt the Rusians would bive ws; bu fe could Inake them believe us, the fact tit we would sie to might Provide them litle consolation Tf we could credibly arrange it fo that we had to carry out the threat, whether we wished t oF nt, we would not even be eazy to erange it so—if we could te sure the Soviets understond the ineuctable consequences of intinging the rules and would have contol over themselves. By 5. This is why Gandhi could stop trains by eneouragng his followers to ie down on the tacks, and why consracin-ste flegrationists could ‘Mop tucks and alldrsis by The sime fons ia balldoer can Stop {ofe uicy han prostate man cam gt out of is wa, the teat be Somes ily eredibe atthe pent when oly the operator of the bulldozer an ver the Bloodshed. The sume principe spose to expan why ‘ies thtn- mortal tack on the Sot Union bya French nscest foes though exposny France to aril stack in retin, fea dering prospec. {othe Soviet Union crediilty tthe problem, tnd tome Frenah cor ‘entstors have proposed esi arranging to pot the Tench force oyont cilion contol American tanke im an antral may Tack ri, ese they resent mock the bone dc een Inte tof machine guns 16 protect each her so a more eeaile- {ies dss sd fully automatic device Is ured to protect the trmed Fleet monsters a milly elecrs bunper. THE ART OF COMMITMENT “ arranging it so that we might have to blow up the world, we would not have to. But itis hard to make it believed. It would be hard to keep the Soviets from expecting that we would think it over once more and find a way to give them what my children call “one more chance.” Just saying so woa't do it. Mossadegh or the anarchist might succeed, but not the American government, ‘What we have to do is to get ourselves into a postion where we cannot fal to react as we said we would—where we just cannot help it—or where we would be obliged by some overwhelming cost of not reacting in the manner we had declared. Coupling Capabilities 10 Objectives: Relinguishing the Initiative Often we must maneuver into a position where we no longer hhave much choice left. This is the old business of burning bridges. If you are faced with an enemy who thinks you would turn and run if he kept advancing, and if uke bridge is there to run across, he may keep advancing. He may advance to the point where, if you do not run, a lash is automatic. Calculating what is in your long-run interest, you may turn and cross the bridge. Atleast, he may expect you to. But if you burn the bridge so that you cannot retreat, and in sheer desperation there is nothing you can do but defend yourself, he has a new caleula- tion to make, He cannot count on what you would prefer to do if he were advancing ieresistibly; he must decide instead what he ‘ought to do if you were incapable of anything but resisting him." ‘This is the position that Chiang Kai-shek got himself into, and us with him, when he moved a large portion of his best ‘oops to Quemoy. Evacuation under fire would be exceedingly Uificul; if attacked, his troops had no choice but to fight, and \we probably had no choice but to assist them. It was undoubt- edly a shrewd move from Chiang’s point of ‘view—coupling himself, and the United States with him, to Quemoy—and in fact if we had wanted to make clear to the Chinese Communists that Quemoy had to be defended if they attacked it, it would even have been a shrewd move also from our point of view.“4 ARMS AND INFLUENCE This idea of burning bridges—of maneuvering into a postion where one clearly cannot Yield—confcts somewhat, at least semantically, withthe notion that what we wantin our foreiga Policy is “the initiative.” Inte is good i it means imagina- tiveness, boldaes, new ideas. But the term somewhat disguises, the fact that deterrence, particularly deterrence of anything less than mortal assault on the United States, often depends on get ting into position where the initiative sup tthe enemy and it ie he who has to make the awful decision to proceed toa clash. Ta recent years it has become something of principle in the Department of Defense that the country should have abundant “options in is choice of response to enemy moves. The prnci- ple is «good one, but oi a contrary prncipo—that certain op- tions are an embarrassment. The Unite States goverment goes to grea lengibs to sesssux-alies and to arn Russians tht eschewed cerain options altogether, oto demonstrate that could not afford. them or has placed them out of reach. The commitment proces on-which all American oversea deterrence depends—and on which all confidence within the alliance depends-—is a process of surendering and destroying options that we might have been expected to find 100 attractive in emergency. We not only give them up in exchange for com ‘ments 10 us by our allies; we give them up on our own account to make our intentions clear to potential enemies. In fct, we do it ot just to display our intentions but to adopt those inten- tion. If detereence fais itis usualy because someone thought he saw an “option” that the American government had filed dispose of, a loophole that it hadn't closed egainst itself. "AtTaw there isa doctrine ofthe “ast lear chanes." Te recog- nizcs that, in the evens leading up to an accident, there was some point prior to which either party could avert collision, some point alte which neither could, and very likely a period between when one party could stil control events but the other was helpless to turh aside or stop. The one that had the “ast, clear chance” to avert colison is held responsible, In-suategy when both paris abhor collision the advantage goes often 10 {he one who arranges the status quo ia His Tavor and leaves 10 THE ART OF COMMITMENT “ ‘Xenophon understood the attack he had not sought, he placed his Grooks with ther backs ‘against an impassable ravine. “T should like the enemy to think it is easy-going in every direction for him to retreat.” And whea he had to charge a hill occupied by aliens, he “did aot attack from every direction but left the enemy a way of escape, if he wanted to run away.” The “ast chance” to clear out was left to the enemy when Xenophon had to take the initiative, but de- nied to himself when he wanted to deter attack, leaving his enemy the choice to attack or retre.* ‘An illustration of this principle—dhat deterrence often de- pends on relingushing the initiative to the other side—may be found in a comparison of two articles that Sceretary Dulles ‘wrote in the 1950s, His article in Foreign ABuirs in. 1954 (based on the speech in which he introduced “massive reali tion”) proposed that we should not let the enemy Know in ad- vance just when and where and how we would react to aggres- sion, but reserve for ourselves the decision on whether to act and the time, place, and scope of our action. In 1957 the Secre- tary wrote another article in Foreign Airs, this one oriented ‘mainly toward Europe, in which he properly chose to reserve for the Soviets the fina decision on all-out war. He discussed the need for more powerful NATO fores, especially “tactical” nuclear forces that could resist a non-nvctear Soviet onslaught at alevel short of all-out war He sid In the future it may thus be feasible to place less reliance upon deterrence of vast retaliatory power. . . . Thus, in Expedition, yp. 136-87, 236. The principle was prosed by Sun Tein Chin, found $00 BG. tn Mi 40 of Wars “When You surreund an army leave an outlet fre, Do not pest desperate foe ic hand ley eving unr Alexie nthe fourth caary Bs Strrounded' bl, “eaving exp in hs line fr the enemy to et tou should they wish to make thelr escape.” Vegeta writing i the {OU Seatury A'D. hada wetion headed, “The ight of an enemy. should Bot be prevented, but facitated”™ and commends 4 maxim of Spo that a golden bridge should be made fora fying enemy I of couse, 8 fundamental principle of riot contol snd-has i coumicrpers Aiplomacy and other negotiations.“ ARMS AND INFLUENCE contrast tothe 1950 decade, it may be that by the 1960 dec- ‘de the nations which are around the Sino-Soviet perimeter cean possess an effective defense against fllscale conventional attack and thus confront any aggressor with the choice be- tween failing or himself initiating nuclear war against the de- fending country. Thus the tables may be turned, in the sense that instead of those who are non-aggressive having to rely ‘upon all-out nuclear retaliatory power for their protection, would-be aggressors will be unable to count on a successful conventional aggression, but must themselves weigh the con- sequences of invoking nuclear war.? Former Seeretary Dean Acheson was proposing the same principle (but attached to conventional forces, not tactical nu- clear weapons) in remarkably similar language at about the ‘same time in his book, Power and Diplomacy: Suppose, now, that a major attack is mounted against a Wesicin Europe defended by substantial and spirited forces including American troops. . . . Here, in effect, he (our potential enemy) would be making the decision for us, by compelling evidence that he had determined to run all risks and force matters to a final showdown, including (iit had not already occurred) a nuclear attack upon us. . . . A de- fense in Europe of this magnitude will pass the decision to risk everything from the defense to the offense. ‘The same principle on the Eastern side was reflected in a re- ‘mark often attributed to Khrushchev. It was typically agreed, especially at summit mectings, that nobody wanted a war Khrushchev's complacent remark, based on Berlin's being on his side ofthe border, was that Berlin was not worth a war. As the story goes, he was reminded that Berlin was not worth a war to him either. “No,” he replied, “but you are the ones that have 7. “Challenge and Response in US. Foreign Policy.” Foreign ABairs, 36 (1981), 848, I ie iterenig that Seteary Dales sed tle wart to mean something tht had not yet been mvoked when “acted Iucear weapons were sreaiy being ued in los! efene of Eo ‘5: Cambetipe, Harvard Univer ress, 38 pp 87a THE ART OF COMMITMENT ” to cross a frontier” The implication, I take it, was that neither of us wanted to cross that threshold just for Berlin, and if Ber- lin's location makes us the ones who have 10 eross the border, we are the ones who Ie it go though both of us ate similarly fearfal of war, How do we mancwver into a position so it isthe other side that fas to make that decision? Words rarely do it. To have told the Soviets in the late 1940s that, if they attacked, we were obliged to defend Europe might not have been wholly convincing. ‘When the Administration asked Congress for authority to sta- tion Army divisions in Europe in peacetime, the argument was explicitly made that these troops were there not to defend against a superior Soviet army but to leave the Soviet Union in ‘no doubt that the United States would be automatically i volved in the event of any attack on Europe. ‘The implicit argu- :ment was not that since we obviously would defend Europe we should demonstrate the fact by putting troops there, The reason- ing was probably that, whether we wished to be or not, we could ‘not fail to be involved if we had more troops being run over by the Soviet Army than we could afford to see defeated. Notions like “trip wire” or “plate glass window,” though oversimplified, ‘were attempts to express this role. And while “trip wire” is a belittling term to describe an army, the role is not a demeaning ‘one. The garrison in Berlin is as fine a collection of solders as has ever been assembled, but excruciatingly small, What can 7,000 American troops do, oF 12,000 Allied troops? Bluntly, they can die. They can die heroically, dramatically, and ia a ‘manner that guarantees that the ation cannot stop there. They represent the pride, the honor, and the reputation of the United States government and its armed forces; and they can appar- ently hold the entire Red Army at bay. Precisely because there is mo graceful way out if we wished our troops to yield ground, and because West Berlin is too small an area in which to ignore small encroachments, West Berlin and its military forces consti- tute one of the most impregnable military outposts of modera times. The Soviets have not dared to cross that frontier. Berlin illustrates two common characteristics of these com-“ ARMS AND INFLUENCE mitments, ‘The first is that if the commitment is ill defined and ambiguous—if we leave ourselves loopholes through which to ‘xit—our opponent will expect us to-be-under strong temptation to-make-a graceful exit (or even a somewhat graceless one) and Ine may be right, Tho western sector of Berlin is a tightly defined piece of earth, physically occupied by Western troops: our com- mitment is credible because iti ineseapable. (The litde enclave ‘of Stcinsticken is physically separate, surrounded by Fast Ger- ‘man tervitory outside city limits, and there has been a certain amount of jockeying to determine how credible our eommit- ment is to stay there and whether it applies to a corridor con- necting the enclave to the city proper.) But our commitment to the integrity of Benin itself, the entie city, was apparently weak for ambiguous. When the Wall went up the West was able to construe its obligation as not obliging forceful opposition. The Soviets probably anticipated that, if the West had a choice be- tween interpreting its obligation to demand forceful opposition and interpreting the obligation more leniently, there would be a temptation to elect the lenient interpretation. If we could have ‘made ourselves obliged to knock down the wall with military force, the wall might not have gone up; not being obliged, we could be expected to elect the less dangerous course. ‘The second thing that Berlin illustrates is tha, a cisely defined isthe issue about which we are committed, it ‘often uncertain just what we_are commited to do. The commit ment is open-ended. Our military reaction to an assault on West ‘Berlin is really-not specified. We are apparently committed to holding the western sector ofthe city if we can; if we are pushed back, we are presumably committed to repelling the intruders ‘nd restoring the original boundary. If we lose the city, we are perhaps committed to reconquering it. But somewhere in this sequence of events things get out of hand, and the matter ceases to be purely one of restoring the status quo in Berlin. Military instabilities may arse that make the earlier status quo meaning less. A costly reestablishment of the status quo might eal for some sort of reprisal, obliging some counteraction in return. Just what would happen is @ matter of prediction, or guess. THE ART OF COMMITMENT ro What we seem to be committed to is action of some sort com- st 2. Military resistance tends to de- velop a momentum of iis own. It is dynamic and uncertain. ‘What we threaten in Berlin is to initiate a process that may quickly get out of hand, The maneuver in Lebanon in 1958—the landing of troy in a developing crisis—though not one of the neatest pol cal-military operations of recent times, represented a similar strategy. Whatever the military potential of the ten or twelve thousand troops that we landed ia Lebanon—and it would de- pend on who might have engaged them, where, over what issue —they had the advantage that they got on the ground before any Soviet adventure or movement was under way. The landing might be described as a “preemptive maneuver.” From thea on, any significant Soviet intervention in the affairs of Lebanon, Jordan, or even Iraq, would have substantially raised the likeli hood that American and Soviet forces, or American and Sovit- supported forces, would be directly engaged. In effect, it was Khrushchev's turn to eross a border. Iraq or Jordan might not have been worth a war to cither of us but by getting troops on the soil—or, as we used to say, the American fiag—we probably made it clear to the Kremlin that we could not gracefully retreat under duress. It is harder to retreat than not to land in the frst place; the landing helped to put the next sep up to the Russians. Coupling Capabilities to Objectives: The Process of “Commitment” In aditon to geting youself where you cannot retreat, thers is amore common way-of making # threat. teal involvement, 1 get a nation’s honor, obligation, and Siplomatic reputation committed to a response. The Formosa ‘solution of 1985, long withthe military assistance agreement then ‘nite Ststes and the Netonal Government of the Republic of Chins, should probably be interpreted that vay. Tt was not mainly a technique for reassuring Chiang Katshek that we sould defend him, and i was not mainly &so ARMS AND INFLUENCE quid pro quo for something he did for us. It was chiefly impor- {ant as a move to impress a third party. The primary audience for the congressional action was inside the Soviet bloc. The ree lution, together with the treaty, was a ceremony to leave the Chinese and the Russians under no doubt that we could not back down from the defense of Formosa without intolerable loss of prestige, reputation, and leadership. We were not merely communicating aa intention of obligation we already had, but actually enhancing the obligation in the process. ‘The eon- sressonal message was aot, “Since we are obliged to defend Formosa, we may a8 well show it.” Rather: “In case we were sot suficintly commited to impress you, now we are. We hereby oblige ourselves. Bebold usin the public ritual of geting curseives genuinely committed." * 9. There i ko sometimes availabe a itera technique of commit iment tithe words of Roger Fisher to weave international big toms the domes Iw ofeach county, o tat by an arg each fovernmeat enforces te obigaton agent fale” her dciced fim Sonnets, but # may apply to the we of foc sw othe eocatn oA Naropa sie gl 10 dunt 1949) sites that, in event of srned stack, mltary oces ft mobne ether oot the goverment oe the nr, tht Aer for daconnsance fue in the name ofthe goverment sll be ‘itumed fae, and that resntance flo conte irespccine of chem threat of retry tomng: Sint Sw Se ofp 190, Ascii to every slr in his lie de service dered tat tn event stack the Sone would ght and that any on r ladestion tothe ‘ontay, fom any sure, wan be costed enemy propasinds. The erpesct appear to have been ineral dciploe and mcr bu the Foul conibaton of such internal arrangements to deterrence 10 the Efeditty of resstanes, & worth considering Many govermenis have had constitional er informal provons for lacresing the authority of {he armed forces in ime of emergency thos pony siting vcrntyent Story i he decton of nds and Srgnistns whose ates torrets were les dou, mention in an eal fotmce Teal ‘tomatic has sometimes been propo forthe French naar foe, inet plo an aml) mapa tion unpopular. Allo then techniques If Sppeciaed by the enem fe eterred, are elvan the pros of commitment They canals, fours, te quite dangerous. Fshers-dsunion i in Eb chptr “atta! Enferctnent of iteration! Rules" Disermament Is Poi 4nd Eeomomies, Seymour Melman, ek (Boson, Atcha Atay of ‘it Sten 192) THE ART OF COMMITMENT 1 ‘That kind of commitment is not to be had cheaply. If Con- _gress passed such a resolution for every small piece ofthe wi that if would like the Soviets to leave alone, it would cheapen the currency, A nation has limited resources, soto speak, in the things that it can get exceptionally concerned about. Political involvement within a country is not something that can be had forthe price of a casual vote or a signature on a piece of paper. Somictimes it comes about by a long process that may not ‘ven have been deliberately conceived. AS far as T can tll, we had only the slightest commitment, if any, to assist India in ease of attack by the Chinese or the Russians, if only because over the years the Indians did not let us incur @ formal commitment. One of the lessons of November 1962 may be that, in the face of anything quite as adventuresome as an effort to take over a country the size of India, we may be virtually as committed as if we had a mutual assistance treaty. We cannot afford to let the Soviets or Communist Chinese leara by experience that they can stab large chunks ofthe earth and its population without a gen- uine risk of violent Western reaction, ‘Our commitment to Quemoy, which gave us concern in 1955 and especially in 1958, had not been deliberately conceived; tnd it appeared at the time to be a genuine embarrassment. For reasons that had nothing to do with American policy, Quemoy hhad been successfully defended by the Nationalists when Chiang, Kai-shek evacuated the mainland, and it remained in National- ist hands. By the time the United States assumed the Commit ‘ment to Formosa, the island of Quemoy stood as a ragzed edge about which our intentions were ambiguous. Seeretary Dulles in 1958 expressed the oficial view that we could not afford to vacate Quemoy under duress. The implication seemed to be that we had no genuine desire to take risks for Quemoy and might have preferred it if Quemoy had fallen to the Communists in 1949; but our relations with Communist China were at stake ‘once Quemoy became an issue. So we had a commitment that we might have preferred not to have, And in ease that commit ‘ment did not appear firm enough, Chiang Kai-shek increased2 ARMS AND INFLUENCE for us by moving enough of his best troops to that island, under conditions in which evacuation under attack would have been difficult, to make clear that he had to defend it or suffer military disaster, leaving it up to the United States to bail him out Some of our strongest commitments may be quite implicit, ‘hough tual and diplomacy can enhance of erode them, Com= mitments can even exist when we deny them. There i a lot of i jecture-whether-the developing community of Western Europe ‘ight be inconsistent with the Adantic Alliance. It is sometimes argued that the Soviet Union would like Europe so self-reliant that the United States could ease its to the present NATO countries. I think there is something in this—our commitment to Europe probably diminishes some- what if the NATO treaty legally goes out of force—but not much. Most of the commitment will stil be there. We cannot, afford to lt the Soviets overrun West Germany or Greece, inre- spective of our treaty commitments to Germany or to the rst of Western Europe, 1 suspect that we might even recognize an implicit obligation to support Yugoslavia, perhaps Finland, in a military crisis, ‘Any commitment we may have had toward Hungary was appar- ently not much. But Yugoslavia and Finland have not quite the status that Hungary had. (Conceivably we might cross the border fist, under invitation, and leave it up to the Soviets to decide whether to incur the risk of engaging us.) T wonder ‘whether the Kremlin thins that, if t should get genuinely impa- tient with Tito or if there were some kind of ersis of succession ‘upon Tito’s death, the Red Army could simply invade Yugo- slavia or the Kremlin present an ultimatum tothe country without any danger of a counter-ultimatum from us or another preemp- tive landing of troops as in Lebanon. T can only wonder; these are all matters of interpretation, both as to what our commit- ‘ments really would prove to be and what the Soviets would be- lieve them to be. YE ART OF COMMITMENT st Actually, our commitment is not so much a policy as a prediction. We cannot havea clear policy for every con- Vingeney; there ate too many-contingencies and not enough hours in the day to work them all out in advanes. If one had nsked in Oeiober 1962 what American policy was for the contingensy of a Communist Chinese effort to destroy the la- dian Army, the only answer could have been a prediction of ‘what the American goverament would decide to do in a contin- gency that probably had not beea “stalled out” in advance Policy is usually nota prefabricated decison; it isthe whole set ‘of motives and constrains that make a government's actions somewhat predictable In the Indian ease, it turns out that we had a latent or im- plicit policy. For all 1 know, Mr. Nehru anticipated it for ten Years. It is conceivable—though I doubt it—that one of the rea- sons Nehra was so contemptuous of the kinds of teatics that the Thai and Pakistani signed with us was that he fele that his own involvement with the Westin a real emergency might be about as strong without the treaty a with it. Its interesting that any “commitment” we had to keep India from being conquered or destroyed by Communist China was not mainly a commi meat o the Indians or their government. We wanted to restrain Communist China generally; we wanted to give confidence to ‘other governments in Asia; and we wanted to preserve conf- ence in our deterrent role all the way around the world to Ex- rope. Military support to India would be a way of Keeping an implicit pledge But the pledge was a goneral one, not a debt ‘owed to the Indians, When a gisciplinarian—polce or other— intervenes to resist or punish someone's forbidden intrusion or assault, any benefit to the victim of the intrusion or assault may be incidental. He could even prefer not to be fought over; but if the issue is maintenance of discipline, he may not have much say inthe matter. ‘This matter of prediction may have been crucial at the start of the Korean War. There has been a lot of discussion about whether we were or were not “committed” to the defense of South Korea. From what I have seen of the way the decision toARMS AND INFLUENCE THE ART OF COMMITMENT ss intervene was taken, fist by participation of American military id not find it credible, though the Chinese Commusists may assistance forees, then by bombing, then with reinforcements, have been doing the best they could to get the message tous and: and finally with @ major war effort, one could not confidently to make it credible. When communication fails itis not easy to have guessed in May 1950 what the United States would do, decide whether the tkansmitter is too weak for the receiver or One could only try to estimate the probable decision that the the resciver too weak for the transmitter, whether the sender President would iake, depending on what it looked like in speaks the receiver's language badly or the receiver misunder- Korea, who was advising him, and what else was going on in the stands the sender's. Between the two of us, Americans and ‘world Communist China, we appear to have suffered at least one "You will recall discussion about the importance of a particu communication failure in each direction in 1950.1 lar speech by Secretary of State Acheson in suggesting to the Soviets that South Korea was outside our defense. perimet attic een aay (As far as I know, there is no decisive evidence that the Rus- ‘The main reason why we are committed in many.of these places slans, Chinese, or Koreans were particularly motivated by that ‘that our theats are interdependent, Essentially we tel the statement.) His stated position was essentially that we had a de= Soviets that we have to react here because iLate did not, they fense perimeter that excluded South Korea, that we had various would not Believe us when we say that we will react there other obligations, especially to the United Nations, that would ‘By now uF commitment to Berlin has Become so deep and cover a country like South Korea. Apparently the Soviets (or diffuse that most of us do not tem have to think about whom Chinese, of whoever made the decision) miscalculated; they ‘our commitment is to. The reason we got committed to the de-. may have thought we were damning our commitment with faint fense of Berlin, and stayed committed, i that if we let the So- praise. They got into an expensive war and a risky one and one “vets scare us out of Berlin we would fose face withthe Soviets that might have been even more dangerous than it was. They themselves. The reputation that most matters to us is our Tepu: may have miscalculated because the language of deterrence, and! tation with the Soviet (and Communist Chinese) leaders. It an understanding of the commitment process in the nuclear era, ‘would be bad enough to have Europeans, Latin Americans, oF hhad not had much time to develop yet, They may interpret bet= ‘Asians think that we are immoral of cowardly. It would be far ter now—although the missle adventure in Cuba shows that the ‘worse to lose our reputation with the Soviets. When we talk Soviets could sill misread the signals (or the Americans could sbout the loss of face that would occur if we backed out of For stl fail to transmit them clearly) a decade later. 1,1 ot easy to explain why the Chins entered Nonth Kors 0 ‘And we seem to have misread the Chinese warnings during) sccrey‘and so suddenly "Had toy wasied to sop tbe Unted Notions cour advance toward the Yalu River, Allen Whiting his docde ove aie eel ay of Pyongyang fo prot he own order nd ‘mented a serious Chinese Communist attempt to warn the) Gitar 2 conepicuous ently sutry in. Sonce might have found the Ui. As oceupy allot North Karen! Wnatever we might bays doall Th ce fed fo ach ns stack, Wit Stunning tae Tide nooo they ne mantel Oi ot undrsand. The ghost it ino eens ha hoe ‘one thing we would not have done, had we received their warn~ mistake, Ray have boca baoed on an Oveaiding interest I the tee ings corectl, was to extend our forces a valnerably a8 Wedd Iria tet of a Communit North Korea fo, accommodation ‘as probaly impossible anyhow. Or it may have Beth jst il We either did not get their message, did not comprehend it, of csesion Wi acca spre, af the cafes of all etrTence and 10, China Crosses the Yalu (New York, Macmillan, 1960). ‘iplomacy.6 ARMS AND INFLUENCE smosa under dues, of out of Retin, the Jost of fae that mat tes most the cs of Soviet belt that we wll, cewhore tnd subsequent, what we insist we wil Jo here and now. Out Aetrence ets on Soviet expectations. This, [suppose i the ultimate reson why we have to defend Calfornaaside from whether or not Easterners Want to ‘Tere is no way to let Calloaia goto the Soviets and make thom believe nevertsies that Oregon and Washington, Farida and Maine, and eventually Chevy Chase and Cambridge cannot be had uoder the sume principe, There n0 way to persuade them that i we do not op them in Califoria we wl sop them at the Misssipp (though the Missippt isa depree Tess im- plausible than any other line between that iter an, say, the Continental divi). Once they stoma ine into a ne class of fegresson nto ast of aceat or ast that we always claimed tte would protect, we may even decelve them if we do ot feat orouly. Suppose we let the Soves have California, and Wien they reach for Texas we atack them in fll fore. They Could su for breach of promise. We virally told them they ould have Texas when we let them int Cabtoria the ful ‘ours, for communicating badly, for nt recognizing what we were conceding Calforia a it of fntsy here; but it helps to remind us that the etlectvenss of dstrenceoflen depends on aching to particular areas some ofthe statu of Caloria The prince pie is at work allover the wold; and the principe not wholly Under our own control T doubt whether we can identity our Selves with Palistan in quite the way we can identify ourselves with Great Britain, no matter how many Weates we sig Jaing the next en years “Ho en” i a complex proces. I means geting the So- vies or the Communist Chinese to Meniy us with, sa, Pai tan in such a way that dey would lose respect for our com Inenselevhere i we fled to support Pakistan and we know they would lve that respect, go tht we Would have to support Patan and viey know we wool. Ina way, Is the Sovets tho confer this’ Weatcation; but they Jo Me through the THE ART OF COMMITMENT 7 medium of hei expectation aboutus and oar understanding of thir expectations Nite they nor me ean exerbe fall contol oer ter expectations. "here ea interesting geographical diferencia the Soviet and American homeo tard to imagine wat lost tha it eould spl over by hot prs by Interditon bombing, by inadvertent order vation, by lel eps Bombing, ee even by deliberate but med ground encreachment ito Aster ican etry. Our cceans may nt potest us from big wars Bot they protect us from ite one. A fosal war cold nt impinge on California, aveltng t prphraly or incidentally through ograpical continuity he way the Korean War could impinge on Manchuria and Stra or the way Sov terior could Be impinged on by war in Tran, Yogeslovi, or Cental Purope One can argue about how far back toward Moscow an “ier sicion campaign” of bombing might have to reach, ex might ssfely reach, incase of 4 lied war in Cental Eeoper td thee ih no gsographialfetue—and few economie Tettes “to presenta sudden disontinaty a te Soviet howe, A comparable question hardly ares for American paripaton the sume war there fs one dscotimuty Teeding to sobmaring ‘arf on the high sas, and another, 2 geet on, going lan tothe raion racks tat cary the ght fo the Dalene docks. The vehicles or veel that would have fo eat out the inrusion would furthermore be diferent ia character from hose involved inthe “theater wan” Pesstiliis of limited, maria, homslnd engagement that night be logiealy pertinent for California or Massachusetts are jst geographically napteabi, Ths eves the American home Tanda. more disinetve chracera_ mere, unambiguous “homeland” separateness—then te Sovit homeland can hve The nearest thing ool invelveent” one can imagine mht be Fora bases incase ofan sr war with Ct’ that would be a peste exeption othe rl, wile forthe Soviet Union most of the hypoth wars that they must have to mate plans boat rae the problem of peipiral homeland involvement of ‘ome Sor inluing intrusive connaissance and herss ARMS AND INFLUENCE space violations even if no ditt is disturbed on their territory). "The California principle actually can apply not only to tertie tories but to weapons. Que of the arguments that has been made, and taken seriou, asia having ll of our eps a $ea oF in outer space or even emplaced! abroad, {that IE enemy might be able fo attack them without fearing the kind of response that would be triggered by an attack on our hhomeland, If all missiles were on ships at sea, the argument runs, an attack on a ship would not be quite the same as an ate tack on California or Massachusetts; and an enemy might consider doing it in circumstances when he would not consider attacking weapons located on our soil. (An extreme form of the argumeat, not put forward quite so seriously, was that we ought te locate our weapons in the middle of population centers, so that the enemy could never attack them without arousing the massive response that he could take for granted if he struck our cities.) ‘There is something to the argument. If in an Asian war we: flew bombers from aircraft carriers or from bases in an allied country, and an enemy attacked our ships at sea or our overseas bases, we would almost certainly not conser it the same as if we had flown the bombers from bases in Hawaii or California and he had attacked the bases in those states. Ifthe Soviets had ppt nuclear weapons in orbit and we shot at them with rockets the results might be serious, but not the sime as if the Soviets had put missles on home territory and we shot at those missiles on their home grounds, Misiles in Cuba, though owned and: ‘manned by Russians, were less “nationalized” as a target than missiles in the USSR. itself. (One of the arguments made against the use of surface ships in a European Multilateral Force armed with long-range missiles was that they could be picked off by an enemy, possibly during a limited war in which the Multilateral Force was not engaged, possibly without the use of nuclear weapons by an enemy, in a way that would not quite provoke reprisal, and thus would be vulnerable in a way that homeland-based missiles would not be.) "The argument can go either way. This can be a reason for de= THE ART OF COMMITMENT ” liberately putting weapons outside our boundary, so that their nity involvement would not tempt an attack oa our home- land, or for Keeping them within our boundaties so that an attack on them would appear the more risky. The point here is just that there isa difference. Quemoy cannot be made part of California by moving it there, but weapons can, Actually the all-or-nothing character of the homeland is not so complete, Secretary McNamara's suggestion that even a gen: eral war might be somewhat confined to military installations and that a furious attack on enemy population centers might the proper response only to an attack on ours, implies that do distinguish or might distinguish different parts of our tory by the degree of warfare involved. And T have heard i atgued thatthe Soviets, if they fear for the deterrent security of their retaliatory forces in 2 purely “military” wae that the Amer- icans might initiate, may actually prefer a close proximity of their missiles to ther eties to make the prospect of a “clean” strategic war, one without massive attacks on cities, less prom- ising—to demonstrate that there would remain litle to lose, after an attack on their weapons, and litle motive to confine thir response to military targets. The policy would be a danger- ous one if there were mich likelihood that war would occur, but its logic has merit. Discrediting on Adversary's Commitments The Soviets have the same deterrence problem beyond their borders that we have, In some ways the West has helped them to solve it, All kinds of people responsible and irresponsible, intelligent and unenlightened, European and American, have raised questions about whether the United States really would. use its fll military fore to protect Western Europe oto retali= ate forthe loss of Western Europe. Much more rately did T hear anyone question—at least before about 1963—whether the Soviets would do likewise if we were provoked to an attack against the homeland of Communist China. ‘The Soviets seem to have accomplished—and we helped“o ARMS AND INFLUENCE ‘thom—what we find dificult, namely, to persuade the world thatthe entre area of their alliance is part of an integral bloc. Tin the West we talked for a decade—until the Sino-Soviet schism became undeniable—about the Sino-Soviet bloc as though every satellite were part of the Soviet system, and as though Soviet determination to Keep those areas under their control was s0 intense that they could not afford to lose any of it We often acted as though every part of thei sphere of influence was a “California.” In the West we seemed to concede to the Soviets, with respect to China, what not everybody eon ‘edes us with respect to Europe. ‘IE we always treat China as though it is a Soviet California, we tend to make itso. If we imply to the Soviets that we con: sider Communist China or Cechoslovakia the virtual equiva: lent of Siberia, then in the event of any military action in or against those areas we have informed the Soviets that we are going to interpret their response as though we had landed troops in Viadivostok or Archangel or launched them aeross the Soviet Polish border. We thus oblige them to react in China, or in [North Vietnam or wherever it may be, and in eect give them ‘precisely the commitment that is worth so much to them in de- _terring the West. If we make it clear that we believe they ate ‘obliged to feact to an intrusion in Hungary as though we were inthe streets of Moscow, then they are obliged. ‘Cuba will continue to be an interesting borderline case. The Soviets will ind it dificult politically and psychologically to get universal acquiescence that a country can be genuinely within the Soviet bloc if it is not contiguous to them. The Soviet prob- Jem was to try to get Cuba into the status of a Soviet “Califor- nia” It is interesting to speculate on whether we could add states to the Uniop, lke the Philippines, Greece, or Formosa, and let that settle the question of where they belong and how obliged we are to defend them. Hawai, yes, and by aow Puerto Rico; but if we reached out beyond the areas that “belong” in the United States we could probably just not manage to confer a ‘genuinely plausible “statehood” that would be universally ree ‘ognized and taken for granted, THE ART OF COMMITMENT a And Cuba doesnot quits “belong” inthe Soviet loe—it i topologically separate and dos not ejy the tetoil interiy withthe Soviet ble tht rations tadienaly enjoy. India cel {ake Goa for wt are ball esthetic enon comentional Belt that maps ought o have eran geomet quai, tat an enclave 8 geographically abaormal, that an bland (the Ocean can bong ayone but an sland sorounded bythe te Try aa age nation somehow ought fo belong tof (Ageia ‘ou forthe same reson, ave ben harder odsengage fom mmewopatan France had ot bon geographically separated by the Medieranean, Keping the cust ir i “Trane” ‘hile dividing ff the Rintrland would smi ave, gone somewhat agit cartographic psychoog).) Thee ar many oir tings of curse tht make Cuba dicen rom Hungary, inl theft that he United States can surround thera itor blockade witout encroaching on Soviet terry But ion without that would be an up stg forthe Soviets to achieve a credible tgsincrness wih the temic land of Cuba, ‘Alona “Cobas” would cost the Soviets something, That doesnot mean we shosl is them; sil we shold recognize what happens to hi deterence problem. It becomes more Ike curs. They wid to have an almost ner boc a peogrpbial tit with single Ton Cortsin separating tet se Tom the Fst of the well. One oul slot drawn closed eurved ie tna lobe with eying side Sov be and eveything cats it ot. Yogonavia was the only ambit. tin tr tmae litte Albania an anomaly~-oaly sll on, Dut fs Foltcal detachment in the culy 19608 confirms the, pine aba has been the sane problem mognied. “Blanes no longer mesos what ki Tn a geographical ight oe, sate. ites ean have degree of aflaton wih the USSR. without recesariyspling the efnton ofthe “blo” Distant sacle ites, thoogy not only can be mor independent because. of Sovit dita in impoing i vl by violence bu hy furter Sistrd the geographieal estes of the. Bow, “Blouss ceates tobe alor-none it bsomes a mate of gee.a ARMS AND INFLUENCE “This process can then infest the testis comtiguus with tie USSR And if the Soviet Union tempers is dterent threats, Reding on the Ustent counties or on counts not fut integrate, invites examination ofthe creat of ts threats everywhere. Cersn things Hike honor and outrge a hot meant fo be mates of degree. One cans that his home Tand pinot only if he Know exaclly what be means by “Smeland” and it nol chitered wp with fllfedged sate, protestrses, trons, and gradations of citaenhip. that Fake some piast moe homcland” than others. ike went, the bomeland wants a abolte defiion. This character the Sovt bloc has been fosing and may Toss even more fi tures graduated srctre ike the old Britsh Empire Wereedied the Save wih eine eens onda ding so geminel gave them some, We cams at st et Sino Sov splits real one; butt would ave besa wer not tovhave acknowlsiged ther fiion inthe Ast ples In oor ios to dramatize and magiy the Soviet then, we some= fines preset the Soviet Union witha deren est of «Mind {hat we find hard o erate for oursees. We shuld relive the Save ae mich ewe can of any obligation to respond Yo an ‘Amerion engogment wih Chinn ay fo an engagement with Soviet Rosin tel If we rele the Soviets of the oat, wre somewhat undo ther commizmest. We should be ting to Inake North Vistnn stm mich more rms from te Soviet Boe than Puerto Rico is from the United Sates, t ke China cut ofthe category of Alaska, and no o concede to Hoe cour isa sense of nim Evets may oblige ur—some ofthese very countries may oblige ub—to fate some Kind of itary enggement inthe fate; and we would be wise to decouple thowe aes, ss mich st we ean, from Soviet mila foros in ren evident cag wp wih hie RO We mere fe met bn andi sce-no sdence tht was intended inthe Wee or at mod ‘Sted he al segotnioms—vas fo eae te Sino Svit Spat, Seca pole an bring is mltary implications into the open, What, Splomate coup it would have been, had it been contrived that wayt THE ART OF COMMITMENT “ Escaping Commitments Sometimes-e-country wants to get out of a commitment —to de- ‘couple itself Ik s not easy. We may have regretted our eommit- ‘ment to Quemoy in 1958, but there was mo graceful way to ‘undo it at that time. The Berlin wall was a genuine embarrass. ment. We apparently had not enough of a commitment to feel obliged to use violence against the Berlin wall, We had undeni- ably some commitment; there was some expectation that We might take action and some belief that we ought to. We did not, and it cost us something. If nobody had ever expected us to do ‘anything about the wall—if we had never appeared to have any ‘obligation to prevent things like the wall, and if we had never ‘made any claims about East Berlin that seemed inconsistent with the wall—the wall would have embarrassed us less, Some people on our side were disappointed when we let the wall go ‘up. The United States government would undoubtedly have pre= ferred not to incur that disappointment. Diplomatic statements about the character of our rights and obligations in East Berlin wore an effort to dismantle any commitment we might previ- ously have had. The statements were not fully persuasive, Had the United States government known all along that something ike the wall might go up, and had it planned all along not to ‘oppose it, diplomatic preparation might have made the wall less of an embarrassment. In this ease there appeared to be some residual commitment that we had not honored, and we had to ‘argue retroactively that our essential rights had not been vio- lated and that nothing rightfully ours had been taken from us. ‘The Soviets had a similar problem over Cubs, Less than six weeks before the President's missile crisis address of October 22, 1962, the Soviet government had issued a formal statement bout Cuba, “We have said and do repeat that if war is un- leashed, if the aggressor makes an attack on one state or an- other and this state asks for assistance, the Soviet Union has the possibility from its own territory to render assistance to any Peace-loving state and not only to Cuba, And let no one doubt that the Soviet Union will render such assistance,” And further,