University of Virginia Library

Prof. Robert S. Wood

Ceasefire, NEP Assist Multipolar Accord

News Analysis

The following is the last in a
four-part series of articles
examining the end of the war
in Southeast Asia.

Mr. Wood is Assoc.
Professor of Government and
Foreign Affairs.

–Ed.

As might have been
expected, editorialists,
politicians, and academics alike
are portraying the
disengagement of American
military forces from Vietnam
as an important watershed in
international relations. Taken
together with the enunciation
Aug. 15, 1971 of the "new
economic policy" by President
Nixon and his subsequent visits
to the Peoples' Republic of
China and the Soviet Union,
events in Southeast Asia are
portrayed as symbolizing
significant changes both in the
structure and processes of the
international system and in the
policy of the United States.

Shift To Multipolar Politics

Commentators both in and
out of the government speak of
the belated end of the
post-World War II period to be
replaced by an era which,
though still heavily influenced
by political and strategic
bipolarity, will exhibit
complex and ambiguous
interstate relations more akin
in spirit to multi-polar politics.
It can be argued that many of
the fundamental attitudes
sustaining America's
international role since World
War II have been challenged in
the 1960's to the point that
important modifications can be
expected in those attitudes and
the roles which flow from
them.

Puritanical Approach

Historically the United
States' relationship to world
politics has been characterized
by puritanical notions of moral
separation and, in the 19th
century, by the fortunate
convergence of geographical
distance and British interests
which allowed a policy of
moral preachment and
political non-entanglement.

At the same time,
widely-shared beliefs in the
basically consensual character
of group relationships and a
tendency to define political
problems in terms of
technocratic and economic
criteria, gave an ahistorical bias
to American perspectives on
international relations and
consequently an impatience
with the political complexities
and compromises of various
regions of world politics.

In a sense neither World War
I nor World War II provoked
substantial alterations in this
vision. Both conflicts and,
indeed, even the trial of the
cold war, tended to sustain
such perspectives. Nonetheless,
the inexorable involvement of
the United States in the
vicissitudes of 20th century
international politics began to
erode many historically-held
assumptions. The ordeal of
protracted conflict and the
growing complexity and moral
ambiguity of political
engagement cast in doubt old
assumptions. Ultimately,
however, these challenges arose
less from developments in
Europe than in the "third
world," most especially
Southeast Asia.

Polarization Marks Diplomacy

Much of the active
American involvement in
power politics has occurred in
periods of polarization in
which conflict tends to be total
in ends or means or both. In
such periods, subtle and even
not so subtle differences
among the diverse state actors
are submerged by the
overriding distinction between
friend and foe. Disagreement is
fundamental and the struggle
takes on the character of a
crusade, whether protracted
or concentrated in time.

A battle to "make the world
safe for democracy" or to
extirpate Nazi tyranny or to
contain communism until it
crumbles from within – all
such engagements see politics
in terms of polar opposites,
whether it be friend and foe or
peace and war. Conflict is
viewed as arising from the
perverse outlaw or
international gangster whose
isolation and removal will
allow the underlying consensus
among peoples to emerge.
Peace in such a view is normal
whilst war is willed.

Inequality In Relations

If American experience in
world politics has been one of
polarity, it has also been one of
inequality. It is a fact that the
only dialogue with equals that
the United States has had since
World War II has been with its
adversary in a bipolar struggle.
The polarized character of
international politics which
dominated most of the period
of American political
involvement and, after World
War II, its clear leadership
position among its allies, have
meant that the complex give
and take among relative equals
in more moderate periods of
international relations is largely
foreign to its experience.

In a very real sense, the
Soviet threat and the
challenges of European
reconstruction largely
sustained the American sense
of destiny, its propensity to
conceive conflict as polar, and
its tendency to apply economic
and engineering techniques to
political problems.

U.S. Has Exercised Leadership

The devastation and
dramatic political collapse of
Europe, as well as the seeming
clarity of the Soviet threat,
meant that to an extraordinary
degree the United States could
indeed ignore problems of
historical and political diversity
after World War II and treat
Western Europe as a whole and
the external threat as a unity.
In effect, the problems of
reconstruction and
containment could be defined
largely in technical terms.
Reconstruction of shattered
but still viable economic and
political systems, as well as
defense against an explicit,
unambiguous external threat,
provided perfect challenges to
American will and American
wealth.

(To be continued Monday)