America's greatest failing, in the run-up to the Cold War period, is that the US seemed in fact to have no foreign policy at all. In his Boston speech delivered to the Massachusetts Legislature on July 25, 1951, General Douglas MacArthur asked, "Is there wonder that men who seek an objective understanding of American policy thinking become completely frustrated and bewildered? Is there wonder that Soviet propaganda so completely dominates American foreign policy? And, indeed, what is our foreign policy? ...
He added, "Expediences as variable and shifting as the exigencies of the moment seem to be the only guide. Yesterday we disarmed, today we arm - and what of tomorrow? We have been told of the war in Korea, that it is the wrong war, at the wrong time and in the wrong place. Does this mean that they intend and indeed plan what they would call a right war, at a right time and in a right place? ... Do we intend to resist by force Red aggression in South-east Asia if it develops? These are the questions that disturb us, because there is no answer forthcoming."
The outcome of the Korean War could have been a complete triumph for the UN forces if it weren't for a lack of sound US military policy at that critical juncture. On October 17. 1951, in an address before the annual convention of the American Legion in Florida, MacArthur said,
"There is no slightest doubt in my mind that the Soviet has been engaging in the greatest bulldozing diplomacy history has ever recorded. Without committing a single soldier to battle, he has assumed direct or indirect control over a large part of the population of the world. His intrigue has found its success not so much in his own military strength, nor indeed in any overt threat of intent to commit it to battle, but in the moral weakness of the free world.
It is a weakness which has caused many free nations to succumb to and embrace the false tenets of Communist propaganda. It is a weakness which has caused our own policymakers, after committing American troops to battle, to leave them to the continuous slaughter of an indecisive campaign by imposing arbitrary restraints upon the support we might otherwise provide them through maximum employment of our scientific superiority, which alone offers hope of early victory. It is a weakness which now causes those in authority to strongly hint at a settlement of the Korean conflict under conditions short of the objectives our soldiers were led to believe were theirs to attain and for which so many yielded their lives."
History has shown that during the early stage of the Korean conflict in 1950, the UN forces, under the command of MacArthur, had achieved tremendous military success despite the seemingly impossible odds (see Inchon landing) and more importantly, created a crucial opportunity for the reunification of the two Koreas. That opportunity, sadly, was squandered. The prolonged war cost both parties dearly in material and lives and did not cease till July 1953 (although the two are technically still at war, with the conflict far from being resolved).
In the same speech in Florida, MarArthur spelt out this major blunder and prophetically foreseen a long drawn out bigger war between the West and Communism, epitomised in the longest cold war in history (1947-1991) between the US and Soviet Union.
"Military victory had been achieved for our cause, and men turned their thoughts from the task of mass killing to the higher duty of international restoration, from destroying to rebuilding, from destruction to construction (note: he's referring to post war Japan where he assumed the role of Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers between 1945-1951). Everywhere in the free world they lifted up their heads and hearts in thanksgiving for the advent of peace in which ethics and morality based upon truth and justice might thereafter fashion the universal code. Then more than ever in history of the modern world a materially strong and spiritually vibrant leadership was needed to consolidate the victory into a truly enduring peace for all of the human race. America, at the very apex of her military power, was the logical nation to which the world turned for leadership. It was a crucial moment - one of the greatest opportunities ever known.
But our political and military leaders failed to comprehend it. Sensitive only to the expediences of the hour, they dissipated with reckless haste that predominant military power which was the key to the situation (note: I can think of no place where this is truer than in Korea). Our forces were rapidly and completely demobilized... The world was thus left exposed and vulnerable to an international Communism whose long publicized plan had been to await just such a favourable opportunity to establish dominion over the free nations.
The stage had, perhaps unwittingly, been set in secret and most unfortunate war conferences. The events which followed will cast their shadow upon history for all time. Peoples with long traditions of human freedom progressively fell victims to a type of international brigandage and blackmail, and the so-called Iron Curtain descended rapidly upon large parts of Europe and Asia (note: just 4 years after his speech, the Vietnam war broke out). As events have unfolded, the truth has become clear. Our great military victory has been offset, largely because of military unpreparedness, by the political successes of the Kremlin."
Further, MacArthur's view on American's foreign policy regarding the Asia Pacific (especially Far East) is outlined in a speech in Seattle on November 13, 1951, he said, "To the early pioneer the Pacific Coast marked the end of his courageous westerly advance. To us it should mark but the beginning. To him it delineated our western frontier. To us that frontier has been moved across the Pacific horizon. ...
Our economic frontier now embraces the trade potentialities of Asia itself; for with the gradual rotation of the epicenter of world trade back to the Far East whence it started many centuries ago, the next thousand years will find the main problem the raising of the sub-normal standards of life of its more than a billion people...
Such possibility seem, however, beyond the comprehension of some high in our government circles, who still feel that the Pacific Coast marks the pratical terminus of our advance and westerly boundary of our immedite national interests - that any opportunity for the expansion of our foreign trade must be found mainly in the area of Europe and the Middle East...
There should be no rivalry between our East and our West - no pitting of Atlantic interests against those of the Pacific. The problem is global, not sectional. The living standards of the people of the Oriental East must and will be raised by a closer relativity with that of the Occidental West."
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Saturday, 13 November 2010
The great missed opportunity
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