COOPERATiON AND CONFRONTATiON

There are now two great nations in the world which, starting from different points, seem to be advancing toward the same goal: I allude to the Russians and the Americans. . . Each seems called by some secret design of Providence one day to hold in its hands the destinies of half the world.

Alexis de Tocqueville, 1835¹

The crucial challenge for security in the world today revolves around relations between the United States and the Soviet Union. It is true, of course, that in recent years we have witnessed a trend toward global interdependence and the development of multipolar power relationships. Since World War II, in particular, there have been major changes in alliance systems, financial relationships, and the relative strengths of the major powers. We have seen the reemergence of a strengthened Europe, the economic and industrial miracle of Japan, sweeping changes in a post-Mao leadership that appears to be establishing a radically new Chinese foreign policy, and new complexities associated with the Third World caused largely by the growing dependence on natural resources by the industrialized nations of the West.

But while all of these changes introduce complications in the international system, the very survival of that system, indeed the physical security of the world, continues to depend most importantly on relations between the United States and the Soviet Union. This was true at the end of World War II, when the Soviet Union was largely a continental power, and is even more apparent now that she has matured into a major superpower of global military dimensions.

Relations between the United States and the Soviet Union are usually examined in light of our post-World War II experiences, often beginning with Stalin’s expansionist policies and the development of the Soviet bloc of satellites in Eastern Europe. But as Tocqueville’s analysis shows, it was already clear to the careful observer of a century and a half past that Russia and the United States were destined to play the most influential roles in the world.

In this light, historian John Gaddis traces the roots of contemporary Soviet-American relations back some two hundred years to the American Revolution.* For nearly a century, although there were some antagonisms, relations between the two states were relatively cordial. Those disputes that did arise (mainly territorial and commercial) did not occur because of the wide gap in ideological principles that separated them. It is interesting to recall that it was the Russian autocracy that played the role of established governmental conservatism during those years, while the young American republic was in many ways the most revolutionary (and expansionist) government of its day. Both nations seemed determined to keep diplomacy insulated from ideology and even territorial disputes were reconciled largely as a result of the sale of Russian-American (Alaska) to the United States.

The purchase of Alaska by the United States marked a high point in Russian-American cordiality, however, and a gradual deterioration in relations set in, stemming largely from a conflict of interests in the Far East. After the turn of the century, World War I soon garnered the attention of the world, and it was not until the Russians’ own revolution in 1917 that U.S. attention again turned to the eastern giant. Unfortunately, that attention revolved around the folly of misguided intervention in the Russian Civil War, a chapter in U.S.-Soviet relations that Russians are not likely long to forget. American involvement can be summed up as a classic case of attempting to project commitment beyond capability resulting in bitterness, frustration, and recrimination.

What followed were the years of nonrecognition, 1920 to 1933, during which commercial relations and trade flourished. American reluctance to extend official recognition rested largely on ideological grounds with Soviet world revolutionary activity the chief justification. Relations based on the abstract principles of ideology gave way to common interests during the 1930s when the growing power of Germany and Japan served as the impetus for the establishment of formal diplomatic relations in 1933. But as Gaddis quotes from American Ambassador William C. Bullitt, writing in 1935: "It is perfectly clear that to speak of ‘normal relations’ between the Soviet Union and any other country is to speak of something which does not and cannot exist."²Thus, it came as no surprise when the Nazi-Soviet Pact of August 1939 was announced.

Russia’s World War II activities, including her attack on Finland, despite the illusions of the Grand Alliance following Hitler’s attack on the Soviet Union, were clear indications of the impasse in Soviet-American relations that would soon mature under the descriptive title of the Cold War.

A Soviet point of view of early U.S-U.S.S.R relations, as set forth by Professors Sivachev and Yakovlev in a volume prepared for a University of Chicago Press series entitled "The United States and the World: Foreign Perspectives," differs surprisingly little from that presented by John Gaddis.* The Sivachev-Yakovlev volume thus serves as an excellent companion to the Gaddis book in that the two are nearly parallel in size, scope, and documentation. By the time of the World War II Grand Alliance, some differences in Soviet and American viewpoints become more apparent. While both books clearly illustrate that the Soviet Union bore the brunt of the war (the Red Army confronted more than 200 enemy divisions throughout most of the war, whereas, until the Normandy invasion of 1944, the British and Americans rarely faced more than 10 German divisions at one time), the Soviet version understandably devotes twice as much space to the war years as does the Gaddis book.

Perhaps most interesting and certainly instructive is the Soviet Union's sense of impatience that characterized her feeling toward the Western Allies. Coupled with a traditionally defensive complex or "siege mentality," it is little wonder that the delay in opening the second front at Normandy in 1944 helped convince the Russians that the West considered the Soviet Union mere grist for the Nazi mill. Herein, both books make clear, lay the motivation behind Stalin’s expansionism into Eastern Europe and the creation of the Soviet’s own version of a cordon sanitaire.

The development of Stalin’s European empire is treated in much better detail by Professor Vojtech Mastny, himself a native of Eastern Europe.* Mastny not only explains the roles played by Stalin and the Western leaders but, more important, gives a graphic account of political developments within the Eastern European countries themselves. It is customary to credit Stalin with an inexorable expansion of Soviet dominance toward the West. But while unmistakenly more aggressive since the Yalta conference early in 1945, the pattern of Soviet policy was still erratic and inconsistent rather than premeditated and methodical. Contrary to popular opinion, Yalta decided no partition of the world. In all probability, Mastny contends "the map of Europe would look very much the same if there had never been the Yalta conference at all." (p. 253) Often overlooked in Western analyses of World War II political developments and the Cold War it ushered in is the crucial role of domestic politics within the individual countries and nations of Eastern and Central Europe. The Polish uprising, the Czechoslovak model, Romania’s coup d’état, the division of Germany, and a nonaligned but Communist Yugoslavia and Albania are all persuasive arguments in favor of Primat der Innenpolitik, the determination of foreign policy by domestic issues.

Perceptions by the United States of Soviet-American relations are often clouded by moral judgments of, and emotional reactions to, the alien political and social system of communism, especially in view of developments since World War II. Hugh Seton-Watson, distinguished professor of Russian history at the University of London, provides a well-balanced account of the trends in world communism during the decades of the 1960s and 1970s.* There have indeed been substantial gains in the growth and spread of communism throughout the world. The resurgence of Communist parties in the politics of Western Europe, so-called Eurocommunism, is but one of the more contemporary developments that cause concern in the West. Communist influence in the Third World is another. Professor Seton-Watson puts these phenomena in excellent perspective as he highlights the successes and failures of communism in virtually every country where it has played a significant role.

With regard to Soviet-American relations, however, one must be careful not to confuse moral disdain for the political and social precepts of communism as an ideology with the more traditional conflict of interests between major powers. American obsession with Communist "ultimate objectives" beclouds issues and endows communism with an omniscience it does not deserve. The U.S. postwar policy of containment, for example, while originally conceived as a selective measure designed to counteract Soviet expansionism, was strategically sound during the late 1940s and early 1950s. But when foolishly adulterated into a grandiose scheme of anticommunism, it lost its usefulness as a practical doctrine of foreign policy. With the benefit of sharp, if not perfect, hindsight, it should be apparent that the foreign policy of the U.S.S.R—and especially Soviet expansionism under Stalin and his heirs—has been motivated first and foremost by considerations of security and defense of the Soviet Union to which the interests of international communism were sacrificed time and again. It should follow that what is at stake, pronouncements of détente notwithstanding, is not a permanent settlement of all differences in Soviet-American relations but rather the elimination or at least the neutralization of specific and immediate issues to minimize the risks of war.

Soviet-American relations are likely to remain in the limelight of U.S. foreign policy for the foreseeable future. Those relations will continue to be characterized by elements of both cooperation and competition in an increasingly complex international environment. An ideological war against communism is too simplistic a rationale for American foreign policy. In the words of George Kennan, "Americans are going to have to learn to curb their traditional impatience and settle down for the long haul of competitive coexistence with the Soviet Union in a turbulent world."³

1. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, J. P. Mayer and Max Lerner, editors, translated by George Lawrence (New York, 1966), pp. 378-79.

2. Testimony by Charles E. Bohlen before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Hearing on the Nomination of Charles E. Bohlen, U.S. Senate, 83d Congress, 1st Session, 1953, p. 34.

3. George F. Kennan, "The United States and the Soviet Union, 1917-1976," Foreign Affairs, July 1976, pp. 670-90.

Lieutenant Colonel Dallace L. Meehan (M.A., Naval Postgraduate School) is Chief, Regional Studies Branch, Air Command Staff and College, Maxwell AFB, Alabama. He has served as commander of an airborne missile squadron and assignments in Japan, South America, Vietnam, and Germany. He has published articles in Military Review and the Review. Colonel Meehan is a graduate of the Defense Language Institute (Russian), Air Command and Staff College, Industrial College of the Armed Forces, and Air War College.

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.

Cooperation and Confrontation

an interpretation of Soviet-American relations