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Non‐alignment and the power ‐ balanceCoral Bell aa Lecturer in Government , University of SydneyPublished online: 20 Mar 2008.

To cite this article: Coral Bell (1963) Non‐alignment and the power ‐ balance, Australian Outlook, 17:2, 117-129

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ARTICLES

NON-ALIGNMENT AND THEPOWER - BALANCE

CORAL BELL*

'WHY SHOULD WE INHERIT the hatreds of others? It is bad enough thatwe have our own burdens.' These words of Mr Nehru's1 convey theoriginal emotional essence of the policy that its exponents haveinsisted should be called non-alignment rather than neutrality:absorption in the domestic tasks that faced the underdevelopedcountries, impatience and resentment at what were seen as efforts toforce them into service pulling other people's chestnuts out of the fire,and a tendency to put the two cold-war camps on the same rathersqualid moral level ('the hatreds of others'). The insistence that theconcept was not to be confused with neutrality of the familiar sort,and "the efforts to find a sufficiently distinctive name for it ('non-alignment' or 'non-commitment' or, as Marshal Tito used to say,'positive co-existence') were in themselves indicators of one mainelement in it, a repudiation of the traditional machinery of power-politics, in which the neutral states were of course useful and evenessential cogs.

Yet despite this repudiation of power, whose antecedents lie asmuch with the radical-dissentient tradition in English politicalthought2 as with the Gandhist doctrine of non-violence, it may beargued that the viability of non-alignment as a policy has been andis related to particular phases of the power-balance. The presentmoment is one not only of profound change in that balance, but ofreappraisal for the concept of non-alignment. It therefore seems anappropriate time for a re-examination of the relation between them,which is of course a two-way affair. That is, one may ask not onlyhow the position of the non-aligned powers has affected the centralbalance, but also how the changing central balance affects theviability of non-alignment.

Since a definition of non-alignment would certainly vary somewhataccording to whether the definer was looking to Delhi or Belgrade,Cairo or Djakarta, Baghdad or Rangoon, Accra or Pnom-Penh, thereseems no point in attempting to force upon it any greater precision

*Lecturer in Government, University of Sydney.1. Interview in The Hindu, 1 April 1954.2. Both Nehru and Menon had of course long-standing connections with this

intellectual tradition.

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than it has borne with those who use it. As with many political wordsand phrases, its very imprecision—the fact that it is susceptible ofa number of interpretations—is part of its usefulness; But one canat least go so far towards a definition as to say that the drivingimpulse of non-alignment as a principle of foreign policy has been aneffort to 'opt out' of direct involvement in the central power-struggleof our time, a refusal to 'stand up and be counted' for either camp.If this sounds not so unlike neutrality after all, one might ratherflippantly define the difference by saying that for Mr Nehru at least(and he has given the term its distinctive moral colouration) hisrelationship to the great antagonists of the power-struggle has beenseen not as that of a spectator, but that of a referee, who at needwould double the roles of ambulance-man, pourer of oil on troubledwaters, and Greek chorus prophesying woe for the central charactersand everyone else unless they (the central characters) mend theirways.

Yet the children of that complex mind show always in their linea-ments not only the Kashmiri Brahmin and the devoted New Statesmanreader, but the intellectual tradition of Harrow and Cambridge.Thus the visible influence of balance-of-power theory, despite therepudiation of power, is not surprising. In an interview just beforethe Colombo Powers meeting in April 1954 Mr Nehru said 'Whenthere is substantial difference in the strength of the two opposingforces, we in Asia, with our limitations, will not be able to influencethe issue. But when the two opposing forces are fairly evenlymatched, then it is possible to make our weight felt in the balance'.3

He went on to say that it was essential for some nations to assumethis role in the interests of world peace, since there were in the worldtwo crusades—the Communist and the anti-Communist—either ofwhich could involve the world in war, and that if the world becameentirely divided between these blocs, war could be 'very close*. Onemight say that there was implicit in his policy a belief (though hewould not have expressed it in terms so much associated with whatWoodrow Wilson called 'the great game now for ever discredited, ofthe balance of power') that the substitution of a multilateral for thebilateral or near-bilateral balance of the immediate post-war periodwould make for a securer peace. Certainly the existence of, and theneed to woo the unaligned powers was conceived of as exercising aform of restraint on the cold-war combatants, a restraint not totallyunlike that exercised by the small powers or the balancer in the tradi-tional balance-of-power situation, even though the influence exerted

3. Hindu, 1 April 1954.

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on the main contestants proceeded from quite different sources. Thesmall powers in a traditional balance system owed their influencelargely to the fact that even marginal increments of military strengthcould be important in that context. The military strength of the un-committed states is too slight, measured against either that of theCommunist bloc or that of the NATO powers, for this to hold true ofthem. But the present conflict is between two theories of society,as well as two power-complexes. Both sides want to be assured theyare right, as well as to know they are strong. At least for the West,which has suffered hard blows to its self-confidence in its dealingswith Asia, the image of its own society that it sees mirrored in theeyes of the uncommitted Asians has been of importance. That is tosay the ideological issue has complicated the power struggle, theuncommitted powers have been potential converts or defectors as wellas potential allies, and this has meant that their susceptibilities mustbe much more carefully weighed than would be the case if nothingmore-were in question than the military strength they can contributeto either camp.

This element in the influence of the non-aligned powers, which Ishall call the 'floating vote' factor, has been enlarged upon a good dealby spokesmen of the countries concerned. Its significance, thoughreal, has perhaps been exaggerated—or at least one might say thatit is likely to affect the great powers only during what may be calledthe spells of relatively static trench-warfare in the Cold War. It isnot necessarily effective at moments of crisis.

Much less adequately understood, and much less flattering for thenon-aligned powers to contemplate, is an element in their positionwhich I shall call the 'ally-cost' factor, as seen by the great powers.Up to now this has been visible chiefly in American policy, especiallyin South Asia. It derives from the fact that the policy makers inWashington have had, in the endemic conflicts in that part of theworld since 1949, to balance the prospective dangers and dis-advantages of the loss of any particular area to the Communistpower-sphere against the potential cost, in servicemen's lives or lessvalued resources, of preventing this loss.

Naturally those who had to find the actual military resources tomeet new and old commitments were most conscious of this costfactor. The best exposition of the way it affected American policy isto be found in the memoirs of General Matthew Ridgway, in theaccount he gives of his own attitude and arguments as U.S. ArmyChief of Staff in the 1954 crisis over Indo-China, in which this was

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a major point in debate in Washington.4 (General Ridgway was ina much stronger arguing position vis-a-vis Dulles than Eden was,though of course British pressure reinforced the Army arguments.)Interestingly enough, it echoes the theory of Communist strategy inAsia put forward by the late M. N. Roy, the Indian historian whowas head of the Eastern Secretariat of the Comintern in the twentiesbut later broke with the Party. Quoting Lenin as remarking that theroad to Paris lay through Peking, and that London and New Yorkwould fall on the Yangtse, Roy wrote, chillingly, 'Russia will nottake part directly in the Thirty Years War in Asia. It will be a warbetween the East and the West'-5

There were times in the period 1950-54 when this prediction seemeda plausible one enough. At the height of the Korean war it wascalculated that there were over a million men engaged in fighting thebattles of the West along the fringes of East Asia—Korea, Indo-China, Malaya—against what was essentially a force drawn from theCommunist second-eleven, so to speak, and such success as the Westdid finally claim was hard-bought, and in two of these three casesinconclusive. It is one of the paradoxes of the contemporary military/political situation that though the weapons of mass-destruction growmore and more ferociously efficient, the revolutionary guerilla armedwith nothing more advanced than an old rifle and a 19th centurypolitical doctrine has proved the most effective means yet devised foraltering the world power-balance. One has only to reflect on thehistory of Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam, before 1954, or Castro's originallanding in Cuba, to be disabused of any optimism about the conclusive-ness of technological superiority in contemporary conflict of this sort.

However, the decisions of 1953/4 in America marked a turning-away for the succeeding six years from any line of American policythat might have produced the kind of danger apprehended by Roy,the danger of the '30 years war in Asia', with Russia sitting on the

4. 'To military men familiar with the map of Indo-China, the outcome of thatsiege [Dien Bien Phu] was a foregone conclusion . . . I also knew that noneof those advocating such a step [intervention] had any accurate idea ofwhat such an operation would cost in blood and money and national effort. . . To provide these facts I sent out to Indo-China an Army team of expertsin every field . . . The idea of intervention was abandoned, and it is mybelief that the analysis which the Army made and presented to higherauthority played a considerable, perhaps a decisive, part in persuading ourgovernment not to embark on that tragic adventure.' Soldier: The Memoirsof Matthew B. Ridgway (New York, Harper, 1956) pp. 275-8.

5. 'The Communist Problem in East Asia—An Asian View' in Pacific Affairs,Sept. 1951.

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sidelines, and the West exhausting its morale and resources in astruggle in which the big battalions of Asian nationalism and Asiananti-Westernism would provide unending recruits for the other side.This is not to say that the line of analysis suggested by Roy influencedthe Washington decisions: they were produced by quite other factorsof which the author has given an account elsewhere.6

Since the accession to office of President Kennedy, and the renewedemphasis on conventional or even guerilla forces as an alternative tonuclear weapons, the possibility of this dilemma—the necessity ofchoosing between the potential loss of a particular area to the sphereof Soviet power, or the dangers of a campaign on disadvantageousground that would waste the scarcest of Western resources, conven-tional military manpower—has arisen again. The most obviousinstance was the situation in Laos, but it was also implicit in the-situation in the Congo. In both these instances American policyillustrates that the non-alignment of a small power may be the'preferred, choice' for it of a great power where the estimated cost ofsecuring the small power concerned as an ally is greater than theprospective advantage of having it so. In the case of Laos this choicewas made after some bitter experience, in the period 1958-61, of thedifficulties of the alternative policy. In the case of the Congo, thedecision to eschew a Cold-War contest for allies (so long as Russiacould be made to do likewise) seems to have been reached at thebeginning of the crisis and maintained steadily throughout it.

Until very recently the 'cost' factor inhibiting Western policy inthe power-competition in the 'gray areas' had little parallel in Sovietpolicy. Admittedly costs have to be balanced against advantages asmuch in Moscow as in Washington, and the economic surplus out ofwhich this competition and other expensive enterprises—the space-race and the military establishment—are financed is much smallerthere. But the supply of military goods as they become quasi-obso-lescent in Russia's own forces has represented an almost costlessbargain in diplomatic influence, and it has never proved necessary touse actual Russian military man-power. Thus Russia was at a veryconsiderable advantage over the West in these areas in that she had aweapon—revisionism through the revolutionary ferment—whichcould alter the power-map of the world to Russian advantage atvery slight cost (to the Russians) and which was difficult to resistexcept at exorbitant cost (to the West). The non-aligned world was an

6. See Negotiation from Strength: A Study in the Polities of Power by CoralBell (New York, Knopf, 1963), Chapter 5.

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arena in which Russia stood to gain a good deal (in power terms) andlose very little.

All this, however, depended on the fact that the world balance ofpower was essentially bipolar. A major change has come into effectwith the breakdown of this bipolarity through the schism betweenRussia and China. (It might be maintained that the bipolar nature ofthe balance is also being modified at the Western end of the scale,since it appears the ambition of President de Gaulle that the 'new-Europe' should play for its own diplomatic hand. This may well be-true, but the process is not yet sufficiently advanced for it to have anassessable impact on the field under consideration. Temporarily onemay treat the balance as far as this field is concerned as triangular,even though bearing in mind that it may assume a more irregularshape.) To be of importance to the situation of the non-aligned powers,it is by no means necessary that the Russo-Chinese split shouldbecome any wider than it is at present: it is only necessary that, as.at present, Peking should,be clearly seen to be sponsoring an alterna-tive diplomatic strategy to that of Moscow in the contest with the non-Communist world (which has been the case since 1957) and that the-rivalry should look formidable from the point of view of Moscow,which has perhaps been the case since 1960. These factors operatetogether to produce what may be regarded as a local balance of powerto complicate the central contest as far as Russia is concerned, andturn revisionism-through-the-revolutionary-ferment into a decidedlytwo-edged weapon from the viewpoint of the Russian foreign office-The 'local balance of power' is not, of course, a merely geographic onebetween Russia and China. It is the balance of power within theCommunist world. The reason why, up to 1956 or so, Communistparties in the non-Communist world could be regarded as normally-useful (though not always reliable) instruments of Russian foreignpolicy was the unchallengeable prestige of Russia, for the party-faithful, as the country with a Revolution not only indigenous and.successful, but established and assured. By the end of 1956 there were-three and a half countries, counting Northern Vietnam, which couldat least claim that their revolutions were likewise indigenous, andanother half-dozen in Eastern Europe when, the revolution, ifexternally imposed, was nevertheless capable of developing doctrinalvariations of some interest. In the nature of things the faithful inpartibus infidelium were no longer likely to feel that there was one;indisputable star to steer by. Given this fact, the Russians mustbe conscious not only of the ambiguity now, as regards their ownt

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interests, of revisionism-through-the-revolutionary-ferment, but alsoof the great natural advantages of China in the competition of theforeseeable future. For the revolutionary process maintains itsdynamic only in the underdeveloped world—Africa, Asia, LatinAmerica. Not even the most optimistic eye in the Kremlin is likelyto see much sign of a prospective new revolutionary wave in WesternEurope: on the contrary, what they see there is the rapidly-growingthreat of an economic and political focus of attraction, the EuropeanCommunity, that may trouble their own security in Eastern Europe.And Communist party-membership in Western Europe has fallen tonot much more than half its post-war peak. In any case, as long asthe Russians remain Leninists, they can hardly deviate from theorthodox view of the underdeveloped world as the Achilles' heel ofthe capitalists. Yet whatever is done to step up the process of revo-lutionary change in the tiers monde, while it may tilt the overallbalance against the capitalist world, is likely also to tilt the balancewithin the Communist world in favour of China rather than Russia.

This is hot simply a matter of China's presenting a more relevantmodel for economic and social change than Russia as far as thesubsistence-farming economies of underdeveloped countries are con-cerned. It is also a matter of historic situation. The Russians maybe Marxists, but to a non-European eye they are also members of thatwhite-skinned, industrialized, comfortably-living segment of humanitywhose base is in Europe and North America, and which has long sentits exploiting tentacles out to the non-European world. Roy has notedthe importance of anti-European racialism as a main driving-forcein Asian communism, especially among its middle-class leadership,7

though one might expect this factor to be offset in parts of South-EastAsia by anti-Chinese feeling, which has had there as extensive ahistory as anti-semitism in Europe, and many of the same manifesta-tions, including the pogrom.

Moreover, it is difficult to see the rejection of Stalinism and thecultivation of quasi-liberal attitudes in Russia as a source of strengthto it in the competition with China for the adherence of the non-European left. Quite the contrary in fact, for the areas concernedmight objectively be said to be, like China, in the sort of economicand social situation which favoured Stalinism in Russia itself, onlymuch more acutely so. That is, the educated middle-class is small andweak, the great peasant base is resistant to change, and a powerfulurge exists among the revolutionary leadership for a forced-marchtowards industrialization. Besides, these areas are even less endowed

7. Ibid., pp. 228-231.

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than Russia was with any kind of libertarian tradition, vestiges ofwhich certainly remained alive in Russia even during the Stalinistfreeze, and which in the more genial domestic climate permitted byMr Khrushchev have reasserted themselves to produce an amelioration,of the Communist police-state.

However, the chief potential advantage of China in the competitionwith Russia is simply its diplomatic and political situation vis-a-visthe West. In essence, it resides in the fact that China has so muchless to lose than Russia, and so much less reason for satisfaction withthe status quo, and so much less cause than Russia for any ambi-valence about the contest with the capitalist world, that it is inescap-ably endowed with strong common interests with the revolutionary-intellectual leadership in the non-European world which is the vitalfactor in this situation.

Even before the Cuban crisis there had been some evidence of this.At a conference of Afro-Asian writers in Cairo in March 1962 theRussians, found themselves facing accusations of putting a higherpriority on peaceful coexistence than on the 'colonial independencestruggle', and of being half-hearted about 'wars of national liberation'.Obviously, the denouement in Cuba has supplied illustration and sub-stance to these charges against Russia, especially as far as the LatinAmerican parties are concerned. No amount of Mr Khrushchev'sdilating on his claim to have saved Cuba from American invasion can.disguise the degree to which he in fact pulled the rug out from underCastro's 'movement of national liberation' when persistence in sup-port of Cuba was seen to entail the risk of a nuclear showdown withAmerica. Equivalent about-turns in Russian policy have doubtless,been accepted by the party faithful in earlier years without a mur-mur, but that was before there was an unimpeachably orthodoxCommunist source to give them news of these events, as China has-assiduously done in this case.

Ought one to assume any countervailing damage to China throughits hostilities with India? On the present evidence, one would sayclearly not, though here one must of course make a distinction betweenthe attitude of India (including the Indian left) and the rest of the-non-aligned powers. For India itself the assumptions on which policywas built appear to have been entirely undermined: the assumption,that the Himalayas were an adequate protective barrier, that Russia,would in any case restrain Chinese territorial ambitions in the dis-puted area, the assumption that the tasks of economic developmentwould keep China too busy for such adventures for twenty-five years,the assumption that the dangers in Asia were purely economic and.

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social, not military. Clearly all these hopeful views have been or arebeing re-appraised in Delhi. This does not mean that non-alignmentwould necessarily be discarded in favour of entry to the Westerncamp even if the Western powers so wished. For one thing, MrNehru has indicated some remaining faith in the usefulness of Russianinfluence on China, and any Indian formal abandonment of non-align-ment in favour of alliance with the West would diminish both MrKhrushchev's incentive and his ability to exert influence of this sort.If this hope regarding Russia should prove a completely broken reed(and already it has shown itself not capable of sustaining muchweight) there would still remain, as counts against any completeabandonment of non-alignment, both Mr Nehru's moral feeling aboutit (which should not be under-rated) and the fact that, through thewhole period of India's independence, its chief diplomatic asset hasbeen its position as 'opinion-leader' and spokesman for the non-alignedstates. The other states concerned may have offered conspicuouslylittle in the way of help or even sympathy to India in its security-crisis, but a rupture with them would not visibly advance India'sinterests. Of course, foreign policy cannot be wholly based on a coldcalculation of national advantage: popular feeling must also be takeninto account, and it is possible that renewed Chinese aggression or anobvious determination to hold on to all the area of Ladakh which itsarmy already occupies would create so much national anger in Indiaas to force Mr Nehru's hand. And, of course, an indication thatChina was interested in a serious drive into Assam (as against itspresent apparent policy of putting itself into a position to 'negotiatefrom strength' concerning the Aksai Chin area) would force India toseek help from the only effective military allies it is likely to find, thatis the Western powers. But short of these developments, India seemsdetermined to wear its non-alignment with a difference, rather thanabandon it altogether.

As to the rest of the non-aligned world, any assumption that thesight of India's difficulties would cause them to seek the shelter ofthe Western camp must be discounted. If it were normal to applyto oneself the experience of others, international politics would notpresent the sort of spectacle that it characteristically does. Andthere seems no doubt that China's diplomacy has been more success-ful than India's among the powers concerned, and that many of themare inclined to view the present frontier-demarcation as an illgottenIndian legacy from the British Imperialist past, and to accept with ashrug the Chinese desire to alter it, even by force. Moreover, thoughIndia's situation might be held to illustrate the dangers to a militarily-

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weak power of a policy of non-alignment, the situation of Cuba mightequally be held to illustrate the dangers of an effort to shift fromnon-alignment to a place in the military camp of one of the dominantpowers. (Cuba was for a time assumed by the non-alignment powersto be one of themselves: it was for instance invited to the BelgradeConference in 1961.)

Perhaps the joint meaning of the two crises for the minor powerswill eventually resolve itself into a simpler and less agreeable formstill: that it is a hard world for militarily vulnerable states, and thatthe effective decisions remain with the dominant powers. However,the crucial point for the world at large is the effect of the new condi-tions of contest on the relations between the dominant powers them-selves, that is between Russia and America. The central riddle ofRussian policy is whether its situation vis-a-vis China in the localbalance of power of the Communist world could seem, to the Russianleadership, to hold more dangers to the Russian national interest thanits situation visra-vis America in the world balance. One can think ofmany reasons why Mr Khrushchev or his successor might judge so,the chief being the possibility of 'nuclear triggering'. Obviously itwould be a very complex equation, involving among other things thestate of the military balance as regards both America and China.But for the moment we are concerned only with the way this relationaffects Russian strategy in the non-aligned world.

For Russia, the non-aligned states might be regarded as in aprocess of change from so many stalking-horses against the West toa glacis against Chinese aggrandisement within the Communistworld. Thus the Russian leaders have an interest in strengtheningthe position of the 'national colonial bourgeoisie'—Messrs Nehru andNasser and Soekarno et al. The Russian line of policy with regard toIndia in the dispute with China offers an exemplification. There isthus clearly much to be said from the Russian viewpoint in 'dampingdown' revolutionary social ferment in the underdeveloped world.On the other hand it is to the interest of China, as the standard-bearerof militancy within the Communist camp, to step up the struggle, notonly because of potential direct accretions to her strength from waver-ing parties in the underdeveloped world, but because a position oforthodoxy and intransigence (so long as a total rupture is avoided)may be useful for strengthening its hand in negotiations with Russiaon other issues, like economic aid.

Thus, as members of the Communist bloc the Chinese had nothingmuch to lose (save the support of the Indian party) by carrying theirfrontier-dispute with India to the point of open war. Indeed, the

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further their advance pushed Mr Nehru into alliance with the West,the better their case against Mr Khrushchev on his support of the'colonial national bourgeoisie'. And of course, as Chinese, they hada good deal to win, not only in the sense of the national claim todisputed territory, and a strategic strengthening of control of Tibet,but in the demonstration of military ascendancy in Asia and even thesecuring, ironically, of some support from the Chinese Nationalistsin Formosa. The unilateral Chinese proclamation of a cease-fire is anunderlining of success, not an abandonment of it. It leaves them in aposition to 'negotiate from strength' in three senses. Vis-a-vis Mr"Khrushchev it has provided a demonstration of how embarrassinga position he can be pushed into if the struggle is renewed. On theterritorial plane the areas of military occupancy seem designed toprovide the basis for a 'compromise' settlement that will endowChina with a substantial area that India has long regarded as its own,the loss of which may damage Mr Nehru and his governmentdomestically. The cease-fire itself and the virtuous protestations ofreadiness for a negotiated settlement have placed on India the onusof renewing hostilities, at a time and place in which the Indian armyhas shown itself at a disadvantage, against the urgings of his non-aligned friends of the Colombo conference, and at the risk of havingto make concessions to Pakistan which would be even less domestic-ally palatable than any made to China. Mr Chou En Lai's reputationas a notably astute diplomatist is well sustained: one wonders howMr Nehru now feels about having helped this particular djinn intohis present sphere of influence in 1954.

Yet even the wiliest players of the power-political game find theirtechniques to some extent governed by the real distribution of thecards of power and interest. The limits of Russian acquiescence incourses deemed likely to prove dangerous to Russia itself have alreadybeen publicly indicated by Mr Khrushchev, in his speech of 12 Decem-ber 1962 pointing out that the American so-called 'paper tiger' hadnuclear teeth. One may also interpret the comparative nonchalancewith which he accepted the outcome of events in Cuba as conveyingsome relief at having had it demonstrated to China how dangerousand intransigent the 'American imperialists' could be when theirinterests were threatened. The limiting factor in Chinese ability topush its policies in the tiers monde to extremes is the danger ofcreating (or enhancing) some kind of diplomatic consensus, or senseof common interest, between America and Russia. It is not fanciful tosee the faint hint of such a development in their joint settlement ofthe Cuba crisis.

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NON-ALIGNMENT AND THE POWER-BALANCE

Mr Isaac Deutscher's analysis8 of the nature of the understandingreached between IQirushchev and Castro during the latter's recentvisit to Moscow provides an interesting illustration of the mode inwhich the contest between Moscow and Peking for the loyalty of therevolutionary leadership in the tiers monde does in fact operate tocreate a kind of common interest between Washington and Moscow.According to Deutscher, Castro returned home to repudiate his ownand his party's 'unrealistic revolutionary idealism', and to assurethe Cubans that they have no real grounds to fear American aggres-sion, because of the prevalence of sound and realistic thinking inofficial Washington! If this is indeed Dr Castro's new position, onemight say that Mr Khrushchev has succeeded in converting him toa view that the Americans had been failing to persuade him of eversince 1959. Even taking all this with a handful of salt, its relevanceto the growth of a minimal diplomatic consensus between Americaand Russia, about the management of the world balance of power,seems obvious, and has been very shrewdly and properly capitalizedon by President Kennedy in his new initiative vis-a-vis Russia overthe ban on nuclear tests. For the underlying issue here—the nuclearweapons oligopoly—is the other mainstay of the potential minimaldiplomatic consensus between America and Russia. Together thesetwo issues might prove strong enough to sustain a safety-net ofshared power-interests under the perilous balancing-act of con-temporary international politics.

This paper is being completed before the July meeting of theRussian and Chinese Communist parties, and the author is thereforeconscious that what follows is itself a somewhat perilous balancing-act. Nevertheless, if one were determined to live dangerously onemight hazard the view that the logical area in which to expect afurther working-out of this three-cornered conflict may perhapsbe Vietnam. If events were pushed towards a military crisis on the1954 pattern in the south of the country, America would be facedwith the prospect of a greater degree of intervention, and thus Russiafaced with the choice of a new confrontation with American poweror with selling down the river a 'movement of national liberation'more genuine than some. The question is whether the local situationis ripe for such a development. It is obviously impossible through thescreen of censorship for an outsider to know precisely what themilitary balance is, but such evidence as has leaked through, concern-ing for instance the operations at Ap Bac, early this year, offers somesimilarities to that in the north in 1953, not long before the show-

8. Sydney Morning Herald, 19 June 1963.

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down of Dien Bien Phu. In terms of the strategic theory propoundedby the commanding North Vietnamese general, Vo Nguyen Giap, suchconflicts pass through three stages, firstly guerilla harassment by'local' forces, secondly more ambitious mobile operations by 'regional'forces and thirdly a general offensive by 'regular' troops. It is saidthat Western successes have put the Communist drive off schedule,but one cannot overlook the possibility that the third phase may beimpending. The Vietnamese Communist leadership, after some initialresistance, has apparently allowed itself to be induced into theChinese camp and the allurements for it of a possible victory in thesouth to match that in the north need no underlining.

One must therefore assume that a re-enactment of the 1954 choicemight in due course confront President Kennedy—that is, a choicebetween full-scale and overt American military involvement or asharp deterioration in the military control exercised by the SouthVietnamese government in its section of the country. Grave as wouldbe the dangers of such a situation, there would be one element ofadvantage for the West in it, lacking in the 1954 parallel. The conflictbetween Russia and China was at that time dormant or just beginningto stir, whereas it is now so fully developed as to exert an indubitableand perhaps decisive influence on Russian choices. The two dominantpowers have a major common interest: seeing that the strategicdirection of world communism does not pass to China. There is acertain irony in the reflection that the underdeveloped world fromwhich Mr Nehru hoped to banish power-politics may prove the opera-tive factor in a shift in power-alignments as momentous as can wellbe imagined.

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