8/12/2019 Austerity and US Strategy: Lessons of the Past

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Austerity and US Strategy: Lessons of the Past

By Melvyn P. Leffler, Guest Blogger

This text was originally published as part of the Fifth Annual Ernest May

Memorial Lecture and excerpted from The Future of American Defense , a publication of The Aspen Strategy Group at the Aspen Institute, edited byNicholas Burns and Jonathon Price .

What is so interesting about the policies pursued by Richard Nixon and H enryKissinger during the early 1970s was that they decided to manage the gapbetween means and ends in an era of austerity by ratcheting down the U.S.commitment to Indochina and by engaging adversaries. Nixon and Kissinger didnot change the nations bas ic strategic orientation. The Soviet Union remainedthe key adversary, and the strategy of containment was not abandoned. Aware ofmounting Soviet strategic capabilities and the paramount need to avoid nuclear

conflict, they labored to leverage the Soviets to exercise self-restraint. Theywanted the Kremlin to stop exploiting crises in Asia and Africa, to curtail efforts todivide Americas friends, and to encourage Hanoi to negotiate.

If you read the many foreign policy statements of Nixon and Kissinger, they oftenbrilliantly illuminated changes in the global environment. They dwelled on theevolution of multipolarity, the revitalization of our allies in Western Europe andnortheast Asia, the intensification of the Sino-Soviet split, and the assertivenessof nationalist leaders in the Third World seeking a new international economicorder, especially after the Yom Kippur War and the alarming growth of petroleumprices. They articulated a need to extricate the United States from Vietnam with

Americas honor and credibility intact. They were beleaguered by partisanacrimony at home, urban strife, racial tension, inflationary pressures, goldoutflows, and financial constraints. Although they exquisitely outlined the need fora prudent pursuit of interests in an international order defined by great Sovietstrategic capabilities and the omnipresent threat of nuclear war, they weretantalizingly ambiguous in their definition of U.S. interests, except the inchoateneed to balance Soviet power and the obvious necessity of avoiding nuclear war.

Their challenge was to design a strategy to balance Soviet power in a demandingpolitical, fiscal, and legislative environment. The Nixon Doctrine; the dtente withthe Kremlin; the opening of relations with Beijing; and the covert actions in

southern Africa, Chile, and elsewhere were all efforts to bolster allies, divideadversaries, and contain Soviet power when U.S. officials were acutely awarethat Congress would not allocate funds to regain strategic supremacy or supportovert U.S. interventionism in critical regions. Nixon himself stated this succinctlyin a memo to Al Haig and Kissinger in May 1972: all of us who have worked on .. . [SALT] . . . know that the deal we are making is in our best interest, but for avery practical reason that the right-wing will never understand that we simplycant get from the Congress the additional funds needed to continue the arms

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8/12/2019 Austerity and US Strategy: Lessons of the Past

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race with the Soviets in either the defensive or offensive missile category. In anNSC meeting, deflecting D efense Secretary Mel Lairds insistence that theSoviets were seeking superiority, Nixon bluntly stated: Its imperative to get adeal. We cant build and they know it.

In an era of austerity, Nixon and Kissingers approach to strategy was not torethink the fundamental elements of containment, not to redefine goals orthreats, but to engage adversaries and to devolve more responsibility on allies.Indeed, engaging adversaries often exacerbated relations with allies, a tradeoff,however regrettable, that Nixon and Kissinger found acceptable. Nixon andKissinger did not close the great gap between resources and commitments,between means and ends should dtente falter, as eventually it did. Theyimprovised, rather adroitly, in an era of perceived decline, contracting resources,tumultuous politics at home, and eroding strength and credibility abroad.

Melvyn P. Leffler is the Edward Stettinius Professor of American History at The

University of Virginia. He is currently working on a book about the foreign policyof the George W. Bush presidential administration.