TY - JOUR
AU - Bernstein, Barton, J.
AB - Jones and Woods have usefully surveyed some recent scholarship on U.S. foreign policy and the early Cold War in Europe and the Near East. In defining their enterprise, they chose to omit Asia, where the Cold War erupted into hot war, and to minimize or ignore issues involving nuclear weapons. Reporting mostly on the literature from the last thirteen years, the two authors acknowledge that no new synthesis has emerged, seem pleased that “post-revisionism” has failed,1 claim to discern “a dominant approach based on the national security imperative,” and conclude that the “universal interest in national security” might be the road to a new synthesis, one that has to be paved by more scholarship. Along the way, Jones and Woods applaud the cooling of passions among Cold War historians, contend that questions of blame have dropped out in favor of understanding, and seem delighted that the earlier frameworks of William Appleman Williams and Gabriel Kolko,2 with their different interpretations of ideology and the role of American capitalism, have fewer adherents than in the 1970s. Curiously, however, Jones and Woods endorse more work in a corporatist framework, do not recognize that it is an important conception in some of Williams's own studies,3 and generally avoid analyzing that social theory. In supporting corporatist scholarship, perhaps Jones and Woods are just being kind, and therefore they are unconcerned that such work undercuts their larger purpose—advancing a “national security approach.” Or possibly they are sincerely confused, and that may be more meaningful. Despite Jones and Woods's stated aims, their essay is often uneasy and even occasionally disjointed. Some parts are not systematically linked to the two authors' ostensible purpose: showing how a good deal of the recent literature can fit, or be read in terms of, a “national security approach.” Their essay often lacks intellectual “bite,” because it more often summarizes, than grapples with, interpretations. It generally avoids analyzing the role of social theory in recent publications, seldom discusses implicit or explicit assumptions about power in America, usually neglects problems of class and ideology, and also frequently overlooks the quality of reasoning, the logic and inferences in various studies, the relationship of evidence and theory, and even the aspects of craftsmanship that may betray ambivalence, confusion, or contradiction. Coming as it does on the heels of their book on the early Cold War,4 Jones and Woods's essay seems at times a modest recasting of their research notes listing titles, subjects, and a summary paragraph. Often, the transitions between ideas are loose. In some places the article seems to be fueled by the authors' self-imposed mandate to move on, relentlessly, with their busy survey—another book, another article, another author. That energetic strategy seldom leads to rich illumination, insightful judgment, or even an interesting categorization of much of the scholarship. Thus, their essay, while certainly well intentioned and seldom unkind to recent authors, does not help analysts think critically about the recent Cold War scholarship or even decide what merits investigation. The two authors' problem as craftsmen is, partly, that their “national security imperative” approach appears strongly at the beginning and end but is not sustained throughout; it pops up only periodically in the essay's extended middle. Perhaps the authors decided upon this conception after completing a decent draft, then easily recrafted their introduction and conclusion, and then inserted some statements in the middle section. Such a “patching” strategy may explain why their own conception of national security is unclear and why they did not organize their long essay, especially its extended middle, by closely defining and then systematically applying their conception. The two authors' concept of “national security” is unclear in three related ways. One, what does the phrase actually mean to them? Is it only protection of territory? They seem at times to mean considerably more—protection of “core values” at home, and occasionally even efforts to create an international liberal-capitalist order in order to make war less likely. Two, it is also unclear what the authors mean by an “imperative” and how they know that national security (by what definition?) is one. Is this conclusion reached by assumption, or by an analysis of evidence, or dictated by some theory, and is it a belief about all modern states, or mostly Cold War states, or just major Cold War states? How, if at all, does it explain or relate to internal revolutions and civil wars in the Cold War era? Does this “imperative,” if it exists, yield to bureaucratic and organizational interests within the government on significant occasions, or are such interests, when disagreeing, basically sparring over ways of acting on behalf of “national security”? And, three, it is unclear whether the two authors' “national security approach” is a theory about basic causes of the Cold War, as they suggest in one place, or simply a strategy for focusing on many Cold War issues, as they suggest elsewhere. Put differently, do the two authors, in proposing their “approach,” believe that other interpretations of the Cold War are substantially incorrect, or that these other explanations can be usefully, and fairly, subsumed by a “national security” framework? If so, which explanations—and why the support for more corporatist studies? In raising these questions, my purpose has not been to demand undue precision at the cost of clarity,5 or to seek to invalidate the authors' claims. Rather, my purpose is to stress the vexing fuzziness of their conception, which, depending upon their answers to my series of questions, may lead readers of Jones and Woods's article to a curious range of likely responses. One might be: “What's new? Jones and Woods's conception is so loose and generous that it may accommodate almost everything.” Or, at the opposite extreme of reactions: “It's so narrow that too much of value is excluded.” Or, in between those two responses: “Isn't national security generally what the first generation of orthodox historians like Herbert Feis and Thomas A. Bailey contended was fundamentally at stake in the Cold War? If so, what has changed—a belief that American perceptions were sometimes wrong and that the Soviets had real, and justifiable, fears about their own national security? Isn't this, then, the Feis-Bailey ‘approach,’ but with a softer statement of blame, one with many laments and little condemnation?” Or: “If ‘core values’ and a liberal-capitalist world order are parts of the national security conception, does not this approach, while claiming to reject Williams, actually smuggle in his ‘open door’ framework and also parts of corporatism? Could this confusion, and not free-floating generosity, explain why Jones and Woods endorse scholarship in a corporatist framework while also stressing a ‘national security approach’?” In order to understand Jones and Woods's “national security approach,” despite their own lack of clarity, my brief essay will seek to examine the conception in three different ways: by looking at how it can be applied to the main literature and problems in nuclear history on early Cold War issues; by discussing briefly the “open door” theory and the often-linked corporatist framework, and how a “national security” interpretation relates to those frameworks; and by considering, very briefly, the main study employing a “national security” explanation, namely, Melvyn P. Leffler's A Preponderance of Power,6 a book that Jones and Woods treat in a few pages and one that apparently influenced their own thinking. Even by parsimoniously defining “national security” in terms of protection from military attack and prevention of a potential adversary from gaining substantial resources for such an attack, the “national security” framework, if it fits any large set of Cold War issues, should certainly explain those involving nuclear weapons. That means focusing on a number of problems in the period 1945–1950: the use of two A-bombs on Japan in 1945 and Soviet responses to that use; so-called atomic diplomacy in late 1945; the 1946 failure of the Baruch Plan for international control of atomic energy; and Truman's 1950 decision to develop the H-bomb. In the past decade or so, the dispute over why the United States used the bomb in August 1945 on Japan seems generally to have narrowed to a question of whether anti-Soviet purposes were the primary motive (as Gar Alperovitz argued) or simply a “bonus” (as I have argued). According to Alperovitz, American leaders understood that the A-bomb was unnecessary to end the war speedily and used it primarily to intimidate the Soviets.7 In the “bonus” interpretation, the use of the bomb was basically the implementation of a long-run assumption, the bomb was used primarily to end the war speedily and avoid the invasion, the bomb would undoubtedly have been used even if there had been no Soviet Union, and anti-Soviet motives were not a controlling, but a confirming, purpose.8 Despite differences in interpretation, both analyses agree that America's use of the bomb unnerved the Soviets and, at minimum, added to Soviet fears and thus contributed to the Cold War. Both also agree that American leaders anticipated that the dropping of the bomb on Japan would frighten the Soviets and probably make them more tractable in Eastern Europe. Yet, these interpreters disagree, basically, on what actions American leaders were willing to take in mid-1945 in order to deal with the Soviet Union: whether Truman and others were willing to kill many Japanese primarily in order to intimidate the Soviet Union. Phrased sharply, these differences in interpretation have significant implications for understanding American intentions, for assigning blame, and perhaps also for determining causation. But regardless of the differences between these two interpretations, neither argues that American efforts to roll back or soften Soviet power in Eastern Europe expressed American policymakers' concerns, or fears, about “national security.” Thus, while the “national security” framework undoubtedly explains Soviet responses to the atomic bombing, the framework does not explain American purposes in dealing with Eastern Europe in mid- or late 1945.9 The related issue of postwar “atomic diplomacy” creates similar problems for a “national security approach.” A number of analysts contend that the Truman administration after Hiroshima briefly employed implicit atomic threats to reduce, or eliminate, Soviet influence in Eastern Europe. Despite disagreements on whether the Soviet Union yielded, many of these analysts agree that “atomic diplomacy” made the Soviets more concerned about their security and thereby contributed to the Cold War. Thus, as with the case of the atomic bombing of Japan, the “national security approach” seems to explain Soviet responses—but not American actions.10 The 1946 Soviet-American dispute over international control of atomic energy is a third test. Many have interpreted the Baruch Plan as sincere but deeply flawed and, not surprisingly, therefore rejected by the Soviets because of their fears about national security amid the American nuclear monopoly. In this interpretation, the plan was not conceived to be unacceptable to the Soviets but it was deeply flawed because American leaders emphasized their own interests. They did not want to give up the monopoly quickly, they believed that expanded American armies might be necessary to offset the loss of that monopoly, and they would not accept an agreement that lacked clear inspection mechanisms and enforcement guarantees. Were these truly American “national security” fears? Possibly—but not necessarily for the short run of the next year or two. The greater short-run American fear seemed to be that if no bomb existed, the Soviet Union might frighten parts of non-Communist Europe. Why the American protection of non-Communist Europe involved U.S. “national security” is not self-evident and requires more explanation in the “national security” framework. Regardless of the interpretation of American purposes, however, many analysts agree that the Baruch Plan, by failing to recognize Soviet security needs, probably added to Soviet fears and to Cold War antagonisms.11 Possibly the Soviet-American dispute over the Baruch Plan fits Jones and Woods's “national security approach.” If the two authors chose to stress the American fear of future Soviet atomic weapons, and their ultimate danger to the United States, a reasonable case might well be constructed for using the “national security approach.” Unfortunately, Jones and Woods offer only one sentence—and then in a footnote—on the Baruch Plan, so it is difficult to know what they think, how they would apply the concept, and how they would resolve problems. Nor does their recent book, a self-acknowledged orthodox interpretation of the early Cold War, provide any assistance on this matter of analyzing American policy.12 Probably the strongest case for interpreting a major nuclear weapons issue of the 1945–1950 period in a “national security” framework can be made for Truman's January 1950 decision to develop the H-bomb. Technically, his was a decision to continue the thermonuclear effort, but participants, as well as many external observers, understood that the new commitment was more fundamental: an accelerated attempt to build a weapon that could be a thousand times more powerful than the Nagasaki bomb. Within the United States, opponents had raised moral and strategic objections, usually operated within government bureaucratic channels, and sometimes hoped for a Soviet-American arrangement to avoid development of the superbomb. To many congressmen, as well as rank-and-file citizens, the prospects of America first achieving an H-bomb seemed attractive and an earlier Soviet breakthrough was alarming. For President Harry S. Truman, Secretary of State Dean Acheson, and Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson, an American superbomb, if achieved first, met various needs. In addition to satisfying popular wishes and congressional demands, the H-bomb would buttress the American nuclear deterrent (especially after the Soviet A-bomb) and also allow Truman and Acheson to develop their desired “situations of strength.”13 Unfortunately, despite growing numbers of studies, analysts of the H-bomb decision seldom look closely at general American foreign policy from 1949–1950 or anchor the 1950 decision in some larger conceptual framework about the Cold War.14 Much of the literature on the H-bomb decision, as with the earlier Baruch Plan, could actually be fit into rather different Cold War frameworks—Williams's “open door” model, a corporatist interpretation, Kolko's American imperialism theory, or a “national security approach,” among others. Regardless of which framework an analyst employed to understand American policy in the Cold War, most would probably agree on the value of a “national security” approach in examining Soviet behavior: The American H-bomb decision aggravated Cold War tensions and may have added to Soviet anxiety and helped spur Soviet work on the superbomb.15 This brief, and admittedly skimpy, survey of four key issues in early Cold War history concludes that a form of the “national security approach” may well explain Soviet responses of fear and insecurity in all four cases, but that the “approach” is not consistently useful in analyzing American policy. At best, it works in half the cases. In terms of explaining anti-Soviet purposes, it does not fit the 1945 dropping of the A-bomb or postwar “atomic diplomacy.” It may fit American policy in the Baruch Plan and the H-bomb decision—but so can a number of very different frameworks including Kolko's, Williams's “open door,” and corporatism. An important question, unfortunately excluded by Jones and Woods, is whether nuclear weapons, and especially the American monopoly up to August 1949, helped keep the peace. Rather than contributing to the early stages of what some analysts have celebrated as “the long peace,” the bomb in the early postwar years may well have emboldened American leaders to increase their demands, raise their expectations, and avoid accommodations on crucial matters with the Soviet Union. Such an analysis, one of missed opportunities and intentional emboldenment, would have to examine major postwar issues—certainly Eastern Europe and Germany, and maybe even the Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan—to interpret decisions. In doing so, a shrewd study might not only try to understand what role the bomb did play but also to consider the problem through the fruitful counterfactual question: What might have been done if the bomb had not existed in the years from 1945–1949, and even in the Korean War period when the United States had great nuclear superiority? Such a set of inquiries might well provide critical leverage on the value, and utility, of the “approach” recommended by Jones and Woods.16 Analysts who employ “open door” expansion or a related corporatist framework have considerable difficulty with Jones and Woods's recommended approach. By putting “national security” first, it generally neglects both ideology and power within America. It treats the international world as something to be managed, and fails to focus upon the particular domestic sources of the felt need for management. As a result, it may also fail to understand that some of the so-called Soviet threats were, fundamentally, to an international, liberal-economic order, one that American leaders sought to reestablish toward the end of World War II on behalf of democratic capitalism at home and liberal (but not always democratic) capitalism abroad. According to the “open door”17 and corporatist frameworks, American leaders and major groups assumed that a prosperous, growing domestic economy and healthy democracy required open opportunities for trade and investment abroad. That, in turn, meant breaking down the Soviet bloc in Eastern Europe, reorienting those countries to their pre-World War II economic relations with Western Europe, economically reconstructing Western Europe and crucial parts of Asia (especially Japan), and even stressing the roles of Germany and Japan (as “economic engines”) in a reestablished economic order. The American postwar aim, fulfilling prewar conceptions, was to establish a multilateral international system of liberal trade. In such a worldview, (relatively) free trade and investment opportunities were essential to the United States and also to other non-Communist nations. Without such opportunities, the American political economy would be imperiled, suffering downturns and depression and facing the prospect of social turmoil—unless substantial restructuring of the domestic system occurred. But that could mean the destruction of American liberty, of the nation's democratic freedoms, which were believed to rest on a healthy capitalist economy. Without a liberal-capitalist world order, the likely results would be economic depression abroad, attendant social misery and disorder, and quite possibly radical revolution or renewed fascism. Either fascism, with its likely autarky, or radical revolution, with its socialization of property and state control of trade, would further disrupt the world system and economically injure the United States. In this worldview, democracy abroad was valued and to be promoted: It was more likely to create the desired economic conditions; these liberal-capitalist values were more likely to support democracy; and the existence of democracy abroad also affirmed the value of democratic institutions in America. According to this ideological framework, three important conditions—prosperity, social stability, and international peace—were intimately linked. America's national interest could often correspond to democratic ideals—by opposing the radical Left, fascism, and (often) even formal colonialism. Sometimes, however, priorities shaped choices, and thus alliances with European nations, deemed key to American interests, might compel American acquiescence before formal colonialism. And sometimes, in this ideological framework, which usually emphasized the primacy of economic matters, America would have to support nondemocratic governments abroad. Such concessions, based upon a hierarchy of values, were deemed essential to maintaining or advancing the desired world economic order—with the hope that reform, without disruptive revolution, might later correct nondemocratic conditions and produce democracy. In this now-familiar worldview, there was a conception of dominolike relations well before April 1954, when President Eisenhower employed that particular image to explain intertwined dependence. In this ideology, there were powerful corollaries antedating World War II and seemingly confirmed by the coming of that war. “Enemies in the market place,” as William Clayton contended, “cannot long be friends at the council table.”18 Putting forth a similar proposition to explain World War II, Cordell Hull asserted, “The political line-up followed the economic line-up” among nations.19 In explaining this belief in an ideal international order, and America's dependence upon it, analysts of corporatism have added an important interpretive theme: that these beliefs and perceptions were not simply those of business and political leaders, but, rather, of many others too, especially labor and agricultural leaders. In some formulations, this conception led to the expanded description of “associationalism,” with many groups included, frequently through their leadership. In the corporatist framework, the American political system, despite the apparent pluralism in electoral politics, rested upon more concentrated arrangements of power. In some corporatist formulations, the American state had the task of working out disputes among these groups while seeking to maintain the larger consensus on a liberal-international capitalist order and implementing policy within that consensus.20 What is most significant in these two related frameworks—both the “open door” and the corporatist—is the primacy of domestic American perceptions and felt needs, of the efforts by America to shape the international system for American needs and benefits. In these two frameworks, many of the so-called threats from abroad were not really military, but, rather, economic or political-economic. Threats were defined through the prism of ideology. These two frameworks, despite their differences, do not have significant difficulty in interpreting America's great concern about open economic doors and democracy in Eastern Europe, or the maintenance of U.S. power in Latin America, or the U.S. decision to provide the Marshall Plan for European reconstruction, or American efforts to reconstruct Japan (the “reverse course”) and reintegrate much of postwar Asia into an international liberal-capitalist order. With different emphases, Thomas G. Paterson, Lloyd Gardner, and Michael J. Hogan, among others, have dealt with these problems in European policy,21 and John Dower, Michael Schaller, William Borden, Andrew Rotter, and Bruce Cumings, among others, have intelligently analyzed these issues involving Asia.22 By virtually omitting Asia, Jones and Woods simply pass over that substantial literature—and its profound challenge to their formulation. In dealing with Europe, however, where Jones and Woods do focus, their essay should explain, for example, why Eastern Europe was so important to American leaders, why the Greek revolution seemed so threatening to them, and why the existence of strong Communist parties in Western Europe so frightened them. By what construction of “national security” were these matters of deep concern, and defined as threats, and why? Fundamentally, this question is about ideology and perception. In their historiographical survey, Jones and Woods provide no direct answer of their own to this important set of questions. Instead, relying upon Leffler's book, the two authors briefly summarize his analysis: that American policy was designed to protect “core values,” that such efforts meant more than just assuring short-run territorial safety, that “national security” required establishing, in Jones and Woods's words, “political, social, and economic stability,” and that Truman and his associates defined much Soviet behavior—though often incorrectly—“as a threat both to the international system that they were trying to create and to the domestic system that they were charged to protect.” In his book, Leffler argues that the “traditional principles of self-determination and the open door” were recast by American policymakers, in the crucible of World War II, into a new understanding that put “national security” first. In this new conception, potential adversaries must never again gain control of Eurasia's resources through military aggression, economic autarky, or political subversion. “Postwar peace had to be constructed on the foundation of nonaggression, self-determination, equal access to raw materials, and nondiscriminatory trade.”23 Translated into other terms, Leffler's formulation seems to assume that a Williams-like open door analysis, with its emphasis on ideology, economic expansion, and democracy, might well characterize the belief-system of American leaders into, or up to, World War II.24 But the war experience, in their perception, led to a restructuring of understanding—one that placed “national security” first and redefined other conditions, including a felt need for international liberal capitalism, as secondary. According to Leffler's book, American leaders were initially unsure about Soviet intentions, did not expect a Soviet military attack on the United States in the short run, understood that the Soviets were too weak to launch such an assault, but feared that the Soviet Union might grow dangerously stronger by snaring resources, dominating areas, developing technology, disrupting the international economy, and fomenting revolutions in crucial lands. In Leffler's framework, American leaders thus came to fear Soviet power in Eastern Europe, worried that the Soviets would employ various tactics to disorder the international liberal-capitalist system, and thought the Soviets might well co-opt Western Europe, Germany, Japan, and even other sections of Asia. The ultimate result, American policymakers feared, would be a strengthened Soviet Union—and, quite possibly, an emboldened, aggressive one with both the capacity and the will to attack the United States. To defend against such “worst case” developments, according to Leffler in Preponderance, American leaders decided to restructure the international economy, block left revolutions, contain the Soviet Union, and reintegrate Germany, Western Europe, Japan, and other parts of Asia into a liberal-capitalist international system. Such efforts, because of often-unwarranted fears of the Soviet Union, propelled American leaders to seek a “preponderance of power.” In his monumental volume, based upon formidable research in primary and secondary sources, Leffler has sought to reject open door and corporatist interpretations and to replace them with a “national security” framework. By going even further and making “national security” basic, as he claims in parts of his book, Leffler has actually departed from the analysis he cast in 1984 in an important article that then seemed to presage his larger study. In that article, Leffler promised to “elucidate the fundamental strategic and economic considerations that shaped the definition of American national security interests in the postwar world.” Within his essay, admittedly, he sometimes seemed unsure whether he was explaining the factors that shaped this conception or how this conception shaped perception and influenced policy.25 A careful reading of his book suggests that some ambivalence still lingers, and that he is sometimes straining to overturn the older open door and corporatist frameworks, which made domestic matters primary. Indeed, he sometimes seems to be reaching beyond the evidence to translate American policy into a “national security” framework. His sections on Eastern Europe, on the Truman Doctrine, and on the Marshall Plan, to cite three crucial parts, cover events that can be persuasively interpreted in the very frameworks he has rejected. His important book has received praise, even from such different scholars as Walter LaFeber, Michael J. Hogan, and John Lewis Gaddis, among others.26 Part of this may be friendship. Much of it is undoubtedly testimony to Leffler's substantial research, clear prose, eager intelligence, and even-tempered phrasings. Beyond that, however, the book's seeming ambivalence on various issues can draw admirers from different schools of interpretation. By stressing the American desire for preponderant power, by noting some American deceptions and skillful exaggerations of events, and by suggesting that some American Cold War responses were unreasonable and that Soviet behavior was often defensive, Leffler can make common cause with different strands of Cold War revisionism. By seeming to dismiss Williams (not even cited in the lengthy bibliography), however, Leffler can also make common cause with scholars who are offended by the Left's theories of ideology and power in America. And by ultimately concluding that American leaders were sometimes wise, often prudent, but sometimes foolish, he can also seem to endorse many Truman Cold War policies. Thus, given the ambivalence of the volume and the multiple levels on which it operates, it reaches out to various orthodox, post-revisionist, and revisionist scholars. Whether that is a strength or a weakness remains a tantalizing question. Probably this loose alliance of admirers, however, does not rest, fundamentally, on the book's “national security” framework. Nor does that concept seem likely to produce a new synthesis—but it may provoke many scholars to reconsider basic interpretations of the Cold War. For that friendly challenge, we are indebted to Leffler and, also, to Jones and Woods. In meeting that challenge, scholars should also consider forthrightly, and openly, whether the breakdown of the Soviet Union and the Soviet “defeat” in the Cold War is heavily influencing interpretations of the origins of, and responsibility for, the Cold War. Would the dispute over Eastern Europe, the establishment of the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan, and the creation of NATO, as well as the reconstruction of Germany and its integration into an American-led system, be analyzed very differently if recent developments, leading us to refer to the “former Soviet Union,” had not occurred? In turn, might interpretations shift in another direction if Eastern Europe is torn by even more vicious conflict than in the present, if the resurgence of German neo-Nazism proves more powerful in the future, and if the NATO structure, presumably having lost much of its earlier purpose, lingers on with heavy American spending? Footnotes 1 For early criticism of embryonic port-revisionism see Bemstein Barton J., “ Cold War Orthodoxy Restated . Reviews in American History 1 ( 1973 ): 453 – 62 ; and idem, “Les Etats-Unis et les Origines de la Guerre Froide” [The United States and the origins of the Cold War], Revue d'histoire de la Deuxième Guerre Mondiate 103 ( 1976 ): 51 – 72 2 In one place, Jones and Woods, in trying to characterize earlier disputer over the origins of the Cold War, seem to believe that some group of scholars viewed “the Cold War as a struggle between the forces of monopoly capitalism and communist totalitsriaruism.” It is unclear which historians. if any, held this particular view. Probably Jones and Woods really mean that different group held part of this view (on either monopoly capitalism or on Communist totalitarianism). Still. it remains unclear which historians Jones and Woods have in mind for the “monopoly capitalism” contention. Most likely, they are misreading, and severely distorting, Gabriel Kolko's important and, unfortunately. much-neglected work. Perhaps significantly, while reviewing much of the literature published in the 1980s. Jones and Woods entirely omit Kolko. Confronting the Third World: United States Foreign Policy, 1945–1980 (New York. 1988). 3–16, 69–75. 3 William Appleman Williams. The Contours of American History (Cleveland, 1961). In the late 1950s and well into the 1960s, the concept of corporatism (sometimes using a different term) often appeared in Studies on the Left, and a number of those articles were later collected in James Weinstein and David Eakins, eds., For a New America: Essays in History and Politics from “Studies on the Left,” 1959–1967 (New York, 1970). 4 Randall B. Woods and Howard her. Dawning of the Cold War: The United States' Quest for Order (Athens, GA, 1991). 5 For a useful distinction between clarity of language and undue precision (which may obscure meaning) see Richard Feynman's comments in James Gleick, Genius: The Life and Thus of Richard Feynman (New York, 1992). 399–400. 6 Melvyn P. Leffler. A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War (Stanford, 1992). 7 Gar Alperovitz, Atomic Diplomacy: Hiroshima and Potsdom (New York, 1965, and rev. ed., 1985); idem and Messer Robelt. Marshall, Truman, and the Decision to Drop the Bomb ,” International Security 16 ( 1991 ): 204 – 14 . In this essay, Messer differs somewhat from Alperovitz by also emphasizing bureaucratic and domestic themes. For a tentative analysis that could support Alperovitz's own analysis while also retaining some agnosticism see Messer, “ New Evidence on Truman's Decision . Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 41 ( 1985 ): 50 – 56 . 8 Bemstein Barton J., “ Roosevelt, Truman, and the Atomic Bomb, 1941–1945: A Reinterpretation . Political Science Quarterly 90 ( 1975 ): 23 – 63 . Martin J. Sherwin, A World Destroyed: The Atomic Bomb and the Grand Alliance (New York, 1975). is also, I think. within this “bonus” framework, as is Messer, The End of an Alliance: James F. Byrnes, Roosevelt, Truman, and the Origins of the Cold War (Chapel Hill. 1982). 116–17. In recent years, based on conversations with Shenvin and some of his public talks, I think he has shifted closer to Alperovitz. A recent statement of the dispute on the use of the bomb appears in Alperovitz and Messer. “Marshall, Truman, and the Decision,” 204–14; and Bemstein. Marshall, Truman, and the Decision to Drop the Bomb ,” International Security 16 ( 1991 ): 214 – 21 . The historiography is also examined in Bemstein, “ The Atomic Bomb and American Foreign Policy, 1941–1945 A Historiographical Controversy . Peace and Change 2 ( 1974 ): 1 – 16 ; idem, The Atomic Bomb: The Critical Issues (Boston, 1976); and Walker J. Samuel, “ The Decision to Use the Bomb: A Historiographical Update . Diplomatic History 14 ( 1990 ): 97 – 114 . Although this section of the text of my present essay does not aim to discuss Leffler's Preponderance, see 34, 530 (note 43). and 38 for his interpretation. Unfortunately. note 43 on 530 amalgamates rather different interpretations, and the sequence of the Soviet declaration of war and the Nagasaki bombing on 38 is incorrect. 9 For other interpretations of Soviet responses see Holloway David. Entering the Nuclear Arms Race: The Soviet Decision to Build he Atomic Bomb, 1939–45 ,” Social Studies of Science 11 ( 1981 ): 182 – 87 ; and idem, “Stalin and Hiroshima” (in author's possession). Dissents appear in. among other places. Jonathan Hash. “Stalin'r Assessment of the LikeliW of War, 1945–1953” (in author's possession); and Adam Uh, Expansionand Coexitence: Soviet Foreign Policy, 1917–1973 (New York. 1974). 414. Literaturn on Soviet responses does not always clearly distinguish, as Holloway suggests, between the questions of whether the Soviets were unnerved, whether hey expected an American attack in the shofl run. and why they chose after Hiroshima to accelerate their A-bomb work. 10 Analyses by Adam Ulam. Lisle Rose. Gregg Herkm, and Bemstein arc in Bemstein, ed., The Atomic Bamb, 120–42. An earlier statement appears in Alperovitz, Atomic Diplomacy, 188–225; and the discussion is continued in Hammond Thomas, “ ‘Atomic Diplomacy’ Revisited . Orbis 19 ( 1976 ): 1403 – 28 ; Vojtech Mastny. Rursia's Road to the Cold War: Diplomacy, Warfare. and the Politics of Communism, 1941–1945 (New York. 1979). 3034, 311; Messer, End of an Alliance, 116–35 and Bernstein. Seizing the Contested Terrain of Early Nuclear History: Stimson. Conant. and Their Allies Explain the Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb ,” Diplomatic History 17 ( 1993 ): 65 – 69 . For an oblique contribution to this discussion see Charles Gati. Hungary and the Soviet Bloc (Durham, 1986). 1–75. which implicitly raises questions about whether the A-bomb had any influence on Soviet policy in Hungary. See also Holloway. “Stalin and Hiroshima”; McGeorge Bundy, “The Unimpressive Record of Atomic Diplomacy,” in The Choice: Nuclear Weapons versus Security, ed. Gwin Prins (London, 1984). 4345: and William McCagg, Jr., Stalin Embattled, 1943–1948 (Detroit. 1978). 188–90. 207–9. Leffler. Preponderance, 94–96. suggests Soviet uneasiness in response to both the bomb and Bymes's taaics. Leffler seems to misinterpret Truman's responses to Stimson's September 1945 proposal for a direct, prompt approach to the Soviets for international Control. 11 See William A. Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy (New York, 1972), 261–66, Bernstein, “ The Quest for Security: American Foreign Policy and International Control of Atomic Energy, 1942–1946 . Journal of American History 60 ( 1974 ): 1017 – 44 ; and Gerber Larry, “ The Baruch Plan and the Origins of the Cold War . Diplomatic History 6 ( 1982 ): 69 – 85 . For interpritations that seem more cynical about American intentions see Lloyd Gardner, Architects of Illusion: Men and Ideas in American Foreign Policy, 1941–1949 (Chicago. 1970), 171–201; Joyce and Gabriel Kolko, The Limits of Power: The World and United States Foreign Policy, 1945–1954 (New York, 1972). 100–109. and Gregg Hekm, The Winning Weapon: The Atomic Bomb in the Cold War, 1945–1950 (New York, 1980). 147–91. Sane of here interpreters seem unclear on whether American leaden expected the Baruch Plan to fail and intended such a failure, or whether they made demands that they knew made failure very likely. Also compare John Lewis Gaddis, The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, 1941–1947 (New York, 1973). 332–35; and Leffler, Preponderance, 114–16. which scans to fall into the unduly cynicll group. It is, in fact, dubious whether, as Leffler contends. “Baruch explicitly designed his plan to perpetuate the US. atomic monopoly” (emphasis added). His plan, like the Acheson-Lilienthal Plan, had the effect of protecting the U.S. monopoly. and Baruch was far mom wary of the Soviets and of seeming “soft.” But he was also sincerely surprised that the Soviets would not accept his plan, and he spent much of the summer and early autumn of 1946 puzzling over the Soviet response. For an interpretation that minimizes the dispute over the Baruch Plan and the American nuclear monopoly in 1946 see Ulam, Expansion and Coexistence. 414–17, which characterizes Soviet policy from 1946–1949 as expansionist. 12 Woods and Jones, Dawning of the Cold War. 120–21. 13 Bernstein, “The H-Bomb Decisions: Were They Inevitable?” in National Security and International Stability, ed. Bemard Brodie, M. Intriligator. and R. Kolkowicz (Cambridge, MA, 1983). 327–58; Galison Peter Bemstein, “ In Any Light: Scientists and the Decision to Build the Superbomb, 1942–1954 . Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 19 ( 1989 ): 267 – 347 ; McGeorge Bundy, Danger and Survival: Choices about the Bomb in the First Fifty Years (New York, 1989). 197–230. Herbert York. The Advisors: Oppenheimer, Teller, and the Superbomb (Stanford, 1988). York devotes far less attention to the administration and to politics, and generally does not analyze foreign policy. See also Herken, Winning Weapon, 308–30. Kolko and Kolko, Limits of Power, 501–9; and Rosenberg David, “ American Atomic Strategy and the Hydrogen Bomb ,” Journal of American History 66 ( 1979 ): 68 – 87 . which overly argues for a tight linkage between strategy and the H-bomb decision—an argument that seems to strain the evidence, rely greatly on inference, and ignore ocher themes. Rosenberg. The Origins of Overkill: Nuclear Weapons and American Strategy, 1945–1960 ,” International Security 7 ( 1983 ): 3 – 27 , provides a rich context of strategy and military analysis for nuclear weapons expansion and the H-bomb. For a close analysis of some H-bomb literature that examines issues in far more depth than does my brief response to James and Woods see Olav Njostad, “Learning from History? Case Studies and he Limits to Theory Building,” in Arms Races: Technological and Political Dynamics, ed. Nils P. Gleditsch and O. Njolstad (Oslo. 1988), 220–46. See also Leffler, Preponderance. 327–33. which draws heavily on Rosenberg, Bundy, and Bemstein. 14 For exceptions see Kolko and Kolko, Limits of Power, 100–109; and Leffler. Preponderance. 327–33. Probably even their sections on the H-bomb decision could be inserted in other interpretive frameworks of the Cold War. Woods and Jones, Dawning of the Cold War. 249–52, relying mostly on little more than a handful of secondary sources, tuck their summary of the decision into their narrative on the 1949–50 period, but it is not conceptually anchored. In sharp contrast, Thomas McCormick. America's Half-Century: United Shies Foreign Policy in the Cold War (Baltimore, 1989). while devoting little space to the H-bomb decision itself, is far more effective in placing it within a larger interpretive framework. Most of the major literature in postwar nuclear history, after moving beyond the issues of 1945–46, operates with little attention to fundamental causes of the Cold War and focuses most often on the decision making that led to a US. buildup, the H-bomb decisions, expansion of production facilities, the establishment of the second weapons lab (Livemore). consideration of tactical weapons, arguments about air defense and strategy, and disputes about the budget—sometimes with statements, by analysts, about “missed opportunities” to slow the arms race and avoid some developments. Both the strength and the weakness of this literature, paradoxically, may be that it does not usually engage, systematically or directly, in the larger argument about the causes of the early Cold War and whether, and, if so, how, they continued to shape the contours of Soviet-American relations. Lurking within much of the nuclear history is the assumption that there was some arena of freedom from basic Cold War causes in which nuclear decisions after 1947 or so could be, and were, made; and that those decisions could powerfully narrow or expand Opportunities for at least partial settlements in the Cold War. Thus, this often unexpressed assumption can be interpreted as a belief in confidence building agreements and the capacity of even small incremental changes on nuclear arms policy to modify the larger context of Soviet-American Elations in the late 1940s and the 1950s. 15 On the Soviets see also Holloway David. Research Note: Soviet Thermonuclear Development ,” International Security 10 ( 1979 ): 192 – 97 ; and idem, The Soviet Union and the Arms Race (New Haven, 1983). Ulam, Expansion and Coexistence. ignores the American H-bomb decision and its significance. There is an interesting question, beyond my purposes here. of whether the 1952 test of a thermonuclear device had a significant impact on the Soviet H-bomb program and on Soviet anxiety about security. For the suggestion of a missed opportunity see Bemstein. Crossing the Rubicon: A Missed Opportunity to slop the H-bomb International Security 14 ( 1989 ): 132 – 60 . 16 The use of counterfactuals as a way of rethinking nuclear history and policy has been employed fruitfully by such different analysts as McGeorge Bundy. Danger and Survival: and Gar Alperovitz. “The Cold War and Beyond: A Perspective a! the Central Importance of Nuclear Weapons” (paper presented at the 1992 OAH meeting). See also Philip Nash, “The Use of Counterfactuals in History: A Lock at the Literature.” SHAFR Newsletter 22 (March 1991): 2–12; James Fearon, “Counterfactuals and Hypothesis Testing in Political Science.”World Politics 43 (January 1991): 169–95; and Bemstein, “Reconsidering the Missile Crisis: Dealing with he Problems of the American Jupiters in Turkey,”The Cuban Missile Crisis Revisited. ed. James Nathan (New York, 1992). 100–107,129n.209. 17 The historical literature employing an open door analysis is now very large, and parts of my summary would obviously have to be modified in places to accommodate the many interpreters with their often slight and sometimes substantial variations. See, for example, Bemstein. “Introduction.”Twentieth-Century America. ed. Bemstein and Allen J. Matusow. 2d ed. (New York, 1973), 319–23. For Williams's own shifting emphases see Tragedy, 11–16. 98–107, 167–201. 18 Department of State Bulletin 12 (27 May 1945): 979. 19 Cordell Hull. The Memoirs of Cordell Hull (New York. 1948). 2:365. 20 On corporatism see Thomas McConnick. “Drift or Mastery? A Corporatist Synthesis for American Diplomatic History,”Reviews in American History 10 (December 1982): 318–30; Hogan Michael J., “ Corporatism: A Positive Appraisal . Diplomatic History 10 ( 1986 ): 363 – 72 ; and Hogan Michael J., “ Corporatism ,” Journal of American History 77 ( 1990 ): 15340 . For shrewd distinctions between labor-intensive and capital-intensive industries and their policies see Ferguson Thomas, “ From Normalcy to New Deal: Industriial Structure. Party Competition, and American Public Policy in the Crept Depression . International Organization 38 ( 1984 ): 41 – 94 . Much of the early mainstream literature, beyond publications in Studies on the Left, that used the conception of corporatism implicitly or explicitly focused on domestic policy, often in the Progressive era and seldom beyond the New Dul yean. Thus, primarily in the application of the theory to domestic politics (as distinguished from foreign policy), there is still a wide range of analyses of domestic power, as represented by the work of Robert Wiebe. The Search for Order, 1877–1920 (New York, 1967); Hays Samuel P., “ The Politics of Reform in Municipal Government in the Progressive Era . Pacific Northwest Quarterly 54 ( 1964 ): 157 – 49 ; James Weinstein, The Corporate Ideal in the Liberal State (Boston, 1968); and Gabriel Kolko, The Triumph of Conservatism (New York, 1963). These works. charted by their conception of power within America, can be placed on I center-to-left spectrum with Wiebe in a centrist position (what seems to be a pluralism of loosely defined groups) through Hays and Weinstein (who discuss the role and frequently the cooptation of labor) to Kolko (with a basically class analysis). In examining domestic America, much of the newer work, relying heavily on organizational theory, often seems to embrace a near-inevitability about the development and triumph of organization. seems often to admire the so-called organizational revolution in America, and often seems to obscure or minimize the issue of power in America. In contrast, much of the literature focusing on foreign policy and using a corporatist framework seems far more attentive to questions of power within America. A brief critique of some corporatist conepions in interpreting U.S. foreign policy appears in Caddis John Lewis, “ The Corporatist Synthesis: A Skeptical View . Diplomatic History 10 ( 1986 ): 357 – 62 . 21 Thomas C. Paterson, “The Quest for Peace and Prosperity: International Trade, Communism, and the Marshall Plan.” in Politics and Policies of the Truman Administration, ed. Bernstein (Chicago, 1970), 78–112; Paterson, Soviet-American Confrontation: Postwar Reconstruction and the Origins of the Cold War (Baltimore. 1973); Gardner, Architects of Illusion, 26–138; idem, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., and Hans Morgenthau, The Origins of the Cold War (Boston, 1970); and Michael J. Hogan, The Marshall Plan: America. Britain, and the Reconstruction of Western Europe, 1947–1952 (New York, 1987). Paterson's work. since the early 1970s. seems to have becane more eclectic in using Williams's open door conception. For a similar eclecticism, but in the early 1970s. see Bemstein, ed., Politics and Policies, 15–60. esp. 57–60. 22 John Dower, “Occupied Japan and the Cold War in Asia,” in The Truman Presidency, ed. Michael Lacey (New York, 1989), 366409; Schaller Michael, “ Securing the Great Crescent: Occupied Japan and the Origins of Containment in Southeast Asia) Journal of American History 69 ( 1982 ): 392 – 414 ; William S. Borden, The Pacific Alliance: United States Foreign Economic Policy and Japanese Trade Recovery, 1947–1955 (Madison, 1984); Andrew J. Rouer. The Path to Vietnam: Origins of the American Commitment to Southeast Asia (Ithaca, 1987); Bruce Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War, vol. 1. Liberation and the Emergence of Separate Regimes, 1945–1947 (Princeton, 1981); idem, The Origins of the Korean War, vol. 2, The Roaring of the Cataract, 1947–1950 (Princeton. 1990). For a genial discussion of much of the newer literature on Asia see McMahon Robert J., “ The Cold War in Asia: Toward a New Synthesis . Diplomatic History 12 ( 1988 ): 307 – 22 . 23 Leffler, Preponderance , 24 , 23 . 24 Leffler's formulation rather surprised me. because I had come to believe, from conversations with him over the years daring back to about 1968, that he would not have so characterized pre-1940 American foreign policy. No important part of my present essay rests on whether this interpretation of Leffler's views for pre-1940 is correct or not For a comparison of Williams and Leffler on pre-1940 policy see Williams. Tragedy, 185–201; and Leffler, Preponderance, 8.13 (with implications for pre-1940). 25 Leffler. The American Conception of National Security and the Beginnings of the Cold War, 1945–48 . American Historical Review 89 ( 1984 ): 346 – 81 . esp. 348 (emphasis added). Leffler's article does not appear in the lengthy bibliography in Preponderance. His 1984 essay provoked sharp responses from John Lewis Gaddis and BNCC Kuniholm, with a rather sharp rebuttal. “Comments,” ibid., 382400. See also Leffler, “ National Security . Journal of American History 77 ( 1990 ): 143 – 52 . h 8 telling sentence, Leffler stated. “Core values usually fuse material self-interest with more fundamental gods like the defense of the state's organizing ideology, such as liberal capitalism, the protection of political institutions. and the safeguarding of its physical base or territorial integrity.” And. a few sentence earlier in the same paragraph. he wrote. “Perceptions of events abroad are themselves greatly influenced by the core values of the perceiver” (p. 145). 26 See the jacket puffs by LaFeber Walter Hogan Michael J. Gaddis John Lewis, “ How Wise Were the Wise Men . Atlantic 269 ( 1992 ): 100 – 103 . Gaddis has shifted from his 1984 criticism of Leffler, and possibly there am two related reasons: Leffler's own apparent shift in analytical framework and his reassessment of Truman policymakers, declaring them sometimes wise and often prudent. For critical reviews of Preponderance see EN= Cumings. “Revising Postrevisionism, or the Poverty of Theory in Diplomatic History” (Paper presented at the 1992 SHAFR meeting); and Eisenberg Carolyn, “ Wise Men, Foolish Choices ,” Nation 254 ( 1992 ): 700 – 704 . Let me disclose that I read Leffler's manuscript for Stanford University Press a few years ago. strongly recommended its publication, stated that it was a very important volume and likely to be so recognized. was troubled by aspects of its ambivalence but felt that they were deeply rooted in the book's architecture and analysis, and did not suggest any effort at revision in order to deal with these matters in his impressive study. Author notes * The author is indebted to Gar Alperovitl, Bruce Cumings, Lynn Eden, Mark Kleinman, and Martin Sherwin for counsel. to Muriel Bell for the research assistance. and also to the U.S. history core colloquium at Stanford University for critical discussion of “national security” and the early Cold War. © The Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR)
TI - Commentary: The Challenge of “National Security”—A Skeptical View
JF - Diplomatic History
DO - 10.1111/j.1467-7709.1993.tb00553.x
DA - 1993-04-01
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/commentary-the-challenge-of-national-security-a-skeptical-view-41Kri1v1Pa
SP - 296
EP - 310
VL - 17
IS - 2
DP - DeepDyve
ER -