The Dangerous Doctrine: National Security and U.S. Foreign Policy. - book reviews

The ancient game of finding acceptable aims to justify unacceptable means wasn't invented by capitalists or nationalists, but they have been among the most talented of its players;; and when their aims of profits and power have combined to produce imperialism, the means employed have become very nasty indeed. The wonders of contemporary technology and the looming threats of global revolution in the second half of this century have opened up the broadest vistas ever for deceit and destruction, and the United States with its ever growing military arid espionage bureaucracies has taken full advantage of the beckoning opportunities. In the process, what was once thought of as the land of" the free and the home of the brave (though of course not everyone saw it so) has become a national security state.

Saul Landau became a serious student of this history in the 1950s, when he studied with William Appleman Williams, whose analyses of U.S. history and foreign policy remain vital. Since those days, Landau has been a close observer and constant critic of the nature and consequences of U.S. policies, especially in this hemisphere, consequences for not only the victims abroad but also at home. His films, essays, and books have come forth in a steady and enlightening flow; this latest work may be seen as a culminating analysis of what he has learned at first-hand and as a researcher.

The Dangerous Doctrine appears as two developments compete for our acquiescence or support: an obvious hardening of the national security state, and a possible-if decidedly hesitant-turn away from the cold war. At such a time we particularly need to know as much as possible about the ways and means that spawn and nurture the cruelties, insanities, and dangers that have become commonplace since 1945, and for which the United States bears a heavy responsibility.

For such purposes Landau's book is invaluable, at the same time that it is the most compact, comprehensive, and lucid analysis of the Cold War process I have read. After a brief and enlightening survey of the long period before World War I, Landau turns to the shaping of U.S. policies in response to the Russian revolution. It has taken many forms, but the response has been obsessive from the start, with only now and then a respite-e.g. , in the carly 1930s under FDR and during the Second World War as the Soviet Union, bearing the main brunt of the war against the Nazis, became our military ally.

The present era took shape as that war was ending. Everyone closely involved in the Pacific war knows that the Japanese had lost the war months before the atomic bombs were used (they had run out of oil, among other problems); and not a few see Hiroshima, to say nothing of Nagasaki, as the opening shot of the Cold War. I will never forget what was handed to me as I disembarked at Long Beach in December, 1945: it was (along with coffee and a doughnut) the leading Los Angeles newspaper with a front-page editorial which proclaimed in very large letters: The Time to Strike the Soviet Union is Now."

One can speculate about how much difference it would have meant over the years up to 1948 if FDR had lived to finish his term; but we need not speculate on what did happen with the accession of Harry S. Truman to the presidency. His decisions and actions were critical to the first stages of the Cold War.

The modern foundations and a good part of the structure of the national security state were constructed in the few years of the Truman White House; by the time Eisenhower arrived, sheer momentum could do the job. The "Iron curtain" was dropped into place in 1946, and in 1947 theCIA and the National Security Council and the Defense Department (which had been the War Department throughout our entire history) took their places. By the time Truman left office in 1953, the U.S. government was paying for almost all the French war in Indochina, was up to its hips in blood in Korea, was learning to overturn governments in Iran and Guatemala, and was openly or surreptitiously involved in the internal affairs of most nations on all continents. Since 1953, it's been all downhill, into Cuba, Vietnam, Chile, Nicaragua, El Salvador.

Landau shows well the continuity and changes in U.S. foreign policy since World War II. The continuity has been a main aim of those in power; the changes have been (mostly) forced upon them. The double disaster of Watergate and defeat in Vietnam ushered in a period of confusion and vacillation for the stalwarts of the cold warfrom the bullying bellicosity of President Ford in the Mayaguez incident (in which dozens were injured) to the hostage-helicopter disaster in Iran under Carter. Such setbacks and embarrassments made it easier not only for a "cowboy" like Reagan to gain office but, while there, to busy himself and others in building up the national security edifice and to seek to strengthen its foundations. As Landau writes,

What has come to be known since 1984 as the Reagan Doctrine encompasses a variety of foreign policy elements loosely tied together by militant and ideologically intense rhetoricc. True to his general presidential style, Reagan's doctrine combines Monroe's emphasis on Latin America, Theodore Roosevelt's interventionism there, Truman's emphasis on military support for anticommunist governments, Kennedy's belief in counterinsurgency, and Nixon's willingness to bomb other countries for symbolic purposes. (p. 136) From that, Landau goes on to show how "the reinvigorated national security elite roared with righteousness" as it resumed and redoubled its practices of big lies, covert operations, and draining the national treasury.