Strategies of Containment A Critical Appr - John Lewis Gaddis

694 Pages·2017·3.29 MB·English

by  John Lewis Gaddis

Strategies of Containment
Strategies of Containment
A Critical Appraisal of American National Security
Policy during the Cold War
Revised and Expanded Edition
JOHN LEWIS GADDIS
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Copyright © 1982, 2005 by Oxford University Press, Inc.
First published by Oxford University Press, Inc., 1982 198 Madison Avenue,
New York, New York 10016 www.oup.com
First issued as an Oxford University Press paperback, 1982 Published as a
revised and expanded edition, 2005
Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gaddis, John Lewis.
Strategies of containment : a critical appraisal of American national security
policy during the cold war / John Lewis Gaddis.—Rev. and expanded ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN-13: 978-0-19-517448-9 ISBN-10: 0-19-517448-8 ISBN-13: 978-0-19-
517447-2 (pbk.) ISBN-10: 0-19-517447-X (pbk.)
1. United States—Foreign relations—1945–1989.
2. United States—Foreign relations—1989–
3. National security—United States—History—20th century.
4. National security—United States—History—21st century.
I. Title
E744.G24 2005
327.73'009'045—dc22 2004065459
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
For
WENDELL P. C. MORGENTHALER, JR.
Colonel, USMC (Ret.)
and
ALAN T. ISAACSON
Captain, USN
Strategy seminars, 1975–1977
U. S. Naval War College
Preface
Historians, it has been suggested, can be divided into two groups: “lumpers” and
splitters.”1 “Lumpers” seek to impose order on the past: they deliver themselves
of sweeping generalizations that attempt to make sense out of whole epochs;
they seek to systematize complexity, to reduce the chaos, disorder, and sheer
untidiness of history to neat patterns that fit precisely within the symmetrical
confines of chapters of books, usually designed to be inflicted upon unsuspecting
undergraduates. “Splitters,” on the other hand, write mostly for each other—and
their defenseless graduate students. They like to point out exceptions,
qualifications, incongruities, paradoxes; in short, they elevate quibbling to a high
historiographical art. Both approaches are necessary, even indispensable, to the
writing of history, but they do not always occur in the same proportion at the
same time with reference to the same topic. Establishing a balance between
“lumpers” and “splitters” is no easy thing.
This has been especially true of a field some people are not yet prepared to
regard as history—the record of United States involvement in the Cold War.
Initial accounts, written during the 1950s and early 1960s, tended toward the
particular—lengthy but not very analytical narratives of what happened, based
usually on memoir material and published sources, sometimes also on inside
information. One dipped into them at first fascinated but then quickly surfeited
by the detail: the question “what does it all mean?” remained unanswered. An
answer of sorts came in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s with that outbreak of
“lumping” known as revisionism: it was general, analytical, breathtaking at
times in its findings, but occasionally reminiscent as well of a trapeze artist in its
leaps from one conclusion to another without visible means of support.
Inevitably, reaction set in—the “splitters” appeared, gnawing away at the
foundations of revisionism until many of its most impressive structures—though
hardly all—came tumbling down. No comparably broad synthesis has emerged
to take their place. Cold War studies in recent years have seen much careful
monographic work, based on a wealth of new sources, but no overall pattern has
emerged from it. That is unfortunate, because as important as absorption in the
particular is, there is a certain value in stepping back at times to try to take in the
larger picture, even if parts of it stick out of the frame in awkward places.
This book is an effort to redress the balance in favor of “lumping.” It seeks to
reinterpret, in the light of new evidence and recent research, the whole of United
States national security policy since World War II. It approaches its subject, not
from the more traditional diplomatic, economic, ideological, or military
perspectives, but from an angle of vision that I think incorporates all of these:
that of strategy. By “strategy,” I mean quite simply the process by which ends
are related to means, intentions to capabilities, objectives to resources. Every
maker of policy consciously or unconsciously goes through such a process, but
scholarly students of policy, in their fascination with regional, topical, or
bureaucratic approaches, have paid curiously little attention to it. I should like to
apply this “strategic” perspective to what seems to me to have been the central
preoccupation of postwar national security policy—the idea of containment*—
with a view toward explaining the successive mutations, incarnations, and
transformations that concept has undergone through the years.
My approach to this subject has been influenced by the work of Alexander
George, who has done a great deal to break down artificial methodological
barriers separating the fields of contemporary history and political science.
George has suggested that there exists, for political leaders, something he calls
an “operational code”—a set of assumptions about the world, formed early in
one’s career, that tend to govern without much subsequent variation the way one
responds to crises afterward.2 Building on this argument, I would suggest that
there exist for presidential administrations certain “strategic” or “geopolitical”
codes, assumptions about American interests in the world, potential threats to
them, and feasible responses, that tend to be formed either before or just after an
administration takes office, and barring very unusual circumstances tend not to
change much thereafter. “It is an illusion,” Henry Kissinger has written, “to
believe that leaders gain in profundity while they gain experience. . . . the
convictions that leaders have formed before reaching high office are the
intellectual capital they will consume as long as they continue in office.”3
There have been, I will argue, five distinct geopolitical codes in the postwar
era: George Kennan’s original strategy of containment, articulated between 1947
and 1949 and, I think, largely implemented by the Truman administration during
that period; the assumptions surrounding NSC-68, put into effect between 1950
and 1953 as a result of the Korean War; the Eisenhower-Dulles “New Look,”
which lasted from 1953 to 1961; the Kennedy-Johnson “flexible response”
strategy, which shaped the American approach to the world until Johnson left
office in 1969; and that complex of ideas we now nostalgically associate with
the term “détente,” put forward by Nixon and Kissinger in the early 1970 s, and
continued in effect by both Ford and Carter until the invasion of Afghanistan late
in 1979. Borrowing again from Alexander George, I propose to undertake here a
modest “structured, focused comparison”4 of these geopolitical codes, these
successive approaches to containment, to see what patterns might emerge from
them. My objective in all of this is to throw out a large, but I hope not too
indigestible “lump,” which should at least give the “splitters,” who have been on
a pretty thin diet lately, something to chew on.
A word is in order about the organization of this book. Chapters One and
Eleven treat, in a general way, the World War II antecedents and the current
status of containment. Chapters Two through Ten deal more rigorously with the
approaches to containment outlined above. My procedure generally has been to
describe each strategy in one chapter,* and to evaluate implementation in the
one that follows. There are, however, two exceptions to this pattern. Because of
the relatively brief period in which NSC-68 formed the basis of national
strategy, Chapter Four, which deals with it, covers both content and
implementation. Chapter Eight, on the implementation of “flexible response,”
takes the form of a detailed case study on the Vietnam War.
This book is a direct outgrowth of my having taught for two years at the
United States Naval War College, an institution unique, I believe, in its concern
for the relationship of history to policy. I am indebted to Admirals Stansfield
Turner and Julien J. LeBourgeois and to Philip A. Crowl for having made that
experience possible; also to former colleagues, notably James E. King, Thomas
H. Etzold, David Schoenbaum, and Ned Lebow, with whom the ideas in this
book have been much discussed; to a large number of students whose respectful
but healthy skepticism was a valued corrective; and to two congenial teaching
partners and officemates, whose patience and forbearance are commemorated on
the dedication page.
Students and colleagues at Ohio University have also heard more about this
book than they would ever have chosen to, and I am grateful to them for their
comments, especially Charles C. Alexander, Alonzo L. Hamby, and David L.
Williams. Karen Williams went beyond the call of duty to track down an elusive
footnote reference, and Doris Dorr typed the manuscript with the efficiency
history professors at Athens have come to appreciate.
George F. Kennan and W. W. Rostow took time to read carefully and answer
questions about portions of the manuscript dealing with their years in
Washington; I am grateful to them for their patience in considering arguments
with which I suspect they did not always agree. Robert A. Divine put aside his
own study of Eisenhower to give me cogent advice on Chapters Five and Six.
And it has been a pleasure to work with Sheldon Meyer, Victoria Bijur, and the
Oxford University Press in preparing the book for publication.
I have been fortunate in having been given forums in an unusual variety of
places in which to develop some of the ideas that appear here. I should like to
thank Professors Sadao Asada and Nobunao Matsuyama for arranging my
participation in the 1978 Kyoto American Studies summer seminar, where the
outline for this book was first worked out; Samuel F. Wells, Jr., for having
organized fruitful sessions on the relationship of history to policy and on NSC-
68 at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars; Dr. and Mrs.
Gerald J. Bernath for having made possible the 1980 Stuart L. Bernath Memorial
Lecture to the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations; Professor
Arthur Funk for organizing the 1980 joint meeting of the British and American
Committees on the History of the Second World War in London; and, finally,
my colleagues in both the “mini-” and “maxi-Klubis” at the Historical Research
and Documentation Institute, University of Helsinki.
This book is based heavily on archival materials, many of them recently
opened. My thanks for their indispensable assistance to the staffs of the Harry S.
Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson
libraries, as well as the Diplomatic and Modern Military branches of the
National Archives; also to George F. Kennan for permission to use and quote
from his private papers, and to the staff of the Seeley Mudd Library at Princeton
University, where they are housed.
Grants from the Naval War College Advanced Research Center and the
National Endowment for the Humanities helped to support the writing of this
book, and are gratefully acknowledged. Brief portions of it have appeared, in
slightly different forms, in Foreign Affairs, International Security, and the
Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations Newsletter, and appear
here by permission.
Family obligations come last, but hardly least. Michael and David showed
uncommon restraint in not raiding (at least not often) their father’s hoard of
paper, notecards, paperclips, and tape. My wife Barbara (who dislikes
sentimental acknowledgments) provided a sympathetic ear and a critical mind to
help me over rough spots, but mostly would have preferred to be studying
glaciers and peat bogs, or listening to Willie Nelson.