FOREIGN RELATIONS: What Kind of Alliances

In the lively and vocal search for a U.S. foreign policy, one authoritative voice had not spoken since Pearl Harbor. Last week learned, clearheaded Hamilton Fish Armstrong broke his silence in Foreign Affairs, the quarterly he edits.

Most striking part of the article was its passionately explicit reminder of the nature of the enemy. Editor Armstrong warned against a sentimental peace. Eventually, he believes, the U.S. will be able to accept its present enemies as partners—but “eventually” is a long way off. In the interim, U.S. citizens can test each peace proposal only by the “realistic” yardstick: Does it increase U.S. security?

“What does this mean, country by country?”

The Germans. “It means that we intend to teach the German people beyond any chance of misunderstanding or later denial that they are not a race of supermen designated by some primordial decree to rule the world but instead a quite ordinary conglomeration of several racial stocks, without preternatural origins, with a number of unlovely traits as well as talents of a high order, and with a completely wrong belief that you can pound your neighbors into loving you as an Apache pounds his woman into dazed rapture. . . .”

The Japanese. “We intend to teach the Japanese, who have not been defeated in modern history, that they can be defeated. . . . We intend to demonstrate to them that [their Emperor’s] policies are not evolved in the remote stillnesses of Heaven but in the councils of palace sycophants and ambitious generals; and that they are founded on error and bring disaster.”

The Italians. “The lesson which the Italians must take to heart is … that a second-class Power cannot be built into a master race by rhetoric, grimaces, blackmail and castor oil, and that attempts to ride to conquest on the coattails of others will end in humiliation and disaster no matter which of the major contestants wins.”

Limited or Unlimited? Having delivered a timely reminder that the first job is to deal firmly with our enemies, Editor Armstrong then outlined his own set of basic principles for the peace. Most important: the peace should be based on common agreements among many nations rather than any Big Power Alliance. Thus he put up a “stop, look & listen” sign across the path of the Lippmann bandwagon. Columnist Lippmann’s U.S. Foreign Policy, Shield of the Republic (TIME, June 14), more than any other single statement, has popularized the idea of a longtime military alliance with Britain, the Soviet Union, and, if possible, China.* Editor Armstrong answers: U.S. interests have no limits. They fringe out all over the world, and it is just in the outermost zones that disputes may originate which would take the U.S. into another war. Therefore he has no faith in blocs or alliances, military or diplomatic. His conclusion: “. . . The general acceptance of a general relationship, with general though graduated responsibilities, offers the only basis for organizing world peace. . . .”

But before the issue is settled, many other pundits—and finally, the citizenry —must address themselves to the central question: Can the U.S. build a lasting peace on military alliances?

*A permanent military alliance with Britain, reports the Gallup Poll, is favored by a majority of both Republicans (57%) and Democrats (67%).