It is understandable that a nation which for a century and a half had been preoccupied with its domestic affairs should seek to apply the pattern of these to international affairs. But the very success of the American experiment and the spontaneity of our social institutions have served to emphasize the dilemma faced at some stage by every country: how to reconcile its vision of itself with the vision of it as seen by others. To itself, a nation is an expression of justice, and the more spontaneous has been the growth of its social institutions the more this is true; for government functions effectively only when most citizens obey voluntarily, and they will obey to the extent that they consider the demands of their rulers just. But to other nations, a state is a force to be balanced. This is inevitable because national strategy must be planned on the basis of the other side’s capabilities and not merely a calculation of its intentions. There exists a double standard; therefore, in all foreign policy is justified like all other policy in terms of an absolute standard; but abroad, what is defined as justice domestically becomes a program to be compromised by negotiation. If the institutions and values of the states comprising the international order as sufficiently similar, this incommensurability may not become apparent. But in the revolutionary period like the present, it affects profoundly relationships among states. Foremost among the attitudes affecting our foreign policy is American empiricism and its quest for methodological certainly: nothing is “true” unless it is “objective” and it is not “objective” unless it is part of experience. This makes for the absence of dogmatism and for the case of social relations on the domestic scene. But in the conduct of foreign policy it has pernicious consequences. Foreign policy is the art of weighing probabilities; mastery of it lies in grasping the nuances of possibilities. To attempt to conduct it as science must lead to rigidity. For only the risks are certain; the opportunities are conjectural. One cannot be “sure” about the implications of events until they have happened, and when they have occurred it is too late to do anything about them. Empiricism in foreign policy leads to a penchant for ad boc solutions; the rejection of dogmatism inclines our policymakers to postpone committing themselves until all facts are in; but by the time the facts are in, a crisis has usually developed or an opportunity has passed. Our policy is therefore geared to dealing with emergencies; it finds difficulty in developing the long-range program that might forestall them. A symptom of our need for methodological certainly is the vast number of committees charged with examining and developing policy. Very multiplicity of committees makes it difficult to arrive at decisions in time. It tends to give a disproportionate influence to subordinate officials with trivia. Because of our cult of specialization, sovereign departments negotiate national policy among each other with no single authority able to take an overall view or to apply decisions over a period of time. This results in a hiatus between grand strategy and particular tactics, between the definition of general objectives so vague as to be truistic and the concern with immediate problems. The gap is bridged only when a crisis forces the bureaucratic machinery into accelerated action, and then the top leadership has little choice but to concur in the administrative proposals. In short, we are trying to cope with political problems by administrative means. The temptation to formulate policy administratively is ever present in a government organized, as ours is, primarily for the conduct of domestic affairs. But the spirit of policy and that of bureaucracy are fundamentally opposed. Profound policy thrives and creativeness; good administration thrives on routine – a procedure which can assimilate mediocrity. Policy involves an adjustment of risks; administration an avoidance of deviation. The attempt to formulate policy administratively leads to the acceptance of a standard which evaluates by mistakes avoided rather than by goals achieved. It is no accident that most great statesmen were opposed by the “experts” in their foreign offices, for the very greatness of the statesman’s conceptions tends to make it inaccessible to those whose primary concern is with safety and minimum risk. Our methodological doubt makes for vulnerability to Soviet maneuvers in two ways: on the one hand, every Soviet change of line is taken at least in part at face value, for we cannot be certain that the Soviets may not “mean” it this time until they have proved they do not; and they will try their best not to prove it until the tactic has served its purpose. On the other hand, we have found it difficult to adjust our tactics to new situations, so that we always tend to speak in the categories of the most recent threat but one. The paradoxical result is that we, the empiricists, appear to the world as rigid, unimaginative and even somewhat cynical, while the dogmatic Bolsheviks exhibit flexibility, daring, and subtlety. This is because our empiricism dooms us to an essentially reactive policy that improvises a counter to every Soviet move, while the Soviet emphasis on theory gives them the certainly to act, to maneuver, and to run risks. The very fact of action forces us to assume the risks of countermoves and absorbs our energies in essentially defensive maneuvers. The willingness to act need not derive from theory, of course. Indeed, an overemphasis on theory can lead to a loss of touch with reality. In many societies – in Great Britain, for example – policy developed from a firmly held tradition of national strategy. Throughout the nineteenth century it was a tenet of British policy that Antwerp should not fall into the hands of a major power. This was not backed by an elaborate metaphysics but simply by a tradition of British sea power whose requirements were so generally understood that they were never debated. It is the absence of a tradition of foreign policy which exaggerates the biases of our empiricism and makes it difficult to conduct our policy with a proper regard for the timing of measures. It causes us to overlook the fact that policy exist in time as well as in space, that a measure is correct only if it can be carried out at the proper moment. To be sure, our cumbersome administrative mechanism adds immeasurably to the problem. But in addition, our deliberations are conducted as if a course of action were eternally valid, as if a measure which might meet exactly the needs of a given moment could not backfire if adopted a year later. For this reason our policy lacks a feeling for nuance, the ability to come up with variations on the same theme, as the Soviets have done so effectively. We consider policymaking concluded when the National Security Council has come to a decision. And in fact, the process of arriving at a decision is so arduous and a reappraisal is necessarily so “agonizing” that we are reluctant to reexamine policies after they have outlived their usefulness. But a written statement of policy is likely to amount to a truism; the real difficulty arises in applying it to concrete situations. And while we have often come up with the proper measures, we have not found it easy to adapt our approach to the requirements of the situation over a period of time… Another factor shaping our attitude toward foreign affairs is our luck of tragic experience. Though we have known severe hardships, our history has been notably free of disaster. Indeed, the American domestic experience exhibits an unparalleled success, of great daring rewarded and of great obstacles overcome. It is no wonder, therefore, that to many of our most responsible men, particularly in the business community, the warnings of impending peril or of imminent disaster sound like the Cassandra cries of abstracted “eggheads”. For is not the attribute of the “egghead” his lack is touch with reality, and doesn’t American reality show an unparalleled wealth coupled with an unparalleled growth? There has been much criticism of Secretaries Humphrey and Wilson for their defense economies. But in fairness in psychological background of their decisions should be understood; despite all the information at their disposal, they simply cannot believe that in the nuclear age the penalty for miscalculation may be national catastrophe. They may know in their heads, but they cannot accept in their hearts, that the society they helped to build could disappear as did Rome or Carthage or Byzantium, which probably seemed as eternal of their citizens. These characteristics make for an absence of a sense of urgency, a tendency to believe that everything can be tried once and that the worst consequence mistakes can have is that we may be forced to redouble our efforts later on. The irrevocable error is not part of the American experience. Related to this problem is our reluctance to think in terms of power. To be sure, American expansion both economic and geographical was not accomplished without a judicious application of power. But our Calvinist heritage has required success to display the attribute of justice. Even our great fortunes, however accumulated, were almost invariably held to impose a social obligation; the great foundation is after all a peculiarly American phenomenon. As a nation, we have used power almost shamefacedly as if it were inherently wicked. We have wanted to be like for our own sakes and we have wished to succeed because of the persuasiveness of our principles rather than through our strength. Our feeling of guilt with respect to power has caused us to transform all wars into crusades and then to apply our power in the most absolute terms. We have rarely found intermediately ways to apply our power, and in those cases we have done so reluctantly. But international relations cannot be conducted without an awareness of power relationships. To be sure, the contemporary evolution cannot be managed merely by an exercise of force. But unless we maintain at least equilibrium of power between us and the Soviet bloc, we will have no chance to undertake any positive measures. And maintaining this equilibrium may confront us with some very difficult choices. We are certain to be confronted with situations of extraordinary ambiguity such as civil wars or domestic coups. Every successful Soviet move makes our moral position that much more difficult: Indochina was more ambiguous than Korea; Soviet arms deal with Egypt more ambiguous than Indochina; the Suez crisis more ambiguous than the arms deal. There can be no doubt that we should seek to prevent such occurrences. But once they have occurred, we must find the will to act and to run risks in a situation which permits only a choice among evils. While we should never give up our principles, we must also realize that we cannot maintain our principles unless we survive. Consistent with our reluctance to think in terms of power has been our notion of the nature of peace. We assume that peace is the “normal” pattern of relations among states, that it is equivalent to a consciousness of harmony, that it can be aimed at directly as a goal of policy. These are truisms rarely challenged in our political debate. Both major political parties maintain that they work for a lasting peace, even if they differ about the best means of attaining it. Both make statements which imply that on a certain magic day, perhaps after a four-power conference, “peace will break out”. No idea could be more dangerous. To begin with, the polarization of power in the world would give international relations a degree of instability even if there were no ideological disagreement, and the present volatile state of technology is likely to compound this sense of insecurity. Moreover, whenever peace – conceived as the avoidance of war – has become the direct objective of power or a group of powers, international relations have been at the mercy of the state willing to forego peace. No statesman can entrust the fate of his country entirely to the continued good will of another sovereign state, if only because the best guarantee for the will remaining good is not to tempt it by too great a disproportion of power. Peace, therefore, cannot be aimed at directly; it is the expression of certain conditions and power relationships – not to peace – that diplomacy must address itself. It is obviously to the interest of Soviet Union to equate peace with a state of good feeling unconnected with power relationships or past usurpations, for such an attitude ratifies all its gains since World War II. By the same token, it is to the interest of the United States to leave no doubt that the tension of the Cold War was produced not only by the intransigence of the Soviet tone but also by the intransigence of their measures. As long as the Soviets can give the impressions that conciliatory statements by themselves are a symptom of peaceful intentions, they can control the pace of negotiations and gain the benefits of advocacy of peace without paying any price for its achievement. If the Soviets are given the privilege of initiating negotiations when it suits their purpose and of breaking them off without any penalty, diplomacy will become a tool of Soviet propaganda. And the variety of Soviet maneuvers will in time erode the cohesion of the free world.

III With this we have reached of the major problems confronting current American diplomacy: the changed nature of negotiations in a revolutionary political order. An international order, the basic arrangements of which are accepted by all the major powers, may be called “legitimate”; a system which contains a power or group of powers which refuses to accept either the arrangements of the settlement or the domestic structure of the other states is “revolutionary.” A legitimate order does not make conflicts impossible; it limits their scope. Wars may arise, but they will be fought in the name of the existing system, and the peace will be justified as better expressions of the agreed arrangements. In a revolutionary order, on the other hand, disputes do not concern adjustments within a given framework, but the framework itself. There can be little doubt that we are living through a revolutionary period. On the physical plane, power of weapons is out of balance with the objectives for which they might be employed; as a result, at a moment of unparalleled strength we find ourselves paralyzed by the implications of our own weapons technology. On the political plane, many of the newly independent powers continue to inject into their international policies the revolutionary fervor that gained them independence. On the ideological plane, the contemporary ferment is fed by the newly awakened hopes and expectations of hitherto inarticulate peoples and by the rapidity with which ideas can be communicated. And the Soviet bloc, eager to exploit all dissatisfactions for its own ends, has given the present situation its revolutionary urgency. This is despite the conciliatory statements of the Twentieth Party Congress. For “peaceful coexistence” was not advanced as an acceptance of the status quo. On the contrary, it was justified as the most efficient offensive tactic, as a more effective means to subvert the existing order. The Soviet leaders gave up neither the class struggle with its postulate of irreconcilable conflict, nor the inevitable triumph of communism with its corollary of the dictatorship of the proletariat. To be sure, war was held to be n longer inevitable, but only because soon the U.S.S.R. would possess preponderant strength. Should the policy of “peaceful coexistence” prove less fruitful than expected, we can look for other tactics. “in the world from now on,” Mao has said, “neutrality is only a word for deceiving people.” These have been hard lessons to come by. Lulled by century and a half of comparative tranquility and without experience with disaster, we have been reluctant to take at face value the often-repeated Soviet assertion that they mean to smash the existing framework. We have tended to treat Soviet protestations as if their intent were merely tactical – as if the U.S.S.R. overstated its case for bargaining purposes or were motivated by specific grievances to be assuaged by individual concessions. There is a measure of pathos in our effort to find “reasonable” motives for the Soviets to cease being Bolshevik: the opportunity to develop the recourses of their own country, the unlimited possibilities of nuclear energy or of international trade. We reveal thereby a state of mind which cannot come to grips with a policy of unlimited objectives. Our belief that an antagonist can be vanquished by the persuasiveness of argument, our trust in the efficacy of the process of negotiations, reflect the dominant role played in our diplomacy by the legal profession and their conception of diplomacy as a legal process. But the legal method cannot be applied in a revolutionary situation, for it presupposes a framework of agreed rules within which negotiating skill is exercised. It is not the process of negotiation as such which account for the settlement of legal disputes, but a social environment which permits that process to operate. This explains why conciliatory American statements have so often missed their mark. To the Soviets, the key to their ultimate triumph resides in their superior understanding of “objective” forces and of the processes of history. Even when they accept the “subjective” sincerity of American statesmen, they still believe them powerless to deal with the “objective” factors of American society which will ultimately produce a showdown. Conciliatory American statements will appear to the Soviet leaders either as hypocrisy or stupidity, ignorance or propaganda. It is therefore futile to seek to sway Soviet leaders through logical persuasion or by invocations of abstract justice. Soviet statesmen consider conferences a means to confirm an “objective” situation. A Soviet diplomat who wishes to make concessions can justify them at home only if he can demonstrate that they resulted from a proper balancing of risks. In short, diplomacy has a different function in a revolutionary international order. In a legitimate order, diplomacy seeks to compromise disagreements in order to perpetuate the international system. Adjustments occur because agreement is itself a desirable goal, because of a tacit agreement to come to an agreement. In a revolutionary order，on the other hand, adjustments have primarily a tactical significance: to prepare positions for the next test of strength. Negotiations in a legitimate order have three functions: to formulate by expressing agreements or discords in a manner that does not open unbridgeable schisms; to perpetuate by providing a forum for making concessions; to persuade by stating a plausible reason for settlement. But in a revolutionary period, most of these functions have changed their purpose: diplomats can still meet, but they cannot persuade, for they have ceased to speak the same language. Instead, diplomatic conferences become elaborate stage plays which seek to attach the uncommitted to one or the other of the contenders. Nothing is more futile, therefore, than to attempt to deal with a revolutionary power by ordinary diplomatic methods. In a legitimate order, demands once made are negotiable; they are put forward with the intention of being compromised. But in a revolutionary order, they are programmatic; they represent a claim for allegiance. In a legitimate order, it is good negotiating tactics to formulate maximum demands because this facilitates compromise without loss of essential objectives. In a revolutionary order, it is good negotiating tactics to formulate minimum demands in order to gain the advantage of advocating moderation. In a legitimate order, proposals are addressed to the opposite number at the conference table. They must, therefore, be drafted with great attention to their substantive content and with sufficient ambiguity so that they do not appear as invitations to surrender. But in a revolutionary order, the protagonists at the conference table address not so much one another as the world at large. Proposals here must be framed with a maximum of clarity and even simplicity, for their major utility is their symbolic content. In short, in a legitimate order, a conference represents a struggle to find formulate to achieve agreement; in a revolutionary order, it is a struggle to capture the symbols which move humanity.