Command Study 12, Chapter 5. Implications for the Future Page: 4
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Considered from the standpoint of prevalent conditions in 1964, a detente
could be crucial to Soviet leaders vis-a-vis Communist China, a floundering
agricultural economy, and the overwhelming power of the Western World.
Moreover, some authorities note a continuing trend toward fragmentation of
Communist bloc nations on the order of the Tito defection. Relaxation of
tensions would provide the Soviet Union with more latitude in which to consoli-
date faltering satellites. Furthermore, the financial strain of the arms race
and the concomitant neglect of consumer goods manufacture obviously present
serious internal difficulties to the Communist bureaucracy, both in the Soviet
Union and in Eastern Europe. The Soviets, fully realizing the failure of their
various pressures to destroy the Western system of alliances, can use the
advantages of a detente to split these alliances by offering gestures of friend-
ship and mutual agreements of various sorts. If the Communists follow the
precedents of history, any one, or a combination of factors, may be motivat-
ing forces behind the current policy of the Soviet Union toward the United States
and other Western nations.
On the other hand, informed observers hopefully speculate that relaxation
of tensions may involve something more than a tactical diplomatic maneuver
on the part of the Communists. Arthur Schlesinger cites certain causative
conditions existing in the present East-West relationship which distinguish
this turn in Soviet policy from previous turns. For one thing, the challenge
of another independent Communist power to the control of Central Asia and
even the entire world Communist movement certainly restricts the atmosphere
in which the Soviet Union can make strategic choices. The growing nationalism
among the satellites of Eastern Europe also poses a tendency toward further
pluralization of power in the Communist world just as economic prosperity
and political autonomy have produced pluralization of power in the democratic
world. Additionally, the rise of new states in Africa and the nonalignment
policies of certain nations have produced other imponderable factors on the
world scene. The realization that the inherent power of nuclear weapons pre-
cludes any victor in an all-out war likewise encourages a community of interests
between the Soviet Union and nations of the Free World. The Communist Party' s
Central Committee in a letter to the Chinese Communists in July 1963 recognized
that nuclear weapons do not follow the class principle and strongly implied that
a primary aim of the Soviet Union was to avoid a thermonuclear conflict. And
the seemingly more liberal attitude prevalent in Soviet society since Khrushchev's
de-Stalinization campaign indicates a certain kind of evolution in Soviet society
which somehow distinguishes the present-day Soviet Union from the weak,
struggling Bolshevik nation under Lenin.
At the same time, however, the basic objective of the Soviet Union is the
same today as it was in Lenin's day--a monolithic Communist world manipulated
by the Kremlin. Secretary of State Dean Rusk, on 25 February 1964, stated:
No one needs to tell us that the Communist menace is deadly serious,
that the Communists seek their goals through various means, that
deception is a standard element in their tactics, that they move easily
from the direct attack to the indirect, or to combinations of the two.
. . . Their proclaimed objectives and our conception of a decent world
order just do not and cannot fit together.4
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Air University (U.S.). Command Study 12, Chapter 5. Implications for the Future, pamphlet, May 1964; Robins Airforce Base, Georgia. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1010082/m1/12/?q=%22%22~1: accessed July 9, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting National WASP WWII Museum.