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The Honorable Henry A. Kissinger
Secretary of State
The issue of how to deal with the Soviet Union has been a central feature of American policy for three decades. What is new today is the culmination of thirty years of postwar growth of Soviet industrial, technological and military power. No American policy caused this; no American policy could have prevented it. But American policy can keep this power from being used to expand Soviet influence to our detriment; we have the capacity to enable allies and friends to live with a sense of security.
Soviet Expansion Checked
We must do so, however, in unprecedented conditions. In previous periods, rivalry between major powers has almost invariably led to war. In our time, when thermonuclear weapons threaten casualties in the hundreds of millions, such an outcome is unthinkable.
In the period after World War II, our policies sought to build alliances and positions of military strength from which we could contain and isolate the Soviet Union.
These policies served us and our allies well. Soviet expansion was checked.
Yet the hope that these policies would produce permanent stability, positive evolution of the Soviet system, and greater normality, was only partially realized.
In strategic military terms the USSR has achieved a broad equality with the United States, as was inevitable for a large nation whose rulers were prepared to impose great sacrifices on their people and to give military strength the absolute top priority in allocation of resources.
For the first time in history the Soviet Union can threaten distant places beyond the Eurasian land mass—including the, U.S. Soviet diplomacy has thrust into the Middle East, Africa and Asia. This evolution is now rooted in real power.
Central Security Problem
Coping with the implications of this, emerging superpower has been our central security problem. This condition will not go away, and it will perhaps never be conclusively “solved.” It will have to be faced by every Administration for the foreseeable future.
Our policy must deal with the consequences.
In the nuclear era, when casualties in a general nuclear war will involve hundreds of millions in a matter of days, the use of force threatens utter catastrophe. It is our responsibility to contain Soviet power without global war, to avoid abdication as well as confrontation.
We must strive for an equilibrium of power, but we must move beyond it to promote the habits of mutual restraint, coexistence and ultimately, cooperation. We must stabilize a new international order in a vastly dangerous environment.
This is what is meant by the process called “detente.”
The policies pursued by this Administration have been designed to prevent Soviet expansion, but also to build a pattern of relations in which the Soviet Union will always confront penalties for aggression, and also acquire growing incentives for restraint. These goals are well within our capacities. Soviet power is evolving with considerable unevenness.
Engine of World Economy
It is the great industrial democracies, not the Soviet Union, that are the engine of the world economy and the most promising partners for the poorer nations.
Our essential task is to recognize the need for a dual policy that simultaneously and with equal vigor resists expansionist drives and seeks to shape a more constructive relationship.
At the same time, we have an historic obligation to mankind to engage the Soviet Union in settlements of concrete problems and to push back the shadow of nuclear catastrophe. At the very least, we owe it to our people to demonstrate that its government has missed no opportunity to achieve constructive solutions and that crises which occur were unavoidable.
This is why the U.S. has set forth principles of responsible relations in the nuclear age: respect for the interests of all, restraint in the uses of power, and abstention from efforts to exploit instability or local conflicts for unilateral advantage.
Confrontation and Crisis
It has been our belief that, with patience, a pattern of restraints and a network of vested interests can develop which will give coexistence a more hopeful dimension and make both sides conscious of what they would stand to lose by reverting to the politics of pressure, confrontation and crisis.
Throughout the course of 1970 and 1971, we were involved in a series of crises with the Soviet Union and were often accused of provocation or bellicosity in the process.
Thus, only a few short years ago, the pressures in this country and from our allies were overwhelmingly to move rapidly toward better relations with Moscow. We resisted these pressures then, just as we now refuse to let ourselves be stampeded in the opposite direction. The country needs a balanced, long-term policy, combining firmness and conciliation, strong defense and arms control, political principles and economic incentives.
Ironic National Debate
It is therefore ironic that our national debate seems now in many respects to have come full circle. The conditions in which detente originated are largely forgotten. Those who pressed for concessions and unilateral restraint towards Moscow now accuse the government of being too conciliatory. Those who complain about our failure to respond with sufficient vigor to Soviet moves are often the very ones who incessantly seek to remove this country's leverage for influence or action-through restrictions on trade and credit, through weakening our intelligence capabilities, through preventing aid to friends who seek to resist Soviet aggression.
So let us understand the scope and limits of a realistic policy:
Scope and Limits
-We cannot prevent the growth of Soviet power, but we can prevent its use for unilateral advantage and political expansion.
-We cannot prevent a build-up of Soviet forces but we have the capacity, together with our allies, to maintain an equilibrium. We cannot neglect this task and then blame others if the military balance shifts against us.
-We have the diplomatic, economic and military capacity to resist expansionism, but we cannot engage in a rhetoric of confrontation while depriving ourselves of the means to confront.
-We must accept that sovereign states, especially of roughly equal power, cannot impose unacceptable conditions on each other and must proceed by compromise.
-We must live with the reality of the nuclear threat but we have it in our power to build a new relationship that transcends the nuclear peril.
So let us end the defeatist rhetoric that implies that Soviet policy is masterful, purposeful and overwhelming while American policy is bumbling, uncertain and weak. We have a design and the material assets to deal with the Soviet Union. We will succeed if we move forward as a united people.
All Within Reach
There is one central fact that distinguishes our era from all previous historical periods-the existence of enormously destructive weapons that can span unlimited distances almost instantaneously. No part of the globe is beyond reach. No part of the globe would be spared from the effects of a general nuclear exchange.
For centuries it was axiomatic that increases in military power could be translated into almost immediate political advantage. It is now clear that new increments of strategic weaponry do not automatically lead to either political or military gains. Yet, in the nature of things, if one side expands its strategic arsenal, the other side will inevitably match it. The race is maintained partly because a perceived inequality is considered by each side as politically unacceptable.
Face a Paradox
We thus face a paradox: at current and foreseeable levels of nuclear arms, it becomes increasingly dangerous to invoke them. In no crisis since 1962 have the strategic weapons of the two sides determined the outcome. Today these arsenals increasingly find their purpose primarily in matching and deterring the forces of the opponent. Under virtually no foreseeable circumstance could the United States-or the Soviet Union-avoid 100 million dead in a nuclear exchange. Yet the race goes on.
The fixation on potential strategic arms imbalances that is inherent in an unrestrained arms race diverts resources into strategically unproductive areas-especially away from forces for local defense, where shortfalls and imbalances could be turned rapidly to our disadvantage.
If no restraint is developed, the competition in strategic arms can have profound consequences for the future of international relations, and indeed of civilization.
The U.S. has sought and achieved, since 1963, a series of arms control agreements which build some restraint into nuclear rivalry. There was a significant breakthrough to limit strategic weapons in 1972. If the 1974 Vladivostok accord leads to a new agreement, an even more important advance will have been made.
SALT is a Surrender
Yet, at this critical juncture, the American people are subjected to an avalanche of charges that SALT is a surrender of American interests. There are assertions that the U.S. is falling behind in the strategic competition and that SALT has contributed to it. There are unsupportable charges that the Soviets have systematically violated the SALT agreements.
What are the facts?
First of all, American policy decisions in the 1960s set the level of our strategic forces for the 1970s. We then had the choice between continuing the deployment of large, heavy-throwweight missiles like the Titan or Atlas, or undertaking development and deployment of large numbers of smaller, more flexible ICBMs, or combinations of both types. The Administration then in office chose to rely on an arsenal of 1000 small, sophisticated and highly accurate ICBMs and 656 submarine-launched missiles on 41 boats along with heavy bombers; we deployed them rapidly, and then stopped our build-up of launchers unilaterally when the programs were complete.
Soviet Missiles
The Soviets made the opposite decision; they chose larger, heavier missiles; they continued to build up their forces through the 1960s and 1970s; they passed our numerical levels by 1969-1970, and continued to add an average of 200 missiles a year until stopped by the first SALT agreement.
Thus, as a consequence of decisions I made a decade ago by both sides, Soviet missiles are superior in throwweight while ours are superior in reliability, accuracy, diversity and sophistication, and we possess larger numbers of warheads.
In 1972 when the SALT agreement was signed, the Soviet Union was still building at the rate of 90 land-based and 120 sea-based launchers a year, while we were building none, as a result of our own repeatedly reaffirmed unilateral decisions.
The Interim SALT Agreement of 1972 froze overall numbers of launchers on both sides for five years-thereby limiting the momentum of Soviet programs without affecting any of ours. It stopped the Soviet build-up of heavy missile launchers. It forced the Soviets to agree to dismantle 210 older land-based missiles to reach permitted ceilings on missile-carrying submarines. The agreed-upon silo limitations permitted us to increase the throwweight of our own missiles, if we decided on this avenue of improving our strategic forces.
U.S. Intention
The first SALT agreements were in the American national interest.
In the five-year respite gained by the 1972 Interim Agreement, it was our intention to negotiate a long-term pact on offensive weapons that would firmly fix both sides at an equal level once our new programs became operational. This is precisely what President Ford achieved at Vladivostok in November 1974.
In this accord in principle, both sides agreed on a ceiling of 2400 strategic weapons covering strategic systems and heavy bombers-but not counting any of our forward-based aircraft in Europe, or our allies' strategic weapons, many of which can reach Soviet soil.
The ceiling of 2400 is lower than the level the Soviet Union already has reached; it would require the dismantling of many Soviet weapons while the planned levels and composition of our forces would not need to be reduced or changed.
Vladivostok
Obviously no single agreement can solve every problem. If we succeed in turning the Vladivostok accord into a 10-year agreement, we will have crossed the threshold between total, unrestrained competition and the difficult but promising beginning of long-term strategic equilibrium at lower levels of forces.
The United States and the Soviet Union have already agreed to turn to reductions in strategic forces in the next phase of the negotiations starting in 1977.
No charge is more irresponsible and potentially dangerous than the allegation that the U.S. has knowingly tolerated violations of the first SALT agreements.
What are the facts? A Standing Consultative Commission was created by the 1972 agreements precisely to consider disputes or ambiguities in implementation. Every questionable activity that has arisen has been systematically analyzed by this Government and considered by the President and his advisors. Whenever any question remained, it was then promptly raised with the Soviets.
Flurry of Allegations
Yet with all the recent flurry of allegations, no recommendations are made of what countermeasures we should take, or how to assess the significance of any given alleged violation. In what way do the alleged violations affect the strategic equation? In what manner, if any, have we been foreclosed from protecting ourselves? Would those who inaccurately allege violations simply throw over all the agreements regardless of the benefits they provide to the United States?
What purpose is served by leading our public and the Soviet Union to believe-totally incorrectly-that the U.S. is blind to violations, or that its government deliberately deceives its people?
No Tolerance
This Administration will not tolerate violations. It will continue to monitor Soviet compliance meticulously. It will pursue energetically all ambiguities or signs of non-compliance. But it will not be driven by demagoguery to make false or hasty judgments. No department or agency charged with responsibility for this problem holds the view that any violations have occurred.
As we assess our negotiations we must face squarely one question: what is the alternative to the agreement we have and seek? If the process of negotiation falters, we must consider what new or additional strategic programs we would undertake, their likely cost, and above all, their strategic purpose. An accelerated strategic buildup over the next five years could cost as much as an additional 20 billion dollars. Failing a satisfactory agreement, this will surely be the path we must travel.
It would be a tragically missed opportunity. For, in the process of such a build-up, and the atmosphere it would engender, it would be difficult to return to serious negotiations for some time. Tensions are likely to increase; a new, higher baseline will emerge from which future negotiations would eventually have to begin. And in the end, neither side will have gained a strategic advantage. At the least they will have wasted resources. At worst, they will have increased the risks of nuclear war.
Angola Conflict
Of course the Soviet Union must ponder these alternatives as well. Their sense of responsibility must equal ours if there is to be an equitable and durable agreement based on strict reciprocity.
As the United States strives to shape a more hopeful world, it can never forget that global stability and security rest upon an equilibrium between the great powers.
This is why the Soviet Union's massive and unprecedented intervention in the internal affairs of Africa with nearly 200 million dollars of military equipment, its advisors, and its transport of the large expeditionary force of 11,000 Cuban combat troops must be a matter of urgent concern.
Angola represents the first time that the Soviets have moved militarily at long distances to impose a regime of their choice. It is the first time that the U.S. has failed to respond to Soviet military moves outside the immediate Soviet orbit.
And it is the first time that Congress has halted national action in mid-crisis.
Tips the Balance
When one great power tips the balance of forces decisively in a local conflict through its military intervention-and meets no resistance-an ominous precedent is set, of grave consequence even if the intervention occurs in a seemingly remote area.
The U.S. seeks no unilateral goals in Angola. We have proposed a ceasefire; withdrawal of all outside forces-cessation of foreign military involvement, including the supply of equipment; and negotiations among all three Angolan factions. This approach has the support of half the nations of Africa.
Last summer and fall, to halt a dangerously escalating situation, the United States provided financial support through African friends to those in Angola-the large majority-who sought to resist Soviet and Cuban domination. Using this as leverage, we undertook an active diplomacy to promote an African solution to an African problem. We acted quietly, to avoid provoking a major crisis and raising issues of prestige.
African Opposition Evident
Our assistance prevented a takeover. African determination to oppose Soviet and Cuban intervention became more and more evident. On December 9, the President warned Moscow of the consequences of continued meddling and offered to co-operate in encouraging a peaceful outcome that removed foreign influence. The Soviet Union appeared to have second thoughts. It halted its airlift from December 9 until December 24.
At that point, the impact of our domestic debate overwhelmed the possibilities of diplomacy. It was demanded that we explain publicly why our effort was important-and then our effort was cut off. After the Senate vote to block further aid to Angola, Cuba more than doubled its forces and Soviet military aid was resumed on a large scale.
No Analogy Exists
There is no analogy with Vietnam. The President has pledged that no American troops or advisors would be sent to Angola, and we were prepared to accept legislative restrictions to that effect. What was involved was modest assistance to stabilize the local balance of forces and make possible a rapid political settlement.
It is charged that the Administration acted covertly without public acknowledgment. That is correct, for our purpose was to avoid an escalated confrontation that would make it more difficult for the others to back down, as well as to give the greatest possible scope for an African solution. Angola was a case where diplomacy without leverage was likely to be impotent, yet direct military confrontation would involve needless risks. This is precisely one of those grey areas where unpublicized methods would enable us to influence events short of direct conflict.
Fully Limited Operations
More than two dozen Senators, 150 Congressmen, over 100 staff members of both Houses, and eight Congressional Committees were briefed on 24 separate occasions. We sought in these briefings to determine the wishes of Congress, and there was little sign of active opposition to our carefully limited operations.
It is said that the Russians will inevitably be eased out by the Africans themselves over a period of time. This may or may not prove true. But such an argument, when carried to its logical conclusion, implies that we can abandon the world to interventionist forces, and hope for the best. And reliance on history is of little solace to those under attack, whose future is being decided now.
Where are we now? The Government has a duty to make clear to the Soviet Union and Cuba that Angola sets no precedent, that this type of action will not be tolerated again. It must reassure adjacent countries that they will not be left exposed to attack or pressure from the new Soviet-Cuban foothold. Congress and the Executive must come together on this proposition-in the national interest and in the interest of world peace.
Will Not Remain Indifferent
Let no nation believe that Americans will long remain indifferent to the dispatch of expeditionary forces and vast supplies of arms to impose minority governments-especially when that expeditionary force comes from a nation in the Western Hemisphere.
We live in a world without simple answers.
Foreign countries must be able to deal with America as an entity, not as a complex of divided institutions. If our divisions paralyze our international efforts, it is America as a whole that will suffer.
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