FOREIGN RELATIONS, 1950, VOLUME I


                  IX. POSSIBLE COURSES OF ACTION
  Introduction. Four possible courses of action by the United States
in the present situation can be distinguished. They are:
  a. Continuation of current policies, with current and currently
projected programs for carrying out these policies;
  b. Isolation;
  c. War; and
  d. A more rapid building up of the political, economic, and military
strength of the free world than provided under a, with the purpose
of reaching, if possible, a tolerable state of order among nations with-
out war and of preparing to defend ourselves in the event that the
free world is attacked.
  The role of negotiation. Negotiation must be considered in rela-
tion to these courses of action. A negotiator always attempts to achieve
an agreement which is somewhat better than the realities of his funda-
mental position would justify and which is, in any case, not worse
than his fundamental position requires. This is as true in relations
among sovereign states as in relations between individuals. The Soviet
Union possesses several advantages over the free world in negotiations
on any issue:
  a. It can and does enforce secrecy on all significant facts about
conditions within the Soviet Union, so that it can be expected to know
more about the realities of the free world's position than the free
world knows about its position;
  6. It does not have to be responsive in any important sense to public
opinion;
  e. It. does not have to consult and agree with any other countries
on the terms it will offer and accept; and
  d. It can influence public opinion in other countries while insulating
the peoples under its control.
   These are important advantages. Together with the unfavorable
trend of our power position, they militate, as is shown in Section A
below, against successful negotiation of a general settlement at this
time. For although the United States probably now possesses, prin-
cipally in atomic weapons, a force adequate to deliver a powerful
blow upon the Soviet Union and to open the road to victory in a long
war, it is not sufficient by itself to advance the position of the United
States in the cold war.
  The problem is to create such political and economic conditions in
the free world, backed by force sufficient to inhibit Soviet attack, that
the Kremlin will accommodate itself to these conditions, gradually
withdraw, and eventually change its policies drastically. It has been
shown in Chapter VIII that truly effective control of atomic energy
would require such an opening up of the Soviet Union and such


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