FOREIGN. RELATIONS, 1950, VOLUME I


the aspects. of the effort related to the military-shield. A second as-
sumption is that the hope to avoid general war will be realized. It is
within the Kremlin's power to confoundsuch hope. Should it do so,
other patterns of action would apply. This paper is not intended to be
a presentation of them.
  The principle pervading the issues is freedom. The hopes of
frustrating the Kremlin design are centered in.the strategy of free-
dom-the term used here to indicate the political and economic- lines
of action required. This strategy calls for .theýe creation and main-
tenance of strength at the center, with accompanying action:
  1. To stimulate recognition of and effective resistance to Soviet
imperial ambitions and actions, in all-their forms.
  2. To secure ,reliable allies whose strength, effectively organized
and combined with our own, will deter-or, if necessary, defeat--
Soviet aggression.
  3. 'To win and hold popular support among all peoples for our
objectives of an international order in-which peace and freedom will
be secure.
  4. To make steady progress in the development and strengthening of
the collective institutions necessary to the maintenance of peace and
freedom and the advancement of human welfare..
  5. To foster social and economic conditio-ns which will assist in
achieving the foregolng 6bjectives.
  6. To ieduce the opportunities for and dangers of local revolutions
and disturbances which would be adverse to our position and to- en-
courage local revolutionary situations and disturbances when and if
legitimate popular and national aspirations would be 1ulfilled and the
Soviet position would thereby be, weakened without offsetting
disadvantages to our own.
  7. By all such steps; to establish the base essential to a process0of
accommodation and-adjustment-by the Soviet Union, recorded from
time to time in the negotiation of agreements corresponding to the
relative decline in the capabilities of the Soviet Union.
  In pursuing these political and economic linesof action, we must act
always in the lig'ht of the historical forces at work, the circumstances
of the present, and the predictable future. It is not possible to blue-
print a comprehensive course of action 'far ahead. We 'must expect the
unexpected-both favorable opportunities which can be exploited and
unfavorable turns which must be countered. We.must, therefore, equip
ourselvesto act orr react promptly, deci sively, imaginatively. What can
be provided is a compass and a direction buit not a map of the terrain
ahead. The political and economic framework-set out is, therefore, not
a pattern of action and decision for the next five years but a guide.
It:: will need toý be :revised continuously, and should at no stage
be
regarded as a definitive 'statement of ho.w we will proceed with the
tasks. ahead.


406.