FUTILE EFFORT TO BAN PROLIFERATION OF THE BOMB
By Henri Valin
More than mere coincidence was involved in LIyndon Johnson's attendance at the funeral services for ex-Chancellor Adenauer. His visit to Western Europe came precisely when, for the first time since the end of the Second World War, West German foreign policy was publicly pitted against the State Department line on a crucial issue in international politics.
The coincidence can be taken as symbolical of the end of the Adenauer era, an era marked by the closest collaboration between Washington and Bonn. And, if the professional politician from Texas required no genuine grief to produce a few tears as he left the cathedral at Cologne, there is not the slightest doubt that the State Department sincerely mourned an epoch when it was considered axiomatic for American and West German foreign policy to take an identical view.
Extent and Limits of Rebirth of West German Imperialism
Amidst the chorus of encomiums accompanying the old ex-chancellor to his grave, a theme running throughout the statements of all the commentators, both East and West, was that his role had been to win back a place in the world for German capitalism after the most crushing military defeat suffered by any state in modern history.
And all the commentators were agreed that it was clearly the "cold war," the extension of the Second World War, which gave the German bourgeoisie this unexpected opportunity to make a rapid comeback. Adenauer's "genius" was nothing more than his ability to understand both the reasons for this opportunity and its limitations, while avoiding any false steps which would have made Washington suspect his loyalty to the Atlantic alliance.
In the same spirit, most German bourgeois commentators blame the State Department for the relative cooling-off in German-American relations which has occurred in recent months. They remind us how hard the West German capitalist class has tried to remain Washington's most faithful champion in Western Europe; what an effort it made to resist the temptation of a "German Gaullism" under Chancellor Erhard; the extent to which it took on itself the role of the lone European standard-bearer of the dirty war in Vietnam, which is running into more and more general condemnation in European bourgeois circles.
If this unconditional loyalty is questioned today, they say, it is because Washington has clumsily and contemptuously disregarded the vital interests of West German capitalism both in its relations with Moscow and in the sphere of nuclear armaments. The proposed treaty on nonproliferation of nuclear armaments drafted in Geneva by the Americans, Soviets, and British is said to be the source of the trouble.
In reality, the Johnson administration's policy of a "détente" in Europe is not so much the result of a deliberate choice by the State Department to loosen the ties with its "favored ally" as it is an inevitable consequence of the Vietnam war. Having opted for a policy giving top priority in the present world situation to halting and turning back the colonial revolution, the American imperialists must consequently strive to avoid a "war on two fronts" and to secure their European rear. This is the underlying meaning of the "détente."
The Chinese are correct in accusing the Soviet Union of objectively promoting aggression in Vietnam by falling into the trap of a "détente" which has already enabled the Pentagon to withdraw its troops from West Europe in order to send them straight to Vietnam.
But what the West German bourgeois commentators fail to mention in their analyses of the present cooling in German- American relations is the fundamental ambiguity which has hung over these relations since the founding of the Bonn Republic.
The American imperialists deliberately encouraged the rebirth of a great capitalist industrial power in West Germany in order to halt the advance of "Communism" in Europe. They thus helped to create a formidable competitor which has already taken more than a few markets away from them. But they had no choice, or rather, they preferred a West German capitalist competitor to a Germany completely closed to capital.
However, having learned from the experience of two world wars, the American imperialists kept some trump cards from the beginning in order to avert the buildup of a great military power in Germany. Their principal trump for this purpose was their monopoly of nuclear arms, later replaced by the treaties of Bonn and Paris which forbade the Germans direct access to nuclear arms.
It was possible for the contradic-
tion between West German imperialism's economic revival and its military weakness to remain veiled as long as NATO seemed all-powerful; the decline in NATO's military strength brought it out into the open. If German-American relations have cooled as a result of the draft treaty on nonproliferation of nuclear arms, it is precisely because the West German bourgeoisie's impatience to overcome this contradiction is mounting year by year, if not from month to month.
The Arms Race and Capitalist Competition
Knowing that its nuclear rearming is an extremely unpopular cause, not only with the working masses but even in capitalist circles in West Europe, the West German bourgeoisie has deftly stressed not the military but the economic side of the draft treaty on nonproliferation of nuclear arms drawn up by the Americans and the Soviets.
They claim, not without reason, that the treaty's provisions give the Americans a formidable advantage in the race for the celebrated "World Nuclear Market of the Seventies," which all the spokesmen of big capital speak of with all the more delectation since the present world market appears to be contrac-— ting singularly at their expense.
They voice the fear that surveillance of nuclear reactors by the Vienna International Nuclear Agency's "inspectors" would enable the Americans and the Soviets to conduct industrial espionage on a grand scale.
However, the Germans with their "papid feeder" are in process of scoring a big advance not only over their European competitors but even over the USA and the USSR, at least in the industrial sphere (and tomorrow doubtless in the military realm -- which again proves that it is impossible in the long run to separate industrial potential from military potential). They suspect Washington of wanting to retard, if not to halt, this sensational advance of the West German nuclear industry.
These arguments have been accepted by virtually all the capitalist powers in Western Europe. An anti-American bloc won such an overwhelming majority of the votes on this question in the last two meetings of the NATO Council that Washington, recognizing its defeat, was forced to simply withdraw its draft treaty and reopen negotiations with the Kremlin on a new, heavily amended version of such a treaty.
In Asia, India and Japan also rebelled against the proposed treaty, claiming that it left them defenseless against a "nuclear attack" (the intimation is by China), since no American nuclear guarantee is extended to these two countries.
There was even talk of the revival of a Bonn-Tokyo Axis on this occasion, or of one going from Bonn to Tokyo via New Delhi. In the case of the Japanese imperialists, concern over industrial competition doubtless plays a much more important role than preoccupation with military "security." As for the Indian bourgeoisie, it is holding fast to its criminal policy of siphoning off the tensions of its internal social contradictions, which are approaching the point of a revolutionary explosion, into conflicts with neighboring countries.
The New Delhi leaders have gone so far as to threaten to build a nuclear bomb, and thus of squandering resources which could save millions of people from famine.
Washington's retreat before the combined pressure of almost the entire world bourgeoisie is quite significant. Doubtless, the amended version of the treaty will take better account of the particular interests of the other capitalist powers. This affair pointed up more than a cooling in the relations between Bonn and Washington. It also revealed the fact that American imperialism by itself can no longer speak in the name of the entire international bourgeoisie.
Capitalist solidarity in the face of the "Communist menace" is still intact; neither NATO nor SEATO is going to collapse. But within the context of this solidarity, the problem of competition is becoming more and more extensive; and the deterioration of the international econonic conjuncture is not without its role in this development. The same can be said of the altered economic relationship of forces among the big capitalist powers.
Nuclear Arms
and the World Revolution
Opposition to the draft treaty on nonproliferation of nuclear weapons came not only from the other capitalist powers aside from the USA. The People's Republic of China also opposed it. On its part, this opposition is understandable and legitimate. The Maoist leaders can be criticized for their irresponsible opposition to an international united front for the defense of the Vietnamese revolution; but one must understand their concern over self-defense in the face of the ever more clearly emerging threat of a nuclear attack against them by American imperialism.
in principle, it would certainly be preferable if the various workers states were not forced to waste their resources on manufacturing weapons of such immense cost as nuclear arms. It would be prefer-
able if Soviet arms could serve as a nu- Clear shield for all of the workers states.
But this ideal solution is dependent on two conditions: first, that the Soviet bureaucracy extend a nuclear guarantee to all the workers states; secondly, that it effectively internationalize control of, and access to, these arms within its own "camp."
Narrowly nationalistic and conservative, the Kremlin bureaucracy is not prepared to fulfill either of these conditions. As yet it has not even publicly declared its determination to defend China with nuclear weapons in the event of an American atomic attack and thus it objectively encourages such an aggression.
In these circumstances, the preoccupation of the workers states with selfdefense, including nuclear arms and, if necessary, independent manufacture of them is perfectly legitimate. In the absence of the above-mentioned conditions, to forbid such manufacture would be equivalent to denying them the right to defend themselves effectively against the American nuclear threat.
Scientists and pacifists describe their anguish at the perspective of the proliferation of nuclear arms in the hands of governments, or even private organizations which are increasingly “irresponsible."
It is easy to understand that the .idea that the government in Pretoria -to cite only one example! -~ or the Franco dictatorship could have such weapons in their hands tomorrow is the sort of thing that makes for real nightmares. However, those who conclude from such an agonizing perspective that the treaty on nonproliferation of nuclear arms must be approved at any cost arrive at two particularly illogical conclusions.
In the first place, can it really be claimed that "extremist" and "irresponsible" governments in some small countries are the source of the principal danger of a nuclear conflagration? This is forgetting rather quickly that it was the American imperialists who first dropped nuclear bombs on Japan and that they alone, to this day, have committed such a crime -that the principal nuclear threat comes solely from them and their aggressive policy.
The claim that atomic or hydrogen ‘weapons in the hands of South Africa, India, Pakistan, Israel, or Egypt could drag Washington into a world war “against its will," by an inexorable "chain reaction" is a gross sophism. The prolifera~ tion of nuclear weapons increases the risk of localized atomic conflicts; but the danger of a world war rests with Washington and with it alone.
Secondly, it is a delusion to think that the danger of proliferation can be curtailed by a treaty. Such a treaty would have the same effect as the celebrated disarmament treaties of the interwar years: that is, in practice, no effect at all.
It would require the creation of a genuine world police force; i.e., the abolition of sovereignty for all states, to make it effective. This is unrealizable under present conditions.
Thus it follows that attempts to build nuclear weapons would continue behind the veil of such a treaty and that it would simply add the risks attendant on redoubled secrecy to those already existing.
In the long run, the only way to avert the danger of nuclear destruction of the human race is universal nuclear dis~ armament, starting with the United States. Such disarmament implies the political and military disarmament of the imperialist bourgeoisie. Unless the world revolution goes forward, unless the American working masses acquire an ever clearer antiimperialist and anticapitalist consciousness, no progress will be made toward this goal.
It will be won the day the American workers take their destiny into their own hands.