Limited War or Political War?

There must be, by now, an implicit understanding that the East-West conflict is not likely to be decided by way of a total atomic war. As a result, we find ourselves in an ambiguous relationship with an enemy power, a relationship the true nature of which we have not yet grasped. The Cold War is twelve years old, and we have as yet no history even of its first phase: clear evidence that the historians are still lacking a conceptual framework in which to understand the meaning of Cold War events.

The relationship is paradoxical in the extreme, for, if we apply the usual peace-war terminology, we arrive at seemingly contradictory results. It is true that all-out war is rejected as the means of resolving the East-West conflict; but it is also true that all-out war is not only not impossible, but that its probability forms the operating premise of national policies on both sides. It is true that East-West tensions have produced tremendous instability in the modern world; but it is also true that these tensions have produced what stability and order there is in the theaters of conflict. It is true that national policies are far more conditioned by military factors than in normal times of peace; but it is also true that military policies depend more on political factors than is usual in times of war. Even the plethora of terms applied to this relationship testifies to our deep puzzlement: “Cold War,” “competitive coexistence,” “no peace, no war,” “the Third World War,” etc.

GN

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Gerhart Niemeyer

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There must be, by now, an implicit understanding that the East-West conflict is not likely to be decided by way of a total atomic war. As a result, we find ourselves in an ambiguous relationship with an enemy power, a relationship the true nature of which we have not yet grasped. The Cold War is twelve years old, and we have as yet no history even of its first phase: clear evidence that the historians are still lacking a conceptual framework in which to understand the meaning of Cold War events.

The relationship is paradoxical in the extreme, for, if we apply the usual peace-war terminology, we arrive at seemingly contradictory results. It is true that all-out war is rejected as the means of resolving the East-West conflict; but it is also true that all-out war is not only not impossible, but that its probability forms the operating premise of national policies on both sides. It is true that East-West tensions have produced tremendous instability in the modern world; but it is also true that these tensions have produced what stability and order there is in the theaters of conflict. It is true that national policies are far more conditioned by military factors than in normal times of peace; but it is also true that military policies depend more on political factors than is usual in times of war. Even the plethora of terms applied to this relationship testifies to our deep puzzlement: “Cold War,” “competitive coexistence,” “no peace, no war,” “the Third World War,” etc.