The Protracted Conflict

Even God, Aquinas explains, cannot will the past not to have been. Could we have prevented Mao’s conquest of China? In a think tank it would be easy to construct a model showing how, given U.S. power and resources relative to Mao’s in 1945-50, he could have been blocked. But among the actual givens of those years were 150 million Americans with certain ideas, attitudes, illusions and leaders. Entering those in the equations, Mao could not have been stopped, and was not. Free will is a reality of the present facing the future, not of the past.

There is something so elegant in Mao’s ping-pong charade that it is painful to coarsen it by political or strategic analysis. The temptation is to enjoy it merely, like a superb Chinese painting, which, in spirit and verve of execution, it resembles. How delicious that a major shift in the global power equilibrium should be brought about by an airy, bouncing ping-pong ball!

JB

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James Burnham

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Even God, Aquinas explains, cannot will the past not to have been. Could we have prevented Mao’s conquest of China? In a think tank it would be easy to construct a model showing how, given U.S. power and resources relative to Mao’s in 1945-50, he could have been blocked. But among the actual givens of those years were 150 million Americans with certain ideas, attitudes, illusions and leaders. Entering those in the equations, Mao could not have been stopped, and was not. Free will is a reality of the present facing the future, not of the past.

There is something so elegant in Mao’s ping-pong charade that it is painful to coarsen it by political or strategic analysis. The temptation is to enjoy it merely, like a superb Chinese painting, which, in spirit and verve of execution, it resembles. How delicious that a major shift in the global power equilibrium should be brought about by an airy, bouncing ping-pong ball!