The Protracted Conflict

A SIZABLE MAJORITY of all races, colors, creeds and parties is sick of the Vietnam war and wants out. This is by now the case with hawks as well as doves, though it is the doves who have produced the verbal formulas for quitting and have magnified them into operative public opinion. These formulas are anti-imperial, antimilitary, isolationist, self-deprecating, and often guilt-ridden. We as a nation have succumbed to the sin of arrogance. We are overextended. We cannot act as global policeman. Our national interest is not at stake in Southeast Asia. We have no right to decide the type of government or social system under which other peoples and nations are to live. Etc.

This rationale is presented not merely as a specific brief for getting out of Vietnam but as a general doctrine by which the global activities of the nation ought to be henceforth guided.

JB

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James Burnham

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A SIZABLE MAJORITY of all races, colors, creeds and parties is sick of the Vietnam war and wants out. This is by now the case with hawks as well as doves, though it is the doves who have produced the verbal formulas for quitting and have magnified them into operative public opinion. These formulas are anti-imperial, antimilitary, isolationist, self-deprecating, and often guilt-ridden. We as a nation have succumbed to the sin of arrogance. We are overextended. We cannot act as global policeman. Our national interest is not at stake in Southeast Asia. We have no right to decide the type of government or social system under which other peoples and nations are to live. Etc.

This rationale is presented not merely as a specific brief for getting out of Vietnam but as a general doctrine by which the global activities of the nation ought to be henceforth guided.