294. Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security
Affairs (Kissinger)
to President Nixon1
Washington, July 22,
1971.
- SUBJECT
- Analysis of the China initiative
Attached is a brief analysis written by a friend of mine who prefers to
remain anonymous and in whose strategic judgment I have the greatest
confidence.2 I thought you would be interested in his analysis
of the implications of the Peking initiative on the strategic scene.
Attachment
- 1.
- Theoretically one can make a first-class case for our “playing
with China” having very salutary effect on Moscow, and might
lead to a kind of triangular “stability” among the Giant
Three.
- 2.
- The inherent assumption underlying the above argument is,
however, that we are being taken seriously and appear, to some
extent, awe-inspiring. If Moscow were to
see in our move toward rapprochement with Peking the decision of
a strong power—losing patience with USSR intransigence and demonstrating our resolve to
use the “China option,” if need be—then,
the Kremlin leaders might very well be deeply impressed.
- The ungainsayable worldwide reality of U.S. policy and strategy is such, however, that the
men in the Kremlin would have to be blind in order actually to
be so impressed.
- 3.
- We are obviously—to formulate it with British
understatement—not on our “way in” either in Southeast Asia or
Northeast Asia, but on the way out. We are reducing our forces
in S. Vietnam and Thailand, as well as in Korea, the Ryukyus and
Japan. In Europe we are gradually but irreversibly yielding on
Berlin. West Germany—originally encouraged by us in its policy
of reconciliation with the East—is on the
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road toward Finlandization.3 (This may not yet
be very visible to the naked eye but is very clear to a careful
observer and inventory-taker of daily Bonn speeches, actions and
omissions.) In Italy we have, except for the shell of a
headquarters, withdrawn our whole Southern European Task Force
(SETAF). It is impossible to meet any Western European who is
not convinced that under U.S. internal pressures (Mansfield Resolution and
Amendment) we will within the foreseeable future withdraw a very
considerable part of our troops from Germany leaving there
perhaps no more than token units. And now tiny Malta, as well as
tiny Iceland, under newly installed Leftist governments, are
inviting the U.S. and NATO out of their countries
without even the shadow of a fear that we “mighty” U.S. would react with any kind of
reprisals or even diplomatic “unfriendliness.” In the Eastern
Mediterranean the Soviet military position has been enormously
strengthened and Turkey, once a very reliable Ally, and very
jealous of its sovereignty already half a year ago opened 260
miles of its easternmost road system to Soviet truck convoys
bringing military supplies and material directly from the USSR to Syria. In the mid-East, as
a result of our policy of Negotiation instead of Confrontation,
we are leaving a strategic vacuum with neither friend nor foe
believing that we would intervene militarily, which will lead to
the outbreak of Arab-Israeli hostilities within perhaps 8
months. In Latin America we step very softly vis-à-vis Ecuador
and Chile answering their unfriendly actions with a most
deliberately cautious diplomacy.4
- In addition, we are reducing our military establishment, work
for 11 Division Volunteer Army, which will permit even an
unsophisticated lieutenant colonel in Luxembourg to conclude
that we are not preparing either for any
protracted fighting somewhere in the world, or for a military,
simultaneous, commitment of forces in widely separated parts of
the world.
- 4.
- Under these circumstances Moscow simply cannot help gaining
the conviction that our new China policy is but a symptom of our
overwhelming desire to seek reconciliation and disengagement
anyway and everywhere.5 For this reason they will not feel
impelled to make any concession to us in order to wean us away
from Red China!6
