Document created: 14 October 2003
Air University Review,
November-December 1973
For a book bearing the distinguished authorship of Senator Claiborne Pell, the pun in this review title is probably no more pardonable than the book itself, but its claims are far less. It does not attempt to seduce with a portentous title like Power and Policy. Nor is it jacketed with the hard-to-live-up-to promise that it will provide “a clear analysis of national self-interest.”
Power and Policy is a small book, both in bulk and contribution.* Sixty-two of its 173 undocumented pages consist of a putative “model treaty” first submitted to the U.S. executive branch and later to the United Nations. The subject of this treaty is state activity in the exploration and exploitation of ocean space. Senator Pell just happens to be the Chairman of the Senate Sub-Committee on Ocean Space.
*Claiborne Pell, Power and Policy (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1972, $5.95), 173 pages.
In his acknowledgments, the Senator refers to “this little primer on foreign relations” and notes that “it has often been said that it is easy to make a simple thought a complicated one, but it is a very difficult job to make a complicated one simpler.” Since by definition a “primer” is an elementary reading book, Power and Policy is not a primer, nor has it made things simpler. What it has done, in its attempts to do too much, is take a fascinating subject, weight it down with orthodox ideas and weary language, and toss it like cake from the balcony.
Power and Policy is particularly disappointing when one considers the author’s credentials. As a college student Claiborne Pell traveled throughout eastern Europe; his father was the American minister to Hungary. And, in addition to his work as a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Pell has served in eastern Europe as a Foreign Service Officer and as the vice president of the International Rescue Committee to assist refugees of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. Despite this, however, we find him in 1972 announcing, as though it were new: “We perceive not only that there are significant differences in ideology and practice among the Communist nations, but also that there has been a subtle yet marked mutation in the nature of the Communist system . . . .” (Shades of Tito and Ho Chi Minh!)
Before commenting briefly on some of the positions taken by the Senator, I think it worthwhile to place side by side two direct quotations from Power and Policy:
Any study of diplomatic history, moreover, reconfirms the accuracy of Clausewitz’s observation that war is merely the pursuit of policy by other means. (p. 23)
Clausewitz is no longer relevant. War can never again be merely “a pursuit of policy by other means.” . . . (p. 99)
Those things said, what are the book’s merits? Before proceeding to comment on them, I would like to emphasize that this country still seriously needs a brief, clear analysis of its role in foreign affairs. This cannot be provided, however, by a book that first posits that “all men have certain natural drives which, as we have seen in the political and economic spheres, include the desire for freedom, for human contact, and for property” and then ignores certain other equally natural drives in building its case. From Machiavelli to Mein Kampf, we have seen the evil side of man depicted too often to accept without question that which simply ignores the presence of these other drives.
The Senator’s chapter headings sweep from “What Are the Lessons of History?” across “The Challenges” to “True Long-Term Objectives of American Foreign Policy.” And as one reads, he becomes puzzled at the clichés—not only of language but of thought.
When the author says, “The gravest threat to our well being, however, comes not from outside . . . but from ourselves . . .” he seems to be on the track; then one recalls that he earlier said, “No Communist power can ignore the costs of Vietnam—proportionately far higher for the North Vietnamese than for us . . .” and wonders if the Senator sees the inconsistency in his statements.
Surely his calculations should not be restricted to dollars and cents. What about the inestimable damage done to the average citizen’s dream of America, his thoughts about integrity up and down the governmental line, his pros and cons on the scars of wartime bombs and brutality, and the lingering national fester of amnesty? These things, and more, are the coin in which wartime “proportional” costs should be calculated.
It is frankly puzzling to lay down a copy of Newsweek that has featured an article on the severity of the world’s energy crisis and then find Senator Pell saying blandly, “With the acquisition of atomic energy twenty-five years ago, man acquired all the energy he can use.” (p. 100)
It is disappointing to read the sections in Power and Policy devoted to the recent growth of executive power at the expense of the legislature. Here one might expect a spirited attack. Instead, this accretion is explained away by blaming the technological revolution and its myriad details as insuperable obstacles to corporate decision-making.
At a time when other Senators are up in arms over the issue of executive privilege and reconstructing important lines of communication between the people and those who make policy, this Senator’s solution to the problem of narrowing the growing gap between the Executive and Congress is:
I believe that as a matter of law we should adopt a requirement that the officers of the cabinet and other senior officers of the executive branch submit themselves to a formal question hour in the legislature on a periodic routine basis.
When our system of government is changing radically, and perhaps not for the better, one cannot help contrasting Senator Pell’s approach with Dylan Thomas’s challenge:
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Robins Air Force Base, Georgia
Colonel Don Clelland (M.A., University of Colorado) is Chief of Plans, Hq Air Force Reserve, Robins AFB, Georgia. He flew a tour in RF-101s in Vietnam and was an F-86 pilot in postwar Korea. He has served in the Research and Analysis Division, Office of the Secretary of the Air Force; at the U.S. Air Force Academy as history instructor, Air Officer Commanding, and Special Assistant to the Superintendent; as Executive Assistant to the U.S. Representative, NATO Military Committee; and as Deputy in the Military Assistance Directorate, Hq USEUCOM.
Disclaimer
The conclusions and opinions expressed in this
document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression,
academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official
position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air
Force or the Air University.
Air & Space Power Home Page | Feedback? Email the Editor