Brinkmanship: Diplomacy That Won The Cold War Is Needed Today
What are we going to do to stop terrorists from striking again at the United States? If they do hit us again, killing thousands of innocent Americans, how do we retaliate this time?
The answer to that difficult question is actually very simple. Yes, the attacks are coming unless they are stopped at the source. The only way this can happen is if the terrorists are not stopped by us but instead stopped by the governing Middle Eastern countries themselves. But why would they step in to stop the terrorist? They have shown no desire to make such a bold move at any time in the past fifty years. The answer to that question is just one simple word. This word has not been used in decades. This word was at the core of our defensive posture for over forty years during the Cold War. This word probably prevented a nuclear attack in Europe or the United States during the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and the 1980s. The word that saved us from a nuclear attack is brinkmanship.
In the 1950s the Cold War raged across Europe and the United States. The two allies of World War II, the Soviet Union and the United States, were, less than ten years later, now locked in another titanic battle. This battle for control the world held a serious threat that nuclear weapons might actually be used. The Soviet’s “Iron Curtian” had swallowed almost half of Europe. The European free countries were still terribly weak from the effects of the last world war. The Soviet Union was looking to expand their sphere of influence and only one country had the ability, the wherewithal and the determination to stand up to the Soviet threat. That country was the United States.
The United States in the 1950s elected one of the last war’s leaders, General Dwight David Eisenhower, to the Presidency. Eisenhower was a true man of his time. He had been about the 150th ranking General in the United States Army when General Marshall and President Roosevelt selected him to be the Supreme Commander of the European theater in World War II. The thinking was they did not want to be naming the next President of the United States, so they picked a rather bland and non-outgoing man who they believed only wanted to be a General, not a President.
Nevertheless, in 1953 General Eisenhower became President Eisenhower. Eisenhower took his delegate command style to the White House. His Secretary of State became extremely powerful because total authority was given to him. His name was John Foster Dulles (Washington Dulles Airport was named after this powerful man). Realizing the inherent menace of an aggressive Soviet Union and the real threat that one of the Soviet satellite countries (East Germany, Poland, Hungry, etc.) might launch a nuclear missile to achieve immediate success, John Foster Dulles created the policy called brinkmanship.
With brinkmanship, the United States’ foreign policy became:
“If a missile fired from any of the Soviet Union satellite countries strikes any NATO European country or the United States, the United States would consider the missile as being fired by the Soviet Union and thereby the United States would immediately attack the Soviet Union.”
Later Dulles expanded his policy to state that any invasion of any country by a Soviet Block Country would also be considered an attack upon the United States by the Soviet Union and that attack would be met with massive nuclear retaliation. This policy of escalation assured the Soviet Union that even the smallest move on a NATO power meant all out war.
With this single diplomacy policy, the Soviet Union was forced to take personal control of all weapons and to insist that none of their satellite countries do anything that might cause a major war. We forced our principle adversary to accept the responsibility of the rouge countries and their radical leaders to behave and to not attack us. Again, the Soviet Union stopped their people from attacking us.
Now take that thinking to today. It will not be another country that will attack the United States. It will be some small splinter group of terrorists that will attack America. The next time the attack might actually be nuclear. The question is how do we stop them and, if the terrible event does happen, what sort of retaliation will there be? If we let down our guard, the terrorists will soon strike us again. That is not a fear. That is a fact and a reality.
If they do strike us, how do we strike back? One small suitcase-sized nuclear bomb is estimated to have the power to kill at least 25,000 Americans. How would we react? What would America do? I think many of our current political leaders from both sides of the aisle, if faced with a nuclear terrorist strike in the U.S., would deal with the catastrophic event by calling for a national prayer day, or perhaps engage in an emergency session of the United Nations to discuss the issue, or maybe grab a pen and file a strong protest with many Middle Eastern countries. I, on the other hand, don’t want this attack to happen and I strongly believe that an updated brinkmanship policy would stop these types of attack.
My belief is that the only sure way to prevent an attack on the United States is brinkmanship. We would notify the countries of the Middle East that any attack upon the United States by any group that trained in or was supported by their country would be considered an action perpetrated by that county. Retribution for any attack would fall on both the terrorist organization and the sponsoring county.
When the countries in the Middle East realize we will destroy their country if they allow terrorists to train unchecked within their borders, the rulership of those countries will stop the terrorists themselves, just like the Soviet Union stopped their satellites all those years ago.
This policy is difficult to administrate unless someone has the backbone to stand up and announce that this is our policy. If we are attacked, any country that gave these terrorists financial support or a safe haven will face the retribution of a nation that only wanted to live in peace. This policy worked a few decades ago and it will work again. This policy kept America and the world safe. It is our best chance for safety of our people.
Make the Middle Eastern countries themselves stop the terrorists in order to save their own countries, their own positions of leadership and their own lives.
With the true threat of brinkmanship hanging over their heads they will have no choice.
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