(4 of 5)
Then came Korea. Harry Truman's courageous decision to intervene in 1950 showed not only that Communism could be contained without recourse to all-out nuclear war, but that a sizable, well-equipped conventional force was mandatory for any nation that would head off a Communist takeover. It was still the threat of massive retaliation that kept Stalin out of Western Europe, but it took American infantry and artillery, American ships and aircraft to secure the safety of South Korea. That same flexible mix, augmented by General Maxwell Taylor's Special Forces and clouds of helicopters, is now making the Viet Cong look like losers in South Viet Nam.
Thus has the interplay of weaponry and history left the U.S. equipped for—and apparently in for—limited war. "The major powers will be drawn more and more into little wars," predicts the Quai d'Orsay strategist. "There will be a period of disequilibrium and tension for, say, the next 50 years." France's General Pierre Gallois contends that "Viet Nam is the beginning and not the end of America's great Asian adventure." The U.S. is in a sense fighting the same sort of wars that the British fought in the 19th century—peripheral battles at the end of thin red lines.
Viet Nam and many another of the era's conflicts represent Communist aggressions under the umbrella of nuclear standoff: 23 of the 40 wars (see table) involved Communists. Of the remaining 17, eight were anticolonial struggles—ranging from the Indonesian rebellion against The Netherlands (1945-47) through Kenya's Mau Mau "emergency" (1952-53) and Algeria (1956-62) to the Angolan revolt, now five years old. Another six fall into the category of neighbor-against-neighbor, such as the Pakistani-Indian war in 1947-49 and its current revival or the Algerian-Moroccan border war of 1963.
There were three outright grabs, as when Red China captured Tibet in 1950. Significantly, in only three cases have nuclear-armed nations indulged in high-handed power plays in the past 20 years: Britain and France in Suez (1956); Russia in Hungary the same year; the U.S. in Cuba (during 1961's Bay of Pigs debacle). Of the remaining confrontations, the only one that saw nuclear-armed nations opposing each other directly (rather than opposing a non-nuclear ally of a big power) was the Cuban Missile Quarantine of 1962.
"Sorry About That"
Pope John XXIII in his last encyclical rather wistfully held out hope that pacem in terris is attainable without the shedding of blood. Yet "there are situations," argues Theologian Paul Tillich, "in which nothing short of war can defend the dignity of the person." Thus a nation may usually be defending national interests, but this purpose does not preclude defending moral interests as well.