Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 52

MODERN AGE

been shocked had he learned that the Soviets
believed he was in their pocket. He was flat-
tered to believe that Stalin thought him an
intimate, and delighted to further common
goals despite retrograde American colleagues.
Finding a willing partner begins with
looking among those who are predisposed to
act as you would wish, and then encouraging
them. Who should do that? Whoever would
be most likely to be listened to. By what
means? Never forget that the agent will act
in what he considers his own, his friends', or
his country's interest rather than yours, and
that you are helping to set in motion people
and events that you cannot control. The
contrast between the two sets of agendas is
inherent in the relationship.
The history of U.S. covert action is sub-
stantially one of sorcerers' apprentices who
stirred up and financed individuals and
groups in the four corners of the world and
then went their own way. In the Middle
East, U.S. covert action brought forth
Egypt's Nasser and Iraq's Saddam Hussein.
In Latin America, it financed Fidel Castro
and paved the way for the rise of Chile's
Salvador Allende-people who chose to be
enemies of the United States. In Asia, first
it foisted Sukarno onto Indonesia and then
helped his bloody overthrow. During the
Vietnam war, the CIA more or less covertly
managed the country's political and social
factions as, a half century later, it did in
Iraq and Afghanistan, with equally squalid
results: mutual abandonment.
That history should warn the FSO that
there is a better way to understand this tool
of international power. Namely: subver-
sion is a kind of conviction that mixes the
attraction of possibly gaining one's objectives
with the fear of losing out, of being left on
the losing side. Power is the great agent of
subversion precisely because it inspires both
hope and fear. Nothing is as subversive as an
52

FALL 2014

army whose enemies lie prostrate, a cause on
the verge of triumph. Success seals the seduc-
tion and resolves conflicts between agendas
because it is the proof of power.
This reality is the polar opposite of the
latter-day American fad that "soft power"
rules the modern world. Harvard's Joseph
Nye writes that, because people gravitate
to the least-threatening, least-offensive gov-
ernment, the government with the greatest
propensity to please, the European Union
is "the superpower of soft power." The FSO
should ask: Will finding America inof-
fensive, accommodating, and pleasant lead
these people to stand with her in her hour
of need? What would it take to turn a gov-
ernment or a people who are now inclined
against America to support her in a crisis?
Nothing so enhances a people's chances of
living safely as having won its last war, and
nothing so invites trouble so much as hav-
ing lost it. Precisely because success in war
turns people your way while failure alien-
ates, representing a victorious power is easy
while representing a loser is laborious misery.
Understanding what war is and the role it
plays in international affairs is fundamental.
Every war, no matter how small it may
appear at the beginning, is a matter of
life and death. Its violence unleashes pas-
sions, calls into question all the participant
nations' reasons for being, and provides
additional incentive and leverage to each
regime's domestic enemies. War places all
the contenders' existence in the balance.
War makes sense only as an instrument for
securing our capacity peacefully to live the
kinds of lives we want to live against those
who would prevent us from doing so. The
portal to our peace is a physical and moral
victory over the obstacles thereto. War con-
sists of the bloody commitment to destroy
an enemy or force him to accept our own
version of peace.
Modern Age - Fall 2014

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