96. Memorandum From the Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs (Wilcox) to the Legal Adviser (Becker)1
SUBJECT
- Collective Security Project
Your memorandum and that of the Secretary on this subject2 seem to IO to raise three basic questions: 1) Does the answer to our present problems lie in the creation of additional machinery? 2) Are nations generally willing to make advance commitments with respect to the use of force outside areas of direct interest to themselves? 3) Is it possible to extend the OAS system to other, not comparable regions?
In addition, it is our understanding that a principal purpose of a new proposal in this general field would be the psychological benefits to be derived from the standpoint of U.S. leadership of the free world. Here,IO heartily concurs in your conclusion that any U.S. effort to establish a new collective security system embracing all of the free world but excluding the Communist bloc would almost certainly be interpreted as U.S. abandonment of the UN. Furthermore, any such pact would appear, if only by reason of the exclusion of the Communist countries from it, to be directed primarily toward the Communist threat. It might well therefore produce an adverse reaction on the grounds that it overemphasizes the military as against the political and economic approach to current problems [Page 255] and that it would tend to increase rather than decrease tension between the free world and the USSR.
One of the principal considerations underlying the reduced enthusiasm for a UN Charter review conference is, in IO’s opinion, the rather widely held view that the policies of member governments rather than UN mechanisms are responsible for the UN’s shortcomings. An example frequently cited is the reluctance of countries to accept the compulsory jurisdiction of the ICJ, and their reluctance to have recourse to the Court even where such recourse is clearly the appropriate means of peaceful settlement. Only this last year, you will recall, the British extended their reservations in accepting the Court’s jurisdiction to include disputes “relating to any question which in the opinion of the Government of the United Kingdom affects the national security of the United Kingdom or any of its dependent territories.” While this situation is widely deplored in principle, it is not thought that the present international atmosphere is conducive to that change in the attitudes of governments that would be required to remedy it.
Similarily, all member states are committed under the Charter to settle their disputes by peaceful means and a wide variety of procedures is available to encourage and assist such settlement. Actual settlement, however, depends, as you know, on the parties’ willingness to reach agreement on or to accept a recommended settlement. That member states would be willing now to go further and agree in advance to accept an undefined settlement seems improbable when viewed in the context of the dispute between Israel and the Arab states, for example, or between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. Again, therefore, progress in peaceful settlement does not appear to depend on the creation of additional mechanisms but on the attitudes of governments.
While the Soviet veto in the SC has made it impossible for the UN to enforce decisions, it is questionable how far the UN should or could go, irrespective of the veto, in enforcing decisions under present world conditions. Collective military action going beyond the UNEF type operations does not appear practical. Such action to be effective would require the participation of one or more of the major powers. Inclusion of the USSR in such action would obviously not be to the free world interest under present circumstances. Action by the other major powers without the USSR would almost certainly bring the USSR into the situation and, where the colonial issue is involved, would be suspect in the area of the dispute.
Nor does the Soviet veto account for the very poor response of states to the request of the Collective Measures Committee that national contingents be earmarked for possible UN use. The replies of member states to this request made it clear that while they [Page 256] generally, though not without exception, approve the principle of collective security, they are unwilling to make any advance commitments that might involve them in hostilities of unpredictable origin, location, character, and scope.
Many states have been willing to make limited commitments with respect to collective action in areas where they see their own security to be directly at stake. They have, however, been unwilling to risk involvement in a great-power struggle in other areas, and there is, in this Bureau’s opinion, no reason to believe that this reluctance would be any less under an Article 51 pact than under procedures and mechanisms provided in the Uniting for Peace resolution. In the absence of any general willingness to make firm commitments of a relatively substantial nature under such a pact, it is difficult to see where its advantage would lie over our present system of regional and bilateral security arrangements. A reaffirmation of principles would not be sufficient to permit the advance planning of the free world’s defense. Moreover, since a free-world Article 51 pact would be regarded as directed against the Soviet bloc primarily, it would certainly not obtain the adherence of more countries than those encompassed in our present system of regional and bilateral security arrangements, and might well result in weakening these arrangements by causing present participants to withdraw when confronted by the need to extend their commitments.
The interlocking membership of our various regional and bilateral security arrangements and the availability of the UN appear to meet the need for consultative machinery and procedures between and among these arrangements so far as it can be met without extending, at least, by implication, the commitments of the participants. Efforts to coordinate more formally NATO with the Baghdad Pact and SEATO would be likely to intensify anti-colonialism and neutralism in the two latter areas. Moreover, any minimal advantages that might possibly be realized from greater coordination of our various regional and bilateral security arrangements would be offset, in IO’s opinion, by the implications of such a development with respect to the US attitude toward the UN and with respect to East-West tensions.
It seems to IO unrealistic to anticipate the early development elsewhere of regional organizations comparable to the OAS, with the possible exception of the NATO area. The OAS is unique in that 1) it covers a well-defined area having certain generally recognized mutual interests, 2) it includes all states within this area, 3) it is of indigenous origins, 4) it is concerned as much, if not more, with developments within the region as with any external threats, and 5) its institutions are the result of an evolutionary process during which they have gained widespread acceptance.
[Page 257]On the other hand, NATO, the Baghdad Pact, and SEATO are concerned primarily with defense of their respective areas against Soviet aggression, overt or covert. None of them includes all the states in the areas concerned. The impetus behind the Baghdad Pact and SEATO comes in large measure from outside the area. It is difficult to conceive of their developing along the broader lines of the OAS within the foreseeable future. In these areas intra-regional antagonisms are sharp and neutralism widely prevalent. In the Middle East, solution of the Palestine problem, at least, appears a prerequisite to the establishment of any overall regional organization and in the Far East, solution of the Chinese representation question. In the absence of such solutions, there appears to be no possibility that states outside the present regional security pacts would be willing to join. Many of these states would therefore continue to regard the existing pacts as an indirect threat, thus precluding their serving any useful purpose with respect to intra-regional problems.