The Chinese Connection

Abstract

Any Soviet arguments over strategic doctrine with the United States could be carried on at an arm’s length. The two adversaries were not obliged to agree — each was only interested in assessing the implications of the other’s deployment and declarations for its over-all position. An argument with an ally was different — divergent policies could cause problems in the planning and the conduct of war. The dependence on an ally and the possibility of exerting influence gave the argument more point. So it was that the sharpest strategic debates of the 1960s were between the Americans and French within NATO and between the Russians and the Chinese. In each case, the debate was never resolved satisfactorily and led to a loss in Alliance cohesion. With the Russians and Chinese, the link which made it still (just) possible to talk of the ‘Sino-Soviet bloc’ in 1960 was broken completely so that by the end of the decade the two had become enemies and, in 1969, engaged in sizeable armed clashes on the border.