62
NORMAN PODHORETZ
tries. Communist ideals are, of course, powerfully attractive, but even
Russian youth is beginning to learn that the Soviet system represents
the betrayal rather than the fulfillment of these ideals. To the extent
that we have also betrayed and continue to betray our own ideals–
which are historically not very different from those of the Socialist
tradition-we are bound to suffer in political and ideological com–
petition. We have not yet even begun to explore what a
real
belief
in democracy and individual liberty implies, say, in the field of eco–
nomic development. Suppose, for example, that the United States
were to encourage and foster the discovery of techniques of industrial–
ization that might result
in
prosperity without leading inexorably to
alienation? Yet to try something of that sort means being sufficiently
critical of our own institutions to imagine how they ought to be
modified in the process of being transplanted; it means becoming
aware of the extent to which a particular form of technology
is
in
practice the enemy of our values. And that, in turn, means being
very clear about what our values are. So the paradox is that we can
probably halt the advance of Communism without nuclear war only
by committing ourselves to a humanitarian and idealistic policy. Nor
can we use the humanitarian impulse as a tactic and hope to achieve
the same result. In short, everything depends on the prophets again.
Do enough of them exist to make a real difference?
7. I don't think anything is worth a nuclear war, even though
I would admit that the deterrence theorists have a point when they
say that our willingness to fight such a war may be the best way
of preventing it. Nevertheless, the willingness to fight draws nourish-
ment from the debatable idea that recovery, or even victory, is
possible. Herman Kahn offers a "complete description of nuclear
war" which includes elaborate calculations of casualties, genetic
l
damage, food contamination, and the like, and he argues that with
f
proper preparations the United States could emerge from certain
l~
kinds of nuclear war relatively intact. What I would like to see is a
similarly hard-headed and coldly objective description of surrender,
with the same object of determining how long it might take to "re-
h
cuperate" from Communist domination. How many would be shot,
how many deported, how many imprisoned in concentration camps,
a
how much of the economic plant would be stolen, what sort of
political institutions would be created and who would run them,
sl
