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PARTISAN REVIEW
shows no inclination to let the world slip out of control. As for our helpless–
ness before Arab sheikhdoms, that
seems
exaggerated; many in Congress
cringe before our own oil companies, not desert chieftains. Surely no one
be–
lieves that conflict, competition, and power are likely to disappear soon as
central elements in international politics.
Still, the new map of the world as
Me.
Podhoretz sketches it is a useful
approximation of what has happened. The trouble with it as far as he is con–
cerned, is that it apparently makes the reduction of world politics to a
Manichean confrontation difficult. (It would hardly assist, for instance, Pro–
fessor Moynihan were he as a Senate candidate to try to mobilize the
anxieties of many voters bewildered by history-and, therefore, in the same
condition as the rest of us.) Moreover,
Me.
Podhoretz is too easy on the lib–
erals. They once favored a two-part policy: the Green Berets and the Peace
Corps. The Green Berets have now been left to John Wayne's colleague,
Ronald Reagan, and the liberals prefer to concentrate on a global Peace
Corps. Even Senator Church, however, will not attack the central questions
directly. This country remains the center of a vast economic imperium. (Over
half ofIBM's profits
come
from outside our borders.) Ameliorationist hopes
and reformist projects, are bound to fail unless the fact of imperium is re–
considered.
Good
will alone won't, in shon, arrest the global civil war which,
increasingly, opposes richer and poorer nations. Finally, Mr. Podhoretz
overemphasizes the liberal change of heart. Many liberals who backed the
war are running for President (or for Secretary of State and National Security
Advisor), still others command the foundations and control the media and
the universities. The only liberal consensus there is can
be
found in 'an
(abominable) agreement not to argue too much about the recent past. Mr.
Podhoretz's penchant for drama has led him to overlook an authentic Amer–
ican tragedy, our lack of a large opposition, ready and able to replace our
failed elites.
No matter; Mr. Podhoretz raises his call to battle. Not alone should we
resist Soviet Communism, he tells us, but we ought to struggle against
Communism in any form. "In short, if a world dominated by Soviet Com–
munism is likely to
be
a world given over to barbarism and misery, the
chances are that a world dominated by Communism in a variety of national
guises would
be
an improvement only to the extent that it is better to
be
en–
slaved by autonomous local tyrants than by puppets of a foreign land."
That, to
be
sure, would apply to national movements other than Commu–
nist ones . What is surprising, however, is that Mr. Podhoretz should try to
convince a reasonably literate public that one political and social movement
is on its way to supremacy in our world. The evidence points to opposite con–
clusions. The political movements we
see
around us express, in dizzying and
