Because arms control negotiations and agreements may serve many ends, not all of which will be fully supportive one of another, the assessment of their value and implications must be inconclusive. For so long as a broad commitment to detente policies remains the general line of foreign policy, then for so long is a SALT II treaty close to inevitable. In terms of the identifiable political, strategic and economic benefits of the SALT exercise thus far – six years on – it is debatable whether or not SALT has any justification beyond the fact of its existence. Even unproductive institutions can be costly to dismantle. Before exploring the possible strengths and weaknesses of a putative SALT II regime, it is worth recalling the ends that SALT,could serve.

The most remarkable feature of international trade in the post-war period has been its expansion. The few figures available for the early post war period suggest that this had probably started by the end of the 1940s. Following the Korean war boom, the volume and unit price of goods entering international trade rapidly increased, reaching a peak in 1951. There was a slight setback in the volume of trade the following year, but it picked up quickly, whereas prices continued to fall for several years. It is with the period thereafter – from 1953 to 1973 – that this essay will chiefly be concerned. The analysis will examine trade from the point of view of its change overall, its commodity composition, and relative commodity prices. It will consider why the situation after the Second World War has been so different from that in the inter-war period and why, in spite of general expansion, underdeveloped countries have been so dissatisfied with their position in international markets.

The purpose of this essay is to provide a brief overview of the theory and practice of counterinsurgency in the Third World since World War II. Given the obvious limitations of space, descriptions of particular COIN (counterinsurgency) campaigns have been avoided except to illustrate an argument. Furthermore, this essay concentrates primarily on U.S. counterinsurgency doctrines and methods. This is not to underestimate the contributions – both theoretical and practical – made by the former colonial powers in attempting to crush the impulse to national liberation in the Third World. But the European powers – with the recent exception of Portugal – had, by the beginning of the 1960s, neither the capability nor (following a number of humiliating setbacks) much enthusiasm for further military adventures in the Third World. There have, of course, been exceptions – the French in Mali, Britain in Borneo and the Anguilla affair – but these pale into insignificance when compared with the American counterinsurgency effort in the Third World, which began to gather impetus just as the major European colonial powers were abdicating their former role as Third World policemen.1

A paradox haunts the career of Paul-Henri Spaak, and one that is characteristic of Belgian foreign policy in general. For Spaak, the man who was nicknamed ‘Mr. Europe’ for the contribution that he made to the post-war movement for European integration was also the man who, as Foreign Minister of the inter-war governments of van Zeeland and Pierlot, was associated with the policy of Belgian ‘independence’. That policy is usually seen as the direct antithesis of integration.

THERE must now be a case for classifying books on post-war British foreign policy as ‘whodunnits’. Certainly everybody is agreed about the victim. Britannia, the once proud, imperious mistress of the seas and a mighty empire, lies exhausted and bereft, a mere shadow of her former self. Of course she is not exactly dead, but plainly a terrible catastrophe has befallen her. Her continued survival appears to rest on a humiliating dependence on others. Far away are those heady days of 1946 when Abdullah, the ruler of TransJordan could be summoned to London to be told that the British Government had decided that his country was to be an independent state and he was to be its King, and when, perhaps even more remarkable in the light of present circumstances, the British gave £100 million in economic aid to West Germany.

Is there such a subject? The study of Allied diplomacy has been slow to establish itself, partly because the bulk of the American and British records have only recently become available, but mainly because of the debate about the origins of the Cold War – the contemporary equivalent of the war-guilt question. Because of the paucity of Soviet material it has in practice turned into an argument about American policy and has not, of course, been confined to the wartime period. The search for origins, turning-points and causes employs the advantage of hindsight in deciding what is relevant. It, therefore, tends to overlook the side issues, dead ends and the short-term nature of much wartime diplomacy. Nobody would deny the importance of the origins of the Cold War or of wartime American-Soviet relations. Yet it is misleading to see Allied diplomacy solely in terms of this one theme. There is room for an attempt to examine some other wartime issues and to indicate topics worthy of further exploration. In the rest of this article, therefore, the Cold War will as far as possible be ignored.