About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline

392 Annals Am. Acad. Pol. & Soc. Sci. viii (1970)

handle is hein.cow/anamacp0392 and id is 1 raw text is: FOREWORD

O Lord above, send us a dove
With wings of sharp-edged steel
To cut the throats of those Hanoi blokes
If they will make no deal.
-Paraphrase of an Australian beer ad (1968)
No subject could be more timely for readers of THE ANNALS in November 1970
than How Wars End. The problems of war termination are discussed by the
contributors to this volume in terms which will be useful long after the war in
Vietnam has ceased. Nearly every article, however, reflects something of the
anguish of Americans locked in a war that seems to them both interminable and
unwinnable. Several provide suggestive historical analogies; for example, the
United States experience in Vietnam is not in every respect new, as Bryce Wood's
treatment of the American military intervention in Nicaragua makes clear.
The all but unanimous call for some kind of end to the war does not conceal
deep differences as to what kind of end should be sought and how high a price
should be paid for it. A dove with wings of . . . steel is a contradiction in
terms, but so in a sense is any policy in pursuit of two potentially incompatible
goals. An end to the fighting is one goal, but the United States would never
have become involved in the Vietnam war if there were not other goals. Only
those who can point the way to peace without victory, yet peace with at least
some of the hoped-for fruits of victory, can claim they have solved the
problems of war termination.
The contributors to this symposium make no such claims. Neither does any
of them attempt to prescribe how sharp and how strong should be the steel wings
of the dove of war termination.
Large-scale limited war is only one of two kinds of war for which termination,
as contrasted with victory or peace settlement, is a problem of absorbing
interest. The vastly complex task of limiting and aborting a thermonuclear ex-
change once a central war has started is the subject of the two concluding articles.
WILLIAM T. R. Fox

viii

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

profiles profiles most