VICTORY WITHOUT WAR
Mr. Richard Nixon was the President of the United States from 1968 to 1974. He published a book of memoirs titled 1999: Victory Without War.
Among the points he makes in this book is one about the relationship between America and Japan. In this context, one of the things Mr. Nixon writes can be summarized as follows:
The Americans decimated Japan in 1945 and, after World War II, rebuilt it with enormous economic backing as a model country to disprove the communist ideology that poverty cannot be removed through the process of capitalism. Democracy was planted on its territory in place of the ancient monarchy. Its constitution was written by the Americans. Its defence was controlled from Washington, DC. After 35 years of this experiment, bitter economic disagreements have clouded US-Japan relations in recent years. There is a severe trade imbalance. In 1986, Japan sold goods to the US to the value of $60 billion in excess of the goods purchased from the States, contributing to the total American trade deficit of $170 billion. Indigenous rice production costs Japan $2,000 a ton, yet it is not prepared to buy rice from its benefactor, the US, offered at $180 a ton, with a view “to protect Japanese farmers.” The US is sore that the “Japanese have closed their markets to American goods.” (The Times of India, April 2, 1989, p.2)
After the Second World War, America stood as the victor and dominant power, while Japan was the defeated and subjugated nation. Yet the steps taken by the victor for its own benefit were turned by the defeated into advantages of its own. That is the true test of today’s world. Success belongs to those who can find opportunity in the hostile plans of their opponents, who can turn their enemy’s strategies into stepping-stones for their own progress.
In this world, even defeat can open the door to victory. Here, battles can be won without war. But this is only for the wise; for the unwise, there is no true success in God’s world. For them, even victory turns into defeat, and defeat remains defeat.
