The Discipline of Power

by George W. Ball

1968 Little, Brown Publishing Hardcover

Genres: History

384 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 1968

Reviews

[David Hill · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read Ball's memoirs several years ago. He came to my attention while reading the biographies and memoirs of other cold warriors such as George Kennan and []. Granted, memoirs are likely much kinder to the subject than biographies written by others, so I may have gotten too favorable an opinion of Ball. In any event, I wanted to read more of what he had to say when he was near the levers of power. (He was Under Secretary of State for about five years under Kennedy and Johnson.)

I generally try to avoid books about current events. Even when they're fresh, I tend to think they fail to tell the whole story. In the moment, it's quite often true that key information is not known. It takes a while for things to percolate, and the historian is generally better at telling the story than those who are involved in it. So I was somewhat concerned that this book was too closely tied to the time it was published and that it wouldn't have any value to me reading it half a century later.

The object of the book was to take a good look at the world situation in 1968 and write a prescription of what should be done going forward to make the world a better place from a geo-political standpoint. For the most part, Ball doesn't try to predict the future: "This is what I think will happen." Generally, he lays out the conditions of the day and posits several ways world leaders may choose to go forward: "The conditions are this; the obvious ways forward are A, B, and C. The problems with those options are this, the benefits that."

For the most part, I felt that Ball's positions on the Cold War and Vietnam were sound. I recall from his memoirs that he held positions I felt were more sensible than others of his time. I may be misremembering this, or his positions on Vietnam changed between writing this book and his memoirs. In any event, I think Ball was one of the smarter actors of the time.

Ball's area of maximum competence was Europe. He worked with Bonnet during the initial efforts to form some sort of unfied Europe. The chapters on Europe, I felt, were the most sound. Although his stance on how to deal with the Soviets particularly and Communists generally were enlightened, even he couldn't imagine that the Soviet Union would collapse. It's ironic, then, that at one point in this book he gives some history of empires that fell under circumstances that looked remarkably like the Soviets faced, he still was unable to even postulate what a post-Soviet Europe might look like. In any event, he was a proponent of a post-nationalist, unified Europe. Much of what he wanted to see, what he worked toward, came to be after the fall of the Soviets and the unification of Germany. In that context, the chapters on Europe are enlightening.

Ball was less well-versed in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. For the most part, he dismisses China as a power in the future.

In the chapter on Vietnam, I couldn't help but recall this quote: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." I don't know exactly when he wrote this book, but it was published in 1968. Did he write it before the Tet Offensive? I suspect this may be the case. His prescription for going forward in Vietnam was pretty much in line with LBJ and the Hawks. He also seems to miss entirely the point and feelings behind the anti-war demonstrations. Ball redeems himself in the last pages of this chapter by providing a recipe to avoid getting into similar bad situations in the future. Clearly, had JFK and LBJ followed Ball's six broad priciples, we'd have never gone into Vietnam in the first place.

I found this book quite interesting as a snapshot of a point in time, but it certainly has a very limited appeal for readers today.