By measuring each aspect of our foreign policy against the standard--Is
it helpful in defeating the enemy?--we can understand why the past
fourteen years have been marked by frustration and failure. We have not
gotten ahead because we have been travelling the wrong road.
It is less easy to stake out the right road. For in terms of our own
experience it is a new road we seek, and one therefore that will hold
challenges and perils that are different (though hardly graver) from
those with which we are now familiar. Actually, the “new” road is as
old as human history: it is the one that successful political and
military leaders, having arrived at a dispassionate “estimate of the
situation,” always follow when they are in a war they mean to win. From
our own estimate of the situation, we know the _direction_ we must
take; and our standard--Is it helpful in defeating Communism?--will
provide guideposts all along the way. There are some that can be
observed even now:
1. The key guidepost is the Objective, and we must never lose sight of
it. It is not to wage a struggle against Communism, but to win it.