Undermining Brazilians’ Will to Resist – Folha de S. Paulo, July 5, 1970
by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira
The closing ceremony for the United States National War College courses occurred early last month. During the event at Fort McChrystal, Congressman Gerald Ford gave a speech notable for its lucidity and courage.
Lucidity and courage… I wonder which of these traits is rarer today. Because it exemplifies these qualities, the Republican congressman’s speech deserves much more recognition than the brief news reports that a few Brazilian newspapers provided. Moreover, beyond just the news, Gerald Ford’s words deserve comment because they are undeniably relevant to the current Brazilian psychopolitical situation.
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Let us begin by presenting the American representative’s observations.
They essentially boil down to analyzing the American peace movement through the lens of Clausewitz’s principle, which I discussed in my latest article: war aims not to destroy the enemy physically but to deprive them of their will to fight.
Congressman Ford states that pacifist feelings have grown among Americans. Exploited by subversives and revolutionaries, this trend turns the noble desire for peace into a deep aversion to any war, even when just and necessary. The urge to resist external threats diminishes as this phobia spreads, benefiting the Soviet Union. It’s very clear. Still, one might wonder, how can subversives and revolutionaries so widely spread the influence of their rotten pacifism?
Ford consistently responds precisely and clearly: The Soviets manufacture pretexts for pacifist propaganda in the United States through their policies in the Far East. Therefore, Russian and Chinese imperialism in Indochina not only seeks to bring this large and strategic region into the communist sphere but also, and most importantly, aims to defeat the United States by crushing its will to resist.
This maneuver is simple. More American lawmakers and students are being led to believe the false rumor that the war in Vietnam and Cambodia is entirely caused by pressure from shady financial and military interests. As a result, these groups demand a reduction in military spending without even questioning whether a minimum level of such spending should be maintained. American anti-war activists urge their fellow citizens to refuse to wage war.
A potential victory of their perspective would cause the United States to relinquish its position as a global power. Just like an individual, a nation unwilling to fight cannot lead.
America’s disqualification on the international stage would make the Soviet Union the sole world power.
No more needs to be said.
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After some strong and insightful observations on the irrational behavior of his country’s civilian politicians facing the war in Indochina, Ford shows that the US would have already won if not for the obstacles American authorities created to hinder the normal progress of military operations. From this, we conclude that widespread American pacifism is the main reason for the prolonged Vietnam War. Confronted with such a troubling picture, the American congressman asks this urgent question: “Do we still have the will to fight, as Clausewitz said?” He adds a warning that applies to America and the world: “If we don’t, the Soviet Union will win.”
Naturally, Ford defends Nixon’s intervention in Cambodia because it added credibility to earlier US threats to Red Imperialists, which led to concrete action at least once. Again, I agree with Ford. What could harm a great nation’s reputation more than the habit of issuing threats that are just saber-rattling?
Such a logical and compelling speech naturally elevates the topic to a philosophical level. Ford recalls John Stuart Mill’s phrase: “War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things.” The congressman agrees and goes even further. War in self-defense, waged to protect values we should cherish more than life itself, is not an “ugly thing,” but a beautiful thing because it is necessary and legitimate.
Are there values worth sacrificing our lives for? Ford answers this by quoting John Stuart Mill: “A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature.”
I would add that this phrase is based on the supernatural truths the Church has been teaching for two thousand years.
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What does all this have to do with Brazil?
The subversives operating in these areas share the same ideology as their American counterparts. They are pacifists on the international stage, confronting Russian, Chinese, and Cuban aggression, yet extremely aggressive in domestic politics. This includes those who organize armed subversion and those who initiate bloodless “pressure” to drag Brazil toward communism through socialist “basic reforms.” Regarding this second type of subversive, one needs only remember Dom Helder Camara.
Just as American subversives aim to eliminate their people’s will to fight, a superficial glance at events shows that the goal of Brazilian subversives is the same: to undermine Brazilians’ resolve to resist the internal enemy, who tries to appear invincible through boldness and skill, and to resist the external enemy, who can exploit political fluctuations to rise against us at any moment.
This is a valuable lesson Brazilians can learn from Gerald Ford’s words in America, as evil fairies spread here and there.
