"For if the Germans do not help defend the West, American and Canadian troops must cross the seas to do the job, and I venture to believe that the troops - if not the statesmen - regard this as an interference at least in their own domestic affairs"
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Sulzberger’s sentence is a neat piece of Cold War pressure dressed up as common sense. He’s not merely arguing that West Germany should pull its weight; he’s reframing German rearmament as a kind of civic duty to spare North Americans the indignity of doing Europe’s policing. The headline logic is logistical - if Germans won’t defend “the West,” Americans and Canadians must cross an ocean - but the real work happens in the pivot: “I venture to believe,” and then the sly jab that “the troops - if not the statesmen” will see this as domestic “interference.”
That parenthetical is the tell. It flatters enlisted skepticism while scolding diplomatic elites, positioning ordinary soldiers as the truer barometer of national interest. “Domestic affairs” is deliberately provocative: sending troops abroad is usually framed as foreign policy; Sulzberger flips it, implying that prolonged European commitments deform American sovereignty at home. In the early 1950s context - NATO’s consolidation, the Korean War’s shadow, and fierce debates over West German rearmament and integration - this is an argument aimed at anxious American readers: let Germany stand up so the U.S. can stand back.
The subtext carries two uncomfortable bargains. One is moral: rehabilitating German military agency after WWII becomes not forgiveness but necessity. The other is political: U.S. leadership is sold as temporary, even reluctant, while remaining structurally permanent. Sulzberger’s craft is to make that contradiction feel like prudence rather than empire.
That parenthetical is the tell. It flatters enlisted skepticism while scolding diplomatic elites, positioning ordinary soldiers as the truer barometer of national interest. “Domestic affairs” is deliberately provocative: sending troops abroad is usually framed as foreign policy; Sulzberger flips it, implying that prolonged European commitments deform American sovereignty at home. In the early 1950s context - NATO’s consolidation, the Korean War’s shadow, and fierce debates over West German rearmament and integration - this is an argument aimed at anxious American readers: let Germany stand up so the U.S. can stand back.
The subtext carries two uncomfortable bargains. One is moral: rehabilitating German military agency after WWII becomes not forgiveness but necessity. The other is political: U.S. leadership is sold as temporary, even reluctant, while remaining structurally permanent. Sulzberger’s craft is to make that contradiction feel like prudence rather than empire.
Quote Details
| Topic | War |
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