Essays For The Presidency: A Century's Worth of Candidates and Their Advisers Make Their Cases

Essays
for the
Presidency
A Century's Worth of
Candidates and Their Advisers
Make Their Cases
F O R E I G N A F F A I R S .C O M
September 2015
September 2015
Introduction
Gideon Rose
2012: OBAMA VS. ROMNEY

January/February 2013
Rebooting Republican Foreign Policy
Needed: Less Fox, More Foxes
Daniel W. Drezner
cover photo: courtesy reuters
March/April 2013
Getting the GOP’s Groove Back
How to Bridge the Republican Foreign Policy Divide
Bret Stephens
May/June 2013
The Clinton Legacy
How Will History Judge the Soft-Power Secretary of State?
Michael Hirsh
2008: OBAMA VS. MCCAIN
July/August 2007
Renewing American Leadership
Why the Greek Crisis Will Not Ruin Europe’s Monetary Union
Barack Obama
July/August 2007
Rising to a New Generation of Global Challenges
Mitt Romney
September/October 2007
Reengaging With the World
A Return to Moral Leadership
John Edwards
Toward a Realistic Peace
Defending Civilization and Defeating Terrorists by Making the
International System Work
Rudolph W. Giuliani
November/December 2007
Security and Opportunity for the Twenty-first Century
Hillary Rodham Clinton
November/December 2007
An Enduring Peace Built on Freedom
Securing America’s Future
John McCain
A New Realism
A Realistic and Principled Foreign Policy
Bill Richardson
America’s Priorities in the War on Terror
Islamists, Iraq, Iran, and Pakistan
Michael D. Huckabee
2004: BUSH VS. KERRY

Bridges, Bombs, or Bluster?
Madeleine K. Albright
A Strategy of Partnerships
Colin L. Powell
May/June 2004
Foreign Policy for a Democratic President
Samuel R. Berger
2000: BUSH VS. GORE

Campaign 2000: Promoting the National Interest
Condoleezza Rice
Campaign 2000: A Republican Foreign Policy
Robert B. Zoellick
March/April 2000
Campaign 2000: New World, New Deal: A Democratic Approach
to Globalization
W. Bowman Cutter, Joan Spero, and Laura D’Andrea Tyson
1992: CLINTON VS. BUSH

Summer 1992
A Republican Looks at Foreign Policy
James A. Leach
Summer 1992
A Democrat Looks at Foreign Policy
Lee H. Hamilton
Fall 1992
America’s First Post-Cold War President
Theodore C. Sorensen
1988: BUSH VS. DUKAKIS

Winter 1987/88
A Republican Looks at Foreign Policy
Richard G. Lugar
Winter 1987/88
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
America and the World 1987
The 1988 Election: U.S. Foreign Policy at a Watershed
George McGovern

American Foreign Policy: The Bush Agenda
Richard M. Nixon

The 1988 Election
Norman J. Ornstein and Mark Schmitt
1984: REAGAN VS. MONDALE

Fall 1983
Foreign Policy and the American Character
Winter 1984/85
After the Election: Foreign Policy Under Reagan II
Henry A. Grunwald

The First Term: From Carter to Reagan
Coral Bell

The First Term: Four More Years: Diplomacy Restored?
Leslie H. Gelb and Anthony Lake

The First Term: The Reagan Road to Détente
Norman Podhoretz
1976: CARTER VS. FORD
October 1974
Beyond Détente: Toward International Economic Security
Walter F. Mondale
1972: NIXON VS. MCGOVERN

October 1971
For a New Policy Balance
John V. Lindsay
1968: NIXON VS. HUMPHREY

January 1967
The End of Either/Or
McGeorge Bundy
October 1967
Asia After Viet Nam
Richard M. Nixon
January 1968
Policy and the People
Nelson A. Rockefeller
1964: JOHNSON VS. GOLDWATER

April 1964
The Presidency and the Peace
McGeorge Bundy
July 1963
Two Years of the Peace Corps
Sargent Shriver
July 1964
U.S. Policy in Latin America
Hubert H. Humphrey
1960: KENNEDY VS. NIXON

October 1957
John F. Kennedy
January 1960
Putting First Things First
A Democratic View
Adlai E. Stevenson
July 1959
The Senate in Foreign Policy
Hubert H. Humphrey
1956: EISENHOWER VS. STEVENSON

January 1957
Foreign Policy in Presidential Campaigns
Dexter Perkins
1952: EISENHOWER VS. STEVENSON
April 1952
Korea in Perspective
Adlai E. Stevenson
October 1952
November 1952: Imperatives of Foreign Policy
McGeorge Bundy
1948: TRUMAN VS. DEWEY

October 1947
The Challenge to Americans
Henry L. Stimson
April 1948
The Foreign Policy of the American Communist Party
Joseph Barnes
April 1948
The Promise of Human Rights
Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt
1944: ROOSEVELT VS. DEWEY

April 1944
Our Sovereignty: Shall We Use It?
Wendell L. Willkie
1936: ROOSEVELT VS. LANDON
October 1937
European Legislation for Industrial Peace
Norman Thomas
April 1936
Labor Under the Nazis
Norman Thomas
1932: ROOSEVELT VS. HOOVER

October 1931
The Permanent Bases of American Foreign Policy
John W. Davis
October 1932
Political Factors in American Foreign Policy
George W. Wickersham
January 1933
Some Foreign Problems of the Next Administration
Edward M. House
1928: HOOVER VS. SMITH

July 1928
Our Foreign Policy
A Republican View
Ogden L. Mills
July 1928
Our Foreign Policy
A Democratic View
Franklin D. Roosevelt
1924: COOLIDGE VS. DAVIS

December 1923
Foreign Affairs
The Senate and Our Foreign Relations
June 1924
Foreign Relations of the United States, 1921-1924
Henry Cabot Lodge
September 1924
American Foreign Policy: a Democratic View
Norman H. Davis
September 1924
American Foreign Policy: a Republican View
Theodore E. Burton
September 1924
American Foreign Policy: a Progressive View
Robert Morss Lovett
December 1924
After the Election
E
Essays for the Presidency
A Century's Worth of Candidates and Their Advisers Make
Their Cases
Gideon Rose
REUTERS
Clinton rally, 2015.
The United States is an indirect democracy rather than a direct one; citizens
rarely choose policies, but instead choose representatives to do that for them. But
how can voters know what their representatives will do once elected, in order to
make an informed choice? In part, by looking to their clearest and most
authoritative policy manifestos. Foreign Affairs has long been the place for
aspiring presidents and their advisers to present their foreign policy visions, and
so with the 2016 campaign well under way, we decided to provide some context
for it by pulling together nearly a century’s worth of campaign-related articles
from our archives.
In this collection, you’ll find everybody, from all the major candidates in
2008—including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Mitt Romney, and
Mike Huckabee—to crucial historical figures such as Colonel House, Franklin
Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, and many more. The more than
60 essays it includes represent a unique trove of political Americana, a time
machine that can transport you back to any election you want and see how things
looked to the players themselves, in real time. It’s a great volume to keep close at
hand as you watch the election unfold—even as you keep an eye on the magazine
and ForeignAffairs.com for essays by current candidates, along with continuous
coverage of U.S. foreign policy and the world at large.
GIDEON ROSE is Editor of Foreign Affairs.

September 22,2015
Rebooting Republican Foreign
Policy
Needed: Less Fox, More Foxes
Daniel W. Drezner
MANSI THAPLIYAL / COURTESY REUTERS

A man carries a cut-out of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in New Delhi.
This past fall was not kind to U.S. President Barack Obama's foreign policy. It
became increasingly clear that Afghan security forces were not going to be ready
for the 2014 transition. The New York Times highlighted the administration's
failure to persuade the Iraqi government to allow a residual U.S. force to stay in
the country, leaving Baghdad ever more at the mercy of Tehran. Obama and
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fought publicly over how to respond
to Iran's advancing nuclear program. The administration's much-touted "pivot" to
the Pacific seemed like more talk than action, as the United States passively
watched tensions rise between China and Japan. And then, the administration
tripped over itself repeatedly in trying to explain the fiasco in Benghazi, Libya.
Yet despite all this, Obama not only won the election in November but was more
trusted by the public than Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate, on foreign
policy and national security issues. The Pew Research Center's last preelection
poll, for example, found that more voters trusted Obama than Romney on foreign
affairs, by 50 percent to 42 percent, and CBS/New York Times and NBC/Wall
Street Journal surveys showed similar figures. Tracking polls suggested that the
foreign policy debate helped halt whatever momentum Romney had.
This was all a big change from the past. Republicans had previously possessed a
decades-long advantage on foreign policy. Exit polls have shown that voters
consistently trusted Republican presidential candidates over Democratic ones on
foreign policy from the Vietnam era until 2012. So Obama's edge cannot be
chalked up simply to incumbency. And if this exception becomes a trend, it will
pose a serious problem for the Republican Party, significantly altering the political
landscape. Foreign policy is rarely the decisive issue in presidential campaigns,
but it does matter: even voters who profess not to care about the rest of the world
need to feel comfortable that their candidate can be the next commander in chief.
A candidate's command of foreign policy acts as a proxy for assessing broader
leadership abilities. As of right now, far too many Republicans flunk that test.
So how did the party of Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan get itself into this
mess? Simply put, GOP leaders stopped being smart foxes and devolved into
stupid hedgehogs. During the Cold War, the party of Eisenhower, Richard Nixon,
and Reagan was strongly anticommunist, but these presidents took foreign policy
seriously and executed their grand strategies with a healthy degree of tactical
flexibility. Since 9/11, however, Republicans have known only one big thing—the
"global war on terror"—and have remained stubbornly committed to a narrow
militarized approach. Since the fall of Baghdad, moreover, this approach has
produced at least as much failure as success, leading the American public to be
increasingly skeptical of the bellicosity that now defines the party's foreign policy.
Republicans need to start taking international relations more seriously,

addressing the true complexities and requirements of the issues rather than
allowing the subject to be a plaything for right-wing interest groups. And if they
don't act quickly, they might cede this ground to the Democrats for the next
generation.
BUILDING THE BRAND
Republican presidents from the 1950s through the early 1990s had variegated
records, but they had one thing in common: they left behind favorable legacies on
foreign policy. Eisenhower stabilized the rivalry with the Soviet Union, preventing
it from escalating into a violent conflagration. He dramatically improved the U.S.
foreign-policy-making process, strengthened domestic infrastructure, extricated
the United States from the Korean War, and limited U.S. involvement in Vietnam.
Nixon improved relations with the Soviet Union, opened relations with China, and
extricated the United States from Vietnam. Reagan spoke truth to power by
railing against the Soviet Union as an "evil empire," but when faced with a
genuine negotiating partner in Mikhail Gorbachev, he did not hesitate to sign
numerous treaties, reduce Cold War tensions, and cut nuclear stockpiles. George
H. W. Bush adroitly seized the opportunities afforded by the end of the Cold War
to expand the West's liberal order to the world at large, as well as overseeing
German reunification, rebuffing Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, and locking in Mexico's
path toward economic liberalization.
Each president built his reputation as a foreign policy hawk, and none was afraid
to talk tough or act forcefully when dealing with adversaries. But the key to their
success was the ability to combine principled beliefs at the strategic level with
prudence and flexibility at the tactical level. Eisenhower took great care to
prevent small crises from distracting the United States from its main goal of
containing the Soviet Union. Nixon built his political career on anticommunism
but recognized the strategic advantage of opening relations with Maoist China.
Reagan talked tough on terrorism, but after 241 U.S. marines were killed in a
suicide attack in Beirut, he did not hesitate to draw down U.S. forces from a
peripheral conflict in Lebanon. And rather than do a sack dance at the end of the
Cold War, Bush 41 took care to respond tactfully and nimbly, pocketing and
building on an extraordinary strategic windfall.
To be sure, they all had their foreign policy blemishes, too. But their strengths
outweighed their weaknesses, especially when compared with Democratic
counterparts such as Lyndon Johnson and Jimmy Carter. Republican presidents
during the Cold War skillfully combined the idealpolitik of American
exceptionalism with the realpolitik necessary to navigate a world of bipolarity,
nuclear deterrence, and Third World nationalism. They relied on a string of
steady-handed professionals, such as John Foster Dulles, Henry Kissinger, George
Shultz, James Baker, and Brent Scowcroft, to help manage their administrations.
Indeed, so great was the legacy this era bequeathed that in 2000, exit polls
showed that the public viewed the neophyte George W. Bush as stronger on
foreign policy than Al Gore, the sitting vice president. Gore's considerable
experience was neutralized by public trust in the Republican foreign policy
"Vulcans" advising his opponent.
...THEN SQUANDERING IT
For a brief time, it looked as though Bush 43 would be able to carry on the legacy.
In the wake of 9/11, the neoconservatives in his administration supplied a clear
and coherent grand strategy of using unilateral military action to destroy terrorist
bases and remake the Middle East, and after quickly toppling hostile regimes in
Afghanistan and Iraq, it seemed to be working.
Over the next several years, however, the Bush administration's strategic
miscalculations became apparent. The administration focused on a mythical "axis
of evil," lumping disparate actors into a single anti-American threat. It displayed
little tactical flexibility and no ability to plan for the consequences of its actions.
The initial swift success in Afghanistan was marred by a failure to capture or kill
al Qaeda's senior leadership, and when the administration pivoted almost
immediately to Iraq, it took its eye off the ball in South Asia and allowed a short-
term victory to deteriorate into a long-term quagmire.
Iraq, meanwhile, turned into nothing short of a disaster. There, too, the invasion
went well, but the postwar planning was so slapdash that it sabotaged any chance
of a stable occupation. A growing insurgency crippled Washington's ability to
project power in the region and consumed an appalling amount of American and
Iraqi blood and treasure. And the failure to discover weapons of mass
destruction—the existence of which had been the central rationale for the
war—undermined the United States' reputation for both competence and honesty.
Late in Bush's second term, a well-executed course correction helped stabilize the
situation and ultimately permit a U.S. withdrawal with some measure of dignity.
But the chief beneficiary of the whole affair turned out to be Iran—the United
States' main adversary in the region.
The failures in Afghanistan and Iraq compounded other errors that the
administration committed. The Bush team pushed for free and fair elections
across the Middle East but seems never to have thought about what would
happen if the elections were won by radical Islamists—as was the case with
Hamas in Gaza in 2006. And an obsession with the "war on terror" alienated allies
in Europe, Latin America, and the Pacific Rim, allowing a rising China to gain
increasing influence.
The administration did have some successes—getting Libya to abandon its

weapons of mass destruction, developing a warm relationship with India, and
providing generous support for AIDS relief in Africa. But by the end of the Bush
years, global attitudes toward the United States had reached an all-time low, and
the American public noticed. A 2008 survey by the Chicago Council on Global
Affairs showed that 83 percent of Americans polled placed the highest priority on
"improving America's standing in the world"—a higher figure than for the
traditional top priority of protecting American jobs.
John McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential candidate, had neither the desire
nor the ability to distance himself much from Bush's unpopular foreign policy
record and was overwhelmed by the outbreak of the financial crisis during the
final stages of the campaign. And after the GOP was evicted from the White
House, the party's foreign policy approach grew even more problematic, with
McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin, heralding the future.
It is always difficult for a party out of power to craft a coherent worldview, in part
because of the lack of a dominant figure able to impose order on the discussion,
and this time was no exception. Freed from the burden of executive-branch
responsibility after the 2008 defeat, Republicans began to lose touch with the real
world of foreign policy. Some libertarians advocated a radical and impractical
reduction of the United States' overseas presence. Most others moved in the
opposite direction, toward jingoism and xenophobia.
Unbowed by Iraq, prominent neoconservatives called for aggressive military

action against Iran. Popular party figures strongly opposed the construction of a
mosque in Manhattan. Major Republican politicians held congressional hearings
about whether American Muslims could be trusted. Right-wing columnists
demanded that the Obama administration resuscitate the use of torture. Leading
Senate Republicans opposed any new international treaty as a matter of principle,
resisting the relatively uncontroversial New START treaty with Russia and flatly
opposing the Law of the Sea Treaty, despite endorsements from every living
former Republican secretary of state, big business, and the U.S. Navy. A few, such
as Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, placed country over party and tried to find
some common ground with Obama. The reward for his troubles was a primary
challenge by a Tea Party favorite, who managed to defeat Lugar before self-
destructing during the general election.
BOTTOMING OUT
The 2012 presidential campaign devalued Republican foreign policy thinking even
further. Most of the GOP candidates displayed a noxious mix of belligerent
posturing and stunning ignorance. Representative Michele Bachmann of
Minnesota mistakenly praised China's regulatory framework and warned against
Hezbollah's role in Cuba. Representative Ron Paul of Texas insisted that the
global economy could be fixed by a return to the gold standard. Former
Representative Newt Gingrich of Georgia became obsessed with the minute
chances of an electromagnetic pulse targeting the United States, even as he
disputed the actual threats posed by climate change. The business executive
Herman Cain repeatedly flubbed questions on China, Israel, and Libya and
proudly defended his ignorance in interviews, explaining that it was irrelevant
whether or not a candidate knew who the "president of Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-
stan" was.
Compared with this crew during the primaries, Romney sounded reasonable. After
securing the nomination, however, his musings lost focus. Romney's primary
foreign policy criticism of Obama dealt not with any actual policy dispute but with
a vague tonal issue, represented by the president's alleged "apology tour" around
the world. Romney claimed that Russia was the number one geopolitical threat to
the United States, a statement 25 years out of date. And at various points during
the campaign, Romney insulted the Japanese, the Italians, the Spanish, the
British, and the Palestinians. His own campaign advisers repeatedly complained
that he never engaged deeply on international affairs. The few times that he did
talk about foreign policy—in reference to the case of the Chinese civil rights
activist Chen Guangcheng; during his July overseas trip to the United Kingdom,
Israel, and Poland; and in the aftermath of the attacks on U.S. installations in
Cairo and Benghazi—Romney used rhetoric that was ham-handed and politicized.
And in picking Representative Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) to be his running mate, Romney
guaranteed that his ticket would have the least foreign policy gravitas of any GOP
presidential campaign in 60 years.
The 2012 election was the nadir of the GOP's decadelong descent. By the time
Romney was selected as the nominee, Republicans had come to talk about foreign
policy almost entirely as an offshoot of domestic politics or ideology. What passed
for discussion consisted of a series of tactical gestures designed to appease
various constituencies in the party rather than responses to actual issues in U.S.
relations with the world. The resulting excess of unchecked pablum and
misinformation depressed not only outside observers but also many of the more
seasoned members of the Republican foreign policy community who took the
subject seriously. This palpable disdain of old GOP foreign policy hands helped
further tarnish the Republican brand.
Increasingly, moreover, the Republican rhetoric clashed with the instincts of the
public at large. Most Americans have always been reluctant to use force except in
the service of vital interests, and a decade of war and recession had reinforced
such feelings. A 2009 Pew survey showed that isolationist sentiments had reached
an all-time high in the United States, and a 2012 PIPA (Program on International
Policy Attitudes) poll found that Americans would strongly prefer to cut defense
spending rather than Medicare or Social Security. A 2012 Pew survey noted that
"defending against terrorism and strengthening the military are given less priority
today than over the course of the past decade," and the 2012 Chicago Council on
Global Affairs survey showed "a strong desire to move on from a decade of war,
scale back spending, and avoid major new military entanglements." The Chicago
survey also showed that independents had drifted toward Democrats and away
from Republicans on most major foreign policy issues. As the GOP's rhetoric was
tacking hawkish, in other words, a war-weary public was moving in the opposite
direction.
The Obama administration exploited this divergence and pushed its foreign policy
advantage throughout the 2012 campaign. In response to the malapropisms of the
GOP primary, Vice President Joseph Biden started taunting Republican
challengers, noting, "There's a minimum threshold any man or woman has to
cross on national security and foreign policy for the American people to think
you're remotely eligible to be president. And these guys have a long way to go." At
the Democratic National Convention, speaker after speaker gleefully mocked the
GOP's ignorance and hyperbole about the rest of the world. The administration
could weather its own shortcomings because it knew how the American people
would judge the two parties relative to each other: the Republicans were
responsible for getting the United States stuck in Afghanistan and Iraq; the
Democrats were responsible for moving to close out both wars and killing Osama
bin Laden.
HOW TO GET BACK ON TRACK
It is conceivable that major screwups during Obama's second term could hand the
advantage on foreign policy back to the Republicans without any effort of their
own, but the reverse is more likely. Every additional year the party is locked out
of the executive branch, the experience and skills of GOP foreign-policy makers
will atrophy, while those of their Democratic counterparts will grow. It took the
Democratic Party a generation to heal politically from the foreign policy scars of
Vietnam and several years in office during the Clinton administration to develop
new cadres of competent midcareer professionals. And public inattention to the
subject doesn't help, offering few major opportunities for rebranding. So the GOP
has its work cut out for it.
The key to moving forward is for Republicans to stop acting like hedgehogs and
start thinking like foxes again, moving beyond crude single-minded objectives and
relearning flexibility and nuance. They need to quit overhyping threats and
demanding military solutions. After 9/11, the political logic for threat inflation was
clear: politicians would be punished far more for downplaying a real security
threat than for exaggerating a false one. But the GOP has taken this calculation
too far and twisted it to serve other party interests.
Republicans continually attempt to justify extremely high levels of defense
spending, for example, on the grounds that the United States supposedly faces
greater threats now than during the Cold War. Romney claimed during the
campaign that the world was more "dangerous, destructive, chaotic" than ever
before. And Republican hawks warn that Armageddon will ensue if defense
expenditures fall below four percent of GDP, even though they are vague about
the connection between such an abstract figure and actual defense policy
challenges.
A reality check is necessary. Precisely because Republican presidents during the

Cold War took the Soviet threat seriously, they were careful not to escalate
tensions needlessly. Today's threats may be more numerous and varied, but even
combined, they are significantly smaller and less grave. As Micah Zenko and
Michael Cohen have argued in these pages, long-term trends suggest that the
world has become more, not less, safe for the United States over the past decade.
U.S. deaths from terrorism are declining, and even with the global financial crisis,
the world has not become more conflictual.
This is not to say that the United States should let its guard down. For
Republicans, however, the political costs of overhyping threats now exceed the
benefits. To echo Montesquieu, useless warnings weaken necessary warnings.
Since the knee-jerk Republican response has been to call for military action
anywhere and everywhere trouble breaks out, the American people have tuned
out the GOP's alarmist rhetoric. It will be hard for any leader to mobilize a war-
weary public into taking even necessary military action in the near future, and the
GOP's constant crying of wolf will make this task much harder. A good grand
strategy prioritizes threats and interests, and that is a habit the Republicans need
to relearn.
The GOP must also develop a better appreciation for the full spectrum of foreign
policy tools and stop talking only about military action. Indeed, George W. Bush's
greatest foreign policy accomplishments came not in the military realm but in
rethinking economic statecraft.He signed more free-trade agreements than any
other president. Through the Millennium Challenge Corporation and the
President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the Bush administration devised
innovative ways of advancing U.S. interests and values abroad. In developing the
architecture for improved financial coercion, the administration paved the way for
the sanctions that are now crippling Iran's economy. Force can be an essential
tool of statecraft, but it should rarely be the first tool used, and sometimes it can
be most effective if never used at all. Republicans understand the power of the
free market at home; they need to revive their enthusiasm for the power of the
market abroad, as well.
Finally, Republicans need to avoid the problem of rhetorical blowbackbeing
ensnared in unwanted commitments as the result of the use of absolutistic foreign
policy language. Being out of power, the GOP is judged by its words rather than
by its actions. And black-and-white statements on issues such as immigration,
antiterrorism, and multilateralism only delegitimize the party. The best foreign
policy presidents were able to combine the appealing rhetorical vision of an
American world order with the realistic recognition that international relations is
messier in practice than in theory.
George H. W. Bush was able to build a broad multilateral coalition, including the
United Nations, to fight Iraq because he both took diplomacy seriously and could
deploy the implicit threat of acting outside un auspices. Too many of his
successors in the party, however, have embraced a "my way or the highway"
approach to friends and allies. Their logic is that the rest of the world is attracted
to strength, clarity, and resolve, and so if the United States projects those
qualities, all will be well. But this bandwagoning logic has little basis in reality,
and if anything, in recent years the rest of the world has seemed to be balancing
against the GOP. A BBC poll of the populations of ten close U.S. allies during the
campaign revealed that respondents preferred Obama to Romney by an average
of 45 percentage points. Strength, clarity, and resolve are important foreign
policy virtues, obviously, but so are an appreciation of complexity and the ability
to compromise and play well with others, qualities that have been in short supply
on the Republican side of the aisle recently.
TOWARD 2016
The Republican Party has a long and distinguished foreign policy lineage that
currently lies in tatters. The ghosts of Iraq haunt the GOP's foreign policy
mandarins, and the antics of right-wing pundits and politicians have further
delegitimized the party. As a result, the GOP has frittered away a partisan
advantage in foreign policy and national security that took half a century to
accumulate.
Absent an Obama foreign policy fiasco—a real one that commands the country's
attention, not the sort of trumped-up ones that resonate only on Fox News and in
the fever swamps of the Republican base—the only way to repair the damage will
be for the GOP to take foreign policy seriously again, in Congress and in the 2016
election. This does not mean railing against the isolationists in the party; in truth,
their numbers are small. Nor does it mean purging the neoconservatives or any
other ideological faction; no group has a lock on sense or wisdom, and there will
and should be vigorous policy debate within both parties.
Rather, it means rejecting the ideological absolutism that has consumed the
GOP's foreign policy rhetoric in recent years. It means recognizing that foreign
policy has nonmilitary dimensions as well as military ones. And it means focusing
on the threats and priorities that matter, rather than hyping every picayune
concern. Most of all, it means that Republican politicians need to start caring
about foreign policy because it is important, not because it is a cheap way to rally
their supporters. The GOP has a venerated tradition of foreign policy competence;
it is long past time to discover that tradition anew.
DANIEL W. DREZNER is Professor of International Politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts
University and the editor of Avoiding Trivia: The Role of Strategic Planning in American Foreign Policy. Follow him on
Twitter @dandrezner.
January 1,2013
Getting the GOP's Groove Back
How to Bridge the Republican Foreign Policy Divide
Bret Stephens
BRIAN SNYDER / REUTERS

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney walks across the tarmac at the airport in Des Moines, Iowa
October 26, 2012.
It is the healthy habit of partisans on the losing side of a U.S. presidential election
to spend some time reflecting on the reasons for their defeat. And it is the grating
habit of partisans on the winning side to tell the losers how they might have done
better. Most of their advice is self-serving, none of it is solicited, and little of it is
ever heeded. Yet still people pile on.
So it has been following Mitt Romney's defeat by President Barack Obama in last
November's election. On domestic policy, pundits have instructed Republicans to
moderate their positions on social issues and overcome their traditional
opposition to higher taxes. On foreign policy, they are telling them to abandon
their alleged preference for military solutions over diplomatic ones, as well as
their reflexive hostility to multilateral institutions, their Cold War mentality
toward Russia, their "denialism" on climate change, their excessive deference to
right-wing Israelis, and so on. Much of this advice is based on caricature, and the
likelihood of any of it having the slightest impact on the GOP's leadership or rank
and file is minimal: the United States does not have a competitive two-party
system so that one party can define for the other the terms of reasonable
disagreement.
Put aside, then, fantasies about saving the GOP from itself or restoring the
statesmanlike ways of George H. W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, or
Dwight Eisenhower (all of whom were derided as foreign policy dunces or
extremists when they held office). Instead, take note of the more consequential
foreign policy debate now taking shape within the heart of the conservative
movement itself. This is the debate between small-government and big-military
conservatives. Until recently, the two camps had few problems traveling together.
Yet faced with the concrete political choices raised by last year's budget
sequester—which made large cuts in nondefense discretionary spending
contingent on equally large cuts in the Pentagon's budget—the coalition has
begun to show signs of strain.
On the one side, Republican leaders such as Senator John McCain of Arizona have
effectively conceded that higher tax rates are a price worth paying to avoid
further defense cuts. On the other, one finds politicians such as Senator Johnny
Isakson of Georgia, who, when asked in 2010 about what government programs
should get cut, said, "There's not a government program that shouldn't be under
scrutiny, and that begins with the Department of Defense." However one may feel
about these differences, it is important to understand each side as it understands
itself. Then, perhaps, it might be possible to see how the differences can be
bridged.
LAND OF LIBERTY—OR LIBERATORS?
For big-military conservatives, a supremely powerful U.S. military isn't just vital
to the national interest; it defines what the United States is. Part of this stance
might owe to circumstantial factors, such as a politician's military background or
large military constituency. But it is also based on an understanding of the United
States as a liberator—a country that won its own freedom and then, through the
possession and application of overwhelming military might, won and defended the
freedom of others, from Checkpoint Charlie to the demilitarized zone on the
Korean Peninsula.
This is a heroic view of the United States' purpose in the world—and an expensive
one. It implies that if freedom isn't being actively advanced in the world, it risks
wobbling to a standstill and even falling down, like a rider peddling a bicycle too
slowly. It is also a view that is not unfriendly to at least some parts of a big-
government agenda and certainly not to the de facto industrial policy that is the
Pentagon's procurement system.
On the other side are those conservatives who, while not deprecating the United
States' historic role as a liberator, mainly cherish its domestic tradition of
liberty—above all, liberty from the burdens of excessive federal debt, taxation,
regulation, and intrusion. These Republicans are by no means hostile to the
military, and most believe it constitutes one of the few truly legitimate functions
of government. Still, they tend to view the Pentagon as another overgrown and
wasteful government bureaucracy. Some have also drawn the lesson from the
wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that well-meaning attempts to reengineer foreign
societies will succumb to the law of unintended consequences just as frequently
as well-meaning attempts to use government to improve American society do. Far
from being a heroic view of the United States' role, theirs is a more prudential,
and perhaps more parochial, one. It also contains a sneaking sympathy for
Obama's refrain that the United States needs to do less nation building abroad
and more at home, even if these conservatives differ sharply with the president on
the matter of means.
The differences between these two groups are ones that most Republicans would
gladly paper over for the party's long-term political good. Republicans fear that
Obama's ultimate political ambition is to break the back of the modern GOP, and
the defense budget is the ultimate wedge issue to do the job. Republican leaders
understand this and will do what they can to hold their party together. Small-
government conservatives don't want to turn the Republican Party into a rump
faction, capable of winning elections at the congressional or state level but locked
out of the presidency. And big-military conservatives aren't eager to become an
appendage of big-government liberalism, in the way that Blue Dog Democrats
were instruments of the Reagan agenda in the 1980s.
Yet the philosophical differences between the two camps run deep—and may soon
run deeper. Ask a big-military conservative to name the gravest long-term threat
to U.S. security, and his likely answer will be Iran, or perhaps China. These
countries are classic strategic adversaries, for which military calculations
inevitably play a large role. By contrast, ask a small-government conservative to
name the chief threat, and he will probably say Europe, which has now become a
byword among conservatives for everything they fear may yet beset the United
States: too much unionization, low employment rates, permanently high taxes,
politically entrenched beneficiaries of state largess, ever-rising public debts, and
so on.
In the ideal conservative universe, avoiding a European destiny and facing up to

the threat of Iran and other states would not be an either-or proposition. As most
conservatives see it, supply-side tax cuts spur economic growth, reduce the
overall burden of debt, increase federal tax revenues, and thus fund defense
budgets adequate for the United States' global strategic requirements. This policy
prescription may look like a fantasy, but it has worked before. "Our true choice is
not between tax reduction, on the one hand, and the avoidance of large federal
deficits on the other. It is increasingly clear that no matter what party is in power,
so long as our national security needs keep rising, an economy hampered by
restrictive tax rates will never produce enough revenues to balance our
budget—just as it will never produce enough jobs or enough profits." That was
President John F. Kennedy speaking to the Economic Club of New York in 1962.
Following the Kennedy tax cut (enacted in 1964), federal tax receipts roughly
doubled over six years and military spending rose by some 25 percent, yet
defense spending as a share of GDP rose only modestly and never went above ten
percent.
Kennedy's words could have just as easily been spoken by Reagan. The problem
for conservatives, however, is that neither Kennedy nor Reagan is president
today. In the world as it is, Obama has been handily reelected, Democrats
maintain control of the Senate, tax rates are going up on higher incomes, and the
Supreme Court has turned back the central legal challenge to the Affordable Care
Act. What Republicans might be able to achieve politically remains to be seen,
although it will be limited. But it is not too soon for the party to start thinking
about how it might resolve some of its internal policy tensions, including on
foreign policy.
DISASTROUS OSCILLATIONS
Henry Kissinger once observed that U.S. foreign policy in the twentieth century
was characterized by "disastrous oscillations between overcommitment and
isolation." The oscillation was especially pronounced for Republicans in the first
half of the century—from President Theodore Roosevelt's Great White Fleet of
1907-9 to Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes' Washington Naval Treaty in
1922 and from Senator Robert Taft's isolationism before World War II to Senator
Arthur Vandenberg's 1945 conversion to internationalism—although the internal
differences became much less pronounced in the second half. Now that the
pendulum appears to be swinging again, Republicans have an interest in seeing
that it doesn't do so wildly.
How to do that? Every type of persuasion—moral, political, policy—carries with it

the temptation of extremes. Contrary to the stereotype, big-military conservatives
(along with neoconservatives) do not want to bomb every troublesome country
into submission, or rebuild the U.S. armed forces to their 1960s proportions, or
resume the Cold War with Russia. Nor is the problem that big-military
conservatives somehow fail to appreciate the limits of American power. Of course
they appreciate the limits—but they also understand that the United States is
nowhere near reaching them. Even at the height of the Iraq war, U.S. military
spending constituted a smaller percentage of GDP (5.1 percent in 2008) than it
did during the final full year of the Carter administration (six percent in 1980).
The real limits of American power haven't been seriously tested since World War
II.
Instead, the problem with big-military conservatives is that they fail to appreciate
the limits of American will—of Washington's capacity to generate broad political
support for military endeavors that since 9/11 have proved not only bloody and
costly but also exceedingly lengthy. Taking a heroic view of America's purpose,
these conservatives are tempted by a heroic view of the American public,
emphasizing its willingness to pay any price and bear any burden. Yet there is a
wide gap between what the United States can achieve abroad, given unlimited
political support, and what Americans want to achieve, as determined by the ebb
and flow of the political tides in a democracy innately reluctant to wage war.
Small-government conservatives have their own temptations when it comes to

foreign policy. At the far extreme, there is the insipid libertarianism of Ron Paul,
the former Texas representative, who has claimed that Marine detachments
guarding U.S. embassies count as examples of military overstretch. Paul showed
remarkable strength in the last GOP presidential primary and has, in his son Rand
Paul, the junior senator from Kentucky, a politically potent heir.
Most small-government conservatives aren't about to jump off the libertarian cliff:
they may want to reduce the United States' footprint in the world, at least for the
time being, but they don't want to erase it completely. Yet the purism that tends
to drive the small-government view of the world also has a way of obscuring its
vision. "If we don't take defense spending seriously, it undermines our credibility
on other spending issues," Mick Mulvaney, the conservative South Carolina
congressman, told Politico in December.
The heart of the United States' spending issue, however, has increasingly little to
do with the defense budget (which constituted 19 percent of overall federal
outlays in 2012, down from 49 percent in 1962) and increasingly more to do with
entitlement programs (62 percent in 2012, up from 31 percent half a century
ago). Just as the Obama administration cannot hope to erase the federal deficit by
raising taxes on the rich but wants to do so anyway out of a notion of social
justice, small-government conservatives cannot hope to contain runaway spending
through large cuts to the defense budget. But ideological blinders get in the way.
More broadly, small-government conservatives are too often tempted to treat

small government as an end in itself, not as a means to achieve greater
opportunity and freedom. They make a fetish of thrift at the expense of prosperity.
They fancy that a retreat from the United States' global commitments could save
lives without storing trouble. The record of the twentieth century tells a different
story. Republicans should not wish to again become the party of such isolationists
as Taft and Charles Lindbergh.
A CONSERVATIVE BALANCE
Fortunately, there is a happy medium. It's not what goes today under the name
"realism"—a term of considerable self-flattery and negligible popular appeal.
Republicans, in particular, will never stand for any kind of foreign policy that
lacks a clear moral anchor. And Americans would not take well to a would-be
Richelieu at the State Department. As it is, the GOP does not need a total
makeover; what it needs is a refurbished modus vivendi between small-
government and big-military conservatives, two sides that need not become
antagonists and have valuable things to teach each other.
Small-government conservatives, for their part, can teach their big-military

friends that the Pentagon doesn't need more money. What it needs desperately is
a functional procurement system. The costs of U.S. jet fighters, for example, have
skyrocketed: the F-4 Phantom, introduced in 1960, cost $16 million (in inflation-
adjusted 2010 dollars) per plane, excluding research and development, whereas
the equivalent figure for the F-35 Lightning II, in development now, is $120
million. The result is an underequipped air force that invests billions of dollars for
the research-and-development costs of planes, such as the B-2 bomber and the
F-22 fighter, that it can afford to procure only in inadequate numbers. The result
is not just the ordinary waste, fraud, and abuse of any bureaucracy but also deep
and lasting damage to the country's ability to project power and wage war.
Another lesson small-government conservatives have to offer is that nobody hates

a benefactor as much as his beneficiary. From Somalia to Afghanistan,
conservatives should look far more skeptically at military ventures in which the
anticipated payoff is gratitude. Americans should go to war for the sake of their
security, interests, and values. But they should never enter a popularity contest
they are destined to lose.
Small-government conservatives also realize that Americans will stomach long

wars only when national survival is clearly at stake. Since modern
counterinsurgency is time-intensive by nature, the public should look askance at
future counterinsurgency operations. Although he later disavowed his own words,
former Defense Secretary Robert Gates was largely right when he told West Point
cadets in 2011 that "any future defense secretary who advises the president to
again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa
should 'have his head examined,' as General MacArthur so delicately put it."
That's not because the wars are unwinnable from a military standpoint. It's
because they are unfinishable from a political one.
Finally, those in the small-government camp understand that unlike authoritarian

states, democratic ones will not indefinitely sustain large militaries in the face of
prolonged economic stagnation or contraction. Except in moments of supreme
emergency, when it comes to a choice, butter always beats guns. Big-military
conservatives, therefore, cannot stay indifferent to issues of long-term economic
competitiveness and the things that sustain it, not least of which is a government
that facilitates wealth creation at home, promotes free trade globally, is
fundamentally friendly to immigrants, and seeks to live within its means.
Then there are the things big-military conservatives can teach their small-
government friends. First, they should make clear that a robust military is a net
economic asset to the United States. A peaceful, trading, and increasingly free
and prosperous world has been sustained for over six decades thanks in large part
to a U.S. military with the power to make good on U.S. guarantees and deter real
(or would-be) aggressors. And although the small-government purist might
dismiss as corporate welfare the jobs, skills, and technology base that the so-
called military-industrial complex supports, there are some industries that no
great power can allow to wither or move offshore.
Big-military conservatives also correctly argue that a substantially weaker U.S.

military will ultimately incur its own long-term economic costs. Former Secretary
of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was right when he said that "weakness is
provocative." China's ambition to establish what amounts to a modern-day Greater
East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere may ultimately succeed unless places such as
Taiwan, Vietnam, and the Philippines can be reasonably sure that the United
States will serve as a regional military counterweight to China's growing navy.
Much the same may go for Iran's efforts to become the Middle East's dominant
player, especially if its neighbors—not just Afghanistan and Iraq but also small
states such as Bahrain and Kuwait—ose their remaining faith in U.S. security
guarantees. That would go double should Iran acquire a nuclear weapons
capability.
As big-military conservatives also know, shrinking the defense budget is a costly

short-term solution to a difficult long-term problem. Small-government
conservatives imagine that the United States can stomach steep temporary
defense cuts to help bring deficits into line. But as European countries have
belatedly discovered, without structural reforms, the overspending problem
remains even after defense budgets have been slashed. The result is a continent
that is nearly bankrupt and nearly defenseless at the same time.
Finally, small-government conservatives need to remember that there is no
reliable guarantor of global order besides the United States. When the United
Kingdom realized in 1947 that it could no longer afford to honor its security
commitments to Greece and Turkey, it could at least look westward to the United
States, which was prepared to shoulder those responsibilities. But when the
United States looks westward, it sees only China. President Abraham Lincoln's
"last, best hope" remains what it always was—perhaps more so, given the deep
economic disarray in other corners of the developed world.
These observations ought to remind Republicans about the necessity of

preponderant U.S. power. But they also ought to remind them that U.S. power will
be squandered when it isn't used decisively, something that in turn requires great
discrimination given Americans' reluctance to support protracted military actions.
Ultimately, there are few things so damaging to countries as large and wasted
efforts.
KEEPING NIGHTMARES AT BAY
In retooling its foreign policy, the Republican Party should heed lessons from both
types of conservatives. What does this mean in practice? Consider China, where
an atavistic nationalism, emboldened by an increasingly modern military,
threatens to overtake the rational economic decision-making that largely
characterized the tenures of Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin. U.S. policymakers
need to restrain the former and encourage the latter.
But labeling Beijing a "currency manipulator" and raising trade barriers against it,
as Romney proposed to do from day one of his administration, will have the
opposite effect. Modern China is often compared with Wilhelmine Germany
because of its regional ambitions, and in many ways the comparison is apt. But for
now, China remains more of a competitor than an outright adversary, and one
that is increasingly aware of its political brittleness and economic vulnerability.
That status means that the United States can create a policy that is a genuine
synthesis between small-government and big-military conservatism. Big-military
conservatives are right to worry about China's growing military adventurism and
right to advocate a larger overall U.S. naval presence in the region and arms sales
to skittish allies such as Taiwan. But that is only one side of the coin. The other is
the opportunity to demonstrate to Beijing that an adversarial relationship is not
inevitable: that the United States will desist from constantly thwarting efforts by
Chinese companies to expand overseas and that Washington is interested in
deepening economic cooperation with China, not fighting endless trade
skirmishes. The United States should want China to become an economic
colossus—so long as it doesn't also become a regional bully. That differs from the
Obama administration's policy, which has been mostly a muddle: a military "pivot"
that so far has been more rhetorical than substantive, as well as a pattern of
engaging in unhelpful, albeit relatively minor, trade skirmishes with Beijing.
Now take Iran, where the Obama administration has combined two feckless policy
options—diplomacy and sanctions—to produce the most undesirable outcome
possible: diminished U.S. regional credibility, a greater likelihood of U.S. or
Israeli military action, and an Iran that has more incentive to accelerate its
nuclear program than to stop it. Along with most left-leaning liberals, many small-
government conservatives instinctively look askance at the thought of military
action against Iran. More broadly, they would like to reduce U.S. involvement in
the Middle East as much as possible, something the discovery of vast domestic
U.S. energy reserves has made conceivable for the first time in decades.
Yet the surest way to embroil the United States in intractable Middle Eastern
problems for another generation is to acquiesce to an Iranian nuclear capability.
Among the many reasons why it's a bad idea to try to contain a nuclear Iran is
that containment entails two things most Americans don't like: long-term effort
and high cost. The United States has a strong stake in a Middle East that is no
longer the focus of its security concerns. But getting there depends on reducing
the region's centrality as a source of both energy and terrorism. A nuclear Iran
would make that goal far less achievable, which means that a credible policy of
prevention is essential. Obama also claims to believe in prevention, but the
administration's mixed messages on the viability of military strikes have undercut
its credibility.
Finally, there is the Arab Spring, which seemed at its outset to be a vindication of
President George W. Bush's "freedom agenda" but has, after two years, come to
seem more like a rebuke of it. The results of elections in Gaza, Tunis, Rabat, and
Cairo are powerful reminders that the words "liberal" and "democracy" don't
always travel together, that the essence of freedom is the right to choose political
and social options radically different from the standard American ones. In this
sense, small-government conservatives, with their innate suspicion of any grand
Washington project to reengineer the moral priorities of a society, are being
proved right.
But like it or not, the United States will still have to deal with the consequences of
the upheavals in the Middle East. It would be a fool's gambit for Washington to
attempt, for example, to steer political outcomes in Cairo or once again roll the
boulder up the hill of an Arab-Israeli peace settlement. At the same time, the
United States maintains a powerful interest in making sure certain things do not
happen. Among them: chemical munitions getting loose in Syria, the abrupt
collapse of the Hashemite dynasty in Jordan, a direct confrontation between Israel
and Egypt over the Sinai, and (further afield) the Taliban's return to Kabul.
Preventing those outcomes means taking on the negative task of keeping

nightmare scenarios at bay, not the positive one of realizing a more progressive
and tolerant world. Yet if conservatives of any stripe can agree on anything, it's
that utopianism has no place in policymaking. And when it comes to foreign
policy, the American people will ultimately reward not the party with the most
ambitious vision but the party with the most sober and realistic one.
BRET STEPHENS is Deputy Editorial Page Editor and Foreign Affairs Columnist at The Wall Street Journal.
February 5,2013
The Clinton Legacy
How Will History Judge the Soft-Power Secretary of State?
Michael Hirsh
COURTESY REUTERS
Overshadowed: Hillary Clinton, Washington, D.C., January 2007.
In late January, only a few days after his second inauguration, U.S. President
Barack Obama delivered a surprisingly fond farewell to his old political rival
Hillary Clinton. Sitting for a joint interview with the outgoing secretary of state on
60 Minutes, Obama lauded their “great collaboration.” He continued: “I just
wanted to have a chance to publicly say thank you, because I think Hillary will go
down as one of the finest secretaries of state we’ve had.”
The president had reason to be grateful. His Lincolnesque effort to create a team
of rivals had paid off, thanks largely to Clinton’s own efforts at reconciliation.
During her four years in office, Clinton, displaying impressive humility and self-
discipline for an ambitious politician, managed to put one of the fiercest
presidential primary battles in U.S. history behind her. Once the runaway favorite
to win her party’s nomination, Clinton transformed herself into a loyal messenger
and passionate defender of the Obama faith.
But neither Obama’s gratitude nor Clinton’s graciousness should cloud history’s
judgment. By any standard measure of diplomacy, Clinton will be remembered as
a highly competent secretary of state, but not a great one. Despite her
considerable star power around the world, her popularity at home, and her
reputation for being on the right side of most issues, she left office without a
signature doctrine, strategy, or diplomatic triumph. It is a stretch to include
Clinton in the company of John Quincy Adams, George Marshall, Dean Acheson,
and Henry Kissinger—some of the great secretaries of state who profoundly
changed U.S. foreign policy. Although she has avoided all talk of what comes next,
it may well be that Clinton’s tenure as diplomat in chief will someday be viewed as
a steppingstone to the presidency, as it was for Thomas Jefferson and Adams.
It is not that Clinton can’t point to some notable and enduring achievements.
Because of her worldwide popularity and tireless travel—she set a new record for
a secretary of state by visiting 112 countries—Clinton helped undo the damage
that the habitual unilateralism of the George W. Bush administration had done to
the global image of the United States. As Clinton put it to me in a 2010 interview,
“My big-picture commitment is to restore American leadership, and I think that’s
about as big a job as you can get. And everything I’ve done is in furtherance of
that.”
This goal was shared by the whole administration. In his first term, Obama faced
the daunting task of winding down two major wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He
needed to contend with the reduction in U.S. leverage and prestige following the
strategic mistakes and economic collapse of the Bush years. As a result, the
administration was keen on emphasizing the “soft” diplomacy of U.S. image
building and values promotion over “hard,” or coercive, diplomacy, which
necessitates direct involvement in conflicts.
Despite her frustrations with a White House that often did not heed her advice,
Clinton elevated this effort to levels unseen in previous administrations. Indeed,
her most lasting legacy will likely be the way that she thrust soft diplomacy to the
forefront of U.S. foreign policy. By speaking out about Internet freedom, women’s
rights, public health, and economic issues everywhere she went, Clinton sought to
transcend traditional government-to-government contacts. She set out to
create—or at least dramatically expand in scope—a new kind of people-to-people
diplomacy, one designed to extend Washington’s influence in an Internet-driven
world in which popular uprisings, such as the Arab Spring, could quickly uproot
the traditional relationships between governments.
Beyond that, Clinton often played the realist hawk in an administration that
started with overconfidence about its president’s transformational powers. In
2009, she allied with Defense Secretary Robert Gates to press for a 30,000-troop
surge to address the chaos in Afghanistan, even though the president’s instincts
were for a far smaller escalation. Later that year, when Obama had nothing to
show for offering an outstretched hand to Tehran (a policy that Clinton had
encouraged), she prodded the president into imposing unprecedentedly severe
sanctions on Iran. In 2011, she corralled a troupe of advisers, including Susan
Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, to convince Obama to support a
NATO-led intervention in Libya. And it was Clinton’s State Department that was
mainly responsible for the administration’s attempt at a strategic “pivot” to Asia,
designed largely to counter China’s growing influence. Clinton personally led the
way with a historic trip that brought long-isolated Myanmar (also called Burma)
into the fold of American partners, with a deft mix of realpolitik and democracy
promotion. Clinton also became the caretaker of major relationships with other
heads of state with whom the somewhat aloof U.S. president engaged only
sporadically.
The effectiveness of Clinton’s approach is as yet unclear. The outcome of the Arab
Spring appears to be increasingly Islamist and anti-American, and among the
legacies Clinton bequeathed to her successor, John Kerry, is a resurgent jihadist
movement in the Arab world—including an al Qaeda that is “on the rise,” as she
admitted only days before her departure. U.S. relations are deteriorating with
Pakistan and Russia, and it did not help that Clinton avoided involvement in direct
negotiations with those countries over critical issues that divided them from
Washington. Nevertheless, a global Pew Research Center poll and other
international surveys have shown a substantial improvement in U.S. standing in
world opinion, especially among Europeans. So there can be little doubt that
Clinton restored some luster to an American brand badly tarnished by the
previous administration.
GOING SOFT
Like George Shultz, Ronald Reagan’s revered secretary of state, Clinton regularly
stressed that diplomacy and economic development must go hand in hand. She
preached that helping partner countries achieve social stability—built on progress
on health, food security, and women’s rights—would create stronger alliances and
new paths to solving traditional foreign policy problems. In a January 2011 speech
in Qatar, just as the early signs of the Arab Spring were starting to appear,
Clinton issued what now looks like a prescient admonition to Arab leaders, taking
them to task for failing to “build a future that your young people will believe in,
stay for, and defend.” She said that the Arab people had “grown tired of corrupt
institutions and a stagnant political order,” and she warned the regimes that their
“foundations [were] sinking into the sand.”
Clinton then took her message directly to the people in the countries she visited.
She held regular town-hall meetings abroad, speaking not just to the international
press but also to local citizens and local media, an approach that may have helped
ease some anti-Americanism in Islamic countries (although few polls show it yet).
“I think that really is new,” her former policy-planning chief, the Princeton scholar
Anne-Marie Slaughter, told me in a recent interview. “She’s the one who kept
saying, ‘You’ve got to have government-to-government, government-to-people,
and people-to-people contacts.’ She’s been very clear that the people of different
countries are not just the object of policies; they are active agents of change and
evolution. And, above all, of problem solving.”
A test case for whether the Clinton model of diplomacy can work going forward
may be the current turmoil in Egypt, where President Hosni Mubarak’s successor,
the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi, appears to be wavering in his
commitment to democracy. Although Washington deals mainly with Morsi’s
government and the Egyptian military, the State Department has fostered ties
between nongovernmental organizations in the United States and Egypt that
focus on education and development. “One way to think about it is that because of
her integrated framework, we always have someone to call,” said Slaughter.
“Mubarak fell and the Muslim Brotherhood is in power, but now we have contacts
with women’s groups, techies, and entrepreneurs through various programs. If
diplomacy is building relationships that you can call on in a crisis, then she has
developed the frame.” Now, a power-grabbing Morsi finds himself under pressure
to moderate his actions not just from U.S. government officials but also from
grass-roots pro-democracy organizations supported or trained by Washington.
Even as she helped design the realpolitik pivot to Asia, Clinton also pushed this
people-to-people approach with China. She promoted the 100,000 Strong
Initiative, a program aimed at dramatically increasing the number of Americans
studying at Chinese universities (ten times as many Chinese study in the United
States). She emphasized economic development in Central and South Asia, where
she sought to stabilize Afghanistan and counter Pakistani recalcitrance by
proposing a “New Silk Road” that would promote new trade routes in order to
induce Islamabad to cooperate more with Kabul. And when Obama announced in
February his plan to negotiate a transatlantic free-trade pact with Europe, he was
embracing a proposal pushed by his former secretary of state.
Yet in the end, although Clinton excelled at soft diplomacy, she shied away from
the kind of hard diplomacy that traditionalists identify with foreign policy
greatness. One thinks of Adams’ authorship of the Monroe Doctrine and the
Transcontinental Treaty with Spain, Acheson’s aggressive championing of
containment, Kissinger’s shuttle diplomacy between the Arabs and the Israelis
and his clever exploitation of the Sino-Soviet split. Some critics have interpreted
Clinton’s more modest agenda as stemming from political caution. In a recent
assessment, the journalist David Rohde quoted a State Department official who
suggested that Clinton’s hesitation to get personally involved in conflicts was
related to her future presidential ambitions.
Indeed, Clinton consistently avoided getting her hands dirty with direct
mediation. She happily agreed to leave key negotiations in crisis spots to special
envoys, charging George Mitchell with overseeing the Israeli-Palestinian portfolio
and relying on Richard Holbrooke to bring about a political settlement in
Afghanistan and Pakistan. She rarely stepped in as each of them failed to make
much headway. Other pressing issues, such as North Korea’s nuclear program,
she simply put off. Her policy of “strategic patience” with North Korea, under
which Washington refused to offer any new incentives to Pyongyang in the hopes
of restarting nuclear disarmament talks, did not work. The problem festered for
four years, and as soon as Clinton left office, the North Korean leader Kim Jong
Un greeted her successor with yet another nuclear test.
It may be unfair to fault Clinton for the deadly attack on U.S. personnel in
Benghazi, Libya, which occurred last September. Nonetheless, she became the
first secretary of state to lose an ambassador in the field since Adolph Dubs was
killed in 1979, while Cyrus Vance held the office. And Clinton does deserve some
blame for what she herself admitted in Senate testimony about the incident: that
she and her State Department colleagues were taken by surprise by the rise of
new jihadist groups in Libya and the region. “We’ve got to have a better strategy,”
she said. “The Arab Spring has ushered in a time when al Qaeda is on the rise.”
Clinton thus appeared to concede what the former Republican presidential
candidate Mitt Romney had relentlessly argued during the 2012 campaign: that
the terrorist group responsible for 9/11 and its offshoots are not close to being
defeated.
In her farewell testimony, Clinton spoke of the “Pandora’s box” of weapons

flowing through countries in the Middle East and North Africa. And that
Pandora’s box may yield even worse ills on Kerry’s watch. The post-Qaddafi chaos
in Libya, the civil war in Syria, the emergence of a terrorist sanctuary in northern
Mali—all these developments have taken the Obama administration by surprise.
Some U.S. officials now fear that these countries could break up or turn into
permanently strife-ridden lands that resemble the postcolonial countries of Africa,
such as Somalia or the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where tribes and ethnic
groups never stop warring even though the countries’ borders remain
superficially intact.
The spreading violence in the Middle East and North Africa could come to be seen
as one of Clinton’s grimmest legacies. It all but ensures that however much Kerry
tries to focus on Asia, he will likely get pulled back into the Middle Eastern mire
that the Obama administration’s first-term national security team left him. Indeed,
if any one situation demonstrates the potential costs of the administration’s
caution in the region, it is that in Syria, where the president’s decision to avoid
arming the rebels has struck critics as inaction in the face of a terrible
humanitarian crisis and a conflict that could destabilize the entire region.
IMPROV DRAMA
On a number of critical issues, anything resembling a larger strategy was often

hard to find in Obama’s first term. In a recent conversation with me, Zbigniew
Brzezinski, the dean of the Democratic national security establishment, criticized
the administration’s foreign policy for being “improvisational.” To be fair, the
improvisation was sometimes effective. In one case, Obama and Clinton barged
into a meeting at the 2009 global climate change talks in Copenhagen and forced
the Chinese president to agree to a nonbinding pact under which rich and poor
countries alike pledged to curb their carbon emissions. And last year, Clinton
displayed cleverness and agility in negotiating the release of the Chinese dissident
Chen Guangcheng, who had taken refuge in the U.S. embassy in Beijing. But
those were rare instances of successful impromptu mediation.
At other times when Obama’s foreign policy team was forced to act on its feet, the
results were not as impressive. The administration failed to anticipate the
increasingly Islamist bent of the countries whose regimes were ousted in the Arab
Spring, and it has been slow in formulating a coordinated response to the abuses
against democracy by Morsi and other Islamist leaders. Instead, Obama appears
to be approaching Morsi in much the same realpolitik way he once dealt with
Mubarak—paying lip service to democracy and human rights but essentially
leaving Egypt’s internal chaos to sort itself out. The democracy expert Larry
Diamond told me in an interview that he saw “very little sign—to be blunt, no
sign—of any coherent strategy to try to defend and sustain the very, very tentative
democratic progress in Egypt or to . . . create a more facilitating environment.”
Clinton’s State Department did not develop a strategic framework for addressing
the Islamist middle phase that the Arab world appears to be undergoing on its
way to modernization and democracy—a transition that was entirely predictable
given Islam’s traditionally dominant role in Arab society. In her final testimony
before the Senate, commenting on the new wave of jihadism in the region, Clinton
said, “We’ve got to get our act together.” It was a helpless remark that recalled
former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s notorious lament from a decade
ago: “We lack the metrics to know if we are winning or losing the global war on
terror.”
Still, one must ask: Could any secretary of state realistically have done a better
job grappling with such unexpected unrest? Probably not. “Anybody would be
improvising now,” Reuel Marc Gerecht, a conservative Middle East analyst, told
me. “I wouldn’t fault the administration too much.” Clinton’s defenders question
how any overarching strategy could have addressed something as chaotic and
complex as the Arab uprisings. James Steinberg, a former deputy secretary of
state and former Clinton aide, has invoked the famous line attributed to the
former Chinese leader Zhou Enlai, who, when asked in the 1970s about the
significance of the French Revolution, supposedly replied, “It’s too soon to tell.”
“Traditional ideas about grand strategy don’t really capture the challenge of
dealing with broad popular movements,” Steinberg said to me in a recent
interview. “It’s less about a strategy and more about how do you position the U.S.
to positively take advantage of it?”
It’s a fair point. The diplomatic world keeps pining for the next George Kennan,
someone who might sum up the country’s overall mission in a strategic concept as
simple as containment. But Kennan, in truth, had things relatively easy compared
with today’s policymakers. He faced a bipolar world consisting of two utterly
opposed ideological systems and an adversary whose strengths and weaknesses
could be analyzed in a static way. Twenty-first-century strategists confront a far
more complex and multidimensional world, one in which a lone terrorist or hacker
can threaten a superpower.
To its detractors, the Obama administration has looked consistently weak and
indecisive in its response to the Arab Spring. But these critics generally fail to
offer appealing alternatives. Obama and Clinton have had good reasons, for
example, to avoid a large-scale intervention in Syria. After a decade of war,
Washington cannot afford to look like it is interfering, yet again, in a region that
has already seen far too much Western meddling. Obama’s concerns that U.S.-
supplied weapons would find their way to jihadist militants are equally valid.
WHO IS OBAMA'S KISSINGER?
For four years, Clinton had to spend a lot of time and energy simply making
herself heard on Pennsylvania Avenue. It was often as hard for her to persuade
the White House to take her advice as it was to deal with foreign governments.
Although Clinton sometimes got her way and served as the administration’s public
face, Obama and a coterie of devoted national security aides—including Denis
McDonough, Obama’s former deputy national security adviser and now the White
House chief of staff—were the main authors of the administration’s foreign policy.
And despite Obama’s kind parting words, Clinton never really developed warm
personal ties to her former rival. This gap made her job much harder, since in
Washington, real power is measured in presidential face time, and a close
relationship between the White House and the State Department is critical to a
secretary of state’s success. (Acheson, fortunate enough to be Harry Truman’s
alter ego, used to say that he had “a constituency of one.”)
Her distance from Obama, by most accounts, was a source of frustration and
disappointment for Clinton, especially at the beginning of her tenure. She likely
felt shortchanged by the difference between her original job description and the
reality that emerged. In the fall of 2008, when Obama surprised Clinton by asking
her to take the job, he told her that he had his hands full with the collapsing
economy and needed someone of her global stature to take care of foreign policy.
The implication was that Clinton would be the dominant figure.
But that never happened. Early in Obama’s first term, a senior aide to Clinton told
me that “the biggest issue still unresolved in the Obama administration is, can
there be more than one star?” The answer, it soon became clear, was no; the only
star was going to be Obama himself. Despite his short tenure as a senator, Obama
prided himself on his grass-roots knowledge of foreign affairs, having grown up
partly in Indonesia with a foreign stepfather, and he had developed his own
definite worldview. As the aide put it, “If you ask, ‘Who is Barack Obama’s Henry
Kissinger?’ the answer, of course, is that it’s Barack Obama.”
When Clinton did appear to get out ahead of the White House, she was quickly
reined in. In 2009, Clinton hinted that she was developing a policy to unite the
Arab autocracies in an anti-Tehran bloc, and she gave a speech calling for Arab
regimes to join a Cold War–style “defense umbrella” to protect against Iran’s
nuclear program. The New York Times soon quoted a “senior White House
official” as saying that Clinton was speaking for herself. That was the last mention
of a defense umbrella. Later, she tentatively supported a CIA plan to arm the
Syrian rebels, but Obama shot down that idea as well.
Clinton also suffered from the same problem that former Secretary of State Colin
Powell confronted in George W. Bush’s first term: the presence of an influential
vice president who constituted a separate power center on foreign policy. In
Powell’s case, that was Dick Cheney; for Clinton, it was Joseph Biden, the deeply
experienced former chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
In 2009, for example, top administration officials were split over how to handle
the quagmire in Afghanistan. Biden counseled the president to scale down the
U.S. presence there and rely on a policy of counterterrorism, carried out by
special operations units and drone strikes. Although Clinton and Gates’ call for a
troop surge won the day, by 2012, Obama began siding with Biden and started
accelerating the U.S. withdrawal. The Iraq withdrawal plan, too, was handed over
to Biden and his team. A senior administration official described what happened
at an early meeting in 2009: “All of sudden, Obama stopped. He said, ‘Joe will do
Iraq. Joe knows more about Iraq than anyone.’”
Despite the lack of a singular triumph to her name, however, there is a case to be
made that the impact Clinton had on U.S. foreign policy will be felt long after she
has left office. In an interview midway through her tenure, I asked Clinton how
she assessed her effectiveness and why she hadn’t “taken a big issue and totally
owned it.” She responded that she had “inherited such a range of problems and
deficits across the world that it would be a luxury to say, ‘I’m going to focus on
this and this alone.’” Like Obama, Clinton set out to repair the damage that Bush
had done to the country’s stature around the world, and in that, she had some
noteworthy success. As she put it, “We’ve worked very hard to restore relations
with allies, and I think we’ve made a lot of progress in doing so . . . and frankly
taking situations that had badly deteriorated, especially Russia and China, and
turning them around to be able to put them on a much more positive footing.”
Asked what she most enjoyed about the job, she replied, “A lot of it is not the
headline stuff. It’s the slow and steady progress that I think provides a much
firmer footing for us.”
Slow and steady progress is not necessarily the stuff of greatness. But it is
valuable nonetheless, and it may be what, in the end, the world will remember
most about Clinton’s tenure as the country’s top diplomat.
MICHAEL HIRSH is Chief Correspondent for National Journal.

April 3,2013
Renewing American Leadership
Barack Obama
KEVIN LAMARQUE / REUTERS

U.S. President Barack Obama celebrates on stage as confetti falls after his victory speech during his
election rally in Chicago, November 6, 2012.
COMMON SECURITY FOR OUR COMMON HUMANITY
At moments of great peril in the last century, American leaders such as Franklin
Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and John F. Kennedy managed both to protect the
American people and to expand opportunity for the next generation. What is
more, they ensured that America, by deed and example, led and lifted the
world—that we stood for and fought for the freedoms sought by billions of people
beyond our borders.
As Roosevelt built the most formidable military the world had ever seen, his Four
Freedoms gave purpose to our struggle against fascism. Truman championed a
bold new architecture to respond to the Soviet threat—one that paired military
strength with the Marshall Plan and helped secure the peace and well-being of
nations around the world. As colonialism crumbled and the Soviet Union achieved
effective nuclear parity, Kennedy modernized our military doctrine, strengthened
our conventional forces, and created the Peace Corps and the Alliance for
Progress. They used our strengths to show people everywhere America at its best.
Today, we are again called to provide visionary leadership. This century's threats
are at least as dangerous as and in some ways more complex than those we have
confronted in the past. They come from weapons that can kill on a mass scale and
from global terrorists who respond to alienation or perceived injustice with
murderous nihilism. They come from rogue states allied to terrorists and from
rising powers that could challenge both America and the international foundation
of liberal democracy. They come from weak states that cannot control their
territory or provide for their people. And they come from a warming planet that
will spur new diseases, spawn more devastating natural disasters, and catalyze
deadly conflicts.
To recognize the number and complexity of these threats is not to give way to
pessimism. Rather, it is a call to action. These threats demand a new vision of
leadership in the twenty-first century—a vision that draws from the past but is not
bound by outdated thinking. The Bush administration responded to the
unconventional attacks of 9/11 with conventional thinking of the past, largely
viewing problems as state-based and principally amenable to military solutions. It
was this tragically misguided view that led us into a war in Iraq that never should
have been authorized and never should have been waged. In the wake of Iraq and
Abu Ghraib, the world has lost trust in our purposes and our principles.
After thousands of lives lost and billions of dollars spent, many Americans may be
tempted to turn inward and cede our leadership in world affairs. But this is a
mistake we must not make. America cannot meet the threats of this century alone,
and the world cannot meet them without America. We can neither retreat from
the world nor try to bully it into submission. We must lead the world, by deed and
by example.
Such leadership demands that we retrieve a fundamental insight of Roosevelt,

Truman, and Kennedy—one that is truer now than ever before: the security and
well-being of each and every American depend on the security and well-being of
those who live beyond our borders. The mission of the United States is to provide
global leadership grounded in the understanding that the world shares a common
security and a common humanity.
The American moment is not over, but it must be seized anew. To see American
power in terminal decline is to ignore America's great promise and historic
purpose in the world. If elected president, I will start renewing that promise and
purpose the day I take office.
MOVING BEYOND IRAQ
To renew American leadership in the world, we must first bring the Iraq war to a
responsible end and refocus our attention on the broader Middle East. Iraq was a
diversion from the fight against the terrorists who struck us on 9/11, and
incompetent prosecution of the war by America's civilian leaders compounded the
strategic blunder of choosing to wage it in the first place. We have now lost over
3,300 American lives, and thousands more suffer wounds both seen and unseen.
Our servicemen and servicewomen have performed admirably while sacrificing

immeasurably. But it is time for our civilian leaders to acknowledge a painful
truth: we cannot impose a military solution on a civil war between Sunni and
Shiite factions. The best chance we have to leave Iraq a better place is to pressure
these warring parties to find a lasting political solution. And the only effective way
to apply this pressure is to begin a phased withdrawal of U.S. forces, with the goal
of removing all combat brigades from Iraq by March 31, 2008—a date consistent
with the goal set by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group. This redeployment could be
temporarily suspended if the Iraqi government meets the security, political, and
economic benchmarks to which it has committed. But we must recognize that, in
the end, only Iraqi leaders can bring real peace and stability to their country.
At the same time, we must launch a comprehensive regional and international

diplomatic initiative to help broker an end to the civil war in Iraq, prevent its
spread, and limit the suffering of the Iraqi people. To gain credibility in this effort,
we must make clear that we seek no permanent bases in Iraq. We should leave
behind only a minimal over-the-horizon military force in the region to protect
American personnel and facilities, continue training Iraqi security forces, and root
out al Qaeda.
The morass in Iraq has made it immeasurably harder to confront and work
through the many other problems in the region—and it has made many of those
problems considerably more dangerous. Changing the dynamic in Iraq will allow
us to focus our attention and influence on resolving the festering conflict between
the Israelis and the Palestinians—a task that the Bush administration neglected
for years.
For more than three decades, Israelis, Palestinians, Arab leaders, and the rest of
the world have looked to America to lead the effort to build the road to a lasting
peace. In recent years, they have all too often looked in vain. Our starting point
must always be a clear and strong commitment to the security of Israel, our
strongest ally in the region and its only established democracy. That commitment
is all the more important as we contend with growing threats in the region—a
strengthened Iran, a chaotic Iraq, the resurgence of al Qaeda, the reinvigoration
of Hamas and Hezbollah. Now more than ever, we must strive to secure a lasting
settlement of the conflict with two states living side by side in peace and security.
To do so, we must help the Israelis identify and strengthen those partners who are
truly committed to peace, while isolating those who seek conflict and instability.
Sustained American leadership for peace and security will require patient effort
and the personal commitment of the president of the United States. That is a
commitment I will make.
Throughout the Middle East, we must harness American power to reinvigorate

American diplomacy. Tough-minded diplomacy, backed by the whole range of
instruments of American power—political, economic, and military—could bring
success even when dealing with long-standing adversaries such as Iran and Syria.
Our policy of issuing threats and relying on intermediaries to curb Iran's nuclear
program, sponsorship of terrorism, and regional aggression is failing. Although
we must not rule out using military force, we should not hesitate to talk directly to
Iran. Our diplomacy should aim to raise the cost for Iran of continuing its nuclear
program by applying tougher sanctions and increasing pressure from its key
trading partners. The world must work to stop Iran's uranium-enrichment
program and prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. It is far too dangerous
to have nuclear weapons in the hands of a radical theocracy. At the same time, we
must show Iran—and especially the Iranian people—what could be gained from
fundamental change: economic engagement, security assurances, and diplomatic
relations. Diplomacy combined with pressure could also reorient Syria away from
its radical agenda to a more moderate stance—which could, in turn, help stabilize
Iraq, isolate Iran, free Lebanon from Damascus' grip, and better secure Israel.
REVITALIZING THE MILITARY
To renew American leadership in the world, we must immediately begin working

to revitalize our military. A strong military is, more than anything, necessary to
sustain peace. Unfortunately, the U.S. Army and the Marine Corps, according to
our military leaders, are facing a crisis. The Pentagon cannot certify a single army
unit within the United States as fully ready to respond in the event of a new crisis
or emergency beyond Iraq; 88 percent of the National Guard is not ready to
deploy overseas.
We must use this moment both to rebuild our military and to prepare it for the
missions of the future. We must retain the capacity to swiftly defeat any
conventional threat to our country and our vital interests. But we must also
become better prepared to put boots on the ground in order to take on foes that
fight asymmetrical and highly adaptive campaigns on a global scale.
We should expand our ground forces by adding 65,000 soldiers to the army and
27,000 marines. Bolstering these forces is about more than meeting quotas. We
must recruit the very best and invest in their capacity to succeed. That means
providing our servicemen and servicewomen with first-rate equipment, armor,
incentives, and training—including in foreign languages and other critical skills.
Each major defense program should be reevaluated in light of current needs, gaps
in the field, and likely future threat scenarios. Our military will have to rebuild
some capabilities and transform others. At the same time, we need to commit
sufficient funding to enable the National Guard to regain a state of readiness.
Enhancing our military will not be enough. As commander in chief, I would also
use our armed forces wisely. When we send our men and women into harm's way,
I will clearly define the mission, seek out the advice of our military commanders,
objectively evaluate intelligence, and ensure that our troops have the resources
and the support they need. I will not hesitate to use force, unilaterally if
necessary, to protect the American people or our vital interests whenever we are
attacked or imminently threatened.
We must also consider using military force in circumstances beyond self-defense

in order to provide for the common security that underpins global stability—to
support friends, participate in stability and reconstruction operations, or confront
mass atrocities. But when we do use force in situations other than self-defense,
we should make every effort to garner the clear support and participation of
others—as President George H. W. Bush did when we led the effort to oust
Saddam Hussein from Kuwait in 1991. The consequences of forgetting that lesson
in the context of the current conflict in Iraq have been grave.
HALTING THE SPREAD OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS
To renew American leadership in the world, we must confront the most urgent
threat to the security of America and the world—the spread of nuclear weapons,
material, and technology and the risk that a nuclear device will fall into the hands
of terrorists. The explosion of one such device would bring catastrophe, dwarfing
the devastation of 9/11 and shaking every corner of the globe.
As George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger, and Sam Nunn have warned,
our current measures are not sufficient to meet the nuclear threat. The
nonproliferation regime is being challenged, and new civilian nuclear programs
could spread the means to make nuclear weapons. Al Qaeda has made it a goal to
bring a "Hiroshima" to the United States. Terrorists need not build a nuclear
weapon from scratch; they need only steal or buy a weapon or the material to
assemble one. There is now highly enriched uranium—some of it poorly
secured—sitting in civilian nuclear facilities in over 40 countries around the
world. In the former Soviet Union, there are approximately 15,000-16,000 nuclear
weapons and stockpiles of uranium and plutonium capable of making another
40,000 weapons—all scattered across 11 time zones. People have already been
caught trying to smuggle nuclear material to sell on the black market.
As president, I will work with other nations to secure, destroy, and stop the
spread of these weapons in order to dramatically reduce the nuclear dangers for
our nation and the world. America must lead a global effort to secure all nuclear
weapons and material at vulnerable sites within four years—the most effective
way to prevent terrorists from acquiring a bomb.
This will require the active cooperation of Russia. Although we must not shy away
from pushing for more democracy and accountability in Russia, we must work
with the country in areas of common interest—above all, in making sure that
nuclear weapons and material are secure. We must also work with Russia to
update and scale back our dangerously outdated Cold War nuclear postures and
de-emphasize the role of nuclear weapons. America must not rush to produce a
new generation of nuclear warheads. And we should take advantage of recent
technological advances to build bipartisan consensus behind ratification of the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. All of this can be done while maintaining a
strong nuclear deterrent. These steps will ultimately strengthen, not weaken, our
security.
As we lock down existing nuclear stockpiles, I will work to negotiate a verifiable

global ban on the production of new nuclear weapons material. We must also stop
the spread of nuclear weapons technology and ensure that countries cannot
build—or come to the brink of building—a weapons program under the auspices of
developing peaceful nuclear power. That is why my administration will
immediately provide $50 million to jump-start the creation of an International
Atomic Energy Agency-controlled nuclear fuel bank and work to update the
Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. We must also fully implement the law Senator
Richard Lugar and I passed to help the United States and our allies detect and
stop the smuggling of weapons of mass destruction throughout the world.
Finally, we must develop a strong international coalition to prevent Iran from

acquiring nuclear weapons and eliminate North Korea's nuclear weapons
program. Iran and North Korea could trigger regional arms races, creating
dangerous nuclear flashpoints in the Middle East and East Asia. In confronting
these threats, I will not take the military option off the table. But our first
measure must be sustained, direct, and aggressive diplomacy—the kind that the
Bush administration has been unable and unwilling to use.
COMBATING GLOBAL TERRORISM
To renew American leadership in the world, we must forge a more effective global
response to the terrorism that came to our shores on an unprecedented scale on
9/11. From Bali to London, Baghdad to Algiers, Mumbai to Mombasa to Madrid,
terrorists who reject modernity, oppose America, and distort Islam have killed and
mutilated tens of thousands of people just this decade. Because this enemy
operates globally, it must be confronted globally.
We must refocus our efforts on Afghanistan and Pakistan—the central front in our
war against al Qaeda—so that we are confronting terrorists where their roots run
deepest. Success in Afghanistan is still possible, but only if we act quickly,
judiciously, and decisively. We should pursue an integrated strategy that
reinforces our troops in Afghanistan and works to remove the limitations placed
by some NATO allies on their forces. Our strategy must also include sustained
diplomacy to isolate the Taliban and more effective development programs that
target aid to areas where the Taliban are making inroads.
I will join with our allies in insisting—not simply requesting—that Pakistan crack
down on the Taliban, pursue Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants, and end its
relationship with all terrorist groups. At the same time, I will encourage dialogue
between Pakistan and India to work toward resolving their dispute over Kashmir
and between Afghanistan and Pakistan to resolve their historic differences and
develop the Pashtun border region. If Pakistan can look toward the east with
greater confidence, it will be less likely to believe that its interests are best
advanced through cooperation with the Taliban.
Although vigorous action in South Asia and Central Asia should be a starting
point, our efforts must be broader. There must be no safe haven for those who
plot to kill Americans. To defeat al Qaeda, I will build a twenty-first-century
military and twenty-first-century partnerships as strong as the anticommunist
alliance that won the Cold War to stay on the offense everywhere from Djibouti to
Kandahar.
Here at home, we must strengthen our homeland security and protect the critical
infrastructure on which the entire world depends. We can start by spending
homeland security dollars on the basis of risk. This means investing more
resources to defend mass transit, closing the gaps in our aviation security by
screening all cargo on passenger airliners and checking all passengers against a
comprehensive watch list, and upgrading port security by ensuring that cargo is
screened for radiation.
To succeed, our homeland security and counterterrorism actions must be linked to

an intelligence community that deals effectively with the threats we face. Today,
we rely largely on the same institutions and practices that were in place before
9/11. We need to revisit intelligence reform, going beyond rearranging boxes on
an organizational chart. To keep pace with highly adaptable enemies, we need
technologies and practices that enable us to efficiently collect and share
information within and across our intelligence agencies. We must invest still more
in human intelligence and deploy additional trained operatives and diplomats with
specialized knowledge of local cultures and languages. And we should
institutionalize the practice of developing competitive assessments of critical
threats and strengthen our methodologies of analysis.
Finally, we need a comprehensive strategy to defeat global terrorists—one that

draws on the full range of American power, not just our military might. As a
senior U.S. military commander put it, when people have dignity and opportunity,
"the chance of extremism being welcomed greatly, if not completely, diminishes."
It is for this reason that we need to invest with our allies in strengthening weak
states and helping to rebuild failed ones.
In the Islamic world and beyond, combating the terrorists' prophets of fear will
require more than lectures on democracy. We need to deepen our knowledge of
the circumstances and beliefs that underpin extremism. A crucial debate is
occurring within Islam. Some believe in a future of peace, tolerance, development,
and democratization. Others embrace a rigid and violent intolerance of personal
liberty and the world at large. To empower forces of moderation, America must
make every effort to export opportunity—access to education and health care,
trade and investment—and provide the kind of steady support for political
reformers and civil society that enabled our victory in the Cold War. Our beliefs
rest on hope; the extremists' rest on fear. That is why we can—and will—win this
struggle.
REBUILDING OUR PARTNERSHIPS
To renew American leadership in the world, I intend to rebuild the alliances,

partnerships, and institutions necessary to confront common threats and enhance
common security. Needed reform of these alliances and institutions will not come
by bullying other countries to ratify changes we hatch in isolation. It will come
when we convince other governments and peoples that they, too, have a stake in
effective partnerships.
Too often we have sent the opposite signal to our international partners. In the
case of Europe, we dismissed European reservations about the wisdom and
necessity of the Iraq war. In Asia, we belittled South Korean efforts to improve
relations with the North. In Latin America, from Mexico to Argentina, we failed to
adequately address concerns about immigration and equity and economic growth.
In Africa, we have allowed genocide to persist for over four years in Darfur and
have not done nearly enough to answer the African Union's call for more support
to stop the killing. I will rebuild our ties to our allies in Europe and Asia and
strengthen our partnerships throughout the Americas and Africa.
Our alliances require constant cooperation and revision if they are to remain
effective and relevant. NATO has made tremendous strides over the last 15 years,
transforming itself from a Cold War security structure into a partnership for
peace. But today, NATO's challenge in Afghanistan has exposed, as Senator Lugar
has put it, "the growing discrepancy between NATO's expanding missions and its
lagging capabilities." To close this gap, I will rally our NATO allies to contribute
more troops to collective security operations and to invest more in reconstruction
and stabilization capabilities.
And as we strengthen NATO, we must build new alliances and partnerships in

other vital regions. As China rises and Japan and South Korea assert themselves, I
will work to forge a more effective framework in Asia that goes beyond bilateral
agreements, occasional summits, and ad hoc arrangements, such as the six-party
talks on North Korea. We need an inclusive infrastructure with the countries in
East Asia that can promote stability and prosperity and help confront
transnational threats, from terrorist cells in the Philippines to avian flu in
Indonesia. I will also encourage China to play a responsible role as a growing
power—to help lead in addressing the common problems of the twenty-first
century. We will compete with China in some areas and cooperate in others. Our
essential challenge is to build a relationship that broadens cooperation while
strengthening our ability to compete.
In addition, we need effective collaboration on pressing global issues among all

the major powers—including such newly emerging ones as Brazil, India, Nigeria,
and South Africa. We need to give all of them a stake in upholding the
international order. To that end, the United Nations requires far-reaching reform.
The UN Secretariat's management practices remain weak. Peacekeeping
operations are overextended. The new UN Human Rights Council has passed
eight resolutions condemning Israel—but not a single resolution condemning the
genocide in Darfur or human rights abuses in Zimbabwe. Yet none of these
problems will be solved unless America rededicates itself to the organization and
its mission.
Strengthened institutions and invigorated alliances and partnerships are

especially crucial if we are to defeat the epochal, man-made threat to the planet:
climate change. Without dramatic changes, rising sea levels will flood coastal
regions around the world, including much of the eastern seaboard. Warmer
temperatures and declining rainfall will reduce crop yields, increasing conflict,
famine, disease, and poverty. By 2050, famine could displace more than 250
million people worldwide. That means increased instability in some of the most
volatile parts of the world.
As the world's largest producer of greenhouse gases, America has the

responsibility to lead. While many of our industrial partners are working hard to
reduce their emissions, we are increasing ours at a steady clip—by more than ten
percent per decade. As president, I intend to enact a cap-and-trade system that
will dramatically reduce our carbon emissions. And I will work to finally free
America of its dependence on foreign oil—by using energy more efficiently in our
cars, factories, and homes, relying more on renewable sources of electricity, and
harnessing the potential of biofuels.
Getting our own house in order is only a first step. China will soon replace
America as the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases. Clean energy
development must be a central focus in our relationships with major countries in
Europe and Asia. I will invest in efficient and clean technologies at home while
using our assistance policies and export promotions to help developing countries
leapfrog the carbon-energy-intensive stage of development. We need a global
response to climate change that includes binding and enforceable commitments to
reducing emissions, especially for those that pollute the most: the United States,
China, India, the European Union, and Russia. This challenge is massive, but
rising to it will also bring new benefits to America. By 2050, global demand for
low-carbon energy could create an annual market worth $500 billion. Meeting
that demand would open new frontiers for American entrepreneurs and workers.
BUILDING JUST, SECURE, DEMOCRATIC SOCIETIES
Finally, to renew American leadership in the world, I will strengthen our common
security by investing in our common humanity. Our global engagement cannot be
defined by what we are against; it must be guided by a clear sense of what we
stand for. We have a significant stake in ensuring that those who live in fear and
want today can live with dignity and opportunity tomorrow.
People around the world have heard a great deal of late about freedom on the
march. Tragically, many have come to associate this with war, torture, and
forcibly imposed regime change. To build a better, freer world, we must first
behave in ways that reflect the decency and aspirations of the American people.
This means ending the practices of shipping away prisoners in the dead of night
to be tortured in far-off countries, of detaining thousands without charge or trial,
of maintaining a network of secret prisons to jail people beyond the reach of the
law.
Citizens everywhere should be able to choose their leaders in climates free of

fear. America must commit to strengthening the pillars of a just society. We can
help build accountable institutions that deliver services and opportunity: strong
legislatures, independent judiciaries, honest police forces, free presses, vibrant
civil societies. In countries wracked by poverty and conflict, citizens long to enjoy
freedom from want. And since extremely poor societies and weak states provide
optimal breeding grounds for disease, terrorism, and conflict, the United States
has a direct national security interest in dramatically reducing global poverty and
joining with our allies in sharing more of our riches to help those most in need.
We need to invest in building capable, democratic states that can establish
healthy and educated communities, develop markets, and generate wealth. Such
states would also have greater institutional capacities to fight terrorism, halt the
spread of deadly weapons, and build health-care infrastructures to prevent,
detect, and treat deadly diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and avian flu.
As president, I will double our annual investment in meeting these challenges to

$50 billion by 2012 and ensure that those new resources are directed toward
worthwhile goals. For the last 20 years, U.S. foreign assistance funding has done
little more than keep pace with inflation. It is in our national security interest to
do better. But if America is going to help others build more just and secure
societies, our trade deals, debt relief, and foreign aid must not come as blank
checks. I will couple our support with an insistent call for reform, to combat the
corruption that rots societies and governments from within. I will do so not in the
spirit of a patron but in the spirit of a partner—a partner mindful of his own
imperfections.
Our rapidly growing international AIDS programs have demonstrated that

increased foreign assistance can make a real difference. As part of this new
funding, I will capitalize a $2 billion Global Education Fund that will bring the
world together in eliminating the global education deficit, much as the 9/11
Commission proposed. We cannot hope to shape a world where opportunity
outweighs danger unless we ensure that every child everywhere is taught to build
and not to destroy.
There are compelling moral reasons and compelling security reasons for renewed
American leadership that recognizes the inherent equality and worth of all people.
As President Kennedy said in his 1961 inaugural address, "To those people in the
huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery,
we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is
required—not because the communists may be doing it, not because we seek their
votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor,
it cannot save the few who are rich." I will show the world that America remains
true to its founding values. We lead not only for ourselves but also for the
common good.
RESTORING AMERICA'S TRUST
Confronted by Hitler, Roosevelt said that our power would be "directed toward
ultimate good as well as against immediate evil. We Americans are not destroyers;
we are builders." It is time for a president who can build consensus here at home
for an equally ambitious course.
Ultimately, no foreign policy can succeed unless the American people understand
it and feel they have a stake in its success—unless they trust that their
government hears their concerns as well. We will not be able to increase foreign
aid if we fail to invest in security and opportunity for our own people. We cannot
negotiate trade agreements to help spur development in poor countries so long as
we provide no meaningful help to working Americans burdened by the
dislocations of a global economy. We cannot reduce our dependence on foreign oil
or defeat global warming unless Americans are willing to innovate and conserve.
We cannot expect Americans to support placing our men and women in harm's
way if we cannot show that we will use force wisely and judiciously. But if the next
president can restore the American people's trust—if they know that he or she is
acting with their best interests at heart, with prudence and wisdom and some
measure of humility—then I believe the American people will be eager to see
America lead again.
I believe they will also agree that it is time for a new generation to tell the next
great American story. If we act with boldness and foresight, we will be able to tell
our grandchildren that this was the time when we helped forge peace in the
Middle East. This was the time we confronted climate change and secured the
weapons that could destroy the human race. This was the time we defeated global
terrorists and brought opportunity to forgotten corners of the world. And this was
the time when we renewed the America that has led generations of weary
travelers from all over the world to find opportunity and liberty and hope on our
doorstep.
It was not all that long ago that farmers in Venezuela and Indonesia welcomed
American doctors to their villages and hung pictures of JFK on their living room
walls, when millions, like my father, waited every day for a letter in the mail that
would grant them the privilege to come to America to study, work, live, or just be
free.
We can be this America again. This is our moment to renew the trust and faith of
our people—and all people—in an America that battles immediate evils, promotes
an ultimate good, and leads the world once more.
Barack Obama is a Democratic Senator from Illinois and a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.
July 1,2007
Rising to a New Generation of
Global Challenges
Mitt Romney

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney pauses while speaking at a campaign rally in Newport News,
Virginia November 4, 2012.
WASHINGTON DIVIDED
Less than six years after 9/11, Washington is as divided and conflicted over
foreign policy as it has been at any point in the last 50 years. Senator Arthur
Vandenberg once famously declared that "politics stops at the water's edge";
today, the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee declares that our major
political parties should carry out two separate foreign policies. The Senate
unanimously confirmed General David Petraeus, who pledged to implement a new
strategy, as the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq. Yet just weeks later, the Senate
began crafting legislation specifically designed to stop that new strategy. More
broadly, lines have been drawn between those labeled "realists" and those labeled
"neoconservatives." Yet these terms mean little when even the most committed
neoconservative recognizes that any successful policy must be grounded in reality
and even the most hardened realist admits that much of the United States' power
and influence stems from its values and ideals.
In the midst of these divisions, the American people—and many others around the
world—have increasing doubts about the United States' direction and role in the
world. Indeed, it seems that concern about Washington's divisiveness and
capability to meet today's challenges is the one thing that unites us all. We need
new thinking on foreign policy and an overarching strategy that can unite the
United States and its allies—not around a particular political camp or foreign
policy school but around a shared understanding of how to meet a new generation
of challenges.
A GENERATION'S LEGACY OF LEADERSHIP
Today's challenges are daunting. They include the conflict in Iraq, the resurgence
of the Taliban, and global terrorist networks made even more menacing by the
threat of nuclear proliferation. While Iran's leaders relentlessly pursue nuclear
weapons capabilities and spout genocidal threats against Israel, the world largely
stands silent, unable to agree on effective sanctions even as each day the danger
grows. Genocide ravages Darfur even as the world stands frozen. In Latin
America, leaders such as Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez seek to reverse the
spread of freedom and return to failed authoritarian policies. AIDS and potential
new pandemics threaten us in an interconnected world. The economic rise of
China and other countries across Asia poses a different type of challenge. It is
easy to understand why Americans—and many others around the world—feel so
much unease and uncertainty. Yet although we face fundamentally different
issues today, the United States has a history of rising to meet even greater
challenges. Indeed, we need not look to ancient history, but only to the courage
and determination of our parents and grandparents to see a stark contrast with
the confusion and infighting of Washington today. Just over 60 years ago, we were
in the midst of a global war that would take the lives of tens of millions. The
outcome was far from certain. General Dwight Eisenhower drafted a short note
before the D-day landings at Normandy accepting full responsibility "in case of
failure."
The invasion did not fail. Yet no sooner had we defeated fascism than we were
engaged in a 50-year struggle with communism. Those whom the journalist Tom
Brokaw memorialized as "the greatest generation" made the tough choices that
allowed us to prevail in these struggles. And it was not just our Washington
leaders who were decisive. In the 1940s, Americans rationed and saved, and
mothers and daughters enlisted to work in factories. Together with the GIs who
returned home, they built this country's prosperity and fueled a sense of
optimism. In the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, America pursued learning and
innovation to lead the world in space, technology, and productivity—outcompeting
the Soviets and driving them to an economic bankruptcy that matched their moral
bankruptcy.
In the aftermath of World War II and with the coming of the Cold War, members
of "the greatest generation" united America and the free world around shared
values and actions that changed history. They unified U.S. military and security
efforts, creating the Department of Defense and the National Security Council.
They rethought U.S. approaches to the world, building the U.S. Agency for
International Development, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, and the
Peace Corps. They forged alliances, such as NATO, that magnified the power of
freedom and created a world trading system that helped launch the greatest
expansion of economic and political freedom and development in history. Our
times call for equally bold leadership and for a renewed sense of service and
shared sacrifice among Americans and our allies around the world.
A NEW GENERATION OF CHALLENGES
Today, the nation's attention is focused on Iraq. All Americans want U.S. troops to
come home as soon as possible. But walking away now or dividing Iraq up into
parts and walking away later would present grave risks to the United States and
the world. Iran could seize the Shiite south, al Qaeda could dominate the Sunni
west, and Kurdish nationalism could destabilize the border with Turkey. A
regional conflict could ensue, perhaps even requiring the return of U.S. troops
under far worse circumstances. There is no guarantee that the new strategy
pursued by General Petraeus will ultimately succeed, but the stakes are too high
and the potential fallout too great to deny our military leaders and troops on the
ground the resources and the time needed to give it an opportunity to succeed.
Many still fail to comprehend the extent of the threat posed by radical Islam,
specifically by those extremists who promote violent jihad against the United
States and the universal values Americans espouse. Understandably, the nation
tends to focus on Afghanistan and Iraq, where American men and women are
dying. We think in terms of countries because countries were our enemies in the
last century's great conflicts. The congressional debate in Washington has largely,
and myopically, focused on whether troops should be redeployed from Iraq to
Afghanistan, as if these were isolated issues. Yet the jihad is much broader than
any one nation, or even several nations. It is broader than the conflicts in
Afghanistan and Iraq, or that between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Radical
Islam has one goal: to replace all modern Islamic states with a worldwide
caliphate while destroying the United States and converting all nonbelievers,
forcibly if necessary, to Islam. This plan sounds irrational, and it is. But it is no
more irrational than the policies pursued by Nazi Germany in the 1930s and
1940s and Stalin's Soviet Union during the Cold War. And the threat is just as
real.
In the current conflict, the balance of forces is not nearly as close as during the
early days of World War II and at critical points during the Cold War. There is no
comparison between the economic, diplomatic, technological, and military
resources of the civilized world today and those of the terrorist organizations and
states that threaten it. Perhaps most important is the incredible resourcefulness
of the American people and their unmatched education, inventiveness, and
dedication. But today's threats are fundamentally different from those we grew
used to confronting during World War II and the Cold War. Our enemies now have
sleeper cells rather than armies. They use indiscriminate terror rather than tanks.
Their soldiers—as well as their victims—include children. They count radical
clergy among their generals. They communicate via the Internet. They recruit in
schools, houses of worship, and prisons. They pursue nuclear weapons not as a
strategic deterrent but as an offensive tool of terror.
The jihadist threat is the defining challenge of our generation and is symptomatic
of a range of new global realities. It is common to the point of cliché to talk about
how much the world has changed since 9/11. Our president led a dramatic
response to the events of that day and has taken action to protect the U.S.
homeland. Yet if one looks at our tools of national power, what is surprising is not
how much has changed since then but how little. While we wage wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq, U.S. troop levels and our investment in the military as a
percentage of GDP remain lower than at any time of major conflict since World
War II. Decades after the oil shocks of the 1970s highlighted the United States'
vulnerability, we remain dangerously dependent on foreign oil. Many of our
instruments of national security were created not only before most Americans had
access to the Internet and cell phones but also before they had televisions. Our
difficulties in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with disturbing gaps in our intelligence,
are well known. A growing number of experts question whether we have the
capabilities to meet various transnational challenges, ranging from pandemic
diseases to international terrorism. And while the United Nations has stood
impotent in the face of genocide in Sudan and has been unable to address Iran's
rush to build dangerous nuclear capabilities, we have done little more than tweak
international alliances and antiquated institutions.
While the difficult struggle in Iraq dominates the political debate, we cannot let
current polls and political dynamics drive us to repeat mistakes the United States
has made at critical moments of doubt and uncertainty about our role in the
world. Twice in the last several decades, following the end of U.S. military
involvement in Vietnam and the end of the Cold War in the 1990s, the United
States became dangerously unprepared. Today, among our main challenges are
an Iranian regime and an al Qaeda network that developed while we let down our
defenses. Whether or not the current "surge" in troop levels in Iraq succeeds, the
United States and our allies need to be prepared to deal not only with the struggle
against jihadists but with a new generation of challenges that go far beyond any
single nation or conflict.
We need an honest debate about what policies and what sacrifices will ensure a
strong America and a safe world. As President Ronald Reagan once observed,
"There have been four wars in my lifetime. None of them came about because the
United States was too strong." A strong America requires a strong military and a
strong economy. And we need to take further action if we are to remain strong
and if we are to build a safe world, with peace, prosperity, freedom, and dignity.
Doing so will be controversial, and it will be strongly resisted because it will
require dramatic changes to Cold War institutions and approaches. The Cold War
is over, and the world that too many of our current capabilities and alliances were
created to address no longer exists. We cannot remain mired in the past.
Change is difficult in and of itself. And it is especially hard to summon the will
necessary to set a new course in the absence of a clear and convincing crisis.
Look at how long it took the U.S. government to confront the reality of jihadism.
Extremists bombed our marines in Lebanon. They bombed our embassies in East
Africa. They bombed the U.S.S. Cole. They even set off a bomb in the basement of
the World Trade Center before we truly saw the threat they posed.
Change will require sacrifice from the American people. But I believe America is
ready for the challenge. To meet it, we need to focus on four key pillars of action.
BUILDING U.S. MILITARY AND ECONOMIC STRENGTH
First, we need to increase our investment in national defense. This means adding
at least 100,000 troops and making a long-overdue investment in equipment,
armament, weapons systems, and strategic defense. The need to support our
troops is repeated like a mantra in Washington. Yet little has been said about the
commitment of resources needed to make this more than an empty phrase.
After President George H. W. Bush left office, in 1993, the Clinton administration
began to dismantle the military, taking advantage of what has been called a
"peace dividend" from the end of the Cold War. It took a dividend, but we did not
get the peace. It seems that our leaders had come to believe that war and security
threats were gone forever; as Charles Krauthammer observed, we took a holiday
from history. Meanwhile, we lost about 500,000 military personnel and about $50
billion a year in military spending. The U.S. Army lost four active divisions and
two reserve divisions. The U.S. Navy lost almost 80 ships. The U.S. Air Force saw
its active personnel decrease by 30 percent. The Marines' personnel dropped by
22,000.
And we purchased only a small fraction of the equipment needed to maintain our
strength, living off the assets that had been purchased in prior decades. The
equipment and armament gap continues to this day. Even as we have increased
defense spending to meet the challenges in Iraq and Afghanistan, our budgets for
procurement and modernization have lagged behind. This is a troubling scenario
for the future, and it puts our country and our troops—present and future—at risk,
as we wring the life out of old and inadequate equipment.
The Bush administration has proposed an increase in defense spending for next
year. This is an important first step, but we are going to need at least an
additional $30-$40 billion annually over the next several years to modernize our
military, fill gaps in troop levels, ease the strain on our National Guard and
Reserves, and support our wounded soldiers. Looking at military spending over
time as a percentage of GDP provides an interesting perspective. During World
War II, the United States made huge sacrifices, investing more than a third of its
economic activity to fight the war. As we confronted different enemies, such as
those in Korea, our investment in defense responded accordingly. Since then,
slowly but surely, it has decreased significantly. Through the buildup under
President Reagan, it reached six percent of GDP in 1986 and helped turn the tide
against the Soviet Union. Yet during the Clinton years, defense spending was
dangerously reduced. More recently, although spending has increased, less than
four percent of our GDP has been devoted to baseline defense spending. These
ebbs and flows stemming from political dynamics have increased the costs and
the uncertainty of our military preparedness.
The next president should commit to spending a minimum of four percent of GDP
on national defense. Increased spending should not mean increased waste,
however. A team of private-sector leaders and defense experts should carry out a
stem-to-stern analysis of military purchasing. Accounts need to be thoroughly
scrutinized to eliminate excessive contractor and supplier charges and prevent
deals for equipment and programs that do more for politicians' popularity in their
home districts than for the nation's protection. Congress needs to set stricter
lobbying rules and keep a far more watchful eye on self-serving politicians,
current and past, in regard to these matters.
The United States' strength goes beyond its military capacity. Indeed, a nation
cannot remain a military superpower if it has a second-tier economy. The
weakness of the Soviet economy was a vulnerability that President Reagan
exploited. Our ability to influence the world also vitally depends on our ability to
maintain our economic lead through policies such as smaller government, lower
taxes, better schools and health care, greater investment in technology, and the
promotion of free trade, while maintaining the strength of America's families,
values, and moral leadership.
ENERGY INDEPENDENCE
Second, the United States must become energy independent. This does not mean
no longer importing or using oil. It means making sure that our nation's future
will always be in our hands. Our decisions and destiny cannot be bound to the
whims of oil-producing states.
We use about 25 percent of the world's oil supply to power our economy, but
according to the Department of Energy, we possess only 1.7 percent of the
world's crude oil reserves. Our military and economic strength depend on our
becoming energy independent—moving past symbolic measures to actually
produce as much energy as we use. This could take 20 years or more; and, of
course, we would continue to purchase fuel after that time. Yet we would end our
strategic vulnerability to oil shutoffs by nations such as Iran, Russia, and
Venezuela and stop sending almost $1 billion a day to other oil-producing nations,
some of which use the money against us. At the same time, we may well be able to
rein in our greenhouse gas emissions.
Energy independence will require technology that allows us to use energy more
efficiently in our cars, homes, and businesses. It will also mean increasing our
domestic energy production with more drilling offshore and in the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge, more nuclear power, more renewable energy sources, more
ethanol, more biodiesel, more solar and wind power, and a fuller exploitation of
coal. Shared investments or incentives may be required to develop additional and
alternative sources of energy.
We need to initiate a bold, far-reaching research initiative—an energy

revolution—that will be our generation's equivalent of the Manhattan Project or
the mission to the moon. It will be a mission to create new, economical sources of
clean energy and clean ways to use the sources we have now. We will license our
technology to other nations, and, of course, we will employ it at home. It will be
good for our national defense, it will be good for our foreign policy, and it will be
good for our economy. Moreover, even as scientists still debate how much human
activity impacts the environment, we can all agree that alternative energy sources
will be good for the planet. For any and all of these reasons, the time for energy
independence has come.
RETHINKING AND REENERGIZING CIVILIAN CAPABILITIES
Third, we need to dramatically and fundamentally transform our civilian

capabilities to promote peace, security, and freedom around the world. After
World War II, America created capabilities and structures—such as the National
Security Council, the Department of Defense, and the U.S. Agency for
International Development—to meet the challenges of a world that was radically
different from that of the 1930s. In the Reagan era, the Goldwater-Nichols Act
helped tear down bureaucratic boundaries that were undermining our military
effectiveness, fostered unified efforts across military services, and established
"joint commands," with an individual commander fully responsible for everything
going on within his or her geographic region. We need the same level of dramatic
rethinking and reform that took place at these critical junctures.
Today, there is no such unity among our international nonmilitary resources.

There is no clear leadership and no clear line of authority. Too often, we struggle
to integrate our nonmilitary instruments into coherent, timely, and effective
operations. For instance, even as we face the need to strengthen the democratic
underpinnings of a country such as Lebanon, our resources in education, health,
banking, energy, commerce, law enforcement, and diplomacy are spread across
separate bureaucracies and are under separate leadership. As a result, we have
had to look on as Hezbollah has brought health care and schools to areas of
Lebanon. And guess who the people followed when the conflict between Israel
and Lebanon broke out last summer? Likewise, the popularity of Hamas in Gaza
and the West Bank should be no surprise given that the group has provided
Palestinians with the basic services that neither the international community nor
the Palestinian government could deliver.
The problem has been just as evident in Iraq. In 2003, while the U.S. military
moved in rapid order to topple Saddam Hussein, many of our nonmilitary
resources seemed stuck in tar. Then, even as we were taking casualties and
spending over $7 billion a month on the war, U.S. civilian authorities were
fighting over which agency was going to pay their employees' $11 daily food
allowance. In response to these problems, the White House has sought to give to a
single individual the authority to oversee all the agencies operating in Iraq and
Afghanistan. Yet broad interagency challenges remain and continue to stymie our
efforts not only in these areas but around the world.
It is time to move beyond the current limited approaches that call for
"transformation" and truly transform our interagency and civilian capabilities. We
need to fundamentally change the cultures of our civilian agencies and create
dynamic, flexible, and task-based approaches that focus on results rather than
bureaucracy. We need joint strategies and joint operations that go beyond the
Goldwater-Nichols Act to mobilize all areas of our national power. Just as the
military has divided the world into regional theaters for all of its branches, the
work of our civilian agencies should be organized along common geographic
boundaries. For every region, one civilian leader should have authority over and
responsibility for all the relevant agencies and departments, similar to the single
military commander who heads U.S. Central Command. These new leaders should
be heavy hitters, with names that are recognized around the world. They should
have independent objectives, budgets, and oversight. Their performance should
be evaluated according to their success in promoting America's political, military,
diplomatic, and economic interests in their respective regions and building the
foundations of freedom, democracy, security, and peace.
REVITALIZING AND STRENGTHENING ALLIANCES
Finally, we need to strengthen old partnerships and alliances and inaugurate new
ones to meet twenty-first-century challenges. The inaction, if not the breakdown,
of many Cold War institutions has made many Americans skeptical of
multilateralism. Nothing shows the failures of the current system more clearly
than the UN Human Rights Council, an entity that has condemned the democratic
government of Israel nine times while remaining virtually silent on the serial
human rights abuses of the governments of Cuba, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea,
and Sudan. In the face of such hypocrisy, it is understandable that some
Americans would be tempted to favor unilateralism. But such failures should not
obscure the fact that the United States' strength is amplified when it is combined
with the strength of other nations. Whether diplomatically, militarily, or
economically, the United States is stronger when its friends stand alongside it.
In the changing world we face, our alliances and engagement must change, too.
Clearly, the United Nations has not been able to fulfill its founding purpose of
providing collective security against aggression and genocide. Thus, we need to
continue to push for reform of the organization. Yet where institutions are
fundamentally incapable of meeting a new generation of challenges, the United
States does not have to go it alone. Instead, we must examine where existing
alliances can be strengthened and reinvigorated and where new alliances need to
be forged. I agree with former Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar that we
should build on the NATO alliance to defeat radical Islam. We need to work with
our allies to pursue Aznar's call for greater coordination in military, homeland
security, and nonproliferation efforts.
The challenges we now face—especially terrorism, genocide, and the spread of

weapons of mass destruction—require global networks of intelligence and law
enforcement. We should also look for new ways to strengthen regional
cooperation and security partnerships with responsible actors in order to confront
challenges such as the genocide in Darfur. And if the UN Human Rights Council
continues to be inactive or behave hypocritically, we should unite with nations
that share our commitment to defending human rights in order to promote
change.
In no area is our leadership more important and more urgently needed than the
Islamic world. Today, the Middle East is facing a demographic crisis: over half the
population there is under 22 years old, and the GDP of all Arab nations put
together remains lower than that of Spain. A growing population and a lack of
jobs create fertile ground for radical Islam. The Marshall Plan showed our deep
understanding that winning the Cold War would depend on far more than the
strength of our military. The situation we face today is dramatically different from
the one we faced in the wake of World War II. Yet it requires the same type of
political attention and resolve we exhibited then. Today, thousands of Americans,
such as former Senator Bill Frist, are helping to alleviate problems in the
vulnerable parts of Africa and the Middle East, showing that we are a
compassionate people. And other leaders in this effort, such as the musician Bono,
have highlighted the need to address problems far from one's borders in today's
interconnected world. Recent government efforts such as the Middle East
Partnership Initiative, the Broader Middle East and North Africa Initiative of the
G-8, and the Forum for the Future are a start, but they have garnered nowhere
near the degree of attention, resources, and commitment necessary to address
such serious problems.
If elected, one of my first acts as president would be to call for a summit of

nations to address these issues. In addition to the United States, the countries
convened would include other leading developed nations and moderate Muslim
states. The objective of the summit would be to create a worldwide strategy to
support moderate Muslims in their effort to defeat radical and violent Islam. I
envision that the summit would lead to the creation of a Partnership for
Prosperity and Progress: a coalition of states that would assemble resources from
developed nations and use them to support public schools (not Wahhabi
madrasahs), microcredit and banking, the rule of law, human rights, basic health
care, and free-market policies in modernizing Islamic states. These resources
would be drawn from public and private institutions and from volunteers and
nongovernmental organizations.
A critical part of this effort would involve creating new trade and economic
opportunities for the Middle East that could be powerful forces, not only
economically, but also in breaking down barriers to cooperation on even the most
intractable problems. Muslim countries pursuing free-trade agreements with the
United States, for example, have dismantled all aspects of the Arab League's
boycott of Israel. The power of trade to break down barriers and build ties is also
seen in the Qualified Industrial Zone program that grants U.S. free-trade benefits
to Egyptian products that incorporate materials from Israel. When the program
was first suggested, some Egyptian officials balked, saying that trade with Israel
would spark protests. When the program was launched, there were indeed
protests—from Egyptians who were excluded from the program and wanted to
participate.
Congress must give the president the authority to move forward with these efforts
so that we can expand and integrate our existing free-trade agreements in the
region. A critical part of the economic resurgence and peace of postwar Europe
was the United States' support for a unified market and U.S. engagement in cross-
country ties. Today, we must push for more integration and cross-border
cooperation in the Middle East. As a group of experts working on the Princeton
Project on National Security noted recently, "The history of Europe since 1945
tells us that institutions can play a constructive role in building a framework for
cooperation, channeling nationalist sentiments in a positive direction, and
fostering economic development and liberalization. Yet the Middle East is one of
the least institutionalized regions in the world."
Few would have thought before 1945 that the war-torn and divided nations of
Europe could achieve the stability and economic growth that these states know
today. Some have called for developing in the Middle East a regional organization
based on the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which would
build cooperation and encourage political, economic, and security reforms and
integration. How these efforts would be institutionalized is a question that we
must address in partnership with our friends in the region and key allies. Yet we
cannot wait to address this problem.
Merely closing our eyes and hoping that jihadism will go away is not an
acceptable solution. U.S. military action alone cannot change the hearts and
minds of hundreds of millions of Muslims. In the end, only Muslims themselves
can defeat the violent radicals. But we must work with them. The consequences of
ignoring this challenge—such as a radicalized Islamic actor possessing nuclear
weapons—are simply unacceptable.
MOVING FORWARD
The new generation of challenges we face may seem daunting. Yet confronting
challenges has always made the United States stronger. The confusion and
pessimism that prevail in Washington today in no way reflect the United States'
legacy or underlying strengths. I believe our current generation can match the
courage, dedication, and vision of "the greatest generation." I recently had the
privilege of spending some time with Shimon Peres, the former prime minister of
Israel. Someone asked him about the conflict in Iraq, and he said, "You need to
put this in context. America is unique in the history of the world. During this last
century, there was only one nation that laid down hundreds of thousands of lives
of its own sons and daughters and asked for nothing for itself." He explained that
in the history of the world, whenever there has been a war, winning nations have
taken the land of losing ones. "America is unique," he added. "You took no land
from the Germans, no land from the Japanese. All you asked for was enough land
to bury your dead."
We are a unique nation, and there is no substitute for our leadership. The
difficulties we face in Iraq should neither cause us to lose faith in the United
States' strength and role in the world nor blind us to the new challenges we face.
Our future and that of generations to come depend on our resolve to move beyond
the divisiveness in Washington today and unite America and our allies to confront
a new generation of global challenges.
Mitt Romney, Governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007, is a candidate for the Republican presidential
nomination.
July 1,2007
Reengaging With the World
A Return to Moral Leadership
John Edwards
ERIC THAYER / REUTERS

U.S. Democratic presidential candidate former Senator John Edwards arrives at the Democratic Presidential
debate in Johnston, Iowa, December 13, 2007.
At the dawn of a new century and on the brink of a new presidency, the United
States today needs to reclaim the moral high ground that defined our foreign
policy for much of the last century.
We must move beyond the wreckage created by one of the greatest strategic
failures in U.S. history: the war in Iraq. Rather than alienating the rest of the
world through assertions of infallibility and demands of obedience, as the current
administration has done, U.S. foreign policy must be driven by a strategy of
reengagement. We must reengage with our history of courage, liberty, and
generosity. We must reengage with our tradition of moral leadership on issues
ranging from the killings in Darfur to global poverty and climate change. We must
reengage with our allies on critical security issues, including terrorism, the
Middle East, and nuclear proliferation. With confidence and resolve, we must
reengage with those who pose a security threat to us, from Iran to North Korea.
And our government must reengage with the American people to restore our
nation's reputation as a moral beacon to the world, tapping into our fundamental
hope and optimism and calling on our citizens' commitment and courage to make
this possible. We must lead the world by demonstrating the power of our ideals,
not by stoking fear about those who do not share them.
The last century saw tremendous advances in the human condition—from

increased economic prosperity to the spread of human rights and the emergence
of a truly global community. But the century also brought two devastating world
wars, the death of millions, and a Cold War that lasted two generations and risked
the end of humanity. The new century, too, will bring both promise and peril. We
can look forward to incredible technological advances in communications and
medicine and an expanding world economy that will lift millions out of poverty
while raising the standards of living for working people at home and abroad.
But we must also prepare for a world filled with new risks: the increasing reach of
nonstate actors who reject our very way of life, the consequences of global
climate change, and the possibility that dangerous technology will fall into the
wrong hands. We can lead the world through these challenges, just as the United
States led the world through the challenges of the previous century. But we can
only do so if we reclaim the trust and respect of those countries whose
cooperation we need but whose will we cannot compel.
RESTORING AMERICA'S REPUTATION
This century's first test of our leadership arrived with terrible force on September
11, 2001. When the United States was attacked, the entire world stood with us.
We could have pursued a broad policy of reengagement with the world, yet
instead we squandered this broad support through a series of policies that drove
away our friends and allies. A recent Pew survey showed the United States'
approval ratings plummeting throughout the world between 2000 and 2006. This
decline was especially worrisome in Muslim countries of strategic importance to
the United States, such as Indonesia, where approval dropped from 75 percent to
30 percent, and Turkey, where it fell from 52 percent to 12 percent. Perceptions
of America's efforts to promote democracy have suffered as well. In 33 of the 47
countries surveyed by the Pew Research Center, majorities or pluralities
expressed dislike for American ideas of democracy.
We need a new path, one that will lead to reengagement with the world and
restoration of the United States' moral authority in the community of nations.
President Harry Truman once said, "No one nation alone can bring peace.
Together, nations can build a strong defense against aggression and combine the
energy of free men everywhere in building a better future for all." For 50 years,
presidents from Truman and Dwight Eisenhower to Ronald Reagan and Bill
Clinton built strong alliances and deepened the world's respect for us. We gained
that respect by viewing our military strength not as an end in itself but as a means
to protect a system of laws and institutions that gave hope to billions across the
globe. In avoiding the temptation to rule as an empire, we hastened the fall of a
corrupt and evil one in the Soviet Union. The lesson is that we cannot only be
warriors; we must be thinkers and leaders as well.
And so as we contemplate a national security policy for a new century, we must

ask ourselves far-reaching questions: Are we truly denying our enemies what they
seek? Are we doing all we can to win the war not only of weapons but also of
ideas? Are we battling the fear our enemies sow by planting seeds of hope
instead?
This is about much more than convincing people to like us. There was a time when
a president did not speak just to Americans—he spoke to the world. People
thousands of miles away would gather to listen to someone they called, without
irony, "the leader of the free world." Men and women in Nazi-occupied Europe
would huddle around shortwave radios to listen to President Franklin Roosevelt.
Millions cheered in Berlin when President John F. Kennedy stood with them and
said, "Ich bin ein Berliner." Millions of people imprisoned behind the Iron Curtain
silently cheered the day President Reagan declared, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down
this wall!" Even if these ordinary men and women did not always agree with our
policies, they looked to our president and saw a person—and a nation—they could
trust. Today, under the current administration, this is no longer the case. At the
dawn of a new century, it is vital that we win the war of ideas in the world. We
need to reach out to ordinary men and women from Egypt to Indonesia and
convince them, once again, that the United States is a force to be admired.
BEYOND THE "WAR ON TERROR"
There is no question that we must confront terrorist groups such as al Qaeda with
the full force of our military might. As commander in chief, I will never hesitate to
apply the full extent of our security apparatus to protect our vital interests, take
measures to root out terrorist cells, and strike swiftly and forcefully against those
who seek to harm us.
But I believe we must stay on the offensive against both terrorism and its causes.
The "war on terror" approach has backfired, straining our military to the breaking
point while allowing the threat of terrorism to grow. "War on terror" is a slogan
designed for politics, not a strategy to make the United States safe. It is a bumper
sticker, not a plan. Worst of all, the "war on terror" has failed. Instead of making
the United States safer, it has spawned even more terrorism—as we have seen so
tragically in Iraq—and left us with fewer allies.
There is no question that we are less safe today as a result of this administration's
policies. The Bush administration has walked the United States right into the
terrorists' trap. By framing this struggle against extremism as a war, it has
reinforced the jihadists' narrative that we want to conquer the Muslim world and
that there is a "clash of civilizations" pitting the West against Islam. From
Guantï¿½namo to Abu Ghraib, the "war on terror" has tragically become the
recruitment poster al Qaeda wanted. Instead of reengaging with the peoples of
the world, we have driven too many into the terrorists' arms. In fact, defining the
current struggle against radical Islamists as a war minimizes the challenge we
face by suggesting that the fight against Islamist extremism can be won on the
battlefield alone.
For these reasons, many generals and national security experts have criticized the
president's "war on terror" approach. Retired Marine General Anthony Zinni has
said that the "war on terror" is a counterproductive doctrine. So has the
government of one of our closest allies; the new British prime minister, Gordon
Brown, has distanced himself from the term. Admiral William Fallon—President
George W. Bush's new chief of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM)—has
instructed his staff to stop saying that we are in a "long war." These leaders know
that we need substance, not slogans.
Leading Republicans have echoed such views. The president's own former
secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, said last March that the doctrine was one
of his regrets. "It is not a war on terror," he flatly told an interviewer. Meanwhile,
former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani curiously seems to have forgotten
that he said in March that we should abandon the "war on terror" approach
because, in his words, "America is seen as a country by too many that wants to
have war, or exercises its power too much, pushes its weight around too much."
Yet the politics of fear remains tempting. Some have chosen to pillory those who
dare question the concept of a "war on terror" as somehow weak. But these
attacks unmask the slogan for what it is: a political sledgehammer used to stifle
debate and justify policies that would otherwise be utterly unacceptable.
Our enemies are taking advantage of the United States' declining popularity.
According to a recent article by the former CIA official Bruce Riedel in this
magazine, al Qaeda has expanded its reach not only across Afghanistan, Iraq, and
Pakistan but even in Europe. And a recent report by the National
Counterterrorism Center found that al Qaeda's operational capabilities have
returned to levels unseen since just before 9/11. Iran has been emboldened by the
Bush administration's ineffective policies and has announced plans to expand its
nuclear program. Meanwhile, other powers are benefiting, too. China is
capitalizing on the United States' current unpopularity to project its own "soft
power." And Russia is bullying its neighbors while openly defying the United
States and Europe.
Our law enforcement, security, and intelligence professionals are to be

congratulated and honored for stopping plots such as the recent conspiracy to
attack John F. Kennedy International Airport, in New York City. However, we
must not let our enthusiasm for these tactical victories cloud a broader view of
the threat environment. In April, the State Department released a report stating
that terrorism had increased 29 percent worldwide between 2005 and 2006, with
most attacks occurring in Iraq and Afghanistan. We need to refocus our national
security policy on the mission of protecting Americans from twenty-first-century
threats rather than pursuing discredited ideological agendas. What we need is not
more slogans but a comprehensive strategy to respond to terrorism and prevent it
from taking root in the first place. This strategy should transcend the familiar
divide between "hard power" and "soft power." Instead, we need to place "smart
power" at the center of our national security policy.
NEW CENTURY, NEW CHALLENGES
Confronting the challenges of the new century will require strength, creativity,
and moral leadership. The century ahead will bring new efforts by nonstate
actors, ranging from terrorist groups to ethnically based local and regional
movements, to redefine the boundaries of states, the jurisdiction of multilateral
organizations, and the authority of international law. We will also face instability
generated by weak and failing states. And we will face continuing challenges to
our efforts to promote democracy. Elections alone are not enough; new
democracies need to cultivate constitutionalism, strong institutions, pluralism,
and a respect for a free press and the rule of law. Finally, a host of twenty-first-
century developments from climate change to pandemics will likely impose
additional stresses. A report issued in April by a group of 11 retired military
officers, including General Gordon Sullivan, the former army chief of staff, and
General Zinni, the former CENTCOM commander, described the potential of
climate change to ignite a chain reaction leading to global instability. It could
trigger conflicts over shrinking natural resources, weaken states through the
creation of climate refugees, and hasten the spread of diseases and famine. We
must act aggressively against this threat.
We should begin our reengagement with the world by bringing an end to the Iraq
war. Iraq's problems are deep and dangerous, but they cannot be solved by the
U.S. military. For over a year, I have argued for an immediate withdrawal of
40,000 to 50,000 U.S. combat troops from Iraq, followed by an orderly and
complete withdrawal of all combat troops. Once we are out of Iraq, the United
States must retain sufficient forces in the region to prevent a genocide, a regional
spillover of the civil war, or the establishment of an al Qaeda safe haven. We will
most likely need to retain quick-reaction forces in Kuwait and a significant naval
presence in the Persian Gulf. We will also need some security capabilities in
Baghdad, inside the Green Zone, to protect the U.S. embassy and U.S. personnel.
Finally, we will need a diplomatic offensive to engage the rest of the
world—including Middle Eastern nations and our allies in Europe—in working to
secure Iraq's future. All of these measures will finally allow us to close this
terrible chapter and move on to the broader challenges of the new century.
We must confront these challenges not only through our military but also through
diplomacy. Few areas deserve the United States' moral leadership more urgently
than Sudan. The African Union peacekeeping troops stationed in Darfur have
acted bravely in a difficult situation. But these 7,000 troops have been unable to
protect civilians or enforce a 2004 cease-fire, and security has deteriorated
dramatically. I believe President Bush should convene an emergency meeting of
NATO's leadership to provide assistance to a UN deployment of 3,000 troops,
backed by logistical, operational, and financial support. NATO must establish a
no-fly zone over the region to cut off supplies to the brutal Janjaweed militias and
end the Sudanese government's bombing of civilians in Darfur. NATO member
states should also impose a new round of multilateral sanctions on the Sudanese
government and freeze the foreign assets of individuals complicit in the genocide.
The United States must make a decisive new commitment to employ the
extraordinary assets of the U.S. military—our airlift capabilities, logistical
support, and intelligence systems—to assist UN and African Union peacekeeping
efforts in Darfur. And we must continue to pressure other countries with influence
in the region, such as China, to meet their own responsibilities to help end this
conflict.
We also need to renew our commitment to engagement and diplomacy in order to

solve problems before they occur, rather than scrambling to deal with crises after
they have erupted. With engagement comes far greater knowledge and the
potential for progress and even trust. Presidents Kennedy and Reagan talked with
Soviet leaders at the height of the Cold War, in both cases turning back major
threats to our national security. We need to do the same with Iranian and North
Korean leaders.
Iran presents a complicated challenge for the United States. President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad is a dangerous radical and a strong supporter of Hezbollah and
Hamas. He has said repeatedly that Israel should be "wiped off the map" and last
December sponsored a conference for Holocaust deniers in Tehran. Iran cannot
be allowed to possess nuclear weapons.
Unfortunately, the situation in Iran has only worsened under this administration.
With a threat so serious, no U.S. president should take any option off the
table—diplomacy, sanctions, engagement, or even military force. When we say
something is unacceptable, however, we must mean it, and that requires
developing a strategy that delivers results, not just rhetoric. Instead of saber
rattling about military action, we should employ an effective combination of
carrots and sticks. For example, right now we must do everything we can to
isolate Iran's leader from the moderate forces within the country. We need to
contain Iran's nuclear ambitions through diplomatic measures that will, over time,
force Iran to finally understand that the international community will not allow it
to possess nuclear weapons. Every major U.S. ally agrees that the advent of a
nuclear Iran would be a threat to global security. We should continue to work with
other great powers to offer Tehran economic incentives for good behavior. At the
same time, we must use much more serious economic sanctions to deter
Ahmadinejad's government when it refuses to cooperate. To do this, we will have
to deal with Iran directly. Such diplomacy is not a gift, nor is it a concession. The
current administration recently managed to have one single-issue meeting with
Iran to discuss Iraq. It simply makes no sense for the administration to engage
Iran on this subject alone and avoid one as consequential as nuclear proliferation.
In North Korea, the recent agreement to shut down the Yongbyon nuclear reactor
in exchange for the release of frozen assets is encouraging—though long overdue.
It is a sign that the carrots-and-sticks approach can work. Pyongyang's words,
however, are not enough. We must require a commitment to future action. We
must engage the North Korean government directly, through the six-party
framework, placing economic and political incentives on the table in exchange for
the verified, complete elimination of North Korea's nuclear weapons capabilities.
Indeed, new leadership is needed for a broader, more systematic approach to

confronting the most dangerous threat of the new century: the proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction (WMD). In working toward the goal of a nuclear-free
world, the United States must lead the effort to strengthen the international
nonproliferation institutions, not cast them aside. The rules and institutions we
rely on to stymie and isolate bad actors, while providing strong leverage and
instruments for measuring progress, are increasingly riddled with loopholes and
gaps. We should create a new Global Nuclear Compact to bolster the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty, which would support peaceful nuclear programs,
improve security for existing stocks of nuclear materials, and ensure more
frequent verification that materials are not being diverted and nuclear facilities
are not being misused. We must also halt the trade of the most dangerous
technologies by the most dangerous states and increase the amount of money we
spend on cooperative threat-reduction programs in the former Soviet republics.
Finally, we should strengthen our nation's capacity to identify and respond to
WMD threats by reforming the ways the U.S. government collects and analyzes
intelligence and by giving the intelligence community the resources it needs.
The tsunami that hit Southeast Asia in 2004, the troubled status of the
government in Afghanistan, and the need for a functioning infrastructure in Iraq
all have something in common: they present a new set of challenges for which the
United States will need to prepare. In the coming years, we will most likely see an
increasing need to stabilize weak and failing states and provide humanitarian
assistance to the victims of disasters across the world.
These missions are demanding, dangerous, and expensive. They require a wide
range of resources and sources of knowledge, from experts in water purification
to medical technicians, judges to corrections officers, bankers to stock-market
analysts. In most cases, the help of thousands of such specialists is required. Yet
for years, the U.S. government has not been properly prepared for these kinds of
missions. As a result, when these situations arise, the government turns
repeatedly to the only existing institution with the required logistical capabilities
and a sufficiently broad range of skills: the military. But the military lacks many of
the resources that are required to conduct these missions successfully. To resolve
these problems, I will establish a Marshall Corps during my first year in office,
named for our greatest secretary of state, General George Marshall. The Marshall
Corps, patterned after the military reserves, will consist of at least 10,000 civilian
experts who could be deployed abroad to serve in reconstruction, stabilization,
and humanitarian missions. They will be on the frontline in the United States'
reengagement with the world.
REENGAGING WITH THE WORLD'S MAJOR POWERS
In the new century, a number of emerging or already major powers will pose new
challenges to the United States. We will have to continue integrating rising
powers into a peaceful international system by convincing them that they can
both benefit from and contribute to the system's strength. This means adapting
our most important international leadership organizations, such as the G-8, to
include these new major players. We must also strive to maintain our strong
partnerships with longtime allies, including the United Kingdom, Japan, and the
transforming European Union, as well as work to rebuild the long-neglected
relationships with our neighbors throughout Latin America. Finally, we must
stand by our ally and partner Israel, ensuring its security while doing everything
in our power to bring peace and stability to the region.
China, Russia, and India, among others, will test U.S. leadership. China is
developing a unique political system and economy with both authoritarian and
free-market elements. The nation is economically important to the United States,
heavily invested in our Treasury bonds, and a significant trading partner. But
China is also a growing economic competitor, particularly in its dealings with
nations possessing rich energy resources, which can lead to conflicting
perspectives on security issues. China's approach to Iran and Sudan are prime
examples. In sum, the U.S.-Chinese relationship is a delicate one, which has not
been well managed by the current administration. In the coming years, China's
influence and importance will only continue to grow. On issues such as trade,
climate change, and human rights, our overarching goal must be to get China to
commit to the rules that govern the conduct of nations.
Russia presents a very different challenge. The situation in Russia is

deteriorating, and democracy is on the wane. President Vladimir Putin has also
initiated a worrisome pattern of bellicose rhetoric against the United States and
has threatened to withdraw from arms control treaties. The presidential transition
scheduled for next year will be a critical test of Russia's commitment to
democracy and the rule of law. Despite these concerns, Russia also offers
substantial opportunities for the United States, both as an economic partner and
as a stabilizing influence over other, more overtly hostile nations, such as Iran.
Last year, in a Council on Foreign Relations task force I co-led with former
Republican Congressman Jack Kemp, we concluded that the United States ought
to initiate a new era of selective cooperation with Russia on particular issues,
such as Iran, energy, and nuclear nonproliferation, while preserving our ability to
disagree and push for change on other issues, such as our concerns about
increasing authoritarianism in Russia and potential Russian-Chinese cooperation.
Our most important goal is to draw Russia into the Western political mainstream
through continued engagement and, when necessary, diplomatic and economic
pressure.
I have seen for myself that India is one of the world's richest treasures. With its
great history, tremendous people, and rich culture, India has truly overwhelming
potential. The United States is fortunate to count India as a partner, and we must
cultivate our friendship to advance our common values. India is a country that
knows both the positive and the negative aspects of our globalized world. It has
achieved remarkable economic growth, benefiting from access to technology and
information. Yet the nation also grapples with threats that refuse to respect
borders—the AIDS pandemic, extreme poverty, and terrorists, such as those who
struck New Delhi late in 2005. The United States and India are natural allies, and
the U.S.-Indian strategic partnership will help shape the twenty-first century. We
must therefore strengthen our relationship using both national and international
tools: reforming the UN so that there is a place for India on the Security Council
and working with India to help it achieve a credible and transparent plan to
permanently separate its civilian and military nuclear programs. The United
States could then more easily work with India to address its energy
needs—another step that would deepen the U.S.-Indian friendship.
BUILDING A STRONG DEFENSE
The past few years have brought the biggest crisis in civil-military relations in a
generation. The mismanagement of the military has been so severe that many of
our most decorated retired officers are speaking out. I will reengage with our
military through a basic doctrine of national security management that has been
demolished by the current administration: military professionals will have primary
responsibility in matters of tactics and operations, while civilian leaders will have
authority over political decisions and in all matters of broad strategy.
The force structure of our military should match its missions. We must be very
clear about the military's purpose. The U.S. armed forces have three important
missions: deterring or responding to those who wish to do us harm, ensuring that
the problems of weak and failing states do not create dangers for the United
States, and maintaining our strategic advantage over major competitor states, in
part so that they choose to cooperate with us, rather than challenge our interests
militarily.
The current administration's mismanagement of the military has gone far beyond
these missions, leading to a very dangerous situation for our troops, their families,
and our nation. We are sending some troops back to Iraq with less than a year's
rest. Military leaders are warning about "breaking" the force. It is tempting for
politicians to respond to this situation by trying to outbid one another on the
number of troops they would add to the military. Some have fallen right in line
behind President Bush's recent proposal to add 92,000 troops between now and
2012, giving little rationale for exactly why we need this many men and women,
particularly with a likely withdrawal from Iraq. But the problem of our force
structure is not best dealt with by a numbers game. We must be more thoughtful
about what the troops would actually be used for. Any troops we add now would
take a number of years to recruit and train, and they would therefore not help us
today in Iraq.
As president, I will rebalance our forces to ensure that the size and capabilities of
our military match its missions. We must have enough troops to rebuild from the
debacle in Iraq, to bolster deterrence, to decrease our heavy reliance on National
Guard and Reserve members in overseas missions, to provide additional support
for our brave troops fighting in Afghanistan, and to deploy to other trouble spots
when necessary. I will double the budget for recruitment and raise the standards
for the recruitment pool so that we can reduce our reliance on felony waivers and
other exceptions. In addition, I will increase our investment in the maintenance of
our equipment for the safety of our troops.
Our all-volunteer military is the best in the world, and its servicemen and
servicewomen have done everything their leaders have asked them to do—and
more. They and their families have stayed strong through an increasing number of
deployments and the administration's unconscionable decision to extend tours
from 12 to 15 months—and in the future, perhaps longer. U.S. soldiers, sailors, air
force personnel, and marines and their families are the ones suffering the most
from the administration's failures, including poor planning, equipment shortages,
and inadequate training.
As commander in chief, I will do everything I can to repair the sacred contract

with our active-duty personnel and veterans. Central to this sacred contract is a
simple and solemn pledge to every man and woman who risks his or her life for
our country: we will take care of you as you have taken care of us. My
administration will guarantee quality health care for our servicemen and
servicewomen and every generation of veterans, provide families with the support
they need to withstand the strain of separations, and ensure that returning troops
have access to the education and opportunities necessary to succeed in civilian
life.
The military budget itself also needs substantial reform. Today, dozens of
agencies perform overlapping tasks. There is no central, overall accounting of all
the security activities performed by all the relevant agencies. There are nuclear
nonproliferation programs in the Defense, State, and Energy Departments and
more than 15 different security assistance programs running out of both the State
Department and the Pentagon. As president, I will create a national security
budget that will include all security programs at the Pentagon and the
Department of Energy, as well as our homeland security, intelligence, and foreign
affairs agencies. The national security budget will eliminate wasteful and
counterproductive overlaps and gather all of our resources behind a unified
strategy.
RESTORING AMERICA'S MORAL LEADERSHIP
When it comes to reengaging with the world, there is no task more critical than
restoring our moral leadership. We must begin to create a world in which the
despair that breeds radical terrorism is overwhelmed by the hope that comes with
universal education, democracy, and economic opportunity. By exercising this sort
of leadership, we can transform a generation of potential enemies into a
generation of friends.
We can begin by leading the fight to eradicate global poverty and provide
universal primary education. At first glance, these areas might not seem directly
related to our self-interest. But they are in fact intimately tied to our present and
future national security. Unsurprisingly, we see radicalism rising today in
unstable countries such as Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, and, of course, Iraq
and Afghanistan. This illuminates the importance of foreign and national security
policies that seek to prevent terrorism, not just respond to it.
Education is one of the most critical ways we can reverse the effects of poverty.
According to UNICEF (the United Nations Children's Fund), the mortality rate for
children under five years of age decreases by half if their mothers have received a
primary school education. As president, I will increase our funding for global
primary education sixfold, with a $3 billion annual effort to educate poor children
in countries with a history of violent extremism. Through the U.S. Agency for
International Development and multilateral aid organizations, I will also pursue
reform of the school systems in developing countries, working to eliminate school
fees and required expenses for books and uniforms, which effectively bar millions
of children from enrolling; investing in teacher education, classroom expansion,
and teaching materials; and helping to provide safe and hygienic facilities for all
students. Finally, as president, I will lead an effort to increase opportunity for
millions of people by adding $750 million annually for microcredit programs.
Clean water and sanitation are also necessary to improve health, education, and
economic prosperity. Women and children bear the burden of poverty and disease
in the developing world. Women in the poorest countries have a ten percent
chance of dying during childbirth. More than ten million children die each year
from preventable diseases. Developing countries suffer enormously from the top
three killer diseases: AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria.
As president, I will concentrate on reversing the spread of these three deadly
diseases by guaranteeing universal access to preventive drugs and treatment by
2010. I will also substantially increase U.S. funding for clean-water programs.
Finally, I will direct U.S. agencies to lead an international effort to dramatically
increase preventive care, beginning with increased vaccinations and the provision
of sterile equipment and basic medications.
Despite the urgency of these programs, the same redundancy that plagues our
national security activities exists in our foreign assistance programs. Over 50
separate U.S. government entities are currently involved in the delivery of foreign
aid. We need to return to President Kennedy's vision. He said in 1961 that the
American system was fragmented, awkward, and slow and that improvement was
necessary because "the nation's interest and the cause of political freedom
require it." Kennedy reformed the American foreign-aid system, and we need a
similar fundamental restructuring today. As president, I will create a new cabinet-
level position to coordinate global development policies across the government. I
will also replace Kennedy's Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 with a Global
Development Act to modernize and consolidate development assistance, and I will
ask Congress to improve its oversight and revamp its committee structure so that
it can be a more effective partner in this effort. With measures like these, we can
reclaim our historic role as a moral leader of the world while at the same time
making the world safer and more secure for the United States.
THE WAY FORWARD
In 1945, it would have been easy enough for us to glance at the devastation in
Europe and look the other way. But leaders such as President Truman and
General Marshall understood that it would require more than the United States'
military might to rebuild Europe. Keeping post-World War II Europe safe from
tyrants who would prey on poverty and resentment called for our ingenuity, our
allies, and our generosity. General Marshall made a momentous decision to
engage with the world in order to build a brighter, more hopeful future. In his
1953 speech accepting the Nobel Peace Prize for rebuilding Europe, General
Marshall explained that military power was "too narrow a basis on which to build
a dependable, long-enduring peace." He was right. Today's peaceful and
prosperous Europe is a testament to his wisdom and foresight.
Our nation now stands at the pinnacle of its power, but it also faces serious
challenges. Today, we need a national security policy for the twenty-first century
that will not only respond to threats but apply all our resources to the critical goal
of preventing such threats in the first place. We can be strong, secure, and good,
and we can build a more hopeful future. Our national security policy should be
designed to reach these goals. We must do everything in our power to reclaim the
United States' historic role as a beacon for the world and become, once again, a
shining example for other nations to follow.
John Edwards, a former U.S. Senator from North Carolina, is a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.
September 1,2007
Toward a Realistic Peace
Defending Civilization and Defeating Terrorists by Making
the International System Work
Rudolph W. Giuliani

Republican presidential candidate and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani pauses while speaking at
the Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire, November 5, 2007.
We are all members of the 9/11 generation.
The defining challenges of the twentieth century ended with the fall of the Berlin
Wall. Full recognition of the first great challenge of the twenty-first century came
with the attacks of September 11, 2001, even though Islamist terrorists had
begun their assault on world order decades before. Confronted with an act of war
on American soil, our old assumptions about conflict between nation-states fell
away. Civilization itself, and the international system, had come under attack by a
ruthless and radical Islamist enemy.
America and its allies have made progress since that terrible day. We have
responded forcefully to the Terrorists' War on Us, abandoning a decadelong—and
counterproductive—strategy of defensive reaction in favor of a vigorous offense.
And we have set in motion changes to the international system that promise a
safer and better world for generations to come.
But this war will be long, and we are still in its early stages. Much like at the
beginning of the Cold War, we are at the dawn of a new era in global affairs, when
old ideas have to be rethought and new ideas have to be devised to meet new
challenges.
The next U.S. president will face three key foreign policy challenges. First and
foremost will be to set a course for victory in the terrorists' war on global order.
The second will be to strengthen the international system that the terrorists seek
to destroy. The third will be to extend the benefits of the international system in
an ever-widening arc of security and stability across the globe. The most effective
means for achieving these goals are building a stronger defense, developing a
determined diplomacy, and expanding our economic and cultural influence. Using
all three, the next president can build the foundations of a lasting, realistic peace.
Achieving a realistic peace means balancing realism and idealism in our foreign
policy. America is a nation that loves peace and hates war. At the core of all
Americans is the belief that all human beings have certain inalienable rights that
proceed from God but must be protected by the state. Americans believe that to
the extent that nations recognize these rights within their own laws and customs,
peace with them is achievable. To the extent that they do not, violence and
disorder are much more likely. Preserving and extending American ideals must
remain the goal of all U.S. policy, foreign and domestic. But unless we pursue our
idealistic goals through realistic means, peace will not be achieved.
Idealism should define our ultimate goals; realism must help us recognize the
road we must travel to achieve them. The world is a dangerous place. We cannot
afford to indulge any illusions about the enemies we face. The Terrorists' War on
Us was encouraged by unrealistic and inconsistent actions taken in response to
terrorist attacks in the past. A realistic peace can only be achieved through
strength.
A realistic peace is not a peace to be achieved by embracing the "realist" school of

foreign policy thought. That doctrine defines America's interests too narrowly and
avoids attempts to reform the international system according to our values. To
rely solely on this type of realism would be to cede the advantage to our enemies
in the complex war of ideas and ideals. It would also place too great a hope in the
potential for diplomatic accommodation with hostile states. And it would
exaggerate America's weaknesses and downplay America's strengths. Our
economy is the strongest in the developed world. Our political system is far more
stable than those of the world's rising economic giants. And the United States is
the world's premier magnet for global talent and capital.
Still, the realist school offers some valuable insights, in particular its insistence on
seeing the world as it is and on tempering our expectations of what American
foreign policy can achieve. We cannot achieve peace by promising too much or
indulging false hopes. This next decade can be a positive era for our country and
the world so long as the next president realistically mobilizes the 9/11 generation
for the momentous tasks ahead.
WINNING THE EARLY BATTLES OF THE LONG WAR
The first step toward a realistic peace is to be realistic about our enemies. They
follow a violent ideology: radical Islamic fascism, which uses the mask of religion
to further totalitarian goals and aims to destroy the existing international system.
These enemies wear no uniform. They have no traditional military assets. They
rule no states but can hide and operate in virtually any of them and are supported
by some.
Above all, we must understand that our enemies are emboldened by signs of
weakness. Radical Islamic terrorists attacked the World Trade Center in 1993, the
Khobar Towers facility in Saudi Arabia in 1996, our embassies in Kenya and
Tanzania in 1998, and the U.S.S. Cole in 2000. In some instances, we responded
inadequately. In others, we failed to respond at all. Our retreat from Lebanon in
1983 and from Somalia in 1993 convinced them that our will was weak.
We must learn from these experiences for the long war that lies ahead. It is
almost certain that U.S. troops will still be fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan when
the next president takes office. The purpose of this fight must be to defeat the
terrorists and the insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan and to allow these countries
to become members of the international system in good standing. We must be
under no illusions that either Iraq or Afghanistan will quickly attain the levels of
peace and security enjoyed in the developed world today. Our aim should be to
help them build accountable, functioning governments that can serve the needs of
their populations, reduce violence within their borders, and eliminate the export
of terror. As violence decreases and security improves, more responsibility can
and should be turned over to local security forces. But some U.S. forces will need
to remain for some time in order to deter external threats.
We cannot predict when our efforts will be successful. But we can predict the
consequences of failure: Afghanistan would revert to being a safe haven for
terrorists, and Iraq would become another one—larger, richer, and more
strategically located. Parts of Iraq would undoubtedly fall under the sway of our
enemies, particularly Iran, which would use its influence to direct even more
terror at U.S. interests and U.S. allies than it does today. The balance of power in
the Middle East would tip further toward terror, extremism, and repression.
America's influence and prestige—not just in the Middle East but around the
world—would be dealt a shattering blow. Our allies would conclude that we
cannot back up our commitments with sustained action. Our enemies—both
terrorists and rogue states—would be emboldened. They would see further
opportunities to weaken the international state system that is the primary defense
of civilization. Much as our enemies in the 1990s concluded from our inconsistent
response to terrorism then, our enemies today would conclude that America's will
is weak and the civilization we pledged to defend is tired. Failure would be an
invitation for more war, in even more difficult and dangerous circumstances.
America must remember one of the lessons of the Vietnam War. Then, as now, we
fought a war with the wrong strategy for several years. And then, as now, we
corrected course and began to show real progress. Many historians today believe
that by about 1972 we and our South Vietnamese partners had succeeded in
defeating the Vietcong insurgency and in setting South Vietnam on a path to
political self-sufficiency. But America then withdrew its support, allowing the
communist North to conquer the South. The consequences were dire, and not only
in Vietnam: numerous deaths in places such as the killing fields of Cambodia, a
newly energized and expansionist Soviet Union, and a weaker America. The
consequences of abandoning Iraq would be worse.
Our goal is to see in Iraq and Afghanistan the emergence of stable governments
and societies that can act as our allies against the terrorists and not as breeding
grounds for expanded terrorist activities. Succeeding in Iraq and Afghanistan is
necessary but not sufficient. Ultimately, these are only two battlegrounds in a
wider war. The United States must not rest until the al Qaeda network is
destroyed and its leaders, from Osama bin Laden on down, are killed or captured.
And the United States must not rest until the global terrorist movement and its
ideology are defeated.
Much of that fight will take place in the shadows. It will be the work of
intelligence operatives, paramilitary groups, and Special Operations forces. It will
also require close relationships with other governments and local forces. The next
U.S. president should direct our armed forces to emphasize such work, in part
because local forces are best able to operate in their home countries and in part
in order to reduce the strain on our own troops.
A STRONGER DEFENSE
For 15 years, the de facto policy of both Republicans and Democrats has been to
ask the U.S. military to do increasingly more with increasingly less. The idea of a
post-Cold War "peace dividend" was a serious mistake—the product of wishful
thinking and the opposite of true realism. As a result of taking this dividend, our
military is too small to meet its current commitments or shoulder the burden of
any additional challenges that might arise. We must rebuild a military force that
can deter aggression and meet the wide variety of present and future challenges.
When America appears bogged down and unready to face aggressors, it invites
conflict.
The U.S. Army needs a minimum of ten new combat brigades. It may need more,
but this is an appropriate baseline increase while we reevaluate our strategies
and resources. We must also take a hard look at other requirements, especially in
terms of submarines, modern long-range bombers, and in-flight refueling tankers.
Rebuilding will not be cheap, but it is necessary. And the benefits will outweigh
the costs.
The next U.S. president must also press ahead with building a national missile
defense system. America can no longer rely on Cold War doctrines such as
"mutual assured destruction" in the face of threats from hostile, unstable regimes.
Nor can it ignore the possibility of nuclear blackmail. Rogue regimes that know
they can threaten America, our allies, and our interests with ballistic missiles will
behave more aggressively, including by increasing their support for terrorists. On
the other hand, the knowledge that America and our allies could intercept and
destroy incoming missiles would not only make blackmail less likely but also
decrease the appeal of ballistic missile programs and so help to slow their
development and proliferation. It is well within our capability to field a layered
missile defense capable of shielding us from the arsenals of the world's most
dangerous states. President George W. Bush deserves credit for changing
America's course on this issue. But progress needs to be accelerated.
An even greater danger is the possibility of a terrorist attack on U.S. soil with a
chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear weapon. Every effort must be made
to improve our intelligence capabilities and technological capacities to prevent
this. Constellations of satellites that can watch arms factories everywhere around
the globe, day and night, above- and belowground, combined with more robust
human intelligence, must be part of America's arsenal. The laudable and effective
Proliferation Security Initiative, a global effort to stop the shipment of weapons of
mass destruction and related materials, should be expanded and strengthened. In
particular, we must work to deter the development, transfer, or use of weapons of
mass destruction. We must also develop the capability to prevent an
attack—including a clandestine attack—by those who cannot be deterred. Rogue
states must be prevented from handing nuclear materials to terrorist groups. Our
enemies must know that they cannot murder our citizens with impunity and
escape retaliation.
We must also develop detection systems to identify nuclear material that is being
imported into the United States or developed by operatives inside the country.
Heightened and more comprehensive security measures at our ports and borders
must be enacted as rapidly as possible. And our national security agencies must
work much more closely with our homeland security and law enforcement
agencies. We must preserve the gains made by the U.S.A. Patriot Act and not
unrealistically limit electronic surveillance or legal interrogation. Preventing a
chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear attack on our homeland must be the
federal government's top priority. We must construct a technological and
intelligence shield that is effective against all delivery methods.
Military victories are essential, but they are not enough. A lasting, realistic peace
will be achieved when more effective diplomacy, combined with greater economic
and cultural integration, helps the people of the Middle East understand that they
have a stake in the success of the international system.
DETERMINED DIPLOMACY
To achieve a realistic peace, some of what we need to do can and must be

accomplished through our own efforts. But much more requires international
cooperation, and cooperation requires diplomacy.
In recent years, diplomacy has received a bad name, because of two opposing
perspectives. One side denigrates diplomacy because it believes that negotiation
is inseparable from accommodation and almost indistinguishable from surrender.
The other seemingly believes that diplomacy can solve nearly all problems, even
those involving people dedicated to our destruction. When such efforts fail, as
they inevitably do, diplomacy itself is blamed, rather than the flawed approach
that led to their failure.
America has been most successful as a world leader when it has used strength
and diplomacy hand in hand. To achieve a realistic peace, U.S. diplomacy must be
tightly linked to our other strengths: military, economic, and moral. Whom we
choose to talk to is as important as what we say. Diplomacy should never be a tool
that our enemies can manipulate to their advantage. Holding serious talks may be
advisable even with our adversaries, but not with those bent on our destruction or
those who cannot deliver on their agreements.
Iran is a case in point. The Islamic Republic has been determined to attack the
international system throughout its entire existence: it took U.S. diplomats
hostage in 1979 and seized British sailors in 2007 and during the decades in
between supported terrorism and murder. But Tehran invokes the protections of
the international system when doing so suits it, hiding behind the principle of
sovereignty to stave off the consequences of its actions. This is not to say that
talks with Iran cannot possibly work. They could—but only if we came to the table
in a position of strength, knowing what we wanted.
The next U.S. president should take inspiration from Ronald Reagan's actions
during his summit with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in Reykjavík in 1986: he
was open to the possibility of negotiations but ready to walk away if talking went
nowhere. The lesson is never talk for the sake of talking and never accept a bad
deal for the sake of making a deal. Those with whom we negotiate—whether ally
or adversary—must know that America has other options. The theocrats ruling
Iran need to understand that we can wield the stick as well as the carrot, by
undermining popular support for their regime, damaging the Iranian economy,
weakening Iran's military, and, should all else fail, destroying its nuclear
infrastructure.
For diplomacy to succeed, the U.S. government must be united. Adversaries

naturally exploit divisions. Members of Congress who talk directly to rogue
regimes at cross-purposes with the White House are not practicing diplomacy;
they are undermining it. The task of a president is not merely to set priorities but
to ensure that they are pursued across the government. It is only when they
are—and when Washington can negotiate from a position of strength—that
negotiations will yield results. As President John F. Kennedy said in his inaugural
address, "Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate."
Another step in rebuilding a strong diplomacy will be to make changes in the

State Department and the Foreign Service. The time has come to refine the
diplomats' mission down to their core purpose: presenting U.S. policy to the rest
of the world. Reforming the State Department is a matter not of changing its
organizational chart—although simplification is needed—but of changing the way
we practice diplomacy and the way we measure results. Our ambassadors must
clearly understand and clearly advocate for U.S. policies and be judged on the
results. Too many people denounce our country or our policies simply because
they are confident that they will not hear any serious refutation from our
representatives. The American ideals of freedom and democracy deserve stronger
advocacy. And the era of cost-free anti-Americanism must end.
Since leaving the New York City mayor's office, I have traveled to 35 different
countries. It is clear that we need to do a better job of explaining America's
message and mission to the rest of the world, not by imposing our ideas on others
but by appealing to their enlightened self-interest. To this end, the Voice of
America program must be significantly strengthened and broadened. Its surrogate
stations, such as Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, which were so effective at
inspiring grass-roots dissidents during the Cold War, must be expanded as well.
Our entire approach to public diplomacy and strategic communications must be
upgraded and extended, with a greater focus on new media such as the Internet.
We confront multifaceted challenges in the Middle East, the Pacific region, Africa,
and Latin America. In all these places, effective communication can be a powerful
way of advancing our interests. We will not shy away from any debate. And armed
with honest advocacy, America will win the war of ideas.
STRENGTHENING THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM
The next U.S. president will share the world stage with a new generation of
leaders, few of whom were in office when the attacks of 9/11 occurred but all of
whom have been influenced by their impact. This will be a rare opportunity for
American leadership to make the case that our common interest lies in defeating
the terrorists and strengthening the international system.
Defeating the terrorists must be our principal priority in the near future, but we
do not have the luxury of focusing on it to the exclusion of other goals. World
events unfold whether the United States is engaged or not, and when we are not,
they often unfold in ways that are against our interests. The art of managing a
large enterprise is to multitask, and so U.S. foreign policy must always be
multidimensional.
A primary goal for our diplomacy—whether directed toward great powers,

developing states, or international institutions—must be to strengthen the
international system, which most of the world has a direct interest in seeing
function well. After all, the system helps keep the peace and provide prosperity.
Some theorists say that it is outmoded and display either too much faith in
globalization or assume that the age of the sovereign state is coming to a close.
These views are naive. There is no realistic alternative to the sovereign state
system. Transnational terrorists and other rogue actors have difficulty operating
where the state system is strong, and they flourish where it is weak. This is the
reason they try to exploit its weaknesses.
We should therefore work to strengthen the international system through

America's relations with other great powers, both long established and rising. We
should regard no great power as our inherent adversary. We should continue to
fully engage with Europe, both in its collective capacity as the European Union
and through our special relationship with the United Kingdom and our traditional
diplomatic relations with France, Germany, Italy, and other western European
nations. We highly value our ties with the states of central and eastern Europe
and the Baltic and Balkan nations. Their experience of oppression under
communism has made them steadfast allies and strong advocates of economic
freedom.
America is grateful to NATO for the vital functions it is performing in Afghanistan

and elsewhere. Yet NATO's role and character should be reexamined. For almost
60 years, it has been a vital bond connecting the United States and Europe. But
its founding rationale dissolved with the end of the Cold War, and the alliance
should be transformed to meet the challenges of this new century. NATO has
already expanded to include former adversaries, taken on roles for which it was
not originally conceived, and acted beyond its original theater. We should build on
these successes and think more boldly and more globally. We should open the
organization's membership to any state that meets basic standards of good
governance, military readiness, and global responsibility, regardless of its
location. The new NATO should dedicate itself to confronting significant threats to
the international system, from territorial aggression to terrorism. I hope that
NATO members will see the wisdom in such changes. NATO must change with the
times, and its members must always match their rhetorical commitment with
action and investment. In return, America can assure them that we will be there
for them in times of crisis. They stood by America after 9/11, and America will
never forget.
As important as America's Western alliances are, we must recognize that America

will often be best served by turning also to its other friends, old and new. Much of
America's future will be linked to the already established and still rising powers of
Asia. These states share with us a clear commitment to economic growth, and
they must be given at least as much attention as Europe. Our alliance with Japan,
which has been strengthened considerably under this administration, is a rock of
stability in Asia. South Korea has been a key to security in Northeast Asia and an
important contributor to international peace. Australia, our distant but long-
standing ally, continues to assume a greater role in world affairs and acts as a
steadfast defender of international standards and security. U.S. cooperation with
India on issues ranging from intelligence to naval patrols and civil nuclear power
will serve as a pillar of security and prosperity in South Asia.
U.S. relations with China and Russia will remain complex for the foreseeable
future. Americans have no wish to return to the tensions of the Cold War or to
launch a new one. We must seek common ground without turning a blind eye to
our differences with these two countries. Like America, they have a fundamental
stake in the health of the international system. But too often, their governments
act shortsightedly, undermining their long-term interest in international norms for
the sake of near-term gains. Even as we work with these countries on economic
and security issues, the U.S. government should not be silent about their
unhelpful behavior or human rights abuses. Washington should also make clear
that only if China and Russia move toward democracy, civil liberties, and an open
and uncorrupted economy will they benefit from the vast possibilities available in
the world today.
Our relationships with other American nations remain of primary importance.

Canada and Mexico, our two closest neighbors, are our two largest trading
partners. With them, we share a continent, a free-trade agreement, and a
commitment to peace, prosperity, and freedom. Latin America faces a choice
between the failures of the past and the hopes of the future. Some look to the
governments of Bolivia and Venezuela, and their mentor in Cuba, and see an
inevitable path to greater statism. But elections in Colombia, Mexico, and Peru
show that the spirit of free-market reform is alive and well among our southern
neighbors. Cuba has long stood out in Latin America, first as one of the region's
most successful economies, later as its only communist police state. The death of
Fidel Castro may begin a new chapter in Cuban history. But America should take
nothing for granted. It must stand ready to help the Cuban people reclaim their
liberty and resist any step that allows a decrepit, corrupt regime from
consolidating its power under Raúl Castro. Only a commitment to free people and
free markets will bring a prosperous future to Cuba and all of Latin America.
More people in the United States need to understand how helping Africa today
will help increase peace and decency throughout the world tomorrow. The next
president should continue the Bush administration's effort to help Africa
overcome AIDS and malaria. The international community must also learn from
the mistakes that allowed the genocide in Darfur to begin and have prevented the
relevant international organizations from ending it. The world's commitment to
end genocide has been sidestepped again and again. Ultimately, the most
important thing we can do to help Africa is to increase trade with the continent.
U.S. government aid is important, but aid not linked to reform perpetuates bad
policies and poverty. It is better to give people a hand up than a handout.
Finally, we need to look realistically at America's relationship with the United
Nations. The organization can be useful for some humanitarian and peacekeeping
functions, but we should not expect much more of it. The UN has proved
irrelevant to the resolution of almost every major dispute of the last 50 years.
Worse, it has failed to combat terrorism and human rights abuses. It has not lived
up to the great hopes that inspired its creation. Too often, it has been weak,
indecisive, and outright corrupt. The UN's charter and the speeches of its
members' leaders have meant little because its members' deeds have frequently
fallen short. International law and institutions exist to serve peoples and nations,
but many leaders act as if the reverse were true—that is, as if institutions, not the
ends to be achieved, were the important thing.
Despite the UN's flaws, however, the great objectives of humanity would become
even more difficult to achieve without mechanisms for international discussion.
History has shown that such institutions work best when the United States leads
them. Yet we cannot take for granted that they will work forever and must be
prepared to look to other tools.
EXTENDING THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM'S BENEFITS
Most of the problems in the world today arise from places where the state system
is broken or has never functioned. Much of the Middle East, Africa, and Latin
America remains mired in poverty, corruption, anarchy, and terror. But there is
nothing inevitable about this. For all these troubled cases, there are many more
success stories that deserve to be celebrated. The number of functioning
democracies in the world has tripled since the 1970s. The poverty rate in the
developing world has been cut by roughly one-third since the end of the Cold War.
Millions of people have been liberated from oppression and fear. Progress is not
only possible, it is real. And it must continue to be real.
America has a clear interest in helping to establish good governance throughout

the world. Democracy is a noble ideal, and promoting it abroad is the right long-
term goal of U.S. policy. But democracy cannot be achieved rapidly or sustained
unless it is built on sound legal, institutional, and cultural foundations. It can only
work if people have a reasonable degree of safety and security. Elections are
necessary but not sufficient to establish genuine democracy. Aspiring dictators
sometimes win elections, and elected leaders sometimes govern badly and
threaten their neighbors. History demonstrates that democracy usually follows
good governance, not the reverse. U.S. assistance can do much to set nations on
the road to democracy, but we must be realistic about how much we can
accomplish alone and how long it will take to achieve lasting progress.
The election of Hamas in the Palestinian-controlled territories is a case in point.
The problem there is not the lack of statehood but corrupt and unaccountable
governance. The Palestinian people need decent governance first, as a
prerequisite for statehood. Too much emphasis has been placed on brokering
negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians—negotiations that bring up
the same issues again and again. It is not in the interest of the United States, at a
time when it is being threatened by Islamist terrorists, to assist the creation of
another state that will support terrorism. Palestinian statehood will have to be
earned through sustained good governance, a clear commitment to fighting
terrorism, and a willingness to live in peace with Israel. America's commitment to
Israel's security is a permanent feature of our foreign policy.
The next president must champion human rights and speak out when they are
violated. America should continue to use its influence to bring attention to
individual abuses and use a full range of inducements and pressures to try to end
them. Securing the rights of men, women, and children everywhere should be a
core commitment of any country that counts itself as part of the civilized world.
Whether with friends, allies, or adversaries, democracy will always be an issue in
our relations and part of the conversation. And so the better a country's record on
good governance, human rights, and democratic development, the better its
relations with the United States will be. Those countries that want our help in
moving toward these ideals will have it.
USING ECONOMIC AND CULTURAL INFLUENCE
Economic development and engagement are proven, if not fail-safe, engines for
successfully moving countries into the international system. America's robust
domestic economy is one of its greatest strengths. Other nations have found that
following the U.S. model—with low taxes, sensible regulations, protections for
private property, and free trade—brings not only national wealth but also national
strength. These principles are not ascendant everywhere, but never has it been
clearer that they work.
Ever more open trade throughout the world is essential. Bilateral and regional
free-trade agreements are often positive for all involved, but we must not allow
them to become special arrangements that undermine a truly global trading
system. Foreign aid can help overcome specific problems, but it does not lead to
lasting prosperity because it cannot replace trade. Private direct investment is the
best way to promote economic development. The next U.S. president should thus
revitalize and streamline all U.S. foreign-aid activities to support—not substitute
for—private investment in other countries.
Our cultural and commercial influence can also have a positive impact. They did
during the Cold War. The steadfast leadership of President Reagan, working
alongside British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II, helped
the Soviet Union understand that it could not bully the West into submission.
Although such leadership was essential, alone it might not have toppled the Soviet
Union in the time that it did. But it was effective because it came with Western
economic investment and cultural influence that inspired people in the Soviet
Union and the Warsaw Pact countries. Companies such as Pepsi, Coca-Cola,
McDonald's, and Levi's helped win the Cold War by entering the Soviet market.
Cultural events, such as Van Cliburn's concerts in the Soviet Union and Mstislav
Rostropovich's in the United States, also hastened change.
Today, we need a similar type of exchange with the Muslim countries that we
hope to plug into the global economy. Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab
Emirates are pointing the way by starting to interpret Islam in ways that respect
the distinctiveness of their local cultures but are consistent with the global
marketplace. Some of these states have coeducational schools, allow women to
serve in government, and count shopping malls that sell Western and Arab goods
side by side. Their leaders recognize that modernization is their ticket to the
global marketplace. And the global marketplace can build bridges between the
West and the Islamic world in a way that promotes mutual respect and mutual
benefit.
Economic investment and cultural influence work best where civil society already
exists. But sometimes America will be compelled to act in those parts of the world
where few institutions function properly—those zones that lack not only good
governance but any governance—and in states teetering on the edge of conflict or
recovering from it. Faced with a choice between leaving a troubled zone to
anarchy or helping build functioning civil societies with accountable governments
that can serve as bulwarks against barbarism, the American people will choose
the latter.
To assist these missions, the next U.S. president should restructure and
coordinate all the agencies involved in that process. A hybrid military-civilian
organization—a Stabilization and Reconstruction Corps staffed by specially
trained military and civilian reservists—must be developed. The agency would
undertake tasks such as building roads, sewers, and schools; advising on legal
reform; and restoring local currencies. The United States did similar work, and
with great success, in Germany, Japan, and Italy after World War II. But even with
the rich civic traditions in these nations, the process took a number of years. We
must learn from our past if we want to win the peace as well as the war.
PRINCIPLED STRENGTH
Civilization must stand up and combat the current collapse of governance, the rise
of violence, and the spread of chaos and fear in many parts of the world. To turn
back this tide of terror and defeat the violent forces of disorder wherever they
appear, America must play an even more active role to strengthen the
international state system.
In this decade, for the first time in human history, half of the world's population
will live in cities. I know from personal experience that when security is reliably
established in a troubled part of a city, normal life rapidly reestablishes itself:
shops open, people move back in, children start playing ball on the sidewalks
again, and soon a decent and law-abiding community returns to life. The same is
true in world affairs. Disorder in the world's bad neighborhoods tends to spread.
Tolerating bad behavior breeds more bad behavior. But concerted action to
uphold international standards will help peoples, economies, and states to thrive.
Civil society can triumph over chaos if it is backed by determined action.
After the attacks of 9/11, President Bush put America on the offensive against
terrorists, orchestrating the most fundamental change in U.S. strategy since
President Harry Truman reoriented American foreign and defense policy at the
outset of the Cold War. But times and challenges change, and our nation must be
flexible. President Dwight Eisenhower and his successors accepted Truman's
framework, but they corrected course to fit the specific challenges of their own
times. America's next president must also craft polices to fit the needs of the
decade ahead, even as the nation stays on the offensive against the terrorist
threat.
The 9/11 generation has learned from the history of the twentieth century that
America must not turn a blind eye to gathering storms. We must base our trust on
the actions, rather than the words, of others. And we must be on guard against
overpromising and underdelivering. Above all, we have learned that evil must be
confronted—not appeased—because only principled strength can lead to a
realistic peace.
Rudolph W. Giuliani, former Mayor of New York City, is a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination.
September 1,2007
Security and Opportunity for the
Twenty-first Century
Hillary Rodham Clinton
JONATHAN ERNST / REUTERS

Hillary Rodham Clinton waves to the crowd after addressing the National League of Cities 2007
Congressional City Conference in Washington, March 13, 2007.
To lead, a great nation must command the respect of others. America has been
respected in the past as a powerful nation, a purposeful nation, and a generous
and warm-hearted nation. In my travels around the world as senator and as first
lady, I have met people from all walks of life. I have seen firsthand how many of
our past policies have earned us respect and gratitude.
The tragedy of the last six years is that the Bush administration has squandered
the respect, trust, and confidence of even our closest allies and friends. At the
dawn of the twenty-first century, the United States enjoyed a unique position. Our
world leadership was widely accepted and respected, as we strengthened old
alliances and built new ones, worked for peace across the globe, advanced
nonproliferation, and modernized our military. After 9/11, the world rallied behind
the United States as never before, supporting our efforts to remove the Taliban in
Afghanistan and go after the al Qaeda leadership. We had a historic opportunity
to build a broad global coalition to combat terror, increase the impact of our
diplomacy, and create a world with more partners and fewer adversaries.
But we lost that opportunity by refusing to let the UN inspectors finish their work
in Iraq and rushing to war instead. Moreover, we diverted vital military and
financial resources from the struggle against al Qaeda and the daunting task of
building a Muslim democracy in Afghanistan. At the same time, we embarked on
an unprecedented course of unilateralism: refusing to pursue ratification of the
Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, abandoning our commitment to nuclear
nonproliferation, and turning our backs on the search for peace in the Middle
East. Our withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol and refusal to participate in any
international effort to deal with the tremendous challenges of climate change
further damaged our international standing.
Our nation has paid a heavy price for rejecting a long-standing bipartisan
tradition of global leadership rooted in a preference for cooperating over acting
unilaterally, for exhausting diplomacy before making war, and for converting old
adversaries into allies rather than making new enemies. At a moment in history
when the world's most pressing problems require unprecedented cooperation,
this administration has unilaterally pursued policies that are widely disliked and
distrusted.
Yet it does not have to be this way. Indeed, our allies do not want it to be this way.
The world still looks to the United States for leadership. American leadership is
wanting, but it is still wanted. Our friends around the world do not want the
United States to retreat. They want once again to be allied with the nation whose
values, leadership, and strength have inspired the world for the last century.
To reclaim our proper place in the world, the United States must be stronger, and
our policies must be smarter. The next president will have a moment of
opportunity to restore America's global standing and convince the world that
America can lead once again. As president, I will seize that opportunity by
reintroducing ourselves to the world. I will rebuild our power and ensure that the
United States is committed to building a world we want, rather than simply
defending against a world we fear.
We should aim to lead our friends and allies in building a world of security and
opportunity. America has long been the land of opportunity. But as we know at
home and as we see today in Iraq and Afghanistan, opportunity cannot flourish
without basic security. We must build a world in which security and opportunity
go hand in hand, a world that will be safer, more prosperous, and more just.
We need more than vision, however, to achieve the world we want. We must face
up to an unprecedented array of challenges in the twenty-first century, threats
from states, nonstate actors, and nature itself. The next president will be the first
to inherit two wars, a long-term campaign against global terrorist networks, and
growing tension with Iran as it seeks to acquire nuclear weapons. The United
States will face a resurgent Russia whose future orientation is uncertain and a
rapidly growing China that must be integrated into the international system.
Moreover, the next administration will have to confront an unpredictable and
dangerous situation in the Middle East that threatens Israel and could potentially
bring down the global economy by disrupting oil supplies. Finally, the next
president will have to address the looming long-term threats of climate change
and a new wave of global health epidemics.
To meet these challenges, we will have to replenish American power by getting

out of Iraq, rebuilding our military, and developing a much broader arsenal of
tools in the fight against terrorism. We must learn once again to draw on all
aspects of American power, to inspire and attract as much as to coerce. We must
return to a pragmatic willingness to look at the facts on the ground and make
decisions based on evidence rather than ideology.
POWER AND PRINCIPLE
Leadership requires a blend of strategy, persuasion, inspiration, and motivation. It

is based on respect more than fear. America's founders wrote the Declaration of
Independence to explain our actions to the world out of a decent respect for the
opinions of mankind. Gaining the respect of other nations today requires that we
harness our might to a set of guiding principles.
Avoid false choices driven by ideology. The Bush administration has presented the
American people with a series of false choices: force versus diplomacy,
unilateralism versus multilateralism, hard power versus soft. Seeing these choices
as mutually exclusive reflects an ideologically blinkered vision of the world that
denies the United States the tools and the flexibility it needs to lead and succeed.
There is a time for force and a time for diplomacy; when properly deployed, the
two can reinforce each other. U.S. foreign policy must be guided by a preference
for multilateralism, with unilateralism as an option when absolutely necessary to
protect our security or avert an avoidable tragedy.
Use our military not as the solution to every problem but as one element in a
comprehensive strategy. As president, I will never hesitate to use force to protect
Americans or to defend our territory and our vital interests. We cannot negotiate
with individual terrorists; they must be hunted down and captured or killed. Nor
can diplomacy alone stop the perpetrators of genocide and crimes against
humanity in places such as Darfur. But soldiers are not the answer to every
problem. Using force in lieu of diplomacy compels our young men and women in
uniform to carry out missions that they may not be trained or prepared for. And it
ignores the value of simply carrying a big stick, rather than using it.
Make international institutions work, and work through them when possible.
Contrary to what many in the current administration appear to believe,
international institutions are tools rather than traps. The United States must be
prepared to act on its own to defend its vital interests, but effective international
institutions make it much less likely that we will have to do so. Both Republican
and Democratic presidents have understood this for decades. When such
institutions work well, they enhance our influence. When they do not work, their
procedures serve as pretexts for endless delays, as in the case of Darfur, or
descend into farce, as in the case of Sudan's election to the UN Commission on
Human Rights. But instead of disparaging these institutions for their failures, we
should bring them in line with the power realities of the twenty-first century and
the basic values embodied in such documents as the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights.
Ensure that democracy delivers on its promises. Gnawing hunger, poverty, and
the absence of economic prospects are a recipe for despair. Globalization is
widening the gap between the haves and the have-nots within societies and
between them. Today, there are more than two billion people living on less than
$2 a day. These people risk becoming a vast permanent underclass. Calls for
expanding civil and political rights in countries plagued by mass poverty and
ruled by tiny wealthy elites will fall on deaf ears unless democracy actually
delivers enough material benefits to improve people's lives. The Bush
administration's policy in Iraq has temporarily given democracy a bad name, but
over the long term the value of democracy will continue to inspire the world.
Stand for and live up to our values. The values that our founders embraced as
universal have shaped the aspirations of millions of people around the world and
are the deepest source of our strength—but only as long as we live up to them
ourselves. As we seek to promote the rule of law in other nations, we must accept
it ourselves. As we counsel liberty and justice for all, we cannot support torture
and the indefinite detention of individuals we have declared to be beyond the law.
A STRONGER AMERICA
Ending the war in Iraq is the first step toward restoring the United States' global
leadership. The war is sapping our military strength, absorbing our strategic
assets, diverting attention and resources from Afghanistan, alienating our allies,
and dividing our people. The war in Iraq has also stretched our military to the
breaking point. We must rebuild our armed services and restore them body and
soul.
We must withdraw from Iraq in a way that brings our troops home safely, begins
to restore stability to the region, and replaces military force with a new
diplomatic initiative to engage countries around the world in securing Iraq's
future. To that end, as president, I will convene the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the
secretary of defense, and the National Security Council and direct them to draw
up a clear, viable plan to bring our troops home, starting within the first 60 days
of my administration.
While working to stabilize Iraq as our forces withdraw, I will focus U.S. aid on
helping Iraqis, not propping up the Iraqi government. Financial resources will go
only where they will be used properly, rather than to government ministries or
ministers that hoard, steal, or waste them.
As we leave Iraq militarily, I will replace our military force with an intensive
diplomatic initiative in the region. The Bush administration has belatedly begun to
engage Iran and Syria in talks about the future of Iraq. This is a step in the right
direction, but much more must be done. As president, I will convene a regional
stabilization group composed of key allies, other global powers, and all the states
bordering Iraq. Working with the newly appointed UN special representative for
Iraq, the group will be charged with developing and implementing a strategy for
achieving a stable Iraq that provides incentives for Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and
Turkey to stay out of the civil war.
Finally, we need to engage the world in a global humanitarian effort to confront

the human costs of this war. We must address the plight of the two million Iraqis
who have fled their country and the two million more who have been displaced
internally. This will require a multibillion-dollar international effort under the
direction of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Meanwhile, the
United States, along with governments in Europe and the Middle East, must agree
to accept asylum seekers and help them return to Iraq when it is safe for them to
do so.
As we redeploy our troops from Iraq, we must not let down our guard against
terrorism. I will order specialized units to engage in targeted operations against
al Qaeda in Iraq and other terrorist organizations in the region. These units will
also provide security for U.S. troops and personnel in Iraq and train and equip
Iraqi security services to keep order and promote stability in the country, but only
to the extent that such training is actually working. I will also consider leaving
some forces in the Kurdish area of northern Iraq in order to protect the fragile but
real democracy and relative peace and security that have developed there, but
with the clear understanding that the terrorist organization the PKK (Kurdistan
Workers' Party) must be dealt with and the Turkish border must be respected.
Getting out of Iraq will enable us to play a constructive role in a renewed Middle
East peace process that would mean security and normal relations for Israel and
the Palestinians. The fundamental elements of a final agreement have been clear
since 2000: a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank in return for a
declaration that the conflict is over, recognition of Israel's right to exist,
guarantees of Israeli security, diplomatic recognition of Israel, and normalization
of its relations with Arab states. U.S. diplomacy is critical in helping to resolve
this conflict. In addition to facilitating negotiations, we must engage in regional
diplomacy to gain Arab support for a Palestinian leadership that is committed to
peace and willing to engage in a dialogue with the Israelis. Whether or not the
United States makes progress in helping to broker a final agreement, consistent
U.S. involvement can lower the level of violence and restore our credibility in the
region.
To help our forces recover from Iraq and prepare them to confront the full range
of twenty-first-century threats, I will work to expand and modernize the military
so that fighting wars no longer comes at the expense of deployments for long-term
deterrence, military readiness, or responses to urgent needs at home. As the only
senator serving on the Transformation Advisory Group established by the U.S.
Joint Forces Command, I have had the chance to explore these issues in detail.
Ongoing military innovation is essential, but the Bush administration has
undermined this goal by focusing obsessively on expensive and unproven missile
defense technology while making the tragically misguided assumption that light
invasion forces could not only conquer the Taliban and Saddam Hussein but also
stabilize Afghanistan and Iraq.
Our brave soldiers who are wounded in Afghanistan and Iraq must receive the
health care, benefits, training, and support they deserve. The treatment of
wounded soldiers at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center was a travesty. Those
convalescing or struggling to build new lives after grievous injuries need an
expanded version of the Family and Medical Leave Act to enable their families to
provide the support they need. Beyond health care, it is also time to develop a
modern GI Bill of Rights in order to expand professional and entrepreneurial
opportunities as well as access to education and home ownership.
WINNING THE REAL WAR ON TERROR
We must be unrelenting in the prosecution of the war on al Qaeda and a growing

number of like-minded extremist organizations. These terrorists are as
determined as ever to strike the United States. If they think they can carry out
another 9/11, I have no doubt that they will try. To stop them, we must use every
tool we have.
In the cities of Europe and Asia—such as Hamburg and Kuala Lumpur, which
were the springboards for 9/11—terrorist cells are preparing for future attacks.
We must understand not only their methods but their motives: a rejection of
modernity, women's rights, and democracy, as well as a dangerous nostalgia for a
mythical past. We must develop a comprehensive strategy focusing on education,
intelligence, and law enforcement to counter not only the terrorists themselves
but also the larger forces fueling support for their extremism.
The forgotten frontline in the war on terror is Afghanistan, where our military
effort must be reinforced. The Taliban cannot be allowed to regain power in
Afghanistan; if they return, al Qaeda will return with them. Yet current U.S.
policies have actually weakened President Hamid Karzai's government and
allowed the Taliban to retake many areas, especially in the south. A largely
unimpeded heroin trade finances the very Taliban fighters and al Qaeda terrorists
who are attacking our troops. In addition to engaging in counternarcotics efforts,
we must seek to dry up recruiting opportunities for the Taliban by funding crop-
substitution programs, a large-scale road-building initiative, institutions that train
and prepare Afghans for honest and effective governance, and programs to enable
women to play a larger role in society.
We must also strengthen the national and local governments and resolve the
problems along Afghanistan's border. Terrorists are increasingly finding safe
havens in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Redoubling our
efforts with Pakistan would not only help root out terrorist elements there; it
would also signal to our NATO partners that the war in Afghanistan and the
broader fight against extremism in South Asia are battles that we can and must
win. Yet we cannot succeed unless we design a strategy that treats the entire
region as an interconnected whole, where crises overlap with one another and the
danger of a chain reaction of disasters is real.
Combating terrorism around the world will require better intelligence and a
clandestine service that is out on the street, not sitting behind desks. As
president, I will work to restore morale in our intelligence community, increase
the number of agents and analysts proficient in Arabic and other key languages,
and raise the profile and status of intelligence analysis. Most of the terrorists
apprehended for plotting attacks against the United States, both before and after
9/11, were arrested in other countries as a result of cooperation between
intelligence and law enforcement agencies.
To maximize our effectiveness, we have to rebuild our alliances. The problem we

face is global; we must therefore be attentive to the values, concerns, and
interests of our allies and partners. That means doing a better job of building
counterterrorist capacity around the world. We must help strengthen police,
prosecutorial, and judicial systems abroad; improve intelligence; and implement
more stringent border controls, especially in developing countries.
We must also keep our guard up at home. As a senator from New York, I have
long advocated full investment in our first responders and in protecting our
critical infrastructure. I have pushed for new strategies and new technologies,
such as a new federal interoperable communications and safety system. After
years of Bush administration neglect, 80 percent of the 9/11 Commission's
recommendations on homeland security have now been enacted, principally as a
result of the Democratic Congress' work. But there is more to do. We must match
the resources to the stakes and help the most vulnerable and at-risk cities prepare
for an attack. We must improve health-care delivery systems in order to manage
the consequences of attacks. Finally, we must improve the security of chemical
plants and safeguard the transportation of hazardous materials so that terrorists
do not have easy targets.
SECURITY THROUGH STATESMANSHIP
The Bush administration has opposed talks with our adversaries, seeming to
believe that we are not strong enough to defend our interests through
negotiations. This is a misleading and counterproductive strategy. True
statesmanship requires that we engage with our adversaries, not for the sake of
talking but because robust diplomacy is a prerequisite to achieving our aims.
The case in point is Iran. Iran poses a long-term strategic challenge to the United
States, our NATO allies, and Israel. It is the country that most practices state-
sponsored terrorism, and it uses its surrogates to supply explosives that kill U.S.
troops in Iraq. The Bush administration refuses to talk to Iran about its nuclear
program, preferring to ignore bad behavior rather than challenge it. Meanwhile,
Iran has enhanced its nuclear-enrichment capabilities, armed Iraqi Shiite militias,
funneled arms to Hezbollah, and subsidized Hamas, even as the government
continues to hurt its own citizens by mismanaging the economy and increasing
political and social repression.
As a result, we have lost precious time. Iran must conform to its nonproliferation
obligations and must not be permitted to build or acquire nuclear weapons. If Iran
does not comply with its own commitments and the will of the international
community, all options must remain on the table.
On the other hand, if Iran is in fact willing to end its nuclear weapons program,
renounce sponsorship of terrorism, support Middle East peace, and play a
constructive role in stabilizing Iraq, the United States should be prepared to offer
Iran a carefully calibrated package of incentives. This will let the Iranian people
know that our quarrel is not with them but with their government and show the
world that the United States is prepared to pursue every diplomatic option.
Like Iran, North Korea responded to the Bush administration's effort to isolate it
by accelerating its nuclear program, conducting a nuclear test, and building more
nuclear weapons. Only since the State Department returned to diplomacy have we
been able, belatedly, to make progress.
Neither North Korea nor Iran will change course as a result of what we do with
our own nuclear weapons, but taking dramatic steps to reduce our nuclear
arsenal would build support for the coalitions we need to address the threat of
nuclear proliferation and help the United States regain the moral high ground.
Former Secretaries of State George Shultz and Henry Kissinger, former Defense
Secretary William Perry, and former Senator Sam Nunn have called on the United
States to "rekindle the vision," shared by every president from Dwight Eisenhower
to Bill Clinton, of reducing reliance on nuclear weapons.
To reassert our nonproliferation leadership, I will seek to negotiate an accord that

substantially and verifiably reduces the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals. This
dramatic initiative would send a strong message of nuclear restraint to the world,
while we retain enough strength to deter others from trying to match our arsenal.
I will also seek Senate approval of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty by 2009,
the tenth anniversary of the Senate's initial rejection of the agreement. This would
enhance the United States' credibility when demanding that other nations refrain
from testing. As president, I will support efforts to supplement the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty. Establishing an international fuel bank that guaranteed
secure access to nuclear fuel at reasonable prices would help limit the number of
countries that pose proliferation risks.
In the Senate, I have introduced legislation to accelerate and reinvigorate U.S.
efforts to prevent nuclear terrorism. As president, I will do everything in my
power to ensure that nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons and the materials
needed to make them are kept out of terrorists' hands. My first goal would be to
remove all nuclear material from the world's most vulnerable nuclear sites and
effectively secure the remainder during my first term in office.
Statesmanship is also necessary to engage countries that are not adversaries but
that are challenging the United States on many fronts. Russian President Vladimir
Putin has thwarted a carefully crafted UN plan that would have put Kosovo on a
belated path to independence, attempted to use energy as a political weapon
against Russia's neighbors and beyond, and tested the United States and Europe
on a range of nonproliferation and arms reduction issues. Putin has also
suppressed many of the freedoms won after the fall of communism, created a new
class of oligarchs, and interfered deeply in the internal affairs of former Soviet
republics.
It is a mistake, however, to see Russia only as a threat. Putin has used Russia's
energy wealth to expand the Russian economy, so that more ordinary Russians
are enjoying a rising standard of living. We need to engage Russia selectively on
issues of high national importance, such as thwarting Iran's nuclear ambitions,
securing loose nuclear weapons in Russia and the former Soviet republics, and
reaching a diplomatic solution in Kosovo. At the same time, we must make clear
that our ability to view Russia as a genuine partner depends on whether Russia
chooses to strengthen democracy or return to authoritarianism and regional
interference.
Our relationship with China will be the most important bilateral relationship in
the world in this century. The United States and China have vastly different
values and political systems, yet even though we disagree profoundly on issues
ranging from trade to human rights, religious freedom, labor practices, and Tibet,
there is much that the United States and China can and must accomplish
together. China's support was important in reaching a deal to disable North
Korea's nuclear facilities. We should build on this framework to establish a
Northeast Asian security regime.
But China's rise is also creating new challenges. The Chinese have finally begun
to realize that their rapid economic growth is coming at a tremendous
environmental price. The United States should undertake a joint program with
China and Japan to develop new clean-energy sources, promote greater energy
efficiency, and combat climate change. This program would be part of an overall
energy policy that would require a dramatic reduction in U.S. dependence on
foreign oil.
We must persuade China to join global institutions and support international rules
by building on areas where our interests converge and working to narrow our
differences. Although the United States must stand ready to challenge China
when its conduct is at odds with U.S. vital interests, we should work for a
cooperative future.
STRENGTHENING ALLIANCES
It is important to engage our adversaries but even more important to reassure our
allies. We must reestablish our traditional relationship of confidence and trust
with Europe. Disagreements are inevitable, even among the closest friends, but
we can never forget that on most global issues we have no more trusted allies
than those in Europe. The new administration will have a chance to reach out
across the Atlantic to a new generation of leaders in France, Germany, and the
United Kingdom. When America and Europe work together, global objectives are
within our means.
In Asia, India has a special significance both as an emerging power and as the
world's most populous democracy. As co-chair of the Senate India Caucus, I
recognize the tremendous opportunity presented by India's rise and the need to
give the country an augmented voice in regional and international institutions,
such as the UN. We must find additional ways for Australia, India, Japan, and the
United States to cooperate on issues of mutual concern, including combating
terrorism, cooperating on global climate control, protecting global energy
supplies, and deepening global economic development.
At our peril, the Bush administration has neglected our neighbors to the south.
We have witnessed the rollback of democratic development and economic
openness in parts of Latin America. We must return to a policy of vigorous
engagement; this is too critical a region for the United States to stand idly by. We
must support the largest developing democracies in the region, Brazil and
Mexico, and deepen economic and strategic cooperation with Argentina and
Chile. We must also continue to cooperate with our allies in Colombia, Central
America, and the Caribbean to combat the interconnected threats of drug
trafficking, crime, and insurgency. Finally, we must work with our allies to
provide sustainable-development programs that promote economic opportunity
and reduce inequality for the citizens of Latin America.
Equally important are the growing ranks of democracies in Africa—some

established, some new—which will be the engines of Africa's future. We should
target these countries for aid and other forms of support and work with them to
strengthen regional institutions such as the African Union. The AU seeks to
emulate the European Union by requiring and supporting democracy among its
members, but it has a long way to go. It has thus far failed even to denounce the
blatant political corruption and brutality of Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe. It must
also develop the ability to act with sufficient strength and speed to stop mass
atrocities, such as those in Darfur.
Our interests in Africa are strategic, not just humanitarian. They include al
Qaeda's efforts to seek safe havens in failed states in the Horn of Africa and the
growing competition with other global players, including China, for Africa's
natural resources. The long-term solution, for us as well as for Africa, is to help
Africans develop both the will and the capability to address their own problems
and help the continent live up to its vast potential.
BUILDING THE WORLD WE WANT
To build the world we want, we must begin by speaking honestly about the
problems we face. We will have to talk about the consequences of our invasion of
Iraq for the Iraqi people and others in the region. We will have to talk about
Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib. We will also have to take concrete steps to enhance
security and spread opportunity throughout the world.
Education is the foundation of economic opportunity and should lie at the heart of
America's foreign assistance efforts. More than 100 million children in the
developing world are not in school. Another 150 million drop out before they
finish grade school. By failing these children, we sow the seeds of lost
generations. As president, I will press for quick passage of the Education for All
Act, which would provide $10 billion over a five-year period to train teachers and
build schools in the developing world. This program would channel funds to those
countries that provide the best plans for how to use them and rigorously measure
performance to ensure that our dollars deliver results for children.
The fight against HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and other dreaded diseases is
both a moral imperative and a practical necessity. These diseases have created a
generation of orphans and set back economic and political progress by decades in
many countries.
These problems often seem overwhelming, but we can solve them with the
combined resources of governments, the private sector, nongovernmental
organizations, and charities such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. We
can set specific targets in areas such as expanding access to primary education,
providing clean water, reducing child and maternal mortality, and reversing the
spread of HIV/AIDS and other diseases. We can strengthen the International
Labor Organization in order to enforce labor standards, just as we strengthened
the World Trade Organization to enforce trade agreements. Such policies
demonstrate that by doing good we can do well. This sort of investment and
diplomacy will yield results for the United States, building goodwill even in places
where our standing has suffered.
We must also take threats and turn them into opportunities. The seemingly
overwhelming challenge of climate change is a prime example. Far from being a
drag on global growth, climate control represents a powerful economic
opportunity that can be a driver of growth, jobs, and competitive advantage in the
twenty-first century. As president, I will make the fight against global warming a
priority. We cannot solve the climate crisis alone, and the rest of the world cannot
solve it without us. The United States must reengage in international climate
change negotiations and provide the leadership needed to reach a binding global
climate agreement. But we must first restore our own credibility on the issue.
Rapidly emerging countries, such as China, will not curb their own carbon
emissions until the United States has demonstrated a serious commitment to
reducing its own through a market-based cap-and-trade approach.
We must also help developing nations build efficient and environmentally

sustainable domestic energy infrastructures. Two-thirds of the growth in energy
demand over the next 25 years will come from countries with little existing
infrastructure. Many opportunities exist here as well: Mali is electrifying rural
communities with solar power, Malawi is developing a biomass energy strategy,
and all of Africa can provide carbon credits to the West.
Finally, we must create formal links between the International Energy Agency and
China and India and create an "E-8" international forum modeled on the G-8. This
group would be comprised of the world's major carbon-emitting nations and hold
an annual summit devoted to international ecological and resource issues.
The world we want is also a world where human rights are respected. By
surrendering our values in the name of our safety, the Bush administration has
left Americans wondering whether its rhetoric about freedom around the world
still applies back home. We have undercut international support for fighting
terrorism by suggesting that the job cannot be done without humiliation,
infringements on basic rights to privacy and free speech, and even torture. We
must once again make human rights a centerpiece of U.S. foreign policy and a
core element of our conception of democracy.
Human rights will never truly be realized as long as a majority of the world's
population is still treated as second-class citizens. Twelve years ago, the UN
convened a historic conference on women in Beijing, where I was proud to
represent our country and to proclaim that women's rights are human rights.
Since then, women have been elected heads of state in countries on nearly every
continent. Thanks to the United States, many, but not yet all, Afghan women have
been liberated from one of the most tyrannical and repressive regimes of our day
and are now in schools, in the work force, and in parliament.
Yet progress in key areas has lagged, as evidenced by the continuing spread of
trafficking in women, the ongoing use of rape as an instrument of war, the
political marginalization of women, and persistent gender gaps in employment
and economic opportunity. U.S. leadership, including a commitment to
incorporate the promotion of women's rights in our bilateral relationships and
international aid programs, is essential not just to improving the lives of women
but to strengthening the families, communities, and societies in which they live.
REVIVING THE AMERICAN IDEA
Seasoned, clear-eyed leadership can take us far. We must draw on all the
dimensions of American power and reject false choices driven by ideology rather
than facts. An America that rebuilds its strength and recovers its principles will be
an America that can spread the blessings of security and opportunity around the
world.
In 1825, 50 years after the Battle of Bunker Hill, the great secretary of state
Daniel Webster laid the cornerstone of the Bunker Hill Monument that stands
today in Boston. He exulted in the simple fact that America had survived and
flourished, and he celebrated "the benefit which the example of our country has
produced, and is likely to produce, on human freedom and human happiness." He
gloried not in American power but rather in the power of the American idea, the
idea that "with wisdom and knowledge men may govern themselves." And he
urged his audience, and all Americans, to maintain this example and "take care
that nothing may weaken its authority with the world."
Two centuries later, our economic power and military might have grown beyond
anything that our forefathers could have imagined. But that power and might can
only be sustained and renewed if we can regain our authority with the world, the
authority not simply of a large and wealthy nation but of the American idea. If we
can live up to that idea, if we can exercise our power wisely and well, we can
make America great again.
Hillary Rodham Clinton, a U.S. Senator from New York, is a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.
November 1,2007
An Enduring Peace Built on
Freedom
Securing America's Future
John McCain

Supporters cheer for U.S. Republican presidential nominee Senator John McCain at a campaign rally in
Dayton, Ohio, October 27, 2008.
Since the dawn of our republic, Americans have believed that our nation was
created for a purpose. We are, as Alexander Hamilton said, "a people of great
destinies." From the American Revolution to the Cold War, Americans have
understood their duty to serve a cause greater than self-interest and to keep faith
with the eternal and universal principles of the Declaration of Independence. By
overcoming threats to our nation's survival and to our way of life, and by seizing
history's great opportunities, Americans have changed the world.
Now it is this generation's turn to restore and replenish the world's faith in our
nation and our principles. President Harry Truman once said of America, "God has
created us and brought us to our present position of power and strength for some
great purpose." In his time, that great purpose was to erect the structures of
peace and prosperity that provided safe passage through the Cold War. In the
face of new dangers and opportunities, our next president will have a mandate to
build an enduring global peace on the foundations of freedom, security,
opportunity, prosperity, and hope.
America needs a president who can revitalize our country's purpose and standing
in the world, defeat terrorist adversaries who threaten liberty at home and
abroad, and build enduring peace. There is an enormous amount to do. Our wars
in Iraq and Afghanistan have been costly in blood and treasure and in other less
tangible ways as well. Our next president will need to rally nations across the
world around common causes as only America can. There will be no time for on-
the-job training. Given the present dangers, our country cannot afford the kind of
malaise, drift, and fecklessness that followed the Vietnam War. The next president
must be prepared to lead America and the world to victory—and to seize the
opportunities afforded by the unprecedented liberty and prosperity in the world
today to build a peace that will last a century.
WINNING THE WAR ON TERROR
Defeating radical Islamist extremists is the national security challenge of our

time. Iraq is this war's central front, according to our commander there, General
David Petraeus, and according to our enemies, including al Qaeda's leadership.
The recent years of mismanagement and failure in Iraq demonstrate that America
should go to war only with sufficient troop levels and with a realistic and
comprehensive plan for success. We did not do so in Iraq, and our country and the
people of Iraq have paid a dear price. Only after four years of conflict did the
United States adopt a counterinsurgency strategy, backed by increased force
levels, that gives us a realistic chance of success. We cannot get those years back,
and now the only responsible action for any presidential candidate is to look
forward and outline the strategic posture in Iraq that is most likely to protect U.S.
national interests.
So long as we can succeed in Iraq—and I believe that we can—we must succeed.

The consequences of failure would be horrific: a historic loss at the hands of
Islamist extremists who, after having defeated the Soviet Union in Afghanistan
and the United States in Iraq, will believe that the world is going their way and
that anything is possible; a failed state in the heart of the Middle East providing
sanctuary for terrorists; a civil war that could quickly develop into a regional
conflict and even genocide; a decisive end to the prospect of a modern democracy
in Iraq, for which large Iraqi majorities have repeatedly voted; and an invitation
for Iran to dominate Iraq and the region even more.
Whether success grows closer or more distant over the coming months, it is clear
that Iraq will be a central issue for the next U.S. president. Democratic candidates
have promised to withdraw U.S. troops and "end the war" by fiat, regardless of
the consequences. To make such decisions based on the political winds at home,
rather than on the realities in the theater, is to court disaster. The war in Iraq
cannot be wished away, and it is a miscalculation of historic magnitude to believe
that the consequences of failure will be limited to one administration or one party.
This is an American war, and its outcome will touch every one of our citizens for
years to come.
That is why I support our continuing efforts to win in Iraq. It is also why I oppose
a preemptive withdrawal strategy that has no Plan B for the aftermath of its
inevitable failure and the greater problems that would ensue.
What happens in Iraq will also affect Afghanistan. There has been progress in
Afghanistan: over two million refugees have returned, the welfare of Afghan
citizens has meaningfully improved, and historic elections took place in 2004. The
Taliban's recent resurgence, however, threatens to lead Afghanistan to revert to
its pre-9/11 role as a sanctuary for terrorists with global reach. Our
recommitment to Afghanistan must include increasing NATO forces, suspending
the debilitating restrictions on when and how those forces can fight, expanding
the training and equipping of the Afghan National Army through a long-term
partnership with NATO to make it more professional and multiethnic, and
deploying significantly more foreign police trainers. It must also address the
current political deficiencies in judicial reform, reconstruction, governance, and
anticorruption efforts.
Success in Afghanistan is critical to stopping al Qaeda, but success in neighboring

Pakistan is just as vital. We must continue to work with President Pervez
Musharraf to dismantle the cells and camps that the Taliban and al Qaeda
maintain in his country. These groups still have sanctuaries there, and the
"Talibanization" of Pakistani society is advancing. The United States must help
Pakistan resist the forces of extremism by making a long-term commitment to the
country. This would mean enhancing Pakistan's ability to act against insurgent
safe havens and bring children into schools and out of extremist madrasahs and
supporting Pakistani moderates.
Our counterterrorism efforts cannot be limited to stateless groups operating in

safe havens. Iran, the world's chief state sponsor of terrorism, continues its
deadly quest for nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them. Protected by a
nuclear arsenal, Iran would be even more willing and able to sponsor terrorist
attacks against any perceived enemy, including the United States and Israel, or
even to pass nuclear materials to one of its allied terrorist networks. The next
president must confront this threat directly, and that effort must begin with
tougher political and economic sanctions. If the United Nations is unwilling to act,
the United States must lead a group of like-minded countries to impose effective
multilateral sanctions, such as restrictions on exports of refined gasoline, outside
the UN framework. America and its partners should also privatize the sanctions
effort by supporting a disinvestment campaign to isolate and delegitimize the
regime in Tehran, whose policies are already opposed by many Iranian citizens.
And military action, although not the preferred option, must remain on the table:
Tehran must understand that it cannot win a showdown with the world.
Meanwhile, in view of the increased threats to Israel—from Iran, Hezbollah,

Hamas, and others—the next U.S. president must continue America's long-
standing support for Israel, including by providing needed military equipment and
technology and ensuring that Israel maintains its qualitative military edge. The
long-elusive quest for peace between Israel and the Palestinians must remain a
priority. But the goal must be genuine peace, and so Hamas must be isolated even
as the United States intensifies its commitment to finding an enduring settlement.
Defeating the terrorists who already threaten America is vital, but just as
important is preventing a new generation of them from joining the fight. As
president, I will employ every economic, diplomatic, political, legal, and
ideological tool at our disposal to aid moderate Muslims—women's rights
campaigners, labor leaders, lawyers, journalists, teachers, tolerant imams, and
many others—who are resisting the well-financed campaign of extremism that is
tearing Muslim societies apart. My administration, with its partners, will help
friendly Muslim states establish the building blocks of open and tolerant societies.
And we will nurture a culture of hope and economic opportunity by establishing a
free-trade area from Morocco to Afghanistan, open to all who do not sponsor
terrorism.
DEFENDING THE HOMELAND
In 1947, the Truman administration launched a massive overhaul of the nation's

foreign policy, defense, and intelligence agencies to meet the challenges of the
Cold War. Today, we must do the same to meet the challenges of the twenty-first
century. Our armed forces are seriously overstretched and underresourced. As
president, I will increase the size of the U.S. Army and the Marine Corps from the
currently planned level of roughly 750,000 troops to 900,000 troops. Enhancing
recruitment will require more resources and will take time, but it must be done as
soon as possible.
Along with more personnel, our military needs additional equipment in order to
make up for its recent losses and modernize. We can partially offset some of this
additional investment by cutting wasteful spending. But we can also afford to
spend more on national defense, which currently consumes less than four cents of
every dollar that our economy generates—far less than what we spent during the
Cold War. We must also accelerate the transformation of our military, which is
still configured to fight enemies that no longer exist.
America needs not simply more soldiers but more soldiers with the skills
necessary to help friendly governments and their security forces resist common
foes. I will create an Army Advisory Corps with 20,000 soldiers to partner with
militaries abroad, and I will increase the number of U.S. personnel available to
engage in Special Forces operations, civil affairs activities, military policing, and
military intelligence. We also need a nonmilitary deployable police force to train
foreign forces and help maintain law and order in places threatened by state
collapse.
Today, understanding foreign cultures is not a luxury but a strategic necessity. As

president, I will launch a crash program in civilian and military schools to prepare
more experts in critical languages such as Arabic, Chinese, Farsi, and Pashto.
Students at our service academies should be required to study abroad. I will
enlarge the military's Foreign Area Officer program and create a new specialty in
strategic interrogation in order to produce more interrogators who can obtain
critical knowledge from detainees by using advanced psychological techniques,
rather than the kind of abusive tactics properly prohibited by the Geneva
Conventions.
I will set up a new agency patterned after the erstwhile Office of Strategic
Services. A modern-day OSS could draw together specialists in unconventional
warfare, civil affairs, and psychological warfare; covert-action operators; and
experts in anthropology, advertising, and other relevant disciplines from inside
and outside government. Like the original OSS, this would be a small, nimble,
can-do organization. It would fight terrorist subversion around the world and in
cyberspace. It could take risks that our bureaucracies today rarely consider
taking—such as deploying infiltrating agents without diplomatic cover in terrorist
states and organizations—and play a key role in frontline efforts to rebuild failed
states.
As we increase our military capacity, we must also enhance our civilian capacity.
As president, I will energize and expand our postconflict reconstruction
capabilities so that any military campaign would be complemented by a civilian
"surge" that would build the political and economic foundations of peace. To
better coordinate our disparate military and civilian operations, I will ask
Congress for a civilian follow-on to the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act, which
fostered a culture of joint operations within the military services. The new act
would create a framework for civil servants and military forces to train and work
together in order to facilitate cooperation in postconflict reconstruction.
We must also revitalize our public diplomacy. In 1998, the Clinton administration
and Congress mistakenly agreed to abolish the U.S. Information Agency and move
its public diplomacy functions to the State Department. This amounted to
unilateral disarmament in the war of ideas. I will work with Congress to create a
new independent agency with the sole purpose of getting America's message to
the world—a critical element in combating Islamic extremism and restoring the
positive image of our country abroad.
UNITING THE WORLD'S DEMOCRACIES
Our organizations and partnerships must be as international as the challenges we

confront. Today, U.S. soldiers are serving in Afghanistan with British, Canadian,
Dutch, German, Italian, Lithuanian, Polish, Spanish, and Turkish soldiers from the
NATO alliance. They are also serving alongside forces from Australia, Japan, New
Zealand, the Philippines, and South Korea—all democratic allies or close partners
of the United States. But these troops are not all part of a common structure.
They do not work together systematically or meet regularly to develop diplomatic
and economic strategies to meet the common challenges they face.
NATO has begun to fill this gap by promoting partnerships between the alliance
and great democracies in Asia and elsewhere. We should go further by linking
democratic nations in one common organization: a worldwide League of
Democracies. This would be unlike Woodrow Wilson's doomed plan for the
universal-membership League of Nations. Instead, it would be similar to what
Theodore Roosevelt envisioned: like-minded nations working together for peace
and liberty. The organization could act when the UN fails—to relieve human
suffering in places such as Darfur, combat HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa,
fashion better policies to confront environmental crises, provide unimpeded
market access to those who endorse economic and political freedom, and take
other measures unattainable by existing regional or universal-membership
systems.
This League of Democracies would not supplant the UN or other international

organizations but complement them by harnessing the political and moral
advantages offered by united democratic action. By taking steps such as bringing
concerted pressure to bear on tyrants in Burma (renamed Myanmar by its military
government in 1989) or Zimbabwe, uniting to impose sanctions on Iran, and
providing support to struggling democracies in Serbia and Ukraine, the League of
Democracies would serve as a unique handmaiden of freedom. If I am elected
president, during my first year in office I will call a summit of the world's
democracies to seek the views of my counterparts and explore the steps necessary
to realize this vision—just as America led in creating NATO six decades ago.
REVITALIZING THE TRANSATLANTIC PARTNERSHIP
The United States did not single-handedly win the Cold War; the transatlantic
alliance did, in concert with partners around the world. The bonds we share with
Europe in terms of history, values, and interests are unique. Unfortunately, they
have frayed. As president, one of my top foreign policy priorities will be to
revitalize the transatlantic partnership.
Americans should welcome the rise of a strong, confident European Union. The
future of the transatlantic relationship lies in confronting the challenges of the
twenty-first century worldwide: developing a common energy policy, creating a
transatlantic common market tying our economies more closely together, and
institutionalizing our cooperation on issues such as climate change, foreign
assistance, and democracy promotion.
A decade and a half ago, the Russian people threw off the tyranny of communism
and seemed determined to build a democracy and a free market and to join the
West. Today, we see in Russia diminishing political freedoms, a leadership
dominated by a clique of former intelligence officers, efforts to bully democratic
neighbors, such as Georgia, and attempts to manipulate Europe's dependence on
Russian oil and gas. We need a new Western approach to this revanchist Russia.
We should start by ensuring that the G-8, the group of eight highly industrialized
states, becomes again a club of leading market democracies: it should include
Brazil and India but exclude Russia. Rather than tolerate Russia's nuclear
blackmail or cyberattacks, Western nations should make clear that the solidarity
of NATO, from the Baltic to the Black Sea, is indivisible and that the
organization's doors remain open to all democracies committed to the defense of
freedom. We must also increase our programs supporting freedom and the rule of
law in Russia and emphasize that genuine partnership remains open to Moscow if
it desires it but that such a partnership would involve a commitment to being a
responsible actor, internationally and domestically.
More broadly, America needs to revive the democratic solidarity that united the
West during the Cold War. We cannot build an enduring peace based on freedom
by ourselves. We must be willing to listen to our democratic allies. Being a great
power does not mean that we can do whatever we want whenever we want, nor
should we assume that we have all the wisdom, knowledge, and resources
necessary to succeed. When we believe international action—whether military,
economic, or diplomatic—is necessary, we must work to persuade our friends and
allies that we are right. And we must also be willing to be persuaded by them. To
be a good leader, America must be a good ally.
SHAPING THE ASIA-PACIFIC CENTURY
Power in the world today is moving east; the Asia-Pacific region is on the rise. If
we grasp the opportunities present in the unfolding world, this century can
become safe and both American and Asian, both prosperous and free.
Asia has made enormous strides in recent decades. Its economic achievements
are well known; less known is that more people live under democratic rule in Asia
than in any other region of the world. Japan's former prime minister spoke of an
"arc of freedom and prosperity" stretching across Asia. India's prime minister has
called liberal democracy "the natural order of social and political organization in
today's world." Asian countries are drawing closer together, striking trade and
security agreements with one another and with other states.
North Korea's totalitarian regime and impoverished society buck these trends. It
is unclear today whether North Korea is truly committed to verifiable
denuclearization and a full accounting of all its nuclear materials and facilities,
two steps that are necessary before any lasting diplomatic agreement can be
reached. Future talks must take into account North Korea's ballistic missile
programs, its abduction of Japanese citizens, and its support for terrorism and
proliferation.
The key to meeting this and other challenges in a changing Asia is increasing
cooperation with our allies. The linchpin to the region's promise is continued
American engagement. I welcome Japan's international leadership and emergence
as a global power, encourage its admirable "values-based diplomacy," and support
its bid for permanent membership in the UN Security Council. As president, I will
tend carefully to our ever-stronger alliance with Australia, whose troops are
fighting shoulder to shoulder with ours in Afghanistan and Iraq. I will seek to
rebuild our frayed partnership with South Korea by emphasizing economic and
security cooperation and will cement our growing partnership with India.
In Southeast Asia, I will seek an elevated partnership with Indonesia and continue
to expand defense cooperation with Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and
Vietnam while working with willing regional partners to promote democracy;
defeat the threats of terrorism, crime, and the narcotics trade; and end Burma's
deplorable human rights abuses. The United States should participate more
actively in Asian regional organizations, including those led by members of the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations. As president, I will seek to institutionalize
the new quadrilateral security partnership among the major Asia-Pacific
democracies: Australia, India, Japan, and the United States.
Dealing with a rising China will be a central challenge for the next American
president. Recent prosperity in China has brought more people out of poverty
faster than during any other time in human history. China's newfound power
implies responsibilities. It raises legitimate expectations that internationally China
will behave as a responsible economic partner by developing a transparent code
of conduct for its corporations, assuring the safety of its exports, adopting a
market approach to currency valuation, pursuing sustainable environmental
policies, and abandoning its go-it-alone approach to world energy supplies.
China could also bolster its claim that it is "peacefully rising" by being more
transparent about its significant military buildup. When China builds new
submarines, adds hundreds of new jet fighters, modernizes its arsenal of strategic
ballistic missiles, and tests antisatellite weapons, the United States legitimately
must question the intent of such provocative acts. When China threatens
democratic Taiwan with a massive arsenal of missiles and warlike rhetoric, the
United States must take note. When China enjoys close economic and diplomatic
relations with pariah states such as Burma, Sudan, and Zimbabwe, tension will
result. When China proposes regional forums and economic arrangements
designed to exclude America from Asia, the United States will react.
China and the United States are not destined to be adversaries. We have
numerous overlapping interests. U.S.-Chinese relations can benefit both countries
and, in turn, the Asia-Pacific region and the world. But until China moves toward
political liberalization, our relationship will be based on periodically shared
interests rather than the bedrock of shared values.
The United States should set the standard for trade liberalization in Asia.
Completing free-trade agreements with Malaysia and Thailand, realizing the full
potential of our new trade agreement with South Korea, and institutionalizing
economic partnerships with India and Indonesia so that they build on existing
agreements with Australia and Singapore should set the stage for an ambitious
Pacific-wide effort to liberalize trade. Such trade liberalization would benefit
Americans and Asians alike.
BUILDING A HEMISPHERE OF PEACE AND PROSPERITY
John F. Kennedy described the people of Latin America as our "firm and ancient
friends, united by history and experience and by our determination to advance the
values of American civilization." The countries of Latin America are our natural
partners, but U.S. inattention has harmed our relationships. We must enhance
U.S. relations with Mexico to control illegal immigration and defeat drug cartels,
and with Brazil, a partner whose leadership in the UN peacekeeping force in Haiti
is a model for fostering regional security. My administration would give these and
other great democratic Latin American nations a strong voice in the League of
Democracies—a voice they are denied in the UN Security Council.
We must also work together to counter the propaganda of demagogues who

threaten the security and prosperity of the Americas. Hugo Chávez has overseen
the dismantling of Venezuela's democracy by undermining the parliament, the
judiciary, the media, free labor unions, and private enterprises. His regime is
acquiring advanced military equipment. And it is trying to build a global anti-
American axis. My administration will work to marginalize such nefarious
influences. It will also prepare immediately for Cuba's transition to democracy by
developing a plan with regional and European partners for a post-Castro Cuba so
as to be ready to spark rapid change in that long-suffering country when the time
comes. We must build on the passage of the Central America Free Trade
Agreement by ratifying pending trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and
Peru and move the process of completing a Free Trade Area of the Americas
forward.
AIDING AN AFRICAN RENAISSANCE
Africa's problems—poverty, corruption, disease, and instability—are well known.

Less discussed is the promise offered by many countries on that continent. My
administration will seek to engage on a political, economic, and security level with
friendly governments across Africa. Many African nations will not reach their true
potential without external assistance to combat the entrenched problems, such as
HIV/AIDS, that afflict Africans disproportionately. I will establish the goal of
eradicating malaria—the number one killer of African children under the age of
five—on the continent. In addition to saving millions of lives in the world's poorest
regions, such a campaign would do much to add luster to America's image in the
world. These and other efforts, including enhancing trade and investment, would
assist Africans in sparking a renaissance that would enable the continent's people
to achieve their potential.
Africa continues to offer the most compelling case for humanitarian intervention.
With respect to the Darfur region of Sudan, I fear that the United States is once
again repeating the mistakes it made in Bosnia and Rwanda. In Bosnia, we acted
late but eventually saved countless lives. In Rwanda, we stood by and watched the
slaughter and later pledged that we would not do so again. The genocide in
Darfur demands U.S. leadership. My administration will consider the use of all
elements of American power to stop the outrageous acts of human destruction
that have unfolded there.
PREVENTING NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION
The nuclear nonproliferation regime is broken for one clear reason: the mistaken
assumption behind the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) that nuclear
technology can spread without nuclear weapons eventually following. The next
U.S. president must convene a summit of the world's leading powers—none of
which have an interest in seeing a world full of nuclear-armed states—with three
agenda items. First, the notion that non-nuclear-weapons states have a right to
nuclear technology must be revisited. Second, the burden of proof for suspected
violators of the NPT must be reversed. Instead of requiring the International
Atomic Energy Agency board to reach unanimous agreement in order to act, as is
the case today, there should be an automatic suspension of nuclear assistance to
states that the agency cannot guarantee are in full compliance with safeguard
agreements. Finally, the IAEA's annual budget of $130 million must be
substantially increased so that the agency can meet its monitoring and
safeguarding tasks.
SECURING ENERGY AND SAVING THE ENVIRONMENT
America's dependence on foreign oil constitutes a critical strategic vulnerability.

America accounts for 25 percent of global demand for oil but possesses less than
three percent of the world's proven reserves. Most of the world's known reserves
are in the Persian Gulf, in the hands of dictators or nationalized oil companies.
Terrorists understand our vulnerability: had it succeeded, the attempted suicide
attack on a Saudi refinery in February 2006 would have driven the world price of
oil above $150 per barrel. The transfer of American wealth to the Middle East
through continued oil purchases helps sustain the conditions under which
extremism breeds, and the burning of oil and other fossil fuels spurs global
warming, a gathering danger to our planet.
My national energy strategy will amount to a declaration of independence from

our reliance on oil sheiks and our vulnerability to their troubled politics. This
strategy will include employing technology to achieve new efficiencies in energy
extraction and consumption, enforcing conservation, creating market incentives
to encourage the development of alternative sources of energy and hybrid
vehicles, and expanding sources of renewable energy. I will also greatly increase
the use of nuclear power, a zero-emission energy source. Given the proper
incentives, our innovators, scientists, entrepreneurs, and workers have the
capability to lead the world in achieving energy security; given the stakes, they
must.
I have proposed a bipartisan plan in the U.S. Senate to address the problem of
climate change and ensure a sustainable future for humankind. My market-based
approach will set reasonable caps on emissions of carbon dioxide and other
greenhouse gases, provide industries with tradable emissions credits, and create
other incentives for the deployment of new and better energy sources and
technologies. It is time for America to lead the world in protecting the
environment for future generations.
PREPARING TO LEAD
As president, I will make America's economic leadership in the globalized world of

the twenty-first century a centerpiece of its engagement in foreign affairs. Today,
from Singapore to South Africa, more people than ever before have embraced our
liberal capitalist model of economic freedom and our culture of opportunity. Some
Americans see globalization and the rise of economic giants such as China and
India as a threat. We should reform our job training and education programs to
more effectively help displaced American workers find new jobs that take
advantage of trade and innovation. But we should continue to promote free trade,
as it is vital to American prosperity. Americans will thrive in a world of economic
freedom because our products and services remain the best and because our
country draws strength from the forces shaping the new global economy, ranging
from inflows of foreign investment to new businesses created by highly skilled
immigrants. Americans can be confident that a world of economic and political
freedom will sustain our global leadership by promoting our values and enhancing
our prosperity. To unite us with friends and allies in a common prosperity, as
president I will aggressively promote global trade liberalization at the World
Trade Organization and expand America's free-trade agreements to friendly
nations on every continent.
American leadership has helped build a world that is more secure, more
prosperous, and freer than ever before. Our unique form of leadership—the
antithesis of empire—gives us moral credibility, which is more powerful than any
show of arms. We are rich in people and resources but richer still in ideals and
vision—and the means to realize them. Yet today much of the world has come to
challenge our actions and doubt our intentions. Polls indicate that the United
States is more unpopular now than at any time in history and increasingly viewed
as pursuing its narrow self-interest. The people who hold these views are wrong.
We are a special nation, the closest thing to a "shining city on a hill" ever to have
existed. But it is incumbent on us to restore our mantle as a global leader,
reestablish our moral credibility, and rebuild those damaged relationships that
once brought so much good to so many places.
As president, I will seek the widest possible circle of allies through the League of
Democracies, NATO, the UN, and the Organization of American States. During
President Ronald Reagan's deployment of intermediate-range nuclear missiles and
President George H. W. Bush's Gulf War, the United States was joined by vast
coalitions despite considerable opposition to American policies among foreign
publics. These alliances came about because America had carefully cultivated
relationships and shared values with its friends abroad. Working multilaterally
can be a frustrating experience, but approaching problems with allies works far
better than facing problems alone.
Almost two centuries ago, James Madison declared that "the great struggle of the
Epoch" was "between liberty and despotism." Many thought that this struggle
ended with the Cold War, but it did not. It has taken on new guises, such as
Islamist terrorists using our technological advances for their murderous designs
and resurgent autocrats reminiscent of the nineteenth century. International
terrorists capable of inflicting mass destruction are a new phenomenon. But what
they seek and what they stand for are as old as time. They are part of a worldwide
political, economic, and philosophical struggle between the future and the past,
progress and reaction, liberty and despotism. Our security, our prosperity, and
our democratic way of life depend on the outcome of that struggle.
Thomas Jefferson argued that America was the "solitary republic of the world, the
only monument of human rights, and the sole depository of the sacred fire of
freedom and self-government, from hence it is to be lighted up in other regions of
the earth, if other regions of the earth shall ever become susceptible of its benign
influence." Since that time two centuries ago when the United States was the
"solitary republic of the world," more people than ever before have come under
the "benign influence" of liberty. The protection and promotion of the democratic
ideal, at home and abroad, will be the surest source of security and peace for the
century that lies before us. The next U.S. president must be ready to lead, ready
to show America and the world that this country's best days are yet to come, and
ready to establish an enduring peace based on freedom that can safeguard
American security for the rest of the twenty-first century. I am ready.
John McCain, a U.S. Senator from Arizona, is a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination.
November 1,2007
A New Realism
A Realistic and Principled Foreign Policy
Bill Richardson
JOSHUA LOTT /REUTERS

Democratic Presidential candidates and U.S. Senator Barack Obama; Bill Richardson, governor of New
Mexico; and U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton stand for the National Anthem during the 30th annual Harkin Steak
Fry in Indianola, Iowa, September 16, 2007.
Sixty years ago, in the pages of this magazine, George Kennan presented a
compelling case for U.S. global engagement and leadership to contain Soviet
power. His strategic vision laid the foundation for a realistic and principled
foreign policy that, despite mistakes and setbacks, united the United States and
its allies for the duration of the Cold War.
In the wake of the Bush administration's failed experiment with unilateralism, the
United States needs once again to construct a foreign policy that is based on
reality and loyal to American values. Such a policy must address the challenges of
our time with effective actions rather than naive hopes. And it must unite us
because it is inspired by the ideals of our nation rather than by the ideology of a
president.
In his July 1947 "X" article, Kennan argued that the United States must meet
Soviet power with American power and communist ideology with credible
democratic leadership. He understood that containing Soviet communism would
require strong American international leadership and that such leadership would
depend on the power of our military, the dynamism of our economy, and the
courage of our convictions. This strategic vision—because it was based on
fundamental realities and fundamental American values—informed the policies
not only of Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower but also of every president,
Democratic or Republican, for two generations.
America is a great nation that knows how to defend itself. But its greatness is
built on foundations more solid than self-absorption. We defend ourselves best
when we lead others, and the key to our history of effective leadership has been
our willingness to seek and find common ground, to blend our interests with the
interests of others. Truman and Eisenhower understood that defending Europe
and America from the Soviets required a strong military, but they also understood
that we could not lead our allies if they did not wish to follow.
These and subsequent American presidents knew the importance of moral

leadership. While our remarkable military and prosperous economy gave us the
power to lead, our commitment to human dignity—including our willingness to
struggle against our own prejudices—inspired others to follow. If America is to
lead again, we need to remember this history and to rebuild our overextended
military, revive our alliances, and restore our reputation as a nation that respects
international law, human rights, and civil liberties.
Today, we are at the beginning of a new era of unprecedented global

opportunities and global threats. New challenges demand that we chart a new
strategic course. To do so, we must reject easy ideological recipes and examine
carefully the assumptions that guided us in the twentieth century. We must assess
what it means to be America in the world of today—a world of rapid economic and
technological change, grave and worsening energy and environmental risks, and
the simultaneous emergence of new world powers and asymmetric security
challenges.
In the twenty-first century, globalization in all its forms is eroding the significance
of national boundaries. Many of the greatest challenges that we face—from
jihadism to nuclear proliferation to global warming—are not faced only by us.
Urgent problems that once were national are now global, and dangers that once
came only from states now come also from societies—not from hostile
governments but from hostile individuals or impersonal social trends, such as the
consumption of fossil fuels.
American foreign policy must be able to cope effectively with these realities. We
must reject both isolationist fantasies of retreat from global engagement and
neoconservative fantasies of transforming other countries through the unilateral
application of American military power. Our policy also must go beyond the
balance-of-power realism of the last century. In this new, interdependent world,
we need a New Realism—one driven by an understanding that to defend our
national interests, we must, more than ever, find common ground with others, so
that we can lead them toward our common purposes.
Looking reality in the face also requires recognizing that because of the failures of
the Bush administration, U.S. influence and prestige are at all-time lows. The
damage is extensive: in an age of terrorism, when we need all the friends we can
get, we find ourselves isolated. The Bush administration's policies have weakened
our alliances, emboldened our enemies, depleted our treasury, exhausted our
armed forces, and fueled global anger against us. From global warming to
weapons of mass destruction (WMD) to the number of troops that would be
needed to pacify Iraq, this president has preferred ideology to evidence. He has
been unwilling to accept that leadership requires not just the power to destroy
but also the power to persuade. Rather than doing the hard, patient, necessary
work of strategic diplomacy, he has indulged the fantasy that he could reorder the
world through unilateralism and bullying.
The Bush administration's foreign policy also has lacked sound principles. The
president has regularly employed the rhetoric of the virtuous, but his actions have
not matched his words. Moralizing has substituted for moral leadership, lecturing
others about democracy has substituted for respecting democratic values. George
W. Bush has claimed to be championing democracy, but the rest of the world sees
a great nation diminished by secret prisons, torture, and warrantless wiretapping.
And every day that we remain mired in Iraq, the world is reminded of the folly,
the dishonesty, and the disregard for the opinions of others that got us there.
The next president needs to send a clear signal to the world that America has
turned the corner and will once again be a leader rather than a unilateralist loner.
To do this, the new president must first end the Iraq war. We need to withdraw all
our troops and embrace a decisive new political strategy that engages all the
nations of the region, as well as the international donor community. Only when we
have done this can we begin the hard work of rebuilding our military and our
alliances and restoring our tarnished reputation—so that we can move forward
and lead the world in addressing urgent global problems.
THE NEW CHALLENGES OF A NEW CENTURY
Getting out of Iraq and restoring our reputation and leadership capacities are
necessary first steps toward a new strategy of U.S. global engagement and
leadership. But these steps alone are not enough. To address new problems
effectively, we must first understand them in all of their complexity. We must
question old assumptions, break old paradigms, and embrace new approaches
equal to our new tasks. Six trends are transforming the world today.
The first trend is fanatical jihadism bursting from an increasingly unstable and
violent greater Middle East. This trend had been growing for years, but the
invasion and collapse of Iraq have greatly fueled its rise. A second trend
transforming the world (in ways still not well understood by the public) is the
growing power and sophistication of criminal networks capable of disrupting the
global economy and trafficking in WMD.
Together, these two trends raise the frightening specter of nuclear terrorism. We
know that al Qaeda has tried to acquire nuclear weapons and that the Pakistani
nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan sold nuclear technology to rogue states. We know
that parts of the former Soviet nuclear arsenal still are not secure and that
nuclear materials are scattered around the world in dozens of countries and
hundreds of locations, some of them no more secure than a grocery store. The
proliferation of nuclear weapons to new countries, especially North Korea, has
further increased the opportunities for jihadists to obtain them, as has the
diffusion of nuclear energy technologies that can be converted for use in weapons
programs. Iran, a nation with close ties to the world's most skilled terrorist
organization, Hezbollah, is enriching uranium. And al Qaeda has said that it
wishes to kill four million Americans, including two million children. In its
madness, it claims that such a slaughter of innocents would "balance the scales of
justice" for crimes that it alleges we have committed against Muslims. We would
be mad not to take it at its word.
A third trend transforming the world is the rapid rise of Asian economic and
military power. India and China are destined to be global powers in the decades
ahead—one as a democracy, the other not. And a fourth trend is the reemergence
of Russia as an assertive global and regional player with a large nuclear arsenal
and control over energy resources—and one tempted by authoritarianism and
militant nationalism. The rise of India and China and the reemergence of Russia
call for U.S. strategic leadership to integrate these powerful nuclear-armed
nations into a stable global order.
A fifth trend transforming our world is the increase in global economic
interdependence and financial imbalances without the sufficient growth of
institutional capacities to manage these realities. Globalization has made every
country's economy more vulnerable to resource constraints and financial shocks
that originate beyond its borders. A global energy crisis or a sudden collapse of
the U.S. dollar could do great damage to the world economy.
The sixth trend we face is that of grave global environmental and health
problems. Climate change and pandemics such as AIDS do not respect national
borders. Poverty, ethnic conflict, and overpopulation spill over national
boundaries, feeding into a growing underground economy of money launderers,
counterfeiters, and smugglers of drugs, arms, and human beings.
Together, these six trends present us with problems that are international and
societal in their origins—and that, accordingly, will require international and
societal solutions. They also demand political leadership that only the United
States, the sole superpower, can provide. If the world succeeds in defeating
jihadism, preventing nuclear terrorism, integrating rising powers into a stable
order, protecting the stability of global financial markets, and fighting global
environmental and health threats, the United States will deserve much of the
credit. If the world fails to meet these challenges, the United States will deserve
much of the blame.
A NEW REALISM
To cope with this new world, we need a New Realism in our foreign policy—an
ethical, principled realism that harbors no illusions about the importance of a
strong military in a dangerous world but that also understands the importance of
diplomacy and multilateral cooperation. We need a New Realism based on the
understanding that what goes on inside of other countries profoundly impacts
us—but that we can only influence, not control, what goes on inside of other
countries. A New Realism for the twenty-first century must understand that to
solve our own problems, we need to work with other governments that respect
and trust us.
To be effective in the coming decades, America must set the following priorities.
First and foremost, we must rebuild our alliances. We cannot lead other nations
toward solutions to shared problems if they do not trust our leadership. We need
to restore respect and appreciation for our allies—and for the democratic values
that unite us—if we are to work with them to solve global problems. We must
restore our commitment to international law and to multilateral cooperation. This
means respecting both the letter and the spirit of the Geneva Conventions and
joining the International Criminal Court (ICC). It means expanding the United
Nations Security Council to include Germany, India, Japan, a country from Latin
America, and a country from Africa as permanent members.
We must be impeccable in our own respect for human rights. We should reward
countries that live up to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as we
negotiate, constructively but firmly, with those who do not. And when genocide or
other grave human rights violations begin, the United States should lead the
world to stop them. History teaches that if the United States does not take the
lead on ending genocide, no one else will. The norm of absolute territorial
sovereignty is moot when national governments partner with those who rape,
torture, and kill masses of people. The United States should lead the world toward
acceptance of a greater norm of respect for basic human rights—and toward
enforcing that norm through international institutions and multilateral measures.
We need to start taking human rights in Africa particularly seriously, because the
two worst genocides in recent history have taken place there, in Rwanda and now
in Darfur. We failed to stop the killing in Rwanda, and for years we have failed to
stop the killing in Darfur. America must hold itself to a higher standard of
leadership. The United States should have sent a special envoy as soon as the
mass killings began in Darfur. We could still do more to mobilize multilateral
pressure on the Sudanese government and on China, which has great influence
over Sudan. It is shameful that the Bush administration continues to wring its
hands over Darfur when it is within our power to do something.
In the long run, I believe that the most important tool to stop human rights
violators will be the ICC. If the United States joined the ICC and supported it
enthusiastically, the calculus of leaders who engage in or allow crimes against
humanity to take place would change. A strong ICC would hold criminal leaders
accountable. When all else fails, the United States also should take the lead in
providing military support to local and regional forces opposing genocide and in
assembling multilateral interventions to stop the killing.
The United States must also be the leader, not the laggard, in global efforts to
reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We must embrace the Kyoto Protocol on global
warming and then go well beyond it. We must lead the world with a man-on-the-
moon effort to improve energy efficiency and to commercialize clean, alternative
technologies. We must implement an ambitious national cap-and-trade system to
cut our fossil fuel consumption dramatically and negotiate an equally ambitious
and binding global agreement to get others, most urgently China and India, to
follow us into a sustainable-energy future. I have developed these ideas in detail
in my energy plan, which environmental groups agree is the most ambitious plan
presented by any presidential candidate.
The United States needs to stop considering diplomatic engagement with others
to be a reward for good behavior. The Bush administration's long refusal to
engage diplomatically regimes such as Pyongyang and Tehran only encouraged
and strengthened their most paranoid and hard-line tendencies. Both
governments, not surprisingly, responded to Washington's snubs and threats
about "regime change" by intensifying their nuclear programs.
THE REAL THREATS
Most urgently, we need to focus on the real security threats from which Iraq has
so dangerously diverted our attention. This means doing the hard work to build
strong coalitions to infiltrate and destroy terrorist networks, to stop nuclear
proliferation, and to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists. In the
twenty-first century, a nuclear threat will come not from a missile but from a
suitcase or a cargo hull. In such a world, nuclear security will not be achieved
with missile defense or a new generation of nuclear weapons. It will come through
tough, patient, determined diplomacy to secure fissile material worldwide.
Nuclear terrorism is the most serious security threat we face: nothing will stop
suicidal jihadists from using a nuclear bomb if they get their hands on one. Some
good things are already being done to improve global nuclear security. The
nuclear agreement with India, if the Indian Parliament approves it, will help bring
a great democracy, a natural ally of the United States, into the global nuclear
regime. The Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program has reduced the
danger from Russian loose nukes. Its budget should be increased and its timetable
accelerated. The Proliferation Security Initiative is also an effective program. But
the ease with which A. Q. Khan was able to obtain and distribute nuclear
technology demonstrates that the danger from loosely guarded nuclear materials
is global and will require a comprehensive, global solution.
The United States, as the leading nuclear power, must immediately lead a
comprehensive, global effort to reduce the number of nuclear weapons and the
amount of bomb-grade fissile material in the world, to consolidate and secure that
which remains, and to consolidate nuclear enrichment worldwide in a limited
number of highly secure facilities through a global-fuel-banking agreement. A
comprehensive strategy also must prevent the construction of any new power
plants that use highly enriched uranium.
If we want other countries to cooperate with us, we need to show that we are
willing to do our part. We should reaffirm the commitment we made to the long-
term goal of a nuclear-weapons-free world when we signed the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty. We should offer to reduce our arsenal to a few hundred
weapons—enough to deter any attack—if other nuclear nations reduce their
arsenals, too, and if non-nuclear-weapons powers agree to stronger global
safeguards and the consolidation of nuclear enrichment.
We must engage China and Russia more effectively, strategically, and

systematically, making nuclear security our top priority, especially with Russia.
One of the few occasions on which President Bush tried to engage Russian
President Vladimir Putin on this issue was at a February 2005 conference in
Bratislava, Slovakia. During these negotiations, the United States rightly sought
to include Russia's conversion of civilian reactors that use highly enriched
uranium. When Russia demurred, however, this item was omitted. The conference
was used to berate Russia about human rights violations rather than to pressure it
to safeguard its tactical nuclear weapons and fissile material. We should be
concerned about creeping authoritarianism in Russia, which is a potential long-
term danger to our national security. But we also need to realize that even
superpowers have limited leverage over the internal politics of other states and
that we should prioritize matters we actually can influence. The top priority of the
U.S. president must be preventing a nuclear 9/11.
Fighting nuclear trafficking will require better human intelligence and better
international intelligence and law enforcement coordination. And it will require
tough and persistent U.S. diplomacy to unite the world, including China and
Russia, behind efforts to contain the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea,
even as we provide these nations with incentives and face-saving ways to
permanently renounce nuclear weapons. We should remember that no nation has
ever been forced to renounce nuclear weapons but that many nations have been
convinced to renounce them. The case of Libya shows that even regimes with
terrorist pasts can be persuaded to give up their nuclear weapons ambitions. In a
rare resort to diplomacy, and building on connections begun by President Bill
Clinton, the Bush administration convinced Libya's Muammar al-Qaddafi to
abandon his plans to develop WMD and to end his support for terrorism. Rather
than threatening regime change, we convinced Qaddafi that by coming out of the
cold, he would have a secure future. After years of delay, progress is now finally
being made with North Korea as well.
We should approach Iran the same way. We need to stop the saber rattling and
instead work tirelessly with the international community to impose severe
multilateral sanctions. The Iranians must know that they have no future as a
nuclear weapons power: the international community will stand united behind
painful sanctions. But they also must know that they will receive benefits similar
to those that Libya received if they renounce uranium enrichment. If they meet
international security standards, sanctions will end, and they will have guaranteed
access to fuel enriched and banked elsewhere.
We must also open an ideological front in the war against jihadism. There is a civil
war within Islam between extremists and moderates—and we have been
inadvertently helping our enemies in that civil war. We need to start showing,
both through our words and through our deeds, that we are not embroiled, as the
jihadists claim, in a clash of civilizations. Rather, the clash is between civilization
and barbarity. Our enemy is not Islam: most Muslims reject terrorism. Even most
Muslims who do not share our liberal democratic values do share our commitment
to peace. To enlist them as partners, we need to respect our differences and to
present them with a vision that is better than the apocalyptic fantasy of the
jihadists—a vision of peace, prosperity, tolerance, and respect for human dignity.
We should support democracies and democrats around the world, but we should
give up on the failed policy of promoting democracy at gunpoint. We must
recognize that democratization is a complicated, difficult, long-term project. It
took decades or centuries for today's democracies to consolidate themselves. I
believe that all nations would benefit from democracy, but we need to recognize
that democratization does not happen overnight, especially in nations with deep
ethnic or religious divisions or weak civil societies.
COOL EYES AND ARDENT PRINCIPLES
The United States' reputation as a model of freedom and human dignity is one of
our greatest resources. We tarnish it at our peril. In the wake of the Bush
administration's violations of our values, a skillful public diplomacy effort will be
needed to convince the world that the United States has rediscovered itself. Such
public diplomacy should include radio and television broadcasts in local
languages, as well as expanded educational and exchange programs.
For such efforts to be credible, however, we really need to live up to our own
ideals every day. If we want others to value civil liberties, we need to stop spying
on our own citizens. Prisoner abuse, torture, secret prisons, denials of habeas
corpus, and evasions of the Geneva Conventions must never again have a place in
our policy. We should start by closing our prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and
explaining clearly to the world why we have done so.
We must reengage the Middle East peace process with the determination to
succeed, so that we can deprive the jihadists of their most effective propaganda
tool. We must use all our sticks and carrots to strengthen Palestinian moderates
and to achieve a two-state solution that guarantees Israel's security. I would ask
Bill Clinton to serve as a high-level full-time envoy to help broker a final
settlement. We should also engage discreetly in Kashmir, the tinderbox of Asia.
We are spending more than $2 billion per week on Iraq, but we are not doing
nearly enough to protect our cities, nuclear power plants, shipping lanes, and
ports from a terrorist attack. We must spend more to recruit, equip, and train
more first responders, and we must drastically improve our public health
facilities, which more than six years after 9/11 are not ready for a biological
attack. And we need to allocate federal homeland security dollars to the places
where they are needed—the population centers and facilities that we know al
Qaeda targets.
The United States of America also needs to start paying attention to the Americas.
We need better border security and comprehensive immigration reform. And to
reduce both illegal immigration and anti-American populism in Latin America, we
must work with reform-minded governments there to alleviate poverty and
promote equitable development. We need to strengthen energy cooperation in the
region and foster democracy and fair trade. Our efforts to promote democracy
must include Cuba. We should reverse the Bush administration's policies
restricting remittances to and travel to visit loved ones in Cuba, and we should
respond to steps toward liberalization there with steps toward ending the
embargo.
Finally, the United States should lead the global fight against poverty, which is
the basis of so much violence. Through example and diplomacy, we must
encourage all developed countries to honor their commitments to the UN
Millennium Development Goals. A commission on the implementation of
sustainable-development goals, composed of world leaders and prominent
experts, should recommend ways of meeting those commitments. The United
States should lead donors on debt relief, increase assistance to very poor
countries, and focus aid programs more on primary health care and affordable
vaccines. We should double our development assistance and encourage other rich
nations to do the same. We need a World Bank focused on poverty reduction and
an International Monetary Fund that has a more flexible approach to preserving
and building social safety nets. We must promote equitable multilateral and
bilateral trade agreements that create jobs in all the countries involved and that
protect workers and the environment. We should encourage the expanded use of
generic drugs in poor countries, and we should stimulate public-private
partnerships to reduce the costs of and enhance access to HIV antiretroviral
drugs, antimalaria drugs, and bed nets.
Most important, the United States should lead a multilaterally funded Marshall
Plan for Afghanistan, the Middle East, and Africa. For a small fraction of the cost
of the Iraq war, which has made us so many enemies, we could make many
friends. A crucial effort in fighting terrorism must be support for public education
in the Muslim world, which is the best way to mitigate the role of those
madrasahs that foment extremism. Development alleviates the injustice and lack
of opportunity that proponents of violence and terrorism exploit.
The challenges facing us today are unprecedented. We need to learn from the
mistakes of the Bush administration and adopt twenty-first-century strategies to
solve twenty-first-century problems. We need to see the world as it really is—so
that we can lead others to make it a better, safer place. This is the New Realist
vision of an enlightened and effective policy for the challenges of a new era: a
realistic, principled policy that looks at the world through cool eyes but is inspired
by ardent principles.
BILL RICHARDSON, Governor of New Mexico, is a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.
January 1,2008
America's Priorities in the War on
Terror
Islamists, Iraq, Iran, and Pakistan
Michael D. Huckabee
JOHN GRESS / REUTERS

U.S. Republican presidential candidate and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee campaigns in
Appleton, Wisconsin February 18, 2008.
The United States, as the world's only superpower, is less vulnerable to military
defeat. But it is more vulnerable to the animosity of other countries. Much like a
top high school student, if it is modest about its abilities and achievements, if it is
generous in helping others, it is loved. But if it attempts to dominate others, it is
despised.
American foreign policy needs to change its tone and attitude, open up, and reach
out. The Bush administration's arrogant bunker mentality has been
counterproductive at home and abroad. My administration will recognize that the
United States' main fight today does not pit us against the world but pits the
world against the terrorists. At the same time, my administration will never
surrender any of our sovereignty, which is why I was the first presidential
candidate to oppose ratification of the Law of the Sea Treaty, which would
endanger both our national security and our economic interests.
A more successful U.S. foreign policy needs to better explain Islamic jihadism to
the American people. Given how Americans have thrived on diversity—religious,
ethnic, racial—it takes an enormous leap of imagination to understand what
Islamic terrorists are about, that they really do want to kill every last one of us
and destroy civilization as we know it. If they are willing to kill their own children
by letting them detonate suicide bombs, then they will also be willing to kill our
children for their misguided cause. The Bush administration has never adequately
explained the theology and ideology behind Islamic terrorism or convinced us of
its ruthless fanaticism. The first rule of war is "know your enemy," and most
Americans do not know theirs. To grasp the magnitude of the threat, we first have
to understand what makes Islamic terrorists tick. Very few Americans are familiar
with the writings of Sayyid Qutb, the Egyptian radical executed in 1966, or the
Muslim Brotherhood, whose call to active jihad influenced Osama bin Laden and
the rise of al Qaeda. Qutb raged against the decadence and sin he saw around him
and sought to restore the "pure" Islam of the seventh century through a theocratic
caliphate without national borders. He saw nothing decadent or sinful in
murdering in order to achieve that end. America's culture of life stands in stark
contrast to the jihadists' culture of death.
The United States' biggest challenge in the Arab and Muslim worlds is the lack of
a viable moderate alternative to radicalism. On the one hand, there are radical
Islamists willing to fight dictators with terrorist tactics that moderates are too
humane to use. On the other, there are repressive regimes that stay in power by
force and through the suppression of basic human rights—many of which we
support by buying oil, such as the Saudi government, or with foreign aid, such as
the Egyptian government, our second-largest recipient of aid.
Although we cannot export democracy as if it were Coca-Cola or KFC, we can

nurture moderate forces in places where al Qaeda is seeking to replace modern
evil with medieval evil. Such moderation may not look or function like our
system—it may be a benevolent oligarchy or more tribal than individualistic—but
both for us and for the peoples of those countries, it will be better than the
dictatorships they have now or the theocracy they would have under radical
Islamists. The potential for such moderation to emerge is visible in the way that
Sunni tribal leaders in Iraq have turned against al Qaeda to work with us; they
could not stand the thought of living under such fundamentalism and brutality.
The people of Afghanistan turned against the Taliban for the same reason. To
know these extremists is not to love them.
As president, my goal in the Arab and Muslim worlds will be to calibrate a course
between maintaining stability and promoting democracy. It is self-defeating to
attempt too much too soon: doing so could mean holding elections that the
extremists would win. But it is also self-defeating to do nothing. We must first
destroy existing terrorist groups and then attack the underlying conditions that
breed them: the lack of basic sanitation, health care, education, jobs, a free press,
fair courts—which all translates into a lack of opportunity and hope. The United
States' strategic interests as the world's most powerful country coincide with its
moral obligations as the richest. If we do not do the right thing to improve life in
the Muslim world, the terrorists will step in and do the wrong thing.
IF FORCE, THEN OVERWHELMING
For too long, we have been constrained because our dependence on imported oil
has forced us to support repressive regimes and conduct our foreign policy with
one hand tied behind our back. I will free that hand from its oil-soaked rope and
reach out to moderates in the Arab and Muslim worlds with both. I want to treat
Saudi Arabia the way we treat Sweden, and that will require the United States to
be energy independent. The first thing I will do as president is send Congress my
comprehensive plan for achieving energy independence within ten years of my
inauguration. We will explore, we will conserve, and we will pursue all types of
alternative energy: nuclear, wind, solar, ethanol, hydrogen, clean coal, biomass,
and biodiesel.
Supporting Islamic moderates and moving toward energy independence will not
protect us from the terrorists who already exist. These enemies, who plot and
train in small, scattered cells, can be tracked down and eliminated by the CIA,
U.S. Special Forces, and the military forces of the coalition countries united to rid
the world of this scourge. We can achieve a tremendous amount with swift and
surgical air strikes and commando raids by our elite units. But these operations
demand first-rate intelligence. When the Cold War ended, we cut back our human
intelligence, just as we cut back our armed forces, and these reductions have
come back to haunt us. I will strengthen both.
The "peace dividend" from the fall of the Soviet Union has become a war deficit
with the rise of Islamic terrorism. We did not send enough troops to Iraq initially.
We still do not have enough troops in Afghanistan and are losing hard-won gains
there as foreign fighters pour in and the number of Iraq-style suicide attacks
increases. Our current active armed forces simply are not large enough. We have
relied far too heavily on the National Guard and the Reserves and worn them out.
The Bush administration plans to increase the size of the U.S. Army and the
Marine Corps by about 92,000 troops over the next five years. We can and must
do this in two to three years. I recognize the challenges of increasing our
enlistments without lowering standards and of expanding training facilities and
personnel, and that is one of the reasons why we must increase our military
budget. Right now, we spend about 3.9 percent of our GDP on defense, compared
with about six percent in 1986, under President Ronald Reagan. We need to
return to that six percent level. And we must stop using active-duty forces for
nation building and return to our policy of using other government agencies to
build schools, hospitals, roads, sewage treatment plants, water filtration systems,
electrical facilities, and legal and banking systems. We must marshal the goodwill,
ingenuity, and power of our governmental and nongovernmental organizations in
coordinating and implementing these essential nonmilitary functions.
If I ever have to undertake a large invasion, I will follow the Powell Doctrine and
use overwhelming force. The notion of an occupation with a "light footprint,"
which was our model for Iraq, is a contradiction in terms. Liberating a country
and occupying it are two different missions. Our invasion of Iraq went well
militarily, but the occupation has destroyed the country politically, economically,
and socially. In the former Yugoslavia, we sent 20 peacekeeping soldiers for every
thousand civilians. In Iraq, an equivalent ratio would have meant sending a force
of 450,000 U.S. troops. Unlike President George W. Bush, who marginalized
General Eric Shinseki, the former army chief of staff, when he recommended
sending several hundred thousand troops to Iraq, I would have met with Shinseki
privately and carefully weighed his advice. Our generals must be independent
advisers, always free to speak without fear of retribution or dismissal.
SECURING IRAQ
As president, I will not withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq any faster than General
David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander there, recommends. I will bring our
troops home based on the conditions on the ground, not the calendar on the wall.
It is still too soon to reduce the U.S. counterterrorism mission and pass the torch
of security to the Iraqis. If we do not preserve and expand population security, by
maintaining the significant number of forces required, we risk losing all our hard-
won gains. These are significant but tenuous.
Seeing Iraqi Sunnis in Anbar, Diyala, and parts of Baghdad reject al Qaeda and
join our forces, often at tremendous risk to themselves, has been a truly
extraordinary shift. Those who once embraced al Qaeda members as liberators
now see them for what these radicals are: brutal oppressors who want to take
Iraq back to the seventh century. And this development is serving as a model for
turning Shiite tribes against their militants. Despite what the gloomy Democrats
in the United States profess, reconciliation is happening in Iraq, only it is bottom
up rather than top down, and since it comes directly from the people, it can end
the violence faster. Benchmarks are being reached in fact, if not in law. As Ryan
Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, told Congress last September, oil revenues
are being distributed, de-Baathification is being reversed, and the Shiite-
dominated government is giving financial resources to the provinces, including
Sunni areas.
The Kurdish north is the most peaceful and prosperous part of Iraq. We must not
allow the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party), the Kurdish Marxist terrorist group
responsible for almost 40,000 deaths since the mid-1980s, to jeopardize that
achievement. The PKK is losing support among mainstream Turkish Kurds: they
have made great strides economically, culturally, and politically in the past
decade, and many are renouncing violence. We must encourage Turkey to
continue to improve life for its Kurds, and we must encourage the Turkish Kurds
to address their grievances through the political process, including through the
20 deputies currently representing them in parliament. On the Iraqi side of the
border, Turkey provides 80 percent of the foreign investment in the Kurdish
region, and the Iraqi Kurds do not want to jeopardize that relationship.
I support providing the Turks with actionable intelligence to go after the PKK with
limited air strikes and commando raids but would prefer to train and equip Iraqi
Kurds to fight the PKK and rid themselves of this menace. I regret that it took the
deployment of 100,000 Turkish troops to the border with Iraq, and the PKK
problem becoming a crisis, for the Bush administration to give the issue the
attention it deserves. We should have put more pressure on the Iraqi government,
including the Kurdish authorities, to deal with the PKK earlier. Our special envoy
on the issue, retired General Joseph Ralston, quit his post last October out of
frustration over the passivity of both the U.S. and the Iraqi governments. Some
crises cannot be averted; this one could and should have been.
Withdrawing from Iraq before the country is stable and secure would have serious
strategic consequences for us and horrific humanitarian consequences for the
Iraqis. Iraq's neighbors on all sides would be drawn into the war and face refugee
crises as a result of fleeing Iraqis. Iraq is the crossroads where Arabs meet
Persians and Kurds, and Sunnis meet Shiites. When we deposed Saddam Hussein,
we emphasized the potentially dramatic upside of Iraq's centrality in the region:
the country could be a prime place to establish democracy and have it spread
from. Today, we face the dramatic downside: Iraq's centrality makes the country
the perfect place for terrorists to create anarchy and have it spread. Those who
say that we do not owe the Iraqis anything more are ignoring what we owe our
own children and grandchildren in terms of security.
CONTAINING IRAN
Americans have urgent concerns about Iran's military and financial support for
Shiite militants in Iraq, the Taliban in Afghanistan, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and
Hamas in the Palestinian territories. And we have urgent concerns about Iran's
development of nuclear weapons, especially since more is at stake than just Iran's
progress: faced with a nuclear Shiite Persian power, Sunni Arab regimes will feel
the need to match it.
The Bush administration has properly said that it will not take the military option
for dealing with Iran off the table. Neither will I. But if we do not put other
options on the table, eventually a military strike will become the only viable one.
And nothing would make bin Laden happier than this outcome; he would welcome
war between the United States and Iran. Indeed, al Qaeda and Iran seek control
of the same territory: what Iran envisions as its Shiite crescent is a large part of
what would be the Sunni caliphate that al Qaeda seeks to create from Spain to
Indonesia. Both Iran and al Qaeda seek not just to dominate Israel but to destroy
it and control the Palestinians. And I will not waver in standing by our ally Israel.
The main difference between these two enemies is that al Qaeda is a movement
that must be destroyed, whereas Iran is a nation that just has to be contained.
In order to contain Iran, it is essential to win in Iraq. When we overthrew Saddam,

whose regime was a bulwark against Iran, we upset the regional balance of
power. Now, we must stabilize and strengthen Iraq not just for its own security
but for the security of its neighbors, the region, and ourselves. We cannot allow
Iran to push its theocracy into Iraq and then expand it further west.
Another way to contain Iran is through diplomacy. We must be as aggressive

diplomatically as we have been militarily since 9/11. We must intensify our
diplomatic efforts with China, India, Russia, South Korea, and European states
and persuade them to put more economic pressure on Iran. These countries have
been far more interested in pursuing profit than preventing proliferation. They
must realize that if the United States does end up taking military action, they will
bear some responsibility for having failed to maximize peaceful options.
I welcome the Bush administration's new sanctions against Iran and its decision
to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guards as a proliferator of weapons of mass
destruction and its al Quds force as a supporter of terrorism. (The Democrats who
claim that such measures are a step toward war are deluded: these moves are an
attempt to use economic power instead of, not as a prelude to, using military
power.) We must also put more of our money where our mouth is and encourage
our state and private pension funds to divest themselves of Iran-related assets.
Since the United States does no business directly with Iran, these sanctions will
have an impact only if other countries honor them. United Nations sanctions will
have to remain weak if China and Russia are to support them, but I have greater
hope for tougher ones from the European Union, Iran's biggest trading partner.
With Nicolas Sarkozy as president of France, we now have a much more willing
ally.
I am less hopeful that Russia will be helpful. Since Russia benefits from high
energy prices, President Vladimir Putin has more incentives to keep energy
markets jittery than to resolve the crisis with Iran. Russia also profits handsomely
from selling weapons to Iran, mostly air defense systems intended to protect Iran
from possible U.S. air strikes. I support going forward with the current plan to set
up ten missile interceptors in Poland and a radar system in the Czech Republic to
protect Europe from Iranian missiles. Putin opposes an antimissile system in the
former Soviet satellite states (even though we have offered to share the
technology with the Russians) and our potential use of Azerbaijan, a former Soviet
republic, as a staging ground for an attack on Iran.
We must remember that with the collapse of the Soviet Union came the revival of
Russia, which has always had both imperialist ambitions and an inferiority
complex vis-à-vis the West. Tsarist history is a case study in the struggle between
westernizers and Slavophiles. The push and pull will continue, bringing good days
and bad in our relations with Russia. Overall, things will be better than during the
Cold War because, much as we do not want another 9/11, Putin does not want
another terrorist attack like the 2004 school siege in Beslan. But I see him for
what he is: a staunch nationalist in a country that has no democratic tradition. He
will do everything he can to reassert Russia's power—militarily, economically,
diplomatically.
Sun-tzu's ancient wisdom is relevant today: "Keep your friends close and your
enemies closer." Yet we have not had diplomatic relations with Iran in almost 30
years; the U.S. government usually communicates with the Iranian government
through the Swiss embassy in Tehran. When one stops talking to a parent or a
friend, differences cannot be resolved and relationships cannot move forward. The
same is true for countries. The reestablishment of diplomatic ties will not occur
automatically or without the Iranians' making concessions that serve to create a
less hostile relationship.
Our experience in Iraq offers a valuable lesson for how to proceed in Iran. Since
we overthrew Saddam, we have learned that we invaded an imaginary country,
because we relied at the time on information that was out of date and on longtime
exiles who exaggerated the good condition of Iraq's infrastructure, the strength of
its middle class, and the secular nature of its society. We would have received
better information if we had had our own ambassador in Baghdad. Before we put
boots on the ground elsewhere, we had better have wingtips there first.
Many Iranians are well disposed toward us. On 9/11, there was dancing in the
streets in parts of the Muslim world but candlelit vigils and mourning in Tehran.
When we invaded Afghanistan, Iran helped us, especially in our dealings with the
Northern Alliance. Hoping for better bilateral relations, Tehran wanted to join us
against al Qaeda. The CIA and the State Department supported this partnership,
but some in the White House and the Pentagon did not. After President Bush
included Iran in the "axis of evil," everything went downhill fast.
Whereas there can be no rational dealings with al Qaeda, Iran is a nation-state

seeking regional clout and playing the game of power politics we understand and
can skillfully pursue. We cannot live with al Qaeda, but we might be able to live
with a contained Iran. Iran will not acquire nuclear weapons on my watch. But
before I look parents in the eye to explain why I put their son's or daughter's life
at risk, I want to do everything possible to avoid conflict. We have substantive
issues to discuss with Tehran. Recent direct negotiations about Iraq have not
been productive because they have not explored the full range of issues. We have
valuable incentives to offer Iran: trade and economic assistance, full diplomatic
relations, and security guarantees.
TOUGH LOVE FOR PAKISTAN
Whereas our failure to tackle Iran seems to be leading inexorably to our attacking
it, our failure to tackle al Qaeda in Pakistan seems to be leading inexorably to its
attacking us again.
When we let bin Laden escape at Tora Bora, a region along the Afghan-Pakistani
border, in December 2001, we played Brer Fox to his Brer Rabbit. We threw him
into the perfect briar patch, under the direct protection of tribal leaders who do
not consider their land part of Pakistan and under the indirect protection of the
Pakistani government, which believes that it is. On September 12, 2001, Pakistani
President Pervez Musharraf agreed to sever his relationship with the Taliban and
let us fight al Qaeda inside Pakistan. But distracted by Iraq, we have since
allowed him to go back on his word.
Despite the Bush administration's continued claims that the U.S. military will
pursue "actionable targets," according to a July 2007 article in The New York
Times based on interviews with a dozen current and former military and defense
officials, a classified raid targeting bin Laden's top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, in
Pakistan was aborted in early 2005. Then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
called off the attack at the very last minute, as Navy Seals in parachutes were
preparing in C-130s in Afghanistan, because he felt he needed Musharraf's
permission to proceed. Why did Rumsfeld, instead of President Bush, call off the
attack? Did he ask for Musharraf's permission or assume he would not get it?
When I am president, I will make the final call on such actions.
This missed opportunity was especially costly because in September 2006

Musharraf agreed to a cease-fire with frontier tribal leaders (which lasted until
last July), allowing al Qaeda and the Taliban to gain strength and operate more
easily and freely. With that, Pakistan's halfhearted efforts against the terrorists in
the region bordering Afghanistan stopped altogether.
Iraq may be the hot war, but Pakistan is where the cold, calculating planning is
going on. If al Qaeda strikes us tomorrow, the attack will be postmarked
"Pakistan." And the American people, not understanding why a supposed U.S. ally
refused to help and our government put up with it, will justifiably be outraged
that bin Laden and his top people got away. In fact, we almost did suffer that next
attack: the plot to blow up ten airliners over the Atlantic that the British
government foiled in 2006 was hatched in Pakistan, as was an attack against U.S.
targets in Germany that was planned to coincide with the sixth anniversary of
9/11.
Rather than wait for the next strike, I prefer to cut to the chase by going after al
Qaeda's safe havens in Pakistan. As commander in chief, the U.S. president must
balance threats and risks in calculating how best to protect the American people.
We are living on borrowed time. The threat of an attack on us is far graver than
the risk that a quick and limited strike against al Qaeda would bring extremists to
power in Pakistan.
To be sure, Pakistan is an inherently unstable country that has never had a

constitutional change of government in its 60 years of existence. It has alternated
between military and civilian rule, punctuated by assassinations and coups. Even
during times of nominal civilian rule, the army and its affiliated intelligence
service, the Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, were the country's most powerful
institutions. But in the name of stability, the U.S. government has erred on the
side of protecting Musharraf. We have an unfortunate tendency to confuse leaders
with their countries and their citizens and to back them for too long, with too few
questions asked and too few strings attached. As the Bush administration
scrambled to cope with Musharraf's state of emergency last November, it became
clear that we had no Pakistan policy, only a Musharraf policy.
Musharraf's top priority is not the United States' survival but his own, physical
and political. Musharraf has done his best to convince the Bush administration
that the United States' destiny and his are inextricably interwoven—after him, the
deluge. But this is not true. He has not kept extremists from seizing power in
Pakistan; they have not seized it simply because they have not had the strength or
the support to do so. He claims that he declared the state of emergency because
of the threat of extremism to Pakistan. In fact, he was responding to a threat not
to the country but to himself and not from extremists but from Pakistan's
Supreme Court, which was about to invalidate his recent reelection.
This puts into sharp relief what a waste, what a setback the United States'
Pakistan policy has been over the last few years. Al Qaeda and the Taliban have
grown stronger; Pakistan's native extremists have expanded east from their
frontier strongholds and spread to the cities; the moderate secular parties led by
former Prime Ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif have languished.
Musharraf has spent far more energy and enthusiasm sidelining the moderate
Pakistani forces we must strengthen than he has going after religious extremists
and terrorists. As of this writing, he is arresting the people who share our values
and whom we need to empower: leaders and supporters of moderate parties,
judges, lawyers, human rights activists, and journalists. He is on a collision course
with his own people and with us.
Since 9/11, the United States has given Pakistan about $10 billion, including some
$5.6 billion to pay for counterterrorism activities against al Qaeda and the
Taliban. Less than $1 billion has gone to projects that directly help the Pakistani
people by providing them with schools, food, or medical aid. The lack of schools
creates demand for the madrasahs that produce terrorists. We have wasted
money on counterterrorism that has not happened and spent precious little on
projects to win hearts and minds.
Much of the aid is made up of cash transfers that are not monitored by any U.S.
government agency; we must improve transparency and accountability in this
area. If we consider cutting aid to Pakistan, we must distinguish among different
kinds of funds. We should not cut money for projects that alleviate poverty. Money
designated for counterterrorism must be spent for that purpose and with
quantifiable results. Money designated for weapons not suited to fighting
terrorists should be used as a carrot to reward the Pakistani government for
demonstrated progress in strengthening moderate forces, improving its citizens'
quality of life, and fighting terrorism.
It is not enough for Musharraf to appoint a caretaker government, give up his
post as army chief, and hold elections in early January, as he has promised: such
elections cannot possibly be free and fair with the state of emergency still in
effect, opposition politicians and their supporters under arrest, the media
censored, assembly forbidden, and the judiciary packed. Opposition party leaders
rightly threaten to boycott such sham elections, which would have no legitimacy
in the eyes of the Pakistani people. Bhutto and Sharif must be allowed to move
freely about the country. Whatever happens in Pakistan next, the country's policy
toward the United States is unlikely to change significantly. General Ashfaq
Kiyani, the deputy chief of staff of the army and Musharraf's most likely
successor, is a moderate who wants the military less involved in politics. As prime
minister, Sharif would sound more anti-American, and Bhutto more pro-American.
But in any event, our problems with al Qaeda and the Taliban will not be
magically solved for us. They are our problems, and we must face up to them.
I will assure the Pakistanis that we are with them for the long haul. When the
Russians left Afghanistan in the late 1980s, we quickly lost interest in Pakistan.
Many Pakistanis fear the same will happen when al Qaeda and the Taliban are no
longer around to keep us engaged. They should not. Pakistan, like Iraq, is a
regional problem rather than an isolated one. We must use our friendly ties with
India to encourage and help it improve its relationship with Pakistan and to push
for increased trade and cooperation between the two countries, all to bring
greater stability to the South Asian region.
"The process will not be quick," Ambassador Crocker told Congress of the
progress in Iraq last fall. "It will be uneven, punctuated by setbacks as well as
achievements, and it will require substantial U.S. resolve and commitment." Does
this sound familiar? To me, the statement could also have applied to the American
Revolution, the American Civil War, World War I, or World War II. We paid a
heavy price in each of those conflicts, but we prevailed. And we will prevail now.
Our history, from the snows of Valley Forge to the flames of 9/11, has been one of
perseverance. I understand the threats we face today. When I am president,
America will look this evil in the eye, confront it, defeat it, and emerge stronger
than ever. It is easy to be a peace lover; the challenging part is being a
peacemaker.
MICHAEL D. HUCKABEE, former Governor of Arkansas, is a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination.
January 1,2008
Bridges, Bombs, or Bluster?
Madeleine K. Albright
DAVID W CERNY / REUTERS

Madeleine Albright in Prague, January 12, 2010.
EITHER, OR
Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us,
or you are with the terrorists.
There are only two powers now in the world. One is America, which is tyrannical
and oppressive. The other is a warrior who has not yet been awakened from his
slumber and that warrior is Islam.
Make no mistake about it: the choice for sure is between two visions of the world.
Few readers will fail to identify the first quotation cited above: it was uttered by
President George W. Bush, speaking soon after the September 11, 2001, terrorist
attacks. Few readers, similarly, will be surprised to learn that the second quote
came from a Sunni Muslim cleric in Baghdad, Imam Mouaid al-Ubaidi. The third
quote, however, may be a bit harder to identify: it was spoken by French Foreign
Minister Dominique de Villepin, describing the different world views now held by
Washington and Paris. And it should remind us that not everyone divides the
world along the same lines as the United States.
Framing choices is central to national security policy. Since World War II, no
nation has played a more influential role in defining such alternatives than the
United States. Today, however, the Bush administration purports to be redefining
the fundamental choice "every nation, in every region" must make. America's
radical adversaries—eager to promote themselves as the United States' chief
nemeses—are echoing the attempt. Those caught in the middle, however, suggest
the choices before them may not be quite so simple.
For President Bush, September 11 came as a revelation, leading him to the

startled conclusion that the globe had changed in ways gravely hazardous to the
security—indeed, the very survival—of the United States. This conclusion soon led
Bush to a fateful decision: to depart, in fundamental ways, from the approach that
has characterized U.S. foreign policy for more than half a century. Soon, reliance
on alliance had been replaced by redemption through preemption; the shock of
force trumped the hard work of diplomacy, and long-time relationships were
redefined.
In making these changes, Bush explicitly rejected the advice offered by one senior
statesman who warned, "this most recent surprise attack [should] erase the
concept in some quarters that the United States can somehow go it alone in the
fight against terrorism, or in anything else, for that matter." So said George H.W.
Bush, the United States' 41st president. But his son, the 43rd president, offered
his own perspective shortly before going to war with Iraq: "At some point, we may
be the only ones left. That's okay with me. We are America."
The second Bush administration, believing that its perception of the meaning of
September 11 is self-evidently right, has failed to make a sustained effort to
persuade the rest of the world to share it. As a result, the world does not in fact
subscribe to the same view. Certainly, most of the world does not agree with Bush
that September 11 "changed everything." This is not to say the attacks were met
by indifference. On the contrary, NATO, for the first time in its history, declared
the crimes to be acts of aggression against the entire alliance. Almost every
government in the Muslim world, including Iran and the Palestinian Authority,
condemned the strikes. U.S. allies, from Canada to Japan to Australia, rushed to
aid or complement the American military campaign against al Qaeda and the
Taliban in Afghanistan. Pakistan, properly confronted by the administration with a
stark choice, chose to cooperate as well. Even China and Russia, plagued by
Muslim separatists, pledged solidarity. For months after September 11, it seemed
the Bush administration would harness these reactions to unite the world in
opposition to a common threat.
The president began well, emphasizing the array of nationalities victimized in the
Twin Towers attacks and gathering broad support for the military operation he
directed at the perpetrators. Al Qaeda's Taliban protectors were pushed from
power, its training camps were destroyed, arms caches were seized, and many of
its leaders were captured or killed. But instead of single-mindedly building on
these gains, the Bush administration has since steadily enlarged and complicated
its own mission.
In his 2002 State of the Union address, for example, President Bush focused not
on al Qaeda and the work remaining in Afghanistan, but rather on the so-called
axis of evil. In public remarks later that year, he emphasized not the value of
building an antiterror coalition, but rather his unilateral intention to maintain U.S.
"military strength beyond challenge, thereby making the destabilizing arms races
of other eras pointless." He then asked Congress for the authority to explore new
uses for nuclear weapons, creating the perception overseas that he was lowering
the threshold for nuclear strikes—despite the United States' vast conventional
military superiority and the risks posed to U.S. security by the proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
When the administration published its 2002 National Security Strategy last
September, it took this process even further, transforming anticipatory self-
defense—a tool every president has quietly held in reserve—into the centerpiece
of its national security policy. This step, however, was dangerously easy to
misconstrue. (Do we really want a world in which every country feels entitled to
attack any other that might someday threaten it?) And when Bush did discuss the
pursuit of al Qaeda, he portrayed it less as a global struggle against a global
threat than as an effort to bring terrorists to "American justice"—as if justice
alone were not enough.
Finally, in 2003, Washington did begin once more to rally world support—but this
time against Iraq, not al Qaeda. To bolster the decision to oust Saddam Hussein,
administration officials lumped his regime together with al Qaeda, describing
them as complementary halves of the same existential threat. U.S. officials
declared that America would act against such threats when and wherever
necessary, regardless of international law, notwithstanding the doubts of allies,
and without concern for the outrage of those who might misunderstand U.S.
actions. America, said the president, had no choice but to go to war to prevent its
enemies from obtaining more weapons or growing more powerful. And so the
United States duly went to war against Iraq, despite having convinced only four
members of the UN Security Council to back the action.
NEITHER, NOR
Many observers see in the Bush administration's policies an admirable

demonstration of spine in confronting those who threaten the safety of the
American people. I would join the applause—if only those policies were
safeguarding U.S. citizens more effectively.
But they are not. Moreover, I remain convinced that had Al Gore been elected
president, and had the attacks of September 11 still happened, the United States
and NATO would have gone to war in Afghanistan together, then deployed forces
all around that country and stayed to rebuild it. Democrats, after all, confess
support for nation building, and also believe in finishing the jobs we start. I also
believe the United States and NATO together would have remained focused on
fighting al Qaeda and would not have pretended—and certainly would not have
been allowed to get away with pretending—that the ongoing failure to capture
Osama bin Laden did not matter. As for Saddam, I believe the Gore team would
have read the intelligence information about his activities differently and
concluded that a war against Iraq, although justifiable, was not essential in the
short term to protect U.S. security. A policy of containment would have been
sufficient while the administration pursued the criminals who had murdered
thousands on American soil.
The Bush administration's decision to broaden its focus from opposing al Qaeda to
invading Iraq and threatening military action against others has had unintended
and unwelcome consequences. According to the recent findings of the Pew Global
Attitudes Project, which surveyed 16,000 people in 20 countries and the
Palestinian territories in May, the percentage of those who have a favorable view
of the United States has declined sharply (15 percentage points or more) in
nations such as Brazil, France, Germany, Jordan, Nigeria, Russia, and Turkey. In
Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim-majority state, the view of the
United States plunged from 75 percent favorable to 83 percent negative between
2000 and 2003. Support for the U.S.-led war on terror has declined in each of the
countries listed above, along with pivotal Pakistan, where it stands at a
disheartening 20 percent. The citizens of such NATO allies as the United
Kingdom, France, Germany, and Italy rated Russia's Vladimir Putin more highly as
a world leader than Bush. Significant majorities of those interviewed in Russia
and in 7 of 8 predominantly Muslim countries (Kuwait being the exception)
claimed to be somewhat or very worried about the potential threat to their
societies posed by the U.S. military. I never thought the day would come when the
United States would be feared by those it has neither the intention nor the cause
to harm.
The ouster of Saddam has indeed made the world, or at least Iraq, a better place.
But when the United States commits tens of billions of dollars to any worthwhile
project, that is the least it should be able to say. Even more vital is progress
toward mobilizing the kind of multinational, multicultural, multifaceted, and
multiyear initiative required to discredit, disrupt, and dismantle al Qaeda and
whatever splinter factions it may one day spawn. That initiative will require a
maximum degree of global coordination and the integration of force, diplomacy,
intelligence, and law. It will require strong working relationships in regions where
radical ideologies thrive and pro-Western sentiments are scant. And above all, it
will require vigorous leadership from Islamic moderates, who must win the
struggle for control of their own faith. Unfortunately, the Iraq war and the
subsequent U.S. occupation of Baghdad—the capital of Islam during that faith's
golden age—have made more difficult the choices Islamic moderates and others
around the world must make.
The problem is that President Bush has reframed his initial question. Instead of
simply asking others to oppose al Qaeda, he now asks them to oppose al Qaeda,
support the invasion of an Arab country, and endorse the doctrine of
preemption—all as part of a single package. Faced with this choice, many who
staunchly oppose al Qaeda have nevertheless decided that they do not want to be
"with" the United States, just as some Iraqis are now making clear their
opposition both to Saddam and to those who freed them from him.
It is perhaps unsurprising to find attitudes of this sort widespread in the Arab

world. But it is more remarkable to find them taking hold in much of Europe.
President Bush ran for office pledging to be "a uniter, not a divider," but as the
numbers suggest, he has proved highly divisive among the United States' closest
friends. This was true even before September 11, thanks to his administration's
scorn for international measures such as the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.
But the divide deepened considerably in the run-up to the second Gulf War, and it
has moderated only slightly since. Transatlantic friction, of course, is not new. But
European unease with American pretensions, coupled with American doubts
about European resolve, has created the potential for a long-term and dangerous
rift.
Some commentators have tried to explain European opposition to the war as

being based on a slavish allegiance to multilateral organizations, a sense of
relative powerlessness, or simple jealousy of the United States. Such analyses,
however, miss the possibility that the American arguments simply were not fully
persuasive. I personally felt the war was justified on the basis of Saddam's
decade-long refusal to comply with UN Security Council resolutions on WMD. But
the administration's claim that Saddam posed an imminent threat was poorly
supported, as was its claim of his alleged connections to al Qaeda. The war's
opponents also raised a number of questions that were not very ably answered
regarding American plans for postwar reconstruction and the possibility that the
war would actually enhance al Qaeda's appeal to potential recruits. It should be
no wonder, then, that there were disagreements about the wisdom of going to
war. It was, after all, a war of choice, not of necessity. And it was initiated by
Washington in a show of dominance prompted by a sense of vulnerability that
most Europeans do not fully share.
The concerns raised by European critics of the war were neither trivial nor
unanswerable. They should, however, have been answered not with exaggerated,
unproven allegations, but with a combination of patience and ample evidence. By
linking Baghdad to al Qaeda, the Bush administration sought to equate opposition
to fighting Iraq with gutlessness in confronting bin Laden. This tactic, wildly
unfair, contributed to a perception within the American public that the French
and the Germans were not simply quarrelsome but traitorous. The real problem
with the war critics, however, was not their timidity toward al Qaeda but their
record of having cut Saddam too much slack in complying with UN Security
Council resolutions over the last decade. The French and the Russians were
especially culpable in this regard; their special pleading had, for years, given
Saddam hope that he could divide the council and get sanctions lifted without
coming clean about his weapons programs.
The best rebuttal Washington had to qualms about regime change was that
military force was the only way (in the absence of effective UN inspections) to
enforce the council's resolutions and thereby strengthen both the UN's credibility
and international law. Unfortunately, the Bush administration made its eagerness
to pull the plug on chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix and his team
transparent and billed its preemptive war doctrine as a replacement for
international law. As a consequence, much of the world saw the invasion not as a
way to put muscle into accepted rules, but rather as the inauguration of a new set
of rules, written and applied solely by the United States.
It didn't have to be this way. After World War II, the United States was also at a
pinnacle of power, and also faced new and unprecedented dangers. Yet the
Truman administration still sat down and haggled with a flock of less powerful
countries about what the rules of the new international game should be. The
current administration, however, has created the impression that it does not care
what others think, and it has thereby set the world's teeth on edge.
As I suggested above, responsibility for the transatlantic split does not rest on the
shoulders of the Bush administration alone. The French certainly have not helped
matters, by arguing, for example, that the very purpose of European integration
should be to create a counterweight to American power. This constitutes de
Villepin's choice "between two visions of the world," by which he means a choice
between a unipolar world in which Washington acts as an unrestrained hegemon
and a multipolar one in which American power is offset and balanced by other
forces, most particularly a united Europe. But that argument is ludicrous. The
idea that the power of the United States endangers the interests of European
democracies, rather than strengthens and helps shield them, is utter nonsense.
American power may harm French pride, but it also helped roll back Hitler, save a
blockaded Berlin, defeat communism, and rid the Balkans of a rampaging
Slobodan Milosevic.
The divisions that have arisen between the United States and many in Europe can
and must be narrowed. The challenge for Europe is to reject French
hyperventilating about American hyperpower and keep its perspective. The
United States has not lost its moorings, and the American people, with an assist
from Secretary of State Colin Powell and other voices of reason, will not let the
administration go too far.
The challenge for the United States, however, is to frame a choice for Europe that
most of Europe can embrace with dignity (if not always with France). To help this
mission along, NATO should be used in Afghanistan (where it has finally gained a
role, two years after September 11) and in Iraq, where its umbrella might help
relieve the pressure on hard-pressed U.S. troops. The Bush administration should
enthusiastically welcome European efforts to develop an independent rapid
reaction capability, especially to conduct peacekeeping operations and respond to
humanitarian emergencies. When Europeans perform important jobs, as the
Germans and the Turks have done over the past year in Afghanistan, they deserve
congratulations, regardless of differences over less basic issues. Furthermore, the
Europeans should be invited, not directed, to work closely with Washington on the
toughest challenges, including that posed by Iran's nuclear program. Perhaps
above all, the Europeans should be treated as adults. If they have differences with
U.S. policy, those differences should be considered seriously, not dismissed as
signs of weakness (or age) or tantamount to treason. Washington needs to recall
that "allies" and "satellites" are distinctly different things.
JUDGING SUCCESS IN IRAQ

Perhaps one reason this administration does not feel the need to consult much
with others is its surety of vision. President Bush proclaimed last March that the
war in Iraq would prove a decisive first step toward the transformation of the
entire Middle East. The demonstration of U.S. resolve, so his logic went, would
cause terrorists and those who shelter and sponsor them to tremble. According to
the president, "the terrorist threat to America and the world will be diminished
the moment that Saddam Hussein is disarmed." The creation of a democratic Iraq,
to be achieved with the assistance of a modest number of American troops for a
relatively short period of time, would send an instructive message to
undemocratic Arab regimes and provide a helpful model for a potential new
Palestinian state. Deprived of Iraqi payments to the families of suicide bombers,
anti-Israeli terrorists would soon close their bomb factories, and serious peace
negotiations could begin. Saddam's fall would also provide a useful lesson to
would-be WMD proliferators, both in faraway North Korea and in nearby Iran.
Whatever one might think of the likelihood that this vision will be realized, it
certainly qualifies as sweeping and well intentioned. Those who suspect the war
in Iraq was a grab for oil are mistaken; it was a grab for a place in history. It
deserves time now to play itself out. No one expected every element to fall into
place smoothly. Critics such as myself may carp about bumps in the road and
setbacks, but the problems will matter little if momentum does build toward a
truly democratic and stable Iraq, the weakening of al Qaeda, an end to anti-Israeli
terrorism, a halt to Iran's nuclear ambitions, and movement toward accountable
government within the Arab world. These are the standards for success the Bush
administration set for itself in going to war with Iraq at the moment and under the
circumstances it did. The administration merits the courtesy of a reasonable
period of time to achieve those goals.
Whether time will in fact bring such successes depends on a series of choices the
United States can help frame. The most basic concerns the legitimacy or
illegitimacy of the use of terror as a means to achieve political change.
To most Americans, the choice is simple. As the president has said, the use of
terror is something you are either for or against, and if you are against it, certain
actions must follow. Americans may find it absurd that decent people could
believe differently. But history shows that most people, not exceptionally
villainous themselves, can nonetheless be persuaded that evil is not evil but rather
something else. Romans saw glory in the pillage of the Parthians; pious Catholics
saw purity of faith in the Spanish Inquisition; the United States' founding fathers
saw economic necessity in slavery; Bosnian Serbs saw justice for past wrongs in
ethnic cleansing. Even many Nazi collaborators and appeasers were sure they
were doing the right thing; after all, what could be more moral than "peace in our
time"? In 1940, the poet Archibald MacLeish wrote, "Murder is not absolved of
immorality by committing murder. Murder is absolved of immorality by bringing
men to think that murder is not evil. This only the perversion of the mind can
bring about. And the perversion of the mind is only possible when those who
should be heard in its defense are silent." The lesson for us now is that the longer
the illusion of evil as somehow justified lasts—whether buttressed by propaganda,
ignorance, convenience, or fear—the harder it is to dispel. That is why we must
take nothing for granted. We must be relentless in shaping a global consensus
that terrorism is fully, fundamentally, and always wrong. No exceptions, no
excuses.
I made this argument to Arab leaders many times when I was secretary of state.
Their responses, however, were rarely satisfactory. Most often, my interlocutors
would condemn terror unconditionally before commenting parenthetically on the
legitimacy of the struggle to free occupied Arab lands. In other words, terrorism
was despicable—except where it was most regularly practiced, namely in and
against Israel. To this day, it remains the majority Arab view that the militarily
overmatched Palestinians are justified in fighting Israelis with whatever means
they have. On the issue of terrorist financing, the answers I received were equally
inadequate. When I confronted one Saudi leader about payments to Hamas, he
said they were merited because Hamas, unlike Yasir Arafat and his government,
actually delivered social services to the Palestinian people. As for payments to the
families of suicide bombers, those were justified not as an enticement or a reward
but as a humanitarian gesture.
The attitude of Arab conservatives toward the terrorism practiced by al Qaeda is

another matter. Bin Laden is the cobra that turned on its master. The teaching of
Wahhabi Islam in Saudi Arabia's mosques, generously supported by the royal
family, has combined with a mix of other factors (globalization, rising
unemployment, and the U.S. military presence) to create a global center for the
dissemination of hatred. To the discomfort of Saudi leaders, that hatred is now
directed not only at the United States and Israel, but also at them. The three
explosions set off in Riyadh in May killed 34 people, and hopefully destroyed the
last set of lingering Saudi illusions as well. The Saudis have since arrested more
than a dozen suspects, fired hundreds of radical clerics, and suspended a
thousand more. They also claim to have implemented new regulations designed to
prevent the flow of charitable contributions from Saudis overseas to terrorist
groups. At the same time, however, the country's leading liberal newspaper editor
recently lost his job for seeming to suggest there was a connection between terror
and what is being taught in radical mosques. As his firing suggests, the fight for
the collective heart and mind of Saudi Arabia has barely begun. Crown Prince
Abdullah and his successors must do more than simply condemn extremism and
terror; they must rip them out by roots that have become deeply implanted in the
kingdom's sandy soil.
Even if the Saudis succeed in such efforts, the roots of terror will continue to
throw up shoots elsewhere. The Iraqi imam quoted at the beginning of this article
did not explicitly advocate terror in his speech, but he did use the kind of clash-of-
civilizations terminology that tends to make Samuel Huntington look
retrospectively prescient. The "with us or against us" choice put forward by
President Bush has been pulled apart and reassembled, with Islam taking the high
ground and with alleged American evil substituted for the real evil: terror. This bit
of sophistry illustrates the immense difficulty the United States will have trying to
categorize Iraqis on the basis of whether they are willing to cooperate openly with
the United States. Iraqis, and Arabs more generally, need the space to design
their own choices free from the diktats of authoritarian leaders and
notwithstanding the preferences of the United States (provided those choices
exclude violence, include tolerance, and are fair to women). This will, I concede,
be no simple matter to put into practice.
There are, however, grounds for hope. It is true that the Pew survey found
widespread antipathy toward American policies, especially in the Middle East. But
it also found widespread enthusiasm among Arab populations for values closely
associated with the United States, such as freedom of expression, political
pluralism, and equal treatment under the law. Solid majorities in places such as
Jordan, Kuwait, and Morocco now believe that Western-style democracy would
work well in their countries. And since democracy is built from the bottom up, one
step at a time, U.S. leaders have an opportunity (risky as it is) to go around Arab
governments to find values in common with the much-vaunted "Arab street."
Washington might, for example, spend less time condemning what the Qatar-
based independent al Jazeera television network chooses to broadcast and more
time acknowledging the importance of its right to choose and encouraging other
media outlets to start up.
Although I was proud of the Clinton administration's foreign policy, and I

understand that democracy cannot be imposed from the outside, I regret not
having done more to push for liberalization within the Arab world. We did nudge
at times, supporting Kuwaiti leaders in their initiative to give women the vote and
encouraging the creation of representative bodies in Bahrain and Jordan. But we
did not make it a priority. Arab public opinion, after all, can be rather scary. The
same Pew survey that detected Arab enthusiasm for democracy also found that
the "world leader" in whom Palestinians have the most confidence is Osama bin
Laden. Who wants to give people with such opinions the right to choose their own
leaders? The answer is us: we should do everything possible to see that they are
given that right.
For years, Arab populations have received a distorted message from Washington:
that the United States stands for democracy, freedom, and human rights
everywhere except in the Middle East and for everyone except the Arabs. The
time has come to erase that perception and the reality that too often lies behind
it. Democracy will not end terrorism in the Arab world, but neither will it nourish
it, as despotism does. Bin Laden's appeal is based on what he symbolizes:
defiance. In fact, he offers nothing except death and destruction, and Muslim
majorities will reject this if they are offered real alternatives.
Indeed, democratization is the most intriguing part of the administration's gamble

in Iraq. The creation of a stable and united Iraqi democracy would be a
tremendous accomplishment, with beneficial repercussions in other Arab
societies. But was invading Iraq the right way to start building democratic
momentum in the Arab world? The answer will depend on how divided Iraq
remains, and how dicey the security situation becomes. U.S. soldiers will have a
hard time democratizing Iraq if they are forced to remain behind walls and inside
tanks. And U.S. officials will lack credibility preaching the virtues of freedom if
they feel compelled to censor broadcasts, search houses, ban political parties, and
repeatedly reject Iraqi demands for more complete self-rule. The Bush
administration was determined to retain for itself the authority to supervise every
aspect of Iraq's postwar transition. History will judge whether that was a wise
decision, but I am reminded in this context of one of "Rumsfeld's Rules," the
Pentagon chief's guide for wise public policy: "It is easier to get into something
than to get out of it."
CHANGING DIRECTION IN THE MIDDLE EAST
A second, concurrent test of Arab democratization is occurring within the

Palestinian Authority, where the Bush administration deserves credit for pushing
for reform of Palestinian institutions. The selection of Prime Minister Mahmoud
Abbas and the appointment of Finance Minister Salam Fayyad are necessary steps
toward democracy and sound governance. The creation of political freedom is
essential to allow the emergence of a new generation of Palestinian leaders,
comfortable with democratic ways. At the same time, democracy—if it does
come—is unlikely to produce a Palestinian government willing to make peace on
terms Israelis will accept, or at least not for many years. The Pew survey found
that 80 percent of Palestinians do not believe they can realize their rights while
coexisting with an Israeli state. That doubt is surely justified if Palestinian rights
are thought to include the recovery of all lands taken during the 1967 war, full
sovereignty over al-Haram al-Sharif (the Temple Mount), and the right of
Palestinian refugees to return to their pre-1948 homes. Unless those demands are
modified, or the issues somehow sidestepped, the journey to a Middle East peace
will stretch far beyond the boundaries envisioned in the current road map.
Making progress will therefore require new thinking on both sides. The Israelis
must help Abbas to succeed in a way they never did with Arafat. This will mean
recognizing the elementary fact that Abbas is accountable to the Palestinians, not
to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon or Bush. Unless the new Palestinian regime
is able to show greater results than Arafat delivered, Abbas will soon find himself
a footnote to history.
The Palestinians, meanwhile, must reject terror—not because the United States or
other outsiders want them to, but because terror, far more than Israel, is the
enemy of the Palestinian people. It is destructive not only of the Palestinian
economy and Palestinian territorial hopes, but of the people's very soul. Terror is
a choice, and when people have the power to choose, they have the power to
change. The Bush administration, European governments, the Arab world, and
Palestinian moderates must all work to create a Palestinian consensus that
excludes and excoriates terror. As long as murderers are hailed as martyrs, there
can be no real peace, nor any Palestinian state worthy of the name.
Making progress will therefore require new thinking on both sides. The Israelis
must help Abbas to succeed in a way they never did with Arafat. This will mean
recognizing the elementary fact that Abbas is accountable to the Palestinians, not
to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon or Bush. Unless the new Palestinian regime
is able to show greater results than Arafat delivered, Abbas will soon find himself
a footnote to history.
The Palestinians, meanwhile, must reject terror—not because the United States or
other outsiders want them to, but because terror, far more than Israel, is the
enemy of the Palestinian people. It is destructive not only of the Palestinian
economy and Palestinian territorial hopes, but of the people's very soul. Terror is
a choice, and when people have the power to choose, they have the power to
change. The Bush administration, European governments, the Arab world, and
Palestinian moderates must all work to create a Palestinian consensus that
excludes and excoriates terror. As long as murderers are hailed as martyrs, there
can be no real peace, nor any Palestinian state worthy of the name.
The Israelis, too, must be wary of the impact of their own policies of aggressive
self-defense. Former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir once said that she blamed
Arabs less for killing Israelis than for making it necessary for Israelis to kill. Israel
has a right to protect itself against terror and, at times, to take preemptive action.
But it should never forget that it is destined to live next door to the Palestinians
forever, sharing the same land. There is no military solution to that.
REFRAMING THE CHOICE
After September 11, President Bush asked the world to stand with the United
States against the terrorists who had attacked the country. In the years since,
however, he has broadened that request and altered its tone. No longer is Bush
asking the world to join a common struggle; instead, he is demanding that it
follow along as the United States wages its own battle against threats the
president has defined. September 11 proved, Bush has said, that the institutions,
alliances, and rules of the past are no longer adequate to protect the American
people. Terrorists who cannot be deterred are on the loose. If they gain access to
WMD, unspeakable horrors will ensue. And so the United States, Bush has
warned, will act when and where it perceives an actual, possible, or potential
connection between terrorists and dangerous technology. Those who join it will be
rewarded. Those who do not will be scorned, and worse.
I credit Bush for his ambition and for taking political risks he did not have to take.
I harbor no doubts about his sincerity. I agree with him that the United States
cannot be complacent. I share his assessment of the need not simply to oppose
but also to defeat the declared enemies of the country. For the good of the United
States, I hope his policies succeed. But I am left with the feeling that he has
needlessly placed obstacles in his own path.
After all, the attacks of September 11 were dramatic and shocking, but hardly the
first time this country has realized the extreme danger it will face if it allows
WMD to fall into the wrong hands. President Bill Clinton warned regularly of that
very thing. One of his earliest accomplishments was to persuade Ukraine,
Kazakhstan, and Belarus to give up their nuclear weapons. He promoted the
Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program tirelessly, spending American
money to secure nuclear materials and expertise throughout the former Soviet
Union. Clinton made himself an expert on the threat of a biological weapons
attack on U.S. soil. He reorganized the National Security Council to broaden and
intensify the fight against terrorism months before the August 1998 bombings of
the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania brought global notoriety to bin Laden.
Year after year, Clinton traveled to the UN in New York to emphasize two themes:
the importance of halting WMD proliferation and the need for nations to unite in
eliminating terrorist sanctuaries and funding. But President Clinton differed from
his successor in that he believed the United States' ability to beat the country's
enemies would be strengthened if NATO were strong and united, UN agencies
such as the International Atomic Energy Agency were enhanced, and America's
friends around the world were consulted and respected. Clinton saw fighting
terror as a team enterprise, not a solo act.
September 11 showed that what the United States had been doing to identify and
defeat al Qaeda was not enough. It did not, however, discredit the premise that to
defeat al Qaeda, Americans need the active help and cooperation of other
countries.
The Bush administration has chosen to take the problem of al Qaeda and meld it
with the challenge of halting WMD proliferation—two issues that overlap but are
by no means identical in the military, political, and technical issues they raise.
Defeating al Qaeda would not end the problem of proliferation; al Qaeda is deadly
even without nuclear, chemical, and biological arms. Meanwhile, the nuclear
programs of North Korea and Iran are driven by nationalism, not terrorism, and
must be dealt with primarily on that basis. September 11, the administration's
eureka moment, caused it to lump together terrorists and rogue regimes and to
come up with a prescription for fighting them—namely, preemption—that
frightens and divides the world at precisely the moment U.S. security depends on
bringing people together.
I believe a different approach, focused more sharply and insistently on al Qaeda,

with the Middle East, Iraq, Iran, and North Korea treated vigorously but
separately, might have yielded a better result. Such an approach would, I believe,
have enabled Bush to formulate a much clearer choice on the core issue of terror
for allies in Europe and for the most critical audience of all: the sometimes silent
majority of Muslims in the Middle East and around the world. The seriousness of
that choice would have been backed under this scenario by Washington's own
seriousness in Afghanistan, which would have remained the focus of U.S. nation-
building efforts. Rather than flaunting American power, the U.S. government
would have stressed the collective power of a world united in asserting that
terrorism is wrong, just as genocide, apartheid, and slavery are wrong. U.S.
efforts would have been directed not simply at the apprehension of al Qaeda
suspects, but also at stopping the teaching of hate, the glorification of murder,
and the endless manufacture of lies about the West that continues to this day in
much of the Middle East and South Asia. Reinforced by a united Europe,
American officials would have pressed over time for the gradual opening of Arab
political and economic systems and for support for the democratic changes that
surveys suggest most Arabs want. Washington would also have shown its respect
for the value of every human life by staying engaged on a daily basis in the uphill
struggle to halt killing on both sides in the strife-torn Middle East.
By complicating its own choice, the administration has instead complicated the
choices faced by others, divided Europe, and played into the hands of extremists
who would like nothing better than to make the clash of civilizations the defining
struggle of our age.
It is late, but not too late, for the Bush administration to adjust its course. It has
already shed some of its more optimistic illusions about Iraq, pledged presidential
involvement in the Middle East, mended some fences with Europe, and reduced
the level of self-congratulation in its official pronouncements.
It would be helpful now if the doctrine of preemption were to disappear quietly

from the U.S. national security lexicon and be returned to reserve status. It is
imperative, as well, that the missions in Afghanistan and Iraq actually be
completed before victory is once again declared. To that end, perhaps
administration officials will recognize that although none of the existing
international institutions can do everything, each can do something. Perhaps the
United States' current leaders will even put aside their reflexive disdain for all
things Clintonian and consider the model of Kosovo. There, a NATO-led
peacekeeping force, with Russian participation and assisted by a new civilian
police force, is providing security for administrators from the United Nations, the
European Union, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe,
who are working with local parties to prepare a democratic transition. Not only is
this setup operating fairly well, it has also given everyone involved a sense of
mission and a stake in success. It takes patience to work with allies and to bring
out the best in international organizations. But doing so also delivers great
benefits: costs are shared, burdens distributed, legitimacy enhanced, diverse
talents engaged. And everyone joins in wanting success.
Finally, the administration should do more of what President Bush did during his
recent, welcome trip to Africa—play to the United States' true strengths. The idea
that Americans—residents of the most powerful land in history—are now truly
living in fear of bin Laden has failed to impress the majority of people around the
globe, whose concerns about terrorism are dwarfed by the challenge they face in
simply staying alive despite the ever-present perils of poverty, hunger, and
disease. The United States' cause would therefore be heard more clearly and
listened to more closely if the administration substituted bridges for bluster and
spoke more often of choices relevant to the day-to-day lives of more of the world's
people. That means spelling out consistently not only what Americans are against,
but also what they are for, and making clear that this includes helping people
everywhere live richer, freer, and longer lives.
Madeleine K. Albright was U.S. Secretary of State from 1997 to 2001. She is the author of the forthcoming Madam
Secretary: A Memoir.
September 1,2003
A Strategy of Partnerships
Colin L. Powell
YVES HERMAN / REUTERS

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell adjusts his earphone at a news conference after a meeting with
European Union foreign ministers in Brussels, November 18, 2003.
BROAD AND DEEP
When most people think about U.S. foreign policy these days, they think first and
sometimes only about aspects of the war on terrorism: the reconstruction of Iraq
and Afghanistan, the troubles of the Middle East, and the terror cells lurking in
Southeast Asia, Europe, and even the United States. This preoccupation is
natural. International terrorism literally hit home on September 11, 2001, and, for
understandable reasons, an outraged American public wants those responsible
brought to justice. The American people also want to understand why the attacks
happened—and demand a foreign policy that makes sure such events will never
happen again.
It is also natural that the war on terrorism has become the United States' number
one foreign policy priority. It will remain so for as long as necessary, because
terrorism—potentially linked to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction
(WMD)—now represents the greatest threat to American lives. Defeating
terrorism is a priority that drives not only military action to subdue individual
terrorists and deter their state supporters but also multilateral cooperation in law
enforcement and intelligence sharing. It encompasses efforts both to stigmatize
terrorism as a political instrument and to reduce the underlying sources of
terrorist motivation and recruitment.
But the breadth of U.S. strategy transcends the war on terrorism. Indeed, a
strategy limited to dealing with immediate threats would in the end fail to defeat
them—just as bailing water out of a boat would not fix a leak. The sharp focus on
the front lines of the war against terrorism, however, has made it harder than
usual for people to grasp what American strategy is really all about. We all know
the old aphorism that you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.
These days, it seems that an administration can develop a sound foreign policy
strategy, but it can't get people to acknowledge or understand it.
PRESIDENT BUSH'S VISION
It is an unfailingly effective applause line for critics of any U.S. administration to

charge that the president has no vision for the world, that he has no strategy.
Every trouble is attributed to this failing, as though the world would otherwise be
perfectly accommodating to U.S. purposes. Unfortunately, this criticism has come
close to being true in some administrations. But it is not true in the present one.
President George W. Bush does have a vision of a better world. And he also has a
strategy for translating that vision into reality. I know—I was present at its
creation.
The president's strategy was first laid out publicly in September 2002, in the
National Security Strategy of the United States (NSS). A succinct document of
fewer than 40 pages, the NSS defines U.S. policy priorities in eight substantive
sections. Together, these parts add up to an integrated strategy that is broad and
deep, far ranging and forward looking, attuned as much to opportunities for the
United States as to the dangers it faces.
Of course, a public strategy document cannot be entirely frank about all the
choices that U.S. leaders make; we do ourselves and our allies no favors by telling
our adversaries everything that we think and plan. Nonetheless, this
administration's public pronouncements have been remarkably candid. They
reflect the personality of the president himself, a man who, with great
consistency, says what he means and means what he says.
It is somewhat odd, therefore, to discover that our foreign policy strategy is so

often misunderstood by both domestic and foreign observers. U.S. strategy is
widely accused of being unilateralist by design. It isn't. It is often accused of
being imbalanced in favor of military methods. It isn't. It is frequently described
as being obsessed with terrorism and hence biased toward preemptive war on a
global scale. It most certainly is not.
These distortions are partly explained by context. The NSS made the concept of
preemption explicit in the heady aftermath of September 11, and it did so for
obvious reasons. One reason was to reassure the American people that the
government possessed common sense. As President Bush has said—and as any
sensible person understands—if you recognize a clear and present threat that is
undeterrable by the means you have at hand, then you must deal with it. You do
not wait for it to strike; you do not allow future attacks to happen before you take
action.
A second reason for including the notion of preemption in the NSS was to convey
to our adversaries that they were in big trouble. Instilling a certain amount of
anxiety in terrorist groups increases the likelihood they will cease activity or make
mistakes and be caught. Moreover, some states have been complicit in terrorism
not for ideological reasons but for opportunistic ones. It was worth putting the
leaders of such countries on notice that the potential costs of their opportunism
had just gone way up.
Sensible as these reasons are, some observers have exaggerated both the scope of
preemption in foreign policy and the centrality of preemption in U.S. strategy as a
whole. As to preemption's scope, it applies only to the undeterrable threats that
come from nonstate actors such as terrorist groups. It was never meant to
displace deterrence, only to supplement it. As to its being central, it isn't. The
discussion of preemption in the NSS takes up just two sentences in one of the
document's eight sections.
Some at home have distorted the NSS for partisan reasons, attempting to make
the Bush administration look bad by turning fear of preemption into an early
twenty-first-century equivalent of the Cold War era's "rocket rattle." Some abroad,
meanwhile, have distorted U.S. intentions through an apparent exercise in mirror
imaging. Using their own mottled political histories as a reference point, they
have asked what they would do with the power that the United States possesses
and have mistakenly projected their own Hobbesian intentions onto our rather
more Lockean sensibilities.
But however it has happened, the distortion of U.S. foreign policy strategy
requires repair. This distortion does a disservice to honest observers trying to
understand U.S. policy, and it contributes to irrational partisanship.
THE PRIMACY OF PARTNERSHIPS
The United States' National Security Strategy does commit us to preemption

under certain limited circumstances. We stand by that judgment, the novelty of
which lies less in its substance than in its explicitness. But our strategy is not
defined by preemption. Above all, the president's strategy is one of partnerships
that strongly affirms the vital role of NATO and other U.S. alliances—including
the UN.
Don't believe it? Perhaps this is because the commentariat widely claimed that the
president's recent decision to seek a new UN Security Council resolution on the
postwar reconstruction of Iraq was a sharp break with policy. To think this, one
would have to ignore the fact that President Bush went before the UN on
September 12, 2002, to make his case for the UN's enforcing its own resolutions
(16 of them in total); that Security Council Resolution 1441—which warned the
Iraqi regime to comply with its own obligations under previous UN
resolutions—passed unanimously in November 2002; that we tried for a further
resolution to unite the international community in the months before Operation
Iraqi Freedom began; that we went to the UN in May 2003 after Operation Iraqi
Freedom to secure Resolution 1483, lifting sanctions against Iraq that had
become obsolete; and that we sought and secured Resolution 1500 in August,
recognizing the Iraqi Governing Council.
Had we not done all of these things, month after month, the president's decision
to go to the UN Security Council in September 2003—and to persevere in his
efforts until Resolution 1511 was approved by a 15-0 vote on October 16—would
have been a significant departure from policy. But the administration did do all of
these things. Indeed, it would have been a departure from policy not to go to the
UN when, in our judgment, the next phase of Iraqi reconstruction was at hand. If
there has been any departure here, it is the commentariat's departure from the
basic rules of logic.
Partnership is the watchword of U.S. strategy in this administration. Partnership

is not about deferring to others; it is about working with them. Beyond upholding
the partnerships we have inherited, the president seeks new ones to deal with
new challenges. Some are global in scope, such as the Global Fund for HIV/AIDS.
Others are regional, such as the Middle East Partnership Initiative, which
provides assistance for educational, economic, and political reform throughout the
Arab world.
Beyond partnership comes principle. The president's strategy is rooted, above all,
in the promotion of freedom and dignity worldwide. "America must stand firmly,"
the president wrote, "for the non-negotiable demands of human dignity: the rule
of law; limits on the absolute power of the state; free speech; freedom of worship;
equal justice; respect for women; religious and ethnic tolerance; and respect for
private property." We stand by these values now and always. They are the values
served by the partnerships that we build and nurture.
Free trade and new American initiatives for economic development also figure
prominently in the president's strategy. The Free Trade Area of the Americas, the
expanded Africa Growth and Opportunity Act, and especially the Millennium
Challenge Account are our policy vanguards in this area. Our efforts to control the
proliferation of WMD also form part of the president's strategy. These efforts led
to the Proliferation Security Initiative in May 2003, an 11-nation effort to seize
materials related to WMD in transit to countries of concern. In September 2003,
signatories were able to agree on basic implementation guidelines, and in the
president's address to the UN General Assembly on September 24, he called other
nations to join. I hope they will heed his invitation.
President Bush's strategy also demands that we play a role in helping to solve
regional conflicts. Not only do such conflicts cause much suffering, but they can
also spread to envelop societies now at peace and can stoke the fires of terrorism.
Nowhere is the U.S. role in helping to resolve regional conflicts more important
than in bringing Israelis and Palestinians to a stable peace settlement. We are
obviously not there yet, but this administration's policies have brought peace
closer.
The Bush administration was widely criticized during its first two years in office
for not being more active in solving the Arab-Israeli conflict. To many, "more
active" meant spending presidential and secretarial capital on state visits and
photo opportunities, as if nearly a decade of such activity had not already been
tried without managing to resolve the conflict. But diplomacy can take other,
more appropriate forms. In reality, we have worked hard on advancing peace, if
often quietly, making the proper analysis of the situation and determining our
tactics accordingly.
As a result, we created the Quartet—another partnership—made up of the United

States, the European Union, Russia, and the UN. We developed the "road map"
out of this partnership, and the president went to Aqaba, Jordan, in June 2003 to
commit the parties to it.
Most important, we recognized that there needed to be fundamental reform inside
the Palestinian Authority if the forces for peace among Palestinians were to
prevail. After it became clear that the United States would not obstruct Israel's
efforts to defend itself from Palestinian terrorism, pressures for genuine reform
grew within the Palestinian community. This convergence produced the hopeful
premiership of Mahmoud Abbas.
Unfortunately, Abbas' efforts were aborted by Chairman Yasir Arafat, and Abbas'
successor, Ahmed Qurei, has been obstructed as well. Chairman Arafat has not
been a genuine interlocutor for peace; he has been an obstacle to it. Although our
hopes for progress have been temporarily disappointed, it is now clear to all
where the real problem lies. One way or another, we are bound eventually to get
past this problem. Moreover, there is now a solid and growing constituency in
Israel that supports prominent Palestinian leaders who genuinely seek an
honorable and stable peace. Bleak as things often seem in this conflict, this does
represent progress.
Conflicts in other regions have also demanded our attention—and our compassion.
The United States has not turned away from the suffering of the Liberian people,
and we have been actively trying to end strife in Sudan and the Democratic
Republic of the Congo. Nor have we forgotten the need for continued progress in
the Balkans, in Northern Ireland, and in East Timor. We are making progress in
most if not all of these areas, and we are often doing so by supporting other
governments that are taking the lead. In other words, we are working as a
partner.
AN AGE OF COOPERATION
Not least among the policy priorities laid out in the NSS is our determination to
develop cooperative relations among the world's major powers. It is here, above
all, that the key to a successful conclusion to the war against terrorism lies.
To say that the world has changed is a truism: the world, after all, is always
changing. It is not so trivial, however, to specify just how it has changed. As I see
it, the critical tipping point of recent years was the evening of November 9, 1989.
That date is when the Berlin Wall was first breached, never to be repaired,
marking the end of the Cold War and, before long, of the Soviet Union itself.
These events, in turn, ended the epoch of intense struggle between liberty and
totalitarianism that had shaped most of the twentieth century.
The president grasps the importance of these momentous events. As he wrote in

the NSS, "today, the international community has the best chance since the rise of
the nation-state in the seventeenth century to build a world where great powers
compete in peace instead of continually prepare for war. Today, the world's great
powers find ourselves on the same side."
This development is not just good news; it is revolutionary news. For too many
years—too many centuries—the imperial habits of great powers squandered
untold resources and talent by jousting for land, glory, and gold. The futility of
such habits has become evident in the twenty-first century. The possession of vast
territory, raw physical resources, and brute power guarantees neither prosperity
nor peace. Investment in human capital, social trust, trade, and cooperation
within and among nations does.
The sources of national strength and security for one nation thus need no longer
threaten the security of others. An insight of the Enlightenment and a deep belief
of the American founders—that politics need not always be a zero-sum
competition—has at last been adopted by enough people worldwide to promise a
qualitative difference in the character of international relations. If, instead of
wasting lives and treasure by opposing each other as in the past, today's powers
can pull in the same direction to solve problems common to all, we will begin to
redeem history from much human folly.
One of these common problems is, of course, terrorism, and American strategy
endeavors to solve it by integrating it into the management of our key
international relationships. We do not see the war against terrorism and the
nurturing of constructive relationships among the major powers as mutually
exclusive tasks. We conduct the war on terrorism with an eye toward great-power
cooperation, and we seek enhanced great-power cooperation with an eye toward
success in the war on terrorism.
The logic of this dual approach rests on the fact that terrorism threatens the
world order itself—and thus creates a common interest among all powers that
value peace, prosperity, and the rule of law. The civilized world has spent more
than a thousand years trying to limit the destructiveness of war. Drawing a
distinction between civilians and combatants has been an essential part of this
process. But terrorism aims to erase that distinction. We cannot allow this to
happen, not because we want to "make the world safe" again for major
conventional war, but because we must reassure people everywhere that the
world has not just traded one kind of danger for another with the end of the Cold
War. The victory of freedom will turn hollow if new fears replace old ones.
The common interest of all major powers in defeating terrorism is one source of a
rare and remarkable opportunity: the United States' chance to enjoy excellent
relations with all the world's major powers simultaneously. Of course, we have a
head start in this, because we are blessed with many enduring friendships. None
is more important than those enshrined in NATO.
Some observers predicted that NATO would wither away after the Cold War,
others that the United States and the European Union would even end up on a
collision course. Neither prediction has, or will, come true. Not only has NATO
survived, but both its membership and its mission have expanded. As for our
relations with the EU, never has our common agenda been so large and mutually
significant—from advancing free trade to joint efforts in counterproliferation.
It is true that we have had differences with some of our oldest and most valued
NATO allies. But these are differences among friends. The transatlantic
partnership is based so firmly on common interests and values that neither
feuding personalities nor occasional divergent perceptions can derail it. We have
new friends and old friends alike in Europe. They are all, in the end, best friends,
which is why the president continues to talk about partnerships, not polarities,
when he speaks about Europe. Some authorities say that we must move to a
multipolar world. We do not agree—not because we do not value competition and
diversity, but because there need be no poles among a family of nations that
shares basic values. We believe that it is wiser to work at overcoming differences
than to polarize them further.
EMBRACING MAJOR POWERS
We work hard to have the best relations we can with nations large and small, old
and new. But for practical purposes we concentrate on relations with major
powers, especially those with whom we have had difficult relationships in the
past, notably Russia, India, and China.
Our relationship with Russia has been dramatically transformed since that
November evening in 1989. Americans and Russians no longer point growing
arsenals of missiles at each other. Thanks to the leadership of President Bush and
President Vladimir Putin, we are now radically reducing our strategic weapons
arsenals. Moscow is also a committed partner in fighting terrorism and in
combating the global spread of WMD.
U.S.-Russia commercial relations have also expanded and will expand further to
mutual benefit—not least, we trust, in the energy sector. The new relationship
that is developing between Russia and NATO has real substance as well. From
sharing intelligence on terrorism to working together to deal with humanitarian
crises and peacekeeping, the NATO-Russia Council is operational. That
relationship can expand as far as our creativity and mutual effort will let it. We
are closer than ever to a Europe whole, free, and at peace. Such a Europe
definitely includes Russia, as well as the other new and reborn republics that
emerged from the Soviet Union.
Perhaps most important, U.S. and Russian political and economic philosophies are
converging. Today, Russia is more democratic than not. It is also more of a market
economy than not. We should be patient as Russia develops its democratic
institutions and as the remnants of Soviet-era corruption are rooted out and the
rule of law firmly established.
We do not agree on everything, of course. We had hoped for more Russian

support for our Iraq policy, and we still hope Russia will change its attitude
toward the Iranian nuclear program. We also differ over aspects of Russian policy
in Chechnya. But the relationship as a whole is no longer locked in knee-jerk
antagonism. We now have the necessary level of trust to resolve even the most
difficult issues between us.
Whereas Russia is still developing its democracy, India's democracy dates from its
independence in 1947. With recent economic reforms setting institutional roots,
India is developing into a mature market economy. As Indians themselves are the
first to admit, however, their country still faces many challenges. Illiteracy,
poverty, environmental degradation, and inadequate infrastructure all hamper
progress. We want to help India overcome these challenges, and we want to help
ourselves through a closer association with one of the world's venerable cultures.
We have therefore worked to deepen our relationship with India. The two largest
democracies on earth are no longer estranged. At the same time, we have also
been able to advance our relations with Pakistan—a country with domestic
challenges of its own.
India and Pakistan still dispute who should control Kashmir. During 2002, a major
war between them—perhaps involving nuclear weapons—seemed distinctly
possible. So, working with partners in Europe and Asia, we mobilized to help end
the crisis. We have since been trying to turn our parallel improvement of relations
with India and Pakistan into a triangle of conflict resolution. We do not impose
ourselves as a mediator. But we do try to use the trust we have established with
both sides to urge them toward conciliation by peaceful means.
What the United States has done in South Asia is an example of "turning adversity
into opportunity," to quote President Bush. In a different way, we have done the
same with China.
Sino-American relations got off to a bad start in this administration when a
certain American airplane made an unscheduled visit to Hainan Island in April
2001. Today, however, U.S. relations with China are the best they have been since
President Richard Nixon first visited Beijing more than 30 years ago. This is not
just because the September 11 attacks led us to shuffle priorities, nor only
because we championed Chinese accession to the World Trade Organization; nor
is it the result of the accession of a new generation of Chinese leaders. It is
certainly not because we have ignored Chinese human rights abuses, China's still
unacceptable weapons proliferation activities, or the reluctance of China's
leadership to match political to economic reform. We have never downplayed
these difficulties.
The Sino-American relationship has nonetheless improved for a reason that

transcends all these particulars: neither we nor the Chinese believe that there is
anything inevitable about our relationship any longer—either inevitably bad or
inevitably good. Instead, we now believe that it is up to us, together, to take
responsibility for our common future. The NSS put it directly: "We welcome the
emergence of a strong, peaceful, and prosperous China." We also seek a
constructive relationship. Indeed, we welcome a global role for China, so long as
China assumes responsibilities commensurate with that role. China's leaders
know all this. Neither false fear about the future nor the overhang of Cold War
enmity prevents us from cooperating where our interests coincide.
A case in point is North Korea. American and Chinese interests on the Korean
Peninsula may not overlap completely, but they do so considerably. Neither side
wishes to see nuclear weapons developed and deployed there. Neither side enjoys
the spectacle of the dilapidated North Korean economy. Neither side wants the
refugee crisis on China's border to worsen nor relishes a North Korean regime
that smuggles drugs and weapons, counterfeits currencies, and engages in the
periodic extortion of its neighbors through brinkmanship. And neither side, to be
sure, has any interest in another Korean war.
Thus we have worked to transform our common interests with China into solid
and productive cooperation over the challenges posed by Pyongyang. We are also
cooperating with Japan, Russia, and South Korea on the issue. Our agenda is
ambitious, but it is succeeding, as attested to by the six-party framework for talks
over North Korea's nuclear program. We employed this framework in September
2003, and we will do so again soon. Beijing, as well as Washington, deserves
credit for this achievement.
We still have a long way to go in dealing with North Korea's dangerous nuclear
weapons program. As we have told the North Koreans, we have no intention of
invading or attacking North Korea. During his trip to Asia in October 2003,
President Bush suggested that he was even open to putting this intention in
writing. We have stated our policy openly and honestly: we want peace, not war,
and we want security, not fear, to envelop the Korean Peninsula and its neighbors.
But we will not yield to threats and blackmail; if we did, we would only guarantee
more threats and more attempts at blackmail. Nor will we take any options off the
table.
It is now well past time for North Korea to alter its behavior, cease its threats, and
end its nuclear weapons program in a verifiable manner. That is what all of North
Korea's neighbors desire, which is why, in the end, a diplomatic solution to the
problem can be achieved. When this happens, we will have demonstrated that
American diplomacy is designed to satisfy not only our own national interests, but
also those of international security as a whole. We will show that the equities of
other powers can be best advanced along with American ones, not in opposition to
them.
INTERESTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES
We must not take the present peace among the world's nations for granted.
Today's peace will not just take care of itself. We have to work at it with patience,
mindful that major war has broken out in the past despite a widespread conviction
that it simply could not happen again.
Of course, we want to promote human dignity and democracy in the world, to help
people raise themselves from poverty, and to transform the inadequate system of
global public health. We are pursuing these goals right now. But only if the deep
peace of our era can be "preserved, defended, and expanded"—to use the
president's words—can we pursue these goals for as long as it will take to achieve
them.
And make no mistake, these are the central goals of American policy in the
twenty-first century. We fight terrorism because we must, but we seek a better
world because we can—because it is our desire, and our destiny, to do so. This is
why we commit ourselves to democracy, development, global public health, and
human rights, as well as to the prerequisite of a solid structure for global peace.
These are not high-sounding decorations for our interests. They are our interests,
the purposes our power serves.
Because this is so, the United States' reputation for honesty and compassion will
endure. Today, U.S. motives are impugned in some lands. But as we preserve,
defend, and expand the peace that free peoples won in the twentieth century, we
will see the United States vindicated in the eyes of the world in the twenty-first.
It would be churlish to claim that the Bush administration's foreign policy has
been error-free from the start. We are human beings; we all make mistakes. But
we have always pursued the enlightened self-interest of the American people, and
in our purposes and our principles there are no mistakes.
Our enlightened self-interest puts us at odds with terrorists, tyrants, and others
who wish us ill. From them we seek no advice or comity, and to them we will give
no quarter. But our enlightened self-interest makes us partners with all those who
cherish freedom, human dignity, and peace. We know the side on which the
human spirit truly abides, and we take encouragement from this as our strategy
unfolds. In the end, it is the only encouragement we really need.
Colin L. Powell is the U.S. Secretary of State.

January 1,2004
Foreign Policy for a Democratic
President
Samuel R. Berger
FILE / REUTERS
U.S. Marine Corp Assaultman Kirk Dalrymple watches as a statue of Iraq's President Saddam Hussein falls in
central Baghdad in this April 9, 2003 file photo.
Editor's note:
This is the second in a series of commissioned essays on foreign policy concerns

for the next president. A Republican view is scheduled for the July/August issue.
FALL FROM GRACE
Speaking before the National Endowment for Democracy last fall, President
George W. Bush delivered an important statement of American purpose. He
rightly argued that the United States has an interest in political freedom in
Muslim countries, because the absence of freedom denies people peaceful
avenues for expressing dissent and thus drives them toward shadowy, violent
alternatives. He fairly criticized past administrations for having been too tolerant
of authoritarian Arab regimes. And he committed the United States to the difficult
but vital task of supporting more open and democratic societies in the Middle
East.
But with few exceptions, the democratic activists, politicians, journalists, and
intellectuals in the Muslim world—our natural partners in this effort—met
President Bush's speech with skepticism, even disdain. Across the Middle East,
his words did little to improve popular perceptions of the United States and its
intentions.
The problem is not that Arabs reject the president's message. According to recent
surveys of the region by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press,
significant majorities of people from Morocco to Jordan to Pakistan are
democrats: they say they want to live in societies where leaders are freely elected,
where free speech is protected, and where the rule of law is respected. Yet
paradoxically, equally large majorities in the very same countries now insist that
they do not "like American ideas about democracy."
Similar contradictions abound in other parts of the world. Washington is

committed to defending South Korea if war breaks out on the Korean Peninsula,
yet growing numbers of young South Koreans see the United States as a greater
threat to security than North Korea. We are waging a war on terrorism that is as
vital to Europe's security as to our own, yet increasing numbers of Europeans
associate it with self-interested American power and therefore press their leaders
to reject it.
Such negative feelings result in part from a natural resentment of U.S. military,
economic, and cultural might, about which we can do little and for which we need
not apologize. But they have been accentuated by the manner in which the Bush
administration has pursued its goals. The administration's high-handed style and
its gratuitous unilateralism have embittered even those most likely to embrace
American values and invited opposition even from those with most to gain from
American successes. All around the world, fewer and fewer people accept that any
connection exists between their aspirations and the principles Washington
preaches.
As a result, although the United States has never enjoyed greater power than it
does today, it has rarely possessed so little influence. We can compel, but far too
often we cannot persuade. Our most important global initiatives, from advancing
reform in the Middle East to defeating terrorism, will likely fail, unless there is a
change in approach—or a change in leadership.
MISPLACED MEANS
The foreign policy debate in this year's presidential election is as much about
means as it is about ends. Most Democrats agree with President Bush that the
fight against terrorism and the spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMD)
must be top global priorities, that the war in Afghanistan was necessary and just,
and that Saddam Hussein's Iraq posed a threat that needed to be dealt with in one
form or another. Over time, moreover, the Bush administration has, at least
rhetorically, embraced the Democrats' argument that to win the war on terrorism
the United States must do more than destroy something bad; it must also
construct something good, supporting other peoples' aspirations to live in
freedom and peace and to conquer poverty and disease.
But the manner in which the Bush administration has advanced these goals has
been driven by a radical set of convictions about how the United States should act
on the world stage. Key strategists inside the administration appear to believe
that in a chaotic world, U.S. power—particularly military power—is the only real
force for advancing U.S. interests, that as long as the United States is feared it
does not matter much if we are admired. These same people believe it is best to
recruit temporary "coalitions of the willing" to back our foreign actions, because
permanent alliances require too many compromises. They believe the United
States is perforce a benign power with good intentions and therefore does not
need to seek legitimacy from the approval of others. And they believe that
international institutions and international law are nothing more than a trap set
by weaker nations to constrain us.
These are not new ideas. During the Truman and Eisenhower administrations, a
hard-line faction of congressional Republicans, led by Senate Majority Leader
Robert Taft, fought virtually every measure to build the postwar international
order. They opposed NATO and the permanent deployment of U.S. troops in
Europe, believing we should rely on the unilateral exercise of military power to
defeat Soviet designs. They fought the creation of the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund and turned against the UN. And they disdained "one
worlders" such as Eleanor Roosevelt for their support of international law. Taft
Republicans were briefly dominant in the U.S. Congress (until the combined
efforts of Democrats and internationalist Republicans such as Dwight Eisenhower
relegated them to the sidelines). But their radical world-view never drove policy in
the executive branch—until today.
The real "clash of civilizations" is taking place within Washington. Considering the
open differences between Secretary of State Colin Powell and Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld, it is even playing out within the Bush administration
itself. It is not really a clash over discrete policy issues—the merits of the war in
Iraq, the costs of the Kyoto Protocol, or the level of spending on foreign aid, for
example—but between diametrically opposed conceptions of America's role in the
world. It is a battle fought between liberal internationalists in both parties who
believe that our strength is usually greatest when we work in concert with allies
in defense of shared values and interests, versus those who seem to believe that
the United States should go it alone—or not go it at all.
Bush administration hard-liners have not been bashful about defining and
defending their vision. In an election year, Democrats must also be clear about
what they believe and about what they would do to advance U.S. security,
prosperity, and democratic ideals, to restore our influence, standing, and ability to
lead. Democrats must outline a foreign policy that not only sets the right goals,
but also rebuilds America's capacity to achieve them.
WITH US, NOT AGAINST US
Every postwar administration, Republican and Democratic, has believed that

there are things in this world worth fighting: threatening regimes or individuals
who deserve to be called evil and can be stopped only by force. And today,
although we must try to change the political and economic conditions in which
terrorist movements are spawned, we must recognize that simply addressing root
causes will not stop committed terrorists from attacking the United States and our
allies; such people must be apprehended or killed.
Likewise, we must reject the convenient fallacies that free markets inevitably give
rise to free societies or that globalization by itself will lead to peace. Nations and
leaders are not captive to abstract historical forces but act in accordance with
their interests and ambitions. For the foreseeable future, the United States and its
allies must be prepared to employ raw military and economic power to check the
ambitions of those who threaten our interests.
A posture of strength and resolve and a willingness to define clear terms and to
impose consequences are clearly the right approach for dealing with our
adversaries. But where the Bush administration has gone badly wrong is in
applying its "with us or against us" philosophy to friends as well as foes. Put
simply, our natural allies are much more likely to be persuaded by the power of
American arguments than by the argument of American power. Democratically
elected leaders—whether in Germany, the United Kingdom, Mexico, or South
Korea—must sustain popular support for joint endeavors with the United States.
When we work to convince them that the United States is using its strength for
the common good, we enable them to stand with us. But when we compel them to
serve our ends, we make it politically necessary, even advantageous, for them to
resist us. It would have been hard to imagine a decade ago that leaders of
Germany and South Korea—two nations that owe their existence to the sacrifice
of American blood—would win elections by appealing to anti-Americanism.
Going into Iraq, the Bush administration believed that most of our allies would get
on board if we made it clear that the train would leave without them. It also
believed that we did not need the legitimacy UN authorization and involvement
would have bestowed. Those theories did not stand up to reality. Washington's
failure to gain the support of capable allies (France, Germany, and Turkey, rather
than, say, the Marshall Islands) vastly increased the human, financial, and
strategic costs of the war and has threatened the success of the occupation.
The administration continued to squander U.S. influence with its allies even after
the war. Much has been said about the Pentagon's rash decision to deny Iraqi
reconstruction contracts to companies from NATO allies such as Canada, France,
and Germany, just as the United States was asking them to forgive Iraqi debt. But
few people noticed the administration's even more bizarre decision to suspend
millions in military aid to countries that supported the war because they refused
to grant Americans full immunity from prosecution by the International Criminal
Court (ICC). In the end, we treated "new Europe" as shabbily as we treated "old
Europe."
As for the UN, a few months after the Iraq invasion the administration found that
the leader of Iraq's dominant Shia community would not even talk to American
officials, much less accept our plan for elections in Iraq. So Washington begged
the UN to step in on our behalf: a belated recognition that our actions are seen as
more legitimate when the international community embraces them.
A Democratic administration will need to reaffirm the United States' willingness

to use military power—alone if necessary—in defense of its vital interests. But it
will have no more urgent task than to restore America's global moral and political
authority, so that when we decide to act we can persuade others to join us.
Achieving this reversal will require forging a new strategic bargain with our
closest allies, particularly in Europe. To this end, Washington should begin with a
simple statement of policy: that the United States will act in concert with its allies
in meeting global threats as a first, not last, resort. When we ask our allies to join
us in military action, or in nation-building efforts in places such as Iraq and
Afghanistan, we should be ready to share not just the risks but also the decision-
making. That is what we did when NATO went to war in Bosnia and Kosovo, and
what the administration irresponsibly failed to do when NATO invoked its
collective defense clause to offer aid to the United States in Afghanistan. The U.S.
side of the bargain must also include a disciplined focus on our true global
priorities, starting with the war on terrorism, undistracted by petty ideological
disputes over issues such as Kyoto, the ICC, and the biological weapons
convention.
The Democratic approach to resolving disputes with Europe over treaties should
be pragmatic, focused on improving flawed agreements rather than ripping them
up. International law is not self-enforcing. It does not, by itself, solve anything.
But when our goals are embodied in binding agreements, we can gain
international support in enforcing them when they are violated. By the same
token, nothing undermines U.S. authority more than the perception that the
United States considers itself too powerful to be bound by the norms we preach to
others.
POWER TO PERSUADE
As part of a new bargain with our allies, the United States must re-engage in what
the rest of the world rightly considers the cornerstone of a lasting transformation
of the Middle East: ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. So long as that dispute
continues, Arab rulers will use it as an excuse to avoid reform and to resist open
cooperation with the United States in the war on terrorism.
A point may have been reached where unilateral steps by Israel to protect its
security are inevitable. For more than three years now, the people of Israel have
been subjected to a brutal, unprecedented assault. But the Israeli government's
moves must be a way station, rather than an illusory end point, advancing
changes in Palestinian leadership that could help foster a negotiated settlement. If
Israeli withdrawals from Gaza and the West Bank are coordinated with the
Palestinians, and if an Israeli fence is seen as a temporary measure shaped by
security and demographic concerns (as opposed to a land grab), hope for a real
solution will be preserved. If not, the vacuum left by the withdrawals could result
in a failed terrorist haven dominated by Hamas radicals. In this nightmare
scenario, the suicidal Palestinian strategy of terror would continue, pushing Israel
not to the sea but to the right. A long-term war of attrition would leave Israelis
even more divided and disillusioned, and a whole new generation of children in
the region would grow up seeing the United States as the problem, not the
solution.
U.S. policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has traditionally rested on two
pillars. We are Israel's staunchest ally. And we are an honest broker between the
two sides, which has made us not impartial, but, rather, partial to an agreement
that both assures Israel's security and guarantees a dignified life for Palestinians.
A Democratic administration must return with energy and urgency to these
principles. It should stand solidly behind Israel in its fight against terrorism and
help ordinary Palestinians to liberate themselves from a leadership concerned
with little more than its own survival. It should also lead the international
community in offering a realistic vision of how life would look for Palestinians if
they were to accept and respect the security and existence of the Jewish state of
Israel. And it should offer the outlines of a two-state solution—giving Palestinians
something to gain and something to lose. The stakes are enormous and there is no
way forward without active American engagement.
As we re-engage in the peace process and rebuild frayed ties with our allies, what
should a Democratic president ask of our allies in return? First and foremost, we
should ask for a real commitment of troops and money to Afghanistan and Iraq.
Now that NATO has finally agreed to lead an expanded peacekeeping mission in
Afghanistan, there is a desperate need for European forces to augment the
existing U.S. military presence in the country, to ensure that it does not return to
a state of chaos that threatens our interests. Afghanistan, with Pakistan, remains
a frontline battleground in the war on terrorism. But given the state of
transatlantic relations, there is little support in Europe for sending troops on
dangerous missions there. A new administration will have to overcome this
challenge if it is to restore security to Afghanistan and relieve the burden on U.S.
forces.
Iraq, too, will require a generational commitment by the international community.

Regardless of whether the war was justified, everyone now has a profound stake
in Iraq's success. The disintegration of that country along ethnic and religious
fault lines would destabilize the Middle East and energize radical movements that
threaten the world. A stable and democratic Iraq, on the other hand, would
stimulate reform throughout the region. Attaining the latter outcome will require
continuous involvement in Iraq's reconstruction and political development, as well
as a proactive military posture that does not leave foreign troops hunkered down
in bases and barracks, delegating security to an ill-prepared Iraqi security force.
But that level of involvement will be unsustainable—and will be considered
illegitimate by ordinary Iraqis—unless it is viewed as a truly international, rather
than exclusively American, effort.
The irony is that the Bush administration's unilateralist approach has let our allies
off the hook: it has given them an excuse to shirk these and other global
responsibilities. A Democratic administration would not be so dismissive of our
allies on the issues that matter to them. In turn, it would have authority to
demand far more of them on the issues that matter to us—whether stabilizing Iraq
and Afghanistan, democratizing the Middle East, or combating the spread and
potential use of WMD.
PREVENTION, NOT JUST PREEMPTION
The Bush administration's argument for invading Iraq rested, in part, on the belief
that the United States cannot wait until a WMD threat is imminent before taking
action. Yet its overall approach to combating WMD proliferation defies the logic of
this position.
A Democratic administration should use every tool at its disposal to prevent WMD
threats from arising before force becomes the only option. The most obvious early
measure Washington can take to keep deadly weapons materials from falling into
the hands of terrorists or rogue regimes is to secure them at source. Yet the
current administration has shown little interest in accelerating or expanding
programs to do this. Indeed, President Bush tried to cut back the Nunn-Lugar
Cooperative Threat Reduction Program for the former Soviet Union early in his
term. At our current pace, it will take 13 years to complete security upgrades at
every site containing plutonium and highly enriched uranium in Russia. With
increased funding for Nunn-Lugar, this process could be accelerated to 4 years.
Beyond Russia, dozens of research reactors contain the raw materials for making
a radiological or nuclear weapon. We should lead a global effort to secure nuclear
materials at all such sites.
The one country that we know has the capacity, and conceivably the inclination,
actually to sell a working nuclear weapon to a terrorist group is North Korea. Yet
the administration has reacted with inexplicable complacency as North Korea has
crossed line after line on its way to becoming the world's first nuclear Wal-Mart.
Pyongyang is now capable of producing, and potentially selling, up to 6 nuclear
weapons at any time—possibly 20 a year by the end of this decade—something
that even the most dire intelligence estimates did not predict in Iraq. We do not
know how much plutonium North Korea has reprocessed into useable nuclear fuel
over the past 18 months, since it expelled international monitors while we were
busy negotiating the shape of the table.
A Democratic administration must clearly and promptly test whether Kim Jong Il
intends North Korea to become a nuclear factory or whether he will negotiate his
way into the international community. U.S. officials must put a serious proposition
on the table—a nationwide, verifiable dismantlement of North Korea's nuclear
programs in exchange for economic and political integration—and be prepared to
sequence implementation in a reciprocal way once the ultimate objectives are
accepted. We must be prepared to take yes for an answer. And if Pyongyang's
answer is no, South Korea, Japan, and China will join us in coercive actions only if
they are convinced that we made a serious, good-faith effort to avoid
confrontation. The worst option is one in which cash-starved North Korea
becomes a supplier of nuclear weapons to al Qaeda or Hamas or to radical
Chechens, who then deliver them to Washington, London, or Moscow.
We need the same kind of "overt action" plan for Iran, offering—in full public
view—normal relations in exchange for total renunciation of nuclear aspirations
and terrorism by Tehran. Let the Iranian government say no to such an offer and
be the obstacle to its people's aspirations, a decision that would create its own
dynamic inside Iran. We have other problems with Iran and North Korea,
including their appalling human rights abuses. But those can best be addressed if
we first bring them out of isolation.
A Democratic administration should seek to strengthen global rules against

proliferation more generally. The existing Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)
established an important norm. Since 1975, South Korea, Argentina, Brazil,
Taiwan, South Africa, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Ukraine, and now Libya have reversed
course and given up their nuclear weapons programs under its auspices. But the
NPT remains flawed, because it permits countries to develop all the building
blocks of a nuclear weapons program and then to withdraw from the treaty
without penalty once they are ready to enrich uranium or produce plutonium for
nuclear weapons.
We should press for a new bargain. Nuclear powers such as the United States
should help non-nuclear countries develop nuclear energy and provide them with
uranium. But they should maintain control of the fuel cycle, taking back spent
nuclear material and storing it securely so it cannot be used to build weapons.
(Clearly, there are risks associated with how and where fuel is stored, but there is
no risk-free alternative.) Any country that seeks to escape this strict system of
controls should be subject to automatic UN sanctions. To hope to convince non-
nuclear powers to agree to this arrangement, the United States should lead by
example. That means giving up the Bush administration's irresponsible plan to
develop a new generation of low-yield nuclear weapons (which sends the message
that nuclear weapons are a useful instrument of war) and joining the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
NEW MISSIONS, NEW CAPABILITIES
Most Democrats agree with President Bush that terrorists, and even recalcitrant
regimes on occasion, must be confronted with force. The question should be how,
not whether, our military and intelligence assets are employed, and whether we
are adapting them rapidly enough to the challenges the United States faces today.
Since the Cold War ended, we have witnessed two generations of military reform:
from amassing huge armored units to an emphasis on deploying light forces
anywhere in the world, and from analog-based technology to the digital
information age. The war on terrorism will require a third military transformation.
Although we still need the capacity to fight conventional wars, we now must seek
out and destroy enemies that hide in the shadows, often among civilians, without
tanks or fighter planes. At heart, this effort will be an intelligence challenge. A
new administration should launch a major retooling of our intelligence agencies,
including appointing a director of national intelligence with authority over our
entire intelligence budget, rather than the 20 cents on the dollar that the current
CIA director controls.
Of course, there will also be times when the war on terrorism tests our military,
as in Afghanistan and Pakistan, in Yemen, and in the Philippines. What will the
war on terrorism require in terms of new doctrines, tactics, equipment, and
training? How will it change our military organization? How can we defeat this
new enemy while upholding the values that protect our own troops in wartime and
that define who we are? The Bush administration has not addressed these
questions. A Democratic administration must answer them.
The Bush administration believes that our military should be reserved for war
fighting; it came to office averse to peacekeeping and nation building and deeply
suspicious of long-term U.S. military deployments overseas. This prejudice drove
strategy in Afghanistan and Iraq—with disastrous consequences. After driving the
Taliban from power in Afghanistan, the administration delegated the building of a
nation to the same warlords who destroyed the Afghan nation in the early 1990s.
As for Iraq, it sent the minimum number of troops needed to defeat the enemy,
without simultaneously deploying forces to occupy and secure the ground those
troops were liberating. The result was postwar chaos that emboldened terrorists
and soured the coalition's relationship with Iraqis.
What Democrats must offer is a sense of realism: when the United States goes to
war it had better be prepared to stay where it has fought, to fix what it has
broken, and to work with allies for years, if necessary, to consolidate its victories.
We must demonstrate staying power, not just firepower, whether in the Balkans
or Afghanistan or Iraq.
Part of the problem has been reluctance in certain military quarters to adapt our
armed forces to these kinds of missions. Some military leaders fear that if the
army develops peacekeeping capacity, civilian leaders will be too tempted to use
it. But the fact remains that presidents of both parties have sent our forces on at
least seven major postconflict peacekeeping or "stability" operations in the last
decade. Denial is not a strategy for preparedness. Like it or not, such operations
will inevitably be a large part of the military's role for the foreseeable future. A
Democratic administration will need to ensure that our army has the force
structure, training, and appropriate weaponry to do what we ask of it, including
fighting enemies, combating insurgencies, safeguarding public security, and
protecting civilians. And it must ensure that we have civilian
institutions—domestic and international—that are prepared to act so that our
military is not asked to do more than is necessary.
If the Bush administration were more committed to collective action, it would

have greater authority to press NATO allies to improve their military capabilities.
We cannot accept a division of labor in which we fight and they talk. We will be
confronted with the need to rebuild failed and postconflict societies, yet we should
not be compelled to do so alone. We need international institutions with ready-to-
move capability. Ensuring such capability is imperative for the UN if it is to
maintain its relevance. A Democratic administration should lead an effort to turn
the UN into the NATO of civilian peacekeeping, giving it the capacity to call upon
member countries' dedicated capabilities—from police to civil servants—and
deploy them rapidly to hot spots around the world.
MAKING THE WORLD'S FIGHT OUR OWN
The primary objective of U.S. foreign policy should be to make the United States
more secure, which means applying our power to the fight against terrorism and
the spread of deadly weapons. But if there is one lesson we should have learned in
the last three years, it is that American power will be resisted—even by our
friends—if it is applied solely for self-protection and not for purposes that are
more broadly shared.
With precious few exceptions (including President Bush's Middle East democracy
initiative and his realization that the United States must help combat AIDS), we
have witnessed a narrowing of purpose and vision since September 11, 2001.
Before that date, the administration had a national missile defense policy. It now
has a terrorism policy and an Iraq policy. But the Bush administration still does
not have a true foreign policy suited to the demands of a global power with global
responsibilities. We must start leading again across a broader agenda, in more
places, and with a wider definition of our national interest.
The next president must end our neglect of Latin America and restore the United
States' reputation as a defender of democracy, which has been frayed by the Bush
administration's approaches to Venezuela and Haiti. He must treat Africa as more
than a backwater in the war on terrorism. President Bush's promise to send U.S.
troops to Liberia, only to pull them back after ten days ashore, did enormous
damage to our reputation on that continent.
In Asia, home to more than half of the world's people, a tectonic geopolitical and
economic shift is taking place. But the United States remains strangely
disengaged. Not long ago, the nations of the region feared China and saw their
future tied to ours. Today, the reverse is happening. China has skillfully turned
most of the countries of Southeast Asia, including Australia, into allies. Its
economy is growing by leaps and bounds, it has stepped up to diplomatic
challenges such as that posed by North Korea, and it is increasingly seen as a
dominant power in the region. Russia, flush with oil, is emerging as a stable and
growing power and asserting itself in Asia. India is emerging from generations of
insularity and self-absorption, opening itself up to the world. A Democratic
administration will have to ensure that the United States stays in the game in
Asia. It must encourage emerging regional powers to channel their energies in the
right directions and restore our leadership in responding to regional crises.
The new president will also need to reassert U.S. interest in what happens inside
the borders of China and Russia. The stakes are enormous: without political
reform, China will stagnate economically, unable to meet the demands of
hundreds of millions dislocated by change. And without more widespread respect
for the rule of law, or for its neighbors' sovereignty, Russia will neither attract
investment nor energize its people. True realists understand the linkage between
the way countries are governed and their external behavior. Yet the Bush
administration has largely ignored questions of internal development in these
countries. President Bush has not once articulated a comprehensive strategy for
dealing with China or Russia, instead concerning himself narrowly with their
actions on the global stage.
A Democratic president will face the challenge of restoring the substantive as well
as the geographical reach of our foreign policy, showing the world that we
understand a simple truth: all terrorism is evil, but not all evil is terrorism. For
the vast majority of people in the world, the greatest danger is not al Qaeda. It is
localized armed conflict over political power, resources, and ethnicity. It is
poverty, disease, and environmental destruction. These scourges claim
exponentially more lives each year than terrorism does. They should matter to us
as much as we expect our concerns to matter to others.
To this end, the United States should be seen as a peacemaker again, actively
engaged in the resolution of conflicts from the Middle East to Southeast Asia to
Central and West Africa, helping to build the peacekeeping capabilities of other
nations, and willing to contribute money and troops, alongside our allies, when
our interests and values are at stake. Even when the chances of success are small,
such efforts help reveal that American power can serve the common good.
A Democratic administration should also fund a greater U.S. commitment to

combating infectious disease. For all the headlines and paper promises of action,
fewer than 1 in 5 people in the world at risk of AIDS have access to preventive
services. Fewer than 1 in 50 infected people receive the drugs they need; in
Africa, the number is only 1 in 1,000. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS,
Tuberculosis, and Malaria has asked rich countries to contribute just $10 billion a
year to save millions of lives. The United States can and should give more than its
fair share of this amount, so we can prod other countries to do the same.
A Democratic administration should launch a major global initiative to bring clean

water to the hundreds of millions of people in poor countries who do not have it. It
must do more to enable children, especially girls, to go to school. And it must seek
to close the "digital divide"—the increasing gap between rich and poor in
technology availability. A Democratic president must treat these issues as part of
a personal crusade again, including them in every foreign summit and speech, and
challenging leaders around the world and in the private sector to do more.
A Democratic administration should champion expanding trade as the best long-

term hope for gaining prosperity in rich and poor countries alike. It should urge
Europeans to end their farm subsidies, which impoverish farmers in the
developing world (the average cow in the European Union gets more than $2 a
day in state support, more than most people in Africa have to live on), while
having the courage to cut U.S. farm subsidies as well. The next president must
also recognize that an agenda that pursues growth without equity is destined to
achieve neither goal. Gene Sperling, President Bill Clinton's former national
economic adviser, has proposed a "new consensus on free trade," one that
expands open markets while addressing the legitimate concerns of workers. His
proposal prioritizes investing in education and retraining before jobs are lost,
providing comprehensive services to dislocated workers, adjusting tax and health
care policies that make job creation in the United States less attractive, and
fighting abuses of labor rights overseas.
Finally, it is time for the United States to confront climate change. Unchecked
global warming could devastate the global economy and global agriculture, lead
to massive population movements, and literally wipe some nations off the face of
the earth. This rising tide will sink all boats. A Democratic president will need to
meet this threat with courage and alacrity, strengthening bipartisan efforts, such
as the McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act (which was narrowly defeated
in the Senate last year), to cut greenhouse gas emissions, re-engaging with our
allies either to rescue or to revise the Kyoto Protocol, and launching initiatives to
address life-and-death concerns such as expanding deserts and shrinking forests.
WHO WE ARE MATTERS
President Bush says that the front line of the war on terrorism is in Iraq and that
it is better to fight our enemies in Baghdad than in Baltimore. That formulation is
fundamentally flawed. The front line today is wherever we are, particularly in
those places where people don't want us to be. Because of this reality, it is
essential that we define who we are in a way that isolates our enemies, rather
than ourselves. That notion was something well understood by American leaders
during the Cold War. Of course, the United States was not universally loved, but
we did at least build an enduring set of alliances, rooted in a genuine sense of
shared interests and based on ties among peoples, not just governments. During
those years, America was admired where it counted most: in the nations behind
the Iron Curtain, the chief battleground of the Cold War. Poles, Hungarians, and
ordinary Russians saw us as credible champions of their democratic aspirations.
There was no anti-Americanism in Eastern Europe that communist governments
could stoke to deflect U.S. pressure for change or that extremists could exploit to
win support for their aims. Imagine if there had been. Would the Cold War have
ended as it did? Would the Soviet empire have collapsed when it did? If it had,
what would have replaced it?
These are precisely the kinds of questions we face now in the greater Middle East
and more broadly around the world. We have the raw power to impose our will
when we must, and far more often than not that power has been used for good,
not ill. But whoever is president, we will need to rely most often on persuasion,
not power, to achieve our goals. Who will be persuaded to stand with America if
we do not stand for something larger than ourselves? Who will voluntarily work
with us if we demand cooperation entirely on our terms? And if we do succeed in
challenging the status quo in the Islamic world, as we did in Eastern Europe a
generation ago, what will take its place, if U.S. leadership is rejected by those
people who wish to bring about change?
The good news is that the world is eager for the United States to return to its
tradition of leadership. Most countries would still be far more worried by the
prospect of American isolationism than by American unilateralism. We can seize
on these sentiments to forge new coalitions against terrorism and WMD and to
build a freer, safer world.
But having the right aims is not enough. The United States needs leaders who
ensure that our means do not undermine our ends. We need a forward-looking
realism, without the ideological rigidity that has alienated our natural allies
around the world. We need, in short, to reunite our power with moral authority.
Only that combination will weaken our enemies and inspire our friends.
Samuel R. Berger served as National Security Adviser to President Bill Clinton from 1997 to 2001 and is Chairman of
Stonebridge International, LLC.
May 1,2004
Campaign 2000: Promoting the
National Interest
Condoleezza Rice

U.S. President George W. Bush listens to National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice speak after he
nominated her to replace Colin Powell as Secretary of State, November 16, 2004.
LIFE AFTER THE COLD WAR
The United States has found it exceedingly difficult to define its "national interest"
in the absence of Soviet power. That we do not know how to think about what
follows the U.S.-Soviet confrontation is clear from the continued references to the
"post-Cold War period." Yet such periods of transition are important, because they
offer strategic opportunities. During these fluid times, one can affect the shape of
the world to come.
The enormity of the moment is obvious. The Soviet Union was more than just a
traditional global competitor; it strove to lead a universal socialist alternative to
markets and democracy. The Soviet Union quarantined itself and many often-
unwitting captives and clients from the rigors of international capitalism. In the
end, it sowed the seeds of its own destruction, becoming in isolation an economic
and technological dinosaur.
But this is only part of the story. The Soviet Union's collapse coincided with
another great revolution. Dramatic changes in information technology and the
growth of "knowledge-based" industries altered the very basis of economic
dynamism, accelerating already noticeable trends in economic interaction that
often circumvented and ignored state boundaries. As competition for capital
investment has intensified, states have faced difficult choices about their internal
economic, political, and social structures. As the prototype of this "new economy,"
the United States has seen its economic influence grow—and with it, its
diplomatic influence. America has emerged as both the principal benefactor of
these simultaneous revolutions and their beneficiary.
The process of outlining a new foreign policy must begin by recognizing that the
United States is in a remarkable position. Powerful secular trends are moving the
world toward economic openness and—more unevenly—democracy and individual
liberty. Some states have one foot on the train and the other off. Some states still
hope to find a way to decouple democracy and economic progress. Some hold on
to old hatreds as diversions from the modernizing task at hand. But the United
States and its allies are on the right side of history.
In such an environment, American policies must help further these favorable

trends by maintaining a disciplined and consistent foreign policy that separates
the important from the trivial. The Clinton administration has assiduously avoided
implementing such an agenda. Instead, every issue has been taken on its own
terms—crisis by crisis, day by day. It takes courage to set priorities because doing
so is an admission that American foreign policy cannot be all things to all
people—or rather, to all interest groups. The Clinton administration's approach
has its advantages: If priorities and intent are not clear, they cannot be criticized.
But there is a high price to pay for this approach. In a democracy as pluralistic as
ours, the absence of an articulated "national interest" either produces a fertile
ground for those wishing to withdraw from the world or creates a vacuum to be
filled by parochial groups and transitory pressures.
THE ALTERNATIVE
American foreign policy in a Republican administration should refocus the United

States on the national interest and the pursuit of key priorities. These tasks are
* to ensure that America's military can deter war, project power, and fight in
defense of its interests if deterrence fails;
* to promote economic growth and political openness by extending free trade and
a stable international monetary system to all committed to these principles,
including in the western hemisphere, which has too often been neglected as a
vital area of U.S. national interest;
* to renew strong and intimate relationships with allies who share American
values and can thus share the burden of promoting peace, prosperity, and
freedom;
* to focus U.S. energies on comprehensive relationships with the big powers,

particularly Russia and China, that can and will mold the character of the
international political system; and
* to deal decisively with the threat of rogue regimes and hostile powers, which is
increasingly taking the forms of the potential for terrorism and the development
of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
INTERESTS AND IDEALS
Power matters, both the exercise of power by the United States and the ability of
others to exercise it. Yet many in the United States are (and have always been)
uncomfortable with the notions of power politics, great powers, and power
balances. In an extreme form, this discomfort leads to a reflexive appeal instead
to notions of international law and norms, and the belief that the support of many
states—or even better, of institutions like the United Nations—is essential to the
legitimate exercise of power. The "national interest" is replaced with
"humanitarian interests" or the interests of "the international community." The
belief that the United States is exercising power legitimately only when it is doing
so on behalf of someone or something else was deeply rooted in Wilsonian
thought, and there are strong echoes of it in the Clinton administration. To be
sure, there is nothing wrong with doing something that benefits all humanity, but
that is, in a sense, a second-order effect. America's pursuit of the national interest
will create conditions that promote freedom, markets, and peace. Its pursuit of
national interests after World War II led to a more prosperous and democratic
world. This can happen again.
So multilateral agreements and institutions should not be ends in themselves. U.S.

interests are served by having strong alliances and can be promoted within the
U.N. and other multilateral organizations, as well as through well-crafted
international agreements. But the Clinton administration has often been so
anxious to find multilateral solutions to problems that it has signed agreements
that are not in America's interest. The Kyoto treaty is a case in point: whatever
the facts on global warming, a treaty that does not include China and exempts
"developing" countries from tough standards while penalizing American industry
cannot possibly be in America's national interest.
Similarly, the arguments about U.S. ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty are instructive. Since 1992, the United States has refrained unilaterally
from testing nuclear weapons. It is an example to the rest of the world yet does
not tie its own hands "in perpetuity" if testing becomes necessary again. But in
pursuit of a "norm" against the acquisition of nuclear weapons, the United States
signed a treaty that was not verifiable, did not deal with the threat of the
development of nuclear weapons by rogue states, and threatened the reliability of
the nuclear stockpile. Legitimate congressional concerns about the substance of
the treaty were ignored during negotiations. When faced with the defeat of a bad
treaty, the administration attacked the motives of its opponents—incredibly
branding long-standing internationalists like Senators Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) and
John Warner (R-Va.) as isolationists.
Certainly, Republican presidents have not been immune to the practice of

pursuing symbolic agreements of questionable value. According to the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee, some 52 conventions, agreements, and treaties still
await ratification; some even date back to 1949. But the Clinton administration's
attachment to largely symbolic agreements and its pursuit of, at best, illusory
"norms" of international behavior have become an epidemic. That is not
leadership. Neither is it isolationist to suggest that the United States has a special
role in the world and should not adhere to every international convention and
agreement that someone thinks to propose.
Even those comfortable with notions of the "national interest" are still queasy with
a focus on power relationships and great-power politics. The reality is that a few
big powers can radically affect international peace, stability, and prosperity.
These states are capable of disruption on a grand scale, and their fits of anger or
acts of beneficence affect hundreds of millions of people. By reason of size,
geographic position, economic potential, and military strength, they are capable
of influencing American welfare for good or ill. Moreover, that kind of power is
usually accompanied by a sense of entitlement to play a decisive role in
international politics. Great powers do not just mind their own business.
Some worry that this view of the world ignores the role of values, particularly
human rights and the promotion of democracy. In fact, there are those who would
draw a sharp line between power politics and a principled foreign policy based on
values. This polarized view—you are either a realist or devoted to norms and
values—may be just fine in academic debate, but it is a disaster for American
foreign policy. American values are universal. People want to say what they think,
worship as they wish, and elect those who govern them; the triumph of these
values is most assuredly easier when the international balance of power favors
those who believe in them. But sometimes that favorable balance of power takes
time to achieve, both internationally and within a society. And in the meantime, it
is simply not possible to ignore and isolate other powerful states that do not share
those values.
The Cold War is a good example. Few would deny that the collapse of the Soviet
Union profoundly transformed the picture of democracy and human rights in
eastern and central Europe and the former Soviet territories. Nothing improved
human rights as much as the collapse of Soviet power. Throughout the Cold War,
the United States pursued a policy that promoted political liberty, using every
instrument from the Voice of America to direct presidential intervention on behalf
of dissidents. But it lost sight neither of the importance of the geopolitical
relationship with Moscow nor of the absolute necessity of retaining robust
American military power to deter an all-out military confrontation.
In the 1970s, the Soviet Union was at the height of its power—which it was more
than willing to use. Given its weak economic and technological base, the victories
of that period turned out to be Pyrrhic. President Reagan's challenge to Soviet
power was both resolute and well timed. It included intense substantive
engagements with Moscow across the entire range of issues captured in the "four-
part agenda" (arms control, human rights, economic issues, and regional
conflicts). The Bush administration then focused greater attention on rolling back
Soviet power in central and eastern Europe. As the Soviet Union's might waned, it
could no longer defend its interests and gave up peacefully (thankfully) to the
West—a tremendous victory for Western power and also for human liberty.
SETTING PRIORITIES
The United States has many sources of power in the pursuit of its goals. The
global economy demands economic liberalization, greater openness and
transparency, and at the very least, access to information technology.
International economic policies that leverage the advantages of the American
economy and expand free trade are the decisive tools in shaping international
politics. They permit us to reach out to states as varied as South Africa and India
and to engage our neighbors in the western hemisphere in a shared interest in
economic prosperity. The growth of entrepreneurial classes throughout the world
is an asset in the promotion of human rights and individual liberty, and it should
be understood and used as such. Yet peace is the first and most important
condition for continued prosperity and freedom. America's military power must be
secure because the United States is the only guarantor of global peace and
stability. The current neglect of America's armed forces threatens its ability to
maintain peace.
The Bush administration had been able to reduce defense spending somewhat at
the end of the Cold War in 1991. But the Clinton administration witlessly
accelerated and deepened these cuts. The results were devastating: military
readiness declined, training suffered, military pay slipped 15 percent below
civilian equivalents, morale plummeted, and the services cannibalized existing
equipment to keep airplanes flying, ships afloat, and tanks moving. The increased
difficulty in recruiting people to the armed forces or retaining them is hardly
surprising.
Moreover, the administration began deploying American forces abroad at a

furious pace—an average of once every nine weeks. As it cut defense spending to
its lowest point as a percentage of GDP since Pearl Harbor, the administration
deployed the armed forces more often than at any time in the last 50 years. Some
of the deployments themselves were questionable, such as in Haiti. But more than
anything it was simply unwise to multiply missions in the face of a continuing
budget reduction. Means and mission were not matched, and (predictably) the
already thinly stretched armed forces came close to a breaking point. When all
these trends became so obvious and embarrassing that they could no longer be
ignored, the administration finally requested increased defense spending. But the
"death spiral," as the administration's own undersecretary of defense called
it—robbing procurement and research and development simply to operate the
armed forces—was already well under way. That the administration did nothing,
choosing instead to live off the fruits of Reagan's military buildup, constitutes an
extraordinary neglect of the fiduciary responsibilities of the commander in chief.
Now the next president will be confronted with a prolonged job of repair. Military
readiness will have to take center stage, particularly those aspects that affect the
living conditions of the troops—military pay, housing—and also training. New
weapons will have to be procured in order to give the military the capacity to
carry out today's missions. But even in its current state, the American military still
enjoys a commanding technological lead and therefore has a battlefield advantage
over any competitor. Thus the next president should refocus the Pentagon's
priorities on building the military of the 21st century rather than continuing to
build on the structure of the Cold War. U.S. technological advantages should be
leveraged to build forces that are lighter and more lethal, more mobile and agile,
and capable of firing accurately from long distances. In order to do this,
Washington must reallocate resources, perhaps in some cases skipping a
generation of technology to make leaps rather than incremental improvements in
its forces.
The other major concern is a loss of focus on the mission of the armed forces.
What does it mean to deter, fight, and win wars and defend the national interest?
First, the American military must be able to meet decisively the emergence of any
hostile military power in the Asia-Pacific region, the Middle East, the Persian Gulf,
and Europe—areas in which not only our interests but also those of our key allies
are at stake. America's military is the only one capable of this deterrence function,
and it must not be stretched or diverted into areas that weaken these broader
responsibilities. It is the role that the United States played when Saddam Hussein
threatened the Persian Gulf, and it is the power needed to deter trouble on the
Korean Peninsula or across the Taiwan Strait. In the latter cases, the goal is to
make it inconceivable for North Korea or China to use force because American
military power is a compelling factor in their equations.
Some small-scale conflicts clearly have an impact on American strategic interests.

Such was the case with Kosovo, which was in the backyard of America's most
important strategic alliance: NATO. In fact, Yugoslav President Slobodan
MiloŠevic's rejection of peaceful coexistence with the Kosovar Albanians
threatened to rock the area's fragile ethnic balance. Eastern Europe is a
patchwork of ethnic minorities. For the most part, Hungarians and Romanians,
Bulgarians and Turks, and even Ukrainians and Russians have found a way since
1991 of preventing their differences from exploding. MiloŠevic has been the
exception, and the United States had an overriding strategic interest in stopping
him. There was, of course, a humanitarian disaster looming as well, but in the
absence of concerns based on the interests of the alliance, the case for
intervention would have been more tenuous.
The Kosovo war was conducted incompetently, in part because the

administration's political goals kept shifting and in part because it was not, at the
start, committed to the decisive use of military force. That President Clinton was
surprised at MiloŠevic's tenacity is, well, surprising. If there is any lesson from
history, it is that small powers with everything to lose are often more stubborn
than big powers, for whom the conflict is merely one among many problems. The
lesson, too, is that if it is worth fighting for, you had better be prepared to win.
Also, there must be a political game plan that will permit the withdrawal of our
forces—something that is still completely absent in Kosovo.
But what if our values are attacked in areas that are not arguably of strategic
concern? Should the United States not try to save lives in the absence of an
overriding strategic rationale? The next American president should be in a
position to intervene when he believes, and can make the case, that the United
States is duty-bound to do so. "Humanitarian intervention" cannot be ruled out a
priori. But a decision to intervene in the absence of strategic concerns should be
understood for what it is. Humanitarian problems are rarely only humanitarian
problems; the taking of life or withholding of food is almost always a political act.
If the United States is not prepared to address the underlying political conflict
and to know whose side it is on, the military may end up separating warring
parties for an indefinite period. Sometimes one party (or both) can come to see
the United States as the enemy. Because the military cannot, by definition, do
anything decisive in these "humanitarian" crises, the chances of misreading the
situation and ending up in very different circumstances are very high. This was
essentially the problem of "mission creep" in Somalia.
The president must remember that the military is a special instrument. It is lethal,
and it is meant to be. It is not a civilian police force. It is not a political referee.
And it is most certainly not designed to build a civilian society. Military force is
best used to support clear political goals, whether limited, such as expelling
Saddam from Kuwait, or comprehensive, such as demanding the unconditional
surrender of Japan and Germany during World War II. It is one thing to have a
limited political goal and to fight decisively for it; it is quite another to apply
military force incrementally, hoping to find a political solution somewhere along
the way. A president entering these situations must ask whether decisive force is
possible and is likely to be effective and must know how and when to get out.
These are difficult criteria to meet, so U.S. intervention in these "humanitarian"
crises should be, at best, exceedingly rare.
This does not mean that the United States must ignore humanitarian and civil
conflicts around the world. But the military cannot be involved everywhere. Often,
these tasks might be better carried out by regional actors, as modeled by the
Australian-led intervention in East Timor. The U.S. might be able to lend financial,
logistical, and intelligence support. Sometimes tough, competent diplomacy in the
beginning can prevent the need for military force later. Using the American
armed forces as the world's "911" will degrade capabilities, bog soldiers down in
peacekeeping roles, and fuel concern among other great powers that the United
States has decided to enforce notions of "limited sovereignty" worldwide in the
name of humanitarianism. This overly broad definition of America's national
interest is bound to backfire as others arrogate the same authority to themselves.
Or we will find ourselves looking to the United Nations to sanction the use of
American military power in these cases, implying that we will do so even when
our vital interests are involved, which would also be a mistake.
DEALING WITH THE POWERFUL

Another crucial task for the United States is to focus on relations with other
powerful states. Although the United States is fortunate to count among its
friends several great powers, it is important not to take them for granted—so that
there is a firm foundation when it comes time to rely on them. The challenges of
China and North Korea require coordination and cooperation with Japan and
South Korea. The signals that we send to our real partners are important. Never
again should an American president go to Beijing for nine days and refuse to stop
in Tokyo or Seoul.
There is work to do with the Europeans, too, on defining what holds the
transatlantic alliance together in the absence of the Soviet threat. NATO is badly
in need of attention in the wake of Kosovo and with the looming question of its
further enlargement in 2002 and beyond. The door to NATO for the remaining
states of eastern and central Europe should remain open, as many are actively
preparing to meet the criteria for membership. But the parallel track of NATO's
own evolution, its attention to the definition of its mission, and its ability to digest
and then defend new members has been neglected. Moreover, the United States
has an interest in shaping the European defense identity—welcoming a greater
European military capability as long as it is within the context of NATO. NATO has
a very full agenda. Membership in NATO will mean nothing to anyone if the
organization is no longer militarily capable and if it is unclear about its mission.
For America and our allies, the most daunting task is to find the right balance in
our policy toward Russia and China. Both are equally important to the future of
international peace, but the challenges they pose are very different. China is a
rising power; in economic terms, that should be good news, because in order to
maintain its economic dynamism, China must be more integrated into the
international economy. This will require increased openness and transparency
and the growth of private industry. The political struggle in Beijing is over how to
maintain the Communist Party's monopoly on power. Some see economic reform,
growth, and a better life for the Chinese people as the key. Others see the
inherent contradiction in loosening economic control and maintaining the party's
political dominance. As China's economic problems multiply due to slowing
growth rates, failing banks, inert state enterprises, and rising unemployment, this
struggle will intensify.
It is in America's interest to strengthen the hands of those who seek economic

integration because this will probably lead to sustained and organized pressures
for political liberalization. There are no guarantees, but in scores of cases from
Chile to Spain to Taiwan, the link between democracy and economic liberalization
has proven powerful over the long run. Trade and economic interaction are, in
fact, good—not only for America's economic growth but for its political aims as
well. Human rights concerns should not move to the sidelines in the meantime.
Rather, the American president should press the Chinese leadership for change.
But it is wise to remember that our influence through moral arguments and
commitment is still limited in the face of Beijing's pervasive political control. The
big trends toward the spread of information, the access of young Chinese to
American values through educational exchanges and training, and the growth of
an entrepreneurial class that does not owe its livelihood to the state are, in the
end, likely to have a more powerful effect on life in China.
Although some argue that the way to support human rights is to refuse trade with
China, this punishes precisely those who are most likely to change the system. Put
bluntly, Li Peng and the Chinese conservatives want to continue to run the
economy by state fiat. Of course, there should be tight export controls on the
transfer of militarily sensitive technology to China. But trade in general can open
up the Chinese economy and, ultimately, its politics too. This view requires faith
in the power of markets and economic freedom to drive political change, but it is a
faith confirmed by experiences around the globe.
Even if there is an argument for economic interaction with Beijing, China is still a
potential threat to stability in the Asia-Pacific region. Its military power is
currently no match for that of the United States. But that condition is not
necessarily permanent. What we do know is that China is a great power with
unresolved vital interests, particularly concerning Taiwan and the South China
Sea. China resents the role of the United States in the Asia-Pacific region. This
means that China is not a "status quo" power but one that would like to alter
Asia's balance of power in its own favor. That alone makes it a strategic
competitor, not the "strategic partner" the Clinton administration once called it.
Add to this China's record of cooperation with Iran and Pakistan in the
proliferation of ballistic-missile technology, and the security problem is obvious.
China will do what it can to enhance its position, whether by stealing nuclear
secrets or by trying to intimidate Taiwan.
China's success in controlling the balance of power depends in large part on

America's reaction to the challenge. The United States must deepen its
cooperation with Japan and South Korea and maintain its commitment to a robust
military presence in the region. It should pay closer attention to India's role in the
regional balance. There is a strong tendency conceptually to connect India with
Pakistan and to think only of Kashmir or the nuclear competition between the two
states. But India is an element in China's calculation, and it should be in
America's, too. India is not a great power yet, but it has the potential to emerge as
one.
The United States also has a deep interest in the security of Taiwan. It is a model
of democratic and market-oriented development, and it invests significantly in the
mainland's economy. The longstanding U.S. commitment to a "one-China" policy
that leaves to a future date the resolution of the relationship between Taipei and
Beijing is wise. But that policy requires that neither side challenge the status quo
and that Beijing, as the more powerful actor, renounce the use of force. U.S.
resolve anchors this policy. The Clinton administration tilted toward Beijing,
when, for instance, it used China's formulation of the "three no's" during the
president's trip there. Taiwan has been looking for attention and reassurance ever
since. If the United States is resolute, peace can be maintained in the Taiwan
Strait until a political settlement on democratic terms is available.
Some things take time. U.S. policy toward China requires nuance and balance. It
is important to promote China's internal transition through economic interaction
while containing Chinese power and security ambitions. Cooperation should be
pursued, but we should never be afraid to confront Beijing when our interests
collide.
RUSSIAN WEAKNESS
Russia presents a different challenge. It still has many of the attributes of a great
power: a large population, vast territory, and military potential. But its economic
weakness and problems of national identity threaten to overwhelm it. Moscow is
determined to assert itself in the world and often does so in ways that are at once
haphazard and threatening to American interests. The picture is complicated by
Russia's own internal transition—one that the United States wants to see succeed.
The old Soviet system has broken down, and some of the basic elements of
democratic development are in place. People are free to say what they think, vote
for whom they please, and (for the most part) worship freely. But the democratic
fragments are not institutionalized—with the exception of the Communist Party,
political parties are weak—and the balance of political power is so strongly in
favor of the president that he often rules simply by decree. Of course, few pay
attention to Boris Yelstin's decrees, and the Russian government has been mired
in inaction and stagnation for at least three years. Russia's economic troubles and
its high-level corruption have been widely discussed in recent months; Russia's
economy is not becoming a market but is mutating into something else.
Widespread barter, banks that are not banks, billions of rubles stashed abroad
and in mattresses at home, and bizarre privatization schemes that have enriched
the so-called reformers give Moscow's economy a medieval tinge.
The problem for U.S. policy is that the Clinton administration's embrace of Yeltsin
and those who were thought to be reformers around him has failed. Yeltsin is
Russia's president and clearly the United States had to deal with the head of
state. But support for democracy and economic reform became support for
Yeltsin. His agenda became the American agenda. The United States certified that
reform was taking place where it was not, continuing to disburse money from the
International Monetary Fund in the absence of any evidence of serious change.
The curious privatization methods were hailed as economic liberalization; the
looting of the country's assets by powerful people either went unnoticed or was
ignored. The realities in Russia simply did not accord with the administration's
script about Russian economic reform. The United States should not be faulted for
trying to help. But, as the Russian reformer Grigori Yavlinsky has said, the United
States should have "told the truth" about what was happening.
Now we have a dual credibility problem—with Russians and with Americans.

There are signs of life in the Russian economy. The financial crash of August 1998
forced import substitution, and domestic production has increased as the resilient
Russian people have taken matters into their own hands. Rising oil prices have
helped as well. But these are short-term fixes. There is no longer a consensus in
America or Europe on what to do next with Russia. Frustrated expectations and
"Russia fatigue" are direct consequences of the "happy talk" in which the Clinton
administration engaged.
Russia's economic future is now in the hands of the Russians. The country is not
without assets, including its natural resources and an educated population. It is
up to Russia to make structural reforms, particularly concerning the rule of law
and the tax codes, so that investors—foreign and domestic—will provide the
capital needed for economic growth. That opportunity will arise once there is a
new government in Moscow after last December's Duma elections and next June's
presidential election. But the cultural changes ultimately needed to sustain a
functioning civil society and a market-based economy may take a generation.
Western openness to Russia's people, particularly its youth, in exchange programs
and contact with the private sector and educational opportunities can help that
process. It is also important to engage the leadership of Russia's diverse regions,
where economic and social policies are increasingly pursued independently of
Moscow.
In the meantime, U.S. policy must concentrate on the important security agenda
with Russia. First, it must recognize that American security is threatened less by
Russia's strength than by its weakness and incoherence. This suggests immediate
attention to the safety and security of Moscow's nuclear forces and stockpile. The
Nunn-Lugar program should be funded fully and pursued aggressively. (Because
American contractors do most of the work, the risk of the diversion of funds is
low.) Second, Washington must begin a comprehensive discussion with Moscow
on the changing nuclear threat. Much has been made by Russian military officials
about their increased reliance on nuclear weapons in the face of their declining
conventional readiness. The Russian deterrent is more than adequate against the
U.S. nuclear arsenal, and vice versa. But that fact need no longer be enshrined in
a treaty that is almost 30 years old and is a relic of a profoundly adversarial
relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union. The Anti-Ballistic
Missile Treaty was intended to prevent the development of national missile
defenses in the Cold War security environment. Today, the principal concerns are
nuclear threats from the Iraqs and North Koreas of the world and the possibility
of unauthorized releases as nuclear weapons spread.
Moscow, in fact, lives closer to those threats than Washington does. It ought to be
possible to engage the Russians in a discussion of the changed threat
environment, their possible responses, and the relationship of strategic offensive-
force reductions to the deployment of defenses. The United States should make
clear that it prefers to move cooperatively toward a new offense-defense mix, but
that it is prepared to do so unilaterally. Moscow should understand, too, that any
possibilities for sharing technology or information in these areas would depend
heavily on its record—problematic to date—on the proliferation of ballistic-missile
and other technologies related to WMD. It would be foolish in the extreme to
share defenses with Moscow if it either leaks or deliberately transfers weapons
technologies to the very states against which America is defending.
Finally, the United States needs to recognize that Russia is a great power, and
that we will always have interests that conflict as well as coincide. The war in
Chechnya, located in the oil-rich Caucasus, is particularly dangerous. Prime
Minister Vladimir Putin has used the war to stir nationalism at home while fueling
his own political fortunes. The Russian military has been uncharacteristically
blunt and vocal in asserting its duty to defend the integrity of the Russian
Federation—an unwelcome development in civil-military relations. The long-term
effect on Russia's political culture should not be underestimated. And the war has
affected relations between Russia and its neighbors in the Caucasus, as the
Kremlin hurls charges of harboring and abetting Chechen terrorists against states
as diverse as Saudi Arabia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan. The war is a reminder of the
vulnerability of the small, new states around Russia and of America's interest in
their independence. If they can become stronger, they will be less tempting to
Russia. But much depends on the ability of these states to reform their economies
and political systems—a process, to date, whose success is mixed at best.
COPING WITH ROGUE REGIMES
As history marches toward markets and democracy, some states have been left by
the side of the road. Iraq is the prototype. Saddam Hussein's regime is isolated,
his conventional military power has been severely weakened, his people live in
poverty and terror, and he has no useful place in international politics. He is
therefore determined to develop WMD. Nothing will change until Saddam is gone,
so the United States must mobilize whatever resources it can, including support
from his opposition, to remove him.
The regime of Kim Jong Il is so opaque that it is difficult to know its motivations,
other than that they are malign. But North Korea also lives outside of the
international system. Like East Germany, North Korea is the evil twin of a
successful regime just across its border. It must fear its eventual demise from the
sheer power and pull of South Korea. Pyongyang, too, has little to gain and
everything to lose from engagement in the international economy. The
development of WMD thus provides the destructive way out for Kim Jong Il.
President Kim Dae Jung of South Korea is attempting to find a peaceful resolution
with the north through engagement. Any U.S. policy toward the north should
depend heavily on coordination with Seoul and Tokyo. In that context, the 1994
framework agreement that attempted to bribe North Korea into forsaking nuclear
weapons cannot easily be set aside. Still, there is a trap inherent in this approach:
sooner or later Pyongyang will threaten to test a missile one too many times, and
the United States will not respond with further benefits. Then what will Kim Jong
Il do? The possibility for miscalculation is very high.
One thing is clear: the United States must approach regimes like North Korea
resolutely and decisively. The Clinton administration has failed here, sometimes
threatening to use force and then backing down, as it often has with Iraq. These
regimes are living on borrowed time, so there need be no sense of panic about
them. Rather, the first line of defense should be a clear and classical statement of
deterrence—if they do acquire WMD, their weapons will be unusable because any
attempt to use them will bring national obliteration. Second, we should accelerate
efforts to defend against these weapons. This is the most important reason to
deploy national and theater missile defenses as soon as possible, to focus
attention on U.S. homeland defenses against chemical and biological agents, and
to expand intelligence capabilities against terrorism of all kinds.
Finally, there is the Iranian regime. Iran's motivation is not to disrupt simply the
development of an international system based on markets and democracy, but to
replace it with an alternative: fundamentalist Islam. Fortunately, the Iranians do
not have the kind of reach and power that the Soviet Union enjoyed in trying to
promote its socialist alternative. But Iran's tactics have posed real problems for
U.S. security. It has tried to destabilize moderate Arab states such as Saudi
Arabia, though its relations with the Saudis have improved recently. Iran has also
supported terrorism against America and Western interests and attempted to
develop and transfer sensitive military technologies.
Iran presents special difficulties in the Middle East, a region of core interest to
the United States and to our key ally Israel. Iranian weaponry increasingly
threatens Israel directly. As important as Israel's efforts to reach peace with its
Arab neighbors are to the future of the Middle East, they are not the whole story
of stability in the region. Israel has a real security problem, so defense
cooperation with the United States—particularly in the area of ballistic missile
defense—is critical. That in turn will help Israel protect itself both through
agreements and through enhanced military power.
Still, it is important to note that there are trends in Iran that bear watching.
Mohammad Khatami's election as president has given some hope of a new course
for a country that once hosted a great and thriving civilization—though there are
questions about how much authority he exercises. Moreover, Khatami's more
moderate domestic views may not translate into more acceptable behavior
abroad. All in all, changes in U.S. policy toward Iran would require changes in
Iranian behavior.
BUILDING A CONSENSUS FOR THE NATIONAL INTEREST
America is blessed with an extraordinary opportunity. It has had no territorial

ambitions for nearly a century. Its national interest has been defined instead by a
desire to foster the spread of freedom, prosperity, and peace. Both the will of the
people and the demands of modern economies accord with that vision of the
future. But even America's advantages offer no guarantees of success. It is up to
America's presidential leadership and policy to bridge the gap between
tomorrow's possibilities and today's realities.
The president must speak to the American people about national priorities and
intentions and work with Congress to focus foreign policy around the national
interest. The problem today is not an absence of bipartisan spirit in Congress or
the American people's disinterest. It is the existence of a vacuum. In the absence
of a compelling vision, parochial interests are filling the void.
Foreign policy in a Republican administration will most certainly be

internationalist; the leading contenders in the party's presidential race have
strong credentials in that regard. But it will also proceed from the firm ground of
the national interest, not from the interests of an illusory international
community. America can exercise power without arrogance and pursue its
interests without hectoring and bluster. When it does so in concert with those
who share its core values, the world becomes more prosperous, democratic, and
peaceful. That has been America's special role in the past, and it should be again
as we enter the next century.
Editors' Note: Democratic views will be published in forthcoming issues.
Condoleezza Rice is Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Professor of Political Science at Stanford University.
She is also foreign policy adviser to Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush.
January 1,2000
Campaign 2000: A Republican
Foreign Policy
Robert B. Zoellick

U.S. President George W. Bush speaks under a U.S. flag at a Tennessee welcome ceremony upon his arrival
in Knoxville, October 8, 2002.
AN ERA OF CHANGE
At the opening of the twentieth century, the United States began a quest similar
to today's. The rise of American power, revolutions in technology, and great
clashes abroad set the stage for a historic transformation. Theodore Roosevelt
and Woodrow Wilson dominated the age, as they debated and labored to promote
their visions of America's role in a new international system. In 2000, the world is
again in an era of rapid change, reminiscent of a century ago. The vitality of
America's private economy, the preeminence of its military power, and the appeal
of the country's ideas are unparalleled. But as former British Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher cautioned her colleagues, we must "expect the unexpected." A
primary task for the next president of the United States is to build public support
for a strategy that will shape the world so as to protect and promote American
interests and values for the next 50 years.
At the end of the Cold War, President George Bush built on Ronald Reagan's
legacy by beginning to adapt American foreign policy to the challenges of
changed circumstances. Recognizing the importance of economic ties, his
administration negotiated the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA),
supported a free-trade agreement with Chile as a step toward free trade
throughout the western hemisphere, and promoted the Asia-Pacific Economic
Cooperation (APEC) group to bind U.S. economic interests across the Pacific. The
United States then employed these regional initiatives to bring the global trade
talks of the Uruguay Round to the edge of conclusion. Those initiatives have
created the most powerful movement toward free trade in history.
The United States also took advantage of its preeminent position to push hard for
peace in a number of vital areas. In the Middle East, the United States used its
standing after the Cold War and the Gulf War to break old deadlocks at the
Madrid Conference and to push the Arab-Israeli peace process to a totally new
plane. The Bush administration sought to reshape the strategic landscape across
Europe and Russia by uniting Germany within NATO in 1990, defining a new
strategic concept for NATO in 1991, opening the alliance to former enemies in
1990 and 1991, and negotiating landmark conventional and nuclear arms
reduction agreements to underpin the new security framework. U.S. ties with
Russia reached an impressive level of effectiveness, as demonstrated by their
cooperation in the Gulf War. U.S. links with China were also slowly improving
after the Tiananmen Square tragedy, as the Bush administration handled sharp
differences in a way that still enabled it to foster positive change. By the end of its
term, the administration had created a climate of cooperation among the world's
major powers.
CLINTON'S FLAWED APPROACH
President Bill Clinton's intelligence and his ability to synthesize policy and politics
at home held out the prospect that he could build on Bush's initial efforts to
redefine America's position in the world. Unfortunately, the Clinton
administration never adopted a guiding strategy or even demonstrated a
sustained commitment to foreign policy. As a result, Clinton has failed to define a
new internationalism for the United States, thus letting historic opportunities slip
away.
Clinton's foreign policies have been stymied by five flaws. The first, an
unwillingness to remain committed to his own priorities, has been demonstrated
by his drift on international trade. Clinton started with an encouraging emphasis
on trade, perhaps because he inherited a signed NAFTA deal and a partial
Uruguay Round agreement that he could not abandon easily. But after 1994, the
Clinton administration changed its course: it made pledges for free trade, but the
reality of its policies did not match the rhetoric. Instead, the United States
demanded managed-trade quotas with Japan—precisely the wrong remedy for a
country needing deregulation—until it was compelled to retreat. Fearful of
alienating protectionist political constituencies, Clinton was unwilling to build on
NAFTA or even to defend it. After deferring to the new economic isolationists,
Clinton seemed surprised in 1997 when he could muster only about 40 out of 200
members of his own party in the House of Representatives to support his forlorn
search for the authority necessary to negotiate additional trade agreements.
These mistakes have had lasting consequences. In the early 1990s, countries
throughout Latin America were competing to negotiate free-trade agreements
with the United States. Recognizing the strategic value of NAFTA, they wanted to
connect their economies, societies, security, and even political systems to
America. Today, no one in Latin America or elsewhere expects the current
administration to follow through on its statements. Latin Americans proceeded
with their own customs union, which has been negotiating new trade ventures
with the European Union (EU) and Japan. When East Asian economies faced their
greatest financial shock in generations—creating possibilities for structural
reforms but also a need to fight protectionism with mutual liberalization—U.S.
trade negotiators stood on the sidelines. Without the initiative and leadership of
the United States, all participants involved in launching the global trade talks in
Seattle last November approached the meeting defensively. So the new trade
round was stymied by stalemate. Washington has the power to shape global
economic relations for the next 50 years, but it has marginalized itself in this
crucial area.
The White House's second flaw has been to erode its credibility by offering words
that are not backed by actions; this has taken a special toll with U.S. allies. It is
ironic that an administration that came into office proclaiming "assertive
multilateralism" has dissipated America's energies as a coalition leader. The Gulf
War coalition is in tatters, not surprisingly, after years of strong language about
the dangers of Saddam Hussein's machinations, followed by only tepid and
reflexive actions. Despite the American military's overwhelming superiority in
Kosovo, at the end of the bombing its European allies concluded that they needed
to create their own alternative to U.S. political and security leadership. After
China harshly criticized Japan for agreeing to new defense guidelines with the
United States, Clinton could not find one minute during his nine-day trip to China
to stand by his struggling Japanese ally. The administration managed to boot out a
U.N. secretary-general, but it has never developed a sustained, consistent
strategy toward the organization that would serve U.S. ends. (Only a few years
earlier, America had proved that a more constructive approach to the U.N. was
possible when it built the Gulf War coalition and organized the repeal of the
"Zionism is racism" resolution.)
The Clinton administration's third flaw is its inability to frame strategies

supported by operations, which has particularly damaged its dealings with China
and Russia. Neither one is the "strategic partner" that Clinton proclaimed. In fact,
the distrust created by the administration has made it hard for the United States
to cooperate with either country on long-term mutual interests. Sadly, the Clinton
legacy with both China and Russia—the two great powers whose future paths
remain uncertain and potentially unstable—is one of tense and suspicious
relations that have been getting worse.
In the case of China, at first the administration linked human rights to normal
trading relations, but it later backed down—a clear sign of weakness. Clinton then
mistakenly promised the Chinese that the United States would not grant a travel
visa to the president of democratic Taiwan, Lee Teng-hui; his subsequent reversal
of that decision generated distrust and counterreactions that have increased
dangers between Beijing and Taipei. During Clinton's high-profile trip to China in
1998, he neglected to explain serious security differences, ultimately misleading
China and failing to prepare the American public for China's missile buildup, its
nuclear espionage, and its crackdowns on democracy. Next, Clinton prodded
Chinese Prime Minister Zhu Rhongji to offer the United States concessions in
exchange for Chinese membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO) but
then inexplicably spurned Zhu's proposal during a high-profile visit, thereby
weakening China's reform efforts. The agreement with China on the WTO in
November 1999, although welcome, only underscores that Clinton could have cut
a deal earlier that was as good or better—avoiding a crisis that left unnecessary
scars.
Clinton's Russia policy has discredited free-market economics, squandered money

from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and generated widespread anti-
Americanism. His "Monroeski doctrine" and his comparison of the battle in
Chechnya to the U.S. Civil War have encouraged both a view of state power that
conflicts with a modern, democratic Russia and a revival of Russian imperialistic
attitudes. The administration's indifference to Yeltsin's shelling of the Russian
legislature, among other autocratic measures, revealed a blind spot in the
importance of Russia's rule of law and democratic process. Clinton has never
seemed to grasp the costs of embracing an elected czar, one who oversaw a
privatization drive that turned into massive theft and who now presides over
pervasive corruption. Not surprisingly, this system has failed to improve the
livelihood of average Russians, setting the stage for future trouble.
A fourth flaw has been Clinton's uncertainty on when and how to use American
power—frequently hesitating, then overcommitting, and regularly failing to match
means with ends. This weakness has shadowed his initiatives to resolve
humanitarian and ethnic strife with military intervention. His "nation-building"
failure in Somalia was costly in terms of lives, the reputation of the United States,
and America's confidence that it can deal effectively with such problems. The U.S.
invasion of Haiti and its multi-billion-dollar effort to bring "democracy" turned out
to be an unhappy reminder that supposedly good intentions cannot save a flawed
policy. The United States continued to be drawn into miniwars in the Balkans
without clarifying its goals or being honest about the ongoing commitment of
human and material resources these U.N. "colonies" would require. The history of
false starts and missteps was captured well by Clinton's own new "doctrine" on
intervention in such conflicts: his words were at first stunning in their reach but
were then quickly reinterpreted, leaving the world to conclude that America is
confused, cynical, or both.
Finally, many of Clinton's ventures have the disquieting feature of being driven
significantly by political polls and calculations; this perception has made it
exceedingly hard for him to call credibly for bipartisan foreign policies. As
Clinton's ad hoc foreign policies have frayed, the administration has lashed out at
its critics, calling them isolationists. In fact, Clinton's inability to develop a foreign
policy disciplined by sustained priorities, reliability, strategy, selectivity, and
frankness has squandered opportunities. The president's mistakes have made it
harder for him to complete work in areas—such as the Middle East and Northern
Ireland—where he has invested considerable effort in bringing parties together
for peace processes. The Clinton foreign policy style has also taken its toll abroad.
The administration has caused too many countries to be weary, and even
resentful, of the United States. The power of the United States is obvious to the
world, but Clinton has failed to use that power wisely or diplomatically. His
rhetoric has contained much hubris but little credibility. America is more
influential if it speaks softly, but with firm conviction. If it asserts that it is
committed to do everything, its commitments to everything are suspect.
REPUBLICAN PRINCIPLES
Five principles distinguish a modern Republican foreign policy. First, it is

premised on a respect for power, being neither ashamed to pursue America's
national interests nor too quick to use the country's might. By matching America's
power to its interests, such a policy can achieve its objectives and build credibility
both at home and abroad. U.S. policy should respect the histories, perspectives,
and concerns of other nations, but it should not be paralyzed by intellectual
penchants for moral relativism. All states do not play equally important roles.
Given America's responsibilities in the world, it must retain its freedom to act
against serious dangers.
Second, a modern Republican foreign policy emphasizes building and sustaining

coalitions and alliances. Effective coalition leadership requires clear-eyed
judgments about priorities, an appreciation of others' interests, constant
consultations among partners, and a willingness to compromise on some points
but to remain focused on core objectives. Allies and coalition partners should bear
their fair share of the responsibilities; if they do, their views will be represented
and respected. Similarly, to have an effective U.N., the key nations that compose
it must recognize that their actions—not their speeches and posturing in an
international forum—will determine whether problems can be solved.
Third, Republicans judge international agreements and institutions as means to

achieve ends, not as forms of political therapy. Agreements and institutions can
facilitate bargaining, recognize common interests, and resolve differences
cooperatively. But international law, unlike domestic law, merely codifies an
already agreed-upon cooperation. Even among democracies, international law not
backed by enforcement mechanisms will need negotiations in order to work, and
international law not backed by power cannot cope with dangerous people and
states. Every issue need not be dealt with multilaterally.
Fourth, a modern Republican foreign policy must embrace the revolutionary

changes in the information and communications, technology, commerce, and
finance sectors that will shape the environment for global politics and security.
Because of these changes, people's aspirations—to exercise their free will and
transform their lives—are rising in all corners of the globe. Communities of
private groups, whether organized for business or social ends, will achieve results
far beyond the reach of governments and international bureaucracies. The United
States can leverage this dynamism to open minds and markets. America's foreign
policy must promote these global trends. It must take practical steps to move the
world toward greater freedoms and human rights. It should link itself to the
agents of change around the world through new networks of free trade,
information, and investment.
Finally, a modern Republican foreign policy recognizes that there is still evil in
the world—people who hate America and the ideas for which it stands. Today, we
face enemies who are hard at work to develop nuclear, biological, and chemical
weapons, along with the missiles to deliver them. The United States must remain
vigilant and have the strength to defeat its enemies. People driven by enmity or by
a need to dominate will not respond to reason or goodwill. They will manipulate
civilized rules for uncivilized ends.
POWER AND ECONOMICS
A modern Republican foreign policy should apply these principles within a long-
term strategy to promote peace, security, and liberty. America must capture the
dynamism of the era and transform its new elements into the economic and
security foundations for a future system. The United States and its partners need
to link the world's continental regions within a global economic system that
secures the benefits of integration while coping with the inevitable stresses of
capitalism. Looking at the twentieth century, it is clear that peace is not ensured
through closer economic ties alone; so the United States must navigate changing
great-power relations, strengthen its alliances, and maintain unquestioned
military superiority over dangerous regimes.
In the information age, America should promote an open architecture in order to

capitalize on its greatest assets: a vibrant, innovative economy and a society that
continually reinvents itself. American concepts of corporate governance,
shareholder value, benchmarking, and the "value chain" are now discussed in
executive offices around the globe. By incorporating advances in information and
communications technologies into business processes, U.S. corporations have
triggered gains in productivity similar to those achieved when companies learned
how to reengineer their businesses using electrical power 100 years ago. The
surge in e-commerce, already a $500 billion activity, is transforming business
models again. Governments everywhere are turning to privatization and
deregulation to help their countries keep pace. The American entrepreneur
commands an awe that matches the respect accorded the American military.
The American private sector is a powerful, attractive magnet. But the U.S.
government has not used this energetic force to transform others in ways that
enable America to build on its successes. Instead, growth and market imbalances
have led to the largest trade deficits in American history. Although U.S. markets
are generally open to the world, too many others remain closed to the United
States. Countries should embrace changes that will tap the vitality and genius of
people around the world, improve their livelihood and health, and open doors to
freedom. Government efforts to turn back the clock, even if well-meaning, will end
up hurting people. Instead, governments and societies should help people adjust
to and benefit from new possibilities. Therefore, a successful U.S. foreign policy
must also be based on superior education at home, low taxes that reward work
and risk-taking, and secure savings and pensions for retirees.
The United States needs a strategic economic-negotiating agenda that combines

regional agreements with the development of global rules for an open economy.
To link up with Latin America and the Asia-Pacific region, the United States
should propose free-trade agreements, with either individual countries or regional
groups. If India continues its reforms, the United States should offer it a new
economic partnership beginning with those Indian sectors that are open to the
world or can offer large public gains through deregulation. As a new generation of
leaders gains authority in the Middle East, possible peace agreements can be
buttressed by drawing these societies into information-age economics and
integrating their economies into world markets. African countries seeking to
abandon the old, failed state controls need the incentive of open U.S. and world
markets for their emerging enterprises, as well as financial backing for serious
reforms. The EU and the United States should follow the lead of their increasingly
integrated businesses by opening even more sectors to cross-investment and
greater competition, with the aim of achieving transatlantic free trade.
These agendas should be ambitious—ranging from farm products to e-commerce.

Tariffs should be cut further. The United States should support innovative
business ventures to streamline common standards. It should promote the
deregulation and opening of vast new global markets for services—in areas such
as energy, airlines, finance, and entertainment. The United States should apply
successful regional precedents in economic and trade liberalization to other
regions or to global negotiations through the WTO. By operating at the center of
this changing network, the United States—the one economy with a truly global
reach—should promote openness among regions.
If some regions are too slow to open their markets, the United States should move
on to others. America should spur a competitive dynamic for openness and
transparency. Competition can work wonders: when the United States pursued
NAFTA and APEC, the EU finally felt the pressure to complete the global Uruguay
Round trade negotiations. If others hold back in the new WTO round, the United
States should repeat this strategy of regionalism with a global goal in order to
break the logjam.
This modern Republican design recognizes the benefits of regional integration

and seeks to harness it for global purposes; regional integration can help
countries deal more effectively with transnational problems, such as the
environment or narcotics trafficking. The practice of joint action within regions,
especially by private-sector groups, can be expanded to deal with common
political and even security issues. The history of U.S. foreign policy is full of
examples of private parties—from missionaries to engineers—who forwarded
America's belief in the future by helping others face the challenges of the day. The
very nature of the "new economy"—with its rapidly adapting technologies, fast-
paced change, and innovative spirit—will elevate the role of private parties; they
will often surpass the government in their ability to resolve inevitable disputes.
These parties are not zero-sum thinkers. The U.S. government should create a
climate in which citizens can serve both the private and the public good.
Prosperity with a purpose is an idea that reaches far beyond U.S. borders.
If America links its economy to those of key regions, it can also promote its
geopolitical agenda. Deeper integration with Latin America, Europe, and East
Asia will support U.S. security commitments as citizens of these regions recognize
their common interests. At best, economic interdependence will be a new glue
that draws partners close together. More modestly, creating common rules for
open economies will connect private sectors and help manage a combination of
cooperation and competition.
This blueprint expands on America's political and economic principles. It

promotes open markets and open societies, the free flow of information and ideas,
and the development of the private sector—all of which contribute to the growth
of economies, middle classes, and liberties. If China, Russia, India, and others
want to keep up, they will have to open up. This plan offers a positive program
around which internationalists of both parties can rally to counter protectionists
and isolationists. It also challenges America to sustain its openness, a feature that
attracts great thinkers and doers from all over the world. It creates a dynamism
that gives its diverse society cohesion and a shared purpose; and it safeguards
liberty and freedom.
The public international financial institutions—especially the IMF and the World
Bank—also need to be overhauled to match the demands of the information age
and the globalization of financial markets. Considering how private-sector
financial firms have changed in recent years, it is understandable that the Bretton
Woods institutions of 1944 require major reengineering. First, the operations of
the IMF and the World Bank must be more transparent, on-line, and real-time.
They should fight corruption, which can drain both money and confidence. But
they should not, out of technocratic hubris, usurp the proper roles of either
creditor or debtor governments or of the private financial sector. A dependency
on international bureaucracies for solutions to tough problems will dissuade
national governments from taking responsibility for their countries' futures and
will ultimately erode the legitimacy of both governments and international
financial institutions.
The IMF still has a role to play in buffering national financial markets against
shocks that threaten global stability, until self-help rebalances the capital
movements. But the IMF must exercise this role in a fashion that does not add to
long-term financial instability by encouraging risks for which investors are not
willing to pay. Furthermore, since today's global economy (different from what it
was 50 years ago) rests on private capital flows, the IMF must "bail-in" creditors,
not bail them out. Private creditors must play a financial role in restructuring
"national bankruptcies," just as when they have loaned money to companies in
trouble; creditors can reschedule loans, take discounts, and extend more money
during workouts. The World Bank should concentrate on helping people adjust to
change. In poor countries, this agenda may involve improving basic health and
subsistence needs while creating economic opportunities. In other low-income
countries, the World Bank can assist in developing markets that will enable
people to benefit from self-help.
ALLIES, ENEMIES, AND IN-BETWEENS
In pursuing a reinvigorated foreign policy, the United States first needs to

overhaul ties with its partners and allies: its North American neighbors and its
two primary partners abroad, Europe and Japan. Mexico, Canada, and the United
States share an interest in building on their common democracy and prosperity by
addressing problems that require greater regional cooperation—such as
narcotics, the environment, and illegal immigration. To operate effectively
overseas, the United States must ensure that it has a strong neighborhood at
home. Transatlantic and transpacific alliances can go a long way toward ensuring
security in the eastern and western parts of Eurasia, where in the past dangerous
powers have threatened the United States. These partnerships can enhance
America's ability to address the uncertain futures of China and Russia. The EU
and Japan are also important colleagues in ensuring an international economy
hospitable to growth, dynamism, and the creative spirit.
The United States should not be complacent about its allies' roles. Europeans say
they want to shoulder a greater defense responsibility—and they
should—especially when it comes to policing their own continent. But a wide gap
still separates Europe's defense oratory and its actual spending on the necessary
capabilities. The United States should encourage its NATO allies to face this
reality and to recognize the mutual benefit in having European defense forces
operating in close concert with the U.S. military through coalitions. Ultimately, an
effective European defense arm will require serious participation by British,
French, and German troops.
Japan should evolve gradually toward assuming more responsibility for East Asian
security, in concert with America and its allies. Only the United States can help
Japan's neighbors accept this historic adjustment, which is the key to
transforming Japan's domestic opinion. As a start, Japan, the United States,
Korea, and Australia should form closer defense ties. Over time, Japan's forces
should be more closely integrated to support the U.S. military in Asia. These steps
will strengthen the posture of the Pacific democracies toward North Korea,
demonstrate to China that it should seek security cooperation (and not
competition) with the Asia-Pacific democracies, and channel any increased
Japanese capabilities into a reassuring framework.
Second, the United States and its partners face three great challenges in Eurasia:
China, Russia, and India. China has been rising, Russia has been weakening, and
India has been reassessing its outlook. These are the "big ones," and more
mistakes with them could cost America dearly in the future. The United States
must be realistic, not romantic, about the prospects for China and Russia. These
states should be integrated into the economic, security, and political
arrangements that America and its allies have sponsored, although we must be
prepared to shield against these countries if integration is not possible. These
countries are "works in progress"; they are not yet friends and are certainly not
partners, but they need not be enemies. The United States and its allies should
explain to both China and Russia the steps that can build on shared interests and
lessen differences. Ultimately, America will evaluate its own ability to
cooperate—and the world will assess America's willingness to do so—based on
concrete actions, not photo opportunities.
India, the world's largest democracy and before long its most populous nation,
will play an increasingly important role in Asia. To grow and prosper, it will need
to adjust to the global economy. To contribute to its prosperity and regional
security, India will need to lower the risk of conflict with its neighbors. And to
have influence with India, America must stop ignoring it. A more open India,
possessing a broader understanding of its place in the world, could become a
valuable partner of the United States in coping with Eurasia's uncertainties. In
addition to proposing trade and investment liberalization, the United States
should open a regular, high-level security dialogue with India on Eurasia and the
challenges to stability.
Third, North America, the EU, and Japan need to reach out to the next group of
potential partners. In varying degrees, moving at different paces, countries in
central and eastern Europe, Latin America, and East Asia have been opening
private markets, building middle classes, and developing representative
democracies that respect individual liberties. But these countries have been
subject to enormous stresses. With Latin America in particular, the United States
has resumed its old, bad habit of overlooking its neighbors until problems compel
it to pay attention. Resistance is slowing the momentum for democracy and free
markets that Latin America kicked off a decade ago. More debt defaults, rising
populism, frustrations with the lack of tangible results from economic reforms,
and narcotics traffickers seeking to control governments all threaten to eclipse
the movement toward what should be a historic and strategic achievement: a fully
democratic and prosperous western hemisphere.
Fourth, the United States must counter those dangerous states that threaten its
closest friends, such as Israel, or its vital interests, such as maintaining access to
oil in the Persian Gulf. In dealing with the likes of Iraq and North Korea, the
United States needs to offer consistent long-term directions to guide coalitions
that will deter and even replace their brutal regimes. Concessions to blackmail
and threats, even if they serve as temporary expedients, will exacerbate these
problems. The United States must retain the initiative so that its opponents are so
worried about what America is planning that they cannot plot attacks or new
forms of blackmail. Theater and national missile defenses will let the United
States counter missiles carrying weapons of mass destruction from those
countries that might target U.S. conventional forces or paralyze the United States
if it intervenes against their threats. Time is on America's side—not that of these
decaying dictatorships—if the United States has the confidence and determination
to stand up to, and if necessary defeat, its enemies.
MILITARY MIGHT
America's leadership in the next century requires a strong military, wisely used.
The Clinton administration has too often relied on the U.S. military to bail out
speculative diplomatic ventures that turned sour. Concurrently, America's military
has been cut back some 40 percent. At some point, doing more with less just
becomes doing less with less. Given the current demands on the U.S. military, the
Pentagon has made the troublesome choice of trying to fund present needs at the
expense of future capabilities. This spending improvisation is divorced from the
administration's own plans. As the military equipment bought in the early 1980s
ages, the armed services are spending more and more funds just to keep old
planes, ships, and tanks operating. The administration's undersecretary of
defense called this quandary a "death spiral." The chair of the joint chiefs of staff
called it a "nosedive." These are strong words. The failure to prepare for the
future will become sharply apparent during the next decade, when the wheels
start to come off the weapons purchased some 25 years ago. As one Marine
general said, "If parents are uncomfortable sending their sons and daughters to
college in 25-year-old cars, what will they think about sending them into harm's
way in 25-year-old helicopters?"
The challenge for the next president is not just to spend more on defense but to
spend wisely. In transforming its defense strategy for the future, the United
States should seek to align the military's strength with the nation's strengths:
America's people and technology. U.S. companies that have not incorporated the
revolutionary advances in information and communications technologies have
been swept away by their competition with surprising rapidity. The Pentagon
cannot afford to run a similar risk. The United States must invest in a combination
of sophisticated sensors, information technology, real-time communications, and
precision-guided weapons that will enable the individual services to fight together
seamlessly in joint operations. Future networked forces should be smaller,
quicker, easier to deploy, more dispersed, and able to destroy targets with fewer
sorties and greater "standoff" capabilities. They must be able to act together
when executing discrete missions—such as suppressing air defenses, achieving
complete air dominance, and destroying small, mobile targets—that will be vital in
the new security environment. They will need "more teeth and less tail." At the
end of the day, gutsy soldiers in muddy boots will still have to hold ground, but
they need to be the fastest to get to decisive points, with the most precise
firepower to support them.
This transformation will take time. In many respects, technology is the easy part.
The challenge is to integrate technology into new operational concepts, doctrines,
and organizational structures—and then to practice them. (In June 1940, the
French army had more and better tanks than the German army, but the panzer
leaders knew how to use blitzkrieg operations to overwhelm France within
weeks.) The experience of the private sector points the way toward a smart,
modernized defense for the future. Like private business executives facing new
challenges, the next generation of military officers needs clear goals to guide
change—and strong support in making the country's forces achieve these goals.
Only the president can establish these goals and provide the needed leadership.
The Pentagon can also learn from the private sector about cutting costs. Although
the cost of civilian information-technology systems has fallen tremendously, the
price of analogous military systems has not. Like other professional organizations,
the Defense Department must focus on its core missions and outsource supporting
activities. In leading this transformation, the next president must also challenge
America's allies to keep up. In critical areas, U.S. allies in Europe and the Pacific
can share significant burdens and make major contributions. In order to fight
together, their forces must be interoperable. And allies should assume greater
roles in peacekeeping operations, supported by unique U.S. capabilities and
backed by the hammer of its robust force.
THE RIGHT TRACK

As Americans enter a new century, the history of the last one may inspire a sense
of both caution and opportunity. The United States in 1900 seemed to have
unbounded potential. But the first half of the twentieth century involved frightful
costs. And although America achieved great accomplishments over the past 50
years, these came at a high price of lives, money, and national attention. Now a
new generation must chart a course for America amid revolutionary changes in
technologies, economies, societies, and weaponry. It is a mistake for the United
States simply to react to events. America needs a strategy that blends traditional
truths with the opportunities of a networked marketplace and a modernized army.
It must be realistic about human nature and conflicting interests while being
optimistic about the world's potential. America must deploy its power wisely,
selectively, and consistently to mold an international system that will enhance its
influence in future events. Drawing on this influence, modern Republicans believe
they can work with like-minded Democrats so that America can advance both its
interests and its ideals. America's potential is extraordinary, and so is the world's.
It is time to get on the right track.
Editors' Note: Democratic views will be published in forthcoming issues.
Robert B. Zoellick served as Undersecretary of State, White House Deputy Chief of Staff, and Counselor to the
Secretary of the Treasury during the Reagan and Bush administrations.
January 1,2000
Campaign 2000: New World, New
Deal: A Democratic Approach to
Globalization
W. Bowman Cutter, Joan Spero, and Laura D'Andrea Tyson

Supporters of Vice President Al Gore demonstrate outside the U.S. Supreme Court which was today set to
intervene for the first time in an unresolved presidential election, December 1, 2000.
AN ERA OF FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE
The United States enters the 21st century as the greatest beneficiary of the global
system it helped create after World War II. As a power with unrivaled dominance,
prosperity, and security, it must now lead the peaceful evolution of this system
through an era of significant changes. Rapid shifts in technology and the embrace
of markets by developing and formerly communist countries are shifting the
balance of power among nations, between nations and nonstate actors, and
between nations and global economic forces. New technologies are making the
world much more interdependent. These technologies are accelerating the
movement of goods, services, ideas, and capital across national boundaries. They
are also displacing traditional security threats with nontraditional worries like
international terrorism, organized crime, drug trafficking, and environmental
degradation while strengthening the capacities of nongovernmental organizations
(NGOs) to influence policy. Tension is mounting between the fixed geography of
nation-states and the nonterritorial nature of global problems and their solutions.
The United States cannot shield itself from the effects of globalization. In today's
interdependent capital markets, global perceptions of the stability of the
American economy and the credibility of American economic policy can
significantly affect the dollar's value and domestic interest rates. Despite its
economic and military might, the United States cannot protect itself from global
environmental problems like ozone depletion, climate change, and threats to
biodiversity by acting alone.
The international economic challenges facing a new American president are

twofold: first, to grasp the fundamental changes in the global economy, and
second, to respond by fostering the conditions and institutions required for a
world in which the United States can remain secure and prosperous. The central
task of international economic policy is to help develop a new system of global
economic relations—a task made essential, rather than simply desirable, by the
enormous and irreversible changes now sweeping the world.
THE TRANSITIONAL 1990S
When the Clinton administration arrived in Washington in 1993, the changes

engulfing the world economy were already under way, but their permanence,
magnitude, and implications were still uncertain. In the absence of a reliable road
map, the Clinton administration's approach to international economic policy was
shaped by a few basic principles, which will also guide the next Democratic
president. First, America's leadership is essential to developing and maintaining
multilateral rules and institutions—not because they are ends in themselves, but
because the health of the global economy depends on them. Second, America's
credibility to lead on international economic issues depends first and foremost on
the strength of the American economy. Third, the primary goal of American trade
policy is improved market access abroad, not protected markets at home. More
open markets and greater competition benefit both the United States and its
trading partners. Fourth, those who might be harmed by economic change should
have the tools to exploit the opportunities that it creates. Among the tools crafted
by the Clinton administration are greater portability of health and pension
coverage across jobs; individual training accounts and one-stop career centers for
federal job-training programs; tax credits for postsecondary education; and
substantial increases in the earned-income tax credit. Fifth, economic
engagement with emerging countries, including China, serves America's interests
because it enhances those countries' prospects for economic reform and political
liberalization based on the rule of law.
Finally, national economic interests should not be considered "secondary" or

subordinated to traditional security interests. National security must be broadly
construed to include both economic and geopolitical concerns. And in many
circumstances, economic policies may prove the best instrument for achieving
geopolitical objectives.
During the last seven years, the basic principles motivating the international
economic policies of the Clinton administration have not changed, but domestic
and global circumstances have. The most important domestic change after 1995
was a Congress controlled by Republicans, many of whom are avowedly
isolationist and prefer confrontation to cooperation with the Democratic White
House. In addition, environmental, labor, and human rights groups have become
increasingly well organized and vociferous in their efforts to block further trade
liberalization. The result has been the continued erosion of presidential power
over trade policy, culminating in successful congressional efforts to block passage
of "fast-track" trade authority in 1997 and 1998. This hampered the
administration's ability to move its ambitious trade agenda forward. Nonetheless,
significant progress has been made during the last three years, including the
completion of a global Information Technology Agreement, multilateral
agreements on telecommunications and financial services, and an agreement with
China on the terms of its accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO).
International economic policy during Clinton's second term has also been affected
by the financial crises that erupted around the world in 1997. Working together
as they had previously to alleviate Mexico's financial difficulties in 1995, the
administration and the Federal Reserve first responded with several ad hoc crisis-
management measures, including large International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan
packages, informal debt-rescheduling agreements, and interest-rate cuts. These
measures brought the world back from the brink of a global credit crunch in late
1998. Since then, the Clinton administration has led multilateral efforts to design
new methods for reducing the frequency and intensity of future crises. The next
Democratic president will have to shepherd these efforts as the global community
searches for more effective ways to contain recurrent financial crises in a world of
highly mobile private capital.
The protests at the WTO meetings in Seattle last November have been interpreted
by some as a sign that globalization is in retreat. But the response of emerging
markets to the pain of the 1997-98 financial crises is a more powerful sign that
globalization will continue. Rather than turning inward and reverting to state
controls over economic activity, these countries have continued on the path of
market reform and greater integration into the world economy—affirming the
basic principles of President Clinton's international economic agenda. Still, these
recent crises, along with symptoms of a populist backlash against globalization in
the United States and elsewhere, provide compelling evidence of the need for
better management of the world economy.
To meet the challenges posed by the dramatic changes in the global economy
during the 1990s, the next Democratic president should focus on three broad
objectives: nurturing strategic partnerships with old, new, and changing players;
strengthening existing multilateral regimes; and creating new regimes for
emerging transnational issues including the environment, labor rights, and the
appropriate governance of the global information economy.
THE CORE
History indicates that a preeminent power cannot long maintain its global
leadership without the support and cooperation of other nations in the pursuit of
agreed-upon interests. Hence forging a consensus with other major powers on
international economic objectives and how to share the costs of achieving them
will be key tasks confronting the new president.
One of the new centers of power is a united Europe. On the economic front, the
European Union (EU) is already a reality. A common currency, free trade, and
more unified regulations are propelling cross-border flows of money, goods,
services, and people. Cross-border mergers and restructuring are making
European firms more competitive and European capital markets more flexible.
With time, the EU will gain new members, including Poland, Hungary, the Czech
Republic, Slovenia, Estonia, and Turkey. Other central European and Baltic
countries will complete the transition from communism to capitalism and will
either join the EU or establish close economic ties with it. Although Europe will
not form a supranational state, policy coordination among member states will
gradually increase. The EU already conducts trade negotiations as a single entity.
With the creation of European economic and monetary union and the
establishment of a common currency and central bank, Europe will increasingly
act as one on financial and monetary issues.
The next Democratic president must define American economic relations with
Europe in terms of the EU. As it has long done, the United States should
encourage European unification, which is a stabilizing, modernizing force. But
while Europeans share U.S. goals and values, they also increasingly resent
American economic, political, and security hegemony. Thus the next president
must work to ensure that Europe does not turn inward and that transatlantic
economic, political, and security ties are strengthened. The Clinton administration
has already laid the groundwork for ongoing high-level dialogue with the
Europeans on economic cooperation and common global challenges through the
New Transatlantic Agenda.
Russia is a thornier challenge. The West has a profound interest in Russia's

transition to a market economy and has been trying to help. Although this
transition has been marred by corruption, on-again, off-again reforms, and a
dramatic 1998 financial collapse, progress has been made during the 1990s.
Russian citizens enjoy more basic freedoms in speech, travel, and religion and are
more connected to the rest of the world than at any time in the twentieth century.
Russia has a functioning central bank and stock and foreign-exchange markets,
and two-thirds of Russian property is no longer under state control. Moreover, the
"meltdown" of the Russian economy predicted after its 1998 default has not
occurred. In fact, over the last year, industrial production has increased, the trade
balance has improved, and Russian firms show signs of restructuring. By
exploding the myth in global capital markets that Russia is too big to fail, the
1998 financial crisis weakened Russia's corrupt oligarchs and forced the Russian
economy toward greater efficiency in the face of more realistic budget
constraints. Perhaps most important, those now vying for political leadership in
Russia—even the Communists—agree that there is no real alternative to market
reform.
The next Democratic president must continue America's constructive engagement

with Russia, relying wherever possible on multilateral institutions like the IMF
and on cooperation with other advanced industrial countries. American policy
should continue to be multifaceted, including trade; financial and technical
assistance; educational exchanges; and programs to help Russia develop its civic
institutions to combat corruption and safeguard an independent media. But
America's interactions with Russia should not be based on illusions. Even with the
West's financial and technical assistance, economic progress in Russia will be
slow, unsteady, and largely dependent on political decisions made there. And the
primary reason for the West's engagement with Russia is not economic—the
Russian economy is too small to have much influence on global economic
conditions—but geopolitical. Under the Clinton administration's leadership, more
than 1,500 Russian nuclear warheads have been deactivated, and more than 300
missile launchers have been destroyed. Through the Cooperative Threat
Reduction Program, the United States is working with the Russian leadership to
try to ensure that Russian weapons of mass destruction do not fall into the wrong
hands. Despite these successes, however, Russia poses a continuing nuclear-
proliferation and security threat that must remain the central focus of American
policy.
Asia poses quite different challenges. After a decade of stagnation, Japan is taking
the first steps toward fundamental changes in its economic system. These
changes are undermining traditional ways of doing business in Japan, including its
lifetime employment system, its keiretsu supplier system, and its cross-
shareholding system of "insider" corporate governance. Last year witnessed a
dramatic increase in mergers and acquisitions in Japan, and foreign financial
institutions were the dominant players. Foreign direct investment (FDI) increased
sharply, although from a very low base. In a break with its past behavior, Tokyo
has been promoting FDI, and the structural barriers to Japan's market that were a
major irritant in U.S.-Japanese relations throughout most of the last quarter-
century are gradually falling. Moreover, greater FDI will encourage imports into
Japan by multinational companies operating there. Japan's imports will probably
rise substantially as a share of its economy over the next decade, and U.S.
firms—with their strong competitive position in information technologies—will
likely win a significant share of Japan's market. Even during the 1990s, when slow
growth depressed Japan's overall demand for U.S. imports, the U.S. surplus in
services trade with Japan increased steadily, reflecting the strong competitive
edge of American companies. Nonetheless, Japan's transition to a more open
economic system will not make the substantial U.S.-Japan trade imbalance
disappear, for two reasons. First, despite its economic difficulties, Japan has
remained a formidable competitor in many global markets, and its painful
restructuring will only increase its long-run competitiveness; and second,
differences in aggregate growth rates and changes in the dollar-yen exchange
rate will continue to be the major force behind changes in the bilateral trade
balance.
During Clinton's first term, the United States engaged Japan in highly charged
bilateral trade talks, relying on deadlines and threats. Both the goals of these
negotiations and their sometimes combative tone reflected more than a decade of
escalating trade deficits between the United States and Japan and frustration
from American companies over structural barriers to Japan's markets. During
Clinton's second term, trade tensions began to ease as Japan's macroeconomic
crisis intensified and as the terms of previous trade agreements were
implemented. Currently, Washington is pursuing a two-pronged series of
negotiations with Tokyo on deregulation and investment. Unlike prior talks, these
negotiations have neither deadlines nor specific targets—nor much rancor.
The next Democratic president should continue this approach and maintain a
high-level bilateral dialogue on trade. Such a dialogue lets both countries air
complaints and avoid confrontation, thereby shielding other aspects of their
relationship from commercial tensions. Regular high-level conversations also let
the two countries develop joint initiatives on shared global economic challenges
and common objectives for multilateral organizations like the WTO. Increasingly,
the United States must treat Japan not just as an ally but as a partner in
safeguarding economic, political, and military security in the Asia-Pacific,
strengthening existing multilateral institutions, and building new ones.
The next Democratic president should continue Clinton's policy of constructive

engagement with China. China's gradual emergence as a great power is a central
feature of the new global system, and America's long-run interests are best served
by China's stable evolution toward a more open, democratic system based on the
rule of law. Constructive engagement with China does not guarantee this
outcome, but it is the best option for increasing its likelihood. China may not be
America's ally or partner—but as a result of constructive engagement, it has acted
responsibly on issues of mutual importance like Hong Kong, North Korea, and
Asia's financial crisis.
Constructive engagement is not an endorsement of China's human rights

behavior. But revoking normal trading relations with China or blocking its WTO
membership will not improve such behavior. Indeed, the opposite is true.
Commercial considerations may seem crass when compared with human rights,
but impeding commercial relations with China would impede the flow of
information about Western culture, ideas, and business practices to China's
emerging middle class and weaken reformers in the state and party leadership.
What about China's trade behavior? Don't large U.S. deficits with China imply that
it engages in unfair trading practices? Won't China violate the rules of the
multilateral system once it gains admission to the WTO and its trading partners
lose leverage? Probably not. China does not enjoy a persistent current-account
surplus—a defining characteristic of a mercantilist state. Moreover, China has
encouraged FDI as part of its development strategy. Indeed, foreign-funded
companies in China accounted for more than half of the growth of its exports
during the last decade. China's openness to FDI will mean increased imports in
the future. In the final WTO deal announced last November, China made big
concessions on trade in manufactured goods, agriculture, and services. It further
yielded to America's insistence on special protections against unexpected import
surges from China. The consensus among China experts is that the WTO deal is a
bold—some would say desperate—move by China's leaders to forge ahead with
market reforms despite substantial adjustment costs. Finally, China's performance
in other multilateral institutions indicates that it will honor its end of the bargain.
And should violations occur, the United States will be able to turn to the WTO
dispute-settlement mechanism to enforce compliance.
Another controversial aspect of economic relations with China is whether and how
to regulate American exports of dual-use technologies—those with substantial
military and commercial applications—to China and other countries that may pose
security risks. Banning the export of such technologies seems to some the
simplest way to safeguard American national security. But this approach is both
ineffective and counterproductive. The United States is not the sole source for
such products, so a unilateral ban would merely drive would-be importers to other
suppliers. And for many dual-use goods, America's national security hinges on the
success of their American producers in the commercial marketplace. Unilateral
export controls undermine this success and thereby endanger national security.
This realization lies behind the gradual easing of export controls by the American
government since the end of the Cold War, a trend that the next administration
should continue.
Like China, many other emerging nations are restructuring their political and
economic systems, pursuing market policies, and shifting their world-views. The
United States must work to engage these new players, together with existing
powers, in the processes and institutions on which governance of the global
economy depends.
Two of these new players—India and Brazil—are virtually certain to develop

significant regional, if not global, influence and are strategically important to the
United States. India has the smaller economy of the two but seems closest to a
sustained breakthrough in economic growth. More rapidly than is generally
realized, India is likely to become an important factor in the strategic equation in
Asia as a whole. And Brazil, as a result of its size, economic development, and
leadership of the Mercosur trade bloc, has already become an important factor in
Latin America. Over time, other nations like South Korea, Mexico, and South
Africa will probably grow in influence and become part of the complex coalitions
of nations required to address global economic problems.
PUTTING IT TOGETHER
The next Democratic president must strengthen America's alliance with the other
major players—Europe and Japan—to reshape existing multilateral institutions
and rules and create new ones as necessary. Emphasizing cooperation with these
nations will also discourage them from turning inward or creating competing
economic blocs. The United States, Europe, and Japan still account for about two-
thirds of global GDP. They have similar levels of per capita GDP, effective legal
and regulatory regimes, and highly developed capital markets. All trade and
invest more with each other than with other regions of the world, and all are
becoming information and network economies. The United States, Europe, and
Japan should, therefore, be able to agree on many of the new challenges posed by
globalization and the information revolution; negotiate free-trade areas in
services, investment, and electronic commerce; adopt common guidelines for
intellectual property and privacy; develop common regulatory standards in
sectors such as biotechnology, the environment, health, and food safety; and
agree on qualifications for professions and industries. New forms of cooperation
and joint decision-making among these three great powers should be carefully
designed to support the multilateral system, and agreements among them should
be open to participation by other countries or adoption by other multilateral
institutions.
Historically, the G-7 group of highly industrialized nations has promoted economic
cooperation among the United States, Europe, and Japan by engaging their heads
of state in annual discussions about mutual concerns and creating working groups
in each nation to develop mutual solutions. In recent years, however, the G-7
process has begun to lose its relevance because it excludes other nations
important to the global economy. Because an ongoing, high-level dialogue among
the heads of the world's major economic powers is important to the United States,
the next Democratic president should encourage the G-7 to broaden its
membership to include Russia (which is already included in most discussions),
Brazil, China, and India.
The recent failure of the WTO talks in Seattle demonstrates the foolishness of
launching global trade talks before developing a consensus on the issues among
the United States, Europe, and Japan—still the largest trading nations in the
world. But the lessons of the Seattle debacle go deeper.
First, the low-hanging fruit in multilateral trade negotiations has already been
picked. In previous rounds, tariffs were slashed and quotas eliminated for most
trade in manufactured products. Future negotiations will focus on agriculture and
services—sectors that are politically sensitive and highly regulated by individual
countries, including the United States—and will involve such traditionally
domestic issues as antitrust policy, consumer safety, and other regulatory
questions. Crafting multilateral agreements on such issues will be a long, painful
process. And enforcing compliance with such agreements, which require nations
to change entire areas of domestic law, will prove much harder than enforcing
compliance with previous agreements barring overt trade barriers. Establishing a
permanent executive committee within the WTO to replace the loose
ambassadorial mechanism that currently proposes new multilateral trade talks
could help. And the pointless practice of holding biennial WTO meetings at the
ministerial level, even when there is nothing substantive to discuss, should end.
Second, given the complicated nature of future issues and the unwieldy number of
future participants, the "global round" approach to trade talks—involving all WTO
participants in a comprehensive agenda requiring bargains across several
sectors—may have outlived its usefulness. Since it will be so difficult to forge
consensus on the agenda for another global round, negotiations focused on
liberalizing trade in individual sectors are an attractive alternative. In recent
years, such negotiations have produced significant agreements in the diverse
areas of information technology, telecommunications, and financial services.
Moreover, since there is still much to do to implement these agreements,
consolidating their achievements may be the best way to strengthen the
multilateral trading system and achieve real progress over the next few years.
Third, to fight the burgeoning backlash against globalization and build public
trust, WTO operations must become more transparent. At the same time, new
multilateral approaches must be developed to address global concerns in other
areas such as the environment, labor rights, and human rights. The next
Democratic president should encourage such efforts while making sure that the
WTO maintains its focus on trade. The WTO exists to develop and enforce trade
agreements, and such agreements exist to foster trade. The WTO is not the
appropriate forum for other issues, although it could adjust over time to permit
trade restrictions to enforce multilateral pacts on issues negotiated elsewhere.
In the meantime, the United States should eschew unilateral trade restrictions,
including sanctions, to compel other nations to comply with American laws on the
environment, labor practices, or human rights. During the last several years,
America has imposed some form of unilateral economic sanctions against 26
countries, accounting for half the world's population. These sanctions have not
achieved their goals; indeed, sanctions often harm exactly those they seek to help.
And sanctions have cost the United States about $20 billion in lost exports,
200,000 jobs, and the goodwill and trust of its allies abroad.
Finally, the next Democratic president must continue to educate the American
public about the ways the U.S. economy is helped by enforceable multilateral
trading rules. As the largest exporting country and the one with the lowest trade
barriers, the United States reaps the greatest benefits from trade liberalization.
The more countries trade with one another, the better off they are. But the more
they need multilateral rules to settle disputes, the more these rules influence
domestic practices. Still, the WTO is not a world government that can override or
proscribe its members' laws. If the United States loses a case before the WTO, it
can either retain its domestic laws and accept trade sanctions from the
complaining nation or adjust these laws to eliminate discrimination against
foreign producers.
Regional economic integration can complement and spur multilateral

liberalization. It can also contribute to political stability. For these reasons, the
next Democratic president should build on the efforts of the Clinton
administration to promote regional cooperation and liberalization in both Asia and
Latin America. The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum is the basis for a
sound economic strategy in the Pacific basin. Its membership boasts a number of
important regional players (among them China, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, and
the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations), it provides a useful
forum for the region's heads of state, and it is committed to trade liberalization
and cooperation in fields from telecommunications to basic infrastructure.
Building on the success of the North American Free Trade Agreement, the United
States has convinced Latin American countries to agree on a broad economic
agenda whose centerpiece is the creation of a Free Trade Agreement for the
Americas (FTAA), with additional cooperation on the environment, human rights,
crime, and other global issues. The next Democratic president should accelerate
the FTAA process, which has been hampered by the absence of fast-track trade
authority. Without such a process, American influence in the region will diminish,
and the likelihood of competing economic zones will increase.
FOR RICHER, FOR POORER
As globalization has intensified, the gap between per capita incomes in rich and
poor countries has widened. Although this trend has been around for the past two
centuries, it has accelerated in recent years. For the many emerging countries
that already have the institutions and income levels to attract private capital and
the education levels to prosper in the new information age, the private sector will
fuel continued economic development. Indeed, for most of these countries, the
economic development problem—although substantial—is best understood as an
internal poverty problem. But this is not so for the nations of Africa, many of
which are being left behind.
What should the next Democratic president do to address human needs and spur
economic development in the most impoverished nations? First, the White House
should espouse complete debt forgiveness for the world's poorest nations. Second,
the president should lobby to increase America's inadequate foreign-aid budget
and redirect it toward programs to meet basic human needs—for example, a U.S.-
led effort among the developed nations to counter the aids epidemic in Africa or
to establish a special fund to help the poorest nations honor multilateral
environmental agreements. Third, the president should work with other advanced
nations to reduce tariffs, ease antidumping penalties, and lower quotas on trade
with developing countries. Finally, the administration should foster cooperation
with the NGOs that already deliver more development assistance than the entire
U.N. system, including the World Bank and the IMF.
EARTH IN THE BALANCE
The next Democratic president should establish a bipartisan group of experts to

assess the lessons learned from recent financial crises, evaluate the adjustments
already under way, and recommend additional changes. At the same time, the
president should pledge America's commitment to the World Bank and the IMF,
emphasizing their importance while recognizing the need for further reform. Such
reform should be guided by two considerations. First, these institutions must
adjust to the vastly greater scope and scale of private cross-border capital flows.
Second, they must find ways to engage more of the public in the countries to
which they lend—both to use their resources more efficiently and to help promote
the stable civil societies on which successful economic development depends.
A growing number of environmental problems—ozone depletion, global climate

change, threats to biodiversity—are international in scope and require cross-
border solutions. Industrial countries, including the United States, are
disproportionately responsible for most of these environmental problems, but
developing countries are also rapidly damaging common environmental resources.
Solutions, therefore, require the participation of both developed and developing
nations. But since the costs and benefits of addressing common environmental
problems vary among countries, as do the available resources, global agreements
must include effective transfer mechanisms and flexibility about the methods used
by different countries to achieve environmental targets.
No vehicle exists for nations to negotiate new multilateral pacts on environmental

issues. That is one big reason why environmentalists have focused on the WTO.
But using the WTO as the forum for multilateral environmental negotiations both
endangers further trade liberalization and raises the risk that trade will be
restricted in the name of environmentalism but in the service of protectionism. To
head off these risks, a new Democratic president should propose creating a new
Global Environmental Organization to develop and enforce new international
agreements on specific problems, using the successful Montreal protocol on
slowing ozone depletion as a model.
In recent years, a growing number of NGOs at home and abroad have called for a
set of internationally recognized and enforced labor standards that would ban
child labor and sweatshops and support workers' rights to organize. Logically,
labor rights and standards are development and political issues, not trade issues.
There is no evidence that trade undermines labor standards and leads to an
international "race to the bottom." In fact, the opposite is true. Most global trade
still occurs between developed countries, which enjoy the highest wages, labor
standards, and productivity levels. And as trade and integration in the global
economy have helped poor countries develop, their wages, productivity, and labor
standards have improved. Developing countries that have strengthened their
labor standards have done so because of more trade and integration, not less.
Despite such evidence, labor standards will move up the agenda of international
economic negotiations as global integration continues. And the next Democratic
president will have to be sensitive to the desires of both NGOs and organized
labor for global workers' standards. Given the opposition of most of the rest of the
world, however, this will not be easy. So Clinton's heir should continue to promote
his reasonable Seattle approach of establishing a multilateral discussion group to
examine some labor rights issues, including child labor and sweatshop conditions.
The group should include the International Labor Organization, the United
Nations, and the World Bank, and it should be charged with reporting its findings
to the WTO by a specified date. Second, the president should encourage the
private sector to develop labeling systems and codes of conduct certifying
compliance with core labor standards. One promising effort is a program called
Social Accountability 8000, launched by the Council of Economic Priorities and a
group of influential American companies to encourage firms to comply with labor
and human rights standards. Another is the United Nations' proposed Global
Compact with Business, under which the U.N. will help multinational companies
meet internationally accepted principles of human rights, labor practices, and
environmental standards.
Third, the president must continue to educate the American people about the way
trade boosts labor standards by highlighting American firms that have improved
working conditions in their foreign operations. Polls indicate that most Americans
would rather buy from companies committed to ending worker abuses and that
American consumers would be willing to pay somewhat more for products made
in worker-friendly environments. In addition, a growing number of American
multinationals recognize that bad publicity about working conditions in their
foreign operations can damage their reputations and bottom lines. A new
Democratic president can effectively use the bully pulpit to shine the spotlight on
American firms that are doing well by doing good and encourage a "race to the
top."
Nations must also begin to work with one another and the business community to
define appropriate policies for the world of e-business. Without cooperation,
different policy regimes will develop within different regions and nations, each
attempting to govern phenomena that are inherently transnational. Different sets
of rules will in turn generate unnecessary transaction costs and slow the diffusion
of wealth and knowledge made possible by the new technologies.
To date, the Clinton administration has avoided regulation of the networked

economy at home and made the case for a similar approach abroad. American
officials had hoped to include digital issues on the agenda for the next global
trade round, but that has been delayed by the failure of the Seattle talks. In
addition, the Seattle discussions suggest that even when a new round begins,
negotiations will focus on highly visible, politically contentious issues such as
agriculture, textiles, and dumping that traditionally dominate trade debates,
rather than on digital issues.
Therefore, it is time to develop a specific multilateral process focusing exclusively

on such issues. This should be a principal objective of the next Democratic
president. There are three logical steps: first, establishing a trade and investment
round within the WTO focusing specifically on e-commerce; second, developing a
set of basic principles for such talks, with a broad agenda including crime
prevention, privacy, intellectual property, taxation (including the possible
establishment of a multilateral tax clearing-house), and dispute settlement
processes; and third, providing access to the networked economy for all nations
and regions. The last step will require targeted lending programs funded by the
World Bank, NGOs, and developed countries to help the poorest countries build
the necessary infrastructure.
STAY ON TARGET
The United States has benefited from globalization. Throughout much of the
1990s, exports accounted for about a third of U.S. growth. Even when American
exports slowed in response to recessions in emerging markets, the same financial
crises causing these recessions also increased flows of capital into American
financial markets and reduced import prices for American consumers, fueling
America's continued economic expansion during the last three years. This
expansion—now the longest in the nation's history—has produced the lowest
unemployment rate in more than 30 years and raised incomes for all groups of
American workers, including the least skilled. True, the nation's trade and
current-account deficits have hit record levels, but these primarily reflect the
relative strength of the American economy compared to its trading partners and
the resulting strength of the dollar, not an increase in protectionist barriers
abroad.
It is easy to understand why a populist backlash against globalization has taken

hold in much of the world, plagued by an endemic poverty made worse by recent
contractions. As hundreds of millions of people in emerging markets have seen
their jobs and incomes decimated by global financial shocks, modern information
technologies have shown them images of American prosperity—and of American
officials and business leaders lecturing them about the necessity of painful
sacrifice. Signs of an emerging backlash against globalization in the United
States, although perhaps harder to justify, are inflamed by some of the same
concerns: rising income inequality, job insecurity in a rapidly changing and
harshly competitive environment, and a sense of powerlessness and uncertainty
about the future.
Economic integration among nations, although beneficial overall, does create

winners and losers. And even many winners fear that the next wave of change
spawned by footloose capital and technological change will make them losers. To
allay such concerns about globalization, the next American president must design
policies to sustain America's expansion and give Americans the tools they need in
the global marketplace. Among the most important of these are lifetime education
and training opportunities, portable and fair pensions and health-care benefits,
and a safety net to support incomes during periods of adjustment or recession.
At the same time, the next president must work with the leaders of other nations
to develop multilateral agreements and institutions to ease the economic
downsides of globalization and address new global issues. As President Clinton
noted in his 1998 speech before the Council on Foreign Relations, the multilateral
system must evolve toward a kind of "Global New Deal." The painful experiences
of many transition economies and the unexpected financial crises of the 1990s
have reminded the world that to work well, markets require a strong commitment
to the rule of law, transparent financial institutions, legitimate corporate and
political governance structures, and adequate social safety nets. As the new
millennium begins, a new Democratic president will have the opportunity to lead
the world in creating institutions and policies to sustain a more equitable process
of globalization built on the marvels of the market and modern technologies.
W. Bowman Cutter is Managing Director of Warburg, Pincus and served as Deputy Assistant to President Clinton for
Economic Policy. Joan Spero is President of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and served as Undersecretary of
State for Economic, Business, and Agricultural Affairs from 1993 to 1997. Laura D'Andrea Tyson is Dean of the Haas
School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley and served as National Economic Adviser and Chair of
the Council of Economic Advisers during President Clinton's first term. They advise Vice President Al Gore's
presidential campaign on economic issues.
March 1,2000
A Republican Looks at Foreign
Policy
James A. Leach
GARY CAMERON / REUTERS

President George H.W. Bush at the White House, August 29, 1990.
Perspective is always difficult to apply to events of the day. Centuries hence,

however, historians will surely conclude that this generation of Americans stood
poised on a hinge of history. Beginning with the east European revolutions of
1989 the world has witnessed an astounding cataract of events, the triumphant
culmination of forty years of steadfast alliance diplomacy.
America’s principal adversary, the once-formidable Soviet empire, has collapsed

from without and within. Militarily the threat of sudden Muscovite aggression and
of nuclear Armageddon has diminished to imperceptibility. Philosophically
communism is in retreat, pell-mell. Economically the liberating logic of the free
market has challenged the world’s remaining Marxist governments with
contrasting models of such greater efficiency and opportunity that the demise of
centralized-planning regimes is heralded, with only the time frame in doubt.
Through a strategy of economic development and political containment the United

States and the community of free nations have achieved a more decisive victory
over Bolshevism than could ever have been gained through war.
Meanwhile only one short year ago in the Persian Gulf, President Bush assembled
an unprecedented international coalition to uphold the rule of law. For the first
time since Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, an American president has defined his
presidency with a theme—New World Order—developed in action (or more
precisely, reaction) rather than as campaign sloganeering.
II
Absent stark Cold War contrasts, the challenge for American leadership in the
decade ahead will be to chart a course that is inclusive, not exclusive, of
perspectives developed beyond our shores. America must look to constructive
internationalism; to Pacificism, rather than pacifism; to Atlanticism rather than
mere alliance-ism; to leadership of the Americas, rather than insular America
First-ism.
The politics of hard times at home, however, has led some in American public life
to suggest myopically that Russian roulette be played with our economy and
national security by retreating from larger world affairs. At a time when public
frustration with Congress has never been higher, a legislative branch on trial has
caused members to become overwrought with concern for political survival;
courage and largeness of the human spirit are not hallmarks of a legislative body
fighting to reestablish both public and self respect.
The consequence of the American people’s dwindling confidence in Congress is

the potential breakdown not just of bipartisan but bi-institutional foreign policy.
The demoralization of Congress has led to another Dullesque reappraisal of U.S.
foreign policy, which is potentially most troubling in the area of commerce, where
the Constitution gives the legislative branch a larger role than in state-to-state
political relations.
The combination of political institutions in disrepute and an economy without

growth has resulted in a dispirited civil polity, increased partisanship and
pressure from the extremes of the political spectrum to play ostrich politics, to
construct a Fortress America, to revive lost causes and lost illusions. However
seductive, the lure of neo-isolationism—the dream of returning to relative
economic autarky and somnolent continental security—appeals to the nostalgic
instincts of the American public, much as do Norman Rockwell’s depictions of the
American character.
The danger of this contemporary "America First" movement is neither its premise
nor its romanticism, but its implications: that the United States has nothing left to
gain from or contribute to international peace and prosperity; that America should
be an observer rather than a leader of the world; that political ambition can best
be advanced by manipulating parochial fears rather than enlarging the human
horizon.
Key leaders in Congress, largely Democratic, continue to peddle a protectionist

insularism that amounts to a gospel of retreat from progressive foreign policy
values. Frustrated by a dozen years of Republican control of the White House,
theirs is the easy wisdom of those without accountability, the irresponsibility of
semi-permanent foreign policy opposition. Hence the vacillation implicit in the
refusal to endorse the president’s approach to the Gulf War, and exasperated
opportunism reflected in vehement anti-foreign aid pronouncements coupled
simultaneously with criticism of the president for lacking the vision to present a
forthcoming Soviet aid package. Hence also the hypocrisy of claiming to desire
warmer, more respectful relations with Latin America while placing a series of
delaying roadblocks in the paths of President Bush’s North American Free Trade
Area proposal and of his debt forgiveness and debt-for-nature swap programs
that, with his investment program, comprise the Enterprise for the Americas
Initiative.
On the Republican right, protest candidate Patrick A. Buchanan defines himself

more in the tradition of Father Coughlin than Robert Taft. Repudiating core tenets
of Nixonian and Reaganite foreign policy, Buchanan mixes diplomatic
disengagement, economic protection and appeals to a new American nativism into
a political apostasy rooted more in the nineteenth-century anti-immigrant biases
of the Know-Nothings than the Lincolnian model of societal sacrifice to broaden
the scope of individual rights and social tolerance.
In foreign policy the twentieth-century Republican tradition includes Theodore

Roosevelt’s brand of principled brigandage, Harding’s coolness to the League of
Nations and Wendell Willkie’s "one worldism." In its history the G.O.P. has been
isolationist and interventionist, unilateral and multilateral. Out of power, or at
least outside the executive branch, it tends to intemperance. In power, in the last
half century, with the possible exception of Reagan’s first term, it has been
professional, prepared and progressive.
President Bush has had the good fortune to oversee and lead a world in transition.
The thaw in East-West relations has precipitated the winding down or conclusion
of a number of bloody regional conflicts—from Afghanistan to Angola to Cambodia
to Nicaragua and, at long last, war-torn El Salvador. And, in the cauldron that is
the Middle East, the United States has embarked on a high-risk strategy to
facilitate a process that could lead to a comprehensive peace.
Writing in 1950, Reinhold Niebuhr noted that the price of survival was our ability
to give leadership to the free world. Today the price of the prosperity of the free
world still depends on our ability and willingness to lead. No other society has the
capacity or inclination to light freedom’s lamp in quite the same way; nor is any
other as capable of combining self-interest with a genuine historically rooted
concern for others. For the United States to deny its transnational responsibilities
and thwart the development of internationalist approaches to problem-solving is
to jeopardize a future of peace and greater prosperity.
No principle of American foreign policy, no understanding of American history or

the American people, no sober appreciation of the limits of our power or moral
authority commends a Pax Americana. By the same token no prudent statesman,
surveying the breadth of our international interests and responsibilities, could
find security or virtue in a new isolationism.
III
Few issues are more important to our long-term national interest than the future
of democracy and free enterprise in the former Soviet Union and former Soviet
bloc. President Nixon was correct when he observed in March 1992 that concern
for the fate of the political and economic reforms in Russia had been a casualty of
the early presidential primaries.
It may be ironic that it was Nixon who staked out the moral high ground on such a
crucial strategic issue (and doubly so that it was a former manipulator of wage
and price controls who expressed such telling criticism of politicians in both
parties for pandering to voters in an election year). Nevertheless, while the
greatest unfought war in history may be won, peace remains elusive. Failure of
the West to engage in helping alleviate the problems in the wake of communism’s
demise carries as many liabilities today as failure to contain communist
expansionism would have forty years ago.
Establishment thinking in Washington for much of the last decade centered on the
dubious assumption that American interests were intertwined with those of
Gorbachev and his commitment to preserve the Soviet Union. Gorbachev’s claim
to historical significance cannot be denied—primarily because like Tokugawa
Keiki, the last shogun of Japan, he chose to yield rather than confront popular
sentiment with the force of arms. Yet the weakness of Gorbachev’s political
mandate was revealed by the speed with which he, titular head of the world’s
largest army and internal security force, went from being a leader without a
constituency to almost irrelevant status as the former chief of state of a
nonexistent country.
While startling and unexpected in its swiftness, the collapse of the Soviet empire
is a historical turning point that Americans should understand more profoundly
than any other society, because the self-determination asserted by the newly
independent states is rooted in the principles of our Declaration of Independence.
Seldom has there been a more profound conjunction of American philosophy and
American national interest than in the self-determination issues involved in the
splintering of the Soviet state. Despite the fact that nuclear weapons management
has become more complex and that irredentism and violent ethnic prejudices,
repressed for almost three-quarters of a century, have resurfaced as if merely
buried in a time capsule, the threat of dealing with 15 democratizing republics
has to be considered less challenging to American national interests than that
emanating from a single united despotic state. There simply could be no better
safeguard for our national security than the development of a multiplicity of
independent Eurasian governments accountable to free peoples.
Marx notwithstanding, the real opiate of the twentieth century is intolerance, the
instinct for hatred that becomes manifest in the individual and is unleashed in
society when governments fail to provide safeguards for human rights and fail to
erect civilizing institutions adaptable to change and accountable to the people. As
the old world order passes and a new one is experimented with, policymakers
have an obligation to look beyond the balance-of-power politics to a new civil
community. The wolf is still at the door in relations between states, between
peoples of differing ethnic and religious composition, and among the economic
have-nots of the globe.
The immediate challenge for America is to craft techniques that nurture

democratic values and retard the prospect of regression to police-state controls
and aggressive foreign policies on the Eurasian land mass. Winning peace is
always less costly than waging war, but it is not cheap; nor in some instances is it
easy to justify to political constituencies. Yet, as Washington well understands but
not so well dares to explain to the public, little is more worrisome than punitive
indifference, as the victors of World War I applied to Germany. Likewise, little in
retrospect appears more successfully enlightened than the more generous
approach taken toward the losers of World War II.
In the long run, free enterprise and trade are the only answers; in the short run, a
modest amount of humanitarian, technical and international financial assistance
to the former Soviet republics may be the cheapest national security insurance
policy the United States can consider taking out. Direct U.S. aid ought to
emphasize exchange programs, humanitarian assistance—principally food and
medicine—and help in dismantlement of nuclear weapons systems. For economic
development and financial assistance, the West should rely primarily on the three
relevant multilateral institutions: the World Bank, the International Monetary
Fund and the newly created European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
The role of the multilateral institutions should be stressed for three reasons. First,
reliance on international institutions implies shared rather than singular U.S. aid
responsibility; our European allies and Japan will provide the majority of financial
resources. Second, in addition to leveraging dollars, these institutions allow the
West to leverage principles. Few governments are prone to bow to pressure for
market-oriented reform coming from a single country. Many, however, will
institute politically difficult reforms as prerequisites for IMF and World Bank
support. Third, in most cases the international financial institutions make loans
rather than grants and have a far better record of receiving repayment than any
individual country. Indeed, in the 1980s the United States earned over $600
million a year through participation in IMF loans.
While Americans may differ on the role and composition of foreign aid, consensus
should be obtainable on the notion that progressive change can most likely be
institutionalized through expanded trade and investment ties. Aid without trade is
a prescription for dependency, not self-sufficiency. Likewise aid without the
development of a free-enterprise psychology and legal infrastructure will be of
fleeting significance. Unless laws are developed that protect property and provide
incentives for entrepreneurship, all of the newly established states of the former
Soviet Union and erstwhile Soviet bloc will likely stagnate for decades with per
capita GNP wallowing at the level of less developed countries. What the former
socialist states need is a cultural reordering of attitudes toward the relation of the
state and individual. This can only occur through the widest possible contact with
the West, particularly America.
What the West must do is conjoin political and economic principles, emphasizing
that democracy and free enterprise go hand in hand and that those states that
move the most progressively in tandem are likely to be recipients of most public
assistance as well as private investment. In this regard the non-Russian republics
of the former Soviet Union should be singled out for sympathetic concern, with
the new leaders of the Kremlin put on frank notice that efforts to thwart
independence movements, whether in the Baltics, Ukraine or Georgia, will be
looked on with political disfavor carrying negative trade and investment
implications.
Social dislocation too often leads to scapegoats and easy solutions, to a search for
a strong man, a Ukrainian Mussolini or a Russian Miloševic. Likewise the pace of
reform itself may lead to disillusionment, like that expressed by Russian nihilist
Dimitri Pisarev, who suggested in the mid-nineteenth century that a pair of boots
was of more intrinsic human value than all the plays of Shakespeare. If
communism is not simply to give way to nihilism, hope must be provided in
democracy, market economics and trade.
The United States should not shy away from offering free trade agreements to the
countries of east-central Europe and the Baltic. Such agreements would assure
market access to the United States, stand as a beckoning incentive for foreign
investment, counterbalance potential German dominance of the region and serve
to undercut from behind any exterior trade walls the west Europeans might
consider erecting.
IV
Nationalism may be an instrument for liberty. It may also be a harbinger of

intolerance that must be vigilantly guarded against, especially in the part of
Europe that has given birth to the two epochal conflicts of this century.
In Europe George Kennan’s historic policy of containment represented a near-war

defined as a Cold War response to the aggressive tendencies of a powerful
totalitarian adversary. Premised on that containment doctrine, NATO’s strategic
policy and deterrence posture successfully thwarted any expansionist ambitions in
Europe that may have been entertained by the Kremlin.
The very success of NATO ironically jeopardizes its future. But as new doctrines
are considered care must be taken that NATO be sustained with a structure and a
mission that provide security for the preservation of liberty in central and eastern
Europe. While progressive winds continue to blow from behind the collapsed iron
curtain, NATO must be prepared to deal with contingencies that may develop
from a shift in these winds, accidental escalations or political misjudgments.
Unity based on common threat is easier to obtain than one based on common
aspirations. The immediate challenges to NATO are likely to come more from
within than without, from ethnic and nationalist discord and emerging
parochialism on trade, with the resultant danger that a global trading system may
collapse at precisely the moment when the peoples of east-central Europe need
open markets most.
In 1944 Walter Lippmann coined the term "Atlantic Community" to convey

America’s strategic interest in the successful postwar reconstruction of Europe.
Almost fifty years later, and half a world away, it is time for the United States to
help establish a "Pacific Community," to convey our political and economic
interests in the Far East and in reawakening south Asia.
The linchpin of American policy in the Far East is our relationship with Japan. The
good news in the relationship is that, despite a hiccup in 1991, the bilateral trade
deficit continues to decline, and that at long last American business has begun to
warm to the task of competing and winning in the difficult Japanese market. The
bad news is that in tough economic times national moods take on an uglier, more
pessimistic tone, manifested in Japan-bashing and, across the Pacific, in kenbei.
Yet despite the rising tension America and Japan continue to share a remarkable
coincidence of interests. All the United States asked of Japan at the end of World
War II was that it be democratic, oriented toward free enterprise and peaceful.
The competitive concerns Americans evidence today stem from the Japanese
heeding our advice too well rather than too little.
The United States and Japan represent 40 percent of the world economy; neither
can allow trade disputes to poison this relationship. The best way to keep
simmering tensions manageable is for the two countries to work together to
defend and expand a free world trading system and for Japan, preferably of its
own free will, without foreign pressure or gaiatsu, to become a model of free
trade internally as well as an advocate of the same abroad.
If history is a guide protectionism belies its name. It provides job security for
candidates, not workers. Just as, in Pogo’s terms, the enemy too often is us, in
trade policy the enemy is politicians, usually one’s own. As the world moves from
a half century of obsession with geopolitics to stress instead geoeconomics, the
challenge for all peoples and all political systems is to avoid the easy trap of
economic nationalism.
For America the trade issue for the last decade of the twentieth century is not so
much figuring out what new arrows should be added to the bulging quiver of
existing sanctions, it is in selecting the right marksman with the right judgment to
understand when and where to aim, with the first concern being to avoid at all
costs driving a shaft into the heart of the U.S. and world economy.
One of the lessons of the 1930s was that protectionist legislation, such as the
Smoot-Hawley tariff, lengthened and deepened the Great Depression. By reverse
logic, in recessionary times, promoting policies that impel the growth of
international trade is likely to serve as an economic stimulant. Hence the
importance of advancing the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs
and Trade and the negotiation of free trade agreements, first with Mexico and
other Latin and east European countries, but eventually with the European
Community and selected south Pacific and Asian countries.
Historically the strength of American foreign policy has been most evident when
we have stood solidly for advancing abroad the principles and ideals upon which
our society is based. Principles should not be sacrificed for shortsighted
objectives or shortsighted leaders. In reflecting societal values no country should
be more confident. After all, the philosophical taproot of the changes taking place
in the world—from central Europe to the Baltic states, from Afghanistan to
Tiananmen Square, from Nicaragua to South Africa—is a happy recognition that it
is Jeffersonian democracy that provides the boldest and most humane model for
political and economic organization in recorded history.
Conservative Republican thinking has two philosophical bedrocks. The first is a

Burkean emphasis on respect for existing social structures: the assumption that
for change to be effective it must be gradualist. The second, a Lockean emphasis
on definable rights, is more radical and uncompromising.
President Bush in general is Burkean in temperament, emphasizing dialogue with

the leadership in Moscow, Beijing and Pretoria, even when, for instance, a case
might be made that in his Kiev speech of August 1991 he embraced Gorbachev
beyond his due and his time.
Tiananmen produced stark challenges to conservative sensibilities about the

rights of individuals. The president, however, has concluded that the maintenance
of communication and trade not only advances short-term American interests on
issues such as the Gulf War and peacekeeping in Cambodia, but in the long run
bolsters the position in China of a Western-oriented entrepreneurial class that
holds the best chance of promoting a regime more attuned to human rights
concerns.
South Africa presents a similarly troubling philosophical dilemma for any

conservative administration in Washington. While the first Republican presidency
chose to risk war rather than compromise principles to end extremist
apartheid—slavery—the last two Republican administrations have preferred to
work with rather than against the government in Pretoria in an effort to help
abolish apartheid in as civil and bloodless a way as possible. Fortunately,
Washington has found in F. W. de Klerk an establishment leader heroically
inclined to change and in Nelson Mandela a uniquely martyred aspirant. In
competitive combination they give promise of an unusually civilized political
phenomenon—evolutionary revolution.
VI
President Bush’s critics have frequently gibed at him for problems with "the vision
thing." Episcopalian in attitude as well as religious conviction, Bush eschews
philosophical and even policy articulation, emphasizing reasoned decision-making
and good judgment as contrasted with philosophical explication.
The Dutch architect Mies van der Rohe developed a theory of architecture around
simplicity of design and the observation that "less is more," that is, the cluttering
of design with fixtures and flourishes too often represents imperfection. Likewise,
less can sometimes be more in public policy. In a variant of Teddy Roosevelt’s
"speak softly but carry a big stick" theme, President Bush’s approach appears to
be to speak little, sometimes in a convoluted fashion—with the manner more than
the substance of his comments inducing confidence that he leads an
administration capable of crafting reasoned responses to challenges of the day.
Instinctively, Bush at his low-key best appears to be attempting to follow the

advice of Thomas Paine that "moderation in temper is always a virtue; moderation
in principle is always a vice." To the extent the president attempts to appeal in
public pronouncements to wider constituencies, his higher charged patriotic
rhetoric often shields a deep-seated internationalism.
If one American political party has been historically identified with the advocacy
of collective security and the multilateral diplomacy it implies, it is the
Democratic Party. Collective security was the watchword of Woodrow Wilson, who
literally drove himself to death defending the principle against strident critics.
Franklin Roosevelt, arguably the greatest president of this century, insisted that
collective security principles be espoused in the Atlantic Charter, in authoritative
statements of American war aims in World War II and ultimately in the Charter of
the United Nations.
Yet today it is a Republican president who, in opposition to both the isolationist

and go-it-alone interventionist themes that have ambivalently represented much
of this century’s conservative tradition, is in the vanguard of constructive
internationalism and credible collective security endeavors. Such is the
implication of the extraordinary international coalition that Washington led in the
Gulf War. Such is also the meaning of U.N.-sanctioned peacekeeping initiatives in
Cambodia and Yugoslavia.
In a strategic sense, there have been three defining events in this century: World
War I, World War II and the Cold War. The role of American soldiers and
American military preparedness was crucial in winning each. Were it not for the
American G.I., there would be no collective security. The only competition in the
world today would be between the totalitarianism of the left and totalitarianism of
the right. Europe would be freedom’s toxic dump. Either the Nazi or the Soviet
jackboot would be the symbol of order. The land mass that produced Montesquieu
and Locke, Beethoven and Descartes would find its libraries filled with the class
conflict implications of Das Kapital and the hate-ridden dogma of Mein Kampf.
While it would be overly optimistic to conclude that the wars of this century were
wars to end all wars, it would be overly pessimistic to fail to recognize the
extraordinary opportunity presented to the United States to advance verifiable
arms control and strengthen collective security arrangements.
Seldom has a benchmark policy been less theoretically defined, but it would
appear that what President Bush is attempting to develop in his New World Order
theme is the precedent that aggression will not be rewarded; that countries
should be expected to follow core precepts of international law; that countries
distant from areas of conflict should be prepared to contribute to the preservation
of worldwide norms; that international institutions and multilateral arrangements
will be used to the maximum in developing collective approaches to common
concerns.
Some 39 years ago President Eisenhower proposed an initiative called Atoms for
Peace, a plan for the United States and the Soviet Union to dedicate fissionable
materials from dismantled nuclear warheads for peaceful uses. Given the current
momentum on arms control, the timing could not be more propitious for Russia
and the other Soviet successor states to work with the United States to ensure
that weapons-grade materials will not become "loose nukes" or recycled back into
other deadly warheads, but instead that their awesome destructive potential will
be converted to humanitarian purposes.
The 21st century can be looked to with an understanding that what distinguishes
this generation of citizens from all others is that we are the first to have the
capacity not just to wage war, but to destroy civilization. As Einstein once noted,
"The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of
thinking." If war is a constant of history, the greatest political science quandary of
all time is how to develop techniques to make it obsolete.
Avoiding a nuclear exchange implies the need to pay greater attention to the
causes of war, such as impoverishment, as well as to the development of
instruments of war. To halt the scourge of nuclear proliferation, arms control on a
global as well as regional basis is a self-evident societal imperative.
Erecting effective barriers to the spread of nuclear and other weapons of mass
destruction demands that restraint be accepted by the United States as well as
developing countries. The first business of a new world order should be
negotiation of a comprehensive test ban. In addition the United Nations ought to
be mandated to develop a more rigorous International Atomic Energy Agency
inspection regime than has heretofore been contemplated, and to authorize
appropriate sanctions for regimes like that of North Korea.
The time is also ripe for the United States and the world community to consider
creating within the U.N. system an international criminal court or courts, to hold
accountable international criminals who violate specific international conventions
such as those related to terrorism, drug trafficking and crimes against the peace.
Such a court system would be complementary to the International Court of Justice
at the Hague, which exclusively adjudicates disputes between states. There could
be no more appropriate potential defendants to proceedings of this nature than
Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein and Abu Nidal.
Since one of the most effective antidotes to the irrationality of ancient enmity is
the swift justice of the law, a turn (or in the case of the United States, return) to
the compulsory jurisdiction of the World Court would appear to be one of the most
appropriate and achievable objectives of the decades ahead.
Any credible post-Gulf War scenario for encouraging peace and stability in the
Middle East must include unprecedented multilateral restraints on the transfer of
advanced conventional arms. If there is any lesson of the gulf conflict it is that the
West was responsible for the creation of the armed camp known as Iraq.
Nevertheless the triumph of collective security in the Persian Gulf gives hope that
a new international order will be established, with the understanding that
peacekeeping is peacemaking. As Winston Churchill observed in his famous Iron
Curtain speech some 46 years ago, U.N. peacekeeping efforts to be effective
require "sheriffs and constables."
With the United Nations finally beginning to function as its framers intended, it is
time for the United States to lead in the creation of a modest U.N. rapid-
deployment force. Logistical and certain intelligence capabilities could be shared
with the United Nations by the member states, as Congress originally
contemplated in the 1945 U.N. Participation Act, and by U.N. members as a whole
by "special agreements" under Article 43 of the charter. Likewise either the
moribund Military Staff Committee needs to be revived or a new system
established.
There is an ambivalence, if not tension, in the American psyche between

isolationism and internationalism, between hubristic leadership and team playing.
Given the traumas of post-World War II interventions, the American people are
reluctant to assume the lonely and costly role of policeman for the world. On the
other hand, they accept as a credible obligation that the United States should play
a significant part with others as international highway patrolman.
Continued expansion of U.N. responsibilities, however, cannot be contemplated

without adequate financing. It is ironic that as American policy and American
interests are progressively being advanced by the United Nations, the United
States has become the institution’s single biggest deadbeat, with arrears in
excess of $400 million. For Congress, it is not a proud moment that legislators are
so stumped by a stultified appropriations process that peacekeeping in areas of
the world as explosive as Cambodia, Yugoslavia and the Golan Heights does not
receive the highest priority. Likewise, for the executive branch, it is not a proud
moment that policymakers are so stymied by the domestic abortion debate that
traditional American leadership in international family planning has ignominiously
collapsed.
VII
Finally, a note about this century as it is beginning to unfold into the next. The
twentieth century, like those of all recorded history, has been marked by war. For
the first time, however, mankind has come to contemplate reasons why war
should become obsolete and rational approaches to ensuring that such a prospect
becomes possible. The existence of weapons of mass destruction gives
unprecedented and compelling reason to work to ensure that they not be
employed. The creation of international institutions—most importantly the United
Nations—the expansion of international law and the demonstrated will of the
international community to participate in collective security arrangements give
hope that the next century will be marked by a dramatic diminution of cross-
boundary conflict.
The simplest, although most dangerous, part of the Cold War is over. Now the
complicated work begins. If the nascent experiments in democracy and free
enterprise collapse in the former Soviet Union and central Europe, the potential
ramifications for the national security of the United States—in dollar costs for
military preparedness and human costs due to unanticipated threats and
conflicts—could be staggering.
The challenge of our time is to grasp the opportunity created by the end of the
Cold War. If America leads wisely, new wells of creative energy can be opened up
and mankind’s untapped productive potential released. The world can be enriched
with a renaissance of the human spirit. If, on the other hand, America fails to
secure the peace so many citizens have sacrificed so much to achieve, the mantle
of 21st century leadership will pass to other less charitable societies and less
liberal philosophies.
The weight of historical judgment is on our shoulders. As Dwight Eisenhower

declared in his first inaugural address, "the faith we hold belongs not to us alone,
but to the free of all the world."
James A. Leach, Representative from Iowa, is a member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.
June 1,1992
Lee H. Hamilton
WIN MCNAMEE / REUTERS

Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton reaches out to shake hands during an airport rally in Wilkes-
Barre, November 1, 1992.
The world has turned upside down, but U.S. foreign policy has been slow to
change. We have failed to develop a coherent strategy for the future—a successor
to containment. A Republican sits in the White House, but Democrats also bear
responsibility for foreign policy inertia. Democrats have ceded the field of foreign
affairs to the president, let him set the agenda and not challenged him often
enough on the specifics of policy. The result has been drift.
It is now up to Democrats to articulate a more compelling American foreign

policy. Democrats have the opportunity to redefine the concept of national
security and to strike a better balance between domestic and foreign affairs, and
between leadership and partnership. The issues are no longer communist
expansion and nuclear survival, but economic competitiveness, weapons
proliferation, support for democracy, protection of the environment and the fight
against human misery. The task is one of redefining America’s role in the world.
II
America is the preeminent power today. Its economy is still the world’s most
productive. Militarily it is the world’s only superpower. Countries and peoples
around the world still admire its democratic political system and free-market
economy.
Nevertheless, while we find reasons to celebrate our foreign policy successes, we

find ourselves threatened at home: by recession, crises in our cities, in our
education and health care systems, persistent budget and trade deficits, and a
growing sense of political paralysis.
Domestic problems have made the American public ambivalent about the U.S. role
in the world. Americans are proud of their country’s international leadership, but
they worry about its burdens. They want to see greater contributions from our
allies. They are convinced that we could better solve domestic problems if we
scaled back commitments overseas. Public opposition to foreign assistance is
strong. Calls for deep cuts in defense spending are growing. Yet, when asked,
Americans say they do not want the United States to relinquish its special place in
the world.
How can these views be reconciled? My sense is that the American people
intuitively understand what the present administration does not: the link between
domestic well-being and America’s role in the world. Americans recognize that the
fundamental purpose of our foreign policy is to promote conditions abroad that
protect and improve the quality of life at home. In turn they understand that our
ability to solve problems abroad depends on our domestic vitality.
Many Americans sense that President Bush has had his priorities wrong. The first
claim on his time, energy and skill has been foreign affairs. He has neglected the
economy and domestic policy. Americans are hard-pressed to identify the
president, now in his fourth year of office, with any successful domestic or
economic initiative. He has failed to understand the linkage between the economy
and American leadership.
What we are hearing from Americans today is first and foremost a demand to
address problems at home. They are not calling on the United States to bring
home all its troops or sever diplomatic and economic ties with the world. Rather,
their plea—and the plea of Democrats—is for a better balance.
Disengagement is not possible in a world of instantaneous communication and
economic interdependence. Neither isolation nor withdrawal is an option for the
United States. If we forget about the world and focus only on our domestic
problems, they would grow worse. The question is not whether we should
participate in world affairs, but how.
The president so far has failed to instill a new sense of mission in American
foreign policy. He maneuvered well in the waning days of the Cold War, but he is
now without a new organizing principle. The administration’s main effort to put
together a blueprint for the post-Cold War era has come from the Pentagon, which
argues for a one-superpower world. The president has yet to state his position on
the Pentagon proposal. He has not articulated an answer to the real foreign policy
question: What are the new threats to U.S. interests, and how should our foreign
policy be reconfigured to defend those interests-
III
Our interests may be permanent, but the threats to them have changed. The
demise of communism means we need to focus on new challenges and priorities.
We must continue to be prepared to defend our vital economic and security
interests—in Europe, east Asia, the Persian Gulf and areas directly adjacent to our
borders. Now that the Soviet threat has vanished the dominant security threat
comes from the breakup of states and the proliferation of deadly weapons and
technologies. The United States needs a more effective policy in the 1990s to deal
with both regional instability and aggression, as well as renegade states and
groups that seek to acquire weapons of mass destruction.
The draft Pentagon planning paper leaked to the press in February is dead wrong
in promoting the notion of a sole superpower dominating the rest of the world.
The key to U.S. security is sustaining the democratic alliances that have been
shaped over the last half century. We cannot build a new world order if our allies
believe our foreign policy is designed to turn back any power that challenges our
leadership. We will need to remain the world’s strongest military power, but there
is no contradiction between collective security and military preeminence—as the
Gulf War illustrated.
Economic power is the new determinant of international stature. The restoration

of U.S. competitiveness is critical not only to our domestic economy but to our
foreign policy as well. Our economic problems are limiting the reach of our
foreign policy at a time when the rest of the world is looking to the United States
for leadership.
We need domestic policies that restore the foundation for U.S. competitiveness
and economic growth—more private and public investment, better education, job
training and health care—and a foreign policy that promotes open markets for
U.S. goods and services. American voters have consistently rejected protectionist
trade policies, but they insist on a level playing field.
We have a golden opportunity to foster the spread of democracy and free markets.
But President Bush has been too selective in his application of democratic
principles, forgetting them when it comes to China or the Middle East. He has
been too focused on stability instead of the pursuit of freedom, self-determination
and justice. There is no conflict between these values: promoting democracy
builds long-term security. We should provide concrete political and economic
advice and across-the-board assistance to struggling democracies. We need to
keep American values where they belong—at the heart of our foreign policy.
Finally, we must address issues that pose a direct threat to our prosperity and
quality of life. The president speaks expansively about the role of the United
States in the world, but he has defined that role too narrowly. We are deeply
involved in issues such as aggression in the gulf, but great problems such as the
environment, energy use, population growth, hunger and health have been
neglected. We also need to pay greater attention to the growing gap between rich
and poor. Democracy cannot flourish in human misery. Economic growth in the
world’s poorest countries will have a direct, beneficial impact on our long-term
national security. The end of the Cold War gives us an opportunity to focus on
these neglected and vexing problems.
The new challenges to U.S. interests will require two adjustments in U.S. foreign
policy. First, we need to achieve a better balance between leadership and
partnership in our foreign policy. American leadership is necessary but no longer
sufficient to solve many international problems. We are first among democratic
equals and must recognize the limitations of unilateral action. Addressing new
threats to peace and prosperity—nationalist conflict, arms proliferation, the
consolidation of democracy and free markets, and environmental, health and
population problems—will require unprecedented levels of international
cooperation.
Second, we need a better balance between our domestic and foreign policies. The
former affects the latter. If we do not provide Americans with quality education,
health care and jobs, we will soon find that we lack the human and material
resources required to fulfill our still necessary role as world leader. If we wish to
lead abroad tomorrow, we must focus on our domestic problems today.
IV
U.S. economic performance is troubling. Economics can no longer take second

place to national security in setting U.S. government policy. Under President
Bush, U.S. gross domestic product has grown less than one percent annually. This
is the worst economic performance under any president since Herbert Hoover.
During the 1950s and 1960s America’s economic growth was vigorous—averaging
3.9 percent in the 1950s and 4.1 percent in the 1960s. Growth slowed in the
1970s to 2.8 percent, and slowed further in the 1980s to 2.6 percent. In the 1990s
growth all but stopped.
Due to sustained high rates of productivity growth, Japan and the European
Community are rapidly closing the economic gap with the United States. Some
experts predict that one or both will replace the United States as the world’s
leading economy. Both Japan and Europe have high savings rates and are making
the investments in people and infrastructure that will help them ensure sustained
improvements in living standards in the 1990s and beyond. Their foreign
economic policies are just as effective. By 1993 the EC will be the world’s largest
trading bloc. Japan is weaving a web of trade and investment ties throughout the
Pacific Rim, the world’s most dynamic economic region. These ties will strengthen
its economic position for years to come.
Economic weakness undermines the ability of the United States to achieve its
foreign policy goals:
—We supplied the bulk of the military forces in the Persian Gulf, but the war was
financed by payments of $54 billion from friends and allies. There is no guarantee
that these partners will be so generous in future crises. When we rely on others to
finance our foreign policy, we put it at risk.
—Sophisticated electronic components in weapons that performed so well during

the Gulf War were manufactured abroad. A failure to maintain competitive high-
technology industries will erode future U.S. military strength.
—U.S. inaction on the International Monetary Fund quota increase undercuts the
ability of the IMF to support market economic reforms in eastern Europe and the
former Soviet republics.
—Persistent arrears in our share of financing the United Nations harms the ability
of that organization to carry out vital peacekeeping missions.
Strong and balanced economic growth would make it easier for Americans to deal
with both domestic and international problems. In the 1950s and 1960s the
United States was the engine of growth for the world economy and a force for
promoting both democracy and more open international markets. German
Chancellor Helmut Kohl boasts that the 1990s will be the "Decade of Europe," and
it is commonplace now for Japanese politicians to speak of U.S. economic decline.
If we do not deal with our domestic economic problems, they will be right.
Americans understand that an economy that performs below its potential will,
over the long run, fail to provide quality jobs and high living standards. As a
result, worries about foreign economic competition are growing. The lack of an
effective strategy to improve the performance of the economy is stimulating
protectionist sentiment.
No foreign competitor provokes greater concern than Japan. To be sure, Japanese

policies and business practices have limited our business opportunities and hurt
some U.S. industries. Many of these policies and practices are unfair, and other
nations share our concern about them. International pressure remains necessary
to end these practices and further open Japan’s lucrative domestic market.
Indeed, exports have been a major source of U.S. economic growth in recent
years, which underscores the value of an aggressive trade strategy.
Yet our bilateral trade deficit with Japan was about $44 billion in 1991, less than
one percent of our total output of $5.7 trillion. We exported $591 billion of this
output, just over ten percent. These figures suggest that it would be a mistake to
overstate the adverse impact of foreign trade restrictions on our economy, or the
favorable impact of loosening those restrictions. Our current recession and
competitiveness problems were not made in Japan or anywhere else. Primary
responsibility for our economic problems—and for their solutions—rests with the
policies of the U.S. government and the performance of U.S. firms. Scapegoating
Japan or other countries is counterproductive: it increases trade tensions and
diverts precious attention from the domestic sources of our economic problems.
Japan’s economic challenge is, at root, a domestic challenge. It requires a strong

domestic response. Too much of our national output is devoted to consumption
and too little to investment, both public and private. To boost productivity, we
need more saving and more investment—in better educated and healthier
workers, in improved plant and equipment, and in science and technology.
Government policies should encourage lifelong opportunities for education, job
training and retraining to provide for a highly skilled work force. Without
compromising free-market principles we can strengthen existing mechanisms for
cooperation among universities, laboratories, industry and government.
Our economic performance would also be improved by a more aggressive

response to foreign competition. With additional staff and resources U.S.
embassies could do a far better job of promoting U.S. business abroad.
Government and industry need to work more closely to identify and cultivate
potentially significant technologies. U.S. trade negotiators should be given
additional clout, which they need to pry open closed markets. We should insist on
reciprocal treatment for U.S. exports.
The president needs to educate Americans about the nature of our international
economic predicament. He should describe the extent of U.S.-Japan economic
interdependence and the costs of a rupture in the relationship. He should try to
persuade Americans that many foreign economic policies and practices, while
different from ours, are not necessarily wrong or unfair. We could usefully adopt
some of these policies and practices, and the president should help us identify
them. Finally, the president needs to explain the structural features of the
American and Japanese economies that will make it difficult in the near term to
balance our bilateral trade.
The condition of American society also influences our role in the world. The
example of America as a successful society has been a traditional source of U.S.
influence abroad. Over the past two centuries many countries have tried to
emulate our democracy, economy and society. But persistent poverty, the world’s
highest levels of violent crime and drug abuse, resurgent racial tensions and other
problems suggest that the quality of American life today leaves much to be
desired. The riots in Los Angeles have tarnished America’s image. The president
speaks of domestic problems, but the record of his administration in solving them
is unimpressive. The deterioration of American society handicaps our ability to
lead by example.
The president has a unique ability to focus public attention and to set the nation’s
priorities. Throughout the Cold War fighting communism invariably prevailed over
domestic needs. Now this president—or the next—must shift the balance back to
the home front if America is to rebuild its strength and continue to play an
important role in the world.
The choice before the United States is not whether it should repudiate
international commitments and responsibilities. It is, again, a question of balance:
between domestic and international priorities, and between U.S. leadership and
partnership.
U.S. participation is still necessary to solve international problems. Yet the United
States alone is no longer sufficient to get things done. Achieving our foreign
policy objectives will require new forms of leadership and cooperation. This
becomes clear when we look at several of the key challenges on the international
agenda.
The United States should retain the capability to assure its security, but not every
threat to international peace or stability will require a U.S. military response. The
United States cannot, and should not, act as a global policeman or mercenary. But
it is in our interest to take the lead in organizing collective responses to threats to
peace.
When possible, Washington should try to respond to threats to collective security

through the United Nations. If that body is recalcitrant or unable to respond, then
we should try to build a coalition outside it. We should act alone only if we cannot
find friends and partners with whom to work.
The Gulf War is both instructive and deceptive as an example for the future
international security role of the United States. It is instructive in that only the
United States had the ability to assemble an international coalition to oppose, and
then reverse, Iraqi aggression. It is deceptive in that few threats to the peace will
be so clear-cut and will so galvanize the United States and the international
community as a direct military threat to the world’s supply of oil.
Future threats to security are likely to be more complex and ambiguous: the
messy breakup of states (the former Yugoslavia and the former Soviet Union),
internal conflict (Somalia) or massive violations of human rights (Iraq). Internal
upheavals threaten to spill across borders and directly challenge international
peace and stability.
When states break up, the United States and the United Nations should not work
on behalf of the political status quo, but on behalf of democracy, human freedom
and the peaceful resolution of disputes. The use of force for domestic repression,
or to change boundaries in former multiethnic states, must be condemned by the
international community. Washington should be in the forefront of efforts to
involve the United Nations, the Conference on Security and Cooperation in
Europe or other regional organizations to keep the peace. The question for the
future is whether and when the international community should intervene in
circumstances where internal policies or human rights violations threaten
international peace and stability.
The enduring lesson from the Gulf War should not be the military campaign, but
the unprecedented cooperation that occurred within the Security Council. At last
the United Nations is beginning to fulfill the security mission its founders
intended. In Afghanistan, Namibia, Central America and Cambodia it has played a
central role in ending East-West confrontation and brokering regional peace
settlements. The United States should strongly support efforts to expand the U.N.
peacekeeping role. The president’s statements on funding the United Nations are
positive, but his leadership is weak. He has not fought for his two-year, $700
million peacekeeping funding request and has not produced the congressional
votes from his own party. Unfortunately, the Democratic Party has not been much
better, and peacekeeping contributions this year are likely to fall short.
In order to assist peacekeeping activities, the United States and other permanent
members could share intelligence with the U.N. secretariat. Peacekeeping efforts
would benefit as well from increased financial and personnel contributions by
Japan and Germany. The contribution of helicopters and aircraft by Germany to
the work of the U.N. inspectors in Iraq is an important first step that should be
replicated elsewhere.
VI
Arms control is also an area where U.S. leadership is necessary to promote

international peace and stability.
The greatest security danger of the 1990s is weapons proliferation. The first step
is to gain control over "loose nukes" in the former Soviet republics. Second, the
United States, Russia and Ukraine should cut strategic nuclear forces to levels far
below those agreed in the START treaty. What we do not need are Pentagon
experts trying to find new targets and adversaries for existing nuclear weapons.
Washington should also move far more aggressively to use the $400 million
appropriated by Congress for the disabling and dismantling of nuclear and
chemical weapons in the former Soviet Union. Congress took this step five months
ago, without any help from the president. The administration has yet to spend
these funds. We should act now, while we have influence with Russia and the new
republics. Delay increases the chances that these weapons will be used by
renegade states or terrorists or in interrepublic disputes.
Washington should also revive efforts begun by Presidents Eisenhower and

Kennedy to negotiate a comprehensive test ban treaty. Stopping nuclear testing is
central to our efforts to counter nuclear proliferation and is a solemn obligation
undertaken by the nuclear signatories to the Nonproliferation Treaty. We must
ask ourselves whether we have anything to gain from continued testing, in
contrast to the powerful political example of stopping nuclear tests. If we want to
stop others from acquiring nuclear weapons, we must uphold our part of the
bargain.
We need to strengthen the International Atomic Energy Agency. We should

support the IAEA’s right to unlimited inspection without advance notice when
violations of the Nonproliferation Treaty are suspected. We should also push for
an international agreement that requires full-scope safeguards on all nuclear
facilities within a country before that country may obtain nuclear technology from
any source.
America also needs to strengthen its intelligence capabilities to detect covert

weapons programs. We and our allies should make sure the IAEA has early
warning of suspect activities. Concerted international pressure will be needed to
contain nuclear programs in countries that remain outside the non-proliferation
and safeguards regime (North Korea, India, Pakistan and Israel) and those whose
adherence to its requirements is suspect (Libya, Iraq and Iran).
The spread of nuclear weapons and technology, unfortunately, is only one part of
the proliferation problem. Western suppliers provided Iraq with the bulk of the
components and critical technology not only for its nuclear program but for its
chemical, biological and ballistic missile programs. The United States must work
to develop an effective international policy for controlling the export and reexport
of all sensitive technologies and materials related to weapons of mass destruction.
We need to tighten restrictions on these exports through the Nuclear Suppliers
Group, the Missile Technology Control Regime and the Australia Chemical
Weapons Suppliers Group.
The proliferation of conventional weapons is also a threat to peace and stability.

The five permanent members of the Security Council are the world’s five largest
arms sellers. They account for 80 percent of all weapons sales to the Third World.
If we are to curb conventional weapons transfers, the suppliers must act—and the
United States, the biggest exporter, should lead.
The United States is missing a unique opportunity to encourage arms restraint

where the problem is the greatest—the Middle East. With less than three percent
of the world’s population the Middle East accounted for 45 percent of Third World
arms purchases in the 1980s, and $150 billion in sales by the "big five" arms
suppliers.
The president’s May 1991 decision to convene a conference of major Middle East
arms suppliers is only a small step in the right direction. It is doubtful whether the
U.S. proposal for prior notification and consultation on arms sales will restrain the
arms trade. In fact the major thrust of U.S. policy is precisely in the wrong
direction. Since September 1990 the United States has gone ahead with over $22
billion in government-to-government military sales to Middle Eastern states and
issued licenses for up to another $6 billion in commercial sales. Other arms sellers
are complaining that aggressive U.S. marketing is closing them out of Middle East
markets. We will not foster arms restraint by leading the way with arms sales.
The United States should challenge other suppliers to join in a multilateral

moratorium on Middle East arms sales. During such a moratorium Washington
and other weapons suppliers should adopt tough, permanent limits on the
quantity and quality of arms transfers to the Middle East. Without American
leadership on arms restraint, arms suppliers and recipients will continue to
conduct business as usual in the Middle East arms bazaar. That will set the stage
for future Middle East wars.
VII
The dramatic events in the former Soviet Union last year, in eastern Europe three
years ago and in Latin America over the past decade show that the values of
political and economic freedom are ascendant. The key policy question for the
United States and other nations is how to help consolidate democracy and free-
market economic reforms.
With respect to eastern Europe and the former Soviet republics, the United States
is an important player, but by no means the only one. To date, Europe has
provided most of the economic assistance. Nonetheless the United States has an
indispensable leadership role to play, and the president has been timid and slow.
In eastern Europe, Congress pushed the president to act. With respect to Russia,
Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton pressed the president and made the case for
assistance. The purpose of such assistance is to ease the pain of transition, to buy
time for democratic and economic reform.
Successful reform in eastern Europe and in the former Soviet republics would
make an enormous contribution to U.S. security. It would reduce U.S. defense
expenditures, the nuclear threat, arms exports and the risk of environmental
disaster. It would give the United States access to vast natural resources through
peaceful commerce. It would redirect human talent to peaceful pursuits, open
new markets for U.S. exports and promote world economic growth.
The president has now renewed his call for funding an IMF capital quota increase
and has expressed his support for a currency stabilization fund for Russia tied to
implementation of an IMF reform program. The United States along with the
other Group of Seven leading industrial nations are now planning to provide $18
billion in balance-of-payments support and $6 billion for a stabilization fund to
assist Russia’s reform program. The proposal is a good one. But it is unclear how
Washington will be able to play a leadership role on aid to Russia when, as the
president says in this election year, such assistance can be provided with no new
appropriations.
America and the EC must open their markets and give these new democracies an
opportunity to export and grow. A successful conclusion of the Uruguay Round of
the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade would be a big boost for reformers in
eastern Europe and Latin America. A GATT agreement that cuts deeply into
agricultural subsidies, starts to dismantle the EC’s Common Agricultural Policy
and opens up the world market for farm produce would go a long way toward
getting these economies back on their feet. Poland, Romania and Ukraine were
once the breadbasket of Europe, and they can become so once again. What is
required of these nations are reforms of their own, matched by an opening of
world markets, especially the EC market. What is best for eastern Europe, former
Soviet republics and Latin America is what is best for the GATT membership as a
whole: an open, liberal economic order. The talks have been dragging on for
seven years, and the president must press for their successful conclusion.
Trade liberalization will also enhance the prospects for successful reform in Latin
America, to the benefit of the United States. Open and growing economies in this
hemisphere would provide exceptional opportunities for U.S. trade and
investment. Sound, market-based economies will help reduce corruption and
maintain political stability, which would reinforce U.S. security. The United States
and other countries can make the reforms more tolerable and reinforce
democracy by providing larger markets for Latin American exports and by further
reducing debt burdens.
President Bush’s 1990 Enterprise for the Americas Initiative was welcomed in
Latin America as a sign of renewed interest in the region’s economic future. The
initiative, which has yet to be fully implemented, contains trade, debt and
investment components. The debt component addresses only government-to-
government debt, and more needs to be done to encourage reductions in
commercial debt payments. The administration has also completed preliminary
agreements providing for free-trade negotiations with most countries in Latin
America, but all free-trade talks are on hold until the completion of negotiations
on the proposed North American Free Trade Agreement among Mexico, Canada
and the United States.
The NAFTA talks could provide a model for free-trade accords with other Latin
American countries or the foundation for a hemispheric free-trade area. Freer
trade would boost growth in countries that engage in it, but congressional
concerns about specific economic and environmental consequences of free trade
with Mexico will make final approval of a NAFTA agreement difficult. Much is
riding on the success of the NAFTA talks, which increases pressure on the
administration to produce an agreement Congress can support.
VIII
Elsewhere the United States has been too selective in encouraging democracy.
We need a more balanced approach.
We have pressed for democratic change in former communist countries, but those
countries seen to have strategic importance—including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait,
China, Indonesia and Turkey—have escaped strong pressure on democracy and
human rights. We have not even called for democratic change in Iraq; U.S.
sanctions are tied only to Saddam Hussein’s ouster.
Moreover our foreign policy has focused too much on governments, instead of on
the consequences of our policies for people. We should not permit short-term
considerations of order and stability to override long-term interests in expanding
freedom, democracy and basic human rights. For example the Algerian army
intervened to prevent an Islamic party from winning recent elections. Because the
Bush administration had misgivings about the party, it did not speak out in favor
of the democratic process. The United States thereby supported the army’s moves
to undercut democratic rule.
Democracy promotes, rather than undermines, long-term stability. Democratic

governments are more peaceful than authoritarian ones. They make better allies
and more reliable partners in international affairs. The denial of basic political
rights often leads to violent upheaval. When we promote respect for human rights,
civil liberties and the rule of law, we build a better foundation for long-term
security and prosperity.
No country can make another democratic, but democracy can be cultivated where
the desire for it exists. Established democracies such as the United States can
help in this effort. Conversely, we should reduce—if not eliminate—assistance to
governments that oppose democratic change or suppress human rights.
Countries in need of democratic assistance fall into three broad categories: those
still under authoritarian rule, those in transition to democracy and those with new
democratic governments.
In countries still under authoritarian rule, such as China and Cuba, we should try
to sustain and strengthen democratic forces. Our policies should seek to increase
the likelihood of a leadership succession that produces a more democratic
government. We should increase personal and professional exchanges, step up
radio news broadcasts and help democratic activists—openly if possible, secretly
if necessary.
Countries making the transition to democracy need several kinds of assistance.

Initially they may need help monitoring internal settlements and organizing
elections. They often need help providing basic services—food, health care, law
and order—until elected leaders are in place. Multinational efforts are necessary.
Wealthy Asian nations such as Japan should provide the major share of funding for
the U.N.-sponsored transition in Cambodia. As civil wars in El Salvador,
Mozambique, Angola and Liberia wind down, these countries will also need help.
Too often assistance has been ad hoc, uncoordinated and inadequately funded.
The United Nations, the United States, Europe and Japan should sort out and
share responsibilities.
One important area is in public administration. The United States can provide
excellent assistance to new officials with no experience in democratic governance.
In eastern Europe, U.S.-funded nongovernmental organizations are advising
parliaments and municipal and regional governments. These programs should be
expanded elsewhere. Expatriate communities in the United States and other
countries are another source of valuable assistance to new governments.
IX
International environmental problems demand complex multilateral negotiations

and a willingness to make short-term sacrifices. Both require active U.S.
leadership. In recent years the United States has too often served as an obstacle
to, rather than a catalyst for, effective international action. Scientific research and
citizen action have expanded the international environmental agenda:
Global warming. The production of carbon dioxide and other "greenhouse gases,"
primarily through the burning of fossil fuels, is causing world temperatures to
rise. This warming trend could swamp coastal areas, destroy fragile ecosystems
and harm agriculture.
The ozone layer. Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), chemicals used as coolants and in

industrial processes, are depleting the stratospheric ozone layer that shields the
earth from ultraviolet radiation. Increased exposure to ultraviolet radiation could
increase skin cancer, damage eyesight, degrade human immune systems and
disrupt food production.
Deforestation. The clearing of forests for timber, pasture and dwellings is causing
soil erosion and destroying plants that soak up carbon dioxide. The burning of
tropical forests also accounts for 25 percent of world carbon dioxide production.
Biological diversity. Human activity is destroying thousands of plant and animal

species annually. One-fourth of current species could be extinct by 2020. The loss
of plant species will harm crops and deprive the world of future medicinal
advances.
International action on the environment is likely to succeed when the United

States strongly backs it, and founder when we oppose it or sit on the sidelines.
Active U.S. diplomacy was pivotal to the completion of the 1987 Montreal Protocol
and subsequent agreements setting targets for reduced emissions of CFCs. In
contrast, U.S. opposition prevented agreement last year on a permanent
moratorium on mining in the Antarctic. The U.S. leadership deficit has been most
glaring, and potentially most costly, in preparations for the June 1992 U.N.
Conference on Environment and Development in Brazil.
Preparations for the UNCED in Rio de Janeiro highlight the growing rift between
the world’s industrialized and developing nations on the costs of environmental
cleanup. Many developing countries say industrialized countries must provide
financial aid and advanced technologies if they are to implement UNCED
commitments. Aid pledges by industrialized nations for environmental cleanup are
far short of what developing countries say is needed.
U.S. intransigence has weakened what was intended to be the UNCED summit’s
most important achievement: the treaty on global warming. For several years
Washington’s resistance to formal targets on reducing carbon dioxide emissions
has slowed efforts to negotiate a climate treaty. Officials defended U.S. policy by
citing conflicting scientific data and the cost of limiting emissions. Yet on this the
administration is isolated. Every major industrial country except the United States
has now pledged to limit emissions of carbon dioxide to 1990 levels by the year
2000.
Developing countries may not be persuaded to use alternative fuels or costly

technologies if industrialized countries are unwilling to take tough steps to
control their own greenhouse emissions. Some developing countries have also
said they will withhold cooperation on forest protection efforts until the United
States agrees to formal limits on carbon dioxide emissions. U.S. foot-dragging on
carbon dioxide restrictions is thus impeding international action on global
warming and deforestation.
The global warming issue underscores the linkage between domestic and foreign
policy. Since Europe and Japan use energy more efficiently than we do, they find
it easier to commit to reductions in carbon dioxide emissions. Our lack of effective
energy conservation policies not only increases U.S. energy dependency, it also
undercuts our ability to lead on an environmental issue in which we have a
substantial long-term interest.
U.S. policy on world population growth also has been disappointing. We have
slighted international population issues and allowed domestic politics and
ideological issues to stand in the way of consistent funding for key family planning
organizations, including the U.N. Fund for Population Activities. This will have
harmful consequences for the international environment and for our own long-
term quality of life.
In sum the United States has failed to lead—through diplomacy or by example—on

multilateral efforts to address new threats to the international quality of life.
Policy prescriptions for the government are clear. We should commit ourselves to
specific targets and timetables for reductions in U.S. carbon dioxide emissions.
We should work with other nations to devise promising approaches to the funding
of environmental programs. We should seek to strengthen multilateral institutions
that coordinate environmental research and programs. Funding for population
programs should be increased and directed to organizations with demonstrated
effectiveness. Funds for these initiatives should be drawn, in part, from money
made available from defense spending cuts around the world.
The gulf crisis showed the president’s weaknesses, as well as strengths, in making
foreign policy. His performance during the war was impressive. But his policies
prior to the war failed, and his follow-through afterward has been disappointing.
The president did not focus on the problem of Iraq soon enough. Iraqi policy
became increasingly bellicose in the late 1980s, and the United States did not
react. Indeed, U.S. policy may have emboldened Saddam. Washington continued
to share intelligence with Baghdad, allow the export of goods with potential
military use and provide Iraq with export credit guarantees. Until August 2, 1990,
it was official U.S. policy to pursue good relations with Iraq. War might have been
avoided if Washington had made crystal clear that it would oppose with military
force an Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Yet only two days before the invasion U.S.
officials stressed publicly that we had no commitment to defend Kuwait.
The president deserves credit for assembling an anti-Iraq coalition and for leading
a military victory, but we now risk losing the peace. Saddam remained in power
long after his defeat in war. Iraqi compliance with U.N. resolutions is minimal.
Political reform in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia is unimpressive. Gulf states are failing
to build new security structures. Arms sales to the region are escalating.
President Bush and Secretary Baker have started direct Arab-Israeli peace
talks—for which they deserve praise—but those talks lack momentum.
The Gulf War shows that the president often reacts well to crises. He also gets
high marks for his deft handling of German unification. But he and his inner circle
hold the policy reins too tightly. They seek little advice from the Foreign Service
or the rest of the government. As a result they often do not see problems coming
and, subsequently, do not pay enough attention to them once they are off center
stage. Iraq is only one example; the breakup of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union
did not draw attention from senior policymakers until it was too late. Issues no
longer in the spotlight, such as Panama, suffer from inattention: drug trafficking
in Panama remains endemic. The president’s preoccupation with crises means
that long-term issues—the Uruguay Round, energy security, the environment, the
implications of EC-1992 and the Maastricht summit—are neglected at the top.
The overcentralized, crisis-oriented approach has also meant the neglect of

special relationships that need constant care and attention. Frictions with
Israel—some minor, some not—have been allowed to fester. Also at risk are U.S.-
Japan ties. No relationship is more important to either country, yet the president
has done little to arrest deterioration.
XI
President Bush has yet to reshape the institutions and programs that carry out
U.S. foreign policy. They need an overhaul. The intelligence community is
oriented to a world that no longer exists. Foreign aid reflects Cold War priorities
and domestic political concerns. The defense budget does not correspond to
current international threats.
If the U.S. intelligence community is to serve U.S. interests in the 1990s, it must
be reformed. The intelligence community must focus on new challenges, including
proliferation, economic and environmental issues. Better assessments will require
improved information from human sources. Duplication of effort within and
between military and intelligence agencies must end. The president has opposed a
broad organizational overhaul of the intelligence community. He should tap more
outside expertise to help with reform.
The foreign aid program’s guiding principle is inertia. The president has been
unwilling either to lead, or to support with enthusiasm, efforts to reform foreign
aid. In fiscal year 1992 we are spending over $7.4 billion—more than three-fifths
of all bilateral foreign aid—on military and economic assistance to countries
deemed to be of strategic importance. The top three recipients of aid—Israel,
Egypt and Turkey—receive nearly half of all U.S. bilateral assistance.
Developmental assistance totals $2.15 billion, or less than one-fifth of all bilateral
aid.
A bias toward security assistance and a skewed distribution make the U.S. foreign
aid program look increasingly irrelevant. New transnational population, health
and environmental problems threaten long-term stability and prosperity, but the
focus of U.S. foreign aid continues to be Cold War security concerns. The poorest
nations, which need help most, are getting least.
U.S. defense programs have also lagged behind political change. The central
rationale for a $300 billion defense budget—the defense of western Europe
against a Soviet invasion—has vanished. Steep spending cuts beyond the 25
percent reduction outlined in the Pentagon’s five-year plan are possible and
necessary. We may be able to cut defense spending by 50 percent over the next
decade without harming U.S. security.
The Pentagon keeps searching for threats to justify its budget. A recent Pentagon
document outlines seven war scenarios, including a Russian invasion of Lithuania
that NATO would rush to reverse. It is hard to take such scenarios seriously when
the White House has not bothered to coordinate them with either the State
Department or the CIA. These are unconvincing exercises to justify the defense
budget.
The United States also continues to bear a disproportionate share of common

defense burdens. There is no longer any reason why the United States should
devote a larger portion of its gross domestic product to defense spending than its
wealthy European and Asian allies. These countries are capable of paying more
for their own defense and supplying their own troops to replace U.S. forces.
Defense reform will require strong presidential leadership. It will require shutting
down weapons production lines, closing military bases and cutting manpower. It
will require worker-retraining and base-conversion programs. Budget cuts will
impose pain in every state and congressional district. Only the president is in a
position to rise above local interests to restructure the defense budget. But his
approach has been to trim budgets, not to rethink manpower and weapons needs
from the bottom up.
XII
The Cold War is over, but the United States has been slow to react. We now have
a unique opportunity to redefine the purposes of American power.
We need a better balance in the making of foreign policy. Policy under President
Bush has been too reactive, centralized and personalized. We need less emphasis
on crisis management and more on long-term U.S. interests and American values.
All institutions that carry out U.S. foreign policy need reform and overhaul.
Finally, we need a better understanding of the purposes of American foreign

policy. It is to improve life at home, to build a stronger American society and
economy, and to build a safer and more stable world. To serve these ends we need
a foreign policy that recasts old notions of national security, retools outdated
institutions and establishes new patterns of international partnership. We need to
redefine America’s role in the world.
Lee H. Hamilton, Representative from Indiana, is a member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.
June 1,1992
America's First Post-Cold War
President
Theodore C. Sorensen
HERBERT KNOSOWSKI / REUTERS

East German citizens climb the Berlin Wall at the Brandenburg Gate after the opening of the border was
announced early November 9, 1989.
On the morning of November 4, 1992, the first person to be elected president of

the United States since the end of the Cold War will awaken to a world
remarkably unlike that following any presidential election in the last half century
or more.
He will be the first president to start a four-year term without any need to worry
seriously about this nation facing nuclear or even armed attack, the existence of
another military superpower or a challenge from a hostile global ideology. He will
be the first who can rely on a virtually veto-free Security Council in a more
effective, respected United Nations. For the first time a worldwide community of
nations under law will appear to be within our reach. He will be truly free, in
short, to use his inaugural address to outline a new course in world affairs for
America.
It will be a historic opportunity.
But along with that opportunity he will face challenges that his predecessors did
not face—from the integration of western Europe and the disintegration of
eastern Europe; from the spread of ethnic, tribal, religious and other
micronationalist clashes that are undeterred by nuclear might and unresolved by
free-market and free-election doctrines; and from the difficulties of converting to
a less military-oriented economy without unacceptable dislocation.
With the Cold War out of the way the next president will be obliged to face long-
deferred global problems, including population growth, food and water shortages
and environmental hazards that in combination could create for the next
generation of Americans a very ugly and perilous way of life. To an extent not
shared by his modern predecessors he will face an anxious and inward-looking
American public that generally feels neither generosity nor responsibility toward
the plight of other peoples. He will find it more difficult to distinguish between
friend and foe, now that the clear ideological colors of the Cold War are gone; to
distinguish between real dangers and mere problems, now that all kinds of
nonmilitary concerns have replaced one clear overriding threat to the nation’s
survival; and to distinguish between foreign and domestic issues, now that
international influence depends less on military supremacy and more on market
competitiveness.
In short America’s first post-Cold War president will face a world of both
unmatched opportunity and unprecedented opacity. Under pressure to choose a
new course for the country, with the gravest consequences attendant upon that
choice, he will be standing at a crossroads, looking at conflicting signposts and
holding outdated maps.
II
He will not be the first president this century to stand at such a crossroads.
Presidents Warren G. Harding, after the election of 1920, and Harry Truman,
after the election of 1948, stood at comparable intersections. In each case the
United States and its military allies, during the period following the previous
presidential election, had won a stirring global victory and commenced
demobilization. In each case the American people were weary of crisis and eager
to resume a course of domestic tranquility and prosperity. In each case the newly
elected president had unusual freedom to forge a new national consensus in
foreign affairs. Each of them chose very differently.
Harding, elected by a record margin, regarded his victory as a "referendum"

rejecting "internationality," as a mandate for "the resumption of our onward,
normal way." Europe and Asia were racked by debt, famine and regional disputes,
by communism in Russia and by uprisings in scattered colonies. But this country,
said Harding, needs "not nostrums but normalcy, . . . not submergence in
internationality but sustainment in triumphant nationality."
He appointed a brilliant secretary of state, Charles Evans Hughes, whose focus on

international law led to a series of arms and naval limitation conferences and
treaties. In the absence of political will and enforcement measures in Washington
and other world capitals, all proved ultimately worthless.
In his inaugural address Harding recognized "the new order in the world" (a
familiar refrain) and the need for international law and understanding. But his
primary emphasis was on "the wisdom . . . of non-involvement in Old World
affairs."
Confident of our ability to work out our own destiny . . . we do not mean to be
entangled. We will accept no responsibility, except as our own conscience and
judgment in each instance may determine . . . no permanent military alliance . . .
no political commitments which will subject our decisions to any other than our
own authority.
America’s return to isolationism in the 1920s was soon symbolized and

aggravated by higher tariff and immigration barriers and by the virulent anti-
foreigner sentiment that raged in some regions.
Truman, barely returned by the voters in 1948 to the Oval Office that he had
inherited three years earlier upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt, took a
distinctly different course. Even before the 1948 election he had launched the
Marshall Plan, embraced the United Nations and commenced the Berlin airlift,
making clear America’s commitment to Western Europe’s security and to a
continuing global role. Despite a large contraction of the military budget, he
guided the nation’s relatively smooth conversion to a civilian base. Immediately
after his election he instructed the Department of State to open negotiations for a
new North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The NATO agreement, establishing this
nation’s first "peacetime" military alliance, was signed in Washington only four
months later.
Unlike Harding, Truman devoted all of his only inaugural address to foreign
affairs. "Today," he declared, "marks the beginning not only of a new
administration, but of a period that will be eventful, perhaps decisive, for us and
for the world." He stressed, in addition to the need to negate the rising menace in
Moscow, four themes of international cooperation: support for the United Nations,
continuation of the Marshall Plan, the establishment of NATO and "Point Four," a
bold new program to make the benefits of American know-how available to
underdeveloped countries.
Between his election and inauguration Truman had accepted the resignation of
the ailing George C. Marshall as secretary of state and named a strong successor,
Dean Acheson. In the four years that followed, Truman and Acheson successfully
met the multiple challenges of Western postwar reconstruction, Cold War
confrontation, Old World decolonization and international economic
harmonization, setting the country on a course that lasted almost four decades
and that would ultimately "win" the Cold War. To be sure, support from Congress
and the public was enormously facilitated by the fear of a visible, powerful enemy;
but the nation’s basic long-term approach of vigilance, restraint and cooperation
with friends and allies had been set by the president in the first few months after
his election.
III
Truman, like most presidents, perceived a mandate in his narrow electoral

victory. But it may be difficult to discern any foreign policy mandate in this year’s
election returns, regardless of who wins.
Unfortunately presidential election campaigns often have an unhealthy effect on

American foreign policy. Political promises are commonly designed to appeal to
local and short-term interests and to ethnic voter blocs. Foreign countries and
foreign imports make handy targets for campaign oratory. The leaders of allied
nations, however important in the long run, cannot carry a single U.S. district.
Overseas problems, particularly if they are controversial, are often neglected or
postponed until election pressures are over. In 1976, for example, Republican
challenger Ronald Reagan’s campaign against President Gerald Ford helped delay
both the second Strategic Arms Limitation Talks and Panama Canal treaties.
This election year has been worse than most. Logically this November’s voting
should constitute another great "referendum" on new directions in American
foreign policy. Instead, as of this writing, the campaign has dwelt almost entirely
on domestic politics, the economy and personalities. The two presidential
candidates have largely downplayed major international issues. With public
opinion polls consistently showing strong support for President Bush’s handling of
foreign affairs, particularly his leadership in Operation Desert Storm—a strength
on which he had hoped to capitalize in the election—voters complained in the
same polls that the president had spent too much time on foreign affairs and too
little time on the domestic issues that were of primary importance to the country.
Foreign economic, environmental and other hazards continue to threaten the
nation’s well-being (less visibly than did Soviet nuclear weapons, to be sure), but
only one percent of poll respondents declared foreign policy issues to be the most
important matters facing the nation.
As a result President Bush curtailed some of his foreign travels and activities, for
months averted his gaze from the slaughter in Sarajevo, delayed and diluted the
U.S. contribution to a Russian aid package and—like his Democratic Party
challenger—devoted his campaign speeches principally to domestic issues.
With the U.S. economy sluggish, the budget deficit still increasing and America’s
physical survival no longer at stake, this focus on the domestic front in the
country’s first post-Cold War election is not particularly surprising or
troublesome. But at times only a fine line separated the Democratic Party
campaign appeal to "take care of our own first" from the isolationist "America
First" philosophy favoring wholesale withdrawal of U.S. forces and commitments.
The presidential primaries of both parties appeared to reject outright
protectionism and isolationism, making at least that much of a mandate clear. But
the meaning of the November election will be harder to read.
IV
If President Bush is reelected, one factor will in theory alter his position the day
after that reelection. Under the twentys-econd amendment to the Constitution, he
will be a "lame duck," ineligible to succeed himself in office after another four
years.
Will this make a difference? No doubt, starting early in his term, there will be
increased scrambling and angling among both Republicans and Democrats hoping
to succeed him. That will make his relations with Congress, including some
members of his own party, even more difficult than they already are. The reported
interest of members of his own cabinet in gaining the next Republican
nomination, unusual in modern politics, though once a common occurrence, could
add a still sharper partisan cast to national security debates. Even without any
added and early emphasis on presidential ambition Mr. Bush’s reelection is
unlikely to return bipartisanship in foreign affairs to the level that generally but
not inevitably prevailed in the first two decades of the Cold War.
Whether a president in his final term actually loses some of his influence with
Congress and other countries, and even some of his own determination to please
the electorate, is difficult to prove. He still holds the presidency with all its
powers. He still occupies the "bully pulpit." He still dispenses patronage, party
funds and endorsements. He may not need to win popular or party votes ever
again but he will want to win his place in history and to influence the choice of his
successor.
Foreign governments occasionally try to play games with the end of a U.S.
president’s term. The South Vietnamese were apparently induced by Richard
Nixon’s team in 1968 to stall any peace negotiations until he took charge.
Inquiries are now under way to determine whether the Iranians were induced by
Ronald Reagan’s advisers in 1980 to postpone the return of U.S. embassy
hostages until he took charge. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev claimed that he
had deliberately deferred the release of downed U-2 pilot Gary Powers in 1960
until President Dwight D. Eisenhower, with whom he was feuding, was gone.
In general the last years in the presidencies of Eisenhower and Reagan, the only
two presidents to have served two full terms since adoption of the twenty-second
amendment, do not prove either side in this debate. President Eisenhower had his
share of disappointments in 1960. His trip to Japan was canceled by an angry mob
in Tokyo, and his trip to the Soviet Union was canceled by an angry Khrushchev,
whose outrage over the U-2 incursion, real or feigned, also sank a much-awaited
summit meeting in Paris. Nevertheless Eisenhower was able to proceed with a
number of lesser trips and agreements and remained personally popular at term’s
end.
President Reagan was also popular after two terms, although his last 18 months in
office were marred by the Iran-contra scandal. Inasmuch as the final White House
years of both Eisenhower and Reagan shattered the age record for that office, a
decline in vigor rather than influence may explain their respective lack of foreign
policy initiatives during those years. If President Bush is reelected, the fact that
he will be commencing his last term foretells little or nothing about his
effectiveness in foreign affairs during the next four years.
If Democrat Bill Clinton is elected on November 3 to replace Mr. Bush the nation
will commence on November 4 that unique 11-week phenomenon known as the
"presidential transition period." To the leaders of other nations, who will have
impatiently waited at least a year for the United States to complete its unduly
long presidential selection process and get back to foreign policy decision-making,
a further delay of 77 days before they know with whom and what they will be
dealing may well seem intolerable. Many policymakers in an outgoing
administration return to private life even before the new president is sworn in,
and the momentum and interest of those who remain begin to sag. Secretary
Acheson complained of the "virtual interregnum" of more than a year that
accompanied the 1952-53 change of government. The world does not stand still
during our election campaign and transition, and a widespread sense that no one
is minding the store in the United States during this prolonged period can be
dangerous. The growing crises in Laos during the winter of 1960 and in El
Salvador during the winter of 1980 did not wait for new U.S. policymakers to be
briefed and take charge.
For a new president-elect, however, the transition period seems all too brief.
Unlike a newly chosen prime minister of Britain he has no previously selected,
already functioning shadow cabinet, ready at a moment’s notice to assume
responsibility with total confidence in the permanent career services, with
automatic support from the legislative branch and with relatively few important
positions to be filled. On the contrary, while still exhausted from a far longer
political campaign than Britain has ever endured, a new president must select
hundreds of new appointees—most of them strangers to him and to each
other—and fight to secure their confirmation by the Senate. He must reexamine
America’s position in the world from the vantage point of the presidency, very
different from that of the candidate, and review in a new and cooler context his
campaign promises for early legislative and executive action. He must prepare for
the decisions and deadlines that the calendar unavoidably forces upon him soon
after he takes office. Next year’s list includes new protocols to the international
Global Warming and Ozone Layer agreements, the General Agreement on Tariffs
and Trade, the North American Free Trade Agreement and renewal of most-
favored-nation status for China.
A new president’s team needs time, even after inauguration, to move in, learn the
ropes and find out more about each other, the responsibilities, personnel and
other resources at its command. The working relationship between the new
president, secretary of state and national security adviser also needs time to
evolve.
Outgoing presidents have occasionally sought to involve their successors in some

controversial international move during the transition, and incoming presidents-
elect have occasionally acted to discourage one last summit or send-off for their
predecessors. A 1992 transition, should President Bush be defeated, will see no
such impropriety. Mr. Bush and Mr. Clinton can both be presumed to be men of
goodwill, devoted to the national interest. Neither will be unclear as to who has
full responsibility until January 20, 1993. The Foreign Service and other career
services will accept and assist the members of the new leadership team, and in
turn be accepted by them. No career ambassador is likely to be penalized (as
some were in 1980-81) for having served in a policy position under the outgoing
administration. Briefings for the new team will be comprehensive and objective.
To be sure, the departing president may well include in his final budget
submission to Congress, as so many have before him, a few hidden land mines,
unachievable goals or parting jabs at his successor; but that kind of charade is
neither unprecedented nor unforgivable.
Nevertheless transition periods have their dangers, particularly for a president-

elect who (like Clinton, and Reagan and Carter before) is a relative newcomer to
Washington. Self-appointed spokesmen for the new administration will inevitably
sow confusion and concern in foreign embassies and capitals. A few self-important
nominees will disdain help from more knowledgeable career officers. (The
1952-53 transition emissary from the newly appointed secretary of state, John
Foster Dulles, demanded from the appropriate desk officer "all the telegrams"
covering a particular country then in crisis; when asked if the secretary also
wanted any background material, he stiffly replied: "No, we will provide our own
background.") Occasionally a confidential commitment is unintentionally omitted
from the briefing, or a covert operation is inadequately explained (for example,
the Bay of Pigs in 1960-61), thereby creating serious problems for the new
administration at a later date.
A particularly dangerous practice in recent transitions has been the president-

elect’s selection of his own large, aggressive transition team for each department
and agency. These teams, often filled with ideologues, disappointed job-seekers
and eager congressional staffers, all jockeying for power, setting their own
agenda and determined to score political points, set out not to smooth the transfer
of power but to conduct investigations or collect confidential documents that will
confirm their worst suspicions about the departing administration. Both the
president-elect and the nation would be better served if he named for each
department a small, low-profile, issue-oriented, fact-finding task force whose
members recognize that the election is over and wish simply to pave the way for
the new secretary and then disband.
The president-elect will also need to shift gears, to remember that the political
campaign is over and that he no longer needs to respond to every news media
demand, criticize his predecessor or take pains to distinguish his position on
every issue. Nor in world affairs would it be wise to do so.
VI
Both Bush and Clinton have promised "change" to a frustrated electorate, without
exempting world affairs from that prescription. Both have termed themselves
"agents of change." But they have been understandably vague about any specifics
of change in U.S. foreign policy. Even with all the altered conditions and new
opportunities noted above, the new president will not be writing on a clean slate.
Continuity avoids confusion and builds consensus. Change solely for the sake of
change, or solely for the sake of political appearance, is unworthy. Sudden change
can be destabilizing, unsettling to allies, inconsistent with commitments and
deemed further evidence of unreliability. Overly ambitious change can lead to
embarrassing rejection abroad and to disillusionment at home.
Nevertheless, taking all that into account, the president elected this November,
whether incumbent or challenger, will find that his unprecedented freedom to
move the country in new directions is not only an opportunity but an obligation.
He cannot, even if he wishes, adhere to the old foreign policy agenda, for it is now
largely obsolete. Change, more fundamental than either party or any branch of
government has discussed to date, will be required in virtually every aspect of
national security policy. Without attempting to spell out specific details and
numbers that will depend upon the next president’s personal and political
predilections, it seems clear that, regardless of party, he must reexamine our
nation’s course in the world in at least six overlapping areas: the approach to
military matters, multilateral agencies, economic development assistance,
international trade, human rights and democracy, and nonmilitary threats to
security.
What is needed in each of these areas is not so much the invention of new ideas as
the adoption of old ideas whose time has come—measures that do not merely
prolong the status quo but ultimately transform it.
No doubt many will regard what follows as presumptuous, partisan and partial;
they are right. But any foreign policy agenda offered to a future president whose
identity is still unknown would be subject to the same three criticisms. The
following agenda is a potential first draft, both to prod the November 3 winner
and to provide him with a base upon which to build his own long-term vision of
the world as it should be.
VII
In military matters the next president will need to decide whether America should
remain a global hegemonic power ready to "pay any price, bear any burden, fight
any foe" or evolve into a pivotal, residual power. He will need to decide whether
America should transfer to independent regional security groups the primary and
initial responsibility for containing those threats to security that arise in their
respective regions. This includes those organizations in which the United States
has legitimate membership (NATO, the Conference on Security and Cooperation
in Europe, the Organization of American States).
Under the latter scenario those regional groups, back-stopped by U.N. forces,
would be supplemented by American troops only when necessary to their success
and to America’s own vital interests. Consistent with this approach other leading
nations would be encouraged to join and help strengthen those regional groupings
in which they have a legitimate interest; our traditional concern for the stability
and safety of western Europe would be extended to all of Europe, east and west;
the historic turnabout represented by French-German military cooperation would
be encouraged, not discouraged; and the worldwide elimination of all short-range
nuclear weapons would become a priority.
Shooting last instead of first would mean transforming America’s Cold War
posture of ready global intervention into one of intervening militarily abroad only
in concert with other nations, only when the military personnel burden as well as
the financial burden (and genuine decision-making) is shared with others, and
only when the likely enduring effectiveness of such intervention makes that action
worthwhile. America needs to become as skilled in the organization and
enforcement of international economic and political sanctions against
transgressors as it is in the deployment of military force, thereby increasing its
willingness to prefer the former and defer the latter. America needs to devote as
much energy to halting, through economic and political pressures and
strengthened international machinery, the present "horizontal" proliferation of
nuclear, chemical, biological, high-tech conventional and other weapons of mass
destruction and their delivery systems, along with the technology, equipment,
personnel and matériel needed to obtain them, as this country previously devoted
to halting the "vertical" proliferation of such weapons in the Soviet Union.
Accepting a comprehensive ban on nuclear testing would be a good start.
The next president, regardless of party, will be called on to submit a defense

budget that is substantially below present levels. This is likely to involve sharply
cutting back those overseas forces and major strategic weapons systems that
were established primarily to prevent or resist a massive Soviet attack. America
would emphasize instead a smaller, mobile conventional force, trained, equipped
and ready for rapid and relatively brief Desert Storm-like deployment to meet the
kind of regional aggressors, separatists or terrorists that now constitute the most
likely threats the nation will face.
Such a reorientation could help win battles on the home front as well. The next
president could divert the bulk of federal high-tech research and development
funds from the task of increasing our military superiority to the task of enhancing
our economic competitiveness; facilitate the conversion to a civilian economy of
those communities and work forces now heavily dependent upon anachronistic
military industries and installations; and make use of redundant Defense
Department personnel and facilities in tackling the nation’s need for teachers,
crime fighters, schools, housing, job training and places of detention.
VIII
The next president should take considerable comfort from the fact that the post-
Cold War United Nations, in providing an essential legal umbrella for the Persian
Gulf War, helping to free the hostages in Lebanon and to end the fighting in El
Salvador, and moving forcefully to underpin the perilous transitions of Namibia
and Cambodia, demonstrated that it can bring to the solution of global problems
not only machinery and talent but also legitimacy and credibility.
During his term the United States has the opportunity to lead the way in
strengthening the effectiveness and efficiency of the United Nations, particularly
the Security Council (ultimately with the European Community and Japan each
holding permanent seats) and the Secretariat, but also such specialized agencies
as the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. Development Program and
UNICEF. He should be able to make more consistent use of those bodies,
referring more issues to them and to the International Court of Justice, whose
compulsory jurisdiction we should once again accept. The new global
problems—transborder environmental, economic, health, population, refugee,
drugs and human rights—can all best be tackled through these international
agencies, where future costs and past experience can be shared.
America can also lead in strengthening and making better use of international
financial institutions such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and
regional development banks. The world having breathed a sigh of relief over the
disappearance of Soviet vetoes blocking U.N. Security Council actions, the next
president should go slow in using for political reasons his own effective veto in
these international financial bodies.
IX
The new conventional wisdom invariably emphasizes the importance of

economics. The next president will recognize that, whatever other goals may have
motivated Truman’s original Marshall Plan and Point Four, economic development
assistance was largely a creature of the Cold War. Public and congressional
support for such an economic assistance program in the shifting power patterns
of the post-Cold War era is not likely to be sustained. But neither is the peace of a
world community (like that of a local community) harshly divided between rich
and poor likely to be sustained. Today African and other nations no longer
considered useful as anti-Soviet pawns find themselves largely ignored by
Washington. But over the years the multilayered U.S. Agency for International
Development (USAID) bureaucracy, eager to show its flag in every corner of the
developing world, has scattered its remaining funds among a variety of economic
development, free enterprise development and democratization development
projects with largely disappointing results.
The next president must decide whether to scale back costly country-by-country
aid operations and the agency that administers them, instead leaving small
emergency and discretionary funds in the hands of each American ambassador.
The monies now used to support humanitarian, disaster relief and other grass-
roots programs could be channeled through the World Bank and other
multilateral agencies and through nongovernmental foundations and similar
organizations, thus sharply reducing both tax-supported overhead and associated
political payola, but still attaching basic conditions of human rights, arms
reduction and accountability. (Those recipient governments instituting genuine
administrative, political and economic reforms should also be forgiven all debts to
the U.S. government.)
If USAID is scaled back, the bulk of the money it now handles—the "strategic"
funds—could be distributed in much larger amounts in multiyear commitments as
direct balance-of-payments or budgetary support to a much shorter list of
recipients. Under this approach, the president and secretary of state would
carefully select the most dynamic developing nations, regardless of size, that are
clearly ready and willing to undertake the rapid but long-term political, economic
and social development to make them strong, stable and peaceful leaders,
regional models and enduring trading and political partners. These funds, along
with Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) and Export-Import Bank
guarantees and credits, should also be used to leverage an increased flow of
private investment to the same targeted countries.
To create a viable free economy out of chaos in Russia and the other former
Soviet republics, the emerging demilitarized democracies of the Commonwealth
of Independent States (and not all of them will meet that standard) clearly must
receive from the West more economic assistance (in addition to humanitarian aid
and agricultural surpluses) than the amounts belatedly offered thus far. In return
those states clearly must provide more adequate assurances than they have thus
far that necessary long-term political, fiscal, monetary, military and structural
reforms will be made. Both America’s security and economic interests make
stability in this region a high priority.
Finally the next president must take dramatic and decisive steps—such as paying
for the destruction of Russian and Ukrainian nuclear stockpiles or establishing
with each nation a joint investment guarantee fund—to make sure that prolonged
studies and negotiations do not in the meantime cost the Russians their newfound
freedom from authoritarianism and cost the world this historic opportunity for
peace. Taking care not to pay attention solely to Russia—or even solely to
Moscow—providing technical assistance in building free institutions as well as
factories, opening U.S. markets to their goods and sending Peace Corps
volunteers to their villages, he must initiate a post-Cold War effort in the former
Soviet Union that will match the post-World War II vision demonstrated by Harry
Truman 44 years ago.
With regard to international trade the next president will have no choice but to
formulate a coherent national strategy to make American industry competitive
again in all key sectors of the world marketplace, basing that strategy on results
and consequences, not on some doctrine or dogma of free or fair or managed
trade.
No strategy will succeed unless the president, like his Japanese and European
counterparts, can build behind it a consensus among American workers, business
leaders and consumers sufficiently strong to support a new social compact—a
legislated understanding under which each group shares in the costs and
sacrifices of that national strategy as well as its benefits. Accepting the self-
discipline necessary to improve the nation’s rate of savings, investment,
productivity, quality control and functional literacy sufficiently to match those of
America’s principal competitors will be far more effective than trying to discipline
those competitors.
To obtain the necessary consensus the next president must ask Congress to
emulate our major competitors also in providing an adequate level of job
retraining, special unemployment benefits, community compensation and other
forms of trade adjustment assistance for those displaced by a national trade
policy.
Increasing the export of American goods instead of jobs will require new
measures not only to pry open particular foreign markets aggressively but also to
build demand in new potential markets, including Russia, the developing nations
and newly robust economies like India, Korea and Brazil. It will require as well
the restoration of the manufacturing base through the reorientation of national
research laboratories to civilian purposes, the modernization of infrastructure, the
encouragement of emerging technologies and the investment, educational and
other measures of self-discipline noted above.
Just as Truman initiated the grand military alliance of NATO immediately after his
election, to meet the overriding challenge of his time, so must the next president
initiate a grand economic alliance with Japan and the European Community to
meet an equally urgent challenge. Its task will be the preservation and
coordination of an open, integrated global trading system facilitating the
increased worldwide flow of goods, services, capital and intellectual property, free
from both protectionist and predatory practices and enhancing the stability of
major currencies and exchange rates. Regional trading blocs would be required to
keep open markets and membership rolls; weaker economies, including the ex-
Soviet states, would be assured access to the system; most important, all nations
would be held to the same rules of trade, proscribing not only open and hidden
barriers and distortions (including antitrust violations as well as subsidies) but
also the practice of shortchanging labor, environmental, health, safety or
consumer protection standards as a means of lowering costs and attracting
investment.
It is in that context that the next president must complete the GATT and North
American Free Trade Area negotiations, ultimately extending the latter to the
entire western hemisphere. But time is short.
XI
With respect to human rights and democracy, the next president will need to
increase the transparency, integrity and consistency of U.S. policy, avoiding the
double standards and hypocrisy that characterized America’s approach when the
Cold War inhibited criticism of anticommunist dictators.
America no longer needs to subsidize the activities and stroke the egos of military
usurpers and other despots. It can now encourage consumer boycotts of products
from wayward countries; support increased U.N. fact-finding and monitoring of
human rights; encourage regional organizations to isolate any member-nation
failing to meet basic standards; expand programs of the U.S. Information Agency
(USIA) and National Endowment for Democracy (NED) that build and promote the
institutions of democracy and concern for human rights; undertake every effort to
make America’s own race relations, political procedures and economic
opportunity a model for the rest of the world.
Once the campaign rhetoric on human rights and democracy has faded, the next
president should not be under the illusion that more far-reaching measures will be
easy or automatic.
He must decide how far the nation can go in invoking human rights considerations
in determining relations with both friend and foe. Clearly they can only be one
factor, not the sole determinant. Nor can there be any single, simple litmus test in
deciding who meets our standards, if we are to avoid the kind of cynical
manipulation and denial that such a test invites.
He will wish to encourage democratization and discourage military and other

dictators through trade, aid and other preferences, through the maintenance or
severance of diplomatic relations and through the educational and promotional
efforts of the NED and USIA. But this country cannot afford to deal only with
democracies or attempt to remake the world in its own image.
He will no doubt support international economic sanctions and suspend OPIC,

Export-Import and economic assistance programs when necessary to penalize
those governments that engage in the worst human rights abuses. But as the
cases of Haiti and Iraq remind us, he must also beware of starving people or
otherwise increasing the suffering of innocent captives as punishment for the sins
of their rulers.
He will be under pressure to criticize openly, and to join in U.N. Security Council
resolutions condemning, any government, whether allied or adverse, that
consistently mistreats legitimate protesters and ethnic minorities. But quiet
diplomatic warnings may prove more effective with some governments.
He will wish to support forceful regional and U.N. actions to halt and correct
wholesale deprivations of human rights. But legitimate calls for military
intervention on humanitarian or democracy-saving grounds can, if caution is not
used, easily evolve into another Vietnam-type conflict.
XII
Finally, with regard to other nonmilitary threats, the next president, whoever he
is, will need to recognize four basic facts:
—that nonmilitary developments can pose genuine threats to the long-term

security and quality of life of American citizens as surely as armed
aggression—but cannot be repelled militarily;
—that traditional concepts of national sovereignty are unable to cope with

torrential transborder flows of not only money and information but also
environmental scourges, AIDS and other diseases, illegal drugs, arms and
immigrants;
—that no one of these threats can be ended by the United States acting alone; and
—that new international rules and institutions will be required to combat these
nonmilitary threats.
The threat of environmental degradation, for example, by destroying this planet’s

life support systems—air, ozone, water and natural resources—can blight entire
regions and ultimately make the whole earth inhospitable for human as well as
other species. America can try to make certain that new U.S.-financed technology
and industrial development proceed only with adequate environmental
safeguards; but America alone cannot halt the danger to its health and ecology
from those noxious and toxic emissions, rain forest depredations and biodiverse
species reductions that occur outside its borders.
The threat of energy dependence and depletion requires not only increased
international efforts but also a firm national policy emphasizing conservation and
greater attention to cheaper alternative and renewable fuels. Operation Desert
Storm was only the latest chapter in the age-old story of shedding blood to control
energy and other natural resources (including fresh water, which America also
wastes and consumes beyond all rational proportions). Yet this country remains
lax in the imposition of fuel efficiency standards and in deterring the excessive
use of hydrocarbons and other nonrenewable resources.
Overpopulation with all its many offspring—large-scale unemployment, poverty,

hunger, desperation, crime, environmental destruction and great waves of
economic migration—is already the province of an international agency, the U.N.
Population Fund; but its family planning and information programs have not been
fully backed by the United States. Unless more women in the poor nations are
fully educated and emancipated with regard to their reproductive systems and
rights, our children will live in a world in which the industrialized countries, with
most of the planet’s wealth, will have less than one-fifth of its population—a recipe
for disaster.
All of these sobering global trends are illustrated in Haiti. A desperately poor,
oppressed but rapidly growing population exhausted the wood fuel, topsoil and
drinking water needed for survival and sought in large numbers to enter the
United States illegally by means of sea voyages that proved fatal to a large
proportion of those who chanced them.
Is this the future of the world?
This presentation of a presidential agenda does not imply that these measures can
be promulgated by the president alone. On the contrary they require the
cooperation and participation of other nations, the United Nations and, most
important, the Congress. They require the support of the next president’s State
Department, Defense Department and National Security Council team. Above all
they require the support of the American people. Electing a president who
promises change is only the first step. Americans must then display the political
will to break with the old, to institute the new and to accept the risks and burdens
inherent in each of these changes.
The next president, needless to say, cannot lead unless he has a vision of where to
go. But neither can he lead, nor should he try to lead, unless the American people
are willing to shoulder the responsibilities of leadership in the new post-Cold War
world.
Theodore C. Sorensen is a Senior Partner at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison in New York.
September 1,1992
A Republican Looks at Foreign
Policy
Richard G. Lugar
George HW Bush in 1988.
Recently it was suggested that presidential primaries drive Republican and

Democratic hopefuls into making a mess of foreign policy: Republicans emphasize
their suspicions about arms control agreements with the Soviets; Democrats rail
against new weapons systems and any resort to the use of force to back up
diplomacy. This commentary—an editorial in The Washington Post—concluded
that the process of the primaries exacts a high cost in American foreign policy,
and that it will not be easy for the next president to reclaim a middle ground laid
waste by excessive partisan rhetoric.
But the middle can be variously defined. What will matter is how a new
administration deals with the core issues of American security policy: arms
control and national defense, the use of force, including U.S. military forces,
abroad. Even these issues must first be addressed in the broad historical context
of those enduring postwar commitments and responsibilities that both
Republicans and Democrats have subscribed to since 1945.
If the new administration is to develop a cohesive and coherent foreign policy, it

cannot escape the changes in our nation’s strategic position. It must recognize
three fundamental new conditions. First, there is a potentially dangerous disparity
developing between those vital security interests that the American people are
prepared to support with force, and the degree and kind of force we are willing
and able to employ to protect these interests. In short, our aims may exceed our
resources.
The extent of American commitments abroad has not declined; in some parts of
the world our obligations have even increased. This new reality has led some to
argue once again that we must reduce our commitments and thereby decrease the
risks our country must face. But it is far easier to demand a reduction in
commitments than to define with clarity those commitments that can, in fact, be
safely reduced. In practice, we must decide whether the loss of prestige from
abdicating responsibilities will reduce the effective use of American power more
than the reduced claims on our resources might enhance our standing.
Our current commitments are likely to continue even if our military power
remains more limited, when measured against those commitments, than it has in
the past. This situation implies an increased degree of risk. Both Republicans and
Democrats will have to acknowledge this change in our global position, for there
is not likely to be any acceptable way to escape from either responsibilities or
risks.
This security dilemma, the growing gap between our objectives and our
capabilities—sometimes described as a decline of relative American power—has
been recognized in both parties, but the diversity of proposed remedies has
accelerated the breakdown of the national consensus. The simultaneous end of
any semblance of a national or bipartisan consensus in the country on foreign
policy is the second new factor that the next administration must face.
Republicans, led by Arthur Vandenberg and Henry Stimson in the 1940s,

promoted bipartisanship in foreign policy that was sustained until its demise over
Vietnam. Efforts to restore a consensus on security issues under the Reagan
Administration have run afoul of deep differences over U.S. policy toward
Nicaragua and an appropriate U.S. role in the Persian Gulf. It has thus become
increasingly difficult to maintain a national consensus in support of the
employment of U.S. force and forces abroad. And, of course, no administration is
eager to incur the domestic political penalties and divisions inherent in engaging
U.S. military forces in combat situations.
It is clear that, as some of our strategic advantages have declined, a national

consensus is all the more necessary in order to maximize the effective use of our
residual power. But such a consensus cannot simply be wished into being. It can
be restored only gradually over time, through the development of mutual trust
and sustained credibility on the part of both the president and the Congress.
Reestablishing such trust, however, is all the more difficult in light of the third
new factor: the revival of the struggle between the executive and legislative
branches over foreign policy. This tension is inherent in the constitutional
separation of powers but it has been exacerbated by new concerns over both the
formulation as well as the implementation of policies—again, evident most
recently in the debates over aid to the contras as well as the War Powers Act and
its applicability in the Persian Gulf crisis.
Our nation must guarantee our essential interests at a reasonable risk through a
judicious balancing of commitments and power: this means maintaining a credible
deterrence and national defense as well as an ability and a willingness to use
armed force, directly and indirectly. If we cannot achieve this, then a more
restrictive interpretation of vital security interests must necessarily follow, at a
cost to our national security that cannot be predicted. I believe that the Reagan
Administration has succeeded in bringing our interests and power more into line,
to the point that the inherent risks are approaching an acceptable level. The next
Republican administration can build on this achievement.
II
The issue of military security has confronted every administration since the
bombing of Pearl Harbor. How much is enough, and at what price, have been
perennial questions. All presidential aspirants claim to favor a strong defense.
Little agreement exists on the price of such a posture. It is already clear that
opinions are divided on matters such as cutting the defense budget, spending
levels for strategic defense, the timing of new conventional weapons programs
and the pace of naval modernization. Consequently, much of the foreign policy
debate leading up to the next national election will likely revolve around the role
that arms control, and perhaps superpower cooperation in limiting regional
conflicts, might play in the balancing of America’s foreign interests and
commitments with appropriate power, resources and the political will to support
them.
The Reagan Administration focused its attention on enhancing the military
strength of the country, as a central priority. Mr. Reagan’s promise to do just that
certainly contributed to his election in 1980, and his success in realizing this
objective surely contributed to his reelection four years later. Critics may argue
about the effectiveness of the allocation of funds to one or another specific
defense program, and they may even debate the utility of the military strength
achieved in the past years. But the perception of restored American military
strength made it possible to negotiate with Moscow, and has given the Soviet
Union an incentive to negotiate over outstanding issues in the Soviet-American
relationship.
The new Soviet leader apparently recognized the new situation confronting the
U.S.S.R. The Reagan Administration’s enhancement of our country’s military
posture threatened not only Soviet gains in relative strategic offensive strength
acquired in an earlier period but promised to mobilize our technological
advantages in the furtherance of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). This
presented General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev with a choice. He recognized that
the Soviet industrial-technological base could not be used both to reform a
stagnant and backward economy and, simultaneously, to sustain an arms
competition with the United States. Thus he resumed arms control negotiations,
met with President Reagan at the Geneva summit and, finally, accepted the
American position on eliminating medium-range missiles.
The Administration was attacked for its strategy of building strength in part as
one means of achieving a more advantageous negotiating position. That strategy
has paid off. It has revived genuine arms control negotiations; indeed, it
established arms control as a centerpiece of East-West relations and very likely
West-West relations for some time to come. It is not at all clear whether strategic
arms agreements, comprehensive or otherwise, will actually enable the United
States to safeguard deterrence at less cost and risk. But we seem to be entering a
more or less continuous round of negotiations on controlling strategic and nuclear
arms—and doing so from a stronger position than when the talks began in
1981-82.
Some critics, Democrats and Republicans, contend that an agreement on

intermediate-range nuclear forces creates a slippery slope toward the
"denuclearization" of Europe. It is prudent to look into the risks and opportunities
of a post-INF environment. But this long-term concern should not paralyze our
consideration of the immediate unfinished business. An INF agreement along the
lines presently contemplated should and is likely to be ratified in early to
mid-1988.
Some people have genuine doubts about the political or military efficacy of such a
treaty, but I suspect that much of the debate surrounding ratification will have
little to do with the actual contents of such a treaty. On the one hand, any major
controversy in the Senate’s review of an INF treaty and the larger public debate
could transform the consideration of the treaty into a referendum on nuclear and
conventional force modernization, or the value of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile
Treaty, or even the future of SDI. On the other hand, concerns that an INF treaty
might weaken our position in Europe could lead to demands or promises of
undiminished or increased spending on various defense programs relative to
NATO Europe.
The next stage may well be crucial. A general agreement exists between the
Soviet Union and the United States to seek to negotiate a 50-percent reduction of
strategic offensive forces. An agreement significantly reducing strategic nuclear
offensive forces might be achievable even before the end of the Reagan
Administration. But relating strategic offense and strategic defense, and most
particularly dealing with the Soviet insistence on linking SDI to any START
(Strategic Arms Reduction Talks) accord militates against optimism, both in the
negotiations and in the Congress. Unfortunately, it is not at the negotiating table
in Geneva but in the Congress that the most significant arguments could take
place regarding the START-SDI linkage, as well as the link between arms control
and strategic modernization programs.
A major issue in the Congress is the proper legal interpretation of the ABM treaty.
The debate is between a "narrow" or a "broad" interpretation of that treaty.
Unfortunately, the players in the debate are all on the American side of the table.
The Soviet Union, by adopting a position at Reykjavik that can only be described
as "super-narrow," has little incentive to deal with the issue seriously as long as it
believes that it may be decided in its favor by American legislators. The Soviets
are eager to maintain selected portions of the ABM treaty in order to constrain
the SDI program.
In this light, I believe that a consensus on the nature of the country’s

commitments under the ABM treaty and a parallel commitment to a strong SDI
program are essential. If there is no bipartisan consensus on these issues, we may
never know whether areas of compromise are possible between the general Soviet
determination to kill SDI and the Reagan Administration’s commitment to
advance it. Thus far, the Administration has successfully resisted crippling
restrictions on SDI research permitted by the ABM treaty. Moreover, I think that
the Soviets may settle for an outcome that provides a degree of predictability in
the strategic defense area, while the United States moves forward with a robust
program that includes research, testing and development.
Many Democrats, however, regard SDI only as a "bargaining chip," to be traded
away for substantial Soviet reductions of offensive nuclear forces. On the other
hand, some Republicans advocate the near-term deployment of a basic defensive
system. While abandonment of research, testing and development would be
dangerous, no favors would be done to the SDI program by rushing to a
deployment based primarily on political calculations rather than technical
feasibility.
Despite much Democratic opposition to it, the notion of strategic defense has
become a permanent feature of the American strategic landscape. Strategic
defense programs will outlast the SDI acronym, even though no administration
can commit its successor to its policies and programs. But the next president will
have to go back to the drawing board, not so much with respect to SDI research
and testing programs, but because he will have to develop sustained domestic
political support for the program. And to do so the next administration will have
to put its case forward in a larger national security context.
The Strategic Defense Initiative stems from both a dissatisfaction with our
existing nuclear strategy and a belief that changes in strategy might be
technically feasible for us and the Soviets. The next administration will have to
recast the SDI issue. The issue of what is technologically possible must be
embedded in a debate over what is strategically desirable and practical. I hope
that the next president and a majority of the Congress will permit full exploration
of the contribution that strategic defense might make to our overall national
security. It is to those security interests that SDI funding levels ought to be
linked, not to transient arms control strategies.
Arms control cannot serve as a substitute for an adequate defense posture, any
more than it can exist separately from national security policy. Too often, Western
negotiating strategies have assumed it can. But it will be too easy to blame arms
control alone for the problems the next administration will encounter in adjusting
to a changing strategic environment. If arms control is to serve as a flexible
instrument of military strategy and further the prospect of achieving greater
compatibility between negotiating policies and military strategy, then military and
foreign policy objectives will need to be spelled out with greater clarity.
III
Managing the Soviet-American relationship is the core issue. But it is integrally

related to a second major issue: redistributing military and nonmilitary burdens
around the world. Both the U.S. involvement in the Persian Gulf and the prospect
of an INF agreement have stimulated congressional demands for greater burden-
sharing by our allies. The demands have, in turn, generated reluctance and
skepticism within the alliance regarding American motives and the wisdom of
American policies.
The task of strengthening conventional forces in NATO Europe has always been
urgent, expensive and politically sensitive. Despite the important link between
Europe’s security and our own, and despite concern in the Congress that an INF
agreement will highlight the conventional force imbalance in Europe, political
sentiment in the United States has been running in the direction of reducing our
NATO expenditures. Such sentiments will be all the more difficult to resist if the
Congress cannot be convinced that the NATO allies are assuming a larger share
of the burden in strengthening the alliance’s conventional forces in a post-INF
environment. But even assuming a political willingness on the part of the
European allies to do more, there will continue to exist some sentiment in the
United States to reallocate military resources away from NATO and in the
direction of the Middle East and the Third World in general, where American
commitments outpace capabilities.
In the early 1970s, Democratic leaders in the Senate demanded a unilateral

reduction in American forces. This was resisted by a Republican White House.
Now the pattern is reemerging. I believe the national interest dictates that it
should not be a partisan issue, and I hope that a viable consensus can be created
in order to meet our obligations and responsibilities.
Any debate over a redistribution of responsibilities around the world will not be
limited to defense budgets and commitments alone. A third major issue is also
related: how to deal, in an explicit and comprehensive fashion, with the enormous
changes in our relative economic strength. During the last four decades our
nation has countered the Soviet military threat and provided a strategic safety net
for the free world, but at staggering costs. Previous administrations have
demanded persistently that wealthy friends in Europe and Japan do their duty in
the furtherance of common aspirations of mutual defense and maintenance of
world economic prosperity. But our friends have acted on the assumption that the
United States remains the world’s greatest power and that it will continue to act
responsibly whether or not others follow suit and pay their share.
One of the most crucial tasks for the next president will be to negotiate much
more successfully a redefinition of the roles that we and our allies must play and
the accompanying allocation of resources to pay for those roles. Without such
negotiation, the United States will fall victim to a piecemeal reordering of
domestic spending priorities among legitimate demands for defense, for
investment to modernize our competitive industries and social infrastructure, and
for expenditures vital to the health, education, safety and economic security of
American citizens. The gap between missions and means will become larger and
the risks to collective Western security will increase substantially.
Similar budget and resource debates occur in every vital democracy, and the
larger industrialized democracies are becoming more adept in advising each other
on desired outcomes. Moreover, it is important to understand that greater
burden-sharing is not confined to the defense sector. Failure to end disastrous
agricultural subsidization and dumping policies, for example, can affect the
political will of one ally to defend another. There is a subtle relationship between
nuclear arms control and a commercial trade tax proposal on soybean exports and
farmer subsidies in the European Community. Agricultural subsidies and dumping
conflicts undermine not only our economic efficiency but the grass-roots
sentiments in the United States that are so vital to our defense commitments. To
the extent that American exporters believe they are being treated unfairly while
European allies run large balance-of-payments surpluses with the United States, a
sense of alienation will erode popular support for meeting defense commitments
in Europe.
Over the next several years, during the implementation of an INF agreement, the
priority task in NATO Europe will be to strengthen our mutual conventional force
posture. This will require expenditures to correct critical deficiencies and
integration of new conventional technologies with tactical military innovations. It
is also likely that alliance members will insist that such efforts be supplemented
by arms control negotiations to reduce conventional force disparities between
NATO and the Warsaw Pact. In short, another "dual-track" approach.
But this time around, it may not work. It will certainly be argued, once again, that
the time is not propitious for the United States to seek a major redistribution of
security burdens with its allies, at least in Europe. But given that a reduction in
our national budget deficit is so critical to America’s economic well-being, it is
unlikely that our global defense burdens can be maintained solely on the promise
of anticipated arms control outcomes.
IV
The Reagan Administration will leave to its successor several innovations in Third
World policy. The Vietnam experience not only still influences our willingness to
intervene in any Third World conflict; it still inhibits the prospect of any direct
U.S. military intervention. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, however, lessened
popular opposition to indirect military involvement, and the Reagan
Administration has been able to regain some freedom of action to permit
assistance, or military advice and training, or covert aid, for groups like the
Afghan freedom fighters, Jonas Savimbi’s rebel forces in Angola, and, of course,
the Nicaraguan contras. One reason is unaltered national opposition to the
establishment of Soviet bases and/or Cuban dependencies, especially in the
western hemisphere. Yet there remain strong inhibitions against intervention and
the use of force, directly or indirectly, to accomplish such aims, not only in Latin
America but in the Third World at large.
Reinforcing inhibitions against either the direct or indirect use of military force to
promote America’s interests in the Third World is congressional reassertion of its
role in the war-making process, as vividly demonstrated in connection with events
in the Persian Gulf. The jury is still out on the impact of U.S. involvement in that
region. At issue is the gap between a commitment to an objective and the political
will to support it in practice. The next administration will discover that there is no
logical solution to the disparity.
With regard to our Latin American policy, for the moment, both the
Administration and the Democratic leadership in Congress provide verbal support
for the Arias "peace" plan while continuing their guerrilla warfare over aid to the
contras. To be sure, the Administration is rightly skeptical about Sandinista
willingness to comply with the terms of the plan, and seeks to use that as leverage
to gain renewed military aid to the contras. For its part, the Democratic
leadership, which applauded the Arias plan as a pretext for cutting off such aid,
grows concerned as Latin leaders themselves insist on full Sandinista compliance
and denounce cosmetic or half-measures. The Democratic leadership in the
Congress at times seems more interested in halting aid to the contras than in
promoting democracy through full implementation of the Arias plan.
Debate continues over the direction of American policy in the Third World. Under
the so-called Reagan Doctrine, we have supported anti-communist forces in
countries currently dominated by Marxist regimes or clients of the Soviet Union.
Viewed as the conscious promotion of such Western values as individual freedom
and democracy in places where these values are denied (and where such a pursuit
is not deemed dangerously explosive or excessively expensive in military terms),
the Reagan Doctrine appears to fit comfortably into the objective of containing
Soviet influence and power. But much of the political attractiveness of the
doctrine flows from the effort to go beyond the defensive terms of limiting Soviet
expansionism to the offensive in positively promoting liberation and seeking to
reverse communist or Marxist control over various countries and their internal
institutions.
There is a relationship between the Reagan Doctrine and the objective of

improved superpower cooperation in nuclear arms control. In the 1970s efforts to
reconcile conflicting objectives in these two areas involved codes of conduct or
rules of the game. These efforts foundered when the Soviets sought to take
advantage of new targets of opportunity in the Third World (e.g., Angola).
Some will counsel the next president to resume that effort with the argument that
the wide-ranging reassessment, under Gorbachev, of Soviet involvement in the
Third World has led to a decision in Moscow to reduce sharply Soviet "interests"
and material support for marginal Marxist-Leninist states. I am skeptical. There
are no indications that the Soviet leadership will countenance a retreat from
established positions in the Third World. Moscow may be engaged in a "breathing
period," a reassessment of the risks it is willing to run on behalf of prospective
clients and the military and economic resources it will or can devote to such
commitments. Mr. Gorbachev may even be disinclined to take on costly new
commitments while simultaneously seeking to lessen the costs of existing ones
over the long haul. But there are few signs of a conscious policy decision to
diminish support for existing clients in the near term.
The next administration can adapt the Reagan Doctrine to the changing
relationships between the superpowers and their respective policies toward the
Third World. Thus far the Reagan Doctrine has emphasized military pressure as a
means of raising the costs of Soviet involvement in the Third World. That
emphasis alone is unlikely to achieve a major reduction in Soviet influence. It is
time to ask what the American strategy ought to be during any Soviet "breathing
period." If the Soviet Union should feel more vulnerable in the Third World, this
will present new opportunities for American policy. What can American strategy
build on the successes of the Reagan Doctrine? To the extent that an American
policy of supporting struggles against tyranny of the left or the right is successful,
what then?
We should move beyond the current version of the Reagan Doctrine by combining
military and economic inducements in a political framework reflecting our
estimates of the optimum possibilities in each region. The President and Congress
must find a new consensus on appropriate funding of an imaginative and
comprehensive economic and political program.
Currently, funds are virtually nonexistent for ongoing efforts in most countries
and for new initiatives. We must enlist the vast economic resources of Japan and
our NATO allies to work with us in encouraging the foundation of market-oriented
democracies. Our collective plans to do so must be bold and broad. The Reagan
Doctrine ought not to be viewed only in the context of Soviet-American
competition; it provides policy guidance as well to U.S. bilateral relations with a
number of Third World countries. Aid to anti-communist forces must be taken
beyond the notion of a proper and not necessarily proportionate response to
Soviet assistance to Marxist regimes or insurgencies: the commitment flowing
from the doctrine should not cease abruptly because of successes earned through
various pressures.
The defensive-deterrent shield provided by the United States for the promotion of
its national security interests and those of its allies is also the shield that makes
possible the promotion and maintenance by the United States and its allies of
democratic ideals and institutions throughout the world. As we promote the
building of democratic institutions abroad we may find that this policy is
sometimes at odds with our commitment to provide for a common defense, in
which case security measures often are given precedence over democratic
aspirations.
But consider our recent experience with the Philippines. Events in 1986 suggest
how American ideals of promoting legitimate security interests are mutually
reinforcing. Former President Ferdinand Marcos won the support of successive
American administrations because our officials were confident that he would
ensure continued joint use of Subic Bay and Clark military facilities. Eventually,
his position eroded because of his incompetence in prosecuting resistance against
an internal Marxist insurgency and in protecting our base facilities, quite apart
from growing perceptions of his political corruption. The Administration came to
the view that the survival of the U.S. bases in the Philippines was "ancillary" to
the issue of encouraging democratic reform in the government, and that the
failure to undertake such reforms would inevitably result in the loss of the bases
in the intermediate future. In the process of noting the growing failure of Marcos,
the United States rediscovered that only by focusing on the policy objective of
restoring democracy in the Philippines could we hope to retain a stable alliance
and preserve mutual use of valuable military facilities on the soil of that sovereign
country over the longer term.
There is a valuable lesson in this experience. Support for democratic progress can
be compatible with maintenance of our security interests. We must seek to make
this the rule rather than the exception.
Since 1940, when the Republican statesman Henry Stimson joined President
Roosevelt’s cabinet, Republicans have considered bipartisanship an essential
feature of our party’s approach to foreign affairs. Republicans, for the most part,
supported the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, NATO and the Korean War.
The Truman foreign policy could not have succeeded without the initiatives and
cooperation of Senator Arthur Vandenberg in forging bipartisan support in
Congress. In those years, Republicans took long steps to move away from a
heritage of isolationism.
In doing so, however, Republicans preserved some ideas and attitudes—principles

if you will—that have evolved over time even while differentiating them from
many Democrats in foreign policy.
The Democratic Party has had great difficulty in reconciling its recent
noninterventionist goal—"no more Vietnams"—with the need for a strong,
confident and globally engaged United States. The Republican Party has sought to
combine the twin imperatives of strength and prudence. A globally engaged great
power is unlikely to be able to avoid involvements in peripheral conflicts.
Some Democrats continue to revert to moralistic arguments with a human rights

content to criticize the foreign policy initiatives of the Reagan Administration. Still
others adopt the language of "national interests" and "political realism" as a short-
term political tactic to attack the Reagan Doctrine. For example, many Democrats
continue to make largely moralistic arguments against the Administration’s policy
toward Nicaragua. Instead of directly addressing the Sandinista threat to U.S.
interests in Central America, many Democrats concentrate on the
Administration’s tactics while simultaneously seeking to rebut the ideological
rationale underlying the current policy.
Too many Democrats have focused their attention and criticisms on how the
Administration has involved the country in Central American politics, and
eschewed debate on how U.S. interests in effectively promoting peace and
security in the region can be furthered. Too often, Democratic inputs to the
debate on contra aid are confined to references to "slippery slopes," alleging that
such aid constitutes the first step toward another Vietnam. While such dire
warnings may carry some emotional appeal, they also reveal paucity in thinking
about credible alternative policy directions.
Many Democrats attack the Reagan Doctrine for allegedly twisting anti-
communist ideological objectives into the primary rationale for U.S. support of
freedom fighters in Nicaragua, Angola, Cambodia and Afghanistan. Yet many of
their calls for a change in emphasis in the direction of realistic self-interest betray
an overriding concern for tactical expediency rather than strategic necessity.
Oftentimes, there is less a calculation of national interest than an obvious political
desire to avoid any intervention in situations where success may entail costs. But
U.S. interests cannot be determined exclusively or in major part by assessed
degrees of difficulty of U.S. involvement and/or tactical alternatives. Efforts to
reduce national interests to simplify the task of maximizing gains while cutting
costs merely avoid the difficult issue of defining U.S. interests in Third World
countries. Calls for noninterventionism seldom reflect a clear appreciation of
interests and power.
Regardless of party, however, the next president will have a unique opportunity.
America’s global position has changed radically since 1945, but a new
administration can translate the rebuilding of the 1980s into a period of major and
positive accomplishments. I would stress the following objectives.
We will need a general strategy that outlines clear-cut criteria for measuring
Soviet actions against our legitimate security concerns. The test of our next
president’s policy will be his ability to define precise criteria for progress toward
peace and stability, and to test Soviet intentions against those criteria. The test of
Gorbachev’s intentions must be his actions, not the growing sophistication of his
public diplomacy.
Effective arms control will be an important element of that testing. It will remain
both a necessary price of our continuing security, and a potential danger to it. It
must not become a diversion from strategy or a substitute for defense planning, or
be allowed to obscure the realities of the military balance, and the actions
necessary to correct it.
Our alliance system must be sustained and strengthened as the basis for a
coalition strategy; a new and more equitable distribution of burdens must be
worked out. And we must obtain allied cooperation in attempting to relate
concerns about arms control and the settlement of regional threats to our mutual
security.
Both political parties have an obligation to participate in a continuous assessment

of America’s strategic interests. While no one can dispute the necessity of tactical
caution, it alone cannot answer the policy dilemma as to the appropriate balance
between strength and prudence. Many efforts to redefine or constrict our
strategic interests merely mask a reluctance or unwillingness to contemplate the
use of military power. A redefinition of or retreat from military commitments
should not be confused with a policy designed to protect and promote U.S.
national interests.
The administration that is sworn in on January 20, 1989, will inherit a far
stronger, safer and more durable position in the world than Mr. Reagan did in
January 1981, with the frustration of Iran and the shock of Afghanistan. Not only
is our foreign policy sound and our international position greatly improved, but
we are also pursuing an active dialogue with our adversary, on the basis of the
strength necessary to defend our interests—and all without the agony of a foreign
war.
Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana was Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee in 1985-86.
December 1,1987
Michael Dukakis For President pin, 1988.
This brace of articles revives a venerable custom. Sixty years ago Foreign Affairs
published a similar exchange in which Ogden Mills, later Herbert Hoover’s
secretary of the treasury, spoke for the Republicans and Franklin D. Roosevelt for
the Democrats. Such eminent precedent should establish the proposition that
foreign policy is a legitimate party issue—though this proposition hardly needs
legitimation in a republic where foreign relations have been a subject of vehement
debate ever since Hamilton and Madison disagreed over George Washington’s
neutrality program. Still the old saw "politics stops at the water’s edge" expresses
a familiar misconception. The impression occasionally arises—and is always
encouraged by whatever administration is in office—that debating the conduct of
foreign policy is indecent or unpatriotic. Yet clearly nothing in a democracy is
more entitled to uninhibited discussion than decisions of peace and war.
What follows is not a party statement. "I belong to no organized party," as Will
Rogers said. "I am Democrat." No one can speak for the Democratic Party until a
candidate is nominated and a platform adopted in the summer of 1988; the
consequent mandate runs to the first Tuesday after the first Monday in
November, and the ticket will be good for that journey only.
II
In the judgment of this free-lance Democrat, the foreign policy of the United
States has been on a radically misconceived course since President Reagan took
office in January 1981. This is not to lay all blame for foreign policy failure on the
Reagan Administration nor to reject everything that Administration has done in its
conduct of foreign relations. The continuities of U.S. foreign policy are greater
than European critics of the United States (and American critics of democracy)
understand. Geopolitical imperatives fall impartially on Republican and Democrat
alike. All American administrations, no matter how much they differ, will act to
preserve a balance of power in Europe and to prevent extracontinental
annexations in the Americas.
Even in the shorter run, the roots of Reagan’s national security policy
(misdirected, in this writer’s view) as well as of his human rights policy (steadily
improving) lie in the Carter Administration. It was Carter who, for better or for
worse, advanced the movement away from the concept of mutual assured
destruction toward a war-prevailing strategy, who approved the MX missile, who
expanded American security commitments in the Third World and whose Carter
Doctrine defined the Persian Gulf as within the zone of U.S. vital interests. And it
was Carter too who placed human rights on the world’s conscience and
agenda—for which Reagan roundly condemned him in the 1980 campaign, holding
Carter’s human rights preoccupation responsible for the "loss" of Iran and
Nicaragua. In abandoning the Philippines’ Ferdinand Marcos and Haiti’s Jean-
Claude Duvalier half a dozen years later, Reagan unabashedly adopted the policy
for which he had so righteously denounced Carter in the cases of the shah and the
Somozas.
Within this broad framework of bipartisan continuity, however, the Reagan
Administration has carried forward historic differences between the Republican
and Democratic parties, differences delineated by Ogden Mills and Franklin D.
Roosevelt sixty years ago.
The salient difference is that the Republican Party has been in recent times the
vehicle of unilateral action in world affairs and the Democratic Party the vehicle
of international cooperation. Ogden Mills, an eastern, Wall Street Republican, had
little sympathy for the defiantly isolationist William E. Borah-Hiram Johnson wing
of his party. Yet even Mills emphasized the unshakable Republican commitment to
the nation’s "traditional policy of independence in foreign affairs" and dismissed
the legacy of Woodrow Wilson as one "under which our independence of action
might be subordinated to the decision of other nations." F.D.R.’s 1928 article, on
the other hand, saluted the League of Nations as "the first great agency for the
maintenance of peace and for the solution of common problems ever known to
civilization."
The Reagan Administration has now given the G.O.P.’s unilateralist tradition a
global application. No administration in recent times has paid less heed to the
views and interests of allies, has more systematically scorned multilateral forums
or has taken greater pleasure in being able to say, as Reagan said after an
American plane forced down Palestinian hijackers over Italy in 1985, that we did
it "all by our little selves."
Reaganite unilateralism, moreover, is inspired by a messianic conviction that the

American destiny is to redeem a fallen world. It is inspired by a crusading anti-
communism of a sort not seen in the United States since the high noon of John
Foster Dulles. Where presidents from Truman to Carter saw the cold war as a
power struggle, Reagan saw it as a holy war. He regarded the Soviet Union as
unchanged, unchanging and unchangeable and found communist deviltry at the
root of most of the world’s troubles.
The presidential tone, it is true, has moderated as the years have passed. We hear
less these days about the "evil empire," nor has the president recently repeated
the remarks of his first press conference in 1981 ("The only morality they
recognize is what will further their cause, meaning they reserve unto themselves
the right to commit any crime, to lie, to cheat") —perhaps because people might
think he was talking about his own National Security Council staff.
Crusades generally exaggerate the menace of the enemy, and this one is no
exception. Most of the world sees communism today as a burnt-out faith and the
Soviet Union as a weary, dreary land filled with cynicism and corruption, beset by
insuperable problems at home and abroad, finally (and sullenly) accepting reform
as the only hope of assuring survival as a great power. The Soviet Union can trust
neither communist China to the east nor communist satellites to the west, and the
Red Army, which the Pentagon tediously tries to scare us about, cannot after
eight years defeat ragged tribesmen fighting in the hills of Afghanistan. Yet for
Reaganites the Soviet Union remains a fanatic state carrying out with implacable
zeal, cunning and efficiency a master plan of world domination—except when they
see it as so frail that a couple of small pushes will shove its ramshackle economy
into collapse.
Global unilateralism driven by an anti-communist crusade wobbles the

Administration’s sense of reality. Local conflicts become tests of global resolve.
Stakes are raised in situations that cannot be easily controlled, threatening to
transmute limited into unlimited conflict. We are encouraged in the fallacy, one
we share with the rival superpower, that we know the interests of other nations
better than those nations know their own interests—that we understand remote
and exotic problems more clearly than the countries most directly involved, most
directly threatened and most familiar with the territory. Unilateralism breeds the
arrogance of ignorance, and ignorance breeds bad policy.
III
Reagan’s Nicaragua policy is a spectacular example of unilateralism in action.

From the start, the Administration took little interest in Latin American
assessments of the situation. Yet Latin American countries are a good deal more
endangered than the United States is by a Marxist Nicaragua; they are a good
deal closer to the scene and a good deal more knowledgeable about it, and their
leaders are just as determined as the United States is on their behalf to resist
their own overthrow. Most Latin American governments feel that Reagan’s
military remedy is far more likely to promote than to impede the progress of
Marxist revolution. But Reagan, in his determination to make the Sandinistas cry
uncle, has methodically disparaged and sabotaged the Latin American search for
a political solution—first the Contadora effort, then the peace plan presented by
President Oscar Arias of Costa Rica.
Lebanon, another example, should have proved to us forever the dangers of

random meddling in the Middle East, a part of the world in which we have had far
less experience than we have had in Latin America and of which we have far less
knowledge—a part of the world, moreover, so bedeviled by ancient religious and
tribal hatreds that it defies not only Western management but Western
comprehension. We did not have the slightest understanding of the historical
tangle we were getting into when we sent the marines to Beirut and claimed that
their mission was to save the Middle East. Nor has the Reagan Administration
appeared to learn much from the massacre of the marines. Raising once again the
standard of invincible ignorance, it then plunged unilaterally and mindlessly
ahead into a larger mess in the Persian Gulf.
Let us recall the Reagan roller-coaster policy in the Gulf. Iraq initiated the war
against Iran in 1980. The Reagan Administration first followed a policy of
neutrality; then veered toward Iraq, a policy culminating in the restoration of
diplomatic relations in 1984; then courted Iran with arms shipments on the
grounds of Iran’s supreme geopolitical importance to American security; then, in
order to recover Arab confidence and to preempt the Soviet Union, veered toward
Iraq again, despite the Iraqi assault on the U.S.S. Stark and the death of 37
American sailors.
Then Reagan decided to raise the military stakes in the Gulf against Iran—the
very country he had been secretly arming a short time before. This was a decision
taken without consultation with America’s allies and with only sketchy notification
to Congress. There was no evident effort to think through next steps, and the U.S.
Navy did not even have the capacity to protect itself against Iranian mines. The
reflagging of Kuwaiti tankers—again no consultation with allies—goes far to place
the United States in the hands of two countries, Kuwait and Iraq, that have an
obvious interest in drawing us into the war against Iran. "American naval forces in
the Gulf," as a Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff report put it in October
1987, "are now, in effect, hostage to Iraqi war policy." An Iranian victory over Iraq
would plainly be against the interests of the West, but the United States cannot do
much by its little self to prevent it. Only as a last resort has the Administration
turned to the international instrument it should have used from the start—the
United Nations.
Sometimes the American government is wiser than other governments.

Sometimes it is not. In any event there is no harm in taking other governments
into account, especially when they are more intimately involved in the problem
than we are. The realists who wrote The Federalist Papers understood this
obvious fact of international life, which is why the 63rd Federalist called on the
newly established American government to pay "attention to the judgment of
other nations. . . . Particularly where the national councils may be warped by
some strong passion or momentary interest, the presumed or known opinion of
the impartial world may be the best guide that can be followed."
Unilateralism breeds something more than ignorance: it breeds illegality.

Consider Central America again. President Reagan has pursued his policy of
overthrowing the Sandinista regime in Managua in violation not only of
congressional prohibitions but of nonintervention pledges repeatedly made to the
Organization of American States ever since the Montevideo Conference of 1933,
when the United States first subscribed to the declaration that "no state has the
right to intervene in the internal or external affairs of another"; in violation too of
the U.N. Charter and of customary international law. After Nicaragua appealed to
the World Court, the Reagan Administration, having failed in challenging the
court’s jurisdiction, walked out of the courtroom and refused to argue the case on
its merits.
In 1983 Reagan despatched an expeditionary force against the island of Grenada,

an action undertaken without warning, without congressional authorization and in
presumptive violation of the charters of the United Nations and of the
Organization of American States. Though he was invading a member of the British
Commonwealth, he did not bother to consult or even to alert his most loyal
supporter among world leaders, the British prime minister. The pretext—the
rescue of American citizens—had ample standing under international law, but the
real and unconcealed purpose was to destroy an obnoxious regime. The people of
Grenada and neighboring islands welcomed the invasion, but the legal fig leaves
notably failed to impress the British prime minister or the U.N. General Assembly.
The net result of these instances, and recently of the far less justified intervention
in Nicaragua, is that never before in our history have we had fewer friends in the
Western Hemisphere than we have today. . . . We are exceedingly jealous of our
own sovereignty and it is only right that we should respect a similar feeling
among other nations.
So F.D.R. wrote in Foreign Affairs sixty years ago; plus ça change. . . . If a real
crisis arises, Roosevelt added,
it is not the right or the duty of the United States to intervene alone. It is rather
the duty of the United States to associate with itself other American Republics. . .
. Single-handed intervention by us in the affairs of other nations must end; with
the cooperation of others we shall have more order in this hemisphere and less
dislike.
IV
The climax of the present Administration’s self-arrogated right to intervene single-

handedly everywhere in the world is the famous Reagan Doctrine. Once again
unilateralism breeds bad policy. The Reagan Doctrine exhorts people to take up
arms in order to overthrow communist regimes. "We must not break faith,"
Reagan said in 1985, "with those who are risking their lives on every continent,
from Afghanistan to Nicaragua, to defy Soviet-supported aggression." Reagan’s
cry recalls the prizefight manager in the old cartoon urging his battered and
bleeding pug into the ring for one more round: "Go on in there. They can’t hurt
us."
Obviously it is one thing to help people who, on their own, are resisting a foreign
invasion, as in Afghanistan. Indeed, a Democratic administration initiated this
policy. It is something quite different to create an insurgency in order to
overthrow a government, such as Nicaragua’s, recognized by most of the world,
including ourselves. The contras are a wholly owned CIA subsidiary. When we
organize a rebellion ab initio, does this not imply a moral obligation to those
whom we spur on to risk their lives? Suppose their efforts are inadequate to the
task. Having urged them into the breach, have we not incurred a responsibility to
make sure that they succeed? If the "freedom fighters" we have invented fail on
their own, are they not entitled to expect that we will send in our own troops to
win what we have told them is our fight too? Or are we to "break faith" and
ignobly abandon them? In the end the Reagan Administration will probably
abandon the contras rather than send in the marines, as the Nixon-Ford
Administration abandoned the South Vietnamese and the Kurds. Here, as
elsewhere, the Reagan Administration takes the first step without having thought
through the last step or calculated the consequences, political and moral, of
failure. We Democrats, I trust, have learned these grim lessons the hard way—in
the Bay of Pigs and in Vietnam.
Reagan claims sympathy for those fighting for freedom as a cherished American
tradition. "Time and again," he has said, "we’ve aided those around the world
struggling for freedom, democracy, independence and liberation from tyranny."
But the men of the old republic drew a bright line between sympathy and
intervention. As John Quincy Adams put it:
Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be

unfurled, there will [America’s] heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But
she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. . . . She has abstained from
interference in the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for principles
to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart.
President Reagan, on the contrary, seeks monsters, and, in stalking them, he risks
what J. Q. Adams predicted—the involvement of the United States "beyond the
power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice,
envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom.
The fundamental maxim of [America’s] policy would insensibly change from
liberty to force. . . . She might become the dictatress of the world. She would no
longer be the ruler of her own spirit." Given the existing balance of forces, the
dictatorship of the world is not a likely outcome. Corruption of our own spirit is.
The Reagan Doctrine has made covert action its chosen instrument and has
thereby made secrecy, deceit and mendacity the foundation of American foreign
policy. The very adjective "covert" is a misnomer. Covert action is often easy to
detect, always hard to control and in its nature illegal and immune to normal
procedures of accountability. Covert action, moreover, is a weapon of marginal
consequence in the scale of things. Its importance in the conduct of foreign affairs
is greatly overrated. It appeals, as John Le Carré observes, to declining powers,
who place "ever greater trust in the magic formulae and hocus-pocus of the spy
world. When the king is dying, the charlatans rush in."
In January 1961 President Eisenhower’s Board of Consultants on Foreign

Intelligence Activities, a group of eminent citizens with Robert A. Lovett taking
the lead on this question, told the president after a review of the CIA record: "We
have been unable to conclude that, on balance, all of the covert action programs
undertaken by the CIA up to this time have been worth the risk or the great
expenditure of manpower, money and other resources involved." Nothing the CIA
has done in the quarter-century since gives reason to alter this considered
verdict.
Covert action should never become, as it became in the Reagan Administration, a

routine instrument of foreign policy. One is interested to note that this thought
belatedly dawned on Robert C. McFarlane, the former national security adviser,
as he prepared for the Iran-contra hearings. "It was clearly unwise," McFarlane
told the joint congressional committee, "to rely on covert activity as the core of
our policy. . . . You must have the American people and the U.S. Congress solidly
behind you. Yet it is virtually impossible, almost as a matter of definition, to rally
public support behind a policy that you can’t even talk about."
Once again, unilateralism breeds illegality. "Support for freedom fighters,"

Reagan opines, "is self-defense, and totally consistent with the O.A.S. and U.N.
Charters." This is a perilously elastic interpretation of self-defense and not one
that legal scholars or allies are inclined to endorse. The Soviet Union asserted a
similar right of global intervention in support of "wars of national liberation."
Americans did not hail the principle when Khrushchev announced it a quarter of a
century ago. Does it really sound better on the lips of an American president?
Under Reagan the United States now vies with the Soviet Union in proclaiming its
right to act as a law unto itself around the planet. An especially obnoxious
example is the Administration’s effort to reinterpret the Anti-Ballistic Missile
Treaty of 1972—a unilateral interpretation contrary to the "original intent" (so
heartily acclaimed by Reagan in other contexts) of the officials, both American
and Soviet, who negotiated the treaty and of the senators who ratified it; a
reinterpretation contemptuous both of international law and of American
constitutional practice; a reinterpretation, moreover, that undermines the
principal superpower arms control agreement and the foundation-stone for future
arms control. "What is missing from all this," as Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan
(D-N.Y.) has commented, "is the sense we once had that it is in our interest to
advance the cause of law in world affairs." Does the American interest really lie in
imitating the Soviet Union—or does it lie in opposing the Soviet model with the
idea of a world of law?
To deny that the United States has a profound stake in the operation of law in
international affairs is more than a rejection of American tradition and a
disservice to longer-term American interests. It is also to embark on a course that
in harder cases than Grenada (i.e., involving more American casualties), Congress
and public opinion will not long accept. "A policy is bound to fail which
deliberately violates our pledges and our principles, our treaties and our laws,"
Walter Lippmann wrote after the Bay of Pigs. "The American conscience is a
reality. It will make hesitant and ineffectual, even if it does not prevent, an un-
American policy."
Still worse, the Reagan Doctrine carries illegality from foreign relations into the
domestic polity. Founded as it is on lawbreaking, deception and lies, covert action
imports very bad habits into a constitutional democracy. There is no need here to
rehearse the squalid story revealed in the Iran-contra hearings. One has only to
note that the Reagan Doctrine led on to actions that violated both the Constitution
President Reagan swore a solemn oath to uphold and the laws he was pledged to
execute. Of course the "neat idea" advanced by Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North
was a dumb policy. But the issue is not the Rube Goldberg scheme to get the
ayatollah to subsidize the contras, nor even its mode of execution, which seems to
have been devised by Inspector Clouseau. The issue is whether the president of
the United States is above the Constitution and the laws.
"When the president does it," as Richard Nixon inimitably put it, "that means that
it is not illegal." Ronald Reagan’s White House seems to share this view.
Throbbing through the testimony of Colonel North and Rear Admiral John
Poindexter is ill-concealed envy at the Kremlin’s capacity to act as it wills without
obstruction, restraint or disclosure. But the theory of the divine right of
presidents finds little sustenance in the American Constitution.
When pressed, defenders of the Imperial Presidency redivivus, like Colonel North,
invoke the case of United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp. in 1936. Those
who do so could not have read the decision. For what the Supreme Court did in
Curtiss-Wright was to affirm the power of Congress to impose an arms embargo
and further to affirm the right of Congress to delegate to the president the power
to institute such an embargo. As Justice Robert H. Jackson later put it, Curtiss-
Wright "involved, not the question of the president’s right to act without
congressional authority, but the question of his right to act under and in accord
with an Act of Congress." The decision sanctioned presidential action within a
framework ordained by Congress. It did not sanction independent presidential
action.
It is true that Justice George Sutherland, who wrote the opinion, indulged in
imaginative historical asides in order to distinguish the delegation of power in
foreign affairs the Court was approving in 1936 from the delegation in domestic
affairs it had struck down when it invalidated the National Recovery
Administration in 1935. Sutherland’s asides were dicta, bad history and not part
of the Court’s holding. The Court has never sustained the proposition that the
president has an extraconstitutional source of power in international relations.
The Reagan endorsement of unilateral presidential power in foreign affairs comes

oddly from an Administration whose attorney general lectures us so often about
"the jurisprudence of original intention." For the framers of the Constitution
explicitly rejected the idea that foreign policy was the private property of the
president. The foremost proponent of executive energy in the Constitutional
Convention was Alexander Hamilton, and Hamilton himself wrote in the 75th
Federalist: "The history of human conduct does not warrant that exalted opinion
of human nature which would make it wise in a nation to commit interests of so
delicate and momentous a kind, as those which concern its intercourse with the
rest of the world, to the sole disposal of. . . a President of the United States."
The Reagan version of unilateralism gives the Republican tradition a novel and
ominous twist. The Reagan policies have been characterized—far more than those
of the Nixon Administration, for example—by a studied subordination of
diplomatic to military methods and remedies. The National Security Council staff
has been effectively taken over by men whose experience has been in the
Pentagon and in the armed services. The Foreign Service has been purged and
humiliated. Professional diplomats occupy today a smaller proportion of
ambassadorial posts than at any time in recent history. Reagan’s budget reflects
his priorities: spoiling the Department of Defense, starving the Department of
State. The budgetary stringencies created by the defense budget have led to the
cutback of State’s budget by $185 million in 1986-87, with another $84 million
scheduled to go this year. The result is the closing of consulates and even
embassies around the world, the retirement of experienced diplomats and the
weakening of America’s diplomatic resources—all for the cost of a B-1 bomber.
The Reaganite assumption is that, in the words of the Financial Times of London,
"military might would provide answers to political questions." Military action
becomes a first, not last, recourse.
Reagan rode to power determined to rescue the United States from what he had
peculiarly called Carter’s policy of unilateral disarmament. In fact the arms
buildup began with Carter, whose last Five-Year Defense Plan called for nearly as
much spending as Reagan actually accomplished. Citing inflated Defense
Department estimates of Soviet defense spending (estimates later refuted by the
more scrupulous CIA), Reagan periodically proclaimed that the United States had
fallen behind the Soviet Union—which, if true, represented a stirring presidential
tribute to the superior efficiency and productivity of a collectivized economy. The
Soviet generals engaged in comparable lamentations, each side announcing that
the other was ahead in order to get bigger budgets for itself. As President
Kennedy once put it, "The hard-liners in the Soviet Union and the United States
feed on one another." It is difficult to figure how anyone could take these self-
serving wails from the Pentagon seriously, especially around budget time.
But Congress did. It will have lavished nearly two trillion dollars on the Pentagon
during the Reagan years. For much of this period Pentagon spending was deemed
sacrosanct, and Pentagon megalomania was unbridled. Recall, for example, the
award of 8,612 medals after the glorious American victory over Grenada, a small
island without army, navy or air force, though we never had more than 7,000
troops on the island. This prodigality did not deeply impress veterans who had
earned medals in the Second World War or Korea or Vietnam. But it was typical of
an army that had more generals in peacetime than it had in 1945, when it was six
times larger and fighting a world war.
In these years, the military budget was annually presented by our secretary of
defense as a sacred text, not a line of which could be altered without incalculable
harm. It finally took the minor outrages of overpriced coffee pots and toilet seats
to awaken a complaisant Congress. But the major waste came in the enormous
outlays for weapon systems so complex and delicate that they rarely worked in
tests and are most unlikely to work in combat. The much vaunted MX cannot
reliably land in the target zone. The much vaunted B-1 bomber turns out to have a
befuddled electronic brain. The armed forces, The New York Times reported this
summer, were "so short of spare parts that they must cannibalize some airplanes
to keep others flying."
As for the $485 billion spent on the wonderful 600-ship navy, much went for
aircraft carriers, fine for movies like Top Gun but sitting ducks in case of serious
war, while the Persian Gulf intervention found the United States with only three
operational minesweepers, all of Korean War vintage, and reduced American
destroyers to the humiliation of being convoyed by the unarmed tankers they
were charged to protect. There has been, I gather, real improvement in the
quality and morale of the armed forces. But too much of the taxpayers’ money has
disappeared down a black hole, leaving a military establishment rich in glamorous
but brittle high-tech gadgetry and poor in such mundane matters as combat
readiness, stockpiles of munitions and equipment, depot maintenance, sea and air
transport, not to mention minesweeping. The abiding Reagan theme has been
overemphasis on nuclear weapons at the expense of conventional capabilities.
The culmination of the science-fiction approach is President Reagan’s dream of

"Star Wars"—an impenetrable defense shield to be erected over the United States
like an astrodome. Star Wars has been presented in a succession of models, some
designed to replace, others to reinforce, deterrence. All require the solution of
problems of extraordinarily technical complexity by means scientists have yet to
discover. Ultimate effectiveness depends on inordinately complicated systems
working together in perfect unison under conditions of ultimate stress. Does no
one remember the Challenger?
Most Democrats agree with former Under Secretary of State George W. Ball that
Star Wars is not only a fantasy but a fraud. Few scientists think it likely to work in
the long run. Its short-run effect will inevitably be to prevent agreement on the
reduction of strategic weapons and, more than that, to rekindle the nuclear arms
race. For the Soviet military establishment will seize upon it as an excuse to
demand from Gorbachev more intercontinental ballistic missiles to overwhelm the
space shield and more cruise missiles, bombers and other low-flying weapons to
rush in under the shield. Since countermeasures are technically simpler than
construction of the shield and cost far less, they will be relatively easy to sustain.
And the arms race will roar on.
Reaganites defend Star Wars, or the Strategic Defense Initiative, precisely as a

means of bringing the Soviet Union to the negotiating table. Maybe so, though
this contention has been denied by no less an authority than Andrei D. Sakharov,
who adds: "To the contrary, the SDI program impedes negotiations." Surely the
deeper reason that inclines Gorbachev to cut back the arms race—and would have
so inclined him whether or not Reagan had ever dreamed of Star Wars—is his
need to transfer capital, materials, scientists and engineers from military tasks to
the modernization of the Soviet economy.
The militarization of foreign relations has had further effects. From the start the
Reagan Administration has regarded arms transfers as a major tool of diplomacy
if not as a substitute for it. The result has been to pour American weapons into the
most explosive parts of the world—Central America, the Middle East, the Persian
Gulf, South Asia. Given chronic instability and an unpredictable future, a good
many of these weapons may be turned against the United States before the
century is over—as has already happened with arms sent to China in the 1940s,
Vietnam in the 1960s and Iran in the 1970s.
The ultimate premise of Reagan’s foreign policy is that military power creates
political and diplomatic power. It seems more likely, however, that the
subordination of diplomatic to military interests has diminished American
influence around the world. A foreign policy dominated by military men and
ideological zealots degrades the role and narrows the scope of negotiation. Thus
13 South Pacific nations, led by Australia, recently proposed in the Treaty of
Raratonga to make their part of the world a nuclear-free zone. Australia made a
particular effort to ensure that the treaty did not compromise American interests.
But the Pentagon objected and the United States refused to sign, causing vast
irritation throughout the area over what the Australian foreign minister called the
"clumsy" way Washington handled the matter.
The obsession with military buildup and military remedy has exacted a damaging
price. The vain quest for American military leadership has resulted in the loss of
American political and economic leadership. The combination of colossal defense
spending with a major tax cut produced unprecedented peacetime budget deficits,
an overvalued dollar and the transformation of the United States on Reagan’s
watch from a creditor nation to the world’s number-one debtor. The concentration
of America’s science and technology on military research has held back American
productivity and further endangered America’s competitive position in world
markets. "American scientists," The Economist observes, "are in a bind. Their
research must aim either to deter the Russians, or to compete with the Japanese.
No longer can they expect a single contract from the Pentagon to achieve both
goals." Reagan’s military priorities have accentuated America’s financial and
industrial vulnerabilities.
We have seen in recent months—well before the Iran-contra scandals—an ebbing

of faith, first in American skills, latterly in American intentions. Ian Davidson, the
foreign affairs columnist of the Financial Times, summing up the situation in a
valedictory column in the summer of 1987, concluded that Reagan "has probably
caused more damage to the European-American relationship in the Atlantic
Alliance than any of his predecessors. What is more, he probably does not even
realize it." Reagan’s unilateralism is Gorbachev’s most potent weapon. A recent
Gallup poll showed that 56 percent of European respondents thought that
Gorbachev was contributing to world peace; only 12 percent thought Reagan was.
"The outside world almost unanimously views us with less good will today than at
any previous period." This was F.D.R. in 1928 during another time of Republican
unilateralism.
The infirmities of the Reagan foreign policy are not redeemed by the belated
prospect of the treaty eliminating intermediate-range nuclear missiles. This would
unquestionably be a useful, if limited, step forward; nor can one be much
impressed by the claim, urged by Democratic as well as Republican conservatives,
that the agreement would leave Western Europe naked before Soviet conventional
force. Unless one dismisses the three-to-one superiority that offense is required to
have over defense, assumes the loyalty and efficiency of the Soviet satellites,
forgets the deterrent power carried by American submarines and bombers and
believes that the invasion of Europe is on Gorbachev’s agenda, Western Europe is
safe enough. It could be rendered safer by negotiated limitations on conventional
forces and by parallel reduction in Western nuclear artillery and Soviet tanks. But
the supreme question—stopping the strategic arms race—is still ahead. Nor can
any progress be expected here so long as the American government regards Star
Wars as nonnegotiable.
VI
It remains a tough world filled with intractable problems, and it is reasonable to

inquire what the Democrats would do differently. There is, at least in advance of
the convention, no party line. George McGovern and Jesse Jackson on the party’s
left and Senators Bill Bradley of New Jersey and Sam Nunn of Georgia on the
right have very different views on such issues as aid to the contras and Star Wars.
Yet these four able men might agree on a broad reaffirmation of the Democratic
Party as the party of responsible internationalism.
This does not mean, as Ogden Mills affected to fear, subordination of our
independence of action to the decision of other nations. Neither Wilson nor
Roosevelt, Truman nor Kennedy nor Johnson, was notably averse to asserting the
national interest. But it does mean a recognition of interdependence as a prime
fact of international life. It means a sensitivity to the interests of other nations, a
readiness to consult with allies and to negotiate with adversaries. It would mean
U.S. support for Latin American peace initiatives in Central America. It would
mean reinvigorated American use of the United Nations and other multilateral
agencies. It would end the unlovely spectacle of the United States careening
around the world as a law unto itself and restore the historical American
conviction that a world of law is in the national interest.
If Gorbachev and his reforms survive, a Democratic administration will

believe—as most Democrats who have visited Moscow already believe—that the
time has come to take Gorbachev seriously. A Democratic president will not
dismiss the new Soviet look as propaganda or disinformation or, in the Reaganite
cliché, "cosmetic." The changes under way in the Soviet Union hold out the hope
of tranquilization in world affairs. Gorbachev needs an international respite to
carry forward his program of domestic modernization.
His speech of September 17, 1987, printed in Pravda, apparently signals an

extraordinary departure in Soviet policy, a dramatic shift in direction from
unilateralism toward collaboration. Still, the Soviet record since 1917 justifies
skepticism when a Soviet leader starts talking about strengthening the United
Nation’s peacekeeping responsibility, establishing a U.N. force to protect Persian
Gulf shipping, accepting the compulsory jurisdiction of the World Court, giving
the United Nations new authority in human rights and disclaiming the pristine
Soviet commitment to world revolution. The Democratic response to these
overtures will not be to spurn them but to test them. The world faces a historic
opportunity to bring the cold war to an end, or at least to reduce it to
considerably less dangerous dimensions. The American task is to seize the
Gorbachev challenge and to translate his words into constructive and enduring
agreements.
In particular, the possibility now exists to end the nuclear arms race. The bargain
is there; if we renounce the Star Wars fantasy/fraud, we could complete a deal
tomorrow. How long will the door remain open? A Democratic president, if he
keeps his faith with Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt, will not miss the
chance. He will have, I hope, a bold and generous vision of the world’s
possibilities when humanity begins to devote its energy and ingenuity to
cooperation rather than to conflict. In this spirit the 21st century may yet see the
realization of F.D.R.’s world of the Four Freedoms.
To move the republic in this direction, a Democratic president would aim at the
resurrection of diplomacy, the revitalization of the State Department and the
restoration of competence and coherence to the management of foreign relations.
The process by which the government made foreign policy under Reagan could
hardly have been worse. "Is it not your view," Senator Paul Sarbanes (D-Md.)
asked the secretary of defense about the Iran-contra decisions, "that it’s an
inexcusable and deplorable way to conduct the policymaking process of the
government?" Even the indefatigably loyal Caspar Weinberger responded, "Yes."
The Reagan method has been to treat foreign policy as the president’s personal
property, to be conducted without undue regard for the laws and the Constitution
and to be concealed, if necessary, not only from Congress and the American
people but even, on occasion, from his own secretaries of state and defense. A
Democratic president would recognize the futility of trying to run foreign policy in
a democracy on any other basis than consent. He would especially recognize the
necessity of restoring Congress to its constitutional partnership in the making of
foreign policy. As a great American—and Democratic—diplomat, Averell
Harriman, once put it: "No foreign policy will stick unless the American people
are behind it. And unless Congress understands it the American people aren’t
going to understand it."
In a properly organized administration the national security adviser should see his
duty as the coordination and clarification of choices presented to the president.
He would have a small, crack staff and would not try to replicate the State
Department in the basement of the White House. A Democratic president would
be well advised to choose a secretary of state who has served in Congress as a
way of strengthening the executive-legislative relationship. He would send out as
ambassadors both Foreign Service officers and non-professionals qualified by
knowledge, experience and stature to represent the United States abroad. He
would place the CIA under vigilant oversight, executive as well as legislative, and
direct it to concentrate on what its founders saw as its essential job: the collection
and analysis of intelligence. He would regard diplomacy as the weapon of first
resort, put covert action well down the list and use military force as the weapon of
last resort.
In the field of national security a Democratic president would, I hope, appoint a

strong secretary of defense equipped to regard Pentagon budget submissions with
due and informed skepticism. He would shift priority from the elaboration of
nuclear systems to the modernization of conventional capabilities and to the
application of high technology to conventional warfare. In the nuclear field he
would certainly not pursue costly busts like the B-1 bomber and the MX, but
would go ahead with small missile-launching submarines, the Stealth bomber and,
more cautiously, with the single-warhead, silo-based Midgetman. I suppose he
would accept a research program for Star Wars; astute subcontracting, at home
and abroad, has created a vigorous lobby, and Star Wars remains a bargaining
chip for arms control. But he would respect and extend the Anti-Ballistic Missile
Treaty of 1972, negotiate limits on testing in space and stop babbling about early
deployment (deployment of what?). Nor would he permit Star Wars to block a
comprehensive test ban—a high priority—or the sharp reduction of nuclear
weapons. He would reorganize the system of defense contracts and procurement.
He would do his damnedest to reduce the defense budget.
Lack of total reverence for defense strikes some members of my party as, even if
sound on the merits, politically hazardous. They fear, especially in the south, that
the Democratic Party has acquired a reputation for keeping the United States
weak, and they do not want to be taken for unpatriotic wimps. Reagan’s flag-
waving act, they fear, has cast a spell on the nation. Emphasis on the limits of
American wisdom and power, they think, might offend the deluded electorate.
Possibly there is something in this, though polls show that most voters are
skeptical about the military, prefer peace to war and arms reductions to arms
races. The bloodthirstiness of our countrymen can be exaggerated, and their
intelligence can be underestimated. I think most Americans take the point
President Kennedy made more than a quarter-century ago:
We must face the fact that the United States is neither omnipotent nor
omniscient—that we are only 6 percent of the world’s population—that we cannot
impose our will upon the other 94 percent—that we cannot right every wrong or
reverse each adversity—and that therefore there cannot be an American solution
to every world problem.
VII
The day of the messianic foreign policy, the United States as the redeemer nation
commissioned by the Almighty to rescue fallen humanity, is coming to an end, for
a while at least. A modesty more akin to the mood of the Founding Fathers may be
taking over: "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind." Reaganism is running
its course, the cycle is turning, and the time impends for a sharp change in the
national direction.
Democrats will continue to stand, as they always have, for national strength. They
will never hesitate to use force when force is required to defend the national
interest. But they will remind the nation that strength in the modern world has
economic as well as military dimensions. The impending crisis for the United
States is rather more likely to be in the banks than on the battlefield. We are
instructed incessantly about the deadly threat of Marxist Nicaragua (population
2.8 million). But the damage Nicaragua can do to U.S. interests is nothing
compared to the devastation that a large-scale repudiation of the Latin American
external debt—now approaching $400 billion—can wreak on the already shaky
U.S. banking system.
Our great international vulnerability today is economic rather than military.

Should a Democrat be elected president in 1988, he would be prudent to devote
his first State of the Union message to a sober inventory of the national condition.
He would recall America after the Second World War: a nation with a capital
surplus, an export surplus, 40 percent of the gross world product, 22 percent of
world trade, and every indication of continuing technological and financial
supremacy. He would draw the dread contrast 40 years later: the huge budget
deficit; the huge trade deficit; the huge bubbles of public debt, private debt,
external debt; the decline in America’s ability to compete in world markets; the
stagnation in America’s productivity; the shrinkage of America’s industrial base;
the decay of America’s infrastructure; the dissipation of capital in mindless
speculation, mergers and leveraged buyouts; the increasing dependence on
capital flows from abroad; the transformation of the United States into the largest
debtor known to history. America, the new president could properly say, is at the
mercy of international economic forces as never before. To avert disaster,
America must work out modes of international collaboration as never before.
In the age ahead, economic power will be quite as significant as military power—a
fact Gorbachev has recognized, though Reagan has not. Secretary of the Treasury
James A. Baker 3d has done his best to call this Administration’s attention to the
Latin American debt, overhanging American banks like the sword of Damocles;
but the president prefers to fume about the Sandinistas. The debt question would
be high priority for a Democratic administration. Its containment would require
debt relief for the Third World in exchange for the promotion of growth,
conversion of debt into equity investment and an increase in international capital
flows through wholehearted support of international institutions—the World Bank,
the International Monetary Fund, regional development banks.
No issue has more perplexed Democrats than the classical argument between free
trade and protection. Opening U.S. markets to Latin American exports, for
example, would help considerably to alleviate the debt problem. But such a policy
encounters understandable resistance at home from those whose livelihoods and
communities are wasted by imports from abroad. Protection is a bad answer, but
it signifies a real problem.
Free-trade purism at the expense of jobs and lives is irrelevant to a world already
cluttered with obstacles to free trading. The Reagan Administration has done
some good things, like this year’s agreement with Canada. But it has undercut
free-trade sermons by protectionist actions. And its deeper failure has been its
refusal to support its aspirations toward an open trading world with the domestic
measures necessary to make the policy work. It is inhuman to place the burden of
transition on the workers and communities least able to pay the price.
A Democratic administration would take active responsibility for the domestic

consequences of an open trading world. It would provide assistance to
communities and retraining for workers during the ordeal of transition. It would
increase national investment in the modes of education essential for a high-
technology future. It would establish standards for plant closings. There is, I
believe, a case for emergency tariffs during the lifetime of existing workers. There
is a case for preserving industries vital to national security and technological
growth, like the automotive, space, steel and machine tools industries, if
protection is accompanied by tough standards for modernization. There is a case
for government-to-government negotiations on trade matters. There is a case for
tools in our kit to facilitate retaliation against closed foreign markets. There is no
case for general long-run protection. No country can afford a beggar-thy-neighbor
world. Because the Democratic Party has earned the trust of workers and their
unions, it is in a far stronger position than the Republican Party to negotiate the
tricky currents and shoals of trade policy.
Whether the question is diplomatic, military, political or economic, the choice

today is not all that different from the choice of 1928: Republican unilateralism or
Democratic internationalism. We have had seven years of a unilateralism
militarized, ideological, messianic foreign policy, and look where it has got us.
As Franklin D. Roosevelt concluded his Foreign Affairs piece sixty years ago:
In the simplest terms, this is the argument for a policy different from that of the
past nine years. Up until then most of our history shows us to have been a nation
leading others in the slow upward steps to better international understanding and
the peaceful settlement of disagreements. During these nine years we have stood
still, with the unfortunate effect of earning greater or less ill will on the part of
other civilized peoples. . . . The time is ripe to start another chapter.
On that new page there is much that should be written in the spirit of our
forebears. If the leadership is right—or, more truly, if the spirit behind it is
great—the United States can regain the world’s trust and friendship and become
again of service. We can point the way once more to the reducing of armaments;
we can cooperate officially and whole-heartedly with every agency that studies
and works to relieve the common ills of mankind; and we can for all time
renounce the practice of arbitrary intervention in the home affairs of our
neighbors.
A free-lance Democrat, remembering America in glory and in shame from the

1930s to the 1980s, can only say: Right on, F.D.R.! Let the Democratic Party keep
sailing ahead on its historic course.
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., is Albert Schweitzer Professor in the Humanities at the Graduate Center of the City
University of New York. Copyright © 1987 by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
December 1,1987
The 1988 Election: U.S. Foreign
Policy at a Watershed
George McGovern
Bush and Dukakis debate, 1988.
As we approach the 1988 election, we may be at the end of an era in American

foreign policy. Since World War II the driving force behind our policy has been
anticommunism, accompanied by containment of the Soviet Union with an ever
more costly arms outlay. For more than four decades this policy has rested on the
assumption of a bipolar world dominated by Washington and Moscow. New
realities now demand fundamentally different policies if the United States is to
remain an effective power.
This is not to suggest that communism is more acceptable today than it was forty
years ago. Indeed, even the major communist states—the Soviet Union and
China—are turning away from once accepted practices of communism. Without
argument, the United States must maintain a sound national defense. But so
clearly is communism neither the wave of the future nor the major challenge to
American security that our anticommunist orientation has become irrelevant and
obsolete. The two major powers—Washington and Moscow—are alike in this
regard: they share an urgent need for new policies and priorities at home and
abroad. Both must understand that the criteria of power and influence in the
world are changing.
Ronald Reagan may represent the end of the line for the bipartisan cold war
policy. The president seems to have taken, at least until recently, the most
anachronistic aspects of that policy—an excessive reliance on arms, an obsessive
anticommunism and an imperial, unilateral behavior at odds with our
constitutional democracy—and carried them to the breaking point. However
inadvertently, the Reagan Administration has dramatized the inadequacy of
policies no longer relevant to the real world. Mr. Reagan has believed he was
presiding over "morning in America"; we are about to experience the "morning
after."
Unfortunately, the Reagan presidency has taken its toll also on the intellectual
and political acuity of the party in opposition. If the ambivalent foreign policy
actions of Congress and early presidential campaign performances are indicative,
the Administration’s obsession with the rhetoric, symbols and trappings of
military power has, with some notable exceptions, suffused even a Democratic
Party which has traditionally brought a broader perspective to the concept of
American national security. In what some have labeled the "geo-economic era,"
this focus is dangerously outmoded.
Jacques Attali, an economic historian and top adviser to French President

François Mitterrand, wrote:
A great transfer of power is taking place in the world economy. The center of
economic power is shifting away from America. When the core nation loses
economic hegemony, it has to adjust the global security responsibilities it
assumed at the height of its dominance. This is what finally happened to Great
Britain in 1967, but it took 20 years from the end of World War II for them to
finally conclude that they couldn’t afford troops east of Aden.
II
In this crucial election period and beyond, do we have the will and the wisdom to
develop a more realistic foreign policy, backed by better management of our
economy to avert the further weakening of our position in the world? Will we face
the need to shift from an excessive reliance on military power to the political,
economic and moral sources of power in an interdependent global economy? Do
we understand that even a great and powerful nation can no longer function
unilaterally without regard to friend or foe? In this bicentennial of our
constitutional democracy, can we profit from the lessons of the Iran-contra
scandal and recognize anew the time-tested wisdom of the Founders?
The current economic difficulties of the supposed superpowers serve only to

underscore a long-standing truth. Since the late 1940s both powers have
overemphasized military and ideological factors and underplayed economic and
political opportunities. The painful paradox that now confronts both Washington
and Moscow is that the more they spend on armaments, the weaker and more
insecure they become. The larger the number of nuclear weapons each side
targets on the other, the more certain it is that in the event of war, Americans and
Russians would be the first to disappear from the planet. Meanwhile, heavy arms
spending deprives the two countries of the resources needed to strengthen their
economies, participate competitively in the international economy and enhance
their leadership in the developing world.
The economic costs of a permanent war economy and an interventionist foreign

policy have for years been a focus of "liberal" concern. But even the most ardent
of American conservatives must now recognize that the dangerous decline of U.S.
industries owes much to a major portion of our business and scientific talent
having been absorbed in war production for a single buyer—the
Pentagon—instead of meeting the growing economic competitiveness of the
modern world.
Japan and Germany, the defeated military powers of World War II, are challenging
the preeminent status of the erstwhile victors, not by competing with them
militarily, but by recognizing that the real arena of world power is not war games
but hardheaded business leadership. The most serious enemy of America is not
Russian tanks and rockets, or the Nicaraguan government or Cuban leader Fidel
Castro. Our enemies are the bankrupting arms race, our mounting foreign debt
(after years as the world’s greatest creditor), the unpayable debts of the Third
World held by U.S. banks, our lack of competitiveness in world trade and our
consequent inability to play a more influential and constructive role in Third
World development.
Power in the future will be determined increasingly by economic, political and

moral factors. The arms race and an excessively interventionist, unilateral foreign
policy have weakened those fundamental sources of American power.
It is possible that American military might prevented a Russian takeover of

Western Europe in the wake of World War II. At that time an American-led
containment strategy seemed logical. But if a Soviet move across Europe was ever
imminent, it was in the years when Europe was still devastated by war. That is
when the Marshall Plan’s economic help and the military power of the NATO
shield made the most sense.
Today conditions in Europe, the United States, the Soviet Union and the rest of
the world have changed drastically. Western Europe is now strong and
prosperous. Its population, material resources, productivity and industrial
strength all exceed that of the Soviet Union.
Not since the 1961 Berlin crisis has Moscow engaged in any serious provocation
against Western Europe, and even that was an act of political and economic
weakness. Paradoxically, the Soviets followed the most belligerent line in those
years when the United States either had a nuclear monopoly or at least
overwhelming superiority. But as Moscow has moved toward nuclear parity with
Washington and increased its dealings on arms control, trade and cultural
exchange, it has tended to favor a policy of accommodation with the West.
This tendency has reached an apex in the person of Mikhail Gorbachev, who now
emphasizes that in the future Soviet foreign policy will be driven by domestic
economic needs. He and other realists in the Kremlin seem far more interested in
trading with Europe, encouraging joint economic ventures with European firms
and mutually reducing nuclear weapons than in fighting Europeans on the
battlefield or exchanging bombs and missiles with them from the skies.
Russians may be notoriously averse to admitting mistakes to the outside world,

but it takes little reading between the lines of Mr. Gorbachev’s domestic and
international speeches to discern his recognition that the Soviet economy has
been so warped by its focus on arms production that it is incapable of meeting the
needs of its people for modern housing, industrial goods, productive agriculture
and scientific-technical breakthroughs for its future development. Gorbachev has
left little doubt that he knows his country cannot lift its standard of living so long
as it is bogged down in an ever-escalating arms race with the United States and
Europe.
The Soviet leader has also signaled his belief that big-power interventionism in
the emerging Third World is a hazardous and self-defeating policy. The bitter and
frustrating experience of the Russians for the last decade in Afghanistan was
doubtless in Gorbachev’s mind at the Communist Party Congress in February
1986, when he forcefully contended that "encouraging revolution from outside,
and doubly so by military means, is futile and inadmissible." It does not take an
expert Kremlinologist to see that Gorbachev is saying something new.
On the arms control front, Moscow seized the initiative in 1985 by announcing
and implementing a unilateral ban on all nuclear weapons testing. At the arms
control discussions in Reykjavik with President Reagan, the Soviet leader seemed
willing to make or accept even the most sweeping proposals for the reduction or
elimination of nuclear weapons. More recently, in signing with President Reagan
the treaty that would eliminate intermediate-range nuclear weapons from Europe,
Gorbachev agreed to unprecedented access to Soviet military production and
basing facilities for on-site inspection. Arms control offers can be propaganda, but
a breakthrough verification regime to monitor the total dismantlement of Soviet
SS-20s means there is extraordinary substance here as well.
As we move to shape the American election issues of 1988, the key question is
whether we can begin to define foreign and defense policies that are more
relevant to the realities of today’s world. Can we meet the energetic and forceful
challenge of Mikhail Gorbachev’s Russia with intelligence, courage and realism?
Can we muster the will and wisdom to see that the issues of the future cannot be
resolved by a bigger arms race and more military interventions in Central
America, Africa or Asia? Can we put forward a new range of policies to end the
waste of an obsolete arms race, reduce the shameful deficit that is weakening our
economy and our position in the world, safeguard the physical environment that
sustains life on our planet and invest our resources more wisely in strengthening
our families and educating our children?
We cannot analyze with certainty the motivations and tendencies of the Russian
leaders, nor can we anticipate every development in other parts of the globe. But I
offer the following propositions for debate in the 1988 election campaign. They
are, I believe, consistent with the realities of our time.
III
First, we should replace our obsolete cold-war policy with a concerted effort to
identify mutual interests with the Russians—trade, arms reduction, joint
environmental efforts, shared exploration of outer space and cooperative efforts
in the fields of health, education and cultural exchange. In such trouble spots as
the Iran-Iraq war, the Arab-Israeli conflict, Afghanistan and Nicaragua, we should
seek out the possibilities of Soviet and American initiatives for settlement.
The current shipping problem in the Persian Gulf stemming from the Iran-Iraq
war represents an ideal example of a challenge the two superpowers should meet
cooperatively rather than confrontationally. Both Moscow and Washington have
an interest in ending the war between Iran and Iraq. Neither Washington nor
Moscow has any interest in disrupting the shipping of the Persian Gulf or
spreading the Iran-Iraq war further into that area.
The Reagan Administration naïvely committed our flag and our fleet to the
Kuwaitis as a knee-jerk reaction to information that the Russians had responded
in a very limited way to Kuwait’s request for protection of tankers. Clearly, the
Administration was also moved by a desire to regain credibility squandered
mindlessly through arms sales to Iran. It would have been far wiser, however, to
make our policy judgment on this matter only after careful consultation with all of
the Gulf states, with our NATO allies and Japan and, most important, after full
consultation with Congress. Then, if all signs indicated the need to protect
shipping, the United States might have joined in a multinational escort force in
concert with our allies, the Russians and some of the Arab states—perhaps under
the aegis of the United Nations.
The Arab-Israeli-Palestinian conflict is another prime candidate for energetic and

sustained cooperation by the United States and the Soviet Union in seeking a
practical and just solution. Such other regional problem areas as Central America,
Afghanistan and Southeast Asia could also be appropriate matters for Soviet-
American consultation. Serious initiatives to cooperate with Mr. Gorbachev might
prove more productive than we have accustomed ourselves to expect.
Second, we should join the Soviets in a complete ban on all nuclear testing, press
ahead on the mutual elimination of medium-range nuclear weapons from Europe
as provided for by the recently signed treaty, and agree to continued compliance
with the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty—which means confining the Strategic
Defense Initiative to research—in return for a mutual reduction of 50 percent in
strategic nuclear weapons. Gorbachev has signaled his willingness to negotiate
such a formula.
The major sticking point on this promising agenda for arms reduction is Mr.
Reagan’s insistence on the right to engage not only in research, but also testing
and development of the SDI system—a position Mr. Gorbachev rejects. Most
members of Congress and most arms control authorities, including those who
negotiated the 1972 ABM treaty—as well as the Russians—believe that the 1972
treaty precludes anything beyond research and laboratory testing of missile
defense systems. A major portion of the scientific and arms control community
also believes that Mr. Reagan’s concept of a kind of protective astrodome to make
America invulnerable to nuclear attack is a destabilizing, frightfully costly fantasy.
Former Under Secretary of State George Ball—a man of considerable experience
in international affairs and arms issues—has described the so-called Star Wars
system as "a fraud," but a very costly fraud that could consume upward of a
trillion dollars.
SDI would depend almost entirely on computers and would require, by some
estimates, ten million lines of computerized programming to make the system
operable. Given the inevitable margin of error and malfunctioning in such an
elaborate system, the danger is enormous that it might involve us in a nuclear
exchange by mistakes in programming or interpretation. Given these concerns,
would it not be better to move ahead on an agreement that will eliminate half of
the missiles that Moscow now has targeted on us rather than living with Mr.
Reagan’s "dream" that we can some day build a shield that will make us safe in
the event of nuclear war? I would urge that we confine work on SDI to research
alone for a period of years while we proceed now with arms negotiations. As a
practical matter, many technical questions must be resolved by research over the
next few years before we can even speculate intelligently on whether it makes
sense to go forward with SDI.
It has been argued by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and others that
we are endangering the United States and Europe by eliminating intermediate-
range nuclear weapons and cutting strategic nuclear weapons in half before
dealing with conventional forces, where the Soviets are said to be relatively
stronger. I would agree that we need to get the issue of conventional forces on the
negotiating table, but this need not delay the next proposed step to reduce
nuclear weapons as envisioned by Reagan and Gorbachev. Even with the 50-
percent cuts called for in the tentative outline, each side would retain some 6,000
strategic nuclear weapons, including 4,900 ballistic missiles, with an average
destructive capacity of 300,000 tons of TNT in each warhead. Since the only
practical purpose of such weapons is to deter the other side from attacking, 6,000
nuclear monsters will serve the purpose as well as 12,000. Either force level is
capable of eliminating most if not all of the life on our planet. Certainly we are no
safer today with double the number of weapons targeted on our cities than we
would be after the proposed second-stage agreement on strategic arms
reductions.
Reagan and Gorbachev have both indicated their awareness of the need to move
more purposefully on conventional force negotiations. Over the next decade, in
close consultation with our allies, we should seek to negotiate with the Soviets
mutual reductions in conventional forces that would enable us to draw down our
300,000 troops in Europe as well as the 40,000 now in South Korea. Obviously,
the timetable for these withdrawals should depend on the scale and timing of
Soviet reductions in troops, tanks and conventional units. Careful mutual arms
control reductions, both nuclear and conventional, with proper verification can
lessen tensions and fears. In turn, these steps also reduce the risk of war—which,
of course, is the best defense of all in the nuclear age.
Third, if we can improve relations with the Soviets, reduce nuclear arms and draw
down our forces abroad, we will have set the stage for a major reduction in U.S.
military spending. We are now devoting 60 percent of our military budget to the
projection of our power abroad and the defense of other countries, most notably
our NATO allies and Japan, against a supposed Soviet or Chinese threat. But the
countries we are defending are prosperous and moving steadily into a stronger
economic and political relationship with the Russians and the Chinese. Does it
make sense for the United States to pay over half the cost of NATO when the
European states are as prosperous as we are and engage in more trade and joint
ventures with the Soviets than we do?
It is now costing the United States approximately $150 billion annually to provide
for the defense of Western Europe and Japan. This is roughly the dimension of our
current annual fiscal deficit. For many years we have devoted a much higher
percentage of our budget and our GNP to defense than have Japan and the
nations of Western Europe. These countries are now pressing us hard to reduce
our deficit in the interest of a more stable world economy. One way to do that is
for us to cease carrying such a disproportionate share of the collective defense
burden. We would be a stronger and a more prosperous nation with greater
influence in the world if we shifted over the next ten years at least 30 percent of
our military spending into deficit reduction, education, family support,
environmental protection, rebuilding our public infrastructure and our railways,
assisting our family farmers, upgrading the training and productivity of our
industrial workers and strengthening the development of the Third World.
Fourth, while standing clear of Third World military struggles, unless conditions
virtually demand our military involvement, we should support in every other
reasonable manner democratic centrist forces in developing countries that are
caught in power struggles between the hard right and the hard left. American
political party professionals, labor union organizers, social activists, religious and
public interest groups—all of these and more are needed to train, advise and
organize those in the developing countries who seek democracy and justice. We
should not hesitate to affirm abroad our active commitment to human rights and
democratic ideals. Our 200-year-old experiment with constitutional democracy is
the kind of good news we need to proclaim in the developing world.
The time is long overdue for us to recognize that even those countries in the Third
World which happen to displease us ideologically are not beyond constructive
American influence if we exercise that influence intelligently. We seriously negate
that possibility, however, by following too rigidly a policy of economic and
diplomatic boycott. It has long seemed to me that our policy of trying to isolate
Cuba (to say nothing of earlier covert hit-and-run attacks and assassination
attempts against Castro) has been ineffective and self-defeating. The quick
decision in the opening stage of the Castro revolution to apply an economic and
diplomatic embargo has inadvertently paralyzed American influence in Cuba and
maximized Soviet power and influence there.
The same arguments can be made with reference to Vietnam and Angola. More
than a decade has passed since the end of our bitter involvement in Vietnam. If
that long and costly intervention was a mistake, is it not also a mistake to delay
further the process of reconciliation and reconstruction of the country where we
not only suffered such grievous losses, but where our arms took such a frightful
toll of Vietnamese life and property? In a lengthy conversation with Premier Pham
Van Dong in 1976, I was told that Hanoi desperately wanted American diplomatic
recognition plus economic, medical and food assistance. The Vietnamese leader
also made clear an eagerness to trade with the United States and even to open
offshore oil resources to American development.
I found much the same kind of eagerness for U.S. recognition and cooperation in
Angola during a visit there in 1978.
Why is it considered prudent and wise for us to carry on diplomatic and trade
relations with the communist giants, China and the Soviet Union, while we
boycott the little communist states—Cuba, Vietnam and Angola? Has the time not
come to end this curious double standard?
There may be instances where it makes sense to employ economic and diplomatic
boycotts, but on the record those methods no longer serve our best interests in
dealing with the small revolutionary communist states. We have followed a much
wiser and more productive course with communist Yugoslavia, notwithstanding
the fact that it is in closer proximity to Soviet power than Angola, Vietnam or
Cuba. Obviously there are other factors and differences involved, but our long-
term approach to Yugoslavia may suggest a more productive approach to other
communist states than the one we are now pursuing.
We are also not without influence in some of the Third World countries that are
ruled by rightist governments. However belatedly, the Reagan Administration
demonstrated that such right-wing leaders as Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines
and Jean-Claude Duvalier in Haiti were subject to local political action combined
with American support and encouragement. The Pinochet regime in Chile is a
classic example of a rightist government with a bad record on human rights that
ought to feel constant diplomatic, moral and economic pressure from the United
States.
In the Middle East, the United States understandably feels a special obligation to
back the state of Israel, which we helped to create in the wake of the terrifying
holocaust of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime. But here as elsewhere we would be well
advised to heed George Washington’s warning against "inveterate antipathies"
and "passionate attachments." The Arabs after all did not create the holocaust.
They are not our enemies. Indeed, they actively seek our friendship and
cooperation. Nor does it follow that Israeli objectives are synonymous with ours,
including their 1982 invasion of Lebanon, their preference for Iran over Iraq, their
support for the South African government and their hostility to the concept of a
Palestinian homeland. We should continue to support Israel, but the time is long
overdue for America to stand for self-determination for Palestinians as well as
Israelis. Instead of closing the Palestinian Information Office in Washington, we
should be talking to the Palestinians. Instead of foot-dragging on the proposal for
an international conference on Middle East issues, we should be leading the way
for such a conference.
It is possible that we may be faced with circumstances that leave us no honorable

course except military intervention. I believe that during the genocidal campaign
of the crazed Pol Pot against his own Cambodian people in the late 1970s the
United States should have taken the lead at the United Nations in promoting a
strong multilateral intervention. Perhaps as many as two million innocent
Cambodians were slaughtered in this totally irrational and barbarous orgy.
Ironically, it was the unilateral intervention of the hated Vietnamese that finally
halted the mass killing of Cambodians by their own government.
The bankruptcy of a policy that continues to view the Third World through the
prism of an East-West cold war competition is dramatized by the current U.S.
stance on Cambodia. The United States now recognizes and supports at the
United Nations Pol Pot and his allies, instead of the Vietnamese-backed regime in
Phnom Penh—certainly not on the merits, but on the basis of our opposition to
Hanoi and Moscow.
There may be other instances in the Third World where we have no acceptable
alternative except armed intervention. But for the most part, our power can best
be demonstrated with nonmilitary means. We should think of armed intervention
as a costly and high-risk measure of last resort and one that we should make
every effort to carry out in concert with other nations—not unilaterally.
Improved relations with the Soviet Union and other communist states and
substantial mutual arms reductions would not only help in getting our budget and
trade deficits under control; they would also enable us to cooperate better with
our standing partners in stabilizing the world trade system. We would be in a
much stronger position to work with nations such as Mexico, Argentina, Brazil,
Egypt and Israel in getting their debts under control and their economies in better
shape. Instead of being the major supplier of arms to the Third World, we should
seek to strengthen its economic health, not only because this is morally right but
because a healthy Third World will be our major market in the future.
Fifth, there are two additional global concerns that lend themselves especially to
American political, scientific and technical leadership: halting the degradation of
the physical environment and ending human hunger. In concert with other nations
and the U.N. system, we should lead the way in halting the pollution of the oceans
and waterways, the erosion of the soil, the loss of forests, the contamination of the
air and the disruption of the life-preserving ozone. The alarming destruction of
our planet by environmental deterioration may constitute a more serious threat to
humanity than nuclear weapons. An international effort led by the United States
to protect the world’s environment could well be our first line of defense and
national security.
Closely related to environmental concerns is the urgent need to win the struggle
against hunger. Here again the United States is the best-endowed nation on earth
to lead the effort to end starvation and malnutrition. We have the technical
capability, the agricultural abundance and the shipping to lead the way to a world
free from hunger. A more imaginative use of our surplus food in the short term
and a greater effort to improve the agriculture of the developing world in the long
term is the kind of internationalism that will give new force and respect to
America’s role in the world.
These environmental and hunger concerns present opportunities for closer

cooperation with our allies, the Soviet Union and the developing world.
Sixth, it seems increasingly clear that our national and international concerns are
deeply intertwined. There is, for example, little hope of ending our huge annual
deficits unless we can bring the arms race under control. Nor can we correct the
alarming U.S. trade deficit and the decline of some of our industries, including
agriculture, that are dependent on exports unless the Third World, as the largest
potential market for American goods, is able to improve its economic health. A
further illustration of our inextricable involvement with Third World problems is
the scourge of destructive drugs flowing into the United States. The peasants in
such poor countries as Bolivia, Peru, Mexico and Colombia survive in considerable
part by selling cocaine and marijuana to the American market. Equally poor
farmers in Southeast Asia and Turkey supply us with heroin. In short, the poverty,
underdevelopment and desperation measures of the Third World spill over into
America to feed the most destructive social evil in our society.
The economic, political, environmental and military challenges around the globe
demand international cooperation rather than unilateral action by single nations.
For all practical purposes, isolationism and unilateralism are inadequate foreign
policies in the world of today and tomorrow.
This means, I believe, that we must make increasing use of the United Nations
system as a vital foreign policy vehicle. No American administration since World
War II has given the United Nations the preeminent position it should have in the
policies of a major world power. The Reagan Administration has been especially
weak if not outright hostile in its attitude toward the United Nations. It is
embarrassing that the current delinquency of the United States in paying its
assessed contribution to the United Nations has made it necessary for smaller
countries including Canada to pay their future assessments in advance so that the
United Nations can meet its payroll obligations.
In our efforts to build better relationships with the Soviet Union and China, to
address the massive problems of debt, development and hunger in the Third
World, to meet the dangers of terrorism and the conflicts of the Middle East, to
respond to the new scourge of AIDS—all of these and numerous other concerns
challenge us to make greater use of the forum and the machinery of the United
Nations. The U.N. Development Program and the U.N. World Health Organization
have mounted a global effort against AIDS that is deserving of full U.S. support
and participation. It should be noted that it was under the direction of the World
Health Organization that smallpox was virtually ended worldwide.
IV
If bringing our relationship with the global community including Moscow up to

date in the light of today’s realities is the most urgent foreign policy challenge of
1988, the second and equally important challenge is squaring the conduct and
substance of American policy with our historical national values. In the
bicentennial of our Constitution, it is important that we renew our commitment to
the vision of the Framers who drafted the Declaration of Independence and the
Constitution.
We have painfully learned again from the Iran-contra fiasco that secretive, illegal
or antidemocratic operations abroad are not compatible with the values and needs
of our democracy. If I were permitted just one line of advice to the president
elected in 1988 it would be: "Heed the Constitution." The only oath we require of
our president is that he "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the
United States" and "take care that the laws be faithfully executed."
Unfortunately, several of our presidents since the end of World War II have
violated their inaugural oath. These violations were invariably defended in the
name of national security. Most were schemes hatched in secret by a handful of
people around the president. Most were not only illegal, but also mistaken ideas
that embarrassed the nation.
Congress should act to do what former President Harry Truman recommended in

his later years—limit the CIA and other intelligence or security agencies of the
United States strictly to the gathering of intelligence. Setting up mercenary
armies, mining international harbors, assassinating local officials, overturning
governments, using arms dealers to circumvent the laws and our announced
foreign policy—all such activities should be terminated by law. This will not, of
course, stop a president determined to break the law, but it will, at least, make
such actions plainly illegal. That is a step toward constitutional government and a
revival of credibility and respect for our standing in the world.
Behind our covert activities of the past four decades has been the worship of
"national security" and "the power of the presidency"—notions used to justify an
interventionist foreign policy and a permanent war economy. But these concepts
have an authoritarian quality that is alien to the founding ideals of our
constitutional democracy.
At the heart of our Constitution is the separation of powers—the system of checks

and balances. The president is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces and
the conductor of foreign policy. But he carries out these activities under definite
constitutional checks that give the Congress a strong role in the authorization and
shaping of both military and foreign policy. It is the Congress which controls the
granting of funds that determine the scope and substance of foreign policy and
the size and mission of the armed forces. It is the Congress which declares war
and determines whether and how American forces become involved abroad, and
how long and under what conditions such interventions are continued. The Senate
has a special responsibility to "advise and consent" on American treaty obligations
and the confirmation of diplomatic officials, which means that its role in shaping
our international obligations and our diplomacy was meant not to be ancillary but
integral. The Framers of the Constitution sought to avoid an imperial presidency
that would be free to direct the foreign policy and the armed forces unchecked by
the people’s elected representatives in the Congress.
It was not simply that the Framers distrusted unchecked power, which they
clearly did; they also feared an interventionist foreign policy and large, permanent
military forces. Washington, Jefferson and Madison were all willing to use military
power when they saw no other reasonable alternative. But they all opposed the
creation of standing military forces that went beyond emergency requirements,
and they all despised an interventionist foreign policy that needlessly embroiled
the United States abroad. Jefferson called for "peace, commerce, and honest
friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none." Washington, I repeat,
warned against either "inveterate antipathies" or "passionate attachments" to
other nations.
The Constitution that was hammered out in Philadelphia in 1787 sought to

prevent reckless interventionism and rampant militarism by deliberately tying the
hands of the president so that he could not raise huge military forces or involve
the nation in foreign expeditions without congressional approval and close
executive-legislative cooperation. Today, the postwar results of failing to heed the
noninterventionist precepts of the Founders are painfully on view in the new
fields of white crosses in Arlington Cemetery and on the black marble wall of the
Vietnam Memorial. As a former World War II bomber pilot, I lament that many of
my countrymen were dispatched in causes far less worthy.
If we are to "intervene" abroad, let us do so primarily with our political, economic

and moral strength. A prominent example is the case of South Africa, where the
American position should be clear and unequivocal. There is no place for
apartheid in the modern world. We should follow a policy of steadily tightening
diplomatic and economic pressure on South Africa in concert with other nations
which share our rejection of national racism.
For most of our 200-year course as a nation we have been well served by the
wisdom of the constitutional Framers. We have seen that document as both a body
of principles and a living experiment that has enabled us to meet new and
changing circumstances. But especially since World War II we have drifted far
from the essential wisdom of the Founders and the constitutional process they
bequeathed. This has led us into a series of ill-advised, bloody interventions
abroad, a self-defeating arms race, disruptive economic costs at home, and a
steady decline of real security and international influence. We are at a watershed,
requiring a change in direction. In 1988, as at the beginning of the American
nation, we need to build a foreign policy that is consistent with both the
procedures and the substance of a genuine constitutional democracy.
If I may add a note of personal advice to the presidential contenders, I would

warn them against making hasty pledges under campaign pressures that might
hamper their capacity to make unfettered decisions in the White House. I blush
when I think of a few of the commitments I made as the Democratic nominee in
1972, including a promise that if elected I would move the American embassy in
Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. This might have pleased a few Israelis and a
handful of American voters, but it would have been disastrous to our standing in
the Arab world, seriously eroding our ability to serve as an "honest broker" of the
Middle East conflict.
In 1960 Democratic nominee John Kennedy chided the incumbent Eisenhower

Administration for not moving forcefully against Castro. Perhaps in this militant
campaign rhetoric Kennedy, the candidate, was helping to set the trap for the Bay
of Pigs fiasco that a few months later embarrassed Kennedy, the president. In
1968 candidate Richard Nixon implied that he had a plan to end the war in
Vietnam. When the war dragged on for four more years, it produced a sense of
betrayal that disillusioned millions of Americans. President Lyndon Johnson’s
pledge four years earlier that he was "not going to send American boys to do the
job that Asian boys should be doing" was an earlier source of presidential
credibility problems.
It is not necessary for presidential candidates to take a rigid stand on every one of
the world’s problems—especially those which carry domestic political lobbies
demanding candidate commitments that are tempting to grasp but difficult to live
with after the election. Indeed, a president’s freedom of action is limited by the
Constitution, by acts of Congress, by American public opinion and by the changing
complexity of the global scene. Rather than glibly promising a neat solution to
each of the foreign policy issues facing the country, a prudent presidential
contender should pledge to seek basic policy objectives in consultation with the
Congress and our allies, sometimes after negotiations with our rivals, but always
within the spirit and the laws of our constitutional democracy. It is also still wise,
I think, for an American president to form his final judgments and course of action
"with a decent respect to the opinions of mankind."
Former Senator George McGovern was the Democratic Partys presidential candidate in 1972.
February 1,1988
American Foreign Policy: The Bush
Agenda
Richard M. Nixon
TERRY BOCHATEY / REUTERS

President George H.W. Bush is surrounded by a sea of U.S. military personnel as he greets troops following
an arrival ceremony in the eastern Saudi Arabian city of Dhahran November 22, 1990.
In 1945, a year before his speech in Fulton, Missouri, Winston Churchill sent a
message to the new president, Harry Truman, about the ominous developments in
Soviet policy: "An Iron Curtain is being drawn down over their front. We do not
know what lies behind it. It is vital, therefore, that we reach an understanding
with Russia now before we have mortally reduced our armies and before we have
withdrawn into our zones of occupation." Churchill's advice went unheeded, and
the West lost a historic opportunity to negotiate a favorable deal with the Kremlin
when the bargaining leverage of the United States vis-à-vis the Soviet Union stood
at its peak.
After almost half a century, the communist world's leader, President Mikhail
Gorbachev, has undertaken dramatic changes within the Soviet bloc that give the
free world's new leader, President George Bush, another historic opportunity to
enhance the West's security and to effect a sea change in the U.S.-Soviet
relationship. Gorbachev's policies of glasnost and perestroika have been hailed,
even by some hard-line Western leaders, as heralding the end of the cold war.
While his reforms give reason for a reappraisal of the West's policy toward the
Soviet Union, we must bear in mind that the causes of the cold war-Moscow's
domination of Eastern Europe and aggressive foreign policies around the world-
still endure. Those who urge the West to "help Gorbachev" with low-interest loans
and subsidized credits fail to realize that such actions are not in our interest until
he makes an irrevocable break with the Kremlin's past policies.
An opportunity now exists to make genuine progress toward a more stable peace.
President Bush can exploit this opportunity if he takes a hard-headed look at the
Soviet Union under Gorbachev and devises a policy that presents the Kremlin
leaders with intractable strategic choices. We must make Gorbachev choose
between a less confrontational relationship with the West and the retention of his
imperial control over Eastern Europe, between a continuing race in arms
technology and arms control agreements that could create a stable strategic and
conventional balance, and between access to Western technology and credits and
continuing Soviet adventurism in the Third World.
II
Gorbachev has sparked enormous excitement in the West because he is perceived

to be a new kind of Soviet leader. Dazzled by his "star quality"-the fashionably
tailored suits, the polished manners and the smooth touch in personal encounters-
reporters and diplomats alike have naïvely confused changes in style and rhetoric
with shifts in substance and policy. I have met with three of the Soviet Union's
principal postwar leaders-Nikita Khrushchev in 1959 and 1960, Leonid Brezhnev
in 1972, 1973 and 1974, and Mikhail Gorbachev in 1986. Gorbachev is in a class
of his own. He is their match in tenacity and forcefulness, but outstrips them in
realism, quickness and intelligence. He deserves great respect for his boldness,
his courage and his mastery of public relations. He is a different but, from the
West's point of view, not necessarily a better type of leader. We must keep in
mind that his talent and capabilities can just as easily make the world a more
dangerous place as they can contribute to greater global security.
Gorbachev has launched his reforms and pursued a more conciliatory approach to
the West because the communist economic system failed at home and the Soviet
Union's foreign policy became counterproductive abroad. The centrally planned
economy of the Brezhnev era has become a monument to corruption and
inefficiency. Brezhnev's militarism and expansionism not only mobilized the West
to strengthen its armed forces but also gave the Soviet Union a severe case of
imperial indigestion after it gobbled up Third World countries. By the early 1980s,
Moscow's clients in Afghanistan, Cuba, Nicaragua, Vietnam, Angola and Ethiopia
cost the Kremlin at least $20 billion a year to keep in power. It is a mistake to
think that only Gorbachev would have initiated a reform program, for these
realities would have forced whoever came to power into rethinking Soviet
domestic and foreign policy.
Unlike his predecessors, Gorbachev sees the world without ideological blinders.
He has realistically assessed the Soviet Union's enormous economic, political,
imperial and geopolitical problems. First, he recognizes openly that the Soviet
economy has stagnated, with negligible or even negative growth rates since the
late 1970s. Without economic reform and access to Western technology and
capital, the Soviet Union will fall hopelessly behind the United States, Western
Europe, Japan and-perhaps as early as the middle of the next century-China.
Second, Gorbachev initiated his economic reforms-perestroika-because he knows

that the Soviet people can no longer be motivated with political slogans. The
increased East-West contacts of the détente era and the revolution in mass
communications have rendered futile the Stalinist strategy of isolation and
ideological indoctrination. Today, the Soviet people are aware that their standard
of living-cramped housing, endless food lines and empty store shelves-compares
unfavorably not only with that of the West but also with those of the newly
industrializing countries of the Third World. Gorbachev knows that only material
incentives, not ideological exhortations, will induce the people to work harder.
They will produce more only if they can actually purchase decent consumer goods
with the additional rubles they earn.
Third, Gorbachev knows that economic failure and political repression have
created seething unrest throughout the Soviet empire that could erupt at the
slightest provocation. Time bombs lie just below the surface ready to explode, not
only in virtually all his East European satellites but also in many of the non-
Russian republics of the Soviet Union itself. Through glasnost, he has tried to
create a safety valve to defuse this pent-up frustration, but by venting these
angers he may have let the genie out of the bottle. He will find that demands for
pluralism in Eastern Europe and greater national autonomy for the non-Russian
peoples are difficult to control. Ironically, Soviet leaders used appeals to
nationalism to expand their empire into the Third World. Now nationalism
threatens to tear that empire apart.
Fourth, as Gorbachev surveys the global political scene, he must be struck by the
fact that instead of improving the Soviet Union's position in the world, the
Kremlin's foreign policy has managed to unite all the world's major powers
against Moscow. The United States, Canada, Western Europe, Japan and China-
which together account for over 60 percent of the world economy and which pose
the threat of a two-front engagement in any world conflict-have cooperated
actively for more than 15 years in opposing Moscow's traditional expansionist
ambition. Moscow's old thinking led to a dead end, so Gorbachev has launched his
"new thinking" in foreign affairs to loosen the bonds of, or break up, that anti-
Soviet bloc.
Fifth, Gorbachev, as a communist, instinctively believes in the importance of the

battle of ideas, but as a realist, he knows that the Soviet Union has lost that
battle. Around the world-not only within the Soviet bloc but also in Africa, Asia
and Latin America-Soviet socialism is perceived as the road to stagnation, not
prosperity. It still appeals to those who want to seize and hold power but not to
those who want to build a better life for their people. Through his reforms,
Gorbachev seeks to create a new model and image for socialism and to give the
communist ideology a second wind.
III
Gorbachev's goal is to reinvigorate his country's communist system, to make the

Soviet Union a superpower not just in military but also in economic and political
terms. Without sweeping reforms, he will not be able to afford the costs of the
Soviet military establishment and of Soviet client-states, to provide the Soviet
people with a better life, to create a model that can be competitive in the global
ideological battle and to keep the Soviet Union in the front rank of world powers.
Gorbachev's reforms face three massive internal roadblocks that could derail his
efforts. Despite his successes at the recent special party conference (June 1988)
and his tours de force at the recent Central Committee and Supreme Soviet
meetings, Gorbachev has not consolidated a firm political grip over the Soviet
system. He can count only three or four of the 12 members of the Politburo as
steadfast allies. While Yegor Ligachev, his apparent rival, may no longer be
looking over Gorbachev's shoulder as the recognized number-two man, Ligachev's
faction is waiting in the wings, ready to take over should Gorbachev falter. The
last Soviet reformer-Nikita Khrushchev-met with an untimely political demise
when he threatened too many entrenched interests.
Thus, we should make no concessions to Gorbachev that we would not make to

the least progressive Soviet leader, for the chance still exists that the latter could
come to power. While Gorbachev has been hailed as a superstar on the world
stage, we must remember that the stars that shine the brightest sometimes fade
away the fastest.
In Gorbachev's four years in power, there has been a lot of talk but precious little
progress. He has been unable to force the sclerotic Soviet party and state
bureaucracies to abandon their Stalinist ways. He has the unenviable task of
teaching old bureaucrats new tricks. It is one thing to tell a bureaucrat to do a
certain task and another to order him to be creative and innovative. The former at
least stirs him to action, while the latter evinces blank stares of total
incomprehension.
Gorbachev's most profound problem is that he still believes in Marxism-Leninism.

Even if he wins his political and bureaucratic battles, this handicap will ultimately
doom his reforms to failure. Rapid, self-sustaining economic growth has occurred
only in countries that respect the right of individuals to own private property and
that allow unregulated prices and the laws of supply and demand to allocate
economic resources. Gorbachev has expressed a willingness to grant farmers
long-term leases for private farming and has stated that some prices will be
decontrolled in the early 1990s, but he still wants to keep the party-state
apparatus in firm command of the economy as a whole. While there have been
several examples of economies moving from capitalism to communism, there are
no examples of economies moving from communism to capitalism. No one has
ever constructed a successful halfway house between a market-based and a
command economy.
Gorbachev faces a profound philosophical dilemma: he can choose ideology or

progress. If he chooses communism, he cannot have progress; if he chooses
progress, he cannot have communism. Only by abandoning the ideology that is the
bedrock of his power can he produce progress that will match that of the West.
Given the inefficient central planning system and the irrational pricing system, no
foreign investor today has the slightest idea of how to judge which economic risks
in the Soviet Union are worth taking. Making loans to the Kremlin is like laying
down chips on the dice table; some bets may pay off but the odds are that in the
long run the money will be wasted. In fact, it is not even in Gorbachev's interest
for the West to provide economic assistance before fundamental economic
reforms have been institutionalized. A banker does no favor to a borrower by
making him a bad loan. We should not enable the Kremlin to borrow its way out of
today's problems and thereby delay the inevitable day of addressing the causes of
those problems.
Both American superhawks and superdoves overstate the impact Western policies
can have on the Soviet Union. Superhawks argue that the West's arms buildup
and its opposition to Soviet aggression in places like Afghanistan were the
primary factors that prompted Gorbachev to launch his reforms. Those Western
actions were vital on their own merits. But even without those actions Gorbachev
would have had to initiate changes because the Soviet economic system was
suffering from terminal illness. As a Chinese leader told me in 1985, without
reforms the Soviet Union by the middle of the next century would "disappear" as a
great power. That made internal change imperative, regardless of Western
policies.
Superdoves, on the other hand, believe that we should do anything within our
power to help Gorbachev in order to promote peace. But we must realize that
whether he succeeds or fails ultimately depends on events and forces within the
Soviet Union that we cannot affect. We cannot induce Gorbachev to cast aside his
Marxist-Leninist obsession with keeping the state in charge of the economy. We
cannot whip the Soviet bureaucracy into shape. We can hardly even make out the
patterns of Kremlin political intrigue after the fact, much less lend a helping hand
to those whose views and interests seem to parallel ours.
Above all, we must keep Gorbachev's reforms in perspective. He does not want to
overturn the Soviet system; he wants to strengthen it. To paraphrase Churchill
from another context, Gorbachev did not become general secretary to preside
over the demise of the Communist Party. We have an interest in the success of his
reforms only to the extent that they change the system to make it less threatening
to our security and interests. We should applaud glasnost and perestroika but not
pay for them, for if his reforms do not irrevocably alter Soviet foreign policy we
will be subsidizing the threat of our own destruction.
IV
Those who parrot today a fashionable slogan-"the cold war is over"-trivialize the
problems of Western security. Gorbachev's public relations experts have made
many Western policymakers forget that a more benign Soviet image does not
mean a more benign Soviet foreign policy. As a result, the race to Moscow is
already on. In recent months, Western leaders have jetted off to the Kremlin with
planeloads of eager bankers and industrialists in tow, and Soviet leaders have
gleefully lined up more than $10 billion in easy credit. Unless the West steps back
and designs a coherent strategy, we will squander our leverage and lose the
historic opportunity presented by events in the Soviet Union.
We should bear in mind a remark made to me in 1953 by Field Marshall Slim,

then the British governor-general of Australia. In arguing for a dialogue between
the United States and the Soviet Union, he said, "We must break the ice. If we
don't break it, we will all get frozen into it so tight that it will take an atom bomb
to break it." Today, the ice has broken even before the end of winter. We are
witnessing the thaw that brings the promise of spring. While it is a period of great
possibilities, we must tread carefully or risk falling into the icy waters.
We have to recognize that the situation we face now is infinitely more complex
than the one we faced at the outset of the cold war forty years ago. At that time,
the threat was as clear as Stalin's Iron Curtain and his belligerent rhetoric about
the inevitability of war, all of which enabled President Truman to prevent a return
to isolationism, adopt a policy of containment and win bipartisan support for entry
into NATO and unprecedented levels of peacetime defense spending.
Gorbachev has brilliantly changed the game. In Europe, he has discarded the
traditional Soviet tactics of diplomatic bluster and military threat and has
mastered those of deceptive propaganda and political maneuver. He has
substituted the wiles of diplomacy for the threat of force as his chosen instrument
for foreign policy conquests. As a result, at a time when Soviet superiority in
conventional military forces and in accurate land-based intercontinental ballistic
missiles (ICBMs) is larger than ever before, he has made more progress toward
the traditional Soviet objective of dividing the NATO alliance than any of his
predecessors. We cannot counter his "peace offensive" simply by loudly warning
about the military threat of Moscow's Red Army. Instead, we must launch our own
political offensive to achieve our strategic and geopolitical objectives.
We will be pursuing those goals in what has become a multipolar world. Japan is
already an economic superpower and will inevitably use its economic clout for
political effect. Western Europe will become a unified economic market by 1992
and is beginning to intensify its cooperation in political and strategic matters.
China, already a major nuclear power and fast becoming a major economic player,
will emerge as one of the world's superpowers in the next century.
We can work with all of these new major powers more easily than Gorbachev can.
Therefore, before the new administration holds a substantive summit with
Gorbachev, it should conduct intensive discussions and meetings with our major
allies and friends. We should do this not to present Moscow with an antagonistic
and belligerent united front but to explore our common interests and to
coordinate our policies where possible.
President Bush should continue to reject the advice of those who urge that he
schedule a quick summit with Gorbachev in order to have a foreign policy
"victory" early in his term. Gorbachev needs a summit far more than the
president. Only when the Bush Administration has agreed on a strategy with our
allies and has a definite program for making significant substantive progress on
major issues should President Bush schedule an American-Soviet summit.
In formulating a strategy, we should begin by estimating what Gorbachev wants,

then map out what we want, what trade-offs are possible, and what we can do to
put pressure on him to agree to our terms. Most important, we have to recognize
that linkage-the linking of progress on one issue to progress on another-is the key
to any successful negotiations with Moscow. Kremlin leaders will always explicitly
reject linkage, but they always implicitly accept it.
Without linkage, Gorbachev will string together a series of easy victories at the
bargaining table. Each superpower has a greater interest in progress on some
issues than on others. Gorbachev, for example, will press hard for access to
Western capital markets and technology. The United States, on the other hand,
has a greater interest in reducing Soviet influence in the Third World through
settlements of certain regional conflicts that threaten our interests. Moscow will
be more than willing to negotiate solely on the former. If we fail to pursue a
determined policy of linkage, Gorbachev will dominate the agenda and make one-
sided progress on his top priorities.
Linkage requires subtlety. An American president should not step before the
cameras and announce that he intends to hold the next arms control agreement
hostage to Soviet capitulation on one or another issue. Nor should the Congress
make the mistake of publicly linking U.S. foreign policy objectives to Soviet
domestic policy reforms. The Jackson-Vanik Amendment in 1973-74 was a case in
point. Its purpose was to force the Soviet Union to increase Jewish emigration, but
it had the opposite effect of drastically reducing it. We should vigorously press the
Soviets in world forums to eliminate their human rights abuses. But we must
allow them to appear to do so of their own volition rather than by clumsily making
it look as if they did so only because of direct Western intervention in their
internal affairs. No great nation can appear to allow its internal policies to be
dictated by a foreign power.
We should link progress toward better East-West relations to restraint in Soviet

global behavior. If we enter into agreements beneficial to Moscow despite direct
or indirect Soviet aggression, we will in effect be giving the Kremlin a green light
to assault our interests. If we pursue a determined strategy that includes linkage,
we can further our strategic interests in Europe, in arms control negotiations and
in the world's key regional conflicts.
V
Europe has again become the central focus of the East-West conflict, and our
strategy vis-à-vis the Soviets must change to meet these circumstances. From
1945 to the early 1960s, the European continent was the principal arena of the
world ideological struggle. From the early 1960s through the mid-1980s, after the
division of Europe had become a settled political reality, the primary fields of
conflict-Indochina, the Middle East, southern Africa, the horn of Africa, southwest
Asia and Central America-were situated in the Third World. Now Gorbachev has
made the Old World the central priority and target of his new foreign policy.
The traditional goal of Kremlin leaders has been to create political fissures
between the United States and Western Europe in order to erode the strength of
the alliance. Moscow has pursued this objective, at various times, through a
strategy of confrontation that seeks to rattle European nerves and demonstrate
the unreliability of America as an ally, or through a strategy of condominium with
the United States that seeks to weaken European confidence by creating the
impression that the superpowers are settling Europe's fate. Gorbachev has
adopted the more straightforward tactic of appealing directly to the West
Europeans. He has called for the creation of a single "European home" stretching
from the Atlantic to the Urals-thus implying that the United States represents an
obstacle to peace-and has sought to exploit the West European fatigue after forty
years of East-West conflict.
The world of 1949, when NATO was formed, differs profoundly from the world of
1989. We need a new strategy in Europe-one that enhances the Continent's
stability not only through initiatives to revitalize the alliance in Western Europe
but also through a sustained effort to foster peaceful change and positive political
evolution in Eastern Europe.
The new administration should make Europe its top foreign policy priority. It
should call for a major working summit-no black ties and no spouses-to hammer
out a strategy for enhancing our collective security. First of all, we should
articulate a common analysis of the nature of the Soviet military threat in Europe.
Americans, and many Europeans, believe that the Soviet threat remains as great
as or even greater than ever, especially because of Moscow's unrelenting buildup
of conventional and strategic weaponry. But in recent years there has been a
tendency among other West Europeans, especially but not exclusively those on
the left, to view the Soviet Union as a stagnant society incapable of threatening
the West or even to view Washington's calls for vigilance and readiness as a
greater threat to peace than Moscow's armies.
Harold Macmillan once told me that alliances were held together by fear, not love.
For many in Europe and the United States, the fear of the Soviet Union has
waned, and what love may exist among economic competitors in the West is a
very weak glue to hold an alliance together. It is therefore imperative that
Western leaders issue a joint statement, in conjunction with its arms control
proposals, that educates their publics on the nature and scope of the Soviet
threat.
Second, we should agree on ways to defend common Western interests outside of

Europe. In 1949 the West faced the threat of a direct Soviet military thrust into
central Europe. In recent years, with the East-West competition in Europe
focusing on the political plane, Soviet direct and indirect aggression has
principally taken place in the Third World. The United States has borne the
overwhelming share of the burden in countering Moscow's subversion and proxy
warfare to protect regions such as the Persian Gulf, even though the Gulf is far
more important to Western Europe than to the United States. Unless we devise a
more equitable global security framework, it is inevitable that pressure will build
in the United States for a significant reduction of the U.S. troop commitment to
NATO.
Third, we should articulate a compelling rationale for NATO's nuclear deterrent

and a joint approach for the next round of European arms control talks. At the
Reykjavik summit, the Reagan Administration undermined public support for
nuclear deterrence by advocating the idea of eliminating all nuclear weapons. We
must renounce the Reykjavik rhetoric in unequivocal terms and explain to
Western publics the realities of the nuclear age. We should pursue the so-called
competitive strategies on the conventional level to undercut the significance of
Soviet quantitative superiority and thereby raise the nuclear threshold. But
nuclear deterrence, both strategic and tactical, remains imperative. Even if
conventional arms control succeeds, NATO will have to maintain a residual, even
if diminished, tactical nuclear capability in Europe, though the deterrent should
be reconfigured to allay West German concerns regarding the bases and targets
of these weapons. More important, NATO must arrive at a joint conventional arms
control proposal that makes offensive warfare futile and that mobilizes public
support for the Western negotiating position. A good beginning has been made in
the recent NATO proposal for major cuts in the tank armies in Europe, though a
public diplomacy offensive needs to be launched to sell it to Western publics.
Fourth, we must agree on a common approach to East-West trade. We should not

provide the Soviet Union with technologies that can significantly improve its
military forces. We should also create a joint institution for coordinating and
regulating the Soviet Union's access to Western capital markets. It is not in our
interest to have Western banks competing to provide the Kremlin with loans at
below-market rates. Nor is it in our interest to repeat the mistakes of bankers in
the 1970s who lent East European countries tens of billions of dollars that will
never be repaid.
Fifth, we should design a common approach to the problem of Eastern Europe.

The cold war began in Eastern Europe, and it will not end until Moscow's
satellites receive their independence. In the past, it has always been in the West's
interest, but not in Moscow's, to address the issue of Eastern Europe. Today,
since Gorbachev needs East-West economic links and reduced tensions for
perestroika to succeed, a new settlement is in the Kremlin's interest as well.
Without a political settlement in Eastern Europe, no stable, enduring

improvement in East-West relations is possible. Postwar history is the story of
continual attempts by the East Europeans to wrest their freedom from Moscow.
The workers' uprising in East Germany in 1953, the popular rebellion in Hungary
in 1956, the Prague Spring in 1968, the Solidarity movement in Poland in 1980,
and the scores of other smaller incidents of open opposition all testify to the
popular determination to be free. All these outbursts had to be suppressed
directly or indirectly by Soviet arms, and all those interventions destroyed the
prospects for an immediate improvement in East-West relations.
That pattern could soon recur. Eastern Europe has become an economic and
political powder keg waiting to blow up. Today, the tectonic plates of East
European nationalism and Soviet expansionism have built up enormous pressure
as they have pushed against each other. We have seen the first tremors in the rise
of East European dissident and reform movements. But a political earthquake is
inevitable in the 1990s. If Moscow responds with military force, it will mean a
return to sharper tensions in East-West relations and an abortion of Gorbachev's
reforms.
If we want to avoid this grim scenario, we must work on three fronts.
First, the West should press for peaceful change in Eastern Europe. We should
continue to exploit modern means of mass communication to break the grip of the
East European regimes over their peoples. Radio Free Europe has been one of our
most effective programs in the East-West struggle. In the 1990s we should
establish direct television transmissions via satellite into these countries. We
should also provide material support to those behind the Iron Curtain who are
pressing for peaceful change, with Western trade union support to the Solidarity
movement in Poland serving as a model.
Second, the West should continue its policy of differentiating between those East
European regimes which demonstrate a willingness to enact reforms that move
their countries toward political pluralism and those which do not. For those
leaders who liberalize their regimes, we should make available economic credits,
more advanced technology and debt rescheduling, while the others should be left
to fend for themselves.
Third, the United States should put Eastern Europe on the U.S.-Soviet agenda. In
Yugoslavia last year, Gorbachev signed a declaration that stated that "no one has
a monopoly on truth" and that foreign powers had no "claim on imposing their
notions of social development on anyone." We should insist that Kremlin leaders
back up their words with deeds. We could even propose the neutralization of
Eastern Europe along the lines of the Austrian Peace Treaty of 1955, with an
interim agreement that leaves the military structure of the Warsaw Pact intact but
that would allow the East European peoples to choose their own forms of
government through genuine elections.
Eastern Europe is the natural field for political initiatives by Western Europe. Our
allies' historical fatigue stems in part from the fact that for forty years their role
has been defined by a negative mission-stopping further Soviet expansion. It can
be cured by devoting energy to the positive mission of promoting peaceful change
beyond the Iron Curtain. Holding the line against the Red Army has principally
involved sacrifice and risk, but supporting the development of pluralism under the
nose of the Red Army requires ingenuity and inspiration. It is a task that will not
only enhance Western Europe's security but also help to restore its sense of
purpose.
VI
Arms control should be treated as only one part of Western defense policy and not
vice versa. Arms negotiations are a political imperative, indispensable in holding
the NATO alliance together and for winning support in Congress for adequate
defense budgets. For too long, however, many Western leaders have endorsed
arms control as an end in itself, regardless of the impact that particular
agreements would have on our strategic position. Moscow, on the other hand, has
traditionally sought to use arms control to achieve political and strategic ends-to
lull the West into a false sense of security, to limit developments in American
weapons technology, and to preserve or increase Soviet advantages in weapons
deployments. It is time for the United States to borrow a page from the Kremlin's
negotiating handbook.
Since Soviet superiority in conventional arms represents the greatest threat to

Western security, cuts in those forces should be the top priority of Western arms
control strategy. Moscow's main goal is to reduce the numbers of strategic
nuclear weapons and to stifle the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) while
preserving its advantage on the conventional level, because that would maximize
the political importance of its conventional superiority. Therefore, it is imperative
that the United States link progress in the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks
(START) to progress in conventional arms control negotiations.
Western conventional arms control proposals should focus geographically on the

European central front, the most militarily congested territory in the world, and
should seek to reduce those weapons that are most useful for offensive warfare.
These should include at a minimum reductions in tanks and self-propelled artillery
even beyond those proposed by Gorbachev at the United Nations. The weapons
must be destroyed rather than pulled back into the Soviet Union; otherwise
Moscow could redeploy them in a matter of days. In addition, military bases and
supply depots should be relocated away from the front in order to make surprise
attacks more difficult. NATO governments must insist in arms control talks that
Gorbachev fulfill his pledge to accept "asymmetrical reductions" on the
conventional level.
Gorbachev's rhetoric about reconfiguring Warsaw Pact forces to fit a "defensive"

doctrine has been all talk and no action. His pledge in his recent U.N. speech to
demobilize 500,000 troops and retire 10,000 tanks represents a significant
symbolic gesture. But we must not pretend that it solves the security problem
posed by the Warsaw Pact's tank armada (currently about 53,000).1 Thus, if the
5,000 tanks withdrawn from East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Hungary are not
destroyed but simply parked on the Soviet side of the border, they can be
redeployed rapidly. Even if the tanks were destroyed, the Warsaw Pact's tank
advantage would drop only slightly.
In addition to linking the strategic and conventional arms control talks, the new
administration should redirect the U.S. approach to the START negotiations.
Our problem on the strategic level, which began in the mid-1970s and threatens
to become much worse in the 1990s, is the growing vulnerability of our land-
based missiles and command-and-control systems to a first-strike attack by the
most accurate and powerful Soviet missiles. The Reagan Administration's effort to
cut strategic forces by 50 percent focused too much on simply reducing the total
number of strategic weapons instead of reducing the vulnerability of U.S.
strategic forces and thereby enhancing strategic stability. The real test is not
whether the treaty reduces the number of nuclear weapons but whether it
reduces the likelihood of nuclear war. We must ultimately judge the value of any
START agreement by whether it increases the security of our strategic forces and
decreases the incentives for either side to resort to nuclear weapons in a crisis.
That is where the current START formula falls short. Under its terms, both sides
would reduce their arsenals to 1,600 launchers including heavy bombers, ICBMs
and submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and to 6,000 warheads, of which only
4,900 would be permitted on ballistic missiles. While such radical reductions
might be politically appealing, close scrutiny shows that they actually increase the
vulnerability of U.S. forces. Moscow would retain a land-based ICBM force
composed almost entirely of the newer SS-18, SS-24 and SS-25 missile launchers,
all of which are first-strike weapons. At the same time, the cuts would reduce the
number of targets inside the United States that would have to be destroyed for a
first strike to succeed. Assuming that after reductions the United States would
choose to retain its most accurate and modern weapons, the ratio of Soviet first-
strike warheads to U.S. first-strike targets would grow drastically worse. In
addition, the prospective reductions would restrict the deployment of our most
capable and survivable force, the fleet of Trident II submarines, to no more than
17 boats. As a result, this force could well become vulnerable, for some number
will always be in port or off-line, and the remainder, reduced to, say, ten boats,
will be tracked by Moscow's fleet of 270 attack submarines.2
Some argue that these issues do not matter, because under the proposed START
agreement we would be allowed to reconfigure our strategic forces to account for
the new ceilings. They contend that we could build a new fleet of smaller
submarines that would carry fewer missiles and a new generation of land-based
missiles that would carry fewer warheads. This argument is flawed for two
reasons. First, the START force reductions are to be carried out over seven years,
while any programs to develop and deploy entire new strategic systems would
take a decade or more. Second, it is totally unrealistic to think that Congress,
which expects arms control to produce cuts in the defense budget, would vote to
increase military spending by the tens of billions of dollars necessary to overhaul
completely our strategic force posture.
Instead of seeking an arbitrary 50-percent reduction, the Bush Administration

should consider adopting a two-part proposal, with the first level designed to meet
minimum U.S. requirements and to produce a quick interim agreement and the
second level directed to major reductions in first-strike weapons. In formulating
our proposal for the first stage, we should calculate what kind of strategic force
posture our security requires and propose launcher and warhead ceilings that
could involve some reductions from present levels but would not impede the
necessary U.S. weapons programs, particularly the mobile Midgetman missile. In
addition, since the United States observed and the Soviet Union ignored the
modernization restrictions of the treaties negotiated in the Strategic Arms
Limitation Talks, this initial agreement would permit unrestricted modernization.
After the completion of the interim agreement, the two sides would focus on the
far more difficult objective of increasing strategic stability by reducing the
number of warheads on both sides capable of destroying hardened military
targets in a first strike. Both superpowers would be allowed to retain an equal
number of counterforce warheads. But the level of these most threatening
weapons would be scaled back dramatically-far more than by the current START
proposal. This should involve a 75-percent cut from the present level of such
Soviet weapons and should also require reductions in planned deployments of
comparable U.S. weapons, such as the MX, the Midgetman and the Trident II D-5
missiles.
This second agreement would also address the issue of strategic defense. As long
as the Soviet Union possesses its formidable arsenal of first-strike weapons, the
United States must press forward with SDI. Our position should be that research,
development, testing and deployment of defensive systems is not negotiable. Only
the extent of our deployments should be subject to limitation through mutual
agreement, and those deployments should be calibrated to the extent of the Soviet
counterforce threat.
A two-stage approach along these lines offers the best prospects for successful
nuclear arms control. It would enable Presidents Bush and Gorbachev to conclude
quickly an interim agreement capping the number of launchers and warheads,
though unlike the current START formula the accord would not inhibit U.S.
weapons programs needed to redress the asymmetry in strategic vulnerability and
the imbalance in counterforce weapons. It would also create a stable foundation
for a treaty to enhance strategic security by reducing the number of counterforce
systems to levels that make a successful first-strike attack on the other side's
strategic forces militarily in-feasible.
VII
The two regional conflicts requiring immediate presidential action, Afghanistan

and Central America, represent opposite poles in American policy. Our program
to aid the Afghan resistance has received bipartisan support, has operated
continuously for almost a decade and verges on ultimate success. Our assistance
to the Nicaraguan freedom fighters has been subjected to partisan bickering, has
been at best episodic and has failed so far. In distant Afghanistan, we learned that
a sustained, bipartisan program of large-scale assistance to anticommunist
freedom fighters can produce major geopolitical gains. We should apply the same
lesson to the nearby and strategically critical conflict in Central America.
In Afghanistan, as Moscow's tanks retreat, one round of the great game closes-but
yet another begins. Our goal has been twofold, to force the Soviet Union to
withdraw and to restore the Afghan people's right to self-determination. Achieving
the former does not automatically accomplish the latter. First of all, the
communist regime in Kabul must be replaced. The best solution would be the
removal of the Soviet puppet regime through the direct talks now taking place
between Moscow and the resistance leadership. But should those talks stall or fail
we must continue to provide whatever kinds of weapons the resistance requires to
topple the Kabul regime. Since the character of the fighting has changed from
guerrilla warfare to battles for taking and holding cities, the United States must
upgrade its assistance quantitatively and qualitatively, particularly in terms of
antiaircraft missiles, long-range mortars, and mine-clearing devices and
equipment.
It does not serve American, or Afghan, interests for the United States to
disengage before a political process is in place that will establish real self-
determination for the Afghan people themselves. If the country collapses into a
civil war with dozens of tribal warlords ruling their separate fiefdoms, the Kremlin
will seize this as a lever to regain a measure of influence by supporting one or
another group in the fighting or by declaring the need to keep forces in a
"security zone" in northern Afghanistan. Therefore, at a time when our weapons
pipeline still gives us influence, we need to address directly the critical issue of
establishing, through the traditional Afghan means of a tribal assembly and
through elections, a post-communist government that truly represents the people.
Central America poses far more difficult and, from the U.S. point of view, far more
critical problems. Our interests are not threatened by Nicaragua simply because
its government systematically violates human rights and spouts anti-American
rhetoric. A dictatorship, even a totalitarian one, does not threaten our interests
per se. Rather, the Sandinista regime threatens our interests only because
Managua has forged links with the Soviet Union and has become a base for
indirect Soviet subversion of other Central American states such as El Salvador.
The problem is not that the Nicaraguan government is communist but that the
communist government of Nicaragua is inherently expansionist. As the
Sandinistas freely admit, and even boast, they seek "a revolution without
frontiers" in Central America and insist on the right to aid communist guerrillas in
neighboring countries.
At the first opportunity, the Bush Administration must impose linkage between
the issue of Soviet access to U.S. capital, credits and technology and that of Soviet
military assistance to Managua. Gorbachev must be made to understand that
Nicaragua is a neuralgic issue for us. While academics might debate whether the
Monroe Doctrine has become obsolete, the United States cannot allow the Soviet
Union or any other foreign power to provide arms to a virulently anti-American
and aggressive regime in the western hemisphere. Given the Soviet economy's
pathetic condition, our economic power represents tremendous leverage. If we
link these issues, we should be able to profit politically, as well as economically,
from our economic relationship with the Soviet Union.
At the same time, we must recognize that the Sandinista leaders have made a
mockery of the Arias peace plan, despite the cutoff of U.S. assistance to the
contras. Managua permits fewer civil liberties and holds more political prisoners
today than it did when the so-called process of democratization began. In its
direct talks with the contras, it has in effect demanded surrender, rather than
opening the way to a political compromise. Moreover, the Nicaraguan-backed
communist guerrillas in El Salvador have dramatically stepped up their terrorist
and military attacks.
The Bush Administration must determine, once and for all, the viability of the
Arias peace plan. If the Sandinista-contra talks cannot achieve their objective,
they should be ended. Since endless negotiations work to the advantage of the
Sandinistas, the United States should undertake a final, 90-day effort to breathe
life into the peace process. If that fails to produce a concrete, workable plan for
genuine democracy in Nicaragua, the president should request from Congress a
major military and humanitarian aid package for the contras. Coupled with the
effort to cut off Soviet aid to Managua through superpower talks, this policy
would represent a pincer movement against the Sandinistas, with Moscow putting
the squeeze on one end and the contras on the other.
The United States today faces a clear choice: Do we oppose communist subversion
in a series of protracted wars throughout Central America or at its source in
Nicaragua? Managua's leaders are avowedly committed to supporting anti-U.S.
insurgencies throughout the region. If Nicaragua becomes a safe haven and an
arms conduit for communist guerrillas, we will be doomed to decades of facing
the messy problems of advising our friends in counterinsurgency warfare.
VIII
Revitalizing the Western alliance, redirecting the arms control process, and
resolving the critical regional conflicts in Afghanistan and Nicaragua should
represent America's immediate foreign policy priorities. Gorbachev's admission of
Soviet economic failure and his need for a breathing spell in the East-West
competition so perestroika can take root creates an excellent opportunity for the
United States not only to enhance the West's security but also to promote a more
stable peace through a determined strategy.
This is not to say that Moscow's economic failures will make Gorbachev a
pushover. His toughness and intelligence will more than compensate for his
country's economic weakness, and his consummate ability in diplomacy and
political maneuver will guarantee that he seldom winds up with the short end of a
deal. If Western leaders want to avoid being taken to the cleaners, they must
understand what Gorbachev wants and how the West should respond.
On his first priority, strengthening the Soviet Union's economy, he will seek free
access to Western capital and technology. The United States, Western Europe and
Japan must coordinate their policies so that the West exploits its economic power
for political effect. We should go forward with unsubsidized trade in nonstrategic
goods on a cash-and-carry basis. But until the Soviet Union overhauls its domestic
economic system and discontinues its aggressive policies, it is not in our interest
to bankroll reforms that will either squander our loans or bolster our adversary.
On his second priority, ending the Soviet Union's international isolation,

Gorbachev will seek to separate the United States from Europe, particularly
Germany, and to open a new relationship with China. We must undertake a new
effort to reinvigorate the Western alliance and to infuse Western Europe with the
positive purpose of fostering peaceful change in Eastern Europe. If Gorbachev
satisfies China's "three obstacles," we should welcome a normalization of Sino-
Soviet relations. We can be confident that, since China's top priority remains
economic development, our relations with Beijing will continue to be closer than
the Kremlin's.
On his third priority, arms control, he will seek new agreements that will reduce
strategic weapons stockpiles but preserve the present Soviet advantage in
counterforce capability. In order to reduce the main threat to the West-Moscow's
conventional superiority-we must link progress in START to progress on
conventional arms control. We must also recast our strategic arms negotiating
positions so that a START treaty will enable us to restore the counterforce
balance and eventually to enhance strategic stability.
On his fourth priority, prevailing in Third World conflicts, he will seek agreements
that appear to settle the conflicts but that actually keep his client regimes in
power. We possess the leverage necessary for the freedom fighters in
Afghanistan, Nicaragua and Angola to prevail. We must never sign an agreement
with the Soviet Union that undercuts, militarily or politically, those relying on our
support, and we must exploit linkage to promote the retraction of the Soviet
empire.
In the short run, we can sympathize with the thrust behind many of Gorbachev's
aspirations. We both want to reduce military competition and the danger of
nuclear war. We certainly should applaud those of Gorbachev's reforms that
reduce, even marginally, the repression and poverty which plague the people of
the Soviet Union. At the same time, we must keep in mind that in the long run the
goals of the two sides diverge diametrically. Gorbachev wants reform because he
wants a stronger Soviet Union and an expanding Soviet empire. We should
support those reforms in the hope of making the Soviet Union less repressive at
home and less aggressive abroad.
As the outpouring of sympathy and support for the victims of the Armenian
earthquake so vividly demonstrated, there is a great well of friendship for the
Russian people in the United States. The people of the United States and the
people of the Soviet Union can be friends. Because of our profound differences,
the governments of our two nations cannot be friends-but we cannot afford to be
enemies. Gorbachev's historic challenge is to implement reforms that will remove
those differences.
1 The Military Balance 1988-1989, London: The International Institute for

Strategic Studies, 1988, p. 237.
February 1,1989
The 1988 Election
Norman J. Ornstein and Mark Schmitt
Inauguration of George H. W. Bush, 1989.
In 1988 a Republican won the presidency for the fifth time in the last six tries, and
for the seventh time in the last ten. In the past six presidential elections-over a
quarter-century-Democrats have averaged approximately 43 percent of the
national popular presidential vote. Over the past forty years Democrats have
managed to exceed 50.1 percent of the popular vote only once, in 1964, in the
wake of the Kennedy assassination.
The American public is sending a message with its voting behavior. Is it a

profound message about what Americans want in their government at home and
how they want America represented and projected abroad? Or are they separate
messages for individual elections, unique reactions to specific circumstances that
happen to mesh into a pattern of Republican hegemony? The answer is not at all
clear, but which answer is correct matters less than which answer prevails in the
interpretation of the 1988 vote.
The approach that each political party takes toward governing during the new
administration comes down to whether the 1988 election is viewed as a seminal
event involving a significant choice between two well-matched opponents, or a
predictable and narrow victory for continuity over change. The more significance
each party assigns to the outcome of the election, the more aggressive that party
will be in the branch of government it controls.
Even before the results were in, the media seemed to decide the election was not
important: "issueless," "personal," "trivial," "negative" were the usual expressions
of disgust. There was a good deal of overstatement here, and it will take some
time before we can fully understand the significance of 1988. In this essay we will
try to put the election into context, examining the issues discussed and ignored,
using the election to frame an analysis of the policy battles, options and outcomes
ahead.
II
The analysis of American elections has become a cottage industry. Politicians,

psephologists, pundits and press vie with one another first to predict election
results and then to interpret them. One large school of analysis, bolstered by
sophisticated mathematical models, believes that two simple factors can predict
election outcomes: the state of the economy (measured by changes in real income
levels) and presidential popularity. This school believed months before the
campaign began-and without regard to what might happen through the fall-that
George Bush would win by a very comfortable margin because of the economy
and Ronald Reagan's public standing.
Another school of analysis believes that Democrats are losing presidential

elections not because the results are predetermined by circumstances, but
because the party is losing the battle of messages; the Democratic nominating
process pulls candidates too far left of center, and they end up outside the
acceptable range for a majority of voters. This school would accept George Bush's
characterization of the campaign as a battle of values, which he won because of
voter skepticism about the role of the government, fear of crime, belief in a strong
defense and the need to project a strong American role in the world.
Yet a third school believes that Democrats lose presidential elections because
they nominate amateurish candidates who run inept campaigns. For them, the
ultimate irony in 1988 came when Michael Dukakis proclaimed the election to be
not about ideology but about competence-and then ran an incompetent campaign.
To these analysts, the Democratic Party has lost control of its nominating process
and has appeared unable to get its act together-from Chicago in 1968, right up to
Dukakis and his struggle with Jesse Jackson in 1988. They argue that the
Democratic message would work, in other words, if the party could nominate
somebody who could run an effective campaign and articulate that message.
There is truth in each explanation. Every American election is to some degree a

referendum on current conditions. The innate American desire for change
conflicts with the cautious yearning for continuity; the current status of peace
and/or prosperity usually tips the balance one way or the other. With the economy
recovering and the world at peace, voters in 1984 clearly preferred continuity,
giving challenger Walter Mondale no realistic hope of unseating Ronald Reagan.
In 1980, by contrast, the deteriorating U.S. economy and concern over the
hostages in Iran combined to provide a strong desire for change; as soon as
Reagan, as Republican challenger, showed the American public that he was above
the threshold of acceptability to be president, his victory over incumbent Jimmy
Carter was assured.
This analytical model obviously holds better when an incumbent president is

running for reelection, and the referendum on performance in office is clear-cut.
When no incumbent is running, as in 1960 and 1968, simple indicators of
economic performance and presidential approval do not work as directly, and the
results are not so predictable. Eisenhower's popularity did not extend to Vice
President Richard Nixon in 1960, and Vice President Hubert Humphrey was not
buoyed by the healthy economy in 1968. Still, almost inevitably, the candidate of
the incumbent party runs as a candidate of continuity. Vice President Bush was
more successful than most of his predecessors in linking his fortunes to the
outgoing president's popularity and to the strength of the economy.
In July 1988, when Michael Dukakis enjoyed a double-digit lead over George
Bush, nearly three-fifths of Americans polled expressed the belief that America
was heading in "the wrong direction." By September of 1988, when only 45
percent of Americans held that view, it was Bush who held a double-digit lead.
(Over the same period, incidentally, Ronald Reagan's approval gained ten
percentage points.) As one journalist noted, "the amount of peace and prosperity
was the same in July as in October," but in fact public confidence in the prospects
for continued peace and prosperity had dramatically improved, making the task of
the candidate of change, Governor Dukakis, ever more daunting.
Daunting, but not impossible. Americans, after all, were divided right down the
middle about the prospects for the country's future, and similarly split over the
leadership qualities of Vice President Bush. Yet many voters who harbored
misgivings about Bush ended up voting for him. Why? Values did make a
difference. When Dukakis held the lead, Bush was notably lacking support among
groups generically referred to as "Reagan Democrats" and "Reagan
Independents." In a major post-election Gallup poll for Times Mirror, these
groups-notably, "New Dealers" (older and more anticommunist and socially
conservative Democrats) and "Disaffecteds" (middle-aged, unhappy and cynical
independents)-had moved perceptibly to Bush, and in numbers nearly comparable
to their support for Reagan. These voters were brought into the Republican
presidential fold for the third consecutive time by perceptions that Dukakis would
be weak on defense and crime and would be on the wrong side of social issues
such as capital punishment, prayer in the schools and abortion.
On such values as anticommunism, religion and American exceptionalism, the

Democratic Party at the national level may well be out of phase with mainstream
America. But on other values-e.g., social justice, tolerance toward the life styles of
others and its approach to business-the Republican Party is just as likely to be out
of step with the majority of voters. It was the hallmark of a competent Republican
campaign that the values and issues that dominated in the fall were the ones
where Democrats were vulnerable. The relentlessly negative and personal nature
of the Bush campaign spotlighted the less popular values attributed to the
Democrats and thereby kept the Democrats on the defensive, unable to shift the
focus to Bush and the Republicans or exploit the G.O.P.'s vulnerabilities.
What was true of values was also true of certain issues. Consider defense. When
asked which party can best maintain a strong defense, or deal with the Soviet
Union, voters by a healthy margin picked the Republican Party. When asked
which party can best keep the defense budget under control, voters by an equally
wide margin chose the Democrats. When tensions between the United States and
the Soviet Union are high, issues of strength tend to predominate and thereby
provide an advantage to the G.O.P. But in 1988 Bush was faced with the ironic
likelihood of being the victim of Reagan's success; Mikhail Gorbachev's glasnost
and the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty made the issue of a
strong defense less salient and the bloated defense budget more so.
But with clever commercials and tough campaigning, Bush managed to shift the
debate back to strength versus weakness, defining the issue much as it had been
defined by Reagan in 1980. Bush managed to make Dukakis' perceived weakness
on defense a major campaign issue, costing Dukakis votes and putting him on the
defensive, forcing him to insist he was not weak on defense.
Dukakis' notorious ride in a tank was a direct response; it was so contrived that
the film footage was used by the Bush campaign in one of its most pointed
commercials. Moreover, while trying to prove his military toughness, Dukakis was
unable to exploit the public's unease about defense procurement scandals or
defense waste to drive votes from the Republican column into his own.
Since the 1950s polls have shown that the Republicans have an advantage on the
question of which party is better able to maintain a strong defense; the Democrats
have prevailed on the issue of which party would keep the nation out of war.
During the Reagan years, the G.O.P. maintained its advantage on the first
question and reversed the public view of the parties on the second, leaving the
Democrats behind in public opinion in both traditional dimensions of foreign
policy. But, as we have noted, neither of these issues was quite as salient in 1988
as in the past. Nontraditional dimensions of foreign policy began to emerge,
dimensions in which the Democrats hold a solid advantage in public opinion.
Defense waste, though a narrow issue, is one; economic nationalism, a much more
far-reaching dimension, is another.
The early success of Missouri Congressman Richard Gephardt in the Democratic

primaries was not simply a reflection of narrow protectionism among a small
sliver of activist voters. Gephardt tapped into a considerable and deep unease
among Americans about foreign competition-both the sense that we no longer
control our own economic destiny, and the belief that we are being damaged by
countries taking advantage of our commitment to free trade, playing by a
different set of economic rules. In June 1988 an "Americans Talk Security" poll
asked voters whether they considered "military rivals such as the Soviet Union or
economic rivals such as Japan" to be greater threats to American security. Fifty-
nine percent said the economic rivals posed the greater threat.
In a country overwhelmingly averse to new taxes, Times Mirror found 71 percent

of Americans favoring tax increases to protect American jobs from foreign
competition. Senator Bentsen made foreign competition the centerpiece of his
campaign for the vice presidency and the focal point of his successful TV debate
with his opponent, Senator Quayle. But Governor Dukakis was unable or unwilling
to focus on this issue until the final weeks of the campaign, and even then he did
so ineptly (he launched an attack on foreign ownership of U.S. industries at an
automotive plant that no one had told him was owned by Italians).
On these matters, as well as on the drug issue, which became linked to foreign
policy and the campaign through Panamanian General Manuel Antonio Noriega,
the Republican Party and Bush were vulnerable, but the Democrats never
exploited these vulnerabilities. The election became a referendum on the failed
policies of the governor of Massachusetts, especially in his first term more than a
decade ago, rather than on the performance of the incumbent administration or
the leadership or judgment of the G.O.P. nominee.
It thus becomes difficult to separate the Democrats' vulnerability on values and
issues from the competence of their presidential campaign. There is little doubt,
on balance, that the Republicans and their candidate maximized their advantages
and seized the initiative in the campaign, and that the Democrats, while facing the
difficult task of persuading a complacent and satisfied electorate to take a plunge
for change, forfeited a real opportunity for victory.
There is enough uncertainty and disagreement about the cause of the election
outcome, though, to dissuade either party from full-scale, aggressive assaults on
the other; each will be off-balance and unsure enough about its standing with
voters, given both the 1988 outcome and the prospects for 1990, to proceed with
caution despite calls for combat from activists. But each party will also be eager
to claim policy leadership in 1989, to demonstrate that its people and principles,
and the branch of government that each party controls, are leading the way while
the other side founders.
The campaign itself did not provide the cutting issues that would have defined the
competition for control of the agenda in 1989. Instead, the issues that dominated
the campaign will scarcely be visible in the policy arena; other issues, downplayed
in the campaign or emerging since the election, will be much more significant in
the year to come.
III
Whatever the causes of the election outcome, the hallmark of the presidential
campaign was its intensely personal character. American voters expressed dismay
at the harsh nature of the campaign; many saw it as the most negative in memory.
The issues that dominated public attention were the Pledge of Allegiance and
prison furloughs for violent criminals; while these themes did indeed tap into
significant underlying values, they were not the issues that commentators would
expect to be the centerpiece of a presidential campaign.
The 1988 American campaign stood in dramatic contrast to two other national
election campaigns conducted at approximately the same time in other countries.
In Israel an overriding question-participation in an international peace
conference-divided the two main political parties and served as the campaign's
centerpiece. In Canada the election turned on the free trade agreement with the
United States; surrounded by intense debates about nationhood and national
identity, the parties divided so starkly on the bilateral free trade agreement that
the election was a clear referendum on this one point.
There was nothing even remotely comparable in the United States. No crucial
issues cut along party lines. The starkest differences between Democrats and
Republicans, Dukakis and Bush, were on two issues barely discussed, aid to the
Nicaraguan contras and the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). These were hardly
at the level of a peace conference for Israelis, or a free trade pact for Canada, and
they did not divide the parties nearly as sharply. Israel's Labor Party favored an
international peace conference, while Likud was just as implacably opposed. In
Canada the ruling Progressive Conservatives vigorously and totally defended the
free trade agreement, while the Liberals and New Democrats completely opposed
it. Compare those issues with aid to the contras: the Democrats opposed military
aid but hedged their bets, supporting some humanitarian aid and the Arias peace
plan; as for SDI, the Republican candidate hedged about rapid deployment and
the Democrat criticized the concept, but supported continuing research.
The absence of deep partisan divisions on global controversies need not make for
an "issueless" election, and a campaign that is not dominated by "big" issues can
still shape the policy climate, decisions and outcomes for the next four years.
Many of the real issues in the campaign were masked by the negative overtones
and by the overall consensus on goals, if not means; indeed, in several respects,
the 1988 election was not about what our government should do, but how it
should do it. No candidate suggested ignoring the budget deficit, or resolving the
deficit problem with a substantial increase in taxes. Both candidates pledged to
extend government modestly to address the demand for health care,
environmental protection, improved education, affordable housing and alleviating
the drug problem. Neither candidate suggested abandoning the course of
rapprochement with the Soviet Union; the question was how rapidly and
extensively to proceed.
There were differences between the candidates, to be sure, on American-Soviet

relationships-differences that were in fact debated in an enlightening fashion.
Dukakis argued the view that changes in Soviet policy came about primarily
because of the country's own economic problems; Bush contended that the
Reagan Administration's arms buildup, and particularly the deployment of
Pershing missiles in Europe, precipitated the most significant arms agreement in
history. These differences reflected distinct policy choices; President Bush will be
far more insistent than Dukakis would have been about continuing to fund nuclear
weapons systems, and continuing to keep pressure on the Soviets by expanding
American defenses, including SDI. But either candidate would have vigorously
pursued further arms agreements with the Soviets, further cultural and economic
ties, and an expanding dialogue and relationship with Mikhail Gorbachev.
The candidates also expressed very different approaches to the broader question
of America's role in the world. By referring frequently to Grenada, Libya and the
Persian Gulf, Bush suggested that his approach would resemble Reagan's-an
assertive projection of America, the superpower, to protect its interests and the
interests of the West wherever necessary, and sometimes by the use of force. By
referring just as reflexively to the Contadora process, the Arias peace plan and
the World Court, Dukakis expressed a preference for a muted American role, one
predicated on prior agreement with our allies and partners in multilateral
institutions and one governed by acute sensitivity to international law.
Sometimes the candidates did discuss these divergent approaches in their debates
and speeches. But it would be a gross overstatement to suggest that the foreign
policy differences between the candidates were a decisive aspect of the contest.
George Bush's campaign managers fought vigorously to prevent one of the two
debates from being completely dedicated to foreign issues, hoping to ensure that
Michael Dukakis did not appear to be Bush's equal in command of international
questions. For his part, Dukakis delivered very few speeches on foreign or
national security policy, and he declined to offer a critique of American actions in
Grenada, Libya and the Persian Gulf that might have shown how his foreign policy
would differ from that of Reagan or Bush. Underlying this was Dukakis' apparent
impatience with details in foreign policy; at a briefing on arms control, he
reportedly insisted simply that we had too many nuclear weapons and showed
little interest in the arcane specifics of how and where that number might safely
be reduced.
Both candidates deliberately avoided underscoring their foreign policy differences

in the general election campaign, while both had emphasized these topics far
more in their campaigns for nomination. Why? One reason was the absence of
international conflict or high tension. Under the circumstances, the foreign policy
issues available for discussion were abstract and conditional-not subjects likely to
grip swing voters in a ten-week general election period. For Bush, the broad
theme of peace and prosperity, with an emphasis on prosperity, was more
politically expedient than a detailed exposition of future strategic concerns.
During the party primaries, the tactics were different. Foreign policy issues
helped Bush energize his party's conservative core, the leaders of which were
mostly aligned with other candidates at the beginning. His strong support for SDI,
including an openness to early deployment, and a skepticism that went well
beyond Reagan's about swift movement of further arms control talks with
Gorbachev, were intended to solidify his standing with these voters, who were not
his natural base. If he had continued to stress these issues in the fall, Bush might
have had to moderate his zeal about SDI or tone down his skepticism about
Gorbachev, creating more potential problems with his party's core than gains
among swing voters.
Dukakis similarly emphasized issues such as contra aid and South Africa in his
campaign for the Democratic nomination, harshly and emotionally criticizing the
Reagan Administration policies in order to generate activist support in Iowa and
other early primary or caucus states. In the fall, though, Dukakis did not find
these or other foreign policy issues to be particularly fruitful ground.
In the broadest sense, it was difficult for the candidate of change to argue for
change when the public was satisfied with peace, the INF treaty and basic
international stability. More specifically, most of the active opponents of contra
aid were solidly in the Democratic corner; little new support could be mined by
continuing to stress this issue. An emphasis on Gorbachev and arms control would
have been more likely to underscore the achievements of the Reagan era than to
help Dukakis make the case for change. Finally, a major focus on foreign policy
would have called attention to Dukakis' lack of experience in that realm.
Dukakis had some success with voters where he tried to exploit foreign policy by
focusing not on ideological or strategic differences but on specific instances of
Reagan/Bush failures such as the Iran-contra scandal, Lebanon and Noriega. But
his overall defensiveness in the campaign, forced on him by Bush's ability to
dominate the agenda, made his jabs less potent and less salient to voters than
they might have been if the campaign had been defined in different terms.
IV
While the overt thrust of the Bush campaign was his attack on Dukakis, the
campaign's broader message was, "If you've liked the last eight years, you'll love
the next four." This naturally meant stressing areas of policy success, not
engaging debate on major continuing or festering problems. There was almost no
debate on Nicaragua and aid to the contras-an area Bush directly acknowledged
had resulted in failure-and no serious or detailed discussion of the "twin towers,"
the budget and trade deficits. Bush's deficit reduction plan, playing on his broader
message, contained no warning of problems or pain ahead, but rather was a
combination of his "flexible" budget freeze and the oft-repeated refrain, "Read my
lips: no new taxes." That refrain worked. But it may make a post-election
resolution of the deficit problem much more difficult.
Bush's campaign reinforced the underlying public desire for continuity and
resulted in a vote for the status quo at all levels. Even as Bush won 40 of 50
states, 98.3 percent of incumbents running for reelection to the House of
Representatives won, and voters slightly enlarged the Democratic majorities in
the House and Senate. As in 1984 any talk of a mandate by the newly elected
president was diluted by his party's manifest lack of success in other contests.
Democrats, however, obtained scant comfort from their continuing success in
American politics below the presidential level. Losing the top prize in American
politics again, in an election that nearly all Democratic leaders believed they
could have won-especially after Bush chose Senator Quayle as a running mate-left
them bitter and disillusioned. Their frustrations were aimed first at their own
candidate, but with Governor Dukakis back in Boston, Bush now faces their wrath.
Democrats will have no interest in rescuing President Bush from his own
campaign pledges, or in helping him out of politically embarrassing situations.
With their control of Congress, Democrats have every incentive to advance their
own agenda, and to turn Bush promises, e.g., to be "an environmentalist," to their
own advantage.
Nor will the new president get much help from the Republicans in Congress. The
countercyclical nature of American politics suggests that Republicans will lose
congressional seats in 1990, the next mid-term election-a pattern that has held in
every off-year contest (except 1934) since the Civil War. The initial euphoria of
victory has already subsided for congressional Republicans; they are already
looking to protect their flanks in two years. In the House of Representatives, the
minority party is almost powerless, and 35 consecutive years of minority status
has left the Republicans there deeply frustrated and increasingly bitter about
their treatment at the hands of Democratic House Speaker Jim Wright and his
colleagues. Every time President Bush works directly with the Democratic
leadership in the House, Republicans will complain; but if he ignores that
leadership and works instead with the Republicans, he will likely lose.
Faced with these constraints, Bush will have to adapt his presidency to fit the
results and the conflicting messages of the campaign and election. In his first
hundred days as president, he will need to do what he could not as a candidate-to
establish not a mandate but something like an agenda, some objectives by which
his administration can be evaluated and judged. Presidents who have defined
their administrations by intense achievement in the first hundred days have
generally stayed close to home; the New Deal, Great Society and Reagan
Revolution all involved domestic enterprises. These presidents saved their
international initiatives for subsequent years.
Bush will not have this luxury. A campaign predicated on preserving and
extending current policies, combined with the relentless pressure of the budget
deficit, eliminates any possibility of embarking on sweeping domestic initiatives.
With the savings and loan catastrophe and the massive problems at nuclear
weapons plants looming with hundred-billion-dollar price tags, any new domestic
spending in a Bush Administration is likely to go toward cleaning up a mess, not
promoting anything tangible or politically beneficial.
All presidents gravitate eventually to foreign policy, if only to escape the
frustrations of continuing power struggles with Congress over domestic matters.
But Bush, who would have little room to maneuver domestically even if Congress
did not exist, will likely take an approach to the presidency that we have not seen
in this century. If he is to put a strong mark on the presidency in his first year, he
will have to do so in foreign policy.
President Bush is certainly better prepared than his recent predecessors to tackle
foreign issues from his first days in office. He will be tempted, of course, to make
his mark first in the American-Soviet arena, but he will also look for opportunities
for action in Latin America and the Middle East. Still, it is difficult to see where or
how he might turn to make a move as politically significant as Reagan's
rapprochement with Gorbachev or Carter's Camp David accords.
Indeed, with most of the world's hot spots at least temporarily cooling down, the
most promising area for the new president to launch some foreign policy
initiatives might turn out to be in Washington itself. Conflicts between the
executive and legislative branches over the conduct of foreign policy littered the
Reagan years, and most of them remain unresolved. Part of the problem has been
a continuing, festering lack of trust between the branches. The executive often
ignored the legitimate prerogatives of Congress while challenging congressional
power and purpose. For its part, Congress often went to undesirable extremes to
impose its desires on the executive, distrusting his motives and capacity to carry
out effective policy. If President Bush can clear up these problems early in his
term, he will be able to act with more assurance later.
One focal point of this mutual distrust was the applicability of the War Powers
Act, which became an element of controversy over Lebanon, Grenada, Libya and
the Persian Gulf, among other places. Congress and the White House often found
themselves in pointless and enervating debates about who was obliged to invoke
the War Powers Act and when, devoting too little time and attention to revising
the measure to make it acceptable to both branches. A modest effort on that score
was begun in 1988; a presidential move to expedite that process would be good
politics and good policy.
The Iran-contra arms scandal raised another area of congressional-presidential

tension. Congress viewed the administration's defiance of the Boland
Amendments limiting aid to the contras as a scandalous and illegitimate use of
covert action. The executive viewed congressional micromanaging and meddling
in foreign affairs, and congressional leaks of sensitive covert programs, as
eminent justification for extralegal actions. The Iran-contra hearings did not
resolve the tensions over covert actions, executive notification of Congress or
congressional oversight.
The 101st Congress will start with some suspicion of George Bush in this area,
given his well-known attraction to covert action. An initiative on his part to come
up with an accord between the branches-perhaps a firm pledge on swift
notification, in return for a smaller joint staff for the House and Senate
Intelligence Committees, modeled after the respected Joint Taxation Committee
staff, to cut down on congressional leaks and overactivism in the intelligence
area-would be a major advance in inter-branch relations.
A third positive step would be to improve the dialogue between the branches on
foreign policy, leading to a dialogue before decisions, not after-the-fact
notification. A commitment by President Bush to meet regularly with a small,
representative group of congressional leaders for a discussion of foreign policy
would be an attractive olive branch. While no panacea, it would have the
additional potential of building bipartisan and bicameral consensus in many areas,
regional and otherwise, of foreign policy.
The next four years provide a rare opportunity for consensus on domestic as well
as foreign policy issues. Few Democrats support opening the floodgates on federal
domestic spending; most Republicans support modest federal initiatives in
education, health, transportation, environmental cleanup and other domestic
needs. Few Republicans oppose further arms talks with the Soviets; most
Democrats support the concept and letter of the INF treaty and its logical
extension. Countries whose governments once provoked partisan strife in the
United States, such as Argentina and the Philippines, have become models of
American bipartisan cooperation; the same can be said of South Korea and Chile.
Few basic ideological or partisan divisions exist in American politics about
policies toward the Middle East, Europe, the Pacific Rim, most of the western
hemisphere and Africa. Even in trade the differences are more in style than
substance. When it comes to the federal deficit there is a broad agreement that it
matters, and must be reduced; the disagreements, over perhaps $20 or $30 billion
in taxes in a $4.5-trillion economy and a $1.2-trillion federal government, are
trivial.
The potential, then, exists for bipartisan cooperation on domestic and foreign
policy issues. But that potential could go unfulfilled. The areas of agreement may
be masked by partisan bickering, or the few disagreements might be exaggerated
to gain partisan advantage, ultimately resulting in policy failure or gridlock.
There are more players in the game of governing than President Bush and the
Congress. The intelligence, savvy, experience and judgment of Bush's officers and
advisers, and the party leaders in Congress, will make a difference. Each side has
some Washington veterans who are most comfortable cooperating in a bipartisan
environment: James Baker as secretary of state and Brent Scowcroft in his second
stint as national security adviser play this role for Bush; the Senate party leaders,
newcomer George Mitchell (D-Me.) and veteran Robert Dole (R-Kans.), play this
role on the Hill. Other officials are more combative partisans: John Sununu as
chief of staff in the White House, Jim Wright as Speaker of the House. The
balance of power among the conciliators and the partisans is likely to play a
decisive role in how we face the dilemmas of the coming years.
And of course, we must take into account the political environment. The 1988
election was the first in twenty years without an incumbent running for
reelection. In 1992, we are likely to return to the norm: a basic referendum on the
incumbent's performance in office. The political components of that contest will
be set in 1990, with the mid-term elections already preoccupying minds on Capitol
Hill. How skillfully our policy leaders operate within this political context will
determine how successfully we deal with the policy challenges and opportunities
ahead.
Norman J. Ornstein is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and co-director of the Gallup/Times
Mirror survey of the American electorate. Mark Schmitt is a researcher at the American Enterprise Institute.
February 1,1989
Foreign Policy and the American
Character
Ronald Reagan and Vice-President Bush meeting with Gorbachev on Governor's Island, New York City, 7
December 1988.
Foreign policy is the face a nation wears to the world. The minimal motive is the
same for all states—the protection of national integrity and interest. But the
manner in which a state practices foreign policy is greatly affected by national
peculiarities.
The United States is not exempt from these unimpeachable generalities. As Henry
James, an early American specialist in international relations, once put it, "It's a
complex fate, being an American." The American character is indeed filled with
contradiction and paradox. So, in consequence, is American foreign policy. No
paradox is more persistent than the historic tension in the American soul between
an addiction to experiment and a susceptibility to ideology.
On the one hand, Americans are famous for being a practical people, preferring
fact to theory, finding the meaning of propositions in results, regarding trial and
error, not deductive logic, as the path to truth. "In no country in the civilized
world," wrote Tocqueville, "is less attention paid to philosophy than in the United
States." And, when Americans developed a distinctive philosophy, it was of course
the pragmatism of William James. James perceived a pluralist universe where men
can discover partial and limited truths—truths that work for them—but where no
one can gain an absolute grip on ultimate truth. He stood against monism—the
notion that the world can be understood from a single point of view. He stood
against the assumption that all virtuous principles are in the end reconcilable;
against faith in a single body of unified dogma; in short, against the delusions of
ideology.
Yet at the same time that Americans live by experiment, they also show a
recurrent vulnerability to spacious generalities. This is not altogether surprising.
The American colonists, after all, were nurtured on one of the most profound and
exacting ideologies ever devised—the theology of Calvin—and they passed on to
their descendants a certain relish in system and abstraction. The ideas of the
Americans, as Tocqueville found in the 1830s, "are all either extremely minute
and clear or extremely general and vague." The Calvinist cast of mind saw
America as the redeemer nation. It expressed itself in the eighteenth century in
Jonathan Edwards' theology of Providence, in the nineteenth century in John
Calhoun's theology of slavery, in the twentieth century in Woodrow Wilson's vision
of world order and in John Foster Dulles' summons to a holy war against godless
communism. The propensity to ideology explains too why the theory of American
internal society as expounded by some Americans—the theory of America as the
triumph of immaculate and sanctified private enterprise—differs so sharply from
the reality of continual government intervention in economic life.
This tension between experiment and ideology offers one way of looking at the
American experience in world affairs. The Founding Fathers were hard-headed
and clear-sighted men. They believed that states responded to specific national
interests—and were morally obliged to do so, if there were to be regularity and
predictability in international affairs. "No nation," observed George Washington,
"is to be trusted farther than it is bound by its interest." They understood,
moreover, that the preservation of American independence depended on the
maintenance of a balance of power in Europe. "It never could be our interest,"
wrote John Adams, "to unite with France in the destruction of England . . . . On
the other hand, it could never be our duty to unite with Britain in too great a
humiliation of France."
The Jeffersonians, though sentimentally inclined to favor France against Britain,
were equally hard-headed when national interest intervened. "We shall so take
our distance between the two rival nations," wrote Thomas Jefferson in 1802, "as,
remaining disengaged till necessity compels us, we may haul finally to the enemy
of that which shall make it necessary." And in 1814, with Britain waging war
against America as well as France, indeed seven months before the British
captured Washington and burned the White House, Jefferson watched Napoleon's
European victories with concern. "It cannot be to our interest that all Europe
should be reduced to a single monarchy," he wrote. "Were he again advanced to
Moscow, I should again wish him such disaster as would prevent his reaching
Petersburg. And were the consequences even to be the longer continuance of our
war, I would rather meet them than see the whole force of Europe wielded by a
single hand." In these arresting words Jefferson defined the national interest that
explains American intervention in two world wars as well as in the present cold
war.
I do not imply that the Founding Fathers were devoid of any belief in a special
mission for the United States. It was precisely to protect that mission that they
wished to preserve the balance of power in Europe. They hoped that the American
experiment would in time redeem the world. But they did not suppose that the
young republic had attained, in Alexander Hamilton's words, "an exemption from
the imperfections, weaknesses, and evils incident to society in every shape."
Hamilton urged his countrymen instead "to adopt as a practical maxim for the
direction of our political conduct that we, as well as the other inhabitants of the
globe, are yet remote from the happy empire of perfect wisdom and perfect
virtue." If America was to redeem the world, it would do so by perfecting its own
institutions, not by moving into other countries and setting things straight; by
example, not by intervention. "She goes not abroad in search of monsters to
destroy," said John Quincy Adams. If ever she did, "The fundamental maxims of
her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force . . . . She might become
the dictatress of the world. She would no longer be the ruler of her own spirit."
The realism of the revolutionary generation was founded in the harsh

requirements of a struggle for precarious independence. It was founded too in
rather pessimistic conceptions of human nature and history. History taught the
Founding Fathers to see the American republic itself as a risky and doubtful
experiment. And the idea of experiment, by directing attention to the relation
between actions and consequences in specific contexts, implied a historical
approach to public affairs. Yet—another paradox—the role of the Founding
Fathers was to annul history for their descendants. "We have it in our power,"
cried Tom Paine, "to begin the world all over again"—a proposition quoted, by the
way, by President Reagan in his recent address to the evangelicals at Orlando.
Once the Founders had done their work, history could start again on a new
foundation and in American terms.
So the process began of an American withdrawal from secular history—or rather

of an American entry into what Dean Acheson once called "a cocoon of history."
This process was sustained by the fact that the men and women who populated
the new world were in revolt against their own histories. It was sustained, too, by
the simultaneous withdrawal of the American state from the power embroilments
of the old world. The realism of the revolutionary generation faded away in the
century from Waterloo to Sarajevo when the European balance of power was
maintained without American intervention. As the historical consciousness
thinned out, ideology flowed into the vacuum. The very idea of power politics
became repellent. The exemption from the European scramble nourished the
myth of American innocence and the doctrine of American righteousness.
When America rejoined the scramble in 1898, it did so with an exalted conviction
of its destiny as a redeemer nation, and no longer by example alone. The realist
tradition by no means vanished. So William James protested the messianic
delusion: "Angelic impulses and predatory lusts divide our heart exactly as they
divide the heart of other countries." But this was for a season a minority view.
When the United States entered the First World War for traditional balance-of-
power reasons, Woodrow Wilson could not bring himself to admit the national
interest in preventing the whole force of Europe from being wielded by a single
hand. Instead he made himself the prophet of a world beyond power politics
where the bad old balance of power would give way to a radiant new community
of power. And he insisted on the providential appointment of the United States as
"the only idealistic nation in the world," endowed with "the infinite privilege of
fulfilling her destiny and saving the world."
So two strains have competed for the control of American foreign policy: one
empirical, the other dogmatic; one viewing the world in the perspective of history,
the other in the perspective of ideology; one supposing that the United States is
not entirely immune to the imperfections, weaknesses and evils incident to all
societies, the other regarding the United States as indeed the happy empire of
perfect wisdom and perfect virtue, commissioned to save all mankind.
This schematic account does not do justice to the obvious fact that any American
President, in order to command assent for his policies, must appeal to both reality
and ideology—and that, to do this effectively, Presidents must combine the two
strains not only in their speeches but in their souls. Franklin Roosevelt, the
disciple at once of Admiral Mahan and of President Wilson, was supreme in
marrying national interest to idealistic hope, though in the crunch interest always
came first. Most postwar Presidents—Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, even
Nixon—shared a recognition, alert or grudging, of the priority of power politics
over ideology.
The competition between realism and ideology was complicated, however, by two
developments: by the fact that the United States in the twentieth century became
a great power; and by the fact that the balance of power in the twentieth century
faced the gravest possible threats. There was in 1940 a very real monster to
destroy and after 1945 another very real monster to contain. These threats
demanded U. S. intervention abroad and brought the tradition of isolationism to a
permanent end. But the growth of American power also confirmed the messianism
of those who believed in America's divine appointment. And the fact that there
were a couple of real monsters roaming the world encouraged a fearful tendency
to look everywhere for new monsters to destroy.
II
The present Administration represents a mighty comeback of the messianic

approach to foreign policy. "I have always believed," President Reagan said last
November, "that this anointed land was set apart in an uncommon way, that a
divine plan placed this great continent here between the oceans to be found by
people from every corner of the earth who had a special love of faith and
freedom." The Reagan Administration sees the world through the prism not of
history but of ideology. The convictions that presently guide American foreign
policy are twofold: that the United States is infinitely virtuous and that the Soviet
Union is infinitely wicked.
The Soviet Union, Mr. Reagan has proclaimed, is an "evil empire," "the focus of
evil in the modern world." Everything follows by deductive logic from this
premise. The world struggle is "between right and wrong and good and evil."
When there is evil loose in the world, "we are enjoined by scripture and the Lord
Jesus to oppose it with all our might." Negotiation with evil is futile if not
dangerous. The Soviet Union is forever deceitful and treacherous. The Soviet
leaders erect lying and cheating into a philosophy and are personally responsible
for the world's manifold ills. "Let us not delude ourselves," Mr. Reagan has said.
"The Soviet Union underlies all the unrest that is going on. If they weren't
engaged in this game of dominos, there wouldn't be any hot spots in the world."
Not content with the orchestration of crisis in the Third World, the Soviet Union,
once it acquires a certain margin of numerical superiority in warheads, can well
be expected to launch a surprise nuclear attack on American targets. Safety lies
only in the establishment of unequivocal military dominance by the United States,
including a first-strike capability. If this means a nuclear arms race, that is
Moscow's fault, not Washington's, because America's heart is pure. In any event
nuclear weapons are usable and nuclear wars are winnable. We shall prevail.
The seizure of foreign policy by a boarding—party of ideologues invites a host of

dangers. Most of all you tend to get things wrong. Where the empirical approach
sees the present as emerging from the past and preparing for the future, ideology
is counter-historical. Its besetting sin is to substitute models for reality. No doubt
the construction of models—logically reticulated, general principles leading
inexorably to particular outcomes—is an exercise that may help in the delineation
of problems—but not when artificial constructs are mistaken for descriptions of
the real world. This is what Alfred North Whitehead called "the fallacy of
misplaced concreteness," and it explains why ideology infallibly gets statesmen
into trouble, later if not sooner. The error of ideology is to prefer essence to
existence, and the result, however gratifying logically and psychologically,
undermines the reality principle itself.
Ideology withdraws problems from the turbulent stream of change and treats
them in splendid abstraction from the whirl and contingency of life. So ideology
portrays the Soviet Union as an unalterable monolith, immune to historical
vicissitude and permutation, its behavior determined by immutable logic, the
same yesterday, today and tomorrow; Sunday, Monday and always. We are
forever in 1950, with a crazed Stalin reigning in the Kremlin and commanding an
obedient network of communist parties and agents around the planet. In the light
of ideology, the Soviet Union becomes a fanatic state carrying out with implacable
zeal and cunning a master plan of world dominion.
Perhaps this is all so. But others may see rather a weary, dreary country filled
with cynicism and corruption, beset by insuperable problems at home and abroad,
lurching uncertainly from crisis to crisis. The Soviet leadership, three quarters of
a century after the glorious Bolshevik revolution, cannot provide the people with
elementary items of consumer goods. It cannot rely on the honesty of bureaucrats
or the loyalty of scientists and writers. It confronts difficult ethnic challenges as
the non-Russians in the Soviet Union, so miserably underrepresented in the
organs of power, begin to outnumber the Russians. Every second child born this
year in the Soviet Union will be a Muslim. Abroad, the Soviet Union faces hostile
Chinese on its eastern frontier and restless satellites on the west, while to the
south the great Red Army after three and a half years still cannot defeat ragged
tribesmen fighting bravely in the hills of Afghanistan.
I don't want to overdo the picture of weakness. The Soviet Union remains a
powerful state, with great and cruel capacity to repress consumption and punish
dissent and with an apparent ability to do at least one thing pretty well, which is
to build nuclear missiles. But there is enough to the reality of Soviet troubles to
lead even the ideologues in Washington to conceive Soviet Russia as a nation at
once so robust that it threatens the world and so frail that a couple of small
pushes will shove its ramshackle economy into collapse.
The Soviet Union of course is ideological too, even if its ideology has got a little
shopworn and ritualistic over the long years. It too sees the enemy as unchanging
and unchangeable, a permanently evil empire vitiated through eternity by the
original sin of private property. Each regime, reading its adversary ideologically
rather than historically, deduces act from imputed essence and attributes
purpose, premeditation and plan where less besotted analysts would raise a hand
for improvisation, accident, chance, ignorance, negligence and even sheer
stupidity. We arrive at the predicament excellently described by Henry Kissinger:
"The superpowers often behave like two heavily armed blind men feeling their
way around a room, each believing himself in mortal peril from the other whom he
assumes to have perfect vision . . . . Each tends to ascribe to the other a
consistency, foresight, and coherence that its own experience belies. Of course,
over time, even two blind men can do enormous damage to each other, not to
speak of the room."
By construing every local mess as a test of global will, ideology raises stakes in
situations that cannot be easily controlled and threatens to transmute limited into
unlimited conflicts. Moreover, ideology, if pursued to the end, excludes the
thought of accommodation or coexistence. Mr. Reagan has instructed us that we
must oppose evil "with all our might." How now can we compromise with evil
without losing our immortal soul? Ideology summons the true believer to a jihad, a
crusade of extermination against the infidel.
The Russians are in no position to complain about such language. It has been
more or less their own line since 1917. Reagan is simply paraphrasing
Khrushchev: "We will bury you." Still the holy war has always represented a
rather drastic approach to human affairs. It seems singularly unpromising in the
epoch of nuclear weapons. And the irony is that, while Soviet ideology has grown
tired, cynical and venal, the new American crusade is fresh and militant; and the
Washington ideologues thereby present the Kremlin with an unearned and
undeserved opportunity to appear reasonable and prudent. In particular, the
American dash into ideology promotes a major Soviet objective, the turning away
of Western Europe from the alliance with the United States.
Having suggested the current domination of American foreign policy by ideology,

let me add that this domination is far from complete. Mr. Reagan's world view is
not necessarily shared even by all members of his own Administration. It is
definitely not shared by the Republican leadership in Congress. In general, it has
been more vigorously translated into rhetoric than into policy. The suspicion has
even arisen that Mr. Reagan's more impassioned ideological flights are only, in
Wendell Willkie's old phrase, "campaign oratory," pap for right-wing zealots to
conceal the Administration's covert creep to the center in domestic affairs. And
the prospect of a presidential election next year creates a compelling political
need for the Administration to attend to public opinion—a concern that may be a
force for restraint in Central America and that could conceivably drive the
Administration into arms control negotiations well before November 1984. Still,
Mr. Reagan is not a cynical man, and, whatever the tactical function of his
speeches, they must also in some sense express sincere convictions.
The greater restraint on ideology comes from the nature of foreign policy itself.
The realism of the Founding Fathers sprang from the ineluctable character of
international relations. National interest in the end must set limits on messianic
passions. This fact explains the Administration's tendency to march up the
ideological hill and then march down again, as in the case of the pipeline
embargo. For the United States does not have the power, even if it had the
wisdom, to achieve great objectives in the world by itself. Because this is so, a
responsible foreign policy requires the cooperation of allies, and allies therefore
have it within their power to rein in American messianism.
The pipeline embargo is only one example of the modification of ideology by

interest. Ideology favors a blank check for Menachem Begin in Israel, but interest
argues for the comprehensive approach to a Middle Eastern settlement that
Reagan set forth on September 1, 1982, in the most impressive speech of his
presidency. Ideology calls for the support of Taiwan at the expense of mainland
China. Interest argues against policies tending to unite Chinese and Soviet
communism. Ideology calls for the support of South Africa against black Africa.
Interest argues against a course that leaves black Africa no friends but the Soviet
Union. Ideology calls for the excommunication of socialist regimes. Interest sees
benefits in cheerful relations with France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Greece and
Sweden. Ideology calls for chastisement of the debtor nations in the Third World.
Interest leads to an additional $8.4-billion contribution to the International
Monetary Fund.
III
Yet there remain sectors of policy where ideology still holds sway. One, for the
season at least, is Central America. No one can be too sure over the longer run
because the Administration has marched up and down this particular hill more
than once in the last two years. During the vicariate of General Haig, insurgency
in Central America was deemed a major Soviet challenge demanding a mighty
American response. Then, in the first tranquilizing days of Secretary Schultz, the
impression was allowed to spread that perhaps the troubles had ample local
origins and, despite allegations of extracontinental instigation, might be amenable
to local remedies. Subsequently Secretary Shultz caught the ideological flu, and
by mid-1983 we were back at the global test of will.
Unquestionably the United States is facing tough problems in Central America.

Nor does it meet the problems to observe that they are, in some part, of American
creation. Twenty years ago the Alliance for Progress set out to deal with poverty
and oligarchy in Central America. But the Alliance changed its character after the
death of President Kennedy, and American policy abandoned concern with social
change. When revolution predictably erupted in Central America, ideology
rejected the notion of local origins and decreed that the Russians were back at
their old game of dominos.
Ideology, it should be noted, offers a field day for self-fulfilling prophecies. If you
shape rhetoric and policy to what you regard as a predestined result, chances are
that you will get the result you predestine. Having decided a priori that the
Nicaraguan revolution was a Soviet-Cuban conspiracy, Washington gave the
Sandinistas little alternative but to seek support from the Cubans and Russians.
The French wanted to sell Nicaragua arms and send in a military mission.
Washington, instead of welcoming a democratic presence that would have been
reliably alert to Soviet deviltry, exploded in indignation. When the CIA does its
best to overthrow the government in Managua, we express unseemly shock that
this government dare take measures to defend itself. Maybe it would have
happened anyway, but the ideological policy makes insurgent anti-Americanism
inevitable.
The present Washington disposition is to raise the stakes and to militarize the
remedy. We are trying to provide the government of El Salvador with sufficient
military aid to defeat the insurgency and to provide the insurgency in Nicaragua
with sufficient military aid to defeat the government. If we don't act to stop
Marxism in Central America, the argument runs, dominos will topple, and the
Soviet Union will establish a bridgehead in the center of the Western Hemisphere.
"Our credibility would collapse," Mr. Reagan has said, "our alliances would
crumble, and the safety of our homeland would be in jeopardy." In April 1983 he
denied any "thought of sending American combat troops to Central America." By
June the thought had occurred, and he now cautioned, "Presidents never say
never."
Other views are possible. The historian is bound to note that unilateral military
action by the United States in Latin America is nearly always a mistake. Another
by-product of ideology, along with the self-fulfilling prophecy, is the conviction
that the anointed country, whether the United States these days or the Soviet
Union in all days, understands the interests of other countries better than they
understand their own interests. So in 1967 President Johnson sent Clark Clifford
on an Asian tour, charging him to get the states of the South East Asia Treaty
Organization to increase their contributions to the forces fighting communism in
Vietnam. Clifford was astonished to discover that other Asian countries, though
considerably more exposed to the danger, took it less tragically than the United
States did and saw no need to increase their contributions. When he thereafter
became Secretary of Defense, Clifford did his best to wind down American
participation in the war.
If a Marxist Nicaragua (population 2.7 million) or El Salvador (population 4.5

million) is a threat to the Hemisphere, it is a more dire threat to Mexico, to Costa
Rica, to Panama, to Venezuela, to Colombia than it is to the United States. These
nations are closer to the scene and more knowledgeable about it; they are a good
deal more vulnerable politically, economically and militarily than the United
States; and they are governed by men just as determined as those in Washington
to resist their own overthrow. When Latin American countries don't see the threat
as apocalyptically as we do, only ideology can conclude with divine assurance that
they are wrong and we are right. Are we really so certain that we understand
their world better than they do?
In any event, ideology is a sure formula for hypocrisy, if not for disaster. Mr.
Reagan says righteously that we will not "protect the Nicaraguan government
from the anger of its own people." A fine sentiment-but why does it not apply
equally to the government of El Salvador? Why do we condemn Nicaragua for
postponing elections until 1985 while we condone Chile, which postpones
elections till 1989? Would the Administration display the same solicitude for
elections and rights in Nicaragua if the Somozas were still running things?
Ideology insists on the inflation of local troubles into global crises. National
interest would emphasize the indispensability of working with Latin Americans
who know the territory far better than we do and without whose support we
cannot succeed. Let Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia and Panama—the so-called
Contadora Group—take the lead, and back them to the hilt. Only if all agree on
the nature of the response will intervention do the United States more good than
harm in the Hemisphere. If it is too late for a negotiated settlement and our Latin
friends reject military intervention, then we may have to resign ourselves to
turmoil in Central America for some time to come—turmoil beyond our power to
correct and beyond our wisdom to cure.
IV
Another sector where ideology still controls policy in Washington is, alas, the most
grave and menacing of all—the nuclear arms race. It is in this field that the
substitution of models for reality has the most baneful effect. War games these
days are played by general staffs with such intensity that they come to be taken
not as speculations but as predictions. The higher metaphysics of deterrence, by
concentrating on the most remote contingencies, such as a Soviet first strike
against the United States or a surprise invasion of Western Europe, makes such
improbable events suddenly the governing force in budgetary, weapons and
deployment decisions. History shows the Soviet Union to be generally cautious
about risking direct military encounters with the United States; but ideology
abolishes history. Reality evaporates in the hallucinatory world where strategic
theologians calculate how many warheads can be balanced on the head of a pin.
Little seems to me more dangerous than the current fantasy of controlled and
graduated nuclear war, with generals calibrating nuclear escalation like grand
masters at the chessboard. Let us not be bamboozled by models. Once the nuclear
threshold is breached, the game is over.
I do not dismiss the Soviet Union as a military threat. We have noted that one
thing Russia apparently does well is to build nuclear missiles. But we must keep
things in proportion. Ideology, here as elsewhere, encourages exaggeration.
Moreover, the professional duty of generals is to guarantee the safety of their
countries; and the professional instinct of generals is to demand enough to meet
every conceivable contingency. As old Lord Salisbury once wrote, "If you believe
the doctors, nothing is wholesome; if you believe the theologians, nothing is
innocent; if you believe the soldiers, nothing is safe." Like ideology, defense
budgets need ever more menacing enemies.
In Washington Pentagon officials take masochistic pleasure at regular intervals in

declaring that the Soviet Union is now stronger than the United States. These
recurrent Pentagon panics, ably recalled by Robert H. Johnson in the Spring 1983
issue of this journal, range from the "missile gap," promulgated by the Gaither
Report 25 years ago, to the "window of vulnerability," announced by Secretary of
Defense Weinberger in 1981 and slammed shut by the Scowcroft Commission in
1983. One doubts that defense officials really believe their own lamentations; at
least, I have never heard any of them offering to trade in the American for the
Soviet defense establishment. When asked in Congress recently whether he would
exchange places with his Soviet counterpart, the chairman of the American Joint
Chiefs of Staff replied succinctly, "Not on your life." The ideologues achieve their
dire effects by selective counting—by comparing theater nuclear weapons, for
example, and omitting American superiority in the invulnerable sea-based
deterrent. I would not take the lamentations too seriously, especially around
budget time.
The irony is that the Pentagon and the Soviet Defense Ministry prosper
symbiotically. There is no greater racket in the world today than generals
claiming the other side is ahead in order to get bigger budgets for themselves.
This tacit collusion, based on a common vested interest in crisis, remains a major
obstacle in the search for peace. As President Kennedy remarked to Norman
Cousins, the editor of the Saturday Review, in the spring of 1963, "Mr.
Khrushchev and I occupy approximately the same political positions inside our
governments. He would like to prevent a nuclear war but is under severe pressure
from his hard-line crowd, which interprets every move in that direction as
appeasement. I've got similar problems . . . . The hard-liners in the Soviet Union
and the United States feed on one another."
The existence of Soviet military might obviously requires effective

counterbalance. It requires nuclear deterrence capable of retaliation against a
first strike, and this the West has. It also requires conventional force capable of
discouraging Soviet aspirations in Europe, and this the West may presently lack.
The need is to remove European defense from the delusion of rescue through
limited nuclear war. The European democracies must understand that reliance on
the bomb to save Europe no longer makes sense in the age of nuclear stand-off.
However destructive conventional war can be in modern times, it is infinitely less
destructive than nuclear war would be. And the sure way to make the
improbability of a Soviet attack across rebellious satellites on Western Europe
even more improbable is to leave no doubt that the costs, even without nuclear
response, would be intolerably high. This lies within the power of the European
democracies to do.
But what of the bomb itself? For we live today in a situation without precedent—a
situation that transcends all history and threatens the end of history. I must
confess that I have come late to this apocalyptic view of the future. To set limits
on the adventures of the human mind has always seemed—still seems—the
ultimate heresy, the denial of humanity itself. But we always recognized that
freedom involves risk, and the free mind in our time has led us to the edge of the
Faustian abyss. "Man has mounted science, and is now run away with," Henry
Adams wrote more than a century ago. "Some day science may have the existence
of mankind in its power, and the human race commit suicide by blowing up the
world."
I had always supposed that, with the nuclear genie out of the bottle, the prospect
of the suicide of the human race would have a sobering effect on those who
possessed the tragic power to initiate nuclear war. For most of the nuclear age
this supposition has been roughly true. Statesmen have generally understood, as
President Kennedy said in 1961, "Mankind must put an end to war or war will put
an end to mankind." I saw how after the Cuban missile crisis a shaken
Kennedy—and a shaken Khrushchev, too—moved swiftly toward a ban on nuclear
testing and a systematic reduction of international acrimony.
I no longer have much confidence in the admonitory effect of the possession of

nuclear weapons. The curse of ideology is that as it impoverishes our sense of
reality, it impoverishes our imagination, too. It enfeebles our capacity to visualize
the Doomsday horror. It inhibits us from confronting the awful possibility we can
no longer deny: the extermination of sentient life on this planet.
Under the hypnosis of doctrine, ideologues in Washington today plainly see an

unlimited nuclear arms race not as an appalling threat to the survival of humanity,
but simply as a fine way to do the Russians in. Either they will try to keep up with
us, which will wreck their economy, or they will fail to keep up, which will give us
the decisive military advantage. To have an arms control agreement, they believe,
would be to renounce our most potent weapon against the empire of evil.
I continue to find it hard to suppose that either superpower would deliberately

embark on nuclear war ab initio. But it is not hard to foresee a nuclear
overreaction to the frustration or embarrassment of defeat in conventional
warfare. It is still easier, with 50,000 warheads piling up in the hands of the
superpowers and heaven knows how many more scattered or hidden or incipient
in other hands, to foresee nuclear war precipitated by terrorists, or by madness,
or by accident, or by misreading the flashes on a radar screen.
The stake is too great to permit this horror to grow. For the stake is supreme: it is
the fate of humanity itself. Let me say at once that the answer to the nightmare
cannot conceivably be unilateral nuclear disarmament. The likely result of
unilateral nuclear disarmament by the West would not be to prompt the Soviet
leadership to do likewise but to place the democratic world at the mercy of Soviet
communism. History offers abundant proof that mercy is not a salient
characteristic of any communist regime.
Neither the arms race nor unilateral disarmament therefore holds out hope. What
we must do rather is to revive the vanishing art of diplomacy. American officials
these days like to strike Churchillian poses. They remind one of Mark Twain's
response when his wife tried to cure him of swearing by loosing a string of oaths
herself: "You got the words right, Livy, but you don't know the tune." Our road-
company Churchills lack one of the things that made Churchill great: his power of
historical discrimination.
"Those who are prone by temperament and character," Churchill wrote in The
Gathering Storm, "to seek sharp and clear-cut solutions of difficult and obscure
problems, who are ready to fight whenever some challenge comes from a foreign
Power, have not always been right. On the other hand, those whose inclination is .
. . to seek patiently and faithfully for peaceful compromise are not always wrong.
On the contrary, in the majority of instances they may be right, not only morally
but from a practical standpoint." So, in the spirit of Churchill, let us not
prematurely abandon the quest for peaceful compromise.
The reciprocal and verifiable nuclear freeze on the production, testing and
deployment of nuclear weapons and delivery vehicles is backed today, according
to polls, by more than 80 percent of Americans. The freeze is the most promising
beginning, or so it seems to me. More must come. A joint Soviet-NATO command
post, where each side could monitor the other side's radar screens and to which
all war rumors would go for resolution, would do much to reduce the chances of
accidental nuclear war. Deep cuts in nuclear stockpiles must follow, perhaps by
each superpower delivering an equal number of nuclear weapons of its own
choice for destruction by an international authority, a procedure that would
minimize the theoretically destabilizing effect of reduction by fixed categories.
Mankind has no choice but to find ways to crawl back from the edge of the
Faustian abyss and to move toward the extinction of the nuclear race; better this,
with all its difficulties, than the extinction of the human race.
VI
What the world needs to bring this about is above all deliverance from ideology.
This is not to suggest for a moment any symmetry between the United States and
the Soviet Union. In the United States, ideology is a lurking susceptibility, a
periodic fling, fooling some of the people some of the time but profoundly alien to
the Constitution and to the national spirit. Washington's current ideological
commotion is the result, not of popular demand or mandate, but of the superficial
fact that in 1980 the voters, unable to abide the thought of four more years of
what they had, had Reagan as the only practical alternative.
In the Soviet Union ideology remains the heart of the matter. It is not a
susceptibility but a compulsion, inscribed in sacred texts and enforced by all the
brutal machinery of a still vicious police state. Yet even in the Soviet Union one
senses an erosion of the old ideological intensity until a good deal of what remains
is simply a vocabulary in which Soviet leaders are accustomed to speak. Let not a
spurt of American ideologizing breathe new life into the decadent Soviet ideology,
especially by legitimizing the Russian fear of an American crusade aimed at the
destruction of Russian society.
In the end, ideology runs against the grain of American democracy. Popular
elections, as the Founding Fathers saw long ago, supply the antidote to the
fanaticism of abstract propositions. High-minded Americans have recently taken
to calling for a single six-year presidential term on the ground that Presidents, not
having to worry about reelection, would thereby be liberated to make decisions
for the good of the republic. This assumes that the less a President takes public
opinion into account, the better a President he will be—on reflection, a rather
anti—democratic assumption. In the instant case, the best things Mr. Reagan has
done—his belated concern about racial justice, about the environment and natural
resources, about hunger, about women, about arms control—have all been under
the pressure of the 1984 election. He might never have cared if he had had a
single six-year term. It may well be that Presidents do a better job when politics
requires them to respond to popular needs and concerns than they would if
constitutionally empowered to ignore popular needs and concerns for the sake of
ideological gratification.
Ideology is the curse of public affairs because it converts politics into a branch of
theology and sacrifices human beings on the altar of abstractions. "To serene
Providence," Winston Churchill wrote an American politician nearly 90 years ago,
"a couple of generations of trouble and distress may seem an insignificant thing . .
. . Earthly Governments, however, are unable to approach questions from the
same standpoint. Which brings me to the conclusion that the duty of governments
is to be first of all practical. I am for makeshifts and expediency. I would like to
make the people who live on this world at the same time as I do better fed and
happier generally. If incidentally I benefit posterity—so much the better—but I
would not sacrifice my own generation to a principle—however high—or a truth
however great."
In this humane spirit we may save not only our generation but posterity, too.
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Albert Schweitzer Professor in the Humanities at the City University of New York, is working
on a book about Franklin D. Roosevelt and the coming of the Second World War. This article is adapted from the Cyril
Foster Lecture delivered at Oxford University in May 1983. Copyright (c) 1983 by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
September 1,1983
After the Election: Foreign Policy
Under Reagan II
Henry A. Grunwald
Reagan and Mondale debate.
The second Reagan Administration has a rare opportunity to reshape American

foreign policy. The opportunity obviously springs from President Reagan's
overwhelming election victory, which, if he remains in office for four more years,
will make him the first full two-term president since Eisenhower. This victory has
further strengthened his already impressive capacity for political leadership,
reinforcing his authority to deal with the factions of his own party, with the
feuding wings of the bureaucracy, and with foreign countries. The question is
whether he will seize that authority and will know how to use it. Which Reagan,
and which group of Reagan advisers, will dominate the second term? Will it be the
stubbornly hard-line or the flexible President, the "ideologues" or the
"pragmatists" among his counselors?
That distinction is, of course, somewhat oversimplified; the divisions within, and
around, the President are not quite so clear-cut. There are apocalyptic and
rational ideologues; there are very tough and semi-tough pragmatists. Still, the
familiar labels do describe a genuine conflict, and in the first term, the evolution
of that conflict was quite evident: from ideology to pragmatism.
The Administration started out by confronting the world with a hard-line,

aggressive and Manichean set of policies, or pronouncements, that in nearly every
instance gave way to compromise and at least outward accommodation. This was
true of attitudes toward the Soviet Union, arms control, Central America, the
European allies, and support of the International Monetary Fund, among others.
The retreat and reversal on the Soviet-European gas pipeline issue was typical of
this trend. These accommodations happened only after bitter bureaucratic
infighting, and in response to various outside pressures: public opinion, politics,
allied complaints, the risk of diplomatic debacles.
The need to compromise was symbolized by the resort to more or less bipartisan
commissions: the Scowcroft panel on the MX missile, the Kissinger group on
Central America. These commissions did extremely useful work and produced
sound, generally centrist recommendations, which by no reasonable standard
could be described as weak. What remains to be seen is whether, in the second
term, these and similar policies will prevail, demonstrating in effect a learning
experience by the Administration, or whether the right-wing "true believers" will
succeed in dismissing them as mere temporary, tactical adjustments and will try
to reassert the ideological super-hard line. A great deal depends on the answer,
including the possibility of reaching at least the rudiments of a new national
consensus on foreign and defense policy.
II
In fairness, it should be said that, up to a point, the hard line was a useful
corrective for weak and confused policies of the past and was welcomed in many
quarters as a sign of a new American assertiveness. Administration critics almost
automatically preface "ideology" with "right-wing." But there is liberal or left-wing
ideology too, and its reading of Soviet intentions and of the causes of Third World
instability often has been just as simplistic as right-wing interpretations, if not
more so.
Besides, the Reagan Administration, often reckless in rhetoric but cautious in

action, did have its successes. One of them was the championing of American
military power. The arms buildup may have been excessive, and ill-advised in
some particulars; very little was done to reform the armed services. But the
buildup was plainly necessary and, despite much bickering, it was essentially
supported by Congress and the public. It constitutes the most important single
"foreign policy" action by Reagan so far.
Another clear achievement, of course, was the deployment of the Euromissiles for
NATO, in the teeth of all-out Soviet opposition. In dealing with China, despite
some early ideological rumbles and despite the baggage accumulated during
decades of a deep Republican commitment to Taiwan, the Reagan Administration
acted prudently and professionally. The same may be said, at the risk of
considerable disagreement, about the Reagan policy toward South Africa. In other
instances, policy was muddled through lack of skill and understanding, as in the
Middle East.
On balance, the Reagan Administration often proved itself quite capable of

realistic and largely nonideological policies, but they did not fit into any unified
concept. Thus "more pragmatism" is not a sufficient foreign policy prescription for
Reagan II. A pragmatism that merely and artificially splits the difference between
sharply opposing views, or cobbles together a compromise for political and public
relations effect, is hardly what we need. What is required is pragmatism within a
framework of principle; firm assertion of American goals combined with a
recognition that there are different ways of attaining them, and that some may be
unattainable in the near future; a realization that, especially in foreign affairs,
passion without skill can be worse than skill without passion. Reagan II, one
would hope, will recognize that toughness, while indispensable, can take many
forms. On the whole, the Administration has been deficient in seeing that strength
has political and diplomatic components, that charging head-on at an objective is
not necessarily the best way to reach it, and that guile and the ability to maneuver
are every bit as important as muscle.
III
In perspective, the Reagan Administration's difficulties in dealing with the Soviet

Union are familiar, almost traditional, even though pushed to extremes. From the
outset, the Administration had difficulty coping with what can only be called the
yes-but formula, which has been advanced for the last three decades by just about
every specialist in the field: Yes, we must be strong, but at the same time flexible.
Yes, we must understand that the Russians are relentless foes, but at the same
time we must seek ways of coexisting. And so forth. As a general proposition, this
formula is so obvious that it is no longer worth debating; the question is how it is
to be applied specifically. Yet almost every new Administration comes into office
paying lip service to the yes-but principle, while actually believing that a fresh
start, a new approach—either softer or harder—will permit escape from the
painful and laborious double track.
The Reagan Administration was particularly determined to reject the yes-but

formula, which requires the ability to hold two opposite ideas at the same time
(the mark of a first-rate intelligence, according to F. Scott Fitzgerald). This runs
against the American tendency to see the world as good or evil, a mind-set not
invented by Reagan, and to believe in solutions; the yes-but formula implies that
U.S.-Soviet strains are not a problem to which there is a solution, but a more or
less permanent condition that can only be alleviated, not cured.
In fact, each Administration sooner or later has been disappointed in its hope that
these constraints can be escaped, the only exception being the Nixon
Administration which knew better from the start. The fact is that the Reagan
Administration is being pushed toward something that, by any other name, is still
détente. Indeed, détente is constantly being reinvented, redefined or relabelled
(as in Richard Nixon's afterthought, "hardheaded détente"). As long as it can be
protected from the utopian left, which sees it as institutionalized brotherhood, and
from the triumphalist right, which sees it as institutionalized surrender, and
defined as no more or less than controlled conflict, it remains the inescapable
intellectual framework for American policy.
It has been eloquently argued that arms control has been made to bear too much
of the burden of U.S.-Soviet relations, and that there can be no hope for
significant progress on arms control unless a degree of trust can be restored or
created between the superpowers.1 The notion brings to mind the observation by
Salvador de Madariaga, writing about the 1930s in his memoirs, that "nations
don't distrust each other because they are armed; they are armed because they
distrust each other. And therefore to want disarmament before a minimum of
common agreement on fundamentals is as absurd as to want people to go
undressed in winter." It is hard to quarrel with this insight, and yet it is equally
hard to see how the United States and the Soviet Union can retrieve even a few
clothes of confidence unless there is at least a possibility of moving, however
slowly, toward an accord on nuclear arms.
In short, the argument is circular and irresistibly leads back to the imperative of
arms control. Its achievements in the past have been modest at best. Progress has
been glacial, and exaggerated expectations have been aroused by the process. But
there is simply no convincing alternative to it.
IV
The Reagan Administration has often acted as if any arms control proposal that
might be acceptable to the Soviets must be automatically flawed, when in fact the
Soviet Union, like the United States, will naturally accept only proposals it
considers to be in its own self-interest. This negative attitude, plus the open
contempt for arms control expressed by some members of the Reagan circle, plus
the unrealistic proposals for cuts offered at the outset of the Strategic Arms
Reduction Talks (START), has obscured a central fact: the major source of the
problem lies in the Soviets' own aggressive nuclear buildup and their excessive
view of what they require for their own security. It is therefore entirely possible
that even a "reformed" Reagan Administration with a more tolerant approach to
arms control may not get anywhere with the Soviets. There are certain
concessions beyond which no administration can or should go in order to win an
agreement. At the same time, President Reagan seems to have disavowed the
possibility that America can permanently restore any significant nuclear
superiority over the Russians. What is at issue is an acceptable but more realistic
definition of parity.
It has become fashionable to say that arms control is virtually dead. This view is
held not merely because of the acrimonious breakdown of both the intermediate-
range nuclear forces (INF) and START negotiations, but, more importantly,
because it is argued that technology keeps outpacing the negotiators. While
advancing technology immensely complicates arms control efforts, it is not
beyond the reach of negotiated agreements.
Politically, of course, one of the vast problems about arms control and nuclear
strategy is their complexity and the inability of the public—or of most
politicians—to grasp the issues in any detail. Much of the arms control debate
seems like a scholastic exercise about how many warheads can dance on the head
of a missile. This frightful air of unreality has much to do with the desire both on
the left and on the right, in a curious mirror image, to escape these dilemmas and
to find simple and understandable solutions.
On the left, the desire to escape takes the form of a utopian belief in good will or
in unilateral actions. (The widely proposed "mutual and verifiable" freeze would
not assure balance and would take extensive negotiations.) On the right, it takes
the form of a search for "superiority," in the belief that we can outspend the
Soviets and outdo them more or less indefinitely in technology. The
Administration's Strategic Defense Initiative ("Star Wars") is an elaboration of this
view.
The Star Wars program has a certain appealing plausibility: defense is better than
offense, safety behind a shield in the sky is better than the "balance of terror."
Professional analysts of course do not commit such oversimplifications, or at least
not obviously. Lieutenant General James A. Abrahamson, head of the Strategic
Defense Initiative research program, admits that no system the United States
deploys will ever be entirely foolproof. But he argues that a less than total but
highly efficient defense, which might mean anywhere from 50-percent to 99-
percent effectiveness, depending on the scale of the system deployed, would make
it impossible for the Soviets to plan a first strike with any high degree of
confidence. That circumstance will enhance deterrence. Furthermore, even a
partially effective defense would be bound to save lives in the unlikely event of an
attack.
For the moment, the Administration has committed itself only to a research and
development program which the Department of Defense says will require about
$26 billion over the next five years. Even the more optimistic scenarios see
continued need for new offensive weapons, which would only gradually be
reduced. And even the most sophisticated and cautious advocates of space-based
defense seem to harbor the hankering for a short-cut to safety. They too seek
somehow to transfer the task of peacekeeping from the precarious calculus of
threat and counterthreat, from the area of human will, to a more or less automatic
regime of laser beams and mirrors in orbit.
Technological feasibility aside, the opponents of Star Wars seem to have the
better case. The prospect of one side more or less safe while the other side is
open to attack is untenable in the nuclear age. Moreover, in the absence of a new
bargain with the Soviets, such a situation is bound to be relatively short-lived. We
have seen in the past that sooner or later the Soviets can catch up with American
technology, the most notable example being multiple independently targetable
reentry vehicles (MIRVs). All of this would mean great instability during a
development period that might run for 20 years and, eventually, instability at a
much higher and more complicated level of weaponry.
But this does not mean that development of a defensive system should be banned
independently of what is done about nuclear weapons in general. The Soviets
seem genuinely afraid of a technological race with the United States in space
defense. This fear should be used as a major bargaining chip for an overall arms
control agreement.
After an initial test of its low-altitude anti-satellite system (ASAT), which is not
part of Star Wars but which the Soviets want to include in any talks about space
weapons, the United States should offer a temporary suspension of further tests.
This should be followed by negotiations that would tie any arrangements for space
weapons to the rest of arms control. If it is too late for a total ban on space-based
weapons, a possible outcome could be to permit relatively small defense systems
for both sides, tied to an arms control agreement (reductions) in offensive
weapons.
Despite the breakdown of arms control talks, the elements of an agreement for
offensive weapons exist. They are summed up in the phrase, "off-setting
asymmetries"—in other words, the recognition that the Soviets will not make any
significant cuts in their principal arsenal of ground-based missiles unless the
United States makes certain concessions in an area where it is particularly strong,
namely bombers, cruise missiles and, increasingly, submarine-launched ballistic
missiles. This principle is recognized in various schemes, including the so-called
framework approach advanced by the State Department in August 1983 but never
adopted by the Administration and in the so-called double build-down scheme.
This last was put forward in the summer of 1983 by a somewhat shakily bipartisan
group of Senators and Representatives which in effect forced it on the
Administration. Advanced at the START talks without full conviction or complete
details, the double build-down was quickly rejected by the Soviets as a mere
repackaging of old, unacceptable American proposals.
The concept underlying these schemes, no doubt subject to a great deal of

tinkering with the numbers, should become the basis for the Administration's
arms control negotiating position. Despite its great complexity and uncertain
beginnings, it remains a promising approach.
All this, of course, assumes that the Russians will allow themselves to return to
the bargaining table, despite their earlier vow that they would not do so unless
the United States halts deployment of Euromissiles. There is strong evidence that
the Russians regret having backed themselves into that particular corner and
want to come out of it. (It is interesting to recall that in 1979 the Soviets said they
would not even negotiate on INF if NATO adopted the "two-track" approach, but
they did in fact come to the table by 1981.) The conditions for improved relations
reiterated in October 1984 by Konstantin Chernenko, in his interview with The
Washington Post, did not include any reference to INF, and seem to offer enough
room for maneuver to resume talks without undue advance concessions by the
United States.
The verification problem, of course, presents an extremely difficult obstacle. But

given determined research, it is hard to believe that "national technical means"
could not be steadily improved. The Russians have made some forthcoming noises
about on-site inspection, but it is doubtful that this could provide a significant
overall solution. At any rate, those who believe that verification problems vitiate
arms control fail to say how the situation would improve without arms control;
both sides would still be dependent on the fullest possible information about the
armaments of the other side but without the (admittedly incomplete) help on
verification that arms control agreements do and can provide.
Movement, if any, is likely to be excruciatingly slow. No big breakthroughs should

be expected. At all events, what is needed is a merger or at least a link of INF and
START negotiations plus space-defense negotiations. The talks need not be fully
integrated right away; they could begin separately and be linked gradually. The
drawbacks of such a procedure are all too familiar: complexity and, through INF,
the problem of how to bring the allies into the picture without either
compromising their sovereignty and independence or else allowing them a role in
the START area where they do not belong.2 Despite such difficulties, it is
impossible to see how anything can be accomplished without ultimately treating
the issues of nuclear arms and arms control in their entirety. There is simply not
enough room for bargaining and trade-offs if things are to be fought out
separately in different arenas.
The foregoing would represent a fairly drastic change in the Administration's

position on arms control—at least in its earlier phase. But it would be necessary if
the President really hopes to make progress in the area during his second term,
and there is much evidence that he does. His sincerity would not be the issue. The
question is one of intellectual capacity and will. To achieve anything he will have
to become personally involved in the process, understanding it far better than he
has so far, or else put policy and execution into the hands of a really trusted, high-
level associate with the power to enforce his views.
The President will have to crack down hard on the guerrilla war between various
parts of the Administration, an action that would go very much against his grain.
Some bureaucratic infighting and genuine competition between ideas cannot and
should not be prevented. But thanks to certain single-minded and obsessive
positions on the civilian side of the Pentagon and elsewhere, throughout the first
Reagan term, "negotiability" with the Russians was not the issue, but rather
negotiability within the Administration.3 This situation can only be ended by a
firm and decisive President and very likely by a change in some of the principal
cast of characters.
VI
While arms control is thus at the center of U.S.-Soviet dealings, it must not be
allowed to distract us from the world of politics and psychology surrounding the
enclaves of missiles and warheads. In that larger context, Reagan II would do well
to take certain precepts to heart. One is that we have only very limited means of
influencing events inside the Soviet Union. As has been amply observed, fierce
rhetoric certainly will not do it. (During the past year, and especially during the
last few weeks of the election campaign, the Administration's harsh language
gave way to a much softer style, downright reminiscent of Beethoven's
introduction to Schiller's Ode to Joy—"Not these tones, my friends, but let us raise
more agreeable ones. . . .")
Criticism, of course, must not cease, but the United States must also be very
cautious in linking condemnation to practical policy, or in suggesting, as has been
done by members of the Administration, that peace requires drastic changes in
the Soviet regime. A lesson from pre-Reagan days, but still applicable, involves
one of the most destructive actions of U.S. foreign policy, which was championed
by the usually very wise late Senator Henry M. Jackson: the attempt to force
liberalization of Jewish emigration from the U.S.S.R. by denying Russia most-
favored-nation treatment. Focusing on Jewish emigration as distinct from any
other, possibly worse abuses in the Soviet system was not only arbitrary, it was
clearly counterproductive.
The Reagan Administration also needs to get better at matching means and ends,
as is suggested, for instance, by its reaction to the imposition of martial law in
Poland. The means were at hand for a much faster and more forceful reaction,
notably suspension of the then still running INF talks and calling in the Polish
debt to the international banks. But if for whatever reason it was decided not to
react in that way, the mere denunciations and attempts at economic sanctions
were futile. In fact, it can be argued that imposition of martial law was the
minimal reaction that could have been expected from the Soviets and that no
Communist state could ever permit an organization like Solidarity to subsist.
But aligning means with ends does not imply ceding anything to the Soviets that
need not be ceded—and certainly not without exacting a price. True, the Soviet
Union is a superpower with global interests that cannot be totally denied. Those
who urge a last-ditch stand against Soviet influence in every corner of the globe, a
sort of Churchillian resistance sometimes suggested by apocalyptic right-wingers,
overestimate both our will and our resources. America must differentiate, without
of course publicly drawing a map, between areas and situations of the first or
second or fifth importance. Pressure on the Soviets and their surrogates should be
applied everywhere, constantly, but in varying degrees. Above all, pressure should
not cease without a quid pro quo, very likely in some other area.
Certain basics are beyond compromise. But many policies can and should be
stopped or moderated in exchange for something else. American aid to resistance
fighters in Afghanistan, for example, should continue. The embarrassment and
material and human losses suffered by the Soviet Union in Afghanistan are of
course beneficial to the West. But eventually there may come a point when the
Soviets might be willing to curb certain actions elsewhere in the world in
exchange for Western accommodation over Afghanistan. In such situations, there
is always the risk that we will be outmaneuvered by the Soviets. But, despite such
dangers, the willingness to deal at the right moment is essential.
This very much applies to an especially neuralgic area, Eastern Europe, currently
in a state of considerable political restlessness. Any blunt, open political
intervention there would be extremely, perhaps intolerably, provocative to the
Soviets. But there should always be unpublicized, indirect probes, to be eased or
stepped up in reaction to restrained or aggressive Soviet behavior elsewhere.
VII
Certain other areas require specific consideration because they will continue to
test the Administration in special if quite disparate ways. They are the North
Atlantic Alliance, the Middle East and Central America.
Obviously, NATO is by far the most important to America's position in the world
and to its permanent contest with the Soviets. The Administration started out on
the wrong foot with the allies. Somewhat paranoid in the best of times, West
European leaders and intellectuals were panicked by Reagan's rhetoric and
image, by some of the rather casual if actually routine references to nuclear war,
and especially by the attempt to veto the Soviet pipeline, which seemed to impose
economic sacrifices on the West Europeans when the United States was lifting its
grain embargo. Since those days of anger and suspicion, the atmosphere between
the United States and the allies has improved considerably.
Today, NATO is widely proclaimed to be in crisis. The litany is familiar. Militarily,

NATO strategy is seen in disarray: inadequate conventional forces to resist a
possible Soviet attack, and a less than credible nuclear deterrent. Politically,
Britain, Holland and West Germany harbor strong, more or less neutralistpacifist
forces which want to opt out of the East-West conflict—and, some would say, out
of history. These forces are in the minority, but majority governments (which may
not be in the majority forever) cannot afford to ignore them. West European
countries tend to press for American accommodation with the Soviet Union,
sometimes, it seems, at any price, refuse to support or understand American
responsibilities in the Third World, and still take for granted the American
defense of their territory.
Either in sorrow or in anger, various remedies or retaliations are being advocated
and pressed on the Administration. These include what Richard Burt, Assistant
Secretary of State for European Affairs, calls "global unilateralism" (i.e., reducing
forces in Europe so as to enhance U.S. flexibility to act in other regions) and
"Atlantic reconstruction" (threatening withdrawal from NATO to provoke the
allies into doing more for their own defense). The leading reconstructionist,
Senator Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), has called for American troop reductions in Europe
unless the allies meet a detailed and sophisticated list of requirements to improve
NATO's military footing. But the threat of troop withdrawal in the near future is
likely to be counterproductive. The NATO commander, General Bernard W.
Rogers, evangelizes tirelessly for larger European conventional forces to be
equipped with dazzling new high-tech weapons. But the price tag is estimated to
add a one-percent increase in defense spending to the three-percent pledge the
allies have already made but few have kept.
Various military thinkers are advancing new strategies, including mobility and
counterattack, to avoid what The Economist has called a Maginot Line mentality
without a Maginot Line. But such schemes make the Europeans highly nervous.
Henry A. Kissinger has advanced an imaginative plan for restructuring the
Alliance, with an American secretary general and a European commander, to
emphasize the need for greater responsibility by the Europeans for their own
defense.4 The plan was welcomed as highly thought-provoking, which presumably
was its purpose, but few leaders in NATO countries are likely to do anything
about it any time soon.
The Administration attitude toward much of this agitation about NATO was
summed up by Burt, who conceded the need for improvements while adding:
"There must also be limits to our departures" (his own version of "Surtout, pas
trop de zèle").5 That may not be a bad prescription for American policy toward
the Alliance in the second term. A top priority must be to undercut and contain
the potentially disastrous left-wing neutralist movements. This is best done
through a stable, realistic policy toward the Soviets, including arms control. The
Administration should continue to press for greater European defense
contributions in various forms, even though this contribution is considerably more
significant than popularly understood in the United States.6 The Administration
should encourage any proposals for greater military cooperation among European
countries, including that ever-elusive goal, standardization of equipment.
Reagan II should also continue to press for greater cooperation to prevent the
transfer of military technology to the Soviet Union, for greater solidarity in major
East-West crises, and for more of a role by European countries in "out-of-area"
contingencies. As always, these efforts will be frustrating and often futile. We will
have to accept the fact that the European view of the world, and of the Soviet
Union, is different from ours. We will continue to be lectured on proper global
conduct by nations which achieved their present peaceable outlook not through
wisdom or virtue, but through exhaustion, after hundreds of years of waging their
own wars. But we will have to continue, even at great cost, to help hold the
indispensable Alliance together. With much patience, some diplomatic skill, the
quieter kind of public relations-and the almost always dependable help from the
Soviet Union in the form of political overkill—the task is not beyond us.
A major problem between the United States and Western Europe lies in the
economic area. There are major joint concerns about growth in an increasingly
interdependent industrialized world, including policies toward the developing
countries. The Europeans keep complaining about high American interest rates
resulting from the deficits. While these complaints are justified, they are also
excessive and tend to overshadow the Europeans' own responsibility for outmoded
and ineffective trade and industrial policies. Fortunately there is a growing
realization in Western Europe that central economic control and welfare statism
are no longer working very well. It is not yet clear, however, what is to take their
place.
As far as the developing countries are concerned, the debt crisis has been at least
temporarily alleviated by the International Monetary Fund, backed by a somewhat
reluctant United States and other Western industrialized states. Longer-range
solutions remain elusive. There is a healthy realization among many Third World
countries that prospects are very dim for achieving a "new international economic
order" and the pieties of the Brandt Commission, all pointing to massive wealth
transfers from the industrialized developing countries. The Reagan
Administration's Third World prescription of capitalism, entrepreneurship and
market incentives is theoretically sound, as has been acknowledged, indirectly,
even by China. But in many developing societies, these prescriptions standing
alone will not mean much or will be politically destructive. They will have to be
part of a mixed economic system. Without going into details here, it is obvious
that the Reagan Administration has a major opportunity in the economic area,
including the international exchange system. It would also be useful if Reagan II
could quietly abandon such dubious missionary efforts as trying to impose certain
views about population control and abortion on other societies.
VIII
In the Middle East, the Administration has swung from overactive and ill-
conceived involvement (former Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig's whirlwind
attempt to rally the area for an anti-Soviet "strategic consensus") to extreme
caution bordering on inactivity. The attitude in the second term should be
somewhere in between.
The Administration can base itself on one solid conceptual piece of work, the
Reagan peace initiative of September 1982, essentially a distillation of many
earlier comprehensive peace plans. But the Administration never followed
through with further diplomatic action. Instead it got lost in maneuvers to bring
about a settlement in Lebanon, having failed to keep the Israelis from invading, if
not actually having condoned the move. Today there are some new factors in the
area which offer some modest opportunities.
Israel has a new coalition government, however shaky, whose prime minister and
Labor Party members hold somewhat more moderate views on West Bank policy
and other issues than the Likud governments of Menachem Begin and Yitzhak
Shamir. Virtually all factions now want the Israeli army out of Lebanon, provided
some kind of halfway reassuring security arrangements for South Lebanon can be
achieved. Syria, enjoying the new prominence which it snatched from the jaws of
defeat thanks to Soviet resupply and inept American diplomacy, is in no hurry to
let the Israelis go. But it is finding its role as peacekeeper in Lebanon somewhat
sticky. The ever-cautious King Hussein of Jordan has taken the very bold step-for
him-of resuming diplomatic relations with Egypt while continuing his public
refusal to have anything to do with the peace process. It is conceivable that Iraq
may eventually follow Hussein in his move toward Cairo.
The United States should encourage what has already, if prematurely, been called
the Egyptian-Jordanian axis. At the same time it must deal with Syria, treating it
less as a Soviet dependency than as a regional mini-power with local interests and
fears of its own. A tacit arrangement between Syria and Israel to stabilize the
situation in Lebanon seems quite possible. That is a long way from a point at
which Syria might stop vetoing any significant peace move, but under the
circumstances in the Middle East one must be grateful for small mercies.
Some analysts argue that, ever since the Lebanese invasion, the Palestinians are
no longer the key to the Middle East. The suggestion is that the Palestinian
problem can be ignored with impunity.7 It is obvious that the Palestine Liberation
Organization has been shattered, with one part merely a Syrian puppet
organization and another part, under Yassir Arafat, a cause in search of a home. It
is also true that among Arab states both the sympathy (always conditional) for,
and the fear of, the PLO has been greatly overshadowed by a new concern with
Islamic fundamentalism. Nevertheless, the Palestinian issue cannot be put aside
permanently. The Administration should pressure the Israeli government to
improve conditions on the West Bank and to place a freeze on new settlements.
Prime Minister Shimon Peres may be receptive to this.
In U.N. Security Council votes and in other ways, the Administration should also
attempt to restore at least some image of evenhandedness toward Israel and the
Arab states. The Reagan peace initiative should be pursued behind the scenes,
avoiding big public efforts that are too likely to end in disappointment. Meanwhile
the Administration should look for every opportunity to take small bilateral steps
to improve the situation and ease the atmosphere. In a postmortem on Lebanon,
Richard W. Murphy, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, put it
well: "We must work on the margins to protect our interests." He continued on
this sobering note: "Lebanon reminded us that we cannot remake society, that we
can work for peace but we cannot impose it. It also reminded us that the
commitments we undertake must be ones that we as a government and as a
people can sustain over time. We did not do well in that regard. Hence the need
for both pragmatism and fortitude."8
IX
Nothing is more futile or arid than the debate between those who argue that the
chief cause of Third World insurgencies is economic and social injustice, and
those who argue that it is interference by the Soviets or their surrogates.
Obviously both forces are at work, reinforcing each other, and both must be coped
with. The Reagan Administration has balanced the two approaches—the stress on
force and the stress on development—more successfully than it is generally given
credit for.
The Reagan team undoubtedly started with an excessively apocalyptic view of the
situation. But it was essentially right in believing that a successful communist
revolution in El Salvador, or neighboring countries, no matter how seriously
driven by the thirst for social justice, would be an American defeat. It can be
argued reasonably that such revolutions are not preventable at acceptable costs,
but it cannot be maintained that, in the Central American context, they are not
against American interests.
The Reagan Administration often gave the impression that it was unconcerned
about human rights in the area, and that it regarded dealing with this problem as
a sort of moralistic luxury that could not be indulged in the midst of a civil war.
U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick's now celebrated analysis distinguishing
between irreversible totalitarian regimes and reversible or improvable
authoritarian ones is impeccable in theory. In practice it does not answer the
question, crucial in many parts of the Third World, about just when an
authoritarian regime, no matter how strong its anti-communist credentials,
becomes so corrupt and unpopular that it loses all legitimacy and, in fact, opens
the door to totalitarianism. This almost always involves excruciatingly difficult
decisions. Under Carter these decisions were made too naïvely, and human rights
policy was too simplistic and patronizing. But such phenomena as the death
squads in El Salvador had to be coped with for the most practical of reasons.
For some time now the Reagan Administration seems to have understood this and
has in fact used a great deal of influence to curb the squads' worst abuses.
Without such progress, the election of President José Napoleón Duarte would
have been impossible. This election was something of a turning point—and
incidentally one that would not have occurred had the Administration followed the
counsel of those congressmen who, since 1981, have sought to condition
continued military aid to the Salvadoran government on the commencement of
indiscriminate negotiations between the government and the guerrillas, which
would have led to "power-sharing." The election had significant impact on foreign
countries. In 1981, France and Mexico had issued a joint statement calling the
Salvadoran rebels "a representative political force," which implicitly equated their
legitimacy with that of the government; such a statement would hardly be issued
today. Last July, on the occasion of Duarte's visit, the Bonn government resumed
aid to El Salvador. An extremely useful move would be the repeal of the Helms
Amendment, which bans U.S. aid to land reform in El Salvador.
It is painfully obvious that Duarte's position remains highly fragile. The slight
improvement in the performance of the Salvadoran army may not last. The far
right may yet succeed in sabotaging Duarte's regime, especially if he pursues his
dialogue with the guerrilla leaders. Moreover it is far from clear what can come of
this dialogue since, from the beginning, the guerrilla leadership has not been
interested in the success of a moderate, reformist regime like Duarte's, but in
revolution. There are signs that the guerrillas are flagging militarily, and that they
are more than ever split into hostile factions. It is premature to hope that they will
put down their arms, trusting in the government's security guarantees, and take
part in elections. But that is in effect what happened in Venezuela in the late
1960s, as well as what is beginning to happen in Colombia today, and the
prospect of a similar outcome in El Salvador is at least somewhat more plausible
than it seemed a year ago.
The situation in Nicaragua is more complicated and less hopeful. In considering

that situation one should, at the outset, discard a great deal of cant about
nonintervention. President Anastasio Somoza was overthrown, at least in part,
thanks to American intervention. The Sandinista regime is clearly supported from
the outside with arms as well as thousands of Cuban, Soviet, East German and
other East Bloc advisers who constitute a significant influence in a country of 2.9
million. The claim that the Sandinistas were forced into kicking out their
democratic political partners and lining up with Cuba because of American
hostility is plainly wrong. By January 1981, the Carter Administration had allotted
to the Sandinista government $117 million in aid, the largest amount from any
single country. In its first two years, the new government in Managua received
five times more U.S. aid than Somoza received in his final two years. But it is now
evident that the Sandinistas planned to build an enormous army (by Central
American standards) long before the United States turned hostile.
Still, with all this conceded, it is not clear what the United States hopes to or can
accomplish in Nicaragua. The choices for Washington are painfully limited. Much
can be said in defense of aid to the counterrevolutionaries, or "contras." They are
not simply mercenaries or holdovers from the Somoza National Guard, but a
genuine anti-communist movement, and it is not absurd to call them freedom
fighters. Yet there is no serious prospect that by themselves they could overthrow
the Sandinista regime, much as that would be in the American national interest.
But they have proved important as an instrument to make the regime more
malleable; there is little evidence to support the opposite view, namely that they
solidified the regime. By cutting off aid to the contras, Congress irresponsibly
deprived the United States of an important bargaining counter.
Contadora can be useful, depending on how it is handled. The provisions of the

original proposal are potentially farreaching. As applied to Nicaragua they could,
in effect, amount to interference in the country's internal affairs, in order to
change and democratize the regime; and could, if pushed to their maximum,
provide for the removal of Cuban and other foreign forces, prevent foreign bases,
and eliminate arms assistance to other revolutionary forces elsewhere in the area.
But the problems are several. First, some of the language in the treaty drafts seen
so far is slippery. Second, it is far from clear how effectively the provisions could
be enforced. Third, barring special unilateral arrangements, the Contadora
provisions could mean a cutoff of American military help to the Duarte regime and
other democratic forces in Central America. A deal has been suggested whereby
the Sandinistas promise to stop aiding the guerrillas in El Salvador in return for
cessation of American support for the contras. In view of the congressional cutoff
of funding for the contras, that may be academic; but at any rate it does not seem
like a very advantageous deal for the United States. In general, the United States
should continue working with Contadora, but press for foolproof enforcement and
maximum interpretation of its provisions (including the rejection of the November
Nicaraguan elections as legitimate). This may mean a lengthy delay, but America
should not let itself be pressured into accepting a premature and incomplete
agreement. Standing on principle and playing for time may not be the worst policy
here. Obviously, the appearance in Nicaragua of sophisticated offensive weaponry
could change the equation.
Ultimately, the most important foreign policy goal for Reagan II lies in domestic
politics: to achieve at least some measure of consensus on foreign and defense
issues, especially regarding the Soviet Union.
Unfortunately, the more or less bipartisan approach to foreign policy that

prevailed from World War II till Korea—some would say till Vietnam—was neither
typical nor natural. In a functioning democracy the major issues of how a country
deals with other countries, how it copes with questions of war and peace, cannot
for long be excluded from the political process. For these matters are close to a
nation's sense of self, its perception of its values and its meaning. In most
elections, including the last one, it is simply unrealistic to ask both sides to throw
away a major weapon, namely the argument that the opposing side is
wrongheaded about the world—naïve or villainous, weak or reckless. And this is
not a matter of cynicism, or at least not primarily. The more sincere the
disputants, the more implacable. Yet there are special moments—this may be
one—when the normal partisan quarrel over foreign affairs can be muted if not
suspended.
It will be very difficult, putting it mildly, to persuade the fervent ideologues in the
Republican Party of this. They are riding high, and they see the election as a clear
mandate for the hard-line Reagan and for their more extreme goals. Nor will the
right wing necessarily hesitate to attack the President if it considers him too
weak.9 While victorious, President Reagan will also increasingly be a lame duck.
Nevertheless, he remains a hero to a majority of Americans, and thus a huge asset
to the party; the right-wingers will have to be careful not to go against him too
blatantly. Besides, he benefits from what might be called the Nixon-China
syndrome: his anti-communist credentials are so strong that the country at large
would have a hard time accepting the notion that he had gone soft.
The experience of the first term has shown that extreme hard-line positions not
only fail to work with the Russians, but fail to work in domestic politics as well. An
analysis of preelection polls and the election returns themselves makes clear that
voters liked Reagan's patriotism, his emphasis on American strength and even
rearmament. Especially blue-collar workers liked his macho image. But at the
same time, voters wanted far more serious effort in arms control and peaceful
diplomacy. The fact that President Reagan moved in that direction in recent
months neutralized the peace issue, which was one of Walter Mondale's big
potential assets, and helped increase the Reagan landslide.
The race for 1988 has already begun. If the President wants to play to history,
leaving a legacy of better relations with the Soviets, as well as gain a serious
chance of another Republican victory in 1988, everything indicates that he must
follow more or less centrist policies. The best hope for the Democrats would be a
Republican candidate and a set of policies to revive the "warmonger" fear of the
earlier Reagan days. Moreover, despite his huge victory, Reagan will have to deal
with a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives, where the
Republicans made only modest gains. And even if North Carolina's Senator Jesse
Helms were to assume the chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, President Reagan would not have clear sailing for his policies in the
Senate (in fact, he might occasionally need Democrats to protect him from Helms'
more outrageous positions). Thus, for political reasons as well as for idealistic
ones, Reagan has every incentive to reach out to the Democrats in search of
consensus.
Would the Democrats have any incentive to meet him even halfway? There is a
strong case that they do. They have learned that the peace issue is highly
complicated. Just as Reagan had to move to the center, they did too. Although
there was much emotional support for a nuclear freeze and for the notion of
banning nuclear weapons from outer space, voters did not favor positions they
suspected might mean unilateral U.S. concessions. And if Reagan II is at all
successful in restarting arms control talks and in otherwise improving U.S.-Soviet
relations, the Democrats will have very little to gain from the issue. They would
either have to come in on the left of the Republicans or else follow a me-too line,
both politically highly unattractive. Thus they would have considerable reason to
ease the peace issue out of politics, concentrate their 1988 strategy on the
economy, and earn at least some of the credit that would derive from
bipartisanship.
The Democrats would have to disown the quasi-isolationist and quasi-pacifist

positions of many liberals (which Walter Mondale did only partly toward the end
of the campaign). Similarly, Reagan would have to continue distancing himself
from the far right. As the preceding pages suggest, there is a lot of room for him
to do that without in any real sense "going soft." He can argue with reason that he
is now able to negotiate from strength. A tough but realistic position on arms
control may well win bipartisan approval. (A formally constituted, bipartisan body
to deal with Soviet policy, which has been proposed, sounds excessively
bureaucratic, but if it is necessary to get Congress involved, it should be tried.)
Agreement might be harder on issues like Central America and the military
budget. But among the things Reagan could safely concede would be some further
reductions in the defense budget combined with overall reform of the armed
forces. Defense expenditures growing at a somewhat slower but sustainable rate
backed by bipartisan consensus would be far more impressive to the Soviets than
higher defense expenditures, which are probably not sustainable and at the mercy
of congressional or partisan politics. One of the greatest boons to the Soviets over
the years has been American inconsistency and the chance of playing Democrats
off against Republicans. To avoid this and to achieve at least partial consensus
would be worth a great deal.
1 See Robert W. Tucker, "The Nuclear Debate," Foreign Affairs, Fall 1984.
2 See James A. Thomson, "After Two Tracks: Integrating START and INF," The
Washington Quarterly, Spring 1984.
3 See Strobe Talbott, Deadly Gambits, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1984.
4 Time, March 5, 1984.
5 Address to the Time Conference on the Atlantic Alliance, April 1983,

Department of State Bulletin, August 1983.
6 See Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger, Report on Allied Contributions

to the Common Defense, Department of Defense, March 1984.
7 Robert W. Tucker, "Our Obsolete Middle East Policy," Commentary, May 1983.
8 Richard W. Murphy, "The Response from the United States to Current Political
Developments in the Middle East," American-Arab Affairs, Spring 1984.
9 See Norman Podhoretz, "Appeasement by Any Other Name," Commentary, July

1983.
Henry A. Grunwald is Editor-in-Chief, Time Incorporated.

December 1,1984
The First Term: From Carter to
Reagan
Coral Bell
AP
Jimmy Carter with Ronald Reagan.
Analysts of President Reagan’s reelection landslide have made much of the point
that it was not necessarily a mandate for tougher policies: the voters’
endorsement should be seen as primarily an enthusiastic expression of hope for
continuance of the state of economic well-being and patriotic euphoria in which
Americans, by and large, found themselves in late 1984. Be that as it may, it does
seem quite clear by contrast that four years earlier Jimmy Carter lost votes on
foreign policy issues. If Washington’s relations with the outside world are going
well, they may not be a decisive vote-getter, but the sense that they have gone
badly can be a decisive vote-loser. Nothing fails like failure.
In my view, however, the two successive foreign policies have differed more in the
images they have created at home and abroad than in their substance.
Furthermore, in Mr. Reagan’s case, ironically and surprisingly, words have proved
an effective substitute for deeds in much of international politics, and maybe even
of defense policy.
There is, of course, a difference between "operational" and "declaratory" policies

and the signals both send to the outside world. The distinction was well traced in
the pages of Foreign Affairs by Ambassador Paul Nitze in January 1956. Between
what a government actually does and what it says or implies are its objectives and
intentions lies some degree of divergence, sometimes a small gap, sometimes
more of a chasm. These divergences do not mean that declaratory policy can be
simply dismissed as bluff or hypocrisy. Nor are such differences always to be
deplored, since they make possible a degree of flexibility. The French have a
saying, "The soup is never eaten as hot as it is cooked." We might say that the hot
soup of declaratory policy, as it emerges from the kitchen of the ideological cooks
who prepare it, is always cooled a little by pragmatism before it is served up in
the real world, which seldom matches the world of the ideologists’ wishes.
While operational signals first require actual decisions by the Administration (in
major cases by the President himself), declaratory signals emanate from a variety
of sources, some entirely non-official. Presidential rhetoric provides one source of
declaratory signaling, of course—during Ronald Reagan’s years an important one.
But another source is the spoken and written words of people who come into
office with the President, as distinct from the permanent bureaucracy.
The outside world makes its assessments of the international stance of any given
administration from the mix of signals it receives from all U.S. sources, weighing
operational against declaratory. In Moscow there is an entire learned institute to
interpret these signals, and every foreign office has an "American desk" trying to
do much the same thing in smaller ways. Some of Washington’s troubles with
Western allies during recent years, incidentally, have arisen from the diversity of
sources of signals. London, Paris and Bonn are not disconcerted by changes of
America’s chief decision-maker; they change their own prime ministers and
presidents and chancellors with reasonable regularity. But there is no precise
equivalent in those capitals to the arrival of the new presidential entourage of
policymakers; their own policymakers are well-entrenched permanent officials.
Moreover, the Reagan circle tended to seem more "Reaganite" than the President
himself, just as the Carter men had seemed more "Carterite" than that President.
This is not surprising, since those who have been in electoral politics for many
years (as tends to be the case for the persons who actually secure the
nominations) have usually had the sharpest edges of their ideological stances
blunted by the rough and tumble of political life.
The obvious differences in political philosophy between Presidents Carter and

Reagan camouflage some basic points of distinct similarity. Each perceived and
presented the conflicts of international politics in largely moral terms. Both
implied that the moral assumptions of American foreign policy are not only
important in themselves, but provide useful weapons in the American diplomatic
armory. And both adhered to the notion of American "exceptionalism": U.S.
society as the "shining city on a hill," its values a beacon for all the world.
In all that, both Presidents are heirs to a long-standing American tradition.

Moralism and legalism have been central strands in American diplomacy from the
earliest years of America’s emerging consciousness of the United States as a
power in a world of powers. To some analysts those strands have seemed the
source of the disasters of U.S. policy making; to others the source of its major
accomplishments. To the outsider both points of view have evidence to back them
up. Some major disasters (like the involvement in Vietnam) and some major
successes (like the process of European recovery stemming from the Marshall
Plan, or the Japan Peace Treaty) were rooted in both strategic calculation and
moral feeling among the policymakers of the time.
Though it may seem a little cynical to say so, the real differences do not seem to
have been in either quantity or content of the moral assumptions. The basic point,
at least on the evidence of the turnabout of American sentiments, seems to be that
moral feeling is unlikely to "stay the course" when the strategic calculations that
go with it prove unsound. The process of disenchantment, once it starts (as with
Vietnam in 1967-68), sweeps away the original moral assumptions that went into
policy. Thus the moral components that go into policymaking have to be judged
not only on their own merits but on whether they conduce to realism in the
strategic assessments that go with them.
II
Declaratory signals may sometimes look, at first glance, as if they were

operational. The Reagan defense budget, for example, may be considered a strong
declaratory signal—a statement of intent about the future balance of
forces—rather than a transformation of the existing balance of the 1980s. The
almost universal popular impression is that President Reagan has achieved—not
merely proposed—an unprecedented rate of increase in U.S. military muscle. But I
would argue that since the image of U.S. military weakness was created chiefly by
words (mostly from the Reagan camp from the Republican nomination fight of
1976 onwards) it is logical that more words from the same sources should have
been effective in readjusting that somewhat distorted image to reflect the reality
of effective (though asymmetrical) superpower parity.
President Carter also made potent use of words, but it would be quite unfair to
attribute all the troubles of U.S. foreign policy in the four Carter years to his own
declaratory signals. Even without such signals, an adversary assessment in
Moscow or elsewhere could reasonably have perceived a window of low-risk, low-
cost opportunities. The general signals from American society as a whole, and
from the liberal foreign policy establishment in particular, had been conveying a
message of dwindling opposition to other countries’ adventurism ever since 1975.
National battle-fatigue, progressively increasing from 1968 and overwhelming by
1975, made the foreign policy mood of the early Carter years inevitable, and
impossible to conceal from adversary policymakers. Even before Carter, in fact,
Congress had sent the world a very loud declaratory signal in the Angolan
resolutions of 1975-76 that the American political mood would be enough to block
any operational policy of a tough-minded sort for the immediate future, even
though the Administration may have wanted it. In that political mood of 1976, part
of Jimmy Carter’s appeal was the moral reassurance he provided during a time
when American values and traditions were still under heavy attack at home and
abroad. He encapsulated in his political image traces of an earlier, more innocent
America and of small-town values.
To stand for virtue reasserted is probably always an asset in domestic politics. In

international politics, however, a reputation for conspicuous virtue is likely to be
construed as meaning that the new man is naïve. The saying "nice guys finish last"
originated in U.S. sporting circles, but a rather similar estimate is implicit in the
conventional wisdom of diplomats. And that was an image that Carter could
hardly escape, given his status as a Christian fundamentalist, a Sunday school
teacher, and particularly his espousal of Wilsonian values in world affairs.
Woodrow Wilson is still, no doubt, a hero to many Americans. But that is not really
so in the outside world, except among a few remaining left-liberal and Third
World optimists. In the Soviet Union, Wilson is remembered for the interventions
of 1918 and as the standard-bearer of a theory of international politics
competitive with Lenin’s. In the chancelleries of Europe his name tends to be
associated with high-minded ineffectiveness, failure to get the United States to
take on the responsibilities of membership in the League of Nations, and
unrealistic insistence on introducing notions of national self-determination in
areas where they were bound to disrupt the chances of viable settlements. The
hearts of European policymakers tend to sink at the thought of Wilsonian
preachings from the White House. President Carter’s version of moral rectitude in
international politics was centered on human rights rather than national self-
determination, but the human rights concept was even more disruptive to some of
America’s allies in the late 1970s (such as Iran) than the notion of self-
determination had been for some of America’s European allies in Wilson’s time.
In fact, the case of Iran seems to indicate that well-amplified U.S. declaratory
signals can begin to erode a fragile personal autocracy even before their author is
in power. According to various observers, including Sir Anthony Parsons, who was
British ambassador in Teheran at the time, the Shah’s self-confidence began to
crumble from the time of the Carter election campaign, and this damage does not
appear to have been retrieved even by the considerable support in actual
operational terms he received during the early Carter years.
III
The first four Reagan years bore an almost eerie similarity to the years 1949 to
1954, when the concept of "negotiation from strength" had a previous airing. In
1949, as in 1979, serious and respectable analysts were seeing a phase of major
danger about five years ahead, with a "window of vulnerability" developing,
because of a perceived major change in the underlying strategic balance. In 1949
the change was a true strategic milestone: the first Soviet atomic test. Along with
the additional jolt of the Korean War, the West embarked on a major
countervailing reaction: an ambitious NATO arms buildup, with U.S. defense
expenditures reaching more than 14 percent of GNP by 1953 (twice the rate of
the Reagan years). Then, as now, a technological "quick fix" to restore the original
Western advantage glimmered in the minds of policymakers. Then it was the
replacement of fission weapons by fusion; now it is the Strategic Defensive
Initiative (SDI) or "Star Wars" image.
A powerful sense of déjà vu hung over the early 1980s for anyone who was once
preoccupied with the early 1950s. Andrei A. Gromyko (the only major policymaker
at a more or less similar level of influence in both patches of history) ought to be
particularly haunted by it, because then, as now, there was a long drawn-out
Soviet succession crisis which affected his personal fortunes. Then the succession
was to Stalin, now the succession is still really to Brezhnev. Secretary of State
John Foster Dulles then, like President Reagan until mid-1984, was given to
combative but not always convincing declaratory signals, for instance, the
doctrine of "massive and instant retaliation" in 1954.
Robert Murphy, one of Dulles’ chief aides in that earlier phase of "negotiation
from strength," once said that some of his master’s signals had to be taken with "a
whole warehouse full of salt." The question remains whether that level of
skepticism can be retrospectively justified for the Reagan years. But we must
start with a point whose importance is seldom conceded in European analyses, or
liberal Democratic ones. Despite the general souring of relations between
Washington and Moscow during the Reagan first term, there was not in fact a
serious adversary crisis between the superpowers in that period.
A serious crisis between the United States and the Soviet Union has to be defined
as one that produces not merely an exchange of insults but a measurably
increased risk of actual hostilities. By that criterion, no such crisis can be
discerned. The nearest approach, perhaps, was the shooting down of the Korean
airliner in September 1983. Commentators who should have known better
invoked the memory of Sarajevo, but the very evocation of that flashpoint makes it
clear how remote the two great adversaries of the contemporary world were from
that brink of an earlier era. This is reassuring, for it means that the crisis-
management techniques and other factors which have built some stability into the
central balance of power over the past 40 years have remained workable, even
after several years of robust and continuing asperities between the superpowers.
To say this is not, of course, to deny that relations between Moscow and
Washington by 1983 were at their lowest point since the death of Stalin 30 years
earlier. One may fully assent to that proposition, and agree also that the situation
had disastrous consequences for some areas of international life (especially the
effort toward arms control), and yet still hold that the basic mechanisms for
preserving the peace, such as they are, do not appear to have been much
impaired. In fact, perhaps the contrary.
The many crises which were already on stream before January 1981 have not
been visibly mitigated, and some have probably been marginally worsened.
Poland, Afghanistan, the Persian Gulf war, the Middle East, Central America and
the Caribbean, southern Africa, Vietnam and Kampuchea—all bear their normal
tides of human misery along the accustomed pathways. I am not proposing an
unduly rosy view of international politics during these past four years, merely
pointing out that all was actually quiet, save on the rhetorical front, in the central
confrontation between the superpower adversaries.
A potential explanation for this state of affairs can be found on the Soviet side of
the confrontation. President Reagan’s first term spanned the final decline of
Leonid Brezhnev, the quasi interregnum as his death approached, the brief rule of
Yuri Andropov, and the early months of another ailing veteran of the Politburo,
Konstantin Chernenko. The decisions made in Moscow during those four years
were those of men who (like their elderly though sprightly counterpart in
Washington) all had good reasons to be conscious of their own mortality. Elderly,
ailing men (ayatollahs may perhaps be excepted) are not usually given to bold
adventures in foreign policy.
Not only were the decision-makers in Moscow declining in health during the
Reagan first term; the Soviet policy machine had too many problems on its hands
to take the sort of initiatives which might create more. Afghanistan and Poland,
the needs of useful allies in Cuba, Vietnam, South Yemen, Syria and Ethiopia
appear to have left few resources even for marginal and faltering allies in Angola
and Mozambique, much less for taking on major new commitments. One might
also argue that the domestic difficulties in the Soviet sphere of power, largely the
results of economic failures, impose their own constraints. Or, less optimistically,
one could say that there appears in Soviet policy an alternation, accidental or
deliberate, of periods of "forward policy" (as 1976-79) and of relative pause while
the gains of the forward policy are consolidated or digested. On that
interpretation, the comparative quiet of the first Reagan term could be seen as a
natural consequence of Soviet activism in the Carter years. President Reagan, in
other words, enjoyed the good fortune of President Carter’s bad fortune. If so, the
relative immobilism of Soviet policy would have to be seen as a short-term
phenomenon, not likely to persist for four more years.
Other possible explanations focus on the American side, and involve the
distinction between operational and declaratory signals. The contrast between the
Reagan and Carter years seems particularly illuminating. It owed more to
contrasts in what the two Presidents and their respective entourages said than to
any vast differences in what the two Administrations actually did.
Indeed, it is difficult to think of any major operational differences at all, save the
sharper and more combative stance during the Reagan years in the Caribbean
and Central America and a greater skepticism on arms control (though I would be
inclined to put arms control proposals into the sphere of declaratory policy
anyway). If one looks at the basic substance of the major operational
policies—continuance of support for NATO; continuance of a wary cultivation of
China; continuance of support for Israel, along with as much or as little cultivation
of moderate Arab governments as is compatible with the Israeli connection; a
continuing consciousness that the security importance of Japan outweighs any
economic rivalries; continuing orientation to the Association of South East Asian
Nations and to the Pacific, including ANZUS pact countries Australia and New
Zealand; a continuing restraint of the basic hostility to Vietnam and Iran—on all
these it is difficult to see more than marginal change.
Observing these continuities in operational policy and contrasting them with the
differences in media images, and the differences also in the overall international
fortunes of the two Administrations, it becomes difficult to resist the inference
that President Reagan’s declaratory signals have been, on balance, useful to his
purpose, not only electorally but internationally, and that the opposite was true
for President Carter. Perhaps this outcome is as yet more clearly visible in
Carter’s case, when we remember that the mildness of his initial declaratory
signals left him derisively (and unfairly) still seen at the end as a "terminal case of
meekness," despite actual operational policies in some respects tougher than any
so far in the Reagan period.
IV
To substantiate this assessment, let us look at a small cross-section of policy

issues during the Reagan years and compare the declaratory and the operational
signals that have been associated with them: China, Lebanon, the Persian Gulf,
Poland, the Korean airliner, and the trans-European gas pipeline.
On China policy, the difference between the early declaratory signals that seemed
to establish President Reagan as a dedicated friend of Taiwan and his actual
operational policy, following precisely the path taken by Presidents Nixon and
Carter to the Great Wall, is so obvious as hardly to need demonstrating.
Lebanon offers a more subtle and complex pattern, but one, to my judgment, of
much the same meaning. Initially the Reagan Administration approach seemed to
promise a discarding of earlier U.S. mediatory efforts in favor of something both
more ambitious and more in line with stated neoconservative positions. In March
1981 Secretary of State Alexander Haig told the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee that the objective was to "establish a consensus in the strategic
regional sense among the states in the area," all the way from Pakistan to Israel
and Egypt. But during the episode of Syrian antiaircraft missiles in April 1981, the
Israeli bombing of the Baghdad reactor in June 1981, and the initial phases of the
Israeli invasion of Lebanon in June 1982, the true operational message seemed to
be that Washington was leaving the direction of events in the hands of the local
actors.
Then there were the commitment of the marines in August 1982 and the Reagan
Plan initiative in September: both ambitious declaratory signals of what was
desired and desirable. But that did not really entail a new operational
commitment, save in the diplomatic time and energy of U.S. envoy Philip Habib
and other policymakers, mostly somewhat below the topmost level. Even the
commitment of marines was at a token level. When President Eisenhower put
marines into Lebanon in 1958, he used about 14,000 and left them there until the
political objectives of the U.S. government had been secured, for the time, and for
good or ill. The small detachment that President Reagan put in did not have a
military purpose but a diplomatic and political one; it was a declaratory signal.
When the marines suffered the casualties of October 1983, the President declared
that the United States had "vital interests" in Lebanon. And Secretary of State
George Shultz said, "We are in Lebanon because the outcome will affect our
whole position in the Middle East. To ask why Lebanon is important is to ask why
the Middle East is important." Again, strong declaratory signals.
A few months later, in February 1984, the marines were simply taken out.
Congressional opposition, 259 deaths and the opening of election year were
enough to make declared vital interests subject to reassessment. By late 1984
Lebanon had in effect been divided into Israeli and Syrian spheres of influence.
The Maronite Christians, whose position of dominance in Lebanese internal
politics had so long been sustained by the West (first the French and then the
Americans), seemed to be losing ascendency to the Muslims. I offer no criticism of
that outcome in itself; indeed, I think it may conduce to the chances of long-term
stability. My point is merely the disparity between the declaratory signal: "This is
interpreted by us as a vital interest," and the operational message that the United
States can ultimately sail away. The Eisenhower Doctrine, by late 1984, appeared
no longer operative in Lebanon. And to a chorus of surprise, Richard Murphy, the
U.S. assistant secretary of state for Near East and South Asian affairs, could
proclaim the Syrians to be no longer "Soviet puppets" as had been assumed so
confidently earlier by Reagan spokesmen. On the contrary, the Syrians could be
quite "helpful," Murphy told a congressional committee in July 1984, apparently
endorsing their role in security and stability. In other words, the declaratory
signal by then matched the operational signal: the Reagan Administration, far
from being more ambitious in the area than its predecessors, was less ambitious
and more prepared to leave local events in local hands.
In the Persian Gulf, one might argue similarly that the Carter Doctrine proved to
be non-operative in President Reagan’s time. Again the initial declaratory signals
were strong: the transformation of the Rapid Deployment Force into the Central
Command, and its fleshing-out with assigned forces such as carrier battle-groups
and airborne divisions and fighter wings to a total of almost 300,000 men. But
though a major war was in progress in the Gulf throughout the four years of the
Reagan first term, there was hardly more than a hint of American intervention,
even when tankers were subject to missile attacks. And when mines were laid
along the tanker routes, the Western powers merely swept them up, with a bit of
Soviet cooperation. On the evidence one would say that there has indeed been a
tacit understanding between Washington and Moscow that each would limit its
intervention in the area, on the assumption that the other continued to do so.
Again, no one in his or her right mind would complain. The point is just that there
was in this case also a chasm, rather than a mere gap, between what the
expectations had been back in 1980 of what the Reagan policy would be in the
event of local hostilities threatening the Gulf oil routes to the West, and what
actually happened. Or, more precisely, did not happen. For the world has in fact
proved able to shrug off a major war, now into its fifth year, in which both sides
have threatened or damaged oil installations or oil tankers in and around the Gulf.
The oil glut persisted despite those events. OPEC has not only been unable to
raise oil prices; it had by late 1984 seen the real price of oil fall, as cuts in
production had to be made to keep the nominal price hovering somewhere near
$29 per barrel. Present U.S. policy in the Gulf looks uncommonly like a tacit
acquiescence in the Nixon Doctrine—that local powers must learn to fend for
themselves in local crises.
In the Polish crisis, already under way when President Reagan came into office
but reaching its decision-point only with the declaration of martial law in
December 1981, the pattern hardly varied from earlier East European crises. The
rhetoric was vehement, and the debate expressed U.S. outrage, but the actual
sanctions against the Soviet Union were exceedingly mild. In particular, grain
sales under existing agreements were not restricted; the United States continued
to participate in the Helsinki review talks and the Geneva negotiations on arms
control; a scheduled meeting between Haig and Gromyko was allowed to proceed.
In fact, aside from the suspension of Aeroflot services and some restrictions on
high technology purchases, it is difficult to see anything in U.S. operational policy
that could have caused much wincing in Moscow. The unfortunate Poles
themselves were rather more the true victims of any clampdown, suffering
suspension of food aid and other economic blows for a time. Overall, American
policy seemed a clear continuation of the tradition of well-signaled U.S. restraint
in East European crises, which again dates right back to Dulles in 1953.
Washington’s reactions to the shooting down of the Korean airliner in September

1983 were almost a carbon copy of the reactions to the declaration of martial law
in Poland less than two years earlier. Again the level of rhetorical denunciation
reached a new crescendo, again there were symbolic gestures of
outrage—declaratory signals—like the denial of landing rights for Gromyko’s
plane when he sought to make his customary visit to the U.N. General Assembly.
But again operational policies were not exactly severe. The grain deal was not
rescinded. The Madrid meeting (essentially a continuance of the Helsinki
Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe which Reagan had so often
denounced) was not only allowed to proceed but was chosen as a venue for a low-
key meeting between Shultz and Gromyko. Shortly after the incident the arms
control talks were suspended, but that was a Soviet declaratory signal against the
Pershing II and cruise deployments, not Washington’s choice.
The Soviet gas pipeline provides an example of a different sort of crisis, an

intramural crisis of the NATO alliance. The declaratory signals were as usual
fierce: talk of sanctions against America’s closest and most necessary allies. And
Washington did have a case; dependence by the West Europeans on Soviet
sources for even a small segment of their energy supplies does not seem a good
idea, nor does the provision of a new source of hard currency to the Soviet Union.
But the Europeans also had a point: their vulnerability to Middle East oil
producers is so great that their total level of risk is not more than marginally
increased, if at all, by some shift of energy dependence to the Soviet Union. And
the Russians need to be able to sell commodities to the West if they are to buy
Western goods in return. The advantages of détente, economically but also in
human terms, are too great for the European powers to be willing to relinquish
them, especially not at the instance of an American Administration as little
credited with understanding Europe as that of President Reagan. So the
Europeans dug their toes in and ignored the Washington rhetoric. The gas now
flows westward, and hard currency eastward; U.S. sanctions have not exactly
been overwhelming. Again the contrast was between a tough initial declaratory
policy and an ultimate operational policy of shrugging the whole thing off.
Arms control (or the lack of it) provides the most complex example of declaratory
signals. Formal proposals were made, such as those presented in the Strategic
Arms Reduction Talks and intermediate-range nuclear forces negotiations, but
there were informal but perfectly clear indications, evident even before he came
to office, that Mr. Reagan was unlikely to be an enthusiast for arms control
treaties, judging by all he had said about Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT I
and SALT II). And then there were his defense proposals, clearly likely to amount
to a major rearmament effort, mostly in advanced nuclear weapons.
It is not totally impossible to combine a belief that the United States by 1981
needed to upgrade its nuclear capacity in some fields vis-à-vis the Soviet Union
with a belief that arms control treaties have merit in promoting the stability of the
general strategic relationship with the Soviet Union. But to formulate policies
giving weight to both objectives takes more specialized knowledge of the field
than even his aides would claim for the President. Given the necessities of the
arms buildup, the nature of some of the arms control appointments made, and the
actual process of the negotiations, no one reasonably conversant with the issues
could have been surprised at the outcome, or lack of outcome, of the formal
initiatives in the first Reagan term. An air of "doing it for the record" (ingenious
though the proposals were) hung over them from the first. Nevertheless, and
despite Reagan’s earlier denunciations of SALT II, that unratified treaty seems to
have remained operational. And despite heavy hints that the Anti-Ballistic Missile
Treaty might be discarded, it has so far been preserved.
These instances seem to add up to reasonably solid evidence that on the whole the
diplomatic bark of the Reagan Administration has been considerably fiercer than
its bite; that is, the pattern has been one of declaratory signals a good deal
sharper than the operational ones. There is one obvious area where policy may be
seen as an exception to that rule: Central America and the Caribbean. In
Nicaragua, the Administration has tried to see what some very heavy-handed
declaratory signaling could accomplish. Possibly that will prove a mere prelude to
actual combat operations. But perhaps the general Reagan pattern will be
maintained, that of declaratory signals fiercer than operational policies, at least
as compared with Eisenhower’s 1954 covert intervention in Guatemala, Kennedy’s
Bay of Pigs fiasco and Johnson’s 1965 use of marines in the Dominican Republic.
The point of real interest, however, is not in which areas the Administration’s
bark has proved fiercer, but whether it can be argued with any plausibility that
the fierceness of the signaling has precluded the necessity for action. Could it be
that the rhetoric has raised assessments in Moscow of a higher level of risk in any
kind of Soviet forward policy, making the "correlation of forces," the central
concept in a Leninist analysis, look less favorable? Factors against adventurism
stemming from the Soviet side were, in any case, strong. Even a slight extra
weight of assessed risk, created by U.S. declaratory signals, might have proved
substantial enough to tip the scales.
If we compare that putative payoff from one kind of declaratory policy with the
misfortunes of the Carter period when an alternative kind of declaratory policy
was in force (though the operational policies were not all that different), it seems
to suggest a revised view about the general relationship between declaratory and
operational signals—a view possibly applicable beyond this eight-year stretch of
American experience.
Both sets of signals contribute to the expectations which the superpowers have of
each other. Those expectations in turn are incorporated into the assessments of
costs and risks which determine actual policy decisions on both sides of the
central balance. But there is an important distinction between declaratory signals
and operational signals that is particularly relevant to the present and the most
recent past (the last two decades, more or less). The powers have for these 20
years or so had independent means of seeing for themselves, with the aid of
satellites and such, what the capabilities of the other side are. So the ambiguities
from which have traditionally arisen the miscalculations that precipitate crises,
and sometimes wars, are no longer in the field of relative capabilities. They are
almost exclusively now in the field of will; sometimes the will of a society as a
whole, sometimes the will of its dominant political elite, but more often the will of
the chief decision-maker and the small group of policymakers who immediately
surround him.
And of that small group’s will, in a situation of crisis, no satellite can provide
direct observation. Operational policy does provide some signals bearing on will,
of course, but in this particular field declaratory policy—speeches and
such—provides the most direct guide to mood, and thus cannot safely be
discounted by an adversary as a signal of will. In other words, declaratory signals
may be a rather more important component of the total mix of signals now than
they were before the age of surveillance (i.e., before about 1965) because the
remaining ambiguities of the power balance are in the area of will rather than
capacity, and declaratory signals tend to determine the image of will which each
group of adversary decision-makers forms of the other.
In summary, a general war in the nuclear age is more likely to come from
miscalculation than from deliberate challenge, and miscalculation, in the age of
surveillance, is more likely to derive from uncertainties about the will of the chief
decision-maker in the adversary camp than about the strategic capacities of the
two systems. Khrushchev’s apparent miscalculation about Kennedy offers a
parallel: he is reported to have come away from their Vienna meeting in 1961
convinced that the young new President was "too liberal to fight." The genesis of
the Cuban missile crisis, undoubtedly the most dangerous war-threatening crisis
of the entire nuclear period, may in part be seen in that assessment. Carter was
perhaps, because of his initial declaratory signals, in some danger of accidentally
engendering that same kind of calculation or miscalculation; Reagan is clearly
not. The preservation of peace rests, unfortunately, on nothing more substantial
than the system of expectations in Moscow and Washington as to how the
decision-makers in the other capital will react in the event of policies
unacceptable to them. So one would not wish any kind of dangerous illusion to
creep into those sets of expectations, such as the illusion that the other side had
"no option but détente." Disillusion is no doubt very embittering. Illusion,
however, is a great deal more dangerous in international politics. If either
adversary has no option but détente, why should the other pay any price to
preserve the détente? Soviet policy in the late 1970s might be taken as partial
evidence of that mood, so Soviet reassessments, after the Reagan inauguration,
were therefore useful rather than damaging to the basic mechanism that keeps
the peace, in the sense of helping disperse any such illusion, and thus reducing
the chance of some lethal miscalculation.
VI
It probably would be too optimistic to believe that noisy declaratory signals—i.e.,

hostile rhetoric—can become a substitute for more destructive international
behavior. That would mean that the two superpowers had been sensible enough to
adopt the technique of gorillas deep in their respective patches of jungle, loudly
beating their respective chests—not as a prelude to fighting but because they
want to avoid doing so—these declaratory signals being an established ritual for
ensuring that their respective interests are not unacceptably encroached upon.
Still, at least in the Western world and especially in the hands of a professional
"communicator" like Ronald Reagan, rhetoric and gesture do seem to have been
adequate substitutes for operational toughness with most of his supporters.
At this point, one final feature of the Reagan foreign policy, the popularity of the
Grenada invasion, becomes illuminating. The wresting of that tiny island from the
group of erratic left-wing thugs who had murdered the prime minister and half his
cabinet seems to have been justifiably popular on the island itself, and I have no
quarrel with the view that the upshot will enhance the Grenadians’ chances for
life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But in terms of geopolitical realities it
was no big deal. The nationalist enthusiasm for the success of U.S. forces does
seem rather on a par with proudly lauding a steamroller for its success in
cracking a walnut.
What might, however, be said in approval of the Grenada operation was that as a
declaratory signal of a dramatic sort it worked very well indeed. It focused the
attention of the entire world, at least for a week or two, on that tiny patch of land,
and on Washington’s will (no one doubted the capability) to do something about
developments it did not like in the Caribbean. The President even picked up a
bonus when Suriname, having seen what happened in Grenada, sent its own
Cubans packing. So, in effect, Mr. Reagan secured some inhibition on the growth
of Cuban influence in two areas for the price of one, as well as a great deal of
popularity with the U.S. electorate. He is an intuitive politician, and his intuitions
were clearly on target in the decision to launch the Grenada operation at the time
of the marine casualties in Lebanon.
Any such apparent payoffs from the Reagan policies must of course be balanced
against costs. The chief debit, undoubtedly, in the eyes of most observers was the
"opportunity cost" of the failure of arms control efforts. I would not myself rate
this so high as many commentators, because I doubt that the early 1980s could
have been a good period for arms control even if Jimmy Carter had been returned
to power. The rows over the Pershing II and cruise missiles would have been the
same; the ambivalence of the Europeans would have been the same; the felt need
for NATO to stick to its 1979 resolution would have been the same. The rate of
increase in military spending might perhaps have been somewhat less than
President Reagan has secured, but in fact the Carter proposals on the MX (the
most controversial item) were a great deal more extravagant both on numbers
and basing than the program that the Reagan policymakers have apparently
settled for, bowing to the recalcitrance of Congress: no vastly expensive mobile
basing system, and probably less than half the numbers. Even attitudes on the
nuclear freeze and the arms control "build-down" ideas might not have been all
that different, since the freeze in particular is the sort of notion easier to go along
with in opposition than in government.
Ought one then to say that the chief costs have been in the level of irritation at
various Reagan declaratory signals among the policymakers of his major allies?
But whether NATO has been seriously damaged—beyond what it might have been
if Jimmy Carter had stayed in power—seems to me again quite doubtful. NATO
conduces so solidly to the respective national interests of its European members,
and is so well understood to do so by the foreign policy elites currently in power
in those capitals (and even by their domestic political opposite numbers), that it
will take a great deal more than harsh words about gas turbines to really shake
the alliance. And though European policymakers and analysts sharpen their
considerable wits on both varieties of American foreign policy moralism, on the
whole they probably see the more real danger in President Carter’s kind of
Wilsonianism, especially in respect to the West’s fragile relationship with the
Third World. (The reverse is true, of course, of left-liberal critics and also of many
Third World elites. They tend to respond sympathetically to the Wilsonian value-
system, at least until they work out what national self-determination might imply
in the cases of their own national minorities, and what any serious observance of
human rights might do to their own authority structures.)
One might make a better case for true damage to U.S. credibility in the Middle
East, with certainly a reduction of assumed U.S. capacity to control events,
whether one is thinking of Lebanon or the Gulf. The Saudis have been irritated by
the neglect of the Fahd Plan and by the U.S. debates over the supply of aircraft
and missiles. Kuwait and Jordan have been irritated enough to purchase Soviet
missiles. Morocco has contracted its improbable marriage of convenience with
Libya, a government ranking almost equal with the Soviet Union in the
demonology of American neoconservatives. Syria has undoubtedly advanced its
status and sphere of influence, not only vis-à-vis Lebanon but also the United
States, and even apparently Israel. And the Soviet Union, which had been
successfully excluded from real (as against titular) power in Middle Eastern crises
might be deemed to be back now, as the shadow behind Syria. All the Arab
countries, even Egypt, have obviously been irritated by the strategic cooperation
agreement with Israel.
Yet even assuming some loss of U.S. influence in the Middle East, I am not sure
one ought to go on to assume reduced prospects of reasonable stability there.
Actual settlements may be out of reach in the foreseeable future, but
paradoxically, a more viable balance of conflicts seems to be emerging from the
increased Syrian ascendancy, a rearrangement of alliances in the Arab world, and
the Israelis’ recognition of the limits of their capacity to operate in Lebanon.
Again paradoxically, the strategic cooperation agreement would thus prove a
prelude to some Israeli retreat, not an increase in dominance.
VII
Finally, we must look at what will probably seem an insuperable objection to any
policy that allows a substantial gap between declaratory and operational signals:
that the gap is bound to be noticed after a while and thus the credibility of future
declaratory signals will be diminished, not only among allies and in the Middle
East and Central America, but much more importantly, in Moscow. True, but what
that means chiefly is that the Administration will need a new policy for the new
term. In a wildly optimistic moment, one might hope that some such thought,
along with the simple cynical electoral calculation, was among the reasons for the
universally noticed Reagan change of rhetorical style in the last year of his first
term. The true nature of that change, in the terms we have been using, was that
the declaratory signals were softened to match the continuing mildness of the
operational signals. Obviously, in the second term the original gap could easily be
restored by a new sharpening of the declaratory signals, or the two could be kept
in tandem, so to speak, by a sharpening of both.
It is, however, difficult to see what exactly would be the advantage of such a
course, either for the President personally, or for his Republican Party backers,
who will want to continue keeping Democrats out of the White House, and who
will presumably continue to remember that the war issue was the one on which
their man came closest to being vulnerable. Moreover, though Mr. Reagan was
able to campaign in 1980 and during his first two or three years in office on the
alleged deficiencies in his predecessor’s defense policies, that will hardly do for
his fifth and subsequent years in power. From 1985 any further talk of American
strategic weakness will imply a reflection on his own past policies.
Thus it has become logical for the Administration instead to imply (as was done in
the September 1984 U.N. speech) that the "strength-building" part of the
negotiation-from-strength concept is already adequately under way. Therefore the
phase of negotiation may be approaching. If the President can successfully make
this transition, he might even manage to avoid the difficulty which defeated the
policymakers who propounded the same strategy in the early 1950s: the difficulty
of choosing the moment when the optimal chance of diplomatic progress has been
reached. During that earlier historic phase, the best situation for the West in
terms of potential negotiating leverage seems in retrospect to have been late
1953, with the Soviet decision-makers still in the phase of post-Stalin disarray,
and while the impetus of the first NATO rearmament effort still looked strong. But
that moment was lost, and by 1956 a new and rather incautious Soviet decision-
maker, Nikita Khrushchev, was in control, and a new upswing in Soviet strategic
capacity was under way.
That cycle does not have to be repeated, though all the conditions that make it
likely already exist. The parallel with the early 1950s could be bleakly completed
with a new rise in the level of danger as the Strategic Defense Initiative research
begins bearing fruit, and perhaps an early 1990s crisis to parallel 1962.
That could happen, but sufficient intelligence applied to U.S. policy could prevent
it. There is a case for assuming that on both sides of the balance a new phase of
detente and arms control looks possible and desirable. On the Soviet side, the
only interpretation which makes sense of Mr. Gromyko’s decision to come calling
before the election is that the decision-makers in Moscow had by September 1984
concluded that they were stuck with Mr. Reagan, little as they liked him, for
another four years, and must pursue a damage-limiting strategy by trying to re-
create enough détente to take the impetus out of the SDI research, if possible.
Otherwise they would have to try and match it: a very expensive decision for their
faltering economy. Once they had decided on that strategy, it became tactically
logical to make the bid before the election, when the Administration’s incentive to
appear conciliatory was at its strongest.
It may be objected that while the Russians had nothing to lose by such an
approach, President Reagan will be in severe danger of losing the ideological
support of neoconservative "true believers" if he continues the softened
declaratory signals of election year into the new term, and particularly if his
operational signals indicate an actual move toward negotiation and détente. There
are indications already of some loss of faith in the President among the sharper-
tongued gurus of this group.
But in his second term President Reagan obviously has to worry about how he will
stand with history rather than about the support of groups once tactically useful,
but now certainly no longer necessary. There is reason to be skeptical that he is a
typical neoconservative: he seems to lack the urbane sharpness, the pessimism
and disillusion, and the worries about theoretical consistency that distinguish the
more notable members of the intellectual clique who developed that doctrine.
Many of them are people for whom Soviet policy, especially in the Middle East
and Eastern Europe, has been a source of true emotional trauma, especially if
they were liberals or radicals to begin with. That gives them some piercing
insights, but it does not give them much in common with an easygoing, relaxed
Californian of Irish Protestant background, with a sunny optimism of
temperament and a rather short attention span. So there appears psychological
scope for a parting of the ways.
If the President does lose the neoconservatives, or they him, it will make relations
with his European allies a good deal easier. The thoroughly conservative foreign
policy establishments of the European powers tend to regard American
neoconservatives with a jaundiced eye, because the neoconservatives tend to
picture the Europeans as hovering perpetually on the brink of Finlandization. That
is seen as a very real insult by the European policymakers concerned, since it
implies stupidity as well as cowardice.
Of course only the second term will determine which way the choices will go, but
the auguries for renewed dialogue and perhaps even eventual gains in the field of
arms control appeared promising as 1985 began. Soviet alarm over the
potentialities in the Strategic Defense Initiative has already been heavily signaled,
and appeared a major incentive for Moscow to try further shifts in tactical
positions. The need to bring the deficit, and therefore the arms budget, under
control had almost the same effect for Washington. The pressure of grassroots
feeling about nuclear dangers and the discontents of their respective allies bore
on both superpowers, though asymmetrically. A reason for arms control still
better than any of those is, or should be, present in the minds of decision-makers
on both sides: the pressing need for reinforced crisis stability at a time when the
balance between offensive and defensive weaponry may be liable to sudden
change. There are not many arms control objectives of equal urgency and
importance for both sides, but crisis stability is one, and it could provide the
guiding thread through the labyrinth their arms control negotiators are about to
enter.
As a final paradox, one might note that despite the fact that Presidents Carter and
Reagan were both foreign policy moralists in their respective ways, their
contrasted experiences appear splendidly to exemplify Machiavelli’s reflections on
the roles of fortuna and virtu in political life. Fortune has certainly been with Mr.
Reagan so far, in comparison to his recent predecessors. Unlike those who came
to office in 1969, he had no disastrous war to wind up. Unlike Mr. Carter, he was
not borne into office on a wave of liberal guilt and loss of U.S. self-confidence. On
the contrary, he has benefited domestically and internationally by the swing of the
pendulum back to nationalist buoyancy. As a patch of historical experience, it
tends to reduce an analyst to reflections about the luck of the Irish. But from the
point of view of the theory of foreign policy, the greater importance of declaratory
over operational signals in an age of surveillance may be the idea to be noted.
Coral Bell is Senior Research Fellow at Australian National University. She is the author of The Diplomacy of Détente
and editor of the series Agenda for the Eighties.
February 1,1985
The First Term: Four More Years:
Diplomacy Restored?
Leslie H. Gelb and Anthony Lake
Reagan in Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1982.
Nineteen hundred and eighty-five begins as a year of promise in world affairs. The
Soviet Union has returned to the bargaining table with the United States after a
year's hiatus. The Middle East is relatively quiet despite the violence in Lebanon.
The situation in Central America is unhappy but seemingly stalemated. Nowhere
are American forces engaged in combat. No catastrophes hover over President
Reagan as he begins his second term.
Nineteen hundred and eighty-four marked a passage of sorts for the Reagan
Administration. After three years of stifling rhetoric and inaction, the White
House and the State Department returned to more traditional diplomatic
forms—moderate words that allow for compromise, and actual engagement with
adversaries previously shunned. Of equal importance, President Reagan and
Secretary of State Shultz assert that the Administration has restored America's
position and power in the world, and that on this basis they are ready to pursue
diplomatic ends.
As always, however, the picture is decidedly mixed. On the plus side, Mr. Reagan
has generally succeeded in generating positive perceptions of the United States,
of a nation on the move while its chief adversary is in decline. For the most part,
nations are treating the Reagan Administration with respect and looking to it for
leadership.
Uncertain still is how much the Administration has actually improved American
military and economic power. Upon closer inspection, America's gains in these
categories over the past four years may turn out to be less impressive and
enduring than they are commonly portrayed. Likely, they fall far short of the
position of strength the Administration may feel it requires in order to compel
others to bend toward American desires. And on the negative side, the
Administration will find that the world it now wants to engage presents a frozen
diplomatic landscape. This is due in part to the lack of Reagan diplomatic
accomplishments and in part just to the way the world is, filled with enduring
animosities and real conflicts of interest, and with circumstances where leaders
are in fact seldom strong enough to impose their wills or resolve their differences.
Of more immediate and practical concern is whether the Administration, its new
promises notwithstanding, is sufficiently led, organized and disposed to the
sustained attention and kinds of compromises necessary to the conduct of more
traditional diplomacy. Mr. Reagan's staunchest conservative supporters are
arguing that his first term was right on course, and that he should stick with it.
Better no agreements with adversaries than agreements that compromise
American principles and interests, they contend. Besides, they are saying, the
United States is still inferior militarily to the Soviet Union, and the Administration
is not yet ready to negotiate from strength.
But the conflicts of the world will not stop or stop compounding until the United
States is prepared to resume the role of peacemaker. Mr. Reagan can count
himself fortunate thus far that he has not faced the difficult choices of his
predecessors. But he cannot count on such continued good fortune. For the kinds
of achievements the President now insists are his most cherished goals, he will
have to turn his back on some of his most basic professions of faith.
II
The Reagan philosophy, as the President explained it in 1980 and 1981,

represented a radical departure from the foreign policies of the previous decade.
Presidents Nixon, Ford and Carter had consistently, albeit in different ways,
conducted foreign policies that were adjusting to the changed world. Each
pursued an active diplomacy to compensate for the diffusion of international
power that had become so evident by the late 1960s. Ronald Reagan reversed the
logic: Washington's policies should not have to adjust to the world—a strong
reassertive America could make the world adjust to Washington.
To understand how sharp the Reagan departure was, one must recall the
evolution in American thinking about foreign policy during the 1960s. In the
halcyon years of unequaled American power after World War II, the United States
had essentially pursued policies of deterrence through the threat of force.
Diplomacy with the Soviet Union was subordinate to simple deterrence. President
Eisenhower was periodically intrigued by new diplomatic opportunities, but
Secretary of State John Foster Dulles slowed the progression of such policies, and
Eisenhower then ran out of time.
Presidents Kennedy and Johnson were more prepared to deal with the Soviets.
There was some progress after the Cuban crisis, and a limited nuclear test ban
treaty was achieved. But the impulse for diplomacy, either with Moscow or in
troubled regions, was increasingly diverted by the demands of the Vietnam War.
When Lyndon Johnson called on others to reason together with us, his audience
was his opponents in Vietnam. He could not find a larger diplomatic stage on
which to operate. Foreign policy had become Vietnam policy.
Yet throughout the 1960s, more and more analysts were finding in Vietnam a
fundamental conceptual error in American foreign policy. It was time, they
argued, for America to recognize that the world had changed. Our strength was
newly limited, not by a loss of American will, but by a profusion of new nations
and a diffusion of military as well as economic power. This called, they argued, for
adjustments, both in defining a more careful hierarchy of our interests and in how
we pursued them.
It was not only liberals who were thinking these thoughts. Henry Kissinger wrote
in 1968:
For most of the postwar period, America enjoyed predominance in physical

resources and political power. Now, like most other nations in history, we find
that our most difficult task is how to apply limited means to the accomplishment
of carefully defined ends. We can no longer overwhelm our problems; we must
master them with imagination, understanding and patience.
In 1969, Richard Nixon well understood the point Kissinger had made. He
proclaimed the end of the postwar era in international relations, and laid out a
series of new policy directions in which a new emphasis on diplomacy would help
compensate for a reduction in America's relative strength. No longer possessing a
preponderance of power, the United States would maneuver within a sustained
balance of power. And under President Nixon important diplomatic achievements
were attained: in the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT I) agreements, in the
opening to China, in the disengagement of Egyptian and Israeli forces in the Sinai.
President Nixon was struggling not only with changed international realities, but
with basic changes in the domestic politics of foreign policy as well. Ever since
World War II, the American public had insisted that its presidents' foreign policies
successfully serve two goals: containing the spread of communism and Soviet
influence, and keeping America at peace. Of course, the two goals were
sometimes contradictory. But any politician who failed to promise both, and any
president who could not produce both, was penalized at the polls.
Mr. Nixon found his way between the Charybdis of war and the Scylla of
appeasement by winding down American participation in Vietnam while
proclaiming policies of peace with honor. He was able to avoid reaction on the
right to his recognition of a new era largely through his wars with the left. The
attacks on him by the anti-war movement helped shield him from suspicions of
softness. His tough rhetoric and emphasis on a sustained balance of power
strengthened the shield.
Nevertheless, when Mr. Nixon was gone and the war was over, hard-liners who
found Henry Kissinger's policies of adjustment at best distasteful, and at worst un-
American, went on the attack. To accommodate either our goals or our diplomacy
to a changed world would become a self-fulfilling admission of weakness, they
argued. The attack on Mr. Kissinger within both the Democratic and Republican
parties focused on his historical pessimism and his acceptance of the view that we
could not order the world in the way we wished. For the Democrats, it was his
lack of concern about the internal policies of other governments and their human
rights abuses. For conservative Republicans, it was his willingness to negotiate
and thus compromise with the Soviet Union: if we are all that is good and they are
all that is evil, then to compromise with the devil is sin. So in 1975 and 1976,
Gerald Ford bent to the winds from his right in the Republican Party, abandoned
the pursuit of a SALT II agreement and banished the word "détente" from his
Administration's lexicon. Policies of adjustment were put on hold. Serious
diplomacy would wait.
Jimmy Carter came to office presenting a picture of the world in 1977 similar to
that described by Richard Nixon in 1970. The challenge for American foreign
policy was to adapt to and shape processes of change abroad. Certainly, there was
more emphasis on human rights and less on containment than there had been
with President Nixon; more effort at achieving regional solutions to regional
problems and less on constraining the Soviets through détente and linkages. But
like Nixon and Kissinger, Carter and Secretary of State Cyrus Vance pursued
policies of diplomatic engagement. And, again, important results were achieved:
in the Camp David accords, in normalization of relations with the People's
Republic of China, in the negotiation of a SALT II agreement, in the Panama Canal
treaties and in helping to achieve a settlement in Zimbabwe.
Unlike Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter left office with his foreign policies largely
discredited. Part of the reason was his failure ever to fashion a coherent policy
toward the Soviet Union. Another was the way in which the Iran hostage crisis
came to symbolize what was perceived as a weak presidency. It laid bare the
limitations to American power, and the American public did not like it. Perhaps
most important was a signal difference from the Nixon approach: while the former
President had presented policies of adjustment in the rhetoric of national power,
Mr. Carter presented them in the rhetoric of adjustment (except when it came to
human rights). It was honest, but it alarmed both the American public and our
allies. The containment imperative had been violated. In 1980, when his rhetoric
shifted, his anti-Soviet tough line was more confusing than convincing.
As the pain of Vietnam receded in the national memory, Americans were ready for
a return to the security of the 1950s. Ronald Reagan promised to achieve this. His
was not the rhetoric of diplomacy; it was the rhetoric of supremacy, and it tended
to exclude diplomacy.
III
President Reagan painted a picture of the world which was both more dangerous
but also potentially much easier to shape to our interests and in our image than
the world described by Presidents Carter and Nixon. The Soviets were more
menacing than Mr. Carter had said they were, at least before 1980. But in the
Reagan view we did not face a jumble of complex and intractable problems which
required an American foreign policy of maneuver and adjustment. The problem
was not a complex world; it was simply the will of America. Restore our spirit and
our strength, and we could reverse the adverse growth of Soviet military power
over the past decade. Restore America and there could be be a restoration of the
"postwar era" whose obituary President Nixon had written in 1970.
From this followed a more expansive definition of American interests. If a failure

to stand up to the Soviets anywhere would encourage further aggression, and if
the Soviets were the source of radical challenges to the status quo almost
anywhere in the world, then every trouble spot posed a vital threat to American
interests. This required, in turn, a massive military buildup. As Robert Osgood
wrote in a Foreign Affairs review of President Reagan's first year:
The overriding goal of the Administration's foreign policy was to make American
and Western power commensurate to the support of greatly extended global
security interests and commitments. There was no disposition to define interests
more selectively and no expectation of anything but an intensified Soviet threat to
those interests. Hence, the emphasis on closing the gap between interests and
power would be placed on augmenting countervailing military strength. . . .
With new military strength would come two kinds of solutions to our foreign
challenges. First, we could negotiate with the Soviet Union from a position of
strength. The threat of an arms race which the Soviets could not hope to win
would force Moscow to negotiate arms control agreements on terms less generous
than those conceded by American negotiators in the SALT I and SALT II
agreements.
In addition, new American military strength would also deter Soviet trouble-
making around the world. Nixon's "era of negotiation" would be replaced by an
era of American might. Secretary of State Alexander Haig, speaking in 1981,
described the "four pillars" of the President's foreign policy: restoration of
America's economic and military strength; reinvigorated alliances; progress in the
developing countries; and a relationship with the Soviets "marked by greater
Soviet restraint and greater Soviet reciprocity." Unlike such listings of goals and
means by the Nixon and Carter Administrations, there was no separate pillar for
policies of diplomatic engagement in the world's conflicts. President Reagan
would create an era of deterrence without diplomacy.
This was Mr. Reagan's vision. It worked well in domestic politics, in allied and
friendly capitals and, to a degree, with the Soviets as well.
The American public responded well to his pictures of the world, not only during
the campaign but throughout his first term. Some have interpreted this as a sign
that the American people are therefore prepared for foreign policies of
reassertion—that the Vietnam analogy is dying, that the containment imperative is
once again dominating the peace imperative in our political debates. It is more
complicated than that.
President Reagan was not promising, in either the 1980 or 1984 campaigns,
policies of global activism, a return to the impulse of engagement of a John F.
Kennedy. He was promising a foreign policy that perfectly matched what seemed
to be the national mood: a new, comfortable nationalism which was not so much
assertive as narcissistic; a mood, in Stanley Hoffmann's phrase, of "happy self-
contemplation." After the nightmare of Vietnam and the humiliation of the
hostages in Iran, Americans wanted desperately to feel that they were again
"Number One." They thrilled to the happy notion of national supremacy and the
glowing terms in which the President promised it. But they did not want that
supremacy to come at a serious cost. Mr. Reagan did not suggest that we bear
more burdens or pay much of a price—except in defense spending. If we were
economically and militarily strong, the world would be better behaved and we
need not become involved in actual conflicts.
Thus one explains a contradiction in the polling data from 1984: the voters
approved of Reagan's overall foreign policy leadership—but disagreed with him on
the substance of such paramount issues as arms control, Central America and
defense spending, as opposed to strong defenses. They applauded his rhetoric, for
it promised "peace through strength," a kind of cost-free containment. They
responded to the images and slogans he and his supporters used: "Go for the
Gold," America as Number One. They loved the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.
They were concerned, however, with the prospect of military entanglements in
Central America or the deficits that paid for the defenses. It was a kind of
cinematic nationalism; you could find in the images of supremacy an escape from
reality.
Through his first term, the President was able to avoid a reckoning. As William
Schneider has shown, he was a decisive leader in the terms of this national mood.
The invasion of Grenada was a triple success: the military objective was achieved;
it was over quickly; and the costs were small. But the President, Schneider
argues, also exercised popular leadership in Lebanon. He acted decisively to get
out once the costs of his policy became real. Schneider writes:
During the Vietnam trauma, pollsters regularly asked Americans if they preferred
a "hawkish" or a "dovish" policy in Southeast Asia. The answer they got over and
over was, "We should win or get out." What people didn't want was endless,
pointless, escalating involvement. Well, what did Reagan do as President? In
Grenada we won. In Lebanon we got out. So much for the Vietnam syndrome.
The President's rhetoric and emphasis on rearmament was welcomed not only at
home, but among leadership groups in allied nations. Like the American public,
they recoiled when the President went too far in attacking the Soviets, or showed
a proclivity for unilateral action, or seemed insouciant about nuclear war, or
pursued policies which implied future costs and dangers. And certainly there were
major strains created by Washington's proclivity for unilateral action.
But European leaders responded positively to his vision of America reborn and his
sense of optimism about the future. They admired the American economic
progress of 1983-84 and welcomed accelerated U.S. defense spending. They
found in the style of his leadership echoes of "America the Liberator." It was a
rerun not only of the protected days of the immediate postwar era; it recalled the
American strength of World War II itself. Thus the success of the imagery of
Reagan's celebration in Normandy of the 40th anniversary of D-Day.
The Reagan approach may also have succeeded, in one sense, with the Soviets.
While diplomacy between Washington and Moscow was rocky throughout his first
term, as it had been in Jimmy Carter's last year, it may be that the Soviets were
deterred from foreign adventures by Reagan's posture, although such a
proposition is impossible to prove. The proportions of image and real intention
mixed into Reagan's posture of toughness can be debated, but even images
matter. There was a new appearance of American strength, and, as John F.
Kennedy once noted, appearances contribute to reality. Without access to the
councils of the Kremlin, there is no way of knowing whether America redux
actually deterred contemplated Soviet moves. It is a fact, however, that Mr.
Reagan was right when he said there had been no new Afghanistans on his first
watch.
Thus, by 1984, there was an impression, at home and abroad, of a renewed

America. And so, at the beginning of the year, President Reagan and Secretary
Shultz could begin to speak of new policies of diplomatic engagement. It was good
politics, but it also flowed from the initial premise of 1980: first restore America,
and then move on to bargain. Addressing the American Legion on February 24,
1984, the President declared that the two "essential preconditions of a
strengthened and purposeful foreign policy" had now been met: the restoration of
a strong domestic economy and the "rebuilding of our foundation of our military
strength." Mr. Shultz, in a speech before the Trilateral Commission on April 3,
noted that: "We have rebuilt our strength so that we can defend our interests and
dissuade others from violence." He went on to say: "A foreign policy worthy of
America must not be a policy of isolationism or guilt but a commitment to active
engagement."
In that speech and elsewhere, Secretary Shultz described the world and American
diplomacy in terms much different from the traditional Reagan rhetoric. He told
the Trilateral Commission that:
. . . evolution of the international system was bound to erode the predominant

position the United States enjoyed immediately after World War II. But it seems to
me that in this disorderly and even dangerous new world, the loss of American
predominance puts an even greater premium on consistency, determination and
coherence in the conduct of our foreign policy.
This statement could well have been made by senior officials in the previous three
Administrations.
In some respects, Mr. Shultz went even further than his predecessors in opening
the door to a stable arms control process with Moscow. To a Los Angeles audience
on October 18, he announced that the Administration would not link progress in
arms control to Soviet good behavior around the world. The arms control process
and arms control agreements were good in themselves and should not be
jeopardized, as they had been before, by differences in other areas. This went
beyond the statements of Secretary of State Vance, who argued against a policy of
linkage but acknowledged that linkage existed as a practical matter in American
politics. That is, even if the Carter Administration wanted to keep arms control
immune from Soviet conduct, political pressures would not allow it. The Shultz
speech was a repudiation of the Nixon-Kissinger policy of explicit linkage, which
maintained, in effect, that arms control was at least in part a reward for Soviet
good behavior.
Despite the encouraging public statements, however, there were two levels of
reality at the end of the first Reagan term. On one level, there were improved
atmospherics, a sense that the strategic tide was now moving in an American
direction, a positive response from foreign allies and perhaps greater caution on
the part of adversaries—and the promise of a new American approach in the
second term. On the other and more tangible level, there were three problems to
be addressed: the actual state of the American military and economy; continued
conflict on the Administration's bureaucratic battleground; and the frozen
diplomatic landscape.
IV
Has there actually been a dramatic improvement in America's military and

economic position? The real military picture is cloudy. There is little question that
America is stronger and has been getting stronger militarily for the last eight
years, with the expenditure of well over a trillion dollars. The Reagan
Administration itself has spent about $800 billion in four years. But military
experts hotly debate whether the country has gotten its money's worth. One must
wonder whether key members of the Administration, though they publicly claim
great improvement, are all that confident that this is so.
The Administration has substantially increased spending on the readiness of

American forces. Yet, by standard measures, the improvement is slight or nil. The
percentage of combat units judged to be in the top two categories of readiness
has gone up by only one percentage point in the last four years. Progress shows
up only in two areas: overall quality of personnel (attributed mainly to the
economic recession and pay increases) and naval aircraft readiness. The number
of main-line tactical aircraft for the air force, navy and marines has grown by only
three percent, from 2,996 to 3,092. Main-force navy ships have gone from 479 to
524, but the air force actually ordered more tactical aircraft during the Carter
years than under Reagan. To be sure, there is a much higher percentage of
modernized aircraft, for example, F-15s replacing the older F-4s. And overall, the
conventional forces are more capable. But it is hard to argue that there has been
a good total return on the large expenditures in readiness.
It is harder still to argue that, if there was a strategic nuclear window of

vulnerability in the first place, the Administration has done anything to close it.
Initially, it was a cardinal tenet of the Administration that the most pressing
military problem for Washington was to do something about the Soviet ability to
launch a few hundred of its big land-based missiles and destroy virtually all of the
American land-based nuclear forces. But, in four years, the Administration has
done nothing to reduce that theoretical vulnerability. The new MX missile, whose
future is in doubt, is to be based in "vulnerable" silos and not in a survivable
mode. The small, mobile Midgetman missile is still years from deployment. The
Administration is interested in a ballistic missile defense system to protect the
land-based missiles, but that is even further in the future—leaving aside questions
of feasibility, cost and the impact on arms control.
The President's Commission on Strategic Forces, also known by the name of its
chairman, retired Lieutenant General Brent Scowcroft, did the White House the
favor of closing the theoretical window of vulnerability by a simple proclamation.
The commission stated that for all practical purposes it is not now open. Senior
Administration officials have stopped talking publicly about this infamous window,
and that in itself is a good sign. But the idea dies hard and still lives on in some
quarters of the Administration.
Nor can the Administration credibly claim that the overall gap it said existed in
strategic nuclear capabilities has been narrowed. For the first time, the United
States is now behind the Soviet Union in the total number of ballistic missile
warheads, by about 7,000 to 8,000. The United States is also further behind the
Soviet Union in gross megatonnage and missile throw-weight with the decisions to
retire the aging Titan missiles and older B-52 bombers. Not that we believe that
these particular calculations are of central consequence, given the tremendous
overall nuclear capabilities possessed by both sides and the fact that the United
States continues to lead in the total number of deliverable strategic warheads and
bombs. But there are many in the Administration who have maintained over the
years that the numbers concerning heavy missiles and throw-weight, and the
attendant perceptions of relative Soviet-American strength, are of critical
importance.
Perhaps Administration leaders are calmer about these numbers today in the
knowledge of future American capabilities. Perhaps they think that the Trident
submarines and Trident II missiles coming on line, the new force of cruise missiles
now being deployed, and American superiority in the technology of antisatellite
and space-based weaponry are sufficient to correct the presumed imbalances.
Perhaps they draw the necessary comfort and confidence from the trends. But
that is not reflected in the private statements of many officials as new Soviet
strategic programs plunge ahead as well.
The balance of nuclear forces in Europe is also a subject of mixed feelings. On the
one hand, the Administration can take justifiable pride in having held the alliance
together to bring about the deployment of the Pershing IIs and ground-launched
missiles. About 100 are now available in West Germany, Italy and Britain.
Deployments scheduled in 1985 for Belgium and the Netherlands will be a
problem. On the other hand, the Soviet Union has more than doubled its lead in
modern medium-range nuclear missiles since Mr. Reagan took office. The number
of operational SS-20s now stands at 378 with 1,134 warheads, compared to 140
with three warheads each four years ago (and other SS-20 sites are under
construction). Moscow has also increased the number of forward-deployed
battlefield nuclear weapons. The Soviet Union now has more nuclear warheads of
all types in Europe than the United States, some 8,000 to about 6,000. These
numbers can mean much or little, depending on one's perspective on nuclear
power, but they are unlikely to give real comfort to the Reagan team.
It is far from clear that the Administration is at peace with itself on these
questions and on defense policy matters and the use of force generally. If
anything, the disparity between commitments and capabilities has grown under
this Administration, largely because commitments have been extended. In his
annual posture statement to Congress in 1983, Secretary of Defense Caspar
Weinberger stated that, "given the Soviets' capability to launch simultaneous
attacks in the Persian Gulf, NATO, and the Pacific, our long-range goal is to be
capable of defending all theaters simultaneously." Thus, instead of closing the gap
between commitments and capabilities by cutting back on commitments, as did
President Nixon, President Reagan has expanded both commitments and
capabilities—and the former faster than the latter.
After the elections, in late November 1984, Mr. Weinberger confused matters
further in a speech to the National Press Club detailing the standards which
should guide American military intervention. He said the territory or the issue
should be "deemed vital to our national interest," without defining this in any way;
that involvement must command public and congressional support, with clearly
defined political and military objectives; and that the Administration must be
determined in advance to win or not get involved at all. The Pentagon portrayed
the speech as both an effort to sharply limit American military interventions and a
rebuke to Secretary Shultz for being willing to use force too readily for fuzzy
diplomatic ends. Mr. Shultz had spoken in September of the need to use force
against terrorists and states sponsoring terrorism, even at the risk of innocent
civilian casualties and further military involvement. In general, the pattern has
been that Mr. Shultz and his State Department aides have been more willing to
use military force, as in Lebanon and Grenada, than Mr. Weinberger and the
Pentagon. It seems as if Secretary Weinberger believes that having more
American arms will speak for itself, deter challenges and obviate the need to
actually use force in the first place.
All of this tends to cast doubt on whether the Administration is in fact united
behind Secretary Shultz's recent statements that the United States has succeeded
in restoring the military balance and now will move forward to negotiate. There
remains a powerful segment of the Administration which continues to argue that
the United States is still behind the Soviet Union. Centered in, but by no means
limited to, the Pentagon, this group fears that the combination of budget-cutting
pressures plus the lure of arms control will erode support for necessary further
large increases in military spending.
These budget-cutting pressures are the consequence of some hard economic

truths. The abundant confidence the Reagan team had in the American economy
throughout most of 1984 now seems generally in shorter supply, and with some
reason, as 1985 begins. Beyond the domestic dilemma of how to reduce deficits
while not raising taxes, there is the fact that the United States is becoming a
debtor nation for the first time since World War I. Whether having foreigners
invest more here than Americans do abroad will be helpful or harmful in the long
pull is not known, and that uncertainty has caused considerable unease. Beyond
that, the $130-billion trade deficit causes outright distress. Protectionist
pressures, resisted by the Administration in the first term, will be harder to blunt
now. More basic and distressing still is the growing realization in the
Administration that deficits will not be conquered by higher and higher levels of
economic growth. Administration leaders know they will be embroiled in a
continuing struggle among themselves and with Congress over what to do about
budget cuts and tax reforms. All of which means that Mr. Reagan will have to
spend a lot of time once again on the economy, and that he will not have as much
time as hoped to devote to foreign affairs or be able to act with quite the expected
economic clout when he does.
These problems are exacerbated by another harsh reality: the President has
apparently been unwilling or unable to create peace within his own government.
Every administration has been torn by internal conflicts. Under every president,
some high officials have opposed making deals with communists and some have
always insisted on best bargains or nothing. Other high officials were willing to
risk compromises with adversaries, communist or not, on the grounds that such
risks were less painful and costly than the alternatives. It is unlikely that any
administration could or should be free of such internal disputes. But from the
Nixon Administration on, presidents were able to exercise the necessary
leadership within their administrations to achieve realistic diplomatic agreements.
President Reagan has not done this. The problem is not that he faces divisions
between the Department of Defense and Department of State or between the
State Department and White House staff that are greater than in previous
administrations. In fact, the philosophical divisions are far fewer in this
Administration than in the Carter Administration: there was a greater distance to
travel between Cyrus Vance and Zbigniew Brzezinski than there is between Mr.
Shultz and Mr. Weinberger.
The problem, at least in part, is that the right wing in the Reagan Administration
is further to the right and less willing to countenance compromise than the right
in previous administrations. When it came down to it, National Security Adviser
Brzezinski and his allies either actually favored or were willing to back SALT II,
the Panama Canal treaties and the Camp David accords, to name a few. Mr.
Weinberger and his allies have not been so flexible. When a powerful group in any
administration is flatly against compromise, it is very difficult for a president to
make concessions without substantial political vulnerability. But it can be done, if
a president is in as strong a political position as is Mr. Reagan.
The problem is that the President has rarely chosen decisively, in particular
situations, between contending factions. So, one week Lebanon is vital to
American interests and the next, the marines are withdrawn. So, one day Moscow
is told the Administration is prepared to be flexible and the next, Mr. Reagan
decides against compromises at a cabinet meeting. So, at one meeting he orders
compromises only to have the bureaucracy continuing to fight as if no decisions
had been made.
Thus, on foreign policy, the Administration has been in almost perpetual disarray,
or worse, profound internal stalemate. Mr. Reagan could have cut through this by
removing the anti-diplomacy group. But he did not, and there is every reason to
believe thus far that he will not in his second term. Perhaps these officials reflect
his own true ideological beliefs, or perhaps he finds it impolitic to remove them.
Nor has the President established a steady middle path of his own, as Robert
McFarlane, the national security adviser, has tended to recommend. Mr.
McFarlane does not have that kind of clout in the White House and has not proven
himself a match for the two departmental elephants. The President could have
taken an active and intimate part in the internal debates and gained the necessary
knowledge to impose his own position. But, again, he did not. He has not
mastered the substantive issues, if his news conferences and news stories are to
be taken as evidence. Whether he is disposed to do so now remains a central
question. For without mastery, or at least a solid working knowledge, of foreign
cultures and the intricacies of arms control issues, it is highly doubtful that this or
any Administration would feel comfortable making compromises. In the absence
of such intellectual control, the natural tendency is to put matters off, to refer the
problems back down to the middle levels of the bureaucracy for further study, in
search of elusive and magical consensus, while using comforting slogans and
rhetoric as a substitute for substantive policy.
Policy statements by the Administration, to be sure, have become more or less

consistently moderate during the past year, but everything else is seemingly
unchanged. Nor is there appreciably less skepticism about the value and necessity
of compromise if diplomacy is to produce agreements. In the upper echelons of
the State Department, there may be more talk about using diplomacy to manage
differences with other governments—but even here, the effort to resolve disputes
is made more through rhetoric and highly visible diplomatic encounters with
adversaries than through hard and politically risky compromise. Promises and
prospects essentially come down to White House assurances that the President is
determined to achieve diplomatic successes in his second term, especially in arms
control, and now feels he is in a position to do so.
It is difficult to assay those assurances or how the President perceives his political
circumstances. Does he believe the right wing of the Republican Party is now
more powerful and independent of him than before? Will Republican
conservatives in Congress be more or less cooperative? Does he think that
freedom from running for reelection will permit him to become more
philosophically pure or more pragmatic and independent of unwanted and narrow
political pressures? These are critically important questions, but highly
speculative ones.
VI
Less speculative is the frozen quality of the international diplomatic landscape

which the President now surveys, as he considers new policies of diplomatic
engagement and new efforts at arms control.
The diplomatic agenda contains four crucial problems: Central America and the
Caribbean; the Middle East; southern Africa; and relations with the Soviet Union,
including notably the achievement of "meaningful arms control." In each case the
legacy of the past four years is one of no catastrophic failures but no concrete and
positive diplomatic accomplishments.
In Central America and the Caribbean, the Administration in 1984 stepped up

both diplomatic and military activities. Gone was any talk of going to "the source"
in Cuba. Gone also was the earlier total opposition to talking with the Sandinistas
and Salvadoran guerrillas. The United States began talking regularly to the
Sandinistas. The Salvadoran government and the Salvadoran guerrillas started
meeting face to face, at the initiative of Salvadoran President José Napoleón
Duarte and, initially, against Administration wishes. The Contadora group had
produced a draft treaty to settle matters between and within Nicaragua and El
Salvador, but the Administration found its terms too vague and provisions for
verification inadequate. The draft was shunted aside. There was, in sum,
diplomatic communication throughout the region, but the parties to the various
disputes seemed no closer to compromise than before. The real talking was still
being done on the battlefield.
That may be the only place in the region where the Administration believes
satisfactory outcomes are possible. Washington will not countenance any power-
sharing arrangement between the Salvadoran government and the guerrillas. Nor
is it likely to find any agreement made with the Sandinistas to be acceptable as
long as the Sandinistas remain in power by virtue of that agreement. The
prevailing view in the Administration still seems to be that, inevitably, left-wing
revolutionaries will refuse to honor negotiated agreements—and by that time, the
American people may not want to become reinvolved to stop them.
It would not be stretching what is known too far to say that the Administration's
real aim is to unseat or substantially dilute Sandinista power in Nicaragua and to
make the Salvadoran government sufficiently strong to eschew compromise. Some
Administration officials argue that progress has been made toward these ends;
the weight of expert opinion is otherwise. The indubitable fact is that the
adversaries in the region are more heavily armed than ever, with still more
weapons on the way. Increased fighting is the most likely prognosis for the
coming year.
The American position and the prospects for negotiated settlements also dimmed
in the Middle East, beginning with the virtual collapse of American policy in
Lebanon in the first three months of 1984. As fighting exploded among the various
Lebanese factions, Mr. Reagan reassessed his position and decided to withdraw
the marines and the offshore naval presence. The immediate effects were a
realignment of power within Lebanon favoring Syria, and as a consequence,
Lebanese President Amin Gemayel's decision to renounce the 1983 peace treaty
with Israel.
This experience will not be lost on Israel when and if the Administration starts
pushing Mr. Reagan's plan for Jordanian-Israeli negotiations on the West Bank
and Gaza Strip. But in the meantime, Israel was overwhelmed by internal
economic difficulties and was forced to declare its intention unilaterally to
withdraw its forces from Lebanon. So the Administration's main aim, to bring
about withdrawal of Syrian and Israeli forces from Lebanon, collapsed. Syria, it
appears, is the winner in Lebanon after having been defeated by Israeli forces on
the battlefield. The losers are Israel, the United States and serious hopes for
diplomatic progress.
This kind of outcome seemed almost foreordained by an Administration that never

appeared to know what it wanted in the Middle East—or at least, how to get it.
First, it wanted a "strategic consensus" of Israel and the moderate Arab states
against the Soviet Union. When that proved unattainable, it switched its focus to
Saudi Arabia. The Saudis proved not to be the key to peace in the area. Then,
when Israel attacked Lebanon, the Administration condemned the action, and
relations with Jerusalem were deeply strained. Just as suddenly, the
Administration altered course once again and began emphasizing its ties to Israel.
There is every indication now that Mr. Reagan's diplomatic position in the region
is in a shambles. The Administration has all it can do to help the Israelis restore
their economy and withdraw their forces from Lebanon, without trying to
convince Jerusalem to compromise on the West Bank as well. King Hussein of
Jordan has shown himself unwilling or unable thus far to chance negotiations with
Israel, and he is to be the linchpin of the Reagan peace plan. And while the
Administration busied itself with new strategic conceptions every year and with
the Reagan plan, it allowed the one diplomatic track that had proved
successful—the Camp David process between Egypt and Israel—to languish, if not
die. Egypt now has little to do with Israel, and Egypt and Jordan are pushing for a
return to a U.N.-led Middle East peace effort. As Mr. Reagan begins his second
term, he will have no alternative but to start all over again.
Southern Africa is the one area where Administration policy has been quite
constant and where it has pursued policies of sustained diplomatic engagement.
Instead of pressuring South Africa as President Carter did, Mr. Reagan chose a
policy of "constructive engagement" with Pretoria. In theory, this improved
relationship would, in turn, be used to wheedle concessions from Pretoria on the
role of blacks in South Africa and on granting independence to Namibia. Political
repression has not lessened in South Africa, and at year's end, a sudden outburst
of political protests in Washington helped produce a rare criticism of Pretoria's
policies by President Reagan.
There have been active discussions on the future of Namibia, but the
Administration complicated the chances for a settlement there by tying South
African departure from that territory to the withdrawal of Cuban troops from
Angola. Despite some give and take, Angola and South Africa remain at odds on
this issue. The Angolans are also demanding that all aid be stopped by Pretoria
and others to the insurgency led by Jonas Savimbi. At the end of 1984, the
Administration claimed that it was moving in on a settlement—but it had been
making such claims for two years or more.
VII
It was in the area where diplomacy matters most—relations with the Soviet Union
and the negotiation of limits to the arms race—that the Reagan Administration
encountered the greatest difficulties in its first three years. Then in 1984, Soviet-
American relations went from bad to worse to, suddenly, just before the
November elections, better. By most indications, the almost four-year
deterioration seems to have ended.
In November 1983, Moscow kept its promise and walked out on the talks on
intermediate-range nuclear forces in response to the first deployments of
American Pershing II and cruise missiles in Europe. At the time, Soviet officials
insisted they would not return to the table until the missiles were withdrawn. In a
related move, Moscow refused to set a date for the resumption of the December
1983 round of Strategic Arms Reductions Talks. Unless Soviet leaders were
substantially detached from reality, they must have realized that there was no
chance Washington would agree to remove the new missiles from Europe. Thus,
they deliberately painted themselves into a diplomatic corner and put an end to
the offensive nuclear arms talks until after the American elections.
Perhaps the Politburo had painted itself into a domestic political corner as well,
and the Soviet leaders felt they could not back down for internal reasons. At the
same time, however, they seemed to be sending a message to the American
electorate: there could be no genuine arms control while Reagan remained
President. They steadily denounced him in the first six months of 1984 as a
dangerous militarist, a man who might cause a nuclear war. Trying to influence
the American elections was a gamble, to be sure. But it was not a ludicrous
calculation at the beginning of 1984. Mr. Reagan was ahead in the public opinion
polls, yet he did not have a commanding lead and much could have happened in
an election year to jeopardize his reelection. Also, the Russians were having
troubles of their own with the death of their leader, Yuri Andropov, in February,
and his replacement by Leonid Brezhnev's protégé, Konstantin Chernenko.
Meanwhile, the more intransigent and dyspeptic Soviet rhetoric became, the more
conciliatory was Mr. Reagan's. In January 1984 alone, he gave two major
speeches, one of them the State of the Union address, calling for a new "dialogue"
with Moscow and for improving relations between the two superpowers. Moscow
countered that it was all election-year propaganda. While the polls showed that
many American voters were skeptical about Mr. Reagan's sincerity on arms
control, they also showed that most Americans were blaming the Soviets for
failure to return to the bargaining tables. The same reaction held when Moscow
decided in May to boycott the summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Instead of making
Mr. Reagan look warlike, Moscow's strategy boomeranged and made the Soviet
Union into the villain.
By June, any significant hope of defeating Mr. Reagan in November had vanished,
and Moscow began to soften its stance. In late June, Mr. Chernenko proposed a
new Soviet-American negotiation aimed at preventing the militarization of outer
space, including a moratorium on the testing of antisatellite weapons. The United
States had just successfully downed one missile in space with another—the first
time this had been accomplished by either superpower. Also, Washington was
getting ready to test an antisatellite system more sophisticated than the older and
unreliable Soviet one. Soviet leaders may have reckoned there was some chance
Mr. Reagan might agree to negotiate on Soviet terms, if only to prove to the
electorate that he was serious about arms control. If, on the other hand, Mr.
Reagan rejected the Soviet offer, perhaps this would weaken his credibility with
the American electorate on arms control issues generally.
Once again, however, Soviet leaders outsmarted themselves and Mr. Reagan
outmaneuvered them. He "accepted" the Soviet proposal for talks on space
weapons, but refused to concede in advance that their aim would be to prevent
the militarization of outer space. That kind of judgment, he responded, could be
made only if and as the two superpowers also agreed to address once again the
subject of offensive nuclear forces. In other words: no talks on defense without
resuming talks on offense. Mr. Reagan also continued to argue that the two sides
should reconsider the value of space-based defense and even offered to share
American technology in this field. He was ready, he said, to send his delegation to
Vienna in September or October or after the election as the Soviets had proposed.
Not willing to accept talks on American terms and give Mr. Reagan a major
political victory as well, Moscow let the matter drop, publicly at least.
But Soviet leaders were already making their policy shift toward the Reagan
Administration. In July, a Soviet delegation came to Washington and quietly
initialled an agreement upgrading the hotline, or crisis communications, pact
between the superpowers. Other agreements and arrangements were proffered
by Washington and accepted by the Kremlin: resumption of talks on cultural
exchanges and building new consulates, restoration of Soviet fishing rights, and
initiation of talks on a boundary dispute in the Bering Sea. All of these were below
the political threshold, but the signal was clear.
There was no mistaking this in September when it was announced that Soviet
Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko would meet with Secretary Shultz at the United
Nations later that month, and then would meet in Washington with Mr. Reagan
for the first time. Even though Mr. Gromyko arranged to visit also with the
Democratic challenger, Walter Mondale, the game had obviously changed.
In his speech to the U.N. General Assembly on September 24, 1984, Mr. Reagan
said that the two superpowers had "to extend the arms control process to build a
bigger umbrella under which it can operate—a road map, if you will, showing
where in the next 20 years or so these individual efforts can lead." He made this
same kind of presentation to Mr. Gromyko at the White House on September 29,
and reportedly stressed that he would be willing to "consider" restraints on
antisatellite weapons testing if the arms control process as a whole, including,
especially, offensive arms, were to be renewed. Then, on November 22, it was
announced in both capitals that Mr. Shultz and Mr. Gromyko would meet in
Geneva on January 7-8, 1985, in "new negotiations" to discuss space weapons,
medium-range missiles and intercontinental-range nuclear forces.
As a result of this meeting, the two superpowers agreed to conduct one

"umbrella" negotiation with working groups in the three main areas. Mr. Shultz
did not convince his Soviet counterpart of the potential virtues of defensive
systems; nor did Mr. Gromyko convince Mr. Shultz about the dangers of an arms
race in space. They did agree, however, that there would be "an interrelationship"
among the different negotiations. But the meaning of this relationship, that is,
whether progress on offensive weapons would depend on progress on defensive
systems as well, was left ambiguous. In the end, the overriding message of this
Geneva meeting was not so much that the two sides were now ready to make
serious progress on arms control, but that they were prepared to improve overall
relations and reduce tensions between them.
It has taken a full year and more for the two superpowers to get back to where
they were in November 1983. Even that was not a notable high point in bilateral
relations, either in managing political disputes or in arms control. The two sides
were far apart then and, by most indications, neither has altered its substantive
positions since. Most of the blame for the hiatus in bargaining has to rest with the
Soviet leaders. They walked away from the table. Their excuse for this, that the
Administration was not negotiating seriously, did not wash with the Western
audience they sought to influence.
Nonetheless, the Administration bears a heavy responsibility for the diplomatic

stalemate in Soviet-American relations and many other areas as well. There have
been two reasons for this. First, Administration leaders have displayed an attitude
of almost anti-diplomacy. It was as if they felt that to engage with adversaries, or
sometimes even friends, would mean being tainted or taken. Also, diplomacy
requires knowledge of foreign leaders, cultures and issues, qualities which have
not been in overabundance around the cabinet table. Above all, diplomacy entails
compromise, and this does not come easily to those in the Administration who
equate compromise with capitulation.
VIII
The intractability of the central diplomatic challenges which confront the

Administration is not a consequence only of its own performance or the policy
decisions of other governments. The problems are complicated by a fact almost
completely beyond American control or even influence: few of the current leaders
in pivotal nations are powerful enough internally to make important concessions
externally.
Under the best of circumstances, personal courage and solid domestic backing
are required before a leader can put together an internal coalition to make
compromises. Instead of Mr. Brezhnev, who seemed to be the unchallenged
leader, there is Mr. Chernenko, a man who apparently must operate by strict
consensus. Instead of President Anwar el-Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister
Menachem Begin of Israel, we have Hosni Mubarak and a coalition government
led by Shimon Peres. Governments in Japan and Western Europe operate with
slim majorities. It is doubtful that President Duarte of El Salvador can go very far
without approval from his armed forces. Only Deng Xiaoping of China appears to
have the authority of his immediate predecessors, at least on strictly domestic
matters.
Domestic political weakness is reinforced in almost all cases by military

stalemate. While an essential balance may be a prerequisite to arms control
agreements, military stalemates tend to work not only against accepting
diplomatic compromises, because there is not much fear of losing, but against
escalating conflicts as well, for there is not much prospect of winning. For the
next year or two or more, the Sandinistas are not strong enough to eliminate the
contras (counterrevolutionaries), and vice versa. The same kind of balance holds
between guerrillas and governments in El Salvador, Namibia and Angola. The
Arab states have no real military alternative for some years against a clearly
superior Israeli military force. Neither Iran nor Iraq seems able to mount a
convincing offensive to end their war. The Khmer Rouge and Vietnam appear at a
standstill, as do the Soviets and the Afghan resistance. Thus, Mr. Reagan faces
situations where neither side is in a position to force a settlement on the other,
and yet the prospective costs of escalation are not forcing a compromise on both.
IX
We do not quarrel with Mr. Reagan's sincerity about being flexible and wanting to
settle disputes through serious diplomacy. We do question whether the present
East-West military balance will be enough to satisfy Administration supporters
and hard-liners, whether the Administration is sufficiently united and disposed
toward the hard compromises necessary to reach agreements, and how well the
Administration will do when it comes up against the stubborn realities of world
affairs and regional conflicts. Our concern is that after an initial period of efforts
which bump into these realities, the pressures and temptations to recoil, to go
back to temporizing measures and to rhetoric that disguises inaction, will be
enormous. What will Mr. Reagan do when the Russians do not capitulate or give
him what he may now expect, or when diplomatic efforts in Central America or
the Middle East do not yield early results?
Our hope is that he will persist, and our belief is that the President has powerful
incentives to do so.
First, he is almost uniquely in a position to bring American power to bear and get
things accomplished. He has a better chance than any of his post World War II
predecessors at quelling opposition from the right. He has succeeded in creating
the impression that the United States has turned the tide against the Soviet Union
in broad strategic terms. Allies feel he will defend Western interests, and
adversaries fear him. He would have the support necessary to make agreements
and to press those who would violate the terms of agreements. In fact, from both
domestic and diplomatic vantage points, he is better positioned than Presidents
Nixon and Carter when they made their breakthroughs on arms control, the
Middle East and, in Mr. Carter's case, the Panama Canal treaties. They faced
diplomatic stalemates and intractable regional conflicts comparable to those that
exist today. And they managed to deal with them at a time when American power
was ebbing and Soviet power seemingly rising.
Second, if he does not succeed diplomatically, the problems will get worse. The
nuclear competition between the Soviet Union and the United States is at a
crossroads. Both sides are developing and testing new technologies—antisatellite
weapons, antisubmarine warfare, terminal guidance for warheads, space-based
defensive systems and the like. When and if these are all deployed, possibly in the
next 10 to 15 years, the essential calculus of deterrence—that no matter which
side strikes first, both sides lose—could be undermined. In times of crisis, leaders
on both sides could come to believe that they might be able to strike first, destroy
almost all the other side's assets, and blunt the small retaliatory attack. Steps
must be taken to curtail this new competition now.
If the Administration's optimistic predictions prove false and the situation in

Central America deteriorates, an escalation in the fighting and decisions about
possible American intervention could follow. Nor can continued stalemate be
taken for granted in the volatile Middle East. Even without diplomatic progress, a
diplomatic process there is critical to offering the parties an alternative to
violence and maintaining an American role.
Third, if the problems get worse, President Reagan will no longer be able to avoid
the domestic political dilemma that undid many of his predecessors—the choice
between military intervention or foreign defeat. Thus far, events in Central
America, the Middle East and elsewhere have not posed this dilemma in stark and
inescapable terms. But time and luck could run out.
The assets which Mr. Reagan has developed can turn quickly to gossamer—if the
American economy deteriorates, if defense budget increases are unduly and
increasingly slashed, and if, above all, the Administration does not move to
demonstrate that it is as wise in the ways of diplomacy as it has been determined
to restore American power. The fact that the problems are difficult does not
absolve the Administration from trying to reconcile differences and keep conflicts
under control. For the stalemates of today can turn into the opportunities and
explosions of tomorrow.
Leslie H. Gelb is national security correspondent for The New York Times. He was director of the Bureau for Politico-
Military Affairs at the State Department, under Secretary Vance (1977-79). Anthony Lake is Five College Professor of
International Relations at Mount Holyoke College. He was Director of Policy Planning at the State Department during
the Carter Administration.
February 1,1985
The First Term: The Reagan Road to
Détente
Norman Podhoretz
MICHAEL PROBST / REUTERS

A September 12, 1990 file photo shows former U.S. President Ronald Reagan holding a hammer and chisel
next to the Berlin Wall on Poltsdammer Platz in East Berlin.
The conventional wisdom has it that Ronald Reagan was elected to his first term
in 1980 largely on the strength of economic considerations. Yet there can be no
doubt that a good many voters supported him because they had been growing
increasingly worried about the decline of American power and resolve in the face
of the growing power and aggressiveness of the Soviet Union. Nor is there any
doubt that these voters included a significant number of life-long Democrats (I
myself among them), who saw in the Carter Administration—and especially in Mr.
Carter's announcement shortly after taking office that it was becoming less and
less necessary to contain Soviet expansionism—evidence that the Democratic
Party was still in the grip of the neoisolationist forces that had captured it in 1972
behind the candidacy of George McGovern.
It was true that after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan Mr. Carter had repented
of his conversion to McGovernism and emerged as a born-again Truman
Democrat. Confessing that the invasion had effected a "dramatic change" in his
view of "the Soviets' ultimate goals," he even went so far as to proclaim a new
presidential doctrine, reminiscent both in spirit and substance of the doctrine
bearing Truman's name which had originally committed the nation to the policy of
containment in 1947. The new Carter Doctrine of 1979 warned the Soviet Union
that "an attempt . . . to gain control of the Persian Gulf region" would be
"regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the U.S." and would be "repelled
by use of any means necessary, including military force."
But the new Carter did not confine himself to drawing a line in the Middle East;
he also began reversing course in Central America. Earlier in his term,
demonstrating that he really had overcome what still earlier he had dismissed as
"that inordinate fear of communism which once led us to embrace any dictator
who joined us in that fear," Mr. Carter helped topple an already tottering Somoza
regime and enthusiastically threw his support to the new government in
Nicaragua despite the fact that it was dominated by the openly communist
Sandinistas. Now, when the Sandinistas began acting like communists by moving
to eliminate all political opposition, the new Carter cut off American aid;
simultaneously he sought to bolster the junta in El Salvador in its struggle against
the guerrillas there who were linked to the Soviet Union through their Cuban and
Nicaraguan supporters. Here too, then, a line was being drawn.
Finally, Mr. Carter combined these gestures with a heightened enthusiasm for
military spending on the one hand and a correlative diminution of enthusiasm for
arms control on the other. Having come into office in 1976 with a pledge to
reduce the defense budget by at least five billion dollars, Mr. Carter three years
later called for a five-percent increase in the defense budget; and having spent an
enormous amount of time and energy pressing for the signing and ratification of
the second Strategic Arms Limitation Talks treaty (SALT II), he now withdrew it
from consideration by the Senate (where not even a Democratic majority could
produce enough votes for ratification).
Welcome though all this was to dissident Democrats like myself, many of us
interpreted it as an election-year accommodation to the new political climate in
the United States which had first shown itself in the outburst of patriotic
sentiment during the bicentennial celebrations of 1976 and which had erupted
into blazing visibility after the seizure of the hostages in Iran and the Soviet
invasion of Afghanistan. In any case, in Ronald Reagan, a former Democrat, we
thought we had discovered a more legitimate heir to the mainstream Democratic
tradition in foreign policy—the commitment to containment running from Truman
through Kennedy, Johnson and Senator Henry M. Jackson—than Jimmy Carter, let
alone Mr. Carter's leading Democratic rival, Senator Edward Kennedy. Whereas
the Democrats of 1980 seemed to have lost the heady faith in American power
expressed by Senator Kennedy's older brother John in 1960, Mr. Reagan wanted
to "get the country moving again." In fact, Mr. Reagan could have run under that
very slogan without striking a discordant note, since he was calling for the same
kinds of policies that it had symbolized for Kennedy in 1960: repair of a military
imbalance (the "missile gap" then, the "window of vulnerability" now); a tougher
policy toward Soviet expansionism (beginning with this hemisphere—Cuba then,
Central America now); and a more assertive American role "to assure," as
Kennedy put it in his inaugural address, "the survival and the success of liberty."
And when, in office, Mr. Reagan gave key positions to Democrats like Jeane
Kirkpatrick, Eugene V. Rostow, Elliott Abrams, Richard Perle and Richard
Pipes—all of whom had in one way or another been associated with Senator
Jackson—he seemed to be forging a living link between the old Democratic
mainstream and his own administration.
II
If, however, a good many of his Democratic supporters saw in Mr. Reagan the
hope that the Republican Party would now assume the responsibility for
containing Soviet expansionism that had originally been shouldered by the United
States under Democratic leadership but that the Democrats since Vietnam had
been increasingly eager to evade, others regarded him as the carrier of a quite
different political tradition, and one more indigenous to the Republican Party.
This was the tradition that regarded containment as a species of appeasement and
that advocated a strategy aimed at the "rollback" of Soviet power and the
"liberation" of its East European satellites.
It must be acknowledged that those who either hoped or feared that Mr. Reagan
meant to pursue such a strategy had reasonable cause. Two decades earlier, in
converting from a Democrat to a Republican, Mr. Reagan had thrown in his lot
with the most conservative elements of his new party, first coming into public
prominence with a speech in support of Barry Goldwater at the 1964 Republican
National Convention, and then succeeding Goldwater as the leader of the
Republican right. And while in his 1980 campaign the loudest echoes from the
past came from the John F. Kennedy of 1960, in his early statements as President
Mr. Reagan sounded rather more like John Foster Dulles and the Richard Nixon of
1950—the Nixon, that is, who had denounced containment as a "cowardly" policy
and who, like General Douglas MacArthur in Korea, believed that the only
alternative to victory over "international communism" was defeat.
Thus, speaking very early in his Administration from the same platform from
which Jimmy Carter had declared that containment was growing obsolete, Mr.
Reagan referred to communism as a "bizarre chapter in human history whose last
pages are even now being written." Naturally, in turning the tables on the old
Marxist prophecy that capitalism would eventually perish of its own internal
contradictions, Mr. Reagan did not suggest that he had any intention of helping
the process along by going to war. Nevertheless, the echoes of the liberationist
rhetoric of old were inescapably there.
More surprisingly, given the more conciliatory posture Mr. Reagan began to adopt
toward the Soviet Union during the 1984 campaign, these echoes were sounded
again both by the President himself and his secretary of state, George Shultz, at
the very height of that campaign itself. The United States, declared Mr. Reagan in
August of 1984, "rejects any interpretation of the Yalta agreement that suggests
American consent for the division of Europe into spheres of influence," and a
week after, declaring that "the tide of history is with us," Mr. Shultz added: "We
will never accept the idea of a divided Europe." Again a note of caution was struck
to ward off any suggestion that military means were under consideration ("We
may not see freedom in Eastern Europe in our lifetime. Our children may not see
it in theirs"). But if the hands here were the hands of Shultz, the voice was the
voice of Dulles.
It was in statements like these, coming on top of Mr. Reagan's characterizations

of the Soviet Union as an "evil empire" and a "focus of evil," that the Soviets
themselves professed to detect an ominous turn in American policy. As one
observer, writing in 1984, summarized it after extensive conversations with Soviet
officials: "All this sounded to Soviet ears very much like the revival of . . .
‘rollback' [and] contributed to the impression that the U.S.S.R. was dealing with a
new phenomenon—an Administration that seemed truly and unprecedentedly
committed to the goal of doing the Soviet Union in"—or at least of rolling back the
Soviet system "right to the gates of the Kremlin itself."
Surely, however, to take such professed Soviet impressions of the Reagan

Administration at face value was to fall victim to a campaign of disinformation.
Perhaps the Soviets had some grounds for apprehension when Mr. Reagan first
assumed office, but by 1984, after watching his performance as President for
three years, they had no reason whatever to believe that he was trying to
resurrect the dream of rollback. On the other hand, they had every reason to
pretend to such a belief. For by simulating alarm over the rhetorical belligerency
of the Reagan Administration, they could—and did—help to provoke a clamor both
in the United States and Europe against the minimal steps the Administration
really was taking to shore up a Western position that had deteriorated badly
during the years of détente.
Indeed, in any effort to understand the foreign policy of the first Reagan
Administration, the beginning of wisdom is to recognize that its overriding
purpose was to prevent the balance of military power, and the "correlation of
forces" generally, from tilting irreversibly toward the Soviet Union. Mr. Reagan
and his people not only said but genuinely believed that the Soviets had been
allowed by the misguided policies of the past three Presidents (two of them, of
course, Republicans) to achieve a net military superiority over the United States;
that this had already spawned political consequences in the form of an increase in
Soviet adventurism first in Africa and the Middle East and then in Central
America; that unless the United States moved rapidly, both in the military and
political spheres, it would be unable to restore a safer balance; and that arms
control negotiations would at best retard the ability of the United States to move
fast enough and would at worst lock it permanently into a position of inferiority
and therefore of extreme vulnerability.
From this assessment of "the present danger," it followed that the first order of
business must be to close the military gap by an immediate refurbishing and
modernization of the American military arsenal, both nuclear and conventional,
and by the deployment of intermediate-range missiles in Western Europe to match
the growing force of Soviet SS-20s. About this Mr. Reagan himself was absolutely
clear and steadfast. Against enormous pressures, often coming not only from his
Democratic opponents but also from within his own party as his budget deficits
mounted, he refused to cut back significantly on military spending. He
successfully resisted comparable pressures both within the United States and in
Western Europe to back away from deployment of the Pershing II and cruise
missiles. He adroitly avoided (though not without considerable help from the
Soviets) arms control negotiations that might have jeopardized his military
programs. He used the prestige of his office to fight against newly fashionable
proposals such as the nuclear freeze and the doctrine of no first use of nuclear
weapons which would have prevented both the modernization of the American
arsenal and the deployment of intermediate-range ballistic missiles in Europe.
And finally, he authorized further research on and development of a system of
strategic defense in the hope that it would provide a better way than arms control
to neutralize the threat of a Soviet first strike.
Clear and steadfast as he was in the matter of military hardware, Mr. Reagan
recognized with equivalent clarity that the balance of power could not be repaired
by hardware alone. It was also necessary to restore a willingness to use the
military hardware that Americans were once again willing to buy. Here the main
obstacle was cultural. Not perhaps since the 1930s in England had the idea of
using military force fallen into such widespread disrepute as it did in the United
States in the aftermath of the American experience in Vietnam. Whatever other
"lessons" Vietnam might have been thought to yield, the one that seemed to take
deepest root in American culture was that military force had become, or was at
any rate on the way to becoming, obsolete as an instrument of American political
purposes in the Third World.
This putative lesson had already been drawn by a number of prominent people in
connection with the oil embargo of 1973, when a tiny and militarily powerless
nation, Saudi Arabia, demonstrated that it could blackmail and exact tribute from
a superpower like the United States. But it took the sight of American helicopters
scrambling desperately out of Saigon almost two years later to drive the idea
home. No matter that, strictly speaking, the United States had not been defeated
militarily in Vietnam; the fact remained that the nation had poured virtually
everything it had short of nuclear weapons into Vietnam in order to prevent a
takeover of the South by the North, and it had failed.
When to these considerations was added the ever-mounting tide of nuclear

pacifism—the belief that no rational purpose whatsoever could be served by the
use of nuclear weapons—the Clausewitzian law that war is the continuation of
politics by other means seemed well on the way to being repealed so far as the
American political culture was concerned. The upshot was, as Meg Greenfield of
The Washington Post observed, that even many Americans who insisted there
were places where they would favor military action "never could seem to think of
one this side of San Diego," and if American action meant using nuclear weapons,
not even anything this side of San Diego would in their view be worth defending.
All this posed—and continues posing, as witness Secretary of Defense Caspar

Weinberger's specifications this past November of the six conditions which must
be satisfied before American troops can be committed to combat—a formidable
obstacle to the resurgence of the American will to use military force under any
circumstances, or even, ultimately, to threaten its use as a deterrent. Recognizing
the problem, Mr. Reagan worked hard to cultivate and nourish the countervailing
spirit of American nationalism (or "the new patriotism," as it came to be called),
the earliest political consequence of which had been his own election to the
presidency.
In pursuit of this purpose, Mr. Reagan made free and frequent use of patriotic
language and engaged in an unembarrassed manipulation of patriotic symbols; he
lost no opportunity to praise the armed forces, to heighten their morale, to restore
their popular prestige; and he repeatedly announced as an accomplished fact that
the United States was "standing tall" again. Although he disclaimed any intention
of "sending American combat troops to Central America," or for that matter
anywhere else, he said over and over again that the United States could be
counted upon to honor its military commitments to its allies. When, finally, he did
send American troops into action, in Grenada, he not only succeeded in his stated
objective ("to restore order and democracy") there; he also helped to restore
confidence here in the utility of military force as an instrument of worthy political
purposes.
In offering this analysis, I do not mean to suggest that I agree with those who
accused the Reagan Administration of "militarizing" the American conflict with
the Soviet Union, and of seeking military rather than political solutions to the
problems of Central America. It was simply preposterous to accuse Mr. Reagan of
provoking an arms race when, after a decade of cutting its military expenditures
as the Soviet Union—having already enjoyed a great advantage in conventional
forces—first achieved parity and then began to pull ahead in its nuclear arsenal as
well, the United States at last decided on a significant increase in defense
spending in order to start catching up. So too with Central America, where under
Mr. Reagan only one-quarter of the American aid and a similar proportion of the
American personnel were military (the rest of the aid being economic and the rest
of the personnel being journalists).
I would, however, concede that these tendentious charges of militarization

contained this much truth: that Mr. Reagan and his people were much clearer and
more consistent in dealing with the military dimension of American power than
they were in defining the strategic objectives toward which American power was
to be directed.
III
In the early days of his Administration, Mr. Reagan and his first secretary of state,
Alexander M. Haig, Jr., reaffirmed the commitment made by Jimmy Carter to
prevent a Soviet move into the Persian Gulf. They also declared that the United
States would not tolerate any further extension of communism in Central America,
and they called publicly on the Cubans and the Nicaraguans (and privately on the
Soviet Union) to stop the flow of arms to the Marxist-dominated guerrillas in El
Salvador. At the same time, going beyond his blunt and unusually harsh verbal
attacks on the Soviet Union as an "evil empire" and a "focus of evil," Mr. Reagan
attempted to seize the offensive in the ideological conflict between East and West.
In proposing this offensive, Mr. Reagan offered a sharp and salient contrast to the
three Presidents who came before him. His immediate Republican predecessors,
Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford (both working with Henry Kissinger), had tried to
tone down the vivid ideological coloration which had been given to the U.S.-Soviet
conflict by their predecessors, and to redefine the conflict in more traditional
terms as a great-power rivalry. Jimmy Carter, Mr. Reagan's immediate
Democratic predecessor, finding realpolitik in the Kissinger style deficient in the
moral fervor he himself favored, sought to supply the lack by assigning to the
United States a responsibility for protecting and establishing human rights
everywhere in the world. Yet, far from reinvigorating the ideological passions that
had once been aroused in the American soul by the struggle with the Soviet
Union, the new emphasis on human rights tended to dilute such passions through
diffusion and generalization. In practice it also diverted attention away from the
Soviet Union itself and toward rightist dictatorships like Iran under the Shah and
Somoza's Nicaragua, whose friendly relations with the United States made them
all the more vulnerable to American pressures.
This diversionary effect was by no means an accidental or unintended

consequence of Mr. Carter's foreign policy. On the contrary, it was entirely
congruent with his belief that the struggle between East and West was growing
"less intensive" and was being superseded in importance as a threat to peace by a
world "one-third rich and two-thirds hungry." The focus, therefore, must now shift
from East-West to North-South—away, that is, from the Soviet Union (except as a
partner in arms control) and toward the Third World.
As against Mr. Carter's fixation on the Third World, Mr. Reagan tried to bring the
East-West conflict back into the center of American consciousness. So far as he
was concerned, Soviet expansionism remained the greatest threat to peace, and
while he neither believed nor said that the Soviet Union was responsible for all
the ills on earth, he did believe and did say that the Soviet Union more often than
not was using its new global reach to exacerbate troublesome situations in Africa,
the Middle East and Central America. (As for the threat of a world "one-third rich
and two-thirds hungry," Mr. Reagan proposed to deal with it not through a
program of global redistribution but by encouraging the kind of capitalist
enterprise that was generating prosperity in such countries of the "South" as
Korea and Taiwan.)
In thus bringing the Soviet threat back to the center of his foreign policy, Mr.
Reagan was reestablishing a link with the Nixon-Kissinger view of the world. But
there was also a dramatic difference. As against the great-power realpolitik of Mr.
Nixon and Dr. Kissinger, Mr. Reagan tried to redefine the East-West conflict once
again primarily in ideological terms. Speaking to the British Parliament where, he
said, was enshrined "the enduring greatness of the British contribution to
mankind, the great civilized ideas: individual liberty, representative government,
and the rule of law under God," he deplored "the shyness of some of us in the
West about standing for these ideals that have done so much to ease the plight of
man and the hardships of our imperfect world." Ronald Reagan had no intention
of allowing the United States to remain in so shy a condition. Accordingly he
called for a "campaign" to assist and further "the democratic revolution" that, he
told the British Parliament, was "gathering new strength" all over the world—and
even within the Soviet Union itself, not to mention its East European empire.
Yet, if the Soviets really interpreted all this to mean that the Reagan
Administration "was truly and unprecedentedly committed to the goal of doing the
Soviet Union in" and of rolling back the Soviet system "right to the gates of the
Kremlin itself," they must have been utterly bewildered by the policies the
Administration actually followed. Why, for example, would an Administration
intent on "doing the Soviet Union in" lift a grain embargo which, while not exactly
calculated to topple the communist system, was nevertheless helping to aggravate
the very internal economic difficulties that Mr. Reagan cited as a symptom of
instability and decline? More pointedly, why would an Administration committed
to rollback fail to exploit an event like the Polish crisis of 1981-82?
When Hungary erupted in 1956, the foreign policy of the United States was in the
hands of a man supposedly dedicated to the liberation of Eastern Europe, but John
Foster Dulles stood by and watched Soviet tanks crush this heroic uprising
because the only alternative seemed to be a military response by the United
States that might have unleashed a third world war. The same fear restrained
Lyndon Johnson when Soviet tanks went into Czechoslovakia in 1968: short of
embarking on unacceptably dangerous military measures, there was nothing the
United States could do, and so the United States did nothing but register verbal
protests. By contrast, when martial law was declared in Poland—a step almost
universally understood to have been taken as a substitute for a Soviet invasion to
crack down on the Solidarity movement—the United States was in a position to do
more than light candles on Christmas and produce a disapproving television
program. Thanks to the inability of the Poles to pay the interest on their debts to
Western banks, there was an opportunity to keep the crisis at a boil by declaring
Poland in default. No risk of war was posed by such a policy, and yet from the
haste with which the United States, and even more the West Europeans, shrank
from it, one might have thought that they expected the Soviets to launch a nuclear
strike if the West refused to roll over the Polish loans.
There were, of course, strictly financial considerations involved in this decision;
moreover, the Reagan Administration was acting not alone but under severe
pressure from the West Europeans (who carried the bulk of the Polish debt). Even
so, the fact remained that, given an opportunity to do something neither
imprudent nor reckless to further a process of disintegration within the Soviet
empire, the Reagan Administration chose to go in the opposite direction. That is,
it cooperated with the Soviets and their Polish surrogates in quieting the situation
down instead of stepping aside and letting an internal rebellion against
Communist rule (which, in contrast to the Hungarian uprising of 1956, the United
States had done nothing whatsoever to encourage) take its course and work itself
out.
Whatever the merits of this choice of rollover as against rollback, there was
simply no way it could be reconciled with the idea that Mr. Reagan was trying "to
do the Soviets in." It was, however, entirely consistent with the so-called
Sonnenfeldt doctrine, according to which the disintegration of the Soviet empire
in Eastern Europe would be so dangerous, so pregnant with the risk of a general
war, that continued Soviet control over those countries must paradoxically be
considered a vital interest of the West.
So far as I know, it has never been suggested that this doctrine should be applied
to other areas of Soviet imperial influence or domination like Afghanistan and
Angola. Yet despite Mr. Reagan's praise of the "freedom fighters," as he did not
hesitate to describe them, struggling against Soviet troops or their Cuban
surrogates in those countries, the increase during his first term in the level of
American military aid to the anti-Soviet Afghans was clearly not large enough to
make a decisive difference; nor, to put it mildly, was there any visible increase in
American diplomatic support for the anti-communist guerrillas in Angola.
But if Afghanistan and Angola were to be left more or less to the play of local
forces, and there was to be no rollback in Europe, what about Central America,
and specifically Nicaragua? Was rollback to be the policy there? Here it must be
said that the Reagan Administration would in all probability have openly and
proudly supported toppling the Sandinista regime if not for the Boland
Amendment and similar congressional measures prohibiting such a policy (as
against one merely aimed at preventing the flow of arms from Nicaragua into El
Salvador or exerting pressure on the Sandinistas to honor their old promises of
democratic reform). Under the circumstances, the Administration had to be
content with circumventing these restrictions as best it could.
It is, however, important to recognize that even under the rules of détente the
United States would not be required to acquiesce in the takeover of Nicaragua by
a communist regime—certainly not one allied to Cuba and the Soviet Union and
dedicated to sponsoring a "revolution without frontiers" in this hemisphere.
Indeed, when the Reagan Administration attempted to deal with the communist
threat to El Salvador and the growing aggressiveness of the Sandinistas in
Nicaragua by issuing warnings to the Soviets and by hinting that new pressures
would be brought against Cuba, it was acting in a way entirely consistent with
détente as defined by no less an authority than Richard Nixon. That is, it was
trying to correct a violation by the Soviets of the agreement to restrain third
parties whose activities might bring the superpowers into direct conflict. Against
this background, the invasion of Grenada assumed a greater significance than the
size of that tiny country or the scale of the military operation might suggest. For it
showed that the Reagan Administration was serious in serving notice to the
Soviets that the United States meant to resume policing the "rules of the game,"
and that public opinion was no longer the insuperable barrier to the use of
military force for this purpose that it had been since 1975.
Mr. Reagan, in short, may have dreamed of a democratic revolution in Eastern

Europe, but he had no intention as President of the United States of sponsoring or
even encouraging one. By the same token, if he could help it, the Monroe
Doctrine, threadbare though it had grown, was not going to be replaced by the
Brezhnev Doctrine in the Western hemisphere.
IV
Thus far, in everything but name, we have détente as Mr. Nixon now conceives it:
a "hard-headed" détente, involving "strength of arms and strength of will
sufficient to blunt the threat of Soviet blackmail." Mr. Nixon stresses the military
element in order to distinguish his idea of détente from Mr. Carter's which he,
like Mr. Reagan, evidently regards as scarcely distinguishable from appeasement.
Yet the enormous irony is that in the economic sphere Ronald Reagan, the great
critic of détente, whether of the Nixon or the Carter variety, and the man who as
President was accused of trying "to do the Soviets in," did not even measure up to
the standards of toughness required by Mr. Nixon's theory.
To be sure, questions have been raised about the degree to which Mr. Nixon
himself lived up to his theory as President. But whatever Mr. Nixon's practice in
office, his most recent theoretical prescription for hard-headed détente in the non-
military sphere brings into play "a mixture of prospective rewards for good
behavior and penalties for bad behavior that gives the Soviet Union a positive
incentive to keep the peace rather than break it"—in a word, linkage. Mr. Reagan
had endorsed this idea in his 1980 campaign and it was reaffirmed in office by Mr.
Haig, who later defined it as "the concept that any improvement in relations
between Moscow and Washington had to be linked to an improvement of
Moscow's behavior in the world." Yet in his 1980 campaign Mr. Reagan had also
promised American farmers to lift the grain embargo instituted against the Soviet
Union by Mr. Carter in response to the invasion of Afghanistan. The two promises
were contradictory, and in choosing to keep the one to the farmers rather than
the one to the Soviets, Mr. Reagan demonstrated, as he would do even more
unmistakably in the Polish crisis, that the Soviets had little to fear from American
"penalties for bad behavior" and little to gain in the way of "prospective rewards
for good behavior" that they were not already getting for bad.
With this, among other things, in mind, and friendly though he was to the Reagan
Administration, the columnist George Will was moved to describe it as an
Administration that loved commerce more than it loathed communism—a jibe that
could with even greater justice have been directed at the West Europeans. Mr.
Reagan at least tried to stop the Europeans from subsidizing the construction of a
gas pipeline which would not only help the Soviet economy but make the
Europeans vulnerable to blackmail in some future crisis: this while Soviet troops
were still ravaging Afghanistan and while new Soviet missiles aimed at Western
Europe were being added almost daily to an already overpowering arsenal. But
here even Mr. Haig, the great believer in linkage, was willing to sacrifice it for
other objectives—in this case alliance solidarity—and Mr. Reagan was persuaded
to back down. Again the Soviets were taught that they had nothing to fear from
linkage; and in the virtually inconceivable event that they were too dense or too
irrational to absorb the lesson, it was spelled out explicitly by Mr. Haig's
successor as secretary of state, George Shultz. Exactly four years after Mr.
Reagan had said "I believe in linkage," Mr. Shultz repudiated it: "In the final
analysis, linkage is a tactical question," he said. "The strategic reality of leverage
comes from creating facts in support of our overall design."
If, then, Mr. Reagan often sounded like John Foster Dulles, he also exhibited the
kind of caution which always marked Dulles' policies, for all the latter's
liberationist rodomontade. (Dulles, said his French counterpart, Georges Bidault,
"was always talking of ‘calculated risks,' which in practice most often meant that
he calculated a great deal and risked nothing.") Indeed, if we compare how the
Administration in which Dulles served responded to a crisis in Lebanon with how
the Reagan Administration reacted to a crisis in the same country, we find that in
the use of military power Mr. Reagan was much more restrained than even his
cautious predecessor. Under Eisenhower, the marines were landed in Lebanon to
prevent a possible takeover by anti-Western Arab radicals tied to Syria and
backed by the Soviet Union. Under Mr. Reagan, the United States gave half-
hearted support to its Israeli ally in a war aimed at driving anti-Western Arab
radicals, also tied to Syria and backed by the Soviet Union, out of Lebanon; and
when the marines were sent in, the purpose was to prevent the Israelis from
finishing the job. Worse still, in spite of all the talk about retaliation that came
from the Reagan Administration, and despite the high priority it had always given
to combating international terrorism, when those marines were attacked by
terrorists, the United States did nothing.
Nor did the Reagan Administration ever follow through on its early efforts to
forge a "strategic consensus" of pro-Western states in the Middle East that would
include Israel and that would compensate for the loss of Iran as the "policeman"
of Western interests in the region and the main bulwark against a Soviet move to
control the Persian Gulf. This new approach—which had been endorsed by Mr.
Haig, by the President's first national security adviser, Richard V. Allen, and then
by the President himself—also meant the stationing of American ground forces in
the region to serve as a "tripwire." But the first breath of Saudi opposition to the
idea blew it away.
In allowing the Saudis to kill a bold and original initiative which might just
possibly have circumvented the intractable Arab-Israeli conflict while shoring up a
dangerously vulnerable vital interest, the Reagan Administration was—in a
different set of circumstances but yet again—favoring commercial considerations
over its anti-Soviet passions. The dangerous vacuum left by the fall of the Shah in
Iran thus remained, and all that was left to address the Arab-Israeli conflict was a
new Reagan version of the old Rogers Plan which, because it depended on
Jordanian willingness to recognize and negotiate with Israel over the disposition
of the West Bank, was doomed to failure as a nonstarter.
There was, finally, one other area in which Mr. Reagan's anti-communist passions
were forced to give way, and that was in relations with China. Here, however, the
pressures had little or nothing to do with commerce and everything to do with
geopolitics. No doubt Mr. Reagan would have been happier to act as President on
his old belief that Taiwan was the real China, and he even made a few feints in the
direction of increased support for Taiwan after moving into the White House. But,
before long, relations with China began to resume the course on which they had
been set by another passionately anti-communist Republican President whose
anti-communism had yielded to the opportunity presented by the Sino-Soviet split
for playing one communist power against another.
If Mr. Reagan had been as great an ideologue as he was often said to be, he might
have taken the position that the loss in clarity of ideological purpose entailed by
this policy was greater than any advantage that so economically backward and
militarily weak a nation as China could bring to the balance of power. But Mr.
Reagan, while perhaps more swayed by ideological conviction than most
professional politicians, showed in his first term (as he had already demonstrated,
when governor of California, to those with eyes to see) that for better or worse he
was more politician than ideologue.
As such he would go only so far, and no farther, against the pressures of public
opinion, and the resistance of the media and the permanent government; he
would wherever possible cut his political losses after doing anything risky or
unpopular; and in the face of serious opposition, he would usually back down even
from a policy to which he was personally devoted.
This at least partly explains why Mr. Reagan in his first term failed to steer the
nation away from the course of détente on which it had been moving since 1972
and toward a new strategy of containment aimed, just as the original conception
of containment had been, at a prudent encouragement of the forces of
disintegration already operating entirely on their own within the Soviet empire. If
Mr. Reagan had seriously tried to effect such a change of direction, he would have
run into conflict not only with European opinion, but also with powerful interests
in the United States; and this conflict would have entailed greater risks than Mr.
Reagan the politician was evidently willing to take in supporting the convictions of
Mr. Reagan the ideologue. As President, therefore, he was swept inexorably along
by the conceptual momentum and institutional inertia of the recent past.
Campaigning for a second term, Mr. Reagan chose as his slogan "America is
Back." The truth was that, as compared with what the country had become under
the policies followed by the Carter Administration in its first three years in office,
America was back—in at least the sense that it would no longer passively
acquiesce in the achievement of an irreversible military superiority by the Soviet
Union and that it was no longer prepared (in Mr. Haig's words) to "accommodate
[itself] to the inevitable loss of the world to Moscow." Yet neither was the United
States under Mr. Reagan prepared, as it had been only 20 years earlier under
John F. Kennedy, to "pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support
any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of liberty."
Of course Kennedy's nominal successors in the Democratic Party of the 1980s

were even less prepared to undertake this commitment than the Republicans
under Mr. Reagan (not to mention the so-called moderate or liberal Republicans
who hoped to succeed him). To an unhappy dissident Democrat like myself, this
meant that in 1984 Mr. Reagan, for all the deficiencies that showed up in his first
term, was preferable to Walter Mondale or any of Mr. Mondale's rivals. As the
Democratic Party was now constituted, a Mondale administration would in all
likelihood have set out to undo even Mr. Reagan's minimal efforts to prevent the
Soviets from consolidating the military superiority they have already all but
achieved; it would have reversed even the inhibited attempt by Mr. Reagan to
prevent the spread of Soviet-backed communist regimes in Central America; and
it would have pushed the United States further in the direction of isolationism and
appeasement.
But, if Mr. Reagan was preferable to Mr. Mondale, I see no point in self-deception
about the likely course he will take in his second term. Here the earliest clue
could be found in some of Mr. Shultz's statements during the campaign about the
future of Soviet-American relations. The United States, Mr. Shultz said this past
October, having in the last four years "put the building blocks in place" in the
form of a restoration of the military balance, was now ready not for a more
vigorous policy of containment or an even more forward strategy of victory, but
rather for what "could be a most productive period in Soviet-American relations."
That this statement, like similar ones made by the President himself at the United
Nations and elsewhere, was something more than an election-year reassurance
became clear shortly after Mr. Reagan's great victory in November, when, despite
the fact that the military balance had not yet been restored, he resumed arms
control talks with the Soviet Union. But I believe that the Reagan Administration's
election-year rhetoric also pointed beyond arms control and toward a broader and
more ambitious objective.
In his first term Mr. Reagan proved unwilling to take the political risks and
expend the political energy that a real break with the underlying assumptions of
détente would have entailed. Finally, however, overwhelmed by the pressures of
the political present, and perhaps lured by seductive fantasies of what historians
in the future might say of him as a peacemaker, Mr. Reagan seems ready to
embrace the course of détente wholeheartedly as his own. Thus, upon being asked
by a reporter at a press conference in January whether the Shultz-Gromyko
meeting just concluded in Geneva "might lead to the new era of détente that Mr.
Chernenko called for last November," Mr. Reagan replied: "Yes, we would
welcome such a thing as long as it was a two-way street."
What this means is that we can expect negotiations with the Soviet Union not
merely on arms control but toward an agreement along the lines of the Basic
Principles of Détente of 1972. As Mr. Reagan himself explicitly put it in his post-
Geneva press conference: "we very definitely are trying to arrive at a position in
which we can settle some of the other bilateral and regional issues, and trade
matters, that are at odds between us."
At the same time, Mr. Reagan seems to be heading toward a deal in Central
America broadly modeled on the one that concluded the Cuban missile crisis in
1962. In that settlement, which foreshadowed the weakening and eventual
abandonment of the Democratic Party's commitment to containment, the Kennedy
Administration accepted a communist Cuba in exchange for the withdrawal of
Soviet missiles from Cuban soil. Similarly, Mr. Reagan may well accept a
communist Nicaragua in exchange for a promised withdrawal of Cuban and
Nicaraguan support for the communist insurgency in El Salvador. Alternatively,
the 1962 Declaration on the Neutrality of Laos might serve as the model for an
agreement under the Contadora process calling for the withdrawal of all foreign
forces from the area.
Yet there is no reason to believe that agreements of this kind will restrain the
Soviets or their Latin American clients and surrogates any more effectively the
second time around than they did the first. North Vietnamese forces were not
withdrawn from Laos after 1962; détente did not prevent the Soviets from forging
ahead both militarily and politically; and the missile deal set the stage for an
active Cuban role in that very process of Soviet expansion. If, then, Mr. Reagan
should move in this direction, he will cruelly disappoint those of us who once
hoped that he might lead the Republican Party into assuming the responsibility
for resisting Soviet imperialism that he himself had so often and justifiably
attacked the Democrats for no longer wishing to carry.
Norman Podhoretz is the Editor of Commentary. His most recent books are The Present Danger and Why We Were in
Vietnam. Copyright © 1985 by Norman Podhoretz.
February 1,1985
Beyond Détente: Toward
International Economic Security
Walter F. Mondale
CORBIS
Leonid Brezhnev and Jimmy Carter in 1979.
Economic issues are now front and center for the world's political leaders, topping
the agenda of both domestic and foreign policy concerns. While the major
international security issues of the last quarter-century are still with us—the
competition in strategic nuclear arms, the struggle of differing political systems,
the confrontation of massively armed alliances in Europe, the menace of great-
power involvement in local conflict—these are now being overshadowed by the
risk that the operation of the international economy may spin out of control. For if
this happens there will be no graver threat to international stability, to the
survival of Western democratic forms of government, and to national security
itself.
Last June West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt spoke plainly at the NATO
summit meeting. As he saw it, the most serious risks facing NATO were not
military. The growing economic difficulties of its members, he said, "include
dangers that cannot be exaggerated. Inflation and the necessarily following
recession pose the greatest threat to the foundations of Western society."
Throughout the crisis of the Presidency, it was difficult for the American public to
focus on international issues. What serious discussion there was dealt almost
exclusively with the problems of détente with the Soviet Union. It is on this issue
that Secretary Kissinger has called for a great debate, and Senator Fulbright is
responding by holding extensive hearings to air the views of both critics and
supporters of the Nixon Administration's dealings with the Soviet Union.
Certainly détente is important. The gains in East-West relations must be

consolidated on a realistic basis; negotiations on strategic arms, the European
Security Conference and the question of force levels in Europe must be pursued,
and the attempt to progress toward a peace settlement in the Middle East (itself
in part a test of the scope of détente) must command special and unremitting
attention.
But just as inflation has now emerged as by far the most pressing domestic
concern, so international economic policy is now our top external challenge. In
terms of the scale of the problems and the imagination required for their
solutions—and especially in light of the inadequate attention economic questions
have received in recent years—this is the area which calls for our greatest efforts.
The priority we have accorded for years to traditional political and security
concerns must now be given to international economic issues. If we do not resolve
them, the security problems that may ensue could dwarf those that now remain.
II
That economic problems have become critical in their own right should now be
evident to us all. The first serious talk of major depression since World War II is
gaining currency. Editors and economic analysts, from The Journal of Commerce
to The New Republic, are pointing to the danger signs of economic collapse. By
midyear, even though the shock of the Arab oil embargo and price rises had been
largely absorbed in the United States, inflation was running above ten percent,
real GNP was declining by 0.8 percent, while unemployment stayed high at 5.2
percent and was expected to rise.
In Europe and Japan the situation is, if anything, worse. By August the rate of
inflation was roughly 18 percent in Great Britain, more than 20 percent in Italy,
15-16 percent in France, and about 25 percent in Japan. Real GNP was dropping
in Britain and Italy, while even West Germany, with the healthiest economy in
Europe, and Japan, with almost miraculous growth rates in the past, were both
down to only two percent growth. High interest rates have choked off investment
everywhere while unemployment has grown ominously in almost all major
European countries. To these grim statistics must be added the oil bill, which this
year will contribute to a European balance-of-payments deficit estimated at $20
billion, and growing concern, fed by the collapse of the Herstatt Bank in Cologne
and the near collapse of the Franklin National Bank in New York, that the world's
major financial institutions may be in jeopardy. Bankers in Europe and the United
States are deeply worried that more banks may go under.
The outlook for the bulk of the poor nations is even more bleak. The additional aid
required this year to meet the increased cost of food and energy is not
materializing. This shortfall, and the lower North American harvest now projected
for this fall, may be laying the groundwork for widespread famine and food
shortages.
So far, however, the main dangers lie in the future, at least for the industrialized
countries. At this writing, competitive devaluations have not taken place. Arab oil
receipts are being recycled. The IMF has acted to help Italy and other countries
meet their massive balance-of-payments problems stemming from the oil price
rise. In early July, central bankers meeting in Basel agreed to try to help banks in
financial trouble. The OECD is now predicting a lower inflation rate in the major
industrialized countries for the last half of 1974.
Yet industrialized countries will remain under economic pressure. Even if oil
prices soften somewhat, the energy bill will remain staggering. In the United
States serious proposals have recently been advanced for at least two more years
of stagnant growth to tame inflation, and the prospect of more than six percent
unemployment has been greeted with equanimity by Administration officials.
Austerity measures in Italy, France and West Germany now appear to be slowing
inflation, but before these countries can breathe a sigh of relief they are already
gritting their teeth over the possibility of recession. Europeans and others must
confront growing internal pressure to resort to unilateral beggar-thy-neighbor
actions—export and import controls, exchange controls, devaluations and
dumping. Arab oil revenues may grow into a massive and mercurial threat to
international financial stability. Informal cooperation among economic authorities
in the major countries, which has been instrumental in containing the crisis thus
far, may not be able to stand up under persistent stress.
Ultimately, the intensity and duration of the current economic crisis will depend
upon what governments do about it. While it is imperative to avoid self-fulfilling
prophecies of economic doom, there is no automatic guarantee that things will
come out all right. Therefore, responsible leaders of all political persuasions
throughout the industrialized world must, as a matter of prudence, give serious
consideration to the grimmer assessments.
As they look upon the international economic scene, moreover, apprehension is
fueled by frustration, because the problems are beyond the span of control of
individual nations. With the growth in economic interdependence, the problems
are inextricably linked, and only a comprehensive and systematic international
effort can deal with them.
III
There is nothing new in the idea of a comprehensive approach to dealing with the
world's economic problems, nor in giving such concerns high priority in our
foreign policy. Even as World War II raged, and with the consequences of the
Great Depression still vivid, major efforts were made to build new economic
institutions on a worldwide basis. The Soviet Union was represented at the
Bretton Woods Conference in 1944, which established the International Monetary
Fund and paved the way for the World Bank, and the Soviets also were invited to
participate in the Marshall Plan.
Both Bretton Woods and the Marshall Plan stemmed from the recognition of
interdependence—that the economic health of the major countries of the world
affected the security and well-being of the others. It was clear that some kind of
international economic system would rise from the ashes of World War II and the
real task was to assure that it promoted recovery and did not go haywire as it had
after World War I.
During this same period, the late 1940s, there was a parallel effort to build a
comprehensive system of collective military security via the United Nations. This,
too, was based on the conviction that security was interdependent, or as it was
fashionable to say at the time, indivisible.
These first tentative structures for a reasonably universal economic and security
system cracked apart in the intensity of the cold war. The industrialized market-
economy countries ended up organizing the international economic system on
their own while the Communist countries withdrew into autarky and set up their
own more rudimentary arrangements. The Third World was so dependent on the
industrialized world as to be only an appendage of it.
Over the next two decades, the 1950s and 1960s, the colonial nations of the Third
World became independent, but wielded little economic or political power.
Competition between East and West, along with traditional ties to the West,
assured the Third World a certain amount of development assistance. Over time
the Communist countries grew stronger and came to trade more with both the
West and the Third World, while the latter began to participate to some degree in
the management of the international economic system through the World Bank
and IMF—in particular the Committee of 20 dealing with monetary affairs.
But at the beginning of this decade, we in the United States and the rest of the
Western industrialized world, including Japan, clearly controlled our own
economic security. Interdependence seemed only limited. For practical purposes
the international economy was the economy of the Western world. We did not
depend on the economic behavior of the Communist world in any significant way,
and we were largely in control of what we needed from the Third World, despite
the clamor of its representatives for greater equity.
The situation has changed markedly in the last four years. The West's
international economic system is no longer insulated. Both the Third World and
the Communist countries have dramatically demonstrated a capacity to disrupt it
through cartel pricing of oil and massive grain purchases respectively.
In addition, just this year a "Fourth World" has precipitated out from the Third. Its
members are those who lack major resources or economic power. The nations in
this group are more dependent, more deprived and more aware of it than any
large segment of the world's population in history. That some of the desperate
nations of this Fourth World now may have access to nuclear weapons only adds
to the prospects for tragedy.
There is a new distribution of economic power in the world and we must learn to
deal with it. However, the sudden emergence of this changed economic equation
is not just the result of Soviet grain purchases and the oil crisis. The impact of
those developments has been directly proportional to the long-range changes
already underway inside the Western international economic system.
By the early 1970s this system faced a visible breakdown in the way it managed
its monetary affairs, and was already in the throes of an acute crisis of
inflation—which spread from country to country in accordance with a sort of
Gresham's Law toward the highest national rate. Inflation accompanied by
stagnation was a new and bewildering phenomenon, undermining confidence in
our ability to manage our industrial economies. Aid to developing countries had
declined, generating increased desperation and resentment. In the last year, all
these developments combined to form the essence of what may now be termed a
total crisis: one that is both economic and political and involves the entire
international system.
Fortunately this crisis coincides with a period in which political and military
security issues are muted, and some of the major divisions in the world are being
bridged and even healed. But we must seize the opportunities presented by
détente and other improvements in the international picture to deal effectively
with our economic problems, or the progress we have made toward a more secure
world may be undone.
In the late 1920s there was also a version of détente, symbolized by the Treaty of
Locarno, and at the same time an emerging depression. When the nations of the
world failed to cooperate to deal with the depression, its consequences rapidly
unraveled the elements of that détente, and in the end economic collapse
contributed mightily both to the emergence of grave threats from Germany and
Japan and to the paralysis of other nations, including the United States, in the
face of those threats.
It is not alarmist to suggest that something of the same sort could happen today.
If the economic crisis continues to deepen, détente, now stalled at several key
points, could well go into reverse. Already the economic pressures on the
members of NATO are undermining their defense postures and reducing Soviet
incentives to negotiate. A more grave economic crisis in the West could generate
dangerous temptations for the relatively less-affected Communist countries,
possibly reviving their hope for the "demise of capitalism" and encouraging a
more aggressive and interventionist foreign policy.
However, the dangers are not solely from the Communist world. New or dormant
ambitions may be kindled in countries internally divided by economic disruption.
Economic differences could precipitate a breakdown in our security relationships
with Japan and Europe, leading perhaps to go-it-alone defense policies with
profound consequences for regional stability. Other countries may become so self-
absorbed as to completely withdraw from their responsibilities for international
security: Great Britain may be nearing this point already, and some believe that
Italy is past it.
The time has come to face the fact that the fundamental security objectives
underlying the process of détente are now linked to the world economic situation.
The economic cooperation that is required will involve us most deeply with our
traditional postwar allies, Western Europe and Japan, but it must also embrace a
new measure of comity with the developing countries, and include the Soviet
Union and other Communist nations in significant areas of international economic
life. Only thus can the present precarious period of détente lead beyond uncertain
balance-of-power arrangements to the worldwide sense of common economic
interest that is an essential underpinning of a relatively peaceful world.
IV
The economic and financial dislocations created by last year's fourfold increase in
oil prices pose the most urgent set of issues with which we must deal. The size of
the price increase and the abrupt manner in which it was imposed (not to mention
the use of oil as a political weapon) smacked of economic aggression. The first
task of a foreign policy aimed at enhancing economic security should be to try to
get an oil price rollback. Because of overproduction and decreased consumption
there is some prospect for lower oil prices. We should do all we can to encourage
the trend (and ensure its being "passed through" to the consumer), but as a
realistic matter we must also plan our economic strategy on the assumption that
high oil prices will continue.
The oil price hike is like a huge tax levied on most of the world's economies.
However, it is a form of taxation without representation, for the size and
expenditure of this tax is beyond the control of those who pay it or of their
governments. Most of the payments made to the oil producers are remaining in
Geneva, London and New York, where they are recycled back into the world
economy. Nonetheless important problems remain:
-the burden of recycling the oil receipts is threatening to undermine the stability
of the international banking system;
-the recycling of oil "tax" receipts is not putting funds into the hands of those who
need it most.
To these pressing issues must be added the longer-term problem of how to handle
the continued acquisition of foreign exchange reserves by the oil-producing
countries—an accumulation which could reach over a trillion dollars by 1980.
Today oil revenues are taking the form of short-term demand deposits in
European, and increasingly American, banks, while the banks themselves must
make longer-term loans for normal purposes such as capital investment, and now
also to help governments meet the balance-of-payments cost of the oil price
increases. The possibility of being caught in the squeeze (borrowing short and
lending long) is real, particularly since no one knows how volatile the oil funds
will prove to be.
Banks are also being pressed to hedge against potential exchange rate
fluctuations stemming at least in part from the balance-of-payments drain of
higher oil prices. This can involve extensive foreign exchange dealings of the kind
that drove Franklin National and Herstatt to the wall.
The private international banking system must not be asked to take on alone this
task of recycling oil receipts. Not only is it too great a burden on the system, but it
also means that the recycling, the loans that are made, will be on the basis of
commercial criteria when larger political and security objectives often should be
controlling. Thus we find bankers understandably concerned about the credit-
worthiness of countries such as Italy, when unfortunately the overriding issue is
whether democracy will survive or be replaced with a far Left or rightist
revolutionary regime—with profound effects on NATO and stability in the
Mediterranean.
To ensure that such political and strategic requirements are met, and to calm the
anxieties of the international banking community, governments must now take on
the task of reapportioning credit and financial resources. Acting together with the
central banks and the IMF, governments must in some fashion assume the
responsibility of lender of last resort. Clearly, certain safeguards must be built-in
so that private banks do not have a blank check that they can cash to save
themselves from the consequences of imprudence and mismanagement. But this
risk is far less significant than the risk of collapse of major financial institutions
and even of governments.
Such support for the international banking system, hopefully, will be sufficient to
meet the reallocation problems of the industrialized countries without the need to
resort to large-scale direct government aid, although such a possibility has been
the object of lively debate among policy planners in Washington throughout the
summer. For the have-not nations of the Fourth World, however, a substantial
governmental aid effort is required.
The poorest countries—primarily on the Indian subcontinent, in Africa, and in

parts of Latin America—are suffering severely from the oil price hike. It has been
estimated that the increase in the oil bill for the developing countries this year
more than cancels out the aid they are receiving. The skyrocketing costs of food
and fertilizer are equally large. As a result, the developing countries face a total
increase in import costs this year of $15 billion, which is twice the amount of all
the aid they receive.
While some of the developing countries will get by, for others—notably India,
Pakistan and Bangladesh—it is not an exaggeration to characterize the situation
as desperate. Just to get through this year will require an estimated $3 to $4
billion in additional aid, if the lives of nearly one billion people are not to be
threatened by economic collapse and ultimately starvation. The special $3 billion
oil loan facility set up last June by the IMF will be of some help, but because of the
IMF's formula for lending to its 126 members, the poorest countries cannot get
sufficient assistance from this source.
Additional help is needed; it can take many forms, from financial assistance to
concessional sales of food, fertilizer and energy. The U.N. Secretary-General's
effort to develop a special emergency fund or the IMF's Committee of 20 proposal
for an IMF-World Bank joint Ministerial Committee on aid to the less-developed
countries could become means to work out a package of emergency help.
Moreover, the joint Ministerial Committee in particular, to be set up in October
with its membership from both the developed and developing countries and
strong representation by finance ministers, holds out the possibility of becoming a
much needed vehicle for more long-term planning and greater support for
international economic development.
Whatever the means of international cooperative action, the main need now is for
the United States, the other industrialized countries, and the oil-producing
countries to make a firm commitment. We have to stop waiting for the other
fellow to act, and as a practical matter this means the United States must take the
lead in proposing a specific commitment for itself. Once that decision is made, the
logjam should break on other countries' contributions, and we can turn to the
resolution of technical issues such as whether assistance will be in the form of
debt rescheduling, food assistance, etc.
Even though American leadership is essential, the United States cannot, and
should not, become the primary source of increased development
assistance—which by 1980 should amount to an estimated $12 to $13 billion
annually according to a World Bank study. Along with Western Europe and Japan,
the oil-producing countries and the Soviet Union need to pick up their share of
this responsibility. The oil-producing Arab countries in particular will soon have
massive reserves and liquidity. By the end of this decade it is estimated that Saudi
Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Libya may accumulate up to
$966 billion in reserves. A significant part of this should somehow be brought to
bear on the plight of the Fourth World.
The vast projected increase in Arab financial reserves underscores the fact that
the oil price crisis is not a one-shot affair. Even if oil prices soften, the balance-of-
payments drain will go on and on. Loans and interest will pile up. The burden will
be great not only in the developing countries but also on the industrialized
countries which are the oil producers' largest customers. There will be a
continuing challenge to handle the stresses of recycling on the banking system
and the industrialized economies.
Over time there is hope that the oil producers will put their excess funds into
longer-term securities and equity investments. We should welcome such
investment. However, there may be real limits, political and economic, to the
amount of Arab equity investment that can be absorbed in the Western
industrialized countries, including the United States.
The problem is not just economic nationalism, although there is already popular
concern in the United States about Arab and Japanese purchases of American
industry and real estate—and it is not hard to imagine the reactions to a Saudi
Arabian purchase of 25 percent of U.S. Steel along the lines of the recent Iranian
investment in Krupp. There are serious policy questions, too. For example, we
regard equity investment as an essentially long-term proposition, but it is not
clear the Arabs view it the same way. If Arab countries bought large holdings and
then pulled out from companies like General Motors or General Electric, this
could have a major impact not only on the companies, but on the stock market and
the U.S. economy. We and others will want some measure of control to provide
safeguards against these and other possible actions inimical to our overall
national interest.
On the other hand, Arab governments will be concerned about the hospitality
their investments are to receive. Although they are now in the process of taking
over the holdings of the international oil companies in the Middle East, they
clearly do not want the same thing to happen to their foreign investments. Given
the benefits and potential risks for both sides, there appears to be a reasonable
incentive to work out reciprocal assurances on how Arab equity investments will
be handled in the industrialized world.
Thus the outline of a new pattern of cooperative effort can be envisioned. The oil-
producing countries should be granted a larger role in the IMF and the World
Bank, where today they have almost no executive positions. The developed
countries could make commitments to protect the equity investments of the oil-
producing states in their countries in return for appropriate assurances about the
stability of such investments. In addition, the oil producers should put some of
their reserves into the international lending institutions and engage in long-term
aid to the less-developed countries (and possibly provide some short-term
balance-of-payments assistance to troubled developed countries). Such a broader
distribution of oil producers' revenues would also serve to reduce somewhat the
volume of short-term bank deposits, ease the pressure on the banking system, and
limit the size of equity investments in the developed countries.
The difficulty in arriving at such a new pattern of relationships and

responsibilities cannot be overstated. There is an impressive lack of enthusiasm
on the part of the oil producers toward helping their former brethren of the Third
World, apart from Arab nations and a few others with whom they seek special
ties. But there are a few encouraging signs, too. The World Bank is apparently
finding it possible to borrow from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and even Venezuela, and
if the rate is not exactly concessional (reportedly eight percent), it is a step in the
right direction.
If some such pattern of greater cooperation is to come about, American leadership

is again essential. The United States has the largest single voice in the World
Bank and the IMF. It is our overall support that reduces the risks to the oil
producers who are channeling funds to the less-developed countries through
loans to the World Bank. The United States is the greatest potential market for
Arab equity investment, and the response of the American government in
providing assurances and establishing rules for such investment is likely to set the
standard for the rest of the world.
We must also give priority attention to the international dimensions of inflation

and the threat of recession. Inflation is the most politically regressive force at
work in the world today. It has been said that no country has ever had an inflation
rate of more than 20 percent and continued with a democratic government. There
may be no magic in this figure, just as there is little precedent for our current
situation. But it is sobering to recognize that the United States is about halfway to
this rate of inflation, Britain and France are approaching it, and Italy and Japan
have been beyond it. Elsewhere, among semi-industrialized and developing
countries, rates are usually far higher. No other phenomenon provides as firm a
common denominator for all the weak and minority governments now prevalent in
the non-Communist world.
Even factoring out the impact of the oil price hike, the present economic situation
is essentially unprecedented. The international economy, characterized for
decades, if not centuries, by boom-and-bust cycles, was brought under reasonable
control after World War II. The objective of full employment was for a time
achieved in most developed countries through Keynesian management. However,
"stagflation"—high inflation and low growth—began to appear in the 1960s in
Great Britain and elsewhere. Now we have what The Economist has called
"slump-flation," in which there is recession or zero growth while inflation is
soaring.
Unfortunately, our comprehension of the problems involved in this phenomenon

has not kept up with our vocabulary in describing it. There is grave concern that
no one really understands the present economic conundrum, nor knows how to
deal with it.
This concern is exaggerated. The monetary and fiscal tools of economic
management can be adequate to deal effectively with the present situation. What
is needed are new, more selective measures for the domestic application of these
tools and a new appreciation of the need to take into account the international
aspects of our economic difficulties.
It is an obvious but important fact that we are in the grip of two quite
contradictory pressures. On the one hand, even the most economically powerful
nations, the United States included, are now highly vulnerable to international
economic developments. On the other hand, national governments are expected to
deal effectively with all aspects of domestic economic conditions from
unemployment to the supply of beef. The choice for governments is between
trying to reduce problems to proportions they alone can manage, by seeking to
insulate the domestic economy through a return to trade and monetary controls,
or going on to a new and deeper level of international coordination of domestic
economic policies.
One of the hopes in adopting a more flexible exchange rate system has been that
it would make it possible for countries to pursue different national policies in their
struggle with inflation and recession. While the system has worked well in many
areas, it appears that the increased flexibility of countries to follow their own
monetary and fiscal policies under the floating rate system may be seriously
overrated. For example, if the policies of individual countries stray from the
international norm, they may import too much inflation or suffer too much
competition. Hence countries are likely to coordinate their monetary policy at
least as closely with their major trading partners as they did under the fixed rate
system—witness Giscard d'Estaing's recent and unprecedented pledge to conform
France's policies and inflation targets to those of West Germany. This sense of
interdependence significantly constrains most countries' abilities to fight inflation
unilaterally, since monetary policy has become a central if not the exclusive
weapon in this struggle.
Thus, although controlling inflation is preeminently a national responsibility, there

is now a requirement for closer international coordination to ensure that the
major countries are not working at cross purposes with one another. Several
cooperative efforts can be envisioned. Adequate international funding for oil-
generated balance-of-payments deficits will help avoid devaluations and the
consequent boost to inflation. The balance-of-payments objectives of the major
trading countries should be brought into line. Efforts to coordinate monetary
policy, an elusive objective in the past, deserve renewed emphasis. Each country
should try to assure that its domestic policies are not really exporting inflation or
unemployment; all must avoid beggar-thy-neighbor reactions.
In effect, industrialized countries must coordinate their overall economic
programs concerning growth, inflation and employment. The United States
cannot, for example, consider unilaterally embarking on a policy of controlling
inflation by two or more years of stagnant growth, oblivious to the fact that this
could lead to a major recession in Europe (not to mention its impact on the
American people).
We are fortunate that the American economy of all the market economies is least
sensitive to international economic pressures. But we are not invulnerable, and ill-
considered policies which look good in the short run can have an important
adverse impact on our economy through the effects they have on others.
The United States therefore has an important stake in better international

economic coordination, whether through existing institutions or through the
creation of some new, more efficient international mechanisms. But even the
existing institutions such as the OECD can be much more effective if we are
prepared to exercise leadership, use our influence on behalf of increased
international coordination, and, of course, accept the constraints that may well go
with it.
VI
The handling of trade policy will have a major impact on whether we are effective
in fighting inflation and holding the line against recession. In the short run, the
most urgent task is to head off increasing pressures for trade restrictions. In the
long run, we need to find ways to assure fair access to commodities and raw
materials at prices which are stable and reasonable.
The liberal international trading system that exists today, and which has been one
of the key elements in the growth of the international economy over the last two
decades, is now under serious political and economic pressure. Increasing
unemployment and sluggish growth in sectors of national economies are tempting
governments to control imports and to subsidize exports in selected cases. At the
same time, inflation or shortages in still other economic sectors encourage export
controls.
With interest rates as high as they are, the utility of monetary policy alone as a
tool to manage economies is approaching its limit, and the use of fiscal policy is
constrained in many countries by the dictates of internal social and political
cohesion. There is therefore a real prospect of increasing reliance by governments
on a patchwork of import and export controls to manage their national economies.
The likelihood of turning to trade restrictions is, of course, increased in many
countries by the balance-of-payments drain resulting from high oil prices.
An encouraging sign came from the OECD in July when the members pledged not
to resort to such controls. However, without more concrete action on the
underlying economic issues, the pledge may count for little. Italy slapped on
import restrictions in the teeth of major Common Market obligations. While she
faced a clear emergency and the import control measures are supposedly
temporary, other countries may face similar emergencies. Moreover, there is
doubt about how temporary these controls are, since the consequences of the oil
price rise will continue indefinitely.
To contain such pressures, it is imperative to start up the long-immobilized trade

negotiations. The Europeans and Japanese, once reluctant participants, are now
eager to move ahead before protectionist pressures in their countries intensify to
the point that negotiations become impossible. The Europeans want to begin
serious bargaining this fall and fear that further delay, even to December, could
entail serious risks.
This requires prompt action on the trade bill which is before the Senate. The
reasons for the delay on the trade bill illustrate the pull between the issues of the
past and those of the future on our response to the international economic crisis.
From the outset, the Nixon Administration pursued the strategy of linking most-
favored-nation treatment for the Soviet Union, a matter more political than
economic, to the broader economic purposes of the trade bill. Confronted with the
issue of the right of Jews in the Soviet Union to emigrate free of harassment,
President Nixon stalled, apparently hoping the problem would either go away or
that the need for the other parts of the bill, combined with the threat of a veto if
an emigration amendment were included, would be sufficient to get the bill he
wanted. In other words, his Administration viewed the trade bill primarily as a
vehicle to advance its détente objectives rather than as an essential means for
dealing with the grave international economic issues that confront us.
Understandably, a vast majority of U.S. Senators also found it appropriate to
pursue what they considered valid political objectives vis-à-vis the Soviet Union by
tying MFN to freer emigration.
At this writing there are encouraging signs of progress on the emigration issue, as
the Executive has come to realize that the only approach is to work out a firm
agreement on this subject with the Soviet Union. Such a solution would pave the
way for prompt passage and an early start to the next round of trade negotiations.
A major long-term issue, which should be given priority attention at the trade
negotiations, is the issue of access to commodities and raw materials. The rules of
the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) focus on the problem of
access to markets. What is also needed are rules and other arrangements
providing for fair access to sources of supply at reasonable and stable prices.
The impulse to assure access to supplies is not a new form of colonialism. First,
while the oil price increases are one obvious example of the kind of irresponsible
price-fixing that should be brought under control, it is important to recognize that
this is not solely, or even primarily, an issue between the less-developed and
industrialized countries. The U.S. embargo on soybeans, the Japanese embargo on
fertilizer, and widespread controls on scrap iron are all examples of steps by
industrialized countries inimical to international economic stability.
Second, complicated equities are involved. Supplier countries which are also
underdeveloped have an economic and moral case for an increased return on
their products. Cartel pricing of oil and the efforts to build producer cartels in
bauxite and copper are in part aimed at redressing what developing countries
have always considered unfair terms of trade. Rightly or wrongly, they have felt
that the industrialized countries set the price of their commodity exports as well
as the price of their imports, and did so to the developing countries' disadvantage.
The problems the copper- and bauxite-producing countries have encountered in

developing a cartel arrangement lend weight to the view that commodity cartels
are difficult to achieve. However, efforts to construct such cartels have a
destructive impact even if they fail; and continued inflation in the price of
imported industrial goods will further stimulate efforts to raise commodity
prices—if not by cartels then possibly by unilateral tax increases such as those
imposed on bauxite by Jamaica.
The desire on the part of producers of raw materials to revalue their output is also
based on concern over the exhaustibility of their resources. The developing
countries now have a clearer appreciation of the enormity of the development
task as well as little reason to believe that they can depend on anyone but
themselves for the resources required. Those with finite resources are therefore
particularly anxious to squeeze all they can out of them and are not likely to be
very responsive to lectures on economic morality by the developed world.
Third, there may be justifiable reasons for individual countries to impose export
controls in legitimate short-supply situations. However, the objective of such
controls should be to allocate the short supplies equitably between the domestic
economy and foreign purchasers and not solely to export inflation. Otherwise
export controls can lead to retaliation, disruption in trade, and further disorder in
the international economic system.
Stability in the price and supply of commodities is important if we are to deal with
inflation over the long term. In comparison with other goods, most commodities
were, until recently, low priced and there was thus a low rate of investment in
producing them. With the surge in demand in 1972-73, production could not
respond, causing shortages and large price increases. New investment in
commodity production will bring the cycle down again, but this wide up-and-down
swing in commodity supplies and prices is both wasteful and inflationary. It
operates to the disadvantage of suppliers and consumers of commodities alike. To
deal with this issue, as well as head off pressures for further cartels, means must
be found for stabilizing individual commodity prices and supplies to the extent
possible.
The United States bears a special responsibility and burden in this regard. We are
now the major source of foodstuffs traded in world markets. Since 1971 U.S. farm
exports have more than doubled and in 1973 amounted to $18 billion. The United
States and Canada control a larger share of grain exports than the Middle East
does of oil. The world has literally come to depend on U.S. agriculture for its well-
being. At the same time, the surge in world food demand has also directly affected
inflation in the United States. The temptation to resort to export controls, as we
did briefly for soybeans last year, could well recur.
On the other hand, the United States also has a big stake in unfettered access to
raw materials. For example, we import 100 percent of our chromium and tin and
more than 90 percent of such important commodities as platinum and nickel. The
United States thus has a particular interest in developing reasonable rules
governing export controls, along with arrangements for assuring access to
supplies at reasonable and stable prices. These rules must protect the domestic
economy of countries from world inflation, and yet provide a responsible source of
supply.
In addition to the clear need for new GATT rules on access to resources, and the
urgent need to explore stabilization arrangements for specific commodities, there
is the question of commodity reserves. At present the United States has large
strategic reserves of several key raw materials, which might be used to help
stabilize world prices more than has been the case to this point. However, if we
move in this direction it should be in concert with others, and under
arrangements through which other countries would share in the cost.
The creation of a world food reserve is urgent. This is a complex problem, made
more difficult and pressing because American and Canadian reserves have been
drawn down to perilously low levels in recent years. They should now be
reconstituted, but if they are to form the bulk of a world food reserve (designed
both for price stability and to meet famine situations) then others must act in
parallel and the direct and indirect costs must be fairly apportioned.
Moreover, it is inconceivable that the United States could take on the task of
world food supplier through a reserve system, while markets for American food
exports are restricted and denied by trade barriers. The forthcoming World Food
Conference can be a major forum for addressing proposals for world food
reserves. At the same time the trade negotiations should give priority attention to
reducing trade barriers to American foodstuffs.
VII
The task of working out suitable forms of economic cooperation on the foregoing
issues will fall mainly to the industrialized market-economy countries and to a
lesser extent, the developing countries. However, the actions of the Communist
world can either help or hinder these efforts.
Today the Soviet Union and the other Communist countries, including China, are
at least superficially insulated from the economic tides sweeping the rest of the
world. But, as we saw in the 1972 Soviet grain purchases, their erratic actions in
world markets can have profound effects on international economic stability and,
in particular, inflation.
The problem is how to integrate the growing volume of economic transactions

with the Communist countries into the world economy. Its solution will take
patience and a long-term effort. We need to find ways to deal with the issue of
unfair pricing and dumping on the one hand, and massive unpredictable
interventions in short-supply situations on the other. The former will be difficult
because the Communists' concept of price, and of its function in their economies,
is totally different from our own. The latter also will be hard, not least because the
Soviet Union and other Communist countries do not perceive a problem. But a
start can be made by pressing the Soviet Union to play a constructive role in
alleviating the world food situation—at least to the extent of agreeing to provide
the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) with all relevant agricultural
information and not to jump into the market for large quantities of food without
warning. And the Soviet Union should participate directly in whatever can be
worked out for fertilizer supply and for a world food reserve.
The Soviet Union is also potentially a much greater source of economic

development assistance than it is today. Total economic aid by the Soviet Union
last year was only $622 million, while its military assistance was estimated at $1.7
billion. With the less-developed nations in such desperate condition, the Soviet
Union should be persuaded to reorder its aid priorities.
Finally, the Soviet Union must be brought to realize that the need to exercise
restraint in East-West political competition has an economic dimension as well.
Soviet efforts to get the Arabs to maintain their oil cutback and embargo were
just as menacing to Western security interests as Soviet military support (and
apparent encouragement) for the October War. Certainly progress toward a
reasonable and viable Arab-Israeli settlement is fundamental to a lasting
arrangement on oil supplies and prices, and this in turn is a major economic
security interest of the United States and its allies. This is an additional reason
why, if the Soviet Union imposes obstacles to peace in the Middle East, it will be
running grave risks of jeopardizing improved East-West relations.
We must, of course, have no illusions about the difficulty of moving the Soviet
Union to recognize the long-run interest it has in cooperating in these areas.
Soviet officials often regard the raising of legitimate trade problems as being
"anti-détente." Economic aid to the less-developed world has always been
regarded as a political weapon. The notion of exercising restraint is novel and
controversial to Soviet leaders in regard to political issues, let alone economic
interests.
Yet, the Soviet Union's hopes for basic internal improvement—hopes central to
the power position of the Soviet leadership—hinge on the development of much
greater economic ties with, and in effect economic assistance from, the
industrialized world. Moreover, it was the Soviet Union that became in World War
II the greatest victim of the chain of political and security consequences stemming
from the Great Depression. If there is another worldwide depression, the Soviet
Union too will suffer.1
Hence it should be in the Soviet interest to involve itself more responsibly in

world economic cooperation. Indeed, the West is now justified in making such
cooperation a central test and touchstone of détente. Western credits and
peaceful non-strategic trade should be related to commitments on the part of the
Communist countries to work out a reasonable code of economic behavior with
the Western market-economy countries, and to participate in the new aid effort
required for the developing countries.
Today, the fact that major aspects of détente—SALT, MBFR and the European
Security Conference—are bogged down is raising serious questions about
ultimate Soviet intentions and the durability of détente. However, we need not,
indeed cannot, remain fixated on issues that divide East and West. By taking
advantage of the measure of détente we now have, and by moving forward to
systematically engage the Soviet Union in some of the economic problems
besetting us, we can test the strength of détente and the broad intentions of the
East. This also may be the only way to establish the kind of relationship that will
enable us to resolve the East-West issues we still face.
VIII
From this examination of the specific immediate and long-term actions now
required, it is possible to envision the general outlines of a system of international
economic security:
-A deeper measure of coordination of national and international economic policies

among the industrialized nations in Europe, North America, and Japan.
-A new role for the oil-producing countries in the management of the international
economy and new responsibilities for aiding stability, growth, and in the poorest
countries, economic development.
-A new relationship between the industrialized and raw material producing

countries assuring more stable prices and supplies.
-A more constructive involvement of the Communist countries, particularly the

Soviet Union, in world trade and the task of economic development.
Not all of these broad objectives should be pursued at the same time or with equal
vigor. Some of the specific issues in the present crisis are clearly more urgent
than others, and for a few problems there may not be ready answers. But the
important thing is that U.S. policies be informed by a comprehensive vision of the
kind of world economic system we hope to achieve.
And we must begin at once. With each passing week the economic problems we
face become less susceptible to wise solutions. Progress on the urgent issues will
facilitate tackling the longer range questions.
Initiatives and cooperation must come from many quarters if such a vision of
worldwide economic relationships is to be realized. In particular, American
leadership is indispensable. We are still the largest single economy and have the
greatest impact on international trade and finance. Only if the United States plays
its full part can the current trend toward economic fragmentation and disorder be
turned around in the direction of a comprehensive and global effort of economic
cooperation.
At present our government is poorly equipped in terms of talent and organization
to handle such a role. Compared to the credentials of the Secretary of State and
Secretary of Defense in the field of international security, those charged with
international economic affairs are by no means the kind of strong group the
United States put together in 1947 on a bipartisan basis and could surely
assemble again.
Organizational remedies are no substitute for political commitment and capable

people. But one clear need is to coordinate the diverse governmental
organizations that affect international economic policy: State, Treasury,
Commerce, Agriculture, the Council of Economic Advisers, the Federal Reserve,
etc. The present Council on International Economic Policy has never been able to
perform the task of developing coherent policies and strategies. Perhaps what is
needed is something more akin to the National Security Council, with a statutory
base and a strong substantive staff that can cut through the welter of conflicting
interests and views to develop clear policy alternatives.
But there should be at least one major difference from the NSC system: the
director of such a staff on international economic policy must be accessible to the
Congress and to the public. The issues involved are too closely related to domestic
policy to be shrouded from public view by the trappings of diplomatic or even
presidential confidentiality. And the Congress must, as it did in 1947 and 1948,
play a crucial affirmative role. For this it will need to exert greater efforts to
coordinate the work of the many committees and subcommittees that have an
impact on our economy. The new Budget Committee and the congressional Office
of the Budget can make an important contribution in this regard by exerting more
responsive and responsible control over fiscal policy.
IX
Finally, an effective international economic policy must be grounded on a sound

and equitable domestic economic program. Help for the international banking
system or emergency aid for the have-not nations cannot possibly command the
necessary support if the new Administration turns a blind eye to six percent
unemployment. President Ford has an opportunity now to explain the facts of our
current economic crisis to the American people and to take and propose decisive
action. There may be strong differences over the right combination of policies and
how the cost of meeting our present difficulties should be apportioned, but there
is also a tremendous desire in Congress and the public for firm and bold
leadership.
Because international economic issues bear so directly on our domestic concerns,

moving toward a new system of international economic security and making it our
first priority in world affairs could provide a basis for rebuilding the consensus
among the American people in support of our foreign policy. The source of
increasing isolationist sentiment in the United States is not some atavistic streak
in the American character, but rather the fact that the ordinary American no
longer sees his primary interests as being served by the current definition of
American foreign policy.
If we can redefine our foreign policy and our national security to include not only
the concern over strategic position and political influence but also the basic issues
of inflation, economic stability, jobs and growth, and in fact make these a key
concern, we will find that once again a broad consensus on our world role is
possible. If such domestic needs gain a prominent place in our diplomacy, the
American people will not only support efforts of international leadership, but will
be willing as they have been in the past to accept short-term sacrifices in order to
achieve long-range success. To meet the threat we now face to our economic
security, foreign policy must truly become the extension of domestic policy by
other means.
Footnote
1 In a recent column, Victor Zorza comments on the Soviet attitude: "While some
Soviet leaders appear to welcome the opportunity for gain with which the
instability of the West may present them, others are not so sure. 'We are well
aware,' says Georgi Arbatov, head of the Soviet Institute of U.S. Studies, 'that the
crisis of bourgeois society may have various political results, that the crisis of the
1930s produced Roosevelt and the New Deal in the United States, and Hitler,
Fascism and war in Germany.' " The Washington Post, July 30, 1974.
October 1,1974
For a New Policy Balance
John V. Lindsay
Nixon and McGovern.
Among the many traumas inflicted by the nightmare of Vietnam has been the
realization—for many Americans the shock of recognition—that foreign and
domestic policy have merged into a seamless web of interlocking concerns. It is
now almost impossible to identify any issue, condition or interest of national
significance which is not affected by international trends and circumstances, and
which does not in turn affect some aspect of the foreign policy of the United
States. For students of public affairs long concerned with both elements of our
national posture this may be a truism which hardly bears repeating. However, I
regret to observe that most citizens, including most specialists in foreign or
domestic affairs, have not yet adapted their insights and prognostications to this
integrated view of the world; nor have those of us in public service been effective
in foreseeing and planning to deal with the domestic implications of foreign
policies, some of them already now in effect.
As a result, much of what is called domestic policy in this country reduces in the
main to feverish counterpunching by Federal, state, and local governments
reeling under the effects of some foreign initiative whose domestic implications
were unforeseen or weighed lightly in the policy balance. This is not to say that
many of our problems are not home-grown. Crime, pollution, racial tension, and
many other elements of our national malaise would be with us even if the rest of
the world disappeared. I would assert, however, that many of our most intractable
problems—particularly in the economic sphere—and, even more, our heretofore
feeble capacity to deal with the full range of our difficulties, are traceable in large
part to a chronic blind spot with respect to the link between foreign and domestic
affairs. Until we move to correct it, neither our foreign nor our domestic policies
are likely to be commensurate with our potential. We will continue to suffer,
particularly on the domestic front, from the disease Tocqueville diagnosed as the
most dangerous flaw in great democracies, the inability "to persevere in a fixed
design." Without this ability we stand little chance of completing the renovation of
domestic and foreign policies vital to our survival as a great and enlightened
world power.
II
It is ironic that the United States, the world's leading innovator in so many fields,
should be so late to address itself to the fundamental identity between foreign and
domestic policy. However, the reasons for our tardiness are clear enough. We
were born in a time of determination to avoid the foreign "entanglements"—a
euphemism for almost constant warfare—which had so long dominated our
European forebears. We were preoccupied for well over a century with the
intensely domestic business of exploring, settling and exploiting an unknown
continent. The sheer scale of our economic success shielded us from the
overwhelming dependence on international trade characteristic of most European
countries, and permitted us to take a more aloof attitude toward the political
squabbles which arose in large part from European economic interdependence. In
addition, of course, we benefited from geographic isolation and from the fact that
in Europe the hundred years beginning in 1815 were significantly less plagued
with international strife than any previous century since the dawn of the nation-
state.
The First World War and its aftermath ushered in a period of new American
activism in foreign affairs, but the decision to reject a role in the League of
Nations and the blanket of isolationism which the nation drew over itself in
succeeding years served only to reinforce the standard American view that
domestic and foreign matters were not to be confused in immediacy, importance
or even in moral tone. The role of domestic governance was to govern as little as
possible. The role of foreign policy was to keep us out of war. The Smoot-Hawley
Tariff Act symbolized the extension of this attitude to the economic sphere,
despite the obvious opportunities for growth in international commerce as the
Industrial Revolution matured throughout the North Atlantic community. This
autarchic stance was relaxed somewhat under the harsh imperatives of worldwide
Depression, but the strength of the suggestion that the United States could avoid
involvement in World War II demonstrates the power of this national instinct.
With respect to American governmental procedures, there was nothing to shake

the proposition—enshrined in the Constitution—that domestic policy was the only
fit pursuit for the representative bodies of a democracy, while foreign policy was
an entirely separate endeavor, in the charge of the President, shrouded in
mystery, and maintained as a segregated preserve for those few high priests
anointed for the purpose. For these luminaries such problems as farm subsidies or
urban strikes were as remote and inexplicable as a Mars landing.
The revolution in American perceptions of the relation between foreign and

domestic policy did not begin in earnest until the Korean conflict. World War II
had been the most searing foreign experience in the nation's history and totally
transformed the popular conception of national security and its protection, but it
did little to change the citizen's understanding of the domestic stake in
international decisions short of total war. It sustained the traditional idea of war
as an all-out struggle between uniformed forces for national survival, the support
of which had a valid first claim on all national resources. As such, war was totally
distinguishable from peace, and the concept of extended periods in which the two
would coexist was not plausible. Even the wave of internationalism which swept
over the country at war's end did not severely shake the domestic-foreign
distinction. The political and economic power of the United States, greatly
expanded by the war effort and seemingly infinite when contrasted with the
devastation elsewhere, dominated the negotiations in that fertile postwar period
of international institution-building. Accordingly, the institutions which emerged
were very largely directed toward maintaining collective security by national
action in international causes, and toward rebuilding national economies so that
the world of nation-states could proceed as before. Whenever the slightest hint
arose of an international role in domestic policy—as in the case of the issue which
produced the Connally Amendment on the jurisdiction of the World Court—the
United States was quick to repel the intrusion.
It was in Korea that the American notion of war came into dramatic conflict with
reality and the wall between foreign and domestic policy began to crumble. The
country found itself engaged in an extended struggle in a relatively remote corner
of the world in which its total fighting capacity was not mobilized, its most
destructive weapons were not used, and it was prohibited by its own policy from
invading the territory of its principal adversary. In short, for the first time we
were engaged in a limited war for limited objectives and employing limited
means. War had been transformed from an all-embracing national imperative into
a selective instrument of foreign policy, to be applied in regulated doses to one
small geographic area while the rest of the world remained at fitful peace.
Collaterally, domestic life went on, but with some sacrifices in the form of higher
taxes and minor scarcities in some consumer goods.
Still, Korea did not provoke the debate on national priorities which seems to me
the healthiest product of Vietnam. The reason was simple: there was no
widespread conviction that the Federal government should be making large
investments in the domestic well-being of the country. It is sometimes difficult for
us to remember that even ten years after Korea the Kennedy administration
pointed with pride to the fact that the only significant discretionary budget
increases it had proposed had been in the area of national defense. It was not
until the Democratic landslide of 1964, after 20 years of the cold war had dulled
our appetite for overkill, that the pent-up demands of a society disgusted with the
quality of its own existence began to be expressed in a new conception of the role
of government—a conception which authorized about 180 new Federal domestic
programs in the next two years.
At the same time, and after two decades of mindless escalation of our
involvement, the President decided upon forcible entry into a kind of war foreign
in all respects to American history and understanding. To all the ambiguities of
Korea, Vietnam added the even more unsettling uncertainties of guerrilla warfare.
The moral and political questions of American involvement were not immediately
at issue. Most Americans—true to our tradition that foreign policy initiatives are
handed down from authority rather than borne upward by popular
demand—trusted their government to determine where it was right and necessary
to use force. The few of us who spoke out against the war in those early days were
largely ignored.
It soon became apparent, however, that Vietnam deprived both citizenry and
leadership of even the minor compensations of wartime. Despite the most
complete news coverage in history, it was impossible to keep track of the military
situation according to any conventional standard of measurement. The political
coherence of our South Vietnamese allies was quickly exposed as a sham, and
each successor régime was confirmed as being more backward and repressive
than the last. And as time passed the war that had begun with a cause of dubious
justice proceeded through a series of unsound military and para-military
strategies, which proved disastrously inconsistent with the nature of the problem
and the capacities of the local government, and evolved into a seemingly endless
nightmare of death, destruction and regularly televised national failure.
It is pointless to recount the simultaneous upheavals which beset our body politic
during those years. The multiple assassinations, the riots which laid waste our
great cities, the racial and communal strife, the deposing of a President, the
rending of a great political party—all these were integrally related to the Vietnam
disaster, but all were more broadly tied to the struggle over priorities, particularly
over the balance between investment of national time and treasure in foreign and
domestic endeavors. Much has since been written about the domestic forces
which bear on foreign policy. I will try in what follows to pose some of the issues
raised for domestic policy by present and prospective foreign policies.
III
For the average American the phrase "foreign policy" still means Vietnam. His
attention is diverted from time to time by events in the Middle East, in China or in
the Soviet Union, but his attitude toward the world and toward his national
government is largely shaped by what happens in that tormented corner of
Southeast Asia which has so long suffered the violence first of French and then of
American protection. Most of us know the terrible toll in lives and treasure which
lies behind this notoriety. And most of us are tempted to believe that, if the war
ends, so too will the damage it has done.
But the corrosive influences of Vietnam will outlast even the Paris Peace Talks.
Some are apparent already, more ominous and perhaps more visible to those of us
with domestic responsibilities. Most important has been the impact on the
generation spawned by Vietnam: it is a generation united by disillusion and not
only by age, which cannot believe that any government is capable of any act
motivated by genuine desire to improve the lot of the people. The reader who
feels this is overdrawn is invited to walk, as I have, through the neighborhoods of
our great cities. He will find that this disillusion pervades all ages, income classes,
philosophies and occupations. Conspiracy theories abound and gain widespread
credence no matter how ludicrous or implausible. Wholesomeness and
trustworthiness are defined in terms of distance from governmental influence.
Contrary evidence in the form of hopeful domestic achievements—more schools,
more health care, clearer air, etc.—is smothered by the dead weight of doubt and
guilt induced by Vietnam. Until we are free of this albatross it is highly unlikely
that any transformation of the American domestic scene is possible even if the
financial resources could be found. What remains to be seen is whether credible
and committed leadership can restore the self-respect of a people so sorely
diminished in their own eyes. This is the most fateful and challenging legacy of
Vietnam.
But there are, of course, many other measurable legacies with respect to the
capacity of government. Most obvious is the inflationary recession which has
multiplied the misery in our cities at the same time that it has sapped our capacity
to cope with it. Here again, the original failure was rooted in inability or
unwillingness to anticipate the domestic consequences of a foreign policy
decision. In 1966, President Johnson determined to try to finance both the
explosion in Federal domestic programs and the Vietnam war without an increase
in taxes. The Congress accepted and helped to implement this strategy. The
calamitous nature of the foreign policy decision is obvious, and the long slide of
the domestic economy—through super-heating, rampant inflation, super-cooling,
stagnation, and limping recovery with continued high inflation—has been widely
documented.
However, even the most perceptive analysts have not yet commented upon the
loss of confidence in the efficacy of a government which launches a "War on
Poverty" in 1965 but finds the number of people with poverty-level incomes rising
in 1971 after investment of more than $4 billion in anti-poverty funds. And this
loss has not been limited to confidence in the Federal government alone. It
extends to the states and the cities and beyond them to the community and
neighborhood institutions which were consciously and so hopefully created as
vehicles and vanguards of the effort. Those of us in cities can report first-hand the
frustrations of operating manpower training programs only to have the
unemployment rate nearly double in two years; encouraging housing construction
while interest rates soar out of sight; raising the level of social services while
economic conditions double the welfare rolls and triple the costs in less than five
years; or struggling against the scourge of heroin and drug-based crime while the
horrors of Vietnam transform thousands of returning veterans into unwilling
carriers of today's most dreaded social disease.
Too often, the lesson drawn by both public and government is that the error lies in
the effort to eliminate poverty. The truth is that no such effort on the domestic
front could have been successful while this nation pursued the foreign policy of
the past six years—and this truth penetrates far beyond the question of Vietnam
to the most basic principles of international ends and means. Indeed, it is
probably true that the domestic ambitions implicit in the 1965-68 wave of social
legislation are inconsistent with current concepts of baseline general purpose
forces even if the Vietnam struggle ended today, since that struggle will probably
account for only about $9 billion of the $79 billion in defense authorizations
requested by the President for fiscal year 1972. My point is not that the current
baseline posture is necessarily all wrong—though I have serious reservations
about many aspects. It is that the merits of this posture are inseparable from our
domestic economic and social strategy. Hard choices will flow from recognition of
this relationship, but they are unavoidable if we are to rebuild the credibility and
capacity of government from the ashes in which we now find them.
This point is dramatically illustrated by the gathering crisis posed by Vietnam

withdrawal. We are beginning to awaken to the special problems created by the
fact that the number of military discharges has doubled in the last five years—to
more than one million in 1970. Unemployment among returning veterans runs
well above the national average, and hopes for solid employment, though harder
to measure, are probably similarly elevated and therefore more cruelly dashed.
Especially for our cities, this flood of deserving, ambitious, usually skilled
manpower represents an enormous opportunity—and one we are attempting to
use through special counseling, job placement, training and other programs. So
far, the most persuasive evidence of Federal awareness and willingness to help is
the new Emergency Employment Act, revived after last year's presidential veto,
which provides for 90 percent Federal funding of 200,000 public sector jobs
across the country, with special consideration to be given to Vietnam veterans.
It is worrisome, however, despite this hopeful legislation, to see so little attention

paid to the wider question of which this is a part—the question of conversion to a
peacetime economy. Defense-related employment in this country has already
dropped by more than two million jobs in three years. The portion of our labor
force in such employment has fallen from ten percent in 1968 to about 7.4 percent
Yet the Federal government spends its time trying to shore up Lockheed, not to
transform it into an engine of domestic change. We have neither the innovative
foreign policy thinking which would provide an intellectual basis for limiting
defense-related employment to, say, five percent in future years, nor do we have
the economic and social planning needed to divert national resources to domestic
ends while maintaining overall growth and softening the effects on those
businesses and workers who will bear the brunt of the transition. This is more
than a failure of vision. It is a failure of national will. Until we correct it, we will
go on patching and mending until our national fabric gives way.
IV
Beyond Vietnam there are countless foreign issues likely to have major domestic
effects. Of most immediate importance are probably the SALT negotiations which,
as I write, seem poised between torpor and glacial advance. The resulting
suspense is attributable to the fact that the rate of advance in the technology of
nuclear weapons is anything but glacial. Some experts are dubious about the
possibility of reliable limitation agreements in an age of Multiple Independently-
Targetable Reëntry Vehicles (MIRVs), but none would venture that limitation will
become easier in the next wave of weapons and few would counsel delay. Such
limitations would, of course, free resources for other uses, since we will be
spending about $20 billion for strategic defense in 1972 under the President's
recommendations. However, the more important effect of limitations would be
psychological, and it would pervade every aspect of our national life. Simply put,
limitations would offer an opportunity for a cleansing and rededication of the
national spirit, so long committed to the balance of terror which was and is the
heart of the cold war. They would provide hope that the most basic and troubling
paradox of life in postwar America—the nuclear sword of Damocles suspended in
the name of peace—might slowly disappear. No prudent man believes that the
threat of nuclear holocaust can be removed overnight, but it is difficult to
overestimate the salutary effect of any reversal in the trend toward more
menacing weapons more menacingly displayed.
The extent of national yearning for a lessening of tensions among great powers
was revealed in the reaction to the President's announcement of his impending
visit to mainland China. Admirable as it was, it was long delayed by the
conventional political wisdom which held that it would be political suicide for the
party and the man who did it. I suspect that the truth is just the reverse. It should
be a substantial political plus. Already there are signs that the gesture has let
light and air into corners of the national consciousness too long shrouded in
darkness. What is being asked of the President now, and rightly so, is what do we
have to say to the Chinese? What is our vision? What are our intentions and
priorities in the world? How far are we prepared to go to ensure a just peace?
The same questions, in somewhat more technical form, are stimulated by our
foreign economic policies, all of which have direct and immediate domestic
consequences. After more than 30 years of championing a movement toward free
trade which has revolutionized world commerce, we have become frightened and
insecure about our ability to compete in world markets. Rather than devise
innovative incentives and new forms of adjustment assistance to ease dislocations,
we have turned our back on the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade; imposed
restrictions on numerous goods and a general tax on imports which may
encourage the formation of hostile trading blocs; imposed restrictive non-tariff
barriers; and generally lost the initiative toward mutual tariff reductions which
had been so successfully maintained by the Kennedy Round. The domestic results
are clear: higher consumer prices, fewer improvements in quality, unrealistic
wage demands, and—despite futile attempts to repeal world trade—greater and
greater consumption of foreign goods. As this is written, it is too early to tell how
the President's new economic policy announced August 15 will affect these
trends. However, the fact that the new policy was considered necessary is
dramatic evidence of the problem.
The situation on the international monetary front is even less tidy. The
introduction of Special Drawing Rights in 1968 clearly had a large and useful
effect on the management of international reserves. The momentous decision to
discontinue conversions of dollars to gold is too recent for the long-term effects to
be clear. Nevertheless, the summer reversal in the downward trend in interest
rates, traceable in large part to exchange fluctuations in Europe, had a disruptive
effect on our domestic economy only recently and tentatively awakened from the
long night of 1969-71. Surely the travail of the past three years must have taught
the wealthy nations of the West how interrelated their currencies and economic
potentials are and must be. It has become the essence of good domestic monetary
policy to develop joint and reliable mechanisms for making and sustaining
sensible international monetary policy. Both the stimulus which produced the
President's abrupt announcement that gold conversion would be suspended and
the unilateral nature of that decision reflect the current absence of such
mechanisms.
IV
To understand the extent of the challenge before us, we must look briefly at the
domestic side of the national equation. The most important single vehicle for
mutually consistent foreign and domestic strategies, as well as the best barometer
of commitment to various choices, is the Federal Budget. Money alone solves
nothing, of course, and money wrongly applied can be worse than nothing.
However, few serious students of domestic affairs would argue that any genuine
progress can be made toward solution of the massive problems facing us at home
without a very substantial increase in the allocation of public funds to this end.
Many authorities would argue that discernible progress in the cities alone carries
a price tag which would grow quickly to $20 billion per year.
It is less immediately apparent why this money must come from Washington. The
basic reasons are three. First, we are long past the notion that the normal
workings of the private economy will produce the levels of concentrations of
investment necessary to make a major improvement in the general quality of life.
Such improvements depend upon the ingenuity and capacity of the private sector,
but we know that they will be applied in full measure only with substantial
stimulus, incentive, and even risk capital from the government. This has been true
of every major social advance in our history—from the Erie Canal to the
communications satellite—and there is no reason to expect the contrary now.
Second, it is very clear that states and localities are without the engines of
revenue growth necessary even to keep up with the costs of rendering present
levels of service, let alone to finance innovations. Cities in particular, shackled to
slow-growing taxes on narrowing tax bases, and forced to deal with soaring
workloads born of national social dislocation as well as with the demands of
increasingly militant employee unions, will be fortunate to avoid chaos as they
piece together patchwork compromises to deal with annual budget crises caused
by the mismatch between slowly rising revenues and rapidly rising expenditures.
Finally, the scale of effort required to redirect a substantial segment of our
national research and development effort as well as our productive capacity to
these domestic priorities will require a focal point with national scope and vision.
Strong as the state and local role in that process must be, it will not have the
coherence necessary to gain shape and momentum in the absence of a strong
Federal role.
The short-run economic realities further dictate that new funds for domestic
purposes come largely through reallocation of current and projected Federal
expenditures. We now collect a total of about 31 percent of our gross national
product in national, state and local taxes and fees. It is true that some other
highly developed nations collect substantially more. However, we are only slowly
coming to grips with an economic malaise which has already raised
unemployment to unacceptable levels, subjected our citizenry to the double-edged
horror of inflationary recession and nearly drowned virtually every unit of
government in the nation in a flood of red ink only partly assuaged by a rash of
increases in state and local taxation. A Federal tax increase at this time would
jeopardize recovery, as the President implicitly confirmed when he proposed
substantial tax relief in his August 15 package. Neither is it realistic to pin our
immediate hopes on what economists call the "fiscal dividend"—the margin of
revenues produced by economic growth over and above those required to meet
mandatory increases in levels of expenditure under current programs. A careful
analysis by Charles Schultz and his associates suggests that, even without the
President's proposed new tax credits, there is little hope for any such margin
through fiscal year 1974, and that only a relatively small margin appears possible
by fiscal year 1976. In the real world, therefore, immediate increases in domestic
expenditures probably must come largely from cutting the present Federal
financial pie rather differently.
Traditionally—and symptomatic of our past priorities—domestic expenditures,

other than veterans' benefits and self-financing income-maintenance payments,
have been treated as a residual in the Federal Budget. That is, they have been
limited by the difference between what is regarded as a tolerable Budget total and
the financial requirements of defense and related policies which were seen as a
prior claim. A look at the current Federal Budget shows the result. The President
proposes therein to devote about $86 billion to defense and other international
expenditures; about 38 percent of the $222 billion he proposes to spend during
the fiscal year ending June 30, 1972. However, a further $99 billion is earmarked
for income-maintenance payments and interest on the national debt. Thus, about
80 percent of the Budget is spoken for before a single discretionary domestic
program has been considered. Furthermore, in domestic as well as defense-
related programs there is a natural tendency to finance traditional priorities, such
as farm subsidies, which consume the bulk of what is left.
There is no great mystery about the most workable vehicles for financing the
reconstruction of domestic America. The most pressing needs are three:
(1) Federal takeover of those activities—the most critical of which is

welfare—which are national in scope and origin and beyond the capacity of any
state or locality to meet.
(2) A prompt, reliable, and permanent link between state and local governments
on the one hand and the Federal income tax—the most effective equitable means
of raising public revenue—on the other.
(3) Federal support of a nationwide health insurance pro gram to protect all
Americans from the overwhelming costs of modern medical care.
Much more is needed of course—physical reconstruction, advances in educational

techniques, national research on addiction, and many more—but these three
instruments would go a long way toward providing resources on a scale
commensurate with the task.
There is no question that all these will be fearfully expensive. And it is true that
financial management will not allow their adoption without basic changes in the
pattern of Federal Budget allocations. Thus, new investments on the scale of $20
to $30 billion will require very hard choices, not only between military and
domestic expenditure, but also among such areas of domestic concern as health,
education, housing, agriculture and urban aid. This means new national policies,
foreign and domestic. Most of all, this means final recognition that there is no
longer any real separation between those policies.
V
The rhetoric of "domestic priorities" could become just as misleading and
dangerous as our earlier preoccupation with foreign requirements. Suggestions
that the United States somehow resign from the world are just as short-sighted
and indefensible as the most paranoid obsession with threats from abroad. Both
positions are totally inconsistent with a world of great and growing
interdependence. The mere statistics reporting growth in international trade,
travel and communications are ample refutation of the childish thought that we
can renounce worldly things and retire to refurbish our own corner of the planet.
What we must realize is that isolationism is no longer a viable option. Quite apart
from moral objections, it simply will not work as a policy unless we are willing to
give up the full range of political and economic objectives, foreign and domestic,
which we have striven so long to achieve. The only real nuclear power in the West
cannot withdraw from that role without the gravest possible risk of political
dislocations which could engender anything from nuclear conflict to massive new
waste of resources on nuclear arms. The greatest trading nation in the world
cannot choose autarchy without creating chaos in the world economy. The
staunchest supporter of the United Nations and other international organizations
cannot weaken that support and expect the system to continue to contribute to
the process of peaceful change in the world which is so much in the common
interest There is no acceptable statement of our basic national interests at home
which is consistent with wholesale abdication abroad. No amount of concern for
our domestic dilemmas should be allowed to disguise this fact.
The challenge, then, is to develop policies which address both foreign and
domestic needs, and, even more important, which take into account the effects of
action in one area upon the other. This does not imply any lessening in the depth
and importance of our foreign policy concerns. We must continue the search for
arms control while maintaining a strategic posture adequate to deter possible
adversaries and to reassure friends. We must maintain sufficient general purpose
forces to protect our interests around the world. We must settle on foreign
economic policies which expand rather than shrink international trade, stabilize
rather than disrupt the international monetary system, increase rather than
handicap access to foreign markets for American goods, and cushion the impact of
economic dislocations at home. These pressing international concerns will
continue to demand substantial investments of time, energy, and money.
However, these investments must be made in a new context of conscious concern

for competing domestic priorities and for the domestic effects of foreign
initiatives. Ideally, the debate on military appropriations should contain an
element of discussion of the domestic costs and benefits. Similarly, domestic
policies toward, for example, wages, prices and interest rates should be examined
from the point of view of foreign effects and implications. Until it seems natural
that we address foreign problems with full and immediate attention to their
domestic implications, we will continue the awkward, groping conflicts which so
often characterize our domestic policy.
However, the national agenda must contain much more than a change in the style
and content of debate. The principles of foreign policy which have sustained us for
25 years are in severe disrepair. The mid-sixties wave of domestic innovations has
fallen far short of its grandiose goals. Not only are these ideas in question, but the
entire business of active government is in disrepute. Until we can mend the
citizen's conception of the relevance of national policies and the effectiveness of
the structures responsible for applying them, we will lack the element of popular
commitment necessary for success in any field. Until then, we will be evidence of
the truth of Tocqueville's prophecy.
October 1,1971
The End of Either/Or
McGeorge Bundy
A protester plants a flower on the bayonets of guards at the Pentagon during a protest against the Vietnam
War, October 21, 1967.
The end of 1966 finds the United States with more hard business before it than at
any time since 1962. We are embattled in Viet Nam; we are in the middle of a true
social revolution at home; and we have undiminished involvement with continents
and countries that still refuse to match our simpler pictures of them. It is not
surprising that one can almost hear the nation asking where it is trying to go. It is
Viet Nam that gives the question a special edge, and probably it will be in Viet
Nam that the most important early answers will be given. But Viet Nam is not the
place to begin. It is better to begin with ourselves, and to ask ourselves again
what we want—and should want—in the world.
With all his international preoccupations, the American remains a man of private
purposes. His hopes and fears for these purposes still decide most elections.
Foreign travel and investment multiply (to the despair of those who think the
dollar an end, and not a means, and to the great advantage of a nation that must
not live alone any more), but they multiply mainly for private reasons, Americans
can be touched by hunger and sentiment, so that food goes to India and help of all
sorts to Israel, but the American dream remains domestic. However great their
nation's interests overseas, the boys always want to come home. Such inwardness
of national feeling can be dangerous, but it has the enormously important
consequence for others that the American democracy has no enduring taste for
imperialism.
What the American people still want of the world, then, is that it should allow
what George Washington called "the security of their union and the advancement
of their happiness." The enormous difference between Washington's foreign
affairs and our own—a difference nine-tenths of which has developed in the last
twenty-five years—is in the number, variety and size of the American actions
which are generated by this desire. It is not a change of national purpose. Behind
every sustained and serious engagement of the United States there lies an
express or implied decision that this action is important to the safety and welfare
of the United States itself. Policies which cannot persuasively claim this
justification do not last, however attractive they may be for a time or with a part
of our public. The American commitment anywhere is only as deep as the
continued conviction of Americans that their own interest requires it.
In a world of accelerating change, with both sciences and societies in continuing

revolution, it is not only natural but necessary that the specific policies which are
right in one decade should be questioned in the next. No spokesman for American
foreign policy should ever be afraid to question his own premises, and none
should shirk the continuous task of relating what this country does and says to its
own safety and welfare. One of the great contributions of our last two Presidents
has been their insistent habit, inside the government, of reviewing established
policies to test their continuing validity. Presidents are properly cautious about
sweeping changes, and both Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Johnson have questioned more
policies than they have changed. But as political leaders both of them have
continuously understood what both professors and bureaucrats too easily
forget—that the most admired plans and policies, whether freshly minted in the
imagination or sanctified by long establishment, are no better than their
demonstrable relation to the American interest.
There is another almost opposite justification for regular re-examination of our

policies: it is that by and large they can stand it. Back in 1950, when Mr. Acheson
denounced the species he called "re-Examinist," there was good reason to fear the
revival of isolationism, and it could well seem the part of wisdom to avert debates
which might call the whole course of U. S. policy into question. But sixteen years
later that reaction is out of date. The years of Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson
have confirmed a general policy of engagement which is as far from isolationism,
in spirit as well as practice, as it is from the merely moralistic globalism which in
earlier generations sometimes seemed the only alternative. The debate between
Woodrow Wilson and Hiram Johnson is over, and simple solutions to hard
problems are less seductive than they used to be. There are wild men in the
wings, but on the main stage even the argument on Viet Nam turns on tactics, not
fundamentals. This was the meaning of the overwhelming defeat of Senator
Goldwater. He may not have been as wild as he sounded, but the country would
not take the chance. Candidates of all persuasions, in 1966, showed that they had
learned that lesson.
II
It has not been easy for us to accept the complexity of the world. The revolution in
our foreign affairs which dates from the Fall of France made demands that were
met only at the price of great oversimplification. For twenty years from 1940 to
1960 the standard pattern of discussion on foreign policy was that of either/or:
Isolation or Intervention, Europe or Asia, Wallace or Byrnes, Marshall Plan or
Bust, SEATO or Neutralism, the U.N. or Power Politics, and always, insistently,
anti-Communism or accommodation with Communists. The drama of these
debates, the sweeping generalities which were used repeatedly by political
leaders from Roosevelt through Eisenhower, and the excess of certainty which
infected every Secretary of State from Hull through Dulles—all these forces
served to push into the background the fact that the world is not simple.
Moreover, in the 1940s there were quite special reasons for strong and simple
attitudes. Let us admit that Americans too easily choose up sides. The cardboard
heroes and villains of the movies, and now of television, respond to a deeply
ingrained national habit of dividing the world into good guys and bad guys. (No
snobbery is called for; it is a habit to which some of our most distinguished
intellectuals are also addicted.) But the first years after 1940 did have their full
quota of authentic villains and heroes: Hitler and Churchill, Stalin and Marshall,
Mao Tse-tung and Magsaysay. These genuinely polar choices gave reinforcement
to natural habits of thought, and justification to the hardening of arguments.
We need not be self-righteous in criticizing the simplifications that were popular

in the generation that joined the world. If we are old enough, the odds are
overwhelming that we shared in them. Time after time, simplification was the
prerequisite of decision and action, and what is most important about this twenty
years is that most of the great decisions were right. If the acceptance of
complexity was somewhat delayed, and if the political cost of the first great
encounters with failure (in China), and stalemate (in Korea) was high, still there is
no major nation whose record in that period is half as good.
But in the 1950s the balance of advantage shifted against black-and-white

thinking. It was the tragedy of the Eisenhower Administration that the President,
who understood in his bones the need for generosity and accommodation, was
served by a Secretary of State who combined great subtlety—even
deviousness—of tactics with a deep internal need for arbitrary moral certainty.
Where there really were still clear-cut issues (as in Berlin or the Formosa Straits)
the Eisenhower Administration was capable of a careful firmness that many of us
underrated at the time. But where it was not simple—which was most of the time
in most countries—the record was disappointing.
The day of either/or may have ended with the death of John Foster Dulles, for
black-and-white was never the instinctive mode of General Eisenhower. But with
John F. Kennedy we enter a new age. Obviously there had been much recognition
of complexity in the years before 1961, but Kennedy was the first American
President to make a habit of it. Over and over he insisted on the double assertion
of policies which stood in surface contradiction with each other: resistance to
tyranny and relentless pursuit of accommodation; reinforcement of defense and
new leadership for disarmament; counter-insurgency and the Peace Corps;
openings to the left but no closed doors to the reasonable right; an Alliance for
Progress and unremitting opposition to Castro; in sum, the olive branch and the
arrows. He argued that the surface contradictions were unreal, and by the 1960s
the country was ready to agree. In the Presidency of Lyndon Johnson this view has
persisted. Like Theodore Roosevelt, and for similar reasons, Mr. Johnson often
prefers the poster to the etching, but those upset by language too vivid for their
own tastes have too often overlooked the equally vivid language that asserts with
equal conviction the countervailing and complementary doctrine. Under the last
two Presidents at least, the recognition of complexity has been the first law of
policy.
A closely related lesson has been the demonstration that what happens in the
world is not determined by Americans alone. (Others with an exaggerated sense
of their own importance have had to learn this lesson still more painfully than
we—Moscow and Peking are consoling instances—but this essay is about our
troubles, not theirs.) Already in the last years of the Truman Administration the
painful experiences with China and Korea were turning the minds of perceptive
men to the problem of the limits of American influence, and the message was
preached in a series of sensible books by men who left office with Mr. Acheson.
But in the 1950s Washington did not speak in the rhetoric of restraint, and later
events have had to teach us as a nation what a few learned earlier from harsh,
direct experience.
Nations in all continents, in the last ten years, have shown a persistent tendency
to have histories of their own which are only marginally related to the actions of
the United States. It remains the comfortable habit of politicians elsewhere to
excuse their own failures as the product of American folly or wickedness, while
their successes are usually claimed as all their own. The claims are stronger than
the excuses. The role of the United States is seldom central in the internal affairs
of other states. Even when direct American power is as important as it has been
for a generation in Germany and in Japan, it is still the local political forces which
are decisive in the selection and support of governments. The United States did
not create de Gaulle or destroy Goulart; it did not make or unmake Sukarno and
Nkrumah; it has not been able to "deal with" Nasser, except by making small-
scale deals with him; it was not the agent of the fall of Khrushchev or the rise of
Lin Piao. It did not even determine the result of the recent elections in the
Dominican Republic. Anyone who thinks that the lines of influence from
Washington are like so many strings to so many puppets has never sat at the
pulling end. We have had to recognize more and more that we live in the midst of
troubles most of which we did not make, and among governments moved by
problems and purposes of their own.
We have confirmed our acceptance of continuing engagement in the world's

affairs, while no longer needing the somewhat artificial encouragement of a belief
that we are both all-righteous and all-powerful. We no longer doubt that we
should have extensive policies—and take extensive actions—in Europe, in South
America, in Asia and in all the oceans. (We still have doubts about Africa, and they
are reflected both in the too low priority which we tend to give to the problems of
that continent and in the somewhat jerky quality of what we have done in places
like the Congo.) We no longer expect these undertakings to produce final results
by fixed dates. We have accepted involvement in the real world, and we see that
world more nearly as it is.
Meanwhile our real and relative strength has continued to grow. The general
performance of our economy has been excellent for nearly six years, and our
achievements at the edges of science and technology are still more startling. We
have put behind us the fear of stagnation that marked the first years after
Sputnik, and worry among our friends about our possible weakness has given way
to fear that our continuing technological revolution may have a mass and
momentum that condemns all others to a sad second rank. These fears are
probably exaggerated, but they testify to our present strength. So does the fact
that more than four-fifths of all the foreign investing in the world is now done by
Americans.
We also have two decades now of hard experience in the practice of international
affairs, and the day has passed when any other nation could claim the advantage
of experience and exposure in comparison with us. In particular areas and for
particular purposes, others still have special skills that we cannot match. But
taken as a whole, the stock of American experience, understanding, sympathy and
simple knowledge is now much the most impressive in the world.
These assertions are comforting, however, only in a comparative sense. It does

not follow at all that we have all the power and skill we need. Complexity
increases; the threat of aggression persists; and so does the menace of nuclear
weapons to the future of all mankind. The demands upon American strength and
good sense do not decrease. We cannot ensure peace or progress anywhere alone.
But there is no safety yet for free men anywhere without us, and it is the relation
between this astonishing proposition and the complexities of each part of the
world that makes the conduct of our foreign affairs such an overwhelming task.
III
The great present case, of course, is Viet Nam. Nothing about it is simple. Indeed
what has made debate so easy, and action so hard, in Viet Nam is that the debater
can defend the propositions he likes from a great pile of evidence in which there
is plenty to support every view. In our actions, however, we have to live with the
whole. The truth in Viet Nam is that there is both aggression from the North and
civil conflict in the South, both corruption and self-sacrifice, both strong anti-
Communist feeling and a weary lack of affection for much of the present anti-
Communist leadership. The political base for an effective non-Communist state is
still weak-but it does exist. The Vietnamese do not think of the Americans as they
thought of the French-but they do retain a stubborn insistence on doing things in
their own way.
The internal complexities are matched internationally. Viet Nam is indeed a test
of Communist revolutionary doctrine, and what happens there will affect what
happens elsewhere: but victory for Ho would not mean automatic communization
of all Asia, and the defeat of aggression would not mean an end to the
pervasive—if sometimes exaggerated—threat of China. The lines of influence and
concern stretch out in all directions, but almost never in simple and
straightforward terms. There is no simple unity among either Communists or non-
Communists on Viet Nam. Those who support our view do so for reasons that
vary, and many of those who are critical would be more critical still if we were
now to back out. On the international scene, as inside Viet Nam, the only general
proposition that seems valid is that sweeping and simple views are useful only for
those who do not have responsibility.
This is not the place for a study of the long line of decisions that has brought us
where we are in Viet Nam. The continuing conviction, through twelve years, has
been that we should be ready to do our full share to help prevent the Communists
from taking South Viet Nam by force and terror. This conviction has led to
decisions that few foresaw in the early 1950s. Those decisions have enlarged the
costs and raised the stakes of both success and failure. The most conspicuous
increase in our effort has been military, and more than once decisions have been
made just in time. It seems almost certain that without the military commitments
made by President Kennedy and President Johnson in late 1961 and early
1965—in each case after the most prayerful consideration of the consequences of
both action and inaction—South Viet Nam would have been delivered to the
tender care of Hanoi and the chances for peaceful progress in many Pacific
nations would have been heavily reduced. My own belief is that these great
decisions, with all their costs, have been right, and that it is right to persevere—in
the interest of the Vietnamese, in our own interest and in the wider interest of
peace and progress in the Pacific.
The political requirements, less dramatic but equally essential, have also grown
with time, and at the end of 1966 performance in this field has still not matched
the encouraging successes of the armed forces. In part, of course, the difficulty
here is simply that without general and sustained military superiority in a given
area it is hard even to begin on political action. Beyond that, the job is much more
unfamiliar to us all. Finally, unlike the direct campaign against major Communist
military units, the political effort, in all its forms, can take effect only as it
engages the energies and convictions of the Vietnamese people themselves. So we
must not be surprised that real pacification is hard to get in the Vietnamese
countryside. It is, after all, the one thing above all others that the Communists are
determined to block by whatever means they can. That this work remains slow
and hard, less than two years after the days of highest Communist hope, is not
astonishing. But it is also no ground for complacency, and it remains right for
both Saigon and Washington to give the highest possible priority to this part of
their work.
Viet Nam is thus both military and political. It is also an example of another kind
of double imperative: the requirement for both action and restraint. It is
necessary to act, but it is also necessary to keep that action within limits. What
makes this rule a matter of life and death in military matters is of course the
ghastly spectre of nuclear exchanges—anywhere with anyone. But there are other
reasons for restraint. Even without the ultimate weapons, we would want no war
with China. Even without China we would go badly wrong to commit ourselves, by
word or by act, to the destruction of the régime in Hanoi. We simply are not in the
business of destroying Communist states by force (a proposition confirmed in a
most painful way at the Bay of Pigs).
The most debated of our military actions in Viet Nam is of course the bombing of
the North. In a measure this debate is less an argument between the Government
and its critics than a conflict between two schools of thought, both of which the
Government opposes. Given their quite opposite politics and military
prejudgments, it is natural that there should be a sharp divergence between
single-minded advocates of air power and equally single-minded believers that all
forms of bombing are both immoral and ineffective. Those who choose to believe
that Hanoi is the aggrieved party in Viet Nam will have still stronger feelings. So
debaters here and abroad have naturally made the bombing a central topic, and
the tactical advantage of this emphasis for Communists is obvious.
But the truth is that the bombing of the North has never been more than one
military instrument among many—an instrument made legitimate by previous
hostile actions, made necessary by the critical dangers of 1965, and justified still
by its value in hampering the work of infiltration and supply. All bombing carries
risks of error and of civilian damage. The bombing of the North has been the most
accurate and the most restrained in modern warfare. Those who have watched the
President and his Secretary of Defense in action on this subject can testify that it
is wholly wrong to charge them with recklessness, or with abdication of their
responsibility. What they deserve instead is the understanding support of those
who want restraint, as they continue to resist pressures from the few who do
believe in greatly widening the war as a means to ending it.
Here, indeed, is the precise and persisting difference on which the country ruled
by its vote in 1964. The real choice is not between "doves" and "hawks." It is
between those who would keep close and careful civilian control over a difficult
and demanding contest, and those who would use whatever force is thought
necessary by any military leader in any service.
There is also a decisive difference between raising the cost of aggression and
trying to "win" by "defeating" Hanoi. To attempt such a "victory" would be terribly
wrong on three counts: (1) it would carry great risk of war with China and the
Soviet Union; (2) it would engage us in a new and terrible contest for which we
have no taste or need—a contest for the future of North Viet Nam; (3) it would not
settle the issue in the South. What three administrations have always understood
is still true: the decisive area of our interest in Viet Nam is in the South. It is there
that our military and political actions can and should be intensified. It is there
that we can also give massive support for relief, for rehabilitation and for
economic and social advances—always behind the shield of growing military and
political strength and self-confidence.
The contest in Viet Nam is not likely to be short, though its major combat phase
may end well before the long hard work of real pacification and rebuilding.
Fortunately the American people have demonstrated that their staying power in
this effort is much greater than either friend or foe expected. In the face of
repeated disappointments and in spite of the confusion of angry debate and
imperfect understanding on all sides, our people have shown great resilience of
spirit. They have accepted the stress of this effort, and they have refused to give
support to easy wrong answers at either extreme. Open opposition has flourished.
There has been less jingoism than in any previous war in our history. The nation
has endured the special demands of an uncensored war—one which has been
freely reported from our side of the lines by a number of men who clearly doubt
its value. This is also the first war with daily television from the field. I think it is
good, on balance, that the war is brought into our living rooms, but it remains a
striking fact that this time we get our dose of "The Naked and the Dead" not
afterward, but instantly.
The ability of the people of the United States to keep their balance in this
unprecedented situation is profoundly encouraging. Whatever criticism may be
current abroad, it is just this sturdy temper that all our friends have needed
before and may need again in future. The true value of the United States as an
ally and friend rests not on the language of treaties which always have escape
clauses, and not on mechanical notions of cause and consequence, but rather
upon the fact that this is a nation which sees things through and tries to see them
straight.
The prospect in Viet Nam, then, is for more struggle and sacrifice. Of course it is
always possible that the Communists may give up their opposition to negotiations,
and certainly it is essential that we ourselves should be ready and eager for such
a change in their position. There is every reason for the openness and
responsiveness that the President and the Secretary of State have repeatedly
shown, not only in their words but in public and private diplomacy. The passionate
sincerity of this commitment will be proven to all doubters on the day that their
offer is accepted. But it would be wrong to count on any early Communist
response. Communists, like other men, negotiate when they think it helps them to
achieve an objective, and up to now the clear Communist objective has been to
take over South Viet Nam. The Communists are quite right in supposing that our
own firm purpose in any negotiation will be very different from theirs. Moreover,
the struggle will necessarily continue during any negotiations until acceptable
terms for an armistice are worked out, and in these circumstances a prolonged
negotiation could easily undermine the confidence of Communists in the South.
For these reasons it is unlikely that the men in Hanoi will agree to negotiations
until our purpose or theirs has changed. Even then the prospect for a negotiated
settlement may be weak, for if the Communists do decide that their present
purposes exceed their capacity, may they not prefer a private decision to a public
admission? This is what happened in Greece, and it is as likely an ending in Viet
Nam as a peace by formal agreement. Actions leading to reciprocal actions may
be the eventual path away from open warfare—and it was right for the United
States to make it plain again in September, through Ambassador Goldberg, that
the United States is ready to take this road too.
It is not pleasant to have to write of the prospects for accommodation with

Vietnamese Communists in these stark terms. A number of talented and
honorable writers have pinned their faith to very different notions of what may be
practicable. But they have produced little evidence to back their faith. It would be
agreeable if there were a real prospect of a peaceful coalition with Communist
participation and non-Communist control; but this picture, drawn from the
unusual experience of France and Italy in the 1940s, seems irrelevant to the
realities of Viet Nam. It would be good also if there were a serious prospect of
inducing the Communists as an organized force to accept a political contest
divorced from force and terror, in a securely neutralized and guaranteed state;
but the evidence of past Communist behavior in Viet Nam does not support this
hope. My own unhappy conclusion is that many of those who write about this kind
of solution are really engaged in concealing—perhaps even from
themselves—their willingness to let South Viet Nam go to the Communists rather
than face the trials of a continued struggle. In this respect they simply do not
speak for their country, and it is of great importance that Communists everywhere
should come to understand that fact.
IV
Viet Nam is our most immediate foreign business, but even Viet Nam should not
let us forget the strength which permits and the interest which requires our active
effort elsewhere. As in South Viet Nam itself, so in relating Viet Nam to other
concerns, the right choice is not either/or; it is both/and.
First, we need both military and economic action. Our stake in Viet Nam, and our
larger stake in Asia, will not end as aggression subsides. We have an abiding
national interest in the progress of the people across the Pacific. This interest has
been magisterially reaffirmed in the President's trip to Asia. It is part and parcel
of the still wider American interest in enlightened help to those who are helping
themselves. The level of our economic aid is too low today to serve our own
interests, and the fight for a strong and responsive program next year may be the
most urgent single cause in foreign affairs for men of good will to back.
Second, we are both an Atlantic and a Pacific partner. Our interest in the future of
Europe has not weakened merely because the most active danger today is in Asia.
Since the missile crisis of 1962 Europe has known four years of continental quiet
that are unmatched in the last half-century. Not all Europeans have taken full
advantage of this quiet to work for harmony beyond their present borders, and we
ourselves have been a little slow, until recently, in moving out from successful
defense toward wider settlement. We face a serious test now in working both
against nuclear spread and for Atlantic partnership, but it is a test we can meet.
Certainly it is wrong to suppose that our effort in Viet Nam changes or weakens
our interest in Europe. We must put troops where they are most needed, but we
can and will sustain the great Atlantic commitment we have honored steadily for
twenty-five years.
Finally, we have a still more sweeping double duty: to carry on both these wide
foreign activities and an active program of social progress at home. Those who
resist such a domestic program can be expected to use the costs of Viet Nam as
an excuse for a domestic penny-pinching which would be as shortsighted as it is
unnecessary. The recent election has probably strengthened the position of those
who feel this way. They are wrong. Even if the Vietnamese war were twice as
expensive as it is, and even if it were likely to end entirely in a few months, it
would be a mistake to use it as an argument for delay in doing what needs to be
done within the United States. Since the costs of Viet Nam are in fact quite
manageable, and since they are likely to continue for years, the notion of using
Viet Nam as a reason for delay at home becomes absurd. It makes no sense for
the real interests of any American, since the work at home that we do not do now
will simply have to be done later at much higher cost.
It is therefore an act of folly for any true liberal to argue that we must choose
between Viet Nam and social progress. The truth is the opposite. Americans who
believe in the further development of the great new departures in education and
health, in the battle for better cities, and most of all in the cause of really equal
opportunity—those, in short, who care for social progress—should not strengthen
the hands of their opponents by accepting the notion that we must choose
between persistence in Viet Nam and full budgetary support for a strong domestic
program of action. It is not so, in economic or even in political terms. Retreat in
Viet Nam is not the road forward at home. The real consequence of a pullout in
Southeast Asia, for our domestic affairs, would almost surely be heavy reaction.
So as we face the New Year we have no shortage of work to do. We have come a
long way over the last generation, and we have a long way to go. But while there
is some impatience and irritation among us, we can properly put the main
emphasis elsewhere: on our steadiness of purpose, our capacity to do what needs
doing and our ability to hold true to the ends of peace and human progress even
in a time when the path to peace leads through jungle warfare and the path to
progress through the worst tangles of our own selfishness and prejudice.
Almost twenty years ago, Henry Stimson wrote in these pages of "The Challenge
to Americans." He was writing mainly about Russia and the needs of Europe, but
he set his argument in a larger frame. I venture to pluck a few of his sentences
from their context because I think he would not mind.
It would be shriveling timidity for America to refuse to play to the full her present
necessary part in the world. And the certain penalty for such timidity would be
failure. The troubles of Europe and Asia are not "other people's troubles"; they are
ours. . . . The world's affairs cannot be simplified by eager words. We cannot take
refuge from reality in the folly of black-and-white solutions. . . . We need not
suppose that the task we face is easy, or that all our undertakings will be quickly
successful. The construction of a stable peace is a longer, more complex and
greater task than the relatively simple work of war-making. . . . Surely there is
here a fair and tempting challenge to Americans.
The challenge of 1967 is harder than that of 1947 only for those who are in battle,
and for their families. For the rest of us it is easier now than it was then. We have
twenty years of experience to help us, and we have the spur of knowing that our
other necessary efforts, at home and abroad, are the best possible payment on the
debt we owe to those who fight.
January 1,1967
Asia After Viet Nam
Richard M. Nixon
U.S. Airborne troops under attack during the Battle of Dak To, 1967.
The war in Viet Nam has for so long dominated our field of vision that it has
distorted our picture of Asia. A small country on the rim of the continent has filled
the screen of our minds; but it does not fill the map. Sometimes dramatically, but
more often quietly, the rest of Asia has been undergoing a profound, an exciting
and on balance an extraordinarily promising transformation. One key to this
transformation is the emergence of Asian regionalism; another is the development
of a number of the Asian economies; another is gathering disaffection with all the
old isms that have so long imprisoned so many minds and so many governments.
By and large the non-communist Asian governments are looking for solutions that
work, rather than solutions that fit a preconceived set of doctrines and dogmas.
Most of them also recognize a common danger, and see its source as Peking.
Taken together, these developments present an extraordinary set of opportunities
for a U.S. policy which must begin to look beyond Viet Nam. In looking toward the
future, however, we should not ignore the vital role Viet Nam has played in
making these developments possible. Whatever one may think of the "domino"
theory, it is beyond question that without the American commitment in Viet Nam
Asia would be a far different place today.
The U.S. presence has provided tangible and highly visible proof that communism
is not necessarily the wave of Asia's future. This was a vital factor in the
turnaround in Indonesia, where a tendency toward fatalism is a national
characteristic. It provided a shield behind which the anti-communist forces found
the courage and the capacity to stage their counter-coup and, at the final moment,
to rescue their country from the Chinese orbit. And, with its 100 million people,
and its 3,000-mile arc of islands containing the region's richest hoard of natural
resources, Indonesia constitutes by far the greatest prize in the Southeast Asian
area.
Beyond this, Viet Nam has diverted Peking from such other potential targets as
India, Thailand and Malaysia. It has bought vitally needed time for governments
that were weak or unstable or leaning toward Peking as a hedge against the
future—time which has allowed them to attempt to cope with their own
insurrections while pressing ahead with their political, economic and military
development. From Japan to India, Asian leaders know why we are in Viet Nam
and, privately if not publicly, they urge us to see it through to a satisfactory
conclusion.
II
Many argue that an Atlantic axis is natural and necessary, but maintain, in effect,
that Kipling was right, and that the Asian peoples are so "different" that Asia itself
is only peripherally an American concern. This represents a racial and cultural
chauvinism that does little credit to American ideals, and it shows little
appreciation either of the westward thrust of American interests or of the
dynamics of world development.
During the final third of the twentieth century, Asia, not Europe or Latin America,
will pose the greatest danger of a confrontation which could escalate into World
War III. At the same time, the fact that the United States has now fought three
Asian wars in the space of a generation is grimly but truly symbolic of the
deepening involvement of the United States in what happens on the other side of
the Pacific—which modern transportation and communications have brought
closer to us today than Europe was in the years immediately preceding World War
II.
The United States is a Pacific power. Europe has been withdrawing the remnants
of empire, but the United States, with its coast reaching in an arc from Mexico to
the Bering Straits, is one anchor of a vast Pacific community. Both our interests
and our ideals propel us westward across the Pacific, not as conquerors but as
partners, linked by the sea not only with those oriental nations on Asia's Pacific
littoral but at the same time with occidental Australia and New Zealand, and with
the island nations between.
Since World War II, a new Asia has been emerging with startling rapidity; indeed,
Asia is changing more swiftly than any other part of the world. All around the rim
of China nations are becoming Western without ceasing to be Asian.
The dominant development in Asia immediately after World War II was

decolonization, with its admixture of intense nationalism. But the old nationalist
slogans have less meaning for today's young than they had for their fathers.
Having never known a "colonialist," they find colonialists unconvincing as
scapegoats for the present ills of their societies. If dissatisfied with conditions as
they see them, the young tend to blame those now in power.
As the sharp anticolonial focus blurs, the old nationalism is evolving into a more
complex, multi-layered set of concepts and attitudes. On the one hand are a
multitude of local and tribal identifications—the Montagnards in Viet Nam, the
Han tribes in Burma, the provincial and linguistic separatisms that constantly
claw at the fabric of Indian unity. On the other hand, there is a reaching—out by
the governing élites, and particularly the young, for something larger, more like
an Asian regionalism.
The developing coherence of Asian regional thinking is reflected in a disposition

to consider problems and loyalties in regional terms, and to evolve regional
approaches to development needs and to the evolution of a new world order. This
is not excessively chauvinistic, but rather in the nature of a coalescing confidence,
a recognition that Asia can become a counterbalance to the West, and an
increasing disposition to seek Asian solutions to Asian problems through
coöperative action.
Along with the rising complex of national, subregional and regional identification
and pride, there is also an acute sense of common danger—a factor which serves
as catalyst to the others. The common danger from Communist China is now in
the process of shifting the Asian governments' center of concern. During the
colonial and immediately post-colonial eras, Asians stood opposed primarily to the
West, which represented the intruding alien power. But now the West has
abandoned its colonial role, and it no longer threatens the independence of the
Asian nations. Red China, however, does, and its threat is clear, present and
repeatedly and insistently expressed. The message has not been lost on Asia's
leaders. They recognize that the West, and particularly the United States, now
represents not an oppressor but a protector. And they recognize their need for
protection.
This does not mean that the old resentments and distrusts have vanished, or that
new ones will not arise. It does, however, mean that there has been an important
shift in the balance of their perceptions about the balance of danger, and this shift
has important implications for the future.
One of the legacies of Viet Nam almost certainly will be a deep reluctance on the
part of the United States to become involved once again in a similar intervention
on a similar basis. The war has imposed severe strains on the United States, not
only militarily and economically but socially and politically as well. Bitter
dissension has torn the fabric of American intellectual life, and whatever the
outcome of the war the tear may be a long time mending. If another friendly
country should be faced with an externally supported communist
insurrection—whether in Asia, or in Africa or even Latin America—there is serious
question whether the American public or the American Congress would now
support a unilateral American intervention, even at the request of the host
government. This makes it vitally in their own interest that the nations in the path
of China's ambitions move quickly to establish an indigenous Asian framework for
their own future security.
In doing so, they need to fashion arrangements able to deal both with old-style
wars and with new—with traditional wars, in which armies cross over national
boundaries, and with the so-called "wars of national liberation," in which they
burrow under national boundaries.
I am not arguing that the day is past when the United States would respond
militarily to communist threats in the less stable parts of the world, or that a
unilateral response to a unilateral request for help is out of the question. But
other nations must recognize that the role of the United States as world
policeman is likely to be limited in the future. To ensure that a U.S. response will
be forthcoming if needed, machinery must be created that is capable of meeting
two conditions: (a) a collective effort by the nations of the region to contain the
threat by themselves; and, if that effort fails, (b) a collective request to the United
States for assistance. This is important not only from the respective national
standpoints, but also from the standpoint of avoiding nuclear collision.
Nations not possessing great power can indulge in the luxury of criticism of
others; those possessing it have the responsibility of decision. Faced with a clear
challenge, the decision not to use one's power must be as deliberate as the
decision to use it. The consequences can be fully as far-reaching and fully as
irrevocable.
If another world war is to be prevented, every step possible must be taken to

avert direct confrontations between the nuclear powers. To achieve this, it is
essential to minimize the number of occasions on which the great powers have to
decide whether or not to commit their forces. These choices cannot be eliminated,
but they can be reduced by the development of regional defense pacts, in which
nations undertake, among themselves, to attempt to contain aggression in their
own areas.
If the initial response to a threatened aggression, of whichever type—whether

across the border or under it—can be made by lesser powers in the immediate
area and thus within the path of aggression, one of two things can be achieved:
either they can in fact contain it by themselves, in which case the United States is
spared involvement and thus the world is spared the consequences of great-power
action; or, if they cannot, the ultimate choice can be presented to the United
States in clear-cut terms, by nations which would automatically become allies in
whatever response might prove necessary. To put it another way, the regional
pact becomes a buffer separating the distant great power from the immediate
threat. Only if the buffer proves insufficient does the great power become
involved, and then in terms that make victory more attainable and the enterprise
more palatable.
This is particularly important when the threat takes the form of an externally
supported guerrilla action, as we have faced in Viet Nam, as is even now being
mounted in Thailand, and as could be launched in any of a half-dozen other spots
in the Chinese shadow. Viet Nam has shown how difficult it is to make clear the
distinction between this and an ordinary factional civil war, and how subject the
assisting power is to charges of having intervened in an internal matter. Viet
Nam's neighbors know that the war there is not internal, but our own allies in
Europe have difficulty grasping the fact.
The fragmenting of the communist world has lent credence to the frequently
heard argument that a communist advance by proxy, as we have seen attempted
in Viet Nam, is of only peripheral importance; that with the weakening of rigid
central control of the communist world, local fights between communist and non-
communist factions are a local matter. This ignores, however, the fact that with
the decentralization of communist control has come an appropriately tailored shift
in communist tactics. National communism poses a different kind of threat than
did the old-style international communism, but by being subtler it is in some ways
more dangerous.
SEATO was useful and appropriate to its time, but it was Western in origin and
drew its strength from the United States and Europe. It has weakened to the point
at which it is little more than an institutional embodiment of an American
commitment, and a somewhat anachronistic relic of the days when France and
Britain were active members. Asia today needs its own security undertakings,
reflecting the new realities of Asian independence and Asian needs.
Thus far, despite a pattern of rapidly increasing coöperation in cultural and

economic affairs, the Asian nations have been unwilling to form a military
grouping designed to forestall the Chinese threat, even though several have
bilateral arrangements with the United States. But an appropriate foundation-
stone exists on which to build: the Asian and Pacific Council. ASPAC held its first
ministerial-level meeting in Seoul in June 1966, and its second in Bangkok in July
1967. It has carefully limited itself to strengthening regional coöperation in
economic, cultural and social matters, and its members have voiced strong
feelings that, as Japan's Foreign Minister Takeo Miki put it at the Bangkok
meeting, it should not be made "a body to promote anticommunist campaigns."
Despite ASPAC's present cultural and economic orientation, however, the

solidifying awareness of China's threat should make it possible—if the need for a
regional alliance is put in sufficiently compelling terms—to develop it into an
alliance actively dedicated to concerting whatever efforts might be necessary to
maintain the security of the region. And ASPAC is peculiarly well situated to play
such a role. Its members (South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia, South
Viet Nam, the Philippines, Australia and New Zealand, with Laos as an observer)
all are acutely conscious of the Chinese threat. All except Malaysia have military
ties with the United States. It has the distinct advantage of including Australia
and New Zealand, which share the danger and would be able to contribute
substantially to its strength, without an unbalancing great-power presence.
I do not mean to minimize the difficulties of winning acceptance of such a

concept. In Japan, public opinion still lags behind official awareness of military
needs. The avowedly neutralist nations under China's cloud would be reluctant, at
present, to join any such grouping. But looking further down the road we can
project either an erosion of their neutralism or the formation of their own loose
association or associations, which might be tied into a militarily oriented ASPAC
on an interlocking or coöperative basis. One can hope that even India might
finally be persuaded to give its support, having itself been the target of overt
Chinese aggression, and still cherishing as it does a desire to play a substantial
role beyond its own borders.
III
Military security has to rest, ultimately, on economic and political stability. One of
the effects of the rapidity of change in the world today is that there can no longer
be static stability; there can only be dynamic stability. A nation or society that
fails to keep pace with change is in danger of flying apart. It is important that we
recognize this, but equally important that in trying to maintain a dynamic stability
we remember that the stability is as important as the dynamism.
If a given set of ends is deemed desirable, then from the standpoint of those
dedicated to peace and an essential stability in world order the desideratum is to
reach those ends by evolutionary rather than revolutionary means. Looking at the
pattern of change in non-communist Asia, we find that the professed aims of the
revolutionaries are in fact being achieved by an evolutionary process. This offers a
dramatic opportunity to draw the distinction between the fact of a revolutionary
result and the process of revolutionary change. The Asian nations are showing
that evolutionary change can be as exciting as revolutionary change. Having
revolutionized the aims of their societies, they are showing what can be achieved
within a framework of dynamic stability.
The "people," in the broadest sense, have become an entity to be served rather
than used. In much of Asia, this change represents a revolution of no less
magnitude than the revolution that created the industrial West, or that in the
years following World War II transformed empires into new and struggling
nations. It is precisely the promise of this reversal that has been at the heart of
communist rhetoric, and at the heart of the popular and intellectual appeal which
that rhetoric achieved.
Not all the governments of non-communist Asia fit the Western ideal of
parliamentary democracy-far from it. But Americans must recognize that a highly
sophisticated, highly advanced political system, which required many centuries to
develop in the West, may not be best for other nations which have far different
traditions and are still in an earlier stage of development. What matters is that
these governments are consciously, deliberately and programmatically developing
in the direction of greater liberty, greater abundance, broader choice and
increased popular involvement in the processes of government.
Poverty that was accepted for centuries as the norm is accepted no longer. In a
sense it could be said that a new chapter is being written in the winning of the
West: in this case, a winning of the promise of Western technology and Western
organization by the nations of the East. The cultural clash has had its costs and
produced its strains, but out of it is coming a modernization of ancient
civilizations that promises to leap the centuries.
The process produces transitional anomalies—such as the Indian woman

squatting in the mud, forming cow-dung patties with her hands and laying them
out to dry, while a transistor radio in her lap plays music from a Delhi station. It
takes a long time to bring visions of the future to the far villages—but time is
needed to make those visions credible, and make them achievable. Too wide a gap
between reality and expectation always produces an explosive situation, and the
fact that what the leaders know is possible is unknown to the great mass of the
peasantry helps buy time to make the possible achievable. But the important thing
is that the leaders do know what is possible, and by and large they are determined
to make it happen.
Whether that process is going to proceed at a pace fast enough to keep one step
ahead of the pressure of rising expectations is one of the great questions and
challenges of the years ahead. But there is solid ground for hope. The successful
Asian nations have been writing extraordinary records. To call their performance
an economic miracle would be something of a semantic imprecision; it would also
be a disservice. Precisely because the origins and ingredients of that success are
not miraculous, it offers hope to those which have not yet turned the corner.
India still is a staggering giant, Burma flirts with economic chaos, and the
Philippines, caught in a conflict of cultures and in search of an identity, lives in a
precarious economic and social balance. But the most exciting trends in economic
development today are being recorded by those Asian nations that have accepted
the keys of progress and used them. Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, Korea,
Singapore and Malaysia all have been recording sustained economic growth rates
of 7 percent a year or more; Japan has sustained a remarkable average of 9
percent a year since 1950, and an average 16.7 percent per year increase in
exports over the same period. Thailand shifted into a period of rapid growth in
1958 and has averaged 7 percent a year since. South Korea, despite the
unflattering estimates of its people's abilities by the average G.I. during the
Korean War, is shooting ahead at a growth rate that has averaged 8 percent a
year since 1963, with an average 42 percent a year increase in its exports.
These rapidly advancing countries vary widely in their social traditions and
political systems, but their methods of economic management have certain traits
in common: a prime reliance on private enterprise and on the pricing mechanisms
of the market as the chief determinant of business decisions; a pacing of monetary
expansion to match growth in output; receptivity to private capital investment,
both domestic and foreign, including such incentives as tax advantages and quick
government clearance of proposed projects; imaginative national programs for
dealing with social problems; and, not least, a generally restrained posture in
government planning, with the government's role suggestive rather than coercive.
These nations have, in short, discovered and applied the lessons of America's own
economic success.
IV
Any discussion of Asia's future must ultimately focus on the respective roles of
four giants: India, the world's most populous non-communist nation; Japan, Asia's
principal industrial and economic power; China, the world's most populous nation
and Asia's most immediate threat; and the United States, the greatest Pacific
power. (Although the U.S.S.R. occupies much of the land map of Asia, its principal
focus is toward the west and its vast Asian lands are an appendage of European
Russia.)
India is both challenging and frustrating: challenging because of its promise,

frustrating because of its performance. It suffers from escalating overpopulation,
from too much emphasis on industrialization and not enough on agriculture, and
from too doctrinaire a reliance on government enterprise instead of private
enterprise. Many are deeply pessimistic about its future. One has to remember,
however, that in the past five years India has fought two wars and faced two
catastrophic droughts. On both the population and the agricultural fronts, India's
present leaders at least are trying. And the essential factor, from the standpoint of
U.S. policy, is that a nation of nearly half a billion people is seeking ways to
wrench itself forward without a sacrifice of basic freedoms; in exceedingly
difficult circumstances, the ideal of evolutionary change is being tested. For the
most populous representative democracy in the world to fail, while Communist
China—surmounting its troubles—succeeded, would be a disaster of worldwide
proportions. Thus the United States must do two things: (1) continue its aid and
support for Indian economic objectives; and (2) do its best to persuade the Indian
Government to shift its means and adjust its institutions so that those objectives
can be more quickly and more effectively secured, drawing from the lessons not
only of the United States but also of India's more successful neighbors, including
Pakistan.
Japan has been edging cautiously and discreetly toward a wider leadership role,
acutely conscious at every step that bitter memories of the Greater East Asia Co-
Prosperity Sphere might rise to haunt her if she pressed too hard or too eagerly.
But what would not have been possible ten, or even five, years ago is becoming
possible today. Half the people now living in Asia have been born since World War
II, and the new generation has neither the old guilts (in the case of the Japanese
themselves) nor the old fears born of conquest.
The natural momentum of Japan's growth, the industry of her people and the
advanced state of her society must inevitably propel Japan into a more
conspicuous position of leadership. Japan's industrial complex, expanding by 14
percent annually since 1950, already is comparable to that of West Germany or
the United Kingdom. Japan's gross national product ($95 billion) is substantially
greater than that of mainland China, with seven times the population. Japan is
expected soon to rank as the world's third-strongest economic power, trailing only
the United States and the Soviet Union. Along with this dramatic economic surge,
Japan will surely want to play a greater role both diplomatically and militarily in
maintaining the balance in Asia. As the Prime Minister of one neighboring country
put it: "The Japanese are a great people, and no great people will accept as their
destiny making better transistor radios and teaching the underdeveloped how to
grow better rice."
This greater role will entail, among other things, a modification of the present
terms of the Japanese Constitution, which specifically provides that "land, sea and
air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained." (Japan's
275,000 men presently under arms are called "Self-Defense Forces.") Twenty
years ago it was considered unthinkable that Japan should acquire even a
conventional military capability. Five years ago, while some Japanese thought
about it, they did not talk about it. Today a substantial majority of Japanese still
oppose the idea, but it is openly discussed and debated. Looking toward the
future, one must recognize that it simply is not realistic to expect a nation moving
into the first rank of major powers to be totally dependent for its own security on
another nation, however close the ties. Japan's whole society has been
restructured since World War II. While there still are traces of fanaticism, its
politics at least conform to the democratic ideal. Not to trust Japan today with its
own armed forces and with responsibility for its own defense would be to place its
people and its government under a disability which, whatever its roots in painful
recent history, ill accords with the role Japan must play in helping secure the
common safety of non-communist Asia.
Any American policy toward Asia must come urgently to grips with the reality of
China. This does not mean, as many would simplistically have it, rushing to grant
recognition to Peking, to admit it to the United Nations and to ply it with offers of
trade—all of which would serve to confirm its rulers in their present course. It
does mean recognizing the present and potential danger from Communist China,
and taking measures designed to meet that danger. It also means distinguishing
carefully between long-range and short-range policies, and fashioning short-range
programs so as to advance our long-range goals.
Taking the long view, we simply cannot afford to leave China forever outside the
family of nations, there to nurture its fantasies, cherish its hates and threaten its
neighbors. There is no place on this small planet for a billion of its potentially
most able people to live in angry isolation. But we could go disastrously wrong if,
in pursuing this long-range goal, we failed in the short range to read the lessons
of history.
The world cannot be safe until China changes. Thus our aim, to the extent that we
can influence events, should be to induce change. The way to do this is to
persuade China that it must change: that it cannot satisfy its imperial ambitions,
and that its own national interest requires a turning away from foreign
adventuring and a turning inward toward the solution of its own domestic
problems.
If the challenge posed by the Soviet Union after World War II was not precisely
similar, it was sufficiently so to offer a valid precedent and a valuable lesson.
Moscow finally changed when it, too, found that change was necessary. This was
essentially a change of the head, not of the heart. Internal evolution played a role,
to be sure, but the key factor was that the West was able to create
conditions—notably in the shoring up of European defenses, the rapid restoration
of European economies and the cementing of the Atlantic Alliance—that forced
Moscow to look to the wisdom of reaching some measure of accommodation with
the West. We are still far from reaching a full détente, but at least substantial
progress has been made.
During the next decade the West faces two prospects which, together, could
create a crisis of the first order: (1) that the Soviets may reach nuclear parity with
the United States; and (2) that China, within three to five years, will have a
significant deliverable nuclear capability—and that this same China will be
outside any nonproliferation treaty that might be signed, free, if it chooses, to
scatter its weapons among "liberation" forces anywhere in the world.
This heightens the urgency of building buffers that can keep the major nuclear
powers apart in the case of "wars of national liberation," supported by Moscow or
Peking but fought by proxy. It also requires that we now assign to the
strengthening of non-communist Asia a priority comparable to that which we gave
to the strengthening of Western Europe after World War II.
Some counsel conceding to China a "sphere of influence" embracing much of the
Asian mainland and extending even to the island nations beyond; others urge that
we eliminate the threat by preëmptive war. Clearly, neither of these courses
would be acceptable to the United States or to its Asian allies. Others argue that
we should seek an anti-Chinese alliance with European powers, even including the
Soviet Union. Quite apart from the obvious problems involved in Soviet
participation, such a course would inevitably carry connotations of Europe vs.
Asia, white vs. non-white, which could have catastrophic repercussions
throughout the rest of the non-white world in general and Asia in particular. If our
long-range aim is to pull China back into the family of nations, we must avoid the
impression that the great powers or the European powers are "ganging up;" the
response should clearly be one of active defense rather than potential offense, and
must be untainted with any suspicion of racism.
For the United States to go it alone in containing China would not only place an
unconscionable burden on our own country, but also would heighten the chances
of nuclear war while undercutting the independent development of the nations of
Asia. The primary restraint on China's Asian ambitions should be exercised by the
Asian nations in the path of those ambitions, backed by the ultimate power of the
United States. This is sound strategically, sound psychologically and sound in
terms of the dynamics of Asian development. Only as the nations of non-
communist Asia become so strong—economically, politically and militarily—that
they no longer furnish tempting targets for Chinese aggression, will the leaders in
Peking be persuaded to turn their energies inward rather than outward. And that
will be the time when the dialogue with mainland China can begin.
For the short run, then, this means a policy of firm restraint, of no reward, of a
creative counterpressure designed to persuade Peking that its interests can be
served only by accepting the basic rules of international civility. For the long run,
it means pulling China back into the world community—but as a great and
progressing nation, not as the epicenter of world revolution.
"Containment without isolation" is a good phrase and a sound concept, as far as it

goes. But it covers only half the problem. Along with it, we need a positive policy
of pressure and persuasion, of dynamic detoxification, a marshaling of Asian
forces both to keep the peace and to help draw off the poison from the Thoughts
of Mao.
Dealing with Red China is something like trying to cope with the more explosive
ghetto elements in our own country. In each case a potentially destructive force
has to be curbed; in each case an outlaw element has to be brought within the
law; in each case dialogues have to be opened; in each case aggression has to be
restrained while education proceeds; and, not least, in neither case can we afford
to let those now self-exiled from society stay exiled forever. We have to proceed
with both an urgency born of necessity and a patience born of realism, moving
step by calculated step toward the final goal.
And finally, the role of the United States.
Weary with war, disheartened with allies, disillusioned with aid, dismayed at
domestic crises, many Americans are heeding the call of the new isolationism.
And they are not alone; there is a tendency in the whole Western world to turn
inward, to become parochial and isolationist—dangerously so. But there can be
neither peace nor security a generation hence unless we recognize now the
massiveness of the forces at work in Asia, where more than half the world's
people live and where the greatest explosive potential is lodged.
Out of the wreckage of two world wars we forged a concept of an Atlantic

community, within which a ravaged Europe was rebuilt and the westward advance
of the Soviets contained. If tensions now strain that community, these are
themselves a byproduct of success. But history has its rhythms, and now the focus
of both crisis and change is shifting. Without turning our backs on Europe, we
have now to reach out westward to the East, and to fashion the sinews of a Pacific
community.
This has to be a community in the fullest sense: a community of purpose, of

understanding and of mutual assistance, in which military defenses are
coördinated while economies are strengthened; a community embracing a concert
of Asian strengths as a counterforce to the designs of China; one in which Japan
will play an increasing role, as befits its commanding position as a world
economic power; and one in which U.S. leadership is exercised with restraint,
with respect for our partners and with a sophisticated discretion that ensures a
genuinely Asian idiom and Asian origin for whatever new Asian institutions are
developed.
In a design for Asia's future, there is no room for heavy-handed American

pressures; there is need for subtle encouragement of the kind of Asian initiatives
that help bring the design to reality. The distinction may seem superficial, but in
fact it is central both to the kind of Asia we want and to the effectiveness of the
means of achieving it. The central pattern of the future in U.S.-Asian relations
must be American support for Asian initiatives.
The industrial revolution has shown that mass abundance is possible, and as the
United States moves into the post-industrial world—the age of computers and
cybernetics—we have to find ways to engineer an escape from privation for those
now living in mass poverty. There can be no security, whatever our nuclear
stockpiles, in a world of boiling resentment and magnified envy. The oceans
provide no sanctuary for the rich, no barrier behind which we can hide our
abundance.
The struggle for influence in the Third World is a three-way race among Moscow,
Peking and the West. The West has offered both idealism and example, but the
idealism has often been unconvincing and the example non-idiomatic. However,
an industrialized Japan demonstrates the economically possible in Asian terms,
while an advancing Asia tied into a Pacific community offers a bridge to the
underdeveloped elsewhere. During this final third of the twentieth century, the
great race will be between man and change: the race to control change, rather
than be controlled by it. In this race we cannot afford to wait for others to act, and
then merely react. And the race in Asia is already under way.
October 1,1967
Policy and the People
Nelson A. Rockefeller
Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey.
Amidst the rapid and often bewildering change that characterizes our age,
advocates of extreme solutions seem to be gaining ground everywhere.
Lawlessness in the cities, the restlessness of a good part of the younger
generation—especially those in college—and an inconclusive war cause a growing
disquiet.
We live in an age of revolutionary transformation. We can seek to shape it or we

can doom ourselves to irrelevance. We can accept the challenge to our creativity
or we can resign ourselves to ineffectual bitterness. We can lose ourselves in
passionate and paralyzing controversy over technical aspects of individual
problems, or we can, as I deeply believe we must, develop a more creative
perspective—one which enables us to see the inner relationship of great issues
and the larger framework within which they can be solved.
A characteristic of a revolutionary period is that it appears to its contemporaries
as a series of unrelated crises. What has seemed an obvious course of action in
one decade becomes problematic in another. Familiar concepts for dealing with
our problems become detached from present reality. This is a particular difficulty
in a society like ours which historically has dealt with its challenges
"pragmatically"—hat is, on the basis of values and concepts accepted as too
obvious to require explicit formulation. Such an attitude is effective in dealing
with technical problems, but increases the difficulty where human considerations
are involved—whether in changes of social structure or in our foreign relations. In
the absence of a guiding philosophy, the tendency is to await developments. This
attitude can make it difficult even to agree on the nature of a problem, much less
on its solution. Thus the analysis of a technical issue takes precedence over
purpose, which alone can make remedies relevant. More energy is expended on
deciding where we are than where we should be going. While a crisis may remove
any doubt about the existence of a problem, it also curtails the scope for
productive action.
A constant problem in government is to establish a balance between creativity

and knowledge. When the scope for action is greatest, the knowledge on which to
base it is at a minimum. When "all the facts are in," the chance for imaginative
action has often disappeared. This is why I believe that the test of a leader is
whether he is willing to act on the basis of assessments which cannot be "proved"
empirically when they are made.
In a democracy this can happen effectively only if leaders have the convictions
and the faith to act when the tactical pros and cons seem fairly evenly balanced
and only if there exists a constant dialogue between leaders and the public. My
own experience has convinced me that, all too often, problems are tackled when it
is too late. The art of government consists of identifying emerging problems in
time, of understanding the forces that shape them, of confronting these problems
with a clear sense of purpose, and achieving consensus on a plan of action drawn
to an adequate scale and made relevant to the citizen.
A worrisome aspect of the present period seems to me to be the growing

frustration of the public in the face of rapid change over which they feel they do
not have much control. Too often the result is a feeling of not being a part of the
political process. It may take the form of a sense of impotence in the face of
problems believed to be beyond the ken of the average citizen, or of a distrust of
all government, or of both simultaneously. If this trend continues we will lose the
mainspring of our traditional vitality.
A democracy cannot afford "drop-outs" from the process of government. We must

develop fresh premises that will demonstrate how our ideals remain relevant to
the realities that confront the citizen. In the midst of perplexing technical
problems, our deepest challenge is increasingly philosophical.
II
Industrialization and the specialization of functions inseparable from it, coupled

with the growth of governmental bureaucracy and power, jeopardize the
relationship of the individual to his work and of the citizen to his government.
Democratic values developed in essentially agricultural or commercial societies.
In no country did democracy develop as a result of industrialization. (Germany
and Japan adopted democratic forms only after catastrophic military defeats.) An
industrial economy depends on values like predictability and efficiency, which
may call forth a sort of "constitutionalism"—a set of commonly accepted rules.
Unfortunately, the values are not necessarily "democratic values" as the term is
commonly understood in the West. In other words, democracy is not the result of
a quest for efficiency and a higher standard of living but of other values that are
deeper. These include the Judaeo-Christian tradition of the worth and dignity of
the individual, the historical evolution in the West of autonomous Church and
State hierarchies, the belief in a standard of justice which transcends the power
to coerce, and faith in human creativity as a basis for progress.
Industrialization leads to two somewhat contradictory tendencies. On the one

hand, it provides the means to realize the economic and social aspirations of the
people more fully and the possibility of their participating more broadly in
government. On the other hand, material progress by itself only exposes the need
for a deeper purpose to life. If prosperity becomes an end in itself, it may well
produce a growing alienation of the citizen from the body politic.
It is our tradition and conviction as a nation that the individual is to be protected

from any undue accumulation of power. This purpose underlies the separation of
powers in government, the divorce of Church and State, the civilian control of the
military, and the labor and antitrust laws directed against the abuse of economic
power. In the nineteenth century, it was believed that freedom depended on
limiting the role of government. But in the 1930s, the threat to freedom seemed to
come from the predominance of economic over human considerations. Sweeping
legislation was enacted to help the economically deprived and to ensure that no
citizen would become the victim of all-powerful economic forces. Now our
generation is in the process of learning that some problems cannot be solved by
legislation alone. The plight of the cities, for example, is in considerable part a
problem of social relationships. Many of today's urban minority families have been
uprooted from a simple rural environment and now find themselves thrust into a
situation for which they were completely unprepared and which supports them
neither economically nor emotionally. The key issue of race is not merely to
legislate equality of opportunity; this is in many respects the easiest aspect. Nor is
the solution limited to such necessities as jobs, housing and education. Beyond all
these, it must be possible for minority groups to gain a sense of belonging.
Industrialization coupled with increased concern for social welfare has produced
what Daniel Bell has called the "communal society." One of its characteristics is
the interdependence of people; another is that more and more actions are
undertaken through group or communal instruments rather than through
individual initiative. The requirement to specialize, moreover, has deprived the
average individual of a sense of "visible product," reducing the feelings of
independence and pride of accomplishment enjoyed by the artisan or farmer of
former times.
The growth of this kind of society accounts for much of the current unease and
discontent. In the nineteenth century, when the role of government was relatively
small and issues were comparatively simple, many voters took part in politics as
members of groups with clearly defined and competing economic interests. The
conflict between such groups—farmers vs. merchants, South vs. North, planters
vs. capitalists, labor vs. employers—was an important factor in the evolution of
political parties. Although the clash of economic interests was exaggerated by
some historians, it shaped the American political process in important respects. In
the 1930s, many intellectuals held that the U.S. economy had "matured" with the
settlement of the frontiers and that progress for any group within the economy
could be made only at the expense of another group. Genuine concern arose as to
whether democratic political institutions could survive the competing claims of
economic interest groups.
In today's relatively prosperous society, the nature of the conflict has changed.
The conflict of economic interest groups has diminished with the rise of the role of
government and with the general recognition that legitimate economic claims of
all groups can eventually be satisfied by a growing economy based on the
seemingly limitless resources of science. Moreover, many of the issues
represented by special interest groups are no longer a subject of serious
argument. The view that society should help the less fortunate and the
underprivileged is no longer urged in traditional pressure-group terms. The
widely accepted need for more education and better health, for rebuilding our
cities and modernizing our transportation systems, for purifying our air and
water, is seen to be required for political, social, moral or aesthetic reasons rather
than because of economic claims put forth by groups with competing interests.
Massive social programs have been launched to meet these goals. Their impact on
all levels of government in our federal system has been staggering, vastly
complicating the relationships between local, state and federal government. The
power of the executive has grown in relation to other branches of government.
This has resulted not only from the growth in the size of government, but also
from the increasingly technical nature of knowledge, the complex nature of issues
and the multiplicity of goals, many of them in conflict with each other.
The increased role of technical decision-making at all levels of government has

had the effect of institutionalizing certain crucial controls and directive functions
in the executive branch, and this has added new dimension and power to the
bureaucracy. Foreshadowed in the 1930s by the growth of regulatory agencies
exercising quasi-legislative and judicial functions, the bureaucracy has grown in
direct proportion to the technical complexity of issues. When bureaucracy
becomes too unwieldy and unresponsive to change, more energies are expended
in managing the administrative machine than in defining its purpose. Success
comes to consist of moving the bureaucracy to the point of decision—almost
irrespective of content. A gap opens between the technical knowledge of
bureaucracy and the leadership's capacity to absorb technical information and to
transmit it to the public.
In these circumstances, it is not surprising that more and more voters feel
frustrated. Political parties, traditionally the strongest links between the
electorate and the government, are losing their hold. The proportion of voters
unaffiliated to either party is increasing, and indications are that those who are
affiliated tend to cross party lines more and more often.
All of this gives contemporary politics its particular cast. In the nineteenth
century, campaigns at least concerned issues, if not principles. Today the cult of
the uncommitted voter too often turns political contests into a competition for the
middle ground, making it hard sometimes to distinguish between contenders. The
issue of a campaign often turns on "personality." In their attempt to draw in
voters from the entire spectrum of opinion, parties tend to repeat within
themselves the divisions in the society at large, with the result that internal party
strife is sometimes more bitter than the contest between the parties.
The dangers of this tendency have been pointed out by Daniel Boorstin, who has
noted the decline of the heroic leader and the rise of the "star" leader in the
political process. He attributes this change in the character of political and other
heroes to the increasing use of the "human pseudo-event"—an "event" staged by
an individual, his press agent or the news media to create a desirable image. The
need for images, he adds, stems from the lack of a clearly stated philosophy,
which in turn results in uncertainty concerning our ideals. Our national politics
has thus become "a competition for images or between images, rather than
between ideals."[i]
The result is a sense of insecurity and a distrust of all politics. Having been taught
classical democratic theory in school, the citizen knows he is expected to vote and
is taught to believe his vote is important. Often, however, he finds it difficult if not
impossible to become informed on the issues and, most importantly, he does not
know how to make his disagreement effective. He comes to believe his vote has
little influence in the decision-making process.
To a considerable extent, the growth in government and the increase in

specialization are irreversible. Nostalgia for a simpler age will not help matters.
What is at issue is nothing less than whether life can be given meaning—as I
deeply believe it can—in an environment which sometimes seems to dwarf the
individual. The contemporary uneasiness—especially of our young
generation—reflects rebellion against the emptiness of a life which knows only
"practical" problems and material goods and seems to lack a deeper purpose.
I have learned in New York State that people are willing to make whatever effort
is necessary to resolve a problem if they understand its relationship to our
purposes as a society. For example, when public opinion was said to favor
retrenchment, the voters of New York State approved by a wide margin a $2.5
billion bond issue for a new and comprehensive approach to transportation—an
important key to the solution of fundamental economic and social problems in the
state. Previously they had voted four-to-one in favor of a $1 billion pure-waters
bond issue to end pollution of our rivers, lakes and ocean fronts, and so restore
them to the full use of our society. In both cases, there was protracted and
intensive dialogue between the government and the people, in which organized
citizen action played a vital role.
Great accomplishments require inspiration as well as technique. The challenge to

our democracy is whether we can establish a framework of purpose and concepts
which will enable us to see in the day-to-day difficulties the raw material for a
renewed creative action. I am profoundly convinced that this is possible.
III
The conduct of foreign policy vividly illustrates how contemporary problems test
the democratic process. Here we see the need to establish a larger framework of
objectives, purpose and concept if we are to act constructively. In an article in the
inaugural issue of this journal forty-five years ago, Elihu Root wrote:
The demand for open diplomacy and contemporaneous public information . . .
rests upon the substantial basis of democratic instinct for unhampered self-
government. . . . The usefulness of this new departure is subject to one inevitable
condition. That is, that the democracy which is undertaking to direct the business
of diplomacy shall learn the business. The controlling democracy must acquire a
knowledge of the fundamental and essential facts and principles upon which the
relations of nations depend. . . . The world will be the gainer by the change, for,
while there is no human way to prevent a king from having a bad heart, there is a
human way to prevent a people from having an erroneous opinion.[ii]
Since then, the formulation of foreign policy and the business of learning about
foreign policy have become even more complex and the penalties for error
potentially much graver. Elihu Root wrote in the twilight of a period of
international order centering on Europe—an order which had regulated relations
among nations throughout the nineteenth century and in the beginning of the
twentieth century. The First World War shook this system and the Second World
War completed its destruction. The European powers have declined relatively in
power and influence; the United States and the Soviet Union have become the
strongest nations, while new nations have come into being in every continent.
International relations have become truly global—a process which has been
accelerated by the rapidity of travel and the speed of communication. Two things
have been lacking: a new concept of relations between nations and a framework
of order in which the aspirations of humanity can be peacefully realized and in
which nearly sixty new nations can find their places. To complicate matters
further, the sense of security has been shaken by East-West ideological conflicts
and by new weapons of unprecedented destructiveness. Our age lacks safety,
structure and international consensus.
In the light of these concerns, it is especially hard to define the basis of our
physical security. Our concepts of a threat to security are geared to traditional
notions of territorial expansion; thus our doctrine tells us to resist physical
aggression across existing national borders. But we have had to learn that much
more fundamental changes in power relationships can occur within the frontiers
of a sovereign state, either through domestic upheavals, sometimes inspired and
supported from outside, or through technological change, such as the
development of nuclear weapons by Communist China.
Moreover, the incomparable risks created by the new technology impose a special
burden on both decision-makers and individual citizens. Never before have major
protagonists had to fear almost instantaneous and simultaneous destruction. With
new weapons, a strategy becomes almost entirely dependent on theoretical
calculations and psychological criteria. Never has so much hung on weapons for
which there exists so little operational experience. At the same time, judgment of
the interaction of complicated weapons systems is largely psychological. In a
policy of deterrence, what matters above all is the opponent's state of mind. For
purposes of deterrence, a threat meant as a bluff but taken seriously is more
useful than a serious threat interpreted as a bluff.
Perhaps nowhere is the gap between substantive knowledge and the operation of
the democratic process so complicated as in the field of defense. The issues are
highly technical; experts with years of experience disagree among themselves,
often violently. Congressional committees have difficulty in acquiring
comprehensive knowledge as to the interrelationship of technical, strategic and
policy issues involved; their resulting frustration often strains executive-
legislative relationships. For the average citizen, the task may seem almost
insurmountable. Yet his very existence may quite literally depend on decisions
about our strategic posture. Confronted with this dilemma, he may become
cynical or fall prey to demagogic appeals. It is the task of leadership to encourage
thoughtful discussion and to make certain that the public understands the
fundamental—essentially non-technical—considerations on which our strategic
posture depends.
Meanwhile, the world has become fragmented as never before. In the nineteenth
century, the emergence of two new states—Italy and Germany—disturbed the
equilibrium for decades. In the twentieth century, the development and
aggressive spread of communist ideology and the appearance of scores of new
states were bound to be accompanied by turmoil. The unrest has been intensified
because the domestic instability of many new states tempts outside forces to
exploit their internal weaknesses and encourages their own leaders to use foreign
dangers to strengthen their hold on a shaky domestic position.
Three characteristics of our age—a basic sense of insecurity, the lack of a political
structure and the absence of consensus as to objectives—mark it as a period of
transition in international relations. So long as there is no agreement on
objectives, the temptation is great to deal with issues one by one. There is a
tendency to break up problems into their constituent elements and to assign each
to be dealt with by experts in that area.
Such an approach means we deal with symptoms. Debate is polarized between

those who see every upheaval as caused by the deliberate design of evil men and
others who, in our age of intercontinental missiles and instantaneous
communication, question whether we have any national interest beyond our
shores. In the face of such complexities, and lacking unifying concepts and long-
range objectives, many leaders are tempted to invoke their assumedly superior
information rather than resort to patient explanation. And critics who demand
perfection forget that, while great objectives are essential, they can be reached
only if one is prepared to advance by measured steps. Some rely for help on what
are thought to be the automatic processes of history: the "inevitable" amelioration
of dictatorships or the "automatic" association of humane governmental systems
with economic development. But history will not do our work for us. Whether
totalitarian systems can be brought to a more accommodating posture depends at
least in part on whether there are penalties for bad faith and bad behavior. And
the history of this century should have demonstrated that economic progress, if
not leavened by humane values, may only refine the tools of slavery. Nazism did
not develop, after all, in an economically backward society.
The sense of impotence—of being unable to affect events—is even more acute in
facing problems of foreign policy than in domestic policy. Yet the challenge is
relatively straightforward. The crucial fact is that we have not developed an
effective political structure to bring about peaceful change. The upheaval in the
world will subside only with the emergence of a more or less generally accepted
international system. Until then, all nations will live with the consciousness of
danger, and until then military power will remain essential to national security.
At the same time, one must recognize that security cannot be achieved by power
alone, for this would be the road to empire if not to cataclysm. The goal is order,
but order is not created simply by moral affirmation. In world affairs there are few
"final" solutions; foreign policy has no terminal point. Each successful settlement
establishes a new set of relationships, with their own complexities and potentials
for friction. And though we cannot create order by ourselves, it surely cannot
come about without us.
IV
The deepest problem before America, then, is moral or psychological. Since much
of the current uneasiness reflects a search less for solutions than for meaning,
remedies depend for their effectiveness on the philosophy or values which inspire
them. The student unrest is impressive, not because some of it is fomented by
agitators, but because it includes some of the most idealistic elements of our
youth. In fact, much that disquiets us today gives cause for hope, for it reflects not
cynicism but disappointed idealism.
Decades of "debunking" and materialism have left the young generation without
adequate moral support in face of the challenges of a revolutionary age. Leaders
at all levels are seen to have been asking not too much of our people but too little.
The contemporary discontent proves among other things that man cannot live by
economics alone; he needs quality and purpose in addition to material well-being;
he needs significance and meaning beyond physical comfort. The quality and
success of the Peace Corps can be explained on no other ground. The spirit of
idealism which it has fostered should—and can—animate our actions in meeting a
wide range of challenges.
A democracy, to be vital, must be able to mobilize the moral energies of its

people. If government at any level should consistently take the attitude that
"Father knows best," those moral energies will be sapped at the base. If, on the
other hand, protest confines itself to striking poses, it, too, will be doomed to
sterility. The dialogue we need is one geared to a conceptual approach to the
problems at home and abroad, not to individual "solutions" based on the illusion
that we can escape problems by fragmenting them.
Over the years our society must cherish the pluralism, the centers of initiative,
that made America so great. We must give thought to the effort to decentralize
initiative. Within the framework of our federal system we must encourage all
private organizations, supported by a sense of responsibility on the part of private
citizens, which can provide the building blocks to make that effort succeed. Such
institutions, and others which are governmental in character, can play a vital part
in our conscious strategy to revive the belief of the average American that his
opinion matters.
The stakes could hardly be higher. In previous centuries, a part of mankind might
languish while another advanced. In a world which is indivisible, a failure to deal
with our own problems could spread disintegration worldwide.
For a people grown great in the experience of the frontier, the twin challenges of
humanizing a technocratic bureaucracy and helping the world find a modern
structure offer an adventurous opportunity. This is an exciting age. The current
uneasiness exists because people care—and yet do not see the way to make their
aspirations come true. The task is to prove that their aspirations are relevant and
attainable. This cannot be the responsibility of the President alone; it is the
responsibility of all public officials, of leaders in all walks of life—indeed, of all of
us.
[i] Daniel Boorstin, "The Image: Or What Happened to the American Dream." New
York: Atheneum, 1962, p. 249.
[ii] Elihu Root, "A Requisite for the Success of Popular Diplomacy," Foreign
Affairs, v. I. n. I.
January 1,1968
The Presidency and the Peace
McGeorge Bundy
JFK LIBRARY AND MUSEUM

U.S. President John F. Kennedy and Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson.
It is with some sense of temerity that a member of the White House staff
undertakes to comment on the large topic of the Presidency and the Peace.
Loyalty and affection are so normal in such service that detachment is difficult.
Nevertheless the importance of the topic and the enforced familiarity of close
experience with the Presidential task may justify a set of comments whose
underlying motive is to express a conviction that is as obvious as the daylight, in
general, and as fresh as every sunrise, in particular: a conviction that the
American Presidency, for better, not for worse, has now become the world's best
hope of preventing the unexampled catastrophe of general nuclear war.
Moreover, both charity and sorrow can be good lenses for perception, and it may
therefore be possible to consider the subject without impropriety by focussing
upon the years of John F. Kennedy. The tragedy which has moved his
Administration from politics to history may allow to his critics and excuse in his
friends some generosity in the assessment of his three years. His death revealed
his greatness, and the grief of the world was less for his tragedy than for its
own—in that he had shown his spreading grasp of his duty to mankind as Chief
Executive for Peace.
To focus on the Kennedy years is not to forget those before, and still less the firm
continuation after November 22. The Presidents of the nuclear age before Mr.
Kennedy also made the service of peace the first of their purposes, and the
determined commitment of President Johnson to this same end, matured in
decades of direct knowledge of our nuclear world, has been made plain in his own
words and actions already. Indeed one purpose of a retrospective assessment is to
clarify purposes which are as important to the President today as to the President
last year.
A President in search of Peace has many powers, but none is more relevant or
more effective than his power as Commander-in-Chief. The President is keeping
the peace as long as he keeps his own nuclear power in check, and with it the
nuclear power of others. This most obvious of his powers, apparently so simple
and so negative, can be used for peace in a number of ways.
The prerequisite, of course, is that this power should exist, and that there should
be confidence in its future as well as its present effectiveness. Nothing is more
dangerous to the peace than weakness in the ultimate deterrent strength of the
United States. In the quarter-century that man has known the atom could be split,
each American decision to enlarge its power has been the President's alone. More
subtly but with just as great importance, the choices of methods of delivery and
their rate of development have also been Presidential.
As important as having strength is being known to have it; and here if anything
the Presidential authority and responsibility are still more clear. This is the lesson
of Sputnik, and of the "missile gap" which was forecast and feared by responsible
and well-informed men both in and out of government between 1957 and 1961.
There was ground for doubt and need for rapid action; the ground and the need
were recognized, and important steps were taken, but an appearance of
complacency led to an appearance of weakness, with considerable costs abroad.
These costs would surely have been greater had it not been for the remarkable
personal standing of President Eisenhower.
At the beginning of the Kennedy Administration there was need both for further
action and for a reëstablishment of confidence. The new President himself had
feared the missile gap and had pressed his concern in the campaign. It was with
honest surprise and relief that in 1961 he found the situation much less
dangerous than the best evidence available to the Senate had indicated the year
before. His Administration moved at once to correct the public impression, and
thereafter, throughout his term, he encouraged and supported policies of action
and of exposition which aimed to ensure not merely that American strategic
power was sufficient—but that its sufficiency was recognized.
The adequacy of American strategic strength is a matter of such transcendent

importance that it must always be a legitimate topic of political debate. "How
much is enough?" is a question on which honest men will differ, and interested
parties will find room and reason for their claims. Thus it is natural that in the
present political year we have ranging shots already from the fringes, some
saying that our strength is too little and others that it is too great. Just as it is the
responsibility of the Commander-in-Chief to ensure the adequacy of our strength,
so it is his task, either directly or through his principal defense officers, to meet
and overcome such criticism. The present Administration will not be lax in the
exposition of the real situation, and no one who has closely examined the present
and prospective balance of strategic strength can doubt that this year any
assertion that we are weak will be found wanting to the point of irresponsibility.
There is an equal obligation to meet the arguments of those who think we are too
strong. When these arguments grow out of fundamentally different views on the
purpose and meaning of effective strategic strength, it may be necessary to agree
to disagree. "Unilateral disarmament" is a tainted term, but it does embody
something of what is desired by most of those who criticize our present strength
as gravely excessive. The Presidents of the nuclear age have recognized that the
law of diminishing returns applies to strategic missiles as to all other
commodities; they have also agreed with President Johnson's comment that our
nuclear defense expenditures can never be justified as a W.P.A. for selected towns
or states. But they have all rejected the gamble of limiting our strategic strength
in terms of any absolute concept of what is enough. They have measured our
strength against that of the Soviet Union and have aimed at strategic superiority;
that superiority has had different meanings at different stages, but seen from the
White House its value for peace has never been small.
Yet even in this rejection of the underlying arguments which move so many of
those who find our strength excessive, a President who cares for peace will
respect their general concern. It is entirely true that nuclear strength can be
provocative, that it is full of the hazard of accident or misuse, and that it imposes
upon its commander, in his own interest as in that of mankind, a passion for
prudence. All the Presidents of the nuclear age have understood this
responsibility and have sought to meet it by insisting on disciplined and
responsible control of this power. In the case of President Kennedy the pressing
need was that as the number and variety of weapons systems increased, there
should be ever more searching attention to effective command and control. To
him this was a better answer to the dangers of accident than some arbitrary
limitation of numbers; a thousand well-controlled and safely designed missiles
could be less dangerous than a hundred of lower quality, as well as more effective
in deterrence.
A related point was the President's powerful aversion to those nuclear weapons
which could be used effectively only in a first strike. In 1961 and 1962 he faced a
series of judgments on major systems; he always preferred the system which
could survive an attack, as against the system which might provoke one. In the
same way and for related reasons he preferred the system which was on the high
seas or at home to that which required a base abroad and evoked a real or
pretended charge of encirclement from Moscow.
The Commander-in-Chief must be strong, then, but also restrained. And as his
strength must be recognized, so must his restraint. The doctrine of "massive
retaliation" was never as absolute as Mr. Dulles at first made it seem, and its real
weakness lay not in the undoubted fact that against certain kinds of aggression a
nuclear response would be necessary, but in the appearance of a bomb-rattling
menace which it created. The Presidency does well to avoid this appearance; in
the Kennedy Administration the rule was that statements of strength and will
should be made as calmly as possible. The President himself watched constantly
to prevent the appearance of belligerence, and when the White House watch
nodded-as in one magazine account in which a single phrase out of context was
seized upon by Soviet propaganda—he made his dissatisfaction plain.
A similar discipline was enforced throughout the Administration upon both civil
and military officials. Those who have read speech drafts for clearance know how
seldom there is need for major change, and how often divergence between
Presidential purposes and a speaker's draft can be corrected by revision which
reconciles the real purposes of both. And again it is not only the act of
coördination but the appearance of it which is helpful. The nuclear age multiplies
the mistrust that peaceable men must feel toward military men who appear not to
be under effective control, and nothing adds more to a President's reputation
abroad than recognition that he is Commander-in-Chief in fact as well as in name.
Yet the Kennedy years show again, as the terms of strong Presidents have shown
before, that harmony, not conflict, is the normal relation between the Armed
Services and the Presidency. The maintenance of clear Presidential control over
military policy and over public statements gave rise to some criticism, and
intermittently there were assertions that this or that military need was being
overridden—this or that viewpoint silenced. Energy and strength in the Office of
the Secretary of Defense produced similar worries, and challenges to cherished
privileges were not unresisted. But the center of emphasis belongs on the fact
that the Presidency has these powers in this country; a President who uses them
firmly, with a defensible concept of the national security, can count on the support
of the officers and men of the Armed Forces. The American tradition of civilian
control is strong and the tradition of loyalty among professional officers high; the
services are eager for a strong and active Commander-in-Chief. The armed
strength of the United States, if handled with firmness and prudence, is a great
force for peace.
II
The President who seeks peace must have a clear view of the Soviet Union. The
one great weakness of Franklin Roosevelt was that he did not; he had not the
advantage of living, as all his successors have, through the realities of the years
after 1945. Nothing is gained for peace by forgetting Czechoslovakia or Hungary
or the recurrent menace to Berlin, or Korea or Southeast Asia or any of the
dozens of times and places where Communists with help from Moscow have
sought to put an end to liberty.
Mr. Kennedy had this clear view. He had it before he became President; he
confirmed it in his first state papers; he understood not only the unrelenting
ambition and the ruthlessness of Communism, but also the weakness and disarray
of much of the non-Communist world. And for almost two of his three years—from
the very beginning until the offensive weapons were gone from Cuba—he had an
exposure to Communist pressure in Berlin, in Laos, and in the Caribbean which
could only confirm the somber estimate with which he entered office.
Against these pressures he was firm, and to meet them more effectively he greatly
strengthened the defenses of the United States—not merely in strategic weapons
for basic deterrence, but also in forces designed more precisely to meet the
hazards of each point of pressure. The reserves who were called up for Berlin
never fired a shot in anger, but military service by Americans has seldom made a
more effective contribution to the defense of freedom and the keeping of peace.
The new kinds of strength deployed to South Viet Nam have not finished that hard
job, but they have prevented an otherwise certain defeat and kept the door open
for a victory which in the end can be won only by the Vietnamese themselves. And
never in any country did President Kennedy leave it in doubt that Communist
subversion is always the enemy of freedom, and of freedom's friends, the
Americans.
Yet always—and again from the beginning—he put equal emphasis on the
readiness of the United States to reach honorable settlement of all differences,
the respect of the United States for the reality of Soviet strength, and the
insistence of the United States that both sides accept and meet their joint
responsibility for peace.
He rejected the stale rhetoric of the cold war; he insisted not on the innate
wickedness of Communism but on its evil effects. The Communist world was
seldom if ever "the enemy." Characteristically, as in his Inaugural Address, the
President used a circumlocution whose unaccustomed clumsiness was proof that
it was carefully chosen: "those nations who would make themselves our
adversary." Characteristically, too, what he there offered them was a request "to
begin anew the quest for peace."
And he pressed in this same direction himself. In Laos, in Berlin, and most
persistently of all in the search for a test ban, the President's powers, from
beginning to end, were used toward the goal of agreement. Agreement must
never be surrender; that would be no service to peace. The firmness of the United
States under pressure was made plain both in Berlin and in Southeast Asia. But
firmness was a means to honorable settlement, not an end in itself. Harboring no
illusion about the difficulty of success, the President nevertheless persevered. He
was convinced that at the least it was essential to leave no doubt, in all these
issues, of the good will and peaceful purpose of the United States. If there were to
be a continued arms race, or a test of strength, it must be plain where the
responsibility lay. But the larger truth, as he saw it, was that in these areas of
difference there was real advantage to both sides in reliable agreement—if only
the other side could be brought to see its own real interests, free of ambition that
would be resisted, and of fear that was unjustified.
In 1961 and 1962 the invitation to seek peace together met a thin response. True,
the threat to Berlin, so noisy in 1961, and so sharpened by the confession of
Communist bankruptcy which was the Wall, seemed slightly milder in 1962. And
an agreement was reached on Laos, imperfect in its terms and in its execution,
but much better than no agreement at all. It was in Laos above all that one could
see the advantage to both sides of even the most incomplete disengagement, as
against a tightening and sharpening of confrontation.
But no agreement at all had come in the field nearest the President's heart—that
of limiting the nuclear danger. On the contrary, Soviet tests had led inexorably to
American tests. It was somehow a measure of the Kennedy temper and purpose
that of all the Soviet provocations of these two years it was the resumption of
testing that disappointed him most.
III
The Cuban missile crisis was the most important single event of the Kennedy
Presidency. As the President himself pointed out afterward, it was the first direct
test between the Soviet Union and the United States in which nuclear weapons
were the issue.
Although vast amounts have been written about the crisis, we still have no solid
account of one half of it—the Soviet side. What is not known of one side limits our
ability to assess action on the other, and this limitation should warn us against
judgments that this act more than that, or one advantage more than another, was
decisive. It does not prevent a more general judgment of the main elements
contributing to success.
What is at once astonishing and wholly natural is the degree to which the clear
components of this success are precisely those to which the Presidency had been
bent and not only in the Kennedy Administration: strength, restraint, and respect
for the opinions of mankind.
That strength counted we cannot doubt—though it is typical of the uncertainties

of assessment that the partisans of specific kinds of strength remained persuaded,
afterward as before, of the peculiar value of their preferred weapons. Believers in
nuclear dissuasion as an all-purpose strategy asserted the predominant role of
strategic superiority; believers in the need for conventional strength, while not
usually denying the role of SAC in the success, were convinced that what
mattered most was usable non-nuclear strength at the point of contest.
Interesting as this argument may be, it can have no certain conclusion. Prudence
argues for a judgment that all kinds of military strength were relevant. The
existence of adequate and rapidly deployable strength, at all levels, was the direct
result of the reinforcement of balanced defenses begun in 1961.
A further element of strength in this crisis was the firmness and clarity of the
Presidential decision to insist on the withdrawal of the missiles. This was not
merely a matter of one speech or even of one decision from a week of heavy
argument. It was a position clearly stated, and internationally understood, well
before the crisis broke. It was reinforced in its power, and the Communist position
correspondingly weakened, by the repeated Soviet assertions that no such
weapons were or would be placed in Cuba.
The strength of this position, like the strength of the available military force, was
reinforced by its disciplined relation to a policy of restraint. That nuclear weapons
should not be strewn around as counters in a contest for face was a proposition
commanding wide support. Any impulse to discount or disregard the direct threat
to the United States, as a problem for the Americans to solve, was deeply
undercut by awareness of the difference between American and Soviet standards
of nuclear responsibility as revealed in this moment of danger.
More broadly, the strength and restraint of the American position in October
stood in striking contrast to the position in which others found themselves. As a
first consequence, and to a degree that exceeded predictions, the allies of the
United States both in this hemisphere and in Europe were clear in their support,
though in public comment, especially in the United Kingdom, there was evidence
of the difficulties we should have faced if we had been less clearly strong,
restrained, and right.
It can be argued, of course, that in this crisis the opinions even of close allies
were not crucial, and it does seem probable that such critical decisions as the
turn-around of arms-bearing ships and the announcement that the missiles would
be removed were not determined by O.A.S. votes or by world opinion. This
particular crisis might have been successfully resolved even in the face of doubt
and division among allies whose immediate power at the point of contest was
negligible.
But so narrow a judgment neglects two great hazards. Immediately, a serious

division among the allies might have provoked action elsewhere, most
dangerously at Berlin (and indeed in all the postwar annals of the bravery of West
Berlin there is no moment in which the courage and strength of the
Berliners—and indeed of all free Germans—have been more important in
discouraging adventure). And even if no such adventure had been attempted, the
position after the crisis would not have been one in which "the quest for peace"
could easily be led from Washington. It was and is the central meaning of this
affair that a major threat to peace and freedom was removed by means which
strengthened the prospects of both.
The October crisis came out better than President Kennedy or any of his
associates had expected. The analysis suggested above would not have been
compelling in the discussions of the week of October 15, and the predominant
reaction in Washington on October 28 was one of simple and enormous relief. In
the weeks after the crisis, attention was diverted, first by backstairs gossip over
who gave what advice, and then by a renewal of political debate over Cuba, a
problem of another order of meaning than the missile crisis, and one which had
rightly been left essentially as it was, while the major threat was removed. And
finally, it was far from clear, in the immediate aftermath, that "those who had
made themselves our adversary" in such a sudden and shocking way would now
be ready for a different relation.
But what is important for our present purposes is that what shaped American
action in this crisis—what set and sustained the tempered response, both to
danger and to success—was the President. And while the man in the office was
Kennedy, with a taste and style of his own, I think it is right to claim that the
office as well as the man was embodied in the resolution, restraint, and
responsibility that governed in these weeks.
IV
As the great disappointment of 1961 was the renewal of testing, so the great
satisfaction of 1963 was the limited test-ban treaty.
The withdrawal of missiles from Cuba did more than end a specific crisis of great
gravity. It also signaled an acceptance by the Soviet Government, for the present
at least, of the existing nuclear balance. In that balance there is American
superiority, as we have seen, but it is a superiority that does not permit any lack
of respect for the strength of the Soviet Union. No safer balance appears possible
at present. No overwhelmingly one-sided margin is open to either side, and it was
one lesson of the Cuban affair—as of many others since 1945—that it was well for
peace that Communist strength should be matched with a margin. But the
purpose of this margin must still be peace, and the aim of policy must still be to
get beyond conflicting interests to the great common need for a safer prospect of
survival. This is the meaning of the limited test-ban treaty.
If the missile crisis was the proof of American strength in conflict, the test-ban
treaty was the proof of American readiness to work for this common purpose. And
whatever the moving forces on the Soviet side, in the non-Communist world the
Presidency was the necessary center of action. A special and distinguished role
was played by the British Prime Minister, but Mr. Macmillan would be the first to
recognize that it was mainly through his close relation to two Presidents that he
was able to make the British contribution effective. It is only the American
President who can carry the American Senate and the American people in any
agreement on arms control, and it is only with American participation that any
such agreement can have meaning for the Soviet Government.
Unless a President uses these powers with energy, arms control agreements are
improbable. The momentum of the arms race—the power at work to keep it going
almost without conscious new decision—is enormous. Military men in all countries
find it hard to approve any arms control proposal which is not either safely
improbable or clearly unbalanced in their own favor. In the United States only a
strong Commander-in-Chief with a strong Secretary of Defense is in a position to
press steadily for recognition that the arms race itself is now a threat to national
security. Only the President can ensure that good proposals are kept alive even
after a first rejection, and that new possibilities are constantly considered—so
that there may always be as many proposals as possible on the table waiting for
the moment of Soviet readiness. The readiness to meet all threats must be
matched by a demonstrated readiness to reach agreement.
In the case of the limited test ban it was President Kennedy himself who reached
the conclusion in the spring of 1963 that the United States would not be the first
to make further atmospheric tests. That quite personal decision, recognized at the
time as fully within the Presidential power, and announced in an address on peace
whose power and conviction were immediately recognized, is as likely an
immediate cause as any for the announcement, less than a month later, that the
Soviet Government would now be willing to sign an agreement which had been
open for two years. There followed a period of negotiation and then a debate on
ratification, and in these again the Presidency was central. The test-ban treaty, as
we have all told each other a hundred times, is only one step, and President
Johnson has made clear his determination to seek further steps with all the
energy and imagination the government can command. Meanwhile the lesson of
the test ban is that no step at all can be taken in this field unless the President
himself works for it. A President indifferent to arms control, or easily discouraged
by Soviet intransigence or irresponsibility, or inclined to a narrow military view of
the arms race, would be a guarantee against agreed limitation of armaments.
Conversely, where there is zeal in the search for agreement, refusal to accept
initial disappointment as final, a cool and balanced assessment of the risks of
agreement against the risks of unlimited competition, and a firm use of the
powers of the office, the Presidency can become—as in this case—an instrument
of hope for all men everywhere.
In concentrating attention upon the great requirements of strength and a love for
peace, and in using as examples such very large matters as the missile crisis and
the test-ban treaty, I do not pretend to have exhausted the connections between
the Presidency and the Peace, even as they showed themselves in the short
Kennedy years. There is more in the Presidency than the special powers of the
Commander-in-Chief or the special responsibility for pressing the hard cause of
disarmament. There is more, too, than a need for understanding of Soviet
realities. The Presidency is a powerful element in the strength or weakness of the
United Nations, as every Secretary-General has known. The Presidency remains
the headquarters of the Great Alliance, as even the most separated of national
leaders has recognized. The Presidency is an indispensable stimulus to Progress
in the Americas. The Presidency must make the hard choices of commitment that
have brought both honor and difficulty, as in Korea in 1950, or in South Viet Nam
in 1954. The White House visit and the White House photograph are elements of
democratic electioneering not just in the United States, but wherever the name of
the American President can bring a cheer. The death of a President men loved has
shown how wide this larger constituency is. Allies, neutrals, and even adversaries
attend to the Presidency. When the American President shows that he can
understand and respect the opinions and hopes of distant nations, when he proves
able to represent the interests of his own people without neglecting the interests
of others, when in his own person he represents decency, hope, and
freedom—then he is strengthened in his duty to be the leader of man's quest for
peace in the age of nuclear weapons. And this strength will be at least as
important in meeting danger as in pursuing hope.
The Administration in Washington, led now by President Johnson, will face new
problems and make new decisions, and as time passes the new imprint of a strong
mind and heart will be felt increasingly—in the Presidency, in the Government,
and in the world. President Kennedy would have been the last to suppose that the
purely personal characteristics of any President, however loved and mourned,
could or should continue to determine the work of the Presidency after his death.
President Johnson will conduct the office in his own way. Yet the short space of
three months is enough to show plainly that the pursuit of peace remains his
central concern, while the effective transfer from one Administration to the next
has reflected the fact that loyalty to President Kennedy and loyalty to President
Johnson are not merely naturally compatible, but logically necessary as a part of a
larger loyalty to their common purpose.
And as we remember John Kennedy, let us separate the essential from the
complementary. The youth, the grace, and the wit were wonderful, but they were
not the center. There lay courage, vision, humanity, and strength, tested on the
path to the office, and tempered by the office itself. It is these qualities, applied to
the greatest issues, that belong not only to the man but to the job.
It is my own conviction that this kind of President and this kind of Presidency
reflect the general will of Americans. Temperate use of strength, respect for
honest difference, sympathy for those in need, and a readiness to go our share of
the distance—these qualities, which I have described in phrases borrowed from
our new President, are qualities of the American people. They have their
opposites in our character too, but these are what we honor; these we expect of
our Presidents. In the terrible shock of President Kennedy's death there were
many—perhaps too many—who saw the foul deeds of a few days in Dallas, and not
the dead President himself, as the embodiment of the real America. They were
wrong. As a man, as a President, as a servant of the Peace, he was what we are,
and his achievement belongs to us all. Strengthened by his service the Presidency
continues, and so does the quest for Peace.
MCGEORGE BUNDY is the U.S. National Security Advisor to President Lyndon B. Johnson.
April 1,1964
Two Years of the Peace Corps
Sargent Shriver
U.S. NATIONAL ARCHIVES

Kennedy greeting Peace Corps volunteers, 1961.
Oscar Wilde is said to have observed that America really was discovered by a
dozen people before Columbus, but it was always successfully hushed up. I am
tempted to feel that way about the Peace Corps; the idea of a national effort of
this type had been proposed many times in past years. But in 1960 and 1961 for
the first time the idea was joined with the power and the desire to implement it.
On November 2, 1960, Senator John F. Kennedy proposed a "peace corps" in a
campaign speech at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. Thirty thousand Americans
wrote immediately to support the idea; thousands volunteered to join.
The early days of the Peace Corps were like the campaign days of 1960, but with
no election in sight. My colleagues were volunteer workers and a few key officials
loaned from other agencies. "I use not only all the brains I have, but all I can
borrow," Woodrow Wilson said. So did we. Letters cascaded in from all over the
country in what one writer described as "paper tornadoes at the Peace Corps."
The elevators to our original two-room office disgorged constant sorties of
interested persons, newspaper reporters, job seekers, academic figures and
generous citizens offering advice. Everywhere, it seemed, were cameras, coils of
cable and commentators with questions.
An organization, we know, gains life through hard decisions, so we hammered out

basic policies in long, detailed discussions in which we sought to face up to the
practical problems and reach specific solutions before we actually started
operations. We knew that a few wrong judgments in the early hours of a new
organization's life, especially a controversial government agency, can completely
thwart its purposes—even as a margin of error of a thousandth of an inch in the
launching of a rocket can send it thousands of miles off course. And we knew the
Peace Corps would have only one chance to work. As with the parachute jumper,
the chute had to open the first time. We knew, too, that a thousand suspicious
eyes were peering over our shoulders. Some were the eyes of friendly critics, but
many belonged to unfriendly skeptics. The youthfulness of the new
Administration, particularly the President, enhanced the risk; an older leadership
would have had greater immunity from charges of "sophomorism."
Even the choice of a name took on serious overtones. The phrase "Peace Corps"
was used in the original San Francisco speech, but many of our advisers disliked
it. "Peace," they claimed, was a word the Communists had preëmpted, and
"Corps" carried undesirable military connotations. We did not want a name
contrived out of initials which a public relations firm might have devised; nor did
we want to restrict participation in the program by calling it a "Youth Corps."
What we did want was a name which the public at large could grasp emotionally
as well as intellectually. Whatever name we did choose, we would give it content
by our acts and programs. We wanted it, also, to reflect the seriousness of our
objectives. We studied dozens of other names and finally came back to the
original. Peace is the fundamental goal of our times. We believed the Peace Corps
could contribute to its attainment, for while armaments can deter war, only men
can create peace.
The ambitiousness of the name, of course, was only one reason for early
skepticism about the Peace Corps. Fears were voiced that it might be a "second
children's crusade." I was astonished that a nation so young had become so
suspicious of its youth. We had forgotten that Thomas Jefferson drafted the
Declaration of Independence at age 33. Forgotten also was the fact that more
than half of the world's population is under 26, the age of the average Peace
Corps Volunteer. Sixteen of the nations in Africa have heads of state under 45;
five have leaders in their thirties.
Of course, youthful enthusiasm and noble purposes were not enough. They had to
be combined with hard-headed pragmatism and realistic administration. In the
early days of the Peace Corps we were looking for a formula for practical
idealism. The formula worked out by experience has "the sweet smell of success"
today, but it was far less clear two years ago.
Would enough qualified Americans be willing to serve? Even if they started, would
they be able to continue on the job despite frustration, dysentery and boredom?
Could Americans survive overseas without special foods and privileges, special
housing, automobiles, television and air conditioners? Many Americans thought
not. The Washington correspondent of the respected Times of India agreed with
them in these words:
When you have ascertained a felt local need, you would need to find an American
who can exactly help in meeting it. This implies not only the wherewithal (or what
you inelegantly call the "know how") but also a psychological affinity with a
strange new people who may be illiterate and yet not lack Wisdom, who may live
in hovels and yet dwell in spiritual splendor, who may be poor in worldly wealth
and yet enjoy a wealth of intangibles and a capacity to be happy. Would an
American young man be in tune with this world he has never experienced before?
I doubt it. . . .
One also wonders whether American young men and tender young girls, reared in
air-conditioned houses at a constant temperature, knowing little about the
severities of nature (except when they pop in and out of cars or buses) will be able
to suffer the Indian summer smilingly and, if they go into an Indian village,
whether they will be able to sleep on unsprung beds under the canopy of the
bejeweled sky or indoors in mud huts, without writing home about it.
At a time when many were saying that Americans had gone soft and were
interested mainly in security, pensions and suburbia, the Peace Corps could have
been timorous. Possible ways of hedging against an anticipated shortage of
applicants could have included low qualification standards, generous inducements
to service, cautious programming, a period of duty shorter than two years, an
enforced period of enlistment such as the "hitch" in the armed forces, or draft
exemption for volunteer service in the Peace Corps. We deliberately chose the
risk rather than the hedge in each case and created an obstacle course. The
applicant could remove himself any time he realized his motive was less than a
true desire for service. This method of self-selection has by now saved us from
compounded difficulties abroad.
Our optimism about sufficient recruits was justified. More than 50,000 Americans
have applied for the Peace Corps. In the first three months of this year, more
Americans applied for the Peace Corps than were drafted for military service. This
happened notwithstanding the fact that young men who volunteer for the Peace
Corps are liable to service on their return.
Selection was made rigorous. The process was fashioned to include a searchingly
thorough application form, placement tests to measure useful skills, language
aptitude exams, six to twelve reference inquiries, a suitability investigation and
systematic observation of performance during the training program of
approximately ten weeks. We invite about one in six applicants to enter training,
and about five out of six trainees are finally selected for overseas service.
We debated hotly the question of age, and whether or not older people should be
eligible. We listened to proposals for an age limit in the thirties and then in the
sixties and finally decided to set no upper age limit at all. Our oldest volunteer
today happens to be 76, and we have more grandparents than teenagers in the
Peace Corps. Some older volunteers have turned out to be rigid and cantankerous
in adapting to a standard of living their parents took for granted, but the majority
of them make a lot of us in the New Frontier look like stodgy old settlers.
From the beginning we decided that effective volunteers abroad would need
systematic administrative support and direction. Leaders of several developing
nations, eager to have the assistance of trained manpower, warned against
repeating the experiences of other highly motivated volunteer workers who had
failed abroad for lack of cohesive leadership. A good program would need good
people—not only as Peace Corps Volunteers but as Peace Corps staff members
abroad. There was no counterpart in the U. S. Government of civilian leaders
serving abroad on a volunteer basis. There was no precedent for what these men
would have to do in programming, logistics and personal support for the
volunteers in their charge. We needed the ablest of leaders in each position.
Could we attract them even though we did not offer post differentials, cost-of-
living allowances, commissary or diplomatic privileges?
Fortunately, the answer has been a continuing "yes." The Peace Corps has
attracted intelligent and dedicated men to all positions on its overseas team.
Ironically, the same critics who once complained that we would unleash hordes of
uninstructed adolescents on the world are now complaining that we spend
substantial sums to provide instruction and adequate direction.
Some of my colleagues proposed that Peace Corps Volunteers act as technical
helpers to I.C.A. technicians, "extra hands" for the more experienced older men.
Peace Corps practice has moved in another direction. A natural distinction
between the A.I.D. adviser at a high level in government and the Peace Corps
Volunteer making his contribution as a "doer" or "worker" at the grass roots soon
became apparent. It also became clear that the Peace Corps Volunteer had a new
and perhaps unique contribution to make as a person who entered fully into host-
country life and institutions, with a host-country national working beside him, and
another directing his work. This feature of the Peace Corps contributed
substantially to its early support abroad.
Discussion of the possibility that the Peace Corps might be affiliated with the
I.C.A. led into the question of its relationship to U. S. political and information
establishments overseas. The Peace Corps in Washington is responsible to the
Secretary of State. Volunteers and staff abroad are responsible to the American
Ambassador. Nevertheless, the Peace Corps maintains a distinction between its
functions and those of Embassies, A.I.D. and U.S.I.A. offices. There was a design
to this which Secretary Rusk has aptly described: "The Peace Corps is not an
instrument of foreign policy, because to make it so would rob it of its contribution
to foreign policy." Peace Corps Volunteers are not trained diplomats; they are not
propagandists; they are not technical experts. They represent our society by what
they are, what they do and the spirit in which they do it. They steer clear of
intelligence activity and stay out of local politics. Our strict adherence to these
principles has been a crucial factor in the decision of politically uncommitted
countries to invite American volunteers into their midst, into their homes and
even into their classrooms and schoolyards to teach future generations of national
leaders. In an era of sabotage and espionage, intelligence and counter-
intelligence, the Peace Corps and its volunteers have earned a priceless yet
simple renown: they are trustworthy.
Another contested issue in the early days of the Peace Corps concerned private
organizations and universities. We were advised by many to make grants to these
institutions, then to leave recruitment, selection, training and overseas
programming in their hands. That road would have led to an organization
operating very much like the National Science Foundation. For better or worse,
the Peace Corps chose not to become a grant-making organization and those
decisions which give character to our operations—selection, training,
programming, field leadership and so on—are still in our possession.
Nevertheless, the involvement of private organizations and universities has been

crucial to the Peace Corps' success. America is a pluralistic society and the Peace
Corps expresses its diversity abroad by demonstrating that the public and private
sectors can work coöperatively and effectively. We consciously seek contracts
with private organizations, colleges and universities to administer our programs.
We gain the advantage of expert knowledge, long experience, tested working
relationships and often even private material resources. For example, CARE has
contributed more than $100,000 worth of equipment to the Peace Corps in
Colombia. Initially, there was suspicion by some of these agencies that the Peace
Corps, with the resources of the United States taxpayer behind it, would preëmpt
their own work abroad. Suspicion has turned into understanding, however, as the
United States Government, through the Peace Corps, has facilitated the work of
private organizations and has focused new attention on the needs and
opportunities for service abroad.
In our "talent search" we went to government, academic life, business, the bar,
the medical profession and every other walk of life where leadership was
available. We deliberately recruited as many Negroes and representatives of other
minority groups as possible for jobs in every echelon. We knew that Negroes
would not ordinarily apply for high-level policy jobs, so we decided to seek them
out. Today 7.4 percent of our higher echelon positions are filled by Negroes as
compared to .8 percent for other government agencies in similar grades; 24
percent of our other positions are filled by Negroes, compared to a figure for
government agencies in general of 5.5 percent.
How big should the Peace Corps be? Everyone was asking this question and
everyone had an answer. Advice ranged from 500 to 1,000,000. There were strong
voices raised in support of "tentative pilot projects," looking to a Peace Corps of
less than 1,000. However, Warren W. Wiggins, an experienced foreign-aid expert,
took a broader view. He pointed out that ultra-cautious programming might
produce prohibitive per capita costs, fail even to engage the attention of
responsible foreign officials (let alone have an impact) and fail to attract the
necessary American talent and commitment. Furthermore, when the need was
insatiable why should we try to meet it with a pittance?
There were also arguments in those early days about "saturation" of the foreign
country, either in terms of jobs or the psychological impact of the American
presence. I have since noticed that the same arguments made about a 500-1,000
man program in 1961 were also made about our plans to expand to 5,000
volunteers (March 1963), to 10,000 volunteers (March 1964) and to 13,000
(September 1964). I am not suggesting that the Peace Corps should continue to
grow indefinitely. But I am proposing that much time and energy are wasted in
theoretical musings, introspections and worries about the future. Peace Corps
Volunteers are a new type of overseas American. Who is to say now how many of
them will be welcome abroad next year, or in the next decade? Our country and
our times have had plenty of experience with programs that were too little, too
late.
The question of the health of the volunteers concerned us from the beginning. The
Peace Corps represents the largest group of Americans who have ever tried to live
abroad "up country." Even in World War II our troops were generally in organized
units where safe food and water could be provided and medical care was at hand.
This would not be the case for the Peace Corps. And an incapacitated volunteer
would probably be worse than no volunteer at all. How could we reduce the risks
to a rational level? The Surgeon General studied the problem at our request. We
then worked out a solution by which preventive health measures are provided by
public health doctors assigned to the Peace Corps, while much of the actual
medical care is handled by doctors of the host country. Of the first 117 volunteers
returned to the United States, only 20 came back for medical reasons (21
returned for compassionate reasons, 71 failed to adjust to overseas living and 5
died or were killed in accidents). Our medical division's work is already showing
up in the pages of scientific and medical journals. As an example, we recently
decided to use large injections of gamma globulin as a preventive for hepatitis,
which has presented one of the worst health problems for Americans overseas.
Since then, there has not been a single case of infectious hepatitis reported
among those who received the large injection in time.
II
Many of the original doubts and criticisms of the Peace Corps have not
materialized. On the other hand, substantive problems have emerged which were
little discussed or expected two years ago. One of the most difficult is the
provision of adequate language training. This was foreseen, but most observers
thought that the exotic languages such as Thai, Urdu, Bengali and Twi would give
us our main problem, while Spanish and French speakers could be easily
recruited or quickly trained. The opposite has been true. The first volunteers who
arrived in Thailand in January 1962 made a great impression with what observers
described as "fluent" Thai. As the volunteers were the first to point out, their Thai
was not actually fluent, but their modest achievement was tremendously
appreciated. Since then, of course, a large proportion of the volunteers there have
become truly fluent.
On the other hand, a considerable number of volunteers going to Latin America

and to French Africa have been criticized for their mediocre language fluency.
Expectations are high in these countries and halting Spanish or French is not
enough. We have learned that America contains rather few French-speaking bus
mechanics, Spanish-speaking hydrologists or math-science teachers who can
exegete theorems in a Latin American classroom. Can we devise more effective
and intensive language training, particularly for farmers, craftsmen, construction
foremen, well drillers and other Americans who never before have needed a
second language? Should we take skilled people and teach them languages, or
take people with language abilities and teach them skills?
We still need more volunteers, especially those who combine motivation and
special skills. The person with a ready motivation for Peace Corps service tends to
be the liberal arts student in college, the social scientist, the person with "human
relations" interests. The developing countries need and want a great many
Americans with this background, but they also want engineers, agronomists, lathe
operators and geologists. We cannot make our maximum contribution if we turn
down requests for skills which we have difficulty finding. There are presently 61
engineers in the Peace Corps, 30 geologists and 236 nurses, respectable numbers
considering the ready availability of generously paying jobs in the domestic
economy. But requests still far outnumber the supply.
Other industrialized countries may soon supplement our efforts by providing

volunteers to developing countries with languages and skills we lack. The
motivation to serve is not distinctively American, and half a dozen industrialized
nations have established equivalents of the Peace Corps within the past few
months. These programs grew out of an International Conference on Human Skills
organized by the Peace Corps and held in Puerto Rico last October. The 43
countries represented at the meeting voted unanimously to establish an
International Peace Corps Secretariat to help spread the concept of voluntarism
as a tool of economic and social transformation. The response to this initiative is a
reflection of the innate vitality of the Peace Corps idea.
We face increasingly difficult choices as we grow. Should we concentrate in the

future on the countries where we now have programs and resist expanding to new
areas? We are already committed to programs in 47 nations. Should we favor a
program where there are relatively stable social conditions, good organization
and effective leadership? Or should we take greater risks and commit our
resources in a more fluid and disorganized situation, usually in a poorer country,
where the Peace Corps might make a crucial difference or find a great
opportunity? Where should we draw the line between adequate material support
to the volunteers and the perils of providing them with too many material goods?
Where is the equilibrium between safeguarding the volunteer's health and morale
and protecting the Peace Corps' declared purpose that he should live as does his
co-worker in the host country, without special luxury or advantage?
When is a particular program completed? In Nigeria the answer is relatively easy.

That country's coördinated educational development plan projects a need for 815
foreign teachers in 1965, 640 in 1966, 215 in 1968 and none in 1970. By then
enough Nigerians will have been trained to fill their own classrooms. Progress
may not follow so fine a plan, but the Peace Corps can look ahead to a day when
its academic, teaching work in Nigeria will be done.
The answer is not so simple in Colombia, where volunteers are working on

community development in 92 rural towns. There is no lack of change and
progress: the Colombian Government has trebled its own commitment of
resources and staff to this progressive community development program. Scores
of individual communities have already learned how to organize to transform their
future. When volunteer John Arango organized the first town meeting in Cutaru
almost two years ago, for example, not one soul showed up. Twenty months later
almost every citizen turns out for these meetings. The townsmen have changed an
old jail into a health clinic; they have drained the nearby swamps; they have
rebuilt wharves on the river; they have cleared stumps out of the channel to make
it navigable; and they are now building the first 18 of 72 do-it-yourself houses
designed by the volunteer.
John Arango's Colombian co-worker is equally responsible for the results in

Cutaru. In community development, particularly, the ability of the host
organization to provide able counterparts is crucial to a program's success. I
might also mention that host countries have in every case made voluntary
contributions to the Peace Corps programs. In Africa alone, they have supported
the program to the value of $2,500,000. During and after the Puerto Rico
conference, three countries in Latin America announced plans to establish home-
grown Peace Corps organizations; when implemented these will help solve the
shortage of counterparts. We believe North American and Latin American
volunteers will complement one another and increase the total effectiveness.
The first "replacement group" in the Peace Corps is about to complete training for
service in Colombia. Should we send these volunteers to fill the shoes of their
predecessors in the villages which are now moving ahead, albeit shakily? Or
should we send the volunteers to new communities where nothing has been done?
We know that more is needed than two years of work by a North American and his
Colombian co-workers to effect self-perpetuating change. On the other hand, we
do not want the volunteer to become a crutch in a community's life. Some of the
new volunteers in Colombia will, therefore, try to follow through with their
predecessor's work, but others will take on villages where no American has
served. In the meantime we are planning to study what happens in those towns
where volunteers are not replaced.
Earlier I mentioned there has been a change in the nature of comment and
criticism about the Peace Corps. In the beginning, the doubters worried about the
callowness of youth and the ability of mortals to make any good idea work. The
more recent criticism is more sophisticated and more substantive. Eric Sevareid
recently observed: "While the Corps has something to do with spot benefits in a
few isolated places, whether in sanitizing drinking water or building culverts, its
work has, and can have, very little to do with the fundamental investments,
reorganizations and reforms upon which the true and long-term economic
development of backward countries depends." Mr. Sevareid acknowledges that
"giving frustrated American youth a sense of mission and adding to our supply of
comprehension of other societies fatten the credit side of the ledger." He adds: "If
fringe benefits were all the Corps' originators had in mind, then this should be
made clear to the country." I do not agree with him that the second and third
purposes of the Peace Corps Act—representing America abroad in the best sense
and giving Americans an opportunity to learn about other societies—are "fringe
benefits." Fulton Freeman, the United States Ambassador in Colombia, believes
the whole Peace Corps program could be justified by its creation of a new
American resource in the volunteers who are acquiring language skills and
intensive understanding of a foreign society. Former volunteers will be entering
government service (150 have already applied to join U.S.I.A.), United Nations
agencies, academic life, international business concerns and a host of other
institutions which carry on the business of the United States throughout the
world. Others will return to their homes, capable of exerting an enlightened
influence in the communities where they settle. Many trite euphemisms of the
ignorant and ready panaceas of the uninformed will clash immediately with the
harsh facts that volunteers have learned to live with abroad.
Is the second purpose of the Peace Corps Act—to be a good representative of our
society—a "fringe benefit"? Peace Corps Volunteers are reaching the people of
foreign countries on an individual basis at a different level from the influence of
most Americans abroad. The Peace Corps Volunteer lives under local laws, buys
his supplies at local stores and makes his friends among local people. He leaves to
the diplomat and the technicians the complex tools which are peculiarly their own
while he sets out to work in the local environment as he finds it.
I am not suggesting that life for the volunteer is always hard. A visiting Ghanaian
said: "The Peace Corps teachers in my country don't live so badly. After all, they
live as well as we do." I agree that this is not so bad; nor is our objective
discomfort for discomfort's sake, but rather a willingness to share the life of
another people, to accept sacrifice when sacrifice is necessary and to show that
material privilege has not become the central and indispensable ingredient in an
American's life. It is interesting to note that the happiest volunteers are usually
those with the most difficult living conditions.
Although I disagree with Mr. Sevareid's emphasis in dismissing two of the three
purposes of the Peace Corps Act as "fringe benefits," he does get to the heart of
an important question when he compares the direct economic impact of the Peace
Corps to fundamental investments, reorganizations and economic development.
The Peace Corps' contribution has been less in direct economic development than
in social development—health, education, construction and community
organization. We are convinced that economic development directly depends on
social development. In his valedictory report this past April as head of the
Economic Commission for Latin America, Raul Prebisch observed that there are
not "grounds for expecting that economic development will take place first and be
followed in the natural course of events by social development. Both social and
economic development must be achieved in measures that require the exercise of
rational and deliberate action. . . . There can be no speed-up in economic
development without a change in the social structure." While they have their
differences, Theodore W. Schultz and J. Kenneth Galbraith have no disagreement
on the essential role of social development in economic progress. In contrast,
some who argue from the European-North American experience overlook the vital
need for social development which had already been substantially achieved in the
countries of the Atlantic community. This is the basic difference between the
problem of the Marshall Plan, which was concerned with economic reconstruction
in societies with abundant social resources, and the problem of forced-draft
economic development in much of Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Notwithstanding the Peace Corps' primary emphasis on social development,

volunteers are making a direct economic contribution in a variety of situations.
They are helping to organize farmers' coöperatives in Chile, Ecuador and
Pakistan; credit unions and savings and loan associations in Latin America;
demonstration farms in the Near East. A group of volunteers in the Punjab
sparked the creation of a poultry industry of some economic significance (using
ground termite mounds for protein feed). These are "grass roots" projects. More
of them will someday cause us to look back and wonder why it took so long to
discover that people—human hands and enthusiasms—are an essential part of the
relationship of mutual assistance which we must establish with our neighbors
abroad.
The Peace Corps is not a "foreign aid" agency. Two of the three purposes of the
Peace Corps as defined in the Act deal with understanding, not economic
assistance. Moreover, our financial investment is in the volunteer who brings his
skills and knowledge home with him. Seventy-five percent of the Peace Corps'
appropriated funds enters the economy of the United States; of the remaining 25
percent, more than half (57 percent) is spent on American citizens, the Peace
Corps Volunteers themselves.
A Jamaican radio commentator recently asserted that "a great distance between
people is the best creator of good will. Jumble people up together on a sort of
temporary basis of gratitude on one side and condescension on the other, and
you'll have everyone at each other's throat in no time." If I believed this were
inevitable, regardless of the attitude, preparation and mode of life of volunteers, I
would advocate disbanding the Peace Corps—as well as most other programs
overseas. But I have greater faith in the universality of men's aspirations and of
men's ability to respect each other when they know each other. It is the American
who lives abroad in isolation and the thoughtless tourist who create distrust and
dislike.
I believe the Peace Corps is also having more impact than we may realize on our
own society and among our own people. To take an example of the Peace Corps'
impact on an institution, the President of the State University of Iowa, Virgil M.
Hancher, recently observed:
The Peace Corps project (training Volunteers for Indonesia) is already having
salutary effects upon this University, and these seem likely to be residual. The
members of our faculty are having to come together across disciplines. They are
having to think through old problems of education freshly and to tackle new ones.
Along with the trainees, they are learning—learning how to teach languages in the
new method, how to teach new languages, how to teach area studies better, and
how to adapt old and test new methods. The project is deepening the international
dimension of the State University of Iowa. This international dimension is being
shared, in various ways, with the people of the state, the eastern area in
particular.
American schools and students may soon benefit from the Peace Corps' initiative
in another fashion. Two countries, Ghana and Argentina, have expressed interest
in making the Peace Corps a two-way street by sending volunteer teachers of
special competence to interested American high schools or colleges. Ghana would
provide experts in African history and Argentina teachers of Spanish. Other
countries may follow suit.
Our own Peace Corps Volunteers are being changed in other ways in the
acquisition of languages and expertise. They will be coming home more mature,
with a new outlook toward life and work. Like many other Americans, I have
wondered whether our contemporary society, with its emphasis on the
organizational man and the easy life, can continue to produce the self-reliance,
initiative and independence that we consider to be part of our heritage. We have
been in danger of losing ourselves among the motorized toothbrushes,
tranquilizers and television commercials. Will Durant once observed that nations
are born stoic and die epicurean; we have been in danger of this happening to us.
The Peace Corps is truly a new frontier in the sense that it provides the challenge
to self-reliance and independent action which the vanished frontier once provided
on our own continent. Sharing in the progress of other countries helps us to
rediscover ourselves at home.
The influence of the Peace Corps idea might be described as a series of widening
circles, like the expanding rings from a stone thrown into a pond. The inner, most
sharply defined circle represents the immediate effect of the
program—accomplishments abroad in social and economic development, skills,
knowledge, understanding, institution-building, a framework for coöperative
effort with private organizations, research and experiment in "overseas
Americanship," language training and improvements in health.
The second ring moving outward on the water might be the Peace Corps'
influence on our society, on institutions and people, on the creation of a new
sense of participation in world events, an influence on the national sense of
purpose, self-reliance and an expanded concept of volunteer service in time of
peace.
There is still a wider circle and, being farthest from the splash, the hardest to
make out clearly. Perhaps I can explain it by describing the relationships I see
between the Peace Corps and our American Revolution. The Revolution placed on
our citizens the responsibility for reordering their own social structure. It was a
triumph over the idea that man is incompetent or incapable of shaping his destiny.
It was our declaration of the irresistible strength of a universal idea connected
with human dignity, hope, compassion and freedom. The idea was not simply
American, of course, but arose from a confluence of history, geography and the
genius of a resolute few at Philadelphia.
We still have our vision, but our society has been drifting away from the world's
majority: the young and raw, the colored, the hungry and the oppressed. The
Peace Corps is helping to put us again where we belong. It is our newest hope for
rejoining the majority of the world without at the same time betraying our
cultural, historic, political and spiritual ancestors and allies. As Pablo Casals, the
renowned cellist and democrat, said of the Peace Corps last year: "This is new,
and it is also very old. We have come from the tyranny of the enormous, awesome,
discordant machine, back to a realization that the beginning and the end are
man—that it is man who is important, not the machine, and that it is man who
accounts for growth, not just dollars and factories. Above all, that it is man who is
the object of all our efforts."
SARGENT SHRIVER is the first Director of the Peace Corps.

July 1,1963
U.S. Policy in Latin America
Hubert H. Humphrey
GEOGRAPHICUS RARE ANTIQUE MAPS

1846 Homann Heirs Map of North America and South America.
In any analysis of United States policy in Latin America, the first question which
should be considered is: What priority is attached to Latin America in the whole
spectrum of our foreign-policy considerations? Once the relative importance or
unimportance of hemispheric problems is established, one can then move on to
consider the question of basic U.S. policy in Latin America. Having delineated the
fundamental lines of policy, one can consider finally the effective means of
implementing it. On these three questions I shall focus my discussion.
On numerous occasions President Kennedy indicated the priority he placed on
Latin America in the total spectrum of foreign-policy considerations by describing
it as "the most critical area in the world." But two decades of constant
preoccupation with Europe and Asia have left an imbalance in our global
commitments that has not yet been wholly rectified. Although the United States
must continue to be concerned with developments in many parts of the world, it is
no longer either necessary or possible for the United States to become deeply
involved in every area of the world and to undertake the massive political, military
and economic commitments that such involvement entails. The break-up of the
bipolar world of the postwar era and the emergence of independent centers of
power in the non-Communist world should in the decade ahead allow the United
States greater freedom to concentrate its resources in areas of primary concern
to our national interest.
Europe remains of crucial importance in our foreign policy considerations and will
retain this status for the foreseeable future. But while the internal political, social
and economic patterns of Europe are well determined by now, this is not the case
with Latin America. The future structure of society and the external policy of
Latin nations remain unanswered questions. Marxism as a guide to social
development is a spent force in most European countries, but it remains a lively
alternative in Latin America today. The example of Cuba suggests both the
immediacy of the Marxist threat to U.S. interests and the nature of the problems
which we face when Marxism is accepted as a guide to the development of a Latin
American society.
The obvious geopolitical factors of proximity, size and population make the Latin
American continent of particular importance to us. Central and South America
form a land mass over twice the size of the United States and larger than non-
Communist Asia. The combined present population of 200 million is likely to
approximate 450 to 500 million by the year 2000.
Unlike Asia, Latin America enjoys a balance between population and land and at
the same time is rich in natural resources. Aside from Europe, Canada and Japan,
it is both the largest market for American exports and the principal source of
many raw materials imported by the United States. It is the recipient of the
largest capital investment, presently totaling over $8 billion. Trade with Latin
America totaled over $6.6 billion in 1963, amounting to over three-fourths of our
total trade with the southern half of the world. With imports of $3.4 billion in
1963, the United States remains by far the most important market for Latin
American exports.
These economic and physical data only begin to indicate the importance of Latin
America to the United States. A common European inheritance has left in the
Americas, North and South, a widespread belief in constitutional government, in
political democracy, and a belief in the dignity of the individual resulting from a
common Judaeo-Christian tradition. In short, the United States and Latin America,
though different in many ways, share a political, religious and cultural tradition
that is "Western" both in origin and content.
In the bipolar world of the past two decades both the United States and Latin
America faced a common threat of Communist imperialism directed from the
Soviet Union, With the break-up of the bipolar world and the emergence of at
least four centers of power—the United States, the Soviet Union, Western Europe
and Mainland China—the position of the Western Hemisphere in world power
relationships is changing. East-West relationships have been modified, while the
future pattern of North-South relationships is not yet settled.
The emergence of a powerful Western Europe—likely to pursue a more

independent foreign policy-makes hemispheric cooperation more urgent if the
nations of this hemisphere are not only to solve their immediate internal problems
but to play a proper role in world affairs in future decades. Although the decade
of the 1960s is a crucial one for the United States and Latin America, the
development of our hemispheric policy should look two or three decades ahead.
We must keep in mind not only the political, economic and social problems that
confront Latin America in the 1960s but also the position of the Western
Hemisphere in the international relations of the 1980s and 1990s. If the
hemisphere remains united, it can, with a population of 900 million people by the
year 2000 and a level of economic development that its resources indicate is
possible, play a major role in shaping the world of future decades, regardless of
events in Asia, Europe or the Soviet Union. But neither unity within Latin America
itself nor unity within the hemisphere is guaranteed. Our policy should be
designed to discourage intra-hemispheric rivalry which would Balkanize the
continent, as well as to prevent Communist subversion which would divide the
hemisphere into an endless struggle between Communist and non-Communist
states.
Our concept of hemispheric unity should not be defined in any exclusive sense
that would actively discourage a greater Western European contribution to the
social, economic and cultural development of Latin America. Indeed, we should
actively encourage Europe to expand its involvement in Latin America, both in
terms of long-term development assistance and expansion of existing cultural and
educational programs. But we cannot view with equanimity the separation of
Latin America from the United States and Europe in favor of an exclusive
association or identification with the "third world." Latin countries will and should
continue to be different from both the United States and Europe, but they need
not see their own future destiny in terms of the non-Western southern half of the
world just because they share with the societies of Asia and Africa a less
developed status.
Although President Kennedy altered the priority which we attach to Latin

American problems, it remains for his successors fully to translate that priority
within the machinery of the U.S. Government. In one of his first official decisions,
President Johnson acted to end the division of authority that had hampered policy
implementation and to upgrade the status of top officials responsible for our
relations with Latin America. This upgrading must continue and should eventually
result in the establishment of an under secretary post in the State Department
and high-ranking positions in our defense, intelligence and information agencies
as well. When we see the Secretary of State or Defense directly involved in the
problems of U.S. relations with Brazil or Argentina and an Assistant Secretary of
State being dispatched to deal with a problem in Southeast Asia, we shall then be
able to conclude that the day-to-day operations of the Government reflect the set
of priorities enunciated by President Kennedy in describing Latin America as "the
most critical area in the world."
II
Turning now to policy within the hemisphere, it remains my belief that the basis
of our policy for Latin America should be the Alliance for Progress as originally
conceived by President Kennedy and agreed to by the 20 American Republics in
the Charter of Punta del Este. The aim of the Alliance is summarized in the
Declaration of the Peoples of the Americas which precedes the Charter: "to unite
in a common effort to bring our people accelerated economic progress and
broader social justice within the framework of personal dignity and personal
liberty." This objective is to be implemented through systematic social and
economic programs designed to abolish the shocking economic and social
inequality, between privileged and impoverished, between glittering capitals and
festering slums, between booming industrial regions and primitive rural areas.
The Alliance is designed to be a peaceful alternative to violent revolution in
meeting the challenge of an unjust socio-economic order.
In discussing the Alliance, I am making several assumptions which cannot be

spelled out in a brief article: (1) that "Latin America" is not a homogeneous unit,
but a continent of widely diversified peoples, sharply varied economies and both
highly advanced and grossly undeveloped regions; (2) that we recognize the
differences between individual countries and adjust our policies accordingly; and
(3) that the actions of Latin American countries are far more important than those
of the United States in accomplishing the goals of the Alliance for Progress.
In recent months, questions have arisen both in this country and in Latin America
about the validity of the original conception of the Alliance and about the strength
of the United States commitment to it. Today we are told by some that the great
mistake of Alliance officials was in arousing hopes and expectations that could not
be fulfilled. We are told that what is needed are fewer statements about the
philosophy of the Alliance, the ideology of the Alliance, fewer broad-gauged
political doctrines and more hardheaded pragmatic emphasis on economic lending
programs. Such an appraisal reflects a misunderstanding of current conditions
and trends in Latin America. It reflects a misunderstanding of what President
Kennedy had in mind in launching the Alliance for Progress.
It was recognized from the beginning that the success of the grand strategy for
coöperation with Latin America, the Alliance for Progress, depended on more than
economic development. It was realized that for the policy to succeed, the Alliance
must have a political content and an ideological substance, in addition to a strong
program of economic development. It must come to symbolize the hopes and
aspirations of both the élite groups and the masses of Latin American people. It
must have a mystique all its own, capable of inspiring a following.
President Kennedy himself was the symbol of the Alliance, the symbol of the hope
and imagination which is needed. He realized that though Latin America faces
grave economic problems, these must be seen within a broader political context.
It is not just a matter of satisfying physical needs and raising material standards
of living. What is more important is the problem of inspiring hope, of commanding
the intellectual and emotional allegiance of those who will shape the society—both
the élite groups and the popular classes. He realized that the hopes and
expectations aroused could not all be satisfied in the immediate future—nor need
they be. What can be accomplished in a material sense in a very limited period of
time will always fall short of expectations. This should not discourage us. What is
important is that we be prepared to give some evidence that progress is being
made, that material betterment is on the way, and that there is sound reason for
believing that the unmet material problems of society will be solved in the future.
This means of course that we must have both short-range socially oriented
projects to give visible evidence of immediate progress, and long-range
development projects which are essential to improving the condition of the
society. I believe that President Johnson shares this view. His speech of May 11 to
the Latin American Ambassadors clearly indicates that he understands that mere
pragmatic economic programs are not enough, that the Alliance is political and
social as well as economic in nature.
Much of the premature pessimism that has been expressed about the Alliance
results therefore from a misunderstanding of its original concept, from an
underestimation of the magnitude of the task and from mistaken analogies based
on European experience under the Marshall Plan.
Today we should be well aware that nostalgic recollection of the dramatic success
of the Marshall Plan in restoring economic and social vitality to the war-ravaged,
but highly advanced, modern societies of Western Europe does little to illuminate
the path to speedy economic and social development in underdeveloped areas of
Latin America. The reform and modification of social and economic traditions that
have persisted for two centuries are not going to be accomplished in two years-
and probably not in a decade.
In view of the criticism leveled at the Alliance, the persistence of political

instability in many countries and the ever-present Communist threat in others,
some will be tempted to abandon the original emphasis of the Alliance on radical
economic and social reform. Some will be tempted to return to less venturesome,
more conventional goals, to place less emphasis on reform and more on working
with the established groups to minimize political instability. Indeed, there are
those who believe we should abandon our identification of the Alliance with
"peaceful revolution," with rapid reform of the economic and social structure of
Latin American societies. I believe this would be a grave mistake.
Although the observation that Latin America is in the midst of a political,

economic and social revolution has become a commonplace, it is true. Only a few
decades ago it could be said that the fatalism of most Latin Americans was well
expressed in the remark of the late nineteenth-century Chilean President Barros
Lucco: "There are only two kinds of problems facing society: those which get
solved by themselves—and those which defy solution." Today, however, in most
Latin American nations there is not only a burning awareness of the enormous
human cost of perpetuating a status quo which exploits the many for the benefit
of the few, but also a well-developed consciousness that the status quo can be
changed, that radical improvement in the condition and status of the mass of the
people can be achieved through deliberate, systematic political action. For the
deprived mass of the people, the status quo is no longer a burden to be patiently
borne, but an incubus to be cast off. Is it appropriate to define Alliance policy as
favoring social "revolution"—or should this word be avoided in favor of "evolution"
or some other expression? "Evolution," if carefully examined, proves to be
inadequate, for it implies an unconscious, non-deliberate change that is slow and
gradual. What is required is conscious, rapid change in the socio-economic
structure, a process that can correctly and precisely be called a revolution. If used
not as a slogan but in its precise sense, the policy of peaceful social and economic
revolution is a correct characterization of Alliance policy. We should not hesitate
to identify ourselves with it in Latin America, just as President Johnson associated
himself with it in his "war on poverty" throughout the world when he recently
remarked: "If a peaceful revolution in these areas is impossible, a violent
revolution is inevitable."
In the revolutionary atmosphere which does exist in a number of important Latin

American countries, ideological factors are often as important as straight
economic programs. I am impressed, for example, with the fact that the
governments which achieved the greatest political stability and economic
progress in the last decade were the strongly ideological democratic parties led
by Betancourt, José Figueres and Muñoz Marín. I am impressed, too, by the fact
that the two fastest-growing political movements in the larger countries of South
America today are the two most intensely ideological movements—the Marxist
and the Christian Democratic.
Both of these are flourishing, particularly among the younger groups. We should
not forget that half of the population of Latin America today is under 18. In a
discussion of the present situation in Latin America with a distinguished Latin
American, Dr. Rafael Caldera of the COPEI Party in Venezuela, we agreed that
one reason why his party and other Christian Democratic parties in South
America are flourishing today among the impatient, idealistic younger groups is
that they offer an ideological alternative to Marxism, an integrated approach to
the political, economic and social problems of society. I know that we pragmatic
North Americans find it difficult to understand why a Latin American considers
the philosophy and ideology of a party as important as the specific practical
measures it recommends. We are only now coming to realize that the ideological
basis of Communism—not its economic critique—is its principal attraction for
students and educated groups in Latin America. It is for that reason that
Communism captures the university before the slum.
If the social and economic objectives of the Alliance are to be achieved, we must
lend our strong support to those governments and those political parties which
are really committed to the Alliance program, which are committed to modifying
the antiquated economic and social structure of society. Although there is and will
continue to be a wide variety of parties and governments, we are most likely to
see the aims of the Alliance realized and our own interests served if we strongly
support reformist governments like those of Romulo Betancourt in Venezuela and
Belaúnde Terry in Peru, reformist political parties like those that provided
leadership in the Caribbean area during the past two decades, and the Christian
Democratic parties that are rapidly emerging as a major political force in South
America.
III
It would be a mistake to interpret the Alliance program exclusively in terms of a

social and economic revolution and to ignore the equally important aim of
building political democracy and constitutional government. As the first U.S.
Coördinator of the Alliance for Progress, Ambassador Teodoro Moscoso, once
remarked, "Free countries do not develop on bread alone." The quest for first-
class citizenship, the growth of representative political institutions, and the
accomplishment of economic and social reform within the framework of
constitutional government are an essential part of the Alliance, as President
Johnson emphasized once again in his speech of May 11. And the indispensable
ingredient for successfully achieving both the socio-economic and the political
goals of the Alliance is political leadership. If there has been one preëminent
disappointment about the Alliance in its first three years, it is the failure of many
Latin American countries to come forth with able, responsible political leaders
who are capable of mobilizing support for Alliance programs, of building political
institutions and administrative structures which are able to sustain and
implement the basic modifications of society that are needed. We have seen a
number of cases where constitutional government has been interrupted,
sometimes because an elected government proved to be incompetent; in other
cases because fragile constitutional structures and political institutions were
unable to withstand the assault of non-constitutional groups—usually led by the
military—intent on seizing power. It is this situation that has confronted our
policymakers with one of the most sensitive policy dilemmas of the past three
years.
How does the United States deal with governments that have come to power
through non-constitutional means? We of course cannot determine the type of
governments that take office in Latin American countries. We have no choice but
to work with many governments. But we should distinguish between
constitutional governments pursuing progressive policies and those which shoot
their way to power. We may not be able to prevent the emergence of juntas, but
we can and should distinguish between dictators and democrats. In those
instances when we must temporarily deal with non-constitutional governments,
we should use all our levers of influence to restore constitutional government at
the earliest possible time.
The problem confronting us is made even more difficult when a constitutional

government is overthrown in order to meet an acknowledged Communist threat
or to uproot Communist infiltration that has progressed under the protection of
democratic institutions. This should not be a pretext for circumvention of
constitutional procedures or for maintaining military juntas in power in violation
of the constitution. In those extraordinary situations, certainly we should be
reluctant to embrace a new government before waiting to discover whether
purges, military decrees, censorship, revocation of political rights and mass
arrests represent a momentary aberration or a permanent characteristic of the
régime. Similarly, pledges of economic assistance under the Alliance for Progress
should naturally await evidence that the new government will meet the standards
for economic assistance specified in the Alliance charter.
In dealing with these situations we should always keep in mind the results of our
policy of embracing "anti-Communist" military dictators during much of the
1950s-results dramatically illustrated when an American Vice President was
nearly mobbed in Caracas in 1958.
The use of anti-Communism as a deceptive slogan in the past should not blind us
to the true nature of the Communist threat in this hemisphere today. This threat
is real and must be met if hemispheric unity, political democracy and socio-
economic progress are to be achieved.
The record of Venezuelan President Romulo Betancourt merits attention in this

regard because it reveals rare insight into the nature of the Communist threat in
the Western Hemisphere. In confronting the Communist problem, he has kept in
mind the distinction between the three salient strands of the Communist threat in
Latin America: first, the ideological strain which was discussed earlier; second,
the appeal of the Communist economic model as a solution to the economic needs
of impoverished people; third, the attempt of a Communist régime—Cuba, for
example—and Communist groups within Latin American countries to subvert non-
Communist governments through armed attack, internal terror and sabotage,
through propaganda or through quiet infiltration and popular-front movements.
One cannot meet the appeal of the second with solutions appropriate only for the
third. The economic threat cannot be met by military solutions, but rather by
programs which fall under the Alliance—effective mobilization of resources and
accomplishment of reforms by local governments, combined with U.S. help in the
form of loans, "food for peace," the Peace Corps and technical assistance. The
security problem cannot be met alone by these economic programs, but requires
measures which are primarily paramilitary, political and propagandistic.
One should not conclude that the face of the Communist threat in Latin America is
always the same. It is not. The approach and tactics of Communist parties vary
from country to country. In Brazil, Communist infiltration from the top by a
government tolerant of Communist-oriented groups posed a quite different
problem from that in Venezuela. Different again is the situation in Chile, where a
Communist-Socialist coalition seeks power through regular elections to be held
later this year. Methods of combatting Communist infiltration must be adapted to
the situation.
Subversion from abroad remains a major aspect of the Communist threat to many
Latin American countries, particularly those in the Caribbean—and the principal
source of this subversion continues to be Castro's Cuba. The case of Venezuela is
a good illustration. For Venezuela today, as for many other Latin American
neighbors, the Castro government in Cuba is not a nuisance to be ignored but a
menace to be eliminated. Communist subversion from Cuba is not a "myth" to be
exposed but an ever-present reality to be faced.
The report issued in February of this year by the Organization of American States
makes it indisputably clear that Cuba has smuggled arms to terrorists in
Venezuela. There is now photographic evidence of the plan and plot to subvert the
Betancourt government at the time of the election last December.
What should the U.S. position be in such cases? Our national policy should be one
of clear, unequivocal support for taking the necessary steps to cut off arms
shipments from Cuba to Venezuela or any other Latin American nation. Cuba must
not be permitted to be an arsenal for terrorism, revolution and chaos. Instead of
merely worrying about governments of friendly countries being able to stay in
power and resist violence, we should choke off the source of that violence.
I believe that we should wholeheartedly support the position of the Venezuelan

Government in the O.A.S., where it has requested joint sanctions against Cuba. I
hope that the required action can be accomplished within the framework of the
O.A.S. But if it cannot, this should not mean that we will permit friendly
governments like that in Venezuela to remain defenseless because of the inaction
of its neighbors. The existing machinery of the O.A.S. should not be permitted to
impede the successful handling of problems of this sort.
There may be instances where it is actually preferable to take bilateral action to

meet a Communist threat rather than require the participation or approval of all
members of the O.A.S. An effective response to Communist subversion does not
always require that all Latin American governments publicly and officially take a
strong positive position. Undue pressure to do so may sometimes be counter-
productive, by weakening the political position of a government which is
fundamentally anti-Communist but whose freedom of action is restricted by a
delicate balance of internal political force. The machinery of the O.A.S. should be
sufficiently flexible to permit bilateral action as well as multilateral action where
it may be required.
I do not favor a military invasion of Cuba. Even less do I favor so great a
preoccupation with Cuba that all other hemispheric issues are ignored. But so
long as the stated purpose of the Castro régime is to export its Communist
revolution, it will remain a threat to many Latin American governments. So long
as it remains a threat to them, it remains much more than a nuisance to the
United States. For our own interests are inextricably bound up with those of our
neighbors in the hemisphere.
IV
In implementing the policy outlined above it should be understood that methods

must vary from country to country, that U.S. action in implementing the Alliance
for Progress is dependent upon the actions of Latin American countries. For the
immediate future I would mention several lines of action which might be effective
in realizing our objectives. If rapid progress is to be made in achieving the social
and economic objectives of the Alliance for Progress, it will require in the next
decade both greater mobilization of resources by Latin American governments
and a larger infusion of external resources. These external resources will come
chiefly from three sources: (1) aid from foreign governments and international
lending agencies; (2) trade; and (3) foreign private investment.
All three of these are essential to most Latin American countries and will continue
to be for the foreseeable future. In the face of continued Congressional criticism
of foreign aid and disappointment abroad with the volume of aid and the
conditions attached to it, there has been a tendency to disparage foreign aid;
Latin Americans look to trade and North Americans to private investment as a
substitute.
Trade brings into a country needed foreign exchange, but it carries with it no
guarantee that the foreign exchange will be used for purposes having a high
priority in the development of an economy or society. The exchange usually goes
to a relatively few people in the commercial sector and, in the absence of effective
progressive tax systems or exchange controls, can be spent on luxury items or
sent abroad to foreign banks. Foreign aid not only brings in needed capital but
capital that can be easily channelled into those projects and those sectors of
society deemed of crucial importance.
Foreign private investment-as many previously skeptical Latin Americans have

now learned after experimenting with swollen, inefficient state business
corporations-is absolutely essential both to increase the productivity of a country
and to develop an efficient industrial and agricultural sector. With the strong
encouragement of the U.S. Government—for example, through investment
guarantees and tax credits—American business can continue to provide
leadership in building a strong private sector in Latin American countries. But it is
a mistake to claim too much for private investment, to ignore the necessity of
expending large sums on the economic and social infra-structure (highways,
ports, dams, schools and health systems) which can be financed only by public
funds.
All three—aid, trade and private investment—are essential to social and economic
progress in Latin America. In my view, we in the United States do not allocate the
amount of resources to Latin America required to do the job that needs to be
done. Although Latin American countries may be less capable of absorbing large
amounts of capital than were the European countries under the Marshall Plan, it
is nevertheless true that our contribution to the Alliance for Progress is pitifully
small compared to the billions of dollars—mostly in grants, not loans—that we
poured into Europe after the Second World War. In line with the priority which we
should assign to Latin America in our global policy considerations, our aid to this
area should be substantially increased for the rest of the decade.
There is no reason, however, why the increased aid to Latin America should come
exclusively from the United States. It should be recognized that the European
contribution to Latin America need not be limited to respecting embargoes on
trade with Cuba. European countries—together with other countries like Japan
and Canada that conduct substantial trade with the area—should be strongly
encouraged to contribute to the infusion of capital that is required, and on terms
that are favorable. This assistance should represent private investment as well as
government aid.
Trade may not be a panacea for the problems of Latin America, but it now seems
clear that we must give greater attention to developing trade within this
hemisphere. The terms of trade for Latin American countries have remained
unstable. Although commodity prices have shot upward during the past year, it is
unclear whether this is a temporary improvement or a long-range trend. Trade
among Latin American countries has not flourished, with the exception of the
recently established Central American Common Market. Our exports to Latin
America have leveled off, and it is clear that we shall face increasing competition
there with Europe and Japan.
It is too early to say exactly what regional mechanisms should be used to bring
about increased trade between the United States and Latin America, to promote
competition and stable trade relations within the hemisphere. The brief
experience of the Central American Common Market indicates what can be
achieved in a limited area if individual countries are willing to look beyond their
borders. The experience with LAFTA—Latin American Free Trade Area—thus far
is less promising. Certainly, one of the problems which should be given early
consideration by the newly created Inter-American Committee for the Alliance for
Progress and by the Inter-American Development Bank is the possibility of giving
greater impetus to the regional movement in the LAFTA countries. The Inter-
American Development Bank has begun to finance the acceleration of regional
trade within LAFTA, and its efforts should be supplemented.
As for the United States, I believe that we must soon undertake an intensive
review of our hemispheric trade policy. Trade is essential to the economic
prosperity of the hemisphere and we should give careful consideration to the
possibility of developing a more cohesive trading area, which would not only bring
economic advantages but would also promote the political unity of the
hemisphere.
The next step in promoting a hemispheric trade zone might be to lend our strong
support to the development of LAFTA in the same way that we gave our backing
to the Common Market in Europe and to the Central American Common Market.
We should promote the creation of new exports and the expansion of existing
exports by supplementing the funds now available for this purpose from the I.D.B.
We should participate in planning LAFTA's development and encourage American
business to do likewise. Once LAFTA has made significant progress, we can then
consider what new trade relationships should be developed between the LAFTA
area and the United States and Canada.
In the future, decisions on questions of basic importance to the development of

the Alliance for Progress, such as those on aid and trade, should naturally be
made through the Inter-American Committee for the Alliance for Progress. Just as
the United States Government has improved its machinery for handling
hemispheric affairs, so the members of the Alliance have created a mechanism to
facilitate truly multilateral decision-making on hemispheric problems. But this
new organ can succeed only to the extent that it has the strong support of the
nations of the hemisphere, especially the United States. The Senate Foreign
Relations Committee has indicated the strong Congressional sentiment in favor of
multilateralism, thereby giving the Executive branch the freedom it needs to
assist in acceleration of the trend from unilateral to multilateral decision-making
under the Alliance for Progress.
In pursuing the political objectives of the Alliance for Progress—both the positive
aim of inspiring a commitment to constitutional government and democratic
institutions and the negative objective of thwarting Communist expansion—we
would do well to divert more attention and resources to programs in the
educational, ideological, cultural and propaganda fields. We should expand
programs aimed both at the élite and at the popular classes. According to the best
information available to me, approximately 3,000 Brazilians were brought to the
United States during the past ten years under our various educational and
cultural exchange programs. If we really appreciated the revolutionary
atmosphere in Latin America today and understood the nature of the Communist
appeal to younger people who will become the élite of their societies, we would
raise this figure to 3,000 per year.
Similarly we should use all possible leverage to encourage Latin American

governments to expend the resources needed to wipe out illiteracy among the
mass of the people. Where the determination exists, illiteracy can be effectively
eliminated in a brief period, a fact that has been proven by the Castro government
in Cuba. Of the many reasons which could be advanced in support of crash
programs to end illiteracy, I will cite only three. First, active popular participation
in political life under a democratic government is impossible if half the population
cannot read and write. Second, historically no society that has succeeded in
abolishing illiteracy has remained poor for long. Third, the balanced population
growth rate that will be necessary in the future is not likely to be accomplished
while half the population remains illiterate.
In our efforts to coöperate with Latin Americans in realizing the objectives of the
Alliance, we should be aware of the renaissance of one of the traditional
institutions found in all Latin American societies—the Roman Catholic Church.
One of the most encouraging trends of the past decade has been the new
awakening on the part of Church leaders to the shocking social and economic
problems of the continent, and the new determination to meet those problems
now through fundamental reforms.
Today in Chile, Panama, Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina and Colombia members of

the hierarchy are actively pushing the reforms stipulated under the Alliance
Charter. Whereas formerly the active espousal of progressive social and economic
policies was largely confined to religious orders like the Maryknoll priests or to
isolated pastors, today they are supported by occupants of metropolitan sees. The
farsighted social and economic philosophy of the late Pope John's social
encyclicals Mater et Magistra and Pacem in Terris is being strongly pushed by the
Vatican. Men who once would have been "promoted" to mountain parishes for
their advanced views are now being appointed bishops and cardinals.
The Church's role is important not only in promoting economic and social reform,
but also in building free societies and encouraging hemispheric unity. The
building of a just economic and social order requires the rapid
modification—sometimes the destruction—of old institutions. In a revolutionary
era, the temptation is great for the state to absorb total responsibility in the social
and economic order, to eliminate all institutions which it cannot directly control
itself, to create an atomized society. History teaches us—and the recent example
of Cuba reminds us once again—that it is the atomized society that is easy prey
for totalitarian government. In one of the best capsule definitions of totalitarian
government, Hannah Arendt once defined it as the elimination of all subgroups
between the individual and the state. During the next decade, when revolutionary
change will be the order of the day in many countries, there may be times when a
brake is needed on the action of the state if social pluralism and individual
political liberty are to be preserved. In some Latin American countries, it may be
the Church that will be called upon to play that role.
Finally, the Catholic Church—together with Roman law and the Spanish
language—is one of the principal unifying forces in this vast continent. In an age
of rampant nationalism, the common bond which the Church provides may have a
powerful impact in overcoming the separatist tendencies of the age and in
achieving hemispheric unity.
In conclusion, I would emphasize that quite apart from the specific programs
which we may support in implementing our policy in Latin America—programs of
aid, trade, private investment, education or propaganda—what is equally
important is our success in solving our own preëminent social problem—achieving
equality for the Negro—and our attitude toward our fellow citizens in the
hemisphere. In a continent where the large majority of people are non-white, a
continent that includes societies like Brazil which have developed a harmonious
multi-racial society, it is hard to exaggerate the importance which people attach
to our efforts to extend the benefits of modern civilization to the Negro minority
in the United States, just as Latin American countries are striving to make them
available to the majority of their own people.
President Kennedy is revered for opening up a new era in relations between the
United States and Latin America, not primarily because he promised material
assistance, but because he conveyed an understanding and respect for Latin
American people, for their culture and many of their traditions. He did not regard
Latin American people as inferior or expect them to see the solution to their own
problems in blind imitation of the United States. It is this attitude of
understanding and respect that must permeate not only our leadership, but our
entire society. This will not be easy to accomplish—as most adults in this country
were educated in schools where the overwhelming majority of textbooks and
reference books either ignored Latin America or reflected a condescending
attitude toward Latin Americans. Written chiefly by authors sympathetic to a
northern European cultural inheritance, which historically has been
fundamentally unsympathetic to Latin culture, these books have been all too
important an influence in shaping the attitude of generations of Americans.
Change in popular attitudes comes slowly. A full appreciation of the importance of
Latin America will come only when our educational system begins to reflect the
priority stated by President Kennedy when he described Latin America as the
most critical area in the world.
HUBERT H. HUMPHREY is the 14th U.S. Senate Majority Whip and vice presidential running mate to presidential
candidate Lyndon B. Johnson.
July 1,1964
John F. Kennedy
ABBIE ROWE / JFK LIBRARY

President-elect John F. Kennedy speaks to reporters outside the White House, 1960.
The past months have set before our policy-makers a map whose essential
features are not unfamiliar to those who have studied or been a part of the events
of the past decade, but it is also crowded with new silhouettes. There are new
projections, contours and dimensions. International events in recent months have
accelerated in pace and have been in a flux not yet comprehended by the
leadership of our nation or taken account of in adjustments in the machinery of
our foreign policy. To an observer in the opposition party there appear two central
weaknesses in our current foreign policy: first, a failure to appreciate how the
forces of nationalism are rewriting the geopolitical map of the world—especially
in North Africa, southeastern Europe and the Middle East; and second, a lack of
decision and conviction in our leadership, which has recoiled from clearly
informing both the people and Congress, which seeks too often to substitute
slogans for solutions, which at times has even taken pride in the timidity of its
ideas.
II
International events today are subject to a double pull—a search for political
identity by the new states and the search for unity among the established states of
the world. As Europe draws in upon itself toward a Common Market and greater
political integration, Africa, its former colonial estate, is breaking apart into new
and emergent states. Through the world today there runs both a tide toward and
away from sovereignty. Many Americans view these tendencies with equal favor,
reading into the one our own Declaration of Independence and Revolution, into
the other the work of our Constitutional builders of a federal state. In fact, of
course, we dangerously misread the movements of our time if we set them only in
the prisms of our own historic experience. It is easy by a false parallelism to
mistake nationalism itself for national salvation, to mistake the assertion of broad
unity for its healthy substance.
Modern nationalism, too, has a twin heritage. In one of its aspects it reflects a
positive search for political freedom and self-development, in another it is the
residue of disintegration and the destruction of the old moorings. The cardinal
result of the First World War was the political collapse of the old continental
Europe; the most apparent outcome of the Second World War was the erosion of
Europe overseas. It is a temptation to write the history of the last 40 years in
terms of the symmetric rise of two giant states, the U.S.S.R. and the U.S.A. But it
is quite as important to see this period in terms of the decline of other states and
the substitution for them of new combinations and clusters of power. In this
perspective we see that the United States and the Soviet Union are not only
magnets which attract power; they are also, by their overarching influence,
repellent forces. This has become especially clear in the events of the last year.
Whereas the coming of the nuclear age reinforced the bipolar structure of world
power, its secondary effects now stimulate a dispersion of strength and influence.
Great Britain has felt the need to chart an independent course in nuclear
development; France is preparing to cut a separate path; China, Germany and
India and several smaller nations may soon possess nuclear tools of destruction.
In the period of NATO build-up the Western nations had a rough strategic
agreement; today even the essential purposes of NATO have come into dispute,
and on disarmament even close allies have shown a diversity of aims.
A generation ago the British Commonwealth was a bedrock fact of world politics.
Today the Commonwealth has not simply widened in conception with the inclusion
of new nations such as India, Pakistan and Ceylon; even among the core members
the events of last fall produced a cleavage, when Canada seized the initiative in
applying a brake against the British and French adventure in Egypt. India, which
itself represents a pole within the Commonwealth, is the leading claimant for the
rôle of a "broker" middle state in the larger bipolar struggle; she is also a
centerpiece in a "middle zone" of uncommitted nations extending from
Casablanca to Djakarta. These nations have gained an effective voice in the
United Nations, especially in the General Assembly whose prestige we ourselves
helped to enhance by Secretary Acheson's "Uniting for Peace Resolution" of 1950.
Today the Arab states alone have as many Assembly seats as all the countries of
Western Europe, and the steady increase in the number of U.N. members and the
expanded authority of the General Assembly have more and more diluted the
commanding positions of the "big" states that have permanent seats in the
Security Council. Indeed, to set the constellation of power in the U.N. today
against the pattern envisaged at Dumbarton Oaks and San Francisco a little more
than a decade ago is to appreciate the scope and rapidity of the change which has
taken place. In diplomacy as in military command there is a temptation to fight
today's battles with the pattern books and position papers of yesterday's
successes.
The task is to strike a realistic balance between the legitimate appeals to national
self-determination which pulsate through the uncommitted world and the
gravitational pulls toward unity which grow from the technological and economic
interdependence of modern states. This is a very difficult exercise in political
ballistics. Different parts of the world are at divergent points along the trajectory
of political independence. Both democratic self-government and large supra-
national mergers have preconditions—a capacity to govern and a communality of
interest which cannot be created only out of military fear or idealistic impulse.
Americans have always displayed a faith in self-enforcing moral principles and
have hankered for apocalyptic solutions and fixed patterns; they must learn that
most current issues in international politics do not encourage such unrealistic
hopes. Many of the old conceptions of war and peace, friend and foe, victory and
defeat, must be reshaped in the light of new realities.
III
We usually attribute to the enemy camp a rigidity of outlook and method; and
certainly Russian thinking is hard in texture, its message unrelenting, its outward
cast unchanging. We deceive ourselves, however, if we believe that on this
account we are the more manœuvrable and flexible in our actions. At times in
recent years it has been hard to distinguish Secretary Dulles' emphatic
reaffirmations of the imminent collapse of Soviet totalitarianism from the wooden
Marxist-Stalinist view of the essential fragility of the capitalist order. While
retaining faith in our forms of government and economy, we should not
underestimate the Russian capacity for feint and adjustment. While the United
States was going through the giddy months after the empty triumphs of Geneva,
the Russian leaders, noting the climate of Bandung and the restlessness of the
"middle belt," set in motion new forces of ruble diplomacy, economic penetration
and political manœuvre. Our only response to these series of actions was to
continue to rely unsuccessfully on the paper defenses of the Baghdad Pact, which
rested on the false assumption that there was an identity of interest among all the
states of the Middle East. This period ended with Mr. Dulles' unhappy efforts to
call the Russian bluff over the Aswan Dam.
In other ways, too, we have underestimated as a nation the capacity of the

Russians to compete with us militarily and economically. After the war we greatly
misjudged their ability to build the atomic bomb and the hydrogen bomb; we
underestimated their technological manpower in numbers and quality; we had an
easy confidence that we could outdo them in producing planes, missiles and heavy
weapons; and we miscalculated the rate of basic economic growth and its rate of
acceleration in the U.S.S.R. and China.
While underestimating the potentialities of Russian developments we held

exaggerated hopes as to how Western influences could flow into cracks occurring
in the Soviet and satellite structure. Hardly had we announced the intention to
"liberate" the satellite states of Europe before the Berlin riots occurred. After we
found ourselves unable to turn this uprising to more than slight propaganda
advantage, we tended to switch to the view that the states of East Europe were
closed cells. The Administration saw little hope that new generations could
wrench themselves free from the Soviet spell; yet it was precisely university youth
and labor unionists, both peculiarly exposed to Soviet indoctrination, who led the
rebellions against domination from Moscow. Once again the United States was
able to offer little assistance during the ordeal. It has been slow to exploit the
possibilities opened up by the gradual detachment of Poland from Russian rule; it
was hesitant on granting economic aid and cut the amount to but a fraction of
need.
It is in this sort of situation that American thinking, conditioned to the notion of

two world camps, most needs reorientation—to accept partial gains in order to
undercut slowly the foundations of the Soviet order. For it is most unlikely that
any Iron Curtain country will defect simply from East to West. The movement will
be gradual, along a spectrum. It would be a kindly recognition of the changing
conditions behind the curtain if the Battle Act, Surplus Disposal Act and Mutual
Security Act were amended so that economic and financial assistance might be
given to countries existing in a kind of Communist limbo. These legislative Acts
were drawn for different conditions, in days when there was only one "flower" in
the Communist garden—Stalin.
The fragmentation of authority within the Soviet orbit has been one of the main
gains of the post-Stalinist era. The totalitarian succession has not passed easily
from Stalin to Khrushchev. There are other Communists—Mao, Tito,
Gomulka—who claim to speak with Communism's authentic voice. Nationalism is
a force cutting into the Soviet world as well as the Western. What will be the full
effect of the growth of these centripetal currents remains to be seen, but Mao is
surely right in the belief that Moscow's once total monopoly of the gardener's
craft has gone.
IV
What Walter Millis has called "the hypertrophy of war" has helped to create the
loose-jointed nature of current world politics. The need to face the prospect of
having to wage a limited war while holding the levers of unlimited destruction,
the need to discriminate between pressures and the appropriate responses in
different parts of the world, the need to keep strategy flexible without letting it
become formless—these are challenges which Americans with their inclination to
problem-solving and passkey formulas are not well equipped to meet. As the
threat of total war has seemed to decline and as the danger we faced in 1947-48
has become less clear, the more traditional forms of diplomacy have resumed
their old importance and we have again become concerned with the interstitial
problems of the world community. The new situation has also brought about the
reëmergence of small and middle states as important international factors and
has set up a more complicated and fluid balance of power. Various states gain
strength because they provide concessions for military bases or contain special
resources; others such as Germany and Sweden have an industrial vigor which
gives them levers of influence, not only because they can contribute to one or
another power bloc but also because they can be leading exporters of both goods
and expertise to the underdeveloped nations.
In Europe itself there is alike a new crystallization and a new diffusion of power.
The unnecessarily forced pace of German rearmament and the cross-pressures of
French politics and commitments aborted the hopes for establishing the European
Defense Community. Painful as the French parliament's burial of this scheme was
for much European and American opinion, the defeat for American diplomacy may
have been salutary in that it destroyed false images. The countries of Europe are
now more aware of the practical obstacles to integration, better appreciate the
price of unity, more fully understand that concrete if gradual achievements are
better than indulgence in great dreams that do not come true. The United States,
too, is more aware that the drive for European integration does not represent any
European fancy for imitating or being absorbed into American patterns, but in
part, at least, a way to win detachment from the United States. Such
revolutionary developments as the Common Market and Euratom offer two
possibilities—either that the ending of old rifts will release new energies, or that
the continental states will become locked in a closed system. It is time for the
United States as well as Great Britain to realize that activation of the European
Common Market and its companion agreements may well set in motion forces
running counter to our present pattern of alliances and relationships with Europe.
Clearly one of the great successes of postwar policy has been the economic
revival of Germany in a political framework with a democratic cast considerably
stronger and therefore more hopeful than that of the twenties. However, partly
out of appreciation and admiration for this outstanding reinvigoration of German
politics, American policy has let itself be lashed too tightly to a single German
government and party. Whatever elections show, the age of Adenauer is over. The
biggest question in any government must now be the identity of Adenauer's
eventual successor. The present Administration, like its Democratic predecessor,
has riveted its policy and favor exclusively on one leader and party and made
pariahs of the opposition, who will inevitably be a part of some future German
government. The fidelity to the West of the Socialist opposition is unquestionable,
and yet sometimes our statements and actions seem almost to equate them with
the puppet régime in East Germany. In all Europe a new generation is coming to
power, and it is dangerous to become alienated from them. The giants of the
postwar period—Churchill, Adenauer, DeGasperi—have left their imprint. But in
the last two years the French Socialist and Radical parties, British Labor, the
Italian Christian Democrats, have all been experiencing the transfer of power to
new leaders for whom many of the old distinctions between "Left" and "Right"
have lost validity. The United States is ill-advised to chase the shadows of the past
and ignore the political leadership and thinking of the generation which is now
coming of age.
Our response to the Soviet challenge in Asia and the Middle East has been
exaggeratedly military. However, in Asia our policy has been probably too rigid, in
the Middle East too soft. In Asia we have shifted from a hyperbolic image of a free
China to the brittle conception of a shiftless totalitarian China. Objectives have
become so distorted that our State Department first adamantly opposed even the
dispatch to China of newsmen whose reports might allow us to test the validity of
our policy; and then set extraordinary conditions with regard to an agreement for
their admission. Information and independent judgment about China are so hard
to secure that it is very difficult to make an estimate of developments there. There
have been—and still are—compelling reasons for the non-recognition of China; but
we must be very careful not to strait-jacket our policy as a result of ignorance and
fail to detect a change in the objective situation when it comes. If a low ceiling is
placed on criticism, policy tends to rigidity and vested interests harden to the
point where established viewpoints cannot be modified.
At the moment there is a "deëmphasis" in our Far Eastern concerns, but the
presence of important new problems is only thinly concealed. Not only is there the
need to reëxamine our military and political position in Korea, but the place of
Japan in the Far East deserves special attention. Though many observers have
assumed that the military build-up of Japan is of supreme importance, the first
need is in fact to find the roads by which Japan may stage an enduring economic
revival. Dependent on trade for survival, Japan must find new markets in Asia, and
particularly in China. Whether or not Western countries relax their own trade
barriers, the issue has important political consequences for Japan.
In the Middle East, since the war, there has been no clear overall conception of
American policy. We were right to support the establishment of the state of Israel,
whose democratic stamina and military effectiveness have withstood the hard
tests of outside challenge and aggression. But in dealing with the other nations of
the area we have wavered. In Iran we built up Mossadegh and then scaled him
down. In Egypt we encouraged the formation of a revolutionary régime and
belatedly restrained its excesses. We helped to make the Aswan Dam an imposing
symbol of Western economic leadership and then foreclosed it. Periodically after
the war we tinkered with notions of a Middle Eastern defense pact, but never
were able to decide who would be defended and against whom. Toward both the
Arabs and Israelis we have had an on-and-off policy. Some economic aid was
provided for the Arab states, but almost half of the funds appropriated between
1951-1956 were unexpended because of the seeming scarcity of suitable projects.
In this period Middle Eastern political development has generally speaking been
in mid-passage between feudal colonialism and semi-feudal independence. British
economic interest and political guidance were considered predominant there and
we preferred to leave the area under the umbrella of British influence and
protection. Events, however, conspired to bring the influence of the United States
into play. Our services were often more remedial than preventive. More than in
any other area of the world, our policy in the Middle East has been a creature of
crisis, jagged in its ups and downs and ambiguous in its direction. The Persian oil
crisis, the Israeli war for independence, the British evacuation from the Suez
area—these and other events marked a recession of British influence from the
Middle East and a sudden pressure for American intervention. On each occasion
the United States helped with the immediate problem but without being able to do
much toward healing the underlying organic maladies. In the end, it took the
British and French invasion of Suez to jolt the United States into recognizing the
need for a broader-gauge and more sustained policy. There had been no lack of
pointers toward what that policy might include—a multilateral regional
development fund, the Jordan River scheme, a food pool making imaginative use
of our agricultural surpluses, a program for Arab refugees. What was missing was
active political leadership to break the paralysis of purpose.
Occurrences in the Middle East and Asia now cast their shadow over Africa. Here
again a sudden inflammation of tension is to be noted, a drive to cut the cords of
colonial rule and at the same time to meet the need for economic development
and growth. All over the continent several revolutions are occurring at once and
many ideas and influences are in collision. The rapidity of the changes makes the
formulation of policy both difficult and the more necessary. Here more than
almost anywhere else the modern era of communications, with its rapid cross-
fertilization of ideas and the reaction of social pressures, makes attempts to
segment and isolate individual political conflicts entirely futile. Americans are
perhaps too inclined to take at face value cheap caricatures of British and French
colonial rule in Africa. The past achievements and current progress of those
nations, however, especially in Central Africa, do not make new adjustments
unnecessary. When Morocco and Tunisia are free states, Algeria cannot be kept
an armed camp.
There are important and subtle political and cultural differences, of course,
between different parts of Africa, but the complexity of problems thereby created
does not absolve the United States of the duty of interesting itself in them. The
temptation is to accept the idea that since our coalition allies have a primary
interest there, the United States, like it or not, had best take an enforced
diplomatic holiday. In an impasse such as that created by the Algerian rebellion
we are told that an American declaration of interest would be illegitimate, a rash
provocation of a major ally and a gross departure from accepted standards of
international conduct—this in spite of the fact that the influences of the crisis spill
over into the rest of free Africa, eat into the fabric of NATO and contaminate our
relationships in the United Nations.
We face here one of the harshest perplexities of our policy. The resolution of it
would greatly enhance the whole position of the West in Asia and Africa. There
obviously is danger in making international policy on the basis of popularity polls;
some of the liberal critics of American policy toward neutrals fail to see the risks
of setting policy courses by volatile barometric readings. The United States should
maintain a priority among its interests and not exchange an ally for a relationship
based on a fleeting friendship or a quixotic flirtation. This does not argue,
however, for letting slip a main chance to win the world of uncommitted nations.
A pose of benign "neutrality" or "non-intervention" will not help us to advance the
cause of our NATO allies or the Western position in general. Washing one's hands
of responsibility, like plans for "sanitary war" and "clean bombs," induces an
illusion of antisepsis and tidy order, but it is only an illusion. The consequences of
abstention can be quite as positive as those of direct action. Our policies in
Indochina and North Africa since the Second World War indicate that the forces
of nationalism cannot be reversed in an effort to cushion their results for an ally.
From now on, our policy in Africa must not be hinged only on metropolitan
Europe. In charting it, we must not seek to use it only as a tool of anti-
Communism. Neither should we seek to displace European rule where it is
making visible and sustained progress in establishing the bases for political
independence. And we must show special care not to give grounds for an
accusation that we helped to create a free Africa merely as a new arena for
economic exploitation. There is no question, for example, that the countries of
North Africa should enjoy a special interdependent economic relationship with
France. Independence does not require a total severance of old relations, as the
newest British dominions well illustrate; what it does require is the substance and
not the mere shadow of self-government.
VI
In the years immediately ahead we face a challenge in how to help the new and
underdeveloped nations bear their economic burdens. Again we must strike a
balance between what Denis Brogan has labelled "the illusion of American
omnipotence" and a somber contemplation of the impossibility of absolute
solutions.
It is sobering to realize that population curves turn steeply upwards in

underdeveloped lands, that as a result the economic backwardness of much of the
world is increasing, and that the process of social disintegration intensifies with
the rising curve of expectations among many peoples. Old liberal bromides have
no appeal to nations which seek a quick transition to industrialization and who
admire the disciplined attack which Communism seems to make upon the
problems of economic modernization and redistribution. The more immediately
persuasive experiences of China and Russia probably approximate what lies ahead
for states such as Indonesia or Egypt, suffering from deteriorating economic
standards and steeply rising populations.
The United States is economically capable of increasing aid for development

purposes, but it cannot scatter its assistance on each parched patch of misery and
need. The first step would seem to be to make a small number of investments
through aid and loans, selected with an eye to their likelihood for success. There
is no need for us to be neutral as to the objectives which it should serve.
Successful foreign aid must be selective; otherwise a large amount of aid goes
into projects designed to enhance the prestige of the receiving government and
into military panoply which may only perpetuate feudalism. The general approach
furnished in the Millikan-Rostow proposals (though too much patterned on the
Indian economy and perhaps too sanguine about the possibility of freeing
economic assistance from political objectives) furnishes some useful guideposts,
particularly in stressing the need for more durable aid commitments and for
finding methods which minimize political blackmail and indiscriminate handouts.
In this regard the Senate has made beginnings this year in providing a long-term
basis for assistance, which has the advantages not only of permitting better
planning and a more rational evaluation of the political and psychological effects
of aid, but also will tend to avoid the disadvantages of making annual aid
appropriations which cannot be spent effectively.
In future years, other nations can probably make larger contributions in skills and
money to world-wide economic development. Germany already is a sizable foreign
investor and lender, and other nations will grow in such capacity. The
development of atomic power has given Great Britain the prospect of becoming a
prime exporter of atomic reactors. Chances for developing oil await the French in
the Sahara if they can establish a political settlement in North Africa. With
opportunities like these opening up, a wider system of multi-national aid,
pioneered in Asia by the Colombo Plan, can become a reality.
VII
The new dynamics in foreign relations make it all the more important to consider
afresh the methods by which foreign policy is formulated and applied. In this
realm there is a special danger that a received body of doctrine will continue to be
accepted when it no longer retains its original meaning and validity. The phrase
"bipartisanship" in particular is abused and stretched beyond logical limits. It
reflects the fact that most of the great departures in American policy since the
Lend-Lease Act of 1941 have had substantial support from the opposition party. It
recognizes that the opposition party of today may become the governing party
tomorrow and that the broad stream of national purpose should not be thrust out
of its main channel for fleeting partisan advantage which will later demand
payment not only in trouble for the party but damage to the country.
Bipartisanship also designates the method which enables the Government to

enlist the active coöperation of the leadership of both parties and of distinguished
individuals in them. Under Mr. Truman a large number of Republicans—Paul
Hoffman, John Foster Dulles, John J. McCloy, John Sherman Cooper, Robert Lovett
and many others—were given important foreign policy responsibilities. In
Congress, too, there was shared responsibility and leadership. Yet Mr.
Vandenberg himself was the first to suggest that bipartisanship was not a blanket
under which to smother dissent and genuine difference. China was never
"bipartisan," nor was Point Four, nor were some extensions of the aid program.
European assistance and United Nations policy generally were. Today, however,
there is a prevailing view in Washington that to criticize the Administration on any
foreign policy count exposes at worst a moral flaw, at best political
irresponsibility. The Secretary of State and the President both have fobbed off
responsible critics of specific phases of our policy as being captious or ignorant.
Few Democrats have served in responsible administrative posts despite the fact
that the party controls Congress.
Bipartisanship cannot be permitted to be an excuse for burying dissent. Especially

at a time as fluid as the present it must not become a restraining wall against the
flow of fresh ideas and the expression of honest doubts. Doubtless a
Congressional opposition such as the Democratic majority forms today is not
wholly consistent within itself and does not provide a completely adequate set of
alternatives. Thus it regrettably has suffered severe fissions in the current year in
the support which it has given to the traditional policy of strong mutual security
measures. Significant Democratic groups have supported excessive cuts in foreign
aid, have backed restrictive trade policies and, after five years of fighting for
stronger national defense policies for both ground and air, have assented to
excessive reductions in our defense appropriation. Some of this backsliding has
come from weariness and discontent with the results achieved by similar
measures in the past, some is consequent on important changes in the American
economy, some is due to political reasons—"the duty of the opposition party is to
oppose." Whatever the reason for the aberrations, they do furnish ground for
concern as to whether our position as a responsible Democratic opposition in the
field of foreign policy may not become blurred.
Against this, however, the Democrats can place a record which refutes the
conception that foreign policy is too sensitive and that its many gears are too
finely meshed to make constructive initiative or criticism in Congress possible.
Our current and increasingly successful policy in Indochina (never a strong
feature of the State Department under either Republican or Democratic control)
has its origins within Congress. The Middle Eastern Resolution was not only
refined and clarified in Congressional review and debate; its meaning was for the
first time made clear to its authors, who had argued that prompt and automatic
passage of the original text was essential if it was to have any effective impact. A
workable concept of long-range economic development grew out of the study
organized by the Senate into the foreign assistance program.
There are other illustrations. But the central point is that Congress not only can
enrich the content of our policy but also make more certain that responsibility in
the Executive is placed where it belongs—in the White House and State
Department. President Eisenhower has been in the habit of holding a light rein on
the conduct of policy and of parcelling responsibility out to many officials.
Because of the President's confidence in the integrity of his associates, because of
the elaborate mosaic of command and review within the Executive, and because
he has the assured affection of the American people, the President in some
instances has tended to mistake form for performance.
The National Security Council and its companion bodies have improved the
continuity and coordination of policy-making, but at a price. The massive paper
work and the clearance procedure, the compulsion to achieve agreement among
departments and agencies, often produce policy statements which are only a
mongrelization of clashing views. Sparks of dissent and a clear confrontation of
alternatives may sometimes be more useful as guides to action than an amalgam
on paper of conflicting judgments. We like to believe that the National Security
Council previews all likely crises and has on file studies that set forth the right
responses. In reality, the anthology of decisions which the N.S.C. compiles has
only contingent reliability. Despite its elegant lacework of committees and boards
of review, such major crises as Dien Bien Phu and Suez do not appear to have
been forecast very accurately and seem to have surprised and divided leaders of
government. It is also evident that on major questions such as H-bomb testing,
disarmament and even the allocation of functions to the military services for
varying types of warfare the N.S.C. has failed to write the score for a united
chorus of Administration officials. Indeed, there have been times in recent months
when the conflict of wills and policies has been almost as apparent as in the days
of F.D.R.—without the drive and direction which then came from the White House
itself.
We would lose much if we scrapped the major administrative changes which have
been made both under the National Security Act and by executive
reorganizations.[i] But a capacity for leadership and a clear articulation of policy
at the pinnacle remain an essential dynamic of our system of government. The
administrative structure, however constructed or refurbished, supplies only an
environment for the making of decisions. It cannot itself produce a wise decision.
There is a dangerous tendency today both within our Government and in the
United Nations to take too mechanistic a view of the tasks to be accomplished.
Sometimes a ferment of ideas is to be preferred above fabricated harmony. It
would be unfortunate if our central policy-making bodies became mere vendors of
compromise.
To criticize the style of operation of this Administration raises dilemmas which are
a continuing feature of our foreign policy. The technological and scientific
evaluations which have become so important an ingredient of major decisions
mean that the inherent difficulties of the decisions themselves have never been
greater. Matters such as our draft and conscription policy, our weapons system,
disarmament, East-West trade, all require a knowledge in depth of scientific gains
made and scientific potentialities ahead which few informed persons in any
branch of government can fully grasp. Even the President himself is torn in many
directions, just as the scientists are sharply divided on many of the effects of their
researches and discoveries. Yet decisions must be made today and cannot await
the compilation of clinical records, based on experience, regarding all the social,
political and cultural by-products of our aid and the infusion of new techniques. If
Don Quixote is a poor inspiration for the makers of our foreign policy, so, too, is
Hamlet.
Now that the smoke surrounding "l'affaire Gluck" has cleared, it would seem
appropriate for the State Department and the Congress to consider effective steps
for improving our representational responsibilities abroad. Can the United States
have a really first-class career service if the most prominent posts are reserved
for the politically faithful and the economically successful? And can we have an
effective foreign policy if our agents are selected for qualities other than
experience, judgment and responsibility? There is a definite rôle for non-career
men in Foreign Service; certainly the successes of Chester Bowles and John
Sherman Cooper in India and the services of David Bruce and Clare Boothe Luce
in Europe indicate that on many occasions ambassadors with special skills of
personality or experience or with close ties with the President may play very
useful rôles, sometimes influencing events in a way that a career man might not.
But it should become a maxim that no Foreign Service post should be beyond the
reach of any man, career or non-career, because of inadequate allowances, and
that ambassadorships should not be among the loaves and fishes customarily
handed out to the party stalwarts.
Finally we return always to the growing inter-connectedness of policy. Perhaps

the most dramatic illustration of this is Germany. Again and again we have seen
that the discussion of any plan for German reunification involves not only the
terms of such a merger, but that the achievement of it would immediately call into
question the structure and strategic basis of NATO, the status of the satellite
states of Europe and German rearmament. During recent months there have been
influential voices arguing that the occasion was ripe for an omnibus settlement of
all these points on the basis of a reunified but militarily neutral Germany. It is
unlikely that the Russians are in fact willing now to make such a settlement, but it
is most difficult to think what should be our attitude toward such a scheme when
there is so little agreement within our Government on each of the constituent
features of such a plan and its probable results.
We have been fortunate as a nation that our successes in foreign policy have been
shared and are not exclusively to the credit of any one party. Likewise our failures
and flaws have been shared and are not to be attributed solely to a party or
adminstration. In the tests which lie ahead the problems once again are national
ones and the necessary adaptations to new circumstances as they arise will not
come easily for a person of any tight party persuasion. The veil of illusions hangs
over each of us to some degree. The fundamental task for both parties and for all
branches of Government is to understand the forces which move the future.
Extended autopsies of past failures tend only to add one more layer of unreality to
the basis on which we must build—the belief that China was lost because of the
action of a few diplomats, for instance, rather than because of underlying
revolutionary forces; or the misunderstanding of the rise of Asian or African
nationalism as either a Communist or a United States conspiracy; or the idea that
there are not social forces running through all the world which have a validity
apart from the bipolar struggle.
Recent years have witnessed still another wholly unforeseen phenomenon in parts
of India, Indonesia and other sections of Southeast Asia and Latin America—the
success of Communists and their associates at the polls and through other
ordinary political processes. Western policies have long been predicated upon the
assumption that Communist gains would be manifested through either external
military threat or intervention, or internal supervision or violence. Consequently,
reassessment is urgently required for those American aid programs which have
reflected an ill-conceived and ill-concealed disdain for the "neutralists" and
"socialists" who—in a nation such as India—represent the free world's strongest
bulwarks to the seductive appeal of Peking and Moscow.
The agenda of tasks is large. Our chief concern should be major items. We must
see that our actions stimulate the healthy development of the new states even if
they are neutral; that we do not encourage the prolongation of Western
colonialism where it is stagnant; that the position we take against Soviet
imperialism in Eastern Europe is not weakened by Western "imperialism" in Africa
or Asia. This is not a sentimental attitude, but one which tries to take measure of
the inevitable and come to terms with it. It is futile to think that we can purge our
foreign policy of all ambiguities—perfectionism is an empty standard for policy
when effectiveness must depend not on abstract principles alone but also on
estimates of power and national interest. But with respect to some of the major
challenges in the world at the present moment there is an opportunity for the
idealistic initiative of our people and the self-interest of the nation to intersect. I
am certain that a sufficient clarity of will and purpose within the Administration
can gain the support of both parties and of the broad public to meet these
challenges in unity.
[i] These developments have been elaborated and defended in these pages by
Robert Cutler in "The Development of the National Security Council," Foreign
Affairs, April 1956, p. 441-458.
JOHN F. KENNEDY, United States Senator from Massachusetts; Member of Congress, 1947-53; author of "Why England
Slept" and "Profiles in Courage"
October 1,1957
Putting First Things First
A Democratic View
Adlai E. Stevenson
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
Adlai Stevenson, 1956 U.S. Presidential campaign.
PEACE is the most imperative business in the world today. It is the world's most
universal desire and most powerful force. The mass of humanity seems to
understand better than its rulers the idiocy of war and its mortal danger to the
human race. Everywhere I travel the people appear to know that all their
aspirations for freedom and dignity and a better life are going to be destroyed if
mankind ever fights a modern war.
The United States has been the source of the most revolutionary and glorious
concepts of human and political freedom. It had been my hope that in this
revolutionary century the United States, which first split the atom, would be the
tireless, fearless, indomitable leader of the cause of freedom from war. And I still
think that to seize that role and pursue it with passion should be the top priority
of American foreign policy.
Why haven't we really led the postwar world since the Korean War? Why are
many Americans fearful that we have lost our sense of national purpose? Why is
there confusion about intellectual and moral values? Why is there a slackness
about public problems and a wholesale retreat to the joys of private life? Why is
balancing the budget a greater national concern than exertion, self-denial and
hard work? Have we confused prosperity with security? Why is there a growing
uneasiness over the contrast between a society like that of the Soviets which
believes in its destiny and our own which seems to regard itself as fulfilled?
Personally, I think the trouble is not in the nation's energy, its will, or its nerve;
and if wealth and comfort have softened us I am sure we are not yet beyond
repair! The root of the trouble lies in this: the nation faces a series of massive
changes in the world scene; they call for new ways of looking at the world; for
new policies; for increased efforts. But since Korea our political leadership has
not clearly and insistently acknowledged this fact. American policy has thus
moved further and further away from the reality that surrounds us. Unchallenged
by the realities, Americans have turned their energies and idealism to second-
order business.
The main lines of American military and foreign policy are still those of
1947-1952. Although Messrs. Dulles and Eisenhower "crusaded" for a policy of
"liberation" and denounced "containment" as "immoral," in operation their policy
was to construct a chain of military alliances around Communism and to attempt
to restrain the spread of Soviet power wherever it threatened. Oddly enough, Mr.
Dulles' faith that Communism would disintegrate from its own internal
contradictions resembled Lenin's conviction that capitalism would do the same.
But to win such an endurance contest we must have superior endurance. Yet
instead of making massive efforts to improve or preserve the balance and to
encourage attrition or benign change on the Soviet side, we emphasized
conservative policies and fell behind on all fronts, while the Soviet Union, and
other industrial areas, forged ahead at a rapid pace.
In short, while our Government adopted the Dulles foreign policy it did nothing to
make it effective. Indeed, it was not long ago that Vice President Nixon saw
something disloyal in my warnings about the Soviet rate of economic growth. (It is
now double that of the United States!)
So for the most part the response of the United States to the great changes of this
century has been only negative and defensive. An Administration which has
defined its over-riding task as keeping the budget down has dealt with them more
with rhetoric than action. And unwillingness to acknowledge reality has led to a
progressive erosion of the American stature on the world scene. (Sometimes I
thank God for the Russians--their rapid progress may even make economic
growth, risk and adventure essential, if not respectable, here.)
But it is not my purpose to indict the small aims and large fears of the
Eisenhower-Dulles era. Things had to change, and I applaud Secretary Herter for
the recent signs of more enterprise and flexibility in the conduct of our foreign
policy. I hope, however, that we Americans do not mistake the President's
ceremonial travels for negotiation and settlement.
What are some of the realities we must face in this age of many revolutions? The
old colonial order has all but vanished. New nations--and new imperialisms--strive
to fill the vacuum in a vast political revolution. Most of these new nations seek to
bring their economies through the sound barrier of modernization in a few
decades. This is the economic revolution. But they do so against the background
of exploding population which will double the inhabitants of underdeveloped
areas in the next generation. This is the biological revolution. Meanwhile,
supersonic flight, atomic energy and the missile have opened up two opposite
possibilities of equal magnitude--the exploration of planetary space, and self-
extermination within the space of this planet. This is the scientific revolution.
What lies ahead of us in this bewildering century is invisible but it may be even
more significant. In the past the North Atlantic nations dominated the world. But
they could not control themselves, and after their great world wars the power and
influence of Europe declined; Russia and the United States suddenly emerged as
the two dominant powers. Already the brief day of two-power domination is
passing and new centers of power are rising from old ashes in Asia. By the end of
the century China and India will be industrialized, and China's population will be
close to a billion. Then, as Europe becomes more unified, it too will reëmerge as a
great center of power. And who can doubt that regional unification is going to
take place in Latin America and emerging Africa?
So, this is not the beginning of the American Century, or anyone else's. It
behooves us to face the reality that we Americans are not going to be alone at the
center of the stage very long--and that modesty is always becoming. But if our
tradition does not require us to be the world's boss, it does require us to keep
alive and vigorous the great traditions of political freedom and legal order which
underlie Western society.
To guide us through these uncharted seas, to comprehend and direct the
prodigious forces now shaping the new world, is going to make heavy demands on
our resources of wisdom, leadership, self-discipline and magnanimity. I would say
that this reality belongs at the top of the list, because it has not yet been proved
that democracy and the processes of persuasion can match the efficiency of
central planning and dictatorship.
Multiple and universal change is thus the setting for policy in this age. Another
reality we have been slow to admit is the present advantage this gives to the
Communists. They did not invent the world's revolutions. All of these were--
wittingly or unwittingly--launched in the West. But Communism, in itself a
philosophy of change, exploits them world-wide. It uses all the anti-imperialist
jargon and proclaims the brotherhood of--Communist--mankind. To our
everlasting shame it has led the way through the frontiers of space and even
pinned the Soviet colors on the moon. It proposes its own sweeping totalitarian
planning as the only way out of economic stagnation, and the Soviet example of
how to modernize and grow strong quickly has a powerful appeal to backward
countries.
Mr. Khrushchev states his purpose plainly. He says, let's throw down our arms
and we will beat you at peaceful competitive coexistence. He says that Russia will
outstrip the United States in production and that one by one the neutrals will fall
in line, while the Communist system spreads around the globe--and finally
surrounds and isolates capitalism's last refuge in the United States. The Soviet
planners expect that, as in China, the non-Communist régimes in Asia, the Middle
East, Africa and parts of Latin America will be unable to solve the problems of
modernization and economic growth and will turn to the Communist alternative,
encouraged no doubt by Communist trade, aid and penetration.
This, I am convinced, is the route to world power which the Soviets now regard as
the safest and surest. And I was impressed by Khrushchev's confidence, shown
both in his country and ours, that history is working with him and that the system
under which Russia became so strong so quickly is the system which other
countries must follow. We refused to believe that Hitler meant what he said, to
our sorrow. We should not do ourselves the same injury again.
To me the two most dangerous realities we now face are the multiplication of
nuclear weapons and the disparity in living standards between the rich nations
and the poor. So I suggest we must meet the crises of our time in four major
areas: First, we must end the growing gap between wealth and poverty. In doing
so, we must create new supra-national patterns and institutions of coöperation.
Thirdly, as long as nuclear weapons exist, the danger of their use exists. We must
work for a disarmed world under law and organized police power--the only final
answer to the threat of annihilating war. And lastly we must extend as far as lies
in our power the concept of an open world. For it is in our acceptance of variety
and differences, harmonized but not suppressed, that we in our turn work not only
with the trend of history but in accord with the ingrained diversity of mankind.
Our faith is that in the long contest the totalitarians will gradually be converted to
our way of thinking rather than we to theirs. Our goal is not just to win a cold war
but to persuade a cold world.
These are, of course, statements of high generality. We turn them into policy only
by specific application and negotiation. Some aims we can pursue with like-
minded nations, and we should proceed with them at once. Others depend on
Communist assent and may take years of stoic negotiation.
The beginning of wisdom in the West, I think, is to have our own creative policy--
not just a negative policy to stop the Communists, but one that reflects our own
vision of a viable world society and our own understanding of the revolutions
through which we live. The voluntary ending of colonialism by most of the
Western colonial powers, the Marshall Plan, Europe's moves toward unity and the
various programs of economic aid, are creative innovations already to the West's
postwar credit.
Once we know what we want, what our aims are, then we shall have to pursue
them by every means with the same resolution and sacrifice that the Communists
pursue theirs. It will not be easy to agree on them in view of the divisions among
the Western powers, combined with the fact that Russia controls Eastern
Germany and therefore the possibility of German unification. I suspect the hardest
task will be to pursue our aims resolutely in common with our partners. For in
"peacetime" democracies are at a particular disadvantage. Immediate domestic
concerns take precedence over distant national goals. Too many selfish,
thoughtless people prefer the easy option, and too many ambitious politicians
prefer office to duty. But we cannot live by tail fins, TV and a "sound dollar" alone.
Somehow we must lift our sights to the level of the tasks. I will try to suggest
some of them.
II. ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
The average annual income in the United States is more than $2,000 as against
less than $100 for a third of the world's population. And the worst thing about this
disparity is that the rich nations are getting richer and the poor poorer. Happily,
there is, at long last, a growing realization here and among our friends that these
are the decisive areas and that we must assist the underdeveloped peoples to
advance to self-sustaining growth while preserving their independence and some
hope of evolving a political democracy. Without an alternative to Communist
methods of development, we face grim prospects indeed in poor countries where
literacy is low, hunger high and the gap between resources and population
widening.
Five conditions of success are, I think, clear. We shall be engaged on this program
for at least 40 years. We shall require a professional staff, with the languages and
skills needed in this whole new field of activity. Informed opinion tells us that at
least $5 billion a year is needed--from all sources, public and private, domestic
and foreign. We shall have to coordinate all aspects of the effort with other
nations--not only investment but opportunities for trade, international liquidity
and so forth. To get the maximum results the developed nations must all
coöperate. The time has certainly come for other countries to share more of the
common burden of assistance. In such circumstances the United States cannot
expect to have full control of the use of all its expenditures for development
purposes.
These five conditions are not yet fully understood, let alone accepted. There is still
more than a hint that if the Communists would behave, the economic development
program could be can-celled. Partly as a result, our staffing policies are
haphazard, our linguistic programs inadequate, and we are acquiring so many
competing agencies, both national and international, that policies tend to be
tangled and obstructed at the base and overlapping and bewildering in the field.
I regret that the Administration rejected the recommendation of the Senate

Foreign Relations Committee last winter for a soft loan fund of about a billion and
a half dollars for about five years. With Europe prosperous and dollars flowing to
that area, Europe should mobilize an equivalent sum. With something like $3
billion a year available for public investment, with the West's great resources of
skill and experience, and working with the World Bank, the Monetary Fund and
the new International Development Association, we should be able to plan an
effective, concerted attack upon all aspects of backwardness--lack of capital, lack
of skills, low reserves, single-crop exports and fluctuating world prices.
It is difficult to establish priorities, but I believe there is general agreement that

the whole political future of free Asia may depend on the success of India's great
experiment. Certainly, too, the need is obvious for more rapid modernization and
economic coöperation in Latin America. And the vision of a common market for
the Western Hemisphere is even more exciting if it points toward economic
federation in the whole non-Communist world.
For years I have urged that the United States put economic development on the
same level of urgency as national defense, and press other advanced countries to
join in a concerted effort. That in actuality we have no such joint program for
world investment and growth springs in part from another weakness--our failure
to develop an organic Atlantic community with common institutions and purposes.
The ghost that has haunted every NATO conference for ten years is the ghost of
the Emperor without clothes. "The wise men," committees, resolutions--all have
spoken of NATO's positive tasks. We still have to find them. Worse, even the
present measure of unity is being fretted away.
III. THE ATLANTIC COMMUNITY
Beneath the surface there are dangerous cross-purposes within our alliance. They
are not to be overcome by ceremonial travels and by hasty diplomacy in
preparation for meetings with Mr. Khrushchev.
The reconciliation of France and Germany is an historic achievement of postwar

diplomacy. The Common Market is a creative effort to pass beyond narrow
nationalism in the search for economic and social well-being and finally political
union. But the price is high if France by moving closer to Germany moves away
from Britain, and if the Common Market of the Six nations and the Free Trade
Association of the Seven between them divide Europe into rival trading groups
behind rising economic barriers which embitter not only commerce but politics as
well. Nor do the divisions affect Europe alone. The frictions will be spread to
Africa as a last divisive legacy of colonialism.
I believe it is a profound interest of American policy to see these nascent divisions

overcome. We should urge the Six and the Seven to return to negotiation to
mitigate tariff discrimination and liberalize trade. The United States and Canada
should also coöperate systematically with the Six and the Seven to enlarge and
use our influence vigorously to help solve in common the tough problems of
commercial policy, including such questions as the stabilization of commodity
prices in which the industrialized countries must of necessity take the lead. The
last three or four years have demonstrated how even our own trade is becoming
dependent upon European prosperity and how policies on each side of the Atlantic
vitally influence the rest of the community. The unfavorable American balance of
payments and fears for American reserves are already leading to a new
isolationism, to creeping protectionism, to reduced foreign aid and to further
divisions in our unity and strength. The Administration's "Buy American" policy in
our lending will have negligible effects on our exports, and it repudiates the
liberal trade and payments policy which we have been urging on our allies at the
very moment they are adopting it.
Nor can we safely confront the Communist challenge with inferior military
deterrent capability. If we fall too far behind or reduce our military strength--
without equivalent Soviet concessions--we may find Mr. Khrushchev's interest in
negotiation has diminished. We must not tempt the Russians with weakness. The
possibility that they could destroy our retaliatory power at a single blow must
never appear to them to be realistic. Even then, the only safe assumption for us to
make is that the Soviet Union may use force, as in Hungary or East Germany,
wherever there is no risk of general war. As I said to Mr. Khrushchev, equality of
strength and equality of risk are the only starting points for disarmament
discussions.
In maintaining the military balance pending a reversal of this senseless and

bankrupting arms race, Western Europe also should play an expanded role and
assume a larger burden. The coöperative control and use of atomic weapons may
now be the best way to prevent the divisive, costly and inefficient duplication of
nuclear capabilities. Each one of the European nations cannot develop defenses
capable of countering the Soviet threat, and should not try. I think we must take a
hard, fresh look at our common military problems. I don't see why we cannot
distribute the nuclear, the naval and the conventional burdens more economically
and efficiently. The objective should be an interdependent military system in
which each nation's role would be geared to its full technological and economic
capabilities.
Let us, then, recognize the fact of our economic, military and political
interdependence formally. An Atlantic Council with real powers could formulate
joint policies for sharing our responsibilities and bringing about the genuine and
equal partnership between the United States and Western Europe which our
successes in the past--notably the Marshall Plan--make feasible and the greatest
challenge we have ever known now makes necessary.
I believe a North Atlantic Conference should be held to outline new common

policies for defense, disarmament, space exploration, monetary reserves, tariffs
and a larger economic sphere, and aid to the underdeveloped areas, giving, I
hope, new terms of reference to NATO and to other organizations. I think Europe
should take the initiative toward creating some such new organization to deal
with our great and growing problems and to promote more systematic Western
coöperation.
Meanwhile, if our partners, including Japan, are to mitigate the harmful political
pressures building up in the United States, a number of steps--toward which, I am
glad to say, some progress has already been made--should be taken promptly.
Discrimination against dollar imports from the United States and all quantitative
restrictions should be eliminated.
I have long urged that the nations whose economies the United States has helped
to restore should assume a much larger share of the burden of aiding the
underdeveloped countries.
The heavy task of maintaining large forces overseas aggravates America's balance
of payments deficit; our European allies should now assume greater responsibility
for the defense of the West.
While our balance of payments deficit may be a short-range problem, the liquidity
shortage of the trading nations is not, and the West should move to correct this
deficiency promptly.
A working coöperative Atlantic system would do more than enhance the basic
strength of the West. It would demonstrate to other areas--to Latin America, for
instance, or to free Africa--methods by which political autonomy can be combined
with supra-national coöperation. In any case, the alternative is to see the
centrifugal forces which are always at work between separate national entities
pull us ever further apart. One thing is sure--we cannot deal with the Communist
challenge divided and in disarray.
IV. ARMS CONTROL
Most of all, a stronger Atlantic community will show the way to disarmament and
peace. The implications of war and of the nuclear stalemate are as visible in
Moscow as in Washington. After talks with Mr. Khrushchev in Russia and
America, I have the feeling that some fixed Communist attitudes are changing;
some, at least, of the Russian leaders seem to have concluded that the "capitalist"
countries do not conform in all respects to the Marxist blueprint of misery and
despair. Mr. Khrushchev has even changed his mind about the established
Communist conviction that the United States could not cut arms spending without
bringing on a depression. (I confess I get indignant when I listen to some of my
fellow Americans who seem less confident than Khrushchev is about our
economy's resilience, especially when we have so many neglected tasks at home
to which we could turn our energies and resources.)
The more the Communists see of the realities of Western society, the better for
truth and so the better for us. Knowing something of the frightening darkness in
which most Russians have to live, I favor the widest extension of exchange
programs and cultural contacts. I would like to see the United States take the
initiative in bringing Western and Soviet teams together in joint work. The
principle of the Geophysical Year should be extended to a joint international
Geophysical Commission. Other fields are Antarctic exploration and control,
oceanography, medical and atomic energy research, exploration of outer space
and even joint operations in certain areas of economic aid. Such communion of
scholars and technicians could do more than awaken Communists to the reality of
Western life and to the possibilities of an open world society. They could be
forerunners of supra-national coöperation and organs of international control.
There is no difficulty in finding reasons why peace is so precious to the Russians

after the desolation and destruction of two world wars. In addition, they now have
much to lose, and their taste for the good life is rapidly developing. It is said that
the Soviet defense effort takes about 25 percent of the national income as against
10 percent in this country. So for them another weighty reason for reducing the
arms burden is to release more manpower and resources to improve the living
conditions of the long-suffering Russian people and to strengthen the Soviet
potential for economic competition and the paramount struggle for the
uncommitted countries.
I am confident that some, at least, of the Russian leaders are anxious to halt
testing and development of nuclear weapons before the danger becomes even
more uncontrollable. But I wish I could be more sanguine that the Soviet Union
was equally ready for the kind of inspection and control that would make possible
any general arms reduction, let alone total disarmament. I suspect the conversion
of the Soviet Union from a closed to an open society is still a long way off. But we
should not hastily and cynically dismiss Mr. Khrushchev's disarmament proposals
as propaganda and insincere. The question is not whether Communists are
sincere but whether they are serious.
The root of East-West tension is fear. Whether it is rational or irrational, justified

or not, hardly matters. It exists, and the peoples, especially Americans and
Russians, have been indoctrinated with this fear of one another--these devil
images--for years. Arms are a symptom of the fears and tensions between nations.
Therefore, the argument goes, disarmament is impossible until political
settlements have been reached and confidence restored.
I disagree. I believe the nuclear arms race with weapons of mass destruction is a
new element and in itself a cause of tension. Of course, as I have said, we must try
everlastingly to improve relations by exchanges, negotiations, common projects,
trade and agreements when possible. But fear will not vanish until the arms race
is arrested. We will have to proceed on all these matters simultaneously. As Mr.
Selwyn Lloyd of Great Britain said in presenting the British plan for
comprehensive disarmament which preceded Mr. Khrushchev's: "If we get
political settlements it will make agreement on disarmament easier; and if we get
an agreement on disarmament, it will make political settlement easier."
From what he said to me, I think Mr. Khrushchev agrees too. And I am much
encouraged by evidence from many quarters that the Russians are genuinely
worried about the political and technical dangers and cost to the U.S.S.R. of
continuing the arms race indefinitely. Moreover, the United Nations disarmament
resolution, agreed to, mirabile dictu, by the United States and the Soviet Union,
recognizes that disarmament itself will promote trust between nations and
declares that disarmament is the most important question facing the world today.
In short, it looks as though controlled disarmament was back at the top of the
world's agenda where it belongs. I am sorry that the United States did not take
and hold the lead as I urged in the 1956 presidential campaign. The recent
proposal by some of our leaders that the United States resume underground
nuclear tests, just when the first break in the arms deadlock seems possible,
shocked me. I can think of few better ways to chill the prospects, deface our
peaceful image and underscore the Communist propaganda that they are the
peacemakers and we the warmongers. We should extend our test suspension so
long as negotiations continue in good faith and Russia maintains a similar
suspension. The good faith of the negotiations is decisive, because indefinite
suspension amounts to a test ban without inspection.
Whether Mr. Khrushchev and his associates in the Kremlin really mean business
depends on agreement to two main principles: a) that conventional and nuclear
disarmament must go hand in hand, so that the balance of security between
nations is not upset, and b) that progress at each stage must be subject to
effective international control.
If universal and total disarmament should ever take place, a third need will arise:
a supra-national force of some kind, as I have insisted to Mr. Khrushchev, in order
that the sheer weight of such powers as Russia and America--or China--may not
intimidate smaller neighbors. The composition, control and use of such a force, of
course, present a host of further questions.
Meanwhile, pending the disarmament millennium, we must, as I have said, make

good the deficiencies in our defenses to keep at least an equality of strength with
the Russians. And I think it would be naïve to assume that they are yet ready to
embark on the kind of positive coöperation in other respects which would
establish real collective security. The conspiratorial tradition is very old and deep
rooted in Communist thinking, and when they talk of "peaceful competition," for
example, I suspect that most Communists would include under that label political
subversion, coups d'état, and even revolution under Communist Party leadership.
Nevertheless, I think we may be approaching the time when the arms race with
Russia can be arrested. Once a revolutionary régime leaves behind its adolescent
fanaticism, risk and cost become powerful considerations. I believe they exercise
genuine influence in Moscow today and that we should do what we can to
encourage the trend.
V. CHINA
In Peking, however, I doubt if cost and risk are decisive factors. At this stage,
pressure from "foreign devils," real or contrived, provides excuses for the
austerity and brutal repression involved in the massive modernization. In this
mood, China might conceivably be ready to risk a war which could involve its
more prosperous Communist neighbor in disaster. Today, Moscow can still
perhaps limit Chinese aggressiveness by control over its military aid. But as China
develops, the influence will dwindle. Has Russia therefore an interest in
establishing some form of control now while her influence is still sizable? We do
not know, but we must try to find out. And if we are going to make any important
progress on disarmament, Russia will have to accept responsibility for bringing
China in.
While there is little prospect of reasonable dealing with Red China at this time, it
is apparent that Asians have become disillusioned and distrustful because of her
imperialistic attacks on her neighbors and disregard for the "five principles of
coexistence." I see hope in the fact that Mr. Khrushchev used Peking as his
sounding board when he warned Communists not to use force against capitalism.
I see further hope in his proposal--ignored by Peking--for an atom-free zone in the
Far East. And even at this late date I suggest we explore with him the possibility
of pacification in the area based upon a broad settlement of issues--including
Formosa--by negotiation, not force.
On the Communist side, the concessions would include the extension to China of
any system of international inspection of disarmament, ending the threat of force
against Formosa and subversion in Indochina, a peaceful frontier settlement with
India, free elections under United Nations supervision in Korea, and acceptance
of the right of the inhabitants of Formosa to determine their own destiny by
plebiscite supervised by the United Nations. On our side, concessions would
presumably include an end to the American embargo on China's admission to the
United Nations (not to be confused with diplomatic recognition), the evacuation of
Quemoy and Matsu and the inclusion of Korea and Japan in the atom-free zone
and area of controlled disarmament.
Perhaps neither the Russians nor we ourselves are yet prepared to talk in such
concrete terms. Yet it is clear that no general control of disarmament has any
value unless it includes China, and it is difficult to see how China can accept
international control when it is not, formally, a member of international society.
Moreover, as a member of the United Nations, Communist China, with a quarter
of the world's population, would be more accountable to world opinion than as an
outcast.
In the long run, the degree to which Russia is willing and able to moderate
China's imperialistic designs will be a major factor in world peace. And it is likely
that in its diplomacy as in its internal development Moscow is reaching the point
where Mr. Khrushchev's peaceful coexistence with the West must grow into
positive coöperation. The Russian door to the West must be pushed wider open--or
slammed shut again.
VI. EUROPE AND THE MIDDLE EAST
The areas of the world where the interests and security of the great powers
collide are the areas of tension where negotiation must be concentrated if it is to
be effective. I do not believe that local military blocs, directed against the
Communists, always provide the answer. If we seek military clients, Russia can
play that game, too, and more cynically. Moreover, she is not embarrassed by ties
to the former colonial overlords. I do not mean that endangered countries should
be left unprotected. The Eisenhower Doctrine is hardly more than a restatement
of our commitment under the United Nations Charter and the Truman Doctrine to
come to the aid of a victim of direct aggression. If the Soviets were directly to
invade Iran--though it is not likely--American intervention would be unavoidable.
And that is precisely why it is not likely. But Iran is no more secure because of
military links with Pakistan, and the fate of Iraq shows how easily an unpopular
alliance can be exploited to undermine a pro-Western régime.
I believe that we must look rather to disarmament and nonalignment, to political

and economic collaboration, in the areas where great-power interests collide, as
in the Middle East. We still have a little time, for atomic weapons are as yet in the
possession of only three powers. Ten years from now, who knows how many local
dictators may have them--to the detriment not only of our security but of Russia's
as well. Here may be another common interest to explore. We might examine the
possibility of an atom-free zone for the Middle East. We might also reconsider an
earlier suggestion of an embargo on arms shipments into the Middle East--a plan
which the Soviets have endorsed.
Neither Russia nor the Western nations have gained much from their recent
policies of intervention in the Middle East. I suggest we now give organized non-
intervention a trial. Some international problems are never solved; they just wear
out. And the Arab-Israeli conflict may wear out before it is worked out. But
meanwhile the United States should call upon the Soviet Union and everyone in
the United Nations again and again to use their influence to harmonize relations
between the Arab states and Israel and end this prolonged and useless hostility.
In the immediate future, however, the critical point of tension lies in Europe and
Germany. There we have a perilous deadlock from which neither side can
disengage without grave risk. On our side the fear is paramount that any
withdrawal either from the exposed enclave of West Berlin or from West Germany
would prove the first step in a general retreat from "positions of strength" in
Europe. The end of the process could denude the Continent of American forces
and undermine the defenses against a Russian advance to the Channel.
But the Soviets have comparable fears. The withdrawal of their troops to Russia
would imperil the insecure Communist governments friendly to Russia and lead to
the resurgence of a powerful and potentially hostile Germany. After suffering two
shattering invasions in a generation, Russia's deep-seated fear of a rearmed
Germany should not be hard for us to understand.
Russia's risk is probably greater than ours. After 15 years of Communism, East
Germany and Eastern Europe are still probably hostile to Russia. On our side,
Communism has steadily lost ground. A Europe free to choose its destiny would
not be Communist, and could be very anti-Russian. For this reason I believe we in
the West play from strength in Europe.
I agree with Dr. Adenauer that the key to settlement in divided Europe lies in
controlled general disarmament. The only satisfactory settlement for divided
Berlin will be the unification of divided Germany. The road to unification lies
through a reduction of fear in Russia and the West. And fear will subside only
when there is progress toward disarmament with adequate controls. I doubt if we
can reach more than provisional settlements or postponements of the problems of
divided Europe until then.
With summit conferences soon to take place, I think it would be improper and
useless for me to discuss proposals that have been made for an atom-free zone in
Central Europe, scaling down of Berlin garrisons and occupation armies, security
guarantees, and the other detailed components of possible interim solutions.
VII. A SENSE OF PURPOSE
In all of these great issues of international policy--whether they concern a world

investment program for the underdeveloped countries, or methods of closer
association with Europe, or the creation of communities of common work and
interest with the Soviets, or the whole long arduous search for controlled
disarmament--the first priority for the West is to recover the initiative. Out of a
perpetually defensive attitude no lasting gains can come. Surely the West, which
has been preëminently the challenger in human affairs since the dawn of the
modern age, should not let the initiative slip from its hands.
Today, let us be clear, we do not have the initiative. Having caught up with us in
weapons, it is the Soviet Union that is shouting about disarmament and peaceful
competition; and it is the Soviet Union, strong and self-confident, that is now
usurping the role of leader in the efforts toward peace. Mr. Khrushchev is the
challenger--from outer space to inner Berlin. We react to his policies and conduct
the world's dialogue on his terms. Between hasty improvisations and snap
decisions we seem largely to have lost our own sense of direction.
We are ourselves to blame for this. The truth is that nations cannot demonstrate a
sense of purpose abroad when they have lost it at home. There is an intimate
connection between the temper of our domestic leadership and the effectiveness
of American influence in the world at large. President Wilson gave a profound new
direction to international thinking because he was a pioneer of the New Freedom
at home. President Franklin Roosevelt's universal prestige as a liberal force in the
world was deeply rooted in the New Deal, and this was the tradition carried on by
President Truman in such great ventures as the Marshall Plan and the Point Four
program. The link is no less vital today. If we cannot recover an aspiring, forward-
looking, creative attitude to the problems of our own community, there is little
hope of our recovering a dynamic leadership in the world at large. By our default
as much as by his design, Mr. Khrushchev is enabled to continue dictating the
terms of the world's dialogue.
I see little sign of any challenging approach in positive terms to our problems at
the present time. In the most radical and revolutionary epoch of man's history, the
dominant concerns of our leadership have been almost wholly defensive. We have
not been urged and spurred on by the positive opportunities of world-building and
nation-building inherent in our position as the most fabulously endowed people
mankind has ever seen. On the contrary, our foreign policy has been dominated
by fear of Communism, our domestic policy by fear of inflation. Economic
assistance programs have been "sold" to the American people chiefly as a means
of checking the Communists, never as our creative part in extending our
technological revolution to the rest of mankind. The spur to our exploration of the
solar system has not been our restless desire to extend the boundaries of human
knowledge. It has been the irritation of seeing the Russians hit the moon first. Our
interest in greater excellence in research and education flared up not because we
want every free citizen to exercise to the full his innate talents and capacities, but
because the Russians are producing more scientists and technologists than the
West.
Even where we accept the Soviet challenge--as I assume we do in defense, science

and education--our sense of urgency is not yet sufficient to over-ride our obsessive
fear that, in some way, in spite of having a gross national product of almost $500
billion and a per capita income almost twice as high as any other country's, we
are staring bankruptcy in the face. How otherwise can we explain the fact that,
with over twice the Soviet Union's national income, we have let them outpace us
in arms, in space research, in proportional spending on education? How else are
we to explain why our leaders see their most urgent task not in telling us the
realities of our world and the duties and opportunities that lie ahead for a great
and confident nation, but in warning us of all the insidious ways in which it can
"spend itself" into penury?
The time has come to put an end to this unnatural timidity. There are other ways
of securing a "sound dollar" than by stunting our national growth or--much worse-
-stunting our aspirations and our confidence in the great aims of our own society.
Let us not measure our essential security, our standards of education and our
public needs by "what we can afford." This is a static concept. What we could
afford with a national income of $250 billion is not the same as our capacity today
with nearly double the figure. Nor does it measure what we could afford if our
rate of growth were purposefully increased.
Let us rather assess our needs--our need to maintain equality of strength, in

missiles and men, until controlled disarmament takes its place, our need to double
our spending on education, our need for wider research, our need for decent and
gracious cities where segregation and delinquency give ground in the wake of
redevelopment and renewal, our need to conserve our national resources--above
all, water, the most basic of them all.
All these needs--domestic, foreign and military--will cost more money, at least
until we can make some progress with disarmament. But keeping the budget
down is not as imperative as keeping our heads up. It is worth noting that before
the Korean War thoughtful men solemnly declared that if the military budget rose
above $15 billion capitalism, democracy and the American way of life were
doomed. Then came the war. The military budget was tripled. And now, once
again, the present level of spending is being defended with the same ideological
fervor.
I think our needs could be covered by existing tax rates at higher levels of
economic growth. But I am sure that if our political leadership defines the tasks
with clarity and conviction, we will approve what is necessary to fulfill our
national purpose whatever the sacrifice--higher taxation in years when the private
economy is running at full stretch, for instance, budgetary deficits in times of
slack, restraint upon wages and profits to slow down inflationary pressure, less
emphasis on sectional interests, more on the common good. The recompense will
be to see American society once more the pace-setter in human affairs, to see
freedom once more the great challenger on the human scene.
For this, surely, is the crux. An attitude of unadventurous conservatism cannot

stand for long as the creative image of freedom. I tremble for our future--and for
the world's future--if growth, thrust, initiative and the vast new frontiers of
science are felt to be the prerogative of Communist discipline and drive--if "the
shot heard round the world" has been silenced by the shot round the moon.
Freedom is not an ideal, it is not even a protection, if it means nothing more than
freedom to stagnate, to live without dreams, to have no greater aim than a second
car and another television set--and this in a world where half our fellow men have
less than enough to eat. Today not rhetoric but sober fact bids us believe that our
present combination of complacency and apprehension, of little aims and large
fears, has within it the seed of destruction, first for our own community, and then
for the larger hope that, as science and technology bring the nations inescapably
together, freedom, not tyranny, will be the organizing principle of the society of
man.
I end where I began. I believe the United States is ready for a new awakening and
the achievement of greater goals. Within it are the moral and material elements of
new purpose and new policy. It is the task of leadership to marshal our will and
point the way. We had better start soon for time is wasting.
ADLAI E. STEVENSON, Governor of Illinois, 1949-53; Democratic candidate for President of the United States, 1952
and 1956; author of "Call to Greatness," "Friends and Enemies" and other works
January 1,1960
The Senate in Foreign Policy
Hubert H. Humphrey
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
U.S. Senate Chamber circa 1873.
WHAT is the role of a Senator in the formulation of United States foreign policy?
The answer to this question depends upon the character of the times, the issues at
hand, and the Senator himself. This essay is concerned with the continuing
international crisis of our times, a period for which the term "total diplomacy" was
appropriately invented. The issues at stake in the present crisis are almost beyond
human calculation. Will a tension-ridden coexistence be catastrophically resolved
in a nuclear war? Will Western culture and values be swept under by the rising
tide of Communist imperialism?
The United States Senate today is a heterogeneous body reflecting the richness
and diversity of the American people. It takes all types--conservatives, liberals,
dreamers and practical men--to make a functioning Senate. There is no simple
formula for taking its pulse or resolving its will. Its decisions emerge from a
continuous process of criticism and analysis on the one hand and the necessity for
action on the other. A great nation, like a man of action, cannot tarry for perfect
answers. It always has to settle for the best it can get under less than optimum
circumstances.
The Founding Fathers regarded the Senate as a council of elders which would
deal largely with domestic political concerns. Its unique value, said Madison, is
that it proceeds "with more coolness, with more system, and with more wisdom
than the popular branch." Federalist Paper No. 64 said "the Constitution provides
that our negotiations for treaties shall have every advantage which can be derived
from talents, information, integrity, and deliberate investigations, on the one
hand, and from secrecy and despatch on the other." Integrity and deliberation
were virtues associated with the Senate while dispatch and secrecy were the
qualities of the Executive Branch.
Foreign policy was an occasional and tangential function of the Senate in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Today the mind and will of the Senate are
never free from the burdens of the United States in the vast realm beyond the
borders of its legal jurisdiction. The old distinction between domestic policies and
foreign policies has given way to a new concept of national policies, each of which
bears upon the course of events at home and abroad. The understanding of our
national character and purposes abroad is deeply affected by laws dealing with
immigration, civil rights, tariffs, subsidies and other "domestic" matters. Our
capacity to lend substance to our stated goals is determined to no little extent by
tax and budget laws.
II. THE BREADTH OF DIPLOMATIC ENCOUNTER
The interpenetration of the domestic and foreign realms in national policies today
is only a reflection of the increasing degree and variety of interpenetration
between all nations. Four or five centuries ago the peacetime contact between
Western states was largely political in character. Mutual interests were affirmed
and conflicting interests adjusted through classical diplomacy or, in the final
resort, by war. The aims and policies of states were interpreted to one another by
official emissaries. The commercial revolution of the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries provided an additional channel for nations to know one another through
the face-to-face contacts of international trade.
Our Founding Fathers saw distant England and France almost exclusively through
the eyes of diplomats and traders. In the nineteenth century a new pair of eyes
was added, those of the missionary, upon whom we were largely dependent for
our picture of the exotic lands of Asia and Africa.
The technological revolution of the twentieth century vastly increased the speed,
volume and scope of the manner in which nations impinge on and interpenetrate
each other. Today nations know one another not only through diplomats, traders
and missionaries, but also through soldiers, correspondents, tourists, students,
community leaders, intellectuals, artists and members of Congress. Among the
Americans officially representing their Government abroad are agricultural
experts, labor attachés, journalists and a great variety of other specialists. Direct
contacts are supplemented by official and unofficial films, books, periodicals and
short-wave broadcasts.
This is a far cry from the time when sovereigns, personally vested with full
authority, commissioned ambassadors plenipotentiary to transact their business
with other states. The autonomy of the classic diplomatic function has been
broken down by the rapid communication and transportation provided by the
technological revolution. The old diplomacy, indeed, is as obsolete today as the
divine right of kings. And I have few regrets, although I do admit that we in the
United States might well give more attention to the central virtue of the old
diplomacy--the ability to conduct confidential negotiations confidentially.
The term total diplomacy refers to the new breadth of the diplomatic encounter,
which reflects the diversity of interest of entire peoples, as well as to the inclusive
nature of the struggle between the Communist world and the free world. In an era
of total diplomacy there must be at least some understanding between the various
cultures involved if international intercourse is to be fruitful. Cultural
interpenetration will not by itself dispel the major political conflicts which divide
nations, but it can help to clear the atmosphere of some basic misapprehensions
and lower the level of hostility. It can help us define more accurately where our
interests are mutual and where they are in conflict. Functional coöperation
between American students, educators, scientists, doctors, civic leaders and
legislators and their counterparts behind the iron and bamboo curtains can
therefore have great political significance.
In a world of total diplomacy where every important political decision at home has
an impact abroad and where the picture of our national will and purpose is
transmitted to other peoples in a thousand ways, negotiation itself is broader than
anything imagined under the classic rules and inescapably becomes involved in
the interaction of national egos and purposes rooted deeply in national character
and behavior.
III. TREATY-MAKING AND PRESIDENTIAL APPOINTMENTS
The advent of total diplomacy and the new position of the United States in the
world have increased the Senate's role in the formation of foreign policy far
beyond what had been envisioned by the framers of the Constitution, who
regarded participation in treaty-making and consideration of Presidential
appointments as its two chief functions. Although still crucial, these two
responsibilities today constitute quantitatively only a small part of the Senate's
foreign policy responsibilities.
The great increase in the Senate's work in the field of foreign policy is absolute
rather than relative to that of the Executive Branch. If the Senate's
responsibilities have increased ten-fold, the international responsibilities of the
Executive Branch have increased a hundred-fold. The President's power inevitably
increases in times of crisis, and we are living in a period of continuing crisis.
Furthermore, history has thrust the United States into the forefront of a mighty
struggle against a formidable adversary. A century ago it was said, "When Paris
has a cold, Europe sneezes." Today Barbara Ward is not far wrong when she says,
"America's foreign policy is everybody's destiny."
The power vested in the President to enter into legal contracts with other
sovereign governments "with the advice and consent of the Senate" is one of the
far-reaching prerogatives of his office. A treaty with another country takes
precedence over domestic law if there is a conflict between the two. Under our
system of checks and balances, the President shares this treaty-making power
with the Senate. Sometimes the Senate has been called the "graveyard of treaties"
because of its failure to give its consent to the Executive will or because it
compromised the Executive will with restrictions and reservations. Since the
Senate's rejection of the League of Nations, and especially since Pearl Harbor,
our Presidents have attempted to keep Senate leaders fully informed on
negotiations with other nations. In laying the groundwork for the United Nations,
the Marshall Plan and NATO, the Executive Branch went beyond informing the
Congress, and actually involved the leaders in both Houses and in both parties in
extended consultations. These three historic developments gained the
overwhelming acceptance of the American people in part because of the close
partnership between the Executive and Legislative branches.
The power of the Senate to reject a Presidential appointment for ambassador has
never been invoked, although on several occasions Senate opposition was
sufficient to induce the President to withdraw his nominee. A growing awareness
of the vital importance of our representation abroad, coupled recently with some
unfortunate patronage appointments, has produced in the Senate a new interest
in scrutinizing Presidential nominees. Many Senators were shocked when a
candidate for a Latin American ambassadorial post gave as his chief qualification
the fact that he spent his winters in Florida, and there was an outcry when
another Presidential nominee could not name the Prime Minister of the country to
which he had been assigned. Later it was learned that he did not even know what
NATO was. Appointments of unqualified amateurs, which have been made by both
Republican and Democratic Presidents as a reward for party contributions, reflect
not only upon the President and his party, but also upon the Senate for its failure
to establish and enforce minimum qualifications for confirmation.
An Embassy is fundamentally an executive office which coördinates the political,

economic and military policies of the U. S. Government. We need ambassadors
who combine administrative gifts with the capacity to understand the social and
political forces of the area to which they are assigned. No member of the Foreign
Relations Committee believes that a patronage appointment is automatically bad,
or that the appointment of a career officer is always to be preferred. A list of our
most effective ambassadors in recent years would include men from both
categories. On balance, however, the trend toward more career appointments to
top posts is to be commended. In 1924, career men headed only about one-third of
the U. S. missions abroad; the ratio was 18 to 33. On April 1 of this year career
appointees held almost 70 percent of the ambassadorships; the ratio was 51 to 23.
But statistics do not tell the whole story. Of the 15 choice diplomatic posts in
Western Europe, only six are now held by career officers--Athens, Lisbon,
Luxembourg, Oslo, Stockholm and Vienna. One reason is that only men of
independent means can afford to occupy posts where entertainment requirements
exceed government appropriations for that purpose. In 1957 several of my
colleagues and I urged Congress to double the $600,000 appropriated for
representation allowances at American posts abroad.
It is not democratic, and it does not make for good morale and efficient
performance, to bar qualified foreign service officers from the top posts in their
profession by requiring that they have the private means to underwrite the
necessary expenses of properly representing the United States in one of the large
capitals of the world. No qualified American should be barred from serving in a
top post abroad because he is rich; no qualified professional should be barred
because he is not.
Under exceptional circumstances it is possible for the Senate to go beyond its

"advice and consent" function in dealing with Presidential appointees. The recent
confirmation of Secretary of State Christian A. Herter is a case in point. Moved by
President Eisenhower's failure to say anything good about his nominee, the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee took extraordinary measures to shore up his
prestige on the eve of his critical talks with our allies on the Berlin crisis.
Breaking precedent, the Committee unanimously voted to suspend its own six-day
rule and then unanimously referred the nomination favorably to the Senate. In
presenting Mr. Herter's name, Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson said: "I want the
world to know that this nation is united behind the Secretary of State whose
nomination is about to be confirmed."
IV. A SENATOR AND HIS LARGER CONSTITUENCY
In the twentieth century a Senator represents not only his state but also the
nation, and under certain circumstances he operates directly in the international
arena. If he loses contact with the interests, fears and hopes of the people from
whom he draws his power he forfeits his moral and political right to represent
them. This does not mean that he should be like a weathercock following the
shifting winds of public passion. As Edmund Burke put it, "Your representative
owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of
serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion." A Senator must at times lead,
inform and even educate his constituents.
Informed public discussion is made difficult when the atmosphere is clouded

either by cynical or optimistic illusions. When a Senator accuses his opponents of
"twenty years of treason" or refers to the Korean conflict as a "Truman war," he
poisons the channels of useful debate. On the other hand, if a Senator
exaggerates the potential benefits of summit diplomacy (or any other single
instrument of foreign policy) he makes the very difficult task of negotiating with
the Russians even more difficult. Some of us who recalled the psychological
backwash in the wake of the oversold summit conference of 1955 warned our
people against expecting too much from new summit talks, at the same time
insisting upon the importance of continuous negotiations.
The role of the Senate in dealing directly with international problems is severely
and properly limited by the Constitution, which vests in the Executive Branch
exclusive power to conduct foreign relations. Even in its restricted role of giving
advice and consent to the President, it is limited by lack of adequate information
and an understandable disposition to overlook what Charles Burton Marshall has
called "the limits of foreign policy."[i] Some members of Congress, says Mr.
Marshall, accustomed to dealing with domestic problems by passing laws, tend to
forget that the "vast external realm" beyond the limits of our national jurisdiction
is not subject to the parliamentary will or Executive fiat. In the international field
a national policy objective often is highly restricted or may be entirely frustrated
by external forces over which even the powerful United States has little or no
control. The effectiveness of our foreign policy is limited by the power, purposes
and unpredictability of other nations, whether hostile, allied or uncommitted; by
the weight of tradition and precedent; by the facts of international economic life;
and by the vicissitudes of history generally.
One of the best ways for a Senator to comprehend both the limits and possibilities
of foreign policy is to have direct contact with the leaders and peoples of other
nations. Since the end of World War II approximately half the members of
Congress have had this opportunity. Well planned trips abroad have given our
legislators a more profound and sympathetic understanding of the "vast external
realm," and have helped the officials and people of other nations to get a more
accurate picture of our national character and aspirations.
My own understanding of Middle East problems, for example, was greatly

enhanced during an intensive 40-day study mission to that area several years ago.
I talked with prime ministers and foreign ministers, and exchanged views with
intellectual, business and labor leaders. Also invaluable to me was my tour of duty
as a delegate to the United Nations and my trip last year to Western Europe and
the Soviet Union. I believe such face-to-face contacts lead to mutual
understanding, which always includes, of course, a more precise awareness of the
differences between the United States and the host country.
I benefited greatly by my visit with Premier Khrushchev, and I believe he gained a

clearer understanding about the unity of the American people behind the essential
elements of our foreign policy precisely because I was a politician and a member
of the loyal opposition. A member of Congress is primarily a politician and not a
diplomat; he sees things abroad through a different set of lenses and what he sees
can make an important supplementary contribution to what an ambassador
reports. Visits with foreign officials which do not confuse contact with contract do
not presume upon the exclusive Presidential prerogative.
V. FOREIGN RELATIONS WITHIN THE SENATE
Since Hitler's march into Poland two decades ago, foreign policy has been the
dominant concern within the Senate itself. The primacy of the Executive Branch in
foreign affairs in no way lessens the moral and legal responsibility of the
Congress to work for national policies which come to grips responsibly and
realistically with urgent demands of the world crisis. In this connection the
Senate's activities go far beyond scrutinizing treaties and Presidential
appointments. Former Secretary of State Dean Acheson has correctly observed
that in one "aspect of foreign affairs Congress is all-powerful. This is in the
establishing and maintaining of those fundamental policies, with their supporting
programs of action, which require legal authority, men and money. Without these
foundations--solidly laid and kept in repair--even wise and skillful diplomacy
cannot provide the power and develop the world environment indispensable to
national independence and individual liberty for ourselves and others."[ii]
Parliamentary bodies cannot govern, and our Congress is no exception. But with
its power of the purse, and through the right to investigate, to criticize and to
advocate, the Congress does exert a significant influence on the quality and
direction of United States foreign policy, and it usually does so without violating
the integrity of the Executive Branch.
The body of fact and insight developed by a committee hearing or study can be
drawn upon for informed criticism or for advocating new policies. A case in point
was the careful study of the economic aid program conducted by a special Senate
Committee two years ago, which helped to lay the foundation for our present
more effective approach to the development needs of the politically unaligned
nations of Asia and Africa. As chairman of the Subcommittee on Disarmament, I
have often used information developed in hearings to raise questions with
Administration spokesmen. Some of my questions about the relative position of
the United States and the U.S.S.R. in nuclear development and about the
detection and identification of underground nuclear explosions proved to be of
more than routine interest.
An individual Senator, apart from his committee work, can ask questions and
advocate new ideas. The student exchange program is known by the name of its
chief advocate, Senator Fulbright. Former Senator Bricker is known for his
sustained but unsuccessful efforts to curb the treaty-making power of the
President. In April of this year the Senate unanimously adopted a resolution which
I introduced in support of our Government's efforts to negotiate an effective ban
on nuclear weapons tests at the three-power Geneva talks then in progress.
Naturally Senators of the opposition party are more critical of the Administration
than their colleagues on the other side of the aisle. This brings up the subject of
"bipartisanship." Last April, Senator Fulbright insisted that "bipartisanship" is not
a desirable objective in debate on foreign policy. He is right. What we need is
genuine nonpartisan study and criticism, honest appraisal without reference to
narrow partisan advantage. In recent years the slogan of "bipartisanship" has too
often been invoked to muzzle criticism of Administration mistakes or to reduce the
issue to the lowest common denominator to satisfy all but the extremists in both
parties. The late Senator Arthur Vandenberg preferred the word nonpartisanship,
which he defined as "a mutual effort . . . to unite our official voice at the water's
edge so that America speaks with maximum authority. . . . It does not involve the
remotest surrender of free debate . . . and the 'loyal opposition' is under special
obligation to see that this occurs."
Senator Vandenberg's insistence on free debate is correct, but debate cannot be

arbitrarily stopped at "the water's edge." When a national consensus has been
reached on a vital issue, and when policies appropriate to this consensus have
been initiated, it is right that we close ranks to support them. But changing
circumstances produce new problems which require new consideration.
Responsible debate must never cease, even in wartime, but it must be carried on
with restraint and with the national interest the objective rather than partisan
advantage.
VI. THE PROBLEM OF COUNTERVAILING EXPERTISE
If the "unique, deliberate--and, to me, agreeable--disarray of the American

Government," to use William S. White's words, is to function properly, the foreign
policy committees of Congress must have the resources to enable them to
question, review, modify or reject the policies of the Executive Branch. The
information, intelligence and insight available to the Executive Branch are vast
and continue to expand. This is a natural development in an era of total
diplomacy. But in contrast, says Myron M. Cowen in a recent letter to Senator
Fulbright, there is "a concurrent scarcity of vigorous and continuing
countervailing expertise" in Congress. Such independent expertise is absolutely
necessary if the House and Senate are to fulfill their Constitutional responsibility
of surveillance and initiative. Without competent independent sources of fact and
wisdom they cannot make discriminating judgments between alternative
programs and proposals. Faced with an impressive case by the Administration,
and unarmed with counter facts and arguments, even a conscientious Senator
sometimes vacillates between giving a grudging consent and opposing for the
sake of opposing.
This imbalance constitutes a serious threat to the integrity of the Legislative

Branch. The main answer is more adequate staffing, particularly for the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee, the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the
Foreign Affairs Division of the Legislative Reference Service. At present there are
eight foreign policy specialists on the Senate Committee staff, five on the House
Committee staff, and 16 in the Legislative Reference Service--a total of only 29
experts directly in the service of Congress in the entire area of foreign relations.
If one adds the professional staffs of the two Armed Services committees, the
grand total is 35. Upon them falls much of the burden of examining the complex
Defense, International Affairs and Mutual Security budgets totalling $48 billion a
year. The size of this staff is out of all proportion to its enormous responsibility.
The Foreign Relations Committee needs a much larger and more specialized staff,
loyal to the Legislative Branch, and equal in competence to the best talent in the
State Department. My experience with the Disarmament Subcommittee convinces
me that functional areas as well as geographic areas should be accorded
subcommittee status, and that all subcommittees worth creating are worth an
independent staff of experts. An adequate staff could perform many services now
being performed poorly or not at all. It would have constant access to the facts
and intelligence available from all branches of government, from organizations
where independent research is carried on and from special Senate studies.
Adequate staffing will alone enable Congress to escape from uniformed
acquiescence on the one hand and irresponsible obstruction on the other.
VII. THE PROBLEM OF FRAGMENTATION
The Founding Fathers bequeathed to us a government in which there is a

separation of powers and a system of checks and balances. Some critics maintain
that such a government is incapable of meeting the fast-moving demands of a
technological age or of competing successfully with the dynamic, planned
offensives of an expansionist totalitarian system. While I reject this view, I do
acknowledge that "government as usual" is not good enough.
Our problem today does not seem to me to be primarily structural or bureaucratic

so much as the lack of leadership at the top. Even a loose-fitting and overlapping
governmental structure can be made to work if there is a sense of urgency and
direction; and this only dynamic leadership can provide.
Even under present conditions there are some things in the area of structural
manipulation which would enable us to deal more effectively than we do now with
the challenges of the continuing crisis. The Executive Branch and the Congress
are fragmented. There are a score of Executive agencies dealing with foreign
policy in addition to the State Department and the Department of Defense. One
sometimes gets the impression that the Bureau of the Budget is the most
important of them all. Theoretically, the President with the aid of the National
Security Council is supposed to sort out the priorities and coördinate a great
variety of policies in the light of an agreed, long-range strategy. Unfortunately
this rarely happens, first because the agreed strategy does not exist, second
because the National Security Council is so preoccupied with day-by-day crises
that it seldom has time for long-range planning.
The problem raised by the extent of governmental fragmentation is deep and

pervasive and there are no easy answers. But I believe that the time has come to
consider seriously the creation in the Executive Branch of a permanent research
and policy-analyzing agency charged with the responsibility of thinking about
comprehensive national strategy, embracing in that term all essential factors of
domestic and foreign policy. This agency would relate the total capacities of the
American people--military, economic, technical, intellectual and moral--to their
responsibilities of international leadership. Without elaborating my proposal here,
I want to make it clear that I do not regard such an agency as a substitute for
politics--as an alternative to the present responsibilities of the Executive and
Legislative Branches. I am not proposing that an intellectual élite be called in to
decide our fate for us, but merely that an agency along the lines described could
help our Government to develop a better sense of perspective and to integrate
and coördinate the many agencies and programs which now often operate at
cross-purposes.
Perhaps the Congress could prompt the Executive to put its house in order by
itself creating a Joint Committee on National Strategy, to include the chairmen
and ranking minority members of the major committees of the House and the
Senate. I have recently proposed such a Committee. Its purpose would be to look
at our total national strategy--military, political, economic and ideological. This
Committee, a counterpart in the Congress of what I have proposed for the
Executive Branch, would not usurp the functions of any of the present
Committees, but supplement them by endowing their work with a larger frame of
reference. The Chairmen of the Committees represented would come away from
the meetings of the new Joint Committee with a greater appreciation, for
instance, of the relationship between fiscal policy and national productivity and
how both factors relate to our defense posture and our negotiating position.
Responsible statesmanship consists precisely in the capacity to see complex
relationships in a perspective as broad as the national purpose itself.
No amount of structural manipulation can make up for a lack of leadership that is

politically wise and morally responsible. But if the essential idea underlying these
twin proposals were adopted, I believe it would make a modest contribution
toward creating a more integrated national policy; and in the face of the
Communist challenge, even a modest contribution toward better strategic
planning is not to be brushed aside.
Congress was not created to govern, and it should not attempt to do so. Yet this is
no time for Congress to submit meekly to the Executive will. In fact, it could not
submit even if it were so inclined, because there is not one Executive will, but a
number of conflicting wills which have not yet surrendered to the authority of an
over-riding national purpose.
[i] "The Limits of Foreign Policy" (New York: Holt, 1954).
[ii] The New York Times Magazine, January 6, 1957.
HUBERT H. HUMPHREY, United States Senator from Minnesota since 1948; member of the Senate Committee on
Foreign Relations
July 1,1959
Foreign Policy in Presidential
Campaigns
Dexter Perkins
NARA
Signing the Atomic Energy Act of 1954.
THE great quadrennial assize of the American people, completed last November,
provoked widespread discussion of American foreign policy. Such discussion
raises the general question as to whether or not the partisan struggle for power
has, over the years, resulted in the clarification of major issues in the diplomatic
field. And, even beyond this, we may ask if partisan rivalry in the field of foreign
policy has served the interests of the American people as a whole. The writer, in
posing these questions, very obviously is ready with an answer, and the answer is
preponderantly in the negative. But before proceeding to examine the matter, I
should clear the ground of possible misunderstandings of what it is I am trying to
show.
In the first place, no one denies that the partisan struggle is an essential part of
the democratic scheme of things. Popular government, to be most effective,
requires a party in office and a party in opposition. It requires that the acts of
those in office shall be submitted to constant scrutiny and to constant criticism,
and that the opportunity shall be afforded to expel from power one political
organization and replace it with another. In expressing a doubt as to the utility of
presidential elections in clarifying the issues of foreign policy, I do not for a
moment intend to denigrate the democratic process itself.
Nor is it intended to suggest that popular government is incompatible with the

successful conduct of foreign policy. Though some of our publicists seem to take
this point of view, the judgment of history does not confirm any such hypothesis.
The totalitarian régimes of Adolf Hitler, of Benito Mussolini and of the Japanese
militarists all committed errors greater and more conclusive than any committed
by the great democratic nations, and all have disappeared, the victims of their
own folly. The brutal régime in power in Russia has many cardinal mistakes in its
record--its futile attempt to come to terms with Hitler in 1939, which only
strengthened him for the assault of 1941; its provocative policies in the years
following the end of the war, which awakened the vigorous opposition of the
United States and brought about the redevelopment of American military power;
its cavalier treatment of Jugoslavia, which, as we can see today, has led in due
course to successful defiance of the Kremlin and to the weakening of the bonds in
the satellite states; and now its ruthless repression of the revolution in Hungary. I
do not intend in what follows in any way to suggest that the democracies are, in
the nature of things, incompetent to deal with questions of foreign affairs, or to
take a pessimistic view of the future in this regard.
Thirdly, it is not at all the purpose of this essay to suggest that the popular
discussion of foreign affairs is something intrinsically undesirable and that we had
best leave to the professionals the conduct of our diplomacy. In a democratic state
it is essential that the people should be informed; more than that, it is essential
that they should be heeded. No foreign policy will last, and none will succeed, that
does not have its roots in public opinion, that cannot be endorsed and sustained
by the legislative representatives of the people, that does not correspond to the
mores and the prepossessions of the mass of the nation. While the process of
negotiation may--and often ought to be--secret, the general purposes and
objectives of American foreign policy must be known, must in the long run
correspond to the public will. The question is not whether they are to be
scrutinized but whether it is more useful to review them in a calm and serene
atmosphere or in the heat of popular passion.
The case does not run all one way. First of all, it should be remarked that the
election debate could not be avoided even if we wished. It is useless to believe
that candidates for high public office will exclude from their appeals to the voter
any question on which they think an issue can be made or an error exploited. It is
simply not possible to avoid discussing what is uppermost in the public mind. It is
asking more than human nature can bear to expect that chinks in the armor of the
party in power will not be exploited by the opposition, and exploited to the full.
But we can put the case for public debate on higher grounds than this. To many
Americans, even in these latter days, the diplomatic action of the nation is
something esoteric. Deeply as questions of foreign policy affect the lives and
fortunes of us all, it is still the case that they do not occupy the place, in the minds
of many citizens, that is at all commensurate with their real importance. It is
therefore something to the good that they have a place in the great quadrennial
assize. Despite the exaggerations and distortions of a campaign, the public
interest is stimulated; the public knowledge is widened; the public judgment may
be in some degree clarified.
Furthermore, a Presidential election frequently makes clear, if not a concrete

policy, at least a public mood. For example, the election of 1952--whatever else it
did or did not do--made it crystal clear that the American people did not desire the
resumption of the Korean War, that they wished the struggle there to be brought
to an honorable end if that were at all possible. The election of 1940, to go further
back in time, made it reasonably clear that the predominant part of the electorate
looked with apprehension on the growth of the power of Hitlerian Germany. The
election of 1936, to go still further back in time, took place when isolationist
sentiment was dominant. The election of 1924 revealed that American entrance
into the League of Nations was a dead issue at that time. This is not to say that
the public sentiment, viewed objectively, represented the best interests of the
United States in every case. But it did clearly mark the boundaries within which a
foreign policy would, perforce, have to proceed.
Moreover, though there is an element of the imponderable in any judgment on the

matter, it may well be that there is a longterm effect on foreign policy questions
as a result of campaign debate. For example, in the campaign of 1900, the
Democrats seemed to be getting nowhere with their issue of anti-imperialism. But
the long-term policies by which the territories acquired in 1899 were given a
larger and larger degree of independence might conceivably have been less
completely and less quickly carried out if it had not been for the Democrats'
insistence during the campaign that governments derive their just powers from
the consent of the governed. In the same way, in the election of 1920, the friends
of the League came in for severe disappointment. But the idea of international
collaboration lived on; the idea of collective security, which lay at the heart of the
Covenant, survived. And in the longer run it may be that the effort made to
emphasize this issue was by no means wasted.
Finally, it may sometimes be the case that the introduction of an important

foreign policy issue into a great political campaign has indirect results which are
beneficial. It could be maintained, for instance, though it could hardly be
mathematically proved, that the Washington Conference on the Limitation of
Armaments, 1921-22, was a kind of Republican answer to the Democratic
advocacy of the League; that the strong sentiment in favor of international
coöperation generated in the Harding-Cox campaign had somehow to be satisfied,
and that if there had not been such a vigorous discussion of the Covenant, the
question of naval disarmament would have been less successfully dealt with in the
period that followed.
None the less, there is a strong argument for the thesis that campaign discussion
of foreign policy questions is frequently, perhaps usually, inconclusive on the
major issues examined; that the debate is often irrelevant to future policy; that
appeals are sometimes made to ethnic interests in a fashion that is not in the long
run to the advantage of anybody; and that an issue is often drawn too sharply and
a position assumed from which retreat is difficult, no matter how desirable a shift
of policy may be.
Before we examine whether a Presidential election does in fact provide a definite

decision on important foreign policy issues, it is relevant to observe that in very
few campaigns is a single issue dominant. The tendency of the party in power is to
point with pride all along the line; the tendency of the party out of power is to
attack here, there and everywhere, and its candidate, like the Polish cavalryman,
usually mounts his horse and rides off in all directions at once. When this is the
case, it is difficult, after the battle is over, to say precisely what it is that has been
decided, to separate one problem from another or to measure with any degree of
accuracy exactly what the public response was on the given foreign policy
question at issue.
There have, indeed, been only three campaigns when a kind of paramountcy
might reasonably be assigned to a specific matter in the field of external relations,
and on only one of these, it seems fair to say, was a decision actually arrived at.
We have to go a long way back to find this situation; we have to go back to 1844.
In June of that year a treaty for the annexation of Texas was placed before the
Senate by President Tyler and it was decisively defeated. Then came the
Presidential election, and the Democratic Party and its candidate declared--and
declared without equivocation--for annexation. The other party, the Whigs and
their candidate, Henry Clay, hedged. Although the election might easily have
swung the other way if it had not been for the presence of the Liberty Party on the
ballot in New York State and the fact that this party probably drew more votes
from the Whigs than the Democrats, the annexationist party none the less won.
And the remarkable fact is that the very Congress which had manifested its
opposition to the Texas treaty in June now proceeded by decisive votes, by joint
resolution, to bring the Lone Star State into the Union. We can hardly fail to
believe that the legislators were influenced by the verdict of the voters.
But in another respect those who voted the Democratic ticket in 1844 on foreign
policy grounds may well have cheated themselves. For the victorious party was
also pledged to insist upon the recognition of the American right to all of Oregon
(then in dispute with Great Britain), and this meant Oregon up to the line of 54
degrees, 40 minutes. Yet in 1846 President Polk came to an understanding with
the British Government which defined the boundary for the most part along the
line of 49 degrees, and never above it. So much, then, for 1844.
The second occasion on which an attempt was made to bring foreign policy into
the campaign as a matter of central importance was the campaign of 1900. Many
of the Democrats had been very critical of the treaty of peace with Spain; their
leader, William Jennings Bryan, had been bitterly opposed to the annexation of
territory that could not be assimilated with the rest of the Union, and the
Democratic platform of 1900 denounced the opposition in no uncertain terms,
declaring that the question of imperialism constituted the "paramount issue" of
the campaign. But, as Professor Bailey cogently pointed out many years ago in the
Mississippi Valley Historical Review, the attempt to keep the minds of the voters
on this particular question was by no means a success. The treaty of peace with
Spain had already been ratified and this complicated the problem. As the electoral
battle proceeded, Bryan tended to skate away from the foreign policy question
and turned to domestic issues. The country, prosperous and contented, would
probably in any case have returned President McKinley to office; and it would be
a bold man who would say that in 1900 the American people definitely affirmed
the policy of imperialism. Indeed, it is the best judgment of those who have
studied the matter that, if the issue could have been isolated, a contrary verdict
would have been rendered.
Of course the most striking case of a debate on foreign policy is the election of
1920. The Senate of the United States had twice defeated the Treaty of Versailles;
President Wilson, most inadvisedly as it seems in retrospect, insisted that the
matter be thrown into the Presidential campaign; and the Democratic Party in the
main supported the President. The Democratic platform called for "the immediate
ratification of the treaty without reservations which impair its essential integrity,"
though, in words the President may not have fully approved, it added that we "do
not oppose the acceptance of any reservations making clearer or more specific
the obligations of the United States to the League associates." The Republican
Party, in a declaration which was a masterpiece of generalities and which left the
party free to act in a number of different ways, said not a word about ratification
and was equivocal on the question of American membership in the League. One
might have thought that a fairly clear choice was presented to the American
voter. But it was not so to be. The Republican candidate gave some people the
impression that he was for the League and to others the impression that he was
against it. Thirty-one distinguished Republicans, including such eminent figures
as President Lowell of Harvard, Charles Evans Hughes and Herbert Hoover,
urged a vote for Mr. Harding on the ground that this was the only way to bring us
into the new world organization; they even went so far as to say that their party
would be "bound by every consideration of honor and good faith" to take
affirmative action. But, when the Republican Party won, no step was taken to
ratify the Treaty of Versailles; Mr. Hughes, the new Secretary of State, in vain
urged such a course on the new President, but the so-called irreconcilable wing of
the Republican Party called the tune. It is highly probable that many Republican
voters desired at least the ratification of the treaty with appropriate reservations;
the Vice-President-Elect of the United States, Calvin Coolidge, expressed that
opinion at the time; but nothing was done.
In considering this example of the intrusion of party politics into a question of

foreign policy, we must, of course, avoid too sweeping a judgment. It is possible to
argue that, had the United States joined the League, it would have done so
halfheartedly, that it was by no means ready to accept the principle of collective
security and that really not much harm was done. But surely some harm was
done. For the failure of the treaty deprived the United States of a seat on the
reparations commission set up to determine and regulate the payment of the
obligations imposed on Germany; and it is a verifiable fact that the absence of the
United States from this commission was one of the reasons--perhaps the major
reason--why the whole reparations question got out of hand and led to the French
invasion of the Ruhr, the passive resistance of the Germans and a tense
international situation which might otherwise have been avoided. It is difficult to
deny that in this case insistence on carrying a great foreign policy issue to the
people turned out to be an unhappy decision.
But more frequent than the attempt to make a clear-cut issue in the course of a
Presidential campaign is the tendency to make retrospective judgments instead of
enunciating positive policies. This tendency is understandable; and indeed the
voter who feels strongly that mistakes have been made in the past has a justifiable
reason for desiring a change of administration. None the less, the post facto
judgment cannot be said to clarify matters in any very effective way. Take, for
example, the campaign of 1916. At that time the controversy with Germany over
the submarine had been temporarily put to rest. The Germans had, in the previous
May, abandoned the underseas warfare, though reserving the right to resume it if
the American Government did not take vigorous action against what the Reich
alleged were British violations of international law. Democratic politicians raised
the cry, "He kept us out of war." The cry was essentially disingenuous; for no one
could say that the President could keep us out of war in the future and, indeed, he
was pretty much committed to lead us into war if the government in Berlin again
challenged us on the sea. But the Republican candidate, Hughes, was in no very
good position to outline a policy different from that of the Democrats. He could
not say that he would go to war without a casus belli; he could only criticize what
had been done, and this without consistency, sometimes alleging that if he had
been in office he would have prevented the submarine challenge and sometimes
saying that he would have acted more vigorously if the challenge had been made.
Neither the one side nor the other really prepared the country for what was
ahead, though perhaps it should be said that Theodore Roosevelt, speaking for the
Republicans, attempted to do so. In the same way, in that campaign, Mr. Hughes
vigorously criticized Wilsonian policy toward Mexico. There was just reason for so
doing, but he could not and did not propose any alternative course.
The same tendency to criticize the past, rather than formulate alternative policy
was evident in the campaign just finished. Without in the least assuming that our
diplomacy during the past four years has been beyond criticism, without denying
the right of the opposition to criticize, it may perhaps be fairly said that very little
in the way of constructive commentary came from the debate. To the specific
question of the hydrogen bomb I shall return a little later, but, if one puts this
matter aside for the moment, the generalization appears sound.
In more than one political campaign where foreign policy has been significant, a
deceptive emphasis has been placed on peace. An illustration of this is to be found
in the campaign of 1940. Before stating the point, however, it is necessary to say,
in simple justice, that President Roosevelt, on the eve of the electoral conflict, put
through the famous bases-destroyers deal, one of the most remarkable examples
of decisive action in a Presidential year, and that Wendell Willkie accepted the
manner, if not the substance, of the decision. Yet, as the political struggle went
on, the candidates talked more and more about peace. Those who wish to
understand this fully should look at Charles A. Beard's "American Foreign Policy
in the Making." Beard arranged in two parallel columns the assurances of Wendell
Willkie and Franklin Roosevelt that the United States would keep out of wars,
usually "foreign wars," to use a thoroughly sophistical phrase. So far as the
debate went, little was done to prepare the country for the lend-lease legislation
of the next year, and the Republican candidate, when testifying in favor of that
measure in 1941, somewhat jauntily explained his previous utterances on the
ground that they were just politics.
The campaign of 1940 is not the only one where the question of peace has been
handled in rather rough fashion. The welkin resounded with talk of peace in the
campaign of last autumn. Yet, so far as their devotion to peace is concerned, there
was no discernible difference between the candidates or the parties. Both, for
example, had supported the intervention in Korea in 1950; both wished to limit
our commitments in the Orient in 1956. Both were chary of taking any bellicose
action in the Near East. Differences as to procedure, differences as to past
techniques, yes; but no difference as to essential aims.
The talk of peace in the 1956 campaign almost certainly corresponded with the
mood of the voters. Yet surely abstract devotion to peace is not policy. Moreover,
in so far as we lay the accent on peace, as if peace could be had by wishing it, we
diminish the emphasis on those necessary measures in the field of defense and in
the field of negotiation which tend to promote world stability and the legitimate
interests of the United States. We tend to create the impression that we are
anxious to avoid trouble if not at any cost, at least at almost any cost. We take
academic positions in favor of the Hungarian insurgents, for instance, when we
have no intention of following protest with action. Or we condemn the action of
the British and the French in Egypt without in the least being willing to apply
sanctions against them. Things might have been the same even if an election had
not been impending; but it is easier to avoid this kind of pronouncement when
there is no immediate question of votes involved.
There have been occasions in the past, and there are occasions today, when an
electoral campaign is entangled with problems of racial or sectional groups. In the
campaign of 1920, for example, the German and the Irish vote were a matter of
interest to the politicians; and in catering to them the genuine issues of the
campaign were to some degree obscured. The isolationism of 1940 can be traced
to certain ethnic considerations. The hard fate of Poland offered an opportunity
for an appeal to a special group of our citizens in 1944 and again in 1956. It was
difficult to discuss the problem of Israel objectively in the heat of the last
campaign, though the Administration itself dealt with the problem courageously.
It is not that specific commitments are made which might later prove to be
embarrassing; most of our Presidential candidates have been above that. It is
merely that considerations extrinsic to the national interest occupy the minds of
the voters and deflect their judgment.
To make a different point, there is a danger that positions will be taken from
which it is difficult to retreat. It was not wise of the Democrats to talk about 54-40
in 1844 if they intended to compromise on 49. It was not wise of Warren Harding,
at the end of the campaign of 1920, to talk of scrapping the League. And in the
campaign of 1956 we have an example of a somewhat similar difficulty, in the
controversy over the hydrogen bomb. We shall, of course, grant to Adlai
Stevenson complete sincerity in his agitation for the abandonment of the testing
of the larger hydrogen bombs. The question is a weighty one and--unless we take
the position that it is too technical for popular understanding--one that needed to
be clarified. But at the same time various questions may be asked with propriety.
May not the raising of the problem have produced an undesirable hardening of
view on the part of the Administration? Has not discussion of this matter tended
to thrust into the background the far-reaching problem of reduction (and
inspection) of atomic armaments in general? I put forward these inquiries with
some hesitation, but they seem to me to be the right inquiries to make.
But in dealing with electoral issues, we have not answered the whole question
posed at the beginning of this article. What of partisan and foreign affairs in
general? Here, as in the more restricted area of campaigns, we cannot expect,
whatever may be the theory of the matter, that partisanship will cease because we
wish it to cease. Just as partisanship sometimes bedevils us in an election, so it
sometimes bedevils us between elections. There are many very clear examples
drawn from relatively recent history. One of them comes from the experience of
the years 1939-41. No one should impugn the motives of those who, in those
fateful years, wished sincerely and on what they deemed good grounds to abstain
from a positive policy of assistance to Great Britain. But when one examines the
votes in Congress, it becomes patent that opposition to the policy of the
Administration tended to form along party lines. This was almost wholly true in
the debate on the repeal of the arms embargo in the fall of 1939. It was true to a
substantial degree in the debate on lend-lease in 1941. It was true of the debate
on the extension of the draft in the summer of the same year. It was again
emphatically true when the President asked for authority to arm the merchant
ships of the United States and to end the restrictions on their free navigation in
the fall of that same year. It is not possible to believe that such alignments were
based on objective judgment of the issues involved.
The same thing was true of the recall of General MacArthur in 1951. The General
himself had sought partisan support just before his recall in his famous letter to
Congressman Martin. The discussion that followed turned on a very fundamental
and far-reaching question of policy, that is, whether we would limit our operations
in Korea and accept a truce there which left the northern part of the country in
the hands of the Communists, or whether we should extend our military activities.
It certainly did not make it easier to come to a decision when party passions were
deeply aroused and when our division on the question, and much that might have
been kept secret, was broadcast to the world. Here again the case does not run all
one way. To cite only one example, Democratic opposition to any commitment
with regard to Quemoy and Matsu may have saved the Administration from a step
conceivably embarrassing and unsupported by preponderant opinion. Yet in
general our greatest achievements in the field of foreign policy have occurred
when there was bipartisan support.
Take, for example, the Good Neighbor Policy. This was really initiated under
Republican administrations; it was amplified and extended under Democratic
administrations. Though there have been flaws in the record, it has in general
given consistency to our diplomatic action in Latin America and would, by most
observers, be adjudged a success. Take the Marshall Plan. Here, perhaps, is the
greatest diplomatic achievement of the postwar period. It was originated in a
Democratic administration and put through a Congress controlled by Republicans.
Take the North Atlantic Treaty. It was the product of bipartisan consultation and
of bipartisan coöperation. And, while it is harder to judge of its effects than of the
effects of the Marshall Plan, it seems probable that by the show of resolution
which it embodied, it had much to do with the modification of Russian policy in
the years that followed. Take the action of Congress with regard to the régime of
General Chiang Kai-shek on the island of Formosa. The policy we have adopted
towards Chiang may be variously judged. But is it not certain that by speaking out
clearly, as the President did on the question of protecting the island, and by
securing from the Congress bipartisan support, he did something to clarify the
situation in the Far East? Have not the successes of American foreign policy, in a
far more general sense, come when we were united, and not when we were
divided?
There is a partial riposte, however, to this last observation. How bring about
unity, it may be objected, except through discussion? The answer is, there is no
other way. But the discussion will be more likely to reach its goal, the decision
arrived at will be more likely to stand the test of time, if we try so far as possible
to abstract from it the strong emotional overtones and undertones of an electoral
contest, if we discuss it in terms other than those of partisan rivalry.
Our historical experience demonstrates, I believe, that with one exception, it has
been difficult to give to a single question in the field of foreign policy a central
position in a Presidential campaign; that the natural tendency of candidates for
office is to blur, rather than to define sharply, the specific issue; that there is an
understandable disposition to retrospective judgment rather than to clear-cut
affirmation with regard to the future; that it is easy to resort to shibboleths and
abstractions in a way that does little to clarify urgent issues of policy; that the
point of view of large groups of voters, particularly the ethnic groups, hampers
candid discussion; and that in the heat of the partisan struggle positions may be
taken from which it is difficult to retreat. In stating these things, it is by no means
to be supposed that we can or will alter the character of American political
rivalry; we are asking little less than a substantial change in our political mores.
But in proportion as American political leaders seek to exorcise the party spirit,
express themselves with candor on the issues, look forward and not backward,
and put away the temptation to appeal to special interests, the foreign policy of
the United States will develop a consistency that makes effective action possible,
and a clarity that is the harbinger of wisdom and the secret of success.
DEXTER PERKINS, Professor of History, Emeritus, University of Rochester, and Professor of American Civilization at
Cornell University; Chairman of the Harvard Foundation for Advanced Study and Research; author of "The Monroe
Doctrine," "The Evolution of American Foreign Policy" and other works
January 1,1957
Korea in Perspective
Adlai E. Stevenson
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
U.S. President Harry Truman with Illinois Senator Adlai Stevenson (seated) and Alabama Senator John
Sparkman.
THE strength of America is rooted in a great principle--individuals are an end, not

a means. That is the American idea. Schools, colleges, labor unions, political
parties and the Government of the United States exist for American men and
women; never the other way round. The corollary of the idea is that every
individual must take responsibility for the whole. He must himself take
responsibility for the safety and the wise development of his country, and for the
selection of policies which determine its safety and progress. The basic
requirement for the success of a democratic system of this sort is, of course, that
individuals see their country's problems whole. In a word, they must have
perspective.
This is especially true, and especially difficult to achieve, in problems of foreign

relations. "Foreign policy," in the year 1952, covers the globe. In no other area is
it so easy to have a picture of many single trees and no idea what the forest looks
like. But the neatest description of a tree is not a dependable map for making
one's way through a forest.
Gaining perspective on American foreign policy begins with gaining a view of

America's position in the world--her position as a World Power. This can be
indicated in half a dozen words: American interests, power and responsibilities
are world-wide. Alongside this must be set two other basic facts which are
revealed in any full view of the field of foreign policy. One is that a world-wide
imperialist war is now being carried on by the Soviet Union and its Communist
satellites. The other is the existence of a world-wide organization of states "united
in strength to maintain international peace and security"--the United Nations. The
relationship of these three great world forces--the United States, the Soviet Union
and the United Nations--are the primary elements in the American problem of
foreign policy today.
There is no possibility of doubting (and no reason for ignoring!) the fact that the
Soviet objective is one world--one Communist world. Thanks to the
interconnections of Soviet imperialism and international revolutionary
Communism the Soviet Government is able always to pursue a dual strategy. The
strategy is implicit in Bolshevik theory. From the day Lenin seized power in
Russia--and indeed even earlier--his strategy was one of "double diplomacy:" a
long-range policy, a short-range policy; a set of slogans for home consumption, a
set of slogans for foreign confusion; warfare against the Russian people, warfare
against all foreigners; political warfare and military warfare, simultaneous or
interchangeable. No American foreign policy which does not allow for the over-all
view of this Soviet duplicity, and which does not have both political and military
weapons to counter it, can provide for our safety or enable us to carry out our
responsibilities. The effort to achieve the over-all view is the basic task of
Americans.
This is a campaign year in America, and we must expect oversimplification of

issues and contradictory advice regarding them. Men, even responsible men, will
wander far afield in search of votes. They will capitalize every discontent, every
prejudice, every credulity, even in the deadly serious business of foreign policy.
Will we emerge from the ordeal of the campaign more aware of the true causes of
our difficulties and the magnitude of the stakes involved? Or less aware? Will we
emerge better prepared to turn with fortitude to the work in hand? Or worse
prepared? These are the central questions which should be answered decisively
by the elections.
II
The election campaign has not begun too well in this respect. What, for example,
are we to make of the repeated charge that the Korean war is "Truman's war,"
that the President thrust the United States into it lightly, inadvisedly and against
the best interest of the Republic, that it is a "useless" war, and that "we stand
exactly where we stood three years ago"? What is the purpose of the petulant
animosity shown in some quarters toward the United Nations, and of the
despairing conclusion in others that the United Nations has "let us down" and has
become more a danger to us than a source of strength? This kind of talk is
deplorable because it belittles the heroic sacrifices of American and Allied
soldiers and depreciates the value of an international effort that cost us an even
greater war to achieve. But it seems to me more than deplorable. It seems to me
dangerously misleading. What are we to think of statesmen who don't lead, but
who mislead?
The purpose of such utterances apparently is to seek to make a single individual

responsible for developments resulting from past actions taken by all the
American people. Our present troubles do not stem from the bad judgment or
weakness of particular individuals, any more than it would be true to say that any
one man's insight has been responsible for our successes--which have been
notable. Our setbacks and our victories are alike the products of the full sweep of
recent history; and for that we are all of us responsible. Twice within 25 years this
country felt compelled to intervene in wars to redress the balance of power in the
world. At the close of World War II, with Britain exhausted and France
demoralized, with German and Japanese power crushed, the United States and
the Soviet Union stood virtually face to face, with other nations polarized around
them. Imperial Russia, historically a great expanding Power, now heavily armed
and equipped with the seductive weapon of revolutionary Communism, soon
showed that she was on the move again, seizing weaker nations here, probing
there, pressing relentlessly with propaganda and infiltration against the free
world. During the Second World War, and with the experience of the prewar
period fresh in their minds, our people concluded that isolation was no solution to
the problem of security in a shrunken world. Their decision was reinforced by this
rising spectre of another ruthless imperial power on the march. They concluded
that the time to stop aggression, like a plague, was before it started; and that the
way to do it was by organized community action.
It is now some time since we engaged in the formidable task of developing the
community of free peoples--first through the United Nations, since the problem is
inexorably world-wide; then through the North Atlantic Treaty Organization,
designed to strengthen a particularly exposed salient--the Western European
"peninsula" of the vast central "Heartland," as the great geographer Mackinder
called it; simultaneously by strengthening the important Organization of American
States in our own hemisphere; and by numerous other treaties and agencies. The
American response to the North Korean aggression, which was supplied and
equipped by the Soviet Union and could not have occurred without its instigation
or approval, was therefore neither erratic nor impetuous. It was part and parcel of
a strategy of collective security which had been in the making for a long time and
which had been urged, welcomed and agreed upon long since with virtual
unanimity by the American people.
When North Korean forces invaded the Republic of Korea on June 25, 1950, with
the full support of Peking and Moscow, most of us knew what was at stake. One of
the men who took part in the long, anxious meeting at Blair House gave the
simplest explanation of the decision: "This attack on South Korea is like Hitler's
reoccupation of the Rhineland." Historians have for years commented on the
tragic mistake of France in not ordering the instant mobilization of the French
Army when Hitler's troops started marching--and on the shortsightedness of the
British and others who failed to urge and support such action.
An American columnist pointed out in June 1950 that President Truman's

decision, taken with the virtually unanimous support of the American people and
their representatives in Congress, recalled the words of former Secretary of State
Henry L. Stimson following what he termed "the tragedy of timidity" in the Far
Eastern crisis of the early thirties: "I broke out and said," wrote Mr. Stimson,
"that I was living in a world where all my troubles came from the same thing . . .
where we are constantly shut in by the timidity of governments . . . and I said that
the time had come when somebody has got to show some guts."
Senator Knowland, Republican, of California, a frequent critic of Administration

Far Eastern policy, was the first to take the floor of the Senate in support of the
President's announcement: "I believe that, in this very important step the
President of the United States has taken to uphold the hands of the United
Nations and the free peoples of the world, he should have the overwhelming
support of all Americans, regardless of their partisan affiliations." In similar vein
the approving chorus swept the Congress and the country. One Member of
Congress only opposed American armed aid to the victims of Communist
aggression--Representative Marcantonio of New York, subsequently defeated for
reëlection.
To call Korea "Truman's war" distorts the entire historical significance of our
prompt response through the United Nations to the cynical Communist challenge
to the whole concept of collective peace and security--the concept which we are
pledged to defend and which only the Soviet Union has an interest in destroying.
Mr. Truman happened to be the President of the United States when the
challenge came. Did the American people wish it to go unanswered, did they wish
all hope for the new community of nations banded together in strength to limit
war to collapse? Time magazine, with a backward glance at the equivocation of
the League of Nations, summed up the matter simply: "This time, when the
challenge came, the United States accepted it." So did the United Nations. To call
this "Truman's war" is to deny the manifest common approval of our prompt
action.
Inevitably there are differences of opinion now about the course of events in
Korea. The decision to defeat the challenge of aggression by force brought
grievous losses in blood and treasure. The first feeling of relief which welcomed
the stern, swift action of two years ago has given way to criticism and impatience.
In taking stock of where we now stand, however, we should not talk about our
problems out of context.
There is nothing to be gained by what General Marshall used to call "fighting the
problem." The problem is that the Soviet rulers and their Communist satellites
consider themselves at war with us, but that we are not in fact at war with them.
It is complicated by the further fact that war in their sense is waged
interchangeably by military and political instruments. In view of this it is proper
for us to ask ourselves what would have happened if we had "fought the problem"-
-that is, evaded it--in June 1950. What would have happened if the United States
and the United Nations had ignored the Korean aggression?
I can venture a guess. Our friends throughout Asia and in the Pacific would with
perfect reason have doubted our intention to resist Soviet design elsewhere in
that area, and they would of necessity have taken the path of appeasement.
Disillusionment would also have swept Western Europe at this impressive
demonstration of Soviet-satellite power and of American indecision in the face of a
direct challenge. Then would not the Soviet Union, having challenged us
successfully in Korea, have followed that challenge with another? And still
another? Munich would follow Munich. Our vacillation would have paralyzed our
will and worked havoc in the community of like-minded nations. Then when we
did succeed in pulling ourselves together we would have found it too late to
organize a common front with our friends. I think there is good reason to believe
that the resolute action by the United Nations forces in Korea not only gained
time in the East but saved NATO in the West. The alternative was to surrender all
positions of strength, to enfeeble if not destroy the grand alliance of the free--and
then, perhaps, to resort in desperation to a general war when our moral, political
and strategic position had been weakened disastrously.
There is, of course, no tidy solution to the Korean problem, precisely because it is
only a part of the whole Soviet imperialist drive--an episode, really, in the sweep
of history which relentlessly confronts freedom with thralldom. In a world where
the objective of the Soviet Union is to eliminate every rival center of power we
must measure our gains and our losses not in absolute terms but in relation to the
over-all situation. The Soviet rulers themselves describe their struggle with the
non-Soviet world as war. In Korea we have made plain to the Kremlin that we are
not fooled by its use of catspaws, and that we recognize war fought at second
hand when we see it. Our object is to convince them that other aggressions,
disguised or direct, will meet the same response, and thus deter them from a
perhaps fatal gamble. At the same time, by limiting the war in Korea, we hope to
avoid a third general holocaust. We are trying to use force not only to frustrate
our immediate antagonists in the hills of Korea but to preserve world peace. For
that reason the full settlement of the Korean problem is likely to take a long time
and to wait upon the settlement of many other issues. Once again, perspective.
It is possible, of course, that we may fail in our effort to keep the Korean fighting
limited: for just as it takes only one to start a war, so it takes only one to prolong
it. The aggressor is the one who decides whether or not the war he has started
can be limited. But we have diligently and painfully sought to keep it from
spreading. Given the terms of the problem, there is no guarantee of success. It
simply seems wiser to pay large insurance premiums than to look forward to
rebuilding after the fire.
Meanwhile, some of the positive gains of our policy thus far may properly be
noted. Talk of the "uselessness" of the Korean war gained currency only when
negotiations for an armistice dragged out, and after we had in fact accomplished
the primary objective of stopping the aggression and driving the aggressors back
from whence they came--across the 38th parallel. Assured of satisfactory
armistice terms, we would have little purpose in continuing hostilities. But what
sort of logic is it to say that because the continuation of the war does not serve
our interests, the entire enterprise was futile from the start?
And while it is too early to make any final estimate of the Korean experience, it is
also foolish and misleading to say we "stand exactly where we stood three years
ago." The first reason is that the Korean engagement put the American
rearmament effort into high gear. Having virtually obliterated our armed strength
after World War II, we were slow to reconcile ourselves to the economic
dislocation and sacrifices needed to recreate it. Proof that the Soviet Union would
speed the advance of troops across a national frontier dissolved our reluctance.
Now our increasing strength not only puts us in a better position to answer
further military aggression. We also are in a position to conduct a bolder
diplomacy--in other words, to take the initiative politically.
Second, our leadership in fighting aggression in Korea not only saved the moral
and psychological defenses of Western Europe from possible disintegration but
sparked the rapid build-up there of physical defenses. The demonstration that
there could be successful resistance to the Soviet Union and imperial Communism
gave the leaders of Europe hope and persuaded their peoples to accept more
readily the burdens and risks of rearmament. It is routine politics for even the
timid and faint of heart among us to talk about the necessity for American
"leadership." Had America not in fact led, but shrunk from the challenge of Korea,
would Europe have tackled the vast, costly and painful program of organizing
Western defenses?
Third, the Soviet Union now knows that the path of conquest is mortally
dangerous. The Korean aggression very likely was planned as merely the first of a
series of military actions--initially by satellites, finally to be undertaken by the
Soviet Union itself. If so, the lesson of Korea may be of historic importance.
Speculation about possible adjustments in the thinking of the men in the Kremlin
must be cautious. Perhaps for a time the Soviet Union will now content itself with
manœuvres in the cold war; or perhaps Western strength of will is to be further
tested by some other military challenge; or perhaps Stalin and his partners will
reason that a full-scale war (which Communist theory foreshadows) had best be
waged in the immediate future rather than when the armament programs of the
West become more fully effective. It can be argued that Stalin, in his old age, will
never risk the loss of the empire he has built up; but it can also be said that he
may believe what his sycophants tirelessly chant--that he is "the greatest
commander of all times and peoples"[i]--and that if the "terrible collisions"
prophesied in Communist dogma are indeed to come, then they had best come
while he is still alive. We dare not tie our policies to any one assumption
regarding Soviet intentions. Whatever those intentions are, however, the Soviet
miscalculation in Korea will make them harder of fulfillment.
Fourth, our support of the first great collective military effort of the United
Nations to resist aggression demonstrated that the organization is adaptable to
the rôle of enforcement as well as that of conciliation. In the crisis there emerged
proof of the viability of the concept of collective security, a fact of inestimable
importance for the security of every free country--including our own. Sixteen
countries contributed fighting forces. The policies of the free nations have been
concerted consistently in the votes relating to Korea. While troops of the Republic
of Korea and the United States have been obliged to carry the main burden of the
fighting and we may properly regret the absence of more help from others, we
should not overlook the fact that the responsibility for resistance to Communist
military aggression in certain other areas is borne more by others than by
ourselves. If another showdown is provoked elsewhere, the system of collective
security is in better shape now to meet it than it was before June 1950. In short,
while Korea has not proved definitively that collective security will work, it has
prevented the Soviet Union from proving that it won't work. And the Korean
experience, moreover, has hastened the development of the General Assembly of
the United Nations as an agency of enforcement, free from the Soviet veto.
Fifthly, we may record that the successful resistance in Korea has contributed
greatly to the successful negotiation of a Treaty of Peace with Japan, as well as of
arrangements satisfactory to us regarding the future security of that country. A
failure on our part to give evidence of a willingness to act in a time of crisis would
not have encouraged the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand and Japan to enter
into the recently negotiated network of the Pacific security treaties.
One further national advantage from this "useless" war deserves at least to be
mentioned. We have learned vital military lessons in Korea. I am not competent to
discuss improvements in tactics and weapons, nor would it be appropriate here to
do so. But a more effective use of forces and armaments as a result of long testing
under actual combat conditions is to be counted as an important residual return
on our investment in this savage conflict.
III
So much for this historic frustration of Communist military conquest. Soviet

policy, however, is dual. Indispensable as was the United Nations for the repulse
of the aggression in Korea, it is needed even more in the political struggle in
which we are engaged.
Obviously the United Nations has not fulfilled all the high hopes that some people
entertained when it was founded. The idea that it would automatically usher in an
era of sweetness and light was exaggerated at the start, as was soon
demonstrated when Soviet imperialism made plain that it was determined to
prevent the organization of the world on any but its own terms. But again look at
the woods, not the trees. Although the United Nations has worked haltingly, at
times badly--it has worked. Since the present world-wide coalition of free peoples
is inconceivable without a central forum and instrument for discussion and
adjustment, it remains an indispensable part of our foreign policy. The problem is
to make the organization function more perfectly. Granted that it has done little to
adjust the differences between the Soviets and the free world: so long as the
Soviet rulers prosecute their dual war--against their own people and against all
outsiders--there is no reason to expect that it will. Even so, it maintains at least
formal contact between the two worlds. Our willingness to keep the door open for
talk and negotiation is essential evidence for our friends (who stand more deeply
in the shadow of the Russian fist than we do) that we will accept any reasonable
opportunity to better relations and avoid all-out war.
Again, the United Nations is indispensable as an agency for concerting policies

among the free states, including (as we found in the case of Korea) enforcement
action. The bulk of the members of the General Assembly are free nations. In spite
of the discouraging and frustrating debate with the Russians--or perhaps thanks
in part to their recalcitrant and dogmatic postures--policies have been developed
in the General Assembly to cope better with many of the perils to economic
stability and international justice. Obviously not all international questions need
or should be put before the United Nations; and certainly we should use our
influence to preserve a safe boundary line between those domestic affairs which
are our own concern and the external affairs which are of concern to all. These
are matters for careful study and progress by stages. But surely to prevent a
trespass it is not sensible to shoot the watchman; nor to burn down the barn to
roast a pig.
The audible yearning to escape from it all, the murmurs and cries of disdain for
the "meddlers," the "globalists" and the "foreigners" now sometimes heard in our
midst, are strangely familiar. Are they groans from the ghost of America First, still
looking for an unassailable Gibraltar, safe from assault by men--or ideas? I doubt
if many Americans will be drawn into a renewal of that wishful search. I think the
eagle, not the ostrich, will continue to be the American emblem.
The reality of the matter is that American power is going to be preponderant on

our side of the Iron Curtain for many years to come, and that without this
concentration of power there would be no possibility of pulling the free world
together or providing for an effective common defense. Our friends abroad know
this. And the reality is likewise that a successful military defense, and a successful
political advance, depend on the coöperation of a large number of governments--
in the Far East and the Middle East, in Europe and in this hemisphere. More, our
ability to take the initiative depends not simply on the coöperation of
governments, but on the good will of peoples who support these governments. We
live in a new world--a world where the stronger need the help of the weaker!
We should not be too surprised that the same nations that formerly were alarmed
at our isolationism are now concerned about how we will use our power. Just
because of our strength we are a target for much unjust resentment. Surely we
can call upon a sufficiently long historical perspective, and a sufficiently
intelligent understanding of human nature, not to be too much surprised by that.
Men in lands which have recently freed themselves from old tyrannies know all
too well the temptations of power. Their fear that we may fall into old errors is not
unnatural. And indeed, who among us would dare say that we do not have much
to learn? No single nation, viewing the world from a particular perspective, can
have a monopoly of insight. We must take the criticisms as they come--sometimes
as fair warning--and redouble our efforts to develop mutual policies based on
adequate understanding between sovereign but interdependent partners.
Sovereign international authorities over a wide area, or fully unified political

councils in the whole of the free world, are not in prospect. We must concert our
policies with those of our friends by the instruments available. Our aim should be
to improve the machinery for mutual give and take, both in the United Nations
and in regional agencies. Fortunately, the menace of the Soviet Union tends to
promote a common view among those marked out as prey; and it can further be
said that despite differences in approach and emphasis, much of the free world
now shares a wide range of political and economic interests which move it in the
direction of unity. The United Nations is an invaluable instrument for harmonizing
differences in those interests. It and other agencies such as the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization have given us--and our friends--considerable experience in
this unceasing task of mutual accommodation. The United States will find support
among peoples in the free states to the degree that they believe that we do not
simply consult our own interests but give consideration to their interests as well--
that we in truth have a "decent respect for the opinions of mankind." Other
nations have a reciprocal obligation to give weight to our interests too. There is
no doubt that our power gives us an advantage in this process. But neither is
there room to doubt that if we wish allies who will go forward with us with
courage and fortitude into the risks of the future, they must be willing and
confident allies.
Let us also remember that the alternative to the United Nations is not a vacuum.
There would at once be formed another "world organization." The Soviet Union,
true to its policy of duplicity, has this alternative organization already in hand--
presumably to be based on the "World Peace Council," formed on November 22,
1950, at the "Second World Peace Conference" in Warsaw. Professor Frederic
Joliot (known better as Joliot-Curie through his appropriation of a revered name
on which he has no claim of blood) presided, as "President of the Bureau," at the
most recent meeting, in Vienna last November. Various trained seals were
brought from all corners of the world. For the gist of the program one can take
almost any of the old Marxist fighting slogans and substitute the word "peace" for
the word "revolution." In Soviet double-talk they mean the same.
IV
The burden of my argument, then, based on the meaning of our experience in

Korea as I see it, is that we have made historic progress toward the establishment
of a viable system of collective security. To deprecate our large and decisive share
in that undertaking as "useless" is both mischievous and regressive. It will stiffen
no backs, lift no hearts and encourage no one except our enemies.
The particulars of the forward political movement which our successful

acceptance of the Soviet challenge in Korea has made possible for us would form
the beginnings of a new analysis, not a conclusion for this one. What is
incontrovertible, I think, is that America needs and wants allies. I think most
Americans know this. I think we believe that the redress in the balance of power
in the world must be completed, and quickly. I think we believe that the great
experiment in collective security on which we embarked in 1945 is still in the long
run our best chance for peace. I think we believe that international coöperation is
more than elocution. In short, I think most of us have convictions about the
position of the United States in the world today and accept the risks and
responsibilities inherent in that position. The nature of the American decision was
shown--is shown--in Korea. Shall we retreat from that decision? Shall we go it
alone? Or shall we go forward with allies? When our experience in Korea has been
placed in perspective, this remains the issue behind the dust and turmoil of this
election year.
[i] Pravda, November 6, 1951.
ADLAI E. STEVENSON, Governor of Illinois; United States Delegate at the United Nations General Assembly, 1946 and
1947
April 1,1952
November 1952: Imperatives of
Foreign Policy
McGeorge Bundy
CENTRAL PHOTOGRAPHIC AGENCY

General Dwight Eisenhower during his visit in Warsaw, Poland, 1944.
FOR the student of foreign affairs, the most important part of the campaign of
1952 ended in Chicago in July. The choice which remains is as nothing compared
to the choices that were made in the nominating conventions. Differences exist
between General Eisenhower and Governor Stevenson and between their parties,
but at least in the first few weeks after the conventions these differences seemed
esoteric in comparison with those which might have been expected on the basis of
what was being said and done by party leaders on both sides in the Washington of
the 82nd Congress. To men of sober opinion this result was deeply satisfying;
even earnest partisans were able to agree that both parties had chosen with
distinction. Only the heartiest haters were disappointed.
Contemplating this remarkable result, many were tempted simply to thank their
lucky stars; but it was not all luck. These two nominations were not accidental.
They were not even the result primarily of the managerial skill of those whose
manœuvres were so closely followed by the nation in the alternating boredom and
fascination of the television proceedings. Behind these nominations lay a
widespread and solid recognition of certain great national imperatives, not the
least of which were in the field of foreign affairs. Whatever might be honestly
believed by partisans of Senators Kefauver and Taft, it was agreed by
uncommitted observers that the two nominees were the strongest candidates
their respective parties could have found, and in each case a significant part of
this strength was related to foreign policy.
II
The fundamental meaning of the Eisenhower candidacy can best be understood by

considering the nature of the forces he was drafted to stop--for fundamentally he
was the stop-Taft candidate and would almost surely have remained in Europe if
the pre-convention Republican front-runner had been a Dewey or a Vandenberg.
This is not to deny that General Eisenhower was and is a candidate of great
attraction and power in his own right, but merely to assert that these qualities can
best be understood and evaluated by considering what they were measured
against.
The main objects in stopping Mr. Taft were two--first, to prevent the nomination
of a loser; and second, to avoid selecting as the party leader a man of isolationist
or neo-isolationist background. These two purposes were closely related, for much
of Mr. Taft's supposed weakness as a Presidential vote-getter was believed to be
due to the vulnerability of his record on foreign affairs. So clear was this
weakness in his candidacy that Mr. Taft himself was driven to claim that there
were no important differences between his views on foreign affairs and those of
General Eisenhower--an announcement which must have been surprising to some
of the Senator's more passionate supporters.
Yet judged only by his views on present and future policy, Mr. Taft's astonishing
claim is correct. In his little campaign book on foreign policy, published at the end
of 1951, he took a surprisingly moderate position on current and future problems;
it was only as he gazed backward that his zestful opposition became specific. In
some past cases, indeed, like that of his vote against the Atlantic Treaty, he
seemed prepared to forgive and forget; he now professed to be a friend of NATO.
No man with Mr. Taft's temperament could be accused of "me-too-ism," but his
program for the future did make him look surprisingly like a reluctant double for
President Truman. Even in regard to the Far East, while breathing the righteous
indignation of a belated friend of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, Mr. Taft
advanced no specific recommendations that differed greatly from the position of
the Administration. Throughout his campaign for the nomination he made a
determined effort to stand before the friends of the bipartisan tradition as a man
of reasonable and moderate views.
Mr. Taft's conversion may have been more tactical than substantial; behind the
apparent similarity of present purposes there remained large differences of
temperament and emphasis between him and General Eisenhower. Yet these
reservations merely reinforce the central point. If it was against his will and
perhaps for political advantages that Mr. Taft came as far as he did, then the
forces driving him must have been powerful indeed. The basic propositions of
which General Eisenhower was a symbol had been accepted as national
imperatives. To these imperatives Mr. Taft himself made a stiff bow.
These national imperatives, however complex and testing they may be in detailed
application, are essentially simple and can be stated for this generation in three
propositions. First, the United States is required by its own principles and
purposes to act in opposition to and restraint of the aggressive and hostile
pressures of the Soviet Union. Second, this and other actions in world politics
must be taken with a decent respect to the opinions of others, and with an
understanding of the importance of independent friends. Third, the great
limitation upon all policy is that a third world war would be a catastrophe of a
new order of magnitude, and perhaps most of all for the United States. In short,
the United States must act with friends and against enemies, for freedom and
peace. The simple statement holds within it all the complexities of a constantly
shifting and infinitely variable international scene; the three propositions define
the problem without solving it. Yet without definition--or while there is a national
debate on definition--problem-solving must be cumbersome and slow.
The affirmative meaning of General Eisenhower's candidacy, above and beyond

his evident reputation as a great American, lay primarily in the quite
extraordinary degree to which in his one person there were symbolized all three
of these basic propositions of modern American policy. He was a soldier who had
stated only the bald and self-evident truth when he remarked with anger in June
that he did not have to defend himself against the perverted suggestion that he
might be blind to the character of the Soviet Power; for over a year it had been his
reputation and leadership, as much as any other single factor, that gave energy to
the European will to outlast that Power. Yet his whole career was a reminder that
the United States must not try to go it alone; he was the most successful leader of
mixed forces in modern history. And withal, soldier and Supreme Commander
though he might be, he had succeeded beyond the possibility of pretense in
convincing both Americans and their friends abroad that he was at heart a man of
peace.
Throughout the Republican Convention speakers denied with fervor the validity of
the imperatives we have asserted, and by no distant inference they talked in
opposition to Eisenhower. It is at least possible that a majority of the delegates
would have liked to believe and act on what they heard. Yet although no one can
assert that the actual result was inevitable, there was discernible in the response
to General MacArthur, Mr. Hoover and the rest a sense that however beautiful it
might be, it was not life; this time the fadeaway, though much regretted, was real.
In the end the choice fell on the man who was self-evidently a believer in the new
necessities. It was not good enough to be a tardy and begrudging convert. It is
hard to avoid the feeling that in choosing as they did the Republicans went with
the stream of history.
A final reinforcement to this view comes to the student who steps back to consider
this Convention in the light of its predecessors. In 1948 there had been no such
set of speeches, and still less had the vitriol of frustration spilled out into the
platform. In 1952 the platform indulged in a belated backward leer at "Teheran,
Yalta, and Potsdam;" four years earlier, when these supposed crimes were a good
deal more recent and relevant, there had been no such reference, but only sober
contentment with the responsible realities of the age of Vandenberg. Similarly in
1944 the Republicans had chosen to stand up for international coöperation, and it
was a fact of life that very little in the whole roll-call of great actions since 1944
had been without substantial bipartisan support. Yalta itself had once had
Republican friends.
Seen in this perspective, the speakers at the Republican Convention of 1952 must
appear as throwbacks, and the strong feelings which they represented are
precisely those which may properly be called reactionary--for there is a special
fervor and bitterness among men who are fighting to defeat their own inner
conviction that history had passed them by. And the whole of the two-year
outburst which surrounded the name of Senator Mc-Carthy might turn out, in the
same fashion, to be scum on the wave of the past. It was too soon to preach a
funeral oration over the corpses of the Republican reactionaries; if General
Eisenhower should be beaten, they would probably again have a violent fling in
1956. Yet there was good reason to hope that the forces represented by the
Convention speeches were much weaker than they seemed.
III
The nomination of Governor Stevenson was generally regarded as having no

unusual meaning in terms of foreign affairs, yet in some ways it has a significance
equal to the choice of General Eisenhower. The Governor combines a set of
qualities that any candidate would need in order to oppose the General
successfully; he would need these qualities because the General himself has them
in such considerable measure.
First, Governor Stevenson is a man of stature, which is important because in a

time of evident international trouble it is not easy to beat a big man with a little
one. At least one candidacy on the Democratic side was fatally damaged by a
simple and widespread feeling that the candidate lacked size. Governor Stevenson
on the other hand had a double claim to stature: he was the successful governor
of a great state, which is the best known preparation for the Presidency, and he
showed in his opening remarks to the delegates a quality of mind and speech
which was not matched at either convention.
The quality of magnitude is always important in politics, but it has a special

meaning in 1952. In the back of the citizen's mind, more and more, there is a
gnawing knowledge that the ordinary political interest can be served only after
the problem of survival has had at least partial attention. Such is the complexity
and weight of this problem, however, that much the most pleasant way to deal
with it is to hand it over to someone else. The natural trustee is the President of
the United States. Yet for seven years, since the death of Franklin Roosevelt, this
sort of relief has been impossible for most Americans. Having many qualities of
his own, Mr. Truman has lacked the ability to serve as a father-substitute for most
of his fellow countrymen; fortunately for the Democrats, a similar inability existed
in the Governor Dewey of 1948. But in 1952 the Republicans chose a man whom
citizens could readily trust, in generous and personal fashion, with decisions and
responsibilities which they deeply desired to devolve on someone. It became vital
for the Democrats to do the same thing.
Personal stature alone would not have been enough, however. It was also
important that the nominee should have another asset which Mr. Stevenson
plainly possesses--a background of experience which entitles him to think and
speak for himself on matters of foreign affairs. To a long-continued interest as a
private citizen he has added experience in the moderately high reaches of the
Navy Department and the Department of State, and in the American delegations
to the United Nations; this is a combination at least vaguely reminiscent of large
names in the American past--the Roosevelts, Root and Stimson. And it is a further
proof of his quality that, like General Eisenhower, he has made plain his
conviction that the central task of the next President, dwarfing the matters noisily
discussed in campaign argument, must be to try to work for freedom and peace in
the world.
The two nominees share a final and more complex advantage: they are known as
supporters of the basic outlines of the American foreign policy developed since
1947, and both have had a part in this policy (General Eisenhower much the
larger part, it is fair to note), yet both, in different ways, have been spared the
necessity to defend or attack this policy in any partisan or inflexible spirit. Both
have kept largely clear of the destructive debate over the fall of China, and
neither can be tagged as a mere spokesman for past policy. General Eisenhower
has been a most eloquent witness for Administration programs in Europe, but he
has testified at times when his prestige was so high and that of the Administration
so low that he has spoken as one bringing help to the deserving poor, and not as
the beneficiary of a rich man's bounty.
This combination of general support for policy with a visible personal

independence is of double value. Tactically, it gives to each candidate the best of
both sides of the argument. Along with an unwillingness to accept the doctrines of
reaction, there is among us a very considerable feeling that it would be worth it to
try changing the guard in Washington; this is a view which is often combined with
high respect and even admiration for those who have been on duty in recent
years. When the Republicans chose a man who looked both safe and fresh, the
Democrats came under heavy pressure to match this choice.
But these choices have a meaning which is larger and less ephemeral than tactics.
The last 12 years have seen a revolution in American foreign policy, but no
revolution is ever safely complete until its work is carried on by men not in the
immediate circle of those who made it; and the longer it is led by a small or
limited group, the greater its fragility. Close as they have been to the making of
foreign policy, both Governor Stevenson and General Eisenhower still give
promise of the kind of new leadership that consolidates basic changes by the very
act of taking power. If this promise should be fulfilled, then indeed we could
assess this year as one in which historical imperatives were properly obeyed.
IV
The basic similarities between the two candidates in the area of foreign affairs are
close, but differences remain, and they deserve attention. In both parties there
are forces incompletely alive to the historical imperatives that have driven us. The
Republicans, of course, have their die-hard obstructionist wing--those we have
called the true reactionaries. Some of them, perhaps, have been obstructionist at
least partly because they have found themselves in the opposition party; there is a
striking difference between the Congressional Republicanism of 1952 and that of
1948, when the Republicans had a majority, and this difference is most marked in
the field of foreign affairs. Those who lean toward General Eisenhower will argue
that the reactionaries would be much muted under a modern Republican
President: "Anything Van could do Ike can do better." It will even be claimed, and
with real plausibility, that General Eisenhower's election is the one and only way
of drawing the teeth of the McCarthys and McCarrans in both parties. But it can
also be argued that many powerful Republicans are reactionaries of desperate
integrity, not to be won round by White House pressure; would General
Eisenhower have the skill to circumvent them when in many matters his
Administration would need their support? Many will wonder why they should not
simply vote against the Party which is so much tainted by a reactionary view of
foreign affairs and for the Party which has done most of the work of facing new
realities.
Governor Stevenson has a quite different problem: fatigue and stalemate beset
the groups on which he must rely. However much he himself may be a symbol of
refreshing change, his Party, and even his part of his Party, are symbols of the
status quo. Except where it has had Republican help, the Administration has been
stalemated for several years, both at home and abroad. The much-debated Fair
Deal is still a set of paper promises, and in foreign affairs the great achievements
of the last four years are precisely those of which General Eisenhower is a symbol
(except for the defense of Korea, which is surely not a one-party triumph).
Moreover, in the sham battles over the past which have so often passed for Great
Debating in the last two years, rôles have been set and lines of contest fixed in a
way which might make it hard for Mr. Stevenson to fulfill his promise of a change
in tone. His friends will say that this is an easy task for a determined man with the
White House as his base; his opponents will assert that the inertia of the loyal
partisan is a most formidable force.
Still more complex lines of argument are already heard among both partisan and
non-partisan observers, and though they may be thin, they are not unimportant. It
is clear, for example, that we do not today have a really effective arrangement for
political control of the professional military services; in particular, there is no
force in government which is fully a match for the Joint Chiefs of Staff (which
emphatically does not mean that there has been any conspiracy of military men to
capture power). Observing this problem, one group concludes that it is better to
vote for a civilian, but another, relying on its assessment of the mind and purpose
of the man Eisenhower, asserts that the civil-minded General is the one man with
enough authority and knowledge to assert political supremacy in a time when fear
leads many to hesitate before they question military counsel. Arguments so fragile
and yet so important are certain to be modified by the course of debate in the
campaign.
A more traditional issue is that of trade policy. Here at least the Parties tend to
differ as they have differed for generations. The Republican Platform this year is
more friendly to exports than ever before, but it also promises to "safeguard our
domestic enterprises and the payrolls of our workers against unfair import
competition." There is nothing in this plank to show any understanding of the
large and simple fact that exports cannot grow unless foreign aid appropriations
or imports grow too; it is unfortunately true that the Republican Party, as a Party,
has never accepted the laws of international economics. Trade policy has recently
been a relatively minor question, overshadowed by larger issues like European
recovery and the problems of rearmament, but it might not always be so. It seems
most improbable that General Eisenhower is as shortsighted on this point as his
party tradition; one of his advisers, Mr. Hoffman, is an eminent advocate of an
enlightened foreign economic policy. But students who recall the names of Payne,
Aldrich, Smoot and Hawley will recall also that these men were able to get their
legislation signed by Presidents who were counted as enlightened in their day. In
the battles that President Taft lost and that President Hoover let go by default
there was more than economic error; there was a failure in Party leadership
which helped to destroy the two Administrations. Foreign economic policy might
be a submerged rock in the channel of an Eisenhower Administration, resembling
in this respect the civil rights issue for contemporary Democrats. (This parallel
can be pressed a little further. The two ablest politicians of the century have been
the two Roosevelts. Is it accidental that the Republican Roosevelt always ducked
the tariff issue, while his Democratic cousin did the same with civil rights?) In any
case, those who vote by issues of foreign affairs will watch closely to see what
forecast they can make for the Republican future in this field.
Sound enough in its awareness that all trade is reciprocal (and even inclined to
indulge in incantations over the program of Cordell Hull), the Democratic
Platform raises other economic doubts. There appears to be a disposition to urge
"aid" and "support" as if these things were solutions in themselves, until the
innocent reader may wonder if it is supposed that spending money abroad is a
good in itself. And the Platform's praise of the Point Four Program is distressingly
extravagant. Is it statesmanship simply to propose a large-scale program? Point
Four is a fairly sickly three-year-old for all this noise. There will be many --and not
all diehards--who will wonder if the Democratic Platform-writers have not
mistranslated Lord Keynes into a new doctrine that you can spend your way to
peace. Yet spending to a purpose, and in support of policy, may well be needed on
at least the present scale for many years. It is a matter of tone and temper, not yet
revealed.
Both Platforms promise to take an interest in the peoples of the satellite

countries. The Republicans do this with a little more energy, perhaps, and they
did it first; moreover, they announce that such a policy "will mark the end of the
negative, futile and immoral policy of 'containment.'" This is puzzling, for the most
that is promised is to make it clear on the highest authority that "United States
policy, as one of its peaceful purposes, looks happily forward to the genuine
independence of these captive peoples." One would have supposed that repeated
statements of both the President and the Secretary of State had already made this
point plain, and that repetition in too loud a voice could only raise the question
whether action would follow words--and, if so, what would happen to "peaceful
purposes?" If the Soviet Union is as strong and dangerous as both Platforms tell
us--and it almost certainly is--we may wonder how the Voice of America is going to
set the satellites free.
The desire to be "positive" on a low-cost basis is not a new phenomenon in our

history; it gains increased attractiveness as a result of the contact between a
reluctant America and the necessities of modern politics. In its earlier forms, this
sort of "positive" thinking often led to the total unreality of isolationism or else to
a touching faith in the power of fair words in world affairs. To the degree that we
recognize modern realities the temptations are at once more moderate and more
appealing, and we find men who are eager to believe that Point Four will remake
the Middle East, or that fine phrases can free the satellites, or that there is no
substitute for victory, or that you can always send more aid, or that free trade
means peace, or that everything will be all right if you only get rid of Communists
in the Department of State. Both Parties have a tendency to accept one or more of
these devices for begging the question; both candidates seem relatively immune
to their seductive wiles.
There is much more in the Platforms, but the differences which turn up in the
remaining planks are mainly a matter of phrasing. The Republicans would "end
neglect of the Far East;" the Democrats would give "continuing support" to all and
sundry, specifically and cheerfully including Nationalist China. Are these policies
different? Both parties are for streamlined administration. Both love Israel but
also have a kind word for the Arabs. The Democrats give more prominence to the
United Nations, but the Republicans claim part of the credit for its existence. On
this last issue some may feel that there is a certain difference between the
candidates, noting that Governor Stevenson, both by conviction and experience, is
a man with a strong bent toward the United Nations, while General Eisenhower's
talent and experience may lead him more in the direction of regional alliances;
but this assessment must remain largely speculative until we have more evidence.
Returning to the Platforms, we may safely assert that in their rewriting of history
the two documents are both passionate and opposite, but this will not matter even
to historians.
Taken together, the differences between the two candidates remain small.
Campaigns being what they are, these differences will be enlarged beyond
recognition by irresponsible speakers on both sides, but it is fair to hope that the
candidates themselves may have the wisdom and courage to accept and even
emphasize their basic agreement on what we have called the national imperatives.
For if they use their present power to this end, the next Administration will be
able to build on a new kind of national determination--a determination matured in
the final and conclusive admission that the outside world is real and earnest.
A wise and experienced American has remarked that all our foreign policy in
recent years has turned around a series of strenuous efforts to get public and
Congressional support for actions which were plainly and urgently necessary. He
exaggerates, but not by much. It is not hard, indeed, to frame the whole of the
diplomatic history of our country in the last generation in exactly these terms.
Foreign Affairs is now 30 years old, and its lifespan is punctuated by issues in
which, to put it very bluntly, the wise and well-informed have been mostly on one
side, and the historic tradition of America on the other. A bare list of men and
issues may suggest the whole record: there was Mr. Hughes and the exclusion of
Oriental immigration, Mr. Stimson and Manchuria, Mr. Hoover and the war debts,
Mr. Hull and the World Economic Conference, Mr. Roosevelt and quarantine for
aggressors. Then in crescendo came the events of 1939-1941, the framing of the
United Nations Charter, and, above all, the whole great effort of Western
reconstruction undertaken in the last five years.
Some of these battles have been won by the leaders of the new opinion, and
others by tradition, but for all concerned it has been an exhausting struggle. It is
not surprising that many men suppose this sort of strife to be the natural and
inevitable order of the universe, so that they fail to see what might be hoped for if
this long contest should gradually come to an end. Yet this is exactly what might
happen if this election should in fact serve to consolidate the national will by
electing a man uncompromised by past debates but deeply settled in his
recognition of the new necessities.
With the end of the American adolescence, many things may become possible.
Consider, for example, America's relations with her allies. Since 1940 we have
found ourselves in constant and changing connection with many friendly Powers.
Some have been merely connections of convenience, while others respond to a
deeper community of interest, but all have to be subject to strains imposed by our
national uncertainties, and in all we have paid the costs that are levied against the
uncertain ally. Much will be gained if as a people we begin to accept the fact that
we need friends. In particular, we shall be able to treat with allied nations much
more effectively than is now possible. Those who are known as reliable allies may
deal firmly with their friends in a way which less trusted nations dare not try. If
we finally lose our ancient fear of all alliances, we may perhaps look forward to a
day when the Congress will be generally cordial and the Executive Branch
specifically firmer in dealing with allied Powers; this would be a salutary reversal
of our present practice.
An even larger opportunity lies in the area of the contest between the United
States and the U.S.S.R. We have suggested that America's basic purpose for
freedom in the world requires opposition to the aggressive and expanding Soviet
Power. The first step in such opposition is to understand its necessity; it is
precisely those who are most firmly committed to advancing freedom and
opposing aggression who have the best chance of living in peace with the
Kremlin; the central "situation of strength" is a settled national will. This, of
course, the Kremlin itself has understood, and its blundering support has been
given in this country openly to the so-called "progressives" and covertly to the
reactionaries. Dangerous though it may be to judge our affairs by reversing the
Soviet view, we may take some satisfaction in the evident Communist recognition
that both candidates stand for national unity in active resistance to Soviet
tyranny. The country will be stronger if it can understand the measure of its own
agreement on this issue.
We also stand to gain if we can understand the significance of peace among our
objectives. In contemporary America, there is no shortage of men with an ample
hostility to the Soviet Union, and there has never been any lack of men who cared
for freedom. But brave and angry men should understand that this country cannot
start a third world war; it cannot even choose to fight such a war in self-defense
except as a very last resort. There is a ceiling on our acts, and this ceiling may
increase our danger, for the Kremlin knows as well as we do how little we are
eager for atomic war. But since we will not use the bomb for every crisis, we are
required to act and react at lower levels of force, in ways that are as far from
peace as Korea, and only as far from World War III as the coolness of our
statesmen and citizens permits.
The acceptance of this kind of life is possible only for those who reject the
answers of peace by submission or peace by all-out war. The kind of peace that is
possible is not the peace of inaction or the peace of total victory, or even the
peace of truly united nations. It is the peace of politics, always to be won again
and never wholly safe; this is the life of action and danger which is the lot of
nearly all nations; America cannot any longer hope to escape it. To understand
this--as both the candidates quite plainly do-- is to have made the first great step
toward survival.
VI
One hill climbed reveals another, and the very hopes which we find in the
nominations suggest some of the great problems that the next President will have
to struggle with. Even a nation fully alive to its modern responsibilities will not
easily find the right ways to work for freedom and peace in the next four years.
Between freedom and peace, for example, which comes first? It is a question
which must be answered differently at different times; certainly it cannot always
be escaped by claiming that the right response is "both." The service of the double
goal requires both force and restraint, both strength and flexibility.
This is not the place for any attempt to chart the proper course for the next
Administration. Whoever wins, there will be in Washington next January a stir of
new beginnings and a mood of readiness in which there may be more room for
action than our statesmen have enjoyed for many years. Plainly it will be
important to use this opportunity to add to the pressures that may lead the
Kremlin to desist from aggression--while at the same time reducing the rigidities
of posture which sometimes seem to point us all toward eventual Armageddon.
This dual task can have no formal blueprint. All that it is possible to suggest is
that it will ask of the next President a level of courage, leadership and
understanding of such height that even candidates like General Eisenhower and
Governor Stevenson will be challenged to further growth. It is good to recollect
that both candidates this year are men with a proven talent for rising to new
occasions.
Without going further in comment on the responsibilities that will face the
successful candidate, it may be appropriate to note one test which both must face
even during the campaign. Both candidates will find it hard to resist the very
heavy pressures which urge a Presidential candidate to say or to imply that life is
easier than it is. Candidates of magnitude are not immune to this sort of pressure,
as Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Willkie both demonstrated in 1940. There is required
here a special kind of integrity, and a special ability to get through to a national
conscience that is sometimes hidden by our lesser hopes and fears. Both
candidates have shown this kind of integrity and ability in the past; they will add
to their quality and to all our hopes if they continue to resist all those who come
and ask them to pretend that life can be easy, safe and cheap.
The pressures of democracy are not light, and its records tell of many and
considerable statesmen who have said soft things to voters in the shadow of the
polls. Men who run for very high office are forced to many lonely choices, and in
humanity, if not in history, they have a claim for charitable judgment. This year is
no exception in the temptations which it offers; many citizens are eager for kind
words and sweet promises. Yet this year it seems natural to set the standards high
and to hope that we may have a campaign by each candidate that becomes a
foundation for action and not a trap for inconsistent leadership. This will be about
as important for the loser as for the winner.
This high standard may not be met, but not many will be found to claim that it is
beyond the reach of this year's nominees. Much of the meaning of the two
nominations may be doubtful and debatable, but it is surely very plain that
Governor Stevenson and General Eisenhower are men of evident and contagious
moral conviction. Seldom have two rival Americans more conspicuously embodied
that combination of practical sagacity and deep moral quality which is central to
the whole of our tradition. Nothing in all their equipment is more important for
the future of American foreign policy. Without moral conviction a man might have
the finesse of Bismarck and still not be able to lead America. The quality of these
nominations, and their wide appeal throughout the world, are a clearcut
refutation of those recent writers who urge us to put aside the trivia of moral
issues and concentrate on what they conceive to be the beautiful realism of
politics. These men are poor students of politics and they dispraise what they
would exalt. Politics is inevitably the meeting-place of all that is human, and the
convictions that have animated America could not be absent if we wished. We may
take pride and comfort from the great and evident fact that the next American
President, barring accident, will be a man who fully understands that national
ideals and political realities have their deepest meaning when taken together.
October 1,1952
The Challenge to Americans
Henry L. Stimson
U.S. NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

President Truman and his wife and daughter waving from the train during the 1948 campaign.
We Americans today face a challenging opportunity, perhaps the greatest ever

offered to a single nation. It is nothing less than a chance to use our full strength
for the peace and freedom of the world. This opportunity comes when many of us
are confused and unready. Only two years ago we triumphantly ended the
greatest war in history. Most of us then looked forward eagerly to the relative
relaxation of peace. Reluctantly we have now come to understand that victory and
peace are not synonymous. Over large areas of the world we have nothing better
than armed truce; in some places there is open fighting; everywhere men know
that there is yet no stable settlement. Close on the heels of victory has loomed a
new world crisis.
Particularly to Americans the appearance of disquieting facts and possibilities has
been upsetting. We are having our first experience of constant, full-scale activity
in world politics. Other nations have lived for years as principals in the give-and-
take of diplomacy. Until now we have been, except in wartime, on the fringe. It is
no wonder that, when suddenly placed in the center of the alarms and excursions
of international affairs, we are abnormally sensitive. And, of course, it does not
help to find ourselves selected as chief target for the abuse and opposition of a
very bad-mannered group of men who take their orders from the Kremlin. It is not
surprising, then, that many of us are confused and unhappy about our foreign
relations, and that some are tempted to seek refuge from their confusion either in
retreat to isolationism or in suggested solutions whose simplicity is only matched
by their folly. In the main, our difficulties arise from unwillingness to face reality.
It must be admitted that the elements of the new unrest appear to be unusually
complex and trying. The war-shattered world must be rebuilt; the problem of
atomic energy insistently demands solution; the present policy of Russia must be
frustrated. But it is my belief that the American people have it well within their
power to meet and resolve all of these problems. The essential test is one of will
and understanding. We require a skillful foreign policy, of course, but we may
have confidence that the farsighted and experienced men now in charge of our
State Department know how to frame a policy. In outline the President and the
Secretary of State have already set their course. They can develop their policy
with success, however, only if they have the understanding support, on basic
principles, of the American people.
II
First, and most important, Americans must now understand that the United States
has become, for better or worse, a wholly committed member of the world
community. This has not happened by conscious choice; but it is a plain fact, and
our only choice is whether or not to face it. For more than a generation the
increasing interrelation of American life with the life of the world has out-paced
our thinking and our policy; our refusal to catch up with reality during these years
was the major source of our considerable share of the responsibility for the
catastrophe of World War II.
It is the first condition of effective foreign policy that this nation put away forever
any thought that America can again be an island to herself. No private program
and no public policy, in any sector of our national life, can now escape from the
compelling fact that if it is not framed with reference to the world, it is framed
with perfect futility. This would be true if there were no such thing as nuclear
fission, and if all the land eastward from Poland to the Pacific were under water.
Atomic energy and Soviet Russia are merely the two most conspicuous present
demonstrations of what we have at stake in world affairs. The attitude of
isolationism—political or economic—must die; in all its many forms the vain hope
that we can live alone must be abandoned.
As a corollary to this first great principle, it follows that we shall be wholly wrong
if we attempt to set a maximum or margin to our activity as members of the
world. The only question we can safely ask today is whether in any of our actions
on the world stage we are doing enough. In American policy toward the world
there is no place for grudging or limited participation, and any attempt to cut our
losses by setting bounds to our policy can only turn us backward onto the deadly
road toward self-defeating isolation.
Our stake in the peace and freedom of the world is not a limited liability. Time
after time in other years we have tried to solve our foreign problems with halfway
measures, acting under the illusion that we could be partly in the world and partly
irresponsible. Time after time our Presidents and Secretaries of State have been
restrained, by their own fears or by public opinion, from effective action. It should
by now be wholly clear that only failure, and its follower, war, can result from
such efforts at a cheap solution.
We have fresh before us the contrary example of our magnificent success in

wartime, when we have not stopped to count the cost. I have served as Secretary
of State in a time of frightened isolationism, and as Secretary of War in a time of
brave and generous action. I know the withering effect of limited commitments,
and I know the regenerative power of full action. I know, too, that America can
afford it—as who does not know it, in the face of our record in the last seven
years?
It is altogether fitting and proper, of course, that we should not waste our
substance in activity without result. It is also evident that we cannot do
everything we would like to do. But it would be shriveling timidity for America to
refuse to play to the full her present necessary part in the world. And the certain
penalty for such timidity would be failure.
The troubles of Europe and Asia are not "other people's troubles;" they are ours.
The world is full of friends and enemies; it is full of warring ideas; but there are
no mere "foreigners," no merely "foreign" ideologies, no merely "foreign" dangers,
any more. Foreign affairs are now our most intimate domestic concern. All men,
good or bad, are now our neighbors. All ideas dwell among us.
III
A second principle, and one which requires emphasis as a necessary complement
to any policy of full participation, is that we are forced to act in the world as it is,
and not in the world as we wish it were, or as we would like it to become. It is a
world in which we are only one of many peoples and in which our basic principles
of life are not shared by all our neighbors. It has been one of the more dangerous
aspects of our internationalism in past years that too often it was accompanied by
the curious assumption that the world would overnight become good and clean
and peaceful everywhere if only America would lead the way. The most
elementary experience of human affairs should show us all how naïve and
dangerous a view that is.
The most conspicuous present examples of this sort of thinking are to be found
among those who refuse to recognize the strong probability that one of our great
and powerful neighbor nations is at present controlled by men who are convinced
that the very course of history is set against democracy and freedom, as we
understand those words. A very large part of what I believe to be the mistaken
thinking done by my friend Henry Wallace about Soviet Russia results simply from
a goodhearted insistence that nobody can dislike us if we try to like them.
We have been very patient with the Soviet Government, and very hopeful of its
good intentions. I have been among those who shared in these hopes and
counseled this patience. The magnificent and loyal war effort of the Russian
people, and the great successful efforts at friendliness made during the war by
President Roosevelt, gave us good reason for hope. I have believed—and I still
believe—that we must show good faith in all our dealings with the Russians, and
that only by so doing can we leave the door open for Russian good faith toward us.
I cannot too strongly express my regret that since the early spring of 1945—even
before the death of Mr. Roosevelt—the Soviet Government has steadily pursued
an obstructive and unfriendly course. It has been our hope that the Russians
would choose to be our friends; it was and is our conviction that such a choice
would be to their advantage. But, for the time being, at least, those who
determine Russian policy have chosen otherwise, and their choice has been
slavishly followed by Communists everywhere.
No sensible American can now ignore this fact, and those who now choose to
travel in company with American Communists are very clearly either knaves or
fools. This is a judgment which I make reluctantly, but there is no help for it. I
have often said that the surest way to make a man trustworthy is to trust him. But
I must add that this does not always apply to a man who is determined to make
you his dupe. Before we can make friends with the Russians, their leaders will
have to be convinced that they have nothing to gain, and everything to lose, by
acting on the assumption that our society is dying and that our principles are
outworn. Americans who think they can make common cause with present-day
Communism are living in a world that does not exist.
They are not alone. An equal and opposite error is made by those who argue that
Americans by strong-arm methods, perhaps even by a "preventive war," can and
should rid the world of the Communist menace. I cannot believe that this view is
widely held. For it is worse than nonsense; it results from a hopeless
misunderstanding of the geographical and military situation, and a cynical
incomprehension of what the people of the world will tolerate from any nation.
Worst of all, this theory indicates a totally wrong assessment of the basic attitudes
and motives of the American people. Even if it were true that the United States
now had the opportunity to establish forceful hegemony throughout the world, we
could not possibly take that opportunity without deserting our true inheritance.
Americans as conquerors would be tragically miscast.
The world's affairs cannot be simplified by eager words. We cannot take refuge
from reality in the folly of black-and-white solutions.
IV
In dealing with the Russians, both uncritical trust and unmitigated belligerence
are impossible. There is a middle course. We do not yet know surely in what
proportion unreasonable fears and twisted hopes are at the root of the perverted
policy now followed by the Kremlin. Assuming both to be involved, we must
disarm the fears and disappoint the hopes. We must no longer let the tide of
Soviet expansion cheaply roll into the empty places left by war, and yet we must
make it perfectly clear that we are not ourselves expansionist. Our task is to help
threatened peoples to help themselves.
This is not easy. It is quite possible, indeed, that the blind reaction of some anti-
Communist governments may succeed to some extent in nullifying our labors. We
must make every effort to prevent such a result. Success in this task depends so
much on men and circumstances that I do not venture to prescribe a theoretical
solution. It is an undertaking that demands a bold and active policy, combined
with skilful and understanding execution. In such an undertaking, it is only the
exceptionally well-informed who may properly give advice from the sidelines.
But our main answer to the Russians is not negative, nor is it in any sense anti-
Russian. Our central task in dealing with the Kremlin is to demonstrate beyond
the possibility of misunderstanding that freedom and prosperity, hand in hand,
can be stably sustained in the western democratic world. This would be our
greatest task even if no Soviet problem existed, and to the Soviet threat it is our
best response.
Soviet intransigence is based in very large part on the hope and belief that all
non-Communist systems are doomed. Soviet policy aims to help them die. We
must hope that time and the success of freedom and democracy in the western
world will convince both the Soviet leaders and the Russian people now behind
them that our system is here to stay. This may not be possible; dictators do not
easily change their hearts, and the modern armaments they possess may make it
hard for their people to force such a change. Rather than be persuaded of their
error, the Soviet leaders might in desperation resort to war, and against that
possibility we have to guard by maintaining our present military advantages. We
must never forget that while peace is a joint responsibility, the decision for war
can be made by a single Power; our military strength must be maintained as a
standing discouragement to aggression.
I do not, however, expect the Russians to make war. I do not share the gloomy
fear of some that we are now engaged in the preliminaries of an inevitable
conflict. Even the most repressive dictatorship is not perfectly unassailable from
within, and the most frenzied fanaticism is never unopposed. Whatever the
ideological bases of Soviet policy, it seems clear that some at least of the leaders
of Russia are men who have a marked respect for facts. We must make it wholly
evident that a nonaggressive Russia will have nothing to fear from us. We must
make it clear, too, that the western non-Communist world is going to survive in
growing economic and political stability. If we can do this, then slowly—but
perhaps less slowly than we now believe—the Russian leaders may either change
their minds or lose their jobs.
The problem of Russia is thus reduced to a question of our own fitness to survive.
I do not mean to belittle the Communist challenge. I only mean that the essential
question is one which we should have to answer if there were not a Communist
alive. Can we make freedom and prosperity real in the present world? If we can,
Communism is no threat. If not, with or without Communism, our own civilization
would ultimately fail.
The immediate and pressing challenge to our belief in freedom and prosperity is
in western Europe. Here are people who have traditionally shared our faith in
human dignity. These are the nations by whose citizens our land was settled and
in whose tradition our civilization is rooted. They are threatened by
Communism—but only because of the dark shadows cast by the hopelessness,
hunger and fear that have been the aftermath of the Nazi war. Communism or no
Communism, menace or no menace, it is our simple duty as neighbors to take a
generous part in helping these great peoples to help themselves.
The reconstruction of western Europe is a task from which Americans can decide
to stand apart only if they wish to desert every principle by which they claim to
live. And, as a decision of policy, it would be the most tragic mistake in our
history. We must take part in this work; we must take our full part; we must be
sure that we do enough.
I must add that I believe we should act quickly. The penalty of delay in
reconstruction is to increase the size of the job and to multiply difficulties. We
require a prompt and large-scale program. The government must lead the way,
but we who are private citizens must support that leadership as men in all parties
supported help to our Allies in 1941. The sooner we act, the surer our
success—and the less it will cost us.
The need of Europe is a challenge partly to our generosity and partly to our good
sense. We have ample justification for action on either ground. It is an opportunity
for the best that is in America, a chance for us to show the practical idealism on
which we have with reason learned to pride ourselves.
This is the way to disappoint the Russians. But it is not anti-Russian. This is a
course which must be followed not because we fear the Russians, but simply
because we have confidence in ourselves.
As we take part in the rebuilding of Europe, we must remember that we are

building world peace, not an American peace. Freedom demands tolerance, and
many Americans have much to learn about the variety of forms which free
societies may take. There are Europeans, just as there are Americans, who do not
believe in freedom, but they are in a minority, and—as the Editor of this review so
clearly explained in its last issue—we shall not be able to separate the sheep from
the goats merely by asking whether they believe in our particular economic and
political system. Our coöperation with the free men of Europe must be founded on
the basic principles of human dignity, and not on any theory that their way to
freedom must be exactly the same as ours. We cannot ask that Europe be rebuilt
in the American image. If we join in the task of reconstruction with courage,
confidence and goodwill, we shall learn—and teach—a lot. But we must start with
a willingness to understand.
The reconstruction of western Europe is the immediate task. With it we have, of

course, a job at home. We must maintain freedom and prosperity here. This is a
demanding task in itself, and its success or failure will largely determine all our
other efforts. If it is true that our prosperity depends on that of the world, it is
true also that the whole world's economic future hangs on our success at home.
We must go forward to new levels of peacetime production, and to do this we
must all of us avoid the pitfalls of laziness, fear and irresponsibility. Neither real
profits nor real wages can be permanently sustained—and still less increased—by
anything but rising production.
But I see no reason for any man to face the American future with any other feeling
than one of confident hope. However grave our problems, and however difficult
their solution, I do not believe that this country is ready to acknowledge that
failure is foreordained. It is our task to disprove and render laughable that utterly
insulting theory. Our future does not depend on the tattered forecasts of Karl
Marx. It depends on us.
VI
In counseling against policies which ignore the facts of the world as it is, I do not,
of course, mean to argue that we can for a moment forget the nature of our final
goal.
Lasting peace and freedom cannot be achieved until the world finds a way toward
the necessary government of the whole. It is important that this should be widely
understood, and efforts to spread such understanding are commendable. The
riven atom, uncontrolled, can be only a growing menace to us all, and there can
be no final safety short of full control throughout the world. Nor can we hope to
realize the vast potential wealth of atomic energy until it is disarmed and
rendered harmless. Upon us, as the people who first harnessed and made use of
this force, there rests a grave and continuing responsibility for leadership in
turning it toward life, not death.
But we cannot have world government or atomic control by wishing for them, and
we cannot have them, in any meaningful sense, without Russia. If in response to
our best effort there comes no answer but an everlasting "NO," then we must go
to work in other fields to change the frame of mind that caused that answer. We
cannot ignore it.
It is a part of any practical policy that it must keep our principles out in the open.
In the imperfect, veto-ridden United Nations there is now incarnate the hope of
people everywhere that this world may become one in spirit as it is in fact. No
misconceived idea of "realism" should induce us to ignore this living hope or abate
in its pursuit. We should be foremost among those who seek to make the United
Nations stronger; if the Russians will not help us, let them be forced to make their
opposition clear. As a starting-point, we might simply ask for a clear ruling that
there shall be no veto on the right of investigation and report.
Because the United Nations can at present be hamstrung by the obstruction of a

single major Power, we will probably find ourselves sometimes forced to act
outside its system. So far as possible, we should avoid this course, and we should
so conduct our operations as to make it wholly clear to all the world that it is not
we who choose to make the United Nations weak, and that when we act outside it
we are still acting in harmony with its declared objectives. It must be our constant
endeavor to conduct our policy with full and deep respect for our signed and
ratified adherence to this new league which we have done so much to build. Our
insistence upon world coöperation must be unremitting; only so can we deserve
and win the confidence of those who, caring nothing for the politics of power, now
see only the overriding need for peace. Both policy and principle bind us to the
support of the United Nations.
VII
It is clear, then, that in this country we are still free to maintain our freedom. We
are called to an unprecedented effort of coöperation with our friends in every
country. Immediately, we are called to act in the rebuilding of civilization in that
part of the world which is closest to us in history, politics and economics. We are
required to think of our prosperity, our policy and our first principles as
indivisibly connected with the facts of life everywhere. We must put away forever
the childishness of parochial hopes and un-American fears.
We need not suppose that the task we face is easy, or that all our undertakings
will be quickly successful. The construction of a stable peace is a longer, more
complex and greater task than the relatively simple work of war-making. But the
nature of the challenge is the same. The issue before us today is at least as
significant as the one which we finally faced in 1941. By a long series of mistakes
and failures, dating back over a span of more than 20 years, we had in 1941 let it
become too late to save ourselves by peaceful methods; in the end we had to fight.
This is not true today. If we act now, with vigor and understanding, with
steadiness and without fear, we can peacefully safeguard our freedom. It is only if
we turn our backs, in mistaken complacence or mistrusting timidity, that war may
again become inevitable.
How soon this nation will fully understand the size and nature of its present
mission, I do not dare to say. But I venture to assert that in very large degree the
future of mankind depends on the answer to this question. And I am confident
that if the issues are clearly presented, the American people will give the right
answer. Surely there is here a fair and tempting challenge to all Americans, and
especially to the nation's leaders, in and out of office.
HENRY L. STIMSON, Secretary of State, 1929-33; Secretary of War, 1911-13, and 1940-45
October 1,1947
The Foreign Policy of the American
Communist Party
Joseph Barnes
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
Henry A. Wallace.
One of the few men who can claim to have called the turn on the gyrations of
Communist foreign policy over the last decade is Dr. Eduard Beneš, President of
the Czechoslovak Republic. In his memoirs, recently published in Prague, he has
carefully and reasonably explained his belief in the spring of 1939 that the
Russians would buy time from Hitler if an agreement with Great Britain and
France should prove impossible, but would eventually be drawn into the war
against Germany. This belief was based, he writes, on intelligence reports he was
receiving from agents in the German Army and in the anti-Nazi underground. But
it was also based on his knowledge of Communist doctrine and practice, which
convinced him that the Soviets would preserve their basic revolutionary aims and
directives, even though they should be forced along a course of action which
"would, in western Europe, produce the impression of being either a series of
sudden, unexpected and sensational changes in policy and tactics, or some kind of
amoral Machiavellism."
Dr. Beneš called the turn on Moscow's policies, as the war developed, far more
accurately than the Czech Communists, who were busy denouncing him as one of
the "Guilty Men of Czechoslovakia" for aiding "the British imperialist war effort."
Now that the wartime alliance is ended, and both the sudden changes and the
impression of cunning duplicity have returned, the American Communists may
well be as bewildered and as wrong about the future as the Czech Communists
were in 1940. It is true that the problems are strikingly dissimilar. America has no
students, either of Russia or of the revolutionary movement, in the tradition of
Masaryk and Beneš. The agents available to American leaders are too often lapsed
or dissident revolutionaries whose disloyalty to Stalinism is clear but whose new
loyalties may be a matter for some conjecture. Yet it remains urgent to
understand both Soviet foreign policy and the world revolutionary movement, and
the American Communist Party is one point at which these two massive but
uncertain forces come into focus for us.
There are a number of reasons why the speeches and writings of American
Communists are little studied outside the party as clues to the problem. It is a
small party, seventeenth or eighteenth in size among the national Communist
parties of the world. This has important effects on the nature of political
discussion among members, and on the function of leadership. It reduces to a
minimum those substitutes for free discussion, as we think of it, which are still
being sought inside the general Communist organizational formula of "democratic
centralism." One of these substitutes is the "self-criticism" to which larger
Communist parties are frequently challenged; another is the inevitable tempering
of ideology involved in its translation into terms which can be grasped by a fairly
numerous rank and file. These are often shadowy enough in Russia, or China, or
France, where party members are numbered in seven figures. Among some
75,000 estimated members of the American party, whose rights as citizens are
sharply limited by law and custom, political discussion acquires both a
conspiratorial and an ex cathedra tone. Both mask the truth more than they reveal
it.
The American Communists share with their European counterparts what the
London Economist has called "that propensity to tactical oversimplification,
suppressio veri, deliberate ambiguity, and slanderous imputation of motive, which
is the moral occupational disease of most Marxist writers." The historical reasons
for this propensity are old and tangled. They have been compounded in the United
States by the verbal bitterness of the extreme Right, as well as by the running fire
of vituperation with which the splinter parties in the American revolutionary
movement have always built up their conviction of moral righteousness, if not
their effectiveness in winning converts. A hundred years ago Karl Marx may have
deserved his reputation as a master of abusive language, but he was a tyro
compared to those who have resigned, or been purged, from the several parties
which now call themselves Marxist.
The official Stalinists play a leading but by no means exclusive rôle among these
parties in the United States, and their policies, like their language, are
indisputably influenced by the others. Besides the European Social-Democrats
now resident in the United States, who play a more important part in
revolutionary polemics here than they are usually credited with, there are the
followers of Daniel DeLeon, of Leon Trotsky, and of several "deviationists" who
have run foul of Moscow orthodoxy in the last 30 years. Among these, the most
recent is Earl Browder, who was expelled from the party in 1946 over issues
which throw some light on the foreign policy program of American Communists.
He has apparently not organized a splinter group of his own, but he still considers
himself a Marxist and a Communist in his political writing, and he apparently
retains access to Moscow. Even if this situation is recognized to involve a
confusion of personal with political differences, it makes still harder the task of
trying to understand what American Communists are seeking. Mr. Browder, for
example, and Political Affairs, the monthly journal of the orthodox Stalinists, are
at present in controversy over the English translation of three words in the key
paragraph of Zhdanov's important speech to the Cominform in Poland last
September.
As a minority party, teetering on the edge of illegality, the United States

Communist Party relies more on attacking American foreign policy than on
propounding its own views. So what it is against is explained more often than
what it is for. The present party line holds that American foreign policy is one of
aggressive imperialism, "a naked attempt of the big monopolists of this country to
set up their ruthless rule over the whole torn and shattered world." William Z.
Foster, 67-year-old leader of the Communist Party, a native-born American
working-class leader from Taunton, Mass., has listed recently what he believes to
be the goals of this imperialist policy. They are: "to create a bloc of reactionary
states directed against the U.S.S.R. (expressed most clearly in the United States
of Europe scheme); to support actively all reactionary and Fascist states—Spain,
Greece, Portugal, Turkey, Austria, Switzerland; to drive the Communists out of
the democratic coalition governments and to push these governments further and
further to the Right; to force Germany and as many other European states as
possible to become economic and political dependencies of the United States; to
prevent economic collaboration among the new democracies themselves and
between them and the U.S.S.R.; to break up the coöperation between Communists
and Socialists, workers and peasants, Catholics and non-Catholics, throughout
Europe; to undermine and split the great new trade union movement and other
mass organizations of the people."
Mr. Foster has listed elsewhere seven steps he believes "Wall Street imperialists"
have decided on: "to undermine the strength of the British, French and Dutch
empires and to secure an economic hold upon their colonies and dominions; to
reduce the U.S.S.R. to the status of a second-class power; to transform China into
a satellite of the United States; to make Japan into a puppet country, economically
and politically dependent upon the United States; to tighten American economic,
political and military control over all of Latin America; to turn the Mediterranean
into an American lake; to exercise complete domination in the Atlantic and Pacific
Oceans." Other measures are not excluded from this picture; Mr. Foster, like The
Daily Worker, is quick to denounce what he calls the use of food reserves for
reactionary political purposes, pressure exerted through reconstruction loans to
war-stricken countries, the increase of red-baiting within the country in order to
stifle even liberal dissent, the growth of militarism as exemplified in defense
appropriations or plans for universal military training.
"We American Communists are in full opposition to this whole imperialist

program, in gross and in detail, as being violently hostile to the democracy, well-
being and peace of the American people, as well as the rest of the world," Mr.
Foster has written. "That's the whole story in a nutshell."
The heart of the American Communists' present foreign policy is a demand for a
return to what they call "the Roosevelt peace policies." This phrase hides a
terminological quicksand, for one of the chief doctrinal quarrels between Browder
and Foster seems to hinge on their differing interpretations of what was actually
the significance of Roosevelt's policies. But even Mr. Foster uses the phrase.
"The foreign policy of the United States," he has recently written, "should be
based on friendly coöperation with the Soviet Union and the new democracies
now springing up in various parts of the world. Only this will lay the basis for a
strong United Nations. Big Three coöperation, which was the foundation of
Roosevelt's successful foreign policy, can be achieved if the American people want
it, which they do." Henry A. Wallace is praised for his championship of this policy;
"Wall Street" is excoriated for its rejection. Another Communist source, the now
defunct weekly New Masses, has consistently called for "a front of democracy and
peace" to rebuild this foreign policy. "It would be utterly destructive to think," it
has recently written, "that the mythology of the anti-Comintern has taken such
deep roots among the people, and especially within progressive circles, as to
make impossible a regrouping into a democratic front, as typified earlier in the
Roosevelt coalition."
This central position is spelled out in the current "party line" under five main
headings: collaboration with the Soviet Union; sympathy and support for the "new
democracies" of eastern Europe; reconstruction of coalition governments,
including the Communists, in France and Italy; aid to the struggle of colonial
peoples for national independence; and nonintervention in the civil war in China.
For the most part, the concrete measures suggested under these headings are
obvious. They include nonpolitical loans for the rebuilding of war-ravaged areas of
Europe: support for Socialist planning instead of free enterprise projects, and
iron-clad adherence to the principle of Big Three unity in settling political
differences. (In this respect, the American Communists go farther than Molotov,
whose position on the veto problem in the United Nations calls for Big Five unity.)
The linchpin in this entire policy is clearly collaboration with the Soviet Union,
and its positions are hard to distinguish, except in minor details, from those taken
by Molotov and Vishinsky. Mr. Foster has said in public recently that Soviet
leaders have made mistakes: "Marxists make no claim to infallibility." He has
denied the charge of slavish following of "the Moscow line," pointing for an
example to "the different course taken by the Russians and ourselves regarding
Earl Browder." But at the same time he has admitted that the American
Communists "generally agree with the main line of the Soviet Union." The party
he leads is not a member of the Cominform, but the reasons for this are frankly of
a tactical nature. Even if they do not share in the "exchange of experience and
coördination of activity" for which the Cominform was established, no secret is
made of their reliance on Moscow for ideas and guidance, at the very least, in the
field of foreign policy. The official position on this point, according to Mr. Foster,
is that policies are made by the American party itself, "without consultation with
any outside forces." But the Russian Communists, who are directly involved
through their control of a major power in nearly every foreign policy problem in
the world, are at the same time credited by him with a "size-up of their situation
and work [which] is incomparably more frank, penetrating and correct than any
possible criticism coming from outside, including that of foreign Communists."
In backing this program, the American Communists can claim a certain

consistency. Big Three unity is the postwar equivalent of collective security;
support of coalition governments stems from the prewar "Popular Front"
program; championship of colonial peoples has never changed since 1917; and
the overriding importance in all Communist foreign policy of the security of the
Soviet Union as the Socialist fatherland dates from Lenin himself. The sharp turns
in the road to international revolution look sharper when they are seen from the
side of the road than they do to those whose view is held by discipline and
doctrine to the eventual goal.
It remains a minority program, under heavier public attack than at any time in a
generation. The criticism is not directed primarily against the specific points of
Communist foreign policy. Some of these, like nonintervention in the Chinese civil
war or loans to eastern European countries, are backed by Americans who can be
called fellow-travellers of the American Communists only with considerable
hysteria. The popularity in many countries outside the Soviet Union of some of the
cardinal points of Communist foreign policy is now difficult to credit exclusively to
the Moscow radio, or the ponderous style of New Times, still the chief
international organ of "the Moscow line" on foreign policy, or to human stupidity.
This represents a change in non-Communist thinking almost as marked as the
revision of the earlier American belief that Communist economics were
automatically self-destroying. Today serious and thoughtful criticism of the
American Communists has shifted to the totality of their policy, and the two
features of this which most deeply disturb other Americans are its apparent
commitment to ethical values which violate western traditions (the police state,
the use of terror as a deliberate political weapon, the justification of means by
ends), and its apparent commitment, in a world of frightening national rivalry, to
the interests of Soviet Russia.
The first of these criticisms extends far beyond the range of foreign policy, and is
by no means new. The second has become vastly more important in recent years.
The growth of Russian power has been the primary factor in this process. On the
one hand, Communism has profited in nearly every country of the world by its
theoretical offer of peace, based on its analysis of modern war as a function of the
bourgeois state. On the other hand, it has incurred a liability it did not have when
Soviet Russia was a defeated and bankrupt country. The unsettling effect of World
War II on older concepts of national patriotism is still difficult to measure. The
desire for peace, as an end in itself, has probably grown stronger nearly
everywhere. Fascism has played its part, in many countries, in sharpening class,
race and other group divisions within nations. But this is still a world, outside the
U.S.S.R., of sovereign nations; and it is hard to resist the conclusion that the
central problem of Communist foreign policy in the United States is its
Americanization.
The report of the Royal Commission which investigated Russian espionage

activities in Canada in 1946 stated the problem in explicit terms in describing the
activities of Communist study groups organized among Canadians:
Indeed, a sense of internationalism seems in many cases to play a definite rôle in

one stage of the courses. In these cases, the Canadian sympathizer is first
encouraged to develop a sense of loyalty, not directly to a foreign state, but to
what he conceives to be an international ideal. This subjective internationalism is
then usually linked almost inextricably through the indoctrination courses to the
propaganda of a particular foreign state, with the current conception of the
national interests of that foreign state and with the current doctrines and policies
of Communist parties throughout the world.
The detailed testimony of some of the accused Canadians made three points clear:
(1) the original motivation of nearly all was in terms of "an international ideal;" (2)
this opening was then used by a singularly bumbling Soviet espionage service to
make some of them agents of a foreign state in completely non-idealistic ways; (3)
some of those who had been more thoroughly indoctrinated were consciously
aware of this and yet still confident that service to "the Socialist fatherland" could
be reconciled with their Canadian patriotism. Others were not so confident. In
"The Meaning of Treason," Rebecca West has described the later trial of Dr. Allan
Nunn May, British scientist who was convicted of giving samples of uranium to a
Russian agent, in terms which convincingly reveal the deep moral indecision on
this point which persists even in those who have subscribed to large portions of
the Communist position. Here, then, is the framework of emotion and loyalty
within which any national Communist party must work out a foreign policy. The
Russian appeal to non-Russians is based on an idealism, chiefly the hope for
peace, which is international. Over the short run, the support evoked by this
appeal can be, and in fact is, used to serve the Soviet Union. Can the Communists
work out, over the long pull, any mass acceptance of their internationalism as a
position which does not do violence to the national loyalties of Americans?
Not even the realists in the Russian Politburo have been able to dissipate the
attraction of Communism as a promise of possible peace among nations. The
increasing terror of modern war has played a part in keeping the promise fresh in
many minds. It is much too glib to assume that American Communists follow a
Russian line for reasons which fit neatly into any older patterns of national rivalry
or simple treason. International Communist agents are usually professionals, and
Soviet diplomatic and trade offices make it possible for them to operate in great
secrecy. But our estimate of their skill may be based more often on our own sense
of insecurity than on any observation or experience. The fact is rather that
Moscow still has a direct appeal to the imagination of many non-Russians, in spite
of the importance of specifically Russian national interests in its foreign policies.
This appeal is based far more on doctrine than on recent diplomatic history.
Before the war, Maxim Litvinov's defense of collective security tended to
reënforce this doctrinal base; but since the war, Soviet support of the
international brotherhood of man has been consistently subordinated to the
security demands of the U.S.S.R. Yet the doctrinal appeal of Marxism to many
who would gladly sacrifice most of the prerogatives of the nation-state in return
for peace is now a century old. Professor E. H. Carr, in "Nationalism and After,"
has listed the evidence supporting the curious paradox that World War II may
have marked, in many minds, both the apogee and at the same time the end of
unqualified nationalism. Popular support for schemes of world government in the
United States over the last few years suggests that older feelings of patriotism are
still being profoundly churned and modified even in people not attracted by
Marxism.
In other parts of the world, the simple internationalism of the "Communist

Manifesto" is currently being fused with specific national traditions in ways more
varied even than those tried by Lenin in Russia a generation ago. The exact
nature and the speed of this alloying process is still uncertain, outside of Russia,
but only those transfixed by the creeping terror of the Russian secret police deny
that the process is taking place. In both China and Europe, the influence of the
Red Army, of professional Communist agents, and of Moscow directives is
certainly stronger than in the United States. Yet the integrity of older concepts of
nationalism has also been under far heavier attack than in the United States, as a
result of the war, which worked enormous destruction both on private property
and on the ideas and loyalties of the middle class.
The degree to which Russian national interests can be blended into even an
embryonic Communist internationalism, with recognition of specific national
differences, varies widely in different countries, and the determining factor is
always Soviet security. The speed at which the process may continue is also
impossible to predict, and the question of a national war involving Russia is the
greatest unknown in the equation. But many reports from both eastern and
western Europe agree that, among the many and curious motivations which have
led men and women into the Communist parties since the war, a hope of
reconciling the forces of nationalism and internationalism has played a large rôle.
The Chinese Communists, according to almost all first-hand accounts, are
convinced that the political value of their status as a national Chinese party inside
an international Communist movement is more valuable to them than the dubious
gain of complete doctrinal orthodoxy and a few Russian machine guns. The
"nationalization" of the Communist movement throughout the world is less a
tactical gambit dreamed up in the Kremlin than it is a response to very real
pressures generated in wartime resistance movements and in the postwar period.
It is significant that this process has so far had no important reflection in the
foreign policy of the American Communist Party. It continues to base its general
appeal on the older and purer program of the Third International. Moscow
theoretical journals are currently debating the nomenclature to be applied to the
"democracies of a special type" which have emerged since the war. Every
Communist party in Europe is now committed to at least one position which
conflicts with Soviet foreign policy. When the "Socialist realists" in Moscow art
circles attack Picasso, the French Communists extol him; Czech Communists
announce without rebuke that they see no need for a proletarian dictatorship in
their country; Arthur Horner challenges British miners to dig more coal for a
European recovery program which Moscow denounces. Such instances of national
diversity within international Communism are still exceedingly rare, but a few
years ago there were none at all. The Communists are fumbling for a new formula
which will allow Mr. Manuilsky to be Foreign Minister of a "republic" which is
sovereign only in the protocol of Lake Success, Marshal Tito to be the head of a
semi-sovereign state which cannot make war without Russian permission, and the
French and Italian Communists to be independent at least to the point required
for them to gain mass support in nations where an older patriotism is taking, to
say the least, a long time to die. Mr. Foster, however, has stuck close to the
simpler formula; he rejects the charge that his party is un-American by claiming
that the charge is based exclusively on a "monopoly-capitalist conception of
patriotism." It is significant that his foreign policy must be described or quoted
chiefly in negative terms. Its totality is suspect, regardless of its specific points,
except to those Americans who fully accept the formula that Soviet success will
bring international Socialism which will bring peace.
There are several possible reasons for this. One is the long history of schism and
heresy inside American Communism which gives a special onus, by Communist
standards, to charges of "revisionism," and especially of "exceptionalism"—the
Marxist code word embracing all suggestions that the pattern of proletarian
revolution may be modified in any degree by circumstances peculiarly American.
Earl Browder's expulsion from the party in 1946 was based on charges of "right
opportunism," and the sharpest attack on his policies, made by Jacques Duclos,
French Communist leader, in Les Cahiers du Communisme, in May 1945 singled
out as his chief crimes the changing of the American party to a "political
association" and his forecast of relatively long-term class and international peace
for the United States. The tactics were correct, the New Masses declared when
the controversy had ended Mr. Browder's leadership of the party, but the
principle had been wrong.
Mr. Browder is still an "exceptionalist," arguing that American imperialism has

had potentially progressive aspects and that a long-term peaceful alliance
between the Soviet Union and America is both possible and desirable. "According
to a new dogmatism," he has recently written, "that has temporarily established
itself recently among American Marxists, to speak of anything progressive coming
out of American imperialism is the 'crime against the Holy Ghost,' it is the original
sin of 'revisionism,' it is the unspeakable word which puts the man who utters it
outside the pale, to be shunned like a leper." He might have added that the
Russian Communists have so far neither shunned him nor denounced him.
Another reason may lie in the fact that American Communists have won their
greatest support in the past among first-generation immigrants, whose American
patriotism is relatively shallow-rooted, and among intellectuals, most susceptible
to the undiluted internationalism of pure Marxist doctrine. Ten years ago, Mr.
Browder was the leader of the party when an attempt was made to claim for
American Communists some of the traditions of Thomas Jefferson and Abraham
Lincoln, largely in terms of propaganda. This was designed to widen the party's
appeal and to attract Americans of other groups than those which have
traditionally dominated its membership. It is all but impossible now to estimate
how effective this attempt proved. It took place in the middle of the depression
and when a strong anti-Fascist movement was still growing; both of these were
factors tending to widen the Communist appeal in any case. The subsequent
dispute over Browder's expulsion from the party was conducted on both sides (at
least in public) in such algebraic language that it is difficult now even to guess
how much this departure from pure internationalism was involved. What is clear
is that the policy changed with the propaganda.
"America," Irving Babbitt said, "is where Europe goes when it dies." This country
may well become the last stronghold of what was once strict orthodoxy in
European Communism, just as it may be the last habitat of the anti-Comintern.
Certainly the foreign policy of the American Communists is now more Russian
than Molotov's, if only because it is denied the swift and sudden manœuvrability
which that resourceful Foreign Minister retains. It is more Communist than that
of Mao Tse-tung, or Clement Gottwald, or Mathias Rakosi, who has already begun
the long series of concessions which power exacts from any doctrine. It includes
many issues on which it could enlist mass support, yet it remains suspect and
alien to most Americans. Only a major depression could give the American
Communists again the chances which were theirs during the war to work out a
Communist solution in American terms for the conflict between nationalism and
internationalism which lies at the heart of the world's crisis.
JOSEPH BARNES, Foreign Editor of the New York Herald Tribune; Deputy Director of the Overseas Branch, OWI,
1941-44
April 1,1948
The Promise of Human Rights
Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt
FDR LIBRARY
Roosevelt with the Spanish version of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The real importance of the Human Rights Commission which was created by the
Economic and Social Council lies in the fact that throughout the world there are
many people who do not enjoy the basic rights which have come to be accepted in
many other parts of the world as inherent rights of all individuals, without which
no one can live in dignity and freedom.
At the first meeting of the Economic and Social Council in London, early in 1946,
a Nuclear Commission was named to recommend a permanent setup for the full
Commission of Human Rights, and to consider the work which it should first
undertake. These first members of the Nuclear Commission were not chosen as
representatives of governments, but as individuals. Naturally, however, each
government was asked to concur in the nomination from that country. There were
nine members nominated, but two of them were not able to come; and one or two
nations insisted on nominating their own representatives. I was one of the
members of the original Nuclear Commission, and when we met at Hunter
College, I was elected chairman. The other members were: Mr. Fernanda de
Husse, Belgium; Mr. K. C. Neogi, India; Professor René Cassin, France; Dr. C. L.
Haai, China; Mr. Dusan Brkish, Jugoslavia; Mr. Borisov, U. S. S. R.
The representative from the U. S. S. R. was at first a young secretary from the
Soviet Embassy. The other members of the Nuclear Commission did not realize
that he was not the regular representative and was not empowered to vote. It was
not until three days before the end of the meeting that the regular member, Mr.
Borisov, arrived; and then we discovered that the representative of the U. S. S. R.
who had been attending the meetings actually had had no right to vote, and such
votes had to be removed from the record. The Commission was a little disturbed
because a number of concessions had been made in order to obtain unanimity.
Also, this change made it impossible for any decision to be unanimous, since the
Soviet representative had been told that he could not commit his government by a
vote on any subject and therefore registered no vote on the first recommendations
for the Commission's organization and program of work.
The Commission made a number of recommendations. For instance, we agreed

that persons should be chosen as individuals and not merely as representatives of
governments. We agreed that there should be 18 members of the full
Commission—an example of a minor point on which we had made concessions to
the representative of the U. S. S. R., because originally the various members of
the group had differed as to what the proper size of the Commission should be. I
had been told that it made very little difference to the United States whether the
Commission numbered 12 or 25, but it was felt the number should not be less
than 12 because unavoidable absences might cut it down to too small a group;
and it was felt also that the number should not be more than 25, for fear a large
group might make our work very difficult to accomplish.
When I found out how many varieties of opinion there were, I made the
suggestion as chairman that we might make the number 21, since we were apt to
discuss some rather controversial subjects, and if there was a tie the chairman
could cast the deciding vote. Most of the members agreed with this until we came
to the representative of the U. S. S. R. He insisted that we should be 18, because
our parent body, the Economic and Social Council, was made up of 18 members.
As we did not feel that the size of the Commission was vitally important, and as he
could not be induced to change, we agreed to recommend that the Commission
consist of 18 members.
Among a number of other recommendations in our report we suggested that the
first work to be undertaken was the writing of a Bill of Human Rights. Many of us
thought that lack of standards for human rights the world over was one of the
greatest causes of friction among the nations, and that recognition of human
rights might become one of the cornerstones on which peace could eventually be
based.
At its next meeting the Economic and Social Council received our report, which I
presented, and it was then studied in detail and a number of changes were made.
The members of the Commission were made government representatives, chosen
by their governments. The 18 governments to be represented on the Commission
were chosen by the Economic and Social Council. The United States was given a
four-year appointment and my government nominated me as a member. At
present the following are represented on the Commission: Australia, Belgium,
Byelorussia, China, Chile, Egypt, France, India, Iran, Lebanon, Panama, the
Philippines, Ukraine, the U. S. S. R., Jugoslavia, Uruguay, the United Kingdom
and the United States.
The first session of the full Commission was called in January 1947. The officers
chosen at that time, in addition to myself as permanent chairman, were Dr. Chang
of China as vice-chairman and Dr. Charles Malik of Lebanon as rapporteur. In that
first meeting we requested that the Division of Human Rights in the Secretariat
get out a yearbook on human rights, and receive all petitions and acknowledge
them. Since we were not a court, we could do nothing actually to solve the
problems that these petitions presented, but we could tell the petitioners that
once the Bill of Human Rights was written, they might find that their particular
problems came under one of its provisions.
We considered some of the main points which should go into the drafting of the
Bill of Human Rights, and we named a drafting committee which should present
the first draft to the next meeting of the full Commission. This work was entrusted
to the officers of the Commission, all of whom were available in or near Lake
Success, and to Dr. John Humphrey, as head of the Division of Human Rights in
the Secretariat. But when the Economic and Social Council received the report of
this procedure considerable opposition to the appointment of so small a
committee was expressed. As it had been understood in our meeting that the
chairman of the committee was to call upon other members of the Commission for
advice and assistance, I at once urged that the drafting committee be increased to
eight members. This was done.
The drafting committee then met in June 1947. The delegate from the U. S. S. R.,
Mr. Koretsky, and the delegate from Byelorussia, neither of whom was authorized
to vote on an unfinished document and both of whom lacked instructions from
their governments, participated very little in the general discussion of the drafting
committee, though they did agree to the principles that all men are equal and that
men and women should have equal rights. The second meeting of the full
Commission was called in Geneva, Switzerland, because some members felt
strongly that the Human Rights Commission should hold a session in Europe. We
were scheduled to meet on December 1, 1947, but as many of the members were
delayed in arriving we actually met on December 2.
We mapped out our work very carefully. The position of the United States had
been that it would be impossible in these initial meetings to do more than write a
Declaration. If the Declaration were accepted by the General Assembly the next
autumn, it would carry moral weight, but it would not carry any legal weight.
Many of the smaller nations were strongly of the opinion that the oppressed
peoples of the world and the minority groups would feel that they had been
cruelly deceived if we did not write a Convention which would be presented for
ratification, nation by nation, and which when accepted would be incorporated
into law in the same way that treaties among nations are accepted and
implemented. The Government of the United States had never, of course, been
opposed to writing a Convention; it simply felt that the attempt would not be
practical in these early stages. When it was found that feeling ran high on this
subject, we immediately coöperated.
The Commission divided itself into three groups. The group to work on the
Declaration consisted of the representatives of Byelorussia, France, Panama, the
Philippines, the U. S. S. R. and the United States. The group to work on the
Convention was made up of the representatives of Chile, China, Egypt, Lebanon,
the United Kingdom and Jugoslavia. The third group, to work on methods of
implementation, which would later, of course, be included in the Convention,
consisted of the representatives of Australia, India, Iran, Ukraine and Uruguay.
At the first meeting of the Commission, the representative from Australia made
the suggestion that a Court of Human Rights be created. There had been a good
deal of discussion of this idea in previous meetings. The general feeling was,
however, that this action could not be taken under the Charter as it now stands
and would raise the problem of revision of the Charter.
At the start, the United Kingdom had brought to the drafting committee a
Declaration and a Convention which included suggestions for implementation. The
U. S. S. R., while still not committing itself to any vote, as the Soviet Government
still insisted that until a finished document was prepared they could not vote on it,
nevertheless was willing to participate in the discussions which concerned the
writing of a Declaration. Their representative took an active part, particularly in
the discussion and formulation of the social and economic rights of the individual
which are considered in some detail in the Declaration.
This was a hard-working committee, and I was extremely gratified both at the
willingness of the members to put in long hours and at the general spirit of
coöperation. In spite of the fact that a good many of the members must frequently
have been very weary, there was always an atmosphere of good feeling and
consideration for others, even when questions arose which called forth strong
differences of opinion.
We finished our work at 11:30 P.M. on the night of December 17, and I think the
documents which have now gone to all of the member governments in the United
Nations are very creditable. A Declaration and a Convention were written. The
group working on implementation made suggestions which, of course, must be
more carefully considered before they are finally incorporated in the Convention.
We now await the comments. These were requested by early April, so that the
Human Rights Division of the Secretariat could go over them carefully and put
them in shape for the drafting committee which will meet again at Lake Success
on May 3, 1948.
The full Commission will meet at Lake Success on May 17, to give final
consideration to this Bill of Human Rights, or Pact, as our Government prefers to
have it called. The Economic and Social Council received the report of the
documents written in Geneva, and sent them to the governments in January. They
will now make their comments and suggestions. The final opportunity for
consideration by the Economic and Social Council will come at its meeting next
July, and the pact or charter which is finally adopted at that meeting will be
presented to the General Assembly in the autumn of 1948.
II
Three Articles in the Declaration seem to me to be of vital importance. Article 15

provides that everyone has the right to a nationality; that is, all persons are
entitled to the protection of some government, and those who are without it shall
be protected by the United Nations. Article 16 says that individual freedom of
thought and conscience, to hold and change beliefs, is an absolute and sacred
right. Included in this Article is a declaration of the right to manifest these beliefs
in the form of worship, observance, teaching and practice. Article 21 declares that
everyone, without discrimination, has the right to take an effective part in the
government of his country. This aims to give assurance that governments of states
will bend and change according to the will of the people as shown in elections,
which shall be periodic, free, fair and by secret ballot.
Some of the other important Articles are broad in scope. For instance, Article 23
says that every one has the right to work, and that the state has a duty to take
steps within its power to ensure its residents an opportunity for useful work.
Article 24 says that everyone has a right to receive pay commensurate with his
ability and skill and may join trade unions to protect his interests.
Other Articles in the Declaration set forth rights such as the right to the
preservation of health, which would give the state responsibility for health and
safety measures; the right to social security, which makes it the duty of the state
to provide measures for the security of the individual against the consequences of
unemployment, disability, old age and other loss of livelihood beyond his control;
the right to education, which should be free and compulsory, and the provision
that higher education should be available to all without distinction as to race, sex,
language, religion, social standing, financial means or political affiliation; the
right to rest and leisure—that is, a limitation on hours of work and provisions for
vacations with pay; the right to participate in the cultural life of the community,
enjoy its arts and share in the benefits of science. Another Article asserts that
education will be directed to the full physical, intellectual, moral and spiritual
development of the human personality and to combatting hatred against other
nations or racial or religious groups.
If the Declaration is accepted by the Assembly, it will mean that all the nations
accepting it hope that the day will come when these rights are considered
inherent rights belonging to every human being, but it will not mean that they
have to change their laws immediately to make these rights possible.
On the other hand, as the Convention is ratified by one nation after another it will
require that each ratifying nation change its laws where necessary, to make
possible that every human being within its borders shall enjoy the rights set forth.
The Convention, of course, covers primarily the civil liberties which many of the
nations of the world have accepted as inherent rights of human beings, and it
reaffirms a clause in the Charter of the United Nations which says that there shall
be no discrimination among any human beings because of race, creed or color.
The most important articles of the Convention are subjects with which every
American high school student is familiar. Article 5 makes it unlawful to deprive a
person of life except as punishment for a crime provided by law. Article 6 outlaws
physical mutilation. Article 7 forbids torture and cruel or inhuman punishment.
Article 8 prohibits slavery and compulsory labor, with exceptions permitted as to
the latter in the case of military service and emergency service in time of disaster
such as flood or earthquake.
A provision which is new in an international constitutional sense, though not new

in practice to Americans, is Article 11, which guarantees liberty of movement and
a free choice of residence within a state, and a general freedom to every person in
the world to leave any country, including his own. Article 20 makes all sections of
the Convention applicable without distinction as to race, sex, language, religion,
political or other opinion, property status, or national or social origin; and Article
21 requires the states to forbid by law the advocacy of national, racial or religious
hostility that constitutes incitement to violence. In general, every nation ratifying
the Convention will have to make sure that within its jurisdiction these promised
rights become realities, so it is the Convention which is of the greatest importance
to the peoples throughout the world.
A possible stumbling block to general ratification of the Convention is the fact

that some federal states, like the United States, operate constitutional systems in
which the primary laws affecting individuals are adopted by the constituent states
and are beyond the constitutional power of the federal government. The
Convention provides, in Article 24, that in such cases these federal governments
shall call to the attention of their constituent states, with a favorable
recommendation, those Articles considered appropriate for action by them.
One of the questions that will come before the Human Rights Commission in May
is whether all the Articles included in the Convention shall be submitted to the
various nations for ratification in a single document, to be taken all in one gulp, so
to speak, or shall be divided into separate conventions, in the thought that this
procedure would avoid the rejection of the entire document because of objection
to one or two Articles, as might happen in many cases. Of course, it is quite
evident that in the future there will have to be many conventions on special
subjects, and that the work of the Human Rights Commission should be directed
for years to come to those subjects as they arise. A convention on the subject of
nationality and stateless persons seems to be knocking at our doors for
consideration almost immediately.
III
As I look back at the work thus far of our Human Rights Commission I realize that
its importance is twofold.
In the first place, we have put into words some inherent rights. Beyond that, we
have found that the conditions of our contemporary world require the
enumeration of certain protections which the individual must have if he is to
acquire a sense of security and dignity in his own person. The effect of this is
frankly educational. Indeed, I like to think that the Declaration will help forward
very largely the education of the peoples of the world.
It seems to me most important that the Declaration be accepted by all member

nations, not because they will immediately live up to all of its provisions, but
because they ought to support the standards toward which the nations must
henceforward aim. Since the objectives have been clearly stated, men of good will
everywhere will strive to attain them with more energy and, I trust, with better
hope of success.
As the Convention is adhered to by one country after another, it will actually bring
into being rights which are tangible and can be invoked before the law of the
ratifying countries. Everywhere many people will feel more secure. And as the
Great Powers tie themselves down by their ratifications, the smaller nations which
fear that the great may abuse their strength will acquire a sense of greater
assurance.
The work of the Commission has been of outstanding value in setting before men's
eyes the ideals which they must strive to reach. Men cannot live by bread alone.
MRS. FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, U. S. Member of the Commission on Human Rights of the United Nations;
Representative in the General Assembly, United Nations, 1945 and 1946
April 1,1948
Our Sovereignty: Shall We Use It?
Wendell L. Willkie
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
Thomas E. Dewey with Thomas J. Curran, Manhattan GOP leader, on return from a campaign tour.
Since the turn of the century we have lost the power of directing our own national
destiny. We must regain it. To show how much we have lost control over our
destiny I need only point to our unwilling participation in two world wars and to
the instability of the American economy during the period between them. We have
sought to escape war and to maintain our economy as a separate entity in the
world by jealously guarding our sovereign rights. I am forced to the conclusion
that something is wrong with what we have meant by the term "national
sovereignty" if it produces Hawley-Smoot tariffs; the banking failures, depressions
and misery of 1929 and ensuing years; highly nationalistic economic policies, with
consequent deficit financing and violent discords among groups within our own
society; agrarian unrest and farmers' strikes; and, finally, two decades after we
brought our boys home from one war in Europe, the loading of transports to take
their sons across submarine infested seas to fight in another.
I believe that if we are to avoid the same disastrous cycle when the present war in
Europe and Asia has been won we shall have to give up the idea that sovereignty
is something simply to be conserved, like the talent which was laid away in the
earth in the biblical parable, and accept the idea that it is an active force to be
used. That is the thesis of what I have to say here.
I want to see our Government and people use the sovereign power of the United
States in partnership with the sovereign power of other peace-loving nations to
create and operate an international organization which will give better protection
to the rights of all nations, on a wider political, economic and social basis, than
has ever yet been attempted in history. To my mind, mutuality of responsibility
and service represents more real freedom, in the sense of freedom from wars and
economic disaster, than can be gained through adherence to all the sterile
formulas of exclusive national sovereignty written into all the books of
international law ever published.
This means that we must expand the use of our sovereignty to the extent that
other nations will expand theirs to accomplish the common purpose. If we decide
to do this, we may succeed in turning the page of history which we fumbled at but
failed to turn 25 years ago. If on the contrary we decide to continue the same
static, passive and essentially frightened isolationist policy which we adopted
after the last world war I feel sure we shall be heading into a third one.
II
"It will be a long time, I venture to believe, before there will be any necessity or
any justification for the United States engaging in a foreign war." The statement
was made in January 1934, one year after Adolf Hitler took control of the destinies
of Germany. It was made by the late William E. Borah, Senator from Idaho and
Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, a man greatly
respected, profoundly sincere and, in matters of foreign policy, tragically
shortsighted. "Internationalism," continued Senator Borah in the same address,[i]
"if it means anything more than the friendly coöperation between separate,
distinct and wholly independent nations, rests upon a false foundation. And when
undertaken, it will fail as in the name of progress and humanity it should fail."
Ultimate proof of a nation's freedom, Senator Borah saw, resided in its ability to
choose freely between war and peace. He also knew that peace was the
fundamental condition of all useful activity by the people of the United States or
by their Government. The primary aim of governmental policy, then, was the
preservation of peace. Near the end of his life he stated the sort of policy which,
in the light of the nation's experience, he considered most likely to achieve that
aim. It would have to be one which "offers peace to all nations, trade and
commerce with all nations, honest friendship with all nations," but it should be
based, he thought, on "political commitments, expressed or implied, with none."
Only if the United States pursued that sort of policy did Senator Borah think it
would have freedom of action—the freedom "to remain aloof or to take part in
foreign wars."
Today open-minded and alert Americans are drawing a different lesson from our
national experience. They perceive that the United States has not been free to
choose peace or war in the twentieth century. Our area of decision has not
extended to whether or not we would go to war. We have only been able to decide
that temporarily we would postpone going to war.
In 1914 we approached a "foreign" war in a spirit of determined neutrality. In

1939 we did the same, armed with a specific program designed to make us
immune to any external shock. Both times we were forced, contrary to our desires
and efforts, to abandon our neutrality, point by point. Both times we found that
our national existence was at stake. Both times we had to fight to defend it. In the
present war, the very hour and minute at which we had to resort to arms was
dictated to us by our enemies.
In the modern world, an American foreign policy which assumes that nations are
"separate, distinct and wholly independent" is a foreign policy which permits
other nations to make decisions affecting vital American interests at their
convenience and when they choose.
Our loss of the separate power to control our own separate destiny in economic
affairs is scarcely less striking. We have faced the fact with reluctance. For a
century—thanks, in part at least, to the fact that our country within itself was
largely an undeveloped world—we prospered magnificently on the assumption
that we needed to consider only our own wants, our own resources, our own
energy—and the enjoyment we took in putting all three to use. Yet even in the
nineteenth century the cotton growers of the South discovered important
exceptions to the rule that the American economy was self-contained. In 1915 the
farmers of the Middle West and West discovered their close relationship to
countries 5,000 miles away.
This discovery of the farmers was pleasant at first, for the prices of farm products
shot upward under the demand of Allied buying, and 40,000,000 additional acres
were put to the plough to meet the world's cry for food. But then came the drastic
postwar deflation and the emergence of the 20-year "farm problem." The
memorable McNary-Haugen Bill, twice passed by both Houses of Congress and
twice vetoed by President Coolidge, represented a first attempt to find a solution
for the farmers' problems in terms of the international situation. It was an effort
to devise a special kind of farm tariff which would free agricultural prices from
the deflationary pressure of surplus production. Perhaps it was not scientific. But
it showed that the western farmer was coming to realize that his own well-being
was closely connected with policies and actions in other parts of the world.
When the depression began the country turned to extreme protectionism in the
search for economic security. The Hawley-Smoot tariff of 1930 raised our duties
on imports to the highest level in history. Retaliation followed in the form of
discrimination against our products by Spain, Italy, Switzerland, France and a
score of other countries. In 1932, Great Britain and the dominions instituted their
system of "imperial preferences." Which was cause and which effect in the
economic chaos of the depression years need not be argued here. The war debts,
the reparations tangle, the foreign loans, the speculative mania, the panic of 1929
on the New York Stock Exchange, the collapse of the Kredit Anstalt bank in
Austria, Britain's abandonment of the gold standard—these were only high spots
of the general debâcle. All the events were interrelated and the effects of all were
worldwide. The United States found out with a vengeance that it was not exempt
from those effects, that it was, in fact, an integral part of the wide, wide world.
Our Government, faced with this stubborn fact, pursued contradictory policies.
Our only consistency, indeed, was that we stuck to nothing long. One
Administration attempted to revive foreign lending and stimulate international
trade by pressing for a suspension of reparations payments and placing a
moratorium on war debts. But at the same time it raised the tariff. The next
Administration initiated a program looking to international currency stabilization
and dropped it, spectacularly, soon after its own emissaries had gathered with
those of other nations in a World Economic Conference. It then attempted to
institute a program of planned economic nationalism of its own, supported by
heavy deficit financing.
This program and its inevitable results accelerated the decline of the economic
structure of the European democracies which were then beginning to feel the
pressures of totalitarianism (a system of political action and economic
organization growing, in part at least, out of the nationalistic policies almost
universally practised by the nations of the world). Winston Churchill in 1937, on
the floor of Parliament, pointed out that, "Those who are keeping the flag of peace
and free government flying in the Old World have almost a right to ask that their
comrades in the New World should, during these years of exceptional and not
diminishing danger, set an example of strength and stability. The well-being of the
United States may spell not only the well-being but the safety of all sorts and
conditions of men. . . . A prosperous United States exerts, directly and indirectly,
an immense beneficent force upon world affairs. A United States thrown into
financial and economical collapse spreads evil far and wide, and weakens France
and England just at the time when they have most need to be strong."
All this is recalled to emphasize one point: our experience demonstrates that we
are not "wholly independent." As Senator Capper said on behalf of the farmers
back in 1927: "Wherever we turn we find the Middle West and its economic woes
entangled in the elusive 'foreign situation' with which it used to concern itself
very little."
Some farmers again show signs of being misled into thinking that high
protectionism will give them security after this war. I do not believe that many of
them will wish, on second thought, to resume the hopeless effort to "lock up"
wheat prices on a purely national basis. The price of wheat in the United States is
not a "separate" affair. Similarly, the price of cotton will continue to be
determined, not solely in the United States, but also in Egypt and India and
Manchester and a dozen other cotton-producing and cotton-processing centers.
Conditions in Argentina and Australia will continue to affect the livelihood of
cattle and sheep raisers in North America. Our businessmen and our farmers alike
know in their minds, if not yet fully in their hearts, that the economy of the United
States is irretrievably intertwined with that of other nations.
III
Congress and the press have been discussing the steps which should be taken to
bring the peacetime foreign policy of the United States into harmony with
twentieth century realities. Much of the talk has centered about the term
sovereignty.
In the whole literature of political theory no word has occasioned more disputes.
Students of politics hold generally, I think, that few countries have contributed
more significantly to the development of political institutions than the United
States. But since the days when Madison, Hamilton and Jay wrote for The
Federalist we have made few notable contributions in the realm of theory.
Perhaps we should be grateful that Americans are traditionally interested in
finding out, not the fine shadings in a word's meaning, so much as the essence of
the thing it represents. Even so, we cannot dismiss the conflict in opinion over the
term sovereignty as mere juggling with words.
The word sovereignty does represent a most important idea. And it is of additional
practical importance for us now because some of our deepest emotions and
loyalties, our pride in our country's past and our concern for her future, are
associated with it. But we had best be aware also that it often gets into the
forefront of our thoughts for other and less legitimate reasons. Often it is
deliberately invoked to create confusion. And often, as with other words which
receive a lot of attention, it becomes a catchword, a slogan. Many people now feel
the necessity of putting the word "sovereign" into any sentence describing our
relationship to other nations in the postwar world as automatically as they put on
a necktie when they dress in the morning. I believe it is much too important a
word to be used as a mere convention of speech.
The word has had many meanings in the course of humanity's long effort to
perfect the idea and instruments of self-government. Only comparatively recently
did it come into use as a specific name for the source of power and authority
within a state. Toward the end of the Middle Ages it described the position of the
feudal chief to whom allegiance was due. There were then layers of "sovereign
lords," beginning with a very small "sovereign" who controlled the lives and
property of a miserable handful at the bottom of the heap, up through somewhat
more impressive sovereigns who ruled over several small ones, to a group of great
barons who recognized no superiors. In the course of time and much fighting
these many sovereigns yielded to one, and the nation-state emerged with all
power in the hands of one ruler, the king.
The story of how the absolute authority of the monarch yielded in turn to the
authority of the community—that is, of the people—is the story of the development
of democracy, the great theme of modern history.
The line of development was by no means straight. Sometimes it doubled back—as

in the Fascism of our own time. There have been variations in the theory designed
to widen the base of popular authority in the state or to narrow it, to keep things
as they were or to make way for change, to restrict the electorate or to extend
it—as when the franchise for women was debated. It is sufficient for us to note
about these theories simply that they were developed in response to the pressure
of practical circumstances—political, military, economic or social.
Some ardent theorists have endeavored to separate sovereignty from reality

altogether in their search for a completely logical system built up out of words.
Sometimes the search for a mystical point called the ultimate source of
sovereignty has turned into a game for special devotees, as in the studies which
find the ultimate pinpoint of sovereignty in the sub-section of the Constitution
which provides for the amending of the Constitution. I have no quarrel with those
who enjoy such academic pleasures. But there need be no confusion regarding the
central fact of the matter. Sovereignty within the United States resides in the
people of the United States. The people of the United States exercise the supreme
power of the state. They are sovereign.
IV
What, then, is the difficulty? It comes from the effort to extend the sovereignty
concept beyond the purpose for which it was developed and apply it in the field of
relations among nations.
Does the sovereignty of the American people extend throughout the world? The
question has only to be put to be answered: obviously not. Two states, at the
moment, pretend that they have a right and duty to enforce their will throughout
the world. They have dressed their claim up in fancy and most offensive theories
based on blood, race and mythology. It is now in the course of being put down.
The idea of the absolute sovereignty of any nation in international relationships is
as impractical in operation as the idea of the absolute separateness of any nation.
To the extent that the term sovereignty is taken to mean that we have the right to
do exactly as we please in dealings with other nations, and that what we choose to
do is not properly of concern to any other nation, it is out of date. During roughly
125 years of our national existence we assumed that this conception of
sovereignty was valid. We even got into the habit of believing that it was an
essential part of national freedom. Its invalidity was brought home to us only with
the development of modern communications. To try to defend it against the facts
of modern life would be unrealistic and dangerous. Nor would we thereby be
preserving freedom.
Many of us remember when there were so few motorcars that each driver was left
free to make his own rules of the road. It was generally understood that a good
citizen behind the wheel of a two-cylinder runabout would slow down on corners
and either stop or make as little noise as possible when he encountered a horse.
Beyond that, if he didn't deliberately run into people, "reckless driving" meant
only that he would break a spring or his own neck. But as the roads became filled
with powerful automobiles there had to be traffic lights and motor cops. A man
could no longer make his own rules of the road. Today if there were no traffic
laws no one of us would dare take his car out of the garage. The red and green
lights give us freedom to use our automobiles.
Let us face the analogous situation in the relationships of nations. The highways
of the world now are crowded. From Hong Kong to Narvik, and from the North
Pole to the South, there are no empty seas, no air spaces which are not traversed,
no land where rights and interests of many peoples do not meet and may not
conflict. The United States or any other nation cannot make the rules of the road
all by itself.
In this matter I think we must prepare to revise our ideas even further. Nations
cannot as a matter of principle refuse to arbitrate international disputes which
arise from domestic policies. Speaking on this question, one of the most
distinguished statesmen of our day, Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes,
later Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, said in 1923 in a
speech before the Canadian Bar Association: "In these days of intimate relations,
of economic stress and of intense desire to protect national interests and advance
national opportunity, the treatment of questions which, from a legal standpoint,
are domestic, often seriously affects international relations. The principle, each
nation for itself to the full extent of its powers, is the principle of war, not of
peace."
Understand, I am not suggesting the abolition of sovereignty. I am merely

following out logically what seems to me an obvious line of reasoning. Senator
Austin of Vermont recently expressed it when he said: "In order to save
sovereignty we must use sovereignty in joining other nations for security."
Sometimes the suggestion that sovereignty be used causes unnecessary alarm lest
thereby sovereignty be lost. I think these fears are based on nothing more serious
than a misunderstanding of method. "As I speak of sovereignty," said Senator
Wiley of Wisconsin in a recent debate in Congress, "I speak of something which is
precious. I speak of that which my grandfather obtained when he came to this
country. Although he still could not understand the English language, he could
obtain 160 acres of land, and he never forgot that that was his soil. . . . After he
came to this country he became inspired with something called American
sovereignty, and he was a part of the national sovereignty. I say that I do not
think we, as trustees, can barter that thing away—the sovereignty of the State or
the people."
Each of us shares the feeling for the American soil expressed so movingly by
Senator Wiley. Each of us values the backbone which the feeling of self-reliance
he extols has given the American people. Each of us, with him, gets angry at the
suggestion we might "barter away" something which we hold so precious. But
this, it seems to me, is another example of the way in which shades of meaning
can obscure the essence of what a word stands for. The actual proceeding of give
and take described by the word barter has nothing unworthy about it. Indeed, the
phrase "enter into a contract to do such-and-such on such-and-such terms," which
might properly be substituted in this connection, carries only honorable and
businesslike implications.
I think that if we wish to establish relations between nations based on law instead
of force the method which must be followed is the one employed when men enter
into a contract of partnership. This has been developed over the years as a
practical device for advancing the interests of civilized persons. A proper
partnership involves clear rights and equivalent duties for all the partners,
proportionate to their respective stakes in the common enterprise. The rights do
not exist apart from the duties. This means that anyone who wants to enjoy the
advantages of a partnership must give up some of his individual freedom of
action. This voluntary limitation on his own future action constitutes the
advantage which his partners gain in return for giving up some of their freedom
of action in his favor.
It is a simple fact that we have often contracted to limit our theoretically absolute
right to do as we liked in dealings with other nations, in return for something
which we thought of equal or greater value. Let me cite a single example which
we have come to take so much as a matter of course that many people will be
surprised to be told it is an example. In 1874 we bartered away our "right" to
require that inhabitants of other countries who wished to mail a letter to the
United States must abide by postal rules fixed independently by the United States.
Did we "lose" any of our sovereignty in joining the Universal Postal Union which
set standard weights and rates for letters exchanged between Americans and
people in other parts of the world? A hundred other equally elementary examples
could be given—the rules of safety at sea of 1889, the international sanitary
regulations of 1903, the international regulation of radio wave lengths of 1927.
Together they show beyond dispute that in the world today no single state which
wishes to have friendly relations with other states is able to exercise all its rights
independently of other states.
The subject which therefore ought to be debated now is not whether we should
join in any sort of give and take with other nations but what the items of give and
take should be.
Let me indicate by a simile the sort of thing I have particularly in mind. Visualize
several big apartment houses which touch one another in a single city block or
occupy adjoining blocks. Is it sensible and profitable for each to depend for
protection against fire exclusively on a fire-fighting organization composed of its
own dwellers and employees? Or is it better for the owner of each to make
agreements with the others as to the conditions under which he will allow his
stand pipe to be used and under which fire brigades from neighboring houses may
use his roof in fighting a neighborhood fire? Going one step further, should the
owners not agree to pay taxes at agreed rates to maintain a fire department which
will serve them all?
Common support of a common fire department does not affect the individual titles
of ownership to individual properties. The point is, that unless the owners do
arrange for common support of some kind they will wake up one day to find that
their title deeds are indeed perfect and without a flaw but that what they apply to
are piles of rubble and charred beams. A title deed in a safe deposit box does not
afford protection from fire and many other forms of trouble and loss. Only the
wise and proper exercise of the rights and powers inherent in the title deed can
afford protection. So with sovereignty. The proper exercise of sovereign rights
protects sovereignty; the failure properly to exercise sovereign rights puts it in
jeopardy.
Much of the current confusion over the term sovereignty comes, of course, from
those who are willing from considerations of apparent personal or party
advantage to promote discord between the United States and other nations.
Usually the nations they seem to hate most are our two chief allies. One of their
methods of argument recently has been to shout that they will never permit a
"mongrel flag" to be substituted for the Stars and Stripes and to say that the
Moscow Agreement was "a victory for the Axis." Senator Reynolds, who
contemptuously opposed the measures which put this country in a position to
resist Germany successfully, assumes to defend our sovereignty now by managing
to imply, in the most insulting language, that we should not have diplomatic
relations with Russia.
It is true that today as we try to find the right road through the complicated
problems raised by this war we sometimes feel baffled by various aspects of
British or Soviet policy. But when that happens we should not be surprised or
discouraged and we should not feel unfriendly toward either of them as a result.
We do many things which are baffling to them, too. Under our constitutional
system, for example, our Government is not permitted to make commitments
regarding future action to the same extent they are allowed to do under their
systems. Let us remember that none of us can read the future exactly and that
what we all are searching for is a means to safeguard our nations from future
shocks in unpredictable situations. It would be a sad commentary on the human
intelligence if three such great peoples allowed irritations caused by temporary
uncertainties to make them cynical. They must not despair. They must not give up
the search for a thing they all three want in common—a thing I believe they can
find if they have the faith to act in common.
None of the arguments used against necessary international coöperation really

pretends to be addressed to reason. One of the chief organs stirring narrow
nationalistic emotions in this country is the Chicago Tribune, the newspaper
which published the most secret military plans of our army and navy high
command for national defense on the eve of Pearl Harbor; which tries to make
martyrs of warped and twisted Americans who have been indicted for conspiracy
to undermine the morale of the armed forces; and whose proprietor recently
announced his heroic action in saving the United States, some years back, from an
invasion by a British Army. The hurt surprise of that particular individual when
his activities are described as harmful to his country's welfare reminds me of a
tag-line popular in my boyhood. It was taken from Owen Davis's famous play,
"Nellie, The Beautiful Cloak Model." In the first act the villain pushed Nellie under
a descending elevator. In the second he threw her off the Brooklyn Bridge. In the
third he tied her to the tracks of the elevated railroad as a train was approaching.
In the last act he climbed through her bedroom window in the dead of night, and,
as the poor girl drew back in alarm, demanded reproachfully, "Why do you fear
me, Nellie?"
Only a very small group of Americans, however, live in those shadowy caverns of
the mind. For most of us who look at the problem of sovereignty without personal
or party bias the question that arises is simply: What specific actions are
necessary and wise for the extension of the use of our sovereignty?
Here opinions can and will differ. Given the premise that some action is proper,
and that many forms of action may be necessary, disagreement is natural and
healthy. Agreement in such cases can be reached by argument and mutual give
and take. As the war enters its final phase, proposals as to how the peaceable
nations of the earth should organize to prevent new conflicts will multiply and
take more definite shape, and we shall begin to examine and discuss them in
detail. Let us enter upon this great debate with the object of coming to an
agreement and not, as once before at a similar moment in our history, in an
irreconcilable spirit and the determination to vindicate a particular point of view.
In the League of Nations debate of 1919 and 1920 the sharpest differences of
opinion within this country arose over the question whether the United States
should commit itself to the use of force in upholding international agreements.
Friends and foes alike of the proposed international organization saw that this
would be the test of its usefulness. Persons who wished to prevent the United
States from joining any world organization at all inflamed emotions and awakened
prejudice by proclaiming that such a commitment would be "treason." Those who
wanted to make the organization the instrument for preventing a second world
war saw that it would succeed or fail according to the willingness of member
states to pledge themselves to the use of force to maintain the rule of law, by an
agreed procedure and in agreed circumstances.
Today this is still the core of the decision which we must take. Are we willing only
to talk when any situation arises which plainly threatens war? Or are we willing,
in agreed circumstances, to act?
Two episodes gave Hitler his cue and made the present war certain—the
unchecked Japanese aggression in Manchuria in 1931 and the unchecked Italian
aggression against Ethiopia in 1935. The chief reason why the Powers now joined
together as the United Nations did not check those aggressions was because none
of them believed that any of the others was prepared—psychologically or
militarily—to do more than talk.
The growth of that state of mind can be traced all the way back to 1919.
Apportionment of blame for it among the various countries concerned is not at
this moment important. What is important today is that unless the American
isolationism which we are now putting out the door is to fly back through the
window, we must preface any discussion of details of the international
organization which we expect to help create by a clear statement that we are
prepared in principle to join with other members of that organization in using
force to sustain its decisions.
Would the creation of a joint instrument of force threaten our sovereignty? Or

would it, on the contrary, represent a useful extension of our sovereign powers in
an effort to protect our vital interests?
First of all let us consider the immediate and concrete postwar situation which
will make an international armed force necessary. Obviously, it is the requirement
that Germany and Japan be policed to make sure that they do not again acquire
the military power to wage wars of aggression. The idea of "policing" parts of the
world outside the boundaries of the United States is not a new one for us. Acting
unilaterally—that is to say one-sidedly and by ourselves—we have used our armed
forces for police work in other parts of the world more than 50 times in our
history. (In this connection, incidentally, we might remind ourselves that certain
of our one-sided expeditions into Latin America were part of a policy which we
now believe to have been unwise and which by agreement with the Latin
American countries has now been renounced in favor of coöperative action in
cases where police work in this hemisphere may be necessary.)
Besides these instances of unilateral action, we have on 25 or more occasions

taken police action in coöperation with other nations. The agreements which we
entered into with Great Britain in 1891, and with Russia in 1894, to patrol the
Bering Sea against illegal fur sealers might be cited as examples of such
international policing. These agreements gave both Russia and Great Britain the
right to seize suspected fur hunters and their ships, even if they were American
citizens sailing under the American flag. Both those countries in turn gave us a
similar right to seize ships and men, of whatever nationality, including their own,
if we suspected them of illegal activities. Those agreements were not destructive
of our sovereignty or of British and Russians sovereignty. They represented a
constructive use of sovereignty, mutually advantageous to all three parties.
This established principle of coöperative international policing gives us the

foundation on which to build for the future. No dramatically long step is required.
I can see the practical difficulties in attempting to create a closely integrated
internationalized police force. But I do not have any difficulty in conceiving of an
agreement between the peace-loving nations to the effect that each will maintain
certain land, sea or air forces and that each will use them collaboratively, in
agreed situations and within agreed limits, to prevent aggression.
This seems to me the minimum requirement to ensure that international disputes

which are clearly covered by international law shall be submitted to courts and
judges, and that those which are not shall be settled by conciliation and
compromise. For such a procedure to work successfully, the members of the
international organization must say plainly, in advance, that if peaceful methods
fail the aggressor state will encounter sufficient armed forces to ensure his
eventual defeat.
In planning how this force would be operated as a practical matter we have a

model in the combined chiefs of staff with which this war has made us familiar.
Such a staff would make the necessary technical preparations for effective
collaborative action in the event that should ever become necessary. I would hope
that the mere preparation for action would forestall the need of ever taking it. But
if the time should come when collective action had to be taken, it certainly is in
the interest of the United States and of all other peace-loving states that it be
taken promptly and decisively.
To repeat once more: I think that our use of our sovereignty to create an effective
instrument of peace is the best way of protecting our sovereignty. If this is called
"bartering," I would say that it is a profitable transaction, and I would rather see
the United States enter into it than pursue its own aloof way into a third world
war.
After this war we shall face many tough problems which can be met only by
international action. Some will be scientific or technological, some cultural or
educational. Some will be economic—our struggle, in partnership with our allies,
to use the raw materials and the markets of the world to increase living standards
everywhere. Some will be political—the delicate and hazardous adjustment to
freedom and self-government of millions of people who have now heard those
magic words and will need our help as they grope dangerously for a way to turn
them into reality.
In an international organization which was backed by the machinery needed to

enforce its decisions the United States for the first time in history would be in a
position to deal boldly and effectively with the problems which will confront it. In
coöperation with our allies, we shall still be leaders by virtue of the strength and
ingenuity of our people. To use this leadership, for our own enrichment and that
of mankind, will not be to weaken the sovereign power of the American people; it
will be to widen it and make it more real.
[i] Made in New York before the Council on Foreign Relations, January 8, 1934.
WENDELL L. WILLKIE, Republican candidate for the Presidency of the United States in 1940; author of "One World"
April 1,1944
European Legislation for Industrial
Peace
Norman Thomas
FDR LIBRARY
Labor strikes in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
It was inevitable that the sharp labor conflicts characteristic of our day here in
the United States should evoke a discussion of laws "to do something about it."
What that something is, or should be, is not agreed upon among the advocates of
state action. Their proposals vary from a Fascist demand for the prohibition of
strikes to the adoption of an industrial code like that now under controversy in
Michigan. Here and there one hears a revival of proposals for compulsory
arbitration—this despite the failure of such a plan in Kansas. Demands for the
incorporation of unions are frequent. Before we rush into any plan for rigorous
state control of unions or of strikes we would do well to look at European
experience.
An inquiry into what has been attempted in Europe must be prefaced by a word of
warning. The background of industrial warfare is the same in all industrialized
nations, but there are differences in national attitudes, in forms of government,
and in conditions of organization both among workers and employers, which make
it quite impossible to say that such-and-such a plan has worked well in Great
Britain, France, or the Scandinavian countries, and therefore would work equally
well in the United States. No successful American legislation can be purely
imitative. Unfortunately we have problems of racketeering virtually unknown in
the European democracies; we also have a problem of internal democracy within
unions sharper than exists abroad. But even taking account of qualifications like
these we unquestionably will find it advantageous to inquire what the European
experience has been, and specifically what has been the result of state
intervention to secure industrial peace.
We must exclude from this inquiry the Fascist countries and Soviet Russia. The
Fascist countries have momentarily obtained comparative industrial peace at the
price of outlawing the free association of workers in their own unions and
forbidding strikes. The uneasy industrial peace which has resulted is not a lasting
peace of happiness or of freedom. In the U.S.S.R. trade unions are encouraged,
and their rôle is definitely fixed by the government. A strike such as that against
General Motors in America would be unthinkable. If it began, it would be
ruthlessly put down. Partisans of the Russian dictatorship may argue that Russia
is under a workers' government and that this fact makes strikes unnecessary. I
shall not examine that argument here, but only point out that whether the Russian
type of control of workers' associations is good, bad, or partly good and partly
bad, it can have little significance for the United States under our present political
arrangements.
The significant countries for us are the surviving European democracies, or what
we call democracies by way of contrast with the totalitarian states. I came away
from a recent brief visit to the Scandinavian countries with much admiration for
them. But they are not Utopias of peace and contentment. They are familiar with
strikes and lockouts, though these cause no such violence as is customary in the
United States. The reason, in part, is that the very strength of the labor
organization makes large-scale strikebreaking impossible. In all three
Scandinavian countries there is a high standard of union responsibility as well as
useful machinery of conciliation and voluntary arbitration. From 1916 to 1923 the
Norwegian Government had power to impose compulsory arbitration in cases of
grave national importance. However, in 1923 both the representatives of the
workers and of the Conservative Government then in office united to defeat the
renewal of the law. But much as there is to praise in Denmark, Sweden and
Norway, their small size, their peculiar history, and their homogeneity, make the
situation in them very different from ours or even from England's. It is to Great
Britain, mother of the industrial revolution, that our inquiry must principally be
directed.
The present British policy in labor relations has a long history behind it. As we
might expect from our knowledge of British temperament, it was not born of
philosophical consideration but of practical experience. In general, the British
have granted nothing to the unions by law which they were not afraid that the
unions might have been strong enough to take anyhow. But the British
Government, even when in Conservative hands, has had a way of foreseeing
necessity a little in advance, and of yielding enough in time to avoid explosion.
The most recent strike of consequence in England tied up the London bus service
all through the month of May. No attempt was made to run the busses with strike-
breakers. The public was badly inconvenienced. But it, or considerable sections of
it, professed to find satisfaction in the fact that the absence of busses from
London streets simplified the Coronation arrangements! In the end the strike was
settled less by the persuasive powers of any mediators, governmental or
otherwise, than by the insistence of that powerful trade union leader (bureaucrat,
if you don't like him), Mr. Ernest Bevin, president of the Transport Workers
Union, to which the busmen belong. In effect, what Mr. Bevin did was to make the
men accept the recommendations of the Tribunal of Inquiry, to which, under
British law, the Government had referred the dispute for investigation. Those
terms gave the men nothing more than the promise of an investigation, and
possible readjustment of working schedules. It was, however, an official
recognition of the importance of those schedules to the health of the workers.
I had happened to meet some leaders of the busmen two weeks before the strike,
and was interested then to learn that it was precisely Mr. Bevin whom they feared
more than anyone else. Their complaints to me—and later their formal statement
of grievances—were concerned almost solely with the effect upon their health of
bad schedules and long hours. These complaints were impressive. In times gone
by the subject had been dear to Mr. Bevin's heart. But before the government
tribunal he presented it inadequately. The men think that he let them down by
consenting to a strike which he was unwilling to make effective by allowing it to
extend to the trams and subway. Mr. Bevin's insistence in the end upon virtual
capitulation has been ascribed to his belief that there were strong Communist
influences at work in the strike and in the union, and to his hope that these would
be cast out from it by defeat.
In labor circles in Britain the original controversy, and the real grievances of the
men against the Transport Authority, a quasi-public body, have been almost
forgotten in the bitterness of the internal union struggle. Nevertheless, on the
official score card another victory has probably been written down for the
government Tribunal of Inquiry, and for the coöperation of "responsible
unionism." At all events, the strike was marked by none of the violence which
would have occurred during a similar strike in New York City. Whether British
patience and restraint would have been as effective if the strike had extended to
trams and subways is a matter on which the reader's guess is as good as mine.
Let me recall two turning points in the British attempt to obtain industrial peace.
In 1800 Parliament passed the Combination Law. It made explicit and emphatic
the prohibition of combination among workers which from the time of Edward III
had been a corollary to the general policy of state regulation of trade and
industry. One hundred and six years later the high water mark in reversal of this
policy was reached in the Trade Disputes Act of 1906. The act was an answer to
the celebrated decision in the Taff Vale case which held unions liable for damages
arising out of trade disputes—a decision which was the occasion, if not the cause,
of the formation of the British Labor Party. The Liberal Party was then in office. In
alarm it adopted the Trade Disputes Act of 1906 prohibiting the courts from
entertaining any actions against Trade Unions, their members or officials, in
respect to any tortious acts alleged to have been committed on their behalf. This
was a decision of great practical importance to labor unions, because if they
should be held responsible for damages for every alleged act committed by any
individual to the hurt of the employers during a strike, they would soon be ruined
financially.
How often we hear men with patriotic enthusiasm justify every war in which their
country has ever engaged, and all its accompanying violence, yet unqualifiedly
condemn working men for violence in labor disputes. As a matter of fact, it is
extraordinary how little violence has attended the rise of the labor movement,
especially when one remembers how much nearer to him and his dear ones are
the worker's demands concerning wages and hours than are most of the political
demands which have provoked wars. The British unions in particular have
achieved their present status with an amazing minimum of violence. But not
without struggle and suffering. It took a full quarter century, from 1800 to 1825,
to win the passage of Peel's Act which legally permitted for the first time the right
of combination among workers for the purpose of regulating their own wages and
hours of labor. It was not until 1859 that picketing was legalized. Full legal
recognition of unions with protection for their funds was given in the Act of 1871.
So slow has been the change in law, even in England, to meet the stern realities of
the industrial age!
The generation following the adoption of the Trade Disputes Act of 1906 has seen
a tendency on the part of the state to depart from the older rôle of self-proclaimed
"umpire" in economic and industrial disputes. During this period social insurance
has come into a high state of development in Great Britain; there has been a fairly
successful elaboration of the machinery of mediation, conciliation and inquiry;
and, during the Great War, compulsory arbitration received a thoroughgoing trial.
We are concerned with the latter two developments, pausing only to recall how
much social security legislation has done in England to diminish bitterness in the
economic conflict. Historically, compulsory arbitration is older in England than
conciliation and voluntary arbitration. In the year 1800, the same year in which
the Combination Law was enacted, the first Arbitration Law was passed. It
applied, however, only to the cotton industry. Dr. Ducksoo Chang, to whose
excellent study "British Methods of Industrial Peace" every student is deeply
indebted, thus summarizes that early Act:
The act applied to England only, but covered all cases of disputes arising between
employers and workmen engaged in the cotton trade, including wage disputes
over both future and existing rates. Each party to the dispute was free to demand
arbitration and appoint an arbitrator. The arbitrators so appointed were
authorized to summon and examine witnesses and to decide the case finally.
Should they fail within three days to agree upon an award, they were required to
refer the case for final settlement to one of the Justices of the Peace of the
locality. Any party refusing to submit either to arbitration or to observe the
findings was to be liable either to the payment of ten pounds in damages or three
months' imprisonment.
For a number of years the law worked well enough to warrant its extension to
other parts of the United Kingdom. Its success was mostly in interpreting existing
contracts. Since the workers were unorganized, and combination was prohibited,
they were usually at the mercy of the employers. Arbitration was not on even
terms. The law was significant because it did away with the old practice of direct
regulation of wages by state authorities—a practice already virtually dead with
the coming of the machine age. In 1824 the Arbitration Act was extended to all
disputes between employers and workmen engaged in any trade, except disputes
concerning future wage rates.
It lies beyond the scope of the present article to do more than point out that this
act was not a success, and that compulsory arbitration soon became in practice a
dead letter. Standardization of industrial conditions greatly reduced the number
of individual disputes which had been settled under the cotton arbitration law,
and the growth of labor unions made it increasingly necessary to get their assent
to working conditions. In 1867, and again in 1872, more elaborate laws were
adopted dealing with conciliation, but prescribing some measure of compulsory
arbitration. These laws concerned the adjustment of disputes under existing
contracts rather than the adjustment of future wages. Increasingly that all-
important matter was left to collective bargaining between employers and the
growing trades unions. By 1896 Parliament got around to making a legal end of
the creaking and useless machinery of compulsory arbitration in favor of
conciliation. For this it drew up an elastic and comprehensive plan which it
committed, so far as the government interests were concerned, to the Board of
Trade. Compulsory arbitration in Britain was dead until it was resurrected under
the stress of the Great War.
If ever there was a case for compulsion it was provided by the grim logic of war.
Industry was necessarily mobilized for war purposes. In a great many industries
factory workers were at least as important for the military machine as any
soldiers; indeed, many of them were exempt from conscription for this very
reason. They were better paid than soldiers, but on the other hand they had a
direct responsibility for feeding themselves and their children which the soldiers
lacked, and there was a continual tendency for prices to increase faster than
industrial wages.
To compulsory arbitration the British war government added the "leaving

certificate" as a method of controlling the workers. No employer was allowed to
engage a worker without such a certificate. This scheme encouraged so much
petty tyranny, engendered so much friction, and required so much red tape, that
it perished in a storm of strikes, chiefly among skilled men in the engineering
trades, before the end of 1917. An attempt to reintroduce it, or something like it,
in the summer of 1918 in the munitions trade also resulted not in peace but in a
fresh outbreak of strikes. To meet these and other strikes, compulsory arbitration
was quite inadequate. It had, however, a fair degree of success in dealing with
more or less routine disputes. It was quicker than the slow processes of
conciliation. The government had wisely provided a variety of arbitration tribunals
or arbitrators with some choice of reference for the interested parties. In general,
the most satisfactory work was done by a permanent arbitration tribunal on a
representative basis of workers and employers.
Nevertheless, even under war conditions compulsory arbitration was exceedingly

unpopular; and the Whitely Committee, appointed as early as October 1916,
reported that "the experience of compulsory arbitration during the war period has
shown that it is not a successful method of avoiding disputes, and in normal times
it would undoubtedly prove even less successful." Compulsory arbitration was
therefore abandoned as early as November 21, 1918, except temporarily, as Dr.
Chang tells us, "for the purpose of determining cases arising from or in respect to
the minimum rates, that might be changed by an agreement between employers
and workers concerned with the approval of the Minister of Labor or by an award
of the interim Board of Arbitration." Even this limited use of compulsory
arbitration was not very successful and played a small rôle in labor adjustments.
Certainly the weight of experience in Great Britain, pioneer in industrial

revolution, is against compulsory arbitration and there is nothing at all in our
American life to give us greater hope of it here. It is, of course, a form of state
interference in the process of collective bargaining. Arbitration tribunals have no
such basis of generally recognized law or justice as have the courts in deciding
civil and criminal cases. They are not dealing with some norm which by common
consent, even of the parties in conflict, is right or wrong. They are dealing with
conflicting rights and interests by standards which are largely subjective or born
of a desire to compromise. The state which gives them authority is not itself
accepted by either of the parties in conflict as necessarily a fountain of justice
above suspicion. Compulsory arbitration, in short, is an instrument more
appropriate to the totalitarian state than to the democratic capitalist state.
Inquiry and conciliation are, however, different matters, and the British
governmental machinery for making them effective may justly claim a very
considerable degree of success. As Dr. Chang points out, following an elaborate
statistical analysis of disputes and the manner of their settlement, "the primary
value of the negotiation machinery . . . lies more in the prevention than the cure
of industrial disputes." The machinery in question includes not merely various
arrangements under which the government may act as investigator and mediator
with power to make public its recommendations for settlement, but also joint
committees set up by representatives of employers and workers under collective
agreements.
Shortly after the war much was hoped in England from Joint Industrial Councils.
The Whitely Committee saw in them a means of establishing self-government in
industry. Actually they have achieved no such important purpose, although in a
few industries they have performed a moderately useful function. Many detailed
reasons can be given for their lack of success, but they boil down to two general
reasons: one, the fundamental difference in interest regarding the wage question
between the employers and workers; and two, the dependence of all industries
upon the general economic situation which, of course, Joint Councils cannot
control. Precisely in proportion as the workers believe that the answer to their
troubles lies in the socialization of such basic industries as coal or the railroads,
they are unable to accept for more than limited uses any type of joint council
which recognizes the validity of private ownership and the profit system.
Under the present laws, the government uses the Ministry of Labor as the chief
office of conciliation. It has set up an Industrial Court as the principal tribunal for
voluntary arbitration, but the parties may, if they prefer, use single arbitrators or
ad hoc courts. The government also has a machinery of inquiry. The resulting
recommendations may (as in the busmen's strike), with the aid of public opinion,
become the basis of settlement.
Vital in all this is the extent to which British employers, especially in the basic
industries, have come to accept the principle of collective bargaining. Great
Britain has no Wagner Law or its equivalent, but not for many years has it had a
Tom Girdler. British industry has not maintained its own private armies and
arsenals of the sort characteristic of American industry for many years. A fairly
general recognition of the principle of collective bargaining has certainly not
bankrupted British industry. It has not by any means prevented strikes; but it has
kept them from taking on the aspect of little civil wars.
Whether these relatively peaceful conditions will continue is another matter.

There is much unrest in England, Scotland and Wales, and some dissatisfaction
with the conservative union leadership. There are thirteen and a half million
insured persons in British industry; there were eight and a half million trade
unionists affiliated with the Trade Union Congress in 1920. Today there are only
about three and a half million thus affiliated. Union strength is concentrated in
mining, textiles, ship building and railways. Geographically it is concentrated in
the north but, as my friends in labor circles pointed out to me in England last
April, the new industrial development, thanks partly to the diffusion of electric
power, is taking place in the south of England, where unionism has always been
relatively weak. Harold Laski in a recent article entitled "Wanted: a British C.I.O."
(The Nation, July 3, 1937) gives no less than ten reasons for the decline in union
strength. The most important of them spring from the insistence of the British
unions on the old craft emphasis. What Mr. Laski writes was, I found, the general
conviction of Left-Wing trade unionists and members of the Labor Party.
Any such upsurge of organization as took place in France a few months ago, and
is taking place in the United States as I write, would quite likely conflict with the
Trade Disputes Act of 1927, one of the consequences of the extensive and
dramatic but short-lived General Strike of 1926. Among other things this law
forbids sympathetic strikes—a prohibition born of the fact that the general strike
was called in sympathy with the coal miners. The unions and the British Labor
Party denounce this law at every convention and in every election campaign, but
the leaders have shown no great ardor or energy in attempting to change it, not
even when a Labor Government was in office. If, last May, the men on the
subways and tram lines in London had gone out in support of their fellow-
unionists the busmen, the government might have held that strike in conflict with
the Act of 1927. Such a ruling was not certain. Everything would have depended
on the interpretation of the clause which confines a legal strike to those within
the same trade or industry. If the coal miners or textile workers had struck in
sympathy with the busmen, it would have been clearly illegal; but are the subway
workers, who had their own separate agreement, to be regarded as within the
same trade or industry as the busmen? It was a point which Mr. Bevin preferred
to avoid, pinning his hopes, as we have seen, on whatever redress of grievances
might come out of further investigation.
Sympathetic strikes or political strikes are not the only ones that are illegal in
Great Britain. British law imposes many restrictions on strikes, some of them
without an equivalent in our American laws. Dean Dinwoodey, editor of the United
States Law Week, summarizes them in the New York Times of July 25, 1937, as
follows: "The British law places restrictions upon membership of civil service in
labor organization; restricts striking by employees of certain classes of public
utilities; makes illegal any strike if it has any object other than the furtherance of
a trade dispute within the trade or industry in which the strikers are engaged and
is designed to coerce the Government. It limits the scope of picketing, and makes
it a criminal offense for a person to break his contract of employment where he
knows, or should know, that such action will probably endanger human life or
cause serious bodily injury or serious damage." The law also specifically forbids
attempts to intimidate satisfied workers into joining a strike. Penalties are
provided against both individuals and unions which may violate the provisions of
the law.
The employing classes in Great Britain seem content with the law as it stands.
There is no echo there of the American demand for incorporation. However,
employers' associations and most unions are alike registered with the government
and make yearly financial reports of revenues and expenditures. In this
connection the subcommittee on labor unions of the City Club of New York points
out in a recent study: "The filing of these reports seems to be a mere formality,
and the published reports of the Registrar show only reports by national unions of
a very general nature." A later section of the discussion adds the following
observations: "The labor union is not hostile to incorporation; it is hostile only to
the implication and possible consequences of a compulsory requirement. In
several European countries, such as England, France, and Belgium, statutes
confer upon labor unions rights to which they would otherwise not be entitled,
provided they undergo what may be roughly compared to incorporation." Of this
the British registration is an example. There is no provision in British law
compelling unions to live up to their agreements, but the unions have a long
record for keeping them. There has been little or no occasion even to ask for
legislation to protect the workers themselves from racketeering in their own
unions. Racketeering seems to be an American problem born of American
conditions and not of trade union theory or practice.
A few words regarding French procedure may now be in order.
Until 1936 the French workers, like their brethren in America, were less well
organized than those in Great Britain. The Socialist and Communist Parties in
France were strong, but they were not organized, as in Great Britain, primarily by
the labor unions as such. From 1892 on there had been some rudimentary
machinery of conciliation and arbitration administered on behalf of the state,
principally by local judges. The year 1936 saw an amazing change. Politically it
saw the triumph of the Popular Front in which the workers were the most
important factor. When the Blum Cabinet took office it found itself confronted
with widespread sit-down strikes and with a labor union organization in which
newly enlisted rank-and-file members were taking things into their own hands.
The Government allayed this unrest by a series of social laws setting up the forty-
hour week, holidays with pay, collective bargaining, etc. M. Blum supplemented
these general laws by personal intervention with the growing C.G.T.
(Confédération Générale du Travail) and with the employers' association, the
C.G.P.F. (Confédération Générale du Patronat Français). His government did not
use force, though it finally indicated that its self-restraint might not last forever. It
received the help of the Socialist and Communist leaders and of the C.G.T. in
ending the strikes and bringing about comparative industrial peace.
In its first months the Blum Government was too hard pressed with immediate
emergencies to try to pass a general law of conciliation and arbitration. However,
through a paragraph inserted in the Monetary Law it gained temporary power to
set up such machinery by decrees of the Council of State. Finally, toward the end
of 1936, it introduced a bill which after a sharp fight it managed to drive through
a reluctant Senate—but only after the Chamber had conceded a number of
changes, including one eliminating agriculture from the scope of the bill. The law
requires every collective dispute in industry and commerce to be submitted to
conciliation and arbitration before a strike or lockout is declared. Each side
chooses an arbitrator; if necessary a third person, as umpire, is chosen from
among the "active or retired members of the principal services of the state."
There is no sanction to enforce the decision of the arbitrators except public
opinion. Since the state imposes no penalties for refusal to accept the decision,
"compulsory arbitration" in France means something much less than the words
suggest to us in English-speaking countries. It is more nearly analagous to the
compulsion under which certain industrial disputes in both England and America
must, by law or custom or both, be referred to a tribunal of inquiry or a
commission of mediation—as, for example, disputes involving railway labor in
America.
The law was approved rather more heartily by the spokesmen of the C.G.T. (which
in the space of about a year had grown from one and a half to five million
members) than by the leaders of the C.G.P.F. The Blum Government's own
defense of the law ends on a rather modest note of hope that it will work well
enough to lead to the elaboration of a better law on a broader and more durable
base. Certainly it has not laid any sure bases of industrial peace in France. The
economic issues go too deep to be settled piecemeal by conciliation or arbitration
in particular industrial disputes. But the law has nevertheless been a factor in the
relative success of the Popular Front Government in maintaining, during the last
six months, an uneasy and precarious industrial peace.
It has been the primary purpose of this article to record certain facts concerning
British and French experience in efforts to maintain industrial peace. The reader
can draw his own moral. Indeed, he will draw his own moral without too much
regard for the deductions of the author! Yet I may be permitted to sum up my own
conclusions briefly as follows:
The long experience of Great Britain, and the shorter experience of the
Scandinavian countries and France, show that there is no panacea for industrial
unrest in our capitalist society. However, recognition of the right of the workers
to organize their own unions, and to bargain collectively through them, has not
only diminished the number of conflicts but the bitterness of those that
nevertheless occur. Democracy within the unions and their own recognition of
their social responsibility are primarily achievements of the workers themselves.
Legislation has played only a minor part. The state has been able to accomplish
something in the rôle of peacemaker through setting up a machinery of inquiry,
conciliation, and voluntary arbitration. Experiments in compulsory arbitration
where the verdicts of tribunals have been enforced by law have not been
successful; in Great Britain, indeed, such attempts tended, even under wartime
conditions, to increase the resentment of the workers. The more recent efforts of
the British Government to declare certain types of strikes illegal have not yet
been subjected to the test of such an upsurge of labor organization and struggle
for better conditions as has taken place in France and the United States. We have,
therefore, no adequate evidence whether the limitations imposed by the British
Trade Disputes Act of 1927 will in times of emergency keep the peace or tend to
do the very thing which it was designed to prevent, that is, convert a great strike
into a struggle against the government. Certainly it is at least in order to advise
Americans who are tempted to copy or go beyond the British limitations on the
right to strike to take this possibility into account before rushing into a series of
prohibitions designed to maintain industrial peace by the police power of the
state.
NORMAN THOMAS, Socialist candidate for President in 1928, 1932 and 1936; author of "America's Way Out: A
Program for Democracy" and other volumes on social and political subjects
October 1,1937
Labor Under the Nazis
Norman Thomas
GERMAN FEDERAL ARCHIVES

Nazi soldiers force Polish jews to line up to do forced labor.
In 1929 Germany of all great countries came the nearest to being a paradise for
organized labor. To be sure, it was definitely capitalist and neither the Social
Democratic Party nor the Free trade unions associated with them seemed likely to
make it anything else in the near future. But within the limits of capitalism,
German labor enjoyed not merely in theory, but to a large extent in practice,
almost every considerable right and privilege that well-meaning reformers or its
own spokesmen could suggest.
The three major labor bodies—the Free unions (much the largest), the Christian
(predominantly Catholic) unions, and the small liberal or Hirsch-Duncker
unions—between them counted six and one half million members. The right to
organize and to bargain collectively was written into law and some twelve million
employees were under collective agreements. These agreements were enforced
under the supervision of Labor Courts established at labor's behest by the law of
1926. These courts had proved friendly to labor. Seventeen million men were
protected under an elaborate unemployment insurance system which in 1927 had
been added to older systems of accident, health and invalidity insurance. Workers
were further protected by old age insurance and in many trades had won
protection against, or compensation for, arbitrary discharge. Despite Germany's
economic storms, real wages by 1929 were back at the pre-war level—which had
never been high. This was still true in 1930, after the depression had begun. The
eight-hour day was also fairly general.
The consumers' coöperative societies, to which a great many workers both

manual and clerical belonged, numbered some four million members and had an
annual turnover considerably in excess of a billion marks. The workers also had
their own banks, which were as successful as the economic situation permitted.
The free unions even established a few businesses of their own, and the building
workers, organized in guilds, had done well in coöperative construction work.
Works Councils, although they had disappointed the hopes of some optimists as a
vehicle for the participation of labor in management, were nevertheless useful in
enforcing collective agreements. They usually coöperated in this task on a very
cordial basis with the unions. A National Economic Advisory Council on which the
workers were represented, while not an active factor in shaping German
economy, gave labor a chance to meet on a nominally equal footing with
employers.
If one takes for comparison the year 1932, just prior to Hitler's accession to
power, labor's showing was worse. The world-wide depression had taken its toll.
Wages were down; unemployment had grown to a total of about six million; social
security benefits had been cut. The unions had fallen in membership; the Free
unions, owing mostly to unemployment, had dropped from around five and a half
to about four million members. Communist propaganda and organization, while
increasing the militancy of a large number of workers, had undermined working
class unity and confidence in the old unions and leaders. The communists had, in
fact, made an effort to start their own unions. Nevertheless labor's position was
still apparently strong. Successive governments had respected its legal rights.
The lower middle class envied its relative security, an envy the Nazis cleverly
exploited. Even Hitler, however, was careful to promise not less social security to
the workers but more to the middle class.
All this was buttressed by the proud memory of achievement. After a long
struggle, labor had extorted tolerance from the great Bismarck. The Kaiser had
been obliged to woo it in the World War. It had given the Republic its first
President. Its organizations had survived the shock of the French occupation of
the Ruhr and the astronomical inflation of currency. Imbued with such memories,
the unions not unnaturally expected that even after Hitler's triumph they would
manage to live and maybe even recover some of the ground they had so suddenly
lost.
Today the old voluntary labor unions are completely outlawed. Their elected
leaders are dead, in exile, in concentration camps or prisons. The old
constitutional guarantees of civil liberty and the old legal rights of workers to
collective bargaining and to their own Works Councils have been swept away.
Labor union property to an estimated value of sixty million dollars has been
confiscated by the Nazi state. The Consumers Coöperatives, with their great
strength among the lower middle classes as well as the workers, managed until
last year to survive the zealous proscriptions of the totalitarian state. The process
of their dissolution by order of the state has now begun. Weekly wages in most
trades have gone down and prices up. The substantial gains in employment
claimed by the Nazi Government since its accession to power are subject to
considerable discount (as will be presently pointed out in greater detail) and in
any case do not rest on permanent economic recovery in Germany. A brutal secret
police crushes underground meetings and other activities with an efficiency
unknown in the Germany of Bismarck or even in the Russia of the Tsars. Yet there
is little reason to think that the mass of the German workers are more
discontented than other groups, for instance the middle class, which is far from
happy over the economic results of its own revolution. It is safe to say that neither
the middle class nor labor is on the verge of revolt.
Why has so profound and catastrophic a change in the status of labor taken place
without any open conflict? Why has German labor, despite the loss of rights which
it had been slowly winning during half a century, despite its many martyrs,
offered no resistance of strike or revolt to Nazi regimentation?
We can better answer these questions if first we examine more closely the
development of Nazi labor policy and the present economic position and legal
status of labor in Germany.
II
We are accustomed to think of Fascism in Italy and Germany as a middle class

movement. This it is, but its point of view towards labor has never been that of the
more extreme survivors of the laissez-faire school of capitalism such as finds
expression here in America in the National Association of Manufacturers. The real
founder of the National Socialist Party was a worker named Anton Drexler, a
toolmaker employed by the German State Railways. The party was the National
Socialist German Labor (or Workers) Party. As late as at its official convention of
1921 this party declared that "it accepts the class struggle of creative labor; it is
therefore a class party." Hitler himself once declared that "the greatest danger for
our people is not to be found in Marxism but rather in our middle class parties."
And Gregor Strasser, then Hitler's powerful left-wing lieutenant, wrote early in
1932 that "our battle is against the bourgeoisie as the enemy of German Socialism
and the saboteur of national freedom." Goebbels, a man of different stripe, who
has held and increased his power in the Nazi movement, declared in September
1932, when the Nazis were coöperating with the communists in a Berlin street-car
strike, that "a new National Socialist leadership would make the employing class
feel the weight of its fist, would not, like the Marxists, back down before them." In
short, the Nazi Party, however violently it might fight communists, socialists, and
allied trade unions, did not at first propose to outlaw all labor organizations.
Indeed, it started labor unions or cells of its own.
Nevertheless, one cannot feel that the Nazis "betrayed" the workers or that the
development of Nazi labor law has been inconsistent with Nazi philosophy. Hitler,
unlike Mussolini, was never a socialist and never pretended to care for the
socialist—still less the labor—part of the Party name. In "Mein Kampf," for
instance, there is a rather turgid discussion of trade unions in which he reveals
that he distrusts them though he may accept them as a temporary necessity. He
never played up the National Socialist labor organizations or cells as did many of
his Brown Shirt subordinates. Once he was in office, a consistent development of
his theory of the totalitarian state led him to establish a Labor Front that includes
employers.
That development, however, took time. Actually, labor under Hitler's rule has
lived through several stages. The first began on January 30, 1933, when Hitler
took office as Chancellor by grace of von Hindenburg and with the support of big
industrialists, Junkers, and the Nationalist Party which consented to a coalition
with the Nazis. At once Hitler prepared for a general election. Pending that
election he made no legal move against the unions as such, but he suspended
until further notice all the articles of the Constitution which guaranteed liberty of
the person and other civil rights. These he has never restored. The promulgation
of this decree on February 28, 1933, followed the celebrated Reichstag fire,
blamed by the Nazis on the communists. On the basis of these false charges Hitler
carried out his campaign of suppression and terror. That was the beginning of the
end for the political and economic organizations of the workers.
Even so, despite the Government's denial of every right necessary to a democratic
campaign, and despite the open terrorism of the Brown Shirts, on March 5 of that
year Hitler polled only 44 percent of the total vote. It took the 8 percent polled by
his Nationalist colleagues—who were soon to find how precarious was their
position—to give him a slight majority. Part of that majority consisted of a large
number of young communist supporters, and a much smaller number of socialists,
attracted by Nazi opportunities for action and hoping perhaps that even yet Hitler
would remember that the name of his party was National Socialist.
It followed, therefore, that Hitler and his party were not yet prepared even after
March 5 to take too strong a line against the old unions. The immediate terror
was directed against socialist, and more especially communist, political leaders;
labor leaders as such did not escape altogether, but they fared better. The unions
offered no open and effective resistance even when the Nazis beat and killed
some of their leaders, seized by threat of force scores of Works Councils, and
substituted their own men for the old officials. Perhaps they hoped that the storm
before which they bowed would pass or at any rate abate.
Not so. On May 2, the very day after the great pageantry of Hitler's first German
Labor Day, the Nazi Government occupied—without a struggle—all trade union
headquarters, arrested all trade union officials, and took control of all trade union
property. But still they did not abolish unions or deny them the use of all their old
union property. They merely completed the process of Gleichschaltung
(coördination). They put their own men in charge. They planted their own labor
cells in the unions to propagandize and terrorize them. They set up official
arbitrators and denied to the unions the right to strike or otherwise to function
independently. In practice, these fascist-controlled unions were scarcely more
than debating societies. The men put in charge of the largest federation—the
Metallarbeiter-Verband—were three young members of the Storm Troops who
had never worked at any metal trade or had any industrial experience. Men like
this were ordered in June 1933 to draw up a "list of the despised" to comprise "all
leading Marxists in the trade unions." It was the lightest fate of such persons to
be denied employment.
Yet even debating societies are potentially dangerous to a dictatorship. The

German trade unionists might not be openly rebellious, but they were not flocking
to the Nazi banners. Both employers' organizations and labor organizations, even
if controlled by Nazi directors, were contrary to the ideal of the totalitarian state.
They suggested a class conflict. Hence as Hitler consolidated his power he
abolished first the "coördinated" employers associations and next the
"coördinated" labor unions. The latter lost their property, their rights, their very
existence, completely and finally. Hitler did a real job of "coördination" and set up
the German Labor Front comprising both employers and employees, no longer
called by the old names but now termed "leaders" and "followers." The "Law for
the Organization of National Labor" was issued January 20, 1934. Part of it took
effect immediately; the rest by May 1, 1934. It marked the beginning of the third
stage of labor's status in the Nazi state. As clarified by the decree of October 24,
1934, it is still the law for labor. Under it the German Labor Front is the inclusive
organization of German brain and hand workers. Former members of employers
associations and of unions have "equal rights"—whatever they are! No other labor
organization of any sort is tolerated.
Under this scheme of things there is in every establishment employing twenty or

more workers an elaborate organization with little or no power. The "leader"
(employer) makes the real decisions, but he must have as advisers "trusted men"
or a "confidential council." These "trusted men" are chosen by ballot of the
"followers" (employees), but only on nomination of the "leader" "in agreement
with the chairman of the National Socialist cell organization"—an admirable tool,
the latter, for propaganda and spying. Real power in law is vested in Labor
Trustees (Treu-händer der Arbeit), one for each region, and Social Honor Courts.
They may discipline either "leaders" or "followers." They may even remove a
"leader." In reality the Trustees have final power; little is heard of the Honor
Courts. The old labor courts still continue, completely subject, of course, to Nazi
authority. Recently their decisions have shown a more friendly attitude toward the
workers than they did at the beginning of the régime.
The whole German Labor Front is declared to be an organ of the Nazi Party, and
its direction rests with the Party. Though the old rights of collective bargaining or
of striking are gone, the law, besides permitting workers to vote for "trusted
men," by implication permits or encourages shop meetings, with the "leader"
present, and gives the workers a certain protection against arbitrary dismissal,
etc., and the right of appeal to the labor trustee or the courts. All these labor
officials are, of course, state or Nazi Party officials, not representatives chosen by
labor.
An agreement was reached on March 26, 1935, between Robert Ley, leader of the
Labor Front, and Dr. Schacht, Minister of Economics, whereby the Reich
Chamber of Economics joined the Front. The Reich Chamber of Economics is a
great bureaucratic organization, containing all the employers in Germany,
controlled by the Ministry of Economics. The Chamber of Economics has become
the Economic Department in the Labor Front. All of this would seem to indicate
not only that the employers are represented twice in the Labor Front, but that the
Minister of Economics can directly control all its actions.
By a law of February 26, 1935, the Ministry of Labor was given the power to
introduce labor passports (Arbeitsbücher), ostensibly for the purpose of effecting
"a more rational distribution of labor." The use of these passports will inevitably
still further restrict the worker's freedom of movement and choice of employment.
In such times as the world is now enduring, any description of the legal status of
workers is far from indicating their actual condition. Workers, whether in
Germany or America, do not eat legal rights but bread. History, especially recent
history, gives much evidence to support the contention that men want security
more than freedom and that for an indefinite time they may be successfully
governed by a dictator who keeps in mind the maxim that "contented cows give
the best milk."
How well has the Nazi state been able to give its industrial serfs material
contentment? This is a hard question to answer because agencies for free
discussion and criticism do not exist in Germany. Certainly the Nazi state has not
provided the German masses with abundance. Outside observers differ widely in
their opinion as to how far the Nazis have succeeded in putting their economic
program into effect. Some praise Hitler for reducing unemployment in the face of
great financial difficulties, others maintain that he has made very little headway
in that direction.[i]
Under the Nazi Government there has been much "invisible unemployment." The
number of unemployed Jews is great and is increasing; but these are not counted
as unemployed. A decision by the highest labor court at Weimar on November 27,
1935, opened the way for the dismissal of all Jews working for non-Jewish
employers. This means that the Nuremberg laws are to have the widest
application in the industrial field, in order to protect "Aryan" employees from
Jewish influences. Jews will have to work for Jews or not at all. Another source of
"invisible unemployment" has been the wholesale discharge of women whose
husbands are employed, and of unmarried men under twenty-five. None of these
are included among the unemployed in the official statistics. Part-time workers
are counted as fully employed. Made work, somewhat similar to our work in CCC
camps and for the WPA, accounts for some of the employment. The reintroduction
of conscription takes many hundreds of thousands of young men off the labor
market. German agricultural workers are forbidden to come to the cities and the
unemployed are enrolled in the so-called Land Service and Land Helpers. In 1935
came the increase in employment due to rearmament; of course this is dependent
on a continuance of rearmament at the same lively rate.
III
Now as to the wages and social security of German workers. Here we must bear
in mind that while certain basic facts are recognized, honest observers may differ
as to what these facts mean. What follows is an attempt to give a consensus of
well-informed opinion.
In the early days of the Nazi régime the workers clearly lost in weekly wages and
in benefits. But unemployment was reduced, at least on paper, by such expedients
as I have already cited. It was also somewhat reduced by the bold plan of
forbidding all employers to lay off workers, or by severely restricting the number
they could lay off.
But later on, as the Government became the recipient of the benefits of the
general trend toward world recovery, as the rearmament program got under way,
and as young men began to be taken into military formations, there was an
increase in employment and an improvement in the lot of the workers. The
government began to boast that before 1936 it would end unemployment. Since
then, however, there has been some slowing up in rearmament, and winter
brought the usual lull in outdoor work. The Institute of Business Research in
Berlin announced in the autumn of 1935 that the unemployed might increase by a
million and a half before the winter was over. Latest figures make this seem
conservative. December alone saw an officially admitted rise of 522,354, to a total
of 2,506,806 registered unemployed.
Hitler's desire for rearmament has given a chance to the metal trade workers (as
in war days) to win a special status, in fact if not in law. Their wages have risen
and they have felt able to speak up a little for themselves. Other groups, like the
textile workers, emphatically do not share in these gains. The average money
wage per week is lower than when Hitler took office. It is still further reduced by
the numerous levies, some of them nominally voluntary, which workers as well as
other sections of the population have to meet. The pamphlet, "Labor under
Hitler," cites figures, taken from the German Labor Front's own investigations, to
show that at the end of 1934 the average industrial wage was reduced from the
low level of 26 marks weekly to 22 marks by "taxes, insurance, dues and other
official contributions." Social benefits are less, but by way of partial compensation
the Government stages spectacular and tolerably successful drives for charity
funds. Prices for necessary foodstuffs are rising. Butter is today scarcely
obtainable in working-class sections at any price. This is due to the general
economic situation of Germany: to the fact that its foreign trade is a kind of
glorified barter, that it has no foreign credit, that it must pay for imports with
exports, and that all the emphasis has been put on the import of materials useful
for rearmament.
Today, nevertheless, whatever may originally have been the case, relative to other
sections of the German population, including the very middle class to which Hitler
made his primary appeal, the workers are not economically worse off than they
were when he took office. Within the last few months their condition
relatively—and only relatively—has been improving, and the condition of the
middle class has probably worsened.[ii] A psychological factor in keeping the
workers quiet has been found in the organizations for sports and culture,
especially by the government's much-advertised organization, Kraft durch Freude
("Strength through Joy"). We may well doubt whether this really has given the
workers much more vacation than they had before, and probably it has used part
of the money taken from the labor unions to carry out its program. Nevertheless,
the organization has certainly been found of psychological value to the
government.
In all this there are no indications of a degree of discontent likely to lead to early
revolt. The government has won praise for having restored the national pride. The
armed forces are impressed by its rearmament achievements and unquestionably
are loyal. The compulsory military service of a year, plus another six months for
labor service, is popular. All the same, the Government is nervous. Lately it has
made efforts, not altogether successful, to reduce still further even the meagre
importance of its own German Labor Front, to prevent shop meetings of any sort,
and to put more and more of the power over labor into the hands of the Labor
Trustees. In spite of all this there are signs that the working class is getting ready
to reassert itself. Indeed, a few employers, irritated by the Nazi bureaucracy, are
said to think that the good old days were not so bad! It may be symptomatic that
the Nazi campaign for the definitive suppression of the coöperatives has
halted—but whether for fear of popular discontent or for economic reasons is
hard to tell.
In view of all the facts, the really surprising thing is that the underground
struggle against Hitler among the workers is so intensive. Once a group has been
so completely deprived of power, time is needed for it to recover its morale. Yet
today unknown thousands of Germans—socialists, trade unionists,
communists—daily face concentration camps, torture and beating, death by the
ax, to carry on their propaganda. The international trade union movement is
justifying its internationalism by the generosity with which some at least of its
organizations are giving not only to help their German brothers in exile but to
finance the work being carried on quietly in Germany. There cannot be a
comprehensive movement, not primarily because of those divisions in the German
movement which helped give Hitler his chance (the bitterness of the socialist-
communist feud is lessening), but because the underground movement must begin
among men who already knew each other in their unions or party organizations.
Not only is the Nazi police efficient; it has at its call an army of spies, some of
them secret renegades. The "spy bulletins" of the Social Democrats, issued from
their Prague headquarters, already list 500 names. No wonder that, taught by
bitter experience, leaders of underground organizations of labor unions, of the
Communist and Socialist Parties, and of such small but significant groups as the
"New Beginning" movement, are seeking to build cells in which as far as possible
the average member will know only one, two, three or four of his coworkers. Thus
there are few to be betrayed by the spy or by the prisoner tortured into
confession. With undaunted courage labor men and women come to secret
conferences outside Germany and go back to carry on. They risk their lives to
distribute contraband newspapers—though the present tendency is to question
the value of such sacrifice. More valuable today is the quiet word to a fellow
worker. Moreover, even though no secret meetings of more than two or three
persons are possible in Germany, seeds of unrest can be sown in the meetings
held by the Labor Front.
The implacable sadism of the Nazi Government towards its enemies continues.
"Only recently," says the report of the Chest for the Liberation of the Workers of
Europe to the A. F. of L. Convention held in Atlantic City, "a fifty-year-old woman
worker was sentenced to five years' imprisonment for the possession of a trades
union publication. . . . In Germany since the advent of Hitlerism, 120 opponents of
the régime have been beheaded, nearly 100 were given life sentences, and 7,000
years of hard labor meted out to others, most of them former members of the
German Trades Union. This is exclusive of the thousands who find themselves in
concentration camps and under temporary arrest." Then follows a partial list of
trade unionists murdered without trial, beaten, tortured or shot by Nazis. It
contains 17 of the best-known names in German labor circles. To that is added a
list of 14 more who escaped into exile.
IV
Against this background of fact I can now attempt more explicitly to answer some
of the questions which have been partially answered by implication. Why did
German labor accept, why does it still endure, the Nazi rule? For no reason
primarily inherent in German character. And given certain conditions, unless we
learn from European experience, the same sort of thing might easily befall labor
in the United States.
The German labor movement under the Weimar Republic, though far stronger
than the American now is, was not as strong as might appear from the figures
with which this article began. It was beset by many difficulties, among them
these:
1. It was divided, and for the bitterness of that division the Russian-controlled
policy of the communists was largely though not wholly responsible.
2. It had failed to win the "little men," especially the farmers and agricultural
workers. Nothing is clearer today than that an urban proletariat, no matter how
well organized, cannot of itself win a revolution so long as the owning class can
make an alliance with the middle class followers of a Fascist demagogue or
recruit loyal armies from the peasantry.
3. Extensive unemployment, which grew as the world depression deepened, made

it hard for the German unions to contemplate a general strike such as they once
had made effective against the Kapp Putsch. They were unable to find a way to do
anything for the young unemployed; and these Hitler won.
4. But the outstanding lesson of the collapse of the German labor movement was
that labor cannot rest on its oars: it must push forward to retain the social
reforms already won. Labor can not declare a moratorium, as did the German
Social Democrats and trade unionists, on the old socialist idealism and program
without losing the militant loyalty of the masses in the face of Fascism's false but
vigorous idealism and its appeal to outraged nationalism. Neither can a
communist philosophy be successful if its application, as in the case of Germany,
be subordinated to Russian ideas and to Russian national needs rather than to the
demands of the local situation. Once Hitler got control of the apparatus of
government it is as easy as it is unpleasant for us to see how he kept it. He used
bread and circuses; he used with terrible efficiency the propaganda power which
an absolute control of the press and the radio gave him. He used the truncheon,
the rubber-hose, the whip, the torture cell, the ax. He rediscovered the old truth
that men can be better intimidated, their dignity and self-respect more utterly
stripped from them by the filth of jails and concentration camps, by beatings and
other cruelties of sadistic keepers, than by the fear of death itself. He none the
less added death to torture as a guarantor of his power.
The mass of workers, in certain circumstances and under intelligent and

courageous leadership, can carry on a war or a strike with desperate heroism. But
masses as masses will never on their own initiative carry through a revolution
under such circumstances as those now existing in Germany. Not while Hitler
holds the loyalty of the army, and is able to supply more jobs than could his
immediate predecessors. The workers may resent many things; they may deplore
Nazi cruelty to the Jews and show it, as they did by patronizing Jewish shops in
the Berlin working class districts after these had been sacked by the Nazis. They
will scarcely do more—except for one great thing, and that is to furnish no small
share of the individual heroes who must prepare the way for any revolution.
Today the chief function of the underground movement is to recruit the
revolutionary élite and to spread among the masses the news which der Führer
struggles so hard to keep from them: news of unrelenting political persecution, of
the uncertain economic future, and of the opinion of workers in other lands
concerning Hitler's brave new world.
It may help Americans to understand the situation of the workers if they will
remember that Fascism is not, as some writers and speakers have maintained, a
conspiracy of capitalists. It is a phase of capitalism, accepted by big industrialists
and Junkers as preferable to communism or socialism. It upholds the rights of
private property, the class division of income and the institution of profit. But
individual capitalists are not the real power behind the dictator. Herr Thyssen
aided Hitler; but he does not run Hitler; indeed, he travels much "for his health."
The employer ("the leader") has his own troubles in a totalitarian state which
compels banks and insurance companies to take government paper, imposes
"voluntary" special taxes upon business, reserves the right to remove "the leader"
of an enterprise, and compels all employers under certain conditions to keep their
workers and to contribute to social services for them. We shall fight Fascism
better at home if we do not denounce it to workers on the score that it is a
conspiracy of individual exploiters and demagogues, but because it is a logical
development of capitalist nationalism.
[i] See, for instance, the well-documented pamphlet "Labor Under Hitler"
published by the Research Department of the Chest for the Liberation of the
Workers of Europe, in which it is stated that by January 1935 there had been no
substantial reduction in the number of unemployed in Germany (circa six million)
since Hitler's accession to power.
[ii] This was true before the very recent increase in unemployment.
NORMAN THOMAS, Socialist candidate for President in 1928 and 1932; author of "America's Way Out: A Program for
Democracy" and other books on social and political subjects
April 1,1936
The Permanent Bases of American
Foreign Policy
John W. Davis
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
Hoover and Roosevelt on Inauguration Day, 1933.
An attempt to state the permanent bases of any nation's foreign policy opens a
range for discussion too broad for the compass of a single article. History,
tradition, political structure, geographical location, commercial interests, all
these, to say nothing of the ambitions of statesmen and the exigencies of the
moment, go to the making of a foreign policy. Some of these factors are fixed and
stable. Others must change with the changing times. Rarely is there entire
consistency in the pursuit of the policies to which these factors give rise. It is only
in the most abstract sense therefore that any policy or the bases on which it rests
can be called permanent. Yet it is possible, with the aid of history, to give a
hurried summary of certain ideals and purposes which seem to have run with
reasonable persistence throughout the course of American diplomacy and which
cannot be ignored in predicting its future direction.
Of these, the first in point of time, if not in point of importance, is the wish to
abstain as far as possible from any participation in foreign questions in general
and European questions in particular. The roots of this feeling go deep into the
American past. It has as its background the world situation at the time the United
States of America came into being. The instruments employed by European
monarchs in the midst of their quarrels and jealousies to advance their several
interests, the alliances and counter-alliances, the balances of power, the
armaments and counter-armaments, the treaties open and secret, were
stigmatized en bloc by the American colonists as the European system. Looking at
the turmoil it had bred and the burdens it imposed, they set up after the
Revolutionary War a government republican in character based upon ideas of
human equality, personal liberty and popular sovereignty, which, whether original
or borrowed, new or old, they were pleased to call American. They asked nothing
more of the world at large than a chance to develop these ideas undisturbed.
Between them and the turbulent shores of Europe rolled the broad Atlantic. Their
homeland was an unpeopled continent of vast natural resources. And the same
self-reliance which had brought them and their fathers across the waters made
them confident of their power, if only they were let alone, to realize the great
things the future held in store.
In such surroundings it was a priceless advantage to be aloof and neutral in a

world that was torn by the contemplating of present and future wars. John Adams
spoke for himself and his countrymen in the conversation he reports between
himself and Richard Oswald in 1782: "'You are afraid,' says Mr. Oswald today, 'of
being made tools of the Powers of Europe.' 'Indeed I am,' said I. 'What Powers?'
said he. 'All of them,' said I. 'It is obvious that all the Powers of Europe will be
continually manœuvring with us to work us into their real or imaginary balances
of power. They will all wish to make us a make-weight candle when they are
weighing out their pounds.'"
There was no "philosophical tranquillity," as Baron von Nolcken, the Swedish

Minister at St. James's, suggested to Adams in their long-distance watching of
"European throat-cutting;" only a feeling that it was none of their business and
that it would be fatal to the survival of the new-born nation if it took part in the
mêlée.
This attitude, so easily understood, was erected into a dogma by Washington with
his warning in the Farewell Address against implicating ourselves with Europe
"by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics or the ordinary
combinations or collisions of her friendships or enmities;" and confirmed by
Jefferson in his first inaugural declaring for "commerce and honest friendship
with all nations—entangling alliances with none."
Tuned as these words were to the times and circumstances in which they were
uttered, their effect upon the subsequent conduct of America has been
continuous. Their weight cannot be exaggerated. They have been echoed in
substance, if not in terms, by statesmen of every generation. They have been
repeated and re-repeated from the platform and in the press until they have
become clothed in the minds of most Americans with the dignity of axioms. . . .
When the fight over the ratification of the Treaty of Versailles and the Covenant of
the League of Nations was on, they furnished the stock argument to those who
opposed the Covenant, and it was only by appealing to their high authority that
public sentiment, at one time overwhelmingly in favor of the League, could be
reconciled to its rejection.
President Wilson himself did not challenge the general doctrine. Said he: "I shall
never myself consent to any entangling alliance, but I would gladly assent to a
disentangling alliance—an alliance which would disentangle the peoples of the
world from those combinations in which they seek their own separate and private
interest and unite the people of the world to preserve the peace of the world upon
a basis of common right and justice. There is liberty there, not limitation. There is
freedom, not entanglement." He denied, and those who thought and still think
with him denied, that there is anything in this of abandonment or desertion of the
teachings of Washington and Jefferson. Indeed, it may safely be assumed that
those great men would have been the last to claim perpetual authority for their
advice.
The views expressed by John Quincy Adams as early as the year 1826 do better
justice to their memory. In his message to Congress announcing his intention to
enter the conference with the other American republics at Panama he said that he
"could not overlook the reflection that the counsel of Washington in that instance,
like all the counsels of wisdom, was founded upon the circumstances in which our
country and the world around us were situated at the time when it was given,"
and comparing "our situation and the circumstances of that time with the present
day" he held that his acceptance of the invitation did not conflict with the counsel
or policy of Washington. Political isolation in the strict and absolute sense was
never the doctrine of Washington or Jefferson, nevertheless their warnings
against permanent alliances and participation in matters not directly related to
the welfare of the United States have lost little of their potency with the passage
of the years.
An obvious corollary of this same teaching was the doctrine of non-intervention in

the internal affairs of other nations. After proclaiming the right to set up a
government of her own devising, and to pursue her course without molestation
from abroad, America could do no less than concede to other nations the same
rights she claimed for herself. Whether their form of government was despotic or
liberal, regular or revolutionary, their domestic politics peaceful or turbulent, was
to be none of her affair. It was not unnatural that the adoption of institutions
similar to her own and founded on like political philosophy should from time to
time arouse her sympathetic interest; it was inevitable that when her citizens
began to push abroad she should invoke for them that measure of protection to
which they were entitled by the law of nations; but non-intervention on her part in
the domestic affairs of other nations was to be a fixed canon of conduct to be
departed from only on the gravest occasion. As Secretary Seward observed in
1863: "Our policy of non-intervention, straight, absolute and peculiar as it may
seem to other nations, has thus become a traditional one which could not be
abandoned without the most urgent occasion, amounting to a manifest necessity."
And again: "The United States leave to the government and people of every
foreign state the exclusive settlement of their own affairs and the exclusive
employment of their own institutions."
That a nation thus dedicated to the policies of political isolation and non-
intervention should imagine itself a permanent neutral in any war between other
Powers was entirely logical, even though events from time to time have falsified
the logic, as events so often do. The strain upon this purposeful neutrality came
promptly during the wars of the Napoleonic era. It reached the breaking point in
the War of 1812 and a century later in 1917. Yet it cannot be denied that the
instinctive reaction on the part of America to any foreign outbreak has been one
of neutrality, followed by the renewed assertion of the rights of neutral commerce
in non-contraband goods, or, to use the later nomenclature, the "freedom of the
seas." Every war of the last century and a half has provoked diplomatic
interchanges on the subject, in which, not always with entire consistency, the
prevalent American contention has been that blockades to be respected must be
effective; that only those articles are to be treated as contraband which are
adapted for belligerent uses; and that the flag of a neutral nation must protect
both the vessel and its cargo. Shaken as the principles of neutrality were by the
events of the Great War, and dim as the hope may be for the preservation of
neutrality in future wars, it must be accepted that American thought on the
subject is still dominated by the ancient tradition.
With the delivery of President Monroe's message to Congress in 1823, the Monroe
Doctrine came to its permanent place in American history. "The occasion," said
he, "has been judged proper for asserting, as a principle in which the rights and
interests of the United States are involved, that the American continents, by the
free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are not
henceforth to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European
Powers. . . . We owe it, therefore, to candor, and to the amicable relations existing
between the United States and those Powers, to declare that we should consider
any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere
as dangerous to our peace and safety."
It is worth while to quote these familiar words of this message because of the
gloss that has so often been put upon them by orators and statesmen in the
century that has followed their delivery. It is worth while also to notice that the
sole reason put forward for the declaration was the peace and safety of the United
States themselves and not the protection of the newly formed South American
Republics. There was in the declaration no assertion of overlordship or of
hegemony in the Western Hemisphere, and least of all of a purpose to control or
regulate the domestic affairs of our American neighbors. The creation of the Holy
Alliance furnished the occasion, and national tranquillity supplied the motive, but
there was no pretense of a general protectorate over other American states. As
Secretary Olney defined it in his Venezuelan Boundary despatch: "The rule in
question has but a single purpose and object. It is that no European Power or
combination of European Powers shall forcibly deprive an American state of the
right and power of self-government and of shaping for itself its own political
fortunes and destinies." His bellicose sentence that, "Today the United States is
practically sovereign on this continent, and its fiat is law upon the subjects to
which it confines its interposition," could certainly not have been intended by its
distinguished author as either an interpretation or an attempted enlargement of
the Monroe Doctrine. In the calmer and less controversial atmosphere of today it
would hardly be repeated lest it might be regarded as rodomontade. True, the
Monroe Doctrine, as Americans understand it, has come with the passage of time
to apply to all non-American Powers rather than to those of Europe alone, and to
acquisitions of territory by the transfer of dominion and sovereignty as well as by
colonization; but such further expansions as are to be found in the rhetoric of
spread-eagle orators have no foundation either in tradition or in fact. The idea
that the Monroe Doctrine is an all-embracing synopsis and epitome of our
relations with our Latin American neighbors is a wholly erroneous conception.
The policies to which I have so far alluded, with the possible exception of those
relating to neutral commerce, have a negative quality suitable to a nation set
upon living an indoor life of oriental seclusion. Jefferson's ambition, indeed, was
to see the United States a nation of self-supporting husbandmen. The national
temper, however, was not adapted to such a future, and even in Jefferson's own
day his countrymen were crowding into commerce and flocking to the open sea.
Some were traders in time of peace engaged in nibbling into England's carrying
trade, others were blockade runners in the Napoleonic wars, roving the seven
seas. Under the spur of commercial ambition, American shipping throve mightily.
In the early part of the nineteenth century the American clipper ships not only
met in successful competition the mariners of England but practically
monopolized for a time the transport to England herself of China tea. There was
an immediate need, therefore, for a positive foreign policy fixing the terms on
which the new nation was to live in the trading world. The nations were still under
the spell of the doctrines of "mercantilism" and trade restrictions, prohibitions
and discriminations were well-nigh universal. Indeed, there was hardly a port in
the Western Hemisphere outside their own country in which American vessels
could lawfully trade.
To break these shackles was the first task of American diplomacy. The objective
was announced in the preamble to the Treaty of 1778 with France in these words:
"By taking for the basis of their agreement the most perfect equality and
reciprocity, and by carefully avoiding all those burdensome preferences which are
usually sources of debate, embarrassment and discontent; by leaving also each
party at liberty to make respecting commerce and navigation those interior
regulations which it shall find most convenient to itself; and by finding the
advantage of commerce solely upon reciprocal utility and the just rules of free
intercourse; reserving withal to each party the liberty of admitting at its pleasure
other nations to a participation of the same advantages." This was, as John Quincy
Adams called it, "The corner stone for all our subsequent transactions of
intercourse with foreign nations."
So step by step, and with infinite labor, the ports of the colonies, first of Great
Britain and then of Spain, were opened to American vessels upon reciprocal
terms. One by one discriminating duties were removed and most favored nation
treaties were negotiated with all the principal trading Powers of the world. The
policy of reciprocity was deliberately adopted and steadily pursued; reciprocity in
the sense of equal and impartial trade and not as the word has come to mean in
its later usage—mutual or equivalent reductions of duties and imposts—the latter
"a policy," as John Bassett Moore has wittily said, "recommended by free traders
as an escape from protection and by protectionists as an escape from free trade,
but distrusted by both and supported by neither."
It was left to John Hay in his negotiations in 1899 for the open door in China to
secure the most dramatic of the later triumphs of this policy. Confronted by the
impending partition of the territory and trade of China among foreign Powers,
instead of engaging in the general scramble he chose a more effective course.
Starting with the same English sympathy which had been shown by Canning when
the Monroe Doctrine was promulgated, he secured in turn the assent of France,
Germany, Russia, Italy and Japan to the principle of equal and impartial trade for
the commerce of all nations in Chinese ports and spheres of influence. As a work
of peace it was an achievement of the first magnitude. It came to further fruition
at the Washington Conference of 1922, when the nine Powers there represented
formally agreed to use their influence for the purpose of effectually establishing
and maintaining the principle of equal opportunity for the commerce and industry
of all nations throughout the territory of China.
I pass to another subject. In his inaugural address of March 4, 1897, President

McKinley made bold to declare that arbitration as the true method of settling
international questions "has been recognized as the leading feature of our foreign
policy throughout our entire national history." Note the use of the definite article.
The statement is hardly an exaggeration, notwithstanding the fact that the nation
of which it was spoken has fought in the course of 155 years two civil and four
foreign wars, without counting the innumerable conflicts waged with the Indian
tribes. Such was the aggregate duration of these major wars that it may be said
without overstatement that America has devoted at least one day out of every
eight of its national life to the making of war; the remaining seven have been
spent in paying the bills. In spite of a genuine passion for peace, therefore, the
United States can hardly be called a pacifist nation. Yet, with unhappy stumblings
by the way, it has from the making of the Jay Treaty to this date endeavored to
follow the road of arbitrament rather than of conflict. It has been a party itself to
over 85 arbitrations with some 25 countries; and by precept and example it has
commended the practice of arbitration to mankind. It stands today definitely
committed, so far as the Executive and its past professions can commit it, to the
support and maintenance of the Permanent Court of International Justice; and if it
has forfeited anything of its former glory as a champion of international
arbitration, the loss must be charged to the account of Senatorial jealousy of
Senatorial prerogative and Senatorial difficulty in making up two-thirds of the
Senatorial mind.
If in the course of this brief outline I have leaned heavily on the sayings of men of
earlier days it is not without reason. With all their spirit of enterprise and
innovation the American people are at heart traditionalists. In matters of
government they are prone to take the beaten paths. And in spite of their sense of
human equality they are likewise hero-worshippers. They are accustomed
moreover to written formulæ in their government, their politics, even in their
business. An argument buttressed by quotation from a national hero has its battle
half won from the start. Whatever the demand for a shift in thought may be, it is
useless to disguise the fact that they find it easier to inquire what Washington, for
instance, may have said, than to consider what wisdom like Washington's would
say today.
A general survey of American foreign relations could not conclude without
adverting to other important topics. Such, for instance, are the disarmament of
the Canadian border; the cultivation of friendship with our neighbors to the south
under the name of Pan-Americanism; the protection of the Panama Canal and the
policing of the Caribbean; the problems of the Pacific and the consultative pact of
Washington; and, latterly, naval disarmament and naval parity with Great Britain.
These and many similar matters could not be ignored by the diplomatic historian,
but the aim of this article is far less ambitious. The effort here, I repeat, is to
discover, with the aid of history, those ideas which run with such persistence
throughout our foreign policy as to indicate their permanent fixation in the
national mind; political isolation, non-intervention, neutrality, the Monroe
Doctrine, the open door, arbitration—these threads seem to run all through the
warp and woof of our national weaving. It is quite easy for the critic to show that
they have been broken from time to time. They disappear from the pattern here
and reappear later there—consistency is no more a virtue of nations than of
men—yet without them there would be little to give coherence and unity to the
design.
Is there any common bond between these policies themselves, any consistent idea
which has inspired them, any common stuff out of which they have been spun? I
think there can be no doubt of it. Stated in the simplest terms, the dominating
desire on the part of the American people as expressed in their foreign policy has
been to be free to mind their own business without interference and to permit
others to do the same. This of itself is not a policy, but it is the motive by which
policies have been inspired. Nor must it be supposed that there is anything unique
or singular in this attitude. The people of every nation cherish the wish to work
out their own destiny after their own fashion, and for this reason the mainspring
of national action is always self-interest. It could not properly be otherwise. Those
who, by reason of their official position, have the power to frame and carry out the
foreign policies of their country are not proprietors but trustees of the power they
hold. They dare not use this power to satisfy mere personal ambition or to
advance their personal fortunes. They are not even free to spend it in works of
unrequited charity, no matter how noble. True to their trust, they must at all
points consider first and always the welfare and safety of the people they are
called to serve. Self-interest, albeit the enlightened self-interest, of the nation is to
be their constant guide.
This desire to be let alone is but the same idea which is embodied in the word
"security," an expression used and interpreted by every people in the light of their
own peculiar circumstances. To some it brings to mind the threatened boundaries
between themselves and hostile Powers; to some the long lines of ocean
communication on which their very lives depend; while still others look abroad to
their colonial possessions and fear for the links that bind them to the mother
country. Fortunately for America, she hears the march of no hostile armies along
her frontiers; no blockade of her coasts can bring famine to her firesides; and
while she must defend the outposts she possesses, neither the genius of her
institutions nor her past experience fosters in her any ambition to play the rôle of
a colonizing Power. Indeed, taking her venture in the Philippines as an example, it
would be fair to say that, while opinions differ widely as to her present and future
responsibilities there, most Americans in their heart of hearts regard the original
retention of the islands as a sorry blunder and devoutly wish that Dewey, after he
had destroyed the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay, had weighed his anchors and made
for the open sea.
But the fact that America is not oppressed by considerations such as these does
not make her foreign policy any the less a search for security than that of Powers
not so fortunate. Time, of course, has brought great changes since she first began
to think in national terms. Her entire geography, for one thing, has altered; where
she once looked out on one ocean, she now looks out on two. While she held at
first but a fringe along the shoreline, she now spreads across a continent; and
since the acquisition of Hawaii, Porto Rico and the Philippines, and the building of
the Panama Canal, her shadow falls far beyond the confines of the Union. As she
has reached out to make contact with the world, the world with its steamships,
aircraft, cables and radios has advanced to meet her, until distance no longer
decides the relationship between herself and the rest of mankind. Commerce has
altered quite as much as geography since the day when a colonial request for
episcopal guidance was answered by the brusque remark, "Damn their souls, let
them grow tobacco." And finance by means of loans and fixed investments has
scattered all over the globe, not the imaginary funds of "international bankers,"
but the collective savings of the American people, in the hope that this seed in
time will bring its harvest of profit and reward. Perhaps no nation in the world has
seen greater changes in the same length of time.
In view of these facts it is clear that the statement that America wishes to be free
to mind her own business is not an answer to a question but merely the
introduction to a series of questions that must be answered if phrase-mongering is
not to take the place of reasoning in her foreign policy. In the word "security"
today are wrapped up many things which could not have been dreamed of a
century ago. So long as the world obstinately refuses to become static and
unchangeable "never" is a dangerous word for governments or statesmen to
employ. Policy must always be elastic enough to fit changed surroundings, for the
change of surroundings does not wait on policy. "I do not control events," said
Lincoln, "I am controlled by them." If the foreign policies that have guided
America hitherto are no longer adequate to preserve her peace and insure her
prosperity, it does not necessarily follow that they should be abandoned, but it
does render it imperative that they should be supplemented by further policies
consciously adapted to her present needs.
Quite obviously the day has gone by, if indeed it ever existed, when America could
think of her interests and duties apart from those falling to her as a member of
the community of nations. The march of science, the advance in the arts of
communication, the interlocking activities of commerce and finance, her own
expanding needs and desires have made that no longer possible. Recent events
have served to drive the lesson home even to that presumptively ignorant but
ubiquitous person, the man-in-the-street. The Great War has shown him over what
vast distances the sound of a cannon shot will travel, and the present depression
has joined the American wheat farmer and the British coal miner in a common
misery. The question is no longer whether America will join the concert of the
nations. By the decrees of Providence and the pressure of inexorable events she is
already there beyond hope of escape, and is permitted to consider only the
manner in which she shall bear herself in that relationship.
Judging the future by the past, it is extremely unlikely that she will ever throw off
her fixed aversion to alliances for peace or war with special Powers. It seems in
no way necessary and would probably be most unfortunate if she did. Yet since it
is no longer possible for her to sit in calm seclusion, prudence and duty unite in
dictating to her a thoroughgoing, ungrudging, and generous coöperation with the
rest of the world in the organization and maintenance of peace; for peace and the
liberty of action it insures are the things she most needs to work out her destiny.
There is no dodging the stern fact that today American security, repose,
prosperity—what you will—is dependent in chief measure on America's
contribution to world security. For this contribution pious aspirations and
benevolent phrases are pitiful substitutes, and pharisaic self-righteousness the
least helpful substitute of all. If the organization and maintenance of peace by
common action has its risks, they are as dust in the balance alongside the hideous
certainties of modern war. Any foreign policy that falls short of the last effort to
avert this peril can only be described as a thing limping and incomplete.
This is not, as some would have it, the dreaming of the idealist: it is realism of the
most severe and practical sort. I go back again to Jefferson. On assuming the
office of Secretary of State, he wrote to Lafayette: "I think with others that
nations are to be governed with regard to their own interests, but I am convinced
that it is their interests in the long run to be grateful, faithful to their
engagements even in the worst of circumstances, and honorable and generous
always."
JOHN W. DAVIS, American Ambassador at the Court of St. James's, 1918-21; Democratic candidate for President, 1924
October 1,1931
Political Factors in American
Foreign Policy
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
Roosevelt signing legislation.
THE foreign policy of any nation is the resultant of varied forces. Economic
conditions, commercial rivalries, dynastic ambitions, and special issues arising
from time to time, determine a nation's attitude toward other states. In a
democracy, it is also inescapable that a political party in opposition should oppose
measures taken by the party in power affecting relations with foreign countries,
as well as those affecting only domestic subjects, particularly when the character
of the matter involved may be used to arouse public interest or public prejudice.
The motto of every political party is, "Any stick to beat a dog!"
Paradoxically enough, in the United States, one of the youngest of the nations,
tradition has been perhaps the strongest force in shaping our international
course. This was recognized by the group of Senators who in 1919 organized to
prevent the approval of the Versailles Peace Treaty, as a means of destroying
President Wilson and defeating the Democratic Party at the next general election.
They took as the keynote of their campaign the counsels of Washington's Farewell
Address and Jefferson's pronouncement against "entangling alliances," and by
constant reiteration of the sacred principles of aloofness from European affairs,
succeeded in convincing a large part of the electorate that the Covenant of the
League of Nations was a snare to entrap America into such an entangling alliance
as Washington and Jefferson feared. The Monroe Doctrine also was pressed into
service as an assertion of American hostility to the nations of Europe, and the
proposed League to preserve the peace of the world was interpreted as a threat to
our national sovereignty which would bind us captive to the European juggernaut!
Recognizing, however, the widespread feeling among our people that the great
purpose of the World War was to prevent future wars, and that we should not be
keeping faith with those who sacrificed their lives to the cause unless our country
took some affirmative action to prevent a repetition of the tragedy of 1914-1918,
the Republican platform of 1920 declared that the Party "stands for agreement
among the nations to preserve the peace of the world." But, it continued, we
believe that such an international association must be based upon international
justice, and must provide methods which shall maintain the rule of public right by
the development of law and the decision of impartial courts, and which shall
secure instant and general international conference whenever peace shall be
threatened by political action, so that the nations pledged to do and insist upon
what is just and fair may exercise their influence and power for the prevention of
war.
The purpose and the principle of the League thus were approved, but it was
asserted that the Covenant contains stipulations, not only intolerable for an
independent people, but certain to produce the injustice, hostility, and
controversy among nations which it proposed to prevent.
The Democratic platform advocated the immediate ratification of the Versailles

Treaty, without reservations, but stated that the Party did not oppose the
acceptance of any reservations making clearer or more specific the obligations of
the United States to the League Associates.
The part played by the League issue in the election of Mr. Harding always will be
a matter of dispute, but the political effect of the prejudices aroused by the
campaign against the treaty was to revitalize the eighteenth century prejudices
against any agreement with foreign nations which committed our government to
concurrent action or conference with European nations, and to create a miasmatic
political atmosphere through which we have had to struggle in all subsequent
efforts to reach and maintain the agreements with other nations which the
aftermath of the Great War have made imperative.
The Republican national platform of 1924 reaffirmed the Party's stand for
agreement among the nations to prevent war and preserve peace.
Yet it again commended the government for definite refusal of membership in the
League of Nations. It favored the adherence of the United States to the World
Court, on the terms proposed by President Coolidge, but asserted as the basic
principles of our foreign policy . . . independence without indifference to the
rights and necessities of others, and coöperation without entangling alliances.
The 1924 platform of the Democratic Party, while renewing its declaration of
confidence in the ideals of world peace, the League of Nations and the World
Court of Justice, as together constituting the supreme effort of the statesmanship
and religious conviction of our time to organize the world for peace,
recommended that the question whether or not the United States should become
a member of the League of Nations, with such reservations to the Covenant as
were agreed upon by the President and the Senate, should be submitted to the
people by referendum. The absence of any constitutional provision for such a
referendum, and its lack of binding effect, emphasize the conviction that this
course was adopted as a convenient method of sidestepping the issue. In other
words, the political effect of arousing national prejudice against "foreign
entanglements," and the easy response to xenophobic appeals, was felt even in
the councils of the party of Woodrow Wilson, in relation to the very measure for
the preservation of world peace to which he had sacrificed his life. It is not
difficult to arouse popular passion and prejudice. But once they have been
aroused, it is not easy to allay them or to escape their consequence.
Gustav LeBon,[i] in his epoch making study of the psychology of crowds, remarks
that "the destinies of peoples are determined by their character and not by their
government." He points out the influential part played in national action by
traditions, which represent the ideas, the needs and the sentiments of the past.
"Neither a national genius, nor civilization," he says, "would be possible without
traditions. In consequence, man's two great concerns since he has existed have
been to create a network of traditions which he afterwards endeavors to destroy
when their beneficial effects have worn themselves out. Civilization is impossible
without traditions and progress impossible without the destruction of those
traditions."
The history of American foreign policy since 1920 has been an epitome of just
such a struggle. On the one hand has been the dynamic pressure of the actualities
of international relationship; the world has been drawn into intimate contact by
applied science—the telegraph and cable, the telephone and the radio, the
railway, the steamship and the airplane—and by the necessary interchange of
merchandise and of ideas, with the inevitable result that every nation is affected
by social and economic conditions in other parts of the world. In particular, war
anywhere affects peoples everywhere. In the opposite sense there has been in
operation the hampering influence upon government of prejudices against
international agreements of any kind, the popular belief that a nation can live
unto itself and yet share in prosperous foreign commerce with others, the
delusion that war can be prevented by mere declarations of "outlawry," without
the adoption of effective methods for the peaceful adjustment of international
controversies, and the persistent belief that an agreement to act in concert with
other nations to prevent war involves an unjustifiable surrender of national
sovereignty. LeBon is quite right when he says: "Progress is impossible without
the destruction of these traditions."
The foreign policy of the United States finds expression in its intercourse with
other governments, carried on, in the first instance, by the President, through the
Department of State. But as all international agreements which rise to the dignity
of treaties, in order to be binding must be made with the advice and consent of
the Senate, expressed by the vote of two-thirds of those present, and as laws and
appropriations of money necessary to carrying out treaty provisions must be
agreed to also by the House of Representatives, the sentiment of those bodies
may not safely be disregarded by the Executive. Thus the foreign policy of the
United States is strongly influenced by the opinions and the action of the Senate
and the House.
As a matter of history, from the foundation of our constitutional government, the

Senate, and at times even the House of Representatives, has insisted upon being
recognized as a factor in the determination of our foreign policy. The provision of
the Constitution which qualifies the President's power to make treaties, by
requiring the advice and consent of the Senate, almost of necessity introduces
political factors into our international relations. The House of Representatives has
no constitutional part in such matters until it becomes necessary to enact laws to
carry out treaty provisions, or to authorize the expenditure of money. Efforts by
the House to make these legislative powers the excuse for it to review the process
of treaty-making, first attempted in connection with the Jay Treaty with Great
Britain in 1794, have not proved successful. President Washington at that time
declined to comply with a resolution of the House requesting him to furnish it
with a copy of the instructions to Mr. Jay, together with the correspondence and
other documents relative to the treaty, in a message which clearly drew the line
between the constitutional powers of the Executive and those of the House of
Representatives in connection with legislation affecting the carrying out of a
treaty. The President's position was sustained, and no successful effort since then
has been made by the House to interfere with or override the control of the
treaty-making power by the President and the Senate.
The relations between the President and the Senate furnish a different history.
Down to 1902, the Senate amended 57 treaties which afterwards were ratified by
the President; it amended 24 other treaties which were not ratified, because in
their revised form they were not acceptable to the President.[ii] The treaty of
peace with Spain, negotiated at Paris in 1898, encountered much opposition in
the Senate; it probably would not have been ratified if it had not been that the
President had appointed two Senators (Cushman K. Davis and William P. Frye) as
members of the Commission which negotiated the treaty. Unfortunately, President
Wilson did not follow this precedent in the negotiations between the Allied and
the Central Powers at the close of the World War. The method resorted to by the
Senatorial opponents to that treaty was to smother it with "reservations," which in
effect were amendments, and which the President refused to submit to the other
Powers. President Harding profited by this example and included among the
American representatives at the Naval Conference at Washington in 1921-1922
two Senators (Messrs. Underwood and Lodge) and a distinguished former Senator
(Mr. Root). The more important of the treaties agreed upon at that
Conference—that limiting naval armaments and the Four-Power Pacific
Pact—would hardly have secured the approval of the Senate without the advocacy
of the Senatorial Commissioners. Even as it was, a reservation was attached to
the resolution of consent and approval of the last-mentioned agreement, reciting
that the United States understands that under the statement in the preamble or
under the terms of this treaty there is no commitment to armed force, no alliance,
no obligation to join in any defense.
The preamble about which the Senate thus showed its concern merely recited that
the four signatory Powers, with a view to the preservation of the general peace
and the maintenance of their rights in relation to their insular possessions and
insular dominions in the region of the Pacific Ocean, had determined to conclude
the treaty; and the agreement was merely to the effect that if any controversy
should arise between any of them over any Pacific question which was not settled
by diplomacy, they should invite the other parties to the treaty to a conference to
which the whole subject would be referred for consideration and adjustment;
while if their rights were threatened by the aggressive action of any other Power,
they would communicate with each other, fully and frankly, in order to arrive at
an understanding as to the most efficient measures to be taken, jointly or
separately, to meet the exigencies of the particular situation.
President Hoover followed the precedents set by Mr. McKinley and Mr. Harding,
by appointing Senators Joseph T. Robinson and David A. Reed among the
respresentatives of the United States to the London Conference on Limitation and
Reduction of Naval Armament in the spring of 1930, and the ratification of the
treaty there negotiated undoubtedly was due in large part to the participation of
those Senators.
There is something almost childish in the wearisome reiteration, in Presidential

messages submitting proposed treaties negotiated since the defeat of the
Versailles Peace Treaty, as well as in resolutions of approval by the Senate, that
the treaty in question does not commit us to any alliance, or to do anything we do
not choose to do!
President Harding's understanding of the temper of the Senate led him, in

submitting the naval limitation treaties, in 1922, to say:
I am not unmindful, nor was the Conference, of the sentiment of this chamber
against Old World entanglements. Those who made the treaties have left no doubt
about their true import. . . . Therefore, I can bring you every assurance that
nothing in any of these treaties commits the United States, or any other Power, to
any kind of an alliance, entanglement or involvement.
The President's argument to the Senate was infinitely pathetic. Two years'
experience in the Executive branch of the government had given him a very
different appreciation of the problems involved in dealing with the effects of the
Great War, from that which he had entertained as Senator during the debate over
the Treaty of Versailles. He now pleaded earnestly for Senatorial understanding
and approval:
If nations may not establish by mutual understanding the rules and principles
which are to govern their relationship; if a sovereign and solemn plight of faith by
leading nations of the earth is valueless; if nations may not trust one another,
then, indeed, there is little on which to hang our faith in advancing civilization or
the furtherance of peace. . . . We can no more do without international
negotiations and agreements in these modern days than we could maintain
orderly neighborliness at home without the prescribed rules of conduct which are
more the guaranties of freedom than the restraint thereof.
Frankly, Senators, if nations may not safely agree to respect each other's rights,
and may not agree to confer if any party to the compact threatens trespass, or
may not agree to advise if one party to the pact is threatened by an outside
Power, then all concerted efforts to tranquilize the world and stabilize peace must
be flung to the winds. Either these treaties must have your cordial sanction, or
every proclaimed desire to promote peace and prevent war becomes a hollow
mockery.
The treaties were ratified with the reservation above quoted. A forward step,
although a short one, thus was taken in the direction of overcoming hampering
traditions. The influence of the Senatorial Commissioners was evident in securing
this result.
It is a counsel of perfection, asserted from time to time, that politics should stop
at the water's edge, and that once the Executive has taken a position or
negotiated a treaty with a foreign Power, he should then be supported and his
action approved by the legislative branch. Foreign governments cannot negotiate
with the United States Senate. They have to assume that in international relations
the President and the Secretary of State represent the sovereignty of the nation.
It seems, then, that agreements concluded by the latter should be ratified by the
Senate unless they are clearly contrary to the national interest.
This was the theory upon which President McKinley, one of the most experienced
politicians who ever held the Executive office, urged the Senate to approve an
arbitration treaty with Great Britain which had been negotiated by his
predecessor, Mr. Cleveland. He said:
This agreement is clearly the result of our own initiative, since it has been
recognized as the leading feature of our foreign policy throughout our
international history—the adjustment of difficulties by judicial methods rather
than by force of arms—and since it presents to the world the glorious example of
reason and peace, not passion and war, controlling the relations between two of
the greatest nations of the world, an example certainly to be followed by others.
Therefore he urged the Senate, "as a duty to mankind," to give the treaty the seal
of its approval. But what a writer in this review humorously has described as
"Senatorial jealousy of Senatorial prerogative and Senatorial difficulty of making
up two-thirds of the Senatorial mind,"[iii] were not overcome by the
considerations which actuated the President and the treaty failed of approval.
Nor was another Republican President, also an experienced politician, more

successful with a treaty which presented to the world a "glorious example of
reason and peace, not passion and war, controlling the relations between" the
nations of the world. President Harding, appealing to the Senate in February 1923
for its consent to the Executive approval of the Protocol of the World Court,
assured the Senate that
our nation had a conspicuous place in the advocacy of such an agency of peace
and international adjustment and our deliberate public opinion of today is
overwhelmingly in favor of our full participation, and the attending obligations
and the furtherance of its prestige.
The Senatorial mind was not moved by these considerations, nor even by his final
and despairing appeal:
It is not a new problem in international relationship; it is wholly a question of

accepting an established institution of high character, and of making effective all
the fine things which have been said by us in favor of such an agency of advanced
civilization. . . . Such action would add to our own consciousness of participation
in the fortunate advancement of international relationship and remind the world
anew that we are ready for our proper part in furthering peace and adding to
stability in world affairs.
The Senate would not yield to such persuasion, even at the insistence of its former
member, nor give its approval to a step in international relationship which was in
line with the national policy adopted almost from the foundation of the Republic,
and which was the fruition of the efforts of a series of presidents, all of whom
were members of the political party in control of the Senate at the time of Mr.
Harding's recommendation. Nor have his successors, Presidents Coolidge and
Hoover, as yet been more successful than was Mr. Harding in securing the
Senate's acceptance of this established institution of high character except upon
conditions which involve a serious modification of the jurisdiction of the Court.
Senatorial prejudice seems to be a stronger influence in shaping our foreign

policy even than national tradition. Indeed, the effect of tradition in moulding our
foreign policy is strongest when invoked in opposition to proposed action. And
seldom is public sentiment in support of measures recommended by the Executive
strong enough to overcome Senatorial opposition. Thus the sinister process of
approval "with reservations," which the Senate in late years has found so effective
as a means "to keep the word of promise to our ear, and break it to our hope,"
until now has prevented "our great nation, so devoted to peace and justice," from
effecting our adherence to the World Court and thus discharging what President
Hoover has described as its duty to lend "its coöperation in this effort of the
nations to establish a great agency for such pacific settlements."
The Kellogg-Briand Peace Pact is one outstanding exception to this general rule.
That treaty merely committed the nation to a moral principle and involved no
obvious agreement for concurrent action with other nations. The whole nation
was in favor of "the outlawry of war," and the Pact was adopted on August 27,
1928.
It was not adopted, however, without the spectre of "entangling alliances" again
being raised. By the terms of the agreement, which was opened to all the nations
of the world, the high contracting parties renounced war as an instrument of their
national policy, and agreed that the settlement of all disputes or conflicts should
never be sought except by pacific means. An effort was made by some of the
Senators who had most actively opposed the Versailles Peace Treaty and the
Four-Power Pacific Pact to attach interpretative resolutions to the approval of this
treaty. The effort failed. Yet favorable action could not be secured until a report
from the Committee on Foreign Relations was read to the Senate and spread upon
the records. This report set forth the Committee's understanding of the effect of
the treaty upon the right of national defense and upon the Monroe Doctrine; and
asserted, (1) that the treaty involved no obligation, express or implied to engage
in punitive or coercive measures against a nation violating the treaty; and (2), that
the treaty in no respect changed or qualified our position or relation to any pact
or treaty existing between other nations or governments. The report, however,
stated explicitly:
This report is made solely for the purpose of putting upon the record what your
Committee understands to be the true interpretation of the treaty, and not in any
sense for the purpose or with the design of modifying or changing the treaty in
any way or effectuating a reservation or reservations to the same.
Thus a declaration expressing what the Committee understood to be the meaning

and effect of the treaty was spread upon the records, but without being adopted
as either reservation or amendment. The Senate thereupon voted to consent and
approve.
Since the Briand-Kellogg Pact was ratified, it has frequently been asserted that
the lack of even such an agreement as that contained in the Four-Power Pacific
Pact, binding parties to it to confer in the event of its actual or threatened
violation, is a distinct weakness in the treaty, which should be removed by some
further agreement. Secretary Stimson, in an address on August 8, 1932, before
the Council on Foreign Relations,[iv] combated this criticism by maintaining that
in case of a threat against the Pact, consultation between the signatories is
inevitable. He thinks that this fact has not been fully appreciated by well-wishers
of the treaty who have desired to see it supplemented by a formal provision for
consultation. In his view, the developments of the last three years, particularly in
connection with the threatened conflicts between Russia and China and between
China and Japan, have made the inevitable consequences of the treaty so obvious,
and the positive construction put upon it has imbued it with such vitality, that the
misgivings of these well-wishers should be set at rest.
Implicit in this interpretation is a recognition (as a sequence of the controversy

over the League of Nations) of the unwillingness of the Executive to challenge
opposition in the Senate by proposing agreements for future action. If a
concurrent declaration of principles against war as an instrument of national
policy makes inevitable a conference between the affected powers, in the event of
a breach or threatened breach, then it would seem that a recognition of that fact,
and advance provisions for the speedy assembly of representatives of the parties
and the adoption of methods for regulating their action, would greatly strengthen
the force of the agreement. This has been the experience of the League of
Nations, and while it is a comforting thought to the Executive branch of the
government, desirous of advancing the interests of international peace, that the
Kellogg Pact inevitably requires concord of action, it may be doubted whether
that fact alone is a sufficient answer to the conviction, universal outside of the
United States and shared by a large number of its citizens, that a definite
agreement regulating such conference and action would be a desirable addition to
the peace machinery of the world. It is a singular fact that in contradistinction to
Secretary Stimson's views on the subject, both of the great political parties in
their 1932 national platforms have declared themselves in favor of supplementing
the Pact by legislation facilitating the calling of international conferences in case
a violation of its provisions is threatened.
Another point which must be taken into account in connection with our
international negotiations is the inflexible determination of the Senate not to
approve any treaty of arbitration which does not provide that when any specific
question is proposed to be submitted to arbitration, the compromis, or document
of specifications, shall first be submitted to and approved by the Senate. This
attitude has made the United States a laggard in the movement towards the
adoption, in advance of the development of particular controversies, of a general
treaty or agreement to submit international controversies to peaceful settlement
by arbitration or judicial determination.
In recent years many nations have entered into treaties by which they
unqualifiedly agree that all controversies arising between them, which are not
settled by diplomatic methods, shall be determined by arbitration, or by
submission to the Permanent Court of International Justice. But the Senate of the
United States consistently refuses to approve any arbitration treaty without
reserving to itself the right to approve in advance the formulation of the issue to
be submitted in any particular case. This is the rock upon which was split the
Olney-Paunceforte Treaty of January 11, 1897, above referred to, which President
McKinley unsuccessfully urged the Senate to accept.
The Senate's position in this regard is maintained without regard to partisan

politics. It is the assertion of a Senatorial prerogative to which both parties seem
equally committed.
Another consequence of the defeat of the Versailles Treaty, the making of a

separate peace treaty with Germany, and the development of a policy of hostility
toward agreements regarding future action, was the adoption of the principle that
the United States would recognize no connection whatever between Germany's
payment to the Allied Powers of reparations for damage occasioned during the
war, and the repayment of the loans made by our government to the Allies to
enable them to prosecute the war in which we had become their associates.
Despite the very obvious fact that the ability of those governments to repay these
obligations to us necessarily depends very largely upon their ability to collect the
amounts due them from Germany, Congress and the Executive have consistently
asserted that there is no connection between the two sets of payments. None the
less, on the suggestion of Secretary Hughes, a commission was formed to
negotiate between Germany and her debtors, and from these negotiations came
an agreement which gave substantial relief to Germany—the famous Dawes Plan,
named after the American who served as chairman of the commission. While the
United States Government disclaimed any part in the formation of this
Commission, or any responsibility for its work, yet the 1924 platform of the
Republican Party sought to derive credit for its accomplishments in the following
declaration:
A most impressive example of the capacity of the United States to serve the cause
of world peace without political affiliations was shown in the effective and
beneficial work of the Dawes Commission towards the perplexing question of
German reparations.
In 1930 the work of the Young Committee (also named from its American
chairman) received almost as much commendation, although it was not made the
subject of Party congratulation in a national platform.
A year later, the condition of the world made it impossible for the American
Government longer to escape direct intervention in the European situation. In
June 1931, President Hoover, having secured a pledge of support from a large
number of the members of both houses of Congress, declared a moratorium of a
year in the payment of all international debts, in order, as he said, to give the
forthcoming year to the economic recovery of the world and to help free the
recuperative forces already in motion in the United States from retarding
influences from abroad.
In connection with this action, the President made the following statement of his
position regarding German reparations and the debts of the Allied Governments
to us. He said:
Our Government has not been a party to, or exerted any voice in, determination of
reparation obligations. We purposely did not participate in either general
reparations or the division of colonies or property. The repayment of debts due to
us from the Allies for the advance for war and reconstruction were settled upon a
basis not contingent upon German reparations or related thereto. Therefore,
reparations is necessarily wholly a European problem with which we have no
relation.
I do not approve in any remote sense of the cancellation of the debts to us. World
confidence would not be enhanced by such action. None of our debtor nations has
ever suggested it. But as the basis of the settlement of these debts was the
capacity under normal conditions of the debtor to pay, we should be consistent
with our own policies and principles if we take into account the abnormal
situation now existing in the world. I am sure the American people have no desire
to attempt to extract any sum beyond the capacity of any debtor to pay, and it is
our view that broad vision requires that our Government should recognize the
situation as it exists.
This course of action is entirely consistent with the policy which we have hitherto
pursued. We are not involved in the discussion of strictly European problems, of
which the payment of German reparations is one. It represents our willingness to
make a contribution to the early restoration of world prosperity in which our own
people have so deep an interest.
Congress, in the Joint Resolution of December 23, 1931, ratifying the agreements
made by the President, went beyond him and declared it to be against the policy
of Congress that any of the indebtedness of foreign countries to the United States
should be in any manner cancelled or reduced; and nothing in this joint resolution
shall be construed as indicating a contrary policy or as implying that favorable
consideration will be given at any time to a change in the policy hereby declared.
Beyond a general commendation of the conduct of our relations with foreign

nations by President Hoover, no reference is made in the Republican platform to
these acts.
The Democratic platform merely states:
We oppose cancellation of the debts owing to the United States by foreign

nations,
which is precisely the position expressed by the President in the statement above
quoted. It does not go to the length of the Congressional declaration against any
reduction.
In connection with the moratorium on intergovernmental debts, President Hoover

asked Congress to re-create the World War Foreign Debt Commission. It will be
recalled that the negotiations to fix the amount of the indebtedness of the various
Allied Powers to the United States, and the terms and conditions of payment,
were entrusted by Congress to a Commission especially created by it; the powers
of the Commission were sharply circumscribed by the Act, and no agreement
modifying the terms of the settlements so reached was to be possible without
Congressional approval. In recommending the re-creation of this body, the
President stated that
as the basis of the settlement of these debts was the capacity under normal
conditions of the debtor to pay, we should be consistent with our own policies and
principles, if we take into account the abnormal situation now existing in the
world. I am sure the American people have no desire to attempt to extract any
sum beyond the capacity of any debtor to pay.
He pointed out that it was clear that a number of the governments indebted to us
would be unable to meet further payments in full pending recovery in their
economic life; that it was useless to blind ourselves to the obvious fact; and,
therefore, that it would be necessary in some cases to make still further
temporary adjustments. He recommended, therefore,
in order that we should be in a position to deal with the situation . . . the re-
creation of the World War Foreign Debt Commission, with authority to examine
such problems as may arise in connection with these debts during the present
economic emergency, and to report to Congress its conclusions and
recommendations.
No action was taken by Congress in response to this recommendation, and the

Republican platform is silent on the subject.
The Lausanne Conference, in July 1932, invited the League of Nations to convoke,
at a convenient date and place, a conference on monetary and economic
questions; and invited certain governments to appoint experts to represent them
at that conference. It also resolved to invite the Government of the United States
to be represented on the same basis as the governments of the other nations
represented. Public opposition was at once expressed in this country to taking
part in any such conference, if it were to consider the Allied debts, or the effect of
tariffs imposed by the United States upon imports from other countries. The
United States has now indicated a willingness to be represented, provided those
subjects are excluded. Obviously, if the conference were to observe any such
limitation, it would deal with only a part of the problem and would eliminate
perhaps its most important part. The precise policy to be adopted probably will
not be settled until after the presidential election. It is to be hoped that when that
event is past, the United States Government may be willing to enter such a
conference without reservations, and proceed to a full discussion of all matters
affecting our international relations. No harm can be done to the essential
interests of the United States by such a course, as no recommendations of the
conference would bind our government unless and until approved by Congress.
A readjustment of the Allied war debts on the basis of the capacity of the debtor
nations to pay, in the light of the latest agreements between the Allied and the
Central Powers, may well be reached without going to the point of cancellation.
The moratorium agreements of June 1931 recognized, despite the protests
quoted, the necessary interdependence of the reparations obligations and the war
debts to the United States. The political force of the principle of isolation, adopted
in 1920, obviously is diminishing. Sooner or later the inevitable logic of the
situation will compel a candid study by the creditor nations, including the United
States, of the effect upon their debtors' ability to pay of the capacity of their
debtors to provide the needed funds. At a time when hard economic facts press
closely upon individuals and nations alike, preconceived political positions will
have to yield place to intelligent realism.
The national platforms of both the great political parties, adopted in June of this
year, contain interesting divergencies from previously asserted position. While the
Republican platform asserts that
the Party will continue to maintain its attitude of protecting our national interests
and policies wherever threatened, but at the same time promoting good
understanding on the varying needs and aspirations of other nations and going
forward in harmony with other peoples without alliances or foreign partnerships,
it also declares that throughout the recent controversy between Japan and China
our government has acted in harmony with the governments represented in the
League of Nations, always making it clear that American policy would be
determined at home, but always lending a hand in the common interest of peace
and order.
It further asserts that the American Government has taken the lead in applying
the Kellogg Pact, following the principle that a breach of the contract, or the
threat of a breach, was a matter of international concern, wherever and however
brought about. It refers to this government's statement that it would not
recognize any situation, treaty or agreement brought about between Japan and
China by force and in defiance of the Kellogg Pact and declares this principle,
associated with the name of President Hoover, was later adopted by the Assembly
of the League of Nations at Geneva as a rule for the conduct of all those
governments.
This is the so-called "Hoover doctrine," which was referred to by Secretary

Stimson in his address before the Council on Foreign Relations, above mentioned.
The Republican platform speaks of it as having been adopted by the Assembly of
the League of Nations as a rule for the conduct of all those governments. This is
an inference from the endorsement there given to the action of the American
Government in notifying Japan and China that it would not recognize any
situation, treaty or agreement which might be brought about by means contrary
to the covenant and obligations of the Pact of Paris. Important as this action was,
it may reasonably be doubted whether it established a general rule for the
conduct of all nations in all cases which might seem to involve violations of the
covenants of the Pact. The implications of such a doctrine are far-reaching. Its
application would require conference and specific understanding among the
signatories. It is difficult to see how it would be applied practically, except
through the machinery of the League of Nations. Indeed, the assertion of the
doctrine involves the longest step yet taken by the Government of the United
States towards practical membership in the League, whether formal or informal.
The orientation of the Republican platform is more toward coöperation with the
League of Nations than that of the Democratic platform, which fails to mention
the League. Both parties declare their approval of measures for the maintenance
of the peace of the world, and specifically approve the Pact of Paris. But the
significance of the positive action of the party in power cannot be disregarded.
Events have proved more powerful in the last few years than reiterated traditional
principles, or the artificial methods of political expediency. Political parties
employ temporary instruments for the advancement of their temporary interests;
but in the last analysis nations realize their destinies more through what Bismarck
called the imponderables than through ephemeral expedients of partisan
advantage.
[i] "The Crowd, A Study of the Popular Mind." London: Fisher Unwin, 1910, p. 92.
[ii] "The Treaty-Making Powers of the Senate," by Charles C. Tansill, Journal of

International Law, Vol. XVIII, p. 459.
[iii] John W. Davis, "The Permanent Bases of American Foreign Policy," FOREIGN
AFFAIRS, October 1931.
[iv] Printed as a Special Supplement to FOREIGN AFFAIRS, Vol. 11, No. 1.
GEORGE W. WICKERSHAM, former Attorney-General of the United States; member of the Commission on the
Progressive Codification of International Law; President of the American Law Institute
October 1,1932
Some Foreign Problems of the Next
Administration
Edward M. House
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
FDR in 1933.
THE aim of the Democratic administration which assumes office on March 4 will
be to liquidate the war—to liquidate it finally, so that world confidence may be
restored, world trade freed of its shackles, and the minds and energies of
statesmen everywhere turned to new and constructive purposes. Three
Republican administrations have failed to do this. Their refusal to face economic
problems realistically and their parochial attitude in international political
questions have made the present task extremely difficult. Indeed, it is no
exaggeration to say that the policies of the Harding, Coolidge and Hoover
administrations, inspired by the selfish and uncoöperative attitude which the
Republican Party adopted because of their implacable hatred of Woodrow Wilson,
must be held in large measure responsible for the continuation of the war
psychology, the frustration of all attempts at thoroughgoing economic
rehabilitation through international action, and the sense of insecurity now
prevailing in every quarter of the world. To restore men's confidence in the ability
of governments to govern is the first task of our times. It must be the first task of
the Roosevelt administration.
Before I proceed to enumerate some of the specific matters which will have to be
dealt with in any attempt to liquidate the war, let me speak of the general spirit
which Mr. Roosevelt's public statements authorize us to believe will guide him
while he is President. As he remarked in closing his article in FOREIGN AFFAIRS
in July 1928, "It is the spirit, sir, which matters." I think that in office Mr.
Roosevelt will be equitable and resolute, in his dealings alike with his fellow
citizens and with foreign governments. He will learn as he goes along, not seek to
impose preconceived solutions. He revealed something of his philosophy in a
modest little talk at Poughkeepsie on election eve. "A man comes to wisdom in
many years of public life," he remarked. "He knows well that when the light of
favor shines upon him, it comes not, of necessity, that he himself is important.
Favor comes because for a brief moment in the great space of human change and
progress some general human purpose finds in him a satisfactory embodiment. To
be the means through which the ideals and hopes of the American people may
find a greater realization calls for the best in any man; I seek to be only the
humble emblem of this restoration."
It must not be forgotten that Mr. Roosevelt was a member of Woodrow Wilson's
official family and came under the spell of that courageous and idealistic leader.
Early in his term of office President Wilson gave an example of his courage, his
common sense and, as it proved, his foresight. A dispute arose with Great Britain
over the interpretation of a treaty regarding the tolls to be charged on vessels
passing through the Panama Canal. When after careful study the President came
to believe that the American interpretation was wrong, he did not hesitate to
reverse the policy of the previous administration, although he himself had
indorsed it in 1912. In the face of hostile public sentiment, and undeterred by lack
of support in Congress, he adopted and successfully maintained the position that
this country could not afford to have its integrity questioned. His action gave
Europe a belief in his courage and fairness which was to stand him and the United
States in good stead in later years of stress.
It is in this sort of spirit, I believe, that President-elect Roosevelt will proceed to

the decisions necessary to a final liquidation of the war—decisions no less
momentous than those which faced our war President. Let me mention the chief
problems involved and try to forecast how I think the next administration is apt to
view them.
The American tariff problem is very generally misunderstood today because it has
completely changed since the World War. Before 1914 we were a debtor country,
paying interest and amortization to foreign creditors on the moneys they had lent
us to exploit our natural resources, build our railways, and expand our industries.
Every year we supplied our foreign creditors with a large volume of dollars, which
they used to buy goods here. We had, consequently, a so-called "favorable balance
of trade," that is to say, we exported more than we imported. Countries similarly
placed were Russia, Brazil, India, Haiti and Guatemala—debtor countries like
ourselves, giving up part of their production to their creditors. Countries with a
so-called "unfavorable balance of trade" were Great Britain, France, the
Netherlands, Switzerland and Germany—creditor countries which, like individual
capitalists, could afford to consume more than they produced with their own
labor.
The World War made us a creditor country. It increased our buying power and
reduced the buying power of our former creditors—and present debtors. In this
changed situation the logic would call for a reversal of the balance of trade. This
could come about in one of two ways. It could come about in a good way—through
a larger return to the United States in goods and services; or in a bad
way—through a decrease in exports. The way chosen would depend primarily on
our tariff policy. In 1919 and 1920 many careful observers recognized the dangers
of raising our tariff. Even the Republican platform of 1920 admitted that there
was such a thing as "the problem of the international balances," and stated that,
in view of uncertainty regarding this point, the Party could not say what it would
do in 1921. Twenty years before, William McKinley, in his last speech, had
foreseen the necessity of a shift of policy, saying: "A system which provides a
mutual exchange of commodities is manifestly essential to the continued and
healthy growth of our export trade. We must not repose in fancied security that
we can forever sell everything and buy little or nothing."
But all evidences of a new spirit in the Republican Party disappeared when the
landslide of 1920 brought Warren G. Harding to the Presidency. I have never
heard it alleged that Mr. Harding was an economist. He had an "affection for the
tariff as a political issue," and he settled this question, like others, in terms of his
affections. The result was the Fordney-McCumber Bill of 1922.
Warnings that this high tariff would choke our export trade proved premature.
From 1922 to 1929 our exports of manufactured goods grew steadily, though
exports of raw materials and foodstuffs barely held their own or, in some cases,
decreased. Our European customers were obtaining dollars here with which to
buy our goods, and did it without selling us as many goods in return. How was
this accomplished? It was accomplished by a thoroughly unsound financial
development. When President Harding put in a personal appointee as Governor of
the Federal Reserve Board in the place of W. P. G. Harding, he broke the Board's
independence and sense of responsibility. The new political influences in the
Board worked steadily for a cheap money policy which made bank credit multiply
and enabled the United States to absorb an enormous volume of foreign
securities. We would not let foreigners earn the dollars to pay us their debts; but
we cheerfully lent them dollars to pay us the interest.
In 1928 Mr. Hoover undertook to reply to criticism on this score, saying that it
was not necessary that exports be paid for by imports, because of the "invisibles"
of foreign trade.[i] He listed the 770 millions paid out in 1927 by our tourists and
the 240 millions sent abroad by immigrants, and mentioned "a hundred other
items." Among these hundred other items, however, was the one all-important
item—the net cash figure for our foreign investments. In the previous year, 1927,
it had amounted to $1,648,000,000. On it our export prosperity rested. Mr.
Hoover's argument is typical of the "new era" economics of 1928 and 1929, which
implied that debts can be created without consideration of how they are going to
be paid. Foreign trade and foreign loans collapsed together. If this was "the
American system" we are well through with it.
Mr. Hoover has not admitted the existence of any general problem in the tariff. In
his speech of acceptance on August 11, 1932, he said: "If our opponents will
descend from vague generalizations to any particular schedule, if it be higher
than necessary to protect our people or insufficient for their protection, it can be
remedied by this bipartisan Tariff Commission." The only tariff problem in his
eyes concerns the particular schedules which the Tariff Commission shall fix after
ascertaining costs of production at home and abroad, and recommending
equalizing rates.
Now this principle of equalizing costs, carried out logically, would remove all
incentive to foreign trade, the whole basis of which lies in the comparative
superiority of different countries in different lines. In the United States, where
land and capital are relatively abundant and labor relatively scarce, we
concentrate on mass production. In Europe, handwork and specialty production
are more economical. Wages have been comparatively high in America because
men have been scarce and resources abundant. Our immigration restrictions and
not our tariffs have safeguarded our wages. Nor do our high wages mean that our
cost of production is high, since the labor cost per unit of output is low.
The past three administrations have been interested only in adjusting individual
schedules. But the true tariff problem is a general one—the problem of how to
enable foreigners to earn enough dollars here to pay their debts and take our
exports, without the necessity of foreign loans. According to present schedules,
foreign countries must pay us something like $1,200,000,000 a year on what they
have already borrowed from the American people. We must permit them to pay us
without having to borrow more money from us. They can pay partly in goods,
partly in services, partly in gold. We must adjust our tariff policy so that our
foreign lending will be safe, while at the same time our domestic undertakings are
adequately protected against undue competition. Many schedules must be
reduced moderately, and some sharply. I am not proposing free trade, or even a
tariff for revenue only, but rather the "competitive tariff for revenue" called for in
the Democratic platform. This will still leave us a protective tariff, but not a
prohibitive tariff. If foreign goods are admitted on a competitive basis, our
farmers will regain their foreign markets and our manufacturers will regain their
farm markets. Incidentally, a moderate tariff which admits foreign goods brings in
revenue to the government, whereas prohibitive tariffs do not.
The first argument against our post-war tariff policy, then, is that it makes our
customers unable to obtain the dollars which they need to pay their debts and buy
our agricultural products and the manufactured goods in which we excel. The
second is that it produces retaliatory measures abroad. A war of strangulation is
in process between almost every country and every other country. As Newton D.
Baker said in his admirable campaign address in Brooklyn, this war has existed
since the Hawley-Smoot tariff bill was passed in the Congress of the United
States. Take as a case in point the present state of our relations with Canada, our
closest neighbor and best customer. The resentment and loss caused in Canada by
our recent tariff policy was the last straw needed to turn the British Empire into a
protectionist unit. That was a momentous event, and one which will have most
unfortunate results for the United States. We have only ourselves to blame.
The tariff war is partly retaliatory; partly it is based on false theories; partly (in
countries struggling to maintain their currencies with inadequate gold reserves) it
is almost a matter of necessity. Quotas and restrictions on foreign exchange
dealings are added to tariffs; currencies fall as a result of the stoppage of trade;
and then exchange depreciation is made a pretext for new tariffs, with further
exchange depreciation as a result. It is a fallacy to believe that the depreciation of
a foreign country's currency justifies raising tariffs against that country. A country
whose currency is depreciating and fluctuating is seriously handicapped in its
whole economic life, including its export trade. Our experience since the war is
proof of this fact, which was emphatically confirmed by the Chairman of the
United States Tariff Commission, Robert L. O'Brien, a Republican and a
protectionist, in his testimony last May before the House Ways and Means
Committee.
The creditor countries must break the present vicious circle. The United States
should lead the way. The international conference to reduce tariffs which
Governor Roosevelt has announced his intention of calling may prove a turning
point in world history.
A second tariff reform should be discussed either at this conference or at the

projected World Economic Conference. Almost as much as they need reduction in
tariffs, the nations need tariff stability, so that their manufacturers may plan, their
farmers plant, and their miners produce, without fear that suddenly their export
trade will be shot down from ambush by an executive order of some foreign
government. Reform of this abuse by the establishment of decent standards of
government regulation of international trade is an essential part of the general
program for restoring world stability.
Closely allied to the tariff problem is the problem of the war debts. I think the new
administration should make the greatest possible effort to put the war debts once
for all on such a basis that they are no longer a political question in the world.
How this can best be achieved must be a matter for negotiation with each of the
foreign governments owing debts to the United States. It is to be hoped that
without default or postponement of present instalments the individual debtor
governments will in the spring request conferences with the United States
Government, in order to deal with the whole problem in a systematic way. Mr.
Roosevelt has announced that he favors a conference with our debtors to bring
about a definite understanding with them, and has indicated that payment can
only be expected if we permit imports by lower tariffs.
It may be urged that if we make definitive debt settlements in the near future we
might later discover that we had accepted smaller payments than necessary.
According to that reasoning we should leave the question open. But Mr. Roosevelt
went to the heart of the problem in his speech of February 2, 1932, when he
called for an early accord regarding future payments. Uncertainty is one of the
factors delaying the return of normal economic conditions. While the debt
question hangs fire, for example, England cannot set a new par for sterling and
return to the gold standard. Like many other related matters, this is of much
importance to American trade, and so to the budget of the United States
Government.
At Lausanne, the Allied Governments made a sincere effort to forget war hatreds
and took a long step towards disposing of the reparations question once for all.
They were able to do this because their peoples had come to realize that the black
reparations cloud hanging over Europe carried less promise of fruitful rain than
the threat of catastrophic new storms. In the same way, and for similar reasons,
the American people must be ready—as practical business men, for reasons of
cold common sense—to do what is necessary in order to dispose finally of the war
debts as a political question.
Coincident with a change in the spirit ruling our economic foreign policy must go
a change in the spirit of our foreign policy in political matters. The great problem
of government is how to reestablish a sense of security in the world. If we are
sincere in preaching disarmament, we must help to give nations cause to feel that
their lands and possessions are safe. Disarmament follows security. It cannot be
achieved under any other circumstances.
In this connection let us turn to the Democratic platform adopted at Chicago in

June, one of the plainest and most terse enunciations of party principle in the
history of American politics. Among the elements of the "firm foreign policy"
which it demands is the maintenance of the Pact of Paris, " to be made effective
by provisions for consultation and conference in case of threatened violation of
treaties." This phrase gives recognition to the fact that on the long and weary
road to disarmament political solutions must precede technical solutions. The
degree to which a nation will agree to disarm will depend upon the degree to
which it feels that it will be secure without the armaments which it is asked to
give up. Partial naval disarmament became possible only when political
agreements had showed the peoples involved that they would be safer under the
proposed new conditions than they were with each nation acting for itself and the
devil threatening to take the hindmost. Disarmament of land forces will become
possible only when mutual assurances have been given and received that no great
nation will, without warning or negotiation, frustrate the plans which other
nations have made for acting cooperatively to restrain possible aggressors from
breaking the peace. It is one thing to reserve freedom of judgment and eventual
freedom of action; it is quite another thing to refuse to behave as a responsible
sovereign member of the world society, willing and anxious to discuss frankly
whether or not a certain proposed international action coincides with our
interests and will help to preserve peace.
One of the principal preoccupations of our government in recent months has been
the situation in the Far East. The United States has a double interest in the
dispute over Manchuria. Its first interest is in maintaining the sanctity of treaties,
which is merely part of the general question of maintaining international peace.
Its second interest is to uphold the traditional policy of the "open door." On this
second point the policy of our government is subject to negotiation in the light of
changes in the general world situation, and, in particular, of changes in the
situation in the Far East. The principle enunciated by Secretary Stimson last
summer looks either to a return to the status quo ante through the spontaneous
action of the two Powers directly party to the Manchurian dispute, or else to the
settlement of outstanding questions by direct negotiation between those Powers
under the auspices of the League of Nations. If the second course can be
successfully pursued, so that the dispute is dissolved by direct negotiation without
further bloodshed, the real aim of the American people will have been achieved,
the power of the Kellogg Pact will have been vindicated, and the world will have
cause to be well satisfied.
Nations like individuals are subject to moods. And in both cases ugly moods
provoke dislike and, eventually, retaliation. Prosperity is not in itself hateful. But
arrogance, the conscious pride of wealth, a refusal to recognize the
responsibilities that go with power, are universally disliked in individuals and are
in the end rebuked. We have discovered lately that nations are not exempt from
this law. Because of our happy geographical position and vast natural resources
we long felt immune from the rules which older nations found it useful to observe
in international intercourse. We did not recognize that wealth and power are apt
to engender envy, and that the possessor of them must show an unusual degree of
fairness and consideration in all his dealings.
There is something else to be said on this point, however. In the post-war decade
the world got the impression that American springs of wealth were exhaustless. In
the same way that the American people have got to understand that the nations of
the world are " all in one boat," the peoples of other lands will have to realize that
pictures of fabulous and everlasting prosperity in the United States were unreal
and misleading. Our budget was nearly 3 billion dollars out of balance last year,
and will be perhaps 2 billions out this year. The duty of taking account of another
nation's resources and capacities does not fall on the United States alone.
Throughout this brief article I have stressed the spirit which will prevail during
the Roosevelt administration rather than make an attempt to forecast the details
of Mr. Roosevelt's probable policies. That is because a "new deal" in the spirit of
our foreign policy is all-important. Abroad as well as at home there is gratification
over the prospect. The belief that under Mr. Roosevelt our foreign policy will be
generous and humane is well founded. We shall not shirk our responsibilities.
Coercion, material or moral, will not be used to enforce our will in settling any
straightforward and honest difference of opinion. But while we shall extend
justice we shall also demand it. We shall try to make what is right, what is fair,
the standard of our conduct; and we shall insist that others hold to the same
standard in all their dealings touching the safety and well-being of the American
people.
[i] Speech in Boston, October 15, 1928.

EDWARD M. HOUSE, Member of the American Commission to Negotiate Peace, 1918-1919
January 1,1933
Our Foreign Policy
A Republican View
Ogden L. Mills
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
Herbert Hoover.
WHEN the Republican Administration came into power on March 4, 1921, the
country had given a clear and unmistakable indication of the line which it desired
that our foreign policy should take. The preceding campaign had been fought
largely on the issue of whether this country should abandon its traditional policy
of independence in foreign affairs and should substitute for it a policy under
which our independence of action might be subordinated to the decision of other
nations.
Even during the war our traditional policy had been scrupulously maintained.
President Wilson had been careful to specify the conditions on which we entered
into a limited partnership with other nations for the conduct of the war, and had
insisted that that partnership be described as "The Allied and Associated Powers".
Having entered the war on our own terms and for certain designated objectives,
when those objectives had been attained and peace had been secured, the nation
showed that it was ready to put an end to the temporary partnership and in the
future to conduct its foreign relations in accordance with the historic American
policy.
That policy, which had been firmly established during the Administration of
Washington, was well described in the words of Jefferson as one of "peace,
commerce and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none."
Its underlying principles had always been independence and coöperation. But
independence had never meant isolation, nor had coöperation implied alliances
and special arrangements with other nations. Even in Washington's and
Hamilton's day, when the Farewell Address was first uttered and when the United
States was a small and struggling nation, it was recognized that America could
neither hope to remain undisturbed by world currents nor expect not to be drawn
into wars which threatened her interests or her security.
The War of 1812 conclusively proved this to an earlier generation, as the World
War proved it to our own. America was no more directly concerned in the struggle
for European supremacy during the Napoleonic campaigns than she was in the
causes leading to the tragedy which began at Sarajevo. And yet in each instance a
chain of events was started in which we finally became involved. In both
instances, when the time came, America did not fail to assert her rights, or to
fight until they were vindicated. And in each instance, when her ends had been
achieved, she reverted instinctively to her traditional attitude and made clear that
she would not become part of the European System, nor let herself be
permanently enmeshed in controversies "the causes of which are essentially
foreign to our concerns."
Such has been America's foreign policy since the very beginning of the
government. It has been consistently adhered to; and so firmly had it become
established that, when the World War came to an end, the public had an
instinctive feeling that the nation should get back to first principles and continue
to govern its conduct by the only foreign policy it had ever known.
When the new Administration took office in 1921, the groundwork had already
been laid. The question of joining the League of Nations was no longer an issue.
The Treaty of Versailles had failed of confirmation and the Senate had refused to
accept for this country a mandate for Armenia or even to consider a treaty of
alliance with France. America had declined to participate in the various Allied
conferences and had made it clear that she would not be drawn into any of the
post-war combinations and alliances into which our former associates in the war
were finding it desirable to enter.
So much for the negative side of the picture. On the positive side our foreign
relations were in the worst possible tangle. Although peace had come over two
years before, the nation was technically still in a state of war. Our relations with
Mexico and with many of our neighbors to the south were, and for years had been,
highly unsatisfactory. In the Far East a situation was developing which was giving
rise to uneasiness and promised serious consequences for the future, if not dealt
with immediately and with frankness and courage.
Such were the conditions when the new Administration took hold. A firm hand
was necessary and both boldness and vision were needed in working out a policy
which would protect American interests and at the same time allow us to do our
part in helping the world to get back on its feet again. How did the Administration
proceed? Not by high-sounding phrases or promises which the American people
would not—and could not—carry out; but by getting down to "cases", which is
indeed the only way in which foreign relations can ever be conducted. As with the
Anglo-Saxon system of jurisprudence, so with foreign relations; a policy develops
slowly by reason of cases decided in accordance with certain established
principles and not by mapping out in advance a theoretical policy to which cases,
as they arise, are made to conform.
The first task to which the Administration addressed itself was the establishment
of peace. Negotiations were immediately opened with Germany, Austria and
Hungary, and treaties were concluded under which America lost none of the
rights and advantages which she would have had as a party to the Treaty of
Versailles, while at the same time avoiding responsibilities and commitments
which she was not willing to undertake.
Other problems connected with the peace settlements have been gradually
worked out. The question of war claims has proved a difficult one, and a
satisfactory solution has only recently been found. Under the Settlement of War
Claims Act, approved by the President on March 10, 1928, an agreement was
reached for the settlement of war claims of the United States Government and its
citizens against the German, Austrian and Hungarian Governments, and of the
claims of the nationals of those Governments against the United States. Provision
was also made for the eventual return to its owners of all of the property seized by
the Alien Property Custodian during the war and for the return of a very
substantial amount immediately. America thus adheres to her traditional policy of
respect for private property and at the same time ends the hardships of many
individual property owners and releases large sums for productive purposes.
Another question which remained to be settled was that of our adherence to the
World Court. While public sentiment was opposed to this country becoming a part
of the League of Nations, there was nevertheless a very widespread feeling that
we should omit no opportunity to do our part for the advancement of peace and
particularly for the judicial settlement of international disputes and of all
questions which are justiciable. The United States has always taken a leading part
in promoting judicial settlements and public sentiment strongly supported the
President in sending a message to the Senate, early in the Administration, asking
consent for the United States to become a member of the Permanent Court of
International Justice at The Hague.
On January 16, 1926, the Senate passed a resolution authorizing such action,
subject to five reservations which, as directed, were submitted by the Secretary of
State to the other powers who were members of the Court. Subsequently, these
reservations were practically agreed to, with the exception of the fifth or last
reservation. That reservation provided in substance that the Court should not
render any advisory opinion except publicly after due notice to all the states
adhering to the Court and to all interested states, and after public hearing or
opportunity for such hearing, nor shall it, without the consent of the United
States, entertain any request for an advisory opinion touching any question in
which the United States claims an interest. There the matter has rested until
recently when it was brought before the Senate by Senator Gillett, but so far no
agreement has been reached which will bring the impasse to an end.
While making clear our determination not to assume responsibilities as a member

of the League of Nations or to commit the United States in advance to the
employment of its power in unknown contingencies, this Government has at all
times pursued a policy of friendly coöperation with the League and has taken part
in various international conferences called by that organization. At the World
Economic Conference which met at Geneva in May, 1927, for the purpose of
discussing economic problems in the fields of commerce, industry and agriculture,
the American delegation, under the leadership of Mr. Henry M. Robinson, took an
active and important part. A further conference, held later in the year, came to an
agreement regarding import and export prohibitions which will release foreign
trade from many hampering restrictions. During the same year the United States
participated in the Conference on communications and transit, held at Geneva, to
collect and exchange information which will facilitate various means of
communication.
The United States was officially represented by a delegation at the Conference

held in Geneva in May-June, 1925, at which a convention for the control of the
international trade in arms, munitions and implements of war, together with a
protocol for the prohibition of the use in war of asphyxiating and poisonous gases
and of bacteriological methods of warfare, was adopted. Again in February, 1927,
at the meeting of the Special Commission created by the League to draft a
convention relative to the private manufacture of arms, an American
representative was present and gave the views of this Government. At the
Preparatory Commission for the Disarmament Conference, which met at Geneva
at intervals during 1926 and 1927, the United States was represented by a
delegation of nine members.
I have cited these activities at some length because it is necessary to refute the
charges frequently made by League partisans in this country that the present
Administration has either refused to have anything to do with the League or has
pursued a course inimical to it and has thereby retarded the good work which that
organization might have been able to accomplish if it had been given the benefit
of our whole-hearted coöperation. How groundless are these charges is obvious to
anyone who has followed the efforts which this country has made to be helpful in
furthering any well-directed efforts towards better international conditions,
whether such efforts have originated with the League or with any other agency.
At the same time the United States has worked in its own way to bring about
peace and stability in the world. Early in the Administration public opinion in this
country was becoming restive at the lack of progress in the reduction of
armaments; and particularly was it disturbed at the spectacle of a seeming rivalry
in naval construction between the two great English-speaking nations, Great
Britain and the United States, whose combined fleets should be a guarantee of the
safety, never a threat to the peace, of the world. There was also the spectre of a
growing rift between this country and Japan.
During the progress of the war the Far Eastern question had become increasingly
complicated and serious both in its present and in its future implications. In the
words of Lord Balfour, "a state of international tension" had arisen in the area of
the Pacific. American public opinion had been disturbed by Japan's twenty-one
demands on China, by her retention of Shantung, by evidence of growing
disorders and inability to maintain stable self-government in China, and by the
prospect of a renewal of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, under which America would
face naval competition with both Japan and Great Britain.
In tackling these difficult and delicate problems, fraught with such danger to the
future peace and security of the world, it was necessary to act with boldness and
a high order of statesmanship. Fortunately, the Washington Administration was
equal to the occasion. On the invitation of the President a conference was called
to meet at Washington in November, 1921, to consider the limitation of
armaments and Pacific and Far Eastern questions. Invitations were extended to
Great Britain, France, Italy, Japan, China, Belgium, Portugal and the Netherlands
as the nations most concerned with the questions to be considered.
At the outset, Secretary Hughes, with dramatic suddenness, made a definite

proposal for the limitation of naval armament, which, as regards capital ships,
was accepted with modifications. Thus, at one stroke, an end was made of existing
competitive programs in capital ships. At the same time, the relative security of
the great naval Powers was left unimpaired; and, as regards replacement tonnage
of capital ships, the ratio for the United States, Great Britain and Japan was fixed
at 5:5:3.
In the settlement of Far Eastern questions, definite, and perhaps even more
important, results were achieved. Under the Four Power Treaty, which was
negotiated between the United States, the British Empire, France, and Japan, it
was agreed that each would respect the others' rights in relation to their insular
possessions and dominions in the Pacific, and that this Treaty should supersede
the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. Furthermore, under the Treaty Relating to Principles
and Policies to be Followed in Matters Concerning China, formal recognition was
given to the principle of the "open door" or equality of opportunity in China, one
of the fundamental principles of American foreign policy as first enunciated by
Daniel Webster as Secretary of State and further developed by Secretary Hay.
Spheres of influence in China were to be no longer sanctioned. Since the
conference ended, the Lansing-Ishii Agreement between the United States and
Japan has been cancelled by mutual consent; and Japan has evacuated both
Eastern Siberia and Shantung.
Throughout the conference, the Japanese met the American proposals in a spirit
of great fairness and accommodation, and there has been a notable improvement
in the relations of the two countries ever since. Indeed, among the most important
results achieved by the conference are those which are imponderable and make
for better understanding between nations which were fast drifting apart.
Altogether the Washington Conference of 1921 will rank high among the
diplomatic achievements of this Government and will prove an important
landmark along the road to permanent peace.
In pursuance of the policy there inaugurated, the President subsequently invited

the four other chief naval Powers to a second conference; and, Great Britain and
Japan having accepted, the conference of the three Powers assembled at Geneva
on June 20, 1927, to discuss the possibility of further naval disarmament. Due
largely to a divergence of opinion regarding cruisers between the British
delegates on one side and the American and Japanese on the other, the
conference adjourned without arriving at any conclusion. Something was
accomplished, however, in the understanding which was brought about as to the
nature of each nation's problems, and the difficulties which must be overcome
before effective disarmament can be achieved.
It was with a knowledge of these difficulties and because, if such difficulties are to
be removed, war must first be renounced as an instrument of national policy
among the principal nations, that the Secretary of State has undertaken to
negotiate a multilateral anti-war treaty which shall be world-wide in its
application and shall renounce without qualification war as an instrument of
national policy between nations signatory to the treaty. This proposed treaty grew
out of a proposal made in June, 1927, by the French Government to the
Government of the United States, proposing a pact of perpetual friendship
between the two countries and agreeing that the settlement of all disputes or
conflicts, of whatever nature or origin, which may ever arise between the two
countries, shall never be sought except by pacific means.
The American Government, believing that such a definite and unqualified

renunciation of war offered a practical means to permanent peace, not alone
between France and the United States, but among all other nations, proposed to
France that all nations, or at least the principal world Powers, be invited to
adhere to a declaration renouncing war as an instrument of their national policy.
After an exchange of notes this was agreed to; and the United States and France
have submitted two draft treaties to the other powers for consideration, that of
America being marked by the utmost simplicity in its language and provisions,
while the French draft attempts to provide for all possible contingencies both as
regards past commitments and future dangers. The Secretary of State in a recent
speech has pointed out that adherence to the American draft of this treaty will in
no way violate the obligations of France or of any other government as a member
of the League of Nations or as a signatory to the Locarno Treaties or the Treaties
of Neutrality, and that, while the proposed American draft of an anti-war treaty
makes no specific reference to the right of self-defense, that right is not and
cannot be impaired or restricted.
If such a treaty as that proposed is agreed to, the signatory nations will
specifically undertake, among themselves, to refrain from any attack or invasion
and never to seek the settlement of any difference or conflict of whatsoever
nature or origin that might arise between them save by pacific means. Should this
effort succeed, if not in abolishing all war immediately, at least in abolishing it
between the principal world Powers and thereby rendering another world war
impossible, it will be an achievement of the utmost significance; and, regardless of
what may be the immediate outcome, great credit is due to Secretary Kellogg and
to the Department of State for the brilliant manner in which these negotiations
have been conducted and for the way in which they have reflected the sincerity of
purpose and vision of this Government.
The proposed anti-war treaties above described constitute only one part of the
program which this Government has initiated for the advancement of world peace.
The second part is the framing of new arbitration treaties to take the place of the
so-called Root Treaties, some of which expired this year. The Arbitration Treaty
with France, which was signed last February, is being used as the model in
negotiations now being conducted with the British, German, Italian, Japanese,
Norwegian, Spanish and other Governments.
The French Treaty specifically reaffirms the provision in the Bryan Treaty of 1914
for investigation and report by a permanent international commission of all
disputes not settled by diplomacy or submitted to arbitration, and thus unites in
one document the related processes of conciliation and arbitration. It also
provides that all matters which are justiciable in their nature by reason of being
susceptible of decision by the application of principles of law or equity, shall be
submitted to the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague, with the exception
of the following matters which are excluded from arbitration: disputes the subject
matter of which is within the domestic jurisdiction of either of the parties, or
involves the interests of third parties, or depends upon or involves the
maintenance of the Monroe Doctrine, or depends upon or involves the obligations
of France under the Covenant of the League of Nations.
It is only justiciable questions which are susceptible to arbitration and few, if any,
of the exceptions noted are justiciable in their nature. Political questions cannot
be arbitrated because no principles of law exist by which they can be decided; nor
can a nation agree to arbitrate purely domestic questions such as immigration,
tariffs and taxation. Questions which are non-justiciable or are political in their
nature, if they become acute or threaten war, must be adjusted through such
means as conciliation, whereby a disinterested effort can often succeed in
reconciling conflicting viewpoints.
We have treaties establishing a procedure for conciliation, as in the Knox Treaty

of 1911, the eighteen Bryan Treaties of 1913, the Washington Treaty of 1923
between the United States and five Central American Republics, and the Santiago
Treaty of 1923 between the United States and fifteen Latin-American countries.
Ratifications of the last-named treaty, however, are still in process of being
deposited.
Such is the mechanism already in existence for the prevention of war; and I am
satisfied that the efforts which have been and are now being made by the present
Administration will do much to strengthen and complete this mechanism and to
advance the cause which this nation has so much at heart, namely, the peaceful
settlement of all disputes which might bring on war or disturb the relations
between governments.
As regards financial questions, the foreign policy of this Government has been
aimed at helping to secure stability abroad and to bring order out of the financial
chaos existing when the present Administration took office. On every side
problems were pressing for solution. The question of reparations had not been
settled; the inter-governmental debts contracted during the war had not been
funded; in most of the large countries the budgets had not been balanced and the
currencies were subject to violent fluctuations which retarded the growth of
foreign trade and had repercussions in this country and throughout the world.
The crux of the whole situation seemed to be the reparation question. Statesmen
and diplomats had made repeated efforts to settle it, without success; and matters
seemed to be drifting from bad to worse. So impressed was this Government with
the seriousness of the situation that in December, 1922, in a speech at New
Haven, Secretary Hughes suggested that an international committee be formed,
composed of eminent business men who would deal with the economic problem
involved, not from the political angle, but solely on its merits and with a view to
reaching some practical solution. Subsequently, in November, 1923, such a
committee of experts was appointed by the Reparation Commission "to consider
the means of balancing the budget and the measures to be taken to stabilize the
currency" of Germany, also to consider the problem of reparation payments and to
evolve a plan under which such payments might be organized within Ger many
and transferred to the creditor nations. The American members of the Committee
were General Charles G. Dawes, Mr. Owen D. Young and Mr. Henry M. Robinson.
The Plan evolved by the Committee was accepted by the Allied and German
Governments and on September 1, 1924, operations under the Plan began. An
American, Mr. S. Parker Gilbert, was appointed Agent General for Reparation
Payments; and to the good judgment and tact which he has shown in carrying out
a difficult undertaking is due much of the success with which the Plan has met.
Under the Plan, the United States receives about $13,000,000 annually as
payment of the costs of the American Army of Occupation and also about
$11,000,000 annually in payment of American claims against Germany, awarded
by the Mixed Claims Commission. The other nations are receiving the payments
allotted and so far Germany has found no difficulty in making the payments for
the initial years. So far the Experts' Plan is fulfilling its purpose, first of all in
removing from the field of controversy a subject which is largely economic in
character, and secondly, in stabilizing the budget and the currency of Germany
and thereby restoring confidence within Germany itself and helping to promote
stability in Europe at large.
Another element of uncertainty in the post-war situation was the question of inter-
governmental debts. So long as they remained unsettled, they constituted an
unknown quantity in the balance sheets of both debtor and creditor governments.
Currencies could not be stabilized; credit was affected; and the extension of
commercial relations among the various countries was seriously retarded.
This Government felt that it was necessary to act promptly and with firmness. The
state of public opinion in this country was reflected in the Refunding Act, which
was passed by Congress at the beginning of the Administration creating a World
War Foreign Debt Commission with specific instructions that no part of the debts
was to be cancelled and that the time of repayment was not to be extended
beyond 25 years; and providing that the rate of interest was not to be less than
4¼ percent.
It soon became apparent that refunding on these terms could not be

accomplished; and the Commission accordingly, under enlarged authority
received from Congress, negotiated such settlements as were within the capacity
of the respective nations and submitted such settlements to Congress for
ratification. In this way agreements have been reached with Great Britain,
Finland, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Latvia, Estonia,
Italy, Jugoslavia and Rumania, bringing the total amount which has been funded
to date to $7,497,354,000. In addition an agreement has been reached for the
funding of the French debt, amounting to $4,025,000,000, but the agreement has
not yet been ratified.
In all of these settlements the Debt Commission considered the disorganization of

economic life which was brought about in Europe by the war, and reached
agreements which it believes are fair both to the American taxpayer and the
foreign debtor nations. The Debt Commission in negotiating the settlements has
proceeded on the theory that the foreign debtor nations must be permitted to
preserve and improve their economic position, to bring their budgets into balance,
to place their currencies and finances on a sound basis, and to improve the
standard of living of their people. The Commission believed that no settlement
which is oppressive and retards the recovery and development of the foreign
debtor nations is to the best interests of either the United States or of Europe. It
has accordingly spread out repayments over a period of 62 years in order that the
amounts to be paid during the early years shall be such as are within the
reasonable capacity of the various nations to which aid was extended during and
after the war.
The whole problem of the debts has been a difficult one. The manner in which it
has been handled has given rise to criticism from extremists who believe, on the
one hand, that the debts should be "cancelled" and the Liberty Bonds by which
they are represented at home should be paid by the American taxpayer, and, on
the other hand, by those who feel that too great leniency has been shown in the
length of the period of repayment and in the low rate of interest which has been
exacted. But in this, as in other matters, the Administration has been obliged to
face facts, not theories, and to work out a solution which protects American
interests and at the same time does not ignore our moral obligation to help the
world, so far as we can, in getting back on its feet again. As Secretary Mellon has
well said, "in the end we shall be of most help if our financial policies toward
Europe are backed not by sentiment but by sense, and if those policies are
directed not toward ameliorating merely present hardships, but toward laying the
foundation for a prosperity that will be permanent."
No picture of the post-war period, more particularly with reference to the

assistance this country has given the rest of the world, would be complete without
some mention of our Federal Reserve System and also of the close coöperation
between the great central banks which has been so potent a factor in the last few
years. During the war and the reconstruction period which followed, the services
rendered to the country by the Federal Reserve System can not be overestimated.
It has been able not only to promote stabilization in this country, but also in the
world at large, the most conspicuous instance being the assistance given Great
Britain at the time that country returned to the gold standard, the part we played
in the return of Belgium to the gold standard, and, more recently, the assistance
given Poland and Italy in coöperation with the other great central banks. All this
has contributed not only to the stability of Europe but to the prosperity of this
country, for the nations of the world must be reëstablished on a sound financial
basis if our surplus products, both agricultural and manufactured, are to find an
export market.
The financial aspects of our foreign policy have an important bearing not only as
regards Europe but also in promoting trade and closer relations with the nations
of Central and South America. With all of these countries we enjoy a trade which
each year is rapidly increasing. Furthermore, now that the financial
reconstruction of Europe is well under way, American capital is turning more and
more to the countries south of us for the purpose of aiding the development of
their great resources and commercial opportunities. For all of these reasons, it is
important that our foreign policy towards Latin America should be clear cut and
give no grounds for misapprehension as regards either the desires or intentions of
this country.
The cornerstone of this policy has always been the Monroe Doctrine. We adhere
to that Doctrine as a safeguard to the territorial integrity of all the Western
nations. There is nothing aggressive about it. It is, on the other hand, essentially
defensive; and confusion arises only when it is sought to make this Doctrine a
cover for all our dealings with the nations of the Western Hemisphere.
We do not wish to be forced ever to intervene in the affairs of other nations. There
is no desire on the part of this country to dominate anywhere outside of its own
borders. Anyone who knows the American people knows that they are essentially
peaceful and that they desire independence not only for themselves but for others.
Secretary Hughes well stated the attitude of this country when he said at the
recent Pan-American Conference at Havana:
"It is the firm policy of the United States to respect the territorial integrity of the
American republics. We have no policy of aggression. We wish for all of them, not
simply those great in area and population and wealth, but for every one, to the
very smallest, strength and not weakness."
We recognize the equality of all the American Republics and that, as sovereign
powers, all enjoy equal rights under the law of nations. But sovereignty carries
with it certain obligations and among these is the duty of each State to protect the
rights which the nationals of other States have acquired within its territory in
accordance with its laws. It is, therefore, the obvious policy of the United States
to encourage stable governments throughout the Western Hemisphere, so that
the rights of foreign citizens, acquired constitutionally, shall not be endangered
by political upheavals and revolutions. We cannot under these circumstances
forego the right to protect, under well established rules of international law, the
rights of our citizens, nor can we afford to allow other nations to interfere in the
affairs of this Hemisphere under the pretext of protecting the rights of their
nationals. We shall not seek to evade these responsibilities; but at the same time
we expect on the part of others a recognition of our position and a fair and
unbiassed interpretation of our actions.
A case in point is Nicaragua. Obviously we could not do less than to send troops
there when American lives were in danger and the situation had gotten beyond
control of the local authorities. In such a situation, the right and the duty of
intervention are so well established under international law that for the United
States to avoid its responsibilities would be a derogation of its sovereignty.
Furthermore, in such a situation, the responsibility devolves upon the President to
determine when the circumstances call for such drastic action. It was not
surprising, therefore, when an effort was made in the Senate recently to limit the
Executive as to the circumstances under which he can exercise this right of
intervention conferred upon him by the Constitution, that the effort was decisively
beaten. Senators of both parties recognized that the action of the Coolidge
Administration is not only in accord with international law and Constitutional
authority, but is in line with the policy which has been upheld in countless
instances in former administrations, including the last Democratic Administration,
in cases arising in Mexico and Haiti as well as in Nicaragua itself.
At the present moment, however, our position in Nicaragua is governed by special

considerations. In its initial stages our policy was determined not only by the
question of affording protection to lives and properties of our own and other
nationals, but by reason of our responsibilities under an agreement between
Nicaragua, Guatemala, Salvador, Honduras and Costa Rica, made in 1907 and
renewed in 1923, under which the five Central American nations agreed not to
recognize a government which came into power in any of these countries through
a coup d'état.
While the United States was not a party to that agreement, the conferences of
1907 and 1923 were held in Washington and at the latter conference the
Secretary of State of the United States presided at the request of the five
Republics. We were committed, therefore, to the support of these nations in their
effort to promote constitutional government; and, as an insurrection had broken
out in Nicaragua and the existing government had been overthrown, we could not
recognize the de facto government established by the leader of the
insurrectionists but waited until a president was chosen by the Congress of
Nicaragua. In the disorders which later arose among the factions opposed to his
authority, American lives and property were endangered and it became necessary
to send American troops to Nicaragua to help maintain order and also, under an
agreement which was reached with all factions, to supervise a fair and impartial
election which shall give effect to the will of the Nicaraguan people. Our troops
are there now, seeking to put this agreement into effect; and, under all the
circumstances, the duty is encumbent upon us to carry out the obligations which
we have assumed.
Mention must be made also of the present situation as regards Mexico. There our
policy has been based on the accepted principles of international law. We have
sought only to protect the lives of our citizens and the property rights acquired by
them in good faith. Certain laws were enacted by the Mexican Congress which
seemed to threaten those rights as regards land and petroleum, and a long
correspondence ensued. Due in part to the efforts of Ambassador Morrow, a
business man of outstanding ability, matters are rapidly being adjusted and the
disputed questions are in a fair way to being settled.
Turning now from Latin America to the Far East, we find that throughout the
troubled period of the last few years our traditional American policy has been
firmly and successfully maintained in that part of the world. No other part of our
foreign policy is more definitely established—or less understood—than our Far
Eastern policy, especially as regards China. As long ago as 1868, in a treaty
negotiated between America and China, we agreed to the principle of non-
intervention in China's affairs and stated that the United States had no desire to
take anything away from China—nor indeed have we ever taken anything. Again
in 1899, this Government proposed to the Powers that, as regards their "spheres
of interest" in China, there should be recognized the principle of equality of
commercial opportunity and that the Powers should undertake to respect China's
territorial and administrative integrity. This policy, which was enunciated by John
Hay, one of the great Secretaries of State that the Republican Party has given to
the nation, was further defined and formally recognized in the Washington
Conference of 1921, as indicated above; and it constitutes today a guide-post by
which all policy towards China must be charted. At no time have we deviated from
that policy or infringed any rights of China, regardless of the clamor that has been
raised in some quarters with reference to our action in protecting American lives
and property in China.
The Chinese people today are in the throes of a great political upheaval.
Throughout the vast area which they inhabit the antiquated economic order has
collapsed beneath the efforts to superimpose upon it too rapidly Western methods
of business and political organization. There is in China no central authority which
can speak for the Chinese people and enforce the national will either within China
itself or in its dealings with outside nations.
Instead, we find that government in China has become regional; and, in the clash
of native military leaders, each seeking to establish his authority over a wide
territory, the rights of foreigners are frequently invaded and in some localities all
political authority has for the time being disappeared. Under such circumstances,
the Powers have been obliged to send naval forces to Chinese waters to protect
their nationals, whose lives have been endangered; and in this joint effort the
United States has participated. But such action on our part should not be
confused with intervention in the affairs of China.
Senator Borah said:
"There seems to be an impression that we are intervening in China, but we are

doing no more than attempting . . . to insure the safety of our nationals there. We
are not sending our armed forces to China to do battle with the armed forces of
China. We are simply sending our men there to do police duty."
And President Coolidge said:
"Our troops are in China solely to protect American lives. . . . They are not there
to make war on Chinese nationalism and they will not be pooled with the troops of
other foreign Powers. They will coöperate with other foreign Powers for the
specifically limited purpose of protecting American lives when coöperation
promotes this end, but there will be no 'unified command.'"
We wish to deprive the Chinese people of none of their rights. We ask only that
they set up a stable government which can protect our nationals in their rights,
and offer to the world a responsible central authority with which we can treat. At
no time has America been a better friend to China than in the restraint which she
has showed in the last year or two. There is nothing in the whole record of our
dealings with China of which any American need be ashamed and there is in it
much of which we can be proud. We have refused to retain the Boxer Indemnity of
1901, and by Joint Resolution of Congress on May 21, 1924, completed the action
initiated by President Roosevelt in 1908, by returning the remainder of our share
of the indemnity imposed on China as a result of the Boxer uprising. China has
devoted the proceeds of this remission to educational purposes under the
direction of Chinese and American trustees; and the result has been a still further
strengthening of the friendship which has always existed between the two
countries.
There remains the question of Russia. With the Russian, as with the Chinese
people, this country has always been on terms of special friendship. The friendly
attitude of this Government for the Russian people has been repeatedly
evidenced, as in its scrupulous respect for safeguarding Russian interests at the
time of the Conference on Limitation of Armaments, and again in voting money
and supplies for the use of the American Relief Administration in helping the
famine-stricken people of Russia.
But, as regards the recognition of the Soviet Government, the United States has
held that it would be both futile and unwise to enter into formal relations with
that Government so long as it persisted in a policy of repudiation and confiscation
and also continued to carry on, through the Communist International and other
organizations with headquarters at Moscow, carefully planned operations for the
overthrow of the existing political, economic and social order in other nations. As
Secretary Hughes said in 1923:
"The fundamental question in the recognition of a government is whether it shows
ability and a disposition to discharge international obligations. . . . In the case of
Russia we have a very easy test of a matter of fundamental importance, and that
is of good faith in the discharge of international obligations. . . . Our own
Government, after the first revolution, loaned about $187,000,000 to Russia. I
may say that we were the first to recognize the Kerensky Government; that
government did not profess a policy of repudiation. Now what did the Soviet
authorities do? In their Decree of January 21, 1918, they made this simple
statement, 'Unconditionally, and without any exceptions, all foreign loans are
annulled.'"
The Soviet authorities have given no evidence of any change in attitude on their
part; and until they give some indication of a willingness to comply with accepted
principles governing international relations, I can see no hope of ending the
present anomalous situation and establishing relations on the basis customary
between friendly nations.
This, however, does not preclude, nor has it retarded, the promotion of
commercial intercourse between the people of the two countries. This
Government places no obstacles in the way of the development of commercial
relations, provided it is understood that individuals and corporations trading with
Russia do so on their own responsibility and at their own risk. Russian nationals,
even if associated with the Soviet régime, are permitted to come to the United
States in the interest of trade.
In our dealings with Russia, as in other matters, our foreign policy has been
grounded on certain firmly established principles, and those principles we have
refused to barter away even when it might have seemed of temporary advantage
to do so. But we have lost no opportunity to advance American trade by every
legitimate means in our power; and not only has the Foreign Service been used
for this purpose but a special organization of commercial attachés has been built
up as part of the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce of the Department of
Commerce. Under the direction of Secretary Hoover, this service has been of
great benefit to the American business man seeking contacts abroad and reliable
information on which to plan an invasion of foreign markets. Our foreign
commerce now totals about 9 billion dollars annually, and the foreign investments
of American citizens amount to more than 12 billion dollars and are increasing at
the rate of a billion dollars a year. It is of vital importance, therefore, that our
foreign policy should be such as shall not only protect American trade but also
contribute to the stabilization of conditions throughout the world and to the
increase in prosperity of other nations with which our commercial and economic
life is so closely interwoven.
The day of isolation in world affairs is over. Nor is there any disposition on our
part to seek an aloofness which can never be anything more than imaginary. We
do not shirk our responsibilities as a world power, but we still maintain our right
to define what those responsibilities are and to decide under what circumstances
we shall use our power and our resources.
It is this policy which the present Administration has sought to carry out. There is
nothing new or surprising about it, for it has always been the historic American
policy. We adapt it, as the years go by, to changing circumstances, not only in our
national life but in the world at large and in our new relation to it as one of the
great and powerful nations. But in its essentials it remains the same policy it has
always been; and I, for one, hope we shall continue to chart our course in dealing
with other nations by the landmarks which we have always known and by which
America has been brought to her present position of greatness and power among
the nations.
OGDEN L. MILLS, Undersecretary of the Treasury, formerly Member of Congress from New York
July 1,1928
Our Foreign Policy
A Democratic View
Franklin D. Roosevelt
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
Al Smith with his wife.
In our century and a half of national life there have been outstanding periods
when American leadership has influenced the thought and action of the civilized
world towards international good will and peace; and there have been
moments—rare ones, fortunately—when American policy either has been negative
and sterile, or has earned for us dislike or fear or ridicule.
I believe many millions of citizens in the United States share my conviction that
the past nine years must be counted on the debit side of the ledger.
Since the summer of 1919 our country has had to face the charge that in a time
when great constructive aid was needed in the task of solving the grave problems
facing the whole earth, we have contributed little or nothing save the isolated
Naval Conference of 1921. Even here the ground gained was not held. The
definite sacrifices we made were not productive because we assumed that a mere
signature was enough; no machinery was set up to finish the work. This is a
negative charge. On the positive side, we must admit also that the outside world
almost unanimously views us with less good will today than at any previous
period. This is serious unless we take the deliberate position that the people of the
United States owe nothing to the rest of mankind and care nothing for the opinion
of others so long as our seacoasts are impregnable and our pocketbooks are filled.
An analysis of our own history disproves the accusation that this selfish spirit is
the real American spirit. In the debates during the war of the Revolution and in
the long discussions immediately preceding the adoption of the Constitution it
was plain that careful thought was being given to every conceivable form of
government in the hope that what the United States finally adopted might serve
as a pattern for other peoples, especially in regard to the spirit that should govern
the relations of one state with another. The words of the Declaration of
Independence itself invoke a "decent respect to the opinions of mankind."
Through more than twenty years of European turmoil following the French
Revolution our course was a pacific one, marked by a growing understanding of
the old-fashioned evils of privateering, impressment and interference with neutral
commerce by belligerents. It is worth while to remember that the modern
"economic boycott" had its ancestor in the interesting if premature "embargo" and
"non-intercourse" laws of Jefferson.
After the general peace of 1815, the newly-won independence of the Central and
South American nations provided frequent opportunities for reconquest and
disturbance; our response was the Monroe Doctrine, a policy aimed not only at
self-protection but, in the larger sense, at continental peace. Promulgated by a
Democratic Administration, it was our counter-move against the desperate
attempt of the Holy Alliance to curb the rise of liberalism by interfering in the
internal affairs of government and by crushing revolting colonies desirous of
setting up democracies. Here again the thought of America was not solely selfish,
but was influenced by an ideal.
As the years passed, American foreign policy, through ups and downs, showed a
broadening tendency towards settling disputes peacefully, helping sister nations,
and gaining the world's respect and good will. With Canada, our nearest neighbor,
the Maine and Oregon boundaries were permanently adjudicated and the whole
frontier was disarmed. In the Far East our attitude of respect for Chinese national
integrity, the Perry Expedition, and the visit of Townsend Harris to Japan were, in
comparison with European habits, founded on peaceful methods not on naval
bombardments. The settlement by arbitration of the Alabama claims and later of
the Fisheries and Behring Sea controversies were further milestones on the same
road.
Those of us who remember well the war with Spain, will agree that, in spite of the
slogan "Remember the Maine," the country's deep-seated approval of the war
grew out of a desire for the liberation of the people of Cuba from a stupid and
antiquated Spanish yoke. It was not a war of revenge, but the offer of a helping
hand. It took the elder statesmen of Europe ten years to believe that we had no
intention of annexing Cuba.
So also the useful if unsuccessful agitation by the "Anti-Imperialists" helped to fix

it as a national policy that we should educate the Filipinos with a view to their
ultimately being ready for self-government. This was the precursor of the
"Mandate" theory of the League of Nations.
In China the policy of John Hay in behalf of the "open door" had much to do with
preventing the despoiling of the falling empire of the Manchus, and the United
States later increased its moral ascendancy in the Far East by refunding for the
cause of Chinese education its share in the Boxer indemnity monies.
With the new century we became an increasingly important factor in world

affairs. America helped in the organization of the Hague Tribunal and on her
invitation Russia and Japan negotiated the Peace of Portsmouth. Our active
participation in the Moroccan question and the Algeciras Conference marked the
application of moral leadership in what had been wholly the European sphere.
Henry White, later appointed by President Wilson as one of the American
delegates at Paris, played a very useful rôle in 1906 at Algeciras. His actions
there, following the instructions of President Roosevelt, were approved generally
by the people of the United States at that time. In this period of strenuous activity
in the whole wide range of foreign affairs perhaps the only important event which
did not show that finer spirit of which I have spoken was the executive action in
recognizing the revolutionists in Panama almost before the revolution was born.
The end may have justified the means, but the means stultified our historic
position in Latin America and violated the rights which are a weaker nation's
safeguard against imperialistic encroachment.
In 1909 began four years which counted as a definite setback in our liberal
leadership. "Dollar Diplomacy" as adopted by President Taft and Secretary Knox
placed money leadership ahead of moral leadership in the Far East. This policy
was extended to Honduras and Nicaragua, and the American Marines who went
to the latter country in 1911 as a very definite part of a banking deal have been
there almost continuously ever since. To these years also belongs the Panama
Canal Tolls legislation, a definite breach of an existing Treaty. It was healed
several years later when, at the insistence of President Wilson, the offending
legislation was repealed.
We are apt to think of the Wilson Administration's foreign policies only in terms of
the Great War. We forget that from its earliest days it marked a restoration of
high moral purpose to our international relationships. In 1913 the President threw
"Dollar Diplomacy" out of the window by refusing to approve a six-power loan to
China. He based his action broadly on the wish to see China retain control of its
own resources and not become subject to further dismemberment at the hands of
European creditors. Next came the very notable declaration to Latin America in
the Mobile speech in October, 1913: "The United States will never again seek one
additional foot of territory by conquest. She must regard it as one of the duties of
friendship to see that from no quarter are material interests made superior to
human liberty and national opportunity." President Wilson's policy towards
Mexico, ridiculed as "watchful waiting," was in line with the Mobile declaration,
and a growing belief among South Americans in our honesty of purpose resulted
in the offer of mediation by the "A. B. C. powers"—Argentine, Brazil and Chili.
Here was an action which future statesmen can and should turn to great
advantage. The problem was a local one; Mexico is at our very doors. Yet we
hailed gladly the friendly offer of three other American republics, thousands of
miles away, in another continent, to help work out a constructive solution. Only
the explosion of the World War prevented the fruitful development of this method
of dealing with Latin American difficulties.
It is not possible here to describe in detail the principles that guided American
action during the greater part of the World War. Suffice it to say that under grave
provocation from without, and under criticism at home not only from
sympathizers with both sets of belligerents but also from those who simply
loathed our inaction and sought action of any kind, the Administration was guided
by two cardinal principles: First, it sought to live up to the obligations of a
neutrality which the final verdict of history could not criticize. Secondly, it was
determined to insist on the historic American policy regarding neutral rights.
Many there are who feel that we turned the other cheek too often, but even they
will admit the President's high purpose, and the ultimate good to mankind that
came from our final participation in the World War only after we had shown our
aversion to war and had established firmly a set of fundamental principles.
Several months before our own declaration of war the President began to unfold a
vision of a new relationship between nations. A return, at the close of the most
devastating conflict of history, to the old methods of alliances and balances of
power would leave the world worse off even than it had been in 1914. Sacrifice,
suffering and misery were futile unless they could show the way to a new path.
Slowly through 1917 and 1918 the American President brought home to the
hearts of mankind the great hope that through an association of nations the world
could in the days to come avoid armed conflict and substitute reason and
collective action for the age-old appeal to the sword. Just as the four years of the
war had produced enormous economic changes in the internal affairs of all
nations, so this appeal brought with it an equally great spiritual change. History
will show that it was a powerful factor in the collapse from within of the armies of
the Central Powers. An old order was indeed changing, giving place to new.
Man proposes. But this is not the place to write a résumé of the year following the
termination of hostilities. Even though the Treaty of Peace was harsh and
contained, as was perhaps inevitable, echoes of pre-war controversies, President
Wilson, with general American approval, succeeded in obtaining world support for
a system of coöperation and conciliation to deal with matters of common concern
and to eliminate at their source the causes of future wars. Regarded by many as
merely an interesting experiment, this league, even without our participation, has
in the passing years become for the rest of the world the principal agency for the
settlement of international controversy, for the constructive administration of
many duties which are primarily international in scope, and for the correction of
abuses that have been all too common in our civilization.
The present position of the United States in world affairs dates from 1919, for
during the last two years of the Wilson Administration a bitterly hostile opposition
in the Senate prevented any constructive action, and further, this nation, free as
Europe was not from post-war penury, turned to internal industrial development
and did its best to forget international subjects.
When, therefore, the Harding Administration was organized in 1921 it interpreted

the temper of the nation as being weary of international leadership and
uninterested in further efforts to follow the vision of a new era which it had so
enthusiastically welcomed three years before. The new President was in no sense
a leader; the Presidency he thought of as essentially a routine political job. So
vague were his ideas that his campaign and his years in office gave constant
evidence, particularly in the field of international relations, that citizens of
diametrically opposite opinions could join in his support and praise. He was given
at least lip-service by League of Nations supporters, by the bitterest League
opponents, and by those who talked of the creation of some entirely new
association of nations. It will always be a regret to fair-minded Americans that,
except in one instance, the Secretary of State, Charles Evans Hughes, allowed his
great ability and high ideals to be wholly smothered by the caution and smallness
of the President's mind and the provinciality and ignorance of most of his
professional political advisers.
That exception was the Washington Conference for limitation of naval armaments.
By Mr. Hughes's proposal of a bold and concrete program a naval ratio between
the principal sea powers applying to battle-ships and battle-cruisers was adopted.
This was a definite and practical step, but it must be remembered that the naval
agreement covered only capital ships and left much to be accomplished later.
Many people assume that Great Britain accepted complete naval parity with the
United States, but the whole field of cruisers, destroyers, submarines, and aircraft
is left open to a competitive race of the old style. Here was the blemish on
Secretary Hughes's otherwise fine performance.
Last year President Coolidge's Administration undertook to supplement the 1921

agreement by calling a naval conference at Geneva. The ground was not
prepared. The effort was a failure before it started. France and Italy declined to
enter. The representatives of Great Britain, Japan and the United States were in
large part naval officers unaccustomed and unequipped to discuss and decide
matters of state policy. In the background was the mistake of having allowed
competitive cruiser building to get to such a point that backing down became
difficult. Our Government seems to have enjoyed from 1921 to 1927 the beautiful
dream that all naval questions really had been settled for good and all. It
apparently did not even instruct its diplomatic representatives abroad to make the
inquiries which would have shattered that placid self-satisfaction. Nor has the
State Department dealt conclusively with the increasingly vital problem of the
regulation or prohibition of the use of poison gas and high explosives against
civilian populations.
When the Geneva conference dissolved into thin air, the Coolidge Administration
acted as if we were back in the days of Napoleon. "All right," we seemed to say, "If
you can't agree to our proposed methods of reducing war-ship building, we'll
show you what we can do. We have all the money and resources in the world. We
will build the kind of a navy that no other power can equal." The Navy Department
made a solemn proposal to spend $2,500,000,000 on this parade of power. It was
so ridiculous that the sum was reduced to $1,500,000,000, then to an even billion,
and was finally sent to Congress as an appeal for authorization to build
$740,000,000 of ships, chiefly large cruisers, within eight years. This, let us
remember, was the official Administration program. It was an open admission,
first of the Administration's complete failure to limit by agreement the extent of
building, and secondly of the adoption of a new policy of starting to build on an
enormous scale. Naval competition is today the result of our bungling diplomacy.
This is perhaps an indictment of the present Administration which may not seem
important to the immediate future, but the situation is already serious. We have
had a fine record in the past as a nation opposed to large standing armies and
navies, and sympathetic to all efforts to decrease their size and cost. Now we are
embarked on a program of naval expansion—when our position in the world is
unparalleledly secure, in a time of no threatened trouble. In a little over two
years, under the terms of the Washington Treaty, the replacing of battle-ships can
begin again, and in 1936 the Treaty itself ends. With this record, a similar
administration would have a task of extraordinary difficulty either in preventing a
resumption of building or of extending the life and the principles of the present
Treaty.
The time is at hand to undertake a wholly new approach to the subject. There is,
in the last analysis, no real need for much more than a police force on the seas of
the civilized world today. Only five nations maintain navies of great size. Many
other nations spend useless millions on a handful of expensive ships which serve
no possible purpose. Two steps seem to offer avenues of success, and would
probably have the support of the "average voter" if presented in non-technical
language. The navies of England, Japan and the United States do not exist today
for the primary purpose of repelling invasion. The German fleet is gone, and the
French Navy reduced by agreement; England, therefore, under present conditions
can forget her old fear of another Armada. Only the most excited of the Admirals
will seriously consider the possibility of invasion either of the United States or of
Japan by sea.
Peace times lanes of commerce, which must be held open in time of war, are the
principal reasons today for continuing the increase of navies. The first step,
therefore, must be a new effort to obtain agreement among the nations as to what
shall happen to merchant ships in time of war. Piracy walked the plank two
centuries ago. Privateering went sixty years ago. Is there no further step to take?
So far, little has been accomplished to settle many of the sea problems left open
by the war. There is the broad field of inquiry as to the rights of neutral
commerce. This involves the defining of blockades and of contraband, the right of
search, and the methods of speedily settling questions between a neutral and a
belligerent nation. From these problems of policy arise other problems of
practice, such as the employment of merchant ships as cruisers, the arming of
cargo vessels, the use of convoy, the methods of submarine attack. We have done
nothing with these problems since 1919; it is time a start were made. But it must
be pointed out that the whole subject is more or less bound up with the attitude of
the United States towards Europe and the League. Until the United States
clarifies its general relations, difficult maritime problems will keep cropping up.
As a result of any success in this field will come the second step, the careful
preliminary examination and interchange of views—unofficial friendly "chats
around the table"—to determine in advance of 1931 what kind of agreement will
best extend and strengthen the splendid ultimate ideal of the Naval Limitation
Treaty. Perhaps a clarification of the true instead of the supposititious naval needs
of England, Japan and the United States will enable us to suggest once more to
civilization another step in the cause of peace. But the leadership of the American
President and the activity, resourcefulness and far-sightedness of his Secretary of
State will have to be of a very different order from what they are today.
Our credit, then, is not at par in naval disarmament. What has happened to other
efforts to establish and maintain the principles of peace? The United States has
taken two negative steps. It has declined to have anything to do with either the
League of Nations or the World Court. It is beside the point at this time to agitate
the question of our membership in the League. There is no doubt that a majority
of American voters has been opposed to membership on the conditions under
which the other nations have joined. We see other great nations making use of the
League without loss of national sovereignty, but we are opposed to any official
participation in purely European affairs or to committing ourselves to act in
unknown contingencies.
Nevertheless we see more and more the great effectiveness of the League in
many matters which do concern us—international health work, improvement of
labor conditions, aid to backward peoples, the improving of education, the
clarification of international law, assistance to world trade. Best of all, it offers a
common round table where threats against the peace of the world can be
discussed and divergent views compromised. Even without full membership we
Americans can be generous and sporting enough to give to the League a far larger
share of sympathetic approval and definite official help than we have hitherto
accorded.
More and more people here are coming to see that the League has taken a leaf
from the note-book of modern industry. A generation ago capital and labor were
at each other's throats. Strike or lock-out was the remedy. Today each side
realizes that at least there is another side. Today, friendly conference has in large
measure superseded riot. Sitting around a table works better than issuing hostile
statements. Why does not this rather obvious fact of human nature, first applied
successfully to relations between individuals and then to relations between
aggregations called companies or unions, apply with equal truth to larger
organizations called nations?
We have had "observers" or unofficial representatives at many conferences at

Geneva on subjects vital to us. It seems possible that even the Senate would agree
to let this nation do officially what President Coolidge in several cases has done
unofficially. We should coöperate with the League as the first great agency for the
maintenance of peace and for the solution of common problems ever known to
civilization, and, without entering into European politics, we should take an
active, hearty and official part in all those proceedings which bear on the general
good of mankind.
So too with the World Court. There is no doubt in the minds of many that if the
President had had the will and the leadership some way could have been found,
with the approval of the Senate, by which this nation without loss of any real or
even contingent sovereign right could sit with the other nations at the only
tribunal of justice which is in practical and efficient operation. "This Court," wrote
a contributor to an earlier number of this review,[i] "is the latest institution
wrought out by the civilized world's general public opinion against war, for the
purpose of giving effect to that opinion. It is an essential and indispensable
institution for the effectiveness of that opinion and the proposal that the United
States take part in supporting the Court should be welcomed as an opportunity by
all the people who have been talking in favor of abolishing war and preventing
war and outlawing war, but who have not as yet arrived at any practical steps
tending in that direction." These are not the words of a Democrat, but of the most
eminent living Republican statesman, Mr. Elihu Root. Perhaps the country will
find in the Democratic Party, rather than in the party which has repudiated what
Mr. Root stands for, the national leader who, by the application of common sense
and the ordinary principles of fairness and good business dealing, will enable the
United States to help—instead of clinging tightly to the top rail of the fence.
We Democrats, in fine, do not believe in the possibility or the desirability of an

isolated national existence or a national development heedless of the welfare,
prosperity and peace of the other peoples of the world. The American people
never would be willing consciously to handicap the League in its efforts to
maintain peace. Yet since the war our attitude is that we do not need friends, and
that the public opinion of the world is of no importance. Secretary Kellogg is at
the moment engaged in a pre-election effort to make this nation feel self-righteous
by a general declaration abjuring war. Words without deeds are not enough.
Two matters of recent occurrence are not germane to this review of official
American policy. The able assistance of three Americans in working out the
Dawes Plan was carefully disclaimed by the Administration as a wholly private
venture before they started for Paris. When they succeeded, many politicians,
including President Coolidge and Secretary Hughes, pointed with pride and
claimed them for their own.
So, too, the debt settlements seem to be in most part water which has gone over
the dam. Most of the war debts have been dealt with by governmental agreement,
and it is worth while to speak only of a few results. Our Government loaned to
Europe about $10,000,000,000. It will receive in return (over a period of years to
be sure) about $22,000,000,000. The other important fact is that these
settlements are one of the many causes for the dislike in which we are held
among the peoples as well as the Governments of Europe. It is all very well to say
that "nobody loves a creditor." True, but every creditor is not a hated creditor. In
a time of general poverty and retrenchment our Government has seemed greedy.
This is not mainly because we have refused to let considerations of sentiment
influence our attitude toward our late comrades in arms, but because while
exacting payment we have by our discriminatory and exhorbitant tariff policy
made it doubly hard for them to pay. We have wanted to eat our cake and have it
too.
Last of all, and in many ways most important of all, is the subject of the Americas.
The Wilson Administration started splendidly by eliminating "Dollar Diplomacy,"
and by the Mobile speech to which I have already referred. It helped the cause of
better feeling on the part of the Central and South American nations by its ready
acceptance of the offer of Argentine, Brazil and Chili to be of friendly assistance
in Mexico. But intervention as we practiced it in Santo Domingo and Haiti was not
another forward step. It is not that assistance of some sort was not necessary; it
was the method which was wrong. I had a slight part in these actions. As they are
excellent illustrations of circumstances which may recur it is worth while to
summarize them.
In the case of Santo Domingo we had had for several years by treaty an American
Customs Receiver in that Republic, principally to insure the payment of the
external debt. Serious political disturbances endangered economic life and
threatened anarchy, and when a revolution left the country without a president, a
cabinet or a legislature, or even any form of government, American marines and
sailors were landed. They remained until last year. Peace was insured, good
roads, railroads, sanitation, honest taxes and honest expenditures were
introduced, and the government was handed back to the citizens of Santo
Domingo after a stewardship of about twelve years. We accomplished an excellent
piece of constructive work, and the world ought to thank us.
In Haiti a worse situation faced us. That Republic was in chronic trouble, and as it
is close to Cuba the bad influence was felt across the water. Presidents were
murdered, governments fled, several times a year. We landed our marines and
sailors only when the unfortunate Chief Magistrate of the moment was dragged
out of the French Legation, cut into six pieces and thrown to the mob. Here again
we cleaned house, restored order, built public works and put governmental
operation on a sound and honest basis. We are still there. It is true, however, that
in Santo Domingo and especially in Haiti we seem to have paid too little attention
to making the citizens of these states more capable of reassuming the control of
their own governments. But we have done a fine piece of material work, and the
world ought to thank us.
But does it? In these cases the world is really the Latin American world, for
Europe cares little about what goes on in Santo Domingo or Haiti or Nicaragua.
The other republics of the Americas do not thank us, on the contrary they
disapprove our intervention almost unanimously. By what right, they say, other
than the right of main force, does the United States arrogate unto itself the
privilege of intervening alone in the internal affairs of another Sovereign
Republic?
The net result of these instances, and recently of the far less justified intervention
in Nicaragua, is that never before in our history have we had fewer friends in the
Western Hemisphere than we have today. We are certainly far from popular in
Canada; we are slightly better off than last year in Mexico, thanks to the
individual efforts of Mr. Morrow and Col. Lindbergh; and in the sixteen Republics
of Central and South America the United States Government by its recent policies
has allowed a dislike and mistrust of long standing to grow into something like
positive hate and fear.
The time has come when we must accept not only certain facts but many new
principles of a higher law, a newer and better standard in international relations.
We are exceedingly jealous of our own sovereignty and it is only right that we
should respect a similar feeling among other nations. The peoples of the other
Republics of this Western world are just as patriotic, just as proud of their
sovereignty. Many of these nations are large, wealthy and highly civilized. The
peace, the security, the integrity, the independence of every one of the American
Republics is of interest to all the others, not to the United States alone.
It is possible that in the days to come one of our sister nations may fall upon evil
days; disorder and bad government may require that a helping hand be given her
citizens as a matter of temporary necessity to bring back order and stability. In
that event it is not the right or the duty of the United States to intervene alone. It
is rather the duty of the United States to associate with itself other American
Republics, to give intelligent joint study to the problem, and, if the conditions
warrant, to offer the helping hand or hands in the name of the Americas.
Singlehanded intervention by us in the internal affairs of other nations must end;
with the coöperation of others we shall have more order in this hemisphere and
less dislike.
How the present administration has bungled the Nicaraguan matter is too recent
to need description, but how it has wholly failed to advance a single step in our
Latin American relations is just beginning to be understood and regretted. It
failed dismally in the effort to settle the Tacna-Arica dispute between Chili and
Peru. It has only one success to its credit, and that a negative one. The recent
Havana conference of the Pan American Nations threatened to bring out not only
hostile speeches but definitely hostile action towards the United States. Former
Secretary Hughes averted this. That, in the judgment of most people, is about all
that can be said.
So the record has been written. The facts are with us. In a period of great
international activity in the improvement of machinery to avoid war and to settle
all manner of troubles, we must look back on nine gray years, barren of
constructive result on our part, if the naval armament temporary pact be
expected. Today our Secretary of State is working on a glorified multi-powered
declaration solemnly resolving against war. He has rediscovered the Bryan
Treaties. He can do no direct harm by these efforts; but if he fails to do concrete
good he may satisfy many fine aspirations with something unreal. It is of the
utmost importance that this nation realize that war cannot be outlawed by
resolution alone. That has failed for two thousand years. Since earliest history
nations have entered into treaties of "eternal peace and friendship." Time after
time solemn agreements have been signed only to fall under the heat of
misunderstanding or the desire for power. The primary cause of failure in the past
has been the lack of machinery for the elimination of the causes of disputes before
they reach grave proportions. Practical machinery must be erected and kept in
good working order. Secretary Kellogg's plan, even if approved by the leading
nations, still fails in two points. It leads to a false belief in America that we have
taken a great step forward. It does not contribute in any way to settling matters of
international controversy.
In the simplest terms, this is the argument for a policy different from that of the
past nine years. Up until then most of our history shows us to have been a nation
leading others in the slow upward steps to better international understanding and
the peaceful settlement of disagreements. During these nine years we have stood
still, with the unfortunate effect of earning greater or less ill will on the part of
the other civilized peoples. Even a lack of good will in the long run must affect our
trade, as we have been shown by a recent concrete example in Argentina. Neither
from the argument of financial gain, nor from the sounder reasoning of the Golden
Rule, can our policy, or lack of policy, be approved. The time is ripe to start
another chapter.
On that new page there is much that should be written in the spirit of our
forbears. If the leadership is right—or, more truly, if the spirit behind it is
great—the United States can regain the world's trust and friendship and become
again of service. We can point the way once more to the reducing of armaments;
we can coöperate officially and whole-heartedly with every agency that studies
and works to relieve the common ills of mankind; and we can for all time
renounce the practice of arbitrary intervention in the home affairs of our
neighbors.
It is the spirit, sir, which matters.
[i] "Steps Toward Preserving Peace," Foreign Affairs. Vol. 3, No. 3.
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, 1913-20; Democratic nominee for Vice-President of the
United States in 1920
July 1,1928
Foreign Affairs
The Senate and Our Foreign Relations
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
Calvin Coolidge.
WITH the assembling of Congress at Washington, speculation is rife concerning

the foreign policy which shall be recommended by President Coolidge and
adopted by Congress; or rather, by the Senate, for the latter body since the
consideration and rejection of the Peace Treaty of Versailles practically has
assumed to control not merely the ratification but even the negotiation of treaties.
This control, although in defiance of the practice and the declared principles of a
century or more of constitutional government, was acquiesced in by President
Harding's administration. Apparently the whole policy of the Department of State
since March, 1921, has been dominated by the general desire not only to avoid
any action which might invite adverse criticism on the part of the Senate, but
studiously to avoid any act or expression which might indicate either sympathy or
cooperation with that great international organization for the preservation of
world peace, the League of Nations, which is anathema to certain Senatorial
minds. This undoubtedly was a counsel of prudence. But it inevitably led to the
abandonment of the highest avowed ideals with which the administration assumed
control of the government.
Mr. George Harvey, in his farewell address recently delivered in London, after
stating that his earlier declaration before a similar audience that it was no part of
his official task to formulate policies "was a joke," thereupon proceeded to declare
that "the national American foreign policy is to have no foreign policy." One
cannot but wonder if President Coolidge or Mr. Hughes had commissioned the
Ambassador to make such a statement as a part of the American Government's
joint pronouncement with the British Government regarding possible methods of
dealing with present European conditions.
However that may be, as a matter of history, the foreign policy of the United
States--at least until 1921--was not one of aimless opportunist drifting, as Mr.
Harvey's statement suggests. We have had certain national foreign policies, in the
sense of well-defined principles which have governed our international relations
and have been respected by successive national administrations, even when
dominated by different political parties. The most notable of these, of course, is
the "Monroe policy." "Never for a moment," said Senator Root in addressing the
American Society of International Law, in April, 1914, "have the responsible and
instructed statesmen in charge of the foreign affairs of the United States failed to
consider themselves bound to insist upon this policy . . . . Almost every President
and Secretary of State has re-stated the doctrine with vigor and emphasis in the
discussion of the diplomatic affairs of his day." Secretary Hughes is the latest of
this line. In his address before the American Bar Association, in August last, he
restated the Monroe policy as "a distinctively American policy." In that same
address, the Secretary declared that the "establishment of a Permanent Court of
International Justice, which might make available the facilities of a permanent
tribunal (instead of the less satisfactory provision of temporary tribunals of
arbitration) to governments desiring to submit their controversies to it, has been a
distinct feature of the policy of the Government of the United States for many
years." Evidently our recent Ambassador to Great Britain is not in accord, on this
point at least, with the opinion of the Secretary of State.
Another American national policy, based upon Washington's farewell advice, has
been to avoid "entangling alliances" with other nations. Surely, Mr. Harvey can
hardly have forgotten the changes rung upon this policy by him and those with
whom he was associated in the conduct of the campaign against membership in
the League of Nations. The bogey of "entangling alliances" lurks in the corner of
almost every treaty the Senate has had to consider in recent years. It was only by
engrafting upon the resolution of ratification a declaration that "the United States
understands that under the statement in the preamble or under the terms of this
treaty there is no commitment to armed force, no alliance, no obligation to join in
any defense," that enough votes were secured in the Senate to ratify the Four
Power Pacific Pact in February, 1922. The proposal to accept membership in the
League of Nations clearly was a departure from what had been for a century the
policy of the United States. The entry of the United States into the World War
entailed many departures from what previously had been American policy. The
most notable of such departures was the adoption of a universal conscription law.
The struggle over the League of Nations was between those who, on the one
hand, desired to adhere to the old policy, and those who, on the other hand,
maintained that our participation in the war entailed certain responsibilities
which we could not in honor disregard, among them the duty to aid in restoring
and maintaining the peace of the world, that this could be done only by
cooperation with our associates in the war, and that such association must be
continuous in order to be effective.
The opposition to this departure from previous American policy prevailed, partly
by reason of the bitter partisan attitude of certain Republican Senators, partly by
reason of the stubborn unwillingness of President Wilson to yield anything of what
he had formulated in order to secure favorable action by the Senate.
The rejection of the Treaty of Versailles was followed by the adoption, a few
months after the advent of the new administration, of a joint resolution of
Congress declaring the state of war with Germany at an end; and on August 25,
1921, there was signed a separate treaty of peace between the United States and
Germany which was ratified by the Senate on October 18, 1921. By this treaty it
was sought to secure to the United States all the benefits which would have been
derived from the Versailles treaty, without assuming any of its obligations. This
was expressed on the face of the document, which, after the general provision
referred to, specified the parts of the Versailles treaty under which the United
States should retain the same rights and privileges it would have possessed had it
ratified that treaty. The parts so indicated were those dealing with the German
Colonies (Part IV); Military, Naval and Air matters (Part V); Prisoners of War and
Graves (Part VI); Reparations (Part VIII); Financial Matters (Part IX); Economic
Matters (Part X); Aerial Navigation (Part XI); Ports, Waterways and Railways (Part
XII); Guarantees (Part XIV); and Miscellaneous Matters (Part XV).
Almost every one of these Parts provided for the appointment of a commission of
representatives of the Principal Allied and Associated Powers to supervise its
execution. But while stipulating with Germany that the United States should
retain the benefit of all of these provisions, the Senate made its ratification of the
separate treaty subject to the understanding "that the United States shall not be
represented or participate in any body, agency or commission, nor shall any
person represent the United States as a member of any body, agency or
commission in which the United States is authorized to participate by this treaty,
unless and until an act of Congress of the United States shall provide for such
representation or participation."
A similar separate treaty of peace with Austria containing similar provisions was
negotiated and ratified at the same time as the German treaty.
The Constitution provides that not only the Constitution and the laws of the
United States made in pursuance thereof, but "all treaties made or which shall be
made under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the
land." But this provision relates to those matters which are the proper subjects of
international compact and no precedent has been found to warrant the Senate in
assuming to control executive action with respect to the execution of treaty
provisions, by means of a reservation added by the Senate to the resolution of
advice and consent to the execution of a treaty. The provisions of the treaty being
a part of the supreme law of the land, their execution becomes the duty of the
President. The Constitution declares that the President--not the Senate--"shall
take care that the laws be faithfully executed." By what authority the Senate
assumes to tell the President he shall not discharge a constitutional duty until
authorized by act of Congress has not been revealed.
The reservation contained in the ratification of the German and Austrian peace
treaties was an unconstitutional invasion of the executive power by the Senate. Its
adoption was one of the significant steps recently taken by the Senate in
assuming an extra-constitutional control of our international relations.
The making of the separate peace treaties with Germany and Austria did not allay
the widespread feeling in the minds of the people that an obligation was
incumbent upon the American nation to take some definite step towards the
future security of the world.
The League of Nations had been rejected, but was there nothing else that could
be proposed? All of President Harding's utterances at this time showed that he
was troubled with this thought. He yearned to bring about some effective measure
which would fulfill the promises of the party platform and of his own messages
and speeches.
Not very long before his death, Mr. Harding wrote to Bishop Gailor of the
Protestant Episcopal Church, recalling an observation he had made some days
previously to his newspaper callers, "that I did not believe any man could confront
the responsibility of a President of the United States and yet adhere to the idea
that it was possible for our country to maintain an attitude of isolation and
aloofness in the world." He stated it to be his concern that there should be an
effective recognition of this fact, so that those who because of their position were
earliest compelled to realize this situation might be assured of the understanding
and sympathetic support of the great intelligent public opinion of our country. Mr.
Harding added: "After much thought and study and conference I reached the
conclusion that our adherence to the program of the International Court
represented a compliance with these conditions. It is a longer step than some
would wish us to take in this direction. On the other hand, it is a less advance
than some others would wish us to take. But to me it seems to meet the
requirements of our peculiar situation, and permits us to say to the world that we
are ready for our part in furthering peace and stability without entanglements or
surrender of cherished policy to which we are long and strongly committed."
Thus the sorely tried and harassed President, buffeted between the "isolationist"
party leaders, on the one hand, and on the other his deep conscientious
appreciation of the obligations of America to make an effective move towards the
maintenance of world peace, came at last to the World Court as the one tangible
accomplishment to which he might adhere without danger of the reproach of
inviting "entangling alliances."
"It is one thing to talk about the ideals of peace," President Harding said at the
time of the Conference on Naval Disarmament, "but the bigger thing is to seek the
actuality." His nomination for the presidency followed a bitter partisan contest
between President Wilson and his followers and the exasperated Republican
Senators, which had resulted in the rejection of the Treaty of Versailles. The
treaty carried down with it the Covenant of the League of Nations, so far as the
Senate as then composed was concerned. But in the platform of the Republican
party adopted at Chicago in June, 1920, it was deemed necessary to placate a
recognized pro-League sentiment then existing.
The platform declared that the Republican Party stands for agreement among the
nations to preserve the peace of the world. "We believe," it said, "that such an
international association must be based upon international justice and must
provide methods which shall maintain the rule of public right by the development
of law and the decision of impartial courts and which shall secure instant and
general international conference whenever peace shall be threatened by political
action, so that the nations, pledged to do and insist upon what is just and fair, may
exercise their influence and power for the prevention of war."
Mr. Harding, in his speech of acceptance, interpreted this as the "Republican
committal for an Association of Nations, cooperating in sublime accord, to attain
and preserve peace through justice rather than force, determined to add to
security through international law, so clarified that no misconstruction can be
possible without affronting world honor." No effort ever was made by the Harding
Administration, so far as public knowledge goes, either to form such an
Association, or to bring about a modification of the League of Nations which
would fit the requirements of such an Association. The reason for such a reaction
lay in the known opposition of the Senate to any such movement.
On the other hand, other efforts at international agreement for particular

purposes were undertaken, the most notable of them being the Naval Limitation
Conference which opened at Washington November 12, 1921. The treaties there
negotiated met with robust opposition from some of those Republican Senators
who had most strongly opposed the ratification of the Versailles treaty. The tact
and foresight shown by the President in appointing leading Senators of both
political parties as Commissioners to the Conference undoubtedly greatly helped
to secure ratification of the treaties. As it was, however, the crucial treaty of the
set--the so-called "Four Power Pacific Pact"--as already stated, was approved by
but four votes more than the requisite two thirds, and its ratification only was
secured by placating the "alliance" bogey. This treaty contained an agreement by
the signatory powers to respect each other's rights in relation to their insular
possessions and insular dominions in the region of the Pacific Ocean, and
provided that in case any controversy arises involving such rights, which is not
satisfactorily settled by diplomacy and which is likely to disturb the harmonious
accord subsisting between them, they shall invite the other parties to the treaty to
a joint conference to which the whole subject will be referred for consideration
and adjustment. It was further provided that if said rights are threatened by the
aggression of any other power, the parties to the treaty shall communicate with
each other fully and frankly in order to arrive at an understanding as to the most
efficient measures to be taken to meet the exigencies of the particular situation.
These provisions were attacked as being open to the same objections as those
successfully urged against the League of Nations. Conference and the exchange of
views suggested the purposes of the League. Senator Borah saw in this treaty the
same danger to American sovereignty that lurked in the Covenant of the League.
It was to overcome such objections that, in reporting the treaty to the Senate, the
President cried out:
"Frankly, Senators, if nations may not safely agree to respect each others rights,
and may not agree to confer if one party to the compact threatens trespass, or
may not agree to advise if one party to the pact is threatened by an outside power,
then all concerted efforts to tranquilize the world and stabilize peace must be
flung to the winds. Either these treaties must have your cordial sanction, or every
proclaimed desire to promote peace and prevent war becomes a hollow mockery."
The vision expressed in the Republican platform of 1920 of an "international

association . . . based upon international justice," "coöperating in sublime accord,"
and providing methods to maintain the rule of public right and to secure instant
and general international conference whenever peace should be threatened, had,
by the spring of 1922, wholly faded from the eyes of certain Republican Senators,
and those who opposed ratification of the Four Power Pacific Pact apparently
were quite willing that "every proclaimed desire to promote peace and prevent
war should become a hollow mockery."
After the execution of the treaties formulated at the Naval Limitation Conference,
no further move toward international cooperation to aid in the restoration of
normal conditions in Europe was made by the administration until February 24,
1923, when, without previous warning, the President transmitted to the Senate,
with a recommendation that it be adopted, a proposal from the Secretary of State
that the United States give its adhesion to the Permanent Court of International
Justice established pursuant to the provisions of Article 14 of the Covenant of the
League of Nations. The President pointed out that by adopting the proposed
agreement the United States would not become a member of the League of
Nations. He said there was good reason to believe that the conditions proposed
for American participation would be acceptable to the signatory powers, "though
nothing definite can be done until the United States tenders adhesion with these
reservations." Manifestly, he said, the Executive could not make this tender
without the approval of the Senate. Therefore he earnestly urged favorable advice
and consent.
"It is not a new problem in international relationship," he pointed out, "it is wholly
a question of accepting an established institution of high character, and making
effective all the fine things which have been said by us in favor of such an agency
of advanced civilization." He therefore earnestly urged the favorable advice and
consent of the Senate. "I would rejoice," he added, "if some action could be taken
even in the short period which remains of the present session."
But the Senate was in no mood to facilitate such rejoicing. The Permanent Court
was the creation of the League of Nations. Therefore let it be anathema! Mr. Root
declared that it was the fulfilment of twenty-five years of Republican advocacy.
What was that fact to Senators who agree with Mr. Harvey that the United States
never had a foreign policy and therefore that neither the party nor the nation was
committed by past custom to any line of action! The President's proposal was left
as unfinished business in the hands of the Senate when it adjourned on March 4,
1923.
Secretary Hughes had made plain in the communication to the President, which
the latter transmitted to the Senate with his hearty recommendation on February
24, 1923, that the organization of the Court and the method provided for the
selection of its judges by making use of the machinery of the League of Nations
avoided the objections which had prevented the adoption of the proposals for such
a court made by the United States to the Second Hague Conference in 1907. The
method proposed by Mr. Hughes for adherence to the Court by the United States
secured to it a voice in the selection of the judges--without which, Mr. Hughes
pointed out, the United States could not accept the Court,--as fully as though it
were a member of the League of Nations, while carefully avoiding the acceptance
of membership in the League.
The power exercised by Senatorial opposition upon Mr. Harding's mind never was
more strikingly exhibited than in his speech at St. Louis on June 21, 1923. After
extolling the Permanent Court as a true judicial tribunal of the highest order, he
adverted to the difficulties in the way of securing the Senate's approval of it. "I am
not wedded irrevocably to any particular method," he said. "I would not assume
for a moment that the readjustment of the existing arrangement which appears to
my mind as feasible is the best, much less the only, one . . . . Granting the
noteworthy excellence--of which I, for one, am fully convinced--of the Court as
now constituted, why not proceed in the belief that it may be made self-
perpetuating? This could be done in one of two ways: (1) by empowering the
Court itself to fill any vacancy arising from the death of a member or retirement
from whatever cause, without interposition from any other body; or (2) by
continuing the existing authority of the Permanent Court of Arbitration to
nominate, and by transferring the power to elect from the Council and Assembly
of the League to the remaining members of the Court of Justice."
Thus the whole carefully worked out plan by which Senator Root had overcome
the obstacles which in the past always had prevented acceptance of the Court
idea by the small nations, and the method so ably formulated by Secretary
Hughes to enable the United States to make use of the League machinery without
membership in the League, were sacrificed to fear of Senatorial opposition, based
upon Senatorial hostility to the League of Nations.
One could not but wonder what Mr. Root thought when he read this proposal, and
what were Mr. Hughes' reflections when his well-conceived plan, considered
during "a long period, indeed ever since the international Conference on the
Limitation of Armament," as Mr. Harding had informed the Senate, was thus
thrown overboard.
Probably no more extraordinary proposition ever was made by a President to the

American people than that our Government should agree to submit questions of
difference with other nations to a self-perpetuating judicial tribunal, and one in
the selection of whose judges we had no voice. A moment's reflection upon the
history of the Court--the fact that only through the machinery of the League,
which secured a voice for great and small nations alike in the selection of the
judges, had it been made a possibility--should have led the President to discard
this plan for avoiding Senatorial opposition, no doubt suggested to him by some
unofficial adviser, as wholly impracticable of acceptance by other nations, even if
it could be assumed that our own Congress would approve such an unprecedented
arrangement. It almost seems as if Mr. Harding might have meant the suggestion
as the reductio ad absurdum of any plan for American adherence to the Court
other than that formulated by Mr. Hughes. But if the suggestion were made
seriously, it is impossible to believe that Mr. Harding, had he lived, would not
have seen its impracticability and reverted to the original plan. The President had
very deeply at heart the necessity of doing something tangible for the
maintenance of international peace. But the imperious Senate haunted his dreams
and troubled his will.
President Harding reverted to the subject in the address he prepared for delivery
in San Francisco, which because of his illness was not delivered, but was made
public by his secretary on August I, 1923. He said: "I would be insensible to duty
and violate all the sentiments of my heart and all my convictions if I failed to urge
American support of the Permanent Court of International Justice. I do not know
that such a Court will be unfailing in the avoidance of war, but I know it is a step
in the right direction, and will prove an advance toward international peace for
which the reflective conscience of mankind is calling."
And yet there was the Senate!
"No matter what the critics may say," he continued, "we have the obligation of
duly recognized and constituted authority, and I had rather have the Senate grant
its support and have the United States whole heartedly favor the Permanent
Court, than prolong a controversy and defeat the main purpose. As President,
speaking for the United States, I am more interested in adherence to such a
tribunal in the best form attainable than I am concerned about the triumph of
Presidential insistence. The big thing is the firm establishment of the Court and
our cordial adherence thereto. All else is mere detail."
But the trouble with this is that the question is not how a new Court shall be
organized, but how the United States shall adopt an existing tribunal organized
pursuant to an agreement to which forty odd nations are parties. What Mr.
Harding called "mere detail" was the essential provision under which the United
States might accept the Court, participate in the election of the judges and share
in the expense, yet avoid membership in the League. Mr. Hughes had submitted a
plan which he stated he had reason to believe would be accepted by these nations,
and which had been for months under consideration. Is the Senate itself to
negotiate a new plan, or is it likely that it will state in advance some new and
better proposal which the nations will accept without modification?
The proposition to adhere to the Permanent Court of International Justice lies on

the table of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs. Will President Coolidge
urge that it be acted upon favorably and put the whole power and prestige of his
office behind the recommendation, or will he content himself with a general
approval of the plan and allow the Senate to kill it by some alternative
suggestions which will be wholly impossible of acceptance by the nations parties
to the agreement under which the Court exists?
President Coolidge's initial message to Congress will probably have answered this
question before this article appears. The writer indulges in the hope that Mr.
Coolidge will speak in no uncertain terms in support of the Hughes plan.
The conduct of foreign relations will be almost impossible of satisfactory direction

if the Senate shall continue in future to interfere with and hamper the Executive
as it has done the last four years.
A striking example of that fact is furnished by the negotiations at present going

forward concerning the settlement of the reparations obligations of Germany. Mr.
Hughes has accepted the prohibition, imposed by the Senate in the reservation to
the ratification of the separate peace treaties with Germany and Austria, against
appointing a representative of the United States upon the Reparation Commission
or of uniting with any other international body to deal with economic conditions in
Europe. In his speech at New Haven in December last he referred to the
limitations imposed upon his freedom to act. In his recent communication to the
British Government, he says "that the Government of the United States is not in
position to appoint a member of the Reparation Commission, inasmuch as such an
appointment cannot be made without the consent of Congress." After this avowal
of executive impotence, the best he can offer is the belief "that competent
American citizens would be willing to participate in an economic inquiry for the
purposes stated, through an advisory body appointed by the Reparation
Commission to make recommendations, in case that course after further
consideration should be deemed advisable."
Without minimizing in any degree the broad statesmanship and adroit handling of
a most difficult international question by the Secretary of State, it is none the less
a subject of criticism and regret that the Senate should so tie the hands of the
Executive in dealing with a matter of vast importance to America and to the world
that the President does not feel free to appoint commissioners to act even as an
advisory body to the Reparation Commission, and that the best that can be done is
to suggest that the Reparation Commission itself shall select a number of
American citizens, whose personnel undoubtedly will be satisfactory to the
Secretary of State, but who will have no official relation to the United States
Government. This is one of the results of Senatorial interference with the
executive function not within the contemplation of the Constitution.
In still one other important field has the legislative power interfered with
executive action, namely, regarding the settlement of the debts of the European
powers, lately our associates in the Great War.
Pursuant to acts of Congress passed shortly after the United States entered the
war against Germany, the Secretary of the Treasury, with the approval of the
President, was authorized, "for the purpose of more effectually providing for the
national security and defense and prosecuting the war," to establish credits in the
United States for "the foreign governments then engaged in war with the enemies
of the United States." These credits were opened and amounts advanced which
were expended within the United States for the purchase of supplies and war
material. The advances so made aggregate several billion dollars.
On February 9, 1922, Congress passed an act creating a "World War Foreign Debt
Commission" of five members, including the Secretary of the Treasury, for the
purpose of refunding, converting or extending the time of payment of obligations
of foreign governments to the United States, but restricting the authority of the
committee to extend the time of such payment beyond June 15, 1947, or to fix the
rate of interest below 4¼ per cent. It further provided that the act should not be
construed to authorize the exchange of bonds or other obligations of any foreign
government for those of any other foreign government, or the cancellation of any
part of such indebtedness, except through payment thereof. The President
appointed as members of this commission, besides the Secretary of the Treasury,
the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Commerce, Senator Smoot, Chairman of
the Finance Committee of the Senate, and Mr. Burton, a member of the House of
Representatives.
This commission negotiated an agreement with Great Britain under which the
amount of its indebtedness was settled at $4,600,000,000, the time of payment
being extended over a period of sixty-two years and the rate of interest reduced to
3 per cent for the first ten years and 3½ per cent thereafter. These departures
from the original authority were authorized by an amending act of Congress
passed February 28, 1923.
These modifications, however, only were approved in the case of the settlement of
the British debt. With respect to the other debtor nations the limitations imposed
by the act of February 9, 1922, remain.
The ability of France and Italy to pay their debts to the United States depends
largely, if not wholly, upon the amount they shall recover from Germany in
reparation for the destruction of their property during the war. But our
Government has steadily refused to consider this circumstance as affecting our
demands for a settlement of the debts. In the recent note of the Secretary of State
he reiterates this position, while adding that "the Government of the United
States has no desire to be oppressive or to refuse to make reasonable settlements
as to time and terms of payment in full consideration of the circumstances of the
Allied debtors"--which does not seem a lavish offer, when it is remembered that
these debts were incurred, in the language of Congress, "for the purpose of more
effectually providing for the national security and defense and prosecuting the
war" by the nations "then engaged in war with the enemies of the United States."
But in view of the provisions of the acts creating the World War Foreign Debt
Commission, the Secretary of State could make no more generous suggestion of
American action. Even that much was merely the expression of a personal
opinion. based upon the precedent of the terms approved by Congress in the
funding of the British debt.
The experience in the cases above referred to would indicate that the only
practical means of securing any treaty or international agreement between the
United States and a foreign nation under present conditions is through a
conference or commission in which one or more Senators, preferably one from
each political party, shall be members, which shall meet in Washington, keeping
closely in touch with other influential members of the Senate, and which shall not
commit itself to any agreement until it has been canvassed with enough members
of the Senate to make its approval reasonably certain.
Mr. John W. Davis, in his recent address at Minneapolis as President of the

American Bar Association, dwelt upon the destructive effect of the constitutional
provision requiring a two-thirds vote in the Senate to the ratification of treaties,
and observed: "Nor does it contribute to national influence or prestige or safety
that the process of ratifying or rejecting treaties should degenerate into an effort
to discover some qualifying formula acceptable to a minority. There is grave
danger in forgetting that, whether in matters domestic or foreign, the business of
government is to govern."
The League of Nations furnishes adequate and instantly available machinery for
the discussion and consideration of questions affecting the peace and stability of
the world. But the Senate rejected it.
The Permanent Court of International Justice provides a tribunal of impeccable

dignity and independence for the determination of questions between nations
susceptible of judicial decision. It is not a substitute for either the League of
Nations, such as President Wilson conceived, or for an Association of Nations,
such as President Harding conceived. A court provides no machinery for
conference and the cooperation of nations "in sublime accord to attain and
preserve peace through justice rather than force." A court exists to determine
controversies, which have proved incapable of adjustment by diplomatic methods,
by the application of rules of law. The purpose of the League of Nations is to
provide machinery for averting controversy, through conference and by the force
of informed opinion acting upon nations involved in differences. But the adoption
of the Permanent Court by the United States will be an earnest of its willingness
to take some effective step towards a continuous effort to maintain peace by
providing a method of settling judicially questions which otherwise might result in
war. It is to be hoped that President Coolidge may press the Senate to act and use
all the great influence of his office to secure approval of Secretary Hughes' plan
for American adhesion to the Court.
The assumption by the Senate of powers of original negotiation of agreements

with foreign nations must increasingly interfere with the discharge by the
Executive of the powers invested in him by the Constitution.
The practice has been growing. The first significant step was taken in 1871, when
Secretary of State Hamilton Fish submitted a proposed treaty with Great Britain
to Mr. Sumner, then Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, and
asked his opinion concerning it. At the close of the Spanish War, in 1898,
President McKinley appointed five Commissioners to negotiate a treaty of peace
with Spain, three of whom were members of the Senate and of its Committee on
Foreign Affairs, a procedure which Mr. Crandall in his work on Treaties says was
without precedent.
As above stated, President Harding appointed as members of the Commission to

negotiate the refunding, conversion or extension of time of payment of the
obligations of foreign governments to the United States, the Chairman of the
Senate Finance Committee and a prominent member of the House of
Representatives. He also appointed as members of the Commission to negotiate
the treaties relating to the limitation of naval armament and the problems of the
Pacific, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and the leading
Democratic member of the Senate.
Despite such conciliatory efforts as the appointment of leading Senators to

membership in commissions created to negotiate treaties, as Lord Bryce says in
"The American Commonwealth," "the Senate increasingly has exercised its power
by refusing to approve treaties negotiated by the President, unless amended as it
has prescribed, or with 'reservations' stating its understanding with respect to
provisions in the agreement."
The fact is, that the treaty-making machinery of the United States has become so
complicated as to be almost unworkable. Only by the exercise of great powers of
conciliation or of domination by the President, or by awakening and directing
upon the Senate a vigorous public opinion, can any progress be made in
international relations. A body of ninety-six men of such diverse characteristics
and opinions as the members of the Senate is almost hopeless as an executive
force. But it is ideal for purposes of obstruction. If the United States is to move
forward in helpful cooperation with the other nations of the world towards the
attainment of international peace, it will only be through the expression of a
widespread and strongly expressed public opinion, which the Senate may
apprehend is to be translated into votes.
GEORGE W. WICKERSHAM, Attorney-General of the United States under President Taft

December 15,1923
Foreign Relations of the United
States, 1921-1924
Henry Cabot Lodge
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
John William Davis.
PARTLY for political and partly for other purposes, the allegation has constantly
been made that during the past three years nothing has been done by the United
States in the great field of international relations. The endeavor has been to make
this assertion about our abstention from foreign questions a common-place.
Politically it was intended by the Democrats to reflect upon the party in power as
having no policy and doing nothing, and also to cover up and conceal their own
well-grounded fear of having the old issue of the League of Nations pressed into
the field of party conflict. The other purpose which it served was to sustain the
proposition that, because we were not members of the League of Nations and
were not entangled in European affairs, therefore we were incapacitated from
taking part in any international questions at all, and that the one solution for all
the difficulties was that we should join the League of Nations and immerse
ourselves in the quarrels of Europe.
These amiable purposes, political and international, overlooked two points. One
was that there was a rather considerable field of international questions and
international activities outside of Europe—not as important, perhaps, as Europe,
but including Asia, Africa, and the two Americas, which, however inconsiderable
in comparison with Europe, nevertheless had some questions of their own which
were of a world interest. In the Far East, in China, and the Pacific Islands results
of great practical importance have been achieved, while in South America the
diplomacy of the United States has been correspondingly active. The allegation of
inactivity also overlooked the more immediate fact that in the general field of
foreign relations the United States during these three years had been unusually
effective and successful. I have no intention of discussing the much-argued
question of the League of Nations, but it seems to me perhaps not inappropriate
at this moment, in view of these assertions, to state briefly what has actually been
done by the United States in the international field. A comparison with past years,
I think, will show that, excepting those brief periods when the United States was
engaged in making peace after a war, there never has been a period when the
United States has been more active and its influence more felt internationally
than between 1921 and 1924. That what has been done by us in foreign relations
should not have been suitably noticed or adequately understood is natural
enough, because foreign affairs are apt to be pushed aside, even since the Great
War, by domestic questions which occupy the public mind, just as the public
attention has been during the past winter entirely absorbed by the bill to reduce
taxation, the bonus, and the investigations. This fact, however, does not deprive
questions affecting our international relations of either their consequence or their
lasting interest.
Beginning with March, 1921, we find that we settled our differences with
Colombia, which had existed from the time when we took over the Isthmus of
Panama. We secured from Colombia the recognition of the Republic of Panama, a
matter of much importance to the situation existing between those two countries,
which more or less affected both South America and the United States, and thus
the treaty ended the difficulties which had surrounded our relations with
Colombia.
We have also made a formal peace with Germany and with what remains of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire. Actually, war had ceased with the Armistice, but the
technical state of war continued until these treaties were made, and a technical
state of war is never a wholesome condition of international relations. The making
of the formal peace, therefore, with the two countries with which we had been at
war, had a stabilizing effect on the general European situation and upon the
financial conditions of the world. These two treaties were also in a high degree
favorable in their terms to the United States. We not only made peace, but
Germany assented to the payment of American claims against the German Empire
and both countries agreed that we should be at liberty to take advantage of any
provision in the treaty of Versailles which we thought beneficial to us, if we
desired to do so.
Then came the Conference summoned by President Harding at Washington.

Congress passed a resolution introduced by Senator Borah requesting the
President to enter into negotiations with Great Britain and Japan in regard to the
reduction of naval armaments, but the President, who was already considering the
subject, very wisely extended the scope of the Conference to questions arising in
the Far East, including especially China and the islands of the Pacific. The
Conference met on the 12th of November, 1921. It was in session nearly three
months, made six treaties, and passed a number of resolutions, chiefly for the
benefit of China.
The most important of these treaties was that known as the Four-Power Treaty
between the United States, Great Britain, France, and Japan. It related to the
Pacific Islands controlled by those four Powers. It provided that they should
respect each other's rights in the islands and that if controversies arose they
should be the subject of conference and consideration before any action was
taken. The last clause provided for what was by far the most important result of
the treaty, the termination of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance when the Four-Power
Treaty was ratified by all the signatories, which has now taken place. This treaty
is in no sense an alliance. It does not bind any Power to do more than discuss the
controversial questions, whether arising from controversies among themselves or
from the interference of some outside Power. This is all the treaty says and all it
intends; but as some suggestion was made that under Article II, referring to the
interference of other Powers, it might be possible that we should find ourselves in
some way morally bound, the Senate added a reservation, as follows:
"The United States understands that under the statement in the preamble or
under the terms of this treaty there is no commitment to armed force, no alliance,
no obligation to join in any defense."
In the opinion of the makers of the treaty the reservation was not necessary,
because in their judgment that was the clear meaning of the treaty in any event
and the signers did not believe it could be twisted into any other meaning. There
can be no doubt, however, that the termination of the menacing Anglo-Japanese
Alliance was of the utmost importance to the future peace of the world.
The Four-Power Treaty and the Supplementary Treaty, defining the islands
included in its provisions, constituted two of the treaties made by the Conference.
This was the most important part of the work of the Conference in its effects and
made possible the agreement between the five Naval Powers, the United States,
Great Britain, France, Italy, and Japan, as to the reduction of naval armaments.
Within the limits of a necessarily brief account of the work of the Conference, it is
impossible to go into the details of this very complicated naval treaty, but it is
sufficient to say here that it reduced largely the number of capital ships for each
nation. It stopped any further building of capital ships, except for replacement,
and limited the calibre of the guns to be used and the tonnage of the vessels. In
this way not only are large reductions made and the burden of naval armaments
correspondingly decreased, but naval competition in guns and tonnage is brought
to an end. The naval treaty also contained an agreement not to fortify the islands
of the Pacific, with certain enumerated exceptions. Major-General Sir Frederick
Maurice, a strong supporter of the League, in an article which appeared in the
Contemporary Review of May, 1923, says: "The one effective step which has been
taken in the past few years towards the reduction of armaments has been the
Washington Conference, with which the League of Nations had no concern, and
by which a material diminution in the standing navies of the principal naval
Powers was obtained and a limit was put to the costly process of competitive
shipbuilding."
I am far from suggesting that this is all that ought to be accomplished in the way
of international disarmament, which is the only kind of disarmament that is
possible or even to be considered. Much remains to be done. The objection of
France to the limitation on submarines prevented the Conference from agreeing
to any reduction in regard to submarines or auxiliary vessels, although we limited
the tonnage of the latter and the calibre of guns which could be carried by any
ships of war not capital ships. The great merit of the Conference was that it did
not simply talk about disarmament but actually accomplished specific results
which were agreed to by the three great maritime Powers and also by Italy and
France.
In conjunction with the naval treaty was a treaty limiting the use of submarines
and prohibiting their employment for the destruction of merchant vessels. The
five maritime Powers present joined in the declaration that any commander of a
submarine sinking a merchant vessel in disregard of the rules of international law,
which were recited, should be held to be a pirate and subject to the consequent
personal punishment awarded by all nations to the crime of piracy. In this treaty
also was contained a clause inviting all nations to join in the prohibition of
poisonous gases in war.
Two Chinese treaties completed the number of six, which represented the total
work of the Conference. One of these treaties arranged for a new tariff for China,
calculated to give her a much larger revenue than she now is enabled to derive
from that source, and the other was an agreement among the signatory powers to
recognize China's political and territorial integrity and was otherwise devoted to
the maintenance of the open door and the prevention of the acquisition of special
rights by any of the signers. In addition, the Conference passed several
resolutions, as has already been said, which will be very beneficial to the
liberation of China and the establishment there of a strong and generally
recognized free government. This was a service to the general peace of the world
of real moment. We have had no international agreement which has practically
accomplished as much for the peace of the world as the work of the Conference
which met at Washington, although it applies only to the Far East and to the
islands of the Pacific. These treaties have been ratified by all the nations present,
nine in number.
There were also some important treaties, not made by the signatory powers of the
Conference but growing out of the Conference, which were quite as valuable as
those which the members of the Conference signed themselves. One was the
treaty between Japan and China which was due to the good offices of the United
States and Great Britain and by the terms of which Japan withdrew from
Shantung and thus wiped out the unfortunate agreement in regard to that
province which appeared in the treaty of Versailles. Another treaty was that
between the United States and Japan which settled the questions in regard to
cables, growing out of the possession of the Island of Yap and the Japanese
mandate for the former German islands in the Pacific north of the Equator. These
two treaties, each having only two signatories, have been not only ratified but
ratifications have been exchanged. They are now in effect and the Japanese troops
have been withdrawn from Shantung.
In completion of the work of the Conference, the Lansing-Ishii Agreement, which

had been the cause of very grave disputes and was a very threatening feature as
well as a stumbling block in the situation in the Far East, was cancelled by the
exchange of notes between Mr. Hughes and Mr. Hanihara, now Ambassador of
Japan to the United States.
After the conclusion of the Conference and the ratification by the Senate of the
treaties made by the members of the Conference in the spring of 1922, came the
meeting of the representatives of Chile and Peru in Washington brought about by
the good offices of the United States and under the very able management of
Secretary Hughes. They reached an agreement which it is believed will put an end
to that long-standing difference between these two important nations on the West
Coast of South America. This has been comparatively little noticed perhaps in this
country, except by persons who closely follow our foreign relations, but there
have been few negotiations affecting South America which have had a greater
importance than this agreement which has thus been completed between Chile
and Peru. The arbitration commission agreed to by the Conference of May 15,
1922, is at this moment meeting in Washington to hear the arguments and reach a
conclusion as to the settlement of this long-standing and dangerous dispute.
In December, 1922, by the influence of the United States, a conference was held
in Washington to negotiate a treaty making effective the provisions of the treaties
of 1907 in the interest of better relations and of cooperation among the Central
American States—Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Salvador. It is to
be hoped that this renewal of the policy of Mr. Root will be successful, for some
unification among these Central American states is of serious importance to the
peace of that region.
On August 10, 1922, supplementary to the Treaty with Germany, a convention

was signed for the settlement of the claims against the German Empire, claims
which had arisen before the United States entered the war in 1917. This was
important for restoring good relations with Germany, because the existence of
these claims unsettled has been a constant source of irritation.
Before adjournment in March, 1923, moreover, we came to an agreement with

Great Britain as to the settlement of the British debt to the United States. It is not
necessary here to enter into the financial details of that agreement, but no more
important international agreement has been made than that which settled the
British debt and thereby removed one of the most dangerous features of the war
so far as the relations of Great Britain and the United States were concerned. It
was also a step toward the general settlement of all war debts.
When Congress met last December they found a large number of treaties which
had been made during the long recess and which were then submitted to the
Senate. Since the Senate met in December, 1923, there have come before it some
twenty-nine treaties, including the treaty with Cuba to determine the title to the
Isle of Pines, which has been pending for nearly twenty years, and the message of
the President sent in a year ago in regard to the adhesion of the United States to
the protocol of the League, with reservations by which the United States would
accept the Permanent Court of International Justice established by the League,
and which is still pending. There have been twenty treaties ratified by the Senate
since Congress met in December. Many of the treaties which have thus been
ratified were routine agreements, such as the renewal of the Root treaties of
1907, which must be renewed every five years. Among them, however, were
several of a general and much more important character which have a direct
bearing on the international relations of the United States upon the largest scale,
and all of which tend to aid in the promotion of peace and the stabilization of
conditions among the nations of the earth, especially the great maritime and
trading nations.
It will be remembered that in the Treaty of Versailles the colonies and other
possessions of Germany which were taken from Germany under that treaty were
given absolutely to the five Principal Allied and Associated Powers; that is, to the
United States, Great Britain, France, Italy, and Japan. To those five nations passed
the title to all the German possessions outside of Europe. I think all the European
transfers were made by special items in the Treaty. This of course gave to each of
those five nations an undivided fifth of the German possessions. The United States
neither sought nor desired to take any of the possessions or territories thus
surrendered by Germany, but the title of the United States to an undivided one-
fifth of those possessions of course remained. Although the United States did not
desire to reduce to possession this undivided one-fifth interest, it became
necessary, after these territories or colonies had been assigned to any of the other
four Powers holding the remaining four-fifths, that the rights of the United States
and all the privileges already held by the United States by treaty should be
recognized and renewed by the mandatory Powers—the recipients of the
remaining four-fifths. To carry out this purpose were made the treaties of the
United States with Japan in regard to the Island of Yap and the other islands of
the Pacific which had been taken from Germany and assigned to Japan. This
treaty in regard to the Island of Yap and the other islands assigned to Japan was
made, as has been said, at the time of the Washington Conference. To France had
been assigned large parts of Togoland and the Cameroons on the West Coast of
Africa, and to Belgium a valuable portion of the former German colony of East
Africa. These three treaties preserved to the United States all the rights acquired
by any of the mandatories, with certain other provisions peculiar to the United
States. The agreements thus protected all the trading and other rights of the
United States and were of much importance in settling questions of this character
which grew out of the mandates under the Treaty of Versailles. These three
treaties have all been ratified by the Senate during the past winter.
Another treaty of very great importance which was sent to the Senate in January
and which has been recently ratified by the Senate is that known as the "Treaty
with Great Britain to aid in the prevention of the smuggling of intoxicating liquors
into the United States." The enforcement of the legislation made necessary by the
Eighteenth Amendment produced a condition in regard to the smuggling of
liquors which required immediate attention, because this enforcement involved
the seizure and search of vessels operated under the British flag. It is a matter of
general knowledge that there is no subject upon which all nations are more
sensitive, and justly so, than any exercise of authority by a foreign power which
interferes with shipping and the privileges of the flag. Such enforcement was sure
to give rise to many troublesome and very possibly to some dangerous questions.
To remedy this most undesirable situation, this treaty with Great Britain in regard
to the smuggling of liquors was made. Under the treaty which has been adopted
the right is given to the United States, within certain prescribed limits beyond the
territorial three-mile limit, to search and seize vessels, as to which, in the opinion
of the United States Government, there is reason to believe that infraction of the
law of the United States in regard to intoxicating liquors has occurred or is
occurring, or that such infraction is planned and intended. In return, the United
States agrees that intoxicating liquors brought in a British steamship for its own
use and not to be landed or used in the United States may be carried under seal
and not be liable to any penalty or forfeiture. This is the solution of questions
which are both delicate and difficult, and it is believed that similar treaties will
soon be made between the United States and other countries possessing vessels
engaged in trade with the United States.
There is one other treaty which has just been ratified by the Senate, to which little
attention has been paid but which is of a very large importance. At the
International Conference of American States on May 3, 1923, the delegates of the
United States and of the other States present, signed a treaty to prevent conflicts
between the American States. Its first article provided as follows:
"All controversies which for any cause whatsoever may arise between two or more
of the High Contracting Parties and which it has been impossible to settle through
diplomatic channels, or to submit to arbitration in accordance with existing
treaties, shall be submitted for investigation and report to a Commission to be
established in the manner provided for in Article IV. The High Contracting Parties
undertake, in case of disputes, not to begin mobilization or concentration of
troops on the frontier of the other Party, nor to engage in any hostile acts or
preparations for hostilities, from the time steps are taken to convene the
Commission until the said Commission has rendered its report or until the
expiration of the time provided for in Article VII."
This is a very important agreement for the promotion and maintenance of the
peace of the world on the American continents. Sixteen of the American states
signed this treaty at Santiago, including the United States, Chile, Brazil, and
Argentina. Peru, Bolivia, and Mexico have not yet joined, but it is open to them to
adhere to the treaty. This treaty, simple as it is—for there is nothing new in the
idea of a commission to meet and report, thereby bringing a delay of a year before
warlike steps may be taken in any controversy—is a real and effective provision
for the exclusion of war from North and South America. One reason for its
meeting with a large measure of success among the American states is because it
has not attempted too much, but it is an excellent example of the practical work
that has been done by the United States for the promotion of world peace.
I have said that Mexico has not signed this treaty, but the present Administration
has done a work of very conspicuous merit in regard to the relations of the United
States and Mexico. From the time of Mr. Taft's Administration, Mexico had been
in a condition of almost constant conflict, and frequently of mere anarchy, until
General Obregon came into power. It has been the policy of the United States
during the last three years to endeavor to bring this unhappy condition to an end
and we have declined to recognize the Obregon Administration until certain rights
and claims of the United States had been fully and sufficiently recognized and
provided for. In the autumn of 1923 two commissioners, Colonel Warren, of
Michigan, and Mr. John Barton Payne, Secretary of the Interior in Mr. Wilson's
Cabinet, went as Commissioners to Mexico and settled the outstanding questions,
so that we have now recognized Mexico and two of the claims conventions have
been signed and ratified by the Senate during the past winter. This is not only of
value to the world's peace, where Mexico has been for many years a disturbing
element, but it is also of most immediate value to the United States.
I have thus, briefly and quite imperfectly, as I am aware, described the actual
work in foreign relations as carried on by the United States with very efficient
results, which are both large and important, since 1921. This brief recital of what
has been actually accomplished is also of some interest as showing the general
activities of the United States in the broad field of our foreign relations. It may
likewise throw some light upon some of the cant phrases which are used in debate
of any kind. Cant phrases are often of high political efficiency, but they are never
an argument, any more than an emotion is a thought. For example, there is the
now familiar word "jingo." The history of the word is quite curious. The word itself
is a very old English word, an ancient expletive or oath, in use at least as early as
the reign of Elizabeth. It came into general vogue in 1877-80 at the time of the
Beaconsfield administration, when there was the question of war in the East with
Russia. The music-halls then had a song of which one stanza is still well
remembered:
"We don't want to fight, but by jingo, if we do,
We've got the ships, we've got the men, we've got the money, too."
The word "jingo" gradually was extended from this meaning until it came into
common use as an expression calculated to discredit anybody who was not at a
given moment, or generally and at all times, a pacifist. I remember well its
general employment at the time of the war with Spain for the liberation of Cuba.
The term was later applied as a form of obloquy to all who advocated a sufficient
navy, and finally it was fastened on those who, when the Great War began,
pleaded with their countrymen for preparation on the part of the United States if
forced to enter the war, which even then darkened the whole world with its evil
shadow. When we look back at that terrible time and think what our refusal to
make any preparation cost this country in lives and treasure, we can see how vast
an injury an utterly misleading epithet may sometimes cause.
In the same way, those who favor our taking part in European politics and wish
the United States to become an integral part of the European political system, use
the word "isolationist" in order to discredit those who differ with them. There is
no such thing as an "isolationist," of course, in the United States, and there never
has been, because "isolationist," if strictly interpreted, means naturally that those
to whom it is applied believe that the United States should pursue a policy of
isolation and separate itself from the doings and interests and affairs of the rest of
the world. I repeat, there is no such thing as an "isolationist" in the United States
and there never has been, and the United States has never been isolated. The rest
of the world could not isolate us and we have never done it or thought of doing it
ourselves. Indeed it may be doubted if there are any people in the world today
who can possibly be termed "isolationists" except perhaps the Thibetans, and we
are very unlike the Thibetans. There was a long period after the Civil War when
there was very little interest in foreign affairs in the United States, because the
people were absorbed in developing the country and pushing to the westward
their peaceful conquest of the continent which was theirs. But this is a very
different thing from a policy or a principle. We have, however, a better test even
than this. Let us see exactly what this "isolated" country has done in connection
with international affairs and in the field of diplomacy.
From 1789 to 1923, the Senate has given its advice and consent to 582 treaties,
conventions, and agreements which are or have been in force.[i] In this list are
not included treaties approved by the Senate but which have not come into force
owing to the failure of the other signatories to ratify; nor treaties approved by the
Senate with amendments which have failed of ratification by the President; nor
postal conventions, which are negotiated by the Postmaster General by and with
the advice and consent of the President; nor the numerous international
agreements made by the President through an exchange of notes. Only eleven
treaties in 136 years have been rejected by the Senate. This does not include
those treaties, few in number, on which no action has been taken by the Senate
and most of which have been withdrawn. Since the first refusal of the Senate to
give its advice and consent to the Treaty of Versailles on November 19, 1919, the
United States has entered into forty-five international treaties, conventions, and
agreements, all requiring the consent of the Senate. To say, in the presence of
these statistics, that the United States is "isolated" would seem to be more
picturesque than veracious. The United States is also, as this list shows, not only
perfectly ready but anxious to do its part in advancing the peace of the world and
promoting in every way the security of mankind against the horrors of war. It also
indicates, if we compare what has been done by the United States alone in actual
substantive agreements, and not merely in an output of excellent words and fine
language, that the United States in acting with complete independence can be
more helpful to the world than in any other way.
Not much attention is paid to what is done in the great field of international
relations by the United States. What the United States has accomplished, with the
exception of the Washington Conference, has taken but little of the valuable and
otherwise occupied space of the newspapers. For instance, not long ago, Mr.
Norman Davis' settlement of the Memel question was widely advertised.
My first knowledge of this word "Memel" came to me when I was a small boy of
nine reading or rather devouring the Waverley Novels. In one of the most famous,
in "Guy Mannering"—which I have read I cannot say how many times since—is the
passage about Dirk Hatteraick who suddenly breaks his silence before the Court,
when the measurements of his footprints at the Warroch Head are presented, and
says: "How could there be a foot-mark on the ground, when it was a frost as hard
as the heart of a Memel log?" I did not know what or where Memel was nor why
the logs of Memel were so hard, but the strange name for some reason touched
my imagination and has always remained held fast by memory. Time brought but
slight addition of knowledge to the boyish memory, nothing beyond the fact that
Memel was a seaport town of the Baltic coast and in East Prussia. Then came the
Treaty of Versailles and Memel passed into the possession of the five Principal
Allied and Associated Powers with a controversy attached and just now settled by
Mr. Davis for the League of Nations. Memel is a seaport in a region where ports
are scarce. The town has a population of 32,000 people and still exports logs "no
doubt with hard hearts."
Now, without any infringement of Dogberry's warning against "comparisons," but

merely to show the work of the United States in international matters, let me
allude briefly to the contemporaneous case of Mexico. Mexico, where the United
States has just effected a settlement which it is to be hoped may endure, is in
natural resources one of the richest countries in the world. It has 15 million
people and an overseas trade of large value in the world's commerce. It has an
area of 767,000 square miles, larger than that of Germany, Italy, Great Britain,
Ireland, and France, the areas of which combined are 643,000 square miles. I do
not mean for a moment to suggest that the settlement which we have made with
Mexico and the consequent recognition is of equal importance, or that Mexico is
to be compared with Memel, but it would appear that the arrangement with
Mexico, difficult as that country is for the purposes of any permanent
arrangement, has thus far fared better than the Memel agreement, for if recent
despatches are correct, the Memel agreement has been protested against by
Poland, while Lithuania, the other principal party to the controversy, is very
discontented with it.
That illustrates what I mean when I speak of the substantive work of the United
States in foreign affairs. We did not for instance talk about disarmament. We are
well aware that we did not effect all that could be effected, but our efforts toward
international disarmament were real and the limitations on calibres of guns and
the size of ships were not confined to mere language. We brought about and
carried through the Washington Conference wholly outside the League, and our
detachment from the quarrels of Europe made it possible for us to do it.
I have ventured to make this brief enumeration of what the Government of the
United States has been doing during the past three years for only one reason, and
that is a very simple one. All reflecting men and women who think not only about
the welfare of the world but about its future are agreed as to the horrors of war
and the vital necessity of doing everything we can to prevent the recurrence of
wars. The differences of opinion that have arisen are really, if we analyze them
coolly, merely differences of method. The United States, as I have shown, has
never been isolated, never can be isolated, and has no desire to be isolated. The
people of the United States are not only ready but willing and desirous to help
their fellow-men, especially those of western civilization, in any way that is
possible. The great majority of the people of the United States, as has been
indicated by the election of 1920, are of opinion that the League of Nations is not
the best way to do it; that the League leads to involving the United States in
Europe. Many most worthy and excellent people find in the League the only
possible solution of the present difficulties of the world. The Colonial spirit is not
wholly dead and there seem to be people who cannot yet believe that the United
States in world affairs can go alone and effect any results. The habit of the
Colonial mind still clings to them. When it comes to foreign affairs they think of
the days when if there was war in Europe "black men fought on the coast of
Coromandel and red men scalped each other by the Great Lakes of North
America." They forget that since the American Revolution the people of the United
States have built up the greatest power in the world unaided and alone with no
help from Europe and with few kind words. They forget that the United States
only seven years ago went to the rescue of freedom and civilization in Europe of
their own motion, unbound by any obligations. They need to be reminded that the
United States has grown up and can be helpful to mankind, now as in the past, in
its own good time and way.
It seems to me that the United States can best serve the world, first, by
preserving its own strength and the fabric of its civilization, which is the great
bulwark at the present moment between the civilized world and anarchy, and help
humanity most fully by being detached from the European system and giving and
helping independently, freely and in their own fashion. Rome was not built in a
day and it will take a long time wholly to prevent wars. We must be content to
advance step by step. America and Europe are entirely different. All the
conditions and situations are different. The people of the United States live in a
new country, that is, I mean new to western civilization. They came here to get rid
of Europe, many of them; some to worship God in their own way and carry on
their governments in their own way. They were freed from the long warhabit of
Europe. They have a neighbor to the north, a kindred race, whose prosperity is
almost as much cherished by the people of the United States as their own. Europe
has the inheritance of conflict and wars—wars which have gone on for many
centuries. We cannot understand the feeling that those wars and hatreds have
engendered. As the generations have succeeded each other in the United States
all those old feelings for good or ill which exist in Europe have passed away. We
are outside Europe and for that very reason if we keep our own independence and
do not entangle ourselves with the difficulties and quarrels which Europe
understands and which we do not understand, we can be of more service to the
peace and welfare of the world, it seems to me, than in any other way.
Let the League, which was made in Europe and belongs to Europe, go on there
and prosper. We wish it well, but let us, refraining from permanent alliances
against which Washington warned us, go on in our own way and try
disinterestedly and without taint of foreign influences to help Europe and the
affairs of Europe in every possible way, the way to be determined by us. Let us
make it our policy that what we shall do and when we shall do it shall be
determined by us, who sought neither land, nor money, nor reparations at the end
of the war. In the diplomatic history of the United States during these past three
years I think we have good and practical evidence of the soundness of this
doctrine.
[i] Prior to the first session of the Senate in 1789 eleven treaties were made at
different dates (beginning with the Treaty of Alliance with France) between the
United States and Great Britain, France and the Netherlands.
HENRY CABOT LODGE, United States Senator from Massachusetts
June 15,1924
American Foreign Policy: a
Democratic View
Norman H. Davis
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
Norma H. Davis
THE foreign policy of the Government of the United States should be a national
policy, not a Democratic policy, nor a Republican policy. It should be one which
will bring the greatest moral and material benefits to this country, and to the
world in which we have a most important stake. Unfortunately, there is today a
difference in the foreign policies of the Democratic and Republican Parties. This
has been brought about partly by a difference in domestic policies, but chiefly by
a partisan controversy which arose more than four years ago over the ratification
of the Treaty of Versailles.
The foreign policy of a political party is usually of the same cloth as its domestic
policy. The domestic policy of the Democratic Party is to do away with privilege as
between individuals, and to secure the cooperation of all citizens for the common
good; its standard of success is not the wealth of a few individuals, but the welfare
of the people as a whole. Its foreign policy is to do away with privilege as between
nations, and to secure the coöperation of all nations for their mutual welfare. The
Republican Party, on the other hand, acts upon the theory that special privileges
are essential for national prosperity, that tariff bounties must be granted to some,
in order that those who are thus enriched may diffuse their wealth and allow it to
seep down to the masses. Democrats hold that such an economic theory is
unsound. The theory that a few must be enriched by governmental aid in order
that they may in turn help others is repugnant to Democratic principles. This
fundamental difference in the theories of the two parties in respect of domestic
questions leads them to approach foreign questions from a somewhat different
point of view. One is more concerned with the human aspects of problems, the
other with material aspects. One abhors privilege in any form, the other likes it in
certain ways.
I further believe that the Republican Party has chosen its foreign policy as
wrongly from the point of view of material expediency as from the humanitarian
and moral point of view.
Since Washington in his Farewell Address first gave to the American people those
principles of friendship for all nations, and partial alliances with none, which
served us so well in the early days of our independence, and down to the World
War, the foreign policy of the United States has seldom entered into domestic
politics nor has it changed greatly with changes of administration. The rule was
that it should not be made a partisan political question, but should in general be
determined in accordance with our traditional principles of impartial dealings
with all nations, partial, entangling alliances with none.
With the complete transformation in conditions of life and with the new
interdependence between various parts of the world resulting from the
unprecedented scientific and industrial development of the last half-century,
America's relation to the rest of the world was changed. The World War proved it
startlingly. The assassin's shot at Sarajevo, the bombardment of Belgrade, started
a chain of events in which the sinking of the Lusitania and Chateau-Thierry
proved to be inevitable links. As the war extended, and caught us in the net, it
became apparent that the only way to avoid the evil consequences of the
European system of alliances, the fatal Balance of Power, was to do away with
that system, and substitute for it a general covenant for peace between all the
sovereign nations of the world. Even prior to the outbreak of the war statesmen in
many lands had been discussing plans of this character. The leaders of thought in
both parties in the United States had advocated a League to Enforce Peace, but
efforts had been directed primarily towards the adoption of an international code
which should make wars more humane and protect the rights of non-belligerents.
The World War proved conclusively that once a modern war breaks loose it cannot
be controlled, and that once it becomes general in character, so called
international laws lose their effectiveness. In such a general war no great nation
can find means to protect its rights save by the use of force. The United States
was not immune from the operation of the rule.
During the world struggle President Wilson became the outstanding spokesman of
all the liberal forces seeking the establishment of a better era in world affairs. He
crystallized the aspirations of mankind and gave expression to them in the
Fourteen Points, the last of which provided for an Association of Nations with
binding covenants to advance justice and preserve peace. At the time, these
principles were universally acclaimed as the major objects to be attained through
our participation in the war. They were accepted and praised by all the leading
statesmen in both political parties. They were not Democratic or Republican
principles. They were American principles.
The Covenant of the League of Nations, contained in the Treaty of Versailles, was
a practical plan to put these American principles into effect. It was simply a
pledge between sovereign nations to respect the rights of one another, and to
work steadily, openly and in concert for peace. It aimed to do away with the
secret diplomacy and the system of alliances which had led to the war. It was
designed to remove the fear of the weak and the greed of the strong--the two
main causes which lead nations to prepare for war. In essence, it was to establish
and apply as between nations the same principles as those upon which the
relationships between individuals are based in the American Democracy. It
provided rules and measures for settling disputes and securing justice through
the orderly processes of law and conciliation, without resort to armed force. It
was accepted by the masses of Europe, who were convinced by the lessons of war
that it offered the only hope of saving mankind from catastrophe.
Upon the submission of the Treaty of Versailles to the Senate for its ratification,
the acceptance of this plan by the United States became a question of partisan
strife. The controversy continued throughout the summer and fall of 1920 and was
carried into the campaign of that year.
In that campaign the Democratic Party specifically advocated entrance into the
League of Nations. The Republican Platform, while not endorsing the League,
declared in favor of a concert of nations, or agreements based upon international
justice, which "would secure instant and general international conference
whenever peace shall be threatened by political action, so that the nations
pledged to do, and insist upon doing what is just and fair, may exercise their
influence and power for the prevention of war." Since the Democratic Party was
pledged to entrance into the League of Nations, and the Republican Party
promised to join the League, with reservations, or to create something better to
be called an Association of Nations, it is clear that neither party offered the public
a chance to vote against organized international cooperation.
Yet the Republican Administration has excused its failure to create the promised
association or join the League on the surprising ground that the American people,
by a seven million majority, repudiated the whole idea of concerted international
cooperation.
Such an excuse is a serious indictment of the good faith of the Republican Party.
It means that Senator Lodge and those Republican Senators who voted for
entrance into the League, with reservations, acted in bad faith. It questions the
honesty of the Republican Platform, from which I have quoted above. It is not very
complimentary to the Republican nominee for the Presidency, who in the 1920
campaign promised international cooperation through the League or an
Association of Nations. How could any vote cast for the Republican ticket in 1920
be counted a vote against organized international cooperation in the face of these
promises and the assurance given in the famous manifesto of the thirty-one
leading intellectuals of that party, that to vote the Republican ticket was the
quickest and surest way of getting into the League of Nations and of starting such
organized cooperation quickly?
The dispute over whether the United States should enter the League of Nations is
not really an issue between the rank and file of the Republican and Democratic
Parties. It is at bottom a factional fight within the Republican Party. My belief is
that a large majority of Republicans are in favor of membership in the League of
Nations upon terms and conditions which make it clear that by such action we
shall not depart from our constitutional practices or take away from Congress its
constitutional powers; but that a few of the most positive Republican senators,
who are dominant leaders in the party organization, and who are opposed to the
League, have caused the Administration to vacillate and allow this nation to
flounder in the uncertain sea of isolation, for fear lest the Republican Party should
be disrupted. Surely it must be only for the latter reason that the Administration
sneers at the League of Nations, calls it a "foreign agency," and claims that our
relation to it is a "closed incident" at the same time that it is advocating
adherence to the World Court, established under the auspices of the League; and
is coöperating in a parsimonious, un-American and ineffective way with several of
the committees appointed and supported by the League.
The Democratic Party is united in the belief that just as it is the duty--as well as in
the interest--of individuals and sections in this country to coöperate for the
maintenance of proper relationships between the individuals and sections
composing the nation, so it is the duty--and in the interest--of the United States to
cooperate with the community of nations, of which it forms a part, for the
promotion of justice and the maintenance of peace throughout the world.
The Democratic Party holds that it was the duty--and in the interest--of the United
States to help finish the job it undertook when it entered the World War--to repair
the ravages of that war and accomplish the objects for which we had spent blood
and treasure. It was just as much our duty to do this as it was the duty of any
other nation with whom we had been associated. It was also obviously to our
advantage to cooperate as fully as possible in hastening political stability and in
restoring the industrial and economic life upon which the world's prosperity
depends.
When we joined with the Allies in disarming Germany we automatically assumed a

solemn moral responsibility towards Germany. While it was Germany's plain duty
to comply faithfully to the extent of her utmost ability with the obligations
assumed by her under the Treaty, it was equally our duty to oppose any unjust or
unreasonable demands which might be made upon her or any attempt to take
advantage of the defenseless and disarmed position in which we had helped to
place her. When the United States withdrew and refused to discharge her moral
obligations towards either victors or vanquished it was most disconcerting both to
those with whom we had fought and to those against whom we had fought.
Following our example of independent, selfish action, each nation found itself
pushed into adopting a separate, nationalistic course, a procedure which has been
as vexing and injurious to us as our independent action has been to them, and
which has held back the prosperity of the world by delaying the establishment of a
real peace.
Following their theory of special privilege, the Republicans made a separate

treaty with Germany in which they retained the worst features of the Treaty of
Versailles and discarded the best. They tried to get every material advantage out
of defeated and defenseless Germany, and dodge every moral responsibility. As
usually happens when an attempt is made to get something for nothing, we have
secured no material benefits whatever from the separate treaty with Germany,
our material interests have actually suffered, and we have lost the moral influence
which we had, and which might have been used to the great benefit of ourselves
and the world.
From the Democratic point of view, the Treaty of Versailles became iniquitous
when the moderate and stabilizing influence of America was withdrawn. Had the
United States been represented officially on the Reparation Commission, the
world's difficult progress toward economic recovery and political stability would
today be much further advanced and this country would be running a less grave
risk of becoming unduly involved in the affairs of Europe. Admirable as has been
the work of the Dawes Committee, it would have been unnecessary to appoint this
committee had the United States been officially represented on the Reparation
Commission, and had thus been able to exercise the veto power assured to us by
the treaty and to use our moral influence, which, before our desertion, was
unrivaled.
I have no desire to harp upon what the Republican Administration has done, or
failed to do, but it seems to me that we can best determine what our future course
shall be by pointing out the pitfalls and hazards of the course we have been
pursuing. Instead of meeting the problems that arose out of the war in a frank,
wise fashion, the Republican Administration has passed through several
unsuccessful stages in an endeavor to find a substitute for the League of Nations
and formulate a foreign policy upon which Republican leaders can agree and
which will meet the demands of the American people for effective international
coöperation. It called a special conference to deal with disarmament and Far
Eastern affairs, but this partial and half-hearted step seems to have exhausted all
its appetite or resource for further attempts at disarmament and at worthy
leadership in world affairs. Those of us who felt the necessity of a reassertion of
American leadership were, for a while, encouraged by that partial effort. We felt
that it would be followed by something more constructive and permanent. But the
Administration failed to follow it up, and the full benefits of it have not been
retained.
The main lesson of the Washington Conference is that such sporadic special
efforts are ineffective and incomplete. It proved that if a conference makes no
provision for a periodic reassembling, misunderstandings arise over questions
which have been agreed upon and matters which were overlooked may assume
such proportions that much of the ground gained at the conference is lost.
Misunderstandings have, in fact, arisen over the Naval Treaty, which has not
resulted in maintaining the relative ratio of naval strength contemplated. The
Washington Conference has further proved that disarmament cannot be dealt
with effectively by a few nations and that to limit certain instruments of war may
simply increase competition in other weapons (such as new inventions in chemical
warfare) for which ratios cannot be intelligently fixed. Organized, careful,
continuous conference and cooperation can deal with these matters. Occasional
showy conferences of plenipotentiaries cannot.
The Four Power Treaty signed at the Washington Conference was hailed as a
great achievement. As a matter of fact, the only nation which, under that treaty,
assumed any obligation which it had not already assumed was the United States.
Under the Covenant of the League of Nations, England, France, and Japan were
previously committed to conference and negotiation whenever peace was
threatened in any quarter. Under the Four Power Treaty, they are committed to
confer with the United States in case peace is threatened in the Pacific, but they
are not thereby freed from their obligation under the Covenant to confer also with
all the members of the League. From this point of view the Four Power Treaty
seems actually to commit us to negotiations in which we might find ourselves at a
serious disadvantage, for according to its provisions we must before taking any
action confer with England, France, and Japan, who may be in turn engaged with
other interested nations in vital negotiations to which we are not a party.
The Republican Party, in keeping with the general tenor of its domestic policy,
attempted in the Four Power Treaty to create in the Pacific a sphere of special
privilege for four chosen Powers. Chile, with as long a Pacific coast line as our
own, and Russia and other powers with important interests and rights in the
Pacific were ignored and excluded. This treaty committed the United States to
join with a special group of powers for the maintenance of the status quo in the
Pacific. It thus had all the earmarks of a partial alliance, which was the one thing
Washington most earnestly advised against. In order to overcome these
objections, and to bring this treaty into harmony with our traditional principles,
the Democrats in the Senate proposed that all powers with interests in the Pacific
should be permitted to become parties to it. The Administration opposed such
action. But the more dangerous aspects of the treaty were, to a great extent,
nullified by the adoption of a reservation proposed by Republican senators to the
effect that the treaty shall not commit us to anything except to talk.
The United States could assure itself of all the alleged advantages of the Four
Power Treaty, and could get rid of all its disadvantages, by entering the League of
Nations, or by so widening the treaty's scope as to include all powers with
interests in the Pacific. Such would be the Democratic policy.
On April 15th, in his keynote speech before the Republican State Convention in
New York, Secretary Hughes appeared anxious for the Administration to get all
the credit possible for its achievements at the Washington Conference, and at the
same time to demonstrate that by avoiding membership in the League the United
States had escaped being made the catspaw of rival and ambitious nations in
Europe. The only score on which he could fairly make a differentiation between
associating with the members of the League in Geneva and with the
representatives of England, France, and Japan at Washington, would be that the
United States is concerned in the affairs of the Pacific but not in those of Europe.
If he holds such a theory after the events of 1914 and 1917 I can only say that I do
not agree with him, and that I do not believe the common-sense of the American
people will allow them to agree with him. If it is safe to attend such a conference
as that held at Washington, if the United States was able to help the nations
represented there to bury their rival ambitions and was able to achieve ends
desirable to its own interests and helpful to the cause of world peace, why try to
argue at the next moment that similar rival ambitions could not be dissipated in
the friendly atmosphere of Geneva with the impartial aid of American
representatives? A unanimous vote of the Council is required in all important
matters. A nation's own vote therefore protects it. After all, the powers of the
Council are advisory rather than executive. Certainly it is less dangerous to be in
constant contact with nations through a permanent organization like the League
than to wait to call a haphazard special conference to settle some matter that has
become so threatening that it may well be beyond control.
American diplomatic representatives are accredited to every nation which is a

member of the League. We do not seem to be contaminated by consorting with
the governments of those nations individually. What is the objection to dealing
with them collectively? Every argument of convenience and effectiveness favors
such a course.
An effort has of late been made to give the impression that the Monroe Doctrine is
competent, single-handed, to preserve world peace and safeguard the world-wide
interests of the United States. The Monroe Doctrine, which has existed for one
hundred years, did not prevent the World War and it did not keep us out of that
war. Furthermore, every effort to expand the Monroe Doctrine merely frightens
and alienates the Latin-American countries, whose attitude toward the United
States today is markedly less friendly than it has ever been since they attained
nationhood and independence.
The purpose of the Monroe Doctrine was to prevent the European system from
reaching out to this hemisphere. But while it was designed to permit the Latin-
American countries to work out their own salvation without interference from
Europe, it was never intended to give the United States the power to dominate
them and dictate to them. Of the details of Republican policy in Latin America I
cannot speak, because it is described by Republican speakers only in generalities.
But the evil effects of that policy are only too plain. The Democratic Party favors a
policy of cooperation with the Latin-American countries which would restore and
strengthen the friendly relations which have heretofore existed, and which would
assign to the Monroe Doctrine only the role for which it was intended.
The Democratic Party favors the independence of the Philippines. The granting of
independence could be accompanied by such provisions for helpful guidance and
assistance from this nation as may be mutually satisfactory. It does not feel that
this country should be the sole judge as to whether or not the Philippines should
be independent, and it does not believe that it should fix some date a few years
hence for granting independence to the Philippines, as the Republicans have
done. How can we tell that the Philippines will be any better prepared for
independence in sixteen years than they are today? The Democratic Party
recognizes the trend of the times. The old autocratic conception that colonies are
not entitled to self-government so long as the dominant nation happens to feel
that they are better off under its tutelage is outgrown--and justly.
A comparison of the 1924 platforms of the two parties shows very clearly the
difference in policy in regard to foreign affairs. The Republicans, having
abandoned their promise of an Association of Nations, now make a promise of
adhering to the Permanent Court of International Justice. They say that the
American people have put the stamp of finality on the repudiation of the League.
They promise cooperation with other nations in humanitarian and economic
problems through charity and by means of "unofficial" observers. But they intend
in the future, as they claim to have done in the past, to keep our hands off all
"political" questions.
The Democratic Party, realizing that the World War, from participation in which
we were not immune, was caused by political ambitions as well as economic
rivalries, and that economic recovery cannot be achieved without political
settlements, considers it the part of wisdom to cooperate with other nations in
reducing every point of friction which retards the reëstablishment of trade and
prosperity or threatens the peace of the world. If we are to regain and hold the
moral prestige which was ours under the leadership of Woodrow Wilson we must
boldly and honorably and intelligently assume the obligations which we, as the
most powerful of nations, owe to the world. We cannot hold ourselves
superciliously aloof, congratulating ourselves that we are different from other
nations and not concerned in their problems and difficulties. It is our plain duty,
to ourselves and to all humanity, to take part in, and to give our moral and official
support to, every honest coöperative effort of civilization to outlaw war.
America should not be content to have "unofficial observers" peeping in under the
curtain at international conferences. They serve only to fool a few Americans at
home and to put America in a ridiculous position abroad. Europe does not
understand the theory of international intercourse which prompts the sending of
government officials to important international conferences to state the attitude
of the United States of America toward vital international matters, but which
instructs them to begin every sentence with the words "Of course I do not speak
for the United States Government, but--" A government official sent abroad has in
the past been either an accredited diplomat, ready to state his government's
considered attitude and to take the consequences of the adoption of that attitude,
or a secret agent, a spy. In attempting to combine the prestige of the former with
the irresponsibility of the latter the Republican Administration has not raised the
world's opinion of American statesmanship nor evolved an effective manner of
dealing with the problems confronting it on every continent.
Nor, by the same token, should we leave to private citizens, acting on invitations
from foreign governments, the task of helping to bring order out of world chaos.
This sort of participation is inadequate, undignified and cowardly. The problems
of the day are too great, too vital to our security and prosperity, to be left to this
haphazard treatment. They should be dealt with, because they could be better
dealt with, by officials and delegates of the United States Government, chosen
and trained for the work, empowered to speak for America in measured and
responsible terms.
Without the surrender of any sovereignty, without meddling in the domestic

affairs of any nation or in any matters which do not concern the United States,
without seeking to impose our will on other nations, without entering into
agreements which would diminish the rights of Congress, without committing
ourselves in advance to any action in unknown circumstances, America could, and
the Democratic Party believes it should, throw all of its power and prestige into
the struggle to increase international good will and secure international peace
and prosperity.
The argument against the proposed form of international coöperation which

loomed so large in the last campaign--the fears of foreign entanglements, of lost
sovereignty--like the arguments in favor of extreme and absolute isolation--have
been destroyed by exposure to time and experience. Four years of fruitful and
beneficent operation have demonstrated that the League of Nations is none of
those fearsome things which the enemies of Woodrow Wilson pretended to think it
was. The actual accomplishments of the League have confirmed the faith of the
Democratic Party in the broad vision of its fallen leader. The League is not
perfect, it is handicapped by the absence of the United States and Germany, but it
represents an honest attempt to substitute law for war. The Democratic Party has
waited in vain for the Republican Administration to propose a substitute. There is
no substitute. The League is the only solid foundation on which to build the hope
of permanent peace. The thought of millions of people who yearn for peace is
centered at Geneva.
The Democratic Party is opposed to America's taking advantage of some of the

services of the League, as the Republican Platform boasts of doing, without
paying our share in the organization's expenses. It would better comport with the
dignity of the United States, as it would better serve our interests, to accept our
full share in this attempt at world organization.
It is just because the Democratic Party is opposed to "foreign entanglements" that

it opposes the Republican policy of sitting back and letting other nations pursue a
course which may again involve us in a world war. The Democratic Party is not
willing to have fifty-four nations about a council table anywhere, dealing with
questions which concern the peace and welfare of all the world, and not have
America present officially to safeguard her own interests and to throw her
influence on the right side. It is confident that the policy it advocates is a fitting
policy for America, in accord with the traditions which have made us strong in the
past, in accord with our present interests, and in accord with our aspirations for
the future. It is confident that such a policy will have the full support of the
American people.
In its platform of 1924 the Democratic Party has pledged itself, if entrusted with
power, to adopt forthwith a policy of open official international cooperation
instead of the furtive and unofficial cooperation now practised by the Republican
Administration. It has furthermore reaffirmed its confidence in the ideals of the
League of Nations and its belief that the United States could cooperate more
satisfactorily and effectively as a member of the League. Since the question of
membership in the League has been confused by party strife, and since a foreign
policy, to be effective, must be backed by a united nation, the Democratic Party
has pledged itself to try to lift this question above partisanship and establish
international cooperation as a fixed national policy. There is, of course, a
difference between official coöperation with the League and membership in the
League. The President has the power and the duty, under the Constitution, to
direct the foreign relations of the United States and he may, to the extent that he
deems it necessary to discharge his duties and safeguard the interests of this
country, send official representatives to deal with any foreign governments or
participate in any international conferences. He may not, however, accept
membership in the League of Nations without the consent of the Senate, because
that involves becoming a party to the Covenant which is in effect a treaty that
requires approval by the Senate. As a means, therefore, of raising the question
above party, the Democrats have proposed that an advisory referendum be held to
test public sentiment in regard to membership in the League.
My personal opinion is that a referendum is not necessary to sense public opinion

or get a non-partisan consideration of this question. It cannot relieve the
President and the Senate of their constitutional powers and duties in respect to
foreign relations. I believe the American people prefer to express their will
through the representatives selected by them, and in accordance with our long-
established constitutional methods. If the sentiment of the American people is in
favor of membership in the League, as is my conviction, it will ultimately reach
and influence the Senate. If, upon conditions acceptable to the President and the
Senate, it is possible to get the Covenant ratified, it would amply demonstrate the
extent of popular, non-partisan support for the League, and it certainly would not
be necessary or advisable to resort to a referendum.
Since a large majority of the Republican Senators have at one time or another, in
one form or another, voted for membership in the League, there is reason to hope
that after a survey of past experience and faced with the situation that may then
exist abroad, the President and the Senate can agree on conditions upon which
the United States would accept League membership.
The Democratic Party is in favor of a foreign policy in keeping with American

ideals and conditions, and one which the American people can understand. It
believes that it is as impossible as it is unnecessary to attempt to separate foreign
and domestic policies. The same ideals of honesty and efficiency, of dignity and
decency, should inspire the policies of this Republic at home and abroad. The
gross materialism which has wrecked the cabinet of the present Administration
has not merely shaken the confidence of the American people; it has decreased
our influence and standing throughout the world. It is only as the spirit of
cooperation develops at home, only as the spirit of fair play and equal opportunity,
to which the Democratic Party is pledged, is made dominant in our domestic
politics, that we can hope for healthy, national progress, or deserve to regain the
high position of leadership among the nations which we enjoyed under a
Democratic Administration.
NORMAN H. DAVIS, Financial Advisor to the American Peace Commission and Assistant Secretary of the Treasury,
1919; Under-Secretary of State, 1920-21
September 15,1924
Republican View
Theodore E. Burton
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
Theodore E. Burton
When Colonel House wrote his article, "America in World Affairs: A Democratic
View," for the June issue of FOREIGN AFFAIRS, he was obviously preparing a
campaign document. Whatever constructive suggestions he may have offered,
however, were either rudely rejected by the Democratic National Convention or
submerged in a mass of vague generalities coupled with unsupported allegations
and vituperation against Republicans. One may search in vain in the Democratic
Platform for any definite or forward-looking policy in foreign affairs.
Aside from questions which exclusively relate to foreign policy, there is but one
Democratic argument to which the scope of the present article will justify an
answer, and that is the claim set forth in the Democratic Platform and advanced
in the article of Colonel House that Republican control has curtailed foreign trade.
Criticism has rested especially upon the Tariff Act of 1922. The plain facts utterly
disprove the Democratic contention. A comparison of the eighteen months
succeeding the enactment of that measure with the eighteen months preceding
shows that imports into this country increased by 41 percent, or in an amount
totaling $1,670,000,000. There has been a notable increase in the importation of
manufactured articles subject to duty. Exports also increased by 12 percent.
Another fact disproves this Democratic argument so commonly advanced. The

volume of American trade during the life of the present administration as
compared with that in the years preceding the war has shown a far greater
increase than that of England, France, Germany, or any other prominent
commercial country. This is true because the United States is now enjoying
political stability, and its natural companion, material prosperity. The very serious
situation as regards exports of wheat and some other farm products is so readily
explained that no elaborate statement is necessary. The waste and the abnormal
demand which were features of the war period have ceased. At the same time,
agricultural production in Europe has experienced a rapid and substantial
recovery, and competition from outlying portions of the world, as from Canada,
Argentina, Australia, and India, has caused serious inroads on the demands made
upon the United States.
The Democratic Convention did not see fit to adopt the suggestion of Colonel
House that the United States become an associate member of the League of
Nations, but instead adopted a plank which for evasion and for the attempt to
satisfy both advocates and opponents is unsurpassedly ludicrous.
That plank, after praising the League with only the sky as a limit, and stating that
there is no substitute for it as an agency for peace, favors entrance only after a
referendum, a proposal for which there is no constitutional warrant or practical
method, and which would necessarily involve interminable delay. Such a plan is
manifestly impracticable and absurd. The futility of leaving a decision to a
national referendum could not be more clearly set forth than in the address of the
Honorable Newton D. Baker at the Democratic Convention. Thus we have the
spectacle of a political party abandoning what was its foremost principle in 1920,
and substituting for it an empty promise. What confidence can the people repose
in the foreign policy of a party which beats such a pitiable retreat? The
Republican Platform was unequivocal in its opposition to membership in the
League, at this time.
There are many in the Republican Party who regard the League of Nations as a
most worthy conception, and who favored membership in it if limited by proper
reservations; but further consideration in the light of later developments has
brought a realization of very serious objections. The present Republican attitude
toward the League, therefore, can be most aptly expressed in the words of
President Coolidge, who called it "at least the attempted expression of a noble
aspiration for world association and understanding," in which, however, America
sees, "whether intended or not, a diminution of its independence and in its
provisions the final sanction not of conscience but of force." The President's
renunciation of membership was not an avoidance of duty to the world, for of that
duty he is fully conscious. "We realize," he said in his first address to Congress,
"the common bond of humanity, we know the inescapable law of service." On
another occasion, he said: "We must meet these burdens and overcome them or
they will meet us and overcome us."
The treaty in which the League most unfortunately was incorporated was framed
at a time when the very natural passions aroused by the war were a dominating
factor. It imposed terms as to reparations impossible of fulfilment. Force was
regarded as the best guaranty of future peace. Instead of looking to the
abatement of hatreds and antagonisms, the treaty was framed for their
perpetuation. The map of Europe was remade, and that without regard to natural
boundaries. Countries which through generations had grown to be economic units
were dismembered. Large populations of superior culture and advancement were
placed under the control of those notably inferior. Military considerations
received undue weight in the fixing of borders. An express provision was even
included in the Covenant of the League to render permanent these boundaries so
hastily agreed upon. The whole map of Europe is covered with illustrations of the
careless consideration given to this subject.
Equally disappointing to advocates of the League have been developments since

the Treaty of Versailles was written. Imperialistic ambitions for territorial
expansion and commercial advantages have all the while been in evidence. The
stronger nations have refused, even within the League, to afford equality of
treatment to the weaker. Propositions for disarmament have been framed, but
nothing has been accomplished because the conflicting passions of the dominant
European nations and their fear of each other's motives have prevented any
agreement.
One of the most important provisions in the Covenant of the League of Nations
was Article XVII, which provides that in the event of a dispute between a member
of the League and a state which is not a member, the non-member state shall be
invited to accept the obligations of membership for the purposes of such dispute.
Clearly there has been a bitter controversy between France and Germany, the
settlement of which is absolutely essential for permanent peace, but the
mandatory article which demands an invitation to Germany has been utterly
disregarded. It was perfectly well known that the League was helpless to meet a
situation which it had promised to solve.
In brief, it must be said that on major propositions the League has failed, and that
that which has been accomplished was given only subordinate attention in the
plans of its founders.
All this does not mean that the people of the United States do not look with
approval on whatever good the League may accomplish. If in any way it has
prevented war, we rejoice. There have been some excellent results in
humanitarian work. This Administration plans to cooperate wherever American
participation can be helpful, and, in the future as in the past, to take part in
discussions of direct interest to this country. Such participation has been
admittedly useful. It has cost the League nothing. Private American contributions
support some of its most important activities.
Many labor under the delusion that our membership in the League would have
resulted in a pacified Europe. Those of this opinion have indulged in the beautiful
dream that all that is necessary to quiet the raging passions which manifestly
persist is for us to say: "Peace, be still!" But whoever seeks a settled Europe must
recognize that we are dealing with deeply seated animosities and with rivalries
which have developed through many centuries and have been immensely
accentuated by the late war.
The futility of any attempt to bring about the peaceful settlement of European
questions which does not take into consideration these age-old prejudices is
perfectly illustrated by the experience of President Wilson with the Fiume
question. On the occasion of his visit to Italy he was received with an acclaim
never before accorded to any foreign visitor. Municipalities vied with each other
in giving his name to streets and avenues. The people eagerly sought statuettes of
him to place in their homes. But when in the utmost good faith he expressed the
opinion that Fiume ought not to be claimed by Italy, enthusiastic praise was
changed to censure and abounding admiration gave place to ill-will. What the
discordant nations of Europe desire, unfortunately, is not the advice or
arbitrament of a friendly or impartial nation, but that brand of partisanship which
will give support to their ambitious claims. It was only after more than four years,
when a spirit akin to despair had arisen from the failure to avert the threat of
chaos, that the suggestion of our Secretary of State leading to the Dawes
Commission was given favorable consideration. Similar offers made at an earlier
date had been received with disfavor.
One of the most important obstacles to membership in the League is the

cosmopolitan quality of our population, which is made up of representatives of
most races of the earth. No object is more important than to weld our people
together, to make of them loyal Americans. We do not wish to destroy their
affection for the lands of their birth. We welcome the breadth of vision they bring
us. But we must have their undivided loyalty. To gain this we must keep out of the
quarrels of the home countries. If the United States had been represented in the
League at the time of the Corfu incident every possible pressure would have been
brought to bear upon the Government to instruct the American representative to
take the side either of Greece or of Italy. Passions would have been aroused that
were not pro-American, but pro-Greek or pro-Italian, and the process of
Americanization of our fellow citizens would have been retarded, because one or
the other group would have thought that we had failed them. Representation on
the League of Nations would thus prove a disruptive force in American life,
because the United States is not altogether a homogeneous country.
It is to be noted that the most stalwart advocates of the League rarely if ever
mention the advantage of membership to this country. They merely try to
minimize the disadvantages. In pro-League speeches in France, Great Britain or
Czechoslovakia the speakers always stress the value of membership to the home
country. In pro-League speeches here, speakers stress only the value of American
membership to other countries. It is the first duty of any government to consider
the welfare of its own nationals. Anything else is disloyal. It is not sufficient,
therefore, to prove that American membership in the League would be of
advantage to the world. It must also be proved to be of advantage to America.
The Republican Party advocates membership in the Permanent Court of

International Justice. Unlike the League, this is not a political but a judicial body.
Adherence to the protocol under which it was established would be in full accord
with American traditions. To try to build up a new Court merely because it
happened to be the group of nations comprising the League which made possible
the establishment of the present court, is merely to avoid the issue and to show a
quite unjustified fear of the League.
It is unfortunately true that certain senators of both parties have in the past
opposed American participation in the Court, but in the declaration of the
Republican Platform there is no ambiguity: "We endorse the Permanent Court of
International Justice and favor the adherence of the United States to this tribunal,
as endorsed by President Coolidge." This adherence is to be under certain
reservations, already informally agreed to by the most important nations having
membership in the Court, which will prevent possible political entanglement with
the League. President Coolidge said in a recent speech: "I feel confident that such
action [adherence to the Court] would make a greater America, that it would be
productive of a higher and finer national spirit and of a more complete national
life." The Republican Party as a whole follows the courageous leadership of the
President. One of his first acts, when Congress meets in December, will no doubt
be to urge adherence by the United States to the protocol of the Court. There
should be no doubt as to the issue.
The President has also promised that in case there is favorable action under the
recommendations of the Dawes Commission another conference will be called to
promote the cause of peace. Such a gathering in our own city of Washington, in
an atmosphere of impartiality and good-will, would no doubt accomplish still
greater results than the earlier conference of 1921-22. That conference was the
most notable advance in the direction of disarmament over a very large area
which has occurred in many years, very different from the futile discussions
conducted by the League. The beneficent results of the Washington Conference
did not come from its spectacular quality; they came because the Government had
well defined aims, a practical agenda which it was able to carry through. The
conference promoted peace through removing causes of misunderstanding, quite
as much as because it put an end to competition in the building of capital ships. A
long-standing treaty between Japan and England, which was a serious
embarrassment to our position in the Far East, was abrogated. A new era of
justice to China was assured. Means were provided for the settlement of
controversies in and around the Pacific. These results are well-set stones in that
durable structure of world peace which it is the policy of the Republican Party to
build.
Colonel House criticizes the omission to consider the claims of Russia at that
conference. The implication is that the Soviets should have been invited. Such
omission proved the wisdom of the Republican Administration. If an invitation had
been made and accepted, preposterous claims would have been presented, and
the probabilities are that the Conference would have broken up in disgust. What
would have happened is well illustrated by the farcical result of the Genoa
Conference. Prime ministers and diplomats assembled there with high hopes, but
the outcome was barren and discord was aggravated rather than diminished.
There is no similar record of so futile and ridiculous a succession of daily
gatherings, except in the wrangling and wearisome meetings of the recent
Democratic Convention; this latter body, nevertheless, reached a conclusion,
which neither the Genoa Conference nor any other international meeting in which
Russia was included has succeeded in doing.
There has been no ambiguity in the attitude of the Republican Party toward
Russia. There should be no recognition of a government which ignores the
sacredness of contracts and all property rights, which bluntly avows that, if its
interests so demand, agreements with other nations can be violated at will. There
must be no recognition of a government which brutally tramples on human rights.
Furthermore, for us to enter into relations with a government constantly striving
for the destruction of our own government is unthinkable. These broad issues are
above party politics, and the Republicans have never made them an issue. The
general rule under which a governing body in control of a country is to be
recognized cannot weigh against those moral and political principles which cause
us to look askance upon a régime which violates every principle of constitutional
government and ignores all international obligations.
It should be added, however, that non-recognition of the Soviet Government

indicates no lack of sympathy for Russia, nor of appreciation of the fine qualities
of the Russian people. When other nations looked on helplessly, an appropriation
of twenty millions was made from the Federal Treasury by a Republican Congress
for the hungry and the starving in the Volga Valley, and both by public and private
benevolence our people have rendered most efficient aid. We earnestly hope for a
reborn democratic Russia to which we can lend assistance without stint.
Let us consider the traditional and practically uniform policy of the United States
in foreign affairs. It has been one of careful non-interference and strict neutrality
in all that concerns Europe. Even before the Declaration of Independence, a
committee of the Continental Congress headed by John Adams framed a model
treaty in which he first employed the words "entangling alliances," and advised
their avoidance. Beginning with Washington, without respect to party, this has
been the general attitude of our chief executives. It was true of Wilson until just
before our entrance into the Great War. Washington laid down certain general
principles which were followed and approved by Jefferson, Monroe, Jackson, Van
Buren, Polk, Pierce, and Buchanan.
We may select two typical expressions of this general policy, one by a Democratic
president, the other by a Republican. James Buchanan said in his inaugural
address: "To avoid entangling alliances has been a maxim of our policy ever since
the days of Washington, and its wisdom no one will attempt to dispute." Benjamin
Harrison said in his inaugural: "We have happily maintained a policy of non-
interference in European affairs. We have been only interested spectators of their
contentions in diplomacy and war, ready to use our friendly offices to promote
peace, but never obtruding our advice."
Of this general policy, observed for much more than a hundred years, there can
be no doubt; but it is maintained that our entrance into the Great War and the
close relations now created by commercial and social intercourse dictate a
change. That we are more interested than formerly in world affairs, and that our
position has been changed by the mighty growth of this nation, may be conceded.
There is still, however, a firm foundation for what Washington said: "Europe has a
set of primary interests which to us have none or a very remote relation, hence
she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are
essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to
implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics or
the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities."
This does not mean that we have not the keenest interest in what happens abroad,
nor does it mean for a moment that we should not render friendly offices, not
merely in extending benevolent aid to the suffering, but in seeking by friendly
intervention to compose differences whenever such action would not cause
resentment or be futile. Along these lines the present Administration has met the
new situation, has maintained the prestige of the American name, and has sought
to solve the duties which changed conditions have imposed upon us. Indeed, the
Republican Party recognizes that in foreign affairs this, the strongest nation,
should not merely assert its claims but should manifest a disposition to grant
generous concessions.
Democratic utterances to the contrary, the Republican Party has a well defined
policy. In the last issue of FOREIGN AFFAIRS Senator Lodge detailed some of the
achievements of the Harding and Coolidge Administrations in their conduct of
foreign relations. Without repeating this notable list it must be plain to an
unprejudiced observer that the present Administration has maintained a definite
program. It has pursued a single, undeviating policy which, broadly speaking, is
the protection and extension throughout the world of American rights and
interests in such manner as to remove causes of difference and to promote
international good-will. Neither the President nor the Secretary of State is an
opportunist. Both are building for the future in furtherance of a wise, unhurried,
generous national policy.
The Administration has been compelled to realize that in America as in all

countries there are two groups of citizens representing extreme views on foreign
relations. They may be called jingoes and sentimentalists. They are equally
dangerous. One group, distrusting or even hating all foreigners, purely selfish in
their motives and in their thinking, endanger peace by their bumptiousness. The
other group, purely sentimental, professing such affection for all foreigners that
they look askance at their own compatriots, endanger peace by their supineness.
Since human nature is not perfect the road to peace lies somewhere between the
two extremes. To this road the Republican Administration has held. Its
responsible leaders have always given supreme regard to the greatest good of the
United States of America, in full knowledge that so-called isolation is impossible
and that the greatest good of one means the greatest world good. In these modern
days a country prospers in direct, not in adverse ratio to the prosperity of its
neighbors--and its neighbors are all the nations of the earth. The Secretary of
State said in New York in May, 1924: "There is only one avenue to peace. That is
in the settlement of actual differences and the removal of ill will."
It is the purpose of the Republican Party to conclude a series of treaties of

commerce and amity to replace old treaties no longer applicable to modern
conditions. A treaty along these lines has already been signed with Germany and
awaits action by the Senate. Others are in the process of negotiation. They are
based on the principle of unconditional-most-favored-nation treatment, a forward
step in American practice which has been adopted because of its simplicity,
fairness, and ease of interpretation.
One by one the various problems raised by the systemof mandates established
under the Treaty of Versailles are being settled. The treaties already negotiated
with various mandatory powers have conserved to America for all time the right of
the open door in the mandated territories. American trade, in consequence, is
gradually developing. But perhaps the most important aspect of the treaties is
that they confirm the rights long since acquired by great missionary interests.
Probably few people realize the number of Americans who devote their lives to
the improvement of backward races, or the volume of money that flows out from
this country to make their humanitarian work possible. These self-sacrificing
Americans are nobly supporting and vitalizing the idea of the mandate principle.
Nothing in American foreign policy is more important than our relations with our
nearest neighbors, the countries of Latin America. The advent of the Republican
Administration found these relations uncertain and strained. Now, toward the end
of four years of straightforward, clearly defined and firmly executed Republican
policy this uncertainty has been succeeded by confidence and friendship.
The satisfactory settlement of the long standing controversy with Mexico and the
resumption of normal relations between the two countries was in itself an
important achievement. But in the final analysis even more important was the
subsequent vigorous American support of constitutional government in that
country, a support which has had a salutary and heartening effect throughout
Latin America. The unfortunate custom in some of the smaller countries to the
south of us of changing their governments through revolutions instead of through
constitutional methods has been checked because of the announced intention of
the Government of the United States not to recognize governments created in
such a manner. This policy has been given permanent effect by the signing of a
treaty in which the United States joins with five Central American countries.
When a revolution recently broke out in Honduras a conference was called of
representatives of the other Central American states, under an American
chairman. This was entirely successful, and it is believed that the new Honduran
Government, in spite of another flurry of revolution, will shortly assume power as
the result of fair and popular elections. In Nicaragua, revolution has been averted
largely because of the unswerving position of the United States. Since the
establishment of the independent Republic of Panama there have been no
diplomatic relations between Colombia and Panama, a dangerous situation. The
earnest efforts of this Administration have brought the two countries together so
that at last entirely friendly relations have been established. The long-standing
controversy between the United States and Colombia has been terminated by a
treaty. British cable lines have long held a monopoly in South America to the
great detriment of American cable interests and of free and inexpensive
communication. Because of the firm stand of the Department of State the doors of
communication have been opened to the fair and free competition of all.
There have been many treaties negotiated and signed by various Latin American
nations during the last four years with the assistance of this Government, all of
them treaties which foster good understandings and therefore tend to make war
almost impossible. The most important of these, the impulse towards which was
given by Washington, is the treaty of arbitration signed by sixteen nations, which
affords a splendid example for the nations of Europe. Latin America recognizes
the family ties that bind together the nations of the American continent. The
Administration has maintained the principles which make for peace and helpful
progress in its open support of constitutional government in Mexico and
elsewhere, in its successful endeavors to bring about arbitration of the ancient
Tacna-Arica dispute between Peru and Chile, and in carrying through the far-
reaching arbitration treaties of Central America. It has proved its altruism and its
unselfishness by putting the Dominican Republic on its feet. What the
Administration has done for the Dominican Republic it is doing for Haiti, and the
withdrawal from Santo Domingo is proof, if any proof were necessary, that just as
soon as Haiti can maintain a sound and just government the United States will
withdraw from there as well.
The Republican policy toward Latin America has resulted in a spirit of

coöperation, friendship, and peace in the Western Hemisphere which is quite new
in history, and which has made the Americas a model for the Old World to
emulate.
One Democratic attack must be answered both because it is quite unjustified, and
because the subject of the attack happens to be an excellent example of the
constructive policy of the Administration. The Democratic Platform says: "We
condemn the Lausanne Treaty. It barters legitimate American rights and betrays
Armenia for the Chester oil concession. We favor the protection of American
rights in Turkey and the fulfilment of President Wilson's arbitral award respecting
Armenia."
The United States was at no time at war with Turkey. Although there was
sentiment for such a declaration, the Democratic Administration opposed it, even
though the terrible Armenian deportations of 1915-1916 had already occurred.
We could not, therefore, participate formally in the peace negotiations at
Lausanne. American delegates were sent to that peace conference, however, to
ensure recognition of the principles of equal opportunity, the upholding of the
rights of Christian minorities, and the protection of American interests,
particularly as regards our educational and philanthropic work. The Allies were
negotiating with a new Turkey, conscious of nationality, free from the incubus of
the old régime, with forward-looking institutions largely modeled on those of the
United States. (Both the Sultanate and the Khalifate have been abolished and a
republic established.)
It was obvious from the outset that this new Turkey would insist absolutely on the
internal freedom which could only come from the abolition of the capitulations,
and that it would refuse to establish an independent Armenia carved out, as was
the plan, from Turkish territory in which the Armenians were a minority. In this
connection it may also be well to point out that this particular plan for an
independent Armenia has long since been dropped by responsible Armenian
leaders. The only people who continue to urge it are propagandists in this country
whose agitation results only in jeopardizing the safety of Armenians in Turkey.
The American delegates at Lausanne were of the greatest assistance in causing
stipulations to be included in the treaty of peace in which the Turkish Government
guaranteed to the minorities civil and political rights, the free use of their
languages and religion, and equal treatment under the law. The minority peoples
were given precisely the same status as the Moslem Turks, and above all these
rights were made a part of the fundamental law of the land. The minorities now
hold a stronger position than ever before in Turkish history.
In the negotiation of the treaty between the United States and Turkey the
American delegates at Lausanne could not ignore the treaty already negotiated by
the Allies. America could not demand of Turkey a position of special privilege,
since this would be contrary to American practice and would lead to dissension.
Our capitulations, furthermore, rested fundamentally on the fact that the treaty of
1830 with Turkey, in giving us most-favored-nation treatment, only put us on an
equality with other nations; that equality we maintain under the new treaty. The
policy of the open door is fully recognized. As the report of the Foreign Policy
Association on the treaty says: "It is difficult to ascertain upon what basis we
could justly claim more."
Of especial popular interest is the welfare of the great American religious and
educational institutions in Turkey. Political opponents of the treaty, therefore,
have liked to assert that there has been a failure to secure the safety and
continuance of these humanitarian enterprises. They forget that the
representatives of these institutions in Turkey, who know best how they can be
protected, have repeatedly urged the ratification of the Lausanne Treaty. Further,
the opponents of the treaty have overlooked or ignored the substantial safeguards
which the treaty settlement provides. As Dr. Gates, President of Robert College,
says: "It gives us the good-will of the Turks instead of their ill will." Dr. Barton, of
the American Board of Missions, also strongly favors the treaty. Should
Democratic opposition in the Senate bring about its ultimate rejection American
humanitarian enterprise in Turkey would indeed face disaster.
There remains the criticism that America has deserted the minorities. We could
have insisted on an independent Armenia only if we had been willing to send an
army and navy to Anatolia to fight for it and to support it after the war, but no
American is so blind as to believe that this would have been possible. A
commission headed by General Harbord reported that an army of 250,000 men
would be required. The Wilson arbitral award as to Armenia, furthermore, was
rendered under the Treaty of Sévres, unratified by either the Allies or by Turkey
and now a dead letter. Would the Democratic Party declare war against Turkey on
this issue, even though contrary to world opinion and the opinion of the most
intelligent Armenians as to what is best for their own people?
The Chester concession, of course, had not the remotest connection with any of
these questions. It was not under consideration when the treaty was negotiated.
The Department of State took no part whatever in securing it. It was a purely
private enterprise and no questions have arisen in connection with it calling for
action on the part of the Government. Neither during the Wilson Administration
nor during the Harding and Coolidge Administrations, did the Department of
State make any representations whatever concerning it to the Turkish
Government. The criticism of the Administration in this regard is entirely without
foundation.
The Republican Party believes that the foreign policy of the nation should be as
American as its domestic policy. It recognizes the rights of an American citizen in
India as well as in Indiana, and proposes to protect those rights so long as the
citizen does nothing to forfeit them. It believes that by protecting legitimate
American enterprise, by insisting on equality of treatment, it earns the respect of
other nations and sets an example of fair dealing. It believes that America is high-
minded, inspired by unselfish ideals, and seeks therefore to preserve American
independence of action as our greatest asset for aiding other peoples. It knows
the value of service to humanity and insists that the highroads and bypaths of this
service shall be kept open the world over. It recognizes the just settlement of
disputes and the avoidance of unnecessary causes of difference as the basis of
good-will, and it knows that good-will is the only sure foundation of world peace.
The Republican Party subscribes to no quack remedies or panaceas. No

conventions and covenants can remake human nature in a day. But strict justice,
tempered with generosity and understanding, builds international confidence and
reduces to a minimum the danger of the injustice which rouses human passions.
Honest foreign policy must be farsighted, friendly, strong for the right but
considerate for the weak, courageous, unselfish without weakness, consistently
progressive. These, I believe, are the fundamental principles upon which the
foreign policy of President Coolidge and of the Republican Party is built. Such a
policy is the life breath of peace, and affords assurance of an America of
constantly growing influence and helpfulness in world affairs.
THEODORE E. BURTON, for several years United States Senator from Ohio, now a Member of Congress; "keynote
speaker" at the 1924 Republican National Convention
September 15,1924
Progressive View
Robert Morss Lovett
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
Robert M. La Follette, the progressive candidate.
It is historically characteristic of governments devoted to conservative measures

and the maintenance of the status quo in domestic matters to develop an
aggressive policy in foreign affairs, and similarly for governments whose chief
outlook is toward the progressive improvement of existing conditions to seek to
disembarrass themselves from the complications of foreign policy. Whether or not
much weight should be attached to the popular interpretation of conservative
policy as seeking to allay discontent at home by feeding national pride with
triumphs abroad, there is an apparent relation between the amount of attention in
a democracy which is directed to internal development and reform, and that
which can be released to sustain an active interest in external relations. Thus the
two great periods of internal development in the United States, one beginning
with the administration of Jefferson and the other after the Civil War, were
characterized by an indifference toward foreign affairs which yielded only to the
aggressions of others. In England the liberal statesmen, Lord John Russell,
Cobden, and Gladstone, minimized the interest in external relations, while the
conservatives, Disraeli, Palmerston, and Salisbury, emphasized it.
It is natural therefore that the Progressive movement in the United States should
be regarded as so deeply concerned with the domestic situation as to be
comparatively indifferent to foreign policy, and that its leaders, partly, it is true,
through their own utterances, should be considered the most pronounced of
isolationists. As a matter of fact the platform of the Third Party devotes its final
and longest plank to foreign policy, advocating a program which challenges the
attention and thought of the public to an extent immeasurably greater than the
conventional pronouncements of the older parties--a plank which, should the
Progressives have an opportunity to carry it out in practice, would involve a
complete break with the principles upon which the two preceding administrations
have acted.
The plank headed Foreign Policy in the Progressive Platform is as follows:
We denounce the mercenary system of foreign policy under recent

administrations in the interest of financial imperialists, oil monopolists, and
international bankers, which has at times degraded our State Department from its
high service as a strong and kindly intermediary of defenseless governments to a
trading outpost of those interest and concession seekers engaged in the
exploitation of weaker nations, as contrary to the will of the American people,
destructive of domestic development and provocative of war. We favor an active
foreign policy to bring about a revision of the Versailles Treaty in accordance with
the terms of the armistice, and to promote firm treaty agreements with all nations
to outlaw wars, abolish conscription, drastically reduce land, air, and naval
armaments, and guarantee public referendums on peace and war.
There will be a disposition to discount this plank as lip-service to an ideal, as an

effervescence of good-will which can by no means be reduced to a practical
program, as a talking point for the campaign. On the contrary, it can be shown
that this announcement is a characteristic feature of Progressive thought and that
it has taken form under the same influences which have moulded the paragraphs
which preceded it. As a preliminary consideration it must be recognized that the
Progressive Platform is not a logical presentation of a political philosophy or
comprehensive statement of a political program. Four years ago the attempt was
made to build a new party upon a systematically drawn foundation. It failed. This
year, as an alternative, the sponsors of a third party have been content to offer as
the basis of their appeal to the country a concrete statement of the historical
course of the movement. It is a pragmatic document which has grown out of
experience, and has been formulated in respect to actual positions taken up and
defended by Progressive leaders in labor organizations, in journalism, and in state
and national assemblies. Particularly is it representative of the career and thought
of Senator La Follette, whose service in point of time transcends that of any other
Progressive. There are many omissions in the Third Party Platform, some of which
seem inexcusable to advocates of the causes unrepresented. There are omissions
in the program for foreign affairs. Where, one may ask, is any statement in regard
to immigration and exclusion? In regard to the debts of the Allies? In regard to
the Treaty of Lausanne or the recognition of Russia? On the whole, however, it
must be said that the subjects touched upon in the platform are of most
immediate and far-reaching concern to the United States and those which are
most vitally connected historically with the development of Progressive opinion.
It will be seen that the plank is divided into two parts. The first sentence is a self-
denying ordinance against imperialism and is in line with the historic position of
Liberalism, the position of Cobden against Palmerston. It promises abstention
from selfish and mischievous interference of the government, for the advantage of
its own citizens, in the affairs of weaker countries. The fundamental evil against
which the Progressive strikes is monopoly. Here is a form of monopoly peculiarly
despicable which certain privileged classes enjoy, to some extent at the expense
of their own countrymen but chiefly as a burden on the people of foreign and
helpless lands. The extent to which this development of business imperialism has
gone in recent years is quite unknown to most Americans. In the Atlantic Monthly
for July, 1924, Mr. S. G. Inman gives a summary of the situation with reference to
the countries to the south of us. Of twenty Latin American republics only six are
free from American interference in one form or another. In eleven countries this
interference takes the form of official direction of financial policy, and in six this
direction is backed by United States troops. Among the more flagrant cases of
intervention may be cited Nicaragua, where since 1912 the United States has
maintained, by a force of marines, a government opposed by 80 percent of the
Nicaraguans but favorable to the American banking house which collects the
customs and owns the national bank and railroad. Worse than this is the plight of
Haiti, where the United States marines uphold a government chosen under their
supervision, where an American financial advisor collects customs and makes
loans guaranteed by the United States, where the constitution has been rewritten
to permit United States corporations to hold land, and where in Mr. Wilson's
administration some 3,000 Haitians were put to death by United States marines.
In regard to China, the historic American policy of disinterested benevolence has
been succeeded by one of selfish assertion marked by Mr. Hughes' recent note to
Peking on the disposition of the Chinese Eastern Railway. In other parts of the
world, notably Persia, Turkey, and the East Indies, the State Department is no
longer the promoter of a general and wholesome good-will, but the guardian of
special financial interests.
This mercenary foreign policy, as in the case of Great Britain, began when
American capital sought investment beyond the sea. The distinction between the
effect of commercial exchange of goods and export of capital was long ago
pointed out by Cobden. It is to the advantage of a trader to have his customer
prosperous, while to the banker or loan shark the bankruptcy of his client may be
his most profitable transaction. The appearance of the United States in the role of
an empire dates from the Spanish War. Then followed the fomenting of the
revolution in Panama and the taking of the Canal Zone. But these overt acts were
less obnoxious than the process of insidious penetration and infiltration in other
countries which since 1912 has gone on, with characteristic stealth under the
Wilson Administration, with cynical avowal under Hughes. The difference between
the Third Party movement of 1912 and that of today is at no point more striking
than in the attitudes respectively taken toward the question of imperialism. The
Progressives of 1912 blindly followed Roosevelt in his defense of a predatory
policy of which he was one of the conspicuous exponents. But during the next four
years the Progressives awoke. Wilson's bullying attitude toward Mexico, the
bombardment of Vera Cruz, and the punitive expedition in pursuit of Villa were
targets for their attack. When information in regard to the occupation of Haiti
began to leak out the Progressives forced investigation in the Senate. The Nation
made a vigorous campaign of publicity, and under its auspices was formed the
Haiti-Santo-Domingo Independence Society which conducted the case for the
oppressed islanders. To Senator Borah belongs the chief credit for forcing the
Haitian situation on the attention of a reluctant Senate. Our relations with Mexico
and Nicaragua have been especially the charge of Senator La Follette. In March,
1916, he introduced into the Senate a resolution approving Pershing's expedition
in pursuit of Villa in terms which restricted the use of force to that single end, and
declared the intention of the United States in no way to encroach upon the
sovereignty of Mexico. This self-denying ordinance had the same effect as the
famous Platt amendment in regard to Cuba, and it was this aspect, doubtless,
which led to a vigorous denunciation of it by Senator Albert B. Fall. In July, 1921,
Senator La Follette introduced a resolution forbidding the use of American troops
in Mexico without the express authority of Congress. In July, 1919, he introduced
a resolution inquiring of the State Department why our protected republic of
Nicaragua was permitted to invade Costa Rica, and why the latter was not
permitted to sign the covenant of the League of Nations.
Imperialism is an issue which belongs to the Progressives by peculiar right. Both

Democratic and Republican Platforms are entirely silent on the subject. The
Progressives recognize it as a moral issue. In the words of Mr. Inman: "Our North
American Christian civilization will find its final test in the way we treat our next-
door neighbors. We are piling up hatreds, suspicions, records of exploitation and
destruction of sovereignty in Latin America such as have never failed in all history
to react in wars, suffering, and defeat of high moral and spiritual ideals." The
Progressives recognize it also as a political issue. They see the actual and
potential embarrassments which affect the realization of the domestic program of
the British Labor Party in the face of the situation in India, South Africa, and
Egypt, and they are resolved to deal with similar difficulties in good time. They
realize that the worst of foreign entanglements--more dangerous than alliances--
are those imperial commitments which put the national honor in pawn to selfish
interests. If Mr. La Follette is elected President, and only in that event, shall we
have an honest effort to treat our neighbors and other weaker countries in a spirit
of absolute fairness and good faith, with no taint of selfishness or the influence of
privileged individuals or special interests.
The portion of the plank already discussed refers chiefly to the relations of the
United States with the Western Hemisphere and Asia; the remainder has
reference to Europe. It pledges the United States to seek a revision of the political
and financial provisions of the Treaty of Versailles, "in accordance with the terms
of the armistice"; and to promote "firm treaty agreements with all nations to
outlaw wars, abolish conscription, drastically reduce land, air and naval
armaments, and guarantee public referendums on peace and war." Like the first
part of the plank this second sentence is a considered formulation of the thought
of Progressives and a crystallization of their opinion in regard to the responsibility
and function of the United States in the situation growing out of its participation
in the World War. It must be read with this background in mind.
During the war those who now call themselves Progressives occupied widely
different positions, ranging from that of the conscientious objector against all war
to the advocate of military participation by the United States in this war, in the
hope that it might be the last. On the whole the Progressives held a more
detached attitude and professed less illusion in regard to the origin of the war, the
character of our associates, and the reason for our participation than either of the
two regular parties. After the war, opinion among Progressives tended to move in
one direction until it was unified by the Treaty of Versailles. There are some who
would accept the Covenant of the League of Nations as a pitiful salvage of their
hopes and a salve to their consciences, but the Treaty as a whole they recognize
as an instrument of dishonor and destruction, a crime gratuitously added to the
crime of the war.
The Progressive Platform calls for a revision of the Treaty of Versailles, first of all
because it rests upon the falsehood that Germany is solely responsible for the war
and should bear alone the burden of war guilt. The first clause of the treaty which
contains this statement is, as Mr. Lloyd George has pointed out, the fundamental
hypothesis underlying the whole structure, the major premise from which the
various conclusions are drawn. The Platform further recognizes that the treaty is
in substantial variation from the pre-armistice agreement on which Germany
surrendered. This agreement specifically limited the sums for which Germany was
liable to damage done to civilians and their property by land, sea, or the air, and
was designed to exclude payments for pensions and other claims approximating
the total cost of the war. In respect to the financial clauses of the Treaty, revision
is already foreseen through the medium of the Dawes Report. This plan will
probably never operate to bring large reparations payments. The time for such
fruitful husbandry of German resources has passed. The goose, potential layer of
golden eggs, is already dead. It may be hoped, however, that the plan will work
successfully to break the endless chain by which political pressure and occupation
of territory automatically follow financial default on the part of Germany. But
certain territorial clauses of the treaty are no less in violation of the prearmistice
agreement into which were specifically read the Fourteen Points promulgated by
President Wilson with their stipulations in regard to annexations and transfers of
territory. Some of these provisions, such as those with reference to the Polish
corridor and Danzig, the Sarre Valley, the granting of a large part of the Austrian
Tyrol to Italy and of Upper Silesia to Poland are, quite apart from reference to the
pre-armistice agreement, in their nature so unjust and inexpedient that it is
impossible to believe that they will not remain a cause of unrest in Europe until
they are changed.
It is somewhat surprising to find the Progressives, who of the three political

groups engaged in the present contest were most skeptical in regard to the
participation of the United States in the war and least concerned in its results, the
only party which accepts the responsibility of the United States for those results.
Yet of that responsibility there can be no intelligent doubt. Apart from the general
fact that the United States lent its military and industrial force to the Allies for
purposes categorically defined, there is the specific fact that the pre-armistice
agreement which recognized those purposes was negotiated through the
intermediation of the President. There is the further circumstance that
representatives of this country took a leading part in drawing up the Treaty, and
in some cases contributed largely toward formulating the provisions which are
most obnoxious. The United States bore its part in continuing the economic
pressure upon Germany, after the armistice, which forced that country to assent
formally to terms which were not only unjust and degrading but impossible of
fulfilment. It has been plausibly argued that the signature of the German
commissioners at Versailles was due to the stipulated representation of the
United States on the Reparation Commission. The fact that the constitution of this
country made it possible for a political quarrel to prevent ratification and
ultimately to enable us to secure the advantages of the Treaty of Versailles
without committing ourselves to its enforcement, is a waiver of legal but not of
moral responsibility. The Progressives were in general opposed to the ratification
of the Treaty. The chief argument for such ratification was that by remaining in
cooperation with the associated nations we should be able to contribute in the end
to the purposes which we accepted as justification for the war, and to the
pacification of Europe. The Progressives for the most part did not believe this.
They accept, however, the responsibility for these objects, and the obligation to
employ to these ends the strategy of the position which the United States has, in
the course of events, assumed.
It will be argued, of course, that revision of the Treaty of Versailles is entirely a

matter for the nations which signed it, one upon which the opinion of the United
States can be at best merely academic. On the other hand it may be replied that,
quite apart from any special concern in view of the origin of the document, this
country has in common with the neutrals of the late war an interest in a
settlement so subversive of the principles upon which peace can be maintained,
so obnoxious to the revival of prosperity throughout the world. It is clear that the
Progressive group now in Congress, from whose experience the present platform
is so largely drawn, has become increasingly awake to the relation between the
economic welfare of this country and that of Europe. Such considerations may be
depended on to give reality to what might otherwise seem a gesture in the air.
And if it is further argued that the revision of the Treaty is incredible in view of
the multitude of interests which it has created, it may be further replied that the
Treaty is now undergoing revision. It has been revised in favor of France; it is
being revised in favor of Germany. The force of political gravitation is all against
its permanence. We may join with Mr. Roland W. Boyden in the opinion which he
has expressed in the June issue of FOREIGN AFFAIRS: "Germany, again for her
own sake, ought voluntarily to pledge herself to abide by the territorial results of
the treaty except as they may in the future be changed by peaceful negotiations
with the Allies." But something more is needed to save the situation than pious
hope. The Progressive Platform, it may be asserted, is the only one which
recognizes the realities of the situation and promises coöperation to secure by
peaceful means the results that Mr. Boyden envisages. Should Senator La Follette
be elected to the Presidency, his Secretary of State, instead of gumshoeing about
London, Paris, and Berlin, offering (we may hope) wise counsel and exercising (we
may pray) a wholesome influence, always with an eye cocked toward the bedside
of Senator Lodge, will raise in the open court of the world the question of revising
the Treaty of Versailles by peaceful conference before it is shot to pieces by the
cannon of the next war.
The last words of the plank cover the ground occupied by such arrangements,
actual or proposed, as the League of Nations, the Permanent World Court of
Justice, the Draft Treaty of Disarmament and Security, and the undertakings of
the Washington Conference. Toward these various enterprises Progressives
maintain a skeptical and watchful attitude. Not all of them are opposed to these
measures, and all of them are in sympathy with the ends sought. In general they
believe that these pieces of machinery are valuable only when given viability by
the force of good-will, and they would take account of the motive power before
constructing the engine. Toward the accumulation and releasing of this power in
the world, they hold that the United States beyond all other nations is bound to
contribute.
At this point there is a clear difference in emphasis between the political

philosophy underlying the Progressive Platform and that of many honest liberals.
The effort to set up the machinery of coöperation among nations, such as the
League of Nations and the Permanent World Court of Justice, depends upon an
extension of international law. Now the only kind of international law which is
valid for the purpose is analagous to that natural law which individuals have
learned to obey because the breaking of it brings swift decline to society and
disaster to themselves. The law "thou shalt not kill" has thus come to prevail
among the individuals of a civilized state. It does not prevail among nations
because our national mind still finds advantage in killing men of other nations and
is heedless of the disadvantages to ourselves. International law, as understood
today, has little to do with natural right and is largely a mere codification of
customs and ceremonies, like the so-called laws of war. Not until nations have
advanced in dealing with one another to the point where natural right, so far as it
can be perceived, outweighs the immediate temptation of selfish advantage, can
we look with hope to the machinery of international organization. This matter is
admirably discussed by Mr. Jackson Ralston in his volume "Democracy's
International Law," wherein he points out the fallacy involved in the parallel often
drawn between the proposed organization of the world and that of the United
States. "American peace," he says, "is not due to the fact that we have a common
executive, a Congress, and a Supreme Court, useful as all of these instruments
may be. It exists because any citizen of the United States equally with any other
citizen has a right in perfect freedom to pass state borders with all his family and
property; to import and export from place to place within the limits of the United
States any sort of property he pleases without hindrance from any state authority;
to gain access to and from the seas without any local interference whatsoever." It
is often urged that the proposed international arrangements--leagues, courts,
conferences, and the like--are steps in the right direction. Senator La Follette has
a passage in his autobiography discussing the difference between himself and
Roosevelt which is in point here. "He (Roosevelt) acted upon the maxim that half a
loaf is better than no bread. I believe that half a loaf is fatal whenever it is
accepted at the sacrifice of the basic principle sought to be attained. . . . A half-
way measure never fairly tests the principle and many utterly discredit it." It is for
this reason that the Progressive Platform as a basis for international
arrangements at this time emphasizes contract rather than law, treaties rather
than leagues and courts which at present can obtain their powers only through
such treaties.
In regard to the specific enterprises mentioned the attitude of Senator La Follette

is doubtless more critical than that of many of his followers. Nevertheless he
represents their spirit. On November 19, 1919, when the Treaty of Versailles was
first before the Senate for ratification, he supported Senator Owen's resolution
providing that the Fourteen Points should be binding in its execution. This
resolution was defeated. Subsequently he proposed six reservations. They were
(1) to exempt the United States from any obligation under Article X of the
Covenant to give aid in putting down movements to change the sovereignty of
subject peoples, Ireland, India, Egypt, Korea, etc.; (2) to provide for its withdrawal
from the League of Nations within a year unless conscription were abolished by
all members; (3) to provide for similar withdrawal unless the League adopted the
referendum of the peoples in regard to entering war; (4) to require general
reduction of military and naval establishments; (5) to provide for withdrawal in
case a member nation attempted to seize the territory of a non-member state; (6)
to provide for withdrawal in case a member nation exercising a mandate over any
country attempted to appropriate to itself the resources of that country. Roughly
and hastily drawn as these reservations are they are expressive of the Progressive
attitude toward world problems. (a) There is the duty toward weaker nations
whose rights have been so unscrupulously invaded by imperialism, so imperfectly
safeguarded by the mandate system of the League of Nations. (b) There is the
direct summons to the good-will of the world to declare itself by abolishing
conscription, by reducing armaments and by adopting the referendum on war.
As to the first it will be urged that the Progressive position fails to take account of
practical considerations in a world still controlled by the struggle for existence
and survival of the fittest. On this point Senator La Follette continues the high
tradition of English political thought which began with Edmund Burke. His
opposition to the Four Power Treaty negotiated at the Washington Conference
was based on this regard for the rights of the weaker. "If we ratify this treaty," he
said in the Senate on March 23, 1922, "it means that we deliberately take our
place with Japan, and Great Britain, and the imperialists of France in order to
profit by the misfortunes of Germany, Russia, and China."
As to the second, it will be asserted that the Progressive Platform is too vague in
the absence of specifically defined means to be taken very seriously. It is,
however, the clear purpose of the Progressives to bind themselves by "an active
foreign policy" to attain so far as they can the object of world peace. If they are
accused of vague idealism can it be said that the realism represented by the other
parties is more practical? On the subject of disarmament the Republican Platform
advocates the calling of a "conference on the limitation of land forces, the use of
submarines and poison gas"; but in another part of the same document we read
the uncompromising declaration: "There must be no further weakening of our
regular army and we advocate appropriations sufficient to provide training for all
members of the National Guard, the citizens military training camps and the
reserves who may offer themselves for service. We pledge ourselves to round out
and to maintain the navy to the full strength provided the United States by the
letter and spirit of the limitation of armaments conference" (italics mine). The
emphasis of this declaration cannot be misunderstood: The army and navy
forever! Similarly the Democratic Platform, apparently legislating for the world:
"We demand a strict and sweeping reduction of armaments by land and sea so
that there shall be no competitive military program or naval building," but adds
for home consumption: "Until agreements to this end have been made we
advocate an army and navy adequate for our national safety." Again on the subject
of referendum for war the same document asserts with what, except for its
general level of intelligence, might pass for irony: "Those who furnish the blood
and bear the burden imposed by war should whenever possible (italics mine) be
consulted before the supreme sacrifice is demanded of them."
In contrast to these cautious and hedging declarations, designed to catch voters

coming and going, this at least of actuality the Progressive Platform has--it means
what it says. No one can doubt that in event of Senator La Follette's election he
will make it the object of "an active foreign policy" to achieve the ends specified.
His whole record points that way. And this further element of actuality the
Progressive program has--a willingness to bear the cost and take the risk of the
first steps. Everyone remembers how the Washington Conference opened in a
dawn of promise due to the surprising and unexpected declaration of Secretary
Hughes committing his own country first of all to a positive if meagre
renunciation. The Progressives are ready to do business on this basis. As their
faith in the rights of small nations and backward peoples to choose their own
modes of life and enjoy their own resources submits itself instantly to the test of
withdrawing the support of their government from private enterprise hostile to
these rights, and relinquishing the way of economic imperialism, so their belief in
the ultimate dependence of humanity on its own good-will, will prompt them to
stimulate good-will by example as well as precept. If Mr. La Follette is elected
President we may expect to see his foreign policy directed to promote the
pacification and prosperity of the world without subtraction or reservation in
favor of the special interests of the United States--generously and whole-heartedly
and patriotically, in the conviction that our own peace and welfare are bound up
with those of other nations and that we are strong enough to act on that principle.
ROBERT MORSS LOVETT, Associate Editor of The New Republic

September 15,1924
After the Election
E
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
Calvin Coolidge.
Vox populi—the great American people—has spoken in no uncertain tones. It has

declared that it wishes to have Mr. Calvin Coolidge for President and that it
approves of his policies; which are those of the party he leads. But what are these
policies? In spite of the flood of recent as well as of earlier literature on the
subject and the pronouncements of those highest in authority, there is still
room—indeed there will always be room—for the inquiry.
In the London Times for October 13th we find its American correspondent saying
of the presidential campaign, "There is not a genuine issue before the country."
This is not the place to enter into the question of whether such a sweeping
assertion contains any truth in regard to our domestic affairs. Be that as it may,
can we not at least maintain that the three great parties differ profoundly in their
ideals of foreign policy? If so, the renewed triumph of the Republicans will mean
something more than the victory of a particular set of men. It determines our
attitude for the next four years towards the other nations of the world. What,
then, is our attitude? Let us begin by summing up in the briefest space the tenets
of the American parties in regard to foreign affairs.
Certain broad principles are generally accepted, for instance the Monroe Doctrine
and the Open Door. To come down to a more concrete and immediate example, all
three parties believe—the Progressives the most of the three—in the payment of
the Allied Debts. All recognize, too, that America must take some part in the
settlement of world problems, including European ones, but their interpretation of
that part varies greatly. The Republicans favor what might be called cooperation
without commitment. The Democrats wish to join the League of Nations after they
are sure the majority of the voters will support them. The Progressives prefer to
keep out of the hornet's nest of European complications, while putting a stick in it
by stirring up the most irritating question possible, a revision of the Peace
Treaties; these they regard as the unclean thing, even worse than the war as the
source of Europe's troubles. The Democrats, on the contrary, feeling a
responsibility for the making of these treaties, approve of them, though some
admit President Wilson had to make deplorable concessions to the greed of his
allies. As for the Republicans, having refused to ratify the treaties but having got
all the benefit for America there was to be found in them, they are indifferent on
the subject of their theoretical excellence. Both the old parties have endorsed the
idea of a World Court with more or less reservations—the Republicans more, the
Democrats less. The Progressives do not much like courts of any kind if they
interfere with the desires of the people—who knows, the one at the Hague might
be worse than the one in Washington? They also demand immediate recognition of
Bolshevik Russia. This is the more laudable as the advantage to the American
farmer of putting Russia on her feet so that she may again become an exporter of
grain is not obvious at first sight.
One may dispute as to how fundamental the above differences are and how free
any party is to carry out its own program. At any rate it is the Republicans who
have won the election and they have the President and, however nominally, both
houses of Congress, so their foreign policy is the only one of practical importance
at the present moment. There is nothing mysterious in their intentions or new in
their plans. Through the speeches of the Secretary of State they have told us what
they have done and what they mean to do. We are all fairly familiar with the story.
Nevertheless, when we are looking forward to the beginning of a new
administration, even with the same President, it is well for us to take stock.
We may assume that in its foreign policy the Republican administration will "carry
on." The President has expressed his warm approbation of the achievements of
Secretary Hughes, and the Secretary has stood forth as the most effective
Republican speaker during the election campaign. We may, therefore, take it that
for the present there is to be no change in the head of the State Department, and
that he will be given a free hand. But that hand, like the President's own, is none
too free at best. There are two sets of factors that will always have to be reckoned
with, those due to internal conditions and those due to foreign conditions.
The most obvious difficulties arising from the internal situation are that though
the Republicans control Congress they are far from having the two-thirds majority
of the Senate necessary for the ratification of treaties, and that the President's
control of his own party is not firmly established, indeed at the end of the last
session it was not established at all. Since then the situation has improved. The
President has behind him the prestige of an extraordinary personal triumph, he
has had time to build up his own party machine and is in a much stronger position
to secure attention to his wishes than he has ever been before. But there will
always be limits to that attention. Congress is jealous of its own authority and the
Senate in particular will not be disposed to abate the tiniest fraction of its
prerogatives, real or imaginary. Senator Borah, the new chairman of the Foreign
Relations committee, may not have the wide knowledge and experience of the late
Senator Lodge, but he is equally set in his opinions. Though he sometimes seems
to delight in being enigmatic, we know that some of these opinions are further
removed from those of the administration than were those of Senator Lodge.
Secretary Hughes, with the best of intentions, has never been particularly
successful in conciliating Senators. He will have to tread warily. For instance, the
idea of a cancellation of the Allied Debts, much as there is to be said for it, cannot
for the present be entertained.
One pressing question has been settled by the Democratic Convention. There are
few things most of the members of that august assembly understood less or cared
less about than the treaty between Turkey and the United States, negotiated at
the time of the Lausanne Treaty and on similar principles. None the less, as a
concession to one group, a condemnation of the Turkish treaty was inserted in the
Democratic Platform. Little as such planks often mean, it is hard to see how the
Democrats in the Senate can now vote for the treaty which is to be submitted to
them. Without their votes it cannot be carried. The State Department is thus left
in an embarrassing quandary. Treaty or no treaty, the Turks do not intend to
recognize the capitulations any longer. We are likely to find ourselves in a
position where we shall have no legal means of protecting Americans in Turkey,
or of obtaining redress of grievances, save by the use of force on a large scale,
which we certainly do not wish to undertake. To be sure, our trouble with Turkey,
though disagreeable, does not affect vitally many people in the United States. If
every American is put out of Turkish territory, if the American schools and
colleges which have done such wonderful work are closed and further American
enterprise of all kinds is made impossible, this will be annoying, but it will not
endanger our security or prosperity. We can forget about Turkey if we have to.
The Far East is another matter.
When we compare the situation in the Far East from the point of view of American
interests with what it was four years ago at the time of the accession of President
Harding, we note three cardinal points. First, the internal situation of China has
become worse, and the danger of actual political dissolution is more menacing.
Second, the relations between the United States and Japan, after a temporary
amelioration due to the Disarmament Conference, have not improved. On the
contrary, the Japanese have a real and lasting grievance which they did not have
before, and which they are going to make use of. It is true that the Anglo-Japanese
Alliance is defunct, but that presented no real danger to us. As to whether the
United States is left relatively better or worse off by the military provisions of the
disarmament treaties, we can leave this to the experts to quarrel over. What is
more serious is that the good feeling which the reduction of armaments was
intended to promote, though stimulated for the moment, has been more than
neutralized by the immigration bill and by the particular way in which Congress,
in spite of the President and to the humiliation of the Secretary of State, insisted
on applying it to Japan. The intensity of Japanese sentiment on the subject was
well shown by the incident of the patriot who committed hari-kiri in protest and
who, as is illustrated in the recent honors accorded to him, will doubtless go down
to posterity as one of the heroes of Japanese history. Third, Soviet Russia has
reappeared in force on the Pacific. She has reoccupied the old Russian territories
and reasserted Russian claims; she is in no way bound by the Washington
agreement, to which she was not invited; she is fond of fishing in troubled waters,
and as long as we maintain our present attitude towards her she may be counted
on as being hostile to the United States. We need not be surprised, therefore, if
we find her frequently making common cause with Japan now that the two
countries are on speaking terms again.
Such are the disagreeable facts. They must be faced, but it is not clear what we
can do about them. It is true we are too powerful for anyone to pick a quarrel with
us needlessly. Even if Japanese public opinion may be hostile to us, the
government of the Mikado is not likely to go beyond an attitude of cold and
dignified reserve. It has not hurried to send back its ambassador to Washington, it
may not send one back for years—this is a legitimate form of showing resentment,
and western rather than oriental. Meanwhile events in the Far East will take their
course, and the possibilities are disquieting. We cannot hold China together if she
insists on falling in pieces. What shall we do if she does disintegrate? The lending
of money to put her on her feet does not today look attractive as a venture. To
what extent are we ready to go in order to check Japanese domination or
hegemony or spheres of influence in the Far East? Are we prepared not only to
keep the Japanese out of our part of the world, but to interfere with them in
theirs? Are Pan-Asianism or Pan-Mongolianism more unnatural than Pan-
Americanism? Many questions of the sort might be asked, to which it would be
difficult to make a satisfactory reply. It does not look as if there were much for us
to do at present in the Far East except to mind our own business, look after and
protect our commercial and other interests as best we can, be helpful when there
is a chance and trust that the situation will improve of itself in the course of time.
But our days as the "great and good friend" of everybody are over.
Towards Russia we have adopted an attitude which apparently commends itself to

the majority of the American people and from which, with all due respect to
Senator Borah, we shall not soon depart unless important changes occur there.
This attitude has been firm, consistent and dignified, and its official harshness has
been tempered by splendid unofficial charity. To be sure, this attitude presents
grave inconveniences. The Federation of Socialist Soviet Republics covers too
large a portion of the globe for us to be able to leave it comfortably out of
account. We may have few points of contact, but there are some, even if we are
willing to sacrifice for the time being our opportunities of mutually helpful trade.
Now that the Soviet Federation has been recognized de jure by all the great
powers but ourselves, as well as by many smaller powers, it will be increasingly
difficult to avoid meeting, that is to say dealing with, its representatives at
international gatherings of every sort. Are we to refuse to appear whenever the
Russians are invited? And it will be hard to leave them out even when we issue
the invitations ourselves. This is especially true of any disarmament conference.
Our government cherishes the hope of convoking another disarmament
conference at Washington that shall continue and surpass the achievements of its
predecessor three years ago—achievements of which the State Department is
justly proud and concerning which it has never quite been able to understand the
lack of livelier enthusiasm. But it is only too obvious that a Disarmament Congress
in which Russia does not take part will be even more incomplete than the last. At
that time her non-participation meant a gap in the Far Eastern settlement
whereby whatever was concluded lacked the consent of one of the most interested
and most powerful parties. Now it is Europe and western Asia that are concerned.
If the Russians remain free to maintain armies of the size they think fit, how can
the weak states along their borders, Finland, the Baltic States, Poland, Rumania,
and Turkey, which already live in some fear and trembling of them, be expected to
cut down their own forces? How can France do so if she is to support these weak
states, some of which are her allies and look to her for protection? But unless
France reduces her forces we can hardly ask it of her neighbors such as Italy and
England. The Bolsheviks may dislike the League of Nations as much as do some
Americans, but there is a chance, however small, that they will accept the
invitation extended to them to take part in a disarmament conference at Geneva.
It is possible that they may abide by the decisions arrived at there and will
consent to a fair proportional reduction of their armies. But they cannot even be
invited to attend at Washington except perhaps as "unofficial observers."
The recent establishment of a Soviet legation in Mexico and the open expressions
of sympathy for Communist ideas on the part of members of the Mexican
Government are phenomena which we may view without alarm but not with
pleasure. Russian influence in Mexico will be exercised in a sense unfavorable to
the United States and it will not be agreeable if we are to have a base of
communist propaganda established to the south of us. Still we should probably
mind this less than one of Japanese influence. Not long ago it seemed that what
we might have to fear was too close relations between Mexico and Japan,
something like an alliance against the United States. There also appeared to be a
possibility of an influx into Mexico of Japanese, some of whom would tend to cross
the border in spite of our customs guards. This may still happen, but the Mexicans
of today, like many other peoples, are more exuberantly nationalistic than of old.
They no longer welcome Asiatic immigration, indeed it is conceivable that they
may follow our example and forbid it. On the other hand, Mexicans are not
excluded from the United States by our immigration laws and we may look
forward to their flowing over in ever greater numbers. Before long, in southern
California the place of the Asiatic may be taken by the peon. Whether he will be as
efficient time will show, but perhaps it is better he should not be if he does not
want to become equally unpopular. Any attempt to shut him out would add one
more to the possible causes of ill-feeling between us and our difficult neighbors.
These causes are grave enough already. It is in the nature of things that the
Mexicans, though in certain respects anxious for our assistance, should not like us
and should distrust and fear us profoundly. We have got to accept this and make
due allowances for it, and we shall often have to exercise infinite patience. The
way that we handle Mexican affairs will be a test of our statesmanship. At present
the State Department seems to be meeting this test with credit.
With the rest of Latin America we may be thankful that we have no such
permanently delicate relations. We have been withdrawing or are going to
withdraw American guards from Santo Domingo, Haiti, and Nicaragua. In Cuba
the situation is reasonably tranquil and things are progressing smoothly
elsewhere. The Monroe Doctrine remains a shibboleth to which due homage is
paid. Pan-American congresses bid fair to continue with much flow of the soul. All
this is well enough as far as it goes. What one sometimes wonders is how far does
it go? Is much really being accomplished? For instance the State Department has
held that the Santiago Congress of a year and a half ago was a success, but that
view does not appear to be widely entertained outside. The Government also holds
that Latin America has never been better disposed towards the United States than
at the present day, yet some people declare that there is a growing hostility
towards us. If this last be true, a thing difficult to determine with certainty, it is
unfortunate and discouraging, for there can be no doubt of the friendliness on our
side, a friendliness perhaps tinged with a patronizing indifference but genuine
enough in its essence. We have honestly tried to play the good big brother to
Latin America. Still, even the role of the best big brother may be overdone.
Since the World War, as never before, except at the time of the promulgation of
the Monroe Doctrine, the more important side of our relations with Europe has
been the general one rather than the dealings with any particular country. We of
course have our separate relations with each, but they are in the main simple and
satisfactory. It may be noted here parenthetically that the return to power of a
Conservative government in England will mean strong efforts to check the
increasing disintegration of the British Empire. One form these efforts will
assume will be an attempt to introduce imperial preference in tariffs, a measure
which, however desirable from the British political point of view, cannot help
being disadvantageous economically to the United States. Of course, as a highly
protectionist country, a protest on our part would be ridiculous. Retaliation would
have many dangers.
We may divide our relations with the European world into four main heads
corresponding with four great questions which we are doing our best to keep
asunder but which insist on remaining connected with one another. These are
Rehabilitation, including especially the reparations question, Allied Debts, the
League of Nations, and the World Court.
We—i.e. the triumphant Republican Party and the administration—have always

been anxious to aid in the rehabilitation of Europe and the betterment of mankind.
But we prefer to do it at our own time, in our own way, without running
unpleasant risks or incurring awkward obligations. We have rejoiced at not being
in the mess in which Europe has been floundering, at not sharing the passions and
mistakes of her peoples and her statesmen. We have not been wanting in
sympathy, as our private charity has shown, but we have believed it to be better
for the world (and emphatically for ourselves) that we should keep out of the
turmoil and merely proffer advice and indirect aid.
This policy has been justified by its results, at least in the eyes of the American
people. After the somewhat sterile period of "unofficial observers" has come the
more fertile one of approved, though still unofficial, cooperation. The success
achieved by the commissions of experts gave the name of Mr. Dawes a popularity
sufficient to make the Cleveland Convention feel that his nomination for the Vice-
Presidency would add to the strength of the Republican ticket. There can be little
doubt, too, that the presence of Secretary Hughes and his wise words at the
opportune moment in London, Paris, and Berlin helped materially to secure
agreement to accept the report. By our consent to the appointment of Messrs.
Perkins and Gilbert we have given it a further blessing. If all goes well, we shall
claim no small credit for our share in the transaction. If all goes badly, we shall
maintain that it is not our fault. We have recommended and assisted the best
solution yet proposed. If it is not carried out in practice, the blame must be
attached to those who have not profited by the chance of salvation offered to
them.
Our interest in rehabilitation and in reparations, though great, is indirect. The

question of the payment of Allied Debts, though luckily not pressing, is direct. The
outlook at the present moment is hopeless enough. Of course no government of
continental Europe has even hinted at a flat repudiation of what it owes to us or to
England, but at bottom no one of the peoples has any more belief they will be
called upon to pay their debts than the American people has an intention of
forgiving them. The English have made an arrangement which we regard as
generous but which many of them resent as iniquitous, and which helps to make it
difficult for them to remit what is due to them from the continental powers. Like
ourselves, they assert that such debts are quite independent of what the Germans
owe for reparations, a view which only prudence prevents the French Government
from denying and which to the French people seems monstrously unjust. At any
rate, we can see that if Germany does pay a substantial sum for reparations the
situation will be easier. If no reparations are to be forthcoming, the prospect is
gloomy. Our Government, to its credit, has appreciated the magnitude and
delicacy of the task before it and has so far acted with real tact. Unfortunately its
hand may be forced at any time by clamor in America or by ill-advised action in
Europe.
The famous declaration of the Thirty One prevented the presidential election of
1920 from turning specifically on the question of whether the United States
should join the League of Nations. The size of the Republican majority, however,
and the attitude of the Republican press made it evident that the country as a
whole was opposed to any such step. President Harding, who had given
encouragement to the Thirty One, soon dropped all talk of an Association of
Nations of any kind, and for long the League received little attention (its partisans
said scant courtesy) from the State Department. Many Republicans spoke of it
with open dislike and derision. Undeterred by this, or perhaps in ignorance of it,
the public in Europe continued to hope that the United States might change its
mind, and in spite of frequent rebuffs America was persistently invited to take
part in one conference or another, and again and again refused.
In the last year or so the tone of the Republicans has become more generous. The
League has ceased to be a bogey to them. They have been willing to recognize
that it has excellent intentions and has done good in its way. They have approved
of our joining in its conferences about such subjects as the white slave traffic and
the evils of narcotics. Thus, though there have been few signs of conversion of
Republicans, there has been a diminution of hostility on their part, indeed most of
them have not regarded the connection between the League and the High Court
as an insurmountable obstacle to our participation in that Court provided our own
rights, as we choose to define them, are safeguarded. On the other hand,
President Coolidge soon after he came into office declared the question of the
accession of the United States to the League to be a "closed incident," and the
Bok Peace Plan, which was a move in that direction, fell rather flat. The further
publicity it might have hoped to enjoy, thanks to its being made the object of a
senatorial investigation, was cut short by the more absorbing topic of the oil
scandals.
When the Republican Convention came together in Cleveland the refusal to have
the United States enter the League of Nations was, without opposition, made a
plank of the Republican Platform. The Democrats were in rather a plight. Their
party was committed to the League, but they feared that the majority of the
American people might be opposed to it. Accordingly they tried to sidestep the
issue by a Platonic declaration in its favor and a promise to submit the question to
a referendum. One may doubt whether they gained any votes by this subterfuge,
for they exposed themselves to the jibes of their adversaries for their cowardice
and they made it easier for pro-League Republicans to remain faithful to their own
party, on the ground that there was not much to be hoped for from the
Democrats. In one way the attitude of the Democratic convention might be
compared to that of the Thirty One four years earlier. Both prevented the question
of our accession to the League of Nations from being a clear cut major issue
between the parties at the presidential election. This is something for which
American partisans of the League may be thankful.
For its part, the Assembly of the League met together in Geneva last September
in a mood to take more resolute action than it had since the days of its formation.
It had been stung by the charge that so far it had only settled small questions and
proved itself incapable of solving large ones. It had also apparently come to the
reluctant conclusion that there was no hope of an immediate change of mind in
the United States nor advantage in longer waiting. The Dawes Report and its
acceptance, the community of views expressed by Macdonald and Herriot, the
new willingness of France to entrust the guaranty of her security to the League
instead of relying merely on her own military strength, all paved the way for
weighty decisions. The result was the Protocol.
This is not the place to go into the meaning or importance of the Protocol, which
we were not invited to sign. Much has been said about it and we are only at the
beginning of the discussion. For a good effect on America it came out at an
unfortunate moment in an unfortunate way. Rightly or wrongly, the Protocol has
increased distrust of the League here, reviving the somewhat forgotten alarms of
those who had opposed the League on the ground that it was creating a
superstate. To make matters worse, suspicion has been much intensified by the
eleventh hour action of the Japanese. It is true that they did not obtain their
demand in the form they had put it. It also may be true, though it is not clear, that
they will be in no better position to urge their claims for a reopening of the
immigration dispute than they were before. But the mere fact that the League
seems to provide a way in which, without incurring its disapproval, the Japanese
may go ahead and act as they please about what we believe to be a domestic
question, is like a red rag to a bull to the average American. Supporters of the
League will continually have to explain away a clause which seems to present in
concrete form a danger whose existence they have denied in the abstract. All told,
the chance of anything like the immediate accession of the United States to the
League appears to have been reduced to a vanishing point. Even the more friendly
attitude we have of late been maintaining towards it is menaced. Already there
has been some little feeling in America at the proposal to call a disarmament
conference in Geneva next June regardless of our expressed desire to have
another one in Washington under our aegis. The charge, justified or not, that the
Protocol facilitates anti-American designs on the part of Japan is almost enough to
wreck all chance of our participating in any disarmament congress fathered by
the League of Nations. If, as now seems probable (and even desirable to many
friends of the League), the Protocol fails to receive the number of ratifications
necessary to make it valid, we may witness the opposite effect. It is too early yet
to make predictions.
But this is not all. The fact that the High Court has been brought into connection
with possible Japanese claims about what we regard as domestic questions
threatens to stimulate American dislike of any such Court. To be sure, President
Coolidge as well as President Harding, the Republican Party as well as the
Democratic, have pronounced themselves officially in favor of our participation.
Still, a good many Americans have their doubts, and a large number, well
represented in Congress, demand that it shall be entirely disassociated from the
League. This demand has been strengthened, at least temporarily, by the incident
of the Protocol and will be affected by its outcome. But the High Court is an
indispensable part of the League. It can hardly be cut off to please us nor can it
easily be made to serve in two capacities.
On this question of just what we intend to do about a World Court the

administration must soon make up its mind. There is no such necessity in regard
to the League, for there its mind is already made up. We intend to stay outside
with Russia, Mexico, and Ecuador. We shall continue our policy of coöperation
and we shall try to collect our debts. In our present mood we care less to have our
course idealistic than to have it safe and sane, even if our definition of safe and
sane looks to some people a short-sighted one.
E, Anonymous
December 15,1924

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1972: NIXON VS. MCGOVERN

1968: NIXON VS. HUMPHREY

1964: JOHNSON VS. GOLDWATER

1960: KENNEDY VS. NIXON

1956: EISENHOWER VS. STEVENSON

1948: TRUMAN VS. DEWEY

1944: ROOSEVELT VS. DEWEY

1932: ROOSEVELT VS. HOOVER

1928: HOOVER VS. SMITH

1924: COOLIDGE VS. DAVIS

GIDEON ROSE is Editor of Foreign Aﬀairs.

MANSI THAPLIYAL / COURTESY REUTERS

Republicans need to start taking international relations more seriously,

BUILDING THE BRAND

The administration did have some successes—getting Libya to abandon its

Unbowed by Iraq, prominent neoconservatives called for aggressive military

HOW TO GET BACK ON TRACK

A reality check is necessary. Precisely because Republican presidents during the

BRIAN SNYDER / REUTERS

In the ideal conservative universe, avoiding a European destiny and facing up to

How to do that? Every type of persuasion—moral, political, policy—carries with it

Small-government conservatives have their own temptations when it comes to

More broadly, small-government conservatives are too often tempted to treat

Small-government conservatives, for their part, can teach their big-military

Another lesson small-government conservatives have to offer is that nobody hates

Small-government conservatives also realize that Americans will stomach long

Finally, those in the small-government camp understand that unlike authoritarian

Big-military conservatives also correctly argue that a substantially weaker U.S.

As big-military conservatives also know, shrinking the defense budget is a costly

These observations ought to remind Republicans about the necessity of

KEEPING NIGHTMARES AT BAY

Preventing those outcomes means taking on the negative task of keeping

In her farewell testimony, Clinton spoke of the “Pandora’s box” of weapons

On a number of critical issues, anything resembling a larger strategy was often

WHO IS OBAMA'S KISSINGER?

MICHAEL HIRSH is Chief Correspondent for National Journal.

KEVIN LAMARQUE / REUTERS

COMMON SECURITY FOR OUR COMMON HUMANITY

Such leadership demands that we retrieve a fundamental insight of Roosevelt,

MOVING BEYOND IRAQ

Our servicemen and servicewomen have performed admirably while sacrificing

At the same time, we must launch a comprehensive regional and international

Throughout the Middle East, we must harness American power to reinvigorate

REVITALIZING THE MILITARY

To renew American leadership in the world, we must immediately begin working

We must also consider using military force in circumstances beyond self-defense

HALTING THE SPREAD OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS

As we lock down existing nuclear stockpiles, I will work to negotiate a verifiable

Finally, we must develop a strong international coalition to prevent Iran from

COMBATING GLOBAL TERRORISM

To succeed, our homeland security and counterterrorism actions must be linked to