A NATIONAL

SECURITY

STRATEGY

OF

ENGAGEMENT

AND

ENLARGEMENT

FEBRUARY 1995
A NATIONAL 

SECURITY

STRATEGY

OF

ENGAGEMENT

AND

ENLARGEMENT

THE WHITE HOUSE

FEBRUARY 1995
CONTENTS

Preface ............... i

I. Introduction ........... 1

II. Advancing Our Interests Through

Engagement and Enlargement ... 7

Enhancing Our Security ..... 8

Maintaining a Strong Defense

Capability ......... 8

Major Regional Contingencies 9

Overseas Presence ...... 9

Counterterrorism, Fighting Drug

Trafficking and Other Missions10

 Combating Terrorism ... 10

 Fighting Drug Trafficking 11

 Other Missions ..... 11

Deciding When and How to Employ

U.S. Forces ........ 12

 Combating the Spread and Use of

Weapons of Mass Destruction and

Missiles ......... 13

Nonproliferation and

Counterproliferation . . 13

Nuclear Forces ..... 15

 Arms Control ........ 15

 Peace Operations ...... 16

 Strong Intelligence Capabilities17

The Environment and Sustainable

Development ........ 18 

Promoting Prosperity at Home . 19

Enhancing American Competitiveness19

Partnership with Business and Labor19

Enhancing Access to Foreign Markets19

The North American Free Trade

Agreement ......... 20

Asia-Pacific Economic

Cooperation ........ 20

Uruguay Round of GATT ... 20

U.S. - Japan Framework

Agreement ......... 20

Summit of the Americas . . 20

Expanding the Realm of Free

Trade ........... 21

Strengthening Macroeconomic

Coordination ......... 21

Providing for Energy Security . 21

Promoting Sustainable Development

Abroad ............ 21

Promoting Democracy ...... 22

III. Integrated Regional Approaches 25

 Europe and Eurasia ...... 25

 East Asian and the Pacific . . 28

 The Western Hemisphere .... 29

 The Middle East, Southwest and

 South Asia .......... 30

 Africa ............ 31

IV. Conclusions .......... 33
i

PREFACE

Protecting our nation's security — our

people, our territory and our way of

life — is my Administration's foremost

mission and constitutional duty. The

end of the Cold War fundamentally

changed America's security imperatives. 

The central security challenge of the

past half century — the threat of

communist expansion — is gone. The

dangers we face today are more diverse. 

Ethnic conflict is spreading and rogue

states pose a serious danger to

regional stability in many corners of

the globe. The proliferation of

weapons of mass destruction represents

a major challenge to our security. 

Large scale environmental degradation,

exacerbated by rapid population growth,

threatens to undermine political

stability in many countries and

regions. 

At the same time, we have unparalleled

opportunities to make our nation safer

and more prosperous. Our military

might is unparalleled. We now have a

truly global economy linked by an

instantaneous communications network,

which offers growing opportunity for

American jobs and American investment. 

The community of democratic nations is

growing, enhancing the prospects for

political stability, peaceful conflict

resolution and greater dignity and hope

for the people of the world. The

international community is beginning to

act together to address pressing global

environmental needs. 

Never has American leadership been more

essential — to navigate the shoals of

the world's new dangers and to

capitalize on its opportunities. 

American assets are unique: our

military strength, our dynamic economy,

our powerful ideals and, above all, our

people. We can and must make the

difference through our engagement; but

our involvement must be carefully

tailored to serve our interests and

priorities. 

This report, submitted in accordance

with Section 603 of the GoldwaterNichols Defense Department

Reorganization Act of 1986, elaborates

a national security strategy tailored

for this new era. Focusing on new

threats and new opportunities, its

central goals are: 

 o To sustain our security with

military forces that are ready to

fight. 

 0 To bolster America's economic

revitalization. 

 0 To promote democracy abroad. 

Over the past two years, my

Administration has worked diligently to

pursue these goals. This national

security strategy report presents the

strategy that has guided this effort. 

It is premised on a belief that the

line between our domestic and foreign

policies is disappearing — that we must

revitalize our economy if we are to

sustain our military forces, foreign

initiatives and global influence, and

that we must engage actively abroad if

we are to open foreign markets and

create jobs for our people. 

We believe that our goals of enhancing

our security, bolstering our economic

prosperity, and promoting democracy are

mutually supportive. Secure nations

are more likely to support free trade

and maintain democratic structures. 

Nations with growing economies and

strong trade ties are more likely to

feel secure and to work toward freedom. 

And democratic states are less likely

to threaten our interests and more

likely to cooperate with the U.S. to

meet security threats and promote free

trade and sustainable development. 
ii

Since my Administration began, we have been

deeply engaged in adapting existing

structures, and in constructing new ones, to

meet these goals. To enhance global

security, for example, we have pursued peace

initiatives in the Middle East; established

NATO's Partnership for Peace and initiated a

process that will lead to NATO's expansion;

secured the accession of Ukraine,

Kazakhstan, and Belarus to the Nuclear

Non-Proliferation Treaty and their agreement

to eliminate nuclear weapons from their

territory, which in turn opened the door to

the ratification and entry into force of the

START I Treaty; participated in an

unprecedented regional security gathering of

the ASEAN countries and others, including

Russia and Vietnam; and reached an agreed

framework with North Korea that halted, and

will eventually eliminate, its dangerous

nuclear program. To bolster prosperity at

home and around the world, we have secured

the enactment of legislation implementing

both the North American Free Trade Agreement

(NAFTA) and the Uruguay Round of the General

Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT),

worked to open Asian-Pacific markets through

two leaders meetings of the Asia-Pacific

Economic Cooperation forum, lowered export

controls and held a Western Hemisphere

Summit in Miami where the 34 democratic

nations of this hemisphere committed

themselves to negotiate a free trade

agreement by 2005. To promote democracy, we

have supported South Africa's recent

transformation, provided aid to a new

democratic Russia and other new independent

states as well as Central and Eastern

European nations, assisted Cambodia, and

worked with our Western Hemisphere neighbors

restoring the democratically elected

government in Haiti and hosting the Summit

of the Americas, which reaffirmed and

strengthened our mutual commitment to

democracy. 

Our extraordinary diplomatic leverage to

reshape existing security and economic

structures and create new ones ultimately

relies upon American power. Our economic

and military might, as well as the power of

our ideals, make America's diplomats the

first among equals. Our economic strength

gives us a position of advantage on almost

every global issue. For instance, South

Africa and our negotiations with North Korea

demonstrate how economic incentives and the

imposition — or the threat — of economic

sanctions enable us to achieve our

objectives as part of our determined

diplomacy. 

But military force remains an indispensable

element of our nation's power. Even with

the Cold War over, our nation must maintain

military forces sufficient to deter diverse

threats and, when necessary, to fight and

win against our adversaries. While many

factors ultimately contribute to our

nation's safety and well-being, no single

component is more important than the men and

women who wear America's uniform and stand

sentry over our security. Their skill,

service and dedication constitute the core

of our defenses. Today our military is the

best-equipped, best trained and

best-prepared fighting force in the world. 

Time after time in the last year, our troops

demonstrated their current readiness and

strength: helping to save hundreds of

thousands of lives in Rwanda; moving with

lightning speed to head off another Iraqi

threat to Kuwait; and giving freedom and

democracy back to the people of Haiti. I am

committed to ensuring that this military

capability is not compromised. 

The United States recognizes that we have a

special responsibility that goes along with

being a great power. Our global interests

and our historic ideals impel us to oppose

those who would endanger the survival or

well- being of their peaceful neighbors. 

Nations should be able to expect that their

borders and their sovereignty will always be

secure. At the same time, this does not

mean we or the international community must

tolerate gross violations of human rights

within those borders. 

When our national security interests are

threatened, we will, as America always has,

use diplomacy when we can, but force if we

must. We will act with others when we can,

but alone when we must. We recognize,

however, that while force can defeat an

aggressor, it cannot solve underlying

problems. Democracy and economic prosperity

can take root in a struggling society only

through local solutions carried out by the

society itself. We must use military force

selectively, recognizing that its use may do

no more than provide a window of opportunity

for a society — and diplomacy — to work. 

We therefore will send American troops

abroad only when our interests and our

values are sufficiently at stake. When we

do so, it will be with clear objectives to

which we are firmly committed and which —

when combat is likely — we have the means to

achieve decisively. To do otherwise, risks

those objectives and endangers our troops. 

These requirements are as pertinent for

humanitarian and other non-traditional

interventions today as they were for

previous generations during prolonged world

wars. Modern media communications may now

bring to our homes both the suffering that

exists in many parts of the world and the

casualties that may accompany interven-
iii

tion to help. But we must remain clear

in our purpose and resolute in its

execution. And while we must continue

to reassess the costs and benefits of

any operation as it unfolds, reflexive

calls for withdrawal of our forces when

casualties are incurred would simply

encourage rogue actors to try to force

our departure from areas where there

are U.S. interests by attacking

American troops. 

During the past two years, diplomacy

backed by American power has produced

results: 

 o When Iraq moved forces towards Kuwait,

we reacted swiftly and dispatched

large-scale forces to the region under

the authority of the United Nations—but

were prepared to act alone, if

necessary. 

 o In Haiti, it was only when the Haitian

military learned that the 82nd Airborne

Division was enroute that we achieved

peacefully what we were prepared to do

under fire. 

 o In Bosnia, we have been able to achieve

limited but important objectives when

diplomacy has been married to

appropriate military power. For

instance, the Sarajevo ultimatum largely

succeeded because the threat of NATO air

power was judged real; similarly, the

threat of NATO airpower prevented the

fall of Gorazde. 

 o In Rwanda and Somalia, only the American

military could have done what it did in

these humanitarian missions, saving

hundreds of thousands of lives. 

However, over the longer run our

interests were served by turning these

operations over to multilateral

peacekeeping forces once the immediate

humanitarian crisis was addressed. No

outside force can create a stable and

legitimate domestic order for another

society—that work can only be

accomplished by the society itself. 

Our national security strategy reflects

both America's interests and our

values. Our commitment to freedom,

equality and human dignity continues to

serve as a beacon of hope to peoples

around the world. The vitality,

creativity and diversity of American

society are important sources of

national strength in a global economy

increasingly driven by information and

ideas. 

Our prospects in this new era are

promising. The specter of nuclear

annihilation has dramatically receded. 

The historic events of the past two

years — including the hand shake

between Israel and the PLO, the peace

treaty between Israel and Jordan, and

the transformation of South Africa to a

multiracial democracy headed by

President Mandela — suggest this era's

possibilities for achieving security,

prosperity and democracy. 

Our nation can only address this era's

dangers and opportunities if we remain

actively engaged in global affairs. We

are the world's greatest power, and we

have global interests as well as

responsibilities. As our nation

learned after World War I, we can find

no security for America in isolationism

nor prosperity in protectionism. For

the American people to be safer and

enjoy expanding opportunities, our

nation must work to deter would-be

aggressors, open foreign markets,

promote the spread of democracy abroad,

encourage sustainable development and

pursue new opportunities for peace. 

Our national security requires the

patient application of American will

and resources. We can only sustain

that necessary investment with the

broad, bipartisan support of the

American people and their

representatives in Congress. The full

participation of Congress is essential

to the success of our new engagement,

and I will consult with members of

Congress at every step in making and

implementing American foreign policy. 

The Cold War may be over, but the need

for American leadership abroad remains

as strong as ever. I am committed to

forging a new public consensus to

sustain our active engagement abroad in

pursuit of our cherished goal — a more

secure world where democracy and free

markets know no borders. This document

details that commitment. 

WILLIAM J. CLINTON
iv
1

I. INTRODUCTION

A new era is upon us. The Cold War is

over. The dissolution of the Soviet

empire has radically transformed the

security environment facing the United

States and our allies. The primary

security imperative of the past half

century — containing communist

expansion while preventing nuclear war

— is gone. We no longer face massive

Soviet forces across an East-West

divide nor Soviet missiles targeted on

the United States. Yet there remains a

complex array of new and old security

challenges America must meet as we

approach a new century. 

This national security strategy

assesses America's role in this new

international context and describes the

Administration's strategy to advance

our interests at home and abroad. 

This is a period of great promise but

also great uncertainty. We stand as

the world's preeminent power. 

America's core value of freedom, as

embodied in democratic governance and

market economics, has gained ground

around the world. Hundreds of millions

of people have thrown off communism,

dictatorship or apartheid. Former

adversaries now cooperate with us in

diplomacy and global problem solving. 

Both the threat of a war among great

powers and the specter of nuclear

annihilation have receded dramatically. 

The dynamism of the global economy is

transforming commerce, culture and

global politics, promising greater

prosperity for America and greater

cooperation among nations. 

At the same time, troubling

uncertainties and clear threats remain. 

The new, independent states that

replaced the 

Soviet Union are experiencing wrenching

economic and political transitions, as

are many new democracies of Central and

Eastern Europe. While our relations

with the other great powers are as

constructive as at any point in this

century, Russia's historic transformation will proceed along a difficult

path, and China maintains a repressive

regime even as that country assumes a

more important economic and political

role in global affairs. The spread of

weapons of mass destruction poses

serious threats. Violent extremists

threaten fragile peace processes in

many parts of the world. Worldwide,

there is a resurgence of militant

nationalism as well as ethnic and

religious conflict. This has been

demonstrated by upheavals in Bosnia,

Rwanda and Somalia, where the United

States has participated in peacekeeping

and humanitarian missions. 

Not all security risks are immediate or

military in nature. Transnational

phenomena such as terrorism, narcotics

trafficking, environmental degradation,

natural resource depletion, rapid

population growth and refugee flows

also have security implications for

both present and long term American

policy. In addition, an emerging class

of transnational environmental issues

are increasingly affecting international stability and consequently will

present new challenges to U.S. strategy.

American leadership in the world has

never been more important, for there is

a simple truth about this new world:

the same idea that was under attack

three times in this Century — first by

imperialism and then by fascism and

communism — remains under attack today,

but on many
2

fronts at once. It is an idea that comes

under many names — democracy, liberty,

civility, pluralism — but which together are

the values of a society where leaders and

governments preserve individual freedoms,

and ensure opportunity and human dignity. 

As the President has said, "We face a

contest as old as history — a struggle

between freedom and tyranny; between

tolerance and isolation. It is a fight

between those who would build free societies

governed by laws and those who would impose

their will by force. Our struggle today, in

a world more high-tech, more fast-moving,

more chaotically diverse than ever, is the

age-old fight between hope and fear." 

The victors of World War I squandered their

triumph in this age-old struggle when they

turned inward, bringing on a global

depression and allowing fascism to rise, and

reigniting global war. After World War II,

we learned the lessons of the past. In the

face of a new totalitarian threat this great

nation did not walk away from the challenge

of the moment. Instead it chose to reach

out, to rebuild international security

structures and to lead. This determination

of previous generations to prevail over

communism by shaping new international

structures left us a world stronger, safer

and freer. It is this example and its

success which now inspire us to begin the

difficult task of a new stage in this old

struggle: to secure the peace won in the

Cold War against those who would still deny

people their human rights, terrorists who

threaten innocents and pariah states who

choose repression and extremism over

openness and moderation. 

If we exert our leadership abroad, we can

make America safer and more prosperous — by

deterring aggression, by fostering the

peaceful resolution of dangerous conflicts,

by opening foreign markets, by helping

democratic regimes and by tackling global

problems. Without our active leadership and

engagement abroad, threats will fester and

our opportunities will narrow. 

We must seek to be as creative and

constructive — in the literal sense of that

word — as the generation of the late 1940's. 

For all its dangers, this new world presents

an immense opportunity — the chance to adapt

and construct global institutions that will

help to provide security and increase

economic growth throughout the world. 

The issue for the next decade is whether our

efforts at this construction can succeed in

the face of shifting threats to the ideals

and habits of democracy. It is therefore in

our 

interest that democracy be at once the

foundation and the purpose of the

international structures we build through

this constructive diplomacy: the foundation,

because the institutions will be a

reflection of their shared values and norms;

the purpose, because if our economic

institutions are secure, democracy will

flourish. 

While democracy will not soon take hold

everywhere, we know that the larger the pool

of democracies, the better off we, and the

entire community of nations, will be. 

Democracies create free markets that offer

economic opportunity, make for more reliable

trading partners, and are far less likely to

wage war on one another. It is in our

interest to do all that we can to enlarge

the community of free and open societies,

especially in areas of greatest strategic

interest, as in the former Soviet Union. 

We can only engage actively abroad if the

American people and the Congress are willing

to bear the costs of that leadership — in

dollars, political energy and, at times,

American lives. In a democracy, the foreign

policy of the nation must serve the needs of

the people. The preamble of the

Constitution sets out the basic objectives: 

to provide for the common defense,

promote the general welfare, and secure

the blessings of liberty to ourselves

and our posterity.

The end of the Cold War does not alter these

fundamental purposes. Nor does it reduce

the need for active American efforts, here

and abroad, to pursue those goals. One

purpose of this report is to help foster the

broad, bipartisan understanding and support

necessary to sustain our international

engagement. A coalition of the center

through bipartisan congressional

participation is critical to this

commitment. 

Our national security strategy is based on

enlarging the community of market

democracies while deterring and containing a

range of threats to our nation, our allies

and our interests. The more that democracy

and political and economic liberalization

take hold in the world, particularly in

countries of geostrategic importance to us,

the safer our nation is likely to be and the

more our people are likely to prosper. 

To that broad end, the report explains the

three central components of our strategy of

engagement and enlargement: our efforts to

enhance our security by maintaining a
3

strong defense capability and promoting

cooperative security measures; our work to

open foreign markets and spur global

economic growth; and our promotion of

democracy abroad. It also explains how we

are pursuing the three elements of our

strategy in specific regions by adapting and

constructing institutions that will help to

provide security and increase economic

growth throughout the world. 

During the first two years of this

Administration, this strategy already has

produced tangible results with respect to

our security requirements: 

 o At the President's direction, the

Pentagon completed the Bottom Up Review,

a full-scale assessment of what defense

forces and systems our nation needs for

this new security era. The President

has also set forth a defense budget for

Fiscal Years 1996-2001 that funds the

force structure recommended by the

Review, and he repeatedly stressed that

he will draw the line against further

cuts that would undermine that force

structure or erode U.S. military

readiness. The swift and efficient

deployment of our forces last October to

the Persian Gulf, and to Haiti and

Rwanda, clearly demonstrates their

continued readiness to respond as

needed. The President also requested

Congress to enact supplemental appropriations of $1.7 billion for FY 1994

and $2.6 billion for FY 1995 to ensure

training readiness is not impaired by

the costs of such unanticipated contingencies. In addition, the President

added $25 billion to the defense

spending plan over the next six years to

provide more funding for readiness and

to improve the quality of life of our

military personnel and families. 

 o At President Clinton's initiative, a

NATO Summit in January 1994 approved the

Partnership For Peace (PFP) and

initiated a process that will lead to

NATO's gradual expansion to ensure that

NATO is prepared to meet the European

and trans-Atlantic security challenges

of this era, and to provide the security

relationships that will provide the

underpinnings for the democratic gains

in Europe since 1989. Since the Summit,

25 countries, including Russia, agreed

to join the Partnership for Peace. 

 o The United States, Russia, Ukraine,

Belarus and Kazakhstan exchanged

instruments of ratification for the

START I Treaty at the December summit of

the Conference on Security and

Cooperation in Europe 

(CSCE), culminating two years of intensive U.S. diplomatic efforts to bring

the Treaty into force and paving the way

for ratification of the START II Treaty. 

START I requires the permanent elimination of bombers, ICBM silos and ballistic missile submarine launch tubes

that carried over 9,000 of the 21,000

total warheads the United States and the

former Soviet Union declared when the

Treaty was signed — a reduction of 40

percent. START II, signed in 1993, will

eliminate additional U.S. and Russian

strategic launchers and will effectively

remove an additional 5,000 warheads,

leaving each side with no more than

3,500. These actions will reduce the

strategic force arsenals of the United

States and Russia by two-thirds. Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin have agreed

that once START II is ratified, the

United States and Russia will begin

immediately to deactivate all strategic

nuclear delivery systems to be reduced

under the Treaty by removing their

nuclear warheads or taking other steps

to take them out of combat status, thus

removing thousands of warheads from

alert status years ahead of schedule. 

The two Presidents also directed an

intensification of dialogue regarding

the possibility of further reductions

of, and limitations on, remaining

nuclear forces. 

 o The President launched a comprehensive

policy to combat the proliferation of

weapons of mass destruction and the

missiles that deliver them. The United

States has secured landmark commitments

to eliminate all nuclear weapons from

Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan and, in

December, all three nations formally

acceded to the Nuclear Non-proliferation

Treaty as non-nuclear weapon states. 

The United States and over 30 other

nations opened formal negotiations on a

Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in January

1994, producing a Joint Draft Treaty

text that provides a baseline for

resolving remaining issues. We also

made significant progress during the

past year in negotiations within the

Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty's

Standing Consultative Commission (SCC)

to establish an agreed demarcation

between strategic and theater ballistic

missiles that will allow for the

deployment of advanced theater missile

defense and update the ABM treaty to

reflect the break-up of the Soviet

Union. The Administration also submitted the Chemical Weapons Convention

to the Senate for ratification and

supported the development of new

measures to strengthen the Biological

Weapons Convention.
4

 o The Administration reached an important

agreed framework with North Korea that

has halted, and will eventually

eliminate, that country's nuclear

program, greatly enhancing regional

stability and achieving our

nonproliferation goals. The

Administration also reached agreements

with Russia, Ukraine and South Africa to

control missile-related technology and

secured China's commitment not to

transfer MTCR-controlled

ground-to-ground missiles. 

 o The President's efforts helped bring

about many historic firsts in the Middle

East peace process — the handshake of

peace between Prime Minister Rabin and

Chairman Arafat on the White House lawn

has been followed by the Jordan-Israel

peace treaty, progress on eliminating

the Arab boycott of Israel and the

establishment of ties between Israel and

an increasing number of its Arab

neighbors. 

 o On May 3, 1994, President Clinton signed

a Presidential Decision Directive

establishing "U.S. Policy on Reforming

Multilateral Peace Operations." This

policy represents the first,

comprehensive framework for U.S.

decisionmaking on issues of peacekeeping

and peace enforcement suited to the

realities of the post Cold War period. 

 o In October 1994, President Clinton

submitted the United Nations Convention

on the Law of the Sea to the Senate for

ratification. This was the culmination

of years of negotiations to ensure an

equitable balance between the rights of

coastal states to control activities in

adjacent offshore areas to protect their

economic, security and environmental

interests, and the rights of maritime

states to free and unimpeded navigation

and overflight of the oceans of the

world. This included an acceptable

regime to administer the mineral

resources of the deep seabed, thereby

protecting U.S. interests. 

On the economic front, Administration

policies have created nearly six million

American jobs and established the foundation

for the global economy of the 21st Century: 

 o The President worked with the Congress

on effective measures to reduce the

federal budget deficit and restore

economic growth. These measures help

increase our competitiveness and

strengthen our position in negotiations

with other nations. 

 o The President secured approval of the

North American Free Trade Agreement

(NAFTA) which creates the world's

largest free trade zone and has already

created more than 100,000 American jobs. 

The vote for NAFTA marked a decisive

U.S. affirmation of its international

engagement. Through NAFTA's

environmental and labor side agreements,

we are working actively to protect the

rights of workers and to reduce air and

water pollution that crosses national

boundaries. When Mexico came under

short-term financial pressures in

December of 1994, the United States took

the lead in marshaling international

support to assist the country in meeting

this challenge. This decision reflected

the President's belief that the United

States has a strong interest in

prosperity and stability in Mexico and

that it is in our economic and strategic

interest that Mexico's economic reform

program succeeds. 

 o The Administration stood at the

forefront of a multilateral effort to

achieve history's most extensive

market-opening agreements in the GATT

Uruguay-round negotiations on world

trade. Working with a bipartisan

coalition in the Congress, the President

secured approval of this path breaking

agreement and the resulting World Trade

Organization, which will add $100-200

billion and hundreds of thousands of

jobs each year to the U.S. economy. 

 o The President convened the first meeting

of leaders of the Asia- Pacific Economic

Cooperation (APEC) forum — and took

steps to expand our ties with the

economies of the Asia-Pacific region,

the fastest growing area in the world. 

At their second meeting in November

1994, the APEC leaders agreed to the

goal of free trade within the region by

early in the 21st Century and to develop

a blueprint for implementation by the

APEC meeting this year in Osaka. 

 o The President hosted the Summit of the

Americas in December, a historic

gathering where the 34 democratic

nations of the hemisphere committed

themselves to completing negotiations on

a regional free trade agreement by 2005. 

In Miami, the United States, Canada and

Mexico also invited Chile to begin

negotiations to join NAFTA. 

 o We have committed the United States to

reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to

1990 levels by the year
5

2000, and we have developed a National

Climate Plan to achieve that goal. The

United States has also taken a leading

role at the international level towards

phasing out the production of most

ozone-depleting substances. Under the

Montreal Protocol for the protection of

the ozone layer, the United States is

contributing to developing countries'

efforts to reduce their emissions of

ozone-depleting chemicals. In June

1993, the U.S. signed the Biodiversity

Treaty, and one year later, the

Desertification Convention. 

 o The Administration has asserted world

leadership on population issues. We

played a key role during the Cairo

Conference on Population and Development

in developing a consensus Program of

Action, including increased availability

of voluntary family planning and

reproductive health services,

sustainable economic development,

strengthening of family ties, the

empowerment of women including enhanced

educational opportunities, and a

reduction in infant and child mortality

through immunizations and other

programs. 

Finally, the President has demonstrated a

firm commitment to expanding the global

realm of democracy: 

 o The Administration substantially

expanded U.S. support for democratic and

market reform in Russia, Ukraine and the

other newly independent states of the

former Soviet Union, including a

comprehensive assistance package for

Ukraine. 

 o The United States launched a series of

initiatives to bolster the new

democracies of Central and Eastern

Europe, including the White House Trade

and Investment Conference for Central

and Eastern Europe held in Cleveland in

January. We affirmed our concern for

their security and market economic

transformation, recognizing that such

assurances would play a key role in

promoting democratic developments. 

 o Working with the international community

under the auspices of the UN, we

succeeded in reversing the coup in Haiti

and restoring the democratically elected

president and government. We are now

helping the Haitian people consolidate

their hardwon democracy and rebuild

their country as we complete the

transition from the Multinational Force

to the United Nations Mission in Haiti. 

 o U.S. engagement in Northern Ireland

contributed to the establishment of a

cease-fire, first by the IRA and

subsequently by loyalist

para-militaries. The President

announced in November a package of

initiatives aimed at consolidating the

peace by promoting economic

revitalization and increased private

sector trade and investment in Northern

Ireland. 

 o At the Summit of the Americas, the 34

democratic nations of the hemisphere

agreed to a detailed plan of cooperative

action in such diverse fields as health,

education, counter-narcotics,

environmental protection, information

infrastructure, and the strengthening

and safeguarding of democratic

institutions, in addition to mutual

prosperity and sustainable development. 

The Summit ushered in a new era of

hemispheric cooperation that would not

have been possible without U.S.

leadership and commitment. 

 o The United States has increased support

for South Africa as it conducted

elections and became a multiracial

democracy. During the state visit of

Nelson Mandela in October, we announced

formation of a bilateral commission to

foster new cooperation between our

nations, and an assistance package to

support housing, health, education,

trade and investment. 

 o The United States, working with the

Organization of American States, helped

reverse an anti-democratic coup in

Guatemala. 

 o In Mozambique and Angola, the United

States played a leading role in

galvanizing the international community

to help bring an end to two decades of

civil war and to promote national

reconciliation. For the first time,

there is the prospect that all of

southern Africa will enjoy the fruits of

peace and prosperity. 

 o The Administration initiated policies

aimed at crisis prevention, including a

new peacekeeping policy. 

This report has two major sections. The

first part of the report explains our

strategy of engagement and enlargement. The

second part describes briefly how the

Administration is applying this strategy to

the world's major regions. 
6
7

II. ADVANCING OUR INTERESTS THROUGH 

ENGAGEMENT AND ENLARGEMENT

The dawn of the post-Cold War era presents

the United States with many distinct

dangers, but also with a generally improved

security environment and a range of

opportunities to improve it further. The

unitary threat that dominated our engagement

during the Cold War has been replaced by a

complex set of challenges. Our nation's

strategy for defining and addressing those

challenges has several core principles which

guide our policy. First and foremost, we

must exercise global leadership. We are not

the world's policeman, but as the world's

premier economic and military power, and

with the strength of our democratic values,

the U.S. is indispensable to the forging of

stable political relations and open trade. 

Our leadership must stress preventive

diplomacy — through such means as support

for democracy, economic assistance, overseas

military presence, military-to-military

contacts and involvement in multilateral

negotiations in the Middle East and

elsewhere — in order to help resolve

problems, reduce tensions and defuse

conflicts before they become crises. These

measures are a wise investment in our

national security because they offer the

prospect of resolving problems with the

least human and material cost. 

Our engagement must be selective, focusing

on the challenges that are most relevant to

our own interests and focusing our resources

where we can make the most difference. We

must also use the right tools — being

willing to act unilaterally when our direct

national interests are most at stake; in

alliance and partnership when our interests

are shared by others; and multilaterally

when our interests are more general and the

problems are best addressed by the

international community. In all cases, the

nature of our response must depend on what

best serves our own long-term national

interests. Those interests are 

ultimately defined by our security

requirements. Such requirements start with

our physical defense and economic

well-being. They also include environmental

security as well as the security of values

achieved through expansion of the community

of democratic nations. 

Our national security strategy draws upon a

range of political, military and economic

instruments, and focuses on the primary

objectives that President Clinton has

stressed throughout his Administration: 

 o Enhancing Our Security. Taking account

of the realities of the post-Cold War

era and the new threats, a military

capability appropriately sized and

postured to meet the diverse needs of

our strategy, including the ability, in

concert with regional allies, to win two

nearly simultaneous major regional

conflicts. We will continue to pursue

arms control agreements to reduce the

danger of nuclear, chemical, biological,

and conventional conflict and to promote

stability. 

 o Promoting Prosperity at Home. A

vigorous and integrated economic policy

designed to stimulate global

environmentally sound economic growth

and free trade and to press for open and

equal U.S. access to foreign markets. 

 o Promoting Democracy. A framework of

democratic enlargement that increases

our security by protecting,

consolidating and enlarging the

community of free market democracies. 

Our efforts focus on strengthening

democratic processes in key emerging

democratic states including Russia,

Ukraine and other new states of the

former Soviet Union.
8

These basic objectives of our national

security strategy will guide the allocation

of our scarce national security resources. 

Because deficit reduction is also central to

the long-term health and competitiveness of

the American economy, we have made it, along

with efficient and environmentally sound use

of our resources, a major priority. Under

the Clinton economic plan, the deficit will

be reduced over 700 billion dollars by

Fiscal Year 1998. President Clinton has

also lowered the deficit as a percentage of

the Gross Domestic Product from 4.9 percent

in Fiscal Year 1992 to 2.4 percent in Fiscal

Year 1995—the lowest since 1979. 

Enhancing our Security

The U.S. government is responsible for

protecting the lives and personal safety of

Americans, maintaining our political freedom

and independence as a nation and promoting

the well-being and prosperity of our nation. 

No matter how powerful we are as a nation,

we cannot secure these basic goals

unilaterally. Whether the problem is

nuclear proliferation, regional instability,

the reversal of reform in the former Soviet

empire or unfair trade practices, the

threats and challenges we face demand

cooperative, multinational solutions. 

Therefore, the only responsible U.S.

strategy is one that seeks to ensure U.S.

influence over and participation in

collective decisionmaking in a wide and

growing range of circumstances. 

An important element of our security

preparedness depends on durable

relationships with allies and other friendly

nations. Accordingly, a central thrust of

our strategy of engagement is to sustain and

adapt the security relationships we have

with key nations around the world. These

ties constitute an important part of an

international framework that will be

essential to ensuring cooperation across a

broad range of issues. Within the realm of

security issues, our cooperation with allies

includes such activities as: conducting

combined training and exercises,

coordinating military plans and

preparations, sharing intelligence, jointly

developing new systems and controlling

exports of sensitive technologies according

to common standards. 

The post-Cold War era presents a different

set of threats to our security. In this new

period, enhancing American security

requires, first and foremost, developing and

maintaining a strong defense capability of

forces ready to fight. 

We are developing integrated approaches for

dealing with threats arising from the

development of nuclear and other weapons of

mass destruction by other nations. Our

security requires a vigorous arms control

effort and a strong intelligence capability. 

We have implemented a strategy for

multilateral peace operations. We have

clarified rigorous guidelines for when and

how to use military force in this era. 

We also face security risks that are not

solely military in nature. Transnational

phenomena such as terrorism, narcotics

trafficking, and refugee flows also have

security implications both for present and

long term American policy. An emerging

class of transnational environmental and

natural resource issues is increasingly

affecting international stability and

consequently will present new challenges to

U.S. strategy. The threat of intrusions to

our military and commercial information

systems poses a significant risk to national

security and must be addressed. 

Maintaining a Strong Defense

Capability

U.S. military capabilities are critical to

the success of our strategy. This nation

has unparalleled military capabilities: the

United States is the only nation capable of

conducting large-scale and effective

military operations far beyond its borders. 

This fact, coupled with our unique position

as the security partner of choice in many

regions, provides a foundation for regional

stability through mutually beneficial

security partnerships. Our willingness and

ability to play a leading role in defending

common interests also help ensure that the

United States will remain an influential

voice in international affairs — political,

military and economic — that affect our

well-being, so long as we retain the

military wherewithal to underwrite our

commitments credibly. 

To protect and advance U.S. interests in the

face of the dangers and opportunities

outlined earlier, the United States must

deploy robust and flexible military forces

that can accomplish a variety of tasks: 

 o Deterring and Defeating Aggression in

Major Regional Conflicts. Our forces

must be able to help offset the military

power of regional states with interests

opposed to those of the United States

and its allies. To do this, we must be

able to credibly deter and defeat

aggression, by projecting and sustaining

U.S. power in more than one region if

necessary.
9

 o Providing a Credible Overseas Presence.

U.S. forces must also be forward

deployed or stationed in key overseas

regions in peacetime to deter aggression

and advance U.S. strategic interests. 

Such overseas presence demonstrates our

commitment to allies and friends,

underwrites regional stability, gains us

familiarity with overseas operating

environments, promotes combined training

among the forces of friendly countries

and provides timely initial response

capabilities. 

o Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction.

We are devoting greater efforts to

stemming the proliferation of weapons of

mass destruction and their delivery

means, but at the same time we must

improve our capabilities to deter and

prevent the use of such weapons and

protect ourselves against their effects. 

 o Contributing to Multilateral Peace

Operations. When our interests call for

it, the United States must also be

prepared to participate in multilateral

efforts to resolve regional conflicts

and bolster new democratic governments. 

Thus, our forces must be ready to

participate in peacekeeping, peace

enforcement and other operations in

support of these objectives. 

 o Supporting Counterterrorism Efforts and

Other National Security Objectives. A

number of other tasks remain that U.S.

forces have typically carried out with

both general purpose and specialized

units. These missions include:

counterterrorism and punitive attacks,

noncombatant evacuation,

counternarcotics operations, special

forces assistance to nations and

humanitarian and disaster relief

operations. 

To meet all of these requirements

successfully, our forces must be capable of

responding quickly and operating

effectively. That is, they must be ready to

fight and win. This imperative demands

highly qualified and motivated people;

modern, well-maintained equipment; realistic

training; strategic mobility; sufficient

support and sustainment capabilities, and

proper investment in science and technology. 

Major Regional Contingencies

The focus of our planning for major theater

conflict is on deterring and, if necessary,

fighting and defeating aggression by potentially hostile regional powers,

such as North Korea, Iran or Iraq. Such

states are capable of fielding sizable

military forces that can cause serious

imbalances in military power within regions

important to the United States, with allied

or friendly states often finding it

difficult to match the power of a

potentially aggressive neighbor. To deter

aggression, prevent coercion of allied or

friendly governments and, ultimately, defeat

aggression should it occur, we must prepare

our forces to confront this scale of threat,

preferably in concert with our allies and

friends, but unilaterally if necessary. To

do this, we must have forces that can deploy

quickly and supplement U.S. forward based

and forward deployed forces, along with

regional allies, in halting an invasion and

defeating the aggressor, just as we

demonstrated by our rapid response in

October 1994 when Iraq threatened aggression

against Kuwait. 

With programmed enhancements, the forces the

Administration is fielding will be

sufficient to help defeat aggression in two

nearly simultaneous major regional

conflicts. As a nation with global

interests, it is important that the United

States maintain forces with aggregate

capabilities on this scale. Obviously, we

seek to avoid a situation in which an

aggressor in one region might be tempted to

take advantage when U.S. forces are heavily

committed elsewhere. More basically,

maintaining a "two war" force helps ensure

that the United States will have sufficient

military capabilities to deter or defeat

aggression by a coalition of hostile powers

or by a larger, more capable adversary than

we foresee today. 

We will never know with certainty how an

enemy might fight or precisely what demands

might be placed on our own forces in the

future. The contributions of allies or

coalition partners will vary from place to

place and over time. Thus, balanced U.S.

forces are needed in order to provide a wide

range of complementary capabilities and to

cope with the unpredictable and unexpected. 

Overseas Presence

The need to deploy U.S. military forces

abroad in peacetime is also an important

factor in determining our overall force

structure. We will maintain robust overseas

presence in several forms, such as

permanently stationed forces and

prepositioned equipment, deployments and

combined exercises, port calls and other

force visits, as well as military-tomilitary contacts. These activities provide

several benefits. Specifically they: 
10

 o Gave form and substance to our bilateral

and multilateral security commitments.

 o Demonstrate our determination to defend

U.S. and allied interests in critical

regions, deterring hostile nations from

acting contrary to those interests. 

 o Provide forward elements for rapid

response in crises as well as the bases,

ports and other infrastructure essential

for deployment of U.S.-based forces by

air, sea and land. 

 o Enhance the effectiveness of coalition

operations, including peace operations,

by improving our ability to operate with

other nations. 

 o Allow the United States to use its

position of trust to prevent the

development of power vacuums and

dangerous arms races, thereby

underwriting regional stability by

precluding threats to regional security. 

 o Facilitate regional integration, since

nations that may not be willing to work

together in our absence may be willing

to coalesce around us in a crisis. 

 o Promote an international security

environment of trust, cooperation, peace

and stability, which is fundamental to

the vitality of developing democracies

and free market economies for America's

own economic well-being and security. 

Through training programs, combined

exercises, military contacts,

interoperability and shared defense with

potential coalition partners, as well as

security assistance programs that include

judicious foreign military sales, we can

strengthen the local self-defense

capabilities of our friends and allies. 

Through active participation in regional

security dialogues, we can reduce regional

tensions, increase transparency in armaments

and improve our bilateral and multilateral

cooperation. 

By improving the defense capabilities of our

friends and demonstrating our commitment to

defend common interests, these activities

enhance deterrence, encourage

responsibility-sharing on the part of

friends and allies, decrease the likelihood

that U.S. forces will be necessary if

conflict arises and raise the odds that U.S.

forces will find a relatively favorable

situation should a U.S. response be

required. 

Counterterrorism, Fighting Drug

Trafficking and Other Missions 

While the missions outlined above will

remain the primary determinants of our

general purpose and nuclear force structure,

U.S. military forces and assets will also be

called upon to perform a wide range of other

important missions as well. Some of these

can be accomplished by conventional forces

fielded primarily for theater operations. 

Often, however, these missions call for

specialized units and capabilities. 

Combating Terrorism

As long as terrorist groups continue to

target American citizens and interests, the

United States will need to have specialized

units available to defeat such groups. From

time to time, we might also find it

necessary to strike terrorists at their

bases abroad or to attack assets valued by

the governments that support them. 

Our policy in countering international

terrorists is to make no concessions to

terrorists, continue to pressure state

sponsors of terrorism, fully exploit all

available legal mechanisms to punish

international terrorists and help other

governments improve their capabilities to

combat terrorism. 

Countering terrorism effectively requires

close day-to-day coordination among

Executive Branch agencies. The Departments

of State, Justice and Defense, the FBI and

CIA continue to cooperate closely in an

ongoing effort against international

terrorists. Positive results will come from

integration of intelligence, diplomatic and

rule-of-law activities, and through close

cooperation with other governments and

international counterterrorist

organizations. 

Improving U.S. intelligence capacities is a

significant part of the U.S. response. 

Terrorists, whether from well-organized

groups or the kind of more loosely organized

group responsible for the World Trade Center

bombing, have the advantage of being able to

take the initiative in the timing and choice

of targets. Terrorism involving weapons of

mass destruction represents a particularly

dangerous potential threat that must be

countered. 

The United States has made concerted efforts

to punish and deter terrorists. On June 26,

1993, following a determination that Iraq

had plotted an assassination attempt
11

against former President Bush, President

Clinton ordered a cruise missile attack

against the headquarters of Iraq's

intelligence service in order to send a firm

response and deter further threats. 

Similarly, the United States obtained

convictions against defendants in the

bombing of the World Trade Center. 

U.S. leadership and close coordination with

other governments and international bodies

will continue, as demonstrated by the UN

Security Council sanctions against Libya for

the Pan Am 103 and UTA 772 bombings, a new

international convention dealing with

detecting and controlling plastic

explosives, and two important

counterterrorism treaties — the Protocol for

the Suppression of Unlawful Acts of Violence

at Airports Serving International Aviation

and the Convention for the Suppression of

Unlawful Attacks Against the Safety of

Maritime Navigation. 

Fighting Drug Trafficking

The Administration has undertaken a new

approach to the global scourge of drug abuse

and trafficking that will better integrate

domestic and international activities to

reduce both the demand and the supply of

drugs. Ultimate success will depend on

concerted efforts and partnerships by the

public, all levels of government and the

American private sector with other

governments, private groups and

international bodies. 

The U.S. has shifted its strategy from the

past emphasis on transit interdiction to a

more evenly balanced effort with source

countries to build institutions, destroy

trafficking organizations and stop supplies.

We will support and strengthen democratic

institutions abroad, denying narcotics

traffickers a fragile political

infrastructure in which to operate. We will

also cooperate with governments that

demonstrate the political will to confront

the narcotics threat. 

Two new comprehensive strategies have been

developed, one to deal with the problem of

cocaine and another to address the growing

threat from high-purity heroin entering this

country. We will engage more aggressively

with international organizations, financial

institutions and nongovernmental

organizations in counternarcotics

cooperation. 

At home and in the international arena,

prevention, treatment and economic alternatives must work hand-in-hand with law

enforcement and interdiction activities. 

Longterm efforts will be maintained to help

nations develop healthy economies with fewer

market incentives for producing narcotics. 

The United States has increased efforts

abroad to foster public awareness and

support for governmental cooperation on a

broad range of activities to reduce the

incidence of drug abuse. Public awareness

of a demand problem in producing or

trafficking countries can be converted into

public support and increased governmental

law enforcement to reduce trafficking and

production. There has been a significant

attitudinal change and awareness in Latin

America and the Caribbean, particularly as

producer and transit nations themselves

become plagued with the ill effects of

consumption. 

Other Missions

The United States government is also

responsible for protecting the lives and

safety of Americans abroad. In order to

carry out this responsibility, selected U.S.

military forces are trained and equipped to

evacuate Americans from such situations as

the outbreak of civil or international

conflict and natural or man-made disasters. 

For example, U.S. Marines evacuated

Americans from Monrovia, Liberia in August

of 1990, and from Mogadishu, Somalia, in

December of that year. In 1991, U.S. forces

evacuated nearly 20,000 Americans from the

Philippines over a three-week period

following the eruption of Mount Pinatubo. 

Last year, U.S. Marines coupled with U.S.

airlift, deployed to Burundi to help ensure

the safe evacuation of U.S. citizens from

ethnic fighting in Rwanda. 

U.S. forces also provide invaluable training

and advice to friendly governments

threatened by subversion, lawlessness or

insurgency. At any given time, we have

small teams of military experts deployed in

roughly 25 countries helping host

governments cope with such challenges. 

U.S. military forces and assets are

frequently called upon to provide assistance

to victims of floods, storms, drought and

other humanitarian disasters. Both at home

and abroad, U.S. forces provide emergency

food, shelter, medical care and security to

those in need. 

Finally, the U.S. will continue as a world

leader in space through its technical

expertise and innovation. Over the past 30

years, as more and more nations have

ventured into space, the U.S. has

steadfastly recognized space as an

international region. Since all nations are

immediately accessible from space, the

maintenance of an international
12

legal regime for space, similar to the

concept of freedom of the high seas, is

especially important. Numerous attempts

have been made in the past to legally limit

access to space by countries that are

unable, either technologically or

economically, to join space-faring nations. 

As the commercial importance of space is

developed, the U.S. can expect further

pressure from non-participants to redefine

the status of space, similar to what has

been attempted with exclusive economic zones

constraining the high seas. 

Retaining the current international

character of space will remain critical to

achieving U.S. national security goals. Our

main objectives in this area include: 

 o Continued freedom of access to and use

of space; 

 o Maintaining the U.S. position as the

major economic, political, military and

technological power in space; 

 o Deterring threats to U.S. interests in

space and defeating aggressive or

hostile acts against U.S. space assets

if deterrence fails; 

 o Preventing the spread of weapons of mass

destruction to space; 

 o Enhancing global partnerships with other

space-faring nations across the spectrum

of economic, political and security

issues. 

Deciding When and How to Employ U.S.

Forces

Our strategy calls for the preparation and

deployment of American military forces in

the United States and abroad to support U.S.

diplomacy in responding to key dangers —

those posed by weapons of mass destruction,

regional aggression and threats to the

stability of states. 

Although there may be many demands for U.S.

involvement, the need to husband scarce

resources suggests that we must carefully

select the means and level of our

participation in particular military

operations. And while it is unwise to

specify in advance all the limitations we

will place on our use of force, we must be

as clear as possible about when and how we

will use it. 

There are three basic categories of national

interests which can merit the use of our

armed forces. The first involves America's

vital interests, i.e., interests which are

of broad, overriding importance to the

survival, security and vitality of our

national entity — the defense of U.S.

territory, citizens, allies and economic

well-being. We will do whatever it takes to

defend these interests, including — when

necessary — the unilateral and decisive use

of military power. This was demonstrated

clearly in Desert Storm and, more recently,

in Vigilant Warrior. 

The second category includes cases in which

important, but not vital, U.S. interests are

threatened. That is, the interests at stake

do not affect our national survival, but

they do affect importantly our national

well-being and the character of the world in

which we live. In such cases, military

forces should only be used if they advance

U.S. interests, they are likely to be able

to accomplish their objectives, the costs

and risks of their employment are

commensurate with the interests at stake,

and other means have been tried and have

failed to achieve our objectives. Such uses

of force should also be limited, reflecting

the relative saliency of the interests we

have at stake. Haiti is the most recent

example in this category. 

The third category involves primarily

humanitarian interests. Here, our decisions

focus on the resources we can bring to bear

by using unique capabilities of our military

rather than on the combat power of military

force. Generally, the military is not the

best tool to address humanitarian concerns. 

But under certain conditions, the use of our

armed forces may be appropriate: when a

humanitarian catastrophe dwarfs the ability

of civilian relief agencies to respond; when

the need for relief is urgent and only the

military has the ability to jump-start the

longer-term response to the disaster; when

the response requires resources unique to

the military; and when the risk to American

troops is minimal. Rwanda is a good case in

point. U.S. military forces performed

unique and essential roles, stabilized the

situation, and then got out, turning the

operation over to the international relief

community. 

The decision on whether and when to use

force is therefore dictated first and

foremost by our national interests. In

those specific areas where our vital or

survival interests are at stake, our use of

force will be decisive and, if necessary,

unilateral. In other situations posing a

less immediate threat, our military

engagement must be targeted selectively 
13

on those areas that most affect our national

interests — for instance, areas where we

have a sizable economic stake or commitments

to allies, and areas where there is a

potential to generate substantial refugee

flows into our nation or our allies. 

Second, in all cases the costs and risks of

U.S. military involvement must be judged to

be commensurate with the stakes involved. 

We will be more inclined to act where there

is reason to believe that our action will

bring lasting improvement. On the other

hand, our involvement will be more circumscribed when other regional or multilateral

actors are better positioned to act than we

are. Even in these cases, however, the

United States will be actively engaged at

the diplomatic level. In every case,

however, we will consider several critical

questions before committing military force:

Have we considered non-military means that

offer a reasonable chance of success? Is

there a clearly defined, achievable mission? 

What is the environment of risk we are

entering? What is needed to achieve our

goals? What are the potential costs — both

human and financial — of the engagement? Do

we have reasonable assurance of support from

the American people and their elected

representatives? Do we have timelines and

milestones that will reveal the extent of

success or failure, and, in either case, do

we have an exit strategy? 

The decision on how we use force has a

similar set of derived guidelines: 

First, when we send American troops abroad,

we will send them with a clear mission and,

for those operations that are likely to

involve combat, the means to achieve their

objectives decisively, having answered the

questions: What types of U.S. military

capabilities should be brought to bear, and

is the use of military force carefully

matched to our political objectives? 

Second, as much as possible, we will seek

the help of our allies and friends or of

relevant international institutions. If our

most important national interests are at

stake, we are prepared to act alone. But

especially on those matters touching

directly the interests of our allies, there

should be a proportionate commitment from

them. Working together increases the

effectiveness of each nation's actions, and

sharing the responsibilities lessens

everyone's load. 

These, then, are the calculations of

interest and cost that have influenced our

past uses of military power and will guide

us in the future. Every time this

Administration 

has used force, it has balanced interests

against costs. And in each case, the use of

our military has put power behind our

diplomacy, allowing us to make progress we

would not otherwise have achieved. 

One final consideration regards the central

role the American people rightfully play in

how the United States wields its power

abroad: the United States cannot long

sustain a fight without the support of the

public. This is true for humanitarian and

other non-traditional interventions, as well

as war. Modern media communications

confront every American with images which

both stir the impulse to intervene and raise

the question of an operation's costs and

risks. When it is judged in America's

interest to intervene, we must use force

with an unwavering commitment to our

objective. While we must continue to

reassess any operation's costs and benefits

as it unfolds and the full range of our

options, reflexive calls for early

withdrawal of our forces as soon as

casualties arise endangers our objectives as

well as our troops. Doing so invites any

rogue actor to attack our troops to try to

force our departure from areas where our

interests lie. 

Combating the Spread and Use of

Weapons of Mass Destruction and

Missiles 

Weapons of mass destruction — nuclear,

biological and chemical — along with their

associated delivery systems, pose a major

threat to our security and that of our

allies and other friendly nations. Thus, a

key part of our strategy is to seek to stem

the proliferation of such weapons and to

develop an effective capability to deal with

these threats. We also need to maintain

robust strategic nuclear forces and seek to

implement existing strategic arms

agreements. 

Nonproliferation and Counterproliferation

A critical priority for the United States is

to stem the proliferation of nuclear weapons

and other weapons of mass destruction and

their missile delivery systems. Countries'

weapons programs, and their levels of

cooperation with our nonproliferation

efforts, will be among our most important

criteria in judging the nature of our

bilateral relations. 

Through programs such as the Nunn-Lugar

Cooperative Threat Reduction effort and

other denuclearization initiatives,
14

important progress has been made to build a

more secure international environment. One

striking example was the successful transfer

last fall of nearly six hundred kilograms of

vulnerable nuclear material from Kazakhstan

to safe storage in the United States. 

Kazakhstan was concerned about the security

of the material and requested U.S. assistance in removing it to safe storage. The

Departments of Defense and Energy undertook

a joint mission to retrieve the uranium. 

Similarly, under an agreement we secured

with Russia,it is converting tons of highlyenriched uranium from dismantled weapons

into commercial reactor fuel for purchase by

the United States. The United States is

also working with Russia to enhance control

and accounting of nuclear material. 

As a key part of our effort to control

nuclear proliferation, we seek the

indefinite and unconditional extension of

the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT)

and its universal application. Achieving a

Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty as soon as

possible, ending the unsafeguarded

production of fissile materials for nuclear

weapons purposes and strengthening the

Nuclear Suppliers Group and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are

important goals. They complement our

comprehensive efforts to discourage the accumulation of fissile materials, to seek to

strengthen controls and constraints on those

materials, and over time, to reduce worldwide stocks. As President Clinton announced

at last September's UN General Assembly, we

will seek a global ban on the production of

fissile material for nuclear weapons. 

To combat missile proliferation, the United

States seeks prudently to broaden membership

of the Missile Technology Control Regime

(MTCR). The Administration supports the

earliest possible ratification and entry in

force of the Chemical Weapons Convention

(CWC) as well as new measures to deter

violations of and enhance compliance with

the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). We

also support improved export controls for

nonproliferation purposes both domestically

and multilaterally. 

The proliferation problem is global, but we

must tailor our approaches to specific

regional contexts. We have concluded an

agreed framework to bring North Korea into

full compliance with its nonproliferation

obligations, including the NPT and IAEA

safeguards. We will continue efforts to

prevent Iran from advancing its weapons of

mass destruction objectives and to thwart

Iraq from reconstituting its previous

programs. The United States seeks to cap,

reduce and, ultimately, eliminate the

nuclear and 

missile capabilities of India and Pakistan. 

In the Middle East and elsewhere, we

encourage regional arms control agreements

that address the legitimate security

concerns of all parties. These tasks are

being pursued with other states that share

our concern for the enormous challenge of

stemming the proliferation of such weapons. 

The United States has signed bilateral

agreements with Russia, Ukraine and South

Africa which commit these countries to

adhere to the guidelines of the MTCR. We

also secured China's commitment to observe

the MTCR guidelines and its agreement not to

transfer MTCR controlled ground-to- ground

missiles. Russia has agreed not to transfer

space-launch vehicle technology with

potential military applications to India. 

South Africa has agreed to observe the MTCR

guidelines and to dismantle its Category I

missile systems and has joined the NPT and

accepted full-scope safeguards. Hungary,

the Czech Republic, the Slovak Republic and

Poland have joined the Australia Group

(which controls the transfer of items that

could be used to make chemical or biological

weapons). Hungary and Argentina have joined

the MTCR and Brazil has committed itself

publicly to adhere to the MTCR guidelines. 

Argentina, Brazil and Chile have brought the

Treaty of Tlatelolco into force. We

continue to push for the dismantlement of

all intercontinental ballistic missiles

located in Ukraine and Kazakhstan. With the

United States and Russia, Ukraine is

pressing forward on implementation of the

Trilateral Statement, which provides for the

transfer of all nuclear warheads from

Ukraine to Russia for dismantlement in

return for fair compensation. 

Thus, the United States seeks to prevent

additional countries from acquiring

chemical, biological and nuclear weapons and

the means to deliver them. However, should

such efforts fail, U.S. forces must be

prepared to deter, prevent and defend

against their use. As agreed at the January

1994 NATO Summit, we are working with our

Allies to develop a policy framework to

consider how to reinforce ongoing prevention

efforts and to reduce the proliferation

threat and protect against it. 

The United States will retain the capacity

to retaliate against those who might

contemplate the use of weapons of mass

destruction, so that the costs of such use

will be seen as outweighing the gains. 

However, to minimize the impact of

proliferation of weapons of mass destruction

on our interests, we will need the

capability not only to deter their use

against either ourselves or our allies and

friends, but also, where necessary and

feasible, to prevent it. 
15

This will require improved defensive

capabilities. To minimize the vulnerability

of our forces abroad to weapons of mass

destruction, we are placing a high priority

on improving our ability to locate, identify

and disable arsenals of weapons of mass

destruction, production and storage

facilities for such weapons, and their

delivery systems. 

Nuclear Forces

In September, the President approved the

recommendations of the Pentagon's Nuclear

Posture Review (NPR). A key conclusion of

this review is that the United States will

retain a triad of strategic nuclear forces

sufficient to deter any future hostile

foreign leadership with access to strategic

nuclear forces from acting against our vital

interests and to convince it that seeking a

nuclear advantage would be futile. 

Therefore, we will continue to maintain

nuclear forces of sufficient size and

capability to hold at risk a broad range of

assets valued by such political and military

leaders. The President approved the NPR's

recommended strategic nuclear force posture

as the U.S. START II force. The forces are:

450-500 Minuteman ICBMs, 14 Trident

submarines all with D-5 missiles, 20 B-2 and

66 B52 strategic bombers, and a non-nuclear

role for the B-1s. This force posture

allows us the flexibility to reconstitute or

reduce further, as conditions warrant. The

NPR also reaffirmed the current posture and

deployment of non-strategic nuclear forces;

the United States will eliminate carrier and

surface ship nuclear weapons capability. 

Arms Control

Arms control is an integral part of our

national security strategy. Arms control

can help reduce incentives to initiate

attack; enhance predictability regarding the

size and structure of forces, thus reducing

fear of aggressive intent; reduce the size

of national defense industry establishments

and thus permit the growth of more vital,

nonmilitary industries; ensure confidence in

compliance through effective monitoring and

verification; and, ultimately, contribute to

a more stable and calculable balance of

power. 

In the area of strategic arms control,

prescribed reductions in strategic offensive

arms and the steady shift toward less

destabilizing systems remain indispensable. 

Ukraine's accession to the Nuclear

Non-proliferation Treaty — joining Belarus'

and Kazakhstan's decision to be nonnuclear nations — was followed immediately

by the exchange of instruments of

ratification and brought the START I treaty

into force at the December CSCE summit,

paving the way for ratification of the START

II Treaty. Under START II, the United

States and Russia will each be left with

between 3,000 and 3,500 deployed strategic

nuclear warheads, which is a two-thirds

reduction from the Cold War peak. The two

Presidents agreed that once START II is

ratified, both nations will immediately

begin to deactivate or otherwise remove from

combat status, those systems whose

elimination will be required by that treaty,

rather than waiting for the treaty to run

its course through the year 2003. START II

ratification will also open the door to the

next round of strategic arms control, in

which we will consider what further

reductions in, or limitations on, remaining

U.S. and Russian nuclear forces should be

carried out. We will also explore strategic

confidence building measures and mutual

understandings that reduce the risk of

accidental war. 

The full and faithful implementation of

other existing arms control agreements,

including the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM)

Treaty, Strategic Arms Reduction Talks I

(START I), Biological Weapons Convention

(BWC), Intermediate range Nuclear Forces

(INF) Treaty, Conventional Forces in Europe

(CFE) Treaty, several nuclear testing

agreements, the 1994 Vienna Document on

Confidence and Security Building Measures

(CSBMs), Open Skies, the Environmental

Modification Convention (EnMod), Incidents

at Sea and many others will remain an

important element of national security

policy. The on-going negotiation initiated

by the United States to clarify the ABM

Treaty by establishing an agreed demarcation

between strategic and theater ballistic

missiles and update the Treaty to reflect

the break-up of the Soviet Union reflects

the Administration's commitment to

maintaining the integrity and effectiveness

of crucial arms control agreements. 

Future arms control efforts may become more

regional and multilateral. Regional

arrangements can add predictability and

openness to security relations, advance the

rule of international law and promote

cooperation among participants. They help

maintain deterrence and a stable military

balance at regional levels. The U.S. is

prepared to promote, help negotiate, monitor

and participate in regional arms control

undertakings compatible with American

national security interests. We will generally support such undertakings but will not

seek to impose regional arms control accords

against the wishes of affected states.
16

As arms control, whether regional or global,

becomes increasingly multilateral, the

Conference on Disarmament (CD) in Geneva

will play an even more important role. The

U.S. will support measures to increase the

effectiveness and relevance of the CD. Arms

control agreements can head off potential

arms races in certain weapons categories or

in some environments. We will continue to

seek greater transparency, responsibility

and, where appropriate, restraint in the

transfer of conventional weapons and global

military spending. The UN register of

conventional arms transfers is a start in

promoting greater transparency of weapons

transfers and buildups, but more needs to be

done. The U.S. has proposed that the new

regime to succeed the Coordinating Committee

(COCOM) focus on conventional arms sales and

dual-use technologies. Where appropriate,

the United States will continue to pursue

such efforts vigorously. Measures to reduce

oversized defense industrial establishments,

especially those parts involved with weapons

of mass destruction, will also contribute to

stability in the post-Cold War world. The

Administration also will pursue defense

conversion agreements with the Former Soviet

Union (FSU) states, and defense conversion

is also on the agenda with China. The

United States has also proposed a regime to

reduce the number and availability of the

world's long-lived antipersonnel mines whose

indiscriminate and irresponsible use has

reached crisis proportions. As another part

of our effort to address this landmine

problem, the Administration has also

submitted the Convention on Conventional

Weapons to the Senate for advice and

consent. 

Peace Operations

In addition to preparing for major regional

contingencies, we must prepare our forces

for peace operations to support democracy or

conflict resolution. The United States,

along with others in the international

community, will seek to prevent and contain

localized conflicts before they require a

military response. U.S. support

capabilities such as airlift, intelligence,

and global communications, have often

contributed to the success of multilateral

peace operations, and they will continue to

do so. U.S. combat units are less likely to

be used for most peace operations, but in

some cases their use will be necessary or

desirable and justified by U.S. national

interests as guided by the Presidential

Decision Directive, "U.S. Policy on

Reforming Multilateral Peace Operations,"

and outlined below. 

Multilateral peace operations are an

important component of our strategy. From

traditional peacekeeping to peace

enforcement, multilateral peace operations

are sometimes the best way to prevent,

contain, or resolve conflicts that could

otherwise be far more costly and deadly. 

Peace operations often have served, and

continue to serve, important U.S. national

interests. In some cases, they have helped

preserve peace between nations, as in Cyprus

and the Golan Heights. In others,

peacekeepers have provided breathing room

for fledgling democracies, as in Cambodia,

El Salvador and Namibia. 

At the same time, however, we must recognize

that some types of peace operations make

demands on the UN that exceed the

organization's current capabilities. The

United States is working with the UN headquarters and other member states to ensure

that the UN embarks only on peace operations

that make political and military sense and

that the UN is able to manage effectively

those peace operations it does undertake. 

We support the creation of a professional UN

peace operations head-quarters with a

planning staff, access to timely

intelligence, a logistics unit that can be

rapidly deployed and a modern operations

center with global communi-cations. The

United States will reduce our peacekeeping

payments to 25 percent while working to

ensure that other nations pay their fair

share. We are also working to ensure that

peacekeeping operations by appropriate

regional organizations such as NATO and the

OSCE can be carried out effectively. 

In order to maximize the benefits of UN

peace operations, the United States must

make highly disciplined choices about when

and under what circumstances to support or

participate in them. The need to exercise

such discipline is at the heart of President

Clinton's policy on Reforming Multilateral

Peace Operations. Far from handing a blank

check to the UN, the President's policy

review on peace operations — the most

thorough ever undertaken by an

Administration — requires the United States

to undertake a rigorous analysis of

requirements and capabilities before voting

to support or participate in peace

operations. The United States has not

hesitated to use its position on the

Security Council to ensure that the UN

authorizes only those peace operations that

meet these standards. 

Most UN peacekeeping operations do not

involve U.S. forces. On those occasions

when we consider contributing U.S. forces to

a UN peace operation, we will employ
17

rigorous criteria, including the same

principles that would guide any decision to

employ U.S. forces. In addition, we will

ensure that the risks to U.S. personnel and

the command and control arrangements

governing the participation of American and

foreign forces are acceptable to the United

States. 

The question of command and control is

particularly critical. There may be times

when it is in our interest to place U.S.

troops under the temporary operational

control of a competent UN or allied

commander. The United States has done so

many times in the past — from the siege of

Yorktown in the Revolutionary War to the

battles of Desert Storm. However, under no

circumstances will the President ever

relinquish his command authority over U.S.

forces. 

Improving the ways the United States and the

UN decide upon and conduct peace operations

will not make the decision to engage any

easier. The lesson we must take away from

our first ventures in peace operations is

not that we should forswear such operations

but that we should employ this tool

selectively and more effectively. In short,

the United States views peace operations as

a means to support our national security

strategy, not as a strategy unto itself. 

The President is firmly committed to

securing the active support of the Congress

for U.S. participation in peace operations. 

The Administration has set forth a detailed

blueprint to guide consultations with

Congress. With respect to particular

operations, the Administration will

undertake consultations on questions such as

the nature of expected U.S. military

participation, the mission parameters of the

operation, the expected duration, and

budgetary implications. In addition to such

operation- specific consultations, the

Administration has also conducted regular

monthly briefings for congressional staff,

and will deliver an Annual Comprehensive

Report to Congress on Peace Operations. 

Congress is critical to the institutional

development of a successful U.S. policy on

peace operations, including the resolution

of funding issues which have an impact on

military readiness. 

Two other points deserve emphasis. First,

the primary mission of our Armed Forces is

not peace operations; it is to deter and, if

necessary, to fight and win conflicts in

which our most important interests are

threatened. Second while the international

community can create conditions 

for peace, the responsibility for peace

ultimately rests with the people of the

country in question. 

Strong Intelligence Capabilities

U.S. intelligence capabilities are critical

instruments of our national power and remain

an integral part of our national security

strategy. Only a strong intelligence effort

can provide adequate warning of threats to

U.S. national security and identify

opportunities for advancing our interests. 

Policy analysts, decisionmakers and military

commanders at all levels will continue to

rely on our intelligence community to

collect information unavailable from other

sources and to provide strategic and

tactical analysis to help surmount potential

challenges to our military, political and

economic interests. 

Because national security has taken on a

much broader definition in this post-Cold

War era, intelligence must address a much

wider range of threats and dangers. We will

continue to monitor military and technical

threats, to guide long-term force

development and weapons acquisition, and to

directly support military operations. 

Intelligence will also be critical for

directing new efforts against regional

conflicts, proliferation of WMD,

counterintelligence, terrorism and narcotics

trafficking. In order to adequately

forecast dangers to democracy and to U.S.

economic well-being, the intelligence

community must track political, economic,

social and military developments in those

parts of the world where U.S. interests are

most heavily engaged and where overt

collection of information from open sources

is inadequate. Finally, to enhance the

study and support of worldwide

environmental, humanitarian and disaster

relief activities, technical intelligence

assets (principally imagery) must be

directed to a greater degree towards

collection of data on these subjects. 

The collection and analysis of intelligence

related to economic development will play an

increasingly important role in helping

policy makers understand economic trends. 

That collection and analysis can help level

the economic playing field by identifying

threats to U.S. companies from foreign

intelligence services and unfair trading

practices. 

This strategy requires that we take steps to

reinforce current intelligence capabilities

and overt foreign service reporting, within

the limits of our resources, and similar
18

steps to enhance coordination of clandestine

and overt collection. Key goals include to. 

 o Provide timely warning of strategic

threats, whether from the remaining

arsenal of weapons in the former Soviet

Union or from other nations with weapons

of mass destruction; 

 0 Ensure timely intelligence support to

military operations; 

 0 Provide early warning of potential

crises and facilitate preventive

diplomacy; 

 o Develop new strategies for collection,

production and dissemination (including

closer relationships between

intelligence producers and consumers) to

make intelligence products more

responsive to current consumer needs; 

 o Improve worldwide technical capabilities

to detect, identify and determine the

efforts of foreign nations to develop

weapons of mass destruction; 

 o Enhance counterintelligence

capabilities; 

 o Provide focused support for law

enforcement agencies in areas like

counternarcotics, counterterrorism and

illegal technology trade; 

 o Streamline intelligence operations and

organizations to gain efficiency and

integration; 

 o Revise long-standing security

restrictions where possible to make

intelligence data more useful to

intelligence consumers. 

 o Develop security countermeasures based

on sound threat analysis and risk

management practices 

To advance these goals the President

significantly restructured

counterintelligence policy development and

interagency coordination. In a Presidential

Decision Directive (PDD) on U.S.

counterintelligence effectiveness, the

President took immediate steps to improve

our ability to counter both traditional and

new threats to our Nation's security in the

post-Cold War era. The President further

directed a comprehensive restructuring of

the process by which our security policies,

practices and procedures are 

developed and implemented. The PDD on

Security Policy Coordination ensures the

development of security policies and

practices that realistically meet the

threats we face as they continue to evolve,

at a price we can afford, while guaranteeing

the fair and equitable treatment of all

Americans upon whom we rely to guard our

nation's security. Consistent with the

provisions of the FY 1995 Intelligence

Authorization Act, President Clinton has

also directed the Chairman of the Foreign

Intelligence Advisory Board to conduct a

comprehensive review of the roles and

missions of the intelligence community and

fundamentally evaluate and define the need

for intelligence in the post-Cold War

environment. 

The Environment and Sustainable

Development

The more clearly we understand the complex

interrelationships between the different

parts of our world's environment, the better

we can understand the regional and even

global effects of local changes to the

environment. Increasing competition for the

dwindling reserves of uncontaminated air,

arable land, fisheries and other food

sources, and water, once considered "free"

goods, is already a very real risk to

regional stability around the world. The

range of environmental risks serious enough

to jeopardize international stability

extends to massive population flight from

man-made or natural catastrophes, such as

Chernobyl or the East African drought, and

to large-scale ecosystem damage caused by

industrial pollution, deforestation, loss of

biodiversity, ozone depletion,

desertification, ocean pollution and

ultimately climate change. Strategies

dealing with environmental issues of this

magnitude will require partnerships between

governments and nongovernmental

organizations, cooperation between nations

and regions, and a commitment to a

strategically focused, long-term policy for

emerging environmental risks. 

The decisions we make today regarding

military force structures typically

influence our ability to respond to threats

20 to 30 years in the future. Similarly,

our current decisions regarding the

environment and natural resources will

affect the magnitude of their security risks

over at least a comparable period of time,

if not longer. The measure of our

difficulties in the future will be settled

by the steps we take in the present.
19

As a priority initiative, the U.S.

successfully led efforts at the September

Cairo Conference to develop a consensus

Program of Action to address the continuous

climb in global population, including

increased availability of family planning

and reproductive health services,

sustainable economic development, the

empowerment of women to include enhanced

educational opportunities and a reduction in

infant and child mortality. Rapid

population growth in the developing world

and unsustainable consumption patterns in

industrialized nations are the root of both

present and potentially even greater forms

of environmental degradation and resource

depletion. A conservative estimate of the

globe's population projects 8.5 billion

people on the planet by the year 2025. Even

when making the most generous allowances for

advances in science and technology, one

cannot help but conclude that population

growth and environmental pressures will feed

into immense social unrest and make the

world substantially more vulnerable to

serious international frictions. 

Promoting Prosperity at Home

A central goal of our national security

strategy is to promote America's prosperity

through efforts both at home and abroad. 

Our economic and security interests are

increasingly inseparable. Our prosperity at

home depends on engaging actively abroad. 

The strength of our diplomacy, our ability

to maintain an unrivaled military, the

attractiveness of our values abroad — all

these depend in part on the strength of our

economy. 

Enhancing American Competitiveness

Our primary economic goal is to strengthen

the American economy. The first step toward

that goal was reducing the federal deficit

and the burden it imposes on the economy and

future generations. The economic program

passed in 1993 has restored investor

confidence in the U.S. and strengthened our

position in international economic

negotiations. Under the Clinton economic

plan, the deficit will be reduced over 700

billion dollars by Fiscal Year 1998. 

President Clinton has also lowered the

deficit as a percentage of the Gross

Domestic Product from 4.9 percent in Fiscal

Year 1992 to 2.4 percent in Fiscal Year 1995

— the lowest since 1979. 

And Fiscal Year 1995 will be the first time

that the deficit has been reduced three

years in a row since the Truman

Administration. We are building on this

deficit reduction 

effort with other steps to improve American

competitiveness: investing in science and

technology; assisting defense conversion;

improving information networks and other

vital infrastructure; and improving

education and training programs for

America's workforce. We are structuring our

defense R&D effort to place greater emphasis

on dual-use technologies that can enhance

competitiveness and meet pressing military

needs. We are also reforming the defense

acquisition system so that we can develop

and procure weapons and materiel more

efficiently. 

Partnership with Business and Labor

Our economic strategy views the private

sector as the engine of economic growth. It

sees government's role as a partner to the

private sector, acting as an advocate of

U.S. business interests; leveling the

playing field in international markets;

helping to boost American exports; and

finding ways to remove domestic and foreign

barriers to the creativity, initiative and

productivity of American business. 

To this end, on September 29, 1993, the

Administration published its report creating

America's first national export strategy and

making 65 specific recommendations for

reforming the way government works with the

private sector to expand exports. Among the

recommendations were significant

improvements in advocacy, export financing,

market information systems and product

standards education. The results of these

reforms could enable U.S. exports to reach

the trillion dollar mark by the turn of the

century, which would help create at least

six million new American jobs. 

Another critical element in boosting U.S.

exports is reforming the outdated export

licensing system. That reform began with

significant liberalization of export

licensing controls for computers,

supercomputers and telecommunications

equipment. The Administration is also

seeking comprehensive reform of the Export

Administration Act, which governs the

process of export licensing. The goal of

this reform is to strengthen our ability to

prevent proliferation and protect other

national interests, while removing

unnecessarily burdensome licensing

requirements left over from the Cold War. 

Enhancing Access to Foreign Markets

The success of American business is more

than ever dependent upon success in

international markets. The
20

ability to compete internationally also

assures that our companies will continue to

innovate and increase productivity, which

will in turn lead to improvements in our own

living standards. But to compete abroad,

our firms need access to foreign markets,

just as foreign industries have access to

our open market. We vigorously pursue

measures to increase access for our

companies — through bilateral, regional and

multilateral arrangements. 

The North American Free Trade

Agreement

On December 3, 1993, President Clinton

signed the North American Free Trade Act

(NAFTA), which creates a free trade zone

among the United States, Canada and Mexico. 

NAFTA has already created more than 100,000

American jobs. NAFTA has increased Mexico's

capacity to cooperate with our nation on a

wide range of issues that cross our 2000

mile border — including the environment,

narcotics trafficking and illegal

immigration. 

Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation

Our economic relations depend vitally on our

ties with the Asia Pacific region, which is

the world's fastest-growing economic region. 

In November 1993, President Clinton convened

the first-ever summit of the leaders of the

economies that constitute the Asia-Pacific

Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum. U.S.

initiatives in the APEC forum will open new

opportunities for economic cooperation and

permit U.S. companies to become involved in

substantial infrastructure planning and

construction throughout the region. The

trade and investment framework agreed to in

1993 provided the basis for enhancing the

"open regionalism" that defines APEC. At

the second leaders meeting in November 1994,

the leaders of APEC further drove the

process by accepting the goal of free and

open trade and investment throughout the

region by early in the 21st Century, and

agreeing to lay out a blueprint for

achieving that goal by the Osaka APEC

leaders meeting. 

Uruguay Round of GATT

The successful conclusion in December 1993

of the Uruguay Round of the negotiations

under the General Agreement on Tariffs and

Trade (GATT) significantly strengthened the

world trading system. The Uruguay Round

accord is the largest, most comprehensive

trade agreement in history. It will create

hundreds of thousands 

of new U.S. jobs and expand opportunities

for U.S. businesses. For the first time,

international trade rules will apply to

services, intellectual property and

investments, and effective rules will apply

to agriculture. The Uruguay Round also

continued the cuts in tariff rates

throughout the world that began just after

the Second World War. Working with

Congress, the President secured U.S.

approval of this pathbreaking agreement and

the resulting World Trade Organization which

provides a forum to resolve disputes openly. 

The President remains committed to ensuring

that the commitments in the Uruguay Round

agreement are fulfilled. 

U.S. - Japan Framework Agreement

While Japan is America's second-largest

export market, foreign access to the

Japanese market remains limited in important

sectors, including automobiles and

automobile parts. Japan's persistent

current account surpluses are a major

imbalance in the global economy. In July

1993 President Clinton and Japanese Prime

Minister Miyazawa established the U.S.-Japan

Framework for Economic Partnership to

redress the imbalances in our economic

relationship. In October 1994, the United

States and Japan reached framework

agreements regarding government procurement

of medical technologies and

telecommunications (including Nippon

Telephone and Telegraph (NPP) procurement). 

In December, we concluded a further

agreement on flat glass. We have also

reached framework agreements on financial

services and intellectual property rights. 

The Administration is committed to ensuring

that competitive American goods and services

have fair access to the Japanese market. We

will continue to work to ensure that Japan

takes measures to open its markets and

stimulate its economy, both to benefit its

own people and to fulfill its international

responsibilities. 

Summit of the Americas

America's economy benefits enormously from

the opportunity offered by the commitment of

the democratic nations of the Western

Hemisphere to negotiate a free trade

agreement for the region by 2005. The

Western Hemisphere is our largest export

market, constituting over 35 percent of all

U.S. sales abroad. The action plan will

accelerate progress toward free, integrated

markets which will create new high-wage jobs

and sustain economic growth for America. 

The invitation to Chile to begin

negotiations to join NAFTA is the first step

toward the Summit's goal of reaching a

hemispheric free-trade zone.
21

Expanding the Realm of Free Trade

The conclusion of NAFTA, the Uruguay Round,

the Bogor Declaration of the 1994 APEC

leaders meeting, and the Summit of the

Americas' action plan represents

unprecedented progress toward more open

markets both at the regional and global

levels. The Administration intends to

continue its efforts in further enhancing

U.S. access to foreign markets. The World

Trade Organization will provide a new

institutional lever for securing such

access. Emerging markets, particularly

along the Pacific Rim, present vast

opportunities for American enterprise, and

APEC now provides a suitable vehicle for the

exploration of such opportunities. 

Similarly, the United States convened the

Summit of the Americas to seize the

opportunities created by the movement toward

open markets throughout the hemisphere. All

such steps in the direction of expanded

trading relationships will be undertaken in

a way consistent with protection of the

international environment and to the goal of

sustainable development here and abroad. 

Strengthening Macroeconomic

Coordination

As national economies become more integrated

internationally, the U.S. cannot thrive in

isolation from developments abroad. 

International economic expansion is

benefiting from G-7 macroeconomic policy

coordination. To improve global

macroeconomic performance, we will continue

to work through the G-7 process to promote

growth-oriented policies to complement our

own efforts. 

Providing for Energy Security

The United States depends on oil for more

than 40% of its primary energy needs. 

Roughly 45% of our oil needs are met with

imports, and a large share of these imports

come from the Persian Gulf area. The

experiences of the two oil shocks and the

Gulf War show that an interruption of oil

supplies can have a significant impact on

the economies of the United States and its

allies. Appropriate economic responses can

substantially mitigate the balance of

payments and inflationary impacts of an oil

shock; appropriate foreign policy responses

to events such as Iraq's invasion of Kuwait

can limit the magnitude of the crisis. 

Over the longer term, the United States'

dependence on access to foreign oil sources

will be increasingly important 

as our resources are depleted. The U.S.

economy has grown roughly 75% since the

first oil shock; yet during that time our

oil consumption has remained virtually

stable and oil production has declined. 

High oil prices did not generate enough new

oil exploration and discovery to sustain

production levels from our depleted resource

base. These facts show the need for

continued and extended reliance on energy

efficiency and conservation and development

of alternative energy sources. Conservation

measures notwithstanding, the U.S. has a

vital interest in unrestricted access to

this critical resource. 

Promoting Sustainable Development

Abroad

Broad-based economic development not only

improves the prospects for democratic

development in developing countries, but

also expands the demands for U.S. exports. 

Economic growth abroad can alleviate

pressure on the global environment, reduce

the attraction of illegal narcotics trade

and improve the health and economic

productivity of global populations. 

The environmental aspects of ill-designed

economic growth are clear. Environmental

damage will ultimately block economic

growth. Rapid urbanization is outstripping

the ability of nations to provide jobs,

education and other services to new

citizens. The continuing poverty of a

quarter of the world's people leads to

hunger, malnutrition, economic migration and

political unrest. Widespread illiteracy and

lack of technical skills hinder employment

opportunities and drive entire populations

to support themselves on increasingly

fragile and damaged resource bases. New

diseases such as AIDS and epidemics, often

spread through environmental degradation,

threaten to overwhelm the health facilities

of developing countries, disrupt societies

and stop economic growth. These realities

must be addressed by sustainable development

programs which offer viable alternatives. 

U.S. leadership is of the essence. If such

alternatives are not developed, the

consequences for the planet's future will be

grave indeed. 

Domestically, the U.S. must work hard to

halt local and cross-border environmental

degradation. In addition, the U.S. should

foster environmental technology targeting

pollution prevention, control, and cleanup. 

Companies that invest in energy efficiency,

clean manufacturing, and environmental

services today will create the high-quality,

high-wage jobs of tomorrow. By providing

access to these types of technologies, our

exports can also provide the
22

means for other nations to achieve

environmentally sustainable economic growth. 

At the same time, we are taking ambitious

steps at home to better manage our natural

resources and reduce energy and other

consumption, decrease waste generation and

increase our recycling efforts. 

Internationally, the Administration's

foreign assistance program focuses on four

key elements of sustainable development:

broad-based economic growth; the

environment; population and health; and

democracy. We will continue to advocate

environmentally sound private investment and

responsible approaches by international

lenders. At our urging, the Multilateral

Development Banks (MDB's) are now placing

increased emphasis upon sustainable

development in their funding decisions, to

include a commitment to perform

environmental assessments on projects for

both internal and public scrutiny. In

particular, the Global Environmental

Facility (GEF), established last year, will

provide a source of financial assistance to

the developing world for climate change,

biodiversity and oceans initiatives. 

The U.S. is taking specific steps now in all

of these areas: 

 o In June 1993, the United States signed

the Convention on Biological Diversity,

which aims to protect and utilize the

world's genetic inheritance. The

Interior Department has been directed to

create a national biological survey to

help protect species and to help the

agricultural and biotechnical industries

identify new sources of food, fiber and

medications. 

 o New policies are being implemented to

ensure the sustainable management of

U.S. forests by the year 2000, as

pledged internationally. In addition,

U.S. bilateral forest assistance

programs are being expanded, and the

United States is promoting sustainable

management of tropical forests. 

 o In the wake of the 1992 United Nations

Conference on Environment and

Development, the United States has

sought to reduce land-based sources of

marine pollution, maintain populations

of marine species at healthy and

productive levels and protect endangered

marine mammals. 

 o The United States has focused technical

assistance and encouraged

nongovernmental environmental groups to

provide expertise to the republics of

the Former Soviet Union and Central and

Eastern European nations that have

suffered the most acute environmental

crises. The Agency for International

Development, the Environmental

Protection Agency and other U.S.

agencies are engaged in technical

cooperation with many countries around

the world to advance these goals. 

 o The Administration is leading a renewed

global effort to address population

problems and promote international

consensus for stabilizing world

population growth. Our comprehensive

approach will stress family planning and

reproductive health care, maternal and

child health, education and improving

the status of women. The International

Conference on Population Development,

held in September in Cairo, endorsed

these approaches as important strategies

in achieving our global population

goals. 

Promoting Democracy

All of America's strategic interests — from

promoting prosperity at home to checking

global threats abroad before they threaten

our territory — are served by enlarging the

community of democratic and free market

nations. Thus, working with new democratic

states to help preserve them as democracies

committed to free markets and respect for

human rights, is a key part of our national

security strategy. 

One of the most gratifying and encouraging

developments of the past 15 years is the

explosion in the number of states moving

away from repressive governance and toward

democracy. Since the success of many of

those experiments is by no means assured,

our strategy of enlargement must focus on

the consolidation of those regimes and the

broadening of their commitment to democracy. 

At the same time, we seek to increase

respect for fundamental human rights in all

states and encourage an evolution to

democracy where that is possible. 

The enlargement of the community of market

democracies respecting human rights and the

environment is manifest in a number of ways:
23

 o More than 30 nations in Central and

Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union,

Latin America, Africa and East Asia

have, over the past 10 years, adopted

the structures of a constitutional

democracy and held free elections; 

 o The nations of the Western Hemisphere

have proclaimed their commitment to

democratic regimes and to the collective

responsibility of the nations of the OAS

to respond to threats to democracy. 

 o In the Western Hemisphere, only Cuba is

not a democratic state. 

 o Nations as diverse as South Africa,

Cambodia and El Salvador have resolved

bitter internal disputes with agreement

on the creation of constitutional

democracies. 

The first element of our democracy strategy

is to work with the other democracies of the

world and to improve our cooperation with

them on security and economic issues. We

also seek their support in enlarging the

realm of democratic nations. 

The core of our strategy is to help

democracy and markets expand and survive in

other places where we have the strongest

security concerns and where we can make the

greatest difference. This is not a

democratic crusade; it is a pragmatic

commitment to see freedom take hold where

that will help us most. Thus, we must

target our effort to assist states that

affect our strategic interests, such as

those with large economies, critical

locations, nuclear weapons or the potential

to generate refugee flows into our own

nation or into key friends and allies. We

must focus our efforts where we have the

most leverage. And our efforts must be

demand-driven — they must focus on nations

whose people are pushing for reform or have

already secured it. 

Russia is a key state in this regard. If we

can support and help consolidate democratic

and market reforms in Russia (and the other

newly independent states), we can help turn

a former threat into a region of valued

diplomatic and economic partners. Our

intensified interaction with Ukraine has

helped move that country on to the path of

economic reform, which is critical to its

long-term stability. In addition, our

efforts in Russia, Ukraine and the other

states support and facilitate our efforts to

achieve 

continued reductions in nuclear arms and

compliance with international

nonproliferation accords. 

The new democracies in Central and Eastern

Europe are another clear example, given

their proximity to the great democratic

powers of Western Europe, their importance

to our security, and their potential

markets. 

Since our ties across the Pacific are no

less important than those across the

Atlantic, pursuing enlargement in the Asian

Pacific is a third example. We will work to

support the emerging democracies of the

region and to encourage other states along

the same path. 

Continuing the great strides toward

democracy and markets in our hemisphere is

also a key concern and was behind the

President's decision to host the Summit of

the Americas in December 1994. As we

continue such efforts, we should be on the

lookout for states whose entry into the camp

of market democracies may influence the

future direction of an entire region; South

Africa now holds that potential with regard

to sub-Saharan Africa. 

How should the United States help

consolidate and enlarge democracy and

markets in these states? The answers are as

varied as the nations involved, but there

are common elements. We must continue to

help lead the effort to mobilize

international resources, as we have with

Russia, Ukraine and the other new

independent states. We must be willing to

take immediate public positions to help

staunch democratic reversals, as we have in

Haiti and Guatemala. We must give

democratic nations the fullest benefits of

integration into foreign markets, which is

part of why NAFTA and the GATT ranked so

high on our agenda. And we must help these

nations strengthen the pillars of civil

society, improve their market institutions,

and fight corruption and political discontent through practices of good governance. 

At the same time as we work to ensure the

success of emerging democracies, we must

also redouble our efforts to guarantee basic

human rights on a global basis. At the 1993

United Nations Conference on Human Rights,

the United States forcefully and

successfully argued for a reaffirmation of

the universality of such rights and improved

international mechanisms for their

promotion. In the wake of this gathering,

the UN has named a High Commissioner for

Human Rights, and the rights of women have

been afforded a new international

precedence. The United
24

States has taken the lead in assisting the

UN to set up international tribunals to

enforce accountability for the war crimes in

the former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda. 

The United States also continues to work for

the protection of human rights on a

bilateral basis. To demonstrate our own

willingness to adhere to international human

rights standards, the United States ratified

the international convention prohibiting

discrimination on the basis of race, and the

Administration is seeking Senate consent to

ratification for the convention prohibiting

discrimination against women. The United

States will play a major role in promoting

women's rights internationally at the UN

Women's Conference in September. 

In all these efforts, a policy of engagement

and enlargement should take on a second

meaning: we should pursue our goals through

an enlarged circle not only of government

officials but also of private and

nongovernmental groups. Private firms are

natural allies in our efforts to strengthen

market economies. Similarly, our goal of

strengthening democracy and civil society

has a natural ally in labor unions, human

rights groups, environmental advocates,

chambers of commerce and election monitors. 

Just as we rely on force multipliers in

defense, we should welcome these "diplomacy

multipliers," such as the National Endowment

for Democracy. 

Supporting the global movement toward

democracy requires a pragmatic and long-term

effort focused on both values and

institutions. The United States must build

on the opportunities achieved through the

successful conclusion of the Cold War. Our

long-term goal is a world in which each of

the major powers is democratic, with many

other nations joining the community of

market democracies as well. 

Our efforts to promote democracy and human

rights are complemented by our humanitarian

assistance programs which are designed to

alleviate human suffering and to 

pave the way for progress towards

establishing democratic regimes with a

commitment to respect for human rights and

appropriate strategies for economic

development. We are also exploring ideas

such as the suggestion of Argentina's

President Menem for the creation of an

international civilian rapid response

capability for humanitarian crises,

including a school and training for

humanitarian operations. 

Through humanitarian assistance and policy

initiatives aimed at the sources of

disruption, we seek to mitigate the

contemporary migration and refugee crises,

foster longterm global cooperation and

strengthen involved international

institutions. The U.S. will provide

appropriate financial support and will work

with other nations and international bodies,

such as the International Red Cross and the

UN High Commissioner for Refugees, in

seeking voluntary repatriation of refugees —

taking into full consideration human rights

concerns as well as the economic conditions

that may have driven them out in the first

place. Helping refugees return to their

homes in Mozambique, Afghanistan, Eritrea,

Somalia and Guatemala, for example, is a

high priority. 

Relief efforts will continue for people

displaced by the conflict in Bosnia and

other republics of the former Yugoslavia. 

We will act in concert with other nations

and the UN against the illegal smuggling of

Chinese into this country. In concert with

the tools of diplomatic, economic and

military power, our humanitarian and refugee

policies can bear results, as was evident in

Haiti. We provided temporary safe haven at

Guantanamo Naval Base for those Haitians who

feared for their safety and left by sea

until we helped restore democracy.
25

III. INTEGRATED REGIONAL APPROACHES

The United States is a genuinely global

power. Our policy toward each of the

world's regions reflects our overall

strategy tailored to their unique challenges

and opportunities. This section highlights

the application of our strategy to each of

the world's regions; our broad objectives

and thrust, rather than an exhaustive list

of all our policies and interests. It

illustrates how we integrate our commitment

to the promotion of democracy and the

enhancement of American prosperity with our

security requirements to produce a mutually

reinforcing policy. 

Europe and Eurasia

Our strategy of enlargement and engagement

is central to U.S. policy towards post-Cold

War Europe. European stability is vital to

our own security, a lesson we have learned

twice at great cost this century. Vibrant

European economies mean more jobs for

Americans at home and investment

opportunities abroad. With the collapse of

the Soviet empire and the emergence of new

democracies in its wake, the United States

has an unparalleled opportunity to

contribute toward a free and undivided

Europe. Our goal is an integrated

democratic Europe cooperating with the

United States to keep the peace and promote

prosperity. 

The first and most important element of our

strategy in Europe must be security through

military strength and cooperation. The Cold

War is over, but war itself is not over. 

As we know, war continues in the former

Yugoslavia. While that war does not pose a

direct threat to our security or warrant

unilateral U.S. involvement, U.S. policy is

focused on five goals: achieving a political

settlement in 

Bosnia that preserves the country's

territorial integrity and provides a viable

future for all its peoples; preventing the

spread of the fighting into a broader Balkan

war that could threaten both allies and the

stability of new democratic states in

Central and Eastern Europe; stemming the

destabilizing flow of refugees from the

conflict; halting the slaughter of

innocents; and helping to support NATO's

central role in post-Cold War Europe while

maintaining our role in shaping Europe's

security architecture. 

Our leadership paved the way to NATO's

February 1994 ultimatum that ended the heavy

Serb bombardment of Sarajevo, Bosnia's

capital. Our diplomatic leadership brought

an end to the fighting between the Muslims

and Croats in Bosnia and helped establish a

bicommunal Bosnian-Croat Federation. Since

April 1994, we have been working with the

warring parties through the Contact Group

(United States, Russia, United Kingdom,

France and Germany) to help the parties

reach a negotiated settlement. Our goal is

to bring an end to the war in Bosnia

consistent with the Contact Group plan which

would preserve Bosnia as a single state

within its existing borders while providing

for an equitable division of territory

between the Muslim-Croat Federation and the

Bosnian Serb entity. While we have not yet

succeeded in achieving a political

settlement, diplomatic efforts in the final

months of 1994 helped produce a cease-fire

and a cessation of hostilities agreement

that took effect on January 1, 1995. On

this basis, efforts are now underway with

our Contact Group partners to renew

negotiations on a political settlement based

on the Contact Group plan. 

Should these new diplomatic efforts falter,

we remain prepared to move forward with our

proposal at the UN to lift the arms embargo

on Bosnia-Herzegovina, multilaterally. We

remain strongly opposed to a unilateral

lifting of
26

the arms embargo as a step that would have

grave consequences for NATO and U.S.

interests. Should large-scale fighting

resume and UN troops need to be withdrawn,

the President has agreed, in principle, to

provide U.S. support, including the use of

ground forces, to a NATO-led operation to

help assure a safe withdrawal. We also

remain prepared to help implement a final

peace settlement in Bosnia. 

As we work to resolve that tragedy and ease

the suffering of its victims we also need to

transform European and trans-Atlantic

institutions so they can better address such

conflicts and advance Europe's integration. 

Many institutions will play a role,

including the European Union (EU), the

Western European Union (WEU), the Council of

Europe (CE), the Organization for Security

and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the

United Nations. But NATO, history's

greatest political-military alliance, must

be central to that process. 

The NATO alliance will remain the anchor of

American engagement in Europe and the

linchpin of transatlantic security. That is

why we must keep it strong, vital and

relevant. For the United States and its

allies, NATO has always been far more than a

transitory response to a temporary threat. 

It has been a guarantor of European

democracy and a force for European

stability. That is why its mission endures

even though the Cold War has receded into

the past. And that is why its benefits are

so clear to Europe's new democracies. 

Only NATO has the military forces, the

integrated command structure, the broad

legitimacy and the habits of cooperation

that are essential to draw in new

participants and respond to new challenges. 

One of the deepest transformations within

the transatlantic community over the past

half-century occurred because the armed

forces of our respective nations trained,

studied and marched through their careers

together. It is not only the compatibility

of our weapons, but the camaraderie of our

warriors that provide the sinews behind our

mutual security guarantees and our best hope

for peace. 

Since the end of the Cold War, the United

States has significantly reduced the level

of U.S. military forces stationed in Europe. 

We have determined that a force of roughly

100,000 U.S. military personnel assigned to

U.S. European command will preserve U.S.

influence and leadership in NATO and provide

a deterrent posture that is 

visible to all Europeans. While we continue

to examine the proper mix of forces, this

level of permanent presence, augmented by

forward deployed naval forces and

reinforcements available from the United

States, is sufficient to respond to

plausible crises and contributes to

stability in the region. Such a force level

also provides a sound basis for U.S.

participation in multinational training and

preserves the capability to deter or respond

to larger threats in Europe and to support

limited NATO operations "out of area." 

With the end of the Cold War, NATO's mission

is evolving; today NATO plays a crucial role

helping to manage ethnic and national

conflict in Europe. With U.S. leadership,

NATO has provided the muscle behind efforts

to bring about a peaceful settlement in the

former Yugoslavia. NATO air power enforces

the UN-mandated no-fly zone and provides

support to UN peacekeepers. NATO stands

ready to help support the peace once the

parties reach an agreement. 

With the adoption of the U.S. initiative,

Partnership for Peace, at the January 1994

summit, NATO is playing an increasingly

important role in our strategy of European

integration, extending the scope of our

security cooperation to the new democracies

of Europe. Twenty-five nations, including

Russia, have already joined the partnership,

which will pave the way for a growing

program of military cooperation and

political consultation. Partner countries

are sending representatives to NATO

headquarters near Brussels and to a military

coordination cell at Mons — the site of

Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe

(SHAPE). Joint exercises have taken place

in Poland and the Netherlands. In keeping

with our strategy of enlargement, PFP is

open to all former members of the Warsaw

Pact as well as other European states. Each

partner will set the scope and pace of its

cooperation with NATO. 

The North Atlantic Treaty has always looked

to the addition of members who shared the

Alliance's purposes and its values, its

commitment to respect borders and

international law, and who could add to its

strength; indeed, NATO has expanded three

times since its creation. In January 1994,

President Clinton made it plain that "the

question is no longer whether NATO will take

on new members, but when and how we will do

so." Last December, we and our Allies began

a steady, deliberate, and transparent

process that will lead to NATO expansion.
27

During 1995, we will come to agreement with

our allies on the process and principles,

and we will share our conclusions with the

members of the Partnership for Peace (PFP). 

Once this effort is complete, NATO can turn

to the question of candidates and timing. 

Each nation will be considered individually. 

No non-member of NATO will have a veto. 

Expanding the Alliance will promote our

interests by reducing the risk of

instability or conflict in Europe's eastern

half — the region where two world wars and

the Cold War began. It will help assure

that no part of Europe will revert to a zone

of great power competition or a sphere of

influence. It will build confidence, and

give new democracies a powerful incentive to

consolidate their reforms. And each

potential member will be judged according to

the strength of its democratic institutions

and its capacity to contribute to the goals

of the Alliance. 

As the President has made clear, NATO

expansion will not be aimed at replacing one

division of Europe with a new one, but to

enhance the security of all European states,

members and non-members alike. In this

regard, we have a major stake in ensuring

that Russia is engaged as a vital

participant in European security affairs. 

We are committed to a growing, healthy

NATO-Russia relationship and want to see

Russia closely involved in the Partnership

for Peace. Recognizing that no single

institution can meet every challenge to

peace and stability in Europe, we have begun

a process that will strengthen the

Organization for Security and Cooperation in

Europe (OSCE) and enhance its conflict

prevention and peacekeeping capabilities. 

The second element of the new strategy for

Europe is economic. The United States seeks

to build on vibrant and open market

economies, the engines that have given us

the greatest prosperity in human history

over the last several decades in Europe and

in the United States. To this end, we

strongly support the process of European

integration embodied in the European Union

and seek to deepen our partnership with the

EU in support of our economic goals, but

also commit ourselves to the encouragement

of bilateral trade and investment in

countries not part of the EU. 

The nations of the European Union face

particularly significant economic challenges

with nearly 20 million people unemployed

and, in Germany's case, the extraordinarily

high costs of unification. Among the

Atlantic nations, economic stagnation has

clearly eroded public support in 

finances for outward-looking foreign

policies and for greater integration. We

are working closely with our West European

partners to expand employment and promote

long-term growth, building on the results of

the Detroit Jobs Conference and the Naples

G-7 Summit. A White House-sponsored Trade

and Investment Conference for Central and

Eastern Europe took place in Cleveland in

January. 

In Northern Ireland, the Administration is

implementing a package of initiatives to

promote the peace process. The Secretary of

Commerce led a Trade and Investment mission

to Belfast in December 1994, and in April

the President will host a White House

Conference in Philadelphia on Trade and

Investment in Northern Ireland. 

As we work to strengthen our own economies,

we must know that we serve our own

prosperity and our security by helping the

new market reforms in the new democracies in

Europe's East that will help to deflate the

region's demagogues. It will help ease

ethnic tensions. It will help new

democracies take root. 

In Russia, Ukraine and the other new

independent states of the former Soviet

Union, the economic transformation

undertaken will go down as one of the great

historical events of this century. The

Russian Government has made remarkable

progress toward privatizing the economy

(over 50 percent of the Russian Gross

Domestic Product is now generated by the

private sector) and reducing inflation, and

Ukraine has taken bold steps of its own to

institute much needed economic reforms. But

much remains to be done to build on the

reform momentum to assure durable economic

recovery and social protection. President

Clinton has given strong and consistent

support to this unprecedented reform effort,

and has mobilized the international

community to provide structural economic

assistance, for example, securing agreement

by the G-7 to make available four billion

dollars in grants and loans as Ukraine

implemented economic reform. 

The short-term difficulties of taking

Central and Eastern Europe into Western

economic institutions will be more than

rewarded if they succeed and if they are

customers for America's and Western Europe's

goods and services tomorrow. That is why

this Administration has been committed to

increase support substantially for market

reforms in the new states of the former

Soviet Union, and why we have continued our

support for economic transition
28

in Central and Eastern Europe, while also

paying attention to measures that can

overcome the social dislocations which have

resulted largely from the collapse of the

Soviet-dominated regional trading system. 

Ultimately, the success of market reforms to

the East will depend more on trade than aid. 

No one nation has enough resources to

markedly change the future of those

countries as they move to free market

systems. One of our priorities, therefore,

is to reduce trade barriers with the former

communist states. 

The third and final imperative of this new

strategy is to support the growth of

democracy and individual freedoms that has

begun in Russia, the nations of the former

Soviet Union and Europe's former communist

states. The success of these democratic

reforms makes us all more secure; they are

the best answer to the aggressive

nationalism and ethnic hatreds unleashed by

the end of the Cold War. Nowhere is

democracy's success more important to us all

than in these countries. 

This will be the work of generations. There

will be wrong turns and even reversals, as

there have been in all countries throughout

history. But as long as these states

continue their progress toward democracy and

respect the rights of their own and other

people, that they understand the rights of

their minorities and their neighbors, we

will support their progress with a steady

patience. 

East Asia and the Pacific

East Asia is a region of growing importance

for U.S. security and prosperity; nowhere

are the strands of our three pronged

strategy more intertwined, nor is the need

for continued U.S. engagement more evident. 

Now more than ever, security, open markets

and democracy go hand in hand in our

approach to this dynamic region. Last year,

President Clinton laid out an integrated

strategy — a New Pacific Community — which

links security requirements with economic

realities and our concern for democracy and

human rights. 

In thinking about Asia, we must remember

that security is the first pillar of our new

Pacific community. The United States is a

Pacific nation. We have fought three wars

there in this century. To deter regional

aggression and secure our own interests, we

will maintain an active presence and 

we will continue to lead. Our deep

bilateral ties with allies such as Japan,

South Korea, Austral, Thailand and the

Philippines, and a continued American

military presence will serve as the

foundation for America's security role in

the region. Currently, our forces number

nearly 100,000 personnel in East Asia. In

addition to performing the general forward

deployment functions outlined above, they

contribute to regional stability by

deterring aggression and adventurism. 

As a key element of our strategic commitment

to the region, we are pursuing stronger

efforts to combat the proliferation of

weapons of mass destruction on the Korean

Peninsula and in South Asia. In October

1994, we reached an important agreed

framework with North Korea — stopping, and

eventually eliminating, its nuclear weapons

program — and an agreement with China,

limiting its sales of ballistic missiles. 

Another example of our security commitment

to the Asia Pacific region in this decade is

our effort to develop multiple new

arrangements to meet multiple threats and

opportunities. We have supported new

regional exchanges — such as the ASEAN

Regional Forum — on the full range of common

security challenges. These arrangements can

enhance regional security and understanding

through dialogue and transparency. These

regional exchanges are grounded on the

strong network of bilateral relationships

that exist today. 

The continuing tensions on the Korean

Peninsula remain the principal threat to the

peace and stability of the Asian region. We

have worked assiduously with our South

Korean and Japanese allies, with the

People's Republic of China and with Russia,

and with various UN organizations to resolve

the problem of North Korea's nuclear

program. We have also engaged in extensive

negotiations with the Pyongyang government,

and have worked out an agreed framework for

replacing — over a ten-year period — North

Korea's dangerous, plutonium-producing

reactors with safer light water reactors. 

That effort will be accompanied by a

willingness to improve bilateral political

and economic ties with the North,

commensurate with their continued

cooperation to resolve the nuclear issue and

to make progress on other issues of concern. 

Our long run objective continues to be a

non-nuclear, peacefully reunified Korean

Peninsula. Our strong and active commitment

to our South Korean allies and to the region

is the foundation of this effort.
29

We are developing a broader engagement with

the People's Republic of China that will

encompass both our economic and strategic

interests. That policy is best reflected in

our decision to delink China's Most Favored

Nation status from its record on human

rights. We will also facilitate China's

entry into international trade

organizations, such as the General Agreement

on Tariffs and Trade if it undertakes the

necessary obligations. Given its growing

economic potential and already sizable

military force, it is essential that China

not become a security threat to the region. 

To that end, we are strongly promoting

China's participation in regional security

mechanisms to reassure its neighbors and

assuage its own security concerns. We have

also broadened our bilateral security

dialogue with the Chinese and we are seeking

to gain further cooperation from China in

controlling the proliferation of weapons of

mass destruction. We are also in the early

stages of a dialogue with China on

environmental and health challenges. 

The second pillar of our engagement in Asia

is our commitment to continuing and

enhancing the economic prosperity that has

characterized the region. Opportunities for

economic progress continue to abound in

Asia, and underlie our strong commitment to

multilateral economic cooperation,

principally through APEC. Today, the 18

member states of APEC — comprising about

one-third of the world's population —

produce $14 trillion and export $1.7

trillion of goods annually, about one-half

of the world's totals. U.S. exports to APEC

economies reached $300 billion last year,

supporting nearly 2.6 million American jobs. 

U.S. investments in the region totaled over

$140 million — about one-third of total U.S.

direct foreign investment. A prosperous and

open Asia Pacific is key to the economic

health of the United States. The first APEC

leaders meeting, hosted by President

Clinton, is vivid testimony to the

possibilities of stimulating regional

economic cooperation as we saw in the recent

APEC leaders statement at the second leaders

meeting that accepted the goal of free trade

within the region by early in the 21st

Century. 

We are also working with our major bilateral

trade partners to improve trade relations. 

The U.S. and Japan successfully completed a

preliminary accord in September to bring

about the implementation of the 1993

Framework Agreement, designed to open

Japan's markets more to competitive U.S.

goods and reduce the U.S. trade deficit. 

Since we delinked China's Most-FavoredNation trade status from specific human

rights considerations in May, 

U.S.-China trade has grown significantly. 

We continue to work closely with Beijing to

resolve remaining bilateral and multilateral

trade problems, such as intellectual

property rights and market access. Unless

the issue of intellectual property rights is

resolved, economic sanctions will be

imposed. 

The third pillar of our policy in building a

new Pacific community is to support

democratic reform in the region. The new

democratic states of Asia will have our

strong support as they move forward to

consolidate and expand democratic reforms. 

Some have argued that democracy is somehow

unsuited for Asia or at least for some Asian

nations — that human rights are relative and

that they simply mask Western cultural

imperialism. These arguments are wrong. It

is not Western imperialism, but the

aspirations of Asian peoples themselves that

explain the growing number of democracies

and the growing strength of democracy

movements everywhere in Asia. We support

those aspirations and those movements. 

Each nation must find its own form of

democracy, and we respect the variety of

democratic institutions that have grown in

Asia. But there is no cultural

justification for torture or tyranny. Nor

do we accept repression cloaked in moral

relativism. Democracy and human rights are

universal yearnings and universal norms,

just as powerful in Asia as elsewhere. We

will continue to press for respect for human

rights in countries as diverse as China and

Burma. 

The Western Hemisphere

The Western hemisphere, too, is a fertile

field for a strategy of engagement and

enlargement. Sustained improvements in the

security situation there, including the

resolution of border tensions, control of

insurgencies and containment of pressures

for arms proliferation, will be an essential

underpinning of political and economic

progress in the hemisphere. 

The unprecedented triumph of democracy and

market economies throughout the region

offers an unparalleled opportunity to secure

the benefits of peace and stability, and to

promote economic growth and trade. At the

Summit of the Americas, which President

Clinton hosted in
30

December, the 34 democratic nations of the

hemisphere committed themselves for the

first time to the goal of free trade in the

region. They also agreed to a detailed plan

of cooperative action in such diverse fields

as health, education, environmental

protection and the strengthening of

democratic institutions. To assure that

proposals in this plan are implemented, they

called for a series of follow-on ministerial

meetings over the next year and requested

the active participation of the Organization

of American States and the Inter-American

Development Bank. The Summit ushered in a

new era of hemispheric cooperation that

would not have been possible without U.S.

leadership and commitment. 

NAFTA, ratified in December 1994, has

strengthened economic ties, with substantial

increases in U.S. exports to both Mexico and

Canada, creating new jobs and new

opportunities for American workers and

business. The United States, Mexico and

Canada have begun discussions to add Chile

to NAFTA. 

We remain committed to extending democracy

to all of the region's people still blocked

from controlling their own destinies. Our

overarching objective is to preserve and

defend civilian elected governments and

strengthen democratic practices respectful

of human rights. Working with the

international community, we succeeded in

reversing the coup in Haiti and restoring

the democratically-elected president and

government. Our challenge now is to help

the Haitian people consolidate their

hard-won democracy and rebuild their

country. With the restoration of democracy

in Haiti, Cuba is the only country in the

hemisphere still ruled by a dictator. The

Cuban Democracy Act remains the framework

for our policy toward Cuba; our goal is the

peaceful establishment of democratic

governance for the people of Cuba. 

We are working with our neighbors through

various hemispheric organizations, including

the OAS, to invigorate regional cooperation. 

Both bilaterally and regionally, we seek to

eliminate the scourge of drug trafficking,

which poses a serious threat to democracy

and security. We also seek to strengthen

norms for defense establishments that are

supportive of democracy, respect for human

rights, and civilian control in defense

matters. Finally, protecting the region's

precious environmental resources is an

important priority. 

The Middle East, Southwest 

and South Asia

The United States has enduring interests in

the Middle East, especially pursuing a

comprehensive breakthrough to Middle East

peace, assuring the security of Israel and

our Arab friends, and maintaining the free

flow of oil at reasonable prices. Our

strategy is harnessed to the unique

characteristics of the region and our vital

interests there, as we work to extend the

range of peace and stability. 

We have made solid progress in the past two

years. The President's efforts helped bring

about many historic firsts — the handshake

of peace between Prime Minister Rabin and

Chairman Arafat on the White House lawn has

been followed by the Jordan-Israel peace

treaty, progress on eliminating the Arab

boycott of Israel, and the establishment of

ties between Israel and an increasing number

of its Arab neighbors. But our efforts have

not stopped there; on other bilateral tracks

and through regional dialogue we are working

to foster a durable peace and a

comprehensive settlement, while our support

for economic development can bring hope to

all the peoples of the region. 

In Southwest Asia, the United States remains

focused on deterring threats to regional

stability, particularly from Iraq and Iran

as long as those states pose a threat to

U.S. interests, to other states in the

region, and to their own citizens. We have

in place a dual containment strategy aimed

at these two states, and will maintain our

long-standing presence which has been

centered on naval vessels in and near the

Persian Gulf and prepositioned combat

equipment. Since Operation Desert Storm,

temporary deployments of land-based aviation

forces, ground forces and amphibious units

have supplemented our posture in the Gulf

region. Operation Vigilant Warrior

demonstrated our ability to rapidly

reinforce the region in time of crisis. 

We have made clear to Iraq it must comply

with all the relevant Security Council

resolutions, and we remain committed to

supporting oppressed minorities in Iraq

through Operations Provide Comfort and

Southern Watch. Our policy is directed not

against the people of Iraq, but against the

aggressive behavior of the government. The

October 1994 deployment, Vigilant Warrior,

demonstrated again the need and our ability

to respond quickly to threats to our allies.
31

Our policy toward Iran is aimed at changing

the behavior of the Iranian government in

several key areas, including Iran's efforts

to obtain weapons of mass destruction and

missiles, its support for terrorism and

groups that oppose the peace process, its

attempts to undermine friendly governments

in the region and its dismal human rights

record. We remain willing to enter into an

authoritative dialogue with Iran to discuss

the differences between us. 

A key objective of our policy in the Gulf is

to reduce the chances that another aggressor

will emerge who would threaten the

independence of existing states. Therefore,

we will continue to encourage members of the

Gulf Cooperation Council to work closely on

collective defense and security

arrangements, help individual GCC states

meet their appropriate defense requirements

and maintain our bilateral defense

agreements. 

South Asia has experienced an important

expansion of democracy and economic reform,

and our strategy is designed to help the

peoples of that region enjoy the fruits of

democracy and greater stability through

efforts aimed at resolving long-standing

conflict and implementing confidence

building measures. The United States has

engaged India and Pakistan in seeking

agreement on steps to cap, reduce, and

ultimately eliminate their weapons of mass

destruction and ballistic missile

capabilities. Regional stability and

improved bilateral ties are also important

for America's economic interest in a region

that contains a quarter of the world's

population and one of its most important

emerging markets. 

In both the Middle East and South Asia, the

pressure of expanding populations on natural

resources is enormous. Growing

desertification in the Middle East has

strained relations over arable land. 

Pollution of the coastal areas in the

Eastern Mediterranean, the Red Sea and the

Gulf of Aqaba has degraded fish catches and

hindered development. Water shortages

stemming from overuse, contaminated water

aquifers and riparian disputes threaten

regional relations. In South Asia, high

population densities and rampant pollution

have exacted a tremendous toll on forests,

biodiversity and the local environment. 

Africa

Africa poses one of our greatest challenges

and opportunities to enlarge the community

of market democracies. Throughout Africa,

U.S. policy supports democracy, sustainable

economic development and resolution of

conflicts through negotiation, diplomacy and

peacekeeping. New policies will strengthen

civil societies and mechanisms for conflict

resolution, particularly where ethnic,

religious, and political tensions are acute. 

In particular, we will seek to identify and

address the root causes of conflicts and

disasters before they erupt. 

The nexus of economic, political, social,

ethnic and environmental challenges facing

Africa can lead to a sense of

"Afro-pessimism." However, if we can

simultaneously address these challenges, we

create a synergy that can stimulate

development, resurrect societies and build

hope. We encourage democratic reform in

nations like Nigeria and Zaire to allow the

people of these countries to enjoy

responsive government. In Mozambique and

Angola, we have played a leading role in

bringing an end to two decades of civil war

and promoting national reconciliation. For

the first time, there is the prospect that

all of southern Africa could enjoy the

fruits of peace and prosperity. Throughout

the continent — in Rwanda, Burundi, Liberia,

Sudan and elsewhere — we work with the UN

and regional organizations to encourage

peaceful resolution of internal disputes. 

Last year, South Africa held its first

non-racial elections and created a

Government of National Unity. We remain

committed to addressing the socio-economic

legacies of apartheid to ensure that

democracy fully takes root in South Africa. 

During the state visit of Nelson Mandela, we

announced formation of a bilateral

commission to foster new cooperation between

our nations. We must support the revolution

of democracy sweeping the continent — on

center stage in South Africa, and in quieter

but no less dramatic ways in countries like

Malawi, Benin, Niger, and Mali. We need to

encourage the creation of cultures of

tolerance, flowering of civil society and

the protection of human rights and human

dignity.
32

Our humanitarian interventions, along with

the international community, will address

the grave circumstances in several nations

on the continent. USAID's new "Greater Horn

of Africa" initiative got ahead of the curve

on a potential famine that threatened 25

million people, and moved beyond relief to

support reconstruction and sustainable

development. In Somalia, our forces broke

through the chaos that prevented the

introduction of relief supplies. U.S.

forces prevented the death of hundreds of

thousands of Somalis and then turned over

the mission to UN peacekeepers from over a

score of nations. In Rwanda, Sudan, Angola

and Liberia, we have taken an active role in

providing humanitarian relief to those

displaced by violence. 

Such efforts by the U.S. and the

international community must be limited in

duration and designed to give the peoples of

a nation the opportunity to put their own

house in order. In the final analysis, the

responsibility for the fate of a nation

rests with its own people. 

We are also working with regional

organizations, nongovernmental organizations

and governments throughout Africa to address

the urgent issues of population growth, 

spreading disease (including AIDS),

environmental decline, enhancing the role of

women in development, eliminating support

for terrorism, demobilization of bloated

militaries, relieving burdensome debt, and

expanding trade and investment ties to the

countries of Africa. 

Central to all these efforts will be

strengthening the American constituency for

Africa, drawing on the knowledge, experience

and commitment of millions of Americans to

enhance our nation's support for positive

change in Africa. For example, the White

House Conference on Africa, the first such

gathering of regional experts ever sponsored

by the White House, drew together more than

200 Americans from the Administration,

Congress, business, labor, academia,

religious groups, relief and development

agencies, human rights groups and others to

discuss Africa's future and the role that

the United States can play in it. The

President, Vice President, Secretary of

State and National Security Advisor all

participated in the conference, which

produced a wealth of new ideas and new

commitment to Africa.
33

IV. CONCLUSIONS

The clear and present dangers of the Cold

War made the need for national security

commitments and expenditures obvious to the

American people. Today the task of

mobilizing public support for national

security priorities has become more

complicated. The complex array of new

dangers, opportunities and responsibilities

outlined in this strategy come at a moment

in our history when Americans are

preoccupied with domestic concerns and when

budgetary constraints are tighter than at

any point in the last half century. Yet, in

a more integrated and interdependent world,

we simply cannot be successful in advancing

our interests — political, military and

economic — without active engagement in

world affairs. 

While Cold War threats have diminished, our

nation can never again isolate itself from

global developments. Domestic renewal will

not succeed if we fail to engage abroad in

open foreign markets, to promote democracy

in key countries, and to counter and contain

emerging threats. 

We are committed to enhancing U.S. national

security in the most efficient and effective

ways possible. We recognize that

maintaining peace and ensuring our national

security in a volatile world are expensive. 

The cost of any other course of action,

however, would be immeasurably higher.

Our engagement abroad requires the active,

sustained bipartisan support of the American

people and the U.S. Congress. Of all the

elements contained in this strategy, none is

more important than this: our Administration

is committed to explaining our security

interests and objectives to the nation; to

seeking the broadest possible public and

congressional support for our security

programs and investments; and to exerting

our leadership in the world in a manner that

reflects our best national values and

protects the security of this great and good

nation.