TRANSCRIPT OF REMARKS BY DR. HENRY KISSINGER
AT FORMAL FACULTY LUNCH ON MARCH 4, 1986
AT THE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA

The so-called Western Community, if one defines that as the NATO Atlantic relationship, is really in deep trouble and I don't think can go on in its present form. It can go on institutionally, but it has major difficulties. Let me mention the difficulties and one or two solutions, although to some problems I don't have any solutions at all.

One of the surface phenomena of these difficulties is that in almost every European country, even the conservative countries, the governments pride themselves on moderating American intransigence and try to arrange their election platforms in such a way that they can pretend that they have contributed to the easing of tensions by bringing pressure on the United States. That is true in a limited way even of Mrs. Thatcher, but it's substantially true of the German conservative government, at least of their Foreign Minister, and Chancellor Kohl, too, suggests these thinks subliminally.

Secondly, the opposition has adopted explicitly anti-American foreign policies and has moved outside the major consensus and close to a position of more or less neutralism. That is the practical consequence of their policies, so that in Britain or Germany, and to some extent the Low Countries, if the opposition were to come into office, you would have a sea change in foreign policy.

One of the reasons for this is an interesting reversal of roles between Europe and the United States. Until the end of World War II the United States considered itself morally superior and unaffected by the disputes over the balance of power. American statesmen thought the balance of power was a contributing cause of international tension. From

what Wilson and even Roosevelt said about the balance of power, they were
determined not to get drawn into the quarrels of Europeans, and to estab-
lish a world order and new principles of collective security. The Euro-
peans pursued their traditional concept of equilibrium. Since then, the
Europeans having lost power, having gone through two domestic upheavals,
have felt more and more secure, and have abandoned security to the United
States. They have moved into our position of prior to World War II, of
declaring concern with the balance of power either trivial or neurotic
or, at any rate, they have left that more or less up to us. But we have
not moved toward the European position. We've been more concerned with
security.

The American domestic debate has not clarified the relationship
between security and morality. We have one group of people who believe
that America, unique among the major nations of the world, is going to
prevail by the purity of her maxims, which is the traditional American
view. Another group is concerned with security, but more from a techno-
logical weapons point of view than from the point of view of global
equilibrium. So there is an intellectual vacuum in the Western world.
On the American side there are some who have felt the European vacuum,
but not yet a national consensus, and in Europe, except for France, there
is no really serious foreign policy being conducted any more. The British
are concentrating on influencing us very skillfully, but not developing
concepts of their own, and the others have reduced foreign policy into a
branch of domestic politics.

The national purpose that has been driving, for example, the Japa-
nese, into competition with us and into excelling in the world, seems to
be substantially lacking in most European countries, again France, pos-

sibly marginally, excepted. A great temptation for the Europeans, since
they don't want to pay the pain and price for world competition, is to
look to Eastern Europe for their markets where you can get away with
not-quite-world-standard technology.

One of the root problems is that we have, in my view, played too
dominant a role in European defense. The Europeans ought to be more on
their own in defense. A continent of 300 million people, with a gross
national product two and a half times that of the Soviet Union, that has
always held its own against Russia by itself, should not be so predomi-
nantly dependent on the United States. I'm not saying the United States
should not be involved in the defense of Europe, but I think the attempt
should be systematically to make Europeans more responsible for their own
defense. There is only one security threat to Europe, and that's the
Soviet Union. In the field of economics, Europe is bound to be competi-
tive with us, yet European unity does not bother us in the field of eco-
nomics, but does seem to bother us in the field of defense.

Either we should reach a common conception on how to deal with the
Third World and with East-West relations, or we should go our own way
and let the Europeans go their own way. We should not give a constant
veto to the Europeans on those matters we consider of vital interest.
It may be possible to achieve a greater consensus than there has been.
But there's a danger that we'll be reinforcing each other's weaknesses
by constructing some sort of a semi-confrontation whereas one country in
the alliance needs a domestic success. If you read the German debate
about SDI, you would think that they are doing us a favor by contributing
to this program. It was a mistake to ask the Europeans for any contribu-
tion to SDI. We should state why we are doing it, tell anybody who wants

to participate that it's open to them, but not create the impression that
it makes any difference to us whether they want to protect their popula-
tions or not. It was premature to start that debate on our side. The
European reaction is more hostile than it looks, because even those who
are supporting SDI are supporting what they call a research program,
which means that they want a veto over testing and deployment. The
British support SDI research. If we moved into testing and deployment,
the British would use their research commitment as a veto.

To what extent has the Reagan administration foreign policy contrib-
uted to the divisions in the alliance? To some extent, the early rhetoric
of the Reagan foreign policy contributed. The Europeans continue to
underrate Reagan. Reagan dominated California for eight years and has
now dominated Washington for five years. You can't be just luck for
thirteen years. I don't feel particularly comfortable with the way the
Reagan Administration conducts foreign policy. Yet whether by luck,
instinct, design, or the rhetoric that I would not have recommended, they
are now in a very good negotiating position on East-West relations. And
that I support. There is a danger that having conducted East-West rela-
tions rather correctly, they will now throw it away on atmospherics. So
the final word is not in, but as it stands now I tend to support them,
and certainly support them strongly against the alternatives that are put
forward by their critics.

(Continued with general discussion).