14

Henry Kissinger

I will not go into my views on all the issues before the trilateral countries. I would rather like to define some of the problems before us that it seems to me require resolution.

BREAKDOWN OF AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY
CONSENSUS

To speak for the American side in this trilateral meeting is in itself a difficulty, because one of the biggest problems we have had in the conduct of American foreign policy for nearly a decade and a half is the breakdown of the consensus on the kind of foreign policy we should have. There are any number of reasons for this breakdown — the emergence of a new generation, the impact of the Vietnam War, the change in economic relationships, changes in technology — but the fact of the matter is that for a good period now much of our foreign policy has been influenced by a kind of bureaucratic maneuvering that makes the outcome ambiguous even for Americans. If you look at the "zero option" proposal for example from a bureaucratic point of view, you will recognize in it a combination of people on the left who wanted to do away with missiles in Europe and of people on the right who wanted to make a proposal they were sure the Soviet Union would not accept so that they could abandon the negotiations.

What has been lacking in a variety of Administrations is a clear consensus, and in the absence of this we have become unnecessarily unpredictable to both partners and adversaries. Every new Administration has claimed not only that it would change the world, but has implied that it was about to create the world. Every new Administration begins with a reassessment of previous policies, an event that has to be extremely unsettling to foreign leaders who have staked their own political future onto ours.

So one has to begin with an appeal as an American to the American members — to try to reestablish some kind of consensus on what it is we are trying to do in the world under conditions that are radically different from those associated with the so-called great period of American foreign policy in the immediate post-war period. We have to remember that the United States had an atomic monopoly then and we also had 52 percent of the world's GNP, so our capacity to overwhelm problems with resources was infinitely greater than it is today.

## LIANCE COHESION, NUCLEAR WEAPONS, INVENTIONAL DEFENSE

Having made this point about the United States, we speak about a number of more general problems. The first is that the nature of the alliance inevitably shifting. In the past alliances have had e of two purposes: either defense against a common threat or achievement of a common objective. I think it is fair to say that we are now in period in which we are not agreed on the nature the threat or on the national interest that the alliance reflects. An alliance can change in one of two ways: Either the threat seems to become so overwhelming that the alliance is no longer seen as protection, or the threat loses its menace and the alliance is no longer considered necessary. I would argue that both of these tendencies have been occurring simultaneously in many of our countries. some groups believe the threat is so overwhelming that military defense is worse than surrender or accommodation. Other groups believe that there really isn't any military threat and therefore the lefense effort is unnecessary.

Finally, there is no agreement on what level of lefense is necessary. I think there is emerging a rather clear consensus in all trilateral countries that we ought to reduce reliance on nuclear weapons. But the real problem we face is more complicated. We have to reduce reliance on nuclear weapons but not stigmatize them to such a point that we are encouraging unilateral disarmament and psychological abdication on the part of our populations and — in time — of our leaders as well.

It is all very well to criticize the American Administration for implying that it is possible to have a protracted nuclear war. Anyone who has had to face the question of what he would recommend if aggression took place has had to deal with that issue in his own mind. I do not myself believe that one can safely embark on a nuclear war without a very high risk of escalation. But I also believe that a political leader would be reckless if he did not plan to limit consequences should the worst happen. It would be the height of irresponsibility for an American President not to plan how to use nuclear weapons in a less than all out fashion, granting that he should not rely on them and granting that he should not embark lightly on their use. The muscular rhetoric of the early days of this Administration has been abused in dismiss-

ing what is, both morally and politically, a crucial objective. Nuclear weapons under any kind of arms control scheme will exist in large numbers. We rely on them for deterrence which must imply that at some point, for some reason, however remote, they may be used. Therefore, we must have some strategic concept that does not stake humanity on every decision. And we should be careful in our political debates to take the complexities into account.

The same is true of the alternative, which is conventional defense. As some of you know, I have been arguing for thirty years that we must increase our conventional defenses; but it requires a more careful analysis than simply quoting NATO commanders. In the history of warfare, conventional defense has never proved an adequate deterrent. In the last four hundred years, there have been innumerable wars between armies that on paper looked equal and in which nevertheless one side prevailed. What one means by adequate conventional defense therefore requires careful analysis. Very careful study is also required of whether in fact our publics, our leaders, and our parliaments are willing to support the expenditures that might be necessary over an indefinite period of time. I don't have the answer to that question; but I do not think we should simply say, because some new ammunition is now available, that we have solved the problem of conventional defense — or forget that we would then face the problem of relating this to a foreign policy.

## STRATEGY FOR ARMS CONTROL AND DEFENSE

There is often an assumption that arms control is a good thing in itself and that therefore one has to

LA STAMPA

Un rassicurante discorso ai 320 m

Kissig

Raccogliendo le parole del Papa, un invito alle Nazionalità.

La Trilaterale si rivolge ai sette
Williamsburg occupatevi dei Papi

Il «caso Italia»
alla Trilateral

continuaz. dalla 1. pagina,

che vicende politiche gli Anni settecento erano

Senza progressi nelle zone sottosviluppate, ha affermato McNamara, non vi sarà ripresa nel mondo progedi-
critico Reagan: mai come ora Mosca ha avuto tante opportunità in politica estera - 1 320 da Pertini e a cena.

Roma, 19 aprile
Il malessere dei mondo
nasce dal confronto armato
di l'Occidente e l'Urso o dal
presente squilibrio tra Pae-
si ricchi e Paesi poveri? La
civiltà industriale rischia di
essere spazzata dalle armi
nucleari o dalla marcia dei
popoli affamati da Sud a
Nord? Il superclub della Tri-
laterale, riunito a Roma die-
-- dopo la sua fondazio-
-- al altro che ri-

Le due questioni — rap-
porti Est-Ovest e rapporti
Nord-Sud — sono state di-
scusse solo separatamente
nelle sessioni semisegrete
all'hotel Hilton, sulla base di
rapporti presentati da grup-
pi si esperti ad altissimo li-
vello. E stasera i lavori dell'
annuale conciave sono stati
chiusi. Come è tradizione,
non vi saranno conclusioni
ufficiali: perché dareb-
L'impressione di volo

prepare a shopping list among various ideas to see
which project could be proposed at any particular
point. It seems to me the fundamental problem in
arms control at the moment is that we are living on
the intellectual capital of the 1950s. What we need
first — before we can make a reasonable judgment
among the various alternatives before us — is a
theory of what it is we are trying to do and how it
relates to the strategy which we believe is neces-
sary. That is all the more important because every
country now is facing very significant peace move-
ments, built upon heterogeneous motivations. Even
granting the most noble intentions, many of these
people have rather simple notions of how to deal
with the problem of arms control and the problem
of strategy. Inevitably political leaders are tempted
— including incumbents, but especially opposition
leaders — to appeal to these movements as a
reservoir of support. Leaders run the enormous
risk of supporting arguments that they cannot
possibly implement, thereby contributing to cyn-
icism and frustration and lack of belief in the
democratic process. At the same time governments
are encouraged to keep making proposals which at
some point inevitably must lose touch with reality.

I spoke to a European leader a few weeks ago

and asked him what he thought of the interim
proposal of President Reagan. He was all for it,
because it solved his immediate political problem;
but, he said, come October we are going to have to
have a new proposal. What sort of proposal, I
asked him. He had no idea of what sort of proposal
he wanted in October, but something would occur
that would enable the United States to put forward
a new scheme. Well, if this is the case, if every
deadlock has to be broken by a new American
proposal, there will never be a solution. Moreover,
we will be demoralizing ourselves and our publics
if we have neither a strategy for defense nor a
strategy for arms control. If every problem be-
comes a purely tactical issue, we will not have any
criteria by which a rational democratic debate can
take place. And we will have no criteria by which
the Soviets can guide their actions.

DEALING WITH THE SOVIET UNION

By any objective analysis of the Soviet situation,
one would have to conclude that a negotiation on a
broad front is an imperative for the Soviet Union.
Here is a system that has been in power for nearly
seventy years which has not solved the problem of
legitimate succession, either in its top post or in its
politburo. In Andropov it has its oldest leader at a

comparable period in his career. He will be sixty-nine in two months, and every previous leader required six to eight years to establish himself in an unchallenged position. He does not have six to eight years. Andropov himself has described the mess in the Soviet economy more eloquently than I can. Imagine the leader of one of our countries coming into office and saying his task will be to stamp out corruption, drunkenness, hooliganism — these are hardly noble, inspiring objectives to set before the people. One could say that structurally Andropov represents a very interesting phenomenon: a coalition of the two organizations in the Soviet system that have a command structure independent of the Communist Party, namely the KGB and the military. This could be perceived as the beginning of a kind of bonapartism. I mention all of this only to indicate it is not probable that the Soviet Union is looking for confrontations with the West right now and indeed ought to be looking, on a rational analysis, for some degree of accommodation, provided it is not given for nothing what it should be negotiating for.

Some seem to suggest that the solution to every problem is supposed to be a meeting between President Reagan and Secretary Andropov. The issues are not personal disagreements. Anybody who has been at a summit meeting knows that they can ratify solutions, but they cannot originate answers.

The major necessity in dealing with the Soviet Union at this point is to put before them some definition of what we understand to be the causes of tension. The less sentimental we make them, the less personalized, the less we give the impression that we necessarily share the same perception of the threats, the more likely it is that we will find some practical basis on which to come to an agreement. I agree that we have to avoid excessive rhetoric, but excessive sentimentality can be equally dangerous. Precision is crucial. And I must say unity is essential, and if we can maintain this I am actually uncharacteristically optimistic about our future.

## ECONOMIC POLICY COORDINATION

It seems to me that the key to our prospects is not in the field of military balance, important as that is, nor even entirely in the field of negotiations with the Soviet Union, but in the field of economic policy. If we do not solve the problem of recession in the industrial democracies, no government is

going to have enough public support to conduct any effective long range foreign policy. It is not possible, it seems to me, for the industrial democracies to continue uncoordinated fiscal and monetary policies and have sustained economic growth. It is not enough to inveigh against protectionism and to advocate free trade in the abstract when the realities of the period are that all the political pressures are in favor of protectionism. Free trade was developed and then carried out by three or four states. Now we have twenty to twenty-five players. And to believe that that will work itself out automatically or by occasional conferences of trade ministers is to minimize the political pressure in each country behind a new form of mercantilism. I do not advocate this, I predict it, if we do not deal with this in time.

## DEVELOPING COUNTRY DEBT

I also want to say a word about the debt problem. I am no expert on how to solve the problem financially. But I do not believe that the crisis of last year was the end of the process. I believe a new crisis is almost inevitable. Of course, if the United States has a huge economic recovery, if commodity prices go up, if the trade balances of the developing countries go into surplus dramatically, then my prediction may be delayed or it may never come to pass; but the economists here have not convinced me that any one of these "ifs" is going to occur, much less a combination of them. Indeed, the measures that have been taken to overcome the crisis last year make a long-term solution less likely, simply because I do not believe that fifteen countries can practice austerity simultaneously without undermining the export possibilities of the developed countries and therefore their own export possibilities.

I know we are warned against sweeping plans that are not practical. And I'm not calling for a sweeping plan, much less an impractical sweeping plan. It seems to me we have two choices. One is to wait until a crisis occurs and then deal with it on an ad hoc basis. In those circumstances, it is highly likely that the crisis will be triggered by some radical government, that this government will then be rewarded by having many of its demands met, and that we will therefore have contributed to the radicalization of the Third World. The other possibility is to analyze, at least quietly, what is likely to happen. It seems to me likely that

17

18 somebody somewhere along the line will not live up to the conditions that the IMF is setting for them and will try to enforce a change in the terms. The trilateral countries ought to address now, at least on a standby basis, what the wisest course is in such circumstances. Even better would be to try to channel the relationships of the developing countries to the developed countries into a positive direction before some radical political change in one of the key countries forces us to move.

I want to make one concluding comment. Complex as these problems are, every problem that I have described here is capable of solution within the context of our countries, within the framework of our domestic policies and our interrelationships. Our adversaries are facing huge structural problems; we are facing major policy problems. So what I have described here is a list of problems but also an agenda, a possible agenda for the future. On an analysis of our capabilities, we have every reason to be hopeful and optimistic.

Barre from p.10

instability of the dollar are detrimental to other countries and particularly to European countries. We should not use those factors as an excuse for our own mistakes. Difficulties which European countries have to face find their basic roots domestically. It is not up to the United States to solve European economic problems. But, in a world which becomes more and more interdependent, any country has to take account of the international implications of the policies it adopts, more specially when a country is the most powerful economy in the world.

We can therefore express our worry on two points:

- The policy mix in the United States has given too predominant a part to monetary policy. Budgetary policy has to contribute more to a balanced economic policy. A reduction of the budget deficit in the forthcoming years is the necessary condition for a durable deceleration of real interest rates in the United States and, consequently, in the world. This would make less difficult the solution of the debt problem and could contribute to more realistic exchange rate relationships.

- The wide fluctuations of the dollar, in the absence of any intervention by the Federal Reserve, is a factor of uncertainty and disequilibrium in

world monetary relations. We wish that the American monetary authorities would agree to participate in a collective management of exchange rates through adequate interventions by central banks. Such interventions would not be intended to defend unrealistic exchange rates, but would reduce the erratic fluctuations of exchange rates. A new "Bretton Woods Conference" would take a long time. We can already initiate an exchange rate stabilization policy on practical grounds. Such a policy would help, in my opinion, to correct the undervaluation of the yen.

I have discussed present problems. But trilateral cooperation should not be limited to solving today's problems. Our main objective should be to work together in order to meet tomorrow's challenges. We need more confidence; let us show broad vision and statesmanship, for the benefit of all of us, for the benefit of world peace and progress.

Ushiba from p.13

complicate international leadership. Third, there are changing standards of international fairness and expectations of what lies within the discretion of individual countries and what should be accommodated to international rules and coordination.

These trends are unlikely to be altered and must, therefore, be addressed by governments. They present special challenges for each of our regions. For example, both the U.S. and Japan have long traditions of isolation and are not accustomed to the kind of international cooperation implied by the concepts of sharing responsibilities and international policymaking.

In accommodating these trends we must be realistic about what governments can and cannot do in the short term. Sensitivity to each other's political and economic situations is important. It is also essential in light of these situations to try to revise existing international rules and devise new ones that are rigid enough to provide standards of international discipline, but not so rigid that they become unworkable.

There is no doubt that Japan has much to do to adjust itself better to the international system, to increase its sharing of responsibilities, and to better articulate its own viewpoints and ideas. A decade of participation in the Trilateral Commission has helped a great deal to increase awareness in Japan of these tasks and prepare us to perform them better.

FOREWORD

The Williamsburg Summit at the end of this month provides an occasion
for reflection about the state of relations among the industrialized
democracies of Western Europe, North America, and Japan. In this
context, we thought the following booklet might be of interest, drawn
from the Trilateral Commission meeting in Rome last month -- from
the session on the afternoon of Sunday, April 17. This session -- entitled
"The State of Trilateral Relations" -- was opened by a distinguished
speaker from each of our three regions: Raymond Barre, former Prime
Minister of France; Henry Kissinger, former U.S. Secretary of State;
and Nobuhiko Ushiba, former Japanese Minister of External Affairs and
former Ambassador to the United States. The opening speeches are
followed in this booklet by a summary of comments from the floor and
the closing commentaries of the three speakers.

Takeshi Watanabe, Japanese Chairman

David Rockefeller, North American Chairman

Georges Berthoin, European Chairman

May 1983

CONTENTS

"Some Remarks on Trilateral Relations"
Raymond Barre
1

"Priority Problems Before Us"
Henry A. Kissinger
5

"A Japanese Perspective on the Trilateral Relationship"
Nobuhiko Ushiba
10

Summary of Discussion
14

Concluding Commentaries
Raymond Barre, Henry A. Kissinger, Nobuhiko Ushiba
19

# PRIORITY PROBLEMS BEFORE US

## Henry Kissinger

### Breakdown of American Foreign Policy Consensus

To speak for the American side in this trilateral meeting is in itself a difficulty, because one of the biggest problems we have had in the conduct of American foreign policy for nearly a decade and a half is the breakdown of the consensus on the kind of foreign policy we should have. There are any number of reasons for this breakdown -- the emergence of a new generation, the impact of the Vietnam War, the change in economic relationships, changes in technology -- but the fact of the matter is that for a good period now much of our foreign policy has been influenced by a kind of bureaucratic maneuvering that makes the outcome ambiguous even for Americans. If you look at the "zero option" proposal for example from a bureaucratic point of view, you will recognize in it a combination of people on the left who wanted to do away with missiles in Europe and of people on the right who wanted to make a proposal they were sure the Soviet Union would not accept so that they could abandon the negotiations.

So one has to begin with an appeal as an American to the American members -- to try to reestablish some kind of consensus on what it is we are trying to do in the world under conditions that are radically different from those associated with the so-called great period of American foreign policy in the immediate post-war period. We have to remember that the United States had an atomic monopoly then and we also had 52 percent of the world's GNP, so our capacity to overwhelm problems with resources was infinitely greater than it is today.

### Alliance Cohesion, Nuclear Weapons, Conventional Defense

Having made this point about the United States, let me speak about a number of more general problems. The first is that the nature of the alliance is inevitably shifting. In the past alliances have had one of two purposes: either defense against a common threat or achievement of a common objective. I think it is fair to say that we are now in a period in which we are not agreed on the nature of the threat or on the national interest that the alliance reflects. An alliance can change in one of two ways: Either the threat seems to become so overwhelming that the alliance is no longer seen as a protection, or the threat loses its menace and the alliance is no longer considered necessary. I would argue that both of these tendencies have been occurring simultaneously in many of our countries. Some groups believe the threat is so

8

## Economic Policy Coordination

## Developing Country Debt

I know we are warned against sweeping plans that are not practical. And I'm
not calling for a sweeping plan, much less an impractical sweeping plan. It
seems to me we have two choices. One is to wait until a crisis occurs and then
deal with it on an ad hoc basis. In those circumstances, it is highly likely
that the crisis will be triggered by some radical government, that this
government will then be rewarded by having many of its demands met, and that we
will therefore have contributed to the radicalization of the Third World. The
other possibility is to analyze, at least quietly, what is likely to happen.
It seems to me likely that somebody somewhere along the line will not live up
to the conditions that the IMF is setting for them and will try to enforce a
change in the terms. The trilateral countries ought to address now, at least
on a standby basis, what the wisest course is in such circumstances. Even
better would be to try to channel the relationships of the developing countries
to the developed countries into a positive direction before some radical
political change in one of the key countries forces us to move.

* * *